AMD Strix Point Silicon Pictured and Annotated

[Vya Domus]

Kinda hard to put more WGPs in there if the memory controller only just barely managed to get enough bandwidth to fully feed 12CUs

I don't think the added bandwidth of DDR5 has been exploited to it's fullest yet, they could also just put more cache for the iGPU, anyway it's clear that the die space dedicated for graphics has taken a back seat in favor of other things.

If AMD can start using NPUs for upscaling/frame-gen functionality, it's not a waste.

NPUs are not needed for frame generation and their "must have" status for upscaling is questionable as well, Intel showed ML upscaling works on regular GPUs just fine.

 

[tabascosauz]

I don't think the added bandwidth of DDR5 has been exploited to it's fullest yet, they could also just put more cache for the iGPU, anyway it's clear that the die space dedicated for graphics has taken a back seat in favor of other things.

They can't really exploit DDR5 in a mobile form factor though. The DDR5-5600 support is just a bare minimum for the SO-DIMM gaming laptops and mini PCs. To properly support 780M LPDDR5-7500 is already the norm so as not to be visibly memory limited as with anything slower.

tbh they should leave the WGP counts alone for a little while, they REALLY need to stop hiking the price and treating their APUs like they're made of gold, if the APUs are ever to get the mobile marketshare they deserve. There could be 50CUs in there and it wouldn't make a lick of difference if it just continues to be delayed vaporware every generation

 

[Chrispy_]

they REALLY need to stop hiking the price and treating their APUs like they're made of gold, if the APUs are ever to get the mobile marketshare they deserve. There could be 50CUs in there and it wouldn't make a lick of difference if it just continues to be delayed vaporware every generation

Yeah, mainstream AMD laptops are so far behind in terms of real availability. I remember complaining for years after Renoir "launched" in Jan 2020 - when the bulk of the silicon was already in inventory prior to COVID shutdown - there were nearly zero Renoir models for sale during COVID lockdowns when it was literally the best, most profitable time to sell a laptop in the goddamn history of laptops.

Looking at the largest UK retailer for new laptops, filtering by AMD processor and sorting by popularity, the top 10 results are:

1. 5700U - Zen2 and Vega rehashed architectures from 5 and 7 years ago, respectively.
2. 7520U - Zen2 and minimal, near-worthless 2CU graphics.
3. 7320U - Zen2 and minimal, near-worthless 2CU graphics
4. 5500U - Zen2 and Vega rubbish again. 2017 called....
5. 8840HS - Finally! A current-gen product.
6. 7530U - Oh look, shitty, ancient Vega7
7. 7530U - ...and again
8. 7730U - Vega 8 doesn't make it better :\
9. 8840U - Yay, the another current-gen product.
10. 8845HS - Current-gen, but the 780M is wasted because this thing has an RTX card.

It's a pretty sorry sight to see. Even if the products are good, AMD is barely selling them and their rejects from the Vega IGP days are still flooding the shelves in 2H 2024!

 

[Jomale]

1. 8840U - Yay, the another current-gen product.
2. 8845HS - Current-gen, but the 780M is wasted because this thing has an RTX card.

It's a pretty sorry sight to see. Even if the products are good, AMD is barely selling them and their rejects from the Vega IGP days are still flooding the shelves in 2H 2024!

Zotac Zon (8840U ): 21 August
with FHD120Hz/Oled, Touchpads, the analog sticks with programmable rings around and the triggers with click or analog locking ...

Computex 2024: Zotac zeigt die ZONE - wir stellen sie vor

 

[wNotyarD]

Yeah, mainstream AMD laptops are so far behind in terms of real availability. I remember complaining for years after Renoir "launched" in Jan 2020 - when the bulk of the silicon was already in inventory prior to COVID shutdown - there were nearly zero Renoir models for sale during COVID lockdowns when it was literally the best, most profitable time to sell a laptop in the goddamn history of laptops.

Looking at the largest UK retailer for new laptops, filtering by AMD processor and sorting by popularity, the top 10 results are:

1. 5700U - Zen2 and Vega rehashed architectures from 5 and 7 years ago, respectively.
2. 7520U - Zen2 and minimal, near-worthless 2CU graphics.
3. 7320U - Zen2 and minimal, near-worthless 2CU graphics
4. 5500U - Zen2 and Vega rubbish again. 2017 called....
5. 8840HS - Finally! A current-gen product.
6. 7530U - Oh look, shitty, ancient Vega7
7. 7530U - ...and again
8. 7730U - Vega 8 doesn't make it better :\
9. 8840U - Yay, the another current-gen product.
10. 8845HS - Current-gen, but the 780M is wasted because this thing has an RTX card.

It's a pretty sorry sight to see. Even if the products are good, AMD is barely selling them and their rejects from the Vega IGP days are still flooding the shelves in 2H 2024!

Indeed. If I were to mention what I'm looking for in a laptop right now, it'd be a lightweight unit with no need for graphics much stronger than my current 1050M. I wouldn't settle for less power than that, though, so it rules out any Vega-based APU. And preferably: WITHOUT A DGPU, especially GeForces (Optimus is a pain in the arse when I do use Linux).
So I look at the market here (and across the border) and what Zen 4/RDNA2 can I find? The ROG Flow X13 (7940HS) @ $900, a HP Envy (8840HS) @ $850 in Paraguay (so add 50% over what exceeds $500) and a HP Firefly (7840HS) @ $1850 in Brazil. Now, pray tell, where the heck are the x840U devices?

 

[dotjaz]

4 PEG lanes? AMD better keep it off AM5, then. It'd make no sense for any desktop processor, APU it may be, to offer so few lanes limiting any upgradability on the graphics front.

