From what i understand in that article, you just need to make another group. The max size of one group is 64 processors so it would stand to reason that you could just add another group. I would presume it would operate the same way for a Xeon Phi? Although, someone more versed in this would have to weigh in.Originally Posted by HollyDOL
Or they're building the design with 4 4-core CCXes. The whole point about the CCX is that it's a modular block, and I don't see any good reason to redesign it when you can just slap more of them on a piece of silicon...
Well, not really - current top-bin EPYC processors *are* essentially 4x Ryzen 7s on a substrate, and the TDPs for those range between 130W and 180W, so that's 32.5W - 45W per die. But that only gets you to 32 cores per socket.
With the higher density and improved power efficiency of moving to 7nm it's perfectly feasible that they'll be able to do a 16 core die in that 30W - 45W TDP window and get 64 cores per socket in a 180W TDP, but it's all going to be conjecture until they release more details. Given we've already seen a move to 250W TDPs on Threadripper 2, I can't help thinking that there might to a top-bin EPYC 2 with a 250W TDP...
I think it would need to be 8 4-core CCX's as each die has two 4-core CCX's, either that or they'd need to increase the number of cores per CCX (at least i think that's how it is as I'm getting confused with how many cores, CCX's and dies are where.)
EDIT: Even reading that back I've confused myself, all i know is that each CCX has 4-cores and each die seems to have two CCX's (excluding low core count and low power CPUs)
Yeah, current design is 4 cores, each with its own L1 and L2 cache, plus 8MB of L3 cache, per CCX. The base die (which I think is codenamed 'zeppelin') has 2 CCXes (and therefore 8 cores), a 2 channel memory controller, and 32 PCIe lanes. They stick 4 of those dies on a substrate to make a 32 core EPYC processor.... EDIT: Even reading that back I've confused myself, all i know is that each CCX has 4-cores and each die seems to have two CCX's (excluding low core count and low power CPUs)
Assuming they're sticking with 4 dies for a 64 core 7nm EPYC processor, it'll need to have 16 cores per die. They could do that by changing the CCX design to have 8 cores in each CCX, but that would seem like an odd decision when the whole point of the CCX design was that it was modular so you didn't have to redesign the entire CPU to change how many cores it had...! It'll be much easier to build a 16 core die by simply putting 4 CCXes in it.
The interesting thing will be seeing what they do with the 7nm consumer line - will they use the same 16 core die and have huge consumer core counts? Will they do a smaller (i.e. cheaper) 8 core die? Will we see 8 core APUs? Can they afford to tape out multiple different dies for different market segments rather than using the one dies fits all strategy we saw with 14nm?
The 7nm process allows 45% boost in performance over zen1.
If AMD is targeting this with clocks alone, then the clocks would have to go up by about 60%. Ryzen 1 needed 15% clock increase to gain 10% performance.
That of course does not take into account things such as IPC gains.
And also, we don't know how many changes the zen2 architecture underwent, so the scaling of clocks and performance could have been equalised for all we know.
Right now its too soon to tell. But the general rule is that 45% performance increase over ryzen 1 is doable at same TDP.
I suspect AMD will be targeting IF improvements,ie,looking to improve power draw so they can run it at a higher clockspeed,and it will be needed if they intend to add more CCX units.
Actually it's taken quite a crap recently, but that is because they have to prove you can make more than 100mil in a Q, and do it for enough times to get somewhere near your PE ratio etc. They are currently priced WAY above their last Q, but I agree with your statement over the long run as 7nm stuff ALL gets out the door. That will give time for it to sink in how much intel is struggling which I expect to go down more for a bit at least until they have a decent response announced and benched. You've lost the fab lead when you're outsourcing your 14nm to 3rd party fabs and talking 10nm LONG after the other guys are mass producing 7nm. Doesn't matter that one might be a bit better (we'll see), what will matter is AMD giving more cores, for about the same price as intel and AMD being FASTER in most stuff (if not all next round at 7nm) and meeting or beating Intel watts/heat. If you win in perf and match in watts/heat hopefully AMD is smart enough to charge exactly the same as Intel and capitalize on shortages! Or, heck, charge MORE than Intel if you win EVERYTHING almost across the board (games and apps). You basically have the next 2yrs or so to make hay while the sun shines then intel will have spent enough on FAB R&D to get back into this game now that they know they've fully blown in blowing 4B+ a year for 4yrs on mobile losses when those 4B EACH YEAR should have been put into FABS. We wouldn't be having this conversation if they had done it, 10nm would be done, and they would have already announced 7nm coming shortly. Or, heck for 16B, would you have needed another 8B for 10nm fixes? I'm guessing 4B (a years worth of direct fixing at first sing of issues?), the other 12 could have gone to 7nm and been done by now. My math could be off a bit, but not much I'd guess.
