Question Zen 4 X3D and speculation about Dragon Range X - Intel's nightmare

Jul 27, 2020
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AMD Zen 4 X3D SKUs possibly the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X3D reportedly launching early next year to take the gaming crown from Intel - NotebookCheck.net News

I think AMD will rain upon Intel's Raptor Lake parade with Zen 4 X3D samples sent to the press. Release may still happen in Jan-2023.

The possibility of Dragon Range laptops having V-cache excites me like nothing else! It would be the ultimate dagger shaped nail in Intel's coffin, as far as their aspirations for gaming supremacy go.

FR3cm_wXEAA3afw (3271×1753) (twimg.com)

1664269088084.png

That almost confirms that AMD is bringing V-cache to mobile gaming.
 

inf64

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Mar 11, 2011
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Don't get your hopes high for Vcache on laptop chips. It might happen at some point, but the most cache note by AMD should be true for vanilla Zen 4 parts as well.
 
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Timorous

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Oct 27, 2008
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Zen 4 X3D is going to be a gaming monster. If there is no clock regression vs the standard parts then a 30% uplift is on the table and it will be untouchable by RPL.
 
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eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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AMD Zen 4 X3D SKUs possibly the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X3D reportedly launching early next year to take the gaming crown from Intel - NotebookCheck.net News

I think AMD will rain upon Intel's Raptor Lake parade with Zen 4 X3D samples sent to the press. Release may still happen in Jan-2023.

The possibility of Dragon Range laptops having V-cache excites me like nothing else! It would be the ultimate dagger shaped nail in Intel's coffin, as far as their aspirations for gaming supremacy go.

FR3cm_wXEAA3afw (3271×1753) (twimg.com)

View attachment 68202

That almost confirms that AMD is bringing V-cache to mobile gaming.

That just refers to the fact that AMD won’t gimp the L3 cache like they have historically done for mobile parts.
 
Jul 27, 2020
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Raptor Lake mobile may have a lot of cache too. If AMD is claiming highest ever cache size for a mobile gaming CPU, it means they are confident in the impossibility of Intel beating them in that regard. To me, that screams V-cache. AMD is going for the jugular. They have no intention of letting Intel get back on their feet. I do hope that they figure out how to ship that sweetness in considerable volume.
 
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Vattila

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Oct 22, 2004
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Putting V-Cache on the CCD for "Dragon Range" is an obvious possibility that I hope AMD will realise.

However, I wonder what the "Dragon Range" package will look like.

It is now almost 5 years since Intel announced the integration of a Radeon GPU, HBM memory and their Core H-series CPU in a single package using EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge). Is it time for AMD to finally follow suit with an AMD + AMD solution? If a silicon interposer is still too expensive, AMD has already presented and shipped products (Instinct MI200) using their Elevated Fan-out Bridge (EFB) technology, providing capability similar to EMIB.

8th-Gen-Intel-CPU-with-Radeon-discrete-graphics-02.jpg



 
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nicalandia

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Jan 10, 2019
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Raptor Lake mobile may have a lot of cache too. If AMD is claiming highest ever cache size for a mobile gaming CPU, it means they are confident in the impossibility of Intel beating them in that regard.
Except for the 13900T, the rest of Raptor Lake CPUs will be rebranded ADL..


Screenshot_20220927-061732_Chrome.jpg

1664286441523.png



Zen4 based based laptop CPUs will have greater efficiency than rebranded ADL CPUs
 
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LightningZ71

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Mar 10, 2017
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I thought that the general expectation for Dragon Range is that it is, essentially, Raphael on a BGA package with aggressive binning and power settings to make it mobile suitable. Just using a dual CCD package would give them the most cache in a mobile processor (64+16MB) if you exclude the Crystal Well cache from broadwell back in the day... Now, if they chose to go with X3D packages, even if they went with just 64MB of cache per CCD, that's (64x2 + 32X2 + 16=212 MB of cache [L2+L3 exclusive]) 212MB of cache which is just miles ahead of anything else, ever.
 

deathBOB

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Dec 2, 2007
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Point of clarification: does v-cache only mean 3d cache or could it include additional cache on the base apu layer? It’s not clear to me why you would use the former when you need to produce a separate apu anyway and stacking would add to the cooling challenge of a mobile part.

Plus AMD does not seem shy about promising 3d cache in future products. I doubt they would not mention 3d cache if it were being used here.
 
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Plus AMD does not seem shy about promising 3d cache in future products. I doubt they would not mention 3d cache if it were being used here.
Maybe they don't want to give Intel enough time for an appropriate knee jerk reaction. If they confirm it's 3D V-cache, Intel could go into serious emergency mode to protect its turf.

