Discussion Speculation: Zen 4 (EPYC 4 "Genoa", Ryzen 7000, etc.)

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Vattila

Senior member
Oct 22, 2004
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Except for the details about the improvements in the microarchitecture, we now know pretty well what to expect with Zen 3.

The leaked presentation by AMD Senior Manager Martin Hilgeman shows that EPYC 3 "Milan" will, as promised and expected, reuse the current platform (SP3), and the system architecture and packaging looks to be the same, with the same 9-die chiplet design and the same maximum core and thread-count (no SMT-4, contrary to rumour). The biggest change revealed so far is the enlargement of the compute complex from 4 cores to 8 cores, all sharing a larger L3 cache ("32+ MB", likely to double to 64 MB, I think).

Hilgeman's slides did also show that EPYC 4 "Genoa" is in the definition phase (or was at the time of the presentation in September, at least), and will come with a new platform (SP5), with new memory support (likely DDR5).

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What else do you think we will see with Zen 4? PCI-Express 5 support? Increased core-count? 4-way SMT? New packaging (interposer, 2.5D, 3D)? Integrated memory on package (HBM)?

Vote in the poll and share your thoughts! :)
 
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Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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The below is the main reason that I see companies shying away from Intel more and more (and I have said how important this is before, now it comes from the top)

"We covered a lot of topics in the interview, but focused on the momentum that both AMD and Supermicro are seeing in their datacenter businesses, and how important energy efficiency is becoming in the datacenter as electricity prices skyrocket in Europe and other parts of the world. Electricity costs well above $1 million per megawatt-year in a lot of countries and is becoming an increasingly important issue in the calculation of total cost of ownership (TCO). "

Edit: from the link in the post above this !
 

Exist50

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Aug 18, 2016
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Damn, I was hoping that 6 and 8 cores could carry lower TDP than 55W. With 55W CPU + 140W GPU, we are in hot gaming laptop era..

Not sure which thread, but I remember someone posting Raphael and Raptor Lake scaling numbers down to ~45W. Seems that as you get into that territory, the Raphael die to die overhead starts to really limit the power scaling. Since Dragon Range is just BGA Raphael, makes sense that they don't see value in pushing it into lower power envelopes.

Honestly not sure why 6c (and maybe even 8c) Dragon Range exists. Why not just use Phoenix at that point?
 

Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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Honestly not sure why 6c (and maybe even 8c) Dragon Range exists. Why not just use Phoenix at that point?

One thing I can think of is to upsell the other models. It's like Apple making a 64GB iPhone, just so you'll pay another $100 for $6 worth of flash memory.

The only other reason I could imagine is for a gaming notebook that'll get paired with a discrete card that will want a beefier CPU with extra headroom. A mobile Zen4D would be even better, but they don't even have the desktop chip out yet.
 

Thibsie

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Apr 25, 2017
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One thing I can think of is to upsell the other models. It's like Apple making a 64GB iPhone, just so you'll pay another $100 for $6 worth of flash memory.

The only other reason I could imagine is for a gaming notebook that'll get paired with a discrete card that will want a beefier CPU with extra headroom. A mobile Zen4D would be even better, but they don't even have the desktop chip out yet.

The other possibility is how much more you've been robbed without the additional 64GB..'
 

Kaluan

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Jan 4, 2022
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Here's my 2c/question on the recent potential spill on all things Ryzen Mobile 7000.
What are the odds we see PHX2 ("Little Phoenix"? lol) as AMD's AM5 competitor against Intel's Pentium and/or i3 SKUs?

Athlon and Ryzen 3's return to desktop is sorely needed for their product portfolio. H2 2023 is also when DDR5 is expected to reach price parity with DDR4. So the DDR4 value 'angle' might not be a thing anymore by then.

 
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BorisTheBlade82

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I honestly admit that I would be surprised if AMD used Hybrid in the Low-Cost segment first. Maybe ADL-U is eating Rembrandt alive from a OEM cost/revenue proposal perspective.
Either way it sounds like a good idea to start with a monolithic design first in order to learn. Later on they might add mix'n'matched Zen4/5 and Zen4c CCDs.
 
