Zen 2 APUs/"Renoir" discussion thread

[ryanjagtap]

Maybe the Mendocino 4C/8T APU will have 6 RDNA2 CUs, so that they will at least have a full shader array like the 660M igpu? The others would be 2C/4T with 3 or 4 CUs. But if its just a shrink of Aerith (Steam Deck SOC) can we expect 8 Cu?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Mendocino?

Products formerly Mendocino

Products formerly Mendocino product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

 

[moinmoin]

Seems it's either the Steam Deck die (or more likely) a cut down one.

Van Gogh is on N7, so Mendocino on N6 is definitely a new die. May well be a cut down budget optimized port.

 

[LightningZ71]

Or a direct shrink to minimize development costs. Cutting down an existing design takes quite a bit of time and effort (read: money) to save what is effectively pennies per chip in marginal production cost reduction. Amortizing the R&D costs across their expected production volume for the part is possibly showing them that they make more money by keeping it "as-is". Personally, I hope that it is a straight shrink to keep a common, high volume development platform for Steam to target. If there are a lot of that chip out there, it will see more optimization targeted at it.

 

[NostaSeronx]

It's probably a retapeout of Van Gogh.

Also, it isn't in the current everyday laptop range at $399 to $699.
The current everyday laptop range is now $169.99 to $299.99+(gap).
With the ultra-budget maybe everyday being $99 to $149+(gap).

 

[jpiniero]

It's probably a retapeout of Van Gogh.

Also, it isn't in the current everyday laptop range at $399 to $699.
The current everyday laptop range is now $169.99 to $299.99+(gap).
With the ultra-budget maybe everyday being $99 to $149+(gap).

That's why I mentioned i3. Presumably it's too expensive to be a Dali/Picasso replacement right now but I think the intention is for it to replace it eventually.

 

[SteinFG]

amd slide mentioned that mendocino would top at 699. Maybe that's some ryzen 5 with 4C/8T and 8CU coming, like in the steamdeck? Otherwise, why price it so high when 4300U and 4500U laptops are cheaper

 

[ryanjagtap]

amd slide mentioned that mendocino would top at 699. Maybe that's some ryzen 5 with 4C/8T and 8CU coming, like in the steamdeck? Otherwise, why price it so high when 4300U and 4500U laptops are cheaper

Well, the 8 CU (possibly) would be RDNA2, you would get DDR5 and maybe PCIE 4.0?

 

[LightningZ71]

$699 gets you a wide selection of 5600u laptops. Dipping down to $450 gets you 5400u laptops with 6 VEGA CUs. That same price range seems the 5500u and 5700u in a lot of laptops.

There's not a world where I'm going to choose a 4 core zen2 product with a cut down iGPU over an 8 core zen2 product with a full speed Vega iGPU, especially when they are advertising that it will have soldered ram (lpddr5 is, to this moment, only soldered) when I can actually upgrade the RAM in the 5500u-5700u in most situations.

This only makes sense if it's a full Van Gogh with power/performance improvements due to the new process and has a generous portion of ram from the start, or it's very aggressively priced.

 

[jpiniero]

$699 gets you a wide selection of 5600u laptops. Dipping down to $450 gets you 5400u laptops with 6 VEGA CUs. That same price range seems the 5500u and 5700u in a lot of laptops.

I think in practice it will be at the lower end of the price range to start (ie: around $400) but OEMs will do premium models as well. Maybe we will see some fanless designs.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Maybe the Mendocino 4C/8T APU will have 6 RDNA2 CUs, so that they will at least have a full shader array like the 660M igpu? The others would be 2C/4T with 3 or 4 CUs. But if its just a shrink of Aerith (Steam Deck SOC) can we expect 8 Cu?

I don't see why the top model wouldn't have the full 8CU IGP. The lower tier could be 6CU and the lowest 4CU. 2CUs don't really seem viable today. I don't think RDNA(2) can do odd numbers of CUs due to how workgroups are implemented.

Anyway, so long as the AV1 decoder is there, Mendocino seems interesting for mainstream devices that don't need a lot of computing power, but are still capable of running some games.

 

[Asterox]

I don't see why the top model wouldn't have the full 8CU IGP. The lower tier could be 6CU and the lowest 4CU. 2CUs don't really seem viable today. I don't think RDNA(2) can do odd numbers of CUs due to how workgroups are implemented.

Anyway, so long as the AV1 decoder is there, Mendocino seems interesting for mainstream devices that don't need a lot of computing power, but are still capable of running some games.

There is nothing wrong or bad, with Zen 2 4/8 APU with RDNA2 iGPU in year 2022 for "cheep 400$ laptop".

Year 2016/2017, Intel 4/8 CPU was a mainstream Desktop flagship CPU model.

If wou want to buy 400$ laptop with AMD APU, now or today here is what you can get in my country.

2/2 AMD APU/Vega 3 iGPU, 390$

Protis - NOT HP 255 G8, 27K65EA

www.protis.hr

2/4 AMD APU/Vega 3 iGPU, 420$

Protis - Dell Vostro 3515, 15.6in FHD (1920x1080), AMD Ryzen 3 3250U (2 Cores, 4MB, 3.5 GHz), 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2400MHz, M.2 256GB PCIe NVMe, AMD Radeon Graphics, WiFi, BT, HDMI, 2x USB 3.2, USB 2.0, RJ-45, mSD

www.protis.hr

4/8 Zen+ APU /Vega 8 iGPU, 480$

Protis - Prijenosno računalo ACER Aspire 3 NX.HVUEX.033 / Ryzen 5 3500U, 12GB, 512GB SSD, Radeon Graphics, 15.6" IPS FHD, bez OS, srebrno

www.protis.hr

4/8 Lucienne(Renoir)Zen 2 APU/Vega 6 iGPU, 510$

Protis - Prijenosno računalo HP 14s-fq1031nm 3B2D8EA / Ryzen 3 5300U, 8GB, 256GB, Radeon Graphics, 14" FHD LED, FreeDOS, plavo

www.protis.hr

This is reality, or retail price after a conversion of KN currency into US $.

