# AMD Zen-based 8-core Desktop CPU Arrives in 2016, on Socket FM3



## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

In what is a confirmation that AMD has killed socket AM3+ and its 3-chip platform, a leaked slide that's part of a larger press-deck addressing investors, tells us that the company is planning to launch a high-performance desktop processor targeting enthusiasts, based on its next-generation "Zen" architecture, in 2016. Our older articles detail the Zen CPU core design, and the way in which AMD will build multi-core CPUs with it. This processor will be codenamed "Summit Ridge," and will be a CPU, and not an APU as previously reported. In AMD-speak, what sets a CPU apart from an APU is its lack of integrated graphics.

AMD "Summit Ridge" will be an 8-core CPU built on the 14 nanometer silicon fab process. It will feature eight "Zen" cores, with 512 KB of L2 cache per core, 16 MB of L3 cache, with 8 MB shared between two sets of four cores, each; a dual-channel integrated memory controller that likely supports both DDR3 and DDR4 memory types; and an integrated PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex, with a total of 22 lanes. We can deduce this from the fact that "Summit Ridge" will be built in the same upcoming socket FM3 package, which the company's "Bristol Ridge" Zen-based APU will be built on. "Summit Ridge" will hence be more competitive with Intel's 6th generation Core "Skylake" processors, such as the i7-6700K and i5-6600K, than the company's "Broadwell-E" HEDT platform.



 




The mainstream APU based on Zen, codenamed "Bristol Ridge," features four Zen cores, 512 KB of L2 cache, 8 MB of shared L3 cache, an integrated GPU based on AMD's "Greenland" class stream processors, and a similar uncore loadout as "Summit Ridge."

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## hojnikb (Apr 30, 2015)

Well, AM1 died quickly...


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## bobalazs (Apr 30, 2015)

If the tendency remains, this will drag behind core i's.


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## Kyrios74 (Apr 30, 2015)

Can socket FM3 read both SummitRidge & BrisotlRidge CPU on the same motherboard?


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## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

Kyrios74 said:


> Can socket FM3 read both SummitRidge & BrisotlRidge CPU on the same motherboard?



Yes, but the display connectors won't work with Summit Ridge (no integrated graphics).


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## hojnikb (Apr 30, 2015)

Actually, it does. As you can see from the slides, there will only be BGA parts, no socketed ones.

So much from future upgradeability.


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## Dragonsmonk (Apr 30, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Well, AM1 died quickly...



Unfortunately so - however, they seem to go back to SOC only. Wish they would improve on the concept of AM1...


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## Frick (Apr 30, 2015)

Dragonsmonk said:


> Unfortunately so - however, they seem to go back to SOC only. Wish they would improve on the concept of AM1...



Thiiiiiis a million times. Imagine an AM1 nanoITX board...


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 30, 2015)

8-core, 16 thread?  I wish I could wait until 2016 to upgrade now because AMD hath piqued my interest.

14nm could actually prove to be competitive with Intel.  If they can pull it off, this might be the big break AMD desperately needs.  I can't help but think maybe Sony, Microsoft, and now even Nintendo switching to AMD may have made this possible.


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## RejZoR (Apr 30, 2015)

8 core, 16 thread CPU, well I'm interested in that. I'd like to have AMD once again in my PC and this just might be it.


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## NC37 (Apr 30, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 8-core, 16 thread?  I wish I could wait until 2016 to upgrade now because AMD hath piqued my interest.
> 
> 14nm could actually prove to be competitive with Intel.  If they can pull it off, this might be the big break AMD desperately needs.  I can't help but think maybe Sony, Microsoft, and now even Nintendo switching to AMD may have made this possible.



It did. Consoles shifting from triple core to 8 + needing to function optimally to counter their weak CPUs, does have an effect. Already seeing it with GTAV. I expect more titles to do similar, especially after Win 10/DX12. 

But even more, AMD's pushes towards multicore seem to be paying off. With DX12 and Windows 10 showing boosts. AMD was just years early. Intel had IPC till they were blue in the face but they did nothing but quad core outside of server/workstation CPUs. While AMD flopped about pushing higher. Course they kinda had to. They don't have the strength Intel has. All they could do was build the foundations and prep for a time when it would matter.

However, had they stayed the course with BD, I doubt they'd be looking very well for next year. No doubt Intel is going to have something to counter. I don't think they'd take 8 core/16 thread competition lying down. But damn if AMD is good on price...holy video encode Batman!


