Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)

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jamescox

Senior member
Nov 11, 2009
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Strange. Maybe I would be the last one who would still think 'C' suffix cores are for server/datacenter only. The sources are fighting each others until these products release in the future.:p
I don't think we will see a mixed chiplet with both types of cores in the same die, as some have talked about, but they appear to be going to mix dense and regular cores in APUs, if the rumors can be trusted. I was wondering if the dense and regular chiplets are actually made on the same process. Could they all have slightly different processes, even if it is only tweaks for that specific part? I was assuming that the dense core chiplet would be on something more like a mobile optimized process, not just a different layout on the same process.

I don't know if they will do a dense chiplet in a consumer product. The market for more than 8 cores is very small. As enthusiast and professionals, our view of this is often a bit skewed. Most people are probably running 6 core parts since it is probably the most economical. Steam survey shows a large percentage on 6 core and smaller percentages on 4 and 8 core. Probably a lot of people still running old intel 4 core systems. 4, 6, and 8 may still be more than 90% of the market in general. I don't have time to go looking for specific figures. Even the 12 and 16 core is likely a tiny market share, so going to 24 with a mixed chiplet situation seems like it would have an exceedingly small market. I don't know how often 8p + 16c cores would outperform just 8p + 8p anyway.

I have wondered if they might make a bigger push with a Ryzen Pro type product. A lot of low end products and such don't actually need the full Genoa or even Siena package. A 32-core Ryzen Pro type part based on dense cores seems like it would have a lot of uses in the professional market. Perhaps some storage appliances and other low end servers. A workstation like that would make a lot of sense for a lot of developers since you could have 32 core / 64 thread. Such a system would be very fast for compiles if the memory can keep up.
 

soresu

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2014
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The market for more than 8 cores is very small
This to me seems unfathomably odd.

Given that the first 8 core console CPUs caem into play 10 years ago roughly it seems extremely off that there isn't more of a baseline around that spec by now, for gaming if nothing else - even if the 8 Jaguar cores of that generation were so weak in IPC and clock frequency.
 

RTX2080

Senior member
Jul 2, 2018
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I don't think we will see a mixed chiplet with both types of cores in the same die, as some have talked about, but they appear to be going to mix dense and regular cores in APUs, if the rumors can be trusted. I was wondering if the dense and regular chiplets are actually made on the same process. Could they all have slightly different processes, even if it is only tweaks for that specific part? I was assuming that the dense core chiplet would be on something more like a mobile optimized process, not just a different layout on the same process.
Your reply makes me wanna speak more in anand.
I don't know the process differences between nonC and C cores. Some recent infos from Greymon(s) and his(their) friends(witnesses), nonC cores and C cores are embedded at different pipelines inside packaging facility, mixing nonC and C cores together would vastly increase the complexity and cost. Sounds like Amd's facilities are either not ready for a mixture of two kinds of core yet, or only design for game console because of high cost. (Maybe we need different CCDs to seperate two kind of cores?)
I still waiting for their re-confirmation in the near future before these product release. The present stage I see these "hybrid or not hybrid for Zen5" as 50:50 gamble. Amd's statement about hybrid is still vague.

What are the current rumors on the launch window for different Zen 5 products?

Has there been any speculation/leaks that's more precise than the confirmed "in 2024"?. Is Strix really arriving before Granite Ridge?
Zen5 would enter mass production in October, release could happen during 2024H1.
 
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SteinFG

Senior member
Dec 29, 2021
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This to me seems unfathomably odd.

Given that the first 8 core console CPUs caem into play 10 years ago roughly it seems extremely off that there isn't more of a baseline around that spec by now, for gaming if nothing else - even if the 8 Jaguar cores of that generation were so weak in IPC and clock frequency.
It's not like games today require X set amount of cores, instead they require Y tasks to be running at the same time at certain speed to maintain set amount of fps. And beyond Y tasks, devs can't add more tasks to increase fps. A 6-core zen2 chip would surely be able to run all the tasks that the 8-core jaguar chip does, at higher speed. That's why 6 cores is the standard now.

Even compared to today's chips, 6-core 7600 (Zen 4 at 5 GHz, 32MB L3) would handily outperform 8-core console chip (Zen 2 at 3.8 GHz, 8MB L3). As long as IPC is increasing at ~15% per generation, this trend will continue.

