AMD x86 16-core Zen APU detailed

[Opcode]

With only 1 GB in modern gaming even for 1080p? Probabilistically you're up shit creek on that one.

1GB is more than enough for the amount of shaders on the APU. My 5870 only has 1GB with 1600 TeraScale 2 shaders. AMD could throw out 4GB of on chip HBM with the second generation of HBM giving 256 GB/s of memory bandwidth once they upgrade the GPU to include more shaders.

[patrickjp93]

1GB is more than enough for the amount of shaders on the APU. My 5870 only has 1GB with 1600 TeraScale 2 shaders.

and can it actually handle 1080p high/ultra settings (no AA) on current AAA titles? If not, then 1GB of HBM won't do you any better.

[juretrn]

come on AMD, we need you not to fail. If this fails, the market is in danger of being dominated by Intel.

Also, it might finally spark Intel to focus on performance again, not just power consumption.

[spartaman64]

and can it actually handle 1080p high/ultra settings (no AA) on current AAA titles? If not, then 1GB of HBM won't do you any better.

apus normally wont have vram so even if they have 1GB of vram thats good and if they include anymore it wont fit in amd's targeted price range

[spartaman64]

You still have to fill up the HBM in the first place. The real solution is for Micron to get board makers to support HMC modules, or for motherboard makers to convince Samsung, Hynix, Elpida, and Micron to make HBM "sticks."

thats like saying we need gddr5 ram sticks

[Opcode]

and can it actually handle 1080p high/ultra settings (no AA) on current AAA titles? If not, then 1GB of HBM won't do you any better.

Yes, I get 50+ FPS in BF3 on all High settings (AA low or off) at FHD with my HD 5870. 1GB will be more than enough to accommodate an iGPU with less than half the performance as my HD 5870. Even if AMD stepped up the shader count to 640 the 1GB of HBM will still be plenty for most 1080p gaming. If you look at it this way most people only allocate ~1GB of their system ram to the iGPU from the start. The problem isn't density right now it's bandwidth.

[patrickjp93]

thats like saying we need gddr5 ram sticks

No, that would be a bad idea. The latency on GDDR5 is way too high for anything a CPU does.

[patrickjp93]

apus normally wont have vram so even if they have 1GB of vram thats good and if they include anymore it wont fit in amd's targeted price range

I know it won't fit in AMD's price range for consumers (currently, though I expect their prices to rise steadily if they get into a good competitive position against Intel). And APUs will not get much better until they're given more bandwidth. That 1GB of HBM would do wonders, but it would still limit the performance to 1080p high at the most.

 

 

Yes, I get 50+ FPS in BF3 on all High settings (AA low or off) at FHD with my HD 5870. 1GB will be more than enough to accommodate an iGPU with less than half the performance as my HD 5870. Even if AMD stepped up the shader count to 640 the 1GB of HBM will still be plenty for most 1080p gaming. If you look at it this way most people only allocate ~1GB of their system ram to the iGPU from the start. The problem isn't density right now it's bandwidth.

That's not remotely up to date in gaming.

[spartaman64]

I know it won't fit in AMD's price range for consumers (currently, though I expect their prices to rise steadily if they get into a good competitive position against Intel). And APUs will not get much better until they're given more bandwidth. That 1GB of HBM would do wonders, but it would still limit the performance to 1080p high at the most.

 

 

That's not remotely up to date in gaming.

amd's higher end apus will contain more GBs of HBM

[Opcode]

That's not remotely up to date in gaming.

Then you've got a bleak understanding of gaming. Battlefield 3 is still a pretty heavy game especially for integrated graphics.

 

Although you can reference other peoples findings that further validate the problem isn't density, it's bandwidth.

[patrickjp93]

amd's higher end apus will contain more GBs of HBM

Those won't become enthusiast chips for a good while. AMD knows where the popularity and utility of its APUs is at this point. By 2018 I'm sure the gamer community will see the value, but I wouldn't count on it in 2016.

[patrickjp93]

Then you've got a bleak understanding of gaming. Battlefield 3 is still a pretty heavy game especially for integrated graphics.

 

Although you can reference other peoples findings that further validate the problem isn't density, it's bandwidth.

