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.

Comments

Zen Architecture

[hey!]

Featuring GGL (Gateless Gate Logic).

Re:Finally a replacement

[kalpol]

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.

Better Tell Intel Their 4nm Process Isn't Real

[HannethCom]

Intel develops technology which doesn't doesn't make it into their plant for 5 to 10 years. Also they don't put things on their roadmap until they've proven possible.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/c...
Intel's 2012 roadmap shows 4nm process in 2022. Which means they have a process that has been tested to work, they are just tweaking it to reduce errors and working on the best way to outfit a plant for it. Also costs billions and time to refit a plant.

Re:Please make it soon AMD

[Totenglocke]

Good bang for your buck and ethical business practices. Hell, just the unethical business practices alone should make most informed people stay away from Intel.

Re:Just in time for the End of the Line

[ITRambo]

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...

Re:Extrapolate?

[Kjella]

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...