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## WhoDecidedThat (Apr 30, 2015)

The mainstream desktop chips are SoCs and they share the same socket with the high performance GPU-less FX chips. Does this spell the end of southbridge/chipset? If so how does it affect motherboard manufacturers?


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## The Von Matrices (Apr 30, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 14nm could actually prove to be competitive with Intel.  If they can pull it off, this might be the big break AMD desperately needs.


Unfortunately, I tend to be pessimistic about AMD, who has had trouble meeting launch dates time and time again.  Remember that this is AMD first 14nm product, and it intended to compete with Intel's second generation 14nm product.  AMD has a lot more opportunities for delays than Intel due to AMD using an unproven fabrication process.  If AMD doesn't meet its launch schedule, then the company will find itself competing against Cannonlake/10nm, which makes it ever so harder for the CPU to succeed.


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## Naito (Apr 30, 2015)

I'm not much of an AMD guy, but I can't help but be a little excited.


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## $ReaPeR$ (Apr 30, 2015)

i hope this is as good as it looks..


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## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Actually, it does. As you can see from the slides, there will only be BGA parts, no socketed ones.
> 
> So much from future upgradeability.



Actually, it doesn't. You're looking at the second slide, which covers notebook APUs. The first one shows the desktop lineup. FM3 is an FCPGA socket.


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## hojnikb (Apr 30, 2015)

btarunr said:


> Actually, it doesn't. You're looking at the second slide, which covers notebook APUs. The first one shows the desktop lineup. FM3 is an FCPGA socket.


Look closer. You'll see that basilisk is FT4 BGA only


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## Frick (Apr 30, 2015)

btarunr said:


> Actually, it doesn't. You're looking at the second slide, which covers notebook APUs. The first one shows the desktop lineup. FM3 is an FCPGA socket.





hojnikb said:


> Look closer. You'll see that basilisk is FT4 BGA only



You're speaking about different things dudes.

Looks like there will only be one APU for FM3.


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## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Look closer. You'll see that basilisk is FT4 BGA only



Who is talking about Basilisk? I was replying to post #4 on whether you can use Summit Ridge and Bristol Ridge on the same motherboard,


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## mroofie (Apr 30, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> 8 core,* 16 thread CPU*, well I'm interested in that. I'd like to have AMD once again in my PC and this just might be it.


Rumor only
Might not happen


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## Frick (Apr 30, 2015)

mroofie said:


> Rumor only
> Might not happen



The first leak (or whatever it was) spoke about SMT, and not having SMT sounds pretty daft in this age.


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## RejZoR (Apr 30, 2015)

I'm hoping it will be a 8 core 16 thread one...


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## hojnikb (Apr 30, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> I'm hoping it will be a 8 core 16 thread one...



Why stop there ? 
32 core 64 thread monstaaaa


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## Captain_Tom (Apr 30, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Why stop there ?
> 32 core 64 thread monstaaaa


Ya know I love AMD, but that picture always makes me laugh lol.  Both the Y and X axis are "Cores".


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## Frick (Apr 30, 2015)




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## bubbleawsome (Apr 30, 2015)

Funny thing is, in well multithreaded games the fx chips are still competing with my i5. DX12 could really add to this.


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## ensabrenoir (Apr 30, 2015)

......you know if Amd sold their ideas to Intel for implementation...... hmmmm.....only in a more perfect world...........


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## GhostRyder (Apr 30, 2015)

Well this is interesting mostly because it brings up a couple of points/interesting ideas/questions.

1: Whats the TDP of this chip
2: What kind of changes can we plan for FM3 (Power Phase design, power draw, feature set, etc)
3: Are they really totally killing AM3+ and are they now killing AM1?

I mean if they are making FM3 the main board for them that is perfectly fine, however currently FM2+ is a limited platform in many areas and it just begs the question how much more serious can they make the platform overall.  Its a bit odd honestly but probably necessary since they are getting quite tight on their budget constrains and hard to manage multiple types of chipsets.  Ill be following it very fondly and curiously but I am interested in what this could all mean for the platform!


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## MikeMurphy (Apr 30, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Well this is interesting mostly because it brings up a couple of points/interesting ideas/questions.
> 
> 1: Whats the TDP of this chip
> 2: What kind of changes can we plan for FM3 (Power Phase design, power draw, feature set, etc)
> ...



