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

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

#21

Post by std_throwaway »

spacenick88 wrote: post #20
std_throwaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge the achievable IPC gains for a single thread are limited. Therefore it can be assumed that other players catch up in figures of IPC while the market leader kind of gets stuck with only a tiny advantage.

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 :)

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

#22

Post by phire »

tutanchamun wrote: post #9
robin_reala wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to Intel, ‘nm’ hasn’t really meant anything for years now (it’s today’s ‘MHz’) but their 10nm process has been famously delayed, they were originally planning a launch for 2016 and it’s only been in the last couple of months that products have started to trickle out.

Yeah, Intels 10nm is comparable to other companies 7nm: https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6713-14nm-16nm-10nm-7...

And as long as it doesn't get delayed again, Intel's 10nm will reach volume production at around the same time as other companies 7nm.

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

#23

Post by rbinv »

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…

Aren't all manufacturers dependent on ASML's stuff, anyway? As far as I know, none of the big guys are developing their own EUV tech. Where's the edge?

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

#24

Post by protomyth »

std_throwaway wrote: post #19
kuzko_topia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phoronix is my go to for those in depth benchmarks with security patches

True, they compared a lot - but exclusively under Linux.

They have added various BSDs to their benchmarking.

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

#25

Post by roel_v »

merinowool wrote: post #14
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?

But there are mobos for dual socket epyc... https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-H11DSI-NT-Dual-sockets-Mot...

Sorry misspoke there, meant only Threadripper. I would exhaust my budget buying cores on just a single Epyc...

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

#26

Post by baldfat »

std_throwaway wrote: post #19
kuzko_topia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phoronix is my go to for those in depth benchmarks with security patches

True, they compared a lot - but exclusively under Linux.

Which is the main OS that will us CPUs when you count servers. Granted that isn't the consumer CPUs we care about but the work on servers actually trickles down. It isn't some minor group and AMD and Intel are very much concerned about how their CPUs run under Linux.

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

#27

Post by ylk »

rbinv wrote: post #23
dogma1138 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Aren't all manufacturers dependent on ASML's stuff, anyway? As far as I know, none of the big guys are developing their own EUV tech. Where's the edge?

Got told once* that they have specific teams working with Intel, etc. with pretty strict rules, where if you ever work for one of those teams you can't ever work for one of the others. So if I got it right ASML develops their EUV tech, etc and then those teams build things on top of that with Intel, TSMC and so on.

*at an ASML booth at a kind of job fair at my uni

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

#28

Post by mozumder »

tpetry wrote: post #10
loser777 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the IPC gap will become an interesting battle in the near future, especially as gains that came from aggressive speculation have proven to introduce security holes (take your pick of Meltdown, Spectre variant n ,...).

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

Just use Geekbench. It's great for core performance comparisons, based on actual micro-workloads.

BTW We're looking at ~4200 for Ryzen, ~4800 Ryzen 2, and ~5800 for i7 Coffee Lake.

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

#29

Post by kuzko_topia »

std_throwaway wrote: post #19
kuzko_topia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phoronix is my go to for those in depth benchmarks with security patches

True, they compared a lot - but exclusively under Linux.

To be fair it's only recently that released the windows version of the openbanchmarking software, so this linux only side of things will change for sure. But yes

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

#30

Post by dogma1138 »

rbinv wrote: post #23
dogma1138 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Aren't all manufacturers dependent on ASML's stuff, anyway? As far as I know, none of the big guys are developing their own EUV tech. Where's the edge?

The litography is just one part of the manufacturing process and there are many ways to apply the same tech. Also the development as mentioned below is completely segregated between teams.
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