AnandtechAMD Carrizo ExcavatorReview

[Blitzvogel]

Maybe AMD should quit with the single memory controller nonsense and upgrade whatever successor to Carrizo with a second memory controller, therefore making single channel complete utter nonsense regardless of APU. Next generation low end APUs (if it's not a cut-down dual core Zen) will need more GPU compute performance anyways, so the bandwidth will be welcome.

 

[Abwx]

Maybe AMD should quit with the single memory controller nonsense and upgrade whatever successor to Carrizo with a second memory controller, therefore making single channel complete utter nonsense regardless of APU. Next generation low end APUs (if it's not a cut-down dual core Zen) will need more GPU compute performance anyways, so the bandwidth will be welcome.

The nonsense are the myths that are spread by misleading reviews, all the laptops tested by AT are dual channel...

HP Elitebook 745 G2
HP Elitebook 745 G3
Toshiba Satellite E45DW-C4210
HP Pavilion 17z-g100
Lenovo Y700

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-user-experience-amd-carrizo-thoroughly-tested/12

And yet he s writing that there are single channel in the lot against all evidences, i guess that he didnt even bother to google a little...

 

[MrTeal]

The nonsense are the myths that are spread by misleading reviews, all the laptops tested by AT are dual channel...



http://www.anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-user-experience-amd-carrizo-thoroughly-tested/12

And yet he s writing that there are single channel in the lot against all evidences, i guess that he didnt even bother to google a little...

You just don't give up, do you?
He's writing that those are single channel laptops because
a) They're running with a single DIMM, and are thus running in single channel mode
b) They're running with two DIMMs but those two are tied to a single memory channel, hence they run in single channel mode.

 

[Abwx]

You just don't give up, do you?
He's writing that those are single channel laptops because
a) They're running with a single DIMM, and are thus running in single channel mode
b) They're running with two DIMMs but those two are tied to a single memory channel, hence they run in single channel mode.

It is years that there s scores of Intel based laptops with a single dimm delivered, i didnt see that he was testing thoses laptops to highlight the expected perfs from thoses products...

The B) option is fud since none of the laptops he presented is sold in a single channel configuration and there seem to be about none, at least here in Europe.

The consumer would indeed be much more interested by the perfs when adding a second dimm, unless of course adding 30$ to a 500-600$ laptop is out of means...

 

[superstition]

intel taking an ownership stake in AMD would show in intel's balance sheet as an asset, so it would be on intel's books. intel would show up in AMD's stock register, but i'm not sure a lot of lay people consider a listing of shareholders as 'the books'

There are ways to exert control that are less than obvious.

Someone mentioned "conspiracy theories" as if corporations' mandate to deliver profit to shareholders isn't a mandate to conspire against other corporations (and consumers) to get more profit. Profit means selling something to people for more than what it's worth. That means you need to convince them to be exploited somehow.

The actual laughable "conspiracy theory" is that corporations are benevolent fuzzy bunny rabbits who are extremely generous and only have the needs and desires of the consumer at heart.

Like it or not, there is a war between corporations and a war between the consumer and corporations. Consumers have to fight to get more for their dollar which includes getting more of what they want for their dollar rather than more of what suits the corporation for its profit motive. Any other way of looking at things is either naiveté or astroturf.

The following is somewhat speculative:

It's easier to be sympathetic toward AMD because, being much weaker than Intel and Nvidia in the market, it has to give consumers more for their dollars or face complete oblivion*. Recognition of this is often mistaken for fanboyism, although there is that, too. But, if AMD is controlled by Intel to a significant enough extent then the products it produces may be more in Intel's interests than in the interests of the consumer. This could explain why AMD makes decisions that seem to intentionally hurt its competitiveness. It makes more sense than the "AMD is filled with incompetent highly-skilled professionals" hypothesis that is floated here a lot.

If AMD is controlled significantly enough by Intel then it is just a quasi-subsidiary of it and its existence benefits Intel more than it does consumers. There was an old joke about Apple being the R&D branch of Microsoft. That was based on the same idea. Microsoft even bailed Apple out much later. At the time it was more interested in Internet Explorer's dominance and, especially, profits from MS Office on the Mac — rather than concerns over Apple siphoning too much of its Windows profit. There is also the monopoly issue which Apple helped to defend against.

*Although a company like VIA in particular seems to show that the economy of scale can be a big problem. Even if VIA wanted to provide a better value in low-end x86 CPUs than Intel and AMD it doesn't appear to have the ability to get there in its current state. Similarly, AMD has been stuck with 32nm SOI for its FX chips for too long.

