AMD - Zen chitchat

Pushing wafers through GloFo could have a lot to do with the WSA - if I understand it correctly, AMD have to pay for a certain amount of wafers regardless of whether they're used or not so they might as well use the capacity. As for why they're using Samsung too (BTW, does anyone know where AMD actually state this?), it's likely due to it being the same node, meaning less costs for porting the design to a different fab and not having two different-performing versions of the same GPU (which could reduce demand for one or the other).

I do wonder about Vega though. After all, TSMC do have experience with HBM on the Fury...

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Originally Posted by watercooled

Pushing wafers through GloFo could have a lot to do with the WSA - if I understand it correctly, AMD have to pay for a certain amount of wafers regardless of whether they're used or not so they might as well use the capacity. As for why they're using Samsung too (BTW, does anyone know where AMD actually state this?), it's likely due to it being the same node, meaning less costs for porting the design to a different fab and not having two different-performing versions of the same GPU (which could reduce demand for one or the other).

I do wonder about Vega though. After all, TSMC do have experience with HBM on the Fury...

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It was just that PCGH news story Cat linked to:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Radeon...msung-1225917/
Note that for 'Quelle' (source) they list themselves.

I though earlier rumours (or maybe even a roadmap slide?) had Vega down as being TSMC. Can't find anything atm though.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

... Plus why no RX550 and RX560 reviews?? ...

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According to Anandtech:

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The RX 550 will be launching later this week, on April 20th

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and

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the RX 560 isn’t launching this week. Rather it’s going to be launching in early May.

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Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11280/...ries-polaris/2

So there are no reviews because they haven't officially launched yet?

I'd be interested to see the RX 550 against the GTX 750/750 Ti. It'll be the lowest powered card that's be launched for a long time though. AMD really need to get those Bristol Ridge APUs out - a 512 shader RX is surely made for hybrid crossfire dual graphics (sorry) with a BR IGP...?

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

According to Anandtech:



and



Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11280/...ries-polaris/2

So there are no reviews because they haven't officially launched yet?

I'd be interested to see the RX 550 against the GTX 750/750 Ti. It'll be the lowest powered card that's be launched for a long time though. AMD really need to get those Bristol Ridge APUs out - a 512 shader RX is surely made for hybrid crossfire dual graphics (sorry) with a BR IGP...?

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They should have launched them first IMHO. The RX560 is a largish update overall when compared to the RX460 and its needed as it has the GTX1050 and GTX1050TI to contend with. Nvidia really does not have an RX550 competitor either.

Also has anybody noticed this mini-ITX RX570:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapph...gx-37u-sp.html

Another card AMD should have tried to get people to review - it also uses a single six pin power connector too.

CB are reporting there will be two RX 550's
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-04/...x-540-550-oem/

Seems the OEM 550 will be 640 shaders (vs 512) and have higher clock too raising it's TFLOPS from 1.2 to 1.7. Only with 4GB (GDDR5 no DDR3 nonsense at this price range).

There's also meant to be a RX 540 OEM. Same 512 shaders a slight clock increase but slower memory.

Oh, and the 520 and 530 are Oland yet again.

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Originally Posted by kompukare

CB are reporting there will be two RX 550's
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-04/...x-540-550-oem/

Seems the OEM 550 will be 640 shaders (vs 512) and have higher clock too raising it's TFLOPS from 1.2 to 1.7. Only with 4GB (GDDR5 no DDR3 nonsense at this price range).

There's also meant to be a RX 540 OEM. Same 512 shaders a slight clock increase but slower memory.

Oh, and the 520 and 530 are Oland yet again.

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FFS,why do they keep doing - release it has a full chip and be done with it. Nvidia could respond by doing a cut down GTX1050 card much easier.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

FFS,why do they keep doing - release it has a full chip and be done with it. Nvidia could respond by doing a cut down GTX1050 card much easier.

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For such a small chip yields cannot be the reason. Maybe after all the times they got burned with inventory (mainly APUs like Llano and some of the Cat cores AFAIR), they are reluctant to bin and get stuck with cut-down ones? The last time they released an obvious yield-issue cut-down GPU was 7870LE, wasn't it? Those genuinely were leaky parts they couldn't use for 7950s.

