News - AMD to launch an FX series CPU and liquid cooler bundle

[HEXUS]

But there's not a lot more info on this Twitter tease from Roy Taylor yet.

Read more.

[Plasmastorm]

Surely anyone who is going high end is going to have their own cooler, be it closed loop or custom build.
And low end users are generally put off by the though of liquid cooling.

[Jowsey]

While I'm not getting my hopes up for a table turning performance from this processor it is positive to see AMD making inroads towards high end cpu's again.

Regardless of which 'team' you fight for, any competition is good competition. Even if this is a rehashed old chip with a suitably lowered RRP , I'm content. As much as people like to look at the 5% victories, you can't argue that some of the 8 core FX chips were up the face of some of the i5 chips.

Also, AMD, if this is a new processor to some extent can we PLEASE have a new motherboard chipset!

[abychristy]

"Liquid cooling System" ! Is it gonna be that hot. An hey so the power consumption will also come a lot right. You know till past year I looked at only Price/Performance but now I am into the Power/Performance and I don't care about the price. Also If its gonna be cheaper than i7-4770k or 4790k I will still look at the power consumption, if its less than the Intel ones I mentioned then only you'll get the green light from me.

[crossy]

As much as people like to look at the 5% victories, you can't argue that some of the 8 core FX chips were up the face of some of the i5 chips.

I'm sure Cat will argue that. Remember having this conversation where the FX can mix it up with the i7, never mind the i5's. It's the old chestnut about multi-thread v's single thread performance. Intel's got great single thread, but the AMD's can just throw more processing units at a problem. I still thought though that in gaming, the Intel chips were the one's to aspire to.

Also, AMD, if this is a new processor to some extent can we PLEASE have a new motherboard chipset!

Why? Board manufacturer's seem to be pretty adept at adding features via third-party chips. That Sabretooth I bought this year, (to replace a failing board I bought in 2010), has SATAIII, USB3.0 etc. Only thing missing is PCIe 3.0 and I read a lot of column inches on how that doesn't make a notable difference anyway with the 2013-generation graphics cards.

No, what I want from AMD, if they feel that they MUST unleash a new chipset, is a decent processor upgrade to go with it. Especially if that new processor ups the single thread performance over what's being offered now. APU's are all very well, but it's not the whole market guys!

[zaph0d]

I'm sure Cat will argue that. Remember having this conversation where the FX can mix it up with the i7, never mind the i5's. It's the old chestnut about multi-thread v's single thread performance. Intel's got great single thread, but the AMD's can just throw more processing units at a problem. I still thought though that in gaming, the Intel chips were the one's to aspire to.

For the moment Games are still heavily dependant on single thread, but only while DirectX is the limiting factor.
As soon as games move closer to near-metal api's like Mantle (when more mature) & DirectX 12 (when available) then the multi-threaded performance will take over.

[Jowsey]

I'm sure Cat will argue that. Remember having this conversation where the FX can mix it up with the i7, never mind the i5's. It's the old chestnut about multi-thread v's single thread performance. Intel's got great single thread, but the AMD's can just throw more processing units at a problem. I still thought though that in gaming, the Intel chips were the one's to aspire to.

I think I didn't make myself clear in my first statement, I was arguing that some FX chips were as good as i5's. I'd argue that in the majority of situations an i7 will top out, but they aren't price comparable IIRC.

Why? Board manufacturer's seem to be pretty adept at adding features via third-party chips. That Sabretooth I bought this year, (to replace a failing board I bought in 2010), has SATAIII, USB3.0 etc. Only thing missing is PCIe 3.0 and I read a lot of column inches on how that doesn't make a notable difference anyway with the 2013-generation graphics cards.

No, what I want from AMD, if they feel that they MUST unleash a new chipset, is a decent processor upgrade to go with it. Especially if that new processor ups the single thread performance over what's being offered now. APU's are all very well, but it's not the whole market guys!

Whilst you bring up a valid point of third-party add on chips, it can't be a very price effective method. Surely, even if the new chipset just integrated the things you have talked about then life would be easier. I agree that PCIe 3.0 is a largely unnecessary upgrade if you are going like for like with graphics cards, but some other PCIe cards benefit from it (i.e video capture cards).

DDR4 RAM is going to be available relatively soon on the market and it just seems like it's time for AMD to integrate these features (alongside SATA express, USB3 and other things) onto a new chipset. Plus, it's just old and improvements have been made elsewhere. Surely there can be some improvements made without the things i've already stated. Can parts of the chipset not be intergrated onto the silicon now?

I just can't find it feasible that AMD can't improve on the chipset. Maybe they haven't been because of the lack of push on the FX range and this could be a new charge at it, in which case I think a new headline chipset with up to date features would be a great help to selling these chips.

(Also, decent ITX boards are always welcome )

[crossy]

I think I didn't make myself clear in my first statement, I was arguing that some FX chips were as good as i5's. I'd argue that in the majority of situations an i7 will top out, but they aren't price comparable IIRC.

Sorry, I got your meaning back-to-front - too used to The Register and it's dribbling hordes of fanboys. Not that I'm accusing you for a femtosecond of fanboyism.

DDR4 RAM is going to be available relatively soon on the market and it just seems like it's time for AMD to integrate these features (alongside SATA express, USB3 and other things) onto a new chipset. Plus, it's just old and improvements have been made elsewhere. Surely there can be some improvements made without the things i've already stated. Can parts of the chipset not be intergrated onto the silicon now?

