Question Zen 6 Speculation Thread

[Kepler_L2]

This is why I suggest that a single CCD Medusa Halo would be a good fit. It's a completed design, so there's no new R&D to pay for. Unused IP in the chip can be fused off, reducing licensing costs. So, pay the smaller integration cost up front and buy the rest on a volume discount.

No one is using 75mm² of N2P silicon for CPUs just to run games at 30/60 FPS.

 

[branch_suggestion]

This is why I suggest that a single CCD Medusa Halo would be a good fit.

You will get 8c Z6c on N3P and you will like it.

 

[511]

No one is using 75mm² of N2P silicon for CPUs just to run games at 30/60 FPS.

Yup not to mention this 75mm2 of N2P CPU is going to loose against N4P x3D zen 5 CPU why buy this if you want to game buy a X3D and be happy 🤣.

 

[adroc_thurston]

You will get 8c Z6c on N3P and you will like it.

Probably 8+2 so they can ghetto the OS properly this time.

 

[branch_suggestion]

Probably 8+2 so they can ghetto the OS properly this time.

And probably keep it all mono depending on cost.

 

[adroc_thurston]

And probably keep it all mono depending on cost.

Yeah tiles are our of question with 2026/2027 InFO volumes.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Multiquote is breaking again sooooo

@adroc_thurston

Allegedly, Nintendo gets the SoC/chipset for Switch 2 at a cost of ~$150/unit. How much of that is going to NV and how much is going in Samsung's pocket?

@LightningZ71 @Thunder 57

So far as I know, AMD isn't actually taking wafers for console parts. They produce a design to meet the needs of the client (MS/Sony) and then license it to said client at a fixed upfront cost plus additional royalties per unit sold. The client - let's say MS - takes wafers from TSMC to produce the design. It's not like AMD has to cut into their wafer allocation of N3P (or whatever) to fill Microsoft's order. MS has to bid on wafers like everyone else.

AMD takes on near-zero risk assuming the design isn't total crap. They get paid upfront, so they don't have to move units to cover design costs. Royalties are just icing on the cake. They can hire more people if they need them and crank out as many console designs as they like without costs being a real limiter or risk factor.

As far as using Medusa Halo for a console goes . . . probably not. Don't be fooled by the miniPCs with Strix Halo and assume a nextgen unit like this would be a good console competitor. It would have too much CPU grunt to be a good console.

 

[soresu]

PCIe 6.0 on AMD (Venice by the sound of it):

Keysight Enables AMD to Showcase Electrical PCI Express Compliance up to 64 GT/s

Keysight Technologies, Inc. announced that it helped AMD accelerate the testing of electrical compliance for PCI Express (PCIe) specification for pre-production AMD server CPUs. By providing early access to beta software, Keysight enabled AMD to develop and test a PCI Express technology-capable...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[511]

Both DMR/Z6 are Gen6

 

[soresu]

As far as using Medusa Halo for a console goes . . . probably not. Don't be fooled by the miniPCs with Strix Halo and assume a nextgen unit like this would be a good console competitor. It would have too much CPU grunt to be a good console.

If Switch 1/2 and the post Gamecube consoles show us nothing it's that HW spec isn't really all that it's cracked up to be when it comes to selling consoles.

It's the platform UX (controllers + UI + fan noise etc), game library and the brand that determines its ultimate success.

Medusa/Strix Halo + Windows as a console is absolutely DOA - no question.

But either with a dedicated gaming OS, polished (invisible) drivers, a decent selection of modern games and a handful of exclusives + a good brand behind it could be successful.

 

[Darkmont]

Both DMR/Z6 are Gen6

Yep. Interesting to observe how quickly a PCIe 6.0 -> 7.0 shift might take place.

 

[Thibsie]

LOL, and I'm happy to have NVMe SSDs in my PC B450/5600xt which mean... gen3.
What, slow ? It's much faster than SATA, ya know...

 

[511]

Yep. Interesting to observe how quickly a PCIe 6.0 -> 7.0 shift might take place.

Yeah Coral Rapids/Z7 will be 7 🤣🤣 also 10000+ pins for Coral rapids and iirc Unified Core as well

 

[511]

PCI-E gen 3 optane still kicks gen5 SSD for latency and low queue depth scenarios. 🤣

 

[DrMrLordX]

Medusa/Strix Halo + Windows as a console is absolutely DOA - no question.

