How do you think Bristol Ridge will do as a mobile processor compared to Carrizo?

[cbn]

As some of you may already know Bristol Ridge is AMD's next big core APU processor. It will have four excavator cores, 512sp GCN 1.2 iGPU, dual channel DDR4 memory controller. (Think of it basically as Carrizo, but with DDD4 instead of DDR3. This perhaps with some other enhancements).

My position is that it should be much better than Carrizo due to having DDR4. At the 35W level this should help iGPU tremendously (as OEMs don't ship DDR3 laptops like Carrizo with RAM past 1600 speed for whatever reason).

Also having that DDR4 means we won't (or shouldn't) be seeing 15W Carrizo with low end dGPUs anymore. The 35W Bristol Ridge would be able to replace that 15W Carrizo and dGPU as cheaper and more compact arrangement.

P.S. If you voted "no change", "a little bit better" or "somewhat better" please post your suggestions on how AMD could improve the uptake of Bristol Ridge on mobile.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Even with DDR4 they are going to be memory starved. And lets see how many OEMs really configure 35 watts TDP. It might be nice for casual gaming and older games, but even the desktop 7870K cant do 1080p, 30fps in modern, relatively demanding games at 95 watts. What do you expect from 35?

Actually, I think you are looking at it backwards. Anybody who votes "much better" should have to justify that. Same basic architecture, no HBM or edram, same process node, same number of shaders, why would anybody expect it to be "much better"/

 

[DrMrLordX]

Bristol Ridge mobile is likely to be a non-entity, given the treatment given to Carrizo. I do not expect many changes for AMD's mobile fortunes until Raven Ridge and Basilisk show up in 2017.

Bristol Ridge will be a tiny bit better than Carrizo in the mobile segment, due to apparent improvements in the process. Otherwise it's the same uarch. AMD can't do much to improve it, besides maybe making them fail to boot in anything but dual-channel mode and locking specific SKUs to particular TDPs. And disabling dual graphics for Bristol Ridge mobile chips in their drivers . . .

 

[ShintaiDK]

The same chip is the same chip. No matter if you pair it with DDR3 or DDR4.

 

[cbn]

why would anybody expect it to be "much better"/

DDR4 2400 is 50% more bandwidth than DDR3 1600.

And DDR4 2133 is 33% more bandwidth than DDR3 1600.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Carrizo already supports DDR3-2133 officially.

And remember increased CAS on DDR4.

There is some power savings tho.

 

[cbn]

Carrizo already supports DDR3-2133 officially.

I know that Carrizo supports DDR3 2133 (just as Kaveri and Godavari do), but OEMs do not ship with that speed memory for whatever reason.

Even all the Kaveri desktops came with just DDR3 1600.

 

[cbn]

I do think OEMs that use Bristol Ridge in 35W configuration should have labeled it so on the outside.

As I mentioned here, that was one problem Carrizo had.

I do think OEMs that used Carrizo in 35W configuration (was it just Lenovo with the Y700?) should have labeled it so on the outside.

Otherwise how is a person to know whether or not they had the souped up 35W version or the 15W version?

If I was someone looking at a FX-8800P laptop and didn't know it was 35W, I would be inclined to pass on it if I saw another FX-8800P next to it that was thinner, lighter and cheaper.

Though with that mentioned, I do wonder how many OEMs would use Bristol Ridge @ 15W, when Carrizo is already available at the TDP.

 

[cbn]

And disabling dual graphics for Bristol Ridge mobile chips in their drivers . . .

How would this help?

 

[frozentundra123456]

DDR4 2400 is 50% more bandwidth than DDR3 1600.

And DDR4 2133 is 33% more bandwidth than DDR3 1600.

If DDR4 is sufficient for APUs, why then is intel still bothering with edram for skylake?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I do think OEMs that use Bristol Ridge in 35W configuration should have labeled it so on the outside.

As I mentioned here, that was one problem Carrizo had.



Though with that mentioned, I do wonder how many OEMs would use Bristol Ridge @ 15W, when Carrizo is already available at the TDP.

There really arent many 35 watt laptops anymore. Pretty much the only ones are quad intel, and those are usually paired with a relatively powerful dgpu.

