AMD : Zen Rivals Intel In Every Aspect, Launching In Late 2022

AMD'southward upcoming high performance 14nm Zen CPUs are set to compete with Intel's Skylake microarchitecture based processors on performance ability efficiency and specs. Information technology won't exist only a value play with a cheaper production assirted AMD'southward John Taylor, caput of Worldwide Marketing at the company. "Zen will compete with Intel on functioning, power and specifications – not simply toll," Taylor stated.

Speaking to a group of engineering science journalists and writers in Commonwealth of australia earlier this week, John Taylor outlined the company's strategy and product roadmap for 2022. The company is planning to introduce its 7th generation Accelerated Processing Units, next generation Zen based high performance CPUs and 14nm FinFET Polaris graphics cards this twelvemonth.

Taylor was adamant that AMD correct now is in the all-time position it has ever been competitively.

Something of an echo of what AMD'southward President & CEO Lisa Su had stated earlier this year.

Taylor revealed that of company'southward 9000 employees, more than than 7000 are engineers with a razor sharp focus on three things. Gaming, Immersive Platforms ( Virtual Reality ) and high operation CPUs to service those 2 aforementioned areas also as brand a potent comeback in the datacenter. He showed an immense level of excitement effectually Virtual Reality.. The multi-billion dollar "immersive platforms" marketplace that'due south but just starting.

John Taylor - Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Marketing at AMD

"VR is bringing back the PC. There is a huge investment in VR and only an x86 PC with a top end GPU volition deliver. It is platonic for education, media consumption, engineering, e-sports, games and so much more,"

"VR needs the horsepower that an x86 PC (or notebook) can provide and nosotros programme to be a very big function of that with Radeon and AMD"

AMD's Zen, What All The Fuss Is Most

All New 14nm FinFET High Performance CPU Architecture For Gamers, Professionals & The Datacenter

AMD Zen 8 core high performance enthusiast Top Ridge CPUs are reportedly slated for an October release on the new AM4 socket. A source close to AMD revealed earlier this twelvemonth. Although AMD hasn't confirmed nor announced a launch engagement all the same. AMD's President & CEO Lisa Su subsequently confirmed earlier this month at the company'south annual meeting of shareholders that Zen is has been running in the visitor'southward labs for old and is showing that exceed expectations. She also confirmed that Zen will begin sampling this quarter.

AMD Zen Feature
John Taylor revealed that AMD has poured a lot into R&D to make certain that it's AM4 platform and Zen CPUs support the latest & greatest features. He confirmed that USB 3.1, Grand.2 SATA and NVMe volition all be supported. He also said that a lot of endeavor has gone into ensuring that Zen delivers the best possible experience to users. This includes thermals and acoustics. "Our new Wraith coolers are getting rave reviews – you lot don't demand an expensive third party cooler any more" he said.

Zen'south development has been long in the works. The microarchitecture taped out back in 2022 and products are on track to launch later this yr on the desktop. However, nosotros know that AMD is working on far more than only loftier performance desktop CPUs. The company has had 32 Core Zen server CPU, a sixteen core Zen HPC APU and a quadcore Zen consumer APU all in the works for several years.

AMD Zen eight Core Tiptop Ridge CPUs, Coming In October To High-end Destkops

Nosotros published an sectional report last year detailing AMD'southward plans to introduce its Zen based FX CPUs later this year and Zen based APUs in 2022. We also broke downwards details about Zen CPUs, APUs, AM4 motherboards and the features of AMD's next generation platform which oasis't been made public yet. So we would highly recommend that you become check out that study if you lot're interested in finding out more about Zen.

Desktop Zen CPUs are office of the "Summit Ridge" family. Which is going to include a total lineup of high-stop Zen based CPUs that will feature "loftier cadre counts" and compete in the "enthusiast" segment according to AMD. That is, they're going to be lined-upward to compete against Intel'due south Haswell-E and Broadwell-East products.

The desktop FX CPUs allegedly feature a 95W TDP and eight high performance Zen cores with multi-threading for a total of 16 threads. Zen is said to have extremely competitive single threaded functioning according to engineers with knowledge of the chip. Citing more instructions per clock than Intel'due south Broadwell and just a smidgen behind Skylake. The 95W TDP if accurate indicates that indeed we're looking at a very power efficient design. In contrast, Intel'south eight core i7 5960X is rated at 140 watts but then again we're comparing a 14nm FinFET product with a 22nm chip so a delta is to be expected.

AMD Zen Desktop CPUs Are Shaping Up To Be Everything That Enthusiasts Have Been Asking For

Zen has been ane of the most hotly anticipated AMD products in a decade. It's the company's first effort to compete at the loftier-end CPU space in five years. In many ways Zen also represents the company's commencement truly innovative next generation architecture that'southward too on process node parity with Intel since the Athlon days.

What has lend the tech customs even more than optimism is that Zen harkens dorsum to AMD'south glorified Athlon days in some other fifty-fifty more crucial attribute. Zen is a brand new clean-slate design that's been led from the outset by accomplished CPU builder Jim Keller. The very same person that brought u.s.a. the original Athlon XP and Athlon64 processors. AMD's well-nigh successful products ever.

