Does an 8/8 Zen "Summit Ridge" SKU make good sense?

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Does an 8/8 Zen "Summit Ridge" SKU make good sense?


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superstition

Platinum Member
Feb 2, 2008
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Nah.

Different uarchs. SHP + SLPP uarchs mixed. Think big.LITTLE. More serial -> first 4 cores, 4.5/4.5/4.0/4.0. More parallel -> other 8/10 cores.

Sent from HTC 10
(Opinions are own)
Is there any good reason to do big/little outside of mobile, embedded, and other very power and form-factor constrained workloads?
 

Erenhardt

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2012
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I think AMD will release ZEN with HT enabled only for the top end:
HT 8c-16t (workstation CPU?)
HT 6c-12t (workstation CPU?)
8c-8t (unlocked multi) - i7 (4/8) competitor
6c-6t (unlocked multi) - i5 (4/4) competitor
4c-4t (unlocked multi) - i3 (2/4) competitor

They will disable HT to help mitigate IPC/clocks deficit where it matters - low core count CPUs. And enable it where the high parallel throughput is required - wokrstation highcore count CPUs.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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I think selling CPUs with HT disabled is kind of unnecessary, bad segmentation; and if AMD wants to be looked at they should keep the more threads for your money, but now with also decent single thread perf.
 

Valantar

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2014
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I think AMD will release ZEN with HT enabled only for the top end:
HT 8c-16t (workstation CPU?)
HT 6c-12t (workstation CPU?)
8c-8t (unlocked multi) - i7 (4/8) competitor
6c-6t (unlocked multi) - i5 (4/4) competitor
4c-4t (unlocked multi) - i3 (2/4) competitor

They will disable HT to help mitigate IPC/clocks deficit where it matters - low core count CPUs. And enable it where the high parallel throughput is required - wokrstation highcore count CPUs.
That makes extraordinarily little sense. First off, I assume you mean prices will descend from the top of your list.

In other words:
-The mid-range SKU (8/8) would be more expensive to make than the 2nd most expensive.
-You assume AMD to not have functional SMT on their smallest dies. Otherwise, why no 4/8 SKU? And where would it fit in this lineup? More expensive than 6/6?
-Do you really expect them to have a total of five CPUs? For the entire Zen lineup?
-Is the top-end 4c SKU really supposed to be in the ~$120 range?


Also, to repeat what you said
They will disable HT to help mitigate IPC/clocks deficit where it matters
The whole point of SMT is to mitigate IPC deficits! Sure, it adds another thread, but what SMT in reality does is ensure better utilization of the same silicon area. There's no way in hell they'll disable it unless they have to.

Seriously, take a look at what AMD is comparing Zen to. The i7-6900. It's a $1100 CPU, also with 8 cores and 16 threads. They're aiming for IPC parity with Intel, quite obviously. Why would they waste fully functional 4c dies by crippling them by leaving out SMT and pricing them down to compete wiht i3s? That would be horrible business, even if it won them market share. Even if they lag behind intel by 10% per core, a 4c4t Ryzen chip would be an i5 competitor, not i3. Bear in mind, Ryzen is a CPU, not an APU, and as such has no iGPU. For low-end OEM systems (which is the biggest market), iGPU-less SKUs make no sense.

My take on the first months of Ryzen:
-At least two 8/16 SKUs (possibly one to begin with, followed by the second and:
-At least two 6/12 SKUs)

Then the rest of the lineup will flesh out alongside the Zen APUs, with high-clocked 4/8 SKUs both with and without iGPUs.

Non-SMT SKUs will, if at all, only be available in high(ish)-volume high-margin markets where there are enough dies to harvest for this to make sense, i.e. 35W+ 4+c SKUs.

***Yes, this is of course pure unfounded speculation. But at least it makes sense IMO***
 

Atari2600

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2016
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Agreed. It'd make more sense for AMD to have, at least initially, 3 lines, which differentiate based on core count. Assuming every core baked initially is an 8C unit, these will be constructed via broken die harvesting, probably eventually moving to a dedicate 4C die.

4C8T ---- Ryzen4
6C12T ---- Ryzen6
8C16T ---- Ryzen8

Which then have tiers within based on clock speed - resulting from binning.

Taking a working 8C16T part, then fusing off the SMT makes no sense.


[All of which assumes that the Zen die is not unusually susceptible to production failures in the SMT logic.]
 

Atari2600

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2016
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How does fusing off the SMT on a 4/8 Intel part make sense?

It doesn't.

Some marketing "guru" (aka idiot) has over-ruled engineering logic.

