ITT: We list current generation CPUs that are in most need of improvement

[NTMBK]

P.S. For a top ten gamer I think I would rather have 4GB GDDR5 than 8GB DDR3 (especially if it is 1600 speed). And for a higher end motherboard 8GB GDDR5 would work.

No way. With the consoles having 8GB unified memory, you can't get away with 4GB split between CPU and GPU. 8GB should be the minimum.

 

[cbn]

P.S. For a top ten gamer I think I would rather have 4GB GDDR5 than 8GB DDR3 (especially if it is 1600 speed). And for a higher end motherboard 8GB GDDR5 would work.

No way. With the consoles having 8GB unified memory, you can't get away with 4GB split between CPU and GPU. 8GB should be the minimum.

Sure a person can get by with 4GB.

At one point my OC G3258 had 4GB RAM and my R7 250X has 1GB VRAM (That's 5GB total) and I played all my games fine. (the exception being one game on Steam Free weekend)

With that mentioned, I do think there should be boards with 8GB GDDR5 as well.

 

[cbn]

With the consoles having 8GB unified memory

Not all popular games come from consoles.

For example, Rocket league used for the Anandtech A8-7670K article is actually an Indie title ( currently ranked 16th on the Steam top 99 games by current player count).

It won't be until Feburary 2016 that Rocket League comes to Xbox One (after running for 7 months on PC): http://news.xbox.com/2015/12/03/rocket-league-blasts-onto-xbox-one/

EDIT: Apparently this one did launch on both PC and PS4 on July 7th, 2015. (though according to Wikipedia the alpha sessions were on PC in 2014 and it wasn't until 2015 that the PS4 got closed beta sessions --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_League)

 

[DrMrLordX]

AMD would need to release a new chipset to enable GDDR5 support more likely than not, or at least provide a new FM2+ reference design. They will not spend the time or money undercutting AM4 that way.

 

[cbn]

AMD would need to release a new chipset to enable GDDR5 support more likely than not, or at least provide a new FM2+ reference design. They will not spend the time or money undercutting AM4 that way.

Crossing my fingers Bristol Ridge with RAM limited to DDR4 2400 works well.

 

[cbn]

Maybe investigating GDDR5 for Godaveri is not such a bad idea with the potential AM4 delay:

Credit this post--> http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37908397&postcount=95

(Info taken from this article--> http://www.anandtech.com/show/9843/...g-ted-hung-andy-tung-motherboards-notebooks/2)

Anandtech

With AMD launching Zen in 2016 and new CPUs with new memory, have you been working with them on the motherboard side yet?

MSI

Not yet, we think it might be later in 2016 so we will start discussing motherboards in early 2016. It is actually up to AMD, but I think at this moment they are not complete with final details for the motherboards yet.

This especially if the Kaveri/Godaveri DDR3/GDDR5 memory controller happens to be the same as found in the AMD Oland GPU and the amount of work to enable is not as much as we think it might be.

 

[DrMrLordX]

They are not enabling GDDR5 on any APU system in their lineup.

 

[cbn]

They are not enabling GDDR5 on any APU system in their lineup.

I think AMD should fix their existing problems before moving on to AM4.

As you mentioned, back in post #104.

AMD would need to release a new chipset to enable GDDR5 support more likely than not, or at least provide a new FM2+ reference design. They will not spend the time or money undercutting AM4 that way.

But what problem does AM4 solve?

Having Zen 8c/16T is one thing, but that may not come till very late 2016 (if not 2017).

That leaves Bristol Ridge?

But why do we need Bristol Ridge when we already have Carrizo (which can be used for desktop with cTDP @ 42W) and FM2+ (which needs lots of help).

What problem does Bristol Ridge Solve? (It does have GCN 1.2 which should reduce bandwidth needs, but is still limited to DDR4 2400 which has looser timings than DDR3 @ 2400).

About the only advantage I can think of would be OEMs. (re: they do not want to run DDR3 over 1600 for whatever reason, but this could also be solved by having Godaveri run GDDR5 instead of DDR3).