We saw this optimism reflected at CES past AMD's CEO.

"The overall expectation is that AMD will exist a better yr from a financial standpoint compared to 2022,"
Su went on to state that she has total confidence that by CES side by side year everyone will say "AMD is back!".

AMD announced Zen for the very start time, publicly, at its Financial Analyst Day concluding twelvemonth, the company touted a 40% improvement in instructions per clock versus its latest loftier operation core Excavator. Yet, during terminal quarter's earnings conference call President and CEO of the company Lisa Su announced that Zen is performing beyond initial expectations and that engineers take managed to achieve a greater than twoscore% IPC improvement.

AMD Preisdent & CEO Lisa Su - Q4 2022 AMD Earnings Call Transcript
Our Zen-based CPU development is on track to achieve greater than 40% IPC uplift from our previous generation and we're on schedule to sample later this year.

In client calculating, our opportunities to regain share in 2022 volition be driven by our design win momentum, continued progress expanding into
the commercial market, and reentering the high-operation desktop market late in the yr with our Zen-based Summit Ridge CPU.

AMD announced that afterwards this year information technology volition be introducing an entirely new line-up of FX CPUs and a brand new platform 'AM4″. These new FX CPUs are what AMD is referring to as "Summit Ridge". The new platform volition include a new socket with DDR4 retention support. AM4 volition also back up upcoming Bristol Ridge APUs. This is in effort to unify all of APU & CPU desktop platforms under ane roof instead of the current bifurcation between AM3+ and FM2+.

The AIDA64 benchmark added support to Zen based Elevation Ridge also as Raven Ridge FX CPUs and APUs last twelvemonth. Raven Ridge will succeed Bristol Ridge and volition be the first generation of APUs to feature Zen, while Bristrol Ridge will exist a refresh based on the 28nm Excavator core. Several leaks have also revealed that AMD is working on several Zen APUs with large detached class congenital-in GPUs and high bandwidth retentivity.

On the server side AMD is preparing Zen based CPUs with up to 32 cores and 64 threads. That's iv times as many threads as AMD's current highest end server offering. A very significant jump that's going to play a crucial role in giving Zen the competitive edge it needs in servers. A market that Intel has well-nigh monopolized with 97% market place share.

The Zen Microarchitecture

14nm FinFET Process

Samsung's 14nm FinFET process which Globalfoundries has licensed is going to be the basis of all of AMD's next generation CPU, APU and GPU products. The company's Main Technology Officer Marker Papermaster fabricated the proclamation last year that the 14LPP process - Samsung's high performance 14nm process - volition be leveraged across all of AMD'south hereafter products.

Marker Papermaster
FinFET engineering science is expected to play a critical foundational part beyond multiple AMD production lines, starting in 2022, GLOBALFOUNDRIES has worked tirelessly to attain this key milestone on its 14LPP process. Nosotros look forward to GLOBALFOUNDRIES' connected progress towards full product readiness and expect to leverage the advanced 14LPP process technology across a wide set of our CPU, APU, and GPU products. – Press Release

The 14LPP process features 3D finfet transistors and significantly smaller gates compared to 28nm. Chips manufactured on the 14LPP process have more than double the density of 28nm. Additionally, 14nm FinFET transistors are capable of significantly faster switching speeds. Products designed for the process will be able to accomplish much higher frequencies than the same designs on 28nm. The process too delivers considerable power savings, essentially cutting power consumption by half.

14nm FinFET Engineering

Globalfoundries.com
14LPE – Early on time-to-market version with area and power benefits for mobility applications
14LPP – Enhanced version with higher performance and lower power; a full platform offering with MPW, IP enablement and broad application coverage

The High-Level Design Of AMD's Zen Cadre

AMD's Linux Kernel patches which have been a rich source of information most Zen. The patches revealed and then much most the inner-workings of Zen to the point where we are actually able to visualize the loftier-level pattern of the cadre. If you're interested in all the nitty gritty details near what the core is capable of I'd highly recommend our sectional in-depth assay of Zen's micrarchitecture.

AMD Zen Steamroller Block Diagram Wccftech.com Rendition Of Zen's High-Level Blueprint Based On The AMD Linux Kernel Patch

Above you can see a visual representation of Zen on the right in comparison to AMD's Steamroller CPU core. Which is the third generation based on the Bulldozer design and is pretty much identical from a high-level standpoint to Excavator, the fourth and last Bulldozer based core. In that location are several key differences between Zen and the bulldozer family.

AMD has done away with the CMT - clustered multi-threading - concept in favor of a more traditional SMT - sumultaneous multi-threading - blueprint. This means that each Zen cadre will exist able to execute two threads simultaneously. One main, very high throughput thread and one secondary thread that can be used opportunistically.

In dissimilarity, each Bulldozer module can execute 2 equal threads. This is achieved through two dissever integer clusters with a single forepart-finish. This arroyo saves area versus building two separate cores and delivers two loftier throughput threads. However, there are advantages that Zen's SMT implementation holds over the Bulldozer CMT implementation. For one information technology allows AMD to build a unmarried larger integer cluster with significantly higher unmarried threaded functioning. Some other reward with this approach is that it still leaves room for opportunistic savings in area and power.

