AMD APUs: 5870 speed in 2014?

[ShintaiDK]

That sounds pretty decent, but isn't the memory bandwidth of a 5870 ~150GB/sec?
Perhaps they can offer two modes until system memory is up to that level, one where you don't install expensive "GPU" memory and another where you can pop in the side memory to have additional memory for the APU other than system.

1-2GB of 150GB/sec memory that granted 5870 speeds on a Trinity+ APU would be fine for me, and likely cheaper than the $250-500 for a high end GPU. This would be an ideal desktop for me.

I doubt thats gonna happen. In my view, the only realisticly hope is a revision of the DIMMs. So we for example gets single serial 256bit DIMMs instead of 64bit. Then a singlechannel DDR4-3200 would yield 100GB/sec.

We are borderlining now to the old days before we got SDRAM, where you had 4 FP/EDO modules to fill up the bandwidth. And we see tripple/quadchannel on LGA1366/LGA2011 already.

The parallel nature of our current DIMMs is also utterly hopeless.

DDR4 would be the perfect time for it. Else we will have to suffer until DDR5 or beyond.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think 2015 is more likely.

By 2013, AMD aims at HD7750 level of performance with Kaveri. HD7750 is almost twice as slow as an HD5870.

I think that Kaveri won't be quite as powerful as the stand-alone desktop variant. If AMD doubles that performance by 2014, it still won't quite reach 5870's performance (unless games start to use more and more tessellation where HD5870 performs poorly). By 2015, I think we can say it's almost a done deal though. By then HD5870 will be a 6-year-old GPU. ^_^

At the same time by 2014-2015 we should have next generation games/game engines and GPUs twice as powerful as HD7970/680 today. By that point HD5870 level of performance won't be anything special, especially if tessellation takes off and games start to use > 2GB of VRAM.

Of course compared to Intel, AMD will be miles ahead. Even Trinity is about to mop the floor with Intel's IVB GPU.

Source

A small note. It might be 2x as powerful compute wise. But far from gaming wise.

And you do know AMD compares Trinity to Sandy Bridge? Plus they dont tell in what.

Personally I dont trust AMD marketing at all. Else Phenom 1 should be a good tad faster than IB clock for clock. And Bulldozer should rock the world

 

[Ventanni]

Not that I expect Ivy Bridge to hold a candle to Trinity performance, but that chart compares Trinity to Sandy Bridge, not Ivy Bridge. Judging from the graphs though, the quad core (err, 2 module) Trinity variant should be twice as fast in the graphics department as a Core i7M-HD3000, which is pretty impressive.

While improving, Intel has a long ways to go to achieve the same performance/watt efficiency in the GPU department as AMD.

 

[Vesku]

Well, DDR4 should be available in 2014 so we might see, in the top tdp desktop APU, a moderately bandwidth handicapped 7750 or pretty close to it.

Edit: If RussianSensation is right about Kaveri being a bandwidth starved 7750ish amount of GCN cores, then in 2014 we would expect to see something between a 7770 and 7850 in terms of GCN cores.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Looking at Trinity review today. I´m sure we can say this aint gonan go there.

You should be "dancing in the ailes" if it can even reach HD5650/HD5670 by 2014.

 

[Haserath]

Are we counting the desktop variants? Anand has the laptop chip review up today.

Btw, DDR4 will be point-to-point memory access, so the CPU will have however many channels as sticks of memory. We might be seeing 'quad channel' by 2014 with 100GB/s+ memory bandwidth on the desktop. I would bet the desktop will achieve 5870 performance by that time in an APU.

 

[KompuKare]

Looking at Trinity review today. I´m sure we can say this aint gonan go there.

You should be "dancing in the ailes" if it can even reach HD5650/HD5670 by 2014.

While Trinity iGPU looks disappointing (HD4000 almost ties with it), this is for a 35W part. Looking back at the AT Llano desktop review

Llano wasn't that far behind HD5570. Time will tell, but with a 100W power envelope for desktop Trinity, HD5650 should be close.

AMD's real problem is memory bandwidth. They can either convince OEMs to ship with DDR3-1866 or faster (slim chance) or they have to refine their IMC since it trails Intel's by quiet a bit.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Looking at Trinity review today.