(I named them tasks here, but they are more like OS threads, but thread is a different term in the OS and in the CPU, so I don't want to confuse someone)
 
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moinmoin

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Jun 1, 2017
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Given that the first 8 core console CPUs caem into play 10 years ago roughly it seems extremely off that there isn't more of a baseline around that spec by now, for gaming if nothing else - even if the 8 Jaguar cores of that generation were so weak in IPC and clock frequency.
Two caveats: Jaguar didn't have SMT. And while consoles have 8 cores for ages now, depending on gen and OS version up to two of them were reserved for the OS and all the additional system level features consoles offer. So 6 cores may well be more of a realistic baseline, and that's rather well matched in the market nowadays I think.
 

eek2121

Diamond Member
Aug 2, 2005
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If AMD sticks with normal cadence then desktop parts can launch even relatively early next year. AFAIK Zen 4 was intentionally delayed to market by 1-2 quarters and AMD's "usual" target between gens is lower than 18 months.

I'm not saying this as being optimistic about an early 2024 launch, I'm merely pointing out that historical trend does not point towards a late 2024 release.
Zen 3 (desktop) and Zen 4 (desktop) launched in 2H. Zen 2 (desktop)launched in July.

AMD only launched Zen and Zen+ earlier in the year.

Cezanne (Mobile) launched in January. As did Rembrandt (Mobile). Renoir launched in March, but IIRC was announced in January.

We likely won’t see Zen 5 desktop prior to September, especially as AMD won’t be pressured by Intel’s next refresh.
 

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
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Zen 3 (desktop) and Zen 4 (desktop) launched in 2H. Zen 2 (desktop)launched in July.

AMD only launched Zen and Zen+ earlier in the year.
This is not the pattern you're looking for.

Dr. Ian Cutress: So far AMD’s rate of new products is on track to produce a new core almost every year. The roadmaps quite proudly showcase Zen 3 as almost ready, Zen 4 in development, and Zen 5 further out. Is this cadence sustainable?

Mark Papermaster: We’re on a 12-18 month cadence, and we believe that is sustainable. It’s what the industry demands from us.
Source.
 

MadRat

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Oct 14, 1999
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Why fight AMD when you have a niche that actually is unassailable? Seems like Intel does exceptional on IPC. If the IPC for top games was the focus they would achieve an undisputed performance crown.

We are reaching a point where single thread performance is hamstrung by throwing too much into one CPU. To get great IPC you need high dollar systems loaded with a bunch or extra cores that do not benefit your gaming experience. For consumers they should focus on raw IPC in 2 or 4 cores and then throw multiple core operations on chiplets or co-processors.

Focus bleeding edge foundry technology into the high performance parts that leverage simpler, low core count goals. Cuts down your refresh cycle time to market and reduces risk. Move distributed work, where core count is king, to the periphery so general tasks don't pump heat into your performance core. Leverage older proven foundry technology on higher core counts that sit on the CPU's edge, or on a co-processor. Your laptop may get one co-processor while a workstation might support a dozen. Maybe they plug in like memory sticks, in parallel rows with interlocking heatspreaders, and all cool down directly with a common fan.

If a consumer wants more general computing power they can throw in an extra co-processor or three. Even better if that co-processor can be upgraded annually to drive sales down the road. Your gamers will focus on bleeding edge main CPUs. But your co-processor pulls in your science-based workstation consumers that want 100+ general cores. The workstation consumer can care less how Fortnite plays on the main CPU and more about performance across many cores. Maybe co-processors with 4x as many e-core is better for them that 1/4 as many p-cores. Mix and match co-processors at different speeds and from different generations, and let the scheduler in the OS juggle the workload.
 

v.strix

Junior Member
Aug 25, 2022
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Zen 3 (desktop) and Zen 4 (desktop) launched in 2H. Zen 2 (desktop)launched in July.

AMD only launched Zen and Zen+ earlier in the year.

Cezanne (Mobile) launched in January. As did Rembrandt (Mobile). Renoir launched in March, but IIRC was announced in January.

We likely won’t see Zen 5 desktop prior to September, especially as AMD won’t be pressured by Intel’s next refresh.

See, Zen2 -> Zen3 was 16 months.
Zen3 -> Zen4 was 22. If you subtract aforementioned two quarters from it you'll arrive exactly at 16 months, coincidentally. ;)
So, 16 months from Zen4 is next January. 22 is July.
Finally, if it's more than 22 it'll end up being the biggest delay in Zen era yet.

Make of it all whatever you will... ;)
 
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eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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This is not the pattern you're looking for.


Source.
Except he was either wrong or counting mobile, which does indeed have a 12-18 month cadence.

Zen 2-Zen 3 was okay, Zen 3–>Zen 4 was not.

AMD’s last 3 releases have been H2. Announcements and/or have traditionally (Zen 2 and beyond) been done at Computex, which is in June.

