Info 64MB V-Cache on 5XXX Zen3 Average +15% in Games

[Kedas]

Well we know now how they will bridge the long wait to Zen4 on AM5 Q4 2022.
Production start for V-cache is end this year so too early for Zen4 so this is certainly coming to AM4.
+15% Lisa said is "like an entire architectural generation"

 

[jpiniero]

If you see it on the market, you know it'll have a low-ish margin compared to whatever else they could do with the same silicon. They would have to price it outside of its own market otherwise.

Not if they raise prices compared to Vermeer's MSRP.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Not if they raise prices compared to Vermeer's MSRP.

Not sure that they'll do that. It's possible. But really, do you think they can make the same profit per mm2 off of Zen3D as they can Milan? They're already sacrificing wafers to Vermeer refresh (presumably to maintain OEM contracts and keep the market supplied).

 

[jpiniero]

Not sure that they'll do that. It's possible. But really, do you think they can make the same profit per mm2 off of Zen3D as they can Milan? They're already sacrificing wafers to Vermeer refresh (presumably to maintain OEM contracts and keep the market supplied).

I'm kind of assuming that it is quality binned and Vermeer is the leakiest of the 6/8 core dies.

Remember that they are already sacrificing some base clock with Milan-X over Milan. They might be binning really tight to try to not make the base clock drop worse.

 

[Timorous]

Not sure that they'll do that. It's possible. But really, do you think they can make the same profit per mm2 off of Zen3D as they can Milan? They're already sacrificing wafers to Vermeer refresh (presumably to maintain OEM contracts and keep the market supplied).

Depends what kind of volume discounts they give to OEMs and hyperscalers.

 

[moinmoin]

If you see it on the market, you know it'll have a low-ish margin compared to whatever else they could do with the same silicon. They would have to price it outside of its own market otherwise.

I fully expect AMD to increase the MSRP according to the performance improvement Zen 3D brings. That may well be still a lower margin than with stock Zen 3, but to call that a loss leader definitely is an exaggeration.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm kind of assuming that it is quality binned and Vermeer is the leakiest of the 6/8 core dies.

Those are the dice I expect them to throw at Vermeer Refresh. Zen3D is just Vermeer Refresh with some extra cache bonded to it (more or less). It's the extra cache that eats up wafer supply that isn't being used for CCDs where AMD may be losing money (unless they're going to have extra cache dice left over from Milan-X?).

I fully expect AMD to increase the MSRP according to the performance improvement Zen 3D brings. That may well be still a lower margin than with stock Zen 3, but to call that a loss leader definitely is an exaggeration.

Perhaps "loss leader" is the wrong term here. Bottom line, AMD has to figure out how to maximize their profits with limited wafer supply without allowing one of their markets to tank. The end goal would be to get better wafer supplies in the future so that they will have to make fewer sacrifices between server and consumer products. Not sure if TSMC will ever get them to that point though.

Depends what kind of volume discounts they give to OEMs and hyperscalers.

Hyperscalars will be getting Genoa soon if not already, unless they are taking early samples of Milan-X instead (which is possible). Otherwise, AMD probably isn't discounting that much. Product availability is pretty low on Milan from what I've heard.

 

[jpiniero]

Those are the dice I expect them to throw at Vermeer Refresh.

You have to include Threadripper Pro in that too.

Zen3D is just Vermeer Refresh with some extra cache bonded to it (more or less). It's the extra cache that eats up wafer supply that isn't being used for CCDs where AMD may be losing money (unless they're going to have extra cache dice left over from Milan-X?).

They are probably separating them between the extra cache dies and not. The leakier dies with the extra cache will Zen 3D; the leaker non-cache dies will be Threadripper Pro then Vermeer Refresh.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You have to include Threadripper Pro in that too.

I'm assuming they have a separate set of wafers they're using to service existing Rome customers. TR Pro is still coming from that effort. Unless they're going to launch a Milan-generation version of TR Pro soon?

