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I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded bench

I'm really curious if AMD can overtake Intel in single threaded performance. They already have the lead in number of cores (per socket) and multi threaded benchmarks like cinebench (when using same number of cores and clocks). At the moment Intel has a slight edge in IPC and quite a bit better clocks. If they can close the IPC gap or even overtake Intel and GlobalFoundries 7nm process really can clock around 5ghz this will be an interesting matchup. Q17: Does the first generation of 7LP target higher frequency clocks than 14LPP? GP: Definitely. It is a big performance boost - we quoted around 40%. I don't know how that exactly will translate into frequency, but I would guess that it should be able to get up in the 5GHz range, I would expect. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12438/the-future-of-silicon-an-exclusive-interview-with-dr-gary-patton-cto-of-globalfoundries https://www.anandtech.com/show/12438/the-future-of-silicon-a...

loser777 8y ago
I think the IPC gap will become an interesting battle in the near future, especially as gains that came from aggressive speculation have proven to introduce security holes (take your pick of Meltdown, Spectre variant n,...).
- tpetry 8y ago
  Are there any good post-Meltdown benchmarks conparing Intel and AMD?
  - std_throwaway 8y ago
    Anandtech did a benchmark but that had a flaw in the way they measured the time. Many other benchmarks are with unpatched OS versions to keep comparability. It's not easy to judge when they don't explicitly investigate that effect.
    - zelos 8y ago
      Anandtech updated the benchmarks eventually: the massive performance drop that they attributed to meltdown/spectre patches vanished. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-ryzen-7-2700x-2700-ryzen-5-2600x-2600/13 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-r...
  - kuzko_topia 8y ago
    Phoronix is my go to for those in depth benchmarks with security patches
    - std_throwaway 8y ago
      True, they compared a lot - but exclusively under Linux.
      - protomyth 8y ago
        They have added various BSDs to their benchmarking.
      - baldfat 8y ago
        Which is the main OS that will us CPUs when you count servers. Granted that isn't the consumer CPUs we care about but the work on servers actually trickles down. It isn't some minor group and AMD and Intel are very much concerned about how their CPUs run under Linux.
      - kuzko_topia 8y ago
        To be fair it's only recently that released the windows version of the openbanchmarking software, so this linux only side of things will change for sure. But yes
  - mozumder 8y ago
    Just use Geekbench. It's great for core performance comparisons, based on actual micro-workloads. BTW We're looking at ~4200 for Ryzen, ~4800 Ryzen 2, and ~5800 for i7 Coffee Lake.
std_throwaway 8y ago
To my knowledge the achievable IPC gains for a single thread are limited. Therefore it can be assumed that other players catch up in figures of IPC while the market leader kind of gets stuck with only a tiny advantage.
- spacenick88 8y ago
  I keep wondering if there are some gains left by dropping the x86 legacy baggage e.g. using RISC-V or ARM64. It seems that there should be some loss due to x86 weirdness and past compromises
  - std_throwaway 8y ago
    What i read was: The instruction decoder would become easier but the instruction decoder is only a small part. Most rare commands are implemented via microcode anyways, so silicon area is not hit too hard. x86 is somewhat efficient due to compact encoding compared to IA64 for example. There is surprisingly little to gain. Maybe somebody who really knows the details can chime in :)
    - dgacmu 8y ago
      Intel usually says it's less than 3%.
    - tscs37 8y ago
      The peeps building Mill CPU are claiming they can do 10x performance over traditional (x86). IIRC in an early talk they explained this is mostly by bringing the IPC on a level with high IPC microcontroller arches. They do VLIW which can do a lot of things more efficiently if your compiler can handle it (Rust should be able to pull a lot of performance out of VLIW IIRC)
      - gascan 8y ago
        VLIW plus a "sufficiently smart compiler"? Isn't that IA-64 in a nutshell?
ajross 8y ago
The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.
- bhouston 8y ago
  Case in point, Apple's ARM chips are huge (and hot) compared to the stock ARM chips and that is because they are throwing transistors at the problem.
  - et2o 8y ago
    Would you have a particular reference for this? I have read that the Apple ARM chips are more power efficient than comparable ARM chips powering Android devices.
    - ajross 8y ago
      They idle really well. In particular the software layer around suspend is really first rate when compared with the Linux BSPs from vendors, which tend to be somewhere between glitchy and awful (c.f. all those times when your off-brand Android phone turned red hot in your pocket, or the fact that a RPi is running a "mobile" SoC that never manages to draw less than 3W). The power under load is quiet high, apocryphally. No, I don't have numbers.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        The Broadcom SoC used in the Raspberry Pi hasn't aged terribly well, there is a pretty good thread comparing the various boards out there on the Armbian Forum[1], in it they discuss how much power boards use with different parts enabled. Some Allwinner boards (like the PC2) can use just 1w at idle without disabling anything. Further savings is possible if you disable gigabit ethernet, GPU, etc. More info is in the 2nd link! 1 - https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1748-sbc-consumptionperformance-comparisons/ https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1748-sbc-consumptionperforma... 2 - https://docs.armbian.com/Hardware_Allwinner-H3/ https://docs.armbian.com/Hardware_Allwinner-H3/
sandworm101 8y ago
I don't want AMD to overtake intel on single-core performance. There are only a handful of things that a chip manufacturer can be best at. If AMD is ahead on per-core and total number of cores, then they can and will demand the premium prices intel does today. I like AMD because they are the underdog who must keep prices low to keep my business. AMD taking the lead could also make them complacent when it comes to the more annoying things like DRM and privacy. I want them to remain the lean company. I don't want them investing in all the chaotic side projects that intel chips participate in. AMD needs to stick to number crunching and not allow their CPUs to become gateways for other tasks. They need to stay as they are now. Lastly, atm AMD and intel sell very different chips. They do different things well. Those who pick one or the other do so for clear reasons. If they get too close on per-core performance we risk endless brand debates. Two tribes will emerge. Wagons will circle and fanboys appear. Competition betters the breed, but with only two players on the field we all know what will happen.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  Your post is strange in how heavily it reflects your values instead of what's best for AMD or consumers. There's nothing so great about the current status quo that we should actively discourage change or real competition. In the unlikely event AMD were ever to supplant Intel (in market share) it would just force Intel into AMD's position now. OH NO! Your business isn't so valuable that it's incentive for AMD to active try and stay in second place. We want competition, competition pushes progress. Maintaining the status quo, not so much. And if your biggest argument against AMD upsetting the status quo is you'll have to put a little more effort into shopping, well that's not really a problem for most of us...
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > Your post is strange in how heavily it reflects your values instead of what's best for AMD or consumers. > OH NO! Your business isn't so valuable that it's incentive for AMD to active try and stay in second place. Not every post is about what's strategically best for a company. They very clearly stated it's what they personally wanted, and why. What's the point of ripping into someone because they've actually expressed desire for a specific scenario? If you think they won't actually get what they want from the scenario or action they've described, just point out how you don't think it will end up that way.