If AMD has a Q report that makes more than 300mil the stock will shoot up especially if guidance is even higher for next Q (need to head to 1B a year in income or more NET). But if it drops below ~108mil (whatever the last Q was roughly, IIRC it was 108 or so NET), then it goes down to 20ish. They punish AMD when it doesn't meet expectations usually. It's a great swing stock in many situations. Intel has been raising prices and moving production to just high end (due to shortage) mostly, but that won't work if AMD is BEATING them as noted above. It only works as long as AMD is BEHIND in many things still. I didn't buy because of heat/watts and too many gaming hits in things I wanted now or in the future to play. Too big a pill to swallow, but that won't happen I HOPE at 7nm. I'll kick out the 8700k in Q1-Q2 if any sale hits on AMD's new babies
Can't wait to buy them again (chips I mean, own the stock currently), but they have to WIN to get me to do that. I don't take the loser to do small company X a favor. My wallet takes winners only even if I have to save a bit longer to get what I want.
My 3cents.
https://www.extremetech.com/computin...m-process-node
Example of what I was saying regarding ~4B to make a new process as noted here. Basically 4-5B to get it done according to Extremetech.
“3nm will cost $4 billion to $5 billion in process development, and the fab cost for 40,000 wafers per month will be $15 billion to $20 billion.”
So 7nm probably 4B and 10nm I guess probably would NOT have costed 4B to FIX it. I'm probably still a bit off here, but point made. Blowing 16B over 4yrs and NOT buying NV 5-6yrs ago both cost this fab loss. Imagine NV socs and gpus from Intel fabs 5yrs ago up to now...WOW. Arm sells 2B gpus a year now (and they game etc), so FTC etc wouldn't blink today like they would have before cell phones etc really took off. Between AMD/ARM there are a TON of gpus sold that are not NV/INTC (consoles in there too for AMD).
Chip prices seem to be rising soon as process costs and tapeouts go way up down to 3nm. Heck 5nm doubles the cost almost to tapeout/validate a chip etc vs. 7nm. Costs are RISING quickly. Maybe they can avoid rising costs by expanding markets. If a few other larger nations get better PC's (education, etc) over time, they might mitigate much of the costs over a larger base. We went from 350-380mil PC units, to ~2.3B mobile+PC (260mil now) which is massive gpu unit growth. Interesting times ahead for sure in tech.
NV reportedly considered themselves the more significant in an NV+Intel merger, so Jensen wanted control over the merged companies. Intel fabs aren't optimised for making GPUs either, so that might have been a big upheaval.
An i7 with Nvidia graphics would have been nice though, if only for the drivers.
But back to AMD, back with the Athlon they had a problem with people buying Intel because it was what they knew and trusted, even when the P4 was so dire. These days there is a huge market for things like cloud servers, they can win that on competence not brand. I hope they don't blow it.
Edit: Oh an Intel have very deep pockets, the billions they blew on trying to get Atom into phones and tablets I'm sure had no impact on the billions they spent on fab R&D.
This kinda relates to GPUs but it shows that even if AMD make technically better kit, they still seem to lose whereas Nvidia can make relative tat and still turn a decent profit.
The same could equally be said between them and Intel. I'm far too lazy to look up figures from the Athlon 64 days but I expect Intel was still turning a decent profit with the P4 regardless of it being relatively awful.
Yep, I used loads of company P4 machines in those years and a grand total on one Athlon 64 box, and that was only because I demanded it. People in that company remarked on how fast the Athlon box was, and then went out and ordered another P4 from Dell.
Lawsuits on why it was strangely hard to buy AMD kit forced Intel to dig out what to them was some spare change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanc..._v._Intel_Corp.
I remember that wherever I was at the time spent a fortune on hot running and slow P4 boxes and I just could not understand for the life of me why at the time. I'd bought an Athlon 64 for home and it was cheaper and better. To me these people were just plain morons. I can understand that it might have been harder to get hold of appropriately priced AMD based systems due to Intel's... bribery but in that case I'd have made the business case as the IT guy for building our own systems pointing out the cost savings to be had as well as the increased longevity of the systems due to higher baseline performance. It doesn't take long to sling together a bog standard PC for office use and if you've got a load of them the same you could easily get a production line going once every so often for a small - medium sized company and just keep a stock.
But I'm known for thinking too far outside the box and being told "that's a good idea!" to shut me up.
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