Filling a self-proclaimed market segment by crippling one of your own products that has been produced and is perfectly functional (at additional expense for the crippling) is utterly stupid.
You options (which can be combined) are:
- release a 4/6 part with lower clocks, a 2/4 part with higher clocks or a 3/6 part from harvested dies.
- leave the "segment" unfilled. Folks can chose from above and below. Given that product price gaps aren't that big, most will choose up the line rather than down.
 

superstition

Platinum Member
Feb 2, 2008
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IFilling a self-proclaimed market segment by crippling one of your own products that has been produced and is perfectly functional (at additional expense for the crippling) is utterly stupid.
Capitalism is, objectively*, utterly stupid since it's based on profit motive. Profit, after all, is scamming people — selling things for more than they're worth. So, objecting to a business model based on objective logic is a bit like tossing baby out with the bath. Humanity is creating huge amounts of waste and pollution due to planned obsolescence and it's only going to get worse. Objectivity is not our strong point. One thing that makes that particularly droll is how our entire economic model is founded upon conspiracy.

*Unless it can be proven that the masses need a predatory rather than benevolent elite.


Off-topic This is a technical forum, not P&N
Markfw
 
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Erenhardt

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2012
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That makes extraordinarily little sense. First off, I assume you mean prices will descend from the top of your list.
In other words:
-The mid-range SKU (8/8) would be more expensive to make than the 2nd most expensive.
I guess it may make very little sense because you misunderstood me.

Both 8/8 and 6/12 are cut down variations of the same die. The cost would be the same. Yields are different matter entirely.

-You assume AMD to not have functional SMT on their smallest dies. Otherwise, why no 4/8 SKU? And where would it fit in this lineup? More expensive than 6/6?
You answered your own question. Where would it fit? It would not.
-Do you really expect them to have a total of five CPUs? For the entire Zen lineup?
Yes, with each having 3 speed bins, that gives total of fifteen CPUs in the initial zen lineup. Actually I don't expect them to have that many.
-Is the top-end 4c SKU really supposed to be in the ~$120 range?
No more than $150 for highest bin I hope.

Also, to repeat what you said

The whole point of SMT is to mitigate IPC deficits! Sure, it adds another thread, but what SMT in reality does is ensure better utilization of the same silicon area. There's no way in hell they'll disable it unless they have to.
I think they will, to have a clear and competing Zen lineup. SMT help utilizations, but you'r looking at it from different angle. It's not about what is disabled, but what kind of poduct you get.
If the aim is to have 8 thread CPU to go against i7, do you expect them to match (or beat - if they want to gain the marketshare) it with 4c/8t Zen? I don't think Zen will have Clocks and IPC to do that, but. 8c/8t Zen would be whole other matter.
So, while SMT mitigate IPC deficit by making an 4 core act alike 8 core, it doesn't make it an 8 core.
Seriously, take a look at what AMD is comparing Zen to. The i7-6900. It's a $1100 CPU, also with 8 cores and 16 threads. They're aiming for IPC parity with Intel, quite obviously. Why would they waste fully functional 4c dies by crippling them by leaving out SMT and pricing them down to compete wiht i3s? That would be horrible business, even if it won them market share. Even if they lag behind intel by 10% per core, a 4c4t Ryzen chip would be an i5 competitor, not i3. Bear in mind, Ryzen is a CPU, not an APU, and as such has no iGPU. For low-end OEM systems (which is the biggest market), iGPU-less SKUs make no sense.
I don't think they will have 4c dies. I bielieve Zen will be a single die (8c/16t) harvested down to the 4c/4t. If the want to gain marketshare, they need to offer more. Even if the match IPC, I don't think they will match intel clocks, and I'm sure they will not match intel mindshare. Thats is why they will offer i5 equivalent as an i3(K - hint) competitor.

My take on the first months of Ryzen:
-At least two 8/16 SKUs (possibly one to begin with, followed by the second and:
-At least two 6/12 SKUs)

Then the rest of the lineup will flesh out alongside the Zen APUs, with high-clocked 4/8 SKUs both with and without iGPUs.

Non-SMT SKUs will, if at all, only be available in high(ish)-volume high-margin markets where there are enough dies to harvest for this to make sense, i.e. 35W+ 4+c SKUs.

***Yes, this is of course pure unfounded speculation. But at least it makes sense IMO***

This is GloFo. They will have faulty chips. Lots of them. Look at vishera. Single die spreading from 8 core to 4 core on an old 32nm process.
 

Thunder 57

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Aug 19, 2007
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Capitalism is, objectively*, utterly stupid since it's based on profit motive. Profit, after all, is scamming people — selling things for more than they're worth...

Where did you come up with all that nonsense? Profit is evil? There has to be an incentive to produce something.