1-Hot
2-PCIe 3.0, usb3.1
3-AM3 is gone.  AM1 is for totally different product range and will stay.

AMD will do a good job on socket FM3.


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## Jorge (Apr 30, 2015)

No surprises here, just as previously reported. Eight core desktop CPUs with sixteen threads (not sixteen cores and thirty-two threads), will be very powerful desktop CPUs with a max TDP of 95w. That's right 95w max for the Zen core desktop CPUs. Zen based APUs obviously will have a range of TDPs based on the core count and graphics used. Socket FM3 will be for the discrete CPUs and FM2+ for the APUs. Both will allow extensive multi-power plane ops. Zen based products will offer all of the current tech options including DDR3/4, PCIe 3.1, USB 3.0 and more.


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## happita (Apr 30, 2015)

Jorge said:


> No surprises here, just as previously reported. Eight core desktop CPUs with sixteen threads (not sixteen cores and thirty-two threads), will be very powerful desktop CPUs with a *max TDP of 95w*. That's right 95w max for the Zen core desktop CPUs.



That's a pretty bold claim. Source or it didn't happen.


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## alwayssts (Apr 30, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Well this is interesting mostly because it brings up a couple of points/interesting ideas/questions.
> 
> 1: Whats the TDP of this chip
> 2: What kind of changes can we plan for FM3 (Power Phase design, power draw, feature set, etc)
> ...



All good questions.

I really get the feeling Zen is going to be essentially Broadwell without terrible scaling issues; or essentially clock similar or even higher compared to skylake but without the arch/ipc improvements (and ditching the built-in graphics should allow them some space to clock cpus higher in a similar tdp).  One would think this would be something like 2x65w (140w) chips on a package, but who knows.

In a world where Broadwell didn't *appear* to be an enthusiast IPC/single-threaded disaster (made up for on the desktop through gpu upgrades almost nobody cares about), it would be interesting to see 8-core parts battle it out at similar clocks (4.2ghz?).  As it sits though, one has to wonder if wonder if Intel will bring something like 2-4 extra cores at a lower clock to the enthusiast fight, while AMD could bring a higher core clock on the 'midrange' desktop to play against Skylake.

I could be totally wrong, but I envision them doing something like set tdp aims for both chips and mcm packages (ex: 35w, 65w, 95w, CPU; 30w, 60-65w, 70-75w etc gpu)  and then mixing/matching it with either a single cpu chip, two cpu chips, or one cpu + greenland gpu clocked in different configurations (ex: 65w/95w/140w etc)...but it's also conceivable they could be arbitrary and very much dictated by whatever it takes to match/beat Intel (or even a low-end nvidia gpu) in whatever metric a certain product is aimed (or is the most efficient mix hence showing them in their best light).

It surely will be interesting to see how this all develops...but I think such a slotted approach (especially from a binning perspective) would make sense, as well as could explain why one such apu is rumored to have an extravagant tdp...It could essentially be the 'top bin' of both cpu + gpu chips (ex: 95w cpu + 75w gpu).


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## newtekie1 (Apr 30, 2015)

I'm actually happy they are unifying onto one socket.  It was time for AM3+ to die.  The 3 chip method is old, and AMD3+ is old.  To try and shoehorn a new architecture to fit into AM3+ would have been too limiting.  A new platform for a new architecture is the best way to do it if you want the best product.


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## ShurikN (Apr 30, 2015)

happita said:


> That's a pretty bold claim. Source or it didn't happen.


On 14nm I doubt it'll go over 90W. If it does, they failed somewhere... hard.


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## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

Frick said:


> The first leak (or whatever it was) spoke about SMT, and not having SMT sounds pretty daft in this age.



Yeah, Core i5-4690K peasants will never know what SMT is.


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## btarunr (Apr 30, 2015)

ShurikN said:


> On 14nm I doubt it'll go over 90W. If it does, they failed somewhere... hard.



Intel, with all its 14 nm divine galactic master-race knowledge, is having to rate its Skylake quad-core chips at 95W. I don't think AMD will do better.


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## Dent1 (Apr 30, 2015)

bubbleawsome said:


> Funny thing is, in *well multithreaded games the fx chips are still competing with my i5.* DX12 could really add to this.



Wasted energy, nobody here will read that, comprehend that, or acknowledge that.

In fact if I didn't reply everyone would be happy to let that comment get buried.


