bitsandchipsNo Dual and Four Cores Zen CPUs, at least initially

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
136
Screw the quads anyway. Quads are now minimum, and any performance oriented PC person would love the chance to buy 6 or 8 cores at a reasonable price. There is not glory in going the minimum route anyway.
This is great news, because a lot of people will buy AMD 6 and 8 core chips and they will then become the expected standard for enthusiasts and gamers. People will feel like they are getting less with an Intel quad when they could have a Zen 6 or 8 core. Intel will then be compelled to lower prices on 6 and 8 core CPU's.
If Zen can soundly defeat my 3930k, I would like to have an AMD chip in my rig again after all these years, but with a CPU and platform lasting as long as they do, I will go where the performance is as long as its not much more expensive. I won't pay $500 more for a Skylake 8 core if its only 15% faster than an 8 core Zen.
I welcome an opportunity for a respectable upgrade without pawning another organ from frail, weak body.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,000
3,357
136
Screw the quads anyway. Quads are now minimum, and any performance oriented PC person would love the chance to buy 6 or 8 cores at a reasonable price. There is not glory in going the minimum route anyway.
This is great news, because a lot of people will buy AMD 6 and 8 core chips and they will then become the expected standard for enthusiasts and gamers. People will feel like they are getting less with an Intel quad when they could have a Zen 6 or 8 core. Intel will then be compelled to lower prices on 6 and 8 core CPU's.
If Zen can soundly defeat my 3930k, I would like to have an AMD chip in my rig again after all these years, but with a CPU and platform lasting as long as they do, I will go where the performance is as long as its not much more expensive. I won't pay $500 more for a Skylake 8 core if its only 15% faster than an 8 core Zen.
I welcome an opportunity for a respectable upgrade without pawning another organ from frail, weak body.

8 Core Skylake will be more than 15% faster than 8-Core ZEN, it should also be way more expensive.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
126
BW-E is looking like it may be enough of a jump from Haswell-E to be considered respectable. :)
 

Redentor

Member
Apr 2, 2005
97
14
71
Skylike-E needs a new mainboard (new socket). Probably will be 8 core Zen CPU + mainboard's cost = 8 core Skylake-E CPU cost.
 

dark zero

Platinum Member
Jun 2, 2015
2,655
138
106
Doesn't make too much sense to me. That is going to be a relatively small market, and it leaves the big market open for Intel.

Won't they have plenty of failed 8 core chips to become 4 and 6 core chips anyway?

Read the note... Seems that Hexas will go along octas and Quads are only for OEMs, but is likely to being ended rebranded. But definitely no duals, maybe except embedded market.
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
Oops…

EDIT: OHHHH, I see what you meant by oops. Going to leave my foot in my mouth with my original post below. :)

Oops what? I meant more so that it when that info spread (and was posted in viral marketing posts on forums) it created more buyers for the X2 over the X4s.

Just like the E2160 OC glory days, you had posters advocating to buy a cheaper model (made from the same die) and get the benefit of the more expensive model.

I even remember reading articles of AMD taking healthy quad cores to meet that demand, of which users were just unlocking.
 
Last edited:
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
We could have the same situation that we had with AM3(+). Same socket, but some boards did not support the top end chip power requirements. Some barely supported the 125W chips, I think?

I think it makes some sense to have HEDT separated from the rest. There is a market for top end systems, and people pay more for it. People like to be elite. :)

Mfgs can make a little more money with the HEDT boards, too.

I feel just the opposite, as evidenced by my continual haranguing for a mainstream hex core from intel. At least the "top end system" should be on the most current process node and architecture. I suppose you could make a special platform for it with more features and so forth, but it is ridiculous for the "top end system" to be one (or currently 2 until BW-E) generations behind the mainstream products.
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
137
106
Smart move. AMD probably has realistic volume expectations, which means there wont be any profit in making a separate quad core die. Besides, a quad core with no GPU would just be absurdly tiny. Even the 8 core probably wont be much bigger than 120 sq mm. That is pretty tiny for a mid/highish tier CPU. Save the quad for the APU. I think people forget just how small the CPU portion of a quad core skylake is...
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
6,230
8
81
Yeilds must be great if they are touting 8-core only and are'nt harvesting 6-4 core till later.
 

Flash831

Member
Aug 10, 2015
60
3
71
This might be a good thing for AMD.

AMD is after Intel's bread n' butter, the PC and server market. With the AM4-platform ranging from 1m/2t (Bristol Ridge) to 8c/16t (Zen), AMD might actually grab a large share of the market. Even if Intel has a small advantage in single threaded scenarios, the benefits of having a unified platform will probably attract a lots of buyers.

