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Thread: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

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    Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Lays the groundwork for shifting tasks between high performance and efficiency CPU cores.
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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.
    I assumed Win 11 was another attempt to extract recurring revenue from us.

    This patent from AMD is interesting in that it implies AMD might be able to do two different cores again. They seemed too low on engineering resources to split some off on a modern Jaguar replacement to make this work. Not that I ever saw much point of a hybrid cpu in a PC. Unless perhaps they are all the same core design, just some are layed out on the silicon for lower clock speed at lower power so when the fast CPUs have to downclock to their all core maximum they become the same speed as the "slow" cores.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.
    I assumed Win 11 was another attempt to extract recurring revenue from us.

    This patent from AMD is interesting in that it implies AMD might be able to do two different cores again. They seemed too low on engineering resources to split some off on a modern Jaguar replacement to make this work. Not that I ever saw much point of a hybrid cpu in a PC. Unless perhaps they are all the same core design, just some are layed out on the silicon for lower clock speed at lower power so when the fast CPUs have to downclock to their all core maximum they become the same speed as the "slow" cores.
    It's not useful in Win 10 currently as the scheduler is, to be fair, pants. However now Linux, some Mac os thingy and other OS's are all much better at handling mixed core types I'm guessing, well speculating that Win 11 is the reason for this and is basically a new way of Windows working. If I hear another person telling me how great the M1 chip is this shows how people think it's the greatest thing since, well erm, sliced bread, this proves that Windows will have to catch up. Thing is it will *probably* break a huge amount of older software
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.
    I assumed Win 11 was another attempt to extract recurring revenue from us.

    This patent from AMD is interesting in that it implies AMD might be able to do two different cores again. They seemed too low on engineering resources to split some off on a modern Jaguar replacement to make this work. Not that I ever saw much point of a hybrid cpu in a PC. Unless perhaps they are all the same core design, just some are layed out on the silicon for lower clock speed at lower power so when the fast CPUs have to downclock to their all core maximum they become the same speed as the "slow" cores.
    This is exactly why Win 11 is needed. It's not how the others do it, they have much much better schedulers. AMD however is moving a lot of the work into hardware so it might mean better compatibility
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    This patent is interesting to me not because it's another company looking at big.LITTLE (Papermaster hinted/specifically didn't deny that they were looking at it early last year) but the fact this appears to be OS-agnostic. This means that adoption for it will be easy and can be a practical drop in replacement for existing architectures.

    What is also very interesting is the fact it can look at optimising the switch to using GPU cores as well. So Intel has ASICs in their CPUs, like AVX etc, that have to be specifically called by an application to be utilised and if someone codes their application to not specifically use the ASIC then it will sit on the general purpose silicon which will be very slow. However, with this patented solution, AMDs core manager will be able to go "hey, that's vectorised mathematics" and move the thread over to the GPU cores for the duration of that thread tasks. This means that AMD won't have to resort to ASICs like Intel (although they might still do so with the Xilinx acquisition) and will be able to have extremely diverse heterogenous compute systems that don't rely on the developer to specifically code path for it at every step.

    I expected AMD to look at a split architecture because it does make sense for mobile systems, less so for Desktops (but we shall see), but this does have a big benefit that Alder Lake will flounder over and that is core difference compatibilities. When Alder Lake is in full hybrid mode, you will not be able to take advantage of half the ASICs (AVX etc) available so for high performance desktops, it makes no sense to buy an Alder Lake system which you have to disable the hybridisation just to use the full feature set. Whereas with this methodology by AMD, it looks like it doesn't matter at all because if the thread has specific characteristics/needs, it'll just move it automatically.

    I hope AMD move forwards with this to a working demo, their implementation is quite..."refined". Maybe they looked at Alder Lake and observed "how they could do better"...

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.
    It could be if you use Alder Lake on Windows 10, the hybridisation is disabled...

    The latest rumours suggest it will be the AMD Ryzen 8000 series (dubbed Strix Point) CPUs / APUs which will be the first hybrid core processors from AMD. We are probably looking at 2022 for these AMD processors to emerge, boasting a mix of "high-performance Zen 5 cores and low-powered Zen '4D' cores,"
    We're about to hit Ryzen 6000 series in 2022 (IIRC), not sure how the 8000 series will be the first hybrid core processors when the x000 numbering convention is on a 12-16 month cadence meaning these will be 2024 at the earliest. That and Zen 5 would be at least 2023 from the last roadmap?

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by Tabbykatze View Post
    This patent is interesting to me not because it's another company looking at big.LITTLE (Papermaster hinted/specifically didn't deny that they were looking at it early last year) but the fact this appears to be OS-agnostic. This means that adoption for it will be easy and can be a practical drop in replacement for existing architectures.

    What is also very interesting is the fact it can look at optimising the switch to using GPU cores as well. So Intel has ASICs in their CPUs, like AVX etc, that have to be specifically called by an application to be utilised and if someone codes their application to not specifically use the ASIC then it will sit on the general purpose silicon which will be very slow. However, with this patented solution, AMDs core manager will be able to go "hey, that's vectorised mathematics" and move the thread over to the GPU cores for the duration of that thread tasks. This means that AMD won't have to resort to ASICs like Intel (although they might still do so with the Xilinx acquisition) and will be able to have extremely diverse heterogenous compute systems that don't rely on the developer to specifically code path for it at every step.

    I expected AMD to look at a split architecture because it does make sense for mobile systems, less so for Desktops (but we shall see), but this does have a big benefit that Alder Lake will flounder over and that is core difference compatibilities. When Alder Lake is in full hybrid mode, you will not be able to take advantage of half the ASICs (AVX etc) available so for high performance desktops, it makes no sense to buy an Alder Lake system which you have to disable the hybridisation just to use the full feature set. Whereas with this methodology by AMD, it looks like it doesn't matter at all because if the thread has specific characteristics/needs, it'll just move it automatically.

