PC Perspective Podcast #347 – 04/30/2015
Join us this week as we discuss AMD Zen Architecture and Roadmap leaks, ARM Cortex-A72, a budget Z97 board and more!
You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.
The URL for the podcast is: https://pcper.com/podcast – Share with your friends!
- iTunes – Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
- RSS – Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
- MP3 – Direct download link to the MP3 file
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malventano
Program length: 1:24:31
-
Week in Review:
-
0:05:10 ECS Z97-PK Motherboard Review
-
-
News item of interest:
-
Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
-
Ryan: I bought a Dell XPS 13
-
Allyn: Search Everything
-
-
Closing/outro
Subscribe to the PC Perspective YouTube Channel for more videos, reviews and podcasts!!
I think you meant Mullins not
I think you meant Mullins not Beema when talking about tablets.
And it’s not the chips or how they perform compared to ARM ones. The x86 compatibility and the radeon gpu could sell a few tablets, but let’s be honest. I have an AMD logo in my avatar picture, but if I was owning a factory making tablets I wouldn’t made tablets with AMD chips inside when Intel with their contra revenue program would pay me money to put their Intel logo on them. Contra revenue program doesn’t only opens doors for Intel, it also closes for AMD.
High-performance ARM SOCs for
High-performance ARM SOCs for the tablet market are even more of a cul-de-sac than APUs were. I really hope AMD manages to steer clear of that distraction!
And yet for tablet OEMs that
And yet for tablet OEMs that do not have Apple’s engineering resources, an AMD K12 custom ARMv8a ISA based extra wide order superscalar core with AMD graphics, would probably give a lot of the smaller Tablet OEMs the chance to compete with Apples A series custom SOCs. AMD’s Jim Keller’s engineering teams could work up a custom ARM core with SMT, and give their K12 better resource utilization than Apple’s current A8 cores that do not have SMT capabilities.
You do realize that Intel has to pay OEM to use their CISC x86 product, because the X86 CISC microarchitecture is inherently more complex to implement compared to the ARM RISC design instruction set architecture. Intel is having much trouble getting its x86 Atom designs performing in the low power usage metrics compared to the ARM designs which are one or two process nodes behind. Once the process nodes reach relative parity(14nm) Intel is not going to be able to even maintain against the low power usage metrics of any of the ARM/Other RISC designs, so AMD will not have to be expending its engineering resources on getting its x86 designs into the ARM based low power metrics race, that any x86 design will be very unlikely be able to beat the RISC architectures in low power usage, AMD will have its own custom ARMv8 ISA running K12 microarchitecture, while retaining its Zen x86 for high end tablets that run legacy OSs like windows.
A powerful K12 core with SMT will give OEMs that base their android tablets on K12 based APUs a very powerful competitor to Apples A series SKUs, that only Apple has access to. Tablet OEMs will be able use K12 with its AMD graphics and have tablets that can compete with Apple’s iPads. K12 is not a distraction, the distraction is x86 for that majority of tablet/mobile devices, and the smaller market of high end x86 overpriced Intel based kit. AMD will have its K12 to compete in the majority tablet market, and its Zen for the high end tablet SKUs.
It’s certainly not just about x86 anymore, and it has been that way for the last 5 years. x86 is the cul-de-sac in the tablet market, and that Intel graphics is very overrated and overpriced. AMD’s approach, even though limited by its financial resources, places AMD in the position of having both its own custom ARMv8 ISA running microarchitecture with possibly SMT for the majority ARM based tablet market, and A Zen full fat core x86 microarchitecture with SMT to compete in the high end tablet market on up to the server room, workstation, and HPC market markets. x86 based products are very unlikely to unseat the custom ARM based products from their majority of the mobile market position.
CISC vs. RISC is
CISC vs. RISC is irrelevant/outdated to describe modern processors. None of them are clearly “RISC” anymore, and CISC was just used to describe anything that didn’t fit with original RISC design ideas. You could also say the opposite, that none of them are clearly CISC anymore either since it is no longer a useful distinction. If you look at a high-level block diagram, they all look quite similar.
I do not care what you call
I do not care what you call Intel’s microcode running backend that is fed by the front end on Intel’s x86 microarchitecture, it still takes more transistors to implement the complex instruction set of x86 ISA on a processor DIE. More transistors mean more power used, more transistors mean more power leaked/wasted verses the power requirements of less transistors. An x86 ISA(CISC) utilizes a complex instruction set, while the ARMv8 ISA(RISC) uses a less complex instruction set that requires less transistors to implement, same goes for the MIPS ISA(RISC), and the Power8 ISA(RISC), and the power8 core microarchitecture supports 8 processor threads per core. Intel’s latest Xeons are not going to beat the Power8 in server metrics, just go to the professional websites that cater to the server industry and read the reviews and benchmarks on the power8. Do not rely on any gaming websites as they do not have the resources to compare the SPARC, Xeon, Power8, and other server based systems.
