darkswordsman17
Lifer
- Mar 11, 2004
- 23,074
- 5,557
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Going to chime in with my 2¢. This N5P rumor seems like 100% BS, and I'm honestly confused why so many are taking it seriously. AMD needs to deliver on their roadmap as close as possible to be seen as a more reliable alternative to Intel, and thus pull away marketshare. They will have a substantial PnP and cost advantage even without 5nm, and they have a relatively small team and limited resources. Why on earth would they risk it all to be the first customer on a bleeding edge process? Best case scenario, they suffer a ~1 quarter delay to have an even more substantial lead over Intel. Worst case scenario, that stretches a few more quarters. At some point, they also run the risk of intersecting with Sapphire Rapids, which would eliminate any relative performance advantage 5nm would have given them.
No, Zen 3 will be on some variant of 7nm. Possibly 7+, but more likely 7P.
We're 2-3 months into stay-at-home. Speculation has never been in short supply. And us enthusiasts have always salivated over these scenarios. Look back at Athlon 64, then A64 X2, then Core 2 Duo, Sandy Bridge, then Zen 2. There's ample excitement for Zen in general, so people are going to get excited for juicy "what if" thinking.
Who to say this is in anyway impacting their reliability? You think OEMs are gonna be mad if AMD offers them much better product that likely won't require much if any extra effort on their part to support? Without knowing the timetable, its tough to say it'll be problematic much if at all for AMD's partners, for all we know it might actually suit their timetables better. AMD also has to prove that they can reliably advance things, they have to show they can offer performance worth building product lines for. Better AMD products makes the sell easier for their partners. Also, don't forget, AMD is still the underdog here.
Risk it all? They were already developing for that process, and they've been working well with TSMC and there hasn't been much indicating 5nm isn't going well too, and its provided a situation where both could benefit. It doesn't sound that risky, and it could potentially have big payoff. I think its riskier for AMD not to push. Heck, this is helping one of their partners, as TSMC isn't going to want production capacity going unused. This has other ramifications too, as when capacity opens up at TSMC or planning future production, AMD will likely be one of the first ones they'll call. And when AMD needs/wants something, TSMC will probably be willing to do what they can. I think there might be other potential future ramifications that could be pretty huge (look at the announcement about the TSMC fab in the US) as well.
It does? So should Intel have called it "Chaos rapids" since it'll drown Zen? I don't understand that at all though, as how would releasing a worse Zen 3 earlier help them deal with such a chip? So they'd get some sales before Intel kills them? Or would they be better off having a better performing chip to compete better with stronger Intel offerings?
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not treating this like its true and totally happening. and I'm just having fun speculating. I don't even really have a problem with your rationlizations (I think they're sound), I just wanted to offer some counter rationale.