 

[jpiniero]

Unless they're going to launch a Milan-generation version of TR Pro soon?

Yeah that's what I'm expecting. Could be tomorrow even.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yeah that's what I'm expecting. Could be tomorrow even.

The plot thickens.

 

[Joe NYC]

Nobody knows when AMD is going to release any product at all. We don't even know if Zen3D will hit the market, period, of if Zen4 will drop in April, or both, or . . . whatever.

Yeah Zen3D would be neat, but personally I would rather see them focus on Zen4 on the desktop.

Meanwhile, the idea that AMD has to have Zen3D out now, instead of November or December, is a bit stupid.

The problem with Zen 4 is that it uses TSMC N5 node, the same as Genoa and RDNA 3 cards. So it will be a crowded field, and the one that is likely going to be crowded out of it is desktop Zen 4.

Zen 3D, OTOH, is on N7, which is plentiful, and if AMD didn't shoot itself in the foot (by missing the window to release it), could have been a successful product for gamers, and ADL would have been another RKL...

 

[Joe NYC]

Those are English words grouped together with a period at the end. I'm not clear on what thought they are trying to convey.

I am a student of English language, but if you did not understand the sentence, you are probably several grades behind me.

Unless you are an investor margins and market share should be of little concern. The price/performance of the products is all that consumers should be worried about. Intel and AMD have wildly different business models at this point in time. TSMC is intel's real competition. AMD's resurrection has as much to do with Dr. Su's leadership and mission statement (executing consistent incremental performance gains each generation) as it does with Intel's mistakes. Intel soiling the bed for several years certainly helped but Dr. Su and team still deserves a lot of credit for the massive performance gains in consumer desktop we've seen over the last few years.

I agree, but we came very close to having zero competition if events just continued on their own trajectory. It took 2 miracles, 2 big changes in trajectory, Intel's miraculous failure and AMD's miraculous recovery both happening simultaneously that we still have some competition.

The reason AMD came so close to collapse was not enough market share and not enough margin. Which should, hopefully tell you your statement that only investors care about margin and market share margin - may may be based on not seeing the full picture.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The problem with Zen 4 is that it uses TSMC N5 node, the same as Genoa and RDNA 3 cards. So it will be a crowded field, and the one that is likely going to be crowded out of it is desktop Zen 4.

Zen 3D, OTOH, is on N7, which is plentiful, and if AMD didn't shoot itself in the foot (by missing the window to release it), could have been a successful product for gamers, and ADL would have been another RKL...

Seems like you missed a lot of posts over the last few pages.

 

[eek2121]

I fully expect AMD to increase the MSRP according to the performance improvement Zen 3D brings. That may well be still a lower margin than with stock Zen 3, but to call that a loss leader definitely is an exaggeration.

MSRP will be aligned with the equivalent Intel parts. If Alder Lake had not performed as well as it does, they could have set MSRP to whatever they wanted to. Now? The 5900X with v-cache will be priced close to the 12900k more than likely. Other chips will be priced higher or lower depending on where they are in the stack relative to Intel.

 

[blckgrffn]

MSRP will be aligned with the equivalent Intel parts. If Alder Lake had not performed as well as it does, they could have set MSRP to whatever they wanted to. Now? The 5900X with v-cache will be priced close to the 12900k more than likely. Other chips will be priced higher or lower depending on where they are in the stack relative to Intel.

I think going “second” in this regard might be helpful. They are completely aware of ADL peak performance potential for next year or more and can confidently price these products against that baseline and current MSRPs.

The top stack parts are the winners in terms of margin so that where winning means the most anyway, especially if you are supply constrained.

 

[Timorous]

MSRP will be aligned with the equivalent Intel parts. If Alder Lake had not performed as well as it does, they could have set MSRP to whatever they wanted to. Now? The 5900X with v-cache will be priced close to the 12900k more than likely. Other chips will be priced higher or lower depending on where they are in the stack relative to Intel.

