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 My advice to everyone: treat the old APU rumours as being out of date.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Ampere is not great but selling

Only to Oracle, and Oracle basically decided to keep them as their pet CPU shop (for now anyway).

Graviton is popular because of AWS's pricing

Yea but that is entirely reliant on Neoverse licensing costs being literally pennies, funded all by Softbank money.
That era is long gone, ARM will have to mint some actual cash now that they'll be public.

Well I'll buy some if so

So will I.
Toasty they may be, perf is still undeniable.

 

[moinmoin]

Ampere is not great but selling. Must be cheap? Graviton is popular because of AWS's pricing. Possibly Grace for certain niches. Some random Chinese retailers even have their own CPUs. Okay that last one is a joke.

That's kinda slim picking for serious competition, don't you think?

 

[Joe NYC]

Today's AMD should easily be able to shoulder the cost. At this point it's very likely more about increasing margins and simply doing sensible business planing than just about saving every possible penny.

It goes beyond dollars. You can't just go out and hire design and validation talent without running into limits.

And then, there is time to market. Zen 4 die was released around September 2022, and Phoenix notebooks have barely been released. That's 9 months lost from the time to market. It could have been reduced if it was possible to have a modular design.

Well, the packaging technologies are not ready yet, but I AMD already has teams working on modular designs for future generations.

 

[gdansk]

That's kinda slim picking for serious competition, don't you think?

I think it is serious compared to what competition Intel had from 2012-2019.

 

[adroc_thurston]

You can't just go out and hire design and validation talent without running into limits.

They're certainly trying.

and Phoenix notebooks have barely been released

Ehh Phoenix ran into fairly evident RDOA3 issues.

I think it is serious compared to what competition Intel had from 2012-2019.

Not really, no.
The only hope is basically ARM continuing to magically subsidize hyperscaler server roadmaps with beyond cheap quality IP and that's just super unlikely to happen.
With Nuvia server dead and Intel barely limping around, who's even left anymore?

 

[moinmoin]

I think it is serious compared to what competition Intel had from 2012-2019.

Hm. You know that all the ARM server chips essentially had been a direct reaction to Intel's de facto monopoly in DC and the projection that it would continue that way. AMD's resurrection stopped plenty efforts akin to AWS' Graviton in their tracks. So yes, even excluding AMD Intel has more competition in DC these days than back in that golden age, but ARM servers could have been much more.

 

[adroc_thurston]

AMD's resurrection stopped plenty efforts akin to AWS' Graviton in their tracks

Graviton is doing fine, but again, it's entirely reliant on Neoverse IP being cheap to license, which is an unlikely scenario given that ARM will go public soon-ish.

but ARM servers could have been much more.

Yea.
Cavium died, Nuvia died, Centriq died, who else?

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

So will I.
Toasty they may be, perf is still undeniable.

Ok, Zen5 should be supposedly a pretty great CPU, but in the case of Strix Halo I am more worried about the IGP part and lastly price.
There are rumors about 40CU + 32MB IC + 256bit LPDDR5(x). That BW and hitrate looks good enough only for a 32CU part excluding the CPU, but If It had enough BW then 40CU should be competitive against Ad106 in raster.
Then the last question is the price.
A laptop with i9 13900HX, 32GB DDR5, RTX 4070 8GB 140W cost 2300-2400 €.
This Strix Halo shouldn't cost more than that or I don't think It will be a good buy.

 

[moinmoin]

Ok, Zen5 should be supposedly a pretty great CPU, but in the case of Strix Halo I am more worried about the IGP part and lastly price.
There are rumors about 40CU + 32MB IC + 256bit LPDDR5(x). That BW and hitrate looks good enough only for a 32CU part excluding the CPU, but If It had enough BW then 40CU should be competitive against Ad106 in raster.
Then the last question is the price.
A laptop with i9 13900HX, 32GB DDR5, RTX 4070 8GB 140W cost 2300-2400 €.
This Strix Halo shouldn't cost more than that or I don't think It will be a good buy.

