Zen APUs made by GloFo, 14nm FinFET node, and packaged by Amkor

[deasd]

Yeah no. Zen HBM is strictly for the HPC APU. On package memory is the future, but that's far out. Intel is using HMC on Knights Landing, up to 16 GB which can either be used as as a giant cache or shared memory with the 6-channel DDR4. AMD is likely doing the same thing.

You guys are neglecting Fury and R9 Nano are already consumer product......

 

[Soulkeeper]

I really hope AMD don't cheap out and abandon HBM on the APUs ... atleast give us 1 highend option. Tons of power users willing to fork out the extra money for the performance benefit.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Agreed, we won't see it on low-priced parts for another couple years. But there is no inherent reason why an APU can't be a flagship-grade part. Intel sells Iris Pro at a substantial premium, and there are enough design wins to make that viable. AMD hasn't done premium APUs yet because their current CPUs suck too bad to make it viable. But if Zen is competitive on that front, then AMD gains the ability to offer something that neither Intel nor Nvidia can do. I think Apple would love a single-package solution for the Retina iMac if it had enough CPU and GPU power to get the job done.

You need volume for it to be meaningful. If AMD can only sell a handful og HBM APUs, it doesn't matter how much they can charge. And just like Skylake, it means a HBM controller on every single chip basicly.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Perhaps if having two smaller dies (CPU SoC die and GPU die) vs. one large "one size fits all die" allows better yields or advantages in mix and match binning it could help justify the cost of the interposer for consumer APUs?

No, the Interposer solution would never work due to cost. Even at say 5$. Remember all the lower parts that would need it. Selling a 40-50$ APU with a 5$ interposer hurts.

Also be careful with all your extra chip designs, they each cost a lot of money on their own in masks and design. if you listen to the Intel/Asus podcast you will also hear why multiple chip designs doesn't make economic sense.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Isn't Polaris 11 the card that at around ~50W yields GTX 950 performance?

GTX 950 is roughly equal to R9 270/270X.

As far as the remainder of TDP goes (95W - ~ 50W = 45W), I think CPU performance would be much lower than i7 6700K.

Yep, both CPU and GPU performance of that part is way into dream land.

 

[Erenhardt]

Mind you all we already have APU with 7870 IGP since late 2013. Don't act like it is something new and beyond reach

 

[The Stilt]

You guys are neglecting Fury and R9 Nano are already consumer product......

And you are neglecting the fact that these two cards are supposed to be a flagship products, which sell at 500 and 620$.

There must be a demand for 250-300$ APUs before it is possible for AMD to actually release one. Before AMD can ask such prices, the APUs need a complete overhaul. After that they are no longer targeted for customers in 3rd world / developing countries, but the same customers as Intel Iris Pro.

Before any of that can happen, Zen must first succeed.

 

[deasd]

And you are neglecting the fact that these two cards are supposed to be a flagship products, which sell at 500 and 620$.

wow, you're so optimistic that 14nm HBM APU can reach Fury flagship performance. BTW R9 Nano is not flagship. I don't think APU could/must have such level performance.

After that they are no longer targeted for customers in 3rd world / developing countries, but the same customers as Intel Iris Pro.

It's first time I hear that APUs are aimed for 3rd world......D: And I never heard people buy Iris pro but without dGPU for gaming.

 

[Dresdenboy]

No, the Interposer solution would never work due to cost. Even at say 5$. Remember all the lower parts that would need it. Selling a 40-50$ APU with a 5$ interposer hurts.

Also be careful with all your extra chip designs, they each cost a lot of money on their own in masks and design. if you listen to the Intel/Asus podcast you will also hear why multiple chip designs doesn't make economic sense.

Once you wrote

I think some people forget Zen pricing, assuming it will perform like some dream.

A 8C/16T 4Ghz 95W Zen with Haswell IPC will be a 1000-1500$ chip if not possible more.

Lisa Su also stated AMD dont want to be cheap anymore, this is also seen with the Fiji/300 series lineup. And we know from the K8 days that AMD takes everything and then some if it can.

But again, the shear fact that Zen is dual channel should get people into more realistic expectations.

Do you see a possible price premium for APUs, if those with help of an interposer and some HBM could perform well with 2 DDR4 channels? Think about Iris Pro with eDRAM and Carrizo's iGPU performance at 28 nm when given enough bandwidth. Would future 14nm iGPUs carry on the 2.5x performance efficiency of Polaris?