But either with a dedicated gaming OS, polished (invisible) drivers, a decent selection of modern games and a handful of exclusives + a good brand behind it could be successful.

Even with the right software, the BoM for what you get is just too high. There's no need to throw that powerful of a CPU at a console.

 

[511]

The CPU would be likely single N4P Zen5 die and the GPU can use N3C with advanced packing would be lot cheaper for AMD to cook and should be cheaper to produce.

 

[Thibsie]

Monolithic would be way lower cost IMO.

 

[511]

Monolithic would be way lower cost IMO.

Tbh I doubt this especially with the increase in cost and redoing and validating design which is already done.

 

[moinmoin]

Cost includes R&D sunk costs. Spending massive amounts (series x SoC was estimated to costs hundreds of millions in 2018 money) to develop a bespoke design has to be folded back into the cost of each chip. They may move 7 million units a year on average, something that takes hundreds of millions to develop adds a nontrivial cost to each chip.

If the package meets their needs, they can afford higher per unit costs on the back end by not fronting development costs up front.

I think there's some confusion on that whole topic.

We are talking consoles. "Real" consoles are a piece of mass market hardware that aims to sell 100+ million in a life cycle that usually spans 5+ years. Steam Deck is far far from that, PC handhelds are far far far from that.

With this kind of mass market hardware you don't want to use off the shelf hardware. You want to cost optimize the hardware upfront to have as little cost as possible during the whole life cycle. You want your hardware to bespoke or you are doing it wrong. Microsoft got burned by that with the original gen XBox which they couldn't stop manufacturing quickly enough for that very reason.

For AMD it's free money. They get all the money to do all that necessary upfront work. With it they can hire more staff for that if necessary.

Microsoft is doing it wrong if it is selling too few consoles for the upfront cost to be worth it. Games sell consoles. Microsoft bought plenty of popular gaming IPs they could look at making good/better/any use of before considering launching their next console gen.

 

[adroc_thurston]

The CPU would be likely single N4P Zen5 die and the GPU can use N3C with advanced packing would be lot cheaper for AMD to cook and should be cheaper to produce.

You do understand that the sum total of advanced packaging wafer starts per year is woefully insufficient to support consoles?

 

[511]

You do understand that the sum total of advanced packaging wafer starts per year is woefully insufficient to support consoles?

they can always pack at Intel who has a bunch of advanced packing capacity lying around lol so much that they stopped the expansion.

 

[igor_kavinski]

There's no need to throw that powerful of a CPU at a console.

Still, at least a small amount of V-cache (even 32MB) would be far better than no V-cache due to the much higher latency of GDDR6/7 RAM used in consoles. The elimination or minimization of CPU idle wait times between accessing data from RAM will help to smooth things over.

Another approach is to use tiered RAM. 16GB could be high speed DDR5-6000 CL26 RAM and the other 16GB could be GDDR6/7. Best of both worlds (lowest latency for executable code as well as highest bandwidth for textures) and leave it up to the developer which part they want to designate as common unified RAM storage area that can be accessed by both the CPU and GPU. Alternatively, they could do the tiering at the firmware level so that the game has no idea what it is accessing and the driver decides whether to place the data in system RAM or GPU RAM.

 

[Win2012R2]

the game has no idea what it is accessing and the driver decides whether to place the data in system RAM or GPU RAM.

Not good idea for consoles, splitting memory however gonna be necessary - getting VRAM to 24 GB might be cheap enough, but going much further not, hope they'll add at least 32-48 GB DDR5.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I kinda think that Zen 6 for nextgen console is a bit too optimistic. At best we will see Zen 5 or maybe they just repurpose Strix Halo with beefier GPU.

Zen 5 CPU 24 threads
RDNA4.5 GPU
Quad channel 32GB LPDDR6-9600

 

[adroc_thurston]

they can always pack at Intel

Their 2.5D start capacity is even more of a joke.

that they stopped the expansion.

that's because they be broooooooke as hell.

I kinda think that Zen 6 for nextgen console is a bit too optimistic

It's H1'26 IP.

At best we will see Zen 5 or maybe they just repurpose Strix Halo.

how would they repurpose a super high-end mobile part?