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The Future And Current Status of AMD...

Posted By: SkateZilla

The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 03:54 PM

Rather than continuing my trend of getting into it in other peoples build thread, I'll make a specific thread.

Currently AMD is planning a new CPU for 2016.
(there are rumors regarding type etc, I'll gather up some data).

My concern is with the new CEO and plan to dump the remainder of the Modulized CPU design to return to Serialized CPUs, etc.

The new CPU was supposed to be out in 2016, yet we have NO preliminary architecture schematics, no actual hard data, nothing on the chipset and AMD is still losing important staff members groups at a time.

Even with the APU contracts for MS, Sony, And Others for Consoles, theres no sign of a High End Gaming CPU in the future yet.

I can only continue to use PCIe 2.0 and DDR3 for so much longer, as DDR4 and PCIe3.0 become more mainstream on every other platform.

Along with chipset features becoming more and more outdated on the 990 Series.

My next build was to continue to be AMD, CPU, GPU etc.

But Right now it's not looking good future wise.

The Flagship GPUs coming up, with use of HBM stacked memory modules, will likely bring most AM3+ platforms to its knees due to dated I/O.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 06:54 PM

I don't know if AMD's roadmap is being thwarted by technical issues or leadership issues.
Did they decide they're going to do X and Y in 2015 and 2016, only to find out X will take till 2016, but it won't be the X they really wanted, more like 3/4 X, and Y is closer to 2018?
Or did the management say, nope, move up Y to 2015 and push back X...then reverse that decision when it was clear Y wouldn't make it...then reverse it again when X also suffered setbacks while Y was progressing?

Part of the problem is you need to be part fortune teller WRT figuring out what tech will mature, where to invest to ensure that it does, when it will, what the competition will do (in their case, both Intel and nvidia who to date are still largely not stepping on each other's toes with nvidia's exit from the chipset market and Intel's far slower GPU advances than was assumed years back)...

Is it bad luck? Bad leaders? Bad investments? A little of everything? There's no doubt that after the inroads AMD made 10 years ago no one thought they'd be where they are now. People were wanting and hoping for a Boeing/Airbus style duopoly, instead they lost market share to Intel they didn't have to lose and have been forced to compete with them and nvidia by lowering their prices.

My armchair analyst theory is the ATI buyout was a mistake. They could've proceeded to compete with Intel with embedded video just the same and wouldn't have had to worry about competing with nvidia too. They're fighting a two front war against two LARGER opponents who each are fighting only one!



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 07:03 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...Currently AMD is planning a new CPU for 2016....yet we have NO preliminary architecture schematics...Right now it's not looking good future wise...


Agree with post.

Nice if you can use your sources to clarify where things are headed.

As noted in the other thread -- I too would like to continue AMD based on price/performance and some "psychological" factors. However, the CPUs in particular need a boost or Intel will be too far ahead in a couple years (if Intel wants to be).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 07:27 PM

As an added thought:

I think the "mass desktop market" is headed for the APU type device with no added GPU -- assuming its not already there. Moreover, laptops and tablets with a low power APU type device meet most folks requirements.

So, AMD is probably spending its limited resources where it can more assuredly make a profit. There are not enough folks who want systems that need high end CPUs.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 08:32 PM

New GPUs are due out this year, but I have concerns with PCIe2.0 beibg a bottleneck along with the already habdicapped cache on the fx chips.

HBM/Stacked DRAM and Huge GPU will require a mess of memory I/O.

The plan was to dump the rest of the module design, per new ceo abd return to conventional cores (serialized cores vs parallel cores etc). These Chip were due to be test in 2015 and out in 2016. And it was stated that it would not retain the AM3 socket array.

the APUs were updated thru steamroller and excavator architectures, but with them being lower tdp parts the performance is still lacking, even with PCIe3.0 support.

Outside of PCIe3, there's DDR4, USB3TC, NEW SATA, m.2 SSD PORTS, New SPUs, etc.

The FX CPUs are no longer an Option without an updated chipset.
I refuse to go Low TDP FM2+,

I will look into my sources.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/15 08:49 PM

High Performance K12 is still scheduled for Q1-2016,

Codename "Zen", x86-64 and ARM variants, 14nm FinFET.

No details availible yet about chipset etc.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/15 03:24 PM

AMD Finalky confirms some specs (all rumored up til now).

R9-380, Will have 4096 GCN1.2 Shaders, 4GB of High Bandwidth Stacked Memory.

Might have to trade in my 7970 Lightnings soon!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/15 04:52 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
AMD Finalky confirms some specs (all rumored up til now).

R9-380, Will have 4096 GCN1.2 Shaders, 4GB of High Bandwidth Stacked Memory.

Might have to trade in my 7970 Lightnings soon!


Thanks for info. I've been waiting for an AMD high end, single chip card with around 4000 shaders to replace my 2x HD7970 (with over 4000 shaders total). So, a very likely purchase smile

Not that the new card will be that much better. Rather, its something new to buy -- that won't be worse smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/15 05:22 PM

HBM should be good, if spec sheets are accurate,
4GB of VRAM, but only taking the spots on the PCB of maybe 4 chips instead of 16.

Makes room to allow one big GPU chip, with a AiO Water cooler slapped on it out of the box.

Thats likely not even the top end GPU either. (Rx-390).

However, the power draw of 2 lightnings is ~500watts, takes up 4 total slots, and Xfire isnt garaunteed performance.

So I can drop ~200w Any Xfire incompatibilities, get faster memory, VSR and all the latest driver things that arent working for 7000 series etc, free up 2 slots, abd save on heat etc as it will.be water cooled out of the box.

Keep a 7970 lightning as a backup, and give the other one to my brother.

My issue is whether or not it will suffer on PCIe 2.0

Posted By: Flogger23m

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/15 08:46 PM

I don't see the point in being loyal to one brand. I do hope AMD comes out with a good, competitive high end CPU to keep Intel innovating though. It looks like the next release of Intel CPUs will be a big jump though.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/15 10:13 PM

Originally Posted By: Flogger23m
I don't see the point in being loyal to one brand...


For me, its politics. Since the 90s, Intel and Nvidia have "cheated" a lot -- at the expense of reasonably "fair" competition. Some of this has been proven in court. For example, AMD was awarded 1.5 Billion dollars from Intel -- thing is, the damage had been done and sealed AMDs fate.

That cheating cost customers choice and money.

Being old fashioned (literally as well as figuratively), I merely don't want to "reward" companies like that.

However, that's just me. Other folks either don't know the "back story" or don't care. And, that's okay with me smile

With graphics, being an AMD fan is easy -- Nvidia and AMD switch places every few months -- both are hyper competitive.

With desktop CPUs, its getting hard -- AMD has not kept up. Still, AMD is competitive. That's probably because Intel is not going "all out" to develop desktop CPUs. Rather, they seem to be after "similar performance" at "lower power" -- which is a good fit to the current Market.

In summary, Intel and Nvidia make great products. Were it not for their history, I would be buying their stuff at times -- and don't begrudge others buying their stuff smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/15 03:12 PM

I could argue you're just rewarding AMD for not getting caught doing the same thing. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/15 10:33 PM

I do find it odd that the new CEO preaches that high power market is dying and AMD like Intel and nVidia is going for low power etc.

Yet the Rx-380 uses 300w, lol
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/15 03:35 PM

Some partially confirmed specs for the "Zen" x86 CPU:
-Codename "Zen", (We already knew that)
-Architecture Family Name "Summit Ridge"
-Market Family "FX"
-SMT (well we already knew they were going back to SMT from CMT.)
-14NM FinFET, Global Foundries
-DDR4 SUPPORT
-PCIe 3.x Support
-95w Max TDP, Up to 8 Cores
-FMx Socket (FM3 Socket.)


Not confirmed/Rumored:
-2016 (Q'3)
-HBM and Hybrid DDR3/DDR4 CONTROLLER.
-Unknown if GCN Blocks will be integrated
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/15 08:53 PM

Updates:

R9-370, Tonga GPU Rebrand (R9-285), Q2-Q3
R9-380, Hawaii GPU Rebrand, Greneda (R9-290), Q2-Q3

R9-390, Fiji, 4096 SP, 4GB HBM, 1024Bit Memory Interface, Q3-Q4
R9-395x2, Fiji x2, 8192 SP, 4GB HBMx2, 1024Bit Memory Interface x2, Q4+
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/15 03:06 AM

I await Fiji smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/15 03:50 PM

I want a Fiji x2, but I have to have a PCIe3 slot or it'll choke. And a new PSU, lol.

I think a single Fiji will suffice, same overall SP count, but more efficient, 1GB more of faster memory and a crazy wide memory bus.

Interested in clock speeds, GTX980s are hittin 1.3-1.5GHz easy.

They will be water cooled, bridgeless Xfire abd support all the new SuperSample stuff.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/15 08:58 PM

Cooler Master will be Manufacturing the Closed Loop Liquid cooling System on the 390s.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/15 02:54 PM

Some Unofficial/Rumored Zen x86 Specs.

16 Total Cores.
4 Modules.
4 ZenCores Per Modules

Each of 16 cores will have its own L2 cache.
Each Module will have its own L3 cache.

DDR4, PCIE3.0, HBM Support for APUs.

Some notes:
All CPUs (even Intel's) share L3 cache across the entire CPU.
Bulldozer shared L2 Cache per module, instead of per core.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 11:37 AM

What little rumor I've read about the new AMD X86 APU product (CPU+GPU on a die), makes it seem like they've tried to "move past" Intel's current and near future products.

Now, as a practical thing, Intel will probably stay in the lead on the CPU end. But, AMD has always lead Intel on the GPU. Overall, it could turn out to be an "evenly matched fight".

I hypothesized several years ago, that by roughly 2020, AMD and Intel would be effectively "tied" and have similar performing products at similar prices (much like AMD and Nvidia do now). That "prediction" was based on the fact that normal semiconductor materials are reaching their limits -- only a few die shrinks left -- so, on paper, Intel cannot stay ahead forever.

Maybe Zen actually will "close most of the gap" with Intel. If so, fun for an AMD fan and good for most Consumers (competition is good).

"Zen" does have to be released "on time", however (nominally 2016). We'll see.
Posted By: AggressorBLUE

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 12:27 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
What little rumor I've read about the new AMD X86 APU product (CPU+GPU on a die), makes it seem like they've tried to "move past" Intel's current and near future products.

Now, as a practical thing, Intel will probably stay in the lead on the CPU end. But, AMD has always lead Intel on the GPU. Overall, it could turn out to be an "evenly matched fight".

I hypothesized several years ago, that by roughly 2020, AMD and Intel would be effectively "tied" and have similar performing products at similar prices (much like AMD and Nvidia do now). That "prediction" was based on the fact that normal semiconductor materials are reaching their limits -- only a few die shrinks left -- so, on paper, Intel cannot stay ahead forever.

Maybe Zen actually will "close most of the gap" with Intel. If so, fun for an AMD fan and good for most Consumers (competition is good).

"Zen" does have to be released "on time", however (nominally 2016). We'll see.


(emphasis mine)

Actually, I think that plays to Intels favor. When smaller NM tech is no longer part of the chip evolution cycle, two options remain:

1. Change "the game", ie look to develop a radically new architecture taking us away from x86. This will require close partnership with lots of the major players out there, including MS and Apple, and various hardware manus. And lots of cash. Intel seems to have a marked history of doing this (USB anyone?). AMD, not to the same level.

2. Develop new materials (nano tech ftw!). This will require a massive investment, to both research the materials and to drastically revise the manufacturing process. Again, advantage Intel.

To be clear: I've nothing against AMD. I switched back to Teal (Blue/Green) after a red build simply because that combo works better for FSX. For a more normalized "workhorse" gaming build, I'd consider shopping red again. I do like how easy AMD made it to OC ye olde Phenom II though yep
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 03:21 PM

AMD licenses x86 from Intel anyway, so they would likely license the new standard as well.

This is why AMD being bought = bad news for everyone.

If AMD is bought, they lose the x86 license from Intel, which means no more desktop CPUs or APUs they would have to stick with ARM / Mobile.

Which means Intel will have no direct competitor, which means high prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 05:36 PM

Originally Posted By: AggressorBLUE
...Actually, I think that plays to Intels favor...


Agree that, in the long run, we should expect a "breakthrough" that leads to a new direction. As you surmise, most likely, the "breakthrough" will be from a company that can "afford to make a breakthrough" -- and that's unlikely to be AMD.

Still, practically speaking, a genuine "circuit material or technology" breakthrough that improves normally priced consumer products may be two or more decades away.

Looking farther: At about the two or three decade mark (or maybe 5 decades), like many, I hypothesize the "singularity" (or something close enough). At that point, sentient (or virtually sentient) computer AI will begin to take over for all human thought and technical progress will be quicker. Hopefully, that will ultimately be good for humans -- but, I hypothesize it won't be at first and possibly never given the inherent nature of politicians -- whoops, wrong forum for Politics smile

Anyhow, I won't be here to see it -- darn smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 07:48 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla


Which means Intel will have no direct competitor, which means high prices.


The real news is that the market is starting to contract enough that two companies in competition can't survive sufficiently well. Intel will raise prices as volumes decrease, regardless of competition.

The future of the PC was never going to be x86/x64 forever, but costs may force it to turn sooner rather than later.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 08:21 PM

AMD has warehouses full of FX chips and APUs, companies are refusing shipments as they are overstocked and not selling.

These chips will likely find their way to oem for extremely low prices.
Posted By: AggressorBLUE

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 08:49 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
AMD has warehouses full of FX chips and APUs, companies are refusing shipments as they are overstocked and not selling.

These chips will likely find their way to oem for extremely low prices.



...or be tossed into locked dumpsters to be disposed of. nope


Often, companies will just 'burn' (sometimes literally) excess inventory, rather than shoot the replacing product in the foot with fire-sale pricing on the previous generation.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/15 09:35 PM

I know Intel litterally has a warehouse space full of older core2duo through pentium MMX chips..

So if skynet comes, they have older tech to fall back on.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/03/15 07:44 PM

New rumor:

AMD Zen x86-64 will support both SMT and CMT.

Ie Each Module will be 4cores, 2 of which will be laege high powered cores (higher IPC in Single thread and HyperThread/SMT), while the other 2 will be smaller integer cores. (For use with CMT.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/15 01:24 PM

Why would AMD support Country Music Television? Talk about a waste of time...




The Jedi Master
Posted By: JG26 vonVampr

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/15 02:44 PM

I just built a new machine using a Intel Core i5-4690K. When I was shopping for a cpu, I tried to look at every comparison, benchmark and testimonial I could find. I'm not brand loyal in any way so my perspective was strickly the most stable, high performance cpu that fit within my budget. I ended up going with the i5 and I'm very happy I did. It oc'ed stable @ 4.5ghz and ran cool there with only a DeepCool Lucifer V2 air cooler (although it appears to work as well as liquids twice it's price). In Arma 3, Assetto Corsa, IL-2, Falcon 4.0 and so on it runs all games at ultra settings using a Gigabyte GeForce 970 and the cpu @3.5ghz brilliantly and I really don't even see a need to oc it for what "I" do. It doesn't stutter, choke or slowdown and I'm running it at factory clock until I have a reason not to.

Conversely, my BIL is an AMD loyalist and never in the past would even consider a Intel cpu EVER. He was over visiting and I let him run through the games I currently have installed and he was astounded at the level of performance versus the money I spent. This has always been AMD's mantra, giving it's customers the most "bang for the buck" and I don't believe that applies anymore. In the past the AMD machines I had lived up to that standard, but Intel has really hurt them with the "K" chipsets. They oc easy, they run cool and they perform at a relatively low cost. I think Amd still has a decent foothold in the low budget gaming world, but in middle to high end builds their presence there seems to be fading away. Just my humble opinion ofcourse, your mileage may vary. cheers
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/15 06:49 PM

If you want to spend under $150 on any given component, I think AMD can be good bang for the buck compared to what Intel gives. If you're willing to spend over $250, AMD can't match it. Your BIL probably spent less on his by far, and I'm betting that if he spent the same amount on Intel he'd get even worse performance than he does now.

If cost is your overriding concern, you can get good performance from AMD for what little you spend. If smooth gameplay is equally important, and you upgrade bits and pieces as opposed to doing the whole thing at once, you can get much better out of Intel.

Of course, if you insist on having multiple PCs to pay to maintain, then AMD becomes even more attractive because saving $75 on one CPU isn't nearly as big as saving it on 3 or more. However, in a single PC scenario, Intel will win unless you're unwise about where you buy stuff from and what you're buying.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: AggressorBLUE

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/15 09:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
If you want to spend under $150 on any given component, I think AMD can be good bang for the buck compared to what Intel gives. If you're willing to spend over $250, AMD can't match it. Your BIL probably spent less on his by far, and I'm betting that if he spent the same amount on Intel he'd get even worse performance than he does now.

If cost is your overriding concern, you can get good performance from AMD for what little you spend. If smooth gameplay is equally important, and you upgrade bits and pieces as opposed to doing the whole thing at once, you can get much better out of Intel.

Of course, if you insist on having multiple PCs to pay to maintain, then AMD becomes even more attractive because saving $75 on one CPU isn't nearly as big as saving it on 3 or more. However, in a single PC scenario, Intel will win unless you're unwise about where you buy stuff from and what you're buying.

The Jedi Master


I generally agree with all this, but regarding the point on the last item about multiple PCs; if you need to buy and setup multiple machines I agree. But as AMD is likely to see you needing an upgrade before intel, but mainly because I've found Intel CPUs have a longer useful life as gaming workhorses, so when they retire they're "service life" (including that of the mobo and other support components) is often more used up.

Case in point, when I was building my first DIY desktop with a Phenom II X4 back around 2010, My little brother was still happily using his DT with an Intel Q660, which he bought from iBuypower in 2008. That rig lasted through 3 or 4 GPU upgrades (the last GPU being carried over to a new rig I built for him) and kept him happy. Eventually he started getting odd heat spikes on the cores, and decided it was time to upgrade the whole kit in 2013. It probably just needed a new CPU cooler (the liquid one IBP put on was well past due for an upgrade, considering the thing never got it's dust filter cleaned).

The same year, I decided to upgrade my Phenom, which just wasn't cutting it in my CPU intensive games. (I also was getting tired of the driver headaches that came with the AMD cards around that time, and didn't want to run an nvidia card with an AMD CPU, which made the choice easier). The Phenom just didn't have the legs of the Intel CPU. That said, my current intel rig is still going strong, and I feel no reason to upgrade any of my kit, save for the power supply (it's about that time). The kit of the AMD still sits in my basement.

The point here being, your likely to find yourself in a multi-device house hold with AMD, as you'll want to upgrade before the machines service life is up, but you're more likely to hang in for the long haul.

Of course, I also have a laptop that sees service as a backup PC from 2008 with a core 2 Duo, which could still do daily office work if my DT wasn't around. So I guess that shoots down my theory smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/15 10:24 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Why would AMD support Country Music Television? Talk about a waste of time...




The Jedi Master


SMT = Simultaneouw Multi-Threading (ie Intel and Hyperthreading).
CMT = Clustered Multi-Threading (ie AMD FX Modules)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/15 03:17 PM

Reviews on Intel's Core M are not so good so far,

If AMD can put out a decept CHIP this year, they can have a nice boost.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/15 08:41 PM

So More "Leaks"/Rumors
-16 Zen Cores
-SMT for 32 Threads
-Greenland GPU Stream Processors
-Up to 16GB HBM for Graphics Memory
-DDR4 Quad Channel 3400MHz
-256GB Per Channel
-8 MB of L2 Cache (512kb Per Core)
-32 MB of L3 Cache
-64 PCIe Gen 3 Lanes
-14 SATA Lanes
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/15 02:17 PM

You can never have too much cache.






The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/15 01:03 PM

As expected AMD reports significantly low Q1 finacials...
Ends conract with Seasonic abd leaves dense server market.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/15 07:21 PM

Server Market CPU without Greenland GPU will have 32 Cores...


Ahhhhhhhh I wants it now....

2016...boooooo
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/27/15 04:13 PM

R9-390X 8GB will use Dual Link Interposer to stack 8GB of HBM,

No dual GPUs :-)
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/27/15 08:46 PM

So apparently only the 390 and 395 are new architecture and the 380 and others will be rebranded 2xx?

I wasn't thrilled when nvidia released the 770 as an OC'd 680, to do the same thing...




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 02:01 AM

They did that with the 200 series too,
290/290x was new 280,285, 289x etc minus the lower spec one that was tue new gpu, they were all tahiti rebrands.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 12:46 PM

Ok...so does that mean the 370 will be a former 280 which was a former 190 which was... explode




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 01:50 PM

370x and 370 Will likely be rebrands of 290x and 290
Posted By: Sethos88

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 03:41 PM

All of them are just rebrands of ATI's Wonder MDA/CGA from 1986
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 04:17 PM

Hater, :p
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/15 05:42 PM

Excavator Module vs Zen x86 Core:

According to leaked slide of Zen x86 core,


1 Master Fetch Per Core instead of Shared Among 2 Integer Cores
1 Master Decode Unit Per Core Instead of Shared over 2 Integer Cores

1 Large Integer Scheduler Instead of 2 Small Ones
1 Large FP Scheduler instead of A small FP Scheduler shared over 2 integer cores.
6 Pipelines w/ L1 cache Per Integer Core vs 4 Per Integer Core
2 FMAC Units @ 256-Bit each per Integer Core, vs 2 FMAC Units @ 128-Bit each shared over 2 Integer Cores
1 MMX Unit Per Integer Core Vs 1 MMX Unit shared over 2 Integer Cores.
L2 Cache Dedicated 512kb Per Integer Core vs 1MB L2 shared across 2 Integer cores.

*512Kb L2 / core was based off the rumored specs.

Should be a significant improvement in FP and Scheduling alone.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/29/15 02:41 PM

2016 Mid and Performance Roadmap:

Zen x86 will use:
FM3 Socket
14nm Process
4 core Blocks w/ 8MB of L2 per Block 512KB of L1 per Core

Performance CPUs:
1st Generation Zen Cores "Summit Ridge"
14nm, FM3
Up to 8 Zen Cores (2x 4 core blocks), 16 threads
No GPU Units

Desktop/All In One APUs:
1st Generation Zen Cores "Bristol Ridge"
14nm, SoC, FM3
Up to 4 Zen Cores (1x 4 Core Block), 8 Threads
GCN Compute Units (Unknown Unit Count)


Lower Level will be 2cores and use similar setup as Beema APUs, uses FT4 BGA socket.

Server Level CPUs will feature 16cores 32 threads, unknown socket.


Next Weekend, expect the floodgates to Open.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/15 06:08 PM

NDA Ends tomorrow, AMD Analyst day is today, press conferences all day,

So Far:
-AMD Skybridge CPU is cancelled (ARM / x86 Hybrid Core)
-SoI, mobile, tablet and low end is out
-Gaming, APUs, High Performance Cioe is Priority
-Invested in x86, ARM and APIs
-GPUs to finally be formally announced today.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/15 07:24 PM

Zen to offer 40% Increase over Excavator clock for clock.
AM4 platform will support CPUs and APUs
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/15 08:10 PM

As my own company recently decided, low margin mass production is where you must compete almost exclusively on price and rewards are small.

By concentrating on higher margin lower volume products overall revenue takes a slight hit, but profitability increases.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/15 03:15 PM

Pretty much all the 390x rumors confirmed,
-4096 SP GCN 1.2, Double the performance/watt of GCN1.0 (Tahiti)
-HBM and GPU stacked on Single Interposer.
-Water Cooled Version is small form factor (no fans, very short)

FX CPUs:
-Up to 8 cores for consumer, 40% IPC over Excavator
-New cache system
-CPu and APU use the Same Socket (AM4)
-14nm FinFET
-AM4 to support DDR4, USB 3.1 Etc

(Excavator is about 5% higher than Piledriver, so about45% in IPC Alone Puts it around Haswell, then add in the SMT and Chache revamp, DDR4 etc, should be a nice lil chip)

Waiting for specs on AM4,

There are new AM3+ boards out with USB 3.1..

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/15 10:10 AM

AMD seems on the right track. I look forward to the next FX architecture. Its an excuse to upgrade (for now, FX9590 does "everything" I need while running at stock speeds).

Thanks for the regular updates thumbsup
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/15 11:36 AM


I dont think Jim has ever had a bad Arch. He left AMD after stomping Intel throgh Athlon64, then junp a round through broadcom, and Apple.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/15 05:38 PM

From reading their recent news, it sounds like AMD will focus more on the high end CPU/GPU market where they have been losing to Intel/Nvidia and stop wasting their time with the low/mid end which they have been winning but has small profit margins.

I know you guys are diehard AMD enthusiasts and will buy AMD either way, but as a neutral PC gamer who cares most about the best bang-for-the-buck high end stuff, I'm glad to hear it because it's been a while since AMD had high end products that attracted my value/performance attention compared to Intel/Nvidia and I want more competition in the high end market.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/15 07:00 PM

Intel should be concerned, Jim's last 3 chips he designed for AMD spanked Intels counterpart, when they werent supposed to.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/15 01:22 AM

Now pundits showing even more concern over AMD product life cycle and new product introduction delays.

Of course, bankruptcy does not necessarily mean "out of business". Rather, the stock holders lose virtually everything and the creditors lose a lot. Then, the business can potentially start fresh or continue -- by different means (after being bought out at fire-sale prices for example).

Or, they could simply cease to exist.

AMD needs to do everything correctly and on-time for the next few years.

It sure won't be good for consumers (AMD or Intel or Nvidia) if Intel and Nvidia are the only games in town -- think astronomical prices and very slow release of new stuff. We'll see.

AMD Bankrupt by 2020?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/15 02:28 AM

R9-390X and Zen will predict their outcome,

R9-300s are going to be priced significantly higher than past GPUs.

Zen if benchmarks hold up, will be priced significantly higher than past APU/CPUs
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/15 03:31 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen


It sure won't be good for consumers (AMD or Intel or Nvidia) if Intel and Nvidia are the only games in town -- think astronomical prices and very slow release of new stuff. We'll see.

AMD Bankrupt by 2020?


Except the market has changed and that's no longer true. If this was 2001, yeah, it would be bad if AMD and ATI vanished.
Without them today, though, it's far more dire. People don't NEED PCs anymore. If nvidia and Intel increase prices for less improvement, the drop in sales will accelerate. They won't price themselves out of the market, since they would BE the market, they would instead DESTROY the market.

How many people would own a car if the only choices were a Ferrari and a Mercedes?
People would instead get bikes, take buses, trains, etc. Make PCs too pricey and people will just get tablets and "smart" devices for internet use and gaming. The PC is no longer the only way to do all these things.

Intel and nvidia aren't competing with AMD...they're competing with Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and HTC. If people have a choice between spending $500 on a subpar laptop or an iPad...



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/15 09:41 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
...Except the market has changed...


Agree, the future is complex.

On one hand, less competition at the high end means higher prices and less choice "at the high end". Higher prices mean less sales overall "at the high end".

Moreover, significant (visible, feel-able) performance improvements are technically harder to achieve with each new hardware generation.

So, the market might just stabilize at a given performance level -- with steadily decreasing prices (after accounting for inflation) -- but "no reason for an enthusiast to be enthusiastic" and no economic reason for Intel and others to "push performance".

Most folks will be happy with the readily available, cheap, fun devices. However, the days (or at least, years) of "do it yourself" hardware hobbyists may be numbered. I'm already to the point that nothing currently on the market intrigues me because I know I won't notice the improvement over what I have. And, I'm not sure that will change in the next couple years. That happened decades ago with automobiles. I used to do all my own work and be interested in the new models. Now I buy a new car every 10 or 12 years and don't do a lick of work on them.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/15 11:01 PM

If Zen flops, then AMD will likely allow themselves to be purchases and lose their x86 license from intel.

Samsung wanted to buy them earlier, which would move all resources to ARM.

AMD will likely try and same their GPU Division by Jettisoning it before they go out though.
Posted By: Flogger23m

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/15 06:22 AM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Originally Posted By: Allen


It sure won't be good for consumers (AMD or Intel or Nvidia) if Intel and Nvidia are the only games in town -- think astronomical prices and very slow release of new stuff. We'll see.

AMD Bankrupt by 2020?


Except the market has changed and that's no longer true. If this was 2001, yeah, it would be bad if AMD and ATI vanished.
Without them today, though, it's far more dire. People don't NEED PCs anymore. If nvidia and Intel increase prices for less improvement, the drop in sales will accelerate. They won't price themselves out of the market, since they would BE the market, they would instead DESTROY the market.

How many people would own a car if the only choices were a Ferrari and a Mercedes?
People would instead get bikes, take buses, trains, etc. Make PCs too pricey and people will just get tablets and "smart" devices for internet use and gaming. The PC is no longer the only way to do all these things.

Intel and nvidia aren't competing with AMD...they're competing with Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and HTC. If people have a choice between spending $500 on a subpar laptop or an iPad...



The Jedi Master


Yes and no. Yes in that tablets can fill the void in some instances; no in that things that require computers/internet are much more common now than in 2001. A tablet can do things, but it is far slower and more time consuming to do the same tasks when compared to a PC. Even typing this post would take 3-4 times as long.

Same for gaming. I don't have interest in phone games and when presented with the option I tend to prefer reading something or watching youtube instead. So there really isn't a substitute for PC games, aside from consoles (which Nvidia would also make money from). Although they do make a lot less from console sales compared to discrete GPUs... so it would be in their interest not to price themselves too high.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/15 02:57 PM

My point isn't that PCs aren't going to not be needed at all, it's that the mass market for them will shrink away if they jack up the costs. The high end market will stay there, but when games run worse on a $400 laptop than on a $400 tablet, why would you get the laptop? Now if Intel and nvidia increase prices so that $400 laptop becomes $800, THAT will kill it.

You can get a BT keyboard for a tablet for like $70.

Don't project your own feelings about using PCs vs tablets onto the entire market and think that's how it is. In the 90s it was "grandma got a PC!" so they could use the internet and watch videos and such. Now it's "grandma got a tablet!" and the old PC from the 90s is still there in the corner for those times she needs it...she's not buying a new one unless it dies. Make the replacement cost more and she won't replace it at all.

The "good enough" performance of ARM chips on mobile devices is killing the need for the low-end CPUs. The high-end ones are still needed, yes, but there's no killer app to propel people to upgrade their 4yr old high end CPU for the latest high end CPU.

I have an i7-2600k that I run at STOCK speeds with a GTX 770. I can run pretty much every game I have, including ones from 2015, at max settings at 1080p (all the display I have room for). Games are being made largely to run on the consoles first, and the new consoles are weak compared to modern PCs. This isn't the 360/PS3 days when they rivaled PCs, MS and Sony went cheap this time.

So I reiterate--the lack of performance innovation is already here, the CPUs are "good enough" for 95% of the people so they spend more time making them power efficient than faster. AMD's competition isn't spurring Intel to do a thing about making them faster, it only keeps prices down. Should their exiting the market make Intel feel they can charge MORE for what they're giving us now...who would go for that?



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/15 03:44 PM

Latest rumor / unconfirmed is that R300 is R200 rebrands, minus GCN 1.0/Tahiti

And Fiji will be like nVidia Titan, $800ish, and Unique name.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/15 05:08 PM

Latest mumbo:

AMD Radeon Fury Max 8GB (Fiji XT x2)
AMD Radeon Fury 4/8 GB (Fiji Xt)
*8GB Version not confirmed by AMD,
but they did announce 8 GB HBM1 w/ Dual Link Interposer

Fiji will be smaller as the Ram is on the substrate with the GPU,
it will be water cooled, 1x 120mm radiator with 1x120mm fan.
it will require 2x 8-Pin Power Connectors.
Rear I/O will be 3 DP1.2a, and One HDMI 2.0

R9-390X, 8 GB = R9-290X (Hawaii XT)
R9-390, 8 GB = R9-290 (Hawaii Pro)
R9-380, 4 GB = R9-285 (Tonga Pro)
R7-370X, 2/4 GB = R7-270X (Curacao XT)
R7-370, 2 GB = R7-270 (Curacao Pro)
R7-360, 2 GB = R7-260X (Bonaire XTX)
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/15 07:58 PM

wacky


Marketing.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 01:18 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

R9-390X, 8 GB = R9-290X (Hawaii XT)
R9-390, 8 GB = R9-290 (Hawaii Pro)
R9-380, 4 GB = R9-285 (Tonga Pro)


This looks weird though. The 380 looks like its better than the 390(x)s, since Tonga is newer, with better tessellation and support for texture compression, plus some features supported by GCN 1.2 only, like VSR.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 03:36 AM

Hawaii supports VSR.

Basically this line up eliminates all tahiti/GCN 1.0.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 05:11 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Hawaii supports VSR.

Basically this line up eliminates all tahiti/GCN 1.0.


What are the features that are supported only by 1.2? I remember there are a few of them.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 04:40 PM

improved tessellation performance, lossless delta color compression in order to reduce memory bandwidth usage, an updated and more efficient instruction set, a new high quality scaler for video, and a new multimedia engine (video encoder/decoder).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 04:42 PM

That was a copy/paste from wiki.

Pretty sure they eliminated tahiti and gcn 1.0 cards as they didnt support vsr or freesync

Tongas minus was 2GB vs tahitis 3GB, that has changed.

But 4096 shaders using less tuan half the power of Xfired 7970s is what I want
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/15 11:45 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...4096 shaders using less tuan half the power of Xfired 7970s is what I want


Agree. How much I'm willing to pay for it depends on the performance improvement over the two 7970s.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/15 01:10 AM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...4096 shaders using less tuan half the power of Xfired 7970s is what I want


Agree. How much I'm willing to pay for it depends on the performance improvement over the two 7970s.


Hopefully at least 2.6x

4096 SP of GCN 1.2 Cores (vs 4096 of GCN 1.0),

Less Power, More Efficiency etc.

4096 Bit Memory Bus, insane texture bandwidth that makes an nVidia Titan X look like an entry level card.

All on 2 8-Pin PCIe Plugs smile

$849 was the Rumored price ($799 was the rumored MSRP)

I paid $375-$400 for my Lightnings, which can be relegated to other systems. I still have the EK water block that I got for free with one.

I'd have to buy some DisplayPort to MiniDP Adapters if the Rumored I/O is correct.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/15 04:21 PM

Top Card is now "AMD Radeon Fury X"

Press conference tomorrow!
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/15 07:01 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-flaunts-...deon-300-series

Finally some details on the prices etc.

$649 for Watercooled... Fantastic.

Gonna wait a few weeks build up my budget first.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/15 01:55 AM

HBM is a huge thing. SFF PCs with dual gpu cards. Also, watercooling should get easier/cheaper now, since the memory is on the gpu, we will only need gpu waterblocks to cool them.
Posted By: Bill_Grant

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/15 02:49 AM

In the news yesterday was that PC Gaming is skyrocketing (thanks to Steam), and Consoles are faltering.
This absolutely dovetails with new products being released.
Yay! more choices!
Posted By: Sethos88

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/15 08:30 AM

Almost considering giving up my 2 x 980s for the dual GPU Fury X. They are massive, no room for my Essence STX, pump out a ton of heat and one of the coolers has developed a slight rattle. I will be giving up Gsync but with a 144Hz monitor, it shouldn't really be the end of the world.

Plus, never thought I'd say this, Nvidia's drivers has severely fallen in quality the past 6+ months. So many problems.
Posted By: FlashBurn

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/15 03:38 PM

I am thinking R380 at 200 bucks sounds like a simple way to replace the 2 old and crusty 5870's. I am thinking short term solution that will run with the current mobo in the box. Maybe buy 1 next month, buy another around Nov or Dec. Or do the wait and see. Maybe keep me happy for awhile and upgrade other junk as it comes along. Just not going to go all out till something way way better in the 300-350 price range. And simply don't play enough games that justify super uber right now. I guess thinking good enough for the time being. Get DX12 ready and better than what I got. Worry about the rest later down the road. I need new monitors badly! Messing with my work flow since one crapped out.

What I can say. I felt no need to upgrade until last year. But zero pressing need for what I was playing. I have never gotten 5 years on vid cards before. Was always a 2 year deal post 2000. Pre 2000 was like every year. Does that mean I am getting crusty?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/15 04:16 PM

Originally Posted By: Sethos88
Almost considering giving up my 2 x 980s for the dual GPU Fury X. They are massive, no room for my Essence STX, pump out a ton of heat and one of the coolers has developed a slight rattle. I will be giving up Gsync but with a 144Hz monitor, it shouldn't really be the end of the world.

Plus, never thought I'd say this, Nvidia's drivers has several fallen in quality the past 6+ months. So many problems.



The Dual GPU Fury X is Smaller than one of my 7970 Lightnings, by at least 4 inches.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/15 01:47 PM

AMD Clarifies Why It Uses Intel Core i7 In Its Project Quantum Gaming PC

Because people want it smile

On the other hand, as noted in above in our SimHQ thread, there is still "hope" for "change" smile

With its new Zen CPU microarchitecture, ... x86 CPU market
Posted By: Sethos88

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/15 01:56 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen


Smart decision.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/15 02:12 PM

I want a holodeck for the price of an ice cream cone but no one's giving it to me!



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Vertigo1

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/15 03:34 PM

It's nice to see that AMD is finally going to fix their per-core performance with Zen. I think Arma 3, with its (antiquated) singlethreadedness, has given AMD a blackeye for some gamers.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/15 02:41 PM

OMG I Wantz,

Remember when I mentooned APU w/ HBM.?...
http://www.hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/85184-amd-exascale-heterogenous-processor-sports-32-zen-cores/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/15 03:13 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...Remember when I mentooned APU w/ HBM...


Impressive.

I read that Windows can make use of over 200 CPU cores simultaneously -- so, 32 is not too many smile

I read that flight simulator X-Plane 10 is written to use 10 to 20 threads -- which could be assigned to different cores. I can imagine advanced programming Combat Flight Simulators assigning one nearby aircraft per core and more distant planes at one squadron per core -- rather than every plane in the air to only one core.

I'm hoping AMD gets future APU "per core computations" equivalent to CPU "per core computations". My own tests show that AMD APU cores are effectively slower than AMD CPU cores at the same clocks. Moreover, current APU cores tend to run slightly lower clocks than CPUs of similar architecture. The slower APU performance has to do with optimizing for both computations and graphics on the same chip -- I have read. For now, I think of APUs as "not gaming" devices.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/15 03:37 PM

APUs use a "Smaller" Core to use less power.
Basically designed for low power consumption instead of high performance.

I want a full Zen CPU 8-16 Cores w/ 32 GB of HBM on it..

Slap a big Water block on it. No need for DDR4.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/04/15 11:12 AM

Today, Fudzilla is saying that the AMD Exascale Heterogenous Processor will have "only" 16 cores with 32 threads. However, they say that's an educated guess. Apparently, we have to wait for AMD to make an "official" description.

Its hinted that they will not make the APU "mistake" of reducing CPU performance just to get more features on the chip. So, there may be 16 full speed CPU cores -- plus other compute hardware.

Oh well, that's the "distant" future of, probably, 2017 (and maybe 2016).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/15 08:35 PM

Microsoft has A Multi Billion Dollar advanced stages proposal on desk to Acquire AMD, CPU and GPU divisions as well as a New x86 License from Intel.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/15 09:36 PM

If Microsoft keeps AMD in competition with Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, I'm okay with it. AMD needs a large cash infusion. Competition is good smile

However, in the past, Microsoft when "acquiring other companies" has blundered substantially. So, based on history, Microsoft may take AMD in a whole new direction and eliminate competition with Intel and Nvidia. Hurts Microsoft bottom line (nothing new there) and hurts our bottom line too. No competition means "price shock" and future very slow updates of CPU and GPU frown
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/15 09:46 PM

Microsoft wants CPU, GPU and Software delevopment in house to make cheaper Consoles, Phones, Tablets and 1st Party Windows Equiped PCs.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/15 02:55 PM

my AMD shares are now w9rth 9x what I paid for them a few years ago...

keep going up, I need a vacation.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/15 05:13 PM

Jim Keller has Left AMD (Again)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/15 09:37 AM

Quote:
Chipzilla might have caused slow PC sales at the beginning of the year to boost the price of its Skylake chips later.

A recent study shows that the slump in PC sales in the first half was deliberately made to help Skylake sell better since August..this will mean a low supply of Skylakes in the first half of 2016..

Intel is making piles from this..the suppliers have to buy it at any price. Particularly as Intel's only real x86 market, AMD, is having a bit of a snooze.

..All this gives a warning about what will happen if AMD goes under and Intel takes total control.


Intel Slows Sales to Increase Price

From an article regarding recent Intel price manipulation. Its Intel's extensive manipulation of about a decade ago (back when AMD CPU was better than Intel CPU) that deliberately put AMD in a financial bind in the first place (proven in court, Intel paid over $1 Billion settlement -- but it did not cover AMD losses). Thus AMD R&D languished for lack of funds. This kind of behavior is why I am not an Intel fan -- even though their product is a good one.

Anyhow: Honest competition is good smile Price fixing is bad frown

Just an opinion smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/15 12:05 AM

Developers/Engineers for Zen were given permission to go all out for the first time since K6-II.

Keller oversaw development, now that it's finished he left the team.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/15 12:06 AM

Hmmm, I see we hit the post button within a minute of each other smile

And, from the same site as above a few hopeful words about the new AMD CPU design:

Quote:
AMD has said that its Zen engineers had total freedom to build a chip from scratch and come up with the best..

Zen could be the project that either saves AMD or kills it stone dead so it is not as if there is much pressure .. to succeed..

Plummer said that it was the first time in a very long time that engineers have been given the total freedom to build a processor from scratch and do the best we can do. We guess that if you are making a last roll of the dice, you might as well bet the farm on it..

The new cores will offer at least 40 per cent performance improvement at the same clock-rate compared to existing cores.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/15 04:04 AM

The MS deal is likely to be a share holders/company saving move.

If Zen under performs, AMD will have spent a huge amount on R&D, and got n9thing in return, if MS buys them it'll wipe the debt and allow AMD to continue under MS Hardware Brand.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/15 03:26 PM

Another article where AMD claims to have something good on the way -- in late 2016.

AMD's 2016 GPU doubles performance per watt

She says:

Quote:
"We are also focused on delivering our next generation GPUs in 2016 which is going to improve performance per watt by two times compared to our current offerings, based on design and architectural enhancements as well as advanced FinFET products process technology".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/15 03:28 AM

Zen and Zen Rev. 2 are done and tapped,
Designers/Engineers/Architects that are done have left AMD to cut payroll while Zen proceeds to Pre Production.

Performance on Par w/ Intel's Bridge line is expected.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/15 01:10 PM

Zen and Next Gen GPUs will use 14nm FinFET at Global foundries NY.

No more made in Malaysia CPUs :-)

AMD already has a few working samples...

Bring on Zen.
Posted By: kestrel79

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/15 03:19 PM

Cool! I've always stuck with AMD for GPUs so looking forward to the next round of cards.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/15 03:13 PM

One of my friends at AMD told me both Zen and new GPUs for 2016 are tapped out.

Also said Gen1 Fury GPUs were more of a teaser, the real meat and potatoes will be in the HBM2 14nm LPP GPUs.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/15 07:22 PM

AM4 Platform will launch in Q1' 2016
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/15 03:42 PM

Zen is taped out, but production is not on schedule, prolly 2017......
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/16 03:47 PM

Polaris GPU Architecture:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9886/amd-reveals-polaris-gpu-architecture/3
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/16 04:18 PM

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/16 08:02 PM

More Zen News..
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3020184/c...socket-am4.html


Zen Plus Polaris / GCN1.3

Im gonna end up building a new rig this Winter
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/16 11:25 AM

If they work as-advertised, my instincts say I'll be buying the new AMD CPU and GPU earlier rather than later (after release and test reports are in).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/16 04:08 PM

Looking at about 5 months before Polaris hits shelves.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/16 04:48 PM

AMD Unviels 64bit ARM processors for Enterprise Servers...

Im tellin ya, 2016 is the year AMD comes back hard.

-ARM Business
-Revised Xbox One and PS4 APUs
-Polaris 14nmFinFET GPUs
-AM4 Socket and New Chipset w/ PCIe3, DDR4, USB3
-Zen 14nm FinFET CPUs and APUs
-AMD Radeon Group Took Over Software and GPU Departments.
-AMD Open Source Drivers and Technologies.


Intel's Skylake CPUs have Load Lockup Problems.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/16 12:57 AM

Finally, a reason to upgrade after 6+ years!
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/16 04:06 PM

I don't think anyone is using Skylake for servers, though.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/16 07:14 PM

naw, but when overclockers and extreme gamers hit their Skylakes with heavy workloads, they lock up.

Its enough to get ppl to sour on Intel.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/16 07:23 PM

Originally Posted By: BlueHeron
Finally, a reason to upgrade after 6+ years!


Might not have to overclock my cpu within an edge of its life to match intel users.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/16 10:36 AM

An article today says the AMD CEO indicated the AMD GPU will be mid-year and the "Zen" CPU will be at the end of the year. So, Christmas-time to 2017 for the CPU.

The article repeats that the CPU is expected to be 40 percent faster per clock than the current FX CPUs. They are aiming the first Zen CPUs at gamers thumbsup

That being said, I expect Zen to have slower absolute clocks (my current 8 core FX CPU runs at 4.7GHz to 5GHz "stock clocks"). I hope the Zen "clocks" are close to current clocks. I hope we can eventually get 8 to 16 cores (I expect 4 cores at first and would like to be wrong about that).

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/processors/39721-zen-not-arriving-until-the-end-of-the-year
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/16 06:43 PM

Can I get a link to read?

Zen is supposed to be 40% IPC over Excavator Cores, which are faster than Piledriver.

Throw away the bad cache of Piledriver and the timing issues, along with the often ignored or mis used CMT eesourse management, and it should be a noticable increase.

AMD Revenue / Cost saw a improvement in 4th Qtr 2015.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/221...f-server-market
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/16 11:19 AM

AMD will change naming scheme for new products from "islands" to "stars and constellations". They're thinking bigger and brighter.

Quote:
Speaking with VentureBeat on Friday, Raja Koduri had the following to say:

"Our guiding principle for the Polaris architecture was power efficiency. We have the new naming scheme for our architectures. Itll be based on galaxies, star systems, and stars. Youll see more of this coming in the future. Polaris is the beginning of our journey through space."

Raja also explained that the company has two versions of its new 14nm FinFET GPUs ready to launch by the middle of 2016.

Both are extremely power efficient. This is Polaris 10 and thats Polaris 11. In terms of what weve done at the high level, its our most revolutionary jump in performance so far. Weve redesigned many blocks in our cores. Weve redesigned the main processor, a new geometry processor, a completely new fourth-generation Graphics Core Next with a very high increase in performance. We have new multimedia cores, a new display engine.

AMDs Polaris family officially marks the beginning of the companys journey into the great vastness of space. As Andy Weir, author of The Martian says, Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble. Perhaps the same can be said for ambitious GPU architects in the next couple years to come.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/16 04:00 PM

http://m.hexus.net/business/news/compone...medium=facebook
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/16 03:51 PM

Zen Performance CPUs will be Late Q4 or Early Q1 2017.

AM4 will be Q3, and APUs for AM4 will still be Excavator Cores until Zen APUs arrive.


My brother FX8120 is trash, water pump failed after power outtage, and when I went to take it off, it pulled the CPU right out of the socket.

no Amount of Artic Clean or floss can get the CPU off the block, I think the thermal paste pretty much harded and the CPU is now glued to the block.

So Now I have a Block with a 8 Core CPU stuck to it, and the Substrate package actually cracked, so kts likely trash.

Luckily I had a old system sitting around with AM3 PhenomII sittin in it.

Score 1 for side of the road pickups, lol,
I pick them up to the frequency of 4 or 5 a week and put them in the garage for spare parts etc.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/16 03:51 PM

Hopefully Im selected to build and review an AM4 system :-)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/16 07:28 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Hopefully Im selected to build and review an AM4 system :-)


I also hope you're selected. As a "fan", I think its nice to have an "insider" posting here. Even if you do have to adhere to "non-disclosure" for a time, we still get the true story eventually.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/05/16 12:12 PM

An article on how the fundamental technology of CPUs and GPUs will be changing in "just four or five years" -- according to Intel. The article author indicates aspects of the technology may get into high end graphics cards in a couple years.

Quote:
Chipzilla is looking at tunnelling transistors and spintronics and slowly rejecting the need for speed.

According to the Intels William Holt, who leads the companys technology and manufacturing group, Intel will soon have to start using fundamentally new technologies.

He named tunnelling transistors and spintronics as good candidates, but both would require changes in how chips are designed and manufactured, and would likely be used alongside silicon transistors.

Holt said that the technology will not offer speed benefits over silicon transistors and chips may stop getting faster. ...


To me, this means that the "speed wall" I've been expecting (to happen when transistors hit roughly 5um size) may actually be "just around the corner". After the industry hits it, there will be no significant speed increases in GPUs and CPUs. So, if AMD is still in business in 6 years, it will "catch up" to Intel speedwise -- nature will see to it. Could even happen next year with the new AMD CPUs (we'll see on that one). The "speed wall" could virtually put an end to PC upgrading for raw performance (unless they find a practical way to use dozens of CPU cores and threads in normal games).

The whole article is here: Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/05/16 01:27 PM

Like I said, first company to develop serial to parallel task manager hardware solution.

or dynamic core mapping (Which is being looked at by AMD), allowing a CPU to Map multiple cores as one large core, or split back into several smaller low power cores.

thus being able to run serial tasks across mutiple threads without a software layer.

will see the advantage until we move from silicon to whatever is next, bio nueral gel packs, etc.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/16 02:10 PM

Zen's topend Server part will have 32 Physical Cores + S.M.T.

Zen's Top end desktop part will have 16 Cores + S.M.T. (No GCN Cores)

APUs will likely peak at 8 Cores + S.M.T. + GCN Blocks
Posted By: Ace_Pilto

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/16 02:53 PM

Seems to be a case of

Nvidia: Let's make a better GPU

Intel: Let's make a better CPU

AMD: Hurr MOAR CORES
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/16 03:03 PM

To be fair, Intel's designs post-Sandy Bridge have all been more evolutionary than revolutionary. The fact that my i7-2600k can run a game from 2015 at max settings well over 30fps (with a GTX 970, not a video card that is the 2600k's contemporary) is indicative of two trends:

Intel resting on its laurels with minor improvements each gen that don't compel upgrades.

Game developers being restricted by weak consoles so as not to develop games twice, but instead first for consoles then barely upscale it for PC. The Division's producers flat-out admitted that the PC version could've looked a lot better but they wanted it to be "fair for console players" not to outdo it too much. rolleyes This means older CPUs aren't challenged much at all.

Intel is waiting for AMD to catch up before it takes its next big leap. Just watch, as soon as AMD releases a chip that is a worthy competitor they'll release their new one 3 months later that takes all the wind out of AMD's launch.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/16 04:05 PM

The Intel roadmapnIve seen says otherwise.


also Zen Operton has 8 Channel DDR4.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/16 04:08 PM

Originally Posted By: JimmyBlonde
Seems to be a case of

Nvidia: Let's make a better GPU

Intel: Let's make a better CPU

AMD: Hurr MOAR CORES



Server CPUs for Intel and AMD both always had more Cores.

Several smaller cores running 2ish GHz runs server stack processes better than 8 at 4GHz.

Theres 16 Core Piledriver CPUs for AMD, and Intel has a few 24 Core CPUs in the market.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/16 01:02 PM

Originally Posted By: JimmyBlonde
Seems to be a case of

Nvidia: Let's make a better GPU

Intel: Let's make a better CPU

AMD: Hurr MOAR CORES


Complete lack of knowledge.
Posted By: kestrel79

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 04:29 PM

Any idea when the new AMD GPUs are coming out? I was going to get a R9 390 next month, or should I hold off?
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 05:30 PM

Originally Posted By: kestrel79
Any idea when the new AMD GPUs are coming out? I was going to get a R9 390 next month, or should I hold off?


I'm on the same boat. Eyeing a 390X on sale, but holding off until something more concrete is announced.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 05:55 PM

Any rumors about AMD spawning off the GPU division to it's own company?

I just read that Nvidia had record profits this quarter and can't help but think that the AMD GPU part of the company would do much better without being dragged down by the AMD CPU part of the company.

I'm sure doing too many things with little money limits their ability to do R&D, as well as quality of their drivers and the time they are able to spend on optimization (one area where Nvidia excels at).

ATI did pretty well competing with Nvidia before being acquired by AMD, can't help but think they could be really profitable if split out instead of being strapped to the rollercoaster that has been AMD.

Reference: http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/37006-nvidia-announced-record-year-and-q4-revenue
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 06:14 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Any rumors about AMD spawning off the GPU division to it's own company?

I just read that Nvidia had record profits this quarter and can't help but think that the AMD GPU part of the company would do much better without being dragged down by the AMD CPU part of the company.

I'm sure doing too many things with little money limits their ability to do R&D, as well as quality of their drivers and the time they are able to spend on optimization (one area where Nvidia excels at).

ATI did pretty well competing with Nvidia before being acquired by AMD, can't help but think they could be really profitable if split out instead of being strapped to the rollercoaster that has been AMD.

Reference: http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/37006-nvidia-announced-record-year-and-q4-revenue



Already happened:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/10/amd-forms-radeon-graphics-division/
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 08:22 PM

They wanted ATI for the APU technology. Unfortunately, they didn't pay enough attention to the CPU and GPU sides to keep competing with both Intel and nvidia.

Intel only competes with AMD. nvidia only competes with AMD. AMD is fighting a two front war except it's not the largest player, in fact it's the smallest I think.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/16 08:56 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna


Thanks, being a separate division doesn't sound like it goes far enough to me, if it still has to share R&D and profits with the parent unprofitable dying company...

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master

Intel only competes with AMD. nvidia only competes with AMD. AMD is fighting a two front war except it's not the largest player, in fact it's the smallest I think.


+1 totally agree, I just hope they admit it and split the companies before it's too late to recover market share on either front.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/16 02:30 PM

Originally Posted By: kestrel79
Any idea when the new AMD GPUs are coming out? I was going to get a R9 390 next month, or should I hold off?


I'm definitely waiting. If the run-up-hype has truth, the new cards (new architecture and new type of 15nm transistors) will make the old 28nm cards "obsolete over night".

Moreover, the current 390 cards aren't "significantly" (in mind of beholder) better than my "years old" Crossfired HD7970s (which play everything). Of course, that's my personal situation -- not applicable to everyone.

We'll see if the hype is actually true. But, I won't take the chance. Just my opinion.

New cards are supposed to be out sooner than later. Summertime -- I've read?? Fall - if they slip??

Just one of many articles: AMD Summer Launch and Detailed GPU Description

From the front page of same site -- One HOUR Ago:

Quote:
...brand new Radeons have been spotted in the vast array of shipping manifests (via VideoCardZ). All upcoming GPUs have to go through the prototyping phase which, thanks to regulations, means they have to be listed in shipping manifests such as this one. While Nvidia has taken to scrambling their code names using a (yet-unknown) cipher, AMD GPUs remain in clear text. These new GPUs will almost certainly constitute the Radeon R9 400 series and at least one of these is a 14nm FinFET chip...

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/16 05:25 PM

There are still other Chip Companies making x86 chips for the record...
However they are no where near Intel, nor AMD for that matter..

But let's dwell on the Glory days where we had at least 6 Companies Producing Pentium Equivelent Chips, ahh. Socket 7, and the point where Intel Started getting their butts handed too them by Both AMD K6 and the Cyrix6x Chips, so they tried to stick it to everyone by discontinuing Socket 7 Development and ending AMD's License agreement to use Intel Sockets/Mainboard/Chipset.

And since then:
Cyrix -> National Semiconducter -> Texas Instruments -> x86 Discontinued
WinChip/IDT -> VIA -> x86 Discontinued
RiSE -> STME -> SiS -> x86 Discontinued

Intel -> x86 Active
AMD -> x86 Active
MCST -> x86 Active (RUSSIA ONLY)


There's also a half dozen companies scattered in Russia and China making x86 chips, w/ max speed of 400MHz, they are insignificant.
Posted By: flying-hamster

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/16 09:14 AM

AMD is currently offering a free game to owners of specific AMD GPUs and CPUs. All you have to do is visit AMD's website, run its verification tool, and select the free game of your choice.

Link

Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Dirt 3
Saints Row IV
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Guacamelee
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Napoleon - Total War
Sid Meier's Beyond Earth
DiRT Rally
Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack
DYAD
Space Run

everyone loves a free game

thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/16 12:18 PM

Originally Posted By: flying-hamster
AMD is currently offering a free game to owners of specific AMD GPUs and CPU,,,


I'm giving it a try based on my FX9590 (which was listed as a valid product). I downloaded their software which checked my system. At this point they say I have to wait 48 hours to be verified because their software says my system is unusual.

My system is "home made" (using AMD components). "Home made" may turn out to be an issue.

FWIW, I have successfully gotten a couple free games from AMD based on my GPU card purchases. If I get nothing this time, no big deal.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/16 03:20 PM

I've gotten a bunch on steam for having an AMD GPU installed,, (There was a list somewhere, if it detected Ati/AMD Driver it would say "Free")
also had a bunch from when I had my 8800GTS (nVidia).

Also received at least half a dozen from AMD Gaming Evolved App (Raptr), My brother has received a dozen+, since he plays pretty much all day every day and build up the Raptr Points like they are going outta style.

Seeing as I have an AMD CPU, CHipset, 2 AMD GPUs, AMD SSD, I should be good for something, I might put my AMD Radeon Ram Stick back in, lol.


I did get the same 48 hours thing,

Guessing they gonna look at the System Info File.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/16 04:49 PM

There are a lot of companies making old x86 chips for various applications, mine being one of them. smile

However, they don't develop them. They're simply producing old designs, sometimes with minor modifications, for various non-desktop computing needs. In other words, they don't count as competition.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/16 08:05 PM

Got excited about this since I buy exclusively AMD, but my hardware is far to old to be on the list of eligible components:

Phenom II X4 955
Radeon HD6950

Probably wouldn't be able to run most of those games anyway! I'll be upgrading the minute Polaris and Zen are on store shelves.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/16 03:43 PM

2 days is up, crickets...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/16 06:37 PM

DX12 MultiGPU demos are mesmerizing...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/16 03:28 PM

No emails from them, guess I dont qualify, lol.

Also. AMD Competes on more than 2 fronts.

They are trying to compete in OEM/Rebranded Memory and Storage.

Best Buy here sells the 4GB Sticks of AMD Radeon Memory.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/16 06:38 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
No emails from them, guess I dont qualify, lol...


When reading the "fine print" on the site, it seems we needed to purchase the item within the last couple months.

Also, when finally seeing the "free games" available for my product, I was not interested in any of them.

However, I've resubmitted my information -- just to be sure it doesn't work smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/16 02:21 AM

Quote:
Doom (2016) Alpha OpenGL Benchmarks Surface AMD Radeon and Nvidia Geforce Graphics Cards Put To The Test


Doom 2016 is OpenGL only (no DirectX). In that new game (not yet released) using a new game-engine, AMD outperforms Nvidia "measurably". Might not be "visibly" to normal eyes; but, in the right direction for an AMD fan.

Many AMD and Nvidia cards were tested.

Quote:
To begin with the 1080p benchmarks, all AMD high end offerings perform better than Nvidia counterparts. In fact the R9 290, R9 290X, Fury X and the Nano all perform better than similarly priced Geforce graphics cards. ..

It is a somewhat similar story for the Doom (2106) 4k benchmarks as well...


Article
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/16 02:49 PM

An alpha without driver optimization isn't much of a test. Especially when the only optimization done for the alpha was for the consoles, both of which have AMD GPUs, making them expected to run faster. A tie would've been damning.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/16 09:43 PM

Any DX12 engine that supports Asyncronous Processing / Compute, cleanly stomps nVidia.
Posted By: Gman45

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/16 10:11 PM

I was an AMD user back when they came out with that 233mhz CPU which was 33 mhz better than the 200mhz offering in other IBM/Intel machines back in the Janes 97 days. I also liked their 7970 and 7850 series of cards. Since then, the last few years have been pretty lacking, they don't even make Laptop performance video cards anymore.

Well, until now, they are shipping R9 400 series video cards to Lenovo now for laptops according to wccf tech, and their new Polaris cards and new CPUs coming ARE supposed to be competitive with nVidia. Enough to get me to switch or build an AMD system - who knows? But having a good option that is competitive with nVidia is a GREAT thing for all gamers and users IMO, they've started to punch back with the R9 and Fury cards, but nVidia is far from on the ropes. I have an investment in several high end Gsync monitors, so I'm sorta tied to nVidia due to that, but will gladly purchase a Freesync equivalent (they are cheaper than Gsync across the board too) if AMD proves that with the new Dx12 stuff they can run with the pack again.

Patiently waiting...
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/16 03:24 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Any DX12 engine that supports Asyncronous Processing / Compute, cleanly stomps nVidia.


Which is great for those engines, a list that is currently ridiculously short.

As no developer will deliberately make an engine that runs like crap on over 50% of the installed gamer base, it's not really a concern.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/16 12:33 PM

Polaris and Fury x2 Due out in June/July
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/16 04:48 PM

I hope June/July actually happens.

For a while now, some have been rumoring the initial Polaris release will be 3 cards. One of those will be a "flagship" super card, they rumor.

I want the "flagship" and am preparing psychologically to spend an amount equivalent to current "flagship" cards -- a lot of $$$.

Thing is, at least one site "read the tea leaves" (their "sources") and came up with an "astronomical" initial asking price ($$$$) for the "flagship". If true, that might make me wait some months for the price to fall. Hope not.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/16 06:40 PM

The Top End Polaris will not be AMDs flagship, the Fury x2 will, and likely $1K+

I'll prolly wait for Zen and new mobo before I do anything. 2x 7970 lightnings with a 3rd in 4x mode is hardly a bottleneck, Piledriver on the other hand is.


Once DX12 is mainstream Xfire will be pointless, DX12 MultiGPU is more efficient.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/16 03:48 AM

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-polaris-14nm-finfet,31338.html#xtor=RSS-100
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/16 07:50 PM

Yet another Zen CPU rumor published today:

Quote:
AMD Zen 8 core high enthusiast Summit Ridge CPUs are allegedly slated for an October release on the new AM4 socket. A source close to AMD claims that the eight core Summit Ridge CPU dies have taped out in January and are running through testing and validation right now...

The CPUs allegedly feature a 95W TDP and eight high performance Zen cores with multi-threading for a total of 16 threads. Zen is said to have extremely competitive single threaded performance, with more instructions per clock than Intels Broadwell and just a smidgen behind Skylake...



Note the use of the word "allegedly". We'll see what actually happens.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/14/16 03:31 AM

Maybe my Credit card will get paid down enough by then..lol

From what I understand, Zen Cores are perf9rming better than expected in the samples (ie better than 40% over excavator).

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/15/16 04:05 PM

Ahhh, the Goodies of Info coming outta GDC.... Need Zen and Polaris ASAP...
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/16 09:19 PM

Ditto, my system on already on it's 7th year. I had no idea a gaming machine could go so long without an upgrade, but it's finally outclassed.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/16 02:24 PM

Mine is on its 5th,

This past weekend had several crashes whcih I assumed were linked to GPUs.

As screen would have corruped desktop rendered etc,

BSODs were occuring whenever I was running a hardware accelerated Program (3Ds Max, Game Engines, Photoshop, MY MP3 software, etc)

Saturday Kernel dumped, didnt see the error code because I was on remote desktop,
Was unable to connect back, when I got home The system was in a BIOS halted stated with Debug beeps and LED Code reporting no VGA, lol I have 3 of them in there!

Saturday night, had a few more crashes, same thing Kernel dump, reboot start loading windows, then BIOS halt.

Sunday Same thing, Except the BIOS Halts were a mix of "No VGA" and "PCIe Device Error"

During this time every few boots my Xfi PCI card was also MIA. (Wierd Right?)

Wednesday Night I pulled the entire thing apart and cleaned, put back together, and booted, same result. Except the BSODs were now within 10 to 15 minutes of loading windows, regardless of activity.

Booted my Windows 10 insider install, same thing randomized quick crashes.

Finally Wednesday Night, the last crash and BIOS halt after reported Chipset Init. Error Code, Manual Says to Clear CMOS.

I tested with 1 GPU, and system still took a dump when using either of the 3.

No way all 3 GPUs go bad at the exact same time.

They all pass Furmark burn in with no problems.

So my system is sitting idle waiting for my day off to clear the bios and restore essential settings.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/16 06:11 PM

Wow, I'm not having nearly that much trouble, mostly poor frame rates.

Still, I get a few BSOD per week whereas before this would NEVER happen. I can't figure out how a once stable system using the same OS suddenly crashes. Maybe Windows Updates?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/16 06:30 PM

Im thinkin BIOS settings were messed up or the board is dying.

Cant find this board online anymore, And I wanted to keep it due to dual lan and layout.

I dont really want to drop 100 bucks for a new board when AM4 is just around the corner.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/16 04:38 PM

Zen will require Windows 10+
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/16 10:03 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...I dont really want to drop 100 bucks for a new board when AM4 is just around the corner.


I'm in same position with my wife's almost-ancient Phenom II 1100 machine with HD5870 graphics (it was my main system before she got it). It does all she needs. But, it has been "on" 16 to 24 hours a day for years. Now, every few days, it "hangs". I don't even want to take the time to look at it because its so close to "retirement". And, I'd hate to spend $50 to fix it.

I plan to buy a Zen and she gets my current FX CPU and HD GPU (below). Hope her machine holds out smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/16 02:43 PM

Im thinkin My issue was,
The First Crash I had last Saturday, somehow corrupted the bios or something,
And it dropped me to BIOS v 1.70P, which was from June 2012.

I know for a fact I updated the BIOS a few times since installing the board, as the first few months I had to manually enter timings for RAM

Later in 2012 I know I Updated BIOS to 1.90P which was from October 2012, and I was happy because it had AMP support among Windows 8 and some other Fixes.

So I didnt have to Manually Enter RAM Timings, It downloaded the XMP Profiles from the sticks.


This Sunday After a bunch of testing Pulling everything but the GPU, *(Pulled HDMI Recording Card, Sound Card, USB 3 Card, everything).

and more crashes w/ kernel dump code leading to memory, I Cleared CMOS, even though it re-tained the date/time for some reason.

I ran memtest on each stick individually for 8 passes, no errors.

Then downloaded the latest bios and flashed it to v2.00P from Jan 2014 (which I know I never had as the layout of the EUFI completely changed).

Went into BIOS, disabled stuff I dont use (Serial, On Board Sound, IEEE, etc etc, and switched HDD modes to ACHI).

Booted Windows, Installed new Drivers for HDDs, Rebooted again.


Right now She's been stable Since 5 PM Sunday w/ 2 memory sticks, 1 GPU and everything else pulled.

I worked on some photoshop last night, and w/ memory cut in half, it was slow saving Hi-Res DDS files.

Im gonna add back the other 2 sticks later this week, if problems persist then it's the slots,
and I'll just spend the money to upgrade to a 2 Stick Kit, and save all the DDR3 sticks for backups,

I think 64 GB is my Max for this board.

as once I upgrade to Zen, this system will still be running.

My brother's FX-8 Core is still stuck to his waterblock and likely broken
(water pump failed, chip super heated th. paste and hardened it, the chip cracked when we tried to use floss to cut the thermal paste),
He's running PhenomII x2 w/ FX Heatsink until I can get him another chip.

Was gonna give him mine, but might end up keeping it.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/29/16 06:20 PM

AMD Removing 32-Bit Driver Support.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/29/16 09:22 PM

That's interesting, should save them quite a few software cycles.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/30/16 03:30 PM

it was expected, nVidia will be doing the same soon.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/16 02:33 PM

Intel Pursuing License Agreement w/ Radeon Technologies Group for GPU Licenses.

So Intel HD might be replaced by Radeon Rx GPU Blocks,

Intel Also Said they Support FreeSync and GPUOpen.


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/16 09:32 AM

Quote:
AMD Radeon R9 490X and Radeon R9 490 With Polaris 10 GPU Rumored For Late June Release Paper Launch Expected at Computex

AMD might be planning to launch their first FinFET based products in June.. According to a rumor posted by the source, AMD will have two brand new products based on the GCN 4.0 architecture, the Radeon R9 490X and the Radeon R9 490...

Both graphics cards will be the first to feature the Polaris core that has been developed on the 14nm FinFET process from Global Foundries...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/16 05:27 PM

Crap, Ima need to take out a loan or activate a new CC, lol.

or get a 2nd handy Fury X cheap when peeps upgrade.

My R7970s w/ All MiniDP's are causing Havoc w/ Oculus Rift.

Dont remember off hand if these are HBM2 or GDDR5X

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/16 05:39 PM

Quote:
Polaris 10 is AMDs mid-range 14nm FinFET graphics chip, Polaris 11 is the smallest of the family and Vega 10 is the HBM2 powered high-end flagship 14nm GPU launching in 2017 to succeed the Fury lineup. It will feature AMDs next generation Vega architecture and will be the companys first GPU to feature second generation High Bandwidth Memory.


Same site as above. They claim this info is almost certainly correct -- though still unconfirmed.

Perhaps this means I will not be getting a card this year -- as I intend to wait for "the big one".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/16 06:33 PM

Likely the same, rather have the 40+% performance increase, newer chipset, Usb3.1, pci-e 3.0, DDR4 (meh), and NVMe Protocol for SSDs.

I know someone who had the same Xfire setup I did, and his FPS jumped considerably when he switched to a newer platform w/ the same GPU's.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/16 01:17 PM

Quote:
AMDs Radeon Duo Pro will be officially launching on the 26th of April 2016. The GPU houses two full-fledged Fiji GPUs with a total of 8196 stream processors and 8GB HBM (memory). The card prominently features LiquidVR which is AMDs purpose built platform for VR content. The dual-GPU monster has an MSRP of $1500 and will be landing at the end of April.

The Radeon Duo Pro, so far, holds the title of the most powerful graphics card...


This is not the next generation 14nm GPUs which are expected to begin arriving in late June or July.

This one is primarily aimed at Virtual Reality headsets. And the dual-GPU is optimized for that (you need one GPU per eye, ideally). But, its also a Crossfire setup for folks with multiple 2K or 4K monitor Eyefinity setups.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/16 09:09 PM

I thought that was a "pro" card, for Studio Rendering etc...
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/16 10:05 PM

That's what I thought too, Skate.

I can't wait for the Vega, my HD6950 just doesn't keep up anymore. frown So it's the Polaris ASAP, then I'll get Vega or Navi in a couple of years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/10/16 10:28 AM

My 4 year old 28nm HD7970s have 2048 stream processors each (4096 total). And, they still run everything the way I set up for games (default AMD Radeon Settings, "ultimate" in game-settings, highest resolution downloadable textures when available, 0AA). Usually, one card is enough (2048 stream processors).

I want at least 4096 stream processors on a single 14nm GPU. So, I may wait -- now that I know the 14nm "big one" is not due until 2017. I may follow SkateZilla's plan and upgrade my FX9590 CPU first (at the end of 2016 -- at black Friday prices, I hope smile ). Anyhow, I'll "play it by ear" as the cards are released and test reports come out.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/16 03:16 PM

Consumer Pascal will be GDDR5X as well.

HBM2 is still in short supply, therefore cost is high, so it will only appear on Pro/Studio Rendering Cards this summer.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/16 02:42 PM

What are the supposed gains of using HBM2 over GDDR5, and how much? Will it affect performance (FPS) as well, or only the amount of textures that can be loaded into memory? Not sure if this a dumbass question. wink
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/16 08:01 PM

Originally Posted By: BlueHeron
What are the supposed gains of using HBM2 over GDDR5, and how much? Will it affect performance (FPS) as well, or only the amount of textures that can be loaded into memory? Not sure if this a dumbass question. wink


HBM2 Memory is Stacked Directly Onto the GPU's Substrate Package.

HBM2
+Less Power,
+Easier to Cool,
+Smaller Memory Chip Footprint,
+1024-Bit Interface
+8GB Per Stack (GPU's Usually use 4 Stacks, so up to 32GB for HBM2)
+Faster Memory Lane's to GPU
-Higher Cost
-Lower Production Yield

GDDR5X
+Cheaper than HBM2
+Higher Production Yields
-More Voltage
-More Heat
-More PCB Space Used
-Slower and Longer Memory Lanes to GPU
-512-Bit Interface
-1 GB Per Chip Max


GDDR5X is Simply an Extension of GDDR5 to enable Extreme Clocks (10-12Gbps)(2500MHz - 3000MHz)

GDDR5X Total Bandwidth still doesnt even match the HBM1 Memory used on the AMD Fury GPU's
However HBM1 was limited to 4GB, Thus the Reason why AMD Chose to go w/ GDDR5X short term, Because 4GB isn't enough for some extreme Resolutions and VR Setups anymore. Next Gen Flagships will be 8, 12 or 16 GB.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/16 03:32 PM

AMD 400 Series Due out this Summer will be Polaris 10 and 11 and New Chips from top to bottom, No Rebrands.

Top tier will get GDDR5x, Bottom Tier GDDR5.

HBM2 Due Out Next year, followed by NGM1 in 2018.

Depending on specs and Price, even sans HBM2, a 480/490X might be my target once prices come down, and in 2 Ywars jump to the NGM Cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/16 10:01 AM

A visual depiction of where things are rumored to be headed:

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/16 02:25 PM

Cats outta the bag finally:
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/227...-chinese-market

AMD Might be catching up sooner than people think with Zen Family,
Intel has announced they wil "Scale Back Desktop Processor Development Significantly", And aim more for mobile market.

AMD also has new Deals with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft ( For Polaris Products, separate contracts from the XBO/PS4/NX agreements ).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/23/16 08:40 PM

Worth the Watch, Definitely


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/16 09:29 AM

Just another statement confirming that AMD Polaris 10 based cards are the "flagship" products, this year. Presumably, they're out in June/July. Nvidia seems to be targeting the same time-frame for their new flagship, from what I've read (but, I don't follow Nvidia closely).


Quote:
The AMD Polaris 10 GPU is known to be the flagship chip based on the GCN 4.0 architecture. The Polaris 10 will remain the flagship until Vega arrives which is launching in 2017. .. Polaris 10 sounds like a replacement to the Fury X but in fact, it is replacing the mainstream lineup.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/16 03:27 PM

Polaris Replaces R9-390X and Below, Fury will remain in production.
All the Tahiti Rebrands and Hawaii Rebrands will discontinue production.

Navi is where it's at though.

NGM, Scalable GPU, Instead of one BIG EXPENSIVE CHIP that will have low Yields per wafer,
They will put 4 smaller Chips on a Single Interposer w/ NGM. As far as the PC is Concerned it's one GPU, when it's really 4.

So Top End w/ Be 4, Mid will be 3, Mainstream 2, Entry 1.

The videos above describe perfectly why this will save Money left and right.

nVidia's New Monster Chip, is selling for $5000, because they only get so many good ones per/wafer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/16 07:48 PM

Finally had the time to watch the videos. Thanks for posting them.

The presenter's "speculation" regarding the future of AMD, Nvidia, and Intel sounds quite thoughtful and believable. As a fan, it was fun to watch/listen to a positive evaluation of AMD's possible near-future.

Conclusion: Bye bye, Nvidia (well, maybe) wink

Anyhow, at first blush, it sounds like I should plan on a Polaris 10 sooner than later. Then, I can anxiously look forward to the Navi as the card to follow my Polaris 10 -- and hope Navi becomes what the presenter "speculated" it would be.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/27/16 02:40 PM

I might have to bite the bullet and upgrade my GPU First,

None of my Lightnings work w/ VR Headsets (no HDMI, all MiniDP and Single Link DVI).

Tried 4 Different MiniDP-> HDMI Adapters, 1.4 Active, 1.4 Passive, 2.0 Active, etc,

None worked 100%,

So I've resorted to downgrading my GPU's to the 7870XT Backup (7930), as I gave my 7950 OC to my brother.

Seems I can Get a 4 GB R9-380X for lil over $200, and I expect that to drop a bit when 400 Series Launches,

So I might see the 400 Series Prices as well.

But I need more than 1536 Sh and 2GB of Ram to Run VR. lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/02/16 11:49 AM

Quote:
AMD's desktop and notebook midrange Polaris GPU lineups are expected to be announced during or soon after Computex 2016 in Taiwan (May 31st - June 4th) early this summer.


Hopefully, a single highest end Polaris 10 will be nearly as fast as my 2x HD7970 Crossfire. That would be enough incentive to buy a new card at around $350 (the rumored price range). But, rumors are rumors. Maybe we'll see some facts at the end of this month.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/02/16 03:14 PM

Ditto,

Replace the Xfired Lightnings, Keep them preserved, When I build a new system, put lightnings back in the old one and use that one for studio rendering, and the new rig for gaming smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 02:36 AM

GTX1080 Priced at $599, Titan Crushing Performance, half the TDP.

Big Beefy Chip, they gotta be selling them at a loss to try and maintain market share.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 06:33 AM

1080 it is for me........just waiting for the conversion but no doubt it will be 699 as we usually get ripped off.
Posted By: flying-hamster

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 08:44 AM

From there press release:

At a special event today, Nvidia announced their new flagship graphics card: the GeForce GTX 1080. The card uses a new Pascal GPU built on a 16nm FinFET process, as well as GDDR5X memory from Micron. Nvidia says they spent several billions of dollars developing Pascal, and the result is a massive GPU capable of powering today and tomorrow's games at ultra quality settings. It's also energy efficient thanks to improvements in the way Nvidia delivers power to the GPU, making Pascal the company's most efficient architecture yet.

According to Nvidia, the GTX 1080 is "a whole lot" faster than the Titan X, and faster than two GTX 980s in SLI, while consuming a lot less power. The chart below sees the GTX 1080 consume around 180W of power, compared to the 165W TDP of the GTX 980, with performance around 30% faster than the Titan X. An on-stage demo of the GTX 1080 had the card's core running at 2.1 GHz air cooled, with a temperature of less than 70C. While these aren't the stock clock speeds for the 1080, it shows just how overclocking friendly this card will be. The stock clock speeds for the GTX 1080 are 1607 MHz with a boost of 1733 MHz, on 2,560 CUDA cores. This suggests the card is using a GP104 core rather than the full GP100 GPU used on the Tesla P100, which comes partially-disabled with 3,584 CUDA cores.

The GTX 1080 will retail for $599 in its basic edition, and $699 for "Founder's Edition", although it's not completely clear what benefits the Founder's Edition will bring. The card will be available worldwide from May 27th. There will also be a GTX 1070 available for $379 ($449 for the Founder's Edition), which Nvidia says is faster than a GTX Titan X, packing 6.5 TFLOPs of performance and 8 GB of GDDR5 memory. The GTX 1070 will be available from June 10th.
GTX1080

Over to you AMD,intersting the stats on Nvida's website are against the 980 not the 980ti or titan and the recomended power supply is only 500 watts!!?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 09:47 AM

Competition is good -- increases options and decreases prices smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 11:02 AM

By the way, it will be interesting to compare AMDs 14nm manufacturing process "performance" to Nvidia's 16nm manufacturing process.

Until the actual comparison-test reports come in, we can't say which is better. There are rumors -- but they are rumors.

Nonetheless, "on paper", AMD 14nm should have a "measurable" performance advantage -- in FPS and/or power use. They should also cost less per chip at a given performance level.

Thing is, AMD is said to be aiming at "very low power requirements" and "low price" with the first Polaris cards (versus highest possible FPS). Nvidia may have emphasized something else. So, we won't know anything for sure until both AMD 14nm and Nvidia 16nm cards are on the market and tested on a spectrum of different games.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 12:49 PM

A few interesting features on the Pascal cards for VR too
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/16 02:49 PM

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/10series/geforce-gtx-1080

1 Power Connector :-O
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/16 10:47 AM

Quote:
Nvidias latest GeForce flagship gaming card, the GTX 1080, is already in the hands of reviewers as Nvidia begins seeding evaluation samples to the press who will be putting the companys latest product through its paces ahead of the cards May 27th launch date.

Reviews will go live on May 17th.


The Nvidia "1080" is anticipated to be a $600 card and the 1070 closer to $500. The May 27 launch is for a $700 card. Previous rumors indicated Nvidia production was behind AMD. So, the first cards out may be in "short supply" -- almost a "paper launch" (Nvidia has done this before -- we'll see how it turns out this time).

Recent AMD Polaris 10 rumors imply AMD will first release a $299 to $350 product. AMD's rationale is rumored to be that the vast majority of Gamers won't spend much more than $300 for a card (although, SimHq members might be exceptions to that rule smile ).

Anyhow, the new AMD marketing plan is rumored to be "high sales volume" (with excellent performance) versus Nvidia's "fastest card on the market" (that few will actually buy because of the high price). Nontheless, the Nvidia strategy does keep Nvidia in the "public eye" -- which has great impact on sales volume overall.

Hopefully, AMD will keep the "late May to early July" time frame that they are rumored to be targeting.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/16 02:20 PM

AMD is seeing the bigger picture,

nVidia is still living in the 2002 market.
PC Sales are Struggling w/ Mobile Devices taking over, Gaming PC's of the $2000+ Variety are losing out to Consoles, etc etc.

The only way to bring customers back to PC Gaming is to give them cheaper hardware.

nVidia's Full PASCAL GPU is selling for $5000,

1080 is about 1/2 of the Full GPU at $500
1070 slightly less

nVidia's GPU's are Huge, they get less per wafer and even less yields due to defects,

Almost guaranteed they are selling the 1000 series at a loss, they dont want to lose their 80% Discrete Marketshare.

AMD is Fabricating smaller GPU's, while they wont have a Fastest in the world this round, they will have more GPU's per wafer and more complete GPU's yielded.

Next Gen (Navi), will be scalable via interposer (2/3/4 GPU's on the Interposer w/ HBM2. As Far as System and DX12 is concerned it's one GPU, when it's really in fact multiple.

Crossfire and SLi will likely be dead in 2 years, there's no point when DX12+ Supports Explicit Multi GPU, and Vulkan will have it's own version of the same tech.


The Bigger Picture?
Discrete GPU's are 15% of the Total GPU Market Share right now, w/ Consoles Taking up 75% (65% Current 10% past)

AMD owns about 78% of the Total Market share via owning 100% of the Consoles, part of past consoles, and 100% of the 3 next gen consoles.

Developers, Who have relied on nVidia Pro Cards to develop on, will start shifting their Studios to AMD Pro/Sumer Cards,
NO Point developing on nVidia Architecture when 80+% of the Market will be running on GCN1.1, 1.2 and 1.3.

No there's the "Port to PC" Market, The Games will be coded to be efficient on GCN as the consoles run them, no one is gonna fork out $600+ FOR A gpu when a Entry/Mid Level $260 and Below GPU can Run the Games at 1080p/60fps which is still the standard.

Their 80% PC Marketshare is about to take a nose dive.
They cant afford to turn people away w/ another $1499 Card that will be replaced by a faster cheaper one a few months layer (Titan/x80Ti's).

Now PC GPU Market Share is about 15%,
Multiple GPU's is about 2% of that, if not Less.
4K and VR are still a small % of that 15% as well.
XFire / SLi is a hassle to code for, developers would rather not deal with it at all. the amount of XFire/SLi Supported titles being released drops like a rock every quarter.

Further proof SLi is dead, a majority of the new "GameWorks ready Effects/Engines" in nVidia's GameWorks SDK do not support SLi, but will work fine w/ DX12 EMA.

Even when Navi/Scalable GPU's Launch, the GPU Die's themselves will be cheaper to manufacture and they will get more per wafer, so a 2 GPU Die on a Single Interposer Card would cost significantly less than a card w/ a GPU that has 1.5-2.5x the die size.


Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/16 07:49 PM

I'll just say this--market share is irrelevant when a majority of your products are sold at low margins.

My company, which is a semiconductor company that sells chips to many of the big companies out there, including Intel, GM, and others I'm not allowed to name, recently dumped manufacturing many high-profile yet low-margin chips for them. I believe one was for the Xbox, actually.
If you need to make 500,000 chips that cost you 75 cents, that you only sell for $1, but have yield issues such that you're only making $50,000 profit on that order...why bother? Using that manufacturing capacity (which is finite) to make smaller numbers of higher margin chips just makes sense.

Having large market share for name recognition is not more meaningful than having the fastest card for name recognition. Larger profits are.

It's a simple investor fact--if you're selling a small number of chips at a large profit margin, well you can sell more to increase profits. That looks good. If you're selling a large number at a small margin, well you're not going to be able to increase the price...so you have to sell even MORE chips which becomes harder and harder to do as numbers increase. That looks iffy.

It looks to me like you're trying to spin things as positive or negative because you want them to be so, not because there's any real truth to it. Intel and nvidia aren't worried, and AMD isn't feeling like they're about to crush the competition.

Simply put AMD is trying to fight a two front war, when none of its competitors are, whilst having the least amount of resources. nvidia went whole-hog into discrete and mobile, never cared about CPUs. Intel went with CPUs and mobile, never really cared about discrete although they've done some integrated. AMD's mobile side isn't as strong as either of the others as they tried to do the CPU/GPU/APU thing. Intel and nvidia really only compete with AMD, not each other.

AMD's purchase of ATI was a gamble that might have paid off if they'd come out with great APUs within a year or two of the acquisition. They took too long, WAY too long, and the market has changed away from PCs and consoles to the point where the area they're strongest in is now the weakest part of the market-. It's like declaring in 2016 you have the best mounted cavalry division in the world. Great, if it was 150 years ago, but how does that help against mechanized infantry and air support?

IMO AMD needs to bite the bullet and redivide into the old AMD/ATI again so they can focus their efforts correctly. ATI might be able to best nvidia, but AMD/ATI never will because they're worried about Intel. AMD might beat Intel, but AMD/ATI never will because they're worried about nvidia. They're unwilling or unable to ignore one and focus on the other.
If AMD's lackluster showings weren't obvious, all you need to do is look at the evolutionary, not revolutionary, products nvidia and Intel have been shipping the past few years. I went from an i7-2600k to a Skylake and saw modest improvements only...because Intel doesn't need to push it. Likewise my 770 to 970 jump helped things but not in any jaw-dropping way...because nvidia doesn't need to push it.

It's been years since I bought an AMD CPU or GPU because they've not had the best performance in the price range I look at of roughly $350 each for my lone PC. There was a time when I had an FX and a Radeon, but W was president.
Like HP's purchase of Compaq, or 3dFX of STB, the ATI buy was a strategic error that has had lasting effects.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/16 08:39 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
...It looks to me like you're trying to spin things as positive or negative because you want them to be so, not because there's any real truth to it. Intel and nvidia aren't worried, and AMD isn't feeling like they're about to crush the competition...


Good analysis of "price, volume, profit".

Its cool to have some positive things to say about AMD -- to an AMD fan smile

And, we fans would sure like things to get better businesswise for AMD because:

Competition is Good and AMD is the only realistic competition for Intel and Nvidia (I'd hate to think how slow CPU and GPU progress would be and how much things could cost without competition).

However, we're not trying to "spin". Spin is a form of lying.

Rather, we're simply regurgitating rumors regarding AMD -- and hoping they're true "this time". They've been in error in the past. So, as usual, we hope and wait for the test reports and the financial statements.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/16 11:23 AM

Since we've provided some Nvidia info in this AMD thread, here's a bit more to clarify Nvidia's new-era 16nm products that AMD new-era 14nm products will be competing against:

Quote:
[Nvidia] Founders Edition means "reference clockspeeds with an upgraded heatsink"

With the launch of Nvidias Geforce Pascal lineup this week beginning with Geforce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 .. [what are the] actual differences between Nvidias reference card designs and the alternative Founders Edition models that will cost an extra $70 and $100, respectively.

..According to journalists briefed on the matter, the basic idea here is that Nvidia is replacing the word reference card with the term Founders Edition .. its new Founders Edition units will feature some upgraded heatsink and cooling technology ...



And another AMD rumor similar to previous ones,

Quote:
...26th 29th May. AMD will be officially announcing their next-gen Polaris based graphics cards. These will include products based on both Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 chips. Its not surprising that AMD is hosting this event just a few days after the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 will be available to public. It is not confirmed whether AMD will paper launch their graphics cards at this date but knowing that the NVIDIA cards will already be out in the market, AMD will definitely [it is speculated] be aiming for a full retail launch...

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/16 02:30 PM

I dont think R9-480X is gonna be double my R7970.

But if they Have the same power consumption drop as nVidia, I'll be glad w/ 1 GFX Card taking up a Single 6 or 8 Pin Connector. smile

Less heat the better.

w/ DX12 Explicit Multi-Adapter, XFire and SLi is dead from DX12 Onward. (Vulkan uses Similar Underlying tech).

Also helps as AMD as I said before can slap 2,4,,6 or however many GPU's on a Interposer and DX12 will pool them into ONE GPU, and not have to worry about XFire Drivers/Profiles.

So DX12 Sees One GPU Pooled, But Each GPU will have it's own resources on die (Compute Engines, Command Processors, Schedulers etc).

4 Schedulers, Compute Engines and Command Processors Maintaining 1500SP's each is better than 1 Scheduler/Command Processor/Compute Engine trying to drive 6000SP's by itself.

Especially in Multiple Viewport Renderers (ie VR), and Engines that allow Unlinked Explicit Multi-Adapter.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/16 01:50 PM

AMD has moved the VEGA10/HBM2 launch up.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/16 08:43 PM

Link?
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/16 08:53 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen


However, we're not trying to "spin". Spin is a form of lying.

Rather, we're simply regurgitating rumors regarding AMD -- and hoping they're true "this time". They've been in error in the past. So, as usual, we hope and wait for the test reports and the financial statements.


I would also classify spin as drawing a positive conclusion from facts and rumors that could also easily lead to a negative conclusion, but choosing to go with positive.

For example - fact: politician accused of scandal. Not proven, just an accusation that went public.

Positive spin would be people rushing to their defense, giving character testimonials, positing conspiracy to stain record to hamper their effectiveness, etc. No lies, just refusing to believe the scandal is true and that it's an attempt to hinder them, innocent till proven guilty with irrefutable proof.
Negative spin would be expressing sadness/outrage/shock that said politician could do such a thing, speculating on the likelihood of a resignation and the timing (hinting that sooner is better), casting aspersions on those who are defending the accused as being complicit, etc. No lies, just instantly believing the worst of them, guilty till proven innocent with irrefutable proof that it was a lie to begin with.

You could say that because AMD's new product X is Y% percent better they're going to dominate the product cycle as its competitors scramble to catch up, or you could say that despite the improvements in the technology on paper, AMD has a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and that they need a miracle to have a result that does more than just perpetuate the status quo.
Both based on the facts/rumors of the new product, but very different perspectives of what it means for the company and its customers.

That's what I mean by spin--putting a rosy face on the worst news or dumping cold water on the best news.

I don't have an opinion on the rumor one way or another, I just think based on recent history it's expecting more from AMD than they've proved they're likely to deliver. They've certainly done it in the past, but that past is getting more and more distant and investors want to see a victory today or tomorrow. It's the perils of being a publicly traded company in the 21st century. Even the mighty Apple is showing cracks to its investors.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/16 03:37 AM

No More Tahiti and Hawaii Re-Brands.

Polaris 10/11 will cover R9-490X all the way down, no mo GCN 1.0, 1.1, GCN1.2 Rebrands

Everything will be 14nm FinFET GCN1.3 w/ DP1.3 and HDMI2.0a and GDDR5X.

Fury/FuryX will continue to be the Top GPU for the "Enthusiast market", (At Least until Vega10 and HBM2 are ready in 2017ish(Now October 2016))
Though it might get a design update a lil to compete w/ the 1070/1080s (Lower Price, Higher Clock Rates, etc.)
But it will be the same GPU as before.
Clock increase and $75 Price Drop would keep it competitive w/ 1070/80. as it's about 10% behind now in DX12 (AOS Bench), That's 3 FPS at 30, 6 FPS at 60, 9 FPS at 90, 12 FPS at 120, 14 FPS at 144 Hz, easily overcome by slight overclock.
Negligible to the Human Eye.

Looking at the Scope of things, AMD Can Get away w/ it easily.

Polaris is a small Die compared to Hawaii XT and Fiji, kepler and Pascal...

Let me put it this way:
-Full 16nm Pascal Die 610mm^2 ( GP100 - 3584 Cuda Cores)
(This Full Pascal GPU is Retailing for $5000 in Pro Market, will launch later for gamer consumer market w/ 16GB max HBM2)
-Full 16nm Pascal Die 436 (est.) mm^2 (GP104 - 2560 Cuda Cores)
(This is the GPU used in GTX1080 and Laser Cut for GTX1070)

-Full 28nm Fiji Die 596mm^2
-Full 28nm HawaiiXT Die is 438mm^2
-Full 28nm TahitiXT Die is 352mm^2
-Full 14nm FinFET Polaris is 232mm^2
(This would put it about 3000ish SPs, Slightly Higher than Hawaii, and AMD has been touting 2.5x Density, so it maybe more than that if 232mm^2 = 580mm^2 density (3700ish SPs)

Alas we'll find out in a couple weeks..

Now,
The Bigger the GPU Die, the less you can put on a wafer, and lower the yields from said wafer due to defects in the manufacturing process and wafers.

The Smaller the GPU Die, the more you can fit on a wafer, and higher yields from said wafer.

ie,
if you can put 4 GPU Dies on a wafer, and the wafer has 1 defect, you lose 25% of the wafer and 1 GPU, left w/ 3 Viable Samples.
if you can put 8 GPU Dies on a wafer, and the wafer has 1 defect, you lose 12% of the wafer and 1 GPU, Left w/ 7 viable Samples.


So in conclusion:
Big GPU Dies Fit Less per Wafer and Produce Lower yields Per wafer, forcing price to skyrocket to pay for manufacturing costs (nVidia and AMD Both Pay for the wafers)

Small GPU Dies fit more per wafer and produce Higher yields per wafer, allowing price to stay lower and sell more units per wafer.

now, Add abotu 2 years to this Equation w/ DX12 and Vulkan Both using Low Level GPU Pooling (explicit multi adapter mode etc).

Add Interposers to the GPU Design, and Suddenly 2 to 4+ GPU Die's Per Substrate Package is more powerful and cheaper than one large chip of competing size.

ie:
4 Schedulers, 4 Compute Engines and 4 Command Processors Maintaining 1500SP's each (6000 Total)
Would Perform better than 1 Scheduler/Command Processor/Compute Engine trying to drive 6000SP's by itself.
Especially in Multiple Viewport Renderers (ie VR)

And Cost Significantly Less to manufacture.


This is where Navi takes over, One Small GPU DIE Design, that is Linked w/ Multiple Dies on the Interposer to Form High Performance GFX Cards.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/16 06:27 PM

I don't buy into the rumors too much, the only thing that sways me is when Nvidia and AMD have products in reviewers hands that can be compared, I buy my GPUs based on bang for buck for the types of games I play, no loyalty at all...

I think AMD moving up their launch date is reaction to NVidia's release dates for the 1000 cards. Hope both of them have strong products so that we consumers have a good choice, and also so prices are competitive, in the current gen there hasn't been very equal competition, and the price for the same GTX 970 I have has stayed roughly the same since I bought it 18months ago...

GPU prices have been flat and high for too long:
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/16 07:15 PM

Quote:
...the only thing that sways me is when Nvidia and AMD have products in reviewers hands that can be compared, I buy my GPUs based on bang for buck for the types of games I play, no loyalty at all...



Agree. We fans have learned that rumors are rumors -- only cold hard data and cold hard prices are fact.

No loyalty and basing procurements on objective facts is, needless to say, a sensible, commendable stance. thumbsup

As fans, some of us have loyalty to certain companies -- in that we want to see them succeed. For some of us, those feelings are not based on performance or stock prices. Rather based on the actions of certain companies over the decades we've been following the IT business. Some companies have left a "good taste" and some have left a "bad taste" based on their business practices. But, much of this is "old news" -- so, I'll leave it at that.

AMD has not been infallible. Some products are quite good (particularly graphics cards) and cost effective but to an extent that has been overshadowed by a nearly fatal error. To me, the genuine mistake was the deliberate design direction they took with the "Bulldozer" CPU (which has spawned the current FX CPUs and CPU parts of AMD APUs). The direction they took was a "dead end" -- and they should have known that -- heck, even I knew that when they did it.

The upcoming Zen CPUs (this Fall??) are set to totally erase that CPU error -- according to the rumors. Intel may remain slightly in the lead, but not by enough to worry about -- according to the rumors smile

And, a couple years from now, the AMD GPU design is set to be a "game changer" -- according to the rumors. I won't be surprised if Nvidia matches it smile

Now, if only AMD The Company can stay in business that long.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/16 08:01 PM

I've already seen Polaris 10 and 11 in action... I just havent seen exact Core Counts and TFLOP Data.

Unless you game at 120Hz and/or 4K, R9-480/490 (top End Polaris 10 GPUs) will be enough.


As for the Construction Cores/Modules....
Where to begin, the approach might have looked good in theory/on paper,
But it was plagued by Poor Design Decisions (using Parts of old Architectures instead of designing new ones, Internal Fabrication issues set it back 16 months, which set it back even further on the performance gap, the long delay in deciding to abort the architecture and start from scratch.)

Jim Keller came in and told the design team to throw away everything and not to look at old architectures, build every part of the die from the ground up.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/16 08:08 PM

nVidia as of right now stated they have no plans of making small GPU Dies a Priority, they enjoy cramming large dies on their wafers only to throw a bunch of them away to fabrication defects.

Hence the $5000 Price tag of GP100, they simply have no yields w/ the 610+mm^2 Die, they cant even sell it to consumer market because there arent enough working samples, and the cost of the working samples.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 12:06 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...Hence the $5000 Price tag of GP100, they simply have no yields w/ the 610+mm^2 Die, .. there arent enough working samples, and the cost of the working samples.



Nvidia went that path once before (a few years back), as I remember it. They only managed a couple thousand GPUs that worked. They sold them to the public at a loss -- so they could continue to advertise that "Nvidia was the fastest".

Of course, lately they've been doing well.

Meantime, AMD said years ago, they would make fast cards. However, it was pointless to compete for the "fastest card on the market" with Nvidia because Nvidia would "do whatever necessary and spend whatever necessary" to produce the fastest card and win. "Fastest" has always been the "bedrock" of Nvidia GPU brand recognition. If Nvidia's fastest card isn't the fastest made, they really screwed up (or AMD did really good).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 02:28 PM

The Mis-Conception w/ the Internet is the The Pro Duo wasn't meant to be a FuryX2.

It's not gonna get performance of a Fury x2.

It's a ProSumer Hybrid Card, deisgned to both do Content Creation and Gaming.

I still get tons of Support Emails/Messages asking why their "$4000 nVidia GPU sucks in games".,
From People that don't realize there are Differences in the Gaming and Professional/WorkstationCards, and Their Drivers.

The Pro Duo Uses Dual Fiji GPU's but also has Workstation Components as well as Gaming Components.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 03:06 PM

Some "Leaked" Specs showing up on Twitter this morning, though they counter info I have.

But:
R9-490X / Polaris 10 Die
32 Compute Units / 64 SP Per / 2048 SP
140w TDP / Single Power Connector
8 GB GDDR5x @ 17500MHz x 4 on 256-Bit Interface
5.6TFLOPs
HDMI 2.0a, MiniDP 1.3

Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 03:22 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Some "Leaked" Specs showing up on Twitter this morning, though they counter info I have.

But:
R9-490X / Polaris 10 Die
32 Compute Units / 64 SP Per / 2048 SP
140w TDP / Single Power Connector
8 GB GDDR5x @ 1400MHz x 5 on 256-Bit Interface
5.6TFLOPs
HDMI 2.0a, MiniDP 1.3



How can the bandwidth be so low...spec wise it isn't a million miles away from the GTX 1080
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 04:02 PM

Bandwidth?
Both are on 256-Bit Bus.
2500MHz x4 for 10Gbps isnt really needed for the type of Gaming the Polaris 10 GPUs are designed for.

That being said, nVidia bumps clocks up like crazy all the time, their GPU's are practically gonna be hitting 2GHz on AIB Products.

Gotta question What's the benefit in cranking from 7GHz to 10GHz? Other than Power Consumption and maybe 10-15%

.


Also, My Mistake, the AMD GDDR5X Runs at 1750MHz x4 , hit "5" instead of "4".

My info actually says Polaris 10 will have more than 2048 SP, and more than 7Gbps GDDR5X Memory.

But the "Leaked" Specs floating around today are no where near the ones I have from more reliable sources.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 07:13 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...My info actually says Polaris 10 will have more than 2048 SP...


Hope that's accurate. I imagine it will need roughly 2800 SP and roughly 50 percent higher clocks than the 28nm cards to be the card I want. We'll see. Good to have an AMD "insider" posting here smile

Ideally, I'm looking for something roughly "twice" the performance of one of my current 4 year old 28nm cards. If I could get that for the rumored price, its a done deal. I don't really care how they multiply Stream Processor count and clock rate to get that 2X performance. However, I know that will not translate to every game being 2X FPS (for example, a few older games are more CPU limited and may show little or no increase).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/16 08:01 PM

Anything higher ^2800 is likely gonna be the Vega 10s.

But the Polaris 10 Full Die is supposed to replace the Hawaii GPU's, while only Needing Single 8 Pin Connector.

2300 maybe...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/16 11:51 AM

A couple things:

First note:

I just ran 3D Mark FireStrike Extreme on my system (the correct Firestrike for a 2K monitor). My system is not overclocked. Firestrike Extreme was visibly smooth.

Performance of my Crossfired HD7970s was just above AMD R9Fury and about 10 percent below Nvidia GeForce GTX1080 (presumed, leaked Nvidia performance was published).

Its hard to see paying a lot for 10 percent -- which is "measurable" by 3DMark but "invisible" to the "naked eye". Of course, the new cards would be faster than mine in SLI or CrossFire; but, for my use, the point of the new cards is to do away with CrossFire (Crossfire and SLI are said to be -- on the way out).

Lots of folks have a pair of HD7970s. Apparently, they're "old", but not yet "bad" -- according to 3DMark Firestrike.


On a second note:

I noted above that Nvidia will take a loss to win.

In a rumor just published (less than an hour ago at this writing) the author notes that Nvidia is rumored to have just won a contract with Nintendo for a hand held console (up to now, AMD has won all the new consoles). The article says:

Quote:
...the Nintendo NX handheld will be using Nvidia Tegra-based SoC. Apparently, the Nvidia team was told to get a console win no matter what, and Nintendo supposedly got a very favorable deal, so favorable that .. According to one source, Nvidia may even be taking a loss on this deal. ..


The truth remains to be seen. But, it is interesting to me to read this so soon after my comment above.

Article

After this month, presumably we will no longer need "rumors". We'll have some facts on both Nvidia and AMD new-era parts. Nvidia's test reports are officially due out on May 17 -- just 3 days smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/16 03:38 PM

if true, wont mean diddly, but I doubt it's true.

2 Sources reported it, 1 said they "Assumed and were sitting on the story until someone else came out with it".

OK, so where's the proof? lol.

Contracts would have surely been signed by now, with pre production units about to be revealed in less than a few months.

Then again, w/ nVidia's ARM Division in the toilet.... I wouldnt be surprised if it were true.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/16 06:24 PM

Quote:
We are beginning to sense AMDs cunning plan
Marketing might not be as daft as we thought

AMDs Polaris strategy is becoming a bit clearer and even if we thought that the fabless chipmaker might have dropped the ball a bit, it's cunning plan is starting to make sense.

..AMD could take roughly 7 per cent of Nvidias sales in a single quarter, by releasing a graphics card in a price segment that Nvidia had nothing.

Now Nvidia is going to be focusing on the high-end first and will not release anything for the performance for the mid-range for ages. But AMD will have its Polaris there and ready .. about six months ahead of Nvidia ..

Then when AMD releases its flagship graphics card based on the HBM2 powered Vega 10 GPU, .. it will arrive with a spec which is better than the GTX 1080 and is meant to go toe-to-toe with a possible GTX 1080 Ti or Titan X successor.

Good for AMD but means that prices will be higher because AMD does not have to undercut Nvidia.


Just another rumor article that looks on the "bright side". Time and financial reports will tell. smile

Article

Nvidia's official 1080/1070 test reports are due tomorrow.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/16 08:03 PM

AMD's Low/Mid Tier Polaris Cards can Run 1080p w/o extra Power Connectors :-O
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/16 01:13 PM

I wonder how well nVidia locking out 3/4 way SLi is gonna go over with the community, lol.
(Can unlock w/ a Key from nVidia, but they will not support it in drivers)

3 reviews read, same underlying tone, NV is shooting the industry standards the finger and developing their own proprietary tech.

Did they inherit 3Dfx's decision making stupidity?

- Baseline support for Asyncronous Shaders / DX12, But they Developed their own GameWorks/nVidia Version (Dynamic Load Balancing)
- Baseline support for DX12 EMA, While they continue to try and push SLi, even after neutering it.
- No Support for Adaptive Sync at all (Despite Hardware Capable of Supporting it)

How Many Studios still use Game Works?, lol.

The Limit of 2 Cards is a Band Aid slapped on the cards because the SLi Bridge doesnt have the bandwidth to send the 4K/90Hz images fast enough.
All this R&D to Make Beefy GPU's they completely forgot about the other parts of the technology... lol,
AMD doesn't have this problem as they use xDMA.

My judgement is based on business and development decisions, as previously posted about (Large Die Chips, etc, and now lack of Industry Standard while cramming their Proprietary Features down consumers throats.)
Which is What eventually Doomed 3DFx. Who had unmatched 3d Performance in the 90s and Alienated themselves from OEMs while Cramming Proprietary technologies into their GPUs, and eventually being spanked by both ATi and nVidia.

Anyone who witnessed the downfall of 3DFx Interactive can match the same dumb decisions being made by nVidia to them.

A. Shifting to "Pure Performance Only" (Voodoo 4/5 was supposed to be pure performance and was beat by GF256), Couldnt Compete with Entry Level Price Points.
B. Shifting Production to Retail Performance Cards only, Removing OEMs, Forcing OEMs to Buy from nVidia, 3DFx Loses Income from OEMs which was previously their major source of revenue.
(nVidia Shifted to High Performance GPUs and Alienated Consoles, which make of up 75% of the Market, and that 75% now belongs to AMD)
C. Started Ignoring Industry Standard and MS DirectX (When they announced they'd only support OpenGL or Glide), nVidia is doing the same w/ Basic Implementation of DX12 Features, while the more advanced features are part of the GameWorks API

Lets see what happens when they convert a console port to a GameWorks DX12 Title... and hopefully it doesnt completely botch like other titles the last 2 years have.


Im not gonna wave I told ya so's in anyone's face,
But I can almost guarantee a few months after the 1080s are out, everyone that spent $600+ on Reference or AIB Partner Cards are gonna go donkey kong when they finally have enough laser cut GP100 Chips to sell 1080Ti's for $700 - $1000 w/ nearly 80% more performance over the GP104 Chips.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/16 06:50 PM

I started with 3DFx -- I remember them as $300 cards all those years ago -- with less than 1/100th the performance (or is it 1/1000th) of modern cards. Have even saved my original cards. I was saddened to see 3DFx throw it away apparently due to arrogance and, evidently, a lack of business acumen and/or common sense.

I've read some of the Nvidia test reports -- similar to the leaked results published recently. Now, I await AMD's first 14nm product reports.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/16 10:38 AM

Quote:
Figures from Mercury Research show that AMD appears to be clawing back some market share..

Of course market share does not mean profits..

Mercury Researchs latest GPU market report, show that in the first quarter overall graphics unit volumes declined by 10.2 per cent in comparison to last year. However AMD gained discrete GPU market share..

The findings confirm what Wells Fargo analyst David Wong said earlier this week..

This suggests that what Nvidia has lost has been gained by AMD...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 03:35 PM

Quote:
AMD has revealed that Zen will have double the performance of the FX 8350 and will trade blows with Intels eight core i7 5960X Extreme Edition. ..

AMDs Zen 8 core enthusiast class Summit Ridge CPUs are reportedly slated for an October launch on the companys brand new AM4 socket based desktop platform. These next generation FX CPUs will include eight and six core configurations. Which will deliver double the performance core for core of AMDs current desktop FX 8300 and 6300 series lineup...


Both AMD's Vega GPU (competes with Nvidia 1080) and Zen GPU (competes with Intel 8 core) are now both rumored for October. I await October -- but, in the mean time, lets have a great summer of golf, biking, swimming, or whatever smile

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 05:32 PM

'Scuse me while I express my self..


"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

ok Im back,.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 05:40 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
I started with 3DFx -- I remember them as $300 cards all those years ago -- with less than 1/100th the performance (or is it 1/1000th) of modern cards. Have even saved my original cards. I was saddened to see 3DFx throw it away apparently due to arrogance and, evidently, a lack of business acumen and/or common sense.

I've read some of the Nvidia test reports -- similar to the leaked results published recently. Now, I await AMD's first 14nm product reports.


I still have my AMD K6-II / Voodoo 3 Rig in the closet for running early jane's sims, problem is, I got no controllers that work on Gameport anymore.. haha.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 05:45 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
AMD has revealed that Zen will have double the performance of the FX 8350 and will trade blows with Intels eight core i7 5960X Extreme Edition. ..

AMDs Zen 8 core enthusiast class Summit Ridge CPUs are reportedly slated for an October launch on the companys brand new AM4 socket based desktop platform. These next generation FX CPUs will include eight and six core configurations. Which will deliver double the performance core for core of AMDs current desktop FX 8300 and 6300 series lineup...


Both AMD's Vega GPU (competes with Nvidia 1080) and Zen GPU (competes with Intel 8 core) are now both rumored for October. I await October -- but, in the mean time, lets have a great summer of golf, biking, swimming, or whatever smile

Article


Can ya Fix the URL? lol


EDIT: Nevermind, Found it.

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-performance-double-fx-8350/
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 07:39 PM

Man, October is a long way away, was hoping to see AMD Vega reviews and comparisons to Nvidia 1080 the next few weeks.

Doesn't bode well for AMD then, usually Nvidia releases Ti versions in the fall so 1080Ti will probably be out around that time, not to mention the various vendor gamer overclock versions...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 08:03 PM

1080Ti's will be $1500-2000+ as a Fully Functional GP100 Card is Going for $5000 MSRP and Selling for $6500 Due to Availability,

I honestly don't see us getting them this year, the yields for the GP100 Chips alone are severely low,
I don't think they are gonna be able to Bin enough defective Laser Cut GP100 Chips quick enough to sell 1080Ti cards this year.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 10:23 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Im not gonna wave I told ya so's in anyone's face,
But I can almost guarantee a few months after the 1080s are out, everyone that spent $600+ on Reference or AIB Partner Cards are gonna go donkey kong when they finally have enough laser cut GP100 Chips to sell 1080Ti's for $700 - $1000 w/ nearly 80% more performance over the GP104 Chips.



Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
I honestly don't see us getting them this year, the yields for the GP100 Chips alone are severely low,
I don't think they are gonna be able to Bin enough defective Laser Cut GP100 Chips quick enough to sell 1080Ti cards this year.



You seem to be hedging your bets for a guaranteed win there! thumbsup
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 10:45 PM

A few months after the 1080s are out can be 30-120 days.

That being said, the 1080s are Paper Launched, they are not for sale yet.

And reports of GP100 Yields have gotten worse since then.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/16 11:56 PM

http://videocardz.com/60253/amd-radeon-r9-480-3dmark11-benchmarks

So, A Single "490X" would get 14,461

The Lowest 7970 XFire Score I Could Find was 17,950, w/ GPUs and RAM Overclocked to 1.26GHz / 7.14GHz
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 01:28 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
1080Ti's will be $1500-2000+ as a Fully Functional GP100 Card is Going for $5000 MSRP and Selling for $6500 Due to Availability,

I honestly don't see us getting them this year, the yields for the GP100 Chips alone are severely low,
I don't think they are gonna be able to Bin enough defective Laser Cut GP100 Chips quick enough to sell 1080Ti cards this year.


Why would the prices of the 1080Ti be higher than Titan X which has been at ~$1000 for the last 12 months?
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/#gpu.chipset.geforce-gtx-980-ti
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/#gpu.chipset.geforce-gtx-titan-x


From the info posted so far I would expect the 1080 at $699 (same price as 980Ti has been), 1070 at $379 (same as 970), 1080Ti at $1000 (same as Titan X has been), depending on whether AMD has anything to compete, and from that October launch for Vega, it looks like they won't have anything to compete for a while sadly (assuming they don't get delayed).

Color me disappointed, AMD seems to have DX12 figured out so was hoping that was the boost they needed to get back in the game.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 02:55 AM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
1080Ti's will be $1500-2000+ as a Fully Functional GP100 Card is Going for $5000 MSRP and Selling for $6500 Due to Availability,

I honestly don't see us getting them this year, the yields for the GP100 Chips alone are severely low,
I don't think they are gonna be able to Bin enough defective Laser Cut GP100 Chips quick enough to sell 1080Ti cards this year.


Why would the prices of the 1080Ti be higher than Titan X which has been at ~$1000 for the last 12 months?
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/#gpu.chipset.geforce-gtx-980-ti
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/#gpu.chipset.geforce-gtx-titan-x


From the info posted so far I would expect the 1080 at $699 (same price as 980Ti has been), 1070 at $379 (same as 970), 1080Ti at $1000 (same as Titan X has been), depending on whether AMD has anything to compete, and from that October launch for Vega, it looks like they won't have anything to compete for a while sadly (assuming they don't get delayed).

Color me disappointed, AMD seems to have DX12 figured out so was hoping that was the boost they needed to get back in the game.



Because it's New and Will outperform the Titan X.

Prices were already Announced for GP104 (GTX1080 and GTX1070)
$699 - GTX1080 Founders Edition (Added VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$599 - GTX1080 STOCK / REFERENCE (Lack Of VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$449 - GTX1070 Founders Edition (Added VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$379 - GTX1080 STOCK / REFERENCE (Lack Of VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)

1080 Ti will be a Laser Cut Version of GP100, which had a MSRP of $5,000

With The Consumer GP100 you Get 16GB of Unified HBM2 Memory, and Proprietary Features a Gamer Wont Use (nVLINK for Example.), and a GPU that wasnt 100% Functional and was laser Cut to be on a Consumer Board.

Considering None of the "Pro" Features will be cut going from Pro to Consumer, the price wont be cut to much from that $5000 Tag Either.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 05:51 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

Considering None of the "Pro" Features will be cut going from Pro to Consumer, the price wont be cut to much from that $5000 Tag Either.


I don't believe that for one second. I think your slightly biased view of AMD is getting the better of you here. Amidst all the previous hype for Polaris I dont recall you or anyone else expecting Pascal to have the performance level we're seeing from first wave of cards.

Ultimately these Polaris cards are looking quite disappointing. Bang for buck they look to have a nice mid-range but obviously aren't looking to compete with Nvidias top tier. When Vega drops, Nvidia are just going to dwarf the performance again with the 1080ti and I think this will only be magnified if AMD bring forward their release dates.......if anything it will alow Nvidia to sandbag .....its not looking any different to this generation at the moment IMO with AMD challenging the wallet but top level performance being owned by Nvidia.

I went down the route of 7970 and then 390 last Gen, only to realise the 970 was the better bet for DK2 and the games I played so ended up with that. Until AMD start challenging Nvidia are going to keep their prices artificially high. The Fury X just wasn't cutting the mustard for me when the price point was so close to the 980ti hence why Nvidia had no pressure to drop the price and came out on top in most games performance-wise.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 10:22 AM

Today's rumor is that Polaris will be "announced" in early June and "may" become available in July. By July, we'll have new rumors regarding Vega and Nvidia future plans. Probably, it will be late in the year before "its all sorted out" based on actual data -- and we see how the AMD 14nm node has done versus Intel's and Nvidia's similar nodes.

Short term, I'm interested to see if a "July release" low cost Polaris 470 card will be appropriate for my wife's computer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 02:46 PM

For Nvidia fans and "best card regardless of who makes it" fans a very speculative article on what the GTX 1080 Ti will be -- probably a GP102 core as a basis.

The foregoing short phrases are the parts presented as "fact":


Quote:
...the GP102 core [exists] ..

..Our usual sources have been very tight lipped about the this particular die but they did state that it would be exactly half way between the GP104 and the GP100. ...


They indicate Nvidia yields are currently low on advanced 16nm chips -- but they say that is normal considering their large size and at this point in their development.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 03:37 PM

All I need is:

- Crossfired 7970 Performance (doesnt have to be a perfect 200% scale either as Xfire isnt a perfect 100/100.)

-At least 3 DisplayPorts for my monitors, and 1 HDMI for Rift.
(Tho Id prolly keep my monitors on the system I have now for 3d graphics work etc.)

Everything else is a perk.
-150% More VRAM (3GB vs 8 GB)
-Lower Power Consumption
-Lower Heat Output
-Higher GPU Clocks
-GDDR5X / Higher Memory Clocks
-Same Performance Level with 140-170w Card vs 2x 250+w Cards
-The new GCN1.1+ Feature Set (xDMA for Xfire etc).


Also there was a 3DMark Entry, that has been deleted, showed the same AMD generic Adapter at 1750MHz GPU, and 2560MHz Memory (10.24GHz)..

Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 05:19 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

Because it's New and Will outperform the Titan X.

Prices were already Announced for GP104 (GTX1080 and GTX1070)
$699 - GTX1080 Founders Edition (Added VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$599 - GTX1080 STOCK / REFERENCE (Lack Of VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$449 - GTX1070 Founders Edition (Added VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)
$379 - GTX1080 STOCK / REFERENCE (Lack Of VRM Phases and Extra Cooling)

1080 Ti will be a Laser Cut Version of GP100, which had a MSRP of $5,000

With The Consumer GP100 you Get 16GB of Unified HBM2 Memory, and Proprietary Features a Gamer Wont Use (nVLINK for Example.), and a GPU that wasnt 100% Functional and was laser Cut to be on a Consumer Board.

Considering None of the "Pro" Features will be cut going from Pro to Consumer, the price wont be cut to much from that $5000 Tag Either.


Your prices and assumptions are off because you assume the new gen cards will come in at a significant price increase because they perform better than the current gen card they are replacing, which has never been true, the new gen usually slots into the price point of the old card with possibly a minor price adjustment while the old card falls in price.

Also you were posting Nvidia "Founder" version prices which are pre-order early adopter prices and higher than the actual MSRP for the partner vendor overclocked and improved cooler versions which most of us enthusiasts buy anyhow, for the example the 1070 will have $449 for Founder version but MSRP of $379 for the partner versions with probably a lower street price even, which is not far off the $350 street price that the 970 has stayed at last 18months.

It's ok that you lean toward AMD, but it won't help to live in a fantasy world where you expect Nvidia to be dumb enough to shoot itself in the foot by pricing themselves out of the current market on the new gen, that won't happen.

AMD need to come out with good performing cards this gen that put pressure on Nvidia from a performance and price perspective, their experience with DX12 on XBox One is a big advantage toward the next gen performance, but it's disappointing that yet again Nvidia will have nothing to worry about until October at the earliest.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 05:47 PM

NV already stated founders edition cards will be availible for the life of the product,
its simply a marketing name to sell beefed up cards.

599 for referencee, 699 for FE. AIB Partners will be somewhere in between.

My GP100 Prices are accurate, the cost of 16nm Wafers vs how many fully functional or even 75% functional dies they get is the reason the cost is higher.

Id say the same thing about AMD, except they are wasting wafers on 610mm^2 Dies for GP100, and around est. 510mm^2 for "GP 102", which likely just a laser cut GP100 chip, thats being sold with defective parts disabled.

Their top Polaris Die is 232mm^2, so on any given wafer they are producing more than 4x the volume with higher yeilds due to wafer defects not hitting as many dies due to size of the dies.

Vega 10 will likely be about 350-400mm^2 at most.



As for nVidia not shooting themselves in the foot over pricing, erm, yeah, they havent been doing that?
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 07:21 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

As for nVidia not shooting themselves in the foot over pricing, erm, yeah, they havent been doing that?


Not sure what you mean by this? Can you explain?

Their recent earnings call showed a profitable quarter and improved over the prev year, especially in their gaming division... the price of Nvidia cards has stayed strong and in demand for the last 12-18 months due to no competition.

They certainly seem like they have the market/competition down pat and I wouldn't expect them to make a mistake with next gen, which is why I hope AMD doesn't continue to waffle and focus on the mid/cheap market and miss the advantage they seem to have on DX12 compared to Nvidia.

PS. not trying to sound like a Nvidia fanboy here (because I truly am a best bang for my buck neutral and would love nothing more than for AMD to come out with something that makes me go red again), but just not seeing where your pessimism about Nvidia for the Pascal gen is coming from.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 08:31 PM

not directed towards nVidia parsay.

I just dont like biased tech review sites that are telling everyone that AMD isnt going to compete with nVidia at the high end segment.

A. AMD doesnt really need a High End Part, A 480X will drive VR and 4K fine.
B. nVidia baically said entry level isnt important to them, neither are small dies.
C. Entry and Mid Level Revenue is more prophitable and has more volume, they are thinking backwards, not everyone is g9nna wanna spend 700+ on a GPU, 300 is the sweet spot.
D. nVidia takes their press events, shows off mind dazzling tech demos to dr8ve sales, and that tech is part of the GameWorksAPI which is all but abandoned by developers now.
E. AMD is already taking back marketshare just by owning the console market.
F. Vega10 Will still launch BEFORE nVidia with HBM2 etc
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/16 10:17 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
not directed towards nVidia parsay.

I just dont like biased tech review sites that are telling everyone that AMD isnt going to compete with nVidia at the high end segment.

A. AMD doesnt really need a High End Part, A 480X will drive VR and 4K fine.
B. nVidia baically said entry level isnt important to them, neither are small dies.
C. Entry and Mid Level Revenue is more prophitable and has more volume, they are thinking backwards, not everyone is g9nna wanna spend 700+ on a GPU, 300 is the sweet spot.
D. nVidia takes their press events, shows off mind dazzling tech demos to dr8ve sales, and that tech is part of the GameWorksAPI which is all but abandoned by developers now.
E. AMD is already taking back marketshare just by owning the console market.
F. Vega10 Will still launch BEFORE nVidia wit


But not a single one of the points A-F above have any relevance to AMD competing at the high end whatsoever.......if you go by your points alone then AMD aren't competing - you're picking out profitability, budget, market share and release dates as a counter argument! What are your points in retort to high-end competition because that's what you're saying you don't agree with in your opening sentence.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/16 03:34 AM

Tou'che.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/16 06:01 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Tou'che.


No, I'm just wondering what your real beef is after providing a list of informative and truthful bullets........however none of them are related to the reason you're giving about what drives your AMD biased posts.

What's going to break the mould in this next generation of cards other than pure speculation? I haven't seen anything different yet than a carbon copy of the Fury X versus 980Ti situation whereby AMD have a very good card but it's pipped to the post by the Nvidia equivalent in almost every department.....therefore with similar prices the Fury X becomes a very hard sell.

The 1080 is undoubtedly a very powerful card and it looks like AMD aren't trying to challlenge that.......so why would anyone believe that AMD are suddenly going to come out with something later in the year that blows performance out of the pond when we all know Nvidia also will have a card ready for release in future which will push the current bar even higher?

It seems a monumental task for AMD.....I'm also surprised they haven't released more information about Polaris 10 because with even though they're not competing with the 1080, that release on Friday will undoubtedly sway many other people to opt for the 1070 when that becomes available and that is a card they can challenge.

The real issue for me who doesn't care about a particular brand name when buying a GPU is that Nvidia have shown their hand and the benchmarks and reviews are backing up the performance. AMD on the flip side are talking more and more about efficiency but this is still side-stepping the performance element.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/16 11:16 AM

Quote:
Sony forecasts 60 million PS4 by April 2017

...some analysts believe that PlayStation 4 has a big chance of selling over 100 million units before the end of the lifecycle...


Notable since PS4 uses AMD CPU/GPU (as does XBox).

For the longest time, most games were developed on Intel/Nvidia hardware with the help of Nvidia engineers -- giving Intel/Nvidia an advantage over AMD because unique features of Intel/Nvidia were used and unique features of AMD were ignored.

I remember an interview with Nvidia engineers who admitted games were deliberately coded to give Nvidia "an FPS edge" -- because of this, Nvidia did not have to update their GPU architecture as often as AMD had to to compete, they said. I imagine Nvidia is still involved in many games.

Moreover, games developed on Intel/Nvidia hardware were debugged as they were written, while AMD hardware often was not (so some initial releases gave AMD problems).

It has been predicted things will begin to "go in AMD's favor" now that most gaming console hardware will be AMD hardware. That is, games, as written, will be optimized for AMD. However, games may accidentally ship with unintended performance issues for Intel/Nvidia since they will get less optimization and less testing on that hardware. Of course, those issues will be fixed as they arise.

We'll see how things actually turn out.

This is something that probably has been mentioned before in this long "AMD thread".

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/16 02:43 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Tou'che.


No, I'm just wondering what your real beef is after providing a list of informative and truthful bullets........however none of them are related to the reason you're giving about what drives your AMD biased posts.

What's going to break the mould in this next generation of cards other than pure speculation? I haven't seen anything different yet than a carbon copy of the Fury X versus 980Ti situation whereby AMD have a very good card but it's pipped to the post by the Nvidia equivalent in almost every department.....therefore with similar prices the Fury X becomes a very hard sell.

The 1080 is undoubtedly a very powerful card and it looks like AMD aren't trying to challlenge that.......so why would anyone believe that AMD are suddenly going to come out with something later in the year that blows performance out of the pond when we all know Nvidia also will have a card ready for release in future which will push the current bar even higher?

It seems a monumental task for AMD.....I'm also surprised they haven't released more information about Polaris 10 because with even though they're not competing with the 1080, that release on Friday will undoubtedly sway many other people to opt for the 1070 when that becomes available and that is a card they can challenge.

The real issue for me who doesn't care about a particular brand name when buying a GPU is that Nvidia have shown their hand and the benchmarks and reviews are backing up the performance. AMD on the flip side are talking more and more about efficiency but this is still side-stepping the performance element.


I plead as being blinded by ambition.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/16 07:54 PM

Those Leaked Polaris 10 Benchmarks might actually be R9-470x and R9-470, not the 480 Line.

Regardless, Tomorrow Starts the 3 day g33kfest.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 12:40 AM

Quote:
AMD Radeon RX 480 Graphics Card Running Doom 1440p Demo Spotted Shown Off At Polaris Tech Day, NDA Lifts 29th of June 2016


The article was based on a post from someone at the presentation. That, apparently accidental and "not permitted" post, was later taken down.

Apparently, June 29 may be the "big day" for AMD fans. As noted previously, the first cards are rumored to be "mid-priced" with excellent (not "the best") performance. They are rumored to be intended to be suitable for all practical purposes -- but not necessarily for SimHQ performance addicts or AMD fans who want "the best" smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 09:02 AM

Surely by keeping information back until that point they're going to lose a lot of customers to the GTX 1070 who may be sat on the fence right now!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 11:22 AM

Quote:
Surely by keeping information back until that point...



Agree that AMD might do better to let people know what they've got coming. However, it would be a "paper launch" for sure -- some folks don't like that.

On the other hand, an article today suggests (to me) Nvidia rushed a few cards out the door to get publicity -- but, they were not ready for a full launch either.

Quote:
Geforce GTX 1080 supplies may be scarce until mid June


Apparently, only a few Nvidia 1080 actually made it to "sale".

Future shipments will be delayed, it is reported/rumored. The speculation implies (to me) roughly June 20 for initial availability -- if one did not get one of the first few released.

We'll see if AMD RX480 is on the market June 29 -- or if, it too is a "semi-paper" or "full-paper" launch.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 03:07 PM

AMD has been demo-ing Polaris for the last 7 months, lol, I sure hope they do more than a Paper Launch.

the June 29th Date is legit as well.
But ya know there's gonna be some meaty leaks smile

Like dumb sites using their press review cards to run benchmarks for an article to be published on the 29th, but forgetting the results are uploaded to a public database...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 05:22 PM

There will be a live stream tomorrow I think.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/16 06:36 PM

also regarding that Doom Pic.

it's Running Doom at 144Hz at 1440P VSR.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 12:23 PM

Quote:
Multiple independent sources have confirmed that AMD has Zen x86 prototype chips ready for demonstration, and we might see them .. during the Computex 2016 press conference in Taiwan...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 05:18 PM

Meanwhile Top O the Line Skylake CPU will be $1600, lol...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 05:44 PM

Zen and Polaris Architectures will be Used in Microsoft's "Scorpio" Project.

Which Maybe more of a Small FormFactor Windows 10 Gaming Box than a Actual Xbox Console.

By time the Hardware Hit's shelves,nearly every XBO Title will have been patched / ported to UWA and Run on Windows/DX12.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 06:43 PM

AMD RX 480 presentation slide leaked before the official press conference (later today).

RX 480 only $249 -- if the "leak" is correct. But, excellent performance -- particularly with DX12 and implements "up to date" gaming features.

Quote:
...we are looking at a graphics card whose sole purpose is to deliver premium AAA and VR gaming at 1440P resolution. This graphics card will be available at a very nice price point around $249 US as the slide points out..


At $249, it would be worth a close look. We'll see if the "leak" is the real thing later today.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 07:13 PM

I'd Get 2 of them or Get a 480X

480X should easily beat a Hawaii GPU while using Less Power.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/16 11:14 PM

INSANELY LOW PRICE on RX 480 is now rumored in a "mainstream" publication. Price too low to repeat and retain credibility (assuming an AMD fan reporting on AMD has any credibility) smile

Official price is rumored to be released in a few hours -- and put rumors to rest -- if the rumor is true -- which rumor? -- I'm confused biggrin
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 12:10 AM

Is the RX 480 competing with the 1080?

Hoping for some good news from those rumours.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 01:53 AM

No, according to rumors, not close. Based on rumors, one would have to CrossFire two RX 480 to get nearly one 1080.

The goal with the first AMD cards is full performance on 1440p (2K) monitors (like my 32 inch center monitor) -- at relatively low cost. However, the 1080 seems aimed at three 2K monitors (at least I would use it that way) -- maximum performance at maximum price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 02:16 AM

Watching presentation now:

RX 480 $500 card performance (they say) in a $199 card -- the INSANE price rumored above was true.

Kept watching:

Now done with Polaris presentation. Of course, being an AMD presentation, its very "positive" about AMD vs Nvidia 1080. They indicate features in upcoming popular games that 1080 does not support among other things -- like Crossfired RX480 beats 1080 in Doom 4 at much less cost.

So, details will wait until June 29 unless there is an earlier leak.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 02:30 AM

Originally Posted By: Allen
No, according to rumors, not close. Based on rumors, one would have to CrossFire two RX 480 to get nearly one 1080.

The goal with the first AMD cards is full performance on 1440p (2K) monitors (like my 32 inch center monitor) -- at relatively low cost. However, the 1080 seems aimed at three 2K monitors (at least I would use it that way) -- maximum performance at maximum price.


What's the definition of 'full performance'? I'm guessing workable frame rates or possibly a 60 fps target as it depends on the context - it doesn't sound like a 90fps frame rate will be possible at 1440p which is the target frame rate for VR.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 02:36 AM

Quote:
...What's the definition of 'full performance'?...


Those are AMD's words. We'll see. Ostensibly on June 29.

I added a few words to my above post. Regarding the ongoing presentation.

They really stressed that AMD wanted to take a new direction to attract 10's of millions of folks who could not afford $700 cards. With the first Polaris models, they wanted to produce maximum performance possible at the low price point most buyers were willing to pay -- under $300. So, they aimed everything they did at the under $300 market. They claim they hit it. Sounded good. We'll see on June 29.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 02:44 AM

My internet is out here for a few days, but I watched the firzt 10 or minutes while in wifi hot spot, will watch the rest tomorrow
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 11:21 AM

Summary based on last night's presentation and after reading some articles this morning (that had more info from the presentation):

The only "new news" (to me) last night was the confirmed Price -- and a confirmation by AMD management that the Polaris goal was "Price/Performance" leadership. Other items confirmed some of the rumors we've posted above.

AMD RX 480 pricing $199 (4GB) and $229 (8GB).

Performance rumors indicate approximately R9 390 performance (today, R9 390 roughly $300). Also supports latest new gaming features (that 28nm AMD and Nvidia products do not fully support).

Presentation last night showed Crossfired performance of $229 version slightly better than single NVidia 1080 (at least in the game shown). We'll see.

To be released June 29th.

So, as noted above, initial Polaris releases are aimed at "normal people" with limited gaming budgets who want to play everything full speed on a new 2K monitor -- not those with extra money who want the "very fastest regardless of cost" or want multi 2K or 4K monitors (Eyefinity) at very high speed smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 02:31 PM

the 52% utilization was a bit of an eyebrow though, wouldnt that mean a single GPU would perform about the same?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 03:02 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
the 52% utilization was a bit of an eyebrow though, wouldnt that mean a single GPU would perform about the same?


I don't know.

The Crossfired RX 480 were performing a bit better than Nvidia 1080 -- where 2 RX 480 were operating at just over 50 percent capacity (so may have "had head room") -- but 1080 was nearly 100 percent and had "no more to give".

I speculated that may be due to the graphics API being used. The AMD Polaris design is rumored to outperform the 1080 design with some APIs that game companies use. For example, AMD was said to perform very well with the "cross platform" APIs -- for example Vulcan.

I'm assuming we'll know by the time we can actually buy a Polaris.


From AMD site -- regarding Vulcan:

Quote:
...From the consortium that brought you OpenGL, Vulkan is a new graphics API.. Vulkan gives devs total control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon GPUs and multi-core CPUs.

Compared to OpenGL, Vulkan substantially reduces API overhead, .. Vulkan also exposes GPU hardware features not ordinarily accessible through OpenGL.

Vulkan inherits these capabilities from AMDs Mantle graphics API...

Though the Mantle API was tailored for AMD hardware, Mantle was also designed with just enough hardware abstraction to accommodate almost any modern graphics architecture [so it works for Nvidia too -- maybe not as well, though]...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/16 03:08 PM

36 CUs = 2304 SPs, Running at 1266MHz/2000MHz, 5.5 TFLOPs.

Considering my Single Lightning is about 3.8 TFLOPs, and in 80% Efficient Xfire scenario, My cards put out about 6.5 Tflops.

Id Consider it, for the sheer fact that I can run 2 of them in the same power envelope as one of my lightnings.

A single card wont match a perfect set of 7970s in perfect Xfire, but it would be a significant single card performance increase while dropping power consumption.

I will wait and see if AMD puts out anything better with Polaris, but Likely gonna wait for Navi.

But seeing Im on a budget, it depends on budget at the time.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 02:17 AM

Originally Posted By: Allen

Presentation last night showed Crossfired performance of $229 version slightly better than single NVidia 1080 (at least in the game shown). We'll see.

To be released June 29th.

So, as noted above, initial Polaris releases are aimed at "normal people" with limited gaming budgets who want to play everything full speed on a new 2K monitor -- not those with extra money who want the "very fastest regardless of cost" or want multi 2K or 4K monitors (Eyefinity or SLI) at very high speed smile


Based on the above 2x480s crossfired performing like a 1080 probably means the 480 is about the same as a 980 which 2 SLI'ed equal the performance of a single 1080... so that's a good deal $229 for 980 like performance, that's sure to help the price of the 980 drop in the next few weeks along with the 1080/1070 coming out. We won't truly know until it's in the hands of reviewers and benchmarked.

BTW if you look at the Steam Hardware Survey the most popular GPU is the GTX 970 which has been in the $300-$350 range for 18months, so I think if AMD is going to ignore that segment of the market (which will now be ready to upgrade to a 1070 or AMD equivalent) they are passing up a lot of potential sales.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

I'm glad to see them have a good bang for the buck card which the 480 appears to be but also would love something that competes with the 1070 or even 1080.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 02:57 AM

Quote:
...would love something that competes with the 1070 or even 1080.


Presumably, the Vega rumored to come this Fall (October 2016 but may delay to 2017 depending on rumor) will compete with 1080 or even the follow-on to 1080. Nonetheless, I believe Nvidia will do whatever it has to do to provide a faster card -- even if they can only make a few and sell at a loss (as highest FPS in their best card is what defines the brand). So, I expect Vega to perform measurably slower (but not visibly slower) than what Nvidia answers with. But, I imagine the AMD Vega will have other advantages -- like lower cost and better performance in some situations.

In 2018 (??) AMD has an all new design approach coming out called Navi (mentioned by SkateZilla). It's a way to put multiple chips together on one card -- and they act as one chip (not like Crossfire). That approach should be capable of humongous speeds in a very cost effective card (smaller individual chips are much cheaper to make) -- with single card performance advantages. We'll see.

Based on the rumors, I'm leaning towards Vega for myself (this Fall) and RX 480 (in July) for my wife (she does not need the power -- but she could use a new card -- and it will be fun to test). Then, when Navi arrives, I'd probably buy one and "retire" the Vega. Meantime, my two HD7970 still play my games visibly smoothly on "ultra" graphics settings (0 AA).


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 12:33 PM

In the AMD presentation, Crosfired RX 480 out performed single Nvidia 1080 in Ashes of the Singularity (a DX12 title).

Some have questioned "how could that be"? Skatezilla and I gave some thoughts earlier in this thread. I thought it might be the graphics API.

Others are asking the same question in on-line articles -- because the AMD and Nvidia images looked slightly different. AMD has responded with the game settings for both cards. The settings seem identical. They used the AotS provided "in game" benchmark that the AotS developers themselves put in to compare systems -- which seems "on the up and up".

However, AotS uses "procedural" rendering. That is, it takes into account what it is running on and the game situation and then modifies what it shows you. So, in that sense, no two systems will have perfectly identical in-game images.

Fudzilla tries to explain it:

Quote:
...During AMD's product demonstration on stage at its Computex 2016 launch event, some noticeable differences could be distinguished between the texture quality of the Radeon RX 480 CrossFire demo and the single Geforce GTX 1080 demo. As many have noted, Ashes of the Singularity is a DirectX 12 strategy game that uses procedural generation for rendering textures, along with dynamic game character unit composition depending on the map situation. These rendering features will prevent any two running instances of the game from ever being identical..

Regardless, we are thankful that AMD's responses have shown to be transparent and cooperative so far during a few short email conversations on the matter...



Fudzilla Article

My Summary: In brief, partly it is the Graphics API. It has been rumored elsewhere that AMD does a good job using DX12 and Vulcan because unique hardware support has been built into the AMD design for a couple years now. However, its only now that these APIs are being used in games.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 01:53 PM

My concern with the 1080/480 comparison was the % utilization.

Sure, you are getting similar FPS with the 480s in Crossfire, but their utilization was about half.

They tried to spin it as "you still have room for performance", but I would have had preferred a higher utilization, and much better FPS.

Unless both cards FPSs were capped, this actually does not sound that good to me. I am not a fan of XFire (prefer single powerful card), and that would had made me consider it seriously for the first time.

But I will definitively jump on a 480X, or a Vega based card when they come out.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 02:15 PM

I might get one RX480 to hold me over for a year, if not longer

w/ 3rd Party AIB Cooling overclock it a little, 8GB Variant for sure.

Right now between VR and fighting w/ my 7970s and having to use a 7930(7870XT) to have a working HDMI port.
(my Lightnings dont have an HDMI Port).

It gets in the way.

if i can get a cheap $250 stop gap w/ 1 HDMI 3 DPs and enough power to render more than decent FPS than 2 7970s in XFire.

in my experience only 2 Programs ever ran XFire at 1 100%/100% Utilization, that would be Furmark and at Times Battlefield 3.

outside of that games were always like 75/75, which means 150% 7970, which is pretty much where the RX480 Sits.

I just cant afford to wait till this winter for the Vega GPUs, I need something ASAP.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 02:18 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
In the AMD presentation, Crosfired RX 480 out performed single Nvidia 1080 in Ashes of the Singularity (a DX12 title).

Some have questioned "how could that be"? Skatezilla and I gave some thoughts earlier in this thread. I thought it might be the graphics API.

Others are asking the same question in on-line articles -- because the AMD and Nvidia images looked slightly different. AMD has responded with the game settings for both cards. The settings seem identical. They used the AotS provided "in game" benchmark that the AotS developers themselves put in to compare systems -- which seems "on the up and up".

However, AotS uses "procedural" rendering. That is, it takes into account what it is running on and the game situation and then modifies what it shows you. So, in that sense, no two systems will have perfectly identical in-game images.

Fudzilla tries to explain it:

Quote:
...During AMD's product demonstration on stage at its Computex 2016 launch event, some noticeable differences could be distinguished between the texture quality of the Radeon RX 480 CrossFire demo and the single Geforce GTX 1080 demo. As many have noted, Ashes of the Singularity is a DirectX 12 strategy game that uses procedural generation for rendering textures, along with dynamic game character unit composition depending on the map situation. These rendering features will prevent any two running instances of the game from ever being identical..

Regardless, we are thankful that AMD's responses have shown to be transparent and cooperative so far during a few short email conversations on the matter...



Fudzilla Article

My Summary: In brief, partly it is the Graphics API. It has been rumored elsewhere that AMD does a good job using DX12 and Vulcan because unique hardware support has been built into the AMD design for a couple years now. However, its only now that these APIs are being used in games.


AS I Said, the last 10 seconds of that demo, the nVidia side clearly had a more defined shadow on the ground and more brown paths than the ATI Side, but I also noted that I didnt know if that was because of how the AI had Damaged/Destroyed/Deformed the Terrain, etc.

Other than that obviously glaring difference, the 3d Object/Texture detail was the same, as well as the shader effects.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 02:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
the 52% utilization was a bit of an eyebrow though, wouldnt that mean a single GPU would perform about the same?


I don't know.

The Crossfired RX 480 were performing a bit better than Nvidia 1080 -- where 2 RX 480 were operating at just over 50 percent capacity (so may have "had head room") -- but 1080 was nearly 100 percent and had "no more to give".

I speculated that may be due to the graphics API being used. The AMD Polaris design is rumored to outperform the 1080 design with some APIs that game companies use. For example, AMD was said to perform very well with the "cross platform" APIs -- for example Vulcan.

I'm assuming we'll know by the time we can actually buy a Polaris.


From AMD site -- regarding Vulcan:

Quote:
...From the consortium that brought you OpenGL, Vulkan is a new graphics API.. Vulkan gives devs total control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon GPUs and multi-core CPUs.

Compared to OpenGL, Vulkan substantially reduces API overhead, .. Vulkan also exposes GPU hardware features not ordinarily accessible through OpenGL.

Vulkan inherits these capabilities from AMDs Mantle graphics API...

Though the Mantle API was tailored for AMD hardware, Mantle was also designed with just enough hardware abstraction to accommodate almost any modern graphics architecture [so it works for Nvidia too -- maybe not as well, though]...


then again, now that you mention it, AMD has had a definitive Edge in DX12 w/ ASYNC.


A fun side fact,
DX7->11 was developed w/ Intel and nVidia's Assistance.
DX12/Vulkan was developed w/ Intel and AMD's Assistance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 10:31 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna
My concern ..

..I will definitively jump on a 480X, or a Vega based card when they come out.


I see it similarly.

I'd really like a 480X with roughly 2800 shaders (if they come with that many). An RX 480X like that would probably be a single card performing about as well as my CrossFired HD7970s. For a pricetag in the $300 range, it would be a "no brainer". Maybe Vega will be called RX 490X smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/16 11:52 PM

I wouldnt be surprised if there was a RX-480X above the RX-480 for $300ish w/ 40-44 Compute Units.

the RX-480 at $199 was a Strategic Launch to gain massive attention
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/16 01:14 PM

After finally watching the video, on something other than my phone. it was clear the nVidia Card was having terrain rendering issues which caused the brown paths and overdone shadows.

as for the 51% Utilization, that was running Single Packet mode, The higher packet modes were in the 89%+ Area.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/16 12:40 AM

AMD has "lead" by years on some important hardware things (example "Tessellation"). But, except for consoles that are AMD powered (and XBox and PS4 are now), developers developed for PC on Intel/Nvidia and ignored AMD benefits -- until Nvidia copied them.

Along those lines, Async Compute (used by DX12) was developed hand-in-hand with AMD corporation, and AMD hardware has supported it for a while now. Nvidia hasn't. Only the new Pascal 1080 and 1070 can make use of it. Thus, the info that follows:

Quote:
Async Compute became quite controversial when it turned out that NVIDIAs Maxwell architecture did not receive any performance boosts to it due to lack of hardware support.. Ashes of the Singularity under DirectX 12..

[One of several AotS Developer Tweets] Async/AMD GPU intrinsics were key for hitting perf on consoles..

..As Pascal cards slowly flood the market, it is possible that more developers will go ahead and try to use Asynchronous Compute in their games while they were previously a bit reticent to use something that didnt work well on NVIDIA cards...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/16 10:47 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
After finally watching the video, on something other than my phone. it was clear the nVidia Card was having terrain rendering issues which caused the brown paths and overdone shadows.

as for the 51% Utilization, that was running Single Packet mode, The higher packet modes were in the 89%+ Area.


That seems to have been confirmed in an article today.

The authors researched the situation. The issue was that Nvidia did NOT operate correctly. They could not be sure if it was Nvidia hardware or Nvidia DX12 drivers. But, they say "its what you would see" if you owned a 1080 today. Moreover, the tests were fair to both AMD and Nvidia.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/16 06:22 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
AMD has "lead" by years on some important hardware things (example "Tessellation"). But, except for consoles that are AMD powered (and XBox and PS4 are now), developers developed for PC on Intel/Nvidia and ignored AMD benefits -- until Nvidia copied them.

Along those lines, Async Compute (used by DX12) was developed hand-in-hand with AMD corporation, and AMD hardware has supported it for a while now. Nvidia hasn't. Only the new Pascal 1080 and 1070 can make use of it. Thus, the info that follows:

Quote:
Async Compute became quite controversial when it turned out that NVIDIAs Maxwell architecture did not receive any performance boosts to it due to lack of hardware support.. Ashes of the Singularity under DirectX 12..

[One of several AotS Developer Tweets] Async/AMD GPU intrinsics were key for hitting perf on consoles..

..As Pascal cards slowly flood the market, it is possible that more developers will go ahead and try to use Asynchronous Compute in their games while they were previously a bit reticent to use something that didnt work well on NVIDIA cards...


Article


AMD Developed XFire before nVidia had SLi :-)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/16 05:39 PM

Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/07/16 08:43 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Originally Posted By: Allen
AMD has "lead" by years on some important hardware things (example "Tessellation"). But, except for consoles that are AMD powered (and XBox and PS4 are now), developers developed for PC on Intel/Nvidia and ignored AMD benefits -- until Nvidia copied them.

Along those lines, Async Compute (used by DX12) was developed hand-in-hand with AMD corporation, and AMD hardware has supported it for a while now. Nvidia hasn't. Only the new Pascal 1080 and 1070 can make use of it. Thus, the info that follows:

Quote:
Async Compute became quite controversial when it turned out that NVIDIAs Maxwell architecture did not receive any performance boosts to it due to lack of hardware support.. Ashes of the Singularity under DirectX 12..

[One of several AotS Developer Tweets] Async/AMD GPU intrinsics were key for hitting perf on consoles..

..As Pascal cards slowly flood the market, it is possible that more developers will go ahead and try to use Asynchronous Compute in their games while they were previously a bit reticent to use something that didnt work well on NVIDIA cards...


Article


AMD Developed XFire before nVidia had SLi :-)


Both of which got it after 3DFx had it 16 years ago. wink

Anyway, that Steam survey shows a lot--like nvidia is in over half the PCs, while AMD is only in 1/4 and Intel and the rest make up less than 1/4. So a game that doesn't work well on nvidia is slitting your throat. Obviously you want it to work on all 3, but Intel's are so slow that it's a losing proposition to try, so you have to optimize for both the others and that nets you over 3/4 of the systems.

Beyond that, when 1 out of 20 are using the 970, yet no more than 1.6% are using the top AMD, which is only R9 200 series, it looks crappy for AMD. Of that first page, 28 are nvidia, 9 are Intel, and 9 are AMD. AMD needs a real hit on their hands. There are two ways to do that--same performance for lower price than competition, or better performance at the same price. The 1070 seems to have clearly bested the Fury and 980 at their price point, and the 1080 is tops, but the below $400 market is still open until the others come in.

To me the most surprising stat is 40% Win10 64!




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 03:16 PM

Quote:
New platforms not until January

We have been expecting Intel and AMD to release their new generation CPUs by the end of the year, but now it looks like we will not see them until January.

Digitimes claims that both Intel and AMD have delayed their launches until January 2017 at CES 2017 because the upstream supply chain still has serious inventory issues, and market demand has been pants.

Chipzillas Kaby Lake platform was originally scheduled to launch at the end of the third quarter and AMD's Zen architecture in the fourth...


Article

I have been avoiding any new AMD CPU or GPU purchases for quite some time now -- willing to wait "years" for the new stuff (because what I have plays everything I play at ultra). Another quarter-year has been added to the CPU wait.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 03:27 PM

Samples are already out, so I Guess they both want to get better yields before throwing them on the market.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 04:00 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master


Both of which got it after 3DFx had it 16 years ago. wink

Anyway, that Steam survey shows a lot--like nvidia is in over half the PCs, while AMD is only in 1/4 and Intel and the rest make up less than 1/4. So a game that doesn't work well on nvidia is slitting your throat. Obviously you want it to work on all 3, but Intel's are so slow that it's a losing proposition to try, so you have to optimize for both the others and that nets you over 3/4 of the systems.

Beyond that, when 1 out of 20 are using the 970, yet no more than 1.6% are using the top AMD, which is only R9 200 series, it looks crappy for AMD. Of that first page, 28 are nvidia, 9 are Intel, and 9 are AMD. AMD needs a real hit on their hands. There are two ways to do that--same performance for lower price than competition, or better performance at the same price. The 1070 seems to have clearly bested the Fury and 980 at their price point, and the 1080 is tops, but the below $400 market is still open until the others come in.

To me the most surprising stat is 40% Win10 64!




The Jedi Master


Eh, it's not like the market can't reverse. It's happened before.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 04:08 PM

Marketshare is already shifting as a result of all Consoles being AMD,

Developers are now developing on AMD, once the results trickle down to PC Ports of the Consoles, people will start buying AMD Cards.

not to mention the $200 Cards in a few weeks going on the market..
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 05:00 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Marketshare is already shifting as a result of all Consoles being AMD,

Developers are now developing on AMD, once the results trickle down to PC Ports of the Consoles, people will start buying AMD Cards.

not to mention the $200 Cards in a few weeks going on the market..


You're still looking at it with rose colored glasses if you think AMD is going to win the PC market with mid and low level cards.

The Steam survey charts don't lie, there's a lot of demand for the mid-high level (GTX970/1070), and as far as the low-mid market, the majority of the people who won't pay $300 for a card go console anyway...

Sad to see a company that once kicked Nvidia's butt with some of my favorite GPUs I've owned (ATI Radeon 9700Pro, ATI 5870), now concedes that mid-high market to Nvidia and just focuses on low-mid level cards that compete mainly with with onboard Intel video and tablet gaming.

That may keep money coming in but it's not going to win them the PC GPU market. I still have hope that they split the GPU part of the company out to their own company so they can compete 1:1 with Nvidia instead of being hamstrung by being tied to the CPU part of the company which is fighting a losing battle with Intel and sapping some of the R&D money and resources I'm sure.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 05:13 PM

Quote:
...concedes that mid-high market to Nvidia...


Rumor is that the competitive/high-end AMD Vega 10 is set for fall/winter.

Usually, card companies start with the "high end" and then sell the "cut down" models -- often using the working-parts of defective high-end chips.

AMD is going the other direction with a long term plan in mind. Part one is to make the best possible "small" chips.

The game-changer AMD part is Navi in 2018. It goes the opposite way. It puts "smaller chips" (like the Polaris 10 or Vega 10) together on a single card -- ACTING LIKE ONE CHIP (no Crossfire). That way, they can make an "off the charts" card unlike any before -- but, it will be made of small "cost effective" parts.

The idea with Navi is to "bury" Nvidia in the ultra-performance/price market. So, AMD has not "given up". Rather, as one writer put it, they have a "cunning" multi-year plan (Navi is only part of that plan).

Only time will tell if the rumored plan works. Also, since we know about the plan, so does Nvidia. I expect "no holds barred" competition.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 08:28 PM

I agree. Just IMO they've been doing a half-assed job of it lately. Intel and nvidia are basically only occasionally looking over their shoulder while they do whatever they want. Imagine if the auto market was like this, you'd have the choice of buying a Ford or a Suzuki... Both are good products, but Ford is NEVER going to say "if we're not careful, we could lose market share to Suzuki."

Kyle on HardOCP put up an editorial recently where he talked about his insider info from AMD, and it jives with what I've seen them doing. While the details he relays may or may not be accurate, the overall picture he paints of their missteps is all too believable.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 09:43 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
I agree. Just IMO they've been doing a half-assed job of it lately. Intel and nvidia are basically only occasionally looking over their shoulder while they do whatever they want. Imagine if the auto market was like this, you'd have the choice of buying a Ford or a Suzuki... Both are good products, but Ford is NEVER going to say "if we're not careful, we could lose market share to Suzuki."

Kyle on HardOCP put up an editorial recently where he talked about his insider info from AMD, and it jives with what I've seen them doing. While the details he relays may or may not be accurate, the overall picture he paints of their missteps is all too believable.




The Jedi Master


Thanks for the heads-up on that HardOCP article, I enjoyed reading it, sounds like a lot of politics going on inside AMD right now, will be very interesting to see how things pan out, here's the link in case anyone else needed it:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/05/27/from_ati_to_amd_back_journey_in_futility
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/16 10:28 PM

Thanks for the link. Their last paragraph "summarizes it" to me.

Quote:
...I can already hear the fanboys ripping into my thoughts here yelling about the HardOCP's NVIDIA and Intel bias. This editorial is based on what I hear throughout the industry from insiders that know what is going on inside of AMD. AMD is not in a good place and there is no shortage of current and recently departed employees that are eager to share their take on what's going on. Lisa Su has lost command of her ship, and Koduri is about to put it on the beach and hope he can make it to shore in his Radeon Technologies Group lifeboat.


This came across as a "breathless tirade" by a site/author that admits (in the article) it has been ostracized by AMD for its previous bias.

That does not mean they are guaranteed to be "stretching the truth". But, its not an ideal article to consider a source of "reliable rumor". By the way, I'm a fan -- but, I'm not "yelling". The "yelling" was done in the article (in my opinion, of course).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 01:20 PM

A brief "financial page" article today says both AMD and Nvidia are "moving up" nearly equally as investments -- however:

Quote:
Analyst claims RX change was better than Pascal

MKM analyst Ian Ing claims that AMDs recent gaming refresh was better done than Nvidias.

Writing in a research report, Ing said .. AMDs transition to the RX series from the R9 this month is proving smoother than Nvidias switch to Pascal architecture from Maxwell..

Ing upped his price target on Advanced Micro Devices stock to 5 from 4, and on Nvidia stock to 52 from 43. On the stock market today, AMD stock rose 0.9 per cent to 4.51. Nvidia climbed 0.2 per cent to 46.33..

We would grow concerned if the present [Nvidia 1000 series] availability pattern persists in the coming weeks, which would imply [Nvidia] supply issues/shortages, Ing said.


Just an "investment analyst" perspective. On that note, Newegg has 12 different 1080 cards listed -- all "out of stock" today -- they've never had one "in stock" when I've checked. There seem to have been some that I missed -- as there are several owner reviews of 1080s. But, apparently the supply is "thin". Nvidia may have rushed a few cards to market for publicity ahead of AMD's Polaris 10 rumored-launch date. Other rumors, mentioned in previous posts, indicate Nvidia will have more stock sometime this month. We'll see how "bountiful" the AMD launch is -- in 3 or 4 weeks.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 02:51 PM

The article from the other day made me LOL, I dont take anything he says about AMD seriously at all.

The stock gap is crazy...

1080 shipping for consumers is delayed and slow, but review websites have a stack of 7 or 8 of them when they post to facebook. lol

And people assume the GP102 to fare any better?

Bottom line, the dies are huge and the yields are low...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 02:56 PM

Its also funny how ppl bashed AMD over power consumption,

When the 1080s from AIB Partners are pushing 300w.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 09:53 PM

I think you may be over estimating the stock gap.

Plenty of people posting about having received their 1080 Founders Editions on other forums I frequent (Overclock.net, Reddit, Shacknews etc.) so I think those that pre-ordered FE are receiving theirs, sounds like it performs well but the fans aren't great.

I'm sure as soon as the vendor partner versions ship it will improve both the stock and fans.

Personally I'm looking forward to see the 1070 partner editions (especially Gigabyte G1 Gamer, MSI, EVGA FTW etc).

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 10:11 PM

I believe 1080 pre-orders were/are being filled. I believe perhaps a couple thousand people have gotten a 1080. But, maybe it was only a few hundred "enthusiasts" -- I don't know.

I believe Nvidia will eventually ship in quantity. "Eventually" may be two weeks or may be longer.

I believe Nvidia will solve its fan issues. I believe Nvidia new generation will have faster FPS cards than AMD new generation (at least for a few months).

But, I'm not "put off" by the "rumored" AMD approach -- presented in previous posts. I think they are currently competing on "bang for buck" and are very likely to win that one by a serious margin -- using small, profitable chips.

I also am an optimistic Cleveland Browns fan (literally). (for those not in USA, that's an inside joke) smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 11:24 PM

Yes, but bang for buck is only great if there is also some horsepower on tap for us to play our games and sims.

A Radeon 290 or 750ti could be best value ever, but pretty pointless for what is rapidly moving towards 1440p resolutions as standard. Its the one point I fear for AMD. Being green and having low power is lovely.......but not at the expense of horsepower of framerates when VR is also upon us.

I'm not particularly keen on crossfire/SLI just because it comes in cheaper than a higher tier single card. The trade-off often isn't worth it. For me at the moment AMD just isn't providing what I need and doesn't look like it will do for at least another 12 months.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/16 11:47 PM

Quote:
...rapidly moving towards 1440p resolutions as standard...


1440P is "2K" gaming. As you note, 1440P is the new standard. Some older 28nm cards already do well with it.

But, folks on a budget moving from 1080P to 1440P and needing a new GPU may not want to spend a lot to get the performance. At least, that's what AMD believes.

According to AMD, the first AMD RX 480s ($199 and $229) are deliberately aimed at 1440P. I am considering one for my wife's 1440P monitor -- we'll see when all the test reports are public on June 29.

There was an article today about a leaked RX 480 performance figure. I did not report it because it mostly says what we've been posting. It indicates that the RX 480 is most of the way to "4K" -- at $229 or less.

Here is the "leaked" chart. One chart does not prove anything. But, it is encouraging. Note how this score goes most of the way towards 4K (2160P). I personally think its possible the $229 version will handle 4K at highest settings in most current games. The printed "graphics score" is most "telling". Not everyone will have a high end Intel CPU.

Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 12:04 AM

Originally Posted By: "Allen"
I personally think its possible the $229 version will handle 4K at highest settings in most current games.


I don't agree with you on that point but it really depends on what your definition of 'will handle' is.

A gpu may handle a game at 2k or 4k but if that means it will run at a framerate of 10fps then its still unplayable......or if a steady framerate of 30fps drops to 15-20fps when busy is equally bad.

Likewise there are many cards under the minimum spec for VR that will handle it......but as we're all aware its the high 90+framerate that is absolutely key. If handling is running at a minimum then it simply won't be enough for some people regardless of price or power-efficiency. Lets be honest, the 980ti is pretty much the minimum for VR, although a 970 can 'handle' it.

I do agree with you that the AMD cards will suit many people, for enthusiasts who want cutting edge or one step behind the curve I think AMD are not going to be there for a good while yet. It will certainly be interesting to see how the RX480 fares against the 1070 but I can personally see it being the 980ti v FuryX all over again and we know how that turned out.



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 01:01 AM

Quote:
...A gpu may handle a game at 2k or 4k but if that means it will run at a framerate of 10fps then its still unplayable......or if a steady framerate of 30fps drops to 15-20fps when busy is equally bad...


Agree.

I feel a true framerate of 30+ with no drops into the teens is "visibly" smooth to the most human eyes (some folks have exceptional vision) -- movies were 24fps for decades -- TV was 30fps -- home movies were 15fps -- and virtually no one complained. I would claim virtually no one can really tell 90fps from 60fps in a "blind test". Most monitors in use have 60fps refresh -- so, above 60 is invisible on those monitors (even though one can "measure" that the card is attempting to put out 100 fps) -- yet, folks still play and enjoy the games at 60 or less.

Thus, yes, it is a matter of the definition.

I go by what I can actually "see" with unaided eyes -- not by "measurements" when deciding if a game is playable. However, some folks go by "measurements" and are unhappy if their GPU is not "measuring" above some number.

No way is wrong. We all do it for fun. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I simply think most will be happy with a smooth 30fps (and up) -- if they don't turn themselves off by "measuring" the FPS.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 03:40 AM

Most Puzzle RPG Style games can do fine at 30FPS.


Sports, Action/Fast Paced Games 60 FPS Minimum.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 03:42 AM

AMD See's the Price of Wafers Going Up, nVidia will continue to make monster GPU's that Cost $1000 without batting an eye.

The 1080 AIB Partner Cards are going to be $775-800+.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 04:19 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
AMD See's the Price of Wafers Going Up, nVidia will continue to make monster GPU's that Cost $1000 without batting an eye.

The 1080 AIB Partner Cards are going to be $775-800+.



Source for those prices? Everything I've read has the 1080 FE at $699 MSRP and the custom partner cards at $599 MSRP. Or is this still you guessing based on the current cost of the Titan X which it performs like?

Still not seeing where you get your pessimistic Pascal price outlooks from, even without AMD competition until fall your prices are way higher than whats been announced.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 09:13 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Most Puzzle RPG Style games can do fine at 30FPS.


Sports, Action/Fast Paced Games 60 FPS Minimum.



I should clarify. I'm not arguing with anyone here. I've merely been stating the case that, according to rumors, AMD would probably make to justify their "business model" that says RX-480 is a good product for AMD to market.

I play action-RPG mostly. And, during "fights" even 20FPS minimum is okay.

My 14 year old Grandson specializes in "twitch" games -- sometimes on-line against other players. He's WAY faster than me. But, he's happy with his low cost computer running an FX6350 CPU and HD7850 GPU. The fastest card in the family (16 of us) is a 17 year old's R9-390 (RX 480 is supposed to be slightly faster) -- he's "super satisfied" with the 390.

So, that's my "first hand" basis. A small sample size.

The 480 should outperform XBox and PS4 -- most popular games on the PC derive from those consoles (grandkids have consoles too). Most people are happy with consoles -- PC gamers are a minority -- "Enthusiast" PC gamers are a small minority. So, the majority of console players switching to a gaming PC would probably be very happy with 480 at $199.

HOWEVER, I do think if I were a competitive "twitch gamer" fighting it out against other human gamers, I would want "every edge" -- 120FPS would be great smile

And, I realize many SimHQ members want the maximum. They may not be happy with RX480. Heck, I'm waiting for Vega myself smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 12:30 PM

Likewise...I've been waiting for the 'next-gen' since about 12 months ago. My GTX 970 as I've said before is at its limits for 1440p with everything maxed out in a lot of games.

With my Oculus due in the next couple of weeks, I've waited long enough now for the upgrade hence my order is already in for a GTX 1080 (Inno3D version, not FE lol) which should arrive next week. Like many people say, there is always something around the corner, but waiting to see what card will compete with the 1080 from AMD probably means another year of waiting.

If AMD release something that blows the 1080 out of the water which I think is probably unlikely then another upgrade is also an option but from what I'm seeing at the moment, and can only go from real reviews and benchmarks then I'm more than happy with the performance I'm going to have. Will the 1080ti be worthwhile moving to? Who knows, like Vega....it can only be speculation at this point in time.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 03:33 PM

Yeah same here, my GTX970 works fine for Ultra settings at 1080p, but I'm wanting something that will allow me to play most things with triple monitor 5760x1080 resolution at high or ultra settings, which I can only do in a few titles now, so I play most things at 1080p ultra.

I've been on that quest for the triple monitor holy grail since first having my horizons broadened to 5760x1080 with my ATI5870 and Eyefinity and iRacing all those years ago.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 04:14 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
AMD See's the Price of Wafers Going Up, nVidia will continue to make monster GPU's that Cost $1000 without batting an eye.

The 1080 AIB Partner Cards are going to be $775-800+.



Source for those prices? Everything I've read has the 1080 FE at $699 MSRP and the custom partner cards at $599 MSRP. Or is this still you guessing based on the current cost of the Titan X which it performs like?

Still not seeing where you get your pessimistic Pascal price outlooks from, even without AMD competition until fall your prices are way higher than whats been announced.


Just to follow up my own reply, EVGA has posted prices for their 1080s and they range between $599 to $679 for the top end FTW gamer version (which are all below the $699 Founder Edition:

http://www.evga.com/Products/ProductList.aspx?type=0&family=GeForce+10+Series+Family

I suspect patient people will be able to pick them up even cheaper from Amazon/NewEgg sales, rebates or promotions once stock catches up with demand like all the generations before.

Not very impressed by their initial prices for the 1070 $409-$449 which is higher than the $379 that had been expected. Maybe an opportunity for AMD if they have a 1070 competitor up their sleeve for fall or sooner.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 06:52 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
AMD See's the Price of Wafers Going Up, nVidia will continue to make monster GPU's that Cost $1000 without batting an eye.

The 1080 AIB Partner Cards are going to be $775-800+.



Source for those prices? Everything I've read has the 1080 FE at $699 MSRP and the custom partner cards at $599 MSRP. Or is this still you guessing based on the current cost of the Titan X which it performs like?

Still not seeing where you get your pessimistic Pascal price outlooks from, even without AMD competition until fall your prices are way higher than whats been announced.


In the defense of the AIB partners, the listings were deleted, But there were more than Simply a "GPU in a Box"

$749-799
But from what I saw:

-Premium Built 1080GTX GFX Card,
-Moisture Resist Coating to Protect PCB from Moisture/Liquid Drips
-2x 8 Pin PCI Connectors w/ LED Diagnostics
-14 (12+2) Phase VRM,
-3 Fan Cooler w/ Flat/Sq Heat Pipes,
-RGB Adjustable LEDs,
-Assorted Adapters (Molex to 6 Pin, DP to DVI/ etc)
-Custom HB SLi Bridge, w/ Adjustable RGB LEDs.
-Internal HDMI Ports on the Back of the Board Next to Power Connectors
-Breakout Box for front panel HDMI and USB3.0 Ports
-Back Slot Bracket for HDMI Ports
-Mouse Pad
-Wrist Protector
-Case Sticker
-4 Yr Warranty


Well worth the Price, if you can afford it.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 07:19 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

In the defense of the AIB partners, the listings were deleted, But there were more than Simply a "GPU in a Box"

$749-799
But from what I saw:

-Premium Built 1080GTX GFX Card,
-Moisture Resist Coating to Protect PCB from Moisture/Liquid Drips
-2x 8 Pin PCI Connectors w/ LED Diagnostics
-14 (12+2) Phase VRM,
-3 Fan Cooler w/ Flat/Sq Heat Pipes,
-RGB Adjustable LEDs,
-Assorted Adapters (Molex to 6 Pin, DP to DVI/ etc)
-Custom HB SLi Bridge, w/ Adjustable RGB LEDs.
-Internal HDMI Ports on the Back of the Board Next to Power Connectors
-Breakout Box for front panel HDMI and USB3.0 Ports
-Back Slot Bracket for HDMI Ports
-Mouse Pad
-Wrist Protector
-Case Sticker
-4 Yr Warranty


Well worth the Price, if you can afford it.


Interesting, is that for water cooled systems or something?

What makes it worth the extra $100 ?
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 07:35 PM

The AIB 1080 cards in the UK are 540 through to 650 on average and are usually very close to the same amount in $$$.

I've only seen one card over 700 and that was a water-cooled version.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 08:03 PM

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5920#kf

Was one of the Ones Listed at $750, but the listing has since been deleted by Reseller (Amazon and New Egg).

Likely for the wrong price.

But Amazon Prices have gone up due to availability:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=GTX1080

$800 to $1100
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 09:38 PM

Nice card, Gigabyte is one of the good vendors (my Gigabyte GTX970 G1 is very overclockable), hopefully those models will be as well.

Ah yeah those prices are all Amazon Marketplace sellers. I had a co-worker who was one of those, he always pre-ordered a bunch of the new video cards, iphones, android phones and then on release sold them at huge markup on Amazon, eBay, Craigslist until stock caught up with demand.

Good way to make a bucks if you have the patience/nack for it.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 10:09 PM

For what comes w/ that Card, it's worth the price IMHO.

Few reviews have said the AIB Cards dont overclock much better than the 1st Party Founders Edition Cards, despite the Extra 8/6Pin Connector.

The all blame the new nVidia Voltage Control.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/16 11:28 PM

Article says 1070 is out -- buy it now before the stock disappears.

It confirms the lack of 1080 stock and high prices.

Article
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/16 11:28 AM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Article says 1070 is out -- buy it now before the stock disappears.

It confirms the lack of 1080 stock and high prices.

Article


Or don't buy the crappy FE and wait for much better non reference cards.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/16 06:09 PM

if legit, 480 is better than a 980 (all non overclocked).

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/16 07:43 PM

Quote:
if legit, 480 is better than a 980 (all non overclocked).


If true, that's better than I expected -- and its the $199 4Gb model. I expected between R9-390 and R-390X. I note its at 1080. Maybe need the 8GB $229 model for 1440P??

Thanks for the chart.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 03:27 AM

O_o
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 10:18 AM

Quote:
Sony has official confirmed the rumors that it is building a 4K VR-friendly flavor of the Playstation.

According to the FT the new PlayStation 4 gaming console will be upgraded so that it can offer ultra-high definition 4K resolution and richer graphics...


4K and VR in a PS4 console. Just noting this because the PS4 uses AMD CPU and GPU hardware.

The upgunned PS4 will use an upgunned version of the AMD components. Thus, more 4K and VR games are likely to be developed for AMD hardware first (then ported to Intel/Nvidia). However, switching from Intel/Nvidia primary-development to AMD is not complete -- its ongoing -- its a process.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 12:58 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
Sony has official confirmed the rumors that it is building a 4K VR-friendly flavor of the Playstation.

According to the FT the new PlayStation 4 gaming console will be upgraded so that it can offer ultra-high definition 4K resolution and richer graphics...


4K and VR in a PS4 console. Just noting this because the PS4 uses AMD CPU and GPU hardware.

The upgunned PS4 will use an upgunned version of the AMD components. Thus, more 4K and VR games are likely to be developed for AMD hardware first (then ported to Intel/Nvidia). However, switching from Intel/Nvidia primary-development to AMD is not complete -- its ongoing -- its a process.


To put more perspective into this, the leaked specs from several weeks ago already pointed this towards Polaris (RX480) and the same cpu with higher clock I believe.....whilst I can see this is a requirement for a higher frames-per-sec for VR I really don't think we're looking at 4K gaming at all - not for console titles anyway. You only need to look at how much horsepower is actually needed and how the 980Ti/Fury copes - there is no chance consoles will get 60fps in premium titles unless games are massively gimped, and given that Sony has already stipulated to developers what is/isn't allowed between 'normal' and 'Neo' games I think we have a fair idea of what's coming and that will be 1080p/60fps locked across the board with some extra bells and whistles. I'm sure there will be 4K content but probably video and not AAA games.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 02:18 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
if legit, 480 is better than a 980 (all non overclocked).


If true, that's better than I expected -- and its the $199 4Gb model. I expected between R9-390 and R-390X. I note its at 1080. Maybe need the 8GB $229 model for 1440P??

Thanks for the chart.


The DX11 Performance Maybe more than the "Overall" Performance Increase, due to the GPU Re-Structuring and adding of Updated Blocks etc.

Likely tweaked so DX11 Utilization is better.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 02:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
Sony has official confirmed the rumors that it is building a 4K VR-friendly flavor of the Playstation.

According to the FT the new PlayStation 4 gaming console will be upgraded so that it can offer ultra-high definition 4K resolution and richer graphics...


4K and VR in a PS4 console. Just noting this because the PS4 uses AMD CPU and GPU hardware.

The upgunned PS4 will use an upgunned version of the AMD components. Thus, more 4K and VR games are likely to be developed for AMD hardware first (then ported to Intel/Nvidia). However, switching from Intel/Nvidia primary-development to AMD is not complete -- its ongoing -- its a process.


To put more perspective into this, the leaked specs from several weeks ago already pointed this towards Polaris (RX480) and the same cpu with higher clock I believe.....whilst I can see this is a requirement for a higher frames-per-sec for VR I really don't think we're looking at 4K gaming at all - not for console titles anyway. You only need to look at how much horsepower is actually needed and how the 980Ti/Fury copes - there is no chance consoles will get 60fps in premium titles unless games are massively gimped, and given that Sony has already stipulated to developers what is/isn't allowed between 'normal' and 'Neo' games I think we have a fair idea of what's coming and that will be 1080p/60fps locked across the board with some extra bells and whistles. I'm sure there will be 4K content but probably video and not AAA games.


No one said 4K 60 Fps/ at Ultra Settings :-), Likley 4K 60 FPS w/ Reduced MSAA and Details et.c
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 02:42 PM

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/9365...medium=facebook
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 03:31 PM

Xbox One S will have updated HDMI Output, Larger HDD etc, same APU.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 04:36 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
No one said 4K 60 Fps/ at Ultra Settings :-), Likley 4K 60 FPS w/ Reduced MSAA and Details et.c


I didn't mention 4k at ultra settings either. I very much doubt a 980 on PC or an AMD equivalent with console optimisations has a hope of hitting 4K/60fps in any game regardless of the settings.

That's not a cue to show off a benchmark running minesweeper either! winkngrin
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 04:44 PM

Forza APEX Runs 60FPs at 4K on a R9-390 w/ Reduced Settings.

So a RX-480 w/ some other details lowered would prolly work.


Also, Xbox One S, 40% Smaller, Integrated PSU, 2 TB HDD,

Likely 14nmFinFET Version of the same Custom APU?
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 05:31 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Forza APEX Runs 60FPs at 4K on a R9-390 w/ Reduced Settings.

So a RX-480 w/ some other details lowered would prolly work.


When settings aren't reduced, Forza Apex can only just about hold 60fps at 1440p with a 390 so that's a more accurate indication!

But it comes back to that definition again doesn't it...... 'will run' or 'handles'. Let's be honest, any game can run at 4K but it's the laws of diminishing returns when the settings have to be reduced to get there or the framerate is so low that it actually affects the gameplay. I'm sure that won't put Sony off from making all sorts of outlandish claims though and mustering the console crowd into an absolute frenzy.

I wonder how long it will be before people are claiming the Sony Neo/PS4.5 is the most powerful gaming system in the world. Ever. smile2

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 05:45 PM

Forza w/ Reduced Settings for 4K on my PC (Using 1 7970) still looks significantly better than Forza at 1080p on XBOX One.

That being said, Not Every XBO Game is going to be 4K.

Forza 7 and FH3 maybe the first ones, as they run on DX12 and UWA.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 06:04 PM

Next Xbox will have greater than 6 FLOPS of GPU Power.

-8 CPU Cores,
-320 Gb/sec Memory
-6 TFLOPS of GPU Power

-4K / VR Ready (Likely DX12 Games w/ Oculus/Vive Compatibility)
-Fall Out 4 is Going VR

-Ships Next Year

-All XBO Games will work on XBO, XBOS, XBO=4K/VR Consoles (VR/4K Modes Require the 4K Console).

-UWA/XB Crossbuy, Buy a Game on Windows 10, Play on XBO and Visa Versa.

Sounds like they took an RX480 GPU and Put it in the Xbox One Hardware Set.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 06:10 PM

I just "report" the "rumors" -- usually with a "quote". If the rumor says "4K" that's on the person who wrote the article, not me.

We'll see -- when the items (GPU cards, Consoles, CPUs) are released. If the rumored specifications are wrong (overstated), it won't be the first time. Actually, I've lost count of how many rumors have been "overstatements" smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 06:16 PM

I got someone at E3, they are gonna pry for info,

but it does sound like they took the RX480 w/ GDDR5X

5Gbps * 2 * 256 / 8 = 320Gbps
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 06:17 PM

Also,

New Benchmark leaks show RX-480s Overclocked to 1400MHz having performance matching a Fury GFX Card.

AIB Partner Model Pix are starting to leak...

Im hearintg 1500MHz GPU and 9GHz Memory is EASY on 8 Pins.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 07:35 PM

AMD Announced RX-470 and RX-460
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 08:03 PM

Meh... was watching that and hoping for an announcement of a 490 reading
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 08:05 PM

You and me both.. lol..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 08:27 PM

Me too. I ass-u-me it won't be for "months". Hope I'm wrong again smile
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 08:29 PM

Is AMD doing a presentation of their own later on E3?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 09:31 PM

The Did Already I Think.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/16 10:20 PM

Today's announcements make it clear -- AMD is competing on price -- low low price for what you get (they say, not me say).

They say a $299 RX 400 series card is coming -- maybe that's the one some SimHQ folks would want.

RX-470 and RX-460 Announcements -- $299 Card Implied
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/16 09:39 AM

NEW AMD-Powered CONSOLES to be POWERFUL

Quote:

...A next generation gaming console with over four and a half times the performance of the companys current XBOX One game console.

Microsoft Announced

"Project Scorpio. Coming Holiday 2017, Project Scorpio will be the most powerful console ever created, with 6 teraflops of GPU delivering a premier console gaming experience including true 4K gaming and high fidelity virtual reality. Project Scorpio will join the Xbox One family and coexist alongside Xbox One and Xbox One S and all of your Xbox One games and accessories are compatible."


Rumor/speculation is that Sony will try to match it -- the planned PS4 update will not match this. The console redesigns over the next year are apparently not minor.

Article

Another Article on the Same Subject

Among other things, that article compares an aspect of the console to the Nvidia 1080 -- eek

Quote:
...Microsoft is calling its next-generation console project an uncompromising gaming machine packed with 4K video output at 60fps, VR support, an 8-core AMD CPU and over 320GB/s of memory bandwidth. This puts total system bandwidth right on par with Nvidias Geforce GTX 1080...


4.5 times the performance is starting to be "big", if real. Games will become "more AMD technology oriented", I speculate -- if the AMD-powered console wars really takes off -- and if the war results in AMD consoles nearly as strong as a high end (not maxxed out) gaming PC.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/16 04:28 PM

Which means Console Ports will Literally be PC Versions Ported to Console or Vise Versa w/ Minimal Changes.

a Xbox 4K Game will simply enable 4K Textures / VR Modes if the Hardware ID is that of a Xbox One 4K etc.

Otherwise use gets a normal Xbox One title.

I wouldnt be surprised if APU + DDR3 is Swapped out for APU + HBM2
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/16 05:50 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen


Quote:
...Microsoft is calling its next-generation console project an uncompromising gaming machine packed with 4K video output at 60fps, VR support, an 8-core AMD CPU and over 320GB/s of memory bandwidth. This puts total system bandwidth right on par with Nvidias Geforce GTX 1080...


4.5 times the performance is starting to be "big", if real. Games will become "more AMD technology oriented", I speculate -- if the AMD-powered console wars really takes off -- and if the war results in AMD consoles nearly as strong as a high end (not maxxed out) gaming PC.


Oh come on Allen....you have been largely impartial up to this point. I can feel the excitement in your post and know you're an AMD fan but lets not get carried away, as 'powerful' as they like to market this its no different to the PS4/XO at launch.

Whilst some people were getting carried away by a mobile Jaguar CPU others knew what was coming and why it would struggle.

Bandwidth doesn't maketh the performance.....just ask yourself why Fury X is beaten in almost every game by a 980Ti. As for 'AMD consoles' (as you referred to them) being nearly as strong as a high-end PCs they're not going to be released until Q4 2017 when the competition will be Vega/Navi and the 1080TI and beyond. PCs obviously move on, consoles will always be years behind the curve at the point of launch.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/16 07:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
...excitement..Bandwidth doesn't maketh the performance..... will always be years behind the curve at the point of launch.


Honestly, I don't get "excited" because very little comes out as good as the "rumors" -- the rumors are based on "sales pitches". We need "DATA".

Meantime, I generally agree with the rest. Although, to some extent, some (not all) games have run better on Nvidia because they were coded for Nvidia with Nvidia's help. Over the years, the few games coded for AMD with AMD's help have usually done better than might be expected on AMD. So, its not "all hardware" -- its partly how the games are coded and "who's involved". The direction of console game coding might impact PC game performance smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/16 08:06 PM

That's pretty much my point......it takes more than just a number, be that bandwidth, Tflops etc for a meaningful comparison and certainly to judge a product. You even caveat one of the quotes yourself by stating an aspect is equivalent to the GTX 1080 - what makes that particular aspect even relevant?

Regardless of how powerful a particular AMD product is, what are the developers going to use to develop their games on?.....one of the arguments would say that they would use the most powerful hardware available and that is where AMD are absolutely lacking. Publishers also won't be using a mid-range GPU to show off their products.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 02:56 AM

I'm skeptic about whether the XB1 project Scorpio and PSX will actually compete with gaming PCs with top end video cards...

The "nextgen" consoles were originally advertised as supposed to compete with the gaming PCs a couple of years ago too, but as someone who bought both a XB1 and PS4 and like them just fine, the graphics quality (AA/AF) and framerate never even matched what my i5-2500k and GTX560 gaming PC could do, nevermind the top end video cards of the time.

My guess is that these higher end consoles just allow 4K resolution and higher textures compared to the baseline consoles, but no better AA/AF or higher framerate than the current console standards which is usually 30FPS and some jaggies.

I'd be amazed if they ever compete with a top end gaming PC and GPU like a GTX 1080 or AMD 490, I'd love to be proven wrong, but their track record on delivering any "nextgen" console wow factor compared to a top end PC is not good, more like just barely meeting what a mid priced budget gaming PC can do.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 12:30 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
I'm skeptic about whether the XB1 project Scorpio and PSX will actually compete with gaming PCs with top end video cards...


I agree. The top end PCs will always stay ahead. And, skepticism is warranted regarding most "sales pitches". But, I do think "the practical gap" between normal gaming PCs and Consoles will continue to shrink over the years.

This thread is "The Future And Current Status of AMD..."; so, it appropriately contains posts that speculate about things that impact the "future status" of AMD.

To me, the importance of major consoles all being made of the same basic AMD CPU/GPU/APU technology is that they are going to "set the tone" for which technology is "best supported" by the large game developers.

The above is certainly not an overwhelming advantage for AMD -- but, an "improved situation" that helps AMD survive and leads to sustained AMD competition for Intel/Nvidia. If the consoles were Intel/Nvidia, that ultimately might weaken or kill AMD -- leading to no competition for Intel/Nvidia -- leading to high prices and deliberately holding back improved technology.

Competition is good for all -- regardless of what CPU/GPU one purchases. But, for competition to exist, there has to be viable competitors. So, I "pull for" AMD to continue on smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 03:07 PM

The fact that gaming sites and news sites keep messing up what they are reporting is funny, they report the XBO S as a new console and people are whining about the 2 yr life of the console not buying a new one, etc.. News sites also reporting that XBO S will do 4K Gaming, Nope.

Xbox One, Original Launch Revision

Xbox One S, Revised Hardware, Same APU and GPU specs, Condensed Mainboard Layout, Removed Proprietary Kinect Port, Replaced w/ Windows10 USB Adapter and Driver, Updated HDMI Scalar Chip, Updated HDMI Specs to Support 4K @ 60Hz and HDR. Integrated PSU, Cut Power Consumption TDP, Likely SoC Upgraded to 14nm FinFET.

Now, the 4K Resolution is Simply for the UI on 4K HDTVs, Games will continue to run normal resolutions, upsaled to 4K using the Scalar, Games are NOT going to be Running 4K Natively. I Dont know why News and Gaming Sites are saying otherwise, and I dont know why console people believe it.

HDR is also a feature of the Upgraded HDMI Port, and Not a Game Feature to enable/disable, it will globally effect output of the HDMI Image.

The fact that users are griping over a new console, is funny, it's the same console, just revised to save money on manufacturing, same w/ Xbox 360 and Xbox 360S. But the users believe what they are fed via twitter and news articles.

They also assume the removal of the Kinect Port means kinect is dead, when in reality, the port is proprietary, and not needed and took up alot of space w/ circuit runs and the port itself. It was no longer needed as XBO Can use the USB Adapter and the Windows 10 Driver.


Project Scorpio is nothing more than a Mid-Range Settop PC for HDTVs, As in a Small Form factor PC designed to hook to a TV, Same for the Xbox One and Xbox One S,

it will Run the Windows 10 Kernel like all the Xbox Ones Do, It will use the same UI as Xbox One.

All games going forward are built on UWA and DX12, so they will work on Both XBO and Windows 10,

Making a More Powerful "Console" will allow the developers to include the 4K/VR Updates/DLC in their UWA Titles for both PC and Xbox One Platforms.


I wont be even looking at the XBO Scorpio, as I'll have VR On my PC and just use Windows 10 and Cross Buy which should be in Full Force deployment by Holiday 2017




What I do so Happening w/ Crossbuy, is Account Abuse,

ie:
All accounts on my Xbox One Share XBLive and Games, I Download Games on my Account, and they are playable by all Accounts, which my brother's account was a silver account on XB360, but it has Gold Permissions on XBO.

So, w/ Cross Buy, I can Purchase, Say Forza Horizon III, Download on both Xbox One and PC/Windows 10.

Sign Out of Xbox One, Let my brother Sign into his account,

I'll goto my PC and Sign into my account, and Go Online w/ Forza Horizon III using PC and Wheel, while he goes on FH3 using XBO and Controller.


We've already done this with XB Games for Gold (I'll download say HALO REACH onto XBO and XB360 w/ My gold Account), He'll sign into his Account on XBO, which is normally a Silver Account, Get on XBL Open a Room, I'll goto other room, get on Reach on the XB360 and Sign in as my Gold account, join his party, and room, then invite a bunch of my friends, it works w/ Every Games for Gold Game we've tried.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 03:17 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen

Competition is good for all -- regardless of what CPU/GPU one purchases. But, for competition to exist, there has to be viable competitors. So, I "pull for" AMD to continue on smile


Yeah I agree and pull for AMD as well, but I'm just a bit more picky on what I'm impressed about biggrin and I want them to actually deliver a kick ass GPU and console solution and not just an "ok" option that just allows higher res, but not really any improvement in framerate or AA/AF because they are trying to keep the price as low as possible.

I actually prefer playing multiplayer games on XB1/PS4 instead of PC as there's less hacking and less whiners, but sometimes when I have the same title on both platforms (BF4, Far Cry 4 etc which I buy first on console and then later cheap on PC) and I play it on PC at 60+ FPS, it's jarring to then go back to console and play the same game at 30 FPS and more jaggies...

My biggest wish for the enhanced "nextgen" consoles would be to have them finally be able to handle 60 FPS on all games like PC does, that would actually impress me and might make me upgrade to the enhanced console version.

I don't plan to upgrade to 4K TV until there is lots of actual content to watch, which right now doesn't exist, so to me seems like another gimmick to sell TVs and consoles, like 3D was and flopped.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 03:23 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Making a More Powerful "Console" will allow the developers to include the 4K/VR Updates/DLC in their UWA Titles for both PC and Xbox One Platforms.

I wont be even looking at the XBO Scorpio, as I'll have VR On my PC and just use Windows 10 and Cross Buy which should be in Full Force deployment by Holiday 2017


Yeah I think VR is the true potential for these more powerful console versions... Microsoft barely mentioned VR, but if you watched Sony's presentation, VR was all over the place and there were a couple of things that actually looked potentially awesome (VR StarWars Battlefront and Resident Evil 7) especially with the $399 price of the PS VR headset.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 03:33 PM

Yeah, I dont see the PS4 Running a VR Title at a Decent or comparable Res or FPS as Vive/Rift.

Fallout 4 in VR will be nice, and I can use Kinect II to track my hands smile

Why develop and force people to use a proprietary piece of hardware, when you can simply include a driver and runtimes and allow users that have Vive/Rift already to plug those into the console and go.

the GPU Block on PS4's APU is Well below Recommended VR Specs for every other HMD.

I didnt get to see all of the Sony Conference, Will watch it later on.


Either way, all of these consoles are AMD :), which means most of these games likely use GPUOpen and LiquidVR Libraries during development and not GameWorks/VRWorks smile
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 04:26 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
.
I didnt get to see all of the Sony Conference, Will watch it later on.

Either way, all of these consoles are AMD :), which means most of these games likely use GPUOpen and LiquidVR Libraries during development and not GameWorks/VRWorks smile


Yeah I agree with you on VR, i.e. if I go that route, it's definitely on the PC, but I can see VR selling a few consoles if you can buy the VR headset plus console for about the same price as the headset on PC.

Definitely check out the Sony conference, as a fanboy of both consoles (and PC), I enjoyed the Sony one much better than the Microsoft one, much less talking and awkward marketing speak compared to Microsoft, and much more focus on showing games and VR... but then again I hate marketing speak.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g135oVqDR-Q


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRAhtB79b5I

Also I'm not ashamed to admit that Call of Duty Space Marine actually looked damn awesome, I might pick it up if it turns out good, even though I hate normal COD games.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 08:03 PM



This benchmark seems to vary a little from the Korean site one, but still shows the value/FPS of the RX 480.

http://videocardz.com/61005/new-amd-radeon-rx-480-3dmark-benchmarks

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/16 11:46 PM

Thanks for the link.

Just tested my "single" 28nm HD7979 (not Crossfired) against the above 14nm RX480.

Extreme: HD7970 = 3880 - RX480 = 5708 - RX480/HD7970 = 1.47 -- 47 percent faster

Ultra: HD7970 = 1820 - RX480 = 2856 - RX480/HD7970 = 1.57 -- 57 percent faster

From what I "saw" during the benchmark test, "visually" 3880 is fast enough (barely). So, RX480 is not fast enough on Ultra -- but is more than fast enough on Extreme (my setup is nominally Extreme). Reports say that RX480 does even better in actual games -- we'll see.

Anyhow, if these numbers hold up when the official numbers become available, RX-480 at $229 is a good upgrade (by my standards) for 2x HD7979 (my games play well on a single HD7970). Odds of me buying RX480 for myself have improved. If I buy one for myself, I'd give my wife an HD7970 until the Vega comes out (then buy a Vega for myself and give her the RX480).

[EDIT] Another article indicates virtually no difference between the $199 and $229 RX-480s in the Ultra benchmark. On that basis, I would consider the $199 version. We'll see.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 03:02 PM

nVidia will be cutting the Price of the 980 Ti's to $369 Range + Most ETailers are doing Coupon Codes.
GTX980 and Below will not be seeing a price cut, they are EoL, and will be liquidated at current prices.


Which means in 2 weeks, RX-480 will have Zero Direct Competition in the $199-$250 Market, aka the 85% of Discrete GPU Sales Market.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 04:49 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla

Which means in 2 weeks, RX-480 will have Zero Direct Competition in the $199-$250 Market, aka the 85% of Discrete GPU Sales Market.


Is it out in 2 weeks? If so shouldn't we already be seeing some reviews and actual game benchmarks and not just 3DMark scores?

Hoping actual game benchmarks will be good if AMD spent some time on decent driver support.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 05:06 PM

NDA Lifts on June 29th, which is also the sale day.

I know at least 5 guys that have press review cards already.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 05:42 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
nVidia will be cutting the Price of the 980 Ti's to $369 Range + Most ETailers are doing Coupon Codes.
GTX980 and Below will not be seeing a price cut, they are EoL, and will be liquidated at current prices.


Which means in 2 weeks, RX-480 will have Zero Direct Competition in the $199-$250 Market, aka the 85% of Discrete GPU Sales Market.


Sounds great if you're selling GPUs or have shares in AMD. $369 for a 980Ti is outstanding value winkngrin
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 06:01 PM

Benchmarks will start leaking next week garaunteed, cuz some of these sites dont realize once they compare their results with other GPU's in the online database, their entry is stored in the database as well.


Also:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/52621/rade...-380/index.html

http://techreport.com/news/30279/amd-teases-radeon-rx-470-performance-and-polaris-11-details

http://www.lowyat.net/2016/107592/full-specifications-of-the-radeon-rx-480-graphics-card/

I would seriously consider 2 of those in explicit Multi-Adapter Modes if more sims supported the modes with VR..

xDMA Linking would negate any XFire Bridge Bottlenecks at higher resolutions/frame rates.

Something nVidia is still behind in.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 08:17 PM

OOps, Mistake:
980 TI's are $400-460
980's are $380ish
970's are $240ish

980 Price is a bad deal considering 1070's Price:Performance:TDP
Not to mention RX-480 will likely beat both in Performance and TDP, for LESS $.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 08:30 PM

BTW looks like we won't have to wait long to find out what the XB1 4K can do, just received an email from Gamestop saying pre-order now for the Xbox One S 2TB Console $399 and available on 8/31/2016.

http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-one/console...mp;om_mid=21724

"Introducing the new Xbox One S. Play the greatest games lineup, including Xbox 360 classics, on a 40% smaller console. Experience richer, more luminous colors in games and video with High Dynamic Range. Stream 4K video on Netflix and Amazon Video, and watch UHD Blu-ray movies in stunning 4K Ultra HD. Then get the enhanced comfort and feel of the new Xbox Wireless Controller, featuring textured grip and Bluetooth.*"

No 4K games available for a while I would guess...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 08:36 PM

ASUS and MSI Accused of Sampling Revi...etail Units

Quote:
ASUS and MSI Accused of Sampling Review Units of GPUs With Higher Clock Speeds Compared To Retail Units


The "secret" boost is very small. This is nothing totally new. This type of thing has been going on for years. For example, ASUS used to always overclock motherboards I was interested in by about 1 percent -- to "seem to be" the fastest and best.

The examples mentioned in the above article were Nvidia 1080 and 1070 cards from ASUS and MSI. They've done it with AMD parts in the past. So, if ASUS or MSI is just a bit faster, its not necessarily better technology -- it easily could be a minor overclock (relative to standard).


To repeat a point about RX-480 versus Nvidia 980 parts: RX-480 closes some of the gap in DX12 and Vulcan (versus DX11 benchmarks) -- due to the circuitry (not due to the drivers alone). Some older AMD cards also contain circuitry that does better with the new graphics software (DX12).

So, if one is buying to play the latest DX12 games over the next couple years, pundits are saying RX-480 "should" (not guaranteed) close some of the gap with the 970/980 products (compared to the DX11 benchmarks published so far). For completeness, Nvidia 1080 and 1070 circuits are up to date.

Bottom line: We have to wait for the full RX-480 test reports in actual games before we know what to buy (and what to avoid).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 10:06 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
BTW looks like we won't have to wait long to find out what the XB1 4K can do, just received an email from Gamestop saying pre-order now for the Xbox One S 2TB Console $399 and available on 8/31/2016.

http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-one/console...mp;om_mid=21724

"Introducing the new Xbox One S. Play the greatest games lineup, including Xbox 360 classics, on a 40% smaller console. Experience richer, more luminous colors in games and video with High Dynamic Range. Stream 4K video on Netflix and Amazon Video, and watch UHD Blu-ray movies in stunning 4K Ultra HD. Then get the enhanced comfort and feel of the new Xbox Wireless Controller, featuring textured grip and Bluetooth.*"

No 4K games available for a while I would guess...


You might be a little confused kludger? The Xbox One S is effectively just an Xbox One 'Slim' with same spec (OK, some small upgrades) as existing 'fat' console....as Skate has already said it has same CPU/GPU spec so it's not going to magically produce 4K gaming....nor will it suddenly be pushing games at 1080p/60fps however it will 4k video capable.

It's going to be the Xbox 'Scorpio' with updated cpu/gpu spec that brings 4k gaming.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/16 10:42 PM

Xbox One S is not the new Xbox 4K/Project Scorpio.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/16 05:09 PM

Quote:
AMD RX 480 Can Hit 1.5Ghz+, New Overclocking Tool With Voltage Control Coming

...With the Radeon RX 480 and the RX 400 series in general AMD wants every user to be able to extract even more value out of their RX 400 series graphics card. Beyond what theyd normally get straight out of the box. The key to achieve this is to make overclocking more accessible, more convenient and more valuable. This is where AMDs new overclocking tool will play an instrumental role in supercharging the bang behind every buck...


1.5GHz is the rumored maximum advertised overclock. More normally expect 1.4GHz on air -- they rumor. Some cards will be "factory overclocked" -- as expected.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/16 05:36 PM

1.4 GHz should gimmie enough performance to retire the Lightnings. lol
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/16 06:10 PM

Ah thanks Paradaz and Skate, I had thought the XB1 "S" was for "Scorpio", I guess confusing marketing success for an idiot like me biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/18/16 10:44 AM

Quote:
AMD Stock Rally Continues

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) stock continues its rally this year and is up ~9.8% on the day. As many of you may recall, AMD stock jumped significantly this year with the expectation of multiple new offerings both in CPU and GPU technology in Zen and the much vaunted Polaris range bringing greater performance per watt and per dollar..

..Lisa Su is also on a charm offensive, talking up AMDs game and explaining how AMD will reap the benefits of its multi-year investment program. You can see her chatting with CNBC...


I think the market as a whole is in "bubble mode" (due to political actions). So, I'm not suggesting anyone "invest" for the long term ("trading" in the short term is okay) smile

This is just to indicate that the AMD "game plan" may be paying off with some investors. Long term gains will depend on AMD execution and how long the government keeps doing what it is doing. My opinions, of course.

Article
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/16 12:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
AMD RX 480 Can Hit 1.5Ghz+, New Overclocking Tool With Voltage Control Coming

...With the Radeon RX 480 and the RX 400 series in general AMD wants every user to be able to extract even more value out of their RX 400 series graphics card. Beyond what theyd normally get straight out of the box. The key to achieve this is to make overclocking more accessible, more convenient and more valuable. This is where AMDs new overclocking tool will play an instrumental role in supercharging the bang behind every buck...


1.5GHz is the rumored maximum advertised overclock. More normally expect 1.4GHz on air -- they rumor. Some cards will be "factory overclocked" -- as expected.


1.5 isn't the maximum. There are vendors that will be selling 1.5GHz cards. Not that they will have much more headroom, but there should be a bit more room for an OC over that.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/16 05:33 PM

like i said, i know some guys that are saying 1400MHz makes the 480 run on par w/ the Fury.

1500 is easily attainable on aftermarket cooling.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/16 08:57 PM

So Going by Core counts and clocks alone:

TAHITI - 7970/R9-280X = 2048*2*925 = 3.8 TFLOPS
TONGA - R9-380X = 2048*2*970 = 3.973 TFLOPS
HAWAII - R9-390/290 = 2560*2*1025 = 5.248 TFLOPS
POLARIS- RX-480 = 2304*2*1266 = 5.838 TFLOPS
HAWAII - R9-390X/290X = 2816*2*1050 = 5.913 TFLOPS

POLARIS- RX-480 = 2304*2*1500 = 6.912 TFLOPS
Fiji - R9-Fury = 3584*2*1000 = 7.168 TFLOPS
Fiji - R9-FuryX = 4096*2*1000 = 8.192 TFLOPS
Fiji - R9-Fury Nano = 4096*2*1000 =8.192 TFLOPS

Now you have to take into account the core improvements from GCN 1.0 (Tahiti), 1.1 (Hawaii/Tonga), 1.2 (Fiji), 1.3 (Gen 4/Polaris)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/16 09:20 PM

Quote:
Exclusive: Codename Starship

...it looks like AMD has a 7nm product called Starship which will arrive soon..

..The 7nm flavour will be codenamed Starship..

..server chip will have 48 cores and 96 thread support..

Starship is still a concept project and if all goes well, you might see it as soon as 2018...


They speculatively rumor that the 7nm desktop equivalent is also planned.

What's interesting about 7nm is that it is "close to the end" of the downsizing possible with "silicon transistors". That is, there probably will be a practical 3nm someday -- but, maybe not -- under 3nm may not be possible at all.

So, we are approaching the year when the rate of CPU improvement drops sharply -- and when AMD catches up to Intel simply because the technology is "against the wall" and Intel will "stand still" while AMD continues forward to their side (at which point AMD stalls too).

Of course, Intel/AMD are already trying to "break through" to a new technology -- so far, I have not read a "convincing" rumor that they have found a practical successor technology.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/16 11:16 AM

Quote:
AMD RX 480 Overclocked to 1607Mhz

So far everything that this particular individual has leaked weve managed to corroborate and confirm with our sources. So we know that his leaks are genuine..

..The GPU-Z screencap also confirms pretty much all of the specifications that had been leaked a month ago..

..we have confirmed one additional piece of info. And that is on launch day, 29th of June, only reference RX 480 cards will be available...


The $199 4GB reference card looks better and better for my current purposes. We'll see. But, I am ready to "pull the trigger" on day one -- at $199.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/16 02:02 PM

yeah, as long as the blower and heatsink hold up, I'll get one to hold me over until the new stuff comes out.

1600MHz is around 7.3 TFLOPS, Ima Aim for around 1400 myself.


on the other side of the coin I've seen GTX1080's at 2100MHz already.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/16 06:49 PM

Yes, I too await the Fall AMD releases (both GPU and CPU). Nonetheless, if rumors are true, RX-480 is a large improvement over my HD7970 -- at $199. So, I'll buy one to "hold me" until Fall.


Quote:
...AMD's Zen processors are seeing stable development and have a satisfactory yield rate, and about to enter the engineering sample stage in the near future..

..AMD Zen chipset designs have already been finalized and will begin shipments at the end of the third quarter and start mass production in the fourth.


[EDIT] Claimed/Rumored: RX-480 Reference will be in good supply at launch date (by comparison with Nvidia 1080 availability at launch). Some sites are taking pre-orders (but not Newegg or Amazon, yet -- where I will go for mine).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/16 07:17 PM

If you have no compatibility issues with Cross Fire:
Two RX-480s in CrossFire for $400-500 w/ only 300w max TDP,

I'd switch to that in a heartbeat, cuz My lightnings pull stupid amounts of power in Xfire mode when both are maxed to the point my APC Beeps that it's overloaded and it's a 1000w UPS/APC, I had to install a Second PSU, To feed the 2nd Card and Plug that into a Separate UPS to keep them from Overloading when playing in XFire Mode.

So drop a fair amount of Power Consumption and heat while getting a Performance Boost Per GPU I'll take it.

with DX12 EMA, No need to continue Xfire Drivers, support the DX9/11 XFire Modes, but DX12 EMA is legit, neighbor was running a R9-280X and a nVidia 970 with crazy good performance,.

Im Looking forward to Split Screen Rendering, so each GPU does a Single Eye.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/16 08:37 PM



Confirmation on RX 480 8GB reference base price is $229.


http://videocardz.com/61262/amd-radeon-rx-480-8gb-to-cost-229-usd
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 03:21 PM



AMD says it has enough stock to meet the demand for the release day:

http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-480-pre-order-in-stock/
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 03:31 PM

Somebody just signed for a pallet of RX-480's at a warehouse :-)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 03:54 PM

Quote:
Complications w/ USB 3.1 Circuit Run Distances will have a impact on AM4 Motherboards due to Re-Timer Chips or USB3.1 Controllers being placed to keep signal from degrading.


Funny this pops up in my RSS Feed and sites are pushing it as a AMD Problem, Intel has had this problem for over 2 years now.

Estimated Cost increase is $2-5, But everyone's jumping at the chance to stab AMD for something that Intel is having issues with too......
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 06:31 PM

Quote:
US$1.4 billion at stake

Intel is still contesting the landmark US$1.4 billion antitrust fine from the European Commission, which in May 2009 found it had abused its dominant position in the market for x86 processors.

In 2009 ruling the Commission, the EU's top antitrust authority, found that between October 2002 and October 2007 Intel sought to exclude its main competitor, AMD from the x86 processor market. It granted exclusivity rebates to four PC and server manufacturers, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC, the Commission found...


I wasn't paying attention. I thought they paid up. But, no. Their actions cost AMD Billions -- back when AMD CPUs were better than Intel CPUs -- so, Intel effectively paid folks to NOT use AMD. Dell's entire profit for one year was claimed to be the "payoff money" -- that is, Dell products on their own were not profitable that year.

AMD could use the money.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 06:40 PM

it was obvious when Intel was hush hush and then bailed on Socket 7 platform w/ Zero Notice,

forcing AMD, CyRix, WinChip, and about half a dozen others to either abandon x86 market or develop their own board,
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 07:16 PM

Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 07:41 PM

Good gfx benchmark numbers but when are they going to release actual benchmarks in popular games?

SLI/CF value all depends on how well the drivers and games support it.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 08:55 PM

june 29th when the NDA is lifted.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 09:02 PM

Its almost amusing anyone is celebrating a 1% win from a crossfire setup against a single card regardless of cost.

Who in the right mind is going to opt for CF RX480 against a GTX 1080? If you're prepared to spend $450 on two cards surely you'd also realise that $200 isn't worth the hassle, incompatibility and nause in comparison to a single card? I'd probably go for a 1070 myself for similar money if cost was an issue purely based on a crossfire setup is obviously based on performance......the problem being you're left with a relatively weak compromise from a single RX480 if your chosen game doesn't support or scale crossfire.

Lets be honest, someone with CF RX480 is unlikely to be playing on a single 1080p screen....a single card isn't going to be great for VR (when dual GPU is realised) or 1440p and beyond.

You rarely find anyone who had used SLi/CF without horror stories.....in a lot of cases it just isn't worth the entrance fee.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 10:41 PM

I think one of the main selling points of the 1080 and 1070 for me is they perform like 2x980 SLI and 2x970 SLI respectively.

So it sounds like 2x480 CF = 1080 = 2x980 SLI performance, so the value probably depends on much AMD and Nvidia battle it out as far as pricing of the 480 versus existing 980 stock.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/16 11:43 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
...CF RX480 against a GTX 1080...


No argument.

I'll buy an RX-480 now (if performance rumors are correct) and a Vega in the Fall/Winter. Vega will probably come close to or surpass CF RX-480. I can rationalize the RX-480 now because my wife could use a new card and so could my Grandson (buying an RX-480 frees up two HD7970).

Meantime, even a single one of my 4 year old HD7970s plays all the games I play currently at maximum settings (1440P and 0AA which I prefer). Leaked info indicates a single RX-480 may equal 1.5 HD7970 in some cases (a nice upgrade, if true).

Crossfire can be a good low cost upgrade in a year or so when RX-480 stock is being cleared for the next big thing. That's how I did Crossfire HD7970 -- got a cheap one a year or so later. Crossfire mostly works for my games -- not always -- however, I don't need it for any games I currently play at 1440P on a single monitor (I have 3 monitors).

Just info, FWIW.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 12:37 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
Its almost amusing anyone is celebrating a 1% win from a crossfire setup against a single card regardless of cost.

Who in the right mind is going to opt for CF RX480 against a GTX 1080? If you're prepared to spend $450 on two cards surely you'd also realise that $200 isn't worth the hassle, incompatibility and nause in comparison to a single card? I'd probably go for a 1070 myself for similar money if cost was an issue purely based on a crossfire setup is obviously based on performance......the problem being you're left with a relatively weak compromise from a single RX480 if your chosen game doesn't support or scale crossfire.

Lets be honest, someone with CF RX480 is unlikely to be playing on a single 1080p screen....a single card isn't going to be great for VR (when dual GPU is realised) or 1440p and beyond.

You rarely find anyone who had used SLi/CF without horror stories.....in a lot of cases it just isn't worth the entrance fee.


No one's celebrating. It's just a measure of 480's strength. A hard concept to grasp, I know.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 06:22 AM

Really?........you should try looking at the reaction on the Internet to these articles showing the firestrike benchmark with the 1% lead!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 11:55 AM

Speaking about Vega, today's rumor:

Quote:
AMD VEGA 10 confirmed?

Raja Koduri is supposedly meeting a GPU design team in Shanghai, where they celebrated a milestone in Vega 10 GPU development. .. (quote: long way to go before you see it). .. VEGA 10 will be equipped with HBM2 memory, a technology that is still very rare in GPU industry (only available with Pascal GP100).

Earlier leaks indicated that AMD is working on a new chip with 4096 Stream Processors. It is without a doubt a new competitor to Pascal GP104 and probably even upcoming GP102.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 02:33 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Speaking about Vega, today's rumor:

Quote:
AMD VEGA 10 confirmed?

Raja Koduri is supposedly meeting a GPU design team in Shanghai, where they celebrated a milestone in Vega 10 GPU development. .. (quote: long way to go before you see it). .. VEGA 10 will be equipped with HBM2 memory, a technology that is still very rare in GPU industry (only available with Pascal GP100).

Earlier leaks indicated that AMD is working on a new chip with 4096 Stream Processors. It is without a doubt a new competitor to Pascal GP104 and probably even upcoming GP102.


If Clocks stay the same,
That's theoretically 10.3+ TFLOPs


I thoroughly enjoyed reading the AMD Bashing in the comments of some of the recent articles.

Claiming AMD is ignoring the PC Master Race, and catering the the console players.

And I'm sittin' there like:
"Umm, So you're saying a company positioning their products in the 86% of the Discrete Market is a bad idea?"

nVidia's GPUs are Positioned in the 9% Discrete market that Spends $500+, Their GPU Yields are Still in the Toilet, so Availability is still in the toilet


End Run Scenario?

Polaris 10 is 232mm Sq.
Pascal 104 is 350mm Sq.

Polaris-10 is Getting fantastic yields per run, Pascal-104 is not, Polaris Costs Significantly less to produce due to size and yields.

So While people struggle to get their hands on the GP-104in the 9% $500+ Performance Market,

People are going to be buying the Polaris-10's in mass on launch day.

so if the RX-480 outsells the GTX1080 10:1, AMD is not only bringing in more revenue due to Price and Availability,

they are also taking Discrete GPU Marketshare from nVidia, that used to be the GTX980/970/960 and 950ti.

as far as AMD is concerned, they can have that 9%, they'll take the 86%
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 03:04 PM

http://www.thecountrycaller.com/32630-ad...s-at-full-load/


-Less than 60^c w/ Default Fan Profile on Full Load/Stress Tests,
-100w Load at Full Load..




So.... Running an Higher / More Aggressive Fan Profile, and with 50w of headroom on that 6 Pin Connector.

Seing 1500MHz Easily, and Guys are on Skype saying their review boards are hitting 1600MHz. (which would be double a 7970)

I never see the temps in Gaming that I See running stress tests....

I *Might* Hold off to see AIB Partner Offerings, because Im still trying to budget in $250 for one.

But the 100w Peak in Stress tests w/ 60^C temps is Fantastic.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 03:08 PM

Quote:
...Radeon RX 470, which should end up with a US $149 MSRP for the 4GB version..

..Ellesmere Pro GPU with 32 Compute Units and 2048 Stream Processors..

With these specifications, the Radeon RX 470 could end up faster than Radeon R9 380X, which means it could be a perfect choice for 1080p gamers...


RX 470 4GB should equal or exceed my HD7970 3GB performance. My HD7970 (single card) does 1440P very well. So, as they note, no one on 1080P (or less) should need more to play the best current games at maximum settings -- at only $149 list price -- a new era in price/performance.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 06:56 PM

It's also subjective Allen and depends what games you're playing....I moved from a 7970 to a GTX 970 and got a hefty performance increase - however a GTX970 is still on the limit at 1440p if you're wanting to max all those settings in the latest games. Your typical BF4, Witcher, DCS, Arma are really pushing the 970 to its limits and that already has a 30-50% performance increase over the 7970.

I can see some of the advantages in the new Polaris cards, especially cost/bang for buck but at the same time I do see a lot of comments about market share and sales figures....the only issue there is that they're great if you're selling these cards yourself or if you have a stake in the company - as a simmer/gamer sales figures aren't going to help us or provide extra performance in the short term.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 09:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
It's also subjective Allen and depends what games you're playing...


Agree and agree smile

Particularly with the "subjective" aspect -- I go by what I "see" and "feel". If a consistent 15FPS minimum looks and feels good, its okay with me -- I won't measure the FPS (like I used to do). Others have different criteria and may be appalled to get "only" 30FPS -- even if they can't actually see the difference between 30 and 60 in a blind test. To each his/her own.

So, different folks may see it differently. I'll be interested to actually own an RX-480 and "see" and "feel" what it gives me. I am open to the possibility that it will have an unexpected flaw.

Regarding games, lately I play Fallout 4 (with some substantial visual mods that add loads of extra grass, plants, trees, and details) and Witcher 3 stock with updates -- both at maximum visual settings (0AA). Other games I play are not as tough on the GPU.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/16 11:11 PM

Like I said,

I'll get one as a Stop gap, as the current setup I have isnt VR Compatible, and I have to replace a Lightning w/ an older 7930 GPU for HDMI,

I'll likely get an RX480 as a Stop gap, overclock it, then when vega hits, get one of those, and demote my 480 to my brother's rig, replacing a 7950
.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/16 12:39 AM

Quote:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ: AMD) Shares Drop 8% With Sharp Increase In Traded Volume


In an above recent post, I noted AMD shares were climbing based partly on an improved perception of the business plan.

Now, they are dropping. The price did go up substantially. That triggered the sell off by profit takers (Traders).

As I noted above: Trading (buying and selling in the short term based on market indicators) is okay. But, not Investing (holding for the long term).

Just posting this for completeness. If I talk about "up", I must talk about "down" to be even handed.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/16 10:36 AM

Everyone's stock took a dive yesterday.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/16 04:03 PM

At this moment, Newegg is showing RX-480 by six manufacturers. Not for pre-order. Rather for "auto notification" when they are in stock. I signed up -- but, buying will wait until we have "hard test data".

A consideration: All 6 currently showing are reference and have 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI port -- so one's monitor(s) need to support that (or buy an adapter).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/16 04:08 PM

AIB Cooling Solutions wont be out on the 29th, dont remember where I saw it,

However 95-100w Full Load in stress tests and a SHORT PCB completely covered w/ heatsink and shroud w/ fan extended over the edge, i doubt cooling will be a problem on the stock cards.

It does look like I'm gonna need to get at least 2 DP -> MiniDP adapters ($7 each...) for my Monitors
(io have 1 DP->DVI-D, and like 8 MiniDP->DVI-D Active Adapters + a Bunch of MiniDP->HDMI ones I tried w/ the Rift)

As None of the AIB Photos of their custom boards show a variance away from the 3 Full Display Port connections.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/25/16 03:41 PM



biggrin

Taking a page from Apple's Macintosh playbook, I see...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/26/16 12:46 AM

Quote:
AMDs RX 480 is now beginning to hit US stores. In quantities that are allegedly more than 20 times larger than GTX 1080 shipments at launch..

..yesterday a Microcenter branch in Overland Park Kansas revealed to a customer that theyre receiving a shipment of 100 RX 480 cards on the 28th of June. Thats exactly 25 times as many GTX 1080 cards the same branch had [at launch]..which was only four. We called the branch & confirmed. We were also told that their stock of GTX 1080 cards is currently limited...


Newegg has a 4GB Sapphire reference card listed (not for sale yet) -- along with 7 other make/models.

Rumor is that some stores are ALREADY have them "in the house". Some have not signed papers prohibiting sale prior to 29th. So, some cards may be available before June 29, the rumor monger speculates.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/26/16 01:40 AM

ive physically unloaded at least 2 palets of them.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/16 12:43 PM

Sites are leaking Software slides of the new OC tool from RTG.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 10:21 AM

At the moment I write this, Newegg has 37 Nvidia 1080 and 1070 listed -- 0 1080 models and only 1 1070 model in stock.

Today's rumor is that Nvidia will release the 1060 a month earlier and at lower prices than planned to compete with RX-480. It will be interesting to see actual 1060 availability in the first month.

Tomorrow, the RX-480 speculation/rumor-mongering ends, presumably. It will be interesting to see actual RX-480 availability. That is: Will this be an RX-480 "semi-paper launch" (like Nvidia's) or a real launch. Anyhow, I'm ready to "grab one" -- unless the reviews "say otherwise".

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 02:36 PM

1060 can launch today, and no one will see one till september
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 08:00 PM

Tomorrow is gonna be fun smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 08:12 PM

My GTX1080 arrived last Friday......its beautiful thumbsup

Some RX480 reviews ready for print tomorrow are already getting leaked;

http://wccftech.com/radeon-rx-480-gaming-performance-review-leaked/
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 09:57 PM

Man congrats on the 1080, was it worth it?

From that leaked review, it looks like RX480 = GTX970 and not GTX980 as some suggested.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/16 10:58 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
My GTX1080 arrived last Friday......its beautiful thumbsup

Some RX480 reviews ready for print tomorrow are already getting leaked;

http://wccftech.com/radeon-rx-480-gaming-performance-review-leaked/



Looks like a combination of all the leaks and no actual content of their own.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 12:22 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
My GTX1080 arrived last Friday......its beautiful thumbsup


Agree. The 1080 is the new-era, fastest single card on the market. And, it will remain the fastest for at least a few months wink

Tomorrow, the RX-480 will be new-era also. Remains to be seen how fast. confused

Enjoy the 1080 smile

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 12:50 AM

3 hours to go.. :-)
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 01:43 AM

Hmm the initial ones that have popped up on sale have been at $249 and even $284:

http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/amd/rx480/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 02:56 AM

Yup. Its late on the 28th as I write. Going to bed.

So far, the prices are "higher than rumored" ($239 plus shipping) to "ridiculous" ($375 from third party re-seller). Most cards are "listed", but not yet on sale.

The one 4GB version that was listed previously has been "taken down". That should have been the $199 version.

So far, no good. Hopefully, I will awaken to better news.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 05:00 AM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Man congrats on the 1080, was it worth it?

From that leaked review, it looks like RX480 = GTX970 and not GTX980 as some suggested.


Well, I know that I paid a premium and UK prices don't really align with the dollar equivalent but It's obviously a top card......I paid 579 for the Inno3D iChill X3 version and pre-ordered it on 28th May. The date kept getting pushed back as it was originally due on 10th June. It's obviously a beast of a card.....whisper quiet and I'd 'patiently' waited since the back end of last year for it. The plan was always to give my 970 to my son and upgrade in preparation for my Oculus VR which arrived a week before the GPU so timing was good. I was so tempted to splash out for the 980ti in the run up to the Pascal release out of sheer impatience.

I'm still testing the waters and playing with the Oculus but in comparison to my old 970 which struggled to keep its head above the water in Project CARS at max settings at 1440p, the frame rate would sit around 40-60 but the deal breaker was when things got busy such as when it rained or at the start of a race with loads of cars on the track it stuttered and the fps dropped so low it forced me to drop settings. The 1080 cuts through it like a knife through butter and maintains 100fps with everything at 'ultra'. At 1440p that's overkill but for the Oculus the high frame rate is essential and it's something else for the immersion.

In terms of bang for buck it's always going to be hard to justify however as the fastest single card and currently the only one that will get close to the 90fps in most games for the Oculus until multi-GPU is supported and can drive each eye-piece it's worth the asking price (for me). I'm very interested in AMD's offerings starting with the RX480 as I'm hoping it provides the much needed competition and starts driving Nvidia's silly prices down. I guess that in the future my upgrade path will be a second GTX1080 if the scaling turns out to be good and the price is reduced unless the 1080Ti or AMD Navi smashes performance into a completely different level in which case I'd have to suck humble pie and remortgage my house!

0600hrs here in the UK and the RX480 info is still not published yet.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 01:23 PM

In Doom and Fallout 4 at 1440P at ULTRA settings (games of interest to me), looking at the entire timeline plot (averages can be misleading) of FPS vs Time on one site, RX-480 is equivalent to R9-390 and barely exceeds GTX 980.

The RX-480 tends to win at points where framerate drops to lowest levels (where FPS becomes most important). Framerates in roughly 40 - 50 range (more than enough for me at 1440P ULTRA).

That's what the rumors have been predicting (in my reading of the rumors). So far, so good on the test reports (in my reading of them -- others may have a different opinion).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 01:34 PM

I ordered the Sapphire RX-480 8GB. Cost me $244 (with shipping) -- a $14 premium overall. And, Newegg "slow" shipping frown
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 01:41 PM

so far in benches that favor nVidia, RX480 exceeds 390X and bareley touches Fury GTX 970 and 980s,, in AMD favored engines, it stomps 970 and 980s and barely matches 390/X

At 1080P


As you move thru 1440p to 4K the 480 drops to below 390X.

The Power Consumption numbers dont match up tho.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 01:53 PM

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/29.html


of course they skimped on the cooler, Id remove it and repaced with an AiO water cooler.

Remove shroud, remove heatsink, mount AiO, cut tube holes in the shroud, remount shroud, keep fan for blowing on VRM and memory.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 02:02 PM

Here's a typical chart of FPS vs Time 1440P Ultra Fallout 4.

Of interest to me is the fact that the chart wiggles a lot. Rather than "do the exact math", I look at the overall impression.

It would be hard to tell the compared cards apart just by playing the games. My favorite mantra, one can "measure" a difference, but it would be hard or impossible to "see".

At the point where framerate drops for an extended period (a key point) RX480 tends (not always) to be towards the top (not on the top). One won't "see" the difference, but its in the right direction.

I note that my "impressions" are "subjective" to an extent -- but, what we "see" is subjective (vs. Objective measurement).



Posted By: Hunedog

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:05 PM

The card only had 32 ROP's, that in itself is impressive. Slam 64
into the equation you got yourself a 1440p contender. IMHO

A great 1080p card for a more than reasonable amount of dough.

Asking price for a 1070 is $580-620 for a 1070 where I am. Having said that
Go! AMD Go!


runningdog
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:14 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
so far in benches that favor nVidia, RX480 exceeds 390X and bareley touches Fury GTX 970 and 980s,, in AMD favored engines, it stomps 970 and 980s and barely matches 390/X
At 1080P
As you move thru 1440p to 4K the 480 drops to below 390X.
The Power Consumption numbers dont match up tho.


Yeah, now that some real game benchmarks are coming out, it looks like the RX480 is a good priced card that is on par with the GTX970 and not the GTX980 as some of the leaked artificial benchmarks suggested (plus or minus the titles that favor AMD or NV and vice versa). To be honest I think the those leaked artificial benchmarks cause more harm than good as far as setting expectations that this would perform like a 980 and now you get the inevitable disappointment of reality.



Still great value for something that matches the 970, the 480 will definitely make Nvidia have to drop their prices on the 970/980.

Here's hoping AMD also have something up their sleeve to battle with the 1070/1080, which is more what I am interested in.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:25 PM

also gotta look at driver tuning for polaris.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:26 PM

DX12 should be a strength of RX480 versus the previous generation Nvidia cards. A comprehensive review article posts this chart. Note the RX480 outperforms 970 and 980 (on average) by a notable amount (in this article). As usual, the differences may not be "visible" when playing.

Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:27 PM


I have seen several reviews today. They have one thing in common.

They are all over the place.

There seem to be kind of consistent in the 480 numbers (I guess because all we have right now are reference cards).

But the Nvidia numbers are inconsistent among testers. Everyone is using different cards. Some even using factory overclocked cards.

On the average though, AMD achieved what they wanted/promised.

But other than that it gets confusing, as people pick and choose results to reinforce their particular bias.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:34 PM

Yeah agreed the 480 is a good card for the mid level gamer market sector and well priced, unfortunately I think the artificial leaked benchmarks just provided fuel for the fanboys to stoke the fire before (AMD fanboys expecting a 980 competitor for $200) and after release (Nvidia fanboys doing the I told you so).

That's one reason I don't put much faith in rumors or leaks and wait for actual game benchmarks.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:43 PM

to amend my previous statement about Nvidia engines and AMD favored engines.


the Rx480 easily stomps the entire 980 and below line in almost every DX12 Engine.

Im gonna wait to see Partner Cards, if not mod the Reference Cooling.

But only 1 review had the off power and heat numbers, I think they got a bad card.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 03:49 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
to amend my previous statement about Nvidia engines and AMD favored engines.
the Rx480 easily stomps the entire 980 and below line in almost every DX12 Engine.


Can you provide some examples?

The ones I've seen are not any sort of easily stomping, unless you consider 2fps at 1080p and then level at 1440p, and 1 FPS less at 4K on Total Warhammer and then exactly even fps on Ashes of Singularity...

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-rx-480-8gb-review,12.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_rx_480_8gb_review,13.html

I'm honestly interested to see if there are some real world game stomp examples, otherwise those kinds of exaggerated statements are what leads to bad expectations and then I told you so's.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 04:04 PM

for clarification, when I say stomp, i mean beats another gpus scores/stats while costing significantly less.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 04:14 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
for clarification, when I say stomp, i mean beats another gpus scores/stats while costing significantly less.


Ok cool, thanks for clarifying, I agree, it's definitely a terrific bang for the buck especially on DX12 titles.

Anyone seen any realworld game benchmarks with crossfired 2x480 versus the competition?

Haven't really seen any yet.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 04:26 PM

most of the DX12 benches were ran with ASync off to make it fair.

if you turn on Async, AMD FPS jump.


there was a link in my RSS feed for 2,3,,4 way xfire benches article, but it 404s when clicked, and after refreshing rss its gone.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 04:59 PM

EK has released pix of the 480 Waterblocks...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 06:44 PM

http://www.pcgamer.com/best-buy-mixed-up...gn=buffer-maxpc


haha....


Buddy of mine got his off the shelf at local shop, they got plenty, we gonna overclock the bejeevies out of it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 07:17 PM

I see Newegg (where I ordered mine) is out of stock of all brands. So, I guess I did okay both getting a card and the manufacturer I wanted.

The only review issue I've come across for RX-480 Reference cards is that some reviewers don't like the Reference cooler. But, that's to be expected in a "reference" device -- its the cheapest version usually -- and AMD typically skimps on the cooler.

Anyhow, now I wait 4 to 7 days for it to arrive. Then, I'll see for myself how it handles what I play versus my HD7970s.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 07:25 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
I see Newegg (where I ordered mine) is out of stock of all brands. So, I guess I did okay both getting a card and the manufacturer I wanted.

The only review issue I've come across for RX-480 Reference cards is that some reviewers don't like the Reference cooler. But, that's to be expected in a "reference" device -- its the cheapest version usually -- and AMD typically skimps on the cooler.

Anyhow, now I wait 4 to 7 days for it to arrive. Then, I'll see for myself how it handles what I play versus my HD7970s.


The reference cooler is pretty cheap, Its simply a small aluminum heatsink with copper contact plate, no heat pipes, no vapor chambers, and it only covers the gpu area, everything else is cooled from small cheap heat plate.

like I said,
If the mounting holes are the same, Id swap out the heatsink with a cooler on one of my retired Cards,

Or Mount a $30 AiO water cooler to the GPU, likely needing a shim, then some copper heatsinks to The ram and vrm modules cut a space or remove the top shroud plate and make a custom one to allow space for AiO hoses and use the centro fan to push air over the copper sinks w/o void warranty for cutting shroud cover..

I think they might be throttling in these benchmarks, specially when 3 sites repprted load temps of 85c+


For me, the best case scenario is the heatsink mounting holes are the same size as previous ones,

I have a 7870XT Sapphire DualX Cooler, Sapphire 7950 DualX Cooler, and 3 MSI R7970 Lightning Twin Frozer Coolers (1 was an Extra i got on ebay for $5).

All of which will be replaced as I get new cards, so the 7870XT has a heatsink that's rated for well above anything the Polaris Chip will put out.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 08:35 PM

Good suggestions. It would be nice to have a "left over cooler" to switch out.

If heat is an issue, I'd prefer a cheap water cooler to match my water cooled CPU. However, money is an object based on "principle" -- so, I'd go cheap. In my view, RX480 Reference is not a "good deal" if I must replace the cooler to get acceptable performance. We'll see smile

[edit] Just checked. Cooling is too pricey,
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 09:03 PM

i think reviewer decided to limit the fan, but thats just me.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/16 11:47 PM

I'll wait for the non-reference models. I don't trust that 6 pin connector. Plus, there are issues with the card drawing more power from the PCIe slot.

And Total Warhammer dx12 is in beta still, it was released today. Was the 480 really tested on dx12?
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 12:03 AM

Hhhmmm......

Skate..can we confirm for clarity.....

I know this is an AMD enthusiast thread but the GTX 980 'exceeds' the RX480 performance at 1080p with 10fps+ but at 1440p the roles are reversed and the RX480 suddenly 'stomps' all over the competition with +1fps and the price suddenly becomes a significant element of the testing? (using benchmarks from your own links)

If custom water cooling with very limited overclocking capacity becomes part of the reason one would opt for the RX480 with 5% headroom over a GTX 970/980 with 10-20% overclocking headroom, is it a viable solution in today's games especially given the Nvidia's prices are reduced and offer a viable more powerful alternative?

Initial impression seems like to be that you're far too keen to promote the virtues of a brand name over actual gaming performance.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 12:18 AM

No one said that you need watercooling or that the headroom is only 5%. And the card shouldn't be compared with the 980, it's opposite the 970. In the future, when dx12 is more common, yes, it will be a better card than the 980. Probably.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 01:02 AM

That's right...no-one said you need watercooling......but overclocking headroom so far seems to be tight on the RX480 yet we all know from experience its plentiful in the 970/980.

With the much needed price reductions from Nvidia on the GTX970/980 it's still the better card to opt for at the moment. Question is.....is the RX480 really a breakthrough or just more of the same from AMD? The gaming benchmarks aren't the massive breakthrough nor bang for buck differential that were hinted at especially when Nvidia reduce their prices due to the competition.

Is is enough to sway game developers to use this instruction set as the PC benchmark....? Obviously not. My personal thoughts are that whilst AMD are back in the game in the mid-range segment their top end card in 12 months time is just going to get trumped again. Is bang for buck enough to get PC market share....? Or are game devs going to continue the current trend and use the highest spec Nvidia cards to promote their titles and subsequently advertise the green camp as the best gaming option?
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 06:19 AM

When you consider dx12 performance, 480 is again the better card. And actually the 480 right now is the best perf/$ card out there. Unfortunately, techpowerup is broken, when it'll start operating well, there's a graph there that shows the 480 first in bang for buck, with both the 4 GB and 8 GB configurations.

What do you mean instruction set? Dx12? That and Vulkan both favor AMD, so, they are the most future proof cards out there right now.

Anyway, TPUs per/$ chart at 1080p

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 10:41 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
That's right...no-one said you need watercooling......but overclocking headroom so far seems to be tight on the RX480 yet we all know from experience its plentiful in the 970/980.

With the much needed price reductions from Nvidia on the GTX970/980 it's still the better card to opt for at the moment. Question is.....is the RX480 really a breakthrough or just more of the same from AMD? The gaming benchmarks aren't the massive breakthrough nor bang for buck differential that were hinted at especially when Nvidia reduce their prices due to the competition.

Is is enough to sway game developers to use this instruction set as the PC benchmark....? Obviously not. My personal thoughts are that whilst AMD are back in the game in the mid-range segment their top end card in 12 months time is just going to get trumped again. Is bang for buck enough to get PC market share....? Or are game devs going to continue the current trend and use the highest spec Nvidia cards to promote their titles and subsequently advertise the green camp as the best gaming option?






The Gaming Benches are pretty much where they are supposed to be, i took exceptions to a few, because the numbers dont add up, and it's likely because the reviewer ran the card hot, one after another after another for benches w/ no cool down time, No way the 480 reaches 85^c a few minutes into a benchmark.

nVidia Slashed GTX980/970 Prices, but those are EoL SKU's, and will likely be gone soon.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 11:37 AM

Originally Posted By: Remon
When you consider dx12 performance, 480 is again the better card. And actually the 480 right now is the best perf/$ card out there. Unfortunately, techpowerup is broken, when it'll start operating well, there's a graph there that shows the 480 first in bang for buck, with both the 4 GB and 8 GB configurations.


Whilst I don't disagree with what you're saying there, performance per dollar is only valid if budget is your main driver. Overall performance is of much higher importance to many people and the GTX1070 also offers fairly pretty good value especially as it offers almost twice the level of performance across almost every game .....saying that if the GTX 970 is the most popular gaming GPU the RX480 isn't going to be of much benefit even at the relatively low cost so are big numbers going to be shifted? To anyone with a lesser card with a budget looking to upgrade its obviously a no-brainer though.

I would also add that it's far too early to be claiming a certain card/manufacturer is a winner in terms of DX12 when there are only a few titles that utilise it together with Nvidia's obvious driver problems. It's not all about Async Compute either when Nvidias performance drops off in DX12 titles when not even using it. It will be interesting to see how the GTX1060 fits into the rankings and price point but hopefully it benefits everyone and the competition drives prices further down.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 12:53 PM

1060 will be nice budget card, However 3/6GB Variants, 192-Bit memory, according to GP106 Chart, and a Paper Launch Next Week, who knowns when stock will be available, as they moved the launch up in response to AMD's RX480.

TDP will prolly be around 125w, so they'll likely round up to 150w (Slot + 6Pin),

Not gonna get much lower than that running GDDR5 or GDDR5x at 8Gb/sec+

Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 04:49 PM

Nvidia doesn't have driver issues in dx12. It's the exact opposite. AMD had driver issues in dx11, which are solved now.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 04:53 PM

Clearly - I'm sure you have a perfectly rational reason then why DX12 compatible hardware takes a nosedive in performance even when Async Compute is not being used.......and if drivers cannot be improved then Nvidia won't be expecting any performance increase?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 05:10 PM

Asynchronous Compute was developed w/ Cooperation from AMD, they supported it since HD7000 Series,

So HD7000, HD8000 (Mobile), Rx-200, Rx-300 and Rx-400 Series.

nVidia on the other hand didnt care much for it and didnt really work on it until Pascal Architecture.

nVidia's original excuse was their scheduler was already that efficient it didnt need Async to fill processing gaps. etc.


Which kind of makes Sense,
Using the same Engines
AMD on DX11, gets spanked by nVidia on DX11
AMD on DX12 w/ AC Off, Has a Performance boost to bring withing reach of nVidia.
AMD on DX12 w/ AC On, Has this Drastic Performance increase, overtakes nVidia, who pretty much either had no performance gain or a regression.

AMD's DX11 Drivers had a bottleneck, that's slowly been fixed over the last year or so since RTG Started.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 05:22 PM

Bad programming, and Nvidia not supporting async compute, is at fault more than anything else. Quantum Break has massive problems, Tomb Raiders implementation is crippled due to the game being Nvidia sponsored on the PC (on consoles it supports async compute, which is removed on the pc).

Forza Apex, I believe there's no loss in performance there between dx11 and dx12 too, just AMD cards run the game better, and Hitman on a 980 has the exact same performance in dx11 or dx12 too.



AotS, which of course supports async compute, works much better in AMD, and no driver will change that, since not even Pascal support async compute on the hardware. I don't know what happens with Total War Warhammer's performance.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 05:44 PM

Forza Apex is DX12 Only.

Forza 6 and Forza Horizon III also Use DX12 that was part of the DirectX UWA Xbox Update a while Back.

Either Way, Games Programmed for UWA use an API that's designed to run Applications on AMD Hardware.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/16 10:18 PM

Anyway, it runs very well on Nvidia cards too. It's not the APIs fault. It's AMDs fault that dx11 run badly on their cards.

Which, to be honest, means something about GCN 1.1 cards. They are 3 years old, the 390x is essentially a 290x card with more memory, and it was competing with Nvidias more recent cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 01:29 AM

Skatezilla,

Regarding your comments about a cooler. Seems that the "custom" RX480 (not Reference) may see some very high clocks with cooling. But, not every GPU can do it.

The RUMOR





That could be worthwhile spending more $$ for. Have to wait on the custom (non reference) cards to see what hits the market.

On the other hand, I'm looking forward to Vega -- and spending more than I did (before then) is not in the plan. I do have one of those slow, noisy, power sucking Reference cards on its way (due Wednesday) wink
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 01:44 AM

Well w/ 1266MHz, they are hitting 170watts, which is well over the Limit, and drawing 100w from the pcie slot which is dangerous.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 11:34 AM

Quote:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ: AMD) Acquires Software Company HiAlgo Pushes Forward On Streamlining Software Side Of Gaming Technology


The article indicates other acquisitions/partnerships recently.

The point is that AMD "seems here to stay" (in AMD's eyes, at least).

Good news for competition. Competition is good smile

[Edit] Article also notes AMD $2 Billion in debt. However, Intel owes AMD $1.4 Billion that Intel is "fighting in court" to overturn. So, if Intel pays up. That also would help AMD -- assuming I got that part right.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 11:46 AM

An article that came up within the last 45min (as I write) says:

Quote:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Official Specifications and Benchmarks Leaked 15% Faster Than RX 480, More Than 40% Efficient Than Polaris 10


However, its not apparently faster at everything -- based on an information-limited "leak".

So, Nvidia fans may have a low cost competitive product to consider. However, those are Nvidia's "leaked" numbers. So, we'll see.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 12:03 PM

going by the GP106 Specs, I doubt it, GP106 will be about 3.8 TFLOPs. and have a smaller memory bus.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 12:08 PM

If anyone plans to buy the reference, there are reports by a german site that undervolting the card actually improves performance and of course power draw.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 12:18 PM

http://m.hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/94...ides-published/

1060 Slides.

Note I can 99.99% Garauntee those 480 crushing numbers are from specific instances that use GameWorks/VR Works etc.

No way you spank another GPU by 100% with 2 less TFLOPs, smaller memory bus and smaller memory banks.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 12:19 PM

Originally Posted By: Remon
If anyone plans to buy the reference, there are reports by a german site that undervolting the card actually improves performance and of course power draw.


Im seeing the same, in fact, underv9lting increases the OC ability a lil.

more mV = More Power = More heat.

Undervolt them = Less power = Less heat = less GPU throttling at 75c.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 03:53 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...No way you spank another GPU by 100% with 2 less TFLOPs, smaller memory bus and smaller memory banks.


I felt similarly: That the "basic underlying numbers" don't fully add up to a crushing defeat of RX-480. Much depends on what was actually measured and how it was measured.

Nvidia makes really good stuff -- no argument there. Still, I have found one needs to be extra careful taking their official-word, "look behind the curtain" (i.e. wait for the unbiased reviews that may indicate what are they are leaving unsaid).

Spoken like the AMD fan I am smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 04:16 PM

By time the 1060 hits shelves AMD likely would have fixed most of the issues via Driver and Firmy updates.. lol

Every VR users I know that upgraded from 980 or the Ti/Titan GPUs are still wondering and looking for these massive VR FPS Gains that nVidia Advertised in the tech Demos and press conferences..

They are no where to be found, because those numbers are based off their Carnival VR Tech Demo that is prolly the ONLY piece of software that uses VR Works, which is not compatible with SteamVR nor OculusVR's API's
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 04:20 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...No way you spank another GPU by 100% with 2 less TFLOPs, smaller memory bus and smaller memory banks.


I felt similarly: That the "basic underlying numbers" don't fully add up to a crushing defeat of RX-480. Much depends on what was actually measured and how it was measured.

Nvidia makes really good stuff -- no argument there. Still, I have found one needs to be extra careful taking their official-word, "look behind the curtain" (i.e. wait for the unbiased reviews that may indicate what are they are leaving unsaid).

Spoken like the AMD fan I am smile


Then again,

RX480 is 5.8TFLOPS
1070 is 6.4 TFLOPS,

And the Performance gap is pretty big.

But the GPU Architecture's are vastly different in size,


Like Comparing a 4Cylinder Camaro to a V6/V8 Mustang in a Wide Open Drag Race...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 05:05 PM

http://videocardz.com/61769/exclusive-powercolor-radeon-rx-480-devil-pictured
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 08:18 PM

Quote:
Is the RX480 a power vampire?
... Toms Hardware which found that the RX480 they had received for review drew 86W through the PCIE slot. Thats 11W above the maximum 75W specification required to meet compliance..

AMDs Senior VP and Chief Architect Raja Koduri was a bit puzzled when asked about the rumour. Mostly because PCIE compliance is one of the basic tests before a card goes out. He said that the RX480 passed its testing, but he was taking the reviews seriously..

AMD also points out that the RX480 met Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) compliance testing. So it passed external industry testing ..

But it is weird how this story is being shaped into a card is broken story..

It looks like the Nvidia and AMD wars are turning so nasty that it is going to be increasingly difficult to trust any industry deep throats for a while...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 08:55 PM

I've seen it in more than one place, but toms was the first one, and they are Pro Intel, they'be been sour on AMD for a while.

The Reviews Likely Screwed w/ Voltages in Wattman before they knew how to use it, as every site said the same thing Wattman is crazy detailed and confusing.

no way the Chip should need more than 1v, my 28nm Lightnings barely need 1.1
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 09:01 PM

Coincidentally, Sites that Reported the High Power Draw, Also Reported the 85^C Temps and Throttling, as well as lower than other site's scores.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/16 09:57 PM

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 12:19 AM

I watched it all. He uses Tom's own test report data. Conclusion seems reasonable.

Other cards Tom's has tested behave this way (including popular Nvidia cards). Interesting if Tom's did not make it clear that RX480 behavior is not unique but is one of several that behave in a similar way (I did not see it if they did). Anyhow, no users seem to be reporting failures or issues with those Nvidia cards.

So, if its happening to RX480 too, its very likely not a problem. Remains to be seen whats actually happening, if anything.

Honestly, I'm not the least bit worried.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 12:41 AM

there was another video i forgot to post...

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 10:54 AM

Quote:
We have some good news for those concerned about RX 480 PCI-E issue.

AMD issues an official statement declaring that the overcurrent issue may be resolved with a driver fix soon. We expecting an update from AMD on this driver implementation around Tuesday.

As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8 Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPUs tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016).


It seems that Tom's (and some other sites) got it right with the card they were given.

Since other make/model cards also do/did it without reported issues, I'm still not worried.

What does bother me is that FedEX moved my RX-480 from California to Texas and back to California just a few miles from where it started -- now, its not arriving until Friday. I very much prefer Amazon Prime's free two day shipping (but, Amazon didn't have the cards). In fairness, Newegg has a "Prime" service also which I used but let lapse because there has not been any reason to upgrade my computers for a couple years.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 05:26 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
there was another video i forgot to post...



Thanks for posting that, so looks like Crossfire RX480 is faster than SLI GTX970, and better than GTX1070, but below GTX1080.

Good value when compared to SLI GTX970 or a single GTX1080, but seems like a single GTX1070 is the sweet spot compared to two XF GTX480 for people like me who still play a lot of things that aren't DX12.

Great to have the options though.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 10:54 PM

it looks to match until you get to Higher resolutions, where they just dont have enough umph, even together.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/16 10:59 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
We have some good news for those concerned about RX 480 PCI-E issue.

AMD issues an official statement declaring that the overcurrent issue may be resolved with a driver fix soon. We expecting an update from AMD on this driver implementation around Tuesday.

As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8 Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPUs tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016).


It seems that Tom's (and some other sites) got it right with the card they were given.

Since other make/model cards also do/did it without reported issues, I'm still not worried.

What does bother me is that FedEX moved my RX-480 from California to Texas and back to California just a few miles from where it started -- now, its not arriving until Friday. I very much prefer Amazon Prime's free two day shipping (but, Amazon didn't have the cards). In fairness, Newegg has a "Prime" service also which I used but let lapse because there has not been any reason to upgrade my computers for a couple years.


NewEgg is usually 2 day shipping from NewJersey for me.

I did have one Item get to Richmond, then go back to NJ, then come back, Not sure but I think the Label was damaged, as the label was reprinted and re-applied over top of a partial label (checked by peeling it off) at the NJ UPS Overgoods Warehouse, where Boxes go when the lebels are missing or unreadable.

Like i said, there'd be a driver update to keep the GPU from sucking more power than it needs, watching some videos, it was suckign 1.15/1.2v, it does not need that much, not at 14nm.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/16 05:14 PM

errrrmm:
https://www.twitch.tv/buildzoid/v/75850933
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/16 05:17 PM

TBH though, Every Review has been of the 8GB Cards, I wanna see the 4GB Power Charts.

I honestly think the 4GB shoulda been a 6-Pin, and the 8 GB shoulda been a 8 Pin.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/16 05:54 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
...4GB shoulda been a 6-Pin, and the 8 GB shoulda been a 8 Pin.


No argument -- seems very reasonable.

My thought is this.

CrossFireX and SLI use 2, 3, or 4 cards. For each of those GPU cards (up to 4 on a big motherboard), the limit is 75W off the PCIE bus (cards other than GPU have different limits).

If a person is only using one GPU, how bad is it to use say 100 PCIe watts on a bus that supports 2, 3, or 4 x 75 (150, 225, or 300W)? Likewise, if one is using 2 GPU in CrossFireX, how bad is it if those two cards use the power of 3 cards.

Just wondering if this concept is why no-one has reported problems using one of the "over powered" PCIe Bus powered GPUs. That is, there is actually "room to spare" -- particularly if a person only has one or two GPUs plugged into the PCIe Bus.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/16 06:57 PM

the power draw isnt sustained,

it's spikes, causing the avg to go above the max power for the slot.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 02:05 PM

Toying with the idea of switching out the RX-480 reference non-heat-pipe cooler for a custom Sapphire HD5870 heat-pipe cooler. The HD5870 runs at 230W max-measured; so, its heat pipe cooler could be fine for RX-480 (which is set up for 150W TDP).

In looking at "tear down" photos of the RX-480, the cooling attach points and dimensions (relative to cooling) look standard -- just like the HD5970 -- but, when I get the RX-480 (now Friday), we'll see.

I'm taking the HD5870 out of service anyway -- so, I may try the cooler. Its "no extra cost" to me.

Just a thought that others may find useful for a reference RX-480 (use a cooler from an older card) -- if it works for me.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 03:09 PM

is it the Reference 5870 Cool or Aftermarket One?, I think the reference ones would have fitting issues w/ items underneath the heatsink,
Another thing to consider is weight of cooler, the PCB for the RX480 is actually short.

Other than the 4 mounting holes spacing,
You'd also have to look at the retainer Bracket for the GPU Substrate Package,

ATi had the habit of making the GPU Die Lower than the Retainer just like AMD does now.

So the Cooler would have to have the extruded part to touch the GPU Die, otherwise a copper contact surface without the extruded part would sit 1-2 mm above GPU Die due to Retainer bracket.

Should be 4 Screws for the Alu-Block, and about 10 for the Shroud and fan assembly.

The Twitch Video I posted, the guy tears his down at least 4 times to mod it (add capacitors etc)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 04:23 PM

From Fudzilla:

Quote:
Vega 10 is the successor to Polaris and if all goes well you will see the worlds first HBM 2.0 based GPU from the house of AMD RTG in the first part of 1H 2017, possibly even in Q1 2017.

The timeframe doesnt come as a great surprise as significant milestones have been reached. ...


And, to repeat the news:

Quote:
...Last week reviews started complain that the Radeon RX 480s power draw was enough to fry lower priced motherboards.. [initially] only one reviewer had noticed the problem, and it could easily have been a card issue.

But then the reviews started to confirm the problem the 150-watt card used on average 168W under load...


This could turn out "benign" (as noted above, other cards have had this issue with no problems for users); but, heck, since I bought one, I may have jinxed them. For sure, many custom cards (like Sapphire's with 8 pin power) should have no issue -- the on board power circuits are great -- but really needed an 8 pin connector to fully meet all industry standards (as Skatezilla suggested above) smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 04:41 PM

By time I get the budget, I might as well aim for a Vega GPU w/ my Tax Return,

But I'd get a RX480 for my brother, Retire the 7900 Cards altogether, and save my Lightnings for backup system purposes.

I'd put them back in this system, when I build my Zen Build and move my Vega GPU to that one.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 04:46 PM

I big blow to Green Team,

the RX-480 Competitor,
GTX1060 Reference Design does not Support SLi on the 3GB Versions,
PCI-6 Pin Connector is integrated w/ Heatsink Shroud and Soldered onto the PCB, So Removing the heatsink shroud would no longer be a simple mod.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 08:20 PM

Who would be SLI'ing a 1060 though?

