Wednesday, July 12th 2017

Intel Says AMD EPYC Processors "Glued-together" in Official Slide Deck

So, yes, Intel, I think the AMD engineers who have developed the Zen architecture from the ground-up would take issue with that. Especially when AMD's "Glued-together" dies actually wipe the proverbial floor with the blue company's chips in power-performance ratios, and deliver much better multi-threaded performance than Intel's offerings. Not bad for a "Glued-together" solution, I'd say.

Our resident W1zzard had this to say regarding AMD's latest CPUs: "The SenseMi power-management system seems to be working well in idle, with the 8-core machine drawing the same amount of power as Intel's quad-core "Kaby Lake" machine." And "At stock speeds, the energy-efficiency of Ryzen is truly phenomenal. Prime95 loads all cores and threads on the chip, and the Ryzen ends up with as much power draw as the quad-core Intel i7-7700K. The high power draw result of the overclocked chip is due to the increased voltage needed to achieve stable operation." And let's not forget this: This is epic. We're assuming you've sifted through our game-test results before seeing this page, and so you'll find that the gaming power draw of the 8-core Ryzen makes Intel's quad-core i7-7700K look bad. Power draw is as much as 30W lesser! Ryzen is hands down the most energy-efficient performance CPU AMD ever made, and easily outclasses Intel's 14 nm "leadership." Good show."
On SMT implementation between AMD's SMT and Intel's HT, Intel is basically comparing a $2,200 8-core Xeon to AMD's usually $499 Ryzen 7 1800X. They are correct in terms of core parity there, at least, but I think it goes more against Intel's customer fleecing in core/price ratios than anything else. And it's certainly a coincidence that for Intel to achieve these SMT implementation scaling numbers, which paints them in good light, they had to down-clock the Ryzen 1800X to 2.2 GHz. So, yes. Even though independent review sites have put AMD's EPYC 7601 SMT-powered improvement in various workloads at a 24% average improvement, and Intel's Xeon 8176 falls short of that at 19.58% (even rounding AMD's score down and Intel's up, that's still how big the gap is.)
Here, Intel is comparing their server-grade processors with AMD's Ryzen, desktop processors gaming woes, which really, is one of the best examples of comparing apples to oranges that I've seen in a long time. So AMD's server platform will require optimizations as well because Ryzen did, for incomparably different workloads? History does inform the future, but not to the extent that Intel is putting it here to, certainly. Putting things in the same perspective, is Intel saying that their Xeon ecosystem sees gaming-specific optimizations?
Ah, the "Glued-together" dies. Let's forget how AMD's Zen cores actually look like they were architected from the get-go for modularity and scaling, which has allowed the company to keep die-sizes to a minimum and yields to a maximum. This means that from a same-sized wafer, AMD can make more Ryzen/EPYC processors (because yes, that's the beauty of it, they're almost interchangeable), and in all likelihood, have more of those full-fledged dies without any defects that affect yields.

This is one of the reasons why AMD is able to offer an unlocked, true 8-core, 16-thread CPU in the Ryzen 7 1700 at less than Intel's 4-core, 8-thread i7 7700K (which consumes more power) - but also because AMD is democratizing access to cores while Intel maximized profits at the consumer's cost for almost a decade. And Infinity Fabric, which AMD also has implemented in their Vega architecture and will probably be used for the company's Zen-based APUs and next-gen Navi graphics architecture, is only glue. Intel would certainly like to be so lucky, since AMD's Infinity Fabric actually delivers more bandwidth than their UPI (Ultra Path Interconnect.)
Here, Intel are telling us how much better for the customer it is to be hard-locked to Intel's ecosystem for virtualization, since "VMs running on Intel Xeon processor compute pools can only live migrate to other Intel VM Pools". It's like they're saying "just imagine the amount of work you'll have to migrate these to AMD. Better remain with us."