And you won't have that effective bandwidth unless you have enough memory to hold everything at once. I'm telling you as someone who works on system-level code, BF3 is

1) not nearly intense enough on VRAM usage for what you claim

2) games will get much, much heavier in memory usage as the next two years pass if current trends are anything to go by.

[cesrai]

I believe I turned AA down as it's not needed. Everything else was on High.

 

1GB is more than enough to accommodate 512+ SP's. Being on package also cuts out latency as well (like it does on Fiji).

That's reasonable.

[Sakkura]

That APU was nothing but a bottleneck. BF4 would stutter for me constantly on any setting. Even using the 660. The IGPU on the 4690k isn't extremely powerful or anything, but it ran bf4 better than the igpu part of the a10-5700

 

Edit: it is perfectly plausible that I may have had something setup incorrectly, that was my first build, and at one point I had CCC, Mantle, and Nvidia GeForce Experience all running at once.... I know, I know "lol teh noob!"

 

The iGPU in that old APU is better than the iGPU in the Core i5-4690K. Below are BF3 results from a comparison of the A10-5800K and Core i7-4770K, which have the same iGPUs as the A10-5700 and 4690K, just both at slightly higher clocks. The performance difference is even bigger in many other games, though that may be a result of AMDs superior GPU drivers.

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

The iGPU in that old APU is better than the iGPU in the Core i5-4690K. Below are BF3 results from a comparison of the A10-5800K and Core i7-4770K, which have the same iGPUs as the A10-5700 and 4690K, just both at slightly higher clocks. The performance difference is even bigger in many other games, though that may be a result of AMDs superior GPU drivers.

 

-snip

 

-snip

Interesting, I wonder what I may have had set up incorrectly then. I remember I found drivers to be confusing back then. Had just switched from console and wasn't as tech savvy, and was used to games just "running" lol

 

 I also wonder if my current ram made a difference, back then I was running 8gb of 1600, and today I run 16 of 1866. Not a huge difference, but I do know ram speed effects iGPU performance.

[Opcode]

And you won't have that effective bandwidth unless you have enough memory to hold everything at once. I'm telling you as someone who works on system-level code, BF3 is

1) not nearly intense enough on VRAM usage for what you claim

2) games will get much, much heavier in memory usage as the next two years pass if current trends are anything to go by.

Claiming you work on this and that is just egotistic bluffs. I could sit here and tell you that I guarantee I'd walk circles around you in everything that you do (I spend a lot of time writing software, games, and use to partake even in writing malware (I was blackhat for a period), I also enjoy cracking software and reversing peoples shit from the likes of VMProtect to Themida). So lets lose these claims that people honestly don't care as it doesn't add to either of our credibility. You don't need to disassemble and debug the game to monitor what it consumes resource wise. The fact that BF3 will cripple my HD 5870 when cranked up quality wise is just evidence that VRAM density isn't a barrier here. As I've stated in the past few posts right now iGPU's are memory constrained. Beyond that they will hit a performance wall regardless if you had 1GB or 4GB of VRAM. The only part I will agree on is games will become more resource intensive in the coming years. Although as long as iGPU's don't get drastically stronger overnight it really won't matter. Right now I can only think of one game that is really held back by VRAM density and that would be GTA V. Simply for the fact the game doesn't allow you to run FHD resolution if you're running only 1GB of VRAM. Which is nothing more than a check that can be removed or jumped over in the games binary. Although it's there for good reason to ensure you get optimal frame rate with the amount of VRAM that you have. You should still be able to play at 720p in a window which is still adequate and will offer better performance on a iGPU than trying to push the game at FHD resolution. You can shove 4GB of VRAM on an R7 250X and it won't do you any good. The card will struggle to stay above playable frame rates long before you need that much VRAM.

[Delphi1662]

Interesting, I wonder what I may have had set up incorrectly then. I remember I found drivers to be confusing back then. Had just switched from console and wasn't as tech savvy, and was used to games just "running" lol

 

 I also wonder if my current ram made a difference, back then I was running 8gb of 1600, and today I run 16 of 1866. Not a huge difference, but I do know ram speed effects iGPU performance.

We know ram speed affects the performance of the A10 igpu's not too sure about the intel side of things