[Techpowerup] AMD "Zen" CPU Prototypes Tested, "Meet all Expectations"

[LTC8K6]

Intel's response when they get beat by amd in performance isn't to lower prices, it's to pay companies to use thier products exclusively and threaten to short ship any oem that doesnt agree to that strategy. This practice is illegal in both the UK and America, but that matters just about as much as restrictions on covert surveillance.

What's the point of this post, exactly?

Are you trying to prepare us all for Zen failure or something?

Does AMD really need these excuses?

 

[TechGod123]

What's the point of this post, exactly?

Are you trying to prepare us all for Zen failure or something?

Does AMD really need these excuses?

Zen won't be a fail because no one is expecting Skylake level performance. No one is insane enough for that. We just believe it'll be able to trade blows with Haswell which is all that matters.

 

[LTC8K6]

Zen won't be a fail because no one is expecting Skylake level performance. No one is insane enough for that. We just believe it'll be able to trade blows with Haswell which is all that matters.

We?

 

[TechGod123]

We?

Anyone with half a brain that objectively looks at what AMD has said about Zen and the patch that was leaked. The switch to SMT, reduction in cache latency, 14nm chip, compatibility with Intel's ISA and way more changes I don't remember clearly point to a Haswell level chipset.

 

[LTC8K6]

Anyone with half a brain that objectively looks at what AMD has said about Zen and the patch that was leaked. The switch to SMT, reduction in cache latency, 14nm chip, compatibility with Intel's ISA and way more changes I don't remember clearly point to a Haswell level chipset.

I don't care if AMD manages to match Haswell by 2017 or not.

But I'd rather they pushed Intel a little harder than that, actually.

 

[TechGod123]

I don't care if AMD manages to match Haswell by 2017 or not.

But I'd rather they pushed Intel a little harder than that, actually.

That isn't possible. Maybe when they reach Zen+.

Remember, AMD is gonna unify the socket into one single AM4, that means any mobo will support OCing, the enthusiast grade CPUs won't have their seperate socket like how Intel has the X99 boards and 2011-3. That is a pretty damn good reason to switch to Zen IMO. Why pay more for a mobo that allows OCing? Why pay more for an unlocked chip if all of them are unlocked? Why pay a ridiculous amount more to buy a mobo that supports the enthusiast grade CPUs? Etc....

 

[TechGod123]

Its legitimately disappointing to see how many people think its gonna be a bulldozer attempt. I expected more objectivity from the members of this forum.

 

[LTC8K6]

Oh, I'm an Intel fan and have been forever. I do build and own AMD systems, though.

I expect that I will build Zen systems as well.

I want AMD to push Intel so that Intel will turn off the cruise control.

 

[TechGod123]

Oh, I'm an Intel fan and have been forever. I do build and own AMD systems, though.

I expect that I will build Zen systems as well.

I want AMD to push Intel so that Intel will turn off the cruise control.

Totally OK to prefer Intel but its not OK to be blind and say AMD will never succeed lie how some members are saying here.

 

[ShintaiDK]

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.

 

[TechGod123]

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. 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.

WTF?? Its quad channel. You're twisting crap and trying to make Zen look bad. How pathetic.

 

[ShintaiDK]

WTF?? Its quad channel.

The AM4 socket isn't quad channel. APUs will also use the same socket.

FM3 was renamed to AM4. And the layout is this:

Feel free to document the quad channel. But I guess like the last time you wont supply any.

 

[Arachnotronic]

WTF?? Its quad channel. You're twisting crap and trying to make Zen look bad. How pathetic.

Actually he's telling you the truth while you promote things that aren't true.

BTW, pretty sure everybody can see through your act here. You pretend to be "impartial" but in reality you are here to defend AMD. Nothing wrong with defending AMD if that's your bag, but I do wish you would be more upfront about your true stance.

 

[TechGod123]

Actually he's telling you the truth while you promote things that aren't true.

BTW, pretty sure everybody can see through your act here. You pretend to be "impartial" but in reality you are here to defend AMD. Nothing wrong with defending AMD if that's your bag, but I do wish you would be more upfront about your true stance.

OK, so I assumed he was lying because of this

I'm not impartial, that should be obvious. AMD is my prefered choice for many reasons but I was wrong in this case. I'm not trying to act here, I try to stay as objective as possible while at the same time preferring one brand over another (except right now, Intel CPUs destroy anything by AMD)

 

[Arachnotronic]

OK, so I assumed he was lying because of this

I'm not impartial, that should be obvious. AMD is my prefered choice for many reasons but I was wrong in this case. I'm not trying to act here, I try to stay as objective as possible while at the same time preferring one brand over another (except right now, Intel CPUs destroy anything by AMD)

OK, thank you for being upfront about your position. Appreciate it.

