Raven Ridge and the wait...

Shahmatt

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Original poster
Sep 6, 2017
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I've picked out the perfect case for an SFF ITX build, and a good power-board and adapter to go with it.

A SSD in my current PC is ready for the migration. A lucky cooler, a case fan and filters linger in stores somewhere waiting for their new home.

And all this for Raven Ridge, that APU with so much hope and promise.

I must say it's hard waiting!
 
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yensteel

Caliper Novice
Aug 10, 2017
32
30
Same here....Very tempted to just get a a12 9800 as temporary solution but the reviews said that even as a substitute its not worth getting.

At the same time... as the performance is similar to the kevari apus, its actually possible to play some games at least according to reviews and videos on youtube so it depends on the perspective.

Looking forward to mobile APU benchmarks for now.
 
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Soul_Est

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Feb 12, 2016
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While I do hope that AMD figured out a way to reduce or eliminate the memory bandwidth restriction for the Vega GPU inside of Raven Ridge, I am not holding my breath.
 
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Soul_Est

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Feb 12, 2016
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and next version out in February?
Possibly according to this: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/amd-raven-ridge-zen-apu-thread.2479296/page-51#post-39091326

APUs always lag the CPUs in incorporating a new core. Zen launched with 8C/16T Summit Ridge in late Q1 2017. Vega launched in Q3 2017. Raven Ridge 4C/8T incorporating Zen and Vega will launch in Q1 2018. This is how AMD develops their CPUs, GPUs and APUs. So even though Zen 2 and Navi will launch in 2019 the 7nm APU incorporating both Zen2 and Navi will launch in Q1 2020. Moreover APUs are high volume and it takes time to ramp volume and improve yields for a mass market mainstream consumer product. Raven Ridge will get a 12LP update in Q1 2019 after Pinnacle Ridge on 12LP arrives in Q3 2018.
 
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Soul_Est

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Feb 12, 2016
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I've been hoodwinked by AMD APUs over and over. I've bought the "flagship" APU of every generation, and in every instance, it has let me down big time. To say that Intel's offering is better is not putting it into perspective.

Please Raven Ridge...please be the chosen one!
Don't jinx it man! We not need another Anakin of a processor! XD
 

ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
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I've been hoodwinked by AMD APUs over and over. I've bought the "flagship" APU of every generation, and in every instance, it has let me down big time. To say that Intel's offering is better is not putting it into perspective.

Please Raven Ridge...please be the chosen one!

I wouldnt say the APU lineups are bad, but that you need more than they can do lol.

I built an A10-6800k system for my little cousin back in 2013 so she could play minecraft and watch youtube (cost me $350) and she enjoyed it a lot compared to the 2009 era laptop she was using (she still uses this apu system for netflix and such). Also recently (a year ago) built an A10-7860k system to run as an HTPC and it works great for that. Now im looking into doing another build for my father to replace his old laptop thats been dying as of late. He doesnt need anything great, just something to surf the web and not crash on him randomly.
 

Soul_Est

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Feb 12, 2016
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I wouldnt say the APU lineups are bad, but that you need more than they can do lol.

I built an A10-6800k system for my little cousin back in 2013 so she could play minecraft and watch youtube (cost me $350) and she enjoyed it a lot compared to the 2009 era laptop she was using (she still uses this apu system for netflix and such). Also recently (a year ago) built an A10-7860k system to run as an HTPC and it works great for that. Now im looking into doing another build for my father to replace his old laptop thats been dying as of late. He doesnt need anything great, just something to surf the web and not crash on him randomly.
They definitely are not bad but they were and are still wasted potential. The iGPU did and does not have access to high-bandwidth memory which really reigned in its performance.

Thing is that for most HTPCs, a mainstream APU is way more than enough power as decoding usually happens in the video decode blocks of the iGPU. There are many AMD, ARM, and Intel based solutions that use less power and offer similar or better playback performance.
 
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Josh | NFC

Not From Concentrate
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Jun 12, 2015
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The problem I found is on the cheap side of things, you were better off buying an older intel system with discreet graphics off Craigslist. Far better off in most cases.

On the small form factor, no budget side of things, Iris Pro CPUs layed the absolute smackdown on APUs. Thermal envelope, incredible CPU horsepower, no reliance on super fast RAM, and very good graphics performance.

I'm glad AMD's APUs made sense for some people, but I really wanted to champion them in SOME niche, but I couldn't find it. :(
 

Choidebu

"Banned"
Aug 16, 2017
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For me, it made sense for casual games (at its price point) but cpu performance just killed the experience.
Spend a bit more and you get intel with similar iGPU performance and much greater CPU performance. Bad days. I still have an E350 netbook. Blergh.
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
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Feb 1, 2016
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Maybe I'm out to lunch, but from a functional perspective what's the difference between Iris graphics and a GTX 1030? From what I can tell, neither one offers a palatable gaming experience and one is simply less bad than the other in this respect.
 

ignsvn

By Toutatis!
SFFn Staff
Apr 4, 2016
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Maybe I'm out to lunch, but from a functional perspective what's the difference between Iris graphics and a GTX 1030? From what I can tell, neither one offers a palatable gaming experience and one is simply less bad than the other in this respect.

True. I thought it offers R9 380X / GTX 1050 performance? (based on the discussion in the Hades Canyon NUC thread)

Now suddenly it drops to GTX 1030? What did I miss?
 

AleksandarK

/dev/null
May 14, 2017
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True. I thought it offers R9 380X / GTX 1050 performance? (based on the discussion in the Hades Canyon NUC thread)

Now suddenly it drops to GTX 1030? What did I miss?
The ting you missed is the number of CUs in integrated GPU. In Hades Canyon NUC, there are 24 CUs and it offers GTX 1060 Max-Q performance, while this APU has only 11 CUs and it offers GTX 1030 perfomance.
 
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ignsvn

By Toutatis!
SFFn Staff
Apr 4, 2016
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The ting you missed is the number of CUs in integrated GPU. In Hades Canyon NUC, there are 24 CUs and it offers GTX 1060 Max-Q performance, while this APU has only 11 CUs and it offers GTX 1030 perfomance.

Aha, that's what I have missed. Thanks for the explanation!

Now what makes AMD put only 11 CU there? Technical limitation, or business decision?