Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
Regarding AMD's possible Future:
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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.
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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
Regarding near-future competition:
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
Regarding Future Competition an interesting consideration for gamers, if it turns out to be true:
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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
Allen
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Ohio USA
Regarding cost of building a PC with the new DDR5 Memory:
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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".
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
Interesting for a small number of owners of older AMD powered PCs.
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
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.
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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.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
Upcoming CPU 7nm scale competition from Intel. Gaming performance is good at 1080p.
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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
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,839
Ohio USA
Rumor/Leak:
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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
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[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.