Question AMD Phoenix/Zen 4 APU Speculation and Discussion

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insertcarehere

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Jan 17, 2013
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If It had the same FPS/$ as CPU+dGPU including Vram, no one would want to buy It.
Do you know how much profit does AMD need to make on an APU to be worth It, because I don't?

We're talking in circles here then. You're arguing AMD needs to provide value with an APU vs CPU/DGPU setup while I am arguing that AMD would probably be better off selling more CPUs/dGPUs at the pricing where such APU would provide value, classic catch-22.

Remember that a significant portion of APU demand comes from laptop OEMs, and Dell/Lenovo/Asus et al aren't gonna pay higher prices for processors in XPS 13s/Thinkpads/Zenbooks just because there's a bunch more GPU in the die, given said GPU can't be utilized due to inherent form factor limitations, and that even they did, the end consumer may not pay a premium for such extra capability anyways.

This is not true for this case, because this big Zen4 APU is using N4 and Raphael is using N5, so different production lines.

Doesn't matter here, AFAIK, wafer costs for both processes are similar and AMD doesn't order N4/N5 separately. Rembrandt being N6 did not prevent supply being utterly terrible initially, presumably because AMD wanted the wafers in N7 form for their other products.
 
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TESKATLIPOKA

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May 1, 2020
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We're talking in circles here then. You're arguing AMD needs to provide value with an APU vs CPU/DGPU setup while I am arguing that AMD would probably be better off selling more CPUs/dGPUs at the pricing where such APU would provide value, classic catch-22.

Remember that a significant portion of APU demand comes from laptop OEMs, and Dell/Lenovo/Asus et al aren't gonna pay higher prices for processors in XPS 13s/Thinkpads/Zenbooks just because there's a bunch more GPU in the die, given said GPU can't be utilized due to inherent form factor limitations, and that even they did, the end consumer may not pay a premium for such extra capability anyways.

Doesn't matter here, AFAIK, wafer costs for both processes are similar and AMD doesn't order N4/N5 separately. Rembrandt being N6 did not prevent supply being utterly terrible initially, presumably because AMD wanted the wafers in N7 form for their other products.
I didn't say this big APU would be for everyone, or that It should have been made instead of the current Phoenix. This was meant as an extra design.

I originally started this talk about big IGP with Strix Point in mind, which I expected as a chiplet design and where IGP could be on a separate chiplet.
Zen4 24CU monolith was a by-product when I calculated cost for Phoenix with different IGP sizes.
I thought It could be profitable to make and there would be demand for this.
You had a different opinion and started looking at "possible" profit loss compared to 16C Raphael.

It looks like your issue is not with this big APU per se, but with AMD not reserving enough wafers.
I automatically calculated with AMD buying(reserving) extra wafers for this APU, so It won't affect other products.
So the question is If there are enough wafers or not.

P.S. Why do you think AMD is reserving capacity for N4/N5 or N6/N7 together?
It should be a different production line, so this doesn't make any sense to me.
TSMC doesn't have an unlimited production capacity for each process, and there are other customers who also buy wafers depending on what they need.
Nvidia for example uses only N4 and no N5 for their consumer GPUs.
If AMD doesn't reserve a specific amount of wafers for each node, then TSMC wouldn't know how much of the unused capacity for either N5 or N4 can be sold to someone else.
 
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Heartbreaker

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Apr 3, 2006
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Attempt to redirect the APU discussion from the general RDNA 3 architecuture thread, to the actual APU thread.

Maybe some company does need to work with AMD for them to want to make product like this, but as the market changes and evolves I think we'll see stronger APUs that creep upwards in capabilities to capture the eroding low-end of the GPU market.

Isn't this what we have seen for years? Continual iGPU performance evolution/creep upward.

The only disagreement going on is between just that evolution continuing, or the big leap forward (~double more gains in one generation).

I don't think that big of a leap is likely due to memory BW and cost constraints.
 
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Glo.

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Apr 25, 2015
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It's very big for a mainstream APU, and double Phoenix. 100% increase is a VERY BIG increase.

But it's just a rumor, Phoenix was also rumored to be 24 CUs.

Because doubling something is great click bait...
PHX was rumored to be 6 WGPs, 12 CUs, with each one WGP double the ALUs - 1536. We ended up with 6 WGPs, 12 CUs, 768 ALUs with dual issue.
 