 

[cbn]

Here are two graphs from post #2351 of the Carrizo Pre-release thread:

15W is optimal if either both are loaded but results in the cpu clock suffering mostly.
At 35W you can run the cpu portion at 2.1GHz rather than ~1.1GHz. And run the GPU at 600-800MHz rather than 500MHz. So yes in terms of efficiency it's less good than at 15W but it would make the difference between playing games smoothly or being hit by a cpu bottleneck.

If it can meat or beat a 50W Intel + Nvidia setup with 35W it's still very efficient. (Let's say 15-20W for the Intel CPU + ~32W for the 840M)

I think they could match that Intel + Nv config going by the results Stilt posted for GTA V

15-25W:

35-42W:

This test, as mentioned, used GTA V (which is CPU intensive game) with Carrizo at two different two TDP levels:

15W with 25W AC boost

35W with 42W AC boost

But notice the large amount of extra mileage the 35W-42W got compared to the 15W-25W.

Its looks like the iGPU clocks rise form about ~350 MHz to about ~750 Mhz and the CPU clocks go from ~1500 Mhz to ~2500 Mhz in the middle part of the test.

That is a really big boost. With DDR4, I would think that Bristol Ridge at the same 35W-42W becomes very viable as an entry level gaming processor. (Probably even beating A8-7600 desktop processor with DDR3 2133, which is faster than the OEM A8-7600 desktop boxes that ship with DDR3 1600).

 

[cbn]

If DDR4 is sufficient for APUs, why then is intel still bothering with edram for skylake?

GT4 is a bigger iGPU, and I don't think it has the bandwidth efficiency improving Delta color compression tech that GCN 1.2 found on Bristol Ridge (and Carrizo) have.

(GCN 1.2 and the DCC tech is also found on AMD's Tonga. This allowed AMD use 256 bit GDDR5 rather than 384 bit GDDR5 for 1792sp and 2048sp dGPUs.)

With that mentioned, I don't think DDR4 2400 is optimal for 35W 512sp Bristol Ridge.... but then again its not awful either. Going by how AMD Tonga (GCN 1.2) is spec'd, 38.4 GB/s (dual channel DDR4 2400) would be enough for just the 512sp iGPU @ ~750 Mhz...plus maybe the tiniest bit more. So with the CPU active some of this 38.4 GB/s bandwidth is reduced for the iGPU.

SIDE NOTE: Kaveri and Godavari do not have GCN 1.2 and DCC (Delta color compression) so they would need more bandwidth at any given GPU clock compared to the same size iGPU in Bristol Ridge.

 

[cbn]

There really arent many 35 watt laptops anymore. Pretty much the only ones are quad intel, and those are usually paired with a relatively powerful dgpu.

I think the laptop below would be a fair comparison to a 35W APU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315131&ignorebbr=1

15W Intel CPU (i5-5200U) and 25W Nvidia 940M dGPU (384 Maxwell v1 cores with 64 bit DDR3 2000).

So 40W total power consumption for both processors, that's 5W more than an APU @ 35W.

 

[The Stilt]

Bristol Ridge is essentialy higher TDP for the masses, since there will be 35W models available.

 

[erunion]

Bristol Ridge mobile is likely to be a non-entity, given the treatment given to Carrizo. I do not expect many changes for AMD's mobile fortunes until Raven Ridge and Basilisk show up in 2017.
.

Basilisk is definitively not a real product. It only appeared on fake slides that weren't made by AMD.

It's also a perfect example of how (un)trustworthy these copy-paste tech sites are. Google it and see all the hits for something that never even existed.

Edit: And we still see those slides pop up on news sites and forums periodically even though they are known to be 100% fake.

 

[Madpacket]

DDR4 won't help much given OEM's are generally retarded and pair up either single sticks of memory or use Jedec standards like the very slow DDR4 2100 memory speeds. On the desktop paired with 3200Mhz DDR4 and colour compressesion maybe you would see a nice 10-15% bump over DDR3 2400 Carizzo but that's about it.

 

[cbn]

Regarding the performance to price ratio, I have to think AMD could improve this by:

1.) Dedicating all the good Bristol Ridge dies (ie, 4C + 512sp, 4C + 384sp) to mobile. This is where the integration of the large iGPU makes the most sense.

Then, for AM4, AMD could use only "undesirable for mobile" Bristol Ridge dies (ie, 4C without iGPU and 2C with 384sp/448sp/512sp iGPU).