Besides, I come here to read about tech, not politics.
 
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superstition

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Besides, I come here to read about tech, not politics.
I didn't force to to post your political opinion. Everything is political, including CPU segmentation business practices. My comment is directly relevant to the segmentation question.
Profit is evil? There has to be an incentive to produce something.
There are incentives other than trying to con people out of more of their resources than the product is worth.

As for "evil"... in the case of the artificial removal of SMT for segmentation purposes the best word is inefficient. For a rational person, though, inefficiency and evil are synonymous. Both are also synonymous with entropy.

This topic, therefore, is about determining whether or not it is inefficient to create an 8/8 Zen. That speaks to two different inefficiencies: the objective one and the business world one. The former is the true inefficiency and the latter is the popularly-accepted matter.
 
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Thunder 57

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There are incentives other than trying to con people out of more of their resources than the product is worth.

I don't see the problem here. A product is worth what someone will pay for it. Is disabling features inefficient? Sure. Intel is going to get their money, though. They have products that perform at different levels for different price points. If you want more performance, you end up paying for it. Intel decided there is enough of a performance difference to disable HT yet still make money. The i5 is wildly popular, I don't see the problem of having an "inefficient" product. It is better than not having the option at all.
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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Profit, after all, is scamming people — selling things for more than they're worth.
There you go people, profit is selling things for more than they're worth. When you go to work, you should be awarded the exact amount of money you need to function - eat, dress, pay medical bills, pay rent. Anyone money put aside is actually making a profit from their job, hence scamming others.

Some of the people on this forum really need a few decades of good old fashioned communism regime to understand how this profit things works. The kind of regime that makes you stand in line daily for bread or yogurt (which you suspect is soya based anyway - but it's the only one you are allowed to buy), the kind that punishes you for owning a business, that takes away your home because it's private property, that nullifies the true value of your income since it controls prices and inflation, that does not allow you to own more than one car which you can use only every other day of the week to limit fuel consumption. This is what the opposite of personal gain looks like, and it takes every horror of capitalism and turns it into into it's own volcano of despair.

I am all for an economy that encourages healthy production of goods and services instead of this money gambling scheme we have right now, but demonizing profit as the ultimate tool of evil is like asking people to stop breathing to lower CO2 production and save the planet.


Off-topic This is a technical forum, not P&N
Markfw
 
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superstition

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good old fashioned communism regime.
I guess you missed the part where I said objectivity isn't humanity's strong point. What people like to call communism wasn't communism. It was a wealthy elite and impoverished masses. Similarly, what people like to call capitalism isn't capitalism. It's socialism in disguise, with a wealthy elite and impoverished masses. We're good at obfuscating the poverty and rationalizing away the problems. How about the good old-fashioned poverty in Haiti and the way the US pressured the Haitian president into exempting our companies from his tiny minimum wage increase? Or the good old-fashioned pollution in China, pollution US business/politics is more than happy to take part in (just from a convenient distance).

Fact is that civilization is a commune. Social Darwinists think we benefit from having a predatory economic elite but not everyone thinks the data supports that conclusion. I happen to think entropy is the best measure, also known as efficiency. Vast inefficiencies in your "communist regimes" point to a lack of communistic governance.


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Markfw
 
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DrMrLordX

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Hey now, I like entropy. Anyone who is at least a passing student of chemistry learns to appreciate it.

“Time goes forward because energy itself is always moving from an available to an unavailable state. Our consciousness is continually recording the entropy change in the world around us. We watch our friends get old and die. We sit next to a fire and watch it's red-hot embers turn slowly into cold white ashes. We experience the world always changing around us, and that experience is the unfolding of the second law. It is the irreversible process of dissipation of energy in the world. What does it mean to say, 'The world is running out of time'? Simply this: we experience the passage of time by the succession of one event after another. And every time an event occurs anywhere in this world energy is expended and the overall entropy is increased. To say the world is running out of time then, to say the world is running out of usable energy. In the words of Sir Arthur Eddington, 'Entropy is time's arrow'.”
Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy

Not sure what any of that really has to do with market segmentation, but there you have it.
 

superstition

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Feb 2, 2008
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Not sure what any of that really has to do with market segmentation, but there you have it.
Anything that is more inefficient than another option furthers entropy more. That's what makes it comparatively inefficient.

A rational humanity would base its decisions on resisting entropy.

However, since our paradigm is fundamentally irrational* we have two sets of inefficiencies: the actual one and the business one. The business one asks if there is more or less profit, a cost/benefit ratio that tries to ignore the unsightly consequences (like pollution and poverty) as much as possible.