I have the feeling that laptops without dGPU should be clearly cheaper than those with, but the market now already is not reflecting that at all. So Nvidia may already be flooding the market with mobile dGPU parts similar to what Intel did with mobile CPUs, trying to prevent stronger iGPUs getting a hold. If that keeps up until and past Strix Halo's launch you'll likely be disappointed. The market is pretty messed up currently.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

I have the feeling that laptops without dGPU should be clearly cheaper than those with, but the market now already is not reflecting that at all. So Nvidia may already be flooding the market with mobile dGPU parts similar to what Intel did with mobile CPUs, trying to prevent stronger iGPUs getting a hold. If that keeps up until and past Strix Halo's launch you'll likely be disappointed. The market is pretty messed up currently.

Then Strix Halo will be cheaper. That would be also pretty good.

 

[moinmoin]

Then Strix Halo will be cheaper. That would be also pretty good.

After some time maybe. It's more likely to start as being very rare and very expensive going by how laptop manufacturers currently position dGPU-less laptops with the latest AMD chips...

 

[jpiniero]

After some time maybe. It's more likely to start as being very rare and very expensive going by how laptop manufacturers currently position dGPU-less laptops with the latest AMD chips...

I kind of figure that the cheap gaming laptops are dud quality chips where the CPU and/or (nVidia) GPU are really low quality and have a substantial discount over the normal chips. But it's still fast enough to the point where Phoenix can't compete.

Usually it's Intel for the CPU but I did notice a 7535HS+4050L laptop for $699 at Newegg. AD107 isn't that much smaller than Big Phoenix.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Ok, Zen5 should be supposedly a pretty great CPU, but in the case of Strix Halo I am more worried about the IGP part and lastly price.
There are rumors about 40CU + 32MB IC + 256bit LPDDR5(x). That BW and hitrate looks good enough only for a 32CU part excluding the CPU, but If It had enough BW then 40CU should be competitive against Ad106 in raster.
Then the last question is the price.
A laptop with i9 13900HX, 32GB DDR5, RTX 4070 8GB 140W cost 2300-2400 €.
This Strix Halo shouldn't cost more than that or I don't think It will be a good buy.

The real question is battery life, since while it's a 2.5D part, there are still d2d caveats.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

After some time maybe. It's more likely to start as being very rare and very expensive going by how laptop manufacturers currently position dGPU-less laptops with the latest AMD chips...

Just the APU doesn't look to be that expensive, Asus ROG ALLY's price is pretty decent.
There is not big enough volume, so It's not surprising OEMs are putting APUs in the more premium laptops, where they have larger profits.
Strix Halo is aimed a lot higher performance wise than Phoenix. At this performance level the competition(Intel+Nvidia) is also put in pretty decent laptops, that's why I would expect more sane prices for Strix Halo vs competition, but I could be mistaken.

The real question is battery life, since while it's a 2.5D part, there are still d2d caveats.

For me, this is not very important. I need the portability, but I don't really use my laptop often unplugged.
The more powerful laptops are not famous for their battery capabilities, but It's true some have pretty decent runtimes.
Dell XPS 17 9730 RTX 4070 managed running for 10 hours during Wifi surfing test, but had only a 60Hz panel. This is by far the best I could find, some managed a still decent 7-8 hours, and other not even 5.

 

[LightningZ71]

Somehow, I'm expecting a Strix Halo chip to also be in a console. It's not unbelievable that there could be multiple third party consoles running Windows 11 on Strix Halo that produce roughly equivalent game performance to the PS5 and Xbox Series X. If we include a generic PCIe 5 SSD and sufficient RAM, there's really not a lot holding them back.

MS would actually like that as it would enable them to get out of the money loosing hardware business. Don't know how Sony would react. There's no predicting Nintendo. Valve can be as agnostic as they want to.

 

[Exist50]

Somehow, I'm expecting a Strix Halo chip to also be in a console. It's not unbelievable that there could be multiple third party consoles running Windows 11 on Strix Halo that produce roughly equivalent game performance to the PS5 and Xbox Series X. If we include a generic PCIe 5 SSD and sufficient RAM, there's really not a lot holding them back.

MS would actually like that as it would enable them to get out of the money loosing hardware business. Don't know how Sony would react. There's no predicting Nintendo. Valve can be as agnostic as they want to.

