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AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

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Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#81

Post by paulmd »

mrchicity wrote: post #69
paulmd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a solved issue at all. Chips are still coming off the line with the issue, the only solid fix is getting an RMA'd processor (AMD are hand-checking these units for the issue). The assertion of there being a "safe date range" (ostensibly, date codes >= 1730, i.e. chips manufactured during/after Week 30 2017) was made by the Phoronix Forums webmaster on the basis that he hadn't seen any user posts reporting pr…

Didn't know that. Since they know how to fix it on TR/Epyc, why would they release a brand new line with the same issue?

Well, we don't actually know if they did fix it on TR/Epyc.

Epyc is on a newer stepping (that has not been released to the consumer market yet), but the issue was only acknowledged a couple months ago. The B2 stepping may already have been taped out at that point. We don't really know because you pretty much can't get ahold of Epyc systems at the moment (at the moment, the only way is by ordering prebuilt servers from SuperMicro). There hasn't been the degree of testing that you have on Ryzen. But, if the B2 stepping does contain a fix, that would be the reason that Epyc is immune.

Threadripper is on the same stepping, but it's cherrypicked silicon (AMD claims they're the top 5% of silicon off the line). There is a wide range of severity reported with Ryzen processors, some people segfault in seconds, others it takes 24h+ of testing before it manifests. That strongly suggests that it's a litho problem, and the fact that Threadripper is on cherrypicked silicon may insulate it somewhat from this issue. But in general I don't see any guarantee there either. There isn't anywhere near as much testing as there is on Ryzen here either (although certainly more than Epyc).

From what I've read the finger points pretty strongly at a cache problem (likely the uop cache) and it's also possible that TR/Epyc's NUMA configuration somehow avoids the trigger conditions for this bug. I don't think this case is particularly likely but it's one possible explanation.

Frankly though I don't understand why AMD hasn't released the B2 stepping to the consumer market. They are using it for Epyc but they are still producing Ryzen and TR on the original B1 stepping and appear to be releasing Raven Ridge on the B1 stepping as well. I don't know whether the B2 stepping contains a fix for this issue, but I'm sure it has some general fixes that would be good to have.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#82

Post by pimeys »

chx wrote: post #74
pimeys wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's wait for the 30th Anniversary Edition. Then it would be the perfect time anyways for me to get a new laptop.

I'd love to have the 7 row on laptops which are not that special. I did buy the T25, mind you.

Me too. And I do love it!

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#83

Post by zanny »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #52
zanny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux AMD open source drivers are top notch now. Even have really good foss OpenCL support. The only asterisk right now is that you only want to use these new APUs / any Vega GPU on distros running kernel 4.15 or later (which will release probably Jan of next year).

How are the open source drivers for games? Can you render Civ 5/6 or Rocket League?

I've been playing Civ 5 on the Mesa radeon driver since it came out on Linux with great framerates. That being said, My FPS at 1080/high has gone from ~45 to over 90 in the last two years on the same 290 card.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#84

Post by mikenew »

lower wrote: post #78
Improvotter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AMD drivers have gotten a complete overhaul. The open source drivers are amazing. The Nvidia drivers suck in comparison. Have you seen the post from the Sway developer that was basically "fuck you Nvidia"?

For reference: http://sircmpwn.github.io/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

> Nvidia users are shitty consumers and I don’t even want them in my userbase.

Good Lord. I get that the EGLStream vs GBM thing is controversial, but this is childish. How are you supposed to discuss anything with someone who thinks like this.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#85

Post by mrchicity »

paulmd wrote: post #81
mrchicity wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know that. Since they know how to fix it on TR/Epyc, why would they release a brand new line with the same issue?

Well, we don't actually know if they did fix it on TR/Epyc. Epyc is on a newer stepping (that has not been released to the consumer market yet), but the issue was only acknowledged a couple months ago. The B2 stepping may already have been taped out at that point. We don't really know because you pretty much can't get ahold of Epyc systems at the moment (at the moment, the only way is by ordering prebuilt servers fro…

Merely anecdotal, but I've run heavy multi-threaded compile tests on my 1950x for days to check whether the chip was stable when overclocked, and have never seen it segfault. That was my main purpose for purchasing the CPU. I use it for that all day every day.

If I were spending millions on Epyc servers, I'd certainly test this on a reasonably large sample before committing.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#86

Post by c2h5oh »

shmerl wrote: post #45

This should make life easier for Linux users who want something better than integrated Intel GPU. No more Optimus horrors and lack of proper PRIME support.

Not yet - there is no display support for that GPU in current Linux kernel, nor in 4.14 that is going to be released in 1-2 weeks.

Users will have to wait for 4.15 - until mid-late January.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#87

Post by [deleted] »

mrchicity wrote: post #72
paulmd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a desktop you can always swap hardware, but on a laptop you're stuck with what you get. Raven Ridge is the same stepping as Ryzen, i.e. potentially subject to the segfault bug. I'm really curious whether it will manifest there too or not. It's a pretty generic errata that manifests under load. Compiling happens to be one way that flushes it out pretty reliably (as with many errata), and nerds do a lot of compili…

Laptop RMAs are way more expensive since they have to swap the entire board w/CPU or reflow solder on a new chip. Can't imagine any OEM will willingly take that hit. Since these issues are well known, I'd bet AMD has to fix them; OEMs will mandate it as part of QA. Either that or they'll force AMD to eat the costs like Apple did with NVidia.

[deleted]

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#88

Post by shmerl »

c2h5oh wrote: post #86
shmerl wrote: post #45

This should make life easier for Linux users who want something better than integrated Intel GPU. No more Optimus horrors and lack of proper PRIME support.

Not yet - there is no display support for that GPU in current Linux kernel, nor in 4.14 that is going to be released in 1-2 weeks. Users will have to wait for 4.15 - until mid-late January.

You can use staging kernel from AMD meanwhile. Upstreamed one will be more polished, but it's basically the same thing.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#89

Post by godzillabrennus »

subwayclub wrote: post #60
MrRadar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty crazy to think that in just a year or two 192 threads will likely be available on commodity dual-socket x86 server hardware...

It's the race for core counts that we've been expecting since the mid 2000s - just a lot later than anyone expected since we detoured into GPU and mobile computing. Our software still isn't really ready for it, but I guess that's to be expected.

The tail will wag the dog with this one.

Re: AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops

#90

Post by seanp2k2 »

baldfat wrote: post #55
firethief wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's triple the speed.

Double speed 200% = 2.00 2000 mhz * 2 is 4000 mhz Tripple would be 300%

200% faster means “on top of the 100% of the current speed”. Think about when a toilet roll says “25% more free” and the “normal” roll is 100 sheets. I’d expect the “more” roll to have 125, or expect to have a bonus 5th roll of 100 in a 4-pack.
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