AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[ShintaiDK]

It better have higher ASP. They have to give away the FCH for free now so to say.

Shortsighted like any AMD product before? Lets see when the product is actually out.

They completely eliminated the Southbridge die, reducing total die area and also PCB costs.

Yet the die size grow using HDL. And they wont be taking in revenue for a seperate FCH.

The question begs, what does AMD get out of it.Will they actually get something back, or will it just be another step down on the revenue ladder while selling even bigger chips for the same price.

 

[mrmt]

"Northbridge" also includes stuff like the hardware video encode/decode blocks, if I remember correctly.

AMD is selling us a GPU with a weak CPU for free. It's almost like Tegra, but with the habitual AMD power consumption tax.

 

[coercitiv]

Yet the die size grow using HDL. And they wont be taking in revenue for a seperate FCH.

You're spinning it and you know it: they don't get any revenue at all if they don't sell CPUs, so they're making the most attractive chips for OEMs as possible.

Did you also have the same remark for Intel U CPUs?

 

[coercitiv]

AMD is selling us a GPU with a weak CPU for free. It's almost like Tegra, but with the habitual AMD power consumption tax.

Did you even bother to check Carrizo TDP ratings?

 

[ShintaiDK]

You're spinning it and you know it: they don't get any revenue at all if they don't sell CPUs, so they're making the most attractive chips for OEMs as possible.

Did you also have the same remark for Intel U CPUs?

Yes. But the U CPUs didnt go up in diesize. And they dont use HDL. And even more importantly, the U price went up.

Compare mobile Carrizo with mobile Kaveri. And remember we talk about a company with a total PC CPU revenue of ~350M$ a quarter.

 

[AtenRa]

AMD is selling us a GPU with a weak CPU for free. It's almost like Tegra, but with the habitual AMD power consumption tax.

Yeap, Intel also selling us GPU with a CPU for free. And this one has more than 50% dedicated to the iGPU than what Carrizo does.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yeap, Intel also selling us GPU with a CPU for free. And this one has more than 50% dedicated to the iGPU than what Carrizo does.

Do they? How did the price/die evolve there over time if you go back to the GPU less? You may notice that Intel gets payed for it.

 

[AtenRa]

Do they? How did the price/die evolve there over time if you go back to the GPU less? You may notice that Intel gets payed for it.

From AMD Q1 2015 earnings call.

Lisa Su - President and CEO

On the positive side, we did see progress in several of our strategic initiatives. Mobile APU ASPs and revenue increased from the year-ago period, highlighted by increases in commercial client APU shipments and revenue from the fourth quarter, setting a record for commercial client processor sales. Our focused commercial client strategy is gaining momentum and our investments are driving awareness and generating pull with commercial and government buyers.

 

[ShintaiDK]

From AMD Q1 2015 earnings call.

Yet revenue from the PC division(with graphics) went from 861M$ to 532M$. And a 3M$ profit got turned into a 75M$ loss. What does that tell you?

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2036073

 

[AtenRa]

Yet revenue from the PC division(with graphics) went from 861M$ to 532M$. And a 3M$ profit got turned into a 75M$ loss. What does that tell you?

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2036073

This is the AMD Carrizo Pre-release topic, i will only answer you this and then i will not continue with AMD economics in this thread.

PC division includes both Desktop and Mobile. The big hit in Q1 2015 was in Desktop sales (same as Intel) and GPU sales. Mobile ASP and Revenue increased YoY and Q to Q.
AMD mobile sales will continue to increase the next quarters as Carrizo will occupy a larger percent of the product mix.

 

[coercitiv]

Yes. But the U CPUs didnt go up in diesize. And they dont use HDL. And even more importantly, the U price went up.

It did? I'm completely surprised! But how could that be?

Prices have never been lower.

 

[USER8000]

The size of the Hudson FCH can be determined by this document:

http://support.amd.com/TechDocs/Bolton_D2-D2H-D3-D4_Databook.pdf

Look on pages 123 and 124. It comes to around 49.248mm2.

