Question AMD Phoenix/Zen 4 APU Speculation and Discussion

[uzzi38]

I can finally make this thread.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1519669375283957760

Phoenix is indeed RDNA3. My advice to everyone: treat the old APU rumours as being out of date.

 

[Glo.]

Do you know what's the difference between Rembrandt and PHX? ** ***5**
R9 7935HS vs R9 7940HS
R9 7835HS vs R9 7840HS
R7 7735HS vs R6 7740HS
R5 7635HS vs R5 7640HS

Ryzen 7 7735U vs Ryzen 7 7740U
Ryzen 5 7635U vs Ryzen 7 7640U

Those new CPU(APU) names are pure insanity. I so want to slap someone.

Aaaand, 45HX are Raphael .

I guess AMD used one of marketing textbooks from Porsche, or American Dining.

Do you want Porsche 911, 911 CS, 911 C4, 911 C4S, 911 Turbo, 911 Turbo 4S, 911 Targa, 911 Cabrio, 911 Cabrio 4S, 911 GT2, 911 GT3?

And the customer at the end: I just want eggs.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

So the seventh gen is Cezzanne(Zen3), Mendocino(Zen2), Rembrandt(Zen3+), Phoenix(Zen4+?) and Dragon Ridge(Zen4) all together.

If we are lucky, then we will see Lucienne too, because OEMs want that too.

Now, I just have to choose which one I want to buy.
Hopefully, AMD will provide an easy-to-understand guide for BFU.

 

[Glo.]

Now, I just have to choose which one I want to buy.

Will it be Porsche 911 Targa, or just classic 911 Carrera 4S, for you sir?

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Will it be Porsche 911 Targa, or just classic 911 Carrera 4S, for you sir?

Sorry kind sir, I already reserved a new flat, so I don't have enough money for a new or used Porsche, but at least I should buy a Porsche among APUs(CPUs) If nothing else.

 

[Exist50]

Do you know what's the difference between Rembrandt and PHX?
Try guessing.
R9 7935HS vs R9 7940HS
R9 7835HS vs R9 7840HS
R7 7735HS vs R7 7740HS
R5 7635HS vs R5 7640HS

Ryzen 7 7735U vs Ryzen 7 7740U
Ryzen 5 7635U vs Ryzen 5 7640U

I hereby declare AMD as a king of rebranding, because having 3 generations in one is nothing short of amazing marketing genius.
I think Intel marketing is having a strategic marketing meeting, to see how fast they can use the same scheme.

Yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. How is any normal person supposed to know what they're actually buying? Buying the most important info in the third digit is just insane.

 

[LightningZ71]

So the seventh gen is Cezzanne(Zen3), Mendocino(Zen2), Rembrandt(Zen3+), Phoenix(Zen4+?) and Dragon Ridge(Zen4) all together.

If we are lucky, then we will see Lucienne too, because OEMs want that too.

Now, I just have to choose which one I want to buy.
Hopefully, AMD will provide an easy-to-understand guide for BFU.

Lucienne you say? I'm sure that there will be
R7 7825U 8C8CU
R5 7625U 6C7CU
R3 7425U 4C6CU

In the stack somewhere...

 

[Kaluan]

Lucienne you say? I'm sure that there will be
R7 7825U 8C8CU
R5 7625U 6C7CU
R3 7425U 4C6CU

In the stack somewhere...

Lucienne(-R) is irrelevant in the naming scheme tho, it would be 7x20, not 7x25. It's just a Renoir refresh. Just like Cezanne is to Barcelo/Barcelo-R, all Zen3 and functionally identical cores, just better binned refreshes.

Now Cezanne/Barceloto Rembrandt and Phoenix to Dragon Range are something else.

There's already xx20 in the lineup via budget Mendocino SKUs, so not exactly breaking new ground. 😂

About the RDNA3 IGP, CB.de has 2 averages (RX 570 vs R9 6000HS), FHD medium (+52%) and FHD high (+63%).

Interestingly, if PHX IGP (mobile design) really = RX 570. Perhaps desktop = RX 590+?

