AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[cbn]

Maybe that A6-8500P Carrizo (dual core @ 1.8 Ghz base/3.0 Ghz turbo and 256sp iGPU @ 800 Mhz) would make a decent BGA Mini-ITX board.

This with a BIOS/power management allowing the two CPU cores fully turbo @ 3.0 Ghz with the 256sp iGPU @ 800 Mhz under full load.

This should work with desktop DDR3 well enough.

P.S. Here are some informal testing notes I did on the A6-5400K APU (using single channel DDR3 1866 RAM):

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37675951&postcount=73

I just finished informal testing of CS:GO With Linux Mint 17.2 and the proprietary AMD driver. The game appears to average around 45 FPS (estimated) @ 1280 x 1024 low using the A6-5400K with 4GB stick of DDR3 1866 (single channel).

P.S. CS:GO is IMO the most demanding game (on hardware) Valve has released so far. The other Valve games should have equal or better performance.

Increased resolution on CS:GO from 1280 x 1024 low to 1920 x 1080 low, game play stayed smooth and I would estimate average FPS somewhere between 35 and 40.

I also played Borderlands 2 using the same set-up. Through the first few levels average FPS was over 30 (smooth) at a resolution of 1280 x 1024 low.

So A6-8500P @ full CPU turbo under iGPU load might be pretty decent for casual play with these Valve Games. (Think low cost Steam Box using either Linux Mint, Ubuntu or SteamOS)

 

[CHADBOGA]

just picked up carrizo, tell me what you want to test.

Your sanity.

 

[-sandro-]

So what's up with this site not reviewing this CPU at all?

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, the chip itself is not for sale, it has to be an available laptop, and availability has been very poor. Tests from anywhere are very sparse. I would like to see a well set up test at a clearly specified TDP myself though.

 

[-sandro-]

Seems like these APUs are only for Europe.

 

[cbn]

The thing is that OEMs install a dGPU with the 35W TDP designs, when they could only install a dual 2133MHz ram modules and have better performance, cheaper BOM, lower weight and lower power consumption than those 64bit ddr-3 dGPUs.

Right now (on Newegg) DDR4 2133 4GB SO-DIMMs are cheaper than DDR3 2133 4GB SO-DIMMs, so I do hope we get DDR4 soon.

P.S. Having the iGPU active would lower the CPU clock on the APU though. This wouldn't happen with a dGPU present, though total power consumption of 35W APU (with iGPU inactive) + dGPU should be higher than a 35W APU (with iGPU active). Maybe the answer to this is raise TDP to 45W on the APU (and enable DDR4).

 

[DrMrLordX]

P.S. Having the iGPU active would lower the CPU clock on the APU though. This wouldn't happen with a dGPU present, though total power consumption of 35W APU (with iGPU inactive) + dGPU should be higher than a 35W APU (with iGPU active).

That assumes that the OEM is using a separate cooling solution for the dGPU. Some of them are not, which is limiting the performance of the APU.

Also, don't automatically assume that the iGPU will lower CPU clocks. We aren't talking about Kaveri here. Carrizo is different.

 

[cbn]

Also, don't automatically assume that the iGPU will lower CPU clocks. We aren't talking about Kaveri here. Carrizo is different.

I was thinking of Carrizo's CPU turbo under iGPU load.

For the top SKU, having the four cpu cores running 3.4 Ghz with the 512sp iGPU @ 800 Mhz (under load) has got to use a fair amount of power (probably over 65W).

In fact, I even wonder if 3.4 Ghz turbo is sustainable @ 35W for anything but a short period even with the iGPU not in use? (Still need to do research on this).

 

[cbn]

What would be truly interesting is if of these assh...oems built a carrizo ultra slim with 8gb of ddr4. That might create some buzz.

I have to wonder if AMD is holding back wafers in order to enable the DDR4?

Skylake has DDR4 and as I mentioned 4GB DDR4 2133 SO-DIMMs are cheaper than 4GB DDR3 2133 SO-DIMMs....so yeah, having DDR4 on these chips makes total sense now.

Carrizo+ or maybe they call it 6.5 generation APU?

(I only hope such a DDR4 Carrizo would also be available with 45W and 65W cTDP options)

 

[ShintaiDK]

Carrizo doesn't have DDR4 support does it.

Also DDR3 2133 is faster than DDR4 2133 due to latency.

AMD isn't holding anything back.

 

[Dresdenboy]

@dresdenboy here is the instruction latency dump http://pastebin.com/Veap64CV

avx2 instructions.

