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

Page 442 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

leoneazzurro

Golden Member
Jul 26, 2016
1,052
1,716
136
IIRC there was a patent from AMD about these LP cores, if I am correct these were not seen as separate cores but the OS saw only the "bigger" cores (Included the dense ones). Only when idling the control was passed to this low power hardware which had way less functionalities than the big cores but was basically capable to run only the most basic tasks. Now I was not able to find this patent again, but it was explained there more or less what should appear in these LP cores...
 

Mahboi

Golden Member
Apr 4, 2024
1,035
1,899
96
Halo is 16c, you can't see or feel the LP cluster.
Ok that's a bit of a question then: if Zen 5 LP is going to be clocked a lot lower and/or have a lot less instructions, how is it going to be "totally invisible" exactly?
You should feel a bit of a worse latency or at the very least, a short "switch" when the fat cores get activated. Or are you saying you think the latency will be so small it won't be felt?

Cause it sounds like a hard job to have both no latency at all and to not activate the fat cores unless strictly necessary. Either you wait for the LP cores to have a proper workload then switch, either you switch as soon as it looks like the workload goes over say 70% LP core load, and there's a lot of cases where the fat cores will get activated when it's not that necessary.
 

RnR_au

Platinum Member
Jun 6, 2021
2,070
5,025
106
Power consumption is of course higher because there's far more hardware. The memory bandwidth is better too. That and if its in a separate workstation machine or server that you're remoted into, you don't have a laptop that you can't really use because it's trying to train a model.

The more I think about it, the more silly trying to use a laptop for this seems. Model training can take hours or days depending on what you're doing. That's not something that I'd want to do on a laptop. The battery will only last for an hour working at full load and there's no reason that you can't just SSH into a workstation that is training your model while you have a long-lasting laptop that's just a front end.
Noone is training models on laptops. I made a post earlier on a trend of Macbooks with 128GB+ of ram being used to run inference locally on 70b models;


I believe this will increasingly become a trend for 'information heavy' professionals. They can feed large local corp documents to their locally run model without privacy or security concerns.
 

adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
3,647
5,270
96
Why would it technically not work? Kepler already explained how the OS scheduler would work.
Made that way.
Technically MTL works the same way, can't touch the LP cluster if compute tile is powered on.
You said Zen5LP only in "Premium ultrathin and mainstream".
No, I've said 4+8 and 4+4 configs are premium ULT and mainstream.
These have no LP cluster at all.
No. So can we have a yes/no from you on whether you think there will ever be b.L on AMD DT?
Pretty obvious huh.
No.
To what purpose? Add cost to no benefit?
To idle.
Why would it not work on MT workloads?
Because they don't exist if USRs are powered on and compute tiles are not asleep.
That's the whole purpose of the little cores. Max MT perf, at best perf/W, at lowest die area, at lowest cost of CPU.
No. The purpose is idle. Sub 1w@core idle.
such as video transcoding
VCN hello.
compiling source code
That's what 16 big C are for, plus that's 1t-sensitive too.
When idle, nothing is needed, except wakeup logic. Rest is power gated.
no because that's not how OS active standby works.
I've said idle, s0i3, not sleep (s3) which no longer exists anyway.
So if you say the LP cores only exist when idle, they are waste, and then why waste die space on them?
to idle better.
how is this even a question jesus.
Cause it sounds like a hard job to have both no latency at all and to not activate the fat cores unless strictly necessary.
grandpa please, this isn't 2001. Modern DVFS is fast, particularly the AMD one.
 

Mahboi

Golden Member
Apr 4, 2024
1,035
1,899
96
"Also, you're ruling b.L and LP cores on DT ever from AMD?"
Isn't that obvious?
Actually disagree on that: a ton of mobile chips are already ported to mini PCs and those will increasingly replace traditional desktops in a ton of places.
I think in 4-5 years you'll be selling buttloads of mini PCs with LP cores in them and they'll all idle beautifully at 3W.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tlh97

Mahboi

Golden Member
Apr 4, 2024
1,035
1,899
96
NUC TAM hasn't shifted in ages.
What are you on?
I'm on observing that laptops in a lot of companies are essentially an extra piece of screen on top of a mini PC, that gets plugged into a dock, which gets plugged into one or two monitors.
The lappy itself is of questionable value except as a take-in to meetings where there's already 5000% too many electronics in the room and just one microphone/camera/manager's lappy is enough.

I do expect corpos to slowly start phasing the lappies out as their mobility is not really worthwhile.
 

adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
3,647
5,270
96
AIOs, however have. Mobile Cezanne is used a fair amount there.
Them ain't doing too hot either.
I'm on observing that laptops in a lot of companies are essentially an extra piece of screen on top of a mini PC, that gets plugged into a dock, which gets plugged into one or two monitors.
Well yeah that's the point.
I do expect corpos to slowly start phasing the lappies out as their mobility is not really worthwhile.
You have no clue.
 

inquiss

Senior member
Oct 13, 2010
219
305
136
AIOs, however have. Mobile Cezanne is used a fair amount there.

