AMD hints at high-performance Zen x86 architecture

[natr0n]

AMD has admitted that its Bulldozer microarchitecture was a misstep but claims that its next-generation replacement, Zen, will deliver the performance improvements required to become competitive with Intel once more.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2014/09/11/amd-zen/1

 

[Frick]

I'll just post this now so I don't have to later.

Seriously thuogh, it would be amazing if they could pull a rabbit out of their hat, but I'm not holding my breath. I mean about competing with Intel on power, the APU stuff I like.

 

[arbiter]

I'll just post this now so I don't have to later.

Seriously thuogh, it would be amazing if they could pull a rabbit out of their hat, but I'm not holding their breath. I mean about competing with Intel on power, the APU stuff I like.

Just like when AMD claimed their a10 mobile parts matches Intels i7 mobile part in performance, It does when GPU is used to do some cpu work. That is limited in real world use.

I've lost track how many times AMD made claims of xxxx just to not live up to them when product comes out, SO AMD til you have to BACK UP what you claim before anyone will believe it.
I know there will be AMD fanboyz gonna rip on me for saying that but it has been the truth, AMD hasn't really backed their claims lately when it comes time to prove it.

 

[cadaveca]

I'll just post this now so I don't have to later.

Seriously thuogh, it would be amazing if they could pull a rabbit out of their hat, but I'm not holding their breath. I mean about competing with Intel on power, the APU stuff I like.

Love the comic.


Anyway, the truth, to me, is that AMD is very capable of pulling this off. The striking difference in performance, from where I sit, is that AMD has a much slower cache design. Or at least, there's a bottleneck in the CPU/CACHE interface that causes poor performance. Fixing that alone would bring them very competitive to Intel, but the fact still remains that the biggest thing holding AMD back is the silicon toolset they use, and the quality of the chips. Intel is pulling slightly better performance, with nearly half the power consumption. I remember hearing that Intel offered AMD some fab time. I'd really like to see Intel also transition into a better process for GPUs, and a partnership in this area might be a perfect match for both companies, provided shared liscensing. That's where the big issues are, to me... AMD is under tight constraints as to what they can do with the intellectual property that they own, so whose to say they really can make a true difference?

 

[OneMoar]

LoL that comic made my day
if AMD releases a chip that is clock for clock/watt for watt competitive with intel I won't post on TPU for a month
AMD needs to get on current gen fab and re-hire all proc design staff they fired

 

[Nordic]

Release date 2016. I just don't see an improved amd architecture competing with intels. Intel will still have the better process node even if amd manages to have better architecture. Still though, they do have some great minds designing zen.

 

[Dent1]

Just like when AMD claimed their a10 mobile parts matches Intels i7 mobile part in performance, It does when GPU is used to do some cpu work. That is limited in real world use.

I've lost track how many times AMD made claims of xxxx just to not live up to them when product comes out, SO AMD til you have to BACK UP what you claim before anyone will believe it.
I know there will be AMD fanboyz gonna rip on me for saying that but it has been the truth, AMD hasn't really backed their claims lately when it comes time to prove it.

Do you ever stop trashing on AMD articles? It's all you seem to do lolz

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-vs-a10-7850k-benchmarks.204850/#post-3160528


I thought Lionheart was only joking in that other thread...but its actually true.

 

[OneMoar]

AMD need to get there collective heads out of there anus's because its not only intel they need to be worried about
qualcomm
nvidia
ARM
ARM/qualcomm are particularly interesting

 

[arbiter]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-vs-a10-7850k-benchmarks.204850/#post-3160528


I thought Lionheart was only joking in that other thread...but its actually true.

.... point I mean is AMD has made so many claims of crap over the years to end up not living up to them, They claim their new cpu will put them back in right with Intel, well Til they put the part out and prove it well I won't believe any their marketing bull. Yet everyone gives me crap for basically say AMD needs to stop with the talk and do something.

 

[eidairaman1]

Your rants put me to sleep... beating a dead horse is only fun once then its boring,like a broken record

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Wonder if the chip design will be less automated this time.

