Monday, June 22nd 2015
AMD Doesn't Trust its Own Processors - Project Quantum Driven by Intel Core i7-4790K
One of the three unexpected products based on the "Fiji" GPU, which AMD announced at its E3 event, Project Quantum, or the quest to design a 4K-worthy SFF gaming PC, which runs two "Fiji" GPUs in CrossFire, had the press assume that the rest of the system could be AMD-based, such as AMD-branded (albeit Patriot Memory manufactured) memory, AMD-branded (albeit OCZ manufactured) SSD; and importantly an AMD-made CPU or APU. Given its liquid-cooling, the prospect of a 95W "Godavari," or even upcoming "Carrizo" APU didn't seem far-fetched. Even a 95W FX CPU could have been deployed, since AM3+ on mini-ITX is not impossible.
When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.
Source:
Kitguru
When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.
188 Comments on AMD Doesn't Trust its Own Processors - Project Quantum Driven by Intel Core i7-4790K
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86
Open:
Partly. For some advanced features, x86 may require license from Intel; x86-64 may require an additional license from AMD. The 80486 processor has been on the market for more than 20 years[1] and so cannot be subject to patent claims. The pre-586 subset of the x86 architecture is therefore fully open.
Transmeta was able to offer X86-64 solution. NVidia has non-exclusive license to Transmeta’s Longrun and Longrun 2 technologies and other intellectual property.
www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/145393/NVIDIA-Jetson-Pro-Development-Kit.png
NVIDIA'a ARM desktop type motherboard... it's a POS for desktop usage.
www.cnx-software.com/2013/03/21/seco-mitx-gpu-devkit-features-nvidia-tegra-3-supports-cuda-5/
SECO mITX GPU DEVKIT that supports Nvidia Tegra 3 and PCI-e x16 connector (PCI Express x4) which is another POS for desktop use..
NVIDIA's ARM based Mini-ITX near-desktop solution with PCI-E slot from SECO.
Anton Shilov is a hypocrite.
At least, AMD still use it's own X86-64 ISA IP on Intel CPU (i.e. Itanium ISA failed), while NVIDIA uses ARM ISA IP.
Your own "Nvidia doesn't make PC CPU's" statement shows are being a hypocrite.
Transmeta did NOT offer an x86-64 CPU, they offered a 128-bit VLIW CPU (Crusoe) that could translate x86 instructions (32-bit), at a noticable performance loss. Their second offering was a 256-bit VLIW CPU (Efficeon) that could translate x86 instructions (32-bit), but still ran like crap. So no, they didn't really offer an x86-64 solution. Also, you sure you want to cite a company that absolutely tanked?
As for your Nvidia examples, the first is for a Jetson Devkit, which if anyone is wondering is used to develop ARM software for Automobiles, and has never been available to consumers. The second is pretty similar, the CARMA Devkit was intended to allow people to use a desktop setup to develop natively for ARM CPU's for various devices. All sites that sold the now discontinued product stress it is not for consumers or enthusiasts, and was only available to companies for professional use. So neither of these are examples of Nvidia making a Desktop PC Platform, they were both ARM-based solutions for professional development.
www.legitreviews.com/kontron-brings-nvidia-tegra-3-to-desktop-with-ktt30mitx-arm-based-motherboard_13647
"Kontron Brings NVIDIA Tegra 3 To Desktop With KTT30/mITX ARM-Based Motherboard"
It has PCI-E 1X slot LOL...
Modern X86 CPUs translates variable length complex (CISC) X86 instruction to fix length RISC like internal ISA.
AMD K5 recycled investments from AMD 29K RISC core design. Intel Pentium Pro (P6) was CISC X86-to-RISC CPU product and Pentium II (P6) was a follow-on design from Pentium Pro.
Intel Itanium (another VLIW aka EPIC) includes X86-32 compatibility.
AMD, Intel and VIA hasn't built variable length CPU cores for a long time. Note why X86 CPUs has kept up and beat RISC ISA CPUs like PowerPC, MIPS and Alpha i.e. X86 CPUs assimilated RISC design concepts.
