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 My advice to everyone: treat the old APU rumours as being out of date.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The APU of dreams will always remain a dream.

I'm sure the engineers would love to design one but they probably get vetoed by the business/marketing people. Only company that would design a decent APU is one that isn't selling dGPUs so no conflict of interests. Hence Apple.

 

[jpiniero]

It's so frustrating that consumers never have what they want.
These APUs with small GPU are a waste. AMD could design one with only C cores giving space on the die to more CUs, but they'll never do this.

Most Consumers don't want that. But if they do, they don't want to pay for it... as seen from this thread.

 

[trivik12]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1729465837344506135

7940HS was at 2485/11829.

AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS Benchmarks - Geekbench

 

[Shivansps]

Most Consumers don't want that. But if they do, they don't want to pay for it... as seen from this thread.

We need ARM to bite into AMD APU area, then you will see that how all these problems with costs and prices disappear overnight.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Might be my first AM5 build.

I love iGPUs, going all the way back to my Amigas.

 

[qmech]

It's so frustrating that consumers never have what they want.
These APUs with small GPU are a waste. AMD could design one with only C cores giving space on the die to more CUs, but they'll never do this.

The APU of dreams will always remain a dream.

What's the market in desktop for a large iGPU?

There's a very real ceiling as to how much AMD could charge for such a "beast" - namely the cost of a comparable CPU with a cheap dedicated GPU.

The simple fact is that you can get a GPU for very little money that kicks 780m's pants.

In a mobile setting, the power savings and space savings can make it a worthwhile trade-off, but for desktops it's just a very hard sell.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What's the market in desktop for a large iGPU?

OEM and S.I. That's why they got Cezanne before retail/DIY.

 

[Doug S]

I'm sure the engineers would love to design one but they probably get vetoed by the business/marketing people. Only company that would design a decent APU is one that isn't selling dGPUs so no conflict of interests. Hence Apple.

Why would AMD care whether you buy their GPU as part of your CPU purchase or separately? The latter gives you the opportunity to go with their competitor, so it makes sense to limit the number of people who want a discrete GPU to avoid helping their competitor. The problem is that the demand for more GPU performance above that which you can already buy with your CPU is limited, so taping out a separate design for that didn't make sense. With a chiplet approach the math changes, so I think you will see integrated GPUs move higher up the performance scale - but they still have to see a big enough market to make it worth offering a SKU so they'll move higher up but not all the way up.

The market for entry level discrete GPUs disappeared years ago when GPUs started getting built into the CPU. Chiplets from both AMD and Intel will kill the market for midrange GPUs, leaving only the high end for discrete GPUs a few years from now.

 

[Shivansps]

What's the market in desktop for a large iGPU?

There's a very real ceiling as to how much AMD could charge for such a "beast" - namely the cost of a comparable CPU with a cheap dedicated GPU.

The simple fact is that you can get a GPU for very little money that kicks 780m's pants.

In a mobile setting, the power savings and space savings can make it a worthwhile trade-off, but for desktops it's just a very hard sell.

one of these days someone will have to explain me the logic behind a dgpu being cheaper than a IGP because APU have to be expensive. It makes no sense.

 

[jpiniero]

The market for entry level discrete GPUs disappeared years ago when GPUs started getting built into the CPU.

People have been saying that for years... and only the opposite has been happening. I think what goes on currently is Intel offers (off model) leaky or otherwise partially busted IGPs for a modest discount off the normal price... and that's enough to make enough pricing room for the entry level dGPU. Which is obviously a lot faster in gaming. To compete, AMD has to do the same thing. There's plenty of Phoenix laptops with 4050s or even the 3050 6 GB.

 

[Thunder 57]

one of these days someone will have to explain me the logic behind a dgpu being cheaper than a IGP because APU have to be expensive. It makes no sense.

What would you pay for a 7600 with near RX 7600 performance? Or maybe a 5600X with 6600XT performance? Even if AMD could do it almost no one would pay what they would be charging for them.

 

[Shivansps]

People have been saying that for years... and only the opposite has been happening. I think what goes on currently is Intel offers (off model) leaky or otherwise partially busted IGPs for a modest discount off the normal price... and that's enough to make enough pricing room for the entry level dGPU. Which is obviously a lot faster in gaming. To compete, AMD has to do the same thing. There's plenty of Phoenix laptops with 4050s or even the 3050 6 GB.