Rare to hear anyone talk of SLI 960 in this gen so I doubt anyone will care if they cant do it in the new get, people who want SLI would go 1070 or 1080 anyways.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 08:56 PM

Ppl Xfire RX480s, and they are the same performance class.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/16 09:02 PM

The only reason people Xfire 480s is because there's no 1080 competitor... anyone who would SLI two 1060s would just buy one 1070 instead.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 01:33 AM

Quote:
AMD RX 480 4GB Early Units Have 8GB of GDDR5 Memory, Unlockable Via BIOS Update

Soon after the RX 480 was released some rumors began to surface suggesting that early retails units of the 4GB RX 480 are actually 8GB versions flashed with the 4GB BIOS...


So, if you are one of the lucky folks who found one of the first 4GB RX-480, you may actually have an 8GB unit. But, you need to flash the BIOS. If the 4GB units are really 8GB with a 4GB BIOS, then maybe you will also get the memory speed upgrade.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 03:50 AM

Interesting...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 10:14 AM

Some Zen CPU and APU news:

Quote:
Exclusive: Comes in 2017

AMDs CEO Lisa Su said both publicly and to Fudzilla exclusively that its desktop Zen comes first, followed by server, notebook and embedded products. We have some exclusive news about the first Zen based APU that will come with four Zen cores and Polaris graphics.

There will be many versions of the Zen but the one that caught our eyes has four Zen CPU cores and up to 11 GCN cores. This will result with an APU for notebooks as well as embedded systems with up to 704 stream cores...


As we know, Zen is designed to operate much like Intel CPUs. It should be approximately equivalent performance to a same-core-count Intel CPU.

The AMD Zen APU should have superior graphics to Intel CPUs with the same core count. Important because graphics is the usual limitation on cheap PCs and Notebooks. Consequently, AMD Zen APU could become the "go to" chip for those items. We'll see next year.

And, after that:

Quote:
...The real change is expected in later part of 2017 when Intel is expceted to launch its first 10nm Cannonlake processors. As far as Fudzilla is aware, AMD will skip the 10nm and go directly to 7nm after 14nm, but this is another story all together...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 02:25 PM

The Jokes online about the Ram Flash is funny, people are posting photoshopped DLC Booster Cards that state "Double Your Ram now", haha
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 02:32 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-power-measurements,4622.html#xtor=RSS-100
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/16 03:39 PM

Thanks for the link.

Though Tom's says RX-480 overdraws current "significantly". They also say that newer PCIe bus implementations on motherboards and GPUs can actually handle more current than the specification (which is out of date with regards to new hardware). So no problem.

But, here are key sentences of Tom's summary:

Quote:
...Current hardware should be able to handle this amount of current without taking any damage..

..We never implied in our launch article that a system made up of solid components might be directly damaged by an AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card running at stock clock frequencies.

There shouldnt be any problems unless cheap, dirty or outdated components are used, the card isnt installed correctly, or the amount of power drawn is increased by overclocking the card...


Like I said above, I'm not worried about my RX-480, yet smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/16 10:18 AM

Driver to fix RX-480 reference card power draw issue to be out soon.

Quote:
...The companys new solution baked into the driver to reduce the current drawn from the PCIe slot is meant to address the cards PCIe power draw directly. Reducing it down to a level below the 75W PCIe slot limit. The optional Compatibility profile on the other hand is meant to address the cards overall power draw, pushing it firmly below the 150W TDP thermal design power of the card. Furthermore, AMD is promising to deliver new gaming specific performance optimizations with the new driver. With promised performance improvements of up to 3%.

AMD states that the PCIe slot power draw reduction coming with the new driver is separate from the optional low power compatibility profile. Which means that, thankfully, the power draw from the PCIe slot will be reduced upon installing the new 16.7.1 driver. Without affecting the cards performance and regardless if you opt to use the optional low power profile or not...


New driver improves performance (very slightly) for a couple reasons.

In the mean time, folks have been overclocking RX-480 which increases power use by a lot in some cases. That extra power use has not caused reported power problems. Of course, heavy OC requires better than reference cooling.

My Sapphire reference RX-480 is still on its way to me. I'll see how all this plays out when I test mine smile
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/16 02:53 PM

From Sapphire's support site - on the select product download list -




490! boing

DDR5? ok... sigh
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/16 03:27 PM

the GTX 1060 is only 10% faster in Syntetic benchmarks (Firestrike).

I seriously think that there are more compute units in Polaris, AMD just didnt want to release those right away.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/16 03:28 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna
From Sapphire's support site - on the select product download list -




490! boing

DDR5? ok... sigh


Looks like a typo, shares the same part # with the nitro 8gb 480, just different revision, nitro being 1, the stock being 0
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/16 01:49 AM

My Sapphire Reference RX-480 8GB came.

On paper, ideally it should be roughly 42 percent faster than one of my Sapphire HD7970 OC (factory overclocked). I was expecting somewhere between 30 percent and 50 percent faster (not knowing much about the architecture). In real games and benchmarks, both the CPU and GPU have a role. So, in games I would expect less than 40 percent and down to 0 percent in some cases.

In my tests (3 game settings and 3 benchmarks -- 1440P max settings), I got 0, 29, 35, 18, 38, and 40 percent faster than HD7970 OC. Pretty much like I expected. But, I was hoping to be "pleasantly surprised" with consistently higher numbers than I actually got. I'm rarely "pleasantly surprised" smile

I did not try overclocking, yet. I may. But, overclocking rarely gives me "visible" improvements. I would expect about 7 to 10 percent more with my Reference RX-480 (i.e. approximately 50 percent improvement in that one test).

In a nutshell, to me it was worth buying at the price of $244 (the two HD7970 cost over $700 total). It will slightly improve my game experience on my more graphic intensive GPU limited games -- that do not benefit from CrossFire. However, it does not have "mind boggling" performance (mind boggling would be 50 percent or more faster than HD7970 for the $244 price). Since the RX480 4GB at $200 has nearly the same performance, the RX-480 4GB would approach mind boggling for the price.

This RX-480 was for fun and is a place holder until Vega 10. Then, when I get my Vega, my wife (who just got one of my HD7970) will get the RX-480.

[Edit] A very gentle overclock got that 40 percent number (noted above) to 54 percent. In that sense, RX-480 now performs as well as I could have expected (I expected 50 percent max improved graphics performance).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/16 01:26 PM

It has been verified that many or all of the 4GB RX-480 currently on sale for $200 are actually 8GB cards with a 4GB BIOS. Reflashing the BIOS gets one an 8GB card for $200. The cards are in an 8GB box with a 4GB sticker pasted over the 8GB.

Don't know how long that will last (or if it is already over). I surely would have bought a "4GB" card had I known. One could go to the local store and check the 4GB boxes for the sticker (if one has a local store).

I, of course, make no guarantees. I'm merely reporting what has been written.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/16 02:41 PM

They also have Stickers applied to the Heatsink Shroud,

lol, No need to dis-assemble to void warranty, it's obvious by looking at stickers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/16 07:46 PM

The 16.7.1 driver for RX-480 came out. Its supposed to fix power issues with no hit on performance. AMD says up to 3 percent increase in FPS -- of course, the words "up to" allow zero as an outcome.

My 2 tests showed 0.0 and 2.5 percent FPS increase.

Reports indicate power usage down on the PCIe bus -- raised power on 6 pin connector. Net lower power. Moreover, there is a "toggle" (normally off) that lowers power draw to the "PCIe Standard". Over 5 percent FPS increase in one game -- others were less.

So, at first look, it seems like AMD did what they promised. Lower power, can set power all the way down to PCIe Standard, and increased FPS in some cases.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/16 12:07 AM

I tried a quick overclock using WattMan (included in the driver package). Before using, look up WattMan on Youtube -- its not intuitive at first. However, once you see the "trick", its not hard -- just click, click, click.

I found that the card tends to NOT run at full rated speed all the time. You can use WattMan to force it to run at full rated speed a larger part of the time (you decide how much larger). That, without overclocking, speeds up the FPS very measurably.

In addition, I tried moving the full-speed from 1265 to 1325MHz (a VERY gentle overclock).

That (higher max clock plus more time at max clock) got me to the hoped for greater than 50 percent better than the HD7970 in the test that previously showed 40 percent better. It was 54 percent better. There was no overheating using the Reference Fan.

The extra FPS were, of course, "measurable" not "visible to the unaided eye".

Just follow up information.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/16 12:10 PM

you can prolly undervolt and still overclock the gpu.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/16 12:21 PM

https://www.techpowerup.com/223981/amd-releases-pci-express-power-draw-fix-we-tested-confirmed-works
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/16 11:33 PM

Quote:
The RX 490 is a dual GPU graphics card
...
All of these things indicate to us that we are looking at a dual GPU solution, probably one based on a full version of Polaris 10...


A ton of "speculation" and a small amount of fact-based "analysis" went into this Rumor.

Could be true. AMD marketing could use a competitor to 1080 (while we await Vega). A dual-GPU RX-490 could compete directly on FPS in benchmarks and some games. As we know, such a card could cost much less than 1080. Moreover, DX12 is implementing support for CrossFire and SLI (which it did not initially).

But, unless AMD is going to try some of its Navi technology sooner than expected, its still just CrossFireX. FWIW, Navi is speculated/rumored to combine multiple GPUs on one card -- such that they act like one GPU (no CrossFire or SLI problems).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 02:32 AM

Explicit Multi-Adapter would see both GPUs as one Resource, Both Banks of RAM as Their own, No more mirrored Memory Arrays.

So, a Dual GPU 480 w/ 8GB Total in DX12 EMA Mode would be seen as a 4612 Core GPU with either 8GB or 16 GB of Ram.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 06:14 AM

Yet the GTX 1080ti is likely to be announced in August with the 1080 Titan coming at a later stage. Looks like we'll be back in a similar situation whereby Nvidia can trump anything that AMD do and spoil the party.


I hope AMD can release something that truly competes so that Nvidia are forced to evaluate their prices. Lets be honest, it's been a while since we've had a good fight at the top end.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 08:59 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
Yet the GTX 1080ti is likely to be announced in August with the 1080 Titan coming at a later stage. Looks like we'll be back in a similar situation whereby Nvidia can trump anything that AMD do and spoil the party.


I hope AMD can release something that truly competes so that Nvidia are forced to evaluate their prices. Lets be honest, it's been a while since we've had a good fight at the top end.



rolleyes
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 09:29 AM

What are you rolling your eyes at?....you disagree? The point is that even if an RX 490 is competing with a 1080 as Skate and Allen have mentioned....the 1080ti is likely to have another 50% performance (according to leaks) so anyone wanting that single card performance from AMD still won't be challenging at the top level because the 490 will be competing with Nvidia's second tier card.

The 1080 Titan will then be fighting it out with AMDs top end cards with HBM2 - is anyone going to bet at this stage that AMD have it wrapped up? I'm not so confident. Maybe it comes down to whether your allegiance is to a certain brand....I'm certainly not but with VR I need guaranteed performance and good drivers which is something that AMD have struggled with in recent years and they don't currently have a GPU which will push 90fps at 1440p for VR so the choice is already limited. The last AMD card I had was a 290X and in some games the performance was poor in comparison to the Nvidia equivalent (or in the case of DCS and the Oculus DK2 it wouldn't run at all until a workaround was introduced) which ultimately forced my hand down the GTX 970 route.

I'd also waited since half-way through last year to upgrade my GPU ready for the retail Oculus....the RX480 obviously isn't going to cut the mustard in view of getting high frame rates so my options were to wait even longer with no guarantee when we'd have a competitive card or drop silly money on a GTX 1080.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 11:34 AM

rolleyes

You again propagate myths. AMD doesn't have bad drivers, at least they're no worse than Nvidias, and the whole trumping by Nvidia whenever AMD releases something. This is some high level fanboying right here. Just wait for the releases.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 11:55 AM

It's widely accepted that AMDs drivers in the past haven't been great, they certainly haven't been as regular to keep up with the flow of games. Asd I said I my last card was a 290X about 2 years ago so unless it's drastically improved since then it's perfectly valid - I certainly don't recall AMD offering day 1 driver updates for the latest games but could be mistaken.

Trumping by Nvidia?... well that's fact in terms of performance. You can roll your eyes as much as you want but I'm speaking from experience from owning most of AMDs and Nvidia cards in recent years...buying and selling one level behind the top-end curve - AMD have always released value for money cards which is why I plumped for the 7970 and 290X at the time, however Nvidia have always had the card for pure performance - granted, they have often gone for brute horsepower than efficiency but whether you look to the 290/390 or Fury X of recent years Nvidia have always had an equivalent pushing better frame rates in most games, only the most ardent fanboy would even attempt to argue that.

In terms of current cards I'm going off Skate/Allen's posts above.....the R480 isn't challenging the 1080 and it was never attempting or designed to, however if the 490 is going to be the card to challenge the 1080 as discussed above then it's not going to be challenging top end performance because the 1080Ti is going to push the bar much higher than it is now. There's nothing fanboy about saying that whatsoever, we have no idea what the RX490 or 1080GTX performance will really be but like I said it's a comment based on what the guys above are saying. Perhaps you think the RX490 will have performance above and beyond the current GTX1080?

Sounds like you just want an argument for the sake of it which wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps you need to discuss it further with Skate/Allen because RX490 performance that matches GTX 1080 in a few months time isn't going to get everyone that excited if the 1080Ti is another level above.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 11:58 AM

I agree AMD is behind Nvidia on "raw maximum FPS" in the highest cost products. For a variety of reasons, its been that way for years.

The main reason may be that being first in FPS (no matter what they have to do to get there) is a cornerstone of Nvidia marketing (at least, that's what they said at one point).

The second reason is that (according to Nvidia engineers who were interviewed years ago), nearly all games are developed on Intel/Nvidia with Nvidia help (though that's changing) -- and Nvidia coders make sure the games run better on Nvidia -- they say its relatively easy (given their access to the game engine).

Nowadays, there's more to a graphics card than raw FPS. In providing those "other" things, AMD can be competitive and even slightly ahead. Moreover, smaller differences in FPS (say 10 percent) are not "visible"; those are for advertising/marketing purposes.

My prediction, that I have made before, is that Nvidia will usually be ahead on FPS for a given price range. If not, something went terribly wrong at Nvidia. AMD wants to win at FPS. But, they have said they will not compromise their product approach just to get that win.

Since Vega10 is still in development, and AMD knows the competition, Vega10 may temporarily lead in FPS when it is released.

Navi is a new ballgame. Since AMD GPU architecture has been aiming towards a Navi solution for a while, AMD migh actually beat out Nvidia with Navi -- and Nvidia may take a while to catch up (and surpass) AMD on that one. However, I imagine Nvidia is already "designing" to beat Navi -- so, we'll see smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 12:11 PM

Totally agree with the above however it's largely irrelevant why or what makes one card faster or better than the other.

As we're all aware AMD have had the better technology and hardware implementation in recent years but the problem is as gamers we can only play what the developers have implemented and regardless of whether Nvidia are using dirty tricks or throwing their money around it has meant that Nvidia has edged peformance.

Buying a GPU at this moment in time means for me at least with VR as I've already mentioned was not a difficult decision, simply because AMD isn't competing. I do find from some of the posts in this thread there is almost a 'hope' that developers switch from the Nvidia collaborations over to AMD based on market share of the audience or the association of current consoles using the same APIs and libraries but until that happens Nvidia still have that performance edge and in my opinion it's a bit of gamble assuming that AMD will actually pull this off.

We can only go on current games at the moment, and there are nowhere near enough DX12 or gaming utilising Async Compute to determine that AMD are or have closed the performance gap. What if the devs that have used Hairworks etc in the past continue to do so?....it will mean that regardless of AMD still having these quality GPUs are still going to be struggling to match performance within games.

Originally Posted By: "Allen"
AMD wants to win at FPS. But, they have said they will not compromise their product approach just to get that win.


I think the quote above is probably key, but the problem is that Nvidia are prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure they have the best performer regardless of how they get there.

Competition is most definitely good and desperately needed for us as consumers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 12:14 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
you can prolly undervolt and still overclock the gpu.


Seems true.

Using WattMan, I reduced voltage (microscopically), reduced allowable GPU temperature 5C, and increased allowable power draw 20 percent -- while setting the max clock to 1300GHz (from 1266).

Now, a card that cycled between roughly 1150+ to 1260 runs almost constantly at 1300 (during a game) and runs cooler.

The 4GB RX-480 is looking better and better for the money (on paper). So far, nothing I've run has used more than 2GB of RX-480 RAM. I assumed the 8GB RAM was overkill -- so far, it is -- 4GB seems enough (at least for 1440p in my recent games).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 12:20 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen

The 4GB RX-480 is looking better and better for the money (on paper). So far, nothing I've run has used more than 2GB of RX-480 RAM. I assumed the 8GB RAM was overkill -- so far, it is -- 4GB seems enough (at least for 1440p in my recent games).


It might be better to state what games you're playing. What works for one person or a particular game will be wildly different for someone else playing other games. A lot of people play Arma 3 on these forums and that often goes above 4GB VRAM at high settings/+600 draw distance. Quite a few recent titles use lots of VRAM too.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 12:29 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
...it's largely irrelevant why or what makes one card faster or better than the other.

As we're all aware AMD have had the better technology and hardware implementation in recent years but the problem is as gamers we can only play what the developers have implemented and regardless of whether Nvidia are using dirty tricks or throwing their money around it has meant that Nvidia has edged peformance....


We see things similarly -- particularly what drives a most current customers to consider Nvidia over AMD. So long as Intel and Nvidia greatly outsell AMD, those two will control what gets implemented in games. In some way, its amazing that AMD (being an "outsider" with little way to influence the process) competes as well as it does.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 12:35 PM

Regarding RAM size and RX-480 4GB:

The price competitive Nvidia 1060 3GB has only 3GB. So, maybe for a few people the corresponding RX-480 4GB wins that one smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 01:14 PM

Regarding the comment about "my" gaming experiences not encompassing all gaming experiences:

I agree. My reports on what I do with my system and how it works are NOT to be considered "gospel". The next person may experience something different depending on their games or PC hardware.

Folks should base their purchase decisions on "official test reports" from the sites that do that "for a living".

I post abbreviated versions of my experiences merely to indicate that I am "an actively involved customer" who is "paying attention" to what is going on in the industry today. And, also, to give prospective CPU/GPU buyers some things to consider when they read the test reports.

I've posted a lot lately. It was "pent up" as I waited for two years for a new AMD product to buy. A month or two from now, I'll probably be "back in hibernation" as I await the "next big thing" from AMD smile

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 02:45 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
you can prolly undervolt and still overclock the gpu.


Seems true.

Using WattMan, I reduced voltage (microscopically), reduced allowable GPU temperature 5C, and increased allowable power draw 20 percent -- while setting the max clock to 1300GHz (from 1266).

Now, a card that cycled between roughly 1150+ to 1260 runs almost constantly at 1300 (during a game) and runs cooler.

The 4GB RX-480 is looking better and better for the money (on paper). So far, nothing I've run has used more than 2GB of RX-480 RAM. I assumed the 8GB RAM was overkill -- so far, it is -- 4GB seems enough (at least for 1440p in my recent games).



All us AMD Enthusiasts on another forum have been plugging away, even after the reviews saying the complete opposite of AiB Lab techs in regards to Overclocking.


So Far, they've gotten better overclocking by Undervolting the GPU.

The Reviews Power Draw numbers during benchmarks etc had us all looking at each other, why a 14nm Chip would require a 1150-1225mv to sustain 1200MHz....

Then when they tried to overclock the thing, they already had too much voltaqge going to the chip, causing more heat than needed, so of course the thing wouldnt overclock stable, it already had a too much mv going through it, and when they overclocked it, they pumped even more into it.

Some of the reviewers had a higher mV going to that lil GPU than I did going to my Lightnings (28nm Gen 1 7970s)


One Guy actually Undervolted and flashed the 4GB BIOS to his to disable 4GB of the Power Hungry Ram until he actually has a need for it.

And is running 1450Mhz on the GPU w/ stock cooling and staying under 70^c
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/16 10:39 PM

Based on what you said just above, I tried some more overclocking experiments. I did not do so good a job that I would "stand behind" my results. But, the results were interesting.

In a nutshell: For a given Frequency (MHz), there is an ideal maximum voltage and an ideal maximum power setting. That is: More power or less power gives LOWER FPS. More voltage or less voltage gives LOWER FPS. We're only talking 1 or 2 FPS -- say the difference between 55FPS and 57FPS (in my limited tests).

Lower maximum voltage and lower maximum Power (above normal power) generally do lead to higher FPS in the range I tested (until one hits the optimum).

Lower voltage and lower maximum power lead to much lower temperatures.

In other words, setting maximum over power (50 percent) and maximum volts (approximately 1.175) will make things hot, but may not give maximum FPS.

Right now, I'm running at 1315GHz maximum, 1.100V maximum, 20% over nominal power -- very conservative -- not trying to set records. This gives me almost 50 percent more FPS (at most) than I got with my HD7970.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 10:58 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
It's widely accepted that AMDs drivers in the past haven't been great, they certainly haven't been as regular to keep up with the flow of games. Asd I said I my last card was a 290X about 2 years ago so unless it's drastically improved since then it's perfectly valid - I certainly don't recall AMD offering day 1 driver updates for the latest games but could be mistaken.

Trumping by Nvidia?... well that's fact in terms of performance. You can roll your eyes as much as you want but I'm speaking from experience from owning most of AMDs and Nvidia cards in recent years...buying and selling one level behind the top-end curve - AMD have always released value for money cards which is why I plumped for the 7970 and 290X at the time, however Nvidia have always had the card for pure performance - granted, they have often gone for brute horsepower than efficiency but whether you look to the 290/390 or Fury X of recent years Nvidia have always had an equivalent pushing better frame rates in most games, only the most ardent fanboy would even attempt to argue that.

In terms of current cards I'm going off Skate/Allen's posts above.....the R480 isn't challenging the 1080 and it was never attempting or designed to, however if the 490 is going to be the card to challenge the 1080 as discussed above then it's not going to be challenging top end performance because the 1080Ti is going to push the bar much higher than it is now. There's nothing fanboy about saying that whatsoever, we have no idea what the RX490 or 1080GTX performance will really be but like I said it's a comment based on what the guys above are saying. Perhaps you think the RX490 will have performance above and beyond the current GTX1080?

Sounds like you just want an argument for the sake of it which wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps you need to discuss it further with Skate/Allen because RX490 performance that matches GTX 1080 in a few months time isn't going to get everyone that excited if the 1080Ti is another level above.




What is widely accepted and what is true is two completely different things. Day 1 drivers aren't as important as drivers that don't burn your cards.

As for your value for money argument, I think you're misremembering things, the 7970 ghz was better than the 680 and the 7970 equal to the 670, they were the top cards of their generation. Nvidia releasing better cards right after AMD releases only happened with the 780ti (and this wasn't that much better than the 7970 ghz) and the 980ti, and I would hardly call that a tradition.

Quote:
but whether you look to the 290/390 or Fury X of recent years


Well, that is recent years. The 290/390 and Fury X are recent years, you don't have other examples other than those.

As for who wants the argument or not, well, your posts talk for themselves. I told you one thing, wait for the benchmarks.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 11:58 AM

Originally Posted By: Remon


As for your value for money argument, I think you're misremembering things, the 7970 ghz was better than the 680 and the 7970 equal to the 670, they were the top cards of their generation. Nvidia releasing better cards right after AMD releases only happened with the 780ti (and this wasn't that much better than the 7970 ghz) and the 980ti, and I would hardly call that a tradition.


Are you looking at someone else's post?...disregarding all the nonsense in your post above the only point where I even bring up 'value for money' is where I stated that AMD have always released value for money GPUs. Value for money however doesn't always equal performance and the RX480 is a great example of that......$199-$249 is brilliant value for money if budget is one of your major concerns for the power it brings, but not if you're trying to drive the latest games at max settings with a 1440p monitor or targeting 90fps with a VR headset then it doesn't matter what bang for buck you're getting because it wouldn't be up to the job. It's all relative.

You just lost all credability by stating that the 780ti wasn't much better than the 7970 GHz... It probably depends on what your definition of 'close' is because the 780ti was competing with and beating the 290X.

Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 12:56 PM

Quote:
You just lost all credability by stating that the 780ti wasn't much better than the 7970 GHz... It probably depends on what your definition of 'close' is because the 780ti was competing and beating the 290X.


Meant to say 290x. I think it's clear it was a mistake.

Quote:
disregarding all the nonsense in your post above the only point where I even bring up 'value for money' is where I stated that AMD have always released value for money GPUs. Value for money however doesn't always equal performance and the RX480 is a great example of that


Do you really want to continue with this stupid argument? No, AMD doesn't always release value for money cards. The 7970ghz wasn't value for money, it cost the same as the 680, the normal 7970 released even higher priced.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 02:38 PM

Originally Posted By: Remon
Do you really want to continue with this stupid argument? No, AMD doesn't always release value for money cards. The 7970ghz wasn't value for money, it cost the same as the 680, the normal 7970 released even higher priced.


You've just answered the point that you're arguing yourself......the 7970GHz cost the same as the 680 (and often came in cheaper) yet it was more efficient and had the slight edge and therefore better bang for buck. This is the same reason why I and many others bought the 7970 GHz over the competing Nvidia card at the time. The 7970 released 6 months before that...of course it was going to be priced higher on release.

Everyone's mileage of 'value for money' may vary but we're talking about equivalent AMD and Nvidia cards here. The 7970 GHz was a no brainer as were the 290X which clocked past the 390 and into 390X territory for much less money in comparison to competing Nvidia cards. It was only when the 780ti came along and then the GTX 970 that Nvidia trumped these cards by a good margin.

Like I said, you're arguing for argument sake and making silly mistakes along the way. Who would guess you were talking about the 290X earlier when you mentioned the 7970GHz. You've been talking nonsense for a few posts now.

Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 03:50 PM

No. Value for money is a condescending term that people like to throw around for AMD, because it makes them sound cheap. You use it that way, since I haven't seen you use it to describe 970, for example.

Look, if I liked to argue for the sake of argument I would make meaningless long ass posts repeating the same over and over. I'm not the one doing that. Anyway, I'll show you who's doing this for the sake of argument by doing something you can't do. I won't be answering any more of your posts.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 04:07 PM

It looks like the 1060 isn't as close to 980 as Nvidia claims.

http://videocardz.com/62086/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-rumors-part-5-full-specs-2-0-ghz-overclocking

The 480 paired with a worse CPU beats it, by a good margin.

The article isn't exactly unbiased too, they claim that in OpenCL the 1060 is better than the 970 and the 480, but the picture they use has it losing to the 480 in 5 out of 7 tests. OpenCL is of course AMDs field, but it is much closer to the 970 (even losing to it once) than the 980.



Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/16 04:39 PM

sleepysleepysleepy

Originally Posted By: Remon
No. Value for money is a condescending term that people like to throw around for AMD, because it makes them sound cheap. You use it that way, since I haven't seen you use it to describe 970, for example.


Don't be daft, many people talk about 'value for money' and 'bang for buck'....it means exactly that. I don't care who manufactures a GPU, I make a choice based on performance, cost or both depending on my needs at the time and over the years that has switched between AMD and Nvidia depending on which particular card fits best. Value for money has come into these decisions on a number of occasions....and yes, I'd say AMD has won the 'value for money' trophy on a number of occasions because Nvidia is often a complete rip-off.

Originally Posted By: Remon
Anyway, I'll show you who's doing this for the sake of argument by doing something you can't do. I won't be answering any more of your posts.


I tend not to answer my own posts anyway so it's not an issue. thumbsup

As for your RX480 and GTX 1060 comparison.....have you got anything that's actually meaningful given this is a gaming/simulation website? Perhaps you should wait for some valid benchmarking - in current games for example. winkngrin That's rhetoric obviously....I know you won't be replying so I'll wait for someone who knows what they're talking about to provide the links when they become available.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/16 05:07 PM

My neighbor scored a RX-480 4GB for $159 locally, I asked him to snag me one, but he went back and the rest (4 or 5) were already gone.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/16 05:21 PM

He should have bought the lot that price on the first visit!
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/16 06:00 PM

he couldnt afford it on his own, had to come pick me up, I went back with him to buy at least 2, all gone.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/16 08:43 PM

Doom released the Vulkan patch, AMD cards getting a huge bump in performance.

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/new_patch_brings_vulkan_support_to_doom.html
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/16 03:23 PM

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/sapphire-radeon-rx-480-nitro.html?sf30772985=1
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/16 03:51 PM

Interesting.

They're showing 1317MHz max boost with a custom cooler and custom main-board.

Since last posting on my speed, I've settled on 1320MHz "virtually" full time in games and benchmarks. At reduced voltage it runs cooler than it did "as received".

However, at only $10 more than I paid, getting the boost "as received", advanced cooler, custom motherboard, and an 8 pin connector seems well worth it. It should overclock higher than mine and run quieter and safer.

Nonetheless, a 10 percent overclock FPS boost will not normally be "visible" only "measurable". So, it would have to get into the the 1450MHz range to even start to make a difference that one might "see" in special cases (vs my 1320).

Now, the RX-480 4GB at $159 your friend found seems "unbeatable bang for buck" smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/16 05:54 PM

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/9445...medium=facebook
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/16 04:33 PM

AMD is now working directly with developers to build DX12 Renderers with full support for EMA and ASC.

Basically making Dual Rx470s in EMA relevant.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/16 03:49 AM

I got 3DMark Time Spy DX12 free version (I own full DX11 Firestrike). Ran it on RX-480. It runs automatically at 1440p.

I got good, visibly-smooth frame rates with the demo and first graphics test. The second graphics test was smooth to almost smooth most of the time -- down to 10fps occasionally. The CPU test gave smooth frame rates.

The exact numbers mean little to others as we all have different systems. However, Time Spy benchmark is reported to have "far more" complexity than Firestrike -- and uses advanced GPU features. So, all in all, the DX12 visible performance of my RX-480 was mostly "very good to usable" in the benchmark. I assume the benchmark is tougher than a game -- I'll see eventually.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/16 03:01 PM

Civ 6 and Ashes of Singularity are DX12,

As is Forza 6 APEX (Free on Windows 10)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/22/16 06:28 PM

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/94888-sapphire-nitro-rx-480-launched/
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/22/16 06:34 PM




But not available in the US yet, so meh!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/16 02:12 PM

Quote:
AMD Expects Limited Zen CPU Shipments in Q4 2016 Full Volume Launch in Q1 2017

The AMD Zen based FX processors are highly anticipated by enthusiasts and gamers around the globe as these chips will bring the performance of CPU on par with Intels latest processors at very affordable rates...

"We have been very focused on the server launch for first half of 2017. Desktop should launch before that. In terms of true volume ability, I believe it will be in the first quarter of 2017. We may ship some limited volume towards the end of the fourth quarter, based on how bring up goes and the customer readiness." Lisa Su, AMD CEO via AMD
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/16 03:14 PM

IM hearing October from a bunch of review guys.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/16 01:36 AM

October - I wish! My old Phenom II is barely carrying today's load. I'm hoping some OC'ing and a new RX 480 will squeeze out some descent performance for a little longer, but I know VR is out of the question until I get a Zen running. smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/16 02:17 PM

I wanna Polaris-Pro GPU w/ a 1TB SSD on it :-(
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/16 11:04 PM

Nintendo Finally Confirms they went Green Team,

Doesn't Affect AMD's Masterplan, as it's in the ARM Division,

Games Developed for NX will not port to x86, and most of the time games developed for Nintendo never port to other consoles.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/16 12:35 AM

I would not be surprised if Nvidia "made them an offer they could not refuse" to get a chunk of the console business. Parenthetically, that's what Intel did early in this Century when AMD had the better CPU -- Intel "bought" the market.

If Nvidia were shut out of consoles, it would look bad for Nvidia's brand.

We'll see how well Nvidia's total package turns out. Their GPUs are first rate. But, the CPU side of the war has been a losing battle for them (in tablets, phones), so far. And, I have an Nvidia powered high-end tablet -- first hand experience that says -- buy AMD if you need a CPU/GPU (APU) solution.

However, they might do it right this time.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/16 02:29 PM

the NX will be a Portable Console, so No Where near the power of Xbox One, Xbox Scorpio, PS4, PS4K, etc.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/16 10:20 AM

Rumoring that Intel to have 10nm parts in 2017 to replace current 14nm high end parts. 10nm costs less per transistor.

Also, rumoring that 7nm may be the "wall" and possibly nothing significantly smaller will be practical. I personally was "guessing" 3 to 4nm as the final wall that will not be breached.

The "wall" means no more dramatically significant "per core" improvements in CPUs.

Quote:
Cannonlake processors on track as Intel starts up 10nm factory

... The company will be starting up the 10nm factory this quarter..should enter into trial production later this year and should be able to ramp up to volume production by the end of 1H 2017.

..Intel managed to keep its node lead over other third party fabrication facilities like TSMC and Samsung.

..now the only major problem remains beating physics every time. At 7nm and below physics breaks down pretty quickly and quantum physics effects start becoming a serious problem...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/16 11:26 AM

by 2020, CPUs will stop getting smaller, and they will work on ways to stack the cores instead of shrinking them.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/16 01:24 PM

We'll have to switch from electricity to quarktricity or something to go smaller.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/16 03:12 PM

If you're interested in getting a RX-480, even a Partner AIB Solution,

Get the 4GB Version regardless,

the 8GB Versions of these cards use too much power, even when re-designed VRM Arrays are used.

the < 150w Number was for the 4 GB Versions, the 8 GB Versions use more power.

Also, the 8GB Models are pretty much pointless,


Example, I've worked with now 5 guys, that use RX480s because of PRICE:PERFORMANCE.

They all bought the 4GB Version, which was 8GB Versions re-flashed, (the 4GB Sticker on the 8 GB on Box and Card were dead givaways).

So we tested extensively.

with any game that used Texture Resolutions high enough to fill more than 5GB of the RAM.

The GPU itself didnt have the Umph to render the game efficiently w/ MSAA Cranked or Ultra high textures loaded into the frame buffers.

While having 8 GB is future proofing sort of...... The GPU itself dont have the umph to render games that would use all 8GB efficiently.

It's like attaching a Cargo Trailer to a Honda Civic.


If you want FSAA Cranked w/ Ultra hi Res Textures, shadows, AO etc get a GTX1070/80 or wait for the AMD Equiv this fall.

Depending on how long of a delay that is, I have been looking at ever falling AMD Fury/FuryX Card Prices... Droooling.. as I can Get a FuryX for $299 ($399 - $100 in Coupon Codes/MIR/Un-Used Credit)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/16 06:34 PM

Agree -- and I own an RX-480 8GB. I'm not upset about it. Mine works fine.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/16 07:19 PM

Flash it down to 4GB, Save Power Consumption/Heat and see no performance impact.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/16 08:29 PM

The 8GB situation sounds similar to the GTX 970 fiasco, where 4GB turned out to be 3GB fast and 1GB slow/useless memory, much ado about nothing, as it turns out the card kicked butt and I've never had any issues with that slow 1GB memory, so it really only mattered for the fanboy arguments and the class action lawsuit... I'll take the $30 refund though.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/10/16 02:46 PM

Actually it's 3.5GB/.5GB, not 3/1, so the odds of you needing more than 3.5 but less than 4 (at which point it will slow down anyway) is fairly slim. Still, performance at 3.75 is better than at 4.25, it's a middle ground.

They could've easily just sold them as 3.5GB cards but it would've taken marketing effort to explain that to the uninitiated and that extra .5 as I mentioned does offer a benefit over being forced out to main RAM.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/10/16 03:32 PM

Ah yeah that's right, hopefully the marketing guys learn a lesson, but I somehow doubt it.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/10/16 03:46 PM

nVidia's issue was the memory controller on the GPU after they disabled SMs, didnt allow for straight access to the entire 4 GB Memory Array, so it was divided into 2 partitions w/ 3.5 being the main one with direct Access and the 2nd one accessible via alternate controller.

they shoulda just made it 3.5 gb, woulda saved them problems, users problems, lawyers problems, and saved them production money on removing 1 GDDR5 Chip from each PCB and the aforementioned extra controller.


AMD's issue is they slapped 8 GB on a Card that cant run games w/ texture or frame resolutions high enough to use that 8 GB.

Like I Said, it's like trying to attach a Cargo Trailer to a Honda Civic.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/16 05:52 PM

Presumably, the first Zen CPU benchmark number has "leaked". This benchmark score is for an Engineering Sample. We don't know what the clock speed of the final version will be.

At the clocks shown, its competitive with Intel. However, the details of the tests are unknown. So, though encouraging to an AMD fan, only time will tell.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/16 07:40 PM

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/233...over-piledriver
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/16 07:46 PM

Encouraging if true with no tricks to influence results. Especially at lower clock speeds than the Haswells. Still, it's puzzling why they didn't bench against Skylakes or at least Broadwells. The 4670k is 3 yrs old, 4790 is 2.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/16 08:28 PM

So a Beta Version of the Chip is already living up to the Hype.

I'm gonna dig and see if I cant get specs on the Eng. Sample Model Number.

Pretty sure it's under clocked vs what the retail is suppose to be.

I wish a CPU from Intel w/ 8C/16T was on there, as it would be a more direct comparison when you adjust for clock difference.


But if you wanna go on Performance Per GHz

Turbo Clocks:
i7-4790k (3.6/4.0 Ghz) 65.4/100-6.54/4.0 =.1635
Zen ES-1D (2.8/3.2 GHz) 58.0/100-5.80/3.2 = .18125
i5-4670k (3.4/3.8 GHz) 52.6/100-5.26/3.8= .13842
FX-8350 (4.0/4.2 GHz) 42.0/100-4.20/4.2= .100

Or:
Zen ES-1D (2.8/3.2 GHz) 58.0/100-5.80/3.2 = .18125
i7-4790k (3.6/4.0 Ghz) 65.4/100-6.54/4.0 =.16350 -9.753%
i5-4670k (3.4/3.8 GHz) 52.6/100-5.26/3.8= .13842 -23.63%
FX-8350 (4.0/4.2 GHz) 42.0/100-4.20/4.2= .10000 -44.827

Base Clocks:
i7-4790k (3.6/4.0 Ghz) 65.4/100-6.54/3.6 =.18166
Zen ES-1D (2.8/3.2 GHz) 58.0/100-5.80/2.8 = .20714
i5-4670k (3.4/3.8 GHz) 52.6/100-5.26/3.4= .15470
FX-8350 (4.0/4.2 GHz) 42.0/100-4.20/4.0= .1050

Or:
Zen ES-1D (2.8/3.2 GHz) 58.0/100-5.80/2.8 = .20714
i7-4790k (3.6/4.0 Ghz) 65.4/100-6.54/3.6 =.18166 -12.30%
i5-4670k (3.4/3.8 GHz) 52.6/100-5.26/3.4= .15470 -25.31%
FX-8350 (4.0/4.2 GHz) 42.0/100-4.20/4.0= .1050 -49.30%
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/16 06:32 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/nvidia-record-earnings-143-billion-strong-demand-for-pascal
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/16 07:08 PM

Another thing to consider,
Prices of 390/X Cards are dropping a bit, if Power isnt an issue, and 8 GB 390X w/ 3rd Party Cooling for the same price ($250-$280) is well worth it, and it will have the power and memory bus to use all 8GB without a problem.


I may hold off till tax return time to build my Zen Rig.

But My brother's rig has been handicapped for months now since his AiO Cooler pump failed and the FX 8 Core became cemented to the water block and cracked and likely pulled some pins off when removing it, we used his old Phenom X2 Spare because I had no budget to buy a new one.

He may or Maynot get my FX8350, but I'll likely keep my current system w/ 1x MSI Lightning for studio stuff, so I wont have to re-activate everything (3Ds max, Vegas, etc etc).

New Rig will be Zen CPU Hopefully (at least 8c/16t), DDR4 (24+GB), and a fairly decent GPU (Vega Likely)

1 Screen + Oculus + Windows 10 to Run Xbox One Cross Buy Titles.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/16 07:42 PM

Like you, I'm still waiting for Zen, Vega (the RX-480 was a "quick fix" -- like a drug for my AMD fandom).

I just gave my Grandson my older FX8350 gaming rig (that was operational but little used). He's in college and needed a desktop capable of good graphics for his Architecture courses. I think it will serve a greater purpose with him than me. So, I do see the merit of giving family the older stuff (that's still useful).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/16 10:06 PM

RX-470 Benchmarks are like 2% Slower (4-7 FPS) in Games Avveraging 65-75 FPS on RX-480 and R9-390s



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/16 12:33 PM

Minor rumor/speculation that Vega will NOT be a bigger Polaris/RX-480. Rather, its probably a new architecture. Rumor indicated that its still months from release.

Quote:
...The just launched Polaris based RX 400 series products are based on the companys 4th generation GCN architecture. According to several filed patents and some very interesting leaks via AMDs engineering staff VEGA is based on a brand new iteration of GCN...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/16 02:29 PM

O_o?

Im still looking at this expanded AMD Engineering Sample Benchmark that they "Theorized" the performance levels based off the One slide from wccf tech.

And Im just wondering if they made their BIAS Obvious enough by having every Intel Chip still spanking the Zen ES by a Pretty large margin, and Even Losing to the FX8350 on some.

And people are going to assume the charts are legit and bash AMD.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/16 05:53 PM

But even on the benchmark scores you posted, you have to wonder why 2 year old Intel chips are being compared?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/16 06:51 PM

they are well past the ES Phase, the one chart is prolly months old or 100% fake..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 12:50 AM

Another lengthy Rumor/Speculation article about AMD Zen CPU (possibly out late 2016 in small quantity).

Basically, for example, Zen doubles FX8350 performance in a relevant CPU performance benchmark -- even though Zen clocks are slower.

Thing is, these articles are not crystal clear about what is being compared to what. The new Zen handles twice the threads as FX8350/FX9590. Its not clear if the huge Zen advantage is per core, or per thread, or per chip (twice the threads).

So, I'll remain cautious until more concretely clear and beyond question Zen data is available. Right now, I'm not exactly thrilled with what I read -- the only concrete data is that initial Zen engineering samples run much slower clocks than my FX9590.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 01:08 PM

Intel Core i7-6900K 20M Broadwell-E 8-Core 3.2 GHz is $1100 at Newegg today.

AMD presented a one-to-one comparison to Zen 8-core 3.0GHz with i7-6900 set to 3.0GHz.

Quote:
...AMD wanted to show that it has a dog in the race. .

AMD can clock its CPU to at least 3GHz and beat Intels Core i7-6900K de-clocked to 3.0GHz in at least one benchmark. This tells you just part of the story, as there are many question about Zen performance remain unanswered. AMD has said that the desktop part will ship before the end of the year so read late Q4 2016.

AMD stresses that it has achieved 40 per cent Instruction Per Clock improvement compared to Excavator core and this strategy was one of the foundations of Zen strategy..

On paper AMD looks good, and lets hope AMD will have a good launch. The PC industry needs AMD to finally give Intel run for its money. Bring the competition back.


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 02:44 PM

Im like a kid... "Are we there yet?"... lol..
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 02:56 PM

https://www.techpowerup.com/225129/amd-demos-breakthrough-performance-of-the-zen-cpu-core
Posted By: Brun

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 04:54 PM

"AMD can clock its CPU to at least 3GHz and beat Intels Core i7-6900K de-clocked to 3.0GHz in at least one benchmark"

I can beat Usain Bolt in the 100m if his shoe laces are tied together.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 08:48 PM

Originally Posted By: Brun
"AMD can clock its CPU to at least 3GHz and beat Intels Core i7-6900K de-clocked to 3.0GHz in at least one benchmark"

I can beat Usain Bolt in the 100m if his shoe laces are tied together.


That means Clock for Clock AMD can Match the Intel Counterpart.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/16 09:01 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
That means Clock for Clock AMD can Match the Intel Counterpart.


But possibly with the caveat that is correct......but only up to 3Ghz clock speed (in at least one benchmark) , otherwise why would they be so selective?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 04:55 AM

they are running engineering samples,

The final revisions will jave higher clocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 10:17 AM

An article that "bubbles with enthusiasm" for AMD -- written by a usually "clear headed" group.

Quote:
...On June 1 2016 AMD was trading at $4.43 and yesterday the company closed at $7.04. Back on January 20th, AMD was trading for $1.8. If you do a quick sum, someone who bought AMD at $1.8 has gained 391 percent in seven months.

It looks like that things are going to get even better. After the Zen demo presentation we had a chance to get a quote from Patrick Moorhead president & principal analyst of Moor insights & strategy.

"What AMD showed about Zen last night was very compelling on performance. AMD said that power would be competitive, The frequencies we saw will be even higher at production, and will scale..."


Article
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 10:51 AM

Quote:
someone who bought AMD at $1.8 has gained 391 percent in seven months


Unfortunately, only 291%. I know, I am one. wink
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 11:16 AM

Originally Posted By: Aeronautico
Quote:
someone who bought AMD at $1.8 has gained 391 percent in seven months


Unfortunately, only 291%. I know, I am one. wink


You "put your money where my mouth is" smile

Glad to see it "paying off" thumbsup

By the way, I'm not implying that I had anything to do with your "good investment sense" -- that's "on you".
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 02:02 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
they are running engineering samples,

The final revisions will jave higher clocks.


Wasn't there a time when AMD released CPUs with higher clocks than Intel's CPUs?

I don't recall anyone underclocking the AMDs to match the Intel for benchmarks. The whole point was always that Intel and AMD did things differently "under the hood" and clock speed was no longer a reliable marker.
No one talks about GPU clock speeds after all except within a current generation, when the next comes out it's understood and accepted they could be much faster or slower but still offer better performance.

Or to put it another way: What's the point? A benchmark of an engineering sample, not running at final speeds, against an outdated Intel production CPU... It's just numbers juggling.

Might as well talk about the benefits of the 2017 Toyota Tacoma by claiming it has more cup holders than a 2005 F-150--assuming that they don't change that by the time the 2017s hit the dealers, of course!

Perhaps they think it's clever, but I see it as another AMD marketing misstep. There are two sides to a business. You need to make a competitive product/service profitably, and then you need to convince customers of that fact.

Regardless of their technical merits, I think AMD has been SERIOUSLY struggling with their marketing in recent years. Intel hasn't had to do much marketing lately, but nvidia has done very well on that score and Apple could sell a 286 in a shoe box to their customers and they'd pay $1500 for it.
AMD couldn't sell a warp drive to Elon Musk for $100.

Seriously, whoever AMD's PR team/firm is they need to be fired. Actually, they need to lose their jobs and be barred from ever holding a marketing position again. With this level of incompetence they should only be qualified for gov't jobs.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 02:16 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
By the way, I'm not implying that I had anything to do with your "good investment sense" -- that's "on you".

To be honest, the investment is still "good" but not that good: I jumped in in July 2015 at US$ 2.03... but I can't complain. hahaha
Up today another 7%+ by the way. yep
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 02:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
they are running engineering samples,

The final revisions will jave higher clocks.


Wasn't there a time when AMD released CPUs with higher clocks than Intel's CPUs?

I don't recall anyone underclocking the AMDs to match the Intel for benchmarks. The whole point was always that Intel and AMD did things differently "under the hood" and clock speed was no longer a reliable marker.
No one talks about GPU clock speeds after all except within a current generation, when the next comes out it's understood and accepted they could be much faster or slower but still offer better performance.

Or to put it another way: What's the point? A benchmark of an engineering sample, not running at final speeds, against an outdated Intel production CPU... It's just numbers juggling.

Might as well talk about the benefits of the 2017 Toyota Tacoma by claiming it has more cup holders than a 2005 F-150--assuming that they don't change that by the time the 2017s hit the dealers, of course!

Perhaps they think it's clever, but I see it as another AMD marketing misstep. There are two sides to a business. You need to make a competitive product/service profitably, and then you need to convince customers of that fact.

Regardless of their technical merits, I think AMD has been SERIOUSLY struggling with their marketing in recent years. Intel hasn't had to do much marketing lately, but nvidia has done very well on that score and Apple could sell a 286 in a shoe box to their customers and they'd pay $1500 for it.
AMD couldn't sell a warp drive to Elon Musk for $100.

Seriously, whoever AMD's PR team/firm is they need to be fired. Actually, they need to lose their jobs and be barred from ever holding a marketing position again. With this level of incompetence they should only be qualified for gov't jobs.




The Jedi Master



AMD Broke Off from "Marketing Clock speeds" to "Marketing CPU Ratings" with Athlon XP etc.

The Consumers still compare Clock for Clock, so why not give them what they wanna see, a Direct Clock for Clock Comparison.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 06:20 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-cpu-stock-market,32520.html
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 07:56 PM

Eh, SOME do. I wouldn't want them in charge of flying the plane I'm on if the pilot was incapacitated, if you know what I'm saying.

The enlightened ones say "if I spend $XXX on a CPU, will the AMD or Intel offering give me better performance in what I need it do?" That's what matters. You can say it runs at 5Hz and I won't care as long as it's faster than the other guy at that price.

As for stocks, I find percentages funny as they lie. If your stock price is $250 and it goes up 300%, WOW. If instead it's $1...meh.

When a kid makes 15% profit on their lemonade stand, that's really very little. When an oil company makes 15% profit on their $100bn+ revenues, that's a lot.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 08:08 PM

I don't understand. You might have one $250 share or 250 $1 shares, 300% is still $750.
You are talking about companies' capitalisation? One company might have a million $250 outstanding shares, and another a billion $1 shares: which one is bigger?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/16 09:10 PM

Clockspeed isnt the answer...

AMD was selling 5GHz FX8 Cores that were easily stomped by 3.5 GHz i5's
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/16 10:38 AM

As previously noted, in my intense study of the Stock Markets and Strategies, I can summarize -- buy low, sell high, but, in most cases, don't plan to "hold" for long term growth over years.

As previously noted, AMD's huge and obvious mistake with FX series CPUs was going for "clock speed" over "instructions per clock".

Comparing "instructions per clock" and "instructions per watt" is the simple way to compare two CPU "technologies" relative chances for longer term success.

AMD is claiming, by their tests, that AMD CPU technology is now competitive with Intel technology. The folks who buy stock would be interested to know their CPU architecture may be "back on the competitive track" -- and the company stock may have "bottomed out" and will now tend to rise (generally speaking). That's relevant because its a primary job of the AMD CEO and management team to grow the stock price (among other things).

Opinions smile
Posted By: Misty

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/16 03:23 PM

Quote:
As previously noted, in my intense study of the Stock Markets and Strategies, I can summarize -- buy low, sell high, but, in most cases, don't plan to "hold" for long term growth over years.


I for one only buy dividend growth stocks (PG, MFST, BA, MRK, CSCO, LMT, T, VZ etc.) and keep them until there is a dividend cut or bad news.
The AMD stock is for traders only.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/16 05:46 PM

Quote:
...AMD Takes Graphics Share From Nvidia For The Fourth Consecutive Quarter

Now sitting at 34.2% of the graphics market AMD has nearly doubled its share in 12 months, which was down to as low as 18% in the same time last year. Effectively returning the company to its recent long-term share average of ~35% between 2012 and 2015. Following this 12 month recovery the company is now looking to breakaway with more long-term share growth. Driven by a ramp of its next generation graphics product Vega which is set to succeed Polaris in 2017...


Nvidia still sells twice as much graphics as AMD. However, the direction is good for AMD stockholders and fans.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/16 07:47 PM

That will only go up w/ inclusion of Next Gen Consoles Sales, as well as OEM Deals in place on both APUs and Desktops w/ Embedded RX460s from major Manufacturers.

Stock prices continue to climb.

And we still dont have Vega/Zen yet.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/16 11:30 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master

Might as well talk about the benefits of the 2017 Toyota Tacoma by claiming it has more cup holders than a 2005 F-150--assuming that they don't change that by the time the 2017s hit the dealers, of course!

Perhaps they think it's clever, but I see it as another AMD marketing misstep. There are two sides to a business. You need to make a competitive product/service profitably, and then you need to convince customers of that fact.

Regardless of their technical merits, I think AMD has been SERIOUSLY struggling with their marketing in recent years. Intel hasn't had to do much marketing lately, but nvidia has done very well on that score and Apple could sell a 286 in a shoe box to their customers and they'd pay $1500 for it.
AMD couldn't sell a warp drive to Elon Musk for $100.

Seriously, whoever AMD's PR team/firm is they need to be fired. Actually, they need to lose their jobs and be barred from ever holding a marketing position again. With this level of incompetence they should only be qualified for gov't jobs.
The Jedi Master


+1 about the poor comparisons to 2 year old CPUs and the terrible marketing... they have been lost in the marketing and R&D strategy since the 5870...

Also if you own AMD stock consider selling it while it's high, I had a coworker in the late 90s who bought 3dFX stock from being a big fan of their Voodoo1/2 cards "they're the future of gaming man!", unfortunately he didn't sell the stock before the Voodoo4/5 and I believe he lost all his money he invested in 3dfx. Technology stocks are very volatile...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/16 09:29 AM

Quote:
AMD Opens The Lid on Zen Architectural Details at Hot Chips Huge Performance Leap Over Excavator, Massive Throughput on 14nm FinFET Design


A lengthy description of Zen CPU architecture with slides as presented by AMD -- initially up to 32 cores and 64 threads in some products. It will be combined with Vega GPU for number crunching in some huge core count products.

Quote:
...A 2 socket solution should mean a total of 64 cores and 128 threads along with denser memory capacities that make Opteron sound like a kid in the park. We would also see next generation HPC server chips which combine 32 high-performance cores alongside massive Vega GPUs that will be used to crunch FP64 calculations. That has been in the plans for quite some time and with Naples rolling out in Q2 2017, we might see it sometime around 2018...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/16 03:59 PM

I'd post more if SimHQ's Ads didnt crash the browsers.. lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 10:09 AM

Quote:
... AMD was one of the launch partners for the new Deus Ex: Mankind Divided game and it appears it will be bundled with some of AMD's hot FX-series CPUs..

..a copy of the new Deus Ex: Mankind Divided game with a purchase of a 6- or 8-core AMD FX CPU. According to details provided by AMD, the promotion will run from August 23rd to November 14th or until the supply lasts.

Currently, some of the hot AMD FX-series CPUs like the 6-core FX-6300 or 8-core FX-8320 are selling for as low as US $100 and US $130, so bundling a US $60 game sounds like a really good deal...


Not a bad "bang for buck" -- if one was going to buy Deus Ex. Of course, they are trying to sell off the FX CPUs before Zen hits in a few months.

If I didn't already have multiple FX CPUs in the house, I'd wait for Zen anyway smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 02:53 PM

My brother needs a decent AM3+ CPU, the PhenomII x2 is Bottlenecking his performance something fierce, lol.

I had already decided to keep my FX8350 Rig intact, so as soon as his job situation is settled He'll prolly ask for advice on a FX 8 Core,

They should have the 8 cores on clearance soon... doesnt need anything more than 8 Core 3.5ish GHz, so the 95w models would work fine.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 03:01 PM

As for AMD's Marketing Shadiness...

it's better than nVidia's Bullying/Stealing/Buyout Shadiness....

nVidia in the last 20 years, has either bought out competition, bullied it, or just plain stole from it.

A Majority of the Proprietary Tech they develop is based off Older Code that what patented by other companies..




Then there's this, if true, pretty much sums it up.:
https://www.techpowerup.com/225287/nvidia-ansel-post-fx-based-on-stolen-mastereffect-reshade-fx-code
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 06:06 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
As for AMD's Marketing Shadiness...

it's better than nVidia's Bullying/Stealing/Buyout Shadiness....

nVidia in the last 20 years, has either bought out competition, bullied it, or just plain stole from it.

A Majority of the Proprietary Tech they develop is based off Older Code that what patented by other companies..
Then there's this, if true, pretty much sums it up.:
https://www.techpowerup.com/225287/nvidia-ansel-post-fx-based-on-stolen-mastereffect-reshade-fx-code


Good point about Nvidia, but I think the problem with AMD is not so much shadyness as incompetence.

How are they ever going to compete with Nvidia when their marketing praises a new product while comparing their to past gen Nvidia or 2 year old Intel product?

Anyone researching their product and reading the marketing sees right through it and it comes off looking even worse.

The example Jedi gave of comparing your new truck model to a years old Tacoma model is perfect...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 07:51 PM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
As for AMD's Marketing Shadiness...

it's better than nVidia's Bullying/Stealing/Buyout Shadiness....

nVidia in the last 20 years, has either bought out competition, bullied it, or just plain stole from it.

A Majority of the Proprietary Tech they develop is based off Older Code that what patented by other companies..
Then there's this, if true, pretty much sums it up.:
https://www.techpowerup.com/225287/nvidia-ansel-post-fx-based-on-stolen-mastereffect-reshade-fx-code


Good point about Nvidia, but I think the problem with AMD is not so much shadyness as incompetence.

How are they ever going to compete with Nvidia when their marketing praises a new product while comparing their to past gen Nvidia or 2 year old Intel product?

Anyone researching their product and reading the marketing sees right through it and it comes off looking even worse.

The example Jedi gave of comparing your new truck model to a years old Tacoma model is perfect...



They Compared RX480 to 980s and 1070s etc.

The Issue with AMD FXx1xxx and X3xx Desktop Chips was,
Bulldozer was delayed A LOT, by time it came out, Intel had already advanced IPC of their initial iSeries even more than the advantages between Nehelem and AMD K10 PhenomII and AMD 15h BullDozer CPUs,

Another Issue is they Hyped/Promoted Performance using their own Compilers, and completely forgot, 99.999% of the World uses Intel x86 Compilers

Soooo... That Performance went down, then you add in the Errata Delay, The Subpar Cache and handicapped CMT Integer Cores..

Bulldozer and the 15h Family was a unconventional CPU Architecture, that had ZERO Support, AMD was hoping CMT would become wide spread, it did not, even with O/S Patches and Driver Changes, CMT had Issues due to the Cache System and Shared Resources.

Pile Driver addressed some issues, but the Subpar Cache and Handicapped Integer Cores still limited performance, once AMD Realized the Architecture was not good for anything other than High Clock speeds and sucking power, they Scrapped Further Development on the AM3+ Platform and Hired Jim Keller to come back and start work on entirely new Design.

The engineers shifted the 15h Design to Low Power Fm2+ Platform and Slapped Some GCN Blocks onto it and the APU was Born.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/16 08:56 PM

Yeah, nvidia pulled the same thing that AMD did when they bought ATI! Buying other companies to get access to their tech, it's downright immoral!




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 03:15 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Yeah, nvidia pulled the same thing that AMD did when they bought ATI! Buying other companies to get access to their tech, it's downright immoral!




The Jedi Master


Umm, nVidia Buys Companies to Remove them From Competition... or to sabotage their competitors,
Not just to Acquire their tech, half their Tech is Swiped from Concepts that AMD and Other Developers from the early 90s produced. (ATi, SiS, etc)
Though, look at nVidia's Company Acquiring History as well as their "new tech unveiling" timelines.

nVidia has bought a major company almost every 10-14 months, and then later unveiled that company's assets as New nVidia tech, not just for GPUs, but for Networking, Mainboards, etc etc.


AMD didnt simply Buy ATi, let alone Buy ATi to steal their Tech,
They Acquired them w/ Permission from the Majority Stockholders from both companies, who generated the finances for the loan used to Purchase the Company.
The Stockholders Literally pushed this Acquisiion from both sides.

AMD Bought ATi, to shift their business and Offices to California from Canada,

ATi was left to Face nVidia alone when 3DFx Fell off, ATi was Based in Canada, and outsourcing Fabrication and Assembly it was causing delays and cost over-runs.

By Allowing AMD to buy them, they moved to a Company that had their own Fabrication Facilities, as well as a parent company with more money to compete directly with nVidia.

By Buying ATi, AMD now had access to Graphics Architectures to Integrate into it's Processor Architectures without having to design their own.

This was a big deal, as Intel had already Announced Upcoming Intel Chips Containing Embedded GPU's (IntelHD) Capable of Rendering etc.

AMD's APU's hit the Market a year after Intel HD enabled CPU's.

After the AMD Had some issues, AMD Separated their Fabrication Facilities into it's own Company (Now Global Foundries) and Divested it, they no longer own GF.


nVidia, Bought 3DFx Out of Bankruptcy, and inherited their debt, just to get access to tech and patents.
nVidia, Bought Ageia Out of Bankruptcy, and inherited their debt, just to get access to their Accelerated PPU and it's Code, which Resurfaced as nVidia GameWorks PhysX.
nVidia, Bought Out ULI just to force them to Terminate their Chipset contract with ATi, then sold them off.
I can go down the list of company acquisions by nVidia, and what that companies tech surfaced as under the GameWorks or


Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 07:18 PM

Most people really don't care Skate, its how a lot of businesses work and you generally don't give up the chance to grow when the opportunity is there.

Regardless of the mission statement, the objective of almost all businesses is to make money/profit. Give a gamer value for money, cutting edge performance, somewhere between those two markers or simply just the ability to play the games they enjoy and they'll be happy.

If 'Skate Zilla studios' could turn a huge profit, expand year on year and grow as a business I'd wager you wouldn't really care about who you were trampling over in the process. Dog eat dog, always has been, always will be.

Money makes the world go around. You make your own luck and take your chances.......with regards Nvidia, they're hardly thieving technology in many of your examples...they didn't force 3DFX to become bankrupt and they took the opportunity when the chance arose - just like any other company could have done. I'm not sure why you would feel so threatened or intimidated by such a company or be blinded to another company that it means blind fanboyism clouds logical judgement.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 07:23 PM

Not saying nVidia is Evil.

I enjoyed the bejeevies out of my 8800 Cards for YEARS, well After other people chose to upgrade I was still rockin them Puppies...

Just sayin' they got some crazy business practices, AMD has their own head scratching practices.


as for 3DFx Buyout, there's so many stories behind that and VooDoo5, it's borderline SciFi, lol..
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 07:26 PM

True, but I think a lot of the 'big" companies have their ghosts in the closet. I'm sure we could talk along day long on Microsoft and Apple just for starters and they'd both put a lot of companies to shame with their dodgy practices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 09:58 PM

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Companies with lots of power will tend to do the "wrong thing". That so many do it "makes the point", over and over.

Still, "wrong is wrong". The fact that "nearly everyone who can" does it, does not "make wrong into right".

Civilization might be more civilized if "we the people" held the powerful more accountable.

In the case of politics, we vote with our ballot -- for the success of the least offensive politician. In the case of free enterprise, we vote with our coin -- for the success of the least offensive company.

But without competitors, there is no choice for us to make -- and we are at the mercy of the "powerful".

AMD is the only viable competitor for two powerful companies, Intel and Nvidia.

Competition is good smile

Just opinions smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/16 11:49 PM

Competition is good, yes....but the point is that just because you don't like a particular company doesn't mean that everything they do is 'bad practice' which is pretty much the vibe given off in this thread whenever Nvidia is mentioned.

Buying up a bankrupt company is par for the course, it isn't tantamount to 'stealing' technology and they didn't force a gun to their head! What exactly do you want to hold Nvidia accountable to........having market share? Being popular with PC gamers because they are providing the performance they want/crave? They almost have a monopoly on the discreet GPU market for many reasons......one of them is because AMD have been poor competition and another is because they have earned the right to be in that position by taking the opportunities in front of them. They haven't got shed-loads of money to buy other companies out by robbing banks!

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/26/16 12:13 PM

Quote:
...but the point is that just because you don't like a particular company doesn't mean that everything they do is 'bad practice' which is pretty much the vibe given off in this thread whenever Nvidia is mentioned...




For the record, I personally don't hate Nvidia -- they make excellent graphics cards. I have bought them in the past. I have an expensive Nvidia powered tablet.

Its not dumb to buy Nvidia. Many here just buy the best available GPU, independent of manufacturer. I agree with that practice.

But, this is the "AMD fan" thread smile

We're not "cheer leading" -- that would be gross. Mostly, we simply report things about AMD -- often merely by quoting an article (rather than giving our own opinion). But, we try to be accurate. That is, if AMD "blows it" (like they did with the FX CPU design), we say so. If they seem to have an advantage over Intel or Nvidia (the only real competitors), we say so.

The object here is NOT to "bash" Nvidia -- or even to say much about them -- this is the AMD thread. However, we occasionally note reasons why we're AMD fans. In doing so, its natural to "make a comparison" that's not favorable to Intel or Nvidia. Normally, its not their products that are an issue with me personally, its their business practices (that I have watched for decades now).

Anyhow, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. On this AMD thread, it makes sense that one will occasionally see statements favorable to AMD that others don't agree with. Its also true, one might see statements unfavorable to a competitor (that others don't agree with).

If AMD "owned the market" and Intel and Nvidia were minor players, I imagine AMD would start acting in ways that I would not approve of -- Power Corrupts. Competition is good. smile

This is just an opinion statement and an explanation of why one would tend to see "anti-Nvidia" statements here from time to time. Its not an argument. And, I don't expect everyone to agree with my thoughts. smile

For what its worth smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/26/16 12:30 PM

Back to the regularly scheduled programming smile

Quote:
Question Time Is AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) Stock Overvalued?


AMD stock continues to climb. A long article written by someone who professes to be able to analyze stock prices. He finds the plus and the minus in the current situation. Generally, the article is "cautionary" not "negative".

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/16 02:38 AM

haha toms strikes again..
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/pci-express-4-will-deliver-75-watt-over-pcie-not-300w.html
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/16 10:00 AM

Quote:
Next Generation Radeon Flagship With Vega 10 Architecture Will Be Coming in 1H 2017 AMD Confirms
.. ..
Official roadmap confirms Vega based, 14nm FinFET flagship will not be landing this year

..The first half of 2017 means that the time-frame AMD has given for the architecture lies anywhere between January 2017 to June 2017. This also means that AMDs synergy between its product portfolio stands to be maximized in the first half of 2017 considering Zen based x86 CPUs for the enthusiast market will also be shipping in volume during this time frame. Zen processors and Vega GPUs can trigger a new upgrade cycle in the enthusiast market and for followers of the red camp..

..This could also means that we might not be seeing the GTX 1080 Ti any time soon (considering the Ti will eat into TITAN sales and the GPU manufacturer will have no incentive to release the card so soon)...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/16 03:29 PM

HBM 2 is still in short supply, and high cost,

HBM 3 is on the way,

in 2 or 3+ years we'll have Phase Shift Memory...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/16 10:19 AM

Quote:
Rumor : AMD Zen & Bristol Ridge AM4 Motherboards Coming In October

AMDs upcoming AM4 motherboards for Zen & Bristol Ridge are said to be debuting in October according to chatter by motherboard partners. ..

Bristol Ridge APUs for the desktop are set to launch around the same time..

..well see Zen on display at CES in January of 2017. ..

AM4, AMDs Next Generation Unified Socket For APUs & CPUs

AM4 is the very first unified socket by the company. Finally bringing all of its desktop products under one roof. The next generation AM4 socket will be compatibel with both desktop APUs and CPUs. ...


As an AMD user who builds more computers than I need, I've appreciated that AMD has kept the same Motherboard Design (socket part) for the FX CPUs over the years. Now, AMD CPUs and APUs will all use the same Motherboard. Get one good motherboard and it should last for years through multiple CPU and/or APU upgrades. Useful and cost effective, if one likes to upgrade a lot.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/16 02:33 PM

Still rocking my 990FX Boards, With both FX and PhenomII Chips.. :-)

Im ready for PCIe 3.0, m.2, DDR4 (For the love of god, DDR4 is now Cheaper than DDR3, and I can run 32GB easy!)

Both of my AM3+/990FX Boards still had PCI 32-Bit Slots, Hopefully they are gone for more PCIe Slots, the only thing I used them for was the SB Xi Cards,

But lately I've removed them and used the onboard sound + the XFi/EAX Audio Driver for them, so literally removed a card, and Used the RealTek EAX/XFi Control Panel Driver.

Cut on Power Draw, Slot use, heat blocking my GPUs.. etc. I miss some of the XFi Platinum Features, but the Audio Ram was never used, nor is EAX, which hasnt been used in a while, though I do put EAX Profiles on for games, and use a generic profile just to get better and more lively audio.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/16 10:29 AM

As noted in a separate post, new AMD and Intel CPUs and APUs will only run Windows 10, it is rumored.

Its not perfectly clear to me why Windows 7 and 8 will not run. However, part of the rumor is that the new chips need new drivers -- which will only be supplied for Windows 10.

Does not affect me. But, I know many folks still like/use Windows 7.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/16 10:39 AM

Quote:
Intel Launches 7th Generation 14nm Plus Processors Featuring Kaby Lake Architecture

Intel has just recently launched the Kaby Lake architecture with a total of 6 SKUs as well as the m-series. Building up on the 14 nanometer process,...


A lengthy description of AMDs new CPU competition from Intel. I assume the new Intel cores will be slightly faster than the AMD Zen at the same clock rate. But, folks will need to consider other aspects such as cost, power requirements, final clocks, and core count to pick the best CPU for their purpose.

Of course, AMD fans will buy AMD smile

Competition is good smile

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/16 02:42 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
As noted in a separate post, new AMD and Intel CPUs and APUs will only run Windows 10, it is rumored.

Its not perfectly clear to me why Windows 7 and 8 will not run. However, part of the rumor is that the new chips need new drivers -- which will only be supplied for Windows 10.

Does not affect me. But, I know many folks still like/use Windows 7.



Not a Rumor, MS Confirmed around January, they will not be making any new OS CPU Drivers for any new CPUs starting in 2016 for anything other than Windows 10.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/16 06:11 PM

Quote:
AMD Releases Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.8.3; Adds Crossfire Profiles For Battlefield 1 & Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/16 07:16 PM

if it comes to ot, Ima end up getting a Fury or FuryX
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/16 10:12 AM

Quote:
AMD Has Plans To Create The Starship Processor With 48 Cores / 96 Threads On The 7nm Node .. planned for 2018

..Since all of this is basically just leaked paperwork at the moment, it would be prudent to take it with more than a pinch of salt...


Apparently, this is two or three month old news, but I hadn't seen it.

Going straight past 10nm to 7nm is the "big news" to me. It means faster progress to the "end of miniaturization" -- as some folks think 7nm is the smallest possible CPU architecture using "silicon" (I personally won't be surprised if smart folks get down around 3 or 4nm).

Once CPU cores are as "small" as possible, the only improvement will be in core count and architecture tweaks -- thus 48 cores. I imagine 48 cores could help flight simulations and other simulations -- if the simulations are coded to use 48 cores/96 threads. For example, one "thread" per aircraft in some air battles seems natural -- compared to only one or two threads for the entire world and all active units combined in older wartime simulations.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/04/16 07:02 PM

With 400 Series gaining Inventory,

Etailers are clearancing the 300 Series,

Seeing 380s for $140, and 380Xs for 179.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/16 12:16 PM

Quote:
Intel Corporation May Have Pushed 7-Nanometer Tech to 2021

The chip giant's first 7-nanometer products may not arrive until 2021, with substantially improved new products based on the technology in 2022...


Intel plans a 10nm node next. Some folks are speculating that Intel 7nm will be delayed to 2022.

Article

As noted in an above post, others hypothesize (based on limited information) that AMD will skip the 10nm node entirely and go straight to 7nm. That makes sense because 10nm may not be that much faster than 14nm -- and some folks (like gamers) just want speed.

Some think 7nm will be the end of the line for downsizing silicon circuits -- and may be hard to do. If AMD succeeds at 7nm first, their CPUs might surpass Intel (for the second time this century).

This is speculation and guessing in 2016. But, it does show that big increases in CPU and GPU performance are less likely in the near term. Thus, our current upgrades to 14/16nm CPU and GPU may last a few years as the 10nm node may not be "significantly" faster and may be later than planned -- and 7nm may be much later than originally expected -- these are upgrade cost/benefit considerations for those of us AMD fans upgrading early next year (Zen CPU and Vega GPU).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/16 11:17 AM

Quote:
AMD Launches 7th Gen Bristol Ridge APUs For AM4 Desktop-OEM PCs Promontory Chipset Stack Detailed

AMD has officially launched their 7th generation, Bristol Ridge APUs for desktop platforms. The latest APUs will be available for sale through several OEM manufacturers. The new series would utilize the Excavator and GCN core architecture..

..AMD had already launched Bristol Ridge for notebooks but are now bringing it to the masses on desktop platforms...


These are 28nm AMD APUs. I've built a couple computers using the older model APU. Based on my limited experience, SimHQ folks should not be looking to an APU (from AMD or Intel) for an acceptable PC gaming experience. Don't buy an APU intending to match it with a separate GPU. Just get a "stand alone" CPU and "stand alone" GPU.

However, for those on a really tight budget, the new APU should beat Intel for low cost (without a separate GPU) gaming in a low cost PC or laptop -- because they do have excellent AMD GPU circuitry (Intel's in-CPU-chip graphics are improving but still second rate). Based on my experience, you can play all the games with the APU -- but, not to SimHQ standards smile

These will use the new AM4 motherboard technology. The AM4 motherboards will run ALL of the upcoming AMD CPUs and APUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/07/16 09:47 PM

I Steam VR benchmarked my current RX480 powered system (listed below). Mostly, frame rates were above 100fps and never below 90fps.

My RX480 system just meets the full standard (does not exceed it) as shown by the screenshot below. That is what AMD advertised -- they said the RX480 would fully meet the VR specifications but not exceed. Parenthetically, the FX9590 CPU also fully met the specification.

During the run, two images are up on the screen -- side by side. I let my "eyes" "spread" (opposite of cross) to watch the scene in full 3D stereo without needing special glasses or a VR setup. I suppose others could do the same.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/07/16 11:35 PM

It took me both of my 7970 Lightnings to Get to the Green, lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/16 10:42 AM

Quote:
Sony Launches AMD "Polaris" Powered Playstation 4 Pro

..Under the hood, the PlayStation 4 Pro features an all new semi-custom SoC designed by Sony and AMD .. with 8 cores .. The GPU component is where the action is. .. based on the [AMD] "Polaris" GPU architecture...


This is an upgrade of current Playstation 4 with substantially improved graphics. It it is said to use the latest AMD graphics (as found in RX480).

The new Microsoft "XBox One S" also uses an upgraded AMD chip.

As noted other times in this long thread, this implies that new console games will be optimized for AMD graphics. Of course, many of those games will become PC games also -- some with Nvidia tweaks -- but, underneath, primarily AMD graphics.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/16 02:42 PM

seeing as Xbox One S is sporting "5 TFLOPS" I'd Say it's a RX480 GPU embedded.

both AMD and Sony have been spamming my inbox with "Polaris on Consoles" Emails/Tweets, lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 11:44 AM

Quote:
AMD releases new Radeon Software 16.9.1 drivers


These are a hotfix. Not a new WHQL set.

Quote:
TSMC to begin 7nm volume production in Q1 2018


Rumor is, AMD will bypass 10nm node and go straight to 7nm. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 12:11 PM

A DX12 benchmark set that looks good for AMD. The RX480 is even competitive with Nvidia 1070 in this game in DX12 at 1080p.

As previously noted, AMD does better than most folks expect when using the most up to date graphics APIs (DX12 and Vulcan). So, AMD RX480 "bang for buck" makes sense if one has to keep a card for a few years -- as DX12 and Vulcan titles are released.



Article
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 01:52 PM

I will never, NEVER, play a game without some form of FSAA ever again. Jagged lines are the ultimate experience destroyer to me. The whole screen looks like utter filth.

No-FSAA benchmarks are up there with comparisons at 640x480 resolution for me. How does a card perform when it's set the way I would actually play a game? That's all that matters. If a game doesn't have FSAA, I force it thru drivers every time. You can make a 15 year old game surprisingly decent despite low res textures with high FSAA.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 03:14 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
I will never, NEVER, play a game without some form of FSAA ever again...


I wondered if the no FSAA in the tests might bother some folks smile

Personally, I never use FSAA (one exception where I turned it on by default when selecting Ultimate settings for a game).

Historically, once we got to 1080p, I always set AA to 0 -- makes the game "blurry" to my eyes on a "good eyes" day (normal monitor at about 30 inches view distance). Occasionally 20/15 vision at computer distance on a very, very "good eyes" day. On the other hand, dry eye can somewhat cloud things at other times -- so AA is unnecessary biggrin

It has occurred to me that others may see things clearer and have faster eye response than I have. So, they may prefer AA and higher frame rates than are okay for me. Thus, from time to time, I mention that I use 0AA and mention that 30fps looks smooth to me -- so folks understand where I'm coming from when I say something "looks good" and "plays smooth".

In summary, yes, I agree. Giving the FPS both with and without AA seems relevant. thumbsup

I actually do wonder if the different forms of AA now available and the different AA algorithms used by AMD and Nvidia makes a fair/true "1 to 1" comparison more difficult -- so they just skip AA at times.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 04:01 PM


The DX12 update on DE:MD has been a disappointment for me.

The internal benchmark of the game says I gained 8% on average FPS (~56), but the whole thing is a stuttery mess on the actual game.

On DX11, on a mix of Ultra/Very High settings, runs very smooth (51 Average) and looks gorgeous.

Even on a R9 390X with 8GB, it only reverts to smooth on DX12 with default High settings. My Average FPS goes up to 65.

And yes, I'm using Crimson 6.9.1.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/16 06:51 PM

Yes, the raw fps rate is no longer a sufficient barometer either. If your fps averages 60 by spending half its time at 120 and half at zero, that's not good. smile

Stutters, dropped frames, tearing, hitching, there are various issues that don't appear in a given bennchmark but may make a game unplayable for some users. That's why people who say "it has to be 60" make me laugh because in a vacuum that's meaningless. Give me a smooth issue-free low frame rate over a "fast" rate with all that junk in it.

There were some games in the past with the ability to have dynamic details, it would crank it up when the game ran fast and smooth and start lowering it when the game slowed down. This has fallen out of favor, although with most games being lazy console ports the performance is usually fine anyway.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/16 10:48 AM

Quote:
AMD Partner Globalfoundries Begins 12nm FD-SOI Rollout Product Tape Out Expected In 2019
...
GLOBALFOUNDRIES new 12FDX technology is built on a 12nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) platform, enabling the performance of 10nm FinFET with better power consumption and lower cost than 16nm FinFET. The platform offers a full node of scaling benefit, delivering a 15 percent performance boost over todays FinFET technologies and as much as 50 percent lower power consumption.
...
Where 12FDXs true advantages lie are cost and simplicity, two things that FinFETs design complexity and high expense really cannot contend with.

Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany is being equipped to begin trial production of 12FDX and subsequent volume ramp and mass production in 2019 ...


Article

Intel will have 10nm quite soon. But, is putting 7nm off until 2022, it is rumored.

AMD has multiple partners making "silicon" for them. Each approaches things a bit differently.

Recent announcements, rumors, speculations suggest 12nm, 10nm, or 7nm as AMD's next major process node (after 14nm). Interesting to me, is the timing of all the new nodes.

The other thing to notice is that actual "speed" increases relatively little (15 percent) but power efficiency is way up.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/16 03:22 PM

Quote:
Exclusive: Is Intel Really Starting To Lose Its Process Lead? 7nm Node Slated For Release in 2022

... Intel has delayed its 7 nm process to 2022. The 7nm node has been referred to, many times, as the end of conventional process technology and, quite repeatedly, the start of the road where physics will start to break down (we will go into detail on this below). Quite understandably, Intel has started to slow down its shrink schedule to milk the existing nodes for a bit longer and most of all buy it precious time. ...


Article

In connection with my above post: A long technical article that discusses how all "nodes" are "not created equal" and other technical stuff.

The summary conclusion is that Intel does nodes best. And Intel's 7nm will be the first "true 7nm" -- even if it is the "last 7nm" on the market.


Still, the actual performance differences between nodes are not real big in terms of making a game FPS difference people can "see" and "feel" (versus only "measure") -- and games are the toughest test for most PC buyers. Thus, being last with the best 7nm may still equate to being last in the games arena -- or not. We'll see. Of course, I expect Intel to stay "at the top" in the CPU world in sales volume -- no matter what they do smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/16 05:46 PM

Quote:
AMD grows market share

...figures from Mercury and Jon Peddie Research show that it has been growing market share for the fourth consecutive quarter.

..In total discrete graphics, AMD gained 4.8 share points to 34.2 per cent of market by unit volume (based on Mercury Research). In desktop discrete sector, AMD saw a 7.3 share point increase, rising to 29.9 per cent market share...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/13/16 05:34 PM

https://www.techpowerup.com/225786/amd-readies-x370-high-end-chipset-for-summit-ridge-processors

Quote:
AMD is readying three motherboard chipsets for its next-generation socket AM4 desktop platform. With its 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs, the company launched the A320 mainstream and B350 premium motherboard chipsets, while keeping a better-endowed high-end chipset under the wraps, which makes its debut with the ZEN "Summit Ridge" processors. It turns out that this chipset is the AMD X370. The X370 chipset will debut with the first ZEN "Summit Ridge" processors along the sidelines of the 2017 International CES, next January.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/16 11:57 PM

Quote:
Wall Street analyst says Intel chip better than Zen

A Wall Street analyst, with no thought to his personal safety, has dared to question what AMD fans have been telling us for ages Zen will bring about peace on earth, cure cancer and above all give Intel a good kicking.

However, Christopher Danely with Citigroup has bravely claimed that with its Kaby Lake family of processors, Intel remains a step-function ahead of AMD Zen when Zen chips are released in Q416...


See we AMD fans at SimHQ can "take __it" and smile smile

Anyhow, the article is probably correct. AMD will be one node of experience behind Intel. As the Intel 14nm is a step in their architecture path but is all new to AMD (so AMDs version may not be "perfect").

However, that may only translate to about a 5 to 15 percent per core-clock advantage for Intel. Far less than the advantage has been recently. And, I would claim that 15 percent in a CPU will not be truly noticeable in most uses (in the office or home).

Moreover, the AMD 8 core / 16 thread processors may be selling for enough less than Intel that AMD would be the "rational choice" for most uses. Although, I expect most would buy Intel due to previous purchases and brand recognition.

However, we'll see. Nothing may turn out like I expect. It would not be the first time (I still remember "Bulldozer") smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/16 02:34 AM

is this the same analyst that swears AMD is lying about 40% more than Steam Roller and says it's more like 40% over the Core that Came before Bulldozer (Orachi I think)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/16 12:45 PM

Even this "biased" analyst agreed that the new AMD Zen actually is 2 percent faster (per clock) than the Intel chip it was tested against -- in the test that was run.

In effect, he's just saying the new Intel chip will be faster than the old Intel chip (to which I say -- no kidding). Moreover, he is "guessing" that AMD Zen will not improve between engineering and production (could be true).

And then, he writes an article -- as he is paid to do smile

Then, a writer known for his "smirky" style writes an article about the analyst's article -- as he is paid to do smile

Finally, I copy the smirky words over to SimHQ -- for the fun of it smile

As we all know, we'll find out the truth when the products are on the shelf and independently tested -- prior to that is rumor and guesswork (sometimes educated guesswork).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/16 02:47 PM

Analysts say a bunch of stuff to try and sway stock prices, lol.

Intel's IPC has been flat lined or slightly lower the last 3 new Architectures, I doubt all of a sudden then get a 15% boost out of no where.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/16 02:48 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
I will never, NEVER, play a game without some form of FSAA ever again...


I wondered if the no FSAA in the tests might bother some folks smile

Personally, I never use FSAA (one exception where I turned it on by default when selecting Ultimate settings for a game).

Historically, once we got to 1080p, I always set AA to 0 -- makes the game "blurry" to my eyes on a "good eyes" day (normal monitor at about 30 inches view distance). Occasionally 20/15 vision at computer distance on a very, very "good eyes" day. On the other hand, dry eye can somewhat cloud things at other times -- so AA is unnecessary biggrin

It has occurred to me that others may see things clearer and have faster eye response than I have. So, they may prefer AA and higher frame rates than are okay for me. Thus, from time to time, I mention that I use 0AA and mention that 30fps looks smooth to me -- so folks understand where I'm coming from when I say something "looks good" and "plays smooth".

In summary, yes, I agree. Giving the FPS both with and without AA seems relevant. thumbsup

I actually do wonder if the different forms of AA now available and the different AA algorithms used by AMD and Nvidia makes a fair/true "1 to 1" comparison more difficult -- so they just skip AA at times.



I haven't Run MSAA in a while, VSR at 1440p (for Eyefinity) or 4K downsampling to my 1080p screen works better for me.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/16 08:19 PM

Depends on the title and the method used. Some need serious help, some do better with this combination, some do better with another.

However, rule of thumb is at native monitor res most games look like a computer picture unless you work the MSAA/FXAA/rendering tricks.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/16 10:58 AM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Depends on the title .. Some need serious help...


A good point.

Nearly always I'm playing one of the games known for the better graphics. On top of that, where feasible, I normally add 3'd party high resolution textures (or frequently, I make them myself -- I like to mod games).

So, whereas a normal game's normal texture might be 512x512 pixels or 1024x1024, I could be running up to 4096x4096 (which my RX480 handles well). I also incorporate a few higher detail 3'd party 3D models in some rare cases (e.g. Skyrim).

Why do I do it -- so I won't see the pixels -- or faceted versions of nominally smooth objects.

Dummy me -- sometimes (not most games) I do use FSAA in a sense. Just been doing it so many years its second nature and I don't think about it smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/19/16 11:02 AM

Quote:
...Socket AM4'.. has 1331 pins which is a big boost on the 942 pins supported by AMD's AM3+ socket..

..The new AM4 socket is the same 40mm [size] as previous AMD sockets - it is unclear though what is happening to the CPU cooler compatibility...


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/19/16 11:13 AM

Here is the Intel Roadmap for comparison to AMD oriented statements in this thread.

Interesting that AMD and Intel will be competing at 14nm for at least a year.

And, Intel is "limited" to 6 cores/12 threads while AMD is pushing for 8 cores/16 threads in that period. We'll see.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/19/16 04:47 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
...Socket AM4'.. has 1331 pins which is a big boost on the 942 pins supported by AMD's AM3+ socket..

..The new AM4 socket is the same 40mm [size] as previous AMD sockets - it is unclear though what is happening to the CPU cooler compatibility...




If only they Zoomed out so we can see the retention bracket.,

AMD Did say the increased number of PCB Traces forced them to make changes to the cooler retention system, so
AM2/AM3/AM3+ Coolers will not fit.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/16 10:15 AM

Quote:
Vega 10 is coming next year and it seems that it will be faster than the P100 card. P100 (21.2 TFlops) is a supercomputer part .. with 24Tflops, Vega 10 will significantly outperform Geforce Titan X.


As of today's rumored leaks, the top Vega GPU is rumored to be the fastest future GPU currently known about. Speculated to beat Nvidia's best upcoming parts.

We all know Nvidia will react with something faster smile

However, if they don't -- oh, oh dizzy
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/16 02:30 PM

TFLOPs doesnt translate equally to FPS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/16 02:34 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen+, Vega 20 & Navi GPUs To Be Built On 7nm FinFET Globalfoundries Announces Risk Production For 2018
..
AMD Expects To Have 7nm FinFET Zen+, Vega 20 & Navi Products On Shelves Before 2020

..This announcement comes off the heels of AMDs recently amended wafer supply agreement with Globalfoundries, its biggest foundry partner. Which spans five years from 2016 to 2020 and includes a clause guaranteeing collaboration between the two companies on the development of 7nm FinFET. This indicates that AMD has clear plans to migrate its computing and graphics roadmap to 7nm and have products produced on the process out by 2020.

Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO

The five-year amendment further strengthens our strategic manufacturing relationship with GLOBALFOUNDRIES ...


Article

Whoa. Now AMD is threatening to jump ahead of Intel. It was a rumor. Now Dr. Su says its a fact.

We'll see how successful GF 7nm turns out to be. But, it makes sense, if one believes 7nm is the "end of the line" for downsizing architecture, why mess with 10nm? Take this "chance" to "maybe" get "one up" on Intel.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/16 02:47 PM

https://www.techpowerup.com/226012/amd-vega-10-vega-20-and-vega-11-gpus-detailed
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/16 06:08 PM

So

Vega 10 = Fury 2.0 (4096 SP, 16GB HBM2, 512GB/sec, 24 TFLOPS)
Vega 11 = Polaris 10 Replacement
Vega 20 = 7nm Shrink of Vega 10 w/ 32GB of HBM2 / PCIe 4.0

Polaris 10 is already getting replaced after only a year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/16 11:29 AM

Quote:
AMD A12-9800 Pushed to 4.8 GHz on an AM4 Board Called Octopus

.. it does feature the AM4 socket and the B350 chipset. .. this motherboard is built for the DIY market and isnt finished yet in terms of design. So its just an early look at what kind of overclockability some really good value AM4 motherboards would offer to users..

The chip was clocked to a maximum overclock of 4.8 GHz, a cool 27% increase in clock speed. Chip voltage was configured at 1.325V. At this overclock, the chip managed to score 4608 points in HWBot Prime benchmark. The great thing about this testing is that it was performed on air. The AMD in-house built, Wraith cooler, was used for cooling. The cooler has set a great foundation for AMD reference coolers that will be compatible with the AM4 socket...


A12 APU is still the older 28nm node -- but updated architecture and R7 type graphics

Overclockability on air is good news in a sense. But, using an A12 APU for a gamer's computer with a separate GPU is not recommended to SimHQ readers. Nonetheless, it could make a good very low cost system that could play all games (newest games at reduced settings), based on my AMD APU builds.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/16 03:36 PM

Excavator Cores.... So 4.8 = 3.9 Intel
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/16 06:58 PM

Appears AM3 -> AM4 heatsink compatibility will depend on Mainboard manufacturer and design.
Posted By: kestrel79

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/22/16 04:53 AM

Good to hear! Think I'll hold out for one of these gpus smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/16 01:24 AM

AMD 300 Series and Partner Cards will start getting HEFTY discounts to clear out stock.

In Early 2017, 400 Series will be on Clearance to make room for 500 Series.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/16 08:58 PM

Quote:
AMD X370 For Enthusiast AM4 Motherboards:

... we have X370, a high-end chipset for overclockers and tweakers who need robust platforms. This chip provides the ultimate low-level control to its users and delivers ultimate graphics card bandwidth. By bandwidth, AMD is referring to max PCI-Express lanes as this is the only chip in the stack that supports multi-GPU functionality. The chipset supports both, CFX (CrossFire) and SLI..

..AMD has mentioned two full x16 (Gen3) lanes for GPUs. AIBs can add additional lanes through a PLX chip but that would add to the cost...


So, now we know to buy only an X370 motherboard -- when the day arrives -- next year.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/16 09:34 PM

2x 16 Lane Slots is the "maximum"?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/16 10:08 PM

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/16 10:58 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
2x 16 Lane Slots is the "maximum"?


I edited the above post: 2x16 standard, add another with a special chip.

My reading of the rumors and speculations is that Crossfire and other multi-card setups will slowly lose support by AMD and Nvidia. The wave of the future (Navi??) will be single cards with multiple GPU chips that act like a single GPU chip -- very cost effective (smaller chips -- less bad ones) and potentially unlimited shaders. So, maybe this is just the beginning of the future.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/16 04:39 PM

My understanding is around 7NM w/ HBM3, AMD is going to stop supporting xDMA XFire past 2 Cards, and if you want 4 GPUs you'll have to get dual GPU Cards.

Chips would be small enough, Instead of Multi Card / Multi GPU Setups it will turn into Single Card / Multi-GPU Setups

It would make sense, have one 16 Lane PCIe Slot, and a Card with 1, 2, 3, or 4 GPUs on the PCB, and Link them Using a PCIe Controller on the PCB.

That was pretty much the path I Posted months ago.... I was told I was crazy on the Overclocking Websites... lol, We'll See.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/16 09:05 AM

Quote:
Vega 10 with HBM2 will launch this year

.. sources have confirmed that Vega 10, AMDs first HBM 2 card will by announced before the end of this year, at least for the professional market..

.. doesnt mean that they will have too many to sell. The general idea is to get the customers excited and ship in volume in early 2017...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/16 05:57 PM

Quote:

Fun historical fact for AMD fanboys

In Ancient Greece there was a Titan called Nemesis who was connected to all things evil which were caused by envy. ..

When the Italians took over Greece they were impressed by this goddess and gave her a new name which would inspire terror for centuries iNvidia (pronounced invidia)

It just goes to show, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Curiously iNivida was always shown dressed in green, because she was always envious. ...


Article

A very old depiction of iNvidia:



A cuter version:



No, I don't hate Nvidia -- just for fun smile

Competition is good smile

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/16 06:22 PM

i was under impression it was pronounced "en - vid - E -ahh"
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/16 07:25 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen Launching In January At CES 2017 High-End X370 AM4 Motherboards Shipping In December

AMDs next generation Zen CPUs will reportedly launch at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January 2017. This next generation family of desktop processors code-named Summit Ridge will feature up to eight cores & sixteen threads and will be compatible with AMDs upcoming AM4 platform. There will a wide collection of AM4 motherboards displayed on the show floor, including the high-end models featuring the X370 series chipset.

This news, which will undoubtedly have AMD fans excited to bits, comes directly from the supply chain reports Digitimes. AMD is currently in the process of clearing its existing inventories of FX 8300, 6300 and 4300 series processors with a combination of aggressive price cuts and bundles to make way for Zen...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/16 07:04 PM

Party Party Party
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/07/16 02:29 PM

An article discusses the improvement from generation to generation of Intel processors.

Quote:
...The feeling was that Kaby Lake is a decent step forward. But it is pretty dull .. It does follow a margin of improvement which is about what we expect these days. Haswell to Broadwell gave us maybe 10 percent. Going from Broadwell to Skylake yielded similar results. Is 10 per cent worth getting excited about? Not really and not worth dumping your Skylake for...


They point out most AMD generational improvements are also in the 10 percent range.

This just supports my "biases". If one buys "today's" best CPU, it will be "years" before something comes out that actually makes a "visible" difference in games ("measurable" but not "visible").

The upcoming AMD Zen CPU should make a big 40 percent jump because AMD goes from a "poor" CPU architecture to an "up to date" CPU architecture. Intel made that jump a few years back -- so is stuck on the 10 percent path.

After Zen, AMD may also be stuck on the 10 percent path during future years. Moreover, if 7nm really is the smallest architecture -- we are close to the very end of progress (on single Core, single thread performance).

Based on my BIAS, it could be that the next CPU one buys may be the last one they ever actually need to buy for games (except to replace a failed part) -- at least for older SimHQ members, like me. But, I'll buy the new ones just for fun smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/16 09:58 PM

Allen, do you know where the "Disable Displays" option is in the new Drivers?

I cant seem to find it anywhere. and literally all my screens are on for no reason, wasting power on the GPU by forcing higher GPU and memory clocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/16 10:47 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Allen, do you know where the "Disable Displays" option is in the new Drivers...


My issue with Crimson is that it made it "harder" to set up multi-displays. Its just not intuitively obvious -- like it used to be.

As you know, there are 3 panels to control displays (on and off settings):

1. Right click desktop and pick "AMD Radeon Settings". This gives the main, supported settings.

2. When in "AMD Radeon Settings" click "Preferences" then click "Radeon Additional Settings" to get the "old style" AMD settings panel. This one used to make setting up multi displays "easy as pie". Now, most of the selections -- including activating and deactivating displays seems to be missing. However, they say you can set up Eyefinity using this panel. I tried it long ago and had to reload a "System Image" to get back to a workable system.

3. Right click desktop and pick "Display Settings" -- the Windows 10 app. Then click "Display". The page that comes up allows one to turn displays on and off. I've used it. However, I am "too cautious" to experiment with it now. I have my system working how I want it and don't want an unexpected problem to crop up -- I just leave it as it is all the time.

So, in brief, I'm not sure. But, one could try item 3 above. It has worked for me in the past, but I have not tried it recently -- and newer drivers may work differently.

This is my only issue with AMD drivers. They seem to make Eyefinity easy. BUT, then its hard to change back and forth to other monitor configurations without "screwing around" (at least for me). Hopefully, they will eventually do away with the "old" panel and incorporate all the old features into the Crimson panel -- in a clear and understandable way. Or, maybe they just want us to use Windows 10 "Display Settings" to configure display orientations and "on/off".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/16 11:25 PM

Exactly what I saw, it's missing from the additional settings, and I have windows 7 so the option to turn off screens isnt there,

Power off, and windows still see's them, I have to physically unplug the DVI Cable, and that causes some wonkiness.

But right now for some reason, I get this annoying flicker w/ all 3 screens on that i didnt get before the update. The Screens are fine, jist every few minutes all 3 flicker at the same time, I'm not sure what causes it, sometimes it's one and done, other times it does it multiple times before stopping, Like pixel shift, Right now I've unplugged other monitors to see if it continues, if it does then I know it's something to do w/ all 3 enabled, which I didn't have a problem before.

Might roll back, as the updated drivers brought more problems than it solved, i was hoping it would solve the hard lock when closing oculus rift software but it didnt, So might as well uninstall and roll back.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/16 11:45 PM

I havent had any flicking since I unplugged the other 2, I might just have to look at the DP's and move some stuff around.

But I Didnt have any problem Running 6 Screens off the card before (4 MiniDP-> DVI Active, 1 DVI-I, 1 DVI->HDMI)

Might be a MiniDP Chain issue,

if I unplug the Left Screen's Data Cable, the Left and the Right Lose Signal and All that's Left is my Center,

if I unplug the Right Screen's Data Cable, the Left and the Right go out, and again, Only Center...

:-/

During Post and Linux it runs fine, so must be the new driver.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/16 09:15 AM

Interesting to see I'm not the only one.

For years, AMD graphics drivers got "bad press". But from about 2003 to CRIMSON they gave me virtually no problems (only two or three times I had minor issues in that long span).

However, with Crimson, they have "some old" mixed with a lot of "new" and its not "fully sorted" yet -- for multi monitor setups.

Maybe forcing one to use Windows 10 for some things is an "evil plot" to get us all on Windows 10. Hopefully, AMD got a "few million" from MS for their "cooperation" (just kidding, of course) smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/16 10:19 AM

Related to our notes that maybe 7nm CPUs and GPUs represent "the end" of progress for "silicon" transistors.

Quote:
Smallest. Transistor. Ever.

Berkeley Lab-led research breaks major barrier in transistor size by creating gate only 1 nanometer long

...the laws of physics had set a 5-nanometer threshold on the size of transistor gates among conventional semiconductors..

Some laws are made to be broken, or at least challenged..

..The key was to use carbon nanotubes and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)...


Note: They did NOT use silicon. So, maybe 7nm (maybe slightly smaller) remains the smallest we'll see from silicon.

In the mean time, long term, people will try to find a way to get smaller than that -- by using materials other than Silicon. Thing is, these other materials are harder to work with -- so, only time will tell if they will be successful -- its not obvious they will be successful (in my career we worked with other circuit materials -- that looked good in simple applications but had unsolvable fabrication problems when trying to make a complex CPU type part).

Along those lines, to quote more from the article:

Quote:
...its a proof of concept. We have not yet packed these transistors onto a chip, and we havent done this billions of times over. We also have not developed self-aligned fabrication schemes for reducing parasitic resistances in the device...


Still, for a "Materials Scientist/Engineering Scientist" (or similarly trained), solving this intractable problem is what life is all about -- its fun smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/16 07:32 PM

Well I Started getting the flickering on 1 screen last night, so I just shut everything off, I think the repeated brown outs from hurricanes winds spoofed my UPS, as late last night, every brown out the UPS would shut off completely and claim battery overload.


But Like I said, I can turn on / off monitors individually in pre-boot environment and Linux Fin by unplugging the DVI Cables,

But in WIndows w/ the Latest drivers I unplug one and the other goes off as well,.

plus the flickering wasnt occuring in Linux Boot USB or Pre-boot Environment.

When I was cleaning I accidentally reset my CMOS w/ the back I/O Button, lol,
So all the Cx Power States are re-enabled and my OC is removed,
But I made sure the load the Ram's AMP and Chipset settings for Ports I dont use being disabled, and SATA Settings/Modes..

Cx States shouldnt cause these issues.

once Power stabilizes here I'm gonna remove the Drivers and go back to the one that allowed me to turn off screens.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/16 10:46 PM

Quote:
AMD x86 Zen Architecture Will Implement Game Changing Encryption Features Such as SME, SEV and HW Based SHA Not Present In SkyLake or KabyLake

..powered by a security co-processor [in the CPU chip]..

...at this moment, no competing Intel [current or future] architecture has any known features to rival these...


Uh-oh, will AMD actually "get the jump" on Intel for a (big) change???

Gamers won't care much; but, could result in more market share with some major companies.

Article
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/16 11:02 PM

2 immediate problems with that.....

1) it will get cracked and if its in hardware, how does it get fixed?

2) it potentially puts liability for the integrity of data at the source. Assuming that third party security experts may not be required that's a big responsibility onto teams/companies who aren't experts in that field. With that in mind will large companies actually put the trust in CPU encryption technology? - I doubt it, I'd wager they'll continue to use and pay for 3rd parties to take this on and also leave them with the responsibility should the worst happen.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/12/16 08:57 AM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
2 immediate problems with that....


Good points. I didn't give it much thought before posting.

I guess it remains to be seen if they've done something special to address those reasonable concerns smile

While I'm not a security expert, this feature sounds useful. Apparently, it makes the RAM in use by the CPU "encrypted" -- from the above article that describes the features:

Quote:
...Enter Zen SME. Zen Secure Memory Encryption is something that allows the complete encryption of the memory being used. Your data is encrypted when its in transit on the internet. It has always been encrypted when its stored on an HDD or SSD in server farms. But the RAM is one place where it has always existed in clear text. With Zen SME, we can close the last remaining cleartext portion and enable encryption in the memory as well for truly end to end security...


I imagine the encryption can change every so often, thereby making the data actively in RAM a "moving target" that is, thus, harder to crack. However, as noted, I don't know the ramifications. It will be interesting to an AMD fan to see if this idea has traction.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/12/16 12:54 PM

Having worked for more than one large (1000+) company over the years, I'll just say there are some common-sense security measures that STILL are hard sells. Encryption is beyond that.

Encryption is one that is rightly difficult to get approval for because of the overhead it introduces into administration. You need a support force adequate to the task or you will be crippled.

When the choices seem to boil down to implementing tight security with a large IT/security team to support all the issues or having a tiny team and skipping it, most companies choose the cheap route. Because investors.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/12/16 07:04 PM

Quote:
AMD Gaming Evolved APP By Raptr No Longer Being Supported By AMD
...
Starting September 12th 2016, AMD is no longer bundling the AMD Gaming Evolved App by Raptr with builds of Radeon Software. The application will still work. AMD will cease to undertake any compatibility testing, install support or general technical support for this application, nor will it be available through Radeon Software or its installer. Previous builds of Radeon Software that include the AMD Gaming Evolved App dated before September 12th 2016 will remain intact and will not be affected. -AMD
...


I never used it. I don't trust apps that make independent changes in game settings (or any other nominally "user" settings). Moreover, AMD did mention it broke some games. Not unexpected from a 3'd party app.

Oh well, now that its gone, I don't have to "opt out" when installing driver updates.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/16 03:09 AM

wonder if I should blow all my AMD Points on random stuff then... hrmm..

also wonder what they would replace it with.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/16 09:36 AM

My main issue was that Gaming Evolved was 3'd party vs by-AMD. AMD did not have full control.

When it started breaking some games (so I have read), I was incredulous that AMD would make it a part of the AMD driver package. I expect my AMD drivers to only do "good things" that hold up the AMD brand name.

However, "AMD Gaming Evolved APP By Raptr" was "automatically" installed unless I opted out -- which I did because I felt it was "just one more thing to go wrong".

As previously mentioned, I have very few driver or graphics problems because I keep the AMD driver game-settings "vanilla". I only use in-game graphics settings to change in-game graphics (virtually always to "Ultra" or equivalent). I do this because games are virtually always debugged for vanilla driver settings but cannot always handle un-tested combinations of "optional" driver settings (or so I have read).

AMD does say one can still get the App and use it. Just they won't support it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/16 10:10 AM

Quote:
AMD To Allegedly Price-Cut Radeon RX 470 Graphics Card To Tackle GTX 1050 Ti Expected To Retail For $169 US

...Just for comparisons sake, the RX 470 has 2048 cores clocked at 1206 MHz and 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM that comes in a 120W package. The GTX 1050 Ti comes with 768 cores clocked at 1392 MHz and 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. The card is expected to feature a TDP close to 75W. Its quite evident from the the specs that the RX 470 is the faster solution but these are different architectures and what matters is the price to performance value of both of these cards...


Part of the problem is that retailers sell AMD RX4xx series cards for more than "suggested list price" (they do that with some Nvidia products also). More normally, products are sold at a discount -- not a "mark up". Just the way it goes right now because 14nm GPUs are the first substantial GPU performance/price change in 4 years -- and the market is not yet settled.

Speculative Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/16 05:29 PM

I never really used it for anything other than tracking gameplay, and it usually only worked with steam games etc, and had to mod the JSON database file to allow it to track DCS and a few other games,

I have a Ton of point though, as does my brother, so if AMD is dropping it, then its only a matter of time before the store to redeem points is disabled,

The Video Recording App was Meh, sometimes it worked, other times it didnt, OBS Works fine, but I'd rather AMD Develop a Driver level recording tool that will record and compress MP4 w/ minimal CPU usage and GPU Usage.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 10:18 AM

Quote:
TSMCs 7nm tech is on track

...Volume production of 7nm is planned for 2018..

.. expects to ramp its 5nm process, which will also target mobile products and high-performance computing, in 2019...


5nm is some folks "theoretical minimum size" for Silicon. So, they are trying to get there. I have always ass-u-me-d, that whatever the theoretical minimum, some bright team will figure out how to beat it -- so, maybe 3nm is the true minimum?? At least until they get to 3nm - then shoot for 2nm smile

As noted previously, AMD is apparently skipping 10nm for CPU and GPU and jumping down to 7nm -- presumably to play catch up with Intel. Articles like these "give hope" to the AMD masses smile

Very Short Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 10:27 AM

Quote:
AMDs New Polaris GPU Revisions En Route With A 50%+ Improvement In Perf/Watt

... new revision of Polaris 10 thats will go into the embedded market will bring down the typical board power from 150W as is found in the RX 480 to less than 95W. .. will also improve clock speeds ..


They note: This improvement may not see the desktop right away -- because desktop is not as "power limited" as embedded battery powered. However, it may show up next year in a hypothesized RX-485, etc.

Article
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 12:55 PM

That's why they're working on things like quantum computing. They're getting down to the size of electrons here, and once you reach that you can't work with them anymore because uncertainty means 1's can randomly become 0's and vice versa and your effective speed will plummet as error correcting skyrockets.

I know there was talk of using photons, but I'm not certain it's practical.

More likely to improve speed they will need an entirely alternate way of creating processors than the electron-in-silicon we've been using for decades.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 03:05 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
AMDs New Polaris GPU Revisions En Route With A 50%+ Improvement In Perf/Watt

... new revision of Polaris 10 thats will go into the embedded market will bring down the typical board power from 150W as is found in the RX 480 to less than 95W. .. will also improve clock speeds ..


They note: This improvement may not see the desktop right away -- because desktop is not as "power limited" as embedded battery powered. However, it may show up next year in a hypothesized RX-485, etc.

Article


Polaris 10 is dead after December, it was a stop gap for Vega, Vega will cover everything but the eSports Tier. Polaris 11 will continue afterwards.

Apparently P10 was just a Beefier Polaris 11,
Polaris 11 was the Initial Technical Operation Target of the Architecture, it was designed for lower Power, small chips, etc.

They Beefed it up and made Polaris 10, which was both a good and bad decision,

As it brought the theoretical power consumption improvements and low cost to Mainstream (ahead of nVidia), but it also had teething issues that cost it some sales at launch, and since P10 was only a Temporary stop gap fab until Vega and HBM2 were ready, AMD cant afford to Over Fab and have stock sitting around.

Once Vega enter mass production, Vega will Cover Performance, Mainstream and Value, While Polaris 11 will continue to cover HTPC/eSports.

Though the last CC'd Email I saw regarding some projects w/ Manufacturers, was that some SKU Based PC & Entertainment (SKU Based meaning pre-built and sold at retailers like walmart, sams club, costco, etc),

There are some plans to have Polaris 10 Embedded GPU's on their Proprietary Mainboards for their pre-built desktops and all in one PCs, and possibly Polaris 10 Powered laptop Graphics.

Polaris 10 / 480 is also still rumored to be in the XBO:Scorpio Console, so if they cleaned up the Architecture to run under 100w then it will benefit the consoles.

But for the Retail AIB / Card market, Polaris 10 is dead in 2 months, any fabs after that will be sent to Embedded / Retail SKU Customers (Dell, Microsoft, Alienware (Dell, lol) etc).

Vega will Give more Performance w/ Lower Power Consumption
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 03:27 PM

On that topic, I cant seem to get my GPU to go back to Idle w/ the new drivers either.

1 screen, all others unplugged, rift unplugged, still sitting at 500Mhz/1375 Mhz. Hrmmm....

Gonna Roll back this weekend I guess, and swap this lightning card with my other as primary just incase the card is acting up.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/16 08:57 PM

AMD Signed Deal with Alibaba to have AMD Radeon Pro run their Cloud Servers

AMD Shares Have Gone up 5% Since the Announcement this morning, to 131%
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/15/16 08:47 AM

Since FPS matters to hardcore gamers, Nvidia has a new VR feature that optionally adds FPS to games played on a monitor -- but,it is a trade off. So, one has to check if an FPS number is measured with "Multi-Res Shading" turned on.

I don't know if AMD GPUs can "use it" or if this is strictly an Nvidia-only feature -- seems Nvidia only right now. Personally, once FPS are "high enough", I would not sacrifice "picture quality for FPS quantity" -- but, that's me.

Quote:
...The Multi-Res Shading feature can project images into multiple viewports on a display while adjusting the resolution of each display independently and while this increased performance in VR titles like Everest VR, Raw Data and some other titles, it actually improves performance by up to 30 percent..

..[Nvidia] Multi-Res Shading somewhat cheats as it adds a border that is rendered in 60 percent resolution, or precisely, 40 percent lower resolution than the center main part of the screen. For example, if you are playing the game at 3840x2160 (4K/UHD) resolution, the MSR border is rendered at 2304x1296 resolution.


An Nvidia-supplied picture is worth a thousand words:




Article

More Detailed Optimistic Article
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/15/16 01:27 PM

Makes perfect sense for VR. Looks to be using Nvidia SMP so Nvidia only.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/16 09:11 AM

Quote:
OpenCAPI Brings Together IBM, AMD, Google and Several More for Heterogenous Computing

...Moores Law will be dead by 2020, according to experts, which will obviously require a worthy successor.. Thanks to the combined expertise of leading companies ranging from Google, AMD, IBM, HP, NVIDIA, and several others, a new specification called OpenCAPI has been announced, and it promises to increase datacenter performance by a significant margin while offering significant advantages in other scenarios...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/16 10:15 AM

A part of the gaming PC "bang for buck" calculation for Gamers.

Quote:
According to PC World, [AMD GPU supporting] FreeSync monitors are not only cheaper, but offer a wider range of vendors, screen size, refresh rate, and resolution [than Nvidia GPU supporting G-Sync monitors]..

..Look at the price list. LGs [AMD] FreeSync monitor has several 1080p monitors under 30 inches diagonal with an ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio, priced as little as $279. With [Nvidia] G-Sync, the only 1080p ultrawide monitor is a 35-inch curved panel from Acer with a much higher refresh rate and it costs $900. The cheapest ultrawide 1080p G-Sync monitor will set you back nearly $1000..

..Tom Petersen, Nvidias director of technical marketing admits that that the high cost to develop G-Sync monitors puts them into a pricier segment of the market. But it is supposed to be a premium product...


As frequently happens, AMD does well in a "bang for buck" scenario.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/16 05:34 PM

AMD GPUs continue to do well in DX12 -- particularly on a "bang for buck" measure.



DX12 is the future. So, if one is buying for the "long run" and has a "budget", AMD continues to look good. But, that's part of the AMD marketing strategy -- "bang for buck".

According to AMD statements, AMD knows Nvidia will do "whatever it takes" to finish first in the FPS competition (regardless of price or other things). Thus, AMD competes on price and other factors that improve gaming.

If one wants the highest FPS, period, buy Nvidia. For a more "balanced" GPU, buy AMD (according to AMD).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/16 02:37 PM

debating if I should sell some of my AMD Stock, or wait and see what happens..

Also,
nVidia ... 1050/1050ti, will be manufactured by Samsung.... get your fire extinguishers ready (lol).

THat being said the whole Note 7 Ban is blown out of proportion, 17 Million units, 2 Dozen Incidents (some of which were insurance fraud incidents).

The phone was rushed, and apparently the internal charge circuit had a heat sensitive short,

One website got ahold of 20 Note 7s from the trash of a Service/Dealer store, 20 for 20, they caught fire when hooked to a charger and:
-Wrapped w/ a shirt
-Put in a Box in a warm room
-Left inside of a glass box outside

So there's that.. lol.


Then people started bandwagoning, "My Note 2 (TWO) Caught Fire. lol,then the washers and dryers.

And now people are Claiming Samsung SSDs and NVMe Drivers are bursting into flames...

shrug...
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/16 09:14 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
AMD GPUs continue to do well in DX12 -- particularly on a "bang for buck" measure.



DX12 is the future. So, if one is buying for the "long run" and has a "budget", AMD continues to look good. But, that's part of the AMD marketing strategy -- "bang for buck".

According to AMD statements, AMD knows Nvidia will do "whatever it takes" to finish first in the FPS competition (regardless of price or other things). Thus, AMD competes on price and other factors that improve gaming.

If one wants the highest FPS, period, buy Nvidia. For a more "balanced" GPU, buy AMD (according to AMD).


The trouble with this sort of propaganda graph is that it doesn't actually show anything relative or even useful.

You don't play 'bang for buck' and there is no indication of performance......what frame rates is an RX480 getting on Battlefield 1 at ultra settings @ 4K resolutions? Fair enough....it has almost twice as much bang for buck as a GTX 1080 but if you're getting 15fps with the 480 and the 1080 is getting 40fps then you're still not going to be happy regardless how much bang you're getting in the first place. It's going to be the best part of unplayable. Can you put a price on value if minimum performance isn't met?

Bang for buck isn't going to give you 90fps at 1440p in a VR headset either.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/16 09:58 PM

Quote:
...The trouble with this sort of propaganda graph is that it doesn't actually show anything relative or even useful...


It nominally wasn't propaganda. It was an article at a site that is relatively neutral.

True, a "bang per buck" graph does not tell a gamer enough to know what to pick.

But, it does say, "take a look at this before you decide" -- if money is an issue.

My Reference RX-480 plays all my games fast enough at "ultra" (for that game) settings at 2K (1440p) resolution (I don't play "all the games" -- so, I'm not saying all games would do that well).

60fps is the fastest my monitor can refresh (like many monitors). And, I see 60 up there most of the time (have Steam set to show FPS all the time). Only if I add high-res 3d party textures and so forth in my games do I occasionally drop below 30. However, down to 15fps (true minimum, not average) it still plays almost smooth to me (my eyes may be slow). If I get 15fps on rare occasions, its okay and does not bother me. However, I realize others want a "perfect" experience at all times.

Some games (particularly flight simulations) are more CPU limited and the GPU matters less, but none that I am playing lately push my system.

For reference, some TV is 30fps and some movies are 24fps. Back in the day, home-filmed 8mm movies were 15fps and looked okay to most.

With a 60fps refresh monitor, I really couldn't make use of 90fps. I doubt many folks could tell the difference between 60 and 90 in a "blind test" -- I couldn't. However, for those that can, they should go for it.

All the foregoing to say, we all do what's fun and have different needs and desires. "Bang per buck" matters to some of us (not everyone) smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/16 07:51 PM

My point is that it doesn't matter what GPU you might look at buying......a graph that shows only bang per buck without any reference to performance is useless.

The graph in the posts above is absolutely propaganda.....its sole use is to show that the two AMD cards are far 'better' than the three Nvidia cards. Who in the right mind would use that information as any basis of buying a card other than someone blinded only by the AMD brand.

As for your TV/film 24fps mention, thats totally irrelevant in comparison to gaming. Its not the same at all due to the techniques used (mainly how shutter speed works together with motion blur). As you're also aware, maximum framerates aren't the be all and end. all........but minimum framerates can easily break a game - another important factor missing from
a graph that only shows bang per buck.

I have 60hz monitors too, but I also have a VR headset so 90fps becomes a very important number - being able to tell the difference between 60fps and 90fps is not part of it at all....and also a performance indicator that the graphs totally bypass.

If you look at other reviews of the RX 480 playing BF1 @ 4k in DX12 (what your graph is reflecting) you'll see that it gets an average under 30fps with dips well under which make the game unplayable as it stutters under the workload. You can see there how a 'bang per buck' graph doesn't show you the value you would really have......unless of course that value is measured in frustration and disappointment.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/16 11:09 PM

Well I Rolled back and still cant find an option to disable screens, lol.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/16 11:16 PM

edit: Found A way.. Hidden among windows settings..

At least the roll back allowed me to restore my GPU Power Profiles, (darn thing was idling at 500/1375 w/ no displays on, lol)

now it idles a cool 300/150

And no Flickering when running 3 screens.

(I think the flickering was the Power States being messed up)

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/16 10:11 AM

Quote:
AMD Prepping $10,000 Vega 10 powered Dracarys Graphics Card With 1TB+ Of Memory

.. well get a sneak peak at this Vega 10 powered graphics board as early as next month at Supercomputing 2016..

.. new 20+ FP16 teraflops VEGA 10 graphics engine which has more than double the graphics horsepower of Fiji In the Radeon Pro SSG..

.. is set to launch in the second half of next year. Some units will be available at an earlier date, for a cool $10,000. Dracarys is exquisitely unique that it has effectively no competition, simply because theres no other product like it. Which means that AMD can charge for it as much as its customers are willing to pay...


No problem, the $10,000 price is only for the "first ones" -- merely wait a bit for the price drop.

I wonder what the "bang for buck" number is for this "commercial use only" Dracarys smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/16 10:32 AM

Based on initial somewhat speculative leaked information, AMD plans an RX 470D/SE to compete on "bang for buck" with GTX 1050 Ti. Speculation is that it will cost roughly $150? and launch in November?.

From the Vidiocardz site we get the following DX12 benchmark performance:




Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/16 02:09 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
AMD Prepping $10,000 Vega 10 powered Dracarys Graphics Card With 1TB+ Of Memory

.. well get a sneak peak at this Vega 10 powered graphics board as early as next month at Supercomputing 2016..

.. new 20+ FP16 teraflops VEGA 10 graphics engine which has more than double the graphics horsepower of Fiji In the Radeon Pro SSG..

.. is set to launch in the second half of next year. Some units will be available at an earlier date, for a cool $10,000. Dracarys is exquisitely unique that it has effectively no competition, simply because theres no other product like it. Which means that AMD can charge for it as much as its customers are willing to pay...


No problem, the $10,000 price is only for the "first ones" -- merely wait a bit for the price drop.

I wonder what the "bang for buck" number is for this "commercial use only" Dracarys smile


Because it has a 1TB SSD Built Onto it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/16 07:54 PM

Quote:
Intel Core i5-7600K vs Core i5-6600K

...Both chips were tested on stock configuration and clock speeds. The Core i5-7600K bested the Skylake chip in all possible ways. The end result was 6.14% faster single-threaded performance and 9.12% faster multi-thread performance. In gaming, the Core i5-7600K was around 4% faster...


Intel's latest 4-core/4-thread gaming CPU is 10 roughly percent faster than the previous model in a CPU benchmark. However, that translates to only 4 percent faster in games (according to the above site).

The point: I expect AMD's Zen CPU to be much faster than the previous AMD model in a CPU benchmark. However, as Intel shows, an improvement in overall CPU instructions per clock or improvement in CPU clock rate does not directly translate to an equal improvement in FPS.

In my experience, in most games I've checked, only about half the CPU improvement shows up in a game (sometimes more sometimes less) -- roughly what the Intel CPU showed.

I still await Zen's advertised 40 percent improvement with "tempered optimism" -- that is, "I'll believe it when I see it" in a game smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/16 02:17 PM

From gamersnexus.net:

Quote:
AMD sent us an email today that indicated a price reduction for the new-ish RX 460 2GB card and RX 470 4GB card..

AMD's price reduction drops the RX 460 2GB to a $100 MSRP (from ~$110), with the RX 470 dropped down to ~$170 MSRP (from $180)..

The good news is that the market is responding as it should: AMD is adjusting its prices to compete with nVidia's new [1050] products, and that's a good thing for consumers. Let's just hope those prices stick [because re-sellers, e-tailers tend to overcharge for the new 14nm cards vs. suggested list price]. The new prices are expected to be in effect on 10/23.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/16 09:40 AM

Quote:
AMD Reports Q3 2016 Earnings
Increased GPU sales offset decline in desktop CPU shipments

Last week, AMD posted its earnings report for Q3 2016, showing a revenue increase of 27 percent over the previous quarter and up 23 percent year-over-year..

..The company says the operating loss this quarter, compared to an $8 million operating loss in Q2, was due to a $340 million Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with GlobalFoundries. The agreement, amended in August, lasts five years and allows AMD to source its 7nm process node from GlobalFoundries...


Revenue up. But, net loss due to "investments" for the future -- including source for 7nm node.

Since the agreement with Global Foundries lasts 5 years, I "assume" that means 7nm will be coming in roughly 3 or 4 years. As other reports have indicated/speculated, AMD is skipping 10nm and going straight to 7nm for its next node.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/16 07:34 PM

Quote:
AMD CEO Confirms Zen Launching Early 2017 For Desktops, Q2 For Servers

AMD confirmed this past Friday that its launching its next generation family of enthusiast Zen based CPUs in early 2017. The new product line-up for desktops code-named Summit Ridge will be flagshipped by an eight core, sixteen thread CPU..

..The enterprise and server market is the most interesting for the company when talking about the impact of Zens introduction on its financial performance. Its an extremely lucrative market with a significantly wider profit margin compared to the desktop and mobile segments...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/16 08:12 PM

Nivida 1050Ti reviews are out. I scanned some GTX 1050Ti reviews that compare it to the RX-460 and RX-470.

I had expected the 1050Ti FPS to be comparable to the RX-470 -- since FPS is the Nvidia selling point. But, it isn't in the reviews I found. Its notably slower. While somewhat faster than the RX-460, its also significantly more expensive.

Yet, it did cause AMD to lower its RX-460 and RX-470 prices smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/16 03:08 PM

Quote:
AMD Stock Rallies More Than 14% in 48 Hours On Bullish Optimism Over Fundamental Growth Indicators
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/16 02:20 PM

Quote:
AMD will sell server CPUs at Happy Meal prices so you can supersize servers

..first decent Xeon alternatives in ages pressure [Intel]

..[Zen's] significantly-lower-than-Xeon prices mean a chance to supersize servers with other nice-to-haves..

..[AMD has] had some success in price-sensitive markets like government and education where buyers want maximum bang for buck ..

..AMD is on track with Zen if it can flawlessly execute a successful launch. No pressure


Promising news because AMD fans want AMD to successfully compete across markets -- so they can stay in business and keep prices lower for AMD fans -- oh, and everyone else smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/16 10:01 AM

Quote:
Apple announces [AMD] 14nm GPUs for its shiny new Mac Book Pro lineup

...the company has also introduced three dedicated GPUs for its MacBook Pro 15-inch variant called the Radeon Pro 450, Radeon Pro 455 and Radeon Pro 460. .. we expect at least two of these to be based on the Polaris 11 GPU...


Using 14nm AMD parts, Apple showed dramatically increased graphics performance (increased 57% to 130% depending on test) versus previous high end 13" and 15" Apple laptop models.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/16 01:11 PM

weren't the masses and some tech sites reporting on rumors that apple was going back to Intidia. (Intel/nVidia)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/16 10:27 PM

AMR has some interest designs coming for future APUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/16 10:08 AM

While off topic for this thread, it would be interesting to some SimHQ folks with an EVGA 1070 or 1080.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/16 03:49 PM

only the ones made by Samsung....
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 10:13 AM

Just putting this here because its interesting -- no matter what hardware one has.

A pie chart of Windows version market share. Windows 7 still rules -- even though official support is done. Businesses did not want to change from W7, it is said (makes "dollars and sense"). Windows 10 has no downsides I have found (except no Windows Media Center support).

Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 01:10 PM

Win 10 is definitely taking down 8.1 and 8. Amazingly XP still has almost as many users as 8.1 and almost 4x Win 8.

Win 7 has become the next XP. After 15 years we still have over 8% using it. Win 7 will be 15 in 2024, I'm sure it's number will be 8% or so. Of course, XP will keep dwindling as the PCs that run it start to fail and replacement hardware fails to support it.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 04:16 PM

Apple must have one heck of a profit margin on their PC's to even bother with that market share.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 05:13 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Win 10 is definitely taking down 8.1 and 8. Amazingly XP still has almost as many users as 8.1 and almost 4x Win 8.

Win 7 has become the next XP. After 15 years we still have over 8% using it. Win 7 will be 15 in 2024, I'm sure it's number will be 8% or so. Of course, XP will keep dwindling as the PCs that run it start to fail and replacement hardware fails to support it.



The Jedi Master



Any "New" Systems with "New CPUs" will Require Windows 10+
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 05:15 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Just putting this here because its interesting -- no matter what hardware one has.

A pie chart of Windows version market share. Windows 7 still rules -- even though official support is done. Businesses did not want to change from W7, it is said (makes "dollars and sense"). Windows 10 has no downsides I have found (except no Windows Media Center support).




I always like to contrast what they show at the Net Market Share site with other sources, because they do not let you filter the data unless you pay.

Their data is global, which includes China and countries still in development. Which make Win XP and 7 still good alternatives, and OSX a very rare one in those locations.

Statcounter gathers similar data than NMS and allows you to filter the data. Filtering by US market provided no data, so I used the North America filter and got this:



http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-na-monthly-201509-201610

And you can see, it is more representative of the US market, with OSX in proximity to Windows (still below), and Windows 10 quickly closing the gap on Windows 7.

To further contrast, these are the current hardware stats for Steam. Gamers seem to have gone full blown on Windows 10. Remember this is gathered from a fraction of the 150-175 Million active accounts of Steam, so it is very representative of gamers worldwide.



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/16 09:17 PM

Originally Posted By: Nixer
Apple must have one heck of a profit margin on their PC's to even bother with that market share.


A few years back I read that Apple made roughly 30 percent of the total industry profit selling computers (I think it was limited to that but may have included cell phones). Anyhow, at the time, I interpreted what I read to mean that Apple really "marks things up" relative to other companies.



Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna
I always like to contrast what they show at the Net Market Share site with other sources...


Informative look at it thumbsup

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/03/16 10:46 AM

Quote:
New AMD x86 Zen Blender Benchmarks Surface Show Equal Performance To A 10-Core Intel Xeon E5 Chip


Benchmark Chart -- AMD near top of all CPU tested -- "shorter bar is better"

It was an AMD Engineering Sample test. BUT, they did not show how many cores in the AMD Zen engineering sample (anywhere from 8 to 32). The article (not linked) indicates Engineering Sample clocks are usually lower than the final clocks will be.

So, this news is not truly informative -- and the article is not worth reading. But, it is AMD news smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/16 03:56 PM

http://blenchmark.com/cpu-benchmarks
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/16 08:09 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen Based Summit Ridge Processor Family To Have Dedicated Overclocking Variants Aimed at Enthusiasts and Overclockers

...The part will feature 8 cores based on the Zen architecture. These special, enthusiast-grade chips would ensure high OC margins but also ship with higher frequencies compared to standard 95W variants. The TDP would remain at 95W for the higher clocked variants given that these are cherry picked..

The special OC variants will be shipping at higher prices compared to regular 8 core variants and would require some decent AM4 motherboards to churn out their true potential. Last but not least, the chips are said to ship without any heatsink cooler, that would otherwise be available with normal variants..


AMD has usually "cherry picked" the top of the line CPU out of the "standard bin" of chips -- and given it a new part number. Its why I like to buy their best (most expensive) CPU -- its "hand selected". Not saying other manufacturers don't do the same.

The article indicates 40 percent more instructions per clock on these 8-core/16-thread Zen CPUs.

It all sounds good. But, it remains to be seen what the clock rate will actually be.

If roughly 4GHz for the "enthusiast" chip, great (that would be an improvement on my 8-core/8-thread FX9590 at 4.7-5.0GHz). If around 3.2GHz -- well, I will probably buy one -- but, I want more -- much more smile

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/16 02:36 AM

Waiting is torture!!>....
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/16 10:10 AM

Quote:
Holiday 2016 Graphics Card Buyers Guide

[$100] If your budget is $100 or less we cant recommend anything lower than the XFX Radeon RX 460 2GB for $99.99 on Amazon..

[$100-150] In the next bracket we recommend the EVGA GTX 1050ti 4GB graphics card..

[$150-200] At under $200 the XFX RX 470 is hard to beat.

[$200-250] ..XFX RX 480 4GB and get a bit of a boost over the RX 470. But, if you can find another RX 480 with 8GB for under $250 you need not hesitate..

[$250-300] ..my pick is the MSI Gaming X RX 480 8GB or the MSI Gaming X GTX 1060..

[$300-350] ,,At this price point the [AMD] Sapphire NITRO R9 Fury may be a last gen gem,,[$270 next 4 days at Newegg -- was selling for over $1400 list at one point]

[$350-500] ..the GeForce GTX 1070 of course..

[$500+] ..Our pick is the ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 ROG STRIX...


Article


AMD comes out looking good in this "bang for buck" "buyer's guide" article smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/16 11:14 AM

AMD have always been good bang for buck......this is not a new trend and what everyone would expect. The big problem and where they have always struggled is at the top end where they get pipped by Nvidia. You could also say from that guide that Nvidia come out looking very good too at the performance end of the spectrum.

Everyone wants competition driving lower prices so lets hope Vega bucks the trend........its not just about raw performance now, only the top end cards are driving VR and 4K performance at high settings and high framerates so there's more at stake than owning the 'best' or 'fastest' card just for the sake of it.

Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/16 11:17 PM

No, it's a myth that AMD was always bang for buck and not good in the top end.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/16 02:49 PM

It depends on what time scale you look at.
Recently it's been b4b, but a decade back ATI was often beating nvidia and then back again as cards like the Radeon 9700 came out.

I miss those days, although I prefer the power of today's cards more. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/16 05:33 PM

Quote:
GloFlo had decided to jump from 14nm to 7nm directly, while skipping the 10nm process because it believed that 10nm will help not much to improve power consumption and costs for clients.

The 10nm node is more like a semi-generation process, similar to the previous the 20nm technology, which could not meet clients' requirements,he said.

.. enter volume production in the first half of 2018 with initial clients including IBM and AMD.

The 7nm process has a number of advantages, including multi-core, high-speed I/O capabilities, reducing power consumption by 60 per cent, upgrading performance by 30 per cent , cutting costs by 30 per cent doubling the yield rate per wafer, while providing 2.5D/3D packaging services, he said.


Supports the rumor that AMD will skip 10nm entirely and go straight from 14nm to 7nm. Intel is making 10nm parts -- however, this article and others have surmised that 10nm may not offer enough improvement to be worth an upgrade over 14nm (except to Intel fans smile -- as an AMD fan, I understand smile ).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/16 08:20 PM

Quote:
AMD Launches Radeon Pro WX 7100, WX 5100 & WX 4100 Workstation Graphics Cards The Most Efficient Yet

..The Radeon Pro WX 7100 and WX 4100 will be available on-shelves next Thursday, Nov 10, at $799 and $399 respectively. The Radeon Pro WX 5100 will be available a week later on the 18th of November at $499...


These cards are similar to the RX480, RX470, RX460 -- but, for commercial use.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/16 08:58 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
It depends on what time scale you look at.
Recently it's been b4b, but a decade back ATI was often beating nvidia and then back again as cards like the Radeon 9700 came out.

I miss those days, although I prefer the power of today's cards more. smile



The Jedi Master


It's closer than the 9xxx series, Nvidia didn't have an answer for the 5870 till 6 months after its release, same with the 7970, and even with that they had the GHz edition ready to answer to the 680.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/16 02:50 PM

Quote:
[from Newegg]

PowerColor RED DRAGON Radeon RX 480 DirectX 12 AXRX 480 4GBD5-3DHDV2 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support ATX Video Card

$189.99
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/16 04:59 PM

tempting...

But with my budget still being in toilet at the moment, any money I spend now will block me from getting Vega/Zen.

That and I was able to squeeze some extra performance out of my 7970 Lightning in Single card mode, that put's it a hair behind the RX480
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/16 08:02 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
tempting... any money I spend now will block me from getting Vega/Zen...


I too will wait.

I seem to remember a relevant rumor: Next year the RX480 (Polaris Architecture) will be replaced with a similar priced Vega variant. So, RX480 (and just about everything else currently being sold by AMD and Nvidia) will be out-of-date by the middle of next Summer. We'll see. But, the rumor does say "wait" if you can (if I remember it correctly).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/16/16 06:52 PM

Quote:
..we know for sure that AMD Zen processors will be launching in early 2017. The first processors to launch in the Zen Summit Ridge lineup would use the Zen SR7 branding. These are the top-end processors which will be selling at enthusiast level prices..

Its shown in the roadmap that all Zen SR (Summit Ridge) processors will sell for higher than .. $220 US..

..We have also got details that AMD plans to launch their enthusiast AM4 platform, codenamed X370 .. the initial launch lineup would only include expensive parts such as the Zen SR7 processors and X370 based AM4 motherboards...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/16 03:14 PM

I saw a Fury for $279 and a FuryX for $299 on sale... ..

Was sooooooooo Temped.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/16 11:15 AM

Quote:
...The search for silicon alternatives

..Over the past 62 years since the first working silicon transistor was made at Bell Labs, companies have used different doping concentrations to influence electron mobility on circuit designs. But over the past half-decade, the industry has been reaching a size limit on how small silicon transistors can be made. Germanium has been considered one possible alternative, as it offers higher electron mobility and is now being used in some CMOS devices...


Interesting to me personally that Germanium is again being considered. That was the material I was associated with in the 1980s. Though superior to Silicon in an electronic sense, it had too many manufacturing problems, then. Silicon was better in a practical sense.

Now it and other technologies are being considered for CPU and GPU because Silicon is near the very-end. Germanium is not "high on the list" according to the article. Carbon nanotube designs are being "pushed". They "seem" (to me) more dream than "near term" reality for CPU and GPU microcircuits. Maybe I'll be wrong about that -- nothing new in me being wrong -- occasionally smile

From the article, a chart showing the progress of Silicon transistors in microcircuits over the decades.





Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/16 03:37 PM

other than heat management, I'm wondering why they havent started stacking cores yet...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/16 05:26 PM

Rumor Article:

Quote:
AMD Zen Summit Ridge Processors Rumored For 17th January Launch Performance on Par With Core i7-6850K at $250-$300 US Pricing

..AMD Summit Ridge Processors With $250-$300 US Pricing To Have Performance Equivalent To Intels Core i7-6850K

..The Zen based chip will feature 8 cores and 16 threads. Intels offering has 6 cores and 12 threads..The Intel processor also costs more at $600 US..

..AMD Zen Summit Ridge Processors Currently Optimized Around 3.3 GHz Base and 3.5 GHz Boost Up To 4.2 GHz Overclock Support, 1.5V..

..clock speeds are based off a rumor from a different source but Maxsun did quote it in their official statement so it might hold some legitimacy...


So, Zen may be here sooner than I expected. I can go with a 4.2GHz overclock given 16 threads and only $300 price. That would nominally provide a minimum of 25 percent more performance per core than my FX9590.

But, these are "rumors" -- though presumably better substantiated than most rumors.

Rumor Article
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/16 07:21 PM

They need 3D CPUs, but not horizontal, vertical.

In other words, you can't stack cores like pancakes. However, if you accept thickness you could line them up like books on a shelf. Place them like the fins on a heat sink. The material between (not air) would take the heat away.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/16 07:07 PM

Quote:
[Intel RUMOR] Coffee Lake might bring six cores to mainstream

Chinese tech site BenchLife.info has got its paws on some slides which show details of Intel's 9th generation Core processors.

The slides show an Intel roadmap which includes 'Coffee Lake' processors. Intel wants to bring its six-core CPU designs to the mainstream [in Q2 2018]...


Maybe the rumored 8 core AMD Zen CPU coming out in a rumored 2 months for a rumored $300 (maybe more) will beat Intel to the punch by a year or more. We'll soon see how accurate the AMD rumors have been.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/16 01:27 PM

Quote:
..AMDs flagship GPU, the RX 490 will be announced and released on the same day in December

The RX 490 will be AMDs 4K ready flagship that will be taking on the GTX 1080 at a (probably) similar price point..

Candidates for the RX 490: Vega 10 or Dual GPU?

..all of the evidence on it point to the fact that we are looking at a dual GPU solution, probably one based on a full version of Polaris 10...


A surprise release in time for Christmas? Or, just another rumor?

AMD has been working on a solution where two-GPU chips actually work like one single chip (not like SLI or CrossFireX). In that case, dual GPU is as good as single GPU. However, I think that solution is for Vega or Navi -- not Polaris (RX480).

Probably, RX490 will work like two crossfired RX480. However, I speculate (based on other rumors) it may have a "special" characteristic to allow one chip per eye on VR glasses.

Here's today's map of what seems to be coming based on rumor and speculation (with a couple facts thrown in). Personally, I'm waiting for Vega 10 with 4000+ shaders -- sometime next year (next year is coming soon smile ):

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/16 01:15 PM

Quote:
AMDs deal with Google could be a breakthrough

...FirePro S9300 x2 GPU for the search engines cloud platform..

..The Google deal is not to turn itself into an AMD only shop Googles cloud will feature both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. But if the rest of the cloud-based service providers follow a similar path, AMD will start making a lot of dosh..

..it forces Nvidia to drop its prices because it has to compete...


Quote:
...on November 15, the company announced a new cloud computing partnership with Google and the shares shot up to a high of $9.22..

..AMD shares have been doing well since February, when they were a miserable $1.83. Analysts had expected sales would continue shrinking in 2016, but AMD has posted $3.2 billion of net sales in the first nine months of the year, up four per cent, including a 23 per cent jump in the most recent quarter.


Making 500 percent on one's stock in less than one year ain't bad thumbsup

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/16 01:39 PM

AMD Marketshare for 2016 is Currently sitting at 29.1%

Compared to 17.5% this time last year
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/26/16 06:22 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen 8 Core SR7 Flagship To Sell For $499, Boost To 3.5Ghz & Outperform Intels $999 i7 5960X

According to a fresh leak, AMDs upcoming Zen SR7 8 core flagship CPU will allegedly sell for $499 and outperform Intels 8 core i7 5960X. .. [features an] 3.2Ghz core clock and a 3.5Ghz turbo frequency..

The new chip carries the ID tag AMD Eng Sample: 1D3201A2M88F3_35/32_N and is an eight core, 16 thread variant...


Not really new news. Just an updated rumor/leak that claims to have spotted actual test results for an actual release version AMD SR7 CPU.

Anyhow, I asked my wife to NOT buy me a Christmas gift (just a card) -- just save the money. I'm hoping to go "all in" with a new AMD centered system in January/February. I'll see then if the rumors are mostly truths or mostly just rumors (I still remember the FX8150 debacle).

I still smile when I see this video (of course it helps that I do not understand the spoken German language):

Hitler finds out about the AMD Bulldozer benchmarks

By the way, my wife still uses an 1100T CPU for the reasons implied in the video.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/16 01:26 AM

Im seeing 3.4 GHz SR7 at 399/499 and 3GHz at 50/150 less.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/16 12:06 PM

Quote:
Vega 10 launching in 1H 2017

.. Vega 10 GPU lines will launch in the first half of 2017. AMDs Radeon Technology Group might start briefings about the Vega 10 in December..

Vega 10 chip is very powerful .. 12 TFlops of single precision. This is faster than Nvidias flagship P100 GPU that is inside of the fastest machine learning supercompute solution currently available...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/29/16 08:07 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen CPUs Getting Exclusive Preview On December 13th, Product Launch In January

An exclusive preview of AMDs new Zen CPU

Join AMD at New Horizon on 12/13 at 3pm CST for an exclusive advance preview of our new Zen CPU ahead of its 2017 Q1 release. New Horizon is AMDs fan-focused event, designed to engage our most dedicated customers...


Preview said to include "hands on" testing aspects and "Livestreaming" of the Preview event.

I don't expect many folks to "tune in" in "real time". However, later that day and the next, we should see some more definitive "write ups" regarding what Zen really is.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/16 03:48 PM

Quote:
...What we are curious about is if the [Zen] pricing rumors are correct. The highest-end 8-core will be $500, while a second, slower eight-core chip could be as low as $350. This will really scare the bejesus out of Intel as it is promising better performance for half the price.

Other rumours say that the six-core SR5 will hit the shops for $250 and the quad-core SR3 will be $150. Chipzilla gear will set you back $320 for its quad-core Core i7-6700K chip, and the cheapest six-core costs $380.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/16 06:09 PM

I'll get the slower one save $150 and either overclock it, or enjoy the serious performance boost over my FX/PileDriver :-)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/16 11:16 AM

Zen 8core/16thread, 6core/12thread, and 4core/8thread CPUs will be competing with Intel "Flagship" Kaby Lake 4core/8thread devices -- that will also be launched in January.

Quote:
..Intel's 7th generation Core Kaby Lake desktop CPUs won't officially launch until January next year..

The flagship Core i7-7700K SKU is a quad-core CPU with support for Intel Hyper-Threading and works at 3.2GHz base and 4.5GHz maximum Turbo clock. It has 8MB of L3 cache, 95W TDP and comes with Intel HD Graphics 630 IGP..

..there aren't any noticeable IPC improvements as its performance is the same as an overclocked Core i7-6700K CPU [basically, i7-7700K beats the current "Flagship" i7-6700K by 3 percent in most tests]...


Interestingly, the i7-7700K 4core/8thread 3.2GHz base frequency is the same as the rumored Zen 8core/16thread version. The i7-7700K is rumored to "run hot" and need good cooling to hit the higher frequencies with a serious work load.

I assume i7-7700K 4core will out perform Zen 8core in many games. But, it may turn out closer than expected because the CPU is not the key driver of FPS in most games (the key driver of FPS is normally the GPU). We'll soon see.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/16 03:30 PM

7700Ks were hitting 100c if you even tried to bump clocks...

privately we'll see Zens next week behind closed doors, publicly the 13th.

So I need to prep for $500+ being dropped.

CPU+MOBO+RAM Combo for starters.

Kinda wanna see how my 7970s due with a better supporting cast (PCIe Slots, CPU, RAM, Etc).

Likely be a completely new system, for VR / Gaming, while I'll retain my current for Studio stuff and avoid the headache of transferring licenses for everything.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/16 08:32 PM

Quote:
AMD CEO : We Can Get To 50% GPU Share, Vega & Relationship With Customers Is Key

AMDs Vega GPU Family Officially Launching In The First Half Of 2017 To Deliver Enthusiast Class VR & 4K Performance & Features

According to everything weve been hearing so far, Vega represents a significant architectural leap in performance and power efficiency. ..

Vega 10 is aimed squarely at the high-end, enthusiast 4K gaming, VR & professional markets..

Dr. Lisa Su, AMD President & CEO :
".. no reason we cant be at 50/50 share over time, but it will certainly take some time to get there..."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/16 08:46 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
..So I need to prep for $500+ being dropped.

CPU+MOBO+RAM Combo for starters...


Yes, I've been saving Amazon Prime points for a couple years now (maybe more) -- got $750+. I intend to use them up and then some for a new system (like you, CPU+MOBO+RAM) -- ass-u-me-ing that we don't have a "Bulldozer Event" smile

If all goes well, I expect to consider 32GB of fast DDR4 RAM ($$) on the new system. Seems like CPU and GPU memory standard quantities are "headed to the Moon" in new systems (at least its not the Sun).

The good/bad news is that at the current slow-slow rate of CPU computational speed progress, the 8core/16thread system may last 4 years frown
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/16 11:59 AM

Quote:
Broad Technology Sector Selloff hits Nvidia, AMD and Others

..Technology Selloff : Whats Going On?!

Looking at the S&P 500 and Dow, its pretty clear that there is a big sector rotation game going on. Tech is down with people piling into financial, energy and industrial stocks...


The stock market is for "Day to Day Trading" -- only rarely "Long Term Investing". "Trading" means "be ready to jump in or out" -- buy low, sell high, get the profit while its still there to be had. Perfect timing is rare -- so one could always make more or lose less -- if one could "read the future" accurately.

Since we print when AMD is headed up. Here's an article about how the whole sector is making a downward adjustment after huge growth over the last few months.

Personally, I see the Stock Market as being in a serious bubble, currently -- partly driven by Federal Reserve policy. The policy is not something that can be continued indefinitely -- already gone on too long. When they stop their policy, we may have a serious crash (many are predicting such a thing sooner than later). We'll see.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/16 12:13 AM

Fury and FuryX Prices Continue to Drop like a ton of Bricks...

Can Get a Non Water Cooled Fury for $214 w/ coupon code,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/16 01:45 PM

Quote:
Possible AMD Radeon RX 490 Performance Numbers Show Up in DX12 AOTS Benchmark On Par With High-End GeForce GTX 1080

..AMD Radeon RX 490 Expected Details:

The card will target the 4K resolution and be the go-to graphics card for VR.

Top cards will have a bus width greater than 256 bits.

It will be based on either a dual-GPU Polaris 10 design (rumor) or [single-GPU] Vega 10 (highly likely).

Its going to be close to the price point of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080...


A rumor based on a couple more bits of data than the previous similar rumor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/04/16 11:02 AM

Quote:
AMD AM4 X370 Zen Motherboard Preview Coming December 13th At New Horizon Event

Weve just learned that AMD is planning to show some of its high-end AM4 X370 motherboards for Zen In ten days.. ..the event could also include a showcase of new AM4 compatible CPU coolers...


As noted previously, the Zen CPU will be used "hands on" by some of the AMD fans present at the live-streamed event. The top Zen CPU is said to be available to buy at the end of January.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/16 11:45 AM

Quote:
[RUMOR] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB To Be Updated With GP104 GPU

..there are rumors that NVIDIA will be shipping some units of the GeForce GTX 1060 with [partly defective] GP104 class [1080 class] GPUs. .. The new GP104 chip would be known as GP104-140. The GP104-140 GPU will be the full [1080] chip with many SM units disabled...


Interesting rumor. Some Nvidia 1060 GPUs will really be 1080GPUs, partly disabled. Up to now, the 1060 has been using "its own GPU chip".

This is normal practice for AMD and Nvidia -- make a top chip for the top card and use defective versions for lower end products (with defective parts "turned off"). In a few products, with a BIOS mod, it MAY be possible to turn some of the disabled "features" on again.

Fun for future Nvidia 1060 owners -- IF they could make a 1070 out of their 1060 (I'm not saying that's guaranteed possible).

In a similar fashion, I imagine 6 core and 4 core AMD Zen CPUs will be standard 8 core units with two or four cores disabled. While the top Zen CPU 8 core will be a "hand selected for top clock rate" 8 core (but ordinary otherwise).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 10:29 AM

The rumor mill has the Zen chart filled out now -- no blanks for the 8 core flagship. The beginnings of the verified-facts begin to come out in nominally 7 days smile Hopefully, the SR5 and SR3 will have clocks above 3.2GHz -- we'll see.


Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 03:18 PM

Beats Intel at half the Cost is the only rumor that means anything to me at the moment, lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 06:56 PM

Quote:
AMD Readies Massive Radeon Software Update with Crimson Relive Drivers Performance Increases For Radeon GCN Cards Across The Board

..huge emphasis towards performance and additional features..

.. Launching on 8th December


Lengthy Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 07:57 PM

i just got the latest ones to work properly.. err.. lol.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 08:52 PM

Can you confirm articles about Intel Signing Agreement w/ AMD to Put Radeon GPUs on Next Gen Intel Chips?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/16 11:46 PM

There's also a new AoTS Benchmark w/ AMD Syntax Device ID that Performs with the GTX1080
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 02:01 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Can you confirm articles about Intel Signing Agreement w/ AMD to Put Radeon GPUs on Next Gen Intel Chips?


I read that rumor -- or a rumor that sounded very similar a while ago.

Quote:
Intel Reportedly in Talks For A Cross-Licensing Deal With AMD for its GPU IP Contract with Nvidia Expires in Q1 2017


Article

From Yesterday:

Quote:
AMD Radeon GPU tech will power Intel's next-gen iGPUs

AMD and Intel have reportedly signed a new agreement that will have Radeon GPU tech inside of Intel's next-gen CPUs..

The bigger news that has just dropped is that Intel and AMD have reportedly signed a new contract that will see AMD Radeon GPU technology inside of Intel's next-gen CPUs. AMD would provide Radeon GPU technology for Intel's integrated graphics, after years of Intel trying to make it work - and it looks like they just can't get their GPU game up to scratch, so they're going to their main rival... AMD. The news is coming from HardOCP boss Kyle Bennett, who wrote on the HardOCP forums: "The licensing deal between AMD and Intel is signed and done for putting AMD GPU tech into Intel's iGPU". Bennett continued, saying that "Intel in no way wants this to be public"....


And, I noticed Forbes had an article 2 hours or so ago.

But, its still people echoing people. So, its a credible rumor -- but a rumor.

Down the road, its AMD graphics that will separate AMD Zen based APUs from Intel CPUs (that are APUs). Hopefully, it will not cause losses in AMD CPU sales later on.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 12:58 PM

Today, another reverberation of the echo:

Quote:
Intel Allegedly Taps AMD Over Nvidia For New Graphics Licensing Deal

A Bit Of Background, Intels Original Deal With Nvidia


In 2011 Intel signed a graphics licensing deal with Nvidia which included a $1.5 billion dollar sum payed over five years to Nvidia. However, Intel never ended up producing chips with Nvidias graphics technology. On the other hand, theres indication that the companys new deal with AMD could in fact translate to Radeon technology inside upcoming Intel chips...


It all seems to be based on an older rumor (a version linked in post above) combined with a "post" by a person with "inside information". So, a lot of current articles based on on one person's say-so. Still, it seems to be a credible rumor.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 03:06 PM

because nVidia's Architecture was not designed to be used that way, where as AMD's was.

Intel quickly found that out the hard way, and hoped the deal they signed in 2011 would help nVidia oust AMD to help them.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 03:20 PM

Back in the 1970s and very early 1980s I was into designing/building my own desktop computer from scratch (not a kit or another guy's design) -- IC by IC, switch by switch, etc.

I vaguely remember that Intel had a large CPU "invention" team -- to make the "next big thing". It failed. So a couple really bright Intel engineers "virtually singlehandedly" successfully modified an existing Intel design to get us started on the path we are still on (CPU wise).

All that to say: Intel is big. But, it makes "Big" mistakes too -- based on my following their history. The Nvidia deal may be just another one.

As noted above, I hope AMD is not making a mistake by giving Intel the "right" to "bury" AMD by making an equally good APU -- as I figured, long term, AMD had the advantage because its all going to be APUs in the future -- and great graphics would be the determiner of the winner.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 04:03 PM

RE AMD / Intel Contract for Patent Use / IP:

- AMD's Discrete x86-64 Architecture supports being on Die w/ CPU Cores, and Using Shared Memory.
(AMD Prev. Stated a GCN Block+Controllers Could Be on Die w/ Intel's iSeries Easily)

- nVidia's does not

Intel Signed a deal in hopes they could team with nVidia to put AMD further Behind, was a Win Win fr both Intel and nVidia,
But Backfired in terms of iGPU Development for Intel, no iGPU for Intel was ever Fab'd w/ nVidia's IP, and IntelHD Graphics Continued to lag behind in keeping up with AMD APU's.

Instead they paid nVidia for 5 years for nothing, which only aided in nVidia's aggressive R&D Budget, which AMD cannot match.
So it Helped nVidia more than Intel.


However if Zen/Zen+ Finally catches up w/ Intel. ( as rumors Suggest )

Then we'll have balance between the Light and Dark Sides again, and both companies will have to price their products competitively.
Then it will be down to out of Box Performance, and Right now, Looking at "Rumors" and "Leaks", AMD's Zen APUs will easily Stomp any Mobile or Low Power Intel CPU+HD Graphics Combo.

Intel will likely use AMD's Architecture to match AMD's APU Line.

And AMD will continue it's business plan of Regaining Marketshare from Team Green, by taking % Previously Held by Intel IGP/HD Graphics,

So Every Intel Next Gen Chip sold w/ Radeon IGP is another System Running AMD Graphics.

Not Only would Intel Benefit on the Graphics Side, But on the Video Rendering, Transcode/Decode, and Using IGP for Parallel Tasks as well compared to Performance of the latest IntelHD IGP in those tasks.


Originally Posted By: Allen
Back in the 1970s and very early 1980s I was into designing/building my own desktop computer from scratch (not a kit or another guy's design) -- IC by IC, switch by switch, etc.

I vaguely remember that Intel had a large CPU "invention" team -- to make the "next big thing". It failed. So a couple really bright Intel engineers "virtually singlehandedly" successfully modified an existing Intel design to get us started on the path we are still on (CPU wise).

All that to say: Intel is big. But, it makes "Big" mistakes too -- based on my following their history. The Nvidia deal may be just another one.

As noted above, I hope AMD is not making a mistake by giving Intel the "right" to "bury" AMD by making an equally good APU -- as I figured, long term, AMD had the advantage because its all going to be APUs in the future -- and great graphics would be the determiner of the winner.



Intel Also Plays Dirty, and the Penalty they paid for that does not equal the amount AMD, CyRix, IDT, RiSE, and ViA lost when Intel Broke their Agreement regarding x86 Licensing and Ditched everyone else and Left Everyone on Socket 7 without warning.

Not to mention the Direct Attempts to Sabatoge AMD through Compiler and other Means, which that penalty also does not add up to potential revenue and company losses.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/16 04:48 PM

Yes, Intel's transgressions are the main reason I'm an AMD fan. Intel needs competition to "keep it in check". As far as Intel products, they're good (now -- they weren't for a while -- during which they used subterfuge to keep competitors down). But, that's just me giving my opinion smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/16 12:55 AM

More competition on the Server front:

Quote:
Qualcomm sampling worlds first 10nm 48 core server SoC

...Developed from the ground up, based on Qualcomm in house developed Falkor 10nm CPU, the new Centriq 2400 series started shipping to major customers and it is expected to be commercially available in the second half of 2017...


According to today's articles, Intel has 97 percent of the server market. Both AMD next-generation server chips and, now, Qualcomm server chips will hit the market later next year.

The articles imply Intel prices have been high due to virtually no competition. That may change, the articles speculate. Of course, Qualcomm also gives AMD another server competitor besides Intel.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/16 09:58 PM

Quote:
AMD Vega To Debut January 2017 At CES, Secret Preview Happening Now

..The specifications for AMDs upcoming flagship Radeon graphics card and Fury X successor based on Vega 10 have been leaked.. 4096 next generation V9 cores and an unbelievable 12 teraflops of compute performance. Which puts it ahead of the 11 teraflops of Nvidias top dog, the $1200 GTX TItan X...


Quote:
AMD Officially Launches Biggest Radeon Software Package Ever Crimson ReLive Edition 16.12.1 Available For Download Now


EDIT: 511MB on my hard drive. New interface for install. I chose clean install -- wipes the old drivers off the drive and installs the new ones. It all seemed to work in the game I'm playing now (Skyrim SE). I did not "see" any difference. But, in some newer games FPS is supposed to increase by several percent.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 12:22 AM

The new Vega 10 is rumored to be the "go to" GPU for VR. BUT, what "good" games will feature VR?? IF ANY???

Here's a developer who thinks real good games with real good VR are not around the corner. Sure, there will be many short apps, there will be a few games. But, the key word is "few". Something to "think about" before spending hundreds on a top VR setup -- and see if there are opinions other than the one in the article.

Quote:
DayZ Creator: Early Access Aint All Its Cracked Up To Be; Theres No Money in Virtual Reality


Article

The Original Complete Statement Article

As he says, in his own words:

Quote:
Prediction: Without the subsidies of exclusives/subsidies less studios will make VR games

There is no money in it. I don't mean "money to go buy a Ferrari". I mean "money to make payroll"...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 09:40 AM

Quote:
AMD releases Radeon Software Crimson ReLive drivers


Article with AMD Slides

The above article includes the AMD slides shown for the new driver. The driver has some notable new features and the slides give a good synopsis.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 02:34 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
AMD releases Radeon Software Crimson ReLive drivers


Article with AMD Slides

The above article includes the AMD slides shown for the new driver. The driver has some notable new features and the slides give a good synopsis.


I just had to post about this, because these drivers are really remarkable for me.

10-20% gains across the board for DX11 games, combining my 390X Nitro, Freesync Monitor and the new Chill option turned on (1080p, 144Hz). Temps stayed in the 60's under high load. DX12 and Vulcan had improvements too, but not as dramatic.

I just had an ARMA 3 session, in Altis, and I have never played it so smooth (100 FPS and above). Upped most of the settings to Ultra/Very high and I lost only 1 FPS.

Dishonored 2, Skyrim SE, Shadow Warrior 2, GTA V - All gained in performance and smoothness.

Planning on running some tests recording on ReLive this weekend.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 02:36 PM

I updated my VR post just above. Has link to original developer/author's article.

Makes me think I still want only a real good headset that I can wear sitting in a chair -- not a full VR setup.

I would only use it as an inutitive "wrap around" replacement for "Eyfinity" multi-screen and TrackIR5. I would NOT use it standing up in an empty room.

Good news is that simple "sit in the chair" 3D glasses (semi-VR) are going to be much much cheaper, apparently. And, I could use them with most games.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 04:28 PM

a First Person Shooter/RPG VR Experience I would say Requires more than just a headset, The standing rigs w/ the motion pressure plates on the bottom

now your talking another $500-$5000+.


For VR< I'll Limit My Games to Sit Down Simulations (Flight Sims, Space Ship Sims, Racing/Driving Sims).

RPGs moving will sitting causes nausea, same with FPS's specially those that do not use separate movement options for body/head.

Sitting in a recliner and watching movies on a big screen is nice as well.

I wish Netflix, HBO and all them had apps, outside of Oculus store.

I can use Media Players to play MP4/VC1 files, but I'm not gonna convert my entire collection of DVD/BluRays to DVD.

If Anything Xbox One Support for VR should work fine, since the Windows 10 APP Supports it already, Being able to plug headset into Xbox One and just sit in large room w/ screen and watch movies via Apps and disc media would work alot better.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 04:32 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna


I just had to post about this, because these drivers are really remarkable for me.

10-20% gains across the board for DX11 games, combining my 390X Nitro, Freesync Monitor and the new Chill option turned on (1080p, 144Hz). Temps stayed in the 60's under high load. DX12 and Vulcan had improvements too, but not as dramatic.

I just had an ARMA 3 session, in Altis, and I have never played it so smooth (100 FPS and above). Upped most of the settings to Ultra/Very high and I lost only 1 FPS.

Dishonored 2, Skyrim SE, Shadow Warrior 2, GTA V - All gained in performance and smoothness.

Planning on running some tests recording on ReLive this weekend.


if Re-Vive does what I think it does, it'll be clearer picture and less performance hit than anything else out there (OBS, Fraps, Etc etc).

It takes video stream directly from the frame buffer and uses the Hardware H264 Block to compress the video.

newer GPUs can use HEVC
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 09:15 PM

I just LOL'd at Kyle's plea to AMD at the end of his Kaby Lake "what a letdown" preview.

"Hey, AMD, would you kindly make Intel actually care about innovation again by providing some real competition seeing how pointless Kaby Lake is compared to Skylake?"



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/16 09:59 PM

Can I get a link to that?.. lol..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/16 12:41 PM

Quote:
AMD Zen 16 Core [Server] CPU Pictured, Ready For Prime Time

..This particular sixteen core chip is only one of several variants, the highest end of which comes in a 32 core, 64 thread configuration. Which is the largest core and thread count in x86 CPU history. Easily outnumbering the 24 cores of Intels largest server processor to date, the E7-8890 v4..

..a single Zen core delivers double the performance of a Bulldozer core and uses less power. The effort to build a new core from scratch paid off...


Talking about server CPUs in the above. The article rumored/speculated that AMD made a conscious decision NOT to compete hard against Intel in servers for the last 3 years or so (because AMD had nothing competitive to compete with). Rather, AMD put their effort into designing a CPU that could compete with Intel. The article thinks AMD was successful. We'll see.

Server sales would keep AMD in business and competing. However, Servers are not PCs. It remains to be seen how well Zen competes in a PC (which is the focus of SimHQ hardware enthusiasts).

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/11/16 05:52 PM

Quote:
AMD Radeon RX 460 Unlock is Here Jump From 896 To 1024 Stream Processors, Gain a 12.5% Performance Boost

Users of the Radeon RX 460 graphics card are in for a good news. Author of overclocking.guide, der8auer, has managed to unlock the Radeon RX 460, providing a free performance upgrade to users..

..The unlocked card gains you 128 more stream processors and also 8 additional TMUs. This results in a total of 64 TMUs and 1024 stream processors. The performance results speak for themselves as we the site reports improvements up to 12.5% which is a great increase..

.."Note: Its always possible that something goes wrong if you flash the BIOS of your card. In addition its possible that not all cards can be unlocked and that you might damage the card. Flash at your own risk!"...




Article

Tampering (having fun) with "unlocking" is risky. You could "brick" your card -- depending on the method used. Still, some of us here on the SimHq Hardware & Software forum are willing to take the risk occasionally. No hard feelings if you want to "leave well enough alone" with your RX460 thumbsup
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/16 01:57 PM

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/12/09/intel_kaby_lake_core_i77700k_ipc_review

Quote:
With Kaby Lake, Intel has just given the big middle finger its fan base, loyalists, and every hardware enthusiast in the world. Intel has just told us, we do not matter to its corporate structure any more. To the enthusiast, Kaby Lake in its Core i7-7700K form is nothing more than what Francois promised two years ago. I would not spend my money on Kaby Lake simply in protest.

AMD, do we matter? Lisa Su? AMD has a hugely influential and substantial fanbase waiting to wave your flag again. We all still have that Blue Core Thunderbird and 9700 Pro love in our hearts. We are older now and have lots of money to spend on tech and its toys. We are established, influential, and well informed, and all our family members and all their friends ask our advice on computer purchasing and then it trickles down. That is the HardOCP reader profile. Wouldn't you love to have us once again direct all those purchasing dollars with a comment like, "Just look for the AMD Zen (and beyond) badge and you will be getting a quality product."

If we have learned anything this year, it is that grass roots support is monumental. God knows us enthusiasts can market better for AMD than Roy Taylor can any day. AMD, the door is open, give us a reason, please.





The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/16 05:32 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Quote:
...AMD, the door is open, give us a reason, please.


Interesting. Thanks for the link.

I think 5GHz is nearly the limit for a current technology CPU. So, it comes down to "instructions per clock", "cores", and "threads" (for newer applications -- as noted in the article). Zen seems to be challenging in the "cores and threads" department. We'll see regarding IPC and maximum overclocked Clock speed.

In the meantime:

Quote:
AMD Vega Performance Demoed, Faster Than GTX 1080 Features 8GB of HBM2 & 512GB/s Of Bandwidth

..In a head to head performance comparison with an overclocked GTX 1080..

..No Vega optimized driver was used. Despite this the consumer Vega graphics card was able to outperform [an overclocked] GTX 1080 running at 1911Mhz by 10%. ...


Article
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 02:11 AM

Forgive me for not getting excited just yet......the 10% improvement in the article (conveniently missing from the title is via Vulcan) benching Doom 4. Let's see the comparative tests because that particular combination can give AMD up to a 35% advantage in which case the 10% isn't going to be a lot or probably 10-20% slower than the GTX1080 in other titles.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 12:19 PM

The embargo on AMD news and private showings of Zen is to be lifted by AMD today (at 4pm EST).

However, some stuff is already coming out. For example, a Zen 8core/16thread will be named "Ryzen". A site is already picturing AMD slides a bit early.




Article/Slides
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 12:25 PM

Quote:
Watch AMDs Zen New Horizon Livestream Here AMD Summit Ridge And Ryzen Enthusiast CPU Live PC Demos


A Site with Livestream of AMD Event Later Today

I'm not a big "livestreamer" myself. However, tomorrow we ought to have many published "opinion pieces" with a recapitulation.

Quote:
...Fans, media, and investors alike can view the real-time event video webcast on AMDs website at www.AMD.com/NewHorizon. A replay of the webcast can be accessed a few hours after the conclusion of the live event and will be available for one year after the event. The replay of the webcast will also be accessible on the AMD YouTube channel. via AMD...


AMD Official LIvestream Site
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 01:33 PM

Quote:
Dark days ahead for Nvidia and AMD

..GTX 1080 and 1070 card inventory levels have risen to two to 2.5 months in the channel versus targeted levels of one to 1.5 months due to weaker-than-expected sell-through in late October and November..

..Given the excess supply, GeForce GTX 1080 pricing dropped 10 per cent in the channel...

[Similar happenings are rumored for AMD]


The pundit predicting/guessing that Nvidia and AMD GPU "sale prices" may be low in January/February as Nvidia and AMD try to move "excess inventory". So, an opportunity for folks to buy a GPU cheaper -- maybe in January.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 01:42 PM

This is just a generic complaint, not on AMD in particular as much as all companies, but I'm really fatigued by marketing labeling things with a common word and then misspelling it in some supposedly "hip" way so they can TM it.

Ryzen? Are we supposed to say that like risen, or risin'? rolleyes There is no way they didn't have a better name for this that they passed over in favor of this one.

Of course, I think we can all agree that AMD marketing is possibly some of the least effective in the tech industry.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 02:18 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
..Ryzen? Are we supposed to say that like risen, or risin'? rolleyes ...


One pundit said "Risen" as in "he has risen". My first pronunciation-try was apparently incorrect smile

Probably, at the AMD event today (Livestream 4PM EST), an AMD representative will "say the word" -- correctly, we hope smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 03:51 PM

Rye - Zen
Rise-Zen
Risen


Who Cares, as Long as it performs.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 09:22 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-to-attac...etails-revealed
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 09:44 PM

Watched the first 15+ minutes or so. Zen seems slightly better than I expected. Seems like more than a mere Intel "look alike" -- really may be "the next thing" as far as CPU design is considered. In fairness, I assume Intel is also trying to incorporate similar features.

Moreover, the AMD CEO hints that, for once, they are "underselling it" just a bit. It should be slightly better when finally launched (unlike Bulldozer -- which had been way oversold). I do like the 3.4GHz base frequency MINIMUM (plus boost to higher frequencies) for the Ryzen line up (considering 8cores/16threads run hotter than 4/8). Maybe the "hand picked" highest end Ryzen will be above 3.4GHz base clock.

We'll see when the "independent" test reports come out (after Ryzen launch in January).

And, they explained the name (Ryzen) smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/16 11:09 PM

i got so much swag, I almost had to buy a 2nd suitcase for flight home... in flight wifi sux.. took 3 minutes to load simhq forum.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 10:01 AM

The AMD Ryzen 8core/16thread CPU articles today are, so far, not adding much "secret or new" information -- versus watching the presentation.

In a nutshell, the Ryzen at minimum stock clocks with no boost equals the Intel Core i7-6900K (8/16) CPU that sells for about $1050 today at Amazon. And, the power used is much lower than Intel in the same head-to-head tests. The Intel CPU ran at stock 3.2 to 3.7GHz -- supposedly AMD did not "mess with it". Ryzen ran at a constant 3.4GHz.

Though the Intel CPU they used in tests was "the last model" (but only one available today), we know that the newer Intel models coming out in January do not show improvement in IPC. So, the tests were fair in that sense.

Hopefully, the "hinted" improvement in Ryzen by time of release actually comes to pass and it actually performs as well as the AMD "sales pitch" implies.

No doubt Ryzen will be cheaper than the Intel price of $1050. But, I hope a LOT cheaper for it to be a good choice for my gaming PC.

I won't be shocked at a list price of $500 for the top Ryzen. But, based on how the RX480 pricing went, I need to "jump on" the first CPUs being sold at that price, because the price may rise after the first CPUs are sold at "list price".

Why my expected rise in price above $500? NO COMPETITION from Intel at that price point in 8core/16thread CPUs. Whoops. We need competition smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 01:51 PM

The top Intel CPUs are always a joke. You don't get what you pay for, you get 10% more for 300% the price. Only suckers buy those.

The sweet spot has always been in the $300-$400 range. I bought an i7-2600K for that within a month of release and it lasted me for years. I finally replaced it recently with an i7-6700k for about the same price and I suspect it will also last years--GPUs and storage are the bottlenecks now, not the CPU or RAM. I might have been able to get away with using the 2600k still if I'd been more aggressive in OC'ing it.

Synthetic benchmarks are useless. When they showed things like Haswell doing better than Sandy Bridge, yet using it in actual games resulted in improvements that fit within the margin of error for the benchmarks, I both double-flipped off and mooned every synth benchmark in existence and vowed to never again give an ounce of credit or respect to any of them.

A new CPU needs to be tested against an entire suite of games, from FPS to strategy to sims on the air and ground to get a good idea of its actual worth. Unfortunately, previews are not that.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 03:12 PM

Games dont really use the CPUs like Benchmarks or Multi-Threaded Transcoding...

That being said, the Fact that a Ryzen CPU could fluidly drive two TitanX GPUs w/ Games at Max Details.

Something an FX would Struggle with due to draw calls.
Posted By: SacaSoh

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 04:06 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
The top Intel CPUs are always a joke. You don't get what you pay for, you get 10% more for 300% the price. Only suckers buy those.

The sweet spot has always been in the $300-$400 range. I bought an i7-2600K for that within a month of release and it lasted me for years. I finally replaced it recently with an i7-6700k for about the same price and I suspect it will also last years--GPUs and storage are the bottlenecks now, not the CPU or RAM. I might have been able to get away with using the 2600k still if I'd been more aggressive in OC'ing it.

Synthetic benchmarks are useless. When they showed things like Haswell doing better than Sandy Bridge, yet using it in actual games resulted in improvements that fit within the margin of error for the benchmarks, I both double-flipped off and mooned every synth benchmark in existence and vowed to never again give an ounce of credit or respect to any of them.

A new CPU needs to be tested against an entire suite of games, from FPS to strategy to sims on the air and ground to get a good idea of its actual worth. Unfortunately, previews are not that.



The Jedi Master


I'm with a 3570k@4,1ghz the last 4 years and don't feel the need to change the CPU, just updating the GPUs and everything is fine. This chip is so good that will probably wait intel to release their 2nd or 3rd generation quantum-based CPU before upgrading.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 04:34 PM

Im Hoping the RYZEN will last me at least 6+ Years...
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/16 10:58 PM

Even 3 years would be OK if the AM4 socket supports the next generation of Zen+ CPU's.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/16 07:13 PM

A note for Intel Fans regarding the I7-7700K overheat issue: It seems solvable.

Quote:
...Intel Core i7-7700K High Temperatures Could Be Caused By Poor TIM Temps Improve After Delidding

The forum member who goes by the name of RichUK managed to acquire a retail sample of the Intel Core i7 7700K processor. Several overclock runs were posted and the user went as far to delid the chip and apply new TIM (Thermal Interface Material). The results are shocking as it may proof that Intel has once again used poor quality TIM on their processors...


The I7-7700K will arrive in January (it is said). I assume some SimHQ folks will buy one. If one is into overclocking, hopefully the article will provide some help.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/16 07:46 PM

dunno why they still use TIM Goo...

There are so many better options now w/ non-electrically conductive metals that high a crazy high thermal conductivity.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/16 09:39 PM

AMD continues to show "competitive" products for next year.

Quote:
AMDs Vega Cube Is A 43 Inch 100 TFLOPS Monster Meet The Mini-Nuke Of Supercomputers

..A small, 43 inch, quad GPU cube with one hundred TERAFLOPS of FP16 compute and half that in FP32. To put that figure into perspective, Nvidias liquid cooled Drive PX2 AI supercomputer for autonomous, driverless, cars delivers 16 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 8 TFLOPS of FP16 compute. Thats less than one sixth of what the Vega cube is capable of. And while the [Nvidia] Drive PX2 is a large box meant to go inside the trunk of a car, the [AMD] Vega cube [literally] fits into the palm your hand..


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/16 04:55 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/see-how-your-cpu-stacks-up-against-amd-ryzen-open-source-tool
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/16 05:30 PM



Since I have Blender 2.78a installed for creating game modifications, I gave it three runs.

Ryzen 8core/16thread CPU at 3.4GHz was more than 3 times as fast as my FX9590 8core/8thread at 4.7GHz. Windows 10 task manager indicated nothing running in the background -- but, something might have been going on that task manager did not report.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/18/16 12:11 AM

Ryzen has updated Extensions.

I had about the same, Ryzen Stomped my 5.31 GHz Score by more than 3.4x
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/18/16 11:48 AM

On the competition front, Nvidia is readying its "answer" to Vega for release in the same time frame as Vega (which we all expected Nvidia to do):

Quote:
NVIDIA Confirms GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Pascal Enthusiast 4K Graphics Card GTX 980 Ti Owners First To Avail Pre-Order or Step Up Offers


The rumor/leak article indicates (to my reading) that FPS (in DX11, 12) will probably be the main target -- possibly, as usual for Nvidia, at the expense of some more forward looking features like Vulcan and Compute support. So, Vega may be a more "rounded" product able to do many (not necessarily all) of the things one expects from a modern graphics card just a little better than the Nvidia product -- we'll see.

The article indicates the Vega vs GTX1080Ti battle may come down to price and who gets to market first (and, of course, "fandom" smile ).

Competition is good smile

Article
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/16 02:45 PM

I will say that after 30 years of gaming and being in the business, I still don't give a damn what it can do beyond gaming. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/16 03:08 PM

Quote:

...
AMD RYZEN ZEN Based CPU Score in Cinebench R15:

In Cinebench R15 benchmark, the AMD RYZEN chip scored 1188 cb points in the CPU rendering test. The Core i7-7700K scores 966 points at stock and 1083 points when overclocked to 5 GHz as seen in the latest leaked benchmarks. The Core i7-6900K processor scores up to 1500 cb points while the Core i7-6950X flagship CPU scores beyond 1800 cb points at stock clocks. [My 8core/8thread FX9590 at 4.7GHz scored 722]

AMD RYZEN ZEN Based CPU Score in Fritz Chess Benchmark:

In Fritz Chess benchmark, the chip scores a relative score of 36.86 points and 17693 Kilo Nodes per second. Intels Broadwell-E processors such as the Core i7-6900K score 22500 points in the same benchmark with the top 10 core [20 thread] Core i7-6950X scoring more than 24000 points. The relative speed was not available for the Intel processors.
...


Ryzen benchmarks wherein Ryzen scores a bit less than Intel counterparts. Thing is, some benchmarks use compilers that favor Intel architecture -- sometimes dramatically. Moreover, the exact test conditions were not spelled out and the CPUs were NOT tested "Head to Head". Rather, Ryzen data was compared to Intel data from other sources -- that may have been obtained under different conditions.

Thus, things may change with some other benchmarks from other testers and "head to head" testing. On the other hand, I won't be shocked if Intel wins many -- I merely expect the AMD scores to be "much more competitive" than they used to be.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/16 05:12 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
On the competition front, Nvidia is readying its "answer" to Vega for release in the same time frame as Vega (which we all expected Nvidia to do):

Quote:
NVIDIA Confirms GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Pascal Enthusiast 4K Graphics Card GTX 980 Ti Owners First To Avail Pre-Order or Step Up Offers


The rumor/leak article indicates (to my reading) that FPS (in DX11, 12) will probably be the main target -- possibly, as usual for Nvidia, at the expense of some more forward looking features like Vulcan and Compute support. So, Vega may be a more "rounded" product able to do many (not necessarily all) of the things one expects from a modern graphics card just a little better than the Nvidia product -- we'll see.

The article indicates the Vega vs GTX1080Ti battle may come down to price and who gets to market first (and, of course, "fandom" smile ).

Competition is good smile

Article




lol, Pretty sure I called a 1080 Ti long ago,

now 1080 and titan owners will feel some type of way because their purchase is now either overpriced or underperforming, or both.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/16 09:34 PM

As does anyone who buys something and then waits 6 months.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/21/16 12:21 PM

Quote:
Vega architecture will bring multiple cards

Not just at the high end

[Rumor] Vega architecture will be introduced into the complete range of AMD's graphics cards. Our knowledgeable industry friends have told us that you can expect top to bottom designs based on Vega architecture arriving soon..

..Nvidia .. is not sleeping and is working on its 2017 line-up.


The article has no added info beyond repeating the above in different ways.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/21/16 06:54 PM

Quote:
...
Exclusive [Rumor]: AMDs flagship Vega 10 powered RX 490 Graphics Card and Entry Level Polaris 12 GPU receive RRA certification

The RX 490 will be AMDs 4K ready flagship that will be taking on the GTX 1080 at a (probably) similar price point. It is going to be the crown jewel in AMDs RX lineup..

..The certification also marks the final stages of the design of a particular GPU (no changes can be made after this certification is received)...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/16 08:03 PM

Another site repeated the rumor that Vega GPUs will be a complete end-to-end lineup of cards (not just high-end). They added this note from and AMD representative -- regarding memory used in GPUs.

Quote:
[From:] Robert Hallock, Technical Marketing lead at AMD

AMD helped lead the development of HBM, was the first to bring HBM to market in GPUs, and plans to implement HBM/HBM2 in future graphics solutions.

At this time we have only publicly demonstrated a GDDR5 configuration of the Polaris architecture.Its important to understand that HBM isnt (currently) suitable for all GPU segments due to the current HBM cost structure. In the mainstream GPU segment, GDDR5 remains an extremely cost-effective, efficient and viable memory technology.

We have the flexibility to use HBM or GDDR5 as costs require. Certain market segments are cost sensitive, GDDR5 can be used there. Higher-end market segments where more cost can be afforded, HBM is viable as well.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/25/16 01:36 PM

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas. Happy Holidays to the rest of you.

I told my wife to buy me nothing. I woke up this morning and got -- nothing smile

But, I await Ryzen -- and save the Christmas cash for that.

Quote:
First AMD Ryzen Review Leaked


This first leak article tested several real world applications -- and up to date games. BUT, with a Zen engineering sample running at 3.15GHz versus the AMD claimed 3.4GHz minimum of the real Consumer Ryzen. So, the exact results don't mean much. However, Zen did much much better than current AMD FX8370 running at full speed.

Doing a little math on the results, Ryzen may turn out to be slightly more competitive than I expected -- not the fastest -- but competitive in games -- and very special in non-game high-end threaded applications.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/27/16 04:37 AM

Quote:
[Rumor] Intel Is Reportedly Working On A Brand New Implementation of The x86 Architecture: One That Is Much Faster and Leaner

The grapevine has been buzzing with something that is pretty huge as far as developments in this industry go. According to Bitsandchips.it, Intel has started working on a brand new x86 architecture..

..backward compatibility is no longer assured..

..we can expect the brand new x86 implementation to land by 2020 approximately...


Intel may be planning to "break" the X86 CPU architecture -- ass-u-me-ing this rumor is true as stated.

I remember (back in the day) when IBM had a very successful PC and had a very successful motherboard (like Intel has the PC CPU design locked up). BUT, other folks were copying the motherboard. So, IBM went with a "proprietary" design that was "not backward compatible" -- figured they would "corner the market". However, that killed IBM because the industry said to IBM -- stuff it, we won't use your new design. So, the industry continued along WITHOUT IBM. IBM lost big.

Could Intel suffer the same fate?? Tune in in 2020 and see smile

Actually, the article thinks "incompatibility" will only affect a few things -- no big deal.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/27/16 04:01 PM

Intel said that about the Pentium 4's..
And they Ditched them for Core Series quicker than AMD Ditched their CMT designs
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/27/16 08:29 PM

just waitin for FX CPU prices to drop so I can get my brother's PC back up to 8 cores.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/16 07:56 PM

On the competition front:

Quote:
NVIDIA Quadro P6000 Gaming Benchmarks Unveiled, Faster Than The Titan X (P) Handles 4K DX12 Gaming at 60+ FPS With Ease

..~$4800 US...


Yes, $4800.00 (not really intended for consumer market). In any case, the high end Vega GPU is rumored to be just slightly faster in some respects (I always expect the top Nvidia GPU to have the highest gaming FPS - even if by only an inconsequential amount - its Nvidia's selling point). I ass-u-me the top Vega GPU will be approximately $1000.00 (may be less - AMD is "bang for buck").

But, with all the rumors and speculations, I may have something out of wack. We'll see -- more Vega and Ryzen info is expected in just about 10 days.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/16 08:06 PM

Fury GPUs are down to $250 and lower w/ MIR

Fury X water cooled, some venders have for $309, also with $20-30 MIR

(Some Vendors are still asking full price)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/16 12:37 PM

Quote:
[Rumor] Windows 10 to get a game mode

..WalkingCat said that a dll called "gamemode" was under the bonnet of the latest build of Windows 10 (version 14997). He said that it "looks like Windows will adjust its resource allocation logic (for CPU/[graphics] etc.)" to prioritize game performance.

This is like the way that the Xbox One runs a game. The feature will reportedly launch as part of the Creators update .. in spring....


Generally interesting rumor/speculation that potentially impacts all CPUs and GPUs to some extent -- but, I'm speculating, will be more important to weaker gaming systems.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/16 04:06 PM

the dll is in the tester builds already,

prioritizes DirectX and other Game Related Services to a higher priority level when it detects application running.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/16 08:49 PM

Quote:
AMD will make a comeback driven by Ryzen in the CPU market

One of the easiest to predict trends of 2017 however, will be AMDs comeback in the CPU market..

..AMD Ryzen is likely to single-handedly put the company back on the map for its offerings of x86 processors and this wont just be about the gaming industry. Ryzen .. very competitive performance in the server and enterprise market as well. .. to sum it up, Intels temporary free run is over and will be facing real competition from AMD this time around...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/30/16 12:06 PM

Quote:
...We hope that Ryzen will start selling in Q1 2017 but AMD executives, including the CEO and a few executive vice presidents only confirmed that it is on schedule for Q1 2017. They never used the word "shipping." March 2017 has 31 days, so that is the last day AMD must ship the CPU to meet the Q1 plan otherwise it will slip to Q2. In spite of the shipping date, we expect to see full volume production and mass availability in Q2 2017 for the desktop Ryzen to be followed by the server one quarter later and notebooks before the end of the year...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/30/16 03:43 PM

Rumors coming from friends of Ryzen hitting 5.0GHz on Air...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/30/16 04:46 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Rumors coming from friends of Ryzen hitting 5.0GHz on Air...


Wow! I hope mine does that -- or even 4.5GHz would be great. I do plan to water cool it.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/30/16 06:32 PM

3.4 GHz at sub 95w, so 4.5/5.0 GHz at 120w would be easy.

they said lil to no mV increases to 4.2, just adjustments to MP and FSB, 5.0 needed a smidge, but no where near as much as FX83xx
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/31/16 07:07 PM

The 5GHz OC number has become public:

Quote:
...Ryzen sample single-core overclock is 5GHz on air, primary bottleneck for all-core OC was low-quality VRMs on the motherboard

..Ryzen overclocks out of the box and if the single core OC is any indicator, the primary hurdle enthusiasts will have to overcome will be one of the quality of motherboard and of course, electromigration.

.. [speculate] you can realistically expect cherry chips to overclock up to 3.8-4.0 GHz on all cores with a high-end cooler and a mature enough revision of the Ryzen processor...


Electromigration becomes a bigger issue as architecture shrinks (Ryzen is 14nm), I speculate. This causes premature aging. However, its a trade off -- that fanatics may be willing to accept smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/17 01:33 AM

Quote:
...AMD has finally decided to unveil that they will be showcasing the full Vega GPU architecture preview at CES 2017. The upcoming showcase confirms that Vega GPU (or GPUs) are in ready state and should make it for launch in Q1 2017...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/17 04:36 PM

This is the week of CES. So, the leaks are more solid (but, still rumor -- not established fact).

I own Polaris (so, I know its good) -- plays all my games at max settings at 1440p. Vega is all new and 2X, 4X, 8X times better (or so they say).

Quote:
AMD Vega Features Leaked 4x Efficiency, 2x Performance/Clock , 8x Capacity Per HBM Stack & Next Gen Compute Engine

..Vega Architecture ( Compard to Polaris )

4x Power Efficiency
2x Peak Throughput/Performance Per Clock
High Bandwidth Cache
2x Bandwidth per pin
8x Capacity Per stack ( 2nd Generation High Bandwidth Memory )
512TB Virtual Address Space
Next Generation Compute Engine
Next Generation Pixel Engine
Next Compute Unit Architecture
Rapid Packed Math
Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer
Primitive Shaders..



Quote:
..A New Top-To-Bottom Range Of Radeon RX 500 Series Graphics Cards Based On The Vega Architecture

AMD will be rolling out its next generation Vega architecture across the entire range of its 2017 Radeon graphics cards and itll do it soon...
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/17 05:02 PM

Just for some perspective here.....A GTX 970 (which I used to own) has roughly the same performance as the 480 (better/worse in some cases) and like almost every graphics card on the planet it will play or at least let you select 1440p and probably 2160p (4K) for any game you may choose. However the frame rate at maximum settings will vary and may only be 'acceptable' depending on the user expectations and requirements. One of the reasons why I moved on was because 1440p is most definitely the limit for these cards and struggling to maintain good framerates in recent titles.

Given that the spec in your sig is driving multiple monitors and especially if you're using eyefinity to drive a single logical screen in games I don't believe for a second that many people would take the performance you have as acceptable at all (totaly dependent on which games you're playing of course).

I totally buy into your 'competition is good' theme, however I don't believe for one minute that your primary objective within this thread is do anything other than sell the virtues of AMD as a company.

For your sake, let's hope that Zen comes up with the goods because this relentless pursuit and hope of having an AMD product that finally competes with Intel otherwise you're going to give yourself a hernia amongst the rumour and speculation articles and links.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/17 05:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
Just for some perspective here.....


When I say 1440p, I mean the single monitor at 1440p (which is the standard meaning of 1440p). I try to use standard terminology.

I'm a game mod addict who adds all the high textures and extras that "third party" modders add to "stock" games (where its possible). So, that drops FPS -- measurably, but rarely perceptibly (to me).

For example, Fallout 4 was running above 60fps (my max monitor refresh rate). I added all the third party bells and whistles. In the worst case, FPS dropped to a minimum of 14 or so in one very limited scene. In other places it dropped to a minimum of just under 30fps. Those were not averages -- they were minimums. Only the 14FPS area looked "jerky" to my eyes. But, other eyes would vary.

Playing Skyrim SE lately. Again above 60 until I loaded it up. Now in the 40s. Looks good to me.

Yes, this is the AMD fan thread smile

But, I have tried to make it clear that "until we see the unbiased, 3d party tests" we won't know. So, I always poke in the words -- rumor, speculation, leak, etc. I would hate for someone to buy something because I personally misrepresented it. Rather, my aim is to provide fun information.

We'll see how it all turns out later when the Ryzen and Vega actually are being sold to the public.

Meantime, I assume Intel CPUs will still provide an edge in most games. And, Nvidia will do what it has to do to provide a card that beats AMD in FPS. However, I expect the "bang for buck" odds to favor AMD. We'll see if my "speculation" turns out true or false smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/17 04:56 PM

By the way, in the context of what's presented in this thread.

Skatezilla started this thread and the thread is Skatezilla's thread. I only contribute. We don't have any private conversations about it.

I get up early (by USA standards). The first thing I do is check the internet technical sites, then political sites, then science sites. That all takes very few clicks.

Then I come to SimHQ and "report" if I see anything that seems like an incremental advancement of knowledge. So, because I get up early, maybe I get things posted before others have a chance to do it. But, I'm nobody special on this thread -- Skatezilla is the instigator, owner, and AMD insider on this AMD fanbase thread.

There could equally well be an Intel thread and an Nvidia thread on SimHQ -- if someone wanted to start them.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/17 08:32 PM

The Title of the Thread is "Current and Future Status of AMD".


What Else is there to discuss?
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/17 08:38 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
By the way, in the context of what's presented in this thread.

Too much info there: you need not to be apologetic or even explanatory. winkngrin
You are doing very fine, as Skatezilla is and both in an "AMD appreciative" yet very objective manner and I thank you both for that, so much that I do not let myself skip a single post. yep
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 01:53 AM

Quote:
Missed the [W10 Free] Upgrade Offer? Heres How You Can Still Install Windows 10 for Free

Microsoft released Windows 10 as a free upgrade in 2015. The free upgrade offer was extended to all Windows 7 and 8 users for 12 months, which ended in July last year, ahead of the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update. However, the free upgrade hasnt apparently completely ended.

According to reports, thanks to a loophole you can still upgrade your Windows 7 or 8 PC to Windows 10 for free. ...


I tried it just now on the last two computers in the house on Windows 7. I'm upgrading to Windows 10 for free.

Its taking the usual very long time but seems to be working. Because it takes so long, I'm posting now (before I am positive how it turns out) -- in case anyone wants to take advantage tonight. Its really easy to initiate -- just go to the W10 site linked in the article and make a few quick clicks.

As noted before, W10 has a W7-like mode and a W8-like mode. In my opinion, its better than both -- unless you have software that simply will not run on W10 (Microsoft Media Center is the only app we used that doesn't work on W10).

So if you missed the chance to upgrade for free and thereby save up to $120, here's the

Article

[Edit] WHOOPS. Posted a few minutes too soon. A last minute hang up during installation. We'll see if it is fixable or fixes itself.

[Edit 2] IT WORKED on the second try.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 05:35 AM

Im not ready to put my Windows 7 out to pasture.. lol...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 12:30 PM

Quote:
AMD officially announces new FreeSync 2 tech

..with over 20 partners and 121 monitors available with FreeSync support, AMD .. FreeSync is .. more widely adopted compared to Nvidia G-Sync technology..

..The HDR or "high dynamic range" is the next big thing and can be used on both SDR (standard dynamic range) and HDR-capable monitors, but suffers from high input lag, something that AMD will change with the FreeSync 2 technology..

..Currently, the HDR rendering is a two stage process .. FreeSync 2 is a single stage process .. thus lowering the input lag..

..all FreeSync-compatible Radeon GPUs will also support the new FreeSync 2 technology, which means all GCN 1.1 and newer GPUs..

..Currently, Samsung is the only known big partner that has jumped on the FreeSync 2 train...


I personally am interested in HDR (high dynamic range color and contrast) -- that's something one can "see" (not just measure). Newer AMD GPUs can do it -- so, many do not need a new GPU. However, as noted above, one needs a Freesync monitor to get maximum performance -- and Freesync 2 monitors are coming later this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 03:16 PM

Quote:
AMD Radeon RX 560M Featured Inside Lenovos Y520 NotBook Confirms Radeon RX 500 Series

The Radeon RX 560M naming scheme confirms that there will be a Radeon RX 500 series this year...


However, will that be a simple "renaming" of 400 series GPUs. Or, a truly new GPU architecture (based on advanced Polaris or Vega). CES (being held this week) may shed more light.

Anyhow, this may mean that new-design 2017 AMD GPU cards will be named RX5xx (something that has been speculated for a while now).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 03:50 PM

I think the mSeries has always been re-brand of the Series before from desktop

ie. 300m was 200 Series Desktop, 400m is 300 series desktop, etc.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 08:28 PM

Quote:
..MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium Motherboard:

.. has a 10 phase PWM design fitted with the highest quality components. These allow higher overclockability and stability on the Ryzen CPUs which will be fully supported by the AM4 socket. There are two aluminum based heatsinks fitted with heatpipe cooling that dissipate heat from the VRMs.

..Four DDR4 DIMM slots allow for really fast memory support with capacity of up to 64 GB and speeds running past 4000 MHz (O.C.+). Expansion slots include three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and dual M.2 slots out of which one is Turbo speed compatible (32 GB/s). Storage options on the board include 6 SATA III 6 GB/s ports, a Turbo U.2 port and dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 front panel headers...


Just one of the Ryzen friendly "enthusiast class" motherboards at CES today.

I'll probably grab the nominally $500 Ryzen the moment I see it on sale. However, I may delay the Motherboard purchase until I can figure out the best one for me. Historically, I've liked Gigabyte an ASUS the best. But, one has to remain open minded to other brands while choosing.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 08:34 PM

On the competition front. Nvidia has the honor of giving the CES keynote presentation today at 6:30pm PST (2:30am GMT). The Nvidia site and others will livestream it.

Quote:
Watch NVIDIAs CES 2017 Live Stream Here

(NOTE: LIVESTREAM LINK WILL BE ADDED PRIOR TO START OF THE EVENT)


The event will take place in Las Vegas at 6:30 P.M. PST (Pacific Standard Time). We can definitely expect new product announcements in the GeForce and Shield department...


Livestream Article

Of course, I would not deign to watch it smile wink

Actually, 6:30pm PST is past my bedtime smile I'll read about it tomorrow.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/17 08:53 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
..MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium Motherboard:

.. has a 10 phase PWM design fitted with the highest quality components. These allow higher overclockability and stability on the Ryzen CPUs which will be fully supported by the AM4 socket. There are two aluminum based heatsinks fitted with heatpipe cooling that dissipate heat from the VRMs.

..Four DDR4 DIMM slots allow for really fast memory support with capacity of up to 64 GB and speeds running past 4000 MHz (O.C.+). Expansion slots include three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and dual M.2 slots out of which one is Turbo speed compatible (32 GB/s). Storage options on the board include 6 SATA III 6 GB/s ports, a Turbo U.2 port and dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 front panel headers...


Just one of the Ryzen friendly "enthusiast class" motherboards at CES today.

I'll probably grab the nominally $500 Ryzen the moment I see it on sale. However, I may delay the Motherboard purchase until I can figure out the best one for me. Historically, I've liked Gigabyte an ASUS the best. But, one has to remain open minded to other brands while choosing.
.

I've Typically Gone ASuS or ASRock...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 01:43 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
I've Typically Gone ASuS or ASRock...


I was just working on my ASRock MB PC today. So, its also one I've found "worthy" smile




Quote:
..the big Vega Architecture Preview event which starts at 2 PM GMT on January 5th..


Nominally 9am EST tomorrow morning according to the AMD site.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 12:45 PM

A quick summary chart of the AMD CPU Chipsets. For Ryzen, one wants the AM4 column. Note that all the Ryzen/Zen CPUs will be "unlocked" and overclockable -- but, not all motherboard chipsets support overclocking. Many of us on SimHQ (who go the Ryzen route) would be picking an X370 motherboard -- but, B350 is also useable with a single GPU setup (many prefer single GPU).

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 03:52 PM

The Black and Grey X370 looks nice... (i think it's MSI, as ASRock loves red and black).

hopefully the ASMedia SouthBridge Rumors are just Rumors..
Posted By: Hunedog

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 06:36 PM

For me Cheering on AMD like no tomorrow. But I will let
the early adopters work out the inevitable bugs and such.

Revision 2 or 3 Motherboards will be when I consider purchase.

Has been a hardware rule of purchase passed on from one geek
to another 17 or so years ago.



runningdog
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 06:56 PM

i've had Zero Troubles w/ my 990FX Boards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 07:20 PM

Originally Posted By: Hunedog
For me Cheering on AMD like no tomorrow. But...


A wise plan thumbsup

Normally, the second generation irons out the wrinkles in the first generation. I used to use the wait and see approach myself.

But, I have fun trying the new stuff -- and its been years since I was able to try a truly new AMD CPU (and that did not turn out real good). So, I'll take an educated-chance on the latest hardware.

Others need not "take a chance" if they have no immediate needs to fill. Wait for the proof smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 08:06 PM

Quote:
AMD Teases Vega Architecture: More Than 200+ New Features, Ready First Half Of 2017

..Lets cut right to it: Products based on AMDs high-end Vega GPU architecture arent ready yet, but theyre expected sometime between now and the end of June...


So, maybe Vega comes out as late as June 2017 (contrary to earlier rumors that put it at the end of this month or next month). Still glad I got my RX480 "fix" last June 2016 (my wife gets it when my Vega comes).

Meantime, the article at Tom's covers the newness of the Vega architecture. It comes across as highest end and more than just graphics (GPUs are now used for high-end computation as well as graphics). It covers all the bases of modern GPU uses and covers them exceptionally -- in an AMD presentation.

I assume there are other articles and "guesses" out there. But, the bottom line is: We have to wait longer for the empirical facts based on independent tests.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 08:19 PM

OMG I WANTZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/17 11:59 PM

From CES, a small amount of supposedly "hard data":

Quote:
Ryzen demo was using F3 stepping that is clocked at 3.6 GHz / 3.9 GHz, F4 stepping to go even higher

..The good folks over at Canard PC Hardware also revealed that the Ryzen F4 stepping has already been finalized and has a turbo clock of 4.0 GHz. .. it already has a higher clock than Intels 6900k which can turbo to 3.7 GHz. It is even a fair bet that if you were to put the two side by side in a gaming comparison, the Intel counterpart would loose out..

..a single core can hit 5 GHz on air..

..even at this stepping, a 3.9 GHz turbo is more than enough for most modern day games. If you really want to crank out that last bit of juice from your Vega GPU than you can go with an Intel quad-core that can hit the 4.4 GHz mark...


So, 3.6/4.0GHz is the next stepping. Will it be "the last"?

I'm still hoping the $500 Ryzen is a "hand selected" "final stepping" that out performs the numbers seen here (if only by a little bit) and overclocks the best.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/17 07:44 PM

Quote:
[Rumor] EVGA Partnering With AMD On Vega & Radeon RX 500 Series Graphics Cards

According to recent chatter around the tech-sphere, Nvidias biggest partner, EVGA may be jumping on the AMD Vega train this year..

..EVGA is a well established premium brand and the most popular among GeForce customers, especially in north America. Bringing that strong brand recognition over to the Radeon side will help the company [AMD] penetrate new markets and could have a positive impact on Vega sales.. it will also make a relatively small market even more competitive for AMDs existing board-partners and thus could prove to be an unpopular decision for AMD management to even allow it...


Another, "we'll see" rumor. If it happens, it will validate AMD's "new direction". If it doesn't happen, it may only be a "business decision" among AMD, EVGA, and Nvidia -- rather than a "vote of no confidence" (according to the article).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/17 04:48 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Quote:
[Rumor] EVGA Partnering With AMD On Vega & Radeon RX 500 Series Graphics Cards
...


Another, "we'll see" rumor. ...



Now the above quoted [Rumor] article has been updated:


Quote:
[UPDATED] 01/07/2017 5:23:49 PM

EVGA has denied rumors of a partnership with AMD on Vega.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/17 08:02 PM

Quote:
All AMD Ryzen CPUs Are Multiplier Unlocked & Overclocking Ready Out Of The Box

..

All Ryzen CPUs will be multiplier unlocked and ready for overclocking right out of the box. There will be no locked Ryzen CPUs.

AM4 X370, X300 and B350 chipsets all support overclocking.

Ryzen CPUs will come in different configurations with varying core counts. The highest core count parts will have eight cores and support sixteen threads.

Ryzen will launch closer to the middle of Q1 or early Q1 rather than the end of Q1. AMD wouldnt give us a specific date but sometime in February is a good bet.

AM4 compatible aftermarket air and liquid cooling solutions will be available on day one...


Rumored February launch.
Posted By: Hunedog

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/17 07:12 PM

Wow! rolleyes January Vega Hype for a June release...maybe?

The Green Team must be loving that one.

Wake me up when the GPU monopoly is ready to be challenged.

Disappointed to say the least, Pages and pages of click bait, nice.

I will be happily corrected if I am wrong. Humble pie on Standby.



runningdog
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/17 09:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Hunedog
...Pages and pages of click bait...


Yes. Mostly, the rumors come every other day or so -- every few hours during CES last week. In this AMD thread, we post any rumor that adds a particle of new information.

However, at this point, virtually all the CPU/GPU specifications have been "guessed at" or even "correctly leaked". Now, it remains to see what is actually sold to consumers -- and when.

Unless we've been badly mislead bordering on fraud, I expect AMD to be "truly competitive" with its high end products. But, the words "truly competitive" mean different things to different people -- even here at SimHQ smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/17 12:22 PM

And, here's another increment of knowledge:

Quote:
AMD Vega 10 GPU With 8GB HBM2 Powered DOOM 4K Vulkan Demo, Should Outperform GTX 1080 In OpenGL Too

.. interview with AMDs head of Radeon Technologies Group, Raja Koduri, it was revealed that the impressive 4K/60FPS+ DOOM demo that the company showcased was in fact running on the companys brand new high-end Vega 10 GPU, ..

..Vega 10 should in fact beat the GTX 1080 running at the same 4K resolution..at lower resolutions where the game is more CPU bound there would be less of a performance differential between the two..


Emphasis has been on AMD Vulcan performance in public demos -- because Vulcan performance is a strength of Polaris and Vega. The article says the advantage in OpenGL exists but is less because AMD is not putting valuable time into optimizing the performance for "out of date" OpenGL.

All in all, from the tone of articles, I am guessing that Nvidia's best cards will have an advantage in DX11 and maybe OpenGL. I am guessing AMD will have a small advantage in DX12 and Vulcan by some "measures". "Measures" vary -- i.e. absolute FPS, FPS per clock, bang for buck, etc. Each of us has our own "measure". So, we'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/17 03:21 PM

Something based on AMD management statements:

Quote:
AMD Zen Architecture For RYZEN and Naples Processors Will Last Four Years on 14nm Future Zen+ Revisions To Improve Architecture

AMD has confirmed that their Zen CPU architecture for RYZEN processors is expected to last four years. It took AMD four years to develop Zen and it will take another four for Zen to complete its shelve time..

..When asked how long Zen would last, compared to Intels two-year tick-tock cadence, Papermaster confirmed the four-year lifespan and tapped the table in front of him: Were not going tick-tock, he said. Zen is going to be tock, tock, tock. via PCWorld..

..A tock cycle represents a new architecture while a tick cycle represents a process shrink..

[Same Zen CPU core design from fanless notebooks to supercomputers]...


Article

There will be 4 years between AMD "tocks". During that time there will be improvments -- but, the underlying fundamental architecture and process node (e.g. 14nm) will remain during the 4 years. Intel has been changing architecture, then shrinking without large architecture improvement over approximately 4 years (tick 2 years plus tock 2 years -- nothing wrong with the Intel method -- just different). So, for both AMD and Intel, it has been roughly 4 years between major improvements. That will continue -- or so it seems today.

A nice thing about AMD, so far, has been that motherboards last through CPU improvements. So, my original MB for the FX8150 has lasted for FX8350 and FX9590 -- and, on paper, still works with the previous Phenom CPU series. Another "bang for buck" feature of AMD.

Apparently, the tradition of allowing easy relatively-cheap upgrades (just buy new CPU and exchange it with the old one) will continue.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/17 03:49 PM

To me the BIG question will be:

Has AMD marketing learned how to sell on AMD's strengths and avoid comparisons where they are weak?

Naturally this depends on the performance and pricing of the final silicon, and I wonder if the past hasn't seen some real disconnects between what marketing was being told and the reality of the products.

They need to sell what they have, not what they thought or wished they had. While we all wish they could come out with products that would meet or beat Intel's and nvidia's, that's not as important as them selling what they do have at a healthy profit with decent market share. Granted there is a lot of possible overlap in that, but it's not necessarily 100%.

For example, if they had a card at say the 1060's price point that was 15% better in most every way, and they had a good supply of it, that would be good for them, even if they couldn't match the 1070 or 1080 in the same way.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/17 08:08 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
To me the BIG question will be:...


Agree, that is the question. As I often say, "we'll see" smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 10:33 AM

On the competition front:

Quote:
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Will Be Landing Around PAX East (March 10th) According To NVIDIA AIB Employee

..In what appears to be a textbook case of game theory applied to the two chip manufacturers, NVIDIA has pushed back the date of release to put some more polish on the GTX 1080 Ti as they wait for AMD to make a move and enjoy a couple more months of GTX 1080 holding the performance crown uncontested..

..it makes no sense for NVIDIA to reveal the 1080 Ti now, and cannibalize sales of the TITAN X..

..the Vega GPU will offer higher performance than the GTX 1080 which means NVIDIA needs to respond with a consumer variant that offers comparable or higher performance immediately or before the fact, or risk losing market share. One thing is for sure though, Vegas pricing will definitely increase the purchasing power of the average gamer. If Vega is priced correctly, (and there is no reason to assume it wont be), then it will force NVIDIA to slash pricing on the GTX 1080 and offer the GTX 1080 Ti for a premium, because at the end of the day when the dust settles on a pricing war, the consumer wins...


The interesting viewpoint of this article: Without AMD, Intel and Nvidia would be releasing new stuff MUCH more slowly and charging MUCH more for it. Nvidia fans need AMD -- AMD fans need Nvidia and Intel.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 01:12 PM

Competition is good

Agreed and one of the big reasons I watch this thread and board is you two AMD fans great info.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 06:37 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen

The interesting viewpoint of this article: Without AMD, Intel and Nvidia would be releasing new stuff MUCH more slowly and charging MUCH more for it. Nvidia fans need AMD -- AMD fans need Nvidia and Intel.

Competition is good smile


I'd agree with that to a point. Nvidia fans don't need AMD at all.......they get massive performance and pay through the nose for it.

AMD fans are stuck in a world of much lesser performance.

The key point which I actually think you have missed through your AMD tinted spectacles is that the sane gamer needs both AMD and Nvidia to compete to bring both performance up and prices down because the person driven by performance and value doesn't care about brand names. Let's be honest Allen (and I'm not being rude here).....regardless of what value, performance or otherwise Nvidia release you're only looking at AMD anyway even if Nvidia were to produce something that beats Vega at less cost.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 07:05 PM

with no competition, there will be no incentive to keep prices managable nor incentive to actually pay R&D..

So.. You'd Get GTX-1180s for $2000, and no incentive to improve on anything...

if AMD doesnt compete, nVidia and Intel customers will start to get price Gouged.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 07:55 PM

I think that already happened!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 07:58 PM

Originally Posted By: Paradaz
...Nvidia fans don't need AMD at all.......they get massive performance and pay through the nose for it...


The article's direction and my belief is that without AMD, Nvidia fans (and non-aligned shoppers) would not even be looking at 1080Ti in 2017. We'd still be in the 900 series or earlier at a much higher price for the top units (they would have cheaper units for folks who could not afford over $1000 for a GPU).

So, I think all consumers need direct, close competition among products -- not just for cost -- but to have the best possible products in front of them to buy.

I imagine/speculate that in the total absence of competition from AMD (i.e. AMD does not exist) over the last decade, GPU buyers would not even know that "things could have been much better" (as they actually are today).

My opinion, of course smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 08:01 PM

Quote:
AMDs New Vega High Bandwidth Cache Controller Will Double Your Usable Graphics Memory Capacity In Games

..Thats right. An 8GB Vega graphics card, just as an example, will be effectively have as much usable memory as a 16GB graphics card. Its all thanks to the companys brand new High Bandwidth Cache Controller at the heart of every Vega graphics chip...
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 08:33 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
with no competition, there will be no incentive to keep prices managable nor incentive to actually pay R&D..

So.. You'd Get GTX-1180s for $2000, and no incentive to improve on anything...

if AMD doesnt compete, nVidia and Intel customers will start to get price Gouged.


I don't think that's really a concern because sales would simply plummet instead. While there will always be a gullible sliver who will buy anything at any price, there are mostly people who will pay what they think is worthwhile.

We could never have a world of $50,000 Toyota Corollas just because there were no Civics or Malibus or Fiats since most people couldn't afford a $50k car to begin with. They'd just buy the cheaper cars instead. Instead of a $2k 1180, people would go for the under-$500 1160 or 1150 or whatever. People won't get loans for a GPU. Either they keep the prices reasonable or sales will dwindle to nothing.

Now, what we WILL get is what we are already seeing. Minor iterations on an existing product that offer only the most meager of updates in the same price range. Look at the Intel CPU line. There are people still running Sandy Bridge CPUs because they OC'd them without issue and can still run the latest games just fine with a late-model GPU. There have been literally 5 new series of CPUs released since Sandy Bridge and they only offer minor increases in speed overall, with stock clocks actually improving more than the IPC and other architectural improvements have achieved. So if you can clock your SB at 4.5GHZ and keep it there, there's no reason to get a Kaby Lake!

AMD's existence has kept the price ranges of those products in check, but has done nothing to spur any innovation.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/17 08:46 PM

there would be low price point options, and they'll most likely be gimped and outdated versions, while the upper price point options are the new things.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/17 01:25 AM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen 4 Core CPUs Begin Sampling, Will Take On Intels i3 & i5

AMD has reportedly begun sampling 4 core, 4 thread Ryzen CPUs . These new quad cores have multi-threading disabled and will be the companys entry-level Ryzen processors set to take on Intels i5 and i3 chips on the desktop.

Affordable, Fully Unlocked 45W Ryzen Quad Cores For The Masses

..[All Ryzen/Zen] will have unlocked multipliers and will feature full overclocking support on X370 and B350 chipset AM4 motherboards. This will perhaps make them the most potent gaming chips in their class, especially considering Intels entire i5 and i3 lineups are locked. Save for one SKU each, which the company [Intel] sells at a premium..

[3.4GHz minimum clocks]...


Article says 6 core is coming also. These are to launch a month or more after the first Ryzen "top of the line" CPUs.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/17 02:31 AM

Im Hearing Launch Before GDC.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/17 04:51 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
Im Hearing Launch Before GDC.


Good catch.

Quote:
AMD accidently announces Ryzen launch date

AMD indicated that the official Ryzen launch date will be sometime before March. [just prior to GDC]..

..GDC event runs from 27 February to 3 March...


Quote:
AMDs High-Performance Vega GPUs To Launch in May Up To 8 GB HBM2 VRAM, 4096 Cores, Aimed at 4K AAA and VR Gaming
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/17 06:05 PM

Likely a Paper Launch, but at this point, it's better than NO_LAUNCH = TRUE <>
Posted By: kestrel79

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/17 05:33 PM

Waiting for the next AMD video cards to upgrade.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/17 12:23 AM

Quote:
AMDs Infinity Fabric Detailed The Innovative, Real-World Implementation of The Companys Perfect Lego Philosophy

..So what is the big deal about it? Well, even if you are to leave all the high level talk behind, one of the biggest impacts of Infinity Fabric is that it will allow AMD to fully utilize DRAM available to any SoC or GPU. This means that textbook and theoretical performance limits will be achievable and will result in an overall power efficient architectural design.

Secondly if you take a look at the slides, you will notice how the Infinity Fabric is now so much more than just HyperTransport. It is the physical implementation of AMDs all-encompassing Lego philosophy, for lack of a better word, where everything is fully scalable and a 100% flexible..

..this would only solidify AMDs position in the console market because the company will literally be handing them all the flexibility they could ever ask for.


Found on Ryzen, Vega, the article explains the advantages over the classic Intel way, among other things. But, there is tech talk (high level talk) involved that I can't summarize (or even completely understand -- as it is not my specialty).

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/17 08:04 PM

New Drivers
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles...px?sf51406476=1
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/17 05:01 PM

Quote:
i7 7700k vs A10 7700k: IGP Gaming Performance Showdown


The video compares the:

$350 Intel i7 7700K 4core/8thread, 3100MHz DDR4 memory, etc. (using its Internal GPU).

to the OLD architecture (soon to be replace by Zen architecture)

$75 AMD A10 7700K, 2100MHz DDR3, etc. (only 386 shaders vs normal 512 in top AMD APUs).

Shockingly, the AMD A10 Wins for gaming. The FPS was close between both (sometimes AMD wins, sometimes Intel wins). But, the graphical quality was better for the AMD A10 -- according to the reviewer. I was honestly surprised that the overwhelming CPU superiority of Intel was not enough to beat a mid-level AMD APU.

My view is that in the long run, CPUs and GPUs will be replaced by APUs (both CPU and GPU on one chip) for nearly every application -- except for gaming fanatics. We'll see.

Article with Video
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/17 05:31 PM

Intel's IGP Architecture is a joke, and is falling behind.

Either they remove them and save the space/power or they replace them with a new one, and there were never any hits that IntelHD Graphics Cores would get a new re-vamp.

Rumors of AMD Agreements, but nothing confirmed.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/17 12:41 AM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla


Broken drivers for me. I do not remember the last time I had issues with AMD drivers. Maybe on of the early Crimsons?

Games suddenly dropped from 70 frames to 25-30 and stutter like hell. Turns out the memory clocks were dropping from 1500 to 150 and staying there for no reason.

Adding Sapphire Trixx back helped to stabilize the clocks, but any game using Freesync would cause the screen to flicker like crazy.

Cleaned up with DDU and reverted back to 16.11.5 and I even got better performance than with the 16.12s.

Seen quite a lot of postings on this in various forums. Could it be that AMD is starting to EOL Fiji?
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/17 02:07 PM

Gaming with an Intel IGP is kind of like preparing to swim in the Olympics by injecting lidocaine into your arms and legs before jumping in to keep yourself loose.

Friends don't let friends game with integrated graphics.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/17 03:13 PM

it's like trying to qualify for Daytona in a Barbie Pink Hummer Power Wheels.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/17 03:18 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla


Broken drivers for me. I do not remember the last time I had issues with AMD drivers. Maybe on of the early Crimsons?

Games suddenly dropped from 70 frames to 25-30 and stutter like hell. Turns out the memory clocks were dropping from 1500 to 150 and staying there for no reason.

Adding Sapphire Trixx back helped to stabilize the clocks, but any game using Freesync would cause the screen to flicker like crazy.

Cleaned up with DDU and reverted back to 16.11.5 and I even got better performance than with the 16.12s.

Seen quite a lot of postings on this in various forums. Could it be that AMD is starting to EOL Fiji?


I've had Flickering on my screens, but nothing shows in logs so I'm not sure if it's because of the cables or not, but if 1 screen is on, 1 screen does it, if 3 are on all 3 do it, if 5 screens are on, all 5 do it... might be the GPU, as I was swapping them in and out when I was trying to get VR to work w/ my GPUs, I might swap the primary and secondary lightnings and see if that resolves the issue.

outside of a few other lil things, the crimson drivers have been pretty much stable, once I figured out how to manage displays.

I dont really use eyefinity arrays anymore, as all my games support multi-screens, and older ones that don't I can run using manual resolution selection and it goes across all 3 screens, or I can run Full Screen on 1 if I choose and use another screen for something else.

and most of the games i play, I play in VR Now anyway (DCS, Elite:D, Racing Sims etc)

Eyefinity was fun when games didnt support Multi-Screens, but It's easier for me to just run multiple extended desktops.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/17 04:09 PM

nVidia's 12nm Volta GPUs might be coming to keep ahead of AMD this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/17 11:22 PM

Quote:
Windows [10] Game Mode Focuses On Performance Consistency; Will Also Benefit Win32 PC Games In Some Way

The recently revealed Windows [10] Game Mode will focus on performance consistency, rather than performance boosts..

..the mode aims to make framerates more consistent. .. Game Mode will also limit CPU thread contention between your games and existing system processes..

..certain Windows 10 games will have Game Mode enabled by default, and players will have to option to disable it if desired.

Game Mode will release tomorrow for Windows Insiders (build 15019) and is slated for a release on consumer PCs this April.


So, when one is gaming on Windows 10, Windows 10 will make the game the "first priority" when threading conflicts occur between the game and other processes. That will probably help "weaker" CPUs (like in a laptop) play games better -- for example, AMD APUs in laptops.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 01:20 AM

Will also help systems w/ 4GB or Less Ram.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 02:03 PM

It should help across the board, if it works like it should. More noticeable in less powerful systems, of course, which are more likely to experience sudden dips and stutters in the first place.

I'm just skeptical. This is the kind of thing MS could've put in place long ago but never did. That makes you wonder if it was far more difficult than we imagined it might be, and why that might be the case.

Last time I had separate "gaming" and "general" configs was in my DOS days when I made an autoexec.bat and config.sys which asked me on boot to either go slim and clean for gaming or load up drivers for everything for when I wasn't gaming.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 07:00 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
.. makes you wonder if it was far more difficult than we imagined it might be, and why that might be the case...


I've always felt that Microsoft was a "grade-B" company that just happened to have the rights to the best all-around OS made to date.

Its really only the best OS because "almost everyone" making a PC type device used it -- so it stayed around and kept improving. However, Microsoft product-engineering is "second rate" (the individual engineers are outstanding -- its the leadership-problem to my mind).

So, maybe it was hard -- for them as a company. Or maybe, being grade-B, they just did not care to try to make the customer experience better until now. We all remember Vista and W8 "hiccups" -- anyone could have seen the issues coming but they didn't -- same company.

All merely Opinion, of course.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 07:09 PM

Previous Windows builds had issues with memory errors etc when other tasks were given higher cpu and memory priority,.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 09:20 PM

Right, and I believe that all stems from 90s-era decisions to run so much through the kernel to improve speed. In return for decent performance out of that Pentium 300 we had to deal with far more BSODs than we do now.
I think they've slowly been returning the OS to a modular system for stability, with faster hardware more than making up for the relative loss in speed.

The problem is how tightly bound those optimizations were. They could have built a totally new one, but like many OS Windows has to worry about backwards compatibility. So legacy stuff gets left in, a LOT of it.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 09:48 PM

With my "reservations" about Microsoft, I do credit them with maintaining very good backward compatibility.

As I remember it with Vista, some Microsoft insiders indicated the overall design was so complex and deep that no single person on the team actually understood it. Thus, they said, a lot of inconsistencies appeared. Within the time and development budget, all they could do was superficially patch and hope.

On a positive note: I think Windows 10 gets it right -- finally. At least based on my usage and reading. This does not mean they got it "perfect" as Windows 10 is too complex for humans to get "perfect".

Windows 53 will probably be perfect as it will be developed by sentient-AI, not people.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 09:51 PM

Released in 2053?



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/17 10:11 PM

Maybe 2097?

My favorite personal "prediction" is that AI will replace 98 percent of us within only 50 years (for intellectual tasks). Moreover, within 100 years, AI will be able to replace human intelligence for 100 percent of everything (tasks that only need intelligence and creativity). Robots may NOT replace humans for things needing agility (e.g. gymnastics) until 150 or more years.

It remains to be seen if humans allow that, however. Probably they will -- leading to a very boring but comfortable life for almost everyone -- or not, depending on politics.

Just a guess smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/27/17 02:27 PM

Both the Matrix and Dune series went off that idea...that humanity got the robots to do it all, lived a life of hedonism and leisure, and then the robots took over. Either spontaneously in the Matrix or by the design of angry rebels in Dune, humanity was then enslaved and spent centuries fighting to get out of it.

I'm not worried about it, though, it would take at least 100+ years before we could get to that point, so I won't be around. smile


The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/17 12:13 PM

Uh-oh,

Quote:
...AMD Ryzen Enthusiast Flagship Processors May Cost Up To $720 US

The second part to this story is also a rumor coming from Zolkorn which alleges that the top SKU in the Ryzen family may cost between $580 to $720 US. Judging the performance of the Ryzen sample which AMD tested against the Core i7-6900K, this may in fact be the case. The top-end SKU which is clocked beyond 3.6 GHz at the base clock and boosts beyond that...


I do remember the FX9590 was selling for several hundred dollars when it was released (I seem to remember well above $500) -- it was not worth it.

I waited until it got down to $200 on sale.

As a "hungry" AMD fan, I'm willing to go $500 for the top model. Hate to have to "wait" for that price.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/17 02:24 PM

They may test the waters to see how much they can sell at that range. I doubt it will be much unless this is proven to be comparable in performance.

Still, that's too much. I've not spent more than $350 on a CPU in so long...I remember spending $900 for a Pentium 90 in 1995 eek but since then I've stayed under $400 IIRC. Pretty sure my Athlon 1.2 GHz was. Frankly I've never regretted it. I prefer to spend less and upgrade it more often instead. Usually the CPU out for $350 in 2-3 years is faster than the top-end one today anyway. wink



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/17 03:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Uh-oh,

Quote:
...AMD Ryzen Enthusiast Flagship Processors May Cost Up To $720 US

The second part to this story is also a rumor coming from Zolkorn which alleges that the top SKU in the Ryzen family may cost between $580 to $720 US. Judging the performance of the Ryzen sample which AMD tested against the Core i7-6900K, this may in fact be the case. The top-end SKU which is clocked beyond 3.6 GHz at the base clock and boosts beyond that...


I do remember the FX9590 was selling for several hundred dollars when it was released (I seem to remember well above $500) -- it was not worth it.

I waited until it got down to $200 on sale.

As a "hungry" AMD fan, I'm willing to go $500 for the top model. Hate to have to "wait" for that price.


The FX95xx Series was simply FX8350s Cherry picked during testing, the ones that operated at higher freqs w/ lower mV were binned for the 9000 Series.

It was a Waste of Marketing Money to develope the material to market it.

That was on the head of the Old AMD CEO, who continued to try and hold up a the Flawed CMT Designed w/ Marketing tricks.

I dont see the point in the FX8370 or FX8300 either, as they are simply lower or higher binned 8350/20s depending on their stable mV Draw

Should Just done: 8300, 6300, 4300. if a User wanted to OC then that's their gamble. and their problem to find a chip that would OC Better.


Back in the Sub 1GHz Days, 100MHz etc is 1/10th to 1/5th of the performance, you can have 200MHz and 266MHz Versions of the same chip, and it's be worth the money, same with 500 and 750, etc.

But now, 3.3 GHz (8300) to 3.5 (8320) w/ Similar Turbo Limits, Similar TDP.

$20-50 for 200 Mhz more base clock, waste of money to create a separate sku and marketing media for something that close to another one of your own products.

Same for 4.0 GHz (8350) at $149 to 4.0GHz (8370) for $190, you're paying for 100MHz Extra Turbo (from 4.2 to 4.3)

While a FX9590 4.7GHz is the same price as the 8370 now ($190)

Waste of Marketing Budget.



As an Avid AMD Fan, See all that Irked my Nerves,

And I'm pretty sure that was what led to AMD Cleaning House at the Upper management Level.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/17 08:47 PM

Originally Posted By: Bib4Tuna
Originally Posted By: SkateZilla


Broken drivers for me. I do not remember the last time I had issues with AMD drivers. Maybe on of the early Crimsons?

Games suddenly dropped from 70 frames to 25-30 and stutter like hell. Turns out the memory clocks were dropping from 1500 to 150 and staying there for no reason.

Adding Sapphire Trixx back helped to stabilize the clocks, but any game using Freesync would cause the screen to flicker like crazy.

Cleaned up with DDU and reverted back to 16.11.5 and I even got better performance than with the 16.12s.

Seen quite a lot of postings on this in various forums. Could it be that AMD is starting to EOL Fiji?


New Driver: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles...ease-Notes.aspx

Hopefully this is the fix for the issues I was having:
Quote:

Fixed Issues
Changing memory clocks with Radeon WattMan with more than one display connected may cause memory clocks to intermittently become stuck at their minimum setting or switch between min and max ranges intermittently causing display flickering.


EDIT: NOPE! Back to 16.11.5. sigh
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/17 02:33 AM

AMD Zen to only Do 4 Cores 8T, 8 Cores w/ SMT Disabled, 8 Cores 16T

No 2, 3 or 6 Versions, Zen is Fabbed in Groups of 4.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/17 06:24 PM

Never understood why you would buy 6 core when you can get 4-core or 8-core.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 12:23 AM

A little more detail on the new Motherboards today. Notable:

One socket for all newer AMD CPUs and APUs -- now and for a few years of CPU/APU releases. "Bang for Buck" upgrading -- just buy the latest CPU or APU and plug it in. Unlike Intel in the past, AMD in the past has tried to stick with a "universal" motherboard for a few years at a time (but had one for CPU and one for APU -- now one MB fits all).

ASUS (and probably other) high end motherboards support 8 SATA drives (and probably/possibly some special extra fast SSD interfaces). I personally need 8 SATA.


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 10:08 AM

Quote:
AMD FY 2016 Results Beat Analyst Expectations Posts Loss Per Share Of $0.01 On Revenue of $1.11 Billion, Getting Ready For A Strong Q2 2017

..Our Take on AMD: Gearing up for a quiet Q1 but a roaring Q2 2017 with Ryzen and Vega
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 02:00 PM

Originally Posted By: BlueHeron
Never understood why you would buy 6 core when you can get 4-core or 8-core.


Because selling an 8-core chip with 2 bad ones disabled makes them cheaper. biggrin



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 03:54 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
Originally Posted By: BlueHeron
Never understood why you would buy 6 core when you can get 4-core or 8-core.


Because selling an 8-core chip with 2 bad ones disabled makes them cheaper. biggrin



The Jedi Master


The issue here is, Ryzen isnt Fabbed in Clusters of 2, they are Fabbed in clusters of 4.

So 4 Core, 8 Core, 12 Core, 16 Cores, up to 32 Cores.

They were mum to what they are doing w/ Fabs where any of the 4 cores have a defect.

Maybe down the line clearance chips. 3 or 6 core etc.
But I doubt it. if any of the 4 are defective, disable 2 via laser cut and sell as cheap entry level 2 core, but even that is likely a longshot as dual cores are pretty much obsolete 4 or more seems to be the minimum, and with the low power draw, 4 core CPU or 4 Core APU/GCN Cores will easily function fine in laptops.

if Zen Moves at a Decent Volume and yields are decent enough, AMD could likely afford to throw away any damaged clusters as a loss,

or if possible, like I said, Laser cut 2 off and sell to super low cost entry level laptop manufacturers as a OEM Dual/Three Core.



Also, Zen will Launch in March, w/ Vega in Q2.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 04:13 PM

I see, it's a way to sell off chips with partial defects. Makes sense.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 09:23 PM

Quote:
AMD confirms Ryzen and Vega are on track

..Dr. Lisa Su also confirmed that its Ryzen CPUs, based on Zen CPU architecture, as well as socket AM4 motherboards, are still on track, scheduled to launch in Q1 2017. This means that these should be ready before the end of April, but earlier rumors suggest that AMD could make an official launch at the GDC 2017 show, which starts on February 27th.

Dr. Su also noted that the first graphics cards based on Vega GPU architecture should ship in Q2 2017, which means anywhere between May and August, but some earlier rumors suggesting May or June...
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 09:30 PM

GPUs have been doing this, too. For example, nvidia has been doing this with their 70/80/80Ti series. They're called CUs instead of cores, but it's the same principle.

Usually the first thing they start trying to make are 80s. The chips are designed with lets say 18 CUs. Early yields are always iffy, so the 80s will have 17 enabled CUs as odds are a huge amount of the early runs will have at least one faulty one.
The 70s will have even fewer CUs enabled, so that's where the chips with bigger flaws go at a lower price, although production cost is of course identical.

Later on, as yields improve, two things happen. First, 70s stop being failed 80s and are later revs of chips built with fewer CUs to start with (lower cost to produce, important as around this time the 70 prices start to come under pressure).
Second, the 80Ti comes out with all CUs enabled because yields are good enough. Still, a good percentage will need one disabled and be sold as a regular 80, but the number of fully functional chips now supports a Ti product line. This both gives the line a bump in sales and performance a couple of months after the initial flurry of activity, and helps fill the gap till the next gen arrives.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 09:32 PM

Do AMD know that 'Q' is short for quarter?

Q1 ends 31st March
Q2 ends 30th June
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 09:53 PM

Some companies' fiscal years do not match the calendar year. I don't know what AMD's is offhand, but some companies started Q2 2017 in January. Maybe AMD's starts late?



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/17 10:18 PM

Interesting. As noted above, companies are free to define their own "quarters".

According to AMD, they do follow the normal calendar. That's different than what the article quoted above implied.

From the AMD site, the following example:

Quote:
12. What are AMDs fiscal year and quarters?
AMDs fiscal year follows the standard calendar year. Fiscal quarters for the 2015 year (exact dates are adjusted early):

First Quarter: December 28, 2014 March 28, 2015
Second Quarter: March 29, 2015 June 27, 2015
Third Quarter: June 28, 2015 September 26, 2015
Fourth Quarter: September 27, 2015 December 26, 2015
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/17 10:34 AM

Why we call what we post here about Ryzen and Vega "rumors" and "speculations" and "leaks" -- until the product is on the street and independently tested.

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Family Will Include 6 Core Processors 6 Core Variant Will Clock Up To 3.7 GHz, 8 Core With Up To 4.0 GHz Clock Speeds

A day after it was rumored that the AMD Ryzen processor family will not include a 6 core model, another leak has popped up which says otherwise. Not only is it now confirmed that AMD will have a 6 core SKU in the line up but clock speeds for at least two models have also been confirmed.

AMD Ryzen High-End Processor Lineup Will Include Multiple 4, 6 and 8 Core Models With SMT Support

..The third 8 core model is the ZD3601BAM88F4_40/36_Y which is the highest clocked model with base clock of 3.6 GHz and boost clock of 4.0 GHz...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/17 10:49 AM

On the Competition front:

Quote:
NVIDIAs Interest in GeForce Founders Edition Graphics Cards Continues To Grow Will Be Competing With Add-In-Board Partners

..plans to continue producing them in 2017 going forward. This will of course mean that NVIDIA will be competing with its very own add-in-board partners for the market share ...


We noted once before: Back in the day, 3DFx was the "unchallenged leader" in 3D graphics "chips". They made chips that they sold to graphics card makers. Then, they wanted "more". 3DFx bought its own factory and started making 3DFx cards. Within a very short time they were "out of business" (I think Nvidia bought their intellectual property, if I remember right). The details of their "fail" were "complicated" -- beyond the scope of this simple post.

While "competition is good", competing against your own manufacturing base does not always turn out well. However, I do expect Nvidia to keep moving along -- Nvidia is not the type to "fail".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/17 03:25 PM

Making their own cards isnt what killed them, Over spending and Conflict withing the Board/Shareholders/Creditors did.
Being Stiffed for Millions in R&D By Sega Didnt Help.

Spent a lil too much Acquiring STB, negligible, but was a big deal, as they would not sell chips to OEM Partners and STB couldnt keep up in manufacturing or costs.

nVidia swooped in and swiped the OEM and ODM market from them.

CEO Shifted money from a Infantcy Project to Making All In One 2D/3D Cards Faster (VooDoo3), This Angered the Board.

The Nail in the Coffin was Direct3D, Which Voodoo 2 Did not support, So Gamers started purchasing other cards.

Market Share Dropped.

A few board Members filed to started bankruptcy proceedings, once started cannot be stopped, instead CEO Decided to Sell Company to nVidia.

nVidia Acquired all 3DFX IP, and Discontinued Support for all 3DFx Products.

nVidia Took the Developments of Hardware T&L and Applied it to their Next GPUs, Same with SLi
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/17 01:38 AM

Thanks for that.

And nVidia continues to DOMINATE the video card market, year after year. The best thing AMD has done is keep nVidia prices down...a little. Thanks.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/17 02:08 PM

Yes, if nvidia was to repeat the mistakes of 3DFx, when they are the ones that bought them in the first place, I would be astounded.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/17 05:17 PM

it's a different market now than what it was 20 years ago.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/17 09:05 PM

A firmer Ryzen rumor (that has only a tiny little bit of new speculative information):

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Processor Lineup Leaks Out, R7 1800X 4 GHz Flagship CPU Detailed Up To 17 8 Core, 6 Core, 4 Core Models, 2nd March Launch

..will feature up to 17 various models, utilizing the Zen core architecture..

..hints that AMD will have special overclocking models in the Ryzen family..

..expected to operate at base clocks of 3.6 GHz and boost clocks of 4.0 GHz..

..The [Top/Black] chip will have enthusiast level pricing so expect something around $499-$699 US...


The leak article does tend to say more about the lower level Ryzen units than previously.

Leak Article

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/17 10:01 PM

wccftech is hit and miss,

And I believe no 6 cores has already been confirmed. (gonna have to double check)
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/17 03:19 PM

Articles About Intel CPU's w/ AMD GPU's

https://www.techpowerup.com/230360/first-intel-processor-with-amd-radeon-graphics-within-2017

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56129/intel-cpu-amd-radeon-graphics-coming-year/index.html


Seems less like AMD GPU Built onto CPU and more like a Custom Laptop Daughterboard w/ CPU and GPU Dies on Same PCB next to each other.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/07/17 07:27 PM

A couple more articles that repeat some competition-type rumors -- basically, AMD going after more cash (which it needs).

Quote:
AMD Files A Lawsuit Against LG, Vizio, MediaTek and Sigma Designs For Infringing Its GPU Technology


Quote:
Intels Nvidia GPU license expires in March

..Industry veteran journalist Kyle Bennet wrote back in December that Intel might launch a CPU powered by Radeon technology. This happens in the middle of the last quarter when Nvidia and Intel's cross licensing GPU deal is about to expire..

..AMD will license its GPU technology to Intel and get some much-needed cash. Nvidia is always the more expensive choice. .. recognize the pattern that both PlayStation and Xbox stayed away from Nvidia simply as AMD was the more affordable choice..

..We would expect to see some announcements related to a potential AMD Intel deal in the next few months .. many will argue that AMD is hardly going to benefit from it...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/17 11:56 AM

Regarding Competition (which is good smile ):


Quote:
Intel Readies Kaby Lake-X Core i7-7740K and Core i5-7640K To Tackle Ryzen Chips 112W TDP And Higher Clock Speeds

..The Intel Core i7-7740K processor will become the fastest Core i7 chip in the Kaby Lake lineup. It will replace the Core i7-7700K with slightly better specs. ..

The clock speeds are rated 4.3 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost. The processor packs 8 MB of L3 cache and has a TDP of 112W. Theres no word on the retail price...


Due later this year.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/17 03:46 PM

http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/102274-amd-ryzens-x86-core-10pc-compact-intels/

AMD Zen is 10% Smaller than Intel's Chips.

3/6/12 Cores still unconfirmed (wccftech is still only "source" everyone else links back to them).
Intel Slot Chips w/ iCore CPU and AMD GPU on Single Substrate Package is still Rumors as well.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/17 10:19 AM

A rumor, but hyped as very credible, verifies some of the previous speculations:

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Lineup & Prices Confirmed, 8 Cores For As Low As $320

..expected on-shelf availability on March 2nd..

..include the Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 1700. All three of these have been listed for pre-order on a number of online retailers and feature 8 cores and 16 threads..

..AMDs highest performing Ryzen CPU, the 1800X will retail for less than $499. A piece of information we made public nearly three months ago in our exclusive Ryzen report. So we know that much hasnt changed since November...




If it turns out this way, I'll spend the extra $100+ for the insignificant extra 0.2GHz -- however, I expect most folks to be smarter than that smile

I've already updated the disks in my current system (the one in the signature) towards the Ryzen build -- I added 2 3TB and 1 6TB drives (replacing 3 smaller HD). I have my new case.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/17 05:02 AM

http://www.barrons.com/articles/this-time-amds-revival-is-for-real-1486188068?sf54632957=1
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/17 05:47 AM

For us without a subscription, could you summarize in points why the hype is justified this time around?

Sure, they're on the right track, but I see no reason how Ryzen and Vega will break Intel supremacy. They'll just force them to lower prices to non-monopoly standards at best.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/17 11:06 AM

Originally Posted By: Vaderini
...They'll just force them to lower prices to non-monopoly standards at best.


You've given exactly the correct interpretation.

One theme in this thread is that AMD is good for competition and "competition is good" for everyone -- including Intel buyers smile

The rumor/speculation was that the AMD Ryzen CPUs will be nearly as good as Intel -- for significantly less money -- particularly in the 8core/16thread regime. The 8 core Ryzen may be equal or better for half the price -- was the speculation based on a few "leaks" that showed actual test data.

Worth noting that some recent games on advanced engines can make use of more than 4 cores. For example, some consoles have 8 "cores" (don't know how they are used in a game -- maybe all are not used). Also, consoles are AMD hardware -- thus, many future games will be optimized around AMD hardware (rather than Intel/Nvidia as in the past).

Now pre-order prices are showing up on the web that, if true, verify the low price. We won't be sure of the performance until the Ryzen is "on the street" and tested by the hardware sites.

Seems like release to the street will be in approximately 3 weeks. Initial quantities are expected to sell out quickly.

Of course, Intel will "have an answer".

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/17 11:41 AM

They say March 2 (but some still speculate February 28). They are noting "Extended Frequency Range" on three models. Those models are said to come with a special cooler.

The article repeats my thought (above) that some games now use 8 cores. Some time ago, I read on X-Plane's site that they are going much higher than 8 threads (I own X-Plane but haven't checked threads used when I play).

Quote:

..Full AMD Ryzen CPU Lineup Detailed 17 95W-65W Chips With 8, 6 & 4 Cores To Choose From

The 17 SKU lineup includes five 8-core CPUs, four 6-core CPUs and eight 4-core CPUs. We have two Black Edition 8-core CPUs, one Black Edition 6-core and two Black Edition 4-core CPUs. The Black Editions feature AMDs clever Extended Frequency Range technology, otherwise known as XFR..

XFR automatically overclocks Ryzen, allowing it to exceed the default Turbo clock speed whenever the thermal environment allows..

..AMD .. bundle Black Editions with the highest performing cooler they have. The better the cooling the higher the CPUs will auto-overclock so to speak...


Interesting that they seem to think the factory cooler will allow some overclocking. I don't expect much from a standard, in-the-box cooler (but a truly good cooler may be part of AMDs game-changing strategy). A more official looking listing -- showing the three special Ryzens near the top:

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/17 06:26 PM

The Wraith Cooler, is A lot better than the old Alu Block w/ 4 Heatpipes and plate, I've worked w/ it on several 8 core FX8370s the last few months. and those are 140w plus parts,

Slap that Puppy on a 65-95w Part and you'll easily have 45-75w of TDP Headroom in a Cool Environment (ie 70 Room Temp).

Many companies are allowing users to apply for free AM4 Upgrade Kits for their Heatsinks too.


The Wraith Cooler is HUUUGE though



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/17 10:04 PM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Full Lineup Prices, Specs & Clock Speeds Leaked




Seems bang-for-buck competitive.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/17 02:56 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amds-ryzen-7-1700x-delivers-i7-6900k-performance-at-bargain-price
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/17 03:08 PM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen X370 & B350 Asus Motherboard Prices Leaked Launching February 24th


USA Prices estimated from Australian prices (accounting for currency exchange, import duties, etc). May not be perfectly accurate. But, they give a "feel" for the price range.

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/17 03:32 PM

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/24...cpu-leak-online
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/17 11:54 PM

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-3dmark-benchmarks-leaked-faster-core-intels-i7-6950x/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/17 12:11 PM

Don't know if this is true. But, it is presented as true:

Quote:
...AMDs fastest Ryzen CPUs, the 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700 are now available for pre-order with a February 28th launch date. The three CPUs have been listed by Belgian online retailer centralpoint.be and are up for grabs at 499, 389 and 319 respectively excluding VAT. Confirming their previously leaked $499, $389 and $319 US retail prices...


A poll indicated half of Ryzen buyers are going 8core/16thread -- and that there are many "waiting to buy". Hopefully, I'll get in on the first action -- and not be "closed out" in the first hours after release (before I can order). On the other hand, maybe they made enough $499 Ryzen for the first couple days of orders. We'll see.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/17 02:54 PM

IMO the extra cores route has not borne fruit.

I have a CPU gauge on my G15 kb and it shows me in real time how much of my CPU is in use. I know from experience that one core maxed on my quad w/HT is 12% on that graph. Two would be 25%, etc.

In most of my games, outside of initial loading and occasional loading between maps/levels/whatever (times when you're watching a loading screen) when I will see it spike as high as 70-80%, the majority of my gaming time that graph is under 20%. To put it another way, most games don't even max 2 cores during times of interactivity. If I had 6 or 8 or more cores, I'd still be using just one to two cores. They'd sit idle and do nothing.

What matters most is how fast those 2 cores are running. This is because games are inherently serial, not parallel. Each step depends on what happened before it so you can't have things all processed at the same time.

What I would really like to see is a 5+Ghz 2/3 core CPU. I bet it would beat these multicore behemoths in games hands-down.

As for those CPUs doing better in other applications, well...all I use my PC for is gaming so that ability is totally immaterial.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/17 05:21 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
IMO the extra cores route has not borne fruit...


Agree with your analysis.

I'm buying 8 because, in looking at the leaked specifications, the 1800X 8core/16thread is faster per core than any of the rest (unlike the fastest Intel CPUs). I'm glad its that way (see the "strictly psychological" reason below).

Also, 2 cores is plenty for most games (across all game eras). However, I'm guessing that the newest high-graphics games will tend toward many threads -- over the years I own the Ryzen. So, I'm not buying to play current games better (they all work for me and I do not expect to see a difference). Rather, its one or two future games I buy that may show a difference (not really cost effective -- just for fun smile ).

I do make videos and do some things that can be a bit faster with more cores/treads.

And, strictly psychological: I have an 8 core CPU now. I'd hate to take a step backwards in core count -- I tend to always want things that work better and "seem/sound better" (even if they are not always that much better).

My understanding is that the actual performance of an 8 core / 16 thread unit is only about 20 percent (on average roughly) faster than the same design 8 cores / 8 threads units. And, 8/16 may be no faster but, rather, slower in some cases. So, CPU raw-core count means more than thread count. On that basis, the cheaper 8core/8thread Ryzens make "dollars and sense".
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/17 09:42 PM

Yeah, if you do things that are strictly CPU-intensive like videos and compression and things, more cores will help. It's just that for gaming it's fallen short of the promise.

As for future proofing, I'm sure everyone who bought a Core 2 Quad CPU is still waiting for that moment. smile

I think in the future the answer is going to be specialized cores. General is nice in theory, but in practice it's wasted.
Right now, we already have the GPU offloading all that work from the CPU that theoretically it could do (but would run at under 1 FPS for most games). We used to have separate sound cards, in fact I still do as I never gave up my X Fi, but when CPUs got fast it stopped for mainstream use.

If the CPU became the true CENTRAL PU, with only a couple of cores, but farmed out video to a specialized core/PU that worked with the video, and another core worked only with sound, and another core worked only with AI, and another core worked on storage IO, and so on while the CPU oversaw it all and combined the results of the specialized units...I think we could see an increase. However, in the short term I think this would drive up costs both for hardware (mobos would be more complex as well as processors) and software (programming would require a totally new compiler and way of thinking), so I'm not hopeful.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/17 08:46 AM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Reviews Coming February 28th Press Now Receiving Samples

Reviews for AMDs next generation Ryzen CPUs will go live on February 28th and will include about half a dozen different models .. The company is currently in the process of seeding review samples to testers across the globe. AMDs officially announced launch date for Ryzen is March 2nd. .. begin shipping to customers a couple of days before that.

In fact, just a few hours ago several European retailers had begun taking pre-orders for the Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700. With shipments expected to commence on the 28th...
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/17 05:58 PM

Originally Posted By: Allen
Don't know if this is true. But, it is presented as true:

Quote:
...AMDs fastest Ryzen CPUs, the 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700 are now available for pre-order with a February 28th launch date. The three CPUs have been listed by Belgian online retailer centralpoint.be and are up for grabs at 499, 389 and 319 respectively excluding VAT. Confirming their previously leaked $499, $389 and $319 US retail prices...


A poll indicated half of Ryzen buyers are going 8core/16thread -- and that there are many "waiting to buy". Hopefully, I'll get in on the first action -- and not be "closed out" in the first hours after release (before I can order). On the other hand, maybe they made enough $499 Ryzen for the first couple days of orders. We'll see.

centralpoint.be is aimed at business/bulk customers. They're prices are always on the high side of the scale, but people still buy there because of it's customer support, broad array of products and reliability of shipment.

pc21.fr's leaked prices are more reliable, and knocks the price down a couple of pegs more.
http://imgur.com/a/ZtBgT

If we take the rumors as true, and compare these prices to the supposed Intel competitors:

1700X: 347,30 vs. i7-6900K 973,90 ( 626,60 cheaper, I can completely overhaul a system for that money!)
1700X: 347,30 vs. i7-6800K 407,85 (15% cheaper, although according to the 3D Mark Total Score the 6800K competitor will be the 1600X)

These figures really make me excited, can't wait which benchmarks it gives on traditionally Intel-optimized games. In any case, the price point really makes it an attractive option even with a much lower RL performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/17 06:51 PM

Originally Posted By: Vaderini
..These figures really make me excited, can't wait which benchmarks it gives on traditionally Intel-optimized games. In any case, the price point really makes it an attractive option even with a much lower RL performance.


I'm expecting lower with AMD -- but worth it.

Yet, the recent ("Pillars of Eternity" March 2015) isometric RPG I'm playing to day is using 6 cores (6 threads) significantly -- while desktop and this Firefox post barely budges 2 cores (other 6 turned off) -- even with 3 monitors active. So, maybe 8 cores will be more valuable than I thought (cores mean more than threads).

Meantime:

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Processors Officially Launching on 2nd March at 7:00 AM (PST) Full Range of AM4 Motherboards and Unlocked CPUs For Enthusiasts and Gamers

..AMD will have a full range of processors available however the first round of AM4 motherboards would only include the X370 and B350 chipset based products...


Article claims to know what's really going to happen. March 2 repeats some earlier predictions (some say Thursday March 2 some say Tuesday Feb 28). I seem to remember a lot of stuff being released on Tuesdays. So, we'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/17 01:55 AM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Architectural Deep-Dive Ending The Intel Monopoly

..Design work on the microarchitecture began in 2012 .. we know that AMD is working on far more than just high performance desktop CPUs. The company has a 32 core Zen server CPU, a sixteen core Zen HPC APU and a quadcore Zen consumer APU called Raven Ridge. All of these products have been in the works since the very beginning...


A very long article that describes Ryzen architecture in more detail -- and repeats some things we already know.

Article
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/17 02:59 AM

Curiously, Allen and Skate;

Where does AMD make their processors?

2nd world countries like Intel does?

Tell me Canada and I might just consider an AMD experiment for my next build.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/17 11:01 AM

AMD was a CPU company that merged with ATI a Canadian GPU company in 2006. All through the 1990s, ATI was known as one of the top GPU companies. I used their stuff and thought they were the best until the "short lived" 3DFx grabbed the 3D GPU market with a bold new product. 3DFx died -- then it was down to ATI and Nvidia and I was back to ATI (since 2003, I only bought 1 Nvidia card and many, many ATI/AMD).

AMD and ATI smartly saw where CPUs and GPUs were going -- they were going to merge into one chip. So, AMD and ATI merged (strictly speaking, the deal was described as AMD buying ATI -- but both were large). From that we got the AMD APU chips -- as well as the current AMD GPUs. For a few years, AMD/ATI kept naming their GPUs ATI. Now, they call them AMD -- which reduces market confusion.

AMD made their own stuff in their own plants -- some in the USA. ATI did not always -- they bought their manufacturing. AMD went broke due to Intel shenanigans (why I don't buy Intel -- Intel has sometimes cheated in a big way trying to put competitors out of business -- that really hurts customers -- e.g. SimHQ folks). In the process, AMD had to sell their manufacturing just to get money to stay in business. They still use at least one of those plants in the USA ("Global Foundries" -- at least its North America -- 5 plants). Now a lot is made in Asia too.

From Wikipedia -- pretty much as I remembered it:

Quote:
ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., the company listed publicly in 1993. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) acquired ATI in 2006. As a major fabrication-less or fabless semiconductor company, ATI conducted research and development in-house and outsourced the manufacturing and assembly of its products. With the decline and eventual bankruptcy of 3dfx in 2000, ATI and its chief rival Nvidia emerged as the two dominant players in the graphics processors industry, eventually forcing other manufacturers into niche roles.