Probally use the same board as the laptops.
Maybe some NUCs replace desktops for the home user but that's not exactly a big market. Sure some NUCs have laptop chips, so technically if you count NUCs some will have a LP island but it's not going to be a segment you make a chip for and it's pretty small.
 

inquiss

Senior member
Oct 13, 2010
219
305
136
I'm on observing that laptops in a lot of companies are essentially an extra piece of screen on top of a mini PC, that gets plugged into a dock, which gets plugged into one or two monitors.
The lappy itself is of questionable value except as a take-in to meetings where there's already 5000% too many electronics in the room and just one microphone/camera/manager's lappy is enough.

I do expect corpos to slowly start phasing the lappies out as their mobility is not really worthwhile.
Cool I'll just enter the room with my NUC and set up the screen, just give me a minute need to find the power. Oh can someone pass me that keyboard just need to plug that in, there we go, mouse plugged in, lovely yeah ready to go. What?
 

Mahboi

Golden Member
Apr 4, 2024
1,035
1,899
96
The first rule of fight club/CPU forum is attack the post not the poster. No personal attacks.
Cool I'll just enter the room with my NUC and set up the screen, just give me a minute need to find the power.
It's more situational than is thought is my point. The laptop I mean.
There's people who have no point in NOT having one, but there's also a lot where the opposite happens.

It mostly depends on the actual workload you do IMO, most marketers wouldn't live without a tiny lappy, most engineers were just annoyed to go around with fat things that they just wanted to leave at the desk.
I think we'll see a steady climb of NUCs as time goes on.
Oh can someone pass me that keyboard just need to plug that in, there we go, mouse plugged in, lovely yeah ready to go. What?
Come on that's not even good sarcasm. At least try for real.
starwarsday.gif

I bet you wrote those unfunny lines without a twinge of a smile on your face.
esoteric cope but I allow it.
Cool, I'll allow your big mouth too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: del42sa

inquiss

Senior member
Oct 13, 2010
219
305
136
It's more situational than is thought is my point. The laptop I mean.
There's people who have no point in NOT having one, but there's also a lot where the opposite happens.

It mostly depends on the actual workload you do IMO, most marketers wouldn't live without a tiny lappy, most engineers were just annoyed to go around with fat things that they just wanted to leave at the desk.
I think we'll see a steady climb of NUCs as time goes on.

Come on that's not even good sarcasm. At least try for real.
starwarsday.gif

I bet you wrote those unfunny lines without a twinge of a smile on your face.

Cool, I'll allow your big mouth too.

I mean, it was meant to highlight the ridiculousness of the point, and I've made it.

If you travel beyond you office (to clients, say), a laptop is better than a NUC
If you sometimes work from home and sometimes in an office, a laptop is better
If you work at home but might want to move around the home or work at a coffee shop, a laptop is better.

There is a reason why almost all corporate work machines are laptops. Almost all of them.

What work is it that you do, what niche are you in that you can't see past, to think that NUCs are the future above laptops for corporate needs? Is the answer engineering, and is that because you never want to leave your desk?

And if engineers didn't want to take their luggables into meetings, why is the NUC the answer rather than like, a small laptop? Like how would I walk down the hall to a meeting and type notes in that session on a NUC?
 
Last edited:

Timorous

Golden Member
Oct 27, 2008
1,759
3,275
136
It mostly depends on the actual workload you do IMO, most marketers wouldn't live without a tiny lappy, most engineers were just annoyed to go around with fat things that they just wanted to leave at the desk.

Businesses won't switch to nucs. Laptops are great all in one devices that make hybrid working a lot easier. Nucs don't solve anything at all and create a host of problems.
 

yuri69

Senior member
Jul 16, 2013
554
997
136
NUCs are a niche of B&M shops - you really don't need mobility at a front desk. However, you need *some* mobility at nearly any other position.

* Being at home office for a day -> laptop
* Attending a meeting -> laptop
* Solving a cross-team project issues -> laptop
* Working from an office cafe/lounge -> laptop
* Being on a business trip -> laptop
* Holding an on-call at home -> laptop
* Giving a presentation -> laptop
* Commuting & working -> laptop

And no, shared laptops bring pain. Being unfamiliar with the device kills the efficiency.
 

inquiss

Senior member
Oct 13, 2010
219
305
136
NUCs are a niche of B&M shops - you really don't need mobility at a front desk. However, you need *some* mobility at nearly any other position.

* Being at home office for a day -> laptop
* Attending a meeting -> laptop
* Solving a cross-team project issues -> laptop
* Working from an office cafe/lounge -> laptop
* Being on a business trip -> laptop
* Holding an on-call at home -> laptop
* Giving a presentation -> laptop
* Commuting & working -> laptop

And no, shared laptops bring pain. Being unfamiliar with the device kills the efficiency.

This, this is is the clear and obvious position of sanity
 

leoneazzurro

Golden Member
Jul 26, 2016
1,052
1,716
136
NUCs are a niche of B&M shops - you really don't need mobility at a front desk. However, you need *some* mobility at nearly any other position.

* Being at home office for a day -> laptop
* Attending a meeting -> laptop
* Solving a cross-team project issues -> laptop
* Working from an office cafe/lounge -> laptop
* Being on a business trip -> laptop
* Holding an on-call at home -> laptop
* Giving a presentation -> laptop
* Commuting & working -> laptop

And no, shared laptops bring pain. Being unfamiliar with the device kills the efficiency.
Not only that, they are mostly forbidden (save very niche cases) for security reasons.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tlh97 and MadRat