    I hope AMD move forwards with this to a working demo, their implementation is quite..."refined". Maybe they looked at Alder Lake and observed "how they could do better"...

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I wonder if the new Intel and AMD CPUs doing this,is the reason why we are having Windows 11?? It will be interesting to see if ADL works better with Windows 11.
    It could be if you use Alder Lake on Windows 10, the hybridisation is disabled...
    This is also my take on it. I reckon though that if Microsoft are clever, make it a *free* upgrade and as said compatibility mode disables the hybrid side it could be a winner
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by 3dcandy View Post
    This is also my take on it. I reckon though that if Microsoft are clever, make it a *free* upgrade and as said compatibility mode disables the hybrid side it could be a winner
    It also means they don't have to put a silly amount of effort into working on a dead OS if Win 11 is going to kick 10 to the curb.

    Objectively, it makes sense to me, also means that Alder Lake doesn't look like an absolute pile of trash because Win 10 can't actually support it properly because the SDL is pants. It's in Intels best interest and if AMD is looking at it too, well you can bet bottom dollar that Windows is looking at this for Windows on Arm, then Intel with Alder Lake then when AMD filed this patent they definitely spoke to MS about it. So MS makes an easy choice to kybosh the "Windows 10 is the last Windows" and at the same time, moves away from the legacy Windows 7, 8 legacy integrations and deepens their hooks into us all.

    Win win for Microsoft...
    Last edited by Tabbykatze; 14-06-2021 at 12:18 PM.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by Tabbykatze View Post
    It also means they don't have to put a silly amount of effort into working on a dead OS if Win 11 is going to kick 10 to the curb.

    Objectively, it makes sense to me, also means that Alder Lake doesn't look like an absolute pile of trash because Win 10 can't actually support it properly because the SDL is pants. It's in Intels best interest and if AMD is looking at it too, well you can bet bottom dollar that Windows is looking at this for Windows on Arm, then Intel with Alder Lake then when AMD filed this patent they definitely spoke to MS about it. So MS makes an easy choice to kybosh the "Windows 10 is the last Windows" and at the same time, moves away from the legacy Windows 7, 8 legacy integrations and deepens their hooks into us all.

    Win win for Microsoft...
    There is NO reason that Windows for ARM can't support big.little apart from they really seem unable to get it to run erm well
    The scheduler code etc. is easily available, Linux and Apple did it years ago and Android as well does it very well.
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by 3dcandy View Post
    There is NO reason that Windows for ARM can't support big.little apart from they really seem unable to get it to run erm well
    The scheduler code etc. is easily available, Linux and Apple did it years ago and Android as well does it very well.
    Absolutely, there is no reason they can't support it but I wonder how much of it is M$ arrogance versus their development strategems causing issues.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by Tabbykatze View Post
    Absolutely, there is no reason they can't support it but I wonder how much of it is M$ arrogance versus their development strategems causing issues.
    Bit of both, but also they haven't really moved the ARM side away from Windows X86 much at all probably for ease but that means that take up is extremely poor. Had this conversation before, plenty of companies would make a chip similar to the M1 if there was any real need or support for it. Imagine an octacore cpu with some nice optimisations and a half decent gpu in say 10 watts for use in a laptop or thin and light
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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by 3dcandy View Post
    Imagine an octacore cpu with some nice optimisations and a half decent gpu in say 10 watts for use in a laptop or thin and light
    I mean, we're seeing that right now with the M1 and as much as I despise Apple for their business practices, they have a serious amount of design wins and chutzpah with the M1 and am thoroughly looking forward to seeing the M2.

    I think the biggest thing they did was to make ASIC bolt ons to accelerate x86 emulation which meant running x86 apps was not as crippling as what happened with Windows on Arm.

    I vaguely remember Intel getting very litigious at one point about Apple and their custom silicon with x86 compatibility and I wonder if Apple walked into whatever Intel CEOs office at the time, plonked a middle finger on the table and walked back out. Or maybe back door acceptances, who knows.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by Tabbykatze View Post
    I mean, we're seeing that right now with the M1 and as much as I despise Apple for their business practices, they have a serious amount of design wins and chutzpah with the M1 and am thoroughly looking forward to seeing the M2.

    I think the biggest thing they did was to make ASIC bolt ons to accelerate x86 emulation which meant running x86 apps was not as crippling as what happened with Windows on Arm.

    I vaguely remember Intel getting very litigious at one point about Apple and their custom silicon with x86 compatibility and I wonder if Apple walked into whatever Intel CEOs office at the time, plonked a middle finger on the table and walked back out. Or maybe back door acceptances, who knows.
    I think the fact that Intel basically failed to give Apple what they wanted for at least 5 years forced their hands (on both sides)
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by 3dcandy View Post
    I think the fact that Intel basically failed to give Apple what they wanted for at least 5 years forced their hands (on both sides)
    I expect so too, that and probably someone inside Intel realised that throwing their weight around while their troubles were really starting to begin to wash out probably wasn't a good idea.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    x64 & x64? Cmon.. give me an x64/ARM hybrid.

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    Re: Recently published patent hints at AMD hybrid CPU plans

    Quote Originally Posted by maxopus View Post
    x64 & x64? Cmon.. give me an x64/ARM hybrid.
    AMD already has ARM hybrid technically, it has an ARM co-processor security functionality...if I'm being pedantic

    (I think Intel does too)

    But it's one thing moving into x86 with heterogenous core designs, it's another to have heterogenous computing with completely different architectures. Baby steps!

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