The acquisition of ATI in 2006 was important to AMD's strategic development of its Fusion generation of computer processors, which integrated general processing abilities with graphics processing functions within a single chip. Since 2010, AMD's graphics processor products have ceased using the ATI brand name...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/17 05:03 PM

AMD Chips are Fabricated at Both Global Foundries (USA) and TSMC (Taiwan)

with TSMC Being the Bulk,./

Global Foundries being previously part of AMD was the Primary for the FX Series Launch, and has had a fair bit of issues w/ Schedules and Yields

AMD has Since Re-Structured their WSA (Wafer Supply Agreement) with Global Foundries multiple times as a result.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/17 08:48 AM

On the competition front, Nvidia is making a splash prior to the AMD Vega GPU launch in May:

Quote:
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti Reportedly Launching In March, Currently In Production

..The card will offer similar performance to the companys flagship $1000 TITAN X but at a more affordable price for gamers sources claim. Furthermore, unlike the TITAN X, custom designed and aftermarket cooled versions of the GTX 1080 Ti will be available shortly after release. The newcomer is speculated to be priced between $750 and $900 at launch and to land sometime between March 20th and March 23rd.

As with all unconfirmed reports wed advise taking the information with a grain of salt...


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/17 01:25 PM

I did some independent reading. Surprisingly, it seems Intel has more going on in the US than AMD.

Thanks for the answers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/17 03:31 PM

Originally Posted By: Nixer
I did some independent reading. Surprisingly, it seems Intel has more going on in the US than AMD...


Yes, Intel has always had a good USA manufacturing presence -- as did AMD at one time.

Actually, back when I worked, a project team member (lead Software Engineer on my project) did something really good for our project. He gave a talk at a conference. Shortly thereafter, Intel hired him to lead a department at one of the USA manufacturing plants -- at twice my salary smile

Why didn't I go ??? Well, I enjoyed my work -- and now retirement from it smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/17 04:02 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-5-1600x-6-core-benchmarks-leak
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/17 07:39 PM

Quote:
AMD Confirms Radeon RX 500 Series Vega Preview Coming Feb 28 At Capsaicin & Cream Livestreamed Event


In the stores in May -- it is said.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 11:55 AM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen AM4 X370, B350 and A320 Motherboard Prices From MSI Confirmed X370 XPower Gaming Titanium at $299 US

..According to the leak, the MSI AM4 lineup will cover the market from entry level $60 solutions to up to $300 US enthusiast products...


Article Describing MSI Motherboard Lineup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 11:59 AM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen Asus Crosshair VI Hero Motherboard Unboxed

..The first ever unboxing and preview of the Asus Crosshair VI motherboard for AMDs upcoming Ryzen has been published. This is one of the highest end motherboards that Asus will have available on day one of Ryzens launch...


Short Article and Video Of Motherboard Unboxing
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 12:02 PM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen CPUs Added To Latest CPU-Z Version


Article With Links to Ryzen CPU-Z Software
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 02:47 PM

As I plan my build, I've read-up on DDR4 memory speeds and their effects on performance.

In a nutshell, for graphics-benchmarking and game-benchmarking the difference between DDR4 2133 and DDR4 3200 is insignificant on Intel hardware. I expect the same for AMD hardware. This result is nothing new. DDR3 was the same -- memory speed meant little or nothing to performance.

As a thought: Since AMD APUs (CPU + GPU in one chip) have the GPU in the chip, they may need faster DDR4 just to get the graphical performance. We'll have to see how that turns out with Zen/Vega APUs.

Also, this result is for gaming. If one has other non-game applications that really use memory speed, it may be a different story.

For the majority of gaming folks (who don't use APUs), consider saving money on your DDR4 and put it towards a graphics card or faster CPU. Just an opinion smile

EDIT: Just ordered my DDR4 memory -- 32GB. Coming by "slow boat".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 03:35 PM

for APU's Faster Ram did give better FPS.

so Zen APUs will likely help high end DDR4 more than Intel.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/17 05:16 PM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X & 1700X 8-Cores Spotted At $489 & $389 In US Retail Store Will Ship To Customers On March 2nd

AMDs highest end 8-core Black Edition Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X have been spotted in Frys electronics priced at $489 and $389 respectively. Both CPUs will begin shipping to buyers on March 2nd, whilst the embargo reviews for AMDs Ryzen processors will end on February 28th. This gives potential buyers two days to look at independent benchmarks and tests of the next generation processors before they can pull the trigger...


As noted a couple posts up the page, I've already begun to "pull the trigger". Hopefully, I haven't "shot myself in the foot" smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/17 04:27 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-processors-pictured-in-final-production-form
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/17 07:51 PM

OMG! They're square!



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 11:40 AM

In planning my build, I'm reading up on Samsung 960EVO M.2 SSD (I'm looking at 500GB -- $250) for use as C: boot drive. "Boot from" M.2 SSD is only supported by a few motherboards.

Why bother? 960EVO delivers up to 3.2GB/s read and 1.9GB/s write -- up to 600 percent as fast as a standard fast SSD. Random Read/Write is 400 percent as fast. 960EVO plugs into a small PCIe type slot. Thing is, to boot the PC from an M.2 SSD, the chipset, socket, and BIOS have to support "boot from M.2".

Right now I'm zeroing in on "ASUS Crosshair VI Hero" or "GIGABYTE AORUS" motherboards in the $220 to $250 "expected" price range (some versions will cost more others will cost less). Because these are high end, new design motherboards, I imagine they support M.2 SSD boot -- but, we'll see when they go on sale in 3 days (3 days is the rumor).

EDIT: After searching around the internet, the above MBs and others seem to support M.2 at 3.2GB/s. So, I've ordered a 960EVO. All I need now is a Motherboard, Ryzen, and probably a new "motherboard attachment piece" for my CPU water cooler to complete my build (much is being transferred from my current setup).
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 03:38 PM

Don't M2 SSD's use some of the same pciE bandwidth as other devices ie vid cards etc?

I believe I read something about that somewhere, but I may be wrong.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 04:19 PM

Originally Posted By: Nixer
Don't M2 SSD's use some of the same pciE bandwidth as other devices ie vid cards etc?...


I'm no expert either. However, I read that there are different M.2 interfaces. It was said that M.2 only applies to the "form factor" of the SSD circuit board -- NOT the electrical interface. One needs a "small M.2 compatible slot" with PCIe x4 access (or something like that). And, as noted, even if the interface works, the motherboard has to be "built" to allow "boot" from the M.2 SSD. Otherwise, the SSD is just for storage independently of the boot-drive.

Like I said, I don't totally know the answer. I think, though, that from what I read, the latest motherboards have the correct interface and allow boot. So, I ordered one. Other folks may want to wait until their favorite motherboard is reviewed and they verify "boot".

If none of my favorite MB allow M.2 boot, there's another "hole in my foot" (would not be the first time I shot first and aimed afterwards) smile

By the way, it did matter that I ordered now -- and got the best price currently on line (only 11 left at that price). Apparently there can be a 1 or 2 month delay to get new stock.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 04:35 PM

re: M.2

When M.2 Slot is in Use, it usually disables one of the 4x PCIe Slots (At least in low end boards)
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/...-your-next-ssd/


Also:
Ryzen CPU's will ship w/ 2 Different Wraith Coolers.

R7s will ship w/ the Performance Wraith Cooler we see w/ FX8300s

R5 Below will ship w/. smaller Wraith Spire Cooler (circle shape.)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 09:18 PM

Quote:
AMD Ryzen CPUs Support 3600MHz DDR4 Memory


As noted in an earlier post, faster memory will not show up in more FPS (high speed memory is for "other than games"). Right now, they are showing the fastest confirmed speeds with smaller memory sizes (4GB and 8GB per stick).

I ordered 2x16GB = 32GB of 3200MHz GSkill memory. Ironically, its GSkill they are showing as one that works at a high speed. Moreover, the low cost ones I found are now "sold out". Maybe I did not shoot myself in the foot on that one smile

So, I see that M.2 SSD and "fast" memory (at the low price points I found) have "sold out" (at least where I looked at Newegg and Amazon). Maybe I'm not the only one starting my Ryzen build "early" (or maybe its just "chance"). Hopefully, I'll get my order in for a Ryzen 1800X in time.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/17 10:43 PM

Anyone seen any official Ryzen real world benchmarks?

Looking forward to seeing those, so far it seems we just have the "leaked" ones which seems strange.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 12:17 AM

Originally Posted By: kludger
Anyone seen any official Ryzen real world benchmarks? .. so far it seems we just have the "leaked" ones which seems strange.


My understanding is that the Non Disclosure Agreement sets February 28 as the first day "real world benchmarks" can be released.

All the "leaks" I've seen have been very positive lately regarding Ryzen 6 and 8 core -- indicating "parity" with the 6 and 8 core Intel CPUs. But, they are only "leaks". Ultimately, I expect Intel to have the fastest 4 core units. However, I speculate 4 core will "fade out" relatively soon as the high end (a couple years). 8 core /16 thread is the "future" -- since there is parity, Intel need only drop the prices on theirs to compete.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 10:24 AM

I brought up the Samsung M.2 SSD just above. Today, an article that compares the various Samsung M.2 models for performance, lifetime, prices:

Quote:
Samsungs third-generation SM961 256GB NVMe SSD reviewed


Samsung M.2 SSD Review

The article linked above by SkateZilla has more detail regarding the various electronic interfaces for the M.2 form factor. To repeat above cautions: The M.2 designation is slightly misleading because all M.2 SSD are not alike electronically; and, one has to be sure the M.2 they are picking actually works in their hardware for their purpose.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 01:16 PM

As we've noted, changes in the Ryzen socket and cooler attachment makes older AMD coolers unlikely to fit on the new AMD Ryzen AM4 motherboards.

Some manufacturers are making adapters -- so that one can still use an older cooler. I just ordered one from Swiftech for my Swiftech CPU water block. It cost $10 delivered.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 04:16 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/official-amd-ryzen-7-benchmarks-pricing-and-clock-speeds


Alot of aftermarket cooler companied are offering adapter kits for free with proof of purchase.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 05:36 PM

Hooray and hallelujah santa

Christmas is a couple months late -- as planned smile

Got my AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 95W YD180XBCAEWOF Desktop Processor pre-order in thumbsup

Now, if they still have them available later today or tomorrow, then I didn't need to jump on it. However, I've waited so long I did not want to take a chance. We'll see if and when and what I get -- sometimes pre-order does not put one "first in line".

Now to order the MB and I'm done ordering -- starts then the waiting.

EDIT: Well, I was too slow on the motherboard. The ones I wanted to choose from were gone in 30 minutes. I might have expected a MB shortage. Win a few, lose the rest.

ANOTHER EDIT: Hooray again. I happened to click on the right page at the right time and actually got my motherboard of choice pre-ordered.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 06:44 PM

You... .Lol...

All Indications are that AMDs 8c/16t R7-1800 beats the Intel 8c/16t chips in almost all benches.

but the 1700X is also a very good competitor, and can be overclocked as well.

Not gonna go into anymore detail than that... NDA is still in effect
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 07:04 PM

Originally Posted By: SkateZilla
..Not gonna go into anymore detail than that... NDA is still in effect


Yes, as our resident insider, I'm looking forward to what you will be able to share. Of course, I've already taken my shot -- with my eyes closed. Now, we'll see what body parts I've hit, if any smile

I'll not clutter this thread any more with my details. I'll start a typical SimHQ "my build" thread.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 07:21 PM

NDA, man. Never do acid.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/17 10:10 PM

Thanks for that M.2 link Skate. Very informative.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 09:46 AM

By Fuad A. -- the originator of the Fudzilla site. He gives his big picture view of where the CPU competition is now.

Quote
Intel post Ryzen times

AMD had a big day with its Ryzen launch which is the most important for AMD in the last decade. Many didn’t believe it would even happen, but AMD has a product that competes with Intel’s fastest. Now, one might wonder what is Intel planning to counter it and we have a few ideas. .

..Most press, analysts, Wall Street and industry didn’t believe that AMD had the power to make a comeback product, which is is exactly what Ryzen is. Have in mind that AMD is roughly 10 times smaller than Intel, and this is really a modern David vs Goliath fight. If David wins and forces Goliath (Chipzilla) drop its prices and stop charging ridiculous money for its CPU all hell is going to break loose. The high end that Intel launched, the Core i7 6950 just dropped in price on Amazon from original $1,743.00 to $1,627.99. This is stupid money for a CPU, even if it goes like the clappers with its 10 core CPU . This is all due to competition and suddenly Intel has it. Remember Nvidia’s $1500 Titan card, that was developed just because they can get away with it..

Once every few years, this time a whole decade, David wins the game. It is naive not to expect that AMD Ryzen won’t lose some benchmarks to Intel, but with great pricing and positioning, AMD is kick starting its way back to the market..

[Lengthy Analysis]

..AMD will win some market share, starting with Q1 and exploding in Q2 and onwards, at least [while] Intel doesn’t reduce its prices. But even with a significant price drop, we have thousands of readers that just want to buy AMD, and AMD only. The Ryzen performance scores will definitely help that decision and AMD’s path back to success. A year ago, AMD was at 1.8 USD and today at print time AMD is at $14,28 up $0.28 or 2.0 percent while Intel is at 36.07 USD down $0.45 or 1.23 percent.


Fudzilla Article

As Fuad indicates: AMD is "bang for buck" -- but with a technically-competitive product. And: Competition is good (for all consumers) smile


In addition, at the AMD company site there are new WHQL drivers -- and a page with individual links to most of the "hardware dealers" around the world selling Ryzen on pre-order (for those on the Planet who want to shoot first and aim afterwards -- like me smile ).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 09:54 AM

Quote
AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X Is Already Amazon’s Best Selling CPU – Ryzen Lineup Leading The Best Sellers List

..Across the pond on Amazon.co.uk Ryzen processors occupy the top 3 spots. There’s clearly an immense pent-up demand for more affordable high performance desktop CPUs. It’s also very clear that the markets appetite for high core count processors is healthier than it has ever been...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 10:29 AM

Quote
..AMD wants to ship 1 million Ryzens in March

According to DigiTimes, AMD has been preparing for Ryzen launch for quite some time. A very high volume of Ryzen CPUs was prepared so that everyone can (pre)order his unit.

AMD announced that 82 motherboards will be available shortly after the launch. Currently, the choice is rather limited, only few motherboards are from real enthusiast segment...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 11:41 AM

The enthusiast motherboards make overclocking easy. But, as part of the company plan, AMD is going after enthusiasts and gamers. Hence, AMD is providing special overclocking software for Ryzen. Its optionally "per core" -- so one lesser-performing core will not hold back the entire CPU. Such software is not a new idea; but, its nice that Ryzen gets it too.

Quote
AMD Ryzen Master Overclocking Utility Gives You Full Control of The High-End Chips – Per Core Clock Adjustment, Core Enable/Disable Feature, Full Voltage Adjustment And Much More

..
Per Core Clock Adjustment For All Ryzen Chips
Enable / Disable / Set Core Count (0/2/4/6/8 as per needed)
Step Size: +25 ~ +50 MHz increments for Non-X and +100 ~ +200 MHz increments for X series chips (TBC)
CPU Voltage Adjustment
MEM VDDIO Voltage Adjustment
MEM VTT Voltage Adjustment (IMC)
VDDCR SOC (PCH Voltage Adjustment)
CAS Latency Adjustment
Row Precharge Delay (15 bus clock @ standard)
RAS Active Time (36 bus clock @ standard)
Read Row-Column Delay (15 bus clock @ standard)
Write Row-Column Delay (15 bus clock @ standard)

These are just the tuning options in the AMD Ryzen Master control panel and there’s more...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 03:27 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-52ghz-on-ln2-smashes-cinebench-r15-record
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 03:28 PM

TBH, I find overclocking unnecessary now. The basic motherboard BIOS settings to run "performance" are as much as I need. The GPU is the bottleneck, really it has been for years now, so I'm unconcerned about OC'ing.

If this pans out and AMD isn't just competitive in a few select benchmarks but across the board, maybe we'll see some real progress again.

My Skylake is faster than my Sandy Bridge, but not significantly so. I upgraded more for the DDR4 and motherboard features than the CPU speed itself. I saw the biggest change at the bottom, the minimums and other dips when something heavy happens. They're not nearly as low now. Overall performance, though, is at times identical.

Intel has been sitting on its laurels because AMD wasn't forcing them to move forward. Kaby Lake has been a big "so what" release.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 05:02 PM

It's Like Christmas in February here :-)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by Jedi Master
TBH, I find overclocking unnecessary now. .. Kaby Lake has been a big "so what" release...


Agree.

A little information (supposedly test based) on the AMD Ryzen 6core/12thread which competes well with the mid priced 4 core Intel part. Interesting that they are touting the AMD Ryzen 5 1600X as AMDs best gaming chip (based on "bang per buck", no doubt). As an aside, I don't expect too many "thoughtful" folks to spring $500 for the 1800X like I did -- you can get almost the same performance for under (to well under) $100 less than I paid. But, so far, I'm not sorry I paid it smile

Quote
..AMD Ryzen 5 1600X vs Core i5-7600K Benchmarks Released – Annihilates The Intel Chip in Multi-Threaded Scores With 69% Better Performance at $15 More – AMD’s Best Chip For PC Gamers?

Performance numbers for the flagship 6 core and just amazing in the sense that the beat out the similar priced Core i5-7600K from Intel by 69% in multi-threaded tests. Sure, Kaby Lake will have advantage in the Single-threaded performance due to higher clock speeds but Ryzen comes with XFR and some decent OC capabilities that will put it on par (worst case scenario) or beyond (best case scenario) the Intel chip. The difference lies in the price. Intel is asking $242 US for a quad core, non-hyperthreaded chip while AMD is asking $259 US for a hexa core, hyperthreaded chip...
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 08:13 PM

Glad to see AMD compete so well for the power user and enthusiasts, not just the cheapskate market finally, now I hope they do the same on the GPU side.

Even though I recently moved to i7-7700k and GTX 1080, I'm glad to see AMD do well and for us to have more top end options and price competition.

Feb 28th embargo lift can't come soon enough,looking forward to some benchmarks.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 08:38 PM

Hopefully FX Series CPU Prices Drop like a Rock...
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 08:52 PM

There's little reason for them not to.

However, as long as they're priced lower they may stay close to the present price. GTX 9x0 prices didn't move too much when the 10 series came out because they were priced higher than the 9s ever were already.

Combine that with the spike in demand from people who already had 9's looking to go SLI them now and I see new 970s are only 100 less than what i paid for mine 2 years ago.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/17 09:40 PM

Quote
Core count vs frequency, what matters for gaming?

While we await Ryzen official release on March 2nd and more importantly reviews to be published, a very interesting discussion is taking place on various forums. What has a bigger impact on gaming performance? Does Intel have an upper hand by offering higher-clocked CPUs, or maybe current games can use the potential of multi-threading?

..It appears that core count is more important than frequency after all. The only exception being 6900K, which is 200 Mhz higher clocked than 6950X. Of course high-frequency still matters, and Kabylake vs Haswell is a good example (22% faster with 20% clock difference).

This minireview proves that Ryzen has not much to fear from higher-clocked Kabylake, but let’s be honest, no one really knows how SMT & XFR will work for games. A mystery which can end with a big disappointment or Intel marketing crisis.


Core Count Article

One analysis resulting in one opinion. It remains to be seen how the first Ryzens stack up. But, we do not have long to wait smile

In the longer run of a couple years, as we move to new games on DX12 and beyond, I expect cores to "rule". So, if buying for the long term, one might give core and thread count serious consideration (along with other things). An opinion smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/17 12:22 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Overclocked To 4GHz On All 8 Cores – Provides 1800X+ Performance With Decent Motherboards & Cooling

..We just tested a 1700, it hit 4.0GHz stable in everything, but ONLY in the Crosshair mainboard, the lower-end boards it was hovering around 3.80GHz as the VRM’s were cooking with extra voltage. It however was maxing around 4050MHz, so I’d say 1700 can do 3.9-4.1GHz, of course the 1800X will probably do 4.1-4.3 as no doubt better binned, but if your clocking the motherboard has a big impact on the overclock and so far Asus Crosshair and Asrock Taichi seem the best two...


Preliminary validation of my selecting ASUS Crosshair VI mainboard for my build. May have missed my foot on that "blind shot" -- maybe even hit the bullseye smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/17 02:07 PM

Lower Tier Mobos have XFT and Turbo modes disabled.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/17 02:46 PM

I'm not holding my breath on DX12 or cores. For how long Win10 has been out the first game I know of where DX12 is universally faster than DX11 or lower has JUST been released--Sniper Elite 4. It may be the first that had the benefit of using it from early in development (not counting that Ashes game I never cared about).
I know Tomb Raider used it but IIRC the reviews indicated for some cards DX11 worked better.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/17 07:35 PM

More testing released. Now, side by side test results. Basically, Ryzen 1800X is equal to comparable 8core/16thread Intel I7 6900K -- at half the price.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU Performance vs Comparable Intel Core I7 6900K

Base Clock: 3.6GHz / Boost Clock: 4.0GHz / TDP: 95W
Price: $ 499..[Cinebench R15] Single-Threading Score: 162 = same Performance as Core i7 6900K: 162


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6900K-gaming-performance.png
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/17 08:56 PM

I wish they'd stop these and release useful benchmarks.

I don't know anyone who had a 6900k. However, I know a lot of people who have quad-core w/HT 77/6700s and 76/6600s.

Don't tell me how the new Acura compares to a Lambo Countach. Tell me about the Lexus and BMW.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 12:19 AM

Great analogies Jedi.

As a solid supporter of Intel I do love serious data,but, like Allen and Skate keep pointing out, competition is GOOD!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 03:58 AM

The single-thread, single core performance per clock of Intel I7 and Ryzen are presumed almost equal -- no surprise if the newest Intel is a few percent more efficient.

Thus, the obvious prognostications are that the Intel I7-7700K Kaby-Lake, which runs at 4.2GHz/4.5GHz, will beat a Ryzen 1800X running at 3.6GHz/4.0GHz in many applications and most games.

The interesting thing will be to see if any current games do better with 8 cores than they do with 4 cores (that run a bit faster). Also, even if one or the other is faster, will it be enough faster to matter? For example, I claim a 10 percent win in average FPS is for bragging rights -- it makes no practical difference in how a game plays (of course, there may be exceptions to any general rule).

We'll see soon smile

EDIT: Ryzen 4 core models will be released later, per the plan. Then, we'll get 4 core vs 4 core comparisons, I assume. I expect Intel's higher-clocked 4 cores to win. The question is -- by how much?

I expect similarly clocked to finish close. Then, its "bang per buck" time. All Intel has to do to be competitive is -- lower their prices smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 12:37 PM

I'm glad you only post a few times per day Allen....your posts are really "exhausting" to read. There is so much emphasis and effort going into those words. wink
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 04:06 PM

I like to underline and use " " for words that indicate the "tentativeness" or "opinioness" (is that a word smile ) of a thought -- because there is a lot of "speculation" about the "future" in this thread.

I also use them to minimize my words by "calling attention" to particular ideas. Don't want people to have to read "too much" smile

It has occurred to me, that I tend to overdo things "at times" smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 05:17 PM

thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/17 08:39 PM

Regarding competition:

Quote
NVIDIA Readies The Ultimate Enthusiast GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Graphics Card For Late March Launch – GeForce GTX 1060 Ti Pascal Also Rumored

NVIDIA is preparing their ultimate enthusiast graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti for announcement on 28th February..

..According to our sources that work close with NVIDIA AIB partners, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is getting ready for a grand launch and will hit the market in late March...
Posted By: Vertigo1

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/17 04:08 AM

Single core performance is important to all Arma enthusiasts smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/17 11:34 AM

At this point, more gaming benchmarks are being leaked, rumored.

Some of them are so positive and effusive that I question their link to reality. Thus, no links from me.

We'll find out the facts starting in two days -- Tuesday, February 28

"Look Ma" no highlighting. Oops. Couldn't help myself smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/17 07:07 PM

Uh-oh, Intel may be doing it again.

The last time AMD had a competitive CPU (years ago), the AMD part was not just close, it was superior to the Intel part. Then, Intel illegally-bribed PC makers and others to see to it that no one of note used the AMD product. That way, average folks were fooled into buying Intel. Moreover, AMD lost big financially and almost went entirely out of business. That's why I support AMD and fair competition.

Quote
Intel Allegedly Playing Dirty Again To Undercut AMD’s Ryzen

Intel is allegedly back to playing dirty in a deliberate attempt to cut AMD and its Ryzen CPUs out of the market. Reports alleged that Intel PR is gearing up for a response to Ryzen. With some reports claiming that Intel personnel may have even approached some customers with “incentive rebates” and other special promotions to exclusively use Intel chips. In some cases allegedly urging them to make big buying decisions before they could evaluate competing AMD products.
..
Intel’s Unflattering History – This Is What AMD Fears It Will Have To Overcome With Ryzen

AMD’s fearful Intel will go back to its box of dirty tricks to undercut the company’s most competitive product in a decade, Ryzen. The company’s form 10-K filing revealed an unforgetful, cautious and apprehensive AMD that’s re-entering the market with eyes wide open

In the filing, the company goes into detail about the long and bitter rivalry between it and its much larger competitor over the years. It shined light on a systemic employment of underhanded and anti-competitive practices to muscle AMD out of the market. Citing several instances of well documented litigation on the international and local levels where Intel was accused of which Intel either lost outright or had to settle out of court..

2009 EU Decision – $1.4 Billion Dollar Fine For “Anti-Competitive” Practices
..
The findings of the EU Commision’s investigation concluded that :.

Intel provided monetary incentives in the form of hidden rebates to Acer, Dell & HP on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 CPUs from Intel for three years and none or, almost none, from AMD.

Intel provided hidden rebates to Lenovo on condition that it purchases its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.

Intel made direct payments to a major retailer on condition it stocked only computers with its CPUs

Intel paid computer manufacturers to halt or delay the launch of AMD hardware, including Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and NEC...

US Federal Trade Commission – $1.25 Billion Settlement For “Unfair” & “Deceptive” Conduct

In 2010 Intel settled an investigation by the FTC for $1.25 billion paid to AMD..

The Ends May Justify The Means For Intel But Not For Anyone Else


This is what it all comes down to. A $1.4 or a 1.25 billion payment over a decade and a half is chump change for a multi-national conglomerate like Intel. Which generates ~$60 billion in yearly revenue and spends several billion on marketing alone in a given quarter.


Full Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/17 10:29 PM

Quote
Intel Kaby Lake and Skylake Processors Get Massive Price Cuts By Retailers Prior To AMD Ryzen Launch – Core i7 7700K Up For $299, Core i5 7600K For $199, Core i5 6600K For $179


A good week approaching for Intel buyers.

Price competition is good smile

Article listing many substantial cuts
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/17 10:12 AM

Quote
Rumor: Intel Could Commercialize A 12 Core/ 24 Thread Skylake-X CPU To Fight Ryzen – Reports Italian Publication

..a rumor that stems from Bitsandchips.it, a publication that has proved to be fairly reliable in the past, suggests that the company might be taking the high road to tackling Ryzen. It has already promised to include 10 core Skylake variants in its high end lineup (Skylake-X) but if this report is true then it means we could be looking at a massive, 12 core/24 thread die as well.

Since the source has marked this post as rumor, I would recommend taking this one with a grain of salt...


This is the AMD thread. And, long term, the goal is to say/quote little about Intel or Nvidia in this thread. But, competition will influence AMD's future status.

Intel has the "muscle" to compete on the up-and-up -- OR -- to compete "behind closed doors", "under the table", etc. Heck, they are the 800 pound (362.874 kg) gorilla in any room they choose. Over time, we'll see the path they take.

Long term, I believe "core count" will determine the best all around processor (given fairly equivalent per core performance) -- because clock rates are just about maxed out for silicon CPUs -- and Programmers are learning how to write threaded software (not that easy to do). This may be the beginning of the "core wars".

Core competition is good smile
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/17 02:45 PM

TBH we've been hovering at or below 4GHz for a decade now. By increasing IPC/core, the impact of that was minimized, but at some point we will see IPC max out. Not sure when or what it might be, though.

Truth in advertising would demand AMD, Intel, and all the others to rate their CPUs in teraflops or another rating that allowed equal comparison. That's why we'll never see it happen. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/17 05:52 PM

at that point Single Thread IPC Dependency would hopefully be replaced by Mutliple Thread IPC Dependency.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 01:45 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Uh-oh, Intel may be doing it again.

The last time AMD had a competitive CPU (years ago), the AMD part was not just close, it was superior to the Intel part. Then, Intel illegally-bribed PC makers and others to see to it that no one of note used the AMD product. That way, average folks were fooled into buying Intel. Moreover, AMD lost big financially and almost went entirely out of business. That's why I support AMD and fair competition.

Quote
Intel Allegedly Playing Dirty Again To Undercut AMD’s Ryzen

Intel is allegedly back to playing dirty in a deliberate attempt to cut AMD and its Ryzen CPUs out of the market. Reports alleged that Intel PR is gearing up for a response to Ryzen. With some reports claiming that Intel personnel may have even approached some customers with “incentive rebates” and other special promotions to exclusively use Intel chips. In some cases allegedly urging them to make big buying decisions before they could evaluate competing AMD products.
..
Intel’s Unflattering History – This Is What AMD Fears It Will Have To Overcome With Ryzen

AMD’s fearful Intel will go back to its box of dirty tricks to undercut the company’s most competitive product in a decade, Ryzen. The company’s form 10-K filing revealed an unforgetful, cautious and apprehensive AMD that’s re-entering the market with eyes wide open

In the filing, the company goes into detail about the long and bitter rivalry between it and its much larger competitor over the years. It shined light on a systemic employment of underhanded and anti-competitive practices to muscle AMD out of the market. Citing several instances of well documented litigation on the international and local levels where Intel was accused of which Intel either lost outright or had to settle out of court..

2009 EU Decision – $1.4 Billion Dollar Fine For “Anti-Competitive” Practices
..
The findings of the EU Commision’s investigation concluded that :.

Intel provided monetary incentives in the form of hidden rebates to Acer, Dell & HP on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 CPUs from Intel for three years and none or, almost none, from AMD.

Intel provided hidden rebates to Lenovo on condition that it purchases its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.

Intel made direct payments to a major retailer on condition it stocked only computers with its CPUs

Intel paid computer manufacturers to halt or delay the launch of AMD hardware, including Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and NEC...

US Federal Trade Commission – $1.25 Billion Settlement For “Unfair” & “Deceptive” Conduct

In 2010 Intel settled an investigation by the FTC for $1.25 billion paid to AMD..

The Ends May Justify The Means For Intel But Not For Anyone Else


This is what it all comes down to. A $1.4 or a 1.25 billion payment over a decade and a half is chump change for a multi-national conglomerate like Intel. Which generates ~$60 billion in yearly revenue and spends several billion on marketing alone in a given quarter.


Full Article


I doubt it will become as bad as back then. Back in those days, the European Commission held the conviction of "Who cares if AMD survives; If they can't compete it's their problem"

The EC did a complete 180 on that stance, in no small part to a great lobbying firm. With precedent firmly established and a better ability to estimate what Intel gains with price-agreements, they'll only be able to stall the fines. This should be a legal cakewalk.

I have a meeting planned with a partner at that firm in March, and a refreshing course in EU Competition law in April. Looking forward to it, at the eve of this battle smile

@Skate: Where are we able to read your Ryzen review tomorrow?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 12:25 PM

Looking ahead, we're at a 14nm process node right now. Not so long ago, some folks said 7nm was the minimum. My guess has been 3nm for quite a while now. Seems like 5nm is "just around the corner".

Quote
TSMC 5nm risk production ready for 2019

Although it is still a long way off into the future, TSMC said that it is on track to start risk production of 5nm chips in the first half of 2019.

Company co-CEO Mark Liu told the outfit's annual supply chain management shindig that TSMC's 7nm process will be ready for risk production later in the first quarter of 2017, with [7nm] volume production scheduled for 2018...


Rumors I've read indicate AMD to skip 10nm for CPUs and jump down to 7nm. By skipping 10nm, AMD may pass Intel -- because Intel will spend time at the 10nm node (it is rumored).

I think the 10nm, 7nm, 5nm nodes will mostly affect power consumption -- clock speed will only see a small improvement. However, lower heat will allow more cores in the package -- and, long term, its cores not clocks (I speculate).

Ryzen was designed to allow easy adding of more cores. I've read Windows can handle over 200 threads. I'm guessing 16cores/32threads as being useful (eventually, not real soon) in a gamer's desktop PC. I assume there is a practical useful-limit, however.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Looking ahead, we're at a 14nm process node right now. Not so long ago, some folks said 7nm was the minimum. My guess has been 3nm for quite a while now. Seems like 5nm is "just around the corner".

The CEO of ASML says that 3nm should easily be possible with current technology, some of their customers even speak of 1.5nm:
https://tweakers.net/reviews/5155/asml-ceo-peter-wennink-over-de-race-naar-7nm-en-kleiner.html

The real problem I see is that not the entire chip can be made on such a small scale, yesterday I read an interesting Quora about it:
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-...4-billion-in-82-mm-sq-with-14-nm-process

I don't know a lot about computer technology, but that story seems right no?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
...seems right no?


Yes, in my opinion (I do not know anything for sure -- as even expert engineering guesses about the future are at least partly wrong most of the time, literally -- and I'm no expert).

The second article states it. Very loosely, the "minimum" feature size is the node size. That is, if you have a 10nm node, things must be that large or larger. So, one manufacturer's 10nm node may actually have more transistors overall than another manufacturer's 7nm node. Intel makes much of their own stuff. So, they might get more out of a node than most.

Regarding the first article, I cannot read "Nederlands" (assuming that's what it is). However, in general, I think the smallest node possible is just a guess by almost everyone who opines (there must be at least two really smart folks on Earth who have already figured out the true minimum for Silicon CPUs). It may be possible for many features to be very small on a "simple" circuit, but not on a complex one (e.g. CPU). Also, we're getting down to a few "atoms" of distance with Silicon circuits -- realistically, that limits things.

All forgoing my opinions/guesses about the future -- that are virtually guaranteed to be wrong more than half the time smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 04:23 PM

Quote
Watch AMD’s Vega & Ryzen “Capsaicin & Cream” Live Event Here – Tune In At 10:30AM PT


Supposedly, a significant update on Vega today. The main Ryzen event is in 2 days, March 2.

I'm not suggesting SImHQ folks should watch this. However, when its done, web pundits will provide synopses of the main points.

A Livestream page
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/17 09:11 PM

The Vega presentation is over. Very little new to report. We do have an official name -- sort of.

Quote
RTG’s Raja Koduri wants you to know that Vega GPU isn’t called an RX 490/RX 580 – its called the RX Vega


They are aiming at DX12, Vulcan, and Compute functions (DX11 is easily handled of course). So, one is buying a more future proof item -- they imply.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega GPU Architecture Detailed – NCUs With RPM, High-Bandwdith Cache Controller Delivers +50% Avg and +100% Min FPS in Gaming, Built For Modern APIs


It may be starting. That is, big developers partnering with AMD occasionally, rather than nearly always Nvidia for game development. Nvidia Engineers long ago admitted that their partnering on game development allowed Nvidia to alter game code to be ideal for Nvidia -- which was always worth a few FPS vs "the competition", they said.

Quote
AMD also announced during the event that they have partnered up with the behemoth game publisher and developer, Bethesda. Bethesda will be exclusively using AMD as their hardware partner to optimize their games specifically for Radeon graphics cards in Vulkan API. Expect to see Radeon RX Vega GPUs in action in the upcoming quarter, featuring enthusiast and high-performance class graphics cards.


RX Vega is still expected in the first half of 2017. That keeps it in the May/June time frame we've previously been told about.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/17 11:57 AM

Received notice that my Ryzen will ship today or tomorrow.

Regarding competition:

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, the ultimate Pascal graphics card has finally been unleashed .. $699 US. [35% faster than 1080 -- according to Nvidia]...

1080 Ti pre-orders start tomorrow and being released March 10. AMD RX Vega is still 3 months away (end of May is the most often rumored).

EDIT: FedEx says 1800X will be here tomorrow, March 2. However, I still need the motherboard and one other item (in transit, late).
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/17 02:51 PM

Eh...I gave up on the idea of "future proofing" about 10 years ago. smile

General rule of thumb is hardware comes out supporting a feature, but by the time the software catches up to where it is useful the hardware is too slow to use it. The first generations of DX10 cards, for example, ran DX9 great but the DX10 games ran like mud.

How long it lasts depends on how much you spend. Spend a little and upgrade more often, spend a lot and upgrade less often. wink

The exception was my i7-2600k. That CPU lasted me far longer than I expected, but I think that is more due to business realities--AMD wasn't threatening Intel's spot, so they failed to make CPUs that much faster, so after awhile most CPUs ran about the same, so the games all were designed to run on CPUs about that fast. As a result, a 4 yr old CPU ran just as well a brand new one, provided the video card was capable.

If Ryzen shakes Intel out of its hookah-induced haze, maybe we'll start seeing some speed progress again.


The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/17 09:49 PM

Quote
AMD RX Vega Reportedly Launching May 30th, 500 Series April 4th

AMD’s Radeon RX 500 series will reportedly launch in the beginning of April, will consist mostly of refresh RX 400 series GPUs. The RX Vega series will reportedly launch later in the second quarter, between May 30th and June 2nd....
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/17 10:19 PM

Any info on when the Mini ITX boards for Ryzen will launch?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 01:16 AM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
Any info on when the Mini ITX boards for Ryzen will launch?


I see micro-atx at Newegg and Amazon all for under $100 pre-order. Release dates are March 2 (tomorrow) to March 9 -- depending on manufacturer and seller site.

Mini-ITX, I don't know. So far, I have not even seen a rumor -- I could have missed it, of course. Maybe during the Ryzen launch events March 2, someone will tell us.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 06:00 AM

Oh well, I can wait a few months for my build. DCS 2.5 isn't coming anytime soon.



Delidding Ryzen: Is it soldered or not?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lOZbK3tP7EU


Top comment:
Gold plating, high quality solder and silicone protected caps. Intel should be ashamed.


God, I love this company smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 12:51 PM

Today is Launch Day. Test Reports and benchmarks will be coming out soon. In that connection, a few leaked benchmarks "look suspicious" (to my AMD fan eyes smile ).

Some (maybe even many) "synthetic benchmarks" have been compiled using an Intel compiler. In the past, the Intel compiler used for 3'd party software has been optimum for Intel CPUs and "de-optimized" for AMD CPUs. Makes partial sense. Why should Intel's compiler be optimized for AMD CPUs. For example, Sandra has been a notorious offender -- in the past.

Don't know the current status of the compilers used. But, I would not be surprised to find Intel is still favored by the synthetic benchmark codes.

Also, as an added thought, some compilers that do optimize for AMD would be using code for the AMD FX series CPU (since they have not had Ryzen to work with). So, they may be handling AMD Ryzen cores incorrectly.

So, I suggest reading synthetic benchmarks with caution. I suggest that actual "in-game benchmarks" and actual "applications" that one might actually play/use are better indicators of performance.
Posted By: NimRud

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 02:33 PM

After reading the first official Ryzen test reports it seems the i7-7700k is still king when it comes to overall gaming performance.

I´m a bit surprised as I was hoping for better results with all the AMD hype during the last months!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 02:49 PM

Originally Posted by NimRud
..it seems the i7-7700k is still king when it comes to overall gaming performance.. .!


Agree. Most games don't make use of extra cores and 7700K has the highest clocks.

The question was: "How close would AMD Ryzen get to Intel's latest CPUs on a core-for-core, clock-for-clock, bang-for-buck basis?". Personally, I expected Intel to have a slight speed lead (for various reasons, including that software is not yet optimized for Ryzen architecture).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 02:56 PM

This article links to many many test reports. It also gives lengthy summary quotes from some mainstream test sites.

All in all, they're "meh" about gaming. But, okay with application performance and bang-for-buck relative to other 8 core CPUs.

When I get my rig built, I'll see for myself (all my parts aren't here yet).

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 Review Roundup – Official Launch Coverage, Reviewer Remarks and Details of All Ryzen 7 Processors


Roundup Launch Coverage Article
Posted By: NimRud

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Originally Posted by NimRud
..it seems the i7-7700k is still king when it comes to overall gaming performance.. .!


Agree. Most games don't make use of extra cores and 7700K has the highest clocks.

The question was: "How close would AMD Ryzen get to Intel's latest CPUs on a core-for-core, clock-for-clock, bang-for-buck basis?". Personally, I expected Intel to have a slight speed lead (for various reasons, including that software is not yet optimized for Ryzen architecture).


Still baffled that even on the exact clockspeed the i7 at 3.8 GHz is still faster in some of the games they used in those tests.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 03:11 PM

I'm just starting to read a couple of reviews now. One is only on the middle 1700x, the other seems to cover all 3. I'll be back later after I've read them all. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
All in all, they're "meh" about gaming. But, okay with application performance and bang-for-buck relative to other 8 core

Pretty disappointed with the bang-for-buck ratio of the Ryzen. The i7-7700k seems to perform better on all games that are not optimized for more than 4 core (Civ VI was used in the benchmark). And the 7700k is hundreds of bucks cheaper as well.

Had expected more from Ryzen to he honest. They don't seem to able to compete in the game market, which I had expected.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 05:38 PM

People seem to forget, the x86 Instruction Set (as well as x-86-64) are owned by Intel, and most if not all of these games are compiled using Intel's Compiler, so they will favor Intel a bit.

Some Synthetic Benchmarks are the same, but you cant really favor one or another in raw performance.

None of these games have been patched or even looked at code wise to make sure there isnt anythng that needs changed to accommodate AMD Processors.

Most of the gaming scores are affected by the Mainboard's used.

They are using Brand New Boards w/ Version 1.0 BIOS's vs Matured Intel Platform, and more than HALF of the reviews have stated to have compatibility issues with Memory Sticks etc and forced to run them at much slower speeds, which will affect gaming FPS more than Synthetic CPU Benchmarks.


These Numbers are right where I Expected them to be, once Board Manufacturers Update the BIOS' to fix alot of the Ram and PCIe Issues, and Developers give their games a look to make sure there's not a conflict somewhere, those numbers will go up for gaming FPS.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 06:28 PM

I'm glad for AMD fans and good bang for the buck and for the price competition for neutrals like me... but I should learn by now not to buy into the AMD "leak" hype, it was the same with the 480X (which was "leaked" as a 1080 competitor).

From the excitement in the leaks I was hoping for AMD to push the bar up to or past the i7-7700k level and put Intel on the defensive, but alas no, for a simmer/gamer like me it's about i5-6500 level performance:

https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_ryzen_7_1800x_cpu_review/19

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 07:18 PM

and if you wanna go by strictly gaming performance,

the much cheaper i5's still beat the $1000+ i7's in games,

Higher Thread Count doesnt mean more performance in applications that only use 3 or 4 threads.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
and if you wanna go by strictly gaming performance, the much cheaper i5's still beat the $1000+ i7's in games,
Higher Thread Count doesnt mean more performance in applications that only use 3 or 4 threads.


Yeah agreed gaming isn't worth paying the extra amount for extra cores or hyperthreads, the performance is a wash with a few exceptions.

But Ryzen was leaked/hyped as beating the i5s for gaming and competing with top of the line i7s for synthetic benchmarks and transcoding, while it seems to fail on gaming and focused on the latter, which is disappointing to me and many others.

Here's hoping they get that fixed.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 08:29 PM

they never said the Ryzen 7s' would beat the i5's,

I'd assume the Ryzen 5s might, if they have higher clock rates.
Posted By: Hunedog

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 08:36 PM

None of this means crap to me till the mobos hit rev 3 and at least 4-6 bios's.





:runningdog
:
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/17 11:33 PM

My take on what I’ve read regarding Ryzen 1800X performance.

Abstract:

So far, its about what I expected.

Full Text:

I’ll not bore with details. Better writers than I have expounded at the various review sites. I’m just summarizing my opinion (I have not run any tests, yet).

Ryzen 1800X wins a few and loses the rest, as expected, by me. At this point in the process, winning a few is important; but, losing the rest is less important. Why? Because the code in the various tests/games is optimized for Intel; but, not optimized for Ryzen.

The fact that Ryzen wins a few indicates to me that Ryzen hardware is on a par with Intel – not better, not equal, but very similar. Hardware on a par means core-for-core, clock-for-clock, thread-for-thread (to me). Ryzen actual application/game performance depends on optimized application/game code – of which, there is probably virtually none, yet.

As pointed out in some of the reviews, Ryzen is new hardware. Software must be updated to account for Ryzen features. Then, Ryzen should look better in benchmarks. Older software/games will not likely be changed – so Ryzen performance will not improve significantly on those. Still, as pointed out in some of the reviews, AMD is working with some developers to update code – as we “speak”.

Meantime, Ryzen seems fast enough to play everything at good FPS (not the fastest, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder). In a few situations, Ryzen 1800X virtually ties with I7 7700K because the test/game is apparently GPU limited. In some cases, Ryzen falls so far behind that I suspect non-optimized code.

However, at $500, Ryzen 1800X is not a cost effective “games only” CPU. Its strength shows in heavily threaded applications – there it is very cost effective. According to some of the articles, the high-end DX12 games seem to be moving towards multiple threads – and Ryzen did better in a couple of those.

Conclusion:

Thus, long term, Ryzen is on the right track, I think. We’ll see how it performs in a few months in tests with Ryzen optimized code. However, for games, quad-core is plenty today; thus, I do not expect Intel fans to “change sides” just yet smile

All this is “first day” opinion. We’ll see how I see it after I finish my build smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 07:10 AM

if one wants to doubt how much of a winner Ryzen is for AMD.

In every one of those reviews, look at where the FX 8350/8370s sit.

Then tell me Ryzen isnt a competitor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
..In every one of those reviews, look at where the FX 8350/8370s sit...


Yes, for my own uses Ryzen seems a very good upgrade. Seems like it will out perform my FX9590 by more than I expected. As an AMD fan, I'm satisfied with this result.

And 1800X is faster than Intel in some practical applications (e.g. Blender 3D).

To repeat myself: Now that 8 core/16 thread has become affordable to an enthusiast/high-end-gamer, the high end games will start to use those 8 cores. For example, in my reading yesterday, it was stated that some games/applications were "coded down to 4 cores" -- merely because only 4 cores were available from Intel at a good price. The X-Plane site said they were using 1 thread per plane in the sky for a while now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 10:12 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X & 1500X Detailed – 6 & 4 Core CPUs Coming In Q2 2017

..The company is finally back in the desktop CPU market with a truly competitive family of CPUs..

Ryzen 5 1600X <$300 6-core 12-thread CPU With 3.6GHz Base & 4.0GHz Boost
..
Ryzen 5 1500X ~$200 4-core 8-thread With 3.5GHz Base & 3.7GHz Boost...


Arriving by June or before.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 10:20 AM

More evidence that game/application code needs updating for Ryzen. That's normal when an all-new hardware architecture is released -- CPU or GPU.
Quote
AMD Ryzen Gaming Benchmarks Roundup, Disabling SMT Improves Performance In Some Games

Testing data suggests that AMD’s Ryzen 7 8-core parts actually perform better in a number games with simultaneous multi-threading disabled. A finding that’s reminiscent of past Windows scheduling issues that may need a patch to be resolved. Or, you can take matters into your own hands and manually disable SMT on a case by case basis...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 11:21 AM

Quote
AMD says that developers need to get a better handle on Ryzen

Performance differences are more of a software issue

As the reviews of Ryzen came out, it is pretty clear that there are some test scenarios where Intel chips work slightly better, and AMD claims that is due to coding issues.

..developers simply aren't used to AMD Ryzen yet, He said to fix this problem AMD's seeding of a targeted 1000+ developer systems in 2017 will help address the performance anomaly..

.. Bethesda has announced a strategic relationship with AMD to optimise for Ryzen CPUs .. for a new generation of games, DLC and VR experiences, he said..

Oxide Games .. public statement .. significant performance uplift observed when optimizing for the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 CPU design. These optimisations not yet reflected in Ashes of the Singularity benchmarking. Creative Assembly, developers of the Total War series, made a similar statement ..

CPU benchmarking deficits to the competition in certain games at 1080p resolution can be attributed to the development and optimization of the game uniquely to Intel platforms – until now.

Even without optimisations in place, Ryzen delivers high, smooth frame rates on all 'CPU-bound' games...

Article
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 11:43 AM

Wow, that is some fantastic news!

Perhaps a stupid question from a KSP player here, but since a lot of games are build on Unity, will all of those games improve if Unity gets more optimized, or will it still be a 'per developer' optimized thing?

@Skate: Any info if ED will improve AMD performance to bring it on par with Intel performance, for 2.5?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 01:45 PM

http://m.hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/10...its-will-boost-ryzen-gaming-performance/
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 02:45 PM

My take:

Is Ryzen a Core killer? No. I didn't expect it to be, despite hype from some quarters, and I wasn't wrong. Intel isn't going to fall on its sword over this.

Is Ryzen a good AMD alternative to Core CPUs? Yes. If your focus is not gaming but multiple types of tasks, Ryzen can get you equivalent or at times better performance for much less cash than Intel's ridiculously pricey options. Intel may see a drop in sales in the already niche market of people willing to pay $1000+ for a CPU going for a $500 Ryzen instead. This is a low-volume, high-margin market, so Intel won't see a big revenue drop but will see a noticeable dent in profits for that segment.

Is Ryzen a good choice for a gaming CPU? Depends. What is your budget and what performance are you looking to get? I think people who specifically do not want an Intel CPU can now game without sacrificing performance for their principles smile but Intel will continue to hold the crown for the near future. Developer engagement and compiler optimization could bring this more level, but I doubt we'll ever see Ryzen beating Kaby Lake across the board, even if it's single-digit percentages faster.

Intel is still #1, but if this were an auto race AMD is no longer not just 2nd but a lap down, they're actually in Intel's wake and poised to make a move should Intel falter, right on their bumper at times. Intel can't coast along on cruise control and expect to win, they're going to have to work for it now.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 03:09 PM

An earlier question was about Mini-ITX. I noted I had not seen one yet. Now, I know why -- according to this article there were none smile

Quote
BIOSTAR shows off first X370 mini-ITX motherboard


Mini-ITX Article
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 03:29 PM

So torn. It sounds like the R5 1400X will give the same gaming performance as the 1800X for $300 less! However, I don't have a gaming system at all right now and don't want to wait until Summer to get one.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 04:13 PM

Bad news seems to be that the Ryzen 1800X and the high-end motherboards are all sold out for right now at Newegg and Amazon. And its not totally clear when they will actually become available.

My Ryzen 1800X is to be delivered today. Then, I need only the motherboard to finish the build. However, my ASUS motherboard has not shipped from Amazon. And, I got my Amazon pre-order in during the first few minutes on February 22 morning. Now, I see there are no alternatives -- but to wait.

EDIT: Bright idea. I checked for ASUS Crosshair VI "customer/buyer" reviews. None. Maybe no-one got theirs yet. One site indicated March 9 for shipments.

EDIT2: My Ryzen arrived smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 04:19 PM

I know a few guys, that did reviews.

And even though the RyZen had a smidge lower AVG FPS in games, he noted that the game play was smooth, where the i5s would sometimes have a stutter.
Posted By: SacaSoh

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 05:17 PM

After reading a bunch of reviews and benchmarks I opted to replace my 3570K (that was running @4.1Ghz - was a particularly power hungry, and thus hot, chip) with a 7700K - the advantage in clocks and IPC gives a nice advantage compared to Ryzen, given that seldom simulation/sandbox games are optimized to multicore. I truly hope that by the next CPU gen 8 cores (or even 4 lol) will help with performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by SacaSoh
.. I opted to replace my 3570K.. with a 7700K ...


A good choice today, for an avid gamer or one who plays current flight simulations heavily (which many at SimHQ do).

For an AMD gamer, the upcoming (by June) 6 and 4 core Ryzens offer "bang-for-buck" ($200 to $300 range).
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 08:03 PM

FX Chips havent dropped any,

However I have 5 Appointments this week to replace mainboard/cpu/ram in systems that I've built locally w/ AM4 parts, and they have no interest in keeping the FX Chips (3x FX8350s, 1x 8370 1x 6300), nor the mainboards, as re-sell value is low, and re-sell attention is even lower,

So I'll Likely get to keep those, if they agree, I'll buy the FX Chips from them to take price off the Ryzen parts, they save money, and I get the FX Chips Cheaper than $150, as I need FX Chips to replace some Phenom IIs.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/17 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
I know a few guys, that did reviews.

And even though the RyZen had a smidge lower AVG FPS in games, he noted that the game play was smooth, where the i5s would sometimes have a stutter.


The importance of this if often neglected in reviews.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/17 01:23 AM

Fluid and Stable FPS > High FPS w/ large Variances.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/17 11:08 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Breaks Two World Records At 5.8GHz And 5.36GHz

German overclocker Der8auer has already broken the Ryzen 8-core frequency world record [not the absolute world record] with his 1800X. Using liquid Nitrogen .. CPU to 5.8GHz on an insane voltage of 1.97..

..Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard..

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X At 5.36GHz Breaks Cinebench R15 World Record, Again

Swedish overclocker Elmor claimed another world record. Using liquid Nitrogen cooling, ..5.36GHz on all 8-cores .. a record-breaking run of Cinebench R15’s multi-threaded CPU test. Scoring 2454 points, 9 points ahead of the previous world record achieved with an i7 5960X overclocked to 6GHz...

Motherboard makers are still scrambling to update their BIOS profiles to iron out all the memory compatibility and performance bugs. It will be very interesting to see how far overclockers are able to push Ryzen CPUs in the near future once the motherboard ecosystem enters maturity.


My Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard is still missing in action (undelivered). I expect ASUS to be one of the "makers" who will keep updating the BIOS until all is well -- one reason I picked them.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/17 11:40 AM

A couple Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard reviews by "customers" (the only two I've seen so far -- one Amazon, one Newegg) indicate the BIOS needs work.

Just more corroboration. I expect the Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard BIOS to be fixed within many-days or a few weeks (not many-months or years).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/17 11:10 PM

More information from AMD corroborates that Ryzen architecture is highly competitive. However, applications and even Windows need adjustments to see it all the time.

Most of the issues have been at 1080p. It was noted that most gamers who buy Ryzen (at $300 to $500) will be playing at 1440p and above -- where Ryzen sometimes beats even I7 7700K by a little.
Quote

How Soon Can We Expect Gaming Performance Improvements?

One particularly interesting recent discovery revealed a bug that’s significantly detrimental to Ryzen’s performance in Microsoft’s Windows 10 scheduler. The scheduler does not appropriately recognize Ryzen’s cache size and cannot distinguish physical cores from SMT threads. This in turn is causing it to often incorrectly schedule tasks in the much slower — approximately 4 times slower — SMT threads rather than primary physical core threads.

This is why we’ve seen performance dramatically improve in some games after disabling SMT....


An image that shows Ryzen is a little bit better than Intel's 8 core CPU (in the opinion of the reviewer) -- for everything EXCEPT gamiing (but its close in gaming). That "gap" is expected to disappear. One has to stare at this a minute and think about it -- not as clear as some.

Notice its almost twice as good as AMD FX9590 (my current CPU) for everything but gaming. As an AMD fan, I like that improvement over my current CPU. More than I expected to get.


Attached picture ComparibilitySlide.png
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 12:24 AM

the 7700K Turbo's to 4.5 GHz, so it's going to beat the 1800x in single threads, as it should.

gotta look at.. is that lil tick worth another $500?
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 01:26 AM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
the 7700K Turbo's to 4.5 GHz, so it's going to beat the 1800x in single threads, as it should.

gotta look at.. is that lil tick worth another $500?



Where are you guys getting your 7700k prices and another $500 over Ryzen?

Mine cost me $327, and NewEgg has it for $349 currently:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117726
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 02:34 AM

Originally Posted by kludger
..Where are you guys getting your 7700k prices and another $500 over Ryzen?...


Last week one online retailer had the I7 7700K for $299 -- and had marked down many other Intel CPUs -- as noted in this thread.

So, I think SkateZilla may have been referring to the diagram posted just above. The little tick of improvement in games applied to the $1022 I7 6900K compared to the $500 Ryzen. But, he'll have to verify my "take".
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Originally Posted by kludger
..Where are you guys getting your 7700k prices and another $500 over Ryzen?...


Last week one online retailer had the I7 7700K for $299 -- and had marked down many other Intel CPUs -- as noted in this thread.

So, I think SkateZilla may have been referring to the diagram posted just above. The little tick of improvement in games applied to the $1022 I7 6900K compared to the $500 Ryzen. But, he'll have to verify my "take".


Ah thanks Allen, that makes more sense, maybe it's just me but comparing the Ryzen to the $1000 6900k instead of a $350 i7-7700k is a bit confusing and misleading especially since the 6900k is not even very good for gaming:
http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryzen-7-1700-overclocking-best-ryzen-processor_192191/8

I'm a neutral who looks for gaming/simming bang for the buck, and try to compare apples to apples, and it seems like whenever there's a new AMD CPU or GPU coming out or released the marketing and hype is so darn cherry picked and confusing, much more so than it should be IMHO.

Maybe that's just me...

Posted By: NimRud

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 06:41 AM

Originally Posted by kludger
[quote=Allen][quote=kludger]...

I'm a neutral who looks for gaming/simming bang for the buck, and try to compare apples to apples, and it seems like whenever there's a new AMD CPU or GPU coming out or released the marketing and hype is so darn cherry picked and confusing, much more so than it should be IMHO.

Maybe that's just me...



Not just you, Joao! smile

Same for me, don´t care if it is AMD or Intel. Or Cyrix back then in the nineties for those of us who remember. winkngrin

My main PC is just a gaming/simming machine and always will be, so bang for the buck is the only concern for me when it comes to buying parts.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 01:30 PM

Originally Posted by kludger
..Maybe that's just me...

Originally Posted by NimRud
..Not just you, Joao! smile ...


Good attitudes smile

One of the concerns I've had in posting in this thread is trying to avoid misleading people or "over selling". Rather, I and (Skatezilla) try to just relay information gleaned from the web (not all of which will turn out to be accurate).

My technique (I took some ribbing for my technique smile ) to downplay "hype", is to extensively use underline and "quote" speculative/rumor concepts to call attention to their "speculativeness".

All this AMD fan expected was an AMD CPU that "competed".

AMD decided to go 8core/16thread. And they "compete" in that category. "Compete" means they perform about the same as the similar Intel 8 core. Normally one would not know if software/games were running on Ryzen 1800X or I7 6900K --- unless they looked in the box. If one is not satisfied with I7 6900K gaming, they will probably not be satisfied with Ryzen 1800X. However, if one needs 8 cores for some important (to them) application, Ryzen easily wins "bang for buck". Which is what AMD fans hoped for.

Long term, all I expect is competitiveness -- not clear wins or losses. I think going 8 core now was the best plan for AMD because they cannot monitarily-afford to have a broad range of products. Long term, core count will be the determining factor. Eventually (10 years ???), even that won't matter.

For now and in the future, everyone should buy what makes sense for them (as most do). However, now that there is "competition", prices should decrease and performance increase faster. A better situation regardless of what someone buys.

Competition is good smile

P.S. I also use "quotes" around phrases that have been used and reused in English prose over the decades and may have developed a slightly different meaning than a literal interpretation of the words used. Why? Because SimHQ is read all over the world and some readers may not have Americanized English (expressed by an Ohioan) as a "first language". So, "quotes" may assist understanding (or not -- "as the case may be").
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by kludger
Originally Posted by SkateZilla
the 7700K Turbo's to 4.5 GHz, so it's going to beat the 1800x in single threads, as it should.

gotta look at.. is that lil tick worth another $500?



Where are you guys getting your 7700k prices and another $500 over Ryzen?

Mine cost me $327, and NewEgg has it for $349 currently:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117726



7700k Boosts to 4.5 GHz, that was in response to benchmarks having the 7700K better than everything in Single Thread Benches.


The Tick being worth $500 is in regard to the Hexagon Diagram, that shows the 1800x Competing evenly or beating the 6900K in all accept Gaming.

Is 15 to 20 FPS Peak and Avg of 8 really worth $500?
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/17 09:26 PM

Given that the 6900K is not the gaming chip of choice for the majority then definitely not.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 01:07 AM

Looking for an alternative to the Crosshair VI just in case. Unfortunately, none of them have as many rear USB ports. I need 9 to plug in my gaming devices at a minimum and most boards barely have 7!
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 02:20 AM

the ASRock boards have 10... 6 on Mobo and 4 via Headers
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 04:18 AM

Saw that, but I want to keep my front USB ports free for camera, data sticks, etc..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by BlueHeron
Looking for an alternative to the Crosshair VI just in case...


In my case, I want the 8 SATA ports. The high-end ASRock seems to have them too at a lower price point. However, right now, seems like Newegg and Amazon have neither my ASUS nor ASRock (or hardly any others).

I suppose the MB manufacturers held back production to see when and how things went. I hope the boards released in the next few weeks have the BIOSs mostly fixed. If so, waiting may pay off.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 02:37 PM

Pretty much what I wrote just above -- no motherboards for all of us with Ryzen CPUs on our workbench.

Quote
Channel Check: Ryzen CPU Supply Holding Strong – AM4 Motherboards Facing Severe Supply Shortage

..Enthusiasts around the world, however, will have to wait a bit as it would seem that while AMD had correctly anticipated the high demand, Add-In-Board partners weren’t able to provide a big enough initial production volume to meet initial demand...

..At the time of writing this report, Ryzen sales are being severely bottle-necked by an almost complete blackout of AM4 motherboards. AMD AM4 motherboards are produced by Add-in-Board partners and not only did they err-ed on the side of caution and underestimate demand, there are reports of problematic bios plaguing the early samples...
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 04:06 PM

Ironic, it's like the OEMs didn't believe AMD would have enough supply so they didn't bother to make as many as they should have.

I think I'm in the minority because I like great performance with ultra image quality--so I have stuck with a single 1080p monitor for almost a decade now. smile I have a 6700k and a 1070, and even at 1080p I can't crank the latest games to max everything all the time. Moving to 1440p or 4k IMO requires a 1080 or SLI, and I'm not going there.
I would like a Gsync monitor, but there are almost no 24" 1080p models out there and they're often out of stock or overpriced. I don't have room for more than 1 24" monitor.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 04:26 PM

Bad news about the mother boards. This may be the last straw that pushes me over to the Intel side. Not having a gaming PC at all means my tolerance for waiting is quite low.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by BlueHeron
Bad news about the mother boards. This may be the last straw that pushes me over to the Intel side. Not having a gaming PC at all means my tolerance for waiting is quite low.


I totally get it.

You may want to wait the rest of this week -- because Newegg says "OUT OF STOCK. ETA: 3/9/2017" (Amazon, where mine is ordered since the morning of February 22, is non-committal).

I had not expected to get my Ryzen 1800X CPU until after the 7th; but got it on the 3d -- makes me a bit impatient -- but, I'm committed to waiting because I think the wait will be worth it. I do expect to have to "reflash" the BIOS at some point (based on what I've read). Intel stuff should be "good to go" right from the box.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 05:00 PM

I know how you feel. When I'm looking to upgrade, I'm patient. When a part fails, OVERNIGHT IT TO ME!!!!11111




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 05:47 PM

At Amazon only one MB style available -- but its not really available today -- "Arrives between March 10-15".

I'm believing that the MB manufacturers were aiming at Mid-March to Late-March and were caught off guard by AMD releasing in Early March.

So, though we "enthusiasts" are enthusiastic and, therefore, worried, its likely that this MB shortage is no big deal (after all, its only 4 days after official Ryzen release). A month from now, this may all be "in the rear view mirror".
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 05:58 PM

Amazon usually ships it so it arrives on release day. (usually), I ordered Xbox 360 Games on Amazon and they shipped 2 days before release and it was on my door step the day of, and in some rare cases, the night before.

The issue w/ the Mainboards is, they expected some people to go for the budget boards to offset demand for the Performance boards, but after reviews all clearly stated the budget boards had VRM issues w/ overclocking and XFR, everyone went for the performance boards. lol.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 06:52 PM

I doubt many people would have ordered budget boards for enthusiast class chips. Hopefully they would have skewed production ratios accordingly.

I'll wait until the end of the week to make a decision, but will most likely give it until the end of the month. Intel prices have not come down much.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 07:53 PM

Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by BlueHeron
I doubt many people would have ordered budget boards for enthusiast class chips. Hopefully they would have skewed production ratios accordingly.

I'll wait until the end of the week to make a decision, but will most likely give it until the end of the month. Intel prices have not come down much.



Yeah, Really. If these chips are $350-$500, why would you buy a $70 board? Now I get that the $250+ boards still won't see a lot of people (unless they're desperate) because they have lots of features people won't need. I would never spend almost as much on the board as I would the CPU ($250 board for a $320 CPU? No) but I would easily spend $150. I've never had to spend over $200 because I've never needed those extras.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 08:38 PM

Dual Teamed Gigabit Networks is godsend :-)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 08:39 PM

Uh-oh, Intel I7 architecture has only 12 months to live -- so the tape says (well maybe he exaggerates -- they may have 18 months) smile

The upshot of the video is that much of what was alluded to above in the thread -- for gaming cores matter, Windows etc. not optimized, etc -- is even more likely to be true and have a larger effect on gaming than we thought -- when it is fixed over the next 12 months, he says.

Better if folks watch the tape for themselves and make up their own mind smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/17 09:08 PM

Ryzen7 1800x Currently Own the Global Leader Boards already, and it's only been 3 days.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/17 02:17 PM

Considering the Core architecture has been evolved only slowly since the C2D came out back when, I'm astounded Intel has gotten this much mileage out of it.
I think they have a successor CPU on the drawing boards but were waiting for it to make financial sense to invest in making them. Ryzen may be that impetus.

Give it a year or so and we'll see the next Intel CPU be a departure from the past Bridge/Lake CPUs to be something new.


The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/17 02:20 PM

And now the AMD vs Intel battle moves to servers. Note: 32 core Zen CPUs. I imagine desktop PCs will go to 16 cores as part of the competition sooner than later .
Quote
[Press Release]

AMD Previews “Naples” Server Processor, coming Q2 2017

AMD Targets Needs of Modern Datacenter and Cloud Applications with More Cores, More Memory Capacity and More I/O than the Competition

..most detailed look yet at the upcoming high-performance CPU for servers, codenamed “Naples”. Purpose-built to disrupt the status-quo and to scale across the cloud datacenter and traditional on-premise server configurations, “Naples” delivers the highly regarded “Zen” x86 processing engine in industry-leading configurations of up to 32 cores...
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/17 03:48 PM

IIRC, there was a leaked Sheet that said Zen+ in 1.5 Years would be when they released 12c/24t desktop, and later 16c/32t chips, however, TDP would be an issue, and they'd be under clocked like crazy compared to 8c/16t chips.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/17 09:19 PM

The 32Core chips are actually Dual Linked 16Core Chips on a Dual Socket Platform.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/17 09:23 PM

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...u-will-attack-intels-datacenter-monopoly
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 11:22 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Delided & Tested – Gold Plated Solder & Silicone Protected Caps Deliver Impressive Thermal Performance


Some Intel overclockers have noted -- Intel runs hotter than it should. Some Intel oveclockers take the Intel CPU apart and "fix it". It works but voids the warranty.

Article says AMD Ryzen is well made for cooling and taking it apart serves no purpose -- except to void the warranty.

Interesting how small a "footprint" the actual Ryzen chips have "under the hood". Just need to get the heatsink centered over it.



Attached picture RyzenDelidded.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 01:25 PM

The Ryzen "follow on" is already scheduled for launch in 2018.

AMD always planned for Zen, Zen 2, Zen 3 CPU. And always planed for Polaris, Vega, Navi GPU. Ideally, only about a year apart. This is in line with AMD's plan to catch and, maybe, slightly improve on Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs.They started down this path approximately 4 years ago -- now, it seems to have paid off (if only there were more motherboards this week).

Quote
AMD Zen 2 Based CPU Family is Called Pinnacle Ridge – Successor To Summit Ridge Arrives on AM4 in Early 2018

..AMD launched their Ryzen CPUs just a week ago and reports of their next CPU architecture are already coming in. According to AMD’s own multi-generational roadmap, the company indicated that Zen would be followed up by Zen 2 and Zen 3..

..AMD already gained a staggering 52% leap in IPC (Instruction Per Cycle) with their Zen architecture so we can expect further gains (5% – 15%) with the Zen follow-ups..

..Furthermore, the new Pinnacle Ridge family will remain compatible with the AM4 socket as AMD has already stated that they plan to stick with AM4 for a long time. It’s possible that even Zen 3 processors will be compatible with a updated revision of the socket while allowing backwards compatibility with older (by then) Zen 2 and Zen based desktops chips...


An AMD "bang-for-buck" selling point is that any new AM4 CPU will fit into the old AM4 motherboard. Just buy any new AMD CPU or APU and plug it in to the same motheboard. They did this with AM3 socket CPUs. Intel makes more frequent motherboard IC changes -- adding expense to some (not all) Intel CPU upgrades, in the past.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Zen-1-Zen-2-Zen-3.jpg
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 02:37 PM

Yes, the process of "delidding" for OC'ing the CPU.

TBH, I see no point. I have not needed to do anything special to OC my CPUs in 20 years of OC'ing CPUs. My first was when I ran my Pentium 90 as a 100 and it worked with nary a hiccup. smile Some 75 owners ran theirs as 90s, but I went to a P2 for my next upgrade. Was it a 225? I can't remember now.

I do remember it cost me $1000, in Jan 1995, for a P5-90 CPU and motherboard. I was able to reuse the RAM and other stuff from my 486 to save money. smile

I OC'd every CPU using nothing but the stock cooler for about 20 years. I think my C2D was the first CPU I didn't OC at install, it replaced my Athlon 64. I waited like a year, then OC'd as a "faux upgrade". When I went to my i7-2600k with the new auto turbo feature I gave up OCing all together. It's always been about the video card bottleneck for me now. I OC'd that 2600k to 4GHz and saw no real improvement in speed but a slight loss in stability. Back to stock!



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 04:03 PM

Well, the Lids serve a Purpose, they take the Heat Directly from the Die and Spread it to a Larger Surface Area for the Heat sink to absorb.


AMD Chips have always used a Solder Based TIM Between the Die and the Heat spreader, so heat transfers really well.

Also have to look at, before heat spreaders, when Dies were exposed on Athlon Chips, they had Rubber Feet to keep the heat sinks from rocking, and they didn't always work well.

Intel for a while had used some cheapo paste TIM between their Die and Head Spreader, which caused issues, so people started easily using razor blades to cut the glue and pull the heat spreader off, and mod heatsinks to directly make contact w/ the die.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 07:34 PM

No, I meant I see no purpose in delidding in order to obtain a higher OC which I find of questionable value in a modern CPU to being with.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 08:22 PM

At this moment, Windows 7 actually runs Ryzen faster than Windows 10. "Who'd a thought it".

Quote
AMD Ryzen Performance Negatively Affected by Windows 10 Scheduler Bug

..The principle thread executed by each core is allocated maximum instruction per clock throughput, i.e. maximum performance. The additional SMT thread on the other hand can only opportunistically leverage underutilized resources in a given core.

Intel’s hyper-threading technology works in a very similar fashion. Providing each “hyper-thread” with only a fraction of the resources available to the principle thread in any given CPU core. In best case scenarios SMT provides about 20-30% of additional throughput..

..Windows 10′ scheduler correctly identifies Intel’s hyper-threads as lesser performing than principal core threads and schedules tasks in a way that’s takes advantage of the additional throughput without negatively impacting performance. Unfortunately the scheduler currently is not able to differentiate principal core threads from virtual SMT threads with Ryzen..

..We’ve seen similar issues in the past in the early days of Intel’s hyper-threading. It took some time and a few patches for it to work as intended and we imagine it’ll be the same for the all new Ryzen microarchtiecture. The good news is that Windows 7 does not exhibit the same issue and motherboard makers have thankfully released Windows 7 drivers for their AM4 motherboards. ..
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/17 10:38 PM

Doesnt Ryzen Require Windows 10 to run?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 12:04 AM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
Doesnt Ryzen Require Windows 10 to run?


According to the article, a Windows 7 "driver" exists for some motherboards. You do have to download the driver from the motherboard maker and install it -- they say. They say they do not know how Windows 8.1 performs.

Article

Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 05:16 PM

The "Forum Rats" have come to the conclusion that AMDs performance in Gaming is because it's not a "true" 8 Core 16 Thread CPU, but Rather 2x 4 Core 8 Thread CPUs on a Single Substrate Package.

Which is actually true... to an extent.

To technically unknown, you'd assume that would be a huge issue (sorta like how AMD's 15h Modules on the FX Series was assume to be a problem, when it was more shared resources and slow cache, among other things).

The Intel Chips are Designed in Blocks as well. (iirc Intel Core Series is in Blocks of 2),
Every x86 O/S and Application knows how to use them correctly since they are all compiled using Intel's x86 Compiler.

The "CCX Problem" isnt a Problem w/ the Chip Design, it's a Problem with the O/S and Applications not knowing how to utilize the design.

Which can be fixed w/ proper O/S Scheduling, and Application Thread Management.

The Issue w/ Ryzen Right now is:
-Windows 10 Scheduler Needs a update to use AMD SMT and Manage Threads Correctly
(To that Point, so Do Games.)
-Windows 10 Needs a Updated Driver to Set Power Profile Correctly
-Motherboard BIOS' need updates to fix several Memory and PCIe Clk Issues


Windows 7 Isnt Supported by Ryzen Consumer CPUs,
And people benching on Windows 7 are using a Modified Driver.


The Odd part is, over the last 3 years, my FX8350 has Gained FPS in Benchmarks due to O/S Patches and Driver Updates.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
..2x 4 Core 8 Thread CPUs on a Single Substrate Package...


Good to hear. It confirms something for me.

It was my understanding that AMD was going in that direction with Navi GPU, so I am not surprised its also with the CPU.

The way it is implemented is "game changing" -- as I remember.

The basic cores are small but designed from scratch to be a new way to assemble large numbers of cores or shaders in a single package. They make small cores (CPU/GPU) that can be "chained" together and "act like one core" (not like dual, quad, etc CPU or dual, quad, etc GPU -- no SLI or Crossfire issues). So, in principle cores can be "in the dozens or hundreds" -- but act like a single chip.

Small cores lead to very low losses during fabrication (they throw away small numbers of bad cores). Thereby keeping them affordable.

Its one of the reasons I felt the future was all about cores (not clocks above 5GHz). Of course, I am speculating to an extent. We'll see how it goes.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 06:56 PM

Yeah, it is "Basically" to an Extent, 2x 4 Core Chips on a Single package Linked through an Underlying Layer.

-Everything is Fab'd in 4 Core/8 Thread CCX's,
-Those are put together on the "AMD Infinity Fabric" with a Shared Cache in the Middle,
-Which allows the CCX's to Communicate w/ Each Other, or the CCX to Comunicate w/ the GPU Block.
-The Blocks and the Infinity Fabric are then placed on the Substrate Package

The Part Reddit is hung up on is "The CCX's", Since they are Separate, everyone is saying they have Dual 4c CPUs instead, which is not entirely the case.

Windows Scheduler for one, doesnt know, do not take a task from Thread 2 and move to thread 7 in a single thread benchmark, or make threads 3 and 7 work on the same task

Windows Scheduler Knows how to distribute work on the Intel Chip Threads already, as they used the Intel Compiler.

Linux Scheduler was Updated on Day One for Ryzen, and does not have the Problem

Windows 7 Has less of a performance hit than Windows 10.;

I'd just use Affinity mask in Windows, and Keep my Games on Cores 4,5,6,7. which could solve the problem.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 07:23 PM

Enjoy the reads...:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5ybrxn/ryzen_7_is_actually_behaving_like_a_dual_4c8t/
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/17 09:10 PM

No no, it's behaving like 2 3-core CPUs that have to work to cover the mortgage with a pair of single core CPUs hanging out in the garage only occasionally chipping in with the work.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/17 04:23 PM

Ryzen vs. I7 7700K core-for-core clock-for-clock head-to-head test. By altering BIOS settings they made an 8core Ryzen into a 4 core Ryzen. They set the clocks equal to I7 7700K. They set the cache equal to I7 7700K.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4 Core Benchmarks vs Intel Core i7 7700K

..Amazingly the Ryzen quad core managed to outpace the 7700K in a few notable cases. Including the multi-threaded Cinebench R15 test as well as 3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra physics tests. In terms of gaming performance, the biggest lead the 7700K was in Far Cry Primal and it only amounted to approximately 10%...


Ryzen wins some and loses some -- basically similar performance when clocked alike. But, the upcoming Ryzen 4 core is expected to be much less expensive than I7 7700K.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/17 04:57 PM

Initial Vega GPU rumor based on preliminary leaked data: 4096 shaders. Compute performance between Nvidia GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti. No gaming tests.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/17 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Initial Vega GPU rumor based on preliminary leaked data: 4096 shaders. Compute performance between Nvidia GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti. No gaming tests.


That's disappointing then....I thought it was hailed as some sort of game changer and especially so with HBM2. I can't really see Vega being much less than a 1080ti when it launches as I expect Nvidia to reduce the premiums when there is some valid AMD competition.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/17 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
.. I expect Nvidia to reduce the premiums when there is some valid AMD competition.


Agree.

However, as an AMD buyer, I don't mind if AMD is 5 or 10 percent slower. I can't see that with my unaided eyes (only measure it).

As your logic implies, being second best to Intel and Nvidia results in much lower AMD pricing, usually. So, we agree about the monetary consequences of being slightly slower. Just that I prefer to buy AMD stuff smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/17 10:03 PM

I already have my GSKill memory for my Ryzen. However, this month, GSKill is releasing memory made for Ryzen. Two versions. One "bang for buck" and one "bang, bang" (certified very fast with Ryzen) for enthusiasts.

Quote
G.SKILL Flare X Series and FORTIS Series DDR4 Memory Have Been Made Specifically for AMD’s Ryzen CPU Family
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 01:34 AM

Rumor based on supposed email from an anonymous "motherboard manufacturer" employee. I summarize the main points next.

1. Motherboards are scarce because AMD moved up the launch date by nearly 3 months. The new date conflicted with the industry's need to supply motherboards for Holidays in December and January.

2. Initial motherboards were flown from China in small shipments. Bigger shipments are on slow-boats (literally). Expectation is that motherboards may not be in good supply until late April -- a month from now. For example, an Amazon source said they will only be getting 80 motherboards (of some type) in early April.

Those are rumor at this point. Bottom line we may not get what we ordered until May (depending on what MB we want and where it is ordered). I hope that's overly pessimistic.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 09:13 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Originally Posted by Paradaz
.. I expect Nvidia to reduce the premiums when there is some valid AMD competition.


Agree.

However, as an AMD buyer, I don't mind if AMD is 5 or 10 percent slower. I can't see that with my unaided eyes (only measure it).

As your logic implies, being second best to Intel and Nvidia results in much lower AMD pricing, usually. So, we agree about the monetary consequences of being slightly slower. Just that I prefer to buy AMD stuff smile


I couldn't care less about brand names and don't really understand the point in choosing to be 'faithful' to a particular company that really doesn't care about their consumer base anyway. At the end of the day their mission objective is to make a profit and appease share holders and stakeholders regardless of how they go about their business and irrespective of the goals that they may state in public.......as soon as anyone becones a fanboi to a brand name they will undoubtedly crap on their own doorstep at some point in time and with respect is probably why you and Skate gave been putting all your eggs into the RX 480, Ryzen and Vega baskets and its become such a big issue that AMD absolutely have to deliver for you.

I've always jumped between Nvidia and AMD in recent years depending on available budget and bang for buck, since the 7970 passed its useful life many years ago in view of moving to a 1440p resolution and maintaining a single GPU to drive it (have since moved to a 4k screen and VR) I've had an Nvidia card but at the end of the day if Vega comes in at a similar price to the 1080ti but with less performance (mirroring the last few 'top tier' AMD cards) then there will only be a certain type of person buying it and other than competition in pricing the same old story at the performance end will continue.

I don't necessarily agree with your pricing logic. Nvidia realistically have the bank balance and product line to strangle AMD out of the top end completely should they reduce prices or fill gaps to ensure they have a competing product. I'd struggle to recommend the RX480 to anyone for example because although it started at a nice price Nvidia just sandwiched it between the 1060 and 1070 and anyone could argue the merits of either card above the 480 in my opinion. Although from a technical perspective AMD have often been ahead of the game its often proved fruitless when gaming is slow to change.......take DX12 for example, before many games actually support it the RX480 will probably have expired beyond its useful life too.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 03:09 PM

A couple posts up, I noted that Amazon and other sources were dubious regarding Ryzen AM4 motherboard availability in the very-near term.

I checked the local "brick-and-mortar" Micro Center PC components store online-site several times the last three days. They indicated 4 ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 in stock. Today I checked and they indicated 25+ in stock.

ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 was my "second choice". But, it does have all the practical things I need and will actually use. Their price is $10 less than Amazon and Newegg for the same item (Amazon doe not have it, nor does Newegg as I write this). Being my second choice, its $100 cheaper than my first choice. The first choice, ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero AMD Ryzen AM4 was "overkill" and just for fun.

I used their online-site to "set one aside". They emailed confirmation even before the store officially opened (they will hold for 3 days). I plan to pick it up this afternoon. We'll see.

If it weren't for the 1.5 hour round trip freeway drive, I would buy more locally. They (Micro Center) have wide selection and competitive price. Even sales tax is not an issue because Amazon charges me sales tax.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 05:42 PM

Just confirmed with my local retailer that their warehouses are still waiting on stock from all manufacturers for X370 boards. Expect at least several weeks delay.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 05:55 PM

In terms if gaming performance, is there a huge difference between an X370 board and a B350?

UPDATE: Went to get a B350 motherboard. Then went to pick up my CPU at another store and my CROSSHAIR motherboard arrived while I was standing at the counter!! In the end I stuck with the ASUS Prime B350, $200 cheaper and seems to have everything I need.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/17 10:41 PM

I picked up the ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 at Micro Center. They had many on the shelves. They also had more than one brand of B350 on the shelf. No other X370s.

The sales guy said the Crosshair VI is causing them more trouble in their in-store display computers than the Prime.

I'll describe further outcomes of my build in my "my build" thread.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/14/17 01:26 AM

http://www.techspot.com/news/68501-amd-windows-10-scheduler-operates-correctly-ryzen.html
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/15/17 04:52 PM

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/17 02:32 PM

Quote
Intel underestimated the AMD Zen Ryzen threat

Sources close to the matter

Ryzen 7 and now Ryzen 5 have launched and they are putting enormous pressure on Intel in the top-level market segment. After a whole decade, price/performance is definitely on AMD's side..

..[Ryzen] managed to deliver a 52 percent increase instruction per clock IPC compared to the previous generation.

This is the biggest IPC jump ever in the last 20 years of the PC market and AMD has delivered it. Some will focus on the fact that AMD is not winning every single benchmark, especially in gaming, but this is far less relevant. It was irrational to expect that AMD will win every single category of benchmarks, but it is winning most of them.

What matters is that performance per watt, AMD is a much better choice and Intel is feeling it. ..

..Now Intel is panicking, trying to find an answer to this major threat. The company had to warn its investors that it will lose both market share and margins to AMD...
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/17 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote

..Now Intel is panicking, trying to find an answer to this major threat. The company had to warn its investors that it will lose both market share and margins to AMD...


Good news man for AMD and for us customers, maybe Intel will get off their butt and actually do some R&R now instead of just phoning in like they have last couple of years...
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/17 02:59 PM

I know this is an AMD thread, but let's be rational just for a moment. I don't think that anyone should be read too much into AMD creating a chip which has a 52% increase in IPC....the reason this is happening is simply because the FX chips are crap and the same reason why Intel Core to Quad, i5 and i7 'equivalents' game them a good hammering.

Stating that it's the biggest IPC jump in the last 20 years (and that AMD has delivered it) isn't so much a chest beating accolade, it's confirmation of how poor their last chips actually were.

And is it really headline news that Intel has to warn investors about losing both market share and margins? Now they actually have a competitor as opposed to not really having one at all means they would always be expecting that. It's like some sort of AMD propoganda mission is just starting lol
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/17 03:48 PM

Yeah agreed, as usual with any AMD marketing and "leaks", you have to wade through tons of BS and hype to read between the lines for the actual info....

What I get from this is that AMD has finally gotten back into focusing on top end stuff instead of conceding top end to Intel and just focusing on the cheap middle and console market, which was boring to people like me, and which Intel wasn't interested in so they sat back and didn't do much other than tweak things to get a new model out each year.

While I don't think the current Ryzen meets my gaming needs, hopefully AMD will get it to the point where it's something compelling for me, and hopefully this will also get Intel to actually move on to something better...

While I love that my i5-2500k has been relevant as a gaming CPU the last 5 years, the stale/complacent state of progress affects the progress and cost of VR and even how playable games and sims are... After all these years FSX and Prepar3D still don't run at more than 30FPS with all the graphics turned up and payware eye candy.

We should be able to run FSX like butter at this point if CPU/GPU tech had remained competitive from the days when Athlon and the 5870 was spanking Intel, before AMD merged with ATI and started the long slow decline into mediocrity IMHO.

So here's hoping the current Ryzen is just a sign of even better top end things to come from AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/17 12:04 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 500 Series Detailed – Radeon RX 580 To Feature Polaris 20 XTX, RX 560 To Use Polaris 21 and RX 550 To Use Polaris 12 GPUs

..The AMD Radeon RX 580 is expected to feature a slightly higher clocked Polaris 20 XTX GPU. So this would be similar to many custom variants of the Radeon RX 480 that are currently available in the market..

..Expect pricing to get slightly lower than the RX 480, around $199 for the 8 GB model..

..AMD is expected to launch the new cards in mid of April before shipping out Radeon RX Vega series cards in late Q2 2017. The AMD Radeon RX 580 will be the fastest FinFET based card from AMD until Radeon RX Vega arrives.


Slightly improved chips (vs RX4xx series) at a slightly lower price.

RX Vega is expected in late May.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/17 12:12 PM

Quote
Rumor 2: AMD Ryzen 16-cores/32-threads

AMD still keeping an ace up their sleeve?

This rumor actually started on Chiphell. It was then ‘confirmed’ by someone with access to better sources on AnandTech forums. Now, here’s CanardPC tweet, pushing this rumor even further. In case you don’t know CanardPC are creators of CPU-Z utility:

The ‘news’ are that AMD is allegedly working on even faster Ryzen. A CPU for HEDT (High-End Desktop) platform, which is currently occupied by Intel Broadwell-E processors...


Rumored to be a physically big chip selling for a big price. Less for gaming enthusiasts and more for folks who earn their living doing compute intensive things.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/17 04:03 PM

16/32 and large die and TDP, likely gonna have lower top clocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/17 10:19 PM

Quote
Cloud Imperium Now Only Intends To Support Vulkan, Instead of DirectX 12, for Star Citizen

.. focus on implementing Vulkan, the API by Khronos Group modeled after AMD’s Mantle..

.."DX12 would only be considered if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan"...


Looks like Vulkan (which AMD excels at) is gaining more converts. Reason: It can be used with any operating system including older Windows versions and Linux (unlike DX12).

This could give AMD another small advantage moving forward.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 12:54 AM

Vulkan has Limits if you're not running Windows 10 and Latest Linux Kernel though.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 02:44 PM

Yes, hype aside what the stats really show is that AMD is now competitive with Intel again. It's not better, but now there is a chance that they could be come "Ryzen 2" or whatever they choose to call it.

Of course, conspiracy types will say Intel has had a next-gen design waiting in the wings sitting idle until it was deemed necessary, just riding the existing Core coattails for years until that happened, so AMD's return will be short-lived. I don't think that Intel would play that game. I think if they could release a CPU which would have buried AMD by blowing away their last gen chips they would have.

No, Intel believed in their own superiority and figured AMD was permanently a lap down. To find them actually in the rear mirror is a surprise.

My only concern is that instead of taking this as a call to action in CPU development they decide the best way to stay ahead is to knock the other guy down and resort to previous unsavory practices to make themselves stay ahead.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 03:10 PM

Judging by Intel's panic, it's not gonna be a shortlived return to being competitive for AMD.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 04:29 PM

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-readying-16-core-32-thread-ryzen-cpu-quad-channel-ddr4
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
Judging by Intel's panic, it's not gonna be a shortlived return to being competitive for AMD.


What is the alleged 'panic'?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 07:25 PM

it was discussed at Share Holders Meetings AFAIk
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 10:05 PM

Ah, I didn't realise the minutes were made public. Was it an AMD shareholder or a random youtuber that told you about panic-gate lol

I don't believe it for one second. Intel must have known they couldn't possibly keep monopolising the CPU prices much longer, as soon as any competition came along it would have the effect of slashing their margins and Zen/Ryzen has been bubbling for a long time.

I'm quite sure a 'Intel panicking' headline could quite easily have been started by someone associated with AMD too......they're obviously going to fan any flames and ensure that this sort of statement which actually surfaced on YouTube about 2 months ago would suddenly be brought into the limelight.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Ah, I didn't realise the minutes were made public....


What we mostly do in this thread is "quote" from reviews and maybe add a few summary sentences so folks don't have to read it all to "get the jist". By no means do we expect everyone to believe or agree. Heck, we sometimes question articles -- but, we aren't experts at everything -- so, we give the information.

Here is one of two articles I read that used the word "panic" (I could not find the other one anymore). As we all know, those who write for a living tend to use words like that ("panic", "catastrophic", etc) . However, in this case, Fuad Abazovic is using the word and explaining why. Mr. Abazovic was the founder of Fudzilla and is known to have "inside connections" in the industry. In years of reading his writing, he's appeared to be one of the more reliable sources of "Rumor, Speculation, and insider information".

Here's the whole article that we referred to earlier in this thread. If it were me, I would not "panic". However, CEOs are tasked with keeping stock prices up. Loss of market share means loss of stock price. If things look bad enough, a CEO might "shake a bit" -- CEOs have been fired for less (but they get a big severance package -- so okay, fire me smile ).

Quote
Intel underestimated the AMD Zen Ryzen threat


Article FWIW

Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/17 11:52 PM

It's complete hyperbole. The only relevant statement in that article is this;

"Now Intel is panicking, trying to find an answer to this major threat. The company had to warn its investors that it will lose both market share and margins to AMD"

That isn't the definition of panicking at all. Intel knew for a long time that they would lose market share and margins to AMD. Intel already have an answer to Ryzen, it's already at retail but just priced far too high hence why their margins will have to be reduced.

You guys just lap up any AMD related excitement like a fat chick in a sweet shop biggrin
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/17 01:46 PM

I believe the modern term is "click bait". Lay out the facts which to any reasonable person seem mildly concerning at best then make conclusions and headlines which make it sound like the end of the world to make people read it and want to discuss it in your comments section to drive up traffic and your ad revenue.

In the old days, it was called yellow journalism. It was panned and I thought journalism schools taught it as something to be avoided...yet it now seems that between TV and online it's the de facto standard.

RIP Journalistic Integrity, 1910-1999. You didn't live to see the 21st century.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/17 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
It's complete hyperbole. The only relevant statement in that article is this;

"Now Intel is panicking, trying to find an answer to this major threat. The company had to warn its investors that it will lose both market share and margins to AMD"

That isn't the definition of panicking at all. Intel knew for a long time that they would lose market share and margins to AMD. Intel already have an answer to Ryzen, it's already at retail but just priced far too high hence why their margins will have to be reduced.

You guys just lap up any AMD related excitement like a fat chick in a sweet shop biggrin




Dont throw salt on my sweets man. lol
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/17 03:15 PM

The page count in this ";Future and Current Status of AMD" thread has more than doubled in the last year -- because AMD's status has actually changed that much.

RX480 hit the shelves roughly a year ago -- first truly new AMD GPU design in roughly 4 years.

During the last year Zen was being heavily rumored -- because it was the first truly new AMD CPU design in about 4 years.

AMD stock prices increased many fold leading to more rumors and speculations. And some wealth for investors.

Even more rumors regarding Vega GPU -- another new AMD GPU design -- to be released in May.

I can remember a period only a couple years back that I only posted at SimHQ a couple times in 6 months. Now, its a couple times a day (or more smile ).

Maybe AMD things will "quiet down" in July or August. Uh-oh Navi is coming next in 2019 (?). Navi is supposed to be the "big one", GPU-wise. Oh, and AMD is already working on the CPU 7nm process node (said to skip 10nm where Intel is temporarily stuck, it is said). Some rumors say Navi will be 7nm. Maybe it won't be so quiet in a thread that speculates about "Future Status of AMD" smile

Meantime, blogs will be blogs regarding their writing style. They are the sources of information in 2017. Mostly, the more highly regarded rumor-sources have turned out to be objectively correct in most (not all) of the main-points over the last year-plus. Even surprised me how far AMD progressed towards "parity" with its competitors.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/17 08:42 PM

Errrm........the page count in this thread has doubled in the last year because you've pretty much linked every article on 'wccftech' at least twice yep
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/17 09:24 PM

What I've noticed is that WCCFTech, videocardz, and Fudzilla repeat or initiate most of the interesting information. So, mostly, their versions get excerpted or posted here.

Now, knowingly double posting has only happened a couple times -- as it did just above to illustrate the "panic" article.

If this thread has "too much information" to be interesting, then folks have the option to ignore it.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/17 10:57 AM

Quote
MSI Enabling A-XMP For Ryzen Motherboards Soon

..Looks like memory speed support is indeed increasing .. coming in the very near future through an EFI update..

..It is no secret that memory support has been lacking in the early days of Ryzen...


Memory speeds above standard (higher overclocks) are expected to begin to be supported in April/May by MSI. Presumably, other motherboard manufacturers will also provide code updates in that time frame. Usually, memory speeds above standard have little to no effect on game FPS.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/17 02:21 PM

the next bios updates will likely be FMA3 Bug Fix
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 02:28 AM

Quote
First AMD Ryzen Mini-ITX AM4 X370 Motherboard Pictured & Detailed

..BIOSTAR has somehow managed to cram in the full-fledged X370 chipset in this little board...

..highest performing [Intel] CPU you can get .. in the same mini-ITX form factor is a quad core i7 7700K .. With 8 cores, 16 threads and a frugal 65W power envelope the efficient Ryzen 7 1700 CPU is uniquely suited for high performance mini-ITX systems...


Article
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 05:39 AM

the processors seems to have catch on to intel, now i want to see those promised gpus !
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 11:43 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen CPU with 12 cores and 24 threads spotted

Another day, another Ryzen leak. .. of yet unannounced Ryzen CPU with 12 cores, which is most likely being prepared for AMD’s HEDT X390 platform..

..not one product, but a whole new series ..[including 16 core] ..

..it’s not a server chip .. [its a desktop chip] ..


Engineering sample leak -- no release date estimate. These 12 and 16 core desktop Ryzen will not run in current Ryzen desktop motherboards. Not aimed at enthusiast gamers.

Short Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 11:53 AM

Intel is competing on the "bang-for-buck" front (it is speculated):

Quote
Intel Core i7 7740K and ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i7 spotted

..we are looking at budget-oriented high-end CPU.

Intel Core i7 7740K is not just an i7 7700K refresh. This processor requires a new socket (LGA2066) and as a result, new motherboard. It’s also worth adding that one of the most important changes from Kaby Lake S is a lack of integrated GPU. Apart from that, we have 100 MHz higher base clock and increased TDP (91W -> 112W)...

.. [based on leaked test results] It’s a close fight with Ryzen 5 1600:.

..Ryzen 7 1800X offers better arithmetic performance, with comparable multimedia score..


Short Article
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
AMD Ryzen CPU with 12 cores and 24 threads spotted


I assume then, there will be a series 9 Ryzen with 12 to 16 cores...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/17 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by Aeronautico
I assume then, there will be a series 9 Ryzen with 12 to 16 cores...


Yes, that is the rumor/speculation -- which is almost certainly true.

I do not know what they will be called. Often, the speculated name is incorrect.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/17 01:20 AM

it'll likely be a different name and different socket/chipset.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/17 02:14 PM

An AMD Navi GPU roadmap altered by "me" -- to show the AMD current release date (according to AMD). This is not brand new information.

Two things to note:

First, does not release until some time in 2019 (or later) -- I personally will be considering Vega as a replacement for RX480 -- because it will be a while before Navi becomes reality.

Second, "Scalability". This is big. It allows AMD to make smaller cores (cheaper per core because lower percentage of bad gpu cores off die). They can combine as many cores as they want to make the most powerful GPU -- but all those cores act as ONE GPU -- not like CrossfireX or SLI. Could be a game changer if Nvidia does not do something similar (which I assume they will). AMD has already "pioneered" "Scalability" with Ryzen -- so, presumably, they know how to do it.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture NaviRoadmap.jpg
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/17 03:00 PM

AMD FX-8000 Series CPUs have actually Gone UP in price by $50 or so....
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/17 03:02 PM

Basically, once the faster RAM Profiles are integrated into the BIOS', the Infinity Fabric Link between CCX's will be a non-issue, and Gaming Performance will also be a non issue.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/17 06:29 PM

If true, then I can no longer say "Memory speed does not matter for gaming on Ryzen". And, I apologize for saying so in the recent past.

However, I'm happy I overspent for a high grade 3200MHz memory -- that just might overclock to 3600. I always assume I could be wrong and, thus, "safeside" decisions -- maybe this was another "wrong" that will turn out right because of "safesiding" smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/17 04:50 PM

Rumors of the 12c/24t Ryzen appear to be coming true, as several E-Samples have infiltrated scoreboards sporting 12c/24t
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/17 10:17 AM

Quote
Ashes of the Singularity Gets Optimized for AMD Ryzen, Achieves Double Digit Performance Gains Of Up To 28%


Ryzen 1800X improves to slightly better than Intel I7-7700K in some Ashes of the Singularity tests (I7-7700K seems to be the defacto "gold standard" of comparison for many gamers). Its understood that these performance test results (Ryzen and I7-7700K) are so similar that one will not "see" the difference (only measure it).

As I noted in my Ryzen Build thread, my personal Ryzen single threaded performance had "parity" with published I7-7700K results in a CPU-Z benchmark (within 1 percent). And was almost twice as fast in multi-threaded. Better than I expected prior to Ryzen release -- I would have been satisfied with 10 percent difference in single thread.

Hopefully (for AMD fans), this is "promise of things to come" with "modern" games that utilize modern features (like threads).

Article

Tom's Hardware Article

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Ashes-of-the-Singularity-Ryzen-Update.jpg
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/17 02:41 PM

The 7700k is the most expensive CPU most feel comfortable buying, in the $300-$400 range (seeing as you need to buy a cooler for it, that makes total cost close to $400 unless you have one to reuse).
The Intel CPUs that are faster see price rise exponentially while gaming performance doesn't even rise geometrically. Paying 100% more for 15% more performance in a game is not reasonable.

When it comes to games, the x700k CPUs are the heavy hitters in the Intel lineup. Fastest stock performance, still OC's a nice bit, and leaves money for a great GPU to pair with it.

My problem with the synth benchmarks is that they test what a CPU could do, but very few programs (and almost no games) actually will make use of what is tested. So CPU A can be 20% faster or slower than CPU B in this or that benchmark, but then you find their gaming performance is less than 10% off, and in the opposite direction.

While I know people use their home PCs for things other than gaming, I don't understand it. smile



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/17 12:41 PM

April 1 is "April Fools Day" at least in the USA.

I've noted two rumors/leaks dated April 1 that seem like "April Fools Jokes" (nowadays called "Fake News").

One is AMD and one is Nvidia. Both seem too good to be true -- yet, I did not notice the obligatory "April Fools" tags (maybe I missed them). Have to see if they are still being rumored on April 2 and beyond.
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/17 03:43 PM

You can anticipate them here though.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/17 11:56 AM

Something for Nvidia fans. It's April 2 and the article is still there.

Quote
EXCLUSIVE: Upcoming NVIDIA GTX 1080 “11Gbps” Cards Unlock to Full GTX 1080 Ti With BIOS Flash

..our sources at NVIDIA [say] that Founders Edition GTX 1080 11Gbps graphics cards bought directly from NVIDIA’s geforce.com website, are really full GTX 1080 Ti cards in disguise..

..by simply flashing them with the video BIOS of a Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti, the full performance will be unlocked!..


Article -- note April 1 publication date

AMD did something similar with the first AMD RX480 4GB Reference edition Cards -- they were actually RX480 8GB and could be reflashed to make them so (faster clocks and double the memory).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/17 12:29 PM

seehearspeak

I didn't think you'd fall for that Allen. Regardless of whether the article is still there or not................
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/17 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz :
I didn't think you'd fall for that Allen. Regardless of whether the article is still there or not................


I merely provided the link for interested Nvidia fans to check out for themselves -- its their decision. As I noted, AMD actually did something similar -- thus creating a precedent. And, if this turned out to be true, I wanted SimHQ Nvidia fans to have the choice smile

For "April Fools" articles that might fool folks into spending serious money, its incumbent (necessary as a duty or responsibility) on the writer to unambiguously note the "April Foolness" somewhere in the article (obviously, I'm old fashioned -- and the old rules no longer apply). Of course, the article commenters also felt it was an April Fool prank.

Meanwhile, I am still holding back on the AMD April 1 rumor -- probably forever smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/17 04:49 PM

the Vega Rumors wee kinda Vague... lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/17 01:05 PM

Our local Micro Center "brick and mortar" store has a good selection of AMD X370 gaming motherboards in stock today. ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock highest end boards and a couple second highest. They've had loads of 350 gaming boards for a while now (some very inexpensive -- to my taste).

I assume this means the supply of Ryzen motherboards is beginning to become more generally available. Still seem to have initial February BIOSs installed. Newer BIOSs are in "beta form". Buyers must plan to update the BIOS.

Meantime, no significant new news regarding Ryzen CPUs. Ryzen release/results are progressing as previously reported/rumored. Ryzen seems to be "the real deal" -- mine works as advertised on standard settings (I still have to install better cooler to experiment with overclock).

AMD RX500 GPUs are close to release -- but they are only slightly improved RX400 series "rebadged" products.

Vega GPU rumors have added nothing significant lately. Now we await the actual release in late May/June. Likely there will be some pre-release test reports prior to that. Now that Navi GPUs are delayed until 2019, I'm considering Vega more seriously for my own purchase (I'll get at least 2 years out of it). Thing is, my current RX480 "does it all" at 1440p.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/17 02:26 PM

The RX 480 is a brilliant card and eats anything at 1080p! Then I had to go and try stupid VR and Oculus Rift, so now I need something bigger. wink Hope AMD's AIB partner's don't take to long to get their Vega cards out.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/17 06:54 PM

Something tells me that will probably have more to do with yields affecting their supply than their own efforts.

The problem with Ryzen mobos was they were dependent on Ryzen CPU sales. You don't want to ship a ton of product and have it sitting around taking space, so you try to gauge the demand...and the partners were taken by surprise when AMD got a lot out there. There was a combination of poor communication and bad fortunetelling that led to people having CPUs without mobos.

Video cards are different. You don't buy a GPU and stick it in a video card with a socket, RAM, and video ports on it. The AIBs will make as many cards as they get GPUs for, plain and simple. The more tweaked designs as always will come later once they've had a chance to go over the design and see what they can do. Early boards are for the OMG I GOTTA HAVE IT NOW buyers who don't mind having a card that is basically reference design + logo, those with more patience get differentiation and possibly better deals (OC'd, noise levels, etc).

If they get 10,000 Vega GPUs, they will ship 10,000 Vega cards, it's that straightforward.


The only caveat is if for some reason there is bad silicon and they have to scrap a large number, but I put the odds of that at single-digit percentage at best. It just doesn't happen, those errors are caught by the OEM before the AIBs get them. It will boil down to AMD's supply of good chips to them.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/17 07:08 PM

I know stores still sitting on AMD 800 and 900 Mainboards....
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/17 08:11 PM

Microsoft Digital Foundry will Unveil the Next Xbox's Specs Thursday.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/17 03:26 PM

Xbox Scorpios SPpecs:
http://www.gamesradar.com/these-are...e=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer-oxmfb
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/07/17 02:31 PM

Vega competition:

Quote
NVIDIA launches TITAN Xp with 3840 CUDA cores

..The card is already available for sale on NVIDIA website for 1200 USD...


Article

Up to roughly 3X+ as fast as a $250 RX480, according to test reports I read.

Some speculate this may be a "limited production" model built to beat Vega in FPS -- Nvidia does whatever it has to do to be the highest FPS.

Too rich for me. I might consider $700 -- but greatly prefer under $500 at my high end. We'll see what Vega brings price wise.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/07/17 02:47 PM

the price premium people pay for FPS they wont see in most cases is funny.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/07/17 03:43 PM

I don't know, wouldn't two 1080s in SLI beat that anyway?



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/17 01:13 AM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
the price premium people pay for FPS they wont see...


Seems prescient of you. I just read

Quote
...our first look at the performance of the new TITAN [$1200] and appears to be roughly 10% faster than a GTX 1080 Ti [$700]...


I won't be surprised if Vega is expensive too. However, Ryzen was "half price" compared to the actual competition (Intel 8core/16thread). Maybe Vega will be "half price". Nonetheless, I think I'll "keep breathing" until release smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/17 06:58 AM

You've added a '0' to the price of the new Titan in your quote.....intentional?

Nvidia will charge whatever they want until there is a product that competes with it so I don't think many people will be surprised with that.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/10/17 03:25 PM

When you get to the top end prices can skyrocket for little actual difference.

For example, I am willing to bet that none of us will be able to tell a qualitative difference in driving a $750,000 car and a $3 million car. One is 4x the price of the other, but I bet they're largely the same to drive. And I bet while both are nicer than your current car, even the cheaper one probably doesn't feel 20+ times better.

For people with more money than sense, and a pathological need to have the BEST no matter the cost, these CPUs and video cards were created. Normal people need not apply.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/17 10:32 AM

The Competition for RX500 series and Vega -- all in one place.

Hopefully, Vega will achieve "parity" with the high end of this list -- but at fewer $$$$.

Competition is good smile

Attached picture NvidiaLineupFull.PNG
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/17 12:21 PM

I honestly Dont see Vega getting anywhere near Titan Ti/XP...
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/17 07:52 PM

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/17 08:28 PM

Fun video smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/17 10:41 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs are out

Review roundup: Reviews are in

AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs are now officially available and the NDA veil has been lifted, giving us plenty of reviews that show the performance of those four SKUs, the Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 5 1600, Ryzen 5 1500X and the Ryzen 5 1400...


A short article with links to 14 reviews by the usual reviewers.

Article with Links
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/17 02:21 PM

same performance kinks as the Ryzen 7s,
Again, Upping memory clocks seem to eliminate or close the performance problem.

memory Clocks affect memory, infinity fabric and cache system.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/17 03:22 PM

http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/104524-amd-ryzen-5-1600x-overclocked-59ghz-6c12t-enabled/

5.9 GHz Anyone?

Taking Benchmark Records from Intel one by one...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/17 07:16 PM

I notice that Ryzen motherboards are starting to be sale-priced.

My Gigabyte motherboard BIOS update has gone online. Up to now, I've only used "stock" settings -- no adjustments. With the new BIOS I'll give that memory overclock a try.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/17 09:13 AM

Just released AMD GPU driver 17.4.2 is said to support "Windows 10 Creators Update" -- plus the usual "fixes".

It works on all cards since (and including) the 7000 series and, as usual, works on W7, W8, W10.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/17 05:33 PM

The RX500 series (Polaris) GPUs look to me like OC'd RX400 series....

What am I missing?

https://videocardz.com/68450/amd-radeon-rx-500-series-official-specifications-and-performance-leaked

....day 135....where's Vega?
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/17 05:49 PM

the white blanking on those pix make them questionable.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/17 06:26 PM

even if they are revised Polaris..

the 400 Series had their share of "issues", they look to have resolved them, w/ better drivers, better layout, better coolers, better vrm, etc.


Even then, w/ my budget being where it is for a while, Im content w/ my FX8350 and Crossfired Lightnings.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/17 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Bib4Tuna
The RX500 series (Polaris) GPUs look to me like OC'd RX400 series....

What am I missing?

https://videocardz.com/68450/amd-radeon-rx-500-series-official-specifications-and-performance-leaked

....day 135....where's Vega?


Its my understanding that the RX580 and other higher end RX500 are actually a "new chip" (not an overclocked old chip). However, the new chip is an incremental step on the old one. It fixes some issues and runs a bit faster. RX500 series is NOT a significant upgrade for folks with an RX400 series card.

Vega is due right at the end of May -- some say beginning of early June.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/17 10:15 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 580 Overclocking and Benchmarks Unveiled – Clocked Up To 1500 MHz On Liquid Cooling


Leak Article

Using leaked/rumored benchmark results for a "stock" RX580 versus my installed RX480 Reference:

RX580 stock clocks are 8% above my stock clocks. RX580 "graphics" performance in "Fire Strike Extreme" benchmark is 13% greater than my RX480. RX580 also overclocks -- but, overclocking is for fun -- not for anything you can "see" with unaided eyes.

So, RX580 is an improved RX480 (RX580 uses new Polaris 20 chip -- RX480 is Polaris 10). It provides "Bang for Buck" and completely meets minimum VR requirements (they say).

Full disclosure: I'm running Fallout 4 heavily modded (loads of grass and trees and plants where there were none in stock FO4). 1440p resolution. All graphics settings on "ultra" or equal, extra wide field of view, and new 4K graphics throughout (textures are 4096x4096 pixel textures even for small things). In the most complex scenes, FPS falls below 15 at times. So, I need Vega smile
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/17 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Full disclosure: I'm running Fallout 4 heavily modded (loads of grass and trees and plants where there were none in stock FO4). 1440p resolution. All graphics settings on "ultra" or equal, extra wide field of view, and new 4K graphics throughout (textures are 4096x4096 pixel textures even for small things). In the most complex scenes, FPS falls below 15 at times. So, I need Vega smile


Hopefully, that is not your benchmark for Vega.

The Fallout 4 engine is really inefficient and outdated, plus, it scales terribly. The piss poor performance comes from the implementation of the shadow's rendering (an old problem since Skyrim which has much less geometry in objects, but try it on the densely wooded region of Falkreath and you will see similar issues.) and Godrays (which were coded from Gameworks tech, and even the Green Team top cards have problems with that). Set shadows to high and Godrays to medium, and see your FPS soar with almost imperceptible visual difference.

Can't tell you much more than to consider, my now almost legacy 390X 8GB gets exactly the same performance you are getting at those settings.


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/17 11:31 PM

Could be that my issues are as you surmise. And, could be that they are a CPU problem (not GPU). Not CPU because Ryzen is borked -- but because the game engine is borked (as you intimate). But, its an excuse to seriously consider Vega (depending on price tag) smile

Meantime, the excursions below 15 are infrequent enough and not so bothersome that I can't live with it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 12:41 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 580/570 Review Roundup


List of Links to Review Sites

Today the official RX580/RX570 reviews/benchmarks become public. A world wide list of links to officially authorized reviews at the above site.

The list is not fully populated. It will "grow" as the day progresses, I assume.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 01:49 PM

Seems like 580 reviews show it's basically just a slight tuning of the 480 ~10-15% benefit... AMD is getting as bad as NV in misleading gen numbers that suggest next generation but are really slightly tweaked rebrand of the previous card...



Still hoping they have a true "680" next gen card and that the 580 is not all there is.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 02:01 PM

The RX580 was always "sold" as an updated RX480 by AMD. The GPU chip is Polaris 20 vs Polaris 10 (in RX480). Just a few tweaks and a speed boost.

The days of 50 percent improvement per year are gone. Now, chips only improve about 10 percent per year.

Need a new chip design to get a real jump. And, truly new designs take 2 to 4 years to produce.

That's Vega. AMD is "selling" Vega as the next big thing. Nothing official, but I'm expecting roughly 100 percent better performance than RX480 (in DX12 graphics benchmarks -- games can be CPU limited) -- for a price (to be determined). AMD Vega arrives in 6 or 7 weeks smile

Long term, AMD Navi in 2019 (??) is a whole new approach to speed. From what the rumors say, it seems feasible to get "virtually unlimited" speed boosts with the AMD Navi concept (at a lower cost per FPS). But, that's 2 years away (or more) -- at least, there is something to look forward to after Vega smile
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 02:10 PM

It might have been sold as an updated 480 to AMD knowledgeable folks like you biggrin , but for ignoramuses like me, a major version number update like RX 480 > 580 or GTX 670 > 770 would usually signify a major improvement, so I am disappointed like I was with the GTX670>770.

Endlessly waiting for the next AMD killer card like my beloved 5870 RIP...
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 02:48 PM

You know what really grinds my gears?

That AMD is still churning out new GPUs to compete with the lower tier high end of the competition.

Yeah, yeah...Vega and all that....

It better deliver, and it better have flawless driver support at release (apparently RX580 only runs at the moment with the drivers in the box)....or they will lose a lot of momentum.

Navi is too far. They need a better more impressive flagship product.
Posted By: kludger

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by Bib4Tuna
You know what really grinds my gears?

That AMD is still churning out new GPUs to compete with the lower tier high end of the competition.

Yeah, yeah...Vega and all that....

It better deliver, and it better have flawless driver support at release (apparently RX580 only runs at the moment with the drivers in the box)....or they will lose a lot of momentum.

Navi is too far. They need a better more impressive flagship product.


My feelings exactly!

I don't care about products that compete with the middle of the competition and beat them at price, I care about products that compete at the top end like they did in the ATI days... when they kicked Nvidia's butt.

I still have my Cooler Master HAF 932 AMD Edition case from when the 5870 was king, and sadly there's not been a top end AMD GPU worthy of it since then... although I always keep hope that AMD will come up with another awesome flaship that wins me back...
http://www.legitreviews.com/cooler-master-haf-932-amd-edition-full-tower-case-review_1239

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by kludger
.. a major version number update like RX 480 > 580 or GTX 670 > 770 would usually signify a major improvement.,,


It used to be that way. But, now its changed.

AMD, Nvidia, Intel have been changing names/designations for minor performance improvements for a few years now. When that first started there was "frustration". Now, its normal. As noted elsewhere, Intel CPUs only pick up about 10 percent per year and Intel in-CPU graphics have always been and remain poor. Nvidia does what it has to to stay ahead of AMD in FPS -- but at a price to consumers. And Nvidia does not make a decent CPU device (they do make non-x86 CPUs -- but they are not "special").

Still, all 3 of the big 3 should come up with something truly new on a 3 or 4 year schedule for the near future. Sometimes, the schedules overlap so there is less time between. But, AMD has less money to spend and must update CPUs and GPUs; so, they update each less frequently.

That said, we are reaching the end of what is physically possible with downsizing chip architecture. 7nm is the next big thing. 3nm is probably as small as it will EVER get. AMD is skipping 10nm and going straight to 7nm, it is said. If they succeed, they may actually surpass Intel and Nvidia (who are going slower). Thing is Intel and Nvidia will not "sit still" and let AMD get past them. So, I imagine all three will be performing "close to one another" in the future. Soon (2 or 4 years), it will nearly-always come down to price. Is that extra 10 percent FPS worth a new purchase or 30 percent more cash when choosing between brands?? (My opinion)

Competition is good smile
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 05:47 PM

The Entry and Mid Level Marketshares are larger.

The High Performance Marketshare and demand is a fraction of those.

Fight nVidia for half of a small pc of the pie, or fight nVidia for half of the larger pc of the pie.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/17 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by SkateZilla
The Entry and Mid Level Marketshares are larger.

The High Performance Marketshare and demand is a fraction of those.

Fight nVidia for half of a small pc of the pie, or fight nVidia for half of the larger pc of the pie.


No problem with that...but then DOMINATE mid level. Prices drive a segment of consumers (and manufacturers), but reputation and performance drives the majority.

When you read a RX580 review that concludes that in the performance category you get better value (not price) with a 1060, the whole brand suffers.

If Vega ends up being a "good alternative to the 1070" then that's it, Because by then 1070's will be dirt cheap and Nvidia has a new architecture ready for Q3.

If (as Allen said) by the time Navi comes out things pair out, consumers will go with the brand they are familiar with. Consumers do that a lot, you know?

God knows that is why I keep buying ATI/AMD GPUs!


Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/19/17 06:07 PM

Users are Flashing RX4xx w/ RX5xx BIOS's, lol..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/19/17 07:00 PM

More competition smile

Quote
RUMOR: NVIDIA Prepping New GeForce GTX 20 Series Graphics Cards Based on Volta Architecture for Q3 2017 Launch

..Since we haven’t heard anything else from any other source, I will be marking this one as a rumor till additional information is received..

Report: NVIDIA has pushed forward GeForce GTX 20-Series launch, GTX 2070 and GTX 2080 graphics cards launching in Q3 2017?

..NVIDIA will be doing some basic optimizations of the SM in the GeForce 20 series, but don’t expect a complete overhaul...


Based on the words in the mostly-Rumor, I only expect 10 plus percent (e.g. maybe 15%) FPS versus the current top end 1080 cards (in Benchmarks) -- not 50 percent or 100 percent. Much like going from RX480 to RX580. We'll see.

Meantime, anything that may make Vega cheaper for me or current GTX products cheaper for Nvidia fans is good smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/20/17 07:55 PM

Quote
First AMD Ryzen Mini-ITX Motherboards Launched By BIOSTAR – RACING X370GTN And B350GTN

The very first AMD Ryzen Mini-ITX motherboards are finally here and they bring an impressive set of features at genuinely attractive pricing...


Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/17 03:15 PM

Prices of FX Chips finally starting to hit clearance.... prolly due to Ryzen 5 more than Ryzen 7.

Got a Friend a FX8300 for $75 after Coupon Codes, and FX8350 for $89.

Weird how NewEgg started Locking Coupon Codes to Email Addresses now, I tried to just give said person the code, but it wouldnt work, so I ordered and he gave me the money.

Might pickup another FX8300 to replace my brother's PhenomII (which was an FX8120 before the chip got stuck to Corsair H100 Water Block and cracked.)

He's Hating only having 2 threads, lol.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/17 08:41 PM

Competition is good. Heated competition is better smile

Quote
Intel’s Monstrous 12 Core / 24 Thread HEDT Skylake-X Processor Confirmed – Will Debut On 30th May In Intel Keynote, Availability By End of June


Why would they be doing this? They were already going to release a 10 core to beat AMD!

Oh, this is why (from the same article):

Quote
..This move is something that can be categorized as unprecedented from Intel and can be cautiously allocated as a reaction to AMD’s Ryzen. Or more specifically the looming threat of bigger and faster Ryzen processors with even more cores in bound. Remember that word on the grapevine is that AMD is planning on releasing its 16-core Ryzen CPU and the X399 platform in the 3rd quarter of 2017 for the gaming market. ...


Note the words: "for the gaming market". Even 12 cores will not be enough because AMD is putting out 16 (and we know they are competitive cores -- both speed and power used). A time for AMD fans to smile. But, does this mean I have to buy a Ryzen 16 core this Fall? I hope so. smile
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 04:36 AM

I may be dumb man BUT, aren't most games/sims optimized for Intel/nVidia ?

Doesn't that make this whole "save a couple hundred bucks" approach to system building...well, silly?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by Nixer
I may be dumb man BUT, aren't most games/sims optimized for Intel/nVidia ?

Doesn't that make this whole "save a couple hundred bucks" approach to system building...well, silly?


Yes, games and nearly every other application have been developed day-to-day on Intel/Nvidia hardware. So, problems with those two are "immediately" noted and fixed. Moreover, for bigger titles, Nvidia almost always helped with the graphics programming. Even an Nvidia Engineer once said (paraphrased) "they put their thumb on the scale" to make sure Nvidia scored best. Even now many use Intel optimized compilers that default to less optimum code for AMD products.Moreover, developers look to "save development cash" (as an ex-Project Manager, I know how costs spiral up out of control on many projects -- not mine, of course smile ). One way to save money is to develop on the dominant hardware and virtually ignore the competition (AMD) -- which saves person-years of effort.

The deck has really been stacked. AMD hardware is not as bad as it seems. Often AMD was a couple years ahead in actual features -- but few or no-one used them because Intel/Nvidia could not support them (tessellation comes to mind). AMD is/was ahead of Nvidia in DX12 and Vulcan graphics language support. Meantime, new Intel/Nvidia features are supported within months. Its always been "uphill" for AMD.

Up to now, if one was totally objective and price conscious, one could get a competitive gaming machine buying AMD products and save cash. I did -- of course I built so many machines just for fun that I spent more in-total than a price conscious Intel/Nvidia fan. If one wanted the highest performance regardless of cost, then Intel/Nvidia was the way to go and still is in April 2017 -- while most games and benchmarks are still Intel 4core optimized and Vega is not "on the street" (expected in 6 weeks).

However, that is changing. Ryzen works as well as the Intel products now -- maybe a little better or a little worse depending on the tests. But, this is Ryzen's first product on the street for less than two months. It will get better during its first year. I expect Intel/Nvidia to be competitive hardware-wise but not overwhelmingly so -- just competitive.

In 6 weeks, we'll begin to see Vega growing pains. But, Vega is not a brand new path for AMD. Its the old-path perfected. AMD Navi GPU due in 2019 will be the "new approach" that Ryzen was for CPUs. Nvidia needs to have an answer just to stay competitive.

Regarding software. Some game companies are starting to work with AMD -- the major consoles are AMD 8 core CPU units with AMD GPUs -- these days most games are Console-First, PC-ported. With a popular high core count Ryzen on the streets (and Intel caving in to provide high core count gaming CPUs) high core count is where it is headed for gaming. Those Intel 4 core units will no longer be the best -- and Intel knows that. AMD actually leads that race. Intel will be competitive -- they won't lose -- but, they will no longer "stand alone" at the head of the pack. If no big problems arise, they and Nvidia will have strong AMD competition across the board by the end of this year.

AMD has a plan in place that, if successful, will jump them just slightly past Intel/Nvidia in two or three years (e.g. Navi and very high core count 7nm CPUs) -- across the board in all product lines gamers care about. Not enough to turn off Intel/Nvidia fans, but enough to be a solid part of the conversation and have their products equally well supported. Then, it will come down to merchandising and price. AMD will probably hold prices down to catch the eye of the Intel/Nvida fans. Of course, Intel/Nvidia could drop their prices too and will at some point.

So, we are at the edge of the "new era" where Intel/Nvidia has serious competition and will have to "step up". Who will win? I don't predict which company (though I see some near term technical pluses for AMD -- offset by Intel/Nvida cash and brand awareness). I predict the winners will be the customers, the gamers. They will get more for less than they would have if Intel/Nvidia had been unchallenged.

All the above is my non-expert opinion, of course smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 11:37 AM

I appreciate that the post above is caveated by alluding to that it's your opinion however, there are a few factual areas that don't necessarily go hand in hand;

Game companies have been working for a long time with AMD, especially the console companies and it's not as if these AMD powered consoles have just been released. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that Nvidia suddenly needs an answer just to stay competitive.....they already have an answer but it's just overpriced, the 'answer' is also not currently required because the overwhelming number of games currently available and in development still aren't geared for high cpu core counts. You talk/post as if AMD have magically got 50% market share and from this point on, it's all dependent on how Nvidia react to Ryzen and their yet unreleased graphics cards - we all know that isn't the case and AMD are yet to reach that point which will take a number of years anyway as it's certainly not going to happen overnight.

To that end, it's also very premature to suggest that Intel 4 core units will no longer be the best. Until the games start to optimise the high core counts in any CPU the Intel quad core chips in the i5/i7 range are still out there in the lead due to the higher processing speeds and even when you go back down the Ryzen range there isn't much of a price difference for the performance output. As for AMD 'leading the race'....hardly. You are also seemingly referring to AMD current and future products against competing Intel products from only today. You're already aware of Intel announcing higher cpu count chips for desktops, so the future is very much unknown as to how this will pan out and whether AMD will actually make in-roads to the market share. Like anyone, I also feel that the competition between the two companies is good and will hopefully bring these silly prices down but at the same time I haven't seen anything yet that suggests AMD are doing anything different to what we've seen in the last 5 years where they hype everything so much but fail to deliver and support especially within drivers has often let their products down. Given that you have a 8+ page diary of your Ryzen install (much of which includes problems) isn't necessarily a good sign either. I'm sure many other people including myself have built Intel/Nvidia rigs at the same time as you with no fanfare, no problems but just a very good gaming rig for the money that is currently playing all games without any issues at all.

Opinions are great, but you can only go so far with the rose tints!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
I appreciate that the post above is caveated by alluding to that it's your opinion however, there are a few factual areas that don't necessarily go hand in hand...


Much of your facts are correct. But, in some cases, your interpretation of my opinion is not exactly what I meant. That's the problem with written words. We each interpret differently the same texts.

Consoles have been around a long time. But, developers continued to develop on Intel/Nvidia hardware and move it to the console. That is happening less often -- was my meaning.

No, AMD is not assured of 50 percent market share (they did have 50 for a time in GPUs -- did not last long). Rather, the point is: AMD products will be technically competitive -- objective folks will have to flip a coin to select the best overall product. That will NOT give them 50 percent market share, however. If AMD improves market share by 10 percentage points, that will be a HUGE increase for them -- going from 30% to 40% in some facet would be 33 percent more business for them (a huge increase for them). Meanwhile, the competitors have big operations that have inertia and big fixed costs. If they lose 10 percentage points of part or all of their business, that could be a real blow -- going down hill is not fun for management.

Yes, as I underlined, if you want the BEST today (April 22, 2017) for "today's and yesterday's games" -- buy Intel/Nvidia. However, I believe the choice will not be so obvious in a year (or so) for new high-end games -- particularly if one is objective and realizes 10 percent more FPS means little to the "unaided eye", and CPUs and GPUs do more than FPS these days.

And so on. I'm sure if we sat across the table and discussed what each of us mean in detail, we'd have a lot of agreement. Thing is a few hundred words are not enough to clearly outline all the factors in play -- such that we won't have misunderstandings.

And, this is the AMD thread -- so, rose tint is what you get smile

That said, we do try to be "relatively objective" when predicting the AMD future (Bulldozer was a bomb, AMD GPUs have been quite good -- but, Nvidia always gives more FPS at the top end because they MUST as part of their marketing and brand recognition strategy, regardless of cost). All along we've been saying "we'll see" if any of the rumors are near true. Now we are seeing. Actually, Ryzen came out much better than I expected. Moreover, I thought it would be a couple years before we saw 16 cores for the gaming desktop -- now they are rumoring Fall 2017. Much better than this Fan expected smile

And, yes, the first months of a new product can be "frustrating" (again all applications, games, and components are designed for Intel first, so issues are expected with AMD). If fighting through the issues is no fun for a person, they should wait about 6+ months for the "second version" (the one with the fixes already fixed). A year from now, the problems will be year old news smile

Just my opinions -- actually my glasses have an amber tint, literally smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 03:15 PM

Yeah, I think we are pretty much aligned in our thoughts (minus the AMD tints in my case wink , but that's not to say I'm on the other side of the fence at all - I'll always go for price/performance regardless of the brand)

Although, one thing I would say is that AMD have always being 'technologically competitive' if not always a step ahead, it's just that the market share will drive other companies to probably look at Nvidia first and ensure that performance is optimised for them in order to keep the majority of the target audience happy.......and there's always the danger that this will continue to happen until that market share is spread more evenly. The real danger is that Nvidia/Intel have the ability to drop their prices to ensure that AMD don't have the ability to attract new customers and catch up so the current situation will never really change.

I think that only a major game-changer from AMD will turn things around and I don't think Ryzen is really going to do it, and I have doubts the more I hear about Vega/Volta. I do think that the AMD fans tend to get more excited about the huge performance leaps of this new kit and blow it out of proportion when really we're just seeing equivalent products to the competition, something that hasn't happened for a number of years. The problem is that Intel/Nvidia aren't standing still either.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 05:08 PM

Seeing as AMD has to pay Intel for the x86 License.... anything they develop for that license is open for Intel to take.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 06:47 PM

I very much doubt that Skate because if that were the case then Intel would have ensured that Apple aren't in the position they currently find themselves in and the AMD64 extensions wouldn't named the way they are.....however if that's down to Intel's original 8086/88 architecture and development then they've done all the hard work to put themselves into that position in the first place.

Edit: And a 2 minute check shows your statement to be nonsense because it's a cross-license agreement between Intel x86 and AMD's 64-bit x86 instruction set.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/17 09:26 PM

Dont remember who said they had issues with older GPU's and newer drivers..

But yeah, my 7970s have had plenty for a while now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/17 01:32 AM

Quote
AMD Confirms Vega Launching This Quarter, Shows 8K Video Editing Demo

..it’s coming this quarter [May 30 to June 1 most rumored]..

Vega Architecture Key Features

– 4x Power Efficiency
– 2x Peak Throughput/Performance Per Clock
– High Bandwidth Cache
– 2x Bandwidth per pin
– 8x Capacity Per stack (2nd Generation High Bandwidth Memory)
– 512TB Virtual Address Space
– Next Generation Compute Engine
– Next Generation Pixel Engine
– Next Generation Compute Unit optimized for higher clock speeds
– Rapid Packed Math
– Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer
– Primitive Shaders

..Just a couple of months back we found out that 80% of AMD’s driver team was actively optimizing for Vega. Earlier today we learned that AMD has already delivered full OpenGL support for Vega in Linux...


Really not new news in that a launch in about 6 weeks has been rumored for some time now. Just that they have a more definite rumor smile

Nice to see they've been working on getting the drivers right.

Vega is more than a GPU. Its a "compute unit" also. I expect it to be competitive with Nvidia's best or second best FPS wise. But, a little more advanced in totality of features (some of which don't matter to gamers). Now, what will it cost wink
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/17 10:55 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega to compete with GTX 1080 Ti

As well as Nvidia Titan Xp

During an AMA session, AMD's Global Marketing Manager for Desktop Processors, Don Woligrosky, answered plenty of questions and revealed a bit more information about the upcoming Radeon RX Vega graphics card.

In an AMA session at Tom's Hardware site, Don Woligorsky said that Radeon RX Vega performance looks really nice when compared to the Geforce GTX 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp. This certainly sounds good ...



Quote
AMD Ryzen AMA

..RAM compatibility is one of our top priorities right now, and we're working hard to get regular BIOS updates until the situation is ideal. Expect a new BIOS .. in May to make memory work faster on Ryzen...


Not brand new news. But, hints that AMD continues to work towards a BIOS update in May that will effectively increase Ryzen DRAM and CPU speeds. Moreover, AMD feels Vega will compete. Compete does not mean "win" FPS to me. It means the overall product capabilities give reasons to buy it over the competition.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/17 02:58 PM

Quote
id Software Praises AMD’s Ryzen for Its “Super Attractive” Price Point, Says New idTech Will Fully Utilize It


The article implies that since high core counts have become relatively cheap (Ryzen), games will start to use lots of cores -- obsoleting 4 core/8 thread unis (in my opinion). This is no different than what happened years ago with GPUs (example: Vega will have 4096 "shaders", it is rumored -- the first 3D GPUs had 1 or 2 "shaders").

Ryzen 8core is only the beginning, it is rumored (above in this thread). Intel will be releasing 12 core soon. 16+ core is the future, and high-end PC games will be developed for 16 core /32 thread CPUs. To repeat an old fact: XPlane is already using 20 threads (IIRC).

Ryzen 16 core/32 Thread rumored for fall 2017. May be a good choice during Black Friday sale.

Since we don't have everything-discussed "on the shelf to buy", all of the above should be considered speculation and rumor.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/17 05:02 PM

Two things on reply to your last 2 posts......

There are very few games that effeciently utilise 4 cores/8 threads at the moment. I think its a bit premature to announce the demise of Intel based on value for money Ryzen hex/octa-core chips for the same reason. Think about it, Intel have a massive market share, if devs suddenly move to 8 core chips and beyond they'll miss out a huge part of the audience and give themselves more work to do creating code that can offload dedicated threads into combined threads efficiently. Ive no doubt this willl happen over time but certainly not overnight and not before Intel have cheap 6/8/10 core desktop cpu's commonplace.

As for stating AMD will 'compete'......they're hardly going to tell anyone they won't be competing. By not bragging about potential performance it looks like they're already resigned to second place.

To be honest, I think that by not blowing away Intel/Nvidia and only creating equivalents I don't think much is going to change this gen. AMD have put their cards on the table now for all to see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/17 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
...To be honest, I think that by not blowing away Intel/Nvidia and only creating equivalents I don't think much is going to change this gen. AMD have put their cards on the table now for all to see.


I agree smile

My feeling is that AMD has "caught up" (assuming Vega is good) and is on the right track to "keep up". In a year from now, AMD vs Intel CPU and AMD vs Nvidia GPU will be a matchup between "equally good" hardware.

I believe there are probably no new true technical breakthroughs possible anymore. All we will see in the future is competition among equals.

Buying decisions (for the thoughtful) will come down to price -- so, there will be effective price competition and brand recognition competition (right now AMD has price, Intel and Nvidia have recognition).

So, I am NOT predicting AMD overwhelming Intel and Nvidia. Rather, I am predicting "equality", "competitiveness". In the future, the "thoughtful" consumer would look at AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. But, importantly, even if they pick wrong, they will not be getting a bad deal -- that's what I mean by competitiveness and equality (like buying Mercedes Benz or BMW or Lexus -- can't really go wrong).

My opinion. Not guaranteed to be correct smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/17 08:23 PM

Quote
AMD Takes Meaningful CPU Market Share From Intel For The First Time In 3 Years

AMD has reportedly gained 2.2% CPU market share in the first quarter of 2017. This makes it the very first time the Sunnyvale, California based chip maker has made any meaningful share gains against its much larger rival Intel since Q1 2014...


[Linked Image]

Does not look like a whole lot -- but, its a 10 percent gain relative to what AMD had before Ryzen. A 10 percent gain in business is huge.

Notice: Things were closer in 2005-2006. Back in the 90s AMD started WAY behind. Then, they caught up. If AMD stays on the current path and Intel does not "cheat" again, we might be back to near equality in a short number of years.

Attached picture AMDvsIntelMarket.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/17 09:45 AM

Regarding competition:

Quote
Samsung to overtake Intel

According to U.S. semiconductor market research firm IC Insights, Samsung is likely to overtake Intel as the world's largest chip maker later this year..

Chipzilla became the world's largest chipmaker back in 1993 and has held the title ever since. But it dropped the ball [in] the mobile market..

Intel still dominates the PC market...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/17 09:31 AM

Quote
New AMD Ryzen Microcode Update Will Expand Memory Support

..20 new memory registers to enable direct plug and play compatibility with existing Intel compatible DDR4 memory modules..

..a BIOS update will be rolled out this month to enable out-of-box compatibility with a large collection of Hynix based memory modules..

..Remember, the advertised speeds of almost all DDR4 memory kits out there are based on the proprietary Intel XMP — Extreme Memory Profile — standard, which is why running your DDR4 memory at its advertised speed can be tricky on Ryzen, especially DDR4 RAM with Hynix memory. In some cases you may need to increase the voltage to 1.5v, which is completely safe, for it to run at its advertised speed. Another easy knob to turn is to slightly up the SOC/unCore voltage to 1.1...


Good news. Besides the coming BIOS update, they note how to hand set voltages to get to rated DDR4 memory speed. I may try that -- or just wait for the new BIOS. My 3200MHz DDR4 is still at 2666MHz. And, as noted previously, upping memory speed actually makes a significant positive difference with Ryzen. Simplistically put, speeding up memory speeds up some Ryzen clocks on the inside of the CPU.

As noted previously, overclocking the Ryzen CPU itself is very easy and it runs cool. Ryzen is designed to be safely overclocked and AMD provides a "desktop" application to facilitate OC (don't need to enter BIOS for CPU OC). Of course, OC voids warranty. The same desktop application can be used to up-clock the memory to rated speed or OC -- but apparently needs above BIOS update to get 3200 with some memory -- particularly 32GB and up.

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel Says i7 7700K CPUs Shouldn’t Be Overclocked In Response To Countless Overheating Complaints

Intel i7 7700K owners have flooded the company’s official forum with countless reports and complaints about overheating issue that sends their CPUs’ temperatures shooting up to 90+ degrees Celsius with very minor computational loads and in some cases even when the processors are idling..

..The complaints have been piling up for over three months prompting Intel to finally end the silence and respond..

Intel’s Response : i7 7700K Owners Should Not Overclock, Overvolt Or De-lid Their CPUs

..owners who claim to be experiencing this overheating issue at stock settings without applying any additional voltage or raising the frequency reports PC Gamer...

..the i7 7700K’s main selling point over the i7 7700 is that it features an unlocked multiplier specifically for overclocking. And now owners are being told that not only are the high temperatures normal but that they shouldn’t even attempt to overclock their CPUs. The very same CPUs that were specifically marketed and sold with overclocking as a feature.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/17 09:31 AM

Quote
AMD Taking The Covers Off Vega, Navi & Zen+ On May 16th

AMD will finally be disclosing more information about its next generation CPU & graphics architectures Vega, Navi and Zen+ in 10 days. ... This will not be a Vega launch..

The Graphics Roadmap – VEGA & NAVI

Vega is set to come out some time before the end of June ..

Navi is AMD’s third generation graphics architecture .. built on GlobalFoundries’ upcoming 7nm FinFET process. .. Navi should land sometime between 2018 and 2019..

Pinnacle Ridge/Zen 2 & Future Zen+ Cores

.. the company is working on several generations of CPUs to succeed Zen which are set to come out over a 3 to 5 year period. These future CPU microarchitectures were referred to by the CEO as “Zen+”...


When one looks inside the Ryzen 1800X CPU chip, one sees its only half full and contains two 4 core units. A gaming 16 core/32 tread desktop PC version of Ryzen has been predicted/speculated for this Fall or Winter. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/17 06:39 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega To Have Very Limited Quantities In The First Months of Launch – Only 16,000 GPUs To Ship [worldwide], Low HBM2 Quantities Cited As Main Reason


Humm. Pre-order before the test reports or get nothing. I may opt for nothing since my RX480 is adequate (though slow at times in very-heavily modded FO4 at 2K and ultimate settings).

On the other hand, I may "go for it". We'll see what I do smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/17 09:27 AM

Quote
AMD’s Ryzen 5 Voted Best CPU Launch Since 2010, Ryzen 7 Came In Second


The attached PollResults image shows the progression over the years.Good PR for AMD.

Competition is good smile

Attached picture PollResults.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/17 04:16 PM

On the competition front:

Quote
NVIDIA is Not Even The Least Bit Worried About AMD’s Radeon RX Vega – CEO Jen-Hsun Huang Expects The Competitive Position To Remain Unchanged


I expect Nvidia to remain ahead on pure FPS. If Nvidia does not, they will have failed to continue the company policy to always win FPS regardless of cost. We'll see how the overall value (balance of gaming, utility beyond gaming, and cost) of AMD vs Nvidia GPUs shape up -- I don't claim to know the outcome.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/17 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote
AMD’s Ryzen 5 Voted Best CPU Launch Since 2010, Ryzen 7 Came In Second


The attached PollResults image shows the progression over the years.Good PR for AMD.

Competition is good smile


For perspective Allen, the others CPUs have had plenty of chance for a mix of opinion over a decent length of time. Ryzen (especially 5) has been out what? a couple of months at the most......its still the honeymoon period. You're hardly going to get someone buying this new CPU and slating it in a survey. The same would have been reported against the Bulldozer range after a month and what a waste they turned out to be!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/17 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
...For perspective Allen,.. Ryzen (especially 5) has been out what? a couple of months at the most......its still the honeymoon period. ..The same would have been reported against the Bulldozer range after a month and what a waste they turned out to be!


The claim of the article was that this survey has been going on annually since 2010. The data for each year is the data that year (not the data for the remembrances of an old product this year).

Note: Back when it released, Bulldozer was "panned". The chart shows 6.9% positive and 66% negative -- Bulldozer was the worst score since they started the survey in 2010. I panned Bulldozer also (but bought one).

Back in 2011, Intel scored VERY high also. And, Intel scored high a couple times since -- 2014 most recently. However, as noted by others, Intel has not been releasing big improvements for the last couple years -- due to lack of competition by AMD or anyone else -- so, the "new" Intel chips are less well received because they do not add much.

Ryzen per core is similar to Intel -- but has twice as many cores/threads for a price many can afford (which matters in some applications and will become more important as time passes). So, Ryzen gets good marks from potential buyers. As noted previously, Intel plans to release an affordable 12 core soon to compete. They would not bother to do that if their (Intel's) market research indicated Ryzen was only a "flash in the pan" -- Ryzen is real even to Intel.

All in all, the survey seems about right to me.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/17 09:40 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 16 Core “Whitehaven” Enthusiast CPUs Leaked – 3.6GHz Clock Speed, Boatloads of Cache & Quad Channel DDR4 Support

AMD’s upcoming 16 core enthusiast Ryzen “Whitehaven” CPUs have been spotted. The new processors will come in variations of up to 16 cores and 32 threads and will support quad-channel DDR4 memory..

AMD Aiming For Intel’s Jugular – Rolling Out 16 Core Behemoths For The Enthusiast CPU Market In Mid 2017

a variety of core and thread counts. 16 cores and 32 threads is the maximum, but other configurations with 12 cores also exist. There has also been talk that 10 and 14 core SKUs will also be made available.

..With a 16 core Ryzen in the high-end desktop the Zen architecture is well on its way to displacing Intel’s Extreme edition processors from the performance throne that they’ve long held on to. “Whitehaven” may be the first CPU family from AMD to win the ultimate performance crown since the aptly code named “hammer” architecture hammered Intel’s Pentiums nearly 14 years ago in the form of the Athlon 64...


Well, AMD suckered me -- they got me to buy an expensive 8 core (that I am happy with) -- only to follow a few months later with a 16 core I will probably want. My cup runneth over -- but my wallet is becoming empty smile

Presumably, the 16 core clock speeds in the chart are for an engineering model. The final release may be quicker.

Article

Attached picture Ryzen16C.PNG
Attached picture EngineeringSamples.PNG
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/17 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Originally Posted by Paradaz
...For perspective Allen,.. Ryzen (especially 5) has been out what? a couple of months at the most......its still the honeymoon period. ..The same would have been reported against the Bulldozer range after a month and what a waste they turned out to be!


The claim of the article was that this survey has been going on annually since 2010. The data for each year is the data that year (not the data for the remembrances of an old product this year).

Note: Back when it released, Bulldozer was "panned". The chart shows 6.9% positive and 66% negative -- Bulldozer was the worst score since they started the survey in 2010. I panned Bulldozer also (but bought one).

Back in 2011, Intel scored VERY high also. And, Intel scored high a couple times since -- 2014 most recently. However, as noted by others, Intel has not been releasing big improvements for the last couple years -- due to lack of competition by AMD or anyone else -- so, the "new" Intel chips are less well received because they do not add much.

Ryzen per core is similar to Intel -- but has twice as many cores/threads for a price many can afford (which matters in some applications and will become more important as time passes). So, Ryzen gets good marks from potential buyers. As noted previously, Intel plans to release an affordable 12 core soon to compete. They would not bother to do that if their (Intel's) market research indicated Ryzen was only a "flash in the pan" -- Ryzen is real even to Intel.

All in all, the survey seems about right to me.


You seem to still be missing the point....the Ryzen CPU's have been out for 2 months. How can anyone possibly look at the survey in any meaningful way? I personally think that it's more 'relief' on AMD fans' part at this point in time, not so much because of Ryzen performance being off the charts (it isn't, it's only equivalent) but simply because their previous products were such a let down. We're not currently looking at a CPU range that has pushed performance to a new level, we're looking at a CPU range that actually shows just how poor the previous AMD products have been in comparison. I'm certain Bulldozer wouldn't have had a 6.9% survey score 2 months after its release.....if everyone knew it was so poor even AMD fans wouldn't have gone anywhere near it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/17 01:51 PM

From AMD:

Quote
Computex 2017 is fast approaching so we wanted to share a save-the-date for the AMD press conference, scheduled for May 31st from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m.


Until then, the various sites are speculating, rumoring, guessing, finding possible leaks along the lines of:

Vega will be unveiled and released for sale. A new enthusiast 16 core/32 thread Zen CPU will be unveiled and perhaps released soon thereafter to compete directly with Intel's 12 core enthusiast product. A new AMD motherboard chip series will be officially unveiled and AMD X399 motherboards launched/released to compete directly with Intel X299.

But, until May 31, these are just rumors, speculations, etc.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/15/17 08:46 AM

Today's leak:
Quote

AMD Ryzen 9 Threadripper Lineup Leaked – up to 16 Cores & 4.1GHz With Quad Channel DDR4 Support & 44 PCIe Lanes

AMD’s entire Ryzen 9 Threadripper CPU lineup has been leaked, featuring 16, 14, 12 and 10 core parts with clock speeds of up to 4.1GHz. The company’s brand new enthusiast CPU lineup is set to launch this June..


[Linked Image]

Leak Article

Attached picture Ryzen9Lineup.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/15/17 06:32 PM

Speculations that seem more solid (while being speculation/rumor):
Quote

Intel is licensing AMD's graphics

Done deal

We can confirm rumours that Intel has given up on Nvidia written a cheque to licence AMD's graphics.

It looks like the veteran GPU editor Kyle Bennet was right when he first reported the rumour, however wild it sounded. ..



Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega Nova, Eclipse & Core Reportedly Launching June 5th – Priced At $599, $499 & $399 Respectively


The low price at the high end may mean that the $599 Vega will not compete directly with Nvidia's fastest. But, no one who follows this stuff thinks AMD will ever win maximum FPS. It's not impossible that AMD wins, but "heads will roll at Nvidia" if they do. As often repeated, AMD normally is selling "bang per buck" with "adequate/competitive" FPS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/17 12:21 AM

AMD just had their 2017 Financial Analyst Day briefing. Some of the headlines follow. WccfTech has the detailed articles. Nothing we did not expect. They basically confirmed rumors/leaks reported above.

Quote
AMD Unveils “EPYC” CPUs Featuring Up To 32 Cores & 64 Threads For The Datacenter


Quote
AMD Unveils 16 Core Threadripper CPUs, The “World’s Fastest” For High End Desktops


Quote
AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition Air and Liquid Cooled Models Pictured and Detailed – 4096 SPs, 16 GB HBM2 With 480 GB/s Bandwidth, 13 TFLOPs Compute, Arriving in June

This Vega is for professionals who need "compute" power.

Quote
AMD Zen CPU Roadmap: Zen 2 With 7nm Process Due 2018, Zen 3 With 7nm+ Process in 2019 – Aimed at High-Performance Desktop and Datacenter Processors


WccfTech Articles

Attached picture Roadmap.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/17 10:34 AM

Quote
AMD : Lower-Priced, Gaming-Optimized Radeon RX Vega Is Coming

..The 9 Month HBM2 Delay & Progressive Decline In Clock Speeds..

..Hynix originally planned to ship HBM2 in Q3 2016 but it was pushed back a quarter in every upate since then. The company initially planned to introduce two HBM2 products, rated at 2.0Gbps and 1.6Gbps. Overtime, the 2.0Gbps product was ostensibly scrapped in favor of the slower memory, likely because of yield/cost challenges...


According to AMD, the first Vega GPUs will be for professional use and cost a lot. Those are the ones being released in June.

According to AMD, the gaming Vega GPUs will be cheaper and fast for gaming. But, the gaming GPUs are coming out later this year (they were supposed to arrive in 2016).

The reason gaming Vega is still not released is delayed Hynix HBM2 memory -- not delayed Vega GPU chips. Quantity production of HBM2 is already delayed 9 months and is pushing a one-year delay.

AMD "took a chance" when they designed Vega for Hynix HBM2 memory that did not yet exist. Taking that chance did not "pay off" and is costing them the better part of a year.

Nvidia did not take that chance (they continued to use conventional memory). We now know why Nvidia has released their high end products so far ahead of AMD (delayed HBM2 production by Hynix).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/17 09:38 AM

Quote
Raja Koduri explains where is Radeon RX Vega in Reddit AMA

Here are the most interesting questions and answers from Reddit’s AMA.


Long Summary of QA Session

The Very Long Original QA -- Adds Little to Summary

Questions were directly from enthusiasts -- like us. So, the answers were a bit more relevant than we often get.

Mr. Koduri seems to say Vega gamer cards will be slightly faster than the Vega professional cards being released soon (the pro edition will do games just fine he says). They will also be cheaper than the pro version and high-end Nvidia cards.

He notes that HBM2 memory will be faster than it seems to be based purely on "memory speed" and "GB" numbers. Apparently, its accessed differently than normal DDR memory and is faster in practice. Also, for example, 8GB HBM2 can perform like 16GB of DDR5 or DDR6 in some situations.

However, the release date of Vega gamer cards is still not publicly available.
Posted By: Aeronautico

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/17 11:57 AM

Thanks Allen for keeping this thread updated. Very useful information in one spot for ones like me who are interested.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/17 09:33 PM

You're welcome.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/20/17 11:16 AM

Quote
AMD Back In The High-End, Asus Teases Thin Ryzen Gaming Laptop

..Asus reserves the Republic Of Gamers brand for its most premium products. The fact that it’s building ROG laptops around AMD’s Ryzen APU is quite telling. When AMD said mobile Ryzen APUs will go into premium gaming laptops, 2-in-1s and notebook devices, it was dead serious and it clearly has the design wins to back this up...


[Linked Image]

Attached picture jim-anderson-page-016.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/17 10:28 AM

From Ryan Smith, Editor of Anandtech a tweet:

Quote
Reminder: believe half of what you see and none of what you read. GPU rumors are rife. Most of them will be wrong. Anyone can make this up


Much of what we "quote" in this tread are rumors/speculations. Although we try to "weed out" the unlikely ones, not all we repeat here will be correct. Always wait for actual product release to know when a CPU/GPU will be released and independent tests to know what a given CPU/GPU provides.

Most recently, two AMD rumor/speculations that interest me, are turning out incorrect.

1. Rumor: Vega gamer GPU will be released in late May or Early June. That's looking very unlikely now. We may wait more months for the gamer Vega. The professional Vega is what's coming soon -- it plays games well but is overpriced for gaming.

2. Rumor: Motherboard manufacturers would release a new Ryzen BIOS by mid-May -- that would allow easily clocking 32GB of DDR4 memory to 3200MHz (often one cannot exceed 2666 with 2x16GB). It's past mid-May and I haven't seen the new BIOS yet for either of my two Ryzen motherboards (most recent BIOS for both is April 10).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/17 01:04 PM

Quote
AMD manages high yields on Ryzen

..[An anonymous inside source says] that 80 percent of CPUs are produced with all eight cores fully functional..


Quote
AMD Confirms 7nm Products Will Tape Out This Year – Zen 2 & Navi

..Dr. Lisa Su, President & CEO at AMD
“. I think the gap between the foundry roadmap and the Intel roadmap has gotten a lot closer. Our goal is to be aggressive with 7nm technology. We will be doing tape outs later this year .."

Su also revealed that the company is employing a new research and development strategy by which at any given moment it has teams working on two consecutive next generation CPU and Graphics designs to stay on “the leading edge” of technology...


A similar leapfrogging (two design team) approach has been used by Intel CPUs for a while now (Intel "tick, tock" approach).

For many years, AMD went its own way. That did not work on CPUs (okay for GPUs).

Now, they are trying to beat Intel at its own CPU game. All things considered, I think that's a sensible approach -- because, in effect, Intel makes the rules for the CPU industry/game, today.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/17 02:21 AM

Quote
AMD CEO : Gaming RX Vega Launching “Very Soon” After Frontier Edition – Out By July At The Latest


If "out by July" means "by the end of June", then that is what has always been promised -- e.g. by the end of the first Quarter.

Quote
AMD answers questions about Ryzen


A one hour question/answer done by 3 AMD staffers -- video. I liked it -- but, it is 1 hour long; so, not for everyone.

Video Q&A
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/17 05:07 PM

Regarding rumor #2, AMD did release AGESA 1.0.0.4 to manufacturers this month; it's up to those partners to make it available to customers. See the list at the bottom of this link for individual model bios version. Crosshair VI Hero 1002!

http://infinityonloop.com/ryzen-cpu-bios-update-agesa-1-0-0-4-performance-improvements/
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/26/17 03:17 PM

AMD just released AGESA 1.0.0.6 to good effect. Watch for updated BIOS from your motherboard manufacturer!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3198...tware-cures-ryzens-memory-headaches.html
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/26/17 05:38 PM

Quote
Nvidia puts AMD inside Battlebox

It wanted the best

Nvidia is putting AMD under the bonnet of its “GeForce GTX Battlebox” PC – although obviously not its GPU gear..

The Battlebox Ultimate will be based around a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, with either an Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 (minimum) and 16GB or more DDR4 RAM...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/28/17 10:31 AM

Quote
AMD’s Upcoming 16 Core / 32 Threads Monsters, The Ryzen 9 Threadripper 1998X and Threadripper 1998 Processors, Get Early Listing


Based on the attached listing, some "Threadrippers" have clocks within 0.1GHz of Ryzen 1800X 8 core. One is roughly equal. This may mean similar (not necessarily identical) single core performance -- with more cores. I'll be interested to see the practical impact of the 4 channel memory, if any. I'm also wondering about the retail price tag.

Attached picture Threadripper.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/17 01:27 PM

Competition is good smile

Quote
Intel Core i9 7980XE Flagship 18 Core, 36 Thread Skylake X CPU Leaked – Core X Series Family Tackles AMD Threadripper With Massive 18, 16, 14, 12 and 10 Core Models

..Features Core i9-7980XE Processors With Massive 18 Cores, 36 Threads, Guns Aimed at AMD Threadripper..


Intel has the money and resources to meet AMD "head on" and win. And, at first blush, they may have done it with an 18 core CPU (depending on clocks and performance which are TBD).

At least this much has become very likely (to me), 4 core/8 thread will be very inadequate in a couple years (for the newest games/apps). The folks who make the highest end games and applications will begin to design to make use of 16 cores/ 32 threads -- they must to keep their "highest end" ranking.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/17 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
At least this much has become very likely (to me), 4 core/8 thread will be very inadequate in a couple years (for the newest games/apps). The folks who make the highest end games and applications will begin to design to make use of 16 cores/ 32 threads -- they must to keep their "highest end" ranking.


I don't agree with you at all, there is no pressure to adapt development to anything beyond optimal 4/8 core for gaming and apps - most apps still aren't doing it properly for multiple cores anyway. A lot of the gaming development will and always will be based around the consoles and it will be much more work or nigh on impossible in the long run for devs to create code for 16 core/32 threads and be backwards compatible for processors with much less core counts, especially when such a small proportion of gamers will have these CPUs at the higher end of the market. It's exactly the same reason we don't see much of a performance increase for cpu's with 8/10 cores now.

I personally believe it will be another 4-5 years before we see games utilising 4/8 cores optimally.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/17 11:22 AM

Quote
Samsung plans 4nm foundry for 2020

..it will commercialise its 8-nano process later this year. The 7-nano process will appear next year and 6-nano and will be ready in 2019..

The 5-nano LPP, which is planned to be commercialised in 2019 along with 6-nano LPP, will be the last micro process that can be implemented through FinFET...


I've always "guessed" that 3nm might be the end for current silicon semiconductors. But, I also believe there's a good chance time will prove me wrong smile

As previously noted, AMD plans to jump from their current 14nm products to 7nm (skipping 10nm). Samsung's plans seem to indicate AMD's plan is quite feasible (anyone for 64core/128thread enthusiast CPUs ? smile ).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/17 11:45 AM

Quote
Intel will be using a TIM instead of a soldered IHS in its Core-X lineup, overclockers will have to invest in a de-lid kit for optimal thermal performance

..this is the first time that Intel has not soldered its premium HEDT lineup and will end up affecting the vast majority of consumers adversely (unless you decide to de-lid your CPU). This is something that will allow Intel to save time and money ...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/17 09:46 PM

Intel's lineup against AMD Ryzen. The previous quote is from an article that seems to indicate Intel is "cutting corners" to rush Ryzen competition onto the shelves -- only time will tell if there is any validity to that theme.

I'll be interested to see/compare Ryzen 16core pricing. At these prices, I won't be "in the market".

We'll see AMD's presentation Tuesday evening (USA). Really don't know what they will show -- many rumors so far. So, let's wait and see.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture IntelLineup.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/17 10:19 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega [for gaming] launches at SIGGRAPH late July

..AMD confirmed that Frontier Edition [not for gaming] will be available on June 27th. This is the flagship Radeon Pro card aimed at content creators..


The news media considers this a launch delay -- versus what they speculated AMD originally planned.

Quote
AMD Details Ryzen Threadripper X399 Platform – 16 Cores, 32 Threads, 64 PCIe Gen3 Lanes & Quad Channel DDR4 Memory

..A solid release date hasn’t been announced yet, however you will be able to purchase a Ryzen Threadripper CPU and an X399 motherboard some time this summer AMD says...


Some evidence that Intel is pushing to get its 16/18 core versions out in the same time frame. So far, its not obvious that the 16/18 core Intel products will out perform AMD 16 core. Some writers believe the Intel competing products are being "rushed" (their word) to have an Intel 16 core product on the shelf at the same time as AMD.

Result of last night's presentation: We wait until mid or end of Summer for products and unbiased data.

Meantime, the 1006 BIOS's for Ryzen are said to launch in Mid June at the discretion of the motherboard manufacturers (they already have it). 1006 is intended to jump memory performance up to 4000MHz (with appropriate memory) -- which actually matters with Ryzen CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/17 08:03 PM

Above I note that the 1006 BIOS is supposed to launch in Mid June.

I downloaded the Beta (not guaranteed to work) for my Gigabyte 370 K7 motherboard and installed it.

My memory is 32GB of 3200MHz DDR4. Users have found 16GB is relatively easy to set to 3200MHz and 32GB usually will not go over 2666 with older BIOS.

My memory now runs stable at 3000MHz. It boots and runs for a while at 3200MHz -- but eventually locks up. I have not tried any "tricks" -- just simple stuff. So, I suppose with some hand set voltages it would work at 3200MHz. Also works at 1T timing.

This is the Beta. So, the Mid June version may work easier -- they say OC to 4000MHz will be possible with some memory types -- if one is expert at OC memory.

Attached picture CPUZRyzen.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/17 10:07 AM

A screen grab of the Gigabyte beta BIOS's as of this morning. Gives an idea where the BIOS headed (all Ryzen MB makers should have similar BIOS's).

Gigabyte Beta Bios Page

Attached picture GigabyteBetaBIOS.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/17 09:15 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 Prices Drop By Up To 23% Ahead Of Threadripper Launch
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/17 06:43 PM

Latest rumors supposedly based on "insider leaks":

Quote
AMD’s Entry Level Ryzen Threadripper 16 Core Chip is Rumored To Be Priced at $849 US – Ryzen Threadripper CPUs Very Cheap To Produce

..This pricing is much lower than.. Intel.. 16 core part which will retail at $1699 US..

..Ryzen Threadripper CPUs are very cheap to produce as the cost of a 16 core and 32 thread chip falls around $110-$120 US. That cost is included for the dies, package and testing. So AMD is making a big profit from each Threadripper sold which does bode well for AMD’s current financial situation..

..X399 motherboards while impressive (ASUS/Gigabyte/ASRock lineup), will cost a lot...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/17 01:42 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel’s 18 Core Skylake-X Won’t Be Available Until Next Year – 14 & 16 Core Parts To See Delayed Availability

Intel Was Clearly Blindsided By AMD’s Threadripper

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that Intel had always intended to continue its incrementalism had it got the chance.. The fact that [Intel is] nearly doubling the core count of its flagship CPU after years of incrementalism, speaks volumes. And the fact that these parts will see delayed availability tells us Intel was caught off guard and was clearly not ready for AMD’s Threadripper surprise..


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/17 06:58 AM

What are you/your quoted links classing as 'flagship cpus' out of interest? Intel has had 12 core cpus available since 2013.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/17 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
What are you/your quoted links classing as 'flagship cpus' out of interest? Intel has had 12 core cpus available since 2013.


Quote
Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)

Date First Available [at Amazon] January 5, 2017


Above is latest installment of the i7-x700K line (the cores of which) Intel has been improving "incrementally" (article's term) for a while now. Articles, posters, and Intel advertising have pushed this as the top gamer's CPU (most still do).

If one wants to go by price or core count, then Intel 12 core would be tops for most users (however, its per core performance is only so-so). But, I've never seen that one "advertised to the masses" and "showcased" like a "flagship" product -- because significantly lower per-core performance would not do the job for a gamer.

The new 18 core is projected/rumored to cost $1999 -- that would make it the new flagship by the price definition.

Jumping from 4 cores or 12 cores right to 16 or 18 (with steps in between) is not an "incremental" improvement -- its a "dramatic" improvement (to most folks).

As I've mentioned, I think the argument (even for gamers) will shift (over the next couple years) from maximum single core performance (or per clock performance) towards maximum threaded performance. Intel seems to believe this too -- according to some articles.

To be clear, the articles I read are not saying Ryzen "blows Intel CPUs away". Rather, now the field is competitive. Intel needs to "step up" its game to remain competitive -- and Intel will step up its game -- as 18 cores indicates. However, they may still charge a "premium" price for an "Intel product".

AMD's next "jump" is rumored to be direct from 14nm to 7nm (deliberately bypassing 10nm to gain an edge). Intel is rumored to have planned a line of 10nm next. We'll see how that "competition" goes.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/17 10:50 AM

In the "bang per buck" and ROI world:

Quote
AMD GPU Supply Exhausted By Cryptocurrency Mining, AIBs Now Directly Advertising To Miners

AMD Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards, particularly the RX 580 and 570, have been out of stock for weeks now owing to the cryptocurrency mining craze..

Our resident lab-master and chief Keith May published a story a couple of weeks ago detailing the performance of different graphics cards in Etherium mining. No matter what price bracket we looked at AMD GPUs were the biggest profit makers in terms of a return on investment basis.

While some NVIDIA graphics cards do close the gap with their AMD counterparts in perf/watt at Etherium mining, their significantly higher initial cost make them far less profitable..

Used AMD Radeon Graphics Cards Are Catching 2-3 Times Their Original Value In The 2nd Hand Market...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/17 08:43 PM

Quote
It’s Official; IBM Launches The 5nm GAAFET Chip With 30 Billion Transistors Per 50mm², 75% Power & 40% Performance Boost

..The time of FinFET is gone folks, and now its time to move forward to GAAFET..

Right now, it’s expected that both Samsung and TSMC will commence risk production for 7nm next year. It’s currently time for 10nm, but IBM really has upped the bar today. IBM claims that when 5nm GAAFET is compared to 10nm commercial chips, you’ll get a 40% performance boost or an amazing 75% power consumption reduction, at similar performance levels. These are some big claims folks, so expect some big changes just around the corner. .


This chip is aimed at Cell Phones and other portables. But, it indicates how close we are to 5nm. So, maybe jumping to 7nm (as I mentioned above) is not cutting edge.

The article does indicate that 5nm requires a different, more complicated 3 dimensional architecture to work. So, its not merely a matter of making things smaller.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/17 10:31 AM

On the competition front, Intel makes progress on10nm and modifies terminology.

Quote
Ice Lake, our 2nd generation 10nm processor, is taped in. Intel continues to lead in 10nm technology. pic.twitter.com/meY8mZ6ou2

— Intel Official News (@intelnews) June 8, 2017
[i][/i]

..a tape-in is not the same as tape-out. A tape out is the last stage of IC design process in which the final design is sent to the fabrication facility to be .. fabricated. It essentially means that the designing stage is over..

A tape in is a relatively newer term that is reserved for complicated SOCs .. various components of the SOC have been finalized by their low-level design teams and handed over (taped-in) to the top level design team which will basically finalize .. before sending it to the fabrication facility (taping out)...


Speculation is that Intel will release the first 10nm products late this year (2017). The main Intel 10nm products are expected in 2018. AMD is rumored to be skipping 10nm and going straight to 7nm (from 14nm). 7nm AMD CPU/GPU rumored to be in development but not expected until 2018 or 2019.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/17 08:57 AM

More Rumor:

Quote
KitGuru: AMD Ryzen Threadripper to launch ‘around 10th of August’

..both Threadripper and Skylake-X i9-7920X will launch in the same month. However, unlike AMD, Intel needs more time to deliver parts with more cores, as i9-7940X+ CPUs are expected around October.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMDIntelThreadrippers.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/17 09:51 AM

"The Future And Current Status of AMD..." includes effective server CPUs. This will help AMD's "bottom line".

Quote
[AMD] EPYC evokes a massive interest

[AMD] Naples destroys [Intel] Broadwell E5 2699A

..AMD EPYC is an enterprise, server/cloud data center product that will put an incredible lot of pressure on Intel's server roadmap. AMD offers top to bottom solutions by having eight, sixteen, twenty-four and thirty-two core products..

..Naples or EPYC 7601, in its full 32-core and 64-thread glory, is putting a lot of pressure on Broadwell E5 2699 V4 and giving up to 45 percent higher performance in the 2P Integer Specint Rate base 2006 benchmark.

The same CPU scores 75 percent higher performance in the 2P floating point score...


Quote
AMD's Zen 2 and Zen 3 7nm are in the pipe

..AMD has Zen 2 and Zen 3 in the pipeline and for the enterprise / server market, those are Rome and Milan..

AMD managed to execute and it has definitely caught Intel by surprise. A few smart and bold decisions such as 128 PCIe lanes, 8-channel DDR4 memory, big L3 cache and 32-cores are just a few things that caught Intel off guard.

Oh boy, it is a good day for the server/enterprise world as the competition is back with a vengeance...


Of course, Intel will have to compete by improving its products. So, even Intel fans and Intel data centers will benefit. Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMDZenRoadmap.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/17 09:58 PM

Quote
AMD's Ryzen 7 1700X drops below $300 at Walmart

Cheapest price around.

..It is currently priced at $355.22 on Walmart's website with 2-day shipping. If you add it to your cart and opt to pick it up in-store, Walmart will deduct $59.38 from the price, bringing the cost down to $295.84. That is lowest price around..

The Ryzen 7 1700X has 8 cores and 16 threads clocked at 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz. It also has 16MB of L3 cache, and like all Ryzen processors, it is unlocked for easier overclocking...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/17 10:22 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega To Have Excellent Price to Performance Ratio, Insider Claims

..The latest information comes from Bits and Chips who have been historically accurate with most of their rumors...


AMD RX Vega is to launch at SIGGRAPH 2017 (Los Angeles, 30 July – 3 August) according to an AMD slide. We'll see. The rumored launch date has slipped in the past.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/26/17 10:44 AM

Intel's latest CPU versions may have a problem -- according to the Debian OS site. It applies to all operating systems -- including Windows. It can be fixed they say. But, takes action by the Intel PC owner -- involving a BIOS/UEFI update -- if I read correctly.

Quote
[WARNING] Intel Skylake/Kaby Lake processors: broken hyper-threading

This warning advisory is relevant for users of systems with the Intel
processors code-named "Skylake" and "Kaby Lake". These are: the 6th and
7th generation Intel Core processors..

Disable hyper-threading immediately in BIOS/UEFI to work around the
problem. Read this advisory for instructions about an Intel-provided
fix..


Debian Developer Advisory
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/26/17 10:56 AM

An AMD authorized a "limited preview" of Radeon Vega Frontier GPU (professional -- not gaming). But, it is supposed to be by an unbiased site using actual hardware (rather than rumor).

Quote
AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition preview

AMD has given an exclusive first look at Radeon Frontier to PCWorld. They were allowed to test it in few synthetic benchmarks like SPECviewperf or Cinebench OpenGL, however pure gaming benchmarks were out of the question. Although they were allowed to play Doom, Prey and Sniper Elite 4, no detailed performance metrics were revealed..

.. The cards appears to be faster than Nvidia’s GTX 1080 and close to that of a GTX 1080 Ti card..

..we are looking at 15 to 50% higher performance than TITAN Xp [depending on the test used] ...


Hopefully, the "gaming version" of RX Vega will out perform the "professional" version when gaming. Improved gaming for RX Vega has been rumored.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/17 04:00 PM

When Ryzen came out, the initial performance "lacked" because the motherboard BIOS's needed work.

On the competition front, it seems Intel has a similar issue.

Quote
Intel X299 platform is an overclockers' nightmare

Motherboard manufacturers or Intel to blame?

A well-known overclocker, der8auer, went out on a limb saying that current motherboards based on Intel's X299 chipset are not properly designed .. are an overclocking nightmare..

..can't be recommended for overclocking since temperatures on the VRM part reach well over 100 degrees Celsius and some even heat up the 8-pin EPS PSU cable to dangerous levels...


Not to knock Intel. Merely to say: Virtually all new designs have "teething issues".

So, AMD's slow start with Ryzen is not a sign of incompetence -- just "how it often goes with new stuff". Anyhow, now Ryzen pretty much works as advertised or better (with beta BIOS). So will Intel's new products -- in a few months (they may need new hardware -- not just a BIOS change).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/17 09:42 AM

Reviews of AMD Radeon RX Vega Frontier Edition GPU (professional card, not a gaming card) indicate its definitely not a cost effective gaming card. It plays games fast, but not nearly fast enough for the $1000 price.

In professional applications and benchmarks, it competes with Nvidia professional products -- wins some, loses others. Nvidia's fastest professional card is notably faster, but costs twice as much.

So, for professional users, it comes down to price/performance when choosing between pro-oriented Vega FE GPU and Nvidia professional GPU products. Gamers need not apply.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/17 09:41 AM

Quote
..AMD Confirms July Launch At SIGGRAPH For RX Vega Gaming Optimized Graphics Cards..

..AMD’s Jason Evangelho also went on record to state that gamers should not draw conclusions about Vega’s gaming performance based on Vega Fonrtier Edition benchmarks. Vega Frontier Edition was designed and optimized for a vastly different set of tasks and use cases aimed at the professional market. On the other hand RX Vega graphics cards coming at the end of the month are specifically designed and optimized for games...


Quote
AMD Takes 10.4% CPU Share From Intel In Q2 2017, Its Largest Quarterly Share Gain In History


[Linked Image]

Do not read too much into the above. The sources are very good, but the findings are open to interpretation. So, we'll see what the future brings on both subjects.

Attached picture CPUSales.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/17 11:58 AM

Another rumor/speculative article regarding RX Vega performance. Its conclusions are similar to other speculations but is not proven. Proof awaits release of RX Vega.

Based on Leaked unofficial test results, indications are that AMD RX Vega performance fits between Nvidia GTX1080 and GTX1080Ti.



Attached picture RXVegaPerformance.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/17 06:55 PM

Quote
AMD appoints former Intel man to board

AMD has announced the appointment of Abhi Talwalkar to its board.

.. Talwalkar was the CEO of LSI from May 2005 until the completion of LSI’s merger with Avago Technologies in May 2014.

Before that Talwalkar held a number of senior management roles at Intel, including corporate vice president and co-general manager of the Digital Enterprise Group and vice president and general manager of the Intel Enterprise Platform Group...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/17 09:07 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Steam Hardware & Software Survey: June 2017

Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data about what kinds of computer hardware and software our customers are using. Participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous. The information gathered is incredibly helpful to us as we make decisions about what kinds of technology investments to make and products to offer...


Nvidia GPUs win -- with GTX1060 being most popular DX12 GPU.

Intel CPUs win -- with 4 core being most popular. 95% of gaming CPUs run less than 3,7 GHz.

Because Survey participation is optional, not all Steam users systems are represented. So, the fine details of the survey may be in error (vs reality). However, the larger conclusions are probably valid and are used by game developers to help decide what hardware to support.

Steam Full Survey Results
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/17 09:15 PM

As we know, the cost effective GPUs (in particular AMD GPUs) are now overpriced due to:

Quote
Good luck building a VR PC: Ethereum miners are buying all the GPUs

Once the tap turns on again, GPUs will restore PCs and edge computing to glory


..As Ethereum ballooned to its highest historical value (nearly USD $400 for a single ETH), it became a wise investment to buy a cheap PC with a beefy power supply, stock it up with GPUs [for Ethereum mining]...


But, the cost-effective-GPU shortage due to mining is temporary. The future is about cost effective GPUs for "other than gaming".

Quote
..Moving away from the general-purpose CPU .. the GPU [is becoming] more important than the CPU. The GPU is central to all the roles we expect 21st century computers to fill. This may be the reason Apple recently ditched chip designer Imagination in favor of their own, home-grown GPU. Within a few years, every computing device of consequence - supercomputer, desktop or smartphone - will be driven by architectures and operating systems that center around the GPU...


AMD has been working on a way to make GPUs of seemingly unlimited power (Nvidia is on the same path). The key is making many small GPU chips act like a single super large GPU chip (not CrossFireX or SLI chips). AMD's Navi GPU is rumored to be such a multi-chip GPU -- rumored/speculated for 2019.
Posted By: U-96

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/17 09:34 PM

WIth the lack of 470/480/570/580 cards, they are now buying up the GTX 10xx cards too. Those AMD cards are on ebay @£500 a piece.

At this point it would be cheaper just to buy Ethereum on Coinbase and dump it on a rise (if the whole thing doesn't collapse).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/17 11:30 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX VEGA is going on a tour

AMD will be showing RX Vega in action during two pre-launch community meetups

Here’s a full schedule:

Budapest, Hungary July 18 at the Akvárium Klub from 2 to 7 CET.
Portland, USA, PDXLAN in, July 21 to 23
Los Angeles, USA, SIGGRAPH 2017, July 30...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/13/17 06:51 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper and Ryzen 3 Product Updates

..Ryzen Threadripper will launch [in early August] with two SKUs: the 1920X with 12 cores and 24 threads [$799] and 1950X, the flagship HEDT Ryzen processor with 16 cores and 32 threads [$999]..

Meanwhile two Ryzen 3 [4 core] SKUs will be available on July 27th (with no official pricing as of yet). [prices speculated at $100 and $130]...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/17 08:19 AM

For high core count CPUs, what matters is performance in high thread count applications. AMD Threadripper seems like it will be competitive.

Quote
AMD Threadripper Lineup Gets Preliminary Pricing and Performance Numbers – Offers 40% More Performance Per Dollar Than Intel Core-X In Cinebench R15

As expected, Intel does have an edge in terms of performance per core figures – but in Cinebench R15, the difference isn’t enough to justify the Intel premium..

The Threadripper and Whitehaven X399 platform .. will continue to upset the x86 paradigm .. Whether or not Threadripper is able to beat Intel offerings core-for-core or clock-for-clock is irrelevant – they will knock out the competition where it actually matters: Perf-Per-$...
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/17 12:14 PM

That's a lot of contradiction in a single paragraph.

Performance per $ is only relevant if value for money is the primary driver. Your own sentence before the quote refers to performance in high thread count applications and then the quote starts with 'Intel does have an edge in terms of performance per core figures' yet in bold your quote pulls out one example (probably out of 100's) where the AMD chip has 'won' in one of the benchmarks/tests.

I'll admit it, I come to this thread almost daily just to see what weighted information is added, often for humour but at the same time you could probably just have a single post in this entire thread that links to whatever source you pull most of this nonsense from. I know you love AMD and have reasons for disliking the Intel/Nvidia rolling roadblock but I think you'd get more appreciation by linking articles which aren't so clearly biased. It's not a dig, you're a nice guy but I do think your enthusiasm for AMD can have an effect on credibility too.

If you want to talk about price/performance then include price/performance links and not some thinly veiled extract that tries to blur the real content of the quoted article.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/17 10:01 PM

Most everything in this thread are quotes of speculative, rumor, leak, unproven nature. Rather than selectively quote to mislead, I try to include sentences that indicate doubt. E.g. in the post above

Quote
As expected, Intel does have an edge in terms of performance per core figures..


For what its worth, I only link articles that I think add information worth looking at -- as I don't want to waste folks time.

Most articles have little or nothing new to say beyond what I excerpt -- even those that have hundreds of extra words (I suppose authors are paid to fill so many lines of text). By "new to say", I mean some shred of information that has not already been identified in a previous Reply in this thread.

Meantime, a few percent more per core performance in an Intel product will often have no visible impact in the game or job (measurable but not visible or noticeable in a practical sense). So, if a competitive AMD CPU is significantly cheaper, one can spend the left over money by adding a better other component to the build that may have a "visible" impact (e.g. a faster GPU, a faster NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD).

As AMD releases more Ryzen, Zen, and Threadripper CPUs, AMD is becoming head-to-head "competitive" with Intel in CPUs. That means a "thoughtful" purchaser will consider their needs and budget and what both Intel and AMD are offering before purchasing a CPU. However, Intel fans will defend and buy Intel -- just as AMD fans will buy AMD smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/17 11:16 PM

You've probably just emphasised my point there......the quote you just included in that last post doesn't indicate any doubt whatsoever. It verifies that Intel still has the performance edge in a post that starts off talking about performance being key in high core-count CPUs.

You are re-iterating that Intel is the performance king in a performance post, but then it suddenly swings into performance-per-dollar in a single application (in bold text) and touches on an AMD paradigm shift, and finishes off by stating how important performance-per-dollar is which is a total contradiction of the very first sentence.

It's all a bit bizarre. It's like you're trying very hard to try and justify how AMD is the 'winner' again. I'd agree with your sentiment about a 'thoughtful' purchaser will consider the needs and budget or Intel/AMD offerings however I'd probably replace the latter part of that sentence by saying only a rabid fanboy would defend and/or insist on buying any component based only on the brand name especially when they are in direct competition with each other and do exactly the same task with varying levels of efficiency.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/17 12:23 PM

Quote
Radeon 500 GPU shortage continues

The GPU shortage currently mainly affects the Radeon 500 series and especially the 580 and 570 cards. These are the best for mining Ethereum right now with Geforce GTX 1060 as a good alternative..

If you are a gamer and you wanted to buy a card for gaming, this is a bad time to buy as prices [of cost effective cards] are at an all time high. There are some indications that the supply situation might improve before the end of the summer in the western hemisphere and get to a normal level before September.


We'll see what impact this has on RX Vega GPU (coming this month ??).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/17 03:53 PM

No sooner do I make the above post:

Quote
Used mining graphics cards flood the market

..With the recent difficulty spike in mining Ethereum and its price dropping below US $200, currently standing at US $190, plenty of users have given up on mining and are currently trying to cut their losses by selling those graphics cards on the market.

Some of the well-known used markets, like the eBay, have been flooded with plenty of Radeon RX series graphics cards..

..This will also bring a big problem for both AMD and Nvidia, as those looking for an upgrade will have a chance to pick out a decent mid-range graphics card on the used market...


Also it has been noted -- regarding a CPU scam:

Quote
..But it appears scam artists are taking advantages of Amazon's RMA and EBAY

Scam Users by buying Ryzen Chips from Amazon, and asking for a refund and returning the Ryzen Package w/ an Old Chip in the box. Amazon re-stocks them w/o checking. Another Users orders Ryzen and gets an Old Intel Celeron or FX Chip.

Same on Ebay, Putting an older Intel Celeron or FX Chip in a Ryzen box and selling on Ebay,..


Of course, the chip that may replace a Ryzen CPU in the scam does not fit an AMD Ryzen motherboard.

Above mentioned sales of used RX400 and RX500 hopeful for keeping new RX Vega pricing in line -- versus Ethereum marked up RX Vega cards.
Posted By: U-96

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/17 08:43 PM

I'm not sure how much I would trust these secondhand cards either. I suspect quite a lot of newbs jumped into their first PC build as a 6-GPU mining monster hoping to make their fortunes, and bricked the cards with a bad BIOS flash, overclocking or hotswapping.

It seems a bit daft to lay out that much investment and waver at the first price drop. Most domestic mining rigs aren't going to see any ROI for six months. The more canny miners will be glad the noobs bailed which will slow the difficulty increment and increase any pool share.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/17 12:28 AM

Agree.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/17 12:35 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega Compared Against a GeForce GTX 1080 in Budapest – Almost Similar Performance in Battlefield 1, Launches in 2 Weeks


Budapest, Hungary July 18 at the Akvárium Klub from 2 to 7 CET.
Portland, USA, PDXLAN in, July 21 to 23
Los Angeles, USA, SIGGRAPH 2017, July 30


An article that merely says reporters were allowed to play games with both an AMD machine and an Nvidia machine. However, they did not know which was which -- all identifications were removed or hidden.

The reporters could not tell the difference between the two machines (RX Vega and Nvidia GTX1080) -- no more info than that about performance.

AMD representatives hinted that the RX Vega was cheaper than the GTX1080 -- but, nothing solid.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/17 09:52 AM

On the competition front an Intel rumor:

Quote
Intel’s 12-core i9-7920X features 2.9 GHz base clock

This means that Intel’s 12-core i9-7920X base frequency will be lower than AMD’s 12-core Threadripper 1920X by 600 MHz. ..


Base on recent Intel products, I expect Intel to show "Turbo Clocks" above 4GHz (nominally limited to a couple cores) and have overclocking unlocked. However, the 12 core chips are said to be "server chips" repackaged -- rather than a new design high core count chip for desktops. Moreover, Intel has officially recommended against overclocking their newer products (even though unlocked). So, it remains to be seen what the practical overclocks will be in actual use.

Competition is good. We all get more choices and lower prices.


Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper could be bundled with AiO cooler

According to information coming from Japan, AMD's upcoming Ryzen Threadripper CPUs could be bundled with an AiO liquid cooler..

..Buying [one of the first] Threadripper with an [bundled] AiO liquid cooler might be the only way to cool it down as these 16-core and 12-core beasts will probably have 180W TDP. The second reason is that [initially] it will be quite hard to find a cooler that will support the upcoming TR4 socket ...
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/17 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
AMD Radeon RX Vega Compared Against a GeForce GTX 1080 in Budapest – Almost Similar Performance in Battlefield 1, Launches in 2 Weeks


What's the definition of 'almost similar' then?

Similar in this context I assume means 'quite close but not equal' otherwise it would be worded much stronger than this.....so including 'almost' undoubtedly means much less than similar!



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/17 10:58 PM

The above was a cut and paste quote (in the quote box).

You are correct. Its a mealy mouth statement. Basically, the author of the quote said he, himself, saw no difference when he played both.

However, one of the other "reporters" reported that one of the systems had a brief hiccup -- he did not know which had the hiccup -- because the systems were disguised. Could have been AMD Vega. Could have been Nvidia 1080.

Quote
..There was a little hiccup, but they resolved it in an instant and from my experience and many others the difference was unnoticeable. Mind you we were not told and are not going to be told which setup is which...


Since RX Vega is the new product and 1080 is established, one might conclude that AMD "probably" had the hiccup. But, who really knows??

All in all, little was added by the article. But, it is the first time reporters actually played with RX Vega -- even if they did not know which system it was. The implication was that RX Vega was "competitive" with GTX1080 (not enough better or worse to see the difference).

For one who would wish to check it out, here is the article.

RX Vega vs GTX1080
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/17 12:21 AM

Ain't Free Enterprise and competition nice.

No sooner than one reporter speculates that there will be no cooling for AMD Threadripper CPU's TR4 socket (and I post the quote reprinted above) then:

Quote
ARCTIC announces Liquid Freezer compatibility with Ryzen Threadripper

..Three solutions equipped with two, four and six fans are currently the only officially confirmed coolers for Threadripper. The cooling efficiency of Liquid Freezer 120 of 250W is probably more than enough for the new socket. The Freezer 240 and 360 are both ready for 300W TDP, which should also leave some headroom for overclocking.

ARCTIC’s coolers are currently available for the price starting from 86 EUR. That makes it roughly 10% of the price of the processor...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/17 09:35 AM

Rumor, leak (not official):
Quote

AMD Ryzen Threadripper launches on August 10th

..it is said that Threadripper will launch on August 10 on 22:00 o’clock Japanese time (14:00 London time, 6:00 LA time, [9:00am NY time] )...


16core/32thread, 12core/24thread. Based their specified clocks and on my Ryzen performance, I am guessing that they can easily overclock to 4.0GHz on all cores all the time (little or no voltage boost) with water cooling (but, I could easily have guessed wrong).

Quote
ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and ASRock to detail X399 motherboards on July 25th
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/17 12:20 AM

One article that summarizes the current GPU price situation due to Cryptocurrency mining.

Quote
Best graphics card deals today

..If you're having trouble finding the higher end AMD RX cards for good prices right now, you're not the only one! We'll make sure to let you know when they're back in stock. Vega is coming soon though, and you might be better off waiting....


In summary: NONE are a genuinely good deal (except the very cheapest low powered GPUs). Better to wait for prices to fall.

Right now, they see Nvidia cards as the best deals simply because they exist on the market (did not have the price/performance of AMD cards for computational tasks, so not all were sold).

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/17 12:28 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega Challenge At PDXLAN – Gaming Vega Is Almost Here

PDXLAN and the RX Vega Challenge – An Experiance, not a reveal.

...what is PDXLAN? It can only be described as LAN party heaven. There is a hectic schedule of events, contests, and announcements that will keep you running around and busy winning prizes..

..AMD did reveal the results of the polling and that returned some interesting results. It was a near perfect split in thirds. One third of people said they absolutely could not tell the difference, one third of people preferred the right side, and last but not least one third of people preferred the left side. Now these are just the raw numbers. During AMD’s presentation of this data, they brought up the pricing difference between comparable freesync and gsync monitors, both curved wide screen. The Freesync monitor was $499 and the G-Sync version was $949...


At PDXLAN, gamers played both an RX Vega machine and a GTX1080 machine -- but did not know which was which (like the Budapest post above).

Statistically, they could not tell the difference between RX Vega and GTX1080.

On a similar note:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 3DMark Fire Strike performance

First 3DMark scores of Radeon RX Vega are here. It may be too early to post them, but to be honest I don’t think final performance will be much different...


GTX 1080 was 22585 and RX Vega was 22330 -- 1 percent difference (invisible to the unaided eye). The release version of RX Vega may perform a bit better due to driver optimizations.

If these results hold up across the board, GTX1080 and RX Vega will compete on system cost. For example, as noted in the quote, an AMD supporting Freesync monitor is usually cheaper than an Nvidia supporting G-Sync with the same features.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/17 01:02 AM

Quote
ASRock [, Gigabyte,] and MSI X399 Motherboards For AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs Detailed – Pre-Orders Start in Less Than 24 Hours

..The Gigabyte X399 AORUS Gaming 7 is the flagship motherboard of the lineup. In terms of design, the X399 AORUS Gaming 7 has a standard ATX design with the largest consumer socket we have seen to date, the TR4. The TR4 is a lot similar to the SP3 socket which is designed for the EPYC server platform and feature 4094 pins in total. The socket is surrounded by eight DDR4 DIMM slots that can support up to 128 GB of ram..


No prices -- but I assume expensively expensive. Picture of Gigabyte motherboard attached. Note the large CPU socket.

Threadripper will be expensive and not faster than Ryzen 1800X in games -- today.

Thing is Threadripper may be a better long term purchase. CPUs will not get much faster per core. Rather, games will start to use all those cores. So, 5 years from now one may need a Threadripper (or Intel equivalent) for maximum gaming. But, I'm not recommending Threadripper for games -- today.

Attached picture Gigabyte-X399-AORUS-Gaming-7-Motherboard.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/17 09:24 AM

Quote
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) Q2 2017 Earnings Dissected: AMD Is Back

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD 14.11 -0.35%) recently announced the second quarter results for the fiscal year of 2017 and successfully beat analyst expectations of EPS and revenue. The consensus was a break even and $1.16 Billion in revenue (on a non-GAAP basis) and the silicon giant was able to beat with an EPS of 2 cents and a revenue of $1.22 Billion. .

..Threadripper is one of the most disruptive products .. massive processors .. giveaway pricing. We already know that ThreadRipper took Intel by surprise and they were not ready for it at all .. .

..EPYC processors are also going to be taking the server market by storm...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/17 09:29 AM

Quote
AMD selling MXM GPUs to miners

..RX 480, 470, 580 and 570 are currently the best for mining, closely followed by Nvidia’s Geforce 1060 3GB..

..Our industry sources confirmed that AMD is selling MXM cards directly to miners. Usually the MXM Mobile PCI Express Module is reserved for laptops, but apparently it can to go miners too..

..Miners can plug a bunch of these MXM GPUs in a board and have an efficient mining platform...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/17 03:39 PM

On the competition front -- rumor, leak, speculation:

Quote
Intel Coffee Lake leak reveals alleged specifications of 8th-gen chips

Firm will offer a trio of six-core, 12-thread devices

[3.1GHz, 3.2GHz, and 3.7Ghz base clocks]

..Intel's 8th-gen Coffee Lake chips were supposed to be appearing in 2018 on the 10nm fab node. Instead, though, Intel has put back that challenging manufacturing shift and is producing Coffee Lake on its current 14nm facilities, pushing up the wattage to provide a performance boost...


Meantime, AMD continues is plan to skip the 10nm node and go straight to 7nm. A plan with some risk attached -- but, its where everyone has to go "eventually":

Quote
[AMD's] Papermaster says 7nm is a tough lift

..To gear up for 7nm, “we had to literally double our efforts across foundry and design teams...It’s the toughest lift I’ve seen in a number of generations,” perhaps back to the introduction of copper interconnects, he told EE Times..

..Both AMD’s Zen 2 and Zen 3 x86 processors will be made in 7nm..

“They [Globalfoundries and TSMC] have both been aggressive in 7nm and that’s good for the industry. The gap has closed versus where Intel is at and that’s an incredible juncture in the industry that people have predicted and now were seeing it”, Papermaster added.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/17 07:32 PM

The title says all that this article says:

Quote
AMD Vega 10, Vega 11, Vega 12 and Vega 20 confirmed by EEC


A different article summarizes the situation:

Quote
..Overall, the Radeon RX Vega family sounds nice but AMD has taken too long to produce a viable (yet to be seen) competitor to NVIDIA’s Pascal lineup. In a few days, we will know for sure if what AMD did with Vega can deliver some great benefits to consumers and gamers or not...


RX Vega is many months late -- maybe 9+ months. This has been speculated as due to the unavailability of HBM2 memory on the original schedule (was to arrive last year). AMD opted to NOT use DDR5 (like Nvidia used) in Vega gamer cards. Nvidia won that bet as its 1080s have been around quite a while.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/17 08:41 PM

Agreed. I was a guaranteed customer in the Spring but eventually decided not to wait for partner boards to reach store shelves (September? October? November?) and ended up getting a 1080 Ti. Probably payed more in the end, but it's a great card that I could actually buy and install.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/17 11:32 PM

Rumor:

Quote
..AMD will be providing a custom chip for the new Atari Console...


If so, consoles will be mostly AMD territory -- can't hurt AMD stock prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/17 11:59 PM

Quote
Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

Some 36,000 units of Ethereum is collectively mined each day. At around $200 per unit, miners are competing for $7.2 million worth of Ethereum per day. ..

"Time counts so much. We are using the fastest delivery possible," Streng added. "You risk the opportunity to mine for the days you are delayed. If you are deploying 10 days later, you are losing 10 days of mining—that is the cost."..


As previously noted: AMD cards seem to be preferred for Ethereum mining -- which may (or may not) increase RX Vega prices.
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/17 12:47 AM

Looks like someone has a great scam going to fleece fools.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/17 09:17 PM


Find a few buyers and get them by the six-pack.

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-112...80&refinements=p_36%3A60000-99999999 https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-11265-01-20G-Radeon-backplate-Graphics/dp/B074CP8FYQ/ref=sr_1_22?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1501361441&sr=1-22&keywords=rx+580&refinements=p_36%3A60000-99999999

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/17 06:03 PM

Quote
Here’s the breakdown in terms of pricing. Note that these figures have been spotted in the code of Newegg’s Vega product pages. They’re as legit as leaks can get.

__________________________________________

AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Air: $499
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Air Limited Edition: $549
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid : $599
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Limited Edition : $649 [UPDATED $649/$699]
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 : Pending [UPDATED $399]


Prices I am willing to pay -- if the performance is competitive.

The "reveal" is today. So, I imagine there will be more concrete information soon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/17 09:43 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, RX Vega 56, RX Vega Nano Official Slides, Full Specifications Detailed – Flagship Model Compared To The NVIDIA GTX 1080, Has 300W TDP

..AMD has also announced the new Radeon Pack promotion with their Radeon RX Vega graphics cards. These include the following:

Radeon AquaPack with RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled for $699
Radeon Black Pack with RX Vega 64 Air Cooled for $599
Radeon Red Pack with RX Vega 56 for $499

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid, Air and reference models will be shipping with these packs. The starting price of the Radeon Red pack is $499 US for the reference model which grants you two free games (Wolfenstein II and Prey 2). The higher priced Radeon Black Pack for $599 US grants you the game and a $100 US discount on a Ryzen 7 CPU while the top end Radeon Aqua pack will get you all of the above plus $200 off of an Samsung ultra-wide Freesync monitor for just $699 US...


The reveal did not add much to what had been rumored and leaked.

August release (ASUS has a custom card coming out August 14 -- so, not just Reference cards). Package-pricing or card-only-pricing (packages are surmised for the purpose of keeping "miners" from buying all the cards). Looks like the basic air cooled RX Vega list price is $500. Performance similar to GTX1080 was hinted -- with better minimum framerates hinted.

We won't know for sure what we've got until the cards are released and we see the independent test reports -- nominally during August.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/17 03:06 PM

So much deja vu with the Fury release. And how is that working support wise for those that invested in that line of cards.

And they could have done away with the Pack thing. Not really much value if you just want the card, plus the contrast when the offer ends and you still pay the same price will look less attractive. They could easily limit miner effects by enforcing a limit of one or two per customer (which some retailers like Micro Center already do).

And holy crap, are people going to be pissed to have to upgrade their PSU -

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/17 05:54 PM

Newegg has high-end "Threadripper" motherboards for pre-order. Priced $340 to $550.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/17 08:53 PM

Quote
AMD is down playing Crossfire configurations with Vega

Single card setups are good enough.

One of the interesting shifts taking place in graphics is the move away from multiple card setups in favor of more powerful single card solutions. This has been going on for some time now..

..That does not mean RX Vega won't support Crossfire—to be clear, it does .. [but] .. not all games scale well with multiple GPUs.

.. with Nvidia, it should be noted that there is no official support of anything greater than 2-way SLI in games on GeForce 10 series graphics cards...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/17 09:26 AM

Quote
AMD Manages To Pack A PetaFLOPs Capable Super Computer In A Rack With Project 47

AMD recently unveiled something truly remarkable today – a server rack that has a total processing power of 1 PetaFLOPs. .. Here’s the kicker though: a decade ago in 2007, a computer of the same power would have required roughly 6000 square feet of area and thousands of processors to power. A decade ago, this would have been one of the most powerful supercomputers on Earth, and today, its a server rack..

Back in 2007, you would have found the same power in a supercomputer called the IBM Roadrunner. .. most powerful .. of its time and built by AMD and IBM for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The cluster had 696 racks spanning an area of 6000 square feet and consumer 2,350,000 watts of electricity. The cluster consisted primarily of around 64,000 dual core Opteron CPUs and some accelerators.

So basically in a little over 10 years, AMD has managed to make a system that consumes 98% less power and takes up 99.93% less space.

..it is clear that the star of the Project 47 is the Radeon Instinct GPU...


Article
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/17 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote
AMD is down playing Crossfire configurations with Vega

Single card setups are good enough.

One of the interesting shifts taking place in graphics is the move away from multiple card setups in favor of more powerful single card solutions. This has been going on for some time now..

..That does not mean RX Vega won't support Crossfire—to be clear, it does .. [but] .. not all games scale well with multiple GPUs.

.. with Nvidia, it should be noted that there is no official support of anything greater than 2-way SLI in games on GeForce 10 series graphics cards...


When the suggested TDP for the top of the line RX Vega is > 300W, how can they justify having 2 in the system on a reasonable setup? But I agree it has never been properly implemented and probably should go away.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/17 07:05 PM

Quote
Mobile Ryzen shipping for holiday season

..It will be interesting to see how AMD does in the thinner and light market segment with its Ryzen mobile [for laptops]. .. without a doubt this is a comeback year for AMD...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/17 07:40 PM

On the competition front -- Intel changes motherboard socket designs for new CPUs frequently (relative to AMD who supports the same socket for more years).

Quote
ASRock: [Intel] Coffee Lake CPUs not compatible with 200 series motherboards

..This was somewhat an expected move from Intel, because by introducing new processors the company may want motherboard manufacturers to come up with something new, something Ryzen motherboards are lacking.

The backward compatibility of desktop processors was one of the bullet points for Ryzen architecture, as AMD committed to supporting AM4 socket for years to come..


Before getting my Ryzen, I was using the same ASUS AMD motherboard (an original V1.0 release) for multiple CPUs over about 4 years. It supported virtually all the AMD CPUs -- but not APUs.

The new Ryzen motherboards will support all CPUs and APUs for years to come (they say) -- except Threadripper which requires its own motherboard to support all those cores and professional features. Potentially gives builders/upgraders more options and lower costs over the years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/17 09:13 AM

Quote
Noctua releases three AMD Threadripper and EPYC coolers

..have a proper design to cool AMD's new massive Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC series CPUs on TR4 and SP3 [server] sockets..

..store availability expected by the end of this month...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/17 09:46 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel Launches Their Flagship Core i9-7980XE Processor on 18th October – First Extreme Edition CPU To Feature 18 Cores

..Core i9-7980XE on 18th October. [$2000]

Intel Core i9-7980XE Specifications: 18 Cores, 36 Threads, 2.6 GHz Base, 4.2 GHz Boost Clocks


Note the 18 core Intel ($2000) 2.6GHz base clock vs 3.4GHz for 16 core Threadripper ($1000). Articles indicate Intel is repackaging chips to get a high core count and a 4.2GHz boost clock (1 or 2 cores) simply to be able to advertise high cores and high clocks -- other features are less than expected. They really did get caught off guard by Ryzen and Treadripper.

Not saying AMD is "the best". Rather, saying Intel can no longer claim to be "the best" eiher. Intel and AMD are "merely" competitive with each other -- i.e thoughtful buyers will "weigh" $2000 Intel 18 core (or other Intel CPU) against $1000 AMD 16 core (or other AMD CPU) performance/features/price, and then choose what fits their needs and budget.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/17 08:08 PM

Quote
RUMOR: AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 to be great for mining

..Seems the hash rate on VEGA is 70-100 per card, which is insanely good. frown

Trying to devise some kind of plan so gamers can get them at MSRP without the miners wiping all the stock out within 5 minutes of product going live..


Radion RX 580 scores 23.0 by one measure. Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti scores 31.3. If RX Vega is really 70 -- uh oh -- prices will rise. It is only a rumor at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/04/17 06:37 PM

Another AMD-fan friendly rumor based on unconfirmed RX Vega tests. We'll know in a couple weeks.
Quote

AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 leaked benchmarks: GTX 1070 killer AMD Radeon

RX Vega 56: the new $400 mainstream king

..An industry source of mine has provided me with some raw benchmark numbers on Radeon RX Vega 56..

The benchmarks were run at 2560x1440 with the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 easily beating NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1070 in Battlefield 1, DOOM, Civilization 6, and even Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. My source said that Battlefield 1 was run on Ultra settings, Civ 6 was on Ultra with 4x MSAA, DOOM was at Ultra with 8x TSAA enabled, and COD:IW was running on its High preset.

Radeon RX Vega 56 benchmark results:

Battlefield 1: 95.4FPS (GTX 1070: 72.2FPS)
Civilization 6: 85.1FPS (GTX 1070: 72.2FPS)
DOOM: 101.2FPS (GTX 1070: 84.6FPS)
COD:IW: 99.9FPS (GTX 1070: 92.1FPS)


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/17 10:07 AM

Quote
Asus’ Crazy Liquid Cooled Dual GPU AMD Radeon RX Vega X2 Card – Set To Be The Most Powerful & Power Hungry Card Ever

A couple of weeks ago we heard that AMD has given its AIB partners the greenlight to take whatever freedoms they wish to design custom graphics cards..

.. card featuring two full Vega 10 XT GPUs. With over 50 teraflops of FP16 compute, 25 teraflops of FP32 compute and nearing on 600W this card is set to be the world’s most powerful and most power hungry..

..The card itself will be a statement by Asus’ as a means of displaying what they’re capable of rather than a commercial product that they expect to sell en mass...


For those AMD fans who want the most FPS regardless of cost -- rumored coming out late this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/17 02:25 AM

Official Intel press release graphic for 14 to 18 core. Note base clocks for comparison to Threadripper base clocks.

[Linked Image]



Attached picture Intel14to18Core.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/17 02:57 PM

Quote
AMD admits that Ryzen has difficulty with Linux

..It appears to only be affecting some Ryzen customers [very few] and only those on Linux. It is not an issue with Threadripper and Epyc processors are unaffected..

The Ryzen segmentation faults on Linux occur with many, parallel compilation workloads. These are not the workloads most Linux users will be firing off on a frequent basis unless intentionally running scripts like ryzen-test/kill-ryzen.

Generally, Ryzen Linux boxes have been working out when they are not operating under torture [in Linux]...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/17 07:09 PM

Quote
AMD Threadripper 1950X hits 4.1GHz on liquid cooling

A Reddit user has managed to overclock AMD's 16-core/32-thread Threadripper 1950X to 4.1GHz by just using Thermaltake's Water 3.0 liquid cooler..

..AMD made a good move by using the indium solder with gold plated dies to attach the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader)...


Expected by me -- based on how easy my Ryzen overclocked at stock volts.

Note: AMD designed/built Ryzen and Threadripper for easy/safe overclocking. Some Intel CPUs have been unlocked. But, test reports and customer experiences indicate that "unlocked" is not the same as "designed to overclock".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/10/17 10:54 AM

Quote
[Rumor]AMD is trying to sell Radeon RX Vega 64 at a higher price


Some data suggesting that the initial $499 RX Vega price will be very temporary or not at all. Some indications that the price will be $599 relatively soon after launch (hours).

I expected the price to rise right after launch -- that happened with RX480. If the selling prices seem out of line, I may wait for "Black Friday" (my RX480 does all I need -- so RX Vega would be for "the fun of it").
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/10/17 02:12 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper Review Roundup


The NDA is lifted. Links to over 30 "official" Threadripper reviews.

Links to Threadripper Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/17 11:04 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and Vega 56 reviews coming this monday
..
Radeon RX Vega 56

Unboxing embargo: August 12, 11AM EDT,
Performance embargo: August 14, 9AM EDT,
Launch: August 28th.

Radeon RX Vega 64

Unboxing embargo: August 12, 11AM EDT.
Performance embargo: August 14, 9AM EDT.
Launch: August 14th...


Also a little light-weight, non-confrontational back and forth between Nvidia and AMD regarding Threadripper CPU. The first tweet in the short series.

Quote
NVIDIA Welcomes AMD’s x86 Comeback and Endorses Threadripper – AMD High Fives Back!


[Linked Image]



Attached picture NvidiaTweet.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/17 11:16 AM

RX Vega due out Monday. One feature is "Rapid Packed Math". This will give some PC games and PS4 games more detailed visuals. Its also a boost for non-game computations -- like Artificial Intelligence.

Quote
..RX Vega will introduce, for the first time in desktop GPUs, the Rapid Packed Math feature. This allows two half-float operations (FP16) to be executed at the same time it would take for one full-float operation (FP32).

,,Just ahead of the PlayStation 4 Pro launch, System Architect Mark Cerny had revealed that the console would include .. Rapid Packed Math; at the time, Cerny said that it has the potential to “radically increase performance”.,

..Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Far Cry 5, .. support Rapid Packed Math..


Making use of RPM takes effort by a game developer. So, not all games will use it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/17 11:10 PM

Possibly true RX Vega 56 and 64 performance leaked. Looks good for the list-price. (posted on Sunday ahead of official Monday release)

Quote
AMD RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 Final Aggregate Performance Benchmark Leaked – Faster Than A Geforce GTX 1080 FE


[Linked Image]

Attached picture RXVegaPerformance.PNG
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/14/17 12:18 AM

Quote
Possibly true RX Vega 56 and 64 performance leaked


Man I truly appreciate this thread and all you have, and will contribute here.

That one sounds like a line from MSNBC quoting a CNN un-named source.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/14/17 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Nixer
Man I truly appreciate this thread and all you have, and will contribute here..


Reading your first line I instantly thought, I can't believe he's writing this.

Then, I read the second line. True to form smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/14/17 06:28 PM

Newegg has the RX Vega 64 cards in stock. In stock cards are priced $100 above suggested retail. They have one (when I looked) at suggested retail -- but, out of stock.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/14/17 06:32 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Officially Launches, Full Review Roundup..


Links to 30 Review Articles. In addition, some Summary Statements

Links to 46 Test Reports -- Some Duplicate Above
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/15/17 11:44 AM

I did not read all the reviews. Just a few from sites I'm most familiar with.

Some reviews were objective, some were not in how they described things. Lots of anti-AMD ranting and raving in one I read (at least by my standards).

To me, "Competitive" means "wins some loses some" or is "too close" to tell one from the other in a "blind test" -- so, that's how I use the word. As has been posted many times in this thread, RX Vega seems "competitive" to me, based my reading of the reports (that I read).

Here are links to two reviews that seemed to objectively present their results.

They find that RX Vega models are "competitive" with their GTX1070 and GTX1080 counterparts -- in FPS, measured operational temperatures, correctly measured sound levels, price. But, RX Vega uses more power. They assume performance will improve over time -- as card-makers learn to use some of the more advanced hardware features and drivers are optimized.

RX Vega 56 Review

RX Vega 64 Review
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/15/17 03:55 PM

Newegg and Amazon seem virtually sold out -- you can still get one for $1000.

All in all, at the introductory price $499, RX Vega 64 Reference Models were reasonable. Its understood that those were "introductory" Reference Card MSRPs. Already, many sold for $100 more than that.

The introductory price for the RX Vega 56 Reference Model will be $399 for the first customers.

No doubt the custom cards from ASUS, etc. will be priced higher.

As always with new stuff, wait a few months for reasonable prices and a good selection. Black Friday is just around the corner (almost) -- and, by then, prices have 3 months to get reasonable. However, for some AMD Fans, waiting may not be an option smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/17 06:38 PM

Not sure why anyone would plump for a Vega 64 at the moment - as you alluded to above, performance wise they are competitive with the Founders Edition of the GTX 1080 (from the reviews I've read it's about 70/30 in favour of Nvidia but lets say it's 50/50 for argument sake)......however the 3rd party versions of the GTX 1080 are faster, up to $100 cheaper and run cooler. If the Vega 64 has an introductory price of $499 then they are already too expensive when faster versions of the GTX 1080 are cheaper.

And that's discounting the hype and massive delays of the new architecture and HBM2 VRAM. It's hardly proving to be a new performance benchmark which was effectively the promise 12 months ago. For anyone looking at 'bang for buck' which has always been AMD's strong point, the Vega cards aren't looking like they'll win that battle unless there is some unforeseen magic in an as yet unreleased driver.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/17 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Not sure why anyone would plump for a Vega 64 at the moment...


Agree with the general direction of your comments.

My personal take is:

AMD bet on HBM2, and lost. So, the product is 9 months late. However, that only hurts AMD -- 9 months of lost sales -- and a less competitive product for the date of release. It does not hurt any customer who buys an RX Vega or Nvidia card in the future. So, I have a problem with reviews dwelling on the "lateness".

I do understand why AMD has to "bet" on new technology. They don't have the money to have a "back up plan". So, they take their best guess and go for it.

For current buyers -- hmmm. Sold out. That was expected, by me.

The best cards always come out weeks or a few months after the first reference cards. Again, that hurts AMD because some folks can't wait for that. But, it does not hurt anyone buying AMD or Nvidia when they do arrive.

You may be correct about the 70/30 if one considers raw wins and losses and ranks performance in DX11 to be as important as performance in DX12 and Vulcan. I don't though. I consider "how close" was the loser and I consider DX12 and Vulcan performance to be "the future" (every card seems to do well in DX11 -- even my RX480 at 1440p). In almost all its losses, RX Vega would be hard or impossible to distinguish in a blind test (same for Nvidia in their losses -- too close to matter).

So, for now, it comes down to "bang per buck" in cards that perform within about 10 percent of one another -- to my way of thinking. Or, alternatively, is one an AMD Fan or an Nvidia Fan -- buy from your favorite manufacturer because you won't "see" the difference ("measure" but not "see").

The jury is still out on Bang per Buck, and new drivers, I think -- we have to wait for the drivers and market to stabilize (two or three months, at least). And, fans will be fans. I'm an AMD fan as you all know smile . So, I'll buy nothing or buy AMD (nothing for now). But, I do recognize AMD shortcomings -- when they occur smile

I don't expect everyone to see things like I do smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/17 12:26 AM

Quote
AMD issues official statement regarding Radeon RX Vega 64 pricing

AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 will be restocked for 499 USD ‘over the next few weeks’

At IO-Tech, we can find the official statement from AMD:

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days...


Some rumors lately were that the $499 price was NOT the real price -- it would rise, they said.

At least for now, $499 is the "real price" for the Reference version of the card. Of course, sellers can charge whatever they can get -- and folks can buy or take a pass if they are too expensive -- that's capitalism.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/17 06:29 PM

Quote
Samsung shows 49-inch 32:9 monitor at Gamescom 2017

With 3840x1080 resolution and AMD FreeSync 2

Based on a 49-inch QLED VA panel with 32:9 aspect ratio, 3840x1080 resolution, 144Hz refresh rate and 1800R curvature, the announced Samsung CHG90 is basically two 27-inch 1080p 16:9 aspect ratio screens packed in a single bezel. The rest of the specs include 350cd/m2 maximum brightness, 3000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms response time, 178/178 degree viewing angles and 125 percent sRGB coverage...

..the AMD FreeSync 2 generally brings better HDR support, Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), low-latency, high-brightness pixels, excellent black levels and a wide color gamut to display High Dynamic Range (HDR) content..

The Samsung CHG90 is already available for pre-order with a US $1,499.99 price in the US and €1399.90 in Europe.


I'm almost interested. I like the 49 inch measurement (nearly perfect for my space), 125%RGB, and the 3000:1 native contrast. However, I'd like a version in 1440p or better (but that's just me).

Anyhow, it would be an excuse to go RX Vega (right now I'm waiting to see what the RX Vega market will be on or around "Black Friday"). As I frequently note, all I actually need with my current games and monitors is my RX480 Reference card.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/17 11:07 AM

Quote
Exclusive: Radeon RX Vega 64 MSRP Pricing Update

..we have a real update .. We spoke to a source close to AMD who is very knowledgeable about the matter and were finally able to get a solid answer.

..the original launch MSRPs from AMD have not changed, however the company did run into a serious supply block causing retailers and e-tailers to hike prices due to demand. The reason AMD has been tight lipped about the entire issue is because they cannot be seen enforcing retailer MSRPs (which would be illegal);.

Will users be able to buy RX Vega 64 at the marketed MSRP of $499? The short answer is approximately yes, but the long answer is slightly more complex..

Remember, it is illegal for AMD to force a price point on retailers. Our source believed that the market forces should naturally converge at a universal price point of $599..

Our source informed us that the cost structure for RX Vega 64 will go down in Q4 2017 once SK Hynix enters the market with their own HBM2 memory (bringing the total number no. of HBM2 suppliers to 2 and forcing prices down) and add-in-board partners start manufacturing their own custom boards. Whether this reduction in cost structure translates into a lower selling price for consumers depends entirely on the retailers and demand....


This article repeats the theme: Free-market forces will keep prices up -- while AMD will be offering incentives that will make some cards cost the suggested retail price of $499. There is a good stock of cards existing in the pipeline the article says. However, there were shipment delays.

Its possible to charge high prices because people want RX Vega enough to pay high prices, "today". We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/17 10:37 AM

Quote
Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.8.2 Highlights

Support For

F1™ 2017
Up to 4% performance improvement measured on Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics when compared to Radeon Software Crimson ReLive edition 17.8.1(1)

PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS™ Early Access
Up to 18% performance improvement measured on Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics when compared to Radeon Software Crimson ReLive edition 17.8.1(2)


Not special by itself, the new beta driver indicates how new drivers may improve RX Vega in some games where it fell slightly behind its similarly priced Nvidia competition. We'll see where we are by Black Friday. I expect RX Vega to be "competitive" across the board -- not "the winner" in every game.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/17 11:34 AM

Quote
.. price hikes arising from the GDDR memory shortage.

According to Digitimes, first-tier vendors are expected to raise their Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080/1070/1060/1050 graphics card pricing by three to 10 percent at the end of August...


Surprisingly (to me), even Nvidia will be hit by a GDDR memory shortage leading to a price hike (as with AMD's HBM2 shortage in RX Vega).

Anyhow, Nvidia fans on the cusp of a purchase decision, might want to act sooner (or wait for Black Friday).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/17 11:38 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 sales start today
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/17 01:57 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 gets faster with Vega 64 BIOS

..flashing 64 BIOS into 56 will not give you any extra boost thanks to more cores. However, the BIOS will change clock speeds which apparently have a much greater effect on the performance...


Only one unsubstantiated data point. However, in a benchmark, the "BIOS flashed" RX Vega 56 almost equaled or slightly out paced the standard RX Vega 64.

Let's say they were "competitive" (you won't "see" the difference between them after the flash -- based on one test).

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/17 02:18 AM

Quote
AMD’s Raja Koduri Breaks Silence On Vega – Discusses Pricing, Perf/$, Perf/Watt & Untapped Hardware Features

Supply issues aside, Vega has managed to largely deliver on what the company promised. Which is partly why there’s a supply issue to begin with..

Also, according to Raja, Vega has the widest feasible operational power range in either direction of any GPU in existence..

Vega’s power efficiency can only be exposed and truly appreciated in power saver mode. In the RX Vega 64’s case this mode can save up to 120 watts of power, cutting effective power consumption by over 35%, whilst only slashing performance by roughly 4%..

According to Raja, Vega 10 was intended to be as versatile as possible from the get-go in order to compete with three different GPU designs from NVIDIA, GP100, GP102 and GPU104. .. Unlike NVIDIA, which had the luxury of designing different GPUs for gaming and compute, AMD had to design a GPU that can do both..

AMD Radeon fans have long coined the term “fine wine” to describe the process by which AMD’s GCN based Radeon GPUs mature overtime and often significantly surpass their NVIDIA counterparts in performance..

Raja’s comments regarding Vega’s well of untapped hardware potential brings that term to mind...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/17 11:41 AM

Quote
AMD Launches Ryzen ‘Threadripper 1900X’ 8-Core Processor With 64 PCIe Lanes for $549 MSRP


Newegg has the 16 and 12 core versions this morning at the advertised prices.

While I don't know how well Threadripper overclocks from my own experience, I do know that my Ryzen 1800X runs 4.0GHz on all cores at stock voltages (water cooled -- runs cool).

The charts tell the story and compare Threadripper to Ryzen 1800X.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1900X-5-740x402Pricing.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1900X-3-740x395.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/17 02:30 AM

Quote
BEWARE: Latest Gigabyte X370 Motherboard BIOS Can Permanently Damage AMD Ryzen CPUs, Sets Voltage Up To 1.7V

..Gigabyte posted a new BIOS on their support page for the X370 Gaming K7 and X370 Gaming K5. The specific BIOS versions are F5 for the Gaming K7 and F7 for the Gaming K5..

..The issue isn’t technically with AMD CPUs or any other motherboards. It purely related to Gigabyte X370 motherboards...


Hmmm. That's my motherboard. Just changed to F5 BIOS a few days ago. Have to check it out.

UPDATE: Yup, the voltages are "INSANE". Almost 2 volts (1.45 is the most I want to go). So, time to turn it off and re-flash the BIOS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/17 12:37 AM

Dropping back to the older F4 BIOS on the Gigabyte x370 made no difference in performance that I could see or measure (but I did not do a comprehensive test).

In checking, I noticed that Gigabyte has removed the F5 bios from the X370 support page.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/17 09:56 AM

Quote
AMD CPU Sales Overtake Intel For The First Time In Over A Decade At Germany’s Largest E-Tailer

AMD has reached its biggest marketshare milestone in over a decade, overtaking Intel in both units sold and revenue at Germany’s largest online retailer. The data pulled from the “Newegg” of Germany, Mindfactory.de..

..finally surpassing Intel with over 56% of the unit share in August..

AMD’s best seller appears to be the Ryzen 5 1600, which should be of little surprise considering the incredible value this six core processor offers at just $220. In close second, third and fourth are AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700, Ryzen 5 1600X and Ryzen 7 1700X.

In sharp contrast to AMD’s diverse lineup of highly popular chips, only a single SKU accounts for nearly half of all of Intel’s desktop unit sales and that’s the i7 7700K. This explains why the 7700K continues to maintain somewhat of a grip on Amazon’s #1 best seller spot, whilst AMD’s Ryzen chips often occupy the majority of the top 5..

When all is said and done, one must appreciate the fact that for the first time in ages, fierce competition is back in the CPU market and if this sales data is anything to go by hardware enthusiasts are loving every minute of it.


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/17 12:03 PM

Quote
[UPDATE3] AMD RX Vega 64 Eclipses Polaris In Ethereum Mining Efficiency By 2X – Achieves 43.5MH/s At 130W
..
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Blows Away [AMD] Polaris & [Nvidia] Pascal In Ethereum Mining Performance & Efficiency
..
With mining performance that’s out of this world we have no doubt that miners are going to strip the supply of Vega cards dry. Miners have already been gobbling up RX 580 and 570 supply for months and with Vega the situation is looking even more dire...


Article

This article was published a couple days ago. However, RX Vega was so superior in the tests that there was some question if it was correct -- so, I didn't post the conclusions. Now, the conclusions have been confirmed.

The RX Vega 64 is not the "fastest" FPS card made (its "competitive"). However, these days, graphics cards are also supposed to do "compute" tasks. In compute tasks, the gaming RX Vega competes more than adequately. Thing is, that raises selling prices.

Otherwise, its a "quiet time" for AMD. Nearly all the new AMD game related stuff (Vega, Ryzen, Threadripper) has been released and independently tested. So, potential buyers can make their own decisions based on their needs and budget.

I'm still waiting to see what "Black Friday" brings -- what RX Vega custom cards, what performance, what price smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/17 12:28 PM

For those of us with Gigabyte AX370-Gaming K7 motherboards -- ONLY (other makes and models do not have the issue).

The new F6 BIOS is out and works on my machine. The F4 BIOS is safe to use. The F5 BIOS should be replaced immediately with F6 or F4 -- it can ruin the Ryzen CPU by overvoltage.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/17 04:23 PM

Don Woligroski, Desktop CPU Marketing Manager at AMD answers questions in subject article.

Quote
AMD Talks Zen 2 IPC, Clocks & Gaming Performance Improvements – “Ryzen Was A Worst Case Scenario”

AMD: “Ryzen Was A Worst Case Scenario”, IPC & Clock Speeds Are Only Going Up From Here

AMD Wants To Offer The Best Value In Every Segment & Move PC Gaming Into The Multi-Core Era

What AMD Is Doing To Optimize Games To Take Advantage Of More Cores & Threads


Article

Basically, Ryzen and Vega are new designs that took 4 years to develop. At some point, they had to stop designing and start making parts to sell. Even so, the first products are very competitive with established Intel and Nvidia products. Things will only get better over the next couple years -- the AMD spokes person says in the interview.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/17 05:58 PM

The AMD marketing manager is hardly going to say anything to the contrary!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/17 07:39 PM

Quote
AMD engineers built Ryzen Threadripper in their spare time

There is an interesting story behind Threadripper.
..
"It’s not really a story of roadmaps and long-term planning or huge R&D budgets—it’s a lot more personal than that and stemmed from a skunkworks project and a small group of AMD employees who had a vision of a processor they’d really want in terms of a high-performance PC," Sarah Youngbauer from AMD's communications team told Forbes.

"They worked on it in their spare time and it was really a passion project for about a year before they sought the green light from management, which is quite unusual— it was something they really cared about,"


That article points to this 5 page Forbes article.


Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper: The Fascinating Story Behind The Processor That Beat Intel
..
Where AMD is still a little slower, for example in some older or lightly threaded games, is less of an issue as many people will use Ryzen Threadripper purely for its multithreaded performance. It has to be said that there aren't many reasons to choose Intel in the high end desktop market at this price point..


Forbes Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/17 07:10 PM

As for some of the next AMD products now and next year:

Quote
AMD Vega 11 GPUs Entering Production, Vega 20 Coming On 7nm
..
Vega 11 is a mid-range part based on AMD’s new graphics architecture. It’s expected to replace Polaris 10/20 and the RX 580/570 graphics cards and is rumored to feature HBM2 technology rather than GDDR5..
..
Vega 20 is going to be the highest end part from AMD’s Vega family, at least that we know of right now. This GPU will go into future Radeon Instinct accelerators, feature 32GB of HBM2 memory and is believed to feature fully unlocked double precision compute. Vega 20 is aimed squarely at NVIDIA’s Volta V100 accelerator to address the growing AI and machine learning markets..


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMDVegaSeries.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/17 09:17 AM

Quote
AGESA 1.0.0.6b Might Fix The Ryzen Linux Performance Marginality Problem

Motherboard vendors have begun pushing out BIOS updates for Ryzen motherboards using the AMD AGESA 1.0.0.6b revision and it's reported that it does resolve the "Performance Marginality Problem" affecting early Ryzen Linux customers. .


Latest BIOS has been out for nearly two weeks on some motherboards. Thing is, its not clear what it fixes or improves. Some folks think it fixes the Linux issue that a few users were having.

I'm not updating BIOS to this version on my motherboard -- unless I know its better for my Windows 10 uses. At least one person wrote to say flashing the BIOS bricked their new system (that happens randomly with any CPU and motherboard -- so, flash BIOS at own risk). The current BIOS works fine for me and my "vanilla" settings with small CPU and Memory overclocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/17 01:53 AM

Quote
There are no dummy dies in Ryzen Threadripper

Long story short, all [4] dies have integrated circuits, all have transistors, all of them are real dies. They are just not enabled or fully functional..

Does it mean that Threadripper could potentially include 32-core configurations in the future, just as EPYC? It could, but right now it would directly compete with EPYC and that’s simply an unnecessary move for AMD...


So, the 16 core/32 thread AMD Threadripper is actually a 32 core/64 thread set of hardware with 16 cores disabled -- I personally ass-u-me some of the extra 16 are functional but AMD decided to stop at activating 16 cores.

That does not change how current Threadrippers work. However, it indicates that Threadripper can grow to 32 cores relatively easily if AMD needs 32 cores to compete (just need 4 perfect chips/dies). Presumably, this means 32 cores are coming in the not so distant future, I ass-u-me. So, single or quad threaded games/software will become a thing of the past sooner than I expected, I speculate.

To me, an interesting aspect of the above article is this: A geek bought a Threadripper and destroyed it (by taking it apart) to prove or disprove the idea that the Threadripper one buys does potentially have 32 live cores.

Article
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/17 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Presumably, this means 32 cores are coming in the not so distant future, I ass-u-me. So, single or quad threaded games/software will become a thing of the past sooner than I expected, I speculate.


Absolutely not, because game development isn't and never has been based on the latest technology and core counts available from AMD or Intel. Doesn't the fact that both these companies have had quad core/8 thread chips out for desktops since ~2006 indicate that there is no correlation? You'd have thought that 11 years after the technology is available that they would be used by now........most of our games are still only using 1 or 2 CPUs are still aren't efficiently coded for multithreading, even for just 4 cores. It's the mass target audience and effort against return that game devs use when creating their titles, and the reason why PCs, regardless of the horsepower available will be limited by the console brethren who typically don't get hardware upgrades for years on end (although this is slowly changing on each console generation release where they are becoming more and more like a PC).

On top of that, it's the tip of the iceberg in terms of the number of PC gamers that use the latest and highest core count CPUs in their gaming capable machines. No developer on earth is going to put their time, effort and resources into creating a game/sim that only supports that tiny minority.

I do see quad core chips being used more efficiently in the future, and the next step being 8 core...but that alignment again, will be geared around the next half-generation of consoles (i.e XOne) where PC development has (or should have) a much closer alignment. As for 16 core/32 thread coded games, in 10-15 years maybe......perhaps it depends on what your definition of 'not-so-distant' future actually is! But then I suspect that the CPU will become less and less important anyway and even more of the compute functionality will be integrated with the GPU as it becomes the heart of a typical PC and the CPU becomes secondary.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/17 11:56 AM

I remember paying about $500 for a cutting edge AMD graphics card having 48 shaders. Now, the cutting edge (for AMD) is 4096 shaders running at much higher clocks -- and games are beginning to use that many -- though arguably they don't really need that many. We're only talking a bit over a decade for an almost factor of 100 increase (accounting for shader count and GPU clocks).

Using multi CPU threads is harder to program. Moreover, games are/were made around Intel CPUs -- which only had 4 cores/threads at reasonable prices.

But, Intel has joined the high core count party (up to 18 core/36 thread Intel CPUs are on the way). That is very likely a "game changer". If Intel makes it, the game companies will think differently -- and use it, eventually.

In the future, games will still run on 4 cores -- with reduced settings. But, they will run best on 16+ cores. Folks who want maximum performance regardless of cost (currently Intel/Nivida high end customers) will go for high CPU core count because it will deliver the top FPS numbers. My opinion, of course smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/17 04:26 PM

I still disagree, the brand 'Intel' and 'AMD' are still largely irrelevant when consoles are using lower spec components and therefore it's still pointless for devs to put the time and effort into multi-threaded coding when it just can't be used to the same extent. If a game can be coded to use 18 cores, then it isn't a simple task to direct these into schedulers that utilise half of that or much less and maintain anything like a similar level of performance, and therefore the time/effort/return equation comes into effect.....and more so when some of todays games are equivalent to Triple A Hollywood blockbusters in terms of cost.

You can't therefore just say that in the future, games will run on 4 cores but will run best on 16+ cores either, the same rule applies as above and as we know with todays' games just adding cores doesn't suddenly give a huge performance increase because the games don't just suddenly start using them, they don't even know they are there unless the host operating system (software) is able to do some limited manipulation or 'tricks' but it will never be the same or as fast as what the CPU can do at a hardware level. Given the typical tasks that the CPU undertakes and the parallel computing of GPUs, I still think you're much more like to see the importance put onto the GPU especially for games many more times over than the inclusion of huge CPU core counts.

Folks who want 'maximum performance' will always have a top-end GPU paired with an average to good CPU......simply because the GPU is many more times powerful than a top-end CPU especially for games. It's the same reason why a GPU can be bottle-necked by a CPU but the other way around is rarely a issue.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/17 11:10 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel Core i7 8700K Pictured & Benchmarked, Launching October 5


The main event CPU on October 5 will be a 6 core/12 thread device. Single-core and per-core performance is speculated to be very good, based on a leaked benchmark -- not unexpected for an Intel product.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/17 06:02 PM

More competition news. Intel to try to match AMD 8 core price/performance in mid to late 2018:

Quote
Intel To Launch Ice Lake 8 Core, 16 Thread Mainstream CPUs in Second Half of 2018 – Will Feature Support on 300 Series Platform

Intel seems to be preparing a new series of processors which will further boost the core count of their mainstream platform. The said processor lineup is planned for launch in second half of 2018 and it might be making use of the latest 10nm process technology.


High core counts are where the future is headed. But, the added cores don't affect games much (if at all) today. Apparently, Intel will standardize on 8 cores next year -- if "mainstream" means the same to Intel as it means to me.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/19/17 01:03 PM

Quote
AMD RX Vega Custom Cards Could Come As Late As November [ASUS sooner]

So far all RX Vega graphics cards that AIBs have been selling were directly supplied by AMD. All the card makers have been doing so far is slapping their stickers on the cards, packaging them and putting them out the door. .. Asus may be the only exception [has an ASUS custom design], official word is their [custom designed] Strix cards will begin shipping this month...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/17 03:43 PM

Apparently AMD Vega is not the only product behind schedule:

Quote
Intel Delays 10nm Cannon Lake CPUs To End Of 2018

..[Intel] has reportedly delayed its first generation of 10nm based products, code named Cannon Lake, a third time. The new chips are now expected to come out no sooner than the end of 2018. That’s a setback of more than a full year over the company’s originally announced schedule which pegged Cannon Lake as a mid 2017 product.

..The three major players [other than Intel] include TSMC, Samsung and AMD’s key partner and ex-manufacturing arm Globalfoundries. All of whom are now projected to have volume production of 10nm equivalent or better process technology ready to go by 2019..

..Globalfoundries is expected to begin 7nm DUV volume production in the second half of [2018]...


As previously noted (in this Future of AMD thread), AMD is skipping 10nm entirely. The next AMD CPU and GPU designs are being designed for 7nm and have been rumored for 2019. However, who really knows how it will turn out. 7nm is close to the limit for silicon devices -- until they do it, they haven't done it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/17 06:51 AM

Quote
AMD Is Building A Self-Driving Car AI Chip For Tesla

AMD has reportedly won another major semicustom chip design contract, this time around from Tesla..

Tesla has reportedly already received samples of the new semi-custom chip and is currently testing it. This is Tesla’s first attempt at making its own purpose-built AI chip and is said to be leveraging AMD IP mixed with its own. The company currently relies on GPUs from AMD’s rival, NVIDIA, for its self-driving cars..

The new AI chip is believed to be the first major step towards Tesla’s goal of delivering totally autonomous vehicles to consumers by 2019..

AMD shares are up 4.7% on the news and continue to climb in after-hours trading as of writing this.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/17 06:57 AM

Semi-substantiated rumor.

Quote
AMD wants Radeon Vega and Ryzen on 12nm LP process next year

AMD switching from 14nm LP to 12nm LP
..
This means that the slides published by AMD are no longer valid, as 14nm+ has now been shifted to 12nm. The so-called Zen+ might be the architecture behind Ryzen 2000 series, which should launch in 2H 2018..

The longterm roadmap outlines the plans for 2017/2018/2019. By 2020 AMD wants 7nm and 7nm+ products to be available. It appears that next year is a year for refreshed architectures with big upgrades coming in 2019...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/23/17 03:03 AM

With the advent of Vega and DX12, CrossFireX is out and mGPU is in. mGPU does not have the "issues" of CrossFire and SLI.

Quote
AMD Bids Farewell To CrossFire After 12 Years, Retiring Brand In Favor Of mGPU
..
..The company is by no means ending multi-GPU support for its graphics cards, in fact its latest drivers enable multi-GPU support for its recently released Radeon RX Vega graphics cards with promises of 80%+ performance scaling..

..[With mGPU] One GPU could render one portion of the frame while the second could render another portion of the same frame for example. This is called Split Frame Rendering, SFR for short. This technique negates the limitations inherent in the traditional alternate frame rendering – AFR – technique used today in DX11 and older games,.

..it allows developers to force NVIDIA and AMD GPUs to work together...


The latest AMD GPU driver (AMD Crimson ReLive Edition 17.9.2 BETA) supports mGPU, they say.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/17 10:19 AM

This is a pro-AMD thread. Its not an anti-Intel thread (Intel and Nvidia do many things right).

When Ryzen and Vega came out, they seemed "imperfect" in the sense that the entire new platform had the normal growing pains -- that last for months after initial release.

Some reviewers/pundits were miffed about AMD normal growing pains.

Well, it seems some are miffed about Intel normal growing pains.

Quote
Intel Coffelake-S 8th Gen Desktop and Z370 Controversy


If one is interested, here is the article.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/17 08:33 PM

Nvidia pricing is also affected by Cryptocurrency mining and expensive memory:

Quote
NVIDIA Graphics Card Prices To Continue To Rise Until December Report Claims

NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics card prices will see a price uptick amounting to roughly 10% starting this month due to a global memory shortage. A new report by Mizuho’s chief semiconductor analyst emerged yesterday claiming that this pricing inflation trend will continue until December, when cryptocurrency driven demand is expected to die down..

..cryptocurrency miners .. have driven GPU prices up by 25% in the past six months..

Graphics card supply from both NVIDIA and AMD has consistently been under pressure over the past several months, due to the recent boom in the cryptocurrency coin Ethereum. Unlike other cryptocurrencies .. , Ethereum can only be efficiently mined using GPUs..

..the profit incentive to mine is slowly eroding...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/17 12:32 PM

When released, Ryzen CPUs had to use memory designed for Intel CPUs. It worked (I have some). However, maximum speeds could not always be reached (my 3200MHz memory runs at 3000MHz).

Now, there begins to be memory designed for Ryzen CPUs:

Quote
G.Skill Unveils AMD Ryzen and Threadripper Optimized DDR4 Trident Z RGB Memory Kits – Available in Up To 128 GB Capacities For X399


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/17 02:56 PM

Quote
AMD reaches a Pinnacle

Low power 12nm version of Ryzen

AMD has told its partners that it plans to launch in February 2018 an upgraded version of its Ryzen series processors built using a 12nm low-power (12LP) process at Globalfoundries..

..codenamed Pinnacle 7, followed by mid-range Pinnacle 5 and entry-level Pinnacle 3 processors in March 2018...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/17 09:27 PM

On the competition front: Lack of GPU chips for graphics card manufacturers and knowing that bitcoin type mining will account for most AMD sales is taking its toll.

Quote
Gigabyte and MSI Back Out From Offering Custom Radeon RX Vega 64 Graphics Cards – Focusing Towards The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Instead

MSI and Gigabyte will not be offering any custom Radeon RX Vega 64 GPU but instead focus on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti which will be out in October..

..there will be a potential mining market going after these [AMD] GPUs as soon as they launch..

There is some hope as AMD exclusive partners such as Sapphire, XFX, Powercolor may offer new and fresh custom designs of the RX Vega lineup in November but so far, we have seen no details from them...


AMD has a "well rounded" GPU. It does both games and non-game computations very well at a reasonable price. Turns out that's a handicap if professional (defined as do it for profit) bitcoin miners buy all the cards (because of computational "bang per buck") and the unavailability turns off gamers who need the FPS (but not the computations, usually).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/28/17 12:06 PM

This note contradicts the one just above. This one says there will be custom Gigabyte RX Vega GPUs soon.

Not all news is accurate. Now we'll see which is correct (if any) as the weeks pass.

Quote
Update:

Hardware.info reports that contrary to the previous story Gigabyte will launch custom RX Vega. The company is allegedly preparing few models. The source claims that custom Vega graphics cards will be available in stores late October.


I personally can wait for a "bang per buck" custom offering. I thought Black Friday might have some. But, if custom cards are being first released in October, November, I suppose I'll be waiting until after the Holidays (i.e. some time next year). Since AMD sells so many of them to bitcoin miners, they don't need my money (not that I would make a donation -- has to be "bang per buck" and probably under $500 for me to buy).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/17 10:44 PM

Shock!

Quote
AMD RX Vega 64 Outperforms NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti By Up To 23% In DX12 Forza 7

The drivers used were Crimson ReLive 17.93 for AMD and 385.69 for NVIDIA. These drivers are officially optimized for Forza 7..

ComputerBase reached out to NVIDIA and the company confirmed that the results were indeed accurate..

..one thing’s for certain, Vega can really spread its wings in DirectX 12. Perhaps AMD’s partnership with Bethesda will expose more of what Vega can really do in DX12 games..


Nvidia shows class by confirming the results. Only one DX12 game. Still AMD was "competitive" as was Nvidia -- I doubt anyone could "see" the difference between them during game play.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/17 12:17 PM

Leading edge games will begin to adapt to DX12 graphics and 8 or more CPU cores.

3DMark is getting ready with a Benchmark update that stresses DX12 graphics and CPUs with 8 or more cores.

Quote
3DMark announces Time Spy Extreme, 4K DX12 benchmark

[3DMark says:]

Time Spy Extreme is the world’s first 4K DirectX 12 benchmark test..

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and the other members of our Benchmark Development Program, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme is an ideal benchmark test for gaming systems with the latest high-end graphics cards and new processors with 8 or more cores.

..we’re looking at new processors from AMD and Intel that can have up to 18 cores in some cases..

The CPU test has been redesigned to let processors with 8 or more cores perform to their full potential. Compared with Time Spy, the Extreme CPU test is three times more demanding. It also lets processors use more advanced instructions sets up to AVX2 when supported...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/17 05:19 PM

Quote
TSMC builds 3nm Fab in Taiwan

TSMC will build the 'world's first' semiconductor plant to support the creation of 3nm node silicon chips in Taiwan.

The company has a 5nm fab in the same location even if it has not started producing 5nm chips yet. These are “scheduled to start risk production in the second quarter of 2019"


I always figured that 3nm (or close to it) would be the smallest the industry could go with Silicon CPUs.

I imagine TSMC's first 3nm consumer parts won't reach shelves for several years (first build factory, then figure out 3nm, then come up with working products). We'll see if 3nm eventually includes CPUs and GPUs (I still figure it will).

TSMC is one of AMD's suppliers. So, if they figure out 3nm, AMD will have 3nm parts eventually. Moreover, TSMC 5nm for AMD may be only a few years away.

I'm glad AMD is rumored to be taking the chance and skipping 10nm to go straight to 7nm (already designing chips for 7nm). That may make AMD slightly more ready than their competitors to move to 5nm and, eventually, 3nm (Intel's next step is supposedly 10nm and has been rumored to be delayed by problems).

By 2025 (maybe sooner) we should know how this has turned out smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/17 04:52 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 1600/X CPUs With 8 Working Cores Spotted In The Wild

A number of users have reported purchasing Ryzen 5 1600X & 1600 CPUs that had 8 cores active right out of the box..

The CPUs had the same 3.6GHz base clock and 4.0GHz Turbo of the 1600X, but had 8 cores and 16 threads instead of 6 and 12 respectively. Making them effectively price-cut 1800X CPUs.

Others reported the same with the cheaper Ryzen 5 1600 CPUs. All of the unlocked chips were manufactured on the 36th week of 2017 in Malaysia..

..they found that they performed exactly like 1800Xs..

It’s possible that this was a decision made simply as the result of higher demand on Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 CPUs leading AMD to use some of its less purchased 8-core dies as Ryzen 5 1600Xs and 1600s to meet the demand..


Its a lottery. So, if one does not already own a Ryzen 5, this is not a suggestion to buy one in hopes of getting an 1800X.

Still, its interesting, to me. AMD did this with the very first Reference RX480 4GB GPUs -- they did not have enough -- so they put 8GB GPUs in the boxes and called them 4GB.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/17 12:28 PM

On the competition front: Intel is releasing their answer to AMD Ryzen. An article that links to dozens of Intel 8th Generation CPU reviews as they come on line.

Quote
Intel 8th Gen Core ‘Coffee Lake-S’ Review Roundup

This is a serious move from Intel, the competition in multi-core market has just begun..

Intel Coffeelake-S CPUs will only support 300 series motherboards. This means that an upgrade from Skylake or Kabylake will much more expensive. Unlike AMD, Intel did not officially confirm whether upgraded LGA1151 socket will support future CPUs, so this is something to consider before buying a new motherboard.

The list will be updated as reviews go live.


Article

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/17 12:01 AM

A new rumor.

For some folks, the latest Beta GPU driver from AMD (17.9.3) may disable CrossFireX.

I do not have CrossFireX on any of my several in-house computers; so, I can't verify the rumor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/17 07:54 PM

An unsubstantiated rumor:

Quote
AMD’s Next Generation Navi GPU Will Be Launching in August 2018 at SIGGRAPH – Monolithic vs MCM Design Yields Explored

It will be based on the Navi GPU and fabricated on the 7nm platform. .. this would mean AMD speeding up its roll out to counter Nvidia’s increasing influence on the graphics market...

Exploring the multi-chip module die philosophy for GPUs


This one is a long way off (roughly a year from now). But, its the one I'm waiting for.

Navi is a new way to make GPUs. They tie together several smaller individual GPUs that work together like one BIG GPU (not like CrossFire or SLI -- rather like one BIG GPU). In principle, there is no limit to the shader count --- but the cost and risk are greatly reduced.

Its the same concept as Threadripper CPU which puts multiple CPUs in one package -- and they work like a single many core CPU. So, AMD has the experience to make this work.

We'll see. I expect Navi to be "late" relative to rumors and speculations because its a very new way to make a GPU and on the 7nm node. However, when it hits, Nvidia needs to have an answer ready -- rumor is, they are working on that "answer".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/17 12:11 AM

If you have a local Micro Center store:

Ryzen 7 1800X for $350 limit one per customer ($500 list). In store pick up only.

We have a Micro Center and I use it occasionally though its a long drive across the city. Excellent selection, good service, prices competitive. Select item on-line and its set aside at the store front ready for pick up in 18min. Easy no-hassle returns.

First priority -- letting SimHQ folks know about a cheap Ryzen. Secondarily giving Micro Center a "plug" because I think they are deserving (of course, depending on how your local store behaves, your experience may vary).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/17 10:43 AM

Rumor is that AMD is substantially rewriting/revising their Ryzen BIOS.

Quote
AMD preparing AGESA 1.0.0.7 update

..the upcoming AGESA 1.0.0.7 changes the entire BIOS base structure, which will make it easier to add support for Raven Ridge APUs and Pinnacle Ridge CPUs.

..we still do not have an ETA for the release of the new micro-code update but motherboard makers should have these BIOS updates ready by the time AMD officially launches desktop Raven Ridge APUs, sometime in 2018.


Pinnacle Ridge CPUs are speculated to be 6 to 9 months from now. Being the "first" update of the Ryzen design, they may bump Ryzen performance more than the customary 10 percent. We'll see.

Typically, a new AMD Ryzen-family CPU will not require a new motherboard -- just a BIOS update. AMD's stated policy is to have the current Ryzen motherboards support all new CPUs and APUs (otther than Threadripper) -- for at least a few years. That's another "bang per buck" feature of AMD's Ryzen-family.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/18/17 09:42 AM

Quote
Intel targets Nvidia [and AMD] with Nervana

..after losing the mobile market to Qualcomm it looks as if the the AI market might be lost to the graphics tsars – Nvida and AMD.

Now Intel has announced it has a its first AI chip, the Nervana Neural Network Processor..

Nervana is designed from the ground up for machine learning and you can't play games on it. Rao thinks that ditching the GPU heritage made room for optimisations like super-fast data interconnections...


Self driving cars and other "robot" devices are the future. Their "brains" need special circuits. Now the competition will be among Nvidia, AMD, Intel -- all three are developing such devices.

Competition is good smile But, while competition is good, it remains to be seen if "AI for everything" (including your job and mine) is truly going to make things better for folks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/17 10:49 AM

Quote
Graphics card vendors upbeat about crytocurrency mining

..according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Gigabyte Technology and Micro-Star International (MSI), TUL, Colorful and Galaxy Microsystems have all been aggressive about the cryptocurrency opportunity since the mining trend emerged, and they have seen dramatic growths in related businesses. Asustek only started to see benefits from the segmnet in the third quarter.
..
Asustek has now estimated that the mining trend will last at least until the end of 2017...


AMD and Nvidia GPUs are used -- are in short supply and cost more because of Mining. Miners seem to prefer AMD "bang per buck". That's understandable. Mining is a business that's all about "cryptos per buck".

Original "guesstimates" said mining would be winding down this month -- and GPU prices would drop. But, not yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/17 09:30 PM

Quote
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) Is Profitable Once More – Posts GAAP EPS Of 7 Cents A Share And Beats Revenue by $139 Million
..
This is absolutely fantastic news for pretty much everyone involved – including the consumer. A stronger AMD means stronger competition for Intel and NVIDIA and consequently better and cheaper products for the consumer...


Hopefully, AMD will continue to actually make money (rather than lose it as they have for years). That way, they will stay in business.

AMD "competition is good" for everyone -- even Intel and Nvidia customers smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/17 09:42 PM

Quote
AMD’s 16-Core ‘Threadripper 1950X’ Gets Massive $120 Price Drop To $879 On Amazon
..
– 16 cores / 32 threads
– 3.4 GHz base and 4.0 GHz precision boost clocks
– Support for 64 PCIe lanes
– Unlocked for overclocking
...


Nice markdown so early in its lifetime. This one is for those who use multi-threaded, time-consuming applications for business (or pleasure). Its faster in multi-threaded applications and more "bang per buck" than the similarly priced Intel CPU.

Ryzen 7 1800X 8-core/16-thread does games and sometimes costs as little as $350 if one shops sales. Mine easily runs at 4GHz on all 8 cores all the time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/17 09:32 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen notebooks to arrive in coming weeks

Acer, HP and Lenovo volume in Q1 2018

The market in 2018 will not be an easy win for AMD. Intel is upping its game..

AMD will definitely have the price performance ratio on its side..

Bear in mind that Vega based graphics will seriously challenge Intel’s UHD Graphics 620 graphics. Vega is simply better for gaming than anything Intel ever designed, there is no argument there...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/17 09:45 AM

Quote
AMD (NASDAQ:AMD 12.33 -13.47%) stock dips as investors sell off after 307% increase in GAAP earnings but lowered Q4 guidance and weak data centre growth

AMD stock has historically undergone seasonality based revenue decline in Q4 but since this news comes immediately after new products were introduced to the market (Threadripper and Vega) and in the wake of slowing crypto-powered sales the market has reacted negatively to the announcement. ..


After flying "sky high", AMD stocks are leveling off or descending -- normal behavior at this time of year. But, it bears watching. To make money with any stock, one must sell at the correct time -- sell at the peak, then re-buy at the new valley (for some stocks)..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/17 09:36 AM

Quote
AMD Launches 15W Ryzen 7 2700U And Ryzen 5 2500U APUs With Radeon Vega Graphics And Some Absolutely Incredible Performance Numbers

..15W Ryzen APU.. can outperform a 91W Intel Core i5-7600k ..

I am cautious in saying this, but I think AMD might actually have the perfect must-have chip of this generation in mobile. There are sure to sell like hotcakes in the laptop market...
..
The AMD Ryzen 7 2700U is the fastest processor for ultrathin notebooks, with up to 44% more multi-threaded CPU performance as well as up to 161% more graphics performance than the competition..

In the coming weeks, initial systems powered by Ryzen mobile processors are slated to be available from top manufacturers including Acer, HP, and Lenovo, with further platform updates expected from Dell, Asus and other OEMs in early 2018...


The above article was based on AMD provided information (not independent review of actual notebook computers). But, something to look forward to for ultrathin notebook users who want computational power and play games.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/17 10:23 AM

Quote
AMD stock price wobbles after downgrade

Analysts at Morgan Stanley think that the stock price of AMD is too high and have issued a warning that it could fall as far as $8 per share.

The stock price closed at $11.84 last Friday..

..[Morgan Stanley] believes that cryptocurrency trading isn’t going to continue to boost sales of its graphics cards but that’s a bit bizarre because, for example, bitcoin continues to rise and rise, prompting increased rather than less speculation...


The author of the above article did not totally agree with the Morgan Stanley prognostication. On the other hand, most stocks that rapidly rise to new heights eventually fall back down partway -- including AMD, probably, eventually.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/17 12:46 PM

SAPPHIRE Radeon RX Vega 56 DirectX 12 100420L $399.99 at Newegg today

SAPPHIRE Radeon RX VEGA 64 DirectX 12 100410L $499.99 at Newegg

These are "Reference" model cards. The interesting thing (to me) is that they are selling for "list price" -- first time I've noticed an RX Vega not marked up because of bitcoin mining.

Hopefully, Black Friday will bring actual discounts from list price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/03/17 09:42 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070 Ti reviews are finally in

Geforce GTX 1070 Ti .. fits nicely between the GTX 1070 and Geforce GTX 1080, and even outperforms AMD's Radeon RX Vega 56 in most scenarios. This does not apply to the games where RX Vega series graphics cards perform quite well, including the recently launched Forza Motorsport 7 and Destiny 2, where even the Radeon RX Vega 56, outperforms the GTX 1080, at both its targeted 1440p resolution and even 4K/UHD gaming...


GTX 1070 Ti (reference edition available $450 list) and AMD RX Vega 56 (reference edition available $400 list). At $500 (available) the Reference RX Vega 64 ahead of the GTX 1070 Ti in tests I've read.

But, they are all close together in performance. People probably could not tell the difference in a "blind test" (as was shown by a blind test conducted a few months ago between Vega 64 and GTX 1080).