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eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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X3D chips can't come soon enough. Look at that massive CPU bottleneck:
View attachment 71693

View attachment 71694
If those scores are from the built in benchmarks, they have been shown as useless. The built in benchmarking tool was (at launch) giving out inaccurate numbers.
I honestly admit that I would be surprised if AMD used Hybrid in the Low-Cost segment first. Maybe ADL-U is eating Rembrandt alive from a OEM cost/revenue proposal perspective.
Either way it sounds like a good idea to start with a monolithic design first in order to learn. Later on they might add mix'n'matched Zen4/5 and Zen4c CCDs.
I would be surprised if AMD pursued the so called 'hybrid' or 'heterogeneous' strategy at all. They have no need to do so and keeping things simple means a single chip covers top to bottom. Zen4c is different because cloud providers will buy a ton of chips.

I strongly suspect that EPYC, Threadripper, and Ryzen will continue to share the same architecture along with the new high end mobile chips. THAT is how you bring costs down, improve profitability, and scale up in terms of performance.
 
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Exist50

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I would be surprised if AMD pursued the so called 'hybrid' or 'heterogeneous' strategy at all. They have no need to do so and keeping things simple means a single chip covers top to bottom. Zen4c is different because cloud providers will buy a ton of chips.
Why wouldn't they? They have the components for it, and they need to make a new die (or multiple) for mobile anyways. I agree they don't need to do so to compete with Intel for now, but is that really something to bet on for the future?

Might make sense for them to have an 8+16 desktop product at some point. Shouldn't require any extra tape outs, and would provide a nice performance boost without needing a 3rd CCX.
 

eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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Why wouldn't they? They have the components for it, and they need to make a new die (or multiple) for mobile anyways. I agree they don't need to do so to compete with Intel for now, but is that really something to bet on for the future?

Might make sense for them to have an 8+16 desktop product at some point. Shouldn't require any extra tape outs, and would provide a nice performance boost without needing a 3rd CCX.

Because they are doing just fine competing? Having a 3rd type of CCD only for desktop and mobile would just cost them more money.

We will likely see more cores per CCD before we we see “small” cores. Unlike the small core solution you are referring to, a single 16 core CCD could apply from the top of the server stack all the way down to mobile.

Of course, AMD could decide to go Intel’s route, but I have doubts.
 

LightningZ71

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Mar 10, 2017
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I honestly admit that I would be surprised if AMD used Hybrid in the Low-Cost segment first. Maybe ADL-U is eating Rembrandt alive from a OEM cost/revenue proposal perspective.
Either way it sounds like a good idea to start with a monolithic design first in order to learn. Later on they might add mix'n'matched Zen4/5 and Zen4c CCDs.
They are certainly pricing the 1235U VERY aggressively
 

Schmide

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Mar 7, 2002
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If those scores are from the built in benchmarks, they have been shown as useless. The built in benchmarking tool was (at launch) giving out inaccurate numbers.

I don't know exactly where those screenshots come from but,

Hardware Unboxed goes out of their way to avoid using built in benchmarks.
 

deasd

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Dec 31, 2013
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I honestly admit that I would be surprised if AMD used Hybrid in the Low-Cost segment first. Maybe ADL-U is eating Rembrandt alive from a OEM cost/revenue proposal perspective.
Either way it sounds like a good idea to start with a monolithic design first in order to learn. Later on they might add mix'n'matched Zen4/5 and Zen4c CCDs.

If those scores are from the built in benchmarks, they have been shown as useless. The built in benchmarking tool was (at launch) giving out inaccurate numbers.

I would be surprised if AMD pursued the so called 'hybrid' or 'heterogeneous' strategy at all. They have no need to do so and keeping things simple means a single chip covers top to bottom. Zen4c is different because cloud providers will buy a ton of chips.

I strongly suspect that EPYC, Threadripper, and Ryzen will continue to share the same architecture along with the new high end mobile chips. THAT is how you bring costs down, improve profitability, and scale up in terms of performance.

Pretty funny you guys call Zen4+Zen4C a HYBRID thing.

Only if AMD feel extra pressure of E-core spam from Intel's xxxLake-S lineup. Since MeteorLake-S stays 16 E-core max, I don't think AMD has that pressure to use cloud/density optimized cores in HEDT. And I agree mobile is another story, Intel could crazily spam 2P+8E which would make AMD upset.

Anyway I would rather see official confirmation than a random anonymous or new user from internet.
 
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