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  • dragosmp - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Ian, this article makes more sense considering the limited information available.

    Any speculation what this means for AM1? It seems there would be a superior "Puma+" core available for this type of CPU, but would an updated AM1+ platform be released?
  • R3MF - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    ... unless they plan to warm over kaveri to keep fm2+ alive for the desktop.

    maybe create a six core part with 384 shaders, or an eight core with 256 shaders.
  • yannigr2 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    They did announced 7650K which could become a best seller having a good price ($105) configurable TDP AND unlocked multiplier. They could come out with more unlock models in 2015 and nothing more. There are still just too many Richlands and even Trinitys in the market.
  • dragosmp - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    The 7650K does seem a nice CPU, but it's too power hungry and expensive for someone who would be fine with an AM1.

    Example: 90$ would buy you a 5350 and an Asus AM1i-A whith which can OC the 5350 to something like 2.4-2.8GHz. 4 high IPC cores @2.8GHz are fast especially together with SSDs and enough RAM. This platform looks crazy good as it is, but is there an update around the corner?

    Side question - is a 3.5GHz Kaveri a reasonable alternative to a 2.8GHz Puma? Consider: Puma has 4 real cores (4xFPU), even OCed consumes 1/3 of the Kaveri and Puma has higher IPC. Seems like the days when Intel's mobile Core Duo was faster in almost all (non-FP) tasks than the P4-D while consuming 3x less and wondering why didn't they just replace Prescott with Conroe...
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    I dont know where this "high IPC" meme is coming from, but a 5350 takes more than twice as long to complete a sunspider test, compared to a kaveri core which is clocked less than twice as fast.
  • silverblue - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Not to mention the single channel memory interface, half speed cache, and the fact that Kaveri theoretically equals Puma+ per clock for FP output (as far as I'm aware - two FlexFPUs means 4x128-bit units, precisely the same as Phenom II X4 and Puma+ quad). Let's not forget that most Puma+ products don't have a Turbo implementation, either.
  • SaberKOG91 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    I would expect Skybridge to be the target for AM1 upgrades. Low power and flexibility are two of the focuses of the Skybridge ARM K12 / X86 Puma+ hybrid socket. This seems to follow AMD's direction of momentum.
  • gostan - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    no matter how they spin it, AMD has no chance in any profitable thermally constrained form factors. simple as that. their chips will go in to very entry level thermally constrained form factors, which aren't going to make them any money.

    so "Carrizo’s 15W-35W range synchronizing nicely with Broadwell-U’s 15W-28W parts" isnt exactly the correct sentence to say. VIA can do 15w too but the performance is gonna suck. heck any 'desktop class' ARM is below 20w.

    we have heard this tune by AMD before. when you cant compete you go mysterious, and AMD has been repeating this trick for many years.
  • SaberKOG91 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    AMD is all about the whole user experience. Most consumers (non-gamers) don't need very much in the way of CPU power. A 2+ GHz dual or quad will meet the majority need. This, paired with AMD's professional grade graphics, is meant to allow for a fluid user experience. By being lower power, AMD can bring this experience to mainstream laptop and all-in-one designs.

    However, the market segment to watch is business machines. Systems powered by Carrizo should be more than sufficient for the majority of office tasks, including graphic design. These chips are spec'd high enough to handle basic 3D modelling in SolidWorks and the like. You might need to do final renders elsewhere, but it should also be fast enough to do 3D animation for video applications. They also make excellent thin clients for Citrix HDX or Microsoft RemoteFX capable environments. My company was doing this dating back to the E350 days and have steadily upgraded as better hardware has come online.