Mobile parts are announced around CES time, which is January.

Intel‘s Arrow Lake will drop somewhere between September and December. AMD will launch either a bit before or a bit after. I suspect the release date will be determined by how competitive Zen 5 is, but don’t hold your breath for a Jan-July release for desktop.

Mobile? no idea. Logic would dictate January, but launching a new architecture on mobile first? That would be a new one for AMD. No, I suspect we will see Phoenix 2 next year and mobile Zen 5 in 2025. I could be wrong, however. It does make sense. AMD could pump out mobile hybrid CPUs to ensure they are competitive with Meteor Lake.

If I had to make a guess:

Phoenix 2 in Jan 2024 with additional skus dropping throughout the year. Possible Zen 5 preview in January.

Zen 5 announcement at/around Computex. Launch in October 2024.

I could be wrong, of course (I hope I am, I want a new toy to play with), but given the fact that AMD felt Zen 4 was “rushed”, they will likely wait for a reason to launch…we might even get a surprise refresh of certain Zen 4 chips prior.
 

soresu

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Dec 19, 2014
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We are reaching a point where single thread performance is hamstrung by throwing too much into one CPU. To get great IPC you need high dollar systems loaded with a bunch or extra cores that do not benefit your gaming experience. For consumers they should focus on raw IPC in 2 or 4 cores and then throw multiple core operations on chiplets or co-processors.
Pat Gelsinger, is that you? 😅

Seriously though Intel pushed that narrative for years while AMD was in dire straits and completely uncompetitive during the Bulldozer era, because they wanted to sell consumers less cores for more money - and to be fair it was a sound if non progressive business strategy.

But a business strategy is all that it was.

They are now doing less of that, because AMD changed the market by making competitive IPC 8+ core systems affordable to consumers.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
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Everyone knows that gaming enthusiasts will gladly spend $$$ for marginal performance uplifts. Intel would be throwing away a large amount of profit selling a 4-core CPU with clock rate similar to their xx900K part. It's the same reason that AMD isn't offering a 7600X3D even though it would probably be just as good (or arguably better since it can selectively disable cores to get the best 6) as their other v-cache gaming chips.
 

A///

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2017
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Everyone knows that gaming enthusiasts will gladly spend $$$ for marginal performance uplifts. Intel would be throwing away a large amount of profit selling a 4-core CPU with clock rate similar to their xx900K part. It's the same reason that AMD isn't offering a 7600X3D even though it would probably be just as good (or arguably better since it can selectively disable cores to get the best 6) as their other v-cache gaming chips.
Didn't see that with zen 4 mate. don't want to call amd users cheap or tyre kickers but they had the right idea. zen 4 didn't make sense for many over zen 3 unless you ere on much older hardware more than 5 years old. if zen 5 repeats on itself like zen 4 then they stand to alienate even more loyal customers.
 

Kepler_L2

Senior member
Sep 6, 2020
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Except he was either wrong or counting mobile, which does indeed have a 12-18 month cadence.

Zen 2-Zen 3 was okay, Zen 3–>Zen 4 was not.

AMD’s last 3 releases have been H2. Announcements and/or have traditionally (Zen 2 and beyond) been done at Computex, which is in June.

Mobile parts are announced around CES time, which is January.

Intel‘s Arrow Lake will drop somewhere between September and December. AMD will launch either a bit before or a bit after. I suspect the release date will be determined by how competitive Zen 5 is, but don’t hold your breath for a Jan-July release for desktop.

Mobile? no idea. Logic would dictate January, but launching a new architecture on mobile first? That would be a new one for AMD. No, I suspect we will see Phoenix 2 next year and mobile Zen 5 in 2025. I could be wrong, however. It does make sense. AMD could pump out mobile hybrid CPUs to ensure they are competitive with Meteor Lake.

If I had to make a guess:

Phoenix 2 in Jan 2024 with additional skus dropping throughout the year. Possible Zen 5 preview in January.

Zen 5 announcement at/around Computex. Launch in October 2024.

I could be wrong, of course (I hope I am, I want a new toy to play with), but given the fact that AMD felt Zen 4 was “rushed”, they will likely wait for a reason to launch…we might even get a surprise refresh of certain Zen 4 chips prior.
Granite Ridge is just a CCD swap (on essentially the same node as Zen4), there's no reason to believe that would take 2 years to release.
 

eek2121

Diamond Member
Aug 2, 2005
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Granite Ridge is just a CCD swap (on essentially the same node as Zen4), there's no reason to believe that would take 2 years to release.
Different node (N5 vs N4 or maybe N3). Different size CCD. Even if the differences are “minor”. Also, completely different design. It also sounds like we will be getting a new IO die.