2.) Using Stoney Ridge (which is 2C/192sp) as a 35W FP4 chip. Two cores and the iGPU clocked relatively high without throttling down too much when used together would be a great bargain chip. This, in turn, increases the volume of 35W FP4 motherboards.... which I believe in turn reduces the cost on the 35W FP4 Bristol Ridge motherboards (if I am not mistaken).

 

[cbn]

DDR3 2400 Carizzo

DDR3 2400 (or even DDR3 2133) Carrizo never existed in actual shipping products.

Even the Lenovo Y700 (which is believed to be the only 35W Carrizo notebook in existence outside of the reference platform) uses DDR3 1600. Its gets by with the low memory speeds @ 35W TDP by using AMD Strato XT R9-M380 4GB dGPU.

http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/y700-series/y700-15-amd/

 

[DrMrLordX]

How would this help?

It would help break OEMs of the stupid habit of throwing in a forgettable dGPU with a 35W Carrizo/Bristol Ridge APU.

At the very least, they couldn't put "ohhhh dual graphics!!!!" on the label . . . or they could and then just tell buyers to "wait for the updated driver" but whatever.

DDR4 won't help much given OEM's are generally retarded and pair up either single sticks of memory

That's why I think AMD should have set up Carrizo to fail at boot unless in dual-channel mode. But you know, that probably would have upset some OEM clients.

or use Jedec standards like the very slow DDR4 2100 memory speeds. On the desktop paired with 3200Mhz DDR4 and colour compressesion maybe you would see a nice 10-15% bump over DDR3 2400 Carizzo but that's about it.

I don't think we'll ever see Bristol Ridge with DDR4-3200, and that's a sad thing.

 

[superstition]

That's why I think AMD should have set up Carrizo to fail at boot unless in dual-channel mode. But you know, that probably would have upset some OEM clients.

Does AMD need to worry about is how upset OEMs are over the gimping of their processors?

Considering how Intel bribed OEMs to blackball AMD in the past it seems like it would be foolish to give OEMs any opportunity to hamper performance since they could have an agreement with Intel to produce AMD products but only in gimped form.

Separate 15W and 35W parts with a completely different name, so there is no consumer confusion.

Eliminate DDR3 being used with discreet GPUs.

Force dual channel RAM and a minimum 2400 DDR4 spec. 2133 is a poor performer due to latency, according to Joel Hruska.

 

[beginner99]

Doesn't really matter. If you play games on your laptop, any mobile dGPU owns this. And if you put in a dGPU, the iGPU hardly matters and our better of with intel CPU. If you don't play games, any iGPU is good enough anyway.

Note that the APUs that actually have all CUs enabled (eg A10) are hard to come by where I live and usually are just massively overpriced eg. about same price as better performing i5 + dGPU.

 

[cbn]

Note that the APUs that actually have all CUs enabled (eg A10) are hard to come by where I live and usually are just massively overpriced eg. about same price as better performing i5 + dGPU.

Are you referring to desktops or mobile?

 

[cbn]

That's why I think AMD should have set up Carrizo to fail at boot unless in dual-channel mode. But you know, that probably would have upset some OEM clients.

I'm not sure how representative the following list is, but you'll notice that all quad core Carrizos have dGPU (designated DX, for dual graphics). The only APUs without dGPU are the dual cores.

http://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad_E465

All, but one of them (a quad core with dGPU and 2 x 8GB RAM) have single channel memory.

In these situations I believe the single channel is fine for a 15W quad core with dGPU (but maybe not for the dual core with 256sp iGPU).

If so, then getting Carrizo to fail with single channel boot would have increased cost for the quad core laptop models listed in the link, but not add performance.

With that mentioned, one question is can a 35W quad core DDR4 APU with dual channel (2 x 4GB) DDR4 replace any of those 15W Quad core DDR3 APU with single channel (1 x 8GB) APU + dGPU?

If so, that would naturally incline the OEM to use dual channel (then perhaps a mandate for "dual channel only" boot works).

 

[AtenRa]

Carrizo already supports DDR3-2133 officially.

And remember increased CAS on DDR4.

There is some power savings tho.

DDR-3 2133MHz is only supported on the 35W TDP Carrizo models.

With Bristol Ridge DDR-4 2133MHz will be supported on the 15W TDP models as well.

So, im expecting a nice performance boost on the 15W TDP models, lets say 20% compared to Carrizo.