Update: As some users pointed out, I used Ryzen 7 1800X power consumption figures as an example, instead of EPYC (those pictures are right here now.)
However, I consider that Intel themselves opened that door when they compared their Xeon, $2,200 offering with AMD's sub $499 Ryzen 7 1800X, which isn't a server CPU (and they down-clocked it to boot, let's not forget that.) That said, for comparison and fairness purposes, I'll just leave these here, courtesy of Anandtech, comparing dual Xeon systems (E5-2699 and the new Xeon 8176) with a dual EPYC 7601 system:

Performance in POV-Ray:
And maximum power consumption on the same application:
So essentially, AMD has 8 more cores, 16 more threads, delivers 16% more performance than Intel's e5-2699 system and 32% more performance than Intel's "non glued-together" Xeon 8176. AMD's chip does all that while consuming 23% less power than the Xeon e5-2699, and 28% less than the Xeon 8176. Not too shabby. I'll take my CPUs with this kind of glue any day.

Check the full press slides in the source. There's an interesting read there, even if there are those chuckle-worthy Intel comments that look like grappling at straws when real arguments are absent. But hey, that's this editor's interpretation. I reserve myself the right to be wrong, and to be slightly emotional at these underhanded tactics. It's just plain disrespectful for a company which stands on its engineers' shoulders to deride another's with no compelling argument.
Sources: Computerbase.de, Reddit, AnandTech SMT Integer Performance
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159 Comments on Intel Says AMD EPYC Processors "Glued-together" in Official Slide Deck

#51
Hood
The tortoise almost catches up to the hare, so the hare makes a mad scrambling dash for the finish line, finishing first, but just barely. Rethinks strategy for the next race. Decides to fight dirty...
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#52
efikkan
It seems like 2017 is going to be the year TPU reach their lowest level of journalistic standards ever.

Sure, Intel publishes some PR BS with their new products, with some edge cases and false comparisons to shed the best possible light on the products. So what? AMD and Nvidia does the exact same thing. I'm still waiting for Vega to give us that 4× performance per watt they promised…
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#53
jahramika
AndyN33Intel are also refering to EPYC as being desktop dies used for server, but as I understand it Ryzen is actually server dies used for desktop as the whole eco-system was created with the server market in mind.
That is the funny part because it looks like they could have made a few design concept changes and made Zen better for gaming but they did not goal was to make the best core for servers first!
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#54
jigar2speed
DeathtoGnomesYou should know what version means here, AMDs Ryzen version 2 is the PRO market. Threadripper is another socket, considered another tier. Version 3 could be considered the APU chips later this year.
Come on man, never go full literal, take life lightly a bit.
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#55
jahramika
john_The fact that AMD got back in Intel's slides is a huge win for AMD.
They did it all on a process nod
jigar2speedCome on man, never go full literal, take life lightly a bit.
I do going 4 wheeling in the mountains all next week!
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#56
HD64G
"Dear" Intel, I can clearly see you are a bit bitter atm. Wait for Ryzen APUs (mobile and desktop ones), Threadripper and EPYC. THEN you will have a really GREAT time...
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#57
jahramika
HD64G"Dear" Intel, I can clearly see you are a bit bitter atm. Wait for Ryzen APUs (mobile and desktop ones), Threadripper and EPYC. Then you will have a really good time...
YA I am wondering how Thread Ripper will do and even more the new APU connected with Infinity Fabric CPU/GPU cores performance.
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#58
refillable
Epyc damage control right there Intel, huehuehue.
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#59
bug
Vya DomusSomething else that I noticed :


"Repurposed desktop product for server" ? :kookoo:

Isn't it the other way around ? Zen architecture was clearly designed to be multipurpose with an emphasis on the server side of things. And isn't the new line of Xeons using the same architecture as the desktop Skylake-X ? Haven't they done supposedly the same thing in this case ?