Things are a lot better now than they were before Vega. It is just that Intel was unable to compite on IGP, and AMD even gave itself the luxury of making the IGP smaller because they could compensate with clocks and completely avoid launching RMB on desktop because they had no need.
If things have slowed down is because on APU AMD is right sitting on a Skylake vs FX scenario.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If things have slowed down is because on APU AMD is right sitting on a Skylake vs FX scenario.

Elaborate please. Are you suggesting they are dragging their feet due to lack of competition?

 

[igor_kavinski]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1729465837344506135

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/3757842?baseline=3692954

That's roughly 12700K DDR4 desktop performance in a laptop!

 

[DrMrLordX]

We need ARM to bite into AMD APU area, then you will see that how all these problems with costs and prices disappear overnight.

Nobody wants that market, at least not that badly.

 

[hemedans]

People have been saying that for years... and only the opposite has been happening. I think what goes on currently is Intel offers (off model) leaky or otherwise partially busted IGPs for a modest discount off the normal price... and that's enough to make enough pricing room for the entry level dGPU. Which is obviously a lot faster in gaming. To compete, AMD has to do the same thing. There's plenty of Phoenix laptops with 4050s or even the 3050 6 GB.

There used to be GT x10M, x20M, X30M, X40M etc all disappear now the lowest you can get is xx50 series.

 

[Glo.]

What's the market in desktop for a large iGPU?

There's a very real ceiling as to how much AMD could charge for such a "beast" - namely the cost of a comparable CPU with a cheap dedicated GPU.

The simple fact is that you can get a GPU for very little money that kicks 780m's pants.

In a mobile setting, the power savings and space savings can make it a worthwhile trade-off, but for desktops it's just a very hard sell.

In desktop?

You mean desktop DIY, or in desktop form factor device?

 

[Glo.]

one of these days someone will have to explain me the logic behind a dgpu being cheaper than a IGP because APU have to be expensive. It makes no sense.

dGPU actually should have higher manufacturing costs.

PCB, VRAM, VRMs, PMICs, etc.

All of that goes away for any on-CPU-Package solution.

Tricky thing will be when the APUs/SOCs will become much more complex and will have integrated RAM on CPU packages.

 

[Glo.]

What would you pay for a 7600 with near RX 7600 performance? Or maybe a 5600X with 6600XT performance? Even if AMD could do it almost no one would pay what they would be charging for them.

APUs wil ALWAYS be product segmented accordingly to the performance of the CPU, with slight price margin, above similar solutions but without the GPU.

 

[Thunder 57]

APUs wil ALWAYS be product segmented accordingly to the performance of the CPU, with slight price margin, above similar solutions but without the GPU.

It's been the opposite so far. The 5700G costs less than the 5700X. Of course they are different dies and the 5700G has half the L3 cache.

The problem with @Shivansps "uber APU" is that it would need expensive memory in the form of cache or a small amount of HBM. Ideally it would then be paired with fast main memory. AMD can't sell a part that has a 7600 CPU performance combined with say a vanilla RX 6600 for less than the price of both (about ~$400) which would be out of his desired price range anyway.

Sounds like he wants a PS5 type of APU but that just isn't possible. That one is using GDDR which isn't really an option for a PC which would need some sort of fancy memory to feed the GPU part of it. Also not possible because of the massive volume discount I'm sure Sony/MS get.

 

[Glo.]

It's been the opposite so far. The 5700G costs less than the 5700X. Of course they are different dies and the 5700G has half the L3 cache.

The problem with @Shivansps "uber APU" is that it would need expensive memory in the form of cache or a small amount of HBM. Ideally it would then be paired with fast main memory. AMD can't sell a part that has a 7600 CPU performance combined with say a vanilla RX 6600 for less than the price of both (about ~$400) which would be out of his desired price range anyway.

Sounds like he wants a PS5 type of APUbut that just isn't possible. That ones is using GDDR which isn't really an option for a PC which would need some sort of fancy memory to feed the GPU part of it. Also tnot possible because of the massive volume discount I'm sure Sony/MS get.

https://www.amd.com/en/desktop-kits/amd-4700s

Have you heard about this?

Its PS5 APU with memory on the board, but without the GPU, sold as a desktop kit.

Make the GPU available and you are good to go. GDDR6 is just a faster,, higher bandwidth, higher latency memory format that system can use. Thats all.

 

[Thunder 57]

https://www.amd.com/en/desktop-kits/amd-4700s

Have you heard about this?

Its PS5 APU with memory on the board, but without the GPU, sold as a desktop kit.

Make the GPU available and you are good to go. GDDR6 is just a faster,, higher bandwidth, higher latency memory format that system can use. Thats all.