*Unless it can be proven that humanity needs a predatory economic elite rather than a benevolent one (particularly an intelligentsia rather than an economically-defined one).


Off-topic This is a technical forum, not P&N
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coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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Vast inefficiencies in your "communist regimes" point to a lack of communistic governance.
Yeah, the kind of lack of communistic governance that led to millions being scolded, beaten, killed, starved and generally handled like cattle. This is what happens when someone calculates social efficiency based on an ideal human being, void of personal goals and desire.

Are you the same person who vociferously asks for solder to be used in mainstream Intel CPUs, even though it would be completely inefficient to do so for 99.99% of the population? Damn entropy, it changes so easily with desire. Let's be clear here - even in an ideal communist regime - not only would you not get to ask for solder, you wouldn't even get to choose or ask for a certain CPU brand or SKU. A CPU will be chosen for you.

The consumer 8 core Zen product should not exist: it's vastly inefficient to sell such a product for general usage & entertainment purpose only. Human kind should direct their resources better if we are to achieve the efficiency we strive for. Together as one, the collective.


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superstition

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This is what happens when someone calculates social efficiency based on an ideal human being, void of personal goals and desire.
Citation needed.

You forgot to mention "transcendence". lol

Also "ideal human being" is a red herring that's based in the correspondence bias (attribution error) that typifies contemporary "Western" thought. Everything, according to that bias, is about the individual rather than the society. Civilization is a commune. Your "ideal individual" is Ayn Rand thinking — not especially relevant. Objectively, there is an unresolvable conflict between society and the individual. So, the unbiased way to approach the issue is to consider both simultaneously, in order to try to come to a suitable compromise.


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coercitiv

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Citation needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Also "ideal human being" is a red herring that's based in the correspondence bias (attribution error) that typifies contemporary "Western" thought. Everything, according to that bias, is about the individual rather than the society. Civilization is a commune. Your "ideal individual" is Ayn Rand thinking — not especially relevant. Objectively, there is an unresolvable conflict between society and the individual. So, the unbiased way to approach the issue is to consider both simultaneously, in order to try to come to a suitable compromise.
You forgot to mention "transcendence". lol


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Markfw
 
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Markfw

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If everyone does not get back to the subject, I am locking this thread !
 

bjt2

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I think that crippling Zen to have SMT disabled is not much efficient.
Since the goal was power efficiency, selling an artificially crippled CPU, makes the extra resources a waste of silicon and leakage.
It makes no sense for me.
AMD can still segment the market with 2/3 frequency sku for every combinations of below:
4/8 core (1/2 CCX): i don't think that disabling 1 core per ccx would be efficient. Moreover 4 core i think is best with 1 ccx, because off ccx latency would make 1 ccx vs 2 ccx 4 core two different beast.
no L3, half L3, full L3.

In conclusion: up to 3 frequency SKUs for:
8c/16t 16MB L3
8c/16t 8MB L3
8c/16t NO L3

4c/8t 8MB L3
4c/8t 4MB L3
4c/8t NO L3

I think that it is enough market segmentation...
 

Erenhardt

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2012
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I think that crippling Zen to have SMT disabled is not much efficient.
Since the goal was power efficiency, selling an artificially crippled CPU, makes the extra resources a waste of silicon and leakage.
It makes no sense for me.
AMD can still segment the market with 2/3 frequency sku for every combinations of below:
4/8 core (1/2 CCX): i don't think that disabling 1 core per ccx would be efficient. Moreover 4 core i think is best with 1 ccx, because off ccx latency would make 1 ccx vs 2 ccx 4 core two different beast.
no L3, half L3, full L3.

In conclusion: up to 3 frequency SKUs for:
8c/16t 16MB L3
8c/16t 8MB L3
8c/16t NO L3

4c/8t 8MB L3
4c/8t 4MB L3
4c/8t NO L3

I think that it is enough market segmentation...

With such a lineup they would have to compete with 8c/16t zen against intel i7 4c/8t.
4c/8t Zen will not match (or beat) intels latest 4c/8t or they would have to sell low clocked 8c/18t at (below) intels i7 price. But then they will have low single thread performance, which they obviously don't want - bulldozer yet again?

If they leave such CPU with unlocked overclocking, they just obsoleted their high end products, which has nothing more than some additional cache and MHz that can be diminished with overclocking. Clearly not worth the price difference that will separate Workstation CPUs from enthusiast desktop CPUs.

meanwhile harvested or artificially gimped 8c/8t Zen will go circles around 4c/8t i7 and will be miles behind full 8c/16t Zen Workstation CPU, making a server premium well deserved.

It is very tricky to have a compelling product lineup that doesn't compete with itself, making obsolete the high profit part of the portfolio.
 
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