The macro view:

An MD said, when commenting on the difference between competence (i.e. Machiavelli) and incompetence (i.e. Williams syndrome) that, for humanity, competence means sociopathy. This explains why profit-seeking is seen as so important and virtuous and why everything, including that, has to be a war. The "best" people are those who are the most skillful in deploying maximal sociopathy. When those with Williams are seen as the best humanity has to offer then perhaps we can begin to believe the narrative of the benign fuzzy bunny corporation.

 

[Shivansps]

It is years that there s scores of Intel based laptops with a single dimm delivered, i didnt see that he was testing thoses laptops to highlight the expected perfs from thoses products...

The B) option is fud since none of the laptops he presented is sold in a single channel configuration and there seem to be about none, at least here in Europe.

The consumer would indeed be much more interested by the perfs when adding a second dimm, unless of course adding 30$ to a 500-600$ laptop is out of means...

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5555-laptop/pd?ref=PD_Family

 

[Abwx]

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5555-laptop/pd?ref=PD_Family

I guess that it s the convenient tree that manage to hide a whole wood, not only it s a marginal offering but about all Carrizo based laptops that are avilable are from other manufacturers, and all are dual channel..

https://geizhals.de/?cat=nb&xf=6749_13#xf_top

You can see that the model you linked isnt even avalable in regular selling points here..

 

[Soulkeeper]

A woman I know just got one of these Dell 5555
She's coming from a 2008 dell core2 duo with 3GB of mem and 250GB drive.
She overpayed at around $800 from qvc (payment plan + all software/support).
She don't game. She only checks email, looks at pictures, reads news, pays bills, etc.
Should I tell her to return it ?
She has 90 days to decide if she don't want it.

 

[Arachnotronic]

A woman I know just got one of these Dell 5555
She's coming from a 2008 dell core2 duo with 3GB of mem and 250GB drive.
She overpayed at around $800 from qvc (payment plan + all software/support).
She don't game. She only checks email, looks at pictures, reads news, pays bills, etc.
Should I tell her to return it ?
She has 90 days to decide if she don't want it.

Nah, if she's happy with it, why create hassle*?


*unless she is in a very tight financial situation and every penny counts. In which case, hassle is worthwhile.

 

[Shivansps]

I guess that it s the convenient tree that manage to hide a whole wood, not only it s a marginal offering but about all Carrizo based laptops that are avilable are from other manufacturers, and all are dual channel..

https://geizhals.de/?cat=nb&xf=6749_13#xf_top

You can see that the model you linked isnt even avalable in regular selling points here..

I whould not call the entire Dell Inspiron lineup as a "tree".... thats a full OEM.

 

[cbn]

Looking at the specs on that Dell 5555 (15.6") I noticed it is .95" thick and 15.6" chassis:

(Maybe if Dell had more A8 and A10 Carrizo chips they could also release it as 35W?)

For comparison, here is a 15.6" Dell with i5 5200U and Nvidia 820M listed at 1" thick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9B53T99706

A 15.6" Lenovo with i5 5200U and R7 M360 at .97" thick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232793

A 15.6" ASUS with i5 6200U and Nvidia 940M at 1.02" thick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834321235

 

[The Stilt]

Hard to believe Carrizo would be short supply by any means. The yields on the 28nm HPP should be extremely high at this point. *Should*, but you can never be sure when GlobalFoundries is involved

 

[dark zero]

Maybe AMD should quit with the single memory controller nonsense and upgrade whatever successor to Carrizo with a second memory controller, therefore making single channel complete utter nonsense regardless of APU. Next generation low end APUs (if it's not a cut-down dual core Zen) will need more GPU compute performance anyways, so the bandwidth will be welcome.

Agreed. No one needs single channel. Look at Cherry Trail. Due having a single channel and mediocre CPU performance, it ruined a whole gen.

 

[cbn]

Found another Dell 15" Inspiron (5558):

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-15-5558-i7-5500U/dp/B0185HS5PQ

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Inspiron-15-5558-Notebook-Review.145836.0.html

This one has the same chassis as the Carrizo one I mentioned in post #311, but has i5-5500U and 920M dGPU.

Operating System is Windows 7 Pro (includes Windows 10 Pro license).

Sweet!

So there is hope for this chassis.

Maybe we could get a 35W A8 or A10 Carrizo with dual channel DDR3 1600. (killing two birds with one stone by providing an upgrade in both TDP (35W vs. 15W) and memory channels (two vs. one) for this line of AMD laptop).