I keep wondering if they do not care or that they really have no idea what to do. They are a business after all.
Intel's own architectures have been built to scale down into mobile space (think laptops/ultrabooks, not smartphones) for a number of years now and Nvidia's Pascal is pretty much reused as it is for both desktop and mobile. So I'm not even sure why a scalable architecture is a bad thing all of a sudden.
Sure, it will probably never be as effective as a specialized architecture, but all things considered, it helps lower the cost into mortal realms.
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#60
R0H1T
HoodThe tortoise almost catches up to the hare, so the hare makes a mad scrambling dash for the finish line, finishing first, but just barely. Rethinks strategy for the next race. Decides to fight dirty...
Huffing & puffing right till the finish line, though in reality the race will last a lot longer, not to mention the hare is suffering from heatstroke atm :D

www.tomshardware.com/reviews/-intel-skylake-x-overclocking-thermal-issues,5117.html
Posted on Reply
#61
Fx
efikkanIt seems like 2017 is going to be the year TPU reach their lowest level of journalistic standards ever.

Sure, Intel publishes some PR BS with their new products, with some edge cases and false comparisons to shed the best possible light on the products. So what? AMD and Nvidia does the exact same thing. I'm still waiting for Vega to give us that 4× performance per watt they promised…
You missed the point bud...

Intel haven't had to do this in a very long time. The very fact that they are is very big news regardless of the full context.
Posted on Reply
#62
Vya Domus
bugIntel's own architectures have been built to scale down into mobile space (think laptops/ultrabooks, not smartphones) for a number of years now and Nvidia's Pascal is pretty much reused as it is for both desktop and mobile. So I'm not even sure why a scalable architecture is a bad thing all of a sudden.
Sure, it will probably never be as effective as a specialized architecture, but all things considered, it helps lower the cost into mortal realms.
I was being sarcastic , of course all of them should strive for scalability. But these slides prove that they are stuck with an old design mentality and are too stunborn to admit that AMD is undercutting them big time with little compromise ( or glue ).

They should be carful though because this thorn that AMD is might get stuck in their side because of the glue.
Posted on Reply
#63
cdawall
where the hell are my stars
You know it wasn't that long ago when amd called the c2q a glued together chip while bragging about phenom I. A chip that really had no room to brag. Some of the points Intel has made are correct and I would still like to see a heavy io test on the epyc chips. Load the pcie and memory controller like you would using a gpu to render on a 2p. I want to see how infinity fabric (amds glue) works under load tonsee if it falters like the fsb did for Intel.
Posted on Reply
#64
wurschti
ShurikNGlued together like Core2Quad, right Intel?

Oh, and those glued together dies kicked Xeons ass in the price/performance and power.
Nope, like Pentium D. Oh wait, that wasn't even glued together... Maybe taped lol
Posted on Reply
#65
bug
cdawallYou know it wasn't that long ago when amd called the c2q a glued together chip while bragging about phenom I. A chip that really had no room to brag. Some of the points Intel has made are correct and I would still like to see a heavy io test on the epyc chips. Load the pcie and memory controller like you would using a gpu to render on a 2p. I want to see how infinity fabric (amds glue) works under load tonsee if it falters like the fsb did for Intel.
www.anandtech.com/show/11544/intel-skylake-ep-vs-amd-epyc-7000-cpu-battle-of-the-decade/17