GF might become capacity constrained again if AMD would try to sell that at $50.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Once you wrote


Do you see a possible price premium for APUs, if those with help of an interposer and some HBM could perform well with 2 DDR4 channels? Think about Iris Pro with eDRAM and Carrizo's iGPU performance at 28 nm when given enough bandwidth. Would future 14nm iGPUs carry on the 2.5x performance efficiency of Polaris?

GF might become capacity constrained again if AMD would try to sell that at $50.

It would be a new chip design. And not only would Zen have to deliver. Polaris would have to as well. And dont quote PR numbers, they are meaningless.

And then all this would have to sell in a high enough volume at a right price to actually make money on it.

So far the next APU have always been a bigger flop than the previous in sales. Despite that some people always think the next APU is going to be the savior and big seller.

 

[NTMBK]

So far the next APU have always been a bigger flop than the previous in sales. Despite that some people always think the next APU is going to be the savior and big seller.

Trinity was more successful than Llano.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Trinity was more successful than Llano.

Was there a single exception?

 

[Erenhardt]

Ok, we get it. Some of you are very skeptic about amd apus, or anything amd for that matter, but if you want to downplay everything without posting facts to back you up, maybe try to keep your projections for yourselves.

I think HBM APUs are a great way to milk consumers. You can make people upgrade to the newer APU that offers not a lot more CPU performance, but has way faster GPU.

It is something that haunts intel for a long time. Think of all these people with i3-2100 and i5-2500 that don't really see a benefit from upgrade.

Offering them every 2 years a new APU with a 10-20% faster CPU but 50-100% faster IGP can force some of them to justify spending for a new part. In games, the IGP part will show the benefits painting a new APU as 50-100% faster.

Way easier to sell than a new CPU that can get you 10-20% better framerate than your old one, granted you have enough GPU power to actually benefit...

Because GPUs evolve way faster than CPU and we see 50-100% increase in performance every 2 years, you can see how competent APU that can serve a mainstream market will have a constantly refreshing demand a'la GPUs, contrary to stagnating CPU demands after reaching a good-enough threshold.

 

[jpiniero]

Mind you all we already have APU with 7870 IGP since late 2013. Don't act like it is something new and beyond reach

There's technical feasibility and OEMs being interested. I think for gaming-focused machines they seem to greatly prefer dGPUs just for the marketing aspect. You'd have to give them a reason to use it instead of a CPU+dGPU. HBM2 replacing system memory would be it, but you'd have to wait until HBM2 gets anywhere close to DDR4 prices.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Or, they can just get an intel cpu and a powerful discrete card (14/16 nm) and have both better cpu and gpu from day one. Yes, it will cost more, but might ultkmately, not be more expensive than buying 2 or 3 generations of APUs. And btw, we are talking about PCs here. Could you give me the part number for that 7870 level Apu with good cpu performance that I can buy to replace my i5 and discrete card?

As usual, one tiny paragraph that we dont even know what product it refers to has led to speculation into the stratosphere. Maybe that is why there are so many negative comments.

 

[Erenhardt]

And btw, we are talking about PCs here. Could you give me the part number for that 7870 level Apu with good cpu performance that I can buy to replace my i5 and discrete card?

I'm afraid those will not fit into any intel socket...
PS4 APU has slightly upgraded 7870 hardware in it and x86 CPU.

How many mainstream PC users will upgrade their GPU. How many of those will just get a whole new PC because they don't know better? Single SOC PC can be cheaper because you don't need to put an add-in GPU card from MSI,Gibabyte etc, that include board Partners margins etc.

It all comes down to price and I believe that when HBM2 enters mass prodcution, 4GB HBM in a $200 APU will be a viable option.

I don't think we will see HBM working as a system memory because it requires a big shift in a PC sector, which will never happen with amd current state.

I think it is best to apply "wait and see" tactic here. Zen CPU is not even out yet, Zen Apu will be released after Zen CPU, which will be 2017 and later. I Don't think we will see HBM APUs in 2017.
Don't lay out every possibility. Let AMD surprise us for once.

 

[Dresdenboy]

It would be a new chip design. And not only would Zen have to deliver. Polaris would have to as well. And dont quote PR numbers, they are meaningless.

And then all this would have to sell in a high enough volume at a right price to actually make money on it.