From archive.arstechnica.com/cpu/4q99/risc-cisc/rvc-6.html
Both the Athlon and the P6 run the CISC x86 ISA in what amounts to hardware emulation, but they translate the x86 instructions into smaller, RISC-like operations that fed into a fully post-RISC core. Their cores have a number of RISC features (LOAD/STORE memory access, pipelined execution, reduced instructions, expanded register count via register renaming), to which are added all of the post-RISC features we've discussed. The Athlon muddies the waters even further in that it uses both direct execution and a microcode engine for instruction decoding. A crucial difference between the Athlon (and P6) and the G4 is that, as already noted, the Athlon must translate x86 instructions into smaller RISC ops.
There nothing new with Transmeta's translation CPU design i.e. Intel smashed Transmeta low power X86 solution with Intel Centrino (P6+, Pentium M, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo mobile).
But lets throw all the niche products out and just look at the basics. Nvidia is a Graphics company, that in the past 5 years has expanded to Mobile SOCs. Intel is a CPU company that in the past 5 years has focused on improving Integrated Graphics in the CPUs. AMD has been a CPU company for 46 years, and in the last 10 (after buying ATi) has had a Graphics division. A majority of AMD's staff is dedicated to CPU's. Their company was founded on making CPU's. Their high point was when they were offering CPU's that beat Intel's. And you're not seeing a bit of sadness in the fact that they, a CPU company, are using their only competitors products in something they are marketting?
AMD isn't an equal player to Intel. Maybe some people haven't gotten the memo? Hopefully Zen will change that. We sure can use some competition in the desktop CPU space.
1) The article title was click-bait. There is no objective reason that it was chosen, and the fact that it has been changed already indicates the careless nature of its construction.
2) Quantum is a stupid product. It isn't going to see life anywhere in the consumer space, so it's just a useless toy for AMD to show off their GPU fitting into a SFF PC.
3) Fan boy arguments are winning out here. Absolutely nothing about Nvidia is discussed, but somehow the discourse has become Nvidia X AMD X Intel. Once we reach that point there's nothing useful left to say.
4) TPU as a whole finds it less than acceptable to devolve into a more traditional media outlet. Look through this thread, and between fan boy rage, you'll see people calling out the author for fronting opinion as news. That is unacceptable, and hopefully will be rectified. If we had two articles, one editorial about how the inclusion of an Intel CPU showed AMD had weak CPU offerings and the other news article about the specifications, this would not have been as controversial as it was.
So, allow me to indelicately add a stopping point to this discussion.
1) Intel is a company so rigid that they make the SS seem like a humane police force.
2) AMD's directors have a larger PR problem than the 1945 German facist party.
3) Ummm..... Nvidia wishes the world would bow down to its graphical superiority, and allow its chosen people to rule the PC master race...(yeah, stretching it but I'm out of ideas here)...
I've invoked Godwin's Law. Hopefully now we can recognize that this discussion has become a toxic cesspool for fan boy rage.
Edit:
My conclusion 2 may be incorrect. I'm not stripping it from the above, but it needs to be stated that it may be incorrect. Time will shortly tell.
BTA is right. Even AMD admitted with this that their CPUs are complete junk for gaming.
If they had used all AMD components, people would whinge that the system was optimized to obtain certain results, by using the competitors CPU they are basically saying our system runs great regardless of what CPU is used.
Lets leave it at that.
1. Kontron's Terga 3 mITX desktop solution is similar to NVIDIA's Jetson Tk1 mITX from developer.nvidia.com/jetson-tk1
You can buy NVIDIA's Jetson Tk1 from usual desktop PC stores like Newegg, Tiger Direct and Micro Center.
2. AMD Quantum's mITX solution is made by ASrock i.e. a 3rd party. Again, you are still making excuses for NVIDIA.
You can buy NVIDIA's Jetson Tk1 mITX from usual PC stores like Newegg, Tiger Direct and Micro Center.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813190005&cm_re=nvidia_jetsen_tk1-_-13-190-005-_-Product
www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9085339
www.microcenter.com/product/431730/Jetson_TK1_Development_Kit_Tegra_K1_SOC,_Kepler_GPU_w-192_cores,_NVIDIA_4-Plus-1_Quad_Core_ARM_Cortex-A15_CPU,_2GB_Mem,_16GB_eMMC
Depending on PCI address allocation, 1x mPCIe can support full blown GPU card with an adapter. www.netstor.com.tw/_03/03_02.php?OTc
As an owner of Dell Studio XPS 1645 laptop with ExpressCard slot, I was able to connect and run an external GPU card with a PE4H adapter.
