CPU AMD APU Raven readying for launch

[Thehack]

I think the salt in the wound on this whole thing is that AMD helped Intel do an APU that crushes the shit out of their offerings. I have absolutely no idea why they didn't make a 95W Raven Ridge part. Boggles my fucking mind.

EDIT: Case in point. If you look at power consumption on the 2200G it is around 45W with a peak of 57W. The 2400 runs at an average of 50W with peaks around 65W.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-2400g-zen-vega-cpu-gpu,5467-5.html

Doing a wee bit of napkin math you can come to the conclusion that the power draw per Vega CU is somewhere around 2W. Adding 30W to the TDP budget would hypothetically allow them to add 15 cores to the 11 already on the 2400G for a total of 26. This is two more Vega CUs (8% more) than on the Hades Canyon chip which exceeds the performance of the RX 570 and maybe even the RX 580. What the actual fuck AMD letting Intel cannabalize your entire lower end GPU market and then not taking a piece of the action for yourself.

The issue is that above 11 CU, besides die constraints and designs, is that you run into memory bandwidth issue. It's not a power envelope issue, it's a memory issue.

This is all conjecture, but above 11 CU you'll need HBM or type of low latency, high bandwidth VRAM. Without that, you'll just bottleneck yourself. Right now there's a linear increase in performance vs increase the RAM speed based on some of the preliminary tests.

The only way to do this is through a MCM (multi chip module) like intel does. There's no way we can fit HBM + interconnect + Vega die into a socket anytime soon. Intel is just buying the Vega chips and handling the packaging themselves. It's not a semi-custom in the way of XBOX/PS4.

The other route you have is releasing the semicustom chips but there's no logistics support for the DIY side. We haven't even moved away from 24 pin so I don't think we can handle an APU + fast VRAM chips + drivers + chipsets + UEFI + windows.

The MCM intel produces is also mostly targeting mobile, the hades canyon is just a cute side project really. So unlikely we'll ever see it go beyond Hades Canyon and have anything like it for us SFF lovers. To be honest, with how many people still buying ATX boards, full sized case with a single GPU, oversized watercoolers, I don't think the industry will change anytime soon.

 

[Kmpkt]

Looking at the scalability of these Ryzen APUs (10-20% performance boost with OC and decent RAM) and I can't help but think what a 95W part could do with adequate cooling.

 

[Zackmd1]

The issue is that above 11 CU, besides die constraints and designs, is that you run into memory bandwidth issue. It's not a power envelope issue, it's a memory issue.

This is all conjecture, but above 11 CU you'll need HBM or type of low latency, high bandwidth VRAM. Without that, you'll just bottleneck yourself. Right now there's a linear increase in performance vs increase the RAM speed based on some of the preliminary tests.

The only way to do this is through a MCM (multi chip module) like intel does. There's no way we can fit HBM + interconnect + Vega die into a socket anytime soon. Intel is just buying the Vega chips and handling the packaging themselves. It's not a semi-custom in the way of XBOX/PS4.

The other route you have is releasing the semicustom chips but there's no logistics support for the DIY side. We haven't even moved away from 24 pin so I don't think we can handle an APU + fast VRAM chips + drivers + chipsets + UEFI + windows.

Lets say a 95 watt TDP APU was being developed with the goal of achieving rx560 level performance GPU wise... Would current DDR4 speeds allow for such a design or would the system need dedicated VRAM to achieve that level of performance?

 

[Thehack]

Lets say a 95 watt TDP APU was being developed with the goal of achieving rx560 level performance GPU wise... Would current DDR4 speeds allow for such a design or would the system need dedicated VRAM to achieve that level of performance?

I don't think so. The RX 560 is pretty balanced in terms of bandwidth. Assuming you have the same SPs, we'll need almost double the current bandwidth DDR4 provides.

I think with code improvement, natural speed increase, DDR5, and better memory compression should get us close though.

 

[Thehack]

Looking at the scalability of these Ryzen APUs (10-20% performance boost with OC and decent RAM) and I can't help but think what a 95W part could do with adequate cooling.

Luckily for us, they're all unlocked.

I think the APU has some more fancy circuitry since it's an APU so it's a bit harder to just keep cramming CUs. That or maybe AMD isn't ready to cannibalize above the RX 550. *shrug*

I mean, theoretically, what is stopping us from using socketed GPUs? It used to be that power delivery, changing VRAM standards, etc keeps using from doing it.

If intel can have an MCM, why can't we just split the two modules into two sockets? AM4 + GP4. Vega + HBM on a socket, and CPU on the other. hmmmmmmmm.

 

[TheHig]

Whoa easy there tough guy. Don’t let Intel find a way to hose us on two sockets per motherboard gen!

