Discussion Squeezing the APU Zen2 refresh in the APU Zen 3 line-up, Why??

[Kedas]

So they really going to put the 4700U APU refresh inside the 5000 series line-up.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700U Lucienne 'Renoir Refresh' 8 Core APU Benchmarks Leak Out, On Par With The Ryzen 7 4800U Flagship

The first AMD Ryzen 7 5700U Lucienne 'Renoir Refresh' Zen 2 APU benchmarks have leaked out which show faster performance than Ryzen 7 4700U.

wccftech.com

Why??
The die size will be a little bigger for Zen3 due to extra cache but why would you start a new lineup of products that is worse that what you already have and give it a number like it belongs to the same series while we know it's not.
What is wrong with the number 4750U, 4850U for your refresh??

It's not like they made the 3800X -> 3800XT Zen2 refresh suddenly the 5700X because it fits about there depending on your use. (I hope I didn't gave marketing new ideas!)

There will always be older products that can be valued on the scale of the new line-up, it doesn't mean you have to rename them and put them IN the new line-up!

 

[uzzi38]

Exactly because the die size is larger and demand for AMD laptops is rising. Cezanne is likely an extra 10% or so in die space, which is a significant amount extra volume.

Worth noting that Lucienne will only be used for -U laptops. There are no -H Lucienne devices. So AMD are also trying to play off the idea that Zen 2 is "good enough" for thin and light devices where more gaming-style devices will have access to Cezanne for best performance. The 16MB L3 of Cezanne will come in more handy to that end also.

As for naming scheme - OEMs are the ones who would push for 5000-series naming. They pretty much demand yearly refreshes to naming schemes.

 

[coercitiv]

What is wrong with the number 4750U, 4850U for your refresh??

As @uzzi38 already mentioned, the problem is OEMs.

The one thing that is borderline acceptable about Lucienne is they're bumping up performance by enabling more silicon at the same price point. Coupled with Cezanne being on the same node, the resulting product offering is quite decent.

• on the CPU side you get SMT enabled
• on the GPU side you get roughly 30% higher performance through a combination of ~20% higher clocks and 1 extra CU enabled per SKU tier

The bad part is I'm expecting 5800U to make the 5700U look quite silly considering the better core and double the L3. The 5600U will be a similar story, essentially superior to 5700U in most common CPU tasks.

I'll be very curious to see a Vcore comparison between Cezanne and Luciennce though.

 

[Kedas]

They better hope that the 5600U zen3 isn't faster than the 5700U Zen2 otherwise it will backfire big time!
I already did hear someone saying "but that is deception!"
(Can you imagine a 'free upgrade' promotion from 5600U to 5700U and you get less)

 

[moinmoin]

At least it's easy to remember, the 5-odd-U ones are the odd ones!

 

[teejee]

They better hope that the 5600U zen3 isn't faster than the 5700U Zen2 otherwise it will backfire big time!
I already did hear someone saying "but that is deception!"
(Can you imagine a 'free upgrade' promotion from 5600U to 5700U and you get less)

I assume 5600u will be faster in certain single threaded tasks at least.

 

[Hitman928]

Yeah, I really don't like the mixing Zen generations product names like that. If it was like Intel refreshes the last few years then it wouldn't be a big deal because there wasn't much of a difference between generations architecture wise, but there is a big difference between Zen2 and Zen3. I know it's pressure from OEMs that leads to this, but I wish AMD came up with a better way of distinguishing which SKU is which generation.

 

[scineram]

Exactly because the die size is larger and demand for AMD laptops is rising. Cezanne is likely an extra 10% or so in die space, which is a significant amount extra volume.

Worth noting that Lucienne will only be used for -U laptops. There are no -H Lucienne devices. So AMD are also trying to play off the idea that Zen 2 is "good enough" for thin and light devices where more gaming-style devices will have access to Cezanne for best performance. The 16MB L3 of Cezanne will come in more handy to that end also.

As for naming scheme - OEMs are the ones who would push for 5000-series naming. They pretty much demand yearly refreshes to naming schemes.

Excuses. Am still disappointed in them.