But read the whole review, one page does not paint the whole picture. Hell, the whole review doesn't paint the whole picture, because, as noted, the CPUs were available for a short time, but it's more than enough to give an idea about each contestant's strengths ans weaknesses.
Posted on Reply
#66
Siman00
YoRkFiElDWhat is that BS about gaming power consumption of Ryzen??? Of course it has lower power consumption because of the limits of the Ryzen architecture it can't be properly utilized and provides sub par performance to an "only" 4 core chip...Actually Ryzen's single core performance is sh..t and a lot of applications still relies on lightly threaded performance where high single core performance is needed. Overclockability of Ryzen is mostly presented as 4 GHz as a matter of course, but that's not the case, lot of Ryzens are really rubbish binned and some can't even do 3.8 GHz.
Have to agree with this I have gotten a 1700 to 4.2, but with some eye watering voltages. They do say to keep them lower so Im at the max AMD recommends with ryzen cpus, 1.35 so im at 1.35@4.0. My 1800x and 1700x have 0 problems clocking higher though at 1.35 both can hit 4.2. But I do find the spot with ryzen is 4.0 like stated even down to the 1600. They dont like to clock but for the price and the thread count Im not complaining one bit. I have a hadron air EVGA build with a 7700k and a 1080ti I swapped the 1080ti over into my 1700 build since Im still waiting on GPUs... The FPS counter stated I was getting lower overall FPS, I wasn't surprised. But the thing that caught me off guard was the gaming experience seamed smoother overall. I noticed less dips as well. Curiosity made me try my old 5960X build with the same GPU and it felt just like the 7700k.

The only thing I can think that is happening is the IO speed and/or latency of AMD's PCIe buss controller/interconnect is far better than that of Intel. I wish someone could test this. I thought the extra cores helped AMD with background tasks and what not but the 5960X has the same core count. Given though its intel's now last gen CPU architecture.
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#67
NicklasAPJ
None of them are better, When AMD not are doing this,, Intel are. This will nerver end.

Just bring out Good CPUS and im happy.
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#68
sergionography
Lmao isn't everyone including intel and nvidia already talking about how mcm(multi chip modules) is the way of the future? Lol this will look bad when intel comes up with their own comparable glue technology a couple years down the road lol
Posted on Reply
#69
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
Taking everything technical out of this discussion, from a marketing (internal) point of view there is a fundamental truth to the comments here.
In marketing, you never deride the competition unless you believe they are a threat. It's that simple. Or, if you're the underdog, trying to prove your worth. Industry leaders do not NEED to prove their worth. So whether or not Intel's point is valid isn't that relevant. It's that they feel the need to 'reassure' their base that Intel is still superior.
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#70
idx
john_I think most people behind systems using Xeon processors, hopefully Epyc also in the near future, know much more than us about processors and stuff. Much much more.
Oh... you will be surprised.
Posted on Reply
#71
cdawall
where the hell are my stars
bugwww.anandtech.com/show/11544/intel-skylake-ep-vs-amd-epyc-7000-cpu-battle-of-the-decade/17

But read the whole review, one page does not paint the whole picture. Hell, the whole review doesn't paint the whole picture, because, as noted, the CPUs were available for a short time, but it's more than enough to give an idea about each contestant's strengths ans weaknesses.
I did read that whole review. Note the clockspeeds
Posted on Reply
#72
Basard
LogitechFanall the butthurt amd girls above tho :D Happy just to see amd back on intel slides? I thought you know better?!

And by the way, by the way.... it IS glued together, like it or not ;)
Ya, but it's probably SUPERglue :D
Posted on Reply
#73
Konceptz
Intel is acting like a jealous @ss b**ch LMAO, hilarious.
Posted on Reply
#74
Franzen4Real
Intel is probably upset that they didn't patent "gluing" a heat spreader and CPU core together and now see this as a lost lawsuit opportunity.
Posted on Reply
#75
seinthebear
YoRkFiElDWhat is that BS about gaming power consumption of Ryzen??? Of course it has lower power consumption because of the limits of the Ryzen architecture it can't be properly utilized and provides sub par performance to an "only" 4 core chip...Actually Ryzen's single core performance is sh..t and a lot of applications still relies on lightly threaded performance where high single core performance is needed. Overclockability of Ryzen is mostly presented as 4 GHz as a matter of course, but that's not the case, lot of Ryzens are really rubbish binned and some can't even do 3.8 GHz.
Are you sure about that bud? i.imgur.com/ESluXlW.png
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