fusion | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:05:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png fusion | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 PCSpecialist Fusion Black Friday Prebuilt PC Review https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/mat-mynett/pcspecialist-fusion-black-friday-prebuilt-pc-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/mat-mynett/pcspecialist-fusion-black-friday-prebuilt-pc-review/#respond Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:00:45 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=637159 The Fusion prebuilt desktop PC from PCSpecialist has seen it's price slashed for Black Friday

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The Fusion prebuilt PC from PCSpecialist has seen its price drop to £899 for Black Friday. Today we're putting this machine through our usual testing to find out just what sort of performance it is capable of. Featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 7600 GPU, alongside 16GB of Corsair Vengeance memory – can this cut price computer provide value for money and a great gaming experience?

Timestamps

00:00 Start
00:47 Pricing / warranty
01:48 The spec and build
08:17 Design and aesthetics
08:57 Cable management and BIOS
09:40 Benchmarks
12:10 Game tests
15:12 Mat’s thoughts on gaming experience
16:25 Thermals / Noise / Power
18:11 Closing thoughts

Specification

  • Case – PCS SPECTRUM II ARGB MID TOWER CASE (PWM)
  • Processor (CPU) – AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Eight Core CPU
  • Motherboard – ASUS® PRIME B550-PLUS
  • Memory (RAM) – 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
  • Graphics Card – 8GB AMD RADEON™ RX 7600 – HDMI, DP – DX® 12
  • SSD Drive – 1TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD
  • Power Supply – CORSAIR 550W CV SERIES™ CV-550 POWER SUPPLY
  • Processor Cooling – PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
  • Sound Card – ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO
  • Network Card – 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
  • Wireless Network Card – WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
  • Operating System – Windows 11 Home 64 Bit

The core specs are confirmed in the following CPU-Z and GPU-Z screenshots:

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Metroid Fusion is the next Game Boy Advanced title heading to Nintendo Switch https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/metroid-fusion-is-the-next-game-boy-advanced-title-heading-to-nintendo-switch/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/metroid-fusion-is-the-next-game-boy-advanced-title-heading-to-nintendo-switch/#respond Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:07:07 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=595615 Nintendo impressed us all last month with the surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered, bringing the original shooter to the Switch with enhanced visuals. Now this week, Nintendo is dropping more for Metroid fans, with the addition of Metroid Fusion to the Switch library.  Metroid Fusion will be added to the Game Boy library for …

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Nintendo impressed us all last month with the surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered, bringing the original shooter to the Switch with enhanced visuals. Now this week, Nintendo is dropping more for Metroid fans, with the addition of Metroid Fusion to the Switch library. 

Metroid Fusion will be added to the Game Boy library for Switch Online Expansion Pack owners. Nintendo dropped the Game Boy and Game Boy Advanced emulators on Switch earlier this year with a small library of titles. Now, Nintendo is announcing future titles joining the library.

Metroid Fusion first released back in 2002 and is the fourth 2D game in the series and is a prequel to 2021's Metroid Dread. With the addition of Fusion to the library, the full 2D series of Metroid titles will be available to play on Switch, including Metroid, Metroid 2: Return of Samus, Super Metroid, Fusion and Dread.

After Metroid Fusion, Nintendo will also be dropping Fire Emblem, F-Zero Maximum Velocity and Golden Sun to the Game Boy Advanced library. On the classic Game Boy front, fans can expect to see The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, the Pokemon Trading Card Game and Kirby.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Metroid is getting a lot of attention at the moment and we can only hope it is all a lead-up to the eventual release of Metroid Prime 4, a game that has been in the works for over five years at this point. 

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Plasma test successful in German hunt for Nuclear Fusion https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/plasma-test-successful-in-german-hunt-for-nuclear-fusion/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/plasma-test-successful-in-german-hunt-for-nuclear-fusion/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2016 11:42:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=282852 The worldwide scientific community can consider itself one step closer to the goal of one day building a true nuclear fusion reactor, following a successful trial of plasma generation and stabilisation at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald, Germany. Although the super-hot gas was only stabilised for a fraction of a second, the test confirmed the …

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The worldwide scientific community can consider itself one step closer to the goal of one day building a true nuclear fusion reactor, following a successful trial of plasma generation and stabilisation at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald, Germany. Although the super-hot gas was only stabilised for a fraction of a second, the test confirmed the functionality of many aspects of the system, which can now be pushed further.

“Everything went well today,” said Robert Wolf, a senior scientist on the project said (via CBC). “With a system as complex as this you have to make sure everything works perfectly and there's always a risk.

This latest experiement allowed researchers to test the multitude of magnets required, which must be super-cooled during operation. Scientists claimed that they drew a lot of inspiration from the early problems with the Large Hadron Collider's magnet woes in their design of the system.

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel pushed the button herself to begin the hydrogen plasma test. It injected a minute amount of the highly combustible element into a doughnut shaped collection of electro magnets and used microwaves to heat it to extreme temperatures, turning into plasma. Since plasma, unlike other states of matter, is susceptible to strong magnetic fields, that allows such a volatile substance to be stabilised without physical contact.

wendelstein

Source: Wikimedia

In theory, keeping a body of plasma stable for an extended period of time would allows scientists to harness nuclear fusion, which would allow for the harvesting of masses of energy without the pitfalls of traditional fuel sources. While those involved understand that this is just a minute step towards that goal, it is an important one, as fusion could theoretically replace almost all other forms of power generation.

The German made Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is not designed to produce energy in its own right, but allows for the testing of many principles of fusion. It is hoped that by 2025, researchers will have made it possible to stabilise plasma for up to 30 minutes at a time, which would pave the way for future research and development.

Merkel, who herself holds a doctorate in physics, is keen to keep Germany pushing the technology forward, seeing it as one of the more important technological breakthroughs that could be achieved this century.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Fusion would be a massive boon to the human race and could facilitate all sorts of exciting future technologies. 

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NASA is working on a Mars VR experience with ex-Irrational staff https://www.kitguru.net/professional/development/jon-martindale/nasa-is-working-on-a-mars-vr-experience-with-ex-irrational-staff/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/development/jon-martindale/nasa-is-working-on-a-mars-vr-experience-with-ex-irrational-staff/#respond Fri, 29 Jan 2016 08:52:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=282386 There are quite a few different games and experiences in the works that put the player or protagonist on Mars. You might credit The Martian with that, but I backed Lacuna Package back in 2013, so being interested in the red world is nothing new. Still, NASA hopes to continue to foster that intrigue with …

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There are quite a few different games and experiences in the works that put the player or protagonist on Mars. You might credit The Martian with that, but I backed Lacuna Package back in 2013, so being interested in the red world is nothing new. Still, NASA hopes to continue to foster that intrigue with a new VR experience based on Mars, built in Unreal Engine 4, so you know it'll be pretty.

What's perhaps more interesting about this news though, is who NASA has teamed up with to make the VR experience happen. Along with Fusion Media and MIT's Space Systems Laboratory, NASA has also partnered with some ex-Irrational Games developers. While they aren't named, this could be the small team that Ken Levine was said to be leading.

Apparently they've been working on a “first person, sci-fi” game, so perhaps this has been in the works for a while, or some assets are being brought over for this NASA contract.

marsexperience

Members of the team from both Fusion and the ex-Irrational bunch have been talking up how strong the Unreal Engine is on the engine's blog. However the detailing of the partnership is much more interesting. NASA's partnership with Fusion and the developers will see it sharing advanced concept ideas for future space craft, transport systems and other technology.

Although no hard release date for the Mars experience has been announced, we're told it will arrive at some point in 2016 and will work on the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR and Google Cardboard.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: I'm down for a Mars experience. I wonder if it'll feel lonely, or if we're so used to playing inside single player worlds it won't really matter.

 

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AMD engineer: Developers were given the total freedom with ‘Zen’ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-engineer-developers-were-given-the-total-freedom-with-zen/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-engineer-developers-were-given-the-total-freedom-with-zen/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:21:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268893 The “Zen” micro-architecture is a tremendously important project for Advanced Micro Devices. If the new technology is successful, AMD will become a viable developer of central processing units again. If not, the company will have troubles with surviving. Fortunately, “Zen” is a completely new micro-architecture that promises to be very competitive. Apparently, the management team …

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The “Zen” micro-architecture is a tremendously important project for Advanced Micro Devices. If the new technology is successful, AMD will become a viable developer of central processing units again. If not, the company will have troubles with surviving. Fortunately, “Zen” is a completely new micro-architecture that promises to be very competitive. Apparently, the management team gave a lot of freedom with the new CPU design.

“It is the first time in a very long time that we engineers have been given the total freedom to build a processor from scratch and do the best we can do,” said Suzanne Plummer, a director of design engineering at AMD and also a veteran Austin chip engineer, who heads development of a “Zen”-based processor, in an interview with MyStatesman.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

Last week AMD announced that Jim Keller, a legendary processor engineer who headed development of “Zen” micro-architecture, had left the company. It is believed that he has completed the work on the first two iterations of the “Zen” technology. He also worked on the “K12” architecture, which is compatible with the ARMv8-A instruction set architecture.

“[Zen] is a multi-year project with a really large team,” said Ms. Plummer. “It’s like a marathon effort with some sprints in the middle. The team is working very hard, but they can see the finish line. I guarantee that it will deliver a huge improvement in performance and (low) power consumption over the previous generation.”

Ms. Plummer has worked at AMD since 2002, when the company took over Alchemy Semiconductor.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

The first processor based on “Zen” micro-architecture is code-named “Summit Ridge”. The chip is expected to hit the market in October, 2016, and aim at high-end desktops and servers. The new cores will offer at least 40 per cent performance improvement at the same clock-rate compared to existing cores.

“Everything is riding on ‘Zen’,” said analyst Nathan Brookwood with Insight 64. “They are shooting for performance parity with where (arch-rival) Intel will be. AMD understands that they have to succeed with ‘Zen’. If ‘Zen’ fizzles, they will really have to do a lot of running around.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: “Zen” will be AMD’s first major new design since 2011. It has to be successful. If it is not successful, AMD’s share in the market of CPUs will shrink even further.

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AMD readies faster A8 and A10 accelerated processing units https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-readies-faster-a8-and-a10-accelerated-processing-units/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-readies-faster-a8-and-a10-accelerated-processing-units/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:36:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=264911 Advanced Micro Devices is working on two new A8 and A10 accelerated processing units for desktop systems. The new chips will be based on the code-named “Kaveri” design and will not bring tangible performance improvements compared to existing APUs. Nonetheless, the new processors will help AMD to maintain average selling prices of its highly-integrated offerings …

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Advanced Micro Devices is working on two new A8 and A10 accelerated processing units for desktop systems. The new chips will be based on the code-named “Kaveri” design and will not bring tangible performance improvements compared to existing APUs. Nonetheless, the new processors will help AMD to maintain average selling prices of its highly-integrated offerings for desktops.