 

[AmericanLocomotive]

AMD Marketing:
- Let's name our Zen 1 mobile chips "Ryzen 2000 series, because they have some slight improvements over Zen 1 desktop chips, but aren't quite full Zen+ cores. It'll be fine, since you can just look at "mobile" as a completely different product line"
- Let's make our desktop APUs follow the mobile naming scheme, messing everything up and making the whole product stack very confusing.
- We're going to make Zen 3 Desktop chips skip a generation name to re-synchronize the mobile/desktop naming
- Just kidding, we're now going to immediately mess that up. Instead of just implementing a slight number revision indicating an updated product (ex. Ryzen 4790u), we're going to intermix Zen 2 and 3 mobile chips under the Ryzen 5000 banner so absolutely no one knows exactly what they're buying unless they pull up a spreadsheet of the various cores attached to a particular model number.

This nonsense is mind boggling. Remember when a new architecture got a new CPU name? Pentium 3s were Pentium 3s. Pentium 4s were Pentium 4s. Athlon 64s were Athlon 64s, Phenoms were Phenoms, Phenom IIs were Phenom IIs.

The FTC needs to beat AMD and Intel senseless for their CPU marketing name nonsense. Maybe once AMD formally announces these CPUs I'll file a complaint with the FTC.

 

[Geranium]

AMD Marketing:
- Let's name our Zen 1 mobile chips "Ryzen 2000 series, because they have some slight improvements over Zen 1 desktop chips, but aren't quite full Zen+ cores. It'll be fine, since you can just look at "mobile" as a completely different product line"
- Let's make our desktop APUs follow the mobile naming scheme, messing everything up and making the whole product stack very confusing.
- We're going to make Zen 3 Desktop chips skip a generation name to re-synchronize the mobile/desktop naming
- Just kidding, we're now going to immediately mess that up. Instead of just implementing a slight number revision indicating an updated product (ex. Ryzen 4790u), we're going to intermix Zen 2 and 3 mobile chips under the Ryzen 5000 banner so absolutely no one knows exactly what they're buying unless they pull up a spreadsheet of the various cores attached to a particular model number.

This nonsense is mind boggling. Remember when a new architecture got a new CPU name? Pentium 3s were Pentium 3s. Pentium 4s were Pentium 4s. Athlon 64s were Athlon 64s, Phenoms were Phenoms, Phenom IIs were Phenom IIs.

The FTC needs to beat AMD and Intel senseless for their CPU marketing name nonsense. Maybe once AMD formally announces these CPUs I'll file a complaint with the FTC.

Apple is the one who needs the beating first, cause they dont even say the model number of the cpu they are using. Just 2.7 GHz.

 

[Zepp]

AMD Marketing:
they have some slight improvements over Zen 1 desktop chips, but aren't quite full Zen+ cores.

Has AMD every officially called Raven Zen or Zen+? I've always considered it Zen+ on 14nm.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Has AMD every officially called Raven Zen or Zen+? I've always considered it Zen+ on 14nm.

Zen1. Picasso was Zen+.

 

[itsmydamnation]

I assume 5600u will be faster in certain single threaded tasks at least.

given that ~25% perf per watt improvement it will probably win at everything give the same TDP

 

[fusionTi]

This nonsense is mind boggling. Remember when a new architecture got a new CPU name? Pentium 3s were Pentium 3s. Pentium 4s were Pentium 4s. Athlon 64s were Athlon 64s, Phenoms were Phenoms, Phenom IIs were Phenom IIs.

Pentium 4s were not just Pentium 4s. Prescott is a completely different architecture/core than Northwood was. Both were terrible if that's what you meant, whereas all Ryzen 5000 are quite good.

 

[blckgrffn]

Let us pour one out for the AMD Phenom II 840, which was really just an Athlon II x4 Propus but called a Phenom II for "branding."

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.20 GHz Review

The return of Phenom II X4 800 marks AMD's yet another push to secure its dominance in the budget market, and its first representative, the Phenom II X4 840 has all of the features to continue the legacy of legendary Athlon II X4 620 - the first $100 quad processor. Clocked at high 3.20 GHz, and...

www.techpowerup.com

This is very much like the Ice Lake/Comet Lake issues with 10th Gen Intel Mobile chips. Very annoying as a customer.