Comes down to price and brand name preferences.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/17 07:24 PM

On the co-operation between competitors front:

Quote
Intel Announces "coffee Lake" + AMD "Vega" Multi-Chip Modules

Rumors of the unthinkable silicon collaboration between Intel and AMD are true, as Intel announced its first multi-chip module (MCM), which combines a 14 nm Core "Coffee Lake-H" CPU die, with a specialized 14 nm GPU die by AMD, based on the "Vega" architecture...


Arrticle

I'll be interested to see how this competes with AMD APUs. AMD's APU advantage was excellent graphics (compared to Intel CPUs with their mediocre internal graphics).

Part of the rumor (from a while back) was that Intel had been trying to partner with Nvidia. However, that was rumored to be "not working out for Intel".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/17 08:22 PM

Just another article confirming the Intel/AMD partnership:

Quote
Intel Confirms Kaby-Lake G Series With Integrated Discrete Radeon GPUs – Here Are The First Benchmarks & Leaked Specifications

..it looks like NVIDIA is the only loser in this equation.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/17 08:28 PM

Press release from Intel:

Quote
Quote
Intel confirms high-performance mobile CPU with AMD Radeon graphics


New Intel Core Processor Combines High-Performance CPU with Custom Discrete Graphics from AMD to Enable Sleeker, Thinner Devices

New Intel Design and Packaging Innovations Reduce Silicon Footprint by More Than 50%, Enable Real-Time Power Sharing Across CPU and GPU for Optimal Performance


Source Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/17 10:00 PM

It begins. Some high end new-games will require 8 and more threads -- now that AMD and Intel supply that many.

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Tested: Assassin’s Creed Origins requires a CPU with 8 Threads for Full Performance


[Linked Image]

The 16 thread requirement (for best performance) is just around the corner (a couple years) for a few (not all) highest end games. In my opinion, of course smile

Also, in reading about how Assassin's Creed "overworks" CPUs -- due to high end in-game-environments (according to the developer its not DRM as sometimes reported), its worth noting that those high advertised CPU "boost" frequencies are only for temporary use on a couple threads. If you need to play a whole game at maximum performance -- and it's many threaded -- look at a CPUs "base" frequency (not "boost" frequency). Notably, base frequencies are often much less than boost frequencies. Of course, SimHQ veteran overclockers have this covered -- they make sure their CPU is well cooled for prolonged use at OC and "boost" frequencies.

Attached picture AssasinsCreedThreads.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/17 12:20 AM

I'm downloading Assassin's Creed: Origins (all in -- got the Gold Edition). Its a game I may like (huge open world, sneak around, historically reasonable, supposedly excellent graphics) -- and I can see for myself how it runs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/17 02:41 PM

Played Assassin's Creed Origins for about an hour.

Ryzen 7 1800X not overclocked. Reference RX480 8GB not overclocked. 1440p (2K) monitor.

All graphics set to maximum possible -- including "screen resolution" at 200% (I assume that means 4K calculations for my 2K screen). 14fps. Character movements were delayed between my key presses and what showed on the screen -- very unacceptable. Animations did not seem choppy.

Set "screen resolution" back down to 100% (I assume 2K on a 2K screen). Mid 30s fps. It all works fine so far. Once its running over 30fps all the time, I'm not bothered by anything -- seems smooth.

16 CPU threads were in use at all times during the game. However the total use for the CPU was under 20 percent most of the time (according to Windows 10 resource monitor). Moreover, CPU total use never got much higher -- some individual threads approached 80 or 90 percent at times. I don't know how much overhead came from running Windows Resource Monitor.

RX480 used less than 4GB out of its 8GB of available memory (according to the Assassin's Creed graphics setup screen).

So, for me, Assassin's Creed Origins is very playable with all graphics maximized at over 30fps on Ryzen 1800X (no overclock) and RX480 (no overclock) at 1440p (2K). Not saying everyone would feel the same way.

Based on comments on the Steam Forum, its not working out that well for everyone.


UPDATE: Over 4 hours of play. I think I've seen all the main environment types -- had the quick reaction time fights (where the game has to handle key presses with no delays). No negative changes in performance -- the above still holds.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/09/17 12:20 AM

AMD's chief graphics architect took 40 days off. Then quit AMD. Then joined Intel. Hmmmm. I speculate a few dollars were thrown his way.

That kills all the birds (or, maybe, the bird) with one stone. Intel will now know AMD's secrets. Moreover, shortly (two or four years or so) Intel will have AMD level graphics near release. And, AMD has lost their Chief Architect -- those folks don't grow on trees.

Quote
Raja Koduri Joins Intel as Chief Architect – Will Develop Discrete GPUs and More
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/17 09:04 PM

Since Bitcoins and their like are causing inflated GPU prices for we gamers, I think its interesting to note that most think Bitcoins and their like are very poor long term investments -- just like the Tulip Bulb investment mania 400 years ago.

When I did a detailed study of stock market history and investing (a couple decades ago), I read that at the height of the "Tulip Bubble" a farmer gave away his land for "one" tulip bulb. Sounds like "betting the farm" -- story said he lost the bet. That also sounds like paying $7000 for Bitcoins that originally cost $2. I'm not a Bitcoin expert, so I may misunderstand how good a deal that is.

From the Wall Street Journal:

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Bitcoin: The World’s Most Dramatic Bubble Ever?

Investment manias throughout the centuries have ranged from tulips to tech stocks to housing; is bitcoin different?


..The first known financial bubble is thought to have taken place in the 17th century, when Dutch tulip prices had a spectacular rise and fall. Recently, investment manias include the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and the housing boom and bust in the 2000s, which paved the way for the 2008 global financial crisis.

Now, the debate centers on bitcoin. The digital currency topped $7,000 this month for the first time, a gain of more than 600% so far this year. Three years ago, bitcoin was at $300. Six years ago, it was at $2...


Again, I'm no Cryptocurrency expert. So, maybe Bitcoin investing isn't as misguided as it sounds. Or, maybe, the smart investors are just waiting to jump off the wagon and collect their profits -- at the expense of the folks holding the bags of bitcoins.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/13/17 06:35 PM

Quote
SAPPHIRE Radeon RX Vega 64 NITRO pictured and tested

..three 8-pin power connectors. [That] does not automatically make it better...


Essentially a leaked information article. Preliminary tests are not at final clocks. Looks like the final version will beat all but 1080Ti. Looks expensive and large in the case.

I'm an AMD fan who likes Sapphire because AMD has a "deal" with Sapphire -- thus, Sapphire AMD products may have slightly better designs and seem competitively priced (e.g. one can buy a Sapphire Reference Vega at suggested list price -- even with most charging the Cryptocurrency markup).

However, when there is finally a choice of Vegas (beyond Reference Models), I'll buy what's priced right (and shows well in tests) regardless of brand name.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/17 12:11 PM

For those still on Windows 7:

The free update to Windows 10 (using a "trick") has been available; but, it was supposed to end December 31.

Microsoft intends to keep allowing W7 and W8 users to upgrade for free.

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Stop the Panic! Users Will Be Able to Avail Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer Even After December


Article


I also note that Firefox browser has been updated (yesterday). I use it. Said to be twice as fast and use much less memory. The speed increase is due to going "multi-threaded" (from single threaded). So, core count will matter more and more for folks (probably 4 is enoogh for Firefox).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/16/17 09:39 PM

Quote
Firefox Hardware Survey Puts AMD Ahead Of NVIDIA In Terms Of [Total] GPU Market Share

The GPU market share as reported by Firefox are as follows:

Intel’s integrated GPUs leading at a solid 65.39%.
AMD GPUs following at 15.40%
NVIDIA GPUs close behind at 14.167%

To put this into contrast, the latest October 2017 Steam hardware survey reports the following metrics:

NVIDIA GPUs at 81.4%
AMD GPUs much further behind at 10.84%
Intel iGPUs in the last at 7.54%

[Firefox survey is considered more accurate because it samples everyone]

The Firefox Hardware Survey can reach all machines – including netbooks, laptops and windows tablets. Basically, it can reach the portion of the population that does not have steam installed (or did not have steam open at the time of the survey). This also represents machines that are not designed to be gamed-on in any way whatsoever, including work devices (everything needs a GPU!)...


So, Nvidia is winning on gaming. AMD is winning overall. No doubt, the bigger profits per item are in the gaming market -- so, AMD needs to step up its game in the gaming market. But, we all knew that smile

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/17 07:57 AM

The Firefox hardware survey only collates data (on a daily basis) from users that utilise the Mozilla Firefox browser.....not sure why you think this gives any accuracy whatsoever especially given the amount of browsers in use and the market share of IE and Google Chrome.

Given that most ‘gamers’ will use Steam and their browser use is largely irrelevant.....I’d suggest Steam is a more accurate reflection of market share in gaming terms. This is of course dismissing the type of ‘gamer’ that plays the likes of solitaire, minesweeper and Candy crush.

To that end AMD aren’t even close at winning anything......their gaming share sits at something pitiful whilst Nvidia has a gaming share of 85%......and I think you know that’s more than likely a true reflection. I do agree with you that AMD need to improve, the whole release of Vega cards has been nothing like the game changer that they promised.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/17 11:04 AM

As you note, the Firefox survey does not cover everyone. That "weakness" was discussed in the article.

For a while, I was NOT going to make the above post because the results can be questioned.

However, they did consider the other browsers and concluded this new type of information was "better than nothing" to provide a more complete (not necessarily more accurate) picture of the entire GPU market (including non-gaming).

Posted for what its worth -- and the value is open to question smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/17 05:14 PM

Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X have come down in selling price. We can get Ryzen 7 1800X for $350 at the local Micro Center (when on sale -- which it has been more than once). I paid $500 for my Ryzen 7 1800X.

Thinking of my wife's new PC intending to use Ryzen (which is cost effective). Checked DDR4 memory.

Wow! Fast DDR4 increased in price since I bought my 32GB for about $280. That exact make-model DDR4 is selling for $500 now. One can get fast 16GB DDR4 made for AMD Ryzen for $175 on special sale -- that still adds up to $350 for 32GB.

They say the increased DDR4 costs have several reasons -- including cell-phones starting to use it in large quantities.

But, that makes "right now' maybe not a good time to upgrade -- unless one really needs to do it. I'm putting it off until next April/May and see what happens to prices. Some say they will go back down. We'll see.

I'm still waiting to see some Vega 64 custom cards to choose from (at a reasonable bang per buck). As noted in posts above, one can get a Vega Reference model for normal list price (not sale price). Most sell above list.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/17 11:24 AM

Ryzen 7 1800X only $320 at Newegg today (early Black Friday sale price).
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/17 07:54 PM

A question to AMD afficionados...

Is there any AMD equivalent to the Intel NUC, which packs a fairly powerful CPU with not-too-bad GPU and lots of connectivity into a box less than 5" square?
I've been impressed with this:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc7i7bnh.html

I would have thought this would be an area that AMD could compete with some Ryzen/Radeon combination as the Intel units can be quite expensive, but I don't see any products...at least in the suppliers I normally use.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/17 12:00 PM

The Ryzen CPU/Vega GPU combination APUs will be released in the relatively near future.

How those are packaged into PCs, laptops, and other products will depend on the marketplace. Laptops are a sure thing -- some are expected by December according to this article.

I Googled and got this article at random.

The article is long and gives some performance metrics compared to Intel. Competitive on compute tasks. Excels at graphics (based on AMD data). No third party tests yet.

Quote
AMD's Ryzen 7 2700U and Ryzen 5 2500U APUs revealed

Infinity Fabric ties Zen and Vega together

HP, Acer, and Lenovo hop on board

SoCs are no good without OEMs to build systems around them, and AMD is announcing three major design wins today from Acer, HP, and Lenovo. These machines will be Raven Ridge's pioneers during the holiday season of this year. AMD expects a full ramp of partner designs built around Ryzen APUs in 2018...


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/17 12:05 PM

Quote
Huge Savings on Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen Threadripper Right Now Ahead of Black Friday


The prices are marked down to new lows in many cases. Links provided to Amazon.

Article

Meantime, AMD Vega GPU prices are limited above list price items.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/17 12:17 PM

On the competition front: Nvidia GPU total market share has moved ahead of AMD's -- according to one measure.

This may change when the AMD APUs (with Ryzen CPU and Vega GPU) hit the market.

Also, some Intel CPUs will now sport adjacent AMD GPUs. Considering Intel's market share, AMD may "tag along" for a boost in sales.

Longer term, Intel is now going into the discrete GPU business (as reported). How that competition works out is to be determined.

Attached picture GPU-Market-Share-Q3-2017-NVIDIA-Intel-AMD.png
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/17 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
The Ryzen CPU/Vega GPU combination APUs will be released in the relatively near future.
Thank you! I'd forgotten the term 'APU'.

Looks like any products with a NUC style architecture, (essentially a powerful laptop without the battery,keyboard and screen) are some way off.
As I travel often between a few fixed locations, it's cheap enough these days just to have a mouse & keyboard at each one, and most TVs have a HDMI input now.
So, with the NUC I already have, I'll be laughing if and when we get a ban on carrying laptops in aircraft cabins.
Leaving a NUC at each location would cut down on things I have to lug around further, but that's too expensive right now....hence the question about AMD's presence in the market.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I expected a better answer here than just random searching, and am not disappointed. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/17 12:39 PM

Quote
Steam Autumn Sale Includes Deals On Wolfenstein II, The Witcher III And Thousands More


Article Listing Games/Prices

I suppose this is not news. We all know prices drop on Black Friday. I've already spent over $100 the last day on a few Steam games because the price was right -- and there are no custom Vega GPUs to spend money on.

Of course, the whole point of buying a gaming GPU for $500 (Reference RX Vega 64) to $1250 (EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti K|NGP|N Hydro Copper GAMING) is to play all those $15 (on sale) games at highest settings -- and that very-occasional $100 game at 4K and 60fps. Hmmmm. wink
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/24/17 09:18 PM

Quote
Wolfenstein II and Prey free with Radeon RX Vega graphics cards


Trying to offset the overprice caused by Cryptocurrency mining. Runs from today to December 31.

I downloaded an ~375 page textbook on Bitcoin. All the whys and wherefores -- and how to do it. Only read the introduction Chapter. It seemed thorough and was interesting to read. However, it's still not obvious to me how Cryptocurrency does the average person any good -- its just another way to pay for things -- a substitute for normal cash and normal credit approaches.

Apparently, in the last almost 30 years there have been many dozens of approaches (about 50 important ones listed in the text) to transferring money anonymously (so that people can't steal your credit or banking information or trace your purchases). So far, of the 50 mentioned only PayPal has been truly partly successful, they say.

Hopefully, this will run its course so that I can consider buying a new GPU for gaming tha's priced for gaming (not priced for Cryptocurrency mining).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/17 12:29 PM

Quote
XFX Launches Radeon RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 Double Edition Graphics Cards – Two Custom Models With Improved PCB and Dual Fan Cooling


This is news because the launch is the first actual launch of a custom RX Vega. Supposedly happening now in some markets. So far, today, I haven't seen one.

New circuit board and improved cooling presumably supports higher overclock. However, standard clocks are provided.

I assume the current selling price will be out of my range. However, the first items to hit the shelves are sometimes sold at list price, initially.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/17 10:24 AM

Regarding the future of competition. As we've noted here -- the future will be all about "core count". A quad core will become the new "bottom of the line" - even for Intel. Doubtless, software and games will be programmed accordingly.

Quote
Intel’s Flagship 9th Generation Core i7-9700K To Pack 8 Cores, 16 Threads – Core i5 Upgrade To 6 Cores, 12 Threads and Core i3 Gets Quad Cores With 8 Threads

Based on the recent Intel leaks, Chinese sources are further reporting through information acquired from motherboard makers in Taiwan that Intel’s next generation, 9th generation flagship will pack more cores than the current fastest mainstream processor...


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/17 11:40 AM

Reread rumors that AMD will be going to 12nm (from 14nm) process for Ryzen CPUs and Vega GPUs "early" next year -- because its easy. The original plan was to jump to 7nm in 2019 and stay at 14nm until then.

Quote
At the GlobalFoundries Technology Conference this week, AMD’s CTO, Mark Papermaster, announced his firm would use GlobalFoundries’ new 12nm LP process node for upcoming products.


The new 12nm Ryzen CPUs and Vega GPUs will also feature updated designs. Those combined with 12nm are speculated to provide a 10 to 20 percent improvement in performance. I assume 10 percent or the changes would not be worth doing. We'll see.

I might as well wait for that before trying to buy an RX Vega card. I'm assuming a wait until March/April. But, often things become delayed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/17 01:22 AM

For those interested in fast VR, Steam benchmarks run in-house by AMD say RX Vega is very competitive.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega architecture shines in VRMark Cyan Room


[Linked Image]

Attached picture RXVegaVRMark.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/17 01:08 PM

Quote
AMD Raven Ridge Desktop APU Support Can Be Added To Your AM4 Motherboard Now Through A BIOS Update
..
The AMD AM4 chipset based motherboards have officially supported Raven Ridge processors since launch, only the BIOS needed update. The AM4 platform is said to offer longevity to users meaning that AMD will extend CPU support on the platform beyond Summit Ridge (Ryzen) and Bristol Ridge (9th Gen APU). We know that after Raven Ridge support, these motherboards will also get Pinnacle Ridge CPU support which are expected to launch next year. Overall, unlike Intel who demand users to shift over from older platforms to use their new chips, AMD does offer a better upgrade path to their consumers...


Another "bang for buck" aspect of AMD vs Intel. One can use the same motherboard for new mainstream CPU and APU products over a period of years.

Parenthetically, Threadripper uses a different motherboard -- because the socket is so big to accommodate all the cores -- up to 32 cores/64 threads are expected eventually -- not a mainstream part. However, I expect the Threadripper motherboard to stay relevant as new Threadrippers arrive.

My gaming motherboard's BIOS support page does not show this update, yet. However, this announcement only means the generic BIOS is available to the manufacturers. They have to implement it for each motherboard.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/17 11:23 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel 10nm is better than everyone thinks

But Intel wants higher yields

Of course, our well-placed sources want to remain unnamed but Intel’s 10nm delay was for a financial reason and not the inability to make a good 10nm CPU..

..let’s assume that the new 10nm wafer could easily cost close to $700. Since Intel aims for very high yields, sometimes up to 90 percent, they want most of the 10nm dies to work. Let’s assume that the next gen 10nm Ice Lake core is 15x10mm (150mm2). This would mean that Intel can get approximately 394 dies per wafer.

Now, imagine these cores in 10nm, in the course of 2018..


The article prognosticates a cost as low as $2.00 per usable CPU die -- more likely $3.50. They don't say how many CPU cores that would be.

Anyhow, Intel may be moving towards "price competition". As the article notes, until the last year when AMD brought out Ryzen and Threadripper, Intel did not have to compete on price or performance -- now it does.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/17 11:38 AM

Quote
Just In: IRS Will Receive Personally Identifiable Data of Coinbase Users

The agency had argued that only 802 US citizens reported cryptocurrency holdings in their taxes in 2015 when millions were transacting in the digital currencies....


One selling point of Crypotcurrency has apparently been the ability to avoid paying taxes on income. Cryptocurrency when well handled allowed for untraceable transactions.

I speculate: If hiding income with cryptocurrency transactions becomes harder to do, cryptocurrency may become less valuable -- thereby more quickly freeing up RX580s and RX Vega's for gamer's to buy at reasonable prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/17 11:43 AM

Quote
PowerColor, Gigabyte and ASUS Officially Announce Their Custom AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 Graphics Cards – Custom Flavors Include Red Devil, WindForce 2X and ROG STRIX OC Models


One of these is expected in December. One is a paper launch. One is a we'll see -- but, its coming.

No "breath holding" seems justified, yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/17 11:02 PM

Quote
AMD teases Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition coming in December

Adrenalin is the new driver family that will put the end to Crimson. It is believed to bring new features, such as GPU performance overlay, which was teased months ago, and possibly unlock the additional power of Vega architecture, which is teased in the video.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/17 03:46 PM

Quote
AMD’s James Prior talks (Ry)zen 2 and Vega 11

..shared during OverclockersUK live stream with special guest from AMD: James Prior (Senior Product Manager).

AMD Vega 11 is integrated into Raven Ridge APU

The mysterious Vega 11 is not a GPU by itself. It’s a solution for AMD Raven Ridge APUs with 11 Compute Units enabled..

AMD RX Vega 56 and 64 to receive an increased supply

It has been confirmed that RX Vega stocks will be increased shortly. This will allow retailers, such as OverclockersUK, to adjust the price accordingly. .

AMD (Ry)zen 2 will use AM4 socket

James Prior reassured that AM4 socket is here to stay (till 2020). The work on Zen 2 has already begun when fundamental parts of Zen 1 were already known...


Article and Video Link

Some good news regarding pricing coming down -- due to increased supply. Should allow release of delayed Custom RX Vega (in several weeks, I presume).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/17 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
For those interested in fast VR, Steam benchmarks run in-house by AMD say RX Vega is very competitive.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega architecture shines in VRMark Cyan Room


[Linked Image]



For those interested in fast VR you wouldn't use cherry-picked benchmarks that make both cards from one specific brand look like world-beaters when in reality and in actual use that isn't reflected at all, you'd want to use a mixture of various benchmarks that reflect the performance of real-world games in order to get a realistic comparison and these consistently show the GTX1080/ti outperforming any AMD GPU by anything up to 30%. With the GTX1080 cheaper than the top-end Vega and but still outperforming it you'd be mad to opt for Vega at the moment. It seems to be the same old AMD.....promise a lot, underperform and use what is most probably better technology, but as yet poorly supported by their own drivers and more importantly developers of the games we're playing and will be playing in the near future. https://babeltechreviews.com/rx-vega-64-liquid-10-vr-games-vs-the-gtx-1080-gtx-1080-ti/

[Linked Image]

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/17 04:08 AM

Thanks for the link. I do note that its an August article.

The author says that Vega needs a driver improvement to catch GTX 1080 ( for example, The Unspoken seems WAY out of line -- even RX480 beats Vega). Since August, Vega has gotten some driver improvements that may be reflected in the benchmark I posted above.

Rumors are that the December Vega Adrenalin drivers will give a general boost due to unlocking some unused Vega features (of course that's not guaranteed -- its a rumor for now -- must wait and see what independent tests show).

Also, the article notes that the VR code limits FPS to 90 as part of normal operation. So, maybe in practice, anything over 90 does not get used regardless of what GPU is used. Then it comes down to price. Right now the Vega price is higher than I want to pay.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/17 08:51 AM

Horsepower that 'would' enable higher frame rates than 90fps enables the ability to knock the pixel density up.

The GTX1080 (and Ti especially) can effectively run at 4k configurations and downscale the output to the 1440p resolutions that the headsets run at. For flight Sims and racing Sims this does make a welcome difference as the text on HUDs and dials change from slightly blurry to very clear.

Personally, I think it's the next gen headsets with 4k displays that will really give us what we need however the issue is still the GPU. Although the 1080ti comes close and can reach 60fps in most (but not all) games the VR headsets really need that consistent 90fps frame rate to keep everything nice and smooth. I think we're still a generation or two away from that so another 3-4 years.
Posted By: Remon

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/17 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz

[Linked Image]



Without saying that the Vega 64 is a good buy, that's an old review. Things have changed.


Btw, got my 580 8g yesterday, ordered it on Amazon.co.uk on August 21. With the pre-order bonus I got it for 105 pounds (140 dollars). Best buy I've ever done. Huge improvement over my 7790.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/17 12:13 PM

Quote
Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.11.4 Highlights

Support For

Oculus™ Dash Open Beta

DOOM® VFR


Regarding old articles, I noted that drivers change -- almost weekly if necessary.

For example, the latest release of Crimson drivers supports better VR (as noted in above quote). Moreover, December's (?) Adrenalin drivers were rumored to update VR even more -- as alluded to above. And, I have personally noted other VR fixes during the last couple months (not in-use -- rather in the driver release notes).

I rarely post on drivers because the gamers who own the cards will have already checked out the drivers for their cards. And, folks who don't own the cards -- why should they care? But, drivers for AMD and Nvidia are always improving. Which makes old data "suspect":.

Nonetheless, we agree, VR is not 100 percent there yet. And, faster FPS should result in some benefit for the faster card at some point in some applications.

I assume 1080Ti will be the fastest for the next few months at least (at a price $$$). Next year AMD and Nvidia will make faster cards.

Nvidia's game plan is to ALWAYS make the fastest top-end card -- no matter what it takes or what it costs -- its a big part of their brand recognition to be able to say "fastest". I read years ago that AMD decided it was foolish to go out of their way to try and beat Nvidia's TOP card in FPS. Rather, they would compete on "bang per buck" and on giving a complete GPU -- for example, one that includes a good "compute" ability -- and supports the next generation of games (e.g. Nvidia DX12 support and compute capabilities in hardware only recently are catching up to AMD).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/04/17 11:46 AM

Quote
Europe set to clamp down on Bitcoins

Cryptocurrencies used for money laundering, claim

European Union and United Kingdom regulators will take action to prevent trading in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency being conducted under conditions of anonymity, amid claims that people are hopping on the bandwagon to finance drug dealing, terrorism and money laundering..

..the effect of "mining" has been to boost profits for firms like Nvidia and AMD, with "miners" forcing the price of add in cards through the roof..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/17 10:27 AM

Quote
PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 DirectX 12 AXRX VEGA 64 8GBHBM2-2D2H/OC 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support ATX Video Card

Free Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus & Prey w/ purchase, limited offer

$569.99 after $50.00 rebate card


Reason for post: First custom card I've noticed nominally on sale to the public.

Considering that the Reference RX Vega 64 listed at $500, this price with free games seems reasonable.

Newegg and currently out of stock. But, they may not have started the sale yet -- merely put up the advertisement. Does not say "sold out". There is an "auto notify" button for when they come in (my experience is that you may get the message too late -- so check site periodically).

UPDATE::

At Amazon they are saying:

Quote
Price: $859.99 FREE Shipping for Prime members Details

In stock on December 8, 2017.


I won't be buying one at that cash price. My RX480 runs everything I play.

So, I await a custom card selling near $500 or a water cooled one below $600 (the Newegg deal seems reasonable in today's GPU market -- but, I don't value either of the games). And, then, I'll evaluate a possible purchase.

UPDATE 2:

Now, Amazon is saying Dec 13 availability. And, Newegg is saying "who knows when". Only interesting because its the first custom card -- so far a "paper launch".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/17 09:51 AM

Quote
AMD and Qualcomm Team Up To Introduce Gigabit LTE Devices Under The Ryzen Mobility Platform

..at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit, AMD showed up to announce that it will be rolling out a line of products utilizing a Gigabit LTE modem by Snapdragon on the Ryzen Mobility platform. This is a very interesting update from AMD and showcases that it is going all out on seeding its brand new x86 ecosystem as far as humanly possible – and for all intents and purposes, succeeding at it...

So where can you expect to see this Ryzen Mobility + Gigabit LTE combo? Well, this is something you will see either in netbooks or in 2 in 1s. Both of which are decidedly low power applications and those that could benefit greatly from a cellular modem in the mix. According to the specs, you should be bale to download a movie within 30 secs..

The Ryzen mobility APUs (2700u and 2500u) could singlehandedly land it one of the biggest market share increases of all segments. That they caught Intel off-guard would be an understatement.

If the official [AMD supplied] numbers are to be believed .. the [15W] Ryzen 2700U is so powerful that it can beat out a 91W TDP Kaby Lake based Core i5 7600k. .. These are sure to sell like hotcakes in the laptop market if the official claims are anywhere close to the truth – and we have no reason to suspect they aren’t considering AMD has delivered on its Ryzen and Threadripper claims in the past.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/17 02:08 PM

Off topic. But, possibly useful information to SimHQ members still making their career plans:

Quote
AI might falter due to human shortage

A new report from Chinese tech giant Tencent said that there are only 300,000 “AI researchers and practitioners” worldwide, but the “market demand” is for millions of roles.

The report confirms what tech giants have been complaining about - apparently an AI engineer can demand a high salary for her or his skills. Those with a few years’ experience can expect base pay of between $300,000 and $500,000 while the very best can collect millions.

One independent AI lab said that there were only 10,000 individuals worldwide with the right skills to spearhead serious new AI projects.

Tencent’s new “2017 Global AI Talent White Paper” suggests the bottleneck here is education. It estimates that 200,000 of the 300,000 active researchers are already employed in various industries - not just tech - while the remaining 100,000 are still studying. ..


I believe that AI devices will replace 98 percent of human jobs that dominantly require making decisions based on "thoughtful, objective, consideration of facts". I imagine most of the change will be during the next 50 years -- some folks say much less time.

That's not all jobs. But, most science, engineering, medicine, and repetitive manual jobs (e.g. truck driving) would fit. So, an AI specialist could aim to get into virtually any field that interests them.

I personally would go the AI route if I were starting my career over. I played with it some when I did work. And I've played with it after retirement.

Just information and opinion for what its worth.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/17 11:40 PM

Whoa. Navi to come next year?? Based on rumors, I assumed it would be delayed until 2019. If 2018 true (i.e. backed up by more substantiated rumor), I may just wait all year for a new GPU (I'm currently planning on a 12nm RX Vega next Spring). Navi has been rumored/speculated to be the "Threadripper" of GPUs -- potentially many many shaders at a good "bang per buck". We'll see,.

And, other news in this article:

Quote
AMD To Stop Shipping Reference RX Vega Cards In Favor Of Custom Models

..ComputerBase cites several sources and reports that AMD has already stopped shipping reference Vegas in favor of allocating more Vega 10 GPUs for the company’s add-in-board partners to build custom designs with..

[AMD is] busy with the new 12nm Ryzen & Vega chips expected in the first half of next year..

..2018 is shaping up to be a pretty exciting year for graphics with [Nvidia] Volta, [AMD] 12nm Vega, [AMD] 7nm Navi all making their debut in one form or another..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/17 02:20 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2 Set For March 2018 Launch On 12nm – To Support Higher Core & Memory Clock Speeds

The new lineup comprised of 2000 series Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 2000 microprocessors is said to bring higher clock speeds and better overclockability to the table in addition to support for faster DDR4 RAM..

These parts will go against Intel’s upcoming 9000 series, which our sources tell us to expect around June’ish next year. Intel’s 9000 series will bring 8 cores to the mainstream..

..we could see Ryzen frequencies pushed to anywhere between 4.2-4.4GHz on the high-end..


Intel is going 8 cores "mainstream" -- so they say. As noted over and over in this thread, core count is the future of CPUs and games.

I'll consider buying one of the 12nm Ryzens and give my wife my current Ryzen. I won't "see" the difference with 12nm, only "measure" it. If I get one, it will be for the fun of it.

The AMD roadmap is attached.

Attached picture AMDRoadmap.PNG
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/17 06:44 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Navi has been rumored/speculated to be the "Threadripper" of GPUs -- potentially many many shaders at a good "bang per buck"


You'll have to excuse me taking that comment with a truckload of salt. ‘Vega’ with its HBM2 was supposed to take GPU performance into a completely different ball park.

It didn’t / it hasn’t.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/17 04:51 PM

As I always understood it (since Navi was first mentioned a long time ago), RX Vega was the "place holder". Just a better Polaris -- to hold folks until Navi.

Since they startted talking about it, Navi has been portrayed as a "new way" do do GPU architecture -- one that would stress low cost per shader, and have the possibility of virtually unlimited shader count (in the same sense as a Threadripper CPU pushes core count). Given the cost per shader, Navi could be game changer. Still, Nvidia knows what I know, so I assume they have already have their answer in the pipeline. Competition is good smile

Meantime, it was the Press that built up RX Vega expectations and the unexpected delay of HBM2 development (not AMD's fault) that delayed Vega. Then, cryptocurrency miners pushed up the prices -- no more "bang per buck". So, RX Vega has not been the "gaming success" it might have been. Heck, even I won't pay the price. Had they sold on time (nearly a year earlier) at the expected prices, they would have been very competitive "bang per buck". As I always mention, Nvidia's top card will ALWAYS win FPS at a price -- AMD is aiming for competitive performance in a "complete" GPU at bang per buck.

I'm hoping the 12nm RX Vega is priced more reasonably next spring (requires a fall off in cryptocurrency demand). I may yet buy one.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/17 05:07 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Features & Benchmarks Leaked – Delivers Up To 19% Performance Uplift


Adrenalin drivers are on-line at the AMD site.

Adrenalin supports AMD GPU features in RX Vega (and some Polaris) that had not been "activated" with Crimson drivers.

I updated to Adrenalin GPU driver set (from Crimson). I won't bother to test -- just use.

Interestingly, AMD claims since releasing Crimson a couple years ago, they have released a total of over 70 updates (or drivers for new cards). Over that period, FPS increases have been roughly 15 percent, typically -- not per driver, rather "in sum" over the time.

That amounts to a new driver every two or three weeks. And, typical 15 percent increase in FPS (sometimes much more -- when a game is initially unsupported -- most games need specific support by a driver, I have read).

This gets back to what was discussed above in this thread: Drivers change a couple times a month and performance increases in some games as a result.

So, two concepts: First, when a new AMD GPU is released, its don't compare it too closely to an older Nvidia GPU with established drivers -- AMD improvements of 10 percent plus are likely with driver updates. Second, don't use old GPU comparison test reports -- they are comparing old drivers.

By the way, that 19% uplift they talk about is very specific to a specific game and setup. More likely, on older games with established driver support, Adrenalin improvements will be approximately 0%, or maybe 1% smile

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/17 06:53 PM

Quote
It's Official: Bitcoin Surpasses "Tulip Mania", Is Now The Biggest Bubble In World History


Hopefully, folks will get the message. And GPU prices will fall.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture bitcoin bubble biggest ever.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/17 11:08 AM

A longer article (but easy to read) that articulates the many functional improvements in the Adrenalin drivers.

Among them, up to 60 percent less power draw from RX Vega -- at a slight cost in FPS. Better DX11 FPS. And, up to 15% more efficient cryptocurrency mining. All part of an attempt to provide a "complete" GPU for games, computation, etc.

Quote
AMD officially launches Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition

Plenty of new and improved features

AMD has launched its third big Radeon Software yearly update that aims to raise the bar when it comes to graphics card drivers and software - the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition.

According to AMD, by switching RX 570 4GB to Compute workload in Global Graphics settings, you should get up to 15 percent higher Hash Rate for mining Ethereum.

AMD certainly invested a lot of time in developing its newest Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition and we certainly must give credit when credit is due, as their driver releases have never been better.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/17 10:07 AM

More powerful Ryzen/Vega APUs are coming fairly soon. Should out perform Intel APUs in the same wattage range for game FPS. Good for inexpensive PCs and home theater PCs.

The Ryzen 5 2400G is "leaked" to be the most powerful of the bunch.

[Linked Image]



Attached picture Screenshot.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/17 01:48 PM

1792 SP shaders -- that's what seems to be in an even newer AMD APU than the one's listed just above (we're not supposed to know about it yet). We'll eventually see if this rumor/leak is true.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/17 05:23 PM

The latest Windows 10 Creator's Update breaks at least one application when an AMD GPU is used -- CorelDraw 2017. "Copy" and some other actions go from instantaneous to nearly 50 seconds in some cases.

Who would have guessed that was a GPU/W10 interaction thing? I didn't (I'm a CorelDraw user).

It is said this is being fixed by Microsoft. But, how fast?

Just a "heads up" in case one of your applications suddenly slowed down after the recent W10 major update.

EDIT: The temporary fix (at least for my uses) is to drop back to AMD WHQL driver 17.7.2.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/17 05:07 PM

Quote
Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 64 Nitro+ Review

Conclusion

Unfortunately, we can only speculate right now about real availability, and whether Sapphire's pricing proves realistic. The Radeon RX Vega 64 Nitro+ is nonetheless a great graphics card. Though, at a price of $660, enthusiasts will no doubt be divided in their willingness to pay so much money with GeForce GTX 1080s selling for almost $150 less. Given a general shortage of Vega cards right now, though, don't expect to find partner boards selling at any kind of discount.

Therefore, our Editor's Choice award represents true appreciation for Sapphire's technical implementation of a GPU that has proven somewhat problematic for other manufacturers, and not necessarily purchasing advice. If you really must have a decked-out Radeon RX Vega 64, it's going to be because you're a die-hard AMD enthusiast with a penchant for exclusivity, and not because we give it a thumbs-up or -down. In the end, there's nothing wrong with paying a premium on this card if you're one of the lucky ones who can get one...


[Linked Image]

Besides being an AMD fan, I'm also a low key Sapphire fan. Sapphire specializes in AMD products. Theirs seem to be the most advanced in many cases. The article seems to think they've done it again.

Its nominally faster, quieter, uses less power than the AMD RX Vega 64 Reference card.

If one is interested in a card, one should read the article. Its nuanced. In only a couple games, the new card blows away the Nvidia 1080 Ti in minimum framerate (the important framerate). Of course, the 1080Ti remains fastest overall.

In a couple games, the reference RX Vega 64 card is a bit faster than the new Custom card. The authors put it on the current AMD drivers -- not the card. We must wait for updated drivers to get all the power from this card.

Article

Attached picture Screenshot-2017-12-16 Sapphire RX Vega 64 Nitro+ Rating - Tom's Hardware.png
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/17 08:45 PM

I can confirm that the reviewer clearly isn't aware of the 1080ti issue with DX12 in Battlefield 1. I assume this is the area that you refer to whereby the 'new card blows away the Nvidia 1080 Ti in minimum framerate' in two tests.....it's actually just one game but you're referring to the the 2 different resolutions of 1440p and 4k?

For whatever reason the GTX1080ti is gimped in DX12 mode unlike the normal GTX1080, but a simple console command of 'RenderDevice.RenderAheadLimit 2' puts the performance back into the card with minimum framerates at 1440p beyond 110fps and at 4k beyond 85fps at the highest settings. Unfortunately for AMD fans, the sensationalist claims of blowing away the 1080ti is false by a huge margin as the 1080ti puts the other cards all in their places.

What is more striking in that review are the power requirements that are well and truly swept under the carpet as the Vega 64 uses more than 80% more power when gaming in comparison to the GTX 1080 which is its closest competitor (but still loses in nearly all the benchmarks) and has the most ridiculous peak I've ever seen on a GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/17 01:14 AM

I keep mentioning cryptocurrency mining because its central to the "overpricing" of AMD RX580 and RX Vega cards. This article is based on mining XMR Monero (one of the many cryptocurrencies).

AMD cards make miners more money per month at a given cost. So, AMD GPUs being a good "investment", cryptocurrency miners drive up their prices.

Quote
AMD’s RX Vega 64 can out-mine NVIDIA’s TITAN V in CryptoNight based coins (XMR Monero) by a large margin, 2 GH/s possible at just 203 Watt power draw with Blockchain driver


[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Screenshot-2017-12-16 Mining Performance Check AMD's RX Vega 64 Blows Away The Titan V At 2055 MH s With XMR Monero.png
Attached picture Screenshot-2017-12-16 Mining Performance Check AMD's RX Vega 64 Blows Away The Titan V At 2055 MH s With XMR Monero(1).png
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/17 12:47 PM

Come on Allen, this is getting ridiculous.....if you're trying to show AMD in a good light by providing evidence of how long it takes to break even when cryto mining then show GPUs that are roughly the same cost as that will be the comparison of the performance versus cost.

The Titan V is a £2700 GPU, but hey...anything that attempts to show AMD beating Nvidia must be good yeah? Your posts are usually good but be aware that if other SimHQ'ers are looking for information for comparison with GPUs and CPUs then your posts are plain mis-leading and intentationally so.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/17 01:51 PM

This thread is "Future and Current Status of AMD".

Compute is about "bang per buck" to some users. That's the point. One pays a lot for an Nvidia GPU versus what they get in "compute. That affects AMD's "status" with consumers -- positive with some (more profit) and negative with others (price too high for gamers).

GPUs do graphics and "compute" functions. Some applications and games make use of the GPU compute functions. AMD has typically supported compute functions well compared to Nvidia. And, that matters to folks who use GPU compute functions.

AMD's lead in compute (bang for buck wise) and the effect of that on AMD GPU cost (driving up the cost) is relevant to AMDs "Future and Current Status" with all sorts of consumers -- from SimHQ gamers who don't want to overpay for FPS to cryptocurrency miners who want the best "bang per buck" (its all about money to them) to professionals who use the compute side of GPUs and may find AMD less attractive at a higher price.

With me, its not about "beating" Nvidia or Intel. Rather, both provide excellent products that AMD must be competitive with -- so it makes sense to me cut and paste articles that compare all aspects. Its about the "Future and Current Status of AMD" -- which involves more than FPS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/17 02:06 PM

By the way, here's the Titan V advertisement cut and pasted from the Nvidia site.

They call it the most advanced "supercomputing architecture" GPU and its aimed at "fueling breakthroughs in every industry".

So, its interesting that an AMD GPU product is "competitive" (bang per buck) with it in "compute" -- when "compute" is the Titan V specialty. At least, its interesting to me smile

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Screenshot-2017-12-17 Introducing NVIDIA TITAN V The World’s Most Powerful PC Graphics Card.png
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/17 02:50 PM

So OK, if you want to make noise in the 'bang for buck' arena.....then show bang for buck.

Stating how long crypto mining takes to offset the cost of a $3000 Nvidia GPU against an $800 GPU isn't showing back for buck at all. Neither are benchmarks that show an Nvidia card operating at 50% less wattage and core clocks......all the key variables are completely unmatched in the attempt to make AMD look like the clear winner....it's not even apples to oranges.

With regards the advert, your'e still off on a tangent.....you're still claiming the 'bang for buck' is the comparison yet nowhere have you featured a benchmark that actually shows bang for buck. Has it occurred to you that profit per month figures you quoted are completely inaccurate because it isn't even taking into account how much electricity is being burned by the AMD cards where in some cases they are using over twice as much than the Nvidia card. Of course you're going to get a large performance boost if you take a set period of time but use a performance metric within that timeframe. The article that you lifted the graph from even caveats it with 'but if electricity costs are not a concern (or if less of a concern) to you........' .

You also seem to be indicating that 'compute' is only relevant for mining? You are aware the so-called speciality of the Titan V is for AI and to be used for scientific research? In summary, all these silly benchmarks attempting to make AMD look good are simply cherry picked values and they're not even consistent across cards. Look at the mining graph again....the Vega cards aren't even comparing ETH, yet the Titan V has entries against it! If you did find benchmarks for that, you will find the Vega 64 losing by a large margin (see youtube clip below).

It does seem that AMD are intent to focus on mining though and have pretty much given up on trying to challenge in the gaming stakes - evident by releasing the dedicated blockchain driver, even if the flip-side is to increase the prices of already scarce hardware.

=========================================================================================

Here is an apples to apples mining benchmark (something that your graph didn't attempt to show)......ETH at Mh/s and Power Consumption, fast-forward to 29 seconds



Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/18/17 11:31 AM

An article built from rumor, leak summarizes where Navi GPU "seems" to be -- nothing new -- other than a Navi driver seems to be along in development . The "super secret" part is "humor".

Quote
AMD 7nm “Super Secret” Navi GPU Spotted In Driver, 2H 2018 Launch Expected

AMD’s upcoming next generation 7nm based graphics architecture code named “Navi” has reportedly been spotted in Linux driver code [with SuperSecret in its name]. The all new GPU architecture is officially slated to debut next year, with all whispers indicating a debut in the latter half of the year...

One Scalable Navi GPU To Rule Them All – The Legend Of The Wonder Glue

There’s been talk in the industry that Navi could very well be AMD’s first attempt at “gluing” several small, high yielding 7nm GPU dies to make bigger and more powerful graphics chips..

We’ve seen some evidence that NVIDIA is also pursuing similar multi-chip-module technologies and are currently conducting feasibility studies. .. AMD, on the other hand, has already launched products using the technology.

.. “Scalability” as a brand new feature that’s due with Navi. The fact that Infinity Fabric would enable it to utilize a single Navi GPU die that effectively scales and can be used to cover all markets top to bottom.

Navi is said to land in the second half of 2018, with some talk about a late summer debut. Although with 7nm being such a wild card, nothing is really set in stone. Nvidia’s upcoming 12nm based Volta based GeForce lineup is setting up to land in the first half of next year.


Article

Nvidia will have 12nm Volta this spring and AMD is rumored to have 12nm updates of both Ryzen and Vega this spring.


UPDATE: Some believe that we really won't see Navi until 2019 and the above driver is not for Navi (they believe). I think 2019 Navi GPU on-the-shelf is probably how things will turn out -- new technology is often delayed for one reason or another.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/20/17 12:01 PM

More competition might be on the way -- the pundits speculate.

Quote
Windows ARM chips might carve up the PC low end

Microsoft and Qualcomm might take a huge section of cheap PCs from Intel and AMD

Microsoft and Qualcomm have been flat out getting Windows 10 to work correctly on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processors. The pair expects new products to arrive in early 2018.

Digitimes Research expects that ARM-powered models will dominate the midsize and low-end PC market, leaving the high-end professional and gaming segments to x86-based processors...


May happen. But, Intel and AMD see it coming, so they will compete. This will lower prices and add to choices. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/17 10:52 AM

Quote
Holiday PC Building Guide 2017: Squeezing Out Maximum Gaming Performance in $700, $1100 and $1450 Budgets


Full Article with Links to Low Cost Components

The $1100 and $1450 units use Ryzen CPUs.

All use Nvidia GPUs. Though historically good buys, AMD GPU prices are not the lowest right now due to cryptocurrency mining.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/23/17 10:47 AM

Quote
AMD Promontory 400-chipset spotted at PCI-SIG

AMD 400-series motherboards are coming

The refresh of the first-generation Ryzen is currently expected in the first quarter next year. Although new CPUs will certainly be compatible with 300-series motherboards, AMD is giving a chance to their partners to refresh their motherboard offering with X470, B450, A420 series.

The Zen+/Ryzen 2000, also known as Pinnacle Ridge, is a 12nm upgrade of Zen1. We expect higher clock speeds and better power efficiency...


Still seems like Ryzen 2000 by March/April.
Posted By: Flogger23m

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/17 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote
AMD Promontory 400-chipset spotted at PCI-SIG

AMD 400-series motherboards are coming

The refresh of the first-generation Ryzen is currently expected in the first quarter next year. Although new CPUs will certainly be compatible with 300-series motherboards, AMD is giving a chance to their partners to refresh their motherboard offering with X470, B450, A420 series.

The Zen+/Ryzen 2000, also known as Pinnacle Ridge, is a 12nm upgrade of Zen1. We expect higher clock speeds and better power efficiency...


Still seems like Ryzen 2000 by March/April.


Looks like I may have to upgrade in a few months then. I am mainly hoping for improved IPC and a minor MHZ bump. If I can get it to run at 4.2GHZ easily with IPC improvements I will certainly consider an upgrade. I may continue using 6C/12T but if the 8C/16T are cheap enough I will consider moving to that.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/17 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Flogger23m
Looks like I may have to upgrade in a few months then... If I can get it to run at 4.2GHZ easily ..


I'm hoping your plan works because I'm thinking along the same lines.

For what its worth: My Ryzen 1800X is advertised as 3.6GHz with 4.0GHz turbo. Out of the box, with no BIOS mods it nominally ran at 3.7GHz. I've got it set in BIOS to 4.0GHz on all cores at all times -- did not even bump up the voltage. It just works. So, I'm guessing I'll easily get 4.4Ghz (or slightly more) all cores all the time out of a Ryzen 2800X (or whatever they call it).

Getting my 32GB memory to run at 3GHz was harder because the initial BIOS's did not support some memory.. Now, one can get memory that's compatible with Ryzen overclocking.

My wife has been using my "hand me down" Phenom II PC for years. Based on the rumors and speculation, I plan to buy a 2800X and give her my current 1800X so she can live in the 21st century -- I need an excuse smile

Hopefully, the Vega 12nm will sell for a reasonable price. Then, I'll give her my RX480 and go Vega.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/27/17 01:27 PM

Regarding future competition:

Quote
Cannon Lake was supposed to be Gen 7

Intel's 10nm is two years late

Intel hasn't announced its 10nm processors, despite us expecting them before the end of 2017. While there is a good indication that we shall see 10nm from Intel in 2018, it means that Chipzilla is two years behind with 10nm..

The original plan was to follow up with the 7th generation in 10nm and give it the codename Cannon Lake...

The Tick Tock strategy today looks like Tick – Tock – Refresh – Refresh..

Meanwhile, the successor of Ryzen [expected Q1 or Q2 2018] should use the 12nm optimised 14nm manufacturing process from the GlobalFoundries, but it won’t bring significant leaps in performance..


It seems Intel will have 10nm ahead of AMD 7nm. Some have speculated that Intel 10nm will perform on a par with AMD 7nm (not likely to arrive before 2019).

I noticed Newegg has an Nvidia GTX 1080 for $545 after rebate. The cheapest RX Vega I found at Amazon was over $1000 -- and Newegg was "sold out" of RX Vega (when last I looked). RX580 is still obtainable but somewhat overpriced.

I see Ryzen 1800X (8C/16T) for $350 more often now -- seems like the new price one should shoot for.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/01/18 06:51 PM

On the competition front:

Quote
NVIDIA Prohibits Use Of GeForce [gaming] GPUs In Datacenters, Only Blockchain [mining] Processing Allowed

NVIDIA made a pretty big change in its GeForce EULA recently and this is something that could go on to cost a lot of entities an aggregate of millions if not billions of dollars in the long run.

..most of [Nvidia's] lineup isn’t exactly ideal for mining (you would want a Vega for that) so they really aren’t under threat of loosing precious supply to mining..


Basically, Nvidia wants professional users to buy only their Professional GPUs. Previously, many professionals used Nvidia gaming GPUs -- sometimes by the hundreds.

The article has the details for anyone interested. Mostly, this will not affect SimHQ gamers.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/18 08:49 PM

Competitors working together:

Quote
Intel’s Top Kaby Lake-G Core i7-8809G Chip Officially Listed – Packs [AMD] RX Vega Graphics, Quad Core CPU and 100W TDP

The product packs a 4 core, 8 thread CPU that is based on the Kaby Lake architecture so we are looking at a 14nm+ process over here. The CPU is clocked at 3.1 GHz, right now we cannot confirm whether this is the base or boost speed. As far as the GPU is concerned, the chip will pack the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics and will also have the on-die Intel HD graphics 630 (iGPU) within the CPU itself.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/18 12:36 PM

Things don't always go perfectly:

Quote
Intel stuff-up forces redesign of Windows and Linux [and Apple's 64-bit macOS]

The bad news is that Intel processors will take a performance hit of between five to 30 percent [after the fix is implemented]..

Word on the Street is that the flaw is in the Intel x86 hardware, and it appears a microcode update can't address it..

AMD processor[s do] not have the [problem]..

It will be interesting to see what the new [Intel] benchmarks will be..


We'll see if the above is overstated when the benchmarks arrive -- after the Windows patch. On paper, AMD Ryzen could wind up faster than some (not all) of Intel's latest -- clock-for-clock. Hard for me to believe -- use a lot of salt on this one.

But, AMD is not flawless. In today's news:

Quote
AMD Acknowledges DirectX 9 Game Breaking Bug in Adrenaline Release – Assures Fix in Next Driver Update

According to users on various sites, the games cannot even be started with the latest driver installed...


Nine older DX9 games were listed as affected.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/18 10:34 AM

Official Responses from Google and CPU Manufacturers to potential hacking issue -- the fix for which is said to cause CPU slowdown:

Quote
Google

These vulnerabilities affect many CPUs, including those from AMD, ARM, and Intel, as well as the devices and operating systems running them..


Quote
AMD

Variant / AMD Response Matrix

Google Project Zero (GPZ)

Research Title Details

Variant One: Bounds Check Bypass - Resolved by software / OS updates to be made available by system vendors and manufacturers. Negligible performance impact expected.

Variant Two: Branch Target Injection - Differences in AMD architecture mean there is a near zero risk of exploitation of this variant. Vulnerability to Variant 2 has not been demonstrated on AMD processors to date.

Variant Three: Rogue Data Cache Load - Zero AMD vulnerability due to AMD architecture differences.


Quote
ARM

Our Cortex-M processors, which are pervasive in low-power, connected IoT devices, are not impacted.


Quote
Intel

Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect. Based on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices — with many different vendors’ processors and operating systems — are susceptible to these exploits.


Quote
Microsoft

We are in the process of deploying mitigations to cloud services and have also released security updates to protect Windows customers ,,


Full Text of Responses


So far, the official statements indicate this is mostly an Intel issue. The fix will slow down some applications. I wonder if the "fix" will also slow down AMD and ARM.

We'll see next week - if the W10 fix becomes available and sites test different CPUs for impact. Single player, offline gaming and other single user, offline tasks may be little affected (but, that's speculation).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/18 12:51 PM

At least one online game has been impacted by Intel CPU usage (may be temporary). Their provided chart seems to indicate substantially increased CPU usage.

Quote
Epic: Fortnite Service Instability and Login Issues Caused by Intel CPU Meltdown Issues

Down below you’ll find a chart showcasing CPU usage following Intel’s recent security updates, as posted by Epic:

“Unexpected issues may occur with our services over the next week as the cloud services we use are updated. ...”


Article

If impacts like that become common it may impact the "Future Status of AMD" by increasing sales of data center AMD CPUs -- for new data centers built in the near future (they are always being built).

Long term, Intel will fix this by redesigning their CPU hardware circuits. This was not a CPU design "bug". Apparently, it was a CPU "feature" they've had for a decade -- that unexpectedly was found to be "hackable".

Still interested to see if the quick fixes also impact AMD. The new software may not "ask" what CPU its running on. It might implement the same changes for all CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/18 12:57 PM

Quote
Intel launches 8th Gen Core Processor with Radeon RX Vega graphics


All Intel CPUs share the same "design feature" that's causing the above-discussed issues. But, for home users, these should not be "visible" issues.

Intel is advertising substantially improved performance.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/18 11:56 AM

PRICE competition officially heats up.

Quote
AMD Officially Drops Prices off Entire Ryzen CPU Family – Eight Cores For As Low As $299 US, 6 Cores For 189 US, Entry Level Threadripper at $449 US


[Linked Image]

Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-and-Ryzen-Threadripper-Price-Cuts.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/18 06:04 PM

More AMD news from CES. Upcoming products officially discussed and timeline given.

Quote
AMD Radeon Graphics Roadmap Update: 7nm Vega in 2018, Navi in 2019, Followed By “Next-Gen”, New Vega Instinct Announced

..there is a 7nm Vega shrink being made and it will be landing sooner than you think. The company also announced a new 7nm Vega Instinct accelerator for machine learning applications..


7nm RX Vega chips sampled end of 2018. If they work, 7nm RX Vega on sale early 2019 -- starting with a "machine learning" variant. 7nm Navi a year later.

However, the rumored April 2018 release of 12nm RX Vega cards will not happen (I wanted one). 12nm Ryzen WILL happen in April (I may get one).

AMD is betting on 7nm. IF they "meet schedule" (does not always happen), then they get a jump on the competition.

A couple official charts with overview GPU and CPU schedules.

Attached picture 1-AMD-CES-GPU-Feature-.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Rollout-2018.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/18 01:28 PM

I expected something like this. A not "fully tested on AMD CPUs" patch put out by Microsoft to fix an Intel CPU hardware problem.

They indicate they will not automatically update AMD PCs with the patch -- until they can provide a patch that doesn't break things on AMD machines. But, it may still slow down AMD unnecessarily, I imagine.

Quote
Microsoft withdraws Spectre and Meltdown patch that's borking AMD machines

"Microsoft has reports of customers with some AMD devices getting into an unbootable state after installing recent Windows operating system security updates," the company claimed.

"To prevent AMD customers from getting into an unbootable state, Microsoft will temporarily pause sending the following Windows operating system updates to devices with impacted AMD processors at this time."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/18 12:19 PM

More of the same type stuff. Things are not going well. But, from Microsoft, it has more traction.

Quote
Microsoft says pre Skylake chips will suffer badly from security patch


Quote
Spectre and Meltdown patch freezes AMD machines


The patches should have no impact on AMD. But they do, so far.

In a complex code situation, it's hard to fix some things without breaking other things (as we who code know).

If they get it fixed right (no AMD impacts where none should be), Intel CPUs will lose some or all of their small "Instructions Per Clock" (single core) advantage over AMD Ryzen CPUs (depending on game or application). We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/18 12:20 PM

To be fair to Intel -- they aren't writing the Microsoft code that borks AMD products. And, at CES they have a technology that caught my eye (since I'm an AI fanboy, from afar -- or is that "fangeezer").

Quote
Intel Announces ‘Loihi’ A Revolutionary Neuromorphic ‘Self-Learning’ Chip Which Can Simulate 130 Million Synapses

The first such project is the ‘Intel Loihi’ chip, which is basically a neuromorphic processor, aka a self-learning one. Just like human brains create neural paths over time which is what eventually constitutes our iQ and problem solving capability, this chip will be able to “learn” and have around 130,000 neurons and 130 million synapses (an anology of course)..


AMD won't be competing in the Neuromorphic market very soon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/18 06:08 PM

Seems no-one is safe from the above mentioned security holes -- even GPUs.

Quote
Nvidia's admits its GPUs are affected by Spectre flaws

Given Nvidia shares GPU architecture across all its graphics tech, from GeForce gaming cards to enterprise-grade Quadro and Tesla chips, it seems a whole host of Nvidia kit is affected by Spectre..

Spectre is more difficult to exploit and there are no reports of it being used outside of lab and proof-of-concept cyber attacks..

But Nvidia still has to plug the security hole even if it could affect the performance of its GPUs, as is the case with other fixes for Spectre and Meltdown, ..


So, its not that anyone will "attack" an Nvidia GPU -- that's may be too hard to do -- even without protective code. However, Nvidia must make themselves "bulletproof" with protective code -- and the fix may impair their GPUs' normal operation.

I don't know about AMD GPUs, yet -- nothing will surprise me.

Again, none of these "flaws" are likely to be exploited for Intel, Nvidia, or AMD. What worries is that the code changes (required to make exploitation impossible) will damage performance for all 3 manufacturers -- to differing amounts.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/18 11:45 AM

Intel has put out a chart showing how each generation of Intel CPU is affected by the fixes (to above discussed issues).

They tested multiple generations of Intel CPU with several common benchmarks.

Some gaming related stuff is impacted. The impacts are generally small (0 to a few percent).

I would like to see a similar chart by AMD. Again, AMD not supposed to be impacted. But, so far, the Microsoft fix for Intel CPUs caused serious AMD CPU problems (as noted above).

Intel official chart attached (original is small print).

Article

Attached picture IntelChart.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/18 10:28 AM

Now the for-Intel-patches are causing issues for some Intel users.

Quote
Intel promises better transparency as Meltdown patches cause Broadwell/Haswell borkage

Some users of Intel's older Broadwell and Haswell CPUs have been quick to complain that since installing patches -- they have experienced increased reboots.


The little I have read implies almost everything will be sorted out in a month or two -- but not a week tor two.

My personal concern remains the lack of RX Vega GPUs at reasonable prices. No idea when that one will actually be fixed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/18 05:32 PM

Quote
AMD’s Scott Wasson talks about the future of Radeon


I listened. He said nothing we don't know.

When specifically asked about when RX Vega will actually be available to buy in quantity -- his answer was actually non-committal. I would like to hear what's really going on behind the scenes. Seems something is wrong.

He strongly implied -- no more RX Vega reference cards. Those were all made by AMD, I once read. Sellers just put their logos on them. Apparently, AMD won't make them anymore for some unspoken reason.

For now, look for overpriced but often sold out custom RX Vega cards.

Looks like Nvidia has the higher end market (RX Vega vs 1070 and up) to themselves for a few more months -- and maybe much longer.

Competition is good -- but on high end GPUs there will be no competition for months frown
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/18 04:30 PM

Quote
Intel Preps Their Own Discrete GPUs For Gen 12 and 13 Codenamed Arctic Sound and Jupiter Sound – Will Be Featured in Post-Cannonlake Chips Replacing AMD’s dGPU Solutions

..we can expect the chips to arrive not earlier than 2020 or possibly even [later] .. [Intel also] now working on actual discrete GPUs which they will pit against their counterparts (NVIDIA & AMD) in the future.


Since they now have AMD's former GPU guru (Raja Koduri (Ex Senior VP and Chief Architect at AMD)) on the Intel staff (and thereby know AMD's plans and secrets), I assume Intel will have a competitive product for sale in the 2020 to 2021 time frame.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/16/18 07:03 PM

Quote
High End Graphics Card Reach Insane Price Levels: NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 Ti Going For $1599 and AMD’s Vega 64 For $2099

2017 saw GPU pricing becoming a pain in the neck with AMD’s Vega graphic cards and it looks like 2018 is all set to make last year’s pricing look positively cute..

Interestingly, the reason behind the price gouging of both products is different. AMD’s Vega 64 is simply a beast at XMR mining...

NVIDIA high end graphics cards on the other hand are up right now because of lack of competition. They aren’t that profitable at mining ..

.. memory saw a spike recently which was expected to trickle down to customers eventually. But this is something that has more to do with the mining boom ..


In brief, due to cryptocurrency mining, all (AMD and Nvidia) higher performance GPUs will continue to cost more than they are worth to most gamers (at least, AMD will).

In the past, I was a "happy camper" because AMD offered the most overall value (bang per buck). But, AMD's outstanding ability in "compute" tasks has destroyed AMD's "gamer's market" precisely because of "bang per buck" (cryptocurrency miners are in it for the money). Even Nvidia fans are "paying the price".

I keep harping on this topic because it will define the GPU market for the foreseeable future -- for AMD and Nvidia fans. Hope i'm wrong in my non-expert evaluation of the situation.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/18 05:36 PM

Quote
AMD RX Vega 64 Owner Sells Card For $1200, Buys Nvidia Titan Xp Collectors Edition For $1138

This should come as no surprise, as Ethereum and other GPU minable cryptocurrencies have converted the GPU, a typical PC gaming product, into a money printing machine. The situation has gotten so insane that owners of nearly any modern mid-range to high-end graphics card today can sell their hardware overnight for a 100%+ profit on Ebay...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/18 01:25 AM

Quote
PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 DirectX 12 AXRX VEGA 64 8GBHBM2-2D2H/OC 8GB $900 Newegg


One per customer. It was in-stock for a few minutes -- then, as I watched it sold out. I wouldn't mind paying $550 smile

Anyhow, I did buy an AMD GPU today. A half-height (for HTPC) RX550 2GB for $100. Not a bargain. But, in the budget.

EDIT: WOW! I just checked my order status (being shipped). That card I just paid $100 for is now $130. WOW, that was quick. I would not buy it for $130.

Edit: Price update.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/18 11:02 AM

Quote
First AMD Ryzen 2 Desktop Processor Spotted – The Six Core Ryzen 5 2600 Along With ASUS’s Crosshair VII HERO X470 Motherboard

While AMD has confirmed that they will be introducing Ryzen 2 and boards based on the X470 chipset in April, this is the first time the processor has appeared in public..

The processor leaked out in SiSoftware Database [benchmark testing]..

While most of the specifications are the same as previous generation Ryzen 5 chips, the key thing here to note is the frequency. With the new 12nm LP process, AMD has managed to squeeze out an extra 200 MHz from the Ryzen 2 part compared to Ryzen 1. .. [tested chip] could still be an engineering sample .. [might have] higherr clock speeds .. in April.

AMD will keep support for Ryzen 2 processors on the previous X370 boards but for those who want the extended optimizations for Ryzen 2 along with the power savings and new features, X470 will be the obvious choice..

These leaks indicate one thing which is that AMD is well on their way to launching Ryzen 2 on time along with the X470 platform..
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/18 04:52 PM

X470? I thought we'd be able to use our existing X370's with new Ryzen chips...?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/18 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by BlueHeron
X470? I thought we'd be able to use our existing X370's with new Ryzen chips...?


AMD says: You will be able to. Our current X370s and all the other current Ryzen MBs will work with Ryzen CPUs and upcoming Ryzen APUs -- for at least two or three years into the future.

One of AMD's selling points is that new CPUs do not need new Motherboards. With Ryzen they enhanced that to include their APUs on the same MB as their CPUs. So upgrades and moving components around among one's computers will be fairly easy and cheaper than it might have been.

The exception is Threadripper -- the Threadripper CPU is so large, it needs a special motherboard socket for Threadrippers. However, I assume that today's Threadripper MBs will work with Threadrippers coming out in 2020 or thereabouts.

I'm planning on getting a Ryzen 2800X to replace my Ryzen 1800X -- and just switch it out in my current system (for fun -- it won't be a lot faster -- maybe 10 percent). My wife gets my current Ryzen 1800X -- if all goes to plan.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/18 01:11 AM

I like Nvidia's plan. Hope it actually works (as opposed to "appear" to work).

Quote
NVIDIA Asks Retailers To Stop Selling To Miners & Sell To Gamers Instead

The company wants its cards to go to gamers instead and it’s trying to do so by directly selling on its website and asking its retail partners to limit orders to two cards per person..

GPUs Are Money Printing Machines And Miners Are Taking Full Advantage

[Some miners] are so desperate to get as many cards as possible in as short amount of a time as possible to the point where they’re renting entire Boeing 747s to ship GPUs to their mining farms..

History has shown us what happens when the cyrpto market crashes, or mining no longer becomes as profitable. Miners end up dumping all of their hardware in the gray market for pennies on the dollar .

[Against that cheap competition the] GPU manufacturer is unable to sell their inventory and end up having to write it off, like AMD did back in 2014.


Article

There's an idea. AMD opens a retail site that sells cards at list price -- to gamers only. I imagine such a direction has multiple associated problems -- probably not as simple as it sounds.

For example, I imagine many miners would find a way to create 100 separate orders -- that seemed separate -- that seemed from 100 different gamers-- but, were from one miner guy/gal. Hey, they want cards cheaper too -- its all about "bang per buck" with them.

We'll see how this works out for Nvidia.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/18 12:39 PM

Ryzen 7 1800X (8core/16thread) "on sale" at Newegg $340. They are still showing the "old" $500 list price -- maybe this is old stock that they paid more for. However, the new official list price is supposed to be only $350.

Installed my $100 (overpriced) RX550 2GB half height GPU in the HTPC yesterday. It works -- runs cool and quiet. No surprise there.

I installed Steam in the HTPC and will try a couple games to see what it can do -- but this is not a gaming setup. We use the HTPC in our ballroom to study advanced Dancesport technique.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/18 12:55 PM

Quote
Intel warns about installing its chip patch

..Intel has warned users not to upgrade..

According to Executive Vice President Navin Shenoy, on the Intel Newsroom site, the current advice is: “We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and unpredictable system behaviour."..


Article

Hopefully, this is not bleeding over to AMD CPU performance. So far, in what I do, I haven't noticed anything.

To check for slowdown due to a Windows patch, I run a quick benchmark everyday. But it's only a quick one (CPU-Z) that checks local CPU speed. So far, no change. 466 single thread, 5005 16 thread, 10.74 ratio is normal on my machine.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/18 01:12 PM

Quote
AMD unveils more Ryzen with Radeon Vega APU details

AMD has released full specifications for its upcoming Ryzen desktop CPUs with Radeon Vega Graphics, or simply upcoming Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G APUs that will pack Radeon Vega 8 and Radeon Vega 11 GPUs..

The US $99.99 priced Ryzen 3 2200G will pack a quad-core CPU part without SMT (four-threads), clocked at 3.5GHz base and 3.7GHz Turbo clocks, and feature the Radeon Vega 8 IGP (8 CUs) with 512 Stream Processors and a 1100MHz GPU clock.

The US $169.99 priced Ryzen 5 2400G is a bit more interesting as while it is also a quad-core CPU it comes with enabled SMT for eight-threads, works at 3.6GHz base and 3.9GHz Turbo clocks and features Radeon Vega 11 GPU (11 CUs) with 704 Stream Processors and a GPU clock of 1250MHz.

AMD targets both Intel chips as well as systems that come with entry-level discrete graphics cards, suggesting that the Ryzen 5 2400G is both faster and cheaper at the same time.


Article

Looking at the price and the specifications -- my RX550 with separate CPU for my HTPC is out classed. In the future, I'll be using AMD APUs for HTPC and other non-high-end-gaming PCs.

Moderate graphics stress games (or high stress games with medium settings) can be played on the Ryzen 5 2400G (on paper, it looks faster than my RX550 performance).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/18 06:08 PM

Quote
Bitcoin crashes as South Korea confirms crackdown on anonymous crypto trading

..traders in South Korea will be required to identify themselves with their real names to make deposits into virtual coin wallets, and have those details matched with information at local banks..

"Specifically, for users to make virtual currency transactions more than 10 million won per day or more than 20 million won for 7 days when depositing and withdrawing funds, this is the type of financial transaction you suspect for money laundering.".

Bitcoin is currently trading at $10,500 (£7,525), according to CoinDesk..


It was $11250 at the moment I wrote this. So, this new news does not necessarily mean Bitcoin will truly crash. But, it was $17,000+ just over 2 weeks ago.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/18 11:04 PM

Quote
AMD Replaces Raja Koduri With Two Heavyweights To Lead Graphics At RTG

Koduri will be replaced not by one but by two heavyweights to lead the business side of the Radeon Technologies Group as well as the engineering side of the business..

Koduri had to essentially carry alone as Chief Architect of RTG, leading both the engineering and business side of the group. It had clearly taken a toll on Koduri and the business group as a whole,.


In a nutshell, they say Koduri was excellent but overwhelmed by doing two jobs. Now, to replace Koduri, they have two very experienced talents to do those two jobs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/18 04:00 PM

Quote
Intel Assures Silicon-Based Changes For Next-Gen CPUs Arriving in Late 2018 – Will Address Spectre and Meltdown Threats

"Security is a top priority for Intel, foundational to our products and it’s critical to the success of our data-centric strategy. Our near term focus is on delivering high quality mitigations to protect our customers infrastructure from these exploits. We’re working to incorporate silicon-based changed to future products that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year."

Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel


Intel is being up front. At first, they downplayed the issue. The solution comes at the end of 2018 for some new products -- older CPUs (up to 10+ years older) can't be fixed (only worked around).

Depending on how the industry handles this (example, a Windows 10 change that does not discriminate among CPUs), current AMD CPUs and APUs may be strongly affected or little affected.

However, the Intel problems seem minimal during game play that does not access the internet, LAN, or hard drive frequently (i.e., you'll never "see" a problem). So, high boost frequency Intel CPUs are probably still the best choice for older single or dual core games played single-player -- if highest possible measured FPS is the goal.

For higher core count games, AMD Ryzen gives more cores per dollar (usually) that are competitive with Intel at similar clocks (i.e. Intel lead in final FPS normally not visible -- per core per clock).

But, the issue has not settled down, yet. So, we'll see what the "future" holds for AMD regarding this issue.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/18 05:20 PM

The likelihood of this being exploited is so low... First someone would have to compromise your system, then know what system environment you're running, and lastly know what even to look for.

The browsers have already been patched, and they would be the weakest link in getting hacked.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/18 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
The likelihood of this being exploited is so low... First someone would have to compromise your system, then know what system environment you're running, and lastly know what even to look for.

The browsers have already been patched, and they would be the weakest link in getting hacked.


Agree. This is not really a problem for normal, everyday PC users. I think the only thing that will make it a problem for folks like us is the "fix" demanded by the "commercial" users. It may cut our performance unnecessarily.

Had the whole thing been "kept secret", probably nothing needed doing. But, the CPU users with "big money on the line" won't take the chance some bad folks would figure things out. Can't blame them.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/18 08:44 PM

Quote
Another Cryptocurrency Exchange Hit – Coincheck Confirms Theft Bigger Than Mt Gox

..they are putting their losses at 58 billion yen (approx. $533 million at the time of theft). .. Mt Gox (another Japanese exchange) hack of 2014 behind. Mt. Gox had seen $450 million worth of bitcoin gone missing. The full amount, however, may not be known..


Evidently, cryptocurrencies are easier to steal in quantity. As usual, I'm interested in how cryptocurrencies are doing because I want the price of GPUs for gamers to drop back to "list or lower".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/18 10:53 AM

Quote
Threadripper And EPYC Are Not One And The Same, Mostly. Der8auer Confirms.

[AMD Comment} "Threadripper is not a Epyc processor. Different substrate, different dies. 2 dies work, other 2 have no path to operation. Basically rocks."


EPYC is AMD's high core count server CPU. AMD said Threadripper was not merely a "cut down" EPYC. Threadripper was special.

One AMD aficionado was not sure. So, he disassembled and x-rayed (literally) a Threadripper and an EPYC.

He confirmed, they are two different CPUs (mostly). They have some packaging similarities. But, the silicon looks significantly different.

I personally assume AMD could double the Threadripper to 32cores/64Threads "overnight" (in a manner of speaking). The room to do so is there in the package. So, the future looks good for much higher core counts.

Article

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper_24.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/18 07:33 PM

Quote
Britain's first Bitcoin heist sees cryptocurrency trader held at gunpoint

DIGITAL CURRENCY just got physical as Britain has experienced its first Bitcoin robbery, with a trader being forced at gunpoint to transfer cryptocurrency.

The robbers reportedly kicked in the .. door .. tied up [his] 31-year-old girlfriend and held their baby outside .. to force the 30-year-old trader to handover his digital money.

Given [he] traded using a pseudonym and cryptocurrency can be difficult to track, it's yet unknown how the four burglars were able to find [his] home..


Interesting because its a relatively new phase of cryptocurrency crime. Also because guns were involved -- in Britain.

In addition, more articles about GPUs and cryptocurrency. But, they're all sounding alike -- GPUs will be very expensive for a very long time. Too bad for me, I wanted to buy one soon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/18 11:59 AM

Quote
AMD revenues grow by a third

..major vendors – like Dell and HP for example – are voting “yes” for AMD by being in the supply chain, commonly called in vendorspeak “the channel”..

Intel has a gross margin of nearly 64 percent on its products, while underdog AMD might manage 40 percent. But it is also a question of costs. Chipzilla [Intel] has an enormous wage bill, while AMD – as always – has been a bit stingy, one might say careful, on every front.

That's quite a sea change in fortunes – or misfortunes, as Intel might describe it.

Intel seems to have made miss upon miss over the last 10 years or so - particularly on the mobile front - and has all the symptoms of a company retrenching from its formerly dominant position..


AMD's future is looking up.

Its notable that Intel's higher prices are somewhat due to lower Intel company efficiency -- not because they are that much better than AMD, the writer says.

The industry is starting to notice (e.g. Dell, HP) because lower component costs mean more sales and higher profits for their pockets.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/18 02:38 PM

Quote
Samsung is making ASIC chips for crypto mining to solidify its lead over Intel

Samsung is the new top dog in the chip-making game, having bumped Intel into second place, and confirmed it will make cryptocurrency mining chips to solidify its lead..

"Samsung's foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips. However we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customers," a Samsung spokesperson told TechCrunch..

..using gaming GPUs for mining ends up with graphics card prices being bumped up out of the reach of PC gaming enthusiasts...


From a PC gaming enthusiast perspective, I hope Samsung and the companies they sell to come up with a cheaper (than a GPU) custom cryptocurrency chip device soon -- for the obvious reason that the miners would switch to that (all about money to them) -- making GPUs affordable to us gamers again.

The words used were "currently engaged in the manufacturing". Hopefully, the means they are being built today and the non-GPU mining-devices will arrive "soon" (probably still months away).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/18 12:31 PM

Quote
AMD Ramping GPU Production, Confirms Memory Is Behind Shortage

Throughout the past several months graphics cards have been so incredibly hard to find, and when they were in fact available on rare occasion they were overpriced to the moon and back..

CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that the company is in fact ramping GPU production to meet the increasingly high demand..

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su – 30-1-2018 – AMD Q4 2017 Earnings Call: “The GPU channel is lower than we would like it to be. So, we are ramping up production. At this point we’re not limited by Silicon per se, so our foundry partners are supplying us. There are shortages in memory and I think that is true across the board whether you’re talking about GDDR5 or talking about High Bandwidth Memory [HBM]. We continue to work through that with our memory partners and that will be certainly one of the key factors going into 2018.”


The companies see that cryptocurrency mining is probably here to stay for much longer than they anticipated. So, they are increasing production of cryptocurrency mining cards. Not all are GPUs -- example, the Samsung note above.

Dr. Su says memory is the issue. No doubt memory production does lag demand significantly these days -- even I notice that when I've bought memory recently. But, might that observation also be a way to deflect a little criticism from gamers (rhetorically).

In any case, as many articles have pointed out, silicon chips must be ordered many months in advance. Moreover, many modern memory types are affected by the shortage, articles say. So, the needed memory may be hard to get until the second half of this year (or longer). Just depends on when they ordered it (if they ordered it).

The GPU shortage and high prices will continue for now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/18 12:41 PM

Quote
AMD Q4 2017 Earnings Analysis: Profitable Fiscal Year Ends With Cautious Optimism As Fundamentals Start To Take Flight

Verdict: We believe that the bullish indicators currently outweigh the bearish indicators for AMD and expect that the stock will show significant growth in 2018. Key indicators of strength and weakness that investors need to look out for are: signs of cryptocurrency market collapsing, launch of Ryzen refresh, EPYC design wins as well as Ryzen Mobility OEM numbers.


A long and mostly positive article regarding AMDs Q4 earnings report. The stock seems up over 700 percent in the last 3 years or so. Wish I had some wink

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/18 11:29 AM

Quote
AMD Raven Ridge APU Graphics Performance Tested – Ryzen 5 2400G With Vega 11 iGPU On Par With RX 550 and GT 1030 GPUs

AMD Raven Ridge “Ryzen With Vega iGPU” Graphics Performance Results Revealed – A Fast and Budget Oriented Replacement That Tackles Entry Level Discrete ‘eSports’ GPUs


As one can see in the first chart, the AMD Ryzen APU can be substantially cheaper than an Intel/Nvidia system of the same performance (in Timespy benchmark) -- and use less power. More detail in the Article -- with independent tests.

For accuracy, Newegg shows the i5-8400 at $190 today, and the GT 1030 lowest price as $80 -- $270 total. Ryzen 5 2400G to list at $170 -- not out yet.

Article

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Attached picture 1_AMD-Ryzen-APU_Comparison.png
Attached picture 2_AMD-Ryzen-APU_Products-740x263.jpg
Attached picture 3_AMD-Ryzen-APU_Specifications-740x256.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-APU_Ryzen-5-2400G-1480x833.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/18 11:38 AM

Quote
AMD: Zen 2 Design is Complete, Rolling Out To Customers in Late 2018 – Next-Gen EPYC Rome Family To Skip 12nm in Favor of 7nm Process

AMD 12nm Zen+ For Ryzen First and 7nm Zen 2 For Next-Gen EPYC Processors First

AMD has already stated that their Zen 2 cores (not Zen+) will address all potential Spectre exploits through implementing on-silicon changes. .. AMD’s next-generation server processors .. the EPYC successor will be the first CPU product to feature the 7nm process.

next generation 7nm server chips, .. up to 48 cores and 96 threads in various SKUs. These SKUs will come in 35W and up to 180W TDP


12nm Ryzen still looks good for April. Hopefully, pricing will be similar to current 14nm Ryzen. I'm guessing we'll get roughly 10 percent better performance (measurable but not visible in games).

48 core/96 Thread server CPUs are not far off -- at only 180 watts. Shortly after it happens, 32core/64 thread desktop PC CPUs will probably hit the shelves.

By then, Spectre exploit fixes will be in-hardware (Ryzen hardware is already immune to Meltdown exploit).

[Linked Image]



Attached picture AMD-Zen-Roadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/18 12:35 PM

Quote
After GPUs, CPUs May Become The Next Go-To Hardware For Use in Cryptomining – AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs Can Pay For Themselves in Under a Year

“The way to go at this point is to try to explain to end users how they can also get the benefits of mining,” Triolet says, “because if you should get a high-end desktop with a high-end GPU today and you’re not mining, you’re kind of wasting money. If they are just sitting there doing nothing, why not make some nice profit?”


Apparently, AMD high core count CPUs (particularly Threadripper) are nearly as good as GPUs for mining. Its because the best algorithms can be done entirely inside the Threadripper CPU without many memory calls -- due to high L3 Cache memory in the CPU. Memory calls take a lot of time -- the Cache runs very fast.

Bottom line, those Gamers with very high core count CPUs are encouraged to "start mining". They will pay off the cost of their system in roughly 12-18 months (after accounting for electricity costs). The mining can be done during non-gaming time. At least, that is the "theory".

I'm not saying gamers with 8 core and preferabley 16 core CPUs should start mining. But, the article indicates some may want to try. In theory, all one loses is electricity cost (negligible in my town) and CPU wear -- but one may gain a modest amount of "money" and/or some fun trying.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/18 02:11 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen With Vega Graphics Reviewer Kits Leak Out! Ryzen 5 2400G And Ryzen 3 2200G

The AMD Ryzen with Vega graphics are set to launch next week and it looks like the first reviewer kits are making their way out to reviewers right now!

at a local best buy .. the RX 550 is going for MORE than the upper tier Ryzen 5 2400G...


I have an RX550 GPU on one of my HTPCs -- but, and FX seriies CPU.

I am very tempted to grab a Ryzen 5 2400G APU at list price (now that GPUs are priced beyond reason) -- and build something for the fun of it .

Based on the raw frequencies and 4core/8thread design, these APUs should make a good entry-level gaming PC or superior HTPC. CPU and GPU combined for only ~ $170. A micro-ATX motherboard is only $45 today. Memory is the higher priced item.

But, as usual, one must wait for the independent tests to know for sure.

EDIT UPDATE: Heck, I took the plunge. GIGABYTE GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 motherboard was $50 after rebate from Amazon. It will work with any Ryzen CPU, so there is a backup plan if I don't find the Ryzen 5 2400G adequate or the price is "mind boggling".

EDIT UPDATE 2: Bought the 8GB, 3.2GHz memory on sale. Nice case only $20 on 60% off sale. Rest of the parts from "leftovers" in my "computer work area". Not the first time I've taken a chance by pre-buying items -- doesn't always work out smile

[Linked Image]

Attached picture RyzenAPU.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/18 10:55 AM

Quote
Cryptocurrancy hackers take over water utility

Multiple crypto jacking attacks have been reported in recent weeks..

Malware on the utility's server was mining Monero cryptocurrency and it as there for three weeks before anyone noticed. .

The cryptocurrency mining malware was likely downloaded from a malicious advertising site by an operator at the water utility who opened a web browser and clicked on an advertising link that led the mining code being installed on the system.

..top five [crypto-jacking] campaigns generating $1.18 million per year..


So, its "crypto-jacking" now. Its possible that one's PC is already "mining". Merely click on the wrong link -- and, one is unknowingly mining.

Also, at first glance, the Bitcoin bubble seems to have burst (on schedule). However, that only means that investors got burned. The cleverest miners got rich selling to investors at bubble-prices.

The foreseeable future of AMD GPU prices for gamers remains bleak.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/18 06:19 PM

On the competition front:
Quote
NVIDIA Blows Away Q4 FY18 Earnings – Record Breaking EPS of $1.78 On Revenue of $2.91 Billion, Earnings Analyzed

Perhaps another reason for NVIDIA’s success can be attributed to the fact that AMD’s Radeon side was mostly MIA this time around.. Because AMD had been focusing on their Zen efforts..

It goes without saying that the cyrpto-mining craze and the exorbitant pricing helped drive the company into their most profitable quarter yet. This also where we would urge caution, it is clear that a significant portion of their graphics revenue comes from miners who are willing to buy a GTX 1080 Ti at insane price levels.

Still, the company has continued to beat expectations and its more likely that they will continue to do so then not.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/18 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Another reason will be AMDs poor performing cards after they promised so much


In all honesty, I never heard AMD over promise -- though many folks have said they did.

I paid attention to the "official" comments and official "selling pitch" out of the mouths of company spokes persons.

How some blog writers have "interpreted" the official statements says something negative about the nominally-professional blog writers. Moreover, the ordinary folks who comment on line (like me) have no way to know. Its why I always say: Wait for actual product release to sales and independent tests.

The AMD public statements and the public pre-release demos indicated a card "competitive" in FPS with GTX1070 and GTX1080 (not 1080Ti) -- and better in "compute" tasks -- for the same or slightly less money.

Competitive means that in a head to head "visual" test, most folks won't see the difference (AMD actually ran a public test like that -- commented in this thread a long time back). If one "measures" FPS, it will be win-some lose-some or be real close. That's about how it turned out.

Unfortunately, AMD was MUCH better at compute, So, the cryptocurrency miners drove prices way up. To a gamer, RX Vega is NOT worth what's being charged today. But, I'm not excited about Nvidia's prices either.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/18 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
We'll agree to disagree then. .. For a long time now, it appears that AMD have just thrown in the towel with these power hungry cards.


Agree smile

Looking on the "dark side".

The RX Vega, though good, fell short of AMD's plans. I surmise that the "high power draw" aspect was a "last ditch" effort to get the few extra FPS higher power brings. They did that to be "competitive". Nvidia has also done that, in the past.

The concept was that RX Vega would be cheaper than Nvidia. However, HBM memory prices stayed high (not AMD's fault). So, the planned lower pricing did not materialize. Now, all memory costs more than it should because of higher memory demand and relatively low production.

What made things worse, HBM memory was months (if not a year) late versus what the HBM manufacturer promised. So, RX Vega was late. By that time, Nvidia's products had "moved on" from what AMD had expected to compete with.

Because the cards were nearly a year late, their performance on non-optimum drivers was compared with Nvidia products having optimized drivers. Looked worse than it was, at first. Drivers caught up for many cases, but that's not frequently reported.

Yes, I think AMD has "thrown in the towel with these power hungry cards" (to quote someone I'm familiar with). Why try? Everything they produce "sells out fast" at ridiculous prices. Not due to FPS but due to "compute" aspects.

I surmise (a guess) they're betting it all on 7nm Navi. Navi sounds like a good bet -- if its not delayed -- or "too good" at compute (so that cryptocurrency miners keep prices high).

I'd like an RX Vega at the original list prices. But, I personally am resigned to waiting for Navi. Right now, my RX480 plays everything at max or ultra 1440p at FPS that satisfies me. So, I'm in no hurry other than I want to buy something (get my "fix").

So, we agree to a degree (and don't entirely disagree) smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/18 07:33 PM

Quote
AMD Raven Ridge Ryzen 5 2400G/Ryzen 3 2200G APU Review Roundup


Over 30 Review Articles Linked Here

According to the shipper, the last of my parts needed to build a Ryzen 5 2400G HTPC arrive tomorrow.

Amazon has them for $170 (list price). Newegg calls them "on sale" only 2 days for only $190 ($20 over list price). Newegg just lost me on that one. UPDATE: Amazon and Newegg are "sold out" now.

By the way, Intel likes to feature its "Boost" clocks. But, CPUs are designed to run high stress applications at "Base Clocks". Make sure to compare Intel Base clocks to AMD Base clocks while comparing prices. The performance per core per clock between Intel and AMD Ryzen is now too close to matter -- except for "bragging rights". By the way, my Ryzen 7 1800X runs 4.0GHz all the time -- Ryzens are unlocked and the silicon and structure is actually designed for overclock (overclock is not built into Intel CPU hardware -- though they unlock some part numbers).

The Ryzen Lineup and list prices:

[Linked Image]

Attached picture RyzenLineup.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/18 12:58 AM

I did not read all the reviews, but even with non-optimized drivers the $170 Ryzen 5 2400G in gaming was equivalent to a GT1030 GPU paired with any Intel CPU costing under $200 and some costing much more.

So, $170 for AMD Ryzen 5 2400G APU with a good cooler included in the price -- compares with Intel/Nvidia CPU-GPU systems in the $260 price range.

I did not read them all. I'll have my own system to test in a few days. Anandttech says Ryzen 5 2400G is the way to go for a roughly $500 1080p gaming system. Here's Anandtech's summary:

Quote
Marrying Vega and Zen: The AMD Ryzen 2400G Review

iGPU Gaming Performance

Conclusion: Raising the Bar for Integrated Graphics

..when we compare the new Ryzen APUs against Intel's latest graphics solutions, there is a clear winner. For almost all the 1080p benchmarks, the Ryzen APUs are 2-3x better in every metric. We can conclude that Intel has effectively given over this integrated graphics space to AMD at this point, .

When we compare the Ryzen 5 2400G with any CPU paired with the NVIDIA GT 1030, both solutions are within a few percent of each other in all of our 1080p benchmarks.

For the compute benchmarks, Intel is still a clear winner with single threaded tests, with a [slightly] higher IPC and higher turbo frequency.

If we compare the multi-threaded tests, AMD with 4C/8T and Intel 6C/6T seem to battle it out depending if a test can use multi-threading appropriately, but compared to Kaby Lake 4C/4T or 2C/4T offerings, AMD comes out ahead.

As a choice for gamers on a budget, those building systems in the region of $500, it becomes the processor to pick.


EDIT UPDATE: All my Ryzen 5 2400G parts for complete HTPC are in-house. Won't take long to "screw together". But, I usually take a lot of time with OS, games, and applications before I'm satisfied -- and done.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/18 08:42 AM

Just above, I wrote (regarding Ryzen 5 2400G pricing):

Quote
Newegg calls them "on sale" only 2 days for only $190 ($20 over list price). Newegg just lost me on that one.


I notice today that many who bought at $190, will receive a refund of $20 to their credit card. Apparently, the asking price was a mistake of some sort.

Meantime, I have all my Ryzen 5 2400G HTPC components. I may start the build today.

UPDATE: The Newegg asking price is still showing as $190 (in stock) and Amazon is still $170 (out of stock). Maybe the Newegg price has not been fixed yet -- though refunds are coming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/18 12:41 PM

Quote
AMD wins as Dell goes EPYC

Dell will use AMD chips in three new PowerEdge servers powered by AMD EPYC 7000 processors and will target enterprises.

This is due to the EPYC 7000 being able to support up to 32 cores and 64 threads on one CPU, up to 4TB of memory capacity, 128 lanes of PCI Express interconnect, and support for up to 24 direct NVMe SSD drives - meaning one processor can suffice where previously servers would have had to invest in dual-socket systems.


Another AMD enterprise win.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/18 09:51 PM

Based on my experience today:

If you buy a Ryzen 5 2400G and a new motherboard today, take note. You can put it together -- BUT IT WON'T WORK at all -- nothing shows up on the screen. Why? Because first the BIOS has to be flashed with the latest BIOS code. And, you cannot flash the BIOS unless you have a "standard Ryzen CPU" in the socket.

Catch 22 -- between a rock and a hard place -- if all you have is the new motherboard and the new Ryzen 5 2400G. You also need a "standard" non-APU Ryzen CPU for a few minutes.

Anyhow, I took the Ryzen 7 1800X out of the machine I'm typing on. I installed it in the new Motherboard. The old out of date BIOS in the new motherboard recognized the Ryzen 7 1800X and allowed me to flash the new BIOS for Ryzen 5 2400G. Then, all was well smile

Just a heads up, in the event someone else has the itch.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/18 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
That’s beyond ridiculous, and what is the average person supposed to do that doesn’t have a spare Ryzen chip knocking about?

Another royal AMD clusterf**k


After trying about 6 things to verify that nothing seemed broken, I Googled the problem. The solution came from Intel owners who were discussing how their new Intel CPU would not work in their Intel motherboard. They were just as upset as you are -- but at Intel. One Intel solution was to go to a store and buy an older design Intel CPU. Use it to flash the BIOS -- and return it right away -- hoping for no restocking fee. Fortunately, I had my Ryzen 1800 nearby.

Apparently and old problem that occasionally occurs when a substantially or radically different CPU design is released that fits old motherboards that were released with non-conforming BIOS version. Maybe its why Intel changes motherboards with new CPU designs so often (but, those new MB add to the cost of upgrading Intel). I imagine the soon to come 400 series AMD motherboards will not have the issue.

Non-the-less, we do agree that the AMD Advertising should have warned buyers about this issue and provided a convenient, no cost solution.

UPDATE: I went to Newegg and posted a review warning folks of the issue. Also, Newegg has finally lowered the price to the correct list price -- $170. And, they've issued refunds for the overcharge.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/18 02:09 AM

I also posted a warning review on Amazon regarding the motherboard -- its live now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/18 12:04 PM

Windows 7 fans -- another caution about the Ryzen 5 2400G BIOS.

The latest BIOS on GIGABYTE GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 micro-ATX motherboard effectively prevents installing Windows Vista, Windows 7, and probably Windows 8 (I'll try 8 -- maybe today).

It will allow those to run properly, IF they had been installed prior to the BIOS update.

However, if they are damaged and one must use a recovery disk to restore them, the recovery disk will fail.

The symptom is a work stoppage during install or recovery with a message that the BIOS is "too old to use" (Huh???) -- I'm paraphrasing. So far I've found no work around. If you want Windows 7, have it fully installed before updating to the latest BIOS on my motherboard.

This problem may affect other motherboards - but, I won't be testing (I have 3 Ryzen motherboards).

So, for now, if a W7 user updates to the latest AMD BIOS to make the motherboard compatible with an APU (or to get other features), you might be stuck needing to buy Windows 10. Again, I have not tried all the motherboards out there.

Hopefully, its something that will be fixed in the next BIOS release. Or maybe there is a work around. But, who knows? Not me, yet.

Just occurred to me that the Gigabyte has two BIOSs installed concurrently. One easily switches between them. That may provide some sort of workaround path (keep one old BIOS, and one new BIOS). Not sure -- probably still need a regular Ryzen CPU handy. Being a fanatic, I might just buy a cheap Ryzen CPU for playing around, or not (just as cheap to buy Windows 10).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/18 01:08 PM

Quote
Second Gen Ryzen not playing nice with some AM4 motherboards

AMD has issued a bulletin to provide support to users of its AM4 platform who are having difficulty booting a system equipped with one of the 2nd Generation Ryzen desktop processors.

AMD said that users should contact the motherboard retailer to see if they can do a BIOS update at their location."

If that does not work, then you should try the motherboard maker direct, who "will support affected end users with an RMA exchange for a compatible motherboard, upon request."

AMD says it will "provide affected and qualified users with a bootkit to perform the BIOS update on their motherboard". This free-of-charge service offered through AMD warranty services


I got mine to work. However, I'm trying out the above AMD offer to provide a boot kit. That still may not fix the Windows 7 install issue.

The wording on the article indicates this might not happen with all the Motherboards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/18 08:56 PM

Quote
AMD Confirms 12nm Ryzen 2 CPUs Will Feature Soldered IHS For Better Cooling

The new chips will come in configurations of up to 8 cores and 16 threads.. However, they will feature GlobalFoundries’ brand new 12nm+ manufacturing process and enhanced Zen+ CPU cores. .. run at higher clock speeds than their predecessors and .. support significantly faster DDR4 RAM kits of up to 4000MHz.

AMD Confirms 12nm Ryzen 2 CPUs Will Feature Soldered IHS For Better Cooling

A high quality solder job is measurably more expensive than a TIM solution, hence why it makes sense to reserve it for high-end products such as the upcoming 2nd generation Ryzen CPU parts.


Current Ryzen CPUs have soldered heat sinks. And so will the next generation Ryzen CPU. AMD APUs use heat sink paste, because they are designed for low cost entry level market.

AMD sells easy overclocking. AMD supports overclocking with hardware, all Ryzen's are unlocked, and AMD provides a desktop application to make modest CPU and memory overclocks simple. As always, overclocking is at one's own risk.

Last actual words I saw from Intel were that they DO NOT recommend overclocking their CPUs -- even when unlocked. Of course, experienced overclockers sometimes get a lot out of an Intel CPU -- just needs more effort and care.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/18 01:10 AM

You make my points for me.

Intel sells a product partly on the basis that it can be overclocked. They charge a few dollars extra for "unlocked". Yet, the product's heat dissipation ability is hampered by poor design. So, they go slightly out of their way to remind buyers that they recommend don't overclock it. A few Intel buyers were unhappy. Thought it was false advertising (in effect) and wrote so at the time.

AMD sells a product partly on the basis that it can be overclocked. They charge nothing extra. They use a heat sink designed to support overclocking. And, like Intel, they warn its at your own risk. Ryzen buyers are not unhappy.

But, this is not the "slam Intel" thread. Intel and Nvidia make good products. But, they aren't perfect. After a few years of CPU imperfection, AMD has effectively caught up with Intel. So, at times, there are some good things to say about AMD.

This thread is mainly just to transfer current information about the "Future and Current Status of AMD". Occasionally, the thread mentions the competition to indicate where things stand competitively.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/18 01:24 PM

Quote
AMD Will Send You A Free Processor To Flash Your Motherboard’s BIOS For Ryzen 2000G Raven Ridge APUs

According to Arstechnica, you’re supposed to return the A6-9500 chip once you’ve got everything up and running, but peculiarly you’re allowed to keep the heatsink that comes with it.


Interesting fix. They loan one a CPU for boot and flash.

Anyhow, when a completely new CPU product is released, one must expect issues for a period. Up until Ryzen was released a year ago, both AMD and Intel were releasing "more of the same" so problems like this weren't common.

Ryzen 5 2400G was released Monday, I got mine Tuesday, I got mine working (using my main system 1800X to flash). Thursday and yesterday, I tested with Linux, Vista, and W7, and W10. Settled on W10. Today, I install games/apps and speed test.

The have been a startling 4 BIOS updates this month supporting Ryzen 5 2400G. I tried the first and the last (both worked). A special WHQL overall driver has been released for Ryzen 5 2400G -- seems to work fine in my limited testing.

One thing that I had missed, both AMD and Intel are no longer supporting Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 in hardware. For AMD and Intel CPUs and chip set hardware designs are directed at Windows 10. So, getting an older OS running requires a little more work on some systems.

Anyhow, this is a "daily new news" thread. Not a "discussion" thread or a "my new build" thread. So, I'll stop with the day-to-day details of my experience. At some point, I'll say how it all turned out. But, it does seem to be going well at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/18 09:29 AM

Quote
AMD Pinnacle Ridge CPUs to have soldered IHS

Not thermal paste like Raven Ridge APUs [Ryzen 5 2400G]

In the aftermath of Raven Ridge delidding, which revealed that it uses thermal paste under the IHS, AMD's Robert Hallock took to Reddit to note that this won't be the case with the upcoming Pinnacle Ridge CPUs, based on 12nm manufacturing process and usually known as the Ryzen 2 CPUs.

Hallock added that TIM made the most sense for the performance and thermal characteristics of the Raven Ridge APU design, describing it as the right tool for the right job. He also was quite keen to note that "a pure processor, designed for enthusiast gaming machines, plays in a different market" and as such has "different prices, different thermal and mechanical requirements", which is why the second generation Ryzen, as he calls it, will use solder.


My Raven Ridge Ryzen 5 2400G easily overclocks to 4GHz on all cores all the time.

However, after a few minutes in a stress test (e.g. Prime95), the temperature is climbing above 80C on standard cooling. The throttling limit is 95C according to the AMD overclocking software. I've read that 75C is safe for continuous use. I stop the test at 80C.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/18 02:24 PM

Apparently, AMD is now using thermal paste between the heat spreader...?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/18 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
Apparently, AMD is now using thermal paste between the heat spreader...?


Only in 2 out of many.

Of the Ryzen CPUs used in PCs and HTPCs, only 2 (the $170 Ryzen 5 2400G and $100 Ryzen 5 2200G) use thermal paste. Those two Ryzens are the ones with the GPU built into the chip.

All the other Ryzens used in PCs and HTPCs, both the 1000 series and upcoming (in April) 2000 series 4 core to 16 core, cheap to expensive use solder to maximize cooling for overclocking.

So, in summary, there will only be 2 Ryzens (ones with GPUs built in) with paste.

I just finished building a Ryzen 5 2400G HTPC. It overclocks easily. But, with standard cooling, it tends to overheat during a "stress test". I have my "thermal paste" Ryzen 5 2400G set to 4GHz all cores all the time.

Right now, I plan to buy one of the April 2000 series (probably a Ryzen 7 2800X) myself and overclock it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/18 11:41 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 ‘Pinnacle Ridge’ CPU Performance Leaks Out – Up To 15% Faster in Single Core Tests Compared to Ryzen 5 1600


This is merely a "leak" -- not confirmed information. So, I won't say more -- other than it was a combination of increased clocks and increased efficiency.

The new Ryzen 2000s are coming in April. I plan to buy one. I'm hoping for 5 or 10 percent increase in efficiency per clock. We'll see.

Disclaimer: No way will anyone "see" such a small CPU improvement while playing a game. Only a fanatic (like me) would buy a new CPU for such a small improvement. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/18 07:18 PM

Quote
NVIDIA claims that GPU prices will continue increasing through Q3 2018

According to the green team, the two main reasons causing the GPU prices to increase each and every month are the mining craze and the vRAM shortage.

Miners are currently purchasing every new high-end GPU they can get their hands on..

.. Apple and Samsung are willing to pay more for the memory that will be used in their smartphones..

Bottom line is that things are not going to improve in the next couple of months, so this will be a tough period for PC gaming enthusiasts!


Of course, they're talking about both Nvidia and AMD. I assume prices will be high until at least 2019. I hope I'm wrong.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/18 06:46 PM

Quote
Ryzen 5 2400G Vega 11 Core Clock Vs Memory Speed

..could slower DDR4 speeds be compensated through a good GPU Core overclock? And the answer is basically, No. You won’t get bad performance by any means, but you can see how much more there is to benefit from memory speed on the Vega 11.


Article

In general, higher memory speed (up to at least 2700MHz in my testing -- and maybe 3200MHz according to some reports) makes a measurable difference with Ryzen CPUs and APUs -- including the new Ryzen 5 2400G APU. That was NOT the case with the older FX series AMD CPUs.

So, with my two Ryzens (soon to be three), I shoot for 3200MHz (easy with 8GB or 16GB and harder with 32GB -- be sure to look up what memory your MB supports).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/18 10:12 AM

Quote
Over three million add-in boards (AIBs) were sold to cryptocurrency miners worth $776 million in 2017. AMD was the primary benefactor of those sales.

“Gaming has been and will continue to be the primary driver for GPU sales, augmented by the demand from cryptocurrency miners.,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, President of Jon Peddie research. We expect demand to slacken from the miners as margins drop in response increasingly utilities costs and supply and demand forces that drive up AIB prices. Gamers can offset those costs by mining when not gaming, but prices will not drop in the near future.”


More of the same from the financial market analyzers.

Good for AMD and Nvidia bottom line. Not fun for many gamers. I notice the formerly roughly $550 list price custom RX Vega 64 is now $1200 at Newegg (but, hey, its on special sale -- sale ends Monday).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/18 02:16 PM

Quote
AMD's Ryzen not for a Dell

While AMD's Ryzen chips are rather good, Dell EMC is not particularly interested and will remain loyal to Chipzilla.

According to Channel Pro,while Dell EMC has integrated AMD processors into workstations, all-in-one devices and even servers, its CTO, John Roese, said that these products would be an exception within Dell’s lineup, and the company won't offer large numbers of AMD-powered machines any time soon..

That is slightly depressing news, it means that no matter if AMD produces really good chips, Dell EMC will always shovel coal for Intel.


I'm an AMD fan because I've been following CPUs and GPUs since the mid 1970s (when I invented and built my first desktop from individual integrated circuits and wire and solder and etc.) -- and I've seen that the competition is "shady". I don't knowingly support "shady".

Dell (a really big name at the turn of the millennium) was making these types of statements a decade and a half ago, when AMD actually had the best CPUs. Later, it was proven that Intel was paying Dell "under the table" to only use Intel. One article back then noted that Dell's total profits for one year was equal to the amount Intel paid under the table that year. At that time Dell said nice words but never used an AMD CPU in a Dell product (to the detriment of their unknowing customers).

However, the lack of good AMD publicity from Dell and others, kept average-customers (who don't constantly read about and study the industry) thinking that Intel was best. Nope, it was only the most expensive.

Ultimately, there was an over $1 Billion settlement in AMD's favor. I'm not sure its been paid yet. That type of thing really set AMD back at the time. They never got the business they earned (by product quality). They had to sell their chip making facilities just to stay in business. This set their research back. Ultimately, Intel CPUs caught up and passed AMD technically (though AMD still had bang per buck). AMD trailed Intel technically -- until now -- now, they've caught up technically (and still have bang per buck).

But, Dell and Intel keep on "giving" -- to each other. And, I see by the above article the "press" sees it too.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/18 10:47 AM

Quote
AMD’s 2nd Generation Ryzen 7 2700X 8 Core, 16 Thread CPU Leaks Out – 3.7 GHz Base, Up To 4.2 GHz Boost With XFR 2.0

In terms of clock speeds, the Ryzen 7 2700X operates at a 300 MHz faster base clock compared to its predecessor..

But there’s also the XFR 2.0 support which should also allow a degree of boost over the boost frequency itself. It looks like the CPU will hit up to 4.2 GHz with XFR 2.0..


Ryzen 7 2000 series CPUs next month. Higher clocks. Hopefully, higher instructions per clock also. I plan t get one (assuming they are not overpriced).



Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-2000-Series_2.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/18 09:51 PM

Bitcoin (cryptocurrency) has crushed the Gamer GPU market. So, if there is a slightly interesting Cryptocurrency story, it may show up here (abbreviated to the salient points).

Quote
“The Big Bitcoin Heist” – 600 Bitcoin Mining Servers Stolen from Data Centers in Iceland

During four separate incidents, hundreds of cryptocurrency miners were stolen in Iceland. The theft has led to a number of arrests in the country, including that of a security guard. These mining servers – over 600 of them – are reportedly worth over $2 million.

The police commissioner on the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula said that the theft of these machines was the biggest in the nation’s history.''..

Iceland has been one of the most popular mining hubs, boasting a strong ecosystem powered by the country’s cool climates, data center industry and renewable energy sources. The North Atlantic nation has seen an influx of miners who are attracted to the country’s cheap, renewable energy from its geothermal energy sources. Criminals who continue to shift their resources to digital currency heists have apparently also moved on to Iceland.


The servers may be sold by the thieves to others willing to buy stolen goods, or perhaps used by the thieves themselves to mine bitcoins (articles speculate).

Original AP Article

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/18 10:47 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2000 series exposed, pricing, performance leaked

There is no Ryzen 7 2800X (yet)

Apparently, AMD is not adding Ryzen 7 2800X to the lineup at this time and all the leaks we have been seeing are of the flagship Ryzen 2000 model, the Ryzen 7 2700X. This CPU will retail at 369 USD, a dollar less than Core i7 8700K.

The X470 motherboards are to be launched on April 19th (this could be the launch date of Ryzen 2000 desktop series)..

AMD has put new Ryzen against Intel’s Coffeelake-S flagship, the i7-8700K. AMD claims 2700X will be 7.7% slower [FPS] on average.

Compared to Summit Ridge R7 1800X the new [2700X] CPU will offer 5% better framerate..


Regarding Intel 8700K FPS being 7% faster than AMD's second best Ryzen 2700X -- honest of AMD to show that. I note that the performance is very similar in most games but Intel wins by a larger margin in some -- so the average is 7 (on the slide shown). Both Intel and AMD have plenty of FPS showing. I would expect the Ryzen 7 2800X to close part of that 7% gap -- when/if it is released. Also, many games/apps are optimized for Intel architecture -- I imagine that may have caused the somewhat larger gaps in some games.

Apparently, all this is based on leaked (presumably not Fake) AMD slides. You can see them all here:

Full Leak Article

Of course, we don't really know until the products are released and independently tested. So far, no Ryzen 7 2800X -- it figures -- I'm waiting for that one.

[Linked Image]


Attached picture Ryzen2000Series.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/18 09:51 AM

AMD Threadripper and Ryzen CPU Roadmap for next few years. Confirms that newer CPUs will still work on the older motherboards (though newer MB will have added MB features).

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 4000 ‘Next Generation HEDT’ CPUs Confirmed For 2020 – Will Retain Support on TR4 Socketed Motherboards


Also, development will follow Intel-like "tick tock" approach.

The attached indicate the general direction and the timings.

No Ryzen 7 2800X showing.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Zen2018roadmap.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-2018-2020-Roadmap.jpg
Attached picture Roadmap.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/18 11:02 AM

Apparently, Nvidia is "under the table" again. Since this affects the "Future and Current Status" of AMD in the marketplace, its noted here. However, this is not a "bash Nvidia" (or Intel) thread, so just linking the lengthy article.

Quote
GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

While we usually like to focus on all the wonderful and immersive worlds that video cards and their GPUs can open up to us, today we are tackling something a bit different. The GeForce Partner Program, known as GPP in the industry, is a "marketing" program that looks to HardOCP as being an anticompetitive tactic against AMD and Intel..

There is no doubt that NVIDIA GPP has some striking similarities to what Intel has done in the past that has been deemed "anticompetitive conduct" by the Federal Trade Commision. We would not be surprised to see regulators in the US, Europe, and Asia want to take a closer look at GPP as well.


Article

Unless the foregoing is proved in court, folks have no obligation to believe it or act on it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/14/18 09:21 AM

Quote
Microsoft and AMD bring FreeSync to Xbox One

Both Xbox One S and Xbox One X

Microsoft said that its Xbox One S and Xbox One X will be getting AMD's FreeSync 2, a offering variable refresh rate over HDMI on supported displays.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture FreeSync2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/14/18 09:30 AM

Quote
AMD On Track to Return to Athlon 64 Market Share Levels

near-term goal is reaching levels that the company enjoyed during their early-2000s market-leadership that they had thanks to the Athlon64 processors, which were strong competitors to what Intel offered at the time. Specifically, Jim said "I don't see any reason we can't get back to historical share levels that AMD has enjoyed in the past." Back in the 2000s the company boomed on a market share above 20% for desktop and slightly below 20% for notebook, also thanks to Intel's weakness in driving technology forward.


Article

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Improvements2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/16/18 10:30 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2700/X & 2600/X Listed Online, Specs & Prices Confirmed – Launching April 19


The new information is the confirmed April 19 launch.

Some sites have them listed for pre-order. The attached price/performance lists from today's articles duplicate/corroborate what's been posted here to date -- not new information.

Attached picture Ryzen2000Prices.PNG
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-2000-Precios-1000x541.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/16/18 08:45 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X/Ryzen 5 2600 review posted ahead of launch

Ryzen 2000 supports 2933 MHz DDR4 memory out of the box, which should provide an overall improvement and better experience (in gaming).

SiSoft: Ryzen2 is a great update that will not disappoint upgraders and is likely to increase AMD’s market share. AMD is here to stay!


Article With Lots of Performance Graphs

A review article was accidentally published (they say) and removed. However, Videocardz says they grabbed it before it disappeared.

Claiming 10+ percent improvement in benchmarks over the 1000 series (assuming its not fake news).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/18 10:46 AM

Quote
AMD cuts some Ryzen and Threadripper CPU prices

The list includes almost all AMD Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7 and Ryzen Threadripper series CPUs, but it is not clear if the price is global as it is currently limited only to some AMD retail/e-tail partners like Amazon, Newegg, Micro Center and Fry's.

The new Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G APUs were not a part of this price cut as these won't directly influence the upcoming Pinnacle Ridge lineup, which should become available on April 19th.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture amd-ryzenpricecut203-2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/18 09:44 AM

Quote
PowerColor announces Red Dragon RX Vega 56

This card complement the already successful Red Devil Vega cards offering a more value solution in a environment of rising prices without compromising performance, reliability neither cooling performance..

Red Dragon Vega 56 will be available worldwide on the 28th of March in selected retailers and e-Tailers.


Since they are claiming "value" in an environment of rising prices, the selling price will be interesting. I'm expecting it to be high.

Attached picture PowerColor-RX-Vega-56-Red-Dragon-4-1000x594.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/18 09:31 AM

I notice we've had a couple double peaks in Bitcoin. Ethereum shows a similar trend.

The double peak at a recent historic high is sometimes a sign of a long-term "crash" in price -- for "traded" items like stocks and cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency prices falling to their true value would help drive down GPU prices (obviously). A hopeful sign, but nothing is assured.

Attached picture Bitcoin.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/24/18 10:06 AM

"GeForce Partner Program" (GPP) news:

Quote
NVIDIA GPP Ignites Uproar & Calls for Boycott as AIBs Begin Signing on

..it requires add-in-board partners to drop AMD from their gaming brands..

To put it bluntly, if the allegations are accurate, .

..to date, NVIDIA denies these allegations..

gamers have been noticing a very peculiar trend beginning to occur with MSI and Gigabyte that suggests they might have joined NVIDIA’s GPP..

Let’s start with Gigabyte, the company recently launched a new gaming graphics enclosure powered by an AMD Radeon RX 580. Unlike Gigabyte’s previous enclosures which carry the AORUS brand, Gigabyte’s premium gaming brand, this enclosure only gets a generic Gigabyte sticker.


Article

Again, this is not the "bash Nvidia" thread. Rather, its about the "Future" of AMD and AMD branded products.

The foregoing impacts the "Future" of AMD and the naming that Gamer's will see when they go to buy. The lack of "high end" name-branding (e.g. AORUS) on AMD products will turn off some buyers who are unaware of the GPP.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/18 10:05 AM

More cyptocurrency mining news:

Quote
AMD and Nvidia to suffer from increased competition

Susquehanna Financial has warned that AMD and Nvidia are about to lose a big chunk of the cash that they have been making from crypto-miners.

Susquehanna’s Christopher Rolland said that the mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain had developed an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip to mine the cryptocurrency Ether — and an ASIC from Bitmain could pose new competition for AMD’s and Nvidia’s graphics-processing units (GPUs).

Ether mining-related sales accounted for about 20 percent of AMD’s sales and 10 percent of Nvidia’s revenue.

Apparently, Monero is not that happy, and an emergency software upgrade set for April is explicitly meant to change the rules of the system to block the effort entirely, rendering the Antminer X3 ineffective. To keep hardware manufacturers from catching up, these algorithm edits are planned to continue with bi-annual network upgrades.


According to the article, Etherium alone (1 of the most popular of 1000+ cryptocurrencies) accounted for 10 to 20 percent of AMD/Nvidia profit. dizzy

So, now, hardware manufacturers try to make cryptocurrency mining more cost effective -- and, the cryptocurrency algorithm writers try to make mining less cost effective (thereby keeping GPU prices high for we gamers).

The HD550 HTPC card I bought in January for $99 (and only worth $70), is now $169. $169 is the price of a Ryzen 5 2400G APU that contains a 4C/8T CPU that runs at 4GHz (in my case) and has a built in GPU about equal to the, now, $169 HD550 GPU.

If one is building a new cost conscious HTPC/light-gaming-rig, its a no brainer -- put together a Ryzen 5 2400G system. thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/18 10:17 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
NVIDIA Quadro GV100 GPU Announced For $9000 US – Packs A Massive 32 GB HBM2 Memory, 5120 CUDA Cores, Designed Around NVIDIA’s RTX Technology


GV100 GPU is designed for primrily compute tasks. But, not all Nvidia stuff computes accurately all the time.

Quote
NVIDIA Titan V Reportedly Producing Errors in Scientific Simulations

NVIDIA’s prosumer oriented $3000 GTX Titan V reportedly suffers from a memory bug that’s causing it to produce erroneous results in scientific simulation workloads.

It’s thought that this issue is due to a memory design flaw. According to an unnamed industry veteran that has spoken with The Register, NVIDIA may be pushing the Titan V hardware to its limits, or perhaps even beyond the edge.


Both AMD and Nvidia have problems from time to time -- neither is perfect (nor is Intel).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/18 09:52 PM

Quote
ASRock Officially Enters The Graphics Market With AMD Radeon RX Powered Phantom Gaming Lineup

ASRock’s Phantom Gaming lineup will cover the entire AMD Radeon RX 500 series which includes the Radeon RX 580, Radeon RX 570, Radeon RX 560 and the Radeon RX 550. All graphics cards are fitted with the new signature Phantom cooler and a custom board design which bring exceptional performance to gamers.



Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/18 10:09 AM

Its April 1.

The "April Fools" articles are in circulation. One had me for about 15 seconds. Excuse: Its early in the morning here, my eyes barely open smile

The easy way out is to trust nothing today.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/18 12:56 AM

Regarding the competition - Intel:

Quote
Apple’s ‘Project Kalamata’ For Custom Mac Processors Will Not Impact Intel Significantly As Macs Only Make For 5% Of Latter’s Revenues According To Barclays

..Apple will switch away from Intel’s chips on Macs by the year 2020..

..Mac sales make up for only 5% of Intel’s overall revenue – not a very significant chunk..

If Apple were to design and build processors from the ground up, its entire ecosystem for the Mac will either have to be re-written for the new silicon; or it’ll have to use Intel emulation..


A very "Intel friendly" article. Losing 5% of their processor business is big -- not small (the article itself says the loss will be $3 Billion a year -- seems like lots of well paying jobs).

However, we'll see if the article is accurate in a couple years. Regardless, Intel will stay #1 in CPU sales (unless the upcoming AMD 7nm CPU node hits a "home run" -- I'm expecting a "double").
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/18 01:05 AM

Regarding AMD's 7nm node efforts:

Quote
AMD 7nm Vega 20 AI GPU Leaked in Linux Patch

AMD’s next generation Vega 20 GPU, designed for AI and machine learning, has just popped up in a Linux patch a couple of days ago. The Sunnyvale California based chip maker announced earlier this year at CES that it’s building a new Vega chip on cutting edge 7nm process technology to be deployed in deep neural networks for AI and machine learning applications by the end of the year. AMD announced that it will begin sampling 7nm Vega in Q4 2018.


So AMD 7nm is real. This is a GPU. The CPUs are also in the works. There is a real chance AMD desktop CPUs will beat Intel CPUs to 7nm. But, we'll see -- its conjecture as to when the CPUs will be on the market.

Attached picture Screenshot-2018-4-3 AMD 7nm Vega 20 AI GPU Leaked in Linux Patch.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/18 09:20 AM

Quote
First PlayStation 5 Rumors Point To 8-Core Zen CPU and Navi GPU; Lots of Devkits Already Out

..PlayStation 5 should feature an APU composed of an 8-Core Zen CPU and a Navi-based GPU – both customized, as usual with consoles. We don’t know much about Navi yet, but AMD has previously linked its name to “Scalability” and “Nextgen Memory”.

..a large amount of development kits has been already sent to game developers...


The rumor is said to be based on solid insider information. But still a rumor (at least, this was not published April 1). A 2019/2020 launch date is speculated.

8 core AMD APU with Ryzen-style CPU and Navi GPU would be cutting edge in a console -- or anything else, for that matter.

Cores and threads are the near-future of gaming -- so one will need to check the "base frequency" of a CPU they are buying (maximum "boost frequency" is for shorter times on one or two cores -- unless one overclocks).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/18 12:06 AM

Quote
Full AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Prices Listed on Amazon, Cheaper Than Previously Reported

The 2700X is rated at a thermal design power envelope of 105W and comes with the company’s brand new Wraith Prism cooler. The Wraith Prism cooler features a transparent fan featuring RGB lighting as well as lower operating noise levels than the company’s previous Wraith design.

All-in-all, looks like AMD Ryezn 2000 series potential buyers might be in for quite a treat!


[Linked Image]


Attached picture AmazonRyzenPrices.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/18 08:45 PM

Quote
NVIDIA & AMD GPU Prices Begin to Normalize, Down ~25% in March

After a long and arduous period of extreme shortage in the graphics card market affecting both AMD and NVIDIA, it appears that supply is finally beginning to normalize.

Over the month of March alone, we saw prices come down by as much as a third on high-end graphics cards, such as NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 Ti and AMD’s RX Vega 64.

Supply levels have also seemingly gotten healthier.

[The Reason] The improvement in supplies seems to partially stem from news of the imminent release of the first ever ASIC miner for Ethereum, which would render mining Ethereum on GPUs almost entirely obsolete. Ethereum is the most popular cryptocurrency among GPU miners.


Article with Price vs Time Charts

Prices still high. But, maybe I won't have to wait until next year for a higher end GPU. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/18 09:33 PM

Based on information in above post, I checked Bitcoin profitability. Its way down. Other cryptocurrencies are following similar path. If this keeps up a two or three more months, we gamers may be getting back to realistic GPU prices by mid Summer or Fall.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture BitcoinProfitability.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/18 11:47 PM

Quote
AMD Stock Upgraded While Intel and NVIDIA Receive Downgrades

Citron: NVIDIA at risk of losing emerging AI and Hyperscale business to custom solutions

Stifel: AMD a “Buy” and is positioned to steal server market share from Intel

Stifel also cited the impending threat EPYC represents to Intel’s server business. They expect to see major revenue ramp in the second half of this year as AMD starts to claw back market share from Intel in the highly lucrative data center and enterprise markets.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/18 10:00 AM

As noted above, Nvidia's policies towards manufacturers prohibits them from using their traditional "high end gaming" names on AMD GPU products. And, manufacturers have begun to comply with Nvidia's wishes (demands actually).

So, renaming top brand AMD cards has begun. This "rumor" is presumably directly from ASUS -- so has more credibility.

As noted, Nvidia has done these types of things for well over a decade. Its why I'm an AMD fan since 2003 (bought Nvidia before that). I don't expect everyone to feel like I do.

But, we do have to get used to new names for things.

Quote
NVIDIA GPP: Meet ASUS AREZ Radeon series

For now, this is just a rumor, but our information comes directly from ASUS. Apparently, ASUS will launch a new AREZ brand for Radeon series. These cards will not carry any ROG branding. In fact, they might even lose ASUS branding altogether.

The ROG series simply do not exist under AREZ brand. That said there are no AREZ ROG STRIX series, but AREZ STRIX.

Other companies such as Gigabyte and MSI have already started removing “Gaming” Radeon products from their websites... Meanwhile, MSI ‘hid’ all Radeon Gaming series from their website.

The codenames [in the chart] are real.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture ASUS AREZ Radeon series.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/07/18 10:09 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Overclocked Up To 4.3 GHz (1.4V) Across All Cores in First Preview Testings – Detailed CPU Benchmarks

This chip does 4.3 GHz across all cores at 1.4V..

the chip runs at 4.35 GHz on a single core but lacks behind the Skylake CPUs in single core performance results. However, the eight cores and 16 threads help this chip deliver better MT (Multi-Threading) results..


Article

The Ryzen 7 2700X has not been officially released yet (April 16 has been said to be the date). However, they are on sale in spots.

My Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 5 1600X, and Ryzen 5 2400G PCs easily overclock to the "boost" frequency on all cores all the time at stock volts. So, I was hoping Ryzen 7 2700X chips would do the same. This article seems to indicate 2700X may run at boost frequency on all cores all the time. As I've mentioned, I believe the "all core all the time" frequency is more indicative of performance than boost on one or two cores.

They indicate that the stock cooler (included in the box) keeps them cool (saving more cash for the customer).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/18 05:12 PM

Quote
AMD already working on “Zen 5”

We are just 10 days before Zen+ officially reaches the market, but AMD is clearly not stopping here. So far, we only knew about Zen 2 and Zen 3, both 7nm architectures. The Zen 5, which is an internal codename (subject to change) would be a fifth installment in the x86 Zen microarchitecture..

As a side note, manufacturers often skip 4 due to its meaning in Chinese culture. It’s an unlucky number because it’s homophonous to the word ‘death’. .

.. Zen 3 for 2020, Zen 5 should not be expected sooner than 2021.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/18 11:16 AM

Quote
7/11/2017 Update – The growing number of miners, lowering Ethereum price and increasing difficulty has lowered the amount of Ethereum that one can mine. We highly suggest looking at other currencies to remain profitable and to get your investment back! If you plan on buying a mining system today you are already way to late it appears and you might be better off using that money to buy the alt coin of your liking..


There is a site that gives pretty thorough information on the profitability of Cryptocurrency mining (including Bitcoin and Etherium). Link below.

For Bitcoin and Etherium, my analysis of the data indicated very low profit for the amount spent in hardware. I got roughly $1 per day per GPU for Etherium and far, far less for Bitcoin.

I figured I must have calculated wrong. Then, in searching, I came upon the quote above which was an update to an earlier article on cryptocurrency mining profitability -- written by an active miner. They were already concerned last November regarding profits.

I'm no expert. So, I'm hesitant saying Bitcoin and Etherium mining no longer seems worth a new investment in equipment. But, maybe it is??? If so, that could help lower GPU prices??

Bitcoin Etc. Mining Data

Out of Date Article Quoted Above
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/18 07:42 PM

Quote
AMD launches Radeon RX 500X series

The new Radeon RX 500X series are meant for pre-built PCs and notebooks, they will not be available elsewhere.

That said, we are looking at identical frequencies and memory configurations as Radeon 500 non-X series.


The official AMD RX500/RX500X Page at their site seems to show identical performance (except on 550X vs 550) -- as noted in the quoted article.

Thus, the X series does not represent anything new (so far). Seems merely a rebranding (not the first rebrand ever).

AMD Site 500 Series Page
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/18 01:09 AM

Quote
Chris Hook leaves AMD, starting new role by the end of April

AMD’s Senior Director of Global Product Marketing recently announced on Facebook that he will be resigning from his post...Chris has been one of the key people behind Radeon marketing and it is clear that his loss to the company will be a big one.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/18 09:16 AM

Quote
AMD hands product marketing reins to Sasa Marinkovic

"Sasa Marinkovic Director, Radeon Software Marketing will be taking leadership of AMD Product and Content Marketing. Over his twenty years career at AMD, Sasa has successfully launched several generations of disruptive AMD products and will be responsible for the introduction of the next generation of AMD’s Ryzen and Radeon products..."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/12/18 09:44 AM

An article speculates/rumors that the first 7nm Navi GPUs on the market are to be replacements for the RX580/RX570 (not RX Vega 64).

However, while selling for the lower price of an RX580, they will perform like an RX Vega 64/GTX 1080 (it is speculated).

Previous official AMD information noted that Navi was a genuine new architecture that would allow both "normal" and "very high end" GPUs. That's the point of Navi, I've read. Its "scalable" from small to very large.

Being scalable, it actually makes some sense that the first Navi would be a powerful RX580 replacement -- then, slightly after, building to a high end RX Vega replacement.

Theoretically, Navi will allow very high end GPUs that are significantly less expensive to make. We'll see what they sell for.

Navi 7nm is still speculated for 2019.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/18 02:43 PM

Newegg has the Ryzen 7 2700X on pre-order for $330 and Ryzen 5 2600X pre-order for $230. Release was said to be April 19.

Based on how my three Ryzen CPUs OC and based on reading unofficial data regarding overclocking the R7 2700X and R5 2600 series, I imagine many of the individual CPUs will OC to boost frequency all the cores all the time fairly easily (however, a given CPU may not). That's my speculation -- we'll see what the official post release reports say.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/18 07:20 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Including Ryzen 7 2700X, 2700 and Ryzen 5 2600X, 2600 Available for Preorder

A few hours ago, Newegg and Amazon have allowed preorders on the new AMD Ryzen 2000 series Pinnacle Ridge CPUs and X470 motherboards..


Descriptive Article

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-2000-740x417.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/18 07:27 PM

Quote
AMD X470 Motherboards Roundup Feat. ASRock, ASUS, AORUS, MSI, Biostar – Designed For Ryzen Refresh

The motherboards that are launching next week house several key technologies that would offer the best experience on Ryzen 2000 processors.


Descriptive Article

Long article lots of specifications and pictures for each manufacturer. Comparisons to older MB generation.

Attached picture CCQ7F993MBEvqkmg_setting_000_1_90_end_1500-740x740.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/18 09:41 AM

GPU sale prices today are lowest I've seen for a while. Maybe GPU prices are in the process of dropping significantly -- these sales being a harbinger.

GTX1080 gamer's card $550, RX570 gamers card $280, GTX1060 gamers card $260. Over list price; but, maybe not completely ridiculous anymore (on this one-day sale).

AMD cryptocurrency mining card ostensibly marked down from $1300 to $484. I assume that means miners aren't buying them -- even though AMD cards are preferred for mining.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/18 10:06 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X / X470 Review Out, Beats i7 8700K in Gaming & Multi-Threaded Benchmarks

[Up to now] Coffee Lake was generally regarded as the better gaming CPU in most cases. This appears to have dreastically changed with the Ryzen 7 2700X, which has managed to outperform the i7 8700K in no less than 7 out of 10 gaming tests conducted.

The $329 Ryzen 7 2700X absolutely dominates [lower core count Intel] in multi-threaded tests like wPrime, Cinebench R15 and x264 transcoding, all whilst maintaining a maximum temperature of ~65c, thanks to the incredible Wraith Prism cooler.

Finally we come to the overclocking performance of the chip, the reviewers managed to push it to 4.3GHz on all 8 cores using an H80i GT.

All-in-all the Ryzen 7 2700X appears to be all things to all people. It absolutely excels at multi-threaded performance with 8 cores and 16 threads, the six core Coffee Lakes simply can’t keep up.

At $329, it also undercuts Intel’s i7 8700K to win the bang for buck contest. The Ryzen 7 2700X appears to have hit the holy trifecta of silicon, superior overall performance, performance per watt and performance per dollar compared to the competition..


Article

A couple pre-release articles have noted that the often included Wraith cooler (on 2700X) is actually quite good.

Needs the new model AMD 470 chipset gaming motherboard to accomplish all this.

Article reads like its written by an AMD fan (maybe it is). We'll see when more test reports hit the wires over the next few days (April 19 official release date).

Attached picture Screenshot-2018-4-14 AMD Ryzen 7 2700X X470 Review Out, Beats i7 8700K in Gaming Multi-Threaded Benchmarks.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/18 10:16 AM

Quote
AMD 600 Series GPU Project “Zen” Detailed – Radeon on Steroids to Amp Clock Speeds & Efficiency

..we reported that AMD is working on a mainstream 7nm Navi GPU with GTX 1080 class performance to debut in 2019 at around ~$250.

AMD Assembles Zen Team of Engineers For Radeon Project “Zen”

The new team has been put in place to inject the company’s upcoming GPU products with a dose of engineering steroids so to speak and leapfrog the company’s original GPU roadmap.

We’re told that this project was put in motion under the direct orders of CEO Su, who expects results in as early as this year

if what we’ve been hearing about Radeon Project Zen is also accurate, we might see some of the new team’s results with the Radeon 600 series, much earlier than 2020.


Article

Looks like AMD is "Zen supercharging" GPU development. They're playing catch-up with Nvidia GPUs -- just like they did successfully catching Intel CPUs with the "Zen/Ryzen" CPUs.

The faster/power-efficient/cheaper Zen GPUs are at least many months away -- but, maybe a lot sooner than I was planning.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/18 10:20 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X & Ryzen 5 2600X overclocked to 5880 MHz


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/18 09:53 AM

Quote
The Crypto Conundrum – Regulatory Pressures for Cryptocurrencies

Is [cryptocurrency] meant to be (as its name implies), a currency? Or is it an investment vehicle in the traditional sense like any other security?

..it is clear that SOME cryptocurrencies at least ASPIRE to be currencies, although they are clearly not there yet..

..there are also some cryptocurrencies which are very clearly a security rather than a currency and yet companies are trying to circumvent some of the investor protections.


Article

Article summarizes the current legal status of cryptocurrencies in general.

Right now, they are unregulated in the west and prohibited in some eastern countries. However, in the west, they are slowly heading towards regulation.

Regulation will probably make mining less profitable. Thing is, mining becomes more difficult and less profitable nearly every week and may no longer be worth the cost of the equipment (GPUs) used (depending on which cryptocurrency is being mined). As noted above in this thread, Bitcoin profitability dropped by a factor of 6 since mid December according to one nominally objective source.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/18 09:13 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Gaming Benchmarks vs 1700 at 4GHz, 10% Faster on Average

The productivity benchmarks are not any less impressive with the Ryzen 7 2700X showing performance improvements of up to 13% at stock clocks versus the overclocked Ryzen 7 1700. First generation Ryzen simply can’t keep up, even with a hefty 4.0GHz overclock and a custom liquid cooling loop.

This demonstrates that second generation Ryzen isn’t just an overclocked 1000 series Ryzen CPU, and even with the 2700X running at stock clocks, an overclocked first generation part will not be able to match it in performance.


Only one review. But, it does indicate Ryzen 2000 series really is a slightly re-designed 1000 -- not merely an overclocked 1000.

April 19 release and lots of independent test reports is only a couple days away.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/18 01:37 PM

As noted previously, Nvidia worked "under the table" to force manufacturers to stop selling AMD GPUs with popular/established gaming designations (that had been used on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs).

ASUS has found a good way to handle that without having Nvidia "cut them off".

Quote
ASUS AREZ Radeon Graphics Cards Production Has Started – No Features Lost In Transition From ROG

As many of you undoutedly know, NVIDIA’s GPP program is causing some serious branding changes (and some alleged anti-trust concerns) in the graphics industry at large. Pretty much all Radeon graphics cards will no longer be shipped under the same gaming brand as GeForce tagged cards. This means that the Republic of Gamers (ROG) branding from ASUS is no longer a viable home for the Radeon series.

Faced with this condition from NVIDIA, ASUS decided it is going to be launching a new brand that is dedicated to AMD Radeon cards: AREZ. MSI has already removed their GAMING branding from AMD Radeon cards (and received significant backlash for it)..

The official ASUS website also now has the AREZ series category added, confirming all the rumors ... We reached out to some contacts in ASUS and they had the following to say:

“AREZ cards production started today. Will take a month or two to completely change the packaging with new one”

ASUS ROG Strix will become AREZ Strix [-- etcetra]...

this is probably the best possible outcome that consumers could have seen from a company forced to pariticipate in GPP [Nvidia's program]: a different brand with no features lost in the transition.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/18 10:29 AM

Nvidia's GeForce Partners Program (GPP) was in the last post. Its a "program" designed to remove AMD GPUs from gamer's minds as top-end gaming solutions.

Its not described that way by Nvidia. However, the IT news media does describe it that way. Intel and Nvidia have done this before -- using questionable tactics to stifle competition. Its why, even though Intel/Nvidia make great products, I support AMD.

Now, AMD has responded verbally to Nvidia's GPP. Lots of articles out there today -- Google "nvidia gpp".

Here are the usual (for this thread) highlights from only one article. I try to pick articles that read "even handed" and as an accurate depiction (it may not always seem that way).

Quote
AMD indirectly blasts Nvidia’s GeForce Partners Program in open letter

After the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European Union Commission began responding to complaints surrounding the anti-competitive nature of Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program (GPP), rival graphics chip-maker AMD has released its own statement on the matter. ... Scott Herkelman, AMD Radeon Technologies Group vice president and general manager, wrote in an open letter, highlighting the company’s commitment to open innovation, transparency, partnerships, and goal in expanding the PC gaming ecosystem.

“We pledge to put premium, high-performance graphics cards in the hands of as many gamers as possible and give our partners the support they need without anti-competitive conditions,"..

Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program originally came under fire as a result of a HardOCP report suggesting that the company was encouraging its graphics card partners to not sell AMD products as part of their gaming brands, in order to get a preferential supply of GPUs. It’s been reported that MSI and Gigabyte dropped AMD cards from their lineup to fulfill GPP obligations. It’s also been reported that PC-makers Dell and HP refused to join Nvidia’s program over the restrictions..

The original HardOCP report on the matter is the most damning, but other sites have also been doing their research and have uncovered some similar evidence of their own..

Even if the FTC EU do look into this matter, however, any response is unlikely to be swift..[in the mean time, GPP will raise prices for consumers]


Article

Again, this is not the bash Intel/Nvidia thread. Its the "..Future.. of AMD" thread. These activities by Nvidia constrain AMD's future -- so relevant articles are highlighted here when they involve new or updated information.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/19/18 04:21 PM

Today, April 19, AMD releases the Ryzen 2000 series of CPUs.

I think the new 12nm series is even more "competitive" with AMDs competitors.

Here is a link to a page with links to over 50 review articles. Folks can read these "official" reviews and make up their own minds.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2000 “Pinnacle Ridge” Review Roundup


Links to 50+ Ryzen 2000 Series Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/20/18 12:26 PM

Since my next major purchase will be an AMD Vega or Navi graphics card, I'm following graphics card prices. I don't want to pay a premium over a "normal" list price (i.e. before Cyptocurrency mining raised prices) to replace my current card that works for everything.

Prices are still high. But, there has been a noticeable downward trend very recently (at least at Newegg and Amazon where I look most often).

The high prices on a given model are still ridiculous. But, the "special sale" prices are merely high compared to a reasonable "list price".

Custom RX 560 should sell for about $90-$100 is $125 on special sale today. Roughly 30 percent too high. But, in absolute dollars, its not bad if one needs a new low end card.

Custom RX Vega 64 should sell for a list price of about $550-575 (my opinion). The cheap one is $700 today -- roughly 25 percent too high.

Of course, long term as cryptocurrency mining declines, prices for models that have been on the market 6 months or more should be below list when on sale. Don't know when that might happen.

Just my non-expert observations/opinions.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/18 10:30 PM

Quote
AMD Hints at Faster Ryzen 7 2800X to Counter Intel’s 8 Core Coffee Lake

reviews [have] shown .. in many workloads the Ryzen 7 2700X is a good chunk faster than Intel’s fastest consumer CPU, the six core Coffee Lake i7 8700K. .. And at $330, the 2700X happens to be sitting at that [cost] sweet-spot ..

A Ryzen 7 2800X will likely serve as a halo product and a prideful retort to Intel [8 core Coffee Lake coming later this year]..


Although the 2800X increase in performance over my 1800X will be too small to "see" (only measure it), I may buy one. At least, I'm glad to see they will be coming later this year -- to keep AMD "competitive" with Intel's best 8 core shot (also coming later this year).

Attached picture Screenshot-2018-4-22 AMD Hints at Faster Ryzen 7 2800X to Counter Intel's 8 Core Coffee Lake.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/22/18 10:41 PM

Quote
Intel’s 10nm Cannonlake CPU Based Crimson Canyon NUCs Will Be Shipping With AMD Radeon RX 500 Discrete GPUs

Intel’s 10nm process has been a disaster of epic proportions with countless delays and still no product in sight. Promised to appear in 2017, there’s still no consumer grade product..

Anyways, coming to the NUC, the details show that new NUCs are coming soon and will feature two unusual things, a chip with no integrated graphics .. the discrete graphics will actually be an AMD Radeon RX 500 series GPU..


As noted previously in the thread, AMD and Intel are actually working together on a couple products. AMD is supplying the graphics.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/23/18 09:35 AM

Quote
AMD launches Ryzen 5 2400GE and Ryzen 3 2200GE, low-power APUs


They are 35W units, it is said. They run about 0.3GHz slower than the 65W versions, it is said. The published information is not clear yet regarding prices, intended use, etc.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/18 05:55 PM

Quote
NVIDIA and AMD Graphics Card AIBs Are Expecting A Plunge In Demand Of Up To 40% In April

NVIDIA and AMD add-in-board manufacturers including Gigabyte, MSI and TUL are expecting their shipments to drop by as much as 40% in April .. based on the assumption that cryptocurrency mining demand is going to continue to fall.

..some mining operations have stopped purchasing graphics cards and are actually trying to unload their inventory in anticipation of China’s Bitmain in the third quarter of 2018..

To put it simply the high end of the market segment has started declining, and the channel distributors will be forced to go back into sales promotion mode for gamers..


A rumor. But, good news for gamers, if true.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/18 09:28 AM

Quote
Zen man Jim Keller leaves Tesla for Intel

Jim Keller, the former AMD chip executive behind the Zen roadmap, has left Tesla for Intel and joining fellow AMD .. Raja Koduri to help Chipzilla sort out of its manufacturing stall of the last few years..

Intel is trying to get from 14nm to 10nm for the last four years, and with Koduri and Jim Keller, things might finally work out.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/18 09:37 AM

Quote
AMD results show marked improvement

AMD has surprised Wall Street .. reporting better than expected first quarter results.

.. AMD revenue in the first quarter jumped 40 percent year over year, AMD said. .

CEO Lisa Su said on a conference call with analysts after the earnings report came out that AMD expects that companies will come out with 60 systems based on its Ryzen PC chip architecture by the end of the year..

With its Epyc server chips, AMD has been trying to gain share in a market dominated by Intel. The chipmaker continues to expect to have mid-single-digit server chip unit share by the end of the year, Su said..

..big companies operating large data centres have been testing out an AMD Radeon graphics card for accelerating artificial intelligence workloads..

Blockchain [cyptocurrency mining] represented 10 percent of the company's revenue in the quarter..

In the first quarter, AMD gained share from Nvidia in the graphics card market and took share from Intel in the desktop chip market..

Doomsayers expected much worse from AMD..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/18 09:44 AM

Quote
7nm Radeon Vega Instinct reaches AMD labs

The die shrink is likely to increase the clock speed and power efficiency. This evaluation at AMD labs could be a decisive factor whether to bring 7nm Vega to Radeon RX family.


Possibly out by the end of this year, if it works as well as they hope. Not perfectly clear if first models are for industrial AI calculations or for Games.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-VEGA-20-specifications-1000x377.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/18 04:25 PM

Quote
AMD’s Zen & Athlon64 CPU Architect Jim Keller Joins Intel

Keller was the mastermind behind the most successful and competitive CPU microarchitectures in AMD’s history. ..

Athlon64 was the first consumer x86 64bit CPU and a massive success for the company in the early to mid 2000s. In fact the K7 and K8 designs were so competitive, that it eventually allowed AMD to take nearly half of all x86 CPU share at its peak in 2005.


This is the third recent AMD upper management type (but he was currently head of AI hardware at Tesla) to go Intel.

Thinking is that Intel really is in danger of falling behind. If so, the blame lies with the current Intel staff. I has been speculated that the recent personnel moves are to get folks on Intel staff who know what they are doing.

Interesting that the folks tasked with getting Intel right are former AMD folks.

Maybe AMD ain't so bad after all.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/18 10:15 AM

Quote
AMD Sampling 7nm Zen 2 CPU This Year, Intel Delays 10nm Again

AMD Ramping up 7nm CPUs and GPUs for 2019

CEO Dr. Lisa Su revealed that the company is going to sample a 7nm server CPU later this year.

Big blue [Intel] revealed in its earnings call yesterday that it has delayed its 10nm process yet again [originally promised for 2015] and now expects to begin rolling out 10nm based products some time next year [2019]. .

Intel’s 10nm is [speculated to be] comparable in terms of specifications to 7nm nodes from TSMC, Samsung & Gloablfoundries. But, [the above news] still means that we’re going to see Intel lose its process edge to the remainder of the industry for the very first time in decades.

..this is going to create a new paradigm where the chip giant will have to rely primarily on design ingenuity and not its process lead to compete..

Which is perhaps why we’ve seen Intel go into a frenzy of talent poaching as of late..

With a re-invigorated Intel, a resurgent AMD, and a steadfast NVIDIA, we’re witnessing the beginning of a new chapter in the pages of PC history


One thing I've predicted for years is that all the chip manufacturers would become equal at around 3nm to 7nm node size -- because that's close to the limit of "silicon". At that point, progress will be based on design ingenuity. We're fast approaching that point.

I also predicted that if AMD could "survive" until the 3nm to 7nm region, the stress on AMD would greatly abate -- because AMD would be virtually guaranteed to be "competitive" and competitors (primarily Intel, Nvidia) could not suddenly jump way ahead. This seems to be happening.

Attached picture mark-papermaster-page-019-1030x579.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/29/18 09:55 AM

Quote
AMD lists Ryzen 2100/2300X/2500X and 2800U ready for ‘mass market’

The most recent update to AMD product portfolio has revealed few upcoming products.

AMD Ryzen Desktop: 2100, 2300X, 2500X

quad-core chips designed for budget builds

AMD Ryzen Mobile: 2000U, 2600U, 2800U

AMD Ryzen Threadripper: 2900X, 2920X, 2950X

The Threadripper 2000 series is likely to receive the same Zen+ treatment as mainstream processors, which is memory latency optimization and higher clock speeds:
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/18 10:36 AM

Quote
Video card supply is about to improve

Large mining operations stall buying

It is starting to look like there will be more GPUs in the marketplace as Bitcoin and Etherum are losing some of its momentum, and large mining operations are holding their investment in GPUs until dedicated mining cards ASICs are out..

VentureBeat has noticed that the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 video card is selling on Amazon right now for $700. Other retailers even have it listed at the original MSRP of $600.


Original MSRP ain't bad. Since AMD makes more effective mining cards for the money spent, I expect AMD GPU prices to fall slightly slower than Nvidia prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/18 10:47 AM

Quote
AMD 7nm Vega 20 32GB GPU 3DMark Performance Benchmark Leaked


Yes, but... The information is so vague, that its not worth discussing.

Example, they don't know the clock rates for sure. Example, they don't know if this is a gaming card or commercial card.

The good news is that testing on AMD 7nm GPUs is that far along. Gives something to look forward to as cryptocurrency mining slumps and GPU prices fall back to normal retail prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/18 08:54 AM

Quote
Windows 10 RS4 April update launches [Yesterday]

The April Update or the Windows Version 1803 is launching today, 30 April, ahead of May Day. It was supposed to launch earlier but had a rather severe bug which delayed things..


Performance wise, my Ryzen 7 1800X at 4.0GHz performance changed slightly. Single core measured the same. Multi-core was down roughly 1 percent. Other folks CPUs might behave differently.

Presumably, Windows 10 now does more good things and uses more CPU power in the background. Or, maybe its just slightly slower. Otherwise, it installed fairly quickly and has had no issues yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/02/18 12:03 AM

Quote
Intel Discontinues Kaby Lake-X Quad Cores After a Mere 11 Months Since Release – EOL Plan Announced, Poor Sales and Enthusiast Response Sighted As Reason


The thrust of the foregoing article is that Quad-core is dead among enthusiasts (still good for budget systems -- if the price is right). Kind of like this thread predicted a year ago when 8 core Ryzen hit the store shelves. These days, its about core count and bang per buck -- not single core boost frequency (an opinion).

Also, as previously mentioned, compare the "base frequency" of high core count CPUs from Intel and AMD. Base frequency is what they reliably run on all cores for long periods -- boost frequencies are short term deals for one or two cores on both AMD and Intel unless one provides cooling and overclocks (my 3 overclocked Ryzens run at or slightly above Boost Frequency on all cores all the time -- Ryzen 1800X, 1600X, 2400G -- some unlocked Intel CPUs also run near boost if cooled and OCd).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/18 12:19 PM

Quote
AMD CPU Market Share Jumps 43% in April Alone, Steam Survey Shows – But Did it Really?

The [Steam] survey figures have tended to especially under-report AMD hardware, both on the CPU and GPU sides. Often times by a very significant margin..

Steam survey has also been wildly inconsistent in many regards, except in its ability to significantly under-report AMD hardware. There have been a lot of theories and speculation as to why that is..

The jump for AMD we’re seeing in April is likely the result of an improvement to Steam’s ability to detect AMD processors, rather than a massive and sudden share gain...


Interesting that Steam has routinely under-reported AMD use by Gamers. I always believed the Steam Intel/Nvidia vs AMD numbers -- dummy me. At least, they may be "un-stacking" the deck now.

AMD sales has not caught up. Intel/Nvidia remain on top, sales wise. I expect things to remain that way for at least a few years. Intel/Nvidia make great products (no one is wrong to buy them) -- but, so does AMD, and traditionally AMD gives more practical performance for one's Dollar, Euro, etc (currently GPUs still ridiculous). I expect the Intel/Nvidia lead to shrink over time, if properly reported.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/18 12:26 PM

Quote
Intel and AMD Chipset Roadmap Revealed – 8 Core Intel CPUs and Z390 Boards in 2H 2018, AMD Z490 Boards in June Followed By X399 Refresh in August


Article lists products and some features

For those making near term to winter buying plans, the article has fairly good overview of new motherboard chipsets coming from AMD and Intel during that time
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/18 06:28 PM

Update to above Steam overcounting article. Update is from Steam itself:

Quote
[UPDATE 12:47 PM ET , Friday May 5th 2018]

STEAM HARDWARE SURVEY FIX

..many cyber cafes manage their hardware in a way that was causing their customers to be over counted...

It took us some time to root-cause the problem and deploy a fix, but we are confident that, as of April 2018, the Steam Hardware Survey is no longer over counting users.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/18 06:36 PM

Quote
NVIDIA ends GeForce Partner Program

A lot has been said recently about our GeForce Partner Program. The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program.

GPP had a simple goal – ensuring that gamers know what they are buying and can make a clear choice..


Nvidia Statement Article

GPP has been reported on above in this thread. GPP seemed "suspicious" to a lot of folks. Some predicted an eventual (years from now) lawsuit.

Nvidia says they are cancelling GPP and gives their side of the story in the above article.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/05/18 08:56 AM

Quote
AMD Vega 20 & Vega 12 GPUs Leaked – Vega 20 Features Support for Intrinsic AI Instructions

The patch confirms AMD’s previous announcements and claims about a 7nm Vega chip tailored for the highly lucrative machine learning and AI markets. The patch also confirms that the 7nm chip in question, while never mentioned by name by the company, is in fact Vega 20..

Vega 20 is designed to deliver 8 times the double precision compute performance. It also features double the memory interface width and it features support for up to 4 HBM2 stacks.

This allows it to be equipped with up to 32GB of HBM2 vRAM, and have access to a whopping 1TB/s of bandwidth.

..very little is known about Vega 12 (GFX904) other than the fact that it exists.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/05/18 09:05 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Helps Red Team Recover CPU Market Share at German Retailer After Intel’s Dominance With Coffee Lake

Ryzen 7 2700X Is Now The Most Popular AMD Chip While Intel’s Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K Leads As The Best Selling CPU


Only one retailer's data. But, it indicates current sales trends. The chart shows how the various model CPU sales volumes stack up against each other.

Attached picture AMD-and-Intel-CPUs-Sold_Market-Share_April-2018.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/18 09:04 AM

Quote
AMD Threadripper 2 is Coming in August – Here’s Everything We Know

The Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series is set to launch this upcoming August alongside a collection of new TR4 socket motherboards. ... Some [reports] indicate that the X399 chipset could get an X499 replacement, whilst most reports indicate Threadripper 2 will see the release of a new set of motherboards on the current X399 chipset.

Threadripper 2 will get the same Zen+ 12nm treatment we’ve seen with the Ryzen 2000 series. That means average clock speeds up to 300 MHz higher than 1st gen Threadripper in highly multi-threaded workloads..

..we can expect a Ryzen Threadripper 2950X to hit a core clock of 3.7 GHz+ and a Turbo of 4.35 GHz+. Better overclocking potential also goes without saying..

..cache latency improvements that Zen+ introduces Threadripper 2000 series should put on a good show of performance, especially in games..

Zen+ also means support for significantly faster DDR4 RAM speeds thanks to a drastic improvement to the memory controller.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-2nd-Gen_1-1030x582.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/18 10:56 AM

Quote
Buffett blasts Bitcoin

Rat poison "squared"

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has lashed out at cryptocurrencies and dubbed Bitcoin "rat poison squared".

Buffet claimed that Bitcoin creates a rising price, creates more buyers. If you don’t understand it, you get much more excited. "People like to speculate, they like to gamble.”

"Bitcoin is creating nothing. When you're buying nonproductive assets, all you're counting on is the next person is going to pay you more because they're even more excited about another next person coming along."

He said it was a bit like "tulip mania"..it is reported that a single tulip bulb could be sold for roughly 10 times the annual salary of a skilled craftsman.


Article

Bitcoin mining profitability is up 20 percent over the last month -- a small bounce back after the recent fall. However, mining difficulty is also steadily rising -- difficulty doubled since the new year began.

AMD GPU prices very slowly falling -- but high. For example, AMD Polaris RX580 currently runs in the $300+ range (one RX580 4G on sale today for $280). Last Black Friday, a friend got an RX580 8G on sale for about $190. Hopefully, things will be back to normal by next Black Friday.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/18 09:34 AM

Nvidia fans and those needing a GPU may have cause to celebrate. Interesting Nvidia article. Says prices are MSRP if bought directly from Nvidia site. Its due to a deliberate effort to bypass cryptocurrency mining (which seems to be going dead).

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series Now Back in Stock – Reference MSRPs For Entire Lineup Stack Including The GTX 1080 Ti, Best Deals Listed

NVIDIA has just announced that their GeForce 10 series cards are back in stock and available for sale directly through GeForce webpage. For users who are looking to get the best gaming cards right now, the GeForce 10 series which are available for reference MSRPs..

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series Graphics Cards Get Restocked at GeForce.com – Available at Reference MSRPs


Article

The attached image gives the pictorial of what's available at what price. The article lists sale prices on custom cards.

Being an AMD fan, I have not verified all this smile

Attached picture NVIDIA-GeForce-10-Series-1030x790.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/18 10:16 AM

Quote
Why crypto mining wasn't the only culprit for wild GPU prices

Looking back at the great graphics card shortage

Graphics card prices have been falling back to 'normal' over the past month, and the end of the GPU shortage is finally in sight. But why did we have a shortage in the first place, and are we really out of the woods—and what's going to happen with the next generation of graphics cards, due in the August/September time frame?


Long Article

A long article listing several possible reasons GPU prices were high. But, noting they are coming down. It may be an interesting read for someone interested in the causes of high prices.

Thing is, the article speculates prices will not get back to the old list prices -- because, due to high memory costs, they cost $50 to $100 more to make, and will be priced $100 to $200 more to compensate. The author is using educated guesstimates of memory costs and markups.

The article questions if the next release of AMD and Nvidia GPUs will have high enough FPS to justify their costs. He notes Nvidia is close to the next gaming-GPU release, and AMD is not saying much about AMDs next gaming release (until June).

I am holding out for an AMD GPU much better than I have for list price or less -- it must give bang per buck relative to my current card. The article indicates I may have to wait a while. But, the article is educated speculation (not verified fact). So, we'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/18 04:13 PM

Our local MicroCenter store is having some "sale" prices on custom Nvidia cards. Evidence of the GPU price drop.

I assume prices will drop further. Nvidia is selling the reference model directly for the same or a bit less as noted above.

I assume AMD will drop slower because "dollar for dollar" they are better mining cards and in shorter supply. However, the cheapest RX580 I've seen is closing in on the GTX1060 pricing.



Attached picture Pricing.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/18 04:56 PM

Quote
2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper is now sampling

The Ryzen Threadripper 2000 will utilize 12nm fabrication process..


[Linked Image]

Attached picture Threadripper.PNG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/18 12:40 AM

Quote
AMD latest official slides show CPU and GPU on track

Zen 3, Navi, and next-gen on track

In addition to revealing that Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series is now sampling, AMD has given a bit more information on its future CPU and GPU plans with fresh two new slides, confirming that both Vega and Zen 2 7nm designs are complete as well as that its future designs are on track


[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Attached picture amd-roadmap2020-1.jpg
Attached picture amd-roadmap2020-2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/18 09:06 AM

Some GPU sale prices continue downwards.

ZOTAC GTX1070Ti 8GB $450 today

ASUS RX580 4GB $250 today
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/18 11:53 PM

Quote
Susquehanna Upgrades AMD Amid Intel 10nm Woes

..on Intel’s earnings call last month, the company revealed that it had delayed volume production on its 10 nanometre manufacturing process until next year while AMD said on its call that it planned to start its next generation 7 nm production in late 2018..

Christopher Rolland published the note to clients today stating “We believe Intel’s delay will help to maintain/improve AMD’s competitiveness for their next generation of EPYC and Ryzen products”, while also later commenting that “For the first time in memory, AMD will compete at a similar process technology as Intel, a strong multi-year tailwind”.

Keep in mind also that the discussion around 7 nm and 10 nm is not exactly comparing apples to apples, since despite what things may appear to be on the surface, not all nanometres are created equally. Tech savvy readers here will no doubt know that the headline numbers do not make for all the facts, however, at least in this respect, Rolland is somewhat on the money in that the 7 nm in question is likely comparable to the 10 nm of Intel.


Intel officially delays 10nm. AMD officially begins 7nm production this year. That will matter to CPU performance and AMD vs Intel competitiveness next year.

I pasted the author's obligatory politically correct quote that Intel 10nm is probably equal to AMD 7nm. Fact is, they always write words that soften the blow on Intel -- but have zero evidence that what they write is true. Until evidence is presented by third party CPU tests, AMD 7nm is probably (not certain) better than Intel 10nm -- if only because the node is 30 percent smaller.

Thus, according to stock market pundits, AMD CPU technology has caught Intel CPU technology -- i.e. AMD is "competitive" in the markets that count for earnings ("competitive" means it wins some and loses some).

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/18 08:58 AM

Quote
MSI Presents Radeon RX MECH 2 Series Graphics Cards

Equipped with a new thermal design, the Radeon RX MECH series should allow for higher core and memory speeds which can also provide increased performance in games. The rather sharp looking MECH series cooler is made more noticeable by a fiery red glow piercing through the cover

The MSI Radeon RX 580 Mech 2 should be available worldwide by the end of July, and more information should be released at Computex next month.


Some stories on this new release speculate that the MECH 2 naming stems from the (now cancelled) Nvidia GPP (described earlier in this thread).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/18 01:20 AM

Regarding the competition:
Quote

Nvidia GTX 1180 Expected in July: What You Need to Know

according to industry sources who spoke on condition of anonymity,

we expect a July release for the Founder's Edition cards with third-party cards to follow in August or September.


Nothing much solid, much speculation. Don't even know the actual GPU designations (will they be GTX1180 or GTX2080 or ??), for example.

However, the release dates seem to have been semi-verified. So, new Nvidia graphics cards likely coming out this Summer.

AMD will be officially speaking about the near future of AMD products at the Computex Press Conference in 19 days.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/18 09:56 AM

Quote
Bitcoin players face criminal investigation

Is manipulation the name of the game?

The US Justice Department has opened a case which might end up with criminal charges.

Bloomberg said that the investigation will examine whether people are deliberately manipulating the market by tricking others into selling or buying cryptocurrencies by creating fake orders.

Both Ether and bitcoin are under investigation


In the past, I've read about "market manipulation" by a handful of the biggest players in Bitcoin. Now, the Law is taking notice.

No different than what I noted in the stock market when I was a player there.

Anyhow, this may send Bitcoin and Ethereum prices down faster and make GPUs cheap quicker.

P.S. The cheapest RX Vega 64 8GB custom card is selling for $600 today with free Far Cry 5. Its probably worth $550 list -- so price not awful. There's a similarly almost reasonably priced RX580 4GB at about $260.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/18 03:14 PM

Quote
AMD releases Radeon Software 18.5.1 WHQL driver

it is .. the first WHQL-certified unified driver, which means it now supports Radeon graphics cards as well as new APUs.


Previously, I had to download a separate graphics driver for our Ryzen 5 2400G APU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/18 06:19 PM

Quote
JPR Q1’18 Market Share Report: AMD Gains Market Share From Intel As Cryptocurrency Mining Influence Wanes

..Jon Peddie Research’s quarterly market share report is out..

AMD gained market share from Intel in Q1 2018, NVIDIA holds steady: JPR

AMD’s Vega GPUs have been MIA due to cryptocurrency mining demand..

it is actually impressive that [AMD] has managed to retain its share in the market even though it has been plagued with supply issues and overpricing of its VEGA GPU.

[Nvidia] is planning to release its Turing class of GPUs sometime in July after Computex and those should tap into the pent up demand that gamers have been accumulating over the past couple of months.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/18 09:07 AM

Quote
[Rumor] AMD Bringing 12-16 Core Ryzen CPUs to AM4 in 2019, Roadmap Into 2020 Detailed – Zen 2, Zen 3 & Zen 5

AMD has officially unveiled its current CPU roadmap .. The company detailed its plans well into 2020 and beyond, talking about Zen 2, 3 and even Zen 5.

AMD Unveils CPU Roadmap Into 2020 – Zen 2 & Zen 3 on 7nm & 7nm+, Zen 5 on 3nm

The red team’s CPU roadmap is the most aggressive we have ever seen. AMD now expects to roll-out full fledged 7nm CPU products to the masses by next year, whilst its only competitor Intel is struggling to ramp 10nm. Chipzilla [Intel] revealed last month that it doesn’t expect to introduce 10nm products anytime before 2020 which puts it an incredibly tough spot as it looks to defend the 40 billion dollar server market from a re-energized and well managed competitor in AMD.

[RUMOR] Ryzen 3000 12-16 Core CPUs in the Mainstream AM4 Socket by Next Year

The rumor out there is that we’re looking at 16 core Ryzen 7 chips as the new norm in 2019. However, according to private conversations we’ve had with incredibly knowledgeable people in the industry the actual core count figure might be closer to 12 cores..


As noted here over a year ago (and repeated every so often), high core count CPUs are the future. Games will be written to take advantage. Boost frequency on one or two cores won't matter much. Base frequency will rule. So, if buying a gaming system that has to last a few years, consider base frequency and core count in CPUs (however, GPUs will no doubt be the main gaming factor for a while).

Also, its rumored CPUs are headed to 3nm in the near future. For many years, I've figured 3nm is the limit. I'm probably wrong (not the first time smile ) -- if its going to get done this easily.

This near-future, could cost AMD my business in the here-and-now. I really should wait for AMD's next release of GPUs and CPUs to update -- as they will be 7nm and nominally a big boost over 12-14nm and even 10nm. We'll see.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Screenshot-ZenRoadMap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/18 09:10 AM

A special version of RX Vega 56 has made it into an 8core/16thread Ryzen CPU notebook gaming PC:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 available with Acer Predator Helios 500 notebook

Acer did not reveal any details about the graphics card itself,.. It is offered as an option to GTX 1070 variant, which itself is 115-120W graphics solution.

Acer Predator Helios 500 notebook will be offered in few main variants including Intel i9-8950HK + NVIDIA GTX 1070 and AMD Ryzen 7 2700 + AMD Radeon RX Vega 56. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first true high-performance AMD-only laptop in years.


In other communications, AMD RX Vega is said to use about half the normal power when the voltage is set down a bit -- at very little change in FPS. I have no direct knowledge of that. However, my RX480 works that way -- I cut the voltage and I can run it faster (not slower). Maybe (or maybe not) they've done something along those lines with RX Vega 56 in the notebook PC.

Moreover, Ryzen has good base clocks at low power settings. This notebook seems worth considering -- if the price is right.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Ryzen_Vega_Laptop.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/18 10:17 AM

Quote
Intel Core i7-8086K anniversary edition CPU listed by retailers

Intel’s new Coffee Lake CPU has been listed by retailers.

Intel Core i7-8086K (BX80684I78086K)

June 8th marks 40 years since the introduction of Intel’s most famous processor — the 8086. The 8th Gen Core series launched last year are the perfect opportunity to celebrate this occasion with a special edition named Core i7-8086K.

70 USD/EUR premium over i7-8700K

Not much is known at this point, but the CPU is rumored to be 5.0 GHz chip out of the box. It is, however, still expected to be a 6-core SKU.


Brings back fond memories to a Geeky-Geezer. The original 8086 was 1 core/1 thread (vs 6c/12t), 16bit (vs 64), and 4.7MHz (vs 4.7 -5.0 GHz). The new 8086 CPUs beat the old by a factor of many thousands.

But, it was the best we had for desktops at the time -- those very, very few Engineers who could program and who used desktops at NASA in 1978. The room-filling computers computed faster -- but had long turn around time -- a specialist had to write the FORTRAN code for the Engineer (I was one of a tiny handful who wrote my own code -- there were no "Apps"). Often, one could do one's engineering calculations faster overall on a slower desktop that wasn't being shared with the rest of the Research Center. Now high-end desktops are 1000s of times faster than our Supercomputer was at the time -- millions of dollars cheaper -- fit on a desk -- and easier and more fun to use smile Cell phones are getting there biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/18 01:45 AM

Pictorial describing Ryzen naming convention:

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Naming.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/18 08:32 AM

I personally ordered a PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 AXRX VEGA 64 8GBHBM2-2D2H/OC 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 late yesterday for a $590 sale-price (the sale-price included a free game currently selling for $60 on Steam). This morning, the price jumped back up to $700+ at Newegg and Amazon, so it was a good sale price.

Since this is a high end custom card, I assume its fair price (not influenced by Cryptocurrency mining) would be in the $550 to $600 range. So, I don't feel bad about the price being overly high.

This RX Vega 64 is, on paper, tied for the fastest RX Vega 64 being sold. Based on Vega 64 test reports, its FPS will only be a few percent less than an Nvidia GTX 1080Ti selling for $750 (cheapest I found).

I've also ordered a new ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming AM4 motherboard. Not Gigabyte this time because the ASUS has better location and cooling for the M.2. SSD.

Last year, I had planned to get the GPU and MB a few weeks after each became available. However, cryptocurrency mining pushed up the GPU price (and, not on sale, its still up there). Also, the X470 was recently released.

Just a FWIW post.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/18 12:01 PM

Not sure if you're referencing cherry picked Vega benchmarks, the two cards don't even come close. The GTX1080ti is at least 25% faster and draws much less power.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/18 12:08 PM

Quote
Chinese President Xi Jinping dubs blockchain [a] 'breakthrough'

This might seem a bit ironic as Beijing has effectively halted bitcoin trading domestically, and in September officially banned sales of new digital tokens through the "initial coin offering" process. However, the country remains a hub of activity for blockchain development. Several startups are partnering with the local Chinese government to research or implement the technology.

The blockchain is also mentioned twice in the Chinese State Council's 13th five-year economic plan that was released in 2016..


Very recently (?), China seems now to extol cryptocurrency mining.

Since China is a center for cryptocurrency mining, this might give mining a boost (I'm guessing).

That boost may delay the fall in GPU prices somewhat -- as more folks get into mining (because the Chinese Government supports it explicitly).

Glad I ordered my card on-sale yesterday (as noted, it was in the last 8 hours of the sale). I did not expect the non-sale price to be such a big price jump overnight. Maybe the Chinese President's recent comments had an effect on the size of the jump ???.

EDIT: Hmmm, another Powercolor RX Vega 64 $20 price increase since my post above. Now the price on that RX Vega 64 (noted above) has gone to from $590 to $700 to $720 in just the last few hours. Made me triple-check -- yup, I'm getting it for $590 (price still includes a free $60 game gift card). BTW, they've also added $5 for shipping -- so $725 now (I got free shipping).

EDIT2: Its shipped.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/18 09:59 AM

For those who use cost effective laptops for gaming:

Quote
AMD Fenghuang 15FF Graphics Chip Equipped APU Shows Up on 3DMark – Faster Than RX Vega M GH, 2 GB HBM2 Clocked at 1200 MHz

AMD’s Fenghuang APU Spotted in 3DMark – Faster Than Intel’s Kaby Lake-G Vega Graphics, 2 GB HBM2 Onboard

the processor itself seems to be a Zen+ based APU part with 4 cores and 8 threads.

In the GPU benchmark tests, the AMD Fenghuang chip absolutely demolishes the Intel + Vega processor and only lacks behind in the Physics test which is a CPU intensive benchmark. Overall, if AMD can manage to bring such a chip on to the desktop front, it can be a great solution for discrete GPU less gaming.


These leaked tests are for development items. The final release may be faster.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/18 10:09 AM

Quote
AMD To Demonstrate Never-Before-Seen Hardware at Computex 2018 on 6th June – Updates on Current and Upcoming Products To Be Made By CEO


Report expects 7nm products to be described. Those are due early next year (based on industry guesses).

Attached picture Ryzen-Threadripper.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/18 10:16 PM

Got my PowerColor Red Devil RX VEGA 64. Tested it at stock settings with Firestrike Ultra (4K) and standard Time Spy (2K monitor setting).

80+ percent faster than my stock, Reference RX480 8GB. That's a very satisfactory improvement by my standards.

Runs at 260 W during bench marking. Runs at 8 W for normal desktop stuff. Doesn't get very hot during benchmarks.

My card's performance in the benchmarks is equivalent to on-line GTX 1080 results. The GTX 1080 Ti on-line results are about 25 percent faster than my results with my PC (as Paradaz suggested). My Vega card ran at base frequency (not boost frequency) during test.

I'm happy getting it for $590 (now $725 -- too much). But, folks with no urgent need should wait for the new Nvidia models and the AMD 7nm GPUs rumored for 2019. Being me, I'll buy a 7nm when it arrives next year -- if the price is right.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/18 05:04 PM

Newegg currently has a couple RX Vega 64s for sale at $580 (different from the one I got for $590). Those prices are slightly high for a year-old custom card. But, they are not way out of line (in my non-expert opinion).

So, maybe prices are coming down more than rising. Hopefully, the one I bought for $590 will be well under $550 in a couple months (or less). We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/18 09:42 AM

Quote
AMD to show [7nm] Vega 20 at Computex

..at least for now, 7nm Vega is focused on the Instinct brand for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. This 7nm GPU will not be used for gaming as it would simply be too expensive.

Vega 20 for instinct will have 32GB HBM2 memory, which is definitely something Nvidia is targeting with its V100 based 32GB card.There is a slight chance that AMD might make Vega 20 into a Radeon Pro part, as it can get more money than the BOM (Bill of Material). Bear in mind that a 7nm big GPU won't have great yields. No one has made 7nm GPUs so far and obviously yields at the beginning are slim.

To our knowledge, Nvidia will stay with 12nm TSMC for its Turing cards as 7nm is too risky for massive scale gaming GPU production.

expect AMD to show its Vega 20, 7nm 32GB card at its press conference at Computex, coming Wednesday, ..


Commercial 7nm coming out first was always the plan. I'm heartened because the first 7nm parts are apparently "on schedule". Thus, as of now, gamers can still expect 7nm parts next year. The rumor is that those 2019 7nm gaming cards will be inexpensive per FPS (assuming mining is not an issue).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/18 10:00 AM

Quote
Elder Scrolls, Fallout Director Todd Howard To Get Industry Legend Award at Gamelab

Todd Howard, the veteran game designer/director known for his work on Elder Scrolls (from Daggerfall to Skyrim) and Fallout 3/4, will receive the Industry Legend award during this month’s Gamelab conference in Barcelona, Spain.


I note this because Elder Scrolls and Fallout games are my favorites lately (I got started gaming with Flight Simulators -- XPlane 11 lately).

I get as much fun modding games and installing other gamers' mods as I do actually playing -- and both of those Todd Howard games were designed to lend themselves to modding.

The relevance here: I have Fallout 4 so heavily modded with large textures and added 3D features that it runs real slow at times. So, for me, FO4 was the "acid test" of my new RX Vega 64 card. I played about 5 hours of FO4 yesterday. RX Vega passed. At 2K (1440p) and stock GPU clocks, it got my 15FPS to 20FPS game sections to solidly over 30FPS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/18 10:08 AM

Quote
Jensen Huang: Next GeForce is a long time from now

During the first press conference before Computex, NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang was asked multiple times when to expect the next GeForce series.

What Jensen told everyone was that they will be invited to the launch of new GeForce, but they should not expect it very soon. This confirms what we have been hearing from the industry for the past few months, NVIDIA has not given any details to their partners yet, so there is nothing to talk about yet.


I assume this means the "next big thing" from Nvidia will be a 10nm or less part -- maybe late this year or next year aimed at "stealing AMD's 7nm thunder".

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/18 10:07 AM

Regarding competition (which is good smile ):

Quote
Intel Shows Off 28 Core, 56 Thread Core-X HEDT Processor For Enthusiasts, In Market Q4 ’18 – Promises More X299 and Mainstream Core Family Updates This Year

The 28 cores and 56 threads for consumers and enthusiasts would be unlike anything that has been done on the HEDT platform before. In Cinebench, the chip was shown running at 5.00 GHz across all cores (2.70 GHz base) and scored 7334 multi-core points. In comparison, an overclocked Core i9-7980XE with 18 cores and 36 threads scores around 5000 points so that is a mighty jump. We cannot confirm whether the overclock was on air cooling, liquid cooling or LN2..


Articles tend to tout maximum performance on short duration benchmarks (for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel) -- probably because it makes a more interesting article. In running Fire Strike, for example, the test periods are short (15s to 45s on my PC). In Cinebench, on a high core count CPU, the test is over quickly.

During those short periods, CPUs and GPUs can run hot and not falter -- because they can be started cool and only spend seconds (not many minutes or hours) at the top heat.

Stressful long term computations or CPU limited sections of high end games run hot for longer duration than the most used benchmarks. Thus, I'd like to see results of "stress test benchmarks" in these articles (i.e. what is the maximum "continuous" performance over 60+ minutes). In a stress test, I assume the clocks would have to run close to base-frequency.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/18 10:18 AM

Speaking of Base clocks vs Boost clocks, this article gives a more complete picture.

Quote
Intel Core i7-8086K Anniversary Limited Edition CPU Announced – A 8700K On Steroids With 5 GHz Boost, 95W TDP

We are looking at a base clock of 4.00 GHz which boosts all the way up to 5.0 GHz. The 5.0 GHz boost clock is single-core and all core boost is rated at 4.4 GHz but mostly stable at 4.3 GHz unless provided proper cooling. The processor being a ‘K’ SKU can be further overclocked but we don’t expect large gains in overclocking..


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/06/18 10:28 AM

AMD had its news conference yesterday. Outlined new products -- including 7nm graphics and 32core/64thread CPU for high end desktops. Here's the list -- using the usual article quotes:

Quote
AMD Demos World’s First 7nm GPU: the New Vega Instinct With 32 GB HBM

The roadmap still remains the same: Starting with Vega 14nm, we will get a shrink down to 7nm and then move on to Navi – also at 7nm. Finally, We will get the Next-Gen architecture sometimenear 2020 which will leave behind GCN once and for all.

The new Vega Instinct will be based on the 7nm process which offers 35%more performance since the last generation node (14nm) and has twice the power efficiency meaning it can do that in half the wattage. Density has also doubled allowing for either drastically smaller die sizes or twice as big GPUs.

The company gave a very short – but working – demo for the 7nm as well, showcasing its rendering capability. This is something that will allow it to make headway into the ray tracing market that NVIDIA CUDA currently occupies. The company also revealed that the card is sampling to partners right now and will be officially launching sometime in the second half of 2018. [this card is not for gaming]

NVIDIA does not have a 7nm processor right now (Volta is 12nm)


Attached picture Screenshot-2018-6-6 AMD Demos World's First 7nm GPU the New Vega Instinct With 32 GB HBM.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/06/18 10:30 AM

Gets the jump on the Intel 28core CPU.

Quote
AMD 2nd Generation Ryzen Threadripper CPUs With Up To 32 Cores and 64 Threads Confirmed – Built on 12nm Zen+ Process, First Demo Shown, Launch in 2H 2018

AMD has just dropped the bomb at Computex 2018, showcasing their very first 2nd Generation Ryzen Threadripper flagship processor with up to 32 cores and 64 threads, something we knew would happen and reported last year. The announcement comes a day after Intel announced their flagship 28 core, 56 thread Cascade Lake-X CPU for Q4 2018.

Just like Pinnacle Ridge processors, the new Ryzen Threadripper processors will feature the latest Precision Boost and XFR clocking techniques for more stable and efficient operation over the current Threadripper variants. We can also expect faster clocks out of the box in terms of both base and booth frequencies and a good gain in overclocking improvements. AMD will also keep compatibility retained on current X399 motherboards with the TR4 socket

AMD Also Confirms 7nm Zen 2 “ROME” EPYC CPUs In Labs, Shows First Sample


Attached picture Screenshot-2018-6-6 AMD Announces 2nd Gen Ryzen Threadripper With 32 Cores, 64 Threads.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/06/18 10:36 AM

Competitive in server CPUs too:

Quote
AMD Computex 2018: EPYC is “More Performance At Every Price Point” Compared To Competitors

AMD compares EPYC price points to Intel Xeon at Computex 2018

When the cost per unit is less than $1000, AMD has a clear performance advantage, as the cost per unit increases (ie you move towards more powerful variants) the margin decreases [but AMD still leads].

The company also announced three new server efforts: including getting CISCO on board and them pronouncing EPYC the “densest” server computing solution yet.


Attached picture Screenshot-2018-6-6 AMD Computex 2018 EPYC is More Performance At Every Price Point Compared To Competitors.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/06/18 10:54 AM

Simple summary:

AMD CPUs have caught up to Intel overall and AMD is competitive -- wins some and loses some. Now, its Intel that has to work hard to stay competitive.

Likewise with GPUs. Nvidia has the lead today. But, its really not a big lead -- comes down to what one has to pay that day. Most gamers do not buy $500 GPUs, they want to spend closer to $200 maximum. If AMD 7nm GPUs stay on track for launch next year or early in 2020, Nvidia will have to match (I assume they will). But, for practical (bang for buck) purposes, take away cryptocurrency GPU price rises and AMD technology is already competitive with Nvidia (or will be in 2019, depending on one's viewpoint).

Long term, "competitive" is all we consumers can hope for -- because the industry is reaching the end of what can be done with silicon (other than add more CPU cores or GPU shaders). Competition will give Intel, Nvidia, and AMD buyers the best products sooner, for less cash.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/07/18 10:18 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Using 7nm Process Technology Coming To Gamers, 2019 Release Sheduled

AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su, announced at their Computex 2018 press conference that 7nm GPUs will be coming to gamers. The graphics cards will make their way to the market around 2019 but what is not confirmed at the moment is whether AMD is talking about 7nm Vega or 7nm Navi for gamers.

So 7nm Radeon RX is definitely coming to gamers, but [the author assumes] it would be based on Navi meaning that AMD has not changed their roadmap and are sticking to it. ..


So a slight bit more confirmation of 7nm AMD gamer's card for 2019. Articles are guessing RX Navi branding. Previous articles "guessed" that the first RX Navi would perform equally to RX Vega 64 and GTX 1080 -- but cost only $250 (the gaming GPU price sweet spot).

It will probably be months before anything more accurate/concrete is actually known.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/18 02:15 PM

If one is looking for a tiny card:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano (Powercolor) Close-up Shots From Computex 2018

AMD officially announced the Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano at Computex 2018 this year and its time we posted close-up shots of this tiny card. Nano editions have been pretty popular before and if the company is able to ship this in volume, this could be too.


Also, found a recent (4 days old) test article comparing my new Powercolor RX Vega 64 to the popular high end cards. Current tests are good because they use current GPU drivers -- which improve as time marches on.

In 18 game tests (9 at 2K and the same 9 at 4K), GTX 1080Ti wins all. My Powercolor RX Vega comes in 2'd in 15 out of the 18 tests. GTX1080 comes in 2'd in 3.

Thus, based on an independent test it meets my objectives for a very good gaming card. However, the FPS difference between my RX Vega and GTX1080 is very small.

Right now, Newegg has my card for $600 and the cheapest GTX1080 at $504 -- and, the cheapest comparable 3 Fan version of GTX1080 is $540. So, GTX1080 is the cost effective solution today.

Attached picture RXVegaNano.jpg
Attached picture PowerColorRXVega.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/18 04:14 PM

Allen, you've changed thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/18 08:08 PM

Quote
TSMC speeds up 7nm process production plan

If you have been listening to all recent signals like for example AMD's Computex announcements, 7nm chips are arriving much faster than originally anticipated.

TSMC has received growing customer demand in favor of 7nm node manufacturing for their chip products, said the sources, adding that more of its major fabless clients intend to skip 10nm process and go directly to 7nm one. HiSilicon, MediaTek, Xilinx and Nvidia have all disclosed their adoption of TSMC's 7nm process in their next-generation chip products.


AMD announced skipping 10nm for 7nm a long time ago. No doubt, others were thinking about it. But, the ball is rolling now. I wonder if Intel will keep on trying at 10nm -- its a year or more overdue.

Meantime, one should note, that 12nm, 10nm, 7nm are not absolute physical dimensions. Rather, they are partly physical dimensions and partly a way of describing roughly how effectively a particular chip works. To put it another way, all 7nm are not created equal size.

Nonetheless, once AMD and a couple others jumped to 7nm, it pushed many to jump -- because they have to compete. This is good for the customer.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Flogger23m

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/18 11:03 PM

Really hope Zen 2 (Ryzen 3?) brings a big GHZ increase as well as IPC increase. Just bought a Ryzen 2700X. Going from a Ryzen 1600, which worked great. Figured I'd do the side grade. I really just wanted it to boost to 4.35GHZ for ArmA 3 & DCS. It felt like too much effort to upgrade to another 6 core, so I decided to spend a bit more and get 8C/16T.

If anyone has any interest in a Ryzen 1600 let me know as I should be putting it up for sale in around a week and a half.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/18 08:50 PM

Quote
Bitcoin price plunges after cryptocurrency exchange is hacked

[Bitcoin] lost $500 (£372) in an hour, dropping to $6,627 on the Luxembourg exchange Bitstamp, while most other digital currencies also recorded large losses.

US regulators were investigating potential price manipulation at four major cryptocurrency exchanges

“Plenty of latecomers to the cryptocurrency rally have had their fingers burnt, have taken their losses (or are still sitting on them) and have vowed never to return,”


Today, Bitcoin price was within a fraction of lowest in over a year. Profitability was lowest in years. Price manipulation seems to have been there from the beginning (in my readings).

Today, at Newegg, the cheapest 3 Fan GTX 1080 is $540 and the cheapest 3 Fan RX Vega 64 is $570 (both include a free game). The cheapest GTX1080Ti is $750.

At release, the Reference RX Vega 64 list price was $500 -- and custom 3 fan cards were expected to be $50 more. That price jumped up quickly after release due to increased HBM2 memory prices that (some speculate) added close to $50 to the cost. Hence, it was not unusual to pay roughly $600 for a Vega 64, even at the beginning. Thus, $550-$600 list price (more or less) is not way out of line for AMD cards like these -- particularly if one wants to use their "compute" functionality.

But, as has been noted in various SimHQ threads, now's not the time to buy -- unless one very much wants a particular model and it goes on good sale (my rational-ization smile ). I assume the price will continue to drop.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/18 11:09 PM

Quote
Intel CEO: We Will Likely Lose Server Market Share to AMD’s EPYC

Mr. Krzanich was very matter-of-fact in saying that Intel would lose server share to AMD in the second half of the year. This wasn’t new news, but we thought it was interesting that Mr. Krzanich did not draw a firm line in the sand as it relates to AMD’s potential gains in servers; he only indicated that it was Intel’s job to not let AMD capture 15-20% market share.”

[AMD currently has 1% share] Should AMD get to 10% market share, ~$1.8 billion, they would be adding a massive 40% above their total 2017 revenue. This includes everything [AMD sells]

AMD’s fab partners succeeding at the next node (7nm) where Intel is struggling (10nm)

Intel has pushed its major ramp of 10nm products to next year, while AMD’s major fab partner for 7nm, TSMC, is forging ahead right on schedule for 7nm production later this year. AMD may very well beat Intel to market with next-generation chips by half a year or more.

Thanks to its modular layout, AMD is bringing more cores to bear for less money, all while matching Intel toe-to-toe on the all-important cost metric: energy efficiency.

more and more applications are all about cost versus efficiency and AMD’s EPYC is looking to score some big design wins because of it.

AMD stock has been strengthening in the last weeks and has is up 50% over the last 6 weeks. AMD closed today $15.73, a 10 year high. Intel closed 1%down today.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/18 01:12 PM

An article that claims to have "inside knowledge" of AMD's Future Direction and its implications. May be worth a read to someone really interested in AMD's future.

Quote
Exclusive: The AMD Inside Story, Navi GPU Roadmap And The Cost Of Zen To Gamers

it is essential to understand AMD’s contextual backdrop – both in terms of talent and finances. The company has a market capitalization $15.25 billion and has struggled to turn a profit. In comparison, competitors like NVIDIA and Intel are giants with market capitalization of $158.2 billion and $254.1 billion respectively and net income in the billions of dollars as well. The same goes for talent as well, it costs money and AMD has a relatively smaller pool of (very) talented engineers that can work on a given project at one time as compared to its much bigger rivals.

Lisa’s dilemma: A CPU comeback with semi-custom centric [GPU] roadmaps or maintain expensive leadership in graphics for gamers

AMD built Vega for Apple and it is building Navi for the Sony PS5 – which is expected to launch in 2020

Creating value for shareholders vs value for gamers

While it’s clear to me that Lisa steered the company towards the steady and reliable income of the semi-custom [GPU] market and prioritized the CPU side of things over [gaming], I cannot bring myself to say it was a bad thing in terms of creating value for shareholders.

Sacrificing some of their gaming blood to make a comeback in the x86 market and a slow but steady stream of income from the mainstream and semi-custom GPU market is the trade-off at play here and while I do not have the actual numbers to back any kind of statement, it does seem like a feasible choice to make. Lisa’s choice might have robbed Radeon fans of their birthright, but it probably saved the company.


This author is predicting no AMD 7nm for gamers early next year. Rather, initially, 7nm will be for industrial clients and also aimed at the new PS5 Console.

The author agrees with the AMD plan, in principle because it keeps AMD alive and progressing. Currently, according to this author (and many others) AMD is giving Intel serious problems. However, Nvidia is "off the hook" at the high-performance-GPU end for a couple more years (according to the author).

For the next couple years, AMD will concentrate on cost effective products for the "mainstream" GPU market that applies to most gamers -- if one wants the fastest FPS regardless of cost, that will be Nvidia for a while longer.

We'll see how this turns out - the author may be incorrect. However, if the article is correct and the AMD plan keeps AMD alive to compete, that's a good thing -- because, otherwise, Intel and Nvidia have no competition; that is bad for everyone.

Article
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/18 05:51 PM

Nice summary, Allen, thanks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/18 10:03 AM

Thanks for the Thanks smile

Rumors rumors rumors. The pundits are digging for something to write about. Use much salt on these headlines. The articles have no real information -- just speculation.

Quote
AMD Navi GPUs Will Not Use MCM [Multi-Core-Module] Design, Feature Single Monolithic Die Instead, Reveals RTG SVP [Senior Vice President] – [AMD Has] Yet To Conclude If MCM Can Be Used in Traditional Gaming Graphics Cards


Quote
GeForce 20 rumors: HDMI 2.1 and new Boost Clock?


Still rumoring Nvidia might be doing something relatively big for August. High end performance and pricing are rumored.

Rumors say AMD is aiming at next year for a new gaming card. But, little is based on actual knowledge. As noted earlier in this thread, other slightly believable rumors I've read say the card will be effectively an RX Navi for $250 -- that performs like a currently $600 RX Vega 64

AMD fans have been waiting for multi-core GPUs -- similar to multi-core used in the Threadripper. The benefit is extremely high graphics-shader counts -- for the lowest manufacturing costs.

The attached image from the AMD article shows what's meant by single core and multi-core. The article says Multi-core AMD GPUs are not likely next year -- as originally thought. However, they are under active consideration.

Attached picture SingleVsMultiCore.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/18 04:58 PM

Quick one (for me).

I play Fallout 4 at 1440p (2K) loaded down with mods -- not a nuclear desert -- rather a verdant, thick 3D modeled forest of 3D trees loaded with 3D weeds and grasses (as would be the case 200 years after the war). The graphical textures have been upped from 512 and 1024 pixels to mostly 2048 and 4096 pixels. A real load on the CPU and GPU.

I was happy that my new RX Vega 64 seemed to boost FPS significantly vs my Reference RX480. However, there were still sections of the cities (also overgrown with plant life) where the minimum FPS still dropped to 15 in some view directions (playable but too noticeable). It was virtually identical with my RX480 GPU. Obviously, more GPU power would not make much difference. And, CPUs don't get much faster than mine.

Today, I searched to see if there was an "answer". There are (by my count) 22 optional graphics settings in FO4. Normally, I have them all on the maximum settings -- usually called "ultra" (I do that in all games).

The answer: Only one mattered -- "Shadow Distance". I had that on Ultra. Setting to High or Medium doubled the slow parts from roughly 15FPS to roughly 30FPS (kept all else on Ultra). Many other sections away from the city have moved to near 60FPS or over (I use the Steam overlay FPS counter, my monitor refreshes at 60FPS so that's the max for my system).

Interesting to me that only one innocuous setting caused the issue (I assume shadows multiplied when the 3D models in view multiplied). Apparently, its not strictly a GPU issue. So, a faster GPU is not always the answer. FWIW, on my system, normal, unmodified games all run fast so far -- but, I like to self-mod and download mods -- its half the fun.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/18 09:17 AM

Quote
AMD Sneakily Launches The Radeon Pro V340 – Dual Vega 10 GPU With 32GB HBM2

The card was quietly unveiled in a presentation given by Nick Pandher, Director of Market Developement Professional Graphics at AMD during a chinese press event. The card is one of the first AMD cards to feature 32 GB of HBM2 memory and is essentially 2 Vega 10s running in parallel. The graphics card is being purported as a virtualization solution with capacity for 32 users.


Author speculates this is not 7nm, Just a dual-GPU chip Vega for professional compute applications.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/18 09:25 AM

Quote
AMD Reaffirms 7nm EPYC ‘ROME’ Server Processors Sampling in 2H 2018, Availability in 2019 – To Bring Core Count Bump, More Bandwidth, Increase I/O

Intel’s CEO, said in an interview recently that they are expecting to lose server CPU market share to AMD’s EPYC processors.

made a proper plan to tackle Intel Xeon CPUs on all fronts. They weren’t just going for the flagship parts, they were aiming Intel at every price point and in single and multi-socket configs.


A reiteration that 7nm is real and sampling for CPUs. First ones are for professional use. But, it puts AMD on track for 7nm consumer (gamer) CPUs.

Attached picture AMDCPURoadmap.png
Attached picture AMD-EPYC-7nm-Rome-CPUs_15.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/18 09:32 AM

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AMD Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X Mainstream AM4 Quad Core CPUs Spotted, First Benchmarks Revealed – Boost Up To 4.00 GHz

AMD is readying two new Ryzen 2000 series desktop processors which will soon be available to gamers around the $150 US sweet spot. The new processors include Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 SKUs that are going to aim the budget gamer market with all of the features available on current 2nd generation Ryzen CPUs.

.. the Ryzen 5 2500X. This is a quad core with multi-threading capabilities. It features a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boosts up to 4.00 GHz,

..expect something close to the $150-$160 US range which will be a great value considering the performance metrics put it really close to Intel’s Core i7-7700.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/18/18 08:43 PM

Intel is having a sweepstakes to give away i7-8086 CPUs. However:

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AMD Will Trade Your Intel Core i7-8086 Win For A 16-Core 1950X Threadripper

..if you are one of the lucky winners that get a Core i7-8086 from the Intel Sweepstakes – AMD is giving you a choice to trade that in for a much more powerful CPU..

..it is only valid for the first 40 trades (Intel will be giving away 8086, Intel Core i7-8086 CPUs)..


As a practical matter, this is unlikely to affect any of us. But, its a cute marketing stunt.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/18 09:42 AM

Quote
The reason why AMD's Vega power was high

Power optimization engineers went to EPYC

It is no big secret that Vega 64 and 56 had quite high thermals and didn’t actually meet some of its performance targets. Some key power optimization engineers were pulled from the Vega team to the more important goal. The Naples server chip had a higher priority.

The server, chip now known as EPYC had more priority for long-term performance and the survival of AMD and we definitely agree with this assessment. But since AMD doesn’t have a lot of talented engineers sitting around, moving some people from one group to another could affect the end result.

Taking key talents from GPU and moving them to the server business meant that EPYC has some impressive power to performance ratios but at the same time Vega didn’t.

At least now it makes a bit more sense.


This article has the same theme as a previous post n the thread. AMD put the effort where the money was to be made. And succeeded in catching up to Intel CPUs -- at the cost of allowing Nvidia GPUs to be uncontested at the very highest end.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/18 09:59 AM

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X Flagship 32 Core, 64 Thread 4.00 GHz CPU Detailed and Benchmarked – Overclocks Up To 4.12 GHz Across All Cores on High-End Corsair AIO Liquid Cooler

The chip, which will be based on the 12nm FinFET process will be part of the 2nd generation Ryzen Threadripper lineup that launches in Q3 2018.

AMD 2nd Generation Ryzen Threadripper 2990X CPU Specifications, Performance and Overclock Potential Detailed, Disrupts Intel’s 28 Core 5 GHz Computex Demo

The chip will rock 32 cores and 64 threads which eclipses Intel’s Halo product which will sport only 28 cores and 56 threads. The chip tested was a B2 stepping with a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 4.0 GHz while the precision boost overdrive clocks are rated at +200 MHz so expect up to 4.20 GHz in single core optimized workloads. This shows that AMD can still achieve very high clock speeds even when they jumped to twice as many cores as their previous flagship, the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X.

we have confirmation of at least two processors in the 2nd Gen Threadripper family which will include:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X 32 Core/64 Thread
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970X 24 Core/48 Thread

AMD also stated that they are preparing new coolers for the Ryzen Threadripper 2nd generation processors.


Unfortunately, there's no way I can use 32 cores effectively -- wish I could -- so I could rationalize buying one of these 32 core wonders.

As many articles have pointed out, Intel's 5GHz tests of its 28 core unit were unrealistic (to be polite). The Intel CPU will run a lot slower than that. So, AMD wins the "highest core count" performance crown -- today. Also, the predicted AMD price is much lower than the Intel price. AMD should win "bang per buck" also.

Competition is good smile Unfortunately, AMD had to choose between competing in CPUs and GPUs at this time -- they picked CPUs. I imagine GPUs and the Nvidia competition are next. But the rumor is AMD will compete mostly at the GPU prime price point -- rather than the highest end price and performance point. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/18 07:41 PM

Good news for Nvidia fans. Nvidia is WAY oversupplied with GPU chips. So Nvidia GPU prices should plummet. I wondered why they were falling so fast (GTX1080 down to $500 -- with a free game included)
Quote

One of NVIDIA’s Major OEM Partners Allegedely Returned 300,000 GPUs, Major Inventory Issues Being Cited For Next-Gen GeForce Launch Delay

"Reports out of Taiwan now suggest that Nvidia has a gaming GPU inventory problem.

‘Semiaccurate’ reported on the issue yesterday, and cited excess inventory in the channel as the primary reason for new gaming GPU delay.

The glut is so severe that one top Asian OEM partner reportedly returned 300k GPUs to Nvidia."


..the issue is that they have actually manufactured an inventory [of completed cards] which they cannot manage now.

We are talking about prices that reached over $2000 US for the Radeon RX Vega 64 and the GeForce GTX 1080 which retailed for $699 at launch

Article

UPDATE: A different article says Nvidia will be charging artificially high prices for the top of its new generation -- speculating it comes out in the second half of this year. A result of no competition at the high end from AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/18 02:40 AM

Prices are going up -- for no added value.
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Breaking: Supreme Court Rules States Can Tax All Internet Sales

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse a 1992 ruling that mandated states could only tax e-commerce if the retailer in question has a physical presence in the state. So if popular computer hardware vendor, Newegg, did not have a warehouse or hub in your state, you could buy a video card and pay only for the product and shipping costs.

All that is soon to change as today’s landmark reversal gives states the authority to start demanding their fair share of internet sales tax.


Quote
We fought the American Revolution in large part to oppose the very idea of taxation without representation. Today, the Supreme Court announced, 'oops' governments can now tax those outside their borders—those who have no political power, no vote, no voice."


In my view, the USA Constitution as originally written and intended did not allow taxation across State borders. A 5-4 Supreme Court vote nearly always means the strict constitutionalists (we have 4) voted against and the 4 who don't give a darn about the Constitution voted for -- and our resident swing voter voted yes. The correct vote was NO -- as it was in 1992 when we were less corrupt. Then the correct procedure would have Congress change the law and amend the Constitution accordingly -- if people really wanted this change. Of course, it was politically unviable to do that.

Thing is, although technology changes, people are people -- now, 300 years ago and 3000 years ago. The historians over all that time (starting 3500 years ago) have noted that the corrupted politicians want control. They always go about getting it the same way (Socialism). However, folks are not taught (in school) about how things were long ago -- and how badly it always turned out. So, they don't get it.

It starts small -- with seemingly fair but unconstitutional changes. Later, in a couple decades, things get decidedly less beneficial. Always has worked this way and always will. I won't be alive to see this particular "fall" (towards a clever, under=the-table dictatorship -- for the good of the wealthy few).

Oh well, GPUs and CPUs will now cost more on average due to "border crossing'" state taxes. Thus, people will have less to spend on actual products -- and companies that sell via the internet will lose a small amount of business (in the USA).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/18 03:07 PM

AMD 7nm is definitely coming soon to industry -- 2H 2018 -- I assume closer to end of half. We just need to know when its coming for gamers. Maybe not as soon.

Quote
TSMC Begins Mass Production of 7nm Process, AMD Vega 7nm Confirmed, Zen 2 CPUs Expected Too – Production Capacity To Increase By 3 Times Next Year

AMD 7nm Vega and 7nm Zen 2 CPUs Orders Received by TSMC, 7nm Mass Production Officially Begins

TSMC has officially begun mass production of their 7nm node at their Fab 15. It is stated that TSMC has already confirmed the production of AMD 7nm GPUs that are part of their Radeon Instinct and Radeon Pro lineups, expected to hit market availability in 2H 2018.

TSMC is expecting to win orders for AMD CPUs too. The only CPU that AMD has in their pipeline and uses 7nm process is the upcoming Zen 2 architecture which will be a big leap for the company in terms of performance and efficiency.

"Compared to its 10nm FinFET process, TSMC’s 7nm FinFET features 1.6X logic density, ~20% speed improvement, and ~40% power reduction. TSMC set another industry record by launching two separate 7nm FinFET tracks: one optimized for mobile applications, the other for high-performance computing applications". via TMSC


Attached picture AMD-7nm-Radeon-Vega.png
Attached picture AMD-EPYC-7nm-Rome-CPUs.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/18 11:53 AM

Nvidia GTX 1080 on sale for $480 today -- a couple more for $500.

My Powercolor Vega 64 is still $580.

So, Nvidia GPU prices continue to drop. They have a lot of excess inventory to sell. Good news for someone needing a good card today at a good price today smile

The GTX 1080Ti is $720 and up today. A good price compared to the Vega 64 (I like my Vega 64 smile ). But, no doubt, GTX1080 is all one needs (runs like a Vega 64). So, price is becoming a factor in picking between 1080 and 1080Ti.

Seems like cryptocurrency mining is no longer an issue for Nvidia. It may still be affecting AMD prices slightly.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/18 09:56 AM

Quote
AMD Adding HDR To Freesync 2 Rebrand Now Titled FreeSync 2 HDR and Increases Minimum HDR Requirement

they have gone the route of renaming the technology to FreeSync 2 HDR conveys the focus on the new feature-set: LFC (Low Framerate Compensation) and the FreeSync 2 HDR fast-lane for tone-mapping improvements.

AMD FreeSync 2 HDR Supports At Least HDR600 And More

..clarified on what specifications are required for a monitor to receive FreeSync 2 HDR certification: support for at least HDR600, coverage of 99 percent of BT.709 and 90 percent of the DCI P3 color spectrum. Also mentioned that there was a minimum response time,


The foregoing are minimums for a monitor to be certified as "FreeSync 2 HDR". A given monitor make and model may do better.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/25/18 06:40 PM

Quote
Micron Officially Commences GDDR6 Mass Production – Coming To High-Performance NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon Graphics Cards

The GDDR6 memory solution offers higher performance at lower cost and much less complexity compared to traditional DDR4 and GDDR5 memory..

..variants can go as high as 14.0 Gbps at 1.35V which will push bandwidth even further..



Quote
NVIDIA’s new Non-Disclosure Agreement leaked


Non-Disclosure Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/18 10:35 AM

Quote
Samsung Can Double Their HBM2 Manufacturing Capacity But Supply Issues Would Still Persist as Demand Exceeds Production

The Samsung developed HBM2 which is known as Aquabolt is the fastest spec’d memory solution to date with a capacity of 8GB per stack and up to 307 GB/s of bandwidth per stack..

Now, this is an issue for professional and high-end graphics cards such as AMD Vega and NVIDIA Volta lineup which currently only uses HBM2 memory but DRAM makers, including Samsung are working on the next best thing for consumer grade graphics cards known as GDDR6.


Currently, RX Vega 64 performs equivalently or slightly better than GTX 1080 in games -- but, it costs about $80 more today.

Among the reasons Vega costs more is HBM2 memory cost -- which is going to stay high for a while. AMD did not have that in mind when they decided to use HBM2 in RX Vega. Since AMD deliberately tries to win "bang per buck", maybe they will use GDDR6 in some new cards next year (that would have been HBM2).

Also, while commenting on reasons for the cost difference, the AMD Vega GPU chips (both Vega 64 & 56) have nearly twice as many transistors as GTX1080. Those extra transistors along with HBM2 give Vega an advantage in money-making "compute" activities -- so, cryptocurrency miners drove up the price.

As noted above in this thread, Nvidia has too many chips on hand which is driving the cost of Nvidia GPUs way down. Exception, GTX 1080 TI cost is staying relatively high -- possibly because it has no direct gaming competition. No competition is no good (to twist a phrase often used in this thread).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/18 10:56 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X listed for 1509 EUR

The 32-core HEDT CPU coming to the TR4 platform is about to shake the industry, which has remained in core-stagnation for years.


32 cores/64 threads at 3.4GHz base frequency. Normally, for a given high-core-count part, the high end AMD CPU product has higher base clocks than the equivalent Intel CPU.

CPU core count is the future (where have I read that before?) -- 32 cores is arriving a bit faster than even I thought it would. AMD will deliver competitive cores at the best "bang per buck" -- low relative cost is part of the AMD "game plan".

Now that the cores are available, more and more software that needs to run fast will begin to use lots of threads -- e.g. high-end games. Still, I expect it to be a few years before 32 cores are an expected feature of high-end gaming rigs.

Attached picture AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/18 04:31 PM

More of the same:

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X 32 Core, 64 Thread Behemoth X399 HEDT CPU To Cost Around $1500 US – Listed By Retailer, Wrecks the i9-7980XE in Price Per Core, Price Per Performance Metrics

t looks like the first listing of AMD’s upcoming Ryzen Threadripper 2990X HEDT processor has just appeared and found out by Videocardz. AMD already upped the ante when the announced a 32 core, 64 thread behemoth processor against Intel’s new HEDT which would pack 28 cores but they are going to take it one step ahead by offering that many cores for less than Intel’s current flagship which packs only 18 cores.


It was reported earlier that the AMD game plan was to catch Intel first. Then, try to catch Nvidia later. Because they could not afford to do both at the same time.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/18 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
[quote][b]Now that the cores are available, more and more software that needs to run fast will begin to use lots of threads -- e.g. high-end games. Still, I expect it to be a few years before 32 cores are an expected feature of high-end gaming rigs.


I don't necessarily agree with that. Software coded for multiple threads in a lot of cases can't just automatically utilise a lower CPU/thread count and in some cases it just wouldn't work at all. Game devs will always use the lowest common denominator so whilst true optimisation of quad/octa core chips may become norm over time I can only ever see a gradual increase with regards increased cpu core counts or an alignment with the current batch of consoles at any moment in time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/18 10:19 AM

Quote
NVIDIA invites journalists for Gamescom

Gamescom starts on August 21st. It’s a few-day event focusing on new gaming titles. We have been told NVIDIA is *allegedly* sending invitations to the press

AMD has an event too

What we did hear is that it takes place a month earlier.


Rumors. Probably true. Some think Nvidia will talk about the next generation. No solid information on AMD's presentation.

Quote
NVIDIA Launching Next-Generation Graphics Cards At Gamescom 2018

initial shipment will be limited to few hundred chips (on the lower side).. we see retailers like Amazon pumping up the MSRP to cater to the huge demand. ..

..we did hear that you can expect double-digit performance increase over the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti..


The article implies insider information. Double digit can mean 10 percent or 99 percent or seomething in between -- the implication of the article was towards the lower number.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/18 10:33 AM

Quote
ASUS Radeon RX Vega 64 AREZ STRIX Now Available For $749.99 US – Triple Fan DirectCU III Cooler, Up To 1590 MHz Clocks, Custom PCB

The first ASUS AREZ branded graphics card which is the lineup dedicated to the AMD Radeon RX series has been listed and available for sale. The ASUS AREZ brand was formed after the major controversy regarding NVIDIA’s GPP (GeForce Prime Program) which has since been canceled by NVIDIA themselves.


Very similar specifications and physical appearance to my Powercolor RX Vega 64 (currently $580 with free FarCry 5). The news is not the new card, it is the brand name change to AREZ.

Attached picture ASUS-Radeon-RX-Vega-64-AREZ-STRIX_1-740x555.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/18 02:45 PM

The new 32core/64thread AMD Threadripper CPUs are coming. So, 16core/32thread versions are falling in price.

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper First Gen HEDT Processor Prices In Constant Free Fall – 1950X With 16 Cores Under €650, 1920X With 12 Cores Under €550


Our city's local Micro Center is selling the 16/32 for $630.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/18 10:34 AM

Newegg now has a good selection of GTX 1080 for $500 to $540. 1080Ti models are $750 and up. 1080 sale prices continue a slow slide down.

Amazon has a highest-end ASUS RX Vega 64 for $600 (STRIX-RXVEGA64-O8G-GAMING). Meantime, the few Newegg RX Vega 64s are all $700 and up {when I checked}. RX Vega sale prices are stable to rising slightly.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/18 06:55 PM

Rumors with a capital "R" of upcoming AMD Gaming GPUs -- based on a very unofficial source that has been right before. Long article with only three real points.

Quote
AMD GPU Rumors: Polaris 30 12nm GPUs in Q4 2018, Navi GPU Based Mid-Range Cards Arrive Before High-End HBM2 Variants

Which rumor is most likely to be true?

AMD 12nm Polaris 30 Radeon RX GPUs (Q4 2018)
AMD 7nm Vega 20 Radeon RX GPUs (Q1 2019)
AMD 7nm Navi Mid-Range Radeon RX GPUs (2019-2020)


To repeat an earlier rumor, the 7nm Navi will perform like an RX Vega 64 but be priced like an RX580 ($250 was the guess).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/18 07:24 PM

An interesting Intel rumor from a normally reliable source (based on over a decade of me paying attention to the author). The source says its not a rumor; however, the details are behind a paywall (and I have not paid).

Quote
Intel Custom Foundry’s 10nm meltdown is crushing a $20+B market cap tech giant

Exclusive: This is the beginning of a far reaching story

As you know Intel’s 10nm process is now years delayed, is not economically or technically viable, and is unlikely to ever work financially speaking based on what SemiAccurate understands of the problems Intel is still trying to fix. The customer in question put their entire upcoming line of chips at Intel on 10nm, and Intel failed. There was no Plan B..


I know there have been major delays in Intel 10nm. Even so, just based on Intel's good reputation, I'm expecting an Intel 10nm Consumer CPU with excellent performance for gaming. However, the article implies that some business may be directed away from Intel due to the reported situation. So, AMD may (or may not) get more business in the future -- which will give it a few more dollars to compete with.

Public Part of Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/18 10:18 AM

Quote
First benchmarks of AMD Ryzen 3 2300X have been leaked

..The Ryzen 3 2300X and other rumored SKUs, such as Ryzen 5 2500X, are coming, as indicated by the leak over at Chiphell.

..The CPU in question allegedly boosts up to 4.2 GHz, and even up to 4.315 GHz when overclocked ..

This quad-core, 65W TDP processor is aiming to replace Ryzen 3 1300X CPU, currently available for 125 USD


The selling price is not yet public. The selling price would have to be real low to cause me to bypass the very similar Ryzen 3 2200G -- which has a valuable Vega GPU (worth about $80 at today's GPU prices) built in and is selling for only $96 today ($99 list).. As previously noted, I have the Ryxen 5 2400G in one of my HTPC -- tested it for lite gaming (RPG & two flight simulations) -- it works at 1080p normal settings (FPS low, but usable) -- $159 today.

Attached picture AMD Ryzen 3 2300X.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/18 06:23 PM

Posting current GPU prices was a way to show how the "Future and Current Status" is shaping up. But, I won't bore you with prices much more (unless something changes dramatically).

In a nutshell:

GTX 1080 has become a $500 (plus or minus) GPU. Its worth it. The Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency effect is dead.

The RX580 and RX Vega 64 custom cards are selling at close to original retail. RX Vega 64 is back to $560 to $580 (leaving out the overpriced ones). Its worth it as it offers better "compute" (for those who want that). The Bitcoin effect is almost dead.

GTX 1080 Ti is staying around $750. It remains fastest card for gaming -- for folks who want the fastest regardless of cost. I.e. 20 percent faster than GTX1080 for 50 percent more money.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/18 10:35 AM

Quote
ASRock Phantom Gaming Lineup Gets Reference Radeon RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 Graphics Cards

The reason why ASRock isn’t offering a custom board yet is due to the fact that RX Vega is still not available in good quantities. Manufacturers want to maximize profits with this card because custom cooling or not, users who want to buy Vega will buy it


Its news because this adds to the very-few RX Vega 64 and 56 brands/models and is being done now. The price does have to be right -- I assume $540 or less since one can get a custom card for $560 to $580.

Attached picture ASRock-Phantom-Gaming-X-Radeon-RX-VEGA-64-and-56.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/18 09:45 AM

On the competition front:

Quote
Intel's 9th gen desktop CPUs leak online

Just a 100-200MHz frequency bump

Following the leak that Intel will be releasing Coffee Lake-based six- and eight-core parts as its new 9000-series 9th generation CPUs, more details have shown up online revealing a minor 100MHz to 200MHz frequency bump across the lineup.

.. the data shows that these are pretty much the same as the 8th generation 8000-series SKUs with a minor frequency bump.


Sales data is inconclusive but seems to indicate that AMD and Intel are virtually tied for sales to those who build their own PCs. Of course, Intel has brand name recognition and contracts with PC manufacturers; so. overall it sells a lot more. The virtual equality is among those who have choice and know the facts about what they are buying.

Attached picture Intel's 9th gen.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/18 10:03 AM

More competitor news:

Apparently, Nvidia is ready to release new GPUs. However, they are waiting until they have sold much of the excess inventory currently on the shelves.

Quote
NVIDIA Has A Stock of Over A Million Next-Gen GeForce Graphics Cards Waiting To Power Gaming PCs, Report Alleges

the mining market has gone stagnant since cryptocurrency took a hit, making medium sized crypto operations (these include individuals too) just go out of buisness while the bigger operations and related firms are cutting down on accquiring new mining machines.

there’s a huge stock of currentl-generation graphics cards that needs to go away before next-gen are shipped out to the market. The issue mainly arose after NVIDIA overestimated the mining demand, overproducing current gen GPUs which are now sitting idle as demand for these cards is at an all time low.


Sounds real good for Nvidia fans: The new stuff is ready to ship. Those who want a "bang per buck" bargain from Nvidia can buy from the current stock of GTX1080 (I assume SimHQ folks only want the big/fast cards). If prices drop a bit more, two in SLI might be interesting for some games. No indication of "bang per buck" GTX1080Ti, yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/18 10:45 AM

Recent articles are dominated by author-speculation about upcoming hardware -- writers have to write. I'm waiting for a trustworthy "solid" rumor of general interest.

The solid news lately is prices. As we know, some GPUs are already down to their nominal list prices. Some of "last year's" CPUs are also becoming well priced.

Newegg and Amazon have the AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 8-Core 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo) 8c/16t for $240. They are not calling that a "sale price". As previously noted, mine runs at 4GHz all cores all the time. Its liquid cooled: but, it would probably do fine at 4GHz on good air cooling -- as do our Ryzen 1600X 6c/12t and 2400G 4c/8t APU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/18 03:52 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X 32 Core and 2950X 24 Core Processors Launching on 13th August – New X399 Refresh Boards To Be Introduced Too

There will be two Ryzen Threadripper processors which will hit the market, these would include:

Ryzen Threadripper 2990X (32 Core / 64 Thread)
Ryzen Threadripper 2950X (24 Core / 48 Thread)

The chip will rock 32 cores and 64 threads which eclipses Intel’s Halo product which will sport only 28 cores and 56 threads. The chip is expected to feature a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 4.0 GHz while the precision boost overdrive clocks are rated at +200 MHz so expect up to 4.20 GHz in single core optimized workloads.

When compared to the Core i9-7980XE. the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X at around $1500 US offers better architecture based on a 12nm process, 14 more cores, 28 more threads and for $500 less

On the X399 front, we will be looking at a slew of new refreshed designs, specifically built for the 2nd Generation HEDT processors...


I notice in the attachment they are starting to speculate 64 cores and 128 threads in 2019. Seems VERY speculative. Still fun that CPU core count is "taking off" -- as it did with GPUs long ago.

Attached picture ThreadripperCurrent&Future.png
Posted By: FsFOOT

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/18 11:18 PM

China Finds Zen: Begins Production Of x86 Processors Based On AMD's IP
Quote

Chinese-designed "Dhyana" x86 processors based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture are beginning to surface from Chinese chip producer Hygon. The processors come as the fruit of AMD's x86 IP licensing agreements with its China-based partners and break the decades-long stranglehold on x86 held by the triumvirate of Intel, AMD and VIA Technologies. Details are also emerging that outline how AMD has managed to stay within the boundaries of the x86 licensing agreements but still allow Chinese-controlled interests to design and sell processors based on the Zen design.

AMD's official statements indicate the company does not sell its final chip designs to its China-based partners. Instead, AMD allows them to design their own processors tailored for the Chinese server market. But the China-produced Hygon "Dhyana" processors are so similar to AMD's EPYC processors that Linux kernel developers have listed vendor IDs and family series numbers as the only difference. In fact, Linux maintainers have simply ported over the EPYC support codes to the Dhyana processor and note that they have successfully run the same patches on AMD's EPYC processors, implying there is little to no differentiation between the chips. ...

from https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zen-x86-processor-dryhana,37417.html
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/18 02:26 PM

FsFoot, thanks for the info.

I've been posting Nvidia 1080 series pricing because the fall in price has been relevant to AMD Vega sales.

This article says "Hold Off" buying a 1080 or 1080Ti -- the prices are due to get better later this year. If you must buy a 1080Ti now, they predict the prices won't go much below $700 -- until the new Nvida 2080 series (or whatever its called) is released.

Quote
NVIDA GeForce Graphics Card Prices Will Not Fall Further Until Next-Gen GeForce Launch

Why buying NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 10 series graphics cards right now isn’t a good idea


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/18 10:02 AM

Cryptocurrency mining won't stop; but, it's no longer easy money. So, hardware to do it is no longer selling well.

Quote
Major AMD Radeon Add-in-Board Partner TUL Corporation Lost 60% of Revenue In Wake Of Crypto Slump

TUL Corporation, one of the largest AIB partners of AMD lost approximately 60% of revenue .. can be directly attributed to mining going out of fashion as the crypto market crashed and mining operations bled profitability.

AMD’s RX Vega graphics cards were absolute beasts when it came to mining profitability .. it was almost impossible to get your hands on a Vega 56 or 64 in the heyday of mining.

Keep in mind that NVIDIA graphics cards were not as outstanding in mining performance..That said, it is clear that NVIDIA GeForce ecosystem will be feeling this burn as well..

The silver lining in all of this is that Radeon fans will finally be able to buy Vega graphics cards at a reasonable .. pricing. The RX Vega 56 can be had for as low as $444 now with the Vega 64 going for as low as [$560].
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/18 10:18 AM

Quote
ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI B450 motherboards pictured


15 450-series motherboards pictured. The pictures don't show much. What's interesting is that the major motherboard manufacturers are providing a large selection of mid-priced gaming motherboards optimized for the Ryzen 2000 series of CPUs.

Mid priced is all one really needs for gaming. Newegg has lots of now-out-of-date B350 motherboards for $55 to $75. Combine with a now relatively inexpensive Ryzen 7 1800X (8c/16t) for $240, set the clock to 4GHz, and one has a strong combination for around $300. If only memory were cheaper.

Pictures Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/13/18 12:48 AM

A new AMD GPU Beta driver released today -- Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 Optional.

For some of us the news is: The driver fixes the huge slow down in CorelDraw X8 and 2017 file opening and copy to clipboard. I tested my copies of CD X8 and CD 2017. It may work in earlier editions and probably works in CD 2018 (though Corel provided a fix for 2018 already)..

I've used CorelDraw and CorelPaint since the first edition -- circa 1991. During the '90s for quick technical illustrations/drawings of my designs and heavily illustrated view graph presentations used to sell them. Now, I use it to modify in-game graphics -- and very infrequently a drawing of an around-the-house project (e.g. I used CD to detail-design the house we live in, its furniture arrangements, and its landscaping).

Oh, by the way, it also speeds up a game I don't play by up to 28 percent at 1440p smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/16/18 10:11 AM

Newegg has a 3 Fan Gigabyte gaming GTX1080 for $450 right now -- apparently limited time sale.

A couple days back, an online friend got a Powercolor Mining RX580 (only a single DVI output capable of 1440p) for $180 from Newegg. It can be used as a second card for effective Crossfire. The card was selling for roughly $460 a couple months back. Sold out now.

I bought the same card yesterday for stand alone use on one of our other PCs. Only need DVI 2K on that PC.May need a BIOS flash for top gaming performance -- it is designed to accept a user generated BIOS. We'll see how that turns out. A risk to save a few bucks.

Anyhow, if one shops daily sales, the lowest GPU prices are still lowering.

Edit: Now the mining RX580 back in stock at $410 (who's buying at that price????).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/18 06:47 PM

Quote
AMD brags it has the most stable graphics drivers

Tested independently by QA Consultants

..AMD ahead with a 93 percent pass rate, compared to 82 percent on Nvidia-based systems.

..most of the application crashes, hangs or blue screens of death were noticed on professional graphics cards, so average consumers will not see any of those errors.

These results are not a big surprise as AMD has managed to completely change the state of its drivers and with the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition series, it brought even more stability and quite a few new features that really made the difference. Nvidia has been struggling with driver updates lately and there were a couple of big problems with some of the earlier releases.


The article links the lengthy .pdf independent test report.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/18 08:23 AM

Quote
Exclusive: Intel and AMD Talent Wars Heat Up

Talent is one of the most precious commodities in the silicon industry and last week’s headlines saw some executives move between Intel and AMD.

Intel fires the opening salvo

AMD strikes back

The third round continues

In response to this, Intel began firing back with some steals of their own. The third round in the talent wars, so to speak, is very quickly heating up

one thing is for sure, Intel is getting very serious about their GPU efforts. I have also heard rumors of them opening up shop in Canada that would be dedicated to this arm. AMD has already made a spectacular comeback in the x86 department, against all odds, and beating all expectations but now it also needs to win back some of the Radeon glory of olde.


I've often thought: Intel has so much money they could buy AMD, shut it down, and have the market to themselves (CPU wise). Rather, they are buying the AMD experienced talent -- primarily in the areas where AMD leads Intel -- as Intel is starting to compete in GPUs.

Often, folks in technical leadership roles got there by "rising to their level of incompetence" (a very old saying -- that is so obviously true if one has "been in the business"). So, the turnover could be good or bad for AMD. We'll see.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/18 11:00 AM

Prices of GPUs on good-sale continue to trickle down. I bought a couple during the last week.

I noted the mining RX580 above for $30 under Reference RX580 original list price. Its a mining card -- taking a risk to get it cheap. A few months ago, it was selling for 200% list price -- and after the sale has been marked back up to 180% of list..

Now, I ordered a custom RX560 for $10 under Reference RX560 original list price -- and $75 less than this low end card was selling for a few months ago. Exact make and model I've had my eye on for one of our other HTPC.

Why buy?? I save old cards and use them in secondary builds. I got tired of using very old cards because they don't get driver updates, can't handle 2K/4K, and are stuck 2 driver generations behind. Sometimes, it matters.

I assume sale prices will fall below what I paid. For gamers, the bargain remains GTX1080 sale prices (cheapest at Newegg today is $460).

I assume most folks who want cards are waiting for the lowest current generation GPU sale prices and the new generation GPUs -- both should be here around Black Friday time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/18 02:41 PM

A rumor about next year's AMD 7nm CPUs.

Quote
AMD Next-Gen 7nm Zen 2 CPUs Rumored To Feature 10-15% IPC Increase, Up To 16 Cores on AM4, 32 Cores on TR4 and 64 Cores on SP3

the rumor alleges that Zen 2 will feature a 10% to 15% improvement in IPC (Instructions Per Clock) [versus] current 12nm Zen+ based processors..

..we are also expecting to see some clock rate bumps in the next-generation processors too..

The second part of this rumor is that three different designs may already have been finalized for the Zen 2 core. These include:

AM4 (Up To 16 Zen 2 Cores)
TR4 (Up To 32 Zen 2 Cores)
SP3 (Up To 64 Zen 2 Cores)

According to this, the maximum core count on the AM4 platform will be upped from 8 cores to 16 cores.


This is an early, unverified rumor. But, lately, AMD has been successful with CPUs -- and they are clearly pushing core count. I will be interested to see the price on the 16 core AM4 as it might replace my 8 core AM4. While I doubt I'll see any difference with 16 cores vs 8 cores in my applications, I am an AMD fan so I will buy before it makes much sense. It may be the last big change for a while and may fit in my current MB -- 3nm is a way off.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/18 09:42 AM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
Intel 9th Generation Flagship, Core i9-9900K 8 Core, 16 Thread CPU Specifications Leaked – Core i7-9700K 8 Core and Core i5-9600K 6 Core CPUs Also Detailed


Quote
NVIDIA GeForce 11 Series Graphics Cards Release Schedule Leaked – GeForce GTX 1180 in August, GeForce GTX 1170 in September, GeForce GTX 1160 in October


Intel and Nvidia leaks and rumors over the last few days. Thing is, none come across as truly solid -- mainly speculation and possible fake data (writers have to write). I assume the final products will be good -- but, the rumors are not good yet. I do believe the rumors about "expensive" for both competitors.

Meantime, my experiment with a sale low-priced AMD RX580 cryptocurrency mining GPU used as a gaming GPU worked. It runs the Firestrike and Time Spy benchmarks about 7 to 10 percent faster than my RX480 in head to head tests on the same PC -- when set to the same clocks as the RX480 using Wattman. The RX560 is working well with our 49 inch 4K monitor/HDTV in our exercise room -- did decently on the benchmarks -- one could game with it (not 4K game).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/18 03:02 PM

Rumor is that in the upcoming Intel CPU release, only Intel i9-9000 series CPUs will have hyper threading.

Quote
Intel Core i7-9700K with 8 cores and no Hyper Threading spotted

Intel’s 9th Gen Core series are just around the corner. The first processor from new series has made an appearance in SiSoft Sanda database.

Intel Core i7-9700K with 8-cores and… 8 threads

The 9700K will be a hard part to sell. The predecessor, known as Core i7-8700K, has 12-threads thanks to HyperThreading enabled. Intel’s new i7-9700K would lack this functionality. Despite having 8-cores it would still loose in multi-threaded applications against Core i7-8700K


I'm not sure about the author's last comment. Based on my testing, all else equal, a 6core/12thread would perform about the same (not better) as 8core/8thread in a normal benchmark test. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/18 09:49 PM

AMD provides competition to Intel and Nvidia. That keeps prices down and technology moving forward for everyone. So, its good to read AMD is doing well financially -- relative to past AMD years.

Quote
AMD announces its Q2 2018 financial results

Reports revenue of US $1.76 billion, up by 53 percent Y/Y

AMD reported operating income of $153 million, net income of $116 million, gross margin of 37 percent, and earnings per share of $0.11 (GAAP results).

This is a great financial quarter for AMD considering that a year ago the company was reporting an operating loss of $1 million and a net loss of $42 million.

the biggest piece of that $1.76 billion revenue came from the Computing and Graphics segment, reporting revenues of $1.09 billion .. [an overall] 64 percent growth compared to the same quarter last year .. [there was] lower revenue from GPU products in the blockchain market, confirming .. that the cryptocurrency market is slowing down.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/18 05:12 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Partners Clear GeForce 10 Series Inventory By Offering Promo Bundles, Price Cuts on Various Custom Graphics Cards

The entire lineup has received the promo which includes GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060 and the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. It’s note worthy that since this is a region-specific marketing campaign right now which includes the UAE, UK, and Portugal, prices are based in either British Pound or AED.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/18 10:06 AM

Quote
AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 2990x [32-core / 64-thread] Listed For $1835 USD At Canadian Retailer

The AMD Threadripper 2990X is the flagship of the TR2 platform and features a mammoth 32-core / 64-thread count that can satisfy even the most power hungry Amateur/Video Professional workload.

Pre-orders are usually pretty pricey so if that is the case here then we can expect it to retail for something along the lines of $1499-1799 once the dust has settled.


The 2990X has already shown up for sale/pre-order on two sites. As noted in the above rumor, this CPU is not aimed at gamers. As previously noted in this thread, there may be a 7nm 16c/32t mainstream Ryzen next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/18 10:04 AM

Updated rumors on upcoming Threadripper clocks and power usage. More cores and lower power per core than current Threadripper.

Quote
HWBOT adds AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X, 2970X and 2950X


[Linked Image]

Attached picture Ryzen Threadripper 2990X, 2970X and 2950X.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/18 09:39 PM

A leak-rumor that is claimed to be traceable to AMD. But, still a rumor.

4GHz on all 32 cores/64 threads (base frequency is lower). Could be true. My 3 Ryzens are set to 4.0GHz on all cores all the time (4c/8t, 6c/12, and 8c/16t versions) -- even though the nominal base frequency is lower. Maybe its a feature of the basic Ryzen design.

Quote
Exclusive: AMD’s Threadripper 2990X 32 Core Will Hit 4.0 GHz [All Cores] On Air On New [Stock] Wraith Coolers

AMD is introducing new Wraith Ripper coolers that will allow its flagship processor, the Threadripper 2990X/WX to hit 4.0 GHz on all cores on air.

Since this is the all-core boost, it naturally implies that single and fewer core boosts will be much higher.

We can also confirm that the leaks with the processor scoring 6000 points on Cinebench are accurate and the AMD Threadripper 2990X/WX will be able to hit that score using the stock [in the box] Wraith cooler. All in all, Threadripper 2 is shaping up to be an absolutely disruptive platform and we can’t wait for reviews to go live.


Attached picture New Wraith Cooler.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/18 09:42 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 packaging unveiled


Attached picture Threadripper 2000 packaging.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/18 12:07 PM

CPU sales results from one large German retailer.

Quote
AMD Ryzen and Intel Coffee Lake CPU Market Share at 50% Each in July – Strong Ryzen Sales, Intel CPUs Still Report Higher Revenue

AMD Ryzen Processors Witnessed Strong Sales in July – AMD CPU Market Share Now Surpassing Intel

..both AMD and Intel hold a market share of 50%.. AMD CPUs .. are [slightly] ahead in the total number of processors sold

Intel chips accounted for a total of 58% [of CPU revenue] while AMD chips accounted for a total of 42%

The reason behind this is that many AMD Ryzen processors, including first and second generation, have been on sale on discounted prices since their launch. So they won’t end up providing as much revenue as they would have on launch. Intel, on the other hand, has maintained their prices
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/04/18 10:26 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Series Specifications and Prices Revealed – 2990WX With 32 Cores For $1799 US, 2970WX WIth 24 Cores For $1299 US, 2950X With 16 Cores For $899 US and 2920X With 12 Cores For $649 US

Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, 2970WX, 2950X and 2920X. The ‘WX’ models are aimed at content creators and developers while the ‘X’ series processors are aimed at gamers. We believe that the WX processors would have creator mode enabled by default while the X processors would have gaming mode enabled by default. Users can configure modes based on their preferences.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX will rock 32 cores and 64 threads that eclipses Intel’s halo product which will sport 28 cores and 56 threads. The chip is [rumored] to feature a base clock of 3.0 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 4.0 GHz while the precision boost overdrive clocks are rated at +200 MHz so expect up to 4.20 GHz in single core optimized workloads.


Previous rumor indicates that the 32 core Ryzen could run at 4.0GHz on all cores all the time with the new & improved Wraith cooler (or water cooling). That may require a motherboard and PSU designed to provide the extra power. I read that at least one new motherboard will have an extra 6 pin connector to provide extra power --- but its not been 3'd party tested, yet.

Attached picture 2000 Series Official Specifications.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/18 09:37 AM

AMD has developed a custom APU (CPU/GPU) for the Chinese market. Its essentially a Ryzen 2400G with nearly double the graphics power -- all most folks need for apps and games (SimHQ folks want much more smile ).

Quote
AMD Unleashes Quad Core Zen Custom SOC With Vega 24 On-Chip Graphics – First PCB Shots Revealed, 8 GB of GDDR5 Memory and More

AMD has just revealed their new semi-custom SOC which packs Zen and Vega on a single package. The new SOC is aimed at Chinese PCs and game consoles which were showcased at the China Joy event.

[per AMD] "The new SOC is also a great example of our semi-custom strategy, where we take our differentiated IP and tailor to meet the specific needs of a customer to create a product only AMD can deliver."


It will be on the market this year.

Attached picture AMD-Semi-Custom-Vega-Zen-SOC_6.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/18 12:04 PM

Have launch date. Rumors place performance very high both in absolute and bang per buck terms (compared to Intel high core count CPUs).

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32 Core Flagship X399 CPU Listed For Pre-Orders on Newegg For $1799 US – Officially Launches on 13th August

It aims to be a workstation monster while retaining good game performance which many users buying this processor would be aiming for. Thing is, this CPU packs so much core power that you could probably game, stream, render and do tons of multi-tasking at the same time and the processor won’t even break a sweat.


Attached picture AMD-RYZEN-Threadripper-2990WX-32-Core.jpg
Posted By: flying-hamster

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/18 01:17 PM

euro gamer/digital foundry has a preview of the Chinese market AMD SOC console

Meet the Chinese console that's like PS4 Pro - but with AMD's next-gen CPU

And a separate PC version runs your Windows games too.

Custom AMD cpu/gpu

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/07/18 10:07 AM

Some AMD provided Threadripper slides. Give an indication of "bang per buck" and special "Gaming" settings.

The third attached slide shows that the "stock in the box cooler" rumor posted above was WRONG. The special Wraith air cooler is a third party item that costs cash -- too much cash, I think. For the price, I'd rather do Water Cooling. However, it does the job and looks "cool".

Attached picture Threadripper 2000 press briefing.png
Attached picture Threadripper 2000 Gaming com.png
Attached picture Threadripper 2000Cooler.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/18 08:44 AM

Not a gamers card, not cheap. Professional use only.

[Linked Image]

Article Press Release

Attached picture Radeoon Pro WX 8200.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/15/18 09:12 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX Overclocked To A Stunning 6 GHz Across All 32 Cores With LN2 Cooling

AMD chip with a frequency of 5.36 GHz across all 32 cores is a good chunk faster than Intel’s high-performance solution that is yet to release.. Overall, a great showcase of Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX true strength which is highlighted with these records.


For those interested in LN2 cooled performance, the 32c/64t Threadripper is competitive with Intel's best -- and costs less. The article describes the tests and the new records set by Threadripper.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/18 09:51 AM

The new GPU competitor:

Quote
Intel Teases ‘Arctic Sound’ Discrete Graphics Cards For 2020 – First Full on Dedicated Products Aimed at The Gaming Market


Right now, its pure tease. No actual data. This is definitely a "wait and see".

Nonetheless: More competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/17/18 09:19 AM

Quote
Cooler Master Wraith Ripper cooler comes in September

The Cooler Master Wraith Ripper is a behemoth measuring 150x132.3x160.5 and weighs 1.62kg, .. installation quite easy.

.. addressable RGB LEDs all around..

.. it should be available as of September 27th, 2018, with a suggested retail price of €119,00.


Its a 250W cooler.

Article

Attached picture cm-wraithripper-3.jpg
Attached picture cm-wraithripper-1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/17/18 09:04 PM

Nvidia's new gaming GPUs are rumored to be on pre-order Monday. I say rumor because I did not check sources -- its probably true.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti features 4352 CUDA cores


The new cards are the 2080Ti and 2080. They are still nominally of the 14nm/12nm architecture. Until the 3d party "objective" testing is published, we don't know how much better they will be.

The next big things for AMD and Nvidia will be nominally 7nm architecture presumably next year. That should be a bigger jump. I'm waiting on the AMD 7nm answer before considering any changes to my Vega 64 main GPU.

Attached picture GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/18 11:06 PM

One attachment is official Nvidia 2080 series pre-order pricing captured from Nvidia site. But, other Nvidia material suggests lower pricing for custom cards -- speculated to be available in two months, or so.

Regarding performance: Still need significant 3'd party testing by review sites to sort through the many rumors.

The article summarizes what's known and some of what's rumored.

Article

UPDATE: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 GAMING OC 8G will be released September 20.for $830 pre-order.



Attached picture NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series.png
Attached picture GeForce RTX 2080 T.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/21/18 10:23 AM

What will AMD respond with?

Quote
First Navi is mainstream, then high end

AMD Navi is mainstream, it replaces the 580 and 570 and it will be a good chip for this market segment but it will - according to all of our sources - come very late to the game. It won’t come out until later part of 2019 according to our knowledge and industry sources


To repeat the speculation\rumor posted long ago: Navi might initially be a $250 GPU that performs like a Vega 64 or GTX 1080 does today. Since most gamers buy RX580/GTX1060 price cards, the Navi would support most gamers and, probably, every game made.

Given limited resources, AMD "decided" to compete on CPU at the expense of GPU. Obviously, to remain relevant, AMD must do what they did with the CPU, they must invent a GPU that unexpectedly "catches up" with the competition.

Competition is good. But, apparently, we won't have any at the GPU peformance high end for a while. So, it will be interesting tro see what (if anything) AMD actually does in the near term regarding "bang per buck".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/18 08:51 AM

Quote
Expreview: AMD expected to launch 7nm APU at the end of this year

According to Expreview AMD could reveal 7nm Ryzen Raven Ridge APUs later this year. The story is allegedly based on Citigroup analyst report, which describes TSMC production capacity for different nodes. He claims that AMD will launch 7nnm APU at the end of this year.


A very speculative rumor.

Relative to the above Nvidia posts: In reading Nvida fan comments about RTX 2080 and 2080Ti, I was surprised to see how "reserved" many Nvidia fans are about the new RTX 2000 cards. Seems they expected more performance for less cash. Some await 3d party test reports to see if the value is there. Some await the 7nm versions.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/18 11:10 AM

How can fan comments reflect on 2800/ti performance when the performance isn't known yet?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/18 11:22 AM

Quote
Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s NVIDIA RTX Gamescom Demo Isn’t Great, But Developers Aren’t Worried

Gamescom 2018 Shadow of the Tomb Raider demo running on the new RTX 2080Ti GPU with raytraced shadows enabled.

The setup worried attendees, however. Running at 1080p resolution, the game couldn’t even stay locked at 60 frames per second and drops were quite noticeable at times.


This is not the bash Nvidia thread. Its about competition. The above article notes what I have been reading. Ray tracing takes so much GPU power that perhaps even with an RTX 2080 TI, its not practical for folks who want high frame rates at 2K or 4K resolution. Note that the ray tracing was for shadows only. To really make a difference, ray tracing must apply to all the rays (e.g. give realistic reflections).

Some pundits have written that we are 10 years away from enough GPU power to propel real-time ray tracing as it needs to be done to satisfy high-end gaming. On the other hand, there are professional non-real-time applications that can make good use of it -- those professionals are interested in the RTX 2080Ti.

The above demo may have been misleadingly slow -- we'll see how things turn out as ray traced games are released and 3'd party tested. I do like that ray tracing has begun. Now AMD and Intel (with their upcoming gaming GPUs) will have to consider it. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/18 12:00 PM

The RTX 2080 release is great, eBay is now being flooded with GTX1080 and 1080 ti cards.

I've just picked up a 1080 ti for myself and my son for £385 and £420 respectively by making a silly offer and then negotiating...everyone is in a rush to sell and the competition is fierce on there......
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/18 10:47 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
...I've just picked up a 1080 ti for myself and my son....


Good catch. Thanks for sharing the methodology thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/18 09:25 AM

Very recent AMD statement verifies what we've been reading that the first 7nm CPUs and GPUs are not far off -- the first in less than ~90 days they imply.

Quote
[AMD says] Our upcoming 7nm product portfolio represents the next major milestone for AMD computing and graphics leadership, including our second generation “Zen 2” CPU core and our new “Navi” GPU architecture. We have already taped out multiple 7nm products at TSMC, including our first 7nm GPU that is planned to launch later this year, and our first 7nm server CPU that we have sampled to strategic customers and plan to launch in 2019.


The first 7nm will be for professional use. It is speculated that consumer CPUs and GPUs will happen when the 7nm process is "proven" by those initial professional releases.

Interesting that they say "multiple" 7nm products have taped out. Multiple could mean only "two". But, normally, use of that word refers to "a few" or "several" -- i.e. three to seven. Maybe a fully designed consumer 7nm product is already actively coming down the pipe.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/18 06:09 PM

The following news does not impact AMD's use of 7nm. Rather, AMD had already decided to go 7nm with TSMC -- and 14nm with GlobalFoundries. AMD has already "taped out" "multiple" CPU and GPU 7nm circuits with TSMC (as noted above).

GF will now "specialize" in 14nm/12nm and other "established" processes. One might speculate that the specialization may make AMD's 14nm/12nm products fabricated at GF even more competitive.
Quote
GlobalFoundries Puts 7nm ‘On-hold Indefinitely; Spins Off ASIC Division As Subsidiary

AMD’s 7nm Zen 2, Vega and EPYC CPUs will be manufactured by TSMC. The company’s [AMDs] Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster announced the move yesterday, at the same time GlobalFoundries also put out a press release that highlighted its latest strategic change [to quit working on 7nm].
Posted By: Flogger23m

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/18 01:21 AM

Looking forward to the new Ryzens. Currently on a 2700X.

Worried about their GPUs. Have not used ATI since the X700 Pro, but I want them to be competitive.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/18 11:24 AM

Quote
AMD’s First Generation (The Originals) Ryzen Threadripper CPUs Now Available At An Insane Value – $400 US For 12 Core 1920X, $300 US For 8 Core 1900X, 16 core 1950X Reaching The $600 US Levels
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/18 11:30 AM

For price comparison to the above Threadripper 1st Generation prices -- the attached AMD graphic.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-2000-Series_1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/18 09:32 AM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
NVIDIA Controls AIB Launch and Driver Distribution

.. After its.. NDAs have sought to muzzle journalists that work [directly] with [Nvidia], now it is pushing back on its AIBs [Add In Board makers, e.g. ASUS] in order to control the AIB's actions with reviewers.

..we have never seen this before in 20 years of reviewing video cards. AIBs in the past have been left to pretty much operate their own review campaigns on new video cards, but that seems to have come to an end.

..If you are seeing any benchmarks between now and the ~20th .., you are likely not seeing cards benchmarked with its launch driver. So keep that in the back of your mind as you see performance leaks come forward. .


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/18 10:22 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X Enthusiast CPU Is Here – The 1950X Successor With 16 Fast Cores, Great Overclocking Potential and A Stunning $899 US Price

the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X checks all things that are needed for it to become a successful high-end desktop CPU. It comes with enhanced Zen cores (12nm Zen+), faster clocks out of the box, far better-overclocking capabilities and a price point that you cannot ignore.

.. the [2950X] will be enhanced by the new Zen+ cores and provide higher clock speeds of 3.5 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost with a 180W TDP. Users will also be delighted by the overkill 60 PCIe lanes that they can use for PCIe and storage devices while the large 32 MB L3 cache is retained. The chip will also come at a $100 US smaller price tag than its predecessor...


Article

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-2000-Series_2950X.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/18 09:54 AM

Another story merely confirming a rumor we've already read.

Quote
AMD Confirms New 7nm Radeon Graphics Cards Launching in 2018

AMD is on track to launch the world’s first 7nm graphics cards this year. While the world’s first 7nm CPUs, built on the company’s next generation Zen 2 x86 64-bit core, are on track to be on-shelves next year.


The author speculates it will substantially out perform any other card for professional use. Won't know until 3'd party tests.

Of course, 93 percent of the readers voting voted for a gaming version next year. I was one vote. I have an additional condition -- must be affordable smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/06/18 03:46 PM

Quote
AMD Athlon Now Features Zen Cores – $55 US Athlon 200GE Announced, A Dual Core, 35W CPU With Vega 3 Graphics For Entry Level PCs

AMD is now introducing their Athlon 200 series parts which will feature three SKUs. One SKU is launching today which is called the Athlon 200GE.

There are two more models under the Zen-based Athlon family, the Athlon 220GE and the Athlon 240GE. There are no specifications listed for these parts but details and prices are expected to be disclosed in Q4 2018. All Athlon 200 series processors will be compatible with AM4 socket boards which start at $50 US and support features such as USB 3.1 Gen2, NVMe, DDR4 memory which does make for a compelling budget PC which is worthy for offices, casual gaming, and even Esports titles such as Overwatch and Fortnite.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-Athlon-200GE-Processor-1030x580.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/18 09:30 AM

Quote
NVIDIA changes GeForce RTX 2080 reviews date to September 19th

..reviewers will publish their RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti reviews on the same day.

Only a handful of reviewers have the cards already. Those who do, still can’t even test them because no drivers were provided.


Due to the no-drivers situation, "leaks" and "rumors" that have been published are "suspect" -- so, I haven't linked any.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/18 09:40 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Flagship Graphics Card’s Market Availability Pushed Back To 27th September

the flagship graphics card was supposed to launch on 20th September along with the GeForce RTX 2080 but it looks like only the TU104 GPU based graphics card would be available on 20th. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will now be available on 27th September.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the flagship NVIDIA graphics card for gamers that is arriving in the GPU market for a high price of $1199 US for the Founders Edition and $999 US for the custom models.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/18 09:48 AM

Quote
Alleged AMD EPYC ‘Rome’ 7nm Based 64 Core Processor Performance Leaks Out – Scores an Incredible 12,500 Points in Cinebench Multi-Tasking Benchmark

The chip was tested in Cinebench R15 multi-thread benchmark and the chip scores an astonishing 12,587 points which are beyond anything current-generation processors can achieve. AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX scores around 5500 points in the same benchmark with 32 cores and 64 threads. The score we are looking at in the leaks shows more than twice the performance of the flagship Threadripper SKU.


Another leak. It indicates that the product is moving down the pipe towards its eventual customers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/18 09:56 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 ‘official’ performance unveiled

The graphs are based on values (framerate/scores) provided by NVIDIA for their recommended titles. Yes, the word recommended is rather important here too.


The full article has charts (like the attached) for several games and applications. If the charts are accurate, the new products leave the GTX1080 series far behind.

Article

Attached picture GeForce-RTX-2080.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/18 09:39 AM

AMD gaming notebooks coming -- Ryzen CPU combined with Vega GPU.

Quote
AMD lists Ryzen 7 2800H and the Ryzen 5 2600H

Gaming chips come to notebooks

The new models feature a similar design as their desktop counterparts with slightly redesigned in frequencies to adjust for mobile cooling and battery life limitations.

The Ryzen 7 2800H is similar to the 2400G, but it comes with a 3.3 GHz base and 3.8 GHz boost clocks. The four-core, eight-thread CPU is complemented by Vega graphics with 11 CU (Compute Unit) clocked up to a max of 1,300 MHz. The Ryzen 5 2600H is similar to the 2200G, but it's four cores are hyper-threaded, which is a big bonus. The Vega graphics come with eight CUs and boost up to 1,100 MHz.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/18 08:31 PM

Competition from an unexpected (by me) source. A cloud based gaming "PC" with claimed GTX 1080 performance. The article makes it seem "for real".

Quote
Shadow Impressions – The Cloud-Based Replacement For Your Gaming PC?

..if you want to build a [gaming] PC from scratch it’s going to cost you a fair amount. Shadow, by Paris-based company Blade, looks to do this as one set monthly price with using what seems to be the first truly working cloud-based PC gaming service

Shadow is a cloud service that allows you to stream a PC direct. Not just a game, but a full PC dedicated solely to you and all you’re doing is streaming it.

€29.95 per month on a twelve-month commitment.

The Shadow PC my account links to has an Intel Xeon e5 2667 v3, accompanied by 12GB of RAM and a Nvidia GTX 1080 with 16GB of VRAM.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/19/18 05:59 PM

Links to over 50 GTX 2080 and 2080Ti reviews.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Review Roundup


Links to Reviews

Attached picture GTX2080Reviews.png
Attached picture Shootout.png
Attached picture RetestedAccurate.png
Attached picture RetestedAccurate2.png
Attached picture BangPerBuck.png
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/18 09:34 PM

I wonder where my trusty AMD 295x2 lies in those benches...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/22/18 09:32 AM

I notice AMD Stock is over $30 now. It was under $2 not so long ago. I realize a couple SimHQ folks were invested back then. In any case, it shows that AMD is currently "alive and well" in its CPU competition with Intel -- and may even be winning major market share.

Quote
AMD Could Triple Market Share as a Result of Intel’s Supply Issues

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD 31.02 -0.01%) is getting yet another vote of confidence from the investor world, as investment firm Jefferies raised their target price again on their shares from $30 to $36 due to Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC 46.66 -0.01%) perceived issues with 10nm and its 14nm chip shortages.

..HP will adopt AMD CPUs for up to 30 percent of its consumer PCs in 2019, and Dell is apparently also picking up more AMD chips for their systems as well. Jefferies believes that they could very well triple their market share by capitalizing on this.

..Intel is without leadership, has a shortage of current generation 14nm processors and has been fighting a seemingly uphill battle with their 10nm process, so AMD could very well be poised to strike at the jugular of the behemoth with their 7nm production ramping up.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/18 12:21 PM

Quote
RUMOR: AMD Radeon Polaris 30 GPU Based On 12nm FinFET Node Gearing Up For Launch

AMD’s Polaris 30 GPU will be refreshed on the 12nm FinFET process with up to 15% expected performance increase

It is sort of ironic how AMD’s philosophy is the exact opposite of NVIDIA. We fully expect the Polaris 30 lineup to be slightly faster but also slightly cheaper than the already cheaper RX 500 series making it ideal for entrants to PC gaming and/or gamers on a budget that can’t afford to spend an arm and a leg on a PC build.


It is speculated these RX680/RX670 (?? if called that) will launch in about a month. As noted by the author, these are expected to have a lower list price than current RX580/RX570 -- to appeal to "normal" gamers on limited budgets.

FWIW, I have RX480 and RX580 on a couple PCs in the house. They are fine for everything I play at 1440p and ultra settings if one is not concerned about FPS numbers for their own sake or an occasional "bump" in smoothness in a couple games (while at ultra settings).

However, just an unsubstantiated rumor for now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/18 11:36 AM

Quote
NVIDIA, AMD Both Receive Positive Analysis, Driving Both Stocks Higher

Bank of America Merrill Lynch today named NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA 265.7 0.01%) a “top sector pick,” .... RBC Capital Markets .. made note of AMD’s (NASDAQ:AMD 32.61 0.05%) gains over the last year, viewing their stock as a possibly solid investment.

The decision between the stocks almost seems moot, as both are basically in a good position going into the holiday season. The short-term looks phenomenal for both of these companies, and thankfully for gamers as well. Which one has the most upside is up for debate, and based on fundamentals could swing either way
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/18 09:51 AM

Unsubstantiated leak:

Quote
AMD Next Generation Arcturus GPU To Succeed Navi GPU – New Radeon Family Naming Scheme Also To Be Introduced After Navi

The next-gen GPU was revealed by an AMD employee on Phoronix Forums and aside from the GPU name, he also mentioned that the new lineup of graphics cards would go back to the older naming scheme which we got before Vega.

The “Arcturus” codename comes from the red giant star which is the brightest in the constellation of Bootes and among the brightest stars that can be seen from space. Similar to Vega and Navi, both of which are also some of the brightest stars visible in the night sky..


Thus, "Next Gen" in the attached image is likely to be called Arcturus and be on a new design path.

Attached picture AMD-GPU-Roadmap-1030x516.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/18 03:49 PM

Quote
Intel supply problems confirmed

More suppliers told that there is a shortage

the ongoing tight supply of Intel's processors is unlikely to ease until the second half of 2019 and will undermine worldwide notebook shipments during the upcoming peak season


Not important to gamers. However, it does affect AMD sales and profits in a positive way -- giving AMD more money to use -- hopefully for continuing product improvements.

Other articles have indicated that major manufacturers are beginning to use more AMD notebook APUs (CPU/GPU) in upcoming notebook designs. Makes practical sense for their customers because, for many folks, the limitation on notebooks is graphics performance. AMD on-chip graphics beats Intel on-chip graphics by a lot and the CPU and price parts of the equation are now quite competitive.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/29/18 04:27 PM

Quote
Intel: 10nm On Track For HVM 2019, Investing An Additional $1 Billion In 14nm Production Ramp

According to Interim CEO Bob Swan, Intel’s 10nm is on-track for volume production in 2H 2019.