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## GhostRyder (Apr 30, 2015)

MikeMurphy said:


> 1-Hot
> 2-PCIe 3.0, usb3.1
> 3-AM3 is gone.  AM1 is for totally different product range and will stay.
> 
> AMD will do a good job on socket FM3.


 Well hot does not really show much on that as hot is relevant to the chip mostly.  It could be as low as 95watt or as high as 200watt but I was guessing in the middle depending on clocks (Maybe again 125watt).  As for PCIE 3.0, FM2+ already has that though 3.1 and hopefully m.2 will be part of it.  Though I was mostly wondering the chipset and board features in general because most FM2+ chips are not exactly high end and these chips seem aimed at the higher range of performance (8 core 16 thread).  With the AM3 debate yea it sounds so but AM1 has been left out of a lot of stuff which can be worrying because its a great product line in my book and I hope they continue it.



alwayssts said:


> All good questions.
> 
> I really get the feeling Zen is going to be essentially Broadwell without terrible scaling issues; or essentially clock similar or even higher compared to skylake but without the arch/ipc improvements (and ditching the built-in graphics should allow them some space to clock cpus higher in a similar tdp).  One would think this would be something like 2x65w (140w) chips on a package, but who knows.
> 
> ...


 Yea, no matter what its going to be interesting either way.  I guess we will need more details mostly because this is kinda a shocking development overall and it leaves a lot of questions with very little answers.  I just hope this at least offers 25%+ IPC improvements overall and this can compete effectively at least on some levels more than straight up budget.



newtekie1 said:


> I'm actually happy they are unifying onto one socket.  It was time for AM3+ to die.  The 3 chip method is old, and AMD3+ is old.  To try and shoehorn a new architecture to fit into AM3+ would have been too limiting.  A new platform for a new architecture is the best way to do it if you want the best product.


 Yea that's true I agree, I just wonder how the FM3 platform will be improved to incorporate this.


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## natr0n (Apr 30, 2015)

This might be worth an upgrade.

Very Excite.


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Apr 30, 2015)

Sounds like I see my next main rig.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 30, 2015)

happita said:


> That's a pretty bold claim. Source or it didn't happen.


I have never seen Jorge reply to a reply of his post ... it's always post and run ... and it always reads like a marketing material.


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## suraswami (Apr 30, 2015)

Hopefully Motherboard manufacturers don't F it up!!


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## ShurikN (Apr 30, 2015)

suraswami said:


> Hopefully Motherboard manufacturers don't F it up!!


And why would they?!
They will have one socket to work with. The rest is up to AMD


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## MikeMurphy (Apr 30, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Well hot does not really show much on that as hot is relevant to the chip mostly.  It could be as low as 95watt or as high as 200watt but I was guessing in the middle depending on clocks (Maybe again 125watt).  As for PCIE 3.0, FM2+ already has that though 3.1 and hopefully m.2 will be part of it.  Though I was mostly wondering the chipset and board features in general because most FM2+ chips are not exactly high end and these chips seem aimed at the higher range of performance (8 core 16 thread).  With the AM3 debate yea it sounds so but AM1 has been left out of a lot of stuff which can be worrying because its a great product line in my book and I hope they continue it.



The AMD IPC is poor compared to Intel's.  AMD compensates for poor IPC by boosting clocks.  That generates quite a bit of heat, hence the new chips will run hot.

AM1 hasn't been left out of anything.  It's an ultra-low cost platform with features sufficient for its purpose.  It's not a luxury or performance platform.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Apr 30, 2015)

ShurikN said:


> And why would they?!
> They will have one socket to work with. The rest is up to AMD


The same reason it took three freakin years of a manufacturer to make a micro atx am3+ board with a 900 series chipset, when microatx am3 boards had existed before? because manufacturers still make some am3+ and fm2+ motherboards WITHOUT vrm cooling? they constantly screw up, cutting every corner, while comparable intel boards are flush with features and massive vrm counts and heatsinks.

It is quite a legitimate concern that the platform will ultimately be tripped up by not having any decent micro atx boards. or mini itx, for that matter. many people don't want or need full atx, and limiting to full atx is leaving any micro or mini itx game rig to intel.


