AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#31

Post by kingosticks » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 12:46 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #12

veebat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely cause of Intel's lagging is a wall of cost/benefit to being both designer and fab. This hit AMD earlier by being smaller(and arguably, with a different management style, AMD could have held on to their fabs longer) but each node only gets more expensive and harder to keep busy with orders which in turn means a greater need for external customers to fund R&D. Intel had a reprieve of almost a decade wit…

Intel's biggest mistake over the past 10 years was not to open it's foundry services sooner now it's custom foundry services are nearly irrelevant outside of a few niche markets. Mobile SoC design and being answerable to a huge number of very large customers forced fabs to evolve their processes in a way where market forces and customer demand forces requirements rather than office politics. Intel has still an edge o…

Last time we were vendor shopping we considered Intel and had an in-person meeting. I'm not sure why they bothered turning up as they were nowhere near competitive. It was pretty clear they were not interested in any thing that involved any work from them. If only someone else could offer EMIB technology...

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#32

Post by ksec » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

veebat wrote: post #8

Roritharr wrote: post #2

Am I missing something here or is Intel starting to lag behind on Fab Tech? I thought they were years and billions ahead?!?

The most likely cause of Intel's lagging is a wall of cost/benefit to being both designer and fab. This hit AMD earlier by being smaller(and arguably, with a different management style, AMD could have held on to their fabs longer) but each node only gets more expensive and harder to keep busy with orders which in turn means a greater need for external customers to fund R&D. Intel had a reprieve of almost a decade wit…

>The most likely cause of Intel's lagging is a wall of cost/benefit to being both designer and fab. This hit AMD earlier by being smaller(and arguably, with a different management style, AMD could have held on to their fabs longer) but each node only gets more expensive and harder to keep busy with orders which in turn means a greater need for external customers to fund R&D.

I have been struggling to explain this better, and those words describe the exact problem. Scale.

Apple alone ship more CPU unit then Intel. And that is all going to TSMC.

Just a reminder, the "original" original schedule, was that we have 10nm in 2016, 7nm in 2018, and 5nm in 2020. After the delay in 14nm, everything being pushed 1 year later. 2017 come and gone and we don't have 10nm, now 2018 we still won't have it, and as pointed out in various investor conference call. 10nm is now Scheduled for 2019.

They "were" miles ahead, but lack of competition and incentives meant 10nm didn't work out. They have been milking whatever they have for far too long. And waited a little too long to decide to enter the GPU market.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#33

Post by ajross » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

tutanchamun wrote: post #6

I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded benchmarks like cinebench (when using same number of cores and clocks). At the moment Intel has a slight edge in IPC and quite a bit better clocks. If they can close the IPC gap or even overtake Intel and GlobalFoundries 7nm process really can clock around 5ghz thi…

The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#34

Post by jlebrech » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #11

So there was a rumor last year there might be a dual socket Threadripper/EPYC mobo, and that the CPU's would be capable of it, but now that I search for it, it seems that it only was 'some guy on Reddit says' style rumor. Despite that, anyone knows if there is any chance for that?

there should be multi socket architectures that allow for more future proofing, imagine 2-4 sockets that can fit a CPU or a GPU or even a bridge.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#35

Post by bhouston » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #33

tutanchamun wrote: post #6

I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded benchmarks like cinebench (when using same number of cores and clocks). At the moment Intel has a slight edge in IPC and quite a bit better clocks. If they can close the IPC gap or even overtake Intel and GlobalFoundries 7nm process really can clock around 5ghz thi…

The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.

Case in point, Apple's ARM chips are huge (and hot) compared to the stock ARM chips and that is because they are throwing transistors at the problem.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#36

Post by dgacmu » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

std_throwaway wrote: post #21

spacenick88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep wondering if there are some gains left by dropping the x86 legacy baggage e.g. using RISC-V or ARM64. It seems that there should be some loss due to x86 weirdness and past compromises

What i read was: The instruction decoder would become easier but the instruction decoder is only a small part. Most rare commands are implemented via microcode anyways, so silicon area is not hit too hard. x86 is somewhat efficient due to compact encoding compared to IA64 for example. There is surprisingly little to gain. Maybe somebody who really knows the details can chime in :)

Intel usually says it's less than 3%.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#37

Post by zelos » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

std_throwaway wrote: post #15

tpetry wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any good post-Meltdown benchmarks conparing Intel and AMD?

Anandtech did a benchmark but that had a flaw in the way they measured the time. Many other benchmarks are with unpatched OS versions to keep comparability. It's not easy to judge when they don't explicitly investigate that effect.

Anandtech updated the benchmarks eventually: the massive performance drop that they attributed to meltdown/spectre patches vanished.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-r...

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#38

Post by Symmetry » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #2

Am I missing something here or is Intel starting to lag behind on Fab Tech? I thought they were years and billions ahead?!?

As feature sizes shrink cobalt start to look like a better choice for implementing wires than copper for reasons of electromigration and mean free path. Intel wanted to get a jump on this for their 10nm process and so decided to switch over to cobalt before TSMC, Global, etc. But they've been having huge problems getting it to work and 10nm has slipped from 2017 to at least 2019 and their process lead is now essentially gone.

They've actually released one chip on 10nm but it's performing much worse than the equivalent 14nm chip so it needs a lot more work.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#39

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

tutanchamun wrote: post #6

I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded benchmarks like cinebench (when using same number of cores and clocks). At the moment Intel has a slight edge in IPC and quite a bit better clocks. If they can close the IPC gap or even overtake Intel and GlobalFoundries 7nm process really can clock around 5ghz thi…

I don't want AMD to overtake intel on single-core performance. There are only a handful of things that a chip manufacturer can be best at. If AMD is ahead on per-core and total number of cores, then they can and will demand the premium prices intel does today. I like AMD because they are the underdog who must keep prices low to keep my business.

AMD taking the lead could also make them complacent when it comes to the more annoying things like DRM and privacy. I want them to remain the lean company. I don't want them investing in all the chaotic side projects that intel chips participate in. AMD needs to stick to number crunching and not allow their CPUs to become gateways for other tasks. They need to stay as they are now.

Lastly, atm AMD and intel sell very different chips. They do different things well. Those who pick one or the other do so for clear reasons. If they get too close on per-core performance we risk endless brand debates. Two tribes will emerge. Wagons will circle and fanboys appear. Competition betters the breed, but with only two players on the field we all know what will happen.

Re: AMD Zen 2 Update: 7nm EPYC in Labs Now, Launching in 2019

#40

Post by et2o » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #35

ajross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.

Case in point, Apple's ARM chips are huge (and hot) compared to the stock ARM chips and that is because they are throwing transistors at the problem.

Would you have a particular reference for this? I have read that the Apple ARM chips are more power efficient than comparable ARM chips powering Android devices.