AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[NTMBK]

Be my guest. Let's see around Q414 what's left of AMD mobile market share. Not much I would say.

That has nothing to do with the argument we were having, come on AMD has plenty of other issues going on, they are fighting 14nm with 28nm, and Carrizo is a placeholder before the next gen is ready. I don't expect it to be a big success. But I still think sharing a socket was a smart move.

 

[mrmt]

That has nothing to do with the argument we were having, come on AMD has plenty of other issues going on, they are fighting 14nm with 28nm, and Carrizo is a placeholder before the next gen is ready. I don't expect it to be a big success. But I still think sharing a socket was a smart move.

If sharing a socket is such a great move, and has no ugly side, why didn't AMD (or Intel for that matter) try it before?

 

[monstercameron]

If sharing a socket is such a great move, and has no ugly side, why didn't AMD (or Intel for that matter) try it before?

back then it seems like all the products were designed in various bubbles but now most of the these products have become homogenized. The features that differentiate them are mostly software and services.

 

[mrmt]

back then it seems like all the products were designed in various bubbles but now most of the these products have become homogenized. The features that differentiate them are mostly software and services.

So the previous engineers and managers were idiots enough to leave such a huge opportunity to save tons of money on the table?

 

[monstercameron]

So the previous engineers and managers were idiots enough to leave such a huge opportunity to save tons of money on the table?

no, they just have reached a point where it now more appropriate.

 

[maarten12100]

Be my guest. Let's see around Q414 what's left of AMD mobile market share. Not much I would say.

That is not exactly fair when the US and almost the entire world isn't even given the chance to buy a quality notebook. With Intel having such a huge grasp. 1080P screens and a solid construction should be a must even on lowish end products.

If AMD's claims turn out to be correct about double the efficiency then AMD will in terms of efficiency compete with Intel's 14nm products. That says a lot about AMD making the best of a dire situation. It also says a lot about how Intel's 14nm hasn't reached it's final form yet.


A this isn't even my final form meme would be justified here

 

[NTMBK]

If sharing a socket is such a great move, and has no ugly side, why didn't AMD (or Intel for that matter) try it before?

Because before now they did not ship SoCs. Tying two CPUs to the same chipset is a different matter. (Though Intel did the same with Pentium M and Pentium 4M... )

 

[maarten12100]

So the previous engineers and managers were idiots enough to leave such a huge opportunity to save tons of money on the table?

You do realize that while Beema is a SoC... Kaveri wasn't it had a south bridge.
That has been moved on the chip making Carrizo a SoC. It would be stupid to have a laptop design with a chipset connected to a SoC that already has a chipset. This only works well if you don't care for power or cost such as in the desktop boards where AMD does just that.

Making 2 vastly different parts pin to pin compatible in just one generation is a pretty neat achievement.

 

[podspi]

So the previous engineers and managers were idiots enough to leave such a huge opportunity to save tons of money on the table?

Silly argument, as others have pointed out there are lots of things done now that were not down previously (but were technically possible).

I actually do agree that given the shared socket, we're unlikely to see XV above a relatively low TDP, but I'd love to be proven wrong.


Also, given the types of laptops I've seen AMD's chips in, this strategy is actually pretty smart. There are a ton of laptops out there that are 15.6", with small, slow, Jaguar cores in them. Now, it won't cost OEMs anything to also offer models with halfway decent APUs (by decent I mean size appropriate).

 

[geoxile]

So the previous engineers and managers were idiots enough to leave such a huge opportunity to save tons of money on the table?

Well they did produce Bulldozer...

 

[Arachnotronic]

No, not a defensive move by any standards. Intel is BUYING market share, EXPANDING its footprint at the expense of its balance sheet. AMD is consolidating the two platforms because they can't stand in their own leg by their own, Carrizo and Carrizo-L will sell *less* than the sum of Kaveri and Beema, or Trinity and Jaguar. AMD will have less design wins with both Carrizo chips than it had with the combination of the previous two generations.

Intel isn't even providing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-M/D so this program doesn't affect Carrizo/Carrizo-L.

Carrizo/Carrizo-L will arrive mid-year and will need to fight, at a bare minimum, Broadwell-U/Broadwell-Y. They're claiming "mid-year" so Braswell -- Airmont-based PC SoC -- will likely compete for the same sockets Carrizo-L will go for.