The final outcome is similar overall throughput when we look at both treads of each SMT cadre vs both threads in each CMT cadre. However, the SMT style core will deliver significantly college single threaded performance. Furthermore, because each Bulldozer module houses two integer clusters and a single floating betoken unit it was always very integer heavy. Each Zen core on the other hand includes 1 large integer cluster and one large floating point unit of measurement, so it'southward a much more balanced pattern.

CPU Microarchitecture	AMD Phenom Ii / K10	AMD BD/PD	AMD SR/XV	AMD Zen	Intel Skylake
Instruction Decode Width	iii-wide	four-broad	eight-wide	4-wide	4-wide
Single Core Acme Decode Charge per unit	3 instructions	iv instructions	8 instructions	4 instructions	4 instructions
Dual Core Elevation Decode Rate	half dozen instructions	iv instructions	viii instructions	8 instructions	8 instructions

A lot of the engineering science endeavor around Zen has likewise been washed to address one of Bulldozer'due south major flaws. Bulldozer and Intel'south Sandy Bridge - and subsqeuent Intel architectures including Skylake - had equally deep pipelines to achieve high clock speeds. The deeper the pipeline the more latency that blueprint will showroom. Particularly when it comes to branch misprediction errors, which are quite common in modern pipelines.

The latency that results from branch mispredicts are quite pregnant. To combat this effect Intel introduced a micro-op cache with Sandy Bridge. It worked to considerably reduce mispredict penalties and it was the principle reason why Sandy Bridge had much meliorate unmarried threaded performance as opposed to Bulldozer. The latest Linux Kernal patch every bit well as a group of AMD patents indicate that the company has implemented a similar solution in Zen.

Matthias Waldhauer
A lot of the new functionality has been filed for patenting. For case there was a mention of checkpointing, which is practiced for quick reversion of mispredicted branches and other reasons for restarting the pipelines. Some patents suggest, that Zen might utilise some slightly modified Excavator co-operative prediction.

Bringing this to a shut, information technology'due south clear that AMD'southward is doing a lot of things right with Zen. Pushing IPC and power efficiency to where they need to be. Building a comprehensive mod platform and bringing much needed updates to the feature-set. Creating an attractive value proffer for desktop users, servers and notebooks. All the ingredients to make Zen a success are here, all that'southward left is for AMD to execute and evangelize. The mere prospect that enthusiasts may really have AMD CPUs as a worthwile option once more for the first time in a decade come this Oct is refreshing. And maybe, simply possibly, we'll finally be able to say "AMD's back".

AMD Zen FX CPUs Volition Launch On A Modernistic, More Comprehensive, Feature Packed Platform

In our exclusive report we published terminal yr we shared the details that have been made bachelor to united states about AMD'southward Top Ridge processors coming after this year. For starts Peak Ridge CPUs volition include models with 8, half dozen and iv Zen cores. Four cores being the lowest core count Summit Ridge CPU AMD is going to sell. All CPUs will include the company's new platform security processor, PCIe 3.0 support, dual channel DDR4 memory controllers, copious amounts of L3 cache and updated storage features.

AMD Data Center Roadmap Opteron Zen HPC APU

AMD'southward plan, our sources tell us, is to price high cadre count parts very competitively. Undercutting Intel's mainstream CPUs by offering more cores with competitive - Broadwell level - single threaded performance at Intel's mainstream i5 and quadcore i7 price points. Substantially offer Haswell-E / Broadwell-E comparable parts in the mainstream $400-$150 segment. A infinite that'southward currently occupied by Intel's mainstream quadcore I7, i5 and dual core i3 CPUs .

This is possible because we're told the Zen core itself is very area and ability efficient. Then AMD can build loftier core count chips that are still small, with good yields and at reasonable price. Imagine an 8 core Haswell-E equivalent chip the size of a Carrizo APU. We're prepare to run into a CPU price war take place subsequently this yr like nosotros haven't for most a decade.

Side by side Generation AMD CPUs And APUs

WCCFTech	AMD Pinnacle Ridge	AMD Pinnacle Ridge	AMD Bristol Ridge	AMD Raven Ridge	AMD Gray Hawk
Family Name	Ryzen	TBD	AMD 7th Gen A-Serial	Ryzen	TBD
Product Compages	Zen	Zen Refresh / Zen 2	Excavator	Zen	Zen ii
Procedure Node	14nm	12nm	28nm	14nm	14nm
CPU Cores	Up to viii	Upwardly to 8	Up to 4	Upwardly to 4	Upward to iv
GPU Architecture	N/A	N/A	Caribbean Islands	Vega	Navi
TDP	65W-95W	65W-95W	xv-65W	TBA	TBA
Socket	AM4	AM4	AM4	AM4	AM4
Memory Support	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4
Launch	2017	2018	2016 (Mobile) 2022 (Desktop)	2017 (Mobile) 2022 (Desktop)	2019