Question AMD Rembrandt/Zen 3+ APU Speculation and Discussion

[Thibsie]

Generally XMG and Clevo/Tongfang resellers get their machines ready well after the big OEMs. They sell a fair number of laptops, but nowhere near the usual names like Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer, and so on, which also had their machines (prototypes) at CES. At the announcement AMD said they expected to see the first laptops with Rembrandt on the market in February. So I think even if they don't make it for February March is a safe bet for these brands.

Sure but some models from OEM never arrived un some markets e.g. X13 AMD g2 in Europe.

 

[leoneazzurro]

Well this is true and unfortunate but that also does not mean that with so many OEMs we will get no model at all in Europe or US in a reasonable time.

 

[Thibsie]

Well this is true and unfortunate but that also does not mean that with so many OEMs we will get no model at all in Europe or US in a reasonable time.

Of course. But it means even now the situation isn't back to normal with previous generation.

 

[leoneazzurro]

IIRC there were always some models unique to some markets, in any case even last year with Cezanne XMG had huge problems with the actual delivery of the CPUs, and while the first shipments were in March they could fulfill quite few orders, and the supply was incredibly tight until June (which caused issues with customers). A brief history here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/XMG_gg/comments/l64dgp
Quite possible they (and Clevo/Tongfang) want to avoid that.
In the meanwhile first models on 5000 mobile series were out in February (Asus, Lenovo came out a month later) with limited availability.
One can hope that with one more year, less pressure on 6-7nm and a faster productive process (6nm) the supply will be better .

 

[ahimsa42]

interesting analysis of potential 6800U performance:

 

[izaic3]

Do we know when the Rembrandt embargo lifts?

 

[radpilot]

I have the same question.
Seems very few know since I couldn't find an answer so far.

 

[leoneazzurro]

I think it's more tied to when the actual laptops will be available. Last year the first review on AT was in very late January with a pre-production ASUS notebook with 5980HS. Probably this month we will know more about them.

 

[ahimsa42]

i wonder if one of the laptop makers made a deal with AMD to be the exculsive RMB provider for a period of time? i believe there has been things like this done in the past.

 

[izaic3]

i wonder if one of the laptop makers made a deal with AMD to be the exculsive RMB provider for a period of time? i believe there has been things like this done in the past.

Idk, but I doubt it. Amd mobile has momentum now. I do know that Lenovo is using an exclusive chip in its Z series Thinkpads.

 

[Thunder 57]

i wonder if one of the laptop makers made a deal with AMD to be the exculsive RMB provider for a period of time? i believe there has been things like this done in the past.

Pretty sure it was Lenovo that got an exclusive agreement for the 5800HS for a period of time. It had the same clocks as the HX but used 10W less.

 

[izaic3]

Pretty sure it was Lenovo that got an exclusive agreement for the 5800HS for a period of time. It had the same clocks as the HX but used 10W less.

Yeah, Lenovo and Asus took a risk with Amd mobile a couple years back, Lenovo including Ryzen in their Thinkpad and Legion lineups, and Asus with their ROG Zephyrus 14 etc.

 

[Joe NYC]

I think the most important customer for Rembrandt would be Microsoft Surface.

It would only be fair, after AMD went so far out on the limb and added the Big Brother / Deep State / Social Credit Score Malware into Rembrandt

 

[izaic3]

I think the most important customer for Rembrandt would be Microsoft Surface.

It would only be fair, after AMD went so far out on the limb and added the Big Brother / Deep State / Social Credit Score Malware into Rembrandt

Thank goodness Lenovo is disabling this by default in their Thinkpads.

 

[ahimsa42]

I think the most important customer for Rembrandt would be Microsoft Surface.

It would only be fair, after AMD went so far out on the limb and added the Big Brother / Deep State / Social Credit Score Malware into Rembrandt

are you speaking of the Pluto security feature? how bad is it really & can laptop makers actually disable it?

 

[maddie]

are you speaking of the Pluto security feature? how bad is it really & can laptop makers actually disable it?

I suggest you read this. (last part of article). If true, this a problem.

AMD’s new CPUs may be safe to deploy

AMD could have had a great CES for CPUs but it was tainted by two self-inflicted wounds.

semiaccurate.com

A quote: much more in article
So what is Pluton? It is basically a TPM with added functionality to allow updates and ‘secure’ your PC “from the chip to the cloud”. If you are paying attention these things should scare the hell out of you and are unacceptable for a whole host of reasons. That said the tortured bullet points used to sell it are masterfully crafted to both spread fear and drive people to give up their rights for ‘security’. Don’t buy it either metaphorically or literally.

The first problem with Pluton is the keys. Key management is a problem for every organization, keeping track of keys for all PCs is an untenable nightmare so AMD/Microsoft did something clever here. When you first fire up the chip, it generates it’s own key and burns that into hardware. This is smart because you can’t change it. It is also dumb because you can’t change it. SemiAccurate doesn’t know if there is a mechanism to fuse off a key and generate a new one but we suspect not. At least there isn’t a publicly known single key for all systems, Sony we are looking at you. Among others.