AMD might be able to pull one out of the proverbial hat with Carrizo/Carrizo-L, but it just doesn't seem likely. Time will tell, though.

 

[mrmt]

Intel isn't even providing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-M/D so this program doesn't affect Carrizo/Carrizo-L.

Yes, and even without contra-revenue AMD has been losing share to Intel on the bottom market, to the point we saw multiple AMD execs whining about it on Q&A with investors.

 

[jpiniero]

Intel isn't even providing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-M/D so this program doesn't affect Carrizo/Carrizo-L.

While Intel isn't doing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-D/M, I have a feeling that they are not charging much, if anything. The difference would be like $0-5 versus (-$50) - (-$30) for T. That's why the Cats got wiped out, because they can't compete with those prices.

 

[mrmt]

While Intel isn't doing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-D/M, I have a feeling that they are not charging much, if anything. The difference would be like $0-5 versus (-$50) - (-$30) for T. That's why the Cats got wiped out, because they can't compete with those prices.

So you think Intel is getting very poor margins on Bay Trail? Why? It is built on a fairly mature manufacturing node, it is build for low cost, it is a very small die size... why should't it have a better cost structure than the cat cores?

 

[Enigmoid]

While Intel isn't doing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-D/M, I have a feeling that they are not charging much, if anything. The difference would be like $0-5 versus (-$50) - (-$30) for T. That's why the Cats got wiped out, because they can't compete with those prices.

Kabini costs $55 for the top end model after S/H and retailer margins. The actual gross price AMD gets for the die is probably $30-40. Intel probably charges a similar amount (they don't pay the foundry tax).

 

[mrmt]

Kabini costs $55 for the top end model after S/H and retailer margins. The actual gross price AMD gets for the die is probably $30-40. Intel probably charges a similar amount (they don't pay the foundry tax).

By the end of 2013 AMD ASP for consumer processors was $46, so we should see the cat core fetching well below $40.

 

[Abwx]

AMD strongly put forward decoding and display of videos 4K, which is no problem on its future APU while the fourth generation of Intel CPUs suffer. Carrizo is also able to support the 4K HEVC to 60 fps.

AMD expects to offer a significant gain in terms of energy efficiency, with improvements on this point both in terms of new cores with the new CPU Excavator and enabled GPU "DirectX 12" (or Direct3D 11.3)

https://translate.googleusercontent...o.html&usg=ALkJrhhKtIZpXiQ5BT6t6D16ksG2OU_18Q

 

[erunion]

While Intel isn't doing contra-revenue for Bay Trail-D/M, I have a feeling that they are not charging much, if anything. The difference would be like $0-5 versus (-$50) - (-$30) for T. That's why the Cats got wiped out, because they can't compete with those prices.

There's no chance baytrail d is going for only $5.

 

[el etro]

AMD expects to offer a significant gain in terms of energy efficiency, with improvements on this point both in terms of new cores with the new CPU Excavator and enabled GPU "DirectX 12" (or Direct3D 11.3)

DX11.3 -> DX12!!!

We did not get any details about it, but AMD said that in the case of Dual Graphics, it will not be required manufacturers to integrate a new GPU with similar architecture. AMD advise them to associate Carrizo such a new GPU, but will not object to the association with a former GPU if they wish to opt for this option, either for reasons of economies, because this new GPU will not be available from the start of Carrizo.

Dam good thing! Come on, GCN2!

 

[cbn]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-carrizo-carrizo-l-notebook-apu,28345.html

AMD is debuting its high-performance Carrizo and Carrizo-L system-on-a-chip design at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and we're the first to offer pictures of the prototype.

While Carrizo-equipped systems won't be available until the mid-year time frame, the company has working silicon in hand. AMD has thin and light prototype systems jointly developed with Shuttle Inc. and is showing them off at CES. According to Kevin Lensing, Senior Director, Product Management, AMD, "It's a 'Carrizo'-based system sporting an upcoming mobile discrete GPU and it delivers exceptional, unprecedented gaming performance in a thinner and lighter platform than previously possible due to the energy efficiency and performance focus we have in 'Carrizo.'" The CES demonstrations are limited to private appointments and aren't available to the general public, but Tom's Hardware will be there and we look forward to seeing what Carrizo can do.