That's mobile, i believe we're talking about desktop performance, could be wrong

 

[BD231]

No way in hell AMD figures out their bandwidth issues that soon, they can't even make a memory controller that fully taps the potential of DDR3. I think we'll just continue to see them release crippled integrated GPU's that raise the bar but never take it to that next level. So basically you'll always feel like you're using an integrated gpu using integrated, it's just not completely useless for gaming anymore.

 

[truth_benchmark]

Resident Evil 5 at 1680 x 1050 using High details with 2x AA. Motion Blur disabled

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIMHYwhRx-E

AMD A8-3870K @ 3.3 GHz
Radeon HD 6550D @ 757 MHz
NB @ 900 MHz
4GBx2 DDR3 1866 CL9


Trinity (desktop) A10-5800K, according to rumors, will have HD 7660D

HD 6550D - 400 stream processors @ 600 MHz --> based on Evergreen

HD 7660D - 384 stream processors @ 800 MHz --> based on Northern Islands

Kaveri APU is scheduled for 2013 and it will be using GCN (Southern Islands) for its IGP. I don't think we'll be seeing "HD 5870" performance on an IGP in 2014

 

[truth_benchmark]

No way in hell AMD figures out their bandwidth issues that soon, they can't even make a memory controller that fully taps the potential of DDR3.

HD 6550D benefits from faster RAM and overclocking the NB

 

[truth_benchmark]

Lost Planet 2 (DX11) running at 1600 x 900 on AMD A8-3870K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ0KcWKKt5c

AMD A8-3870K @ 3.2 GHz
Radeon HD 6550D @ 757 MHz
NB @ 900 MHz
4GBx2 DDR3 1866 CL9

 

[blastingcap]

I've posted the numbers before but if Ivy Bridge's top embedded GPU is ~75% as fast as a 5570 and Haswell's top GPU is nearly 3x faster (enhanced EUs, three times as many, and probably faster clocked due to 22nm process maturity), and if Intel can fix the memory bandwidth problem (Crystal Well?), then Haswell's top GPU could theoretically be about as fast as a HD4850. Give it another year or two and a node shrink to 14nm (more cores!) and more memory bandwidth voodoo, and in theory it could get close to HD5870 performance by late 2014.

That's Intel though and its massive process advantage. AMD is better and more efficient at graphics, but THAT much more efficient? I don't know. I can see AMD APUs having ~5870 performance by 2015 in a best-case scenario, assuming memory bandwidth issues are solved. More likely 2016 or later.

 

[MrTeal]

I hate to use TPU composite ratings, but at medium resolution of 16x10 the 7850 is about 10% faster than a 5870, and the 5870 is about 37% faster than a 7770 in their suit of games.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7850_HD_7870/26.html

In the same review, the max DC power draw playing Crysis the 7850 was 96W, while the 7770 drew 73W. That's just the card, but there's extra overhead on a card that you wouldn't have to entirely duplicate with an APU. The 7850 is 212mm^2 (though not a full die), while the 7770 is a full die and is 123mm^2. That's on a 28nm node. Trinity is 246mm^2 for the whole chip, remember. By 2014 AMD will be fully onto the 28nm node, but GloFo doesn't look good for smaller than that in that time frame.

On the desktop in the best performing chip, I could see them getting something similar to a 7770 in there, though it might perform noticeably worse due to low memory bandwidth. Even with DDR4, it would still be less than the stock 72GB/s you get with a 7770. The 7770 is still quite a bit slower than a 5870.

GCN and 28nm are AMD's shiniest new toys, and they have a history of using a generation old GPUs in their APUs. Kavari will have GCN in 2013, APUs in 2014 might have Sea Islands on 28nm. Performance/W and Performance/mm^2 might be better than GCN, but I wouldn't place money on it being much better.

Also, for all the talk about not needing a discrete GPU with future APUs, keep in mind equivalent dGPUs will go down in price. I bought a 5570 almost a year ago for $35AR for my HTPC after looking at Llano, you'd need to spend almost that much extra to buy the DDR3-1866 you need to get the APU to perform as well as it could. Even then it wasn't close to a 5570. That's to say nothing of having to spend extra for the top APU to get the good iGPU. There's no reason to think that situation will be different in 2 years.

TL;DR - 5870 performance in an iGPU will be tough in 2014. They might get reasonably close and with much less power, but that's still a pretty tall target. Even if it is, the same or a little more money will give you much better performance with a discrete card.