Discussion AMD's Future APU Gone ARM?

Shivansps · Feb 21, 2024

NostaSeronx said:
Spec RISC-V TEE stuff isn't finished yet, so Trustzone A5 will still be a thing. To escape Trustzone AMD would need to license SiFive's solution: https://starfivetech.com/uploads/WorldGuard_TEE_REE_App_Note_v1.3.pdf Which means they trade one license for another.RISC-V is expected to be ubiquitous by 2025.
SiFive P670-based chips are expected to be a Q2'24 thing. Microsoft does have a code for RISC-V images/apps.
0x8664 - AMD64
0xAA64 - ARM64
0x5064 - RV64

I won't be surprised if WoRV becomes a thing immediately SiFive chips strike the shores of the USA. Then, everyone (AMD included) can get the ripe rewards of someone else taking the risk.

100% instant ATX boards with RISC-V on em. Microsoft will go Taskforce Five and get Windows on it.

You need to see the big picture, RISC-V is were ARM was 10 years ago, meaning no Windows support, at all, and limited Linux support.
It took years for Microsoft to make the move and implement the emulator to run x86 apps.

It would take several years to get anywhere near were ARM is in drivers support alone, that is petty much minimal not existant for ARM Windows. App support is literally 0 too for RISC. You cant speed this up.

Also P670 is talking about A78 class that is far from ground breaking too.

StefanR5R · Feb 21, 2024

FlameTail said:
Both Apple and Qualcomm have custom ARM core designs, which as of now, are better than the stock ARM cores AMD/Nvidia will have to use. The next generation of ARM cores (X5/A725) might change that though.

Why would AMD and Nvidia have to use ARM's core designs? It may make sense to do so in certain scenarios, but technically either of them could bring own designs.

FlameTail · Feb 21, 2024

yottabit said:
You forgot “completely vertically integrated hardware/software/OS” - AMD doesn’t make laptops they just make chips.

That point exclusively applies only to Apple.
I was talking about Qualcomm as well.

igor_kavinski · Feb 21, 2024

NostaSeronx said:
I won't be surprised if WoRV becomes a thing immediately SiFive chips strike the shores of the USA. Then, everyone (AMD included) can get the ripe rewards of someone else taking the risk.

100% instant ATX boards with RISC-V on em. Microsoft will go Taskforce Five and get Windows on it.

What do you suppose the expected GB6 ST and MT scores will be for the fastest SiFive chip?

igor_kavinski · Feb 21, 2024

StefanR5R said:
Why would AMD and Nvidia have to use ARM's core designs?

I suspect they already have their custom ARM-arse-kicking designs running in-house. Just waiting for the right time to unleash them into the world.

FlameTail · Feb 21, 2024

StefanR5R said:
Why would AMD and Nvidia have to use ARM's core designs? It may make sense to do so in certain scenarios, but technically either of them could bring own designs.

Designing custom ARM cores is hard. Designing good and competitive Custom ARM cores is even harder.

How many Custom ARM core projects have failed over the years?

Qualcomm- Kryo
Nvidia- Denver
Samsung- Mongoose
Etc....

These all failed because they couldn't keep up with ARM's own stock designs in performance/efficiency.

There is only one CPU Designer who has consistently managed to create Custom ARM cores, that are better than the stock Cortex cores. That is Apple's CPU Design Team.

Nuvia/Oryon Team currently working at Qualcomm is essentially an offshoot of the Apple CPU team.

NostaSeronx · Feb 21, 2024

Shivansps said:
You need to see the big picture, RISC-V is were ARM was 10 years ago, meaning no Windows support, at all, and limited Linux support.
It took years for Microsoft to make the move and implement the emulator to run x86 apps.

RISC-V is no where near ARM 10 years ago which had no desktop/server demand. RISC-V is more inline with Itanium being server[/desktop] first.

May 29, 2001 - Itanium releases
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for Itanium System releases -> October 25, 2001
Windows Server Limited Editions came out as early as June 2001.

Instant those 64-core >256-bit LPDDR5/120W TDP and 16-core 192-bit LPDDR5/30W TDP puppies get over here. Microsoft's RISC-V taskforce is going to jump on them like ravenous hungry beasts.

SarahKerrigan · Feb 21, 2024

FlameTail said:
Designing custom ARM cores is hard. Designing good and competitive Custom ARM cores is even harder.

How many Custom ARM core projects have failed over the years?

Qualcomm- Krait
Nvidia- Denver
Samsung- Mongoose
Etc....

These all failed because they couldn't keep up with ARM's own stock designs in performance/efficiency.

There is only one CPU Designer who has consistently managed to create Custom ARM cores, that are better than the stock Cortex cores. That is Apple's CPU Design Team.

Nuvia/Oryon Team currently working at Qualcomm is essentially an offshoot of the Apple CPU team.

In what universe was Krait a failure?

That being said, I'm in broad agreement with you on this. There is no sign that AMD or Nvidia has an advanced custom ARM microarchitecture inhouse, and building one would be an expensive, risky exercise with no guarantee of results, especially given the small size of the ARM PC market at present.

