Kabini Rumors

[Arkadrel]

I like amd's idea with system GDDR5 but the inherent problem with it is that GDDR5 is expensive.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=155535&page=6

Embedded system manufacturers can purchase GDDR5 ram units in bulk,
works out at around $27 per 2gb as of Jan 2013.

So around 108$ for 8GB of it, for say the PS4.
Sony can probably get a deal on it, and get it for cheaper than that.
(this is the expensive GDDR5... the fast stuff that newest GPUs use)


I imagine AMD can manage to get some cheaper GDDR5,
and probably add 4GB of it, to its APU's and keep the price of the GDDR5 added lower than 40$.


It just means instead of paying 120$ for a A10-5800k.
You now pay ~160-170$ for a Kaveri APU.

However you wont need to buy System Memory (~40$) or a AMD 7750 (~100$).

So you spend ~40-50$ more on the APU, to save ~140$ or so (on system ram + discrete GPU).

Personally I would not buy such a system.

I would, if it ment I could have a IGP that was around 7750-7700 level of performance.
The cost of a discrete GPU would be gone, and right now a 7750 costs around 100$.

 

[lagokc]

Yes, but Kaveri has only 512 sp, less than the PS4, and it will not be optimized as well as the PS4. In fact that is the same number of SP as the 7750, so even assuming no thermal or bandwidth limitations, it will be equivalent to low end discrete at best. Still, progress I grant, but a limited solution considering there hopefully will be more powerful low/midrange discrete cards by then also.

A budget laptop with an integrated GPU that performs like a 7750. Let that sink in for a bit.

 

[MightyMalus]

A budget laptop with an integrated GPU that performs like a 7750. Let that sink in for a bit.

jejeje, Yeah...that card alone hogs about three to four times the power of Richland.

But, was he talking about laptops?

Question, can't you unite an APU with GDDR5 on package? Might sound silly, probably does...but how about maintaining sockets and upgradability by doing such a thing even if it increases the actual size of the sicket/die, not possible?

 

[Arkadrel]

Question, can't you unite an APU with GDDR5 on package? Might sound silly, probably does...but how about maintaining sockets and upgradability by doing such a thing even if it increases the actual size of the sicket/die, not possible?

Yes you can, it should be possible.

 

[vltra]

Well, yes. But probably more realistic than the people expecting Steamroller +20% IPC single-threaded.

Conroe was as much as 60% faster than Netburst . I mean seriously , there are so many thing wrong and out of place about Bulldozer/Piledriver that it's impossible not to squeeze out 20% ....

 

[Enigmoid]

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=155535&page=6

So around 108$ for 8GB of it, for say the PS4.
Sony can probably get a deal on it, and get it for cheaper than that.
(this is the expensive GDDR5... the fast stuff that newest GPUs use)


I imagine AMD can manage to get some cheaper GDDR5,
and probably add 4GB of it, to its APU's and keep the price of the GDDR5 added lower than 40$.


It just means instead of paying 120$ for a A10-5800k.
You now pay ~160-170$ for a Kaveri APU.

However you wont need to buy System Memory (~40$) or a AMD 7750 (~100$).

So you spend ~40-50$ more on the APU, to save ~140$ or so (on system ram + discrete GPU).



I would, if it ment I could have a IGP that was around 7750-7700 level of performance.
The cost of a discrete GPU would be gone, and right now a 7750 costs around 100$.

7750 costs $80 (and that level of performance will be even cheaper when the apu launches).

AMD does also have profit margins and r and d costs(add about 30-40%).

How long will a system with 4GB ram last?

You arn't getting a budget laptop with 7750 performance. Look at tdp and power consumption. Thats going to take at least 50-60 watts for gpu + cpu.
650m/660m/750m are 7750 performance equivalent.

 

[beginner99]

A budget laptop with an integrated GPU that performs like a 7750. Let that sink in for a bit.

agree. make sense in laptops.

However IMHO useless in desktops because there power consumption and space is much less an issue so you can go with a real, dedicated gpu that will be like easily 3x times faster. And if you don't play games, the iGPU performance doesn't matter at all.

 

[lagokc]

7750 costs $80 (and that level of performance will be even cheaper when the apu launches).

AMD does also have profit margins and r and d costs(add about 30-40%).

How long will a system with 4GB ram last?

You arn't getting a budget laptop with 7750 performance. Look at tdp and power consumption. Thats going to take at least 50-60 watts for gpu + cpu.
650m/660m/750m are 7750 performance equivalent.

55 watts for GPU + CPU isn't unreasonble in a laptop that can actually play games.

 

[Arkadrel]

How long will a system with 4GB ram last?

Honestly? 4gb is enough for most people, I suspect for along time.

You arn't getting a budget laptop with 7750 performance. Look at tdp and power consumption. Thats going to take at least 50-60 watts for gpu + cpu.
650m/660m/750m are 7750 performance equivalent.