 

[ShintaiDK]

Who says Carrizo can fit in FM2+? I doubt you can get it working there in any way.

GDDR5 is not happening, no DIMMs, higher power draw, close to 3x the cost and so on.

 

[cbn]

Who says Carrizo can fit in FM2+? I doubt you can get it working there in any way.

No FM2+, it get used as BGA desktop:

Example here:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-3...c=ddccz303hw10&model_id=inspiron-3656-desktop

 

[cbn]

Bristol Ridge also has the downside of not being able to be used in a laptop.

I would have much preferred a Carrizo with DDR4 enabled and an extra level of cTDP. (ie, 15W, 35W, 65W).

 

[cbn]

GDDR5 is not happening, no DIMMs, higher power draw, close to 3x the cost and so on.

The GDDR5 doesn't need to be in the form of a DIMM. It can be soldered on the motherboard.

Also do we have any evidence on the cost of 8Gb GDDR5? 8Gb (1GB) GDDR5, not 4Gb (512MB) GDDR5. (I also wonder if HBM is contributing or will contribute to a price war on GDDR5)

 

[ShintaiDK]

Soldered means you are close to mobile only. A place the Kaveri refresh is gone from.

HBM got no effect on GDDR prices yet and wont have anytime soon.

8Gbit GDDR will only raise the cost difference to DDR. I would expect no less than 4x at that point.

And again, for what? Selling an anemic CPU with a crappy IGP for loads of money? It would be Iris Pro price range, but without the good CPU.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Bristol Ridge also has the downside of not being able to be used in a laptop.

I would have much preferred a Carrizo with DDR4 enabled and an extra level of cTDP. (ie, 15W, 35W, 65W).

Bristol Ridge is used in Laptops, its called Carrizo.

 

[ShintaiDK]

No FM2+, it get used as BGA desktop:

So why the FM2+ talk?

 

[cbn]

So why the FM2+ talk?

Re-read post #108.

I wrote Carrizo and FM2+, not Carrizo in FM2+.

But why do we need Bristol Ridge when we already have Carrizo (which can be used for desktop with cTDP @ 42W) and FM2+ (which needs lots of help).

 

[cbn]

8Gbit GDDR will only raise the cost difference to DDR. I would expect no less than 4x at that point.

8Gb GDDR5 benefits from a node shrink though:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-mass-producing-8-gb-gddr5-memory.html

Samsung announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first 8 gigabit (Gb) GDDR5 DRAM, based on the company's leading-edge 20-nanometer (nm) process technology. GDDR5 is the most widely used discrete graphics memory in the world.

The world's first 20-nanometre 8Gb GDDR5 overcame the limitation of capacity and speed compared with its own 4Gb GDDR5 DRAM, which had a reading speed of 7Gb per second.

So the cost per Gb will be lower than it was before.

 

[cbn]

Soldered means you are close to mobile only.

Soldered GDDR5 can be in desktops as well. (Playstation 4 has soldered in GDDR5, 16 x 4Gb for 8GB total).

The thing is how much GDDR5 should these "weaker than PS4" FM2+ APUs get?

I would be happy with 4GB GDDR5. (And I would compare such an APU with 4GB GDDR5 to a Athlon x 4 860K with a single stick of 4GB DDR3 RAM + dGPU with 1GB GDDR5, possibly GT 730 GDDR5).

 

[ShintaiDK]

4GB is useless. And 8GB in 4gbit gddr5 cost 80-100$. And that's wholesale cost alone. Not final cost.

 

[cbn]

4GB is useless.

Its not useless, but it is definitely a low spec.

Question is in how many instances/scenarios would 4GB GDDR5 be a bottleneck to a system with A10-7850K or A10-7870K?

This compared to how many instances/scenarios 8GB DDR3 would be a bottleneck?

For example, in BF4 64 player (assuming the CPU throttling was fixed) I would rather have 4GB GDDR5 than 8GB DDR3.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You do know its shared memory with the CPU. 4GB is already locking you out of many new games.

