Zen 2 APUs/"Renoir" discussion thread

[A///]

CVML is almost assuredly Computer Vision / Machine Learning, so I would think so.

We're going to see it on desktop in the future, too. As the tech gets cheaper it'll be "easier" to place on die or sell it in discreet card form much like an NVME if not, a PCIe card. Next decade is gonna be a wild ride provided humanity doesn't self destruct.

I've long held to the belief that AMD has taken a little while longer this cycle to deliver their next-gen laptop APUs around the same time as client-desktop and not face a nearly 8 month delay. 12-18 months cadence is an awful long time if you take the full 18 months for a desktop iteration.

We'll see in the coming months. If Zen 3 is available same day as announcement, then I'll say laptop APUs in January to early March. If it's around Christmas, which I 100% doubt they could pull off, then that will be interesting. At the same time, I don't believe the BS Intel reps are peddling. I do not foresee Intel shipping mass volume until 2Q21 for TGL. They'll also be delivering RKL 1-2Q21.

Should be intresting if the rumors are true. 8 cores, and rumors of ITB operating at 5.1-5.2 all core with single core boost hitting 5.5 Ghz. Should be a nice toasty chip even. If Zen 3 closes or just blows by Intel in gaming, RKL may very well take back the crown. And due to surge in demand, I can't imagine AMD damaging Intel too much where gamers are concerned as most with the cash are on CML and sporting the high end i9s.


Edit: I'll be blown away if AMD make Zen 3 available same day as well as RDNA2. It'll take a few weeks for AIB partners for NVidia to fix the mess they've all made including NVidia. If AMD's launch is nearly bug free (LOL!) then they may very well see major success in 4Q20-1Q21. And if Milan launches in that time, the mere fervent discussion may very well push their stock price above $100/share if not more. TGL being lake or still in low volume production, and RKL being a low volume part, too, or delayed will push Intel's share price down even further at both quarterly reports. 8 cores is 'easier' to manufacture than 10 cores, but the high clocks will still reduce yields. High end parts may be on short supply while mid range should be in over supply, IMO. I hope they ditch the i9 label for 11th gen though. It'll be stupid of them not to.

Intel: Hold my beer!

 

[Shivansps]

I think i havent see a bug free launch of a new arch, ever.

As for Intel, well it depends on how good Zen3 is, but i think they now have a cpu+gpu arch competitive with AMD, thats more i could say about them two weeks ago. What they do not have is a good process to produce it, so it is kinda worthless. And as soon as RDNA2 hits consumers APU we all be right back where we started.

 

[YAYgee]

https://www.computerbase.de/2020-09/asrock-deskmini-x300-test/#abschnitt_fazit_und_empfehlung (in German)
=> the DeskMini X300 has been designed for Renoir and will be for sale in October.
I had a look around and found a shop that will deliver starting from October 12.

The wait for an APU that can make use of B550/A520 video ports has been long enough. Hopefully they won't be too scarce.

The computerbase article still says it will be for sale in October but the shop I checked has changed the delivery date to starting from November 16.

Hopefully (desktop) Renoir will be available at US/EU retailers early November (also on the 5th?).

 

[JustMe21]

The lack of retail Zen 2 APUs months after the OEM release make me think AMD is capacity constrained right now. Of course, there's also the fact that we haven't seen any 3300X chips for months and the limited lineup of Zen 3 vs Zen 2's release. Hopefully it's because of the need to dedicate resources to consoles or stockpiling Zen 3 chips to have an abundance on release day.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The lack of retail Zen 2 APUs months after the OEM release make me think AMD is capacity constrained right now.

All the APU dice are going to mobile and OEMs.

 

[JustMe21]

All the APU dice are going to mobile and OEMs.