APU Power consumption efficiency in laptop+batery life, 4/8 6nm Zen 2 vs 4/8 Zen+ on 12nm this is night and day difference.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

There is nothing wrong or bad, with Zen 2 4/8 APU with RDNA2 iGPU in year 2022 for "cheep 400$ laptop".

There are no bad products, only bad prices.

If anything these should sell like Brazos did 10 years ago. Which is no bad thing.

Interestingly, we've gone from 2C/2T 40nm Bobcat @ 1600MHz to 4C/8T 6nm Zen2 @ 3500MHz(?) in just over 10 years. How's that for improvement?

 

[jpiniero]

There are no bad products, only bad prices.

If anything these should sell like Brazos did 10 years ago. Which is no bad thing.

Interestingly, we've gone from 2C/2T 40nm Bobcat @ 1600MHz to 4C/8T 6nm Zen2 @ 3500MHz(?) in just over 10 years. How's that for improvement?

It's not going to be that cheap. That's still going to be Dali/Picasso for the time being.

 

[SteinFG]

From pcworld stream with amd reps - mendocino is not for gaming, most people in that price segment care most for battery life and applications not stuttering, so power and area was optimized for that.

I expect the same level of performance as in ryzen 7000 io die, maybe 4cu

 

[blckgrffn]

From pcworld stream with amd reps - mendocino is not for gaming, most people in that price segment care most for battery life and applications not stuttering, so power and area was optimized for that.

I expect the same level of performance as in ryzen 7000 io die, maybe 4cu

Well, tbf the APU in the steam deck is a 60 fps/720p appliance. At 1080p that's not really a gaming focused APU, but one that could probably work.

I will hold out hope that it's a straight shrink so the Steam Deck will benefit from some mild power usage reduction in the near future. My bet is they would take all the N6 gains and focus on keeping power usage down, reducing heat and extending the battery while keeping the "performance profiles" developed for games static.

I am not sure it's entirely rational but I will hope anyway.

 

[LightningZ71]

You can certainly hope, but, it sounds like they chose to do a straight shrink of Van Gogh but "turned the nobs and pulled the levers" to optimize it for low power and density to keep the costs of the platform down by maximizing the number of chips per wafer and reducing the cost of platform power delivery and battery size.

 

[Abwx]

It's not going to be that cheap. That's still going to be Dali/Picasso for the time being.

Cost should be minimalistic.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1529320267574833153

 

[ryanjagtap]

Will there be any performance uplift from going to N6 for the Zen2 cores? Or will it be the same performance for less power?

 

[jpiniero]

Cost should be minimalistic.

TSMC ain't cheap and who knows how long it will be until N7/6 drops in price, let alone gets cheap. But 100 mm2 is good.

 

[Abwx]

TSMC ain't cheap and who knows how long it will be until N7/6 drops in price, let alone gets cheap. But 100 mm2 is good.

Right that it wont be bottom prices, but not that far at 400$, we can expect 300$ after some time.

AMD promises more than 10 hours of battery life for low-end notebooks with the new "Mendocino" APU

After bringing Ryzen 6000-based APUs to the market earlier this year, AMD is readying another APU based on the aging Zen 2 architecture. Codenamed "Mendocino", the APU is meant for low-end laptops and Chromebooks. It will launch sometime in Q4 2022.

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[SteinFG]

if it's really 100mm2 then it's so much smaller than 14nm 2-core Dali at 147mm2.
I assume they cut out a lot of IO, maybe even just a single 64-bit channel of ddr5?
If they want to repurpose the die for desktop, I think it makes sense to release it on am4 as "athlon 5000" with 10 PCIe lanes (4 gpu, 2 nvme, and 4 chipset lanes, same as 3000G).
Depends on what they think of the low end.

 

[jpiniero]

if it's really 100mm2 then it's so much smaller than 14nm 2-core Dali at 147mm2.
I assume they cut out a lot of IO, maybe even just a single 64-bit channel of ddr5?

No it's still dual channel. It is probably 4 MB L3 and 6 CUs.

 

[dark zero]

if it's really 100mm2 then it's so much smaller than 14nm 2-core Dali at 147mm2.
I assume they cut out a lot of IO, maybe even just a single 64-bit channel of ddr5?
If they want to repurpose the die for desktop, I think it makes sense to release it on am4 as "athlon 5000" with 10 PCIe lanes (4 gpu, 2 nvme, and 4 chipset lanes, same as 3000G).
Depends on what they think of the low end.

Maybe it might be Athlon 5K or 6K series and the Ryzen 3 6K series?
And in case of the Athlon series, it can be passively cooled. That's because on the Ideapad 1 presented, it is known to be passively cooled.

 

[moinmoin]

Will there be any performance uplift from going to N6 for the Zen2 cores? Or will it be the same performance for less power?

The design decision in that case is between increasing density (smaller die, higher power efficiency at lower frequency but earlier hard wall for higher frequency) and increasing frequency (lower density thus moving the hard wall higher, but then requiring a bigger die).

Since Mendocino is being positioned as a budget part from the beginning I'd expect AMD to have picked the former choice. If it were a straight port of Van Gogh it'd have lower density allowing higher frequency similar to the improvement Zen+ offered. But if Mendocino is indeed only ~100mm² I'd expect it to be all new or significantly cut down from Van Gogh which was previously reported to be ~163mm² in size.