AMD's Bringing FX Back With Jim Keller's New x86 Core

[TechFan@ic]

Bernd Lienhard, a corporate VP & the GM of AMD's client division revealed in a Q&A session during AMD's APU14 event in Beijing that AMD is indeed going to be bringing FX back with an all new CPU architecture.
One who's development is spearheaded by the legendary CPU architect Jim Keller who's famous for the original Athlon XP & Athlon64 CPUs.

The upcoming FX chips are expected in 2016, two years from now. Lisa Sue confirmed that Jim Keller's new x86 core will be 14nm FinFet based.
 

 

AMD's FX series of processors has been relatively less active, what's the plan for the future?

Lienhard: Last year we introduced the Piledriver architecture and achieved good market performance, we see about 30% growth. Kaveri also used the updated Steamroller architecture.

Within two years you will definitely see an update to the FX series in the high-performance market segment.

Original text

8、AMD FX系列处理器相对不够活跃，未来有何规划？

Lienhard：我们去年推出了Piledriver(打桩机)架构，取得了很好的市场表现，有大约30％的成长，Kaveri也用到了更新的Steamroller(挖掘机)架构。FX系列未来仍将定位于高性能市场，两年内你绝对会看到更新。

 

It's still unclear how AMD's going to configure these FX parts, whether they're going to be CPU only parts or APUs with a higher number of cores in comparison to today's mainstream parts.

Editorial,
I'm personally not exactly sure if AMD would want to re-use the FX moniker with the new CPU architecture. We don't know yet whether it's going to resemble AMD's current modular cores, rumors are that it won't but either way I'd imagine AMD would want a fresh start perhaps with a new brand or even a re-invigoration of the Phenom of yesteryears.

[Paralectic]

AMD, we need an affordable CPU to beat the 4770K in heat and performance.

[Osmium]

Come on, be good AMD!

[Freaky_spider]

i would get a new name, but id keep the two digit (maybe RX) followed with 4 numbers thing they got going on.

 

lets hope they bring some needed competition to the market.

[lani100]

AMD, we need an affordable CPU to beat the 4770K in heat and performance.

Haha, we have to wait another 3 years for that mayby it will never happen.

[MilkyWhite]

AMD, we need an affordable CPU to beat the 4770K in heat and performance.

The 4770K is a 2013 product. The new FX CPUs will be coming in two years so 2016.

Beating a 2013 product in 2016 isn't going to be very impressive. I expect AMD will be aiming much higher than a 4770K.

[Osmium]

i would get a new name, but id keep the two digit (maybe RX) followed with 4 numbers thing they got going on.

 

lets hope they bring some needed competition to the market.

 

RX sounds cool but I'd expect a lot of prescription puns if they actually did that.

[Scionyde]

i would get a new name, but id keep the two digit (maybe RX) followed with 4 numbers thing they got going on.

 

lets hope they bring some needed competition to the market.

 

Heh, as long as it's not as big a mess as the current Radeon naming scheme, I'll be happy.

 

Anyway, glad to hear this. Seems like we could really use something to try and compete with Intel. 

[ACatWithThumbs]

The 4770K is a 2013 product. The new FX CPUs will be coming in two years so 2016.

Beating a 2013 product in 2016 isn't going to be very impressive. I expect AMD will be aiming much higher than a 4770K.

But how do they want to do that?

Intel will be by 2016 already by 14-10nm AMD can't compete with that  because TSMC lacks 2-4 years behind Intel.

It's impossible to compete with Intel.

[Osmium]

But how do they want to do that?

Intel will be by 2016 already by 14-10nm AMD can't compete with that  because TSMC lacks 2-4 years behind Intel.

 

You realize component companies are competing with each other years and years in advance. So everything out now was being developed several years ago.

[Tech_Dreamer]

No thanks, i alredy have an oven at home. :mellow:

[crystal6tak]

2016? Looks like Intel would still be leading in CPU for the next 2 years then =/

[harrynowl]

pls amd:

 

Phenom 3 X8 Black Edition

-4.4GHz Turbo

-4GHz Base Clock

-89W TDP

-12MB L3

-8MB L2

-50% higher IPC

-No resource sharing (+20% speed)

-AM4 with DDR4, PCIe Gen (4 at this point probably), sata express and m.2

-19nm global foundries process

 

hmm...

 

can AMD deliver?

[LukaP]

i really hope they deliver with FinFET. this alone would help any AMD architecture with their power consumption alot. and 14nm at that!