Perhaps, but even Ryzen 4000 laptop models are pretty scarce right now. In the US, we still can't even find a 4800U or 4600U laptops and people are constantly complaining about the delayed shipping dates for ordered laptops. The only laptop APU that seem to be more widely available is the 4500U and they are typically in laptops with terrible screens or completely soldered RAM. And look at sites selling business computers, the computers and laptops with 4000 APUs are typically back ordered by around 4 weeks.

 

[Kryohi]

The supply situation is crazily bad right now.
Chinese OEMs are receiving much fewer Renoir parts than anticipated, because during the summer some big players upped their orders (from a really low amount).
XMG/Schenker is a not-so-small german reseller company and I've been following their depressing supply updates for the last few months.
Here is the most recent one

As a side note, in a FAQ regarding their newest laptop they vaguely mention Cezanne:
Q: Will this system be available with Zen 3 soon?
A: We honestly don't know. We are not able to publicly comment on AMD's plans for Zen 3 in laptops. And we honestly are not able to know how the supply situation is going to be for Zen 3 in the future. We are currently operating under the principle "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", or in German: besser ein Spatz in der Hand als eine Taube auf dem Dach. I'm serious.

It makes me think Cezanne is not far away at all, but Renoir will still be manufactured and sold for a long time.

 

[Hitman928]

The supply situation is crazily bad right now.
Chinese OEMs are receiving much fewer Renoir parts than anticipated, because during the summer some big players upped their orders (from a really low amount).
XMG/Schenker is a not-so-small german reseller company and I've been following their depressing supply updates for the last few months.
Here is the most recent one

As a side note, in a FAQ regarding their newest laptop they vaguely mention Cezanne:
Q: Will this system be available with Zen 3 soon?
A: We honestly don't know. We are not able to publicly comment on AMD's plans for Zen 3 in laptops. And we honestly are not able to know how the supply situation is going to be for Zen 3 in the future. We are currently operating under the principle "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", or in German: besser ein Spatz in der Hand als eine Taube auf dem Dach. I'm serious.

It makes me think Cezanne is not far away at all, but Renoir will still be manufactured and sold for a long time.

2020 has had a very unexpected effect on home electronic sales, great for AMD/Intel/Nvidia but not so great for consumers as everything is in high demand and finding desirable products in stock has become very difficult.

 

[moinmoin]

Renoir being scarce is widely known by now. OEMs down the food chain as well as the DIY customer APUs suffer the most from that. Doesn't help that APUs themselves in general, mobile or not, are down AMD's food chain, with datacenter dies (and DIY desktop CPUs as a beneficiary) having had much higher priority.

May well be the case that wafer allocation won't significantly improve anymore before Cezanne, with how long the lead times apparently are. In addition AMD has to juggle capacity for consoles, Ryzen 5000 and RX 6000. AMD newly having embarrassments of riches.

 

[YAYgee]

The DeskMini X300 has been listed on newegg for almost a week. No Renoir (in retail) won't exactly help sales nor will ASRock be happy.

 

[Shivansps]

I also used to be "mad" with AMD because of Vega, but seeing how they decreased the size of the GPU on Renoir with no real detriment to performance I doubt that using RDNA1 would make much difference. There are two critical points for me:
One is that like other said, the CUs are larger? So this would mean a limited number of CUs, nullifying the the better memory efficiency?
But most important, would be wasted effort. Why expend time and money to put RDNA1 on an APU instead of waiting for RDNA2 that will allow them to also brag about having hardware-RT support and with faster DDR5 with that so necessary bandwidth increase?

In the end AMD is more concerned with the long run than looking good now.

First off, they sacrificed performance, specially with the segmentation, the top SKU is OK but the two below starts to fall behind Picasso in some cases, the Zen2 cpu really helps Renoir, in every case that the 4350G is beating a 3400G is due to the Zen2 CPUs, is not coincidence that those are the same games that gain the most of going from Zen+ to Zen2.
Also, they sacrificed compute power that is actually needed if you plan to use content creation software on these APUs whiout a dgpu.