StefanR5R · Feb 21, 2024

@FlameTail, you could have written so in the first place: In your opinion, both AMD and Nvidia are not able to design ARM cores (or ARM CPUs) which could compete with ARM's own.

Schmide · Feb 21, 2024

NostaSeronx said:
RISC-V is no where near ARM 10 years ago which had no desktop/server demand. RISC-V is more inline with Itanium being server[/desktop] first.

May 29, 2001 - Itanium releases
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for Itanium System releases -> October 25, 2001
Windows Server Limited Editions came out as early as June 2001.

Instant those 64-core >256-bit LPDDR5/120W TDP and 16-core 192-bit LPDDR5/30W TDP puppies get over here. Microsoft's RISC-V taskforce is going to jump on them like ravenous hungry beasts.

Yes use the itanium as the standard. Regardless/Irregardless IA64 was x86 compatible (to a point). Not really a port.

RISC barely competes in its own space let alone a revolutionary space.

NostaSeronx · Feb 21, 2024

Schmide said:
Yes use the itanium as the standard. Regardless/Irregardless IA64 was x86 compatible (to a point). Not really a port.

RISC barely competes in its own space let alone a revolutionary space.

The standard of porting is Itanium-esque. The adoption comes after the release of hardware, not before. Where most of the Windows on ARM stuff came from Windows on Phones. Windows on ARM exists with no sustained desktop/server supply. While RISC-V has large pre-marketshare with its successive server CPU announcements.

SG2044(RVA22)/SG2380(RVA22)/Aegis[RVA23](Tenstorrent)/Ventana[RVA23]-Imgtec APU(no codename)/Ventana[RVA23] CPU(no codename)

Schmide · Feb 21, 2024

NostaSeronx said:
The standard of porting is Itanium-esque. The adoption comes after the release of hardware, not before. Where most of the Windows on ARM stuff came from Windows on Phones. Windows on ARM exists with no sustained desktop/server supply. While RISC-V has large pre-marketshare with its successive server CPU announcements.

Pre-market share? That's not a thing. You can barely get a video card to run on ARM, (Jeff Geerling) and you absolutely can't on RISC-V. This has been going on for years. RISC-V isn't going to leapfrog anything, let alone catch up to ARM.

NostaSeronx · Feb 21, 2024

Schmide said:
Pre-market share? That's not a thing. You can barely get a video card to run on ARM, (Jeff Geerling) and you absolutely can't on RISC-V. This has been going on for years. RISC-V isn't going to leapfrog anything, let alone catch up to ARM.

Customers can RESERVE orders. It is 100% pre-market share and it is a thing. They announced the products AFTER getting PREORDERs.

RISC-V supports Navi-gen GPUs. SG2042 launched with an AMD graphics card. SG2042 isn't a Windows target as it isn't 1:1 compatible with x86/ARM. While SG2044/SG2380 is and every single RVA23+ are 1:1 with x86/ARM.

RISC-V will make ARM adoption look like a joke that it always was. Wrap it around back to AMD -> Member of RISE and RISC-V International. If AMD is going to switch to another instruction set, its going to be RISC-V. By the time, AMD launches that processor (Zen6 -> RISC-V core ;; reverse AM29k -> K5) the Windows environment would be set.

Tup3x · Feb 21, 2024

WoRV? Not going to happen anytime soon. When it comes to consoles it would make sense to move to ARM. They'd get freedom to pick their SoC supplier.

FlameTail · Feb 21, 2024

NostaSeronx said:
Customers can RESERVE orders. It is 100% pre-market share and it is a thing. They announced the products AFTER getting PREORDERs.

RISC-V supports Navi-gen GPUs. SG2042 launched with an AMD graphics card. SG2042 isn't a Windows target as it isn't 1:1 compatible with x86/ARM. While SG2044/SG2380 is and every single RVA23+ are 1:1 with x86/ARM.

RISC-V will make ARM adoption look like a joke that it always was. Wrap it around back to AMD -> Member of RISE and RISC-V International. If AMD is going to switch to another instruction set, its going to be RISC-V. By the time, AMD launches that processor (Zen6 -> RISC-V core ;; reverse AM29k -> K5) the Windows environment would be set.

You should go and vote for RISC-V in that poll-thread I made...

POLL: x86 vs ARM vs RISC-V; What is your favourite CPU ISA?

Vote below! Tell in the comments which one you voted for and the reason.

forums.anandtech.com

eek2121 · Feb 21, 2024

igor_kavinski said:
What do you suppose the expected GB6 ST and MT scores will be for the fastest SiFive chip?

IIRC Sifive was working on one that was supposed to be a good bit faster than Apple’s stuff. No idea about efficiency as it was a server/workstation chip. No clue if it is still planned since the company was restructured.

Fast RISC-V is coming elsewhere as well, but most of it is targeting enterprise. Think: Custom RISC-V chips for AI and similar applications.

Fingers crossed for more designs.

eek2121 · Feb 21, 2024

Tup3x said:
WoRV? Not going to happen anytime soon. When it comes to consoles it would make sense to move to ARM. They'd get freedom to pick their SoC supplier.

Microsoft already has it booting/working internally.