The new quad-core AMD A8-7690K and AMD A10-7890K will feature slightly higher clock-rates than existing A8 and A10 accelerated processing units. For example, the A10-7890K accelerated processing unit will have default frequency of 4.10GHz, which is 200MHz higher compared to existing flagship APU. The A8-7690K will be around 100MHz faster than its predecessor, reports CPU-World. Unfortunately, it is unknown whether the new chips will also sport higher GPU frequency.

amd_fusion_carrizo_bristol_ridge

From micro-architecture point of view, the new APUs from AMD are similar to their predecessors: they feature four “Steamroller” cores, DirectX 12-class integrated graphics processor featuring GCN 1.1 architecture, second-generation video coding engine (VCE) and fourth-generation unified video decoder (VCE) units that ensure high quality video playback and support all modern encoding formats (MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, VC-1, etc.) except H.265/HEVC, VC-9 and some other.

amd_apu_kaveri_specs

AMD’s latest accelerated processing units that belong to the “Kaveri Refresh” family feature a reworked power supply circuitry, which gives cleaner and higher volume power delivery to the die. This lets AMD to increase “official” frequencies of its highly-integrated desktop chips and which also provides overclockers a significantly better headroom for further tweaking. In addition, AMD is able to bolster clock-rates of its chips thanks to the fact that GlobalFoundries’ 28nm super high performance (SHP) process technology has got significantly better than it was early in its lifecycle.

In addition to high-performance AMD A8-7690K and AMD A10-7890K, Advanced Micro Devices is also working on AMD A6-7470K as well as Athlon X4 850 and Athlon X4 870K.

The new microprocessors are expected to hit the market in the coming weeks and months.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it is nice to see that AMD is gradually increasing performance of its APUs, the chips are still behind their competitors from Intel Corp. when it comes to general-purpose computing performance. Moreover, relatively high thermal design power of 95W does not allow to build ultra-small systems based on the new AMD A8 and A10 “Kaveri” accelerated processing units.

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AMD is researching multi-core ‘exascale heterogeneous processor’ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-is-researching-exascale-heterogeneous-processor-with-16-zen-cores-gpu-and-hbm/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-is-researching-exascale-heterogeneous-processor-with-16-zen-cores-gpu-and-hbm/#respond Mon, 03 Aug 2015 21:53:39 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=261901 Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor. AMD, just like many other leading designers …

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Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor.

AMD, just like many other leading designers of chips, believes that supercomputers with exascale-class performance will have to use hybrid processor that feature both general-purpose cores as well as multiple stream processors found in graphics processing units. AMD has been promoting the idea of hybrid accelerated processing units since 2006, hence, its vision regarding “exascale heterogeneous processor”, which it outlined in a paper published by IEEE, is not surprising.

“To make fully realize the capabilities of the GPU, we envision exascale compute nodes comprised of integrated CPUs and GPUs (i.e., accelerated processing units or APUs) along with the hardware and software support to enable scientists to effectively run their scientific experiments on an exascale system,” the paper reads. “We discuss the hardware and software challenges in building a heterogeneous exascale system, and we describe on-going research efforts at AMD to realize our exascale vision.”

AMD-exascale

BitsAndChips web-site reports that the concept of EHP [exascale heterogeneous processor] features 16 or even 32 general-purpose cores based on “Zen” architecture, stream processors based on the next iteration of GCN [graphics core next] architecture as well as HBM [high bandwidth memory].

Earlier this year first details about 16-core APU leaked. AMD’s EHP for supercomputers is expected to feature 16 x86 “Zen” cores with two-way simultaneous multi-threading technology and 512KB L2 cache per core, 32MB L3 cache as well as a new-generation “Greenland” graphics engine with ½ double precision compute rate. The exascale heterogenerous processor is also projected to feature a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller with enhanced ECC capabilities that supports up to 256GB of memory per channel, 64 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 that can be used for SATA Express, integrated SATA, 1GbE, USB as well as various legacy interfaces. The APU is also expected to feature on-package 16GB of HBM2 memory with 512GB/s or higher bandwidth. It is assumed that the chip will hit the market in 2017, but AMD has never confirmed this.

AMD confirmed development of a datacenter APU earlier this year, but has never revealed its specifications. Keeping in mind that initial processors based on “Zen” micro-architecture will be made using 14nm FinFET process technology and will not feature more than eight cores, chips with 16 or 32 cores will likely be manufactured using 10nm FinFET fabrication process sometimes in 2018, at the earliest.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The new paper released by AMD formally confirms what the company has been talking about for years. It does not mean that the company is actually developing an APU with 32 x86 cores and a GPU engine. However it does confirm the company’s vision regarding the future of server chips.

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AMD unveils A8-7670K accelerated processing unit https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-a8-7670k-accelerated-processing-unit/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-a8-7670k-accelerated-processing-unit/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2015 01:50:22 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259862 Advanced Micro Devices on Monday introduced its new A8-7670K accelerated processing unit designed for low-cost personal computers. The new APU is based on “Kaveri” design and features slightly lower performance than the flagship A10-7870K. The AMD A8-7670K features four “Steamroller” cores (two dual-core modules) with 3.60GHz/3.90GHz clock-rate, integrated AMD Radeon R7 graphics engine with 384 …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Monday introduced its new A8-7670K accelerated processing unit designed for low-cost personal computers. The new APU is based on “Kaveri” design and features slightly lower performance than the flagship A10-7870K.

The AMD A8-7670K features four “Steamroller” cores (two dual-core modules) with 3.60GHz/3.90GHz clock-rate, integrated AMD Radeon R7 graphics engine with 384 stream processors (six GCN compute units) operating at 757MHz, 4MB level two cache, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller with hUMA [heterogeneous unified memory architecture] technology, up to 95W thermal design power and so on. Thanks to advanced multimedia capabilities of the APU, it can be used for home-theater personal computers. Unfortunately, the new hybrid microprocessor does not support hardware decoding of H.265 streams and also does not support HDMI 2.0 output, which means that the A8-7670K is not a good solution to build HTPCs featuring Ultra HD Blu-ray.

amd_fusion_kaveri_steamroller_piledriver_excavator

The new chip is compatible with all existing FM2+ mainboards based on AMD’s A88X, A78, 68H and A58 chipsets and featuring the latest BIOS versions.

amd_a8-7670k_specs

“AMD takes great strides to deliver innovative technology that provides the performance and convenience customers need today and tomorrow,” said Kevin Lensing, senior director of client business unit at AMD. “The AMD A8-7670K APU is no exception. Our newest APU provides a smooth user experience and is engineered for Windows 10 and eSports online gaming.”

The new processor features reworked power supply circuitry, which gives cleaner and higher volume power delivery to the die. The new circuitry enables better overclockability.

The suggested price (SEP) of the AMD A8-7670K is $117.99.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The new processor may be a rather good solution for mainstream PCs not used for demanding applications. AMD itself positions its A8-7670K for home office PCs, hence, do not expect any performance breakthroughs from them.

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AMD begins development of its third major semi-custom design https://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/amd-begins-development-of-its-third-major-semi-custom-design/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/amd-begins-development-of-its-third-major-semi-custom-design/#comments Sat, 18 Jul 2015 12:01:35 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259656 Advanced Micro Devices recently started to design its third semi-custom accelerated processing unit for an undisclosed customer. Some believe that this third semi-custom system-on-chip will eventually power Nintendo’s next-generation game console code-named “NX”. However, AMD claims that the new SoC “expands the base” of its semi-custom business beyond gaming, which means that the APU is …

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Advanced Micro Devices recently started to design its third semi-custom accelerated processing unit for an undisclosed customer. Some believe that this third semi-custom system-on-chip will eventually power Nintendo’s next-generation game console code-named “NX”. However, AMD claims that the new SoC “expands the base” of its semi-custom business beyond gaming, which means that the APU is not developed with a game console in mind.

“We have started a new design this quarter that we believe expands our base for the semi-custom business and we are very pleased with that,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices, during the company’s earnings conference call with investors and financial analysts. “The base semi-custom business is around the game consoles.”

amd_fusion_semi_custon_chip_universe

AMD announced two new semi-custom SoC design wins back in October, 2014. Both chips will integrate AMD Radeon graphics, one will be based on ARM architecture, another one will feature x86 general-purpose cores. One of the APUs is projected to power a “beyond gaming device”. Details about another have never been disclosed, but it is possible that it is a SoC for a gaming device. The two semi-custom system-on-chips are projected to bring the company combined total lifetime revenue of approximately $1 billion over approximately three years starting 2016.

Considering relatively short amount of time between the start of development and actual revenue shipments of AMD's third semi-custom design, it looks like the system-on-chip will not be something very complex. According to comments made by AMD around two years ago, it took it less than 24 months to design, build and tune system-on-chip for Sony PlayStation 4. However, it took years to determine requirements for the SoC as well as its architecture.

amd_semi_custom_fusion_strategy

The third semi-custom design is expected to bring the first revenue to AMD in the second half of 2016. AMD expects that the addition of this APU will help the company to further grow its semi-custom business.

“I think we will still see 2016 to be a fairly solid year for the traditional, let's call it game console business, overall,” said Ms. Su. “Then as we layer on top of it some of the new wins, I think that does give us potential to grow in the second half of the year. Obviously, there is a lot to happen between now and then, but I do see semi-custom as a growth driver for us going forward.”

amd_fusion_semi_custon_chip

So far, AMD has received around $3 billion in revenue for its semi-custom SoCs that power Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4. The two consoles have been in production for about two years now.

While semi-custom chip business is stable and predictable, something that is important for AMD, which has not been very successful on its traditional PC and server markets in the recent years, it is not very profitable. AMD admitted last year that its console SoCs are sold with 15 – 20 per cent margin, which is considerably below typical margins for fabless semiconductor companies in general and AMD in particular.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: In fact, even combined total lifetime revenue of approximately $1 billion over approximately three years for two chips indicate that both products are rather basic and inexpensive. It is unlikely that they will power devices that are sold in very high volumes (i.e., tens of millions of units).

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AMD vows to keep R&D investments at appropriate levels https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-vows-to-keep-rd-investments-at-appropriate-levels/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-vows-to-keep-rd-investments-at-appropriate-levels/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2015 22:39:24 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259626 Despite of tough times, Advanced Micro Devices plans to sustain its research and development investments on certain levels in a bid to ensure that its products are competitive in the future. Research and development are two corner stones of high-tech companies. Without fundamental research of things that may not seem important today and development of actual products, …

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Despite of tough times, Advanced Micro Devices plans to sustain its research and development investments on certain levels in a bid to ensure that its products are competitive in the future.

Research and development are two corner stones of high-tech companies. Without fundamental research of things that may not seem important today and development of actual products, companies will be unable to release anything at all. Just like other things, R&D costs money and companies have to assign a portion of their revenue on such operations in order to maintain financial discipline. Typically, high-tech companies spend between 20 and 25 per cent of their revenue on R&D.

Revenues of Advanced Micro Devices have been declining for many quarters now, as a result, the company has to lower its spending on research and development as well as on multitude of other things. In the last five years AMD’s R&D spending dropped by almost 50 per cent: from $432 million in Q4 2009 to $225 million in Q2 2015 as a result of revenue drops as well as AMD’s attempts to demonstrate profitability.

amd_ati_compass_atyt_strategy_bg

Throughout its history, AMD has always tried to maintain its R&D expenses at certain levels in a bid to support its product roadmap and ensure that it will have competitive products years down the road. Unfortunately, due to declines of earnings and decision to demonstrate positive results, AMD’s R&D expenses dropped below $300 million per quarter in Q3 2013 and have been declining since then. In fact, $225 million is the lowest amount of money that AMD spent on research and development per quarter in more than a decade, which essentially means that now it spends less on R&D than back in the days when it developed only microprocessors.