6GB non shared memory is pretty much the defacto standard for new 64bit games as minimum.

 

[cbn]

You do know its shared memory with the CPU.

Yes, in many cases 4GB (shared) is a tight fit.

6GB non shared memory is pretty much the defacto standard for new 64bit games as minimum.

I noticed 6GB listed as a minimum on games last year. I believe Call of Duty Ghosts was the first one I noticed, but I haven't seen very many with that same minimum RAM spec or greater.

Of the Steam top 99 games by player count here are the games I counted with 6GB or greater RAM requirements:

Fallout 4: 8GB (but apparently will play decently enough on 4GB)
Call of Duty Black Ops III: 6GB
Witcher 3: 6GB
Just Cause 3: 6GB
Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Seige: 6GB
Space Engineers 8GB
Elite Dangerous: Horizons 6GB
Planet Side 2 6GB

 

[DrMrLordX]

But what problem does AM4 solve?

It provides a unified socket enabling a full range of power levels for desktop chips, along with all the pinouts necessary to support even very large APUs, as well as all the power planes necessary for sophisticated power management.

It's the best of AM3+ and FM2+ rolled into one socket.

AMD is moving towards HBM2, not GDDR5 or any other GDDR variant.

And Bristol Ridge *is* Carrizo, on a more-mature GF28A. Hopefully they will have tweaked the power/clockspeed management so that we get desktop-like behavior rather than mobile APU behavior.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yes, in many cases 4GB (shared) is a tight fit.



I noticed 6GB listed as a minimum on games last year. I believe Call of Duty Ghosts was the first one I noticed, but I haven't seen very many with that same minimum RAM spec or greater.

Of the Steam top 99 games by player count here are the games I counted with 6GB or greater RAM requirements:

Fallout 4: 8GB (but apparently will play decently enough on 4GB)
Call of Duty Black Ops III: 6GB
Witcher 3: 6GB
Just Cause 3: 6GB
Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Seige: 6GB
Space Engineers 8GB
Elite Dangerous: Horizons 6GB
Planet Side 2 6GB

You dont even have 4GB. You have 2-3.5GB depending on setting. And OS 1 is 1 GB. You better close all other apps and browsers too.

Accept it and move on, your 4GB GDDR5 dream is stillborn.

 

[cytg111]

Here are my top five (in no particular order):

1. Braswell N3000: At 4W, I think Intel could do a lot better. (Even the N2807 on 22nm has faster clocks than this 14nm processor)

2. Sempron 2650: At 25W, I feel the clocks at 1.45Ghz are just too low for a dual core. This especially when the Athlon 5350 is a full quad core with 2.05 Ghz clock at the same TDP.

3. i7-5930K: This is actually a great CPU, but I feel the price premium over the i7-5820K is just too large to justify the minor clockspeed increase and 40 PCIe lanes vs. 28 PCIe lanes.

4. A10-7850K/A10-7870K: Like the i7-5930K these are just too expensive for what they offer.

5. Any dual core FM2 (eg, A4-7300) or FM2+ processor (eg, A6-7400K). Reason: I don't think so much of the iGPU should be disabled. IMO, 384sp should be the minimum iGPU size for a Kaveri dual core and 320sp in the case of Richland dual core.

I hate to say this cause it is water on the old mill for the usual frantic-heil-intel-representitives-club aka FHIRCH, but anything AMD have to make the ST-performance is just not there list. ST performance is important to me.

The HEDT line actually makes me trigger happy but when the rational part of the brain kicks in I am just not running that kind of software, I am not going SLI either .. but hot damn hell, a broadwell 10c20t sounds sweet... thing is, if you are truly writing highly threaded software, chances are that you're better off offloading it to special hardware like a GPU (or 10 of them).. At the end of the day I cant reason beyond a 4C8T cpu in todays software climate. So the i7 is perfect for me.. wouldnt change it. (it could be free of course.. but world economy etc..)

ed : intel could produce a 5c5t or 6c6t cpu to fill the gap.. that could have me running confused if the price was right..