SarahKerrigan · Feb 21, 2024

eek2121 said:
IIRC Sifive was working on one that was supposed to be a good bit faster than Apple’s stuff. No idea about efficiency as it was a server/workstation chip. No clue if it is still planned since the company was restructured.

Fast RISC-V is coming elsewhere as well, but most of it is targeting enterprise. Think: Custom RISC-V chips for AI and similar applications.

Fingers crossed for more designs.

I'm not aware of a product segment above the recently-announced P870 on Sifive's roadmap (though P870 itself will of course have successors, specifically the roadmapped "Napa" core.)

I would be very surprised if P870 or Napa is faster than A17 or similar, either at iso clock or at "normal" customer-instantiated frequencies.

NostaSeronx · Feb 21, 2024

Tup3x said:
WoRV? Not going to happen anytime soon. When it comes to consoles it would make sense to move to ARM. They'd get freedom to pick their SoC supplier.

Windows already HAS reservation for RISC-V for images/apps: 0x5064. Github is a subsidiary of Microsoft which RISC-V is mostly hosted on.

ARM is stuck with ARM CPU+ARM GPU. Unless, the company is big enough to fight ARM/SoftBank or be Nvidia. ARM so far hasn't decided to settle out yet:
"...because Qualcomm’s Arm license agreements terminate in 2024, that Arm will not extend its licenses with Qualcomm and that Arm will not allow Qualcomm to ship products from 2025 forward.”
Of which, this: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64938776/arm-ltd-v-qualcomm-inc/?page=2 has big ramifications going forward.

ARM ISA is largely toxic so long as it isn't settled or completely dropped. RISC-V allows most internal intellectual property to be used.

There is more SoC variety for RISC-V than ARM. Basically, a couple big companies are going to announce RISC-V phones soon-ish: https://github.com/google/android-riscv64
"The latest update that we have is that now not only are we accepting patches, but we have begun to mature support for RISC-V in Android. RISC-V is a modular ISA, meaning that there are a large number of optional extensions. We have also determined an initial set that we feel is critical to ensure that any CPU running RISC-V will have all of the features we expect to achieve high performance. This set includes the rva22 profile as well as the vector and vector crypto extensions."

eek2121 · Feb 21, 2024

SarahKerrigan said:
I'm not aware of a product segment above the recently-announced P870 on Sifive's roadmap (though P870 itself will of course have successors, specifically the roadmapped "Napa" core.)

I would be very surprised if P870 or Napa is faster than A17 or similar, either at iso clock or at "normal" customer-instantiated frequencies.

The 870 is rumored to be a beast as well, but no, the product I am talking about was not on roadmaps because it was custom.

SarahKerrigan · Feb 21, 2024

eek2121 said:
The 870 is rumored to be a beast as well, but no, the product I am talking about was not on roadmaps because it was custom.

P870 is 6-wide, 3 AGU, 5 ALU, 64K caches. If it beats A17 iso clock, or even comes within 15%, I'll eat a hockey puck on camera.

FlameTail · Feb 21, 2024

SarahKerrigan said:
P870 is 6-wide, 3 AGU, 5 ALU, 64K caches. If it beats A17 iso clock, or even comes within 15%, I'll eat a hockey puck on camera.

And I'll eat a Durian.

Nothingness · Feb 21, 2024

igor_kavinski said:
What do you suppose the expected GB6 ST and MT scores will be for the fastest SiFive chip?

1. SiFive fired a lot of people a few months ago. I don't know exactly what they sacrificed.
2. Was any chip with P670 released to the public?
3. Why would Primate Labs care about RISC-V at the moment? It has close to 0 market presence as an end-user application processor.

So I bet the expected GB6 score for 2024 is 0

SarahKerrigan · Feb 21, 2024

Nothingness said:
1. SiFive fired a lot of people a few months ago. I don't know exactly what they sacrificed.
2. Was any chip with P670 released to the public?
3. Why would Primate Labs care about RISC-V at the moment? It has close to 0 market presence as an end-user application processor.

So I bet the expected GB6 score for 2024 is 0

Sophgo SG2380 is announced with P670 but not yet shipped.

I would not expect P670 to put up impressive geekbench numbers. This is an A76-class core we're talking about.

NostaSeronx · Feb 21, 2024

Nothingness said:
1. SiFive fired a lot of people a few months ago. I don't know exactly what they sacrificed.
2. Was any chip with P670 released to the public?
3. Why would Primate Labs care about RISC-V at the moment? It has close to 0 market presence as an end-user application processor.

So I bet the expected GB6 score for 2024 is 0

1. They are dropping the licensed cores to do semi-custom cores with customers.
2. They aren't out yet.
3. https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2023/09/geekbench-62/ && https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2021/03/geekbench-54/
They added support awhile ago: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/5004506 Can literally just search risc-v and get risc-v scores: https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=risc-v

igor_kavinski said:
What do you suppose the expected GB6 ST and MT scores will be for the fastest SiFive chip?

SiFive is just the topping, the ones to follow are those with true high performance designs: Ventana Micro Systems, Tenstorrent, Rivos and Akeana. Which is the first wave of Datacenter CPUs that will get Desktop CPU/APUs.

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