R7 5700G (~RX 460 in the CB.de chart) certainly is 1 or 2 performance tiers above R9 5000HS designs (not to mention the OC headroom).

 

[soresu]

Phoenix to Dragon Range

Pretty sure Dragon Range is a mobile variant of Raphael for higher end laptops using a discrete gfx chip.

 

[Kaluan]

Pretty sure Dragon Range is a mobile variant of Raphael for higher end laptops using a discrete gfx chip.

Was talking about the significance of 7xx0 and 7xx5 product names.
7x30 is "Barcelo-R" (Cezanne refresh), while 7x35 is "Rembrandt-R" (Rembrandt refresh). Same with 7x40 "Phoenix Point" and 7x45 "Dragon Range".
"Mendocino" and "Lucienne-R" (Renoir refresh, allegedly) may not have a reason to be 7x20 and 7x25, but who knows.

This:

 

[uzzi38]

Yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. How is any normal person supposed to know what they're actually buying? Buying the most important info in the third digit is just insane.

Devil's advocate: Most normal people don't check the tech specs at all. It's only when you look at the gaming laptop market do you find a large number of people bothered b y tech specs, and that's usually because they want to check for the GPU too. Past that, they check laptop reviews instead or just go off word of mouth as for how good a laptop is.

It's only when you get into tech nerds category of people do you find people actually caring about what CPU is inside.

 

[moinmoin]

I said it before: I'm pretty happy the core gen is actually encoded in the model number at all and that appears to being used consistently now. That alone is such a huge improvement over all other model numbers current and over the past decades (aside Epyc server chips which do it as well).

Looking at e.g. the newly reported Intel Processor N200 if I didn't already knew better I'd think of Diamondville or a worse Cedarview and wonder why those are on sale again. No part of it points to it being related to Alder Lake/Gracemont.

 

[LightningZ71]

For Lucienne naming, I argue that since Mendocino is supposed to be a cut-down Zen2 core (similar to the CCX designs in the PS5/XboxX with reduced FPU performance) that it doesn't pass muster as being a lower model in it's segment (7#2X name). Also, it's arguable that the 7 and 8 CU Vega iGPUs are going to be more performant than the 2WGP RDNA2 in Mendocino, especially with Mendocino being restricted to a single DDR5 channel for RAM.

 

[mikk]

Phoenix point SKU rumor:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1598350848622469121

 

[jpiniero]

Phoenix point SKU rumor:

Literally covered in the previous page.

 

[Kaluan]

Fanless variants (PHX2, 2+4) -> Ryzen 5 7540e (or 7540Ue)?

They sound like chips with cTDP-down pre-configured bellow the "15-28W Thin & Light". No leaks on specific SKU, so either
1. They are the same as U ones, what I said above
2. No design wins yet
3. They will come later (like PHX2), so not part of the CES announcement/launch.

PHX2's 6 cores+L3 slices should be < 33mm/2 in die size, no idea how much room the I/O and the 2 N4 RDNA3 WGPs and it's media engines would take on top of that, but this will be absolutely tiny.
Like I said in the Raphael/Genoa/desktop 7000 thread, maybe we can expect a PHX2 for AM5 too, AMD can finally fill it's Ryzen 3 and Athlon gap in the lineup and give us i3 and Pentium $80-150 contenders in H2 2023.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1565500590142234627

From Locuza:
Zen4 CCD is 70.74 mm2
Uncore is 12.19 mm2
8 cores + 32MB L3 is 58.5 mm2
32MB L3 is 25.1mm2
A single Zen 4 core is ~4.2mm2
Although according to Locuza, AMD states 3.84 mm² for Zen4, so I am not sure.
CPU portion for PHX looks to be <=45mm2.

Zen4 6C + 8MB L3 is only 31.5mm2.
PHX2 would be even smaller.

 

[Kaluan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1565500590142234627

From Locuza:
Zen4 CCD is 70.74 mm2
Uncore is 12.19 mm2
8 cores + 32MB L3 is 58.5 mm2
32MB L3 is 25.1mm2
A single Zen 4 core is ~4.2mm2
Although according to Locuza, AMD states 3.84 mm² for Zen4, so I am not sure.
CPU portion for PHX looks to be <=45mm2.