While I am pretty sure that V-Cache will mean AMD grab the gaming performance crown I expect the productivity angle to be a mixed bag due to some workloads just not caring about the extra cache.

I could easily see that after Zen 3D launches the choice depends on what your priority is. Gaming 1st and Zen 3d is likely the way forward. Productivity 1st and it will either be 16c AMD for the best on the desktop or it will be use case dependent because I can still see the 12900K winning in enough productivity apps vs a 12c V-Cache part that it is really down to the user to choose based on their individual needs.

All pricing and supply dependent of course and there is lies the rub. If AMD do go aggressive on pricing because they have enough margin to do so then it will lead to more supply issues than if they are less aggressive. IMO pricing depends on bonding capacity and Milan-X demand because AMD have margin to play with. The other argument is they don't have to go that aggressive on pricing because they can target current users on AMD platforms for drop in upgrades. If they make sure that it works on B450 there are going to be plenty of people on a 2xxx part that might consider upgrading to the top of the line AM4 part to see them through for a few years before jumping onto a DDR 5 platform and in that situation even an overpriced CPU can be comparatively cheap to the alternative due to saving on motherboard costs.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If they make sure that it works on B450 there are going to be plenty of people on a 2xxx part that might consider upgrading to the top of the line AM4 part to see them through for a few years before jumping onto a DDR 5 platform and in that situation even an overpriced CPU can be comparatively cheap to the alternative due to saving on motherboard costs.

I don't see why it wouldn't work. From the boards point of view it's just a Vermeer with some additional cache. Shouldn't take much to implement.

 

[LightningZ71]

It's going to take a long time for the benefits of DDR5's additional bandwidth start to make a big impact on performance, especially on mid to low end parts that don't have iGPUs, and especially when compared to the higher end DDR4 kits that are available.

 

[randomhero]

It's going to take a long time for the benefits of DDR5's additional bandwidth start to make a big impact on performance, especially on mid to low end parts that don't have iGPUs, and especially when compared to the higher end DDR4 kits that are available.

Agree on lower end parts/low core parts. 16 core and more for desktop needs bandwidth. Looking forward to see what 3d cache extra bandwidth does for 5950x.I am of strong belief that 5950x is more bottlenecks by bandwidth than power.

 

[leoneazzurro]

Milan-X "launches" on Q1 2022, same timeframe at this point as Zen3D, probably.

 

[Kedas]

"Milan-X" up to 50% faster and for some simulation software/workload up to 80% faster.
I don't see how they can release a next gen zen4 Epyc without this 3D cache.

We knew games would be +15% but seems for server applications it will even have a bigger impact !! 😀

They add an X for 3D cache, uhmmm: 5900X² ? 😛

 

[moinmoin]

I don't see how they can release a next gen zen4 Epyc without this 3D cache.

Who knows, the one layer of 3D cache AMD launches may well be comparable in performance improvement as the doubled L2$ in Zen 4.

 

[Kedas]

Who knows, the one layer of 3D cache AMD launches may well be comparable in performance improvement as the doubled L2$ in Zen 4.

Sure they can just add it all on the die but it's cheaper and more dense 3D stacked
Now they have 32MB on the die and +64MB for the same size stacked, assuming 5nm will show the same 2x possibilities for cache only dies.

BTW AMD just got a +11% in stock value 😎
And I keep thinking don't buy AMD again it's unlikely they will rise very much again...

Edit: AMD did +40% stock value in just 1 month, there are digital coins that are more stable 😛

 

[LightningZ71]

I'm beginning to think that we're going to be seeing parts from AMD that have substantially larger L2s and no L3 at all on the ccd with all the L3 on a stacked die. The larger L2 hiding the slight latency hit of the L3 being off die.

 

[Edgemeal]

AMD Accelerated Data Center Premiere Keynote

Sounds impressive, and AMD stock up almost $16! WOW!