 

[Thunder 57]

Pentium 4s were not just Pentium 4s. Prescott is a completely different architecture/core than Northwood was. Both were terrible if that's what you meant, whereas all Ryzen 5000 are quite good.

Northwood faired pretty well once it got a faster FSB and dual channel DDR. Now Willamette, that was a disaster.

 

[moinmoin]

Geekbench has Cezanne 5800U ST nearly 38% above 4800U ST:

AMD Celadon-CZN - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an AMD Celadon-CZN with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U with Radeon Graphics processor.

browser.geekbench.com

Considering there will be no SMT-disabled chips with the above increase Renoir's Luciennes slot in pretty well between the Cezannes.

 

[HurleyBird]

It's Nvidia levels of scumbaginess. Shame on AMD if they go through with this. They like to market themselves as consumer friendly and ethical, but this scheme is the antithesis of all that. Tech enthusiasts can remember "skip the odd ones," but the naming is literally devised to trick everyone else into thinking they're buying a more powerful product than they actually are.

I wouldn't mind having Lucienne in the 5000 series if the naming is done in such a way that a normal person can tell that there's a difference between between Lucienne and Cezanne products.

 

[trexfromouterspace]

Why are people still surprised when AMD marketing does something terrible?

 

[dacostafilipe]

I wouldn't mind having Lucienne in the 5000 series if the naming is done in such a way that a normal person can tell that there's a difference between between Lucienne and Cezanne products.

"Normal" people don't know what Lucienne or Cezanne mean, something in the naming would not help. As long as the price/performance is correct, this sounds like a great solution to give customers more choice.

 

[scineram]

But it’s not. Zen 3 chips with lower numbers will destroy higher numbered Zen 2 chips.

 

[Gideon]

But it’s not. Zen 3 chips with lower numbers will destroy higher numbered Zen 2 chips.

Well "destroy" is a bit of a hyperbole for 10-20% better ST performance, with two systems being otherwise equal it will be noticeable but not to all and not in all conditions.

It is still very anti-consumer behavior though (there are plenty of better ways to solve this, add a letter if you must, if OEMs prss for the 5xxx series name), I kind of hoped they'll change it before release, but it doesn't seem to be the case

 

[dacostafilipe]

It is still very anti-consumer behavior though (there are plenty of better ways to solve this, add a letter if you must, if OEMs prss for the 5xxx series name), I kind of hoped they'll change it before release, but it doesn't seem to be the case

I agree that it's an issue for most consumers, but I still think that adding a letter it will not help, they will still buy the bigger number.

And using <5500 for Zen2 and >5500 for Zen3 will also not help, as some Zen2 configurations (cores/threads, base/boost frequency, TDP, cooling) would be faster than some Zen3 configurations.

 

[Gideon]

I agree that it's an issue for most consumers, but I still think that adding a letter it will not help, they will still buy the bigger number.

And using <5500 for Zen2 and >5500 for Zen3 will also not help, as some Zen2 configurations (cores/threads, base/boost frequency, TDP, cooling) would be faster than some Zen3 configurations.

The most obvious thing I would have done (and should have done already with the Picasso 3xxxU series) is add a 50 to the model number.

e.g: 4800U -> 4850U

The problem with this approach is that they already named the PRO versions with 50 in the end for absolutely no reason, so they can't do that. The other one why the continue to do this is that OEMs push for new model numbers constantly (so that their new models look better).

Even with the 5xxx series it would still better if Lucenne would be, say 5800U and Cezanne would be 5850U.

Anyway IMHO AMD should have drawn a line in the sand with the desktop 5xxx series (why did they even skip 4xxxX otherwise?)
No zen 2 product should be in the 5xxx series, period. However which way they name them. Unfortunately they didn't go that route.

 

[xblax]

Don't know why this is really a problem? Ryzen 5000 means 5000-lineup of CPUs not Zen3. It's a misinterpretation that there must be a 1:1 relationship. It's useful for the customer to recognize that a notebook is considered a current model and not some old stock being sold.

In the end it's required to look at specific benchmarks and reviews anyway when purchasing something new. Average consumers do not really care about what is Zen2/Zen3.