 

[The Stilt]

Most of the Carrizo motherboards appear to be built with 2 + 1 + 1 phase VRM. The AMD reference system and Lenovo Y700 use 3 + 2 + 1 phase VRM IIRC and even they can (and will) overheat at 35/42W TDP limit. There is no chance in hell these vanilla Carrizo systems could ever run at higher TDPs safely. That´s the very reason why I never released the tool to adjust the cTDP on Carrizo.

In most cases the power brick is also insufficient, so when the battery is flat it poses a potential fire hazard when the power brick capabilities are exceeded.

 

[cbn]

Most of the Carrizo motherboards appear to be built with 2 + 1 + 1 phase VRM. The AMD reference system and Lenovo Y700 use 3 + 2 + 1 phase VRM IIRC and even they can (and will) overheat at 35/42W TDP limit. There is no chance in hell these vanilla Carrizo systems could ever run at higher TDPs safely. That´s the very reason why I never released the tool to adjust the cTDP on Carrizo.

Yep, that is the impression I have been getting from reading your previous posts. (ie, that a new dedicated motherboard would be needed).

But if they could get enough chips.....then maybe extra design cost could be worth it to them?

Crossing my fingers AMD is sitting on a surplus of A8/A10 chips and someone gets inspired to break the mold here with Carrizo.

 

[Flash831]

When analyzing AMD and the OEM's for their treatment of Carrizo, I think many people are forgetting that there might be a more complex picture.

It's easy to understand what AMD needs, profit. However, equally important is something far less sexy, cost control. The last time AMD gambled big in 2012, they lost billions. Today the market has shrunk since 2012, and the competition (Intel) has a greater node-advancement (14nm vs 28nm) than it was back then (22nm vs 32 nm). So I think AMD is holding out farely well.

We are also standing in the doorstep to the 14nm-era. What AMD does not need in that era, is a bunch of obsolete inventory. Having some 28nm inventory even when 14nm products have launched in the market is inevitable, but it is in AMD's hands to control what that inventory will consist of.

Therefore I guess it is in AMD's best interest to get rid of their oldest products ASAP: Hawaii (inefficient), Puma+ (old, DDR3-limited) and some of their smallest GPU's (Oland, Pitcairn).

Carrizo and Fiji is still farily new and will be able to be upgraded in the next years (DDR4 and larger HBM), so even with 14nm products on the market AMD might still be able to sell these parts. But who in their right mind would buy a Puma+ (Carrizo-L) PC or a GCN 1.0/1.1 GPU when the next gen parts have arrived? D:

Therefore, I think what we are seeing right now (Carrizo being "sabotaged" with single channel DDR3 and 15w, and Fiji sales being cannibalised by the extremely price agressive R9 390) is AMD's and the OEM's attempt to clear the channel of soon-to-be-obsolete products that won't sell in one year.

 

[cbn]

When analyzing AMD and the OEM's for their treatment of Carrizo, I think many people are forgetting that there might be a more complex picture.

It's easy to understand what AMD needs, profit. However, equally important is something far less sexy, cost control. The last time AMD gambled big in 2012, they lost billions. Today the market has shrunk since 2012, and the competition (Intel) has a greater node-advancement (14nm vs 28nm) than it was back then (22nm vs 32 nm). So I think AMD is holding out farely well.

We are also standing in the doorstep to the 14nm-era. What AMD does not need in that era, is a bunch of obsolete inventory. Having some 28nm inventory even when 14nm products have launched in the market is inevitable, but it is in AMD's hands to control what that inventory will consist of.

Therefore I guess it is in AMD's best interest to get rid of their oldest products ASAP: Hawaii (inefficient), Puma+ (old, DDR3-limited) and some of their smallest GPU's (Oland, Pitcairn).

Carrizo and Fiji is still farily new and will be able to be upgraded in the next years (DDR4 and larger HBM), so even with 14nm products on the market AMD might still be able to sell these parts. But who in their right mind would buy a Puma+ (Carrizo-L) PC or a GCN 1.0/1.1 GPU when the next gen parts have arrived? D:

Therefore, I think what we are seeing right now (Carrizo being "sabotaged" with single channel DDR3 and 15w, and Fiji sales being cannibalised by the extremely price agressive R9 390) is AMD's and the OEM's attempt to clear the channel of soon-to-be-obsolete products that won't sell in one year.

I've noticed that some of 15W Carrizo laptops do come with an Oland dGPU.

So yes, how AMD is pricing mobile Oland vs. building up Carrizo @ 35W might be factoring in here.

With that mentioned, I am firm believer in the integration benefit of the APU (ie, to potentially make the laptop smaller than what it could be with CPU + 384sp dGPU) although I don't think we have seen the best implementation of that integration potential yet.