View forum.notebookreview.com/threads/diy-egpu-experiences.418851/page-313#post7256409 for my external GPU results.
My Samsung laptop's 1x mPCIe slot is the same as ExpressCard i.e. I would need ribbon extender with mPCIe to PCI-E 16X slot adaptor and hope Samsung haven't gimped my laptop's PCI address allocation functions. As you can see, I have experience with small PCI-E slots.
PCI-E adapters like PE4H provides 75 watt PCI-E power. I can recycle PE4H and change interface card from ExpressCard to mPCI-E.
Your argument for "Still not a consumer desktop PC solution." shows your double standards. AGAIN, Find mITX motherboard with AMD FX CPU.
Since NVIDIA's ARM based mITX solution doesn't run Windows X86-64 or Linux X86-64, it's unsuitable for protecting X86 PC software investments.
I run AmiDuo Beta for Android 5.x X86 native build VM with ARMv7 emulator on my X86 PCs.
I'm sure NVIDIA would be happy if somebody ports open source Windows NT/XP ReactOS ARM build with JIT X86 emulator on their ARM based mITX. Hint Windows NT 4.0 DEC Alpha edition with FX32 (X86 CPU JIT emulator) Again, you still making excuses for NVIDIA and you can't see your double standard. AGAIN, Find mITX motherboard with AMD FX CPU.
PS; "Dev motherboard" is just an excuse that their solution is not being desktop PC ready i.e. I have seen the same "Dev motherboard" excuses from wannabe desktop PowerPC camp.
NVIDIA's "develop solutions in computer vision, robotics, medicine, security, and automotive" sounds like wannabe desktop PowerPC camp's marketing. Find mITX motherboard with AMD FX CPU. AMD FX CPU is fine for DirectX12
Anyone commended on Apple using Samsung hardware? Nope.
Anyone said something about Intel using PowerVR GPU? Yes, insults from the moderator. Probably hit a nerve there.
Anyone said anything for all those Samsung phones using Qualcomm processors? Nope.
All these ignored. The target is AMD anyway. Anything else is irrelevant.
Happy? I addressed every one.
www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-project-quantum-intel-cpu,29430.html
I keep hearing they are changing socket and bringing new chips to the table so why would they use tech that do not plan to be in it in the 1st place in the finished product.
www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/amd-does-trust-its-cpus-after-all-to-offer-intel-on-project-quantum-as-options.213762/#post-3303488
I won't state anything else here, but needless to say the debate seems to have been rather conclusively answered.
AMD doesn't mass produce desktop motherboards i.e. that's the 3rd party's job. There are Mini-ITX motherboards that supports AMD Piledriver based APU, but these are limited two Piledriver modules with 4 CPU threads.
I have mini-ITX with Intel Core i7-2600 "Sandybridge"+Silverstone SG-07 case and I switched back to micro-ATX+Aerocool DS case for Intel "Devil's Canyon" i.e. mini-ITX form factor is not new and it's not recent. I switch back to micro-ATX since I have an ASUS Xonar D2 sound card audio card.
There are SFF Micro-ATX cases.
"We have Quantum designs that feature both AMD and Intel processors, so we can fully address the entire market. I'm sure you've heard AMD leaders speak before about how we're driving growth in the company and our key businesses, and that one of the key strategies we have for doing that is listening to customers.
You may have heard at the recent AMD financial analyst day that Lisa Su described Job #1 as "Build Great Products." In the case of buyers for systems like Project Quantum, there is a clear preference for choice; they're not interested in a narrow range of computing solutions - they want to pick and choose the balance of components that they want, that are hand-tailored in a world of off-the-rack-suits.
With a product as compelling as R9 Fury, we are extremely pleased to enable as much success as we can. There is a range of technology options for CPU in Project Quantum… but the real star is Radeon Fury."
Directly from AMD