Thanks again. Very interesting stuff! They increased throughput of many bread n butter integer instructions (4/cycle for reg, reg) and improved zeroing and move elimination. Some less used ops like SIMD bool ops on floats got slower (vs. SR).

Clock is some 25% below max. Could you apply a fixed clock (2.1) and rerun it?

 

[frozentundra123456]

Not sure why everybody keeps wishing for high wattage Carrizo. It is optimized for 15 watts. Above about 25 watts isn't Kaveri at least as efficient? Seems like I recall that from the AMD slides.

 

[cbn]

Carrizo doesn't have DDR4 support does it.

According to the following link it does, but AMD crippled it:

http://www.bitsandchips.it/52-english-news/5283-carrizo-die-shot-dual-ddr3-and-ddr4-imc

Also DDR3 2133 is faster than DDR4 2133 due to latency.

That is true, but in practice OEMs don't go beyond DDR3 1600 (for whatever reason).

 

[cbn]

Not sure why everybody keeps wishing for high wattage Carrizo. It is optimized for 15 watts. Above about 25 watts isn't Kaveri at least as efficient? Seems like I recall that from the AMD slides.

That was for each module, not including the iGPU.

So two modules @ 15W each = 30W. This plus whatever power consumption the iGPU uses.

So 45W APU only leaves 15W for the iGPU (if each module is tuned for 15W power consumption under iGPU load).

 

[DrMrLordX]

I was thinking of Carrizo's CPU turbo under iGPU load.

For the top SKU, having the four cpu cores running 3.4 Ghz with the 512sp iGPU @ 800 Mhz (under load) has got to use a fair amount of power (probably over 65W).

In fact, I even wonder if 3.4 Ghz turbo is sustainable @ 35W for anything but a short period even with the iGPU not in use? (Still need to do research on this).

If you want more data, I highly recommend you read The Stilt's data on OCN:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1560230/jagatreview-hands-on-amd-fx-8800p-carrizo/0_100

That's some of it anyway. Long story short, everything (CPU clocks, iGPU clocks, etc) will throttle down due to cTDP restrictions. It isn't like Kaveri where the iGPU clocks are maintained at the expense of CPU clocks.

Carrizo really isn't that efficient once it goes above 2.6 GHz anyway. The ideal clockspeed for it is in the range of 2.5 GHz. For any higher clockspeeds, it is more wise to use GV-A1 Kaveri. AMD has not given us this option for notebooks, but those are the facts. About the only thing you would gain from having Carrizo vs. GV-A1 Kaveri in a notebook computer at speeds higher than ~2.8 GHz would be the GCN 1.2 iGPU vs. Kaveri's older GCN 1.1.

 

[cbn]

P.S. Having the iGPU active would lower the CPU clock on the APU though. This wouldn't happen with a dGPU present, though total power consumption of 35W APU (with iGPU inactive) + dGPU should be higher than a 35W APU (with iGPU active). Maybe the answer to this is raise TDP to 45W on the APU (and enable DDR4).

Also, don't automatically assume that the iGPU will lower CPU clocks. We aren't talking about Kaveri here. Carrizo is different.

I was thinking of Carrizo's CPU turbo under iGPU load.

For the top SKU, having the four cpu cores running 3.4 Ghz with the 512sp iGPU @ 800 Mhz (under load) has got to use a fair amount of power (probably over 65W).

In fact, I even wonder if 3.4 Ghz turbo is sustainable @ 35W for anything but a short period even with the iGPU not in use? (Still need to do research on this).

If you want more data, I highly recommend you read The Stilt's data on OCN:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1560230/jagatreview-hands-on-amd-fx-8800p-carrizo/0_100

That's some of it anyway. Long story short, everything (CPU clocks, iGPU clocks, etc) will throttle down due to cTDP restrictions. It isn't like Kaveri where the iGPU clocks are maintained at the expense of CPU clocks.

Carrizo really isn't that efficient once it goes above 2.6 GHz anyway. The ideal clockspeed for it is in the range of 2.5 GHz. For any higher clockspeeds, it is more wise to use GV-A1 Kaveri. AMD has not given us this option for notebooks, but those are the facts. About the only thing you would gain from having Carrizo vs. GV-A1 Kaveri in a notebook computer at speeds higher than ~2.8 GHz would be the GCN 1.2 iGPU vs. Kaveri's older GCN 1.1.

Still with a dGPU present the CPU clocks on Carrizo should run higher.

So to approximate that with the iGPU active the TDP needs to be higher than 35W. I think 45W would be conservative.