It will be a pretty grim meeting of the seniors at Intel HQ when and if AMD announces Dragon Range with V-cache. Some of them could even have a heart attack. Pat himself doesn't look to be in great shape (old age hasn't been too kind to him).
 
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moinmoin

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Jun 1, 2017
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Point of clarification: does v-cache only mean 3d cache or could it include additional cache on the base apu layer?
AMD itself says "AMD continues to be the leader in advanced packaging technology with AMD 3D V-Cache™ technology. AMD is enabling a 3D vertical cache to create the world’s fastest gaming desktop processor..."

So V-Cache seems to stand for vertical cache, which means it is added on top. In that regard it's a wild card AMD can draw whenever the base die is prepared.

Since we are assuming that Dragon Range will use desktop/server CCDs and those are prepared for V-Cache we can expect Dragon Range to use it at some point as well.

We don't know yet whether Phoenix Strix will be prepared for V-Cache (we don't even know yet in what way it will use "AMD chiplet technology" as announced).
 

poke01

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Mar 8, 2022
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AMD will have the lead in mobile for a very long time in perf, gaming, efficiency until Intel supposed Royal arch comes to fruition.

Lunar Lake if it appears to be as Intel tout it "leader in pref/w" then in tablet and ultrabook Intel will lead there. However, for normal laptops and gaming laptops AMD Dragon Range and future products like it will be the clear leader.

Arrow Lake will be good but it still uses the Core arch. Intel needs a fresh start and that won't happen until 2026?
 

JustViewing

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Aug 17, 2022
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What if AMD surprised us with 24 core X3D :hearteyecat: ? IOD should support 3 CCDs, since it is one quarter of its server counterpart. And by adjusting the CCD orientation they can squeeze in 3 CCDs. 230W more than enough to run 24 cores @5Ghz
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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What if AMD surprised us with 24 core X3D :hearteyecat: ? IOD should support 3 CCDs, since it is one quarter of its server counterpart. And by adjusting the CCD orientation they can squeeze in 3 CCDs. 230W more than enough to run 24 cores @5Ghz
No. It has been said my multiple people that there is no space to move the 2 chiplets around to fit a 3rd, with all the caps around.

Not to mention that the socket max is 230 watt, and the 7950x will do that.
 

JustViewing

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Aug 17, 2022
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No. It has been said my multiple people that there is no space to move the 2 chiplets around to fit a 3rd, with all the caps around.

Not to mention that the socket max is 230 watt, and the 7950x will do that.

It may not be practical implementation wise, but enough space is there.

1664430653465.png
 

TheELF

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Dec 22, 2012
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AMD will have the lead in mobile for a very long time in perf, gaming, efficiency until Intel supposed Royal arch comes to fruition.
That would be great if people actually cared about any of that...
But people don't buy portable pcs en masse to do 3d rendering video encoding or anything else that uses up all the performance.
People care about the longest battery life in standby or while watching movies or browsing the net and if desktops CPUs are anything to go by then intel has 100% more efficiency than amd in idle.
And I'm not saying that other people don't exist at all but the giantly biggest portion of people that buy mobile care about idle battery life the most because all they need to do with it is very light home office stuff.
DPImETx.jpg
 
Jul 27, 2020
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People care about the longest battery life in standby or while watching movies or browsing the net and if desktops CPUs are anything to go by then intel has 100% more efficiency than amd in idle.
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" Linux Laptop Benchmarks Review - Phoronix

It's with Linux 5.19 Git where the Intel Idle driver support is there that Alder Lake looks better in the power efficiency department but still behind the Zen 3/3+ parts tested.

Nothing like desktop then.
 

Timorous

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Oct 27, 2008
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First I have heard of a 7970. Well, I could be wrong then. I guess we have to wait and see.

Personally I think it was a typo because the performance bar looks like a 7950X but otoh AMD have probably tested a 24c 3 chiplet variant and perhaps they toyed with the idea of calling it a 7970x so it was a slip of the mind.
 
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nicalandia

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Jan 10, 2019
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At first I thought that Dragon Range was going to be a 24C/48T Part build on a Zen4c Because I thought that the Top of the Line 13900HK Raptor Lake would also come with 24C/32T...... But it's actually a 14C/20T processor. So Dragon Range will be a lower TDP 16C/32T Zen4 CPU

1664460929310.png


Will MTL with only 6P+8E be able to match that beast(Dragon Range)?
 
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