I just can't find it feasible that AMD can't improve on the chipset. Maybe they haven't been because of the lack of push on the FX range and this could be a new charge at it, in which case I think a new headline chipset with up to date features would be a great help to selling these chips.

DDR4 surely only makes sense if they've got a cpu that can feed that wide/fast databus fast enough. Heck, it's getting desperate enough that I saw a forum posting from someone suggesting some kind of "book" consisting of multiple Kaveri's with the GPU's neutered/disabled just to get something with a bit more grunt than the venerable FX's.

I'll acknowledge the point about integrating USB3 etc. And I'll definitely second the proposal that we've got enough new IO tech - mSATA, SATAe and Thunderbolt - that the current FX-supporting chipsets are looking a bit past their "best by" date. But I don't want a "FX 2014" chipset, I want something that proudly backs up something new in the discrete processor line.

[dfour]

This ^^

[scaryjim]

DDR4 support isn't just a question of updating the chipset - the memory controller (as with all CPUs nowadays) is baked in to the processor. So you won't get DDR4-supporting AMD motherboards until you get a DDR4 supporting processor, and you won't get consumer DDR4-supporting CPUs until consumer DDR4 is ready for mainstream adoption - that looks like it might be later this year, and Intel's already confirmed support for their enthusiast socket/chips (although not for their mainstream socket yet, of course). AMD have already announced DDR4 supporting server chips and their consumer products tend to use the same silicon as their server products, so I don't think they'll be far behind Intel with DDR4 support.

The other issue with AM3+ - and I think this is the big one that will stop AMD doing any further development on it - is that the chipset still uses a separate bus and PCIe controller: all your PCIe traffic has to first pass through a narrow (but fast) HT link before the northbridge handles all the PCIe traffic. I'm absolutely sure that in the future AMD will want to move - as Intel have - to having the PCIe controller on chip (just like the FMX APUs, in fact). So it's almost inevitable, given AMD will want to get DDR4 support and on-die PCIe controllers baked in to their next generation of enthusiast CPUs, that they will have to move away from AM3+, and so we won't see any development on that platform.

The big question for me is whether AMD will move to having a single socket/chipset for both enthusiast and mainstream platforms. I know there's been some discussion in the hardware forums advocating an FM2+ APU with less shaders, an extra module, and some L3 cache under the FX branding - if that's what they were doing here I'd be kind of excited, and I suspect/hope that will be the long term plan (although the recent release of quad-core mobile chips under the FX branding has made me less positive about that), but in the short term we're almost certainly stuck with AM3+ and some minor tweaks and rebrands until DDR4 becomes mainstream...

[DanceswithUnix]

- to having the PCIe controller on chip (just like the FMX APUs, in fact). So it's almost inevitable, given AMD will want to get DDR4 support and on-die PCIe controllers baked in to their next generation of enthusiast CPUs, that they will have to move away from AM3+, and so we won't see any development on that platform.

There is strong rumour that FX CPU has had this support from day 1, but AMD didn't want to break motherboard compatibility so they ignored that interface.

DDR4 support will most likely break AM3+ anyway, so at least we might finally get our direct PCIe port back.

Switching entirely to APU platforms is a tricky one. Can Seamicro running lots of little CPUs really take over from a quad socket monster machine? In some cloud style tasks I'm sure it can, but for things like running Exchange you might still want a monster box with multi sockets in one coherent system image. That still needs Hypertransport or something like it.

[keithwalton]

This chip will probably only appeal to the die hard amd fan boys that refuse to believe that amd is dead.

If it looks even remotely close to out gunning an i7 intel will rebrand an 8 core xeon an extreme cpu.

AMD are fighting two battles and they're not doing particularly well in either of them. For every cpu / gpu they come out with there opposition has something faster that forces AMD to cut prices and cut profits. They have no more fabs to sell or even a hq left to plug the cash that they've been hemerging for years

[Terbinator]

But there's not a lot more info on this Twitter tease from Roy Taylor yet.

DR has already replied to the Tweet saying we've got one.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This chip will probably only appeal to the die hard amd fan boys that refuse to believe that amd is dead.

If it looks even remotely close to out gunning an i7 intel will rebrand an 8 core xeon an extreme cpu.

AMD are fighting two battles and they're not doing particularly well in either of them. For every cpu / gpu they come out with there opposition has something faster that forces AMD to cut prices and cut profits. They have no more fabs to sell or even a hq left to plug the cash that they've been hemerging for years

Why are you ranting about graphics cards??

[Biscuit]

This chip will probably only appeal to the die hard amd fan boys that refuse to believe that amd is dead.

If it looks even remotely close to out gunning an i7 intel will rebrand an 8 core xeon an extreme cpu.

AMD are fighting two battles and they're not doing particularly well in either of them. For every cpu / gpu they come out with there opposition has something faster that forces AMD to cut prices and cut profits. They have no more fabs to sell or even a hq left to plug the cash that they've been hemerging for years

Obvious troll is obvious

[HalloweenJack]

mine seems to be doing quite well @ 5ghz with 2133 ram CL10 dual channel

sabertooth 990FX rev1 , with sata 3 and usb3 (native) - what more does my board actually need? rumor mill is the 1090FX had pcie 3 - but AMD canned it.