Fudzilla: New AMD Zen APU boasts up to 16 cores (plus Greenland GPU with HBM)

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/a...s-begins-to-ramp-up-production-of-14nm-chips/

Several business news sites are also reporting that Samsung and Globalfoundries have won contracts for Apples A9 chips.

They indicate that Apple purchases $25 billion worth of chips per year and winning this contract will be a enormous economic boost for the companies!

It appears that Global Foundaries is going to have a great 2016 -- since it appears they've got the Nintendo NX contract as well.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Exactly, AMD has already offered watercooling from the factory. Why would this APU be any different?
They can clock it accordingly to whatever TDP they desire.

Again, do I really need to mention that some people run 2 or 4 video cards with TDP ranges from 750 to 1000 watts? That's a lot of heat for a case/cooling to manage. A mere 300 doesn't sound like much of an issue.

BTW, Shintai -- not to burst your "I hate AMD because their chips are so hot" bubble..... but Intel already makes chips with 300 watt TDP's. They're called Xeon Phi's. So whoops.... 300 Watts must be quite a jump since there are already chips being made with that TDP. Notice that the Xeon Phi processors are now packaged more like Video Cards.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013062001_Intel_expands_Xeon_Phi_co-processor_lineup.html

I know the local college would have loved to use a Xeon Phi setup -- but the grant couldn't cover the cost.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/xeon/xeon-phi-detail.html

"More cores! More performance!" -Intel

^^^ This.

 

[ShintaiDK]

BTW, Shintai -- not to burst your "I hate AMD because their chips are so hot" bubble..... but Intel already makes chips with 300 watt TDP's. They're called Xeon Phi's. So whoops.... 300 Watts must be quite a jump since there are already chips being made with that TDP. Notice that the Xeon Phi processors are now packaged more like Video Cards.

And? These cards are placed in servers with 10000-15000rpm fans and ambient cooling. Just look at graphics card how much is needed to cool them when they reach 300W.

So what did you imagine for the consumer segment? Or is this just another ultra niche product with no buyers?

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Exactly, AMD has already offered watercooling from the factory. Why would this APU be any different?
They can clock it accordingly to whatever TDP they desire.

Again, do I really need to mention that some people run 2 or 4 video cards with TDP ranges from 750 to 1000 watts? That's a lot of heat for a case/cooling to manage. A mere 300 doesn't sound like much of an issue.

BTW, Shintai -- not to burst your "I hate AMD because their chips are so hot" bubble..... but Intel already makes chips with 300 watt TDP's. They're called Xeon Phi's. So whoops.... 300 Watts must be quite a jump since there are already chips being made with that TDP. Notice that the Xeon Phi processors are now packaged more like Video Cards.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013062001_Intel_expands_Xeon_Phi_co-processor_lineup.html

I know the local college would have loved to use a Xeon Phi setup -- but the grant couldn't cover the cost.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/xeon/xeon-phi-detail.html

"More cores! More performance!" -Intel

Stop it with the logic!

Just look at the Mac Pro. 400w+ power in a tiny enclosure with a small heatsink for everything. It would've been even easier if the GPUs/CPUS weren't separate. These guys spend so much time bagging on the competition that they don't even know the practical applications that Intel CPUs are placed in.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

And? These cards are placed in servers with 10000-15000rpm fans and ambient cooling. Just look at graphics card how much is needed to cool them when they reach 300W.

So what did you imagine for the consumer segment? Or is this just another ultra niche product with no buyers?

You do realize consumers buy things like cars, toaster ovens, stoves, space heaters, barbacue grills -- that need to be engineered for considerably higher temperatures than computers, right?

Or.... I guess not.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You do realize consumers buy things like cars, microwave ovens, stoves, space heaters, barbacue grills -- that need to be engineered for considerably higher temperatures than computers, right?

Or.... I guess not.

And thats relevant how? Do you think people want to buy spaceheaters for PCs? Nothing the last 10 years in the market rings a bell on what the consumers request?

 

[Fjodor2001]

And thats relevant how? Do you think people want to buy spaceheaters for PCs? Nothing the last 10 years in the market rings a bell on what the consumers request?