Zen4 6C + 8MB L3 is only 31.5mm2.
PHX2 would be even smaller.

Bare in mind, PHX and "PHX2" are on N4. Unclear if full optic shrink or just using N4's improved production capabilities over N5. Probably the former since Phoenix & Zen4C have been designed and tapped out for N4 from the start.

(a-la N7 to N6 transition options)


Which would likely make Zen4 cores even smaller than Raphael/Genoa's "3.84mm2".

Edit: Yep, nvm, misread your similar conclusion.

 

[NostaSeronx]

If there is a console deal for PHX2, it would probably be Atari Gaming.

Atari VCS, LLC(2017-2021), [Mobile-orientated CEO era] => Atari VCS/RVR2 Console&[PC] // Cost-optimized FP5
Atari Gaming(2021+), [PC&Console-orientated CEO era] => Atari VCS2/PHX2 Console&[PC] // Cost-optimized FP8

Better than blowing everything on it being a Van Gogh/SteamDeck successor, yeesh!

They don't need big graphics either since they are targeting more retro-esque gaming with the hardware:
- circa July 2022

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

If there is a console deal for PHX2, it would probably be Atari Gaming.

Atari VCS, LLC(2017-2021), [Mobile-orientated CEO era] => Atari VCS/RVR2 Console&[PC] // Cost-optimized FP5
Atari Gaming(2021+), [PC&Console-orientated CEO era] => Atari VCS2/PHX2 Console&[PC] // Cost-optimized FP8

Better than blowing everything on it being a Van Gogh/SteamDeck successor, yeesh!

They don't need big graphics either since they are targeting more retro-esque gaming with the hardware:
View attachment 72215 - circa July 2022

Atari deal for PHX2? What a load of nonsense.
For Atari you don't need PHX2 hardware and barely anyone would buy It.

Chinese handhelds with PHX2 would sell a truckload more than Atari.

PHX2 would also do as a fine successor to Aerith in Steam Deck.
GPU performance wouldn't improve much, but Steam Deck has a serious problem with battery life, so a weaker but more efficient PHX2 would be a better option than the more powerful PHX simply because of battery life.

 

[FlameTail]

So the seventh gen is Cezzanne(Zen3), Mendocino(Zen2), Rembrandt(Zen3+), Phoenix(Zen4+?) and Dragon Ridge(Zen4) all together.

If we are lucky, then we will see Lucienne too, because OEMs want that too.

Now, I just have to choose which one I want to buy.
Hopefully, AMD will provide an easy-to-understand guide for BFU.

Damn.

I hope Qualcomm won't go this route in the future when they eventually land in the PC market.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Damn.

I hope Qualcomm won't go this route in the future when they eventually land in the PC market.

Qualcomm also doesn't have a good naming scheme If you check their SoC.

 

[NostaSeronx]

Atari deal for PHX2? What a load of nonsense.
For Atari you don't need PHX2 hardware and barely anyone would buy It.

Chinese handhelds with PHX2 would sell a truckload more than Atari.

PHX2 would also do as a fine successor to Aerith in Steam Deck.
GPU performance wouldn't improve much, but Steam Deck has a serious problem with battery life, so a weaker but more efficient PHX2 would be a better option than the more powerful PHX.

Valve can pay for a SoC under the Strategic Silicon Solutions group at AMD. I doubt they would bother with a mainline cost-optimized part.
SCBU->S3 is covering Sony, Microsoft, and Valve.

Revenue for Valve's gamefront is estimated at ~3 billion usd for the first half, January 2022-June 2022.
Revenue for Atari's gamefront is ~5.6 million euros the prior year, July 2021-July 2022.

OneX, Ayaneo, Ayn, and ANBERNIC are well within the backer range of the Atari VCS. So, truckloads more is unlikely and only Atari has the capability of software to offset hardware cost.