Jim Keller’s design teams could work up a custom K12 core SKU with more than just 2 processor threads per core, for the dense ARM server OEM market, AMD may have mothballed its Sea Micro OEM server division, but that does not mean AMD can not sell custom ARM K12 server variants to HP, and other dense server OEMs.
Both Intel (currently having problems getting Atom processors to compete with the ARM RISC designs in low power usage even though the custom ARM SKUs are behind on the process node front) and AMD (Currently developing its own custom K12 ARMv8a based microarchitecture to compete in the ARM based market) to ever get the x86 ISA into the lowest power usage range of the simpler to implement ARMv8a ISA based systems in low power usage metrics, especially after the ARM ISA based cores begin to be fabbed on the 14nm process node.
I can see why AMD is going with a custom ARMv8a ISA design of its own, and not worrying about besting the RISC designs with x86’s CISC, and can instead focus on getting AMD graphics on ARM based APUs, and even the PowerVR designs that Apple uses will have to compete with AMD’s graphics, and Jim Keller’s K12 cores.
In fact if you look at the power8 CPU with 8 processor threads per core, and almost twice the number of execution units of Haswell, on a per core basis, it’s easier to get more processor threads/execution resources on the RISC ISA designs. Each of the power8’s 12 CPU cores can dispatch eight instructions per cycle from up to eight processor threads, using 14 function units to avoid resource conflicts. Jim Keller’s K12 team could get plenty of SMT resources on K12’s ARMv8a ISA based cores along with enough execution units to keep the extra processor threads running with as little resource conflicts a possible. Just go over to the Hot chips symposium’s website and read the power8 white paper/presentation from 2013, and see how many processor threads(SMT) can be implemented on DIE with a RISC ISA.
I fear you’re completely
I fear you’re completely misreading the tablet market, performance is largely irrelevant beyond a certain, very low threshold, it’s all about keeping the BOM low, low!
And if AMD doesn’t need anything, it’s wasting resources on competing with MediaTek and the like.
Not with Apples custom ARM
Not with Apples custom ARM microarchitecture breathing down core i series/core M series necks in performance metrics. The tablet market is saturated for sure, but we are talking about the Android/Linux based tablet market needing something more power efficient than x86, and giving the non Apple OEMs a K12 SKU that will best Apple’s A series processors, especially if Jim Keller’s K12 team can bake SMT into K12’s custom microarchitecture. AMD has this ARM market to sale a High End custom ARM based APU, and get its graphics out there in the ARM based SOC market. If anyone can beat Apple’s P.A. semiconductor architects in the microprocessor design arena, its Jim Keller. There is a majority market of tablet OEMs that will never move to x86, the android/Linux tablet market in not dependent on and legacy windows OS, not now or ever, and that is the market that K12 will be for.
Putting the folly of your
Putting the folly of your argument aside for the moment:
How do you feel about K12 now that it has officially slipped to 2017?
dub, sorry!
dub, sorry!
Another DiRT Rally fan – a
Another DiRT Rally fan – a lot more challenging but still having fun.
Josh – any wheel controller recommendations for DiRT Rally? I’m using an XBOX 360 wireless controller for Windows which is okay but would get a wheel if it gave me better control.
Good question… I have the
Good question… I have the Thrustmaster F430 and it is great. They stopped selling it in the US. That was at least reasonably priced. Now we have a ton of stuff that is $200+ which just seems crazy to me. Maybe the Logitech MOMO wheel for around $100?
Josh, you aren’t kidding, the
Josh, you aren’t kidding, the prices for Thrustmaster and Fanatec products are outrageous.
Logitech seemed a more reasonable choice.
I have an Nvidia SHIELD Portable and would love to stream this game to my large LCD TV.
What do you mean “What are
What do you mean “What are you doing with a optical drive”?
To play optical discs, silly! I have movies on DVD and Blu-Ray! Don’t forget all my other games and software.
Also, disc does not get corrupted or shorts out when inserted in the PC.
When you can rent HD/UHD/UHD+ movies on USB memory sticks from the library or local corner store and that all my current content on Disc can be ported at a minimal cost, then I’ll consider not investing in an optical drive. 😀
I want that, I want movies
I want that, I want movies rented from my library on usb stick. I want that, I want that now, I want that yesterday, I just now notice I have wanted that my whole life. YES!
As far as the speculation
As far as the speculation about the Zen processor, is there actually much demand for 512-bit AVX? If you have code/data that could take advantage of that wide of a vector unit, then why wouldn’t you run it on a gpu? There may be a few corner cases where the lower latency would be needed, but this still seems mostly unnecessary.
I’m probably your most
I’m probably your most dedicated UK watcher. It’s always a pleasure to join you around 3am my time thursday mornings.
I’m just your loyal UK stationed USAF member is all 🙂
btw yes locals just call it London timezone, covers the entire country. its listed as London in all computer software programs and windows installs.
I just hit my SSD with a
I just hit my SSD with a hammer, now it seems worse, I blame Jeremy