AMD quietly lists the 4700S 8-core processor desktop kit

[watercooled]

DDR6 is there because the CPU works with that and not DDR4 or DDR5. So, they just put them there otherwise, where would you get DDR6 RAM sticks?

GDDR6, not DDR6. Totally different thing. GDDR is not socketed largely for signal integrity reasons.

As others have said, I'm not really sure I see the target market for this. A fairly average CPU by today's standards with a basic motherboard and expensive, non-upgradeable memory?

Unless they're sold off very cheaply I can't see them flying off the shelves.

[bae85]

GDDR6, not DDR6. Totally different thing. GDDR is not socketed largely for signal integrity reasons.

As others have said, I'm not really sure I see the target market for this. A fairly average CPU by today's standards with a basic motherboard and expensive, non-upgradeable memory?

Unless they're sold off very cheaply I can't see them flying off the shelves.

Last time they did this with Scorpio based CPU it was $136.

[Tabbykatze]

GDDR6, not DDR6. Totally different thing. GDDR is not socketed largely for signal integrity reasons.

As others have said, I'm not really sure I see the target market for this. A fairly average CPU by today's standards with a basic motherboard and expensive, non-upgradeable memory?

Unless they're sold off very cheaply I can't see them flying off the shelves.

Someone will buy it, saves it going into e-waste and if they can make a few small bucks off it then that lessens the loss for a faulty die.

[kompukare]

Someone will buy it, saves it going into e-waste and if they can make a few small bucks off it then that lessens the loss for a faulty die.

If these dies are even faulty. Some of them (and with the PS5's quantities this *some* might be close to a million), probably are fully functional but cannot hit the speeds Sony need. So good dies, which 'fail' at binning.
The pity seems to be that the contract with Sony might be so one-sided, that AMD is not allowed to sell these as APUs and has fuse of the GPU part.

[Tabbykatze]

If these dies are even faulty. Some of them (and with the PS5's quantities this *some* might be close to a million), probably are fully functional but cannot hit the speeds Sony need. So good dies, which 'fail' at binning.
The pity seems to be that the contract with Sony might be so one-sided, that AMD is not allowed to sell these as APUs and has fuse of the GPU part.

It is a bit naff, but I would expect the GPU to be quite closely codeveloped to squeeze as much perf as possible so allowing the GPU to be accessible would present Sony/MS a bit of an issue holding their crown jewels. An x86 CPU is an x86 CPU, I would expect they didn't have much involvement in that.

[DanceswithUnix]

... and expensive, non-upgradeable memory?

Well it works for Apple

The pity seems to be that the contract with Sony might be so one-sided, that AMD is not allowed to sell these as APUs and has fuse of the GPU part.

Possibly Sony worried about AMD selling what would amount to a PS5 with all the DRM stripped off. An "emulation" dream!

[Tabbykatze]

Possibly Sony worried about AMD selling what would amount to a PS5 with all the DRM stripped off. An "emulation" dream!

Oooh, an even stronger point!

[kompukare]

Well it works for Apple



Possibly Sony worried about AMD selling what would amount to a PS5 with all the DRM stripped off. An "emulation" dream!

That's a possible reason, however I'm sure that if they had been allowed, AMD could have taken the GPU part and applied some more traditional fuse blowing to reduce the cores from 2,304 to 1,500 or so.
The whole PS5 yield fiasco sounds like a good place to learn future lessons:

1. obviously don't over-promise (which might have been Sony at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020 asking for extra clocks and AMD saying: yes)
2. design in such a way that defects are not only able to address GDDR6.

Still, at least they are not going to landfill even if in the current shortages, the GDDR6 is wasted - well unless they also managed to find some GDDR6 which fails to run at the normal speed.

[3dcandy]

There is MASSIVE interest in X86 SBC's again, now the M1 chip is out.... and all the fruityfans are saying how good it is

[DanceswithUnix]

Still, at least they are not going to landfill even if in the current shortages, the GDDR6 is wasted - well unless they also managed to find some GDDR6 which fails to run at the normal speed.

Given the shortages, there could well be more GPU shortages than there are GDDR6 shortages. In which case, there will be some sloshing around.

The other possibility is that a ton of RAM was bought to go with the SOCs, and if those SOCs have a yield issue that could lead to an overpurchase. These sales contracts will be drawn up for years ahead so this could also be the cheapest way to dispose of an oversupply in GDDR6 rather than dump it on the grey market for GPU vendors who don't have GPUs to pair it with.

[gagaga]

Still, at least they are not going to landfill even if in the current shortages, the GDDR6 is wasted - well unless they also managed to find some GDDR6 which fails to run at the normal speed.

Given the shortages, there could well be more GPU shortages than there are GDDR6 shortages. In which case, there will be some sloshing around.

The other possibility is that a ton of RAM was bought to go with the SOCs, and if those SOCs have a yield issue that could lead to an overpurchase. These sales contracts will be drawn up for years ahead so this could also be the cheapest way to dispose of an oversupply in GDDR6 rather than dump it on the grey market for GPU vendors who don't have GPUs to pair it with.

Good point. As long as the price covers the board+GDDR+bits n pieces, anything extra on the price is a bonus for a CPU that is otherwise worthless.

[scaryjim]

Given the design cues, it looks like they think it'll go to industrial SBC customers, which could make a lot of sense if the support package is right - that's an area that generally looks for reliability and longevity rather than peak performance. Anyone know if SMT is enabled? AMD's product page is surprisingly reluctant to divulge that snippet

While a 250W PSU is recommended, the cooler reminds me of the old aluminium blox of suck that shipped with AM2/3 processors, so I'd be amazed if the processor TDP was much over 65W. You could probably stack a bunch of these in a rack, runt them headless with minimal power draw and you get a lot of CPU cores for the money...

[Xlucine]

Last time they did this with Scorpio based CPU it was $136.

A price in that region makes it a lot more interesting

Given the design cues, it looks like they think it'll go to industrial SBC customers, which could make a lot of sense if the support package is right - that's an area that generally looks for reliability and longevity rather than peak performance. Anyone know if SMT is enabled? AMD's product page is surprisingly reluctant to divulge that snippet

While a 250W PSU is recommended, the cooler reminds me of the old aluminium blox of suck that shipped with AM2/3 processors, so I'd be amazed if the processor TDP was much over 65W. You could probably stack a bunch of these in a rack, runt them headless with minimal power draw and you get a lot of CPU cores for the money...

I'd be surprised if they touched it, industrial customers normally expect multi-year production commitments (hard to guarantee with reject parts like this)

[Iota]

Last time they did this with Scorpio based CPU it was $136.

So about a £100 then. Certainly makes it more viable as a cheap base for a basic general office PC then. Not everyone requires the latest and greatest, just functional.

[Rob_B]

For £100 I'd buy one even though I have no use for it, but it won't be that sort of price. If the desktop kit is ~ £500, knock off the case/PSU/GFX/Storage and you're probably still looking at £250+ :/

[kompukare]

CB have updated their news story:
https://www.computerbase.de/2021-06/...21-07-02T12:01
Seems a Korean site, Bodnara has managed to get its hand on one and have a shot of the chip
https://www.bodnara.co.kr/bbs/article.html?num=171311
CB dug out PS5 shots to compare it to

Bodnara also ran some benchmarks, and CPU-Z shots:

Hynix GDDR6 seems to be the same speed as on the PS5 too.