AMD x86 16-core Zen APU detailed

[dalekphalm]

Either Zen cores are very small or this will be a very big chip. The diagram clearly shows and labels 16 "Zen" cores. I'm more interested in the characteristics of the Zen core. If it has better per core performance than the bdver4 this would be a reasonable chip for servers. Provided the power draw isn't too high.

But, uh, Fudzilla has a less than good record with AMD leaks.

Oh this thing is going to be fucking massive. It's the top-level Server Chip. This isn't your $200 gaming chip.

[szomeret]

:blink:  :blink:  :blink:

 

16 core APU?!!!

 

oh maybe its their marketing again

 

12 GPU cores and 4 CPU cores

I like how this post has 13 likes. Never knew there were so many blind illiterates.

[Sakkura]

Either Zen cores are very small or this will be a very big chip. The diagram clearly shows and labels 16 "Zen" cores. I'm more interested in the characteristics of the Zen core. If it has better per core performance than the AMD F15h M60h (aka bdver4) this would be a reasonable chip for servers. Provided the power draw isn't too high.

But, uh, Fudzilla has a less than good record with AMD leaks.

 

You can get CPUs with up to 18 Haswell cores too. That's the kind of thing this APU is going up against. So those Zen cores have every right to be proper, big cores.

[vm'N]

You can get CPUs with up to 18 Haswell cores too. That's the kind of thing this APU is going up against. So those Zen cores have every right to be proper, big cores.

Those 18x core haswell, does not have integrated graphics.

[APrettyCoolWalrus]

Woa-HOLY SHIT

[dalekphalm]

Those 18x core haswell, does not have integrated graphics.

They will as of the next generation. Skylake is going iGPU for the entire line, top to bottom.

[cesrai]

They will as of the next generation. Skylake is going iGPU for the entire line, top to bottom.

Is it going to have that shared super duper fast L4 cache - don't know the name - that will be in broadwell ??

[vm'N]

They will as of the next generation. Skylake is going iGPU for the entire line, top to bottom.

Do we have any source on that?

However, it sounds reasonanble, as Intel is also introducing KNL as host processor.

[harrynowl]

Why does it need to be an apu?

You don't see multi çore xeons with IGPU.

Do you need a apu it you want compute power?

I don't get it AMD.

Parallel processing (or graphics processors) is our best way of achieveing high compute performance in tasks that are not serial anyway.

 

And even if there was no gpu cores the cpu cores would be weak anyway, as to fit 16 cores on a (likely bigger process than Intel) die would either need HUGE die sizes or less complex (weaker) cores.

[FakezZ]

16*2 is 32

Yup. Exactly. But in the post before the man said 16 cores, 34 threads. And I was like "Wtf??".

[EpicAdom]

This is a server product, like a Xeon Dont worry, they will make powerful consumer CPUs as well. But they will include a GPU. Which is not a problem. i mean intel has done it for the past 4 generations

Yeah...this thing is gonna be insanely expensive tho. Like, sell a kidney AND a lung expensive.

 

The question is, how cut down will the consumer version be?

[Godlygamer23]

wait what? 16 core APU? at first i thought it was an opteron server processor, the ultimate comeback for amd on the server market, but nah...

What if Intel made a consumer CPU with 16 cores? Would you make the same complaint? According to AMD's own definition, Intel makes APUs.

[SurvivorNVL]

Yeah...this thing is gonna be insanely expensive tho. Like, sell a kidney AND a lung expensive.

 

The question is, how cut down will the consumer version be?

I believe based on an older rumor from a few months ago--the consumer version will be intended to compete directly with Skylake / Skylake-E, so likely the highest end Zen consumer part will be like the 5960x, but with a gpu portion / HSA.  So much excite.

[AxelRantila]

Just to be clear from what I've read from this thread; While GPUs are better for certain kinds of work, but CPUs are better at other kinds of work

Yeah...this thing is gonna be insanely expensive tho. Like, sell a kidney AND a lung expensive.

 

The question is, how cut down will the consumer version be?

As Linus mentioned in a TechQuickie, the target customers for these kinds of processors are less concerned with the initial cost of the processor (not to mention that those buying in bulk probably gets some sweet deals as well)

[Fetzie]

Why does AMD seem to think we want to build giant, overpriced, underperforming consoles?