 

[Vortex6700]

What's the point of this post, exactly?

Are you trying to prepare us all for Zen failure or something?

Does AMD really need these excuses?

This was actually to remind all of the AMD fanboys that even if zen was twice as good on performance, power/perf AND price/perf, it still wouldn't save AMD. Intel has proven it can and will keep AMD within an inch of bankruptcy with better technology or without.

 

[TechGod123]

OK, thank you for being upfront about your position. Appreciate it.

Again, my apologies of my stance not being clear from the start.

I am impressed by Intel and the power efficiency of their mobile chips but I would really like to see them feel the heat in the enthusiast market.

 

[TechGod123]

This was actually to remind all of the AMD fanboys that even if zen was twice as good on performance, power/perf AND price/perf, it still wouldn't save AMD. Intel has proven it can and will keep AMD within an inch of bankruptcy with better technology or without.

If Intel is caught doing that again, I suspect the legal repercussions will be rather detrimental to their public image and potentially profits in the consumer market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

OK, so I assumed he was lying because of this

I'm not impartial, that should be obvious. AMD is my prefered choice for many reasons but I was wrong in this case. I'm not trying to act here, I try to stay as objective as possible while at the same time preferring one brand over another (except right now, Intel CPUs destroy anything by AMD)

That's a fictive HPC product you link.

 

[TheELF]

Its legitimately disappointing to see how many people think its gonna be a bulldozer attempt. I expected more objectivity from the members of this forum.

Well if you look at it objectively..
AMD was never very good at single core speed or at least for a very long time now.
Now AMD claims 40% ipc raise...
They claim SMT on every core...
put one and one together and what is the objective outcome?
Zen will just be a new take on modules, 8 pipeline cores with forced smt from the get-go so no thread will be able to use more than 4 pipelines.
Should Not really surprise anyone, they use a very loose interpretation on the term core just look at the 12 "core" laptops popping up.

That is objective,much more so than to think that a company will manage to go from core2 speeds to haswell speeds with no R&D money and in a few months time.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The only thing "objective" that we know about Zen is that we have no information about true performance, power consumption, price, or even date of availability.

 

[looncraz]

Well if you look at it objectively..
AMD was never very good at single core speed or at least for a very long time now.
Now AMD claims 40% ipc raise...
They claim SMT on every core...
put one and one together and what is the objective outcome?
Zen will just be a new take on modules, 8 pipeline cores with forced smt from the get-go so no thread will be able to use more than 4 pipelines.
Should Not really surprise anyone, they use a very loose interpretation on the term core just look at the 12 "core" laptops popping up.

That is objective,much more so than to think that a company will manage to go from core2 speeds to haswell speeds with no R&D money and in a few months time.

AMD used to be IPC king. They fell behind only after Intel made the massive Core [2] jump.

Phenom II was nearly a 30% jump over Phenom for integer.

Also, your take on SMT doesn't even make sense. SMT just doesn't work that way, and can't work that way. The OS addresses instructions to a CPU and the core simply tags them with a thread ID for SMT. The instructions are thrown into the L1I cache and the instruction fetch will grab a set of instructions, without regard for the thread assignment*. The branch prediction unit will read these instructions in the fetch unit as they proceed to the predecode/pick buffer.

From here, they go into the decoders, which only care about which thread an instruction originates for register renaming (so the thread uses the right data). From there, the only other place in the entire core that cares about the thread ID again is the retirement reordering logic. After that, it's just memory that is written via the LSU.


* There are naive SMT implementations that do context switching and will only pull instructions from one thread at a time, but AMD's existing fetch logic does not work that way, and they can simply copy their existing logic to achieve the above. They already have register renaming, and a recent patent shows this being put to even better use (likely in Zen).

Proper SMT requires the following:

1. Thread tag per instruction (a single bit is popular, but limits to only one extra thread per core).

2. Per-thread registers, either by renaming from a pool of registers, or dedicated register.

3. Instruction retirement reordering respecting the thread tag - only needed for out-of-order execution.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If Intel is caught doing that again, I suspect the legal repercussions will be rather detrimental to their public image and potentially profits in the consumer market.

If they can get away with their contra-revenue scheme, I'm not sure that the FTC or whomever is in charge, would care if they started "paying off" OEMs, to only carry Intel-based systems. In my mind, those are essentially the same thing.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Proper SMT requires the following:

1. Thread tag per instruction (a single bit is popular, but limits to only one extra thread per core).

2. Per-thread registers, either by renaming from a pool of registers, or dedicated register.

3. Instruction retirement reordering respecting the thread tag - only needed for out-of-order execution.

Clever, thanks for the tech explanation.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD used to be IPC king. They fell behind only after Intel made the massive Core [2] jump.

K8 was only better compared to P4. Not to P-M.