Then how come people are still buying 200-300 W Mac Pros and 300 W GFX cards? Why do they even exist on the market, if you say there is no demand for it?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Then how come people are still buying 200-300 W Mac Pros and 300 W GFX cards? Why do they even exist on the market, if you say there is no demand for it?

How many are they selling and for what price to what segment? And remember, that product is combined of more versatile usage products that fits a much wider span.

Here we talk about 300W consumer CPUs.

 

[Enigmoid]

Then how come people are still buying 200-300 W Mac Pros and 300 W GFX cards? Why do they even exist on the market, if you say there is no demand for it?

Because they are part of a specialized subset of the market that requires high performance?

Some people don't care about heating or size or anything like that. However, the vast majority of the consumer market (those not buying a mac pro for video editing or photoshop or the like) do not want huge power guzzlers.

There is still the top of the pyramid...but the base is so much larger.

 

[Yuriman]

Then how come people are still buying 200-300 W Mac Pros and 300 W GFX cards? Why do they even exist on the market, if you say there is no demand for it?

Admittedly it's not a huge market, though I'm sure the margins are a bit better than in consumer gear.

AMD would probably be well-served if they leave the consumer-space for higher margin areas.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

And thats relevant how? Do you think people want to buy spaceheaters for PCs? Nothing the last 10 years in the market rings a bell on what the consumers request?

Just making a point that a product can be manufactured at a very low price point for consumers (like a space heater) with extremely high thermal tolerances. 300 Watt TDP is nothing.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD would probably be well-served if they leave the consumer-space for higher margin areas.

But that requires much better products, aka much better R&D. There is a reason why they go semicustom to reuse old tech and low R&D overhead.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just making a point that a product can be manufactured at a very low price point for consumers (like a space heater) with extremely high thermal tolerances. 300 Watt TDP is nothing.

Those products dont start to throttle and go crazy when they reach 95C. What you expect, water cooling boxed for a retail CPU price of how much $? How about OEM cost? Not to mention having the space heaters at home/office with whatever associated cost and discomfort.

And that leads to the ultimate question, who is the target segment. And can whatever product that may materialize sell in the volume needed to return the investment.

 

[NTMBK]

How many are they selling and for what price to what segment? And remember, that product is combined of more versatile usage products that fits a much wider span.

Here we talk about 300W consumer CPUs.

How do you think the 300W APU is going to be made? 100W CPU and a 200 W GPU on an interposer. AMD has talked about this idea a lot. If you already need an interposer for stacked memory, separate designs on more specialised process nodes makes sense.

 

[frozentundra123456]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/a...s-begins-to-ramp-up-production-of-14nm-chips/

Several business news sites are also reporting that Samsung and Globalfoundries have won contracts for Apples A9 chips.

They indicate that Apple purchases $25 billion worth of chips per year and winning this contract will be a enormous economic boost for the companies!

I am asking where the 14 nm products are for AMD. There was some quote that Lisa Su said they were already in volume production. All we have seen of the 390x is rumors and specuation, and even then I think it will still be on 28nm, as will Carrizo and Kaveri refresh.

 

[jpiniero]

I am asking where the 14 nm products are for AMD. There was some quote that Lisa Su said they were already in volume production. All we have seen of the 390x is rumors and specuation, and even then I think it will still be on 28nm, as will Carrizo and Kaveri refresh.

I wouldn't expect anything from AMD on SS/GF "14" nm until 2016.

 

[frozentundra123456]

How many are they selling and for what price to what segment? And remember, that product is combined of more versatile usage products that fits a much wider span.

Here we talk about 300W consumer CPUs.

If it is produced, it definitely will be a niche product in the consumer market. Lets face it, power users and computer gamers (in the sense that we mean it, not farmville and facebook games) are a small population of the total PC market already, and I am sure a fair portion of that already small market will want the flexibility and upgradability of a separate cpu and gpu. Additionally, I am not sure how it fits for AMD, unless it is a hit in the server market and trickles down to consumers. It will be a huge chip, expensive to produce relative to mainstream processors on the same node, and will compete with AMDs own dgpus and consoles. And does one really think OEMs will want to build PCs with specialized motherboards, cooling, and powerful PSUs, when volume is the name of the game, and they try to cut costs at every turn?