During its earnings conference call with investors and financial analysts this week, AMD said that it would do everything to roll-out new products that are in development right now and prioritize R&D expenses over everything else going forward.

“We have specific products that are coming out over the next, call it, 18-month timeframe, and we are going to do everything possible to protect that roadmap,” said Devinder Kumar, chief financial officer of AMD. “R&D is obviously going to be the higher priority from that standpoint.”

amd_r_and_d_rd

In a bid to support its ongoing R&D operations, AMD already increased research and development spending as a percentage of revenue to 23.8 per cent in Q2 compared to 22.5 per cent in Q1. Since the company expects its sales to increase in the third quarter, it will naturally be able to either further increase its R&D expenses, or at least maintain them at the current levels.

CFO of AMD understands perfectly that in addition to mid-term products, the company has to invest in the long-term future. Hopefully, it means that AMD will not let R&D spending fall below certain level.

“Even as we talk and contemplate about the actions we are going to take, we are going to do everything to protect that roadmap for the longer term, a strategic roadmap as well as the financial model,” said Mr. Kumar.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it is nice to see that AMD cares about its mid-term and long-term future, it is clear that in order to be truly competitive with its rivals, the company will have to invest more in R&D, not only in terms of absolute dollars, but also as a percentage of revenue. For example, Nvidia spends around 30 per cent of its revenue on R&D, which is why its research and development budget has surpassed that of AMD despite of similar quarterly revenues. Moreover, as AMD transits its products to FinFET manufacturing technologies, its expenses on chip design will triple. Therefore, either AMD increases its sales and boosts its R&D budget, or it will have to increase its R&D spending as a percentage of revenue…

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AMD: We have taped out our first FinFET products https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-we-have-taped-out-our-first-finfet-products/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-we-have-taped-out-our-first-finfet-products/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2015 02:48:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259448 Advanced Micro Devices said on Thursday that it had taped out its first products, which will be made using a FinFET process technology. While AMD does not reveal which products it had taped out, it is highly-likely that one of them is a highly-anticipated microprocessor based on “Zen” micro-architecture. “We have actually just taped-out our …

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Advanced Micro Devices said on Thursday that it had taped out its first products, which will be made using a FinFET process technology. While AMD does not reveal which products it had taped out, it is highly-likely that one of them is a highly-anticipated microprocessor based on “Zen” micro-architecture.

“We have actually just taped-out our first couple of FinFET designs,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices, during the company’s earnings conference call with investors and financial analysts.

Ms. Su did not elaborate which of the future designs the company had taped out and when exactly this happened. Nonetheless, two tape-outs mean that the company has managed to successfully design its first products with FinFET transistors. Design of an advanced microprocessor that will be made using a FinFET process technology costs north from $150 million without the cost of photomasks needed for production. Therefore, the tape-out means that the vast majority of investments in these two chips have been made.

amd_fusion_chip_logo_processor

Tape-out is the final stage of the design cycle of an integrated circuit, the point at which the artwork of the IC is sent to a maker of photomasks. Once the set of photolithographic masks is ready and verified, it is sent to a contract manufacturer of the chip, which produces the first working samples of the chip. It may take up to several weeks to prepare a mask-set. Production cycle of a complex FinFET processor is around 90 days from wafer start to chip delivery. As a result, if AMD taped out its first FinFET chips in June, then the company will get the first samples of its products in September.

Mass production of chips nowadays starts between nine and twelve months after the initial tape-out. Therefore, if AMD managed to tape-out its chips last month, then it is on-track to start their high-volume production next June or a bit earlier and release its first products made using a FinFET process technology in late Q3 or early Q4 2016.

amd_graphics_leadership_1

AMD does not disclose which of its FinFET chips it has taped-out. Based on official and unofficial information, it is highly likely that the first AMD products to be made using a FinFET fabrication process will be the code-named “Summit Ridge” central processing unit with up to eight “Zen” cores as well as the code-named “Greenland” graphics processing unit based on the next iteration of the GCN [graphics core next] architecture. Over time all AMD products will be made using FinFET process technologies. The “Summit Ridge” will be used for next-generation AMD Opteron processors for servers as well as for AMD FX processors for desktops.

“We will be bringing different parts of the product line into FinFET at different points in time,” said Ms. Su. “I think what we have said is graphics [processors] will certainly utilize FinFETs as well as our new Zen processors and so they will roll out over the quarters in 2016.”

It is noteworthy that AMD still does not want to disclose its manufacturing partner for FinFET process technologies in 2016.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is a long time before we will see the first FinFET products from AMD on the market. However, it is great to see that the company has finished its first two FinFET designs. The biggest part of the work is over for the two FinFET-based products, now AMD needs to execute and release them in time.

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AMD officially cancels 20nm chips, takes $33 million charge https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-officially-cancels-20nm-chips-takes-33-million-charge/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-officially-cancels-20nm-chips-takes-33-million-charge/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2015 09:56:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=258014 Advanced Micro Devices this week formally confirmed that it would not produce any of its chips using 20nm process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Instead, the company will focus on development of its chips to be made using various FinFET process technologies. As a result of the cancellation, the company took $33 million charge. …

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Advanced Micro Devices this week formally confirmed that it would not produce any of its chips using 20nm process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Instead, the company will focus on development of its chips to be made using various FinFET process technologies. As a result of the cancellation, the company took $33 million charge.

AMD officially announced two new system-on-chips processors code-named “Amur” (featuring ARMv8-A cores) and “Nolan” (featuring Puma+ x86 cores) back in 2014. The two chips belonged to the project “Skybridge” initiative and were expected to integrate identical building blocks (e.g., same graphics core, memory controller, I/O interfaces and so on) and functionality. The SoCs were designed primarily for tablets and low-cost/low-power laptops. Earlier this year chief executive of AMD already indicated that the chips would not go into production.

“I the past I talked about 20nm node that we did some designs on,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer AMD at the company’s financial analyst day. “We have started some initial designs, we have run some silicon, but those parts are probably not going to go into production because we think we can get much more bang for the buck out of FinFET technologies going forward.”

amd_skybridge

In its update for investors issued earlier this week AMD said that it would take “a one-time charge of approximately $33 million associated with a technology node transition from 20nm to FinFET.” In particular, the company will write off money it spent on design and tape-out(s) of chip(s) that will never go into production.

AMD indicated that it has no intention to produce code-named “Amur” and “Nolan” chips (at least, in the form they are currently known) using a more advanced process technology, but said that it will use a FinFET process to manufacture other chips. A spokesperson for AMD implied that the company was developing several products, which were intended to be made using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s CLN20SOC fabrication process.

“We decided to take a product that was moving through 20nm and instead take it to FinFET,” said Drew Prairie, a corporate communications spokesman for AMD. The representative added that these were not necessarily design(s) that the company had previously publicly disclosed.

amd_fusion_chip_logo_processor

AMD did not reveal when it plans to roll-out its first chips to be made using GlobalFoundries’ 14nm FinFET manufacturing technology or TSMC’s 16nm FinFET fabrication process. However, it is evident that the cancellation of “Amur” and “Nolan” means that AMD will have nothing new to offer for tablets based on Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 10 in the coming months.

TSMC has designed its 20nm (CLN20SOC) manufacturing technology primarily for mobile system-on-chips. The fabrication process is tailored for low-power ARM-based application processors and lacks a number of crucial elements required to make highly-custom x86 general-purpose cores as well as advanced graphics processing units. As a result of such decision by TSMC, AMD will not produce a single chip using the CLN20SOC, whereas Nvidia will use it for only one SoC, the Tegra X1.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: As expected, the company decided to write off money it spent on development of chips that may not be competitive and focused on development of more advanced processors. While the move makes sense, it remains to be seen how AMD plans to sustain its revenue without new products.

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AMD lowers revenue expectations because of poor APU sales https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-lowers-revenue-expectations-because-of-poor-apu-sales/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-lowers-revenue-expectations-because-of-poor-apu-sales/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2015 23:56:32 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=257698 Advanced Micro Devices on Monday lowered its revenue guidance for the quarter citing slow demand for its accelerated processing units by end-users and PC makers. The company expects its revenue and profitability to be lower than originally anticipated. AMD claims that its sales in Q2 will be approximately 8 percent lower than revenue for the first …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Monday lowered its revenue guidance for the quarter citing slow demand for its accelerated processing units by end-users and PC makers. The company expects its revenue and profitability to be lower than originally anticipated.

AMD claims that its sales in Q2 will be approximately 8 percent lower than revenue for the first quarter, or about $950 million, which will be AMD’s lowest revenue in more than a decade. The sequential decrease is primarily due to lower than expected consumer PC demand impacting the company's original equipment manufacturer (OEM) APU sales. AMD believes that its second quarter channel sales and channel inventory reduction efforts will be in-line with its plans.

amd_fusion_600

AMD also said that its non-GAAP gross margin will drop to 28 per cent because of higher mix of semi-custom products in its mix.

AMD did not reveal whether demand for its “Carrizo” accelerated processing units for notebooks was lower than expected, or demand for its “Kaveri” product dropped because of competing offerings from Intel.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Since AMD is stretching lifecycles of its APUs to over two years, it is not really surprising that demand for its chips is getting lower, especially keeping in mind that sales of PCs are weak in general these days.

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Chillblast Fusion Scythe 2 mini-ITX system review https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/general-purpose-pc/jon-martindale/chillblast-fusion-scythe-2-mini-itx-system-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/general-purpose-pc/jon-martindale/chillblast-fusion-scythe-2-mini-itx-system-review/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2015 14:54:24 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=256239 As fashions and technology have changed in the PC industry over the past few decades, systems have invariably become smaller. That means that while you can get yourself a monstrous double sized desktop gaming system from the likes of Chillblast, you can also order much smaller form factor machines with a more general purpose. Take …

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As fashions and technology have changed in the PC industry over the past few decades, systems have invariably become smaller. That means that while you can get yourself a monstrous double sized desktop gaming system from the likes of Chillblast, you can also order much smaller form factor machines with a more general purpose.

Take the Fusion Scythe 2, a mini-ITX system sporting an Intel Anniversary Edition Pentium CPU, a GTX 750 add-in card, all inside an attractive Thermaltake chassis. It's not a power house by any means, but it should have the potential to offer decent performance, on a budget. 

scythe2

One of the big take homes from this system, is that it packs in an Intel Anniversary Edition, dual core G3258 CPU. While far from the hyper-threaded, multi cored chips we find in the Core i7 range the Pentium is a solid overclocker – hearkening back to the glory days of the early Pentium chips. That is why this system comes pre-overclocked to 3.8GHz – though it has the potential to go even further with more advanced cooling.

The rest of the hardware is similarly entry-level, but that is to facilitate the very affordable price tag that this system has (£430 at stock from this LINK).