So far the next APU have always been a bigger flop than the previous in sales. Despite that some people always think the next APU is going to be the savior and big seller.

I think, with ongoing time and increasing capabilities in automation, simulation, test, verification, etc., chip design goes away from hit or miss to closing in on design targets. And having Polaris 10 and 11 in their hands, RTG didn't step back and say, that they'll continue to sell Fury instead. So energy efficiency mist have improved at least by 10%.

The flopping APU series (ignoring latest JPR numbers here), used these process geometry metrics since 2010: -, 32nm (and 40nm), 32nm, 32nm, 28nm, 28nm, 28nm
Intel at the same time: 32nm, 32nm, 22nm, 22nm, 22nm, 14nm, 14nm

Until 2016, AMD has to use ST-weak construction cores, which didn't leave too much power for the iGPU, except maybe with BR, which has the power management improvements. And it still has to use the previous gen GCN.

So why do you make projections, which seem to falsily be based on the continuation of these 3 series? Would you also have predicted future housing prices based on their development from 1990 to 2007?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I'm afraid those will not fit into any intel socket...
PS4 APU has slightly upgraded 7870 hardware in it and x86 CPU.

How many mainstream PC users will upgrade their GPU. How many of those will just get a whole new PC because they don't know better? Single SOC PC can be cheaper because you don't need to put an add-in GPU card from MSI,Gibabyte etc, that include board Partners margins etc.

It all comes down to price and I believe that when HBM2 enters mass prodcution, 4GB HBM in a $200 APU will be a viable option.

I don't think we will see HBM working as a system memory because it requires a big shift in a PC sector, which will never happen with amd current state.

I think it is best to apply "wait and see" tactic here. Zen CPU is not even out yet, Zen Apu will be released after Zen CPU, which will be 2017 and later. I Don't think we will see HBM APUs in 2017.
Don't lay out every possibility. Let AMD surprise us for once.

Oh, ok, what AMD PC motherboard will that 7870 level APU fit into? The obvious point is that the PS4 Apu is a purpose built soc that has no use in pc, and that the most powerful APU currently available FOR THE PC, is sub HD7750 level gpu performance, and around i3 level at best in cpu performance.

 

[AtenRa]

The possibilities of an AMD ZEN APU with Polaris iGPU and HBM2 are endless.

 

[Erenhardt]

Oh, ok, what AMD PC motherboard will that 7870 level APU fit into? The obvious point is that the PS4 Apu is a purpose built soc that has no use in pc, and that the most powerful APU currently available FOR THE PC, is sub HD7750 level gpu performance, and around i3 level at best in cpu performance.

We were talking about what is possible thanks to HBM, not what was done already... there is no PC motherboard compatible with PS4 SOC, and the same applies to a Zen HBM APUs.

Anyways, bye. This thread is 1 year early.

 

[richaron]

And APU with HBM2 is economic suicide. Try again in 2020 or so.

Obviously this "poster" has more info that the rest of us. And it's not only that they consistently troll this forum. Though I do wish they shared info rather than appearing as just another another anti-AMD troll.

We would all like to know the price/performance of chips they claim are "economic suicide"; to see how they justify their claim. And I'm sure the worthy moderators of this site are up to date on current info; so they can deal with trolls when then spread baseless BS.

Per thread: Those who have been following APU development have also been interested in the associated memory development, since that has been the biggest bottleneck; I think there would be a large market for systems where HBM2 could replace system RAM entirely.

insulting other members is not allowed
He has an opinion, you can have one too. But no insults.
Markfw900

 

[ShintaiDK]

So when AMD say HBM cant be done on Polaris due to economics, they are just talking out their rear end? And HBM2 will only see flagship GPU appearance in 2017. You may notice that HBM haven't moved anywhere in the cost structure.

 

[richaron]

So when AMD say HBM cant be done on Polaris due to economics, they are just talking out their rear end? And HBM2 will only see flagship GPU appearance in 2017. You may notice that HBM haven't moved anywhere in the cost structure.

Off topic and anti-AMD as always.

Plus your point is obvious?

 

[NTMBK]

Was there a single exception?

Well they stopped really improving their CPU after that. Intel's APUs have been selling gangbusters

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well they stopped really improving their CPU after that. Intel's APUs have been selling gangbusters

But even they sell less and less now

I have a feeling a lower PC guidance is coming.