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## suraswami (Apr 30, 2015)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> The same reason it took three freakin years of a manufacturer to make a micro atx am3+ board with a 900 series chipset, when microatx am3 boards had existed before? because manufacturers still make some am3+ and fm2+ motherboards WITHOUT vrm cooling? they constantly screw up, cutting every corner, while comparable intel boards are flush with features and massive vrm counts and heatsinks.
> 
> It is quite a legitimate concern that the platform will ultimately be tripped up by not having any decent micro atx boards. or mini itx, for that matter. many people don't want or need full atx, and limiting to full atx is leaving any micro or mini itx game rig to intel.



To add to that, even with ATX variants, it took about may be 10 revisions to get the formula correct to run those FX properly.  There are people out there who are willing to pay extra for quality boards.

And not sure if would work, but AMD should look into quality of these boards and run some kind of control on them.



MikeMurphy said:


> The AMD IPC is poor compared to Intel's.  AMD compensates for poor IPC by boosting clocks.  That generates quite a bit of heat, hence the new chips will run hot.
> 
> AM1 hasn't been left out of anything.  It's an ultra-low cost platform with features sufficient for its purpose.  It's not a luxury or performance platform.



You mean to say Intel don't have boost clock feature?


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## MikeMurphy (Apr 30, 2015)

suraswami said:


> You mean to say Intel don't have boost clock feature?



No.  Please read.


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## suraswami (Apr 30, 2015)

MikeMurphy said:


> No.  Please read.



Don't understand.  Intel chips run hot too.  Only thing AMD is lagging behind is power efficiency (of course with the argument of IPC).  I read somewhere watts rating of AMD is different than Intel.

Correct me if I am wrong.


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## mastrdrver (May 1, 2015)

No way Summit Ridge and Bristol Ridge will be swappable on the same board. It appears Bristol has the southbridge on chip where as Summit lacks it.

Leaks say the hottest Summit Ridge will be 95w (saw a leak but can't remember where it was). Some are expecting at least a 40% improvement over Excavator in IPC. It will not beat Skylake, but it should be close enough.

Memory subsystem is going to see massive gains since AMD is changing to an inclusive cache design.


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## Aquinus (May 1, 2015)

MikeMurphy said:


> The AMD IPC is poor compared to Intel's. AMD compensates for poor IPC by boosting clocks. That generates quite a bit of heat, hence the new chips will run hot.


You're forgetting one thing. They're ditching this mess of a modular and super long pipelined CPU. AMD ran into the same issues Intel did with Netburst, which was that pipeline got too long and that even with high clock speeds, branch miss-prediction became a real problem when it came to stalling the pipeline. On top of that, AMD's L2 cache was way too big and slow compared to Intel's smaller L2.

With that said, we know that AMD has reduced the size of the L2 cache per core and this can only help improve latencies. It is also now dedicated per core (or SMT pair, like Intel's CPUs.) If we also assume that AMD have overhauled their core (which they have,) and that any improvement should be significant. I also suspect that 14nm will play a roll in lowering power consumption. All in all, I'm expecting a measurable improvement with Summit Ridge.


mastrdrver said:


> It appears Bristol has the southbridge on chip where as Summit lacks it.


I'm having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head around how that would work. I suspect that FM3 won't be an SoC socket. However it will be like all the others with the PCI-E root complex on the CPU.

Side note: I would hate to see HyperTransport disappear, but then again, why use it when you have PCI-E 3.0.


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## newtekie1 (May 1, 2015)

MikeMurphy said:


> The AMD IPC is poor compared to Intel's. AMD compensates for poor IPC by boosting clocks. That generates quite a bit of heat, hence the new chips will run hot.




You talk like AMD has alway has worse IPC, that simply isn't the case. This is an entirely new architecture, we have no idea what the IPC will be like.


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## xvi (May 1, 2015)

suraswami said:


> Don't understand.  Intel chips run hot too.  Only thing AMD is lagging behind is power efficiency (of course with the argument of IPC).  I read somewhere watts rating of AMD is different than Intel.
> Correct me if I am wrong.


From what I understand, Intel measures TDP as more of a "real world" figure and AMD measures TDP as a "most power it will ever use under any workload ever".
TDP is more power consumed and doesn't factor in how well the chip can be cooled. (TIM/solder under the heatspreader, for one example). I'm a bit incorrect. I'll just refer to Wikipedia instead.


Aquinus said:


> Side note: I would hate to see HyperTransport disappear, but then again, why use it when you have PCI-E 3.0.


PCI-e has a bit of latency to it, I believe. Not sure if this is still the case for PCI-e 3.0 though.