Base Specifications

  • Thermaltake Mini Chassis – Core V1- Mini ITX case.
  • Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary Dual Core Processor.
  • Asus H81I PLUS Motherboard.
  • 4GB PC3-10666 DDR3 Memory.
  • NVIDIA Geforce GTX 750 1GB Graphics Card.
  • 500GB SATA 7200rpm Hard Disk.
  • Aerocool 500W PSU.
  • Onboard High Definition Audio.
  • Windows 7 64bit or Windows 8.1 64 bit.
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AMD’s 2016 APUs to be powered by ‘Excavator’ x86 cores – slides https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-2016-apus-to-be-powered-by-excavator-x86-cores-slides-from-amd/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-2016-apus-to-be-powered-by-excavator-x86-cores-slides-from-amd/#comments Sat, 13 Jun 2015 21:22:58 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254436 Advanced Micro Devices will not use its next-generation high-performance “Zen” micro-architecture for its accelerated processing units next year, if excerpts from an alleged AMD presentation published by a web-site are to be believed. While the slides reveal AMD’s intentions, they do not answer all the questions about the forthcoming chip. “Bristol Ridge”: “Zen” or “Excavator” …

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Advanced Micro Devices will not use its next-generation high-performance “Zen” micro-architecture for its accelerated processing units next year, if excerpts from an alleged AMD presentation published by a web-site are to be believed. While the slides reveal AMD’s intentions, they do not answer all the questions about the forthcoming chip.

“Bristol Ridge”: “Zen” or “Excavator” cores?

AMD’s code-named “Bristol Ridge” APU due in 2016 will rely on “Excavator” cores and “Carrizo” design with minimum changes, based on slides published by BenchLife. The presentation published by the web-site was allegedly demonstrated to AMD’s partners on the 27th of March, 2015. The presentation is fairly detailed when it comes to technical information about “Bristol Ridge” and AMD’s next-generation APU platform. However, the presentation contains a number of typos, which may indicate that the web-site has obtained a preliminary version of the document*.

amd_fusion_carrizo_bristol_ridge

The first rumours about “Excavator” cores inside “Bristol Ridge” emerged in January, which means that the document does not contradict the previously released information. However, in May, a slide from another AMD presentation (which was allegedly a preliminary presentation for the company’s financial analysts day) revealed that “Bristol Ridge” was to be based on up to four “Zen” cores.

Unfortunately, the presentation published by the Chinese web-site does not contain any proper release milestones schedule for “Bristol Ridge”, but only says that the new APU will hit the market in July, 2016. Typically, when a semiconductor company is working on a project, it sets milestones for it. There are target timeframes for tape-out, availability of engineering samples, mass production start and so on. If the milestones are not listed, it may mean that either the company’s plans are not solid or the company has issues with execution.

amd_platform_samples_schedules_zen_summit_ridge

Since slides about “Bristol Ridge” published by two different sources contradict each other, it may mean that either AMD is choosing between options regarding its next-gen desktop APUs, or the information about “Zen”-based APUs in 2016 is fake. To release “Bristol Ridge” featuring “Carrizo” architecture and “Excavator” cores, AMD needs to improve clock-rate potential of its latest APU. To launch a brand-new accelerated processing unit featuring “Excavator” cores, AMD will have to design an all-new chip from the ground up. Based on what we know about “Zen” from unofficial sources, the new APUs and CPUs will feature a layout that will be completely different when compared to today’s processors.

“Bristol Ridge”: “Carrizo” for desktops

Just like AMD’s current-gen mobile APU, the “Bristol Ridge” will integrate a basic input-output controller, which supports USB 3.0, PCI Express 3.0 x8 to connect to GPUs, PCI Express 3.0 x4 to connect to code-named “Promontory” core-logic sets, PCI Express 3.0 x2 with Serial ATA support to connect to HDDs and SSDs as well as SD, SPI, eSPI and I2S interfaces. The chip is expected to use AM4 form-factor previously known as FM3 (as the document names it). While the APU resembles “Carrizo”, it will come either in pin grid array (PGA) or land grid array (LGA) form-factor. Moreover, “Carrizo” has more advanced I/O capabilities.

amd_bristol_ridge_promontory_unofficial_slide

AMD’s “Bristol Ridge” accelerated processing unit will integrate four “Excavator” (XV) cores (two dual-core modules) with 2MB of L2 cache (1MB of cache per module, 512KB per core), AMD Radeon graphics processor with eight compute units (512 stream processors) based on the GCN 1.2 instruction set architecture, a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, a special high-performance bus to connect x86 cores to graphics cores and DRAM as well as heterogeneous system architecture features (compatible with the HSA 1.0 specifications).

Multimedia, security and input/output capabilities of “Bristol Ridge” will remain unchanged from “Carrizo”. The APU will feature universal video decoder 6.0 (UVD6) with HEVC decoding support for ultra-high-definition (UHD) video, video encoder engine 3.1 (VCE3.1) and audio co-processor 2 (ACP2). In addition to TrustZone technology, AMD’s new chip will also support TPM 2.0, crypto acceleration and secure boot.

The upcoming desktop APU from AMD will support HDMI 2.0 output, which means it will be able to display 3840*2160 video with 120Hz refresh rate, stereo-3D UHD video and so on. The APU will support up to three displays.

amd_bristol_ridge_promontory

Just like “Carrizo”, “Bristol Ridge” will also feature advanced power management capabilities, including connected standby, adaptive voltage and frequency scaling (AVFS), clock stretcher, STAPM and so on.

“Bristol Ridge”: “Carrizo” on steroids?

Without any doubts, “Bristol Ridge” in the form described by the document is a derivative from “Carrizo”. The only question is whether the chip is actually a re-badged “Carrizo”, or a new APU tailored to work at higher clock-rates.

AMD claims that “Carrizo” was designed to be extremely energy-efficient and highly integrated, but was not developed to operate at extreme clock-rates. To maximize transistor density (integration) and lower power consumption, AMD used high-density chip design libraries (HDL) for the chip. According to the company, usage of high density libraries and automated design methods (akin to those used for graphics processing units) helped the company to reduce sizes of “Excavator” cores by 23 per cent compared to “Steamroller” cores inside “Kaveri” and reduce their power consumption by whopping 40 per cent.

When CPU makers design microprocessors that should operate at high clock-rates, they use high-performance chip design libraries, which decreases transistor density and makes chips bigger (and costlier). The companies then adjust their designs in a bid to optimize sizes, frequencies and power consumption. In general, high-performance chips differ from low-power chips, even though that difference may be negligible in some cases.

While “Carrizo” is not supposed to run at high frequencies, maximum clock-rate of such chips is actually 3.40GHz (which may or may not be enabled by a particular PC maker due to TDP limitations).

amd_bristol_ridge_expectations

According to a slide published by BenchLife, “Excavator” cores inside “Bristol Ridge” will operate at ~4GHz clock-rates, which is a significant improvement over “Carrizo”. Theoretically, it may indicate that the “Bristol Ridge” is a new chip that was partly re-designed using high-performance libraries. Thanks to higher clock-rates and 10 per cent higher IPC [instructions per clock] performance of “Excavator” vs. “Steamroller”, expect “Bristol Ridge” to be faster than “Kaveri” in general-purpose applications.

The upcoming APU will also support DDR4 memory, which may mean that the chip is different from “Carrizo”. While this is possible, it may also demonstrate that “Carrizo” also technically supports DDR4, but it is not enabled due to power consumption or cost concerns.

Thanks to higher clock-rates and DDR4 support, graphics processing performance of “Bristol Ridge” should be higher compared to that of “Kaveri”.

The “Bristol Ridge” chip is expected to be made using an unknown 28nm fabrication process and will have up to 95W thermal design power. By contrast, “Carrizo” has maximum TDP of 35W.

Final words

AMD’s “Bristol Ridge” accelerated processing units will offer considerably higher performance than “Carrizo” thanks to higher frequencies, improved memory bandwidth and other optimizations. Moreover, the new APUs will also be faster than “Kaveri”. However, do not expect any breakthroughs from “Excavator”. The “Bulldozer” architecture is clearly outdated and AMD decided not to invest a lot in its enhancement. In fact, AMD also did not improve its integrated graphics processor anyhow compared to “Kaveri”.

If “Bristol Ridge” products arrive in the third quarter of 2016, they will face tough competition from Intel’s “Skylake” processors. Being made using more advanced process technology and featuring new micro-architectures for both general-purpose and graphics-processing cores, the new chips from Intel promise to offer high performance in all types of applications.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Re-introducing “Carrizo” for desktops next year is hardly something that AMD management wants. It is obvious that the chip will be slower compared to Intel’s offerings in many, if not all, applications. The only reason why AMD may plan to introduce “Bristol Ridge” with “Excavator” cores is because its “Zen”-based APUs are not ready and AMD just cannot sell “Kaveri” for three years.

While the prospects of “Bristol Ridge” do not look exactly good, keep in mind that the information comes from unofficial sources and next year AMD may introduce something completely different.

*Note: The images originally published by BenchLife have been altered for better viewing experience.

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AMD set to release first ‘Zen’-based microprocessors in late 2016 – document https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-set-to-release-first-zen-based-microprocessors-in-late-2016-document/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-set-to-release-first-zen-based-microprocessors-in-late-2016-document/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2015 19:28:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254276 While Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generation micro-architecture known as “Zen” looks very impressive on paper, it will not hit the market any time soon. In fact, AMD plans to release the first microprocessors featuring the new cores only in late 2016, according to a document published by a web-site. AMD’s first “Zen”-based central processing units code-named …

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While Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generation micro-architecture known as “Zen” looks very impressive on paper, it will not hit the market any time soon. In fact, AMD plans to release the first microprocessors featuring the new cores only in late 2016, according to a document published by a web-site.

AMD’s first “Zen”-based central processing units code-named “Summit Ridge” will only become available in October, 2016, according to AMD 2016 desktop platform schedule* published by BenchLife. The confidential document was presented to AMD’s partners on the 27th of March, 2015, and may contain certain inaccuracies. For example, the document calls AMD’s forthcoming desktop socket as “FM3”, whereas AMD’s official name revealed in May is “AM4”.

If the schedule is correct and up-to-date, then AMD is finalizing design of its “Summit Ridge” chip right now and still does not have fully-functional samples of the processor.

amd_platform_samples_schedules_zen_summit_ridge

AMD expects to send the first engineering samples (ES) of the “Summit Ridge” central processing units to its partners in April, 2016. Engineering samples are usually fully-functional A1 revision chips that may run at lower clock-rates than the final products.

The A2 production candidate (PC) “Summit Ridge” processors that run at designated clock-rates and support all features are expected to ship to AMD’s partners in July, 2016. By September, 2016, AMD will ship A2 revision production ready (PR) processors with all the markings on them. The first central processing units featuring “Zen” cores will be introduced in October, 2016.

Nowadays high-volume production of chips starts between nine and twelve months after the initial tape-out. The A2 revision is usually the first commercial version of the chip for AMD. If AMD starts to produce its “Summit Ridge” chips in volume in July, 2016, it means that the company is finalizing its design right now and will tape the chip out in the coming weeks.

amd_fusion_chip_logo_processor

Based on unofficial information, AMD’s “Summit Ridge” processor has up to eight “Zen” cores with 512KB level two cache per core, up to 16MB of unified level-three cache, a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, integrated PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus to connect to graphics cards, built-in PCIe 3.0 x4 port with NVMe and SATA support to connect storage devices and other input/output technologies. The CPUs are expected to be made using 14nm FinFET process technology (14LPP) at GlobalFoundries.