loser777 8y ago

I think the IPC gap will become an interesting battle in the near future, especially as gains that came from aggressive speculation have proven to introduce security holes (take your pick of Meltdown, Spectre variant n,...).

tpetry 8y ago
Are there any good post-Meltdown benchmarks conparing Intel and AMD?
- std_throwaway 8y ago
  Anandtech did a benchmark but that had a flaw in the way they measured the time. Many other benchmarks are with unpatched OS versions to keep comparability. It's not easy to judge when they don't explicitly investigate that effect.
  - zelos 8y ago
    Anandtech updated the benchmarks eventually: the massive performance drop that they attributed to meltdown/spectre patches vanished. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-ryzen-7-2700x-2700-ryzen-5-2600x-2600/13 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-r...
- kuzko_topia 8y ago
  Phoronix is my go to for those in depth benchmarks with security patches
  - std_throwaway 8y ago
    True, they compared a lot - but exclusively under Linux.
    - protomyth 8y ago
      They have added various BSDs to their benchmarking.
    - baldfat 8y ago
      Which is the main OS that will us CPUs when you count servers. Granted that isn't the consumer CPUs we care about but the work on servers actually trickles down. It isn't some minor group and AMD and Intel are very much concerned about how their CPUs run under Linux.
    - kuzko_topia 8y ago
      To be fair it's only recently that released the windows version of the openbanchmarking software, so this linux only side of things will change for sure. But yes
- mozumder 8y ago
  Just use Geekbench. It's great for core performance comparisons, based on actual micro-workloads. BTW We're looking at ~4200 for Ryzen, ~4800 Ryzen 2, and ~5800 for i7 Coffee Lake.

std_throwaway 8y ago

To my knowledge the achievable IPC gains for a single thread are limited. Therefore it can be assumed that other players catch up in figures of IPC while the market leader kind of gets stuck with only a tiny advantage.

