If each core (in a 4 core cluster) only has access to one memory controller then doesnt that cripple single thread performance?
Ok... wondering if AMD makes the Conroe Miracle and delivers a brutal ammount of improvement. A miracle like that could start a revival on the PC market.
If each core (in a 4 core cluster) only has access to one memory controller then doesnt that cripple single thread performance?
Mark Papermaster said:Absolutely. So what we did with Zen, it is truly a ground up new design. It leverage the deep experience we had in 64-bit x86, which of course, AMD was the pioneer in the industry with this technology. But when I say from scratch design, I mean really retooling how you get performance and actually very high performance.
And so we went about it with really three facets. You have to basically modify the execution engines to tune them up. We tune them up in a way to basically improve the efficiency of the processing. We've tuned up how you cache, right, so how instructions can install, if you don't have the right the local cache instructors, so we tuned up our cache sub-system.
And then you have to feed those engines and so we tuned up our IO and memory. And so this was just roll up the sleeves, hard-nosed microprocessor engineering to get that kind of bump, where you have 40% instruction per clock versus our current generation, which is shipping in Bristol Ridge. That's huge and it's a result of that hard-nosed engineering.
Harlan Sur
So should we anticipate something like desktop end of this year, server first half of next year and then client compute mainstream as we roll through the remainder of 2017? Is that kind of how we think about it?
Mark Papermaster
Well, the order is correct. We haven't release these specific times. But again, we're on track, what we said is we'll be sampling to priority customers at the end of this quarter, on track there. We said first full year of our production ship next year right on track, and again, in that order of desktop, server and the client compute.
Mark Papermaster said:And so this was just roll up the sleeves, hard-nosed microprocessor engineering to get that kind of bump, where you have 40% instruction per clock versus our current generation, which is shipping in Bristol Ridge.
Patent said:In some embodiments, all or a portion of the compute units 104-0 through 104-N are processor cores (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) cores).
Except it wasn't really a miracle. Between Pentium 3 and Conroe were Banias, Dothan, and Yonah (ie Pentium M and Core), so there was some guidance as to Conroe's performance. Only if you were living under a rock and only knew about Pentium 4 would it seem like a miracle.
There was still a major jump from Yonah to Conroe though, it's undeniable. Banias (and the direct shrink Dothan) lagged pretty far behind K8 in outright performance as well as performance per clock, mostly due to starved memory bandwidth and poor SIMD/FP grunt.
While Yonah mostly closed the gap per clock, the highest spec chips were only clocking in around the lowest Athlon X2 counterparts. http://www.anandtech.com/show/1650/7
That said there were PHENOMENAL mobile CPUs though and the fact that they were even in the same ballpark as the Athlon X2 chips is pretty amazing. It still wasn't a given that Intel could get another 25+% IPC boost out of the design as well as crank up the clocks, but that's exactly what they did and what made Conroe such a success.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1900/11
Let me emphasize the base for the 40% IPC increase here
That's not what your link says. Look again. Those are Dothan Pentium M being compared with. Their IPC is on par with the Athlon 64.
Your link shows Yonah, and IPC was also on par with Athlon 64.
The other thing is Zen really needs to hit something around 4 GHz or higher along with that bump in IPC to be relevant in this year's market. I hope they pull it off; hopefully we'll see soon.
It doesn't really matter .. His point is still valid. A 20% IPC increase over yonah, whilst adding extra pipeline stages, (thus significantly increasing frequency headroom to make it a desktop killer as well - something Yonah never would have been ), all without increasing power consumption was a triple- wammy that not many people saw coming.
40%IPC>Ev + 8 cores + SMT @ 4Ghz @ 95w TDP ????
Just to be relevant?
Well if to be relevant you have to basically smash all of Intel's HEDT lineup, in performance [bar the 6950x] and perfomance/watt then sure.. I guess Zen isn't going to be very relevant then :sneaky:
Out of all the market segments desktop quad core is the one amd will care about least. Laptop apu and server derived chips are the targets.For desktop, if Zen isn't to get crushed by Kabylake. HEDT will need pretty high clocks as well - how high depends on what '40%' really adds up to.
Except it wasn't really a miracle. Between Pentium 3 and Conroe were Banias, Dothan, and Yonah (ie Pentium M and Core), so there was some guidance as to Conroe's performance. Only if you were living under a rock and only knew about Pentium 4 would it seem like a miracle.
I am of the view that first generation zen will focus more on servers than desktops. Servers can give them much more money compared to desktop. Even if the architecture is capable to reach clocks like 4.8GHz, the 14nm LPP wouldn't be able to reach those clocks as of now.For desktop, if Zen isn't to get crushed by Kabylake. HEDT will need pretty high clocks as well - how high depends on what '40%' really adds up to.