Now if they could design a 40watt laptop chip with cpu performance equivalent to an intel mobile quad and gpu power equal to the GT960m level when the apu comes out, and price it significantly cheaper than the Intel/nVidia equivalent combo, that would seem an attractive package.

 

[NTMBK]

If it is produced, it definitely will be a niche product in the consumer market. Lets face it, power users and computer gamers (in the sense that we mean it, not farmville and facebook games) are a small population of the total PC market already, and I am sure a fair portion of that already small market will want the flexibility and upgradability of a separate cpu and gpu. Additionally, I am not sure how it fits for AMD, unless it is a hit in the server market and trickles down to consumers. It will be a huge chip, expensive to produce relative to mainstream processors on the same node, and will compete with AMDs own dgpus and consoles. And does one really think OEMs will want to build PCs with specialized motherboards, cooling, and powerful PSUs, when volume is the name of the game, and they try to cut costs at every turn?

Now if they could design a 40watt laptop chip with cpu performance equivalent to an intel mobile quad and gpu power equal to the GT960m level when the apu comes out, and price it significantly cheaper than the Intel/nVidia equivalent combo, that would seem an attractive package.

Again, don't think single mega chip- think two chips on an interposer. And if they design it right, the GPU part can be put on a PCIe card and sold separately. Same way Knight's Landing can come in a socket or as a PCIe accelerator.

 

[shady28]

Supporting "up to" 16 cores as an architecture isn't really all that surprising as it's likely to be used in servers as well as desktops.

If Zen is the one main core architecture going forward, and they want to stay in the server space, it needs to "support" 16+ cores. After all, Abu Dhabi 6300 series Opteron is basically a 4-16 core Piledriver (FX).

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

But that requires much better products, aka much better R&D. There is a reason why they go semicustom to reuse old tech and low R&D overhead.

No it doesn't. Matrox has carved out a nice niche with a much smaller R&D budget than AMD's.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

And thats relevant how? Do you think people want to buy spaceheaters for PCs?

Well, people did buy Prescott P4s back in the day...

The single-core desktop varieties had 115W TDPs, dual-core Pentium Ds had a 130W TDP, and some of the dual-core Netburst Xeons had 165W TDPs. So high TDP is not unheard of.

 

[Enigmoid]

Well, people did buy Prescott P4s back in the day...

The single-core desktop varieties had 115W TDPs, dual-core Pentium Ds had a 130W TDP, and some of the dual-core Netburst Xeons had 165W TDPs. So high TDP is not unheard of.

Much different market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

No it doesn't. Matrox has carved out a nice niche with a much smaller R&D budget than AMD's.

Thats your vision of the future AMD?

 

[cbn]

How do you think the 300W APU is going to be made? 100W CPU and a 200 W GPU on an interposer. AMD has talked about this idea a lot. If you already need an interposer for stacked memory, separate designs on more specialised process nodes makes sense.

I think it would need to be made on an interposer to be economical, otherwise the die size would probably be too large for consumer. Although with that mentioned, this part is supposed to be made for HPC first so who knows?

P.S. I'll bet the CPU part (at 16 cores) has a higher TDP than 100 watts. (Maybe something more like 190 watts if the eight core Zen at 95 watts rumor is true. Then I expect the GPU part will be rated at 150 watts or more, with the CPU part throttling under iGPU load to keep TDP at 300 watts)

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well, people did buy Prescott P4s back in the day...

The single-core desktop varieties had 115W TDPs, dual-core Pentium Ds had a 130W TDP, and some of the dual-core Netburst Xeons had 165W TDPs. So high TDP is not unheard of.

AMD is already getting hammered for selling their 140W-220W chips. You still think a 300W chip today would be welcomed by the average consumer and OEM?

Or will it be the gamer that will accept a mediocore at best CPU paired with whatever left of the GPU that may be in 2016+?

Its at best a niche product without any chance in the consumer segment. APUs today is a sales flop. Adding a bigger GPU and increasing TDP to crazy levels isnt going to change that. Its only going to make it worse.