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AMD Outlines Plans For Zen-Based Processors, First Due In 2016
crookedvulture writes: AMD laid out its plans for processors based on its all-new Zen microarchitecture today, promising 40% higher performance-per-clock from from the x86 CPU core. Zen will use simultaneous multithreading to execute two threads per core, and it will be built using "3D" FinFETs. The first chips are due to hit high-end desktops and servers next year. In 2017, Zen will combine with integrated graphics in smaller APUs designed for desktops and notebooks. AMD also plans to produce a high-performance server APU with a "transformational memory architecture" likely similar to the on-package DRAM being developed for the company's discrete graphics processors. This chip could give AMD a credible challenger in the HPC and supercomputing markets—and it could also make its way into laptops and desktops.
Hobbling???? I just upgraded TO an 8350 from a Athlon 5200+ (which did pretty much everything I asked of it, including MythTV and watching Netflix in Virtualbox). I don't know what to do with all these cores now.
12:50 - press return.
This.
I have a FX-8350 too. Given how much the the cores sit around idling at less than 5% usage, I don't think I'll need to upgrade my CPU before 2020. RAM, on the other hand...
As many other people have noted: the CPU speed wars have been over since the Intel Wolfdale/AMD Deneb days of 2009-2010.
We are a ways away from not being able to shrink dies further using known technologies. One atom, in this context, is much smaller than 10 nm. The range is 0.1 to 0.5 nm using various methods of calculating the atom's diameter (see link following). . Source on atom size: http://hypertextbook.com/facts...
Anyone care to extrapolate from current benchmarks as to how this new processor will compare to Intel's desktop offerings? I would like to see Intel have some competition there.
FX-8350: 2012
"Zen": 2016
The 40% jump is more like 0%, 0%, 0%, 40%.
If you compare a 3770K (best of 2012) to a 4790K (best of today) you get a ~15% frequency boost and another ~10% IPC improvements. If the leaked roadmaps are to believed Skylake for the desktop is imminent which will bring a new 14nm process and a refined micro-architecture at the same time as Broadwell missed their tick for the desktop, so in the same timeframe Intel will have improved 30-40% too.
Anyway you asked about AMD and I answered with Intel but it's a lot easier to get a meaningful answer without getting into the AMD vs Intel flame war. In short, even if AMD comes through on that roadmap they're only back to 2012 levels of competitiveness and honestly speaking it wasn't exactly great and AMD wasn't exactly profitable. They're so far behind that you honestly couldn't expect less if they weren't giving up on that market completely, which honestly thinking I thought they had. And I wonder how credible this roadmap is, I remember an equally impressive upwards curve for Bulldozer...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wait until you try to do some video encoding. The new instruction set support alone will justify the update.