What plans do you think AMD has for desktop APUs on future sockets?

[Topweasel]

Maybe they will add TR4 motherboard with display output, since there are many unused pin in cpu. Just like how some AM4 doesn't have any display output.

No because there is no market for it.

 

[cbn]

Also what is ideal? I mean it's current one is the most powerful iGPU right? How much bigger does it need to be?

I would like to see AMD's APUs compete against midrange Nvidia dGPUs (edit: or even higher) (at the bare minimum GTX xx50 Ti level).

 

[Topweasel]

That's not what these are made for. I am not saying AMD can't do so but I think people tend to confuse dream states with reality. The APU is at its heart a laptop CPU just as a desktop i7 isn't anything other than a laptop CPU.

AMD has enough expertise and experience with their custom division to make what you are asking for. It still isn't a reasonable retail solution which means "value" doesn't play a part. We know by the XBX that this type of CPU serves a purpose. It just isn't in a desktop socket.

 

[scannall]

Maybe they will add TR4 motherboard with display output, since there are many unused pin in cpu. Just like how some AM4 doesn't have any display output.

Possibly throwing a barebones video output into the chipset? Maybe, but that doesn't require a socket change. And it would be useful for troubleshooting.

 

[Topweasel]

Possibly throwing a barebones video output into the chipset? Maybe, but that doesn't require a socket change. And it would be useful for troubleshooting.

I think if AMD did want to offer something like this they would offer a low power small chip that MB companies could install for added functionality and not something they would include in a general chipset.

 

[scannall]

I think if AMD did want to offer something like this they would offer a low power small chip that MB companies could install for added functionality and not something they would include in a general chipset.

That would work too.

 

[cbn]

That's not what these are made for. I am not saying AMD can't do so but I think people tend to confuse dream states with reality. The APU is at its heart a laptop CPU just as a desktop i7 isn't anything other than a laptop CPU.

AMD has enough expertise and experience with their custom division to make what you are asking for. It still isn't a reasonable retail solution which means "value" doesn't play a part. We know by the XBX that this type of CPU serves a purpose. It just isn't in a desktop socket.

Regarding the bolded part....I totally agree. This is why I would like to see the high end mainstream APU as BGA. So it can go in laptops.

We don't need them in desktops.

 

[wahdangun]

No because there is no market for it.

to compete with hades canyon nuc ?

Possibly throwing a barebones video output into the chipset? Maybe, but that doesn't require a socket change. And it would be useful for troubleshooting.

No, not just barebone but a powerful one, and maybe calling it TR4+ socket ?

 

[cbn]

Maybe they will add TR4 motherboard with display output, since there are many unused pin in cpu. Just like how some AM4 doesn't have any display output.

Possibly throwing a barebones video output into the chipset? Maybe, but that doesn't require a socket change. And it would be useful for troubleshooting.

No, not just barebone but a powerful one, and maybe calling it TR4+ socket ?

For a new Threadripper (compatible with Threadripper APU) socket could we get Thunderbolt III/IV/V instead of dedicated video outputs? This way it could be also be used for I/O if no display on the system is used or needed.

P.S. Thunderbolt III is royalty free in 2018.

 

[Topweasel]

There can be a market for a TR branded APU in a BGA setup for select vendors. There isn't for the desktop market. The one and only reason AMD would even pause to contemplate one is that there is a server market use for this configuration. That said it's a year almost and we still haven't even seen a 2 Die EPYC. So while the platform is probably malleable enough for AMD to offer a TR APU in the sense that every supporting aspect of TR (the stuff it borrows from the server platform) could exist with a market to sell to, a TR desktop APU would be one of the most pointless products to offer. It eskews everything "HEDT" and it's only realistic purpose would be in the "home made" server market. Besides the fact that AMD isn't selling their hardware with enough price segmentation to make that worthwhile it really screws with the branding of Threadripper in general.

So while 4 channel memory bandwidth on an APU would look fantastic this a realistic hope or goal.