Thing is, not binning aggressively has a very big cost to their reputation with so many cards getting released over-volted making them appear more power hungry than they need be. If they had binned for Hawaii or Polaris the top models could easily have used 20W-30W less power. Yes, they would have to think of something to do with the chips which failed that binning, but during Hawaii for instance a R9-290LE at a lower price wouldn't have actually cost them anything if it had meant that they were able to keep the prices of R9-290X prices closer to 780Ti rather than having to sell them off at £200 or so. Penny wise, pound foolish.

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Originally Posted by kompukare

For such a small chip yields cannot be the reason. Maybe after all the times they got burned with inventory (mainly APUs like Llano and some of the Cat cores AFAIR), they are reluctant to bin and get stuck with cut-down ones? The last time they released an obvious yield-issue cut-down GPU was 7870LE, wasn't it? Those genuinely were leaky parts they couldn't use for 7950s.

Thing is, not binning aggressively has a very big cost to their reputation with so many cards getting released over-volted making them appear more power hungry than they need be. If they had binned for Hawaii or Polaris the top models could easily have used 20W-30W less power. Yes, they would have to think of something to do with the chips which failed that binning, but during Hawaii for instance a R9-290LE at a lower price wouldn't have actually cost them anything if it had meant that they were able to keep the prices of R9-290X prices closer to 780Ti rather than having to sell them off at £200 or so. Penny wise, pound foolish.

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I don't know with AMD,when their founder Jerry Sanders was in charge,the company seemed to be far more willing to take on competitors on in a more aggressive way - they seem to be far more conservative now,and it does not help when they have Nvidia who seem to be a very well oiled machine in terms of their releases and PR.

The first AM4 mini-ITX motherboard is here:

https://videocardz.com/press-release...-for-amd-ryzen

Think the last time I had a Biostar was S754 board with the dodgy nForce 430 chipset (which luckily didn't develop the solder defect but then 90nm not 80nm or 65nm), not sure I really trust them.

Biostar are not being generous with the back panel ports there. Lot of empty space despite the chipset supporting more USB ports.

If I was buying, I'd probably go mATX and look for decent 20l case rather than mITX. I feel the small bit of extra volume would be worth it for me for the extra DIMMs.

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Originally Posted by kompukare

Think the last time I had a Biostar was S754 board with the dodgy nForce 430 chipset (which luckily didn't develop the solder defect but then 90nm not 80nm or 65nm), not sure I really trust them.

Biostar are not being generous with the back panel ports there. Lot of empty space despite the chipset supporting more USB ports.

If I was buying, I'd probably go mATX and look for decent 20l case rather than mITX. I feel the small bit of extra volume would be worth it for me for the extra DIMMs.

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Biostar had some of the best AM2+ motherboards IIRC especially when it came to core unlocking.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

The first AM4 mini-ITX motherboard is here:

https://videocardz.com/press-release...-for-amd-ryzen

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I dont understand why its taking so long :/

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

I dont understand why its taking so long :/

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By AMD motherboard partner standards this is super quick - I remember when Llano was released it took so long for them to release a mini-ITX motherboard I ended up buying a Core i3 2100 instead!!

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

According to Anandtech:



and



Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11280/...ries-polaris/2

So there are no reviews because they haven't officially launched yet?

I'd be interested to see the RX 550 against the GTX 750/750 Ti. It'll be the lowest powered card that's be launched for a long time though. AMD really need to get those Bristol Ridge APUs out - a 512 shader RX is surely made for hybrid crossfire dual graphics (sorry) with a BR IGP...?

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The 1050ti seems to have board-powered SKU's around, benchmarking a 750ti this long after release would only embarrass the poor thing

RX550 reviewed:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/31906...ce.html?page=3

A mate of a mate is wanting a new gaming build and a Ryzen 5 1600 looks perfect,but the rest of its really an issue. They are on a budget so was looking at B350 motherboards - apparently a number of them don't support Ryzen 5 out of the box,and the RAM support,just wow! Looking around and what people have used,it seems Samsung modules work the best overall,but the kits with Samsung modules cost more than those with Hynix ones. A lot of the Corsair kits seem to use Hynix modules so you are more likely to be stuck at 2133/2400MHZ.

Edit!!

OK,I just found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comment...nfusion_eg_on/

Great guide!!