P.S. Regarding Oland, I would actually rather see that dGPU in greater numbers on desktop where AMD weak in value against Nvidia and their GT 730 GDDR5 (normally $50 to $55 after $10 rebate for the PNY version at Newegg).

 

[Dresdenboy]

A woman I know just got one of these Dell 5555
She's coming from a 2008 dell core2 duo with 3GB of mem and 250GB drive.
She overpayed at around $800 from qvc (payment plan + all software/support).
She don't game. She only checks email, looks at pictures, reads news, pays bills, etc.
Should I tell her to return it ?
She has 90 days to decide if she don't want it.

I don't like many shops due to this treatment of unexperienced customers. But as Arachnotronic said, if she is happy, it might be OK to keep it. And there are more factors adding to the experience. Watching pictures and managing them should feel more smooth with a CPU > Atom level, while the screen might cause better received image quality and viewing expierience. Then there is build quality etc. which on average correlates with price. The same experience might be found at $500 notebooks, but the best would be to have them side by side with the Dell and then decide.

Just recently I prevented a young girl with little money not to buy some $150 "1.6GHz quad core" ARM system (could be A7 or A9) with Android for doing homework. The company has a faked website with "Lorem ipsum" placeholder texts everywhere and no owner information. Battery life is ~3h. And I'm sure the build quality would fit to these first impressions. I still feel much better about your case.

 

[mikk]

Agreed. No one needs single channel. Look at Cherry Trail. Due having a single channel and mediocre CPU performance, it ruined a whole gen.

CHT supports Dualchannel.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Therefore, I think what we are seeing right now (Carrizo being "sabotaged" with single channel DDR3 and 15w, and Fiji sales being cannibalised by the extremely price agressive R9 390) is AMD's and the OEM's attempt to clear the channel of soon-to-be-obsolete products that won't sell in one year.

I might agree with you if you claimed that someone (not necessarily AMD) was trying to get rid of mobile dGPUs that they can't sell otherwise. AMD basically locked their own notebook ecosystem out of the low-end AMD mobile dGPU market by including such a potentially-powerful iGPU in Carrizo. But I think it is OEMs that had spares in the warehouse they wanted to get rid of, that they couldn't move elsewhere.

I don't agree on the memory or motherboard front, since I'm sure the OEMs have more 2x4Gb kits lying around in the back than they do 8Gb modules, and the 4Gb modules are closer to doing obsolete. As for motherboards, it's more to do with AMD allowing OEMs to design common platforms for Carrizo-L and Carrizo, that lead to this nonsense.

 

[mrmt]

It's easier to be sympathetic toward AMD because, being much weaker than Intel and Nvidia in the market, it has to give consumers more for their dollars or face complete oblivion*. Recognition of this is often mistaken for fanboyism, although there is that, too. But, if AMD is controlled by Intel to a significant enough extent then the products it produces may be more in Intel's interests than in the interests of the consumer. This could explain why AMD makes decisions that seem to intentionally hurt its competitiveness. It makes more sense than the "AMD is filled with incompetent highly-skilled professionals" hypothesis that is floated here a lot.

If Intel had a controlling stake at AMD it would show at least on AMD books, because they have to disclose who are the biggest shareholders and who appoints members of the BoD, so unless you and DrMrLordX assume that AMD executives are a bunch of drones aiming to kill the company for good, there isn't a chance in hell that Intel is remotely involved in AMD mismanagement.

That said, I don't think AMD executives seem to intentionally hurt the company with their decision. What it looks like is an incompetent, clueless management that seems to overstate their own capabilities and understate whatever difficulties they should face.

And why isn't there a change in management? The same incompetent guys making decisions now aren't competent enough to see how incompetent they are. The only time they made real money was when they brought onboard a lot of guys from other companies to key positions and most of these guys left. Unless there is a real management change, I don't expect this company to succeed, ever.

 

[superstition]

Hawaii (inefficient)

Hawaii's performance is hardly bad at higher resolutions in DX12, particularly considering its age.

 

[Shivansps]

I dont understand this, why AMD offers Carrizo-L that is 12 to 25W and them Carrizo at 12-35W this is BS, its clear to me that Carrizo in 15W is like a Skylake-Y.

 

[The Stilt]

I dont understand this, why AMD offers Carrizo-L that is 12 to 25W and them Carrizo at 12-35W this is BS, its clear to me that Carrizo in 15W is like a Skylake-Y.

Carrizo-L is Mullins, which supports cTDP between 12-25W. Each and every Carrizo has TDP of 15W, but they all support cTDP between 12-35W.

It is up to the ODM if they wish to implement cTDP or not. So far Lenovo is the only ODM who has implemented cTDP for Carrizo (Y700-15ACZ).