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From what I've seen so far, none of the Ryzen APUs pack as much graphics power as the Vega-powered Kaby Lake Gs, which is disappointing. I was hoping for a Ryz

From what I've seen so far, none of the Ryzen APUs pack as much graphics power as the Vega-powered Kaby Lake Gs, which is disappointing. I was hoping for a Ryzen NUC that would be powerful enough to use as an HTPC and ultra-portable gaming machine, but it appears that won't be happening.

chx 9y ago
It's immediately visible AMD have no serious plans in the 65-100W package TDP territory if it gave the Vega to Intel instead of launching such a chip itself. Who wants to guess this monster hybrid will only be available in Hades Canyon and some Apple machine and nowhere else?
wmf 9y ago
Kaby Lake-G is probably also very expensive. Maybe someone will combine Ryzen with a discrete Vega Mobile and it will still be cheaper.
zanny 9y ago
A Ryzen "7" series APU with the same 4 core / 8 thread setup as the 2400G but with double the CUs (so 22 CU) and a big beefy L4 buffer like Intel uses in their high end GPUs to be able to use the extra gpu horsepower would be game changing. Maybe in the Navi generation? It would make for a very pretty lineup to have, say, Navi 10 / 14 / 24 be APUs, Navi 36 / 44 be a budget discrete GPU pair, have Navi 56 / 64 be shrunk Vega cards, and then some high end 2080 Ti competitor series of new cards called Navi 80 / 88[1]. If they can get power under control and have the TDPs like up like 45 / 65 / 95 / 120 / 150 / 170 / 200 / 210 / 250 watts they could have a really viable lineup no matter what Nvidia pulls... [1] Having a GPU called the 88 would just be marketing bliss. "When we get this thing up to 88 compute units you are going to see some serious shit".
- bitL 9y ago
  2400G's 65W is waaaay to much for NUC. Even current dual-core 15W i5 can be quite noisy. And 2400G allows you to play games only on lowest details with >25fps anyway. For home HTPC even an old BayTrail-based NUC is sufficient (Kodi/Plex) at 1080p though. I run one for ~3 years and haven't had any need to upgrade so far. For gaming get one of those ZOTAC Magnus machines with 1070, as large as Mac Mini, quiet and powerful. I use one as a SteamBox and couldn't be happier.
  - zanny 9y ago
    Zotac did have Zbox's with Raven Ridge in them at CES, though: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12319/zotac-displays-zbox-ma551-an-amd-raven-ridgebased-sff-pc https://www.anandtech.com/show/12319/zotac-displays-zbox-ma5... Besides the consumer Raven Ridge CPUs there are also 2 OEM 35w versions that are downclocked slightly while shaving off a huge chunk of TDP. They are named like 2400G but with an E on the end, ie 2400GE. I imagine if AMD really wanted to put the effort into a 15W chip they could manage a ~2.5ghz quad core with Ryzen modules.
  - rb666 9y ago
    Honestly curious: why get a ~$1300 Linux console over say a Nintendo Switch or regular PC? Seems to me SteamOS was a great idea but is dying? Anything I am missing, any killer apps/games?
    - bitL 9y ago
      It's a very fast, general-purpose computer; 1070 also can be used for crypto-mining, so when you aren't playing, it can run ETH/XMR/etc. mining and as it's pretty low power, you might even be profitable. Deep Learning model training can be done too if you have such a need as well. I bought it as I wanted to help SteamOS not to die and bought all AAA titles that were available on SteamOS.
- hellrich 9y ago
  I think 88 would be a very unfortunate designation, Neo-Nazis use it as a code / abbreviation for “Heil Hitler” (8th letter twice).
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Why would that limit the present day use of the number 88? Neo-Nazi's don't get to claim integers.
    - hellrich 9y ago
      Depends on how many people know about it and might interprete it as some kind of association. I would be sceptical to use 88 as a designation, at least in Germany. See 4 or 13 for numbers avoided in other cultures (for non-political reasons).
      - tzahola 9y ago
        BMW E88 Nokia 8800 Ericsson GS88 Motorola Focus 88 Seems like marketing people care less about fringe far-right numerology than you buddy.
        bduerst 9y ago
        Meanwhile, the 300-unit housing complex next to where I live doesn't have 4 in any of the addresses. The street blocks even go 100, 200, 300, 500, 600... Seems like their marketing team cared enough about a number.
        olskool 9y ago
        The original IBM PC used an Intel 8088 FWIW.
        chrisweekly 9y ago
        The first car I owned was a 1987 Oldsmobile "Delta 88".
      - jacquesm 9y ago
- ben-schaaf 9y ago
  I was under the impression the 2400G is already heavily memory-bandwidth limited, so unless memory gets a whole lot faster I don't see them packing all that much more into an APU.
IamNotAtWork 9y ago
I wonder if part of the agreement with Intel, AMD agreed to not bring out Ryzen 7 APU with better graphics to keep that segment competition-free? Currently there are no plans for anything higher than Ryzen 5 in the APU space. Would that be anti-competitive behavior or just part of business?
- pertymcpert 9y ago
  IANAL but that sounds extremely illegal.
  - pythonaut_16 9y ago
    Would it be illegal for AMD to agree not to enter a competing part in that segment though? It's not as though they're colluding on price or squashing other competitors.
ledriveby 9y ago
Au contraire; the cheapo Ryzen APUs are awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEJoAoW944 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEJoAoW944

chx 9y ago

It's immediately visible AMD have no serious plans in the 65-100W package TDP territory if it gave the Vega to Intel instead of launching such a chip itself. Who wants to guess this monster hybrid will only be available in Hades Canyon and some Apple machine and nowhere else?

