AMD Raven Ridge mobile graphics are faster than the Intel Iris Plus 640

[Humbug]

3 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

In mobile, these are going to be really solid "gaming laptops" in the sub-1k USD range. And they should work great. The 2.0 to 3.2 Ghz range is the efficiency speak for the 14nm process that Ryzen is on. These are going to be monsters in the 35w & 45w laptop range. (AMD's APU plans are finally coming together.)

Yep, in the past going with AMD APUs always meant sacrificing CPU performance in exchange for good graphics performance. The curse of the bulldozer architecture...

 

Now finally we can have both. Strong CPU cores (Ryzen) with our GCN graphics. Hopefully the word 'APU' hasn't been damaged too badly in terms of brand name.

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I'm pretty sure Intel is significantly bigger than both of AMD's branches combined. AMD's only real advantage in that sense is their more refined drivers (since they've been in the gpu game longer), but technically there's no reason Intel couldn't make a gpu that's at least close to vega.

My point being AMD is active in the GPU scene. Im not saying intel couldnt do it.

[Curufinwe_wins]

3 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Thunderbolt was made because apple wanted a high performance compact slot to replace expresscard for better than usb and firewire performance on their macbooks. It can also run display too which is one of the reasons.

 

So intel not licencing thunderbolt to AMD could kill thunderbolt as AMD sales will beat intel in the mobile market. With lack of thunderbolt people wont make thunderbolt devices and just use usb 3 and usb c.

Thunderbolt 3 is royaltee free. Also Gigabyte has come out with a threadripper motherboard with TB3 support.

[System Error Message]

2 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Yep, in the past going with AMD APUs always meant sacrificing CPU performance in exchange for good graphics performance. The curse of the bulldozer architecture...

 

Now finally we can have both. Strong CPU cores (Ryzen) with our GCN graphics. Hopefully the word 'APU' hasn't been damaged too badly in terms of brand name.

Its not GCN, its vega, but its a different variant of vega. You need to see AMD's roadmap for GPUs as there are incomplete tables around the net showing current and future AMD GPU specs.

[Humbug]

1 minute ago, System Error Message said:

Its not GCN, its vega, but its a different variant of vega. You need to see AMD's roadmap for GPUs as there are incomplete tables around the net showing current and future AMD GPU specs.

I know it's Vega.

 

I thought Vega is the newest iteration of GCN.

 

 

[System Error Message]

3 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Thunderbolt 3 is royaltee free. Also Gigabyte has come out with a threadripper motherboard with TB3 support.

excellent, cant wait for a laptop with a good AMD APU, vega dedicated GPU, 2 thunderbolt 3 slots to make use of AMD's crossfire support for using both IGP and dedicated GPU together.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Swatson said:

Vega is actually very efficient when clocked and volted properly as shown in some of the undervolting videos floating around. I'm hoping they dont need to stretch the vega cores to their max for the APU line.

Knowing vegas limits in terms of power consumption, stretching vega cores to their max would significantly raise power consumption which means more heat output and a limit in performance.

[Taf the Ghost]

Just now, Humbug said:

I know it's Vega.

 

I thought Vega is the newest iteration of GCN.

 

 

They are. They're calling them NGC or something, but no one is really using it yet. It's mostly GCN 5.0 right now. Navi probably changes the actual naming scheme.

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, System Error Message said:

So intel not licencing thunderbolt to AMD could kill thunderbolt as AMD sales will beat intel in the mobile market. With lack of thunderbolt people wont make thunderbolt devices and just use usb 3 and usb c.

I doubt it. Apple is heavily pushing TB3 and other PC OEMs are following the suit. As Linus explained in a previous WAN show episode.

So if I'm a student in the market for a new XPS 13 laptop and one is Intel and one is AMD, the AMD laptop maybe slightly cheaper but the Intel one is more "future proofed" because of TB3.

 

[Drak3]

15 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

I've never had Thunderbolt 3. What would I use it for?

eGPU, multiport docks, and external RAID storage.

Dell demonstrated superior eGPU capability with a x4 PCIe uplink and video return channel.

MSI demonstrated superior laptop docking with a x8/x8 for eGPU and additional IO.

AMD entices either company to do the same, and thunderbolt becomes a non issue.

 

Though TB3 could become useful for VR in the future.

[System Error Message]

4 minutes ago, Humbug said:

I know it's Vega.

 

I thought Vega is the newest iteration of GCN.