The Kaveri die size was around 245mm2.

Since Carrizzo is around 250mm2,they are using 20% less die surface area as before.

Also,when it comes to packaging they are also elliminating the secondary PCB use for the FCH and the heatsink required for it.

It also means a less complex and smaller PCB meaning it will reduce mainboard costs too.

 

[raghu78]

You are forgetting the Carrizo die also includes the FCH, so it does bring cost down among energy consumption reduction and communication performance increases.
Also this SoC will have higher ASP than mobile Kaveri and volumes may also be higher.

A 15W Carrizo with 2133MHz DDR-4 So-Dimms will be a killer combination for the Mobile market. The perf/watt and perf/$ will be among the best in its segment. As an OEM/ODM you will be sort-sighted not to use this product.

As much Carrizo tries to put lipstick on a pig (Bulldozer) I look forward with excitement to Zen APUs with HBM. Thats the product which should really fulfill the potential of the APU. Give me a Zen quad core (8 threads) with 1280-1536 GCN 2.0 sp and 8 GB HBM2 with a bandwidth of 256 GB/s in a notebook

The real cannibalization of the notebook discrete GPU market will happen with the launch of Zen based APUs with HBM.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It did? I'm completely surprised! But how could that be?

Yes, and prices havent been lower for desktops where the PCH isnt integrated that you took the quote out of context with.

Platform wise, the U prices havent been lower either. Its just a matter of where you pay. Higher mobo cost or higher CPU.

 

[ShintaiDK]

As much Carrizo tries to put lipstick on a pig (Bulldozer) I look forward with excitement to Zen APUs with HBM. Thats the product which should really fulfill the potential of the APU. Give me a Zen quad core (8 threads) with 1280-1536 GCN 2.0 sp and 8 GB HBM2 with a bandwidth of 256 GB/s in a notebook

The real cannibalization of the notebook discrete GPU market will happen with the launch of Zen based APUs with HBM.

That doesnt sound like a laptop product. And certainly not cost oriented. Also 8GB in late 2016/2017 is really too little.

Carrizo gets a lot of things right, unfortunately it also get some of the most demanding issues wrong. Its quite clear that the 99% crowd doesnt buy PC APUs due to better graphics performance. Carrizo should really have been a sub 200mm2 part. Even if it means 384SPs. It is better to sell 5 chips for the manufactoring cost of 4. When you cant capitalize on the premium that the 4 got over the 5.

 

[R0H1T]

As much Carrizo tries to put lipstick on a pig (Bulldozer) I look forward with excitement to Zen APUs with HBM. Thats the product which should really fulfill the potential of the APU. Give me a Zen quad core (8 threads) with 1280-1536 GCN 2.0 sp and 8 GB HBM2 with a bandwidth of 256 GB/s in a notebook

The real cannibalization of the notebook discrete GPU market will happen with the launch of Zen based APUs with HBM.

Well let's hope you're right since notebook makers only wanna release crap stuff with AMD in it, I expect & do hope that the next AMD laptop will be high quality even if it's slightly more expensive than what they sell for now.

That doesnt sound like a laptop product. And certainly not cost oriented. Also 8GB in late 2016/2017 is really too little.

Carrizo gets a lot of things right, unfortunately it also get some of the most demanding issues wrong. Its quite clear that the 99% crowd doesnt buy PC APUs due to better graphics performance. Carrizo should really have been a sub 200mm2 part. Even if it means 384SPs.

It could be if it's the top bin & doesn't throttle much.

Edit - you also seem to be ignoring why Intel's giving more die space to it's IGP consistently over the last few generations, especially now with the crystalwell. Also care to explain how gaming laptops are the biggest money makers for everyone in the food chain, top to bottom?

 

[NTMBK]

This conversation has me extremely confused. Carrizo has almost the exact same die area as Kaveri (250mm^2 vs 245mm^2, a 2% increase), eliminates a second die entirely, provides significantly better performance/W, and reduces platform costs. It's a significantly better product. How did this get spun into a negative?