wmf 9y ago

Kaby Lake-G is probably also very expensive. Maybe someone will combine Ryzen with a discrete Vega Mobile and it will still be cheaper.

zanny 9y ago

A Ryzen "7" series APU with the same 4 core / 8 thread setup as the 2400G but with double the CUs (so 22 CU) and a big beefy L4 buffer like Intel uses in their high end GPUs to be able to use the extra gpu horsepower would be game changing. Maybe in the Navi generation? It would make for a very pretty lineup to have, say, Navi 10 / 14 / 24 be APUs, Navi 36 / 44 be a budget discrete GPU pair, have Navi 56 / 64 be shrunk Vega cards, and then some high end 2080 Ti competitor series of new cards called Navi 80 / 88[1]. If they can get power under control and have the TDPs like up like 45 / 65 / 95 / 120 / 150 / 170 / 200 / 210 / 250 watts they could have a really viable lineup no matter what Nvidia pulls... [1] Having a GPU called the 88 would just be marketing bliss. "When we get this thing up to 88 compute units you are going to see some serious shit".

bitL 9y ago
2400G's 65W is waaaay to much for NUC. Even current dual-core 15W i5 can be quite noisy. And 2400G allows you to play games only on lowest details with >25fps anyway. For home HTPC even an old BayTrail-based NUC is sufficient (Kodi/Plex) at 1080p though. I run one for ~3 years and haven't had any need to upgrade so far. For gaming get one of those ZOTAC Magnus machines with 1070, as large as Mac Mini, quiet and powerful. I use one as a SteamBox and couldn't be happier.
- zanny 9y ago
  Zotac did have Zbox's with Raven Ridge in them at CES, though: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12319/zotac-displays-zbox-ma551-an-amd-raven-ridgebased-sff-pc https://www.anandtech.com/show/12319/zotac-displays-zbox-ma5... Besides the consumer Raven Ridge CPUs there are also 2 OEM 35w versions that are downclocked slightly while shaving off a huge chunk of TDP. They are named like 2400G but with an E on the end, ie 2400GE. I imagine if AMD really wanted to put the effort into a 15W chip they could manage a ~2.5ghz quad core with Ryzen modules.
- rb666 9y ago
  Honestly curious: why get a ~$1300 Linux console over say a Nintendo Switch or regular PC? Seems to me SteamOS was a great idea but is dying? Anything I am missing, any killer apps/games?
  - bitL 9y ago
    It's a very fast, general-purpose computer; 1070 also can be used for crypto-mining, so when you aren't playing, it can run ETH/XMR/etc. mining and as it's pretty low power, you might even be profitable. Deep Learning model training can be done too if you have such a need as well. I bought it as I wanted to help SteamOS not to die and bought all AAA titles that were available on SteamOS.
hellrich 9y ago
I think 88 would be a very unfortunate designation, Neo-Nazis use it as a code / abbreviation for “Heil Hitler” (8th letter twice).
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Why would that limit the present day use of the number 88? Neo-Nazi's don't get to claim integers.
  - hellrich 9y ago
    Depends on how many people know about it and might interprete it as some kind of association. I would be sceptical to use 88 as a designation, at least in Germany. See 4 or 13 for numbers avoided in other cultures (for non-political reasons).
    - tzahola 9y ago
      BMW E88 Nokia 8800 Ericsson GS88 Motorola Focus 88 Seems like marketing people care less about fringe far-right numerology than you buddy.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        Meanwhile, the 300-unit housing complex next to where I live doesn't have 4 in any of the addresses. The street blocks even go 100, 200, 300, 500, 600... Seems like their marketing team cared enough about a number.
      - olskool 9y ago
        The original IBM PC used an Intel 8088 FWIW.
      - chrisweekly 9y ago
        The first car I owned was a 1987 Oldsmobile "Delta 88".
    - jacquesm 9y ago
ben-schaaf 9y ago
I was under the impression the 2400G is already heavily memory-bandwidth limited, so unless memory gets a whole lot faster I don't see them packing all that much more into an APU.

IamNotAtWork 9y ago

I wonder if part of the agreement with Intel, AMD agreed to not bring out Ryzen 7 APU with better graphics to keep that segment competition-free? Currently there are no plans for anything higher than Ryzen 5 in the APU space. Would that be anti-competitive behavior or just part of business?

pertymcpert 9y ago
IANAL but that sounds extremely illegal.
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  Would it be illegal for AMD to agree not to enter a competing part in that segment though? It's not as though they're colluding on price or squashing other competitors.

ledriveby 9y ago

Au contraire; the cheapo Ryzen APUs are awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEJoAoW944 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEJoAoW944