New Zen microarchitecture details

[maddie]

can you guys quit ruining this thread? we had a nice couple days where some semi-informed speculation went on, but you all had to go and step in it. you've had this discussion over and over in thread after thread, none of you are changing any of the others minds, and i'm tired of reading it.

Good luck. Love the technical stuff, hate the sniping.

It gets tedious

 

[ElFenix]

people seeing others as having agendas is a problem, and perhaps it is time to have that discussion, but this thread is not for that discussion.

 

[Doom2pro]

Good luck with this. It's a crusade to some. Might some sort of special forum thread with posting by approved privilege only by the OP solve the constant derailment of some threads. Could this be a solution. I can see the moderators here being heavily worked.

Per one poster quoted by you:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=38153183&postcount=68
Not at all. I believe that these forums are slowly being infested by people seemingly with agendas to try to promote AMD products and alleged "superiority." The claims are becoming increasingly fantastical and out-of-touch with reality.

Mybad thought this thread was about Zen, seeing all the talk about Zen I figured it would be ok to talk about Zen.

 

[AtenRa]

Report: AMD to revive Project Quantum with Zen CPU, Vega GPU

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/92342-report-amd-revive-project-quantum-zen-cpu-vega-gpu/

 

[guskline]

Report: AMD to revive Project Quantum with Zen CPU, Vega GPU

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/92342-report-amd-revive-project-quantum-zen-cpu-vega-gpu/

I sometimes wonder about the accuracy of the sources, but the premise makes sense.

It would be very embarrassing for AMD to release Project Quantum with an Intel chip inside. Especially since Zen, apparently is progressing satisfactorily.

Big Vega should be about ready early next year along with Zen.

I'm also going out on a Limb and state my hunch. Dr. Su, CEO of AMD, probably told the tinkerers to shelf Quantum until AMD could produce both a legitimate cpu and gpu to compete. (I would expect nothing less from someone with a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in E.E. from M.I.T. !)

I really like what she has done to AMD in making the divisions focus on the quality of their products.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I sometimes wonder about the accuracy of the sources, but the premise makes sense.

It would be very embarrassing for AMD to release Project Quantum with an Intel chip inside. Especially since Zen, apparently is progressing satisfactorily.

Big Vega should be about ready early next year along with Zen.

I'm also going out on a Limb and state my hunch. Dr. Su, CEO of AMD, probably told the tinkerers to shelf Quantum until AMD could produce both a legitimate cpu and gpu to compete. (I would expect nothing less from someone with a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in E.E. from M.I.T. !)

I really like what she has done to AMD in making the divisions focus on the quality of their products.

Yea, it probably will happen, but all I see in that article, derived from the infamous WCCF Tech is speculation.

 

[guskline]

Yea, it probably will happen, but all I see in that article, derived from the infamous WCCF Tech is speculation.

Agree with you.

 

[Shehriazad]

All this talk about Zen....but what about its' platform?

Like...wasn't it supposed to be available quite a bit before Zen itself? I'm kinda waiting <_>

 

[Arachnotronic]

All this talk about Zen....but what about its' platform?

Like...wasn't it supposed to be available quite a bit before Zen itself? I'm kinda waiting <_>

Expect at Computex.

 

[The Stilt]

I would be surprised if AMD officially even mentions Zen at Computex. I would expect AM4 platform and AM4 Bristol Ridges to be introduced there, but nothing Zen related.

 

[Doom2pro]

I would be surprised if AMD officially even mentions Zen at Computex. I would expect AM4 platform and AM4 Bristol Ridges to be introduced there, but nothing Zen related.

A Polaris-like Demo would be nice... But don't hold your breath: Capsaicin.

 

[Abwx]

Expect at Computex.

They traditionaly disclose their uarchs at Hot Chips, so we should expect about nothing till end of august.

 

[Arachnotronic]

They traditionaly disclose their uarchs at Hot Chips, so we should expect about nothing till end of august.

Oh no, I meant AM4 boards will come at Computex. Summit Ridge should be later.

 

[DrMrLordX]

All this talk about Zen....but what about its' platform?

Like...wasn't it supposed to be available quite a bit before Zen itself? I'm kinda waiting <_>

Shipping manifests made it look like AMD could have launched AM4 + Bristol Ridge by now. They've chosen to wait until Computex instead.

 

[guskline]

Computex opens May 31 in Taipei

 

[Dresdenboy]

Zen at Computex (even behind closed doors) would be nice.

Meanwhile, sources also told us that AMD will begin leading motherboard family AM4 to show or reveal to be seen in the middle of this year or at the Computex Taipei 2016 is coming up. during the month of June is coming up. And may be introduced Zen to show themselves to be seen as well. But it will not be released or sold in any way.

http://www.zolkorn.com/news/amd-am4-motherboard-starting-for-production/
https://translate.google.com/transl.../amd-am4-motherboard-starting-for-production/
Binglish is even worse.

 

[Boze]

people seeing others as having agendas is a problem, and perhaps it is time to have that discussion, but this thread is not for that discussion.

The only agenda most of us have is performance.

The only way to fix that "agenda" is to wait for release and see how Zen stacks up. We can speculate all day using the technical data, but its ultimately meaningless until we have silicon in hand and we've got some benchmarks running.

Maybe everyone here needs to be reminded of that.

 

[nenforcer]

They are shipping the last of these Vishera / Kaveri / Godaveri / Carrizo chips with Wraith coolers hoping to sell the last stock. Back to school season (Q3) is the only real big target date they have to hit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

They are shipping the last of these Vishera / Kaveri / Godaveri / Carrizo chips with Wraith coolers hoping to sell the last stock. Back to school season (Q3) is the only real big target date they have to hit.

Zen for BTS 2016? Or Bristol Ridge and AM4 platform motherboards?

 

[Doom2pro]

They are shipping the last of these Vishera / Kaveri / Godaveri / Carrizo chips with Wraith coolers hoping to sell the last stock. Back to school season (Q3) is the only real big target date they have to hit.

You are mistaking Bristol Ridge Q3 for Zen Q4...

 

[The Stilt]

Based on the rumors and the things I know as a facts it seems that AMD is putting most of the effort in Zen server platforms / infrastructures and the desktop platform (AM4) will be the runt.

The rumor says that AMD will be releasing three different server platforms and a single desktop platform. All of them are supposed to use different packages for the CPU. If that's really the case, then the infrastructures alone require a huge amount of work D: All of the different infrastructures will be implementing the same exact silicon (die), only the quantity and the fuse configuration varies, allegedly :sneaky:

Based on the recent testing I've done, I think we have reached a point where in certain workloads even the 8C/16T Zen will need to be able to better the operating frequency of Intel 4C/8T SKL / KBL parts in order to match their performance.

I have no idea what kind (if any) IPC improvements Kaby Lake will bring, however the situation doesn't look too great for Zen in the light of the projected 40% IPC improvement over Excavator :'(

X265 1.9+141 (GCC 5.3 x86-64 / YASM 1.30)

Settings: Preset = Medium, RC = CRF 16.0, ME = 3 (Star)
Input: YUV 420P8 1920x1080, 30fps
ST

Steamroller (CMT/P)

Steamroller (No-CMT/P)

Excavator (AVX2)

Excavator (No-AVX2)

Haswell

Skylake
Thanks to Acizco for testing

So:

Excavator (AVX2) = 1.25fps
Steamroller = 1.26fps (+0.8%)
Excavator (No-AVX2) = 1.30fps (+4%)
Haswell = 2.36fps (+88.8%)
Skylake = 2.55fps (+104.0%)

Adding 40% to the performance of Excavator is still like shooting a speeding locomotive with a BB-gun (even Skylake would still have ~46% higher IPC, and Kaby Lake is not even out yet...)

 

[Arachnotronic]

Adding 40% to the performance of Excavator is still like shooting a speeding locomotive with a BB-gun (even Skylake would still have ~46% higher IPC, and Kaby Lake is not even out yet...)

Kaby Lake will be a very, very tiny improvement IPC wise from Skylake. It is the same Skylake core but with features that were fused off (put in for experimental/R&D purpose) validated and turned on.

My bet is sub-5% IPC improvement. I do think that 14nm yield improvements/enhancements will allow for better frequency at a given power level. The KBL 65W i7 leaks point to 3.6GHz base/4.2GHz turbo, up from 3.4GHz/4.0GHz for the i7-6700.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Based on the rumors and the things I know as a facts it seems that AMD is putting most of the effort in Zen server platforms / infrastructures and the desktop platform (AM4) will be the runt.

The rumor says that AMD will be releasing three different server platforms and a single desktop platform. All of them are supposed to use different packages for the CPU. If that's really the case, then the infrastructures alone require a huge amount of work D: All of the different infrastructures will be implementing the same exact silicon (die), only the quantity and the fuse configuration varies, allegedly :sneaky:

Based on the recent testing I've done, I think we have reached a point where in certain workloads even the 8C/16T Zen will need to be able to better the operating frequency of Intel 4C/8T SKL / KBL parts in order to match their performance.

I have no idea what kind (if any) IPC improvements Kaby Lake will bring, however the situation doesn't look too great for Zen in the light of the projected 40% IPC improvement over Excavator :'(

X265 1.9+141 (GCC 5.3 x86-64 / YASM 1.30)

Settings: Preset = Medium, RC = CRF 16.0, ME = 3 (Star)
Input: YUV 420P8 1920x1080, 30fps
ST

Excavator (AVX2) = 1.25fps
Steamroller = 1.26fps (+0.8%)
Excavator (No-AVX2) = 1.30fps (+4%)
Haswell = 2.36fps (+88.8%)
Skylake = 2.55fps (+104.0%)

Adding 40% to the performance of Excavator is still like shooting a speeding locomotive with a BB-gun (even Skylake would still have ~46% higher IPC, and Kaby Lake is not even out yet...)

Yep, no need to keep waiting for "magic". Its going to be the same case as always.

 

[naukkis]

Excavator (AVX2) = 1.25fps
Steamroller = 1.26fps (+0.8%)
Excavator (No-AVX2) = 1.30fps (+4%)
Haswell = 2.36fps (+88.8%)
Skylake = 2.55fps (+104.0%)

Adding 40% to the performance of Excavator is still like shooting a speeding locomotive with a BB-gun (even Skylake would still have ~46% higher IPC, and Kaby Lake is not even out yet...)

You compare 4-core Intel to 2-module AMD cpu's. 4-core Zen will have about 100 percent more fpu-simd resources and L2-bandwith versus two module versions.

Every module has 2-thread SIMD fpu, every Zen core will have about same resources for fpu(2-threads, L2). Only L1-bandwith will be lower but as write throughput is L2-cache limited module cores can't get full benewith from it. So 4-core Zen should be about twice as fast as 2-module const core at heavy SIMD workloads. So very close to Haswell.....

 

[Arachnotronic]

You compare 4-core Intel to 2-module AMD cpu's. 4-core Zen will have about 100 percent more fpu-simd resources and L2-bandwith versus two module versions.

Every module has 2-thread SIMD fpu, every Zen core will have about same resources for fpu(2-threads, L2). Only L1-bandwith will be lower but as write throughput is L2-cache limited module cores can't get full benewith from it. So 4-core Zen should be about twice as fast as 2-module const core at heavy SIMD workloads. So very close to Haswell.....

AFAICT, TheStilt posted single-threaded results.