Literally wrote x8 PEG lanes right there.

 

[Chrispy_]

So I look at the market here (and across the border) and what Zen 4/RDNA2 can I find? The ROG Flow X13 (7940HS) @ $900, a HP Envy (8840HS) @ $850 in Paraguay (so add 50% over what exceeds $500) and a HP Firefly (7840HS) @ $1850 in Brazil. Now, pray tell, where the heck are the x840U devices?

The same retailer (Currys) I used for the AMD laptops above has more than twice as many Intel ultraportables using the Core Ultra 7 155 than all the AMD laptops they sell combined. Most of them are using the Arc Alchemist IGP and many of them are affordable, sub-£1000 (includes 20% tax) high-spec machines with 1T storage and 32GB RAM.

AMD could be making a killing in this arena but there's almost nothing on sale so how does AMD expect to get sales?

 

[wNotyarD]

Literally wrote x8 PEG lanes right there.

Then it was fixed after I made my remark.

 

[stimpy88]

What does it need all those USB2.0 PHY's for? They are at least 25% larger than the USB3.0 version. Surely it would have made the chip physically smaller if they got rid of them and added a few more USB3.0 PHYs?

I hope those tiny L3 caches don't gimp performance like it does on the desktop chips. Some odd decisions in there... But I'm sure they know what they're doing more than I do.

 

[R0H1T]

It's also bugged me for some reason that why isn't USB 2.0 dead on the latest gen (PC) platforms?

 

[AusWolf]

I'm a bit disappointed in the PCI-e lane reduction, but still, it would make a tough little HTPC / light gaming workhorse in an AM5 system. I hope we'll see it on desktop.

 

[Minus Infinity]

APU die got quite a bit bigger at 232 vs 178mm^2. Can't just pin that on the iGPU. Not sure where Dragon/Fire Range factors into this, it's a huge package and not the same segment.

50% more cpu cores, and 33% more GPU cores, larger NPU, and only ~30% larger. Why's that surprising?

 

[leezhiran]

Nope, this is pretty much just CPPC2 like it is since Zen2 with dual CCX per die.
Intel has been using CPPC for years for laptops and since X299 HEDT. On the software side Windows pretty much just sees some core are clocked higher than others.
Intel's E-core not only has lower clocks but vastly different IPC compare to the P-cores, meaning instructions require different number of clock cycles to complete. This is what makes it differcult for scheduling.

Well,according to current reviews ,there's a significant performace penalty in games if you use more than your 4 zen 5 cores (crossing the CCXs maybe). Looks like these cpus faces the same problem like 7950x3ds.Maybe an os/chipset update can fix this.

 

[JWNoctis]

What does it need all those USB2.0 PHY's for? They are at least 25% larger than the USB3.0 version. Surely it would have made the chip physically smaller if they got rid of them and added a few more USB3.0 PHYs?

I hope those tiny L3 caches don't gimp performance like it does on the desktop chips. Some odd decisions in there... But I'm sure they know what they're doing more than I do.

It's also bugged me for some reason that why isn't USB 2.0 dead on the latest gen (PC) platforms?

I did not know USB4 or USB3 would need a separate USB2 PHY muxed in.

USB 2.0 is still plenty for lots of things, and things like onboard audio are actually moving towards USB 2.0 for some reason. One for audio, another for biometrics, another for any lighting controller the system might choose to implement, and the rest for keyboard and the touchpad, maybe. Embedded uses would probably also need a few of these.

I also wonder how much longer it would be, before they'd make a monolithic APU with more than 16MB of L3 cache visible to a single core. Would that be power inefficient somehow, or is it something else?

Well,according to current reviews ,there's a significant performace penalty in games if you use more than your 4 zen 5 cores (crossing the CCXs maybe). Looks like these cpus faces the same problem like 7950x3ds.Maybe an os/chipset update can fix this.

Hopefully it'd be an easy solution since similar non-uniform architectures has been there a while now. There probably won't be any solution if the game really does need more than 4 Zen 5 cores, though - It'd be interesting if some of them ended up faster on the 8-core Zen 5c cluster.

 

[R0H1T]

Someone should've restricted games to the eight zen5c cores(process lasso?) to see how that works!

 

[stimpy88]

AMD has a few serious issues with the design of Zen that, because of the x3D cash grab, they refuse to address because it will lose them profit. It's over-reliance on huge, shared L3 caches is it's Achilles heel, as proven by the fact that x3D exists in the first place.

I feel they should have stuck to a single CPU type, and not mixed them - This may work on a future games consoles where they are purpose built, have huge memory bandwidth on a custom bus and run custom OS's and drivers tuned to that hardware, but PC/Windows still has serious scheduling issues, exasperated by mixing different types of CPU cores and their physical location on the die and how they communicate. I just wonder if they should have gone all Zen5c or 8 Zen5 cores and cut the c-cores entirely. 16MB is a ridiculous choice for the full Zen5 cores on a hand-held gaming console, as it instantly takes away 20% of its performance, but I guess there is only 4 cores to argue between it, although the chances of them all being fully occupied, and fighting for cache during gameplay is higher.

An 8 core Zen5c with 32MB of L3 would have been my choice. Better battery life, better long-term performance due to not thermal throttling as much, no Windows scheduler issues, and just nicer for the customer with a cooler, more performant device in their hand/lap.

 

[ChalaniBabalu]

I don't think the added bandwidth of DDR5 has been exploited to it's fullest yet, they could also just put more cache for the iGPU, anyway it's clear that the die space dedicated for graphics has taken a back seat in favor of other things.


NPUs are not needed for frame generation and their "must have" status for upscaling is questionable as well, Intel showed ML upscaling works on regular GPUs just fine.

thanks