Second, wait for RDNA2? they are producing RDNA2 APUs right now, generally what it takes long is to integrate a new GPU arch into a APU, but RDNA2 was developed as APU-first, the integration is done, the decision to keep using Vega on Cezanne is a bussiness decision.

 

[Thibsie]

Really? Content creation with Renoir then moaning 'cos it isn't good enough.

Why not Atom while you're at it ?
Call us when your stupid little war is over.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The DeskMini X300 has been listed on newegg for almost a week. No Renoir (in retail) won't exactly help sales nor will ASRock be happy.

Hmm, I searched for "X300", and only found Toshiba HDDs.

 

[Shivansps]

Really? Content creation with Renoir then moaning 'cos it isn't good enough.

And i said that where exactly?

At any rate, it is true, content creation notebooks have dgpus, thats why AMD pushed for Renoir-H (intended to go with dgpus) for that and not the U-Series.

 

[misuspita]

Hmm, I searched for "X300", and only found Toshiba HDDs.

ASRock DeskMini X300 Series

AMD AM4 Socket CPU, - Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Raven Ridge, up to 65W, - Support MAX Height ≦ 46mm CPU Cooler<br />Supports Overclocking Option with X300<br />High-Speed DDR4-3200MHz Memory<br />Dual Ultra M.2 (NVMe), - M2_1 M.2 (2280) – PCIe Gen3 x4, - M2_2 M.2 (2280) – PCIe Gen3 x2/x4<br />2...

www.asrock.com

Succesor of A300

 

[VirtualLarry]

I know, I've seen it @ ASRock's site, but the post specifically say "listed @ Newegg". I can't find it listed @ Newegg ... at all.

 

[scannall]

I know, I've seen it @ ASRock's site, but the post specifically say "listed @ Newegg". I can't find it listed @ Newegg ... at all.

It's here. Asrock X300 mini.

 

[YAYgee]

Hmm, I searched for "X300", and only found Toshiba HDDs.

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is that why? I searched for "X300", and not "X300W". Hmm.

Anyways, good news that it is out, I've been waiting for that to arrive. I may pick one up soon, but kind of useless without Renoir, or can they take an Athlon 3000G as a filler/starter APU, in the meantime?

 

[Panino Manino]

the decision to keep using Vega on Cezanne is a bussiness decision.

Yes, because Zen 3 must be bigger, take more space, so using a smaller GPU with smaller CUs makes the overall fabrication cost lower.
I guess the thinking is that people will want Cezanne for the CPU, not for the GPU, to be paired with more discrete GPUs for a "series" gaming setup, what some say is currently lacking on AMD's side.
For those whom an IGP suffice will have what they want latter.

 

[Abwx]

Dunno if it was posted, that s a test of a 4C/8T 4350G.

CPU perfs are not that higher than a 3400G but this latter use roughly 40% more power than the 7nm APU wich is at about 40W in MT, at matched power the 4350G would gain 15% in respect of Computerbase numbers.

AMD Ryzen 3 4350G im Test

Der AMD Ryzen 3 4350G ist die kleinste Zen-2-APU. Er löst nahezu alles, was bisher da war, ab und macht Vorfreude auf neue Athlon.

www.computerbase.de

 

[Shivansps]

Dunno if it was posted, that s a test of a 4C/8T 4350G.

CPU perfs are not that higher than a 3400G but this latter use roughly 40% more power than the 7nm APU wich is at about 40W in MT, at matched power the 4350G would gain 15% in respect of Computerbase numbers.

AMD Ryzen 3 4350G im Test

Der AMD Ryzen 3 4350G ist die kleinste Zen-2-APU. Er löst nahezu alles, was bisher da war, ab und macht Vorfreude auf neue Athlon.

www.computerbase.de

I like this forum comment

And again the discussion starts as to whether an APU makes sense at all. For some, the GPU part is too strong for office use (too strong in the sense of a waste of money), for others it cannot be strong enough.

Anyway, Renoir is excellent with power im not sure what magic they did but they are excellent in that regard.