 

[wahdangun]

There can be a market for a TR branded APU in a BGA setup for select vendors. There isn't for the desktop market. The one and only reason AMD would even pause to contemplate one is that there is a server market use for this configuration. That said it's a year almost and we still haven't even seen a 2 Die EPYC. So while the platform is probably malleable enough for AMD to offer a TR APU in the sense that every supporting aspect of TR (the stuff it borrows from the server platform) could exist with a market to sell to, a TR desktop APU would be one of the most pointless products to offer. It eskews everything "HEDT" and it's only realistic purpose would be in the "home made" server market. Besides the fact that AMD isn't selling their hardware with enough price segmentation to make that worthwhile it really screws with the branding of Threadripper in general.

So while 4 channel memory bandwidth on an APU would look fantastic this a realistic hope or goal.

There are 2 dies epyc it's for embedded market though

 

[Topweasel]

There are 2 dies epyc it's for embedded market though

You know what you are right. I was thinking about the chip that was supposed to use nearly the same socket variation of TR but as an EPYC CPU. But yeah there is the embedded one.

 

[cbn]

The mainstream platform won't get more than 24 lanes of PCIe because the vast majority of mainstream users don't need more than that. Adding more lanes increases complexity and costs (more pins in your socket, more traces to route, more layers in your motherboard), making the product less competitive.

But how mainstream (really) is a CPU with 16C/32T?

With that many cores I would think most would want the maximum PCIe lanes.

(About the only way I could see a high performance (large iGPU with HBM) mainstream socketed APU come into existence would be if it were released on mobile first and then perhaps a year later specific socket chipset-less motherboards came into being (For an analogy think how socket AM1 came into being after BGA Kabini was released about a year earlier. Then at that point there would be two "mainstream" sockets...like there was with FM2+ and AM3+....but with greater separation than FM2+ and AM3+ had)

 

[PeterScott]

1.) I think eventually the mainstream socket will no longer support APUs*. (This to free up PCIe lanes making the platform more high performance from a storage** standpoint.)

Example: If the current AM4 did not support APUs then the dCPU would be able to use all 32 PCIe lanes.

2.) I think eventually the Threadripper socket will support APUs. (This because there is room under the heatspreader for a rather large iGPU).

Example: The current Threadripper processor packages have 4 CPU dies, but only two of them are active (The other two dies are inactive and could be replaced with a large GPU die).

*All future mainstream APUs will be BGA only.

1: Mainstream needs APU more than it needs more PCIe Lanes. APU is the heart of mainstream. Socketed mainstream isn't going away,

2: Why? You want to take APU away from mainstream and stick it on HEDT where it really isn't needed. That really doesn't seem needed.

I don't see a lot of change coming for Mainstream sockets, beyond evolution.

The most interesting thing, may be how a more GPU biased APU might be handled. One potential product that seems within AMDs capability is to produce an APU with a powerful GPU section. This seems like an exciting (but niche) product.

I see two possibilities to handle the extra memory bandwidth required.

1: The GPU strong APU will be a BGA only part.
2: The next mainstream socket may be slightly larger physically to have room for HBM memory on board the mainstream socket.

 

[Mopetar]

1: Mainstream needs APU more than it needs more PCIe Lanes. APU is the heart of mainstream. Socketed mainstream isn't going away.

Yeah, and most mainstream users aren't going to use all of those PCI lanes to begin with. It's also more than Intel offers on their mainstream part (Ryzen has 24, Intel 16 on 8700K), so I'm not even sure what the argument is supposed to be. Unless things have changed recently, I don't think most graphics cards don't gain much from going from 8x to 16x either, and I don't think I've heard of anyone running tri- or quad-GPU setups recently either.

2: The next mainstream socket may be slightly larger physically to have room for HBM memory on board the mainstream socket.

That could be a possibility. There's rumors that AMD might go to a 6-core CCX design soon. I could easily see them doing that to build their plain CPUs, but keeping a 4-core CCX variant around which would mean that you could get that, a GPU, and some HBM on a package instead of going with two of the larger 6-core CCX modules.

 

[LTC8K6]

Not sure if this belongs here, but it's about dropping support for some APUs, and possibly some other chips, due to BIOS chip limitations.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1297...istol-ridge-dropped-from-certain-motherboards