 

 

nope, vega superseeds GCN. Many think that vega is simply fiji or another GCN but it isnt as there are architectural differences between them. For one the difference in double FP per clock vs single FP while GCN could do 1 double FP for every 3 single FP. All the GCN cards except GCN first gen have artificially limited double FP performance on consumer line. its not a GCN 5th gen, after GCN 4th gen which is polaris AMD came out with vega which totally isnt GCN.

 

Edit: seems like i was wrong. on wikipedia it states that vega is GCN 5th gen which is weird because of significantly different architecture.

[S w a t s o n]

2 minutes ago, TheBeastPC said:

Knowing vegas limits in terms of power consumption, stretching vega cores to their max would significantly raise power consumption which means more heat output and a limit in performance.

Yes but my point was that if they dont. Which I think is likely, they are competing against intel's designs not pascal.

[mynameisjuan]

3 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

excellent, cant wait for a laptop with a good AMD APU, vega dedicated GPU, 2 thunderbolt 3 slots to make use of AMD's crossfire support for using both IGP and dedicated GPU together.

Or just buy 1080ti and enjoy better frame rates without crossfire problems?

[Coaxialgamer]

27 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Because vega draws a lot of power. It may not matter as much on a desktop, but on a laptop it's crucial.

Vega's power consumption seems to stem from the fact that rx vega was pushed out of its optimal voltage range in the intent of beating the 1080.

 There's no telling if a lower clocked, lower voltage vega part would still use a pot of power. 

[System Error Message]

1 minute ago, mynameisjuan said:

Or just buy 1080ti and enjoy better frame rates without crossfire problems?

or Gtx 1080ti + intel IGP using a dx12 title like ashes of singularity which was what i was getting at.

 

I already have a titan xp and various different processors to use it with but i prefer vega fe's compute performance. I have both cards.

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

or Gtx 1080ti + intel IGP using a dx12 title like ashes of singularity which was what i was getting at.

 

I already have a titan xp and various different processors to use it with but i prefer vega fe's compute performance. I have both cards.

What increase would you actually get though? I just see SLI or crossfire with an IGPU would hurt performance due to bandwidth

[System Error Message]

Just now, mynameisjuan said:

What increase would you actually get though? I just see SLI or crossfire with an IGPU would hurt performance due to bandwidth

couple of fps in game benchmarks but the true advantage doesnt come from games at the moment. AMD is working on their multi GPU setups where multiple GPUs appear as a single GPU to the application or developer making it much easier.

 

Current advantage is in compute and graphics for example you could get more rendering power with such a laptop. So all those who love blender would definitely benefit from getting a laptop with ryzen APU and AMD dedicated GPU.

[samcool55]

Next step, HBM2 on the CPU die! I'm wondering if that makes it even more power efficient.

[Guest]

Just now, Swatson said:

Yes but my point was that if they dont. Which I think is likely, they are competing against intel's designs not pascal.

Well, yes, because considering the 25% performance increase with AMD's APU line and considering that it is very power effecient, I think that they wont have to raise the vega cores to their max because in terms of performance, they do pretty well.

[mynameisjuan]

6 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Current advantage is in compute and graphics for example you could get more rendering power with such a laptop.

I could def see that as an advantage

[System Error Message]

5 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Next step, HBM2 on the CPU die! I'm wondering if that makes it even more power efficient.

Intel has done ram on die before in one of their iris pro graphics, definitely doable.

[Okjoek]

21 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Intel has done ram on die before in one of their iris pro graphics, definitely doable.

Yeah definitely possible, but IIRC that CPU to this day remains expensive AF and is poor value.

 

edit: IDK if that's just an Intel thing or if it's the VRAM price itself.

[The Benjamins]

27 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Next step, HBM2 on the CPU die! I'm wondering if that makes it even more power efficient.

1-4GB of HBM2 would be awesome on the top end APU line.

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

1-4GB of HBM2 would be awesome on the top end APU line.

That'd be a really interesting product, for certain. Though I'm not sure what market it'd fit at this point.  2-3 generations down the line, that'd probably make more sense. Especially as HBM has to come really far down in cost. 

[The Benjamins]

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

That'd be a really interesting product, for certain. Though I'm not sure what market it'd fit at this point.  2-3 generations down the line, that'd probably make more sense. Especially as HBM has to come really far down in cost. 

ya, its all up to HBM cost. but it would be nice to see small gaming/CAD PC's the size of a NUC (or a bit bigger)

 

The biggest APU issue is GPU ram speed, and HBM makes a lot of sense.