What people do not understand is that i belive the 4350G to be perfect at $110-$120 as a combined 3100/3200G replacement and the 3400G needs to be replaced by the 4650G at 170-180, that is the 10400 price slot. Not try to pass the 4350G at $160 as a 3400G replacement.

 

[Shivansps]

Well, a 4650G managed to get their way here, a co-worker got it from a competitor... these OEM only parts are getting their way into the consumer market for some reason. In the little time i had to play with it i did some quick tests, and i discovered something i did not consider before, compared to the 3400G, the 4650G IGP does better with DDR4-2400 and 2666 rams, not by a lot but it is better, at DDR4-3200 the IGP is petty much equal, and the 4650G is better, again not by a lot, with DDR4-3600/3800, i tested up to DDR4-4200, fps increments are greatly reduced after DDR4-3800, i only tested W3 and AC:Origins that were the only thing i had at hand, i see a interesting jump in fps (about 6-7fps) from going from 3200 to 3800, it is petty much the same jump from going 2666 to 3200, but everything after that the gains gets way too low, at 4200 it had about 2-3 fps more. Results will probably change with other games.

As for price, it is at 3600 price, so TL;DR, it is a 3600, with slightly lower CPU perf with the iGPU perf of the 3400G at 3600 price. It is not bad, not bad at all, but i still dont see a market for it at that price, i did not ran CPU tests but im sure it gets outperformed by the 10400 (thats actually a bit cheaper) in everything that is not gaming on IGP, and if is about a all around APU that is capable of 900P gaming on IGP, the 3400G is still king of the price/performance, it just not worth the extra money compared to the 3400G, for the avg. user, if you are going to do GPU/MEM OC go for it. The 3400G has no room to OC, you can get +200mhz (1600mhz) out of the IGP but getting a stable ram oc past 3200mhz is very difficult.

 

[YAYgee]

Well, a 4650G managed to get their way here, a co-worker got it from a competitor... these OEM only parts are getting their way into the consumer market for some reason. In the little time i had to play with it i did some quick tests, and i discovered something i did not consider before, compared to the 3400G, the 4650G IGP does better with DDR4-2400 and 2666 rams, not by a lot but it is better, at DDR4-3200 the IGP is petty much equal, and the 4650G is better, again not by a lot, with DDR4-3600/3800, i tested up to DDR4-4200, fps increments are greatly reduced after DDR4-3800, i only tested W3 and AC:Origins that were the only thing i had at hand, i see a interesting jump in fps (about 6-7fps) from going from 3200 to 3800, it is petty much the same jump from going 2666 to 3200, but everything after that the gains gets way too low, at 4200 it had about 2-3 fps more. Results will probably change with other games.

As for price, it is at 3600 price, so TL;DR, it is a 3600, with slightly lower CPU perf with the iGPU perf of the 3400G at 3600 price. It is not bad, not bad at all, but i still dont see a market for it at that price, i did not ran CPU tests but im sure it gets outperformed by the 10400 (thats actually a bit cheaper) in everything that is not gaming on IGP, and if is about a all around APU that is capable of 900P gaming on IGP, the 3400G is still king of the price/performance, it just not worth the extra money compared to the 3400G, for the avg. user, if you are going to do GPU/MEM OC go for it. The 3400G has no room to OC, you can get +200mhz (1600mhz) out of the IGP but getting a stable ram oc past 3200mhz is very difficult.

Also tested by Reous - hardwareluxx.de.

Wrt AMD's positioning, it's going up against the 10600 which is being sold over here for +/- €200. Currently the 4650G costs a little less.

 

[misuspita]

I could see them in a portable desktop. I have a need for a powerful mini itx system, maybe something like Asrock X300 with a great CPU and ok-ish GPU inside, and which will not need extreme cooling because of size.

So a 3600 equivalent with video output, cooled by that Noctua small cooler (L9 something) and 2 nvme drives would be really what the doctor ordered