To all who think that the leaked prices are unrealistic:
The 8 core chiplet is a universal part which will be widely used, produced in high quantities and it is small at the same time: it will be cheap.
The 6 core chiplet is a broken part, when counting 8c and 6c chiplets, yield will be approaching 100%.
Margins on the chiplet will vary depending on where the part will be used, high in server processors and low in cheap consumer processors.
AMD can sell those broken chiplets with zero profit, they can even give them away for free. They do not care. It is a waste product. As a waste product, I expect the cheap processors with 6 core chiplets to be available only after the processors with healthy chiplets. Expensive 12c processors may even contain healthy chiplet/s and they may be available immediatelly.
Given the fact that after long years of struggling and having low market share AMD have now chance to get their share back, they really need to sell as many processors as possible - for that they must be cheap.
Leaked pricing is perfectly rational.
For that to happen it would have to be comparable and/or faster in games. Moar corez won't get AMD there, faster clocks and/or IPC will.
Mockingbird: how do you know when the original release date was? It could have easilly happen that due to high demand for server processors, they simply do not have enough chiplets available for consumer processors and release therefore has been posponed. Consumer processors are on the second track and must wait for server parts to depart.
I am talking about retail sales only (box processors).
OEM pricing is an entirely a different thing.
You don't need to disrupt the market if you already dominate the market.
AMD already dominate the ~$200 and under market.
It's the $300+ market that Intel dominates and AMD needs to disrupt.
e.g.
$329 8C/16T Ryzen 7 3700X with similar performance to $500 Core i9-9900K
$499 12C/24T Ryzen 9 2800 - similar price to Core i9-9900K, but with 50% more cores/threads
Point being?Not many people upgrade every year.
Likely the case. I would say the skew might be a little higher towards newer. People can get away with holding out longer today then they could in the past. Doesn't mean they do.The majority of people buying 3rd generations are likely to be on much older processors (i.e. Sandy Bridge, Haswell, etc.)
Yeah they are HEDT products of the previous generation. Released even before Intel released a 8c consumer CPU.Also, have you actually seen the MSRP for Ryzen Threadripper 2920X and Ryzen Threadripper 2950X? It's $649 for the former and $899 for the later.
Nowhere did I said that Ryzen 9 2800 and Ryzen 9 2900 should sell for $649 and $899.
And Cores. Which AMD is potentially doubling. Which again increases the chances that AMD lowers the price of entry for cpu's with core counts over 8c. But TR is where AMD will target super high margin sales.Ryzen Threadripper platform is for those who need more PCIe lanes and quad-channel memory.
I can see AMD having different plans depending on how good or bad yields are. Perhaps there is a 4, 6, 8, 12 plan if yields of fully working dies are a bit low or a 6, 8, 12, 16 plan if the yield of fully working dies is quite high and they can comfortably supply the enterprise market.
I also expect AMD to have an indication of clock speeds and their pricing strategy already in hand so while the finalised names, clock speed, core count is not set AMD will have a plan of what is what so declaring the leak fake because it is not set in stone is a bit daft imo.
Point being?
Likely the case. I would say the skew might be a little higher towards newer. People can get away with holding out longer today then they could in the past. Doesn't mean they do.
Yeah they are HEDT products of the previous generation. Released even before Intel released a 8c consumer CPU.
The idea is that $500 for a 3900x was to low. So what price is acceptable? Anything below the 849 current MSRP (not launch MSRP) would be in competition with the TR2. $600, $700, $750? My point is that why do you think AMD cares what affect Ryzen has on previous gen Threadripper sales? I think this is the key people seem to think that AMD has to price a product a certain way because that is how the previous gen priced it, but has AMD actually done that. Specailly for this shrink, AMD will be able to double up on cores with Ryzen and Threadripper. There is a vast window of pricing that TR2 can cover. Why would we assume that 16c core AM4 CPU has to completely fill that void. This will be a CPU that's build is made for $150 CPU's not a platform for $500+ CPU's. So why do we now think that AMD has to price this CPU into Threadripper pricing. Which will sell more CPU's a $500 16c CPU or $800 16c CPU. What Pricing gets OEM manufacturers to decide that the $/perf ratio is so good that it's in their best interest to actualy offer and advertise these systems (that's what AMD did in 2005 to finally convince Dell to cave)?