So in short: A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHIP @Kepler_L2 . Stop marginalizing really hard engineering challenges! 🤣

1690973734428.jpeg

1690973779625.jpeg
 

Thibsie

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Apr 25, 2017
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Didn't see that with zen 4 mate. don't want to call amd users cheap or tyre kickers but they had the right idea. zen 4 didn't make sense for many over zen 3 unless you ere on much older hardware more than 5 years old. if zen 5 repeats on itself like zen 4 then they stand to alienate even more loyal customers.
Zen4 isn't the problem. The problem is the platform change and cost associated. I'd upgrade to 7800X3D if there wasn't a mobo/ram upgrade mandatory.

Besides, my 5600X is just fine IMO
 

A///

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Feb 24, 2017
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Zen4 isn't the problem. The problem is the platform change and cost associated. I'd upgrade to 7800X3D if there wasn't a mobo/ram upgrade mandatory.

Besides, my 5600X is just fine IMO
problem adjacent then. If the platform costs were halved tomorrow people would be whinging about ddr5 prices, which have gone down roughly 40% since am5's launch. there's always going to be those types of people out there. if zen 4 had provided 1.5 or 2x the ipc it did provide in some magical world you'd get through the use of drugs, most people would ignore the mobo costs and buy into the platform because it zoinks the hell out of intel.
 

LightningZ71

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Mar 10, 2017
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There's a notable improvement from N5 to N4P (which is likely the closest publicly disclosed node to the flavor of N4 that AMD will be using)...

"In October 2021, TSMC introduced a new member of its 5 nm process family: N4P. Compared to N5, the node offers 11% higher performance (6% higher vs N4), 22% higher power efficiency, 6% higher transistor density and lower mask count. TSMC expects first tapeouts by the second half of 2022" - Wikipedia (from another source)

While the density improvement isn't exactly great, and I do expect the Zen5 CCDs to be physically larger, the fact that the process improvement offers decent improvements in performance and efficiency (obviously on a sliding scale), there should be a decent "process bump" to the resulting product. I don't see N3E or Intel 4/3 being a "massive improvement" over N4P when it comes to the "in production" performance of the processors. AMD will likely pay for being a partial process node in terms of area and silicone used per processor, but they'll still be performance competitive so long as the logic is sound.
 
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Thibsie

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Apr 25, 2017
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problem adjacent then. If the platform costs were halved tomorrow people would be whinging about ddr5 prices, which have gone down roughly 40% since am5's launch. there's always going to be those types of people out there. if zen 4 had provided 1.5 or 2x the ipc it did provide in some magical world you'd get through the use of drugs, most people would ignore the mobo costs and buy into the platform because it zoinks the hell out of intel.
Lol I agree. I mean, contrary to a lot of people, I don't see a problem at all with zen4 performance. It is VERY good.

It is just that not so long ago I was with a G4560,gtx1060 6G, 8G 2400 DDR4.
The upgrade to R2600X changed some things and the next upgrade to 5600X, 32G 3200 DDR4 and RX6800XT are quite good enough for me.

So, changing again is too much investment (to me) right now.

The costs with AM5 are pretty normal for a new platform. Just not the time for me.
 

eek2121

Diamond Member
Aug 2, 2005
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Where are you getting this from? The second slide is only about the cores.
The GPU is apparently updated. Guess where that lives?
AMD never used the vanilla 2020 N5, just N5p.
N5p (aka v1.1) to N4p is like 6% higher speed or twice that in power; pocket change stuff.
Except you just said they are the same in a prior post. Hint: They aren’t. Also see the above post about N4X.
 
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A///

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Feb 24, 2017
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Lol I agree. I mean, contrary to a lot of people, I don't see a problem at all with zen4 performance. It is VERY good.

It is just that not so long ago I was with a G4560,gtx1060 6G, 8G 2400 DDR4.
The upgrade to R2600X changed some things and the next upgrade to 5600X, 32G 3200 DDR4 and RX6800XT are quite good enough for me.

So, changing again is too much investment (to me) right now.

The costs with AM5 are pretty normal for a new platform. Just not the time for me.
It's good but not for those coming from zen 3. zen 2 maybe depending on your individual needs. zen and the + sure. don't bang too hard on those intel processors. they were very good for what they were and were fantastic for low end systems or media pcs. the cost to get into am5 today is still high, not that it's great with intel which i'm not advocating for here. mobos should not be trading at prices that were what they were nearly a year ago. especially as amd plans on pushing a refreshed x670 chipset to cater to new technologies.