A 7750 uses about ~40 watts of power, while playing Crysis2 at 1920x1080.

The IGP inside a CPU. would use LESS than this.
I think it would make decent Laptops, or budget desktops for gameing.

If it was paired with a not too high TPD CPU.

 

[MightyMalus]

Can OS's and other non-graphical/gaming applications use GDDR5 memory?

Otherwise, 4GBGDDR5 + 4GB DDR3 in the same system will be the choice, no?

And for a desktop, add a card, that's more GDDR5 that the G-Apps/games would take advantage of and add more DDR3 ram if needed for other apps.

But then again, is there a real benefit to having more GDDR5 ram in games now? Maybe in the future, well, it should be a main benefit for high resolution stuff, correct?

 

[Arkadrel]

Can OS's and other non-graphical/gaming applications use GDDR5 memory?

Yes theres no differnce. Its system memory.

And for a desktop, add a card, that's more GDDR5 that the G-Apps/games would take advantage of and add more DDR3 ram if needed for other apps.

The idea is to kill PCIe and other I/Os that arnt needed, if the APU is fast enough.
That way the motherboard is cheaper, as is the APU, and maybe you use abit less power.

People that need more performance, will get it out of discrete GPU + CPU (like theyve always done).

But then again, is there a real benefit to having more GDDR5 ram in games now?

Depends on resolutions.
If you like to use 3 monitors and run like 6000x4000 resolution (everything Ultra preset in Crysis3),
you might need like 5-6 gb of Video ram.

^ but then again, if you did that,
you shouldnt be useing a cheap APU with 4gb of system memory.

 

[Arkadrel]

Look at all those HD 4600's. Alot of new PC's will have IGPs almost as fast as A10-5800k levels.

I wonder how much faster than 4770k will be than a 3770k, CPU performance wise.

 

[Exophase]

I wonder how much faster than 4770k will be than a 3770k, CPU performance wise.

Probably not more than 10% on average, if leaked benchmarks are correct. Some doing a lot better, others doing no better at all.

 

[lagokc]

Honestly? 4gb is enough for most people, I suspect for along time.


A 7750 uses about ~40 watts of power, while playing Crysis2 at 1920x1080.

The IGP inside a CPU. would use LESS than this.
I think it would make decent Laptops, or budget desktops for gameing.

If it was paired with a not too high TPD CPU.

iirc the GDDR5 7750 can use 55watts of power in games, it was the DDR3 version that only used 40watts because it's so much slower.

Arkadrel: Do you honestly believe the HD4600 is remotely as good as an A10-5800k in games? Even if Intel's drivers weren't years behind the hardware just isn't as capable.

 

[Enigmoid]

55 watts for GPU + CPU isn't unreasonble in a laptop that can actually play games.

Honestly? 4gb is enough for most people, I suspect for along time.


A 7750 uses about ~40 watts of power, while playing Crysis2 at 1920x1080.

The IGP inside a CPU. would use LESS than this.
I think it would make decent Laptops, or budget desktops for gameing.

If it was paired with a not too high TPD CPU.

1) Amd needs to improve their mobile cpus. A a10-4600m bottlenecks a 7970m down to 660m levels (on average at playable game settings). Look at the gx60 (msi)

2) AMD's top mobile cpu is a 35 watt tdp. They would have to go to ~55 watts to even think of getting that performance level on a single chip. A lot of their thermal headroom needs to go toward improving cpu performance which generally competes against ULV i5 ivy or SV i3 (and generally loses). Cinebench singlethreaded on an a10-4600m is around 0.7 points (ivy bridge is ~1.2-1.4).

3) GDDR5 as system RAM is going to hurt battery life, which is a big deal in the mobile space. It also raises power consumption a couple of watts under load.

4) A 55 watt cpu is hard to cool and is not going in any thin notebooks anytime soon (the same amount of heat at two different locations is easier to cool).

I'm kinda suprised that AMD (with rather poor perf/watt) doesn't have any 45 watt cpus.

5) The new consoles are going to have plenty of RAM, I expect to see game RAM use jump significantly. Windows at idle uses ~1 GB (more for crapware full OEM systems) and windows likes to keep about 15% of the RAM free.

6) Desktop trinity has a 100 watt tdp. Whatever improvements kaveri brings I don't expect to see mobile kaveri beating desktop trinity (mobile is generally 2/3 the power of the desktop chip--it throttles down to less if both the cpu and gpu are stressed at the same time which does not happen on the desktop--this is the same for intels ULV line which throttle under cpu and gpu load though to a lesser degree). For that to happen on a 50 watt chip we would have to see perf/watt improve by more than a factor of two. This is unlikely at best.