 

No thanks, i alredy have an oven at home.  :mellow:

 

they are going to FinFET which is much more power efficient, so i dont see how these cores could be getting really hot, apart from maybe if they just carelessly printed a bunch of FETs and gave zero fcks

[TechFan@ic]

But how do they want to do that?

Intel will be by 2016 already by 14-10nm AMD can't compete with that  because TSMC lacks 2-4 years behind Intel.

It's impossible to compete with Intel.

Lisa Sue (Vice President of AMD's global business) already confirmed that in 2016 AMD will be at 14nm FinFet and that they've been already actively designing products in FinFet and in fact they expect tape-outs this quarter.

AMD doesn't use TSMC to manufacture CPUs, only GPUs. Globalfoundries is AMD's CPU/APU manufacturer.

Globalfoundries also recently announced that they'll be working with Samsung to bring 14nm even earlier than previously scheduled.

Intel has had a lot of issues with their 14nm process and delayed it twice so combine Intel's 14nm delays along with Globalfoundries 14nm speed up and you'll find that Intel has lost a huge chunk of its lead.

Historically speaking AMD has managed to successfully compete with Intel on more than one occasion using less advanced process nodes.

[totjup5]

This is exciting, but that's a long time to wait when piledriver is already almost two years old.

[Humbug]

It's still unclear how AMD's going to configure these FX parts, whether they're going to be CPU only part or APUs with a higher number of cores in comparison to today's mainstream parts.

don't You think it's pretty obvious that it should be a high performance APU, with more cores than the low end parts, Probably also bigger cores, higher clock speeds and less restrictive TDPs. They could achieve that on a better process node. But it should still be an APU. AMD has bet the farm on HSA and they should not undermine their own strategy by releasing a flagship part which pushes the market in the opposite direction.

[nokturrduk84]

I hope they will release some good CPUs finally with new architecture that will compete with Intel. I really want to see AMD competing with Intel, but they are satisfied with their 2nd position & focusing more on those stupid APUs rather than faster CPUs & I'd say they are in pretty bad shape right now. 

[totjup5]

No thanks, i alredy have an oven at home. :mellow:

You do realize that haswell chips run hotter than fx chips at stock speeds right? On an Intel chip people are often hitting 80 degrees. On an AMD chip anything above 60 is getting too hot.

[n0ah1897]

I just hope they go all out with these.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Lisa Sue (Vice President of AMD's global business) already confirmed that in 2016 AMD will be at 14nm and that they've been already actively designing products in FinFet and in fact they expect tape-outs this quarter.

AMD doesn't use TSMC to manufacture CPUs, only GPUs. Globalfoundries is AMD's CPU/APU manufacturer.

Globalfoundries also recently announced that they'll be working with Samsung to bring 14nm even earlier than previously scheduled.

Intel is releasing 14nm at the end of this year with Broadwell.

In 2 Years Intel will already be by something like 10nm.

 

[TechFan@ic]

don't You think it's pretty obvious that it should be a high performance APU, with more cores than the low end parts, Probably also bigger cores, higher clock speeds and less restrictive TDPs. They could achieve that on a better process node. But it should still be an APU. AMD has bet the farm on HSA and they should not undermine their own strategy by releasing a flagship part which pushes the market in the opposite direction.

Well the fact of the matter is AMD will have all die stacking/packaging tools available by 20nm, seeing how the new FX will be 14nm based I expect the die stacking tools will be even more mature.

Brian Black, AMD's head of the die stacking project revealed two years ago that the way die stacking works is actually quite revolutionary.

We will no longer have SOCs that incorporate, CPU cores, GPUs, memory controllers, north & south bridges on one single monolithic die.

Each of these components will be manufactured separately and then packaged together.

 

What this actually means is that AMD will be able to very easily configure any product exactly the way they want just like building with legos.

They can build a product with as many GPU & CPU cores they want with no extra cost.

To achieve the same results today you'd have to design a completely new die if you want to introduce a new configuration of CPUs/GPUs which is EXTREMELY expensive.

 

[Paralectic]

You do realize that haswell chips run hotter than fx chips at stock speeds right? On an Intel chip people are often hitting 80 degrees. On an AMD chip anything above 60 is getting too hot.

My AMD CPU have been running on 95 degrees under load and 50-60 degrees idle for more than 3 years and it still lives.

[Humbug]

My AMD CPU have been running on 95 degrees under load and 50-60 degrees idle for more than 3 years and it still lives.

dude that would be considered hot even for a GPU. You're running a CPU that hot?

[Paralectic]

dude that would be considered hot even for a GPU. You're running a CPU that hot?

Yes. and also there's almost no thermal paste left on there.

:-)