    Another important place that these chips (particularly Carrizo-L) will find their niche is in Digital Signage. I'm not sure you understand how big of a deal it is that AMD has low power chips that can drive multiple displays using UVD to decode HEVC 4K at 60fps. To my knowledge, they are the first non-FPGA design to do HEVC decoding without an off-chip co-processor. AMD APUs have been deployed all over for electronic billboards and shopping displays.
  • takeship - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    A 2+ GHz dual would be quite a stretch for AMD in a thermally limited form factor, a quad core is pretty much out of the running. I notice that AMD lists Mullins above as a 2014-2015 era chip, but did they have even a single design win? Beema sure, but then that's a bigger power envelope. Speaking of which, there's a bit of quiet revisionism going on in that slide. Per wikipedia, Mullins debuted as a 4W chip, with NO 2W varients.
  • silverblue - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    TDP != general power consumption.
  • SaberKOG91 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Not really that much of a stretch. The Athlon 5350 has a 25W TDP. Sure that won't go into a tablet, but it's definitely low enough for NUC or an AIO. With a top TDP of 35W, Carrizo easily fits into modern thermal envelopes. Carrizo-L is plenty low enough for tablets, even if Mullins didn't score any major design wins.
  • beginner99 - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link

    > "AMD is all about the whole user experience. Most consumers (non-gamers) don't need very much in the way of CPU power. A 2+ GHz dual or quad will meet the majority need. This, paired with AMD's professional grade graphics, is meant to allow for a fluid user experience. "

    I see it exactly the other way. Even crappy Baytrail Celeron graphics is good enough for most consumers. In fact the only reason for needing 3D in the consumer space is gaming. So if I configure a PC for such users I rather invest the money in SSD, CPU and last GPU. Here AMD will always loose as you pay a ridiculous fee for the iGPU no office user really needs. Any ofice user is better served with a pentium due do faster single threaded performance (and less power).
  • otherwise - Thursday, January 15, 2015 - link

    You need to take a step back from AMD's marketing and ask yourself if the proposed scenario makes any sense. For example, the SolidWorks use case. If you're not a student this software is $4K a seat plus $1.5K a year maintenance. What company would spend that kind of money, then decide to cripple its abilities by pairing it with a $300 system?
  • lefty2 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Except that Carrizo's iGPU could well trash Broadwell's iGPU. Especially if the Iris Pro availablity is the same as is was for Haswell (i.e. nearly non-existant)
  • Salvor - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    But then you're back to the same old APU problem, people who actually need that extra graphics power will/should be buying a discrete GPU anyway, and those who don't can generally get by fine on intel's offerings.
  • Kevin G - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    The catch is that most OEMs don't want to spend the extra money for an additional chip. Even if they were free, OEMs designs have become increasingly power focused where they wouldn't want a discrete chip except for the high end. Even if you wanted a discrete GPU, they're increasingly rare.
  • mrdude - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    So those same OEMs are going to accomodate a more complex and bigger PCB that requires costlier high-speed dual-channel RAM in order to actually allow that GPU to do work? This argument makes no sense.

    We're in an era where the average laptop chip is a ~15W with a single stick of RAM, if you're that lucky, and it's at low voltage and speed. And even if an OEM was able to somehow make that happen, the GPU side of the chip is still bandwidth limited and performs as such. The constant delays, small and big core both, have left a nasty taste in OEMs' mouths, too.

    Carrizo might fix some of these problems, but it's years too late. AMD's APU sales are decreasing and Intel might even leapfrog them in terms of iGPU performance.
  • lefty2 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Buy a descrete GPU for a laptop?
  • dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Iris Pro will be available on desktop for Broadwell. It's funny you should mention that because I find that people often forget or are unaware that Iris Pro even exists. This may no longer be true but when it launched, and for a long while after, Iris Pro was the most powerful igpu on the market. Intel was outperforming AMD's 100W APU's at a 50W TDP. At the time AMD's mobile APU's weren't even close. The thing is I'm not sure much has changed since. The problem was availability and price, and it's looking like this may very well change with broadwell.
  • medi03 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Such as... consoles... cough... ;)
  • yannigr2 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    AMD is doing to FM2+ what they did to AM3+. AM3+ will go one more year without new models. FM2+ will have a year similar to 2014 for AM3+. A few extra models with the Kaveri architecture like the 7650K they just announced and to be honest it is extremely interesting.

    I bet they hope that Mantle and later DX12 will offer a little more value to their CPUs and APUs, so they believe they don't really need to update the hardware, just wait for the software to catch up. Looking at the benchmarks for Shadow of Mordor at Tom's hardware where AMD hardware is on top in GPU benchmarks(strange for Tom's benchmarks), and even 4170 is very competitive with 5930, I would say that they probably feel that the hardware they offer at the prices they are selling it today, is good enough for one more year.