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## mastrdrver (May 1, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> You're forgetting one thing. They're ditching this mess of a modular and super long pipelined CPU. AMD ran into the same issues Intel did with Netburst, which was that pipeline got too long and that even with high clock speeds, branch miss-prediction became a real problem when it came to stalling the pipeline. On top of that, AMD's L2 cache was way too big and slow compared to Intel's smaller L2.
> 
> With that said, we know that AMD has reduced the size of the L2 cache per core and this can only help improve latencies. It is also now dedicated per core (or SMT pair, like Intel's CPUs.) If we also assume that AMD have overhauled their core (which they have,) and that any improvement should be significant. I also suspect that 14nm will play a roll in lowering power consumption.
> 
> ...



1) Cache latency will be improved because they're going to an inclusive cache design.
2) Extra pins. You can have extra unused pins for Bristol and have Summit use those extra pins to connect the southbridge through HT or some other interface. Seeing as how Bristol is a SoC and Summit is not, this seems quite clear to me that these CPUs will not be interchangeable on the same board.


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## Deleted member 67555 (May 1, 2015)

Just to make this easier for those of you confused, having the same socket for the APU and the CPU on one platform will be done just like it is with the Atlon FM2+ x4 860k and the FM2+ A10-7850k etc...

EDIT:
And I'm sure enthusiast board will do both while cheaper boards will be more specific aka..A58, A75, A88X


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## Aquinus (May 1, 2015)

mastrdrver said:


> 2) Extra pins. You can have extra unused pins for Bristol and have Summit use those extra pins to connect the southbridge through HT or some other interface. Seeing as how Bristol is a SoC and Summit is not, this seems quite clear to me that these CPUs will not be interchangeable on the same board.


That's not my point. My point is that even if you did have extra pins and one was an SoC and the other isn't, then how does that work? I see no point because even if you have all of the I/O connections, that works great with Bristol but what about Summit Ridge? No SoC means that SB or PCH-like chipset needs to be on the motherboard. Are you telling me that motherboards are going to ship with chipsets even if Bristol doesn't use them? That doesn't make any sense because it's a waste of die space or motherboard space depending on how you look at it.

If they're not interchangeable on the same board, then why do they use the same socket if the pinning is going to be different? That's my point. You already have all the wasted pins from not having a iGPU. With that said, I have an expectation that FM3 won't be an SoC socket like AM1 is. Consider that with AM1, that all the boards are the same because all the CPUs have the same SB hardware on the CPU. Plus, in a tower I see little benefit for using an SoC unless you're trying to cram everything on a very small motherboard.

So while I understand what you're saying, from a design perspective, it doesn't really make much sense. It's a lot of work to support both so I doubt it will.


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## psyph3r (May 1, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Why stop there ?
> 32 core 64 thread monstaaaa



Genius often looks crazy to those that don't understand. Do you even know what Direct X 12 does?! do some research.


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## MikeMurphy (May 1, 2015)

suraswami said:


> Don't understand.  Intel chips run hot too.  Only thing AMD is lagging behind is power efficiency (of course with the argument of IPC).  I read somewhere watts rating of AMD is different than Intel.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong.



AMD lags behind in IPC.  To compete with Intel, they need to run their chips at higher clock speeds.  Higher clock speeds require more power and result in more heat.  Sometimes, AMD even runs their chips far beyond their efficiency range.


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## MikeMurphy (May 1, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> You talk like AMD has alway has worse IPC, that simply isn't the case. This is an entirely new architecture, we have no idea what the IPC will be like.



Perhaps they built a time machine to make up for the last ten years of their failed R&D and put all the future technologies into these new cores from the future.  Or, maybe their shoestring R&D budget allowed them to do 10+ years of R&D in just one year.

I guess it's possible...


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## MikeMurphy (May 1, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> You're forgetting one thing. They're ditching this mess of a modular and super long pipelined CPU. AMD ran into the same issues Intel did with Netburst, which was that pipeline got too long and that even with high clock speeds, branch miss-prediction became a real problem when it came to stalling the pipeline. On top of that, AMD's L2 cache was way too big and slow compared to Intel's smaller L2.
> 
> With that said, we know that AMD has reduced the size of the L2 cache per core and this can only help improve latencies. It is also now dedicated per core (or SMT pair, like Intel's CPUs.) If we also assume that AMD have overhauled their core (which they have,) and that any improvement should be significant. I also suspect that 14nm will play a roll in lowering power consumption. All in all, I'm expecting a measurable improvement with Summit Ridge.