Heartbreaker

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Apr 3, 2006
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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View attachment 75434

Snippet from this:

CPU and WGP count the same as Rembrandt(8 CPU cores, 6 WGPs).

16-24 CU rumor, From the Same Guy 2 months earlier, "coincidentally" same guy is also the source of Strix 24 CU rumor this time.

We are further from Strix Point, than the earlier 24 CU rumors of Phoenix were from Phoenix Launch.

Generally the further from release the more inaccurate (and made up) the rumors.

So his early 24 CU rumor for Strix, is no more reliable than his early 24 CU rumor for Phoenix was.
 

Heartbreaker

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Apr 3, 2006
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Another redirect from the Architecture thread.

AMD competition (for the APU, iGPU) ranges from less capable Intel processors to more capable Apple M1/M2, to mobile CPUs paired with dGPU.

Newsflash. You need to pick one. There is no "one size fits all" in this competition.

Aim low and you can't perform like higher end parts. Aim high and you can't compete on price with the lower offerings.
 
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TESKATLIPOKA

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20% faster with 7500MHz LPPDR5 is just not worth It.
You can't even expand memory.
At least we know why they didn't add more CU, because It's useless.
Did I mention It will be expensive?

It looks like dGPU is the only option for me unless I want worse performance than I currently have with my GTX 1650M. :D
 

leoneazzurro

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Jul 26, 2016
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20% faster with 7500MHz LPPDR5 is just not worth It.
You can't even expand memory.
At least we know why they didn't add more CU, because It's useless.
Did I mention It will be expensive?

It looks like dGPU is the only option for me unless I want worse performance than I currently have with my GTX 1650M. :D

If you have 20% increase in score for 33% increase in bandwidth, this means bandwidth is not the only limiting factor BTW, especially when clock speeds are not known atm.
 

Glo.

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Apr 25, 2015
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If you have 20% increase in score for 33% increase in bandwidth, this means bandwidth is not the only limiting factor BTW, especially when clock speeds are not known atm.
33% more MEMORY bandwidth. Phoenix has 100% larger caches, with the same amount of resources(768 ALUs) so it should be much less starved for resources than Rembrandt.

And yet, something is not working correctly.

Because Rembrandt already was scoring 3100 pts in TS Graphics with 6400 MHz DDR5 memory. So you have a downgrade in performance with higher bandwidth available to execution units.

I'd say, lets wait for final tweaks. It might fix it, it might not change anything. We shall see.
 

TESKATLIPOKA

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If you have 20% increase in score for 33% increase in bandwidth, this means bandwidth is not the only limiting factor BTW, especially when clock speeds are not known atm.
This is also true.
BW is 34% better(7500MHz LPDDR5 vs 5600MHz DDR5), but score improved by just 9%.
 

leoneazzurro

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33% more MEMORY bandwidth. Phoenix has 100% larger caches, with the same amount of resources(768 ALUs) so it should be much less starved for resources than Rembrandt.

And yet, something is not working correctly.

Because Rembrandt already was scoring 3100 pts in TS Graphics with 6400 MHz DDR5 memory. So you have a downgrade in performance with higher bandwidth available to execution units.

I'd say, lets wait for final tweaks. It might fix it, it might not change anything. We shall see.

IIRC larger caches are only partly true for Phoenix, but only with N31/N32 parts you get the full enhanced config. N33 and Phoenix, except IIRC L0, should have the same cache sizes as RDNA2.
 

Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
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Computerbase put the 680M at 2400 in their comparison, FTR they tested this IGP in some article.


680M review :

 
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HoveringStyle

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Dec 11, 2022
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On the 3DMark website the average TS graphics score for the 680M is indeed ~2400 but the best ones are almost 3000. You can check for yourselves here.
 

yuri69

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Jul 16, 2013
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RMB peaks at 12 CUs at 2.4GHz. PHX has also 12 CUs but at 2.8GHz. Arch-wise it's RDNA2 vs RDNA3 so ~20% is about right.

The rumors about doubled CU count likely originate in the "RDNA3 being dual".
 

eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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So he was testing 7940HS, you originally wrote 7840HS.
Even with 54W It can't clock to 3GHz.
Erm, that would be shared between the GPU and CPU cores unless something has changed. Huge improvement over Cezanne.

Though I will likely wait another generation for my laptop (I rarely use it), I can see the appeal in upgrading.
 
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