    But after saying all that, it does look that AMD does have a problem to convince their partners to expand the socketed platforms with new models that will need more work from motherboard makers on the BIOS side.

    Anyone can give an idea how much more difficult it is for a motherboard manufacturer to create a new hardware to support excavator cores, compared to a new BIOS to just support new Kaveri models? that could answer very important questions about AM3+ and FM2+ stall.
  • yannigr2 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    last paragraph correction

    Anyone can give an idea how much more difficult it is for a motherboard manufacturer to create a new BIOS to support excavator cores, compared to a new BIOS to just support new Kaveri models? that could answer very important questions about AM3+ and FM2+ stall.
  • Nil Einne - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link

    Well I don't think it's clear that AM3+ even has a future (or any non iGPU desktop). FM2+ we hope does, although it's possible DDR4 will be the norm by the 2016 and they won't bother with including a DDR3 memory controller. Particularly if they have other reasons to abandon FM2+. And the very least, we hope that AMD doesn't abandon the socket market entirely
  • Endgame124 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Am I the only one who still wants a 125 Watt cpu? I was really hoping for 125W Carrizo high end part between $125 - $150. My trinity system (watercooled with a d5 and 2 of my old HWLabs 120x2 rads) is my "do everything" machine for surfing, e-mail, Eve online clients, etc, but I was really looking forward to an upgrade with a faster integrated GPU.

    As a desktop machine, I don't need power efficiency (no battery), and I don't need low heat (plenty of room for cooling). Why does the market insist on leaving that niche behind?
  • robi - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    You're not the only one. I will be bitterly disappointed if Carrizo doesn't get launched for socketed desktops.
  • mcirillo - Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - link

    ditto.
  • Nil Einne - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link

    Because the niche is way too small by now. It's only a small number of enthuasists and little else.
  • Nil Einne - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link

    Sorry I meant to clarify, the niche of not caring about power effiency or heat at all. Remembering in particular that water cooling is still only a tiny percentage of the market. So the truth is very few people are willing to put up with that level TDP, unless they're getting what they consider an acceptably powerful system in return (regardless of whether they use it), and sadly only Intel can match that at the moment. AMD may not be having that much success by keeping TDP down at the expense of performance, but it's surely better than the alternative. Remembering as well that most overclocking and different TDP comparisons suggests the actually gain from AMD TDP increases tends to be small (not surprising since the CPU and process is increasingly optimised for lower power and as others have said and somewhat indicated in my post, only Intel can afford to concentrate any effort on real optimising their higher TDP CPUs).
  • DrApop - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    I don't understand why AMD hasn't entered into the chromeOS arena. With their graphics, I would think they would do well in a chromebox.....not so much the laptop but certain the celeron chromeboxes from Asus and HP.
  • Nil Einne - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link

    I don't think AMD has the resources to sell their own devices. This leaves them trying to convince an OEM to use them. For all we know they have been pushing it, but we all know AMD design wins have been few and far between. How much of this is AMD's fault is IMO hard to say unless you're really connected to the industry. (BTW I'm not so much referring to performance issues, since there have been plenty of cases when AMD would probably have made sense for a certain use case, but still had little success. Rather fear that AMD couldn't deliver on time or other such things that an OEM may legimately have based on AMD's history.)
  • AtenRa - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link

    Could you please post the exact question that was asked to AMD ?? thanks
  • dionicio - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link

    Have been following trough C E an AM1 families. Excepting an old cabinet with a PicoPSU, my savings are lost at the PSU energy supplies. They expend more energy that my motherboards. AMD should include efficent PSU's on the motherboard, the motherboard box, or promote them at the retail channel.
  • JumpingJack - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link

    I disagree with AT -- TR's article implies they were quoting AMD that they will not offer up socketed chips for the desktop. If TR could just confirm that this was direct AMD quote... 'nuff said. Nothing in the quote AT got from AMD contradicts the TR article.

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