FC(No NB) -> WR(w/ NB) CEO (and founder participation) change would definitely want to get off the sabotaged early-gen console/minipc. To a modern next-gen console/minipc, specifically FP5 cost-optimized to FP8 cost-optimized. PHX2 would make the most sense for Atari to do that without destroying the bank on a S3 product.

Even with FC, AMD still published a tiny presser for it:
"As well, Atari© is using the high-performance Vega 3 graphics and ‘Zen’ CPU architecture in the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC to power the upcoming Atari VCS™ game system." Unlike your mentioned chinese handhelds. Also, Atari VCS is also Manufactured in China.

 

[Thibsie]

At least Zen gen is somewhere in the naming.
What about lowish 13rd gen Intel using 12th gen alderlake ? Anyone hamming about that ? No of course...

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Valve can pay for a SoC under the Strategic Silicon Solutions group at AMD. I doubt they would bother with a mainline cost-optimized part.
SCBU->S3 is covering Sony, Microsoft, and Valve.

Revenue for Valve's gamefront is estimated at ~3 billion usd for the first half, January 2022-June 2022.
Revenue for Atari's gamefront is ~5.6 million euros the prior year, July 2021-July 2022.

OneX, Ayaneo, Ayn, and ANBERNIC are well within the backer range of the Atari VCS. So, truckloads more is unlikely and only Atari has the capability of software to offset hardware cost.

Of course Valve could do easily a custom one, but PHX2 looks good enough at least as a Steam Deck 2 Lite.
This way they can provide a handheld for a more budget oriented customers, which would still perform as the previous generation, because even the base Steam Deck model is not that cheap at $399.

Atari released Its last game in 2019, after that there is nothing, so what do you expect from their software side? Their console Atari VCS is just a retro box based on a 2C4T R1606G APU with 8gb Vram 32GB eMMC paired with Linux. You can play only 25 games as I counted on their webpage.
Are they really capable of using PHX2? I beg to differ.

Back to those chinese manufacturers, they use Windows for their consoles so no software trouble.
Just a startup AOKZOE behind A1 handheld received for the first batch 22 boxes with 3520 pieces of Ryzen 7 6800U. Link
From their Crowdfunding site I found out that for the basic Ryzen 7 6800U, 16GB, 512GB SSD you have to pledge 7,450 HK$ which converted is $956.
So If they sold only the first batch and the basic model for that price, you would end up with $3,365,120 and we don't even know how many batches there are.

 

[SpudLobby]

Devil's advocate: Most normal people don't check the tech specs at all. It's only when you look at the gaming laptop market do you find a large number of people bothered b y tech specs, and that's usually because they want to check for the GPU too. Past that, they check laptop reviews instead or just go off word of mouth as for how good a laptop is.

It's only when you get into tech nerds category of people do you find people actually caring about what CPU is inside.

This is a case against it still - it's more difficult to garner the most basic information from this SKU system. The leading digit gives no information as to the (most important part of) the generation, which is the *one* thing your average lad might be interested in, if only instrumentally^1.

Now, if the (ironically pro-AMD) lobby in defense of this want to argue that there's really no difference between Phoenix and e.g. Rembrandt (since they might be found in a vaguely similar price bracket) to the average Joe that's fine, but a colossal own goal, and I don't believe that to be the case for an obvious reason. Wouldn't be true for mom & dad buying an ultrabook for a student either.

1: People need to understand that the average consumer doesn't need to know the nitty gritty of novel power states or fabrication in Phoenix, or the doubled L2 cache and hit rates, or Mendocino's garbage 64b bus and anemic iGPU, or Lucienne V 2.0's Vega GPU blah blah - but a simple "this is the latest generation, 7xxx/7000 series" would offer a great deal of clarity and they could readily assume that is the best AMD have to offer within that target market.

AMD have forfeited this clarity. Intel isn't perfect and have done vaguely similar before, but not to this degree. It's frustrating because AMD are shooting themselves in the foot. Will this matter that much? Not necessarily, probably not. Is it still an unforced error that doesn't help them? Yeah.