7) The desktop version will have 512 shaders. If the mobile version can have 512 shaders and comparable performance (at a much lower tdp). Then either the desktop chip is very low tdp or mobile version won't get desktop performance levels (if the mobile version could get the same performance at half the power usage then why not make a more power hungry and powerful desktop chip with 1024 shaders). (I expect that if they use the same chip for mobile it will be 512 shaders at something like 500 mhz vs 800 mhz for the desktop). Which is basically 7730m performance level (50+% gain vs the 7660G).

8) For them to get 7750 performance levels in a laptop they would need about 2-2.5 times the current power of the 7660G (based off of 3dmark scores).

 

[Enigmoid]

iirc the GDDR5 7750 can use 55watts of power in games, it was the DDR3 version that only used 40watts because it's so much slower.

Arkadrel: Do you honestly believe the HD4600 is remotely as good as an A10-5800k in games? Even if Intel's drivers weren't years behind the hardware just isn't as capable.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-performance,3461-6.html

We are about 20-25% behind trinity in the tested games on an ES with crappy drivers.

I expect to see small improvements with the finished product.

If mobile gets the same of slightly less (10-15%) then I expect a fairly even fight between hd4600 and amd's apus.

(Considering that amd mobile chips generally run a much slower frequencies while intel's run at similar frequencies).

 

[Arkadrel]

Arkadrel: Do you honestly believe the HD4600 is remotely as good as an A10-5800k in games? Even if Intel's drivers weren't years behind the hardware just isn't as capable.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-performance,3461-6.html

Someone linked that earlier on.

Yes the HD 4600 on the I7-4770k seems to be about 20-25% slower than the A10-5800k.

Thats still not so bad though, its a big step up in terms of IGP performance, compaired to what older models have.

 

[Pilum]

Its going to get harder and harder to sell a system that only has 4GB RAM with no chance of upgrade in the future (by the time the system becomes available 4GB is really gonna push it). Personally I would not buy such a system.

8GB is probably going to cost too much to be cost effective vs a low end discrete card with comparable performance.

8 GiB is not technically possible at this time, as 4 GBit (512 MiB) GDDR5 chips are just entering the market. The PS4 has a 256-bit bus and can access 16 of these chips for a total of 8 GiB. Kaveri with its 128-bit bus is limited to 8 RAM chips, so the maximum is 4 GiB. Bigger chips will certainly appear, but I'd guess that will take a year.

And for a potential 4 GiB system, you have to substract the RAM dedicated for GPU use. If you really want to play modern games, you need to reserve 1 GiB. So you're left with 3 GiB for Windows and a game. That will be fun...

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-performance,3461-6.html

Someone linked that earlier on.

Yes the HD 4600 on the I7-4770k seems to be about 20-25% slower than the A10-5800k.

Thats still not so bad though, its a big step up in terms of IGP performance, compaired to what older models have.

You can add ~10% to the HD4000 just from the latest drivers. And the same, if not more to the HD4600.

Benchmarking GPUs in prerelease is one of the worst things you can do to make a conclusion.

The same site also seems to mix up TXT and TSX...

 

[frozentundra123456]

A budget laptop with an integrated GPU that performs like a 7750. Let that sink in for a bit.

I was talking about desktops.

It remains to be seen if you can get 7750 levels of performance from a laptop considering the power and thermal constraints. But yes IF that happens it would be a nice package, depending on how long it takes and what kind of progress in made in dgpus for mobile in the meantime.

 

[Pilum]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-performance,3461-6.html

We are about 20-25% behind trinity in the tested games on an ES with crappy drivers.

I expect to see small improvements with the finished product.

The tested Haswell had a broken memory controller and/or settings; the memory bandwidth was 17% lower than the SNB and IVB counterparts. Given how sensitive IGPs are to bandwidth, this alone may give 5-10% improvement for the final product.

 

[Vesku]

GPU wise AMDs full APU line up should still have an edge, Kabini-Kaveri. It's a reversal of the CPU side that Intel has a lot of room to improve in the iGPU area.

 

[Arkadrel]

This happends with Kavari right?

...for power constrained designs, sounds like mobil to me.

AMD has done away with hand-drawn processor schematics (which define how all the internals are laid out and interconnected) in favor of using a computer-assembled design (a more automated design approach). Using a high density library, the company was able to achieve a claimed 30% reduction in power draw and die area in the final chip without reducing the number of logic blocks.

 

[inf64]

Nope, that is for Excavator. It's just proof of concept, EX will have different FP coprocessor (more efficient and not just thanks to smaller die area dedicated to it).

 

[Arkadrel]

Damn it lol.... AMD needs to get their CPUs to be more power effecient.
Thought that HDL automated design thingy was gonna be in kavari...

The question is, if a computer could beat hand drawn designs why the hell didnt they use that methode long before now? so Steamrollers ect could have had it too?

Their passing up ~30% power figours due to bad hand made designs? wtf.

Do you know if Jaguar suffers from the same fate?
ei poorly handdrawn design, that a automated design by a computer could beat?