AM4 isn't the high margin platform. It's the high volume platform the price on a imaginary 3900x will be high enough to get comfortable margin, but low enough to give every i7, i9, and X299 pause. Low enough to make every 1700, 1700x, 1800x, even 2700/x to go hey that is so much better and not to expensive let me toss it in.
Does it happen as much as one would want. No. But I'll throw this out there. I lived with my Phenom I for 4 years. My 3930k for almost 5. If AMD gets a decent clocked (low 4GHz) 16c CPU that will work in my X370 Tiachi for $500 or less. I know I am upgrading. That's where AMD is targetting disruption and it comes from all areas. Good pricing. Long lived Platforms. Worthwhile upgrades. They are trying to be the antithesis of Intel's business practices that have annoyed people for nearly a decade. Does that mean they expect a 1:1 upgrade for every 1700x sold? No. But you can't ignore the drive to make people want to upgrade (vs. forcing them) just because people rarely do. I bet if we had a poll of CPU users in general if they plan on upgrading their CPU's and then had another poll that we could actually limit to Ryzen owners and ask if they would upgrade their CPU's to the 12c or 16c models at the prices you say are too low. I bet the results would completely different.
And Cores. Which AMD is potentially doubling. Which again increases the chances that AMD lowers the price of entry for cpu's with core counts over 8c. But TR is where AMD will target super high margin sales.
I think they will otherwise they could have centered the chiplet and waited till next gen to provide the space for both. Specially if they aren't doing a IO/Zen2/Navi chiplet this year. Lisa has also hinted very heavily in interviews post CES that there are more cores to come but that could be Zen 3.That's part of the reason why I don't think 16 cores on AM4 is happening. Save that for Threadripper.
I think they will otherwise they could have centered the chiplet and waited till next gen to provide the space for both. Specially if they aren't doing a IO/Zen2/Navi chiplet this year. Lisa has also hinted very heavily in interviews post CES that there are more cores to come but that could be Zen 3.
But honestly this might be a coin flip discussion. Heads 8c tails 12c/16c. But when and if 16c comes to AM4 it won't be much more if more than $500, max maybe just maybe $600.
I think they will otherwise they could have centered the chiplet and waited till next gen to provide the space for both. Specially if they aren't doing a IO/Zen2/Navi chiplet this year. Lisa has also hinted very heavily in interviews post CES that there are more cores to come but that could be Zen 3.
sticking 8 Zen2 cores in the consoles and having the consoles launch sooner rather then later would help change that paradigm pretty quickly.For that to happen it would have to be comparable and/or faster in games. Moar corez won't get AMD there, faster clocks and/or IPC will.
Also, the majority of AMD's 6-core processors have working 8-cores, but had two of them disabled to fit a lower price point.
They are not "salvaged" dies.
How do you know that? And how can you state, that the leaked list is "most definitely fake"? You even seem to wish the processors to be more expensive than leaked. Why, what would be a rational explanation for that? You seem like an Intel damage control person, frankly.Also, the majority of AMD's 6-core processors have working 8-cores, but had two of them disabled to fit a lower price point.They are not "salvaged" dies.
Depends on interpretation of salvaged. In the long run you are right as yields improve (and maybe they are already good enough) perfectly good dies will be disabled so that AMD can meet orders. But chiplets used for a 2800x and 2900x or even the non-X versions (pretending these are the products AMD will launch) aren't necessarily good for Epyc. To much leak for the server, can't clock high enough for threadripper, and so on. Which is the benifit of the Chiplet design. They get so much more per wafer to sample from meaning the cross section of power usage and clocks grows that much more and they can have more products using more configurations.
But anyways. Now you have a chiplet that can't clock high enough for Threadripper. Uses to much power at the lower power usage at lower clocks for EPYC. So boom if getting max value out of the chip is gone. Selling it for cheaper isn't a loss in margin. They are getting a sale they wouldn't if those two usecases wouldn't work out. That's how all of AM4 ryzen works. Maybe they could get the same value per chiplet but the pressure is off if these aren't chiplets they would have used for the server. Same thing applies if they could be used for either one but those guys aren't selling enough and there is binning spill over.