Sounds pretty similar to the idea behind Steam Machines.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Somehow, I'm expecting a Strix Halo chip to also be in a console

No, it's a new mobile swimlane.

MS would actually like that as it would enable them to get out of the money loosing hardware business

They're most definitely not planning on doing that.

 

[LightningZ71]

That swimlan is going to have to have a first class partner to produce a product of sufficient quality to match the expected price tag. I speculate that it could be another line of MS surface devices, Lenovo touchpad z series, or a premium dell product.

As for XBox, I guess MS just likes loosing money on certain things.

 

[adroc_thurston]

That swimlan is going to have to have a first class partner to produce a product of sufficient quality to match the expected price tag. I speculate that it could be another line of MS surface devices, Lenovo touchpad z series, or a premium dell product.

Yes, Mx Pro something competition is the idea behind that part.

As for XBox, I guess MS just likes loosing money on certain things.

Yea I mean, they're literally burnings tens of billions of dollars trying to get ActiBlizz while announcing a new round of layoffs.
MS is just MS.

 

[moinmoin]

For MS it's all about Azure since quite some time already. Windows, Office and all hardware efforts have become ploys to get more users into the Azure ecosystem one way or another.

 

[Exist50]

For MS it's all about Azure since quite some time already. Windows, Office and all hardware efforts have become ploys to get more users into the Azure ecosystem one way or another.

I think there's some truth to that, but they're heavily pushing AI on the client side as well. No doubt it will be deeply integrated into Windows and Office in the not-so-distant future. There's a reason Intel and AMD are suddenly so concerned with it. This first gen isn't good for much more than Windows Studio effects, but I think we'll see big jumps with Strix Point. It's quite possible we see a future where the AI accelerator is as big and important as the GPU.

 

[moinmoin]

I think there's some truth to that, but they're heavily pushing AI on the client side as well.

That's a newer development/toy.

It's kind of funny how much AI has blown up recently. AI has been part of mobile phones for ages and nobody really cared (at least compared to today's extend). Windows ARM added support for it because ARM SoC had that IP block. Then came ChatGPT (with Microsoft being a major investor) and mostly Nvidia is riding a huge wave since.

I got the impression AMD was working on this topic for longer already, after all the work on integrating Xlinix' AI Engine is what led to the merger with Xilinx etc.

Personally I think the application of AI that Su lined out at the last FAD, using AI as a shortcut to first pinpoint a reduced workload set where then traditional compute is used for precise results, may well be a sensible approach in many areas.

 

[Exist50]

Windows ARM added support for it because ARM SoC had that IP block. Then

It's the other way around. Microsoft is pushing ARM so hard because Qualcomm is willing to give them what Intel and AMD have been unable to. Things like low power laptops and, yes, AI acceleration. Their involvement with Open AI is just another facet of their ambitions in that area.

I got the impression AMD was working on this topic for longer already, after all the work on integrating Xlinix' AI Engine is what led to the merger with Xilinx etc.

I'm sure that was part of the equation, but Xilinx has a lot of IP that's useful to AMD, on top of synergies with the FPGA business. I definitely think we'll see them greatly expand their accelerator support in subsequent gens. This is just them testing the waters.

Personally I think the application of AI that Su lined out at the last FAD, using AI as a shortcut to first pinpoint a reduced workload set where then traditional compute is used for precise results, may well be a sensible approach in many areas.

From a Windows perspective, at least, I think the roadmap for the next couple of years is pretty clear. Right now with these ~10TOPS accelerators, it's mostly video and audio. But they ultimately would like to have copilot-like features baked into Windows. That's going to require a lot more compute.

 

[adroc_thurston]

That's going to require a lot more compute.

It requires more memory than anything mainstream laptop would ever have.
MS is delusional.

 

[yuri69]

The current edge/notebook AI hype brings back AMD memories.

Do you remember all those super interesting accelerated things we were exposed to at those Fusion Dev Summits? So much Microsoft, so much heterogenous, so much APU, so much faster, so much notebooks, so much wow.

A decade later we are pretty much struggling to accelerate like anything. Drivers regularly breaking browser HW acceleration, OpenCL kernels being rather disabled due instability, etc.