Tom's also touts the company's new unified platform strategy: "Our scalable approach, which hasn't been used in the PC industry for many years now, addresses the complete stack from top to bottom with a single platform, meaning that our OEM partners will be able to use "Carrizo" and "Carrizo-L" to serve a wide range of the market – spanning form factors and price points from all-in-ones and mainstream notebooks, to ultra-thin and light performance and gaming notebooks – without needing to design, develop, and validate multiple platforms."

Carrizo checks a lot of boxes: a unified SoC platform that the company claims can scale from mainstream to enthusiast class performance, the new Excavator CPU core, the GCN graphics architecture, Mantle and DirectX 12 API support, Project FreeSync support, Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) 1.0, and an integrated ARM TrustZone processor on die.

Despite the impressive feature list, it may come down to plain-and-simple ability. Is Carrizo capable of generating playable frame rates in games while using an acceptably low amount of battery power? AMD claims that "…'Carrizo' delivers HD and Ultra HD graphics horsepower, increased compute performance and next-generation mobile gaming," and our discussions with representatives lead us to believe that the company considers this an important aspect of Carrizo's arsenal. We've also been told that technology research firm Gartner has indicated that thin and light notebook gaming is on the rise.

We're inclined to agree. If Carrizo has the chops to handle PC games in HD while maintaining modern power-efficiency expectations, it would open a new market up to AMD. Imagine a capable, reasonably-priced gaming notebook equipped with a built-in FreeSync monitor. But AMD has had capable on-die graphics chipsets for some time now. The question is, can it get power usage under control?

John Byrne, AMD's president and general manager of the company's computing and graphics business unit, has gone on the record saying that "…we're bringing a brand new graphics architecture integrated into Carrizo. This will be our biggest leap ever from an energy efficiency perspective." We're not sure how the company has tweaked GCN in order to achieve this purported leap in energy savings, but we've recently noted that AMD Appears To Have Power-Saving 'Dynamic Frame Rate Control' Feature Incoming. Maybe this has something to do with AMD's claims, maybe not, or maybe it's just one piece of the puzzle. Either way, we can't wait to get our hands on a Carrizo for testing later in 2015. In the immediate future, stay tuned for our impressions of our hands-on time with the Carrizo prototype system, coming very soon.

Very surprised to see the AMD Carrizo prototype with discrete graphics.

For applications that require greater performance of discrete GPU, I would like to see AMD come out with a hexcore Excavator die with very small 64 stream processor iGPU. Of course, it would need a southbridge (that Carrizo doesn't need) but if discrete graphics are going to be added anyway I don't see that as too much of a penalty. (re: adding discrete graphics already throws a monkey in the wrench of a common platform concept of Carrizo and Carrizo-L sharing the same chassis, along with the same socket)

 

[MisterLilBig]

Very surprised to see the AMD Carrizo prototype with discrete graphics

From the Anandtech article -> "AMD also indicated that their eventual goal is to have the prototype laptop equipped with a discrete GPU for Dual Graphics support, but that isn’t in the current prototype."

 

[maarten12100]

If AMD is just going to show a generic laptop case then this CES sucks. You could have made a picture of any notebook it would have made no difference to me.

This tells me nothing.

 

[Gideon]

If AMD is just going to show a generic laptop case then this CES sucks. You could have made a picture of any notebook it would have made no difference to me.

This tells me nothing.

I agree, that it's very underwhelming, but remember, they only got the silicon a few weeks back (much later than comparable Kaveri chips a year ago), so they haven't had much time to do prototypes.

 

[maarten12100]

I agree, that it's very underwhelming, but remember, they only got the silicon a few weeks back (much later than comparable Kaveri chips a year ago), so they haven't had much time to do prototypes.

I hardly care for them making prototypes, performance numbers with conservative clocks are all I really crave for. Also that way the final product can only turn out to be better.

 

[Shehriazad]

For me this even goes as far as not caring about their "mobile" chips at all for now.

I just want to know about Carrizos future on Desktops...unfortunately AMD is on a professional level of "just keeping quiet" about things that are shelved...so you never actually know if shit is actually happening or if the wait is in vain.


That said...Carrizo will be rather uninteresting in general...the APU generation after that is probably what counts most (unless Carrizo already uses 3D HBM...which does not seem to be the case).

Oh well...just keep on messing around with sub-par DDR3 chips for now, I guess...but at least tell me if I can buy this sub-par tech for Desktop so I can overclock the devil out of it.