Intel’s 14nm capacity is operating at its limits and the company is falling short of the demand.

We are clearly entering into uncharted territory as far as the x86 market goes, with demand at an all-time high, Intel struggling to get its 10nm process out and AMD as competitive as ever.


Some AMD 7nm parts are to be released soon. However, the ones SimHQ gamers would buy are also aimed at 2019.

It remains to be seen if 7nm can outperform 10nm. As noted earlier, the 7nm and 10nm designations do not literally mean 7nm and 10nm. Rather, those are simplified designations to indicate to buyers what performance to expect.

7nm should be better than 10nm -- but, we'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/01/18 10:44 AM

An unsubstantiated rumor from a usually reliable source.

Quote
RUMOR: AMD Zen 2 Samples Already In RTG Labs, Has 8 Cores, 16 Threads and Clocks Rated Up To 4.5 GHz

The sample in question was based on the new [7nm] Zen 2 core architecture which AMD had completed the design of earlier this year.

The chip featured a base clock of 4.0 GHz and a boost clock of 4.5 GHz. It was tested with DDR4-3600 MHz (CL15) memory along with a Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid graphics card. The test platform was an engineering motherboard with an AMD logo.

the rumor alleges that Zen 2 will feature a 10% to 15% improvement in IPC (Instructions Per Clock). The IPC bump is over the current 12nm Zen+ based processors which delivered around 3% IPC increase over 14nm Zen

we are also expecting to see some clock rate bumps in the next-generation processors too. That coupled with architectural changes and higher memory frequency support will end up delivering much better performance than current CPUs..


I plan to buy the a consumer version at some point next year. Presumably, it will just plug into my current motherboard and work (probably with BIOS flash).

Attached picture amd_roadmap_cpu_q2_2018-1030x579.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/18 10:19 AM

Quote
Download Official Windows 10 October 2018 Update ISO Files (32-bit / 64-bit)


Article With Links to W10 Update Page

Just information for W10 users. This is supposedly a major update. I'm updating my system as I write. Don't know if will be better, worse, or not noticeable.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/18 11:20 AM

UPDATE to above post:

Windows 10 install went smoothly.

HOWEVER, installing AMD 18.9.3 driver (both clean or overinstall) is not working as intended.

Suggest waiting for the next AMD driver release after installing the W10 October update.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/18 06:37 PM

Quote
And It Begins… Microsoft Blocks Windows 10 October 2018 Update on Devices with Intel 6th Gen and Newer Processors


Apparently, W10 October update is not fully compatible with newer Intel CPUs. They're working on it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/18 12:56 AM

To be introduced January 9, 2019 (3 months). Exactly what will be discussed is partly known and partly speculated.

Quote
AMD To Introduce World’s First, 7nm, High-Performance CPUs and GPUs at CES 2019 – Aimed To Catapult Computing and Gaming Technologies Forward

AMD CEO, Lisa Su, will be delivering the keynote for their CES 2019 presentation in Las Vegas. The keynote which will take place on 9th January at 9:00 AM..

..the company is rapidly shifting their entire product portfolio to the 7nm process node as the tech will be able to deliver higher performance at better efficiency..

AMD plans to announce a brand new lineup for gamers .. Navi GPUs .. expected to be based on the new 7nm process node. It will be interesting if AMD brings back some competition in the mainstream market


Quote
“AMD is transforming the future of computing in our ever-expanding digital world and revolutionizing the $35 billion gaming industry,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. “We look forward to Dr. Su’s keynote as she paints a picture of the next-generation of computing that will help redefine the future of gaming and virtual entertainment.”

via AMD


Quote
CES is the largest and most influential technology event on the planet, featuring 4,500 exhibitors across 2.75 million net square feet of exhibit space. The 2018 event attracted 182,198 attendees, including a record 63,784 international attendees, according to the official show audit.


The attachments are the relevant (often shown) roadmaps. Apparently, they are saying they are still on schedule. I don't expect gamer products until Springtime (at the earliest) -- but, that's only my uninformed guess.

Attached picture amd_roadmap_cpu_q2_2018-1030x579.png
Attached picture AMD-GPU-Roadmap-1030x516.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/18 12:47 AM

The RX Vega 64 I paid $580 for is now $500 at Newegg with free games pack. Starts to be competitive with GTX 1080 gaming price ($440 to $510)/performance while giving better "compute" performance.

Only noted because of sale price. Not actually suggesting anyone buy it. Wait for the 7nm next year -- rumors are that the mainstream 7nm AMD GPU will be far cheaper and similarly powerful.

Quote
PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64

Free game pack bundle w/ purchase, limited offer

$499.99
Sale Ends in 3 Days (Sun)


Newegg Page
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/18 08:50 AM

Relative to latest W10 update: Along the way, I've learned that certain companies are not to be trusted in some situations. Microsoft is one. Thing is, as I noted in the post above, I stupidly installed the latest W10 update -- that I knew had not been thoroughly tested by Microsoft.

Sorry for posting the "news" that a new version was available.

Quote
Microsoft Hits Pause on Windows 10 October 2018 Update Rollout Due to Missing Files Issue

Several users have reported losing their data after updating to the latest Windows 10 version. Microsoft had said that it was actively investigating the issue. It now appears that the company couldn’t fix the issue and has decided to pull the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.

[Per Microsoft] “We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.”


Article

So far, no problems that I have noticed (doesn't mean there are none). But, even Microsoft in effect says "don't use it". Now, I'll stupidly continue to use it until I do have a problem confused
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/18 07:11 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX 24 Core and Ryzen Threadripper 2920X 12 Core HEDT Processors Launching on 29th October

The Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX will feature 24 cores and 48 threads for a price of just $1299 US. Intel’s 12 core chip in comparison costs $1200 US so we are looking at twice the number of cores at $100 US premium. The chip features clock speeds of 3.0 GHz base and 4.0 GHz boost (4.2 GHz XFR)

The Ryzen Threadripper 2920X will feature the same core config as its predecessor, the 1920X. We are looking at the same 12 cores and 24 threads. At the same time, the chip will be enhanced by the new Zen+ cores and provide higher clock speeds of 3.5 GHz base and 4.3 GHz boost with a 180W TDP. The chip will also come at a $100 US lesser price tag than its predecessor, at just $699 USD.

.. AMD will also be delivering the new Dynamic Local Mode for “WX” series processors.

[Per AMD]" In the applications we have tested to date, AMD has observed performance improvements of up to 47% with Dynamic Local Mode enabled.. not every application demonstrates the threading behaviors that Dynamic Local Mode is designed to assist".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/07/18 09:45 AM

On the competition:

Quote
Intel Announces 2018 Desktop Launch Event For 8th October – 9th Gen 8 Core Mainstream CPUs and More To Be Expected

The event will largely focus on the desktop PC market which Intel has been paying close attention to since the competition upped their game.

[Per Intel] "Tune in at 10 a.m. EDT (7 a.m. PDT) on Monday, Oct. 8, on the Intel Newsroom to learn more about the latest PC performance developments from Intel."


Competition is good smile Competition keeps prices down and technology improving for everyone -- regardless of brand preference. AMD is the only serious competition for Intel and Nvidia -- and we're recently seeing obvious performance increases by Intel due to AMD competition and obvious price increases by Nvidia due to no AMD competition at the high end.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/18 08:41 AM

Quote
AMD Polaris 30 Based Radeon RX 570 Successor With 2048 Cores Launching in Mid-October, RX 580 Successor Launches in November

AMD Polaris 30 Based Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 570 Graphics Card Successors Launching Soon With 2304 and 2048 Cores, Respectively

The naming scheme has not been confirmed yet

use of 12nm process node is expected. This would result in higher graphics performance but it won’t be much of a big leap

[for RX570 replacement] we can expect pricing close to the $200 segment

..the graphics architecture will see no change and the optimized process node is what will be playing a key factor along with the price point. Since NVIDIA doesn’t really have a mainstream card under the $300 US market at this point aside from their GeForce 10 series cards, this will be a nice opportunity for AMD to catch up some mainstream market traction
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/18 09:47 AM

Another indication/rumor that AMD will power new gaming consoles (already powers current Microsoft and Sony consoles). Console games will be initially developed for AMD hardware which should make porting to AMD powered PCs a little easier.

Quote
Sony CEO Says It’s ‘Necessary’ to Have a Next-Generation Console Hardware

Rumors surrounding Sony’s next console began swirling about six months ago when SemiAccurate suggested that development kits were already available for some developers. The report also added that the hardware would once again be powered by AMD technology thanks to an eight-core Zen CPU and Navi GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/18 09:52 AM

Quote
Intel Core i9-9900K for 488 USD

Benchlife revealed the slides from Chinese Intel 9th Gen Core launch. The full specifications and pricing have been revealed.

The flagship HEDT CPU called Core i9-9980XE will retail at 1979 USD (1K unit price), while the flagship consumer model will cost 488 USD.


Article listing models
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/18 09:25 AM

Lenovo to switch from Intel to AMD for PCs (probably not entirely).

Quote
Lenovo gives AMD the thumbs up

A Lenovo representative said that “Intel is struggling with product constraints and we have a high level of demand. We have a good relationship with AMD.”

The switch to AMD largely affects its PC business, but doesn't aim “in the short term” to use its chips for its server and notebook business
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/18 09:39 AM

Cryptocurrency mining pushed GPU prices up a year ago when Cryptocurrency value was "bid up" to the highest bubble price in human history (so they say). The bubble has been deflating all this year. Now, some are predicting the fall into the deep well. In any case, GPU prices should no longer be affected.

Quote
Juniper warns about cryptocurrency implosion

Riders of the Apocalypse ride forth

Juniper Research is warning that many of the metrics in the cryptocurrency world are pointing to a market implosion.

"Based on activity during the first half of Q3, Juniper estimates a further 47 percent quarter-on-quarter drop in transaction values in that quarter", the researcher said in an accompanying white paper.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/18 09:50 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 18.10.1 BETA

Support For

Windows® 10 October 2018 Update [and other things]


I've been using the Windows 10 update without issue. Since I first downloaded it, Microsoft has issued an update which negates the "data deletion" problem.

There was also a small hiccup when clean installing the previous Adrenalin driver (though it worked). This Adrenalin update fixes that and other issues.

AMD Driver Download Page
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/18 08:51 PM

Intel Core i9 9900K preorder prices are $530 and up. AMD Ryzen is competing on "bang per buck".

Quote
Ryzen 7 2700x Available For As Little As $290 Ahead Of Core i9 9900K Launch

The price of the Core i9 9900K has been quite the talking point..

..when preorders went live they were going for $530 on Amazon and even more at $580 on Newegg.

Right now [Ryzen 7 2700X is] listing on Amazon for as little as $290 ... [at] Microcenter you can snag one in store for $279.99, it’s hard to argue at that price point
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/18 12:55 PM

Quote
AMD launches Radeon RX 580[SP] with 2048 Stream Processors in China

The Radeon RX 580 “2048SP” appears to be more of an RX 570 rebrand than the actual RX 580. The graphics card features 150W TBP and 7 Gbps memory clock, a common feature of cut-down Polaris 10/20.

It is unlikely that this SKU will be available outside China.


Apparently, AMD, Nvidia occasionally make a lower cost, lower performance GPU for some markets. But, the AMD, Nvidia naming can mislead some buyers. An Nvidia example was a lower version of GTX1060 (they say).

Meantime, an updated 12nm RX580 (maybe called RX590 according to some rumors) is due out soon. Has higher clocks than current RX580. A small (roughly 10 percent) improvement over RX580 is speculated/rumored.

Attached picture RX580SP.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/18 12:59 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 590 spotted at 3DMark database

What is Radeon RX 590? Well, no one really knows.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/18 04:13 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Review Roundup

The reviews are here


Links to Over 2 Dozen RTX 2070 Reviews

Attached picture RTX20702080.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/18 04:02 PM

Quote
AMD 7nm Based Zen 2 CPU Architecture Features 13% IPC Improvement, Alleges Rumor – 7nm Process To Deliver Higher Clock Speeds

The rumor comes from Bits and Chips through their official Twitter feed where it’s alleged that the Zen 2 architecture brings an average of 13% IPC (Instructions Per Clock Cycle) uplift over the Zen+ architecture [based on actual tests]

it was also detailed in an earlier rumor that the new processors would yield a 10 to 15% IPC gain.

Earlier, rumors have stated that these CPUs are already working in AMD labs at speeds of up to 4.5 GHz on an 8 core, 16 thread SKU

these are all just rumors but they are still interesting for users who are looking forward to the next-generation AMD Ryzen CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/18/18 10:49 AM

There have been a number of articles like this one lately. Just information. Not Nvidia bashing because Nvidia is not doing anything wrong -- its the "crooks' who are doing wrong. They pick on Nvidia because of its brand recognition.

Quote
TechPowerUp solves the problem of Nvidia cheats

Your high-end card might be worse than you think

For a while now, resellers have been modifying lower end Nvidia graphics cards and flogging them off as more powerful cards online. It is somewhat telling that most people who buy them cannot spot the difference regarding performance.

In a recent version of its GPU-Z graphics card information utility, TechPowerUp has added the ability to detect these fake Nvidia cards.

TechPowerUp also told us that it is unaware of fake AMD cards and that the cards are typically sold in China but can make it to the West through eBay.


I suppose most SimHQ folks who read this use CPU-Z and GPU-Z. So, we're covered if we have the latest version loaded.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/18/18 04:33 PM

Quote
Samsung Commences Mass Production of Its 7nm LPP EUV Process, Promises 50% Lower Power Consumption

This approach will help the manufacturer to obtain a 40 percent area reduction at the same complexity, a 50 percent lower power consumption at the same frequency and complexity, and a 20 performance boost using the same power and complexity. All of these differences are when you compare it with the previous-generation 10nm LPE technology


Interesting comparison of a 7nm process advantage over a 10nm process. Samsung production is aimed at Smartphones -- not CPUs or GPUs. Also, its 7nm is not the same as TSMC 7nm used by AMD. However, the article about chips in production gives a glimpse of what 7nm may ultimately bring to CPUs and GPUs -- at some point when TSMC is using LPP EUV or equal. We'll see next year what the first generation TSMC brings to consumer CPUs and GPUs.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/18 09:23 AM

Quote
ASUS preparing Radeon RX 590 ROG STRIX graphics card

The full product code for the new graphics card:

ASUS Radeon RX 590 ROG STRIX GAMING (ROG-STRIX-RX590-8G-GAMING)


Leaked test data indicates roughly 10 percent faster than current RX580.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/18 11:04 AM

Quote
Intel Core i9-9900K/i7-9700K/i5-9600K and Z390 motherboard Review Roundup

Today Intel launches its 9000 series CPU based on Coffee Lake architecture.


Note that attachment shows prices if one buys 1000 chips. Consumer pre-orders have been higher priced. i9-9900K is $580 at Newegg (out of stock).

Links to over 50 Reviews

Attached picture Intel Core i9-9900K i7-9700K i5-9600K.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/18 11:18 AM

Quote
AMD has 7nm Navi GPU up and running in its lab

Navi-based graphics card will launch in the second half of 2019

Our sources also suggested that the 7nm GPU looks better than expected..Bear in mind that these are some of the first details coming regarding the 7nm Navi GPU, in addition to earlier rumors suggesting that we could see the GTX 1080 performance-level at $250 price range.

[Navi will be] a standard monolithic die design


A long wait ahead for AMD fans.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/23/18 05:26 PM

From SemiAccurate site:

Quote
Intel kills off the 10nm process

Update October 22, 2018@3:30pm: Intel has denied ending 10nm on Twitter. The full tweet is, “Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process are untrue. We are making good progress on 10nm. Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report.” SemiAccurate stands by its reporting.

For several years now SemiAccurate has been saying the the 10nm process as proposed by Intel would never be financially viable. Now we are hearing from trusted moles that the process is indeed dead and that is a good thing for Intel, if they had continued along their current path the disaster would have been untenable. Our moles are saying the deed has finally been done.


Article

Over many years, SemiAccurate has better than average success on getting mostly true (not always true) deep-mole rumors.. The fact that Intel told stockholders 10nm was on track could be a reason to keep the cancellation secret for now. I think Intel might just as well jump to 7nm, given their serious 10nm problems and the fact that the competition is going 7nm. We'll see who got this one right, eventually.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/18 11:21 AM

Quote
AMD ends 32-bit Radeon display driver support

NVIDIA has ended 32-bit driver support in December last year.

What does this mean for you? Probably nothing.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/18 11:44 AM

A very long PCGAMER article describes the past, the current, and the future of AMD and Nvidia GPUs. My "cut to the chase" selection of quotes don't do the article justice.

Quote
Nvidia vs AMD: Which is truly better?

Everything you really need to know about Team Green vs. Team Red.

Ultimately, the debates about which company is better come down to performance and price. Many people love the idea of driving an exotic sportscar, but few of us are willing to shell out the money. Competition between the major vendors tends to have a positive effect on pricing, and conversely when one vendor holds a commanding lead it often leads to higher prices.

Nvidia owns the high-end GPU market

AMD is a great choice for midrange gaming PCs.

AMD currently claims the budget crown as well.


Article

As they note: Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/18 10:30 AM

Quote
AMD reports good Q3 2018 financials with $1.65B revenue

Gross margin up to 40 percent, but stock drops

AMD has officially announced its Q3 2018 financial report, reporting revenues of $1.65 billion and a gross margin of 40 percent, both up compared to the same quarter last year. Nevertheless, AMD stock took a hit due to weak GPU sales but things are looking good for AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/18 10:40 AM

Another leaked test data rumor regarding RX590 -- "better, faster, cheaper" -- or so they speculate.

Quote
AMD’s Radeon RX 590 Final Fantasy Benchmarks: Beats Out The GeForce GTX 1060 At 4K

It is sort of ironic how AMD’s philosophy is the exact opposite of NVIDIA. We fully expect the Polaris 30 lineup to be slightly faster but also slightly cheaper than the already cheaper RX 500 series making it ideal for entrants to PC gaming and/or gamers on a budget that can’t afford to spend an arm and a leg on a PC build.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/18 11:19 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 590 Rumored To Launch on 15th November – Pricing Expected To Be Around $300 US

Previous rumors have hinted that the card will use a 12nm Polaris 30 GPU core with better clocks and efficiency.

The pricing is suggested around 2099 Chinese Yuan or $300 US. This may not be the official US pricing so we can expect something lower than that.

The GTX 1060 will be getting a GDDR5X update very soon but the performance may not improve by a lot as compared to the refreshed Polaris GPU architecture.



Quote
New Nvidia GTX 1060 GDDR5X could be slower than the original

GTX 1060 with GDDR5X memory, might actually end up slower than some previous GTX 1060 graphics card on the market, due to a lower memory bandwidth.

According to specifications of the upcoming Palit GTX 1060 GamingPro OC+, spotted by Techpowerup.com, the new GTX 1060 GDDR5X version might be nothing but a marketing stunt
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/18 11:44 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX & 2920X Review Roundup


Links to over 20 Independent Reviews

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Threadripper 2970WX 2920X Review.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/18 09:55 AM

Multiple articles like this one out there -- do a Google search on "RTX 2080 ti failing"

Quote
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Cards Have A Serious Problem -- They Keep Dying

The core problem seems to be RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition cards that begin to display severe graphical artifacts and lock up a user's PC, although I've seen reports of faulty 2080 Ti products from ZOTAC and Gigabyte. These problems are sometimes exhibiting within only hours. Reinstalling drivers and following generic troubleshooting tips do not solve the issues.

Nvidia's technical support department has been recommending that gamers RMA the cards, which typically results in a replacement or refund. One user, however, has already been though this process twice. Another reports that he has returned three AIB versions (non-Founders Edition cards) of the RTX 2080 Ti for excessive coil whine.

We obviously can't make the conclusion that the RTX 2080 Ti is a lemon without having hard data about the number of sales and RMAs, but I feel like it's safe to say there are an unusually high number of defective cards out there.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/18 10:04 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 590 confirmed to feature 12nm FinFET node

Two photographs posted by Andreas Schilling, editor at HardwareLuxx, have confirmed the existence of the new Radeon RX 590 graphics card. The feature list indicates that the new card will be using smaller, 12nm FinFET process.

The node shrink will enable higher clock speeds and better power efficiency.


[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD Radeon RX 590.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/18 11:05 AM

Quote
AMD Zen 2 Rumors: IPC Improvements and Frequency Higher Than Expected, Ryzen 3000 Series Preview Possible at Next Horizon Event

[Today] AMD is going to talk a lot about their 7nm products which includes both CPUs and GPUs. While GPU talk would be mostly centered around Vega 20 with a possible look at AMD’s NAVI GPU which is aimed for launch sometime in 2019, the CPU talk would go around the AMD ZEN 2 CPU architecture. The event will start at 12 AM (Eastern Time) on 6th November, 2018

In February of this year, it was reported that AMD had finished designing the chip architecture and would be available for sampling later this year with a range of products available starting 2019.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/18 10:54 AM

AMD publicly announced commercial products yesterday:

Quote
AMD Officially Talks Zen 2 CPU Architecture: Significant Performance Uplift With 2X Throughput, Doubled Core Density With Up To 64 Cores, PCIe Gen 4.0 Support, Aiming Server EPYC Rome 7nm CPUs First

With EPYC Rome, AMD skipped 10nm and went straight for 7nm. They have tapped in TSMC to produce the chips for them which gives them an edge over the previous partner, GloFo (Global Foundries).

AMD has made significant changes to their CPU architecture which help deliver twice the throughput of their first generation Zen architecture. The major points include an entirely redesigned execution pipeline, major floating point advances with doubled the floating point to 256-bit and double bandwidth for load/store units. One of the key upgrades for Zen 2 is the doubling of the core density which means we are now looking at 2x the core count for each core complex (CCX).

AMD confirmed that the EPYC Rome series server processors would make use of eight 7nm CPU chiplets which will be connected to a large I/O die. The CPU chiplets will be able to house up to 64 cores and 128 threads.

Additionally, the company shared that its follow-on 7nm+-based “Zen 3” and “Zen 4” x86 core architectures are on-track.


Presumably, the 7nm gaming products are not far behind (planned for 2019).

Attached picture EPYC ROME Officially Detailed, Up To 64 Core.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/18 10:58 AM

Quote
AMD Unveils World’s First 7nm Datacenter GPUs — Powering the Next Era of Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing and High Performance Computing (HPC)

AMD(NASDAQ: AMD) today announced the AMD Radeon Instinct™ MI60 and MI50 accelerators, the world’s first 7nm datacenter GPUs, designed to deliver the compute performance required for next-generation deep learning, HPC, cloud computing and rendering applications. Researchers, scientists and developers will use AMD Radeon Instinct™ accelerators to solve tough and interesting challenges, including large-scale simulations, climate change, computational biology, disease prevention and more.


Attached picture Radeon Instinct MI60 and Instinct MI50.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/18 11:03 AM

Quote
AMD Stock Soars After Amazon Announced As Major Partner Using EPYC Chips

AMD is showing proof it can command real market share with current first generation 14nm EPYC products

This is a major win for AMD and is a legitimate milestone as the company continues to take enterprise and data center market share away from Intel, who has enjoyed a >99 percent position in the market as recently as a year or so ago. Amazon cites a 10 percent cost reduction by switching to EPYC servers versus their Intel (NASDAQ:INTC 47.25 -0.01%) Xeon counterparts.


Attached picture EPYC Chips.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/18 11:42 AM

Quote
SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 590 NITRO+ Special Edition smiles for camera

It appears that board partners are opting for the best cooling solution they have. While PowerColor decided to use their RX 580 Red Devil Golden Sample cooler design (the beefy one), ASUS is planning to equip triple-fan STRIX cooler for the ‘new’ Radeon RX 590.

The Radeon RX 590 is currently expected to launch on November 15th.


Attached picture SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 590 NITRO+.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/18 09:03 PM

Quote
New Windows Activation Bug Is Downgrading Some Windows 10 Pro Licenses to Windows 10 Home

[Update]: Microsoft says only a limited number of Windows 10 users are affected

One thing that connects most of these users is the fact that almost all of them had upgraded to Windows 10 Pro using their Windows 7 or Windows 8 Professional keys. The Windows 10 Pro deactivation issue appears to be widespread, affecting users in several countries, including the US, UK, Korea and Japan. Even Insider community has reported the same issue.

In a statement to Wccftech, Jeff Jones, Senior Director at Microsoft, confirmed the activation issue and assured that the problem will be resolved soon.


Just and update on W10 problems noted previously. I run W10 Pro off a W10 Pro OEM licence -- it still recognizes my Pro version.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/11/18 01:41 AM

Preliminary unsubstantiated rumor: Final design of the first AMD Navi 7nm GPU for gamers is complete. It will be code named Navi 12. Assumed to be a replacement for RX590. It will be released in the first half of 2019. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/18 01:36 PM

Quote
Exclusive: First AMD Navi GPU Will Have 40 CUs And Is Codenamed Navi 12

Navi 12 will be the first Navi part to arrive and will be landing sometime in 1H 2019...The performance level of this part will be equivalent to Vega and it will be a small GPU based on 7nm.

Navi 20 is going to be the true high-end GPU built on the 7nm node and as things stand right now, you are tentatively looking at it landing sometime around late 2020 – 2021.


As of now, above is rumor based on insider information -- not established fact.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/18 01:51 PM

AMD response to Nvidia DXR ray tracing on RTX 2000 series cards.

Quote
AMD’s David Wang: We Won’t Implement DirectX RayTracing (DXR) Until Its Offered In All Product Ranges

[According to AMD] ..the company does not have plans to support DXR at the point in time until it becomes available across their entire product line – from the low end to the high end.


So far, one needs a $1000 (and up) Nvidia card to get a decent partial implementation of ray tracing at 1080p. Except for special ray tracing demos, partial ray tracing offers little visible improvement in graphics and only applies to a few games. So, AMD is saying they will wait until ray tracing really matters and can be done well before they spend the money to implement it (AMD can't afford to add hardware features merely for the advertising benefits).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/18 09:49 AM

Quote
AMD EPYC Milan With 7nm+ Zen 3 Cores and NVIDIA Volta-Next GPU With Greater Than 7 TFLOPs FP64 Compute To Power Perlmutter Supercomputer

The new supercomputer was discussed in a presentation by the US Department of Energy where it was stated that both next-generation AMD and NVIDIA hardware would be powering it.

Perlmutter, a pre-exascale system coming in 2020 to the DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/18 02:09 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 590 Review Roundup

AMD Radeon RX 590: New but not quite

AMD’s new mid-range card is aiming at the ‘sweet spot’ between RX 580 and RX Vega 56. The price is bit surprising, as it stands at 280 USD mark. That is more than RX 480 and RX 580 at launch. However, the card comes with three games for free.

Is that enough to convince Radeon fans? Is RX 590 the last stop before Navi? Should you buy it? Read the reviews we gathered below to find out!


Review Links Article

As I posted this, there were only 12 reviews. The list will be updated, they say.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/18 04:13 PM

Quote
AMD Polaris 30 GPU made at both GlobalFoundries and Samsung

The 12nm FinFET manufacturing process from GlobalFoundries, also known as 12LP, is quite similar to Samsung's 11LPP, as both are derived from the original 14nm FinFET process, there shouldn't be any difference between these chips, at least not on paper.

This also means that AMD might use Samsung for its future chips, .. the first 7nm parts [are] coming from TSMC, and with GlobalFoundries sticking to 12nm [not making 7nm parts], Samsung might be the logical choice [for some 7nm parts].
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/18 08:24 PM

Quote
SAPPHIRE Radeon RX Vega 64 Can Be Had For $340 Today!


From Newegg via EBay. Until 8pm Eastern Standard Time. $400 after that. I'm saving my money for 7nm next year. But, for an emergency, its a good price.

Article with Links

Attached picture Sapphire .png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/18 01:24 AM

Quote
Microsoft Is Blocking Windows 10 1809 on Some More Machines – Intel Drivers to Blame


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/24/18 10:15 AM

Quote
AMD’s Limited Edition ‘Ryzen Max’ Bundle Offers sRyzen 7 2700 8 Core and Ryzen 5 2600X 6 Core CPUs With Wraith Max CPU Coolers

Wraith Max 200W CPU Cooler For Your Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 5

AMD states that with the Wraith Max cooler, users will be able to get out-of-box advantages of XFR2 (Extended Frequency Range V2.0) or just plain old manual overclocking. The Wraith Max cooler itself is a really solid design, offering great thermal performance with a mix of RGB LEDs

the Wraith Max alone costs around $60 US but with the bundle you get both the cooler and CPU. The bundle will be available worldwide through AMD partners and as mentioned before, be a limited offering for the holiday season.


Artiacle with links to a couple sale locations

FWIW, I nearly found nothing for Black Friday ordering fun. However, I did wind up with an RX580 8G plus 2 Free Games for $165. I'll use it with my PC with 49" 4K screen in the exercise room. Has an RX560 now -- I may not see a difference. Use it to watch internet TV and read e-books while on the bike.

Attached picture Dssbm-hVsAQFFdk.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/26/18 10:43 PM

Quote
AMD’s Zen 2 7nm CPU Core to Feature Double the L3 Cache Size

Zen 2, despite its name, is actually going to power the company’s 3rd generation lineup of Ryzen processors.
key enhancements :
Improved Execution Pipeline
Doubled Floating Point (256-bit) and Load/Store (Doubled Bandwidth)
Doubled Core Density
Half the Energy Per Operation
Improved Branch Prediction
Better Instruction Pre-Fetching
Re-Optimized Instruction Cache
Larger Op Cache
Increased Dispatch / Retire Bandwidth
Maintaining High Throughput for All Modes
double the L3 cache

we will likely see AMD debut 8 core mainstream Ryzen 3000 series processors with 32MB of L3 cache. A larger L3 means that the system would have to fetch data from DDR4 memory less often, which translates to faster work completion at less power.


Twice as good (in some ways) as something already competitive ain't bad. Gives Intel something to aim at.

One of Intel's strengths (that is a weakness lately) is that they do their own fabrication in their own plants. They have been having trouble with 10nm -- which is years late versus their original promises and is predicted to be "a fail" monetarily. We'll eventually see how far their own 7nm has gotten. Who knows (besides Intel insiders) if Intel 7nm is as far along as it needs to be to compete next year and the year after (so far, they aren't saying).

As often noted, 7nm and 10nm are not to be taken literally as an exact "size" -- rather, its a shorthand for "performance". 7nm, if properly named, should out perform 10nm.

Attached picture AMD CPU Map.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/18 07:30 PM

Above is Zen 2 news.

This below is Zen 3 news from AMD itself. As usual, the second 7nm devices (Zen 3) will be a performance "bump" -- not the doubling of the first 7nm devices (Zen 2). But, Zen 3 is in 2020 -- we get the (as yet unproven) doubling in some aspects of CPU performance in 2019 with Zen 2.

Quote
AMD CTO on Zen 3, 7nm+ CPU Architecture: Will Primarily Leverage Efficiency With Some Modest Performance Opportunities

AMD Zen 3 Will Use 7nm+ EUV Process Node, Primarily Going To Leverage Power Efficiency With Modest Performance Uplift

Zen 2 is currently looking to be one of the biggest CPU performance and CPU efficiency [boosts] since Zen itself back in 2017.

AMD’s latest roadmap now confirms that after Zen 2, we would get Zen 3, Zen 4 and even, Zen 5.

[Per AMD CTO] “Moore’s Law is slowing down, semiconductor nodes are more expensive, and we’re not getting the frequency lift we used to get,” he said in a talk during the launch, calling the 7-nm migration “

Looking ahead, a 7-nm-plus node using extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) will “primarily leverage efficiency with some modest device performance opportunities,”
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/18 10:43 PM

Quote
AMD GPU Shipments Increased 6.5% While NVIDIA Saw 4.3% Increase in Q3 2018, Intel Leads With 13.1% GPU Shipment Increase

The main contributor to the increased sales [by AMD, Nvidia, Intel] was notebooks where GPU shipments increased by 7% while desktop graphics decreased -16%. Total GPU shipments for the year declined by 2.2% versus the previous year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/29/18 05:50 PM

TSMC is AMD's primary source for 7nm chips.

Quote
TSMC could be about to replace Intel

according to Bloomberg TSMC’s threat to Intel is a sea change in chipmaking that’s seen one company after another hire TSMC to manufacture the chips they design.

TSMC has shedloads of customers, including Apple and Qualcomm, AMD, and small players such as Ampere Computing. The explosion of components built this way has given TSMC the technical know-how needed to churn out the smallest, most efficient and powerful chips in the highest volumes.

Intel was the first to use 14-nanometer technology at scale in 2013, according to Goldman Sachs. It won’t have 10-nanometer ready for prime time until the end of 2019 -- by far the longest wait in its history. TSMC has gone from 20-nanometer to 7-nanometer production at the same time.

AMD Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su lets TSMC handle the tricky production and thinks that is one of the best decisions the company made.

“It allows us to manage risk and focus on the things that make the product great.”

Su is now telling investors and customers that its new chip designs will surpass those from Intel.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/18 04:39 PM

Quote
AMD EPYC Reaches 2% Market Share in 2018, 7nm EPYC Rome Expected To Capture Up To 5% Server Market Share – Intel Remains The Undisputed Champ With 98% Market Share

AMD Expected To Capture 5% Server Market Share With 7nm EPYC Rome Processors, Intel Still Trying Hard To Keep Rival x86 Server Market Share Under 15%

Now AMD is on the verge of introducing their 2nd line of EPYC processors codenamed Rome, based on the 7nm process. These are the first CPUs for the server space which will be using the 7nm process node and we already have details on the specs which includes 64 cores, 128 threads, and a totally revamped chip and architecture design that is unlike anything we have seen before.


To go from 1% of market to 2% is a 100% improvement. If they get 5% that's a 400% improvement. If the boost in income is proportional, there will be lots more money to invest in improved designs. The article thinks a 15% market share (up from that original 1%) is actually feasible over a couple years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/18 04:44 PM

Quote
AMD could power future Microsoft Surface laptops

With upcoming Picasso APUs

According to the rumor mill, Microsoft's future Surface laptop could use AMD hardware, most likely the upcoming Picasso APUs.

If it happens, and if Intel does not manage to twist Microsoft's arm, this will be a big win for AMD as such a deal will give AMD a much-needed boost in the notebook market.


Makes sense for Microsoft because AMD APUs have much better internal graphics than Intel CPUs. And, graphics is what most folks want.

As noted by the author, Intel may try something behind the scenes -- rather than just providing the best product and winning on that basis. Would not be the first time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/18 08:08 PM

Quote
AMD preparing Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition

AMD is currently hosting private events for selected press members around the world to talk about an upcoming driver update.

The new driver will be released mid-December. There is an embargo, but at this moment we are unsure if the information and the driver will be released simultaneously.

Our sources claim that new Adrenalin will also support undervolting [among many other things], yes you heard that right, fully automatic undervolting. This was quite a topic at Vega launch


Apparently, the next major driver release is sometime during the next 4 or 5 weeks. I've tried the reported undervolting with RX480 and RX Vega -- higher clocks, lower temperature. The new driver feature is supposed to make it easier to do.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/18 11:02 AM

Very unverified rumor:

Quote
AMD X570 chipset with PCIe 4.0 could launch at Computex

Gigabyte private event leaks X570 launch date?

AMD Matisse

This X570 chipset would be the first to support PCI Express Gen 4, a technology supported by Zen 2 and 7nm Vega.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/18 08:09 PM

Quote
AMD Dominates Retail CPU Sales in November, Outsells Intel 2 to 1 at Germany’s Largest E-Tailer

The best selling CPU was the AMD Ryzen R5 2600, followed by the R7 2700X, the R5 2600X and finally the Intel Core i7 8700K secured fourth place.

When broken by revenue generated instead of units sold the situation improves marginally for Intel due to its significantly higher pricing structure. Although, AMD still commands the lion’s share of the revenue with a record breaking 3+ million Euros generated in November, the largest figure ever recorded by Mindfactory.de even when compared to Intel’s best performance last year in December.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/18 10:12 PM

Quote
AMD Pledges to Take On NVIDIA’s High-End Turing With 7nm Radeon GPUs in 2019

AMD CEO Lisa Su – Nov 27, 2018 – 22nd Annual Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecom Conference
“We believe, we will be very competitive overall and that includes the high-end of the GPU market. Obviously there are new products out there from our competition. We will have our set of new products as well and we will be right there in the mix”

It’s not yer clear how exactly the company plans to compete with NVIDIA’s high-end Turing graphics cards. Especially after all the chatter we’ve been consistently hearing about AMD’s 7nm Navi being a mainstream focused product with GTX 1080 class performance.

[AMD's] Wang talked about the olden ATi & NVIDIA days where one would leapfrog the other every other year and how he plans to bring that competitive spirit back.


I think the author of the article overstates AMD's position. I think AMD will compete at the popular serious-gamer price ($200 to $300) sensible gaming high end ($400 to $600). I don't expect AMD to try selling $1000+ GPUs. Of course, that's an unsupported opinion. We'll see. Meantime:

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/18 09:58 AM

Heck of a complete RUMOR article. Sounds very feasible for 7nm CPUs. I assume the clocks are boost clocks -- not base clocks.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 [CPU] Specs & Prices Leaked, Upto 16 Cores & 5.1GHz on AM4

AMD is allegedly preparing 10 new unbelievable Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, including a 16 core with a mind-boggling 5.1GHz clock speed.

none of the specifications or prices are confirmed by any stretch, so take this with a grain of salt as with any leak or rumor.

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X, 3300 & 3300G – 6 Cores, Upto 4.3 GHz & $129

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 3600 & 3600G – 8 Cores, Upto 4.8 GHz & $229

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, 3700 – 12 Cores, Upto 5.0 GHz & $329

AMD Ryzen 9 3850X, 3800X – 16 Cores, Upto 5.1 GHz & $499


16 cores and (possibly) 32 threads at 5.1GHz for $500?? The fact that as cores increase clock speed increases causes me to "take pause". Lets wait and see before getting too excited smile

Article

Attached picture AMD Ryzen 3000 Specs Prices.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/18 04:31 PM

And now GPU leaks. Are they too good to be true?? Well, it is 7nm -- down from 14nm. So, maybe.....It isn't April 1, yet.

Quote
AMD Navi RX 3080, 3070 & 3060 Specs & Prices Leaked – RTX 2070, GTX 1070 & GTX 1060 Challengers at $249, $199 & $129

AMD is allegedly readying three brand new graphics cards based on its upcoming 7nm Navi graphics architecture, and if this leak courtesy of AdoredTV is accurate they’re going to sell like hot cakes!

AMD Radeon RX 3080 – 7nm Navi 10 GPU, 8GB GDDR6 & RTX 2070 Class Performance at $249

With a TDP rating of 150W and a price tag of $249, the RX 3080 occupies the mid-range sweet-spot that we’ve seen gamers overwhelmingly gravitate toward every generation.


Article

7nm strikes again. We'll see how true this rumor is in a few months or so. But, this rumor is in keeping with months old rumors that one could get Vega 64/GTX1080-performance for only $250 in 2019.

Attached picture Screenshot_2018-12-05 AMD Navi RX 3080, 3080 3070 Spec.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/18 12:27 PM

We knew Intel was working on 7nm.

Quote
Intel might have 7nm quicker than expected

Currently, the 10nm process is used to produce just a handful of CPUs, ahead of an expected ramp to high-volume manufacturing (HVM) only later in 2019.

But according to Anandtech,while Intel’s 10 nm is proving to be pants, its 7nm tech is on-track for introduction following its original schedule.

So far Intel has announced plans for only one 7 nm fab: the Fab 42 in Arizona.


Intel 7nm CPUs for gamers seem a couple years (or more) in the future.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/18 09:36 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon Vega II Trademark Unveiled Along With 7nm Radeon Vega GPU Brand Logo

AMD has just registered a new trademark which confirms their upcoming 7nm Radeon Vega GPUs. The trademark was registered around two weeks ago

AMD has only officially talked about HPC/Datacenter parts under the 7nm Radeon Vega family.


Its unknown if there will be gamer 7nm Vega parts. For gamers, 7nm Navi seems to be coming first.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture vega_frontier_launch.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/18 09:44 AM

Quote
The Fourth Largest Shareholder of NVIDIA Plans To Sell Its Stake Next Year

SoftBank looking to liquidate NVIDIA after losses mount

NVIDIA is currently down 48 percent from its October 1 peak and closed today $148.19, which puts it down slightly under 27 percent on the year, good for a market cap of $90 billion


Nvidia won't be going out of business -- $90 billion ain't bad.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/18 11:56 AM

Intel has unveiled its new long term strategy for CPUs and GPUs.

Interestingly, it seems Intel technical leaders are ex-AMD employees -- who now have more money to work with. I always said to myself, Intel could just "buy" AMD. What they did was buy some of the AMD technical leaders -- and more importantly the ideas that perhaps were being worked at AMD.

Having AMD type ideas built with Intel money and resources will definitely advance things faster for users like us. Hopefully, AMD and Nvidia will provide the competition to keep prices affordable.

Here's one of the many articles on multiple sites today. Basically, the new leaders have a new 5 year plan that they expect to start producing products for sale in 2020 (however, these won't be the very advanced ones coming in 5 years).

Quote
Intel Architecture Day 2018: Raja Koduri’s Commentary and Vision For Intel

At Intel’s recent Architecture Day, Raja Koduri [formerly of AMD GPU fame], Intel’s senior vice president of Core and Visual Computing, outlined a strategic shift for the company’s design and engineering model. .. [it] will be anchored across six strategic pillars:


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/18 12:50 PM

Normally, I don't mention driver updates -- but this is a major one. So far, I've merely "clean installed" it.

Quote
AMD Adrenalin 2019 Software Released, Improves Performance, Adds Streaming to Mobile

Christmas is almost here, and AMD has handed out their annual present for those with Radeon graphics cards. The company has released AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition, which promises to improves stability and performance across the board. The update also includes major additions to AMD Link, which now allows you to stream games from your PC to mobile devices or VR headsets, new software setup advisors, and smaller improvements to existing features like AMD Radeon ReLive and Overlay.


Note: The graph is an RX570.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture WCCFAMDadrenalin2019.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/18 12:58 PM

Using new driver, author tested Vega 56. Mixed results as expected. New drivers only add a few percent at best, normally.

But, undervolting worked. When I got my AMD cards, I found undervolting to be valuable for the last ounce of performance with low power draw. Yup, to get more FPS you "lower" the voltage -- not increase it.

Quote
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Auto Overclocking Tested

they did a bang up job on the Auto Undervolt. This has been the key for quite some time to getting more performance out of the more recent Radeon GPU launches and it offers a very healthy bump to stock performance without touching the power draw. Bravo on that one AMD, I love it!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/18 01:07 PM

This long article most concisely lists the new driver features with little comment. Worth a glance if one owns a recent AMD GPU.

Quote
AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2019 18.12.2 WHQL


Driver Feature List
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/14/18 03:36 PM

As noted above, I installed but had not "used" the new drivers. When checking out the "settings" interface, I found it did not work.

Uninstalled, cleaned using AMD uninstall everything software, used AMD problem fixing solutions -- including scans by advanced Windows command prompt application to fix "everything Windows". The drivers did install correctly (the first time -- noted above). But, the interface has not done so yet. I notice some other users had the same issue.

UPDATE: After "trying everything", I became afraid I overdid it. So, I've set my system back to what it was 2 days ago using a System Image. Now, I'll wait for a driver update. Things seem to happen with brand new releases of system software.

UPDATE 2: After "trying everything the second time", the issue is with my machine -- not the new AMD driver (it works on a similar machine in my house). The only solution left is a clean install of Windows 10 on my main system and reinstall of all my applications, etc. Can't blame AMD for "my problem" -- the problem merely showed up when I tried to install the new driver.

UPDATE 3: I made preparations for a W10 clean install (I had already tried 3 W10 installs leaving my apps and files alone). But, being obstinate, I tried one last time to install the new AMD graphics driver the completely normal way (which had never worked in many tries). Boom. It worked completely normally. Hmmm dizzy
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/18/18 08:52 PM

Very quiet on solid rumors regarding AMD or the competition. So, for the heck of it, here's yet another W10 1809 warning for everyone.

Quote
Microsoft Opens Floodgates on Windows 10 October 2018 Update – Hitting “Check for Updates” Begins Installation Process (Not Recommended Yet)

[Per Microsoft:]

"Rollout Status as of December 17, 2018: Windows 10, version 1809, is now fully available for advanced users who manually select “Check for updates” via Windows Update.

On November 13, 2018, we re-released the Windows 10 October Update (version 1809), Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server, version 1809. We encourage you to wait until the feature update is offered to your device automatically."


Basically, they admit there are still issues. Only folks who are advanced users and really want the new W10 should download.

For me, W10 1809 seemed to work right away (?) The latest AMD 18.12.2 GPU driver was a super pain -- the driver loaded but several hours of trying things never got AMD Settings to show. Then, when I had given up, I tried one last time and the AMD Driver worked. So, now, it all works for me. Apparently, other folks have had an even harder time -- or were unwilling to waste a day trying smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/18 12:45 PM

Regarding the competition's upcoming 14nm CPU for enthusiasts:

Quote
Intel’s Flagship HEDT Processor, The 28 Core Xeon W-3175X Listed Online – Could End Up Costing Around $4000 US

The Intel Xeon W-3175X is without a doubt the flagship chip that Intel will have for a while. It will be marketed as an ultra-enthusiast

boasting a base clock of 3.1 GHz and a boost clock of 4.3 GHz out of the box...unlocked design and allows up to 512 GB of memory support.

Even for enthusiasts, it won’t make a whole lot of sense unless you are into heavy content creation.

with AMD going for 32 cores and 64 threads ,.. Intel had to come up with a plan. This is Intel’s solution, but whether it works or not at the given price is something to be seen as AMD still offers more cores and threads,


For comparison the AMD 12nm 32core/65thread Threadripper (AMD 2nd Gen RYZEN Threadripper 2990WX 32-Core, 64-Thread, 4.2 GHz Max Boost ) is $1730 today at Newegg.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/18 12:51 PM

More about competition. Not much hard data on this 12nm GPU yet.

Quote
Nvidia mid-range RTX 2060 comes in January

Andreas Schilling from Hardwareluxx has confirmed that Nvidia AIC partners have marketing material and are gearing up for the launch in January, with a possible announcement scheduled for CES 2019 show and launch coming sometime in the second week of January.

some rumors suggest it could land at $349
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/20/18 12:00 PM

Quote
AMD EPYC Rome CPUs With A Total of 200,000 Cores To Power Atos BullSequana XH2000 Supercompouter

AMD EPYC Rome processors which will be the first to utilize the brand new 7nm process node are tapping in more deals from supercomputing companies even before its launch.

The new supercomputer would house a total of 3125 AMD EPYC Rome processors...This in total would give 200,000 cores and 400,000 threads

AMD has also tapped in a deal with the US Department of Energy for the development of their Perimutter supercomputer which will be housing AMD’s next-gen Zen 3 based Milan CPUs along with NVIDIA’s next-gen Tesla GPUs,


As noted previously, "cores and threads are where its at". Even over 30 years ago, it was cores and threads -- for serious work. I remember back in the 80s at work. We had a supercomputer in a very large room, cost $ millions, and had 64 cores/64 threads running at 0.07GHz (70MHz). Now, an enthusiast can do 1000s of times better at home with a $0.005M ($5000) AMD machine (w/Nvidia GPU -- for another year or so wink ).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/18 01:52 PM

Quote
AMD Will Be Launching The Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs, APUs And A Radeon GPU At CES

Update: AMD to launch a Radeon (consumer) GPU, Ryzen 3000 series and discuss 7nm progress at CES 2019 Keynote

the Ryzen 3000 series is fairly straightforward...AMD will be launching both the CPU and APU SKUs at CES 2019 at their Keynote. The APUs will have vega graphics and will be competing against Intel/NVIDIA combos in the mobility segment.

Perhaps the more interesting news is the confirmation that AMD will be launching a Radeon, consumer graphics cards. ,, I believe [not guaranteed] this is going to be the Radeon Vega II – the 7nm consumer variant of the Vega 20 GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/18 08:16 PM

News has been slow. Almost nothing solid from AMD for a while. Only Nvidia unfounded rumors. Now, some Nvidia facts (hopefully).

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 pictured, launches January 7th

The 2060 SKU will be announced during CES, quite possibly by Jensen himself during his keynote. The new model will be available in stores starting from January 15th.

As noted in the comments section of the article, the rumored 2019 AMD 7nm "Vega" for a rumored/speculated $250 might beat this 12nm Nvidia card soundly -- maybe worth waiting to see performance/price on both, they speculate.

Quote
LENOVO confirms mobile GeForce GTX 1160

This is a confirmation of 11-series launching alongside RTX 2060,


Attached picture NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2060-VideoCardz.jpg
Attached picture RTX2060.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/30/18 11:22 AM

I mention Nvidia over and over because its the GPU Competition (and AMD news is slow). Competition is good smile

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 pricing and performance leaked

Today we present the full, confirmed specs of GeForce RTX 2060.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 to cost 349 USD

will be available in stores starting from January 15th.

The full article gives substantial detail showing FPS in many games and comparative specifications of the 2000 series cards.

Article

Now, we need AMD to "compete" with a 7nm GPU that out performs it for less cash. Rumored that AMD will provide 7nm GPU info at CES next week.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/02/19 10:47 AM

Could easily be a fake leak. But, interesting to an AMD fan. This should be confirmed/denied next week at the CES event.

Quote
AMD Zen 2 Based Ryzen 3000 Series Desktop CPUs Listed Online – Ryzen 9 3800X Flagship With 16 Cores, 32 Threads, Up To 4.7 GHz Boost With 125W TDP

Listed by a Russian retailer, the site lists down AMD’s new Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 processors along with their key specifications.

there’s no way of confirming whether these specifications are real or just placeholders based on the recent leaks but AMD definitely has announcements planned for CES 2019

The Ryzen 7 3700X will feature 12 cores and 24 threads which is 4 more cores and 8 more threads compared to the Ryzen 7 2700X. The CPU will clock in at 4.2 GHz base and 5 GHz boost clocks, matching the highest speed of Intel’s fastest 8 core chip in a 105W TDP package.

If true, I'll be in the market for one. But, truth is "to be determined".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/19 11:27 AM

Cryptocurrency mining has caused problems for more than just gamers.

Quote
Nvidia sued over data mining crash

A law firm in Los Angeles, California is encouraging investors who lost more than $100,000 by pouring money into Nvidia shares to contact the agency for participation in a possible class-action lawsuit.

The company is currently trading at $133.50, which is down from over $200 in mid-November, and much lower than its high of nearly $300 in early October.


Back in the day when I traded stocks, I saw the entire market as a "gamble" -- not an "investment". Since markets started in the early 1700s, its been "buyer better beware". Losses, some huge, are part of the "game". There are no guarantees for the average stock trader/investor. It will be interesting to see if this lawsuit has any traction.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/19 11:38 AM

Quote
NVIDIA Officially Supporting VESA Adaptive Sync [AMD Freesync] Through G-Sync Compatible Monitors Program – 12 Freesync Monitors Passed, Drivers Launching 15th January

NVIDIA at CES 2019 acknowledged that [AMD supported] A-Sync monitors are also built for gaming and that they are very popular. As such, they are officially enabling support for A-sync / Freesync monitors with their upcoming GeForce drivers on 15th January 2019. This is huge news for gamers who want to get hands-on great gaming displays that are cheaper than the G-Sync models while still retaining variable refresh rate and tear-free gaming.

NVIDIA states that they will be starting a program that would certify through various test stages if A-Sync / Freesync monitors pass the G-Sync certification test. So far, 400 models have been tested and 12 have passed.


Note that Nvidia support for Freesync does not always work according to Nvidia's tests. Nonetheless, a win for those advanced gamers who buy Nvidia products. Of course, AMD has had this all along. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/19 04:45 PM

Presumably, the actual announcements are coming tomorrow (January 9).

Quote
Exclusive: Follow Up On AMD’s Agenda For CES 2019

AMD CES 2019: 7nm products (soft) launch with availability sometime in Q2 2019, planning to be first-to-market with 7nm

AMD will be soft launching (read: announcing) at least two 7nm product lineups. The first one is the 7nm Ryzen 3000 next-generation series (yeah that’s different from the 12nm variants) and the other is the consumer variant of their 7nm Vega GPU.

it’s clear that they are incredibly confident they can beat everyone (including Intel and NV) to market with 7nm products. Stay tuned for coverage of the actual keynote tomorrow!


Summary: AMD is expected to announce 7nm CPUs (for gamers) and 7nm GPUs (for gamers) tomorrow. They will be available by end of June (it is speculated).
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 10:32 AM

A question, probably hypothetical as a quick internet search seems to indicate that the answer is no,
I'm still waiting for an AMD based equivalent of the Intel NUC/Mac Mini in the high performace per cubic inch category.

Is there an AMD APU that can compete with the i7.8559U (Integrated Iris 655 GPU) that would allow the creation of such a unit?

There is an Intel NUC with Vega GPU, but I'm sure a APU would be cheaper, and maybe better?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by mikew
A question, probably hypothetical


I'm not an expert at what AMD plans. But, I think you are correct.

AMD has limited resources. So, they cannot "do it all at once". They seem to have been following a "one thing at a time" approach for the last few years.

First, compete by making custom APUs for gaming consoles -- a win. They make the APUs for current and next generation X-Box and Playstation.

Second, catch up to Intel in CPUs -- particularly for data center use. They're mostly there. Current AMD CPUs for business and pleasure are very competitive in performance and win price/performance. As part of that, they combine the new CPUs with the current AMD GPU technology to make a high performing APU for the Laptop market -- that's underway -- products are being made.

Third, catch up to current Nvidia performance in expensive GPUs is next (AMD performance/price has been competitive in mainstream GPUs -- and the non-gaming "compute" aspects of GPUs). The presumed 7nm GPU announcements may be the beginning. But, they have work to do. In that connection, AMDs philosophy is to compete in Mainstream (under $300) first, then high end when they have freed resources to do it.

They don't seem to be players in smaller markets -- from my reading. But, I read mostly gamer/hobby sites.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 08:15 PM

Equivalent FPS to RTX2080 for less cash. Good compute performance. Have to see independent reviews when they finally release. They did show one in action.

Quote
AMD Launches The Radeon VII Graphics Card – The World’s First 7nm Gaming GPU for $699 MSRP

AMD’s Radeon VII Is Faster Than NVIDIA’s RTX 2080 – 60 Compute Units and 16 GB of HBM (memory) for 13.8 TFLOPs of Compute

AMD’s Radeon VII graphics card is the first consumer AMD GPU to net a solid 60 fps in maxed out 4k settings in Battlefield V and Farcry 5 and if these titles are any indication of the larger set, the company finally has a competitive 4K graphics card.

availability will be from February 7th


Descriptive Article

[Linked Image]


Attached picture Vega VII Comparison.png
Attached picture R VII.jpg
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 08:18 PM

Thanks! I appreciate your updates, which is why I asked the question here.

It's not easy working out the numbering system, but it looks like the most powerful released APU is the Ryzen 7 2800H, but I don't see any laptops using it yet, never mind a mini PC.
Looks like it's Intel again for now...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 08:31 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3rd Generation ‘Mattise’ AM4 Desktop CPUs Based on Zen 2 Launching in Mid of 2019 – X570 Platform, 8 Core Desktop SKUs and PCIe Gen 4.0 Support

The Zen 2 core architecture is built around the next-gen 7nm process node from TSMC which allows for higher power efficiency, faster clock speeds and the CPU architecture itself provides a huge big leap in IPC compared to Zen+

The processor has also compared in Cinebench R15 versus the Core i9-9900K at stock frequency and the 8 core, 16 thread Ryzen scored 2057 points at 133.4W (max) while the Core i9-9900K with the same 8 core and 16 thread configuration scored 2040 points at179.9W (max).

AMD X570 Chipset – A New House For AMD’s Next-Gen Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs


Shorter Article

Attached picture Ryzen 3000.png
Attached picture Ryzen 3000 Image.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by mikew
..I don't see any laptops using it yet, never mind a mini PC.


I've read some Laptops are under construction at the Laptop manufacturers and to be on the market soon. Also, today's press conference indicated AMD henceforth intends to compete strongly in the thin laptop market. Makes sense. The APU is the cost effective solution. Normally, graphics is the weak part of a laptop. With advanced AMD graphics in the chip, that problem is solved. But, this is in the process of making it to market. They may not sell the one a given person wants until later in the year (I don't actually know when).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/19 10:07 PM

AMD had few words about commercial server CPUs. Not for gaming -- but they show where CPUs are headed. Cores and threads. GPUs used to have 1 or 2 "shaders" and now have thousands because that was the only way to make them a thousand times better. We'll see in a decade or so how far desktop CPUs get. .

Quote
Epyc Performance

Su then talked about the company's Epyc processors for the data center. The 7nm Epyc Rome server chips come bearing the Zen 2 microarchitecture and come with 64 physical cores, which equates to 128 threads per processor, double that of the first-gen Naples chips. In a two-socket server, that equates to 128 physical cores and 256 threads in a single box.

Rome is also the first PCIe 4.0 CPU, which offers double the bandwidth per channel. AMD has also made the processors backward compatible with its existing server ecosystem
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/19 09:21 AM

Quote
Dubbed the Radeon Instinct MI60 and Radeon Instinct MI50, the two cards are aimed squarely at the enterprise accelerator market, with AMD looking to significantly improve their performance competitiveness in everything from HPC to machine learning.


Just my own unsupported observation/speculation...

The new Radeon Vega VII 7nm GPU seems to be the gaming version of the 7nm Radeon Instinct MI50 enterprise accelerator -- which was also supposed to release in the 1st quarter of 2019. As such, the Vega VII would be the RX Vega 64 14nm architecture shrunk to 7nm.

Based on my reading, merely shrinking the Radeon Vega 64 14nm down to 7nm would be a sensible way to build the first 7nm GPU -- as it lowers risk of failure. Basing it to an extent on the overall MI50 package lowers risk/cost further. From my reading, the expected improvement in gaming performance would be approximately what AMD is claiming for Radeon Vega VII -- competitive with RTX2080.

The next step would be to redesign the GPU to make the best use of 7nm. No doubt the redesign has been underway -- maybe that's the Navi that is rumored for roughly mid 2019, or later.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/19 04:15 PM

Article with AMD supplied slides/details including frame rates in many games:

Quote
AMD shares more details on Radeon VII


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/19 01:05 AM

Quote
AMD CTO Mark Papermaster promises more Radeon products this year

Mark Papermaster confirmed that AMD is not abandoning the mid-range market with their 7nm architecture. The company will unveil more Radeon products over the year.

We are really excited to start on the high end with our 7nm Radeon VII […] and you will see the announcements over the course of the year as we refresh across our Radeon program.
— Mark Papermaster
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/19 05:21 PM

At CES, the Nvidia CEO badmouthed the AMD 7nm Radeon VII GPU. I say "badmouthed" because his word choices were not "classy" -- unexpected from a CEO. His point was there was no comparison between Radeon VII and the RTX2080 it competes with. Why? Because of Nvidia Ray Tracing mainly. AMD CEO was interviewed and asked to respond:

Quote
AMD CEO: Ray Tracing Is an Important Technology We’re Working on; NVIDIA Embracing FreeSync Says We Made the Right Choice

[AMD CEO partial response] "I’m not going to get into a tit for tat, that’s just not my style. So I’ll tell you that. What I will say is ray tracing is an important technology. It’s one of the important technologies; there are lots of other important technologies..

..what is the consumer going to see? The consumer doesn’t see a lot of [ray tracing] benefit today because the other parts of the ecosystem are not ready. I think by the time we talk more about ray tracing, the consumers will see that.


AMD provided data says Radeon VII FPS competes with RTX2080 in Gaming. Moreover, AMD data indicates the Professional/Compute aspect of Radeon VII is much stronger than RTX2080. As always, wait for the third party reviews.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/19 12:32 PM

Intel possibly trying to compete (or at least give that impression):

Quote
Intel Possibly Readying Core i9-9990XE Processor – Rocks 14 Cores, Up To 5.0 GHz Frequency at 255W TDP

The Core i9-9990XE is said to rock a base clock of 4.0 GHz (+ 1.0 GHz over the Core i9-9980XE) and a 5.0 GHz boost clock (+ 0.5 GHz over the Core i9-9980XE). This would allow for much better work load and gaming performance than the existing flagship.


However, all they are doing is pumping up the voltage/power on chips not designed for that -- resulting in very few being manufactured.

Quote
..the processors will not be sold at retail; rather they will only be sold to system integrators, and then only through a closed online auction. .they likely can only build a few hundred a quarter, hence the one auction per quarter..


The new AMD Ryzen 7nm 8core/16thread gaming CPU planned for Summer release is also 4GHz base and 5GHz boost. Intel will be claiming the same with nearly double the core count (according to rumor).

They are rumored very high priced (pundits estimate $2000) and we can't buy them (closed auction only). However, Intel can "advertise" that "they have the best". And, "Intel friendly" reviewers will have something to tout. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/19 04:56 PM

As I speculated above (in this thread):

Originally Posted by Allen
...The new Radeon Vega VII 7nm GPU seems to be the gaming version of the 7nm Radeon Instinct MI50 enterprise accelerator -- which was also supposed to release in the 1st quarter of 2019. As such, the Vega VII would be the RX Vega 64 14nm architecture shrunk to 7nm...


Now some pundits are noticing the same thing. As such, Radeon VII is actually under priced (compared to the MI50 price tag). It is speculated to do better than MI50 for gaming FPS (at up to 8K resolution). Because of the low price, AMD reduced MI50 compute when they turned MI50 into Radeon VII (but Radeon VII is better at compute than Vega 64 and much better than RTX2080 -- according to AMD).

Obviously, 7nm Radeon VII is primarily a "place holder" to keep attention on AMD GPUs while they produce the first truly gaming 7nm GPUs due this summer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/19 12:19 PM

A depiction of the difference between 14nm Vega 64 and 7nm Radeon VII chips. Note room in 7nm version for 16GB HBM2 that is included (RTX2080Ti has 11GB memory). For what its worth, the AMD HBM2 setup is said to transfer data twice as fast as RTX2080Ti DDR6. That helps compute, but is "overkill" for current games.

From what I read, the compute aspects of GPUs will become more used in games as time passes. For example, Nvidia uses Ray Tracing. AMD has indicated they will eventually use Ray Tracing (when well supported by games). However, in the shorter term, there is are methods to give similar results using (what I call) a compute function based on a new feature of Microsoft gaming drivers. Compute functions can make use of extra and extra fast memory. Just me rambling as these things are only hinted at in my reading.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture amd-radeonVII.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/19 02:21 PM

More than one article with this sort of headline:

Quote
AMD Radeon VII Won’t Offer Full-Speed Double Precision [Compute function]


These sorts of headline make it seem like a "fault". Thing is, double precision compute is not used in games -- and Radeon VII is for games.

Games that use compute will use single precision Compute -- Radion VII is blazingly fast at single precision:

Quote
Radeon VII — ... 13.8TFLOPs [single precision]..

the recent focus on AI and ML, .. tend to prioritize lower types of mathematical precision [i.e. single precision compute]


Radeon VII "gaming relevant" FP32 (float) performance is 13.8TFLOPs.

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti is 13.5TFLOPs.

Nvidia RTX 2080 (what Radeon VII competes with pricewise) is only 10.0TFLOPs.

Then, the article above continues:

Quote
the Radeon VII will offer 862GFLOPS [of FP64 double precision]


RTX 2080 Ti only offers 420GFLOPs and RTX 2080 only offers 315GFLOPs. But the article doesn't mention that.

Compute is not yet a big deal in games. However, AMD has traditionally lead in "compute" (why it was favored for cryptocurrency mining) and it continues to lead gaming GPUs in that function.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/19 12:15 AM

Hence why 'compute' is irrelevant for gaming and why the 1080Ti, RTX 2080 and 2080TI spank the Vega VII in gaming benchmarks even though AMD like to flaunt the Flops numbers about just like Sony do with their consoles. The reason a lot of articles dont even mention it is because it's meaningless when other card specifications affect that throughput. The numbers you mentioned in that last post would indicate twice the performance........in theoretical maximums involving memory bandwidth then yes, but in real world performance, and certainly gaming (where the card is aimed at, its behind the same priced competing cards) then no.

There's no change again.....it's getting very tiring watching AMD cherry pick certain sets of numbers that make their cards appear as if they are competing at the top end even though they are yet to manufacture a card of recent that does anything other than offer bang for buck. If it's not HBM, GFlops or memory bits it's something else. They aren't competing at all so they aren't forcing Nvidia to drop their outrageous pricing of high performance GPUs.

The problem with Vega VII is that most people are aware it's just a rehashed, gimped 7nm Instinct MI50 that's the same price as a 2 year old Nvidia GTX 1080ti but still cant reach the same gaming performance (I'm not sure why AMD claim it's competing with the RTX 2080 as it doesn't have the same feature set). We'll see what Navi has to offer in time but patience is wearing thin after so many promises over recent years, and the inability to break Nvidias performance dominance. By the time Navi does appear, Nvidia will have increased the performance watermark yet again and moved to smaller and more efficient fabrication. Nvidia appear to have performance to spare but AMD are always running at their max ceiling.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/19 02:08 PM

I try to be un-emotional when evaluating.

To state the obvious:

In every competition someone comes in first and someone comes in second.

The fact that AMD comes in second a lot is not a bad thing -- because the difference (between similarly positioned items) is usually not visible to the unaided eye (its only measurable). For example, in a blind gaming test of Vega 64 vs GTX1080 -- half the players picked Vega 64 and half picked GTX1080 because they really could not see the difference. For example, I can play any game on ultra settings with my setup. Usually, when possible, I mod the games to be even more graphics intensive -- with rare exception they stay on ultra. I go by what I see -- not what I measure.

If a gamer gets enjoyment knowing their GPU gives more FPS even though it looks no different -- fine -- there is no wrong way to enjoy gaming.

To compete, AMD charges lower prices. Without that competition what would "unopposed" Intel and "unopposed" Nvidia be providing. How much slower would progress have been. And, how high would "unopposed" prices be?

Competition has winners and losers -- but, its better than the alternative. So far, AMD is holding its own.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/19 04:03 PM

But that's the real problem with AMD, they've promised so much with Vega over the last few years but failed to compete at the top end, and then had to backtrack and claim they are offering bang for buck every time.

As you mentioned games don't look any different but the key factor is always the minimum framerate. With VR and 4K resolutions becoming more and more popular it's only Nvidia that can support the 1440p @ 90fps and 4K @ 60fps in the demanding titles. Another reason why the Vega VII isn't going to cut it at the $699 price point......the 1080Ti scrapes in for most games whilst the GTX 1080 and RTX 2080 fall short, which is exactly where the VII will drop in. AMD has no GPU to offer that level of performance.

Competition will be good when AMD actually get there. They are great at throwing irrelevant performance numbers around but not so good at delivering cards that actually compete in-game hence why Nvidia are under no pressure to lower the prices of their top two tiers of cards.

The best bang for buck at the moment is a used 1080Ti at ~$350-400 as it's only the RTX 2080Ti that is beating it at a ridiculous retail price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/19 01:48 PM

In keeping with the title of the thread: The Future And Current Status of AMD

Looking at Steam GPU usage figures for December 2018 (most current):

Overall:
Nvidia 74.18 percent of all GPUs used.
AMD 15.08 percent of all GPUs used.

Selected Models:
GTX 1060+GTX 1050Ti+GTX 1050 = 29.86 percent of all GPUs used (most popular price/performance grouping by far)
RX580+RX480+RX470 = 1.52 percent of all GPUs used (same price/performance grouping)

GTX 1080Ti = 1.68 percent of all GPUs used (more than AMD's above three mainstream combined)

RX Vega 64 and RX570 = not enough to make list -- lumped under "other". Definitely under 0.15 percent each.

Those numbers indicate why AMD is rumored to be planning a sub $300, new design 7nm Navi for later this year as their first "serious" 7nm GPU -- that price/performance group is what sells best. As noted above in this thread, Radeon VII is a 7nm "place holder" just to keep their name in the news (competitive -- but not special performance vs Nvidia's similarly priced RTX2080).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/19 01:15 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon Navi GPUs spotted in MacOS Mojave update

AMD’s upcoming Navi graphics processors have been discovered in MacOS Mojave update source code. The file named “AMDRadeon6000HWServiceskext” lists Navi 16, Navi 12, Navi 10 and Navi 9..

The fact that these entries already exist could indicate that Navi is much closer than we thought. The rumors about July release are not really exaggerated,..

AMD will be focusing on the mid-range market with their new 7nm power-efficient Navi architecture. In fact, even [AMD] confirmed that 7nm Radeon VII will be AMD’s top-tier graphics card for the time being.


Hopefully, the pundits correctly analyzed the "leak". Nothing official yet. Repeating: the AMD 7nm Navi GPU is "supposed" to be a new design, under $300 GPU (some say $250) with performance of RX Vega 64 at low power use (no proof, just educated rumor). Navi may also be used in 7nm APUs for thin laptops (AMD hints laptops will be an area of specialization and competition). We'll see this Summer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/19 01:12 PM

We were just talking about AMD's exceptionally fast "compute" being used to boost games of the future. That future is previewed March 15th 2019.

Quote
The Division 2 DX12 Performance Will Be Great Thanks to Better Use of Async Compute, Says Ubisoft Massive

for The Division 2 (due on March 15th), Ubisoft revealed a while ago to have partnered with AMD

The Division 2 will feature improved DX12 performance thanks mainly to better use of the Asynchronous Compute technique, which is known to be a strength of AMD GPUs across the board

[Developer Quote] "Yes, we are still very much supporting DX12 and in TCTD2, DX12 performance over DX11 should be even better. This is in large part due to us making better use of Async Compute to parallelize more graphics work to ensure maximal GPU utilization..."


They say compute is a "strength of AMD GPUs across the board" because AMD GPUs have had DX12 and compute built in for years now. Even older AMD GPUs should perform. We'll see how well when the reviews are written.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/19 01:34 PM

More AMD compute and using 16GB memory on the GPU -- an RX570 for cryptocurrency mining. Sounds like a year ago -- shudder wink

Quote
SAPPHIRE Launches 16GB Blockchain Graphics to Support GRIN Coin and other Cryptocurrencies

"SAPPHIRE Technology, a leading manufacturer and global supplier of components and commercial solutions, has today announced the SAPPHIRE RX 570 16GB HDMI Blockchain Graphics Card, the first of a new family of GPU Blockchain products to support mining of the recently launched GRIN Coin and other cryptocurrencies. "


So, buy a 7nm Radeon VII 16GB HBM2 GPU. Use it for GRIN Coin mining in its "spare time". It pays for itself. I'm kidding -- though its a thought smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/19 10:04 AM

Quote
ASRock unveils Radeon VII Phantom Gaming

ASRock is the first board partner showing its Radeon VII.

.. there are no custom designs yet. Rumor has it, there won’t be any in the coming weeks.

AMD Radeon VII will launch on February 7th for 699 USD. This is likely the fastest Radeon graphics card till Navi architecture arrives.


Attached picture Radeon VII Phantom Gaming.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/19 12:22 PM

Take the attached with more than a grain of salt -- maybe a few hundred pounds. Mostly guesswork. But, it is in keeping with the rumors/leaks.

In one simple figure it provides a snapshot of what might happen this Summer.


Attached picture Navi GPU Variants.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/19 11:35 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2019 19.1.2 BETA

Fixed Issues

A toast message may intermittently popup incorrectly suggesting that a new driver upgrade is available.

Custom installations of Radeon Software may sometimes fail to install Radeon Settings.


I had those two on my main machine the last couple (?) months. My home-made fixes did not always work. Wondered if it was "me" or "them". It was "them" for a change. If a reader has had the same issues, the driver update might fix it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/19 11:50 AM

Quote
AMD Gonzalo APU in PS5, Xbox Next May Feature Navi Graphics, Zen Cores

AMD hasn’t formally announced that it has won the Xbox Next and PlayStation 5 contracts just yet, but it’s considered a more-or-less foregone conclusion in the industry.

CPU-wise, at least, the new consoles should be far more powerful than the last few generations. We’ll have to wait to see how much horsepower the GPU side of the equation will receive.


These will be custom made console (not PC) APUs -- with the core, thread, and shader counts specified by XBox Next and PlayStation 5. The counts will be different in the two gaming consoles -- so, performance will not be identical.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/19 12:44 PM

Since Ray Tracing is part of the discussion now, I've conducted some of my own observations.

3DMark has a ray-tracing benchmark out (only a few dollars to add it). I watched the video of it (my card does not have ray tracing). Many fully reflective surfaces. Looks very realistic. Runs at 1080p on RTX2080Ti (they say). Anyone can go to Steam page and watch the video.

Played Assassin's Creed Odyssey main campaign and now back on A.C. Origins (never finished it). No ray-tracing -- but, has reflections (mostly on water surfaces). The reflections look "real" when playing. I have to stop and stare to see the non-real aspects. However, if all the graphics were fully ray traced, I imagine I would easily see (and like) the difference.

Full ray tracing is currently not possible because it costs far too much GPU power -- rather developers must pick and choose what aspects to ray trace (I have read). And, there are other ways to get reflections/shadows/lighting-effects that do not cost much GPU power (e.g. those used by A.C. Odyssey/Origins). For ray tracing, beauty will be in the eye of the beholder -- no wrong way to enjoy gaming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/19 03:19 PM

Quote
Exclusive: AMD 7nm Mobility Supported OEMs And Current Roadmap

will support AMD 7nm:.. Acer ASUS HP

will not be supporting AMD 7nm:... Tongfang Clevo MSI ..the decision has nothing to do with performance – that much I can tell you right now

...7nm to take over [Mobility products] in late 2019 to Q1 2020

The good news is I am hearing very good things about the performance per $ levels of the AMD 7nm mobility lineup and it will be very competitive compared to what we have on the market right now. This means we are looking at a significant structural shift in cost structures of the laptop industry: things are about to get a lot faster – and cheaper!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/19 11:22 AM

Quote
Radeon VII 16GB HBM 2 memory cost around $320

The marketing guys at AMD did a nice job naming the card Radeon VII (Roman 7) as it is a 7nm, launching on February 7 and costing $699 but our investigation shows that 16GB HBM 2 comes at a hefty price.

Launching a card with 16GB might sound like overkill but it was an engineering rather than a business decision.

$80 x 4 HBM 2 chips, 4GB each

AMD won’t do a gaming GPU based on 7nm Vega [with 16GB] as the card simply cannot make a profit, but from the image point of view, it makes a lot of sense [to put Radeon VII on the market]..


The article indicates that Radeon VII was logical to keep AMD "in the news" (something we've noted). But, the profit is very small. In that limited sense (they are not making a lot of money off the Customer), its not a bad deal. It releases in less than two weeks.

I'll be interested in the independent test results. However, if its only roughly 25 percent faster than what I've got, I wouldn't "see" or "feel" the difference.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/19 11:36 AM

Quote
AMD makes some senior leadership changes

Sandeep Chennakeshu, hired as executive vice president of Computing and Graphics, and responsible for high-performance PC, gaming and semi-custom businesses..previously held senior engineering and executive roles at Ericsson, Freescale, Sony, and Blackberry.

AMD certainly has a big chance to disrupt the market and seem to have an upper hand ahead of its 7nm launch so hopefully, the company will deliver on its promises, as competition will both drive technology advancements as well as shake the market and push those prices down.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/19 12:10 PM

Radeon VII out next week may be being sold at close to estimated design+production cost. Again, the concept is that Radeon VII is just to keep AMD "in the news" -- not to make real money. Think of it as an advertising expense. So, based on the guesswork in the article, customers are getting a bargain -- particularly if they use the compute functionality.

Quote
Radeon VII production cost $650+

Bill of Materials

Our original article about the HBM 2 cost gained a lot of traction and we decided to try to dig out how much the whole card BOM (bill of materials) might be.

AMD is not overcharging for the card. For what it is worth, based on these numbers AMD is actually undercharging end users. The company could not go higher than $699 as it needs to compete against Nvidia

Good competition drives prices down but Nvidia is a tough company to go against. Having Intel coming to the GPU game at some point next year will make things even more interesting.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/19 01:18 AM

Quote
Eurasian Economic Comission website ilsts first AMD X570 motherboards.

ASRock preparing nine X570 motherboards


The X570 is AMD’s chipset for Zen2-based processors. The [7nm] Ryzen 3000 desktop series are expected around Computex. The leak from ASRock might be an indicator that X570 motherboards will be available sooner.


Quote
COMPUTEX Taipei 2019 Show Start Date : 28 May 2019 Show End Date : 01 June 2019


My understanding is that the new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs probably (not for sure) will work with older X300 series and X400 series motherboards. Nominally plug and play. But, I won't be at all surprised if a BIOS update is required.

Depending on performance and pricing, my tentative plan is to buy a 7nm Ryzen 7 3800X (??) to replace the Ryzen 7 1800X in my 470 motherboard. But, I'm open to 570 if it actually makes things work better.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/19 10:34 AM

There's a chance some Nvidia GPU prices may rise due to supply shortage. Its not clear what model number GPUs were affected.

Quote
Reports: TSMC Accident Destroys Tens of Thousands of Nvidia GPU Wafers

After the Great Cryptographic GPU Shortage of 2017 sent GPU prices into the stratosphere, the slow decline through 2018 was a welcome return to normal. Now, we may see fresh shortages and higher prices thanks to a reported manufacturing problem at TSMC.

The following is a quote from a report by the Chinese site Expreview:

"Today, TSMC has been experiencing a security incident. This time, the wafer was contaminated by unqualified raw materials. It is estimated that it will lose tens of thousands of wafers, affecting the 16/12nm process of the main revenue, NVIDIA GPU and many mobile phone chip manufacturers."

AMD shouldn’t be affected by any of these issues, assuming they remain confined to 16/12nm


AMD has chips made there also. So, AMD may have been affected -- but not reported, yet. The article "speculates" that AMD was not affected.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/19 06:24 PM

Quote
Alienware Founder and GM Frank Azor Says It’s Unrealistic to Expect Intel to Best NVIDIA or AMD GPUs Right Away

"..Intel is an extremely capable company that I’m sure will produce some really good product. But I think it’s unrealistic to think that they’re going to best the likes of NVIDIA or AMD immediately."


The first Intel GPUs are planned for 2020 release. As often happens with a totally new product, Intel GPU release to market may be delayed significantly. But, I too expect a good product.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/19 12:53 PM

Quote
AMD Shares Soar After Meeting Earnings Targets While Revenue Misses

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD 19.25 -4.61%) shot up by as much as 10 percent in after-hours trading this afternoon after the chip maker posted its fourth-quarter financial results. AMD met earnings forecasts but missed Wall Street estimates for revenue.

2017 Revenue: $5.3 billion
2018 Revenue: $6.5 billion (up 23%)
2017: Net Income -$33 million
2018 Net Income: $337 million
No more fees to Global Foundries for using 3rd party Fabs

"Despite near-term graphics headwinds, 2019 is shaping up to be another exciting year driven by the launch of our broadest and most competitive product portfolio ever with our next-generation 7-nanometer Ryzen, Radeon, and Epyc products".


For comparison:

Quote
NVIDIA Stock Plummets 14% After Warning of $500 Million Revenue Shortfall
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/19 07:16 PM

Just a note in an article. I've seen many similar notes regarding RX580 vs GTX 1060. Equivalent performance. Comes down to price.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB

The best card for mainstream gaming right now

The RX 580 8GB trades blows with the GTX 1060 6GB, [with RX580] typically winning by a few percent in performance .. the midrange [GPU] category is largely determined by local pricing, with the US market currently favoring the RX 580


Right now today, the cheapest on Newegg USA is $170 (after rebate). It includes 2 free games one just released another due in a month or so. Being new, their nominal total price is roughly $100 (I got them with my recent RX580 purchase). Of course, on games, beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- they are only worth $100 to some gamers.

Attached picture 14-131-720-Z03.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/19 08:37 PM

Regarding competition: It seems Intel 10nm is only expected to perform like Intel current 14nm. Consequently, Intel is moving towards 7nm faster than Intel originally intended. But, Intel 7nm not coming soon.

Quote
SemiAccurate will go out on a limb here and say that 10nm yields won’t be close to 14nm for the first year of it’s volume production. We will go further out on that limb and say that production costs for 10nm chips will be significantly higher than 14nm devices of similar performance.

When we wrote the original piece there were four fabs slated to transition to 10nm. One of these has been backported to 14nm, .. Two of the remaining fabs installed lots of EUV tools which are meant for the 7nm process, not the 10nm process. This effectively precludes these facilities from producing 10nm.

This left one fab which was slated for 10nm


Intel 10nm seems to be a mediocre design (as was AMD Bulldozer CPU a few years back). Thus, 10nm cut from 4 fab plants to 1 fab plant. Meanwhile, 2 of those 4 fab plants being updated for 7nm. It was suggested that 10nm is only being manufactured to solve outstanding problems that need to be solved for 7nm anyway. That is, Intel 7nm is having some of the same problems that Intel 10nm had. I'm sure Intel will get 7nm working -- question is: When?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/19 03:21 PM

Rumor confirmation:

Quote
AMD CEO confirms [7nm] Navi for 2019

During the earnings call, AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, confirmed that [7nm] Navi GPU will launch this year, with launches in Q2 2019.

..the rumor was that the 7nm GPU looks better than expected, whether in terms of 7nm yields or the actual performance/power is still left to be seen

..the upcoming 7nm Navi architecture could first target the mid-range graphics market, becoming a successor to the Polaris GPU, as that is where the bread and butter is. High-end graphics cards are great for marketing but mid-range is what mostly matters.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/19 10:49 AM

TSMC fabricates AMD-designed chips. So, the future of AMD competitiveness with Intel is looking up.

Quote
TSMC thrashes Intel on semi tech

TSMC has beaten Intel on nodes, throwing Chipzilla's proud boasts of being ahead in the semiconductor market into deep disarray.

Intel has since the 20th century had the lead in the microprocessor market and now is dominating the datacentre market and has vast coffers of cash. But it is not invincible. Think about IBM, for example.


Use of the word "thrashes" is a bit extreme (I'm not a fan of "trash talk"). The IBM reference is meaningful to one who's been following the industry for 40 years or so. IBM looked invincible for a while.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/19 11:08 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII 7nm GPU Makes Its Way To Reviewers Test Benches

With only a week away from its launch the AMD Radeon VII 7nm GPU appears to have made it’s way to reviewers hands. .. Radeon VII launches next Thursday (2/7/2019)


Possible performance has been leaked. But, I await the plethora of independent test reports coming next week.

Attached picture AMD-Radeon-Vega-VII-GPU-CES-740x495.jpg
Attached picture AMD Radeon VII.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/06/19 06:12 PM

Rumor regarding AMD Radeon VII tomorrow.

Quote
AMD Radeon VII launch allocation: 100+ units for UK, 20 units for Spain and France


Previous rumors said roughly 5000 total units in first batch. If true, those 5000 have to "cover the Earth". So, each country would get a relatively small number (depending on their "gaming population").

It will be interesting to see if there is enough interest to sell them all out quickly. Those of us who were willing to spend serious money on RX Vega 64 or GTX1080 (and up) don't really need new cards. We'll see how it goes starting tomorrow (Feb 7).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/07/19 04:10 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII Review Roundup

Dozens of Reviews Linked Here

[Linked Image]

I haven't had time to read much yet. Reviews I read put its FPS roughly 7 percent behind RTX2080. Thing is, that always happens with the First AMD driver release compared to the already optimized Nvidia drivers on the previously released competing GPU. I won't be surprised if driver optimizations over the next couple months close the gap.

Attached picture Radeon VII Review Roundup VideoCardz.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/19 11:47 AM

Shortly after posting the above yesterday, I checked Radeon VII availability. Amazon and Newegg had the Sapphire Radeon VII "available" (for list price) -- all others were marked "sold out". Shortly thereafter, all were marked "sold out".

I'll be interested to see if and when more are available -- and at what price. Sometimes the initial batch is small and sells at list price. Then, the second batch sells at a higher price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/19 04:00 AM

Not much known for sure. But the early Summer Navi release is rumored to have slipped to October 2019.

Quote
AMD Navi 7nm GPUs Based Radeon RX Graphics Cards Reportedly Delayed Till October 2019

Radeon VII utilizes the 7nm architecture but it is essentially a die shrunk of an existing architecture. The Navi GPUs will be designed around 7nm from the start and that would definitely help AMD take full advantage of the 7nm process node.

[The delay] may be attributed to the 7nm supply as the Radeon VII, a high-end chip is already available in lower quantities than expected and is out of stock almost globally.


AMD's 7nm supplier did have a major accident while manufacturing some 7nm products for other clients. This delay may follow from that incident.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/19 01:02 PM

Quote
AMD Captured CPU Desktop, Notebook and Server Market Share With Ryzen, Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC CPUs – CPU Share Highest Since 2014

AMD Unveils CPU Market Share Statistics – Highest Market Share Since 2014, Captured All Segments Including Server, Desktops, and Notebooks


AMD trending upward. Intel still sell much more product in total. However, in the gaming market, AMD is approaching parity in sales (and performance).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/19 11:14 AM

Be cautious when buying an MSI product.

Quote
Radeon RX 580 with 2048 cores

The elusive and unique product called Radeon RX 580 2048SP will soon be added to MSI offer. This SKU is one of the most criticized products in the AMD portfolio. Rather than call it RX 570, the RX 580 name is used. This product is not available in all regions. It could go against some regulations, such as misleading product naming. That said, the RX 580 2048 SP ARMOR from MSI will likely only be available in Asia.

There are two variants, the 8GB and 4GB models. The cards are (surprise, surprise) identical to Radeon RX 570 ARMOR. Basically, it is the same card with a new box.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/19 08:09 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII to get one-click UEFI-ready BIOS update

[Via AMD] "AMD has released a BIOS for the Radeon VII with UEFI GOP included for our AIB partners. We will also make a one click installable BIOS available to end users via AMD.com. We do not expect gaming performance differences between the non UEFI BIOS and the UEFI GOP included BIOS, although the non UEFI BIOS may experience slower boot times from cold boot."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/19 01:15 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII To Get Radeon Pro Software For Enterprise Support Soon, Also Receives BIOS Update To Support UEFI

The main highlight of the driver is the “One Driver” feature. This allows many of AMD’s consumer Radeon cards, including the recently released Radeon VII, to be compatible with the Radeon Pro software stack. Features such as commercial software support, stability, commercial application performance, standard feature set, and enterprise security features will all be available with the consumer end cards

the Radeon VII is getting some if not full Radeon Pro Software support. It comes with a lot of FP64 (Double Precision Floating Point Operations) performance rated at 3.5 TFLOPs. It was confirmed by AMD that due to the broad market nature of the Radeon VII graphics card, they decided to increases the double precision performance to 1/4 SP compared to 1/16 SP of before.


Maybe they are planning to sell more than 5000 Radeon VII. It offers better compute capability than its Nvidia competition -- and, now its even better than it was at release. This is just a driver update -- so those who purchased one of the original 5000 cards will get it when they update with yesterday's driver release.

RX Vega 64 is supposed to get a compute bump up also (but not everything Radeon VII is getting)..

The BIOS update is a separate item that is not required for the increased compute capability (as I understand it). And, the BIOS update is not required for FPS improvement.

Attached picture Radeon Pro Software For Enterprise Support.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/19 01:53 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Notebooks Now Available – ASUS TUF Gaming FX705 and TUF Gaming FX505 With Ryzen 5 3550H


The notebooks have the Ryzen 3000 series notebook APU with Vega 8 graphics. In addition, these particular notebooks have a discrete AMD GPU for gaming. When not needed, the GPU powers down giving long battery life while watching movies, etc. Too much in the article to summarize. Main thing is that the AMD Ryzen 3000 series notebook is now on the market.

Article

The attachments compare the AMD 3000 series APU (with internal graphics) to the Intel notebook APU competition (these numbers do not include the separate GPU that may be in a notebook).

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-3000-Series-Notebook-Lineup_3-1480x831.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-3000-Series-Notebook-Lineup_2-1480x829.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/19 07:03 PM

Regarding competition a couple headlines that tell the stories.

Quote
NVIDIA CEO Says They’re Working with Devs on Every Single Game Coming Out to Add Ray Tracing, Slips Unity Engine Support Coming Soon


Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and GeForce RTX 2070 Sales Lower Than Expected, Gaming Revenue Down 45% – Crypto and Excess Channel Inventory Also To Blame
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/19 02:46 AM

Here's an update on Nvidia's primary new features to improve image quality (Ray Tracing and DLSS in 2000 series GPUs).

Quote
NVIDIA Answers Burning DLSS Questions, Promises Constant Work Over Time to Improve Image Quality

The main purpose of deep learning super-sampling, or DLSS for short, has always been to help GeForce RTX cards deliver playable frame rates at high resolutions when coupled with the taxing ray tracing effects. So far, while there is indeed a performance boost [with DLSS] .. there’s also a significant compromise to image quality..

Article contains a lot of official answers from Nvidia -- explaining what they're trying to accomplish.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/19 08:05 PM

Another AMD new-generation rumor that seems positive:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop CPUs, Radeon Navi GPUs and X570 Motherboards With PCIe Gen 4.0 Allegedly Launching on 7th July

The source reports that just like Radeon VII that got the 7th February release date which clearly highlighted the 7nm process technology featured on the card, the 7th July (7/7/2019) release to emphasize the use of 7nm across all AMD mainstream families (GPU & CPU). It’s a really great marketing approach for AMD. Also what’s interesting to note here the mentioned date is for the release which means AMD would probably make an announcement earlier.


Attached picture AMD-CPU-7nm-Zen-2-Roadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/19 09:20 PM

There's a chance some or most of AMD's GPUs will be capable of Ray Tracing (if developers want to go the route of using compute for RT). And, they may.

Why? AMD "compute" is the "compute" leader at most GPU price points -- and AMD GPU technology will power next-gen consoles.

Quote
Metro Dev: Ray Tracing Is Doable via Compute Even on Next-Gen Consoles, RT Cores Aren’t the Only Way

[developer quote] "In terms of the viability of ray tracing on next generation consoles, the hardware doesn’t have to be specifically RTX cores.... Those calculations can be done in standard compute if the computer cores are numerous and fast enough (which we believe they will be on the next gen consoles). In fact, any GPU that is running DX12 will be able to “run” DXR since DXR is just an extension of DX12. ..fast compute cores and memory which lets you get at your bounding volume data quickly is also a viable path to doing real-time RT."

We’ll likely know more about the feasibility of ray tracing via compute when AMD reveals more details about the Navi GPU architecture, which is believed to have been chosen by Sony and Microsoft to power their next consoles.


Speculation at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/19 11:15 AM

A minor update on earlier news regarding Nvidia 12nm chips. AMD is not mentioned (however, AMD is moving on with 7nm now).

Quote
TSMC $550 Million Blunder Destroyed Thousands Of NVIDIA GPU Wafers

Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co (NYSE:TSM 39 1.40%) confirmed Friday that a manufacturing defect caused the Taiwanese foundry to scrap tens of thousands of wafers at their 12nm/16nm Fab 14 facility. TSMC investigated the matter and found that a ‘photoresist’ layer used an improperly treated compound that contained foreign polymers.

Several companies have been cited as affected, perhaps most importantly graphics chip-maker NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA 158.55 1.22%).

All of NVIDIA’s current Geforce video cards..are fabricated on these production lines

[The times to fabricate a GPU] are increasing from roughly 40 days at 28nm, to 60 days at 14nm/10nm, to 80 to 85 days at 7nm.. [Consequently, Nvidia GPU] supplies may .. [become less available] in the May-June timeframe.


Regarding AMD, I notice the longer production times for 7nm vs 12nm. Obviously, 7nm is more expensive and new design 7nm GPUs take slightly longer to get to store shelves.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/19 09:19 AM

Quote
AMD Drops The Price Bomb on Radeon RX Vega 56 Graphics Card, Now Available For $279 US To Tackle NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

The RX Vega 56 graphics card is definitely a good card with 8 GB of HBM2 VRAM and lots of compute prowess. It has some great features such as Rapid Packed Math, Shader Intrinsics, and support for Freesync 2.

[Includes 3 games] These titles are Resident Evil 2 Remake, Devil May Cry 5 and the Division 2 which is $180 US worth of value

When this article was posted, the one card that is available for the $279 US price, the MSI Radeon RX Vega 56 with the Air Boost blower cooler design was out of stock. It looks like the deal was so popular that buyers rushed and bought off all the stock. It is not known when the new stock would be available


I found the advertisement at Newegg for the price. However, it was listed "Not available" when I looked -- which might have different meaning than "out of stock" (?).

Edit: In stock as I write this update.

Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-Vega-56-279.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/19 03:11 PM

Checked again for the above RX Vega 56 at $279 with 3 free games (ostensibly worth $180). Its in stock at Newegg as I write this.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/19 12:33 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 590 and Radeon RX 580 Rumored To Get Price Cuts In The Coming Weeks – Prices Down To $229 US and $199 US, Respectively

It was .. recently rumored that AMD might be introducing their Radeon [7nm] Navi GPUs in July aiming the mainstream segment so it’s highly likely that they are clearing inventory of Polaris cards before the arrival of next-gen parts.

Both cards have the same GPU configuration of 2304 stream processors, 144 TMUs and 32 ROPs. Both cards even feature the same memory configuration of 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM .. the RX 590 utilizes the 12nm process to deliver clock speeds of up to 1545 MHz.


Today, Newegg has three RX580 models on sale for $190 (one adds a $20 rebate) with two free games (ostensibly worth over $100).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/19 11:29 AM

New laptop drivers for latest AMD laptop chips are in the latest AMD GPU driver update 19.2.3 (released yesterday).. Good performance boost.

Quote
Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.3 Highlights

Support For

AMD Ryzen™ Mobile Processors with Radeon™ Vega Graphics

Up to 10% average performance gains .. vs. 17.40 launch drivers..
Up to 17% average performance gains in eSports™ titles ...


Indicates the issue with testing new AMD (or Nvidia) CPUs and GPUs -- usually, the first drivers are not optimized. So, one cannot fairly compare a new design GPU to an established GPU until the drivers are fully optimized (usually takes months, not days).


Attached picture Slide1-1000x563.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/19 12:27 PM

Quote
AMD Introduces Radeon FreeSync 2 HDR Oasis Demo, An Upgrade Over The Windmill Demo

new FreeSync 2 HDR Oasis Demo, not .. a benchmark tool.

The demo is designed to showcase the benefits of FreeSync .. with a large array of control features and supporting HDR..

This push for really exploring their benefits with FreeSync 2 makes a lot of sense with the recent Adaptive Sync support coming from [Nvidia] and by the end of 2020 we’ll see Intel doing the same


One reason I'm an AMD GPU fan is that their chips have often lead the way with useful advancements built in -- that make a positive improvement in gaming graphics and professional applications (e.g. tessellation, good DX12 support, cost-effective FreeSync, effective compute functionality). Looks like the industry is moving towards FreeSync (over competing alternatives).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/19 04:45 PM

Quote
AMD Next-Gen Radeon GPUs To Feature Variable Rate Shading For Faster Frame Rates, May Launch With Upcoming RX Navi Graphics Cards

In a patent filed by AMD back in 2017, which was recently made public, it is stated that AMD was investing resources in developing advanced GPU shading technologies, namely, Variable Rate Shading (VRS)

The said feature isn’t something new in the industry as NVIDIA has already introduced Variable Rate Shading on their Turing architecture-based graphics cards.

In simple terms, VRS will apply full details on sections of the frames where most of the attention is focused while reducing the rendering load on other parts, thus increasing overall performance. This method specifically helps when running games at higher resolutions.

AMD is expected to launch their next-generation Radeon cards based on the Navi GPU architecture this year so we may very well see them featuring VRS.


The article "speculates" regarding AMD VRS. There is no solid leak yet. As noted, Nvidia already has a version of VRS in their latest cards and it increases FPS in supported games..

VRS raises FPS by selectively lowering image resolution. Some folks may not like the trade off.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/19 11:31 AM

This could easily be erroneous AMD 7nm CPU information. I hesitate to post it. Nice if it turns out true.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU “Zen 2” Alleged Specs and Prices Leak Out By Retailer – Ryzen 3850X With 16 Cores at $560 US, Ryzen 7 3700X With 12 Cores at $370 US, Ryzen 5 3600X With 8 Cores at $260 US

...the specifications and CPUs listed by the retailer seem to be a placeholder but since we are seeing these being mentioned on various channels, there might just be some legitimacy to it. Still, it’s advised to take all of this info with a grain of salt ...


We'll see in July.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/19 11:52 AM

Quote
Nvidia and AMD GPU Oversupply to Last Until Summer - Report

..the crypto bust left AMD and Nvidia with an excess amount of GPUs, the Jon Peddie Research group says this will continue on for almost half a year (up to this summer).

You can buy GTX 1060s and RX 580s comfortably within the low-$200 range, or even cheaper sometimes, and RX 570s are going for the mid-$100s during seemingly regular sales.

Although cards such as the GTX 1080 and 1080Ti are in short supply and thus command high prices, cards like the GTX 1070 and 1060, and the RX Vega 56, 580, and 570, are still in high supply and are consequently much cheaper than they were during the cryptomining craze. AMD's GPUs even come with free games, further increasing the value. Now is a great time to buy a last-gen GPU,


As previously mentioned, I've taken advantage of the low RX580 prices ($165 - $190) to replace/upgrade a couple out-of-date AMD GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/19 08:15 PM

We have 8 computers around the house -- only 2 are on all the time and only 2 more get regular use. A year ago, most of the 8 had out of date AMD cards (like HD5000 series and HD7000 series). With the low RX580 prices I could not resist updating.

Today, I ordered the third RX580 for $170 with 2 free games (already got the game deal with an earlier RX580 on sale for $165). That makes three RX580 and brings our 2'd string PCs relatively up to date for a while. Of course, I don't really expect to always see the difference in day to day use -- but, the drivers will be regularly updated and will be in sync with W10 features which is an improvement on the older cards.

I hope I can rationalize a 7nm AMD Navi GPU when they arrive this summer (i.e. I hope one actually out performs what I have at a reasonable price). If so, one of the grand kids will get a hand-me-down RX580.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/19 04:57 PM

Just after the post about a $170 RX580 with 2 free games (on sale) -- the other side of the coin:

Quote
Colorful’s Flagship iGame GeForce RTX 2080 Ti KUDAN Now Available For an Insane Price of $3000 US – Features Beast of a PCB, Hybrid Cooling In a Triple Slot Design:

..the highest price we have ever seen for a single chip based graphics card (excluding Titan’s).

Article

Competition is good smile Unfortunately, there is no competition at this level of performance. And, without AMD there would be no competition -- period -- at any gaming level of performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/19 12:38 PM

Quote
AMD might make a killing from new Intel chip bug

All Chipzilla chips open to new Spoiler non-Spectre attack

They looked for the same weakness in Arm and AMD processor cores but didn't find the same behaviour that is present in Intel chips.

Intel won't be able to use software mitigation to address the problem Spoiler exploits fully. Meanwhile, hardware mitigations could address the issue but would almost certainly mean a hit on CPU performance.

Analyst Ken Kam of Marketocracy Capital Management said that AMD should be able to take advantage of this flaw....“If Intel now also needs to redesign their processors to address Spoiler I cannot see how this can be accomplished in less than five years. That's enough time for AMD to take significant market share,”

Article

They wrote that this applies to all Intel CPUs from 1st generation to current (and probably the next couple generations, they speculate). I speculate that gaming computers are not likely to be hacked using "Spoiler". However, a mandatory fix might slow them a bit.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/19 04:51 PM

Quote
EXCLUSIVE: Gaming Laptop MSRPs Are About To Get More Affordable With AMD Ryzen [CPU] and NVIDIA’s Turing GPUs

I have received confirmation from three different OEMs that they are expecting to launch laptops with AMD’s Ryzen 12nm processors and NVIDIA Turing graphics for as low as $1099.

..AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen mobility CPU and GTX 1660 Ti combo will start from $1099.. an AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen mobility CPU and an RTX 2060 will be $1299..I have no doubt that you will be able to see the same basic configuration for $999 during promotional events.

An NVIDIA Turing 1660 Ti .. should be able to play just about everything at 1080p resolution at high settings.

Now the question that remains is how soon can you get your hands on these laptops? Well, sooner than you might think. I have more information in the pipeline, so stay tuned!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/19 12:34 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs Aiming Mid-2019 Launch, 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper in 2019, Confirmed – Zen 2 Cores, Higher Clocks and More

AMD has confirmed that their 3rd Generation Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper processors will be launching this year.

AMD has made significant changes to their CPU architecture which help deliver twice the throughput of their first generation Zen architecture.

Zen 2 also includes stronger hardware level enhancements when it comes to security. This further solidifies AMD CPUs against enhanced Spectre variants

AMD will also be hosting a public demonstration of their Ryzen 3000 series processors early at Computex 2019 but the actual launch would take place a month later

The CPUs will also be getting a major core bumps but AMD would like to keep prices close to current levels.

[New X570 MBs coming but] like last time, the new CPUs will be backward compatible with X470 & X370 boards


To be shown at COMPUTEX Taipei 2019 Show Start Date : 28 May 2019 Show End Date : 01 June 2019 and on-sale a month later.

If rumor true, I'll be seriously considering Ryzen 9 3850X. We'll see.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-2000-3000-Series-HEDT-CPUs.jpg
Attached picture AMDCPUSpecs.png
Attached picture AMDOverallRoadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/19 04:53 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Discrete GPU Market Share Grew To 81.2%, AMD Fell To 18.8% During Q4 2018 – Worst Fourth Quarter For AIBs in Over 10 Years

RX mainstream cards based on the Navi architecture are supposed to hit the market around Q3 2019. It will be interesting to see if NVIDIA can maintain their lead in the coming months or not.


Some of the difference is due to new Nvidia GPUs coming on the market -- while AMD is still selling last year's models.

One attachment shows how many readers of the article use Nvidia vs AMD. As usual in these readership surveys (presumably informed serious gamers), AMD scores closer to Nvidia. The same things happen when the survey compares Intel and AMD -- its fairly close. However, in a previous post it was noted that Steam site data definitely favors Nvidia over AMD. Just info, FWIW.


Attached picture GPU Share.png
Attached picture ReaderMarketShare.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/19 07:23 PM

This is a vague AMD Navi 7nm GPU "leak". Highly speculative -- so, little is copy/pasted here.

Quote
Rumored AMD Navi Radeon RX GPU “66AF:F1” Benchmarks Leak Out – Faster in Graphics Throughput, Slightly Behind in Compute Workloads

the first tests are pure graphics where the rumored AMD Navi GPU posts much higher results and performance numbers compared to the Radeon RX 580. This almost matches the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 territory.

AMD Navi GPUs was tailormade for maximum graphics and gaming performance rather than compute horsepower.


The interesting part is that Navi emphasizes gaming FPS over compute (as do seemingly all Nvidia gaming GPUs). The first Navi are rumored to sell at an RX580/RX590 price of $300 or less ($250 was the original rumor) -- and give Vega class performance. This first unsupported benchmark seems to confirm earlier rumors.

Navi is expected in Summer or Fall -- but, AMD has not provided a date, yet.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/19 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote
NVIDIA Discrete GPU Market Share Grew To 81.2%, AMD Fell To 18.8% During Q4 2018 – Worst Fourth Quarter For AIBs in Over 10 Years

RX mainstream cards based on the Navi architecture are supposed to hit the market around Q3 2019. It will be interesting to see if NVIDIA can maintain their lead in the coming months or not.


Some of the difference is due to new Nvidia GPUs coming on the market -- while AMD is still selling last year's models.

One attachment shows how many readers of the article use Nvidia vs AMD. As usual in these readership surveys (presumably informed serious gamers), AMD scores closer to Nvidia. The same things happen when the survey compares Intel and AMD -- its fairly close. However, in a previous post it was noted that Steam site data definitely favors Nvidia over AMD. Just info, FWIW.


Not sure where you're going with that. Are you you really trying to take a survey/poll from wccftech where the community are AMD blinkered fans with articles that stem from nothing more than rumours and clickbait as some sort of realistic comparison? Everyone knows that wccftech are not to be trusted (their links are banned from a lot of subredits too) and simply regurgitate all sorts of nonsense with more unsubstantiated claims than any other site. Also, how do you justify Steam being biased to Nvidia when the results are lifted from a hardware scan of the actual PC?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/19 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Also, how do you justify Steam being biased to Nvidia when the results are lifted from a hardware scan of the actual PC?


How one interprets the above to "me saying steam is biased" is hard for me to understand. In any case, my words were secondary to the data from the article which quoted "Jon Peddie Research’s quarterly Market Watch report" -- which has credibility. I would not call it "click bate".

In simple terms: JPR says Nvidia lead the market in Q4 according to the article. I added: Nvidia leads the market on Steam (which is long term data based on a hardware scan, as you say). wccftech Poll added: Nvidia lead readers of the article -- but by a smaller margin. Nothing special -- just info FWIW.

Apparently, you feel I am biased and, thus, interpret what I write as being biased (whether it is or not). Could you be biased? A rhetorical question. To each his/her own. No hard feelings on this side of the Atlantic smile

Nice thing about wccftech: They do need to write articles every day -- so they scan the internet for stuff. I have 3 sites I visit first thing every morning because their scans save me time. wccftech is one of them. I try to leave out their personal opinions and just quote the data ( or substantiated rumor, speculation, etc). There are also other sites I check along the way. Doing that is a fun thing I would do anyway -- irrespective of this SimHQ thread.

I am an AMD fan who tries to be unbiased on line. For the record: Intel and Nvidia make great products (as I have often said). My being an AMD fan is not a way to say their products are not good. This thread simply tries to give the AMD side of the story (good or bad).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/19 12:45 AM

Well, you quoted the following;

Quote
However, in a previous post it was noted that Steam site data definitely favors Nvidia over AMD


....so you are clearly indicating that Steam has some sort of bias to Nvidia.

My question is how the Steam site favours one brand over the other? Steam don't care, it makes no difference to them and the results of the hardware scans (albeit a random section of gamers) only report on the results.....but I guess if you're talking about developers or the community favouring a particular brand then there probably is in some cases. The Jon Peddie Research report obviously does have merit because it can be verified as a research resource for the industry and is backed up by their own site....what can't be verified is your follow-up statement about a poll on wccftech who have a majority community of AMD fans, and therefore it's clear any poll they undertake will have a much larger percentage of gamers with AMD cards hence why you get numbers that suggest discrete numbers close to a 50/50 split. and then state that this reflects readership values of informed gamers....no it doesn't - it simply reflects a large number of AMD biased gamers stating they are using AMD GPUs and doesn't reflect what informed gamers have in their systems at all. There are a myriad of other surveys that give a more realistic portrayal of what gamers are using in their system and we broadly know what these figures are.

There is no issue whatsoever in anyone favouring one company or another, but when favouritism clouds judgement then the information becomes worthless.

As for myself, the brand name means nothing......I care for performance and value for my money therefore bias has no place. I've bought AMD/Intel CPUs and AMD/Nvidia GPUs in the past and will continue to do so in the future depending on how their products fit my requirements at the time of purchase.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/19 10:44 AM

I wrote "Steam data favors". "Steam" is an adjective describing where the "data" is located. As used, ''data" is the noun which "favors" (verb).

In short: data is favoring Nvidia. Not: Steam is favoring Nvidia. Steam is merely a location of the data. Just the way we speak/write in my town on this side of the Atlantic.

Also, I see that use of the word "favors" has an emotional connotation for some. I could have written it differently to be less emotional sounding.

At NASA we would have teleconferences with NASA folks in other cities. A study was done. The use of language in the various USA cities was different enough that it occasionlly lead to misunderstandings like the one we're discussing. However, the people having the misunderstandings did not realize it. They merely interpreted what they heard based on how folks talked and used language in their city.

Seems like that's what happened here -- merely an honest difference in how the language is used in different cities. Actually, given a global readership, I am aware of possibly being misunderstood. But, I was not sensitive enough to it this time. Sorry.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/19 11:53 PM

No sorry, you're still talking bollocks. Where do you think the data comes from?....it doesn't just appear from thin air. There is a reason why it favours Nvidia. Not even a strong enough rose tint will sway general consensus to AMD until they pull their finger out and deliver some decent performing GPUs.....there is a genuine reason why Nvidia have a huge market share at the moment.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/19 05:05 PM

Quote
Exclusive: AMD’s 7nm Navi GPU Will Launch Roughly A Month After Ryzen 3000

if the company launches the 3000 series desktop processors at Computex like they are planning to, you should not expect the Navi GPU to land before early August.

Some rumors previously had suggested an October launch, but as of now, AMD is telling its partners to expect the launch exactly a month after the Ryzen 7nm launch.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/19 05:13 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 560 XT Introduced in China, Features 1792 Cores, 4 GB GDDR5 VRAM – Can Polaris Get More Confusing?

..Features Twice The Cores of the Radeon RX 560

..if the Radeon RX 560 XT does arrive in the Western market, it could be very confusing for consumers as now we have at least four variants of the RX 560 graphics card. These include the Radeon RX 560, the Radeon RX 560X, the Radeon RX 560 D, the Radeon RX 560 (896 SP) and the Radeon RX 560 XT.


Attached picture Radeon RX 560 XT.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/15/19 10:14 PM

AMD RX Vega and other non-RTX GPUs will be getting ray tracing in some future games.

Quote
Crytek Demos Noir, a CRYENGINE Based Real-Time Raytracing Demo on AMD Radeon RX Vega – Can Run on Most Mainstream, Contemporary AMD and NVIDIA GPUs

Crytek has showcased a new real-time raytracing demo which is said to run on most mainstream, contemporary GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD.

The Noir demo has various scenes crafted within CRYENGINE and rendered in real-time on an AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card....looks stunning

this new CRYENGINE technology will be optimized to benefit from performance enhancements delivered by the latest generation of graphics cards and supported APIs like Vulkan and DX12.

it’s good news that more developers and a major engine would now allow ray-tracing with a more open-support to modern day graphics cards.


Youtube Video Demo
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/19 01:55 AM

Hmmmm. Crytek "let the cat out of the bag", Now even Nvidia admits -- one does not need RTX card for ray-tracing smile

Quote
NVIDIA Enables DXR Real-Time Ray Tracing Support on GeForce 10 and GeForce 16 Series, GeForce GTX 1060 and Above – Drivers Available in April

GDC 2019, NVIDIA is now enabling another feature which was previously locked down to the newly released Turing GPU based graphics cards. That’s support for Microsoft’s DXR API which will enable real-time raytracing capabilities in existing and upcoming gaming titles


In fairness, one would assume an RTX card witl ray-trace better because of its special circuits. But, that assumption remains to be tested. We need a few ray-traced titles using the various ray-tracing methods on the market -- so we can comparison test.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/19 10:15 AM

Quote
Atari VCS [Gaming Console] Getting Its APU Upgraded to AMD Ryzen + Vega, Will Be Faster, Cooler and More Efficient

the console was originally meant to feature [an AMD] Bristol Ridge A10 CPU alongside a Radeon R7 GPU

The Atari VCS will now be powered by a 14nm AMD processor featuring high-performance Radeon Vega graphics architecture and two “Zen” CPU cores.

The new processor includes built-in Ethernet, Native 4K video with modern HDCP, and a secure frame buffer that fully-supports DRM video (Netflix, HBO, etc.).

The goal of Atari is to proceed with the shipments at the end of 2019


AMD is developing its PC APU chips (e.g. Ryzen 5 2400G) around gaming console chip designs. So, the PC version should work for a cheap gaming PC. My Ryzen 5 2400G HTPC does play all the games in my tests -- but we use it as an HTPC.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/19 08:51 PM

Quote
Stadia Is Google’s Cloud Based Game Platform; Powered by AMD, Linux and Vulkan, Due in 2019

after you’ve watched a gameplay video on YouTube, you’ll get the chance to play that game in just five seconds via streaming. That’s regardless of the platform you are using, be it a laptop, desktop, television, phone or tablet.

The hardware datacenters used for Google Stadia is powered by AMD technology and custom built for this use case. It surpasses the likes of PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X put together

While the Project Stream test showcased Assassin’s Creed Odyssey streamed at 1080p and 60fps, Stadia will be able to stream up to 4K HDR and 60fps gameplay with surround sound. The hardware will also be upgraded further over time to allow up to 8K and 120 frames per second


It does not require a console. Google did show a special hand held controller that may be optional.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/19 09:27 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs Get Early BIOS Support in X370 & X470 Motherboards, Next-Gen Zen 2 Based Family Internally Codenamed as Valhalla

Ryzen 3000 would have pretty solid compatibility on older X370 and X470 motherboards at launch. There would also be the X570 motherboards with an improved feature set for the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs but those who don’t want to get in the hassle of upgrading their motherboards can just swap their older CPUs with the new ones and call it a day.

the Ryzen 3000 series processors would indeed ship with CCD (Compute Core Design, a new name for CCX), support a maximum of 32 threads which confirms 16 core parts
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/19 04:02 PM

Nvidia RTX 2060 to RTX 2080Ti ray traced shadows performance article. Good in-game images allow one to see the amount of difference. Extensive FPS charts for 1080p to 4K. Some analysis.

Quote
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Ray-Traced Shadows And DLSS Performance


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/19 10:33 AM

Rumor level material:

Quote
Upcoming ASUS X570 motherboards

not the final list.

The X570 motherboards will be designed with full Ryzen 3000 series desktop processors support in mind. The new X570 chipset is rumored to be based on AMD in-house design, rather than on ASMedia’s solution.

More importantly, the X570 series are expected to be the first PCIe 4.0 enabled motherboards.

ROG CROSSHAIR VIII FORMULA
ROG CROSSHAIR VIII HERO
ROG CROSSHAIR VIII HERO (WI-FI)
ROG CROSSHAIR VIII IMPACT
ROG STRIX X570-E GAMING
ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING
ROG STRIX X570-I GAMING
PRIME X570-P
PRIME X570-PRO
Pro WS X570-ACE
TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI)
TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/19 09:42 PM

Quote
AMD slashes prices for Ryzen 7 CPUs

AMD is slashing prices for Zen+ Ryzen 7 CPUs to clear its inventory ahead of the coming Zen 2 launch.

Prices for second-generation AMD Ryzen CPUs have dropped, with US$50 being shaved off a performance-level Ryzen 7 2700 CPU on Newegg. Several CPUs based on the Zen+ microarchitecture have been discounted,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/19 09:46 PM

Quote
AMD catches up to Intel in DIY building market

Expected to overtake

at least in the EU.

The figures were based on numbers in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and the Benelux which is now the second European market where AMD is crushing Intel.

Earlier, it was found that AMD has already overtaken Intel in Germany, both in terms of revenue as well as the number of units sold.

With the 7nm Zen2 processors on the horizon, AMD’s influence in the CPU market is sure to grow even further, and pressure will keep building on Intel to tune down its outrageous CPU pricing.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/26/19 09:11 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 3750H and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q Spotted in ASUS ROG GU502DU Notebook – Ryzen 5 3550H With GTX 1660 Ti Also Listed For ASUS TUF FX505DU


For the gaming notebooks, the AMD APUs have in-chip GPUs that use little power. Those are used for everyday work. The Nvidia GPU is for the gaming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/19 11:48 AM

AMD releasing Navi 10 7nm GPUs this year. The high end Navi 7nm are rumored for 2020. Here's a preliminary rumor for 2020 GPU's performance.

Quote
AMD Navi 20 GPU To Be Featured on Enthusiast Grade Gaming Graphics Cards, Features Enhanced GCN Architecture and Ray Tracing Performance Equivalent or Faster Than an RTX 2080 Ti

rumors are alleging a launch of the first Navi based Radeon RX cards in mid of 2019 [Navi 10 under $300 rumored].

AMD Navi 20 GPUs [2020 launch] may end up being competitive or even faster than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards (Navi 20 flagship vs GeForce RTX 2080 Ti).


Of course, Nvidia will have their 2020 cards to compete.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/30/19 10:24 PM

Intel GPU department got some AMD GPU folks. Now, they've landed an Nvidia guy.

Quote
Intel Snatches Up Tom Peterson (formerly) Of NVIDIA, Will Be Joining As An Intel Engineering Fellow

Tom is going to be responsible for defining and delivering on the quintessential gaming experience – something Intel is going to be very particular about igoing forward.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/19 08:26 PM

Quote
AMD All Set To Capture 10% of the Total Server CPU Market by 2020, Report Indicates – Will Secure More Deals With 7nm EPYC CPUs Due To Strong Price / Performance Leadership

Cloud providers such as Amazon are continuously investing more EPYC platform rather than Intel Xeon CPUs.

Japan-based NTT Data will also be procuring datacenters with AMD EPYC processors. There’s also the upcoming Atos BullSequana XH2000 Supercomputer which will be using a total 3125 AMD EPYC Rome 7nm processors with around 200,000 cores and 400,000 CPU threads and is expected to finish by 2020.

AMD looks to be in a really good position with their EPYC server processors, even more so than their desktop and mobility portfolios.


AMD decided (years ago) to compete in the CPU market first. Probably did not expect to do this well. But, Intel had unexpected issues with 10nm. Meanwhile, AMD took a chance and jumped past 10nm to 7nm. This Summer, we'll see how well that worked out for gamers.

Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMD-EPYC-Server.png
Attached picture CPU by 2020.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/19 10:20 AM

Quote
AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, To Deliver Computex 2019 Opening Keynote – Will Present Ryzen 3000 CPUs, Radeon RX Navi GPUs and EPYC Rome Server Chips

AMD’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, will be presenting the Computex 2019 opening keynote on 27th May, 19

AMD confirmed that they will be introducing the said next-gen products, offering key details as to what the general audience should expect from the respective CPU/GPU lineups...we may get a launch later in July as previously reported.

[Per AMD, she will describe] Upcoming products include 7nm AMD EPYC datacenter processors, 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors and graphics cards based on the next-generation “Navi” architecture


Attached picture AMD-Launch_2019.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/19 02:25 PM

Quote
AMD Stock Soars Today After Analyst Predicts 7nm Market Share Increase

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD 28.92 -0.34%) saw its shares soar during a mid-day spike after an analyst issued a “buy” rating ..citing a strong future for the company’s 7nm products.

David Wong is an analyst at Instinet and today he initiated coverage on AMD with a price target of $33 per share


In 2016, AMD stock was often selling for under $2 a share. Then it started upwards. Today, $10,000 worth of stock at a 2016 price of $2 would be worth over $144,000 (assuming no splits, etc). Not bad for 3 years of growth smile

Apparently, focusing on the CPU at the expense of the GPU is paying off -- literally.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/19 01:31 AM

Quote
TSMC 5nm Risk Production Starts; Process Delivers 15% Performance Gain

TSMC’s 5nm Process Delivers 1.8X Logic Density And 15% Performance Gain When Compared To 7nm

TSMC, in collaboration with its design partners, has validated its 5nm design through silicon test vehicles.

TSMC’s 5nm is directed primarily towards 5G and IoT [cell-phone type] applications instead of [CPUs] for the time being.


The interesting thing is that 5nm gives almost twice as many "cores" (logic density) as 7nm -- but only 15% more speed. So, long term, CPU clock rates will not change a lot from what they are this Summer when AMD releases 7nm CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/19 05:35 PM

The author speculates that Navi GPU may be closer than we think.

Quote
AMD Navi Preliminary Support Added To HWINFO As AMD Gears Up For Launch

AMD’s Navi GPU, the first non-GCN GPU, is ready for launch

we do know this will be the first GPU architecture capable of breaking the 4096 SP limit imposed by the GCN macro arch. This is exciting stuff because it will put AMD back in the GPU game.

We are also pretty sure that AMD will be launching the Navi GPU very soon (more on this soon, stay tuned) which is why if you are someone who is still on an old RX 480/580, wait just a little bit longer and you will have the perfect card to upgrade too.


The first 7nm Navi GPU is not expected to be the high powered one -- costs under $300 we've been lead to believe. Moreover, previously we were told to expect Navi in late Summer. This article hints it will be sooner. But, all is speculation now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/06/19 10:31 PM

Quote
AMD Holding Partners Summit On April 23 – 7nm and Navi On The Agenda

We have learned that certain partners and AIBs will have a lot of information revealed to them at a Partners Summit that is happening around April 23 later this month. I am told that 7nm chips and Navi are on the agenda

We have heard nothing on NVIDIA’s 7nm GPUs so far

Intel’s equivalent 10nm process is slated to land sometime in 2H 2019


Hopefully, after the Partners Summit, there will be some solid "leaks" and less "speculation" in the follow on news articles.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/19 11:32 AM

AMD works closely with TSMC on 7nm.

Quote
TSMC Ramps Volume Manufacturing For 7nm Using EUV Scanners, Expects 5nm By 2020

[TSMC] high-performance 7nm parts hit the market in 2H 2019 through AMD (Intel’s equivalent 10nm parts are expected to arrive later by the end of 2019). They have even started risk production of 5nm parts and expect volume production by 2020.

TSMC expects almost all of its 7nm capacity to be fully utilized by the third quarter of 2019. Apple will take the biggest bite out of its 7nm capacity with Qualcomm and AMD following behind. This does mean, however, that AMD’s 7nm parts will be facing supply issues during 2H 2019


We'll see if 7nm "supply issues" lead to AMD price increases towards the end of 2019. If one is cost conscious, it may be good to buy the 7nm AMD CPUs & GPUs when they hit the market (assuming they perform) and not wait for the usual price drops.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/19 01:49 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen CPUs Outsold Intel Core CPUs For Three Straight Quarters at Major German Retailer – Ryzen 7 2700X More Popular Than Intel’s Core i9-9900K

On AMD’s front, the most popular CPU was the 6 core, 12 thread, Ryzen 5 2600 (non-X) which is a pretty good mainstream CPU

With a market share of 15.8%, the highest since Q4 2014, AMD is looking in pretty good shape. The AMD desktop CPU share is climbing steadily and it is all due to a strong product portfolio which will soon be expanded by a more refined and updated 3rd Generation Ryzen family in mid of 2019.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-and-Intel-Core-CPU-Market-Share_Overall.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/19 08:25 AM

Quote
Nvidia latest driver enables DXR on more GPUs

Although the support for DirectX Raytracing is now available for Pascal, Volta-based Titan V, and non-RTX Turing graphics cards like GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660, you can't expect any miracles as, according to performance numbers released by Nvidia, those GPUs will have a hard time coping with those ray tracing effects.


Attached picture Nvidia-dxrperf-2.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/19 02:04 AM

Quote
Rumor: AMD Navi Debuting at E3, Launching July 7 With RTX 2080 Class Performance

Keep in mind however at this point in time these are just rumors that should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.


Yes, these are just rumors. But, available July 7 seems reasonable.

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-04-15 Rumor AMD Navi Debuting at E3.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/19 02:08 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 50th Anniversary Edition CPU Leaks Out – Red Team’s Last 12nm+ Hurrah Before The Arrival of 7nm Ryzen 3000 CPUs


Rumored to be the best current Ryzen and not overpriced. But, it will be out-of-date this Summer when 7nm arrives.

Its just to celebrate 50 years of AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/19 11:04 AM

Tom's Hardware did the work and Extreme Tech summarized it. They both conclude: There is no comparison -- AMD Freesync wins this one.

Quote
FreeSync, G-Sync Go Head to Head in New Monitor Comparison

[Tested] two new monitors from the same company — AOC — head to head. The AOC Agon AG241QG is a new 24-inch G-Sync panel, while the AOC Agon AG241QX is a FreeSync panel.

They differ in two significant ways: The QG [Nvidia] G-Sync panel costs $600, while the [AMD=Freesync] QX is $320, and the [AMD-Freesync] QX is the absolute and clear winner of the comparison.

the QX panel proved to be far better calibrated out of the box. It also offers a brighter white, deeper black, vastly better contrast ratios, and a much better default experience

As far as FreeSync versus G-Sync performance, the two were identical. No visual differences could be detected in testing. The dynamic range on the QX panel is nearly 2x larger than the QG


Tom's Hardware Article

This is only one test and the supposedly identical monitors may have had internal differences (besides Sync). However, the AMD-FreeSync panel cost far less -- implying that hidden advantages are less likely.

Attached picture Which Monitors Perform Better - Tom's Hardware.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/19 09:51 AM

Some rumors confirmed regarding AMD and PS5 consoles.

Quote
Exclusive: What to Expect From Sony's Next-Gen PlayStation

Don't expect it anytime in 2019, but the next PlayStation console is well on its way—and it's packing ray-tracing support and a loadtime-killing solid-state hard drive.

[Sony's] Mark Cerny would like to get one thing out of the way right now: The videogame console that Sony has spent the past four years building is no mere upgrade.

The CPU is based on the third generation of AMD’s Ryzen line and contains eight cores of the company’s new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. The GPU, a custom variant of Radeon’s Navi family, will support ray tracing

The AMD chip also includes a custom unit for 3D audio that Cerny thinks will redefine what sound can do in a videogame.

[An SSD will be used for storage] Cerny claims that it has a raw bandwidth higher than any SSD available for PCs [this is expected to have impact on in-game graphics as well as load times]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/20/19 08:51 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3 3200G ‘Picasso’ Desktop Processor Pictured, Based on 12nm Zen+ Architecture – Launch of AM4 Ryzen 3000 APUs Imminent

The new Ryzen 3000 processors will come with enhanced performance per watt and higher clocks compared to the Ryzen 2000 APUs which were introduced last year.

The AMD Ryzen 3000 APU lineup should not be confused with the Ryzen 3000 CPU lineup. AMD’s Ryzen 3000 family of APUs, codenamed Picasso, will be featuring the existing 12nm based Zen+ core architecture which will be a key upgrade over the Ryzen 2000 family of APUs that feature the 14nm Zen (1) core architecture.

you’ll have to wait for the Ryzen 4000 series line of APUs to get a taste of 7nm Zen 2 and Radeon Navi cores on the same die.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/19 12:08 AM

Quote
AMD RX Vega 64 Outperforms NVIDIA RTX 2080 by up to 20% in Vulkan Enabled World War Z

Let’s start with the most popular resolution out there, 1920×1080, with Vulkan enabled AMD manages to take all top 3 spots, with its Radeon VII, Radeon Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition and Radeon Vega 64 [all beating RTX 2080Ti] .. We see a similar pattern across the stack, with the RX 580 outperforming the twice as expensive RTX 2070, and the RX 570 outpacing the GTX 1660 Ti.

At 2560×1440, the green team manages to close the gap slightly. Although the RX Vega 64 still manages to slug it out with the RTX 2080 Ti and maintain its lead over the RTX 2080

[At 4K] the RX Vega 64 maintains its lead over the RTX 2080, whilst the RTX 2080 Ti manages to claw its way up the performance ladder.

this is a great showing for the red team and goes to show what a properly implemented low overhead API can do


Vulcan is based on AMD Mantle -- the original low CPU overhead graphics driver. But, even I'm shocked that my card beats a 2080Ti at 1080p and 2K (2080Ti edges past at 4K).

Article

Attached picture Vulkan.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/23/19 10:15 AM

Nominal confirmation of earlier rumor.

Quote
AMD Radeon VII and Ryzen 7 2700X ’50th Anniversary Edition’ Confirmed – Radeon VII Graphics Card To Feature Red Accents, Launching on 29th April

As the name suggests, these products would mark the celebration of AMD’s Golden Jubilee as the company was founded back in 1969.

both products would receive special treatment, details of which are yet to be confirmed.


Rumored slightly higher clocks for 12nm Ryzen 7, slightly lower price, 7nm Radeon VII special colors. As noted previously, this is just for anniversary celebrations. The new 7nm CPU and 7nm Navi GPU are due later this year (July rumor).

Attached picture Screenshot_20190423-041353-1600x900.jpg
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/19 08:48 AM

Finally! An AMD powered competitor to the Intel NUC...maybe.
ASRock Announces iBox-R1000 AMD-Powered 'NUC'
Any inside knowledge/speculation on this?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/19 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by mikew
Any inside knowledge/speculation on this?


Nope. This gem-rumor is thanks to you smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/19 02:29 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 3 3200G APU Specifications Detailed – 12nm Zen+ Based 3200G Delidded and Destroyed By Leaker, Features Soldered IHS

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 3 3200G Desktop APU Specifications Leaked – 12nm Zen+ Picasso Lineup For AM4, Great CPU Overclocking Potential

In the last post, we made it clear that the Ryzen 3000 CPUs and Ryzen 3000 APUs are two different things. The Ryzen 3000 CPUs will be based on the new 7nm Zen 2 architecture while the APUs will be based on the existing 12nm Zen+ architecture

According to the leaker, the Ryzen 3 3200G can be overclocked to 4.3 GHz with 1.38V which is impressive considering its predecessor, the Ryzen 3 2200G, which could only manage 4.0 GHz with the same voltage. The Ryzen 5 3400G, on the other hand, can push clocks of up to 4.25 GHz with a voltage bump of 1.38V while the Ryzen 5 2400G could only manage 3.925 GHz with the same voltage. The overclock was applied across all cores.


So far, virtually all AMD Ryzens feature being built for overclocking (solder under the cover for excellent heat transfer and unlocked cores). Not all Intel are overclockable.

The OC they got squares with my Ryzen 5 2400G experience. I got 4.0GHz on all 4 cores at 1.35 volts (same on my 1800X and 1600X machines).

As noted, these 3200G and 3400G are 12nm (not 7nm). Their OC capability gives credibility to the rumor that the high end 7nm Ryzen "gaming CPU" will have a base frequency in the mid-4GHz range and boost to over 5GHz on 16cores/32threads. If so, I'm buying one.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/19 07:49 PM

An article that fairly compares AMD CPUs to Intel CPUs:

Quote
AMD vs. Intel: What's the difference between CPUs?

Right now, the competition for CPU dominance between AMD and Intel is closer than we've seen since the first Athlon 64 parts in 2003. AMD hasn't held the performance crown since 2006—not in every meaningful category at least—but with 7nm Ryzen 3000 CPUs coming this summer, and Intel still stuck at 14nm with Coffee Lake, this year is perhaps AMD's best shot at the title.


The above is the final paragraph in the article. Note: AMD lead in 2006 -- and a couple years before. However, Intel paid Original Equipment Manufacturers (Dell primarily) to not use AMD. This was ilegal and proven in Court. Intel had to pay AMD $1.5 Billion -- which they failed to do in any timely manner. AMD nearly went out of business as a result. Its the main reason why I'm an AMD fan (besides the point that their stuff is better than most think). Intel makes good stuff, but I can''t support them because unopposed they would "take us to the cleaners" (in my opinion).

The article may be wiorth a read -- if one needs to get caught up on the relative technology pluses and minuses.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/19 12:10 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs Allegedly Feature 15% Better IPC, Up To 4.5 GHz – X570 [Motherboards] Rumored To Have 40 PCIe Lanes, No 3rd Gen Ryzen Support on A320 Boards

motherboard makers have been supplied quad-core Zen 2 CPU samples to test them with their upcoming products. These CPUs were early samples which were only supplied for internal testing and not necessarily indicate final retail performance or clock speeds.

The report states that the samples allegedly feature a 15% boost in terms of IPC .. It is also reported that the boost frequency for these [quad core] samples is reported at up to 4.5 GHz


These were low end 4 cores for motherboard testing. Rumor noted previously is that the 16core/32thread will boost to over 5GHz. If that's combined with 15% higher instructions per clock, the new "gaming" Ryzen CPUs will be a significant step up.We'll see.

7nm Ryzen will be supported on 500 series, 400 series, and most 300 series motherboards -- but not supported on the low end 320 series motherboards (according to rumor).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/19 11:52 PM

Quote
Intel Admits CPU Shortages Will Continue Until Third Quarter of 2019

for its 14nm process node, the CPU shortages would not be resolved until the third quarter of the year...most of Intel’s future CPU SKUs would be built on the 14nm process until at least the end of 2020, and potentially even longer depending on the 10nm process’ progress.

[In addition] a leaked roadmap .. shows that most of Intel’s future desktop CPU SKUs will continue to be built on the company’s aging 14nm process up until the end of 2021, and potentially into 2022.


The attached leaked roadmap shows Intel 10nm aiming at 2021 -- but is "to be determined". I always take leaked information with the appropriate helping of salt -- could be a hoax roadmap. However, it is in line with other information we've read. Also, the roadmap indicates lower core counts at 10nm than expected (by me -- AMD rumored to have 7nm 16 core this Summer).

Attached picture Intel Leaked Roadmap.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/19 12:19 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII & Ryzen 7 2700X Gold Edition are Now Available for Purchase, AMD50 Game Bundle Also Announced

In light of AMD’s 50th anniversary, AMD has released a special edition Ryzen 7 2700X and Radeon VII. AMD has set the AMD50 promotional period from April 29th to June 8th in which these limited edition products would be available along with a range of bundled goodies.


The article and attached picture detail what one gets if one buys the 12nm CPU or 7nm GPU. As noted in the article, we're close to the launch of the 7nm CPU and maybe newer 7nm GPU products.

Article

Attached picture 2019-04-29_22-56-28-1030x648.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/19 09:38 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII Achieves ~100MH/s Mining ETH – Beats Radeon Pro Duo (Fiji) & Titan V

Radeon VII – Best New Mining GPU?

Compared to the Titan V, the Radeon VII is a much more compelling option. The Radeon VII is immensely cheaper, now available for $680 – $700, whereas the Titan V is within the $3000 range, and the Radeon VII achieves a higher hash rate per watt.

Radeon VII for Gaming?

The Radeon VII typically trades blows with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, but in some cases, such as in World War Z, the Radeon VII, let alone the RX Vega 64, manages to beat the RTX 2080 Ti. TweakTown had also reported the Radeon VII surpassing the RX 2080 Ti, and the RX Vega 64 surpassing the GTX 1080 Ti in the Division 2 at 1080p and 1440p.

Article

Attached picture Radeon VII Achieves ~100MH s Mining ETH - Beats Titan V.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/19 11:45 PM

Quote
AMD Stock Soars After Beat On Earnings – Ryzen Helps Boost Margins

Adjusted EPS: Wall Street Expected $0.05 versus $0.06 reported

Revenue: Wall Street Expected $1.26 billion versus $1.27 billion reported

Operating Income: Wall Street Expected $75.8 million vs $84 million reported

Gross Margin: 41 percent versus 36 a year ago


Actually, the stock rose and dropped back -- didn't "Soar". But, the results overall were the best in years.

Attached picture computing-and-graphics-19.png
Attached picture AMD EE-and-SC-19.png
Attached picture AMDfinancials.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/19 11:32 AM

Quote
AMD Confirms Navi GPU Launching In Q3 2019

..most likely during Gamescom 2019

The Navi GPU is going to slot in somewhere between the Vega 56 and 64 in terms of performance levels and we have heard conflicting stories about its architecture.

[AMD's first Navi is| targeting the perf/$ segment instead of pure performance

AMD also announced that they would be launching the 7nm Ryzen processors in Q3 but this is old news by now (if you follow the leak scene) and we expect them to roll those out at the Computex Keynote
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/19 12:01 PM

Quote
AMD’s 7nm Zen 2 Comes To AMD Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs First, EPYC Rome Confirmed For Q3 2019

AMD would now be bringing their next-generation Zen 2 based CPUs to the mainstream AM4 platform first. Starting off with their Ryzen 3000 CPUs, AMD will be hitting Intel at a time when blue team’s processors are faced by severe shortages due to the 14nm supply constraints. The shortages are expected to last till Q3 2019 and that gives AMD lots of time to take a major chunk of market share for themselves.


Just confirms that AMD 7nm gaming CPUs are coming (as has been rumored). Previous rumors have the 7nm 16c/32t at over 5GHz boost with 15% better performance per clock than current 12nm AMD CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/19 01:02 PM

This being AMDs 50th Anniversary Year, here is a little history regarding its first major CPU offerings starting in the 1990s. As the article indicates AMD architecture had some advantages. But, the initial offerings also had design issues that held them back. I knew of AMD then, but I also knew they did not work as well as Intel then -- so I used Intel PCs.

As I have posted previously regarding my history: I became an AMD fan in early 2000s. Back in 1976, for my first PC that I both designed from scratch and built from scratch myself (took 1.5 years -- had to teach myself digital electronics), I used a Zilog Z80 CPU (it was better than the Intel offering). Needed to use toggle switches to key in a 250 byte program so that it would recognize the keyboard. About the time I finished building, the first commercial PCs arrived, I then switched to pre-built Intel desktops (that blew my invention out of the water) until early 2000s -- those early Intel's I used cost $2000 to $4000. After 2000, I started building PCs from parts like we do today.

Initially, I did not use PCs for ANY gaming (except to write a couple simple games to teach myself PC programming -- gave them to friends to play). Rather, it was all business -- I used them to solve science/engineering type problems for work (gave faster turnaround than using the company's room-filling computers that had to be shared). I used the digital-electronics knowledge I had gained to help me design Space Hardware in the 1980s and 1990s. I started gaming in early 1990s. I ordered some business software and they included a "flight simulator" war game for free -- always a fan of flight and fighter aircraft, I was "hooked". Joined SimHQ when I first saw it -- prior to my official join date listed by my posts. smile End my early PC history. blahblahblah

Quote
Microprocessor History – AMD K5

In March of 1996, AMD released their first products based on a totally in-house microarchitecture, the K5. Internally, AMD engineers decided the ‘K’ in K5 would stand for Kryptonite, hinting AMD is the Kryptonite to their competitor Intel. AMD’s K5 CPUs were a big step toward affordable computing.


History Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/03/19 01:46 PM

Quote
AMD in PlayStation 5 is no surprise

The story is straightforward. Ever since Playstation One, Sony didn’t want to use Nvidia for various reasons nor did Nvidia wantto settle for low console margins offered by Sony.

AMD is designing a semi-custom design for Sony; this is where Lisa [AMD CEO] has real expertise and what we learned over the years that she likes to do. She likes the semi-custom business as this is stable but yet a lower margin business than selling GPUs or CPUs to OEMs. Selling to OEMs is volatile, as it fluctuates based on market conditions while semi-custom guys have to commit years in advance.


Also expect AMD to provide the next Microsoft XBox CPU/GPU capability. For both consoles, a 2020 launch is rumored/speculated.

Rumored to have 8 core CPUs. If so, new games will start to make better use of 8 core CPUs. Parenthetically, XPlane 11 already used 8cores/16threads to 90/95 percent for a brief time in one of my tests. I read XPlane will use more than that if available -- but, they say there is little effect on FPS (and I saw no prolonged effect).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/19 06:58 PM

Rumor regarding what's after AMD 7nm parts: 5nm is turning out easier than I thought it would be.

Quote
TSMC’s 2020 5nm node has 80% higher transistor density than Ryzen 3000’s 7nm

even though TSMC is preparing to produce 5nm chips in volume in 2020, the Zen 3 processors set to launch that year will be on the only slightly refined 7nm+ node

[TSMC's] Wei says on TSMC’s Q1 earnings call, “we expect most of our customers who are using 7nm today will adopt 5nm.”

while 7nm and 5nm don’t sound like anywhere near as big a jump in scale as the previous move from 14nm down to 7nm, there’s still a huge [80 percent] difference between the two nodes.

Now, just imagine how many CPU cores AMD could jam inside a 5nm chiplet if it has another 80% more transistor space to play with…


As previously posted, the future of CPUs is Cores and Threads. Eventually, we'll have at least 64 cores and 128 threads and games will be programmed to use them up (I'm guessing). That's many years off, I assume.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/19 11:02 PM

From AMD: AMD to build worlds fastest most expensive USA Supercomputer. This is a big, big win. The Supercomputer uses both AMD CPUs and AMD compute GPU type hardware. The AMD hardware is not current hardware. It will be up to date in 2021 when it is installed. The author of the article believes Intel/Nvidia bid since they have produced a previous top Supercomputer (did not win, obviously).

Quote
AMD Scores ‘Landmark Win’ In Deal To Build World’s Fastest Supercomputer For U.S. Government

the U.S. Department of Energy had chosen to partner with Cray and AMD to procure the world’s largest and most expensive supercomputer ever. The deal is said to be worth a total of $600 million dollars and will be commissioned in early 2022.

The system will be used in a wide range of activities ranging from modeling advanced medicinal molecules with thousands of atoms – up from only a few atoms at a time currently, simulating quantum computers, nuclear reactions, and more.

The price tag is indeed steep, $600 million dollars, which makes it the most expensive to date ever purchased by the U.S. government.

Cowen Analyst: “This is no ordinary HPC [high performance computing] win, but rather an important long-term milestone for AMD’s datacenter strategy”

$100 million is being given to AMD and Cray to develop some of the hardware going into the system.

Matthew Ramsay, an analyst at Cowen stood by his Outperform rating for AMD stock, claiming that AMD is firmly back when it comes to high-performance computing.

AMD could be pocketing $300 to $400 million dollars for the deal which is a huge chunk of revenue for them. Remember, last quarter AMD booked about $1.3 billion in total, a deal like this is a major blockbuster for the Santa Clara, CA-based semiconductor firm.


Lengthy Article

Attached picture Slide9-EPYC-Frontier.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Radeon-Instinct.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/19 11:41 AM

Based on recent AMD presentations, some are speculating that the 7nm high core count (up to 64 cores/128 threads ??) Threadripper desktop CPUs will not be released late this year (2019) as originally expected. Lacking concrete info from AMD, 2020 is speculated, for now..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/19 12:07 AM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
Intel Unveils Process Roadmap, 10nm Shipping in June 2019, 7nm in 2021 – Intel 7nm Xe GPUs For Datacenter in 2021, 10nm Xe Consumer GPUs in 2020

Detailed Article

Intel says their 10nm will be just as good as AMD/TSMC 7nm and Intel 7nm will be just as good as AMD/TSMC 5nm. We'll see.

Competition is good smile

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/19 08:48 AM

Quote
Lenovo Announces New ThinkPad Series Featuring 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Pro Processors

Lenovo offers 3 models one of which is of their X line and the other 2 are from their T series. .. the T series is the flagship line ..The X series primarily focuses on portability
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/19 02:27 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Series 16 Core, 32 Thread CPU Details Leaked – Early Sample With 7nm Zen 2 Cores Clocks In At 3.3 GHz Base and 4.2 GHz Boost

Now bear in mind that the chip that has been leaked is said to be a very early engineering sample and as we have seen with past ES chips, the frequency in the final retail variants is much higher.


Thus, 16 core/32 Thread 7nm Ryzen seems confirmed. The clocks shown on the engineering sample are much lower than rumored for the final highest end 16/32 part (4.3GHz base, just above 5.0GHz boost). Normally, the highest end CPUs are hand selected based on tests of as-fabricated CPUs. So, the high number is feasible for the hand selected CPUs. We'll see in a couple months.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/19 09:21 PM

Quote
Raja Koduri: “AMD no software ecosystem that’s meaningful without Intel”


Raja Koduri was a previous AMD higher-up snatched by Intel. He made some comparisons with AMD that were (understandably) favorable to Intel.

This is a basically pro-AMD article. The author finds some flaws in Koduri's "message". Though we all know Intel still has the larger share of the markets, maybe it does not have superior products (vs AMD and Nvidia).

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/11/19 09:30 AM

Quote
Leak : AMD Showcasing 16 Core & 12 Core Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs to OEMs

AMD Reportedly Showing 12 Core Ryzen 3000 Series CPU With “Really High Clocks” to Board Maker

Jim has been consistently right on the money over the past with his leaks and sources. Which lends us to believe that this is a legitimate leak.

.. an official debut/launch set for Computex this June... starting from the budget friendly ~$100 segment all the way to the ultra high-end ~$500 enthusiast no-compromise end of the market.


Leaks indicate the weakest AMD Ryzen CPU will be 6 core/12 thread at 4GHz boost. I've read (and posted previously) that the top chip will be a fast 16c/32t and reasonably priced. Until we see them on sale, its speculation.

Attached picture AMD Showcasing.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/19 12:03 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs With 7nm Zen 2 Architecture Can Support Up To A Max of 5000 MHz DDR4 Memory Speeds

not all CPUs may be able to hit those speeds.


In my tests using games and normal benchmarks, I've noticed that above 2.9GHz memory speed seems to have no effect on Ryzen 1000 and 2000 series (it may be there, but too small for my tests to notice).

We'll see if people can really "see" and "feel" (rather than only "measure") the impact of memory faster than, say, 3.0GHz. I intend to use 3.2GHz memory (I've already purchased 64GB on sale in anticipation of Summer builds with the 7nm products). Anyhow, read the test reports before jumping on the 5.0GHz wagon. Of course, one can buy it for the fun of "bragging rights" smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/19 12:12 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Support on Existing AM4 Boards Confirmed by Asus & Asrock


So just update the BIOS, unplug the Ryzen 1000 or 2000 series CPU, plug in the Ryzen 3000 series -- and go.

I've been considering that route (just plug into my ASUS 470 motherboard). But, on my main system, I'll probably go all-in and get a new 570 motherboard for the fun of it (I doubt I'll "see" a difference). Now, I hope the CPU performance/price rumors are true. It will be a let down if the rumors have been overblown and my dreams are dashed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/15/19 10:27 AM

Quote
AMD to stream "Next Horizon Gaming" event at E3 2019

As well as the Computex 2019 keynote

AMD has announced its new "Next Horizon Gaming" event that will take place at the E3 2019 show on June 10th, which will be live-streamed. It has also announced that the Computex 2019 keynote on May 27th will be live-streamed as well
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/19 10:25 AM

Quote
AMD Reaffirms 7nm Based Ryzen 3000, EPYC Rome and Radeon Navi Graphics Cards Availability in Q3 2019

All three product lines have their launch planned for Q3 2019 and AMD further confirmed availability during their annual shareholder meeting.

7nm Radeon VI will remain top of the line this year. 7nm Navi will be popular-priced. Q3 nominally starts in July -- so, we might see the products as soon as July.

Attached picture AMD-7nm-Ryzen-3000-EPYC-Rome-Radeon-Navi_1.png
Attached picture AMD-CPU-GPU-Roadmap_Investor-Presentation_3-1480x833_2.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/19 09:19 AM

Quote
Biostar confirms Ryzen 3000 support

Motherboard maker Biostar has confirmed Ryzen 3000 support for previous 300 (X370, B350, A320) and 400 (X470) series motherboards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/19 12:15 AM

Quote
AMD To Provide Architectural Deep-Dive Into 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs With Zen 2 Cores and Navi GPUs at Hot Chips 2019

AMD planning to hold their own conference during the event on 19th August at Palo Alto at 1:45 PM PT. During the conference, AMD is expected to talk about two key architectures that are powering their next-generation CPU and GPU lineups, Zen 2 and Navi.


Hopefully, by then, some will be available to buy and will have been third party tested. On August 19, AMD will be describing how the circuits actually work. Up to then, its rumor and speculation.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/19 10:25 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and 3 3200G APU Clock Speeds Detailed – Up To 4.2 GHz Boost On 12nm, Zen+ Based Picasso Family

The process of delidding did unveil a gold plated solder under the IHS which should deliver better thermals and overclocking results compared to the older 1st Gen Zen based Ryzen APUs.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-3000-Ryzen-3-3200G-APU_1.jpg
Attached picture AMD Ryzen 3 3200G APU Final Specs.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/20/19 09:45 AM

Quote
Intel Loses 5X More Average Performance Than AMD From Mitigations: Report

Phoronix's .. found the fixes reduce Intel's performance by 16% (on average) with Hyper-Threading enabled, while AMD only suffers a 3% average loss.

Intel's chips can suffer even more with Hyper-Threading (HT) disabled, a measure that some companies (such as Apple and Google) say is the only way to make Intel processors completely safe from the latest vulnerabilities. In some of Phoronix's testing, disabling HT reduced performance almost 50%

To be clear, this is not just testing with mitigations for MDS (also known as Fallout, Zombieload, and RIDL), but also patches for previous exploits like Spectre and Meltdown

AMD's processors are immune to the latest round of vulnerabilities, and its users also don't need to turn off Simultaneous Multi-Threading (or SMT)


Previously, it was written that Intel "cut corners" in its CPU hardware design to help make their CPU instructions per clock higher than AMD -- now, Intel users needing protection from "attacks" can lose much of that advantage over AMD. AMD did not "cut corners" with their CPU design -- so do not have the same vulnerabilities.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/21/19 11:55 AM

Quote
AMD Navi RX 3080 & 3070 Leak, RTX 2070 & 2060 Rivals at $499, $399 – Announcement Due May 27


Another "leak". This one confirms previously leaked/rumored performance. However, it indicates substantially higher pricing than previous rumors.

They say we will find out next week with an official announcement. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/26/19 10:27 AM

Quote
AMD President and CEO, Dr. Lisa Su Presents the COMPUTEX 2019 Keynote

live from Taipei on Monday, May 27, 2019 at 10 AM Taipei Time (GMT + 8 hours).


Quote
AMD’s showcase of next-generation gaming technologies and content.

AMD Next Horizon Gaming at E3 June 10, 2019 3PM PDT


Don't know how much detail is coming at AMD Computex Keynote. Probably some product names and release dates.

The event June 10 should have some concrete performance demos and details from AMD.

Some items to go on sale July 7, they say. Then we get the independent test articles.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 02:53 PM

Quote
AMD Previews First 7nm Gaming Navi GPU: Radeon RX 5700 GPU, 10% Performance Uplift Over RTX 2070

The Radeon RX 5700 has been announced and is the first 7nm Navi gaming part. AMD will be launching the NAVI RX 5000 family at E3 in June. The Radeon RX 5700 is being pitched against the NVIDIA RTX 2070 GPU

The RX 5700 is a mainstream card and in the demo shown fluctuated between equal performance (CPU bottleneck?) to up to 10% performance differential against the RTX 2070 part shown.

The company will be handing out more details on the card in June at E3 [on sale in July]

AMD’s announcements showcase its effective management and turn-around by Lisa Su – to the point where the company has opened the Computex 2019 conference at the first and foremost keynote.


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Attached picture COMPUTEX_KEYNOTE_DRAFT_FOR_PREBRIEF.26.05.19-page-011-1600x427.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 03:04 PM

Quote
AMD Launches RDNA [GPU] Macro Architecture: PCIe 4.0, 1.25x IPC And 1.5x Performance Per Watt Upgrade Over GCN

Most interestingly .. it features a completely new compute unit design.

This results in reduced latency, higher bandwidth availability ( on a per-core basis) and lower power consumption.

The RDNA macro-architecture also features streamlined graphics pipeline which features “high clock speed”. ...If this is true then we should be seeing some pretty big performance gains.

Finally, here is the kicker, RDNA fully supports PCIe 4.0 which means NAVI GPU is slated to be the first PCIe 4.0 gaming GPU in the world. This is great news because it means the company is looking to future proof its lineup for the get go – something its known for and has a considerable amount of goodwill for,


Attached picture 20190527_104314-1480x700.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 03:37 PM

Quote
AMD Unveils 3rd Gen, 7nm Ryzen 3000 CPUs With Up To 12 Cores, Up To 4.6 GHz Clocks & Massive 15% IPC Uplift – Flagship To Cost $499 US

The chip features a base clock of 3.8 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost which when put together is just stunning for a 12 core part that will hit retail shelves on 7th July for $499 US.

AMD Ryzen 7 3000 Series Processors – 8 Core/16 Thread Ryzen 7 3800X For $399 and Ryzen 7 3700X For $329 US

Not only was the Ryzen 7 3700X (4806 CB points) able to beat the Core i7 (3726 CB points) part which boosts up to 4.9 GHz but also consumed much lower power than its competitor.

AMD Zen 2 Core Architecture Achieves 15% IPC Uplift


The 7nm 16core/32thread CPU was shown behind closed doors. It performed well and is rumored to sell for $799. It competes with Intel's $2000 part. Don't know when it will become public.

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-05-27 AMD Ryzen 3000 Announced.png
Attached picture 20190527_111836-740x350.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 03:54 PM

Quote
AMD X570 Motherboard Roundup – Featuring X570 AORUS Xtreme, ASRock X570 Taichi, MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE, ASUS Crosshair VIII HERO & More


Article w/pictures
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 03:59 PM

Quote
AMD Hasn’t Abandoned Ryzen Threadripper, HEDT Brand To Return In Full Force With Up To 64 Cores

let’s talk about the fact that Ryzen 3000 12 and 16 core processors will essentially replace the 12 and 16 core Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series CPUs but AMD put an end to certain rumors that claimed that AMD might have abandoned HEDT

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su:

“You will see more [Threadripper] from us; you will definitely see more... If mainstream is moving up, then Threadripper will have to move up, up—and that’s what we’re working on,”
Posted By: RedOneAlpha

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 06:28 PM

Basically...



Mike
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/19 07:54 PM

A nice summary article from Eurogamer.

Quote
AMD unveils next-gen Ryzen 3000 processors and RX 5700 graphics card


Summary Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/28/19 12:28 PM

On the competition:

Quote
Intel Launches 10th Generation Ice Lake 10nm [Laptop] CPUs At Computex 2019, Now Shipping

These are for laptops primarily. Intel claims its 10nm integrated graphics on 25 Watt chip are competitive with current AMD Laptop 12nm APU integrated graphics on 15 Watt chip.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/19 01:21 PM

Quote
AMD gains in shrinking market

Overall GPU shipments decreased -18.62 per cent from last quarter, AMD shipments decreased -4.6 per cent, Nvidia decreased -12.7 per cent and Intel's shipments, decreased -22.5 per cent .

AMD's market share from last quarter increased by 2.3 percent, Intel's decreased -3.4 percent, and Nvidia's market share increased by 1.10 percent.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/31/19 09:54 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6 Core CPU Benchmarks Leak Out, Knocks Out Intel’s i9-9700K At Price/Perf – Higher IPC Than Intel Coffee Lake, 6% Faster in PUBG

Gaming was a major stronghold of Intel CPUs but it looks like Zen 2 being this good might take that advantage away in a majority of properly optimized multi-core gaming titles. Expect more information in the coming weeks for the new Ryzen 3000 processors.


Another rumor/leak like we've been getting for a while -- probably close to accurate. The AMD advantage was not large in these leaks (a few percent). But, it was an advantage. We'll see July 7.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/19 10:36 AM

Quote
All AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs Will Feature Soldered IHS, Expect Impressive Thermals & Great Overclocking Capability

MD has so far used solder on all of their Ryzen CPUs, Ryzen Theadripper CPUs and the upcoming Ryzen ‘Picasso’ APUs are also confirmed to feature Soldered IHS. Continuing the tradition, AMD will also feature solder IHS on their upcoming Ryzen 3000 series processors
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/19 06:00 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen CPUs Still Outselling Intel Core CPUs A Month Before Ryzen 3000 Launch, Sales Revenue Equal For Both at Germany’s Biggest Retailer
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/19 11:11 PM

Quote
AMD And Samsung Announce Partnership – Radeon Coming To Your Smartphone?

Today’s announcement is a truly disruptive move, as this solidifies Samsung’s plans to roll out its own graphics silicon which is a rare play in this industry. Is it possible AMD and Samsung will launch something that looks very similar to a Navi GPU, just heavily scaled down to fit inside a phone’s’ thermal envelope? Very interesting times ahead!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/19 11:08 AM

Quote
AMD confirms lack of PCIe 4.0 support on older motherboards

[AMD spokesperson] "Pre-X570 boards will not support PCIe Gen 4. There's no guarantee that older motherboards can reliably run the more stringent signaling requirements of Gen4, and we simply cannot have a mix of "yes, no, maybe" in the market for all the older motherboards. The potential for confusion is too high. "
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/19 11:23 AM

For professional Compute only:

Quote
AMD announces Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, a dual Vega 20 graphics card

This is worlds first dual 7nm GPU graphics card. It features two Vega 20 processors, each with full 64 Compute Units (unlike Radeon VII which only has 60 enabled). The GPUs can carry four stacks of HBM2 memory with up to 32 GB of capacity. This means that the Duo variant will be equipped with 128 CUs (8192 Stream Processors) and 64 GB of HBM2 memory.

The new Radeon Pro Vega II will be offered with the new Apple Mac Pro, which will retail for around $35,000

“AMD continues to develop amazing graphics technologies to accelerate workflows for professionals who rely on DaVinci Resolve for faster color correction and editing,” said Dan May, president, Blackmagic Design. “Radeon Pro Vega II delivers outstanding performance, especially when DaVinci Resolve is put to work with 8K video footage combined with various filters.”
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/05/19 06:28 PM

Quote
NVIDIA’s Ampere GPU Launching In 2020, Will Be Based On Samsung’s 7nm EUV Process


Nvidia switching from TSMC to Samsung for 7nm. AMD will be staying with TSMC for 7nm and for rumored TSMC 5nm (rumored coming in a couple years??).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/07/19 11:26 AM

Quote
AMD Stock Bounces After Major Bank Admits It Made The “Wrong Call”

Morgan Stanley reverses call on AMD, sees “positive near-term catalysts”

[AMD] is trading at a very high price to earnings ratio.. its expected PE ratio at around 30:1. For comparison, Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC 45.1 1.23%) PE hovers around 6:1. This is somewhat to be expected since AMD is all about growth potential while Intel has saturated its market.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/19 12:42 AM

Ryzen 3000 series 7nm out on July 7. More information on the high-end Motherboards. Apparently, AMD is going "all in" to try and take the high-end CPU/PC hardware crown from Intel.

Quote
X570 Platform Focuses On High-Performance, Value Aspect Fades

With X570, AMD has made the decision to go all out on the X570 platform, cutting no corners and making no sacrifices, but to do this, additional costs have been put in place.

To accommodate the features of the X570 platform, AMD has produced the X570 Chipset in-house, a change compared to previous AM4 chipsets produced by ASMedia. The X570 Chipset reportedly costs more to manufacture,

Chiang also mentioned AMD is positioning itself as a premium, high-performance [CPU/MB] brand, moving away from the long-time reputation as being a value-oriented company.


I won't be surprised if AMD CPU/MB prices increase if/as their performance begins to clearly exceed Intel. On the other hand, Intel still has brand name recognition. That should moderate AMD product costs. And, presumably, 550 and 530 motherboards will be cost effective. We'll see in a month.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/19 06:26 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 4.7 GHz CPU Leaked, World’s First 16 Core Gaming Chip

We’re only a day away from AMD’s hotly anticipated Next Horizon E3 gaming event

AMD Prepares Monstrous New 16 Core Ryzen 3950X Gaming CPU With 4.7 GHz Turbo Clock

The package will still maintain an impressively frugal 105W TDP, which is achieved through a modest base clock speed of 3.5 GHz.

Its closest competitor from Intel the i9-9960X is a 165W chip and runs at lower clock speeds.


We could hear about it Monday June 10, if it exists. The price will be very interesting -- but, we may have to wait until July 7 for that.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/19 11:58 PM

In summary of AMDs presentation today -- some rumors were confirmed:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X CPU Official: 16 Cores, 32 Threads, 4.7 GHz Boost, $749 US Price, Launch in September

the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X gives HEDT performance on a mainstream platform, competing directly against Intel’s 16 core, Core-X processors (Core i9-9960X) at a much lower price point.

AMD’s Next-Gen X570 Chipset – First Mainstream Platform To Support PCIe Gen 4, Feature Rich and Ready For Ryzen 3000 CPUs

The X570 platform will be an all PCIe Gen4 solution, which means this would most probably be the first consumer platform to feature support for the new PCIe standard.


The 12core/24 thread is nominally on sale July 7. It and the 16 core are actually two 8 core chips in the same package -- much as Threadripper. Have to wait for tests to see if the interconnect does the job.

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-06-10 AMD Ryzen 9 3950X CPU Official 16 Cores at 4 7 GHz, $749 US Price.png
Attached picture AMD-X570-Chipset-Details-and-Specs_7-740x416.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/19 12:14 AM

Regarding graphics:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Faster Than GeForce RTX 2070 at $449, Radeon RX 5700 Faster Than GeForce RTX 2060 For $379 Officially – 7nm RDNA Navi GPUs With GDDR6

the new graphics card features AMD’s next-gen Navi GPU which is based on a 7nm process node and features the RDNA core architecture to replace AMD’s GCN architecture which was launched back in 2011.

According to AMD themselves, the Navi 10 GPU will be 14% faster at the same power and should consume 23% lower power at the same clock speeds as Vega 64 GPU.

[The 50th Anniversary model] would deliver a total Compute power of 10.14 TFLOPs and should be around 5-10% faster than the Radeon RX 5700 XT. This variant will be available for a price of $499 US.


Vega 64 has 4096 stream processors and is virtually the same FPS as 5700XT (according to leaked tests). So, no incentive to buy 5700XT for a Vega 64 owner. I expected that.

Clarification Edit:

Quote
AMD expects the Radeon 5700XT to offer performance approximately 1.14x faster than Vega 64, while drawing 23 percent less power.


Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-5700_Official_2-740x416.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot_2019-06-10 AMD Radeon RX 5700 Official RX 5700 XT For $449 RX 5700 For $379.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/19 06:21 PM

TSMC makes AMD CPUs and GPUs. 7nm is not the end of the line. As nodes get smaller, chips get smaller. But, speed increases are slight.

Quote
TSMC To Commence 2nm Research In Hsinchu, Taiwan Claims Report

the company is expected to develop 5nm by next year. Now, a report sheds more details on TSMC’s plans for processes beyond 5nm and 3nm.

3nm mass production projected to commence in 2022. At this point, process nodes [sizes] are merely marketing terms as key metrics such as pitch and gate width are similar for designs marketed under different headings.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/19 08:33 PM

Quote
EXCLUSIVE: AMD Is Working On A Monster 64-Core Threadripper, Landing As Early As Q4 2019

I have confirmation that the company is preparing an absolutely monstrous 64-core/128-thread Threadripper part for launch in Q4 2019.

this is going to be an absolute steal for the retail professional. This processor is also going to be great for homegrown server setups and computing clusters – the applications are practically endless.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/19 10:33 AM

Quote
EXCLUSIVE: AMD’s Plans For 7nm Ryzen APUs

the expected announcement/launch date roughly in late-November.

[Its] for consumers that are looking for an HTPC build or a casual All-In-One build and want to conserve on the footprint.

Raven Ridge 7nm is going to go up against Tiger Lake parts from Intel which are expected to have a maximum compute of 2 TFLOPs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/19 10:40 AM

Quote
Beyond Hardware: AMD’s Planned Software Improvements For Navi, GCN

[This article details] the software improvements AMD intends to offer with its next GPUs. Some of these gains will also be available to GCN cards as well.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/19 10:58 AM

Definitely only a rumor. Yet, it seems possible.

Quote
AMD X590 Chipset Reportedly In The Works – Designed For Premium AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs, Higher PCIe 4.0 Lanes, Much Higher Priced Than X570 Boards


Intel has been making very high end (expensive) motherboards. AMD may be going "all in" (expensive) to compete with Intel -- as rumors and leaks suggest.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/18/19 11:38 AM

Quote
Custom Radeon RX 5700 cards come in mid-August

It appears that the Radeon RX 5700 series will only be available with reference design when it launches on July 7th as custom versions from usual AMD AIB partners won't be available before mid-August, in best case scenario.

AIB partners need some time to get these custom cards designed and tested, but we are sure there will be plenty of cards to choose from when they come. At launch, you will be able to get a reference one with a sticker from your favorite partner.

The good part of the story is AMD went to great lengths with the design of the [Reference Edition] Radeon RX 5700 XT cooler with new aluminum shroud and backplate, vapor chamber cooling and graphite-based TIM, as well as the PCB with 7-phase VRM.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/19 12:04 PM

What the first 7nm Navi GPUs will be competing against (pricing rumor):

Quote
Exclusive: NVIDIA RTX Super Graphics Cards Pricing, RTX 2080 SUPER $799 MSRP, RTX 2070 SUPER $599 MSRP and RTX 2060 SUPER for $429 MSRP

the NVIDIA RTX SUPER series, which is going to launch in a staggered fashion with the RTX 2060 SUPER, RTX 2070 SUPER and RTX 2080 SUPER launching first and the Ti variants (RTX 2070 Ti SUPER and RTX 2080 Ti SUPER) launching later.


Attached picture Screenshot_2019-06-19 Exclusive NVIDIA RTX Super Graphics Cards Pricing, RTX 2080 SUPER $799 MSRP, RTX 2070 SUPER $599 MSRP[...].png
Attached picture Screenshot_2019-06-19 AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary Edition only for USA and China - VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/19 08:53 PM

First real-seeming test of a 7nm Ryzen low end CPU. Competes with Intel high end.

Quote
[Entry Level $199] AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6 Core, 12 Thread CPU Tested on X470 Platform – Single-Core Performance On Par With The Core i9-9900K [$488]

Coming to the main performance tests, first of all, the chip was tested in several CPU benchmarks such as Cinebench R15, Cinebench R20, wPrime, and X264 encode. In all of the multi-core tests, the chip out-performed the Core i7-9700K which is an incredible feat considering that the Core i7-9700 (K) is a 95W processor while the Ryzen 5 3600 is a 65W processor. In single core tests, the chip did manage to feature performance on par with the Core i9-9900K which is Intel’s top mainstream chip while the Ryzen 5 3600 is AMD’s most entry-level chip. This alone goes off to show the massive IPC improvements that AMD has achieved with their 7nm Zen 2 core architecture.


Article

"On par" doesn't mean it won everything. Only that one probably would see no difference in practice (just measure a difference). We'll see if other testers agree on and around July 7.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/25/19 08:16 PM

AMD adds talent.

Quote
Exclusive: Frank Azor Joins AMD As Chief Gaming Officer

Alienware Co-Founder, Vice President and General Manager, Frank Azor. Frank had been with Alienware/Dell for almost 25 years and this is a big score for AMD.. Frank Azor will be joining as Chief Gaming Officer.

Frank is a well-known force in the gaming community
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/19 09:08 AM

Quote
Intel’s Internal “AMD Competitive Profile” Memo Revealed- AMD Competing On Perf/Dollar A Huge Risk For Intel, Acknowledges AMD As Formidable Competition

A Challenging Period Ahead For Intel And A Dominating Position For AMD

AMD’s Success Story According To Intel Themselves:

[From closing paragraph] Intel is very reasonable in their assessment on the threats it faces and how it plans to tackle them in years to come. Just like in the past, Intel has overcome the challenges it faced by offering top-tier products and they have a solid foundation in the form of their six pillars (process, architecture, memory, interconnect, security and software). AMD rose from the ashes to once again become a dominant force in the industry and Intel could do the same if we take a look at their past, that’s the beauty of competition!


Link to very long article covering many points

With release of AMD 7nm products, Intel will have fallen significantly behind in key respects. Recovering leadership will not be easy or soon. Intel is tackling that problem internally with a realistic assessment of the challenge.

As I've noted, the last time AMD got ahead (over a decade ago), Intel cheated by paying key manufacturers "under the table" to not use AMD which nearly put AMD out of business (proved in court). That's one of the reasons I support AMD. Hopefully, the competition will be "above board" this time.

As the article indicates: Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/19 03:10 PM

Quote
AMD talks Precision Boost Overdrive in Ryzen 3000 series

AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) .. an automatic overclocking feature which raises both voltage and frequency when certain conditions are met, like power and thermals.

AMD has further improved the PBO feature allowing these CPUs to hit higher single-core boost clocks, by up to 200MHz


Getting the most boost is said to require an X570 motherboard. CPUs on sale and reviews giving third party performance numbers on line July 7.

Attached picture amd-ryzen3000lineupintel-1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/19 04:02 PM

Competition for Navi etc. Over 30 independent tests linked in the article:

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER & RX 2070 SUPER Review Roundup


Links to Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/19 10:38 AM

With some new CPUs and GPUs, AMD is giving the ability to play many games for free.

Quote
Purchase qualifying AMD Radeon™ graphics or Ryzen™ processors and get 3 months of PC Games with Xbox Game Pass* and play Gears 5, coming Fall 2019!

Xbox Game Pass is coming to PC! Starting August 2019, players will have unlimited access to a curated library of over 100 high-quality PC games on Windows 10*, available to download and play at full fidelity.


AMD Announcement

Attached picture Xbox Game Pass AMD.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/19 11:23 AM

Competition is good smile

Nvidia's SUPER series came in at a competitive price. Now, prior to launch, it is rumored that AMD 7nm Navi GPUs will have lower prices.

Quote
AMD to lower the price of Radeon RX 5700 series ahead of launch

Update, new pricing (two confirmations):

RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary: $449
RX 5700 XT: $399
RX 5700: $349


Rumored that AMD official prices will be available tomorrow. That's combined with 3 months of free gaming noted in post above. Price competition is very good biggrin

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-07-05 AMD to lower the price of Radeon RX 5700 series ahead of launch - VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/19 10:09 AM

AMD Navi GPU prices are official:

Attached picture amd-prricecut-1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/19 02:25 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 Review Roundup


Review Links
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/19 02:26 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 (Zen2) Review Roundup


Reviews Linked
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/19 02:56 PM

FWIW I ordered:

AMD Radeon™ RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
Xbox Game Pass for PC

Slight (measurable but usually invisible) FPS improvement on my Vega 64 with other "actually visible" improvements to picture quality. And, 7nm for the fun of it.

Not sure which 7nm Ryzen CPU or motherboard to buy, yet. Again, its for the fun of it -- only a couple of my games and applications may be noticeably better (if I go 8 core).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/19 10:47 PM

For my CPU and motherboard I went with the Ryzen 7 3800X (8core/16thread) and Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO.

Those and the above AMD Navi GPU provide a nice "middle of the road" 7nm AMD gaming system that improves on my current system. The Navi is supposed to arrive tomorrow -- the CPU and motherboard in 3 to 6 business days.

Attached picture AMDCPU_GBMB.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/19 09:41 AM

Now that AMD 7nm CPUs are out, Intel performance is behind -- so price competition (rumor):

Quote
Intel 10th Generation ‘Comet Lake’ 14nm+++ CPU Lineup Allegedly Leaks Out, 10 Cores Start at $409 US, 8 Cores at $339 US, 6 Cores at $179 US and 4 Cores at $129 US – New Socket LGA 1159 Rumored

It looks like you won’t be getting any significant changes on the new lineup since it is still technically based on the same [14nm] architecture as Skylake..The 10th Gen lineup makes use of the 14nm+++ node...

The Intel Core i9-10900KF is rumored to be the flagship SKU of the lineup, featuring 10 cores and 20 threads. Based on the price, it will be competing against the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X which offers a total of 12 cores and 24 threads. The chip is clocked at 3.4 GHz base and 5.2 GHz single core boost..


Many articles have noted that some Intel performance has been based on the current (and older) chip hardware "cutting corners" with security. That does not affect gamers (usually). But, some professional users need to install software fixes that cut Intel performance significantly.

In the meantime, gaming Intel fans can benefit from the price competition smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/19 12:05 PM

Quote
AMD confirms custom RX 5700 coming in mid-August

Might consider changing future reference blower cooler

AMD has confirmed that custom RX 5700 series graphics cards will be coming in mid-August, and some partners will launch their versions even later.

AMD claims that blower-style cooler was necessary in order to "guarantee performance in every system to match our launch charts", as it should cool down the GPU even in cases without proper airflow.


I ordered my 50th Anniversary edition with an eye on the "guaranteed" stock performance (mild as-delivered OC vs non-Anniversary cards). I'll see how that turns out in the next couple days.

Attached picture Custom RX 5700 coming in mid-August.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/19 10:17 PM

Got my 7nm Navi RX5700XT 50th Anniversary edition.

After reading the above I was expecting noise. Its quiet during normal gaming. Its virtually quiet under heaviest load in a closed gaming case that has audible cooling fans. Not a bother to me. In my system its far quieter than my Powercolor RX Vega 64. The PC Vega 64 is one of the fastest Vega 64s made. Has 3 fans -- can be noisy.

I wanted the RX5700XT 50th to out perform the Vega 64 by 20 percent (and hoped for 25 percent).

In basic Time Spy it was 25 percent faster. In Time Spy 4K it was only 18 percent faster (and far quieter). But, Time Spy is not a game, its a benchmark.

I personally like the Assassin's Creed Odyssey in-game benchmark -- its a low fly over of a graphics intensive part of the game. Its a game I play. I was pleasantly surprised (more like incredulous) when the in-game benchmark ran 32 percent faster at 4K and 115% field of view. So, I get the FPS improvement without the occasional in-game noise.

For completeness, in my heavily modded Fallout 4 worst scene (CPU limited) running at 4K, the FPS increase was small (as expected with a CPU limited scene).

These were preliminary tests. So far, overall, RX5700XT 50th wins for my uses. Other folks may get different results. I'll be interested to see how the numbers change when I'm running in my "new" computer (Ryzen 7 3800X) next week. I'd expect a real game to run even faster (if only slightly) -- maybe that Fallout 4 scene will improve.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/19 10:29 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon VII is no more

Cowcotland has just confirmed with their sources that AMD Radeon VII is no longer in production. The stores are selling the remaining stock and apparently, no more Radeon VII cards will be made.

With the announcement of Radeon RX 5700 series, it became clear that VII is simply not as power-efficient and cost-effective solution as Navi-based models.


When Radeon VII was released, it was obviously a 7nm "place holder" until Navi.

Meantime, based on how my RX5700XT 50th works, next year's high end gaming Navi could be a beast -- if the shader count reaches 4096 (like Vega 64).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/19 11:17 PM

Quote
AMD’s Powerful Ryzen 7 2700X and 2700 CPUs Are a Budget System Builder’s Dream Thanks to Prime Day 2019

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor $199.99

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Processor $149.99


At Amazon.com
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/19 11:20 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Overtakes Intel Core CPUs Market Share In Major Asian Pacific Markets, Highest CPU Share in 5 Years

According to the PassMark market share report, Intel CPU share fell from 76.90% to 70.70% while AMD CPUs grew their share from 23.10% to 29.30% from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019.


"gains share" -- not "overtakes".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/19 11:30 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5700 series reach 2.2 GHz with SPPT mod

Unlocking AMD Radeon RX 5700 series performance has never been easier, thanks to SoftPowerPlayTable mod described by Igor Wallossek from Tom’s Hardware Germany.


During testing, I noticed my RX5700XT 50th was running over 2GHz at times -- at stock settings for the 50th edition.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/19 11:43 PM

Quote
AMD’s Next-Gen Zen 5 [5nm] Core Shows Up In Chief Architect’s Profile, Post-2020 Chip Architecture For Future Ryzen, Threadripper & EPYC CPUs

The AMD Zen 5 [5nm ]core was confirmed to be in development by AMD a while ago in their slides during the Zen+ launch. It has once again been confirmed by David Suggs, who’s the chief architect for the AMD Zen 2 and Zen 5 microprocessor cores.

[per Suggs] "N5 has entered risk production in the first quarter, and we expect customer tape-outs starting this quarter and volume production ramp in the first half of 2020. With 1.8X logic density and 15% speed gain and an ARM A72 core compared with 7-nanometer, we believe our N5 technology is the most competitive in the industry."


My 7nm Ryzen 7 3800X may be replaced with a 5nm model in a little over a year (speculation). As the article notes, Intel will stay behind if that happens (Intel is said to still be having issues with 10nm and 7nm production).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/19 01:43 AM

Confirmation of a previous rumor:

Quote
Frank Azor joins AMD as chief architect of gaming solutions

AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, confirmed that Frank Azor is now part of AMD's team..

Frank Azor previously worked at Alienware, as one of the co-founders. .. and is certainly a big win for AMD as he is familiar with the gaming industry.

Patrick Moorhead, Founder, President, and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, as well as an industry veteran, had nothing but praise for Frank Azor, describing him as "a gaming icon" across the industry, and saying that this is a great move and big win for AMD.


I copied much of the short article -- I don't like to do that. But, unlike most, this article was "to the point". Here's the link:

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/19 02:05 PM

I found this interesting:

Quote
ASRock Announces First Custom Radeon RX 5700 Challenger Series Graphics Cards – Ditches Reference Blower For Dual Fan Design, Huge Factory Overclock

The ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger has 2560 stream processors which are clocked at 1650 MHz base, 1795 MHz Game and 1905 MHz Boost clocks.


Thing is, my RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary has faster stock clocks (1680, 1830, 1930) and is much quieter than the 3 fan cards I've owned. In use, my "AMD GPU tachometer" showed over 2000 MHz at times (stock).

I'm not selling them. But, authors seem to be selling the reference models short.

My new build (Ryzen 7 3800X, RX 5700XT 50th, Gigabyte 570X mb) is virtually done. I'm testing and test gaming. More "upside" than I expected, so far.

Chart price is $50 higher than current list price.

Attached picture RX-5700-XT-For-$449-RX-5700-For-$379.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/19 10:22 AM

Quote
AMD 3rd gen Threadripper could launch in October

Going against Intel's Glacier Falls platform

AMD could theoretically launch a 64-core/128-thread Threadripper CPU with 8-channel memory support.


Attached picture amd-CPUroadmapMarch-1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/19 10:27 PM

Quote
Intel cannot catch up with AMD until 2021

Chipzilla has admitted that it will not catch up with AMD on its 7nm chips until 2021.

[Intel CEO Bob Swan says] “We'll get our 10nm node out this year. Our 7nm node will be out in two years and it will be a 2.0X scaling so back to the historical Moore's Law curve.”
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/19 01:23 PM

FWIW changed signature to show new hardware. Intended to be a good (not great), middle-of-the-road 4K gaming system.

New system primarily RX5700XT 50th Anniversary model GPU (at stock speeds), Ryzen 7 3800X (at stock speeds), X570 motherboard. Old system primarily RX Vega 64 (at stock speeds), Ryzen 7 1800X (overclocked), X470 motherboard.

X570 motherboard correctly installed my 32GB of memory at 3.2GHz -- memory designed for Intel that only ran at 3.0GHz on X470.

Averaging/rounding test results, the new system is roughly 25% faster FPS Benchmarking and 20% faster CPU Benchmarking. According to 3DMark Time Spy Benchmark, the system exceeds the minimum 4K system/requirement by over 30%. This only applies to my uses and may not be true for everyone making a similar switch.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/19 11:44 AM

Relevant to gamers who build their own computers. May result in slightly more AMD and Intel CPU sales than otherwise would happen.

Quote
DRAM average sales price to fall 42.1 per cent

There are already shedloads of DRAM in the supply chain and prices are pretty low already. That oversupply is expected to continue into the first and second quarters of the next calendar year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/19 12:15 PM

Quote
AMD Claims It Bluffed Nvidia Into Cutting GPU Prices

AMD carefully analyzed the RTX family of GPUs, including their price points, die sizes, and how much headroom was left in the family. It picked its initial price points for the RX series expecting Nvidia to undercut them..

[Author] I believe everything AMD has said about analyzing Turing’s headroom, price points, and other market factors. We perform similar analyses ourselves,..

Nvidia has maintained very high margins on its GPUs; the company-wide margin as of last year was ~60 percent.


Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/19 01:01 PM

Quote
The End of High-Performance Overclocking May Be Nigh

"As both AMD and Intel optimize their binning process more and more, overclocking will not be possible as CPUs will boost themselves on their own to the highest clocks possible."

Where’s the [OC] Headroom Going?

Today, modern top-end chips target 4.6 – 5GHz for their own all-core boost frequencies and leave very little room for overclockers to go anywhere else.

Article

Prior to reading the article, I noticed that my Ryzen 7 3800X advertises 3.9GHz base operating frequency, 4.5GHz single core boost. But, in a Stress Test running all 16 threads at 100%, it actually runs at ~4.3GHz base on all 8 cores with boosts to ~4.5GHz occasionally. Wattage remains below 100W which is below the advertised 105W.

It does not overheat (water cooled) and probably can run like this indefinitely (based on my limited tests).

It does the same when using the included Wraith air cooler but runs about 10C warmer; so, I would not try to run indefinitely on air.

Hence, I've decided not to overclock (as I did with Ryzen 7 1800X) because its not necessary for my uses. My 3800X overclocks itself automatically -- just like the article says.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/19 02:04 PM

Quote
Nvidia expects first [full] ray-tracing game by 2023

Morgan McGuire, who works on ray tracing, augmented reality, virtual reality at .. Nvidia, is predicting that by 2023 we will see the first triple-A games will require ray tracing.

"I predict that the first AAA game to REQUIRE a ray-tracing GPU to run will ship in 2023, and every gaming platform will offer accelerated ray-tracing by that year."

Part of the problem is that graphics hardware would have to make a giant leap before we see a fully ray-traced game in the triple-A category.

Both the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett (the next flagship Xbox console) will run an AMD Navi GPU that supports ray tracing [expected in 2020].


Others have suggested Full Ray Tracing will take 10 years -- and/or cards 10 times as powerful as now available. Currently, for just a few effects in a game, the resolution and FPS hit is enormous. Moreover, there are other clever ways to get most of the Ray Tracing effect without all the performance hit. Maybe he didn't really mean "full" ray tracing in the sense of every light ray. We'll have to wait and see how 2023 turns out.

Full Ray Tracing will be practical someday. Currently, the limited ray tracing is just for the fun of trying it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/19 09:42 AM

Quote
AMD Meets Earnings Estimates But Stock Drops On Poor Outlook

Total revenue came in at $1.53 billion versus $1.76 billion a year ago. AMD stated that both its Computing and Graphics and Semi-Custom segments contributed to the year-over-year 13 percent decline in revenue.

Shares of AMD have dropped.. and as of this writing are down nearly 5 percent to $32.43 in after-hours trading.


Attached picture AMD-Q2-19-Overall.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/19 10:23 PM

Quote
AMD CEO Confirms 7nm High-End Navi Radeon RX GPUs and 7nm Mobility Ryzen CPUs – Aimed at High-Performance Gaming PCs and Notebooks

Lisa Su [AMD CEO]

“You should expect that our execution on those are on track and we have a rich 7-nanometer portfolio beyond the products that we have currently announced in the upcoming quarters.”

two variants are in the works, Navi 12 which is supposedly the high-end design and Navi 14 that will serve the lower-end market. It is also said that Navi 12 could feature up to 4096 SPs that would suggest a 64 CU design compared to 40 CUs on the Navi 10 GPU


Based on the performance of my RX5800XT 50th, I expect a 4096 shader Navi 12 will be "way up there" in performance. I'm guessing they will be likely to compete with Nvidia's current highest end cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/19 11:59 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen CPU Gain A Mammoth Market Share Versus Intel’s Core Lineup – Ryzen 3000 Outselling Intel 4 to 1, Ryzen 7 3700X Sales Eat Up Intel’s Entire Lineup

Based on the figures from Germany’s biggest retail outlet, the report shows that AMD while consistently topping Intel for an entire year has now surpassed them with an unimaginable and record share.

Running down the sales figures in details, AMD’s recorded share of CPU sold at 79% was even bigger than the first generation Ryzen and second-generation Ryzen launch. Of the AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPUs sold, the Ryzen 7 3700X was the most popular and the chip alone sold almost as much as Intel’s entire Core lineup.

When it comes to revenue from the sales, AMD managed to grab the most share at 75% while Intel had a 25% share in July.


This information is from one large retailer in Germany. Its not based on World data.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/19 10:36 AM

Quote
Intel Launches First 10th Gen Intel [10nm] Core Processors


These 10nm products are for mobile devices -- not desktop or gaming PCs.

Intel 10nm has not turned out well; so, Intel is moving past 10nm to 7nm for PCs.

However, it has been reported that Intel 7nm also has some of the same issues as Intel 10nm. No doubt, Intel will eventually solve the issues and produce a good product. Intel 7nm is not expected soon
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/02/19 08:53 PM

Quote
ASUS Radeon RX 5700 ROG STRIX & Radeon RX 5700 TUF Graphics Cards Spotted, Available in August – Triple Axial-Tech Fan Cooling & Superior PCB Designs

Article

Attached picture asus-rog-radeon-rx-5700-xt-strix-oc-gaming.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/07/19 12:37 PM

Several custom RX5700 cards from several manufacturers are said to be going on sale during August. Release begins next week.

Primarily, they have custom cooling for overclocking and interesting visual appearances. Some are said to have custom circuit boards.

As previously noted, my "stock" RX5700XT 50th Anniversary "reference card" actually runs up to 2040MHz during benchmarks with no added overclock. Its factory overclocked relative to the standard RX5700XT -- the overclock is not large. Its quiet in normal gaming use. I understand AMD purposely made it that way. During benchmarking, when running over 1950MHz, I can barely hear it over case fans -- just the sound of air moving to my ears -- not fan-whine. But, my hearing is substandard. Just reference info FWIW.

The linked site has some articles with pictures and preliminary descriptions. Test reports should be coming later this month.

AMD Custom RX5700 Articles

Attached picture Custom Cards Pictured.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/19 10:39 AM

Quote
EPYC Rome arrives and has key customers

AMD has released the second generation of its processor chip for data centres and said that it had already landed Alphabet, Google and Twitter as customers.

AMD’s newest generation of server chip, called EPYC, uses a new chip-making technology from its contract manufacturers that helps the chips have better performance while consuming less power.

AMD has tried to take advantage of Intel's production delays in moving to new technology by poaching some of Intel’s biggest customers, such as Google.

Moorhead said in a research note that almost every large business he talks to “wants more competition in the space to accelerate innovation and lower costs. With that said, none of these customers would adopt AMD if it didn’t have some advantages”.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/15/19 10:28 AM

Quote
AMD says RX 5700 series is cool with 110°C

the RX 5700 series uses a network of thermal sensors which are distributed across the entire GPU rather than a single sensor. This allows the GPU to adjust and raise the GPU clock until any one of the sensors hits the so-called "hotspot" or "junction" temperature of 110C. AMD also claims that "operating at up to 110C Junction Temperature during typical gaming usage is expected and within spec"


I noticed the "seemingly high" temperatures when stress testing my card. It became obvious that AMD was merely measuring temperature much more accurately than normal for past CPUs and GPUs. That allowed my card to run at up to 2040MHz -- even though the advertised maximum boost was under 2000MHz. The higher measured/permitted temperatures are actually a feature, not a bug.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/19 11:09 PM

Regarding competition and Ray Tracing:

Quote
NVIDIA Stock Climbs After Announcing Partnership With Microsoft To Bring Ray Tracing To Minecraft

Minecraft has over 90 million active players, which places the game in elite company in terms of popularity worldwide.

[Nvidia] targeted a game with limited graphics but extremely high popularity and is pushing a massive upgrade that users could unlock with the simple purchase of an NVIDIA RTX Geforce graphics card.


Article

Youtube Video

I will be interested to read how Minecraft players react long term. With ray tracing, Minecraft no longer looks like the game it has been for many years. Of course, folks are not required to buy a ray tracing card to play.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/26/19 08:45 PM

Quote
GlobalFoundries Sues TSMC & 19 Others For Alleged Patent Infringement

GlobalFoundries was AMD’s attempt at in-house chip fabrication, but unfortunate timing for the project didn’t let it reach full potential.

GlobalFoundries has decided to sue TSMC, Apple, Qualcomm, Broadcom, nVidia and other companies for violating its patents.

Total number of defendants in the case is 20


Years may pass before a settlement is reached. The "unfortunate timing" noted above was partly due to Intel's actions (which resulted in an approximately $1.5 billion judgement against Intel).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/27/19 02:57 PM

On the CPU competition front: Not a whole lot happening in the very near term:

Quote
Intel Comet Lake-S arrives Q1 2020 with 10 Cores and LGA1200 socket

The new Intel CPUs will require [new] 400-series motherboards as the socket has been changed to LGA1200.

based on Skylake cores, meaning, it is still 14nm fabrication process.


Other articles indicate that to get the speed up a bit across all cores, Intel will be raising power requirements (only matters if energy costs are high).

Some articles "guesstiimate" that Intel's 7nm products will arrive in 2022.

Previous rumors indicate AMD will be releasing their 7nm 16-core/32-thread Ryzen 9 gaming CPU later this year. Also, AMD seems to be working on a 5nm CPU for "maybe" 2021(?).

All in all, believable rumors have become less common the last few weeks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/19 11:54 AM

Quote
AMD settles Bulldozer CPU lawsuit

AMD has settled a false advertising lawsuit that was launched in the US in 2015 by writing a $12.1 million cheque

AMD was accused of false advertising, fraud, breach of express warrant, negligent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.

[Lawsuit argued that AMD Bulldozer 8-core] could not perform eight [floating point] calculations simultaneously and should have been described and advertised as a 4-core chip.

Each customer who bought a bulldozer chip will get $35 per chip bought.


As noted by a response to the Article:

Quote
It's not that simple as "it should have been described and advertised as a 4-core chip", it performed as a 4-core chip on floating point tasks, and as a 8-core chip on integer tasks.


AMD designed Bulldozer that way because it believed most uses emphasized "integer" calculations and "floating point" was only used occasionally during a program. To AMD it was a logical design choice to increase CPU operating frequency. I think they may have intended to get to clocks in the 6GHz to 8GHz range eventually.

Nonetheless, even I (an AMD fan) believed Bulldozer took the wrong approach. Materials Science and materials for integrated circuits (CPUs) being one of my Engineering Science specialties, I realized practical-desktop PC GHz much above 5GHz was not too feasible with Silicon (I posted a "joke" video on this site making fun of Bulldozer when it came out). As we all know, AMD lost hundreds of millions due to low CPU sales for several years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/19 12:11 PM

As noted in the previous post, AMD took the wrong engineering/design direction with Bulldozer CPUs. We also know AMD did it right with Ryzen CPUs. The following is a rumor for now -- but, probably has some truth.

Quote
AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper ‘Sharkstooth’ With 32 Zen 2 Cores Spotted Again – Destroys The Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX & Intel W-3175X CPUs

AMD’s 3rd Generation Ryzen Threadripper made a surprise appearance a few weeks in Geekbench database. Codenamed ‘Sharkstooth’, the 32 core processor based on the 7nm Zen 2 architecture showed a massive performance increase compared to existing flagship HEDT processors.

the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper part scored 5523 points in single-core and 68,576 in the multi-core test. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX at its stock frequencies scores around 4800 points in single-core and 36,000 points in multi-core tests. The Intel W-3175X scores 5148 points in single-core and 38,000 points in multi-core tests.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series family is expected to debut in the second half of 2019.


Multi-core performance is why one buys a Threadripper.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/19 08:04 PM

Quote
AMD Overtakes NVIDIA In GPU Market Share For The First Time Since Q3 2014 – Jon Peddie Research

This is absolutely great news for the company and something that hasn’t happened for well over 5 years. In fact, the last time AMD was on top was back in the third quarter of 2014.

considering NVIDIA launched SUPER variants during this quarter and their shipments were mostly flat, it would seem the new [Nvidia] lineup has not been well received

Considering [Nvidia's] Jensen loves being the top dog around, I can only assume that this will give [Nvidia] ample impetus to .. start a price/tech war [with AMD]. Which is good news for the consumer because that’s when they win.


Competition is good smile

Attached picture Market-Share-AMD-NVIDIA-INTEL-GPU-Q2-2019.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/19 08:50 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 [7nm] CPU Appears in UserBenchmark – 32 Zen 2 Cores at Up To 4.2 GHz, Up To 30% Faster in Multi-Threaded Workload

After multiple appearances in the Geekbench benchmark database, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series 32 core processor has also shown up in UserBenchmark. The latest performance for the processor reveals a huge jump compared to the existing Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32 core in multi-threaded workloads and also much better single-threaded performance.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series lineup is scheduled to be announced later this year as revealed by AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su, herself.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/19 10:54 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs Sales Remain Strong In 2nd Month – Ryzen 5 3600 Alone Outsells Intel’s Entire 9th Gen Core Processor Lineup

AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs are killing it in the German market in their 2nd month since release as revealed in the latest market share report by one of Germany’s biggest hardware & PC retailer, Mindfactory

According to the latest statistics, the AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU amounted for 78% of the total CPU sold over at the retailer compared to just 22% Intel CPU sales. The actual sales were around 18000 units while less than 5000 Intel CPUs were sold. The numbers are close to last month where AMD Ryzen 3000 in their first month managed to make up 79% of the sales figures.


Attached picture AMD-Intel Market-Share.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/19 12:32 PM

Quote
Ryzen 3000 Series Boost Frequency Fix Incoming!


As noted in the attached, some folks were not getting full advertised boost. I'm getting 4460 boost vs 4500 advertised max boost (close enough for me). More importantly, I get 4260MHz on all cores for prolonged stress testing vs. 3900 advertised base -- while remaining within wattage -- that was more important to me. However, we'll be getting a bit more boost, it seems.

Motherboard BIOSs will need updating. The updates are not expected for a month or two (depending on MB).

Attached picture AMD-Fix.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/19 02:27 PM

Quote
Intel Finally Admits It Lost Market Share To AMD, Vows To Get More Aggressive

[Intel's] Jason Grebe, Corporate Vice President, General manager Cloud Platforms and Technology Group, speaking to an analyst at the Citi Global Tech Conference confirmed that Intel had lost some market share to AMD and highlighted further challenges that the company will have to tackle to maintain its majority share of the market.

Intel is finally taking its competition seriously and the only one that wins in a case where all three companies [Intel, Nvidia, AMD] engage in a price war is the consumer.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/10/19 01:44 PM

An attached AMD CPU roadmap chart showing 7nm+ next year and speculated/rumored 5nm in 2021(?).

Attached picture AMD_Roadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/10/19 11:02 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core [Gaming] CPU Listed Online, Sales Allegedly Start on 30th September For The $749 [Gaming] Flagship

The specific launch date for the processor was not announced yet

The retailer has listed the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor and stated that sales start on 30th of September.

AMD is the first to bring such high core counts that used to be HEDT [High End Desktop] exclusive, down to mainstream users

We have seen multiple performance leaks including world record overclocks with the processor. The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X will be the grandest mainstream chip ever created


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-CPU-Official.png
Attached picture Ryzen CPUs.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/19 11:29 AM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
Another security bug found in Intel chips

Article

Over the last couple years, its been reported that Intel has "cut corners" on security to make their CPUs run a bit faster (multiple corners cut). They started doing this many years ago. This is just another case of corner cutting. Normally, the fixes slow the Intel CPUs down measurably. Current and old Intel CPUs share the same issues (usually).

These issues do not affect gamers -- unless they install the fixes. But, it does negatively affect sales to commercial users. I assume some (or all) of the issues will be truly eliminated in Intel 7nm.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/19 08:07 PM

Quote
AMD Delays Ryzen 9 3950X [16core/32thread Gaming CPU] Until November

[Via AMD] We are focusing on meeting the strong demand for our 3rd generation AMD Ryzen processors in the market and now plan to launch both the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and initial members of the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor family in volume this November. We are confident that when enthusiasts get their hands on the world’s first 16-core mainstream desktop processor and our next-generation of high-end desktop processors, the wait will be well worth it.


Initially, it was supposed to launch by September 30.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-CPU-Official.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/19 08:12 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 HEDT ‘Initial’ CPUs Officially Launching in November – 24 Zen 2 Cores, Dominant Multi-Tasking Performance & The Most Feature-Rich HEDT Platform

AMD has officially confirmed that they will be introducing their Ryzen Threadripper 3000 CPUs in November 2019. The news comes alongside the announcement that the Ryzen 9 3950X flagship processor has been pushed back to November so that AMD can launch both high-end processor series in volume.

Initial Lineup Optimized For Gamers and Enthusiasts With 24 Cores


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3000-HEDT-CPUs.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/23/19 10:46 AM

Quote
AMD Outselling Intel By More Than Double – Analyzing 5-Year Historical Sales At Mindfactory.de

AMD CPU sales consistently beat Intel’s after 2H 2018

The data clearly shows that the entire AMD comeback is on the back of Zen architecture alone. In fact, if you look at the chart you will see AMD’s sales increasing sharply as soon as Summit Ridge (Zen 1) launched

What I would really be interested in seeing is similar data from Amazon – because it has access to a much larger (and global) sample size and would be the most statistically significant data set around.


Attached picture AMD-vs-Intel-Mindfactory-1.png
Attached picture AMD-vs-Intel-Mindfactory-2.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/19 06:05 PM

Quote
AMD delays Ryzen 9 3950X launch due to unsatisfactory clock speeds, sources claim

Unsatisfactory clock speeds are the cause of AMD delaying launch of its 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X processor, which has nothing to do with support from its foundry partner TSMC, according to sources at motherboard makers.


Speculation is that hitting the Boost Clocks is the main issue. Base clocks are easily hit. Moreover, the Ryzen automatically overclocks well above Base on all 8 cores simultaneously.

The issue may be more about the appearance of False Advertising of maximum single-core boost -- rather than actual lack of practical multi-core performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/19 09:34 PM

Quote
Rumor : AMD Zen 3 [Data Center] Architecture to Support up to 4 Threads Per Core With SMT4 Feature

AMD won’t be the first ever company to do this kind of thing. some iterations of IBM’s Power architecture support up to eight execution threads per core. However, if the rumors are to be believed, AMD will be the first ever to introduce an x86 microarchitecture capable of executing more than two threads per core.


As noted here when Ryzen Zen 1 first appeared (a couple years ago), the game is now cores and threads. Intel has begun competing on cores and threads and most software is optimized for Intel CPUs; so, more software will be written to use multiple cores and threads -- even games.

Attached picture AMD-Datacenter-Roadmap.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/19 12:53 PM

Quote
AMD EPYC Genoa ‘Zen 4’ CPUs To Feature New Memory, New Socket ‘SP5 Platform’ & New Capabilities – EPYC Milan ‘Zen 3’ To Retain 64 Cores, PCIe 4, DDR4 & Socket Compatibility

AMD revealed a plethora of information regarding their next-generation EPYC CPUs based on the Zen 3 and Zen 4 cores

AMD has managed to shift the server landscape, delivering impressive performance with the best in class efficiency and value. With the upcoming generations, we should further expect AMD to uplift the server market with dominant products.

Zen 3 Delivers Perf/Watt Improvements, Zen 4 Focuses on Adding Support For New Memory, Socket, Features


These are 2020 and 2021 commercial server products. No real details yet.

Not much happened with AMD while my wife, friends, and I were away on vacation the last week (economy golf & sightseeing). Just preliminary rumors/leaks regarding next month's products. For example:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 3900 Taken to The Extreme – Shatters Cinebench R15 & Geekbench 3 Records

Using subzero cooling, Splave was able to push the Ryzen 9 3900 all the way to 5.5GHz and managed to set new world records for any 65W CPU ever tested in both Cinebench R15 and Geekbench 3.


Quote
AMD to announce Radeon RX 5500 on October 7th

We have just been informed of an AMD press call regarding upcoming Radeon graphics cards. The plural form comes from desktop and mobile variants, as AMD is set to introduce Radeon RX 5500 for both desktop and mobile markets.

The RX 5500 is a mid-range solution positioned against the GTX 1650 graphics card from NVIDIA.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/07/19 11:02 AM

Quote
Intel wants a new type of [on CPU] memory

Dubbed SAPM -- or Speculative-Access Protected Memory -- it is the work of Intel STORM (STrategic Offensive Research & Mitigations), a team of security researchers that Intel assembled since 2017 to work on creating mitigations for all the speculative-execution attacks that have impacted the CPU maker's products.

SAPM is only in Intel's heads yet, and there are no silicon prototypes.

The boffins don't deny that there's a performance hit [with the new approach] but it is low and could be mitigated further by dropping other existing protections.


In simple terms, AMD CPUs have had hardware protection built in for years. That's why its an Intel problem, and not currently an AMD problem.

Long term, Intel will almost certainly fix the issues in products coming out a couple years from now. Meantime, software fixes slow Intel down -- and costs them commercial business sales.

As often noted, this does not affect most gamers. For practical purposes, AMD and Intel are competitive -- just pick the one you want based on price, core count, clock speed, and motherboard.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/07/19 09:03 PM

Quote
AMD’s Radeon RX 5500 is its new entry-level competitor to Nvidia’s GTX 1650

AMD is producing two versions of the new GPU. The RX 5500 is for desktop machines, while the RX 5500M is for laptops. The company boasts that the cards should offer better performance than Nvidia’s GTX 1650 and GTX 1650 Mobile GPUs respectively

AMD did say that it expected its partners to begin releasing versions of the RX 5500 in the next quarter, but it didn’t provide a more specific release date beyond that.


No real solid info from AMD on the RX 5500 GPUs. AMD did indicate they perform better than GTX 1650 in AMD tests.

No reference version. All cards custom. So, we have to wait for test reports.

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-10-07 AMD’s Radeon RX 5500 is its new entry-level competitor to Nvidia’s GTX 1650.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/19 01:42 PM

TSMC is AMD's 7nm supplier for CPUs and GPUs. 7nm+ manufacturing is already here for future AMD CPUs and GPUs. So, AMD should stay on schedule with its upcoming 7nm+ CPUs and GPUs.

Quote
TSMC Achieves HVM On Its 7nm+ EUV Process – Next Generation CPUs And GPUs On 7nm EUV Are Now A Go

TSMC has confirmed that it has achieved High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) on its critical 7nm+ Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) process. This is a landmark event... This is something Intel and Samsung have yet to manage..

N7+ provides 15% to 20% more density and improved power consumption, making it an increasingly popular choice for the industry’s next-wave products.

With AMD ramping up to Zen 3 and its EPYC promotion and adoption in full swing, this is a great signal for [AMD] investors because it shows that their primary bottleneck (the foundry) is charging ahead full steam as well.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/19 10:15 AM

Quote
AMD Officially Launches Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 5 3500X


Attached picture Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 5 3500X.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/19 10:36 AM

AMD makes the CPU/GPU circuitry for Playstation 5.

Quote
Sony Shares Fresh Details on PlayStation 5, Will Launch Holidays 2020

PlayStation 5 has hardware-level support for ray tracing, not some kind of software-only solution. It’s not clear why people thought there wasn’t; AMD has confirmed that hardware ray tracing is baked into its upcoming 2020 GPUs


For those who desire ray-tracing, competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/10/19 08:03 PM

Quote
Exclusive: Next Generation AMD Mobility 7nm CPUs Landing In Q1 2020, Will Bring AMD Gaming Laptops Price Down To $699

AMD's next-generation mobility parts will include a 6-core 7nm Ryzen processor that will bring the cost of AMD gaming laptops with discrete graphics down to just $699 - a pretty steep price cut for the average consumer.

The AMD 6-core Ryzen 5 7nm mobility CPU will have a 12-hour+ battery life

It gets even better, I am told that the new AMD 7nm part (specifically the 6-core) is netting almost 12 hours in battery life for day to day use, which makes it perfect for the thin and light form factor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/19 10:38 AM

Quote
AMD Commands 30%+ CPU Market Share [CPUs in use] For 1st Time in 12 Years According to Latest CPUBenchmark Data

AMD's 3rd Gen Ryzen Continues to Crush it in the DIY Hardware Channel - Outsells Intel 4 to 1 [at German retail]

the cpubenchmark.net database tracks CPUs in use rather than CPUs sold, making it a much heavier needle to move than other indicators. However, once you understand that about the data from cpubenchmark you will find that it is highly consistent with what we’ve been seeing over the past several months. All of AMD’s high-end 3rd generation Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 processors are consistently sold-out across every major retailer we’ve seen in North America and Europe.

[AMD] to launch the highly anticipated 16 core Ryzen 9 3950X next month, alongside its entirely new lineup of 3rd generation Threadripper processors based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture.


Attached picture CPU Market Share.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/12/19 10:32 AM

Maybe I and other RX5700 owners will have some Ray Tracing this year.

Quote
Rumor : AMD Bringing Ray Tracing Support to Navi in December

Ray Tracing Code Spotted in AMD Drivers

while specialized hardware can help accelerate ray tracing it is not a requirement to support Microsoft's DirectX Ray Tracing feature.

The company is allegedly targeting its big December driver release to introduce ray tracing support for its Radeon RX 5000 series graphics cards. In fact, ray tracing code has already been spotted in the company's graphics drivers for Microsoft's recently released Gears 5 .

The State of Ray Tracing, A Must-Have or a Gimmick?

even though some graphics cards such as the GeForce RTX 2060 do in fact have hardware acceleration for ray tracing, it is debatable whether the card is actually powerful enough to run the feature at enjoyable framerates and graphics settings. After all, who would want to turn down settings and play at a lower resolution and lower framerates than what they're used to just to turn on one graphics feature.


I notice in the attached AMD graphic, they are aimed at cloud based FULL ray tracing "someday". That makes some sense because we're years (or maybe never) from a GPU being powerful enough for full ray tracing -- at an affordable price.

Attached picture AMD-Ray-Tracing-Vision.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/19 10:48 AM

Quote
Rumor: Intel Says Biggest Advantage Against AMD is Their Financial Horsepower, Price Cuts and Discounts Cost Chipzilla Around $3 Billion

The $3.0 billion figure is the total cost Intel says they are willing to pay just to disrupt competition from AMD in 2019. This cost could include price cuts, discounts, etc for the current and upcoming lineup.

It was until 2017 that we were still getting [Intel] quad cores as flagship processors but [high AMD core counts] prompted Intel to push up their core counts

Intel tried to pull off some cheap marketing stunts by calling AMD's Infinity Fabric interconnect as glued-down dies, using dubious 3rd party benchmarks for CPU comparisons and telling reviewers to change their benchmarking methodologies that reflect their own 'real-world usage' standards.

In the end, all of this [competition] means good news for the consumer market which should resurge with many decent options for all tiers of users.


As noted several times in this thread, over a decade ago AMD had the best CPUs. Then too, Intel spent a lot to keep the market. However, back then, Intel paid manufacturers "under the table" to not use AMD products -- I.e. Intel broke the law at the expense of the consumer (proven in court). For that reason some of us consumers became AMD fans.

Now, AMD has the best CPUs again and Intel's "above board" market competition based on giving better value to the consumer is Good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/19 05:50 PM

Quote
Rumor: Intel To Skip 10nm For Desktop CPUs, Will Offer 7nm Desktop CPUs in 2022

Intel seems to have dropped all plans for a 10nm desktop processor launch and are now aiming to release 7nm desktop processors in 2022. The information comes from Hardwareluxx who have got a tip from their trustworthy insiders..

The report says that Intel's 10nm supply just isn't enough to handle mass markets such as desktop at the moment which is why they will be offering 14nm replacements up till 2022

This more or less means that Intel would have to rely on their 'Financial Horsepower' to remain competitive against AMD for the next couple of years.


There's a realistic chance AMD will have 5nm going before Intel has 7nm. The chart shows the progression of Intel CPUs over the last several years and up to 2022 (rumored).

Attached picture 7nm CPUs in 2022.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/15/19 10:51 AM

Intel denies above rumor.

Quote
Chipzilla says desktop 10nm is still a thing

The rumours started by the normally reliable “Insiderkreisen” speaking to Andreas Schilling at HardwareLuxx. They were all over the tech press, often quoting Intel insiders. It might have been dismissed, other than the fact that appears so plausible.

Intel has now officially responded, promising that its “current roadmap of 10nm products includes desktop.”

Intel said: “We continue to make great progress on 10nm, and our current roadmap of 10nm products includes desktop.


10nm has "always" been on the Intel "current" roadmap. But, the above sources and another I value, say work on a line of 10nm CPUs to replace 14nm has been halted and 10nm manufacturing facilities are being repurposed to 7nm.

This is a "we'll see" how it turns out in a year or two. Not a bad thing if Intel actually does give consumers a 10nm part to choose from.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/15/19 06:34 PM

Quote
AMD Powers Europe’s Most Powerful Supercomputer Ever With 748,544 Zen 2 Cores

The UK government announced today that it has awarded the contract for the country's next generation national supercomputer to Cray, a supercomputing specialist subsidiary of HP.

When ARCHER2 goes into operation next year it is expected to be the 5th most powerful supercomputer in the world and the most powerful CPU-only supercomputer in the world.


Waayyy back in the day, our NASA facility had one of the first Cray supercomputers -- 64 (very very slow by today's standards) cores -- programmed in FORTRAN -- Wow!

Now, the cellphone in your pocket is faster than our Cray was -- and this new Cray has 748544 very fast cores smile

Oh, by the way, our Cray filled a room -- a bit larger than a cellphone biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/19 08:44 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT & RX 5700 Lead Graphics Card Sales in Europe & Asia

It took quite a while before custom cooled AIB versions of AMD's reference Radeon RX 5700 & Radeon RX 5700 XT designs came out. However, ever since they did they have been selling well across the globe.

They're doing especially well in Europe and Asia. Computerbase.de reports that the top 3 most popular graphics cards that readers were looking at on the site have all been Navi graphics cards
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/19 08:48 PM

A plausible rumor regarding Intel. Maybe the real use for Intel 10nm will be GPUs.

Quote
Intel 10nm Xe GPU Based Discrete Graphics Card Lineup Landing in Mid-2020 According To Report, DG1 Mobility Graphics Spotted With GDDR6 & 25W TDP
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/18/19 10:29 AM

Rumor:

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, 3970X, 3960X CPUs Announcement Planned For November 5th - First SKUs To Launch on 19th November, Flagship To Be Introduced in January

these would include the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, the Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and the Threadripper 3990X. There's no mention of the Ryzen Threadripper 3980X by the source


Attached picture 3990X, 3970X, 3960X Launch Dates Confirmed.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/19 11:09 AM

The Videocardz site has a countdown timer to some upcoming Intel and AMD events. Picture attached.

Videocardz Site

Attached picture VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/19 10:44 AM

Quote
AMD : We Outperform Intel by 400%+ Per Dollar With Zen 2 Powered EPYC CPUs

Fortunately [AMD has] the data to back it all up

2nd generation 32 core EPYC delivers no less than 5.6X the performance per dollar versus Intel's highest core count and fastest Platinum Xeon processors. That's 460% the performance per dollar

Intel is in effect admitting to [AMDs lead] by reducing the launch prices of its next generation Cascade Lake-X lineup in half compared to their predecessors. This is in effect a price-cut before the products even hit the shelves and it's simply a must to compete with AMD's disruptive price structure.

[AMD is] delivering double the core count per socket and thus essentially double the throughput in the same amount of physical space, an enormous advantage in servers where every square inch counts.

it's only a matter of time before the sleeping giant in Intel wakes up, and when that happens the CPU wars will go absolutely nuclear, to everyone's benefit.


Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMD-EPYC-5X-performance-1480x833.png
Attached picture AMD-Zen-2-EPYC-Server-Wins-1480x833.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/19 06:22 PM

This is a "status" of AMD thread.

As AMD does better (or worse) in any area of its business, its relevant to AMD "status".

"Status" gives an indication of what AMD can afford to do going forward. For example, Is AMD making enough money to develop a highest end GPU at some point in the near future.

In other words, this thread is not limited to "current gaming" only.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/22/19 09:39 PM

Quote
Intel CPU Shortages Were Expected To Be Ending Soon, But Major PC OEM Execs Say “They are here to stay

According to the last update by Intel, the 14nm CPU shortage was supposed to be ending at the end of this quarter. .. from the mouths of major PC OEM execs, this shortage might last a couple more quarters, possibly even longer if they don't sort out the issue in manufacturing the CPUs.

Steve Brazier, CEO at Canalys, stated that if its a problem in architecture of the CPU itself, the timing on when the shortage will be done can't be figured out.

Intel is moving most factories away from manufacturing 14nm processors and are instead focusing on the 10nm and the 7nm for the more high-end Xeon chips for servers and cloud computing companies.

many [Intel] consumers and clients are [now] switching [to] AMD seeing as [AMD] CPUs offer more value, more cores, a modern feature set and the most important fact, that their CPUs are in stock.


AMD CPUs are doing better than I personally expected mainly because Intel has unexpectedly run into serious problems with their 10nm CPU design. The 10nm design itself has flaws that are hard to fix according to rumors and leaks (as noted in the above article and elsewhere in this thread).

Intel 7nm CPUs have been rumored to have some of the same design issues -- so may be a couple years away from true release. Considering Intel's bank account, I assumed a year ago that they would quickly fix all this. Maybe quickly was a bad assumption. But, they will fix it eventually.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/23/19 11:45 AM

Quote
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang Takes No.1 Spot In HBR’s Top 100 CEOs, AMD’s Lisa Su Takes 26th

Harvard Business Review has named NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, the No. 1 best performing CEO in the world for 2019. The publication had previously ranked Jensen No. 2 last year and No. 3 the year before that. AMD's Lisa Su was also present on the list, albeit down in the 26th spot...Lisa Su is also one of only 4 females on the Top 100 best-performing CEOs list (compared to 3 last year).

AMD's Lisa Su on the other hand appears to be poised to quickly climb these ranks as AMD's Zen 2 based EPYC processors roll out and catch an Intel whose 10nm is not ready yet, off-guard. Offering a competitively specced processor at a fraction of the cost, many experts agree that AMD is poised to take away market share from Intel throughout 2020 (until Intel can play catch-up with 7nm EUV).


Attached picture amd-lisa-su-nvidia-jensen-huang-feature-1480x734.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/19 01:46 PM

Quote
AMD Zen 3 Launching in 2H 2020, Zen 4 & Zen 5 CPU Cores in Development by Two Leapfrogging Teams

AMD has officially revealed that the company is currently developing the Zen 5 CPU core microarchitecture to succeed Zen 4 after 2022. Both the Zen 5 and Zen 4 core designs are being developed by two separate leapfrogging design teams, CTO Mark Papermaster confirmed.

AMD Zen 3 Landing in 2020, Zen 4 by 2022, Zen 5 post 2022

Zen 3 products are expected to remain socket compatible with all of AMD's current Zen products, which means if you already have any Ryzen system you will most likely be set for a drop-in CPU upgrade next year with a simple BIOS update

Alongside Zen 4 AMD is also expected to introduce a new platform, which very likely means a new socket on the desktop.


I like the "leapfrog" approach. AMD evidentially can now afford two alternating teams (as Intel has had for many years). Should make AMD harder for Intel to catch. Makes for better competition on price and features -- in favor of the consumers.

Attached picture Zen 4 Zen 5 in Design by 2 Teams.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/19 10:54 AM

Intel's first stand-alone GPU has taken the first step to actual hardware -- a Prototype.

Quote
And Then There Were Three [Competitors]: Intel Powers On First XE dGPU [Prototype] Based On 10nm Process

The XE GPU that Intel has powered on its lab is based on Gen 12 graphics and will constitute a basic prototyping/testing platform for Intel.

Intel's CEO Bob Swan confirmed that Intel had powered on its first dedicated graphics card

The DG1 graphics card is essentially a set of training wheels for Intel to get used to the entire process of manufacturing and maintaining a dedicated graphics card

the first availability of Intel's dedicated graphics cards is going to be from very late-2020 [or later]


Based on what little is known, we should expect the first Intel 10nm GPU(s) to be readily available in 2021. Most pundits are guessing something competitive with AMD Radeon 5500 series, initially.

The picture is an "artist's concept" of how an upscale model may look when released -- not the actual card being tested.

Attached picture Intel-Xe-Graphics_5.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/19 07:00 PM

Speculation that the "big" Navi GPU is on the way based on some facts -- but note the "question mark" :

Quote
AMD ‘Big’ Navi GPU Passes RRA Certification – Powerful New High-End Radeon Flagship?

An AMD device codenamed "ATI-102-D18802" recently passed RRA certification

The GPU in question is a [very] powerful variant of the Navi GPU (judging from the nomenclature)

an RRA certification is usually the first step in the final phase of getting a product to market. It can take .. 6 months before you finally see a polished product hitting the shelves.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/19 10:42 AM

Regarding the competition's fastest CPUs:

Quote
Intel’s Flagship Core i9-9900KS Launches On Oct 30 For $513, Features Insane 5.0GHz All Core Turbo

Featuring a 5 GHz all-core turbo across 8 cores/16 threads this will almost certainly be the fastest gaming chip around and should sell like hotcakes.

Intel is only offering a one-year warranty on this processor likely due to the fact that this is essentially a factory overclocked, highly binned chip. .You better have a good AIO cooler to get rid of all that heat

This special edition processor will be available for a limited time only


This is not a faster CPU architecture -- but it is faster -- Intel overclocked for you. An advertising point of Intel and Nvidia is that they are the "fastest". So far, both companies have done whatever it takes to stay ahead of AMD in that department.

I've previously noted that my AMD CPU "automatically" overclocks (on all cores) so long as it detects adequate cooling. However, it does not hit 5GHz -- it stays below "boost" frequency. I read that "auto-overclock" (when cooling is adequate) is a "built-in" feature of AMD CPUs now. My AMD GPU also automatically "overclocks" in that it exceeds boost frequency at times. An AMD user can overclock further if they wish.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/19 07:25 PM

Nvidia's next generation 7nm GPU is due in 1st Half 2020 it is believed. Nvidia has issued some information:

Quote
a lot of the new details you're about to read definitely fall into the rumor category, so take it with a grain of salt.

NVIDIA Ampere RTX 3000 Series GPUs Rumored to Feature Improved Rasterization & "Massive" Ray Tracing Performance Improvement Over Turing

in the vast majority of cases we've seen to date, [Nvidia Ray Tracing] performance is simply not there yet to get most people excited about Ray Tracing.

This is said to be changing with Ampere. The company is promising "massive" ray tracing performance improvements across the board with the next generation RTX 3000 series parts

Detailed Speculative Article

This coincides with the speculation (based on a very limited fact) that AMD will be releasing a higher end Navi with ray tracing in 1st Half 2020.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/19 10:39 AM

Quote
Intel's security problems are not going away

Speaking to the assembled throngs at the Open Source Summit Europe Kroah-Hartman [Linux kernel maintainer] said Intel CPU's security problems "are going to be with us for a very long time" and are "not going away".

This is not a Linux problem, any operating system [e.g. W10] faces the same problem.

"The bad part of this is that you now must choose: Performance or security. And that is not a good option. If you are not using a supported Linux distribution kernel or a stable/long term kernel, you have an insecure system", Kroah-Hartman said.

Article

This topic keeps popping up in the industry press. Other articles referred to in this thread have said that, starting years ago, Intel deliberately designed the CPU chips to give better "instructions per clock" at the expense of security. They felt the security would be adequate. Maybe it was at first. But, hackers have "caught up". Only a new design CPU will fix things -- maybe Intel 7nm??

If one needs the software fixes, those fixes usually slow Intel down by large amounts.

As previously noted, gamers with desktop systems are probably not targets. But, companies and professionals are going to AMD for security reasons -- more money for AMD to spend on the next GPU or whatever.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/19 10:46 AM

Quote
AMD’s 7nm EPYC, Ryzen, Radeon Family Leads To Highest Quarterly Revenue Since 2005


Lots of stories lately about AMD increased CPU sales and revenue. This was "more of the same". Does show that AMD now has some money to spend on "inventing" new CPUs and GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/19 04:08 PM

TSMC makes AMD's CPUs and GPUs. Has already begun 3nm plant.

Quote
TSMC’s In A Rush To Take The Lead; Commences 3nm Plant Construction In Taiwan

After 5nm chips are (hopefully) introduced next year, [customers] will refine the process for two more years before shifting to 3nm


Intel has its own fabrication plants and is still working towards 7nm. Nvidia's Samsung 7nm is coming 1st Half next year.

Quote
[Nvidia's fabricator] Samsung is planning to launch a plethora of process nodes in the coming years, with development tracks planned for 7nm, 6nm, 5nm, 4nm, and yes, 3nm.


I don't know if Samsung's 3nm is as far along yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/19 11:43 PM

Regarding the competition's latest CPU:

Quote
Intel Core i9-9900KS Review Roundup

Today Intel lifts the embargo on Core i9-9900KS desktop processor. The first 8-core CPU to offer 5.0 GHz on all cores.

Article With Links to Over 15 Reviews

The Base Clock is 4GHz the Turbo Clock is 5GHz. Uses extra cooling, power, and guaranteed for 1 year (vs 3 years for AMD). This hand selected CPU is the one to buy for maximum Intel overclocking. It wins out over AMD in most (not all) games.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/01/19 10:32 AM

Quote
AMD "Renoir" APU 3DMark 11 Performance Figures Allegedly Surface

AMD "Renoir" is the company's next-generation [7nm] APU that improves iGPU and CPU performance over the current 12 nm "Picasso" APU

"Renoir" is expected to combine "Zen 2" CPU cores with an iGPU that has the number-crunching machinery of "Vega," but with the display- and multimedia-engines of "Navi."


Another source indicates they should be available to buy around the time of CES 2020. I'm interested in buying one for a relative's new PC..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/19 10:32 AM

Quote
AMD CEO: Next-Generation Zen and rDNA Core Focus is Architecture, Not Process Technology – Will Transition to 5nm at the Appropriate Time

[per AMD CEO] "Going forward, we are not relying on process technology as the main driver...We will transition to the 5-nanometer node at the appropriate time...the architecture is where we believe the highest leverage is for our product portfolio going forward."

This means that the upcoming Zen and rDNA family would utilize the 7nm node for years to come but this doesn't remove 5nm from the roadmap.

We know for a fact that AMD is working on their next-generation Zen and rDNA cores.


Makes sense today because AMD will lead Intel in node size for a year or two. Moreover, the smaller nodes cost more to the customer, but only add 10 or 15 percent to clock speeds. Architecture still has substantial room for improvment (for all CPU/APU manufacturers).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/19 10:45 AM

Quote
Intel Says 10nm Destkop Processors In The Works, Will Be Arriving in 2020


In a nutshell, we don't know what that really means. Is it "advertising" or will there be a meaningful product. We do know Intel 10nm has architecture problems and they will not be releasing a full lineup.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/19 11:32 AM

Quote
AMD CEO: We’ll Have a Strong Ramp to Next-Gen Consoles in H2 2020; We Want Radeon Everywhere

With regards to AMD's console business, [CEO Lisa Su] expects to have a strong ramp up in the second half of 2020 as Sony's PlayStation 5 console and Microsoft's 'Project Scarlett' Xbox counterpart are both due to launch in the Holiday season, featuring AMD's Zen 2/RDNA CPU/GPU architectures.

The AMD CEO also made a point of reiterating how the goal is to get Radeon graphics 'everywhere' when discussing the recent multi-year strategic partnership with Samsung for 'high-performance mobile graphics'.

The deal with Samsung doesn't mean AMD will necessarily use their Samsung 7nm EUV process (which NVIDIA is said to be using for their next-generation Ampere GPUs),

[But, CEO Lisa Su pointedly did not rule out using Samsung for chips in the future saying] "whether you’re talking about TSMC or Samsung. Our goal is to be at the leading edge of that foundry ecosystem".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/19 11:36 AM

Quote
AMD 3rd Gen Threadripper on November 7th?

AMD is set to announce three of the Threadripper SKUs: 3960X, 3970X and 3990X at the same time. Board partners will also unveil their TRX40 motherboards for the new platform.


Quote
TRX40 motherboards for 3rd Gen Threadripper start to leak
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/19 05:28 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Launching Early 2020 & Zen 3 on Track, CEO Confirms

The roll-out will start out with the company's next generation Ryzen 4000 series mobile parts, which AMD plans to debut inside a plethora of new notebooks at CES in January next year.

Following mobile Ryzen 4000 series APUs will be the company's next generation Zen 3 Ryzen 4000 series desktop CPU parts [probably 2d half 2020].

AMD Zen 3 Rumored to Deliver 8%+ IPC & 200Mhz Higher Clock Speed vs Zen 2


Attached picture AMD-Zen-Roadmap-1480x833.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/19 09:01 PM

Quote
AMD announces Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, 3970X and Ryzen 9 3950X

The Ryzen Threadripper 3960X is a 24-core processor with a base clock of 3.8 GHz and a turbo clock of 4.5 GHz. It has 140MB of the cache. This SKU will be available for 1399 USD.

A 32-core version called Ryzen Threadripper 3970X will retail at 1999 USD. For 600 dollars more you get 8 more cores and 4MB of Cache.

Both SKUs will be available on November 25th.


Attached picture Ryzen 9 3950X VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/19 11:27 AM

Quote
AMD officially announces the Ryzen 9 3950X

The 16-core/32-thread flagship [Gaming/Desktop] for $749


Quote
AMD’s Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core CPU Faster Than Intel’s Flagship Core i9-10980XE 18 Core CPU in Single-Core & Multi-Core Geekbench Benchmarks

AMD's mainstream lineup such as the Ryzen 9 3900X 12 core and Ryzen 9 3950X 16 core offer absolutely amazing value compared to Intel's 10th Gen X-series parts. Not only do the X-series parts come in at a higher price point but the cost of the X299 platform alone is a huge factor. AMD's mainstream platform features dual-channel memory support and you can find various X570 motherboards around $150 US.

The cooling requirement for both the Ryzen 9 3950X and Intel Core i9-10980XE is similar since AMD recommends using a top-end liquid cooler with their chip.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-CPU_7.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-CPU_1-1480x833.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/19 11:38 AM

Quote
AMD’s Flagship Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 Core & 128 Thread Monster CPU Leaks Out Accidentally By MSI

It's likely that AMD would release the teaser trailer for the 64 core part on the 25th of November when the initial lineup hits retail shelves.

This one could cost as much as $4000. Its not expected to hit the market until, maybe, January 2020(?).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/19 11:46 PM

Quote
RDNA2 Navi 23 GPU to Take The Competition to NVIDIA in the High-End Next Year

Based on everything we've been hearing so far Navi 23 is going to be a large GPU that competes in the high-end segment in 2020. It is [rumored] to bring full hardware accelerated ray tracing as well as a plethora of new architectural improvements.


I'm not a fan of ray-tracing. I see similar in-game effects that cost far fewer FPS. However, its a selling point -- and AMD has to compete.

So, we'll get more Ray Tracing choices at lower prices (presumably). I hope the specifications are good enough to entice me to buy biggrin

Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMD Ray Tracing Rumored Next Year.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/09/19 11:03 AM

Quote
AMD sees increases in market share

AMD's stock has risen more than 90 percent in the year to date as investors have grown increasingly optimistic about the company’s product lineup. AMD’s gain this year ranks third in the S&P 500 as of midday Wednesday.

Wong has a Buy rating and $40 price target for AMD shares.


AMD shares were selling for under $2 not so long ago -- now targeting $40. Not bad -- increase your invested money 20 fold over a few years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/09/19 11:44 AM

Again, this is not a "bash Intel" thread -- but, the actions described in the article are why this thread downplays AMD, Intel, Nvidia self tests -- often such tests are "hand picked" to make a product look better than it is. I,e. Wait for the independent tests on the new products.

Quote
Intel messaging hits a new low

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/19 11:36 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5500 ‘Navi 14’ Graphics Card Aimed at Performance Segment According To Official Marketing Materials

The marketing material also shows that the RX 5500 is based on the 7nano-meter "Navi 14" silicon, and has a total of 22 RDNA compute units, which means that it has a total of 1,408 stream processors.

The marketing information did show a graph that compares the RX 5500 to the GTX 1650, so this means that AMD is expecting this card to outmatch the GTX 1650.


This one is aimed at 1080p gaming. As noted in the previous post, wait for the independent test results.

Attached picture AMD's Marketing Slides.png
Attached picture In AMD's Marketing Slides.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/19 11:53 AM

Quote
Intel Core i9 9900KS review: the new fastest gaming CPU

Intel's Core i9 9900KS has arrived - and it's a beast. This $599 limited edition processor was created from the best-performing 9900K models and is advertised as running at an all-core turbo speed of 5GHz, right out of the box


They put together a very high end Intel/Nvidia system -- and high end AMD/Nvidia systems. For 8core/16thread they used AMD Ryzen 3700X -- not the faster Ryzen 3800X.

Simply stated results: In tests at 1080p all the systems were near and above 200FPS (Intel was the fastest). At 1440p and 4K (where high end is used), differences between Intel's fastest and AMD's fastest were less (Intel wins). They laud Intel but conclude the Intel Core i9 9900KS performance is probably not cost effective for most gamers -- buy it for the fun of having the fastest.

The long article has the details and nuance. Its an above average quality comparison article among several Intel and AMD high end CPUs. It will make Intel fans feel good -- and AMD fans feel good.

Article
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/13/19 08:03 PM

AMD 5700XT beats 1080 in Ray Tracing Benches

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/amd-rx-5700-xt-beast-gtx-1080-in-crytek-ray-tracing/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/14/19 12:41 PM

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Race.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/19 12:21 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 8 Core CPU Available At An Insanely Good Price of $130 US, Get A AAA Game and Xbox Game Pass As Well

AMD's 2018 AM4 Flagship, the 8 Core Ryzen 7 2700X Now Available For $130 US at Microcenter

an absolute steal which is further sweetened with the added promo which includes one AAA title of your choice (Outer Worlds, Borderlands 3, Gears 5) and an Xbox Game Pass for PC. The only downside is that you would have to be near a micro center store as the deal is only applicable to in-store pickups.

I just bought one from Newegg a couple weeks back for $190 with the Game (I got Outer Worlds). The PC (built for a relative) is finished and running well. The benchmarks are very good, as expected -- significantly faster than my 1800X. The game took some getting used to -- but, so far, its very good.

Too bad I already bought a Ryzen 7 2700 (no X) for a different application -- or I'd jump. We have a Microcenter about 30min away. Nice store -- but I already have a CPU smile

So, if you are near a Microcenter its a very good deal -- at least in my experience.

Attached picture Ryzen 7 2700X 8 Core CPU.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/19 11:25 AM

The article has links to over 2 dozen independent tests of Ryzen 9 3950X 16c/32t and quotes some paragraphs from some reviews.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core CPU Review Roundup – The Intel HEDT Destroyer For $749 US, Achieves Several World Records

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core Flagship Mainstream Processor Review Roundup - The Fastest 16 Core Chip on The Planet

Dr. Ian Cutress (Anandtech): "In terms of absolute performance across our benchmark range, Ryzen 9 3950X has the lead. This metric also puts the 3900X above the 9900KS, because despite the 5.0 GHz all-core on 8-cores, moving to 12-core and 16-core at almost the same performance per core gives more of an advantage...

For users who want the best without going to the high-end desktop, Ryzen 9 3950X has the best overall score out of all the chips we’ve ever tested."

Article with links
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/19 12:02 AM

Quote
[Rumor] AMD To Intro 2nd Generation rDNA Based Radeon RX Navi GPUs at CES 2020 - Ray Tracing Support & More Onboard

The rumor comes from the Chiphell user who has previously been super accurate with his leaks


Attached picture AMD-RDNA.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/19 11:48 AM

Quote
AMD announces Radeon Pro W5700 with 2304 Stream Processors for 799 USD

Radeon Pro W5700 in a nutshell:

First Workstation card with PCIe 4.0
First Workstation card manufactured in 7nm node
First Radeon Pro with USB-C connector
2304 Stream Processors @ 8.9 TFLOPs
8GB GDDR6 256-bit

In terms of actual performance, the maximum 32-bit floating-point throughput is 8.9 TFLOPs, this is more than [Nvidia] RTX 4000


Attached picture Radeon Pro W5700.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/19 01:59 PM

[Linked Image]

Attached picture Screenshot_2019-11-21 VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/19 12:01 PM

Quote
AMD to launch Ryzen Threadripper 3990X with 64-cores [128 Threads] in 2020

AMD has confirmed that it will deliver a 64-core part for its Threadripper platform next year. The CPU will feature 128-threads and 288 MB of total cache (L2+L3). The CPU is likely to cost much more than 3970X [32c/64t] (which will be available starting from today for 1999 USD).


As mentioned in this thread not so long ago (when first Ryzen 8/16 core/thread appeared), the future of CPUs is "cores and threads". The future is coming faster than I figured it would.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadipper-3990X.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/26/19 11:58 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 (Castle Peak) Review Roundup

Roughly 40 test reports linked.

Article with Links
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/19 11:53 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5500 Navi 14 GPU Custom Variants Rumored To Launch on 12th December, Replaces RX 590

AMD officially pits the card against the GeForce GTX 1650 which is a $149 US part a . It is stated to be up to 37% faster than the GTX 1650 on average at 1080p in several titles.

as fast as the Radeon RX 580 while sipping in much lower power
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/19 11:50 AM

Quote
AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen & Ryzen Threadripper CPUs Positioning Unveiled - Disrupting Intel's Entire 9th / 10th Gen CPU Efforts


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3rd-Gen-3970X-3960X_1.jpg
Attached picture AMD-3rd-Gen-Ryzen-Processors-Market-Positioning.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/19 12:53 AM

Per European Hardware Association research:

Quote
AMD tops 60% in European CPU preference study

“The surge in preference from 50% to 60% over recent months, can be explained by the launch of AMD’s latest 3rd generation Ryzen desktop CPU”, said Crijns. “Ryzen 3000 not only offers better performance under multi-threaded workloads, but also under lightly-threaded applications like PC games”.

The story for AMD graphics processing units (GPUs) is also positive.

“Back in May, less than 19% of our readers were choosing AMD graphics. Today that number is closer to 23%”.

AMD CPUs doing well is being reported by many these days. AMD still has work to do in GPUs -- but, if rumors are true we'll see some notable progress in 2020.

Attached picture EHA-2H2019-CPU-GPU-survey-graph-002-1024x555.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/19 11:34 AM

Little things:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT launches next week, Radeon RX 5600 XT in January?

AMD Radeon is making a push in a mid-range segment.


Minor items: Intel's new GPUs scheduled for next year are rumored behind schedule which makes perfect sense for a "brand new" technology -- I won't hold that against Intel.

Also, two of the three main former AMD folks who moved to Intel for GPU development, have left Intel.

Quote
Chris Hook, along with Raja and his team of ex-AMD companions led a massively successful Odyssey campaign for Intel's graphics marketing efforts. So it was a surprise when Chris Hook along with Heather Lenon (senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Intel Graphics) announced last week that they have departed the company.


Attached picture Screenshot_2019-12-03 AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT launches.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/04/19 12:30 PM

Quote
AMD announces Mini-PCs with Ryzen Embedded processors

ASRock Industrial, EEPD, OnLogic and Simply NUC are delivering mini PCs for industrial, media, and enterprise markets

“The demand for high performance computing isn’t limited to servers or desktop PCs. Embedded customers want access to small form factor PCs that can support open software standards, demanding workloads at the edge, and even display 4K content, all with embedded processors that have a planned availability of 10 years,” said Rajneesh Gaur, corporate vice president and general manager, Embedded Solutions, AMD.

Article

Attached picture BPCNV2_black_tree_side_print-e1575383243270.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/19 11:52 AM

Quote
AMD CTO Mark Papermaster: More Cores Coming in the 'Era of a Slowed Moore's Law'

incredible [core] density started with the EPYC lineup that now stretches up to 64 cores, besting Intel's finest in the data center.

On the consumer side, the Ryzen 9 3950X brings an almost-unbelievable boost to 16 cores on mainstream platforms, a tremendous improvement over the standard of four cores just a mere two years ago.

would [it] make sense to move up to 32 cores for mainstream users[?]

"I don’t see in the mainstream space any imminent barrier, and here's why: It's just a catch-up time for software to leverage the multi-core approach," Papermaster said. "But we're over that hurdle, now more and more applications can take advantage of multi-core and multi-threading.[...]"

"In the near term, I don’t see a saturation point for cores.

Long Interesting Interview with AMD CTO

Attached picture BtG3hssEMww8GEXChMRn6Y-1024-80.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/19 04:13 PM

Intel fell behind AMD in CPUs. The Intel CEO forthrightly says how that happened. Moreover, Intel has a new direction that seems to make sense. Competition is good smile

Quote
Intel CEO Wants To Destroy The Thinking About Having 90% Share In CPU Market, Talks 10nm Problems, 7nm Roadmap And More

Intel's Bob Swan blames being focused on 90% CPU market share as a reason for missing opportunities and transitions, envisions Intel as having 30% of all-silicon TAM instead of majority CPU TAM

Intel CEO: First 7nm product launching in Q4 2021, explains what went wrong with 10nm

Lengthy Quotes Article Says Where Intel Headed

Attached picture 8bc0dae3a9717c41be0acae62c4d03bc.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/19 11:36 AM

Quote
AMD announces Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Edition drivers

Today AMD launches its annual driver overhaul.

The 2020 Edition of Adrenalin promises to deliver a 12% performance increase over Adrenalin 2019 launch driver [not current 2019 driver package]. In total, there are 20 new features or changes to the driver stack.

Article Listing New Features

I found that the normal download methods I use were only showing the older 19-12-1 driver. Video Cards finally gave us this one:

Download from this AMD Page

I assume, the normal downloads will be working fine in a day or so.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/19 12:45 PM

Quote
Amid 14nm Shortage, Intel Breathes Life Into 22nm Pentium G3420

Intel has resorted to 22nm process technology due to the ongoing shortage of 14nm manufacturing ability.

[Bringing back a product] launched way back in Q3 2013

The Pentium G3420 will be targeted at low-tier systems, and, sadly, will bring significantly older technology to the market despite being at a similar price of its 14nm counterparts
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/19 12:54 PM

Quote
Intel’s benchmarking antics questioned

Remember that FTC ruling…

The problem is simple, when Intel is losing at performance, they cheat on benchmarks. This isn’t done in the same way as the cell phone companies and GPU vendors do

Article Describes "How"

Not a bash Intel thread. But, it is useful to know how some benchmarks work -- from a usually reliable source.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/19 02:34 PM

RX 5500 officially launches:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Review Roundup

Links to Many Independent Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/19 05:40 PM

Quote
AMD: We Never Dreamed We Would Be Ahead Of Intel

AMD's stock price recently $42, very close to its all-time high of $44 back before the dot com bubble burst in June 2000

[AMD] "We're delivering substantially better performance and better power [vs Intel]. And so, there's sort of no place to hide. Pretty much across the board in terms of the vast majority of workloads, except for maybe a few that have been very tightly tuned for some peculiarity of Intel’s ISA"

With TSMC looking to start risk production of 5nm, it doesn't look like Intel will be able to take back the lead anytime soon - or even achieve parity. .. Intel's CEO had also had a very frank discussion of what went wrong with 10nm and its really refreshing to see both of these companies making these usually banal conferences worth listening to with all this commentary.


People who bought AMD stock when it was below $2 (just a very few years ago) have gotten their money's worth -- over 2000% growth.

Meantime, as noted above in this thread, competition has forced Intel is onto a new path regarding its entire product line -- should be better for Intel and better for consumers.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/19 12:51 PM

Another CPU competitor may be in the mix in 2020. That could affect the Future Status of both AMD and Intel.

Quote
A Chinese competitor to Intel and AMD CPUs? Zhaoxin might be the Answer!

Zhaoxin KaiXian Series Consumer CPUs - 7nm Process Node, Brand New Architecture, PCIe 4.0 & DDR5 Support

Not only is Zhaoxin working on 7nm production, at the same time Zhaoxin is currently in the planning phase for working on a sub-7nm design for both laptop and desktop CPUs.


Making a 7nm part does not guarantee performance -- the architecture does that. The architecture is "brand new". So, we must wait and see the actual performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/19 11:25 AM

Quote
AMD RDNA2 – Support for Raytracing & Variable Rate Shading

Microsoft has already laid out the development framework for Raytracing through the DirectX Raytracing, or DXR, API, and should be a main development tool for game developers working to implement raytracing within the upcoming [AMD Powered] Xbox

Variable Rate Shading, or VRS, is another feature to be included within AMD's RDNA2 GPUs.

gamers may expect to achieve increased playability at 4K resolutions and beyond.


As we know, Nvidia GPUs already have a version of Raytracing and a version of Variable Rate Shading. For it to really work requires a high end (expensive) GPU to be useful at 4K.

Since AMD's versions are expected to run well on a relatively inexpensive console (and a PC), it will be interesting to see if they've found a way to make it faster/cheaper than current Nvidia RTX.

Attached picture YSRqUvp1m7yRqGCY.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/16/19 06:56 PM

Quote
12 Core CPU Battle – AMD Ryzen 9 3900X at 5.62 GHz Beats Intel Core i9-9920X at 5.92 GHz, Claims World Record

While Intel may have the general clock speed advantage, the recent overclocking sessions once again show that Intel's IPC lead is no more and Zen 2 has outclassed Intel's aging Skylake architecture and its several revisions.

This just goes off to show that Intel has lost all major leads they once had (IPC, efficiency, process, etc) to the Zen architecture
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/19 12:11 PM

AMD comes out with new graphics drivers regularly. I don't note them here -- AMD users know about them and Nvidia users wouldn't care.

The latest, completely revised 2020 Edition Adrenalin 19.12.3 drivers are worth noting -- a fairly dramatic, functional update in a gaming interface. And, improved GPU adjustment features.

Heck, it automatically found a game I did not remember having installed (I have nearly 300 installed). I clicked on it. The Adrenalin drivers opened the appropriate interface. It played.

It does a lot more than that.

Quote
A Bold New Look, for a New Era in Graphics

Introducing a completely redesigned gaming application, placing hot, in-demand features even closer to your fingertips. Access full software functionality directly in-game, providing a fantastic gaming experience.

AMD Driver Support Page
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/19 11:55 AM

I click through several sites a couple times a day. Lots of questionable rumors lately. I haven't bothered anyone with those. This one seems to have some credibility (but still a rumor):

Quote
AMD Zen 3 CPUs Allegedly Features 17% IPC Gain Over Zen 2 Architecture, Ryzen 4000 ‘Vermeer’ CPUs to Feature Huge Performance Upgrade Over Ryzen 3000

AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs with Zen 3 Cores Allegedly Feature 50% Increase in Floating Point, 17% Increase in IPC Performance

According to AMD themselves, the Zen 3 design brings an entirely brand new CPU architecture, Significant IPC Gains and Faster clocks than ever seen before

in floating-point heavy applications, Zen 3 has the potential to be a big game-changer for the industry and especially the server market

The AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs and X670 platform is expected to arrive by the end of 2020.., but we have to wait and see.


When asked about 32 cores for desktop users (like us):

Quote
"In the near term, I don’t see a saturation point for cores. ..."

AMD CTO, Mark Papermaster via Toms Hardware
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/31/19 12:48 PM

Relevant to "Future Status" of AMD, a very long interview with AMD's CTO:

Quote
An Interview with AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster

Interview

They discuss a broad list of technical subjects -- regarding AMDs future CPUs and GPUs -- design philosophies, etc. Each was interesting. But, this article is not for everyone and no secrets or future product specifications are revealed.

What I liked was this one: AMD does NOT follow a Tick-Tock approach with products or a rigid "generation" followed by "generation plus" approach. Rather, they have multiple design teams that "leapfrog" each other. The result is that each product is designed to be the best AMD can provide at the time of release. If a "plus" makes sense, they do it. If an all new design makes sense, they do it. Moreover, the designs take "everything" into account (whatever "everything" might mean in a particular case).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/01/20 11:32 AM

Quote
AMD To Push The High-Performance Computing Envelope Yet Again at CES 2020 - Event To Be Livestreamed on The 6th of January

The high-performance keynote would be hosted by AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X .. is going to make a formal appearance at AMD's CES 2020 conference. We know that this is as high-end as HEDT CPUs can get, with 64 cores, 128 threads, 288 MB of cache, tons of PCIe lanes and a TDP of 280W while being aimed at the current sTRX4 socket-based TRX40 motherboards.


There are also preliminary rumors of a very powerful Navi GPU coming at some point this year. We'll see if that gets "teased" at the press conference.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/01/20 11:58 PM

Quote
AMD snatches up to 40% of market share in PassMark January 2020 update

AMD has snatched back up to 40% market share in the latest PassMark report (caution:... based only on devices running PassMark

AMD has previously admitted that it never thought it would ever beat Intel

This graph .. is representative of CPUs in use rather than CPUs purchased.


Eventually, Intel will make a performance comeback. Ideally to parity with AMD. Until then, AMD's sales will continue to grow at Intel's expense.

Eventual parity will keep prices low and performance high for we customers no matter which we buy. Competition is good smile

Attached picture AMD-Jan-2020-CPU-Market-Share-PassMark.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/20 10:23 AM

Whereas, Intel dropped the ball and unexpectedly lost their lead over AMD, I expect Nvidia to "do what it takes" to keep the top end -- and AMD to compete to arrive at parity.

Quote
NVIDIA Next-Generation 7nm Ampere GPUs Powered GeForce Graphics Cards Up To 50% Faster & Twice As Efficient Than Turing, Report Claims


The Nvidia 7nm lineup is rumored to be out late next Summer or in the Fall of 2020. An AMD 7nm high end GPU is also coming according to other rumors.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/20 01:37 PM

Quote
AMD [Stock Price] Broke Through Its All-Time High Of $48 But Here Is Why It’s Just The Beginning

$2 just 5 years ago...breaking the $48 all-time high...and shattering a record that has stood for almost 20 years. AMD, in a very literal sense, is in the best shape it has ever been in.

Before I go any further, I will point out that market corrections can happen at any time, but as far as fundamentals go, AMD still has a few aces up its sleeve. I can break it down to two major points:

1. AMD's 7nm ramp hasn't finished yet and not only will Intel not be able to match that anytime soon, we expect [AMD] to retain its process lead (through TSMC) for the foreseeable future.

2. The company's GPU side of things (RTG) has been in cruise mode all this time. A comeback here would significantly increase the value of the stock.


$48 in the year 2020 is not as valuable as $48 was in the year 2000 (roughly 49 percent inflation in the USA since 2000). However, this is a new high and indicates the "Current Status" of AMD is moving upwards. The article believes that will continue.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/20 02:13 AM

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/20 08:44 AM

CES was yesterday:

Quote
AMD Unleashes The 64 Core Ryzen Threadripper 3990X CPU – Ultimate Computing Chip With 128 Threads For $3990 US


Quote
AMD Launches Radeon RX 5600 XT: Capable Of 7.2 TFLOPs And $279 USD MSRP

It will be available on January 21 and will be priced at $279 USD. The card is positioned squarely at the 1080p market

Quote

AMD Launches Radeon RX 5700M And RX 5600M Mobility GPU Lineup

The Radeon RX 5700M and RX 5600M are both going to represent the high-end lineup of AMD's mobility graphics portion and should be able to go head to head with offerings such as the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 from NVIDIA


Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ 7nm Zen 2 APUs Officially Launched – Up To Ryzen 9 4900H With 8 Cores, 16 Threads, IPC On Par With Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3990X-2060x1159.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-5700M-and-RX-5600M-Mobility-GPUs.jpg
Attached picture D2A4CBC2-E4AF-4EF9-9DDF-F6B369C6E140-1480x1110.jpg
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/20 03:50 PM

Seems AMD Pulled the video and Embedded it here:
https://www.amd.com/en/events/ces?u...p;utm_medium=redirect&utm_source=301
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/20 09:58 AM

Quote
AMD Promises High-End Radeon RX Navi GPUs and Navi APUs – Heavily Investing in Ray Tracing For 2020 Discrete GPUs

In a round table Q/A session with the tech press, AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, promised high-end Navi based Radeon RX graphics card and Navi based APUs.

[AMD CEO] "You should expect that we will have a high-end Navi and that it is important to have it....I don’t usually comment on unannounced products."


Link To Long Q&A Session w/CEO

Attached picture YSRqUvp1m7yRqGCY-740x416.jpg
Attached picture AMD-RDNA-GPU-Architecture-For-Navi-Radeon-RX-5700-Series_11-740x416.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/20 11:19 AM

Intel's main selling point now is their "over 5GHz" top core speed which confers a small advantage in lightly threaded software. The latest high end AMD CPUs have caught up on Instructions per Clock, cores, etc.

To get those high "boost" speeds, Intel "Factory Overclocks" their designs -- overclocked CPUs run hotter and can fail prematurely without excellent cooling.

Quote
Intel’s Core i9-10900K 10 Core Flagship Mainstream CPU Reportedly Consumes As Much Power As AMD’s 32 Core Threadripper 3970X

[Motherboard makers] are going to strengthen their motherboards for the Core i9-10900K

Intel Core i9-10900K, 10 Core Flagship 14nm Mainstream Chip, Reportedly Consumes Over 300 Watts of Power at Full Load

the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X 32 core processor with its 7nm Zen 2 cores has a maximum power draw of under 300 Watts at full load across all cores
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/10/20 11:41 AM

Intel is progressing on their GPU. Eventually, there will be 3 high end competitors in the GPU space.

