The price matters a lot and that is why the large iGPU needs to go.
"Big iGPUs" aren't selling to volume consumers at low price points, so whether or not AMD drops that lineup is irrelevant. AMD is selling them cat cores.
By getting rid of the large iGPU, the price of the big core APUs drops and become closer to the cat cores.
By getting rid of "large iGPUs", AMD has to tape out new designs, the cost of which must be recovered through the sale of resulting chips. They already have various Puma designs (Beema/Mullins) taped out, so they can keep pimping those as a replacement to the dual core Jaguar crap.
....And a AMD quad big core APU is going to be a lot more pleasant to use than any cat core. (This because of the difference in performance of the cpu)
Volume customer notices this too infrequently to care. OEM wants to sell that "more pleasant" experience at a price point over $400. Again, look at what they are charging right now for an E2-3800.
I have to imagine Athlon x4 860K is a really low volume item. How many dies happen to have a defect in display, media, and decode/encode, etc (the only parts that if suffered a defect would render the entire iGPU unuseable)?
Quite low, in fact. That ought to tell you how much our personal preferences matter in the overall scheme of things when it comes to volume chip sales.
Furthermore Athlon x4 860K is not useable for OEM desktop due the lack of iGPU.
Nobody ever suggested that it was useable in OEM desktops.
And by Q3 2016, FX is getting too old and expensive to make also. Same goes for the AM3+ motherboards which are less integrated than modern platforms.
FX is going to die before then. They just want DIY users to pick over what remains of it shortly after they stop stocking the channel.
My reason for disliking the big iGPU is purely because it is too expensive. If that iGPU was reduced in size all the big core APU prices could drop by a very meaningful amount.
It could, but AMD didn't do that, and it's too late for that. Technically they gave us a desktop CPU with small iGPU (AM1 Kabini), though it wasn't Steamroller. Adoption of the part has been slow to say the least, despite the fact that you can even OC it to 2.7-2.9 ghz with a lot of effort. People still don't want the things.
Regardless, if AMD had socketed or BGA Kaveri with 128 shaders (native), I think you can tell what OEMs would have done to the chip price-wise, when they want $500+ for an E2-3800. Pfft.
It doesn't technically need to be Steamroller. I just use that as an example because it is a construction core that is known to clock well and has sufficient IPC. If Excavator is a better desktop core, then AMD can use that in a hexcore APU with small iGPU in 2016.
They have an Excavator part coming in 2016 for desktop: Bristol Ridge. If they really want to dick around with 128, 256, or even 384 shader variants of Bristol Ridge, they've given no indication of that. Expanding the Excavator lineup shortly before the Zen launch just seems like a poor idea all around.
Not sure, it just seems like a way to make the existing silicon more desirable in some cases.
P.S. Raising TDP to 30/35 watts for AM1 isn't so much about raising clocks, it is about allowing more chips to make it into a higher bin.
It can be about raising clocks if you're going to keep the bin counts the same. But that is irrelevant. It is important to see what the market will and won't tolerate. I've done my best to show you what OEMs are interested in selling today. 25W Kabini quads in BGA form or AM1 socket - either one - would have been just dandy for AiOs. We know the die sizes are tiny, we know they run cool . . . OEMs just like to be dicks sometimes.
It's almost painful watching people go through gymnastics to try and figure out how AMD can tune their APUs to fit lower price points, when it's already obvious that the OEMs would just gobble up the savings and stiff consumers.
Or they could try to sell them to DIY buyers, but they'd probably wind up in the same position as AM1 Kabini: somewhat respected some of the time, but generally unloved.
My two cents on this discussion: If AMD was free to choose a foundry they would make a smaller iGPU version of their chips. It is already quite clear that the iGPU is not a main driver for APU pricing, so the big iGPU becomes an unnecessary cost burden for the product.
But with AMD is having to play shenanigans to fill the WSA commitment, so making a smaller chip today doesn't really translate in smaller manufacturing costs, because using less wafers just means a higher take-or-pay charge in the end of the year.
GF's 28nm planar is part of the problem, though I ask you this: right now, who besides Intel has a suitable high-performance node smaller than 32nm? Samsung? TSMC?
MAYBE AMD could have gone 3M/4M Steamroller at TSMC, assuming TSMC could have handled the volume. IBM just dumped their fabs so let's not go there. Samsung . . . if insiders are to be believed, steals all their process tech from TSMC. So hey there's your second source after TSMC!
Regardless, when you have AMD producing processors on a node that suits GCN cores/GPUs more than Steamroller cores/CPUs, what to you expect but CPUs light on OoO processing power and heavy on shader counts? I'll restate: a 3M Steamroller on GF 28nm planar would be a
125W TDP chip all on its own. There is a reason why they jumped ship on that idea some time ago. Several, actually, but whatever.
Honestly, I think that statement sums up this hole thread. At least on the desktop side of things.
If they charged an additional ~$20 for the iGPU it would be more reasonable and more in line with the performance of the iGPU... :hmm:
I don't know about anyone else, but my 7700k cost me ~$104, and I could have gotten it for less from TigerDirect had I been on the ball. The 7650k is stepping into that price slot "real soon now" with almost identical specs to the 7700k.
As for CPU performance, its kind of sad AMD still doesn't have an FM2(+) APU that decisively outperforms my 6800K on all counts.
my 2c...
I was under the impression that the 6800k, at least for "enthusiast" use, was a bit slower than Kaveri in most things. Hmm, tell you what. Do you OC your 6800K? I would like to know how it compares to my
7700k.
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