 

[kn00tcn]

AMD need to get there collective heads out of there anus's because its not only intel they need to be worried about
qualcomm
nvidia
ARM
ARM/qualcomm are particularly interesting

how is ARM interesting? AMD is going to have ARM+x86 cores on a single chip... they are safe in this regard

.... point I mean is AMD has made so many claims of crap over the years to end up not living up to them, They claim their new cpu will put them back in right with Intel, well Til they put the part out and prove it well I won't believe any their marketing bull. Yet everyone gives me crap for basically say AMD needs to stop with the talk and do something.

the problem is repeating the same old comments, it's not needed, do you think amd fans are happy with the claims? why cant we all be disappointed without repeating

so until they come out with the next killer cpu, quietly enjoy the fast intel parts while waiting

bringing up the word 'fanboy' is exactly that, a fanboy, because normal people dont care about winning or losing, they just want improvements (not to mention, it's insulting & causes instinctive reflexes to whoever reads it, regardless of the facts, you should not trigger human emotions)

 

[suraswami]

LoL that comic made my day
if AMD releases a chip that is clock for clock/watt for watt competitive with intel I won't post on TPU for a month
AMD needs to get on current gen fab and re-hire all proc design staff they fired

AMD fired them for a reason - all fat is gone, why would they want them back?

 

[Steevo]

Love the comic.


Anyway, the truth, to me, is that AMD is very capable of pulling this off. The striking difference in performance, from where I sit, is that AMD has a much slower cache design. Or at least, there's a bottleneck in the CPU/CACHE interface that causes poor performance. Fixing that alone would bring them very competitive to Intel, but the fact still remains that the biggest thing holding AMD back is the silicon toolset they use, and the quality of the chips. Intel is pulling slightly better performance, with nearly half the power consumption. I remember hearing that Intel offered AMD some fab time. I'd really like to see Intel also transition into a better process for GPUs, and a partnership in this area might be a perfect match for both companies, provided shared liscensing. That's where the big issues are, to me... AMD is under tight constraints as to what they can do with the intellectual property that they own, so whose to say they really can make a true difference?

Yes, the cache latentcy issues is where they have been getting killed in performance by Intel, it shows up when you need low latency data processed, like games to a large degree, small in place applications, and fast branching data. The other 80% of the workload AMD is as fast and sometimes faster than Intel based on hardware threads and RAM performance.

I have no idea why and what has taken them so long to fix it either, assuming it has something to do with tying the data transfer between RAM and the L1 cache perhaps they had issues with engineering understanding how to make it happen, not that I am saying they should have, but they very well could have done some RE on newer Intel chips to compare and see where they screwed up.

 

[eidairaman1]

They were focusing on the market that brings them the most funds namely mobility and mainstream desktop. Now they have the funds they learned their lesson about the bulldozer arch and will improve.

Yes, the cache latentcy issues is where they have been getting killed in performance by Intel, it shows up when you need low latency data processed, like games to a large degree, small in place applications, and fast branching data. The other 80% of the workload AMD is as fast and sometimes faster than Intel based on hardware threads and RAM performance.

I have no idea why and what has taken them so long to fix it either, assuming it has something to do with tying the data transfer between RAM and the L1 cache perhaps they had issues with engineering understanding how to make it happen, not that I am saying they should have, but they very well could have done some RE on newer Intel chips to compare and see where they screwed up.

 

[anolesoul]

Well...after INTEL took the ball and ran with it(X99 chip-set),to support DDR4 ram...It's about time that AMD is finally throwing some "crumbs " at us(their faithful,and committed---(financially) followers).
Although, we have to "hold" our breaths till...maybe 2016?

NOT a happy camper...on that one!

 

[d1nky]

I expect to see DDR4 APU's soon and improved chipset/cpu arch. for crossfire configs.

They really are creating cheap powerful gaming rigs, good things come to those that wait!

 

[anolesoul]

All we can do..is "hope". And trust me,after seeing the prices of those Intel Motherboards and the cost of a 32 gig DDR4 ram set(the mb's support 64 gig on boot).
Trust me....I can "wait"!

 

[Durvelle27]

Excited

 

[RejZoR]

Well, i sure hope I'll have an AMD in my system again. Had Thunderbird and Thorougbred-B and i was really impressed by them. So, i really hope AMD Zen/K12 will be a game changer. CPU market needs some more competition going on.

 

[xBruce88x]

I hope AMD can pull it off... I miss my Athlon XP system

 

[Aquinus]

Well...after INTEL took the ball and ran with it(X99 chip-set),to support DDR4 ram...It's about time that AMD is finally throwing some "crumbs " at us(their faithful,and committed---(financially) followers).
Although, we have to "hold" our breaths till...maybe 2016?

NOT a happy camper...on that one!

For the love of god. This is the third time I've seen a post like this from you. We all get it, Intel is ahead, but stop being a tool about it. Unless you have something worth while to contribute, you need to stop posting and read our exchange the last two times. Here you go again for a third time.