Quote
Seeing Is Believing: Intel Teases DG1 Discrete Xe GPU With Laptop & Desktop Dev Cards At CES 2020

the behind-the-stage demo unit .. was a notebook

DG1’s presence at CES is very much a teaser of things to come rather than a formal hardware announcement


Attached picture GdCScPrrc86Fg7kRFPQKpm-1024-80.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/20 11:17 AM

Based on "leaks" and rumors:

Quote
AMD Zen 3 ‘4000 Series’ Processors And 600 Series Chipset Landing In Late 2020, Getting USB 4.0

The 600-series chipsets will not only support USB 3.2 but 4.0 as well.

500-series chipsets including the B550 and A520 to start production in the first quarter of 2020. The 600-series counterparts, on the other hand, will be getting some serious upgrades

AMD's SVP, Forrest Norrod, has previously revealed how Zen 3 is going to bring an entirely new chip architecture along with other key enhancements.


Attached picture AMD-Zen-Roadmap-1920x1080.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/20 11:40 AM

Quote
Large layoffs at Intel happening now

layoffs were at DCG/DPG as predicted but other areas not expected to get cut were hit as well.

We previously said that 25-33% of DCG would be laid off, and that appears to still be happening but not all of it is happening today.


Definitions: Data Center Group (DCG), Data Platform Group (DPG)

Makes sense. AMD is taking business away from Intel in the Data Centers. Thus, Intel needs fewer employees.

Moreover, the departments were not ideally competitive. Thus, a reorganization to compete more successfully.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/20 12:49 PM

Quote
AMD partners have freedom with RX 5600 XT specifications

the RX 5600 XT is expected to launch on January 21st, with a suggested retail price set $279, and we expect plenty of different versions from usual AMD AIB partners.


Attached picture 6d26296dfe36f3d2da493ce9bc762a62_L.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/20 12:55 PM

Quote
AMD Reaffirms ‘Big Navi’ GPU Based Enthusiast Radeon RX Graphics Cards Launching in 2020

The statement comes from AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, .. confirming that AMD's next-generation RNDA2 based Radeon RX enthusiast graphics card will be arriving this year...would indeed be powered by the Big Navi GPU
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/20 05:43 PM

How big will big Navi be?? A salty rumor:

Quote
AMD's big Navi, NVIDIA killer based on RDNA2 will have 80 CUs, capable of 17.5 TFLOPs of compute at 1700 MHz

This particular rumor stems from Chiphell, which has proven to be a whimsical source of information in the past - albeit with a fairly high rate of success. We have seen AMD's new Navi family pop on EEC filings so it is clear that the company is preparing to launch a new lineup - and the only question that remains is about the specifications. While 80 CUs is something that is very much plausible, it is unclear at this point whether this rumor is authentic.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/20 10:52 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, 8 Core / 16 Thread, Mobility CPU Rivals The Core i7-9700K & Ryzen 7 2700X Desktop CPUs In 3DMark Performance Benchmark

As the flagship part, the Ryzen 7 4800H is outfitted with 8 cores and 16 threads. The chip comes in a 45W design and features a base clock of 2.9 GHz and a boost clock of 4.2 GHz along with 16 MB of L3 cache. The chip additionally features a 7nm Vega GPU with 8 CUs or 512 stream processors.

Expect to see Ryzen 7 4800H processors in high-end mobility designs such as the ASUS's ROG Zephyrus G14 and G15 very soon!


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-7-4800H-8-Core-Mobility-CPU_2-740x416.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/20 11:10 AM

Intel's CEO says Intel is back on track to catch up to AMD in a year or two.

Quote
Intel: 10nm Yield Is Ahead Of Expectation, 7nm Ponte Vecchio GPU On Track

10nm yields are ahead of expectations and that they are planning at least nine 10nm products for release in 2020. The 7nm lead product, Intel Xe Ponte Vecchio GPU remains on-track for Q4'21.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/27/20 11:43 AM

Quote
Intel slashes the cost of Comet Lake-S CPUs

Cheaper than expected

One of the good signs that AMD's competition is hurting Intel is that it appears to be dropping the prices of its consumer processors.

PC makers have revealed that Intel will make the move in the second half of 2020 in a bid to defend its market dominance [over AMD]

Nvidia similarly slashing the price of its GeForce RTX 2060 to better compete with [AMD's] pricing.


Competition is ... smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/20 07:17 PM

Quote
AMD Zen 3 CPU Support Added To Linux Kernel As We Get Closer To Official Announcement

It looks like we are getting more closer to the launch of AMD's Zen 3 CPUs as microcode for the upcoming lineup has been added to the Linux Kernel

The latest code adds EDAC (Error Detection and Correction) support for AMD's Family 19h which refers to the Zen 3 architecture

AMD has so far confirmed themselves that Zen 3 brings a brand new CPU architecture which helps deliver significant IPC gains, faster clocks and even higher core counts than before.

Some rumors have even pointed to a 17% increase in IPC and a 50% increase in Zen 3's floating-point operations
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/20 12:46 PM

Quote
AMD: Big Navi Radeon RX GPUs Are Going To Disrupt 4K Gaming, Similar To How Ryzen Disrupted The CPU Segment

AMD's Radeon Product Management Lead, Mithun Chandrasekhar, spilled the beans that like Ryzen, Big Navi is going to disrupt the 4K gaming segment.

“With the Radeon 5000-series we are essentially covering 90-something-percent of the total PC gamers today,” says Chandrasekhar. .. the vast majority of them are at 1440p and 1080p.

..are we going after 4K, and going to similarly disrupt 4K? Absolutely,.."


Ray Tracing is a primary feature of the RDNA2 architecture
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/20 12:49 PM

Quote
AMD to refresh existing Navi lineup and launch Next-Gen RDNA in 2020

During yesterday’s Q4 2019 earnings call, AMD CEO and president, Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that existing Navi graphics processors will be refreshed and a next-generation architecture will be launched in 2020.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/20 05:54 PM

Quote
AMD's 4Q/FY19 Financial Report: Revenue up 50% from 4Q18, Debt Halved

Within Q4, AMD paid down a lot of debt - down from $1087m in 3Q19 to $563m in 4Q19. AMD's strategy here is to pay down debt and strengthen its balance sheet..

Computing and Graphics was the lion's share of the earnings gains, with revenue for this segment up 69% year-over-year thanks to strong sales of both Ryzen processors and Radeon GPUs for gaming. Operating income was also up thanks to the higher margins on Ryzen processors. Now that AMD can compete and win on performance, they don't need to sell at such a discount, which is of course what is helping them turn the corner.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/31/20 06:20 PM

Quote
AMD to offer up to 3 games with new Raise The Game 2020 bundle

Up to three games with RX 5500 XT purchases


Attached picture AMD-Raise-The-Game-RX-5500-RX-5700.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/20 11:32 AM

Leaked preliminary test. 3990X nominally releases on February 7.

Quote
[$4K] AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 Core HEDT CPU Outperforms Dual Xeon Platinum 8280 ‘Cascade Lake’ CPUs Worth Over $20K

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X would be the flagship HEDT processor for 2020, offering 64 Zen 2 cores and 128 threads...TDP of 280W..

[Single AMD 3990X] outpacing the dual Xeon Platinum 8280 setup by 17.8% on average

[Intel] 8280 will cost $13,000 US, setting up the price of a dual Xeon 8280 setup over $20-$25K [vs $4000 for AMD 3990X] .. Compared to AMD 3990X, that's a 6.25x higher price
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/06/20 10:58 AM

Quote
AMD Posts x86 CPU Market Share Results For Q4 2019 – Server Share at 4.5%, Desktop & Mobile Near 20% Market Share


Attached picture AMD-x86-CPU-Market-Share-For-Ryzen-Mobility-Threadripper-Desktop-EPYC-Server.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/07/20 11:01 AM

Rumor from a site that is usually right: Apparently, Intel is competing on price -- for business customers only. They just don't want the public to know because it makes AMD more relevant.

Quote
Intel officially craters Xeon pricing

Intel is slashing prices to OEMs

by slashed we mean far more than 50%, but the MSRP didn’t change. Officially there was no change, that pipsqueak AMD has no effect on pricing, carry on folks and look away.

Intel likely could not price their wares against AMD without selling at a loss. No we were not joking, it was really that bad.


Occasionally selling at a loss is what Intel did over a decade ago when AMD had the better CPU. Except then, in addition, they illegally paid OEMs "under the table" to never use AMD (as proved in court). It worked for Intel and nearly put AMD out of business.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/07/20 07:25 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Review Roundup

Today AMD officially launches its first 64-core desktop CPU.


64 cores/128 threads for "only" $4000 -- actually much cheaper than Intel's closest CPU.

As one article notes: "it does obliterate the [Intel] competition". However, the shear number of cores/threads are not ideal for all uses. We know that smile

Over 20 reviews linked at this site.

Review Link Article

Attached picture AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Review Roundup VideoCardz.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/20 12:13 PM

Quote
What the [$4000 64c/128t] 3990X Brings to the Table

As of February 6th, 2020, [3990X Engineering Sample] gave the highest single-socket Cinebench R20 score in the world [31304]

The first and most important thing to understand about the 3990X is that this is not a CPU for everyone. The vast majority of applications are not designed to scale this high. Windows itself is not designed to scale this high. Microsoft’s support for more than 64 threads in Windows is a bit of a kludge.

by default, [Windows] applications can only use 50 percent of the 3990X’s 128 threads [some applications have work-arounds to use all 128]


3990X is for professionals. For now, most desktop users/gamers should not go higher than AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core/32Thread ($750).

EDIT: This article was in error. Latest W10 Pro does support full 64c/128t according to AMD. Older W10 Pro updates may not.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/20 01:39 PM

Coronavirus may delay some of those new CPUs and GPUs expected this year.

Quote
Coronavirus Now Deadlier Than the SARS Outbreak as Odds for a Global Supply Chain Deep Freeze Increase

Impact on the tech sector as supply chains freeze

Tech giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft , Tesla and Samsung have closed their offices and manufacturing facilities in China.

Many tech products that were expected to be shipped in February now face increasing delays.

Huawei has postponed its developers’ conference due to take place next week. Also, NVIDIA , LG Electronics and Ericsson have withdrawn from the upcoming Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona.

[Etc, etc.]


Attached picture a08c1a6e-dabf-4963-8ce6-445b30b320de-1030x590.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/20 10:44 AM

Sometimes when buying a laptop, one wonders what CPU/APU to get. AMD provides a chart.

Quote
AMD Compared Entire Ryzen 4000 CPU Family To Intel's Existing Notebook Family Which Includes 9th Gen H-Series and 10th Gen U-Series CPUs


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-4000-Mobility-H-Series-and-U-Series.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/20 03:33 PM

Just as I was about to check for W10 updates, I read:

Quote
Yet Another Windows 10 Update Breaks Things… Who’s Shocked?

This could be connected to AMD as few more users have also reported experiencing this problem on devices with AMD Ryzen chips.


I guess I'll wait.

Update: Uh oh. It installed itself and awaits shutdown/restart. We'll see if it hits me.

Update 2: I paused it before it installed. Now I have a few days to consider. I assume failure is unusual. But, I don't want to deal with a failure today.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/20 11:00 AM

Regarding previous post written yesterday:

I re-allowed updates today. Windows 10 checked for updates. Yesterday's updates seemed to have been modified with new updates with different ID numbers.

I allowed the updates and seem to have no issues.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/20 08:29 PM

Quote
Gamers are ditching Radeon graphics cards over driver issues

At this point it’s no secret AMD is struggling to iron out some driver related issues with their Radeon RX 5000 GPUs.

Nvidia went through a fair share of teething issues with Turing, but we think it’s fair to say they went on top of any major issues very quickly. AMD, on the other hand, has had seven months to sort out Navi, and by the looks of it, they just haven’t been able to deliver

Nearly half of all AMD users who took part in the poll responded ‘Yes’, they are having or have had serious issues with their Radeon GPU. The poll suggests that 48% of all AMD users have suffered major issues,

AMD has publicly acknowledged these bugs as "known issues" in their 20.0.3 driver release notes



https://www.techspot.com/news/84005-gamers-ditching-radeon-graphics-cards-over-driver-issues.html
Posted By: Nixer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/20 01:47 AM

Great article P-daz, thanks.

Tried AMD twice. First a "local" built AMD CPU w/Radeon GPU (like 1997). Usable, but any problems I had were GPU/driver related.

Next time around a laptop. Some Windows CPU related problems, mostly GPU (whatever AMD's top of the line mobile GPU was then..around 1999-2000), some BAD problems with a lot of gaming software I played. More than enough to piss me off and also convince me the "discount" wasn't worth the problems at all. nope

Since then, I have built 4 or 5 Intel/nVidia based desktops with very successful results.

I tried and didn't like the results. It also seems to me many of the current issues sound very like the issues I had in the NINETIES!

That is a long time...
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/20 01:15 AM

"Nearly half of all AMD users who took part in the poll responded ‘Yes’" Its known that folks who are disappointed are likely to respond. Folks who are happy don't usually respond.

So, one cannot conclude that half of the AMD GPU users have problems. "The poll suggests that 48% of all AMD users have suffered major issues," is not supported.

I saw the article and would have posted it here if it seemed an accurate assessment. Looked too much like "click bait" to me. To each his own.

Meantime, I've RARELY had AMD GPU driver issues -- and I've used AMD GPUs since 2003 -- 17 years. One minor Navi issue that did not last long. Lately, I play my games at ultra settings at 4K (when that resolution is offered).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/20 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
"Nearly half of all AMD users who took part in the poll responded ‘Yes’" Its known that folks who are disappointed are likely to respond. Folks who are happy don't usually respond.

So, one cannot conclude that half of the AMD GPU users have problems. "The poll suggests that 48% of all AMD users have suffered major issues," is not supported.


No-one is concluding that half of the AMD GPU users have problems, the article specifically states that "nearly half of all the AMD users to took part in the poll" so that's what that reference is to......however, they do go on to summarise their poll and say that "The poll suggests" ........so 'suggests' is the keyword and it's absolutely accurate because that's exactly what the results indicate.


Originally Posted by Allen
I saw the article and would have posted it here if it seemed an accurate assessment. Looked too much like "click bait" to me. To each his own.


Well, lets be honest here, anything from wccftech could be considered clickbait as it's a well-known AMD rumour/aggregator site that has proven to be very unreliable over the years with predictions that are way off the mark....yet that's where you get 99.9% of your daily articles and links from and the content of this thread is really just a summary of some of those articles! I doubt very much that you saw the techspot article, but still class that as 'clickbait' even though wccftech are running their own headline on it......

Despite All Efforts, AMD Radeon GPU...ing, Inconsistent Clocks And More Issues ..........so I'd be interested to hear whether that article is also considered 'clickbait' too given that it's from your favourite site and the one you get most of your content from?

Originally Posted by Allen
Meantime, I've RARELY had AMD GPU driver issues -- and I've used AMD GPUs since 2003 -- 17 years.


Given that AMD didn't buy out ATI until 2006 that's not an accurate statement at all....however I'm sure if you were run a poll or survey of AMD GPU owners (myself included) there was a period of time when their drivers were an utter joke and updates especially had all sorts of issues over quite a long period of time. It's widely known too so not sure why you'd try to wipe that under the carpet. Anyway, their history is irrelevant now as they seem to have turned things around but the point is, and the point of this article is that there are still issues with the current driver sets......you only need to google it and the pages are absolutely full of communities still having lots of issues.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/20 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Given that AMD didn't buy out ATI until 2006 that's not an accurate statement at all.


I stand corrected smile

I started with 3DFx (still have their original GPU as keepsake), then Nvidia (IIRC), then ATI and stayed with it (with another Nvidia or two along the way). I worried when AMD bought them out. Been so long, I momentarily forgot. By the way, I was Intel CPU before AMD.

And, yes, I click through sites every morning. The second one is WCCFtech because they summarize a lot of sites and have some forward looking rumors that occasionally seem worth repeating -- saves time.

However, some rumors are too unfounded and I often don't like their "tone of voice" towards Intel (among others) in other rumors. So, I'm selective regarding WCCFtech lines I cut and paste.

Intel, Nvidia, and AMD make good competitive products -- i.e each wins some and loses some.

We await an AMD GPU that can compete with Nvidia FPS on the high end. However, Nvidia long ago said they would never let AMD beat them on maximum FPS. Its Nvidia's brand identity to be "fastest" FPS. If Nvidia has a few extra FPS, that makes AMD cards slightly less expensive -- Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/20 12:46 PM

Quote
AMD Says Reviews Are Wrong – Windows 10 Pro (and Linux) Is Good Enough for Threadripper 3990X

[AMD says] "We wanted to clarify that AMD officially recommends Windows 10 Professional or Linux for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. Higher editions/versions of Windows 10 confer no additional performance or compatibility benefits to the processor."

[After our first article] some had commented that Microsoft's latest update Windows 10 Pro has already resolved this issue since the operating system is technically able to support 128 cores.


A earlier cut-past post in this thread (above) had given wrong information. Threadripper 3990X works fine with ordinary W10 Pro.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/20 11:36 AM

Quote
A Family Of AMD Next-Generation GPUS Just Passed RRA Certification – Is This The Radeon 5950 XT ‘Big Navi’?


In summary, formal documentation of a series of AMD GPUs RX 5800 to RX 5950 XT has been spotted.

This implies release of the new GPUs in 3 to 6 months (the article says).

The model numbers imply cards more powerful than RX5700XT. But, how much more powerful is an unknown.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/20 11:47 AM

Meantime, Nvidia is doing quite well:

Quote
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) reaches a new all-time high of $312.87 with a market cap of $191 Billion


The attachment shows the stock value climbing dramatically higher over the years.

Nvidia has the money to spend to keep a lead over AMD at the high end. But, so did Intel -- however, a few bad Intel decisions have lead to "parity" in desktop and commercial CPU markets. So, we'll see.

Competition is good smile

Attached picture nasdaq-nvda.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/20 01:11 PM

Since negative news affects AMD Current Status:

wccftech had another negative article on possibly excessive AMD driver issues. Upon reconsideration of a few things, it still reads like click bait to me. I have not noticed any mention on the other sites I click each day (but I assume it is discussed on some sites I do not click).

We have 7 PCs in the house running AMD CPU/GPU -- no issues for a long time. Today, I checked all 7 to assure that they were running the latest Windows 10 update (as of today) and the latest AMD 20.2.1 driver. The GPU/CPU combinations are:

GPU/CPU, Monitor Quantity, Monitor Size

RX 5700XT 50th An/R7 3800X, 3, 1200p 4K 1200p
RX Vega 64/R7 1800X, 1, 2K
RX 580/R7 2700, 1, 4K
RX 580/R5 1600X, 1, 2K
RX 560/FX8350, 1, 1080p
APU R5 2400G, 1, 1080p
APU A10-7850K, 1, 1080p

No issues as of today. Others have written the same. We'll see what comes of this, if anything.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/20 06:34 PM

AMD RDNA-2 GPUs will support Ray Tracing.

Quote
Microsoft confirms Xbox Series X feature 12 Teraflops AMD RDNA 2 GPU

The device will feature a Zen 2 custom processor with RDNA 2-based graphics unit.

featuring RDNA GPU will also support hardware-accelerated DirectX raytracing

This is the ultimate proof that AMD’s upcoming RDNA2 architecture is capable of hardware raytracing.


In attachments, also note relatively high (not the highest) "compute" performance of RDNA-2.

The entire XBox will probably cost less than a good GPU. Thus, it will be interesting to see if AMD ray tracing (in such an inexpensive package) is actually fast enough to matter in real games (versus merely looking good in Demos).

Article describing XBox Series X

Attached picture Xbox_ShortBullets_JPG-1536x864.png
Attached picture 12 Teraflops AMD RDNA 2 GPU.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/20 11:02 AM

A couple rumors -- one AMD -- one Nvidia. Both are based on slightly more data than provided in previous information and rumors.

Quote
Alleged AMD Next-Gen Flagship Navi ‘Radeon RX’ GPU Specifications Leaked – 5120 Cores, 24 GB HBM2e Memory, 2 TB/s Bandwidth


Quote
Igor: No, NVIDIA's Ampere GPUs are not launching in March, will probably come by August/September

If true, there will be a couple of very powerful GPUs available this Fall (as we've expected). We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/20 12:08 AM

Quote
AMD Still Dominating Retail CPU Sales, but Coronavirus Could Hammer PCs

European retailer Mindfactory, has released regular data dumps with [CPU] retail sales comparisons showing AMD spiking to 80-82 percent market share .. which aligns well with overall Newegg and Amazon [CPU] data.

AMD currently holds about 15 percent of the overall PC market.

Microsoft, HP, and Apple have all warned about the impact coronavirus could have on their PC sales. Because virtually all systems are assembled in China,

One potential beneficiary of the slowdown is Intel, .. The impact of coronavirus has hit PC production much harder than CPU production .. which means the bottleneck has moved from Intel’s CPUs to the number of systems HP, Lenovo, Apple, and other companies can build on a weekly basis
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/20 11:40 AM

Quote
AMD expands Ryzen Embedded range

AMD has expected its Ryzen Embedded range with two new R1000 low-power processors that provide customers with a new TDP range of 6-10 watts.

AMD also announced new customers offering Mini PCs based on the AMD Ryzen Embedded processors from Sapphire, SECO, Simply NUC and others.

AMD's Embedded boss Rajneesh Gaur said .. “We are doing this with cutting-edge technology to display immersive graphics in 4K resolution with AMD Ryzen Embedded processors,"


Quote
Cloudflare .. moves to AMD

Cloudflare .. is moving to a 48-core single socket AMD EPYC 7642.

The announcement by San Francisco-based Cloudflare, which provides DNS resolution, content delivery and security services, is a major boost for AMD, which has been making progressively greater inroads on Intel’s supreme control of the market..

The move follows head-to-head [AMD vs Intel] testing by the company of the [competing] CPUs, across data compression, power efficiency, cryptographic key generation, search performance and more.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/20 02:19 PM

Quote
Jon Peddie Research Report on GPU shipments: AMD up 22.6%, Intel up 0.2% and NVIDIA down 1.9%

it is not really surprising seeing AMD gain market share in Q4'19 considering our own surveys showed a similar trend and affinity for Radeon GPUs.

NVIDIA was down 1.9% - which is probably because their Turing lineup is expensive and affordable only as far as the non-RTX series goes.

Rumors point out that new NVIDIA GPUs will be launching in March but if NVIDIA misses that timeline, we will likely not see any new graphics cards from the company till August/September

AMD is also working on their new RX 5950 XT series flagship (which might be renamed to 6000 series by the time it launches)

Intel is expected to formally enter the dGPU market in 2020 with their Xe series parts.


I'm assuming late-Summer/Fall for new GPUs. But, I hope to be wrong -- i.e. Something really does happen before early Summer. Until then, just expect more GPU "rumors" and "guesses" in this thread. I'll try to keep it to "new" rumors and guesses that seem credible -- with at least some new information (vs. repeats of old information).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/20 08:24 PM

Quote
Intel says it will catch up with AMD

Promises Full Memory Encryption in upcoming CPUs

Intel refers to its version of full-memory encryption as TME (Total Memory Encryption) ... these features are vaporware.. there are still no real-world processors that offer them.

[Intel] didn’t mention AMD of course but [AMD] has had something similar since 2016 called SME (Secure Memory Encryption).

Intel's slides about their own upcoming full memory encryption are labelled "innovations," but they just catching up to what AMD already has done.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/20 11:54 AM

Quote
GDC 2020 Officially Postponed for the Coronavirus; Organizers Now Looking for a Summer Date

Most of the major game companies (Microsoft, PlayStation, Facebook, EA, Kojima Productions, Amazon, Blizzard, Epic Games, CD Projekt RED and others) had already pulled out of the Game Developers Conference, which was scheduled to be held between March 16th and 20th in San Francisco, California.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/20 12:03 PM

Quote
Mysterious NVIDIA graphics cards with 108 and 118 Compute Units spotted

The graphics clocks are only reported at 1.11 and 1.01 GHz

The 118 CU graphics device has scored 184096 points in the [Geekbench] OpenCL benchmark, which puts it at the very top of the current leaderboard., which may not actually sound that surprising considering this is TESLA, not Quadro or GeForce.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/20 12:17 PM

Posting since AMD drivers have been in the news lately.

Quote
AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2 [Drivers]

Fixed Issues [listed in article]

Known Issues [listed in article]

Article

Every AMD or Nvidia driver release fixes issues. This driver release covers more territory than most. As mentioned previously, I didn't have issues with my games and my systems.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/20 12:16 AM

Quote
AMD to Introduce New Next-Gen RDNA GPUs in 2020, Not a Typical 'Refresh' of Navi

AMD CEO Lisa Su dropped an interesting announcement during the company's earnings conference last night: AMD will soon release its next-gen RDNA architecture.

Su .. said the company would announce more details at its Investor Day on March 5, 2020. Su also said we could expect new data center GPUs in the second half of 2020, too.


How "soon" is "soon" -- one would think by June. If its the "big" GPU, good, I was expecting late Summer or Fall for the top end GPU. More news Thursday March 5
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/20 05:57 PM

Tom's Hardware's performance/price opinion:

Quote
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2020

$1044: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti = Best Overall / 4K (When Price is No Object) = Smooth performance at 4K, High Settings

$500: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super = Best for VR Gaming = Better-than-2070 performance without the Founders Edition tax

$310: AMD Radeon RX 5700 (8GB) = Best for 2K Gaming = Roughly 11% faster than GeForce RTX 2060, on average

$280: AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT = Best for 1080p Gaming = Beats out the RTX 2060 in most titles

$110: AMD Radeon RX 570 (4GB) = Best Budget GPU = Ample memory (4GB GDDR5) proves valuable in comparisons to GeForce GTX 1060 3GB


Prices in quick check of today's good deals (tomorrow may be different). Of course, the standings will change as AMD and Nvidia introduce newer models.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/20 10:46 AM

Quote
SAPPHIRE Announces A Family Of Compact Motherboards Powered By AMD Ryzen Embedded Chips

features AMD's Radeon "Vega" graphics combined with the high-performance "Zen" CPU

According to Paul Smith, Director of SAPPHIRE's Embedded Business Division, "the versatile and effective design of these boards with low power compute and high-resolution multimedia display capability make them perfect for a wide variety of industry applications in the Embedded space such as industrial PC, interactive digital signage, thin clients and POS terminals."


The tiny computer made with AMD hardware.


Attached picture BP_FP5V_R_SA1_C02_800x500.png
Attached picture SAPPHIRENationEmbeddedminiPCBPNP1366x768-Small_678x452.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/20 10:55 AM

Quote
Next-Generation AMD EPYC™ CPUs and Radeon™ Instinct GPUs Enable El Capitan Supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to Break 2 Exaflops Barrier

– Collaboration with HPE targets leadership HPC and AI processing performance starting in early 2023 —
– El Capitan is set to be the second all AMD CPU and GPU exascale system in the U.S., and is expected to be more powerful than today’s 200 fastest supercomputers combined


The most powerful computer on the planet will be made with AMD hardware.

Update:

Quote
AMD Wins an Analyst Upgrade on the Back of El Capitan Contract

the analyst has raised the price target for AMD to $65 per share while maintaining a ‘Buy’ rating for the stock.


As shown by the Update, scoring a big contract can affect AMD's Future. So, I post in this thread -- even though none of us are going to buy a Supercomputer.

Attached picture ESSKc82XsAEyHyj-1536x851.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/20 11:08 AM

Quote
Intel Says Process Tech to Lag Competitors Until Late 2021, Will Regain Lead with 5nm

CFO George Davis presented at the Morgan Stanley conference yesterday covering a wide range of topics, but noted that despite being "undoubtedly in the 10nm era," the company felt that it would not reach process parity with competitors until it produces the 7nm node at the tail end of 2021. Davis also said that Intel wouldn't regain process leadership until it produces the 5nm node at an unspecified date.

However, Davis noted that in spite of the shipping [10nm] products and pending "+" revisions to the 10nm process, its process node still lags behind competitors,


The chart included with the article indicates TSMC will get to 5nm ahead of Intel. Other information says TSMC may be to 3nm when Intel hits 5nm (AMD CPUs and GPUs are fabricated by TSMC). So, we'll see how this turns out in a couple years.

Attached picture 8MYjSPCQBbFnTRL9fu7fqS-970-80.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/20 11:54 PM

AMD has begun its Financial Analysts Day presentations. As this is written, they are ongoing. A couple quick points:

Quote
AMD's RDNA 2 [GPU] Gets A Codename: “Navi 2X” Comes This Year With 50% Improved Perf-Per-Watt

First and foremost, RDNA 2 is when AMD will fill out the rest of its consumer [GPU] product stack, with their eye firmly on (finally) addressing the high-end, extreme performance segment of the [GPU] market.

But don’t call it "Big Navi". RDNA 2 isn’t just a series of bigger-than-RDNA (1) chips. The GPUs, which will be the codename “Navi 2X” family, also incorporate new graphics features that set them apart from earlier products.

Overall, AMD has significant ambitions with RDNA 2, and it shows. The architecture will be the cornerstone of a generation of consoles, and it will be AMD’s first real shot in the last few years at taking back the flagship video card performance crown.


Attached picture Navi2X_Master_678x452.png
Attached picture KiMG4UMw5bLwcWye5BXd8g-970-80.jpg
Attached picture Navi_Gen_PPW_575px.png
Attached picture Navi2x_Roadmap_Master_575px.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/20 10:52 AM

My opinion: The attached slide may turn out to be the important one that shows how AMD high end graphics FPS may catch up to Nvidia (not necessarily surpass Nvidia).

Nvidia GPUs have competitive gaming graphics and mediocre compute relative to AMD GPUs in the same price range. Nvidia also has lower power usage. That's because Nvidia uses most of its gaming GPU die for gaming graphics.

AMD has been supplying GPUs that "do it all" at the expense of maximum gaming FPS and minimum power use.

As the slide shows, now, AMD gaming GPUs will focus on gaming. In other words, more transistors for gaming, fewer for compute, and less power consumed (they're saying a 50 percent power efficiency boost).

The new AMD high end GPUs are due in late 2020.

[Linked Image]

Attached picture AMD-CDNA-vs-RDNA-arc.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/20 06:47 PM

Yesterday's presentation was aimed primarily at "financial analysts" and "investors". The attached article is a not overlong summary of the main points.

Quote
AMD Financial Analyst Day 2020 Round-Up: Laying A Path For Bigger & Better Things

AMD’s first Financial Analyst Day since 2017 has just wrapped up. In the last three years AMD has undergone a dramatic change,..AMD’s foundation is once again secure

We’ve been covering FAD 2020 throughout the afternoon, and we have seen AMD make a number of announcements and roadmap reveals throughout the event. The individual announcements are below,

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/20 04:06 PM

Quote
New AMD Side Channel Attacks Discovered, Impacts Zen Architecture

The researchers claim that the vulnerability impacts all AMD processors from 2011 to 2019

We've become accustomed to news of new Intel vulnerabilities being disclosed on a seemingly-weekly basis, but other processor architectures, like AMD and ARM, have also been impacted by some vulnerabilities, albeit to a lesser extent.

The researchers were able to exploit the vulnerability via JavaScript run on Chrome and Firefox browsers. The paper suggests several possible remedies for the vulnerability through a combined software and hardware approach

All modern processors have vulnerabilities, they are the most complex devices designed by humankind, after all, so crafty researchers will continue to find holes in the architectures.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/20 04:14 PM

After posting the above, the very next site I clicked had this one:

Quote
Intel Has an Unfixable Chipset Security Flaw. Is it a Risk?

Positive Technologies have discovered a significant flaw in Intel chipsets dating back at least five years. The flaw is reportedly completely unfixable because it’s hard-coded into the mask ROM

an attacker effectively requires physical access to the machine in order to carry out this threat..the chipset key extraction hasn’t actually been carried out yet

But as a matter of practical threat or risk, these CSME bugs aren’t likely to cause problems for anyone in their day-to-day lives.

As usual, normal PC users/gamers have nothing to worry about.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/20 05:14 PM

While there have been many Nvidia GeForce GPU rumors the first couple months of the year, they didn't have good credibility.

Today's article seems credible. Moreover, they also note that the previous rumors may have been misleading.

The title says most of it (the rest of the article is heavy speculation):

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce Ampere GPU Rumors: Samsung 10nm Process Node, Q4 2020 Launch, RTX 3080 Ti Up To 40% Faster Than RTX 2080 Ti, Ray-Tracing Across Entire Lineup

NVIDIA's next GPU architecture will be based on the Samsung 10nm process node and not go with TSMC [7nm] as reported earlier


So, this fall/Winter we may have both the new 10nm Nvidia GPUs and new "high end" 7nm AMD GPUs to choose from -- as expected.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/20 05:31 PM

This nominally factual info is cut/pasted because TSMC makes AMD CPUs and GPUs. So TSMC's future = AMD's future in some ways. 5nm and 3nm are on the way:

Quote
TSMC’s Total 3nm Investment Will Equal At Least $23 Billion – Report

TSMC's successful partnership with AMD and Apple has gained the company fame in the tech world, especially with Intel Corporation's production woes ending as slowly as possible.

5nm volume production will ramp up in the first half of this year, and at the same time, TSMC will also commence the construction of its 3nm plant.


No information on when AMD will move to 5nm -- one might assume late 2021 -- we'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/20 08:57 AM

Intel is still refusing to pay.

It was this court battle that made me an AMD fan. In brief, Intel paid PC makers to NOT use AMD products -- at a time when AMD CPUs were superior to Intel CPUs. It nearly put AMD out of business and allowed Intel to keep prices high for consumers/gamers.

Intel lost the case years ago, but Intel has yet to pay the fine. So, AMD came even closer to failure. I can't support Intel after that. Parenthetically, just information as I don't expect others to see things my way.

Quote
Intel Is Still Fighting the EU Over Its Anti-Competitive Actions Against AMD

In 2009, the European Commission found that Intel had abused its market position with respect to AMD and slapped the company with a €1.06B ($1.45B at 2009 exchange rates) fine. In 2014, the General Court of the European Union upheld the judgment.

Back in 2009, the EC found that Intel’s behavior was so self-evidently abusive, and its practices so filled with “naked restrictions” on AMD, it did not need to perform a full AEC test but provided one anyway.

This may be a good time to note that this investigation is 18 years old

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/20 10:50 AM

A head to head test for mainstream gaming:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X vs Intel Core i5-9600K: Mid-Range Rumble

Battle for the mainstream

Intel's Core i5 and AMD's Ryzen 5 families are the biggest volume-movers in the mainstream desktop segment, and honestly, that's the most chip most gamers need. But then the eternal question arises: Who reigns supreme in the mid-range, AMD or Intel?

Features -- Winner: AMD
Motherboard Options -- Winner: AMD
Overclocking Potential -- Winner: Intel
Cooling Solutions -- Winner: AMD
Gaming Performance -- Winner: AMD
Productivity Performance -- Winner: AMD
Value Proposition -- Winner: AMD

The Bottom Line -- Overall Winner: AMD

it's not typical to see an AMD processor excel in both the gaming and productivity departments, but the Ryzen 5 3600X is the leader on both sides of the ball.

Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/16/20 09:59 AM

Quote
AMD launches Ryzen 4000 Mobile Renoir processors with 7nm Vega iGPU

Laptops based on Ryzen 4000 Mobile will go on preorders today, however, it may take few weeks for them to be widely available. AMD releases more information on the architecture itself. AMD also confirmed Ryzen 9 4900H flagship CPU.

The Ryzen 4000 Mobile is based on Zen2 architecture, a refined version designed specifically for laptops.

AMD claims 25% IPC gain over Ryzen 3000M, 20% lower SoC power, 2x higher power efficiency, and 5x faster state switching. But the integrated graphics received a substantial boost, all Renoir CPUs use 7nm Vega graphics.


The article summarizes the details point by point. Given that AMD CPUs are now the top CPUs (in general) and given that AMD on CPU chip graphics is now the top (of that type), folks needing a cost effective, powerful laptop might consider AMD with a 4000 series processor.

Article

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-4000H-series.jpg
Attached picture dEcgE36KpiPdwkgpAPF6zL-970-80.jpg
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/20 10:44 PM

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/20 07:27 PM

Quote
AMD RDNA 2 to support Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate

Today AMD announced that their upcoming RDNA 2 architecture, the backbone of next-generation gaming consoles (Sony PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X) and upcoming Radeon RX Navi 2X graphics card will support DirectX 12 Ultimate, Microsoft’s latest iteration of its low-level API.

The DirectX 12 Ultimate supports DirectX Raytracing 1.1, a new version of DXR featuring new capabilities such as inline ray tracing. The DX12U will also support Variable Rate Shading, technology already supported by NVIDIA Turing and Intel Gen11 Graphics.


AMD will release Raytracing capability. Meantime, here is the first Youtube Video of AMD Raytracing. Everything in the scene has a "mirror" finish.

PCs, Microsoft and Sony consoles will feature AMD raytracing. Hopefully, at good FPS and 4K on the PC -- without spending $1000 on a GPU. We'll see on that one.

Video

Attached picture AMDRDNA2DXRBlogTitle-1536x560.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/20 11:14 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 4500U ‘Zen 2’ CPU & Radeon RX 5300M ‘Navi’ GPU Powered Microsoft Surface Notebook Spotted

AMD To Power Upcoming Microsoft Surface Book 3 With Its Zen 2 Ryzen 4000 CPU & Navi Based Radeon RX Discrete Graphics

Microsoft Surface Book 3 was originally slated for launch sometime in the Spring of 2020 but keeping in view the current situation (COVID-19), I believe that Microsoft would definitely move the launch back by a few months.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Microsoft-Surface-Book-3_1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/20 06:51 PM

These days AMD stuff is apparently worth stealing smile

Quote
AMD's Big Navi and Xbox Series X GPU 'Arden' Source Code Stolen and Leaked

AMD posted a press release to its website today announcing that it had found stolen graphics IP posted online .. Torrentfreak claims to have contacted the hacker responsible, who claims the information is worth $100 million and is seeking bidders.

If she doesn't get a buyer, she says she will just "leak everything."

AMD says the leaked information is not core to its competitiveness and is taking legal actions to remedy the situation


Actually, I don't take crime lightly. Hopefully, the bad gal winds up being appropriately punished.

Quote
Update 3/26/20 5:30am PT: The hacker has now posted a second Github repository with "proof" of the hack, again soliciting bidders for AMD's proprietary IP. We contacted the hacker, who confirmed the system was hacked remotely. However, the individual refused to provide further details.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/20 10:11 AM

Quote
Intel kills off a server program

Think mainstream, not niche market for this one



Quote
What does Intel’s server platform cancellation mean?

Intel’s server prospects just went from noncompetitive to dire with their latest platform cancellation.

This mainstream platform, not a niche variant, shows exactly how untenable Intel’s server roadmap is. .. Intel knows they have no chance to beat AMD until after their 2022 platform so how can things get worse?


AMD has a couple years to secure its Future in the server market -- provided AMD designs work as planned. Then, the competition will be back.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/20 12:17 PM

Quote
AMD ships 10 times as many motherboards as Intel per latest Mindfactory data

Recent Mindfactory data indicates that AMD has sold 10 times as many motherboards as Intel over the last week. This aligns with previous numbers for Ryzen processors and cements their lead over a beleaguered Intel.

These figures only underscore the extent to which AMD has overturned the consumer CPU market with its Ryzen 3000 lineup. By delivering better performance-including in games-and a higher core and thread count at virtually every price point, AMD delivered a product line that consumers just could not overlook.
Posted By: SkateZilla

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/20 03:54 AM

Lisa Su Story
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/20 09:34 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ Notebook CPU Family Officially Launched – Led By The 8 Core Ryzen 9 4900HS, Superior Performance & Value Than Intel Based Notebook Offerings

The family consists of the following announced and unannounced CPUs:

AMD Ryzen 9 4900H/HS (8 Core / 16 Thread)
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H/HS (8 Core / 16 Thread)
AMD Ryzen 5 4600H/HS (6 Core / 12 Thread)

The Ryzen 4000H series is what's launching today along with several notebooks that feature it.


Quote
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Tested

Our Verdict

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and its AMD Ryzen 4900HS CPU deliver epic battery life and strong performance in a light and attractive package.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-Renoir-CPU-Official_2-1480x833.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/20 10:19 AM

Quote
Intel launches 5.3GHz 10th Gen Intel Core H


In write ups on various sites, the high end (gaming) Intel 10th generation offers a few percent real improvement over the Intel 9th generation.

In most Intel laptops, that 5.3GHz only lasts a few seconds before it over heats. To keep the power & heat acceptable, the Intel 10th generation laptop CPUs are clocked way down most of the time.

In testing the high end AMD 4000H and 4000HS CPU laptops seem to have the upper hand for virtually all uses -- including games -- but gaming depends on the GPU in the laptop. AMD has higher maintainable clocks, run cool, etc.

Still, as the articles point out, most folks will buy the Intel 10th generation high end gaming laptops -- they tend to have the high end Nvidia GPUs. So, if you are in the market, read the Laptop test reports to find the right Intel laptop.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/07/20 11:08 AM

Very little new information lately on the upcoming AMD desktop CPUs. Just "recycled rumors" that may not be factual.

Quote
AMD Zen 3 ‘Ryzen 4000 & EPYC Milan’ CPU Rumors: Up To 15% IPC Increase, Larger L3 Cache Available Per CCX

[Rumor] Zen 3 would feature an IPC uplift of 10-15% on a single thread... a little less than ... what AMD's Senior representatives had hinted in interviews.


I await updated Ryzen 4000 information from AMD itself.

Meantime AMD's own graphic shows 5nm in late 2021 -- if it stays on schedule. Should greatly outperform what we have today. So, AMD's Future Status is looking good.

Attached picture AMD-Investory-Presentation_April-2020_7-1920x1080.png
Attached picture Zen 3 Ryzen 4000 EPYC Milan CPUs.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/20 12:32 PM

Rumor:

Quote
Unannounced AMD Ryzen [9] 4000 Flagship Coming to a Laptop Near You

You can expect the upcoming flagship to arrive with eight cores, 16 threads and 12MB of total cache. At the end of the day, the higher clock speeds on the Ryzen 9 4900U will ultimately set it apart from the Ryzen 7 4800U.

the Ryzen 9 4900U is expected to come with .. boost clock, such as 4.3 GHz or more.


Attachment may show wrong Ryzen 9 4900 clock speed. Its supposed to be higher than 4800.

Attached picture Screenshot_2020-04-08 Unannounced AMD Ryzen 4000 Flagship Coming to a Laptop Near You(1).png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/20 10:34 AM

AMD designs CPUs and GPUs. TSMC makes them.

Quote
TSMC's 5nm Is Still On Schedule, But 3nm Is Delayed With The Inability To Find Equipment In The Pandemic

The delay for 3nm is said to be 6 months but could be delayed more because of our current situation in the world. According to media reports, the 6 months puts back the tooling of the factory and the trial period, which leaves it to start in December.

No production [3nm] chips are expected before 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/20 10:07 AM

Rumor:

Quote
AMD Zen 2 Based Budget Ryzen CPUs In The Works - Ryzen 3 3300X & Ryzen 3 3100 To Target Sub-$150 US Market

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X will be a 4 core and 8 thread processor. This processor will feature a clock frequency of up to 4.3 GHz

The second chip in the lineup would be the Ryzen 3 3100. This would be AMD's most entry-level chip and should also feature 4 cores and 8 threads. The maximum clock speed for this chip is 3.9 GHz


Attached picture Ryzen 3 3300X Ryzen 3 3100 Quad Core.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/20 10:16 AM

Rumor/Leak:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs might support AM4 motherboards

Laptop maker XMG claims that AMD’s Ryzen 4000 ‘Vermeer’ desktop processors will be compatible with existing AM4 motherboards.

So while AMD's AM4 platform would support all four generations of AMD’s Ryzen processors. Intel's10th-generation Comet Lake-S lineup rumored to require a new 400-series motherboard built around the new LGA 1200 socket.

However it does look like the Ryzen 4000 series will be the last-generation of Zen-based processors to be built around the AM4 socket,

Rumours suggest that new processors will tip up in August or September.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/20 09:40 AM

Quote
B550 motherboards launch on June 16th

Just as we were discussing B450 motherboard support for Ryzen 4000 series, Wccftech has reported on the B550 launch date. According to the site, the B550 motherboards will launch on June 16th with an announcement expected on May 21st.


Quote
AMD B550 Motherboards To Launch on 16th June – Cost-effective PCIe Gen 4 Options For Ryzen 3000 CPUs
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/20 10:33 AM

Rumor:

Quote
The Ryzen 3 1200 processor is getting an upgrade from its original 14 nm Zen 1 Architecture To the 12nm Zen+ Architecture

The lower cost [$60] of this quad-core processor alongside the updates that AMD has done with its Zen+ architecture gives lots of reasons to purchases this entry-level chip for budget PC builds.

The original Ryzen 3 1200 is currently being sold on Newegg, by Corn Electronics, for $119.90, which is substantially more when compared to the updated processor projected price of roughly $60.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/20 11:13 AM

Opinion Regarding Gaming CPUs and GPUs:

Not much going on and not much expected until Fall 2020. Then, AMD and Nvidia plan to make it interesting. Parenthetically, Intel probably won't get a significant gaming upgrade until late 2021 -- so, Intel fans can stick with what they have now.

Unless one's gaming PC breaks and needs fixing/replacing, most should wait for the updated hardware scheduled for Fall release.

However, if one is stuck in the house during the pandemic (I raise my hand), one might do a build for fun (I won't -- I'll wait).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/20 02:45 PM

Quote
AMD Officially Announces Ryzen 3 3000 Series And B550 [Motherboard] Release Schedule

AMD Zen 2 Based Budget Ryzen CPUs To The Masses - Ryzen 3 3300X And Ryzen 3 3100 Targeting Sub-$120 US Market

don't let the quad-core moniker fool you since both of these chips are sporting simultaneous multi-threading making even the lowest tier $99 Ryzen 3 3100 quite appealing for that gaming .. budget

Expect the Ryzen 3 3300X [and Ryzen 3 3100] to be available beginning May 21st, 2020.

AMD states that the B550 chipset based motherboards will become available beginning on June 16th, 2020

The attachment shows a lower price tag than the attachment a few posts above.

Attached picture Ryzen 3 3000 Series.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/20 10:16 AM

Before the Pandemic, TSMC did not have much (or any) "excess capacity". I was wondering if AMD would find that a problem.

Quote
NVIDIA And AMD Just Bought Up All Excess Capacity At TSMC For Next Generation GPUs And CPUs

While the Coronavirus has the business world reeling, NVIDIA and AMD have both swooped in and purchased excess capacity at TSMC

Since both NVIDIA and AMD are fab-less design houses there is always a concern whether TSMC can spare capacity (everyone knows Apple is their darling) but it looks like the COVID19 has swung things in their favor as both companies have been gobbling up space yielded by other customers.

Right now, HiSilicon and Qualcomm are both above AMD, but [AMD] is set to become TSMC's largest 7nm customer by 2H 2020, dethroning Qualcomm, and HiSilicon.

NVIDIA has taken a lot of the capacity at TSMC as well
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/20 10:14 AM

Speculation based on some facts:

Quote
Intel Xe Graphics Release Date

Intel has repeatedly targeted a 2020 release, and all indications are that it's still on track for that. Coronavirus delays might push things back a bit, but given that Intel is primarily responsible for the manufacture of the GPUs, hopefully late summer or early fall 2020 will still happen.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/20 10:23 AM

As previously noted, Intel 10nm will not be aimed at gaming. But, the CPUs are coming.

Quote
ntel Announces Tiger Lake Coming Mid-Year, 10nm Ramp Accelerating

10nm+ still won’t be capable of matching Intel’s 14nm silicon for high-power desktop chips. Intel has never talked about launching any desktop CPUs on either the 10nm or 10nm+ process nodes

The firm is building up a large reservoir of parts before it launches these CPUs — roughly 2x as much as it massed before launching Ice Lake. The goal is to ship those parts in Q3 and possibly Q4 to make sure any level of demand can be met.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/20 10:28 AM

Not aimed at gaming, per se.

Quote
NVIDIA says “GET AMPED” for GTC 2020 Keynote on May 14

Does ‘getting amped’ mean we should expect AMPERE [GPU] architecture news on May 14? Well, it appears so.

Get Amped for Latest Platform Breakthroughs in AI, Deep Learning, Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics and Professional Graphics
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/20 10:08 AM

Rumor/Leak regarding future AMD APU with new CPU and GPU architecture;

Quote
AMD’s Next-Gen Cezanne Ryzen 5000 APUs Detailed, Rumored To Feature Zen 3 Cores & RDNA2 Navi 23 GPU

The documents were posted over at Anandtech Forum members (via Rogame & Uzzi38). It looks like AMD has already started work on its next-generation APU lineup [for 2021 release].

In general performance, the Cezanne lineup would be a huge improvement over the existing Ryzen 4000 CPUs due to many reasons.

But the biggest improvement overall would be AMD's switch to the Navi GPU architecture.


Attached picture AMD Ryzen 5000 'Cezanne Leaked.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/29/20 10:09 AM

Quote
AMD Posts Record Quarterly Revenue and Notebook Sales, Zen 3 and RDNA 2 On Track

AMD posted record first-quarter 2020 revenue as the company raked in $1.79B in revenue, a 40% year-over-year increase, but 16% decline from the prior quarter. The company posted record notebook chip sales driven by the new Ryzen 4000 series processors, a key growth segment that comprises more than two-thirds of the addressable consumer market.

AMD also says it remains on track for the Zen 3 and RDNA 2 GPUs in late 2020, with the latter offering a 50% performance-per-watt increase
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/20 09:31 AM

More TSMC news (because it makes CPU and GPU chips that AMD designs):

Quote
TSMC Starts Development on 2nm Process Node, but What Technologies Will It Use?

With 7nm in wide production and 5nm high volume manufacturing on-track, TSMC is looking even beyond the 3nm node and declaring that early 2nm research has now begun.


And, a few years back, I thought 5 to 7nm would be the smallest it would get -- and 3nm was the smallest it could get. Now 2nm on the distant horizon.

Competition drives progress beyond what some of us can imagine. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/20 09:43 AM

Rumor/Speculation:

Quote
AIBs clear inventory of RTX 2000 series graphics cards as NVIDIA prepares RTX 3000 series for launch in Q3 2020

this launch could very well be in the September-October timeframe

The [now deleted] report of China Times more or less confirms that NVIDIA will launch the consumer variant of its Ampere GPU, the RTX 3000 series by Q3 2020.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/30/20 03:21 PM

Regarding Competition:

Quote
Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-S Desktop CPUs & Z490 Platform Official – First 10 Core, 20 Thread Core i9-10900K Flagship Chip With Up To 5.30 GHz Clocks For $488 US

[Requires a new MB] Just like every year, Intel has brought a new chipset for motherboard makers to implement in their next-generation designs. The Z490, the flagship of the 400-series, has a lot going on, and to start off, only 10th Generation & Future Generation CPUs will be compatible with the chipset due to the introduction of an entirely new socket known as LGA 1200.

The chip has a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.1 GHz

the chip would also get Thermal Velocity Boost, ... CPUs that support this algorithm, like the Core i9-10900K, would feature even faster boost frequencies of 5.3 GHz (single-core) and 4.9 GHz (all-core). However, as the name suggests, only top-tier cooling solutions would be able to allow full utilization of the Thermal Velocity Boost feature. So unless you rock a high-end AIO liquid cooler or a closed-loop setup, don't expect a sustained velocity boost


Need to wait for the independent test reports to tell us if/where a i9-10900K plus new MB makes a significant difference vs. earlier Intel CPUs in a given gamer's personal set of games.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/20 10:26 AM

Regarding "high boost clocks" on AMD and Intel CPUs:

Quote
Overclocking Results Show We’re Hitting the Fundamental Limits of Silicon

Article

According to the article, Intel is doing everything they can to get GHz -- as that is their selling point. But, the GHz improvements are very small.

My brief summary of the situation: Ffuture Silicon CPUs (from Intel or AMD) will be limited to clock speeds not much higher than those today. So, improvements in CPU power have to come from more cores, threads, and better designed cores that do the job faster at the same clock speeds. Moreover, software (including games) must be written to effectively use more cores/threads if they want to run faster/better (X-Plane uses 20 threads but, as implemented, they don't help FPS very much).

Until a decade or so ago, it looked like Silicon CPU chips might be able to reach 10GHz. For a while now, I've speculated that roughly 6GHz may be the practical limit. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/20 12:55 PM

A new partner with AMD for future game technology:
Quote
AMD and Oxide Games Sign Multi-Year Partnership to Co-Develop Technologies for Cloud Gaming

MD and Oxide Games have announced with a fresh press release to have signed a multi-year partnership whose goal will be to co-develop graphics technologies for the growing cloud gaming market. More specifically, the expertise of the two companies will be used to craft a 'robust' set of tools and technologies for cloud rendering designed for the ground up to meet its peculiar demands.

Marc Meyer, president of Oxide Games, added: Oxide’s motto is to bring games to life that have never been seen or experienced before. We built the Nitrous Engine specifically with that purpose in mind. AMD’s commitment to gamers and their leadership in pushing the edge of state-of-the-art hardware is a perfect complement to Oxide’s commitment to the same excellence in software.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/05/20 08:54 AM

Quote
Best CPUs for Workstations May 2020

n our CPU Guides, we give you our pick of some of the best processors available, supplying data from our reviews.

Article

Long, descriptive article. Outcome summarized in the attachments.

Attached picture Best CPUs for Workstations.png
Attached picture Best CPUs for Workstations May 2020.png
Attached picture Best CPUs for Workstations May 2020(1).png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/20 09:43 AM

If you own one of the first Radeon RX 5600 XT you may have 12 Gbps memory you can upgrade with software:

Quote
AMD Encourages Radeon RX 5600 XT Owners To Upgrade Memory To 14 Gbps

Come and grab your free performance upgrade.

Various manufacturers have resorted to launching updated Radeon RX 5600 XT models that already have their memory running at 14 Gbps right out of the box. But if luck has it that you picked up or own one of the previous 12 Gbps models, you can manually upgrade the graphics card's firmware to enable the faster memory.

Article that says how-to

The article indicates what to do for each brand name and model. It varies by brand name.

Flashing a BIOS is always a risk. Long ago I lost a motherboard that way. On the other hand I fixed some hard drives with BIOS flashes.

Quote
if things go wrong, you are on your own, although AIBs should theoretically be more understanding in this very unusual situation.

Article urging caution and also giving details
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/20 10:07 AM

The Nvidia 2060 has caused an interesting problem in the AMD product line. There is only a 5-10% difference in price and performance between the 14 Gbps 5600XT and the 5700, and while this causes both cards to beat the (Super) 2060, it also causes a MASSIVE performance gap between the 5500XT and the 5600XT, whilst the 5600XT and the 5700 are eating up eachothers customers.

This makes it all the more interesting how the 5600 will fit in if/when it arrives.

Furthermore, the forums suggest a lot of the 5600XT cards (MSI, Gigabyte, et al) can't handle the performance jump of the new BIOS. This will definitely anger a lot of AMD customers and potentially lose them to Nvidia.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/07/20 04:59 PM

Quote
AMD Confirms Ryzen 4000 ‘Zen 3’ Desktop CPU Compatibility With X570 & B550 Motherboards – No Plans To Support X470, B450, X370 Chipsets

AMD has highlighted the main reason as to why they don't plan on adding support for Zen 3 Ryzen CPUs on pre-500-series chipsets to be the flash memory limitation. As per AMD, the flash memory chips that store the BIOS have capacity limitations, and not all AM4 boards feature dual-BIOS chip design (usually found on more expensive and high-end boards).

While AMD officially says 'No Support' on the matter, there's a slight chance that a few board makers might add BIOS support for Ryzen 4000 CPUs on older AM4 motherboards. Notebook maker, XMG, confirmed that they will enable AMD Ryzen 4000 series compatibility with B450 chipset through a microcode update.


AMD kept updating the CPU and they kept running on the older motherboards. Logically, that was going to end someday.

Attached picture AM4-Compatibility-Chart.jpg
Attached picture Chipset_Roadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/20 09:23 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 Review: Low-End Gaming Gets a High-End Boost

$120 scores a potent chip


Our Verdict

The Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 bring a new class of gaming performance to the low end, serving up enough performance for high-end gaming while leaving room in the budget for a better GPU.

you get hyper-threading on both chips .., a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler .., and unlocked multipliers that enable overclocking on almost all AM4 chipsets

Article

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 3 3100 Review Roundup

Dozens of Independent Reviews Linked


Attached picture Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 Review.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/20 09:43 AM

Quote
AMD releases new 7nm commercial notebook processors

Worldwide by the first half of year

AMD has announced global availability of the world’s first x86 7nm commercial notebook processors, the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Mobile family.

AMD claims the new processors are fully optimised for remote work capabilities and designed to take business computing to the next level with multi-threading performance for modern productivity.

AMD claims that its AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U is the fastest business processor for ultra-thin business notebooks with up to eight cores and 16 threads and up to 33 per cent better multi-threaded performance compared to the competition. AMD defines the competition as an i7-10710U (Dell XPS 13).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/20 09:13 AM

Quote
AMD announces B550 chipset with Zen3 support

The third generation of Bx50 motherboard has arrived.

Unlike B450, AMD B550 chipset will support PCIe Gen 4 for both graphics and storage. The PCIe interface for other devices (general purpose lines) will be upgraded from 2nd to 3rd generation. This is the most important change for those currently using B350 and B450 motherboards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/20 08:48 AM

Quote
AMD Dominates CPU Market Share in Asian DIY Market, Ryzen CPUs Breach 60% Share in South Korea – Notebook CPU Share Hits 10 Year High!

AMD isn't just outselling Intel in the Asian DIY segment but similar reports can be heard from all around the globe. Just recently, AMD revealed that its Ryzen CPUs make up for more than 50% of premium processors sales at top global retailers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/15/20 09:24 AM

Three Headlines that affect AMD and Nvidia's future:

Quote
Nvidia Unveils Its Next-Generation 7nm Ampere A100 GPU for Data Centers, and It's Absolutely Massive

7nm and 54 billion transistors


Quote
Nvidia Confirms Ampere Will Come To Both GeForce and Data Center Graphics Cards

One for all, all for one.


Quote
WSJ: TSMC to Open 5nm Factory in Arizona

Cutting-edge American-made silicon could arrive as soon as 2023

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., known colloquially as TSMC, is expected to announce plans to build a new Arizona factory later this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. That would bring the world’s largest independent chipmaker stateside, potentially drastically increasing the speed with which American companies could produce new devices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/20 12:38 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G 8-core APU pictured

8 cores/16 threads and fast graphics with 512 shaders. However, still no solid performance data -- just rumors and supposed leaks. Expected to cost about $160+ (some are guessing) -- if so, a no brainer for an inexpensive gaming build.

If performance is good, I have a use for one (or a more powerful 4800G, if such an APU is released).

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-7-4700G-1.jpg
Attached picture Ryzen 7 4700G.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/20 11:24 AM

Quote
Rivals in Arms: Nvidia's $199,000 Ampere System Taps AMD Epyc CPUs

The DGX A100 is an ultra-powerful system that has a lot of Nvidia markings on the outside, but there's some AMD inside as well. A pair of core-heavy AMD Epyc 7742 (codenamed Rome) processors are at the heart of Nvidia's new $199,000 creation.

The [Nvidia] DGX A100 features two [AMD] 7nm Epyc 7742 processors. Each Zen 2 processor comes with 64 cores and 128 threads that run with a 2.25 GHz base clock and 3.4 GHz boost clock. The Epyc 7742 duo accounts for 128 cores and 256 threads on the DGX A100.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/21/20 12:54 AM

Quote
AMD to Support Zen 3 and Ryzen 4000 CPUs on B450 and X470 Motherboards

In a surprising twist, AMD has today announced that it intends to enable Ryzen 4000 and Zen 3 support on its older B450 and X470 Motherboards. This is going to be a ‘promise now, figure out the details later’ arrangement, but this should enable most (if not all) users running 400 series AMD motherboards to upgrade to the Zen 3 processors set to be unveiled later this year.

They are acknowledging that they perhaps misread the situation from its user base.

Worth noting that the 500 series motherboards (and eventual 600 series) do have slight performance advantages over the 400 series.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/20 09:58 AM

Quote
AMD B550 Motherboards Announced: PCIe 4.0 Support for as Little as $100

companies are also about to usher in a slew of B550 boards (announcing today and going on sale starting June 16) for recent AMD processors that bring most of the key features (like PCIe 4.0 support) of the higher-end X570 platform that launched last year at lower price points that start at $100.

Those who like their PCs to run silently will also appreciate that B550 chipset doesn’t require support for active cooling.

you won’t get PCIe 4.0 support unless you install a Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 CPU in one of these boards,

In short, you get PCIe 4.0 support through the CPU, delivering enough lanes for fast NVMe storage and the GPU. Also included is dual-GPU support .., along with a doubling of the bandwidth of the motherboard’s general-purpose PCIe lanes


Attached picture AMD B550 Motherboards.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/20 10:08 AM

Quote
RUMOR: “Matisse Refresh”: Ryzen 7 3850X and 3750X

[rumored 6/16/2020 release, 7/7/2020 on sale]

Gigabyte indirectly confirmed Matisse Refresh in their B550 [new motherboard] presentation slide as well.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/20 08:42 AM

Quote
AMD to announce Ryzen 9 3900XT, 3800XT and 3600XT on June 16th

AMD is set to launch Matisse Refresh processors. This is an extension of the existing Matisse Ryzen 3000 series with new SKUs. Yesterday’s story has turned out to be true only partially. Yes Ryzen 3000 Refresh is true, but the names shared in the story are not accurate.


Attached picture 3900XT, 3800XT and 3600XT.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/20 08:49 AM

Still at the "rumor" level:

Quote
AMD “BIG” NAVI21 GPU variants have been decoded

For the past year or so, we have been hearing about Navi Refresh. For a long time those rumors have been treated with a certain amount of skepticism, but as soon as AMD themselves confirmed that they are working not only on RDNA 2X but also RDNA 3X architectures, the puzzles have started to create a broader picture.

AMD is set to announce Big Navi GPU later this year. There are rumors that AMD and NVIDIA are both planning to launch their next-generation GPUs in September. This has not been confirmed, but it is a perfect time to announce new graphics cards. In September we also have Computex 2020, which has been postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/20 01:33 PM

Ray tracing has been inefficient -- giving low FPS, low resolution. Nvidia may have "the solution" under development.

Quote
NVIDIA Researchers Demonstrate New Raytracing Algorithm That Can Render Direct Lighting from Millions of Dynamic Light Sources

ReSTIR, a new raytracing algorithm capable of rendering dynamic direct lighting and shadows from millions of light sources in real-time.

Overall, this approach is 6-60x faster than the previous state of the art methods

Article

The article describes the technique (which does make sense) and has a Video showing the results in a game type environment. There is still work to do, but things seem headed in the right direction.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/29/20 09:42 AM

Quote
AMD CEO Lisa Su is First Woman to Top AP CEO Pay Analysis

Lisa Su is the first woman to lead the AP's CEO pay analysis for the S&P 500, beating out all other CEOs with her healthy $58.5 million compensation in 2019. That's incredibly impressive

Su, who holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, has been largely credited for AMD's resurgence. Su has led the company back to profitability and competitiveness, earning multiple plaudits for her work along the way, including being recognized by Forbes 50 for being one of the top 50 world leaders
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/20 03:32 PM

Quote
Intel Doesn’t Want to Talk About Benchmarks Anymore

At Computex last week, Intel CEO Bob Swan spoke about the overall state of the computer and technology industry,, He also called on the industry to move away from benchmarking and towards different metrics.

Evaluating Swan’s Idea on the Merits

Technology coverage should focus on positive (or even transformative) use cases rather than emphasizing benchmark results.

Of course, that’s why reviews have text in them in the first place, instead of just benchmarks.

Evaluating Swan’s Claim Against Intel’s Current Competitive Position

Every time Intel, AMD, or Nvidia drops behind in performance rankings, we can expect to see a discussion of whether the benchmark practices and tests reviewers currently rely upon are actually capturing what they need to capture.

Intel undoubtedly would like to de-emphasize benchmarking at the moment. Fortunately, it’s not going anywhere.

Even Handed Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/20 08:28 PM

Quote
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2020

Here are the best gaming graphics cards for the money

1. RTX 2080 Ti
2. RTX 2080 Super
3. RX 5700 XT
4. RTX 2070 Super
5. RX 5700
6. RTX 2060 Super
7. RX 5600 XT
8. RTX 2060
9. GTX 1660 Super
10. GTX 1650 Super
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/20 11:45 PM

Finally, something solid:

Quote
AMD RDNA 2 GPUs Coming To PC First, Next Gen Consoles Later – Big Navi ‘Halo’ & Mainstream Radeon RX Graphics Cards With 2nd Gen Navi Later This Year

The confirmation came in the Bank of America 2020 Securities Global Technology Conference where AMD's CFO, David Kumar, stated that their next-generation GPU architecture will be available on the PC platform before the next-gen consoles arrive.

The lineup would feature the Big Navi GPU which David has revealed to be a halo product that is going to be focused at the ultra-enthusiast gaming market... we might end up seeing Big Navi around the start of Q4 2020 or even earlier.

“Big Navi is a halo product”

“Enthusiasts love to buy the best, and we are certainly working on giving them the best”.

“RDNA 2 architecture goes through the entire stack“ "it will go from mainstream GPUs all the way up to the enthusiasts and then the architecture also goes into the game console products... as well as our integrated APU products."This allows us to leverage the larger ecosystem, accelerate the development of exciting features like ray tracing and more."


via AMD's CFO, David Kumar
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/20 08:48 AM

Quote
AMD Hints at More Than 4 GB Graphics Memory As Standard on Next-Gen Radeon RX Graphics Card

In a recent blog post, AMD might have hinted at the end of the 4 GB entry-level graphics cards era

AMD in its own testing reports up to 24% performance improvement in AAA titles using an 8 GB Radeon RX 5500 XT versus a 4 GB variant.

In addition to better performance, AMD acknowledges that graphics cards with insufficient VRAM can lead to several issues, some of which include:

Error Messages and Warning Limits
Lower Framerates
Gameplay Stutter and Texture Pop-in Issues

AMD has always been at the forefront of offering increased VRAM and new memory technologies in its graphics cards.


Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-8-GB-Graphics-Card-Memory-1920x996.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/20 04:00 PM

Lately, it has been reported on some sites that some motherboards overclock AMD Ryzen CPUs to above specification -- and may damage the CPU.

My motherboard automatically over clocks the CPU -- no need for me to do it. No problems either.

The attached very long technical article describes why this motherboard controlled AMD CPU overclock is NOT a problem.

Quote
Electromigration: Why AMD Ryzen Current Boosting Won't Kill Your CPU
by Dr. Ian Cutress


motherboard vendors have been taking advantage of a setting on AMD motherboards to misrepresent the current delivered to the CPU. By doing so, they are able to increase the processor's power headroom, and ultimately allowing for higher performance at the cost of higher thermals. To be sure, this kind of tweaking isn’t new, but recent events have lead to no shortage of confusion over what exactly is going on, and what the ramifications are for AMD Ryzen processors.

In short, motherboard vendors want to be the best, and that often means pushing the limits of what is considered the ‘base specification’ of the processor.

Is My CPU At Risk?

To answer the big question right off the bat then, no, your CPU is not at risk. For regular users with enough cooling running at stock frequency, there is no issue to any degree that will matter within the expected lifetime of the product.

Long Technical Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/20 08:47 AM

Quote
AMD B550 Motherboards Now Available For Preorder Starting at $115

AMD's B550 motherboards are officially due on June 16, however, you can start to preorder them at major retailers. With AMD previously stating that over 60 designs were in development,

Newegg has posted 25 different AMD B550 motherboards, spanning from big-name vendors, such as Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI

the accessible B550 models cost $114.99 with the high-end B550 models topping out at $299.99, which steps dangerously into X570 pricing territory.


I just finished a compact HTPC build using a GIGABYTE X570 I AORUS Pro WIFI X570 /Mini-Itx (the m-ITX version of my MB listed below). The MB was "only" $220. So, as they say, make sure the more expensive B550s are worth it. Parenthetically, we upgraded our main home theater TV significantly and, so, upgraded its HTPC. I deliberately "went overboard" on the HTPC specifications to allow for occasional Big Screen 4K gaming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/20 08:57 AM

Quote
AMD Updates Roadmaps for Zen 3, 5nm, and RDNA2, the GPU Powering Xbox Series X, PS5


Attached picture Compute-Architecture-Roadmap.jpg
Attached picture Infinity-Architecture-Roadmap.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/20 10:55 PM

Quote
AMD Launches Ryzen 'XT' 3000-Series Processors: 3900XT, 3800XT, and 3600XT

In a shift from AMD's standard practice, the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7 3800XT come without bundled coolers, while the Ryzen 5 3600XT comes with a bundled Wraith Spire cooler.

AMD also announced that the new B550 chipset, which brings PCIe 4.0 connectivity to the mainstream, is available worldwide today. It will be joined by the A520 chipset that will debut with more than forty AM4 designs in August 2020.

The XT processors drop into any existing motherboard with a Ryzen 3000-ready BIOS, and offer drop-in compatibility with all 500-series motherboards.

Due to AMD's adaptive Precision Boost 2 algorithms, much of the Ryzen 3000 series processors' performance relies upon the capabilities of your motherboard and cooling

Long Article Describing/Comparing the CPUs

They provide a very small improvement over the current non-T models (e.g. 3800X). Wait for the next generation in September or October (speculated).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/20 06:37 PM

Quote
The AMD B550 Motherboard Overview: ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASRock, and Others
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor


One of the main complaints about the AMD X570 motherboard line was the wide variation in pricing. As we reported in our X570 motherboard overview, covering over 35 motherboards, the variation in cost from the cheapest to the most expensive was quite eye-watering.

Very Long Article Many-Many MB Evaluated Individually

A good article for someone about to buy a B550 MB. Could save a person time by pointing one in the right direction for function/price wanted.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/18/20 10:34 AM

Quote
AMD Denies Rumors of Zen 3 Delay, Confirms Architecture On-Track for 2020

There have been rumors floating around the past few days that AMD might delay the Zen 3 CPU family.

AMD wants people to know it has every intention of launching Zen 3 this year.

At this point, its unknown exactly which Zen 3 CPUs will be coming out first, etc. But, the first are expected (not confirmed) by October.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/20 03:37 PM

The delay in release of Cyberpunk 2077 RPG to November 2020 may help AMD GPU sales:

Quote
Cyberpunk 2077's delay means we've got a big decision to make: Nvidia Ampere or Big Navi?

AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs are a foregone conclusion, obviously.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed, which means we'll have to wait until November 19 to immerse ourselves in the criminal underbelly of Night City.

But which graphics card do you choose: Nvidia Ampere or AMD Big Navi?

AMD is convinced that it will get RDNA 2 graphics cards out of the door before the year's up, and Nvidia is rumoured to be readying a GeForce-grade RTX 30-series Ampere graphics card announcement this August, with a view to get these cards into the market in September.

The prestigious title of best graphics card may be hotly-contested come November, but there's one component we're sure will [win their battle]: AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/28/20 11:00 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen CPUs Retain Leading DIY Market Share In Japan Despite Launch of Intel’s 10th Gen Lineup

this share [data] is not specific to a single retailer but is based upon retail channel sales across Japan. The current statistics show that AMD Ryzen CPUs, especially the 3rd Gen Ryzen 3000 series have helped AMD retain a share of 67.4% during the previous month while Intel CPUs amount to a share of 32.6%.

Back in 2017, Intel was enjoying a huge market share of 83.9% in the same market while AMD CPUs only amounted to a share of 16.1%.

Despite Intel's best efforts, it looks like AMD's Ryzen 3000 CPUs not only hold the value proposition but also the performance crown.

we saw similar reports emerge from the South Korean market too where AMD breached the 60% market share


Attached picture Market-Share-Japan-Q2-2020.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/20 11:09 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 ‘Vermeer’ Desktop CPUs With Zen 3 Cores Going in Mass Production Soon, Already in B0 Stepping

Ryzen 4000 Desktop CPUs are already in B0 stepping and will be heading to mass production soon. Since we're already in Q3, a mass production around the mid of this quarter would suggest a hard launch in Q4 which is something that has been pointed out for a while now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/20 10:31 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G Flagship Renoir 8 Core Desktop APU Benchmarked, Matches The Ryzen 7 3800X 95W CPU

The first performance benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 7 4700G APU which is also the flagship of the Renoir lineup have leaked out.

The CPU [part of the APU] features a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.45 GHz which matches the earlier specifications leak. The CPU operates with a 65W TDP and is compatible with the AM4 socket. The graphics side [of the APU] features the enhanced 7nm Vega GPU which comes with 8 CUs to form 512 cores. Its clocked at 2100 MHz on the GPU side which makes it one of the fastest clocked integrated graphics chip.

The AMD Ryzen 4000 'Renoir' Desktop APUs are planned for launch in the coming month so we will definitely hear more in the coming week when AMD will also intro its Ryzen 3000XT 'Matisse Refresh' Desktop CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/20 10:30 AM

The Ryzen 4000 series APUs are close to release:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G ‘Renoir AM4’ APU overlocked to 4.765 GHz

AMD is likely to introduce Renoir-based APUs this month.

By default, the new Ryzen 7 4700G APU has a boost clock of 4.4 GHz. The processor features 8-cores and 16-threads [plus a 512 shader GPU]

The long story short, guys over at ITCooker have increased the clock speed from 4.4 GHz to 4.765 GHz (an increase of +7.2%).


I expect the new generation 8c/16t CPU part of the APU to be a faster processor than my Ryzen 7 3800X 8c/16t current generation CPU. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/20 08:07 PM

Quote
AMD’s Lisa Su: Zen 3 [Vermeer CPU] Is Looking Great And Launching This Year

There had been some rumblings that AMD might delay Zen 3 based CPUs to 2021, but I think it's safe to say that particular horse has been shot and buried

We have already heard some extremely tantalizing things about Vermeer including a huge IPC gain and the iterative performance far outpacing Intel's 14nm on both compute and gaming sides. Vermeer will be manufactured on TSMC's 7nm process (likely EUV) and will be a big step up from current generation Zen 2 processors. It looks like nothing can stop AMD's rise to dominance in the x86 market.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/20 10:30 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 3000XT “Matisse 2” Processors Review Roundup


Review Article Links

Over 40 reviews linked in the Article.

As expected, the new Ryzen 3000XT models are just slightly faster than the current Ryzen 3000X models. AMD could make them a little better, so they did.

Bottom line: Ryzen 3000XT is not a serious upgrade over current AMD Ryzen. Wait for the Ryzen 4000 series in the Fall -- for the bigger jump in performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/20 10:36 AM

Leak:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ Desktop APUs Launching on 21st July, Will Include Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G, Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G & Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G


We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/20 10:42 AM

Regarding AMD competitors:

Quote
Nvidia Overtakes Intel as World’s Most Valuable Chip Maker

Nvidia has overtaken Intel as the world’s most valuable chip maker, at least briefly. Increases in the GPU manufacturers’ market capitalization pushed its stock price to $404 on Wednesday, giving it a market capitalization at $248B, just about Intel’s $246B.


Nvidia stock has shot up over the last few years while Intel moved only slightly.

AMD's stock price has also increased monumentally over the last few years due to the competitiveness of AMD products.

Attached picture Most Valuable Chip Maker.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/20 10:41 AM

Relevant to AMD and Nvidia:

Quote
Right Now Is a Terrible Time to Buy a Graphics Card

New GPUs are right around the corner, so try to get by for a couple of more months with what you have.

When should you upgrade your PC's graphics card? The sage advice is to wait until you're no longer happy with your current setup, but there's an important corollary that's often overlooked: Don't spend a lot of money on a new graphics card right before new GPUs are slated to launch. Or you can flip that around: The best time to pick up one of the best graphics cards is right after they launch — at least, once the supply reaches the point where there's no obvious price gouging going on.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/14/20 10:53 AM

Quote
AMD and Google team up on Confidential Computing

Google has teamed up with AMD to offer cloud based private, encrypted services that are intended to give users confidence that they are always in control over the confidentiality of their data.

The system is based on Confidential VMs which use the Secure Encrypted Virtualisation (SEV) feature of 2nd Gen AMD EPYC. Encryption keys are generated in hardware, per VM, and not exportable.

AMD Data Centre Ecosystem corporate vice president Raghu Nambiar said that with built-in secure encrypted virtualization, 2 nd Gen AMD EPYC processors provide an innovative hardware-based security feature that helps secure data in a virtualised environment.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/20 10:35 AM

Quote
Intel Announces Discontinuation of All 9th Generation Core-X Series Processors

These include the boxed and tray versions of the i7-9800X, i9-9820X, i9-9900X, i9-9920X, i9-9940X, i9-9960X, i9-9980XE, and the Xeon W-2102, W-2104, W-2123, W-2125, W-2133, W-2135, W-2145, W-2155, W-2195 chips.

This discontinuation doesn't come as much of a surprise, as Intel has already had its 10th Generation Cascade Lake X chips on the market for quite some time

This discontinuation will take place over the course of about a year. .. The absolute last 9th-Gen Core-X series CPUs have to be shipped out by July 9th 2021 at the latest.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/20 10:49 AM

Regarding laptop portable PCs:

Quote
MSI Bravo 15 Shows AMD at Its Most Competitive in Years

Our sister site PCMag has given an all-AMD laptop an Editor’s Choice award

[Previously] OEMs refused to put in the work to build competitive AMD systems

Ryzen Mobile has changed that equation and the existing Surface 3 Laptop with an AMD APU was far more optimized for that chip than any previous system AMD has built with a vendor.

The MSI Bravo 15 fields AMD’s Ryzen 4800H (2.9GHz base, 4.2GHz boost) and pairs it with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Storage for both US models is 512GB, and the available GPU, in both cases, is a 4GB Radeon RX 5500M. The display is a 1080p panel with AMD FreeSync support and a maximum 120Hz refresh rate.

But the point is being made — AMD is capable of hanging with an Intel + Nvidia combination.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/20 10:45 AM

Presumed Leak:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G Flagship 8 Core Renoir Desktop APU [CPU & GPU] Overclocked To 4.8 GHz Across All Cores - Also Achieves DDR4-4400 & 2200 MHz FCLK (1:1) on B550 Platform

The two key technologies on the Renoir Desktop CPUs would be the updated Zen 2 cores and the Vega graphics architecture, all on a single monolithic die.


Based on leaks, some have been saying that the Ryzen 7 4000 series APUs have CPUs that will outperform their Ryzen 7 3000 CPU series counterparts. Apparently, they will overclock well also. Believable, but not all leaks are accurate.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/20 09:15 PM

Quote
Semiconductor Heavyweights Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) to Reap a Windfall From Revival in PC Demand, According to Bank of America

As far as AMD is concerned, Arya noted that the semiconductor held just 18 percent of the PC market in Q1 2020. However, AMD’s fourth-generation Ryzen processors expected in the second half of the year will allow the company to “extend its performance lead”.

In light of this prognostication, Bank of America has maintained its ‘Buy’ rating for the two semiconductors, pegging a target stock price of $70 for Intel and $65 for AMD.


And, AMD was a "couple dollars" a share a few years back. Investors should be very happy.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/20 09:19 PM

Quote
ASUS Introduces the PN50: A New And Powerful Mini PC With Ryzen 4000 And Vega 7

ASUS has introduced the PN50: a new Mini PC powered by the Ryzen 7 4800U Mobile processor. It offers an incredibly small form factor, provides incredible connectivity, and can even support up to four displays with 4K resolutions. According to ASUS, The PN50 Mini PC can compete with traditional desktops.


Attached picture ASSU-1480x519.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/20 10:00 PM

Quote
AMD to announce Ryzen 7 4700G, Ryzen 5 4600G and Ryzen 3 4300G for OEM systems

Tomorrow [07/21/2020] AMD will introduce three Ryzen processors featuring Renoir silicon adopted for the AM4 desktop socket. This will be AMD’s first 7nm APU series and first to feature 8 cores and 16 threads.


Attached picture for OEM systems - VideoCardz.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/20 10:32 AM

All rumor/leak information -- so not copying all the speculations into this SimHQ post. But, I would not be surprised if the new higher end Nvidia GPUs are this good.

It's what high end AMD GPUs will be competing with this Fall.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere Gaming Graphics Card Allegedly 20% Faster Than GeForce RTX 2080 Ti


Independent test results and pricing will be interesting when these Nvidia GPUs are released.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/20 03:10 PM

A 20% gain over the previous generation of cards seems awfully small. Why would anyone bother to upgrade given the astronomical price? I'd love to retire my 1080 Ti for something 2X faster, but it sounds like we're not there yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/20 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by BlueHeron
A 20% gain over the previous generation of cards seems awfully small. Why would anyone bother to upgrade given the astronomical price? I'd love to retire my 1080 Ti for something 2X faster, but it sounds like we're not there yet.


They were comparing an "ordinary" RTX 3080 to the high end RTX 2080TI. Speculation is that the RTX 3080Ti may have 50% or more. But, it is very much speculation.

I'm with you though. A 20% increase in FPS sounds good but is going to be invisible to most folks in most games. I would say the same about an AMD product that only offered 20% -- but, I might buy it for the fun of it smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/22/20 11:00 AM

Nominally reliable leak:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX ‘Big Navi’ Enthusiast RDNA 2 Graphics Card Rumored To Feature 16 GB VRAM – Final Design Not Yet Finished, Expected Launch in Q4 2020 In Reference Only Flavors


Verifies end of year release (as expected). However, testing of engineering models has just begun. So, there is no data to leak regarding performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/22/20 05:36 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 4000G Desktop Chips Could Finally Deliver on the Promise of APUs

The Ryzen 4000G family is AMD’s play for customers who want more CPU horsepower but don’t necessarily need a discrete GPU. The onboard graphics on the Ryzen 4000 offer up to 60 percent more performance per CU and while integrated graphics are never going to be anyone’s idea of fast, there are hundreds of indie and low-weight games that run just fine on these kinds of solutions.

Up until now, every big-core APU AMD has built has asked you to give up a significant amount of potential CPU performance in exchange for faster graphics. With the Ryzen 4000G family, that gap appears to basically be gone.


I've "owed" my Son a very good "office PC" for over a year (meantime I gave him a "decent" one to use). I've been patiently waiting for the highest end Ryzen 4XXXG to become available. Its taken longer than I expected. It may not be much longer now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/20 10:42 AM

Quote
AMD confirms Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G [APU] costs 309 USD

The 8-core and 16-thread APU (4750G) featuring 7nm Zen2 cores will cost 309 USD, which is 20 USD less than Ryzen 7 3700X (also 8-core processors but without integrated Vega graphics).

The 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G will cost 209 USD, which is 10 USD more expensive than Ryzen 5 3600 lacking iGPU support. Meanwhile, the cheapest model, Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G is priced at 149 USD.

Do note that the pricing is for both G (65W) and GE series (35W) and only for OEMs and System Integrators. The list does not include the Ryzen 4x00G series (the non-PRO) series [for the public].


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-3000-and-4000-Series-Pricing.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/20 10:51 AM

The future will bring AMD no 7nm CPU competition for a couple years -- according to Intel.

Quote
Intel 7nm Delayed By 6 Months; Company to Take “Pragmatic” Approach in Using Third-Party Fabs

[Intel] announced that their under-development 7nm manufacturing process has suffered a six month delay due to a defect in the process. As a result, the first consumer products aren’t due until at least late 2022, leaving Intel with 10nm as their best in-house manufacturing process for the next couple of years.


Intel 10nm was very late due to manufacturing process defects. So, rather than spend time completely fixing 10nm, Intel moved on to 7nm. They used some of the same defective processes (as 10nm) -- figuring they'd get them fixed along the way to 7nm. It's taking longer than expected.

Intel has fallen slightly behind on CPUs. But, in the long run, I expect Intel to be fully competitive. So, AMD has to "keep their foot on the accelerator" by improving their CPU architectures and pushing towards 5nm, 3nm, etc.

Quote
For perspective, rival foundry TSMC [who fabricates AMD CPUs and GPUs] plans to be on the 3nm node in the same time frame as Intel's new schedule for 7nm.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/20 10:42 PM

The Stock Market reacts to the events of the previous post:

Quote
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) Shares Soar Over 16% as Intel Flounders in the 7nm Arena

AMD shares are up 16.27 percent, trading at $69.26 price level, as of 14:50 ET

The saga began yesterday when Intel revealed as part of its Q2 2020 earnings:

[According to Intel] “The company's 7nm-based CPU product timing is shifting approximately six months relative to prior expectations..."

Intel shares plummeted over 9 percent in the after-hours trading. Today, the stock is down another 16 percent, currently trading at $50.68 price level.


I imagine Intel will rebound. But, this does indicate that AMD is building a "brand name" with more investors who may not have been paying attention.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/20 10:35 AM

Quote
AMD’s Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ APUs With 7nm Vega GPU Have More Graphics Horsepower Than The Original PS4 & Xbox One

Even the AMD Ryzen PRO 4650G will offer superior performance to a PS4 with 2.5 TFLOPs of compute horsepower at a price of $209 US while the Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G is an absolute unit for $149 US with a performance of 1.9 TFLOPs that's faster than the Xbox One S and almost on par with the PS4.

Some gaming tests carried out by Tech Epiphany show decent performance at 1080p in titles such as Assassins Creed Odyssey, GTA V, and Death Stranding:


The point of the article was that a Ryzen 4000 series APU is a decent 1080p gaming solution. So, a low end, cost effective, everyday use Ryzen 4000 APU powered PC can play games decently too.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/20 08:40 PM

Another news item that would have seemed ridiculous 4 years ago.

Quote
Intel 7nm Delay Fallout: Law Firm Launches Securities Fraud Investigation

Bernsteins noted that Intel's most recent earnings call was 'the worst we have seen in 42 years covering Intel" and that the stock is "basically un-ownable."

It certainly isn't uncommon to see lawyers circle as investors look to recoup at least some of their losses after drastic plunges in stock valuations

Intel's most recent Form 10-Q [PDF] lists several ongoing lawsuits that could impact the company,...Intel also continues to argue the details of its 2001 lawsuit for unfair business practices against AMD.


Article

It remains to be seen if Intel actually did any wrong. And, they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But, they have done wrong in the past.

My Opinion: That last underlined sentence is what made me an AMD supporter way back then. AMD had just begun making the best CPUs and expected business to grow (just as now, AMD only had a fraction of the CPU business). Intel's under the table dealings were proven in court to virtually put AMD out of business (on purpose). AMD was awarded $1.5 Billion (IIRC). Intel never paid and may never pay.

Its taken until recently for AMD to become competitive again. We've also seen that -- if Intel "has the market to themselves", they are slow to improve their products and actually work to keep our costs high.

Competition is good smile If any group actually gets total control of any market or situation, improvement slows dramatically or stops while costs increase -- Intel is just one example of very many. Heck, if the situation were reversed, AMD might have done the same thing. As a consumer who is hurt by such practices, I won't support the bad guy whoever it is. End Opinion.

Update:

Quote
Intel’s 7nm meltdown takes it’s first high level head

Analysis: Will the first casualty actually change anything?

SemiAccurate has learned that at least one high level executive has taken the fall for that debacle with an announcement to come as soon as this week.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/20 11:04 AM

Quote
Intel Reorganizes In Wake of 7nm Woes; Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala To Depart


Lots of articles like this one today. I won't be cutting/pasting a play by play account every day. We've got the idea.

Basically, Intel solving its problems by reorganizing internally and sending some production from Intel plants to TSMC plants.

Interestingly, the articles mention that in the near future (now) Intel will jump to 6nm at TSMC for some rumored/speculated things -- while AMD uses TSMC 7nm for near term parts (and is already working on 5nm and 3nm).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/20 08:44 AM

Quote
AMD Q2 2020 Earnings: Record Revenue, Notebook and EPYC Sales, Highest Consumer CPU Sales in 12 Years

AMD's stock soared to record highs on the news of its stellar financial performance and on-track execution for its next-gen Milan CPUs, Zen 3 consumer processors, and RDNA 2 GPUs, all of which come to market later this year. AMD's stock reached a record $74.47, a 9.9% jump in after-hours trading (at the time of writing).

Even more telling, the company raised its full-year revenue projections from 25% growth to 32% on the back of continued growth in the key PC, data center, and gaming segments.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/20 10:48 AM

Quote
AMD Confirms RDNA2, PS5, XSX, Zen 3 Are All on Schedule

According to AMD’s quarterly earnings call this week, .. the company .. will deliver its entire roadmap of upcoming products on-time despite the impact of COVID-19.

AMD has paid off its line of credit while ending the quarter with $1.8B in cash on hand. That’s a far cry from the pre-Ryzen era, when AMD struggled to maintain $750M in cash from quarter to quarter.

AMD expects full-year revenue of to be 1.32x higher than 2019, with a gross margin of ~45 percent. .. still substantially below Intel’s margins

7nm availability continues to be tight, with [AMD CEO] Su declaring that AMD works closely with TSMC to manage overall supply/demand issues. This may tie into reports that Intel will be “battling” AMD for [TSMC] 7nm chips


A couple interesting things: AMD will have $1.8B cash on hand. Intel owes AMD over $1B but is not paying -- that's a relatively significant amount. Also, other articles pointed out that Intel has bought "manufacturing capability" from places like TSMC just so their competitors would have a harder time buying parts (Intel has their own Intel Factories). We'll see if that becomes an issue during the next couple years.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/20 11:43 PM

Quote
Intel has bought "manufacturing capability" from places like TSMC just so their competitors would have a harder time buying parts

Do you have a source? If this would only be about hampering AMD business, this would be quite illegal in the EU.

This could also be a solution to Intel having massive shortages for their 14nm chips, or their own fabs not getting good yields on the 10nm and 7nm procedure. Buying machine time from companies using the ASML lithography process would solve a lot of the problems Intel had in the past decade, and wouldn't be as much about Intel screwing AMD, but more about Intel getting their own ducks in order.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/20 01:04 AM

The long winded version:

I agree with you. Right now, Intel buying from TSMC would first be to solve Intel internal issues. However, a writer noted that there could be a "side benefit" to Intel -- if Intel used up limited resources needed by competitors like AMD. More than one author noted this.

The comment that this has happened in the past was a comment in one of the many articles I read and had to do with past actions. I didn't memorize which article on which site -- I only remembered the information. As mentioned in one article, Intel has several (or more) ongoing litigations in which they are accused of various wrong doings versus competitors. Again, until its proven in a court of law, its only an accusation. It was proven in 2001 vs AMD, for example.

No proof was offered that it was happening now. It was a "thought" by the author of the article I was reading (as is much of what is copied/pasted in this thread). The author based the "thought" on past actions.

Generally, I do not copy/paste or post Intel negative comments unless lots of nominally unbiased folks are currently making similar comments based on rumors/leaks from normally reliable sources. And, then, I paste only because Intel's situation (both real and imagined) impacts AMD's "Future and Current Status". Moreover, I won't paste obviously biased comments or those worded to "inflame" folks against Intel. As frequently noted in this thread, Intel makes good products.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/20 10:36 AM

Regarding the above two posts:

Quote
Rumor: TSMC Won’t Build New Capacity for Intel, Views Orders as Temporary

Intel’s decision to tap pure-play foundries like TSMC for potentially any future project has sent shockwaves through the industry. One of the biggest questions raised in the wake of the announcement is just how temporary it truly is. Intel is definitely positioning the delay as a pragmatic matter of getting its house in order, and for now, TSMC seems to agree.

According to DigiTimes, TSMC has no plans to expand its fab capacity for Intel, viewing it as a temporary customer rather than a long-term win. If you’re a fan of Intel manufacturing (or would like to be again), this is a very good sign.


Of course, if TSMC is not building new capacity for Intel, the capacity has to come from current customers (in one way or another). Again, this "hampering" of some (not all) competitors might be a side benefit for Intel.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/31/20 04:50 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Hopes To Acquire Arm Over The Course Of The Next Few Weeks – Report

(GPU) designer NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA 418.77 -1.36%) was interested in acquiring British semiconductor designer Arm Ltd. Arm, which is currently owned by the Japanese conglomerate Softbank Corp. is responsible for laying the foundation of central processing units found inside smartphones

The details reveal that both parties are interested in finishing up the entire process over the next couple of weeks

the negotiations are far from being concrete as they carry with them the potential to fall apart at this point


Some writers believe that ARM based CPUs have a chance to take over the market from x86 CPUs (AMD and Intel CPUs) -- in the long run.

ARM really is not a new/earthshaking concept. RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) has been around for decades. So far, its efficient for some uses; but, it has shown limitations. Its not obvious its a good idea for a stand alone PC. However, for desktop and handheld devices that get part of their power from the "cloud" (e.g. cellphones), it's obviously useful.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/01/20 10:18 AM

Leaks/rumors/guesses regarding AMDs "Big Navi" GPU have been prevalent. But, I don't believe them yet, so I have not cut/pasted them.

For completeness, here's one -- enjoy this one with several shovels full of salt:

Quote
AMD's Navi 21 GPU to have 80 CUs according to yet another leak

80 CUs translate to 5120 stream processors (assuming the same ratio as GCN) and if AMD is able to run these at a minimum of 1700 MHz, you are looking at an astounding 17.5 TFLOPs of power. .. you are still looking at quite a steep power draw of around 300W (not that any gamer in the high-end segment cares about power draw).

It is entirely possible that this is the Big Navi that was promised to us almost 2.5 years ago and the one that will deliver to AMD fans the high-end card they have been waiting for. .. it is also possible that.. it is still not Big Navi.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/20 10:17 AM

Quote
AMD Reaches Highest Overall x86 Chip Market Share Since 2013

AMD's Cinderella story continued today with a report from Mercury Research, one of the chip industry's premier market analyst firms, that indicates AMD had reached 18.3% of the overall x86 share and 19.7% of the client market. That's the company's highest share since the fourth quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2012, respectively. The company also broke its all-time record for notebook market share penetration.

Intel's 2Q earnings report showed signs of weakness in its desktop processor sales, with desktop platform volumes dropping by 14% compared to both the prior quarter and year. For 2020 as a whole, Intel's desktop platform revenue is down 9%, or $607 million compared to the same point in 2019.


While AMD is only selling 1 of every 5 CPUs, it matters -- because AMD is "climbing the ladder". If, eventually, AMD can reach 25 or 30 percent market share, the company will be solid with good Future income to stay competitive. That will force Intel to be competitive and we customers benefit.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/20 10:15 AM

Quote
Intel confirms Tiger Lake virtual launch event on September 2nd

Intel Tiger Lake is the upcoming mobile processor architecture featuring 10nm process technology. The series will succeed Ice Lake processors. The most significant change to the architecture is the Xe Graphics integrated into the CPU. This will be Intel’s first products to feature Gen12 Xe Graphics.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/20 10:19 AM

Quote
Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G Review: Renoir Ushers in a New Era for 7nm Desktop APUs

Zen 2, Meet 7nm Vega

AMD's Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G "Renoir" desktop APU brings eight Zen 2 cores and 16 threads paired with a reworked Radeon RX Vega graphics engine to the mainstream desktop,

The 65W 4700G/4750G chips, which are unofficially listed for $309, compete with Intel's $323 Core i7-10700 that comes with eight cores and 16 threads. The biggest difference between the Core i7-10700 and the 4700G/4750G boils down to integrated graphics. The 10700 comes equipped with Intel's generally lackluster UHD Graphics 630 engine, while the Renoir model features much faster RX Vega cores.


Attached picture Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/20 10:17 AM

Regarding future competition:

Quote
NVIDIA Teases Next Generation ‘Ampere GPUs’, Begins Countdown To August 31

NVIDIA's official GeForce account has just posted a teaser and a countdown to the official launch of its next-generation Ampere gaming GPUs.

it is unclear at this point whether the Aug 31 event will be a soft launch, paper launch, or just another tease.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/20 10:46 PM

Quote
Happy Birthday to the PC: Either the Best or Worst Thing to Happen to Computing

Thirty-nine years ago today, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer (model number 5150).

The machine itself wasn’t particularly powerful by the standards of the day.

How the IBM PC Changed Everything

AMD exists today in its present form because IBM demanded a guaranteed second-source manufacturer for Intel CPUs, which meant Intel had to grant AMD a license to manufacture x86 products.


So, without the IBM 5150, Intel would have no AMD competition today -- and we'd be paying for it.

By the way, I had one of the first IBMs -- strictly for work (literally). Eventually, IBM changed their design to make it hard for other PC makers to compete. The market rebelled -- after some time of losing business, no more IBM PCs. Through the 80s and 90s, I preferred Intel x86 CPUs to AMD x86 CPUs and bought pre-made commercial PCs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/20 10:54 PM

Quote
Intel Xe-HPG [GPU] for enthusiast gamers coming in 2021

Intel has been actively developing another GPU architecture since 2018. This is another Xe micro-architecture called Xe-HPG optimized for gaming. The XPG roadmap spans from mid-range to enthusiast segments.

The Xe-HPG GPUs are currently being evaluated at Intel labs. The plan is to ship this architecture in 2021.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/20 10:05 AM

Quote
Best CPUs for Workstations August 2020

In our series of Best CPU guides, here’s the latest update to our recommended workstation CPUs list. All numbers in the text are updated to reflect pricing at the time of writing.


Attached picture Best CPUs for Workstations August 2020.png
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/20 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Through the 80s and 90s, I preferred Intel x86 CPUs to AMD x86 CPUs

Weren't up to the 486 the AMD x86's not 1-to-1 copies of the Intel's? Why the preference?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/20 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
Originally Posted by Allen
Through the 80s and 90s, I preferred Intel x86 CPUs to AMD x86 CPUs

Weren't up to the 486 the AMD x86's not 1-to-1 copies of the Intel's? Why the preference?


You got it! AMD's copies were not exact. They did not activate all the features correctly. At least that's what I believed based on my reading -- I never bought one to try.

I started doing some gaming in the early 90s. What started me: I bought a program for "work", they included a Flight Simulator for free, I was hooked -- at home -- only when I had no work left to do. FWIW: Many days, I literally worked many more than 8 hours a day and then literally fell asleep and dreamed I was at work. As they say, "the buck stops with the Project Manager". I solved the unsolvable technical problems to keep the Projects going and on budget (very stressful leading to early retirement).

Anyhow, the lack of features in the AMD command set (belief based on reading, not my testing) ruined performance for some apps and games (based on reading, not my testing). Around 2000, AMD caught up.

P.S. Subsequently, I have learned recently that some compilers in the recent past (and maybe now), do not activate all the AMD CPU features even if they are there. I.e. The compilers were (or are) optimized for Intel and take a slower path if a non-Intel CPU is detected. Maybe that was going on back then. At the end of the day, I don't know if my beliefs (back then) were correct or if it was a problem with the software used for the published tests and software used by AMD users who complained on line.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/21/20 10:13 AM

Lots of articles repeating the same guesswork regarding AMD, Nvidia GPUs. So, no cut/pastes on the thread recently.

The first real information is due September 1 from Nvidia. Presumably, they will be describing their new GPU product's technical details. When they go on sale is still undetermined -- some say mid-September.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/20 10:10 AM

Quote
AMD Downgraded by Northland on Sluggish Data Center Demand in the Second Half of 2020 and the Possibility of Intel Adopting TSMC as a CPU Partner

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD 83.08 -0.87%) has received quite a boost following Intel’s epic stumble in the 7nm arena. .. the company has received a rare downgrade today from the Northland Capital Markets

Northland analyst, Gus Richard, downgraded AMD today from an ‘Outperform’ to a ‘Market Perform’ designation. The analyst also pegged a stock price target of $80 for AMD, corresponding to a 5.5 percent downside potential

Crucially, however, the analyst has also cited the possibility of Intel (NASDAQ:INTC 49.14 -0.28%) turning toward a partnership with TSMC in the production of its 7nm processors as a major contributing factor for today’s subdued prognostication regarding AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/20 03:13 PM

AMD has already started work (designing new technology features) on 5nm and 3nm -- which will be made by TSMC. And TSMC is already has a 5nm plant making 5nm test chips to establish "how to make 5nm chips".

Quote
‘Better Yield on 5nm than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5

A manufacturing process that has fewer defects per given unit area will produce more known good silicon than one that has more defects, and the goal of any foundry process is to minimize that defect rate over time.

As it stands, the current N5 process from TSMC has a lower defect density than N7 did at the same time in its development cycle.


We'll see how things progress. But, right now AMDs future 5nm products seem headed in the right direction.

As noted above, Intel 7nm made in Intel plants has serious issues. Thus, Intel may go to TSMC for some 7nm chips -- but, we don't really know if they will or what chips those will be.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/20 12:02 AM

Nvidia is supposed to describe their new GPUs next Tuesday. Two or three models will be released during September, people are surmising based on some leaks.

Lots of guessing; but, the actual performance remains a mystery. The actual prices remain a mystery.

Meanwhile, AMD is expected to say "nothing" until they see what Nvidia has and at what prices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/20 09:55 AM

Quote
AMD Silently Launches The Radeon RX 5300 3 GB Graphics Card, Features Navi 14 GPU With 1408 Cores

Radeon RX 5300 graphics card, an entry-level product designed for budget gamers. The Radeon RX 5300 comes with the same graphics core as the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards but will come with a lower price point and tweaked specifications.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/20 10:38 AM

Quote
Nvidia’s GeForce Special Event kicks off [today] on September 1 at 9 a.m. PT (12 p.m. ET), with the promise that gamers will see what comes next.

For the unfiltered show, catch it on the Nvidia website.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/20 06:41 PM

That's 'Big Navi' that's just been made redundant then before it's been formally announced!
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/20 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
That's 'Big Navi' that's just been made redundant then before it's been formally announced!

Even if the performance is as claimed and latency is negligable, they can still beat Nvidia on price. These new cards aren't exactly geared towards the budget gamer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/20 09:07 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Announces the GeForce RTX 30 Series: Ampere For Gaming, Starting With RTX 3080 & RTX 3090

The first card out the door will be the GeForce RTX 3080. With NVIDIA touting upwards of 2x the performance of the RTX 2080, this card will go on sale on September 17th for $700. That will be followed up a week later by the even more powerful GeFoce RTX 3090, which hits the shelves September 24th for $1500. Finally, the RTX 3070, which is being positioned as more of a traditional sweet spot card, will arrive next month at $499.


Lots of power available. But, FPS remains unknown. Need the independent test results.

Traditionally, Nvidia has built its reputation on having the fastest FPS card -- regardless of price. I won't be surprised if that's still true. But, price matters. We'll see how AMD responds.

Attached picture Screenshot_2020-09-01 NVIDIA Announces the GeForce RTX 30 Series Ampere For Gaming, Starting With RTX 3080 RTX 3090.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/20 04:28 PM

Quote
Report: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 GPUS To Be In Short Supply Until 2021

Here is the relevant extract from Anthony's report:

"But there is one story I wanted to sit down and make sure I wrote, and that was from an industry source who told me that post-launch there will be "no stock will be available till the end of the year". The first wave of cards is said to be small, very, very small -- possibly the smallest launch in many years...."


May or may-not be true. But, indications are that Nvidia Fans should act quickly when the cards hit -- assuming they wanted one of the first ones at the nominal "retail" price. Rumor is, the prices will rise quickly due to short supply. This is a FWIW industry rumor/leak -- not an Nvidia "knock".
Posted By: RedOneAlpha

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/20 04:32 PM



Overall it´s a kick in the nuts for those RTX20 buyers and Nvidia fans! Lifespan of the RTX20 has been what, a year now?
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/20 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
Originally Posted by Paradaz
That's 'Big Navi' that's just been made redundant then before it's been formally announced!

Even if the performance is as claimed and latency is negligable, they can still beat Nvidia on price. These new cards aren't exactly geared towards the budget gamer.


They can easily beat Nvidia on price, especially as they now have the target numbers in order to undercut...... however price isn't the point regarding 'Big Navi'. AMD were promising big things after the other failures of Vega and subsequent cards.....'Big Navi' was promised to be the Nvidia beater, a premium gaming card that would put AMD back at the top end of performance. Let's be honest, we already know it's no better than 15-20% improvement over a 2080ti if we're lucky. I think there's a fair bit of truth in that people only want AMD to be competitive to bring the price of Nvidia cards down.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/20 12:07 AM

Based on leaks and logic more than one writer and some commenters guessing (for example):

Quote
" [Nvidia] Pricing seems to suggest to me that [Nvidia is] worried about amds offerings which can only be good news for us consumers!"

Wow, someone gets it!!!!
You are absolutely right and this needs repeating. AMD and Nvidia know's each other performance right now! And if nvidia had a clear lead, again, you would be seeing price hikes. But we are not. All Nvidia is saying right now is that they believe AMD cannot match their 3090 which is why they added $200 hike to it.

It seems that [AMD] RDNA 2 will surprise the lot this time in it's price/performance.


We'll see. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/20 12:02 PM

We won't know about AMD's "Big Navi" until October. The published rumors are merely updated older rumors. For example:

Quote
AMD Big Navi and RDNA 2 GPUs: Release Date, Specs, Everything We Know

even without hard numbers from AMD, we have a reasonable idea of what to expect. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 hardware announcements .. give us realistic ideas of where Big Navi is likely to land in the PC world.

Big Navi / RDNA 2 at a Glance

Up to 80 CUs / 5120 shaders
50% better performance per watt
Coming October 7 (rumor)
Pricing is unknown (higher than RX 5700 XT)


The very few items above are reasonable guesses -- not more. Amounts to nothing -- information wise.

Nvidia designers have started talking and indicated their goal was to "double" Nvidia GPU performance -- a very reasonable goal. One imagines AMD had a similar goal -- thus, 5120 improved AMD shaders, for example. That's it for now. Maybe AMD will "leak" some information during September.

Personally, I think Nvidia will keep its "fastest FPS regardless of price" crown with the top model. I expect competitive performance/price from AMD elsewhere.
Posted By: BlueHeron

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/20 02:37 PM

One huge benefit (I hope) is that with RTX and RDNA2 launching around the same time, there should be much better availability of both sets of cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/04/20 01:52 PM

Quote
AMD Plants Big Navi Radeon 6000 Easter Egg in Fortnite

Fire up the rumor mill

Streamer GinaDarling found a teasing text stating "something big is coming to the AMD battle arena," after having to enter a passcode "6000" into a terminal to proceed.


So Big Navi will be an RX6000 series GPU (as expected). And, AMD has taken an initial small step in its "sales campaign" for the new GPUs.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/04/20 07:03 PM

Big Navi Price hit?

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7496...g-navi-with-16gb-price-to-549/index.html
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 10:32 AM

As a happy 4K gamer (using AMD RX5700XT), I'm interested in what it would take to get good 8K eventually.

Quote
Nvidia Clears Up 8K DLSS Upscaling With GeForce RTX 3090

You didn't really expect native 8K at 60 fps, right?

Nvidia provided additional details on 8K gaming and DLSS, which is what we're focused on here.

First, let's address the elephant in the corner. To play games at 8K, you need an 8K display.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of gamers are still using 1080p displays, according to the Steam Hardware Survey.


Long Article

A long explanation of how 8K is not really 8K when gaming. And the issues the 8K gamer will face in getting simulated 8K. Would not matter if it was AMD or Nvidia -- but they focus on Nvidia's new cards.

Nvidia 8K requires Nvidia DLSS to provide simulated 8K. DLSS must be written into each Game's code -- fewer than 10 games support it.

AMD also has a current solution = RIS.

Quote
Testing AMD's new Radeon Image Sharpening: Is It Better than Nvidia's DLSS?
By Tim Schiesser on July 12, 2019

Radeon Image Sharpening is a broad effect that doesn’t require per-game implementation. It’s a simple switch in Radeon Settings.

There is a pretty big catch, though. While Radeon Image Sharpening doesn’t require per-game implementation or any [game] developer intervention, it currently only supports DirectX 12, Vulkan and DirectX 9 games

Bottom Line

Radeon Image Sharpening is genuinely impressive. It doesn’t require any developer implementation and it works well by sharpening the image which can be useful in a variety of situations.


Its the same for 4K gaming. For 4K upscaling Nvidia DLSS works in games written for DLSS. And, AMD RIS works with games written for DX12, DX11, Vulcan, DX9..
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 11:47 AM

As usual, your AMD rose-tinted spectacles actually try to paint a different picture from what the article reports......I'm not sure why you repeat the headline of 'You didn't really expect native 8K at 60 fps, right?' when the 11 game benchmarks are displayed in the graph and yet 8 of them show games running at 8K natively without DLSS and at 60fps or over.

It should be pretty obvious you don't get 'real' 8k without a native 8k display and therefore it's absolutely pointless raving about DLSS and how 'simulated 8K' is such a limitation when you're talking about a card that can and does hit 8k @60fps natively.


You say you're interested in what it would take to get good 8K eventually....and there is your answer, the Nvidia RTX 3900 - the evidence is there, in the article that you linked to!

The thing is, you say you're a happy 4K gamer using an RX5700XT (a 1400p card) which averages 20-40fps in pretty much every game at a 4k resolution, so you can't claim that 60fps minimum is a requirement for contentment either. Sometimes the blind faith to a brand name really negates the text and the articles which you 'report' on! If you actually read the article closely, the real headline of the article is that 8K native at 60fps cannot be met without DLSS when raytracing is enabled. You can't claim that ray tracing is a requirement for contentment either because as an exclusive AMD gamer you're not even using it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 02:10 PM

I link entire articles when they "say a lot" that others might interpret differently. I expected different interpretations. The main point of my post (to me) was to note that Nvidia has DLSS and AMD has RIS -- because some folks may not know much about RIS. I assumed Big Navi will have RIS.

Regarding where Nvidia 8K works "natively" -- from the linked article:

Quote
There are games where natively rendering at 8K is actually viable. They's the usual culprits: lighter fare like CSGO, League of Legends, maybe Overwatch. Nvidia also showed Apex Legends, Destiny 2, Rainbow Six Siege, World of Tanks, and World of Warcraft breaking 60 fps without any upscaling tricks, though it lists high graphics settings (i.e., not ultra), and none of those games support ray tracing effects.


Regarding RX5700XT at 4K: AMD advertises the card as a 1440p card. And, as you note, to get full fidelity graphics at 4K and ultra settings with RX5700XT, one must often be satisfied by a smooth 30FPS. Many of us are. I really "see" no difference between a smooth 30 and a smooth 60. But, I believe there are those with quicker responding eyes who really do "see" (not measure) a difference -- and need more FPS. Also those who compete against other humans need high FPS.

But, for those of us with "slow eyes" a "for example" from my game collection: Assassin's Creed Odyssey is one of the current high end graphics games. I play at ultra settings and widest field of view (exception 2x AA -- as in all my games -- I like the look better) at a steady, glitch free 30FPS. Those who need/want more, need a faster card. No question that Nvidia RTX 3090 is much, much faster smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 03:34 PM

I shut off the forced 30 FPS synchronization mentioned above and got 45 FPS nominal frame rate at 4K native resolution using the Assassin's Creed Odyssey in game graphics test software (RX5700XT).

I tried RIS on Assasin's Creed Odyssey (mentioned above) with in game resolution setting at 1080p. I got 60FPS at 4K on screen.

But then, I wondered, does that make sense? The old RIS article linked above says RIS does NOT work on DX11.

I looked it up on the AMD site. That's changed. RIS now works on DX11 and RIS is supported by most recent AMD GPUs (RIS on RX470 and up -- see attachment). So, I really was getting a true "effective" 4K as advertised (not quite "native" 4K) on screen at 60FPS using RIS. Looked like native 4K to my eyes. Others may have better eyes smile

Attached picture Screenshot_2020-09-05 AMD Radeon™ Image Sharpening.png
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 07:59 PM

You clearly miss the point in your rush to blindly defend AMD.

It's quite obvious what you're trying to point out is that whilst Nvidia can upscale to 8K with limitations (games need to be coded for it), AMD has equivalence with RIS with even less limitations (DX version/vulcan)......however and very bizarrely you choose the RTX 3090 as the card to compare against, probably because you think it offers more weight to your argument or because it's the most powerful GPU about to land on gamers.

Like I said earlier, the quote that you linked to is also trying to make out that 8K/60fps just really isn't happening at all, the first sentence is 'You didn't really expect native 8K at 60 fps, right?....and you've even underlined it in your post to emphasise it. However, like I said, 8 out of the 11 games are hitting 8K/60fps natively and 7 out of the 11 games in the graph don't even benefit from DLSS in the first place. I assume you don't really know much about the games you then emphasised in your reply about 'lighter fare' games being the only ones getting 8K/60fps natively. They may not be the heaviest hitting games, but the likes of Destiny 2, R6 Seige, Forza 4 and World of Tanks still need heavy artillery to get close to 60fps in 4K and reduce systems without the latest CPUs and GPUs to their knees.

The bit that you are still missing is that whilst using the 3090 as your comparitive card, you're using a monster card that doesn't need DLSS to hit 60fps at an 8K resolution in the first place, regardless that you try to emphasise in your post that it can't run games at that resolution/fps natively in the first place. Lets be honest here, any game from the last 5 years getting anywhere close to 60fps at a native 8K is nigh on a miracle, a huge jump from existing generations (the 2080ti is still struggles to hit 60fps at 4K in some games and that's streets ahead of anything else available today). It's pretty much pointless highlighting this sort of info anyway as you're more interested in trying to show how AMD is the best thing since sliced bread when in GPU terms they've disappointed year after year. Now on the CPU side it's a completely different story and they're the only CPUs that anyone should be recommending right now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/20 11:05 PM

Thanks for your viewpoints. They add value.

We see things differently at times. Consequently, we have a hard time understanding each other's viewpoints. I guess we're humans. No harm done smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/07/20 04:55 PM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 teased with 2.1 GHz OC boost clock


All by way of saying the very first RTX 3090 and 3080 won't be the fastest (as is usual with new hardware). And, at some point, there will probably be Ti (or equal) versions according to some pundits.

Right now, there are so many "custom" RTX 3000 versions being leaked/hinted/teased that the "rumor/leak" of low initial RTX3000 supply (noted in an above post) may be in error. Or, Nvidia may actually have prematurely released to "get the jump" on AMD Big Navi. We'll see -- maybe in October. As already mentioned, I would be surprised if "Big Navi" FPS competes with RTX3090 FPS.

The Non Disclosure Agreements for the first cards expire September 14. Then, we'll get the (usually) dozens of third party reviews -- followed by RTX3080 sales beginning September 17.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/20 08:42 AM

AMD provides the CPU/GPU parts of XBox and Sony Playstation.

Quote
[Updated – Now Official] Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X Price Revealed Alongside November Release Date; Series S Design Leaks

Both consoles will be arriving on November 10, with Microsoft’s top entry, the Xbox Series X, selling for $499 at retail. The Xbox Series S, previously known as Project Lockhart, will be sold at a very attractive price point - $299.

it's now up to Sony to reveal the price and release date of its PlayStation 5.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/20 04:48 PM

Its official:

Quote
AMD to introduce Zen3 on October 8, Radeon RX 6000 series on October 28

AMD today announced it will host two separate events in October. The first event will cover Zen3 architecture and most likely Ryzen 4000 series processors codenamed Vermeer. This event is scheduled for October 8th.

On October 28th, AMD will showcase its Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards (the name has been confirmed in a tweet). These graphics cards are based on RDNA2 architecture.

As promised, the RDNA2 GPUs will therefore be announced before gaming consoles, based on the same architecture. The announcement takes place in late October, so we expect the availability of the new graphics cards somewhere in November.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/10/20 10:48 AM

"A New Journey Begins" is the official AMD description for this wave of upgrades.

Quote
AMD Announces Ryzen "Zen 3" and Radeon "RDNA2" Presentations for October: A New Journey Begins

[From AMD ] "Dr. Lisa Su and other AMD senior executives will kick-off this new journey for “Zen 3” and AMD Ryzen at 12 p.m. ET, October 8th.

learn more about our RDNA 2 architecture, Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, and our deep collaboration with game developers ... at 12 p.m. ET, October 28th
".


As already noted, AMD is already working on the 5nm and 3nm future of the New Journey. So, in that sense, it is a "Journey" that will play out over the next few years.

Attached picture NewJourney_678x452.jpg
Attached picture CPU_Roadmap_575px.png
Attached picture Navi_Gen_PPW_575px.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/10/20 06:16 PM

Quote
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3090 Graphics Card Is An Absolute Unit – Triple-Slot Monster Pictured Inside Standard ATX Case

The GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card isn't just the biggest Founders Edition graphics card in the RTX 30 series lineup but its also the largest for NVIDIA's entire FE generation of cards with the only exception being the triple-slot Titan Z but that card featured two chips while the RTX 3090 features just one GPU.

..the GeForce RTX 3090 seems to be a force of its own..


Nvidia turned over all the stones to make the 3090 the most powerful GPU. For example, its virtually the largest GPU that can fit in a normal PC case, its heavy, and it uses 350W requiring very special cooling.

That's competition between Nvidia and AMD in action. Competition is good smile

Attached picture NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-3090-Graphics-Card-Pictured_1-1480x1184.jpg
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/10/20 06:31 PM

From the press conference, it was immediately clear that the 3090 isn't a consumer card, so it makes sense that the price, size and power requirements are similar to Titan. However, the pricing is much lower than Titans from the past. Why, when you can ask almost double the price?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/20 02:01 AM

At one notable retailer -- but thought to be indicative of the general situation:

Quote
AMD Ryzen Continues To Decimate Intel Core CPUs In The DIY Segment – High-End $300 US+ Ryzen CPU Sales Exceed Intel’s Entire Line

The latest figures come from Mindfactory who is a well-known name in our community as one of the largest German retailers of PC hardware.

AMD's Ryzen CPUs which include their 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen parts accounted for 84% of the sales at the retailer or about 20,000 CPU units whereas Intel's 9th & 10th Gen parts only accounted for 16% sales with less than 5,000 CPU units. Based on the numbers, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 was the most popular CPU followed by Ryzen 7 3700X.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-CPU-Intel-Core-CPU_Market-Share_August-2020_Mindfactory_9-740x666.png
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-CPU-Intel-Core-CPU_Market-Share_August-2020_Mindfactory_8-740x666.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/20 07:23 AM

Nvidia has slightly delayed Nvidia GPU reviews scheduled for Monday.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 reviews: September 16th, RTX 3070: October 15th

NVIDIA has apparently changed the embargo date for GeForce RTX 3080 reviews. We were supposed to see the reviews of Founders Edition models on Monday. Custom board reviews and full unveil (including board designs etc.) were scheduled for September 17th.

Today NVIDIA announced that RTX 3080 reviews will in fact come later two days later and just one day before the official launch and retail availability, on September 16th.

Additionally, NVIDIA has confirmed that GeForce RTX 3070 will be available on October 15th.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/13/20 09:53 AM

As we know, there is a Gaming version of the RTX3090 coming out this month and Nvidia will also provide a Quadro/Pro version that activates all the cores:

Quote
Next-generation NVIDIA Quadro RTX (Ampere) to feature 10752 CUDA cores

Next-generation Quadro gets full GA102 GPU

The card would allegedly feature 10752 CUDA cores and 48 GB of GDDR6 non-X memory. This would mean that the next-gen Quadro has 256 CUDA cores more than RTX 3090 graphics card and twice the memory.


The above is a Pro card. The gaming card, RTX3090, starts at $1499; and, rumors/leaks indicate that some custom gaming versions of the RTX3090 will hit $2000 -- much cheaper than Pro cards.

Attached picture NVIDIA Quadro RTX (Ampere).png
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/13/20 12:49 PM

Not a news story, but a look at the scale of the structures and gates of a Ryzen CPU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYF7Qym9Pq0
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/20 12:34 AM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
Not a news story, but a look at the scale of the structures and gates of a Ryzen CPU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYF7Qym9Pq0


Watched it. It will be interesting to see the concluding video. I assume they will determine that Intel 14nm is not literally 14nm and AMD 7nm is not literally 7nm.

It has been my understanding that the nm number as applied to CPUs and GPUs is not an exact measurement of the literal "size" of things. Its more a marketing tool to help describe in simple language the relative capabilities of two circuits. It involves size and other factors boiled down to a number the customer can understand. In that sense, the actual size of two circuits could be nearly the same, but they will have different nm ratings -- or other combinations.

Moreover, CPUs and GPUs do not necessarily have a constant nm measurement all over the die. The size depends on what part of the die one is measuring.

It will be fun to see their measurements and hear their interpretations in the next video. I'm sure I will learn something. Please link it when it comes out smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/20 09:56 AM

Regarding future competition for AMD and Intel:

Intel will be in the GPU business in a big way next year (they say). Now, Nvidia is making a play to be a force in the CPU business. So, in a few years we may have 3 large companies competing in both GPU and CPU (AMD, Intel, Nvidia). Competition is good smile

Quote
It’s Official: NVIDIA To Acquire Arm For $40 Billion

NVIDIA this evening announced that it is buying Arm Limited for $40 billion. The cash and stock deal will see NVIDIA buy the semiconductor and IP design firm from SoftBank and its associated SoftBank Vision Fund, with NVIDIA taking an eye towards expanding Arm’s IP licensing business while also using Arm’s technology to further pierce into the datacenter market. The deal is just being formally announced today and will likely not close for some time, as it is expected to be required to clear multiple regulatory hurdles in the UK, US, China, and other governments across the globe.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/20 09:27 PM

As noted above:

Quote
Jensen Huang Says Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs Are a Possibility

Buying Arm is just the beginning.

According to comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a conference call yesterday, we could see Nvidia-branded CPUs in the future, setting the stage for a new level of competition with Intel and AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/20 09:39 PM

Quote
AMD showcases Radeon RX 6000 graphics card design

AMD Radeon RX 6000: Is this Big Navi ‘RX 6900XT’?

The graphics card features a dual-slot design with three axial fans. The card is also confirmed to feature up to two 8-pin power connectors. This is most likely the Radeon RX 6900XT (or whatever the flagship model is called). The card also features a new Radeon logo.


The image supports the guess that Big Navi will have high power usage (like RTX3080).

Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6000-Graphics-Card-Big-Navi-2048x912.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/20 09:39 AM

More Images:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series Graphics Cards Pictured, Radeon RX 6900 With Triple-Fan & Radeon RX 6800 / 6700 With Dual-Fan Cooling

The card will feature dual 8-pin power and display ports would include a USB Type-C (VirtualLink), 1 HDMI, and 2 DisplayPort connectors.

The Radeon RX "Big Navi" GPU looks like it will come in the standard 2-slot reference design which is the same as NVIDIA's flagship RTX 3080 but not as huge as the triple-slot GeForce RTX 3090.


Attached picture RX-6800_Radeon-RX-6700-Graphics-Cards_1.png
Attached picture RX-6900-Graphics-Cards_1-1480x1327.png
Attached picture RX-6900-Graphics-Cards_2-1480x784.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/20 09:47 AM

Quote
AMD Navi 2X GPUs (RDNA2) to support AV1 decoding

RDNA2 architecture will support AV1 decoding on the desktop Radeon series (RX and Pro). Both Navi 21 (Sienna Cichlid) and Navi 22 (Navy Flounder) will feature Video Core Next 3.0 implementation.

The AV1 decoding support is becoming a standard.

Microsoft is adding AV1 Video Extension which should boost AV1 performance in Windows 10 at a higher resolution. Google also updated its Chrome web browser on Windows 10 to support AV1 hardware decoding.

The AV1 is a new, open, royalty-free video encoding format with up to 50% more bitrate efficiency over H264,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/20 01:08 PM

Nvidia RTX3080 reviews were legally released 5 minutes ago. Here's the first one I saw:
Quote

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review: A Huge Generational Leap in Performance

By Jarred Walton 5 minutes ago

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition is here, claiming the top spot on our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, and ranking as the best graphics card currently available — provided you're after performance first, with price and power being lesser concerns.

The bottom line, if you don't mind spoilers, is that the RTX 3080 FE is 33% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, on average. Or, if you prefer other points of comparison, it's 57% faster than the RTX 2080 Super, 69% faster than the RTX 2080 FE — heck, it's even 26% faster than the Titan RTX!

But there's a catch: We measured all of those 'percent faster' results across our test suite running at 4K ultra settings. The lead narrows if you drop down to 1440p, and it decreases even more at 1080p. It's still 42% faster than a 2080 FE at 1080p ultra, but this is very much a card made for higher resolutions.


They note the probably early "sell out" of the first available cards.

I'll link to the site having links to all the reviews later -- when I see it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/20 01:16 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review Roundup

For reasons unknown, NVIDIA decided to split the review embargo for Founders Edition (lifting today) and board partners’ card reviews (lifting tomorrow). Today we can only read reviews of NVIDIA’s own model.

NVIDIA Founders Edition for Ampere series is not, so to speak, a reference design. This graphics card will only be sold by NVIDIA and it will feature special features, such as its own board design and Molex Microfit (12-pin) power connectors.


Link To 3080 Founder's Edition Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/20 10:55 PM

Playstation CPU/GPU made by AMD. It and XBOX include raytracing.

Quote
SONY PlayStation 5 to cost 499 USD, coming November 12th

The device will be available in two variants: with built-in Bluray player for 499 USD and an all-digital model for 399 USD. This means that both high-end competing consoles [PS and XBOX] will carry the same price tag.


Attached picture Screenshot_2020-09-16 SONY PlayStation 5 to cost 499 USD, coming November 12th - VideoCardz com.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/20 10:47 AM

Quote
Nvidia's RTX 3080 is going on sale at 6am [Pacific Time -- 9AM Eastern Time]

Online retailer Newegg has tweeted that it will be selling Nvidia RTX 3080 cards from 6am tomorrow, noting that, "They are in HIGH demand so be ready to purchase as they will be flying off our digital shelves."


P.S. Prices at Newegg currently (8:00 ET) from $700 to $770 plus shipping.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/20 07:16 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 CUSTOM Graphics Cards Review Roundup

Today the embargo on custom designs officially lifts. Starting from now you can also order the first Ampere-based graphics card.


They seem sold out at Newegg. They do not say when more will arrive. There was a rumor that there would be very few cards actually for sale this month -- that this was a publicity related pre-release of a sort. We'll see.

Initial RTX 3080 performance is turning out like my "back of envelope" calculations said it would (faster ones are coming). Now, I hope the "reference" "Big Navi" hits my "back of envelope" FPS numbers for the "rumored price".

Custom 3080 Review Links
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/20 09:57 PM

Quote
NVIDIA issues a statement on GeForce RTX 3080 going immediately out of stock

RTX 3080: A big launch of big GPU with tiny supply

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 launch day will definitely be remembered as a paper launch. Around the world,

The stock has immediately been depleted, almost as if there was no stock at all.

It is also worth mentioning that two weeks ago TweakTown had a story that Ampere may see limited stock until the end of this year. But at the time there was no way of confirming this information.

[From Nvidia] "Over 50 major global retailers had inventory at 6 a.m. pacific. Our NVIDIA team and partners are shipping more RTX 3080 cards every day to retailers. We apologize to our customers for this morning’s experience.”


Thus, the leaks/rumors of limited supply were possibly correct (not proven). They said Nvidia would produce a few cards using preliminary batches of chips to get the jump on Big Navi. But, full chip production would not begin for at least a couple months because "low chip yield" problems had to be "worked out". We'll see how things turn out over the next couple months.

In any case, those who have to wait will have improved versions of RTX3080/3090 to pick from -- maybe that's a good thing for those Nvidia consumers.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/20 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
They said Nvidia would produce a few cards using preliminary batches of chips to get the jump on Big Navi. But, full chip production would not begin for at least a couple months because "low chip yield" problems had to be "worked out".

This has been debunked by Gamersnexus: Report: Availability & Supply of NVIDIA RTX 3080 Video Cards

Check out the full video for the full story, but multiple sources have confirmed that the amount of cards available have been on par with previous Nvidia launches. Demand is just unreasonably high at the moment for various reasons.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/20 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by Vaderini
Originally Posted by Allen
They said Nvidia would produce a few cards using preliminary batches of chips to get the jump on Big Navi. But, full chip production would not begin for at least a couple months because "low chip yield" problems had to be "worked out".

This has been debunked by Gamersnexus


Thanks for the link. Folks can watch the video and make their own minds up. That's a goal of this thread -- provide info and let the people decide.

As noted in an above comment, I personally don't know the answers regarding Marketing and Chip Yield. RTX 3080 is a good card for the price. And, Big Navi is not likely to beat RTX 3090 FPS. I'm not grinding any axes -- just pasting the salient comments from articles and at times summarizing them in a few words below the "cut and past" section.

I watched the whole thing. "Debunked" is too strong (to my way of thinking). I saw it as an "Explanation" of a "Viewpoint". He did not address possible "low chip yield". He did not address the possible "marketing" aspects of releasing now. He said at-release stock was as high as ever for some card makers -- but also noted card sales are much greater now than in past months and years. He did not address if they should have planned for that. Etc.

FWIW: I believe if I want one of the first "Big Navi" cards, I'll have to jump on it as soon as it comes on line -- I expect the first stock to dissipate rapidly -- just as with RTX3080. Rumors are that "Big Navi" will be in short supply for several weeks after release.

On RTX3000 cards and Big Navi card availability, we'll see how it plays out over the rest of 2020.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/21/20 12:24 AM

Quote
Custom 410W GeForce RTX 3090 Brings The Bling And The Heat

Emtek, a South Korean brand,.. has announced the Xenon GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo Jet OC D6X 24GB, which comes with a glittering shroud and a blistering maximum power consumption of 410W.

...which explains the beefy cooler and the triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors


AMD RX5700XT came out using 220+ watts and some people were saying that was too much.

Many years ago, AMD released the potentially fastest GPU. So, to compete, Nvidia produced a factory overclocked, high power usage GPU with a speculated 2 year use life. At that time, Nvidia said 2 years was okay because Nvidia fans buy a new card every two years anyway. No problem. Some people want the fastest FPS no matter what -- and Nvidia said long ago they would always have the fastest card. AMD said, back then, they understood the situation -- and went for Performance/Price.

The interesting part is that back then Nvidia's solution to a truly competitive AMD GPU -- was a high power usage Nvidia GPU. AMD fans can hope that the GTX3080 and GTX3090 power use is due to Nvidia realizing Big Navi really is a "problem" for them. Just speculation. We'll know more when Big Navi launches.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/23/20 07:45 PM

This is not a big deal. No doubt they will fix it. But, it happened. So, for completeness:

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Users Report Crashes & Black Screens During Gaming

buyers who did manage to get the cards at launch are now facing severe crashes during gaming. The problems have been reported at the majority of forums which include Computerbase, LinusTechTips, OCUK, and even NVIDIA's own forums.

the issue seems to be specific to the custom variants of the GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. The main issue that is being reported is that the cards crash to the desktop while gaming

We can't say for sure if the issue has more so to do with the software-side or if the existing clocks speeds are just too high for the RTX 3080 AIBs to handle.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/23/20 08:07 PM

Quote
Nvidia Confirms: RTX 3090 Performance 10% To 15% Faster Than RTX 3080 in 4K Gaming, Limited Supply

10% to 15% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 at 4K gaming.

The GeForce RTX 3090 officially goes on sale tomorrow. The Founders Edition will retail at $1,499, and custom models could cost between $1,499.99 to $1,799.99... Nvidia itself has acknowledged that stock will be extremely limited.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/20 12:15 PM

Quote
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3090 GPU Pre-Orders Start [9:00am ET, 6:00am PT]


Nominally on sale in 45 minutes. Not just Pre-orders -- some sites have small stock in hand, they say. Independent RTX3090 reviews were said to be permitted to post today also.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/20 01:09 PM

I checked in at Newegg a few seconds after 9:00. They had two RTX3090 brand-names listed as "add to cart". The rest were "out of stock".

By 9:02, they were all listed "out of stock". By 9:08, their server had "gone down".

Quote
Thank you for visiting Newegg.com. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience but we are currently experiencing problems on our server. Please try again at a later time.
If you have any questions, please visit our FAQs or simply contact us and our helpful staff will alleviate any concerns you may have.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/20 04:49 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Graphics Cards Review Roundup


Page That Links Dozens of Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/20 09:44 AM

Merely a confirmation of new AMD Navi code names:

Quote
AMD Sienna Cichlid confirmed as Navi 21, Navy Flounder is Navi 22

those codenames have no meaning, they are generated from a random selection of word lists. We believe this is a technique to derail the interest of everyone looking for RDNA2 GPUs information.


AMD Sienna Cichlid is Navi 21 or "Big Navi". Navi 22 and 23 are lower price cards. Code names are used by AMD, TSMC, and Software/Game developers to communicate.

The Navi 21, etc. will be "announced" in late October. They are expected to be on sale in November/December.

Attached picture AMD Sienna Cichlid.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/20 12:15 PM

[EDIT] This article has been officially debunked. It does not "confirm". See post just below.

Says "Confirms". But, it is based on an "unofficial" comment.

Quote
AMD Confirms Volume For Radeon RX 6000 Graphics Card Launch

AMD's Frank Azor, Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions, has [unofficially] confirmed that AMD's RX 6000 series will have ample supply at launch for everyone.

the new graphics cards are expected [not confirmed] to hard launch on October 28.

Keep in mind we might see some supply bottlenecks happen or logistical delays with shipments that last a week or two...

If you are wondering with what is happening over at NVIDIA... .. yields for the initial few batches of the Samsung 8nm node are lower than expected and expensive. To protect its shareholders, the company has been cautious about its orders of the first few batches [i.e. ordered fewer than needed to fill expected orders] .
..

The Samsung 8nm node is not "perfected" yet -- so, Nvidia is procuring at reduced levels. AMD uses TSMC 7nm that is well established -- so, its safe and cost effective to procure large quantities. We'll see.
Posted By: Vaderini

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/20 04:29 PM

Since publication, Frank Azor has clarified/backtracked on what he has said

Originally Posted by wccftech
Update: Frank has denied making any supply guarantees. The bet was only about it not being a paper launch. Because of this, we aren't sure what the bet was all about because NVIDIA launched with some volume as well - and technically wasn't a paper launch either.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/29/20 10:23 PM

There has been nothing new to report on AMD recently -- regarding CPUs and GPUs. Just rehashes of the speculations we've already read and some new leak-type information that may not be accurate.

We're supposed to get official information on the Ryzen 5000 series of CPU on October 8.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/20 10:48 AM

More speculation based on older data suggests the actual availability of Ryzen 5000 CPUs will be in late October and actual availability of RX6000 GPUs in November. Supposedly, AMD will "paper launch" them sooner in October (as posted above).

The hardware sites are lacking data. But, they have to publish something (its their job) -- so lots of untrustworthy guessing lately. This post is just to let you know, I'm still checking for "real/concrete/empirical" information (or at least believable leaks) regarding the new AMD CPUs and GPUs to copy/paste into this thread.

My technique is to check 9 (or more) technical/gaming sites each day for my own amusement. Then, I copy/paste here the cogent comments relevant to the title of the thread and gamers. Not many of those on a given day.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/02/20 10:49 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Retail Launch Pushed Back To 29th October, A Day After AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 Unveil
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/20 10:07 AM

There were articles saying AMD was discontinuing RX5700 GPUs. They were not factual (a lot of that going on lately).

Quote
AMD: 'We are continuing to produce RX 5700 series graphics cards.'

Don’t believe the rumors- RX 5700 isn’t dead yet.

[from AMD] “We are continuing to produce the Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards, which deliver exceptional 1440p gaming experiences,” AMD told Tom’s Hardware in an email. “We will continue to respond to market demand.”

since the RX 5700 cards are about 10% faster than their RTX 2060 line counterparts while coming in cheaper than an RTX 3070 will, there’s still room for them among AMD fans who don’t plan to upgrade to 4K


I run my RX5700XT at 4K all the time at Ultra in-game settings with visually smooth framerates. Only exception is MSFS2020. That I run at 2K in game and the RX5700XT Radion Image Sharpening (RIS) function raises it to 4K on screen. RIS works with any game to raise the detail level at a cost of only a couple percent frame rate (Nvidia advertises a similar function that only works in a few games programmed for it).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/20 09:06 PM

Apparently, its "official":

Quote
Nvidia CEO: GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 Shortages To Last Until 2021


This squares with pre-launch rumors (noted above) that supply would be limited until the new year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/20 10:20 AM

Quote
Don't waste money chasing RAM speed for gaming on AMD or Intel

At 4K the system is clearly bottle necked by the GPU. Faster RAM does show some some small minimum FPS gains, but a couple of percent here and there isn’t significant.

At 1080p we start to get a clearer picture. F1 2020 shows that faster RAM has a large impact on performance.

The overall story is clear. For the sake of a few extra dollars or a handful of quid, go with a set of DDR4-3200 and you’ll be all set. It won’t cost much more than 2,400MHz or 2,666MHz RAM. 3,600MHz is about where you start to hit a limit for good value.


In summary, 3.2GHz will do it (as I found in my tests). According to the article, memory speed is a significant factor only if one plays at 1080p and wants extreme frame rates.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/20 01:24 AM

Rumor:

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB Currently Planned For Launch In December

Considering the fact that killer apps like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 already chomp away all the vRAM the 2080 Ti had to offer, 10 GB [in the current RTX3080] is going to feel tiny after a year or two... With AMD launching a card with 16GB of vRAM [Big Navi], NVIDIA had to reply with their own high vRAM card.

This also lends credence to something we have been saying for multiple weeks now: that RTX 30 supply will improve significantly before the end of the year as the [Samsung GPU chip] stock with good yields kicks in.

To those who are hearing this for the first time, our sources told us that the current supply/demand situation was pre-meditated in the sense that NVIDIA did not want to place too large an order when Samsung's 8nm yields were less than perfect. The company waited for the yields to improve and they expect the bulk of the volume to hit sometime around the holiday season.


Rumor has it that Samsung's 8nm chips have issues compared to TSMC 7nm. The Samsung's aren't bad. Its just that they are less efficient. Folks are predicting Big Navi made with TSMC 7nm to be competitive with RTX3080. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/20 09:25 AM

Quote
AMD confirms to skip 4000 series, Zen3 CPUs are called Ryzen 5000

the title of the upcoming announcement on YouTube does seem to suggest AMD will be focusing on gaming performance – Intel’s last bastion

AMD is rumored to announce four processors today: 5600X, 5800X, 5900X, and 5950X. Based on the most recent rumors is expected to launch two of those processors already in October (20th was reported by 1usmus). The 5950X and 5600X are supposedly launching later (we heard December for 5950X).


The new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are rumored to be announced today at 12noon EDT. A noticeable speed bump is expected.

The video site is active -- so, its happening. Gaming is to be emphasized.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/20 04:33 PM

Watched the video for Zen 3.

The pushed the gaming improvements -- which are mostly visible at 1080p for any CPU (AMD or Intel).

They also hinted at what we'll get from "Big Navi" with a couple actual performance numbers.

Looks good because the claimed increase in performance seems significant (we'll let the pundits publish the results -- I'll cut and paste).

Zen 3 goes on sale November 5 at "normal" AMD type prices. I'll no doubt buy one smile or maybe even two when the APU version releases biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/20 05:05 PM

No independent test results yet. But, in general, the claims seem realistic. Zen 3 is not Zen 2+. Zen 3 is a major design change.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 and Zen 3 on Nov 5th: +19% IPC, Claims Best Gaming CPU
by Dr. Ian Cutress

AMD’s latest Zen 3 microarchitecture, promising a 19% raw increase in performance-per-clock, well above recent generational improvements. The new processors are socket-compatible with existing 500-series motherboards, and will be available at retail from November 5th. AMD is putting a clear marker in the sand, calling one of its halo products as ‘The World’s Best Gaming CPU’.

The Ryzen 9 5950X's [$799] main competition is either a AMD chip in the Ryzen 9 3950X, which currently retails for $710, or Intel's 18-core high-end desktop processor, the Core i9-10980XE, seen as low as $803.

AMD says that the Ryzen 9 5900X, at $549, is expected to compete directly against Intel's Core i9-10900K, which has an MSRP of $529.

AMD expects that the Ryzen 7 5800X, at $449, is likely to be competing against Intel's Core i7-10700K, which has an MSRP of $409. In our recent guide, we've seen the i7-10700K retail at $380.

The competition for the Ryzen 5 5600X is likely to be Intel's Core i5-10600K, which has the same MSRP of $299.

All four processors have the same official memory support at DDR4-3200, and the 105 W TDPs will offer a turbo power of 142 W, which is the same as the current generation Ryzen processors.


AMD Zen 3 IPC (Instructions per Clock) are high. Thus, maximum boost clocks don't tell the whole story when comparing AMD to Intel. AMD is claiming top single-core gaming performance with their top CPU. We'll see when the independent test reports become available (I assume that will be in November). I assume I'll choose between the Ryzen 5800X and Ryzen 5900X -- just for fun -- my 3800X plays all my games just fine.

Attached picture AMD Claims Best Gaming CPU.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/20 11:05 PM

During the Ryzen 5000 series presentation, AMD gave a small amount of information regarding the Navi GPUs.

Quote
AMD teases Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” 4K performance

A GPU codenamed Big Navi, would provide a 60FPS+ experience across three games: Borderlands 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, and Gears 5 all at the highest available settings:

Planet 3DNow! made a quick comparison with reviews from Eurogamer (using Founders Edition) and Hexus (using MSI GAMING X TRIO) and they came up with the following results: [shown in the attachment]

It is also important to note that AMD tested RX 6000 with Ryzen 9 5900X CPU...Whether that affects 4K performance, we don’t know yet.


In this tease, the Big Navi gave similar performance to RTX3080 -- as some have been speculating.

Attached picture Radeon-RX-6000-Performance-1.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/10/20 10:17 PM

Regarding the Business Expansion side:

Quote
AMD Is in Advanced Talks to Buy Xilinx

Deal that could be worth more than $30 billion would mark the latest big tie-up in the rapidly consolidating industry

An acquisition of Xilinx would put AMD on a more even competitive footing with Intel and give it a bigger position in fast-growing telecommunications and defense markets.

The companies are discussing a deal that could come together as soon as next week, the people said. There is no guarantee they will get there
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/13/20 08:34 AM

Another possible future direction for AMD and challenging Intel:

Quote
AMD Files New Project Quantum Patent – Coming Back From The Dead?

The last time we heard of AMD's Project Quantum was almost four years ago when AMD made the ambiguous promise that the project wasn't dead and would someday be back. Project Quantum was shelved almost a full year after its initial announcement back in 2015

AMD Project Quantum patent filed with new integrated PSU, is the company coming for Intel NUC's lunch?

everything is ripe for AMD to offer a competitor to Intel's NUC line and I am sure that OEMs would be lining up to help create this. ... With both next-generation consoles adopting x86 and PC design methodology with their builds, maybe its time that x86 machines adopt the console form factor for some serious win.


Attached picture AMD-Project-Quantum_2-1480x833-1.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Project-Quantum-1-740x523.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/20 01:53 PM

A very long interview with the AMD CTO that describes how Zen 3 CPUs are different (a major new design -- not just a Zen 2 bump). Claiming 19 percent higher instructions per clock than Zen 2. And, he indicates where all the many improvements come from. Zen 3 was designed with an eye on being the best for gaming (among all other things) while working in many of the recent AM4 motherboards (plug-n-play after BIOS update provided by MB manufacturer). We'll see when the independent review articles hit.

Quote
AMD Zen 3: An AnandTech Interview with CTO Mark Papermaster

MP: Our focus on Zen 3 has been raw performance - Zen 2 had a number of areas of leadership performance and our goal in transitioning to Zen 3 was to have absolute performance leadership.


Long Article

Attached picture 9637328_575px.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/20 11:40 AM

Official List Prices from AMD. Available November 5. Images attached.

As an aside, I just purchased a relatively inexpensive (not dirt cheap) Acer Swift 3 Thin & Light Laptop, 14" Full HD IPS, AMD Ryzen 7 4700U Octa-Core with Radeon Graphics, 8GB LPDDR4, 512GB NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6, Backlit KB, Fingerprint Reader, Alexa Built-in, SF314-42-R9YN. It replaces a Windows 8 era AMD powered laptop.

Nothing special, just a light weight, easy to carry laptop that nominally runs at low GHz. Not intended for serious gaming. Not saying anyone else should buy one.

What was interesting to me is the AMD 8core/8thread Ryzen 7 4700U APU performance. In a Benchmark the single core score was very near my Ryzen 7 3800X. The 8 thread score was over 7 times the single thread score (8 times would be perfect). Moreover, at 1080p, it does play one of my favorites, Grim Dawn, smoothly at all ultra graphics settings just using the APU (does not have a separate graphics card installed). The 4700U APU provides serious machine for some portable uses - and an occasional game.

You folks with up to date laptops probably know all this. But, I was slightly surprised to see the low power Laptop APU single core benchmark so close to my main PC CPU.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5950X-1.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-5000-Presentation-11.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/20 03:19 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 7 5800X “Zen 3” CPUs Benchmarked, Much Faster Than Their Ryzen 3000 Predecessors

For the processor arithmetic tests, the Ryzen 9 5950X is around 9% faster than the Ryzen 9 3950X, the Ryzen 9 5900X is around 18% faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X while the Ryzen 7 5800X is around 20% faster than the Ryzen 7 3800X. The 10-20% average improvement in arithmetic tests shows the stronger IPC lead for Ryzen 5000 CPUs over the last-gen Ryzen 3000 lineup.

processor multi-media (Mpix/s) tests, here we see a vast improvement in CPU performance. The Ryzen 9 5950X is 25% faster than the Ryzen 9 3950X, the Ryzen 9 5900X is up to 35% faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X and even outpaces the Ryzen 9 3950X. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is a massive 42% ahead of its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 3800X, and even comes close to the 12 core Ryzen 9 3900X.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-5000-Zen-3-Desktop-CPU-Benchmarks_Ryzen-9-5950X-Ryzen-9-5900X-Ryzen-7-5800X_2.png
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-5000-Zen-3-Desktop-CPU-Benchmarks_Ryzen-9-5950X-Ryzen-9-5900X-Ryzen-7-5800X_1.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/19/20 09:35 AM

Rumor/Leak:
Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Navi 21 XT, Navi 21 XL “Big Navi” GPU Clocks Speeds Reportedly Up To 2.4 & 2.2 GHz, Huge Jump From Base To Boost Clocks

Navi21 XL
> Base clock 1350MHz to 1400MHz
> Game clock 1800MHz to 1900MHz
> Boost clock 2100MHz (maybe 2200MHz)

Navi21 XT
> Base clock 1450MHz to 1500MHz
> Game clock 2000MHz to 2100MHz
> Boost clock 2200MHz to 2400MHz


RX5700XT boost is "officially" 1950 for games (mine runs benchmarks that fast or faster). Big Navi is rumored/leaked to have twice as many Shaders as RX5700XT. So, Big Navi may be more than twice the FPS as RX5700XT -- making it an RTX3080 competitor.

AMD has teased Big Navi performance as being in the RTX3080 range (in the games used for the "tease"). Pricing rumors say that Big Navi will cost less than RTX3080. We'll see,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/20 08:38 PM

Nvidia had low RTX3080 stock to begin with. That was compounded by "scalpers" buying up stock to sell at above retail price.

AMD plans higher Navi stock -- but, could also be "scalped".

Quote
AMD issues guidelines to retailers to prevent Radeon RX 6000 scalping


Attached are the guidelines sent out by AMD. Of course, some sellers might not follow the guidelines.

Attached picture AMDAntiScalper.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/20 10:30 AM

Videocardz site believes they actually have actual Big Navi and smaller Navi specifications. But, its a leak, not a "test verified" set of numbers.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6900XT to feature Navi 21 XTX GPU with 80 CUs

AMD Radeon RX 6000 series specifications have been known to us since Monday. This week AMD provided a lot of details to AIBs, including new (working) drivers, final SKU names, and so on. We have been able to cross-check parts of the specs and we feel confident that these are more or less final.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT – Navi 21 XTX

AMD’s Big Navi will feature 80 Compute Units (5120 Stream Processors). This card will be (for now) AMD exclusive. The Radeon RX 6900XT will be the AMD flagship series, which according to our sources will be in limited quantity. The card would allegedly feature 16GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus. The graphics card would feature a 2040 MHz game clock and a 2330 MHz boost clock.

The attachment summarizes what they think they know for the entire Navi lineup.

Attached picture NaviSpecificationsRumor.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/20 08:22 PM

Quote
NVIDIA allegedly cancels GeForce RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3070 16GB

NVIDIA allegedly cancels its December launch of GeForce RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3070 16GB. This still very fresh information comes from two independent sources.

Technically GeForce RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3070 16GB could launch at a later time, but the information that we have clearly stated that those SKUs have been canceled, not postponed. NVIDIA has already canceled its RTX 3070 Ti model (PG141 SKU 0), so the RTX 3070 16GB (PG141 SKU5) and RTX 3080 20GB (PG132 SKU20) will be joining the list.


There have been rumors that aspects of the RTX3000 designs were not turning out as expected. Maybe these cancellations are corroboration.

In any case, if true, "Big Navi" with 16GB of memory will not be competing with an RTX3080 having 20GB of memory. At least, not soon -- I always assume Nvidia will "recover" from setbacks.

Revised list of Nvidia RTX3000 series cards attached.

Attached picture NvidiaCancellations.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/20 08:45 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core CPU Hits 5 GHz Without Breaking A Sweat

AMD advertises its Ryzen 5000 (codename Vermeer) processors with their maximum boost clock speeds. However, the value doesn't take into account the chipmaker's own Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) technology.

PBO allows the processor to [automatically] boost beyond AMD's specifications.

Officially, the Ryzen 9 5950X comes with a 4.9-GHz base clock, however, the 16-core chip peaked as high as 5.04 GHz.

All things considered, Zen 3 might be one of the most exciting processor launches in the last couple of years.


PBO is nothing new. I note it working on my PC -- no need to manually overclock (but, you can if you want to).

Quote
Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is an opportunistic automated overclocking mechanism found in various AMD processors that pushes the system power budget beyond its rated specifications in order to allow Precision Boost to act more aggressively and achieve higher performance.Aug 12, 2018


The attached lists maximum clocks for Ryzen. These scores are not "official" -- so, grain of salt.

They are interesting because AMD has been climbing up the clock speed ladder and may have finally hit the 5GHz mark without manual overclocking.

Attached picture RyzenBoost.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/22/20 10:53 PM

Quote
AMD and HPE score another big supercomputer win

More Epyc results in Finland

The new supercomputer, which EuroHPC JU dubbed “LUMI”, will help European researchers and private and public organisations significantly advance R&D and drive innovation in areas such as healthcare, weather forecasting, and AI-enabled products.

The new supercomputer will be one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, hosted in CSC – IT Center for Science in Kajaani, Finland, and will be shared by ten European countries as part of the newly formed LUMI consortium.

This is the second big announcement for AMD and HPE – a few days ago it announced a supercomputing win with Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/23/20 01:16 PM

Regarding eventual GPU competition from Intel.

Quote
Intel Successfully Ships Its First Discrete DG1 GPU, Xe HPG Based DG2 Already Taped Out

Intel's Xe HPG lineup is slated to arrive sometime in 2021 according to known twitter leaker @Mebiuw and the GPU is expected to have either 6GB or 8GB of GDDR6 for the first launch. ..for their first entry into the gaming segments, Intel is going for a mainstream approach instead of an Ampere/Navi-slayer and would likely be targetting the price/perf sweet spot.

the GPU will feature hardware dedicated ray-tracing support ..
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/23/20 01:42 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6800XT alleged 3DMark scores hit the web


More leaks that indicate an AMD RX6000 series card has higher benchmark FPS then the RTX3080 at 4K ultra settings. The same AMD card benchmarks slower than RTX3080 in ray tracing. We'll see how they do in games when they are released and all the test reports hit the web.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/20 09:31 AM

Quote
ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT With AMD's Big Navi "Navi 21 XT" GPU Reportedly Features Boost Clocks Beyond 2.5 GHz at 290W TGP

ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT Custom Graphics Card Reported Clocks:

Average - 2291 / 2289 / 2092 MHz
Median - 2373 / 2301 / 2320 MHz
Max (Boost) - 2556 / 2394 / 2489 MHz

at 255W TGP

Average - 2298 / 1993 MHz
Median - 2357 / 2342 MHz
Max (Boost) - 2509 / 2557 MHz

the drivers had some issues which are why the clock speeds for the custom AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card are not as consistent as they should be. The large variances in average clock speeds should be resolved by the time the cards hit the market.


More indication that Big Navi may compete well with RTX3080.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/20 06:38 PM

Quote
Zen 3 CPUs are gaming-optimized, is due to the fact that the upgrade of this new generation is purely focused on reducing inter-core latency, and increasing single-core and single-thread performance.


Quote
AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X Shatters PassMark Records

A new king is born.

In comparison to its Intel rival, the Ryzen 9 5950X seemingly delivers up to 16.3% higher single-thread performance than the Core i9-10900K.

Despite being at a two-core disadvantage, the Ryzen 9 5950X's multi-thread performance is apparently faster than the Core i9-10980XE by up to 33.5%.

If Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) can deliver, Intel could be in big trouble since it's Comet Lake-S army will likely not be able to fend off Zen 3. It looks as though even Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake processors might not be enough.


I'm planning on Ryzen 7 5800X as a "plug in" to my current system.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/20 02:23 AM

Quote
AMD Big Navi (RX 6000): Release date, price, specs and performance

The AMD Big Navi (aka RX 6000) graphics cards are finally set to be revealed this week, with AMD expected to reveal the price, release date and additional performance benchmarks during a digital showcase on Wednesday.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/20 10:33 AM

Interesting to me since its the one I plan to buy.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8 Core Zen 3 CPU Benchmarks Leaked, 11% Faster Than the Core i9-10900K & 25% Faster Than Its Predecessor in Single-Core Tests

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8 Core Zen 3 CPU is anticipated to be one of the fastest 8 core gaming CPUs within the Ryzen 5000 family. ... The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X was tested on Gigabyte's B550M AORUS PRO motherboard. The memory was configured at DDR4-2348 MHz & timings were maintained at CL17. A total of 32 GB DDR4 capacity was installed on the platform.


The Ryzen 5000s are to be on sale November 5. We'll get the independent test reports then.

P.S. FWIW: My current R7 3800X scores with entire system running at stock settings and no effort to optimize = 544 single thread, 5732 multi thread.

Attached picture Ryzen5800.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/20 02:56 PM

On the business side:

Quote
AMD Q3 2020 Earnings – a Solid Beat on Almost All Metrics

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD 79.16 -3.73%) has been cresting a bullish wave ever since Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC 45.565 -2.47%) shock announcement of a delay in the launch of its 7nm node products.

For the three months that ended on the 30th of September 2020, AMD earned $2.8 billion in revenue, registering an annual increase of 55.6 percent and beating consensus expectations by 9.38 percent.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/20 10:24 AM

Happening today:

Quote
The AMD Radeon RX 6000 “RDNA 2” Series Desktop Graphics Cards Unveil .. (12:00 PM EDT)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/20 01:43 PM

Regarding the Future of AMD:

Quote
AMD in $35 Billion All-Stock Acquisition of Xilinx

The combined $135 billion entity will total 13000 engineers, and expand AMD’s total addressable market to $110 Billion. It is believed that the key reasons for the acquisition lie in Xilinx’s adaptive computing solutions for the data center market.

The press release states that AMD expects to save $300m in synergistic operational efficiencies within 18 months of closing, due to streamlining shared infrastructure. The deal has been unanimously approved by both sets of directors, and is subject to approval of both sets of shareholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Calendar Year 2021.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/20 04:51 PM

Having watched the RX6000 series reveal:

The RX6800XT seems like the one for most of the serious gamers (basically performs like RTX3080) -- at $650 (cheaper than RTX3080) on November 18th. For FPS fans, the RX6900XT performs better than the RX6800XT -- for almost $1000.

However, that's not based on independent testing. So, we'll see. I'll cut and paste one of the summaries later today.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/20 07:06 PM

Quote
AMD Unveils Big Navi: RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 Take On Ampere

The Radeon RX 6000 series is much more than a value alternative; AMD plans to go against Nvidia's best and may come out ahead

AMD RX 6000 Key Points

Up to 5120 shader cores in RX 6900 XT, 3840 cores in RX 6800
Maximum boost clocks of 2.1-2.25 GHz
16GB of GDDR6 for the three cards revealed today
128MB Infinity Cache more than doubles effective bandwidth
One Ray Accelerator per CU, 10x speedup for RT calculations
Prices of $999, $649 and $579 for 6900 XT, 6800 XT and 6800
Upcoming FidelityFX enhancements to offer DLSS alternative

Here's the big question, though: If RX 6800 XT is competitive with RTX 3080, wouldn't 11 percent more CUs and shader cores basically put it up against RTX 3090? The answer: Yup.


So, based on AMD tests (not independent), RX6800XT and RTX3080 are competitive -- but RX6800XT costs less; and, RX6900XT is competitive with RTX3090 -- and costs much less.

I'm looking at RX6800XT to go with a Ryzen 7 5800X -- both plug-ins to my existing MB and overall system. We'll see.

Attached picture Specifications.jpg
Attached picture Performance.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/20 10:23 PM

I'm also looking at the the RX6800XT or 6900XT to go with a Ryzen 7 5800X.......but want to look at the real 'benefits' of the 'smart memory' function. As a backstop option, I'll plump for the 3900X CPU if there isn't a huge difference between the two for gaming.

No doubt we'll also get ripped off in the UK price wise as the $$$ prices will probably just directly translate into £££s.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/20 11:30 AM

Quote
AMD's Radeon RX 6000 "RDNA 2" Big Navi GPUs Ray Tracing Performance Explored - 1st Gen AMD Ray Accelerator Cores vs 2nd Gen NVIDIA RT Cores

With hardware acceleration disabled and simply relying on the Software DXR fallback layer, the AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics card scored 34 FPS. With hardware acceleration enabled & making full use of the newly added Ray Accelerator cores, the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card saw a 13.8x speedup. The same RDNA 2 graphics card scored 471 FPS in the application which is a huge uplift in performance.

Comparing to NVIDIA's first generation ray-tracing implementation, the GeForce RTX 2080 scores around 308 FPS. This means that the AMD RDNA 2 based Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card scores a 50% lead over NVIDIA's first generation RTX graphics card. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti scores around 390 FPS which puts the AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics card 20% ahead.


The article is based on incomplete information and some assumptions. They conclude that AMD 1st Generation ray tracing will be substantially faster than Nvidia 1st Generation ray tracing (i.e. RTX2000 series) -- but not be as quick as Nvidia 2'd Generation ray tracing (i.e. RTX3000 series).

I assume that's true.

Worth noting: Gamers who play at 4K ultra settings usually turn ray tracing off because, using Nvidia RTX2000 series, ray tracing slows things down dramatically -- thereby indirectly limiting practical gaming resolution at high FPS.

Third party testing is needed to see the effect in actual games played at various screen resolutions. Another "We'll see".

Attached picture RayTracingPerformance.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/20 08:05 PM

Quote
AMD's Big Navi Benchmarks: 4K and 1440p Numbers for Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT, 6900 XT

The chipmaker conducted the tests on a Ryzen 9 5900X processor with 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM on a X570 reference platform.

It should be noted that AMD enabled Smart Access Memory, a feature that unlocks higher performance on the Radeon RX 6000 when the graphics card is paired with a compatible Ryzen 5000 processor.

AMD should get props for making efforts to create synergy between its processors and best graphics cards.

At 4K, the Radeon RX 6900 XT and the GeForce RTX 3090 ended up in a tie with each graphics card pulling in five wins.

The Radeon RX 6800 XT had a much better showing by outpacing the GeForce RTX 3080 in six titles, while tying the Ampere-based graphics card in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The Radeon RX 6800 XT isn't just faster than the GeForce RTX 3080, but at $649, it's almost $50 cheaper than its Nvidia rival.


More AMD published data. Cut and pasted because they note this is what you get if you are using a new Ryzen 5000 series CPU. We'll see what independent tests say.

Interestingly, depending on what R5000 CPU one buys, the cost of the AMD CPU plus AMD R6900XT can be about the same or even less than the Nvidia RTX3090 alone.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/20 08:53 AM

Quote
AMD discloses more Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 6800XT and RX 6800 gaming benchmarks


Attached picture Screenshot_2020-10-31 AMD discloses more Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 6800XT and RX 6800 gaming benchmarks - VideoCardz com.png
Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6900XT-6800XT-6800-vs-GeForce-RTX-3090-3080-2080Ti-2K-2048x1152.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6900XT-6800XT-6800-vs-GeForce-RTX-3090-3080-2080Ti-4K.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/20 10:27 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16 Core Zen 3 Desktop CPU Reviewed, Up To 24% Faster Than Its Zen 2 Based Predecessor

According to SiSoftware themselves, both AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs were tested on an X570 test bed with the latest BIOS installed from the specific manufacturer.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/20 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Allen

It should be noted that AMD enabled Smart Access Memory, a feature that unlocks higher performance on the Radeon RX 6000 when the graphics card is paired with a compatible Ryzen 5000 processor.

AMD should get props for making efforts to create synergy between its processors and best graphics cards


For the purpose of objectivity, I'm not sure why you think AMD should suddenly get 'props' for making efforts to create synergy between its CPUs and GPUs.......I'm pretty sure you've mocked Nvidia/Intel for creating different synergies with their previous software/hardware implementations over the years?......this 'smart access memory' is nothing more than PCI Mapped Memory and has been in use within different standards across all sorts of other manufacturers under different names and guises (even by MS within their DirectX API). This functionality has been working in Linux for years and in Windows more recently so can only assume that AMD are announcing this as if its a proprietary technology for now until they can validate it works on other vendors hardware.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/20 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Originally Posted by Allen

It should be noted that AMD enabled Smart Access Memory, a feature that unlocks higher performance on the Radeon RX 6000 when the graphics card is paired with a compatible Ryzen 5000 processor.

AMD should get props for making efforts to create synergy between its processors and best graphics cards


For the purpose of objectivity, I'm not sure why you think AMD should suddenly get 'props' for making efforts to create synergy between its CPUs and GPUs.


That was not my statement. I don't know enough of the details to comment like that.

I "cut and pasted" from an article. It was the opinion of the article's author. I thought it would "be controversial". It was smile

My statement was: "More AMD published data. Cut and pasted because they note this is what you get if you are using a new Ryzen 5000 series CPU. We'll see what independent tests say."

One thing they may say is similar to your view smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/01/20 04:49 PM

Quote
AMD Frank Azor promises more details on Radeon RX 6000 ray tracing and super sampling tech before launch

[Regarding Nvidia RTX and DLSS]: ray tracing and AI super sampling (super-resolution), both happening to be the core feature of the GeForce RTX series. NVIDIA RTX and NVIDIA DLSS require game developers’ implementation. More than 2 years from the launch the list of supported games has noticeably grown, but it is still not a significant number.

AMD promised that their implementation of AI super-resolution would be open and cross-platform, so it may rely on DirectX DirectML and possibly offer easier access for developers.

We are yet to see if AMD will implement ray-tracing acceleration and super-resolution technology into its FidelityFX package, or rather wait for market adoption of DirectX DXR and DirectML super-resolution. .. more disclosures regarding [AMD] ray tracing and super-resolution will be made by November 18th (launch of Radeon RX 6000 series)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/20 01:49 PM

Quote
Futuremark Launches 3DMark DirectX Ray-tracing Benchmark – Evaluates Pure Ray-Tracing Performance For Next-Gen AMD RDNA 2 & NVIDIA Ampere GPUs

The 3DMark DirectX Raytracing benchmark feature test is designed to make ray-tracing the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the whole scene is ray-traced and drawn in one pass.

The result of the test depends entirely on ray-tracing performance.


Like a lot of you, I have 3DMark software installed. The new feature downloaded today when I opened Steam.

Worth remembering that ray tracing is a small part of a game's graphics. So, pure ray tracing tests may not correlate with overall game graphics performance. Overall FPS performance and "visual splendor" depends on the game and how that game implements all of the various graphics features.

Attached picture 3DMark-DirectX-Ray-Tracing-Benchmark-Test_AMD-NVIDIA-GPUs_2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/20 06:32 PM

Quote
AMD Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Price, Specs, Release Date, Performance

Early pricing listings, which are not placeholders, indicate that the Ryzen 5000 processors will initially sell at retail for slightly higher pricing than AMD's recommended price points. We've also learned that AMD will throw in a copy of Far Cry 6, at least on a promotional basis, with the shipping processors.

The new Smart Memory Access feature boosts gaming performance by enhancing data transfer performance between the CPU and GPU, but it only works when you pair Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards and Ryzen 5000 processors. That gives the Ryzen 5000 processors the leg up in gaming if you have a Radeon RX 6000 graphics card.

AMD says Zen 3 features a ground-up rethinking of the architecture that finally allows it to take the 1080p gaming performance lead from Intel.


Nominally Thursday November 5. Would be nice to get Far Cry 6 with my R7 5800X -- assuming its a full use free copy. I've gotten a few decent games for free with my AMD hardware buys. We'll see if "list price" holds up on release. -- usually it does for the first batch.

Attached picture Screenshot_2020-11-02 amd ryzen 7 5800x release date - Google Search.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/03/20 12:29 PM

Where high end gaming is headed.

Quote
Godfall’s 4K Ultra Textures Require 12GB VRAM on PC, Says Developer

Counterplay CEO Keith Lee made an interesting comment on the required video memory to play at 4K with UltraHD textures.

"At 4K resolution using UltraHD textures, Godfall requires tremendous memory bandwidth to run smoothly. In this intricately detailed scene, we're using 4K by 4K texture sizes and 12 GB of graphics memory to play at 4K resolution."

This could mean that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080, powered by 10 GB of VRAM, may have some issues when playing the game at 4K and Ultra textures. There have been rumors of a 20GB RTX 3080 edition coming from NVIDIA, of course, but last week we learned that those plans may have been canceled.


In playing MSFS2020, I notice the 8GB in my RX5700XT is not enough for 4K at Ultra graphics settings (I get 5 FPS at 4K, 30 to 40FPS at 2K). The MSFS2020 GPU memory requirement has been mentioned in articles.

Attached picture godfall-features-labeledHD-2060x1141.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/03/20 02:13 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 series to support games with Microsoft DXR and Vulkan ray tracing APIs

"AMD will support all ray tracing titles using industry-based standards, including the Microsoft DXR API and the upcoming Vulkan raytracing API. Games making of use of proprietary raytracing APIs and extensions will not be supported" — AMD Marketing

AMD has made a commitment to stick to industry standards, such as Microsoft DXR or Vulkan ray tracing APIs. Both should slowly become more popular, as the focus goes away from NVIDIA’s implementation. After all, Intel will support DirectX DXR as well, so developers will have even less reason to focus on NVIDIA’s implementation.


AMD actively/outspokenly supports "industry standards" vs. "proprietary" -- so the above note from AMD marketing was expected.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/20 02:35 PM

Quote
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) Shares Soar as Goldman Sachs Adds the Chipmaker To Its Conviction List on the Back of “Multi-Year Share Gain and Margin Expansion Story”

While noting a 17 percent pullback from recent highs and the attendant attractive valuation currently, Goldman Sachs analyst Toshiya Hari upgraded AMD shares from a ‘Neutral’ to a ‘Buy’ designation while also raising the stock price target from $84 to $96.

The Goldman analyst termed AMD a "multi-year share gain and margin expansion story". Moreover, Hari cited recent checks, which point toward strong H1 2021 PC fundamentals, in order to predict "design win/share gain momentum in the client and commercial PC space" for AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/20 02:05 PM

My Ryzen 7 5800X is on the way to packaging -- shipping today from New Jersey -- arriving Monday or Tuesday -- they say at Newegg.

Update: 50 minutes after the above, they are sold out at Newegg and Amazon. Glad I "jumped on one".

My invoice says I bought at 9:02am. My tracking number email came at 2:30. Many were not so lucky.

Hope I'm equally lucky on my GPU purchase.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/20 03:04 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 Vermeer (Zen3) Review Roundup


Links to over 50 independent Ryzen 5000 CPU reviews.

Link to Reviews
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/20 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
My Ryzen 7 5800X is on the way to packaging -- shipping today from New Jersey -- arriving Monday or Tuesday -- they say at Newegg.

Update: 50 minutes after the above, they are sold out at Newegg and Amazon. Glad I "jumped on one".

My invoice says I bought at 9:02am. My tracking number email came at 2:30. Many were not so lucky.

Hope I'm equally lucky on my GPU purchase.


All UK stock disappeared in less than 10 minutes with some major retailer sites crashing under the strain. It was no better than the 30x Nvidia series debacle however I also managed to snatch a 5800x and topped the order off later on with 32GB of Trident Z 3600MHz RAM and a 1TB Gen 4 NVMe M2 drive. Just the 6800XT or 6900XT to finish off the build.

In the UK more Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are allegedly arriving at the end of the month, the earliest pre-order dates I've seen are for 27th November.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/20 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
All UK stock disappeared in less than 10 minutes with some major retailer sites crashing under the strain. It was no better than the 30x Nvidia series debacle however I also managed to snatch a 5800x and topped the order off later on with 32GB of Trident Z 3600MHz RAM and a 1TB Gen 4 NVMe M2 drive. Just the 6800XT or 6900XT to finish off the build..


I literally was thinking of you as I bought mine. I figured you would "get it done". 32GB sounds good in this day and age -- now that we're going to 16 or 20GB on graphics cards. The NVMe makes perfect sense -- I notice the difference in gaming loads/saves. Now, on to the GPU lottery smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/20 02:46 PM

Quote
ASUS Warns of Low AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Stock at Launch, Custom AIB Models Arrive 1-2 Weeks Later

Previously, retailers had reported that the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards would have limited stock at launch. The stock issues were reportedly more specific to the Radeon RX 6900 XT which is going to be an AMD exclusive variant for the time being. However, newer reports suggest that even the Radeon RX 6800 XT supply would be very limited and AIB partners are expecting the stock to be sold out within minutes of the launch.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/20 08:13 PM

FWIW: My Ryzen 7 5800X came early. I benched it using 3 accepted benchmarks -- versus my Ryzen 7 3800X. Tested both at stock BIOS settings (absolutely no tweaks) -- except BIOS set for my 3.2GHz memory in both cases.

My results were in keeping with what seems the normal improvement range for 5800X vs 3800X. My results with my system -- other systems and other tests will vary.

Single Core CPU Benchmarks: 5800X is 23% faster than 3800X.

Multi-threaded CPU Benchmarks: 5800X is 15% faster than 3800X.

Gaming Benchmark FPS at 2K and 4K: The increase in graphics FPS is tiny -- substantially less than 1FPS.

I assumed I'd get no FPS increase -- as noted, there was a tiny, tiny one -- close enough (to no increase) for government work smile

Presumably, there will be a slightly larger FPS increase when paring with an RX6800XT GPU due to the special synergy between R7 5800X CPU and RX 6800XT GPU. But, I won't be taking my system back to R7 3800X to test that smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/20 12:04 PM

To activate all the features of Ryzen 5000 series CPUs nominally requires a 500 series motherboard. However:

Quote
AMD Board Partners Showcase Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs Running on A320 & X370 Motherboards, Selective BETA-BIOS For ASUS & Gigabyte B450 Motherboards Out Now

he report comes from various forums where users have already got access to BETA BIOS for the A320 & X370 motherboards which allows support for AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs. According to a member of Chiphell Forums, the AMD 300-series motherboards can fully support the Ryzen 5000 series processors and one such sample has been shown running on an entry-level ASRock A320M-HDV motherboard.

PCIe Gen 4 disabled [on 300 series motherboards]


Thus, maybe those boards do not actually 'fully support" all features. We'll see as more reports come in.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/20 02:38 PM

I notice the R7 5800X is now selling for $300 more than I paid -- i.e. $749 vs. $449.

After contacting Newegg customer service by "chat", I was able to get my free copy of Far Cry 6. Folks who bought immediately were not all given Far Cry 6 -- just an error they are painlessly (for the customer) correcting.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/11/20 01:25 AM

Apparently, 5nm is next and to provide another big jump in performance. I personally don't expect 5nm before 2022 -- but, it would be a nice surprise if we saw it late next year.

Quote
AMD Committed To Offering Massive Perf Per Watt Gains With Next-Gen RDNA 3 Radeon RX GPU Lineup, Will Take Full Advantage of 5nm Process Node For Zen 4

[AMD's Executive Vice President, Rick Bergman] talked about both the current generation RDNA 2 & the next-gen RDNA 3 GPUs. For RDNA 3, AMD says that they will be leveraging more advanced process nodes and using Infinity Cache in a more proficient way to allow for similar gains which we saw when moving from RDNA 1 to RDNA 2. According to AMD's claims, RDNA 2 based Radeon RX GPUs deliver a 50% perf per watt improvement over their predecessors and AMD promises us to expect similar gains with the third generation RDNA GPU architecture.

For Zen 4, Rick acknowledges that just like RDNA 3, the next-gen CPU architecture will be making full use of the 5nm process node but will also get carried by an improved branch prediction unit, cache subsystem, a number of gates, core count increases, clock speeds and overall IPC gains from the improvement architecture. AMD's next-gen Ryzen CPUs based on the Zen 4 architecture will be the first to feature support on the AM5 socket and are expected to adopt DDR5 memory


Attached picture AMD-Zen-CPU-Roadmap-2020-1920x1080.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/11/20 11:18 AM

Regarding AMD Future competition, Apple is replacing x86 CPUs with their own design ARM CPUs -- mostly, this affects Intel today.

Quote
In Massive Shift, Apple Announces New Macs With [5nm] ARM-Based M1 Chip

Apple has unveiled its first computers with the new Apple-designed ARM chips instead of Intel CPUs. Apple saw huge success the last time it switched architectures — from PowerPC to x86 — but this time?

Apple has seen great success with its custom ARM-based chips in iPhones and iPads, and now it’s bringing the same technology to its computers. The Apple M1 is a 5nm ARM chip that has a lot in common with the A14 Bionic from the latest iDevices. This is a system-on-a-chip (SoC), so you’ve got the CPU cores, GPU, I/O, security module, and more on a single chip. That should mean much higher efficiency compared with x86 Intel CPUs, and indeed, Apple is claiming some impressive gains.


This seems to be all about power use in laptops -- not computation speed. No genuine hard facts from Apple yet.

There is some vague evidence that: Although these 5nm chips beat Intel products for power use efficiency, they do not beat the new 7nm Zen 3. And, 5nm Zen 4 is on the way -- in a couple years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/20 10:26 AM

The "Big Navi" Reference models launch next Wednesday. Being "Reference Models", they all look virtually the same from all the manufacturers.

Attached picture ASUS-Radeon-RX-6800-XT-16GB-RX6800XT-16G-Graphics-Card1.jpg
Attached picture MSI-Radeon-RX-6800XT-16GB-Graphics-Card1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/13/20 10:48 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Reportedly Overclocks Beyond 2.5 GHz, Performance Matches The RTX 3090


Rumor/leak. We'll see in less than a week.That is overclocked performance.

Running at standard speeds RX 6800 XT is an RTX3080 competitor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/14/20 11:25 AM

Another leak using a Benchmark not all agree with. So, another "we'll see" (in less than a week).

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6800 (Non-XT) 16 GB Graphics Card Benchmarked in Basemark, Faster Than The GeForce RTX 3070

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 is an impressive graphics card at least on paper (for now). We are still a week away from knowing its full performance potential against its GeForce RTX 30 series rivals but benchmarks have been leaking every now and then which shows us that the graphics card is going to knock out the RTX 3070 with twice the memory and surprisingly powerful graphics performance in gaming titles.


Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/16/20 04:00 PM

Quote
AMD's 3rd Gen EPYC Milan 'Zen 3' CPUs On Track, Will Be Launching in Q1 2021

AMD states that more companies are now showing interest in EPYC CPUs compared to Intel's own Xeon lineup. Within the HPC industry, favorable perception of AMD EPYC CPUs has risen from 36% in 2016 to 78% in 2020 while 68% of the HPC users hold a favorable view of Intel's next-gen Xeon CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/20 11:04 AM

Tomorrow the RX6800 and RX6800XT reference cards from various manufacturers hit the market. I assume they will sell out in minutes.

Since buyers have to pick a brand name (not just say "reference card"), the brand name one picks will have an impact -- i.e. what if they only have two in stock and you are the third buyer?

Also, I have an immovable meeting on the schedule tomorrow morning (I tried to move it). So, my odds of getting a GPU tomorrow are low.

On the other hand, my RX5700XT plays everything I play (except MSFS2020) at 4K ultra settings. Thus, the world will not end for me if I fail tomorrow -- and there will be more choices in a few weeks smile

Good luck to those of you who give buying one a try tomorrow smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/20 08:08 PM

Chances are slim to none. It's rumoured there's less stock than the Nvidia RTX 30x series here in the UK and some of those people still waiting on those cards will be attempting to muscle in on the action too. I'm pretty much resigned to buying a 3090 as there is stock however don't really fancy paying the premium if I can help it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/20 02:15 PM

I failed. Off to my meeting.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/20 02:34 PM

They've only just gone 'live' in the UK at 1430hrs GMT......straight to pre-order. Must only have been a handful
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/20 03:58 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series Review Roundup


Over 50 Reviews Linked

Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6800XT-RX-6800-Features-Performance-39-1536x864.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/18/20 10:30 PM

Quote
Godfall Quick Update - 2.0.95

This quick update, 2.0.95 is just for PC and enables the ability for players to play Godfall with ray tracing on while using applicable AMD GPUs. Note: players will need to have the latest AMD GPU drivers to enable this. Ray tracing using NVIDIA GPUs will come with a future update.


AMD uses DX12 ray tracing open standard (not a proprietary standard -- like Nvidia's). Interesting that AMD gets Ray Tracing on Godfall before Nvidia.

AMD is also soon to provide DX12 open standard version of image enhancement that competes with Nvidia DLSS2 (it is said). Nvidia is, of course, free to implement the "open standard".

Some think that "in the long run", the DX12 "open standard" ray tracing and image sharpening will become the go to methods and Nvidia RTX and DLSS will lose favor with developers (thus, Nvidia will offer the "open standard" methods). We'll see.

Thing is, looking at the Godfall picture (half w/o ray tracing and half with ray tracing) its hard to see that ray tracing truly adds much to an ordinary scene. I've noticed "ray tracing like" effects in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Witcher 3 (not real ray tracing) -- real ray tracing would not add much to those games in my opinion. Unfortunately, I failed in getting an RX6800XT ordered. So it will be a while before I can see for myself in a real on-my-screen game.

Attached picture 647620-directx-godfall-raytracing-on-1260x709HD-1480x833.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/20/20 11:22 AM

Regarding competition:

Quote
NVIDIA: it may take a few more months for GeForce RTX 30 supply to catch up with demand

NVIDIA now expects that the shortage of RTX 30 graphics cards may persist past the holiday season. In fact, it may persist in the first quarter of next year.


A few weeks before the RTX30 series released, a "leaker" sad that this delay into next year would happen. The reason given was that too many 8nm chips were flawed -- thus, the cost per usable chip was high. Therefore, after an initial release, Nvidia was going to hold back production until the manufacturing process was producing 8nm chips economically. Back at the time of the leak, they were saying it would be 2021 before full 8nm production would be underway.That leak may have been accurate -- given how things are going.

Meantime, there have been no similar "leaks" regarding AMD 7nm chip defects. But, I won't be surprised if "Big Navi" cards are also in short supply until next year.

The important fact is that: Now high end AMD GPUs are competitive with high end Nvidia GPUs. A few years back, AMD said they could not compete at CPUs and GPUs simultaneously. So, back then, they chose CPU competition with Intel. It took 3 generations to win that one -- even AMD was surprised they actually came out ahead of Intel. Now, the "Big Navi" GPU is the first serious attempt to compete with Nvidia GPUs at the high end. Not a bad first attempt. We'll see how that competition "shakes out" over the next few years.

Everyone knows that effective competition means faster product improvement and lower prices for us -- regardless of which brand we prefer. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/20/20 04:34 PM

Quote
EVGA launches GeForce RTX 3090 KINGPIN HYBRID at 2,000 USD

This graphics card is definitely not for casual gamers, in fact, it is not even for typical gamers. The Kingpin series were always after extreme overclocking. Hence the card features a massive 23 phase power stage design with 12 layer PCB. It comes with three BIOS settings (normal, OC, and LN2), in case you need to remove the cooler and try LN2 pot instead.


Attached picture EVGA-GeForce-RTX-3090-24GB-KINGPIN-HYBRID1.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/20 09:46 AM

Quote
AMD Helping to Bring Smart Access Memory to Nvidia GPUs

Smart Access Memory will work on Intel, AMD combos too.

AMD stated in an interview with PCWorld that its Radeon group is working with Intel to get this feature supported with RX 6000-series GPUs and Intel's latest CPUs and motherboards. The same goes with AMD's Ryzen group, which is working with Nvidia to get Smart Access Memory working with GeForce GPUs.


As previously mentioned, AMD supports "open standards" vs. "proprietary".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/20 09:54 AM

Regarding future competition: SemiAccurate usually (not always) gets things right (or very close). So, their analysis is worth considering.

Quote
Intel delays a mainstream server platform once again

Analysis: Intel is no longer competitive in servers, no caveats

Intel just significantly delayed another mainstream server project, this is getting painful to watch. SemiAccurate now thinks Intel is no longer a viable player in the server market, it is that bad.

You might recall that SemiAccurate was the first to break the news of Cooper Lake’s knifing, delaying their entire server line by a generation, broke news about Ice Lake-SP not being a 2020 product like Intel promised, and many more. Why are we recounting history? Because Intel publicly denied every single one of these things when we said it even after many of them were in memos and emails to customers. We fully expect Intel to deny this one because it is going to be painful, and try to keep the pretense of things being on schedule, no delays, and all the rest. Don’t believe it
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/20 10:00 AM

SemiAccurate again. This time a more minor AMD delay.

Quote
AMD stays trendy and delays Milan a bit

Can’t let Intel have all the fun


We will start this one out by giving you the conclusion, this time it isn’t a big deal but it is real.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/20 10:44 AM

Regarding future competition: Another article suggesting that Intel has not yet turned things around.

Quote
Apple’s move to dump Intel saved it $2.5 billion

The $2.5 billion figure was determined by Sumit Gupta, IBM's AI strategy lead, who calculated Apple's M1 production should cost in the range of $40 to $50 per chip against the cost of procuring Intel Core i5 processors at around $175 to $250 a chip.

While it might have been cost that made Apple dump Intel, it is more likely is that Apple wanted to free itself from the constraints of Intel product delays and a slowing roadmap of [Intel] advancement.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/20 10:48 AM

For gaming: R5 5600X 6 core 12 thread.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review: The Mainstream Knockout

AMD's $300 Ryzen 5 5600X delivers a .. stunning blow to Intel's mid-range lineup and slots in as the mainstream chip for gaming – It even beats Intel's $488 halo Core i9-10900K in 1080p gaming.

Ryzen 5 5600X is the most power-efficient desktop PC chip we've ever tested.

Luckily for entry-level buyers, the 65W Ryzen 5 5600X is the only Ryzen model that comes with a bundled cooler, and it's adequate for most users.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/24/20 03:28 PM

Quote
AMD Precision Boost Overdrive 2: Adaptive Undervolting For Ryzen 5000 Coming Soon

One of the ways that enthusiasts tinker with their processors is through overclocking: the attempt to get more performance by changing frequencies and voltages, up to the limits of the system. Another way is through undervolting – removing voltage from the processor to help lower temperatures and offer higher thermal headroom (or lower power consumption). It all depends on the silicon, and if it can support it: AMD (and Intel) have to set hard limits for production to enable sufficient yield and costs, but users on certain products can always poke the hardware to try and get something more. With this in mind, AMD is improving its range of overclocking tools to allow for adaptive undervolting of Ryzen 5000 processors.

AMD’s new Curve Optimization tool, to come with AGESA 1180 on 400-series and 500-series motherboard BIOS updates, is designed for this single-user voltage tracking scenario. The goal of the Curve Optimization tool is to opportunistically reduce voltage where possible during low load and high load scenarios, but rather than simply apply a fixed voltage offset across the whole range, it will use other internal sensors (such as workload, temperature, socket limits) to adapt the voltage as required. With AMD’s tool, it should do this on the order of one millisecond, i.e. 1000 times a second.


This tool is for those who try to get the absolute most out of their CPU. The boost will not be large -- it will not affect 2K and 4K gaming significantly.

Attached picture AMD Ryzen 5000 Series - Precision Boost Overdrive 2-page-007_575px.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/20 02:20 AM

Quote
Far Cry 6 to Feature Ray Tracing, Variable Rate Shading, and FidelityFX CAS

[Ubisoft and AMD] joined forces to bring FidelityFX CAS, DXR Ray Tracing, and Variable Rate Shading to Far Cry 6.

We've worked together to ensure smooth 4K visuals experience.

The sixth main entry in the Far Cry franchise has been listed last week for a May 26th, 2021 release, though Ubisoft did not confirm that in an official capacity yet.


On a personal note: Having failed to get an RX 6800XT on the first day, I'll probably wait until I need one. I got Far Cry 6 for free with my R7 5800X. Witcher 3 is being updated with Ray Tracing, etc (a few months?}. I may not actually need an RX 6800XT until one of them is released.

Attached picture fc6_offscreen-1480x833.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/20 02:58 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6800 Custom Series Review Roundup

Today we are looking at custom cards that are officially launching today. Please note that most reviewers did not have much time for their reviews, others have not even received the final pricing at launch, so their recommendations may be missing.

Link to small number of reviews
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/20 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Quote
AMD Helping to Bring Smart Access Memory to Nvidia GPUs

Smart Access Memory will work on Intel, AMD combos too.

AMD stated in an interview with PCWorld that its Radeon group is working with Intel to get this feature supported with RX 6000-series GPUs and Intel's latest CPUs and motherboards. The same goes with AMD's Ryzen group, which is working with Nvidia to get Smart Access Memory working with GeForce GPUs.


As previously mentioned, AMD supports "open standards" vs. "proprietary".


This is complete nonsense......'Smart Access' is just AMD's name for resizeable BAR (Base Address Register). It's part of the PCIe specification.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/20 06:14 PM

Another rumor.

Quote
NVIDIA Allegedly Sold $175 Million Worth of Ampere GeForce RTX 30 GPUs To Crypto Miners, Could Be A Contributing Factor Behind Immense Shortages

According to Financial Analysts at RBC Captial Markets and Barrons, it is estimated that NVIDIA has sold at least $175 Million worth of GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards utilizing its Ampere GPUs directly to miners.

$175 Million however is no small figure and that would mean a large chunk of GeForce RTX 30 GPU series which were dedicated for gaming purposes were sold out to miners. The demand from the mining community is on the rise as Bitcoin.com suggests that Ethereum V2.0 is just around the corner and as such demand for more efficient hardware has increased.


Who knows? In a free market society, Nvidia can do what makes sense to Nvidia. If true, AMD might do the same.

Personal Note: I just pre-ordered Cyberpunk 2077. I was sold by the reviews of some who have played many hours (its not just a twitch shooter, its a genuine in-depth RPG, they report). Now, I may be able to make full use of a 6800XT (or better) sooner than I thought. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/20 08:06 PM

Two conflicting views:

1. No more AMD 6800 series Reference cards will be made (according to some retailers). One will have to buy a more expensive Custom card.

2. AMD 6800 series Reference cards will be made into the first quarter of 2021 (according to an AMD statement).

Personally, I prefer a 6800XT Reference card at the baseline initial release price (as I usually do). I also know that Reference cards are often discontinued after a while.

There is also a rumor that the 6900XT will only be made in the Reference model -- no custom cards are planned according to some rumors. We'll see how this develops.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/20 03:44 PM

Quote
Faster Than Threadripper: How I Overclocked Ryzen 9 5950X to 6 GHz and a World Record

With LN2, AMD's new flagship chip can hit 6.05 GHz on all 16 cores.

I would go as far as to say the marketing hype and multi-day-info-trickle that was the release actually undersold how good these processors are.

Let’s be clear, if any part I own degrades or gets hurt in any way I am gutted for days about it. This is not a “bench on LN2 then throw away” type of deal. I grind the same CPU over and over and over.

Of course, this is "for interest only" as most of us will not be using our CPUs this way.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/20 05:11 PM

Regarding AMD's future sales some estimates say:

Quote
48% of global gamers are PC gamers, that's 1.5 billion PC gamers


That's 1,500,000,000 PC gamers. If one tenth of one percent (1 in 1000) of them want new graphics card from the new batch, that's 1.5 million graphics cards.

However, if gaming PCs are updated as infrequently as only once every 5 to 10 years, that means 150 million to 300 million GPUs and APUs (of all types, not just high end) will be sold this year.

Those kinds of sales numbers will be good for AMD's, Intel"s, and Nvidia's futures -- but tough for those of us trying to get a new generation GPU real soon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/29/20 12:07 PM

Quote
AMD expects AIBs to sell Radeon RX 6800 series at MSRP in 4 to 8 weeks

short and unofficial statement from AMD .. paraphrased

“We have had a private conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks there will be AIB cards available at MSRP. They said they enabled the AIBs to achieve the 649 dollars [RX 6800 XT] MSRP and they expect that to happen within 8 weeks.”


I'll wait.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/20 11:17 AM

Quote
ASUS Enables Resizable BAR (Smart Access Memory) Support on Intel Z490, H470 & B460 Motherboards Through Latest BIOS Update

ASUS is the first manufacturer to enabled Resizable BAR support or AMD Smart Access Memory technology on the Intel platform. The technology allows the motherboard makers to utilize both Intel 10th Gen Core CPUs and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards to deliver higher GPU performance in games and applications.


Quote
This information has been confirmed by an ASUS representative who says that Beta BIOS is already available for ASUS Z490, H470 and B460 motherboard owners. The support rolls out ahead of official support from NVIDIA for their latest Ampere GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards. Meanwhile, AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs should already able to take the advantage of the new feature


Attached picture Smart-Access-Memory-Support-by-ASUS.jpg
Attached picture ASUS-Resizable-BAR-e1606808623144.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/20 01:29 PM

Rumor/leak:

Quote
Custom AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards are coming

AMD board partners will be allowed to make custom designs based on Navi 21 XTX GPU. The story claims that due to the limited time that was given to AIBs, the first designs should be expected no sooner than early 2021.

AMD is set to launch its Radeon RX 6900 XT reference SKU on December 8th. The graphics card features 80 Compute Units with 5120 Stream Processors enabled. This is the full-fat variant of the Big Navi that is officially targeting NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 in AMD’s own benchmark comparison. The graphics card will officially retail at 999 USD, which is 1/3 cheaper than RTX 3090. It is currently unclear how many cards will be available for sale at launch, but one would guess it won’t be overwhelming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/20 06:55 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Review Roundup

Today NVIDIA lifts the embargo on RTX 3060 Ti reviews. Have a look at written and video reviews, to see how much faster is the new 399 USD model from NVIDIA and whether it is worth paying extra for the custom designs.


Dozens of Reviews Linked
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/02/20 04:57 PM

Quote
AMD’s CEO Lisa Su To Host Virtual CES 2021 Keynote on January 12th, Expected To Unveil Ryzen 5000 Mobility & Radeon RX 6700 Series

As for the event itself, AMD is expected to deliver a range of announcements. .. we can expect a few if high-performance launches from AMD.


Attached picture AMD-Ces-2021-Keynote.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/20 01:52 PM

One retailer, but supposedly indicative:
Quote
AMD Sold Over 35,000 Ryzen 5000 & Ryzen 3000 CPUs While Intel Only Sold 5000 10th/9th Gen CPUs In November at MindFactory

AMD has just scored a landscape victory in the German market with the retailer MindFactory reporting that they were able to sell over 35,000 Ryzen 5000 & Ryzen 3000 CPUs while Intel's processors only managed over 5000 sales in the month of November.

The month also reported the best revenue figures coming from AMD CPUs which accounts for a total of 10 Million Euros while Intel CPUs managed just slightly below 2 Million Euros.

the Ryzen 5 3600 retained its popularity with over 5000 CPU sales. That's almost as much as all of Intel CPU sales combined for the same month.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/20 09:57 PM

Future looking good based on official AMD estimates.
Quote
AMD Maintains ~20% YoY Revenue Growth For Next Two Years And Tapers It Down To 12% For the Fiscal Year 2025

The projections [are] part of AMD's Form S4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) yesterday
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/20 11:40 AM

Planned to be on the market December 8 (Tuesday) for a few minutes (at most) smile

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Flagship Big Navi GPU Benchmark Leaks Out Again, Almost As Fast As The GeForce RTX 3090 For $500 US Less

Overall, it will be good competition [for Nvidia] from AMD, and overclocking-wise, the RX 6900 XT is going to knock the pants off the RTX 3090 but expect the card to be sold out within minutes of launch since its a very niche and high-end product with limited quantities as we have heard from our sources.


Attached picture Big-Navi-GPU-RDNA-2-Graphics-Card-1480x833.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/20 02:44 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Flagship Big Navi Graphics Cards Listed By AIBs, Launches Tomorrow In Very Limited Quantities

Once again, tomorrow, only a lucky few will be able to get the cards before they all go out of stock so expect proper availability by [February] 2021.


Attached picture ASUS-Radeon-RX-6900-XT-Graphics-Card_1-740x740.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/20 03:10 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review Roundup

The ‘proper’ Big Navi is finally here. Today AMD launches its Radeon RX 6900 XT flagship graphics card based on Navi 21 graphics processor. The new model costs 999 USD and will be limited to reference design at launch.

We have prepared a list of reviews from independent journalists from around the world.


Link to Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/20 10:17 PM

I looked for an RX6900XT. But, I was not at the right site at the right time. That's for the best. I read a couple reviews. No surprises.

I'm aiming at an RX6800XT when there is competing stock to pick from at reasonable prices -- its the cost effective choice. And, its so close to the RX6900XT, I literally would not see the difference in a game (measure but not see).

I assume, for now, that good availability & choices will be circa March 2021. Sooner would be fine smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/08/20 10:50 PM

After looking through the reviews, I'm going for the Nvidia 3080, or if it gets to January and no joy with stock I'll plump for the 3090 - I've since offloaded my Ryzen 5800x to my son and bought a 5600x.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/20 02:43 PM

Quote
AMD To End Production of Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800 Reference Models, Will Focus on Custom AIB Variants

With that said, AMD's Scott Herkelman earlier confirmed that the reference model will be produced through early 2021 and that's around the same time when the global supply is said to get better for AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/20 03:22 PM

Rumor/Leak regarding AMD Future:
Quote
AMD close to producing an ARM chip

AMD has explored the possibility of an ARM-based chip as early as 2014 when it was creating a custom 64-bit ARMv8 CPU core codenamed K12. And in 2016, it announced the K12 Core. Then AMD lead CPU architect Jim Keller led the project, but the SoC was shelved.

In May of this year, however, leaker Komachi Ensaka created an AMD roadmap that included a "K12 FFX" with a vague release date of between 2017 – 2022. Either way this has been part of AMD’s plans for a while and it was probably waiting for Microsoft to come up with Windows for ARM chips.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/20 12:44 AM

Reference RX6900XT to continue indefinitely -- not cancelled in January -- good news for some.

Quote
AMD U-turns on reference Big Navi graphics cards, will keep selling them indefinitely

AMD Radeon GM and CVP, Scott Herkelman, has announced on Twitter than AMD will continue to sell RX 6000-series reference graphics cards, such as the RX 6900 XT pictured above, indefinitely.

The company had previously said (as recently as today) that the design would no longer be sold from early 2021, yet has since U-turned on its decision and will continue with the design by popular demand


Attached picture BigNavi2090.JPG
Attached picture Statement.JPG
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/10/20 11:48 AM

Cyberpunk 2020 is the new graphically demanding game on the block.

The attached graphs compare all the common video cards at 1080p, 2K, and 4K with ultra settings. One could use this data along with price data to start figuring out which direction to head on a GPU purchase.

Attached picture 1080PC-970-80.png
Attached picture 1440wC-970-80.png
Attached picture 2160UD-970-80.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/11/20 10:33 AM

Recent AMD motherboards support Smart Access Memory (SAM) which is a type of Resizable BAR support. It improves graphics performance on AMD 6000 series GPUs.

Intel motherboards are also getting the feature "turned on".

Quote
Resizable BAR Tested On Intel Z490 Platform: Gains Up To 20 Percent

In fact, the feature has been part of the PCIe specification since Revision 2.0. Still, it has gone under everyone's radar until AMD brought it up in the mold of the chipmaker's Smart Access Memory (SAM), with the caveat that it would only work if you paired a Radeon 6000 series GPU with a Ryzen 5000 CPU and X570 motherboard. The Red Team certainly spearheaded the adoption of Resizable BAR, and now Intel and Nvidia are working to bring the technology to their corresponding products.


Quote
Biostar enables AMD Smart Access Memory on Intel 400 series motherboards

AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) allows the CPU to get full access to the GPU memory, users will gain up to 11% in gaming performance. BIOSTAR consumers can now enjoy an extra performance boost with their Intel 400 series motherboards pairing 10th Gen Intel Core processors and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards.


Quote
MSI will offer BIOS Update for Intel 400-Series Motherboards to Support Re-Size BAR

You need a compatible motherboard and firmware, as well as GPU support. For AMD that starts at RDNA2, thus the Radeon 6000 series. For Nvidia this is unclear at the moment, but it has been mentioned they're going to implement support on the latest RTX cards.


Quote
ASUS releases beta bios beta versions with SAM - Resizable BAR function for Intel Z490 motherboards

ASUS released a bios series that adds AMD's marketed SAM, or really; Resizable BAR support to various motherboards. The thing here us though, these are for the Intel Z490 chipset. 'Smart Access Memory' was initially only supported on AMD motherboards. Intel itself has not yet reported on support for this feature.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/20 09:26 PM

Here endeth my 6800XT/6900XT and 3080 interest, it's looking like the shortage issues will still be around well into early next year so I've just bought the 'MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X OC' and will pair it with my Ryzen 5 5600x
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/20 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
Here endeth my 6800XT/6900XT and 3080 interest, it's looking like the shortage issues will still be around well into early next year so I've just bought the 'MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X OC' and will pair it with my Ryzen 5 5600x


Sounds like the "top of the FPS stack". Should do the job for years to come smile

I'm planning on 1st Quarter 2021 before I buy. Still aiming at RX6800XT. However, I'm checking stocks occasionally -- if an RX6900XT shows up at MSRP, I may jump.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/20 02:16 PM

I was checking almost daily and know I've paid top dollar (£1729 from an online retailer) but I'm thinking that pretty much any 3080 or 6800xt/6900xt purchase in the next 3 months also puts a premium on the price meaning value for money is reduced massively anyway.

That's what I'm going to keep telling myself at least!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/15/20 06:10 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti allegedly postponed till February, RTX 3060 12GB/6GB in January

The RTX 3080 Ti graphics card was originally planned to launch in January, which we have confirmed with multiple sources.

RTX 3060 will arrive in two variants. The GA106-based model is to feature either 12GB or 6GB GDDR6 memory, depending on the SKU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/21/20 11:25 AM

Quote
Apple Has Secured 80 Percent of TSMC’s 5nm Production Capacity for 2021


This may cut into AMDs 5nm plans. AMD has 5nm designs in process and was assumed to start selling some of them possibly late in 2021 or in 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/20 05:40 PM

Quote
AMD Zen3 offers up to 81% better gaming performance than first generation Zen architecture

Four generations of AMD Zen architectures compared

the first generation only supported 2666 MHz memory, Zen+ had 2933 MHz support while the last two generations (Zen2 and Zen3) support DDR4 memory up to 3200 MHz. Memory can have a big impact on AMD Ryzen CPU performance.


Attached picture ZenSeries.jpg
Attached picture ZenGenerationalPerformance.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/23/20 06:25 PM

Quote
ASRock Releases BETA BIOS Support For AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs on X370, B350 & A320 Motherboards

These motherboards date all the way back to 2017 when the first AMD Ryzen CPUs were launched so they are quite old but there are plenty of users who still own these boards and are running either 1st or 2nd Gen Ryzen CPUs on them. The site reports that there are no issues in terms of AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU support but full stability for the chips is not guaranteed.


300 series motherboard support by other motherboard manufacturers may increase.

What this shows is that the industry recognizes AMD as having very competitive/attractive Ryzen 5000 CPUs.

This sort of thing only affects a fraction of CPU users; but, it amounts to good publicity that will help AMD future sales.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/20 12:04 AM

The point of noting the following: High resolutions in an up to date game takes lots of GPU memory. So, the 16GB of the new AMD "Big Navi" cards is relevant. For Nvidia purchasers, its probably good to wait for the RTX3080Ti with the extra memory.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 offers 31 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at 8K with raytracing, 6.6 FPS without DLSS

NVIDIA heavily promoted its new flagship graphics card based on Ampere architecture as the first 8K gaming GPU.

TweakTown’s testing platform features Intel’s Core i9-10900K processor and Z490 motherboard. The game settings have been all set to maximum, even the ray tracing which was set to ‘Psycho’. In other words, they took the most demanding game and applied the most demanding settings

The quick review by TweakTown also shows that the 24GB VRAM on the graphics card is hardly enough for the Cyberpunk 2077 running at 8K without DLSS. Only by disabling ray tracing, memory allocation drops to 21 GB.


So, if spending a lot on a new GPU to be used in new high-end games at 4K or 8K, check the size of the GPU memory. As already noted, if 60fps is enough for a gamer, one can buy a good 4K television for well under $300 (my 43" 4K monitor/TV currently sells for $230 -- and has good color and contrast -- just info, not selling them smile ).

As already noted, Nvidia DLSS 8K is not true 8K -- just a good approximation -- it only works on games programmed for it. Most AMD GPUs have RIS (works on most games but less well than DLSS). Also, AMD is working on a comparable feature to DLSS. It should come out as a driver update (but not released yet).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/20 12:01 PM

The point of the following is that AMD "Big Navi" custom cards are still being developed and are not expected real soon.

Quote
MSI shows off Radeon RX 6800 XT GAMING X TRIO, confirms RX 6900 XT GAMING X TRIO

During the MSI Insider show, the company announced its flagship Radeon graphics card from the RX 6000 series, the RX 6900 XT GAMING X TRIO.

The graphics card is still in the development process, for instance, the PCB has not been finalized yet.

If there is any delay or shortage of any component, the graphics card will likely launch in March, because in mid-February is the Chinese New Year and that means no graphics card will be produced at that time, the MSI employees explain.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/20 03:46 PM

Quote
No [Big Navi] supply from AMD and board partners

Despite almost a month passing since the launch of Radeon RX 6800 cards, the supply of graphics cards is still non-existent. AMD clearly failed to communicate the situation to the community

AMD recently confirmed it will continue to make reference cards, which is good news since this might be a chance to actually [buy] these cards at an advertised price. Custom designs are easily 100-150 USD more expensive, greatly affecting the price to performance ratio.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/26/20 10:54 AM

Quote
Epic Games Launcher makes AMD Ryzen [and Intel] CPUs run [10C to 20C] hotter even without any game running

At this moment there is no fix for this issue, however, there are workarounds. A good idea is to link Epic Games Launcher to GOG Galaxy, which has a built-in feature to automatically close ‘original’ launchers after the game is shut down. This way the launcher will no longer be working in the background once users leave the game.

It is also reported that EGL sends 14x as much data as Steam and NVIDIA Experience while working in the background.


Epic games distributes Cyberpunk 2077.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/20 10:50 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8 Core Cezanne-H ‘Zen 3’ Mobility CPU Benchmarks Leak Out, Almost As Fast As Intel’s 10 Core Desktop CPUs

The base clock for the chip is rated at 3.30 GHz & the boost clock is rated at 4.60 GHz. A detailed log of the benchmark run shows that all cores were hitting 4.65 GHz during the test. Other features of the chip include an enhanced Vega GPU

Even compared to something like the Intel Core i9-10900 which is a 65W & 10 core desktop CPU with a maximum power limit of around 220W, the 35 (45W cTDP) AMD Ryzen 9 5900H CPU offers the same level of multi-core performance and blazes past the Core i9-10900 within single-core tests thanks to the massive IPC uplift the Zen 3 has to offer.


Newer laptops are capable of serious computation. My mid/low cost AMD 4000 series laptop scored high. AMD 5000 series scores much higher.

So, looks good for AMD future if the "laptops of choice" begin to be AMD units.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/20 07:45 PM

Epic Games launcher high power use was reported above.

Quote
Epic Games Launcher will receive a fix for high CPU usage bug

Epic Game Launcher was utilizing above average CPU resources. It didn’t matter if the application was in the foreground or hidden in the task manager, the launcher was still utilizing a few percent of the CPU power.

Earlier today, Sergiy Galyonkin, a developer behind Epic Game Launcher, has confirmed that his team has already identified the issue and have implemented a fix that is currently being tested. It is unknown when the patch will go live for all users.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/20 08:01 PM

Relevant to AMD's Future:

Quote
Intel (INTC) Shares Soar as the Activist Hedge Fund Third Point Urges the Semiconductor Behemoth To Reverse Its Brain Drain and Implement an Operational Shakeup

Third Point’s CEO, Daniel Loeb, has penned a letter to the chairman of Intel, Omar Ishrak. The letter painted a bleak picture, pointing at the debilitating brain drain issue that Intel has been contending with in recent times, precipitated by fleeing chip designers who were “demoralized by the status quo”. Loeb called upon Intel to take immediate remedial measures in order to rectify this “human capital management issue”.


Evidentially, Intel really does have an internal problem.

We'll see if anything positive happens because of this "letter".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/31/20 06:31 PM

Future competition -- Competition is good:

Quote
EU Signs A Declaration for 2 nm Node Developmen

The European Union has signed a declaration that focuses on developing both the 2 nm node and a custom processor. This declaration will allocate up to 145 billion Euros, which will develop a new EU custom processor and the development of a 2 nm node. This declaration was signed by seventeen members, including Belgium, France, Germany, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, Greece, Malta, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Finland, and Cyprus.

This declaration also focuses on developing the EU's own custom embedded processors, which will be designed for industrial applications and feature a low power consumption. This will keep the EU from relying on third-party processors for manufacturing purposes.


Based on my experience, it may be as long as 10 years before a 2nm product hits the market -- not a bad thing -- just how long it may take. Hope it works out. thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/21 09:01 PM

We've heard this one before. Cryptocurrency miners are buying up the new GPUs -- i.e. fewer for us gamers to buy.

Quote
This GeForce RTX 3080 Ethereum mining rig now makes $20K per month

GPU mining rig .. using 78 GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards

The RTX 3080-based mining rig that was shared on social media is codenamed Berta 2 and it is already operational. The price of 1 Bitcoin (BTC) has recently skyrocketed to 34K USD

Assuming that the price of RTX 3080 is somewhere in the 699 to 1199 USD space, the cost of the whole rig is estimated 100K USD.


Attached picture GeForce-RTX-3080-Mining-Rig-almost-operational.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/21 11:03 AM

An exceedingly long instructive-article that describes Intel "binning" process. That is, how they test all the chips and use the best for the best Intel processors. It describes how only a couple chip designs provide many "different" CPUs with different core counts.

Everyone does that, including AMD. However, because Intel has fallen behind AMD, the process is more extreme to get a very few chips out of every batch that beats AMDs best.

Those hand picked very high end chips have downsides -- mainly very high power use, high temperatures, and lack of availability to purchase at MSRP.

The article just describes all the Intel thought that goes into binning chips to provide a "product line". The article provides many test results -- it is instructive -- it is not anti-Intel or pro-AMD.

Quote
Intel Core i9-10850K Review: The Real Intel Flagship

[Article final section] Conclusion: Bin to Win

Ultimately, this is what I think happened to Intel with the Core i9-10900K. The silicon quality level required to manufacturer the hardware was strict to provide a higher performance product, but too strict to be able to manufacturer a sufficient quantity to meet demand

Thus entered the Core i9-10850K. A slightly less aggressive product, offered at a cheaper price, and because of the less aggressive bin, available in sufficient quantities to keep system builders and end-users happy if the 10900K was not in stock locally. [the article notes that 10850 is almost identical performance to 10900 -- so, a good choice to buy if one wants an Intel CPU]

[Article final paragraph] On performance against AMD, the 5800X wins on single threaded loads by 15-20% and encoding, while the 10850K wins on rendering multithreaded workloads like Blender by up to 10%. For 1080p maximum gaming with our RTX 2080 Ti, the differences in the most modern titles are minor at best, even with 5% lows. Certain titles will lean up to 5-8% in one direction (FF14 to AMD, F1 2019 to Intel, Civ6 to AMD). If I had to choose between the Intel and AMD, I’d have to recommend the AMD, but I'm the sort of person who temperature watches when I'm doing a heavy workload.

Long Even Handed Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/21 04:19 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 series rumored to launch by the end of March

Cowcotland reports that Radeon RX 6700 series will feature Navi 22 GPU with up to 40 Compute Units (2560 SPs). Therefore, the RX 6700 XT is believed to offer half of the flagship’s RX 6900 XT Stream Processors. It is also reported that the card will feature 12GB of memory attached to a 192-bit memory bus. The exact specifications of the graphics cards have not yet been confirmed though.

The RX 6700 non-XT is also expected to feature 12GB GDDR6 memory, which might be the reason why NVIDIA is now pushing RTX 3060 with 12GB memory as well, despite releasing an 8GB 3060 Ti model just a month earlier.


Basically, the RX 6700XT replaces the RX 5700XT that I use. Same shader count but faster shaders and 12GB memory (vs 8GB) for titles like MSFS2020.

192bit memory is fast enough for AMD because the AMD 6000 series GPU chips are designed differently to get much more out of 192bits.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/21 04:37 PM

Quote
Nvidia’s Purchase of ARM Is Being Investigated by UK Watchdog

the UK government has announced an investigation into the deal and the likely outcomes if Nvidia is allowed to buy ARM.

Nvidia has previously promised that it would retain ARM’s licensing model and its pledge of neutrality regarding how it treats its customers. How serious it is about this promise has been a topic of some debate. Nvidia, historically, has put more effort into creating its own walled garden of technology. PhysX, CUDA, G-Sync, and other technologies introduced over the years, were created by Nvidia, for Nvidia. This has, at times, been controversial, but it’s also been consistent.

This particular deal was always going to face close scrutiny, so it’s not surprising to see the UK giving it a careful once-over. We’ll find out over the course of this year what regulators in various nations think of the underlying terms of the deal.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/21 10:13 PM

Quote
AMD Demolishes All Records at Germany's Largest Retailer, Ryzen 5000 & Ryzen 3000 CPU Sales Go Past 35,000 For A Combined Revenue of Almost 12 Million Euros

Well if you were thinking that AMD's Ryzen CPU sales couldn't get any better then you were wrong. Finishing 2020, MindFactory reported that it had sold over 35,000 AMD Ryzen Desktop CPUs, the bulk of which include the Ryzen 5000 'Zen 3' and Ryzen 3000 'Zen 2' parts.

This is 83% of the total share for the number of [AMD] CPUs sold in December while Intel which barely sold over 5000 of its 10th Gen and 9th Gen Core CPUs managed to grab a 17% share.

AMD keeps on scoring win after win and one could only imagine how much worse of a situation it would've been for Intel if there was no [AMD] supply shortage affecting the top-end parts.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/21 11:13 AM

Quote
AMD Preps Ryzen 9 5900 12 Core & Ryzen 7 5800 8 Core 'Zen 3' Desktop CPUs, Clock Speeds Revealed For Upcoming 65W Parts

The AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU is already packed in the $300 US+ category but OEMs will soon be receiving two brand new parts, the Ryzen 9 5900 and the Ryzen 7 5800. The CPUs will offer the same core configurations as their 'X' series brethren but the main difference comes in the clocks & TDP figures


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5900-and-Ryzen-7-5800-Zen-3-Desktop-CPUs-1480x995.png
Attached picture RyzenLineup.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/21 02:15 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Cezanne Desktop APU Specifications Leak Out in Geekbench Benchmark, Up To 4.66 GHz Clocks, 8 Zen 3 Cores


Just a "heads up" that AMD will be releasing a fast Ryzen 5000 series APU with built in graphics.

Good for HTPCs and office PCs. They are almost as fast as the mainstream AMD 5000 series CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/21 04:35 PM

Quote
ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6900 XT


Water cooled and "only" $1499.99 plus shipping at Newegg. I actually found one "live" -- not sold out.

Too rich for my blood smile and "Sold Out" literally moments later biggrin

Still, that was the first time I've clicked and found any RX 6000 series for actual sale.

Attached picture 14-126-489-V17.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/21 11:51 PM

My son's 3080 gets delivered tomorrow........ordered on release day (14th September). He was originally 742 in the queue after the order was placed 2 minutes after the card was 'released'. Absolutely shocking.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/21 01:41 PM

Quote
Watch “AMD at CES 2021” with Ryzen 5000 mobile announcements here


AMD CEO Lisa Su will give her CES 2021 talk on YouTube today (January 12) at 11am EST.

Nominally, she will introduce new products and give information relevant to The Future And Current Status of AMD...

AMD at CES 2021 YouTube Link
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/21 05:22 PM

Quote
AMD teases mid-range and mainstream Radeon RX 6000 graphics card series

During the CES 2021 news conference AMD Lisa Su confirmed that AMD is planning to launch mid-range series of RDNA2-baed graphics cards in the first half of 2021.

[per AMD] Radeon RX @Radeon AMD is on track to launch the first notebooks with #RDNA2 in the first half of 2021, and you'll see mainstream RDNA 2 desktop graphics card designs in the first half of the year as well.


Apparently still a few (??) months off.

Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6000.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/21 11:36 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800 can easily be unlocked to 5800X

AMD Ryzen 7 5800 non-X + PBO = 5800X

According to WolStame, who is Lenovo China Gaming Desktop Product Planning Manager, the Ryzen 7 5800 might be the most interesting CPU released thus far in 2021. This CPU is essentially a power-limited version of the 5800X, a power that can easily be unlocked through some PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) optimizations.


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-7-5800-2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/21 11:55 AM

Quote
AMD Says Its Focusing on Zen 4 & Zen 5 CPUs To Be Extremely Competitive, RDNA 3 GPUs To Offer Higher Performance Per Watt

AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, told that their CPU teams are fully focused on their next-generation Zen 4 and Zen 5 core architectures while the GPU team is currently hard at work on developing the RDNA 3 architecture.

AMD's next-generation Zen 4 and Zen 5 core architectures are already being prepped & will be extremely competitive.

We know little about Zen 4, let alone Zen 5, right now but the architecture promises to be a huge deal for the consumer and server segment. The Zen 4 architecture is positioned to launch in 2021 and Ryzen CPUs based on the architecture would be the first to get support on a brand new AM5 platform which will offer next-generation DDR5 & USB 4.0 support.

AMD is also looking into increasing the core counts of each respective CPU lineup.

The AMD Zen 4 architecture will directly compete against Intel's Alder Lake lineup while RDNA 3 will tackle NVIDIA's refreshed Ampere GPUs which are likely to be introduced by end of 2021 or in early 2022.


Attached picture AMD-Zen-CPU-Architecture-Roadmap-2022-1920x1081.png
Attached picture AMD-RDNA-GPU-Architecture-Roadmap-2022-1920x1074.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/21 06:28 PM

Quote
Report: Intel Will Build DG2 [GPU] at TSMC on ‘Enhanced’ 7nm Node

According to Reuters, Intel intends to manufacture DG2 — its upcoming consumer graphics card — at TSMC, on an enhanced 7nm node that hasn’t even been named yet.

Intel CEO Bob Swan gave interviews ahead of CES 2021, in which he appears to be charting a middle ground between Intel yanking all of its current third-party semiconductor manufacturing back into its own fabs and going purely fabless. According to Swan, Intel’s goal is to maintain maximum flexibility in its approaches.

Any attempt by Intel to shift its business to TSMC wholesale would also require a dramatic capacity expansion on TSMC’s part.

The problem is: Now that Intel in-house manufacturing is having major issues, they will buy TSMC GPUs (and maybe CPUs). That may mean less TSMC availability for AMD and, perhaps, higher costs at the consumer level.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/21 09:18 PM

The turmoil at Intel has not been greatly overstated:

Quote
Intel Appoints Pat Gelsinger as New CEO, From Feb 15th

News is breaking that Intel has announced that Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMWare, is to take the role of CEO at Intel from February 15th.

Intel today has released a press statement saying that current CEO Bob Swan (who we interviewed only a few days ago!) is to step down in his role, and be succeeded by Pat Gelsinger. Gelsinger, a veteran of the industry, has spent over 40 years at companies such as VMWare, EMC, and spent 30 years previously at Intel, reaching the position of Chief Technology Officer.

Gelsinger is set to oversee the next generation of Intel products and manufacturing. This includes 10nm, 7nm, Alder Lake, future Lakes, Sapphire Rapids, discrete graphics, Ponte Vecchio, networking, packaging, IoT, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and 5G compute.

Ultimately, I expect parity among Intel and AMD and Nvidia. But, this appointment of Gelsinger may or may not do the trick for Intel. We'll see.

Attached picture Pat_Twitter_678x452.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/21 12:45 PM

Quote
AMD and NVIDIA expect GPU inventory to remain lean throughout Q1

Not only is the market is facing shortages in the substrate, components, and the GPUs themselves, but gamers also need to face price hikes on PC components in the United States due to increased tariffs, and across the world due to the rising popularity of GPU mining.

Interesting conundrum for me. I won't be able to get a 7nm RX6800XT at MSRP before April (??). But, a year later, the 5nm designs with improved structure will hit the market. Do I want to buy two expensive cards in consecutive years? At a minimum, it will stop me from considering the $1500 price range. Unless, I spot one soon and can't resist smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/21 10:17 PM

Apparently, Intel will go "all in" with TSMC during the next couple years.

Quote
TSMC To Produce Intel Core i3 CPUs on 5nm Process Node in 2H 2021, 3nm Mainstream & High-End CPUs Enter Mass Production in 2H 2022

TrendForce has announced that as per their investigation, TSMC will be mass-producing Intel's next-generation entry-level, mid-range and high-end CPUs on its 5nm and 3nm process nodes

Intel plans to shift its entire mid-range and high-performance lineup to TSMC by 2H 2022. The next-generation processors will be featuring the more advanced 3nm process node from TSMC & will be the successors to the Alder Lake lineup.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/21 10:32 PM

More good news for Intel -- update on above post from an author who's views I respect.
Quote
Pat Gelsinger is the best possible choice for CEO of Intel

Pat Gelsinger is the single best choice to lead Intel, he has the rare combination of technical aptitude, managerial ability, and personality that will allow him to do the job. Pat knows Intel intimately having spent decades there starting from the bottom and moving to almost x the job he now will assume.

Intel has some monumental, crippling, potentially company-ending problems in their near term future and Pat is the one single candidate well equipped to tackle all of them. Lets hope it is possible, and if it is, he can do it.


Attached picture Intel-Pat-Gelsinger-354x500-1.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/21 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Interesting conundrum for me. I won't be able to get a 7nm RX6800XT at MSRP before April (??). But, a year later, the 5nm designs with improved structure will hit the market. Do I want to buy two expensive cards in consecutive years? At a minimum, it will stop me from considering the $1500 price range. Unless, I spot one soon and can't resist smile


You know you want to seehearspeak

My MSFS 2020 performance is enough to know I did the right thing thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/21 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
My MSFS 2020 performance is enough to know I did the right thing thumbsup

I feel it. If I had done what you did, like you, I would simply be enjoying it right now. yep

And, yes, with my current GPU, MSFS2020 is the one application where my system falls very-very-short at 4K sigh
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/21 04:15 PM

More Intel.

Quote
AMD reunites Raja Koduri with his baby: an RX 6800 graphics card

It's nice when everybody gets along.

Intel's chief architect, Raja Koduri, the man in charge of gearing up Intel's discrete graphics charge with Xe, just received a 'surprise' AMD RX 6800 graphics card in the post from his ex-employer.

Koduri left his top position at the Radeon Technology Group back in 2017, following a short sabbatical from the role in the days following Vega's launch. It was always said that the Navi architecture (before we knew it as RDNA) was Koduri's pet project, so perhaps it's only fitting that the now-Intel GPU engineer would receive an RDNA 2 card in the mail.


Attached picture Tfqq9AqhPDyyJ8WTVjsV3Q-1024-80.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-01-15 111315.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/21 10:46 AM

Quote
Intel May Postpone Manufacturing Decision, Emphasizes Beating Apple

Intel’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has wasted no time. While he won’t take over from Bob Swan until February, he’s already addressed Intel’s workforce in an all-hands meeting.

Intel told assembled employees that it might wait to announce any change to its manufacturing plans until Gelsinger is onboard. This is an interesting wrinkle to the overarching manufacturing situation, and it implies that Intel wants a CEO with an engineering background to examine the situation and possibly make the decision.


When i read Gelsinger was to become CEO, I wondered why they would "stick him" with the prior CEOs decision to use TSMC in place of Intel manufacturing (for some things).

Now, maybe they will "unstick" him. During my career, I noticed "non-technical" managers were not as good at making technical decisions as managers with a "technical" background (duh).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/21 09:48 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX is now PassMark’s highest ranking mobile CPU

The Ryzen 9 5900HX is not even the fastest CPU of the Cezanne FP6 series, yet it was enough to top the PassMark mobile CPU ranking in both single and multi-threaded benchmarks.

The Ryzen 9 5900HX is an unlocked 8-core and 16-thread CPU clocked at 3.3 GHz up to 4.7 GHz. The CPU is targetted for high-end gaming laptops, such as ASUS ROG Zephyrus or Strix series (the source of today’s leak).


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5900HX-PassMark-Fancy.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/21 12:31 PM

Quote
TSMC Will Spend an Extra $10B on Chip Production in 2021

That’s a 1.54x increase if you take $26.5B as a midpoint estimate, and it comes on the heels of the largest demand surge the semiconductor industry has absorbed in decades, if ever.

TSMC’s anticipated revenue growth for 2021 over 2020 is in the mid-teens — very healthy — but the company’s budget increase will likely eat more than half its total revenue.

Some of TSMC’s new capital outlay will be used to break ground on a new fab the company is building in Arizona, but that plant isn’t expected to be online until 2024.

In this past quarter, 5nm shipments accounted for 20 percent of TSMC’s revenue, while 7nm held 29 percent and 16nm grabbed 13 percent.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/22/21 09:56 AM

Intel's new CEO (Technically oriented vs. Business oriented like the previous CEO) says the following:

Quote
Intel Says it Fixed 7nm Process, But Will Still Outsource Some Parts

Incoming CEO says 7nm recovery is in good shape

Incoming Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke on the call, saying that he has personally reviewed progress on the company's 7nm process over the last week and that he is pleased with the "health and recovery of the 7nm program.

he is confident that the majority of Intel's 2023 CPU products will come from the company's own factories.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/21 11:59 AM

Quote
Intel, Nvidia Deny Blocking AMD From High-End Mobile Gaming

There’s a rumor going around that Intel and Nvidia have conspired to block AMD’s Ryzen Mobile 4000 series from high-end gaming laptops. This information has supposedly been provided by an unnamed OEM

let’s address the elephant in the room. The reason conspiracy theories about blocking AMD from accessing the market find a home online is that there has been a lot of bad blood between the two companies over the decades. Intel went all the way to the Supreme Court in an attempt to revoke AMD’s right to manufacture x86 CPUs. Over a decade later, AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, alleging that the company had abused its monopoly in the x86 market by creating a rebate system that effectively locked AMD out of certain market segments.

the court of public opinion had a lot to say about Intel’s behavior, and not much of it was good.

[Back then] Intel paid AMD $1.25B and renegotiated its x86 license to settle the case, and paid a $1.45B fine to the EU.

I’ve conducted my own investigations into the related compiler optimization differences that also formed part of the lawsuit

The Ryzen 5000 desktop launch in the fall of 2020 gave AMD a real claim to all-around fastest CPU, including gaming. .. AMD currently holds a leadership position in desktop.


As I've mentioned before, those "goings on" were why I became an AMD supporter. Note the "compiler optimization differences" were a reason some things ran better on Intel than AMD -- i.e. the compilers that produced the code were rigged in Intel's favor.

Is Intel "at it again"? The author of the article is not sure and neither am I. Right now this is just an unproven rumor. But, we'll see.

Long term, with fair competition, I assume Intel and AMD will be competitive (i.e. each will win some and lose some). Fair competition is good for customers smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/23/21 04:25 PM

Quote
AMD Navi 31 rumored to be dual 80CU chiplet design, up to 10240 cores?

AMD Navi 31, the first desktop chiplet-based GPU?

We have heard rumors about the upcoming Navi 31 GPU for a while now. In fact, there have been rumors about Navi 41 already. The Navi 31 might be AMD’s first MCM (multi-chip module) design. .. AMD made it clear that RDNA3 has Radeon DNA and it is for sure aiming at the gaming market.

AMD is expected to talk about the architecture by 2022. It would appear that AMD might lift a curtain on RDNA3 somewhere later this year.


When Navi started out, and was announced, they said it would be a multi-chip GPU. That method would allow unlimited "shaders" and a better Price/performance.

So far, Navi has been a single GPU chip. Maybe next year, we'll see the first "multi-chip" version -- and another huge uptick in performance.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-01-23 111945.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/21 12:20 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 Mobile Zen3 architecture detailed

Today AMD lifts the embargo on AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile series architecture details

AMD claims that their new Zen3 mobile processors will provide a ‘historic single thread performance uplift’. In fact, AMD claims that Ryze9 5900HX, the unlocked 8-core high-end CPU, will be up to 19% faster than the current Intel flagship Core i9-10980HK.

There are new power regulating features that improve battery life up to 2 hours, AMD claims.

Ryzen 5000H and 5000U based laptops will start shipping in February,


Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-5000-Zen3-Architecture-1536x850.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/21 11:01 PM

Quote
AMD Posts All Time High Revenue In FY 2020 Earnings For 45% Annual Growth!

AMD reports that it had $480 million of free cash flow during the fourth quarter of 2020, in a 20% growth year over year and $554 million of operating cash flow during the same quarter for a 25% year-over-year growth.


Attached picture AMD-Q4-2020-FCF-740x415.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/27/21 11:55 AM

Quote
Iris Xe Intel’s first desktop discrete GPU will not work with AMD processors

The Iris Xe graphics cards are not targeted at gamers though. These cards are meant to be offered for low-power and low-cost multimedia machines, home entertainment systems, or business consumers.

the Iris Xe graphics card will not work on AMD systems.

[Intel Spokesman] The Iris Xe discrete add-in card will be paired with 9th gen (Coffee Lake-S) and 10th gen (Comet Lake-S) Intel® Core™ desktop processors and Intel(R) B460, H410, B365, and H310C chipset-based motherboards and sold as part of pre-built systems. These motherboards require a special BIOS that supports Intel Iris Xe, so the cards won’t be compatible with other systems.


Attached picture COLORFUL-Iris-Xe-4GB.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/27/21 05:03 PM

Quote
Hitman 3 PC performance proves there might just be some fine wine in AMD's RX 6800 XT

The first big game of 2021 gives us a chance to check out the classic AMD vs. Nvidia head-to-head, and highlights what VRS can deliver in a real game.

VRS is a relatively modern GPU feature—though it was first introduced in 2019—which essentially allows a game to select different levels of fidelity actually within the shading of a scene. There are two tiers listed for VRS, Tier 1 and Tier 2.

There has long been a bit of a stigma to AMD's GPU drivers, but they've played a blinder here, so is this a taste of what is to come with new games coming out this year?


Attached picture HitmanPerformance.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/21 10:56 AM

A rumor regarding competition:

Quote
Report: Intel Signs Contract To Outsource CPUs To TSMC’s 3nm Process

A massive claim has just been made by Taiwan's leading newspaper, DigiTimes: Intel has apparently signed a contract with TSMC to fabricate core CPU product lines [signed] in 2020 on their 3nm process. This, if true, would change the dynamics of the x86 industry completely next year. Keep in mind, we are definitively tagging this report as a rumor until further confirmation

TSMC's 3nm is roughly comparable to Intel's 5nm process and an outsource to TSMC would be akin to the company retaking its initial process lead.

The largest order is for CPUs that will use TSMC’s 3nm process slated to enter mass production in the second half of 2022

Supposedly, AMD is already signed up for 5nm late this year and is on track for 3nm - from TSMC. The chart below was nominally the Intel time-line - using TSMC will speed it up.

Attached picture Intel-Process-Manufacturing-Roadmap.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/21 10:23 AM

Intel's first graphics card for PCs is only used in prebuilt OEM systems. Its actually a laptop chip on a PC GPU. The headline tells the story:

Quote
Intel DG1 GPU Teardown, Failed Benchmarks, and Why It Won't Work on Most Systems


This laptop chip does not translate to a PC GPU. But, Intel is not trying to sell it to other than OEMs who use it with special PC motherboards.

Its a first step into the PC GPU business -- but not a competitor for AMD or Nvidia.

Attached picture IntelGPU.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/21 05:48 PM

Quote
AMD promises additional RX 6900/6800 reference cards to be available in the first quarter


It is expected those cards will only be available directly from AMD and at MSRP.
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/21 04:40 AM

Does anyone know what this is? winkngrin

S!Blade<><

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/21 11:22 AM

Rarefied air you breath. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/21 11:26 AM

Samsung plans to grow large in the leading edge technologies. That's good. The industry needs the Competition.
Quote
Samsung Expected to Attain Fourth Position for Matured Nodes in 2021; TSMC Holding First Place Thanks to Rapid Chip Advancements

Samsung ranks fourth place because it’s only focused on advanced nodes such as 10nm, 7nm, and 5nm, not legacy node production, like the remaining two companies. ... it’s the 3nm node that should determine if Samsung has the resources and talent to catch up to its biggest rival [TSMC] in the semiconductor race, and it looks like we see some progress.
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/21 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Rarefied air you breath. smile


Yes it is LOL. winkngrin That is my brand new R5600x enclosed in its' drool proof protection. I am finally amassing the components for my much needed new rig. After 7+ years of faithful service from my AMD PhenomII 965BE, I finally will be assembling a new high end AMD rig in a couple of months.
YEA! And there was much rejoicing! yep

S!Blade<><
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/21 03:50 PM

Yup, right now, the R5 5600X is considered the "best solution" for a gaming system.

Right now, I'm building a gift-system for my Step Son and waiting for an R5 5600 (no X) at MSRP -- which is the cost effective solution for how he will use it.

But, I can't find one, yet. You found yours thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/21 12:49 PM

Now some are guessing that new AMD CPUs and GPUs in good supply at MSRP will not happen until late Summer 2021.

Until then, prices will be normally be higher than MSRP (except at AMD Storefront where they will remain MSRP) and stock will sell out quickly (including at AMD Storefront).

As noted above, AMD expects a restock of the AMD Storefront in March (probably later in March??) -- if one is in the market, be ready to jump when they hit.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/21 03:50 PM

Quote
AMD Shipped Almost 1M Ryzen 5000 CPUs, Still Couldn’t Meet Demand

AMD shipped nearly a million Ryzen 5000 CPUs in Q4 of 2020.

AMD ramped up sales of the Ryzen 5000 family so rapidly, it beat its own record by more than 2x. “The Ryzen 5000 supply ramp was record-breaking for AMD by a very wide margin,” McCarron told PCMag.

The reason AMD CPUs are hard to find right now isn’t because of yield problems at TSMC. It’s because, even though Ryzen 5000 already accounts for about 20 percent of AMD’s desktop business, the company is selling every single CPU it can make.


In addition, indications are that professionals are dropping Intel systems for AMD systems. Not known how widespread that is.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/06/21 11:22 AM

Quote
Chinese GPU miners are now bulk buying GeForce RTX 30 laptops to mine Ethereum

Since late November the value of Ethereum (ETH) has tripled. This cryptocurrency is the most popular one among GPU miners.

Apparently, people are now mass buying laptops with graphics cards such as RTX 3070 to literally stack them on the shelves to mine Ethereum.

Bilibili content creator ‘Fish Pond F2pool’ has made a video (purely for entertainment) to show how easy is to make cryptocurrency on a laptop equipped with a just-released RTX 3060 graphics card.

While sipping coffee at Starbucks the creator has a laptop plugged into the wall socket. It takes 2 hours to mine 0.00053 ETH which equals 0.89 USD, apparently enough to pay for the coffee.


Thus, even certain laptops will be scarce and priced high because "miners" buy those laptops in bulk (not one at a time).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/07/21 06:18 PM

Now we know what we already knew -- mining is costing gamers their cards:
Quote
GPU Mining farms are causing power outages in Iran

The country with cheap electricity suffers from the popularity of GPU mining

According to El Chapuzas Informatico, an investigation by Iranian authorities has revealed that recent power outages in Iran have been caused by the growing popularity of mining farms in the country.

Chinese companies are reportedly moving their mining operations to Iran, where the electricity cost is 4 times lower than in mainland China (1.8 to 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour). The country is now allegedly hosting 14 large mining farms that consume around 300 megawatts of power. This is comparable to the power consumption of a city with 100K inhabitants. According to research by the University of Cambridge, Iran is among the six popular destinations for mining farms in the world.

it appears that neither board partners nor NVIDIA have any problem selling those cards to miners. So far we have not heard about any retail store or board partner being punished for taking part in this process.

The GPU mining craze has even affected the recently launched notebooks featuring new graphics cards from NVIDIA.


Attached picture GeForce-RTX-30-GPU-Mining-7-700x426.jpg
Attached picture GeForce-RTX-30-GPU-Mining-6-700x426.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/21 01:06 PM

Quote
AMD’s 5nm Next-Generation Zen 4 Ryzen & EPYC CPUs Rumored To Feature Over 25% IPC Increase, 40% Overall Performance Boost Over Zen 3

The AMD Zen 4 core architecture will be fabricated on TSMC's 5nm process node and is expected to launch sometime in 2022.

even possibly (finally) 5GHz all-core thanks to the new (full node) N5 fabrication at TSMC!


Another "We'll see" for next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/21 04:48 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000G PRO Cezanne desktop APU with 8-cores and 16-threads spotted

The leaker adds that there is a strong possibility that it Cezanne AM4 PRO series will not go retail.


I'd consider a retail version for a gift-build I'm working on (basically done except for the 5000 series CPU or APU).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/21 09:32 AM

Quote
Intel’s Raja Koduri Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards In Action Within 3DMark Mesh Shader Test, Launch Imminent?


At this moment, its unclear if a launch will happen anytime soon.This is a "tease". But, Intel is making GPU progress.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/21 09:51 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Powered Massive Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Spotted in China, Over Hundreds of Ampere Laptops

What's interesting here is that the user has bought these laptops in a bulk order which means that either the retailer, distributor, or the manufacturer itself is openly supporting cryptocurrency miners over actual customers such as gamers which these laptops are primarily designed for. The selling party could be taking advantage of crypto miners by selling these at scalped prices to earn a profit.


A video scans a large room shows racks of many laptops running for cryptocurrency mining (and some human operators). The attached "stills" are just "screen captures" of a couple racks that I quickly made for this post.

The video validates the concept of "hundreds" of laptops -- maybe only 1.5 hundreds smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-02-11 044015.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-02-11 044140.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-02-11 045507.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/21 11:40 AM

An extensive article that discusses the pros and cons of mining using GPUs and which GPUs work best.

Quote
Best Mining GPUs Benchmarked and Ranked

A look at current profitability for the best mining GPUs and why prices are jacked up.


30 old and new GPUs are ranked. Folks can read it for themselves, if they are interested.

"Mining" is back in full force to stay for a while. Not much more to say: so, I won't be posting much more about it.

Long Article
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/21 12:02 PM

We talk/write about "nodes" (e.g. 7nm node vs 10nm node). Smaller is better. But, those names are only loosely based on the actual size of things.

Quote
How Are Process Nodes Defined?

Process nodes are typically named with a number followed by the abbreviation for nanometer: 32nm, 22nm, 14nm, etc. There is no fixed, objective relationship between any feature of the CPU and the name of the node.

The best way to understand the meaning of a new process node is to think of it as an umbrella term [that describes how well the newer node works versus the older node].


For those interested in the details of how nodes are named -- the link.

How Nodes Are Defined
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/21 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Blade_Meister
Originally Posted by Allen
Rarefied air you breath. smile


Yes it is LOL. winkngrin That is my brand new R5600x enclosed in its' drool proof protection. I am finally amassing the components for my much needed new rig. After 7+ years of faithful service from my AMD PhenomII 965BE, I finally will be assembling a new high end AMD rig in a couple of months.
YEA! And there was much rejoicing! yep

S!Blade<><


[Linked Image]

What GPU are you pairing it with Blade? You're not going to see much of a difference from a Phenom 965! wink

I moved from an Intel 6700k at 5GHz and 1080ti and paired my 5600x with a 3900 (got tired of waiting for the 6800/XT and 3080 so pulled the trigger). When I'm playing MSFS 2020 at 4K at Ultra I know I made the right decision - it's on a completely different level

Attached picture highfive.gif
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/21 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
What GPU are you pairing it with Blade? You're not going to see much of a difference from a Phenom 965! wink

I moved from an Intel 6700k at 5GHz and 1080ti and paired my 5600x with a 3900 (got tired of waiting for the 6800/XT and 3080 so pulled the trigger). When I'm playing MSFS 2020 at 4K at Ultra I know I made the right decision - it's on a completely different level

I think it's important to consider that budget is always a factor (more specifically, it is *the* factor). So, awesome as I'm sure it is, a 3090 is not necessarily the best choice for every situation. The "right" decision depends on a lot more than sheer performance (which, again, I am sure is wonderful).

In this case, the cost of a 3090 GPU likely exceeds the majority of the new build's component list in total, as an educated guess. Will it outperform a lot of setups? Of course it will, it's a $1500 (+tax) GPU lol

But what has to be considered is the level of performance for the cost.

It also depends on your particular situation: For example, the huge performance gains of 30-series GPUs are actually much less if running at anything *less* than 4k. And while higher resolutions (and VR!) are catching on, the fact is that 1080p gaming still outnumbers all other resolutions *combined* (last I checked, anyhow).

Not at all intended to upset, offend or insult anyone or their hardware buying decisions...to each his own, of course. And I'll say it one more time, to be clear: I am certain the 3090 is awesome.

But budget is always part of the decision. For example, instead of the 5600X - which are indeed remarkable chips...if sheer performance is the goal, then go with a Threadripper CPU/sTRX4 motherboard.

They're only about $4800 for the motherboard and CPU, at the high end smile (of course, the entry-level pair is a bargain at only $2400).

But they'll outright smoke anything else...and surely that's the goal...right? biggrin biggrin biggrin

What makes the 5600X such a great CPU, IMHO is not it's performance - which, having built two in recent months (and two Zen 2's as well), I can tell you is fantastic.

But what makes it so remarkable is the performance at such a modest cost. As above, cost to performance. HIgh-end Threadripper clearly shows there are CPUs that will outperform the (remarkable) 5600X by nearly 4x...but I can't say I know many people who can afford almost $5000 just for a CPU and motherboard.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/21 10:28 PM

Well err yeah, that was a bit of a rant.

The beauty of the 5600X to me is that for gaming/sims it is beating the 5800x/5900x/5950x in most games purely because the majority of games still aren't coded to use all the cores that the other chips offer and the architecture of that specific cpu offers less latency of the more expensive cpu's due to the single chipset design. You can still take your thread ripper example for silly money and not get the extra performance in games for the same reason the extra cores simply aren't used efficiently.

With regards value for money and the 3090, each to his own......but it doesn't really matter what you own/owned previously because even if you had the 2080ti, the 3070/3080/6800XT and above are smashing performance out of the park for less money. For anyone upgrading it's win/win.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/21 12:11 AM

I wouldn't dream of buying (or recommending) one of the high-end Threadripper setups. I mentioned it just to illustrate that money is *always* an object; that no matter how much money you have or can spend, there's a point where it's purely extravagance to spend more, and spending lots of money doesn't in any way assure 'best' performance.

(But they are incredibly powerful machines, and I know a couple people who would love to have one...if they had the money, that is).

Again, for the majority - who aren't running 4k - the performance gains dwindle on 30-series cards to the point that you can get comparable performance at a much lower cost. I just put a second 1080Ti in my own system, if I multiply what it cost x2 I'm still below $900 for both GPUs. And, according to the 3dMark online database last I checked, the performance is comparable to (and in at least one case, exceeds) that of a 3090 when coupled with the same CPU.

So, at 2560x1080, total cost $600 less than a 3090 (which are very hard to get now, on top of that)...I get comparable-if-not-better performance. Even if we consider a 3080...if you can even get one, it falls behind the two 1080Ti cards at my resolution...and instead of paying $700+, I paid <$425 (I already had a single 1080Ti; replacing it with a 3080 would cost $700+, where adding a second 1080Ti - brand new and warranted as such by MSI - cost less than $425).

My 3DMark result (and it's been run more than once; it varies but is reasonably consistent). It's a 1080 benchmark, but that's exactly the territory I'm referring to, and it shows that even the mighty 3090 isn't the final word:
[Linked Image]

From the UL Online database, at the time (probably changed since) - 3090s with same CPU (9700k) filtered to same overclock as mine:
[Linked Image]

(Note the Overall scores ~32600 or less; mine are consistently over 34500 - and the Graphics scores are barely over 50000 while I'm getting >57000)

I am sure there's a lot of 3090 owners out there that are happy, but for the majority (especially those not running 4k) they might be happier if they went another way and saved themselves some money.

Just my own personal $0.02 and verifiable, empirical measurements. Others may vary.
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/21 05:20 AM

Originally Posted by Paradaz


What GPU are you pairing it with Blade? You're not going to see much of a difference from a Phenom 965! wink


I started from the ground up with an Asus Prime X570 P , Ryzen 5 5600x , 32GB G.Skill 3600 C16, EVGA RTX2070 xc Ultra, Samsung NVME 980 Pro PCIE4 M.2 2280 500GB boot drive, with a soon to be added Samsung NVME 980 Pro PCIE4 M.2 2280 2TB strictly gaming drive, all powered by a Corsair Tx 850M. Hopefully tomorrow I will be stuffing it into its' case with the help of kksnowbear, if the roads are not all iced up and impassable. She is still on the test box in these pics at kkFrankenPuter'sstirthepot house where he is having all of the fun at my expense.rolleyes kksnowbear has been an indispensable resource for purchasing, tech knowledge, assembly, testing and just good company during my new Rig building project. I will have more on this whole process later, but for now, while he will tell you himself he doesn't know everything about computers, dam-n he knows just about everything about computers as far as I can tell, or he will find out if he really doesn't know. Modesty is an admirable quality Sir, but credit has to be given where credit is due. yep I literally would not have gotten this rig to boot into the bios if it wasn't for him,mycomputer but more on that at another time and in another post. Here are those pics of her outside the case while she is being tuned up and stressed out. winkngrin

S!Blade<><

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/21 07:47 PM

Quote
Intel, AMD Chiefs Push For Tax Breaks In U.S. $3 Billion, 3nm Chip Development Plan

Representatives of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) were joined by those from big silicon firms in writing a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him to help reduce American dependence on chip imports. Intel's former chief Mr. Robert Swan, AMD's chief Dr. Lisa Su and Qualcomm's Steve Mollenkopf were signatories of the letter, with representatives from NVIDIA Corporation, Broadcomm Inc, IBM also showing their support for the proposal. [A total of 20 US firms support the plan]

3nm Research In U.S. To Be Spearheaded By New National Semiconductor Technology Center

While the CHIPS title expands the federal government's focus on reclaiming the chip crown for America, it isn't the first such program. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Electronic Resurgence Initiative is another program that aims to develop key chip technologies domestically.

British design house Arm Ltd. is [one of the] beneficiary[ies] of this program,


The article notes that un-passed legislation under consideration would provide $10 Billion per chip plant (roughly stated).

It was noted that some European countries have similar goals for European chip production.

Its about time (in my opinion) wink
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/21 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
I wouldn't dream of buying (or recommending) one of the high-end Threadripper setups. I mentioned it just to illustrate that money is *always* an object; that no matter how much money you have or can spend, there's a point where it's purely extravagance to spend more, and spending lots of money doesn't in any way assure 'best' performance.

(But they are incredibly powerful machines, and I know a couple people who would love to have one...if they had the money, that is).

Again, for the majority - who aren't running 4k - the performance gains dwindle on 30-series cards to the point that you can get comparable performance at a much lower cost. I just put a second 1080Ti in my own system, if I multiply what it cost x2 I'm still below $900 for both GPUs. And, according to the 3dMark online database last I checked, the performance is comparable to (and in at least one case, exceeds) that of a 3090 when coupled with the same CPU.

So, at 2560x1080, total cost $600 less than a 3090 (which are very hard to get now, on top of that)...I get comparable-if-not-better performance. Even if we consider a 3080...if you can even get one, it falls behind the two 1080Ti cards at my resolution...and instead of paying $700+, I paid <$425 (I already had a single 1080Ti; replacing it with a 3080 would cost $700+, where adding a second 1080Ti - brand new and warranted as such by MSI - cost less than $425).

My 3DMark result (and it's been run more than once; it varies but is reasonably consistent). It's a 1080 benchmark, but that's exactly the territory I'm referring to, and it shows that even the mighty 3090 isn't the final word:
[Linked Image]

From the UL Online database, at the time (probably changed since) - 3090s with same CPU (9700k) filtered to same overclock as mine:


(Note the Overall scores ~32600 or less; mine are consistently over 34500 - and the Graphics scores are barely over 50000 while I'm getting >57000)

I am sure there's a lot of 3090 owners out there that are happy, but for the majority (especially those not running 4k) they might be happier if they went another way and saved themselves some money.

Just my own personal $0.02 and verifiable, empirical measurements. Others may vary.



I'm not convinced you're understanding the Firestrike database scores at all.......at 1080p powerful GPUs are bottlenecked by the CPU, not by the GPU, so it's largely irrelevant what GPU is in the system in the first place because you're only going to see a major difference in Firestrike scores when the CPU is changed and to that end any major differences in the overall score will be down to the clock speed of the CPU - the GPU simply isn't getting the chance to stretch its legs. The same applies to a 1080ti SLI setup versus a 3080 or 3090 at 1080p because the graphics card doesn't get chance to show what it can do when the CPU is throttling the entire system back at low resolutions. A 57,000 GPU score isn't a reflection of what the GPU can do, it's a reflection of how much data the CPU can feed it at the designated clock speed, hence why all the GPUs have similar scores even when some are over twice as powerful as the others. Admittedly, if you're not running a 4K resolution then it's pointless buying a 3090 for exactly the same reason unless there are more upgrades due that can actually harness the power. Now, if you were to run Firestrike Ultra (a 4K test)....you're going in the opposite end of the spectrum where the CPU becomes irrelevant and you will see what your GPU can really do - it's a bit bizarre to claim that the 3090 isn't the final word' in a 1080p test when it's not actually being tested at all.

Also, the argument that the 'majority of people' or the results of the Steam survey show that 1080p or a particular GPU is more popular is meaningless when you are upgrading a system, for the simple fact that you are not buying for the majority, you're buying for yourself in most cases and you're either on a budget of building the system around your own use and requirements. If everyone bought their systems based on the majority there would never be progress in tech and everything would be stale.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/21 12:45 AM

Quote
[CEO] Pat Gelsinger is confident Intel can become “the world’s leading semiconductor company”

According to the note sent to 110,000 Intel employees, Pat Gelsinger wants Intel to be the leader in every category. The company should become more agile in a competitive semiconductor market, the note says. Pat Gelsinger also wants Intel to execute the roadmaps flawlessly

Pat Gelsinger’s remarks not surprising. It is typical for CEOs to publish their goals, especially for companies of this magnitude. Gelsinger has strong ambitions and wants Intel to become the ‘world’s leading semiconductor company’. Whether those goals will be achieved only time will tell. It will probably take months if not years to see Gelsinger’s decisions bear fruit.


My view coincides with the author of the article: Intel may have a good leader because his technical background and time previously spent at Intel should reduce his mistakes. The content of his slightly "over the top" note is "expected". The outcome unknown. Yet another, "We'll see".

