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AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

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Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#271

Post by dragontamer »

zekica wrote: post #239
tankenmate wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that AMD also bought Xilinx

@WithinReason I expect them to use Xilinix's AI engines primarily in their CPUs, APUs and GPUs - not so much FPGA.

I expect Xilinx's AI engines to never be integrated into anything AMD. Because Xilinx AI engines are VLIW - SIMD machines running their own instruction set.

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AMD is doing the right thing with Xilinx tech: they're integrating it into ROCm, so that Xilinx AI engines / FPGAs can interact with CPUs and GPUs. But there's no reason why these "internal core bits" should be shared between CPU, GPU, and FPGA.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#272

Post by shepherdjerred »

smoldesu wrote: post #243
datadeft wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor containerization support I use UTM and Docker on a daily basis and it is extremely smooth. What exactly is missing? > an annoying development toolchain What are you talking about exactly? For example most Python and Rust builds just work out of the box. > no _real_ support for video games https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Metal.html These claims look like a bit of an exaggeration.

> What exactly is missing? Kernel integration and a virtualized filesystem that isn't bottlenecked by APFS. Docker is excruciating on Darwin systems. > What are you talking about exactly? Apple makes hundreds of weird concessions that are non-standard on UNIX-like machines. Booting up a machine with zsh and pico as your defaults is not a normal experience for most sysadmins, nevermind the laundry-list of MacOS quirks…

> Kernel integration and a virtualized filesystem that isn't bottlenecked by APFS. Docker is excruciating on Darwin systems.

Docker is great as long as you don't use bind mounts. I use it daily for development in dev containers.

> Besides Resident Evil and No Man's Sky (this generation's Tomb Raider and Monument Valley), nobody writes video games for Metal unless Apple pays them to.

There are plenty of great games on macOS. Factorio, Civilization, League of Legends, Minecraft. But you're right that there aren't too many AAA games.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#273

Post by [deleted] »

bayindirh wrote: post #85
aidenn0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not up-to-speed on modern chipsets, but WTF is the Southbridge doing that it needs that much power? Is Thunderbolt going through it or something? I think of the Southbridge as a mostly ignorable part of the chipset (up until something goes horribly wrong).

Single word: PCIe. Lots of fast PCIe lanes eat a lot of energy. A server motherboard contains tons of more PCI devices when compared to a consumer desktop systems, and they are not the cards, but the small units enabling the advanced features in servers, which are embedded on the motherboards themselves. Thunderbolt is just a PCIe encapsulator of some sort, which can also do plethora of other things.

[deleted]

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#274

Post by snvzz »

kungito wrote: post #227
makomk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big reason that demand is low is that the current generation of GPUs are way too expensive, with top-end GPUs about twice what they used to cost a few years ago, very poor improvements in performance-per-$, and anythign below the top end offering even more dubious value for money especially on the AMD side. Originally those high prices were a result of high demand compared to supply, but the companies seem to hav…

One big reson why the demand is low is because 1080ti or rx580 can still service 95% of gaming needs so what's the point of upgrading?

RDNA2 (particularly, the narrower range from 6600 to 6800), is a huge step up in performance per watt. The lowest end one in there, 6600, is faster than a vega64 (which is much faster than rx580), yet uses less than half the power.

RDNA3's lower end chips, once they hit the market, are expected to further improve on this.

Most gamers won't upgrade to the current RDNA3 chips, because the current RDNA3 chips are top of the line, expensive, ~300w monsters.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#275

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

kungito wrote: post #227
makomk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big reason that demand is low is that the current generation of GPUs are way too expensive, with top-end GPUs about twice what they used to cost a few years ago, very poor improvements in performance-per-$, and anythign below the top end offering even more dubious value for money especially on the AMD side. Originally those high prices were a result of high demand compared to supply, but the companies seem to hav…

One big reson why the demand is low is because 1080ti or rx580 can still service 95% of gaming needs so what's the point of upgrading?

Amen to that. The need for gamers to be on the hardware treadmill is no longer relevant. Five+ year old hardware can still run basically anything, albeit at reduced fidelity.

I keep eyeing a new build, but realistically, I know it’s just a vanity project because so few games will take full advantage of the better hardware. My favorite games in the past years could have run on ten year old hardware.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#276

Post by Dylan16807 »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #205
Dylan16807 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7 square inches would also include an enormous GPU and tons of accessories. The actual cores are about .6/2.3 mm², and local interconnects and L2 roughly double that. So with just those parts, 256 P-cores would be about 1.5 square inches, and 256 E-cores would be about half a square inch. And in practical terms you can fabricate a die that's a bit more than a square inch. Of course it wouldn't use 1000 watts. When yo…

even a 128 core part made like that will perform pretty atrociously. scaling up the core count without scaling the cache count means you have a lot of cores waiting for memory. also when you have 128 cores, you almost certainly need more memory channels to have enough bandwidth.

I explicitly included more cache.

And the memory controllers aren't that big on the die. You could include a bunch more on a 128 core model.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#277

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

Dalewyn wrote: post #219
baq wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not forget that 12th and 13th gen are actually good chips

Also worth remembering that for the vast majority of people, any performance differences between Intel and AMD are utterly and absolutely insignificant as to be completely meaningless. Nobody needs two-digit CPU core counts and 5~6GHz clock speeds to do their emails, communicate on Skype/Discord/Teams/Slack/Zoom/whatever, browse Facebook and Twitter, watch Youtube, and even play some vidja gaemz. An i3 or even a god…

I keep having similar thoughts, but the software industry has shown a remarkable capacity to squander available hardware resources.

Re: AMD CEO: The Next Challenge Is Energy Efficiency

#278

Post by i80and »

kungito wrote: post #227
makomk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big reason that demand is low is that the current generation of GPUs are way too expensive, with top-end GPUs about twice what they used to cost a few years ago, very poor improvements in performance-per-$, and anythign below the top end offering even more dubious value for money especially on the AMD side. Originally those high prices were a result of high demand compared to supply, but the companies seem to hav…

One big reson why the demand is low is because 1080ti or rx580 can still service 95% of gaming needs so what's the point of upgrading?

I think "service" is the key word here: I have an RX 580, and while it's kind of an incredible card in its longevity, it's really creaky at 1440p even with older games.

Performance per watt has really come a long way since GCN.

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