spacenick88 8y ago
I keep wondering if there are some gains left by dropping the x86 legacy baggage e.g. using RISC-V or ARM64. It seems that there should be some loss due to x86 weirdness and past compromises
- std_throwaway 8y ago
  What i read was: The instruction decoder would become easier but the instruction decoder is only a small part. Most rare commands are implemented via microcode anyways, so silicon area is not hit too hard. x86 is somewhat efficient due to compact encoding compared to IA64 for example. There is surprisingly little to gain. Maybe somebody who really knows the details can chime in :)
  - dgacmu 8y ago
    Intel usually says it's less than 3%.
  - tscs37 8y ago
    The peeps building Mill CPU are claiming they can do 10x performance over traditional (x86). IIRC in an early talk they explained this is mostly by bringing the IPC on a level with high IPC microcontroller arches. They do VLIW which can do a lot of things more efficiently if your compiler can handle it (Rust should be able to pull a lot of performance out of VLIW IIRC)
    - gascan 8y ago
      VLIW plus a "sufficiently smart compiler"? Isn't that IA-64 in a nutshell?

ajross 8y ago

The IPC gap is directly related to their smaller cores. If you want to get more work done in a cycle you need to spend transistors to do it. You're asking them to have and eat cake, basically. That's not likely.

bhouston 8y ago
Case in point, Apple's ARM chips are huge (and hot) compared to the stock ARM chips and that is because they are throwing transistors at the problem.
- et2o 8y ago
  Would you have a particular reference for this? I have read that the Apple ARM chips are more power efficient than comparable ARM chips powering Android devices.
  - ajross 8y ago
    They idle really well. In particular the software layer around suspend is really first rate when compared with the Linux BSPs from vendors, which tend to be somewhere between glitchy and awful (c.f. all those times when your off-brand Android phone turned red hot in your pocket, or the fact that a RPi is running a "mobile" SoC that never manages to draw less than 3W). The power under load is quiet high, apocryphally. No, I don't have numbers.
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      The Broadcom SoC used in the Raspberry Pi hasn't aged terribly well, there is a pretty good thread comparing the various boards out there on the Armbian Forum[1], in it they discuss how much power boards use with different parts enabled. Some Allwinner boards (like the PC2) can use just 1w at idle without disabling anything. Further savings is possible if you disable gigabit ethernet, GPU, etc. More info is in the 2nd link! 1 - https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1748-sbc-consumptionperformance-comparisons/ https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1748-sbc-consumptionperforma... 2 - https://docs.armbian.com/Hardware_Allwinner-H3/ https://docs.armbian.com/Hardware_Allwinner-H3/

sandworm101 8y ago

I don't want AMD to overtake intel on single-core performance. There are only a handful of things that a chip manufacturer can be best at. If AMD is ahead on per-core and total number of cores, then they can and will demand the premium prices intel does today. I like AMD because they are the underdog who must keep prices low to keep my business. AMD taking the lead could also make them complacent when it comes to the more annoying things like DRM and privacy. I want them to remain the lean company. I don't want them investing in all the chaotic side projects that intel chips participate in. AMD needs to stick to number crunching and not allow their CPUs to become gateways for other tasks. They need to stay as they are now. Lastly, atm AMD and intel sell very different chips. They do different things well. Those who pick one or the other do so for clear reasons. If they get too close on per-core performance we risk endless brand debates. Two tribes will emerge. Wagons will circle and fanboys appear. Competition betters the breed, but with only two players on the field we all know what will happen.

Brockenstein 8y ago
Your post is strange in how heavily it reflects your values instead of what's best for AMD or consumers. There's nothing so great about the current status quo that we should actively discourage change or real competition. In the unlikely event AMD were ever to supplant Intel (in market share) it would just force Intel into AMD's position now. OH NO! Your business isn't so valuable that it's incentive for AMD to active try and stay in second place. We want competition, competition pushes progress. Maintaining the status quo, not so much. And if your biggest argument against AMD upsetting the status quo is you'll have to put a little more effort into shopping, well that's not really a problem for most of us...
- kbenson 8y ago
  > Your post is strange in how heavily it reflects your values instead of what's best for AMD or consumers. > OH NO! Your business isn't so valuable that it's incentive for AMD to active try and stay in second place. Not every post is about what's strategically best for a company. They very clearly stated it's what they personally wanted, and why. What's the point of ripping into someone because they've actually expressed desire for a specific scenario? If you think they won't actually get what they want from the scenario or action they've described, just point out how you don't think it will end up that way.