•New cpu series works with my existing board but can’t talk to the prior gen gpu socket. Son of a...

 

[Soul_Est]

Whoa easy there tough guy. Don’t let Intel find a way to hose us on two sockets per motherboard gen!

•New cpu series works with my existing board but can’t talk to the prior gen gpu socket. Son of a...

Intel Execs: Bwahahahaha!

Son of a Tech is back at it again @GuilleAcoustic !


Also watched Hardware Unboxed excellent review. Looking forward to the OC results.

 

[K888D]

Built up my 2400G system last night using a Gigabyte B350 motherboard, I knew deep down that it wouldn't boot, but I thought I'd try just in case the motherboards had started shipping with updated BIOS, they haven't. Next step is to purchase a £50 previous gen Kaveri AM4 APU purely to update the BIOS so I can use the new chip.

I think its pretty poor of AMD to release a CPU that you can't use on their latest available motherboards. AMD are presuming that everyone that purchases a Raven Ridge APU before they release their 400 series motherboards will already own a first gen AM4 CPU/APU.

I'm not too happy about it, but I should have this resolved in couple of days so its not the end of the world. But there must be tonnes of people worldwide who have saved up and waited to buy Raven Ridge APU, picked up a 300 series motherboard at the same time only to find it doesn't work.

This is especially miss-leading as most motherboard manufacturers marketing blurb state that their motherboards are compatible with all AM4 CPU's and APU's.

 

[Thehack]

It's pretty par for the course though. Happens every generation upgrade for every mobos.

 

[K888D]

I've never known of a CPU launch where you can't buy a motherboard that works out of the box?

 

[Thehack]

I've never known of a CPU launch where you can't buy a motherboard that works out of the box?

2200G aren't really new since they're based on first gen Zen. I figured that was for the norm when you have to upgrade your older mobos. Like FM2+ chips on FM2 or Kaby Lake on 100 series.

But your point still stands and I missed the point that there are no motherboards at all.

 

[alexep7]

Built up my 2400G system last night using a Gigabyte B350 motherboard, I knew deep down that it wouldn't boot, but I thought I'd try just in case the motherboards had started shipping with updated BIOS, they haven't. Next step is to purchase a £50 previous gen Kaveri AM4 APU purely to update the BIOS so I can use the new chip.

I think its pretty poor of AMD to release a CPU that you can't use on their latest available motherboards. AMD are presuming that everyone that purchases a Raven Ridge APU before they release their 400 series motherboards will already own a first gen AM4 CPU/APU.

I'm not too happy about it, but I should have this resolved in couple of days so its not the end of the world. But there must be tonnes of people worldwide who have saved up and waited to buy Raven Ridge APU, picked up a 300 series motherboard at the same time only to find it doesn't work.

This is especially miss-leading as most motherboard manufacturers marketing blurb state that their motherboards are compatible with all AM4 CPU's and APU's.

Don't you have any tech shops near you that'll do that? There's a couple around me who do that for free. Having to buy a CPU just to upgrade the BIOS is a waste...

 

[owliwar]

that bios thing happened to me when I build my brothers pc with the pentium g4600. its really annoying. we used a tech shop because it was like, less than a half of what a celeron would cost us.

Hardware unboxed review is really good. the memory is really important in this case.. thats impressive and a bit scary at the same time.

here in my country there's a single vendor that gets 'early' launch and they get the prices really high here. the apus are still on pre-order and the 2400g is too expensive here to be honest. like a 100 usd more than a r5 1500x

 

[xcrco]

canada and us ...easy. we have amazon returns if ever we just need the cpu for bios update heh

 

[stree]

Bios updated t 4.4 (x370 ITX) and ram clocked to 2933mhz, (16GB dual) so just waiting to fit 2400G later this week.....
Failure to prepare is to prepare to fail.

 

[TheHig]

There are going to be some deals on open box cpus at my local Microcenter for sure.

 

[3lfk1ng]

I've never known of a CPU launch where you can't buy a motherboard that works out of the box?

Funny enough, AMD's Kaveri APU launch was exactly the same.

I had to buy an older processor in order to flash the bios to support my Kaveri CPU. It wouldn't boot/enter bios with the Kaveri chip installed.

It wasn't that big of a deal though, the processor I had to buy cost $40 but still -it kinda ruins the excitement of putting a rig together when it doesn't just 'work' out of the box.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

it was the same with Haswell-refresh and Broadwell on Intel side.

 

[rcodi]

Looks like 35W versions are on the way (2200GE/2400GE).

 

[Hifihedgehog]

Breaking news... Apparently, HDMI 2.0 does work for these Raven Ridge APUs on some of the 1st gen AM4 motherboards. If anyone here gets a chance, please test and post your results and I will update the megathread I just created.