So the keys are generated correctly and made permanent, and assuming no hacks or ways to pull them, all good. But remember that bit about chip to cloud? Remember the furor that made Intel back down from unique serial numbers for the P4 chips? Now you have a unique serial number for your PC that you can’t see, you can’t change, and since it is the basis for security attestation on the web, at least if Microsoft gets it’s way, anything you do to hide it will lock you out of services. So now we have the return of the unique tracking number that is permanent, hidden, and unblockable. Will this even fly in light of EU cookie/tracking requirements? I have no idea but it is worth digging into.

 

[ahimsa42]

so what's the answer then? i have never bought an intel CPU and would hate to have to skip RMB because of this. what in the world was AMD thinking to include Pluton? have they turned the corner & just become another intel? how long until intel does something similar too?

 

[maddie]

so what's the answer then? i have never bought an intel CPU and would hate to have to skip RMB because of this. what in the world was AMD thinking to include Pluton? have they turned the corner & just become another intel? how long until intel does something similar too?

For what it's worth, I think this is the future for both Intel and AMD. Skipping Rembrandt won't matter as it will be there going forward. Too many other things happening in the world appear consistent with this being implemented. Nuff said.

 

[eek2121]

so what's the answer then? i have never bought an intel CPU and would hate to have to skip RMB because of this. what in the world was AMD thinking to include Pluton? have they turned the corner & just become another intel? how long until intel does something similar too?

You can very likely turn the chip off in BIOS.

 

[moinmoin]

so what's the answer then? i have never bought an intel CPU and would hate to have to skip RMB because of this. what in the world was AMD thinking to include Pluton? have they turned the corner & just become another intel? how long until intel does something similar too?

This is Microsoft defining the Windows hardware ecosystem, like with Secure Boot and TPM before. Microsoft mentioned before that Pluton is not supported under operation systems different from Windows (11 I'd think) and there are specifically no plans to support Linux. So as long as people equate PC with Windows we will keep getting stuff like this.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

So the keys are generated correctly and made permanent, and assuming no hacks or ways to pull them, all good. But remember that bit about chip to cloud? Remember the furor that made Intel back down from unique serial numbers for the P4 chips? Now you have a unique serial number for your PC that you can’t see, you can’t change, and since it is the basis for security attestation on the web, at least if Microsoft gets it’s way, anything you do to hide it will lock you out of services. So now we have the return of the unique tracking number that is permanent, hidden, and unblockable. Will this even fly in light of EU cookie/tracking requirements? I have no idea but it is worth digging into.

I doubt this will make much difference either way, since PCs already have serial numbers, and UUIDs. This is just another layer under that.

This is Microsoft defining the Windows hardware ecosystem, like with Secure Boot and TPM before. Microsoft mentioned before that Pluton is not supported under operation systems different from Windows (11 I'd think) and there are specifically no plans to support Linux. So as long as people equate PC with Windows we will keep getting stuff like this.

At least we're still free to run another OS of our choice. For the moment anyway.

If worst comes to worst, I suppose there is always Pis which you can run a trusted OS on.

 

[ahimsa42]

not much going on here until RMB release info & igpu benchmarks surface so when i saw this article it reinforced to me that perhaps going with RMB until Zen5 in 2025 & skipping Phoenix is the best bet. in addition to PCIE 5.0 SSD, it is possible (likely?) that Zen5 will include RDNA3 among other improvements.

Silicon Motion To Intro PCIe Gen 5 SM8366 & SM2508 High-End Controllers For Enterprise & Consumers SSDs First In 2022-2023 Followed By Mainstream SM2507 In 2024

Silicon Motion confirmed that it plans to launch its first PCIe Gen 5 SSD controllers for Enterprise first before heading into the consumer segment.

wccftech.com

 

[izaic3]

Intel 1280p Leak

Looks like Rembrandt is going to have some tough competition. I'm not sure the 6800u will beat those scores, though I imagine it will use less power.

 

[tamz_msc]

Intel 1280p Leak

Looks like Rembrandt is going to have some tough competition. I'm not sure the 6800u will beat those scores, though I imagine it will use less power.

I've said this before, RMB can only win against the 15W -U parts which have 2P and 8E cores. It doesn't stand a chance when it comes to the 6P+8E i7-1280P. The situation with the 4P + 8E parts is not clear - my guess is that the 6-core RMB will be behind those parts, while the 8-core will barely manage to come out ahead.

 

[ahimsa42]

I've said this before, RMB can only win against the 15W -U parts which have 2P and 8E cores. It doesn't stand a chance when it comes to the 6P+8E i7-1280P. The situation with the 4P + 8E parts is not clear - my guess is that the 6-core RMB will be behind those parts, while the 8-core will barely manage to come out ahead.

for CPU only perhaps but the real key is RDNA2. is there any way that intel's igpu comes anywhere close to RMB? aside from the benchmark #'s, how many users are going to notice the CPU difference in real world applications anyway?