How do you know that? And how can you state, that the leaked list is "most definitely fake"? You even seem to wish the processors to be more expensive than leaked. Why, what would be a rational explanation for that? You seem like an Intel damage control person, frankly.
Because the 240GE at $75 and 3300 6C/12T at $99 makes it impossible to fit the quad core APUs in the lineup.
Also, the majority of AMD's 6-core processors have working 8-cores, but had two of them disabled to fit a lower price point.
They are not "salvaged" dies.
For all we know, AMD might not sell any quad core APUs going forward. It seems likely that they'll still have monolithic APUs (unless we get something really wild like chiplet Navi) but we already know that they have a good 8-core layout with their chiplet design, and it doesn't take up much area, which would allow them make a relatively small APU with 8-cores.
Any part that's sold with 4 cores is just the most low-end salvage part that AMD doesn't really care about since it would normally just be thrown away.
It may seem weird to think about, because we've been stock in a quad-core mainstream world for so long, but eventually we'll move to a point where quad core is just the lowest-end part that you can get, but most won't bother since another $20 will get you 6 cores instead.
The value of the APU and where it fits into the lineup also depends on how powerful the graphics are. Eventually those APUs will be powerful enough to drive 1080p games at 60 fps with good settings. If they can replace what would normally be a $100 GPU, they offer plenty of value even if there are really cheap 6 core CPUs available.
Maybe in the future they'll disable cores, but 7nm is still a new process so there are going to be plenty of dies that get hit with defects. Even if the 7nm node were really mature, AMD probably isn't getting 90% full dies yet. But the benefit of moving all of the IO to a separate die is that the chiplets are pretty much all core (or cache tied to a core) which means that most defects aren't going to completely ruin the chip, but there will still be some that hit non-redundant circuitry.
If the yields are still low, it doesn't really hurt AMD since a large chunk of defective dies can still be salvaged as 6-core parts. If the yields are good, I still don't think AMD would disable working silicon. They'll still have a lot of different bins based on capability that allow for price stratification.
They're also going to want to make as many EPYC CPUs as possible, so it's unlikely that they'll be intentionally disabling cores initially. If supplies are particularly constrained, they may not even launch any multi-chiplet Ryzen parts. I don't know how true the leaks are, but 6/8/12/16 for R3/R5/R7/R9 seems reasonable. If AMD can launch an R5 that beats the 9900K, they can afford to wait to release any 12 or 16 core Ryzen chips or at least see how Intel is going to respond.
If the price R5 competitively enough, you'll probably get people who will buy one of those as a stopgap and upgrade to an R7/R9 later.
Nowhere in his post did he mention the AdoredTV video or "leaked" spreadsheet. Why do you keep insisting on bringing it up?
Because that isn't the market AM4 is selling in. It's the Value professional platform not the uber performance enthusiast / workstation platform.And why not?
Because that isn't the market AM4 is selling in. It's the Value professional platform not the uber performance enthusiast / workstation platform.
I haven't seen anything from AMD to suggest that they plan on pushing AM4 to that market and there is little evidence besides Intel's sales history that implies otherwise and we need to stop basing what AMD will do on what Intel has typically done. Right or wrong it's not how they have ever really handled themselves.
Because the 9900K will have been out for ~9 months by the time these launch, and AMD doesn't want to set the price so high that 3 months later when Intel launches 10nm they are forced to price cut the 3800X or whatever ends up being the top chip at launch. Price cuts make your product look weak. Also, we still have to wait and see how it performs before we can guarantee that it matches or beats 9900K in gaming/encoding/etc.AM4 is just a socket.
Since the $499 12C/24T Ryzen 9 2800 already offer 50% more cores at the same price as the Core i9-9900K, why wouldn't AMD charge another $200 for 4 more cores?
AMD just takes the least leaky dies and make them into EPYC.
Then, of those that are left, the highest binned gets to be Ryzen Threadripper and the rest gets to be other Ryzen processors.
There are not going to be a glut of dies AMD can't get rid of.
Because the 9900K will have been out for ~9 months by the time these launch, and AMD doesn't want to set the price so high that 3 months later when Intel launches 10nm they are forced to price cut the 3800X or whatever ends up being the top chip at launch. Price cuts make your product look weak. Also, we still have to wait and see how it performs before we can guarantee that it matches or beats 9900K in gaming/encoding/etc.