What we are seeing now is very intresting, as AMD and Intel have very different cost structures. Intel makes a lots of money today, but what happens when Intel can't utilize all those expensive fabs :sneaky:
 

krumme

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2009
5,952
1,585
136
About time !
Absolutely zero have happened for desktop since sb. At those diesizes we have at 14nm 8 cores should be a minimum. Man i am so fed up of the same old 4 core stuff. And i dont want to pay 1000 euro for cpu and feel like i was cheated.
Hope its bw 3.3 ghz class at 300 usd. And hope Intel responds agressively so we can get those 16 cores cpu. They owe us. The last men on cpu earth.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
14,511
5,159
136
Yeilds must be great if they are touting 8-core only and are'nt harvesting 6-4 core till later.

They are harvesting to 6. I guess they could harvest further but I don't know if there would be much of a market for it since they will eventually release the APUs. Remember this is basically only a retail release since OEMs won't be interested due to the lack of IGP.
 

The Stilt

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2015
1,709
3,057
106
Most likely they will initially only release the full parts and put the defective parts aside for now. After they have sufficient amounts of the defective, but salvageable parts they will release them as lower end variants.

Potential harvested parts:

8C/16T /w 8MB L3
6C/12T /w 16MB L3
6C/12T /w 8MB L3
4C/8T /w 8MB L3
4C/8T /wo L3
 

itsmydamnation

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2011
2,744
3,080
136
we will have to wait to see the cache design/hierarchy but i wouldn't expect to see a L3 less design, even for the APU, Now smaller L3 should be possible.

i also wonder, could they sell 4x4core harvests as a 16core server chips for more revenue then 4 separate 4 cores to consumers?
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,414
8,356
126
given that AMD has a minimum amount of silicon it needs to buy, and given that, at first, that process is probably going to make plenty of chips that can't be anything but harvested, it makes sense to only make 8 core chips to start with. dedicated 4 core chips will be a separate mask as those will have graphics on chip.
 

The Stilt

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2015
1,709
3,057
106
AFAIK there will be only a single Zen CPU die, which will be used for all of the products (regardless of the segment). Raven Ridge (Zen APU) obviously is a different design entirely.
 

JDG1980

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2013
1,663
570
136
This shouldn't be all that surprising. You don't normally see CPUs (or GPUs for that matter) with 3/4 of the cores disabled. Even 1/2 is pushing it. By the time Summit Ridge is released, Polaris 10 and 11 will have been on retail sale for about six months, so it isn't even a bleeding edge node for AMD.

Intel hasn't made a quad-core die with no iGPU for a long time. Apparently, there just isn't the market for it. AMD, with its much smaller market share and limited R&D resources, would be foolish to create such a niche product. Summit Ridge, with 8 cores, is meant for servers, workstations, and high-end desktops, where an iGPU is not needed. Raven Ridge will be the Zen APU coming in 2017, and it will probably have 4 cores and be aimed at more mainstream audiences.

Summit Ridge won't be a particularly large chip - maybe not much bigger than Polaris 11. AMD should be able to release the cut-down 6-core versions at a very competitive price while still maintaining a decent profit margin. I think it's likely we will see the full 8-core chips at pricing comparable to Intel's i7 series, and the 6-core chips at pricing comparable to i5.
 

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
1,767
1
76
I havn't been following the newest processors for a while now. When did AMD get hyper threading or a similar technology???

Their new AMD Zen Cpu Processor is suppose to incorporate a SMT (Symmetric-Multithreading) design and is targeted for release in Q4 2016 later this year.

This is identical in design to Intel (if you can't beat them join them) and is in contrast to the CMT based design that the AMD Bulldozer / Piledriver FX chips used.
 
Feb 19, 2009
10,457
10
76
given that AMD has a minimum amount of silicon it needs to buy, and given that, at first, that process is probably going to make plenty of chips that can't be anything but harvested, it makes sense to only make 8 core chips to start with. dedicated 4 core chips will be a separate mask as those will have graphics on chip.

Yes, WSA means they need volume.

I am expecting Zen to be priced very competitive. Basically they won't get me to buy it unless they give me 5960X ~ for $399 or less. ;)

Anyone want to guess the die size of 8 core Zen? I would say no bigger than 160mm2. A lot smaller than Polaris 10, for some perspective!
 

deasd

Senior member
Dec 31, 2013
513
724
136
Yeilds must be great if they are touting 8-core only and are'nt harvesting 6-4 core till later.

Either yield is good, or the cost of octo-core die is too expensive to sell with quad core config. I think the latter situation is more likely and hinted octo Zen performance is good enough to sell at higher price.