Nintendo could have used something like this, but apparently they wanted a custom Tegra instead.
6W? Would like to see that in a gaming handheld.
There was a couple <4.5W SKUs from AMD like;We have 4.5W and 6W from Intel and now 6W from AMD.
It even seems that the Cat cores don't lose per IPC (roughly equal in CB), but per clock frequency/power at somewhat higher clocks. 1.6GHz is already ca. 70% of max. Cat core clocks, while only being 40% of max BR clocks at reasonable voltages.those all had crappy cat cores, so excavator even at 1.6Ghz (and i bet they can do boost to something like 2-2.2Ghz) should be an upgrade.
A 14nm AM1 refresh wouldn't have made any sense, because excavator reached better perf/watt than puma and excavator clocks much higher.Yeah, Cat cores weren't bad, they just didn't clock very high. It would have been cool to seem an AM1 14nm refresh, TBH. I wonder where they could have gone with that. If they could have fabbed some 4.0Ghz Cat cores, that would have been wild.
Canonical had to resort to deprecating the fglrx Catalyst (or now known as Radeon Software) driver support since AMD is no longer actively maintaining that Linux driver and doesn't even have mainline support for the latest Linux kernel and X.Org Server releases, which means it won't work on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. AMD is replacing the driver later in the year with their AMDGPU kernel based hybrid driver for GCN 1.2+ GPUs and whatever GCN 1.0~1.1 GPUs that end up getting enabled for this newer DRM driver that succeeds the Radeon DRM driver. That new hybrid driver is expected around the middle of the year, likely to be timed with the Polaris launch.
Yeah thats not gonna happen. What they could do is bring stoney ridge to am1. It fits the right power envelope as am1 (25W or less) is single channel and has chipset built in.Yeah, Cat cores weren't bad, they just didn't clock very high. It would have been cool to seem an AM1 14nm refresh, TBH. I wonder where they could have gone with that. If they could have fabbed some 4.0Ghz Cat cores, that would have been wild.
Yeah thats not gonna happen. What they could do is bring stoney ridge to am1. It fits the right power envelope as am1 (25W or less) is single channel and has chipset built in.
Although i'm not sure how's vrm requirement for stoney, as bristol and carrizo were quite strict about this and hence why they didn't bring it to fm2+
Even if its not possible, they could revise am1 as am1+, that can support stoney for the ultra cheap platform. I'm sure making a potential am1+ board would be quite a bit cheaper than am4.
I assume that many of the good things in Cat cores found their way into Zen.Yeah, Cat cores weren't bad, they just didn't clock very high. It would have been cool to seem an AM1 14nm refresh, TBH. I wonder where they could have gone with that. If they could have fabbed some 4.0Ghz Cat cores, that would have been wild.
Some additional points:
I think AMD made the right choice by focusing on OEM for Bristol Ridge desktop and let the DIY have the excess Kaveri/Godavari.
One reason is that DIYers will use DDR3 2133 and DDR3 2400 while the OEMs won't....and another is that OEMs traditionally have worse than expected AMD desktop pricing compared to Intel (so OEM getting all the BR chips here probably made the most sense).
Some additional points:
1. Kaveri/Godavari CPU can be faster in gaming than Bristol Ridge CPU (re: greater L2 cache and in the case of Athlon x 4 860K vs Athlon x 4 950 greater clockspeed).
2. AM4 B350 doesn't look like it really offers much over FM2+. If wanting to use Zen eventually a I'll bet a DIYer would want to wait for X370 or X300 motherboards anyway.
3. BR does have better bandwidth efficiency than KV/GV but if a DIYer is really serious about graphics they are likely to use a add in card anyway (then the KV/GV user can get H265 and VP9 ). Furthermore, discounted KV/GV + FM2+ dGPU might have been priced very close to BR APU + B350. (Some examples of the discounted FM2+ DIY pricing here and here and here).
With that mentioned, I think it would have been even better to see AMD fully focused on 35W BR Mobile (ie, BGA for laptops, AIO desktops, etc) rather than see some of the BR APU dies get converted to 65W AM4. It does looks like they made an attempt to do that but for whatever reason it didn't work. Perhaps better labeling (via some kind of "gaming clock" addition) of BR 35W BGA APUs would have helped OEMs make the 35W choice? This due to the thought of consumers having a better chance to realize the distinction between 35W and 15W BGA APUs?
I mean, these points basically say that an AMD APU is only worthwhile with a dGPU, and we all know that Intel is better for that.
Of course, an intelligent DIY user would want BR for what it's good at: providing decent iGPU performance in a low power platform, that would be a good fit in a HTPC, coupled with the option for future expansion. FM2+ would be inferior in all ways for that..
Well its now Nov 1st and still nothing notta no word at all... at this rate Zen will beat BR to the market if BR is even getting a DIY release now. And the way things are looking, ZEN is only being able to turbo up to 3.2 or 3.3Ghz is just plain stupid if you ask me.Come on AMD all I am asking for is a unlocked 950k that is a measly 5% faster clock for clock then the 880k. What I dont want is a higher set base clock and they call that 5% faster without any ipc improvements because of that..
No, What I am saying is that a discounted KV/GV +dGPU (with modern decode) might be priced around the same level as a Bristol Ridge AM4 APU in some cases.
I can't imagine that really being the case, unless you couple a very low end APU with a dGPU, in which case, yes, you might beat a higher end BR in price and perhaps performance for some things
Two questions.
1) When and with what AMD gona replace AM1?
2) There will be AM4 motherboards whiout chipset? it does not seem to be needed as AM4 APU/CPU should already provide al I/O needed, this will help to replace AM1 low MB prices.
I dont think its gonna happen,no AM1 replacement. I think Bristol Ridge is gonna be the lowest end your gonna find vs ZEN. Besides these are going to be 15-35w parts anyways so maybe this is the replacement? Who really knows at this point, I mean they aren't even out yet. Best thing I could tell you right now is give it another couple of months then we'll know more.Me personally at this point in time I've given up on this whole waiting game crap,Just another week this or just another month that is for the birds... so I went all out and bought 2 Z170 systems one i3 6300 for an HTPC for the living room and another 6700k for a full time media encoder/file server.If BR or Zen ever comes out and happens to oust Skylake then I will sell off my 2 rigs and return to AMD but not till then..
1) When and with what AMD gona replace AM1?
2) There will be AM4 motherboards whiout chipset? it does not seem to be needed as AM4 APU/CPU should already provide al I/O needed, this will help to replace AM1 low MB prices.