Wednesday, February 1st 2017
AMD's Upcoming Ryzen Line-up Could Feature 6-Core Chips After All
It's always a dance between rumours, expectations and "theorycrafting" when it comes to the launch of any particularly exciting product. And with AMD's Ryzen chips currently being the most hotly anticipated development (and product launch) in the hardware world, well, let's just say that anticipation is really building up to enormous levels, with any possible details surrounding AMD's line-up being the cause, in some cases, of heated debate.
Case in point: with AMD's CCX (CPU Complex) being indivisible, this would mean a blow not only to budget-conscious consumers, but also to AMD's ability to engender its product line. Flexibility has always been the name of the game with AMD (discounting their CMT-based Bulldozer and derived architectures), with the company offering triple-core processors in the past (and weren't those the good old days of processor unlocking). However, now reports have come in that Ryzen's CCX are actually divisible, which could open up possibilities for some theoretically value-breaking hexa-core Ryzen chips.
More specifically, reports are now coming in (claiming 100% accuracy) that AMD's CCX are in fact divisible: basically, it is possible to disable each CPU core separately (together with its dedicated L2 cache) without affecting the total shared L3 cache, with possible L3 cache configurations being 1/1 (8 MB), 1/2 (4 MB) or completely disabled (hence, a quad-core, SMT-enabled, 8MB/16MB L3 Ryzen chip can theoretically be harvested from a full, octa-core chip, so long as two CPU cores and corresponding L2 cache are disabled on each CCX). A rule of thumb that the reports claim is that due to AMD's CCX design and overall architecture design, both CCXs must have similar CPU core and L3 configuration (meaning that both CCXs must be configured identically, whether with 3 cores and full 8 MB L3 cache enabled per CCX, which would result in a six-core, 16 MB L3 design.
I for one think AMD's line-up becomes much, much more interesting with a hexa-core offering. This would mean that AMD can position its 8-core, 16-thread offerings above Intel's Core i7 line of CPUs (at the respective premium), with their 6-core, SMT-enabled CPUs going toe to toe (pricing-wise, assuming performance parity) with Intel's i7 line of quad-core, HT-enabled processors. This would put Intel in trouble from a value perspective, possibly even prompting the company to totally revamp their line-up of processors for the next generation, democratizing true quad-core processors at the base of consumer CPU designs.
Let's just wait (eagerly) as this one unfolds, shall we?
Source:
iO-Tech
Case in point: with AMD's CCX (CPU Complex) being indivisible, this would mean a blow not only to budget-conscious consumers, but also to AMD's ability to engender its product line. Flexibility has always been the name of the game with AMD (discounting their CMT-based Bulldozer and derived architectures), with the company offering triple-core processors in the past (and weren't those the good old days of processor unlocking). However, now reports have come in that Ryzen's CCX are actually divisible, which could open up possibilities for some theoretically value-breaking hexa-core Ryzen chips.
I for one think AMD's line-up becomes much, much more interesting with a hexa-core offering. This would mean that AMD can position its 8-core, 16-thread offerings above Intel's Core i7 line of CPUs (at the respective premium), with their 6-core, SMT-enabled CPUs going toe to toe (pricing-wise, assuming performance parity) with Intel's i7 line of quad-core, HT-enabled processors. This would put Intel in trouble from a value perspective, possibly even prompting the company to totally revamp their line-up of processors for the next generation, democratizing true quad-core processors at the base of consumer CPU designs.
Let's just wait (eagerly) as this one unfolds, shall we?
25 Comments on AMD's Upcoming Ryzen Line-up Could Feature 6-Core Chips After All
If AMD really does go toe2toe with Intel's pricing, that could hurt some budgets for future builds.
Btw, is there any new motherboard to show, or with the last of asus its all?
8c/16t cpus are cool and all, but I need a new laptop and I haven't seen any info regarding mobile parts.
Not to mention, the paper launched, mobile Polaris 10, which is nowhere to be found.
Mobile Polaris 10 is out. It's an option on Alienware laptops.
Also regarding P10, go to Alienware site, try to buy one with a RX470, or better yet go to newegg and try to find any laptop with a P10 gpu. They are nonexistent.
If AMD decides to go toe2toe with Intel, they'll be digging their grave. They need market share and fast before Intel matches and exceeds. Only way to do that is undercut the heck out of Intel which has been obviously price gouging customers for a very long time.
Great thing either way is, Intel may be finally forced to price within reason. Although I'm not counting on it. Maybe a $20-$50 price cut at most.
I haven't seen any date set for a Ryzen launch(when you actually can get a hand on one), so one should assume(looking at AMD's track record when it comes to their products) a Ryzen cpu can be bought at the earliest in Q2 2018. I was planning to get/build a AM4 computer in early to mid 2016, but my patients have been stretched thin and my guess is that i most likely will switch to Intel and Nvidia(Vega gpu's seem to require a long wait also).
If AMD had cut back on advertising for new products to 2 months instead of 2 years they would able to launch their products a year earlier( spending money on development instead of ads. etc).
If so, what would it mean for the CPU market?
What do you think, guys?
its coming, and its coming pretty soon...don't be so dramatic about it coming out in 2018, maybe AMD is just holding out testing until launch next month for journalist. Vega is coming out closer to summer. there are test out there in controlled situations and am4 motherboards are out in the wild, just running last gen's cpu's...
I can buy an Alienware with an RX 470 that's listed as shipping in 4-6 days, so... It's probably more about OEMs not picking AMD chips for their designs, not that it isn't available.
try see if that works.
However that's only one OEM and that's sad.
Hopefully we'll get Vega-based chips for laptops and hopefully Raven Ridge is Vega-based and not Polaris-based (still nothing solid on that).
The performance and efficiency (and by extension perf/W) is much greater on Vega.
R7 1700X = i7 7700k
R5 1600X = i5 7600k