Tuesday, January 31st 2017
AMD ZEN CPU Complexes Indivisible, Don't Expect 6-core Ryzen: Report
In what could be a blow to budget-conscious PC builders, reports are emerging that the quad-core CCX (CPU complex) units that make up Ryzen processors (and upcoming APUs that use them), are indivisible. This means that the "Summit Ridge" silicon can either be configured as full-fledged eight-core parts, or quad-core parts (one CCX) disabled. The likelihood of cost-effective 6-core parts seems slim.
AMD will continue to sell the Ryzen-branded "Summit Ridge" silicon in three grades - SR7 (top), SR5 (mid), and SR3 (entry-level), but the SR5 may not designate the previously rumored 6-core configuration. Instead, SR7 could indicate eight cores and SMT (multi-threading), which works out to 16 logical CPUs; SR5 could indicate eight cores minus SMT (eight cores, eight threads), and SR3 could designate quad-core with SMT (four cores, eight threads). SR7 and SR5 feature the full 16 MB of L3 cache, while SR3 features 8 MB. All three grades are "unlocked," in that they feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, making overclocking easy.
Sources:
PCGH, Zolkorn
AMD will continue to sell the Ryzen-branded "Summit Ridge" silicon in three grades - SR7 (top), SR5 (mid), and SR3 (entry-level), but the SR5 may not designate the previously rumored 6-core configuration. Instead, SR7 could indicate eight cores and SMT (multi-threading), which works out to 16 logical CPUs; SR5 could indicate eight cores minus SMT (eight cores, eight threads), and SR3 could designate quad-core with SMT (four cores, eight threads). SR7 and SR5 feature the full 16 MB of L3 cache, while SR3 features 8 MB. All three grades are "unlocked," in that they feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, making overclocking easy.
39 Comments on AMD ZEN CPU Complexes Indivisible, Don't Expect 6-core Ryzen: Report
Doing cores in sets is the way to go to minimise interconnects.
I'm surprised if they can't but if you think about it it makes some sense since the ugly odd CCx with a bad core is likely to have a slight cost penalty sharing work and data with the perfect CCX next door.
Plus if they had a range spreading from 2,4,6,8,(10maybe),12,16 core parts at various speed bins that's a whole shit storm of skus to deal with 4 4-8ht 8 and 16 core parts at various speed bins does sound better now they mention it.
I thought they might have cut up one CCx myself and done a slightly gimped but cheap 6 core but this would make more sense now I think about it.
Soooo did you see the crosshair hero over at wccf they inadvertently shout up TPU at the bottom of the story showing Tpus quote regarding Msi's x370 mobo ,it's on Msi's promo slides.
To be honest, does the number of "cores" by the definition of some person on the internet really matter if it performs well? How many threads a CPU can handle is my primary concern as a software engineer as well as how well each thread scales (example: if I have a cloud server with 4 threads, if I add 2 more, can I rely on it to scale linearly.) That's only so I can predict how much I have in terms of computational resources and if I need to architect my software to scale in a way that satisfies the business' needs. Clearly a different use case from gaming but, these are the kinds of things I need to consider and a lot of the world uses computers for things other than games. Some of which scale almost linearly to the amount of computational resources you have.
It was inevitable... nvidia has been selling us crap in multiples of 64 for years.
Im betting CPU's will follow the same scaling trends as RISC cores, at least in terms of product core scaling until intel blows x86 up completely.
Hes basing that price on Chiphell forum discussions.All these reports are labeled RUMORS by the author himself.
If you want confirmed news you should read this
AMD confirms its Ryzen CPU will launch in early March, followed by the Vega GPU
www.computerbase.de/2017-02/amd-ryzen-am4-treiber-windows-7/