Gelsinger Note Full Text
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/21 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by Paradaz
I'm not convinced you're understanding the Firestrike database scores at all...


Oh, I'm pretty sure there's a lack of understanding of the FireStrike tool and result...just not me who apparently doesn't understand.

The FireStrike benchmark is specifically designed to test both components, CPU and GPU, as separate but inter-functional parts of a gaming platform. (I can prove this by showing the impact in a mismatched CPU-GPU combo, and have done so many times). This is why there are separate scores for each area, in addition to the Combined and Overall scores - so you can see what is affecting the result and how much.

If the CPU were holding this setup back like you claim, I wouldn't be scoring what I am in the Combined score or Physics score. The only way to see how my setup compares to others is using the same CPU, else the Physics number skews the result. The entire point is to see how a like system - with only the GPUs being different - compares to mine.

Here's proof:

[Linked Image]

This shows the same GPU comparison, only running a 4k test and with much more capable CPUs, which you said were the reasons I got the result I did (1080p and CPU 'bottlenecking'). These are the top online database scores for each of the indicated systems (others still show comparable results).

So much for all that "bottlenecking" and GPU that "can't stretch it's legs" or whatever. The CPUs are much stronger here, and show the increased Physics result/Combined result...but the 1080Ti setup still gets a higher graphics score and is very close in the Overall score.

And, although I won't bother posting it just now (though I can if necessary), your idea about CPU 'bottlenecking' at 1080p is also wholly misguided. The FireStrike benchmark, even at 1080p is perfectly capable of loading very powerful CPUs and they will show accordingly. Most of the time in the first two game tests, CPUs aren't loaded much at all (an OSD like AfterBurner will confirm this) but absolutely *do* become fully loaded in the CPU test. I can use the online database to sub much more capable CPUs with the same two test subjects (3090 vs 2x 1080Ti) and I still get the same result: The 2x 1080Ti setup keeps pace or even outscores the 3090.

So I'm afraid the actual data doesn't support your explanation. Sorry. Looks like I actually understand the benchmark/results fairly well.

What is does show - still - is that I get comparable performance, if not better with a second 1080Ti that cost me >$600 less than a 3090 would. (And that's total for both my cards; I already had one so my actual "upgrade cost" was, again, <$425). So, hmm...$425 vs $1500 plus tax for about the same performance, regardless of resolution or CPU...hmm...

As far as monitors go, the data I referenced is widely accepted and as good as any available - unless you have more/better data to present, that is.

It's not meaningless if you're looking at what the majority of people will be running both before and after any potential upgrades: The majority are using 1080p, and for some time yet, I think it's very safe to say the majority will be using 1080 (or at least some resolution less than 4k). Just because someone 'upgrades' doesn't automatically mean they intend to go to 4k as part of the upgrade. In fact, lots of people upgrade their PC while keeping the same monitor, since replacing a monitor would add even more cost.



Attached picture 3090v1080Ti-4k.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/21 09:18 PM

banghead

You've just perfectly demonstrated how you don't understand this. You've gone from a CPU bottle-necked benchmark whilst claiming allsorts about GPUs, to a GPU heavy benchmark and then attempted to reference CPU performance. You've selected the most irrelevant part of each test.

Your Fire Strike Ultra screenshot is simply showing that a 3090/3080 is roughly equivalent to a 1080SLi setup which is absolutely correct in theoretical benchmarks although in games the SLi setup has limited support and is thereofore now pretty much a dead end. Because you aren't showing my point that in this GPU heavy test, the CPUs become less relevant you have failed to notice that the 18-core 10980XE is getting a very similar score to the 5600x. My own Firestrike Ultra CPU score with the 5600x actually beats your example showing just how irrelevant it is because the 10980XE is a far better performing chip especially when all the cores can be utilised and you would see that if you compared an identical system but different CPUs in the 1080p Firestrike test - approx 50% advantage to the 10980XE in CPU score alone.

You still keep mentioning the 'majority of people'. It is absolutely irrelevant......you build a system based on your own requirements as I mentioned previously - it doesn't matter in the slightest who else is running 640x480, 1080p or 4K....you build for your own budget, gaming/multimedia or a combination/balance of all of that. You seem to have the opinion that because the 'majority' of people are playing at 1080p then that offers a restrictive or limited point of going down the 4K route which is utter nonsense. Anyone going down the 4K route is doing so because they can use that resolution and get the benefits from at.....regardless of what the 'majority' are doing.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/21 11:11 PM

I think anyone can see the scores and understand what they show. Sorry, we disagree - and the data shows what it shows: the 2x 1080Tis score consistently and competitively with a 3090 - at both 1080p and 4k, regardless of CPU (at least, to be accurate, in the cases I've shown).

If you have data to illustrate your perspective, then by all means.

EDIT: BTW On the monitor resolution, again, we just disagree. You seem to think that just because someone is upgrading that they are somehow less likely to be in the majority, which isn't true. Many people who upgrade to even the very latest CPU/GPU don't have any intent of using 4k. The majority is the majority, for a reason (actually a set of reasons, but whatever). I'll stick with the data available, which shows clearly that the majority of gamers aren't interested in 4k.


Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/21 02:57 AM

Oh, and for the record: Same two GPU setups, same 4k test, now both with 5600X CPUs (same clock)

[Linked Image]

And result says...(drum roll)

...exactly the same thing: 2x 1080Ti scores slightly higher than 3090, both Overall and in Graphics.

For someone who you say doesn't understand how the FireStrike benchmark results work, I'm doing pretty good at calling these results, over and over...

Not sure how many of these I need to reference to show the results are going to be pretty much what I keep saying they're going to be biggrin biggrin biggrin

Attached picture 3090v1080Ti-5600XCPU_4k.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/21 07:01 AM

Pointless debating with you.....you clearly don't understand;

Firestrike Ultra is a GPU heavy test whereby CPUs are less relevant. You've already proved it by comparing the 10980XE and 5600x CPU scores being very similar in a system where the rest of the system is identical......yet the 10980XE is a much better performing chip where the cores can be utilised.

The standard Firestrike test at 1080p is effectively a CPU test because today's GPUs are not fed the data quickly enough and don't get chance to harness their power. That is the test that will show you relative differences between CPU's.

If you want evidence on real performance of the 5600x v 10980XE and 1080ti SLi v RTX 3090 I'd recommend you view some real-world and/or gaming benchmarks instead of spectating Firestorm benchies.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/21 03:24 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Annoucnes CMP 30HX, 40HX, 50HX and 90HX GPUs For Mining, Cripples Hash Rate Of RTX 3060

NVIDIA has finally conceded to the overwhelming mining demand facing the GPU market right now and launched a lineup of dedicated cryptocurrency mining GPUs .. called CMP. This is short for Cryptocurrency Mining Processor

It is also unclear at this point how their decision to halve RTX 3060 mining rate will be received. Some would argue that if you are buying the hardware, you reserve the right to use it to its full potential. Another obvious problem could be the fact that software blocks are usually overcome quite easily when the wider internet puts its mind to it.


Nvidia implies the "crippling" of hash rate will only apply to cryptocurrency uses (the card detects mining and cuts the hash rate by half). They imply gamers will not be harmed.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/18/21 11:41 PM

Not really much of a debate, TBH...you dropped a ton of money on a card that I can compete with at 2/3rds the cost, saving $600 - which is enough to pay for most of the balance of a system. At 1080p, even at 4k...and regardless of CPU. I'm sure it's a little unsettling for you, and you'd rather not have it brought up.

I already said we just don't agree. The benchmarks exist so that anyone can see a simple comparison between systems. I provided data to corroborate my point; so far I've seen no data at all that corroborates yours.

You said the first CPU I used was bottlenecking the result, and the GPU wasn't able to perform at 1080p - so I showed a totally different CPU at 4k (Same result).

You said I didn't understand, and your 5600X could do better - so I showed the same two GPU setups with a 5600X. (Same result)

Now you say using benchmarks isn't reliable - the old "it's not real-world" argument. Funny, you didn't say that before now - and, in fact, that benchmark is widely respected and used almost universally by both entry-level gamers and veteran reviewers.

Usually, the people who start with the old "synthetic" / "not real-world" argument are the ones who the benchmark data proves wrong. There's nothing at all wrong with using 3DMark benchmarks. Practically the entire industry relies on an entire range of tests just like this (including this one specifically) - and there are specific reasons they do so.

But I'm sure you know what's going on better than all those folks do.

Hey, no worries mate: Enjoy your 3090...I'll enjoy the same performance and the extra $600 smile
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/21 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
Not really much of a debate, TBH...you dropped a ton of money on a card that I can compete with at 2/3rds the cost, saving $600 - which is enough to pay for most of the balance of a system. At 1080p, even at 4k...and regardless of CPU. I'm sure it's a little unsettling for you, and you'd rather not have it brought up.

Hey, no worries mate: Enjoy your 3090...I'll enjoy the same performance and the extra $600 smile


Ah, so the truth comes out....you've got little man syndrome and you think that the system you continually benchmark with Firestrike is under threat. I'm not childish enough to reply with silly statements about which card is 'better'.....but you'll find reviews/benchmarks and comparisons all over the Internet if you really want to find out whether 1080ti SLI or the 3090 has the performance crown and which is a dead-end configuration as it seems to be a sore point for you for whatever reason.

Congratulations anyway, you're the first child in 18 years on this forum that I'm putting on 'ignore'. Grow up.


Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/21 04:15 AM

Ahh, the last bastion of those who are proven wrong in online forums: The name-calling and personal attack phase. Ad hominem. Can't deal with the facts, then simply attack the person!

And then, the dreaded "Ignore"...(gasp). I am reminded of a schoolyard, where the 5-year olds who don't want to hear something unpleasant stick their fingers in their ears and chant "I can't hear you"...

And *I'm* the child... biggrin biggrin biggrin That's rich. Really.

I don't have to spend any (more) time looking at results, I've already presented more than adequate data here to demonstrate my position, which the data certainly supports (and then some). You, OTOH, haven't presented anything of the sort.

So, as before, I'm pretty sure anyone who is interested in fact and the truth will have no trouble seeing it. I don't need to look all over the internet to find out what I've already shown a boatload of proof for. The data speaks for itself, using a tool that is used by most every competent reviewer out there, and database records that are readily available to anyone interested in the reality of the matter.

Again, best of luck with your 3090.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/21 11:13 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 anti-mining algoritm is not just a driver thing, technology could expand to more SKUs

[It has been intimated that] Jensen Huang (CEO of NVIDIA) will start a battle against mining [with gaming GPUs].

according to the tweets, NVIDIA would relaunch its existing SKUs under a new Device ID. This means that future RTX3090/3080/3070/3060Ti models would carry a different ID and feature the anti-crypto algorithm. It is unclear when and if NVIDIA will even announce this change.

cards that were already sold will not receive the anti-crypto limiter

Good on Jensen, if true.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/21 09:47 AM

Quote
AMD admits there are problems with USB devices on [Some] 500-series motherboards

[From AMD] AMD is aware of reports that a small number of users are experiencing intermittent USB connectivity issues reported on 500 Series chipsets...Over the next few days, some r/Amd users may be contacted directly by an AMD representative (u/AMDOfficial) via Reddit’s PM system with a request for more information.

AMD B550 motherboard chipset has received a big upgrade on the I/O front. Compatible CPUs can now support up to four USB 10 Gbps ports with the addition of 2x 10Gbps, 2x 5Gbps, and 6x 0.480Gbps ports handled by the chipset.


Apparently, only certain PC hardware combinations cause this. I have two 570 motherboards operating in the house I have had no issues.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/21 09:57 AM

Quote
How to Mine Ethereum: NiceHash, Mining Pools, Optimal Settings

The pros and cons of cryptocurrency mining.


A long article to get one started mining for profit. It links detailed instructions and software.

The attached picture shows, yet again, where all our gaming GPUs are going.

Link to Mining Instructional

Attached picture Xsf3dzf8ZjfbiCxaLhbYZL-1024-80.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/21 01:49 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Launches [In March] With Two Variants, [The] RX 6700 6 GB RDNA 2 Graphics Card Rumored For April Launch

The top-binned variant of the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT will feature a TGP of 230W and will be part of several custom designs featuring factory overclocks and premium cooling. The second-tier part will feature a TGP of 189W and will be used for reference designs only. The clock speeds of the card are said to be rated at around 2.5 - 2.6 GHz ... Both cards will feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and will launch between 15th-19th March though recent rumors have highlighted an 18th March launch date for Navi 22 GPUs.

The site predicts a performance increase of 20-25% over the Radeon RX 5700 XT for the RX 6700 XT while offering a large memory size.


Attached picture Radeon-RX-6700-XT.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/21 08:55 PM

Quote
AMD to announce Radeon RX 6700 XT on March 3rd

AMD to introduce Radeon RX 6700 XT on March 3rd at 11 AM eastern time, the company confirmed today.

The graphics card will offer three DisplayPorts and one HDMI output.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/21 08:37 AM

Quote
NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2021

Record quarterly and full-year revenue for company, Gaming and Data Center

Company quarterly revenue of $5.00 billion, up 61 percent year on year

Company full-year revenue of $16.68 billion, up 53 percent

NVIDIA paid quarterly cash dividends of $99 million in the fourth quarter and $395 million in fiscal 2021. It will pay its next quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share on March 31, 2021, to all shareholders of record on March 10, 2021.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/21 05:33 PM

So much speculation in the industry lately -- so little hard data. Today, some data.
Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Review Roundup

The embargo on GeForce RTX 3060 non-Ti reviews has lifted. Have a look at NVIDIA’s new mid-range graphics card from the following media:

The linked article links over 50 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Reviews.

Link to Reviews

Quick Newegg check showed a couple different models in stock for $400 and $520.

Another check shows they have a "lottery system" to decide who gets one. Seems fair. Seems easy. But, one has to be lucky to get the card they want.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/21 05:59 PM

Quote
Chip Demand Outstrips Supply by 30 Percent, Shortages Could Last a Year

There’s supposedly a 30 percent gap between semiconductor demand and supply, at present.

J.P. Morgan analyst Harlan Sur recently released an investor note, saying “[W]e believe semi companies are shipping 10 percent to 30 percent BELOW current demand levels and it will take at least 3-4 quarters for supply to catch up with demand and then another 1-2 quarters for inventories at customers/distribution channels to be replenished back to normal levels.”


The above directly affects AMD according to the article.

So, if J.P. Morgan is correct, it may be as long as 1.5 years before a completely stable MSRP market returns. Hmmm, maybe no RX6800XT at MSRP for me. Good thing my RX5700XT plays all my games at 4K (except MSFS2020).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/21 03:07 PM

Regarding the "Future" of AMD: Cores and threads continue to increase for commercial uses.

Quote
AMD EPYC “Genoa” (Zen4) to feature 96 cores across 12 chiplets, 12-channel DDR5 memory and SP5 (LGA6096 socket)

The Genoa series will be a fourth EPYC generation now expected to debut in 2022. It would compete with Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids architecture, also confirmed to feature DDR5 and PCI Gen5 support.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-02-28 100618.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-02-28 100710.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/21 11:44 AM

Quote
Intel confirms 11th Gen Core “Rocket Lake-S” is set to launch on March 30


Quote
Intel Rocket Lake Leaks Claim the Core i9-11900K Will Be a $600 CPU


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-03-02 064248.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/21 11:34 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT to launch on March 17th

AMD has so far only confirmed that their RX 6700XT will feature a dual-fan cooler and Navi 22 GPU. The company is yet to reveal the specifications and performance targets. This should happen today.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the next-gen upper mid-range model that should compete with NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 Ti. The full Navi 22 GPU will feature 2560 Stream Processors, exactly the same number as Navi 10 based RX 5700 XT series


Also, Newegg is selling/shipping AMD 5000 series CPUs at MSRP (when sold by and shipped from Newegg).

I got on the waiting list for an R5 5600X yesterday and received the go ahead yesterday -- and ordered -- to be shipped today.

Many see the 5600X as the price/performance AMD gaming CPU.
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/21 06:40 AM

Good luck with your new 5600x. My Asus MB was not Bios updated enough to recognize my 5600x and would not boot. Had to use a 3600(luckily kksnowbear had a 3600 we used) to boot the MB and flash the Bios with the needed version before I could build the 5600x onto it. I love my new rig. It is just Win10 that I hate!!!

S!Blade<><
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/21 11:01 AM

Thanks for pointing that out -- its worth noting.

In my case, I got "that shaft" a while back (i.e. the CPU didn't work and I couldn't update the MB).

So, I bought a "dirt cheap" (under $100 at the time) 4 core AMD 1200 CPU just to use for the purpose you bring up. It's been used a couple times smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/21 11:02 AM

Quote
AMD Brings Smart Access Memory (Resizable Bar) To Ryzen 3000 Desktop CPUs, Up To 16% Performance Boost In AAA Games

In addition to the Radeon RX 6700 XT unveil, AMD also announced that is bringing Smart Access Memory (Resizable Bar) technology to its Ryzen 3000 Desktop CPUs based on Zen 2 cores.

For Ryzen 3000, AMD has stated that users can expect a performance boost of up to 16%

motherboard manufacturers have opened BAR support for NVIDIA GPUs on AMD motherboards too

AMD's Smart Access Memory (Resizable Bar) technology does not require you to invest in a PCIe Gen 4 platform as it will be supported by PCIe Gen 3 too. Based on what we know so far, BAR essentially defines how much discrete GPU memory space can be mapped and today's PCs are typically limited to 256 MB of mapped memory. AMD claims that with SAM, they can access all of the GPU memory, removing any bottlenecks to allow for faster performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/21 11:14 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Specs, Pricing, and Launch Date Revealed

Navi 22 targets RTX 3060 Ti and 3070 performance for $479

it will officially arrive on March 18, 2021, at 9am Eastern.


Enough memory to run MSFS2020 at 4K. FWIW, my RX5700XT runs my games at 4K -- except MSFS2020 due to 8GB memory on the 5700.

Attached picture 6700-970-80.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/21 06:41 PM

Quote
Intel Ordered to Pay $2.2 Billion in Patent Infringement Case

Intel has been whacked with a $2.18 billion-dollar patent infringement verdict for violating two patents held by VLSI Technology LLC. The judgment is roughly a third of Intel’s net income for Q4 2020

VLSI Technology LLC has no products and does not conduct R&D. It generates revenue (at least according to Intel) solely by suing companies for infringement on old patents

The jury in the VLSI case did not find Intel guilty of willful infringement, which would have increased the damages by as much as 3x.

Intel has stated that it intends to appeal.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/21 03:37 PM

Quote
EU Wants 20 Percent of Semiconductor Manufacturing by 2030

The European Union is considering plans that would put it on course to manufacture up to 20 percent of all leading-edge semiconductors in the world by 2030.

According to the draft proposal, one of the goals of this project is to reduce high-risk dependencies on technology companies in the United States and Asia. These goals make sense, given what’s been happening across the larger semiconductor industry these past few years.

Some of the rumors around the EU’s plans in this area have involved the formation of a new foundry company, while others suggest a partnership with TSMC or Samsung.

The semiconductor industry is characterized by high barriers to entry and long development cycles.


Hopefully, this will happen and be successful. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/21 09:25 AM

Quote
AMD might be working on RDNA cryptomining cards

AMD Navi 10 and Navi 12 without display connectors

The first indication that AMD might be developing a blockchain GPU appeared back in October 2020. A new Navi 10 part with a device ID of 731E has been added to the Linux kernel patches. It was clearly mentioned that the GPU would not support DCN (Display Core Next) and VCN (Video Core Next Next), essentially leaving the GPU without any output capability.


Almost no concrete information, yet.

FWIW: In July 2018, I bought a new RX580 mining card that had 1 Displayport connector. It was cheaper than a gaming RX580.

My wife's PC uses it on her very nice 2K monitor. It works as well as our normal gaming RX580s -- she plays "puzzle games" and watches TV with it. Picture of our "mining 580" attached.

Attached picture 14-131-739-Z01.jpg
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/21 10:50 PM

@Allen, have you had any joy sourcing the 6800/6900 series cards yet? Absolutely zero seen in the UK and there has been a massive hike in prices on the 3080/3090s.........eshops milking the demand for everything they've got.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/21 11:38 PM

No. I check a couple sites a couple times or more a day (I don't have a special program running to check constantly).

I assume it will be pure luck if I hit an MSRP card (or near MSRP) anytime soon. I want an RX6800XT but out of impatience I'd probably pull the trigger on an MSRP RX6900XT.

You did very well -- and looking better and better -- hitting on a reasonably priced 3090 so soon after release. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/21 10:01 AM

Quote
AMD releases Threadripper PRO CPUs to DIY market

AMD has announced that its Ryzen Threadripper PRO CPUs are now finally available in retail/e-tail for PC enthusiasts and DIY as opposed to being only available via OEMs and system integrators.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO lineup offers plenty of features and improvements over standard platforms, including the AMD Pro technologies, like Memory Guard feature, ECC memory support, AMD's Secure Processor, as well as up to 64-cores, 8-channel memory, and 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes.

The price ranges from $1,149.99 for the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3955WX to $5,489.99 for the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3995WX.


Attached picture ThreadripperPro.jpg
Attached picture amd-threadripperpro-1.jpg
Attached picture amd-threadripperpro-2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/21 01:03 AM

As we know, Nvidia is trying to nerf cryptomining Ethereum on some new 3000 series GPUs. Where big money is involved, folks find a way:

Quote
Chinese Cryptocurrency Miners Allegedly Bypass NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Hash Rate Limiter, Delivers Up To 50 MH/s

It seems like the mining algorithm used here wasn't Ethereum but Octopus which is a different cryptocurrency coin and based on an algorithm that NVIDIA might not have limited its hash rate for yet. So as of right now, the hash rate limiter remains in place but if other crypto-currencies can give out similar profits as ETH, then that doesn't stop miners from consuming the card for mining purposes.


I'm starting to see MSRP R7-5800X and R5-5600X CPUs (I've bought one of each). In checking twice a day, I've not stumbled across any MSRP RX6800XT or RX6900XT GPUs.

On my systems, the 5600X performs within 3 percent of my 5800X (single core). Thus, the 5600X actually is a very good 1080p gaming CPU (for less money).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/21 10:50 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Graphics Card Gaming, Vulkan & OpenCL Benchmark Performance Leaks Out

The first AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT performance benchmarks are in which show the Gaming, Vulkan, and OpenCL capabilities of the Navi 22 GPU. The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is designed to offer great 1440p performance and positioned to tackle both, the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070 based on its $ 479 US pricing.

The resolution and game settings used aren't mentioned so take these benchmarks with a grain of salt.

Radeon RX 6700 XT will be launching in both custom and reference flavors on the 18th of March while GPU reviews are scheduled to go live on the 17th of March.


As implied in the article, wait for the independent test reports on March 17th.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/11/21 05:44 PM

Quote
AMD Threadrips Intel's Sales at Puget Systems

Puget Systems recently shared sales data showing that its sales of AMD-powered systems have now passed the 50% mark, unseating Intel from its previously-dominating 100% share of the company's sales. This win comes even though Puget Systems previously stopped selling AMD systems back in 2015 because Team Red was no longer competitive on the performance front. Still, after resuming building AMD systems again in 2017, Puget has seen explosive growth in the number of AMD systems it ships.

Puget Systems is a boutique system vendor specializing in higher-performance systems that range from smaller system builds to the highest-end workstations


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Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/21 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
No. I check a couple sites a couple times or more a day (I don't have a special program running to check constantly).

I assume it will be pure luck if I hit an MSRP card (or near MSRP) anytime soon. I want an RX6800XT but out of impatience I'd probably pull the trigger on an MSRP RX6900XT.

You did very well -- and looking better and better -- hitting on a reasonably priced 3090 so soon after release. smile



I'm glad I pulled the trigger early....but only because of the price hikes - the card I bought is selling for £600 more than what I bought it for. Utterly ridiculous.
My original plan was for a 6900XT, I don't think I've seen one for sale yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/21 09:40 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT only ‘a few thousand’ cards at launch for the whole European Union

The upcoming 479 USD graphics card from AMD will see more stock at launch than other RDNA2 cards, ... the availability of Radeon RX 6700 XT will still be very limited, multiple sources have confirmed.

When we received the first information about Radeon RX 6700 XT from the board partners, we were told that the cards were already made and the stock was already prepared

AMD confirmed that board partners will begin selling their models at the same time as AMD, which is on March 18th.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/21 09:51 AM

Quote
AMD announces AGESA 1.2.0.2 that solves intermittent USB connectivity issues

Less than four weeks ago, AMD has begun collecting data from users who experienced USB related issues on AMD 500 series motherboards. Today the company announced that a fix is coming this April.


Apparently, this is a rare USB problem on 500 series MB (but it is a problem if one has it).

I have 3 AMD 500 series motherboards operational in the house (with R7-5800X, R5-5600X, R7-3800X). Just ordinary, everyday USB use. So far, no USB problems for those PCs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/21 10:26 AM

TSMC makes AMD CPU and GPU chips.

Quote
TSMC's Research and Development Center in Baoshan Will Focus On the 3nm Process Node - Timetable For 2nm Plant Construction Is Uncertain Due to Pending Review

Interest in TSMC's 3nm process is at an all-time high owing to rumors in the market that Intel Corporation will contract the company for its next-generation processors. Owing to the complexities of chip fabrication, if historical patterns hold then TSMC's 3nm process is equal to Intel's 5nm process.


Its risky for the entire world to depend on one or two companies for the best/up-to-date CPUs, GPUS, etc. Hopefully, some advanced production facilities can be built in the USA, Europe, South America (for starters).

This also shows, yet again, that Intel fabrication in its own plants is well behind the state of the art. Intel competition with AMD and others to buy TSMC chips will raise our prices.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/21 03:32 PM

Presumably, the RX 6700 XT hits tomorrow morning. Getting one at MSRP will be a challenge.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Review Roundup


Roughly 60 reviews on the RX 5700 XT replacement.

Links to Reviews

12GB of memory makes it a candidate for MSFS2020 -- my RX5700XT can't do MSFS2020 at 4K due to memory limitation of 8GB.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/21 08:39 AM

Quote
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) to launch this year for PCs

FidelityFX Super Resolution is one of the biggest AMD’s software initiatives

Scott Herkelman – CVP & GM at AMD Radeon – today confirmed that AMD’s super-resolution technology, the answer to NVIDIA DLSS is still in development but it AMD is aiming to launch it this year. He confirmed that the company still has a lot of work to do and it is still evaluating the actual technology behind the upscaling algorithm.

"It’s progressing very well internally in our lab, but it’s our commitment to the gaming community that it needs to be open that it needs to work across all things and game developers need to adopt it."

Interestingly it was mentioned that FSR may not actually be based on machine learning like NVIDIA DLSS is.

"You don’t need machine learning to do it, you can do this many different ways and we are evaluating many different ways. What matters the most to us is what game developers want to use because if at the end of the day it is just for us, we force people to do it, it is not a good outcome. We would rather say: gaming community, which one of these techniques would you rather see us implement so that this way it can be immediately spread across the industry and hopefully cross-platform."


The attachment shows the various game Resolution Enhancing techniques currently available or in development. AMD's method will be abbreviated FSR (as noted above).

Attached picture ResolutionBoostTechniques.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/18/21 03:45 PM

TSMC (makes AMD chips) water problems may reduce production.

Quote
TSMC Signs Deal For More Than 100 Water Tankers As Taiwan Drought Expected To Worsen

The island did not experience any typhoons last year, and it is now feeling the brunt of this in the form of a water shortage that is depleting reservoirs in all of its regions.

[TSMC] daily [water] consumption could stand at 198,000 tons/day today.

Currently, companies operating in Hsinchu, Miaoli and Taichung have been required to cut their consumption by 11%. An 11% reduction for daily consumption of 200,000 tons translates into 20,000 tons - which is precisely the amount of water in a single tanker.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/21 11:56 AM

Quote
NVIDIA confirms it accidentally released a driver without RTX 3060 Ethereum hash rate limiter

NVIDIA has finally confirmed that the driver responsible for this situation was released inadvertently. NVIDIA has since removed the driver, but the damage has already been done.



Quote
AMD Will Not Even Consider Limiting Cryptocurrency Mining, Also Mentions Gamers Are At The Forefront Of GPU Development

The design of the RDNA 2 cards isn't as well suited for mining as cards from Nvidia. That doesn't mean that they can't be used for mining rather they have a slower hash rate.

[Nish Neelalojanan, a product manager at AMD] "First of all, RDNA was designed from the ground up for gaming and RDNA 2 doubles up on this. And what I mean by this is, Infinity Cache and a smaller bus width were carefully chosen to hit a very specific gaming hit rate. However, mining specifically enjoys, or scales with, higher bandwidth and bus width so there are going to be limitations from an architectural level for mining itself"

Realistically speaking, [AMD] developing a hash rate limiter as Nvidia did would be a waste of time and resources. Nvidia demonstrated the multitude of issues that comes with developing and implementing a hash rate limiter.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/21 12:03 PM

Quote
AMD Expected to Become TSMC's Second Largest Customer

AMD is gaining strength.

If AMD becomes TSMC's second-largest client, it will not only be able to negotiate more favorable financial terms with the foundry, but it will also be able to influence the development of TSMC's future process technologies, process recipes, and get access to the latest nodes faster.

In contrast, Nvidia is expected to decrease its share in TSMC's revenue to 5.8% this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/20/21 12:29 PM

Quote
Leaked Benchmarks Show Intel Rocket Lake Has Worse IPC Than AMD Zen 3, Comet Lake Refresh CPUs Tested Too

Benchmarks of Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake and Comet Lake Refresh CPUs have leaked out and what's interesting is that the newer 11th Gen lineup shows worse IPC than AMD's Ryzen 5000 line featuring the Zen 3 core architecture.

When it comes to comparison between the AMD Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 and the Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs, the AMD lineup ends up offering 7.5% higher IPC than the new Cypress Cove cores. It shows that AMD will retain a good lead against Intel's upcoming lineup and Intel will once again have to rely on higher clocks to make up for the lower IPC versus the Zen 3 offerings. Intel is also going to use higher power limits on its top-of-the-line parts and even more aggressive clock boost technologies to up the game but that would definitely result in very high power consumption and temperatures as Intel themselves are setting the top-limit at 100C.


Leaks are not always accurate. But, for a while now, it has been obvious that Intel has been, in effect, "factory overclocking" its latest CPUs to maintain an easily understood/advertised "selling point".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/21 10:41 AM

Long article thoroughly ranks all CPUs based on testing -- many charts, etc. Only three charts attached below.

Quote
CPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2021: Intel and AMD Processors Ranked

We've run thousands of CPU benchmarks on all older and newer Intel and AMD CPUs and ranked them.

We've listed the best CPUs for gaming and best processors for workstations in other articles, but if you want to know how each chip stacks up against all the others and how we come to our decisions, this CPU benchmarks hierarchy is for you.

The new Ryzen 5000 processors represent a watershed moment for AMD: The company has swept our CPU benchmarks hierarchy and taken the lead in every metric, including our gaming, single-threaded, and multi-threaded categories.


Long Article Comparing CPUs

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/24/21 02:23 PM

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Intel’s New IDM 2.0 Strategy: $20b for Two Fabs, Meteor Lake 7nm Tiles, New Foundry Services, IBM Collaboration, Return of IDF

The new CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger, has today outlined his vision for Intel over the coming years.

Highlights of Intel’s Announcements Today

Two new fabs in Arizona, $20b investment
New Intel Foundry Services, offering Intel manufacturing to customers
Next generation 7nm chiplets for ‘Meteor Lake’ will finish design in Q2 2021
New research collaboration with IBM in foundational semiconductor design
New Intel Innovation event in Oct 2021, Spirit of IDF

We're Keeping the Fabs: Please Stop Asking

Today Intel will be announcing a $20 billion (USD) investment in two new manufacturing facilities (fabs) in Arizona, set to come online for production in 2024.


Good. Given world politics and the essential nature of advanced electronics to modern society, keep innovation and fabrication local (USA, Europe, etc, etc).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/21 08:37 AM

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AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs Coming To Razer Blade, Alienware m15, Dell G15 & HP OMEN Gaming Laptops Soon!

The variants include the recently reported Razer Blade 14, Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition, Dell G15, & the HP OMEN 15" gaming laptops, all of which are based on the AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs & also feature NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 GPUs.

The Razer Blade 14 seems to be the highest-end configuration in terms of CPU from the bunch. It is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU which features 8 cores, 16 threads, a base clock of 3.30 GHz, a boost clock of 4.60 GHz

While the Ryzen 9 5900HX does pack its own integrated graphics in the form of the Vega 8 GPU with 512 cores and a clock speed of 2100 MHz, the visuals on the laptop will primarily be handled by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs.

Aside from the CPU/GPU specifications, all three models feature 16 GB of DDR4 memory and up to 512 GB of NVMe storage.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/21 08:59 AM

Quote
Best CPUs for Gaming: March 2021


R7 5800X seems easy to find and R5 5600X is fairly easy to find at MSRP in our area ($450 and $300). I have one of each in operation as I type this.

As previously mentioned, R5 5600X single core is nearly equal to the 5800X -- so is the most cost effective up-to-date AMD gaming CPU at MSRP ($300).

The R5 3600 does the gaming job at $200-220, in my experience (I have one). Not maximum FPS but good/playable FPS.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/30/21 01:39 PM

Quote
Intel 11th Gen Core [14nm] “Rocket Lake-S” Review Roundup

Meet the full lineup of Rocket Lake-S featuring Cypress Cove architecture and PCI Gen4 support. Check the following reviews to see how fast is the last generation for the LGA1200 socket and probably the last 14nm desktop CPU series from Intel.

Links to Dozens of Reviews
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/21 12:52 AM

I finally managed to score an XFX AMD QICK 319 6700 XT Ultra card... For like $800 + Tax and S&H. Nearly double the original MSRP, but amazingly less than $1000 - which is what most are going for! I've had this 295x2 for over 7 years, and it is really starting to show its age. sigh
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/21 10:55 PM

I await the day my card of choice becomes available.

But, honestly, my current RX5700XT does the job at 4K ultra settings at acceptable (to me) framerates in games I currently play. So, waiting is less painful. And, its an indication your 6700XT will also do the job -- but better. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/21 12:11 PM

TSMC makes AMD's CPUs and GPUs.

Quote
TSMC to Invest $100 Billion in Fabs and R&D Over Next Three Years

The investments in advanced fabs will increase TSMC's lead over rivals and will ensure that the company introduces new fabrication technologies in a predictable cadence.

TSMC says that demand for chips is so high that it has been running its fabs at full load for about a year and supply is still falling short of the increased demand, which is why it needs additional fabs and new employees.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/21 12:10 AM

Leak, Guess, Speculation nominally based on limited information -- but interesting regarding AMD 5nm CPUs.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 “Raphael” to feature 5nm Zen4 core and Navi2 graphics?

A missing piece in the AMD roadmap puzzle has been revealed.

[The Guess Is] the future Ryzen desktop series will feature integrated graphics. This would mean that owners of future Ryzen processors will no longer have to use discrete graphics.

There are still some questions in regard to the Zen3 fabrication node. It is either a refined 7nm or a new 6nm node.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/11/21 08:50 AM

Regarding Future competition: The following is mostly speculation based on limited leaks. But, seems very possible.

Quote
Intel's DG2 gaming GPUs could actually stand a chance against Nvidia and AMD

Release date: Expected late 2021
Architecture: Xe-HPG
Max Cores: 4,096 (512 EUs)
Process: External, likely TSMC 7nm/6nm
Performance target: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (rumoured)
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/21 04:15 PM

Quote
AMD launches Ryzen 5000G “Cezanne” desktop CPUs with integrated graphics

AMD will not be launching Ryzen 5000G series for the DIY market anytime soon. The company announced that initially only pre-built systems will be equipped with Ryzen 5000G series.

AMD claims that its 8-core Ryzen 7 5700G will be up to 38% faster in content creation, 35% faster in productivity, and 80% in compute performance in comparison to Intel Core i7-10700 CPU codenamed Comet Lake-S.

The 6-core and 4-core Ryzen 5 5600G and Ryzen 3 5300G are being compared to Intel Core i5-10600 and Core i3-10300 respectively. AMD claims higher performance in all comparisons.

According to Guru3D, AMD promises to launch Ryzen 5000G series to the DIY market later this year, but no date has been provided.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/21 09:12 AM

Server Market to be a 3 way battle in the future:

Quote
Intel CEO: ‘We Are Playing Offense, Not Defense’ In Response To NVIDIA Grace ARM CPU Announcement For Servers

Earlier this week, NVIDIA announced its first CPU for data centers and AI cloud computing known as Grace. Based on the ARM architecture and making use of the Neoverse cores, NVIDIA is positioning the Grace CPU against x86 chips which primarily feature two rivals, Intel & AMD. The Grace CPU is expected to debut in 2023

Intel holds an insanely huge CPU server market share, accounting for over 90% whereas the rest of the share belongs to AMD. AMD has been very competitive against Intel with their recent launches and they are further expected to gain market share

With the announcement of NVIDIA's Grace CPUs, a 3rd Major (non-x86) player is entering the field and has already contracted a deal for two major supercomputers
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/21 02:15 PM

TSMC makes AMD's gaming CPU and GPU chips. So, maybe I won't be getting a new AMD GPU at MSRP this year -- or next year.

Quote
TSMC Expects Chip Shortages Into 2022, Ups CapEx to $30 Billion

TSMC expects chip supply crisis to ease in 2023

TSMC operated at an "over 100% utilization" during the quarter, though it could not fulfill all of its customers' orders. When asked about expectations when the shortages were going to end, the management responded that it expected the deficit to persist throughout 2021 and into 2022. It is impossible for TSMC to quickly respond to growing demand as it has to buy land, prepare the sites, construct new fabs, procure manufacturing equipment, install these tools, and ramp up the facilities. All of these steps take a long time, and TSMC expects its supply abilities to improve tangibly only in 2023.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/21 02:48 PM

I'm an AMD Fan because I don't like how Intel handled "competition" 15+ years ago (neither did the Courts -- Intel was Sued and lost). Intel had fallen behind -- so it "cut deals" with PC makers to favor Intel. It worked and damaged AMD. History may be repeating. We'll see.

Quote
Alienware Really Doesn’t Want You to Buy an AMD Ryzen PC

Once upon a time (specifically, the early 2000s), certain manufacturers and OEMs were so terrified of what Intel might do to them if they sold AMD products, they went to ridiculous lengths to hide the fact that they did so.

Even when AMD was beating Intel in performance tests, OEMs would describe Intel-powered systems in soaring terms, while AMD machines were labeled with more pedestrian remarks like “Good for business and home office use.”

To summarize: [Today in 2021, some Alienware] Intel products get updated descriptions, AMD products don’t. Intel systems are directly described as “gaming desktops,” while AMD systems are not. Intel Aurora systems are correctly identified as offering PCIe 4.0, while the AMD Aurora R10 has never been advertised as offering PCIe 4.0 in the landing page’s spec sheet.

By only listing the “80 Plus Gold” power supply metric for the Intel systems, Alienware creates the illusion that these systems are more power-efficient than their AMD counterparts. Please forgive me while I laugh myself sick. Rocket Lake is not a bad performer, but you’d need an 80 Plus Neutronium power supply capable of achieving >100 percent efficiency to make its power consumption competitive with Ryzen 5000.

The desktop landing page accurately describes the “up to” RAM clock speeds and capacities for Intel products, but not for AMD products. Alienware sells top-end Intel systems with dual-channel RAM but sells top-end AMD systems in single-channel configurations,

Could this all be an accident? Sure. It’s possible that Alienware managed to spontaneously make more than a half-dozen mistakes, all of which happen to favor Intel. It’s possible one of those mistakes happened to involve listing power supply efficiency in a way that makes Rocket Lake look better than Ryzen at a time when Ryzen’s power efficiency is vastly better than anything Intel brings to the table. It is possible that Alienware has accidentally misrepresented its own product configurations in a way that exclusively and entirely favors Intel’s objectively worse platform.

But is it likely?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/21 10:27 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X vs Intel Core i5-11600K: Mid-Range Rocket Lake and Ryzen 5000 CPU Face Off

Here's the tale of the tape: AMD wins this Ryzen 5 5600X vs Intel Core i5-11600K battle with a tie in one category and a win in three others, marking a four to three victory in favor of Team Red. Overall, the Ryzen 5 5600X offers up a superior blend of gaming performance, power consumption and efficiency, and a bundled cooler to help offset the higher suggested retail pricing, remaining our go-to chip recommendation for the mid-range. That is if you can find it at or near suggested pricing.

Where Intel leads, it barely leads. The only reason its in the conversation is because its MSRP cheaper -- before you buy a cooler for it -- and pay the extra power bill over its lifetime. Also, the Ryzen 5 5600X is hard to find at MSRP.

I got a Ryzen 5 5600X at MSRP a couple months ago -- it plays games as well as my Ryzen 7 5800X. My search today did not find one at MSRP.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/21 10:52 AM

Nvidia made a significant improvement to Ray Tracing. Interestingly, they made it so that it works on AMD RX 6000 GPUs also -- kudos to Nvidia for that. It does require that a game be made to use it. So, no games yet.
Quote
NVIDIA RTX Direct Illumination Enables Games with Up to Millions of Dynamic Lights

ReSTIR, a deep learning algorithm devised by NVIDIA engineers to render millions of dynamic lights in real time.

As expected, NVIDIA made it so RTX Direct Illumination is easily integrated with the existing RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) SDK. Mixing the two should allow for scalable global illumination based on many, many light sources.

Richard Cowgill confirmed that RTXDI and RTXGI are both entirely architecture-agnostic and will therefore work not only on AMD's Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs but on ray-tracing capable consoles as well, such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X. Graphics APIs supported include DirectX Raytracing and Vulkan Ray Tracing.

In the attachments, the implication is that every speck of light source you see is separately illuminating/shadowing/reflecting in the game world -- at usable frame rates.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/20/21 08:42 PM

Quote
AMD announces Adrenalin 21.4.1 GPU drivers with multiple new features

AMD LinkGD-159

A brand-new AMD Link for Windows client is now available that allows you to stream your games and desktop to other Radeon graphics enabled PCs.

New “Link Game” feature that allows you to easily connect with a friend to play games together on a single PC or even help them troubleshoot a PC issue or problem.

Redesigned streaming technology for better visuals and lower latency.

New quality of service feature that dynamically adjusts your streaming settings based on your internet connection.

Now supports up to 4k/144fps streaming.

Game streaming requires phone or tablet which supports Android 7.0 and greater or iOS 12 and greater, anywhere there is a high-speed internet connection.

And a bit more.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/23/21 05:00 PM

Quote
Over $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market in a day as bitcoin plunges below $50,000

Bitcoin and other digital coins plunged on Friday, wiping over $200 billion of the value of the cryptocurrency market.

President Biden is expected to raise long-term capital gains tax for the wealthiest Americans to 43.4%, including a surtax.

That’s led to a wave of selling in crypto markets, which have had a great year with bitcoin climbing more than sixfold in the last 12 months.
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/21 03:18 PM

I've got the dreaded x570C USB disconnection bug......and typically, there is no 1.2.0.2 AGESA BIOS for it yet.

I can barely do basic desktop stuff as even the mouse/keyboard are connecting/disconnecting. If I launch an intensive game or anything with the VR headset (Oculus or Reverb) the entire set of USB ports are going up and down like a fiddlers elbow. Upto a couple of weeks ago everything was fine.....no problems and no driver updates or software tweaks have happened.
I'm tempted to buy a ROG Strix Gaming-E which does have the beta BIOS...royal pain in the ass.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/21 10:28 PM

Well, that sucks. frown

I have a couple Gigabyte X570 motherboards and one ASRock B550 operational in the house. No issues on stock settings; but then, I use USB only occasionally on those systems -- i.e. I might have had a "hiccup" and not even realized it.

Apparently, the fix was transmitted to the motherboard vendors in March -- but, then they had to incorporate it into their software and release their fix. Hopefully, your MB will get the fix very soon.

Quote
UPDATE 3/11: AMD says it has "isolated the root cause [of the problem] and developed a solution that addresses a range of reported symptoms." Look for a patch to roll out via motherboard vendors next month [April].


Edit: I just checked Gigabyte site. The BIOS fix for my Gigabyte motherboards rolled out on 2021/03/25. At ASRock, the ASRock B550 does not seem to be updated yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/21 11:48 PM

Quote
Intel’s CEO Travels to Europe to Talk Foundries as Silicon Nationalism Rises

Next week, Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, will travel to Europe to meet with EU officials about the possibility of building new fab capacity within the bloc. These discussions with the EU will take place at a time when foundry capacity and overall semiconductor manufacturing capability are increasingly seen in geopolitical terms.

The EU’s recent draft proposal called for the various members to collectively account for 20 percent of leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing .. At present, the EU is home to about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing capability, but there are no leading-edge facilities currently within the zone.


Hope Europe eventually meets its goals for leading edge production. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/21 10:15 AM

Quote
Bitmain Antminer E9 Ethereum ASIC is as powerful as 32 GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards

Bitmain announced its new mining Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) called Antminer E9.

Chinese Bimain announced that that the Antminer E9 will launch soon, but the company provided no release date nor the price of the machine itself. Due to the global shortage of components, it is likely that the price of the machine will also be very high, yet still a lot more cost-effective than buying all 32 RTX 3080 graphic cards instead.

Perhaps such items will eventually take pressure off the gaming GPU market.

Attached picture Antminer-E9-Bitcoin-2-700x426.jpg
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Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/21 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Well, that sucks. frown

I have a couple Gigabyte X570 motherboards and one ASRock B550 operational in the house. No issues on stock settings; but then, I use USB only occasionally on those systems -- i.e. I might have had a "hiccup" and not even realized it.

Apparently, the fix was transmitted to the motherboard vendors in March -- but, then they had to incorporate it into their software and release their fix. Hopefully, your MB will get the fix very soon.

Quote
UPDATE 3/11: AMD says it has "isolated the root cause [of the problem] and developed a solution that addresses a range of reported symptoms." Look for a patch to roll out via motherboard vendors next month [April].


Edit: I just checked Gigabyte site. The BIOS fix for my Gigabyte motherboards rolled out on 2021/03/25. At ASRock, the ASRock B550 does not seem to be updated yet.


My board (Auros Elite) hasn't got the fix yet.....rumoured beta next week and stable start of May. Are you sure your AGESA 1.2.0.2 was rolled out in March? I didn't think vendors got it until mid-April?.....there was a 1.2.0.1 patch which fixed some B550 USB issues released through March.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/21 12:08 AM

For Gigabyte 570s it was 1.2.0.1. The "quote" was simply a "cut and paste" of what they said on the only site I could readily find.

Checking the Gigabyte site showed a patch had been released. Given the release timing and the description, I "ass-u-me-d" it contained a fix as Gigabyte emphasizes its BIOSs. Don't know if its the final fix or how well it works. From your information, it may only be a preliminary "step one". Again, ASRock showed no update -- more in line with a "late April" release.

From the Gigabyte site listing changes for X570 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0 -- my MB) BIOS and my X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) uITX:

Quote
1 Update AMD AGESA ComboV2 1.2.0.1 PatchA
2 Fix L3 cache performance on Ryzen 5000 series processors
3 Fix USB 2.0 devices stability and compatibility
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/21 12:17 AM

A March 25 article:

Quote
AMD AGESA 1.2.0.1 Patch A BIOS Firmware Starts Rolling Out For X570 & B550 Motherboards, Fixes Ryzen 5000 USB Compatibility Issues

AMD's board partners have started rolling out the AGESA 1.2.0.1 Patch A BIOS Firmware for X570 & B550 motherboards, offering improved Ryzen 5000 CPU compatibility & also including fixes for USB issues that several users were facing.

AMD was meant to release its AGESA 1.2.0.2 BIOS Firmware to address the USB connectivity issues faced by several users however, it seems like the company has fast-forwarded the release with the AGESA 1.2.0.1 Patch A BIOS Firmware


So, maybe this is most of the fix we needed -- as AMD jumped quicker than planned/expected.

The article shows a long list of MBs affected -- Gigabyte by far released the update for the most motherboards (as noted, Gigabyte emphasizes its BIOSs).
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/21 06:02 AM

Yeah, thats 1.2.0.1.......unfortunately it doesn't fix the crippling USB issue that 1.2.0.2 does
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/21 11:16 AM

According to April 22 article, the USB preliminary fix started with 1.2.0.1 BIOS, then 1.2.0.2 Beta (available for some MB now), then 1.2.0.2 final (non-Beta) in early May. The expectation is that Beta and Final will actually be the same code (assuming Beta works).

Not all MB makers are releasing all versions. So, some folks have to wait for early May -- or later depending on the MB manufacturer.

All the above is similar to what you had already found out. Parenthetically, since I have no USB issues the way I use it, I was not "following' this one. Thanks for the clarifications.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/26/21 12:25 PM

Having built several Zen3 platform machines since late last year, I can confirm that both MSI and Asus made the interim 1.2.0.1 "Patch A" available back in March, and both posted 1.2.0.2 by/before April 14th (Asus actually posted theirs on 4/9 - more than two weeks ago).

By comparison, the one Gigabyte board I built on still doesn't have the 1.2.0.2 update posted.

Guess it's all down to whose hardware you deal with. In my case, I only used the one Gigabyte board because it was the absolute cheapest option for that particular project. Fortunately I haven't sold it yet to anyone, so no effect outside my shop.

Interestingly, of the ones I have sold, no one's made any reports whatsoever of USB issues. Again, maybe it's just a matter of whose hardware; in this case, the connected USB devices (...?) Not saying/don't know - but I do know for sure and certain that there would have to be some reason that some are affected while others are not.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/27/21 08:34 PM

My ASRock B550 Steel Legend mATX 1.2.0.2 BIOS just came on line in the last few hours.

No USB issues in my tests. But, I intend to give this PC (R5 5600X) to a relative in late May. So, I'll update it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/21 10:57 AM

Quote
AMD Smashes Records Again, Data Center and Semi-Custom Revenue up 286%, Consumer Up 46%

AMD grew in every segment despite constant product shortages for its consumer CPUs and GPUs at retail, a byproduct of record demand and pandemic-spurred supply chain disruptions.

AMD's Ryzen processors set records for revenue and average selling prices (ASPs). AMD also says it has increased its desktop PC market share again,

Intel reported last week that it suffered a sharp decline in ASPs for both its notebook and desktop PC chips due to a shift in its sales mix to lower-end processors. That shift is likely due to AMD's continued performance lead with its Ryzen 5000 processors and strong sales of its higher-end models. AMD CEO Lisa Su remarked that AMD remains firmly focused on its high-end products.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/21 11:07 AM

Regarding the Future of AMD -- a Rumor/Leak:

Quote
AMD Zen 5 Ryzen Desktop APUs Codenamed Strix Point, Features Hybrid Core Architecture on 3nm Process Node

First details regarding AMD's next-generation Zen 5 based 'Strix Point' Ryzen Desktop CPUs & APUs have hit the web. It looks like the successor to Zen 4 will have some big changes on both consumer CPU & APU lineups.

Zen 4 based Phoenix APUs are expected next year for desktop and mobility platforms, the next-generation Zen 5 APUs are already in the early design & development phase.

The AMD Zen 5 chips will be fabricated on the brand new 3nm process node whereas Zen 4 chips are going to be based on the 5nm process node. The architecture is going to be a lot of changes in terms of design. It is stated by the source that AMD does bigger architectural revamps for its odd-numbered Zen architectures while even-numbered Zen cores get better optimizations. It is stated that the Zen 5 based Strix Point APUs are expected to be part of the Ryzen 8000 family but they're going to include one major change.

the Zen 5 architecture is said to be the first to feature a big. LITTLE-esque design. The AMD Strix Point Ryzen APUs are expected to feature 8 large Zen 5 cores and 4 smaller cores

As previously noted a few times, 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, 3nm are not necessarily actual circuit sizes (though size does change and parts of a chip may be the size stated). Rather, its a shorthand way of saying how well the chips perform versus each other. Its for advertising purposes that size is stated.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/21 10:47 PM

Quote
CES 2022 returning to Las Vegas as an on-site event, Intel and AMD to participate

CES heads back to Las Vegas Jan. 5-8, 2022, with Media Days taking place Jan. 3-4, 2022.

Some 1000 companies have committed to showcasing their most innovative technologies in Las Vegas and companies are continuing to sign up.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/21 11:27 PM

Quote
AMD Vows to Resolve GPU Shortage: We Are Ramping Production

Last year, AMD finally released a family of graphics processors that can compete against Nvidia's high-end offerings in terms of performance. Unfortunately, AMD could not meet demand for new GPUs. But apparently there is light at the end of the tunnel as AMD is ramping up production.

Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, during the company's latest earnings call. "We expect Radeon 6000 series GPU sales to grow significantly over the coming quarters as we ramp production."


Per article, "Ramping Production" takes "Quarter years" -- not weeks or months. We're still probably looking at late Summer for the initial "ramp" in production to hit shelves.

For now, I'm assuming some time in 2022 for MSRP GPUs. Naturally, I hope I'm being too pessimistic smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/29/21 11:59 AM

Quote
AMD Lisa Su reaffirms Radeon RX 6000 mobile series is to launch this quarter

This probably means late May or June at the earliest:
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/21 12:53 PM

Gigabyte has updated its BIOSs to 1.2.0.2 USB fix. They took down the BIOS with the preliminary 1.2.0.1 fix. Shown are my MBs, for illustration.

Quote
X570 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0)

1 Checksum: 8A4D
2 Update AMD AGESA ComboV2 1.2.0.2
3 Fix USB 2.0 devices stability and compatibility


Quote
X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0)

1 Checksum : 2530
2 Update AMD AGESA ComboV2 1.2.0.2
3 Fix USB 2.0 devices stability and compatibility


My ASRock MB was previously updated to the 1.2.0.2 fix.

All the above merely to indicate the industry is moving forward on the BIOS update for those needing USB fixes. My stuff never had noticeable issues, but I don't stress USB to the limit.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/21 12:23 AM

Rumor, Rumor regarding the next generation AMD Navi GPUs:

Quote
AMD RDNA 3 Based Navi 31 Flagship Gaming GPU For Radeon RX Graphics Card Reportedly Almost 3x Faster Than Big Navi RDNA 2

We all think of the current Big Navi (21) GPU being an insanely powerful chip but based on the rumors we are now hearing for the next-generation parts, the Big Navi (31) GPU is going to make us forget the existing parts.

You will be getting dual 80 Compute Unit dies, each featuring 5120 stream processors for a total of 10,240 stream processors. The AMD RDNA 3 based Radeon RX GPU SKUs will also be based on a brand new process node from TSMC, reportedly 5nm

The AMD RDNA 3 'Navi 3' GPU lineup of Radeon RX graphics cards will be competing with NVIDIA's own MCM GPUs based on either the Ada Lovelace GPUs. As of now, the next-gen parts still aren't expected till the end of 2022 or early 2023 so treat this information with a slight grain of salt.


Effectively, this is two GPUs inside one card -- like Crossfire, in a way. I've been waiting for that approach which AMD hinted at years ago.

If this rumor gets legs, I'll probably wait for the next generation GPU -- at MSRP. smile

Attached picture AMD-RDNA-GPU-Architecture-Roadmap-2022.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/21 12:18 PM

Quote
Intel DG2 gaming GPU family is ‘right around the corner’

While Intel did repeatedly confirm that DG2 is a 2021 product, it was never confirmed whether that applies to desktop or mobile variants.

The DG2 family features as many as five SKUs, equipped with 96 to 512 Execution Units. The top-tier 512EU model is now rumored to compete with NVIDIA’s upcoming RTX 3070 Ti


Just vague suppositions based on little data. Still, there may be a new GPU competitor this year -- Intel. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/21 11:21 AM

Things will continue to be slow. A summary of a long article:

Quote
Why We Can’t Build Our Way Out of the Semiconductor Shortage

To summarize:

Foundries can’t build chips more quickly because every single part of the silicon manufacturing process is an exercise in patience. The market is in the position its in because demand for certain types of silicon grew in ways the industry didn’t foresee 10+ years ago. There is no immediate solution to this problem because of how long it takes to bring new foundries online.

It’s the pandemic, cryptocurrency demand, increased adoption of AI in many markets, and the growth of 5G base stations and smart home shipments.

This semiconductor shortage .. will gradually get less bad over time as product shipments and consumer demand align more closely... Foundries do increase shipments over 6-12 month time periods and yields on parts also tend to improve, so we should see continued production increases over the course of 2021

I did come across an "in stock" AMD R7 5800X literally below MSRP yesterday. Also a "to be in stock" PowerColor Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT "pre-order" at ~2.5X MSRP (no thanks).

Meanwhile, to occupy time over the weekend I took some of my "spare/leftover parts", added a new "sale priced" uATX GIGABYTE B550M DS3H AC MB, and built an HTPC (not like we needed another one). The build highlights were a "spare" AMD R5 3600 CPU and "old/retired" AMD HD7970 GPU. Plays Grim Dawn, ultra settings at a steady 1080p 60FPS. I guess Grim Dawn just doesn't need that much smile
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/21 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
I did come across an "in stock" AMD R7 5800X literally below MSRP yesterday.


Assuming the info I found just now for MSRP ($450) is correct , the local MicroCenter has the 5800X for $50 less. They are also swimming in 5600X, 5900X and 5950X CPUs for the past week or two; all at or below MSRP. It took several months, but it would appear they caught up. Of course, they had stock a few weeks ago as well, but it was at 'full' MSRP and was gone in a day or so. So it won't last in all likelihood. I keep going back and forth on buying in, but I need more computers like a submarine needs screen doors.

Of course, I do realize not everyone is fortunate enough to live close enough to a MicroCenter to get one from them. You could always ask someone online (like here) who does live close enough to one to grab one for you, pay shipping and still come out ahead.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/21 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
Of course, I do realize not everyone is fortunate enough to live close enough to a MicroCenter to get one from them.


Yes, screen doors abound in my house -- some very old creaky ones. Meantime, thanks for the pricing and MicroCenter info. We do have one about 40 minutes from here -- but, I haven't been there in well over a year.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/21 03:25 PM

Mostly I was thinking of those who aren't within an hour of one. 25 stores, 16 states - mostly northeast and mid-west...leaves a lot of people out.

I built a few Zen3 platforms already since late last year, and they are truly remarkable machines (USB issues laid aside, but so far I've seen no instances of this, knock on silicon...).

Your area looks pretty blessed with MicroCenters...more per area than most anywhere else I'd say. What a great place. After Frys closed a while back, MC is the only place left where you can walk in and buy everything you need to actually build a machine (well...if it's in stock anyway lol). Priceless. And speaking of price, they compete pretty well in that area, too. I sometimes go there to buy stuff even though I'm paying a few bucks more; hopefully the support helps keep them open. I also know one of the Sales Managers and he's been invaluable...I buy quite a lot of parts and he treats me like a king smile I wish more businesses were like this.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/21 01:51 AM

...and, just like that, all the 5900s at the nearby MicroCenter - they had 25+ just a day or so ago - are gone.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/21 10:16 AM

Quote
AMD Navi 24 “Beige Goby” entry-level GPU to offer 1024 cores

AMD has already released Navi 21, which is carrying a codename of “Sienna Cichlid”, as well as Navi 22 codenamed “Navy Flounder”. AMD is yet to release Navi 23 “Dimgrey Cavefish and Navi 24 “Beige Goby”. The former is expected to debut under Radeon RX 6600 series, while Navi 24 should launch as RX 6500 or 6400 series.

AMD Navi 24 is likely the last member of the Navi 2X family based on RDNA2 architecture.


1024 RDNA2 cores should make for a very good "entry level" gaming GPU -- if the MSRP is "entry level".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/21 09:49 AM

Quote
AMD and GlobalFoundries Update Wafer Supply Agreement: Orders Through 2024, Now Non-Exclusive

Under the terms of the amended seventh amendment, AMD will see out its existing commitment to use GlobalFoundries through 2024, with the latest amendment setting purchase targets for 2022, 2023, and 2024. Beyond those new targets, however, the agreement releases AMD from all further exclusivity commitments to GlobalFoundries. AMD is now free to use any fab on any process node that it wants
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/21 09:57 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Overclocked To A Record Breaking 3.3 GHz, Scores Over 41,000 Points in 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme Benchmark

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT With Navi 21 XTXH GPU Achieves Record-Breaking 3.3 GHz Overclock, Demolishes All Single-GPU World Records in 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme Benchmark

The Navi 21 XTXH isn't just a binned GPU with higher clocked speeds, it also opens up 4.00 GHz maximum clock limits allowing overclockers to hit record speeds with LN2 cooling.


Gamer's won't overclock to this level. But, its interesting to know that some AMD GPUs overclock as well as any GPU ever has (in Fire Strike).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/21 12:16 PM

The near future for memory technology will impact AMD and Intel designs.

Quote
Corsair teases DDR5-6400 memory, the technology to arrive later this year

DDR5 technology is currently not supported by any platform

DDR5 may not be affordable from the beginning it arrives

DDR5 technology will double the bandwidth, while requiring less power (1.1 vs 1.2V). A much higher capacity of single memory modules going up to 128GB, which is four times as much as the current DDR4 standard


But, will it initially matter to gaming speed? Will it need new CPUs designed to make worthwhile use of such speed?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/17/21 11:32 AM

Quote
U.S. Senators Close to Inking $52 Billion Semiconductor Funding Plan

The chip industry support plan is set to include funding of R&D and production and the establishment of national programs. The $52 billion five-year plan pales in comparison to South Korea's intention to support its semiconductor industry with $450 billion over the next 10 years. Still, the real question is if we can compare the plans directly.

Various companies in the U.S. design the vast majority of chips used globally, yet only 12% of semiconductors are produced on American soil. The microelectronics industry funding bill is designed to at least partially change that and bring more chip production [of advanced chips] back to the USA.


This has not happened yet. So, its a "wait and see".

I personally want to see the USA and Europe start producing their own highest-end CPUs, GPUs, etc. -- in addition to buying from Asian sources. Competition across the globe is good for design-progress, good for prices, and good for customers (gamers in our case) smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/21 10:52 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 “Vermeer” on B2 stepping is only to improve production and availability

AMD confirms that B2 stepping has no effect on performance or functionality and will require no BIOS upgrade from the user.

[Per AMD] "AMD will gradually move AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors to B2 Revision over the next 6 months. The revision does not bring improvements in terms of functionality or performance, furthermore, no BIOS update will be required".


B2 CPUs will not be better. So, no need to "wait" or "look for B2" when purchasing.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/21 09:59 AM

Quote
China’s Setting up a Hotline for Snitching on Cryptocurrency Miners

The Financial Times reports that the Inner Mongolia Development and Reform Commission (IMDRC) plans to set up a hotline for reporting suspected mining operations.

The report arrived shortly after Reuters reported that China banned financial institutions from offering “clients any service involving cryptocurrency


FWIW: Maybe less mining means more GPUs for gamers -- eventually??
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/21 10:04 AM

Quote
AMD CEO Lisa Su Doesn’t Seem All That Worried About the Chip Shortage

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su doesn’t seem all that worried about the global chip shortage. In fact, she said in an interview with Bloomberg that this is just a “megacycle” the semiconductor industry has to go through. It's the type of thing she says she has watched the industry go through similar periods of demand far outpacing supply throughout her career.


This too shall pass and CPUs/GPUs will again be MSRP.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/22/21 01:00 PM

Continuing on from previous post just above this one -- prices not MSRP, yet.

Quote
Retailer Already Taking Pre-Orders For GeForce RTX 3080 Ti at Over $2700 US, RTX 3070 Ti For Over $2000 US

The cards which the retailer mentions will be base models are priced more than twice their expected MSRP's


A significant "investment" for playing a few more $60 games at a few more FPS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/21 08:49 AM

Rumor/Leak regarding near future changes in AMD CPUs.

Quote
AMD next-gen AM5 platform to feature LGA1718 socket

AMD AM5, the successor to AM4 is to feature an LGA1718 socket. AMD is apparently changing its socket type from PGA to LGA (land grid array), which means there be no pins on the next-gen AMD processors, instead, pins will be located on the motherboard socket.

The leaker confirmed the platform will support dual-channel DDR5 memory, but surprisingly, PCI Express Gen5 support is to be exclusive to Zen4 Genoa (EPYC) processors [for servers -- desktop remain DDR4 for now, it is rumored].

It is rumored that the first consumer Zen4 and AM5 products are to be codenamed, Raphael. Previous rumors have suggested that we might see Raphael launch in 2022.


From what I read (and my amateur memory speed experiments), currently, DDR4 is all one needs for a desktop PC with an AMD CPU. DDR5 will be more expensive and probably not increase performance noticeably -- so, sticking with DDR4 for desktop PC CPUs makes sense. We'll see what actually happens in a year or two.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-05-23 043717.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/21 12:29 AM

Quote
Best CPUs for Gaming: May 2021


In general, AMD stays in the lead. But, Intel performance is okay -- power is generally high though.

The article seems to continue to find the R5 5600X as the best performance/price of gaming CPUs. Now, the R7 5800X and R5 5600X sell at MSRP or lower (if one looks around). My R5 5600X performs nearly equal to my R7 5800X (can't see the slight difference -- only measure it).

Attached figure lists the AMD and Intel CPUs to consider at each price point.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-05-24 202151.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/21 09:37 AM

Rumor/Leak: Intel making a fundamental change to Intel 10nm CPU size and mounting.

Quote
Intel's LGA1700 CPUs Will Need New Coolers, or at Least New Mounts

Intel's transition to LGA1700 will not only mark Intel's changeover to a new socket for mainstream PCs (something the company does rather often), but also to all-new dimensions of its CPU socket, something that has not happened for over 15 years. The new dimensions will entail new mounting mechanisms, which essentially means new coolers, or at least coolers with new mounts.

Intel's LGA1700 will retain the 37.5mm width, but will increase its length to 45mm. Furthermore, it will decrease its Z-height from 7.5 mm to 6.5 mm, .. The new dimensions will entail a new CPU mounting mechanism with a new cooler hole pattern.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake processors for desktops will be made using the company's 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin process technology, with high-performance power-hungry CPUs in mind


So, new MB will be needed (normal for Intel CPUs).

AMD does not change required MBs or mounts as often -- usually just plug the latest CPU into your old MB (need BIOS update -- MB manufacturers do not always provide an update). However, the next generation AMD CPUs will need a new MB (noted above).
Posted By: mikew

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/21 11:31 AM

"AMD does not change required MBs or mounts as often"

Maybe not, but was reading this just today:
https://www.pcgamer.com/bent-cpu-pi...he-past-as-amd-eyes-major-socket-change/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/21 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by mikew
"AMD does not change required MBs or mounts as often"

Maybe not, but was reading this just today:
https://www.pcgamer.com/bent-cpu-pi...he-past-as-amd-eyes-major-socket-change/


Agreed. Thanks for linking the article for folks who want to read more details. Your article describes the change better than the one I read.

At a minimum, pundits were expecting a new AMD motherboard would be required for the next generation AMD CPU.

The new socket on the new AMD motherboard is probably an improvement according to your linked article.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/21 09:10 PM

A slightly updated AMD CPU roadmap. Notably, the next desktop PC CPU will not be an improved 7nm -- rather they will move to 5nm.

The new 5nm is rumored/leaked to have the new pinless CPU -- and, thus, require new motherboards. I.e. the new CPUs will not be compatible with current motherboards -- no simple change BIOS, plug, and play for upgraders.

Rumors/leaks say DDR5 memory for EPYC CPUs used in huge Data Center Servers.

Different rumors/leaks seem to disagree on the memory for the new home-use desktop PCs. Some say DDR5 (expensive), some say they'll stick with DDR4 (for now).

We'll see on the memory -- these are "rumors/leaks".

Attached picture AMD_CPU_Roadmap.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/27/21 01:21 PM

An updated rumor/leak similar to rumor/leak just above.

Quote
AMD Next-Gen Zen 4 Powered Ryzen 'Raphael' Desktop CPU Rumors Point Out To Over 20% IPC Gains, 16 Core Flagship Chip at Launch, DDR5-5200 & AM5 LGA1718 Platform For 2022
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/21 12:44 AM

Quote
AMD Zen 5 Powered Next-Gen EPYC ‘Turin’, Ryzen 8000 ‘Granite Ridge’ & Ryzen 8000 ‘Strix Point’ CPUs To Be Produced on TSMC’s 3nm Process Node

The 3nm AMD Zen 5 architecture will be replacing the 5nm Zen 4 architecture that is expected to launch next year with EPYC Genoa and Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' CPUs.

While Zen 4 is aiming to launch in 2022, the Zen 5 architecture is slated for a 2023-2024 launch. It looks like the transition to Zen 5 from Zen 4 would be faster than the transition from Zen 3 to Zen 4.

So, by 2024 we'll have 3nm CPUs and, probably, GPUs.

3nm does not mean the chip is literally physically 3nm throughout. Rather, its a shorthand way of advertising improved performance. Still, part of the chip will be 3nm.

We may be getting close to the end of actual-size shrinkage. However, the name might change to a smaller dimension (e.g. 1.5nm) to indicate faster performance.

Long ago, I thought roughly 3nm would be the actual-size limit. It doesn't seem like significantly under 1nm actual-size is feasible, to me. I don't mind being wrong smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/01/21 12:02 PM

The answer to Nvidia DLSS. AMD FSR works on majority of games and on most GPUs.

EDIT: It still must be enabled at the Game Developer level. That was not clear in the article I read.

Quote
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) launches June 22nd, supported by Radeon and GeForce GPUs

The FSR will officially be supported by all Radeon RX graphics cards, including RX Vega, RX 500, RX 5000 and RX 6000 series... and on competitors’ products.

According to AMD, FidelityFX Super Resolution is a spatial upscaling technique, which generates a “super resolution” image from every input frame. In other words, it does not rely on history buffers or motion vectors. Neither does it require any per-game training.

Super Resolution
Major framerate boosts combined with high-quality, high-resolution graphics!
Four different quality modes proposed: Performance, Balanced, Quality, and Ultra Quality.

Cross-platform
FSR is not limited to the latest GPU architectures only! It runs on a large variety of GPUs.
Wide API support for DirectX®12, Vulkan®, and DirectX®11!
Once released, FSR can be ported onto multiple platforms without restriction.

Open source
In due course, FSR 1.0 will be provided .. on GPUOpen under the MIT license.


Quote
Edit: The one thing that's maybe a little less exciting about the FSR announcement is the fact that it's still something that needs to be enabled at a developer level, and so far AMD is only saying that 'over 10 game studios and engines' are going to enable FSR support in 2021
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/02/21 06:26 PM

Intel may "buy in" to AMD open FSR (described above) -- for Intel GPUs.

Quote
Intel might use AMD’s FSR with their upcoming Xe-HPG series

At Computex, AMD made big news by announcing its own alternative to NVIDIA DLSS, a resolution upscaling algorithm.

AMD FSR will be available not just to the latest GPUs but also to the processors based on older architectures, such as AMD’s Polaris or NVIDIA Pascal. Being a cross-platform technology supported by DirectX12, DirectX11, and Vulkan APIs, it will also work on Intel GPUs.

On Twitter, in a response to Kyle Bennett, Raja Koduri confirmed that Intel is already looking into giving FSR a try on the upcoming Xe-HPG based GPUs. Those are the next-generation DG2 discrete gaming GPUs, Koduri says that Intel will try to align with open approaches,

Nvidia often makes its new technology "Nvidia Only" to get folks to buy Nvidia. AMD has always stressed "open" techniques. Intel may be going the same route.

Over time, FSR might supplant DLSS as the "go to" sharpening technique. If so, good -- more folks can use it -- and its easier for Developers to install in new games (so they imply). We'll see.

Attached picture AMDShapening.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/03/21 09:51 PM

Quote
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution also coming to Radeon RX 480 and RX 470

I just wanted to pass on the news that we are updating the list of compatible AMD graphics for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) to include Radeon RX 470 and RX 480.

Looking forward to having you all try FSR out on the 22nd. ✌️

— Mickey Molad, AMD Community Manager


Some folks are "sure" that FSR won't be as good as DLSS 2 (running on recent RTX 3000 series cards).

Probably not. But, will it be "good enough" -- and be an improvement when running on most of the non-RTX3000 series cards (old and new) out there? We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/21 11:18 AM

Quote
AMD announces Radeon Pro W6800 and W6600 RDNA2 workstation graphics cards

New professional product line features the AMD Radeon PRO W6800, .. delivering up to 79 percent faster performance than the previous generation

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced the AMD Radeon™ PRO W6000 series workstation graphics, delivering exceptional performance, stability and reliability for professional users. The new graphics products were designed and optimized to power demanding architectural design workloads, ultra-high resolution media projects, complex design and engineering simulations, and advanced image and video editing applications.

Built on the advanced 7nm manufacturing process

Realtime Hardware-Accelerated Raytracing

The AMD Radeon PRO W6800 graphics card is available now from leading etailers/retailers for an SEP of $2,249 USD. The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 graphics card is expected to be available from etailers/retailers in Q3 2021 with an SEP of $649 USD.


Attached picture AMD-RadeonPRO-W6000-7_videocardz-1536x860.jpg
Attached picture AMD-RadeonPRO-W6000-13_videocardz-1536x834.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/21 11:35 AM

Market share data shows AMD selling very slightly more GPUs than Nvidia. Intel wins due to having a GPU integrated inside most desktop/laptop Intel CPUs.

Quote
GPU Market Grew 38.74% In Q1 2021 With A Total of 119 Million Units Shipped, NVIDIA & AMD Retain Graphics Share

it is stated that while integrated GPUs dominate the GPU market, discrete graphics units are expected to reach a market share of 26% over the next five years.

As for the overall market share, AMD saw a drop of -0.12% versus the previous quarter, Intel saw a drop of -0.5% versus the previous quarter while NVIDIA's share increased by 0.62% versus the last quarter. In the discrete graphics segment, AMD saw a share gain of +1.0% while NVIDIA saw a share drop of -1.0%. So the share levels in the dGPU segment are pretty much the same.


Attached picture JPR-GPU-Market-Share-AMD-NVIDIA-Intel.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/21 02:23 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Review Roundup

sales will go live tomorrow, so there is plenty of time to read the comprehensive reviews.

Over 50 Nvidia RTX 3070 Review Links

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-09 102926.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/09/21 04:07 PM

Quote
AMD’s Steam CPU Share Skyrockets Over 12 Months

The Steam numbers for AMD are good on their own, but they’re downright fabulous compared with where the smaller CPU company was sitting a year ago. In June of 2020 (reflecting May results), AMD had 22.45 percent of the market. Today, it’s just over 30 percent.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-09 120644.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/21 08:33 AM

For gamers who "have it all" and "want more".

Quote
Elon Musk demos Cyberpunk 2077 on Tesla’s new infotainment system powered by AMD Navi 23 GPU

Elon Musk says Tesla’s new infotainment system is now as powerful as PlayStation 5

The central console has a large 17-inch display with 2200×1300 resolution. But the central processing unit feeds data and images to another two screens. Tesla has made improvements in system UI, display quality, or even to the car audio system, which is powered by Tesla’s own codec. The biggest change, however, has come to the GPU capabilities of the new infotainment system.

Elon has delivered on his promise that the new infotainment system can play Cyberpunk. In fact, this was shown at the event during a live demo. Elon said that the system delivers high framerates in modern games

Tesla Model S Plaid costs 122,990 USD.


Attached picture Tesla-Arcade-2021-Update-2.jpg
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Attached picture TESLA-ARCADE-Cyberpunk2077-1.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/21 11:21 PM

Just information regarding support for old GPUs. Support has to end sometime.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce 600/700 Game Ready driver support ends on August 31

NVIDIA R470 branch drivers will be the last to support Kepler architecture.

NVIDIA has today confirmed it will no longer support Kepler-based GeForce graphics cards and Windows 7/8/8.1 operating system starting August 31. On this day the last R470 driver will be released supporting these GPUs and OSes. This does not mean that Kepler GPUs will no longer receive patches for critical bugs and security updates, but there will be no more Game Ready drivers for these graphics cards.

NVIDIA introduces the GeForce GTX 600 series back in 2012, which was then followed by GeForce GTX 700 series


Attachment is list of affected GPUs.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-11 192235.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/21 04:13 PM

About the Future of AMD's hardware architectures. A slight change in direction for the CPU industry and AMD CPUs.

Quote
AMD patents a task transition method between BIG and LITTLE processors

AMD “big.LITTLE” aha heterogeneous computing in Ryzen 8000 series

The next decade will no longer be dictated by the number of cores, but rather the processor’s fabrication node, packaging method, and power efficiency. A big role will also be played by heterogeneous architectures [i.e different types of cores (e.g. high power, low power, special purpose) in the same CPU package].

The next-generation Windows operating system is rumored to feature a new task scheduling method for such heterogeneous computing, which might just align with Intel’s Alder Lake launch.

[AMD's] patent covers the most important engineering problem of heterogeneous computing, which is how to schedule or transition tasks between different types of cores.

it is believed that Ryzen 8000 series “Strix Point” will be AMD’s first to implement heterogeneous architecture with 3nm Zen5 cores combined with Zen4D on a single package. ... by the time AMD’s heterogeneous CPUs/APUs are available, Intel will already have its Alder Lake architecture on the market.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-13 121442.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/21 10:08 PM

A very long article about 8 core CPUs. AMD wins on things gamers care about. And, AMD wins overall.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K: The Eight-Core Faceoff

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K battle boils down to a four-to-five victory in favor of the Ryzen 7 5800X [see attachment].

if you're looking for a gaming-only rig, the Ryzen 5 5600X is the hands-down best chip (if you can find it near recommended pricing). Additionally, for the productivity-minded, the Ryzen 9 5900X offers a superior price-to-performance ratio over competing chips (including the Ryzen 7 5800X).

As the article notes, depending on what you do with your PC, the R5 5600X or R9 5900X may truly be the CPUs to buy.

Intel CPUs are not bad. But, these days AMD CPUs continue to beat them by a small amount.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-14 180209.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/21 10:02 AM

Rumor/Leak regarding future commercial level AMD CPUs:

Quote
AMD Rumored To Offer Up To 128 Zen 4 Cores & 12-Channel DDR5-5200 Memory Support In Next-Gen EPYC & Threadripper CPUs

A new rumor has just popped up on Chiphell according to which AMD's next-gen Threadripper and EPYC CPUs could pack up to 128 cores based on the Zen 4 architecture.

So far, we know that AMD is working on its EPYC Genoa lineup of server processors which will be offering up to 96 cores and 192 threads.

There were multiple rumors that pointed that AMD's next-gen EPYC Genoa lineup would feature a maximum of 128 cores instead of 96 as previously reported.

This is all just a rumor but it's definitely going to be one of the fastest CPUs on the market once it launches with a core count that might remain unchallenged for years to come.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-15 060119.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/21 11:09 AM

Rumor/Leak.

Quote
AMD AM5 motherboards to arrive in Q2 2022, Raptor’s Lake Z790 series in Q3 2022

According to a new rumor, Intel will indeed claim first place in the DDR5 memory race, but AMD’s AM5 platform will be ‘just’ two quarters away.


Attached picture AMD-Raphael-AM5-vs-Intel-AlderLake-LGA1700.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-16 070829.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/21 11:03 AM

FWIW: Recently, Newegg has had AMD RX 6900XT GPUs in stock. Nine (9) models were listed as in-stock today. The prices start at $2270 and move to $2940 for non-reference models. No reference models in stock (MSRP $1000).

Meanwhile, R7 5800X and R5 5600X CPUs have been available at MSRP (or less) for a while now. R5 5600X remains the "go to" gaming PC CPU in reviews.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-17 065725.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/21 04:29 PM

Quote
AMD launches Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Edition with 330W TBP and 18Gbps memory

The graphics card appears to be limited to system integrators for now and has already been announced by US, Japanese and UK-based retailers. That said, there is no official MSRP for this model or any information on DIY market availability.


Costs being what they are (well above MSRP), I may just wait until the RX 7000 series is released next year.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-17 122630.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/18/21 12:52 PM

Quote
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution coming to 7 games at launch, 12 games coming soon

that’s including Far Cry 6 and Resident Evil Village.

The list of developers and publishers already working with AMD on FSR adoption is even more interesting. As many as 44 entities have already declared to support FSR.

AMD is set to launch FidelityFX Super Resolution on June 22nd.

AMD developed FidelityFX Super Resolution is an "open standard" available for all to use. Its AMDs answer to DLSS.

My understanding is: AMD FSR provides an FPS boost at higher resolutions, like DLSS. DLSS provides a bit sharper images. The advantage of AMD FSR is applicability to many GPUs people already own and easy installation in many games (by the Game Developers).

Supposedly, its easy to incorporate. Each game must have code for it. GPU drivers must support it. It works on most recent GPUs back to AMD RX400 series (includes Nvidia and Intel GPUs). So, lots of games should wind up with AMD FSR installed and more people will have GPUs that can "turn on" FSR in-game.

The attachments summarize the current situation. The GPU photo is probably photo-shopped just to visually describe what FSR does -- but was not done by FSR.


Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6900XT-HeroAI-2048x614.jpg
Attached picture AMD-FidelityFXSS-Support-Games-1.png
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/21 02:36 PM

Quote
Colorful announces its flagship iGame RTX 3090 KUDAN graphics card at 4999 USD


The headline says all one needs to know about GPU prices wacky .
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/21 04:30 PM

Prime Day Sale at Amazon June 21/22. R7 5800X $449 MSRP is on sale for $399. Plus extra 6% off for Prime Members = ~$375.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core, 16-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor


Reviews pick the 5800X as the preferred "all around use" desktop CPU. A very solid choice for Prime Members at $375,

The R5 5600X performs nearly the same in games for $300 MSRP -- haven't seen this one marked down below MSRP (though I might have missed it). Based on my tests, the R5 5600X will do the job quite well for most home users/gamers.

Many other PC components/items also marked down.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/21 01:07 PM

Quote
AMD ends driver support for Radeon 200, 300 and Fury series [and also 7000 and 8000 series GPUs]

Some readers who rushed to download the latest 21.6.1 driver featuring FidelityFX Super Resolution were surprised to learn that their graphics cards are no longer supported.

What this means is that the last driver to support these graphics cards is the 21.5.2 driver.

AMD is also retiring its Radeon HD 7000 series (released in 2011) and HD 8000 series (released a year later for OEMs).

The attachment shows the complete list of AMD GPUs affected.

Interesting to me because I'm using a 7000 series in an HTPC that I just assembled (using mostly old and a couple new parts). I happily used the 7000 because it was still supported. Oh well, support had to end sometime.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-22 085936.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/21 05:04 PM

Quote
AMD launches FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling technology

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution launches today with 7 games

Officially FSR is working on Radeon RX 6000 desktop and mobile series as well as its successor based on RDNA1 architecture, the RX 5000 series. AMD did not forget about its RX Vega series as well as Polaris-based RX 500 and RX 400 series. All Zen-based APUs are supported (Ryzen 2000 and newer). Additionally, AMD confirms that FSR works on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and 20 series. The list continues with GeForce GTX 16 and 10 series.

The linked article has details and pictures based on the AMD presentation.

Link to Descriptive Article

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-22 125212.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/21 06:57 PM

Quote
Bitcoin Price Falls Below $30,000 as China Shuts Down Mining Operations

Mining operations throughout the country were shut down over the weekend, and on Monday, the People’s Bank of China forbid banks within the country from handling most transactions involving cryptocurrencies.

Reports indicate that graphics cards prices have fallen as much as 45% in China as a result of the crackdown on cryptocurrency mining operations. Graphics card pricing has fallen in Europe, too, so there might finally be some .. light at the end of the tunnel for [gaming GPU] enthusiasts
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/21 09:51 AM

Quote
Gigabyte expects Radeon RX 6600 XT to feature 8GB of memory

The RX 6600 XT is supposedly based on Navi 23 XT GPU ... very high clock speeds (up to 2.9 GHz) and relatively low power consumption (~100W).

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed earlier this year that a reference single-fan graphics card from Radeon RX 6000 series (supposedly Navi 23-based) will launch in the first half of this year. This means that AMD only has a week left for this launch.

As previously noted, some newer games will require 8GB or more for full graphical performance at high resolutions (I personally found that MSFS 2020 needed over 8GB to play the way I wanted at 4K). So, the days of 8GB always being enough are over for high end gamers who want full performance at 4K resolutions. Maybe AMD FX Super Resolution will fix that in games that have FSR installed.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-06-23 054955.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/23/21 10:36 AM

Quote
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution Can Be Implemented in a Day or Two, Devs Say; It Just Works

Takeshi Aramaki, Studio Head and General Manager at Luminous Studio Productions (working on the action RPG Forspoken, due next year on PC and PS5):

"With Forspoken, we are aiming to achieve the highest quality visuals ever seen in an open world game.

we are really feeling the benefits of the low latency of FSR, and the high performance that it brings. FSR implementation only took one day. The process was very simple and fit in our pipeline very well.

From an image quality standpoint, the difference between the highest quality settings and native resolution rendering is undetectable. FSR integration was very easy and there were no problems, even when using Dynamic Resolution
."

[Six more developers had positive comments]

Granted, these are all game developers who've chosen to partner with AMD on FidelityFX Super Resolution rather than with NVIDIA on Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).


Its a classic "Cost vs Benefit" thing: Nvidia DLSS has slightly better image quality. AMD FSR has good enough image quality, lower latency, easier/cheaper to implement in games, and works on more GPUs (more GPUs after Intel and Nvidia activate it in their drivers -- requires no special hardware).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/21 10:27 PM

More FSR uptake. Now moving to existing consoles.

Quote
Microsoft Game Development Kit for XBOX now includes AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

Today Jason Ronald, a director of program management at Xbox, announced that FSR will be part of the Xbox GDK which enables the technology on Windows, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One X, and Xbox One.

It is unclear when should we expect the first Xbox games to support FSR, but one would guess it is only a matter of weeks at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/29/21 02:09 PM

Regarding future competition:

Quote
Intel's [10nm] Sapphire Rapids Roadmap Slips: Enters Production in 2022

Intel announced via a blog post this morning that Sapphire Rapids will enter production in the first quarter of 2022, with the volume ramp beginning in the second quarter of 2022. The revised production timeline represents a three-month slip

these chips will compete primarily with AMD's EPYC Milan processors, but also with the 5nm Zen 4 EPYC Genoa chips that will arrive later in 2022

Sapphire Rapids represents Intel's first chips with its newest 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/21 10:32 AM

Regarding W11 compatibility: For what its worth -- my test results with my recent technology AMD CPUs:

All my recent AMD motherboards will run W11. 370 series, 470 series, 550 series, 570 series.

My AMD R5-1600 & R7-1800X CPU do NOT run it.

My R7-2700, R5-3600, R7-3800X, R7-5800X CPUs run W11. I imagine my former R5-5600X on a 550 motherboard would have run it -- but, I've given that system away.

Those results are consistent with recent articles and Microsoft guidance regarding "what works" and what "doesn't work".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/21 11:19 AM

Some Modders can add AMD FSR to some games -- with no help from AMD. Their mods can be made downloadable and usable by other gamers.

Quote
AMD FSR Successfully Implemented in GTA V Thanks to Clever Mod

Many game developers already pointed out the ease of integration, but no one - perhaps not even AMD - could imagine how quickly modders would be able to add it to existing games.

The first example comes from NarutoUA, who managed to replace Grand Theft Auto V's internal upscaler with FSR without even having access to the open source code, which AMD still has to share publicly.

You can download the mod...to try it yourself
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/21 01:53 PM

Quote
Biostar announces Intel and AMD motherboards supporting Windows 11


Quote
Gigabyte confirms its Intel and AMD motherboards support Windows 11 thanks to TPM enabled BIOS

Lots of GIGABYTE Intel® and AMD motherboards can pass the TPM 2.0 verification of the Windows 11 by simply enabling the TPM-related function in the BIOS, on which Intel® X299, B250 chipset and above platform will be the Platform Trust Technology (PTT), and fTPM function on the AMD AM4 and TRX40 motherboards.


My tests on my motherboards and CPUs verify that my AM4 Gigabyte MBs can support fTPM (i.e. AM4 300, 400, 500 series MBs). They also have hardware ports to plug in TP{M 2.0 if desired -- but its not required. However Ryzen 2000 and above CPUs are required today (Microsoft hinted the Ryzen 1000 series might be supported in the future -- definitely not guaranteed).

The Attachment shows which Biostar MBs are supported.

I assume most recent AMD AM4 motherboards by nearly all manufacturers support W11 requirements now (or will) by the time W11 is generally released. Probably similar support will be on newer Intel MBs.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-02 094109.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/21 04:28 PM

Quote
Edge of Eternity Tech Q&A – Midgar CEO on AMD FSR vs NVIDIA DLSS, PS5 vs XSX and More

Edge of Eternity recently launched on PC,.. the game is one of only two (the other being Necromunda: Hired Gun) confirmed to support both NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR technologies

[We chatted] with Midgar Studio CEO Jérémy Zeler-Maury, who also happens to be the game's lead programmer.

compare the process of implementing AMD's FSR and NVIDIA's DLSS

Implementing DLSS was quite complex to integrate into Unity for a small studio like us... FSR, on the other hand, was very easy to implement,

Quality-wise, do you feel there is a noticeable difference between the two in your game?

Quality-wise, when there is a lot of pixel info available for upscaling to 4K, both technologies give amazing results, and I have a hard time seeing differences between them. I’d even say that I slightly prefer the FSR for 4K resolution since it doesn’t introduce any artifacts/minor blurriness that DLSS can sometimes introduce. For lower resolutions like upscaling to 1080p or 720p, I think DLSS gives a better result

We use FSR on every console version now to be able to improve the shading/assets density/resolution... I think FSR for consoles is really a must.


Generally, a very positive review for AMD FSR vs Nvidia DLSS by a lead programmer who put both in his game.

EDIT: Just read an article that indicated Nvidia is working on reducing "ghosting" (i.e. artifacts) in DLSS 2.2. I assume DLSS will evolve and FSR will evolve -- both will get better.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/21 12:14 AM

Rumor/Leak/Speculation concerning future competition -- Intel beating AMD to 3nm CPUs:

Quote
Intel and Apple First to Adopt TSMC's 3nm Technology: Report

Apple and Intel will be the first to adopt Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s (TSMC) N3 (3nm) fabrication process when the contract maker of chips deploys in late 2022, Nikkei Asia news agency reported on Friday. Intel is projected to use the technology to make CPUs for PCs and servers, whereas Apple is expected to use the node for its system-on-chips aimed at client devices.

Apple and Intel are currently 'testing their chip designs' produced using TSMC's N3 process, according to a Nikkei report that cites several people with knowledge of the matter.


AMD is on track to beat Intel to 5nm. It makes sense that Intel might try to "jump past" AMD to 3nm. This rumor/leak may be true. But, it also may be overly optimistic click bait. Intel has been running behind on keeping promises and making technology work for a couple years now. We'll see in 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/21 09:31 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G [APU] Review: Fastest Integrated Graphics Ever

AMD plans to use the Renoir chips to plug big price gaps in its Ryzen 5000 lineup that dominates our Best CPU list and CPU Benchmark hierarchy, but they're limited to the OEM market until the full retail launch on August 5, 2021

the $359 eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5700G [fills the gap] between the Ryzen 7 and 5 lineups, while the $259 six-core Ryzen 5 5600G reduces the steep price of entry to the Zen 3 lineup. Both chips also come with a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler, sweetening the deal.


They tested a Ryzen 7 5700G using it's built in GPU circuits. They got it by buying a pre-built OEM PC. The PC was not high end. Even so, It beat an Intel CPU with built in graphics. Typical results are attached.

Attached picture AMDAPUsJuly.jpg
Attached picture AMDCPUsJuly.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/21 11:14 AM

Article with several graphs and product photos that might be interesting to both AMD and Nvidia aficionados.

Quote
AMD & NVIDIA GPU Silicon Performance, Efficiency & Cost Progress From The Last 10 Years Visualized

10 years of GPU Silicon advancements from AMD and NVIDIA have been visualized in a series of charts made by Reddit user, Vito_ponfe_Andariel. The charts show all the progress that has been achieved by the two main GPU makers in the industry starting and each generation of GPU shows both, its strength and weaknesses.

In such an article, some charts may contain errors -- but the general overview is worthwhile.

Link to Article

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-04 070954.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/21 10:20 PM

Very speculative article -- holding one's breath is not recommended.

Quote
Don’t Buy A GPU Right Now: Prices Hit 6-Month Low In Global Markets As US Prepares For A Price Crash

Prices in Germany (3DCenter) have hit a 6 month low and Chinese miners are continuing to flood local markets with cheap, second hand parts. With the wider crypto market in a lul as well, the stage is set for a crash

China is a huge global market and the crackdown there, coupled with NVIDIAs introduction of LHR cards and the global cryptocurrency slump seems to have created the perfect conditions for a GPU price crash.

prices in Germany are down by almost 50% over the peak in May.

Scalpers on Amazon have already reduced pricing of the RTX 3080 Ti from $2999 ( a ridiculous 250% MSRP) to a very slightly better $2499 (200% MSRP) since the start of June. This is a typical retailer tactic to incentivize purchases and is usually a sign of the beginning of a stock dump.

in another 2-3 months you will see prices crash well below the 150% MSRP mark


I'm not convinced. 150% is hardly a "crash". In any case, I will only pay MSRP (not 150%MSRP). I hope I'm wrong, the author is right, and MSRP arrives in the Fall yep
Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/21 09:28 AM

Fingers crossed. I need some new hardware.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/21 03:56 PM

We have Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR. Now, Microsoft is putting together a team to develop something similar for XBox. They want consoles to be able to drive 4K televisions at 4K and at good frame rates.

Quote
Microsoft is working on game upscaling technology powered by AI

Resolution upscaling: once a taboo subject uttered only in dingy recesses of the gaming community. Today, they're all at it. Nvidia with its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), AMD with FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), and even Epic with Temporal Super Resolution (TSR).

Microsoft is getting ready to fill out the Xbox team with capable minds for the task. It's looking for senior and principal software engineers who specialize in computer graphics and machine learning

This is either going to manifest as a DLSS-esque solution, or perhaps it could end in a complete overhaul of the process, to create something entirely new.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/10/21 08:47 AM

Quote
Cryptocurrency Miners Caught With Over 3,800 PlayStation 4 Consoles After Ukrainian Police Uncover The Mining Operation

these Ukrainian miners took a different approach to mining cryptocurrencies. The illegal mining operation was discovered by the Security Service of Ukraine and they reported that over 50 processors, 500 graphics cards, and 3,800 PlayStation 4 consoles were seized in a raid.

Mining on a large scale is becoming illegal in some places. Some discount priced used equipment is becoming available.

Attached picture Cryptofarm-with-GPUS-and-PS4-1-1920x1280.jpg
Attached picture Cryptofarm-with-GPUS-and-PS4-2-1480x986.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/13/21 10:27 AM

Brief speculation on AMD Future from someone who often "gets it right":

Quote
What is AMD’s Bergamo CPU?

More than just a 128c [core] monster

AMD has an upcoming 128 core CPU called Bergamo and what it signifies is more important than that it is. SemiAccurate thinks Bergamo is the first of a new class of CPUs with more to follow.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/16/21 05:50 PM

Quote
Intel allegedly in talks to acquire GlobalFoundries

Intel makes an offer to purchase GlobalFoundaries for 30 billion US dollars

This company is responsible for as much as 7% of the global foundry market by revenue and is currently making chips for many companies such as AMD, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA.


Quote
GlobalFoundries was created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Global Foundries is owned by Mubadala Investment Company.


GlobalFoundaries was AMD at one point. As AMD struggled to stay in business, they sold their manufacturing which became GlobalFoundaries located in the USA.

Intel's illegal shenanigans caused AMD's near failure (proved in court) -- and caused AMD to loose part of their company -- i.e. GlobalFoundaries. Now, Intel will buy GlobalFoundaries to improve Intel's competitiveness.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/21 07:23 PM

More Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR. I'm surprised how well AMD compares in such articles.

Quote
AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS comparison shows similar quality and performance at 4K resolution in Necromunda Hired Gun

What is important to note is that NVIDIA DLSS Quality preset upscales the output image from 1440p resolution, while AMD FSR Ultra Quality uses 1662p image. Both upscaling techniques were compared side by side by Back4BuckPC Gamer in Necromunda Hired Gun. He used 4K resolution and the best quality presets.

Overall impressions from Bang4BuckPC Gamer are that FSR is a very compelling alternative to DLSS at this resolution and at the highest quality settings. The FSR has a slight advantage in both the performance and image quality in motion.

In this article, Nvidia DLSS does a little better at 1440p and 1080p screen resolution.

The attached images compare at 4K using Nvidia hardware. Interestingly, for this image, to my eyes AMD FSR matches native 4K -- while Nvidia DLSS may slightly improve hair versus native 4K for some folks.

Attached picture NVIDIA-DLSS-vs-AMD-FSR-2.jpg
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/21 10:47 PM

DLSS appears to have more texture on my 32" 1440 Monitor? I don't know how else to describe it?? Her facial skin looks the most detailed in the DLSS pic to me IMHO, FWIW. Of course what is the performance tradeoff or performance increase as I have read about?

S!Blade<><
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/21 12:51 AM

Originally Posted by Blade_Meister
Her facial skin looks the most detailed in the DLSS pic to me IMHO, FWIW.


I agree. The DLSS 4K looks better than 4K native -- and better than FSR in the attached pictures.

What the article seemed to say was that DLSS, FSR, and Native image qualities "trade places" depending on the game and resolution. All in all, AMD competes with Nvidia -- better in some things worse in others.

Its not a "clean sweep" for Nvidia DLSS. Many folks (including me) thought Nvidia DLSS would always be slightly better than FSR; but, its closer to a "fair fight" at high resolutions (4K). The above attached picture shows a DLSS win to my eyes. But, in some games and resolutions AMD FSR wins. If the object is moving, AMD tends to win more often. DLSS also has "artifacts" in some moving images (based on a lot of reading other articles).

Here's the article. Watch the 4K video (uses Nvidia graphics card for both FSR and DLSS) and look at all the pictures.

Article
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/18/21 01:10 PM

Thanks, I will check that out today Sir. I also want to say thank you for posting the current AMD news everyday. I am an AMD CPU guy through and through and you helped keep me interested and up to date while I was beginning to decide what chip base my new rig would be last year. I was leaning heavily towards an Intel build, but keeping an eye on you thread encouraged me to dig deeper into what AMD was currently offering. Long story short I ended up building another AMD CPU based rig and I am thoroughly pleased with it. So thanks to your dedication to this thread.
thumbsup
S!Blade<><

I checked that out and it really looked good on my 1440 32" Samsung G7 monitor. Can't imagine how good it looks on a 4k monitor. Now if i can get my hands on a 3070 or 3080 card around 500 - 600 $ I would be set for a long time with my Rig. yep
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/19/21 10:09 AM

AMD R7 5800X ($450 MSRP) is sale priced frequently. But, R5 5600X ($300 MSRP and often suggested for gaming) has not been "sale priced" often.

Today Newegg has R7 5800X for $411 and R5 5600X for $290 and a code to get it for $270.

Amazon and Newegg usually have similar prices. Today, Amazon is selling R7 5800X for $398 and R5 5600X for $290.

The up to date CPUs have hit realistic pricing for months. Now, we await MSRP GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/21 09:50 AM

Quote
First Mini-PCs with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processors spotted

While AMD Ryzen 5000 series are seeing much wider adoption in the laptop market, the Mini-PC market is still lagging behind. The good news is that the first information on the ‘Cezanne’ based Mini-PCs are beginning to surface.

The device can be equipped with up to 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory or alternatively LPDDR4 up to 4266 MT/s. In terms of connectivity, it supports Wifi-6 as well as Bluetooth 5.0, offers DisplayPort and HDMI 2.0 outputs, and offers dual RJ45 connectors (one supports 2.5 Gbit).

MoreFine S500+ MiniPC, which officially packs AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX 8-core and 16-thread unlocked processor with a boost clock up to 4.6 GHz. This is the top SKU in the whole Cezanne (AMD Zen3) APU lineup.


These are APUs containing a good GPU on-the-CPU-chip. The GPU is entry level gaming capable.

These AMD APUs are generally used in portable devices and HTPCs.

In the past, I've built a couple HTPCs using older generation AMD APUs. I wanted a current generation one, but they have been unavailable to PC hobbyists.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5900HX-MiniPC-4.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5900HX-MiniPC-3.jpg
Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-9-5900HX-MiniPC-5.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/21 03:21 PM

Quote
1 Million Bitcoin Mining Rigs Will Be Moved To Canada In The Next 24 Months

The Chinese Bitcoin mining firm, Optimum Mining Host, is reportedly moving 1 million Bitcoin mining rigs all the way to Canada over the next 24 months with the help of the Black Rock Petroleum Company.

the People's Bank of China wants to move away from the volatile cryptocurrencies. In an official statement, the People's Bank of China said that:

"Virtual currency trading activities disrupt the normal economic and financial order, breed the risk of illegal and criminal activities such as illegal cross-border asset transfer and money laundering, and seriously infringe on the property safety of the people."

It is certainly plausible to move 1 million systems to Canada from China, but whether or not it actually happens is another question.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/21 06:07 PM

Quote
Ether's Declining Price Could Be Good News for Enthusiasts Seeking New GPUs

The value of Ether has fallen alongside the rest of the crypto market, according to CoinDesk. That could be good news for anyone hoping to buy a new GPU without having to compete with Ethereum miners for the best graphics cards.

Ether is the native token of the Ethereum blockchain. It's valued at roughly $1,795 at the time of writing .. the coin is now worth less than half of the peak $4,132 price that it briefly enjoyed on May 11.

PC builders are mostly competing with Ethereum [not Bitcoin] miners for new [GPUs].

Many products still cost more than MSRP, but they're still more affordable than they were when Bitcoin and Ethereum were at their peak.


MSRP and sale priced CPUs are here today. GPU prices are falling. But, not fast, yet. MSRP GPUs still seem months away. Hope I'm wrong.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/21 12:35 PM

This presumably official statement negates the rumor/leak copy/pasted above regarding Intel buying GlobalFoundries.

Quote
GlobalFoundries CEO Dismisses Intel Buyout Rumors, IPO Moves Ahead

The CEO of GlobalFoundries, Thomas Caulfield, says that GF is sticking to its plans for an IPO next year, and no Intel buyout offer or discussion is currently happening.

Supposedly, Intel has studied the idea of buying GF but has not formally begun any discussion or negotiations to do so. Intel and the Mubadalla Investment Company are not in talks. Caulfield thinks it’s unlikely Mubadalla would want to come to such an agreement. “I think they are interested in holding onto GF,” Caulfield said. “They think this asset has become a star in their portfolio.”

That may be true.

One caveat to keep in mind? Companies occasionally quash true rumors. Back in 2017, an Intel spokesperson told journalists, “The recent rumors that Intel has licensed AMD’s graphics technology are untrue.” When Hades Canyon showed up, it put the lie to that statement.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/21 03:07 PM

Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090 cards being "bricked" by a game?

Quote
Amazon’s New World game is bricking GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards

Gamers with access to Amazon’s New World are reporting that their cards are dying after just 15 to 30 minutes of playing the game,

The issue appears to affect mainly GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards which are reportedly overheating and see power spikes.

Affected users should RMA their cards, as it is not typical behavior to see graphics cards die as a result of playing a game, no matter how poorly coded it was.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/21/21 05:58 PM

Quote
Majority of Puget Systems' Workstations Ship with AMD Processors

Puget Systems is a company that specializes in workstations and servers that are popular with the scientific community. The company just revealed that a majority of its systems shipped are now powered by AMD processors. These include Ryzen desktop or Ryzen Threadripper HEDT/workstation processors. "AMD has made enormous improvements to its CPU line year over year. In fact, more than 50% of our recommended systems are powered by AMD Ryzen or Threadripper CPUs!," the company tweeted. The Ryzen Threadripper lineup has dominated the HEDT and workstation scene as all models support ECC memory, and the chips come in core counts of up to 64.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/22/21 11:29 AM

Attached is current listing of AMD 6000 series GPUs, their specifications, their MSRPs. Most actually sell for ~2X MSRP and more..

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-22 072613.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/21 11:49 AM

AMD 5000G series APUs are to be released in August. Some are on sale now at inflated prices -- but not prohibitive prices.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000G listed early by first retailers at a premium

the launch for the DIY market has been officially delayed till August 5th. Back in June, AMD already revealed the official price for two out of three SKUs that will launch on this day. [shown in attachment]


The closeness of the asking prices to MSRP indicate that MSRP will happen relatively soon. I had a use for one in January -- but, got an R5 5600X at MSRP and paired it with an old RX560. We'll see if I'm tempted now.

Attached picture AMD-Ryzen-5000G-DIY.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/23/21 03:50 PM

Quote
AMD RDNA 3 GPUs To Be More Power Efficient Than NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPUs, Navi 31 & Navi 33 Tape Out Later This Year [to be released late 2022]

It looks like AMD will also be taping out its first Navi 3X GPUs later this year which will surprisingly be more power-efficient than the gaming architecture powering NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX GPUs.

AMD will be taping out its first MCD (Multi-Compute Die) GPU, the Navi 31, soon!

As per current rumors, the MCD on RDNA 3 chiplet based GPUs is turning out to be very power efficient and it will take NVIDIA at least one generation to catch up to them in the gaming segment.

The AMD RDNA 3 'Navi 3X' GPU-powered Radeon RX graphics card lineup is expected to offer up to 3x [frame-rate/watt] performance improvement over existing [AMD] RDNA 2 offerings. It would mark a major leap forward for graphics evolution and now that AMD is already onboard with next-gen technologies such as FSR and Raytracing, expect a very heated next-gen competition between the red and green teams.

It took AMD 3 generations of well designed CPUs to fully catch Intel CPUs -- and a 4th generation to take a slight lead (all things considered). Over time, I expect a "back and forth" between each generation of AMD and Intel CPUs. Competition is good smile

History may repeat in the GPU competition. Navi 3X is only the 2'd generation of GPU designed to compete with Nvidia's best GPU gaming products. Based on rumor, it seems it will compete well. Given current GPU prices, I'll probably wait for Navi 3X to replace my RX 5700XT GPU.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/24/21 10:58 AM

Quote
Intel Confirms ABF Substrate Shortage Going Into Q3 2021 For Consumer Chips, Expect [Intel Consumer] CPU Prices To Go Up

In terms of priority we are told Intel is dedicating the most resources to servers, then mobility and finally desktop consumer parts [take last place].

While price hikes due to demand-exceeding-supply are bad for gamers, they are going to be a boon for foundries and design houses like Intel in terms of revenue
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/21 05:52 PM

Heavily rumor based information.

Quote
AMD Navi 31 with 15360 cores may no longer feature “Compute Units”

Could those be the specs of AMD Radeon RX 7900XT?

Following Kopite7kimi’s claim that the next-gen flagship GPU called Navi 31 could feature as many as 15360 cores, another person appears to confirm this rumor.

AMD RDNA3 architecture should now debut in Q3 or Q4 of 2022. AMD is also developing Navi 34, Navi 33 and Navi 32 GPUs.

15360 cores is 3 times as many as RX6900XT! So, apply salt liberally. If it is that powerful, I assume it will be reflected in the MSRP.

If true, its something worth waiting for -- at MSRP.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-26 135038.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/21 10:49 AM

Quote
Dell won't ship energy-hungry PCs to California and five other US states due to power regulations

Energy efficiency rules appears to be limiting the availability of gaming rigs


"Revolutionary changes to computing will be required soon."

This is all about new Climate Change policy power use restrictions.

Long term, rules like this will probably affect the future products from AMD, Intel, Nvidia and others.

Edit Update: New PC Power Rules Only Apply to Idle
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/21 08:19 AM

Quote
AMD CEO confirms Zen4 and RDNA3 is on track for 2022 launch

AMD CEO and President, Dr. Lisa Su confirms during Q2 2021 investors call that both highly anticipated AMD product series is on track for 2022 release.

AMD expects the component shortages to continue throughout 2021, but with a good outlook for 2022. This means that AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPUs may continue to see increased MSRP for a lot longer than expected. Meanwhile, AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs are now available at or close to MSRP in most regions.

AMD Zen4 [CPU] is expected to launch in the second half of 2022. The series would succeed the refreshed Zen3+/Zen3 3D V-Cache series, which are to debut by the end of this year.

AMD has not publicly confirmed the launch date for RDNA3 GPUs


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-28 041536.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-28 041603.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/21 08:27 AM

Quote
AMD confirms initial shipment of Instinct MI200 “Aldebaran” accelerator, its first MCM GPU

The next-generation AMD Instinct accelerator is now available to customers

The MI200 is equipped with Aldebaran GPU which is a dual-die processor. The fact that this GPU is already shipping means that AMD has become the first company to ship its next-generation MCM accelerator to customers


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-07-28 042650.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/21 06:22 PM

Of course, Intel won't be sitting still the next few years.

Quote
Intel's Process Roadmap to 2025: with 4nm, 3nm, 20A and 18A?!

In today’s Intel Accelerated event, the company is driving a stake into the ground regarding where it wants to be by 2025. CEO Pat Gelsinger earlier this year stated that Intel would be returning to product leadership in 2025, but hasn’t yet explained how this is coming about – that is until today

If you only take one thing away from this article, I'm going to put it here front and center. Here is what we're seeing for Intel's roadmaps, based on their disclosures today [attached].

Intel Renames The Nodes: ‘Mine is Smaller’

the names of the technology are changing to better align with common industry norms.

Interesting that Intel says its "returning to product leadership". In other words, Intel admits AMD has the lead right now.

The attachments show their plan for the next few years and the new Node names. Competition is good smile

Attached picture AnandTechRoadmaps3.png
Attached picture Intel Accelerated Briefings FINAL-page-006.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/21 06:28 PM

Quote
AMD Reports Excellent Q2 2021 Results, Revenue Up 99 Percent

AMD had another banner quarter this year, surging past analyst expectations.

The company reported a 48 percent gross profit margin, up four percentage points since Q1.

Full-year growth is expected at 60 percent thanks to strong performance in all business segments. This is up considerably from January when AMD predicted growth of 37 percent.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/21 02:24 PM

The above article on PC power consumption got a critical element wrong:

Quote
New PC Power Rules Only Apply to Idle, as Alienware [Dell] Squawks Alone


Apparently, the situation is not as dire as the previous article (and Dell) lead us to believe.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/21 02:37 PM

Quote
AMD Reveals Radeon RX 6600 XT Specs, Pricing, and Performance

AMD's Radeon RX 6600 XT will officially launch on August 11, 2021

AMD says the RX 6600 XT will launch with a suggested retail price of $379.

It will use a new Navi 23 GPU, which supports up to 32 CUs—and the RX 6600 XT will feature the fully enabled chip.

AMD says the RX 6600 XT targets 1080p gaming, and that the cache size was chosen to best fit that market, while keeping costs in check.

At $379 MSRP it Compares well with AMD RX5700 and Nvidia RTX3060. I expect MSRP will not be available a few minutes after launch.

For comparison, my $450 RX5700XT plays everything I want to play at 4K, ultra settings (except possibly MSFS2020) and smooth framerates -- often at 60fps for older games (my monitor only does 60FPS) -- smooth 30fps for up-to-date graphics intensive RPGs I own.

AMD provided the performance numbers. We'll see how it performs in independent tests when it releases. For now, it looks like a good, cost-effective choice at 1080p and 1440p. Based on my experience with AMD GPUs, I imagine it will do 4K also -- however, max settings and FPS to be determined.

Attached picture u5kQrp5wvhpDUbbXR6GKkP-970-80.jpg
Attached picture wPip2WmKc3rZhHKJamo7qP-970-80.jpg
Attached picture QXDQkSYz8j8gCLBVkVBWvP-970-80.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/21 10:14 AM

To summarize a number of recent leak/rumor/speculative type articles concerning the near Future of GPUs:

Currently, GPUs by AMD and Nvidia are good but vastly overpriced.

By early 2022, AMD and Nvidia will release updated GPUs of the current designs. And, Intel may have its first GPUs on the market. Prices may be lower -- but, still above MSRP.

By late 2022 or early 2023, AMD and Nvidia will release the new 5nm GPUs. The fastest of these may be up to 3 times as fast as the current fastest GPUs. The power use on the fastest cards may exceed 500W. Prices may approach MSRP. However, the "super" cards will be very expensive -- even at MSRP.

Will the fastest cards really be 3 times as fast as currently? Will they be affordable? We'll see.

Personally, I'm currently planning to wait for the 5nm cards before updating my RX5700XT. The fastest late 2022 (or early 2023) cards may be 600% as fast as my card. dizzy

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/21 07:59 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G [APU] Review

Struggling to find a graphics card in these silicon-starved times? AMD may suggest that, with the new Ryzen 7 5700G [consumer APU], you might not necessarily need one for PC gaming today.

[APUs] led by the $359, eight-core Ryzen 7 5700G. It is joined by the $229, hexacore Ryzen 5 5600G and the quad-core Ryzen 3 5300G, which we don't yet have a price for. That's a little under the current pricing for the GPU-less Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 5 5600X, and you're arguably getting more for your money too.

AMD has traditionally had strong integrated graphics solutions.

The 5700G has a base frequency of 3.8GHz and a boost frequency of 4.6GHz, yet it still has a very desirable 65W TDP.

Foregoing indicates the AMD 5000G series easily defeats Intel CPUs with "on board" GPU for gaming.

Foregoing from one of the over 2 dozen independent reviews -- linked in the attached article.

Another article summarizes it this way:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Review: Fastest Integrated Graphics Ever

Your best choice, if you don't use discrete graphics


5000G APU Review Roundup

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-03 154716.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/21 09:27 PM

Regarding Nvidia's future acquisition of ARM.

Quote
NVIDIA Battles Delays In EU, UK & China For Its Planned Arm Acquisition

Chip designer NVIDIA Corporation's bid to acquire British design house Arm Ltd. is facing significant hurdles with the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). NVIDIA announced its intent to acquire the British company last year and at the same time, it outlined that the deal should be closed by March 2022 at the earliest.

According to the details of today's report, not only is the U.K. "considering blocking a takeover" of Arm by NVIDIA after a report submitted to Mr. Dowden last month "contains worrying implications for national security".

Bloomberg's sources also believe that the national security concerns will result in a deeper review of the affair by the U.K.

This may just be "normal" proceedings. That is, authorities always check things out. The news media always tries to generate click-bait headlines. We'll see by March 2022 -- or later.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/04/21 06:03 PM

Heavy on Rumor/Leak/Speculation regarding next year's AMD and Nvidia highest end GPUs -- but, a nice Rumor/Leak/Speculation summary chart:

Quote
3DCenter has been busy collecting rumors from Twitter and forums on next-gen flagship GPUs


AMD is headed into the Next Major Step of complex GPU design = MCM Multi Chip Module. Nvidia is sticking with what's worked up 'till now.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-04 140000.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/21 11:01 AM

Quote
AMD Is Soaring in Popularity on WallStreetBets and Other Reddit-Based Retail Investor Discussion Forums

AMD is regularly featured in the list of stocks attracting the most attention of retail investors. With stock price gains of over 26 percent in the past month, this newfound fame of AMD among the retail crowd seems warranted.

if retail investors are now collectively turning toward high-quality stocks such as AMD, expect truly mammoth gains to follow. As an illustration, GameStop (NYSE:GME 146.8 -3.90%) is up over 700 percent, while AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC 29.84 -11.16%) is up nearly 1,500 percent year-to-date!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/21 11:06 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Desktop CPUs Continue To Lead Over Intel Core CPUs With Improved Availability, Zen 3 Currently The Best Selling Lineup At Major Retailers

Starting with the CPU numbers from MindFactory (the biggest tech retailer in Germany), AMD Ryzen CPUs continue to outsell Intel Core CPUs. Although the overall number of units sold has fallen tremendously over the last few months, AMD CPUs still maintain over 10,000 CPUs sold within June and July. Intel, on the other hand, sold less than 5000 units

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X alone sold the same amount as Intel's entire Core lineup which is truly impressive. The revenue split is also a similar story with AMD retaining over 80% share while Intel barely hitting the 20% mark.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/21 10:27 PM

Newegg has had the new R7 5700G APU (8 cores, 16 threads, plus GPU) on sale for virtually MSRP ($359) + shipping since this morning. Still have them.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Cezanne 8-Core 3.8 GHz Socket AM4 65W 100-100000263BOX Desktop Processor AMD Radeon Graphics

Free Warframe G-Series Pack w/ purchase, limited offer
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/21 01:16 PM

Regarding competition. Rumor/leak/data indicates new Intel CPUs to use even more power -- enough more that up-graders may possibly need a new power supply to provide the added watts and possibly need better cooling.

Quote
Intel Alder Lake ATX12V peak current recommendations are higher than Rocket Lake’s

People considering upgrading to Alder Lake will have to account for an additional 50 to 100W [versus previous generation CPUs] when choosing a new power supply. Verifying maximum current for a single-rail power supply may also be required.

Intel CPU performance definitely competes. However, to get competitive performance Intel continues to increase needed power and increase needed CPU cooler quality. Some have referred to this as a "factory overclock". It can add cost to the buyer's required PC hardware and adds cost to the buyer's PC power bill.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/07/21 10:53 AM

Coming AMD CPUs will have another technical advantage over the competition.

Quote
AMD's Ryzen 3D V-Cache Chips Have Been in Development For Years

AMD announced its 3D V-Cache technology a few months ago, demonstrating incredible performance gains from simply stacking more L3 cache, up to 64MB, on top of Ryzen CPUs

This installation process uses TSVs (through-silicon vias) via hybrid bonding to secure the second layer of SRAM to the chip. Because TSVs use copper instead of solder, the SRAM has significantly higher bandwidth and thermal efficiency than simply soldering the chips together.

3D V-Cache will give AMD CPUs a huge advantage over Intel in terms of raw L3 cache sizes .., which are becoming more and more important as CPU core counts increase.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-07 064804.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/21 09:48 AM

Intel beefing up their GPU team, again. The previous high level "acquisitions" were from AMD's GPU team.

Quote
Intel Poaches Anton Kaplanyan, Former NVIDIA Research Scientist That Pioneered RTX/DLSS Techniques

Anton Kaplanyan. He will be joining as Vice President of Graphics Research of Intel AXG Group and will be a key player in furthering gaming technology (including machine learning-based supersampling which Intel currently calls XeSS). Anton has quite the pedigree and was formerly a research scientist at NVIDIA and has even done a stint at CryTek.

NVIDIA's DLSS is one of the killer apps present in Turing/Ampere GPUs and Anton was part of the team that pioneered those approaches. His LinkedIn states "worked on RTX ray-tracing hardware design and simulation, invented the direction of 1 sample/pixel real-time denoising, applied machine learning to real-time graphics for the first time".

It is clear that Intel is getting deadly serious about its graphics ambitions.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/21 11:38 AM

Quote
Nvidia RTX 30-Series Prices Are Falling Faster Than AMD RX 6000 GPUs in Germany

The attachment shows the progress of GPU prices. Still high.

An on-line survey indicated that very roughly 3 out of 4 buyers will wait for MSRP -- or less.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-11 073228.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/13/21 07:28 PM

Quote
AMD's best CPUs are back in stock at the MSRP, making them unprofitable for resellers

The Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X could be spotted at or close to MSRP for most of the year.

both the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X are available at MSRP pretty much anywhere you look.

Availability of the new Ryzen 3 5300G, Ryzen 5 5600G, and Ryzen 7 5700G APUs is a little spottier, but even these fresh-faced parts are available at close to MSRP at most retailers I've checked in on.

Heck, R5 5600X and R7 5800X should only be purchased at under MSRP now. MSRP is currently good for the others in the 5000 series.

I just ordered an R5 5600G APU for one of our HTPCs at MSRP (includes a free $30 game DLC). Presumably, its graphics performance is within 10% of the R7 5700G at a much lower MSRP (good, entry level 1080p gaming). And, its computing ability is close to the R5 5600X for less money (and 5600G includes a GPU). I'll see if all that is true when it gets here.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/14/21 09:53 AM

AMD continues to have a good "Current Status",

Quote
AMD's CPU Market Share Hits 14-Year High As Company Breaks Past 20% Overall x86 Share Against Intel

From the numbers provided by Mercury Research, it can be seen that AMD gained +1.8 points over the previous quarter leading to a 22.5% market share this quarter. This brings AMD's current share to a 14-year high against Intel who currently stands at a 77.5% share but has been in a decline ever since AMD launched its Zen CPU architecture.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/21 12:52 PM

Quote
Best CPUs for Gaming: August 2021

The attached screen capture shows the outcome. In each price range, all the CPUs and APUs listed are close in performance.

Not discussed is power use and cooling required. Those two factors nominally favor AMD for overall costs.

My just purchased (at MSRP) R5 5600G APU is operational in an HDTV -- that in my quick tests can play 1080p games on high settings at relatively low but smooth frame rates using its internal GPU.

Using CPU-Z benchmark, my budget priced R5 5600G APU HDTV single core score is 91 percent as fast as my high end R7 5800X gaming system. With equal add-on GPUs, it would be very hard to "see" a difference in a game.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-16 083312.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/21 04:44 PM

Quote
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang expects supply constraints for the vast majority of next year

Despite securing significant long-term supply commitments, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA is expecting supply constraints through the majority of next year.

During the second quarter 2022 fiscal year earnings call, it was revealed the company scored a record 6.5 billion USD revenue, despite a global shortage of components and substrates.

Assuming both AMD and Nvidia are having similar supply issues, buying GPUs at MSRP may be delayed longer than some expected.

Personally, I was already planning on waiting for up-to-date GPUs at MSRP until Winter 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/21/21 10:54 AM

Rumor/leak/speculation regarding the Future of AMD:

Quote
AMD RDNA4 [GPU] architecture rumored to be build using 3nm and 5nm nodes

AMD RDNA4 [RX8000] series is to continue using MCM [MultiChip] design, at least for some of its SKUs

For NAVI4X MCM chips this means 3nm graphics tiles and 5nm I/O dies. Respectively, RDNA3 MCM GPUs will see 5nm and 6nm processes.

AMD Radeon RX 8000 series are not expected to launch till at least late 2023


MCM means that the inside of a GPU package is no longer a single chip that does it all. Rather, one chip is used for the main graphics work and a different chip is used for other work all in the same GPU package.

Similar future rumors/leaks apply to Intel and Nvidia GPUs. But, AMD does seem to be slightly ahead in Future designs -- and Intel/Nvidia are rumored to be considering changes to match/exceed AMD.

In any case, the GPUs of the near Future should absolutely crush the best current GPUs (that are currently un-affordable) -- maybe twice or three times the graphics power (e,g, 8K gaming becomes practical). So, I'll wait smile

Competition is good smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-21 065146.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/21 10:43 AM

Taking a page out of Intel's book. Graphics "built in" to some standard "next generation" AMD CPUs (not just APUs).

Quote
AMD to offer integrated on-chip graphics for next-gen Ryzen series

Upcoming Ryzen CPU series based on Zen4 architecture will all offer integrated GPU by design. While this does not mean that literally all CPUs will have iGPUs enabled, it does confirm that the mainstream Zen4 silicon will be paired with graphics for the first time. Thus, the GPU will no longer be exclusive to the Ryzen G-Series APUs.

AMD will also sell Ryzen CPUs with dedicated GPU disabled
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/21 05:53 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs Available At Discounted Prices At Major US Retailers – 12 Core 5900X For $499, 8 Core 5800X For $393, 6 Core 5600X For $272

what makes the Zen 3 lineup so great? Well, it offers amazing multi-threaded performance, gaming performance that's on par or even exceeds what Intel CPUs offer, run cool and consume much lower power, can be overclocked on any 400/500 series board, and also offer SAM (Smart Access Memory) support
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/24/21 05:14 PM

Regarding Intel GPU competition:

Quote
Intel Arc gaming graphics cards to offer overclocking through official drivers at launch

Intel is now planning to offer a built-in overclocking tool through the official driver user interface. Intel will therefore be expected to offer similar functionality to AMD’s Radeon Software tools, which allows users to modify clocks, power settings, and even fine-tune fan curves.

Roger Chandler reaffirms Intel’s dedication to fully support the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate API, meaning that gamers should expected hardware acceleration for ray tracing through DXR as well as support for Variable Rate Shading and Mesh Shading. Ray Tracing will also be supported for Vulkan API.

Intel confirms its Arc graphics cards codenamed Alchemist, featuring the DG2 family of GPUs will launch for consumers in the first quarter of next year. What Intel has not yet confirmed is whether this means desktop and mobile launch at the same time.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-24 131259.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/21 09:56 AM

Quote
NVIDIA & AMD GPU Prices Recovery Halts As Graphics Cards Start Getting Expensive Once Again But With Sustained Availability

several analysts and NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen, believes that supply constraints would persist even in 2022


As previously mentioned, a huge performance increase (double or more??) is expected near the end of 2022. Waiting makes sense.

Buying a card now requires a strong reason or lots of extra cash. Polls indicate most gamers will wait.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-08-30 054743.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/21 03:21 PM

Quote
All AMD Ryzen Zen 3 X-Series CPUs Are in Stock and on Sale

All of AMD's Ryzen 5000 series CPUs (save for the recently released GPU-equipped Cezanne APUs) are finally in stock over at Newegg (and less reliably so at Amazon and other stores)

according to our CPU benchmarks hierarchy, even the 5600X offers higher gaming performance than you can get on plenty of competing Intel chips, including the Intel Core i7-11700K.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/21 12:53 AM

Quote
Paulson says cryptocurrencies will eventually be ‘worthless’

John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire.., said in an interview published Sunday that he believes cryptocurrencies will eventually go bust.

"I would describe them as a limited supply of nothing," he said. "So to the extent there’s more demand than the limited supply, the price would go up. But to the extent the demand falls, then the price would go down. There’s no intrinsic value to any of the cryptocurrencies except that there’s a limited amount."

The Bloomberg report pointed out that Paulson is a big believer—and buyer-- of gold despite digital assets outperforming the metal.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/21 10:19 PM

Windows 11 will be available October 5, they say.

The W11 automatic upgrade will roll out over a long period into next year. When you'll get it (via automatic means) depends on your system.

However, I'm guessing that one can probably download W11 and install it manually on an AMD 2000, 3000, 4000, or 5000 CPU or APU -- on or near Oct 5.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/21 04:41 PM

Quote
Sapphire, PowerColor and XFX send large shipment of Radeon graphics cards to cryptomining hardware retailer


Attached picture Radeon-cards-at-mining-retailer-2-1536x915.jpg
Attached picture Radeon-cards-at-mining-retailer-1536x904.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/02/21 10:12 AM

Design uses "broken" as-manufactured chips that could not be used in Gaming GPUs.

Quote
NVIDIA CMP 170HX cryptomining card spotted, passive design offering 164 MH/s hash rate

NVIDIA CMP 170HX has 4480 CUDA cores, which is only 54% of all cores present in the GA100 silicon. For comparison, the GA100 in A100 features 6912 CUDA cores which are 84% of active cores. In terms of memory size, the CMP 170HX has a massive reduction as well. Instead of 40GB or 80GB present in various A100 models, the 170HX only offers 8GB HBM2e memory,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/21 09:40 AM

Rumor/leak/speculation:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 6000 “Rembrandt” APUs are allegedly in mass producition

Yesterday, Twitter leaker Greymon55, posted a tweet stating that the AMD Rembrandt APUs (Ryzen 6000 series) are already in mass production which means we could see a launch in Q1 2022 or earlier.

Reviews of current 5000G series APUs have shown excellent "entry level" gaming at 720p and 1080p. My own R5 5600G HTPC has shown me that even 1440p is feasible (at low but smooth FPS) for some action games at medium graphics settings (I'm currently testing it on a new 1440p gaming monitor that came Friday).

In these GPU (at MSRP) starved times, hastening the hopefully even more powerful graphics of AMD 6000 APUs makes sense.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-09-05 054653.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/05/21 04:01 PM

Intel will compete. Competition is good smile

Quote
Intel CEO says it will respond to AMD with better products and put pressure on NVIDIA graphics

Pat Gelsinger (PG): "We just say about the AMD threat, you know we got to do better products, period! So we gonna build better products .. had a period we haven’t executed well. We’re gonna execute, execute, execute!

And with that, we see that we are coming into a period where we are going to be very competitive. So we were in a period where we were behind.

as we get out to 3 -4 years from now, we see that we will be in sustained leadership again.

we have our GPU architecture where we are gonna start being in a position to really put pressure on NVIDIA for the first time ever."

He admits publicly that Intel currently is "behind" AMD and Nvidia in some ways. That's the "first step" towards "catching up".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/07/21 11:28 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 series are getting cheaper ahead of Intel Alder Lake release

The processors based on AMD Zen3 microarchitecture are now both easily available and sold under MSRP, in fact, their prices have never been better.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-09-07 072823.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/09/21 05:17 PM

Quote
Intel Will Invest $95 Billion in EU Chip Manufacturing

Intel has announced it will spend up to €80 billion (approximately $95 billion in USD today) over the next decade on two new foundries in Europe.

Intel wants to see 20 percent of global semiconductors produced in Europe by 2030, up from 9 percent today.

This is also a maneuver to score points off TSMC, which has prominently rejected the idea of building fabs in Europe.


Good! thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/21 12:13 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 12 GB Graphics Card Reportedly Launches In Q1 2022 To Tackle GPU Availability Issues

NVIDIA is reportedly planning to feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on the RTX 2060 graphics card which makes sense in the existing gaming market as should act as a decent 1080p gaming option. The first graphics cards are expected to land in January 2022 as said to board partners by NVIDIA itself.

A relaunch of the GeForce RTX 2060 would mean that NVIDIA is not expecting the graphics card market to get any better in 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/21 01:30 PM

So many CPUs, GPUs, etc depend on TSMC for their main chips. AMD depends on TSMC. TSMC is on "overload".

Quote
TSMC Price Hikes to Result in Higher Retail Pricing For Pretty Much Everything

Chip shortage should last until mid-2023

With the recent hikes of quotes by TSMC and other foundries, the cumulative cost increases for some chips from 2020 to 2022 will be 30%, or higher.

Currently, most foundries operate at a utilization rate that exceeds 100%.

The price increases on chips made using mature nodes will affect the end cost of all devices. In the case of high-end PCs and smartphones, the additional costs will barely affect their recommended prices (if at all). But in the case of mainstream devices, the additional costs may have a drastic effect on MSRP.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/21 10:52 AM

Regarding AMD's possible Future:

Quote
x86 Champion AMD Is Ready To Make ARM Chips If Needed

AMD has been the de facto champion of the x86 industry ever since Intel stumbled with Skylake and [AMD's x86 success] has prevented significant market share deterioration to ARM

[AMDs] CFO revealed that while AMD believes x86 is the winner, they aren't unwilling to produce ARM-based chips

Apple is the current ARM champion

All that said,.. there is no indication that AMD is actively developing an ARM-based chip or SoC right now


They point out that ARM is optimized for low power applications and x86 excels at high end applications. So, there is room for both in the industry.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/21 02:50 PM

More Rumor/Leak/Speculation that has a chance of being true:

Quote
AMD Next-Gen RDNA 3 & RDNA 4 GPU Rumors: Over 50% Performance Increase, Increased Radeon RX 7000 Pricing & Launch In 2H 2022

AMD will be able to achieve a performance improvement of 60% [per core]. [with possibly up to 3 times as many cores at the top of the line]

In a speculative performance/pricing chart, it can be seen that the RX 7700 XT being as fast as the GeForce RTX 3090 for $599 US.

MLID also believes [speculation] that the pricing of the Navi 32 based RX 7800 XT might end up at around $999 US (+$350 US over RX 6800 XT) and the flagship RX 7900 XT / RX 7950 XT might end up at $1999 US (+1000 US over RX 6900 XT).


Speculative/guesstimate chart attached. We'll see in a year or so.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-09-18 104742.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/23/21 07:43 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce & AMD Radeon Graphics Cards Are Now Priced 70% Over MSRP, GPU Availability Worsens As We Enter Q4 2021


The attached chart shows average price and availability over year 2021.

As I often note, I'm waiting for the enormous jump in performance coming late next year -- and MSRP -- before buying.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-09-23 033805.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/21 10:43 AM

Quote
AMD and MediaTek allegedly in talks to form a Joint Venture

According to a report from DigiTimes, AMD and Mediatek are in talks to create a joint venture, expanding AMD’s presence in the mobile market.

Such collaboration could result in devices featuring high-efficiency Mediatek CPU cores and AMD RDNA graphics architecture, already being developed for next-gen Samsung Exynos chips.

At CES 2021, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that RDNA2 graphics architecture is coming to Samsung Exynos devices. It is now expected that the first mobile devices featuring AMD graphics are to launch in early 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/21 11:28 AM

Regarding near-future competition:
Quote
MSI has just confirmed Intel Alder Lake CPU launch date (November 4th)

October 27th: Announcement and preorders
November 4th: Sales and reviews (product launch)

At least three SKUs are to launch on November 4th: Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K, and Core i5-12600K.


Per the attachment: These Intel CPUs feature "Power Cores" that give full computing power and "Efficiency Cores" that are weaker but use less energy -- BOTH in the same CPU.

The power cores can "multi-thread" tasks (e.g. 8 cores/16 threads) at high speed. The efficiency cores do not multi-thread (e.g. 8 cores/8 threads) and run slower. Sounds good -- if energy is limited by batteries or "green energy" expense. On the other hand leaks/speculations say the new Intel CPUs will use more power (at full multi-core speed) than comparable AMD CPUs. We'll see how it "shakes out".

The effect on playing games at 2K, 4K, and 8K resolution should be small to virtually none because high gaming resolutions are GPU limited. GPUs are to receive another huge FPS boost in late 2022.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-09-27 071310.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/28/21 09:23 AM

Quote
AMD CEO Lisa Su expects chip shortages to ease in the second half of 2022

During an on-stage interview .., Dr. Lisa Su spoke about silicon and component shortages

According to Lisa Su, the shortages are to continue for the remainder of 2021.

Lisa Su now expects the first half of 2022 to be ‘likely tight’ in supply, but the chip shortages should become less severe in the second half of the year. ,, This holiday season will probably be more expensive than 2020.

Su noted that the pandemic has taken the demand to a new level with every industry seeking more components. She said that ‘nobody expected this much demand’. She downplayed the impact of the crypto business on shortages and confirmed that it’s rather a small part of AMD’s business.


The shortage has been said to be due to COVID forcing Billions of people to sit home with little to do. Gaming was an outlet for many. One guesstimate was 3 Billion total gamers of all types -- 1.5 Billion fairly serious gamers -- out of less than 8 Billion humans. Not all gamers use PCs but enough did to "sell out" all the GPUs.

For gamers, the ongoing shortage primarily affects GPU availability and price. CPUs can be had below MSRP. I've personally bought R7 5800X, R5 5600X, R5 5600G at MSRP or less. The R5 5600G APU at $260 is marketed as a very cost effective solution for decent 1080p gaming -- and plenty fast enough to continue using with a new GPU -- when GPUs become available at MSRP.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/28/21 09:48 AM

Quote
AMD CEO, Lisa Su, Becomes First Woman To Receive Robert N. Noyce IEEE Medal

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang received the Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association one month earlier.

AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su received her award, citing "Leadership in groundbreaking semiconductor products & successful business strategies that contributed to the strength of the microelectronics industry," from the IEEE. The Robert N. Noyce Medal from the IEEE is sponsored by Intel, beginning in 2000.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/06/21 09:50 AM

Quote
Intel CEO Says AMD Has Done A Great Job But Their Lead Is Over With Alder Lake & Sapphire Rapids CPUs

In the previous interview, Pat Gelsinger revealed how Intel's Alder Lake chips will feature three AMD Zen-Like architectural innovations. In the latest interview, Pat revealed how his company plans to innovate with a solid roadmap and architectural foundation while ending the lead of competitors with new product designs such as CPUs, GPUs, and Software APIs.


"Ending the lead" does not necessarily mean "surpass" -- it could mean "parity". We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/10/21 02:55 PM

Quote
AMD will support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 in 2022, but Intel has DDR5 first

We aren't too far away from next-gen DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technologies, with Intel the first with DDR5.


Quote
PCIe 5.0 High-Power Connector For Next-Gen Graphics Cards To Deliver Up To 600W To GPUs

There have been rumors that NVIDIA and AMD [GPU] flagships will offer up to 2.5-3 times the performance increase but that also means that power consumption would get a massive increase too.

As such, there would be demand for a new power connector and that's where the 12V High-Power Connector that is designed specifically in conjunction with the PCIe 5.0 interface comes in. The new standard is said to provide 55A continuous power through a 12V rail which would allow up to 600W power to be delivered to the graphics card.


PCIe 5.0 will be a feature of new Motherboards coming out next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/12/21 10:03 PM

Quote
AMD confirms 3D V-Cache Zen3 CPUs are coming early next year, Zen4 later in 2022

AMD will be switching to a new platform next year featuring a new socket with support for DDR5 memory. He also confirmed that the new platform will have cooler compatibility with existing AM4 solutions. While not mentioned directly Hallock is speaking here about the AM5 socket and Zen4 CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/21 04:55 PM

Windows 11 causes some games to run slightly slower ("measurable" but not "visible" to most folks) on some AMD CPUs.

That's a Windows 11 problem -- its interfering with the CPU's normal operation. It's only one of many issues to be resolved for W11.

AMD and Microsoft have a "team" working on a solution to come in a W11 update. It should be fixed relatively soon.

Meanwhile, Microsoft W11 release plans imply that W11 may not be completely ready until Spring 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/21 12:32 PM

Regarding Future Competition an interesting consideration for gamers, if it turns out to be true:

Quote
Intel's Alder Lake CPUs May Not Work With Older Games

Intel recently shared a developer guide for its forthcoming 12th Generation Alder Lake processors. Gamer's Gospel discovered an interesting tidbit that DRM solutions, such as Denuvo will require updates to support Alder Lake's hybrid design.

Intel has confirmed in the document that Alder Lake will have compatibility issues with DRM solutions unless the provider issues a special update for the protection in question. Consequently, game developers that implemented the DRM into their games will have to do the same [game update].

Many, if not all, modern triple-A titles carry some type of DRM protection to defend against piracy. .. Certain games, like Assassin's Creed Origins even have multiple layers of protection, probably requiring multiple updates.

It shouldn't be a huge issue for modern games since developers will in all likelihood provide the update for Alder Lake. The problem arises for older titles that are a couple of years old that likely won't get any updates, meaning they'll be unplayable on Alder Lake chips


We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/21 04:45 PM

Regarding cost of building a PC with the new DDR5 Memory:

Quote
MSI expects DDR5 memory to be 50 to 60% more expensive than DDR4

DDR5 vs. DDR4 Memory Costs

Historically, newer memory technology has always commanded close to a 30-40% premium over the previous generation. However, this time, DDR5 includes additional components that have driven the costs up further. As a result, we expect a 50-60% price premium compared to DDR4 at launch.

It typically takes around 2 years to reach price parity with previous generations, and we expect trends to remain similar with DDR5 modules as well.

— Sara Lin, MSI


I've noticed with my PCs, added memory speed above the recommended speed has a small effect on PC speed. Game FPS barely changes, for me.

So, will DDR5 increased performance combined with new CPUs and Motherboards (designed to use DDR5) actually make it worth the increased price (in the first year of its use)? Another, "we'll see".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/21 08:23 PM

Quote
The rumored Chagall-WS [32-core] shows up as Ryzen 5975WX workstation high-end processor in the benchmark database

This particular SKU is for workstation ssytems, which means it supports 8-channel memory and has more PCIe lanes. According to ExectuFix, Threadripper PRO 5000 series might be the only Zen3 HEDT CPUs that AMD is currently planning, as Chagall-HEDT (aka Threadripper 5000 non-PRO series) is supposedly canceled.

The [32-core] processor scored 1686 points in single-core tests and 27603 points in multi-core tests, which is respectively 34% and 23% higher than currently offered Threadripper 3970X with 32-cores.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-10-21 162055.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/22/21 03:41 PM

Quote
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger expects component shortage to last until 2023

Intel CEO expects shortages to get incrementally smaller in 2022.

We’re in the worst of it now; every quarter next year, we’ll get incrementally better, but they’re not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023

— Pat Gelsinger to CNBC


Therefore now all three CEOs from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA agree that supply constraints are to continue in 2022, as even Jensen Huang confirmed back in August that he expects supply issues for the majority of next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/22/21 05:19 PM

Quote
New Patches Resolve AMD Issues in Windows 11

While some programs were unaffected, AMD’s guidance suggested a 3-5 percent penalty on average with an even higher penalty being possible “in some games.”

According to AMD, those issues should now be resolved with the availability of Microsoft KB 5006476 and AMD chipset driver 3.10.08.506. That Windows 11 update contains a number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements

Multiple reviews pointed out at launch that the OS seemed a bit unfinished, and many of the bug fixes Microsoft has announced in this update should address that complaint.

The OS isn’t a must-have item at this time, and it isn’t crazy to watch and see if any further issues appear before pulling the trigger on an upgrade.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/21 08:03 AM

Interesting for a small number of owners of older AMD powered PCs.

Quote
Gigabyte Silently Adds Ryzen 5000 ‘Zen 3’ & Ryzen 4000 ‘Zen 2’ CPU Support On A320 Motherboards

Gigabyte has silently added support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 (Zen 3) and Ryzen 4000 (Zen 2) CPUs on older A320 motherboards.

The A320 lineup of motherboards was aimed primarily at budget and entry-level PC builders and came mostly in mATX flavors.

While this is good news for entry-level builders who plan on upgrading their AMD Ryzen CPU to something new without changing their entire platform, the same users aren't advised to put an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X or other flagship SKUs on entry-level motherboards due to their inadequate power delivery systems.


If upgrading a 320 motherboard, consider R5 5600G. Nominally uses only 65 Watts power. 6 cores/12 threads that are "gaming fast". Also has a built in GPU adequate for entry level 1080p gaming. Only $239 today at Newegg.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/21 02:23 PM

The Chief Architect of AMD Zen CPUs gets his, apparently, very-first-ever very detailed interview. Given my background, I found it very interesting.

He starts at the beginning -- when he started at AMD in 1993. And, looks into the Future of AMD CPUs. A very long article.

It reads less as a "sales pitch" and more as a true Engineering Science type description of all the top level things that went on and had to be considered. It outlines AMD overall/underlying product design philosophy.

In a nutshell, AMD Fans (and folks who don't pick sides) should feel good about where things are headed.

Quote
AnandTech Interviews Mike Clark, AMD’s Chief Architect of Zen

Michael T Clark is a Corporate Fellow at AMD, starting at the company in 1993, fresh out of his degree at Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His role has evolved from a base engineer in processor design, all the way up to Lead Architect on several of AMD’s key processor designs, all the way to Chief Architect of Zen.


Link to Lengthy but Not Overly Technical Interview

Attached picture M3_678x452.jpg
Attached picture Epyc_Roadmap_575px.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/21 11:27 AM

Upcoming CPU 7nm scale competition from Intel. Gaming performance is good at 1080p.

Quote
Intel Unleashes Alder Lake Architecture: 50% Increase In MT Performance For Just $589 USD MSRP

Intel has finally unleashed a sub-10nm (officially the Intel 7 process, which is comparable to TSMC 7nm) desktop CPU with its Alder Lake processors and the company’s multi-year slippage at 14nm is officially over. The Alder Lake architecture also features a plethora of innovative changes including a hybrid architecture with big.SMALL design feature p and e-cores as well as a new hardware scheduling technology that will go live in Windows 11.

TDP of the Core i9 12900k is effectively 241 watts by default.

Intel has decided to go with extremely aggressive pricing for its Alder Lake lineup.

Alder Lake will feature up to 30 MB of non inclusive LL Cache and support DDR5-4800, LP5-5200 along with DDR4-3200 and LP4x-4266


In the performance comparison image, they gave the new Intel CPU faster DDR5 memory than the older Intel and AMD competitor CPUs (using DDR4) and are running W11 which has advantages for the New Intel CPU. They run the games at 1080p.

We'll see how big the advantage is when we get 3'd party tests at higher gaming resolutions -- but, the new Intel CPUs should compete well with comparably priced current AMD CPUs.

Intel is competing on Price. AMD has answers in the pipeline. Competition is good smile

Attached picture 12th-Gen-Intel-Core-Desktop-Processors-Blueprint-Presentation.jpg
Attached picture Intel-Alder-Lake-Pricing-scaled.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/29/21 11:20 AM

Rumor/Leak:

Quote
AMD Navi 31 enthusiast MCM GPU based on RDNA3 architecture has reportedly been taped out

the `next-generation flagship card has been taped out. The tape-out process is an important step in bringing the GPU to the market, but there are still a few steps before the GPU can be brought to the market.

Tape out means that the design has been finished, but the processor can still change as bugs are discovered and fixed through various engineering iterations of the chip.

Navi 31 is AMD’s first consumer Multi-Chip-Module (MCM) design featuring as many as two compute dies.

the full chip is to feature 15360 FP32 shading units


Quote
[About the same time the AMD GPU releases,] NVIDIA is expected to quickly transition to its MCM GPU lineup which will offer over 3x performance


Its speculated that the new AMD GPU card may increase FPS by up to 200 percent over the best current GPUs (i.e. 3X the performance). Normally, a 20 to 30 percent improvement is a big deal.

Release will not be soon -- probably late 2022. Guesses place the cost of the "top of the line" card at a very, very high MSRP.

If all performance guesses are true, it will make current high end cards "obsolete overnight". So. I'm waiting to see before purchasing a new GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/21 03:06 PM

I've been reading articles about near future AMD CPUs -- trying to figure out where/when to spend my money on my PC building hobby.

In a nutshell, AMD is likely to release an update to the current 5000 series CPUs in the first quarter of 2022. It will include a special new technology (it's not just a plain old update).

Likely to be called 6000 series, it is said these will use current AMD 500 series motherboards and DDR4 memory (a plug-in upgrade for currently up to date PCs). The process is likely to be called 6nm (versus the current 7nm).

The AMD 6000 series CPU speed improvement should make them very competitive with Intel's new CPUs debuting on Nov 4 (if they aren't already).

The big upgrade to all new AMD 7000 series 5nm CPUs is arriving in late 2022. It will require new motherboards. It will be much faster. AMD 7000 CPUs and the new AMD GPUs (late 2022), will "change the game".

Of course, until it actually happens, we won't know for sure (of course Intel and Nvidia will compete). Based on what little we know today, I'm tentatively planning 2 low-cost plug in upgrades for early 2022 and a major gaming upgrade in late 2022.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/21 10:34 AM

Competition:

Quote
Intel Xe-HPG [GPU] architecture to span across gaming, workstation and data center markets

Intel planning Xe-HPG based cloud gaming and media streaming products

Intel Xe-HP microarchitecture first announced by Intel in mid-2020 is a multi-tile GPU series designed for data centers, with the main purpose as media super-computer accelerators.

Intel will be focusing on Xe-HPG (gaming) and Xe-HPC (high-performance data center) products moving forward.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-10-31 062955.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/01/21 09:06 AM

Quote
3DCenter’s latest GPU pricing report from Germany and Austria brings a fresh outlook on GPU pricing from both NVIDIA and AMD. The report is based only on cards released until March, so SKUs such as Radeon RX 6600 series or GeForce RTX 3070Ti/3080Ti are not included in the graph.


Basically, the GPUs sell at an average of approximately 2xMSRP. Prices are not expected to be MSRP until the end of 2022 (maybe not even then).

Attached picture GPU-Pricing-31-October-2021.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/21 08:58 AM

Heads-Up:

Quote
PCI-Express Gen5 12-pin power cable looks just like NVIDIA’s


The next generation high end GPUs may require a new PSU to provide the needed total power and GPU connector -- in some cases.

High end GPU power up to 600W initially (to maybe 1200W eventually they are speculating) -- just for the highest end gaming GPU. Of course, additional power will be needed for the rest of the PC.

Attached picture PCIe-Gen5-600W.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/21 01:28 PM

Regarding the competition's next generation CPUs:

Quote
Intel 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake-S” Review Roundup


Links to over 60 Independent Reviews

EDIT: My initial impression -- Pricing is good. For gaming the new-technology Intel CPUs are barely faster than current-technology AMD CPUs (measurable but not visible). The Intel CPUs do use more power. So, its still a "fair fight" -- each buyer will have to "pick the winner" for their planned uses.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/21 05:41 PM

Quote
AMD's market share is the highest it's been since the heady days of the Athlon 64 in 2006

According to its recently released third-quarter financial results, the company increased its share of the CPU market by 2.1% over the last quarter, achieving a total market share of 24.6%.

This is AMD’s second-highest overall x86 market share percentage ever, beaten only by its x86 share of 25.3% way back in 2006.

The success of its Ryzen 5000-series processors has been a shining light for the company.

Other important numbers include total revenue of $4.3 billion, a huge 54% increase year-over-year

AMD plans to launch its V-cache equipped Zen 3+ CPUs early in 2022, with Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architectures to follow later in 2022.

Strong competition between AMD, Intel, and Nvidia is good for the whole market.


Oh, have I mentioned: "Competition is good smile "
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/06/21 10:54 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X gets a massive price cut to 300 USD at MicroCenter

It is unclear if this price reduction is temporary or whether it will apply to more retailers. AMD has thus far made no public announcement regarding their CPUs becoming available at a lower price.

The price reduction is neither widespread among US retailers, nor it is worldwide. In Europe the Ryzen 7 5800X is still priced at 377 EUR with no massive change insight:


This particular sale only helps if one is near a Microcenter. We're 30 minutes away; but, usually I buy on-line (e.g. I just got a 2'd R5 5600G from Amazon).

Since Intel is competing on price this time, AMD CPUs may come down in price more universally.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-11-06 064614.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/09/21 06:00 PM

Quote
AMD’s Zen 4 Roadmap Revealed: 96 Cores in 2022, 128 Core CPUs Arrive in 2023

First up, Genoa, which arrives on 5nm with up to 96 cores, PCIe 5.0, and DDR5 support. While Genoa will use the standard Zen 4 core, a follow-up chip that scales up to 128 cores, Bergamo, will use a tweaked Zen 4C design and debut in 2023. Like Genoa, Bergamo will be built on the 5nm process node.


Server CPUs that are expected to compete well with Intel server CPUs available in the same rough time frame.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-11-09 125939.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/21 06:11 PM

Quote
Cryptominers Target AMD Ryzen CPUs for Their Big L3 Caches

A new victim in cryptominers' sights

According to a recent report from Bitcoin Press, the new Raptoreum (RTM) crypto has the potential to create a shortage of AMD Ryzen processors if enough cryptocurrency miners jump on the bandwagon. Unlike other cryptocurrencies that you can mine with graphics cards or ASICs, Raptoreum favors processors, especially those with huge caches, such as Ryzen, Threadripper or Epyc chips from AMD that tend to rank high on our list of CPU benchmarks and best CPUs for gaming.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/20/21 05:43 PM

Quote
Semiconductor Industry Forecast Projects Huge Gains for AMD, Losses for Intel and Sony

Semiconductor market research company IC Insights has released its November update, which ranks the top 25 semiconductor companies

In its ranking of the top 25 companies based on expected sales, AMD is leading the way with an anticipated 65 percent year-on-year growth, thanks to its strong product lineup across both its GPU and CPUs, along with gains it’s made in the data center business with its Epyc CPUs. Bringing up the rear in 25th place is Sony, which is expected to show a small decline in business at -3 percent, with Intel right above it at -1 percent. The two tech giants were the only companies on the list with anticipated negative performance for the year.


AMD's projected 65% year-on-year growth is beyond dramatic, if true.

Intel's latest CPUs are slightly faster in gaming than AMD's year old CPU designs -- and Intel's are competitively priced. AMD has a significant CPU update planned relatively soon -- that may catch Intel. AMD's big CPU and GPU updates are expected in 12 to 14 months (some sources rumor they will be "earthshaking" -- we'll see).

What we now have is a "competitive" situation in CPUs. Performance is close. Pricing is close. And, if neither competitor "drops the ball", each new CPU generation release (from Intel or AMD) should slightly surpass the opponent's current generation. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/21 12:26 PM

Quote
JPR: AMD and Intel GPU shipment decreased by 11% and 26% respectively from last quarter, NVIDIA increased by 8%

Jon Peddie Research reports the growth of the global PC-based Graphics Processor Units (GPU) market reached 101 million units in Q3’21 and PC CPUs shipments increased by 9% year over year. Overall, GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of -1.1% during 2020–2025 and reach an installed base of 3,249 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPU) in the PC will grow to reach a level of 31%.

AMD’s overall market share percentage from last quarter increased 1.4%, Intel’s market share decreased by -6.2%, and Nvidia’s market share increased 4.86%, as indicated in the following chart.


In a world with nearly/roughly 8 billion people, they're predicting over 3 billion GPUs will be in use by 2025 (discrete and as component parts of CPUs).

Notice Intel's high percentage of the GPU market (in attached picture). That's due to so many of their CPUs having an integral GPU (i.e. APUs).

AMD and Nvidia's GPU market shares are roughly equal (I assume AMDs number includes APUs).

Attached picture PR_MW-Q321-001.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/24/21 02:44 PM

Quote
AMD allegedly increases Radeon RX 6000 GPU pricing for board partners by 10%

According to Board Channels forums, AMD has decided to increase the pricing of Radeon RX 6000 GPUs by 10%. Cards based on RDNA2 architecture will now cost 20 to 40 USD more, according to the report. The new pricing will take effect with the next shipment of GPUs to board partners, which means it will probably take a week or two before it affects the retail price, however, AIBs may adjust their pricing sooner.

In fact, AMD Radeon RX 6000 series have already marked a 9% price increase in November compared to October.


Quote
The main reason cited is TSMC's foundry costs and the price to acquire 7nm wafers. The source states that due to increased production and process node acquiring costs, TSMC has raised its prices for all partners including AMD whose entire AMD Ryzen and AMD Radeon lineup currently relies on the 7nm process node.


The GPUs are selling for 150% of MSRP. Perhaps, this is partly AMD's way of getting a share of the markup?

Also, general price inflation (going on now) means a dollar is worth less every day -- so more dollars are needed to cover manufacturing costs (as mentioned above).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/26/21 07:30 PM

Quote
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2021

AMD's Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 6600 XT have now joined our benchmarks, with the latter earning a spot on our list of the best graphics cards. Unfortunately, pricing and availability of all the best graphics cards remains terrible,

We're going to list the best graphics cards that are theoretically available right now, along with their nominal prices.


GPUs remain overpriced. And, the cards planned for a year from now will "blow current cards away". So, wait if you can.

However, the article did provide a nice summary chart (attached). It gives a reasonable ranking of current GPUs.

Attached picture GPURanks.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/29/21 02:57 PM

Quote
Sapphire GPRO X080 cryptomining card with Navi 22 GPU and 10GB memory leaked, costs 750 EUR

AMD board partners are actively selling GPUs to miners, except they do not disclose this information publicly to avoid complaints from their fans. Those mining cards are not listed on any manufacturers’ website, so the details on them are not always available. Luckily for us, El Chapuzas Informatico gained access to two datasheets from Sapphire, featuring GPRO X080 and X060 models.

the X080 costs 750 EUR, while X060 retails at 550 EUR. It is being offered directly to big mining farms, so these cards are not even listed by any retailer.


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-11-29 095507.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 01:09 AM

Quote
FTC Crashes NVIDIA’s Party by Suing to Block its $40 Billion Deal To Acquire Arm Holdings

FTC Bureau of Competition Director, Holly Vedova, said in a statement:

"The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies."

"Tomorrow's technologies depend on preserving today's competitive, cutting-edge chip markets. This proposed deal would distort Arm's incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals."


I somewhat agree -- ARM is strong and inventive by itself. It does not need Nvidia to call the shots.

To state the obvious that we all know: Competition among a variety of multiple competitors is good for consumers. Less competition due to mergers and acquisitions that reduce the number of competitors is bad for consumers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 10:27 AM

Rumor.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6500XT coming mid-January 2022, RX 6400 in March

The bad and also good news is that both cards are to use 4GB GDDR6 memory. It is bad because it means that the frame buffer will have limited capacity, but that shouldn’t really be a problem for medium settings in 1080p gaming. The good news is that 4GB is not enough for Ethereum mining


These are not for serious gaming.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-12-03 052650.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 10:39 AM

Quote
Gigabyte graphics card factory reportedly increases Radeon RX 6000 pricing by up to 6% in December


Attached picture Screenshot 2021-12-03 053856.jpg
Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 03:46 PM

Allen,do you have any experience with Ryzen/RX6800M laptops?

I'd never thought about anything but an Intel/Nvidia combination before but the Ryzen/RX6800M offering does look very favourable. It seems to match 3070 and get close to 3080 laptop levels of speed but at a reduced cost.

I did go to Asus's website and saw some poor reviews to be honest. I believe the RX6800M is a fairly new chipset so maybe it's teething problems.

This is one I was looking at but I really wanted a 17 inch screen: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...n-r9-5900hx-gaming-laptop-lt-2em-as.html

Thanks for any input you could offer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by Chucky
Allen,do you have any experience with Ryzen/RX6800M laptops?

Thanks for any input you could offer.


I have no experience with "Gaming laptops". I just have a basic AMD laptop bought last year. It only uses CPU integrated graphics (an APU). I did read (just now) on-line regarding the equipment you are considering.

My experience with R5 5600G APU in two HTPC machines in my house shows decent 1080p and even 1440p graphics at good visual settings and low but smooth framerates -- using the built in GPU.

However, you are looking at something much more powerful. A real gaming laptop.

The subject laptop is akin to my RX5700XT in my main gaming computer (at higher resolutions, its the GPU that matters -- not the CPU). My RX5700XT plays everything smoothly at 4K while at (or very near) all ultimate settings. But, for graphically advanced games (e.g. AC Valhalla) the smooth FPS is typically under 45fps at 4K -- those framerates won't satisfy FPS fans.

Of course, Ray Tracing (if turned on) costs a lot of FPS. I've noted that the high end games I play have reflections, light rays through trees, good shadows without ray-tracing (the 5700 does not have ray tracing).

In summary, I don't know how the Laptop will perform to your tastes. I imagine I would find it fine at 1440p. But, tastes vary; you've studied this more than I have; and, I don't want to "talk you into it". So, please pay me little mind and do what's comfortable smile
Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/21 04:53 PM

Thanks for your input smile

I always get anxious when making a new purchase in that price range. I've been watching many, many laptop reviews, but it just made the choice more difficult to be honest.

I'd keep my present MSI as it's a well built machine but it's struggling as it's 8 years old.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/21 10:14 AM

As we all know, GPUs at close to MSRP are not present in the marketplace.

In many cases, that's due to "Bots" that "Buy" them as fast as they appear on-line -- for use in mining farms, resale at elevated prices, etc.

Quote
Legislators Reintroduce Bill to Put an End to Online “Grinch” Bots

These dastardly bots are automated technology that can purchase all of the stock of in-demand gadgets. You might have noticed their presence over the past year or so due to the fact that you can’t simply buy almost anything related to technology or fun any more, and the reason is because of bots: software programs that check e-commerce sites every few seconds for in-stock items, then grab them and complete the checkout process faster than any human could possibly do it.

The bill would copy many of the attributes of an earlier bill passed in 2016 to prevent bots from purchasing tickets for public events such as concerts and sporting events... [known as]The BOTS Act of 2016
Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/21 02:57 PM

At last, some action. Quite honestly, I could watch these scalpers meet a horrible death and it wouldn't raise a flicker of emotion in me.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/07/21 12:22 PM

Quote
AMD Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 APUs With RDNA 2 GPUs Could Offer GeForce GTX 1650 Performance Out of The Box

AMD will be introducing its next-generation Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 APUs next month and they will feature some insane integrated graphics performance.

A Time Spy graphics score of 2700 points is almost close to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and slightly faster than the AMD RX 560 (Polaris). Cards such as the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and RX 550 are now slower than the graphics featured on the Rembrandt APUs.


Here's hoping the prices are similar to the current R5/7 5000G APUs. A +10 percent price bump is very possible.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/21 11:46 AM

Maybe, maybe not. Stabilizing is not necessarily at a fair MSRP.

Quote
Nvidia CFO: GPU Prices Should Start Stabilizing in 2H of 2022

There might be a sliver of light at the end of the “GPU prices are insane” tunnel, according to Nvidia’s CFO. Speaking at the UBS Global TMT conference on Monday, Colette Kress stated she thinks there’s relief in-sight, near the end of next year.

This line of thinking assumes there can theoretically be enough cards for everyone, just like in the olden days of late 2019, but that’s not entirely clear. Even if miners move onto other sources of income there’s still the fact that there are people whose full-time job it is to employ bots to acquire every GPU they can find as well, and they are making a killing due to the shortage of available GPUs. Between the bots and the miners, there’s not much inventory left for gamers

As often mentioned, CPUs and GPUs coming out in a year are expected to provide an unusually large jump in performance. MSRPs are expected to rise slightly due to inflationary pressure. CPUs probably will still sell at a sane MSRP. GPUs may be cheaper but still substantially overpriced.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/09/21 10:14 PM

Results from one very large retailer shows AMD leads in CPUs -- Intel's latest CPUs are doing well compared to their older CPUs.

Quote
Intel CPU Share Sees Major Boost Thanks To 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs But AMD Ryzen Chips Continue To Dominate at MindFactory

AMD Ryzen Desktop CPUs still retains an impressive lead of over 70% CPU sold during November (Total over 15,000 units). The Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 5 5600X were the most popular chips of the bunch and even the Ryzen 9 5900X held a respectable share

Intel CPUs on the other hand amounted to just 30% of the CPU sold (over 5000 units) but that itself is a huge win for Intel considering they barely managed to break past 5000 units prior to Alder Lake.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/17/21 09:47 PM

Quote
Intel’s $100 Billion Plan For Advanced U.S. Manufacturing Delayed To 2022

U.S. chipmaker Intel Corporation has delayed its announcement of more than $200 billion of chip making facilities in the United States and Europe

the company announced a $20 million plan to build facilities in Ocotillo, Arizona for manufacturing semiconductor products for other companies.

However, the Arizona investment was only the tip of the iceberg for Intel, which is aggressively pushing to develop and commercialize the latest chip manufacturing technologies

[Per Intel Spokesperson] "This would be a very large site, so six to eight fab modules, and at each of those fab modules, between 10- and $15 billion. It's a project over the next decade on the order of $100 billion of capital, 10,000 direct jobs. 100,000 jobs are created as a result of those 10,000, by our experience."

Additionally, Intel representatives had also outlined similar plans for facilities in the European Union.


Competition is good. And, now the USA and Europe will eventually be competitive with Asia in large scale chip production. Its estimated the building of all this will take 10 years to complete.

AMD has nowhere near the same total budget. But, it will be interesting to see if they eventually bring some of their leading edge production back to the USA and/or Europe.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/20/21 03:11 PM

DDR5 will become a factor in 2022. A very thorough set of DDR4 to DDR5 comparison tests were run using every type of popular software (not just games).

Quote
DDR5 vs DDR4: Is It Time To Upgrade Your RAM? [No -- Only in special use cases]

Focusing on the best DDR4 and DDR5 [gaming] performance, we saw a 3% difference in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, 2% in Far Cry 6, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Borderlands 3, and a 1% delta in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

Our Key Takeaways

DDR5 is fast, but only in some workloads

Don't buy DDR5 for gaming

For now, DDR4 offers more bang for your buck because DDR5 is either out of stock or extremely expensive

DDR5 has more future-proofing value


Entire Article -- Read to see if DDR5 makes sense in Special Cases

Attached picture DDR5DDR4.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/21 10:34 PM

Quote
AMD to reveal some details on Zen4 [CPU] architecture at CES 2022

AMD CTO Mark Papermaster confirmed that Zen4 architecture will be part of the CES 2022 press conference, however, the primary focus will be on updated Zen3 architecture with 3D V-Cache.

On January 4th, AMD is to unveil its next-gen Ryzen 6000 series for laptops. The company is also expected to launch Zen3 desktop processors featuring 3D V-Cache technology, and high-end desktop Threadripper PRO 5000 series.

The latest rumors suggest AMD might formally announce its Zen4 consumer products at Computex 2022.


As previously noted, AMD 6000 CPUs will not merely be 5000+ variations. They use a new 3D technique to add circuits to the CPU.

The Ryzen 6000s are in heavy production, it has been said. They are expected relatively soon to compete with Intel's latest.

The Ryzen 7000s using new 5nm technology and 3D are rumored for late 2022. We'll hear more on January 4th.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/21 11:45 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 Series Bound for March 2022

The new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 series processors are likely to combine "Zen 3+" CCDs (6 nm, featuring 3D Vertical Cache memory), with full sWRX8 I/O

The series begins with the Threadripper PRO 5945WX (12-core/24-thread), followed by the PRO 5955WX (16-core/32-thread), the PRO 5965WX (24-core/48-thread), PRO 5975WX (32-core/64-thread), and the 64-core/128-thread PRO 5995WX. .. The TDP of all these chips is rated at 280 W.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/21 06:58 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is equipped with 6nm Navi 24 GPU, launches January 19th

According to the latest information, AMD is likely to announce Navi 24 GPU at its press conference during CES 2022 [January 4].


Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6500XT.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2021-12-24 135909.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/27/21 11:00 AM

TSMC is AMD's chief supplier of up to date CPUs and GPUs.

Quote
TSMC’s 2nm Production Expansion Could Cost A Trillion Taiwan Dollars

The Taiwanese fab plans to expand its chip manufacturing technology portfolio by introducing new processes in succession, as it gears up to stretch fabrication to the limits of physics and materials science.

TSMC, Samsung and Intel plan to kick off 2nm production in a couple of years, with the Asian companies being confident about entering early mass production for the latest 3nm technology next year.


As previously noted, "2nm" is a short-hand "marketing term" that roughly indicates "performance" -- it's not a precise measurement of the "size" of CPU features.

Nonetheless, feature size does decrease somewhat.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/31/21 11:15 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 6980HX 6nm “Rembrandt” mobile processor brings 5.0 GHz to Zen architecture for the first time

According to the post, the flagship Ryzen 9 6980HX APU is to boost up to 5.0 GHz, which is actually the first AMD Zen processor to do so. The HX obviously means that the target power will go beyond 45W, but efficiency should remain good even at 45W because it is still the most pre-binned chip in the upcoming lineup.


Intel 14nm/10nm boost has been over 5 GHz for a while. But, that was a "factory overclock" they did to make them competitive with the more advanced 7nm AMD CPUs. Intel heat and power use was very high.

This AMD 5GHz speed is probably just due to going to 6nm -- i.e. normal progress.

Attached picture Screenshot 2021-12-31 061425.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/31/21 03:14 PM

Quote
AMD to introduce Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology that works in “all” games

The word ‘all’ is actually pretty straightforward, the technology will only work with games that support exclusive full-screen mode, which does not sound like a huge issue.

RSR .. will work through the Radeon software driver. .. In other words, RSR will not require game developer support but will work independently through a Radeon driver.

AMD Radeon Super Resolution will be released in January 2022. It will be supported by RDNA1 and RDNA2 architectures (RX 5000 and newer).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/22 04:29 PM

Quote
AMD announces Radeon RX 6500XT at 199 USD, available on January 19th

This is the first 6nm GPU AMD is launching for desktops. During its 2022 Product Premiere, Laura Smith confirmed that the card will boost up to 2.6 GHz in game mode.

The RX 6500XT features Navi 24 with 1024 Stream Processors paired with 18 Gbps 4GB GDDR6 memory. .. It will be exclusively available through AMD board partners.


Attached picture AMD-Radeon-RX-6500XT-desktop.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-01-04 113206.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/22 04:52 PM

Quote
AMD Teases 5nm Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Zen 4 CPUs, Unveils Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 96MB of L3 Cache

AMD will fire back at Alder Lake this spring with its Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. This new chip features AMD’s new 3D V-Cache tech that packs a whopping 96MB of L3 cache onto a single processor via 3D-stacked SRAM, which AMD says will boost gaming by an average of 15% across a selected range of game titles at 1080p. AMD says the 5800X3D will be the fastest gaming chip in the world, and it provided its own benchmark results against Intel’s flagship Core i9-12900K to prove it.

The X3D Era Begins

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first AMD chip that will come to the consumer market with its 3D V-Cache technology, though AMD already uses this tech on its Milan-X processors for the data center.


The R7 5800X3D is not just a slightly overclocked, bumped up R7 5800X -- it uses new technology (3D V-Cache) to get more gaming speed.

As previously noted more than once, the big AMD CPU performance jump is due in 2d Half 2022. The big GPU performance jump is also expected. Late 2022 CPU prices should be okay -- but are expected to rise due to inflation. So, hold off upgrading if its feasible for you.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/22 03:58 AM

The best I could get a hold of this last year was an AMD 6700 XT - and I still paid over $900 for it after shipping and taxes.

I am wondering if 6900 XT prices will drop once the new GPU tech from AMD starts shipping?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/22 12:11 PM

FWIW What I've been reading:

Prices are expected to stay up for nearly all of 2022. However, that depends on Cryptomining staying popular and legal. If it falls from favor, 10s of thousands of used GPUs will hit the market at low prices.

When the new generation CPU/GPU are released (late 2022) prices should change -- but no one says "how much". Slight MSRP rise due to inflation (CPU, GPU) -- with a huge rise in performance due to a new way of designing/manufacturing (AMD is hinting and pundits are predicting). Normally, older stuff "still on the shelves" drops in price. But, there may be "nothing on the shelves" due to Cryptomining and gamers who can afford above MSRP.

Also a factor: Prices are driven up by "bots" that buy GPUs the second they come on-line (normal consumers don't have a chance). In the USA there is a move by Congress to outlaw that.

Informal on-line polling indicates most of "those polled" will wait for MSRP before buying (but, those responders may not be a sample indicative of the whole world).

Of course, if one's system needs replacement due to age or CPU/GPU failure, then, it has to be replaced. One may not be able to wait for MSRP.

My goal is a new system based on the new technology (CPU, GPU) a year from now. But, I'm old fashioned, I'll want the prices to be MSRP or very close to MSRP. The new CPUs should be MSRP (and drop below MSRP during 2023). GPU's are a "we'll see".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/22 12:25 PM

AMD EPYC CPUs are not for gamers -- they are for servers and those businesses that need huge computational power.

Quote
AMD Zen4 EPYC ‘Genoa’ CPU for SP5 socket prototype allegedly pictured

There is a new picture of the alleged AMD SP5 CPU over at Reddit. While it is unclear if the sample is Genoa or Bergamo (both expected to support the SP5 socket), it is clearly a new square design of the SP5 package.

AMD confirmed Genoa is on track to launch in 2022 and it is now sampling to customers. This leak appears to confirm just that.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-01-05 072243.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-01-05 072327.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/22 11:55 AM

Competition: Looks like Intel CPUs are competing on price to a greater degree.

Quote
Intel Announces 12th Gen Core Alder Lake: 22 New Desktop-S CPUs, 8 New Laptop-H CPUs

Intel usually releases anywhere from 10 to 50+ new desktop processors to fill in the markets where needed.

For Alder Lake, Intel is launching 22 new desktop processors, from $42 dual core Celerons at 35W all the way up to $489 Core i9-12900 parts. The full stack, including the overclockable processors, now looks like this: [Attachment]


The attachment I attached does not show them all -- just those gamers might want. Some have on-CPU graphics (i.e. APU).

AMDs updated for 2022 R7 5800 series (soon to be released) will compete in actual games at 1080p (higher resolutions are GPU limited). However, Intel currently has higher core counts and can be considered for other applications needing maximum cores/threads.

The selling prices may vary from the 1000 unit nominally-wholesale price.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-01-06 064038.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/22 12:48 PM

Cut from article giving official AMD word from CES:

Quote
CES: AMD Details V-Cache, Zen 4, and the Ryzen 6000 Mobile Family

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D will be an 8C/16T CPU with a 3.4GHz base clock and a 4.5GHz boost.

The 5800X3D is specifically intended for gamers .. AMD claims between a 1.0x and a 1.4x speed-up at 1080p. .. Performance in games against the Intel 12900K [Intel's top of the line model] at 1080p High ranges from 0.98x – 1.2x faster, in an unspecified suite of titles.

Ryzen 6000 Mobile SoC Family

Next up, there’s the Ryzen 6000 Mobile family and what AMD is calling “Zen 3+.” .. These new SoCs are built on TSMC’s 6nm node.

Zen 4

The last major announcement from AMD relates to Zen 4. AMD has confirmed that Zen 4 will ship in the back half of the year on TSMC’s N5 node. The new SoC will use the AM5 socket


The Ryzen 7 5800X3D selling price has not yet been disclosed.

Zen 4 is to be the "big one" later this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/22 12:15 AM

Quote
AMD AM5 to be a long-lived platform, backward compatibility with AM4 coolers confirmed

"I don’t have an exact number of years but I would say that you should expect that AM5 will be a long-lived platform as AM4 has been. I think we’re expecting AM4 to stay in the marketplace for quite some years and it will be sort of an overlapping type of thing.”

— Dr. Lisa Su

Hallock confirmed that AM4 coolers will be compatible with future AM5 CPUs. Of course, the details are not yet known
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/22 04:33 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen4 Raphael” 8-core and 16-core engineering samples have been spotted

Despite not launching till later this year, the first engineering samples of the Zen4 desktop CPUs are already out in the wild.

The benchmark lists ‘Cache’ for both Raphael CPUs as 1024KB, which would be twice as big as Zen3 Vermeer L2 Cache.

The company recently declared that the AM5 platform should offer just as good longevity as AM4.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/22 01:37 PM

Quote
AMD: We're Exploring Supporting Ryzen 5000 on 300-Series Motherboards

More than a year after the release of the Ryzen 5000 chips that have been a staple on our list of the Best CPUs for gaming, AMD tells us the company is now looking at options to allow the chips to be used with 300-series motherboards. "It's definitely something we're working through. And it's not lost on us at all that this would be a good thing to do for the community, and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen," David McAfee, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, told Tom's Hardware during an interview.


AMD's plan is to keep AM4 motherboards part of the action for a few years -- even after the AM5 motherboard products are in use.

In addition, they are trying to bring older AM4 MBs "up to date". Not easy as the CPUs advance in design and need different MB support for best performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/22 09:48 PM

Another brief notice of the soon to be released Ryzen 7 5800X3D:

Quote
Now with V-Cache! One Sole CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D

AMD is only going to launch a single Ryzen version of its V-Cache technology, using the Ryzen 7 5800X as a base. This means the chip is 8 cores, 16 threads, and 105 W TDP just like the regular R7 5800X, but with 96 MB of L3 cache now rather than 32 MB. It will run at 3.4 GHz Base, 4.5 GHz boost, be overclockable, and work in AMD 400-series and 500-series motherboards.

Who is this chip for? The focus is on users playing video games over anything else. The extra cache is meant to help with communications with discrete graphics cards, offering additional performance above the regular R7 5800X. .. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is designed to be the ‘World’s Fastest Gaming Processor’ (when compared to the AMD 5900X and Intel 12900K).

In terms of those performance metrics, AMD is quoting:

From 1.0x to 1.4x at 1080p High vs Ryzen 9 5900X + RTX3080 (15% average)
From 0.98x to 1.2x at 1080p High vs Core i9-12900K (DDR5) + RTX3080


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-01-08 164601.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/22 03:27 PM

Competition for AMD's FSR (resolution up-scaling that is very easily implemented into games):

Quote
NVIDIA AI Powered DLDSR Unveiled; Marty McFly’s Depth-Based Filters (Including Ray Tracing) Coming to GFE

an AI-powered version of the Dynamic Super Resolution or DSR that's been available via the Control Panel for several years.

DLDSR will be available to GeForce RTX owners, as it is powered by the Tensor Cores, and should work in 'most' games.


Quote
AMD FSR is a full-screen upscaling technology that does not rely on software implementation by game developers [and works with most AMD (e.g. RX470 and up), Nvidia GPUs].
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/22 04:20 PM

TSMC makes AMD gaming CPUs and GPUs.

Quote
TSMC Confident It Can Beat Intel This Year With Advanced Technologies

TSMC plans to spend between $40 billion and $44 billion in capital expenditure, confirming reports that had surfaced late last month. .. These cover the fab's 7-nanometer (nm), 5nm, 3nm and 2nm chip manufacturing processes.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/22 03:01 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile (RAMP) technology for DDR5 memory set to compete with Intel XMP 3.0

DDR5 memory to get a performance boost thanks to AMD RAMP.

for the AM5 platform AMD will be adding a new technology called RAMP (Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile), which is a response to Intel XMP 3.0 profile. Those are predefined overclocking profiles added to each high-end memory module. AMD RAMP will likely be compatible with XMP, but will also allow memory makers to adopt their technology exclusively, just as it happened with G.Skill’s Ryzen certified A-XMP memory kits.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/22 03:40 PM

Quote
AMD Raising EPYC CPU Pricing 10 to 30%, Intel's Sapphire Rapids Delayed: Report

AMD is purportedly raising prices of its EPYC data center processors for some customers by 10% to 30%, a new reality that most customers have accepted in the face of chip shortages

AMD's Milan holds the peak performance, and perhaps more importantly, performance-per-watt crown in the data center. Milan's higher core counts also offer superior performance density, thus allowing data centers to cram in more performance per server and further lower their operating costs, all of which is obviously attractive enough to justify the price increases
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/15/22 09:18 PM

A reason why I've little interest in GPU hardware being sold now or to be sold soon:

Quote
Custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti cards listed for at least $3654

The pricing is actually much higher than we expected, going for 3654 up to 4497 USD after conversion. Do note, however, that those could naturally be early placeholding prices:

#1 MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X: 3201 EUR / ~3654 USD
#2 MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X: 3678 CHF / ~4024 USD
#3 MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X: 4111 CHF / ~4497 USD
MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GAMING X TRIO: 3129 EUR / ~3571 USD


I was reading today about Cryptomining cost effectiveness. Some "coins" are becoming too expensive to mine. Some can still "pay off" -- so GPU prices remain high.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/22 03:25 PM

Quote
High-Performance CPUs & GPUs From Intel, AMD, NVIDIA To See Up To 20% Price Hike In 2022

The report states that TSMC has already increased the quotations for its existing 7nm and 5nm process technologies which will go on to power several next-gen GPUs and CPUs such as AMD Ryzen 7000, AMD Ryzen 6000H/U, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 & Intel's ARC Alchemist GPUs. While Intel will be relying on TSMC's 6nm process which is an extension of the N7 process node, the price hike will be similar.


CPU, GPU chip MSRP prices will go up 10% to 20%. GPU selling prices are expected to continue to be higher than MSRP due to shortages.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/22 03:36 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6850 XT, RX 6750 XT ‘RDNA 2 Refresh’ Graphics Cards Rumored For Q2 2022: Navi 21 & 22 GPUs With 18 Gbps Memory


These GPUs will have a very small performance increase (they say) and a high selling price (we know). The 7000 series GPUs are supposed to release in late 2022 -- and have a huge performance jump. So, it seems like one should wait for the 7000 series of GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/22 03:34 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6500XT Review Roundup

Today AMD lifts the embargo on its entry-level Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card reviews.


Links to Over 2 Dozen Reviews

Attached picture RX6500XT.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/22 11:54 AM

Quote
Intel's $7 Billion Fab 34 Gets First Equipment

Intel starts to install equipment at Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland

Intel basically had to build the facility from scratch, which is why it will have taken it about four years to build and equip its Fab 34.

In addition to Ireland, Intel plans to build a yet another manufacturing site in Europe to produce more of its own products as well as chips for third parties.


Intel is also planning a Fabrication facility in the Columbus, Ohio USA region (down the street from Ohio State University, figuratively speaking). Presumably, a substantial USA Government subsidy will be given -- and the State of Ohio will be making concessions (normal business these days -- States compete for such facilities). This one is not "finalized".

All the above is part of moving production closer to the eventual customers, providing local jobs, etc. A good thing smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/22 09:54 PM

As often in this thread, Cryptomining news because Crypto strongly affects GPU prices/availability.

Quote
Bank of Russia Is Prepping To Ban Both GPU Mining & Crypto Usage Across The Nation

The ban on crypto mining and usage continues to travel worldwide, from Asia's crackdowns last year to the United States' concerns on severe risks with digital currencies and the possibility of sabotage to monetary and financial institutions and systems.


They haven't done it -- some say they may not. So another, "we'll see".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/22 10:39 PM

No sooner do I cut/paste the foregoing note than I read:

Quote
ASUS Awards Its Employees With Huge Year-End Bonuses, All Thanks To Huge Profits From Crypto Mining In The GPU Segment

[During the last couple years] the majority of the new graphics cards from NVIDIA & AMD were being sold directly to large GPU mining corporations and customers by AIBs themselves [e.g. ASUS] and that too before they got in the hands of retailers

Things are so good for these AIBs that ASUS decided to give out huge incentives & year-end bonuses to their employees, all as thanks for selling the GPUs designed for gamers to the crypto segment. The bonuses include up to .. $55,000 US. The news outlet reports that this bonus is equivalent to 2-3 months of salary. There were also on-site rewards that included cars and cash prizes

This is awesome news for ASUS and other companies out there who are making a fool out of their consumers and selling products directly to crypto miners who can afford them.


So, a big part of the GPU short supply problem are those "Add-in board" companies like ASUS who sell directly to miners at high prices (we knew that, but ASUS is bragging about it). That's part of "free-enterprise" (i.e. making money legally by providing a wanted product -- which is what drives invention and product improvements).

The article indicates ASUS intends to keep the price up throughout 2022. Free-enterprise is good. Now, the gaming customers must play "their free-enterprise hand" if they don't like what ASUS is doing -- e.g. don't buy from ASUS anymore -- even when prices drop (but, probably, they won't stop buying).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/22 10:00 AM

Corroboration of above post:

Quote
Intel Goes Big & Aims To Build World’s Largest Chip Plant For $20 Billion

In a fresh report courtesy of Time Magazine, the company has confirmed that it will build a new $20 billion plant in the American state of Ohio, with the facility intended to be the largest of its kind in the world

The Ohio facility will consist of two manufacturing plants, will cover an area of 1,000 acres, employ 3,000 people and commence operations by 2025 according to the details provided by the company

Another factor that pushed Intel towards the Buckeye State [Ohio's nickname] is the availability of suitable talent... it will partner with the Ohio State University, among others.


More interesting to me because Ohio is my home state -- moreover, two sons and two grandchildren (so far) were/are Ohio State U. students (one a software/hardware engineer).
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/22 02:37 AM

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on an AMD XFX 6900 XT Speedster Merc319 Limited Black Edition card. I've been eyeing it for a while - and Newegg had some come up in-stock from the XFX seller. The shortage is getting more real, and prices are already going up more. MSRP originally from AMD was $1000 for the stock 6900 XT, and at first 3rd party mfgs. were charging $1100-$1200 for their boosted/upclocked/better cooled offerings a year ago. And $1500ish for the XTXH binned Big Navi 6900 cards 6 months ago. I got this one for $1650. frown

I plan on selling the AMD XFX 6700 XT Qick Ultra card I have now, hoping I can fetch $500-$700 for it on eBay. It has served me well, but I always wanted the 6900 XT. The 6900 XT should be here this week, I'll let y'all know how it goes. I have a 144hz 3840X1600 38" Ultrawide monitor that this will make really pop.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/22 03:29 AM

Jason - pls check PMs smile Thanks!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/22 12:58 PM

GPU prices remain high. Slight downturn recently. The various "crypto-coins" are losing value recently. But, significant long term GPU price changes (for the better) remain to be seen. Some changes may (or may not) occur during Summer months.

Quote
Ethereum has just marked its lowest value since August. This, combined with the upcoming proof-of-stake update in June, means that all new purchases of graphics cards may not see the return of investment by that time.


Bitcoin is also "mostly mined" (there are not an infinite number of Bitcoin -- only a couple million left to find/generate, they say) and price is dropping recently -- show a "double peak" that in past markets indicated onset of a market crash. The folks who "run" Bitcoin do manipulate supply to keep demand, and price, up. Bitcoin friendly folks who show the charts tend to "minimize" the double peak.

There are many different kinds of "software generated" coins in existence. Some are barely underway. So, the future remains to be seen.

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Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/22 06:02 PM

I've been an INTEL guy for long time but I switched teams today! Check my other post. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/22 12:49 PM

Quote
NVIDIA to abandon its ARM Holdings acquisition plans

NVIDIA faced strong opposition from regulatory bodies in their bid to purchase ARM Holdings, a British company owning the IP of its RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architectures. .. NVIDIA has allegedly given up the plans, which means that it will have to mark a $1.25 billion loss, money that should be considered a breakup fee.

NVIDIA’s original plan was to pay 40 billion USD for the company.

Without the rights to the ARM architecture, NVIDIA’s bid to enter the CPU market may face new obstacles.

ARM Holdings may now consider going public which would be an alternative to the NVIDIA takeover, Bloomberg reports.


Quote
Arm Holdings is currently owned by Japan's SoftBank Group.


Nvidia is said to be working on CPUs already and could license ARM technology without owning ARM. We'll see in a few years.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/27/22 01:18 PM

I recently read that some new design 6000 series 2022 CPUs from AMD (to be released later in 2022) and presumably Intel will allow Windows to "burn in" a unique ID number when Windows is installed -- Microsoft Pluton. That number -- which cannot be changed -- is intended for security. However, some believe Microsoft Pluton it may actually compromise security, privacy, or cause other issues. We'll see if its a problem -- or a good thing (Microsoft thinks it's a good thing -- AMD must partly agree). Initially, Pluton may only be in laptops.

Quote
.. why are we saying AMD’s [Microsoft Pluton] version _MIGHT_ be safe to deploy? Because you can turn it ‘off’. ’. Sort of.... There are also credible reports that some OEMs will ship devices [e.g. laptops] with Pluton ‘off’ ...


If Microsoft Pluton can be effectively "turned off", then no problem.

Current 5000 series AMD CPUs and current Intel CPUs do not have Microsoft Pluton -- so, no problem, it is said.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/22 04:08 PM

Quote
Meltdown, Spectre Flaw Class-Action Suit Against Intel Gets Go Ahead

The Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws hit the tech news wires at the start of 2018. However, in the period between Intel's discovery of these flaws, the previous August, and going public about them in January 2018, Intel and its partners sold millions of devices to customers.

The major complaint is that the flaws required performance-sapping updates to patch, so purchasers of systems affected would not get the performance they paid for, and Intel knew that this would be the case.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/22 04:20 PM

Quote
China to conditionally approve AMD $35 billion acquisition of Xilinx

AMD is awaiting approval for its 2020 bid to purchase Xilinx, a company specializing in programmable logic devices.

Nasdaq reports that the deal has been approved in every market except for China. This acquisition would make AMD more competitive against Intel who purchased a competing FPGA maker Altera back in 2015

Today Reuters confirms that the acquisition has been approved by the Chinese regulator, who published a full statement here. The regulator will approve the transaction if both parties agree to 6-year conditions.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/28/22 06:19 PM

Quote
Crypto farm raided by Spanish authorities

In the city of Santiponce/Seville, Spanish authorities have seized 21 Bitcoin ASIC miners and 13,000 EUR worth of crypto mining equipment

The police investigation has led to the discovery of a crypto farm that was illegally attached to the electricity grid, which is the sole reason why the authorities were involved in the first place.


Attached picture Spain-CryptoFarm-3.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 12:27 PM

Often, GPU Extreme Overclocking speed records are held by Nvidia. AMD has won one. Extreme Overclocking uses liquid nitrogen cooling for world records.

Quote
Single AMD RX 6900 XT Beats Four GTX 1080 Tis to Take 3DMark Record

A 3DMark Fire Strike score of 62,389 was achieved by Korean OC expert Biso Biso on Thursday. This record is notable for a couple of reasons. First, it was done using the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT pushed to a 3,147 MHz core clock. Secondly, it unseated a Quad-SLI Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti-powered record by Kingpin (61,206) that had stood for almost two years.
Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 01:46 PM

I've never felt the need to overclock either my video card or my CPU. The performance I've gotten from the stock speeds has always been good enough for me. I think the overclocking is mostly done by people who feel a constant OCD need to tweak things.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by PanzerMeyer
I've never felt the need to overclock either my video card or my CPU. The performance I've gotten from the stock speeds has always been good enough for me. I think the overclocking is mostly done by people who feel a constant OCD need to tweak things.


Years ago, I too tweaked. However, now modern equipment does not need tweaking. Thus, I agree with your approach. Stock speeds on GPU, CPU, memory. thumbsup

And, though my AMD RX5700XT GPU would be classed below mid-range these days, it provides smooth (to my eye) framerates at true 4K and mostly (frequently all) ultra settings for all my games. I get up to 144Hz at 4K in a couple older (but good) games I play. My graphically most advanced games are running in the 30 to 45FPS range.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 08:39 PM

I have my XFX 6900 XT Limited Black gpu in and tested. I've got to say this thing is a beast, and I'm putting it to good use running at 3840 x 1600 @ 144hz.

Recent 3dmark scores:

[Linked Image]

I'm getting great fps in DCS flying in the A-10 Free Flight mission. This one is particularly heavy because of the clouds and forests. IL-2 BoS and Red Dead Redemption 2 never looked or played so good.

I still do some hardware tweaking, mainly BIOS and fan profile settings. I will say this card runs on the warm side when it's being pushed, I've seen it get up to 85C in Red Dead Redemption 2 and Player Unknown Battlegrounds. I've set the AMD "Quiet" profile in the driver to keep the fan noise as low as I can, since I do not game with headphones and my full tower Corsair 750D airflow edition case is "airy". I did some testing with Rage mode on, but did not notice any real fps difference, just ran noisier and hotter.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 10:19 PM

I hope to join the two of you (PanzerMeyer, ArgonV) when GPU prices are much more favorable -- hopefully only a year smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/22 11:43 PM

Quote
Ohio Giving Intel a $2 Billion Incentive Package for its New Fab

Intel made headlines recently by revealing its plans to build a next-generation silicon fab in the heart of the Midwest, creating what it hopes will become the “silicon heartland.” New details have emerged on what the state of Ohio offered Intel to get it to choose the Buckeye state over the other 38 sites it considered. Of course, the state didn’t just write Intel a check and call it a day. Most of the actual money involved is in tax credits, infrastructure improvements, and so forth.


Our local Ohio news media have given this a lot of coverage. As noted -- 38 other sites were in the "competition". Its a win/win for Ohio/Intel.

Roughly 13000 permanent jobs (plus 7000 construction jobs) are expected initially after the first construction is done and working -- employees of the plant and businesses regionally. Eventually, more buildings and jobs will be added -- if things go as planned.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/22 12:10 AM

Quote
AMD Blasts Off To Space With Meteoric 68% Revenue Growth For Last Year!

the company grew its annual revenue for FY 2021 by an eye-whopping 68%, with its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 managing to top estimates from even the most optimistic analysts.

AMD's strong quarterly growth reflects its growing presence in the corporate computing segment, which utilizes data centers for various purposes

at the end of FY2021, the company brought in $16 billion in revenue
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/22 11:29 AM

Quote
AMD preparing Radeon RX 6X50XT refresh for June/July, RX 6500 non-XT expected in May

The RX 6X50XT refresh would appear just a few months before AMD is rumored to introduce its first RDNA3 GPUs.


The GPUs coming in Summer will include a $130 model not fit for crypto mining (or serious gaming) -- may be an emergency replacement for a dead card at an affordable price.

Next generation RDNA3 is expected at end-of-year and supposed to provide a larger than usual FPS boost over current cards from AMD and Nvidia.

The attachment shows the projected refreshed/updated GPUs (yellow highlighted).

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/22 10:11 AM

Quote
AMD confirms RDNA3 GPUs are indeed coming in 2022

AMD Radeon RX 7000 series, a successor to the never-available RX 6000 series should launch by the end of this year. During the 2021 earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that this year will see several important launches, such as AMD Zen4 CPU architecture and RDNA3 GPUs.

"We have also made significant investments to secure the capacity needed to support our growth in 2022 and beyond". — Dr. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD

The RDNA3 architecture is (initially?) to feature three Navi 3X GPU designs, offering up to 60 RDNA Workgroups or 15360 Stream Processors by using two GPU dies.


The attached figure (all rumors, nothing confirmed other than they are coming in 2022) shows that the high end card will have 6 times as many Stream Processors as my RX5700XT and the FPS may approach 5 or 6 times my current FPS (FPS ratios at bottom of chart).

I assume the MSRP of the top card will be high. We'll see if these specifications are overstated when the GPUs arrive.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/22 12:54 PM

Quote
Hacker magics $300M worth of crypto out of thin air in fourth largest blockchain heist ever

Wormhole has also attempted to reach out to the hacker over an Ethereum transaction sent to the hacker's account, an Elliptic blog post says. It offers $10M in bug bounty fees to the hacker in exchange for the stolen funds and information as to how the exploit occurred.

The result of this seemingly small, swiftly patched exploit? $300 million or so out of Wormhole's pocket.


Interesting because Cryptocurrency is supposed to be "safer" than real currency. I imagine it would be hard to swipe $300,000,000 of real currency.

Such a theft could greatly damage the value of Ethereum, making mining less profitable, leading to lower GPU selling prices -- don't I wish.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/22 04:00 PM

Quote
AMD engineer confirms Radeon 7000 “RDNA3 (Navi 3X)” GPUs use 5nm and 6nm nodes

The company is now set to launch the first Navi 3X GPUs by the end of this year alongside its new Zen4 “Raphael” CPU architecture.

Navi 31 and Navi 32 are to utilize 6nm and 5nm nodes, while Navi 33 is 6nm.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/22 04:12 PM

Quote
Don't Start Crypto Mining Now: 500+ Days Just to Break Even

if you look carefully at the cost of building and maintaining your own mining rig, .. you’ll find that it currently takes between 500 and 900 days just to break even. And that’s assuming your equipment doesn’t break and that current prices don’t sink much lower.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/22 10:26 AM

Quote
NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Arm Limited

SoftBank to Explore Arm Public Offering

Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”


ARM will probably stay in Europe and be managed from Europe. This result will better maintain competition in the industry.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/08/22 10:43 AM

Quote
China May Launch Chip Consortium to Challenge Intel, AMD

China is reportedly planning a new chip consortium dedicated to semiconductor research and development. The new project, dubbed the “cross-border semiconductor work committee,” will launch this year. It’s to be coordinated by a lab at Tsinghua University, President Xi Jinping’s alma mater.

The Nikkei story doesn’t use the term “coopetition”, but the organization it describes appears intended to both partner with companies like AMD and Intel and facilitate competition with them in the long term.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/22 12:49 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 'Zen 4' Desktop CPU Expected Features:

Brand New Zen 4 CPU Cores (IPC / Architectural Improvements)
Brand New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD
Support on AM5 Platform With LGA1718 Socket
Dual-Channel DDR5 Memory Support
28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Exclusive)
105-120W TDPs (Upper Bound Range ~170W)

The brand new Zen 4 architecture is rumored to deliver up to 25% IPC gain over Zen 3 and hit clock speeds of around 5 GHz as demoed by them over at CES 2022.


Attached picture AMDCPUMap.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/09/22 01:00 PM

Quote
Steam/AMD Van Gogh APU for next-gen portable gaming

Valve’s Steam Deck is a handheld Linux-based gaming console incorporating the latest hardware from AMD. The Deck is based on AMD Van Gogh SoC (also known as Aerith), a custom 7nm design based on Zen2 and RDNA2 microarchitecture.


Note the low prices (some lower specs) on Valve's Steam Deck (in attached). Lower power requirements and good performance are expected. We'll see when they are finally reviewed.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/22 11:22 AM

Quote
Intel planning to delay the release of the Arc Alchemist Graphics lineup to the second quarter as the blue team sorts out their drivers


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-10 062140.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/22 01:35 PM

Quote
AMD’s proposed Xilinx acquisition receives all necessary approvals

Transaction expected to close on or about February 14, 2022

The transaction brings together two industry leaders with complementary product portfolios and customers, combining CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, Adaptive SoCs and deep software expertise to enable leadership computing platforms for cloud, edge and intelligent end devices.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/10/22 03:08 PM

Quote
AMD Sets All-Time CPU Market Share Record as Intel Gains in Desktop and Notebook PCs

The Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the fourth quarter of 2021, showing that AMD now comprises 25.6% of the overall x86 market, its highest share ever, partially on the strength of its increasing gaming console shipments. That beats AMD's prior overall record of 25.3% that it reached 15 years ago in 2006.


To summarize a lot of articles:

Intel and AMD CPUs are now competitive. I imagine they will usually swap places as each releases a newer model. But, Intel has "brand name recognition" with the general public -- good for lots of sales in years to come. So, AMD will stay in second place with normal consumers.

Right now, Intel has slightly better performance and performance/price with its new desktop models (when comparing similarly priced CPUs). But, it makes little difference to gaming at 1080p (and virtually no difference above 1080p) which is what SimHQ is about. Also, Intel is competing with an AMD design released over a year ago.

New Intel CPUs are basically "factory overclocked" -- use more energy, need more expensive cooling -- this tends to offset the selling price. Interested AMD users can overclock their CPUs to close some of the gap. AMD CPUs released in late 2022 are expected to slightly surpass 5.0GHz clocks due to circuit improvements -- and complete substantially higher "instructions per clock" (high IPC).

Thus, AMD and Intel will remain competitive, performance and performance/price wise. Who wins will depend on who just released their latest models. Competition is good smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-10 094212.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/22 11:20 AM

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AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Zen 4’ CPUs Coming Earlier Than Expected, Rumors Point To Computex Announcement, Early Q3 Launch

As per the leaker and insider, the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs could be fully unveiled as early as Computex 2022 which takes place in May 2022. Now, this seems a little too early considering AMD's official [launching] 2H 2022 statement

the leaker also states that AM5 motherboards will soon be ready for production and early samples are expected to ship out within this month.

And why the early launch? ... Intel is also planning to unveil its 13th Gen Raptor Lake lineup around Q3 2022 which is further going to extend their lead and AMD doesn't want to let Intel have any leverage on them or Zen 4 as such, [thus, AMD] could have pushed the launch ahead.


In Summary: We may have Ryzen 7000 launch sometime in June, July, or August -- the beginning of 2H 2022 (not the end of it as some expected). Competition is Good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/11/22 10:30 PM

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Intel Announces Bitcoin Mining Initiative, Bonanza Mine Chips Ship This Year

Intel has officially entered the cryptomining business

Intel's Bonanza Mine will compete with other ASIC-based devices from companies like Bitmain (which has a quasi-monopoly on high-end miners) and MicroBT.

Koduri acknowledges that blockchains require tremendous amounts of energy, but says that Intel aims to provide scalable and energy-efficient solutions to "promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way."


So, mining is here to stay for a while if Intel is inventing/making special mining processors. At some point, this presumably "cheaper solution" should reduce GPU powered mining substantially -- its all about the money. Competition (with GPUs) is good. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/22 11:01 AM

Intel getting deeper into GPUs.

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Intel is hiring for its new UK-based team for low-power GPU architecture development

In Swindon UK, Intel is building a new team for Graphics Processor Unit development. The job offer specifically mentions low-power GPU architectures for next-generation portable computing, but this does not necessarily mean GPU architectures for upcoming CPUs.

With such a small distance to London, Intel might be trying to poach some engineering from competing firms such as ARM (Cambridge, UK) or Imagination Technologies PowerVR (Kings Langley, UK).


Not a new Intel tactic. In developing the current Intel GPUs, Intel poached from AMD -- got the AMD GPU Project Leader to switch sides and be the Intel GPU Project Leader, for example. Just another way to use money to weaken an opponent while strengthening your business. Not the first time for Intel, nor the last.

This type of Intel activity is the source of my bias towards supporting AMD (as previously mentioned in this thread). But, I try to be even-handed in cutting-pasting for the thread -- don't want to misinform SimHQ folks -- rather I want to give you the facts to make your own decisions.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/22 11:27 AM

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Intel Wants Customers To Pay For Additional Features on CPUs After They’ve Purchased It

Intel's payable software-upgrading CPU feature to see Spring release in Linux 5.18 support

.. this is not the first time Intel has attempted to block computer processors' features behind a paywall. He notes that in 2010, Intel created a part to unlock higher clock speeds and increased memory cache for the Intel Core i3-2xxx series, also known as the Sandy Bridge family of processors.

Intel can limit the amount of cost [to Intel] due to creating multiple versions [of CPUs] for users. Unfortunately, from a consumer standpoint, Intel is looking at this move to create a micro transactional plan for the upcoming chips. And, customers are not happy.

Gamers have already experienced micro-transactions in leading games, unlocking new skins, more accessibility, and more for varying prices. Creating hardware with the same concept has a similar backlash that gamers experience.


Another "we'll see" if this actually works in favor of the CPU customer.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/13/22 04:02 PM

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Intel Sapphire Rapids-AP, The Next-Gen Golden Cove Core Powered HEDT CPU Lineup, Rumored For Launch By End of 2022

looks like the Sapphire Rapids-AP CPU family is due to launch later this year.

The HEDT CPU segment hasn't seen much action over the past few years. Intel's 10th Gen Core-X lineup launched back in 2019 and AMD's last Threadripper family launched in early 2020.

That might change later this year as AMD and Intel are both expected to introduce their next-gen HEDT lineups with Golden Cove and Zen 3 cores.

Previous rumors have pointed out that while the HEDT lineup will be aimed at the desktop CPU segment, it will primarily serve the workstation segment.


HEDT means High-End Desktop. Typically for professionals who need highest core/thread counts. Gaming works fine with 6core/12thread at good clocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/22 02:14 PM

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AMD Radeon & NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Card Prices Improve Significantly Along With GPU Availability In 2022

while the current prices are still a far cry from the MSRP, the situation has been improving gradually over the last few months. The AMD Radeon graphics cards are currently priced at an average of 45% over MSRP, a drop from 63% last month while the NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards are priced at 57% MSRP versus last month's 77% price hike.

the availability of GPUs and the respective graphics cards is now at its best since the start of 2021 & continues to improve. In Europe, particularly, almost all stores are stocked with graphics cards in good quantities


The article briefly mentions that inflation (of various types) will probably increase MSRP by over 10% during the rest of 2022.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-14 091153.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/14/22 02:46 PM

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AMD formally completes acquisition of Xilinx

AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. “Xilinx offers industry-leading FPGAs, adaptive SoCs, AI engines and software expertise that enable AMD to offer the strongest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing solutions in the industry and capture a larger share of the approximately $135 billion market opportunity we see across cloud, edge and intelligent devices.”
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/22 02:03 PM

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Intel to acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion

The acquisition significantly advances Intel’s IDM 2.0 strategy as the company further expands its manufacturing capacity, global footprint and technology portfolio to address unprecedented industry demand.


Among other things, Intel is striving to become a major global source of chips "made to order" for many different companies (besides Intel) -- like TSMC (who supplies AMD and others) is now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/15/22 08:14 PM

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TSMC's US Fab Faces Delays From Workforce Shortage and Covid: Report

insiders suggested to Nikkei Asia that the project may already be three to six months behind schedule. The primary cause for the delays concerns personnel. Specifically, recruiting qualified and experienced staff has been difficult,

The advanced Arizona facility being built by TSMC was announced in May 2020 and building started with a ground breaking ceremony in June 2021, with the official publicly stated goal of the start of mass production scheduled for early 2024.


The article indicates it may be on schedule -- even with delays. Why? They planned for delays.

Sounds right. When I was project managing for NASA, I always intentionally allowed time/dollars in the schedule/budget for future unexpected delays/cost-increases -- hence, was always on time/budget -- just good project planning/costing/management.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/16/22 04:19 PM

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AMD's [Stock] Market Cap Surpasses Intel for the First Time in History

AMD is now a bigger company, by [stock] market capitalization, than Intel. It may be close, but AMD has passed Intel for the first time in the company's history with a ~$197.75 billion market cap at the close of the market on February 15 compared to Intel's $197.24 billion.

That marks a stark reversal for a company that was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy a mere six years ago when it first unveiled its revolutionary Zen CPU microarchitecture.

However, we do have to remember that Intel is the larger company by far and commands ~75% of the overall x86 market share. Intel also generates far more revenue and profit per year than AMD and is coming off its sixth year of record revenue. That's not to mention that the firm makes its own chips and owns a global network of fabs, whereas AMD designs chips and outsources production.

Taken in context, AMD's valuation signals that the market generally has more optimism about the firm's growth prospects than Intel's. There are plenty of reasons to be bullish


Market capitalization changes daily with the Stock price. So, AMD may not have the lead tomorrow. But AMD went from virtual bankruptcy to lead in 6 years -- a dramatic change.

However short, the lead discussed is meaningful to AMDs future.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/22 03:13 PM

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AMD today announces the availability of first Ryzen 6000-based laptop designs.

The company finally lifted the embargo on its Ryzen 6000 mobile processor series codenamed “Rembrandt”. AMD confirmed that only the HSseries for thin gaming systems will be available starting today, while HX and U-series will launch in early March. According to the new roadmap, Radeon 6000 PRO mobile CPUs are also coming in mid-March.

The 680M iGPU [integrated GPU] is to offer 47-73 FPS while Intel Iris 26-42 FPS according to AMD’s own benchmarks.


The point is that, an AMD APU-type iGPU powered laptop (with no separate GPU) can play games fast enough at 1080p to enjoy.

See attached chart. We'll see how it plays out in independent reviews.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-17 100147.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/22 09:42 AM

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Intel acquires lead Radeon discrete GPU Architect from AMD

Rohit Verma, Senior Fellow and Lead Radeon Discrete GPU Architect of AMD Technologies, was recently brought on board to work with Pat Gelsinger and the team at Intel.

The recent hiring by Intel is a substantial high-profile acquisition for the company due to Verma having transitioned with AMD during the company's most transformational term, operating as Lead SoC Architect for AMD's Discrete GPUs, along with other various assignments. Verma's happiness with the stature of Senior Fellow at AMD since 2013 made the announcement more surprising for those following the story.


Intel has a lot of money. They use it various ways to reduce competition. Poaching talent is a way they've long used.

Verma was an Intel employee prior to working for AMD. So, Intel feels justified in luring him back.

In any case, now, Intel knows AMD's most recent "insider plans and designs". Moreover, AMD has lost a key contributor.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/21/22 10:16 AM

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AMD Zen3+ Architecture and Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" Mobile Processors Detailed

The biggest engineering investment with "Rembrandt" is its ground-up power-management redesign that heavily leverages power-gating (as opposed to clock-gating). Every major component on the processor, including the individual CPU cores, the individual iGPU compute units, the memory controllers, and the display controller, can be put to sleep through power-gating (cutting their power), and woken up, in millisecond timescale. This allows the processor to use fraction-of-a-second opportunities within your normal use (such as a still screen when reading a document or a web-page), to put select components to sleep. These "power-naps" have a compounding effect on power efficiency, and AMD claims significant battery-life improvements.

The Radeon 600M series integrated graphics solution leverages the company's latest RDNA2 graphics architecture. It features 12 compute units amounting to 768 stream processors, 48 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and 12 Ray Accelerators.


A substantial change in AMD laptop architecture on the Zen 3+ units (vs Zen 3). Maintain good computation, use less power, and have improved, decent (not great) 1080p gaming level graphics -- all in one CPU package. One can question the utility of the Ray Accelerators; but, supporting/advertising Ray Tracing is required these days.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/22 09:28 AM

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TSMC Potentially Facing 3nm Yield Problems, Could Spell Problems For AMD & NVIDIA, Opportunity for Intel


Just a rumor at this point. But, it's relevant to the Future of AMD.

As mentioned, the 3nm (and other CPU, GPU "nm" numbers) does not represent the true size of the features. Rather, its shorthand for relative performance. So, in the attached, the manufacturers have quit using "nm" in the official documents -- they just show the number (e.g. N3 for 3nm).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-23 042502.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/22 09:06 PM

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Some NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 graphics cards with AD102 GPU are now rumored to consume more than 450 watts


We've been hearing rumors for a while that the next high-end GPUs from AMD and Nvidia would give way more FPS and use way more power. The rumors get minor updates from time to time.

Now rumored to be here in Summer or Early Fall. Note the rumored power and rumored performance multiplier in the attachment.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-23 160448.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-02-23 161259.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/24/22 07:53 PM

Regarding GPU high power usage -- e.g. 600 watts plus for the GPU. That would make an 800W or warmer PC.

Multiple high power PC owners who already own 850W systems have been commenting on-line that 850W PCs are too hot in warm weather. They overheat the room.

My wife uses an Office Heater in her home office (she likes it hot). It has 2 settings 400W and 800W (radiant heat, no fans). The office is noticeably warm at 400W and can be too warm on 800W (her PC normally puts out under 200W).

So, a high-power GPU's heat warming the room may be a factor for some PC users physical comfort.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/25/22 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
Regarding GPU high power usage -- e.g. 600 watts plus for the GPU. That would make an 800W or warmer PC.

Multiple high power PC owners who already own 850W systems have been commenting on-line that 850W PCs are too hot in warm weather. They overheat the room.

My wife uses an Office Heater in her home office (she likes it hot). It has 2 settings 400W and 800W (radiant heat, no fans). The office is noticeably warm at 400W and can be too warm on 800W (her PC normally puts out under 200W).

So, a high-power GPU's heat warming the room may be a factor for some PC users physical comfort.


Although this is (potentially) helpful information, I would respectfully advise and caution that anyone without at least some electrical knowledge take this with a grain of salt.

Among other things, an alarming number of people (especially those into gaming) have grossly over-rated power supplies installed in their PCs. Prior to the current generation, GPUs were actually limited by spec to 300W; allowing an adequate "rule of thumb" 300W to the balance of the PC would yield a total power consumption of 600W - and that's MAXIMUM. There are very few good reasons for having an over-rated PSU, and one of the few reasons with much technical merit is efficiency; that is, most PC power supplies as we think of them today will run more efficiently when loaded ~50%. Thus, if you have a PC that actually uses 400W, then an 800W unit will operate more efficiently when your PC is actually using 400W. (Of course, the trouble there is that the PC will almost certainly not be using 400W at all times, so it's difficult to say 800W would *always* be more efficient). I can absolutely assure you that, prior to the current generation of GPUs, most (single-GPU) PCs will never use more than about 600W. Even then, they'll use that 600W **only** when running 'full load' which in reality is almost never. Most of the time it'll be less than half, and even when being used at the most demanding levels they typically see, they're still not going to run at full load except for irregular and infrequent 'peaks'.

We know this to be true, because if the PSU routinely exceeded its rated output, your PC would crash and freeze fairly often.

This also relates to the other issue with the example given above: Just because someone has an 850W power supply (or any rating, for that matter) doesn't mean it's actually using that amount at any given moment - and certainly not all the time. As above, for most any single-GPU system prior to the current generation, regardless of how many watts your PSU is rated for, it's probably never providing more than about 600W at most, and many use far less than that. If your 850W PSU is only seeing infrequent and irregular 600W peaks, you're never actually producing 850W of heat.

Another way to look at it is that, if we turn that 850W computer *off* then it's not adding any heat to the room. It's always a function of actual usage, and that's never a constant.

I'd venture on average it goes around 100W in casual use (not gaming) and less than 600W even when gaming. An example: As I write this, my full-tower, liquid-cooled, overclocked monster with *two* 1080Ti GPUs, 6 fans and a sinful amount of RGB lighting...is using all of 104W. I know this because I have it wired through a meter so I can monitor the power use (testing for UPS sizing - but that's another story lol). Granted, mine will creep on up to around 900W when it's being stress tested - but that's not typical for 'normal' use, and as I said I have two 1080Tis (they're rated at 250W *each*).

With all that said, it is a good idea to allow some 'cushion' when looking at PSU wattage, but generally speaking anything beyond about 100W over your actual load is really just wasted money. One potential exception might be if you knew you were planning an upgrade to a card that uses a lot more power and you wanted to migrate/reuse the PSU - obviously you'd have to factor that in. But, after 40+ years in the industry, I tend to think of the concept of 'future proofing' as a fool's errand....there really is no such thing. There is simply no amount of money you can spend that will prevent technology from coming out with something better, faster, and smarter - usually in a year or less.

Best bet, unless you've been trained or have extensive, first-hand electrical/electronic experience, I'd politely suggest you consult someone who has smile

One final note: If someone can afford all that high-end PC stuff, they also have to factor in paying a higher power bill to keep it all properly cooled in the summer months (BTUs of cooling is a part of any data center's cost calculation). I personally installed a dedicated window unit in my shop/office/computer-gaming room...hideous to look at but works a treat smile Same applies to power protection; my UPS was over $400...nothing amuses me more than people bragging about their $2000 graphics card, installed in a $2000 computer, with a $2000 monitor...all plugged into a $25 surge suppressor biggrin biggrin biggrin

Being a computer professional involves a lot more than buying a box of parts at NewEgg wink For some reason, no one would think of representing themselves in court, or doing surgery on themselves...but everyone knows all about computers...just check these forums any time lol
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/22 11:29 AM

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I generally agree.

I do notice that when I'm gaming for several hours with my "medium power" gaming system (noted below), my home office (~400sf) temperature rises -- but, only a couple degrees (we have air conditioning or heat on all the time which moderates things) . I do feel it when using the PC (sitting near it). Not a comfort issue in my case -- as you note.

Like you, I have a couple nominally uninterruptible 1500VA/900W power supplies for the system (CyberPower) -- one for PC -- one for everything else attached to the PC. My wife's office system (separate room) also has one 1350VA/815W (her power draw is always low). One consideration when picking the size was "how long the battery will last" if we have a power failure. Like you, I don't want our systems ruined or important data trashed by a sudden spike or power outage. smile

I do intend to change my CPU and GPU to the upcoming models late this year (or next year) -- if/when they hit MSRP. So, I'm interested in how much power they will "actually" use -- as opposed to "rumor based" estimates. But, the rumors get me thinking about it.

Edit: Incorrect PSU power ratings are corrected. Done from memory initially -- now checked visually.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/22 11:39 AM

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Cyberattack Targeting NVIDIA Completely Compromises Parts of Its Business, Company Rep States They Are Currently Investigating The Incident

In their exclusive report, The Telegraph reports that the cyberattack was initiated at the same time as the Russian cyber warfare division started their offensive against Ukraine.

The scale of this attack is currently unknown but it clearly seems to be a major one as NVIDIA had to take several systems offline to pacify the intrusion before it could spread further.

“The ultimate concern is that somebody may have put something in one of the software updates,” Dr Woodward said, pointing to the devastating SolarWinds hack that exploited American software companies to gain access to US government computer systems.

NVIDIA will now have to ensure that their services and the software they are providing to end-users is entirely free of any viruses or malicious code that could affect them.


Not Nvidia's fault if they are cyberattacked. The attacker and depth of the problem is media speculation at this time.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/22 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I generally agree.

I do notice that when I'm gaming for several hours with my "medium power" gaming system (noted below), my home office (~400sf) temperature rises -- but, only a couple degrees (we have air conditioning or heat on all the time which moderates things) . I do feel it when using the PC (sitting near it). Not a comfort issue in my case -- as you note.

Like you, I have a couple nominally uninterruptible 1500W power supplies for the system (CyberPower) -- one for PC -- one for everything else attached to the PC. My wife's office system (separate room) also has one 1500W (her power draw is always low). One consideration when picking the size was "how long the battery will last" if we have a power failure. Like you, I don't want our systems ruined or important data trashed by a sudden spike or power outage. smile

I do intend to change my CPU and GPU to the upcoming models late this year (or next year) -- if/when they hit MSRP. So, I'm interested in how much power they will "actually" use -- as opposed to "rumor based" estimates. But, the rumors get me thinking about it.


Yeah, people without specific training tend to forget that electronics is not magic, it's math. So they often lack detailed understanding of how the stuff works, which can (and often does) lead to over-spending where it's not necessary and/or accomplishes little.

The newer GPUs are rumored to use considerably more power, so yours is one of the instances where it makes sense to have a bit extra capacity in the PSU. Prior to the latest cards - that is, for all GPUs before PCIe 4.0 - the PCIe 3.0 spec limited GPU power to 300W. Obviously the newer models exceed that (but only a couple, and even then, not by much). "Switched mode" PSUs (the type that PC power supplies are, vs the older 'linear' types) operate most efficiently at around 50% load...so if you add a monster new GPU that uses say 350W to a rule-of-thumb allowance of 300W system, that puts you around 650W total. When it's running games, it would probably approach 50% of a 1000W PSU and would thus be in a fairly efficient load state during that time. While you're not gaming, it's probably a lot like mine and uses ~100W and unfortunately the efficiency typically goes to crap (comparatively) at low loads, on even very high end PSUs.

However, this also illustrates the problem with the argument for buying an over-sized PSU because of efficiency: In a lot of cases, the machine's not actually being used at the 50% load point, so the efficiency goes out the window anyway. Unless the machine is used for gaming any time it's on, and never used for anything else, there's a very strong chance it's not running at the 90+% efficiency of the Gold, Platinum, or even Titanium "80+" rating, and thus efficiency becomes a moot point. Titanium rated units are only rated 90% efficient at 10% load - and the other levels of 80+ efficiency don't even include ratings for loads less than 20%. So, the objective facts don't seem to support the efficiency argument smile Power supplies are just not 100% efficient, and although there are better and worse designs, at the end of the day even good ones are still not going to be running at peak efficiency when running at low loads.

Incidentally, there are very good, very reliable sets of data for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs as follows:

List of Nvidia GPUs

List of AMD GPUs

Those two pages list essentially every GPU made by either of the two manufacturers, with all the specs in table format. Very useful, and I've never found a single inaccuracy in any of the table data; it is basically as per the manufacturer's specs. If you look over toward the right-most columns, you'll see the power ratings for even the newest GPUs. Now, this is by spec for the so-called 'reference design', and the AIB partners (companies like MSI eVGA etc who actually make cards) will often have their own specs for GPU power...but the pages linked above are a good place to start.

Also, an excellent online tool for determining PSU capacity:
Extreme PSU Calculator

Some PSU manufacturers have PSU calculators on their websites (I know eVGA does), but those are people who sell power supplies, and they are given to over-rating, hence I prefer to use the one I listed first. Still, it never hurts to check multiple sources.

If I can ask, which model of CyberPower UPS do you have? I own several of them myself. They seem to me to be good units, never had any trouble with mine.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/26/22 05:18 PM

Attached are the one's I bought over the years. My wife's is the 1350VA. Parenthetically: I noticed my brain fart -- wrote 1500W above -- but specification actually 1500VA/900W.

I've had a couple battery failures (only one battery purchased -- the 2 items on the battery purchase refer to the battery and a totally unrelated item).

Edit: You got me interested. So, I bought the replacement batteries (2 needed for my "spare" CyberPower BRG1500AVRLCD -- $45 for 2). thumbsup

Edit: Their here and installed.

Attached picture Allen_In-House_PSUs.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-06 071540.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/22 12:40 PM

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is now being shipped out of the factory, could launch later this month

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the upcoming 8-core and 16-thread CPU for AM4 socket. This CPU is based on Vermeer-X architecture which is part of the Zen3 desktop product family. So far this is the only part to feature AMD’s latest technology called 3D V-Cache which is essentially a large Level 3 cache installed right on top of the compute chiplet.

AMD is claiming that its new CPU is able to compete with Intel’s latest 12th Gen Core i9-12900K processor, which is the currently top SKU in the Alder Lake product lineup. However, Intel is also preparing an even faster CPU called i9-12900KS, which is essentially a pre-binned chip with a maximum boost clock of 5.5 GHz. One thing is clear though, the competition in the high-end CPU market has never been this fierce.


A Rumor/Leak. As noted previously, this CPU is intended to equal or exceed Intel's best new gaming CPUs. Its a "stopgap" until later this year (possibly by June) when the Zen 4 CPUs will be released.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/22 03:41 PM

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It's Happening! AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs Get Major Retailer-Specific Price Cuts: Ryzen 9 5950X Now at $599, 5900X at $449, 5800X at $299, 5600X at $229

these are some seriously impressive deals if you consider the value of each AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU respective to its 12th Gen Alder Lake competitor.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/03/22 02:18 PM

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Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) group combines AMD, Arm, Google, Intel, TSMC and more

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE), AMD, Arm, Google Cloud, Intel Corporation, Meta, Microsoft Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company revealed the construction of an industry consortium to designate a die-to-die to interconnect guideline and encourage an open chipset ecosystem.

Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) is an open specification that defines the interconnect between chiplets within a package, enabling an open chiplet ecosystem and ubiquitous interconnect at the package level.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-03 091713.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/22 03:06 PM

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Intel and AMD officially confirm all shipments to Russia and Belarus have been suspended

Intel and AMD have both confirmed today it will suspend all shipments to Russia and Belarus amid sanctions imposed by the governments in respective countries. What this means is that both countries are now cut off from a global supply of the latest technologies for both the consumer and data center (supercomputer, military, networking) sectors.

The ban should not have an impact on global sales, as Russian government accounts for only 0.1% of global shipments, notes Tom’s Hardware. However, the shipment ban is to expand into other products as well, as TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor company, is reportedly complying with the sanctions. This means that even the home-grown and TSMC-made Baikal chip will not be shipped to Russia.


Quote
Microsoft Stops Selling Products in Russia
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/22 12:53 PM

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AMD rumored to launch Ryzen 5 5500/5600 and Ryzen 7 5700X this month

[Rumor Text]
AMD will release 4 new CPUs this month:
R5-5500 6C6T
R5-5600 6C12T
R7-5700X 8C16T
R7-5800X3D 8C16T
5500 has the same price as 12100, 5600 will be cheaper than 12400, and 5700X will be cheaper than 12600KF.

[End Rumor Text]

Later this month the company will also launch Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 96MB of total L3 Cache. This push of Zen3 architecture for desktop AM4 socket appears to be the last major update for the socket before AMD switches to AM5 and Ryzen 7000 Zen4 “Raphael” architecture.


I notice NewEgg and Amazon are selling AMD 5000 series CPUs at the best markdowns ever. This is all about matching Intel price competition. Competition is good smile

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/22 01:01 PM

Quote
AMD RDNA 2 ‘Radeon 680M’ Integrated GPU Shines In Latest Gaming Tests, Delivers A Respectable 40-60 FPS In Modern AAA Games at 1080p

The AMD RDNA 2 'Radeon 680M' integrated GPU featured on the Ryzen 6000 APUs is a mini-power house, featuring the fastest performance of any iGPU out there.

Its performance is said to be much faster than NVIDIA's GeForce MX450 (25W) GPU which comes as a discrete solution and can even outperform the GeForce GTX 1650M Max-Q solution when FSR is enabled. FSR obviously gives a huge advantage to AMD's RDNA 2 core architecture as DLSS is only supported by RTX solutions. The 680M configuration of the Radeon iGPU rocks up to 3.4 TFLOPs of single-precision performance. For comparison, that's just 15% behind the 4 TFLOPs performance of the Xbox Series S console.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/22 04:41 PM

TSMC provides AMD CPU & GPU chips:

Quote
TSMC Executive Says Chip Shortage to Last Several More Years

Dr. Mii offered a very simple explanation for both the cause of the chip shortage, and why it won’t be ending any time soon: supply and demand.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/06/22 12:13 PM

Quote
AMD, Intel and NVIDIA all to release new desktop graphics cards in the next few months

For the first time in nearly 24 years, we will be seeing GPU releases from three companies in the next few months.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/07/22 02:14 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon & NVIDIA GeForce GPU Prices Hit New Low As Availability Improves, Now Selling at 35-40% Over MSRP


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-07 090854.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/22 04:23 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D to cost $449, launches April 20

AMD’s first Ryzen processor equipped with 3D V-Cache memory, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, now has a release date: April 20. According to Disclosuzen, who near perfect track record, this CPU will launch at 449 USD, the original price of Ryzen 7 5800.

AMD is also launching 6-core Ryzen 5 CPUs: 5600 and 5500. Contrary to previous report, both SKUs supposedly have SMT enabled (so they have 12 threads).


AMD says Ryzen 7 5800X3D will tie or beat Intel in gaming (depending on the game). We'll see if it sells at MSRP.

The Ryzen 7 5800 is available for $100 under MSRP now -- $350 (Newegg, Amazon). All the original Ryzen 5000s seem to be on special sale.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-08 112235.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/22 04:27 PM

Quote
AMD Details Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-Series, Zen 3 up to 64 Cores

AMD announced today that the 'Chagall' Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-series processors will be available to OEM and system integrator partners on March 21, 2022. AMD's new 5000 WX-Series models bring higher clock speeds up to 4.5 GHz, the Zen 3 microarchitecture with a 19% IPC improvement, eight channels of DDR4 memory, 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0, and unified L3 cache to AMD's workstation lineup that spans from 12 cores up to the halo 64-core 128-thread Threadripper Pro 5995WX model.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/22 10:47 AM

Quote
AMD To Unveil Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6650 XT RDNA 2 Refresh Graphics Cards on 20th April: 18 Gbps, Black Edition Reference Designs

Our sources have confirmed this and in addition to that, there are also reports that the new cards will feature the midnight black edition reference variants though the availability of them isn't confirmed yet.


Like many folks, I await the 7000 series GPUs to be released later this year -- at MSRP (whenever MSRP happens).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/22 10:14 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090-class GPU with 600W TGP has reportedly been confirmed

Granted, we are only talking about the flagship models for now, but 600W graphics cards are still something that many of us simply cannot comprehend.

The RTX 40 series should all use PCIe Gen5 power connector, so with a TGP of 600W, these cards should still be within the specs of a singular cable. The 16-pin power cable along with the PCIe slot can deliver up to 675W of power.


Nvidia long ago said they would do whatever it took to have the highest FPS GPUs. AMD long ago said they would not handle things that way -- but would be competitive (i.e. fast enough to play the games -- usually for less money). And, so it continues.

Intel and Nvidia use "factory overclocks" to stay a few percent ahead of AMD (usually "measurable" but not "visible" in a test where folks don't know the measurements beforehand). But, factory overclocks have extra costs for power and cooling -- i.e. the extra FPS usually have hidden costs.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-13 060622.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/16/22 04:23 PM

Quote
AMD driver with Radeon Super Resolution coming tomorrow

AMD Radeon Super Resolution is the latest spatial upscaling technique based on FidelityFX Super Resolution technology.

AMD RSR works the same way FSR does, except it does not require developer’s integration, but instead works on a driver level for all supported titles. This means that RSR will support more games (AMD claims thousands), but it also means that it will offer slightly lower quality than FSR.

The press deck for tomorrow’s RSR launch also mentions that the technology will work only with Radeon RX 5000 and newer GPUs. There won’t be Polaris/Vega supports for RSR, at least for now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/22 01:02 PM

Quote
AMD Confirms Ryzen 7 5800X3D Is Not Overclockable

AMD has never listed the overclocking capability of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, so it is not particularly surprising that the part does not support it.

Good news is that AMD believes that the extra cache will not only compensate lower clocks, but will allow make the Ryzen 7 5800X3D part a better choice for gaming. Meanwhile, it should be noted that AMD stresses gaming performance, so 3D V-Cache may not be that efficient for other types of applications.

[Per AMD] "On the other hand, fabric overclocking remains enabled, memory overclocking remains enabled, and we know that our parts get the most benefit from that anyway."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/22 11:22 AM

Quote
Apple M1 Ultra Chip Is Nearly 3 Times Bigger Than AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, Benchmarks Show Desktop Intel & AMD CPUs Still Ahead

But there are reasons why this chip is so huge, you see not only is the M1 Ultra an MCM chip that fuses two M1 Max dies together but it also has a huge 64-core GPU, all the IO & even the memory on the same package. The Ultra SOC still utilizes the 5nm process node but the doubling provides up to 114 Billion transistors on the same package.

The M1 Ultra barely competes with the Intel Core i9-12900K and AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and there are no power numbers included either.

It looks like the [Apple provided] official benchmarks were performed under select-workloads that favor the M1 Ultra CPU and not with real-world applications.


Apple was claiming to beat AMD and Intel CPUs. As always, one should wait for independent 3'd party testing on released parts to get realistic CPU or GPU performance.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-19 071537.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/19/22 05:06 PM

Quote
Intel Announces Massive European Megafab

Intel may be hard at work on its upcoming Ohio megafab, but when it comes to chip making, it isn’t stopping there. This week, the hardware and software giant announced it plans to build a $19 billion megafab in Germany as it renews its investment in European manufacturing.

Intel estimates these factories will create 7,000 construction-related jobs during the building phase, 3,000 permanent jobs once construction is complete, and thousands of other economic opportunities across its partners and suppliers.

Intel intends to begin construction on the megafab in early 2023, given it receives all necessary green lights from the European Commission. Actual chip production is set to begin in 2027.


Good -- for multiple reasons!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/21/22 12:17 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Selling at 35% Below MSRP in Germany

Taking another view of the above figures, the Radeon RX 6500 XT sells about 35% below MSRP in Europe. If the same discount were applied to the US MSRP, we would be seeing these graphics cards advertised by retailers at about $130.

PC enthusiasts and gamers might not be that interested in the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT due to its panning by reviewers.


I may have a low end use for one at $130US. We'll see if Amazon or Newegg matches such a low price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/22/22 03:05 PM

Quote
GPU Prices are falling, March 2022 update shows 10-13% drop on eBay listings
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/22 10:04 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is slightly slower than 5800X in Single-Core and 9% faster in Multi-Core test

First independent benchmark results featuring AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 5000 CPU with 3D V-Cache.

Officially, AMD is claiming that its X3D part is on average 15% faster than Ryzen 9 5900X in games. In addition, the company also confirmed that the additional 64 MB cache will show better results in games, rather than synthetic benchmarks.

The Geekbench CPU scores appears to be a good example of that. With no performance uplift in single-core test, the CPU is actually still able to score 9% higher in multi-core, and that’s despite featuring lower clock speeds.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-23 060343.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/23/22 03:19 PM

RX 6500XT (2 Fan custom version) at MSRP: I had to buy one -- just for the fun of it biggrin

I've been wanting a cheap card to replace an old, low performance RX 550. This RX 6500XT (2 Fan custom version) was selling for MSRP -- includes 2 free games (to choose from) or game pass. Said to out perform RX570 -- we'll see.

Selling for a legitimate MSRP is what sold me. The game is a bonus smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-23 110724.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/22 03:10 PM

I put my RX6500XT 4GB GPU Test Report into the Graphics Card Advice Needed thread. Since there was a relevant thread, I said way more than needed smile

Although at the bottom end of the GPU spectrum, it did better than I expected at 1080p and 1440p. It outperformed an older RX580.

Bottom line: I liked it for my purposes using my personal criteria (performance/price). But, not selling them.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/22 05:05 PM

Quote
U.S. Lifts Chinese Import Tariffs Hitting GPUs, Motherboards

The development means PCBs coming from China are now free from the 7.5%-25% additional import duties levied at them, which went into effect in January 2021 when the provisions excluding these products expired. This could, in theory, translate into lower prices for some of the best motherboards and graphics cards. Of course, that's the best case scenario that assumes companies will be passing these savings on to consumers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/22 05:08 PM

Quote
Signs of the Apocalypse: Nvidia Considers Using Intel’s Foundry Service

According to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, his company is considering using Intel to manufacture Nvidia chips.

The main reason is because they need redundancy in their supply lines and Intel is already a partner of theirs.

TSMC is its preferred partner, for now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/22 03:32 PM

Quote
GPU prices are at their lowest in 15 months, could fall to ‘attractive’ level already in May

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPU are now ‘just’ 25% more expensive than MSRP in Germany and Austria

Ever since 3DCenter started analyzing graphics card pricing (January 2021), the latest graphics cards were never cheaper. It all began with increased US tariffs on electronic components, a sudden popularity of working from home and increased value of cryptocurrency. The tariffs have been dropped last week, the cryptomarket has stagnated and people are going back to their workplaces.

This means that graphics cards can finally return to the originally intended price levels, and there is a good reason to believe that will happen soon.


That "bottom end" gaming AMD RX6500XT GPU I bought cost MSRP ($220 which included a free game). Its designed for 1080p at medium resolution. But, it outperformed that (my verbose opinions are in the "Graphics card advice needed" thread). Some Gaming RX6900XT cards are only 25% above Reference card MSRP on Amazon and Newegg -- so, maybe they are only roughly 10% to 15% overpriced.

The fact that much-much faster cards are due from AMD and Nvidia later this year should be factored into any buying decision.

Attached picture AMD-nVidia-Retail-Price-Trend-2021-2022-v5.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/28/22 10:24 PM

Quote
ASUS slashing GPU prices by up to 25% starting April, but only for the United States (for now)

Not an April’s Fool joke.

a good outlook for GPUs to reach the original MSRP at some point in the next two months.

"Lower prices will affect entry level GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3060, mid-range RTX 3070 and high performance RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards."

— ASUS representative to Tom’s Hardware


If so, pricing is getting better faster than I expected (based on the forebodings I've been reading -- article author guesses). This is a "we'll see" in two months.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/29/22 08:54 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti launches at 1999 USD

The MSRP of the new flagship RTX 30 GPU has been confirmed to be 500 USD over RTX 3090.

The RTX 3090 Ti will launch at 1999 USD, which is the suggested retail price for the Founder’s Edition. Most custom models are more than likely to cost more. From what we have been told, some big US retailers already have thousands of the cards in stock and more coming, which given how niche such a model SKU is, it shouldn’t sell out quickly.


On paper, its only 7% faster than the RTX3090 -- so, at 33% higher MSRP, its mostly for folks who need the fastest card made for its own sake. Typically, most folks can only "measure" such an increase in FPS -- not "see" it in game (a professional "twitch" gamer may argue differently). But, owning a high specification gaming PC gives satisfaction -- so, its the right choice for some folks.

I'm posting because of our interest in seeing what it actually sells for. Stores have them in quantity (they say). Prices of well stocked GPUs are supposed to be coming down fast during the next two months.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-29 043433.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/29/22 04:35 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 8 Core CPU To Offer Same Performance As Ryzen 7 5800X For $150 US Less

The benchmarks show that the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, despite being $150 US cheaper, is right there with the more expensive 5800X. This should be a phenomenal 8 Core CPU to upgrade on your existing AM4 platform.


MSRP is $299.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/29/22 09:06 PM

Nominally reliable Leak/Rumor:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 “Raphael” reportedly enters mass production soon

AMD is now set to begin mass production of the next installment in the Ryzen series at earliest in April or May. This means that the product launch is now just months away

it is probably safe to assume AMD might be ready to launch Raphael already in early fourth quarter. This would be just in time to compete with Intel 13th Gen Core “Raptor Lake”.

AMD Ryzen 7000 series is expected to feature up to 16 cores designed in 5 nm Zen4 microarchitecture. Rumors suggest that the fastest part will reach a TDP of 170W. In January, AMD was demonstrated the first Raphael chips with a sustained all-core clock of 5 GHz.


I'm tentatively planning on getting a 6 or 8 core version (at MSRP) -- assuming it works as speculated.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-29 165552.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-03-29 165506.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/31/22 08:51 AM

Quote
AMD Processor/Graphic Card Purchases Come with 1-Month Xbox PC Game Pass for Free

For a limited time, if you purchase an AMD Graphics Card or Ryzen Processor from their supported list, you can also get one month of Xbox Game Pass for PC for free as an additional bonus. You can view the list of supported processors and graphics cards here, as only certain products apply. To list a few in each category, there are: [see attachment for partial listing]


Just information. These lists are not complete. For example, my recent RX6500XT came with this.

Attached picture Untitled-4.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/22 11:25 AM

These are "laptop" GPUs.

Quote
AMD claims superiority of Radeon RX 6500M over Intel Arc A370M graphics

AMD decided to greet ‘a new player’ in the discrete gaming GPU space by providing their own benchmarks in relation to the fastest (so far) released Arc Alchemist GPU. .. Intel did not sample Arc-based products to reviewers,

In a graph posted by AMD today, we learn that RX 6500M is faster in at least five games that were tested at 1080p resolution with medium settings.


Of course, AMD picked these games. We await 3'd party testing.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-04-01 070142.jpg
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Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/22 12:40 PM

I'm sure they picked the 'correct' games to showcase their products.

Generally, if you want performance over everything else, it has to be an Intel/Nvidia combo when it comes to laptop gaming. At least that's what I'm seeing over the past 3-4 months of watching reviews on every gaming laptop that's on the market.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/02/22 12:07 PM

Published April 1st, so I waited smile Its not really news, I've read this basic AMD 7000 series GPU rumor/leak for months. How do they do it? Its multi-chip -- maybe the modern Crossfire (or SLI). Won't know til its released for 3'd party tests.

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7950 XT ‘RDNA 3’ Graphics Card Rumored Specs Detailed: 15360 Cores, 32 GB Memory, 512 MB Infinity Cache Up To 2.5 GHz & 500W TBP

The new specifications align with what we have previously heard but it looks like AMD could be planning to introduce multiple Navi 31 SKUs in the coming Radeon RX 7000 series family.

Note, this post is not an April Fool's story and Greymon55 even confirms so in his replies.

we have heard from our own sources that AMD isn't planning to adopt the new 16-pin (12+4) connector standard any time soon


My RX5700XT is on the attachment for comparison. Taking the most optimistic view, the new RX7950XT have more than 5 times the FPS in some cases.

I can't imagine this will be in my price range. smile But, we'll see. biggrin

Attached picture Navi31.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/04/22 10:13 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6950X, RX 6750XT and RX 6650 XT pictured, release date moved to May 10th

What all those cards have in common are the new memory spec of 18 Gbps, however we are still in a process of confirming the exact changes that were applied to those new SKU. Higher boost clocks and higher board power is still on a table.

All this should become clear by May 10th.


Attached picture Cards.jpg
Attached picture Specifications.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/22 05:19 PM

AMD RX 6900XT GPUs selling for virtually original reference edition MSRP (even after recent inflation).

Original MSRP over a year ago was $1000. These are going for $1020 and $1000 after discount and rebate.

Attached picture RX6900XT.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/13/22 06:38 PM

Apparently, Game Developers were not getting the most out of AMD Ray Tracing on 6000 series GPUs. The following may fix that in some cases -- we'll see.

Quote
AMD develops HIP RT Library: Allows developers a simpler but robust ray tracing application for modern development

AMD releases HIP RT (Ray Tracing), adding a new ray-tracing library in the Heterogeneous Interface for Portability, or HIP. HIP RT simplifies writing a ray tracing application in the HIP by utilizing the library and API created to be straightforward and effortless to incorporate into any current HIP applications.

AMD's HIP RT is created to permit developers to utilize the Ray Accelerators' complete advantages for ray tracing in AMD RDNA 2 GPUs. AMD RDNA 2 architecture-based graphics processors support hardware ray tracing acceleration to optimize render times. Before, applications that support HIP had not had access to operating this hardware acceleration.


P.S. Newegg still has two RX6900XT cards at effectively MSRP ($1000 and $1020) -- after rebate. These look like one of the the best current deals for performance/price. I was tempted -- but, the 7000 series may be here in just a few months (3 times as many shaders) smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 09:36 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU Price Drop Continues: Ryzen 9 5950X 16 Core For As Low As $539 US, Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core For $394 US

AMD is taking steps to ensure that its AM4 platform can still grow in terms of market share. So far, the red team has launched several mainstream Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 4000 Desktop CPU options, will soon be introducing its fastest gaming chip yet, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and it looks like retailers have been directed to offer huge discounts on the existing Ryzen 5000 CPUs.


Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU Beats Intel Core i9-12900K In Gaming Benchmarks Despite Alder Lake Using High-End DDR5 Memory


Competition is good. smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-04-14 053240.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 03:04 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Review Roundup


Over two dozen review articles are linked at the link.

Review Roundup Page

Attached picture 5800X3D.jpg
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Allen

P.S. Newegg still has two RX6900XT cards at effectively MSRP ($1000 and $1020) -- after rebate. These look like one of the the best current deals for performance/price. I was tempted -- but, the 7000 series may be here in just a few months (3 times as many shaders) smile


I bought the XFX Ultimate Black Ed. of this card on Newegg before the price-drop, and I don't regret it at all. The thing is a beast, and powers through DCS, IL-2 BoS, Red Dead R2 and all the rest...
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
Originally Posted by Allen

P.S. Newegg still has two RX6900XT cards at effectively MSRP ($1000 and $1020) -- after rebate. These look like one of the the best current deals for performance/price. I was tempted -- but, the 7000 series may be here in just a few months (3 times as many shaders) smile


I bought the XFX Ultimate Black Ed. of this card on Newegg before the price-drop, and I don't regret it at all. The thing is a beast, and powers through DCS, IL-2 BoS, Red Dead R2 and all the rest...


I currently have an MSI GamingZ Trio 6900XT in the shop I've been testing with - and recently AMD added Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) in their driver for 5000 and 6000 series GPUs...

I got a huge frame rate boost in RDR2, without any real difference I could notice (of course, I'm blind lol). But with almost everything set at Ultra, at 4k/120Hz FreeSync, I was getting 100+ FPS average and higher max FPS than the monitor's refresh rate.

It's nuts. My son has a 2070 Super, and I'm waiting for him to get back to me on running DLSS with his setup since RDR2 supports it. Obviously it won't do what the 6900XT will, and DLSS is presumably better than RSR - but teh RSR is plenty impressive and doesn't require developers/games to have built-in support.

I'll tell you what, these new scaling technologies are just remarkable. If you haven't tried RSR...you should wink If you do, I'd be very interested to hear how you make out in DCS. I planned to test it myself just didn't get that far yet biggrin biggrin biggrin
Posted By: Chucky

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 05:07 PM

The list of games that support DLSS isn't that large at the moment but it grows all the time.

I've just got an RTX3070 machine and I only own a few games that support it but have not run comparisons yet. It seems to make the biggest difference in e-sport titles but they tend to not be too demanding anyway.

The games I own that support it are Death Stranding, BF5, Martha Is Dead and No Man's Sky. The one game I wished supported it is Star Citizen. Hopefully they will add it this century...
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 06:33 PM

Yeah, that's the thing that, IMHO, makes RSR "better" - it (supposedly) works on any title. Mind you, most competent reviews have concluded DLSS is better in terms of quality**, which I wouldn't dispute. And I'm hoping to try more with DLSS, but - as you said - it's limited by title support. (Plus it happens that, while I have quite a few high-end AMD cards in the shop right now, I have no 20 or 30-series Nvidia GPUs, which would be required for DLSS.)

But for me, if RSR looks good enough (and it does, to me), then what I consider "better" is the fact that it can be useful in so many more instances. And what I saw it do for RDR2 was just fantastic...average frame rates went from ~70 to 100...more than 40% improvement eek

(To be accurate, I'd freely admit my own testing of these things is very limited to this point)

**EDIT: These reviews were usually comparing DLSS to AMD FSR, not RSR. AMD even says FSR is preferred over RSR - so by inference, I'm guessing RSR<FSR<DLSS although I haven't seem anything yet that I could distinguish that dissuades me.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/22 07:40 PM

Quote
NVIDIA says GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards are now in stock, announces “Restocked & Reloaded” campaign

What appeared to be a promotion of individual shops, is actually a global event prepared by NVIDIA.

Graphics cards have been restocked and reloaded. NVIDIA today announced that their RTX 30 graphics cards have been resupplied and should now be available to gamers. Multiple graphics card companies and retailers have informed about new shipments of NVIDIA GPUs. Some cards are available at MSRP, others received a price cut.


Some RTX 3090 Nvidia GPUs seem close to reference card MSRP (or maybe actual MSRP for non-reference models) on Newegg. Presumably, more will be close to MSRP over the next few weeks. We'll see.

Still a gaming AMD RX6900XT for $1000 (reference card MSRP) at Newegg. It originally sold for $1600.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/22 12:35 PM

I notice MSI Mech Radeon RX 6700 XT for $515 on Newegg. MSRP for a reference RX6700XT is $480. So, this price is close to MSRP for a gaming RX 6700 XT.

For comparison, back when I bought my gaming RX5700XT 50th Anniversary, it cost me $450. Another way to say the better performing RX 6700 XT asking price is virtually within reason.

Prices seem to be coming down as some articles have stated.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/15/22 12:55 PM

Quote
Next-Gen flagship GPU rumors: NVIDIA “Ada” GA102 with 21 Gbps memory, AMD’s “RDNA3” Navi 31 with 7 chiplets, Intel “Battlemage” with 20480 cores

[Intel] Battlemage is not launching till 2023/2024, but there is a chance it will become available as RTX 4090 and RX 7900XT are still on the market.


As previously rumored, we're looking at twice the FPS at the highest end of the product lines. Price will be the issue.

The Intel "highest end" will probably be "behind" Nvidia and AMD for another couple years. Being a "wealthy company", Intel can afford to compete well on performance/price -- if not pure performance.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/18/22 12:01 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards are now ‘only’ 12% over MSRP in Germany and Austria

GPU manufacturers are now expected to introduce next-gen GPUs in 5 to 6 months. AMD is also set to introduce an updated RDNA2 RX 6x50XT series in May. With the current prices successively going down at this pace, there is a very good chance the next report will already show various models at MSRP.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-04-18 075928.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/21/22 10:05 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6400 Launched at $159 US: First RDNA Graphics Card To Come In Low-Profile Flavors, 53W TDP Aimed at Entry-Level PCs

The Radeon RX 6400 is an entry-level solution that offers slightly better GPU performance and capabilities over integrated graphics without requiring lots of power. The card will also come with compact designs, making it the perfect candidate for your HTPC or SFF PCs.


Checking at Newegg and Amazon, the USA prices for AMD 6000 series GPUs is reasonable or close to reasonable for a few cards. Mainly a couple 6900 and a couple 6500 a 6700 and a couple 6400. But, the 7000s are coming soon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/24/22 10:02 AM

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NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU Prices Fall Of A Cliff Overnight In Australia, Global Prices Should Follow


Most of the AMD RX 6000 series GPUs have a couple at Newegg very close to (or at) MSRP. The RX 6800 XTs remain overpriced. Get an RX 6900 XT at nearly MSRP. Or wait for the 7000 series.

I'm not as familiar with Newegg Nvidia GPU prices. But, Nvidia prices still seem high (by my standards) at Newegg. Makes sense as they are more popular with gamers and gamers are willing to pay more for them.

As previously mentioned several times, Nvidia has long advertised that "we're the highest FPS" (price is secondary) -- and, so far, they are. AMD has long said they won't fight the maximum FPS battle -- they're more interested in providing the best Overall-Performance/Price ratio.

I bought another R5 5600G CPU/GPU to update an HTPC (replaces R7 1800X CPU and RX550 GPU). Cost $178 (free shipping) from Amazon. Most AMD 5000 series CPUs prices are well below MSRP now.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/22 06:56 PM

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AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 Platform Will Only Support DDR5 Memory, Comes With EXPO ‘Memory Profile’ Technology

AMD's representatives confirmed that Raphael, codename for Ryzen 7000 CPUs based on Zen 4 core architecture, will be their first DDR5 gaming platform. As such, users running DDR4 memory will have to say goodbye when moving to the new platform.

[Intel] is providing their users with the options to select between both DDR5 and DDR4 choices. AMD might be in a difficult position as they won't have a higher-end option that comes with DDR4 memory support and users will have to pay much higher prices to hop onboard the new standard.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/22 10:26 AM

AMD GPU prices still slowly falling -- the very best deals are decent.

Best example I saw today: The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING OC is now selling for $950 (after rebate) at Newegg (sale ends April 30). That's $50 less than RX 6900 XT "reference card" MSRP.

In a quick look, the RX 6800 XT is the most overpriced AMD model.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/28/22 11:31 AM

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AMD Radeon RX 7000 Graphics Card Launch Schedules Rumored: Navi 31 For Radeon RX 7900 Series In Q4 2022, Navi 32 For Radeon RX 7800 Series in 1H 2023

the AMD Navi 31 and Navi 32 GPUs will utilize an MCM solution but there's a possibility that the Navi 31 GPU could make use of 3D-Stacking while the Navi 32 GPU could make of a standard multi-die approach

Both the Navi 31 and Navi 32 GPUs will be composed of 6nm IO (MCD) and 5nm GPU (GCD) chiplets.

the AMD Navi 31 GPU will appear within the flagship Radeon RX 7900 series by end of Q4 2022. Do note that the Navi 33 GPUs based on 6nm Monolithic dies will be the first to hit shelves. The Navi 32 GPUs for the Radeon RX 7800 series will launch in the first half of 2023.