I'd like to think short pipeline is good, and long is bad, but I think the truth is a bit more complicated.

I've always liked AMD and I hope they bounce back.


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## mastrdrver (May 2, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> That's not my point. My point is that even if you did have extra pins and one was an SoC and the other isn't, then how does that work? I see no point because even if you have all of the I/O connections, that works great with Bristol but what about Summit Ridge? No SoC means that SB or PCH-like chipset needs to be on the motherboard. Are you telling me that motherboards are going to ship with chipsets even if Bristol doesn't use them? That doesn't make any sense because it's a waste of die space or motherboard space depending on how you look at it.
> 
> If they're not interchangeable on the same board, then why do they use the same socket if the pinning is going to be different? That's my point. You already have all the wasted pins from not having a iGPU. With that said, I have an expectation that FM3 won't be an SoC socket like AM1 is. Consider that with AM1, that all the boards are the same because all the CPUs have the same SB hardware on the CPU. Plus, in a tower I see little benefit for using an SoC unless you're trying to cram everything on a very small motherboard.
> 
> So while I understand what you're saying, from a design perspective, it doesn't really make much sense. It's a lot of work to support both so I doubt it will.



I understand what you're saying, but what I'm saying is that it appears that they use the same socket. It's just that Summit Ridge will be (for example sake) 1090fx and Bristol will be 90X. It's possible that they could use two different keys to keep people from putting the wrong CPU in the wrong board. I'm more apt to believe that then that they're interchangeable since Bristol is labeled as a SoC. Though this is an assumption and only time will tell for certain.

The pinning does not need to be different, just certain pins (for the I/O) are not used on a Summit Ridge 1090fx board or are used to connect to the PCH or Southbridge. While on the Bristol Ridge board these same pins are used to connect to the I/O ports. This is not that far fetched. Depending on the CPU the pins have different purposes and are wired differently. Instead of the socket having a fixed pin wiring, it's the CPU (Summit or Bristol, 1090fx or 90x) that determines they're use. This would explain how Styx (ARM K12) and Basilisk (x86) use the same socket.



MikeMurphy said:


> I'd like to think short pipeline is good, and long is bad, but I think the truth is a bit more complicated.
> 
> I've always liked AMD and I hope they bounce back.



The pipeline determines the clock speed. Short ones have a lower clock speed (fewer calculations per second) while longer ones have higher clock speeds. Long pipelines are not bad as long as you don't stall a core which has been one of the problems with the Bulldozer uarch. The scheduler (from what I've read) can't keep the cores busy so you end up wasting power. If you have a branch prediction miss, it just makes the whole thing worse because the core has to wait for the correct information to be fetched.


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## TopHatKiller (May 2, 2015)

I wish everyone would stop making uniformed b.s. guesses. Why assume that summit-ridge, if it exists, is competitive with mainstream intel chips rather then server-derived ones? Just because the rumored socket is the same as a mainstream chip? That's nuts. An octo core Zen should trash any quad intel - and that's not speculation - that's a.... oh.


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## newtekie1 (May 2, 2015)

MikeMurphy said:


> Perhaps they built a time machine to make up for the last ten years of their failed R&D and put all the future technologies into these new cores from the future.  Or, maybe their shoestring R&D budget allowed them to do 10+ years of R&D in just one year.
> 
> I guess it's possible...



They'll have 5 years of development on Zen by the time it is released. They've also brought on one of the best CPU designers around. He was with AMD through Athlon XP into Athlon 64, bringing AMD to the point of actually outperforming Intel even at the highest levels.  He then left and went to Apple, turning their mobile processors around and creating the A4, A5, and A5X, allowing apple to lead the mobile market.  

Bulldozer was designed by a computer. Then every release after that has just been optimizing to fix how in-efficient the computer made the architecture.

So yea, any thing is possible.


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## cadaveca (May 2, 2015)

For gaming users, AMD is about to become a bit more relevant, IMHO, since many devs are already using AMD hardware on the consoles on a daily basis, not Intel. So games are designed to use what AMD offers, and might need "porting" to use Intel hardware, which might flip the performance balance over to AMD.

Of course, that's my ideal scenario, but while just an ideal, it is definitely possible that AMD took a bit of time ignoring the general user, all the while actually being more focused, but in a different direction than most might have imagined.