Intel....as always taking the latest tech,and WAY "over-charging";because, they "know" that their the only kid on the block---that is finally going to have motherboards and CPU's, that will support the latest DDR4 ram.
Brother!!! Here we go...again!?!! I just knew...that they would "pull" this!
"Corporate "GREED"....just plain "typical".

The VERY "wealthy"...will love this puppie!

Are you trying to be a tool? Intel's high-end line has always been more expensive than their mainstream counterparts. As far as I can tell, Intel hasn't made much changes to their pricing because their is no competition, but coincidentally we haven't seen prices spike either, they've stayed about the same. So while I agree that they're greedy, they're not taking full advantage of it because that would push customers away. All in all, I think you're over reacting. Intel also has the resources to do DDR4 first, unlike AMD, so they will be.

Every body's...got their "own" opinion,man. JUST..like you.

It's not an attitude either. It's facts. I know a lot about software because I write it for a living. I don't work for a big business, I just have a degree in Computer Science as well as a job as a senior software developer (...and about to get a promotion I might add.) So I'm sorry if I burst your bubble, but how about growing up and not acting like a 12 year old when your argument gets debunked. If all you can do is attempt to insult me but yet you can't even defend your own points, you shouldn't even bother posting.

Hay...what goes around...comes around. Don't give it(disrespect) ..if you don't like "getting" it back in spades--in return,man.

Then how about making your point instead of spitting out rhetorical nonsense.

Once again. Will you stop already with the fanatic-like attitude? I'm getting sick and tired of seeing it.

With this all said, I hope AMD plans on making the CPU pipeline shorter. I think one of the biggest issues with FX is that branch-mispredictions have a much higher costs because the pipeline is twice as long as Intel's on the Core series CPUs. Intel used to have a long pipeline on their P4s, they ditched it because it sucked. So I'm hoping that we'll see something more like Jaguar's 16-stage pipeline or Intel's 14-stage instead of the FX', what? 28-stage pipeline?

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Article is fluff, and without any real proof this is basically stating what we already know. If you want power you go Intel, if you want budget you go AMD.

Having no strong ties to either manufacturer, I wish AMD had started to move on this revelation two years ago. Intel without competition is a lumbering giant that breaks as much as it fixes. The X79 platform showed a crass lack of regards, without anything AMD out there to compete with it. The socket 1155 and 1150 offerings often outpaced the "enthusiast" offerings by 6-12 months.


All of this said, AMD needs to find a lot of chutzpah to actually compete with Intel. Synthetic benchmarks are great and all, but actual performance in applications is what matters to most consumers. AMD has been able to deliver that on low cost platforms (as well or better than Intel), but they've not really been a competitor at the high end since Thuban, I'd love to see that change, but they'd have to prove it to me before I give up on my 2600k. That little chunk of silicon is still surprisingly competitive nearly five years after release, and I don't see it being relegated to the slow lane in the next 18-24 months.

If AMD can pull a new solution that is 90% as effective as Intel at 80% of the cost then we've got a real chance at competition. As it stands, the gap between Intel and AMD on middle to high end processors is just too much.

 

[Aquinus]

If AMD can pull a new solution that is 90% as effective as Intel at 80% of the cost then we've got a real chance at competition. As it stands, the gap between Intel and AMD on middle to high end processors is just too much.

Not just that, but AMD's AM1 APUs just took a warning shot. Intel's Celeron J1900 is a quad-core SoC with a 10-watt TDP. I suspect it can keep up with AM1 CPUs just fine consuming half of the power all the while.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Not just that, but AMD's AM1 APUs just took a warning shot. Intel's Celeron J1900 is a quad-core SoC with a 10-watt TDP. I suspect it can keep up with AM1 CPUs just fine consuming half of the power all the while.

That's depressing, but not surprising. Whenever the Intel integrated graphics get to a more passable level (read: direct competition with the APU offerings) AMD is in hot water. They don't have the power to performance ratio of Intel, they've got at least a generation of delay in Fab technology with Intel due to not owning their own fabs, and they've got an architecture that is admittedly a miss-step.

While I give AMD respect for offering the APUs first, I'm afraid that Intel is going to swoop in and steal their market. Tablets running an APU offer pretty reasonable performance and battery life, but effectively doubling battery life and increasing performance would mean the APU no longer has a home.


I have high hopes for Zen, but metered expectations. The love for Intel or AMD is foolish, as dominance of one or the other hurts consumers. I'd love to once again be torn between a $200 Intel chip and a $200 AMD chip. That hasn't happened for the better part of a decade. If Zen changes this, then it needs to be lauded, but without anything but a press release it's like hoping for world peace. I'll believe it when I see it.