The authenticity of the document could not be verified, even though it resembles typical AMD’s documents for its partners and contains a number of facts revealed before or after its alleged publication date.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: As expected, AMD’s “Zen”-based processors will not hit the market during the “back-to-school” season next year and will only be available for holidays. If the chips are significantly better than microprocessors offered by Intel Corp. in the second half of 2016, then AMD will sell a lot of them to enthusiasts, just like it did in 2003, when it released the Athlon 64 3200+ and the Athlon 64 FX-51. However, it also means that high-volume availability of “Summit Ridge” processors will only occur in 2017.

*Note: The image originally published by BenchLife has been altered for better viewing experience.

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AMD’s ‘Zen’ may enable company to be a viable competitor to Intel – analyst https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-zen-may-enable-company-to-be-a-viable-competitor-to-intel-analyst/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-zen-may-enable-company-to-be-a-viable-competitor-to-intel-analyst/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2015 02:17:01 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254126 Advanced Micro Devices has not updated its server and high-end desktop microprocessors for well over two years now, which is why market shares of AMD Opteron and AMD FX central processing units are negligible. However, a lot may change next year, when AMD roll-out its next-generation CPUs based on its code-named “Zen” microarchitecture, according to …

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Advanced Micro Devices has not updated its server and high-end desktop microprocessors for well over two years now, which is why market shares of AMD Opteron and AMD FX central processing units are negligible. However, a lot may change next year, when AMD roll-out its next-generation CPUs based on its code-named “Zen” microarchitecture, according to a financial analyst.

“We believe that AMD has a strong design team working on the new ‘Zen’ processor core due out next year,” wrote Gus Richard, an analyst with Northland Capital Markets, in a note to clients, reports Tech Trader Daily. “We believe that this will be a significant improvement over its current product offering, and may enable AMD to once again be a viable second source to Intel in the data center. “

AMD has not revealed a lot of information about “Zen” yet, but what is known is that the company’s upcoming high-performance x86 processor cores offer 40 per cent higher instructions per clock performance compared to “Excavator” x86 cores. This means that AMD’s next-gen central processing units will be 40 per cent faster compared to existing CPUs at the same clock-rate.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad
A slide from AMD's official presentation

According to unofficial information, desktop microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture will integrate up to eight cores, whereas server-class chips will feature even more cores. The CPUs are expected to be made using 14nm FinFET process technology at GlobalFoundries.

Since the new AMD Opteron and FX processors are going to hit the market only in the second half of 2016, they will have a significant impact on the company’s revenue and earnings only in 2017. However, Mr. Richard believes that the popularity of AMD’s new server chips will grow rather rapidly because operators of datacenters are willing to invest in hardware that competes against Intel, which is dominating the market.

“We hear that web scale data center operators are frustrated with Intel’s control of server architecture and high prices,” said Mr. Richard.

amd_quad_core_zen
A slide from an alleged presentation of AMD, which has not been published officially

The analyst estimates that sales of AMD Opteron processors based on “Zen” architecture could hit around $1 billion in 2017. Last quarter AMD earned $1.03 billion in total, so addition of “Zen” is projected to be dramatically important for the company.

“We estimate that with roughly 10% market share or $1 billion in datacentre revenue, gross margin in calendar year 2017 would increase to the high 30% range and earnings per share could reach roughly $0.50,” said the analyst. “This would be in line with AMD’s three to five year target model.”

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KitGuru Says: AMD has tremendous troubles with its microprocessors, accelerated processing units and some other products today. If the company executes its “Zen”-related plans well, it may become rather successful. However, one of the problems is that it not enough to offer just one award winning processor. AMD needs to introduce a competitive lineup and then follow-up with equally competitive family a year later. Will AMD be able to do it? Only time will tell!

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AMD: Development of ‘Zen’ CPUs is our largest R&D spending now https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-development-of-zen-processors-is-our-largest-rd-spending-now/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-development-of-zen-processors-is-our-largest-rd-spending-now/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2015 21:14:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=252986 Advanced Micro Devices has been slashing its research and development budgets for a number of quarters in a row now due to decreasing revenues. With limited R&D resources, AMD has to prioritize its spendings. According to chief executive officer of AMD, at present the company spends most of its R&D money on development of upcoming …

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Advanced Micro Devices has been slashing its research and development budgets for a number of quarters in a row now due to decreasing revenues. With limited R&D resources, AMD has to prioritize its spendings. According to chief executive officer of AMD, at present the company spends most of its R&D money on development of upcoming microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture.

AMD spent $232 million on research and development in the first quarter of 2015 (or around 22 per cent of revenue), a 2 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter, but a 17 per cent decrease from the same period a year ago. AMD spends roughly 20 per cent of its revenue on R&D and cannot substantially increase its investments even when it needs to. In a bid to ensure that it can fund crucial projects, AMD cut its SG&A [sales general and administrative] expenses in Q1 2015 to $125 million, down 9 per cent sequentially and 20 per cent year-over-year.

For AMD, the key priority right now is development of high-performance microprocessors, said Lisa Su, chief exec of AMD, in a brief interview with Hardwareluxx web-site at Computex. In fact, high-performance “Zen” processors account for the largest portion of AMD’s R&D investments right now.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

It should be noted that by now AMD has completed development of its “Zen” micro-architecture, engineers of the company are on the finish line with development of “Zen+” and designers of the company should be on the home straight with 2016 chip designs.

Based on AMD’s official roadmaps as well as unofficial information from sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, the chip designer intends to release four products based on “Zen” micro-architecture in 2016. AMD plans to launch new Opteron processors featuring eight, sixteen or even more “Zen” cores; a high-performance desktop chip code-named “Summit Ridge” with up to eight cores; a mainstream accelerated processing unit known as “Bristol Ridge” with four “Zen” cores as well as a low-power APU code-named “Basilisk” with two “Zen” cores inside.

All AMD’s new processors will be made using a FinFET manufacturing technology (presumably, using GlobalFoundries’ 14LPP fabrication process), which means giant spending on design. According to various industry experts, it costs three times more to design a chip with FinFET transistors than to design a chip with planar transistors. Design of a high-end FinFET system-on-chip can cost around $150 million, which is a giant sum for AMD. If the company wants to release two high-end and one mainstream FinFET models next year (note that Opteron uses the same dies as the next-gen FX), it needs $350 – $380 million just to design them. Making those chips material will add mask and tape-out costs.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

In a bid to ensure that “Zen”-based products are available next year, AMD had to make a number of tough decisions. The company postponed release of processors based on its ARMv8-compatible “K12” cores to 2017. Besides, AMD cancelled release of its 20nm system-on-chips – “Amur” and “Nolan” – that belonged to the “Skybridge” family of products.

“The past six or seven months have really given us times to re-look at the [planned] products and [determine] which of the products are going to return on investments because they give us strong market positions and which of the products are not,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer AMD at the company’s financial analyst day. “I the past I talked about 20nm node that we did some designs on. We have started some initial designs, we have run some silicon, but those parts are probably not going to go into production because we think we can get much more bang for the buck out of FinFET technologies going forward.”

The cancellation of “Amur” and “Nolan” means that AMD will not have anything new to offer for inexpensive tablets based on Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 10 this fall. The outdated “Mullins” system-on-chip will hardly be able to compete against the latest application processors from Intel and other chip designers. As a result, to fund development of “Zen” processors, AMD had to abandon certain short-term opportunities.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_2

It is still unclear when AMD plans to release its “Zen” processors. In fact, it is even unknown whether the company has taped out any of “Zen”-based chips.

Mass production of chips starts between nine and twelve months after the initial tape-out. Therefore, if AMD wants its first “Zen” processors to be inside 2016 BTS [back to school] PCs and servers (such machines hit the market in late July or early August), it needs to formally introduce them in mid-2016 and start high-volume production at least 1.5 – 2 months before that (production cycles for FinFET processes are about 90 days). If this is the case, AMD should have taped out the first “Zen”-based products several months ago. If the company plans to release its “Zen” chips in time for 2016 HR [holiday refresh] cycle, then it should tape them out in July '15 (at the latest) and formally introduce them in early fall 2016.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is good to see that AMD wants to get back into the game with high-performance offerings. Moreover, “Zen” micro-architecture looks very promising from many perspectives and AMD’s plans seem rather ambitious. Unfortunately, without any actual release schedules of AMD’s “Zen” and Intel’s “Cannonlake”, it is hard to make any credible predictions about AMD’s positions on the market of microprocessors next year.

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AMD refreshes ‘Kaveri’ lineup, touts great overclockability, up to 5GHz clock-rates https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-refreshes-kaveri-lineup-promises-great-overclockability-with-up-to-5ghz-clock-rates/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-refreshes-kaveri-lineup-promises-great-overclockability-with-up-to-5ghz-clock-rates/#comments Fri, 29 May 2015 12:22:27 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=251753 Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday formally introduced new accelerated processing units for desktop computers based on the “Kaveri” architecture. The new chips belong to the A10/A8-series 7000-sequence family and have slightly increased performance compared to APUs introduced a year ago. While the new chips have exactly the same design as their predecessors, they feature improved …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday formally introduced new accelerated processing units for desktop computers based on the “Kaveri” architecture. The new chips belong to the A10/A8-series 7000-sequence family and have slightly increased performance compared to APUs introduced a year ago. While the new chips have exactly the same design as their predecessors, they feature improved power supply circuitry, which may enable considerably higher overclocking potential. A little later, AMD plans to start shipments of A-series 8000-sequence hybrid processors based on the same design to OEMs.

AMD's APU family gets new models

The new APUs from AMD code-named “Kaveri Refresh” (also known as Godavari) feature exactly the same configurations as the original “Kaveri” chips, but have slightly higher clock-rates to improve both general-purpose as well as graphics processing performance. The new A10/A8 accelerated processing units feature two dual-core “Steamroller” modules (four cores in total), 4MB level two cache (1MB cache per x86 core), AMD Radeon graphics engine with six or eight GCN compute units (384 or 512 stream processors in total) operating at up to 866MHz, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller with hUMA [heterogeneous unified memory architecture] technology, up to 95W thermal design power and so on. The processors are compatible with all existing FM2+ mainboards based on AMD’s A88X, A78, 68H and A58 chipsets and featuring the latest BIOS versions.

amd_a10_7870K_launch

The Radeon graphics cores inside the “Kaveri” family APUs are based on the GCN 1.1 architecture and are compatible with all modern application programming interfaces like DirectX 12 (feature level 11_2), OpenGL 4.3, OpenCL 1.1, Vulkan and Mantle. Besides, the chips support AMD’s proprietary technologies like Eyefinity, TrueAudio, FreeSync, virtual screen resolution (VSR) and other. AMD “Kaveri” features second-generation video coding engine (VCE) and fourth-generation unified video decoder (VCE) units that ensure high quality video playback and support all modern encoding formats (MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, VC-1, etc.) except H.265/HEVC, VC-9 and some other.

amd_kaveri_specs_late_may

Better overclocking, 5GHz CPU and 1GHz GPU with air-cooling possible

The main difference between the original “Kaveri” and the “Kaveri Refresh” APUs is the new power supply circuitry on the latter. According to AMD, the reworked power supply gives cleaner and higher volume power delivery to the die, which enables AMD to slightly increase “official” frequencies and which provides overclockers a significantly better headroom for further tweaking.

According to AMD, GlobalFoundries’ 28nm super high performance (SHP) process technology has also got significantly better than it was in early 2014. As a result, the company believes that the new A10-7870K chips will actually have significantly higher overclocking potential than their predecessors.

“It should overclock a little bit better because you have more voltage stability through the chip, you may get 200MHz – 300MHz – 400MHz more,” said James Prior, a product manager at AMD. “This [AMD A10-7870K] may be able to hit 5GHz on air or with a liquid cooler on the CPU side. On the GPU side, you should [be able to] push to well over 1GHz. On the memory side, if you get the timings right, then you should be able to push to over 2600MHz.”

amd_fusion_kaveri_steamroller_piledriver_excavator

Keeping in mind that overclocking results greatly depend on exact processor, cooling system’s performance, mainboard and other factors, do not expect all AMD A10-7870K chips to be excellent overclockers. However, it is still nice to see that AMD decided to enable better overclocking potential for new chips.

“As always, AMD does not guarantee overclocking, we enable it to for your fun so you can enjoy playing with those clocks for your own amusement,” said Mr. Prior.

AMD 10-7870K : The ‘best' processor for online gaming

AMD positions its new A10-7870K and derivatives as solutions for multimedia and online gaming. The A10-7870K chip will compete against Intel Corp.’s Core i3-4370 and will naturally leave the dual-core chip with mediocre graphics core behind in a lot of applications, at least, according to AMD’s slides.

amd_a10_7870K_launch_1

“AMD takes a major step forward today by unveiling the world’s most advanced eSports and online gaming processor technology in the A10-7870K APU, giving players the ability to game like a pro without spending like one,” said Matt Skynner, corporate VP and general manager of computing and graphics business unit at AMD. “eSports is one of the fastest-growing pastimes in the world with hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide playing games like StarCraft II, League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. With the new A10-7870K APU, gamers can play the most popular online and eSports games right out of the box with features to make that experience even better.”

amd_a10_7870K_launch_3

The top-of-the-range AMD A10-7870K APU with unlocked multiplier costs $137 in the U.S. and £149.99 in the U.K. AMD plans to release A8-7670K APU in the coming weeks and some other “Kaveri Refresh” products in the future. The AMD A4/A6/A8/A10 8000-series APUs based on the “Kaveri Refresh” design will be available only to OEMs and will begin to ship in June.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD’s new APUs are clearly not revolutionary, so do not expect any performance breakthroughs from them. However, if you are building a PC for multimedia playback and simple online gaming that does not need a lot of compute horsepower, the AMD A10-7870K is a thing to consider. Obviously, the main drawback of such processor for small form-factor desktops is its thermal design power of 95W, which means that it requires an advanced cooler and chassis with good airflow.

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AMD: 20nm ‘Amur’ and ‘Nolan’ will ‘probably’ not go into production https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-20nm-amur-and-nolan-will-probably-not-go-into-production/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-20nm-amur-and-nolan-will-probably-not-go-into-production/#comments Sat, 09 May 2015 13:21:50 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248785 Advanced Micro Devices said this week that its accelerated processing units code-named “Amur” and “Nolan” will probably never go into mass production. The company believes that their performance will not be competitive and its future products made using FinFET fabrication processes have better chances to become successful. After Lisa Su became chief executive officer of …

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Advanced Micro Devices said this week that its accelerated processing units code-named “Amur” and “Nolan” will probably never go into mass production. The company believes that their performance will not be competitive and its future products made using FinFET fabrication processes have better chances to become successful.

After Lisa Su became chief executive officer of AMD in October, 2014, the company has been reconsidering its roadmaps with an intent to focus investments on products that will inevitably be successful. As a result, some of the projects have been cancelled. For example, last month the company shut down its Seamicro division that designed and sold micro-servers.

“The past six or seven months have really given us times to re-look at the [planned] products and [determine] which of the products are going to return on investments because they give us strong market positions and which of the products are not,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer AMD at the company’s financial analyst day.

amd_fusion_600

Back in 2014, AMD announced two new ultra-low-power pin-to-pin compatible system-on-chip devices code-named “Amur” and “Nolan”, which were first mentioned in the company’s internal documents as early as in 2011. The two chips belonged to the project “Skybridge” initiative and were expected to integrate identical building blocks (e.g., same graphics core, memory controller, I/O interfaces and so on) and functionality, but feature different general-purpose cores: x86 Puma+ (Nolan) or ARM Cortex-A57 (Amur). AMD planned to use TSMC’s 20nm process technology to make both chips.

Late in April an unofficial roadmap of AMD leaked and revealed that “Nolan” was no longer a part of AMD’s future (i.e., it had been cancelled). At its analyst day earlier this week the company confirmed that “Amur” will not be produced in high volume as well.

“I the past I talked about 20nm node that we did some designs on,” said Ms. Su. “We have started some initial designs, we have run some silicon, but those parts are probably not going to go into production because we think we can get much more bang for the buck out of FinFET technologies going forward.”

One of the reasons why AMD’s accelerated processing units for mobile devices have never become popular was the fact that they lacked mobile input/output interfaces specific to ultra-mobile devices, such as eMMC, SDIO, MIPI DSI, CSI and so on. Without them, it gets increasingly hard to build a competitive media tablet cost-efficiently. It is unknown whether “Amur” and “Nolan” were supposed to feature the aforementioned interfaces.

The cancellation of “Amur” and “Nolan” means that AMD will have nothing new to offer for tablets based on Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 10 in the coming months. The outdated “Mullins” is probably not something that is going to be competitive against new application processors from Intel and other chip designers. Moreover, if AMD wanted to be inside holiday refresh (HR) cycle Windows 10-based hardware, it should have launched new application processors months ago.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_2

TSMC has designed its 20nm (CLN20SOC) manufacturing technology solely with mobile system-on-chips in mind. The fabrication process is tailored for low-performance ARM-based application processors and lacks a number of crucial elements required to make highly custom x86 microprocessor as well as advanced graphics processing units.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: This story about the failure of the initial “Skybridge” family has two sides. One side is AMD. The company has been trying to enter the market of application processors for ultra-portable devices using low-frequency solutions designed for notebooks. This approach just does not work because performance advantages and features that AMD could offer were not significant enough. If “Skybridge” chips did not integrate mobile I/O and did not offer considerably higher performance than Intel’s Atom, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or other mobile SoCs, it clearly made no sense for AMD to release them. Looks like it is time for AMD to reconsider its design approaches because missing the initial wave of Windows 10-powered tablets entirely is not something a company with a rich IP portfolio would like to do.

Another side of the story is TSMC’s CLN20SOC process. Traditionally, AMD and Nvidia were the first companies to adopt TSMC’s newest manufacturing technologies simply because graphics processing units always benefit from increased transistor count. Neither AMD, nor Nvidia, were happy with increased per-transistor costs of 28nm fabrication processes and both probably got extremely frustrated with the focus of TSMC’s 20nm tech, the last planar manufacturing process. As it turns out, two major clients of TSMC, which used to be the primary fillers of TSMC’s leading-edge capacities, will utilize the CLN20SOC for only one chip: Nvidia’s Tegra X1. Apparently, usage of CLN20SOC could not guarantee high performance even for ARM Cortex-A57-based “Amur” application processor. Perhaps, TSMC should have designed the manufacturing tech keeping in mind its traditional customers, not only Apple.

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Next-gen AMD platform: processor-direct NVMe storage, USB 3.1, Promontory PCH https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-next-gen-pc-platform-processor-direct-nvme-storage-promontory-pch-usb-3-1/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-next-gen-pc-platform-processor-direct-nvme-storage-promontory-pch-usb-3-1/#comments Thu, 07 May 2015 03:20:45 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248382 Next year Advanced Micro Devices plans to introduce not only all-new accelerated processing units and central processing units, but also fresh platforms for client PCs. While AMD will do a lot to unify its next-gen platforms, there will still be major differences between systems powered by different microprocessors. AMD’s client platforms next year will rely …

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Next year Advanced Micro Devices plans to introduce not only all-new accelerated processing units and central processing units, but also fresh platforms for client PCs. While AMD will do a lot to unify its next-gen platforms, there will still be major differences between systems powered by different microprocessors.

AMD’s client platforms next year will rely on code-named “Promontory” core-logic that will support various APUs and CPUs from the company, including code-named “Summit Ridge”, “Bristol Ridge” based on “Zen” micro-architecture and other. All next-gen desktop microprocessors from AMD will use unified AM4 packaging and will be compatible with a variety of appropriate mainboards, which will make it easy for system makers to design PCs powered by AMD’s APUs or CPUs.

AMD “Promontory” chipset will be rather feature-rich: it will connect to processors using PCI Express 3.0 x4 bus (up to 4GB/s of bandwidth) and will support USB 3.1, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports; one PCI Express 2.0 general-purpose port for various controllers; Serial ATA-6Gb/s and SATA Express port(s). Since “Promontory” platform controller hub (PCH) will rely on a single 4GB/s interconnection to microprocessor, do not expect it to enable a lot of 10Gb/s USB 3.1 ports along with numerous fast SATA Express ports.

amd_promontory_features_capabilities

In fact, the crucial input/output interfaces of AMD’s next-gen client PC platforms will be integrated into APUs and CPUs themselves, according to a block diagram published by BenchLife web-site. AMD’s future microprocessors will built-in processor-direct storage controller: next-gen AMD FX “Summit Ridge” will feature a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe port or one PCIe 3.0 x2 along with two Serial ATA 3.0 ports, whereas less advanced “Bristol Ridge” and other chips will support PCIe 3.0 x2 NVMe and two Serial ATA 3.0 ports (or one SATA Express). The upcoming processors will also incorporate four USB 3.0/2.0 ports as well as audio, SPI and LPC interfaces.

What is a bit alarming is that the next-generation AMD FX processors based on “Zen” micro-architecture code-named “Summit Ridge” will support only 16 built-in PCI Express 3.0 lanes for graphics cards, which means that it is not exactly designed for multi-GPU systems with more than two graphics cards.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD’s next-gen client PC platform for high-performance APUs and CPUs looks pretty competitive by today’s standards. Unfortunately, the “Summit Ridge” + “Promontory” platform does not support a lot of PCI Express 3.0 lanes, which are needed to build multi-GPU systems with multiple SATA Express (PCIe 3.0 x4) SSDs, like the Intel Z170 does, but it fully supports USB 3.1 and ensures maximum performance for NVMe SSDs thanks to processor-direct storage.

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AMD confirms plan to release datacentre-oriented APU in 2016 – 2017 https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-confirms-plan-to-release-datacentre-oriented-apu-in-2016-2017/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-confirms-plan-to-release-datacentre-oriented-apu-in-2016-2017/#comments Thu, 07 May 2015 00:16:42 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248374 Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed development of its first accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing and workstation applications. The chip will integrate many high-performance general-purpose cores as well as high-performance graphics processing unit. The company did not reveal any exact information about the upcoming chip. “In 2016 – 2017 we are [are going to …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed development of its first accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing and workstation applications. The chip will integrate many high-performance general-purpose cores as well as high-performance graphics processing unit. The company did not reveal any exact information about the upcoming chip.

“In 2016 – 2017 we are [are going to release] a very high-performance server APU,” said Forrest Norrod, Senior vice president and general manager of enterprise, embedded, and semi-custom (EESC) business group at AMD. “We see one of the key assets for us in the enterprise business – particularly as computational demand continues to increase – as being able to wed [processors and graphics] together. It gives us something that is worth more than the sum of all parts.”

AMD did not reveal any peculiarities of its upcoming APUs for high-performance computing and workstation applications, but indicated that the chips will have multi-TFLOPS compute performance. It is unclear whether the new APUs will offer particularly high performance in supercomputer applications that require double precision FP64 performance, but it is obvious that the APUs will be considerably more powerful than existing chips.

amd_opteron_2016_2017

Previously it was reported that AMD intends to release a multi-TFLOPS APU later this decade to address the market of HPC. Last month a slide, describing a concept of high-performance APU, leaked to the Internet. If the slide is accurate and comes from AMD, then the company’s high-performance APU could integrate up to 16 x86 “Zen” cores with two-way simultaneous multi-threading technology and 512KB L2 cache per core, 32MB L3 cache as well as a new-generation “Greenland” graphics engine with ½ double precision compute rate. The chip is also projected to feature a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller with enhanced ECC capabilities that supports up to 256GB of memory per channel. To speed-up memory bandwidth-demanding applications, the APU could feature on-package 16GB of HBM2 memory with 512GB/s or higher bandwidth.

Keeping in mind that AMD will only begin to roll-out its microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture next year, it is likely that the company will introduce its APU for HPC applications only in 2017. By that time GlobalFoundries’ 14nm FinFET (14nm LPP) process technology that supports things like 2.5D packaging (needed for installation of HBM memory) and a number of enhancements for high-performance devices will get mature and will be suitable for large chips.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: High-performance APU seems to be a interesting concept for various HPC workloads. What will be interesting to see is how well such chip could perform in consumer applications. Modern integrated graphics cores easily outstrip cheap low-end graphics cards. However, very powerful APUs could leave behind graphics adapters that cost $150 – $200, something that will disrupt the market of discrete graphics cards in general.

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AMD: Zen is 40% faster than current x86 cores, Zen+ is incoming https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-zen-is-40-faster-than-current-x86-cores-zen-is-incoming/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-zen-is-40-faster-than-current-x86-cores-zen-is-incoming/#comments Wed, 06 May 2015 18:33:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248332 Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed that its next-generation high-performance x86 micro-architecture code-named “Zen” will power its leading-edge microprocessors in 2016. The company also revealed that its developers are already working on “Zen+” micro-architecture for its future processors. Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, said that “Zen” x86 processor cores offer 40 per cent …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed that its next-generation high-performance x86 micro-architecture code-named “Zen” will power its leading-edge microprocessors in 2016. The company also revealed that its developers are already working on “Zen+” micro-architecture for its future processors.

Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, said that “Zen” x86 processor cores offer 40 per cent higher instructions per clock performance compared to “Excavator” x86 cores. Essentially, this means that AMD’s next-gen central processing units will be 40 per cent faster compared to existing CPUs at the same clock-rate. According to AMD, the follow-up for “Zen”, currently known as “Zen+” will offer even higher IPC throughput, which means major micro-architectural enhancements.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

“Excavator” is the pinnacle of “Bulldozer” micro-architecture, which was unveiled in 2011 and which has not managed to offer truly competitive performance compared to offerings from AMD’s arch-rival Intel Corp., partly because of its clustered multi-threading architecture that required sharing of floating point units by dual-core CPU modules.

By contrast, “Zen” micro-architecture will permit AMD to build microprocessors with powerful individual cores that support simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT). SMT lets multiple independent threads to be executed by available resources of one modern CPU core, thus maximizing peak performance.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

The new “Zen” cores will also feature completely redesigned high-bandwidth low-latency inclusive cache sub-system, which should tangibly boost single-thread performance of microprocessors.

40 per cent IPC improvement compared to “Excavator” does not automatically mean that AMD’s future chips will be 40 per cent faster than existing AMD FX microprocessors or AMD A10 accelerated processing units. Since the new chips may run at higher clock-rates, it is possible that they will be considerably faster than AMD’s contemporary CPUs and APUs. Alternatively, if the clock-rates are not high, the new products will show moderate performance improvements compared to today’s offerings.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_2

As expected, microprocessors powered by “Zen” micro-architecture – which are allegedly code-named “Summit Ridge”, “Bristol Ridge” and “Basilisk” – will be made using 14nm FinFET (14LPP, 14nm low-power plus) process technology at GlobalFoundries.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: 40 per cent IPC performance improvement from generation to generation is absolutely impressive, assuming that this is an average performance improvement. However, it remains to be seen how well will AMD’s future designs perform. In theory, fine designs maximize micro-architectural advantages and we may see FX CPUs from AMD that will compete against Intel’s high-end Core i7 processors in 2016.

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MSI unveils eight new FM2+ mainboards for AMD ‘Godavari’ processors https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/msi-unveils-eight-new-fm2-mainboards-for-amd-godavari-processors/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/msi-unveils-eight-new-fm2-mainboards-for-amd-godavari-processors/#comments Wed, 06 May 2015 06:30:21 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248211 MicroStar International has announced the launch of eight new FM2+ mainboards designed for AMD’s latest accelerated processing units. The new motherboards fully support the upcoming code-named “Godavari” (Kaveri Refresh) APUs, but retain compatibility with existing hybrid microprocessors with integrated graphics from AMD. The new FM2+ mainboards from MSI are new revisions of existing platforms; they …

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MicroStar International has announced the launch of eight new FM2+ mainboards designed for AMD’s latest accelerated processing units. The new motherboards fully support the upcoming code-named “Godavari” (Kaveri Refresh) APUs, but retain compatibility with existing hybrid microprocessors with integrated graphics from AMD.

The new FM2+ mainboards from MSI are new revisions of existing platforms; they are designed for different market segments and are based on AMD’s A88X, A78 and A68H core-logic sets. Different motherboards provide different features, expansion capabilities and overclocking potential. All of the new platforms support PCI Express 3.0 x16 (depends on the processor), Serial ATA-6Gb/s, onboard RAID controller, onboard LAN, and up to 10 USB ports. These new models are available in ATX, micro-ATX, and mini-ATX form factors.

msi_amd_fm2_godavari-mainboards

The FM2+ mainboards from MSI are built using high-quality components, such as solid-state capacitors and chokes, which MSI calls “military class 4.” The motherboards also feature PCB design enhancements for additional reliability and prevention of EMI emissions. In addition, all mainboards support MSI’s automatic overclocking technology called O.C. Genie.

Pricing of the new mainboards will vary depending on configuration and region.

MSI is expected to release new BIOS versions for existing FM2+ mainboards in a bid to add support for “Godavari” processors.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: MSI is the only major maker of motherboards, who decided to announce a new family of mainboards for “Godavari” chips. Perhaps, attracting AMD users to MSI products is a way to boost sales for the company.

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AMD to release ‘Kaveri Refresh’ chips in late May – report https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-to-release-kaveri-refresh-chips-in-late-may-report/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-to-release-kaveri-refresh-chips-in-late-may-report/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2015 02:48:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=246939 Advanced Micro Devices plans to formally introduce its code-named “Godavari” (also known as “Kaveri Refresh”) accelerated processing units next month, slightly ahead of Computex Taipei trade-show. While the new chips will feature slightly improved performance compared to existing APUs from the company, they will hardly improve AMD’s competitive position on the market. AMD’s “Godavari” products …

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Advanced Micro Devices plans to formally introduce its code-named “Godavari” (also known as “Kaveri Refresh”) accelerated processing units next month, slightly ahead of Computex Taipei trade-show. While the new chips will feature slightly improved performance compared to existing APUs from the company, they will hardly improve AMD’s competitive position on the market.

AMD’s “Godavari” products for desktops will formally belong to the A-series 8000-sequence family, but will be architecturally identical to existing “Kaveri” chips. The forthcoming APUs will feature up to four “Steamroller” cores, Radeon R7 graphics with GCN 1.1 architecture, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller as well as heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) capabilities. The only difference between “Kaveri” and “Godavari” chips are slightly higher CPU and GPU clock-rates of the latter. However, the dissimilarity will be so insignificant that performance advantage will be hardly noticeable in real-world applications.

amd_fusion_kaveri_steamroller_piledriver_excavator

AMD intends to formally introduce its “Kaveri Refresh” chips in late May, reports DigiTimes. The company will likely start high-volume shipments of the products in June. It is highly likely that all of desktop APUs from AMD will belong to the “Kaveri Refresh” family already this fall.

amd_kaveri_refresh_godavari_specs

In 2016 and 2017 AMD is expected to release code-named “Bristol Ridge” and “Raven Ridge” APUs, respectively. It is projected that “Bristol Ridge” will be based on the “Excavator” micro-architecture, whereas “Raven Ridge” will integrate next-generation “Zen” cores from AMD.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It looks like AMD’s “Kaveri Refresh” chips are not delayed and will emerge on the market this summer, as planned.

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New unlocked AMD A10, A8 ‘Kaveri’ APUs detailed https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/new-unlocked-amd-a10-a8-kaveri-apus-detailed/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/new-unlocked-amd-a10-a8-kaveri-apus-detailed/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2015 02:59:44 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=246667 Specifications of the upcoming accelerated processing units from Advanced Micro Devices have been published by a web-site. As expected, the new hybrid processors code-named “Kaveri” are only slightly faster that those, which have been available on the market for a long time. As it turns out, AMD is about to release two new unlocked quad-core …

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Specifications of the upcoming accelerated processing units from Advanced Micro Devices have been published by a web-site. As expected, the new hybrid processors code-named “Kaveri” are only slightly faster that those, which have been available on the market for a long time.

As it turns out, AMD is about to release two new unlocked quad-core APUs that belong to the “Kaveri” generation, reports CPU-World. The two chips are the AMD A10-7870K (quad-core, 3.90GHz default frequency, Radeon graphics with 512 stream processors, etc.) as well as the AMD A8-7670K (quad-core, 3.60GHz default frequency, Radeon graphics with 384 stream processors, etc.). Both chips are rated at 95W thermal design power and should be drop-in compatible with all existing FM2+ mainboards.

amd_fusion_kaveri_steamroller_piledriver_excavator

At present not all specifications of the new parts are known, but based on the unofficial information, it is impossible to expect the new accelerated processing units to be significantly faster compared to already available APUs. Still, since both models reportedly feature a new core stepping, overclockers may be interested in trying them out.

amd_kaveri_specs_april_may

AMD plans to unveil its fresh family of APUs known as “Godavari” (or “Kaveri Refresh”) in the middle of 2015. Even though the new accelerated processing units will formally belong to a new range of products (A-series 8000-sequence), they will rely on the same code-named “Kaveri” design. The new chips will sport up to four “Steamroller” x86 cores, Radeon R7 graphics processor powered by the GCN 1.1 architecture with up to 512 stream processors, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller and HSA [heterogeneous system architecture] capabilities. The APUs will continue to use the FM2+ form-factor.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is still a mystery why AMD decided to refresh existing product lineup just weeks before it is expected to release its 8000-series APUs. Perhaps, “Kaveri Refresh” got delayed?

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AMD could be preparing high-performance A10-7870K APU https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-could-be-preparing-high-performance-a10-7870k-apu/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-could-be-preparing-high-performance-a10-7870k-apu/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2015 02:03:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=246305 Advanced Micro Devices may be working on a new accelerated processing unit that belongs to the current-generation of its hybrid microprocessors. The AMD A10-7870K chip has not been announced yet, but it could hit the market in the coming weeks or even days. AMD is expected to release its new breed of APUs known as …

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Advanced Micro Devices may be working on a new accelerated processing unit that belongs to the current-generation of its hybrid microprocessors. The AMD A10-7870K chip has not been announced yet, but it could hit the market in the coming weeks or even days.

AMD is expected to release its new breed of APUs known as “Godavari” (or “Kaveri Refresh”) in mid-2015. Although the new chips will belong to AMD’s A-series 8000-sequence family, they will rely on the same code-named “Kaveri” design with up to four “Steamroller” x86 cores, Radeon graphics engine based on the GCN 1.1 architecture with up to 512 stream processors, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller and HSA [heterogeneous system architecture] capabilities. The APUs will use FM2+ form-factor and will likely be drop-in compatible with existing mainboards.

Apparently, before launching a new product line, AMD wants to refresh the current one with the A10-7870K Black Edition APU, reports ComputerBase citing a web-site of a German retailer. Select price search engines are also listing AMD’s 10-7870K chips with AD787KXDJCBOX part number. The price of the new APU is €176, which is similar to that of the A10-7850K.

amd_fusion_kaveri_steamroller_piledriver_excavator

To date, AMD’s fastest “Kaveri” accelerated processing unit has been the model A10-7850K, which operates at 3.70GHz default clock-speed and has Turbo Boost frequency of 4.0GHz. The new A10-7870K is expected to be faster than its predecessor, but exact specifications are unknown.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is completely unclear why AMD decided to add another processor to the lineup that is about to be replaced by a new family of products. Perhaps, the company is planning a price-cut in the coming weeks and needs a higher-end model to maintain its current average selling prices?

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AMD initiates revenue shipments of ‘Carrizo’ hybrid processors https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-initiates-revenue-shipments-of-carrizo-hybrid-processors/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-initiates-revenue-shipments-of-carrizo-hybrid-processors/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2015 01:42:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=245679 Advanced Micro Devices initiated revenue shipments of its new “Carrizo” accelerated processing unit in the first quarter of this year. The chips have been validated by PC makers and they are on-track to introduce systems powered by the latest A-series APUs in the second quarter of 2015. “We also successfully passed several key milestones in …

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Advanced Micro Devices initiated revenue shipments of its new “Carrizo” accelerated processing unit in the first quarter of this year. The chips have been validated by PC makers and they are on-track to introduce systems powered by the latest A-series APUs in the second quarter of 2015.

“We also successfully passed several key milestones in the [first] quarter as we prepared for the introduction of our new 2015 APU and GPU products, including first revenue shipments of our next-generation Carrizo family of notebook APUs in advance of system launches planned for the second quarter,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD, in the company’s quarterly conference call with investors and financial analysts.

The company declined to reveal when exactly it started to ship its new APUs, but said the first shipments were “small” in terms of volumes. Nonetheless, it is still noteworthy that the new accelerated processing units are already in mass production and have been validated by PC makers.

amd_presentation_carrizo_7

AMD’s code-named “Carrizo” APU was developed from the ground up for ultra-thin notebooks in mind. The chip was designed using high-density libraries of elements and AMD engineers used a number of tricks to reduce leakage and cut-down power consumption. The chip is also made using a 28nm process technology optimized for minimum power consumption. In addition, “Carrizo” incorporates voltage adaptive operation, or, adaptive voltage and frequency scaling (AVFS) technology, which adjusts frequency and voltages of different parts of the APU in real-time. Finally, “Carrizo” features a new S0i3 power state, which achieves the same power level as the S3 state (standby), but can be activated on the fly under the control of power management at sub-second time frames.

amd_presentation_carrizo_2

The new “Carrizo” accelerated processing units feature four x86 cores based on the “Excavator” micro-architecture, Radeon R7 graphics processing unit with 512 stream processors featuring GCN 1.2 architecture, advanced multimedia engine with hardware 4K/UHD video decoding, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller as well as an built-in I/O controller. The “Carrizo” is the first APU to comply with heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) 1.0 specification, therefore, eventually it will take maximum advantage of GPU-accelerated programs.

Since “Carrizo” was primarily designed with notebooks in mind, it has a number of limitations when it comes to performance as well as frequency scaling. To minimize power consumption, AMD did not enhance any component of the APU to maximize its performance. Due to low-power 28nm process technology as well as very dense design, the “Carrizo” chip will not be able to run at truly high frequencies. As a result, while the “Carrizo” may be a great APU for low-power mobile devices, it will not scale beyond that market.

amd_presentation_carrizo_1

It is unclear when exactly AMD and its partners plan to formally launch “Carrizo”-based products, but it is clear that either before or at the Computex 2014 trade show in early June.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD’s “Carrizo” APU seems to be pretty impressive. It will hardly help AMD to recapture a lot of market share from Intel Corp. because the latter ships plenty of ultra-low-power system-on-chips that are probably even more energy-efficient than “Carrizo”. Nonetheless, high-profile design wins could bring AMD revenue that it badly needs. The question is, how many design wins does “Carrizo” have…

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Concept of AMD APU for HPC leaks: 16 x86 cores, next-gen GPU, HBM memory https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/details-about-concept-amd-apu-for-hpc-leak-16-x86-cores-next-gen-graphics-hbm-memory/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/details-about-concept-amd-apu-for-hpc-leak-16-x86-cores-next-gen-graphics-hbm-memory/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2015 12:33:46 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=244566 Advanced Micro Devices has been mulling accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing applications for many years, but software and hardware limitations have prevented the company from creating such chip. Recently AMD finally unveiled plans to release an APU for HPC market in 2017 and this week the first concept of such product leaked. At present …

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Advanced Micro Devices has been mulling accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing applications for many years, but software and hardware limitations have prevented the company from creating such chip. Recently AMD finally unveiled plans to release an APU for HPC market in 2017 and this week the first concept of such product leaked.

At present supercomputers use nodes featuring traditional multi-core x86 microprocessors as well as highly-parallel compute accelerators/co-processors powered by many-core architectures, such as Nvidia Tesla, Intel Xeon Phi or AMD FirePro. While such configuration of nodes generally works very well today, performance of many operations is slowed down by limited bandwidth between CPU and accelerators. For example, many applications could benefit from uniform memory access by CPUs and accelerators/co-processors as well as from cache coherency, but bandwidth and latency limitations usually slow things down. In a bid to solve the problem, Nvidia proposes to use high-bandwidth NVLink technology to connect CPUs and Tesla accelerators, whereas AMD intends to integrate CPU and GPU cores in the same piece of silicon in a way that allows compute engines to communicate efficiently with each other.

amd_fusion_apu_chip_1

AMD’s accelerated processing units – which integrate x86 general-purpose cores and GCN graphics processing cores – available today are fine for consumer PCs, but for HPC applications a different level of integration is required. Not only bandwidth between x86 and GCN cores has to be increased and cache coherency maintained, but different processing engines have to efficiently and collaboratively use memory controller in order to realize all benefits of unified memory access. At present AMD is working on such accelerated processing units due to be available later this decade.

amd_roadmap_update_2015

Fudzilla this week published an image that resembles slides from AMD’s documents for partners. The image describes an unknown APU without a code-name, which can be a concept of AMD’s upcoming accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing applications.

Expected to be released in 2017, AMD’s APU for supercomputers is projected to integrate 16 x86 “Zen” cores with two-way simultaneous multi-threading technology and 512KB L2 cache per core, 32MB L3 cache as well as a new-generation “Greenland” graphics engine with ½ double precision compute rate. The chip will also feature a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller with enhanced ECC capabilities that supports up to 256GB of memory per channel, 64 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 that can be used for SATA Express, integrated SATA, 1GbE, USB as well as various legacy interfaces. To further speed-up bandwidth demanding applications, the APU is expected to feature on-package 16GB of HBM2 memory with 512GB/s or higher bandwidth. Given that the chip is scheduled to arrive in 2017, expect it to be made using 14nm FinFET (14LPP) or 10nm FinFET process technologies.

Since the APU described in the slide does not have a code-name, release timeframe or targeted process technology and thermal design power, it is highly likely that the chip is a concept of what AMD might develop for various market segments.

amd_apu_zen_greenland_concept_fusion

For example, HPC would benefit from 16 x86 “Zen” cores, L3 cache, full-speed DP rate (which is ½ of single precision rate in case of contemporary FirePro accelerators), HBM memory and quad-channel DDR4 with ECC. At the same time, HPC applications do not need secure boot or crypto processors, SO-DIMM or SATA Express support. By contrast, consumer-class APUs do not need 16 x86 “Zen” cores (client PC programs are not optimized for multi-core/many-core processors, hence, 16 cores will provide 10 – 15 per cent performance boost compared to four cores in real-world apps), full-speed DP rate, large L3 cache, ECC with enhancements, 256GB of memory per channel and so on. However, consumer hybrid processors need enhanced security, flexible PCI Express configuration, support for different memory module types, legacy interfaces and so on.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it will be possible to design and build the APU described above using 10nm process technology, it is really unlikely that the chip will ever see the light of day in its current configuration. Therefore, consider the story not as the first details about an unknown accelerated processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices, but as a description of what AMD might plan to create in a couple of years’ time.

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Chillblast Fusion Barbarian winner announced https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/gaming-rig/jon-martindale/chillblast-fusion-barbarian-winner-announced/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/gaming-rig/jon-martindale/chillblast-fusion-barbarian-winner-announced/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2015 14:01:17 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=243405 Last month, like most months, we held a competition with one of our select partner companies to give away a fantastic prize. In this case, a Chillblast Fusion Barbarian full system, featuring an i5-4690K, Corsair H75 watercooling loop and a Gigabyte GTX 970 GPU. All in all it's worth over £1,100, making it one of …

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Last month, like most months, we held a competition with one of our select partner companies to give away a fantastic prize. In this case, a Chillblast Fusion Barbarian full system, featuring an i5-4690K, Corsair H75 watercooling loop and a Gigabyte GTX 970 GPU. All in all it's worth over £1,100, making it one of our biggest prizes of the year. Over 25,500 of you entered in the end, but of course we could only pick one winner and that person has now been chosen.

To be in with a chance of winning this fantastic prize, we asked you the question: What was the name of the group of Gigabyte products that the Chillblast Fusion Barbarian is based on?

The answer was of course, G1 Gaming and a number of you were correct, so we had to pick a name out of the hat. That name was:

Harry Burr, congratulations.

chillblastpc

We've contacted Chillblast with your details and they'll have the system on its way to you in short order. Let us know how you get on with it – and a few pictures wouldn't go amiss either!

For the rest of you, sorry that you missed out this time, but don't forget that competitions like this are par for the course with KitGuru. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, as we give away brand new games every week to a lucky reader and hardware is almost always up for grabs on the main page.

KitGuru Says: Thanks to everyone that entered. Keep reading KitGuru and we'll have more prizes up for grabs soon. 

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