Thanks to wccftech (and our IRC for the link) I have learnt today that AMD's new processor design named Zen is shaping up very nicely. Apparently they are due out in October of this year (not confirmed), so hopefully not too long to find out for ourselves. I've no doubt Phoronix will have tests up shortly after they are released so we can see their Linux performance.
This is exactly what I have been hoping for! Go AMD.
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but this could really shake up the CPU market for the better if it turns out to be even close to true.
While I like how good my current Intel CPU is, having some proper competition in the higher end would be really great not only for AMD's pockets, but for prices. Competition generally brings down prices, and forces competition to try and do even better.
An AMD APU with Zen could be quite interesting in a Steam Machine to bring down prices, for just one example that could be pretty good to see. Let's hope their drivers are in a good state when Zen arrives.
AMD went back to the drawing board for Zen, so let's hope all their time and effort was worth it. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
QuoteZen is said to have extremely competitive single threaded performance according to engineers with knowledge of the chip. Citing more instructions per clock than Intel’s Broadwell and just a smidgen behind Skylake. The 95W TDP if accurate indicates that indeed we’re looking at a very power efficient design.
This is exactly what I have been hoping for! Go AMD.
QuoteHowever, during last quarter’s earnings conference call President and CEO of the company Lisa Su announced that Zen is performing beyond initial expectations and that engineers have managed to achieve a greater than 40% IPC improvement.
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but this could really shake up the CPU market for the better if it turns out to be even close to true.
While I like how good my current Intel CPU is, having some proper competition in the higher end would be really great not only for AMD's pockets, but for prices. Competition generally brings down prices, and forces competition to try and do even better.
An AMD APU with Zen could be quite interesting in a Steam Machine to bring down prices, for just one example that could be pretty good to see. Let's hope their drivers are in a good state when Zen arrives.
AMD went back to the drawing board for Zen, so let's hope all their time and effort was worth it. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Now if only AMD managed to get a functional GPU driver for Linux together...
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Armand Raynal Mar 14, 2016
Quoting: MaokeiI guess AMD strategy will be to make a pure powerful CPU without spending allot of silicon making space for a GPU most people wont use in their desktop machine like intel.
With the 14nm of Global foundries & Samsung that will be used to make the ZEN CPUs AMD could actually combine a powerful CPU with a very decent graphic part, I mean, decent for gaming.
The max quantity of transistors with the actual 28nm process is almost reached by the fidjii GPU(7,9 Billion if I remember accuratly ...).
Actual FX vishera 8300 series(and so the 9000) count only 1,2 billion transistors.
AMD could make some big APUs with 4 or 6 cores(physical, twice logicals with their own HT that ZEN will introduce) and 2048 Radeon cores(as in a 7970, but with a brand new arcitecture) in a power package that's not above 100 watt TDP.
The integration in small form factor like laptops or mini-itx rigs could be very interesting.
If this would come with HBM(2) it would be super energy efficient and powerful enough for gaming in good condition, presets high, good framerate ...
Also with vulkan( and DX12 but we do not give a single fuck, right ?) the integrated graphics can easily and substantially help the discret GPU ...
Their actual plateforme FM2+ got pins physically dedicated on the CPU part, and the rest for the GPU part, so the best they can make on it as pure processor are what they call Athlon, that does not use the pins dedicated for GPU on the motherboard.
Their new plateform, FM4, could not have this problem. In this case they can make some strong APUs as mentionned above, and also very big pure CPUs reusing the pins that are used by the graphical part when you put an APU on your motherboard, with twice the physicals cores(8 ? 12 ? 16 ?) ...
But this last idea is pure speculation.
*edit : The maximum transistor count with the 14nm process is around 15 Billion.
We won't see any chip with that count at the launch of the process, but at the end of his cycle we should be seeing some monster GPU reaching it, as it happenned with the 28nm process.
Last edited by Armand Raynal on 14 March 2016 at 5:50 pm UTC
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Crazy Penguin Mar 14, 2016
Well, just another AMD-bla bla bla. IMHO AMD should be better get stuff going instead of talking about it.
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Armand Raynal Mar 14, 2016
Quoting: Crazy PenguinWell, just another AMD-bla bla bla. IMHO AMD should be better get stuff going instead of talking about it.ZEN is done for a little while now, but AMD is fabless. They have to wait for Global foundries and Samsung to make ready their 14nm production line.
It seems like we didn't see GPUs in 20nm because Apple was prioritary(understand bigger economically) and needed all the production lines of TSMC, you know, for their new shitphone. Yep, we could have had new GFX cards in 2015. But it is not the fault of the chip designers.
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commodore256 Mar 14, 2016
I think the gaming enthusiast dedicated market could be dying for CPUs. Not to say you won't have high end CPUs in the future, but with Vulkan coming out, it makes sense to get a lot of cores and you can get 12 cores by investing in used Xeons and it will cost only $140. I know of a guy that invested in a dual xeon rig.
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Quoting: NyapDoes this affect us?
https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/microsoft-officially-to-support-new-processors-only-on-windows-10/95333/12
edit: https://forum.teksyndicate.com/uploads/default/original/3X/d/8/d8b6ff40f69d106300b7f70ac439134fe9fc1419.png
Nope. Linux is a giant in the server and embedded worlds. Its functionality will not be limited on future CPU generations. Not in a hundred years.
Those articles just say that if you want to use Windows, you have to use Win10.
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I really hope for AMD that they really pull out something very good. I always loved these guys, and their recent openness and dedication to FOSS just makes me wanna support these guys. But as they still can't deliver the same experience than Intel+NVidia my choice remains settled.
Maybe this will change with ZEN and beyond
Maybe this will change with ZEN and beyond
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Those articles and notes is MS PR BS as they want everyone to force to upgrade to Windows 10. Their previous Windows versions have turned out strong competition against themselves. All their plans are tied up everyone running Windows 10.
Nice to see AMD come back swinging. Yes, careful to be very optimistic but at least they move in right direction.
Nice to see AMD come back swinging. Yes, careful to be very optimistic but at least they move in right direction.
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Homepcgamer Mar 15, 2016
I hope AMD's new CPUs are really good in performance and heat. We need competition on prices to be able to make a really good powerfull commercial rig (Steam Machine cof cof... 
) at a breaking (console like) price.
We are stuck in the Intel CPUs because the temps. The i 6XXX CPUs are much cooler than the AMD counterpart... and this is critical for a small form factor case.
) at a breaking (console like) price.We are stuck in the Intel CPUs because the temps. The i 6XXX CPUs are much cooler than the AMD counterpart... and this is critical for a small form factor case.
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oldrocker99 Mar 17, 2016
I've never had an Intel CPU in all my years of post-Amiga computing; I currently have an 8320E which seems to fill my needs pretty well.
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