AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[DrMrLordX]

Bristol Ridge is just Carrizo, respun with some higher clockspeeds. Stoney Ridge . . . not so sure about it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://techreport.com/news/29669/amd-puts-excavator-on-the-desktop-with-the-athlon-x4-845

Carrizo for FM2+, with x8 PCIe. 3.8Ghz turbo, 3.5Ghz base.

 

[coercitiv]

http://techreport.com/news/29669/amd-puts-excavator-on-the-desktop-with-the-athlon-x4-845

Carrizo for FM2+, with x8 PCIe. 3.8Ghz turbo, 3.5Ghz base.

2MB L2 cache, no iGPU... Carrizo lobotomized.

 

[Yuriman]

Should be interesting to see how it performs, though. When will we start seeing these hit the shelves?

 

[The Stilt]

Carrizo APUs (with GPU enabled) cannot be used on FM2+ platform. That´s because FM2+ has two main voltages (CPU & NB) available, while Carrizo requires three main voltages (CPU, NB & GPU).

Also the number of PCI-E lanes has not been cut down, Carrizo only has x8 lanes available, while the remaining four are required by the FCH (x4, UMI interface).

 

[ElFenix]

Carrizo APUs (with GPU enabled) cannot be used on FM2+ platform. That´s because FM2+ has two main voltages (CPU & NB) available, while Carrizo requires three main voltages (CPU, NB & GPU).

Also the number of PCI-E lanes has not been cut down, Carrizo only has x8 lanes available, while the remaining four are required by the FCH (x4, UMI interface).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10009/amd-launches-excavator-on-desktop-the-65w-athlon-x4-845-for-70


front page isnt' sure why there's no graphics.

also, has anyone gotten one of those dells and tested it? surely it'd have a better-than-notebook cooler (since we all want to know what it'd do with decent cooling)

 

[DrMrLordX]

2MB L2 cache, no iGPU... Carrizo lobotomized.

Carrizo has 2mb l2 cache in all its forms. As a tradeoff, the cache is faster than Kaveri's L2

 

[dark zero]

And it becomes weaker... Seems that AM3+ will outlive FM2 hard.

 

[JDG1980]

It will be interesting to see comparisons between the X4 845 and Kaveri/Godavari at the same clock speed. Most estimates I've seen so far indicate about a 10%-15% edge in IPC for the newer architecture. This will help us figure out where Zen should land, considering Zen is supposed to have 40% better IPC than Excavator.

 

[Soulkeeper]

And it becomes weaker... Seems that AM3+ will outlive FM2 hard.

Yeah, half the cache and half the pcie lanes. Killed any appeal it might have had for me

 

[ElFenix]

how does fewer lanes available on the same FM2 boards work?

 

[The Stilt]

The PCI-E lanes are connected directly to the APU. FCH and the APU meanwhile communicate through the UMI link (x4). Carrizo naturally has a separate FCH integrated in the die, but on FM2+ variants it is disabled permanently (same way as the GPU).

 

[coercitiv]

Carrizo APUs (with GPU enabled) cannot be used on FM2+ platform.

Carrizo has 2mb l2 cache in all its forms. As a tradeoff, the cache is faster than Kaveri's L2

Learn something every day. Thanks.

 

[Headfoot]

Is it multiplier unlocked? Excavator at $70 on FM2+ w/ an unlocked multiplier might actually be viable for very low budget builds, depending on how well it would overclock

 

[SPBHM]

I don't think the 8 lanes are a big deal, specially if you use with a 3.0 VGA

the l2 cache is more of a problem, and considering pricing and model number, I guess the 845 is not really going to do much against the older Kaveri X4s

 

[The Stilt]

Is it multiplier unlocked? Excavator at $70 on FM2+ w/ an unlocked multiplier might actually be viable for very low budget builds, depending on how well it would overclock

It´s completely locked (CPU, NB, MEMCLK). The only way to overclock is to adjust the BCLK. On APUs nearly every other frequency is tied to BCLK so increasing it doesn´t work too well. At ~105MHz AHCI is lost and other glitches may appear depending on the PCI-E devices used.

the l2 cache is more of a problem, and considering pricing and model number, I guess the 845 is not really going to do much against the older Kaveri X4s

Carrizo has twice the L1D cache (32KB vs. 16KB) and faster L2 than any of the previous Bulldozer iterations. The L2 cache latency is 17 cycles, while Bulldozer and Piledriver have 20 cycles and Steamroller has 19 cycles.

 

[Madpacket]

So any benchmarks yet?

 

[Dresdenboy]

http://techreport.com/news/29669/amd-puts-excavator-on-the-desktop-with-the-athlon-x4-845

Carrizo for FM2+, with x8 PCIe. 3.8Ghz turbo, 3.5Ghz base.

It looks like these clocks show, that the Excavator cores created with HDL are operating beyond the efficiency crossover point compared with Steamroller APUs at the same TDP, which have higher clocks and an activated GPU.

 

[el etro]

I don't think the 8 lanes are a big deal, specially if you use with a 3.0 VGA

the l2 cache is more of a problem, and considering pricing and model number, I guess the 845 is not really going to do much against the older Kaveri X4s

Likely will outperform all Kaveris and Godavaris except 7890K due to IPC improvements. L2 cache is smaller but a big bit faster.


Anyway, would be cool to have a review of one on the webs.

 

[SPBHM]

Likely will outperform all Kaveris and Godavaris except 7890K due to IPC improvements. L2 cache is smaller but a big bit faster.


Anyway, would be cool to have a review of one on the webs.

it doesn't make sense for them to name it 845 and continue to sell the 860K and others for more if that's the case.

 

[Dresdenboy]

According to following article, AMD presented their power management optimizations for Bristol Ridge on ISSCC to achieve 15% higher performance:
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&_mc=RSS_EET_EDT&doc_id=1328845&page_number=2
(paragraph below the image)

Maybe they found a way to fix the heavy CPU throttling during higher iGPU usage and other optimizations.

 

[USER8000]

It looks like these clocks show, that the Excavator cores created with HDL are operating beyond the efficiency crossover point compared with Steamroller APUs at the same TDP, which have higher clocks and an activated GPU.

Hard to say -the Athlon X4 860K and X4 870K have a 95W TDP and are Kaveri based. The Athlon X4 840 has a lower 400MHZ base clockspeed than the Athlon X4 845 at the same TDP.

Plus,Carrizo is an SOC and the CPU section is even more compacted than before - so it makes me wonder how easy it will be to cool at higher voltages and frequencies?

We might need to wait until Bristol Ridge to make a fairer comparison I suspect.

 

[dark zero]

Yeah, half the cache and half the pcie lanes. Killed any appeal it might have had for me

I think that if VIA has a processor with 3.5 GHz, they likely would trash AMD...

 

[SarahKerrigan]

I think that if VIA has a processor with 3.5 GHz, they likely would trash AMD...

What on earth would make you think that?

 

[Vortex6700]

I think that if VIA has a processor with 3.5 GHz, they likely would trash AMD...

If that happened intel would just sue them into oblivion. Cyrix (VIA) and AMD were the only companies that survived last time that happened.