Yes, that's why I said "That one is using GDDR which isn't really an option for a PC". It exists, but gets destroyed in application benchmarks because of the huge latency when CPU's need low latency vs bandwidth. Tomshardware had no shortage of cons when it came to reviewing it. It could be useful for gaming on an APU but they wouldn't give you the GPU part for free, that's for sure.

 

[Shivansps]

Elaborate please. Are you suggesting they are dragging their feet due to lack of competition?

They made their IGP smaller with Renoir at the same time they allowed for faster ram than DDR4-3200 (Picasso was kinda stuck there) because they could compensate with clock, it dosent get any more clear than that. Then they skipped RMB on desktop because they had no need to launch it.

It's been the opposite so far. The 5700G costs less than the 5700X. Of course they are different dies and the 5700G has half the L3 cache.

The problem with @Shivansps "uber APU" is that it would need expensive memory in the form of cache or a small amount of HBM. Ideally it would then be paired with fast main memory. AMD can't sell a part that has a 7600 CPU performance combined with say a vanilla RX 6600 for less than the price of both (about ~$400) which would be out of his desired price range anyway.

Sounds like he wants a PS5 type of APU but that just isn't possible. That one is using GDDR which isn't really an option for a PC which would need some sort of fancy memory to feed the GPU part of it. Also not possible because of the massive volume discount I'm sure Sony/MS get.

To be clear, i dont want an "uber APU". Off course that depends on the definition of "uber APU". That would be very expensive, i know that. As in your example an APU with 7600 perf and RX 7600 igp would be to be more expensive than a 7600+RX7600, no matter what the cost is. Logic alone tells you that, you need to sell the RX7600 dies, OEM need to sell the gpus, etc.

Vega is really old now, we should not have to pay more to get a boost in performance, this is why i said i want to see this 8500G vs the 5600G and 3400G, and even the 2400G. I dont think Phoenix is bad, that will depend on the final specs, performance and prices. What i do belive is that the so called "8500G" should be the 8300G, and the "8300G" should be a sub $100 Athlon. Due to the small IGP and, well lets see how those hybrid cores work. They are pushing Phoenix 2 too high, what allows them to price big Phoenix higher.

 

[Thunder 57]

They made their IGP smaller with Rembrandt at the same time they allowed for faster ram than DDR4-3200 (Picasso was kinda stuck there) because they could compensate with clock, it dosent get any more clear than that. Then they skipped RMB on desktop because they had no need to launch it.


To be clear, i dont want an "uber APU". Off course that depends on the definition of "uber APU". That would be very expensive, i know that. As in your example an APU with 7600 perf and RX 7600 igp would be to be more expensive than a 7600+RX7600, no matter what the cost is. Logic alone tells you that, you need to sell the RX7600 dies, OEM need to sell the gpus, etc.

Vega is really old now, we should not have to pay more to get a boost in performance, this is why i said i want to see this 8500G vs the 5600G and 3400G, and even the 2400G. I dont think Phoenix is bad, that will depend on the final specs, performance and prices. What i do belive is that the so called "8500G" should be the 8300G, and the "8300G" should be a sub $100 Athlon. Due to the small IGP and, well lets see how those hybrid cores work. They are pushing Phoenix 2 too high, what allows them to price big Phoenix higher.

I certainly understand where you are coming from. Sometimes the market does not address what people want. For example, I would love mobile Ryzen H models without a dGPU. The iGPU would be fine espeically if given more power and the CPU could also boost longer. Unfortunatly it seems everyone thinks Ryzen H laptops are for gamers. This have probably changed a bit since I last looked, but still seems to be true more often than not.

I think a big problem is memory bandwidth (or lack thereof). AMD could put a few more CU's on to their chips but eventually they would need to add something like Infinity Cache. That would bump up the price too much. If the leak is right, there might be a nice bump in iGPU performance:

Spoiler: Graph here

I'm not sure what to think until we get reviews. I would like to see more iGPU on Zen 4. What might be interesting is if they can make a 7800X3D that allowed the iGPU to use that Vcache. I think I've had one too many beers to be speculating on that though.

 

[igor_kavinski]

What might be interesting is if they can make a 7800X3D that allowed the iGPU to use that Vcache. I think I've had one too many beers to be speculating on that though.

That will just force the tiny iGPU to bang its head even harder and curse its designers even more.

It will yell, "What??? You don't even want to let me wait and relax until data comes from system RAM? How cruel are you????"