 

Are you building a server that needs to compute huge amounts of floating point calculations? If not, you won't be buying this cpu. The people buying this cpu will not care about the price, heat or overclocking. They will not be playing bf or crysis 3. This CPU is designed for work, not play. It is designed for heavily multithreaded loads.

 

I don't see this chip costing less than 8000 dollars. Intel's current flagship Xeon E7 is about 7000 dollars per unit, but it doesn't have the 16GB of HBM system memory on die, neither does it have the iGPU or HSA compatibility. In fact, 8000 dollars is probably on the cheap side.

[8uhbbhu8]

Are you building a server that needs to compute huge amounts of floating point calculations? If not, you won't be buying this cpu. The people buying this cpu will not care about the price, heat or overclocking. They will not be playing fucking or crysis 3. This CPU is designed for work, not play. It is designed for heavily multithreaded loads.

 

I don't see this chip costing less than 8000 dollars. Intel's current flagship Xeon E7 is about 7000 dollars per unit, but it doesn't have the 16GB of HBM system memory on die, neither does it have the iGPU or HSA compatibility. In fact, 8000 dollars is probably on the cheap side.

 

Fetzie is right about this. It is NOT a consumer CPU it is made purely and simply for servers. If AMD made its pricing in line with what Intel has on the market right now they could really put the hurt on and snap up a large amount of the market. We will just have to wait and see what Intel brings out with Skylake before we can really know what to expect in the markets. Would be nice if AMD could make enough money that their R&D Division would get a nice size boost and then make something even better and not just re-brand in the next cycle..

[ManWithBeard1990]

Before we go all crazy about it let's just assume, for now, that it too will be designed with AMD's high density libraries. To keep power consumption and silicon chip real estate at bay. This does come at the cost of clock speed. Definitely this is a high end server chip, and nothing else.

[Deletive]

haven't seen ECC support on a "consumer" chipset =/ /s

[cesrai]

haven't seen ECC support on a "consumer" chipset =/

This isn't a consumer APU it's a server APU.

[Fetzie]

haven't seen ECC support on a "consumer" chipset =/

 

What part of "ECC support", "16 cores and 32 threads", "16GB on-die HBM RAM" and "1TB of system memory" (not to mention the rather sensible reaction of 'how big is this thing going to be?!') makes you think "this is a consumer grade cpu"?

[Deletive]

This isn't a consumer APU it's a server APU.

 oops forgot the /s People are treating it like consumer is a cpu.

 

What part of "ECC support", "16 cores and 32 threads", "16GB on-die HBM RAM" and "1TB of system memory" (not to mention the rather sensible reaction of 'how big is this thing going to be?!') makes you think "this is a consumer grade cpu"?

 ^^

[Sharkyx1]

Yeah im waiting on the leak of an 8 core 250X gpu chip or something like that, but nice to see them doing a big strong high end chip.

[patrickjp93]

Is there any words on how AMD will be handling their own version of Hyperthreading compared to Intel?

And they are also upping the chaches compared to Intel as well

We have no news other than it's 2-way. It could very well be a direct license of Intel's tech with select tweaks, but it's unknown.

If you look at the cache numbers you'll see a huge difference compared to AMD's past, but they're not going to surpass Intel on cache sizes this time around it seems. To be fair cache latencies increase as the size grows, which is why Intel hasn't pushed their amount per core in some time and instead they focused with Micron on improving system memory (hence MCDRAM going on Knight's Landing to the tune of 16GB per socket and per card, and hence Hybrid Memory Cube being due to replace DDR4 and Jedec itself by 2020.

[Opcode]

Is there any words on how AMD will be handling their own version of Hyperthreading compared to Intel?

And they are also upping the chaches compared to Intel as well

It will probably work in the same sense as Hyper-Threading (shared resources etc). Bulldozer was partially SMT capable so they already have a lot of the work done for them.

[cesrai]

We have no news other than it's 2-way. It could very well be a direct license of Intel's tech with select tweaks, but it's unknown.

If you look at the cache numbers you'll see a huge difference compared to AMD's past, but they're not going to surpass Intel on cache sizes this time around it seems. To be fair cache latencies increase as the size grows, which is why Intel hasn't pushed their amount per core in some time and instead they focused with Micron on improving system memory (hence MCDRAM going on Knight's Landing to the tune of 16GB per socket and per card, and hence Hybrid Memory Cube being due to replace DDR4 and Jedec itself by 2020.

Just wanted to ask what advantages does HCM offer over HBM ??