 

[ShintaiDK]

This conversation has me extremely confused. Carrizo has almost the exact same die area as Kaveri (250mm^2 vs 245mm^2, a 2% increase), eliminates a second die entirely, provides significantly better performance/W, and reduces platform costs. It's a significantly better product. How did this get spun into a negative?

Because the competition is not a static target. And AMDs PC revenue is in free fall.

The platform reduction cost depends a lot on what AMD charges for Carrizo. Is Carrizo sells for the same price as Kaveri. Then its AMD that have to eat up the platform delta for the most part. At the same time, its a 250mm2 chip that have to compete against much smaller chips in the cost structure. Changing to the GCN 1.2 GPU for example increases the diesize relatively to GCN 1.1. Yet AMD keeps on trying to sell graphics performance nobody buys. Even a Haswell DC ULT GT3 is only 181mm2. While a Broadwell GT3 is around 133mm2.

 

[mrmt]

This conversation has me extremely confused. Carrizo has almost the exact same die area as Kaveri (250mm^2 vs 245mm^2, a 2% increase), eliminates a second die entirely, provides significantly better performance/W, and reduces platform costs. It's a significantly better product. How did this get spun into a negative?

It is still a huge die, especially for the bottom of the barrel part of the market it is supposed to compete.

 

[raghu78]

That doesnt sound like a laptop product. And certainly not cost oriented. Also 8GB in late 2016/2017 is really too little.

Carrizo gets a lot of things right, unfortunately it also get some of the most demanding issues wrong. Its quite clear that the 99% crowd doesnt buy PC APUs due to better graphics performance. Carrizo should really have been a sub 200mm2 part. Even if it means 384SPs. It is better to sell 5 chips for the manufactoring cost of 4. When you cant capitalize on the premium that the 4 got over the 5.

rubbish. 16nm/ 14nm is a full process node transition with 50% power reduction and 50% area reduction wrt 28nm. A direct doubling of Carrizo (4 modules with 1024 sp) is possible at 14nm. But given that Zen is a next gen high performance microarchitecture and should vastly improve perf/sq mm and perf/watt over Excavator it should be easier to re-invest the power and area efficiency gains from the CPU portion to go for a 150 - 200% increase in the GPU portion.

 

[Erenhardt]

@Spin2Win
They sell 200mm2 chip, and you get 25% extra die.
What amd needs most is income and for that they need to offer product superior to intel's OEM partneship programs and contra revenue.

 

[AtenRa]

It is still a huge die, especially for the bottom of the barrel part of the market it is supposed to compete.

Core i3/5 Broadwell-U Dual Core GT2/GT3 is bottom of the barrel parts ???

 

[ShintaiDK]

Edit - you also seem to be ignoring why Intel's giving more die space to it's IGP consistently over the last few generations, especially now with the crystalwell. Also care to explain how gaming laptops are the biggest money makers for everyone in the food chain, top to bottom?

Not at all. IGP growth is an evolution. But using it as a sales argument doesnt work. Crystalwell came from a wish from Apple to try and dabble in the Macbook Pro segment without the need for a discrete GPU, plus it also works as an L4 cache for the CPU. It is a natural stopgap until we get stacked memory. However its not really used that much is it? And we talk about a company here that only sits on ~3% of the revenue. Yet they should try go for it all? Thats just bad business, and it shows in their financials.

Are gaming laptops the biggest money maker? I assume you got some edvidence ready?

 

[AtenRa]

Even a Haswell DC ULT GT3 is only 181mm2. While a Broadwell GT3 is around 133mm2.

And you also have to add the PCH :whiste:

 

[ShintaiDK]

Core i3/5 Broadwell-U Dual Core GT2/GT3 is bottom of the barrel parts ???

First of all even the GT3 Broadwell is only 133mm2. Secondly...not really a match CPU wise

And we still have to see Carrizo on the benchmark front. Those 15W chips may throttle more than not.