P.S. Not sure how much energy a Carrizo module at 2.5 Ghz uses....my guess would be 15W. So two of them would yield 30W power consumption. 45W TDP Carrizo APU there would be 15W left over for the iGPU clocks.

 

[monstercameron]

Thanks again. Very interesting stuff! They increased throughput of many bread n butter integer instructions (4/cycle for reg, reg) and improved zeroing and move elimination. Some less used ops like SIMD bool ops on floats got slower (vs. SR).

Clock is some 25% below max. Could you apply a fixed clock (2.1) and rerun it?

There is a bios setting that will stop the frequency bouncing but it limits to the lowest click speed which is 1.4ghz. When i run the dump at 1.4ghz it hangs at 1971. I have tried overdrive to limit the frequency but it doesn't support carrizo and carrizo doesn't respect the catalyst cpu limiter.

Is there another way to limit frequency?

 

[el etro]

Not sure why everybody keeps wishing for high wattage Carrizo. It is optimized for 15 watts. Above about 25 watts isn't Kaveri at least as efficient? Seems like I recall that from the AMD slides.

Can be suited for 35W and still consume less(but not much) than 35W Mobile Kaveri.

 

[Burpo]

Is there another way to limit frequency?

ThrottleStop?

 

[Dresdenboy]

There is a bios setting that will stop the frequency bouncing but it limits to the lowest click speed which is 1.4ghz. When i run the dump at 1.4ghz it hangs at 1971. I have tried overdrive to limit the frequency but it doesn't support carrizo and carrizo doesn't respect the catalyst cpu limiter.

Is there another way to limit frequency?

Is there still some C'n'Q like setting? Also the different energy saving modes in Windows might influence it a bit. You can set the minimum processor frequency to 100% or both min and max to 70%. Windows will choose some fixed frequency then I think.

 

[monstercameron]

Is there still some C'n'Q like setting? Also the different energy saving modes in Windows might influence it a bit. You can set the minimum processor frequency to 100% or both min and max to 70%. Windows will choose some fixed frequency then I think.

When I chose the bios setting it runs at a fixed 1.4ghz with no fluctuation. I will run some games and check the cpu clock soon. interestingly the cpu does clock higher with the bios setting.
As the the power setting, I tried the option in catalyst which you can choose a range of clock speeds. With the bios setting on dynamic clocking it will ignore the setting in catalyst and clock even upto 3+ghz. Maybe if I could modify the lowest p-state and static clock mode this could work but there are no tools I know of that can do this.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Is there another way to limit frequency?

amdmsrtweaker should be able to do it, so long as you aren't hitting cTDP limits. If you are, you might still be able to bully your way through them by setting the p4 state higher, though you might wind up with "false" clockspeeds which people used to get a lot with Kaveri past 4.5 GHz on lesser boards.

 

[cbn]

just picked up carrizo, tell me what you want to test.

Model of laptop and specs ??

toshiba satellite radius 14", fx-8800p, 8gb dual channel 1600mhz ram, 15W config {cpuz}, 768p screen $599 bestbuy.

1.) War Thunder (Eastern Front benchmark). This games uses one thread, so I am interested in what clockspeed the CPU and GPU will run at with 15W cTDP.

2.) Some game that loads up all four CPU cores. What clockspeed will the CPU cores run at? What speed will the GPU run at?

Also for both those tests I wonder how much changing the graphical detail setting at 768p affect CPU core speed? For example, in War Thunder is it possible to get one CPU core running at turbo speed with graphical setting at 768p low?

 

[cbn]

I know Carrizo is in principle a mobile product, but I am thinking if power management is sophisticated enough that it might make a pretty nice Steam Box as well (35W cTDP).

And it would help immensely if the CPU gets allocated enough power @ low detail settings to boost FPS in certain difficult games. Then I imagine even DDR3 1600 could be used.

 

[cbn]

Looking at 35W/42W graph from post #2351 it looks like the FX-8800P @ 42W has the potential hold high CPU clocks (3.2/3.3 Ghz) when the iGPU is at ~550 Mhz (or 3.4 Ghz with the iGPU @ 350 MHz):

....but when the iGPU increases to 800 Mhz, the CPU clocks drop down to as low as 2.1/2.2 Ghz.

So if CPU performance actually holds up at low detail settings (in demanding games) then I would be enthusiastic about Steam Box performance (or laptop game performance at low resolution/low graphical detail setting). If true, then the large iGPU running at low clocks would essentially function as a very energy efficient "small iGPU" that allows more energy to be directed to the CPU cores during demanding tasks.