Thus, according to rumors: RX 7000 series still roughly 7 to 10 months away. The rumored/estimated price for the top RX 7900 XT GPU is in the "up to $2000" range. Its rumored/estimated to be 5 to 6 times the FPS of my RX 5700 XT (the RX 6900 XT is 2 times the FPS of my RX 5700 XT and currently one model is on sale for $950). So, MSRP/actual-cost will remain an issue for top cards. We'll see.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/29/22 09:38 PM

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[Rumors/Leaks] AMD Ryzen 7000 Series Release Date, Specifications, Price, and Benchmarks

Ryzen 7000 is expected in 2H of 2022.

New leaks from Chinese forums suggest that the Ryzen 7000s could release earlier than originally thought. Specifically in late July or early August. Another leaker supports this release date (as reported by BollyInside).

The Zen 4 CPUs will be called Ryzen 7000, and they are the final answer to Intel’s Alder Lake.

[Power Draw]
65W – probably the Ryzen 7600/X SKU. It could either be a 6-core or an 8-core, it’s not confirmed.
105W – Ryzen 7900X, 12-core/24-thread SKU.
170W – high end 7950X 16-core/32-thread CPU.

Ryzen 7000 may have an iGPU. And not just any GPU, but an RDNA 2 one.

Recently, we’ve seen the RDNA 2 iGPUs in the mobile Ryzen 6000 perform incredibly well, blowing Intel’s XE iGPUs out of the water. That’s a good sign for Zen 4.

AMD processors on the 5nm process will be moving to a new platform and leaving AM4 behind. That is not a bad thing

Zen 4 won’t have any support for DDR4 memory, it will support DDR5@5200MHz by default. So, when Ryzen 7000 CPUs and 5000+MHz DDR5 kits release, you can just plug and play.

New DRAM is not the only improvement AM5 will bring. PCIe 5.0 and USB 4.0 will also be introduced. This means more PCIe lanes, faster PCIe lanes, and much faster USB.

Leaks suggest that AM5 will upgrade to LGA and 1718 pins.

To further boost gaming performance on Ryzen processors, AMD introduces 3D V-Cache. A method that allows L3 cache to be 3D stacked.

we believe Ryzen 7000 might be cheaper than the 5000 series.

Ryzen 5 7600X – $279
Ryzen 7 7700X – $359
Ryzen 7 7800X – $419
Ryzen 9 7900X – $499
Ryzen 9 7950X – $759

Keep in mind that you should take all of this with a massive pinch of salt. None of the statements above have been confirmed by any official source. All of these performance numbers are currently only estimates, leaks, allegations, etc.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/22 10:32 AM

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2022 GPU Benchmark and Graphics Card Comparison Chart


All Graphics Cards Compared Chart

Now that GPUs are dropping down to MSRP in price, some folks might be interested in buying one. Hence the link to the long list of GPUs ranked.

The attached picture is only the top of the list. The entire list has virtually all the cards made since 2013. A couple very recent cards are not on the list ( e.g. $2000 MSRP RTX 3090 Ti).

I just grabbed a GIGABYTE Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING OC Video Card, GV-R69XTGAMING OC-16GD for $950 on special sale for a day or two ($50 under RX 6900 XT reference card MSRP). Today the price is back up to $1350 -- wow, lucky me.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/22 03:31 PM

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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger anticipates the end of the chip shortages by 2024

That’s part of the reason that we believe the overall semiconductor shortage will now drift into 2024, from our earlier estimates in 2023, just because the shortages have now hit equipment and some of those factory ramps will be more challenged.

— Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO to CNBC
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/01/22 09:13 PM

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Radeon RX 6900 XT, Ryzen 7 5800X3D Are Available at MSRP

The official AMD online retail pages currently list the Radeon RX 6900 XT and Ryzen 7 5800X3D as available and for sale at their respective MSRPs. They are selling for $999 and $449, respectively.



The AMD RX 6900 XT reference model can be had at the AMD on-line store for MSRP ($999).

https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/us

Edit: Reference RX 6900 XT is still there as I write this today. Other GPUs are "out of stock" (as they were yesterday).

R5 5600G APU on sale at both Amazon and Newegg for $180 the last couple days. Based on my tests, the on-board GPU supports light gaming at 1080p. The CPU speed supports very good gaming if one has a very good stand-alone GPU -- so, its a good CPU if one is "on a budget" (the gaming R5-5600X is only $210 today).

So, some bargains continue to show up. I assume that means the new stuff will be with us relatively soon -- so they are moving excess inventory.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/02/22 12:36 PM

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AMD RDNA3 GPUs get new toned down specifications, Navi 31 with up to 12288 Stream Processors

Not 15360 Stream Processor but 12288 for Navi 31 GPU, the flagship processor of the upcoming RDNA3 series. This means that the 92 TFLOPS claim from a few days ago is either wrong, or there is something else that we do not know about yet.

One should remember that we are still months away from the launch of new 3rd Gen Navi GPUs.


Leak/Rumor/Speculation has changed downward for the flagship AMD RX 7000 series GPUs. We won't know the true facts until close to release time. And, performance awaits 3'd party testing.

The lack of certainty is one of the reasons I felt OK about going custom RX 6900 XT now at $50 under reference model MSRP. I will probably eventually buy an RX 7000 series card -- but, with the RX6900XT, I can wait a year or two now. Buying/assembling PC stuff is a hobby. smile
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/02/22 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Allen

I just grabbed a GIGABYTE Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING OC Video Card, GV-R69XTGAMING OC-16GD for $950 on special sale for a day or two ($50 under RX 6900 XT reference card MSRP). Today the price is back up to $1350 -- wow, lucky me.



You'll really enjoy the 6900 XT. It's a true beast of a card at the higher resolutions and even handles ray tracing quite well. I've got the XFX Limited Black Edition, with higher clocks.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/03/22 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
You'll really enjoy the 6900 XT. It's a true beast of a card at the higher resolutions and even handles ray tracing quite well. I've got the XFX Limited Black Edition, with higher clocks.


So far, so good. Wanted 2.0X the performance of my RX5700XT. The RX6900XT gives 2.14X in TimeSpy Extreme and 2.08X in Firestrike Ultra -- success smile

For some odd reason, the games all seem sharper to my eyes -- but, the settings are unchanged from the RX5700XT (basically all ultra settings at 4K) -- unexpected success smile

There is a "quiet setting". I've not tried it -- but, as is, I don't notice the fans -- during non-gaming PC operations, the fans often don't even come on -- success smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/22 10:23 AM

Win a few, lose the rest smile

My new RX6900XT is now selling for $50 less than I payed for it -- $900 after rebate. A true bargain for the performance -- today smile

Hopefully, the low prices presage the release of RX7000 GPUs so powerful that no-one will want an RX6000 series card. We'll see.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/22 03:58 PM

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AMD confirms Zen4 & Ryzen 7000 series lineup: Raphael in 2022, Dragon Range and Phoenix in 2023

The Raphael desktop CPUs based on Zen4 microarchitecture will launch by the end of this year, featuring 65W+ designs. Those will be based on LGA1718 (AM5) socket and will include support for PCIe Gen5 as well as DDR5 memory technology. AMD is not confirming any other information at this time.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/04/22 04:02 PM

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AMD Radeon RX 6950XT is faster than GeForce RTX 3090 Ti according to leaked 3DMark TimeSpy scores


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/05/22 03:08 PM

At Newegg today, lots of AMD RX6000 series GPUs are at or below reference card MSRP. Some a bit higher are probably at custom card MSRP.

Only real outlier is the RX6800XT -- it's overpriced relative to MSRP.

Becoming a "buyer's market".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/22 09:57 AM

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AMD Radeon RX 6950XT to cost $1099, RX 6750XT $549, RX 6650XT $399

The slide confirms that all three cards will be available on May 10th. Our sources tell us that the same date applies to the review embargo.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/22 11:23 PM

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Intel in the water for lack of promised driver updates and GPUs for ARC Graphics

The company's initial plans were to offer an updated driver by the last part of April, including the capability to deactivate optimizations focused on benchmarking. Including this update with the option to activate or deactivate the optimization would allow users to achieve more validity in their UL 3D mark benchmark test scores. With it currently missing, any UL 3D Mark tests processed with included optimization would be considered invalid due to UL's policies.


Apparently, Intel optimized GPU drivers to perform extra well in some "benchmark tests". They aren't the first to do such a thing.

But, as of now, one should be skeptical of Intel GPU benchmark scores when comparing GPUs for purchase. Wait for 3'd party tests on games (I'd say the same for AMD and Nvidia).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/08/22 08:45 PM

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Intel's First Arc Alchemist Gaming Graphics Cards Reportedly Delayed Till Mid Summer 2022, Drivers Cited As The Cause of Delay Once Again

Overall, this isn't looking good at all but hopefully, Intel can put forward a better launch timeframe at its upcoming 'VISION' event followed by more detailed specs and pricing disclosures at Computex 2022 at the end of this month.


Driver problems are not new for Intel. And, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of Computer games -- many needing special driver code adjustments.

AMD and Nvidia have been writing those changes in for years They are mostly up to date; so, there is less work per month to stay current.

Long term, I honestly question Intel's ability to keep drivers up to date -- and, thus, GPU performance up to date over the months and years as the gaming situation changes.

For competitions sake, I hope Intel gets it figured out.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/22 09:26 AM

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AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs With Next-Gen Zen 4 Cores And The AM5 Platform To Release As Early As September 2022

The AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs and the AM5 platform are hotly anticipated by many as it's a completely new ecosystem designed for the next generation of gamers and content creators.

the launch can happen within the next four months but with that said, AMD is also expected to reveal more details at Computex 2022 which will be a major showcase event for Zen 4.

AMD Ryzen 'Zen 4' Desktop CPU Expected Features:

Brand New Zen 4 CPU Cores (IPC / Architectural Improvements)
Brand New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD
Support on AM5 Platform With LGA1718 Socket
Dual-Channel DDR5 Memory Support
28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Exclusive)
65-120W TDPs (Upper Bound Range ~170W)


My current system does all I need. But, given my hobby, I'll probably go "all in" -- if the performance is as rumored, and prices are MSRP.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/22 02:20 PM

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and AMD Radeon RX 6000 pricing drops by 5 percent point, but still not at MSRP

As always, the pricing reflects offers from popular German and Austrian stores. The situation might be much different for other regions.


As noted above, one can buy some AMD Custom cards sometimes at and below Reference Card MSRP at Newegg and Amazon (e.g. my Gaming RX6900XT).

There are still many priced above MSRP. But, one does not have to buy those.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/10/22 10:09 AM

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AMD launches Radeon RX 6950XT, 6750XT and 6650XT graphics cards

The company is quite clear with their marketing materials that RX 6950XT is to compete with RTX 3090 non-Ti model. However, we managed to obtain some comparisons with RTX 3090 Ti as well. AMD RX 6950XT is to retail at 1099 USD, which is 100 USD more than RX 6900XT at launch.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/22 09:44 AM

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AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 is ‘just as good’ as NVIDIA DLSS 2.0, according to the first review

We are just hours from official launch of FSR2, easily the most anticipated AMD software release this year. The company promised a new super-resolution technology that does not rely on AI algorithm and therefore does not require any special acceleration like NVIDIA DLSS with Tensor Cores.

AMD claims that for games that already support competing technology – NVIDIA DLSS – the implementation time for FSR2 is just days

AMD FSR2 will be an open source alternative to DLSS and will also work on GeForce hardware. In fact, the review from TPU is based on GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, not AMD

The reviewer claims that FSR2 is “looks amazing, just as good as DLSS 2.0” [using an RTX 3060]. With image quality sometimes being even better than DLSS, but all this applies to the Quality mode.


As "just released" software, AMD FSR2 no doubt has "kinks" to work out over time. But, its interesting that AMD FSR2 may already be competitive with DLSS 2.0.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/22 09:51 AM

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AMD Software May Preview Update Improves RSR, Boosts DirectX 11 Games Up to 30 Percent

Following yesterday’s launch of AMD’s latest lineup of RX 6000-series graphics cards, a new AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Preview Driver has also been released, which largely focuses on improvements for Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) and DirectX 11 performance boosts. For those unfamiliar, RSR differs from FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) in that it’s software-based and doesn’t require any special implementation on the part of developers. It should just automatically work on a large chunk of your library, although, of course, the effects aren’t as dramatic as FSR.

[Examples]
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – up to 28%,
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands – up to 30%
Grand Theft Auto V – up to 11%
Total War Saga: Troy – at 17% gains
Total War Hammer 3 – at 5% gains
The Witcher 3 – at 3% gains

On average, AMD says you can expect around a 10 percent boost with DirectX 11 games, and the above-listed titles are really just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, independent testers have found significant boosts for games like Crysis Remastered and God of War.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/12/22 03:20 PM

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The unthinkable has happened: Nvidia has finally embraced open-source GPU drivers

No, hell hasn't frozen over, and April Fools Day has long since passed. Nvidia has indeed announced it's moving over to an open-source Linux GPU kernel for its latest and greatest graphics cards. Previously open-source GPU anything was the sole preserve of AMD, but as of right now you can go to GitHub and download the source code for Nvidia's kernel modules on the Nvidia Open GPU Kernel Modules repo.

The green team is calling this "a significant step toward improving the experience of using NVIDIA GPUs in Linux, for tighter integration with the OS and for developers to debug, integrate, and contribute back."


Not quite "embraced". This is only a "fly speck" in Linux -- unlike AMD who "open sources" many Windows drivers, etc.

For example full up AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 works on Nvidia GPUs -- as noted in a post above.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/13/22 10:20 AM

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AMD Zen4 rumored to feature up to 24% better IPC than Zen3, updated Ryzen 7000 launch schedule emerges

an engineering sample of Raphael desktop CPU with 8-core/16-threads is clocked at 5.2 GHz, which already represents a 10% increase over 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X. But the claims can go even higher, up to 14%

As a result of higher IPC and clocks, the single-thread performance would increase by 28 to 37% and so would multi-threaded

AMD Zen4 MLID claims

15-24% IPC Increase (Over Zen 3)
8-14% Clock Increase (Over Zen 3)
28-37% ST Perf Increase (Over Zen 3)
ST-Like or Higher MT Perf Increase (Over Zen 3)
1 MB L2 / 4 MB L3 Per Core (vs 512 KB / 4 MB L3 per Zen 3 Core)
PCIe 5.0 Support (Increased Lanes)
DDR5/LPDDR5 Memory Support (DDR5-5200+)

Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael [Desktop/Gaming CPU] (~2H 2022) – Samples already running, production soon


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/14/22 10:40 AM

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Dolmen Q&A – The Sci-Fi Soulslike Will Be the First Game to Support FSR, DLSS, and XeSS

The burgeoning Soulslike genre is about to grow even bigger thanks to Dolmen, an upcoming sci-fi/cosmic horror action RPG

Dolmen will be the first game to support all three upscaling technologies on PC: AMD FSR (though only version 1.0 at first), NVIDIA DLSS, and Intel XeSS.

Dolmen will ship with FSR 1.0, but we have the intention to upgrade to 2.0
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/16/22 01:05 PM

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[Rumor] NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 with 16128 CUDA cores and 450W TDP is allegedly twice as fast as RTX 3090

[Rumor] NVIDIA Ada flagship RTX 4090 to be announced mid-July

It is very likely that in the first wave, RTX 40 series are to include RTX 4090, 4080 and 4070 SKUs. Just remember that those are still rumored specs, and clearly there is a lot changing each week.


Rumor does not say when they go on sale.

Similar rumors say that the fastest AMD GPU will be twice as fast as the RX6900XT.

The fact that high end GPU prices are falling below Reference Model MSRP gives credence to the rumor of 2X the speed later this year. But, at what MSRP??
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/22 12:42 AM

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AMD Zen4 “Raphael” 8-core CPU with 5.2 GHz clock speed and “GFX1036” RDNA2 graphics spotted

we now have the ID of the Zen4 desktop CPU’s integrated graphics. Here’s a reminder that Raphael will be the first mainstream Ryzen platform to feature integrated graphics.

AMD Ryzen 7000 desktop series are now believed to launch around September. The company will soon hold a Computex 2022 keynote where one would expect an update on Zen4 consumer CPUs


On the whole, Intel CPUs outsell AMD CPUs. One of the reasons has been that Intel provides "integrated graphics" on many Intel mainstream CPUs (AMD only provides a couple weaker APUs for PCs). So, Intel CPUs have been more suited to basic cheap consumer PCs not using separate GPU cards.

That's going to change this year when the AMD 7000 series hits the market with some gaming-powerful CPUs having strong integrated GPUs. Gamers will still want/need separate GPUs. But, these 7000 series CPUs will provide competition across the board -- where virtually none existed before. Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/22 09:44 AM

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AMD Navi 31 GPU now rumored to feature 384-bit memory bus, 24GB GDDR6 memory

As it is now, it appears that Navi 31 would feature 384-bit bus (not 256-bit) whereas Navi 32 would get 256-bit (not 192-bit).


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/22 11:13 AM

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AMD Radeon RX 6000 series just 5% above MSRP on average, NVIDIA RTX 30 at 24%

The latest Newegg GPU price report from HardwareUnboxed confirms AMD Radeon RX 6000 are indeed cheaper than NVIDIA RTX 30 series.

As noted yesterday, NVIDIA clearly has a problem with mid-tier to low-end GPUs. The rapidly declining price for GPUs is now forcing NVIDIA to launch a new model called GTX 1630.

GeForce RTX 40 series are just 2 months away, assuming that the rumors are true.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/22 11:22 AM

GPU prices are dropping partly because Cryptocurrency is "crashing" down. For Bitcoin, its the old classic double high peak that leads to a crash into the basement.

The "basement" for Bitcoin is literally zero $$ because Bitcoin generates no value -- its only worth what folks are willing to pay. We'll see where the basement truly is, eventually.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/19/22 11:53 AM

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Intel XeSS Delayed? Don’t Worry, AMD’s FSR 2.0 Is Here To Save The Day! Intel Graphics Work Well With With Both FSR 1.0 & FSR 2.0

Improving on graphics is one thing, but with its open-source capability and providing better results on older technology, it [FSR 2.0] is a significant focus right now.

If you are running an upscaled 4K resolution, the company [AMD] prefers the Radeon RX 6000 series graphics processors. When lowering the resolution to 1440p, AMD suggests the RX 5000 and RX Vega series graphics cards. And, for the standard 1080p upscaling, the company recommends their Radeon RX 590 or comparable graphics cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/22 06:13 PM

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AMD demonstrates Ryzen 7000 Zen4 CPU reaching 5.5 GHz while gaming

AMD already showcased its Ryzen 7000 CPU at CES 2022 running all-core 5 GHz, thus [5.5 GHz] for a single core wouldn’t be completely surprising, yet it’s even higher than rumored.

Next-gen AM5 CPUs operate within 65W to 170W power range.

AMD Ryzen 7000 series officially launch ‘this fall’. The new CPU series will require entirely new motherboards based on 600-series chipsets.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/22 06:22 PM

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AMD B650 Series Motherboards Will Feature CPU & Memory Overclocking Support: B650E To Get Mid-Range & High-End Options With Full Gen 5 Support, October Launch


Some information in the "fine print" of the attached picture.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/22 04:34 PM

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AMD’s Robert Hallock & Frank Azor Talk AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 Platform Features: 170W Socket Power Limits, 5.5 GHz Stock Clock Speeds, Smart Access Storage & More

AMD Ryzen 7000 5.5 GHz CPU Demo Was On Stock Spec, No Overclocking Or Premium Components Used

Robert states that in the respective game demo, they saw most of the threads clocking up to 5.5 GHz (that's 32 threads for the prototype that was used). The 16-core Ryzen 7000 prototype was produced around Late April or Early May so AMD could still squeeze more headroom out of this chip if they want to or just let overclockers do the job.


Engineering prototype sample 5.5GHz standard stock clocks on 16 cores and 170W maximum is a competitive frequency. The issues will be the final IPC (Instructions Per Clock) increase (vs 5000 series) and MSRP on the final release versions of the CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/30/22 10:02 AM

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 expected to launch first, followed by RTX 4080 and RTX 4070

According to recent rumors, the RTX 40 series are set to debut in mid-July. This date likely refers to the announcement while each new SKU will get its own launch date sometime later. For new architectures NVIDIA usually announces its graphics cards two weeks in advance, which means that the actual launch may take place in August.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/04/22 10:30 AM

Looking ahead: The coming new AMD CPUs and some Intel CPUs will require DDR5 memory.

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DDR5 memory drops below €5 per gigabyte, 20% cheaper in a month

Following a bumpy start of DDR5 memory technology, the pricing for new generation kits is finally dropping to an affordable level.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/07/22 10:45 AM

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AMD-Powered Supercomputer is The First to Break The Exascale Barrier

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has finally fired up its Frontier supercomputer. The AMD-powered system has been under construction for over three years, and just had its first test results submitted to the Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Frontier took the number one spot in the newest rankings, and became the first supercomputer to crack the exascale barrier in the process. It delivered 1.1 Exaflops/s of performance in the High-Performance Linpack test, which is over a quintillion calculations per second. “Flops” or “FLOPS” are Floating Point Operations per Second, a measure of compute capability.

Frontier dethroned Japan’s ARM A64X Fugaku system, which has held the top spot the past two years. That system is only capable of 442 Petaflop/s of performance, which means Frontier is more than twice as powerful. It’s such a beast that it’s faster than the next seven supercomputers in the list combined.

It has a total of 8,730,112 CPU cores, and features over 90 miles of cabling to connect everything. Data transfer is handled by Gigabit Ethernet. The system is not only the most powerful, it’s also the most efficient as well. It also snagged the top spot on the Green500 list, which measures energy use and efficiency of commercially available supercomputers.

The rankings are announced twice a year, and Frontier joins other AMD-powered computers at the top of the lists. AMD CPUs power five of the top ten supercomputers, and eight of the top ten most efficient. It also claims 94 systems in the top 500,


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/22 11:03 AM

Intel Laptop GPUs are being held back by mediocre drivers -- it is said.

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Intel’s High-End Arc A730M GPU Is Barely Faster Than An NVIDIA RTX 3050 In Gaming, BETA Drivers Won’t Start Some Games in DX12 Either

the first performance benchmarks of Intel's Arc A730M GPU .. showed comparable performance to an NVIDIA RTX 3070. However, when it comes to actual gaming results, the performance seems to be barely faster than the RTX 3050.

the Intel Graphics software division has lagged behind severely versus the team that is designing the actual hardware. The hardware team has had GPUs up & running since the previous year but the software team has yet to release a driver that is fully tuned to unlock Arc's true potential.

What makes this worse is the fact that the RTX 3050 Mobile is an entry-level solution while the Arc A730M GPU will be aimed at high-end gaming laptops. We don't really see the 'high-end' action in these benchmarks though.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/10/22 09:35 AM

Quote
AMD RDNA/CDNA graphics roadmap unveiled, RDNA3 has over 50% better performance per watt, RDNA4 by 2024

AMD RDNA3 confirmed with 5 nm process and chiplet design

AMD RDNA3 architecture will offer over 50% better performance per watt over RDNA2, which the company already declares as more efficient than NVIDIA consumer Ampere GPU architecture (by comparing RX 6950XT to RTX 3090 Ti).

AMD RDNA3 will launch with Navi 3X GPUs later this year

AMD confirmed its RDNA4 architecture will use a more advanced node. AMD is not mentioning the process node for RDNA4 GPUS probably to obfuscate the details on purpose. The architecture should be introduced by 2024


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/12/22 02:09 PM

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We have an update on upcoming GeForce GTX 1630 and RTX 40 series launch as confirmed by multiple sources now.

According to the latest information, the launch has indeed been delayed by a month for RTX 4090 from August to September, RTX 4080 to October and RTX 4070 to November. Importantly, this does not rule out a possible announcement sooner.

As mentioned before, those dates are not a final target. Things are rapidly changing on the GPU market and the incentive now is to sell as many RTX 30 graphics cards as possible before RTX 40 is available. Therefore, AIBs now expect a price cut on RTX 30 series,


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/13/22 11:53 AM

Regarding Cryptocurrency: Multiple articles and charts indicate cryptocurrencies continue to lose value rapidly Some lesser known ones have nearly zeroed out. Some designed to not lose value have lost most (or nearly all) of their value.

Bottom line: At least for the near future, cryptocurrency mining will not pay well. Thus, the mining effect is not a large impact on GPU prices -- for now, at least.

Nonetheless, the new GPUs will start to release in early fall (by today's estimates). The most expensive versions will probably be first out. Some imagine that the GPU manufacturers will "take advantage" of people being used to high prices -- and overcharge for the first releases.

We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/22 12:18 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon 7000 “RDNA3” series rumored to launch between late October and mid November

“a reliable source” suggests Radeon 7000 cards based on RDNA3 architecture should appear between late October to mid-November. A bit sooner, AMD will be unveiling its Ryzen 7000 CPU series based on Zen4 architecture. Therefore, within 2 months time, AMD will shift its entire desktop platform to next-gen hardware.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/14/22 04:26 PM

My Gigabyte gaming RX 6900 XT is currently selling on Newegg for $850 (after rebates). I paid $950 a few weeks back. Reference model MSRP is $1000.

The new RX 7000 series seems due in 3 to 5 months. Its rumored to be twice as fast as the RX 6000 series. Hopefully, it won't be twice as expensive. I do expect an MSRP above $1000 for the top version.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/22 10:36 AM

An old April 2022 article describing Unreal Engine 5. It will "change the game" and maybe give us a good reason to buy a new GPU. Its already being used for new versions of "classic games" to be released over the next few years.

Basically, it allows near photo-realism and extreme world detail to be done easily -- so, it will appear in more games.

Quote
Inside Epic's Unreal Engine 5—and What It Means for the Future of Gaming, Movies, and the Metaverse

The company promises that the new updates to Unreal Engine 5 will make it the bedrock for the next generation of Web 3 developments—from metaverse experiences to movies, and of course, video games.

Unreal Engine is the second-most widely used video game engine, trailing only Unity, and is known for its depth of features and visual quality. Unreal Engine 5 augments those strengths, giving its users hyper-intricate 3D detail, facial realism, and large-scale world building.

But top developers at Epic Games and outside of the organization argue that UE5’s biggest impact is not on the biggest studios, but rather smaller, independent developers who can now make high-quality games for much lower costs.... UE5 is free to download and use, with Epic taking a 5% cut on products created with it only after they earn over $1 million in gross revenue.

“We want to allow anyone to make great-looking stuff and take the drudgery out,” Libreri tells TIME. “Nobody should have to make a chair or a rock at this point: we want people to focus on what is truly important, like great gameplay and great artistry.”
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/22 01:16 PM

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It's now 'more cost-effective to turn off the mining rig and buy Ethereum'

Cryptoslate has highlighted the fact that the falling Ethereum price, combined with increasing energy prices, has made it unprofitable to mine the cryptocurrency for the first time since 2020. Basically, you simply won't make money at the current price of Ethereum in most US states given the price of electricity.

This "crypto winter" could be perfectly timed for the release of the next-gen AMD and Nvidia cards; unless they're really good at mining of course. Or that results in a glut of second-hand GPUs on the market, leaving a bunch of unsold current-gen stock on the shelves, and the new cards get delayed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/22 11:38 PM

GPU prices are tumbling. Its the story they're covering now.

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Below MSRP and Only Getting Cheaper: The GPU Deluge Begins

With the current profitability of RTX 3080 mining hovering around $0.85 per day (after power costs), even hardcore miners are ready to throw in the towel and see what remaining value they can get out of their cards. Wannabe miners would still be looking at about a year and a half to break even

AMD's GPUs still offer better overall value, if you compare performance using our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. You do give up some ray tracing performance and DLSS support, but if you're looking at apples-to-apples comparisons the RX 6900 XT matches up well against the RTX 3080 Ti and costs significantly less. The same goes for the RX 6600 XT and the RTX 3060. Nearly every AMD GPU now sells for less than MSRP, except for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800.


I grabbed both my RX6500XT and my RX6900XT a few moments too soon. Win a few, lose the rest. oops
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/22 09:46 AM

Quote
Graphics cards pricing plummets under MSRP as cryptocurrency crashes


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/16/22 01:18 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon GPUs Get Major Boost, Up To 55%, In OpenGL Graphics Performance With Soon To Launch Windows 11 22H2 Driver

Last month, AMD released a driver which was focused on improving the DirectX 11 performance in a range of titles that utilized the API. AMD stated up to 30% performance gains for Radeon GPUs and we saw similar results within independent tests.

it looks like AMD has devised its plans to release a new driver in the Windows 11 22H2 build that will offer a significant boost in OpenGL performance.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/22 08:00 AM

Quote
Intel Arc desktop GPUs may be slower than previously expected, a new performance prediction for the whole series suggests

Intel Arc A380 is not “25% faster” than Radeon RX 6400

According to Intel, its newly released Arc A380 desktop graphics card should be up to 25% faster than Radeon RX 6400, except this performance claim is in relation to the price of both cards, a seemingly important fact that can be missed.

The actual performance (not based on pricing) is just 4% better, so almost within the margin of error of being identical to Radeon RX 6400.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/22 08:10 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Phoenix Point’ CPU Spotted: 8 Zen 4 Cores Based on A 4nm Process Node For Laptops


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/22 12:06 PM

Quote
Crypto Miners Spend $15 Billion on GPU Units During The Last Mining Craze But Good Days Ahead For PC Gamers As Graphics Card Prices Normalize

In a report by Bloomberg, the pub reports that Crypto miners spent $15 Billion in acquiring mining GPUs during the last crypto craze that started back in 2021. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum reached the historical highs of over $67,000 and $4,800 US, respectively but have since been on a decline & with pricing now crashing down to $18,000 and $960 US, respectively, prices of graphics cards are back to normal levels.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/19/22 03:05 PM

R5 5600 has a place in some gaming rigs because it works in some of the oldest motherboards from the R7-1600 era

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AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Review - Fantastic Choice for Upgrades from Older Ryzens [on old motherboards]

The 5600 is a surprisingly late addition to the company's desktop processor lineup given its predecessors, the Ryzen 5 3600, 2600, and 1600, were the SKUs that sold the most volumes and made the Ryzen 5 brand popular with gamers, as they gave you a 6-core/12-thread processor at typically $199.

The Ryzen 5 5600 is based on the same "Vermeer" multi-chip module as the 5600X, which makes it better endowed than the 5600G even though it lacks integrated graphics. The "Zen 3" CCD (chiplet) comes with six out of eight CPU cores enabled, which share the full 32 MB L3 cache available; unlike the 5600G, which is based on the "Cezanne" monolithic silicon with just 16 MB of on-die L3 cache. Also, the Ryzen 5600 features PCI-Express Gen 4 support for the x16 graphics and a CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot, while "Cezanne" [R5 5600G] is limited to PCIe Gen 3.

At this time, the Ryzen 5 5600 retails for $180, probably due to serious competition from Intel's 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, which has caused the 5600X to drop in price to only $200 right now.


I've bought four R5 5600G for low cost experiments and HTPCs -- it plays 1080p games at low but usable FPS using the on-board GPU (plays 4K games well at ultra settings with RX5700XT). Strictly speaking, if one has a decent GPU (e.g. RX580 or better), the R5 5600X is best but R5 5600 is similar if cash is short.

Quick look at Amazon prices just now: R5 5600X is $199, R5 5600 is $180, and R5 5600G is $145 to $165. So we're only talking roughly $20 price differences for probably measurable but possibly not visible differences in FPS when using a separate GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/22 05:42 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 average pricing finally drops below MSRP in Europe


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/21/22 07:02 PM

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AMD rumored to be working on another Navi 3X GPU with 16384 Stream Processors


It should be more than 3 times as fast as an RX6900XT.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/22 02:07 PM

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AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 is now open source

[Via AMD] With the introduction of FSR 2, our temporal upscaling solution earlier this year, there are now over 110 games that support [FSR 1]. The rate of uptake has been very impressive – [FSR 1] is AMD’s fastest adopted software gaming technology to date.

So it seems fitting that we should pick this anniversary day to share the source code for FSR 2, opening up the opportunity for every game developer to integrate FSR 2 if they wish, and add their title to the 24 games which have already announced support [for FSR 2].

As always, the source code is being made available via GPUOpen under the MIT license,


Quote
Unlike Nvidia DLSS, FSR works across both Radeon and GeForce graphics cards, and even works on older models snubbed by team green such as the GTX 10 and 16 series.


So, in brief, FSR 2 is free for developers to download and use in their games, it works on most modern cards (even older ones), and in actual use (vs still pictures in articles) performs similarly to DLSS versions.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/22/22 02:11 PM

Yikes! My Gaming RX6900XT has dropped to $720 at Newegg. I got a deal; but, I bought way too soon. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/24/22 02:51 PM

Quote
AMD confirms Radeon 7000 (RDNA3) will have increased power consumption

“Performance is king, but even if our designs are more power-efficient, that doesn’t mean you don’t push power levels up if the competition is doing the same thing. It’s just that they’ll have to push them a lot higher than we will.”

Sam Naffziger, AMD’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Fellow, and Product Technology Architect


No secret that Nvidia and Intel factory overclock (raise power use) to beat AMD by a few percent. So, AMD has to respond with a "factory overclock" of their own.

Notable that, up to now, AMD has lower power levels for similar performance -- even after raising power. We'll see how this "increasing power level" battle eventually shakes out. I assume Intel and Nvidia will, as in the past, overclock until they win by a few percent (measurable for advertising, but not normally visible in games -- unless one it looking at the FPS counter).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/22 09:01 AM

What GPUs should cost has been calculated. Of course, while interesting, this is basically an "opinion", not scientific fact.

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This is how much graphics cards should cost based on their performance alone

According to 3DCenter’s calculations, who have chosen RTX 3070 as the reference point, most of NVIDIA’s high-end models are overpriced and should cost a lot less.

The RTX 3090 series are among the worst priced cards in whole comparison.

For AMD Radeon RX 6000 series, the RX 6800 and 6800 non-XT appear to be the best priced model considering their performance. The inflated MSRP prices for RDNA2 are not really that far from the ‘Fair Price’ index though, especially the middle of the stack. This isn’t the case for enthusiast and low-end models. The RX 6950XT should cost 735USD based on this analysis, while the RX 6400 should drop to the 107 USD level.

One should remember that performance is not always the only thing that should be considered. This is especially true for flagship cards which come with highly sophisticated board designs, massive cooling solutions or other features. That surely adds a cost for board partners that cannot be calculated by framerate alone.


According to these numbers, I overpaid $250 for my RX6900XT (I paid $950). One can now get the RX6900XT for about $750 on special sale (only $50 overpriced).

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/22 11:11 AM

Intel GPUs still limited by their drivers. Tests showing good Intel GPU performance have been questioned because the drivers are "optimized" for 3DMark and other "test software".

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Intel releases Arc GPU drivers with A770M/A550M support, 3DMark optimization toggle now available

Intel finally adds the promised 3DMark optimizations toggle. In case you don’t remember, Intel launched its discrete GPU architecture with special architecture optimizations that boosted synthetic performance in software such as 3DMark. This is why we are seeing great results from Arc GPUs in this software, yet these cards perform much worse in games.


Quote
Intel ARC GPUs lose up to 15% performance in 3DMark TimeSpy test with Advanced Performance Optimizations disabled

This driver has a new feature toggle for “Advanced Performance Optimizations”. Those are special benchmark specific optimizations that boost Intel ARC GPU performance in synthetic tests such as 3DMark stack. Unfortunately, such optimizations are not allowed as per UL’s rules (developers of the 3DMark).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/01/22 11:21 AM

Quote
NVIDIA reportedly wants to cut TSMC orders for next-gen RTX 40 GPUs 5nm wafers amid lower demand

Both AMD and NVIDIA are revising their TSMC orders, reports DigiTimes. The website citing their industry sources claims that Apple, AMD and NVIDIA all wish to change their orders. AMD reportedly wants to lower its 7/6nm wafer orders while NVIDIA is now facing a problem of over saturated GPU market and possibly lower demand for next-gen GPUs.

NVIDIA now has a large stock of GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards for sale, yet the company is [not] willing to lower the price just yet.

NVIDIA is one of the companies that made prepayments to TSMC for their 5nm wafers. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, TSMC is not willing to make concessions. .. it’s NVIDIA’s problem to find customers for TSMC vacated production capacity

The market situation has been reflected in lower stock price for AMD and NVIDIA. Both stocks have dropped by almost 50% in just 6 months time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/02/22 11:33 AM

If one is looking for a "dirt cheap" Nvidia GPU:

Quote
NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1630 Graphics Card for $169 Is An Identically Copy of 2016’s $139 GTX 1050 Ti, As Far As Performance Is Concerned

NVIDIA released the company's new low-budget GeForce GTX 1630 graphics card a few days ago, retailing for $169. Through the testing done by tech outlets such as Guru3D and TechPowerUP, we have found out that the new GPU is not only slower than the AMD Radeon RX 6400 RDNA 2-based GPU but it is identical to a 2016 GPU released by NVIDIA, the GTX 1050 Ti, in terms of performance.

the performance lacks when placed against titles like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Control, and Cyberpunk 2077, which are all graphically demanding.


FWIW: Our home's main HTPC (4K screen) uses an RX6500XT -- currently $175 at Newegg. It plays my graphically demanding games just adequately at 2K (to my eyes) -- haven't tried Cyberpunk with it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/05/22 10:51 PM

Quote
AMD EPYC CPUs To See 18% Market Share By 2024 As Intel’s Xeon Server Hold Declines, Arm CPUs To See 3x Growth

AMD has seen some tremendous growth in the cloud data center & HPC server market. Several of the Top500 supercomputers in the world are currently powered by AMD server chips and even the world's first exascale system, Frontier, is completely powered by an AMD CPU & GPU hardware combination.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/07/22 11:12 AM

A substantial interview with AMD Vice President confirms what we already knew about AMD GPUs and CPUs. AMD increases performance while trying to reduce power used -- and succeeds. Nvidia and Intel GPU circuitry is actually slightly "behind" -- they overclock to get competitive results. Seems Intel GPU hardware development is being headed by a Software guru.

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AMD’s [Vice] President Talks GPU Efficiency, Power Targets, Chiplets, Cache & How NVIDIA & Intel Stack Up To Them, Says Raja Koduri Is A Visonary

A few years ago, AMD laid out an ambitious goal of hitting 25x performance efficiency by 2020, and the company actually achieved it.

Now, the company is taking things further, achieving a 30x efficiency growth by 2025 or just 3 years from now.

the company expects GPUs to hit over 600W TDP figures even before 2025. The company states that 'Power consumption is exploding since demand [for FPS] is outstripping the gains'. To address this, AMD has a few key technologies up its sleeves that will allow them to ship a GPU that's compelling in both [FPS] performance and wattage versus the competition.

It can already be seen in RDNA 2 which hits over 2.5 GHz clock speeds while retaining a lower wattage than its direct competition from NVIDIA.

The AMD President states that Raja [Head of Intel GPU development -- formerly with AMD] was more of a software guy than a Silicon techie but he really helped improve AMD's software side of things along with the gaming features

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/22 05:02 PM

Quote
NVIDIA DLSS is now available in over 200 games and apps, AMD FSR at 110

AMD celebrates a one-year anniversary of its FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) technology. [AMD] already has 110 games support FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.0 or confirmed to support in the future.

AMD FSR 2.0 support is spreading rapidly after the company released its technology as an open source alternative to DLSS.


Other articles indicate that "open source" (i.e. Free to use) AMD FSR2.0 is easier/cheaper to use than DLSS and works about as well (when properly implemented).

Other articles and NexusMods files also indicate some games have preliminary "amateur" FSR2.0 mods -- that work -- e.g. Cyberpunk 2077.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/09/22 05:08 PM

Quote
AMD pushes to optimize shaders in gaming with new GPU chiplet patent

AMD recently published a patent for spreading the load from rendering across several GPU chiplets. A game scene is divided into individual blocks and distributed to the chiplets to optimize the utilization of the shaders in games. Two-level chiplet binning is used for this.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/11/22 04:17 PM

Dropping prices. Maybe insiders know we won't want current cards after we see the new ones coming out in the Fall (I hope).

Quote
GPU price crash in China, GeForce and Radeon cards now sold for 20% under MSRP, flagship models at -38%

... MSRPs are literally now being ignored, and graphics cards are sold for much less.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/13/22 07:54 AM

Quote
Intel’s Power Play: Begins Hiring Execs From Rivaling Foundries To Tackle TSMC & Samsung

Intel has continued its practice of hiring executives and highly-experienced employees from several companies in a bid to become the largest chip manufacturer worldwide. The x86-focused company intends to take control away from companies like Samsung and TSMC.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/22 12:15 PM

Quote
AMD has rebuilt its DirectX11 driver from the ground up, 10% better performance on average

AMD is using 6000 unique systems configurations for graphics driver testing, 1500 more than NVIDIA....this ensures that 99.95% of users do not encounter crashes when using AMD software.

AMD considers their non-WHQL drivers are already as good as production [WHQL] drivers from competitors. By releasing those early drivers sooner, gamers can take advantage of the optimizations for their games before WHQL driver completes its Microsoft test suite testing.

The DirectX11 games, for instance, received a 10% uplift on average (based on a comparison between 22.5.2 May and 22.3.1 March drivers). This optimization came almost at the same time as the recent OpenGL & Vulkan update that brought similar gains to certain games.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – up to 28%
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands – up to 30%
Grand Theft Auto V – up to 11%.


I use fairly standard AMD GPU driver settings. I haven't had an AMD GPU driver issue in years (last big one was in approximately 2003 -- almost 20 years ago).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/22 03:50 PM

Quote
Intel Reportedly Planning To Increase Prices Of CPUs & Other Components By Up To 20%
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/15/22 04:09 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6 Core & 4.4 GHz “Zen 4” Desktop CPU Spotted Running On Gigabyte’s X670E AORUS Master Motherboard, Up To 11% Faster Than Ryzen 9 5950X

the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs including the Ryzen 5 7600X should make their way to retail by September 2022 as indicated in previous rumors. The motherboard it was tested on, the Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master has already been announced and you can find more info here.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/22 01:50 PM

Quote
AMD Will Not Lose Market Share Until 2025 Says Wedbush

Talking about AMD, Bryson outlined that he believes that the company is one of the strongest players in the semiconductor industry. The analyst stated that in his opinion, AMD will continue to take away market share from Intel in the personal computing and server markets and that this trend should continue throughout 2023 and end in late 2024 at the earliest.


AMD is competing. Intel is competing. Nvidia is competing.

The headline is slightly misleading. The analyst quoted in the article simply indicates AMD is currently winning market share over its rivals and that will continue for at least a couple years. However, he expects Intel and Nvidia to stay ahead in an absolute sense -- i.e. AMD will only close the gap during that time.

Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/20/22 04:53 PM

The first set of independent test results for an Intel GPU.

Quote
Intel Arc A380 Desktop Alchemist Review Roundup

..the vast majority, if not all of these reviews are based on independently acquired samples. .. there are no other custom models available, .. That said, all of these reviews are based on the same model, which is factory-overclocked.


Basically equivalent (more or less) to AMD RX 6400 -- which is not even a low-end gaming card in the current generation of AMD and Nvidia cards -- RX 6500XT is the low end.

Link to Independent Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/22 09:04 AM

AMD budget CPU/APUs getting "dirt cheap". Amazon has had R5 5600X for $175 (less 5% for Amazon Prime Members) and, now, R5 5600G for $150 (less 5%).

In my tests with CPU-Z Benchmark and 3DMark TimeSpy (DX12) there is a measurable difference -- but, its not visible to the unaided eye in games (only a couple FPS).

Of course, the new stuff (R5 7600X, R5 7600G) hits the shelves in a couple months (pundits say). But, initially, they may cost almost twice as much as the above prices (new products & inflation are factors).
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/22 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by Allen
AMD budget CPU/APUs getting "dirt cheap". Amazon has had R5 5600X for $175 (less 5% for Amazon Prime Members) and, now, R5 5600G for $150 (less 5%).


Links?

I checked just now; while the 5600G is $149 (before taxes, that is), the 5600X is actually showing up at 189.99.

Of course, prices change over time - but this is ~an hour after your post. Apparently that's all it takes!

The 5% you mentioned...I'm a Prime member, have been for years now - but I don't see a 5% discount? Are you referring to the 5% for using the Amazon credit card? Not all Prime members have that (nor necessarily want it...suum cuique).

EDIT: Also, it bears mentioning that while the 5600X provides PCIe 4.0 lanes, the 5600G only provides PCIe 3.0 lanes. Twice the data rate; a significant difference for bit rates in both GPU and (probably more importantly) storage
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/22 07:14 PM

Yes, the prices have been bouncing around the last few days.

The $149 R5 5600G APU (price rounded to $150 by me) was the lowest I've seen. Yes, the 5% is due to the credit card -- brought the price to $141.55 ($142 rounded).

Taxes vary by State and Country -- so, I don't include them in my price quotes. Amazon Prime shipping is free.

As I noted "has had R5 5600X for $175". The key there is "has had" (and I bought a couple this month). The prices were higher today ($190 rounded).

Attached pictures show this month's CPU/APU purchases.

Attached picture R5_5600G_1.jpg
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Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/25/22 08:16 PM

Perhaps, in the interest of accuracy, you'd be good enough to make a correction to the earlier comment concerning the 5% discount, since it doesn't apply to all Prime members as you indicated.

I didn't say whether the prices were/were not what you cited, just that I didn't see those prices when I looked. (I also said it was apparent the price had changed).

I own examples of several of the current CPUs/APUs...both the 5600X and 5600G are excellent units. But there is that key difference in PCIe implementation that can't (and shouldn't) be overlooked.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/22 03:15 PM

Rumor:

Quote
Chinese graphics card supplier reportedly expects first GeForce RTX 40 shipment in less than a month
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/22 03:21 PM

Quote
AMD 22.7.1 Software Drivers Tested, Showcase Huge OpenGL Performance Boost In Benchmarks With Radeon GPUs & Ryzen APUs

It's not just the AMD Radeon GPUs that are witnessing a good boost in OpenGL performance but so are the Ryzen APUs that utilize RDNA 2 graphics architecture. As spotted by Videocardz, Twitterati Cary Golomb, ran a Ryzen 7 6800U at 10W with the new 22.7.1 Software Drivers and scored a 12% performance uplift.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/22 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
Perhaps, in the interest of accuracy, you'd be good enough to make a correction to the earlier comment concerning the 5% discount, since it doesn't apply to all Prime members as you indicated.


In case this request was overlooked - I'm sure you wouldn't want inaccuracies in the information you provide.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/22 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
Originally Posted by kksnowbear
Perhaps, in the interest of accuracy, you'd be good enough to make a correction to the earlier comment concerning the 5% discount, since it doesn't apply to all Prime members as you indicated.


In case this request was overlooked - I'm sure you wouldn't want inaccuracies in the information you provide.


Originally Posted by Allen
Yes, the prices have been bouncing around the last few days. ... Yes, the 5% is due to the credit card -- brought the price to $141.55 ($142 rounded)..


That was my "correction". I replied positively/agreeably to your request for a correction. Perhaps you didn't read my reply?
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/22 06:59 PM

I guess I meant it would probably be appropriate to actually edit the erroneous information. Never know how much/to what point someone might read...and it's awfully easy to edit a post anyhow.

But that's certainly your prerogative. I usually edit inaccurate info, just so there's no chance of misleading others. How you handle inaccurate info in your posts is your call, of course.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/28/22 08:31 PM

Amazon and Newegg trading blows on R5-5600G APU. I always check with Newegg first, then Amazon.

Amazon had it for $149. Now Newegg says $148.09 (see image). So, Amazon says $147.10 (see image).

Depending on what credit card one uses, one may get a further discount smile

I assume virtually all of us are now waiting for the new stuff from Intel and AMD.

Competition is good. smile

Attached picture Newegg5600G.jpg
Attached picture Amazon5600G2.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/29/22 01:46 PM

Since "Competition is good", hopefully Intel will begin to compete in the discrete GPU market. However,

Quote
Intel Takes iGPU Driver Shortcut for Arc Gaming GPUs, Crashes Into Ditch

Early this year, Intel disclosed plans to ship four million discrete Arc Alchemist gaming GPUs in 2022, but many observers considered the target rather conservative. Now, following multiple launch delays and limited availability, Intel said this week that it would miss its discrete GPU shipments this year.

All-in-all, Intel needed all-new drivers written from scratch to roll out its discrete gaming GPUs for desktops and laptops. However, its drivers for discrete gaming GPUs were not on par with those offered by AMD and Nvidia because it chose to use the same graphics drivers as it used for the low-powered integrated graphics present in its CPUs.


In a nutshell, significant shipments of "competitive" Intel GPUs are delayed to next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/22 10:18 AM

Just an updated rumor/leak:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900 (Navi 31) series rumored to feature 20 Gbps memory, launch in November

Greymon reaffirms the rumors that Radeon RX 7000 series launch should be in November. This is actually not new information, but it matches previous claims that RDNA3 series may appear 6 to 8 weeks after Ryzen 7000 CPU series.


So, they're guessing roughly 2 months to new AMD CPUs and 4 months to new AMD GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/22 11:49 AM

Another article based on limited tests.

Quote
Ryzen 5 7600X Beats i9-12900K by 22% in New Single-Core Benchmarks

One of AMD's upcoming hexa-core Zen 4 chips (purported Ryzen 5 7600X) has just outperformed Intel's current flagship Core i9-12900K in single-core performance in a new benchmark. Nonetheless, we should treat the leaked benchmark with caution because it's UserBenchmark, and secondly, because the AMD chip is an engineering sample.


The the Intel CPU has 16 cores, the AMD CPU has 6 cores. So, the Intel CPU was better in multicore testing. See attachment:

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-07-30 074708.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/30/22 11:46 PM

I paid $950 for my Gigabyte AMD RX 6900XT just months ago -- the performance is way better than I need. But, I should have waited. banghead

Now its down to $700 (after discounts). That price/performance may prove ball-park reasonable even after the new AMD RX 7000 series GPUs are released.

Will it fall further? We'll see -- but, I won't be buying another one smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-07-30 193717.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/22 09:57 AM

Its official:

Quote
AMD to announce Ryzen 7000 on August 29th, launching September 15th

AMD is set to announce its new series on August 29th. Just two weeks later on September 15th, AMD will lift the embargo on product sales.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Announcement – August 29th, 2022, 8:00PM ET
AMD Ryzen 7000 Reviews – September 13th, 2022, 9:00 AM ET
AMD Ryzen 7000 Launch – September 15th, 2022, 9:00 AM ET

Furthermore, we learn that Ryzen 7000 reviews should appear on September 13th, so two days before official launch. This should leave enough time for any customer to make a decision on a purchase.


There's a good chance I'll jump on one. But, I will read the reviews first. I expect the first systems to cost a lot for a Gaming-Motherboard, fast Memory, fast M.2 SSDs -- plus the price boost from inflation.

A consideration: Current systems based on 5000 series CPUs and DDR4 memory will do the job for years. With a new CPU system, I doubt I'll "see" or "feel" any immediate improvement in Game playing at 2K or 4K (might "measure" a few FPS). The noticeable improvements will be elsewhere for me (e.g. load times), None of that will actually be worth the cost. This comes down to the "fun" of having "the latest". smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/03/22 08:24 PM

Quote
Intel Plans to Raise Prices on CPUs, Wi-Fi Chips in Q4

Intel had a pretty rough second quarter. Its revenue was down 22 percent year-over-year .. One way Intel is looking to rebound from this predicament is to raise its prices in the fourth quarter, confirming the previously reported rumor.

[Intel's CFO] Zinsner says everything is about to turn around, thanks to a solid lineup of products and the price increases.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/04/22 10:41 AM

Quote
AMD 16-core Zen4 Ryzen 9 7950X CPU allegedly boosts up to 5.7 GHz

The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X CPU with 16-cores and 32-threads will have significantly higher clock speeds compared to “Zen3” 5950X part. It is reported that the base clock has increased from 3.4 GHz to 4.5 GHz for Raphael and the boost clock goes all the way up to 5.7 GHz, an 800 MHz increase. This SKU specifically has higher TDP up to 170W (230W in boost).

Gamers favorite Ryzen 5 series are getting a Zen4 treatment as well. The Ryzen 5 7600X will have the boost clock increased to up to 5.3 GHz.


The presumed specifications of all the R 7000 CPUs (and R 5000 CPUs for comparison) are shown in the attachment.

For quite a while, Nvidia and Intel have been using factory overclocks to push their hardware just ahead of AMD.

Now, AMD will be using some factory overclocks to compete.

Competition is good. smile

Attached picture Ryzen7000Specs.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/05/22 11:20 AM

Quote
First AIB allegedly stop Intel Arc graphics cards production due to ‘quality concerns’

This is alleged by Igor Wallossek who confirmed this information twice over the last day.

From OEMs perspective there is just too much uncertainty in terms of performance and price. Intel reportedly would not give any price guarantee for Arc, which makes planning so much more complicated.

GPU Quality and performance may lead to drive the maintenance cost up, this includes higher RMA rates and lesser demand for parts that have unoptimized drivers. That’s why the production of ARC cards might have been stopped by said board partner


In other news, Intel is delaying (not stopping) release of GPUs. Hopefully, they will "figure things out" -- and provide viable competition sooner than later.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/22 05:22 PM

Quote
NVIDIA announces weaker Q2 gaming GPU sales, now working with channel partners to adjust prices

NVIDIA Q2 revenue misses projections due to weaker GeForce sales, down 44% Q/Q

"As we expect the macroeconomic conditions affecting sell-through to continue, we took actions with our Gaming partners to adjust channel prices and inventory".

— Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/22 10:50 AM

Quote
AMD spares no time, the review samples of upcoming AMD X670E motherboards are already in reviewers hands.

both AMD and motherboard makers are ready for launch of Ryzen 7000 series.

In fact, they are so ready that AMD board partners are now shipping X670E motherboards to reviewers.

According to the leaks, AMD is set to launch its Ryzen 7000 CPUs on September 15th, however the formal announcement is now expected in late August. The X670 motherboards are reportedly also launching on the same day.


Attached picture is from reviewer showing his Motherboard.

Interesting to me because I tend to buy Gigabyte items. Just my preference. Not selling them. Others may be better.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-09 064747.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/22 12:47 PM

Quote
TeamGroup announces Elite+ DDR5-6000 memory compatible with Intel and AMD systems, costs 270 USD for 2x16GB kit


Our new systems (if built to last a few years) will probably need 32GB of DDR5 memory.

This price looks decent given that its a new type of memory -- and inflation. Hopefully, other memory makers will compete.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-09 084712.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-09 085324.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/22 01:14 PM

Quote
DDR5-6000 Memory To Be The Sweet Spot For AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen 4” CPUs, Will Offer 1:1 Infinity Fabric Ratio With EXPO

From what we have learned, it looks like AMD's Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 CPUs will most definitely have DDR5-6000 as their sweet spot, allowing a 1:1 IFC ratio. A 1:1 ratio means that the memory is running with the same frequency as the memory controller on the processor and that should offer a best-case scenario. .. The advantage that a 1:1 brings to the table is that it will allow for lower latencies and a balanced speed


Lower latency and synchronization with the CPU is something I want. So, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory is what I'll consider -- unless test reports say don't consider it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/22 08:52 AM

Quote
ÆPIC Leak is an Architectural CPU Bug Affecting 10th, 11th, and 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs

Intel's 10th Gen through 12th Gen Core CPUs, has seen its fair share of attacks over the last decade with exploits like Spectre and Meltdown, which still plagues the series of processors to this day, [including] rival AMD and their processors. Recently, researchers found that the three Intel Gen Core families were capable of being overrun by a new processor exploit, the ÆPIC Leak.

Researchers note that the leak is the first processor exploit "able to disclose sensitive data architecturally."

To avoid the vulnerability, which uses the CVE tag CVE-2022-21233, users will need to disable APIC MMIO or avoid SGX at this time.


Not a problem for most PC users.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/22 09:01 AM

Not to be left out:

Quote
AMD’s Entire Zen CPU Family Affected By SQUIP Vulnerability, Requires Disabling SMT

AMD's entire Zen CPU family seems to be affected by side-channel SQUIP vulnerability and the only workaround right now is to disable SMT [simultaneous multi-threading].

"An attacker running on the same host and CPU core as you could spy on which types of instructions you are executing "

AMD's confirmation of the issue (AMD-SB-1039: Execution Unit Scheduler Contention Side-Channel vulnerability on AMD Processors) is currently seen by the company as a medium-level threat and has the information and instructions on how to disable the SMT


Not likely to affect home PC use.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/22 09:10 AM

Microsoft is responsible for this one:

Quote
Latest AMD & Intel CPUs Including Zen 4 & Raptor Lake With VAES Instructions Susceptible To Data Damage on Windows, Patch Rolling Out But Will Reduce Performance

Microsoft has revealed a new bug within Windows 11 & Windows Server 2022 operating systems that affects the latest Intel & AMD CPUs.

after applying the new update, PCs will notice slower performance (up to 2x slower)

Microsoft states that users will have to wait for a month for a proper patch to be rolled out but till then, the only workaround to avoid data damage is to switch to lower performance on the older update.


Only a few applications are affected. W11 is still not perfected.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/22 11:12 AM

My Gigabyte RX6900XT is down to ~$699 at Newegg -- but back-ordered (I paid $950 -- marked down from $1100). Gigabyte seems to be aggressively lowering AMD GPU prices.

Many articles say Nvidia and its partners are sitting on well over $1 Billion worth of 3000 series GPUs.

At this moment, opinions are split between "Nvidia will lower prices" and "Nvidia will delay release of mid and low end 4000 series GPUs until later in 2023 to sell off remaining 3000 series at higher prices".

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-11 063449.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/22 11:29 AM

Quote
Intel Has Lost $3.5 Billion Through Its GPU Division Says Analyst

Chipmaker Intel Corporation might be looking to shut down its graphics processing unit (GPU) department due to heavy losses

[Per John Peddie Research] "So, the rumor mill has been hinting that the party is over and that AXG would be the next group to be jettisoned."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/12/22 01:44 PM

Memory made to make the most of AMD 7000 series CPUs.

Quote
G.Skill Readies DDR5-6000 CL30 16 GB Trident Z5 Memory Modules With EXPO Support For AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs

Premium memory manufacturer, G.Skill, will be offering a brand new DDR5 spec under its Trident Z5 family for AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs with EXPO support. Based on the information we have got, it's looking like the memory module manufacturer will be offering its lowest latency kit in the 6 Gbps transfer rate range for Zen 4 chips.

operates at DDR5-6000 transfer rates and has timings rated at CL30-38-38-96.

The G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 memory modules will feature AMD's EXPO (Extended Profiles For Ryzen Overclocking) support and will be compatible with AMD's X670E, X670, and B650(E) series boards.


I'm interested in low (preferably lowest) timings for my main PC motherboard.

This is early in the game. Other manufacturers may do better.
Posted By: masterKamera

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/22 05:20 AM

Most of us will need to upgrade the old mother board to use the new DDR5 memory. Yeah it would be nice, but i dont want to replace my whole systemm.

1. my motherboard doesnt have wi-fi, i #%&*$# HATE wi fi.

2. my GPU is good enough... its a radeon 5500xt over clock.. only 8gb ram.. but pfffttttt i dont actually game.

3. my GPU is stuck in the mother board pcie slot... the slot lock release lever broke mid swing when i tried to unlock it. in order to remove my GPU i need to send the whole PC to an ASUS repair center..

4. I dont want to buy a new CPU... mine works fine. Really it does. gen 3 ryzen 5 3600

5. 16gb ram is enough for my usage.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/22 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by masterKamera
Most of us will need to upgrade the old mother board to use the new DDR5 memory. Yeah it would be nice, but i dont want to replace my whole systemm.


I agree with your assessment. If your current machine does your job -- keep it. thumbsup

My current system does all I want or need. Moreover, it does it with my older RX 5700XT GPU. In other words, I can't "see" the difference using my new RX 6900XT (I can "measure" a large FPS difference -- but, so what?).

My wife's gaming PC in her home-office is R5 1600X CPU with RX580 GPU. I don't replace it because it does the job with her games.

So, I just buy new because its fun and it keeps me "having a clue" regarding the topics in this thread -- its usually not necessary. To repeat, I agree with you. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/22 11:24 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 GPUs to see even lower prices by the end of August

Two Chinese news outlets citing their own sources from the supply chain suggest that NVIDIA RTX 30 graphics cards should get even lower prices by the end of this month.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/22 03:52 PM

Quote
AMD to announce ‘Next Generation Ryzen Processors’ on August 29th

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced “together we advance_PCs,” a livestream premiere to unveil next generation AMD PC products. Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su, CTO and EVP Mark Papermaster, and other AMD executives will present details..

The show will premiere at 7 p.m. ET on Monday, August 29, on the AMD YouTube channel. A replay can be accessed a few hours after the conclusion
Posted By: masterKamera

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/22 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
Originally Posted by masterKamera
Most of us will need to upgrade the old mother board to use the new DDR5 memory. Yeah it would be nice, but i dont want to replace my whole systemm.


I agree with your assessment. If your current machine does your job -- keep it. thumbsup

My current system does all I want or need. Moreover, it does it with my older RX 5700XT GPU. In other words, I can't "see" the difference using my new RX 6900XT (I can "measure" a large FPS difference -- but, so what?).

My wife's gaming PC in her home-office is R5 1600X CPU with RX580 GPU. I don't replace it because it does the job with her games.

So, I just buy new because its fun and it keeps me "having a clue" regarding the topics in this thread -- its usually not necessary. To repeat, I agree with you. smile


Id love to get more ram, but the cost of getting the kits is a bit of a piss off... and im not fond of some companies that cannot make the ffort to make the ram chip/circuit board an actual rectangle with 90* corners
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/17/22 03:01 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 announcement August 29th, launch on September 27th?


We should be told the real launch date on August 29th.

Currently, AMD is working on improving the BIOS.

A lot of the BIOS is new because this entire system (CPU, Memory, M.2 SSDs, motherboard, GPUs) is a new generation. Moreover, all the motherboard manufacturers have to modify it slightly for their motherboards.

Lots of BIOS testing and modifying is not unusual at this point in the process of introducing a new generation.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/18/22 09:29 AM

FWIW: For those preparing to buy a new AMD or Intel system in the next few months:

Quote
Corsair Teases Next-Gen MP700 PCIe Gen 5 M.2 SSD, Up To 10,000 MB/s Read Speeds

Corsair rates their MP700 PCIe Gen 5 M.2 SSD at 10,000 MB/s read and 9,500 MB/s write speeds (Sequentially). The speeds will vary depending on the model (such as capacities). Compared to Corsair's current fastest drive, the MP600 PRO XT, the MP700 will offer up to 64% faster read and 41% faster write speeds.


Not selling Corsair. Just noting the Generation 5 M.2 SSDs will be enough faster than current M.2 SSDs that one will "feel/notice" it occasionally (not just "measure" it) -- e.g. possibly during PC startup, game startup, or when transferring lots of data.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/19/22 09:26 AM

FWIW: More of the same as above.

Quote
Gigabyte teases AORUS Gen5 SSD 10000 reaching up to 12.5 GB/s sequential read speed

Storage companies begin to tease their new PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSDs drives.

A quick comparison to AORUS 7000s Gen4 SSDs shows that the new model is up to 75% faster in read and 82% faster in [write].


Quote
Compared to Corsair's recently revealed MP700 PCIe Gen 5 SSD, that's an uplift of 25% in Read and 11% in write speeds.


Competition is good. smile

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-19 052432.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/22 01:35 PM

Regarding the competition:

Quote
Intel reported 43 Arc GPU drivers issues from one Gamers Nexus review alone


In brief, Intel GPU drivers have many issues that probably will take months to solve. This was expected by some 3'd party reviewers.

On the positive side, Intel admits the issues and lauds the reviewer for finding them. Moreover, Intel frankly admits they are still learning how to make GPU drivers. Good for Intel. thumbsup

Meantime, one might wait until the drivers are fixed and the Intel GPUs are given praise in 3'd party reviews before buying an Intel GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/22 11:24 PM

Quote
AMD X670E & X670 Motherboards Roundup Ft. ASUS, ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte, Biostar


A detailed summary description of a few Motherboards from each Manufacturer. These are "descriptions" not "test reports".

One could read it to see the comparisons and start to think of which make/model one might want.

AMD Generation 5 Motherboards Described
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/26/22 09:41 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X & Ryzen 7 7700X “Alleged” Zen 4 CPU Benchmarks Leak Out, 16 Core Up To 40% Faster Than 5950X


Several "leaked" test results in different articles -- nominally testing Engineering Samples.

We're close to actual launch. So, "leaks and rumors" are less interesting now (versus weeks ago).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-25 052824.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-25 052959.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/27/22 06:56 PM

Quote
AMD & NVIDIA Partners Ready To Offer More Brutal Price Cuts On GPUs In September, Current Cuts Not Moving Inventory As Expected

... the price cuts will far exceed the previous efforts, which can be better to alleviate cost pressures.

there are also some major price cuts expected by the end of this month so don't be shocked if those RTX 3090s drop below $1000 US in a few weeks.

Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/22 09:38 AM

Later today, AMD will presumably make an official "reveal" of some upcoming Next Generation Hardware. CPUs will be the main topic, it is said.

Some of that CPU hardware is expected to be on sale next month -- and some may be released much later this year -- and some in early 2023.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/22 08:04 AM

AMD made its presentation on the new Zen 4 CPUs:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen4” desktop series launch September 27th, Ryzen 9 7950X for 699 USD

According to AMD, the flagship Zen4 desktop CPU with 16 cores and 32-threads will boost up to 5.7 GHz, and it will cost 699 USD. Meanwhile, Ryzen 9 7900X with 12 cores and 24 threads and boost up to 5.6 GHz will retail at 549 USD.

AMD is also unveiling 8-core Ryzen 7 7700X for 399 USD and Ryzen 5 7600X at 299 USD. All four CPUs are to launch on September 27th. These are the only CPUs AMD is announcing today.


Quote
the chips will snap into new Socket AM5 motherboards that AMD says it will support until 2025+.


The attached images show the "official" numbers for price/performance. Third party testing will be reported in September.

Missing is the R7 7800X. I assume that will be a special gaming CPU -- I'm only guessing. I'll wait for that one to release before deciding.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 035646.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 035832.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 040004.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 040035.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/22 08:14 AM

AMD GPUs were not featured or fully described -- just mentioned:

Quote
AMD shows off Radeon RX 7000 graphics card with RDNA3 architecture

During the live demo, AMD CEO confirmed that a Radeon 7000 is currently running at AMD labs, and its performance looks ‘absolutely wonderful’. She also reaffirms previous claims that upcoming architecture will provide 50% performance per watt uplift over RDNA2.

The company did not reveal the launch date of the new GPU series, but Lisa Su reassured the new architecture will be ready later this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/22 08:17 AM

Quote
AMD announces EXPO technology for DDR5 memory overclocking

AMD Extended Profiles for Overclocking (EXPO) is an alternative technology to Intel XMP 3.0. The EXPO technology will enable one click DDR5 overclocking for AM5 builds and new Ryzen 7000 desktop series. Gamers using this technology should expect up to 11% better performance at 1080p resolution and lower latency to around 63 nanoseconds.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 041710.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-30 041916.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/30/22 05:53 PM

Quote
AMD’s 5nm Zen 4 CPUs Including Ryzen 7000 Not To Be Hindered By Supply Constraints, AM5 Socket To Be Supported Through & Beyond 2025

The red team acknowledged that while previous products on the 7nm process node saw supply constraints at launch, that won't be the case with their 5nm products and as such, the Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup will be available plenty.

"We do expect AM4 and AM5 to coexist for quite some time," Lisa Su tells us. "You should expect that, like with AM4, we'll build out the entire AM5 stack, but it will it will take some time to build out and we want to make sure the cost points are right, as always."

As expected, the Zen 4 CPUs will feature an RDNA 2 GPU core featured within the IOD and fabricated on a 6nm process node.


The GPUs inside every Ryzen 7000 will usually be for office-work and very-light gaming. There will also be APUs (like R5-5600G currently) that handle 1080p gaming decently.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/31/22 10:24 AM

As a gamer, this is the rumor I've been waiting for:

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D & Ryzen 7 7800X3D Zen 4 V-Cache CPUs Rumored To Debut at CES 2023

if AMD goes with the existing 64 MB SRAM (3D V-Cache) stack, we will get up to 104 MB cache on the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, up to 140 MB cache on the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and a whopping 144 MB of cache on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. That's a 2.6x increase over Ryzen 7 7700X, an 85% increase over the 7900X, and an 80% increase over the Ryzen 9 7950X. More importantly, it looks like AMD reserved the 7800X SKU for the 3D variation.

With 3D V-Cache, we can see an additional 10-15% gain across various [Game] titles on average.


Downside is the 4 months of extra waiting. If true, I'll probably build my system with a "placeholder" CPU -- probably R5 7600X (or G if available).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-08-31 062255.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/01/22 12:10 AM

Quote
AMD confirms Ryzen 7000 memory ‘sweet spot’ is DDR5-6000

Robert Hallock, Technical Marketing Manager for AMD, confirmed on official Discord channel what would be the best memory configuration for Ryzen 7000 series.

For Ryzen 7000 series, the best choice for DDR5 memory would be 6000 MT/s. By sweet spot, Hallock understands the best cost, stability, performance, availability, and ease of use. Furthermore, users should look for two module kits because four, although supported, will make it hard for signal routing to reach integrity, compromising the maximum performance.

If Robert’s words are to be considered, users should not modify FCLK and leave it on AUTO. He notes that for Ryzen 7000 series the 1:1:1 ratio for FCLK, UCLK and MCLK are not as important as before. To optimize their systems, users should overclock memory modules and controller in 1:1 mode. Well-performing Ryzen samples may hit 2000 MHz FCLK, but such configurations were not prioritized by AMD.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/22 09:57 AM

Intel CEO admits AMD CPUs may be the ones to buy today and into next year -- depends on how one will use their CPU. Of course, he says Intel will win big in the long run. smile

Quote
Intel Anticipates Further Market Share Loses To AMD Through 2023, Aims To Re-Establish Growth By 2025

Yesterday at the Evercore ISI TMT conference, Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, stated that Chipzilla is anticipating further market share losses to AMD through 2023.

Talking about how the company sees AMD moving forward, Pat says that the competition has done a good job and while Intel is still on a process node/technology deficit (10nm vs 5nm), the company is getting there with their future products with Emerald Rapids in 2023 and Granite Rapids / Sierra Forest in 2024. The CEO goes on to mention the advantages of Sapphire Rapids & how it is so good at AI. Sapphire Rapids is said to offer better performance and power than the AMD alternative but not in a significant way and Pat's goal is to bring out products fast that are not just better but more than better compared to the competition.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/08/22 10:08 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X performance in CPU-Z and Geekbench has been leaked

Over at CPU-Z validation website, there was a submission from one of the reviewers featuring AMD’s upcoming 8-core CPU known as Ryzen 7 7700X.

the CPU is 21% faster than Ryzen 7 5800X (8-core Zen3) and 20% faster than Ryzen 9 5950X (16-core Zen3) in single-core test. It is also 1% faster than Core i5-12600K (10-core Alder Lake), but it is outperformed by Core i7-12700K (12-core).

In terms of multi-threaded performance, the 7700X scores 1% higher than Core i9-12900K (16-core) and 8% higher than i7-12700K. This new Raphael CPU is also 28% faster than its predecessor (5800X).


Presumably, the R7 7700X is NOT the new AMD gaming CPU. The gaming CPU will be the R7 7800X. So far, we don't know anything "real" about that one -- but, it should be faster than the R7 7700X.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/11/22 08:51 AM

Quote
ntel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs & 700-Series Motherboard Prices To See Price Hike In Q4, Up To 20% Increase Expected on Components

If that's the case, then consumers should be expecting to pay quite a bit more than what they did last gen to secure next-gen chips & motherboards.

Intel's CCG business was down 25% year over year and 15% below the original Q2 guidance in the previous financial report. That took a toll on Intel and the company has since decided that they will increase the prices of their components to make up for the losses not only that but the price hike also aligns with the inflation surge


The article says inflation is the highest in 40 years (i.e. since 1982).

That strikes a chord with me. In 1982, I had to buy my wife's half of the house when she divorced me. I had to pay the then-standard 12% interest on the home loan (a legal loan between the two of us).

I paid it off in 2 years. Thus, after living expenses, I had no money left to spend elsewhere. But, I got my money's worth in piece of mind -- saved interest money -- and eventually another wife. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/14/22 12:33 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 & RTX 4080 16GB/12GB max TGP and GPU clocks specs have been leaked

As far as the launch timeline is concerned, RTX 4090 is expected in the first half of October, while RTX 4080 series should launch in the first two weeks of November.


Some folks note that the RTX 4080 12GB specifications seem to be commensurate with an RTX 4070 (no RTX 4070 has been announced, yet).

So, the buyer must pay attention to the actual GPU specifications -- and pay less attention to the naming, they say. We'll see when the 3'd party independent tests are published.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-14 083111.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/15/22 10:26 AM

More AMD GPU rumor/leak:

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900XT PCB layout leaks out with Navi 31 GPU and three 8-pin power connectors

The layout confirms that RX 7900XT features AMD Navi 31 GPU with 7 chiplets. The card is powered by three 8-pin power connectors, which means a maximum of 450W power, he notes. This does not rule out that AMD will use 16-pin 12VHPWR connectors, though, but thus far we have not seen any indication of that.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-15 062442.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-15 062516.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/17/22 12:26 PM

Quote
EVGA is reportedly so sick of working with Nvidia that it's going to stop making graphics cards altogether

The majority of EVGA's [sales] revenue comes from sales of its Nvidia graphics cards right now, but Han told Gamers Nexus that the margin is incredibly thin [so profits are incredibly small].

According to Jon Peddie Research, "the relationship between EVGA and Nvidia changed from what EVGA considered a true partnership to [a] customer-seller arrangement whereby EVGA was no longer consulted on new product announcements and briefings, not featured at events, and not informed of price changes." Peddie and Gamers Nexus also say that EVGA was frustrated by Nvidia undercutting its cards with its own Founders Editions.


Articles indicate that most of the Nvidia GPU wholesale-price rise during the "Cryptocurrency boom" was done and "pocketed" by Nvidia (not the card makers).

This is not the first such "breakup" of a partnership.

Quote
it's the end of NVIDIA GPUs for EVGA and that makes it just as big of a loss for the green team as when BFG Technologies dropped out of the GPU market or when XFX who also severed their relationship with the green team several years ago.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/22 07:44 PM

Quote
AMD to launch Radeon RX 7000 [GPU] series on November 3rd

AMD has already confirmed they are on track to deliver at least 50% better performance per watt efficiency with RDNA3. The new GPU series will also be the first to feature advanced packaging technology and multi-chip-module design with graphics and memory chiplets.

The Radeon RX 7000 GPUs codenamed Navi 3X are designed with 5nm process technology and will feature next-generation Infinity Cache, the company confirmed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/22/22 03:40 PM

High power use has an unexpected high price.

Quote
ZOTAC RTX 4090’s PCIe Gen5 power cable adapter service life is up to 30 connection cycles

the problem was reported by NVIDIA as a member of PCI-SIG, who were testing various prototype power cables and supplies. They observed that some cables were prone to showing hotspots or even melting due to severe bending or due to excess connection cycles (about 40).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/24/22 09:41 AM

Intel stock CPUs have been using Factory Overclocking to gain enough speed to compete for a few years now.

This year, to compete, AMD stock CPUs are also designed for overclocking.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X overclocked to 6.7 GHz scores 50K in Cinebench R23

Extreme overclocker Sampson, who is part of the AMD overclocking team, published a new world record achieved with AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-24 053957.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/22 12:35 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7950X/7900X/7700X/7600X stock Cinebench scores leaked

Just a day before official review coverage, we were given final scores for Cinebench benchmarks (and much more). This post is a little teaser of what will be shared tomorrow by reviewers from around the world.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-25 083424.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/26/22 08:33 PM

The day of the 3'd party review is upon us.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 Zen4 “Raphael” Desktop CPU Review Roundup


Over 50 3'd Party Ryzen 7000 Reviews Linked

I still await the Ryzen 7 7800X??. It seems that one might be a special Gaming CPU that beats them all. We'll see.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-09-26 162837.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/22 02:19 PM

I jumped all-in on the new AMD hardware -- no life preserver. Went with brands that have served me well in the past.

R5 7600X CPU (place holder until 7800X?? gaming-CPU is released?), GIGABYTE X670E AORUS MASTER AM5 motherboard, G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB Series AMD EXPO 32GB memory, SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 Internal SSD.

All supposed to be here tomorrow (we'll see on that one). smile


Edit: It came on time -- 12:20PM Wednesday.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/27/22 03:57 PM

By the way: As mentioned earlier in this thread, if one games at 1440p or 4K the CPU does not make a real difference one can "see and feel". Buying one of these advanced CPU setups from AMD or Intel is for "the fun of it" or for "other applications".

If on a budget, probably the best current gaming cost/benefit solution for many persons would be to grab one of the current generation GPUs on a good sale price.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/29/22 07:47 AM

FWIW: I got all the parts at Manufacturer's List Price or less at Newegg. The Motherboard was already sold out when I checked the second day it was on sale -- glad I grabbed one quickly when first offered -- without much research (just went by the reputation of the maker). I noticed some places were selling at above list price already.

The very classy appearing motherboard has slightly more features than I thought. And room for 4 M.2 SSDs (I only expected 3) -- two of which are to the new PCIe Gen 5 standard. Its slightly larger than a standard ATX motherboard - not all standard size cases work with it.

I have "all the pieces" for the new system. Still in assembly mode -- mainly due to lost time trying cases to find one that fit (among the many cases in my basement electronics work room).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/22 08:54 AM

Quote
Leaked AMD desktop CPU roadmap confirms Ryzen 7000 X3D series

AMD is to continue offering Ryzen 5000 series alongside Ryzen 7000 this year and in 2023. The mainstream desktop platform will receive an update with 3D V-Cache (X3D) variants as well, those are listed as TBA (to be announced).

AMD Ryzen G-Series should also get an update next year, most likely in a form of Ryzen 7000G series. We can only see a block starting in the second half of the year, suggesting that 5000G is to be succeeded by then.


As noted above, my R5-7600X is a place-holder as I await the R7-7800X3D or similar. I do not expect to see a difference in games at 4K.

Two notes about my build: Getting my Motherboard to fit a case was more trouble than necessary because the MB is 1 inch wider than a standard ATX motherboard. Also, the heat sinks over the 4 M.2 SSDs interfered with reliable seating of a couple GPUs -- so, I modified one heat sink with a saw. My newer RX6900XT had no problem.

The R5-7600X tests out at about 25% faster than my R5-5600X -- in CPU-Z. Also, it has a nice performing "small" GPU built in for office work (not for gaming like a 7600G would have).

I'm doing a virtually-clean install of all my software (including ~400 games) and all my hardware is new -- so, this build is progressing slowly. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/22 06:26 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Custom Model Graphics Card Prices Revealed By Newegg, Starting at $1599 & Up To $1999

The graphics card will officially hit retail shelves on the 12th of October
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/22 09:17 AM

Samsung will probably be making chips for AMD, Nvidia, and/or Intel at future performance nodes.

Quote
Samsung targets mass production of 1.4nm process technology by 2027

Samsung targets mass production of 2nm process technology by 2025 and 1.4nm by 2027

Samsung plans to expand its production capacity for the advanced nodes by more than 3X by 2027

Non-mobile applications including HPC and automotive expected to exceed 50% of its foundry portfolio by 2027


As previously noted, the "node size" (e.g. 1.4nm) is a shorthand way to indicate chip "performance" (smaller indicates better performing) -- it does not necessarily indicate node "actual size".
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/22 09:30 AM

Quote
NVIDIA Shuts Down All GPU Operations & Main Office In Russia

NVIDIA Quits Russia Once & For All, Main Office & GPU Operations Shut Down

Intel reportedly faced a similar crisis with its own employees in Russia who were heading the team behind the drivers for the Arc GPUs. ... the driver was delayed by several months.

This more or less marks the end of NVIDIA in Russia and it is likely that other companies such as Intel and AMD, will also take similar actions if they have offices or workspaces operating within the country.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/22 03:40 PM

New PC build finished. The following is FWIW. Not selling it. One should read professional reviews to make their own decisions.

Main changes are GPU (I've had the new GPU a while), Motherboard, CPU, Memory speed, and M.2 SSD speed. Components noted in above post.

Old PC Build: Gigabyte RX5700XT Anniversary - 3 monitors = 23P (1080p) + AORUS FV43U 43"L (4K/2160p) + 23P (1080p), AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 32GB RAM@3.2GHz, Gigabyte X570 AORUS Pro WIFI MB, (2x M.2 NVMe SSD + 2xSSD + 6x HD) = 35TB storage, Rosewill 1050W PSU, Rosewill Thor V2 Case, ASUS AC86U router, VKB Gladiator WW2 Stick, Pedals, Ripjaws KM780 RGB KB, Redragon 7200DPI Mouse, W11 Professional

New PC Build: Gigabyte RX6900XT Gaming OC - 3 monitors = 23P (1080p) + AORUS FV43U 43"L (4K/2160p) + 23P (1080p), AMD R5-7600X, 32GB RAM@ 6.0GHz, Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master AM5 WIFI MB, (3x M.2 SSD + 2xSSD + 2xHD) = 36TB storage, Rosewill 1200W PSU, Rosewill Stealth Case, ASUS AC86U router, VKB Gladiator WW2 Stick, Pedals, Ripjaws KM780 RGB KB, Redragon 7200DPI Mouse, W11 Pro 22H2

On both, I play games at 4K and maximum graphics settings when available (exception Anti-Aliasing 2x or Low).

Playing the Assassin's Creed Odyssey graphics Benchmark the new system gets roughly 110% to 120% higher FPS (e.g. 87FPS average and 137FPS maximum versus 41FPS average and 60FPS maximum) -- these numbers change a bit with each run of the Benchmark. The CPU alone gets 25% higher in CPU-Z benchmark. I assume this is typical or even a bit slow for this set of components -- given how I set it up.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/22 05:33 PM

Quote
ZOTAC confirms GeForce RTX 4090 pricing, from $1600 to $1700

NVIDIA ‘requested’ all board partners to offer at least one card at MSRP, which is 1599 USD. It appears that board partners are eager to comply to this request.

Hopefully, ... we will indeed see RTX 4090 at MSRP not just for one day, but for weeks to come.

NVIDIA launches its GeForce RTX 4090 GPU on October 12th. The reviews are to be released next week as well.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/22 05:40 PM

Quote
Intel Arc A770/A750 Graphics Card Review Roundup

Intel Arc A7 GPUs have finally been tested

After months of waiting, the review embargo has been lifted.


Attached link to reviews.

Over 20 Intel Arc GPU Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/05/22 07:58 PM

Another chip manufacturer setting up "big" shop in the USA.

Quote
Micron Announces $100 Billion Investment to Build Chip Factory in New York

Micron has not specified when it will begin building the New York plant, but it does say the first $20 billion of its planned investment in the project will be complete this decade.


They may provide AMD with chips. Or, they may provide AMD with competition. In any case, they will compete with other chip manufacturers in the USA. Competition is good. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/10/22 04:14 PM

Quote
AMD B650 motherboards are now available, pricing starts at $159

There is no sign of the promised $125 AMD AM5 boards yet, but the prices for B650 series indeed start much lower than premium X670. The cheapest boards have a MSRP of $159.9, but the majority of designs are oscillating around $200

Gigabyte will offer B650M DS3H motherboard for as low as $159.99, but this design is not listed by Newegg yet.

AMD has released its next-gen CPU platform before Intel, all four AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs and all four 600 series chipsets are now on sale. Intel has thus far only confirmed the launch of its 13th Gen Core K-Series SKUs and enthusiast Z790 motherboards on October 20th.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/22 02:00 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Review Roundup


Links to over 50 3'd Party RTX 4090 Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/15/22 10:32 AM

A post earlier in this thread noted that the Geforce RTX 4080 12GB specifications were more like a 4070 model. Nvidia apparently agrees.

Quote
Board partners are now ‘unlaunching’ GeForce RTX 4080 12GB from their websites

Yesterday, NVIDIA announced it is canceling its RTX 4080 12GB graphics card, an AD104 based model with 25% fewer cores than the proper 16GB card with AD103 GPU. The company is now likely to launch the same card under a different name

NVIDIA was quick to remove any mention of the 12GB model from all graphs, documentations, product pages. This took less than 24 hours.

Goodbye RTX 4080 12GB, hello RTX 4070 Ti?


A leaker noted the price changes over the years -- for similar series 80 model cards -- in the attached image. The current pricing is relatively high.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-15 063011.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/17/22 11:15 PM

An older article indicating when the AMD "X3D" Gaming CPUs will launch and rumored performance.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D/R9 7950X3D Launching in Q1 2023 with up to 200MB of Cache [Rumor]

For gamers, though, the real prize will be Raphael-X, the 3D V-Cache variant of Zen 4. According to Moore’s Law is Dead, AMD plans to launch a duo of Zen 4 3D parts early next year in the form of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Both these chips will feature 3D stacked L3 cache chips atop the base CCD, each packing at least 64MB of cache for a total of 100MB for the former and an insane 200MB for the latter.

You can expect a lofty gaming performant upgrade from these cache-loaded processors. Tom believes that deltas of up to 30% between Zen 4 and Zen 4 V-Cache are highly possible. That stacks up to a massive ~40-50% over the existing Ryzen 5000 offerings and a double-digit lead over Intel’s Alder Lake and Raptor Lake.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/18/22 09:39 AM

The attached chart shows the current slate of Nvidia GPUs -- what's real, what's rumored, what's cancelled.

Some AMD 7000 series GPUs are to release in early November.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-18 053721.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/20/22 11:12 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D “Zen 4 3D V-Cache” CPUs To Be Unveiled at CES 2023

AMD Wants The Gaming Throne Once & For All With Its Next-Gen Ryzen 7000 X3D "Zen 4 3D V-Cache" CPUs, Coming Early Next Year

The processors will be positioned as the fastest gaming chips on the market and will be taking the gaming performance crown from Intel's Raptor Lake 13th Gen CPUs.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-20 191124.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/22 06:54 PM

Quote
AMD rumored to launch Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card

According to Benchlife, the upcoming flagship RDNA3 part should be called Radeon RX 7900 XTX. We can now corroborate that this name is indeed used by AMD for the new Radeon model.

As of now, we are only aware of two Radeon RX 7900 models: RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT. There is no trace of the 7800 or 7700 series yet, so the rumors about delayed Navi 32/33 launch may indeed be true.

It was expected that the flagship part might be called RX 7950 XT, however this option will remain open for upgraded parts, such as the rumored Navi 3X GPUs with 3D V-Cache.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-24 145347.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/25/22 01:10 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7000 cards reportedly [rumored] not using PCIe Gen5 “12VHPWR” connector

This news comes just as NVIDIA is facing reports about melting 16-pin power connectors on their 450W GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards.

AMD is not planning to use the new power connector on their reference designs. The company would rely on [standard] dual 8-pin power connectors on their Navi 3X based model:


Attached picture shows "melted" RTX 4090 GPU power connector.

Apparently, the new type power connector must be attached very carefully or the power connector and GPU might be damaged (not "will be damaged") by excess heat. I.e. Its not perfected, yet.

AMD is said/rumored to be avoiding that issue by not using the new connector type in its 7000 series GPUs.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-25 090202.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/26/22 11:35 AM

Another set of RTX4090 GPU photos showing power connector damage. So far, only a few cases have been reported.

This attached picture explains a little what to look for and avoid. Apparently, using the GPU "ages" the connector.

It works fine at first, but can be slowly damaged over many hours of use. Plugging it in very correctly can forestall problems. First time owners are encouraged to "read up" on how to install it.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-26 072842.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/22 06:58 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X with 10 cores and Ryzen 3 7300X with 4 cores have been spotted

It looks like the 7800X could be the first AMD Ryzen CPU with 10 cores and 20 threads (not including the Embedded series). The software also confirms the CPU would boost up to 5.38 GHz, so max frequency could go as high as 5.4 GHz. .. the CPU has 64MB of L3 cache, so twice as much as Ryzen 7 7700X.

Furthermore, there is a first entry of Ryzen 3 7300X CPU.


I notice the attached CPU specifications show my R5 7600X as having 5.3GHz Boost Clock.

In my system, the R5 7600X routinely runs at 5.45GHz (maximum) on all cores simultaneously at bog-standard default BIOS settings (no overclocking).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-27 024710.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/22 07:26 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Consumer CPUs To Receive CXL Memory Technology, Offering Better Performance & Larger Expandability

company disclosed that it is working towards offering Compute eXpress Link (CXL) to its line of future Ryzen consumer CPUs. The technology will give consumers higher memory expansion, low latency, and enhanced performance through CXL on devices such as solid-state drives.

Silicon is still expensive to manufacture, and adapting to new specifications will take several years before the public will experience complete adoption.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/27/22 02:09 PM

Nvidia is taking the 4090 GPU "melting power connector" situation seriously.

Quote
NVIDIA tells board partners to collect GeForce RTX 4090 cards affected by melting 16-pin power adapter

NVIDIA has notified all AICs (Add-in-Card) partners to collect RTX 4090 affected by ‘melted’ 16-pin power connectors and ship them directly to the HQ.

The issue of overheating and, in some cases, the melting power connector appears to impact all board partners, so the issue had to be escalated within NVIDIA.

The issue may be the power adapter itself, which is of poor quality.

The main concern is on NVIDIA’s own power adapter, other brands may not be impacted by the issue.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/28/22 04:51 PM

Windows 11 problem for AMD Highest End 7000 series CPUs.

Quote
Windows 11 Is Causing Issues for AMD Ryzen 9 CPUs, Nvidia GPUs

The Windows thread scheduler included in Windows “intelligently” assigns tasks to the CPU cores. It’s apparently having trouble with the dual chiplets in the new high-end Ryzen CPUs, including the Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X. This was confirmed by a Twitter user named CapFrameX via TechRadar. They were able to boost gaming performance by turning off the second CCD (core compute die), and/or disabling multi-threading. Doing so improved gaming performance by 30 percent in some scenarios. For example, in Metro: Exodus the 7950X hit 151fps in stock trim, and 176fps with only one CCD.


No doubt, this will be fixed. But, some folks may mistakenly blame the AMD CPU. It does not affect R5-7600 or R7-7700 (they are single chiplet).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/30/22 12:24 PM

A FWIW post: Current high end GPUs and M.2 SSDs are PCIe 4.0 generation. The top new motherboards have PCIe 5.0 generation connectors for the GPU and M.2 SSDs.

So, when buying a new GPU or M.2 SSD, some may wish to buy the PCIe 5.0 GPUs and PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs.

On paper, PCIe 5.0 data transfers will be twice as fast as PCIe 4.0 -- maybe not that fast in practice. And, it won't make GPUs twice as fast -- just faster. On the other hand, M.2 SSD devices may easily be nearly twice as fast.

Quote
Comparing PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0

PCIe (PCI Express) is an important part of the computing world. It stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express and is one of two main interconnects that allows connections to GPUs, SSDs,, and other peripherals within your computing device.

PCIe 5.0 will be viewed as an extension of the previous standard, doubling bandwidth, frequency, and gigatransfer compared to Gen 4. What this means for users is that data can essentially be transferred at far greater speeds.

What's more, with faster speeds there is a larger chance for signal loss. The PCIe 5.0 standard builds in capabilities to better handle the noise and signal loss compared to that of PCIe 4.0.


I'll probably stick with my PCIe 4.0 GPUs until the PCIe 5.0 GPUs are released. I do plan to buy at least one PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD relatively soon.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-30 082143.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/22 09:42 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900 graphics card has been pictured, two 8-pin power connectors confirmed

AMD is now set to announce its Radeon 7900 series this Thursday, with the product launch rumored to be in early December.


The cards pictured are presumably Engineering Samples -- not what will be released in early December.



Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-31 054039.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-10-31 054108.jpg
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/22 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
A FWIW post: Current high end GPUs and M.2 SSDs are PCIe 4.0 generation. The top new motherboards have PCIe 5.0 generation connectors for the GPU and M.2 SSDs.

So, when buying a new GPU or M.2 SSD, some may wish to buy the PCIe 5.0 GPUs and PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs.

On paper, PCIe 5.0 data transfers will be twice as fast as PCIe 4.0 -- maybe not that fast in practice. And, it won't make GPUs twice as fast -- just faster. On the other hand, M.2 SSD devices may easily be nearly twice as fast.

Quote
Comparing PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0

PCIe (PCI Express) is an important part of the computing world. It stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express and is one of two main interconnects that allows connections to GPUs, SSDs,, and other peripherals within your computing device.

PCIe 5.0 will be viewed as an extension of the previous standard, doubling bandwidth, frequency, and gigatransfer compared to Gen 4. What this means for users is that data can essentially be transferred at far greater speeds.

What's more, with faster speeds there is a larger chance for signal loss. The PCIe 5.0 standard builds in capabilities to better handle the noise and signal loss compared to that of PCIe 4.0.


I'll probably stick with my PCIe 4.0 GPUs until the PCIe 5.0 GPUs are released. I do plan to buy at least one PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD relatively soon.


My current AMD 6900 XT GPU is PCIe 4.0 - however I'm on an Intel i9 10900K system, which only supports PCIe 3.0? I wonder if an upgrade to the new 13 series would be worth it? Probably not.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/22 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
My current AMD 6900 XT GPU is PCIe 4.0 - however I'm on an Intel i9 10900K system, which only supports PCIe 3.0? I wonder if an upgrade to the new 13 series would be worth it? Probably not.


Honestly, I don't know what the percent change in FPS would be. If one is gaming at 2K or 4K, the difference is unlikely to be noticeable by human eyes -- measurable but not noticable.

I just did a quick search. One on-line article by Intel seems to agree and summarizes by saying:

Quote
The higher bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 may also benefit graphics cards, as higher throughput helps allow quicker transfer of data to VRAM. But while PCIe 4.0 setups outperform 3.0 in synthetic benchmarks, the real-world benefits for gaming are currently minor.

Some tests suggest that even running games in 4K with current graphics cards won’t saturate the bandwidth of a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. There may be minor FPS advantages when comparing the same GPU running in PCIe 4.0 configuration against 3.0, but the differences are small enough to be unnoticeable.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/31/22 07:54 PM

Yeah, unfortunately that Intel quote has origin from back when* AMD was already releasing motherboards and GPUs with PCIe 4.0 but Intel was dragging behind. So they (Intel) were trying very hard to make it sound as if AMD was bringing no real advantage with these technology developments.

Might've been more believable if they hadn't already been underway (and just way behind) on implementing PCIe 4 themselves...

...which they finally did, a while later...and have since done so with PCIe 5 as well.

Marketing blather, plain and simple.

(Incidentally, quotes from external sources should be linked, because context is everything - in this case, dates).

*The page is updated with newer info, but that's just another reason context is imperative. Now they're basically saying PCIe 4.0 (and 5.0) "can" matter, and in fact *will* matter, because you know, "future" (lol)...while trying hard to not actually acknowledge they said not too long ago that it *wouldn't* matter...guess 'future' didn't matter as much at the time (lmao)

Also, I'm not really saying a 6900XT will/will not saturate 16 lanes @ PCIe 3.0, I have the hardware but haven't tested it (someone has, I'm sure...Google). What I'm definitely saying (and have been, since before PCIe 3.0) is that the benefit of faster PCIe goes well beyond what a GPU or any other single component might bring to gaming performance - but is especially important to storage, as it remains the slowest data movement, in spite of all the technical advances. And Intel implying otherwise (regardless of when) is...well...stupid biggrin biggrin biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/22 09:18 AM

Quote
AMD announces FSR 3 and HYPER-RX technologies coming to PCs in 2023

The FSR 3 is coming to Unreal Engine 5, confirms Scott Herkelman at Radeon RX 7000 reveal. This engine is capable of utilizing AMD unified compute engine technology and offers excellent ray tracing and rasterization performance with RDNA GPUs.

In an Unreal Engine 5 demo, Radeon RX 7000 GPU hits 60 FPS with FSR 2.0, however once a new technology called FSR 3.0 is engaged, the performance increased to 112 FPS. According to AMD, this new upscaling technology will improve performance by up to 2 times.

The FSR 3.0 supports Fluid Motion Frames Technology, but the company is not confirming what exactly does it mean.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/22 09:24 AM

Quote
AMD announces $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX, Radeon RX 7900 XT for $899

Today, AMD announced its first Radeon RX 7000 desktop cards, starting with the high-end 7900 series.

The third generation RDNA architecture is finally here. The company introduces Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics cards. The first features a full Navi 31 GPU with 12288 Stream Processors, while the latter is based on a cut-down GPU with 10752 cores.

AMD RDNA3 architecture based on 5nm node is the first chiplet design for consumer Radeon GPUs. The GPU features one compute tile made in 5nm process with six memory chiplets made with 6nm node.

Both cards will be available on December 13th.


At those prices, they are interesting -- even to me smile

We have to await 3d party test reports.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-04 052231.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/22 08:52 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX has a hidden ambient temperature sensor

The sensor is hidden behind the fan, effectively allowing the card to measure the temperature of the ambient temperature inside the case. This feature is very useful for graphics cards that have 0 RPM/0 dB technology implemented. AMD Radeon RX 7900 series support it as well. This technology turns off the fans when the card is idle or during light use.

Without such sensors, some card components apart from GPUs, such as VRMs, were prone to overheating.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-04 165146.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/04/22 10:57 PM

Quote
AMD confirms RX 7900 XTX is RTX 4080 competitor, FSR3 may be supported by pre-RDNA3 architectures

[Radeon RX 7900 XTX] is designed to go against 4080 and we don’t have benchmarks numbers on 4080. That’s the primary reason why you didnt see any NVIDIA compares. […] $999 card is not a 4090 competitor, which costs 60% more, this is a 4080 competitor.

— Frank Azor

[AMD FSR3] is not a reaction or a quick thing [to DLSS3], it is absolutely something we have been working on for a while. .. FSR until now did not just work on RDNA2 or RDNA1 they work on other generations of AMD graphics cards. They also work on competitors graphics cards. It is exponentially harder than if we just made it work on RDNA3. […] We really do want to work on more than just RDNA3.

— Frank Azor
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/05/22 12:09 PM

Quote
RTX 4090 Woes Get Worse: Native 16-Pin Reportedly Melts as Well

GeForce RTX 4090 owners are probably in a tricky spot now, as neither the power adapter nor the power connector seems safe. So should we pull the plug and stick to integrated graphics while we wait for a solution? Or should we continue to play Russian roulette? Unfortunately, Nvidia has been silent since the start of the 16-pin power adapter meltdown disaster


Seems to become a problem after the GPU has seen significant use.

Less than 2 dozen publicly known cases, so far. But, maybe purchase should be delayed until the "official" causes and solutions have been published by Nvidia.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/09/22 10:28 AM

Quote
PCI-SIG working on updated 12VHPWR connector, but it won’t address the melting problem

PCI-SIG, the organization behind all things PCI Express, is now reviewing a potential change to the 12VHPWR connector.

The change would add more shroud and gripping feature around the extra 4 data pins.

What is important to note here though is that not all connectors will fit this way. Since this recommendation was made by Johnguru, some users claim that their 12VHPWR cables simply do not go all the way as recommended. Which raises a question whether the connector specs are wrong, or the power adapter is to blame.

If the problem is really as easily solved as mentioned above, then there is no reason for NVIDIA to stay silent.


Thus, some industry folks do believe the new GPU Power Connector needs actual change -- not all such connectors are or will be literally identical. See attached.

Reports say AMD will not be using the questionable power connector on any GPUs.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-09 052627.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-09 053734.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/22 10:10 AM

Nvidia has renamed the RTX 4080 12GB version

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti reportedly launches on January 5th

MEGAsizeGPU corroborates on Kopite7kimi claim that NVIDIA has renamed its RTX 4080 12GB graphics card to RTX 4070 Ti.

NVIDIA has set the following dates for RTX 4070 Ti launch:

Product Unveil – 3rd January, 2023
Product Review – 4th January, 2023
Product Launch – 5th January, 2023

What is expected is a change in pricing. Original pricing for RTX 4080 12GB was $899, but this SKU should definitely cost less


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-10 050920.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/22 04:05 PM

FWIW: I checked Amazon and Newegg. Ryzen 5000 series CPU prices have fallen dramatically recently.

Not a bad time for some frugal users to update an older CPU on a compatible older motherboard (e.g. some 300 and 400 series motherboards -- with a BIOS update).

5000 CPU series gives a good performance jump relative to 3000 CPU series -- and blows away 1000 and 2000 series by some standards.

As often noted, this might only matter for 1080p gaming -- and some compute-heavy applications that spend a very-noticeable amount of time cranking out an answer/solution.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/22 09:17 AM

For Linux users:

Quote
AMD Ryzen & EPYC CPUs Even Enhanced Power & Performance Control Through Latest P-State EPP Drivers

The newest update to AMD's P-State EPP Linux driver hit today, offering better Ryzen & EPYC CPU performance & better control of processing power. Today launches the fourth version of the P-State EPP driver. The update affects both AMD Ryzen and EPYC CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/22 06:51 PM

More GPU power connector articles, this one adds value by better explaining the extent of the issue:

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 16-Pin '12VHPWR' Connector Melts Despite Proper Connection, First Case of 4090 Founders Edition Also Reported

Based on our findings:

1 - Fully plugged-in connector can melt
2 - Partially plugged-in connector can melt
2 - ATX 3.0 PSU can also make connector melt
3 - Not an issue solely related to 12VHPWR adapter (16-pin to 4 x 8-pin)
4 - The cable can come loose after some time by itself (due to bends & resistance)
5 - PCI-SIG planned revision for December 6th
6 - NVIDIA working on plug revision (rumor for now)

NVIDIA is yet to respond or share its findings


Article readers voted on what they plan. The majority plan to wait for the final "official solution" before buying.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/13/22 05:51 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 3D V-Cache CPUs Rumored To Come In 8 & 6 Core Flavors, A620 Chipset & Next-Gen APUs Planned For Mid To Late 2023

it looks like we will be getting the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the Ryzen 5 7600X 3D more or less. These CPUs will offer a 3D-Stacked chiplet design, featuring larger SRAM & providing users with higher gaming performance in cache-intensive titles.

there is a next-gen AM5 Desktop APU lineup planned. This lineup will also fall under the Ryzen 7000 'G' series family but is expected to launch in the second half of 2023.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/14/22 09:58 AM

Quote
There are two manufacturers of NVIDIA’s 12VHPWR connector, and you should probably avoid one

there are two manufacturers of the NVIDIA official adapter cable and only one is showing problems thus far.


Article for those interested
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/22 10:27 AM

Quote
GPU wars heat up with AMD's official Radeon RX 7900 XT vs RTX 4080 graphics card comparison


We'll see when the 3'd party test reports are released.

Meantime, the questionnaire responses to the article are interesting. Usually, Nvidia wins these things.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-15 052343.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/22 05:06 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Graphics Card Review Roundup


Links to Over 50 RTX4080 3'd Party Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/16/22 02:23 PM

You can buy one today, they say:

Quote
NVIDIA launches GeForce RTX 4080 starting at $1,199


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-16 092240.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/22 11:03 AM

Quote
NVIDIA 16-Pin ’12VHPWR’ Cable Update: More Evidence of User-Error, More Cards Melt, First Lawsuit

we told that there were two cables provided by two different companies and one may feature problematic soldering and design. However, GamersNexus tested both and found out that the issue can occur on both cables, so the manufacturer doesn't matter.

Moving on to story number two, we have Lucas Genova, an owner of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card who has filed a class action lawsuit against NVIDIA over the whole 16-Pin 12VHPWR cable. The lawsuit can be seen filed over at Justia and was filed at the California Federal court on 11 November 2022.


So far, the failure rate is very low. But, there are many factors. So, the article is attached.

Long Article Discusses Reasons
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/17/22 09:18 PM

Quote
Alleged AMD Ryzen 7000 Non-X ‘Zen 4’ CPU Prices Leak: Ryzen 9 7900 $429, Ryzen 7 7700 $329, Ryzen 5 7600 $229

Ryzen 9 7900 12 Core- $120 US cheaper vs 7900X
Ryzen 7 7700 8 Core- $70 US cheaper vs 7700X
Ryzen 5 7600 6 Core - $70 US cheaper vs 7600X

Overall, the chips sound like they will offer the best performance per dollar value on the AM5 platform and we will also be looking at cheaper A620 motherboards by the mid of 2023.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/20/22 10:03 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 gets a major price cut on Newegg, Ryzen 9 7950X now at $574

Newegg leads the Black Friday Week in US sales by introducing new prices for Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs. 

similar price drops can now be seen at European retailers, with the flagship model now costing up to €200 less.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-20 170146.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-20 170127.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/22 09:39 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900 'RDNA 3' GPU To Be Available In Good Quantities At Launch, Reports Supply Chain
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/22 10:42 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs get official ‘New Low Prices’ on AMD webstore

What is interesting about AMD’s own offer is that the discount is shown as “New Low Price”, although the product store also mentions “Pre-Black Friday Deals”. Still, instead of saying “Lower Price” consumers are told these are new prices. Therefore, we might assume that this is a permanent price cut on Ryzen 7000 series.

AMD is struggling to sell the inventory mainly due to very high prices of AMD AM5 motherboards, which are required for Ryzen 7000.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-20 170146.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/22/22 06:39 PM

Quote
NVIDIA, AMD, & Intel Prepped For High Wafer Cost As TSMC's 3nm Crosses $20,000 US Price

The report states that due to its dominance in the chip manufacturing field and no competition yet in the 3nm process segment, TSMC is going to raise the prices of its 3nm wafers significantly.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/22 09:40 AM

Quote
Initial launch of AMD Radeon RX 7900 GPUs to be limited to reference models only

Custom Radeon RX 7900 cards rumored to launch 1 to 2 weeks later.

"AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series graphics cards are expected to be available from AMD.com beginning December 13, 2022, and from leading board partners including ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, Sapphire, Vastarmor, XFX and Yeston beginning mid-December. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX has an SEP of $999 USD, while the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT has an SEP of $899 USD.

— AMD"


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-23 044023.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/24/22 12:03 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X gets even cheaper, now drops to $549

Amazon now has a limited time sale on Ryzen 9 7950X at $549.99, the cheapest it has ever been.

Unfortunately, it appears that this week’s sales are only for the Black Friday Week and will go back to original prices soon. AMD has now even removed the label ‘New Low Price’ from the official store, clearly indicating that those sales will end and are not permanent.


EDIT: As it was always my intent to upgrade my R5-7600X CPU when something better came along at a good price, I was interested. This 7950X might be only a few $$ more than I would have paid for the R7-7800X+ when it came out.

I tried Amazon, but they were not available at that price -- although other AMD CPUs were available at BF pricing. Maybe sold out???

I bought one from Newegg for $555. It was mentioned that over 1000 potential customers had them in the "shopping cart".

EDIT 2: Currently sold out at Amazon and Newegg. Mine is shipped with tracking #.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-11-24 070145.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/25/22 07:57 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPUs Now Available At Insanely Low Prices: 6900 XT Under $630 US, 6800 XT Under $500 US, 6700 XT Under $330 US, 6600 Under $200 US

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX will cost $999 US and the Radeon RX 7900 XT costs $899 US (MSRP). Since buying a Radeon RX 6000 series card at their original MSRP makes no sense, GPU retailers have decided to offer some big discounts on their existing stock of cards.

These are just killer deals and considering that AMD won't be launching mainstream or entry-level Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards any time soon, these Radeon RX 6000 'RDNA 2' deals are definitely worth considering if you're building a PC this winter season.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/22 08:42 AM

The headline pretty much says it all for now:

Quote
Q3 2022 Discrete GPU Market Share Report: NVIDIA Gains 88% Market Share Hold, AMD Now at 8% Followed By Intel at 4%

During Q3 2022, total PC GPU shipments declined by -25.1% (Y/Y) out of which desktop graphics saw a -15.43% decline and notebook graphics saw a -30% decline. This was termed as 'the biggest drop since the 2009' recision by Jon Peddie himself.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/22 09:25 PM

Quote
NVIDIA reportedly discontinues GeForce RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 series
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/01/22 02:01 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs get new packaging design, lower prices still here

The wave of massive discounts reaching as high as 20% have started in China, and were quickly followed by European and US retailers.


The Ryzen 9 7950X seems sold out in many places.

People (like me) jumped on the Black Friday price ($550 Amazon to $555 Newegg) and they sold out fast. We'll see what happens when new stock arrives -- presumably $550.

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-01 085552.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/22 01:09 PM

oops My first major PC-build fail in over 20 years.

Got my R9-7950X and installed it in place of my R5-7600X in my working main Gaming PC -- listed below.

It would not pass POST -- no image on the screen. So, I put the R5-7600X back into the motherboard. Same exact fail. Can't even get the BIOS page. Seems to be a MB issue.

After trying "everything" over several hours, I've temporarily replaced the MB and CPU with some leftover parts. We'll see how this turns out. dizzy
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/03/22 06:06 PM

Quote
Sapphire Radeon RX 7900XTX and 7900XT reference cards show up on Amazon

Sapphire RX 7900 reference cards listed by Amazon:

Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (21322-01-20G) Gaming Graphics Card with 24GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 3
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (21323-01-20G) Gaming Graphics Card with 20GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 3


The article has the links to the Amazon Pages with the product. Its not for sale, yet. They say December 16.

When available, I normally buy a Sapphire AMD Reference GPU -- at Reference Price or less. I may this time too.

By the way, my main Gaming PC (the one I'm on right now -- listed below) now incorporates a lowly R7-5700G CPU on a $120 motherboard with 3.2GHz memory. I've lost less than 10% of 4K FPS (examples: 82FPS vs 89FPS and 62FPS vs 63FPS) versus the R5-7600X on the $500 Gaming Motherboard (now defective) with 6GHz memory.

That squares with the concept that at 4K its less about the CPU or the memory, its primarily about the GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/04/22 05:26 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7900/7700/7600 non-X CPUs reportedly launch on January 10th

It is stated that three Ryzen models are to be released: Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 7 7600. Thanks to hardware leakers with relatively good track record, we might even already know their prices. These CPUs are to launch at $429, $329 and $229 respectively, so a $100 difference between each SKU.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-04 122536.jpg
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/22 04:29 AM

Sorry to hear about the fried motherboard. frown
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/05/22 12:01 PM

Quote
Lower pricing for AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs here to stay?

It looks like AMD Ryzen 7000 pricing is not coming back to the original MSRPs. More than a week after Black Friday deals, which was the reason for massive discounts on AMD’s latest AM5 desktop CPUs, the company has not adjusted the pricing back.

Some stores have removed the information about Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals. In fact, some stores have removed the information about the “deal” altogether. It really does appear that AMD Ryzen 7000 pricing is here to stay for good.


Prices are also low in China and Europe.

In my "shopping", I note that the cheapest DDR5 Motherboards and cheapest DDR5 Memory are quite reasonable (sale priced). I bought one of each (low cost MB, sale priced AMD-optimized memory) to help test my defective system (noted above). I expect those inexpensive items to virtually match the 4K gaming performance of my expensive (currently broke) stuff. By the way, "Thanks for the note ArgonV".

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-05 064907.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/06/22 09:08 AM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Reportedly Getting Price Cut By Mid of December To Make It Competitive Against AMD’s 7900 XTX

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card has been a miss so far when it comes to performance per dollar value. The graphics card has been the largest price bump for an 80 series card that we've ever seen at $1199 US and despite shipping lower quantities than the higher-end RTX 4090 cards, the new graphics card doesn't seem to be selling well and is still available in abundance at retailers.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/11/22 01:05 PM

Quote
Intel’s Raja Koduri says 200W to 225W is a sweet spot for GPUs

Raja Koduri says delivering higher performance at lower power is his top priority

Raja Koduri: "Performance per Watt, or delivering higher performance at lower power, is my top priority. There will always be someone with some skill who can say “I’m going to give you more juice”, but my focus is lower power. The other issue I find with just increasing power and bragging about benchmarks is that while it’s good from a marketing standpoint, [there is a limited] number of PC users who can just buy such a card and plug it in. It dramatically reduces your overall market, right?"

Raja Koduri: "High-end has no limit right now. What is the definition of high-end? Is it 600 Watts? Obviously our partners and our customers want some halo SKUs for bragging rights, and we always like to figure out ways to enable that. But my priority at this point is getting that core audience, with one power connector. And that can get you up to 200-225W. If you nail that, and something a little above and a little below, all that falls into the sweet spot."


Intel is taking what, historically, has been the AMD approach to Graphics -- adequate performance at an affordable price. Heck, my RX 5700XT still plays all my games at 4K, on Ultra (or virtually Ultra), and adequate FPS. I still have it running all my games in my home electronics workshop.

I usually buy new hardware just for the fun of assembling and owning it. Some folks buy for the practical reason of playing games well enough or doing professional applications well enough. I realize some folks have their fun owning "the BEST performance" regardless of cost. "To each, his/her own." smile

Competition is good -- it gives us choices. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/11/22 02:23 PM

Quote
NVIDIA Next-Generation Blackwell GPU Architecture Will Launch In 2024

Not much else is known about the Blackwell GPU series at this point (obviously) since it is nothing more than a string of text at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/12/22 02:44 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX/XT Review Roundup


On sale tomorrow. Roughly 50 test reports are linked at the following link.

Links to Many 7900 GPU Reviews
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/22 01:44 AM

Does anyone think there's a hope of getting one tomorrow morning?
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/22 03:19 PM

On Newegg I tried to get an XFX AMD 7900 XTX this morning.. Was on the site as soon as they became available. I got all the way through checkout and my order in. Then I got an e-mail by 8:05am saying they cancelled my order as there was not enough stock... Oh well, I guess I'll have to continue to be happy with my XFX Speedster Merc319 AMD 6900 XT Limited Black Gaming Ed. card I got last January. wink
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/13/22 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
On Newegg I tried to get an XFX AMD 7900 XTX this morning.. Was on the site as soon as they became available. I got all the way through checkout and my order in. Then I got an e-mail by 8:05am saying they cancelled my order as there was not enough stock... Oh well, I guess I'll have to continue to be happy with my XFX Speedster Merc319 AMD 6900 XT Limited Black Gaming Ed. card I got last January. wink


Like you, I checked -- out of stock by the time I did.

But, I really don't miss it. My RX6900XT is plenty fast enough FPS at 4K for the games I play. And, I really prefer a bigger jump in FPS before I drop another $1000.

Like you, I'll stick with the RX6900XT I bought last April 2022 -- and not be unhappy about being "stuck with it". thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/22 10:39 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7900/7700/7600 CPU pricing and specifications have been confirmed

The rumors about potential Ryzen 7000 pricing were indeed correct. Slides from the embargoed presentation shows the pricing and specs for the upcoming Ryzen 7000 series which are set to launch next year. Those CPUs are the so-called 7000 non-X series operating with a base TDP of 65W.


Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-19 053832.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/22 10:43 AM

Quote
AMD FSR Now With Up To 230 Games Support, 101 Games Shipping With FSR 2 Already

AMD publishes an updated list of AMD FSR 2 game titles, bringing the number of compatible titles just shy of rival NVIDIA

AMD will update the company's current upscaler to FSR 3 but is not anticipated until 2023.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/19/22 07:06 PM

Quote
NVIDIA & AMD confirm CES 2023 press events

NVIDIA Virtual Special Address: January 3rd, 2023, 8:00 AM PT

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su Opening Keynote: January 4th, 2023, 6:30 PM PT

Thus far Intel did not confirm any press event for CES 2023
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/20/22 07:19 PM

Quote
Intel/AMD CPU price war continues, AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is now available for $239

Amazon is running a time-limited offer with an extra $10 coupon applied at checkout. This lower lowers the price of Ryzen 5 7600X to just $238.99.

In Europe, prices are heavily affected by US dollar exchange rates, which seem to drag the pricing even lower. 


I paid $300 for my R5-7600X.

FWIW: My "defective" Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master AM5 motherboard (in signature) is on its way back to Gigabyte for repair or replacement. Very easy to setup the return. Shipping is free. We'll see if repair is free. It may not be if they determine that I screwed it up.

Meantime, I have bought a GIGABYTE B650M AORUS Elite AX motherboard ($200) and have my R9-7950X running on it -- just to verify that it works (it does -- and fast!). The speed indicates one does not need an expensive MB for the 16core/32thread R9-7950X. Just put a good cooler on it (roughly 250W based on my tests -- can be had relatively cheaply).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-20 140037.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/20/22 10:17 PM

Quote
Rumored AMD RDNA4 Specs Indicate 3.5GHz Clocks, Double RDNA3 Performance

AMD seems intent on moving the goalposts forward by a huge margin with a 50 percent improvement in performance-per-watt.

AMD is expected to be making a lot of changes to its next [GPU] architecture

though RDNA3 has great rasterization performance, its ray tracing performance is not up to par with Nvidia’s just yet. AMD is looking to rectify that imbalance on its upcoming GPUs.


Rumor for now. I was not as impressed as I wanted to be about the RX7950XT (though I may buy one at the right price). Apparently they're saving the BIG improvements for the next generation (RX8000 series?? Looks like RX8000 is Mobile GPUs).

Meantime, I'm not a fan of Ray Tracing on anything less than the top Nvidia GPU. Rather, I just want FPS at 4K or 8K with maximum image fidelity for every frame and a reasonable price (DLSS or equal degrades image fidelity). However, I have no issue with fans of Ray Tracing -- to each his/her own -- just get an Nvidia RTX4090. Parenthetically, after writing this post I noticed the cheapest "in stock" 4090 versions are over $2000 at Newegg & Amazon today).
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/21/22 07:45 PM

Good to hear about the board replacement. Gigabyte has always had a decent warranty return/exchange policy. Tho luckily I never had to use it but once waaaay back when. My current mobo is a Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC (in signature), to pair with my Intel i9 10900k almost 2 years ago now. It has been rock solid and was easy to configure and update the BIOS on. The Elite line is a good feature-for-your-buck board.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/22/22 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
Good to hear about the board replacement. ... The Elite line is a good feature-for-your-buck board.


I just bought another motherboard to try. GIGABYTE B650M AORUS Elite AX motherboard -- ATX ($220). The one mentioned above is m-ATX ($200). Has a 5 year warranty. None of the MBs will go to waste.

As you note regarding the Elite line, based on my experience with the m-ATX and R9-7950X, it will "do it all" at a relatively cheap price for an AM5 chipset MB.

Its just me to overdo things occasionally. If I have too many PCs in the house, I give one or two away. My Sister gets one for this Christmas, a Grandson got one this August. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/23/22 02:06 PM

Quote
Intel Reorganises its Graphics Chip Division, Raja Koduri [formerly of AMD] Seemingly Demoted

the company has just broken up its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) business unit which will result in some big changes. For starters, Raja Koduri has been—what we can only refer to as—demoted, given he's back to being chief architect rather than being in charge of the AXG business unit. Some of his staff will be moved to other business units inside Intel as the AXG business unit will cease to exist. This doesn't mean Intel will stop making discrete consumer GPUs, with at least the Battlemage/Arc B-series launch still being planned to take place sometime in 2023.


Intel's brand name has led to significant Intel GPU sales. Thing is, the GPUs are still a "work in progress" with noticeable problems to solve -- buying one currently involves risk.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/23/22 05:43 PM

Quote
AMD CEO Expected to Announce Zen 4 X3D, RDNA3 GPUs at CES Opening Keynote

The CES trade show takes place in a few weeks, and AMD’s CEO will be delivering the opening keynote. Dr. Lisa Su will take the stage in Vegas, and is expected to deliver the company’s vision for the future. That should include the highly-anticipated Zen 4 CPUs with 3D Cache, as well as more members of the RDNA3 GPU family. The keynote will be live-streamed on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. from the Venetian.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/22 10:40 PM

Quote
Desktop GPU Sales Hit 20-Year Low

Demand for graphics cards significantly increased during the pandemic as some people spent more time at home playing games, whereas others tried to mine Ethereum to get some cash. But it looks like now that the world has re-opened and Ethereum mining on GPUs is dead, demand for desktop discrete GPUs has dropped dramatically. In fact, shipments of discrete graphics cards hit a ~20-year low in Q3 2022, according to data from Jon Peddie Research. 

Jon Peddie Research recalls that declines of GPU sales in the third quarter experienced the most significant drop since the 2009 recession. Yet, for those of us who have been following the discrete desktop GPU marketfor long enough, the situation seems even more dire. 


Per attached charts: Sales dropped overall. AMD took the biggest hit. Nvidia increased its percentage. And, Intel dramatically increased its percentage (blue line).

Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-28 173449.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2022-12-28 173219.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/22 12:07 PM

TSMC provides most of AMD's chips.

Quote
TSMC holds 3nm “Volume Production and Capacity Expansion Ceremony” at Fab 18 construction site

Today, TSMC announced that 3nm technology has successfully entered volume production with good yields, and held a topping ceremony for its Fab 18 Phase 8 facility. TSMC estimates that 3nm technology will create end products with a market value of US$1.5 trillion within five years of volume production.

TSMC’s 3nm process is the most advanced semiconductor technology in both power, performance, and area (PPA) and in transistor technology, and a full-node advance from the 5nm generation. Compared with the 5nm (N5) process, TSMC’s 3nm process offers up to 1.6X logic density gain and 30-35% power reduction at the same speed, and supports the innovative TSMC FINFLEX™ architecture.


The Subject fabrication plant is in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). TSMC is also building a large, up to date factory in the USA.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/23 12:41 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti officially costs $799, launches January 5th

The RTX 4070 Ti, a rebranded RTX 4080 12GB will launch at $799. 

the card will be $400 cheaper than RTX 4080.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/23 12:46 PM

Quote
Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs See A 10% Price Hike, 13th Gen Price Increase Imminent
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/23 12:58 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs Continue To Dominate, 5800X3D Outsells All Ryzen 7000 CPUs In Germany

AMD retained a +50% CPU sales share while Intel only managed a 37% share during the previous month. The revenue split was similar to the sales figures though Intel did manage a 41% revenue hold due to more PC builders buying into their higher-end and premium products.


The attached chart indicates AMD sales at one retailer for December.

Attached picture Intel-Core-AMD-Ryzen-CPU-Share-Mindfactory-_5.png
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/23 05:35 PM

I've read about all kinds of driver issues and overheating issues with the AMD-built 7900 XTX series now. frown
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/03/23 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
I've read about all kinds of driver issues and overheating issues with the AMD-built 7900 XTX series now. frown


Unfortunate, but as we all know, it does happen - and not just with AMD (although I'm sure it'll start an all-new wave of AMD bashing). I do hope they get on top of it, and avoid all the AMD-vs-Nvidia blather.

Of course, it reinforces the argument that buying the latest and greatest thing is usually a bad idea. I never do...let someone else work for AMD for free to work out all the bugs. In a matter of months, the card will be cheaper and probably work better too.

We also have to keep in mind that it's not as if Nvidia has an unblemished record of late.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/23 06:57 PM

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Graphics Card Review Roundup


Over 50 RTX 4070 Ti Reviews
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/04/23 07:26 PM

As noted above:

Quote
Thousands of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference cards could be affected by 110°C GPU hotspot issue

It is very important to note that the problem only affects the RX 7900 XTX model and only AMD reference design (Made by AMD/MBA). This issue not impacting any of the custom cards which use non-reference cooling solutions. Furthermore, the reference RX 7900 XT model with cut-down Navi 31 GPU is not affected either.

AMD statement

Based on our observations to date we believe the issue is related to the thermal solution used in AMD’s reference design and is occurring in a limited number of cards sold.


So, to date, avoid the Reference RX7900XTX. Other cards including RX7900XTX (custom) cards are not affected, they say.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/23 12:27 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000X3D series coming February, 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D features 144MB cache

The Zen4 product family led by Ryzen 9 7950X3D will feature up to 16 cores and 144MB of cache. This CPU will have 5.7 GHz boost, so just the same max clock as existing Ryzen 9 7950X CPU, however the TDP has been reduced by 50W to just 120W.

AMD is also confirming that Ryzen 9 7900X3D with 12 cores will also be available. This CPU will have 5.6 GHz boost and 140MB of total cache.

Last but not least, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 8 cores will feature 104MB of cache, 5.0 GHz boost clock and TDP at 120W, ,,. AMD is claiming 21% to 30% higher performance at 1080p with high quality preset in popular esports games:


I'll probably have 3 motherboards and only 2 7000 series CPUs in February. That was not the plan -- but, its reality. So, I'll be interested in another CPU.

I'll be interested in the R7 7800X3D performance/price. But, the lack of impact at 4K could easily "turn me off".

Attached picture Screenshot 2023-01-04 192111.jpg
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/23 09:08 AM

Quote
AMD new mid-range RDNA3 graphics for laptops

AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT is now the fastest RDNA3 mobile GPU.

According to AMD, the fastest GPU announced today will be even faster than desktop GeForce RTX 3060 GPU.

AMD is confirming four laptops designs will feature AMD Ryzen 7000/Radeon 7000 config. These are AMD Advantage Edition laptops, which will be one of the first RDNA3 laptops to ship, and if everything goes according to plan that should happen in February.


Maximum performance numbers are shown in attachments. Actual performance depends on the Laptop designs produced and how the user operates them.

Attached picture Screenshot 2023-01-05 040336.jpg
Attached picture AMD-RADEON-7000-MOBILE-10.jpg
Attached picture AMD-RADEON-7000-MOBILE-9.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/05/23 09:16 AM

Quote
AMD unveils Instinct MI300 exascale APU with 24 Zen4 cores 146B transistors

AMD wrapped up the CES 2023 keynote by introducing new details on its ‘world’s first data center integrated CPU + GPU’.

AMD is not providing any performance figures for its CDNA3 based chip yet, therefore comparisons are not possible. But this will be undoubtedly a massive change to AMD EPYC/Instinct product stack regardless.


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-01-05 041532.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/23 11:32 AM

Quote
AMD confirms a small batch of Radeon RX 7900 XTX has vapor chamber issues, company offers replacements

Scott Herkelman is Senior Vice President and General Manager at AMD Radeon, so if there was any person to ask about those concerns, it was him.

He admitted that AMD has identified the issue and the company now aware of the problem. However, the problem is only affecting a very small percentage of cards that were made,

" It all comes down to a small batch of vapor chambers actually have an issue, not enough water and it is a very small percentage (…) that’s the root cause."

— AMD Scott Herkleman

Importantly, this issue is only related to AMD ‘reference’ design and only Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU. The RX 7900 XT are not affected and none of the custom partner cards. In the end, the problems with the vapor chamber only impacts performance


Thus, its a "manufacturing defect" not a "design defect". Some vapor chambers were made incorrectly. A relatively easy fix.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/23 11:52 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs Don’t Feature Manual Overclocking, Microsoft To Deliver Optimizations In Windows 11


In a nutshell, Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs are made for better gaming -- at the expense of maximum multi-threaded performance. Though, in looking at the specifications, the Ryzen 7950X3D may not be taking much of a hit.

Thus, Professional users should avoid these X3D CPUs if a slight application speed loss matters in their applications (Ryzen 7950X3D might be an exception).

I won't be buying an R7-7800X3D (I was considering it).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/23 11:08 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs Have A 6C Lower Tjmax of 89C Versus The 95C On Non 3D V-Cache SKUs

The current Zen 4 lineup is currently rated at a TjMax of 95C and while the CPUs can easily hit that target, AMD confirms customers have nothing to worry about since this kind of operation is within spec. These high-temperature limits seem to be the norm for AMD these days as their GPUs also have a peak temperature limit of up to 110C which is considered as 'Normal Spec'.

the trio of AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs which include the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and the Ryzen 7 7700X3D has been listed with a TjMax of just 89C which is 6C lower than the 95C TjMax of the Ryzen 7000 Non-3D CPUs.


Part of the higher temperatures in the past was due to better placement of temperature sensors. Also, newer CPUs, GPUs run at higher frequencies (partly due to factory overclocking for competitive reasons).

The X3D CPUs are more sensitive to increased temperatures which tends to reduce their performance out of proportion. This slightly reduces performance for Professional non-gaming uses. Its one reason I'm no longer considering an X3D model -- given I already own an R9-7950X.

FWIW: My "broken" motherboard is at Gigabyte. It sat because they took the holidays off. This week they said they will get to it very soon -- implying next week.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/23 04:14 PM

Regarding the Future of AMD:

Quote
AMD Reportedly Eyes Samsung Chip Fab Deal in Dual-Source Strategy

AMD orders 14nm chips from Samsung Foundry.

TSMC remains poised to produce CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and FPGAs for AMD on its leading-edge fabrication processes for years to come. However, AMD will keep outsourcing production of its older products to GlobalFoundries and Samsung

GlobalFoundries and Samsung Foundry will produce AMD's processors based on older Zen and Zen+ microarchitectures as well as previous-generation GPUs using SF 14LPP and GF 12LP production nodes.  

Working with Samsung Foundry allows AMD to learn how to collaborate with this contract maker of chips, how to use its packaging, and what to generally expect from SF. 

AMD's possible intention to use Samsung Foundry's leading-edge production nodes if something occurs to TSMC is our speculation not confirmed by any industry source at this point.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/23 03:14 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7900/7700/7600 non-X Desktop CPU Review Roundup

Today, AMD lifts the embargo on 65W Ryzen 7000 CPU tests.


Link: Links to Over 30 Reviews

Example:

Quote
After overclocking, the 65W models tend to offer nearly the same performance as the more expensive 'X' models, like the 7900X, 7700X, and 7600X, thus providing a less-expensive option for enthusiasts. AMD even throws in a bundled cooler with these chips, sweetening the deal as it looks to improve its rankings on the list of the Best CPUs for gaming and its price-to-performance ratio in our CPU benchmark hierarchy. 
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/11/23 02:25 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7950X3D, 7900X3D and 7800X3D launch on February 14

AMD is claiming that their Ryzen 9 7950X3D is to offer better gaming performance in gaming than Core i9-13900K CPU, at least in the titles picked by AMD


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-01-11 092420.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/23 09:14 AM

Quote
AMD now says Ryzen 7000X3D is not launching on February 14th

“As you know, today AMD.com briefly published a launch date for the Ryzen 7000X3D Series Desktop processors; however, that date is incorrect.

AMD Spokesman
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/23 05:01 PM

AMD seems to be in a world of hurt lately with their new releases - they have not gone smoothly as planned.

On the upside, it looks like demand for all of the new g-cards is tapering off some more. You can actually buy 4080s/4090s and 7900 XT/XTXs at retail prices from some sites.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/12/23 05:21 PM

Regarding competition:

Quote
Intel Launches $699 Core i9-13900KS, the World's First 6 GHz 320W CPU: Available Now

it's also now officially the most power-hungry desktop CPU in history — it peaks at 320W in a new Extreme Power Delivery Profile.

Notably, the 13900KS' peak of 6 GHz is 300 MHz faster than the 5.7 GHz for AMD's Ryzen 7000 processors, but AMD has a special series of Ryzen 7000X3D chips that will square off with the 13900KS for the title of the world's fastest gaming CPU.


As previously noted in this thread, Intel and Nvidia "factory overclock" some of their products to beat AMD.

They've been doing it a long time. AMD long ago indicated they would rarely or never be the absolute fastest because Intel and Nvidia will do all overclocking necessary to "beat" AMD. However, the Ryzen 7000X3D chips should be competitive in gaming situations at lower speed and lower power, it is believed. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/23 01:07 PM

Quote
Insiders Inform That TSMC May Lower 3nm Costs To Swoon AMD & NVIDIA

the foundry price of 3nm technology surpasses $20,000 for each wafer.

AMD has previously mentioned that the company intends to utilize the 3nm process for the Zen 5 microarchitecture, but this won't happen until the second half of 2024 at the earliest, while NVIDIA is aiming to use the N3 technology in its future Blackwell-based graphics cards.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/13/23 01:09 PM

Quote
AMD Fixes Botched Ryzen Firmware That Accidentally Disabled CPU Cores

The Ryzen 5 7600X is one of the best CPUs for budget consumers. However, AMD's AGESA ComboAM5PI 1.0.0.4 firmware with SMU 84.79.204 unintentionally disabled cores on Ryzen 5 7600X chips with dual-CCD designs. The revamped AMD firmware with the new SMU 84.79.210 has seemingly fixed this problem.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/23 08:39 PM

Quote
AMD Quietly Lists 31 New CPU Vulnerabilities, Issues Patch Guidance

AMD tells us that it typically issues its vulnerability disclosures twice a year, in May and November, but chose to release some in January due to the relatively large number of new vulnerabilities and the timing of the mitigations.

AMD's chips have long been known for having fewer known vulnerabilities than Intel's models. However, it's hard to ascertain if the initially limited discoveries in AMD processors were due to a security-first approach to hardened processor design, or if researchers and attackers merely focused on Intel's processors


Link to Article with List of Issues
Posted By: Paradaz

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/23 08:58 PM

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-...piling-up-but-users-not-receiving-cards/
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/16/23 08:57 PM

Quote
Cheaper AMD AM5 motherboards are finally coming, Gigabyte/ASUS A620 spotted

The good news is that budget friendly AMD A620 motherboards might be just around the corner. Some new models have just been spotted over at Eurasian Economic Commission regulatory office and on Goofish selling platform. The following motherboards were listed there:

ASUS TUF GAMING A620M-PLUS D5
GIGABYTE A620M D3H
GIGABYTE A620M DS3H
GIGABYTE A620M S2H
GIGABYTE A620M H
GIGABYTE A620M K

AMD announced its plan to sell AM5 motherboards starting from $125. The current entry point into new platform is around $388, which is the lowest price of Ryzen 7 7600 non-X ($229) and the cheapest B650 motherboards ($159-$169).


I have a $200 B650 motherboard. It supports my R9-7950X with no slowdowns. We'll see how the 620 series does it.

FWIW: My "broken" Gigabyte motherboard (in signature) is on its way back to me (fixed, I presume) -- to arrive Thursday this week (3 days).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/23 09:50 AM

Given that some AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (reference cards only) have defective coolers -- some users might be interested in this information:

Quote
Alphacool introduces water blocks for reference Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT GPUs

Alphacool presents new and innovative solutions for active water cooling of Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 4080 as well as AMD Radeon RX 7900XT(X) graphics cards with the Eisblock Aurora coolers.

AMD Radeon RX 7900XT Reference and AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX Reference [coolers] are available for pre-order now from the Alphacool Online Shop.

Compatibility Eisblock Aurora Acryl RX 7900XTX Reference

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
ASUS Radeon RX 7900 XTX
ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Biostar Radeon RX 7900 XTX
GIGABYTE Radeon RX 7900 XTX
PowerColor Radeon RX 7900 XTX
XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl RX 7900XTX Reference mit Backplate €159.98
Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl RX 7900XT Reference mit Backplate €159.98
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/17/23 03:32 PM

I just managed to snag an AMD XFX 7900 XTX Merc 310 Black Ed. card on Amazon for $1150 USD. I should have it sometime next week - according to their ETA. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Re: AMD's stock XTX coolers... What a shame. frown I've heard there are huge stock backlogs now.

I hope they did indeed fix your mobo - as I've mentioned before, I've always been happy with Gigabyte products and warranties.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/19/23 12:26 PM

FWIW: My Gigabyte MB has returned. Not yet tested. Two of my 3 primary PCs are in pieces. Some parts are still on order. Plus, making 2 gift PCs (for my Sister and a Son). So, I'll be busy off-camera for the next week or more (I have limited time per day). smile

FWIW: The primaries are R9-7950X/RX6900XT, R5-7600X/RX6750XT, R7-5800X/RX5700XT. I want all 3 running the same software identically (my backup plan). Having 3 identical is an accident due to the failed Gigabyte MB repercussions -- 2 identical are enough.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/21/23 03:53 PM

Quote
Graphics Cards Ranked by Value, January 2023

The best graphics card can mean a lot of different things — fastest card, best value, best card for a specific price, etc. And some people might refuse to buy an AMD card, or an Nvidia card.

We wanted to look at the current and previous generation GPUs, ranked by current value, for everything that's readily available in brand-new form.

For the rasterization rankings, we're sorting by the 1080p column, which penalizes the fastest GPUs. If you're only interested in 4K or 1440p performance, some of the cards change places, though the overall standings remain relatively consistent.

Best value overall right now, no surprise, goes to the AMD RX 6600.


I have the RX6900XT, RX6750XT, RX6600, and two RX6500XT. The RX6750XT does it all to my tastes at $400 (what I paid last week -- and got a free $120 game offer in addition).

Link to Long List of Ranked GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/23 09:57 PM

Quote
Intel Engaging in 'Semi-Destructive' Actions Against AMD, Says Firm

Intel uses capacity and price to sustain market share, limit AMD's PC market share expansion

A leading Wall Street firm has downgraded AMD, saying that Intel had engaged destructive actions against its smaller rival in the desktop PC space to slowdown its market share expansion. These actions could eventually hurt Intel itself, but for now it can use its vast manufacturing capacity and ability to offer competitive pricing to outsell its competitor and prevent its penetration into lucrative high-end notebook space.

the PC market is weak and sales of CPUs is down and the competition between Intel and AMD is getting fiercer. To ensure that AMD does not ship all the units it can, Intel is apparently using its vast production capacities, heavy discounts, and close ties with PC makers.


Competing on price is okay.

However, using "close ties" (paying under the table) is nothing new. Roughly two decades ago Intel did the same thing. They paid some top PC Makers "under the table" to NOT use AMD in their products.

As mentioned before in this thread, this was all proved In Court. Intel was Fined over $1 Billion (to be paid to AMD) -- but, used its money and connections to avoid payment of the Fine for years. It virtually put AMD out of business -- not so long ago AMD stock was selling for $2 a share or less.

They pull this stunt every so often. Its one reason I'm an AMD fan.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/29/23 09:33 PM

My XFX Merc310 Black Edition 7900 XTX came in on Tues and I've been putting it through its paces. On much of my testing, it's between 30%-50% faster.

MSFS 2020, DCS and Red Dead Redemption 2 are particularly improved for me. I can run MSFS 2020 on Ultra, DCS maxed out, and Red Dead Redemption 2 maxed out.
My resolution in all 3 titles is at 3840x1600, and this monitor is tuned to run 10-bit color at 120hz or 8-bit at 144hz. I do rather enjoy the extra color vibe at 10-bit. It's subtle, but noticeable to me.
MSFS 2020 still has some fps drops in highly dense cities, but I get no stutters or laggyness - according to AMD's drivers I've averaging about 60fps in the game - much better than before!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/01/23 11:01 AM

Quote
Intel expected to cut 12th Gen Core i9 processor pricing by up to 20%

Intel had quietly increased the retail price of their 12th Gen Core series at the beginning of this month.

It is now reported that Intel will lower the price of select 12th Gen Core CPUs by up to 20%.


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-02-01 060050.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/02/23 10:17 AM

Quote
AMD admits to be undershipping CPUs and GPUs

We will undership, to a lesser extent, in Q1. So I think you can infer that from our guidance single-digit down. And then, we’ll be back to a more normal environment. Now, just as a reminder though, the first half is not usually a — the first half is usually a seasonally weak client time anyways.
— Dr. Lisa Su, AMD CEO

Despite undershipping, AMD was forced to lower the price of their GPUs and CPUs massively in the last 2 quarters. In fact, even the Ryzen 7000 series were heavily discounted after just 6 weeks of reaching the market, by up to 20%.


FWIW on a slightly different topic -- power use & cooling: My R9-7950X is operational (in the basement -- not at my desk yet). Normal good cooling is not enough when its being Stressed in CPU-Z. That may be due to a design defect in the "shell" of the CPU (mentioned in some test reports). I notice the new R9-7950X3D is to use substantially less power and maybe run cooler. Something to think about if one is interested in buying an R9-7900 class CPU. One must check the 3'd party test reports. Meantime, I have a very strong, custom built water cooling system that I'll probably install.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/23 08:35 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-core Zen4 desktop CPU price drops below $299

Today, AMD partners have lowered the price of their Ryzen 7 7700X. The price is matched by two US retailers Newegg and Amazon who now offer Ryzen 7 7700X for just $298.99.

At this price, it actually matches the original MSRP of Ryzen 5 7600X, but this 6-core processor is now cheaper as well.

The upgraded Ryzen 7 model with 3D V-Cache is set to launch on April 6th. This means that this 8-core Zen4 CPU without this cache is now $150 cheaper than the upcoming X3D model.


I own the motherboard in the attached picture. It gives me full performance with an R5-7600X. So, the system price is dropping also -- if one shops sales.

Attached picture Screenshot 2023-02-03 032324.jpg
Attached picture Screenshot 2023-02-03 033302.jpg
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/03/23 10:09 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
I own the motherboard in the attached picture. It gives me full performance with an R5-7600X. So, the system price is dropping also -- if one shops sales.


Interesting...but 'full performance' from Zen4 CPUs includes PCIe 5.0 - which B650 boards like yours (or even X670) don't support. It requires a X670E or B650E board, and those will cost another $50+

Whether PCIe 5 is necessary at this point or not is a separate matter, and moot at that since it's here to stay. Far more significant potential in terms of storage speed, and that's nothing to dismiss, considering storage speed lags every other performance increase in PCs for the last few decades.

I'm sure everyone has an opinion, but to me it makes no sense to buy a hot rod processor and put it on a board that cannot (and will never) use one of the CPUs biggest feature improvements. You'd have to change boards later to get that feature, even though you're paying for it now (in the CPU). Everyone loves having to completely disassemble a system to replace the motherboard.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/04/23 01:38 AM

Quote
but to me it makes no sense to buy a hot rod processor and put it on a board that cannot (and will never) use one of the CPUs biggest feature improvements.


As you suggest, if a person wants to be perfectly safe and not worry about it, spend the extra $50 on a motherboard that supports PCIe 5.0 graphics. Under that circumstance, the $50 would be well worth it to me (why I got my "expensive" motherboard). smile

Right now, the PCIe 5.0 GPUs do not exist. It will be interesting to see if they really make a visible (not merely measurable) FPS difference -- a difference worth the extra cost of the MB and the cost of the eventual replacement of the current non-PCIe 5.0 GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/23 01:04 PM

Quote
AMD Ultimate Tech Upgrade to replace Intel Extreme Tech Upgrade at LinusTechTips YouTube channel

Linus Media Group will no longer produce Intel Extreme Upgrade videos, as the sponsor pulls out.

The owner confirmed that AMD will take over the format by introducing its own “Ultimate Tech Upgrade” series which is to kick off soon.

LTT has never revealed how much Intel did pay for the content, but with the upgrade budget alone it accumulated $120K, that’s not including the sponsorship deal and the ad revenue.

You can watch all Intel Extreme Update videos here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCUrphpzEqY&list=PL8mG-RkN2uTxLsQhOyM5TBgMHF9V4Gfqa


On another subject FWIW: I finished my PC shown in my signature. Runs fine, needed strong water cooling during stress tests. I wound up with two "backup" PCs -- not part of the plan. Those are more than I need.

Backup #1: Gigabyte RX6750XT Gaming OC – 32” 2K monitor, AMD R5-7600X, 32GB DDR5 RAM@6.0GHz, Gigabyte B650 AORUS Elite AX MB, (3x M.2 SSD + 2xSSD + 2xHD), Gigabyte 850W PSU, W11 Pro 22H2 Located in Electronics Workshop

Backup #2: My old main PC. Its an AMD Reference RX5700XT Anniversary OC GPU , various monitors, AMD R7-5800X, 32GB DDR4 RAM@3.2GHz, Gigabyte X570E AORUS Master AM4 WIFI MB, (2x M.2 SSD + 2xSSD + 2xHD) Rosewill 1000W PSU, W11 Pro 22H2 Located in Electronics Workshop

Notable Left Over up-to-date Parts: R5-7600X CPU, 32GB DDR5 RAM@6.0GHz, Gigabyte B650M AORUS Elite AX uATX Motherboard, RX6500X series GPUs, M.2 SSDs, 1100W PSU -- plus all other parts needed to make a relatively up-to-date PC.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/23 06:45 PM

Sounds like you need to start selling parts!
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/23 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
Sounds like you need to start selling parts!


I'm in the process of making and giving away to relatives 2 PCs. smile

But, you are right. I feel dumb about how I spent the money. dizzy But, not real dumb. winkngrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/23 10:06 PM

Quote
AMD Tops Intel With The Most 5 Million+ CPU Searches, Ryzen 5 5600X Searched Over 10 Million Times

AMD's huge popularity in the CPU segment can be seen in the number of online searches for its Ryzen chips compared to Intel.

AMD secured all top 10 spots in searches with six out of 10 chips having 5 Million+ search figures. The top chip from team AMD was the Ryzen 5 5600X which secured over 10 million searches while the Ryzen 7 5800X3D secured around 4.6 Million searches. It is amazing how the X3D chip has managed to secure 5 Million searches within a year of its release

The AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs have only been out for a few months but it looks like the 7950X is the most popular chip searched on the web with almost 1.5 million searches followed by the 7600X which recently broke the 1 million search figure.

Moving over to Intel, the Core i9-12900K, and the Core i5-12400 take up the 16th and 17th spot in searches, respectively. These chips secured around 2.8 million searches each which is a far cry from the AMD Ryzen parts


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-02-12 170557.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/20/23 03:50 PM

Regarding the Future of AMD:

Quote
AMD talks future of RDNA, wants to make game NPCs smarter with AI

The interview is not providing any statements that would declare RDNA4 ‘X times faster’ or more efficient than RDNA3. However, David Wang did emphasize Artificial Intelligence importance and how it correlates with AMD strategy in the future.

"The movement and behavior of enemy characters and NPCs are probably the most obvious examples [for AI cores]. Also, even if AI is used for image processing, AI should be in charge of more advanced processing. Specifically, a theme such as “neural graphics”, which is currently gaining momentum in the 3D graphics industry, may be appropriate."

— David Wang, AMD


Wang claims that AI could make NCPs perform smarter tasks and perform more advanced tasks within the game mechanics.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/22/23 04:56 PM

Quote
AMD Puts Hopes on Packaging, Memory on Logic, Optical Comms for Decade Ahead

Advanced architecture and packaging will make up for tapering process technology benefits.

AMD aims to keep the pedal to the metal and use advanced technologies to counteract the tapering off of semiconductor process shrink benefits.


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-02-22 at 11-52-48 AMD Puts Hopes on Packaging Memory on Logic Optical Comms for Decade Ahead.png
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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/23/23 01:36 PM

Quote
Apple Has Procured TSMC’s Entire First Run of 3nm Chips

The purchase by Apple is exciting for the industry, as 3nm promises to be a blockbuster node for TSMC. In fact, TSMC is so confident that it raised prices for Apple, and the company reportedly buckled in negotiations over it. Despite the now-finalized agreement, we won’t see the first 3nm chips for another six months, at least.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/27/23 02:22 PM

AMD's top gaming CPU has been reviewed. Links to approximately 40 independent reviews.

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D Desktop CPU Review Roundup

AMD Ryzen 7000 with 3D V-Cache tested

Today, AMD lifts the embargo on their Ryzen 7000X3D series.


Links to Independent 3'd Party Test Reports

Sample findings:

Quote
The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is still respectable, but if gaming isn't your thing, then the Ryzen 9 7950X is currently cheaper than the 7950X3D at $589 from Amazon and still offers a good balance between gaming and compute performance. Otherwise, if gaming is your thing and you're well informed that the titles you play the most can benefit from the 3D V-Cache, then the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the way to go.

It could be worth waiting for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D if gaming is the only thing you do, as it's around 55% cheaper (at MSRP) than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and should, in theory, offer the same levels of gaming performance. It should also be noted that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is currently on offer from Amazon for $323, representing excellent value for gamers.


As one reader posted (paraphrased): If on a budget, its better to buy the much cheaper R5-7600X -- then use the money saved to buy a better GPU.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/23 11:12 PM

Quote
Discrete GPU Shipments Drop to Levels Not Seen in Over 10 Years

As 2023 plods along, more bad news for the PC hardware industry has arrived from Jon Peddie Research. The market analysis firm has tallied up shipments of CPUs as well as discrete GPUs for the fourth quarter of 2022, and it’s not pretty. The numbers haven’t been this bad for GPUs since 2011. In addition, the firm predicts the GPU market will grow very slowly over the next five years.

That’s not just for discrete GPUs either, but for all GPUs. The report claims that overall shipments declined 38% YoY. Broken down, desktop GPU shipments declined by 24% and notebook GPU shipments fell by 43%.

The news on the CPU front is also negative. CPU shipments decreased 17.4% from the previous quarter and 35.3% year-over-year. For context, 84 million CPUs were sold in Q4 of 2021. The following year only 54 million were shipped. The analysis shows that of all the CPUs in customers’ hands, almost two-thirds are in notebooks. The other third are desktop CPUs, highlighting the importance of mobile chips in overall sales.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/01/23 11:16 PM

Quote
The Dragon Slaughters The Raptor: AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX “Dragon Range” Laptop CPU Decimates Intel 13th Gen Lineup In Performance & Efficiency

AMD managed to close the gap in terms of single-core performance with lower power consumption. The new Zen 4 chip is even faster in multi-core benchmarks and still consumes considerably less power at just 120 Watts, which means laptop manufacturer get more headroom for the cooling of the GPU, for example.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/23 03:44 PM

The last 3 years have been anything but normal in terms of PC and PC part sales (COVID, supply chain issues, China tariffs, crypto, a land war in Europe). I hope they aren't seriously using those years as a valid metric to judge the PC market as a whole...
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/23 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by ArgonV
The last 3 years have been anything but normal in terms of PC and PC part sales (COVID, supply chain issues, China tariffs, crypto, a land war in Europe). I hope they aren't seriously using those years as a valid metric to judge the PC market as a whole...


A very well-taken point.

Also, one has to wonder...the clear and obvious greed displayed by these technology producers (specifically, GPU manufacturers) has driven pricing to astounding, ridiculous levels - far beyond what the increases in performance would justify. During the mess that occurred with the 30-series Nvidia cards release, they (high-end GPU manufacturers) learned that people would still buy these cards, even selling at 2-3 times the MSRP.

Because I build a fair number of gaming PCs every year, I know plenty of people who actually thought it would get better with the 40-series cards, now that some of the 'worldwide craziness' has settled at least somewhat. But it appears that never happened. I told people then and I'll say it again here: Those outrageous prices weren't going anywhere, once it became clear people would pay outlandish sums just to have the latest and greatest thing.

So, what did anyone expect would happen? They continued to jack up prices, far outside any proportion to reason. The (comparatively) few who absolutely must have bragging rights by getting the 'latest and greatest', regardless of the absurd price, is a small part of the market as a whole...so, once these "braggers at any cost" get the hardware they need to make up for shortages in other areas of their lives, sales plummet.

Some people still consider buying the latest high-end cards, but more of them are starting to see how ridiculous the prices have become...and what-do-you-know: A lot less GPUs sell.

I actually found myself advising people *not* to buy into the 30- and 40-series nonsense. I was actually trying to talk paying clients *out* of potential sales, at least until the prices came down a little. But there were still some who couldn't be told. They were going to have that high-end 30xx card, even if it meant paying $2000 for it.

BTW...I'd be willing to concede my point here might seem a little paranoid...if it weren't for the fact that even eVGA had enough, and bailed on the whole thing, specifically citing the greed. Nvidia actually ran their biggest partner out of the business.

PS, To be totally accurate, I should say that I myself finally bought a new 3090...but *only* once I could get it for *far below* MSRP.
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/23 04:31 PM

I will say, the ultra-end/novelty graphics cards have always been around $1k-ish (look at the NVidia 1080 Titan and what not at release) - but now even the mid-tier cards, and the lower end of the top-tier cards are at $900-$1k+. It's crazy to me...
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/02/23 04:55 PM

That's exactly what I'm saying...although it's fair to say the global situation would have influenced pricing (and not just with computers)...but - at least in my estimation - once they figured out they could 'charge what the market would bear' they haven't looked back.

Maybe the drop in sales will slap a little sense into their greedy a$$e$. Another reason I advise against buying into the nonsense is because it just helps to perpetuate the mess.

But, again, there are people (and unfortunately, not just a few) who will spend seemingly *anything* so they can be among the first to brag on a forum "I got a 4090"...

I'm reminded of that female comedienne Paula Poundstone who said she'd gotten to where every time she saw a guy in a 'Vette she'd automatically blurt out "Sorry about your penis" biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/23 09:03 AM

Good conversation above. I agree with the general direction of the thoughts. thumbsup
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/23 09:09 AM

Quote
AMD admits a very rare Radeon driver bug may corrupt Windows installations

Better not use “Factory Reset” Settings in Adrenalin Software

the vast majority of users never had any trouble, even after using ‘Factory Reset’ option that completely flushes the driver settings. This ‘feature’ is considered the root of the problem.

Turns out, Brad Chacos, the editor and reviewer from PCWorld encountered this issue and immediately started working with AMD to resolve it. While the company admits that this is an extremely rare issue, they concluded that users should refrain from using Factory Reset option when installing AMD drivers

It is equally important to avoid using this option when installing the drivers as well as not updating the system at the same time. Users often forget that new operating system installations usually begin with driver updates. They should first ensure that this process has been finished before installing new drivers.

The article notes that users who have experienced the bug may need to reinstall their operating system if their Windows installation has become corrupted. However, this is a last resort that should only be done if all other options have been exhausted. Although it may be very hard to start, Window’s built-in boot recovery module may resolve this problem, once it occurs.


AMD is working to fix the drivers. For now, use caution -- or don't "factory reset" AMD drivers for a month or two and give them time to fix it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/08/23 09:39 AM

More on the above mentioned infrequent "driver bug". The problem is ameliorated in the latest driver.

Quote
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 23.3.1

Important notice:

Factory Reset has been temporarily disabled as precautionary measure while we address isolated installation issues that have been reported during PC upgrades.


This driver removes the need for users to be "aware" of the problem; and, removes the need to be aware that they should not use factory reset (as mentioned in the above post).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/23 05:04 PM

Quote
First AMD AM5 motherboard is now available below $125

ASRock’s B650 motherboard drops below $125

And it is not the rumored entry-level A620 chipset

The B650M-HDV/M.2 supports two DDR5 memory modules, rated up to 6400 MT/s when overclocked. There are two full-size PCIe Gen4 x16 slots and one with four lanes. This platform is powered by 8+2+1 phase VRM which is enough for all Ryzen 7000 CPUs.

What is more important is that the full AM5 upgrade cost has now dropped below $500, which includes 6-core Ryzen 7 7600, this ASRock B650 motherboard and AMD recommended DDR5-6000 memory, that’s $480.97 total:


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-03-09 120344.jpg
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/09/23 10:55 PM

Yes...but you don't get PCIe 5.0 with the B650 (non"E") chipset, which is the big draw for AM5. Never mind graphics, the big factor is storage speed.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think it's technically accurate to refer to it as a "full AM5 upgrade" if it excludes PCIe 5.0. I also think that, since a motherboard is technically the 'backbone' of any given platform, this omission shouldn't be regarded lightly. The fact is, you'd not only give up PCIe 5.0 now - but you won't be able to get it in the future unless you change boards again.

My advice to anyone considering it would be to invest a bit more in the 'backbone' to secure PCIe 5.0 functionality now - so that, later on when components that can actually use it are more readily available, you only need acquire those components - and not a new motherboard.

Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly content at PCIe 4.0 now and likely will be for quite some time to come. We all understand, I presume, that GPUs aren't even close to saturating *half* the bandwidth of a PCIe 4 x16 connection, never mind PCIe 5.0...but, as I mentioned above: PCIe 5.0 storage is not a dream, it exists now, and it will become more common/cheaper/available quickly. And considering that storage remains one of (if not *the*) biggest 'bottlenecks' to overall performance, that additional speed is nothing to sneeze at.

Regretfully, technologies like DirectStorage and RTX I/O still aren't common just yet (and they darn well should've been, but that's the way the world is these days...). But they are still coming, I believe, and hopefully sooner rather than later. And, the faster the bus is - when we do finally see these improvements common in the gaming world - then all the better.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/23 08:28 AM

Quote
What is more important is that the full AM5 upgrade cost has now dropped below $500, which includes 6-core Ryzen 7 7600, this ASRock B650 motherboard and AMD recommended DDR5-6000 memory,


I went all in with my #1 system (listed below) to get the long term full AM5 support you mention. But, strictly speaking, given the cost, its overkill for most folks (in my opinion). Each person must make the decision based on all the information and their personal viewpoints.

FWIW: My #2 (backup) system uses a B650 motherboard with R5-7600X and DDR5-6000 memory. Software & games wise it is an identical copy of my #1 system (listed below); and; gives all the gaming FPS I need with a $400 RX6750XT (my cost -- the RX6700XT was only 6% slower for $350 at the time).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/23 09:25 AM

Quote
Some AMD Radeon users may experience lower 3DMark Time Spy scores, AMD/UL confirm

The issue has been reported Osvaldo Doederlein (Software Engineer at Google), who noticed a drop in performance when using the latest Radeon drivers for his RX 7900 XTX GPU. The issue reportedly affects TimeSpy benchmarking software by rendering much lower results.

this is not a general issue that affects everyone with 7900XT/XTX

AMD has apparently reproduced this internally and it is starting to look more and more like a driver issue, so at this time I can only offer “rollback to previous or ignore and wait for future driver fixes”.
— UL Jarnis


Only 3% of some recent high-end (7900XT/XTX) GPUs are affected. The effect has not been reported in "games" -- just Time Spy, so far. They're working to fix it in a future driver release.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/12/23 09:31 AM

Quote
AMD's First Official Ryzen 7 7800X3D Gaming Benchmarks vs Core i9-13900K, Up To 24% Faster

AMD has finally shared its own official gaming benchmarks of the hotly-anticipated $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D going toe-to-toe with Intel's flagship $589 Core i9-13900K and winning by an average of 20%, and up to 24% in one title - but for $150 less. The new benchmarks also give us a limited comparison of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, too, implying that the less expensive chip offers nearly the same level of gaming performance as the pricey flagship - but for $250 less.


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-03-12 053014.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/23 08:58 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, X670E motherboard and 32GB DDR5-6000 combo available for $500

The B670E motherboard from ASRock is a proper design with 14+2+1 phase VRM power section, up to 4x DDR5-6600 memory OC support, PCIe Gen5 x16 slot for GPU and, of course, Gen5 M.2 slot for storage. The 2x16GB memory kit has an AMD EXPO overclocking profile, and it is rated for 6000 MT/s at 36-36-36-96 CL36.


https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryz...5-6000-combo-available-for-less-than-500

Just what we've recently discussed,. A Gen 5 system that supports the Gen 5 CPU, Memory, M.2, and GPU -- for a reasonable combo price.

I looked it up at Newegg and was considering it for a moment or two -- but, I've already overdone Gen 5 biggrin

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Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/23 10:09 PM

That's a pretty good deal. If, if if... biggrin biggrin biggrin

It's good to see a 'proper' AM5 setup going for <$500...but I'd personally steer away from AsRock motherboards. (And yes, I've owned one personally - only one, for good reason - and have worked on many, many others). Kind of a reputation among industry professionals as the 'bargain basement' of components - which prices usually reflect at almost any vendor. Cheap stuff is usually AsRock.

Of course, everyone's going to have a different experience. Some people swear by them. And certainly nothing wrong with cheap, in and of itself. It's just when quality and support after the sale follow the price to the basement...well, usually, you get what you pay for.

Either way, though, good to see the pricing get more reasonable for cutting-edge stuff.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/15/23 09:04 AM

A laptop CPU with integrated graphics that perform at an entry level gaming GPU FPS.

Quote
AMD Radeon 780M RDNA 3 iGPU Benchmark Leaks Out: Faster Than GTX 1650 & RX 480

The CPU which is part of the Phoenix "Ryzen 7040" lineup comes with 8 cores, 16 threads, & 16 MB of L3 cache (+8 MB of L2 cache). The CPU is clocked at 3.8 GHz base and 5.1 GHz boost clock and has TDP rated at 35-54W. The most interesting part of this chip is the Radeon 780M iGPU which offers 12 compute units for a total of 768 cores and a graphics frequency of 2700 MHz.

The entry-level performance of the AMD RDNA 3 iGPU is very impressive considering it matches the most popular GPUs such as the GTX 1650 and RX 480 (which are still used to this day by gamers) & consumes literally a fraction of the power.


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-03-15 050327.jpg
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/23 01:21 PM

Quote
AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D Benchmarks Show It's Up to 24% Faster than the Core i9-13900K

AMD is preparing to launch the final CPU in its X3D family, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It launched the Ryzen 9 CPUs, the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, but the reason it didn't launch all three seems obvious: The least expensive chip might have stolen the pricier chips' thunder.

At $449, the 7800X3D is $250 less expensive than the flagship CPU and $150 less than the 7900X3D.


The X3D tag matters for 1080p gaming and certain games (not all). It does not matter much for 4K gaming.

In my two main systems, I set the Monitor refresh to 60FPS and play at 4K and 2K. That's just me.
Posted By: kksnowbear

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/23 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Allen
The X3D tag matters for 1080p gaming and certain games (not all). It does not matter much for 4K gaming.


According to whom? Reference?
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/17/23 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by kksnowbear
According to whom? Reference?


It's common knowledge -- however, the PC news media does not write stories to prove that -- its not good click bait.

I'm comparing CPUs from the same current generation -- not older generations to newer generations. In that case, at 1080p with an Nvidia RTX4090 (or equal), the difference between CPUs may be in the 20+ percent range. But at frame rates so high, it will not matter to most folks (except a few folks who value having the highest FPS at 1080p). Typically, mid-level gaming GPUs limit the speed percentage differences to significantly below those with the RTX4090.

As one increases to 2K and 4K the GPU limitations make the CPU differences too small to "see or feel" (one can only measure) -- though a twitch gamer playing against other humans may argue the extra few frames give an edge that they want. In general, one gets more FPS in these games by spending the extra money on a better GPU (not a better CPU).

Here's an article that discusses the differences between CPUs (using an RTX4090). The article is written for folks who really want the FPS -- regardless of price. They show FPS numbers mostly in the roughly 175FPS to roughly 220FPS range (25% difference) for up to date CPUs at 1080p that are not overclocked. As I noted above, I'm happy with a smooth 60FPS with Ultra graphics settings at 4K and 2K (depending on which gaming monitor I'm on). So, I just set the monitors to 60FPS.

Quote
CPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2023: Processor Ranking Charts
By Paul Alcorn published 6 days ago

We've run thousands of CPU benchmarks on all new and older Intel and AMD CPUs and ranked them.


https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/24/23 03:31 PM

Historical note: R. Koduri led AMD's GPU division. He moved to Intel in 2017. I have not been impressed by his product there.

Now, he's "moving on" from Intel.

Quote
Raja Koduri, Executive Vice President & Chief Architect, Leaves Intel

Raja Koduri oversaw the development and release of Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU series

The Arc project has gone through many technical setbacks and delays, and the resultant products launched to a mixed reception in October 2022. The company has been battling to boost the reputation of its Alchemist GPUs, in the face of rumors about a total cancellation of the undertaking. Numerous firmware and software fixes have been issued since Arc's debut, and aggressive price cuts have been deployed in recent weeks.

Koduri served stints at Apple and AMD prior to taking on executive positions at Intel.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/24/23 03:36 PM

In case you own an RTX3080 Ti -- a cautionary article regarding a single game. This is not intended as a "negative" comment on RTX3080 Ti. Rather, Diablo IV is the culprit.

Quote
RTX 3080 Ti GPUs Are Mysteriously Dying On Diablo IV Beta

An alarming amount of user reports have emerged on Reddit (opens in new tab) and the Blizzard forums (opens in new tab), claiming that the beta is bricking the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, one of the best graphics cards.

One Reddit user reported that his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G had perished after playing the game for only 20 minutes. According to the Redditor's recount, the cutscene in the chapel was the exact moment his GeForce RTX 3080 Ti went haywire.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/25/23 10:07 AM

Quote
AMD confirms FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR3) will be open source

the successor to FSR2 and highly anticipated competitor to DLSS3 might be the most important technology AMD will release this year.

[AMD] is putting great effort on reducing latency, which is the key in achieving the best gaming experience. Furthermore, AMD wants to make the FSR2 to FSR3 upgrade path as easy as possible.

More importantly, AMD confirms that FSR 3 will be open source through the MIT license. This means that third upscaling tech from AMD will be free to grab and easily editable by anyone.

NVIDIA DLSS3 games may quickly start seeing FSR3 mods, just like they did with DLSS2/FSR2.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/27/23 09:38 AM

Quote
NVIDIA sees cryptocurrencies as useless to .. society

Micheal Kagan, NVIDIA Chief Technology Officer said that cryptocurrencies do not bring anything useful to society,

In 2022, NVIDIA was forced to pay 5.5 million dollars as part of the settlement with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) because they did not inform the investors on how mining impacts GPU demand. Furthermore, according to the SEC filing, NVIDIA was aware of cryptocurrency mining driving part of their business and even claimed that NVIDIA senior management wanted to go after the crypto mining market, as reported by CNBC.

The last cryptoboom had a massive impact on the GPU market. With GPU prices skyrocketing (and unfortunately remaining) at unimaginable levels. It may take months, if not years, before GPUs return to normal prices if that is going to happen at all.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/01/23 09:08 AM

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The cheapest AMD 7000 system is now close to $400

the entry-point into AMD AM5 series has finally dropped below $430. This is by combining this board with Ryzen 5 7600 non-X 65W SKU, a perfect match for this motherboard (affiliate links below):

AMD Ryzen 5 7600: $229.00 (Amazon)
ASRock A620M-HDV/M.2: $85.99 (Newegg)
2x16GB G.Skill DDR5-6000: $114.99 (Amazon)

there is nothing stopping anyone from buying even cheaper memory (DDR5-4800), but 6000 MT/s is probably what most users would want.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/08/23 09:31 AM

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AMD Zen5 architecture gets performance projections from Jim Keller

Jim Keller hints at a 30% performance increase for Zen5

Jim Keller, former chip architect at AMD and Intel, has since moved to other projects and companies. However, his heritage lives on as these companies have only now started the final product development based on the architecture that he helped in designing.

AMD confirmed Zen5 is coming in 2025

AMD hinted that the Zen5 architecture, which is to use 4nm and 3nm nodes, will include at least three variants, such as Zen5, Zen5 with 3D V-Cache and density optimized Zen5c.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/14/23 02:26 PM

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AMD working on ROCm support for Windows OS

AMD to enable ROCm on Windows, add support for some gaming Radeon GPUs

ROCm (Radeon Open Compute platforM) is a software stack for GPU programming. It works in various domains, serving as a backbone for HPC, AI or OpenCL computing. The stack provides access to several programming models and tools that can simply and accelerate the workload. AMD also provides access to HIP, a C++ runtime that can easily run CUDA code on AMD GPUs.

Today ROCm is successfully deployed in the world’s most powerful super computers, such as El Captain
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/17/23 09:55 AM

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AMD RX 7900 XT drops to $779, GeForce RTX 40 and Radeon 7000 series now available at or below MSRP

We have finally reached the point where all newly released GPUs have reached suggested retail price [at some retailer, not all].

there is no issue finding at least one card at MSRP from both lineups.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/23/23 11:01 AM

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AMD Radeon RX 6950XT drops to 599 USD, now at same price as RTX 4070

As a reminder, the RX 6950XT launched in May 2022 at $1,099, meaning the price has now been reduced by $500 in less than a year.


I paid $950 for my RX 6900XT over a year ago -- I'd rather pay $599. smile

FWIW: My RX 6900XT plays all my games at 4K ultra and smooth (to my eyes) FPS (as does my RX 6750XT on a 2K monitor). I don't use RSR to increase FPS.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/25/23 07:04 PM

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AMD Issues Official Statement on Reported Ryzen 7000[X3D] Burnout Issues

The statement directly from AMD is as follows:

"We are aware of a limited number of reports online claiming that excess voltage while overclocking may have damaged the motherboard socket and pin pads. We are actively investigating the situation and are working with our ODM partners to ensure voltages applied to Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs via motherboard BIOS settings are within product specifications. Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support."

As the statement clarifies, AMD themselves are investigating the issue that users have been experiencing [when overclocking X3D models]
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/03/23 09:01 AM

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AMD finally confirms its plans for the mainstream Radeon GPU series

"We saw strong sales of our high-end Radeon 7900 XTX GPUs in the first quarter, and we’re on track to expand our RDNA 3 GPU portfolio with the launch of new mainstream Radeon 7000 series GPUs this quarter."

— Dr. Lisa Su, AMD CEO


I try to limit this thread to AMD, Nvidia, and Intel "company wide" news (relating to "Future and Current"). Company wide news is rather sparse these days -- and much is Rumor/Leak.

There is a little bit of "real news" in this post.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/05/23 09:45 AM

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AMD reportedly resumes production of Ryzen 3000G series

AMD is to resume the production of its low-end Ryzen 3000G series.

A quick check on Newegg tells us that Ryzen 3400G currently retails at around $127 while 3200G is still available at $99. This is not a good price considering Ryzen 5 5600G is now available at $140.


Don't buy one -- unless you have a VERY special use case.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/06/23 09:44 AM

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AMD CEO Says Moore’s Law is Not Dead: Working On 3nm Now, Looking Beyond 2nm & Will Continue Using Chiplets

AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, points out that Moore's Law is not dead but has slowed down and things need to be done differently to overcome the performance, efficiency, and cost challenges. AMD has been the pioneer of advancing 3D packaging and chiplet technology with its first HBM designs back in 2015, chiplet processors in 2017, and also the first 3D packaging on a chip with its 3D V-Cache design in 2022.

Moore's Law was proposed by the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, back in 1965 (~1975) and said that the number of transistors would double every year

Meanwhile, NVIDIA thinks that Moore's Law has run out of gas and no longer applies to its business strategy.


One should be aware that "these days" saying, for example, that one process is 4nm and another is 2nm does NOT necessarily refer to the "size" of the "transistors" in the process. Rather, it refers to overall performance of the chip (CPU chip, GPU chip, etc). That is, a 2nm CPU is supposedly twice as fast as 4nm CPU -- not twice the circuits/transistors per square centimeter of CPU silicon.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/09/23 01:49 PM

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AMD to showcase Next-Gen Data Center and AI technology on June 13
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/18/23 01:14 PM

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AMD Radeon RX 7600 GPU specs confirmed, Navi 33 XL with 2048 Stream Processors and 8GB VRAM

Just as NVIDIA is set to announce their RTX 4060 series today, we have a leak featuring AMD ‘response’ in a form of Radeon RX 7600 GPU.

The RX 7600 is now confirmed to feature Navi 33 XL GPU with 32 Compute Units and 2048 Stream Processors. The card is equipped with 8GB GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit bus. Interestingly, this model will have the same memory specs as GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, as both cards will have the same maximum bandwidth of 288 GB/s. The card has limited PCIe interface to Gen4 and 8 lanes as well, just like the RTX 4060 series.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/23 09:18 AM

Mega RUMOR:

Quote
AMD FSR 3 Might Generate Up To 4 Interpolated Frames & Be Enabled On Driver-Side

The code states that AMD's FSR 3 will have a Frame Generation Ratio of up to 4 interpolated frames which means for each real frame, the technology can generate up to 4 interpolated frames. NVIDIA DLSS 3 also has frame generation technology which will generate one interpolated frame for every single frame when enabled. However, NVIDIA's DLSS 3 doesn't allow users to modify the frame gen value to anything beyond 1 nor it's part of the suite yet.


So, if the rumor is true, a choppy 15FPS may become a smooth to the eye 60FPS in some cases. However, these are "fake frames" (just as with Nvidia) and seemingly will slow reactions time in a "twitch game". We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/23/23 08:58 PM

Supposedly Fact: smile

Quote
AMD Radeon RX 7600 to launch with $269/€299 MSRP

Instead of what was originally communicated as $299 [list] price, AMD has now settled on $269 and from what we quickly learned, for European gamers this means €299.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/24/23 09:33 AM

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Graphics Cards Review Roundup

NVIDIA has just lifted the embargo on the first GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards. Kindly note that today’s embargo only lifts for NVIDIA Founders Edition and all cards that will be priced at MSRP ($399).


Links to Dozens of Reviews at This Site

A summary from one of the articles:

Quote
Is the RTX 4060 Ti one of the best graphics cards? That largely depends on how many games you play support DLSS 3 and whether you're willing to trade latency for AI-interpolated FPS. Looking at native performance in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy... , the RTX 4060 Ti comes in just ahead of the RTX 3070 at 1080p, but falls behind the RTX 3060 Ti at 1440p and 4K.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 05/25/23 08:47 AM

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AMD Radeon RX 7600 reviews

The first reviews of Radeon RX 7600 graphics cards are now online. AMD has just lifted the embargo for the third member in the RDNA3 family for desktop PCs.


Links to Dozens of RX7600 Reviews

A summary from one review:

Quote
The AMD RX 7600 hits the sweet spot with sub-$300 pricing [reasonable $269 MSRP] but ultimately delivers similar performance as the previous generation RX 6650 XT [that costs slightly more].
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/08/23 10:28 PM

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AMD Confirms AM5 Socket Will Extend to 2026, Zen 5 to Use RNDA 3.5 GPUs

AMD has delivered an updated roadmap for its Zen CPU platform

the company has extended AM5's lifespan by one year, pushing it out to 2026. It has also revealed better-integrated GPUs for its upcoming CPUs

[AMD] ensures a four-year lifespan for its AM5 socket, ... Though that's not quite as long as AM4's unprecedented six-year lifespan, it's certainly better than the two years Intel has offered for its most recent platforms.

the roadmap confirms AMD will be adding RDNA 3 GPUs to Zen 4 desktop CPUs this year

it sounds like the company is planning a mid-cycle refresh for Zen 4, with upgraded GPUs and possibly a clock bump across the board.

The company will also continue with that strategy for Zen 5, adding what it calls RDNA 3.5 GPUs to the architecture.

[AMD] will probably continue to offer a 16-core, 32-thread flagship CPU with a 170W TDP but made on a more advanced node than those utilizing TSMC's 5nm process. It seems likely AMD will move to TSMC N4 or even N3 for both Zen 4 refresh in 2023 and Zen 5 in 2024.


Good. I was hoping/expecting something like that to happen -- extended AM5 life.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/11/23 09:18 AM

FWIW. Since I post a lot, just a list of the main components of my most up-to-date PC hardware.

Main PC in Home Office. On all day. In signature. Gigabyte RX6900XT Gaming OC, AMD R9-7950X, 64GB RAM@6.0GHz.

Basement Electronics Workshop. Rarely used -- but has a purpose. Gigabyte RX6750XT, AMD R5-7600X, 32GB RAM@6.0GHz.

Main HTPC in TV Room. Lots of use watching sports on TV nearly every day. Sapphire RX6700XT, AMD R5-7600X, 32GB RAM@6.0GHz.

They all game quite well at 1440p. And, I'm happy with 4K frame rates.

Overpaid for the top one. Got good sale prices on the second two.

I'm now holding out for the next series of GPUs (RX8000?).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/15/23 09:16 AM

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AMD launches Ryzen PRO 7000 65W desktop series, Ryzen 9 PRO 7945 features 12 Zen4 cores

AMD Ryzen PRO series is designed for commercial and business use with increased security and manageability features. There are several new HP and Lenovo laptops with Ryzen PRO 7040 and 7030 on board coming soon.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/17/23 01:52 PM

Post deleted. There were troubling inconsistencies with the claims/information in the article.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/20/23 07:17 PM

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AMD Ryzen CPUs getting cheaper: 5800X3D at $280, 7700X at $289, 7900 at $379 and 7900X3D at $520

All four CPUs were discounted at the same time, clearly indicating that this was a planned price change by the retailer [Amazon]. However, it is unclear if other retailers are to follow suit.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/27/23 03:22 PM

"Starfield" is a game I've pre-ordered -- I'm a fan of Elder Scrolls series and Fallout series. "Starfield" promises to be "a lot more" of the same.

And, being an AMD Fan this Starfield fact interests me.

Quote
AMD and Bethesda team up for Starfield launch

The company [AMD] has announced it will be an exclusive launch partner for the upcoming sci-fi exploration game Starfield.

The partnership was announced by Todd Howard (Starfield Game Director) and Jack Huynh (AMD GM of CGG) and it confirmed that the game will be optimized for Ryzen 7000 and Radeon 7000 series at launch.

Furthermore, it is confirmed that Starfield will support FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 on day one

Bethesda did not confirm if the game will feature any technology from NVIDIA or Intel such as DLSS or XeSS.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 06/30/23 06:43 PM

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AMD to Sell New Ryzen 5 5600X3D CPU Only Through Micro Center

The most affordable V-Cache CPU ever will sell for $229.

Though AMD originally priced the 5800X3D at $449 when it launched in April of 2022, it's since come down to $279 at Micro Center and other retailers. .. the 5600X3D version will be even tougher to ignore for those intent on riding the AM4 platform into the sunset. AMD had previously stated that it would still support its previous platform for years to come... Now it seems it wasn't bluffing, and maybe it will offer even more AM4 CPUs in the future.

In our testing, we found the eight-core version to be a fantastic upgrade option for folks using older CPUs, so it seems logical the Ryzen 5 version will also be a worthy purchase.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/03/23 02:45 PM

Work in progress on Nvidia GPUs:

Quote
NVIDIA working on an updated “12V-2×6” power connector with improved safety

12VHPWR to be replaced by 12V2x6 connector

NVIDIA has been working on an updated power connector ever since problems with the 16-pin (12VPHWR) version were first reported. The cases of melting cables were narrowed down to improper connection between the power supply or GPU that was causing overheating.

The PCIe Base 6 connector will be compatible with some of the existing 12VHPWR connectors, but the new version will have different specifications with adjusted sustained power metrics that may require changes to the firmware in power supplies or graphics cards.

NVIDIA and PCI-SIG are now evaluating two options for the cable connector design, which was not chosen yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/04/23 08:38 AM

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AMD Ryzen 5 7500F to launch this week, the first AM5 CPU without integrated RDNA2 graphics

AMD set to launch a new 6-core CPU this week, claims Korean retailer.

According to the first information that is publicly available, the CPU has indeed 6 cores, and it should be around 100 MHz slower than Ryzen 5 7600, offering the same core count. The CPU has already made an appearance on PugetBench website running on an X670E motherboard and DDR5-4800 memory.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/06/23 09:21 AM

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[For Gamers] AMD CPUs Retain Dominance On Linux Platforms, Trails Behind Intel in Windows OS

the reason behind the inclination of Linux consumers towards AMD is the company's commitment to open-source technologies.

One well-known example is AMD's open-source GPU drivers (AMDGPU & AMDKFD), part of the Linux kernel, which the company continuously updates and improves. Moreover, AMD's ROCm (Radeon Open Compute) platform is also an open software platform for users to support HPC and machine learning.

AMD has been growing its presence in the Linux community, although ... behind in Windows, which is a much bigger platform. 96.77% of Steam's user base is on Windows while 1.79% and 1.44% share belongs to OSX and Linux. No one can deny that Windows is the gamer choice
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/08/23 07:54 AM

Rumor for now -- but, in keeping with past "under the table" practices aimed at squelching competition.

Quote
NVIDIA Reportedly Wants Top GPU AIBs To Work Exclusively With Them, Intel & AMD Still Getting 2nd Grade Support

It is reported that NVIDIA has "threatened" board partners with limited GPU supply in case they opt for Intel, and the measures could extend to a potential ban....[the rumor source] hasn't quoted an official source or statement to back the claim; hence we urge consumers to take this with a grain of salt.

This is not the first time NVIDIA has been stated to do this sort of thing. ....Intel's Alchemist received no proper support from any of the top three AIBs which include ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte. The same is the case with AMD as the top SKUs from each brand don't feature a Radeon SKU. For ASUS, it's the ROG STRIX, for MSI, it's the SUPRIM X and for Gigabyte, it's the AORUS Xtreme.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/12/23 12:23 PM

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NVIDIA is now shipping GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with updated power connector

One notable difference in the new design is the inclusion of shortened sense pins. These pins have been reduced in length, effectively eliminating the GPU’s ability to communicate and negotiate with the power supply for higher wattage unless the cable is fully inserted. This modification helps prevent situations where high power is forced through a cable that is not fully seated.

The latest reports suggest that NVIDIA has incorporated this new connector design in the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, the first desktop GPU of this generation to feature the 12+4pin design. This minor alteration is expected to reduce the likelihood of the connector operating in unsupported conditions, such as when a cable is not fully seated and could potentially lead to melting or other issues.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/17/23 07:26 PM

Quote
AMD 6-core Ryzen 5 7600X CPU drops to $199, cheaper than 7600 non-X and comes with Starfield game code

$100 lower than the original manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).

What makes this deal even more enticing is that the Ryzen 5 7600X comes with a free Starfield game code,


I have a couple R5-7600X PCs. I also have Starfield on Pre-order. This deal could have saved me roughly $100. So, this article text FWIW.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/23 03:10 PM

The problem with "rumors" is noted in the article:

Quote
Intel's faux 14th Gen isn't going to deliver the peak cheap gaming CPU we were teased with

Aww, it was looking so good for a second there; for the briefest moment it looked like Intel was going to make its Raptor Lake Refresh range of processors really count. Sadly, it seems like, aside from a barely relevant 200MHz clock speed bump on the upcoming 14th Gen chips, we're not going to see the major re-spec of the new CPU lineup earlier rumors had promised.

Obviously, these are rumors countering rumors, and as such it's hard to know exactly who has the true specifications for the unannounced range of processors, but the latest details look more realistic.


Most on-line publications have been dealing mostly (not always) in "click bait" rumors for quite a while now.

Such behavior has reduced the number of valid subjects to note in this thread.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/26/23 03:16 PM

Another rumor?

Quote
Intel Planning Price Hike Across All “Core” CPUs As a Part of Restructuring Policy

Intel will reportedly increase the pricing of its current CPU lineup to squeeze out revenue for fab development and restructure the company as a whole.

The news comes from the renowned German outlet PCGamesHardware, where the forum's moderator "Pockerclock" disclosed the information. The source contacted two German suppliers who verified a letter from Intel, which mentioned the price hike. Intel's decision was indeed unexpected, although it could have regional limitations
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 07/27/23 02:16 PM

Intel denies the previous "rumor" -- posted just above. Implies its an outright lie. We'll see,

Quote
"Generally, Intel does not comment on speculation regarding price changes to its portfolio. However, we can confirm that Intel has not sent the letter described to customers or partners and has not initiated a price change to its CPU portfolio at this time. We have no further comment to share on the matter."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/06/23 09:50 AM

Another rumor that "may" be true:

Quote
Rumors suggest AMD might have canceled its Navi 41/42 high-end RDNA3 [RX8000 series] GPUs

this development might impact two specific GPUs: Navi 41 and Navi 42. Interestingly, the Navi 41 GPU was first mentioned three years ago, but it now appears that AMD has decided to cancel further development, right before the tape-out phase.

It seems AMD might be shifting its focus towards the mid-range segment (once again), with the introduction of a new successor to the RDNA3 architecture. This move would bring AMD back to its roots when the company prioritized the mid-range segment with RDNA1/Polaris.


As noted in the rumor, this is nothing new. In the RX5000 series of GPUs the top model was RX5700XT. I own one -- excellent gaming, reasonable price -- all most folks would need.

Meantime, a different rumor says of some Nvidia RTX4000 models are being "held back from retailers" to keep them harder to get and the "buying price" high.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/23 10:18 PM

Quote
ASRock lists Radeon RX 7800XT 16GB and Radeon RX 7700XT 12GB graphics cards at EEC

ASRock has once again lodged submissions for its upcoming Radeon RX 7000 series with the regulatory office of the Eurasian Economic Commission. The latest information from these submissions appears to uncover two of AMD’s yet-to-be-announced Radeon desktop GPUs.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/23 10:22 PM

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NVIDIA introduces RTX 5000 with 32GB memory, RTX 4500 24GB and RTX 4000 20GB ADA workstation series

The first systems equipped with the new RTX ADA models are expected to ship this fall. Professionals can anticipate these systems from manufacturers such as Boxx, Dell, Lambda, Lenovo, and HP.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/08/23 10:28 PM

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AMD Announces Ryzen 9 7945HX3D: Ryzen Mobile Gets 3D V-Cache

For this year's ChinaJoy expo, AMD is taking to the show to announce a new and very special mobile CPU for high-end, desktop replacement-class laptops: the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, AMD's first V-cache-equipped mobile CPU. Slated to launch on August 22nd, the chip is set to break new ground for AMD in the mobile space, all the while giving gamers an even more potent CPU for high-end gaming laptops.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/09/23 04:22 PM

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Intel 'Downfall' Bug Steals Encryption Keys, Data From Years of CPUs

A new security vulnerability, called Downfall, was revealed today by Intel and the researcher who discovered it, Daniel Moghimi. The new attack uses Gather Data Sampling to steal data and other sensitive information from other users on a computer with Intel processors from 2015 through 2019 ranging from sixth gen Skylake through eleventh gen Rocket Lake and Tiger Lake.

Moghami shows demos stealing 128-bit and 256-bit AES keys from other users, as well as spying on typed characters and taking data from the Linux kernel. He suggests that even if you don't own an Intel powered-device, Intel's dominance in the server market means that everyone on the internet is affected, and that "in cloud computing environments, a malicious customer could exploit the Downfall vulnerability to steal data and credentials from other customers who share the same cloud computer."

The overhead [of the fix], per Moghami and Intel, could be as high as 50% depending on if a workload uses Gather. Notably, Intel will have an "opt-out mechanism" in the microcode that allows the mitigation for Downfall to be disabled in order to "avoid the performance impact on certain vectorization-heavy workloads."

Newer Intel chips, like 12th Gen Alder Lake, 13th Gen Raptor Lake, and Sapphire Rapids server chips aren't affected.


So, a serious bug that can cost as much as 50% of performance when fixed.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/11/23 09:43 AM

Quote
Intel Gained 23% Market Share in Q2, AMD Lost 5.3%: Analyst

The PC market is finally starting to rebound after a long, cold winter.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/16/23 06:22 PM

Quote
AMD Radeon Chief confirms major product announcements at Gamescom next week

Scott Herkelman (Senior VP & GM at General Manager Graphics Business Unit at AMD) has confirmed today that AMD will announce new products at Gamescom.

The tweet by Herkelman doesn’t provide explicit details about these new products, except for emphasizing they are major in nature.

AMD has scheduled its event for August 25th at 17:00 local (German) time.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/17/23 08:53 PM

Nvidia is doing quite well with its specialized GPUs made for high-end AI calculations.

Quote
Nvidia Makes 1,000% Profit on H100 GPUs: Report

Nvidia is raking in up to 1,000% in profit for each H100 GPU accelerator it sells, according to estimates made in a recent social media post from Barron's senior writer Tae Kim. In dollar terms, that means that Nvidia's street-price of around $25,000 to $30,000 for each of these High Performance Computing (HPC) accelerators (for the least-expensive PCIe version) more than covers the estimated $3,320 cost per chip and peripheral (in-board) components. As surfers will tell you, there's nothing quite like riding a wave with zero other boards on sight. [AMD does not make a similar product]


One article indicated that buyers compete to get the cards -- some pay double the nominal-street-price ($70,000 for one GPU was mentioned).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/23 10:18 AM

A potential issue for AMD CPUs used with Linux operating system. The issue has NOT appeared "in public" -- only in the Linux testing laboratory.

Quote
AMD's Mitigation for 'Inception' Vulnerability Can Reduce Performance by 54%

In early August, security researchers discovered a vulnerability affecting all of AMD's Zen processors known as "Inception." The vulnerability is a speculative side-channel attack similar to Intel's Spectre bug, which can leak sensitive data using unprivileged processes. The good news for AMD CPU owners is that the company has stated it's not aware of this attack occurring beyond a research environment.

[The fix, if needed,] has now been tested in a Linux environment on a Zen 3 CPU, and the performance penalty can be quite significant, depending on the application.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/20/23 10:26 AM

Quote
AMD Zen 4 Threadripper Pro Debuts With 96 Cores to Destroy Everything

AMD made some waves with its high-end desktop (HEDT) Threadripper CPUs when they debuted in 2017. Since then, the chips have offered incredible performance for those with deep pockets and the need for many CPU cores.

The chip in question falls under the code-name Storm Peak, and it's the Threadripper Pro 7995WX, so it's the flagship CPU.

almost 70% higher performance than an overclocked Threadripper Pro 5995WX CPU using Zen 3

However, with all of us having access to 16-core, 32-thread CPUs now for not a ton of cash, it remains to be seen whether the HEDT market still exists for well-heeled consumers.

AMD is anticipated to release Storm Peak before the year ends, so we're guessing it will arrive sometime around October
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/21/23 09:11 AM

Quote
Intel Socket LGA1851 Only Supports DDR5 Memory

Intel's upcoming desktop platform based on Socket LGA1851 will retire support for the DDR4 memory standard. The socket will only support DDR5. ... LGA1851 will remain Intel's desktop platform till 2026.

LGA1851 is expected to debut with the company's Core desktop processor generation that succeeds 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh." The socket itself has the same dimensions as LGA1700, and is expected to be cooler-compatible with the older socket.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/22/23 10:12 AM

Quote
NVIDIA announces DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, launches this fall

This AI-driven algorithm has undergone four significant releases to date: DLSS1 (March 2020), DLSS 2.3 (November 2021), DLSS 3 (October 2022), and DLSS 3.1 (January 2023). The most recent update appears to be focused on improving ray tracing.

DLSS 3.5 is focusing in on Ray (Tracing) Reconstruction (RR), delivering a visibly enhanced visual experience compared to traditional denoising techniques. NVIDIA claims that Ray Reconstruction has been trained on five times more data than DLSS3.

NVIDIA has confirmed that DLSS 3.5 will make its debut in the fall, featuring in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Portal with RTX, and Alan Wake 2. Additionally, it will be available in the NVIDIA Omniverse Platform, Chaos Vantage, and D5 Renderer.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/23/23 09:38 AM

Quote
AMD Teases Upcoming “Enthusiast” Radeon RX 7000 GPU, First Look At New Reference Design

AMD is teasing its upcoming RDNA 3 powered Radeon RX 7000 GPUs which will be unveiled this week at Gamescom 2023.

This is going to be a dual-slot design and from the looks of it, this is most likely the Radeon RX 7800 XT.

Besides the two graphics cards, it is also likely that AMD would give us an official update on HYPR-RX & the highly anticipated FSR 3 tech that was meant to compete against DLSS 3.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/25/23 01:00 PM

Quote
AMD announces Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB and RX 7700 XT 12GB graphics cards

Regarding performance, AMD claims that the RX 7800 XT will, on average, outpace the GeForce RTX 4070 by 3.5% in 1440p gaming with maximum settings. Some titles even demonstrate a 5% to 23% advantage, although certain games utilizing ray tracing favor the RTX 4070. In the same selection of titles and graphics settings, the RX 7700 XT is purportedly 12% faster on average compared to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB card.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/26/23 09:36 AM

Quote
AMD Radeon Chief confirms Radeon RX 7000 (RDNA3) portfolio “is now complete”, no more SKUs planned

AMD unveiled its latest additions to the lineup: the Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, targeted at the high-end market with respective price points of $499 and $449. Notably, AMD has chosen not to bridge the gap between the RX 7700 XT and RX 7600 models, which are priced at $269. This decision has been confirmed by Herkelman.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/27/23 12:08 PM

This sounds like a big deal for folks who like to boost GPU FPS. It works with AMD cards, Nvidia Cards, and maybe Intel Cards.

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AMD Announces FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) Fluid Motion Rivaling DLSS 3, Broad Hardware Support

AMD announced FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 Fluid Motion (FSR 3 Fluid Motion), the company's performance enhancement that's designed to rival NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation. The biggest piece of news here, is that unlike DLSS 3, which is restricted to GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada," FSR 3 enjoys the same kind of cross-brand hardware support as FSR 2. It works on the latest Radeon RX 7000 series, as well as previous-generation RX 6000 series RDNA2 graphics cards, as well as NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series, RTX 30-series, and RTX 20-series.

FSR 3 Fluid Motion is a frame-rate doubling technology that generates alternate frames by estimating an intermediate between two frames rendered by the GPU (which is essentially what DLSS 3 is).

AMD is also working to get FSR 3 Fluid Motion frames part of the AMD Hyper-RX feature that the company is launching soon. This is big, as pretty much any DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 game will get Fluid Motion frames, launching in Q1-2024.


Based on my reading of many articles, FSR 3 needs very little "extra work" to implement in a game. On the other hand, DLSS versions need a LOT of effort -- why only some games have it.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/28/23 10:23 AM

If considering budget GPUs, haven't bought Starfield yet, and close to a MicroCenter store:

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AMD Radeon RX 7600 price drops to $229 for the first time (MicroCenter in-store pickup only)

AMD RX 7600 at $229, comes with $69 Starfield coupon


It will do FSR3. So, the budget GPU will get FPS in advanced games.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/23 04:16 PM

Quote
GPU Market Rebounds In Q2 2023: AMD, NVIDIA & Intel See Increased Shipments, Discrete GPU Up By 12.4%

JPR reports that while the second quarter is normally down, this year, Q2 2023, saw an increase in GPU shipments and market share across all three major players including AMD, NVIDIA & Intel. It's being reported that a total of 61.6 Million GPUs shipped in Q2 2023. All GPU makers retained their overall market share with Intel securing the top spot with 68%, NVIDIA with 18% and AMD with 14% of all GPUs (dGPUs & iGPUs).

It is reported that AMD's overall market share increased by 1.2% whereas Intel & NVIDIA declined by -0.4% and -0.8%, respectively. This was mainly due to AMD witnessing a major GPU shipments increase during Q2 of 22.9% whereas Intel and NVIDIA rose by 11.7% and 7.5%, respectively.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 08/29/23 04:20 PM

Quote
AMD is in the process of discontinuing its Radeon RX 6650 XT as it has essentially been replaced by the Radeon RX 7600.

AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT GPUs will be out of stock by the end of September which is next month. The red team has already ended production of the GPU chips for the RX 6650 XT

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT also does support the upcoming FSR 3 upscaling technology


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/03/23 03:22 PM

Just something to be aware of when buying some Intel CPUs. Intel is not the "bad actor" -- rather, the "victim".

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User discovers brand-new Core i9-13900K turns out to be a 13700K with swapped IHS

IHS swapping scam targets 13th Core Gen series buyers

The IHS (Integrated Heatspreader) swapping scheme is a well-known issue, affecting a variety of CPUs, typically targeting high-end Core i9 models, which are surreptitiously replaced with budget Pentium/Celeron SKUs in an attempt to deceive retailers upon returns. The lack of adequate training and awareness among retailers often allows these IHS swaps to go undetected, ultimately leading to unsuspecting customers receiving these tampered processors.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/23 08:04 PM

FWIW: Since the thread is partly about AMD "hardware", a note about my latest AMD purchase experience. Not making any claims -- I know other folks here have better hardware than I do.

Ordered Sunday and received a SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB on Tuesday -- $940 base cost -- included a free $100 "Starfield" (but, I already owned that) and a $200 off coupon (I won't use). $940 cash was the lowest price RX7900XTX at the time I placed the order; also, I like Sapphire.

My Rationale:

I was going to wait for the AMD RX8900XTX (or equal) series. But, a fairly solid rumor has it that there will not be a "high end" AMD 8000GPU. Given that, since the RX7900XTX was said to be 50% higher FPS at 4K resolution than my RX6900XT, I decided it would be fun/okay to buy an RX7900XTX on sale.

As shown in the attached chart, the only GPU better for 4K Raster Performance is the RTX4090. And, the RTX4090 has the best Ray Tracing (for those who use Ray Tracing). The cheapest RTX4090 was $1600 during my purchase.

I only care about Raster Performance. All the "high end" Game Engines already have high quality Reflections, Shadows, Light Shafts built in -- with no FPS, True-Resolution, or Artifacts penalty. Thus, Ray Tracing is redundant in games I play. I've tried it; but, now I leave Ray Tracing turned off -- and use in-game settings for maximum/ultra 4K detail.

In my tests, with setup Ultra at 4K, the new RX7900XTX is roughly 53% to 60% faster FPS than my RX6900XT. Truthfully, I only "measure" FPS. I don't "see" FPS unless the image is below 30FPS and "choppy" (i.e. under 20FPS at moments). Other folks may have "better/quicker eyes". The RX7900XTX is roughly 60FPS+ at 4K Ultra in the "Witcher 3" I'm currently playing -- without any FPS increasing AMD Software "gimmicks" turned on.

FWIW, I'm satisfied smile

Attached picture GPU_4K_1000.jpg
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/23 08:26 PM

I too went from an XFX Merc 6900 XT to an XFX Merc 7900 XTX and see similar improvements. I play games at 3840x1600 on a 144hz monitor and saw a good improvements in FPS and fluid feeling.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/23 09:47 PM

Wouldn't you know it. My RX7900XTX was marked down from $940 to $890 less 5% = $846 today (at Amazon).

I had previously missed that sale by 45 minutes (limited stock) before buying at $940. I waited a couple days; but, I didn't think it would be revived.

Of course, I have 30 days to return the $940 card. And, could jump on the $846 card right now. But, I don't "play that way".

Win some, lose the rest smile

EDIT: Boom! 45 minutes later, the above Amazon sale was "sold out". Just like last time. I feel better. biggrin
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/12/23 10:17 PM

Quote
AMD to Sacrifice Flagship RDNA 4 GPUs to AI Chips

The company is reportedly diverting scarce resources from gaming to AI, where the profit margins are much higher.

AMD didn't take on Nvidia in the current round of flagship GPUs .., ceding the high ground to the RTX 4090, which it's stated was a conscious choice instead of a mere imbalance of engineering prowess between the companies.

the existing RX 7900 XTX will remain the flagship AMD GPU until RDNA 5 arrives sometime in 2026 or beyond. In the meantime, AMD will reportedly allocate its future wafers from TSMC to its real money makers instead of using them for high-end GPUs. This is not a far-fetched idea, as Nvidia is reportedly already doing that now with some of its 40-series GPUs.


More validation to the above RX7900XTX purchase holding me until 2026 or beyond.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/16/23 07:29 AM

Quote
GPU Manufacturers Slash GeForce RTX 4070 Price to $549

Currently, Amazon.com, BestBuy, B&H Photo Video, and Newegg have GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards available for $549 from Asus, Gigabyte, and Zotac.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 carries an MSRP of $599, but AMD's Radeon RX 7800 XT is priced at $499. Despite being priced lower, AMD's offering sometimes outperforms its more expensive rival in many games that depend on rasterization, with performance that's close to the competitor in some ray tracing-supporting games as well.


Competition is good smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/23 09:35 AM

Quote
AMD launches EPYC 8004 Sienna CPU series, up to 64 Zen4c cores and SP6 socket

AMD EPYC Genoa, Genoa-X, Bergamo, and Sienna all share a common feature: they are powered by AMD Zen4 architecture and are strategically tailored to cater to the high-core count market segment within data centers, cloud computing, and the edge computing sector.

Sienna processors are specifically engineered to optimize Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) metrics, focusing on Performance per Watt per Dollar. AMD positions them as ideal solutions for energy-efficient cloud services, intelligent edge computing, and telecom deployments.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/18/23 09:41 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D Dragon Range Gaming CPU Could Be Coming To More Laptops Soon

AMD's fastest gaming CPU for laptops, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D "Dragon Range" is expected to come to more platforms soon.

Last month, AMD and ASUS joined hands to launch the first laptop featuring the brand new Ryzen 9 7945HX3D CPU-powered design within the ROG SCAR 17 X3D. This laptop not only offered a total of 16 Zen 4 cores but also was the first to feature the 3D V-cache technology which is part of the latest Dragon Range" family.

AMD plans to bring the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D to more laptops either by the end of this year or early next year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/20/23 11:07 AM

Here's the most advanced RTX4090 yet.

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Double the RTX 4090 MSRP: ASUS ROG Matrix debuts with 2.67 GHz boost, liquid metal and $3,200 price tag

Priced at $3,200, the RTX 4090 ROG MATRIX stands as the most expensive model in the AD102 GeForce lineup, effectively doubling the official $1,599 MSRP for the RTX 4090.

it boasts the highest GPU clock among all RTX 4090 models.

The GPU clock has been set at an impressive 2670 MHz, representing a 6% boost above NVIDIA’s reference specifications.


For those who want the fastest regardless of cost, it sports better cooling, quieter running, and other features.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/22/23 12:56 PM

The reason I support AMD over Intel is still being litigated after many years.

Basically, Intel paid PC makers and others "under the table" to use Intel CPUs and NOT USE AMD CPUs -- at a time when AMD had the "best" CPUs. That nearly put AMD out of business and gave Intel freedom to charge a lot and make few improvements in its CPUs. This was proved in USA and European courts and Intel was fined over $1 Billion. However, Intel litigated that and refused to pay.

Quote
EU Re-Imposes $400 Million Fine on Intel

the European Commission has once again fined Intel, this time for €376.36 million ($400.26 million), citing the company's misuse of its market dominance in the computer chip sector. This decision comes in the wake of the EU's General Court overturning a previous fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed on Intel in 2009. The initial penalty was for Intel's attempts to undermine AMD on the market of x86 CPUs.

The focus of the new penalty is on Intel's transactions between 2002 and 2006 with major computer producers such as Acer, HP, and Lenovo.

Intel's dealings with these manufacturers were allegedly aimed at stalling or even halting the introduction of products that incorporated CPUs from their competitors back in the early 2000s. Back then, Intel competed mostly against AMD, though there were other smaller x86 CPU suppliers. The court, in its recent judgment, recognized these rebates as a clear misuse of Intel's powerful market position.

In summary, while Intel's market practices from 2002 to 2006 have been acknowledged as abusive, the exact penalties and their justifications have been a point of contention. The recent fine by the European Commission seeks to rectify past oversights


Of course, even if Intel finally pays the 2009 price, inflation and the damage to AMD has made Intel billions of dollars.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/25/23 08:36 AM

Artificial Intelligence (AI) products are the new big moneymakers for Nvidia and AMD. Both get most of their chips from TSMC.

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TSMC Moving Towards “Aggressive” Expansion of CoWoS Packaging Facilities For AMD & NVIDIA AI Chips

Nvidia, AMD, Amazon rush orders have TSMC scrambling to buy CoWoS chip packaging machinery 30% over existing orders, highlighting the ongoing AI boom, media report. TSMC had planned to expand CoWoS capacity to 15-20,000 wafers per month in the 1st half-2024, but the new machinery orders could raise that to 25-30,000, from 12,000 now.


Quote
Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) is a two-point-five dimensional integrated circuit (2.5D IC) through-silicon via (TSV) interposer-based packaging technology designed by TSMC for high-performance applications.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 09/30/23 09:20 PM

Preliminary investigations have begun -- but, no accusations, yet.

Quote
EU Investigates GPU Market Abuse in Wake of Nvidia Office Raid

The European Commission has informally started to gather opinions on potential unfair practices related to the GPUs used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, Bloomberg reports.

If these initial probes culminate in a formal EU antitrust investigation and Nvidia is found guilty, the company could face substantial penalties that could account for 10% of its global annual revenue. In Nvidia's case, that would be billions of dollars.

The EU's probe stems from concerns about anticompetitive behaviors in the burgeoning AI chip arena.

The European Commission is in the preliminary stages of collating information

Meanwhile, France appears to be running a parallel probe. The French authorities are particularly keen on understanding Nvidia's predominant role, its pricing strategies, and the repercussions of the ongoing chip shortage on pricing. The alignment of the EU and French investigations underscores the gravity of the concerns surrounding Nvidia's market conduct.

This dominant market position, while a testament to Nvidia's innovation and ability to make bets on the right technologies, is now under the microscope due to potential antitrust implications.


Smoke. But, no Fire, yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/03/23 03:18 PM

Quote
Microsoft CTO: Nvidia Rules AI, but AMD Will Compete Soon

The CTO refused to confirm earlier reports it's working with AMD to battle Nvidia in the AI arms race.

Microsoft is at the forefront of the AI arms race as it seeks to scale its cloud operations fast enough to stay ahead of Google, Meta, and other competitors.

Scott [the CTO] .. had some kind words for AMD, a Microsoft partner for many years. It uses AMD's custom silicon in its Xbox gaming consoles and its Epyc CPUs for its Azure cloud platform. “They’re making increasingly compelling GPU offerings that I think are going to become more and more important to the marketplace in the coming years,” said Scott, according to CNBC. His comments caused AMD's stock to jump almost 5%.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/04/23 04:15 PM

Quote
Windows 11 update may reset AMD Adrenalin GPU driver settings

The Adrenalin settings will reset with each system reboot.

Microsoft has just released a cumulative preview update listed as KB5030310. This update enabled the new functionality of copilot, a new AI-driven assistant that can perform Windows tasks and connect with the web to provide the latest information.

According to some reports, the Windows 11 KB5030310 update can cause some issues with the AMD Adrenalin drivers, such as resetting the custom settings in the control panel every time the system reboots. This problem does not affect the graphics driver functionality, but it can be annoying for users who like to tweak their settings.

It is expected that AMD and Microsoft will provide a fix for this issue quickly.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/07/23 10:35 PM

Quote
AMD’s Best Gaming CPU, The Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Is Now Available For $100 US Less at $349

The CPU maintains a TDP of just 120W and has an official MSRP of $449 US but recent price discounts through various retailers have brought it below the $400 US barrier.

At Newegg, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is now available as low as 349 USD thanks to the "TECCXA56" promo code which can be applied to the already discounted 399 USD price and slashes $50 US off. Furthermore, you will also be getting a copy of Starfield that is worth $60 US.


Nuts. This is the second time (recently) that I jumped at the wrong time. I very recently paid $426 for an R7 7800X3D -- and thought I had done "okay".

FWIW: The R7 7800X3D PC is running now on my workshop test desk -- just finishing up the build. It works. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/08/23 09:59 AM

FWIW the outcome of the above R7-7800X3D purchase.

Our R7-7800X3D PC is operational in my Wife's home office. It has full gaming capability and over 300 Steam Games installed. But, its primarily intended as our home's "book keeping and bill paying" machine.

The specifications follow in the same form as my signature lines.

Gigabyte RX6900XT, Samsung SD850 32" WQHD 2K Monitor, AMD R7-7800X3D (water cooled), 32GB RAM@6.0GHz, Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX WIFI MB, (4x M.2 SSD + 1xSSD + 2xHD) = 23TB storage, 1200W PSU, Phanteks Full Tower Case, Microsoft KB, Microsoft Mouse, W11 Pro
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/09/23 05:59 PM

Quote
AMD’s first AM4 motherboards still getting firmware updates 6 years and 8 months after launch

AMD 300 series motherboards still getting new BIOSes, Intel 300 series not so much

The first AMD AM4 (X370/B350/A320) motherboards were released in February 2017.

A quick investigation into this claim has confirmed that all major motherboard manufacturers have indeed released updates in the past 3-4 months. These updates include the latest AGESA firmware update along with some security enhancements.

[AMD] users still have the potential to upgrade their 6-year-old Ryzen CPUs with the 5000X3D series CPUs, which can significantly boost gaming performance.

Meanwhile, the Intel 300 series platform, which was released in 2017 as well, has not seen an update since 2021.


One of the AMD cost/benefit selling points is longer term support.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/11/23 03:43 PM

Quote
Nvidia Is Moving to Annual Product Releases to Keep Its Lead in AI Hardware

It remains to be seen if the new schedule will also apply to its GeForce brand of video cards.

The company's move is smart, as demand for Nvidia's products currently exceeds supply, leading to obscene prices. This scarcity could motivate companies to look elsewhere for solutions, which includes developing custom silicon, as Microsoft is reportedly doing with Athena. Google and Amazon have already taken this path with their Tensor GPUs and Graviton chips,
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/14/23 02:22 PM

Quote
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU Is An Amazing Value For Gamers For Just $299 US At Microcenter

Even the Core i5-13600K which usually falls around the same price can't match this beast of a gaming chip which is so efficient, that it pulls ahead of the flagship Core i9-13900K in most instances while consuming less power than the 13600K.

the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D can receive an additional $30 US off when a compatible AM5 motherboard is purchased. Considering that most new builders will need to buy an AM5 motherboard with the CPU, you are in for an even better price on the chip. At $299 US, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is an unbeatable processor and the best gaming value there is right now.



Quote
Intel 14th Gen CPUs Tested In Factorio, Get Crushed By AMD Ryzen 7000X3D & 5000X3D Chips

The 14th Gen chips include the Core i91-4900K, Core i7-14700K & Core i5-14600K. All of these CPUs are expected to launch next week and we know pretty much everything there is about these chips


Attached picture Screenshot 2023-10-14 101946.png
Posted By: ArgonV

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/16/23 08:23 PM

Just an FYI AMD pulled the Oct. release graphics driver due to the anti-lag feature triggering multiplayer bans on some games. They are working on a solution...

Other than that, I have to say I installed the driver before it was pulled and things have been behaving quite nicely in regards to bug fixes and performance on my 7900 XTX.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/23 10:21 AM

TSMC makes chips for AMD, Nvidia, and others.

Quote
TSMC Places Confidence In 3nm Node, Compares It To Intel 18A: Better Maturity, Cost & Delivery Time

we shouldn't jump to a conclusion just yet, since the performance figures will become evident once the processes are actually implemented into mainstream industry products.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/21/23 10:22 AM

Quote
AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX 96 Core CPU Shatters Cinebench Performance Benchmarks, Almost 150K Score

AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX 96-Core CPU Crushes Intel Xeon, Leads In All Performance Metrics & Scores Big In Cinebench Benchmark
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 10/24/23 10:11 AM

Quote
NVIDIA & AMD Planning To Launch Arm-Based CPUs For PCs, To Tackle Intel & Apple By 2025

The report comes from Reuters who have cited their own sources on the matter, stating that NVIDIA has internally started prep work on its next-gen CPUs for the client PC segment which will target Intel and run on the Arm architecture. The company not only wants to take on Intel but also tackle Apple in the client segment

But it isn't just NVIDIA who will be making Arm-based CPUs, AMD is also reported to be going big with Arm in its future CPUs. The company is also said to introduce Arm-based CPUs which will sit alongside its traditional x86 CPUs serving the client consumer PC space under the Ryzen banner.


Arm-based CPUs should run the Windows operating systems.

AMD has worked on Arm CPUs in the past -- but, stopped work to focus on x86 CPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/01/23 11:58 AM

Quote
AMD CEO Says EPYC Turin “Zen 5” CPUs Deliver Significant Performance & Efficiency Gains, MI300 To Drive Over $2B Revenue In 2024, Talks Arm PC Competition

During their Q3 2023 earnings call, AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, talked about the upcoming EPYC "Turin" CPU & Instinct "MI300" GPU portfolio for Data Centers/AI while also commenting on the surging competition from Arm-based chips in the PC segment.


This was about "commercial"/"professional" CPU/APU usage. AMD says new products are in advanced development and "on the way" in 2024.

Gaming PCs were not a topic.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/02/23 11:26 AM

Quote
AI Company Plans to Run Clusters of 10,000 Nvidia H100 [AI] GPUs in International Waters

Del Complex hopes floating its [Artificial Intelligence] computer clusters in the middle of the ocean will allow it a level of autonomy unlikely to be found on land.

Government entities around the globe are scrambling to implement AI laws and best practices as the technology grows in both strength and scope. The companies that make and use those AI systems, however, aren’t too thrilled about how government oversight might impact business. Del Complex is one of them—and it has a unique plan to circumvent whatever regulatory challenges are coming.

The United States-based “alternate reality” company, which seems to be a catch-all for AI, clean energy, neural prosthetics, robotics, and “technological resilience” research, has decided to float its own AI-dedicated computer clusters in international waters.


Nvidia AI GPUs lead on the AI front. AMD has developed an AI GPU to compete.

This article highlights that AI usage is limited in each Country by Governmental control. So, AI developers are developing "workarounds" -- like not being in a Country.

Attached picture Screenshot 2023-11-02 072633.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/03/23 12:28 PM

Quote
AMD FSR Technology Reportedly Coming To Next-Gen Samsung & Qualcomm Smartphones

Unlike the competing solutions, AMD's FSR technology works with a range of hardware including GPUs from the competition. This hardware-agnostic design can also serve the mobile space well and it looks like Samsung & Qualcomm have partnered up with AMD to utilize the tech for their upcoming flagship smartphones.

The use of AMD FSR within smartphones will definitely be a major development for Arm & Android-based devices. Expect more information in the coming months as these products are introduced to the consumer segment.


FWIW: I recently purchased Samsung's current generation flagship smartphone.

It does not have FSR. However, I won't be buying a new one anytime soon. smile
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/23 09:18 PM

Quote
Intel Kills Off Its Chip-Freezing Cryo Cooling Technology

Intel discontinued the company's Cryo Cooling Technology on July 1, 2023, with the 13th Generation Raptor Lake parts being the last supported chips.

In a nutshell, this cooling tech brings the CPU down to 0 degrees Celsius to boost overall performance.

The thing with Intel's Cryo Cooling Technology is that it wasn't just about the hardware. Intel had envisioned it to be a small ecosystem comprised of software, firmware, and hardware working in harmony. The chipmaker's unexpected move to discontinue Cryo Cooling Technology puts its partners in a difficult predicament.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/07/23 09:31 PM

Quote
Intel a Candidate for Billions More in CHIPS Act Funding for Defense Work

Intel ... is apparently involved in a secret 'secure enclave' project designed to ensure that the U.S. military has access to chips produced in America, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Intel is currently building four new fabs in the U.S.: .. near Chandler, Arizona, that are due to come online in 2024 as well as two .. near Columbus, Ohio, that are set to start mass production in 2025. Both vast projects require investments of $100 billion or more, so it is not surprising why Intel needs government support.

[However, there is concern about spending "all" the money only with Intel] "We are concerned that the [Department of Defence] is considering sole sourcing an award to one company to build a secure enclave at a cost that is far greater than [a typical approach to secure chips for defence applications]," a letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal and signed by multiple American politicians reads. "Doing so would limit funding for other projects that would create a diversified domestic supplier base of semiconductors critical to the defense industrial base."


Secure production in the USA is good because China could halt production for the USA in Asia at any time.

However, long term, Some are concerned that it may be better/safer/fairer to multi-source/diversify in the USA with several manufacturers -- not just Intel alone.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/08/23 02:46 PM

Rumor:

Quote
AMD Preps Ryzen 8000G “Phoenix” AM5 Desktop APU Lineup: Ryzen 7 8700G, Ryzen 5 8600G, Ryzen 5 8500G & Ryzen 3 8300G

The latest rumor on AMD's highly anticipated AM5 Desktop APUs comes from HKEPC who state that AMD will be launching its Ryzen 8000G APU family soon.

Their information comes from a Taiwanese-based motherboard manufacturer who has received the first ES Ryzen "AM5" APUs for testing and based on the information, the chips will be marketed as Ryzen 8000G instead of Ryzen 7000G which was the previously rumored branding.


I'll probably buy one at some point.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/10/23 08:42 PM

Had trouble with my high end GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master MB. So, got new Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX -- one notch lower and much less cost. Runs the same.

New setup includes a new case and new cooling. The signature is updated.

Meantime, I'll consider sending the "old" GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master MB for repair or replacement -- for the SECOND time. They fixed it the last time. It was the first MB that ever gave me a serious issue (I've had "dozens" over the last 23 years).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/11/23 12:11 PM

Rumor/Leak:

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AMD To Utilize Samsung 4nm & TSMC 3nm Nodes For Next-Gen Chips, Zen 5C Possibly Codenamed Prometheus

We know that AMD is going to use a mix of 4nm and 3nm process nodes for its Zen 5 core architecture but the company has so far relied on TSMC for production.

The AMD Zen 5 and Zen 5C core architectures will be a major deal in 2024-2025. They are going to power a range of families including Strix Point (Ryzen Laptops), Granite Ridge (Ryzen Desktop), and Turin (EPYC Server).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/23 09:44 AM

The nearby launch of Ryzen 8000G series APUs get more confirmation.

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GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, released the latest AGESA 1.1.0.0 beta bios for AM5 next gen APU support on X670, B650, A620 motherboards. The forthcoming AM5 next gen APU will be launched at the end of January 2024.


According to recent reports, the next-gen AMD Ryzen APU lineup for AM5 desktops will launch under the Ryzen 8000 branding and will include a total of four SKUs featuring the Zen 4 & Zen 4C core configurations. This will be the first desktop APU lineup that supports DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5.0 connectivity. Pairing them up with the A620 and B650 series of motherboards will make the most sense since these APUs are targeted at budget and mainstream audiences.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/12/23 11:10 AM

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Hundreds of RTX 4090s With Melted Power Connectors Repaired Every Month, Says Technician

The saga continues over a year after the first problems with GeForce RTX 4090's melted 12VHPWR connectors were reported.

A NorthridgeFix repairman claims he must fix about a hundred GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards with failed connectors every month. He keeps saying that the connector failures are not user error, but issues with the connector design.

Back in November 2022, Nvidia said that it was aware of 50 cases of melted GeForce RTX 4090 power connectors and that the standard issue was that they were not fully plugged into the graphics card, which essentially meant that it was a user error, not a failure of the connector.

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"So now it is safe to say the [GeForce RTX] 4090 melted connector is not a user problem," the repairman said. "We discussed this many times in the past, but I want to mention one last time that this is not a user error."
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/14/23 11:33 AM

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AMD Announces Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series Processors Powered by Zen 4

AMD today announced at Smart Production Solutions 2023 the AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series processor family, optimized for the high-performance requirements of industrial markets.

The Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series processor is the first embedded processor to use next-generation 5 nm technology with a 7-year manufacturing availability commitment. The new embedded processor integrates AMD Radeon RDNA 2 graphics that eliminates the need for a discrete GPU for industrial applications. And because embedded applications require additional operating system software options, Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series processors include support for both Windows Server and Linux Ubuntu, on top of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series processors also include up to 12 high-performance "Zen 4" CPU cores, which combined with its integrated features and wide operating system choices, offers unparalleled ease of integration for system designers.


These are not aimed at desktop PCs. Rather, they will be used to make industrial and scientific equipment. They will use the AM5 socket -- like a PC -- to simplify integration into equipment.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/15/23 04:33 PM

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Flagship Gaming GPU Rumored To Feature GDDR7 Memory & 384-bit Bus

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series is expected to utilize the Blackwell Gaming GPU architecture though a bit different from the one coming to HPC and AI customers next year. Currently, there have been roadmaps that point out to a 2025 launch but some rumors suggest that late 2024 is when we might get to see the latest graphics lineup.

Although the exact memory configurations aren't mentioned for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Flagship GPU, what is mentioned is that the card will feature a 384-bit bus interface so it seems like 512-bit may no longer be on the planning board or it is just meant for an even higher-end variant.


AMD is rumored to NOT have a high-end, expensive card in its next desktop generation. Rather, the "best" card will be a mid priced card that plays the games but does not provide "over the top" FPS. They say that's a conscious business decision -- not because they can't make one.

AMD is said to be putting the effort into advanced industrial cards. That's because there will not be enough chips to do both desktop PCs and top industry GPUs (that cost a lot to buy; and, thus, make AMD a lot of money).

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/23 05:38 PM

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AMD Reportedly Taps Samsung Foundry for 4nm Zen 5c Designs

The company is diversifying its chip sourcing, according to a new report.

AMD has traditionally used TSMC to craft all of its most advanced silicon designs, but now that it's working on its next-gen Zen 5 architecture, it looks to be switching things up a bit. A new report from Taiwan states AMD has enlisted Samsung Foundry to produce Zen 5c products for its next-generation platform, which marks a huge shift for the company. It will still use TSMC as well, but it appears to want to diversify its sourcing for Zen 5 instead of relying solely on TSMC as it has done with Zen 4 and the previous generations.

{AMD will] utilize Samsung's 4nm process for "basic" versions of its future chips while allowing TSMC to make more advanced variations on its cutting-edge 3nm node.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/19/23 05:50 PM

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU Prices Hit Close To $2000 In The US, Cheapest Model Now At $1900 US

Back in October, the lowest price for the card reached $1700 US and now that sits at $1900 US, a $200 US increase in just a few weeks. Furthermore, the $1900 US pricing is limited to Black Friday promos which means that once those deals are over, you will see the card listed for even higher prices. The average price at the moment for the card has reached $2000 US.




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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 “Blackwell” GPUs Utilize TSMC 3nm Process, DisplayPort 2.1 Support

If we do a comparison between the N5 (4N Optimized 5nm variant for NVIDIA), the latest 3nm process technology would offer a 25-30% reduction in power, 10-15% additional performance per transistor, 42% reduction in area and a density increase of 1.7x. Those are quite substantial gains over the current 5nm node which offers some amazing performance per watt (efficiency) in the existing GeForce RTX 40 "Ada Lovelace" lineup so we can only expect NVIDIA's efficiency lead over its competition to further increase.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/21/23 09:10 PM

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is in the process of rapid growth. Gaming GPUs can be used (although special AI GPUs are made for the purpose).

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AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Is The Latest RDNA 3 GPU To Land Support For ROCm 5.7, Accelerated AI With PyTorch

Today's announcement from AMD builds upon its promise to deliver support for ROCm and other machine learning and development features to its consumer-centric products within the RDNA 3 GPU family. The red team had already introduced support for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX & Radeon PRO W7900 GPUs last month and now, it is adding the Radeon RX 7900 XT too which covers the top echelon of RDNA 3 products.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/23/23 10:01 AM

FWIW: I recently mentioned "Had [un-diagnosable] trouble with my high end GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master MB. So, got new Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX"

Meantime, just to see if I could somehow fix things, I did a "from scratch" rebuild using my "nominally defective" GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master MB. It included some changes from the original build.

So far, its been working a couple days. So, I've changed the signature line to show the rebuilt system. We'll see.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/23 11:24 AM

Regarding upgrades for existing AM4 PCs that support very good 1080p gaming (with a decent GPU installed). Hopefully, at a budget price:

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AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Ryzen 5 5500X3D, Ryzen 5 5600GT, Ryzen 5 5500GT & Ryzen 7 5700 AM4 Desktop CPUs Launching In Early 2024

AMD AM4 To Live On In 2024 As Red Team Preps More 3D V-Cache CPUs & APUs For Desktop Platform

AMD is likely preparing at least five brand new SKUs which will include the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Ryzen 5 5600X3D, Ryzen 5 5600GT, Ryzen 5 5500GT and the Ryzen 7 5700.

These new SKUs will ensure that mainstream audiences stick with AM4 for a good while and enjoy the gaming performance uplift offered by the addition of 3D V-Cache tech. Besides the SKUs, it may look like AMD is planning to replace its existing Ryzen 5 5600G APU with the Ryzen 5 5600GT & the Ryzen 5 5500GT. The "GT" naming is definitely new in the Ryzen APU family and it is likely that the two chips will offer a slight upgrade.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/27/23 11:30 AM

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AMD Ryzen 8000G AM5 Desktop APU Specifications Leak, Up To 2.5x Faster Than Ryzen 5000G In Gaming Benchmarks

The new APUs make use of two key technologies, first is the Zen 4 core architecture which will power the CPU side of things and the second is the RDNA 3 core architecture which will power the graphics. The new family will be supported on AM5 motherboards using the latest BIOS which has already been rolled out across multiple 600-series products

the AMD Ryzen 8000G APUs will be available in both PRO and Non-PRO flavors which share identical specifications. The flagship SKU is going to be the Ryzen 7 8700G which would offer 8 cores, 16 threads, a base clock of 4.2 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.1 GHz. There's also the Ryzen 5 8600G APU which features 6 cores, 12 threads, a base clock of 4.35 GHz & a boost clock of 5.0 GHz. Both of these APUs will be based on the Phoenix 1 die and feature support for OC.

The Phoenix 2 SKUs will include the Ryzen 5 8500G with 6 cores and 12 threads and the Ryzen 3 8300G with 4 cores and 8 threads. The 8500G operates at a base clock of 3.55 GHz and a boost clock of 5.0 GHz while the 8300G operates at a base clock of 3.45 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz.


I assume I'll buy one at some point.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/23 10:42 AM

As previously noted, AI is where its at for Nvidia and AMD.

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Nvidia sold half a million H100 AI GPUs in Q3 thanks to Meta, Facebook — lead times stretch up to 52 weeks: Omdia

Having earned $14.5 billion on datacenter hardware in the third quarter of fiscal 2024, ... Nvidia sold nearly half a million A100 and H100 GPUs, and demand for these products is so high that the lead time of H100-based servers is from 36 to 52 weeks.

it should be noted that virtually all companies that purchase Nvidia's H100 GPUs in large quantities are also developing [their own] custom silicon for AI, HPC, and video workloads. As a result, their purchases of Nvidia hardware will likely decline over time as [users] transit to their own chips.


As previously stated, I think AI will make "advanced/high-end" human "thinking/problem-solving/etc" obsolete in less than 100 years -- probably less than 50.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/28/23 03:02 PM

Possibly partly due to Nvidia 4090s being diverted from the Gaming Market by the thousands -- to become AI GPUs:

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Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU Pricing Is Officially Ludicrous

The time to buy was about six months ago, apparently.

Looking at Amazon, for example, the only card available is the Zotac AMP Extreme card, which goes for $2,267—almost $700 over MSRP.

Newegg has four cards in stock, the least expensive being the same one from Amazon—Zotac AMP Extreme—for $2,249.


I checked. When I checked, the cheapest Newegg RTX 4090 was $2249 (as in the article). In a quick check, the cheapest Zotac AMP Extreme at Amazon was $2174.

I expect the prices can change hour to hour -- as Amazon's has.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/29/23 11:37 AM

More AI news appearing. Nvidia is big on GPUs for AI. AMD is big on high end CPUs for AI -- and working up the AI GPU ladder.

Thus, as previously noted, it is rumored/leaked that there will be fewer and higher priced Nvidia and AMD Gaming GPUs next year.

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NVIDIA Sold “Half a Million” AI GPUs In Q3 2023, Courtesy of Demand From Major Tech Firms

sold nearly a whopping "half a million" AI GPUs in the quarter, mainly consisting of the Hopper H100 and the Ampere A100. The sale volumes are a sight to see in the industry, and it has led NVIDIA to a position where it has exerted dominance in the markets. NVIDIA's plans to sell millions of GPUs in 2024 seem achievable,

it looks like Meta and Microsoft were on top of the list, securing 150,000 units of NVIDIA's current arsenal of AI GPUs.

NVIDIA has also seen a decent share of orders from Chinese markets, amounting to around 30% of the company's orders in Q3 2023
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 11/30/23 03:17 PM

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NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Believes That The US Needs “Decades” For Chip Supply Chain Independence

[Huang quote]: "We are somewhere between a decade or two decades away from supply chain independence, as I mentioned earlier, our systems comes from 35,000 parts, and eight of them comes from TSMC. Supply chain independence is going to be challenging but we are going to try it and we should endevaour it but total independence of supply chain isn't practical for a decade or two."

Through incentives like the CHIPS Act, the US poured somewhere around $52 billion into the markets in the form of subsidies, tax credits, and covering up costs of R&D. It was seen as one of the biggest packages offered to tech firms ever, which ultimately prompted chip companies like TSMC and Intel to capitalize on it through setting up their foundries in the US. .. neither of the above-mentioned developments has reached a conclusive stage yet.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/04/23 01:34 PM

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AMD Opens The Company’s Largest R&D Center In India To Accelerate Development of Next-Gen CPUs, GPUs & SOCs

[Per AMD] "We are pleased to inaugurate our largest global design center in Bengaluru today. This investment strengthens our relationship with India and showcases our confidence in the exceptional engineering talent that the country has to offer."

The Technostar center is built upon 500,000 square feet of land, which not only makes it AMD's largest R&D center, but both parties plan on 3,000 engineers in the coming years, acting as a catalyst for regional technological developments. The campus will be responsible for advancements within CPUs, GPUs, adaptive SoCs, and FPGAs for both personal computers and data centers. Moreover, the center will consist of a hefty portion of "Indian" professionals and workforce, hence showing a contribution to the "Made in India" policy


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According to the UN estimates, India has overtaken China in having the largest population in the world with population of 1,425,775,850 at the end of April 2023.


The USA Population is nominally 336 million. Tiny by comparison to India and China -- whose total populations are approaching 3 Billion people (not there yet).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/24/23 10:48 AM

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AMD's Current & Future Ryzen CPUs To Get Precise & Detailed Specifications Listings As Hybrid Becomes The Norm

AMD has previously promised to make it easier for users to distinguish between Ryzen AI and non-Ryzen AI PCs through new branding.

It should be pointed out that AMD's hybrid strategy is so far unlike Intel's hybrid strategy. .. the fundamental [AMD] ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is pretty much the same [across CPUs] with the only differences in clock speeds, cache, and power targets.

Intel's hybrid core approach is way more unique and uses two different core architectures that cannot be compared to each other

AMD made it clear that it won't follow Intel's P-Core/E-Core design for its hybrid future.


Because AMD uses similar instruction-sets/cores throughout a CPU and Intel uses different instruction-sets/cores in its CPUs, its easier/cheaper to design efficient-software for AMD CPUs.

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/23 11:47 AM

TSMC makes chips for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.

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TSMC's Roadmap Reveals Progressing Of Cutting-Edge Semiconductor Processes: Development On 1nm, Eyeing Over 1 Trillion Transistors By 2030

AMD has been leveraging TSMC's chiplet designs for its latest consumer, data center, and now the most recent MI300 accelerator chips. Intel also released its Meteor Lake chips which are the blue team's first chiplet-design for consumer platforms, hinting at the fact that chiplets are the future, with TSMC one step ahead. Intel itself uses chips fabricated on TSMC's process technologies to power Meteor Lake. The company projects 3D Hetero Integration to reach a whopping "one trillion transistors" by 2030.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/28/23 12:10 PM

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AMD & Intel Motherboard Partners Eye Q3 2024 As Next-Major CPU Platform Refresh: 700-Series For AM5 & 800-Series For LGA 1851

Both AMD and Intel are said to introduce their latest chipsets which motherboard makers will utilize in next-gen products but AMD will be flexible based on the choices Intel makes since they aren't in a hurry

On the AMD camp, Team Red and its motherboard partners will introduce the new 700-series PCH family based on the same AM5 socket. AMD has committed to a 2025+ plan for its AM5 socket and the introduction of a new PCH doesn't mean that existing motherboards will get any less support than what they are getting now. The new PCH will be designed to offer new and improved features but as we have seen with AM4, the older chipsets will still retain compatibility with newer CPUs and may also get support for the same features through BIOS updates by motherboard manufacturers.


So, AMD will NOT be making current Motherboards obsolete. Continued support is planned.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 12/29/23 10:11 AM

I don't post much about AMD Threadripper CPUs because they are not for gaming. However, they are a big part of AMD industrial-application successes.

So, an older article just for comparison to gaming CPUs and completeness:

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000WX CPUs Come In 6 Flavors, All Zen 4 Powered For Multi-Threading Insane Performance

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000WX CPU family will be based on the Zen 4 core architecture and feature six SKUs. All four SKUs are designed to offer record-shattering performance & bleeding edge efficiency.

Starting at the top, we have the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX CPU which will offer a total of 96 cores, 192 threads, and up to 384 MB of L3 cache. This chip will offer a 2.50 GHz base clock & a boost clock of up to 5.15 GHz. This gargantuan of a chip will have 50% more cores/threads versus the Zen 3-based 5995WX while running at 14% higher clock speeds at a 25% higher TDP (350 vs 280 Watts).

Next up, we have the AMD Threadripper PRO 7985WX, 7975WX, 7965WX, featuring 64/128, 32/64 & 24/48 configurations. While the 7985WX runs at a base clock of 3.20 GHz, the other two chips will be operating at 4.0 - 4.20 GHz at the base frequency while all chips boost up to 5.35 GHz. The cache counts are maintained at 256 MB, 128 MB, and 96 MB, respectively.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/06/24 10:25 AM

Relevant to Chip Production in the USA by AMD, Intel, Nvidia and others:

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Semiconductor industry proposes new 'Chipmaker's Visa' for H1B program — program would address extreme talent shortages in chipmaking industry

U.S. semiconductor industry needs more workers.

The U.S. semiconductor industry is facing a big talent problem: it will be short of 67,000 employees by 2030, according to estimates by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a lobbying group for the sector. Efforts to develop local talent in the U.S. are ongoing, but there is still a big gap, which is why the industry depends on engineers, computer scientists, and technicians from abroad.

However, the U.S. H-1B Visa system is making it tough to bring in and keep these workers, so the U.S. chip industry is calling on the U.S. government to rethink it, .. One of those options is a new type of visa specifically for the semiconductor industry.


Although the USA population is increasing, the part of the population with the innate ability to do Science and Engineering tasks is not reproducing at "replacement rate". That (and other factors) mean that each year there are fewer fully qualified USA born Scientists and Engineers available to USA industry -- but, every year, more are needed . Thus, every year, there are more and more USA jobs available for qualified Foreign Born Scientists and Engineers.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/07/24 09:33 AM

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Steady Optimizations & Development Have Put The RADV Vulkan Way Ahead of AMD's "AMDVLK" Drivers, Up To 200% Ray-Tracing Gain With Radeon GPUs

Phoronix reports that the new update to the MESA 24.0 was in the works for almost a month by the developer Friedrich Vock, and while the change isn't that significant in terms of the work put into it, it is disclosed that developers have optimized the conversion of 1D ray launches to 2D so that now more threads in a GPU are utilized, resulting in enhanced performance.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/08/24 09:48 AM

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The Frontier Supercomputer Sets New Records In The Space of LLM Training, Courtesy of AMD's EPYC CPUs & Instinct GPUs

The Frontier supercomputer is the world's leading supercomputer and the only Exascale machine that is currently operating. This machine is powered by AMD's EPYC & Instinct hardware which not only offers the top HPC performance but is also the 2nd most efficient supercomputer on the planet. A submission report on Arxiv by individuals has revealed that the Frontier supercomputer has reached the ability to train one trillion parameters through "hyperparameter tuning", setting a new industry benchmark.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/09/24 09:30 PM

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AMD Unveils Ryzen 8000G Series Processors: Zen 4 APUs For Desktop with Ryzen AI

Starting with the top tier SKU, the Ryzen 7 8700G, it is based on AMD's Pheonix mobile silicon and, as such, benefits from eight fully-fledged Zen 4 cores driving sixteen threads (8C/16T). At the top end, it has a 5.1 GHz turbo frequency with a 4.2 GHz base frequency. Encompassing the true nature of an APU for AMD's AM5 desktop platform, it includes the Radeon 780M integrated graphics, which is RDNA3-based and supports AMD's latest features, such as Hyper-RX and Fluid Motion Frames.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/14/24 07:44 PM

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NVIDIA Secures a Huge AI GPU Order From India, Worth Over Half A Billion Dollars

Yotto's CEO and co-founder Sunil Gupta revealed that the new order includes 16,000 units of NVIDIA's H100 and GH200 AI GPUs, which are expected to be delivered by March 2025. Moreover, the firm has previously placed an order for 16,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, also due for delivery by July. Hence, a rough estimate suggests that total order valuation has indeed exceeded a billion-dollar mark, placing Yotto in the list of NVIDIA's "esteemed" clients. Moreover, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang has himself expressed the immense potential held in Indian markets and has predicted it to be one of the largest in the world moving ahead.


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In 2023, India overtook China as the country with the largest population in the world, with more than 1.43 billion people. China now has the second largest population in the world, with just above 1.4 billion inhabitants.


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As of 1 January 2023, the population of the EU is slightly over 448 million people.


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U.S. Population Estimated at 335,893,238 on Jan. 1, 2024
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/24 12:03 PM

AI, AI, AI smile

Something to "think about" when considering buying one's next PC.

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CES 2024 Showed Us How AI PCs Will Dominate Next-Gen Markets, Revolutionizing The Way We See PCs

With the influx of AI in almost every major tech segment in the world, it seems like artificial intelligence is the way to go moving forward. However, in recent times, the term "AI PC" has taken a new high in terms of its usage by tech giants, and based on what we have seen up till now, companies are adjusting their product portfolios in a way to incorporate the power of AI, especially in the case of personal computers.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/18/24 12:06 PM

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AMD Answers NVIDIA's SUPER GPUs With Price Drops: Radeon RX 7900 XT Now Officially Costs $749 US To Tackle NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/20/24 08:56 PM

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AMD removes Taiwan branding from CPUs, says change wasn't made to appease China

"AMD removed the country of diffusion from all new CPU and APU products in 2023 to align with the product marking process for our other products," an AMD spokesperson told Tom's Hardware, indicating that the company will no longer mark (silkscreen) any of its consumer or enterprise processors with the country where the silicon die inside the chip was originally fabricated (diffused). In the case of all of AMD's leading-edge products, those silicon dies are created in Taiwan at TSMC.

Notably, AMD still marks the processors as "Made in Malaysia," which signifies where the processor die was integrated into the final chip package.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/24/24 04:16 PM

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TSMC's average wafer price jumped 22% in one year — nearly all semiconductor industry growth now comes from more expensive products, not higher production volumes

the average selling price (ASP) of a TSMC 300-mm wafer increased to $6,611 in the fourth quarter, an increase of 22% in a single year, as noticed by analyst Dan Nystedt, who attributes this increase to the ramp of TSMC's N3 (3nm-class) process technology. Bernstein Research's Stacy Rasgon also points out that most semiconductor industry growth now comes from increased pricing, and not an increase in the number of processors shipped.


A partly misleading article. Part of the price increase is because the Wafers contain more "chips" and "transistors" (i.e. more product costs more).

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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/25/24 12:29 PM

The RX 7600 XT is a niche product. Buy one only after careful consideration. Most folks would do better elsewhere.

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AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT review: double the memory and higher clocks, still Navi 33

RX 6700 XT still provides stiff competition at the same price.

As we saw with the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, the RX 7600 XT ends up targeting a very specific niche. Yes, it's faster than the RX 7600, but it also costs more. For gaming purposes, there are a lot of titles where the extra VRAM isn't even that useful, and then it's just down to clock speeds. It's not necessarily a worse proposition than the RX 7600, but then we've opined that that [RX 7600] was one of the most disappointing AMD GPUs of all time.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/26/24 04:57 PM

A rumor.

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New AMD Zen 5 Rumors Say Ryzen 9000 May Arrive in April 2024

The company's X3D chips will arrive later in the year, right before Intel launches Arrow Lake.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 01/30/24 10:37 AM

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AMD Ryzen 8000G Desktop APU Review Roundup


Links to Many Reviews

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AMD offers the assurance of 'ready to game out of the box at 1080p' performance levels. 1080p remains the most common resolution among gamers by far, as indicated by the latest Steam Hardware Survey. However, it's important to note that these chips are not tailored for high-end AAA gaming at 1080p. Users looking to play more graphically demanding games should be prepared to adjust the quality settings accordingly or opt to purchase a discrete graphics card – though if you're planning on using a discrete card from the start, you may want to look at AMD's traditional CPUs.


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Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/12/24 03:38 PM

A personal note FWIW:

I changed my Main Gaming/Office monitor from a 4K 42" gaming monitor to the 4K 32" curved (1000R) gaming monitor (in signature).

Viewing the 42" from so close (about 30 inches) had greatly damaged my vision over the last few years -- from nominally 20/20 (before starting to use 42") to 20/70 and bad double vision at times.

Over a year of eye exercises and monitor changes around the house seem to have greatly fixed my eyes. I still need to do the exercises to "cement" the changes.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/17/24 12:33 PM

One of my "pet peeves" regarding AMD competition and why I use AMD.

The competition often makes good stuff; but, the competition also often "misinforms/misleads" the public. I.e. Its not as good as they would have you believe.

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Industry group invalidates 2,600 official Intel CPU benchmarks — SPEC says the company's compiler used unfair optimizations to boost performance

SPEC says it will no longer be publishing SPEC CPU 2017 results for Intel CPUs running a specific version of the Intel compiler, citing displeasure over an apparent targeted optimization for a specific workload ... that essentially amounts to cheating.

While it's expected that compilers should be optimized since more performance is obviously better, optimizing specifically for benchmarks is controversial and frowned upon. SPEC wants its benchmarks to reflect the real-world performance of hardware and to provide a standardized way to compare different processors.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/24 09:22 PM

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AMD Zen 5 CPUs Reportedly Made On TSMC’s 3nm Process In Q2, Mass Production In Q3

The Zen 5 CPU architecture is going to be a big deal for AMD in 2024 as it will power multiple lines of CPU families including Granite Ridge "Ryzen Desktop", Strix Point "Ryzen Mobile" & Turin "EPYC Server". All of these CPU families will play a major role and it looks like these chips are entering the TSMC fabs for production next quarter followed by volume production in Q3 2024, as reported by UDN.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/19/24 09:29 PM

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NVIDIA teases GTC 2024 keynote: it’s all about AI
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/28/24 05:43 PM

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Intel puts 1nm process (10A) on the roadmap for 2027 — also plans for fully AI-automated factories with 'Cobots'

Intel's previously-unannounced Intel 10A (analogous to 1nm) will enter production/development in late 2027, marking the arrival of the company's first 1nm node, and its 14A (1.4nm) node will enter production in 2026. The company is also working to create fully autonomous AI-powered fabs in the future.


Intel to produce AI to run entire factories?

In other news, Nvidia CEO says no-one should study "Computer Programming" for use as a "Profession". He says AI will be doing virtually all the Programming in a few years.

It sounds like "human experts" are in the process of being replaced wholesale by AI. We'll see. But, it is what I expect to happen within the lifetime of current young folks.

Decades from now, when Humans are virtually no longer necessary, then what???
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 02/29/24 05:32 PM

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Intel CEO Says He's Betting the Entire Company's Future on its 18A Process

Intel's upcoming 18A process, short for 18 Angstroms, .. will be the culmination of many years of engineering work by Intel and billions of dollars of R&D. It is theoretically the process node that will allow Intel to leapfrog rivals TSMC and Samsung in the nanometer arms race. Intel's CEO is being extremely blunt about this node's importance to the company's future, stating that he has bet the entire company on 18A's success.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/04/24 05:54 PM

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AMD Teases Next-Gen FSR “FiedlityFX Super Resolution” Upscaling Tech With AI, Following DLSS & XeSS

"2024 for us is a huge year because we have spent so many years developing hardware and software capabilities for AI. We've just completed AI enabling our entire portfolios so cloud, edge, PCs, our embedded devices, our gaming devices, we're enabling our gaming devices to upscale using AI and 2024 is really a huge deployment year for us so now the bedrock's there, the capabilities are there."


AMD has incorporated special AI circuitry in virtually all its upscale products. That includes the GPUs. Now, they plan to "turn it on" in the GPUs.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/05/24 10:36 AM

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NVIDIA discontinues GeForce GTX 16 GPUs, the end of GTX series
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/10/24 12:22 PM

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Survey Reveals AI Professionals Considering Switching From NVIDIA To AMD, Cite Instinct MI300X Performance & Cost

Jeff Tatarchuk, who is the co-founder of TensorWave, revealed that in an independent study of 82 engineers and AI professionals, around 50% of them expressed their confidence in utilizing AMD Instinct MI300X GPU, considering that it offers a better price-to-performance ratio, along with having extensive availability compared to counterparts such as NVIDIA H100s. Apart from that, Jeff also says that TensorWave will employ the MI300X AI accelerators, which is another promising news for Team Red [AMD]

For a quick rundown on the MI300X Instinct AI GPU, it is designed solely on the CDNA 3 architecture, and a lot of stuff is going on. ...Here is how it compares to NVIDIA's H100:


2.4X Higher Memory Capacity
1.6X Higher Memory Bandwidth
1.3X FP8 TFLOPS
1.3X FP16 TFLOPS
Up To 20% Faster Vs H100 (Llama 2 70B) In 1v1 Comparison
Up To 20% Faster Vs H100 (FlashAttention 2) in 1v1 Comparison
Up To 40% Faster Vs H100 (Llama 2 70B) in 8v8 Server
Up To 60% Faster Vs H100 (Bloom 176B) In 8v8 Server
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 03/13/24 08:47 AM

Crypto Mining. Who needs an expensive GPU?? (a slight exaggeration smile )

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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU More Profitable In Mining Than Fastest GPUs As Crypto Once Again Sees Rise After Bitcoin Jump

This has also led to the rise in demand for AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPUs in certain currencies such as Qubic which takes advantage of AVX2 or AVX512 instructions which the Zen 4 architecture is very good at since it is the only client and widely available option that supports the ISA. Intel gave up on offering AVX512 support

If you search up the current mining profit rates, the Qubic (QBIC) coin generates a mining profit of around $3 US (24 hours) using the chip which includes the electricity cost when running the chip at 170W. Given the fantastic efficiency that AMD's Zen 4 CPUs have to offer and their ability to offer the same or very similar performance when down-clocked to 65-100W, the 16-core behemoth and the rest of its siblings become a viable solution for such algorithms.

With AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPUs, you can generate almost twice as much profit in crypto mining versus using the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU which offers a maximum profit of $1.7-$1.9 US in currencies such as PYI and NEX. The [Nvidia] GPU has a maximum power draw of 450W & also features a 3.5x higher price ($559 US vs $2000 US).
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/05/24 11:24 AM

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AMD Navi 48 “RDNA 4” GPU Confirmed In ROCm Patches, Coming To Radeon RX 8000 Gaming Cards This Year

One thing to note is that AMD's RDNA 4 GPU architecture will be a brand new design so we should also consider the fact that the red team can fine-tune its performance within ray tracing titles and also offer additional goodies such as an AI-infused FSR upscaling technology which rivals NVIDIA's DLSS even though FSR 3 in its current state is a very good alternative for gamers. AI acceleration can sort some of the shortcomings of FSR and bring enhanced image quality in areas where it currently lacks against DLSS.

we can expect the next-generation lineup to feature support for GDDR7 memory which will initially come in 28/32 Gbps dies & with 16Gb


Attached picture Screenshot 2024-04-05 072324.png
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/24 09:30 AM

Rumor and reasonable speculation regarding how AI is quickly changing CPUs (and GPUs). Designs are being altered "mid-stream" as opposed to "designs from the ground up".

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Microsoft's Demand For Faster AI Capabilities Leads To Severe SOC Nerfs Across AMD & Intel Camps As NPUs Take Prioritization Over Other Aspects

We have recently seen an AI explosion in the PC segment with all chipmakers talking about the respective capabilities of their chips and platforms. The segment is driven by a range of software innovations and Microsoft's Windows Copilot which has some hefty requirements to support its AI functionality. Chipmakers are now heavily betting on the AI craze and it looks like some have gone outside of their traditional chip development plans to prioritize AI over other parts of their newest SOCs that will be coming to market later this year.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/24 09:35 AM

TSMC makes most of AMD's chips.

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TSMC gets $6.6 billion in cash and $5 billion in loans from CHIPS Act, plans third US fab

The largest CHIPS and Science Act support package to date

The U.S. government has announced plans to provide TSMC financial support totaling $11.6 billion, comprising $6.6 billion in grants and up to $5 billion in loans. TSMC will use the funding to build three semiconductor production facilities in Arizona, with a total investment exceeding $65 billion. This is the largest financial package the U.S. government approved under the CHIPS and Science Act.
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/09/24 08:30 PM

Rumor:

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NVIDIA board partners expect GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 to launch in fourth quarter
Posted By: Allen

Re: The Future And Current Status of AMD... - 04/16/24 10:55 AM

The issue continues:

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Repair shop continues to replace 200 RTX 4090 power connectors each month


As noted above, the 5000 series of Nvidia GPUs is rumored to come out by the end of the year. Presumably, melting connectors will not be an issue for the 5000 series.
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