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## Pap1er (May 4, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> They'll have 5 years of development on Zen by the time it is released. They've also brought on one of the best CPU designers around. He was with AMD through Athlon XP into Athlon 64, bringing AMD to the point of actually outperforming Intel even at the highest levels.  He then left and went to Apple, turning their mobile processors around and creating the A4, A5, and A5X, allowing apple to lead the mobile market.
> 
> Bulldozer was designed by a computer. Then every release after that has just been optimizing to fix how in-efficient the computer made the architecture.
> 
> So yea, any thing is possible.



Could you please tell me the name of that chip designer? I would like to know more about him... thank you


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## newtekie1 (May 4, 2015)

Pap1er said:


> Could you please tell me the name of that chip designer? I would like to know more about him... thank you


Jim Keller


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## GoFigureItOut (May 11, 2015)

I saw another picture about the Zen core and it was stated that it will be using FM4


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## mastrdrver (May 11, 2015)

According to the Financial Day Report that happened last week, the socket will be AM4 and it appears that Zen will initially be reserved for servers and workstation 1 socket setups.


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## Caring1 (May 11, 2015)

mastrdrver said:


> According to the Financial Day Report that happened last week, the socket will be AM4 and it appears that Zen will initially be reserved for servers and workstation 1 socket setups.


AM4 implies it may be suitable for FX Processors, if the socket is backwards compatible.
More likely to be FM4 at this stage and low power.


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## Aquinus (May 11, 2015)

Caring1 said:


> AM4 implies it may be suitable for FX Processors, if the socket is backwards compatible.
> More likely to be FM4 at this stage and low power.


I suspect the different sockets depends on the number of DRAM channels and PCI-E lanes, since "Xen" CPUs will have the PCI-E root complex on the CPU instead of the "north bridge", so more lanes means more pins (unless you're using a PLX bridge chip of course.) I suspect Xen's architecture will end up on most of AMD's CPUs if it proves to be a success. What I'm seeing is the same thing Intel is doing; skt1150, Intel's mainstream platform, goes up to quad core, sports an iGPU, and supports 2 memory channels, which sounds *exactly* like AMD's APU lineup (albeit slower CPUs, but same general idea.) Then you have skt2011-3, Intel's HEDT and server platform, spots 40 PCI-E lanes instead of 16 (which requires over twice as many pins as skt1150,), you have quad-channel memory (which doubles the number of pins associated with DRAM), and you have bigger dies that can consume more power so you add pins for power delivery. So you have this situation where skt2011-3 by virtue almost twice as many pins as 1150 because it can have twice of just about everything (sans the iGPU, which really doesn't take much pinning.)

So with that said:
If FM4 is to 1150, then AM4 is to 2011-3.

I say this because if "Xen" is claimed to have a huge number of PCI-E lanes *on chip*, then I suspect that AM4 will have a very different pinning than we've seen in the past which wouldn't jive nicely with how APUs have had a limited number of PCI-E lanes (22 on FM4 coming up I think). The simple point really is that this is AMD (like Intel) making a distinction between the consumer products and the high-end/server market products. They've really just tuned the lineup with the market in my opinion. More pins = more traces = more money and there is no need to make a mainstream platform expensive if the company is considering their bottom line.

It really comes down to market segmentation. Generally speaking, consumers will be happy with an iGPU and fast cores... and generally speaking, servers and workstations will require either discrete graphics or none at all (minus something super low power and weak) and more cores. But either way, Xen (if half decent,) will find its way into both markets like Bulldozer did. I think that's a given.


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## peche (May 12, 2015)

The Von Matrices said:


> Cannonlake/10nm,


this will be intels win note....


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## mastrdrver (May 12, 2015)

Caring1 said:


> AM4 implies it may be suitable for FX Processors, if the socket is backwards compatible.
> More likely to be FM4 at this stage and low power.



Was that said in the Q&A session? If not, then AM4 means AM4 and nothing else just like the official slide says. As I stated before, even David Kanter questions whether Zen will show up in the APU because the slide seems to limit it to the FX CPUs.


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## Corey (Nov 9, 2015)

hojnikb said:


> Well, AM1 died quickly...


 
Pitty I wanted to make a fan less HT PC with one of them.


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## Dent1 (Nov 9, 2015)

Corey said:


> Pitty I wanted to make a fan less HT PC with one of them.



Vampires, vampires everywhere. Awaking a 6 month old thread!


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## mroofie (Nov 14, 2015)

Damn this thread still going


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