4 ms·

AMD is still behind per core in both clocks and per clock performance. Intel has demonstrated the ability to just keep pushing cores to match AMDs largest offer

by zanny 8y ago

AMD is still behind per core in both clocks and per clock performance. Intel has demonstrated the ability to just keep pushing cores to match AMDs largest offerings by just jacking up architectures they have been milking cheap for high margins for years. TSMCs 7nm node will be the first legitimate tech advantage over Intel and if Intel does get their act in gear and manages to deploy their 10nm next year they will at least keep parity. I am a huge AMD fan and will almost certainly be considering a Zen 2 build next year (though the fact I can disable Intel ME and can't remove AMD PSP will temper my interest) but thats more to support the underdog and get better value for money than getting the absolute best possible performance.

astrodust 8y ago
Intel has been the undisputed champion of process since the 80486 days so it's surprising to see how badly they're scrambling to hit even 10nm, let alone 7nm. I would never have bet money that the tiny little CPU designed by Acorn Computers that ended up powering the Newton would be the first CPU to jump two nodes ahead of Intel in terms of process, but here we are. ARM's doing great work and I hope they continue to push core counts to even more ridiculous levels.
- slivym 8y ago
  It's 'let alone'
  - astrodust 8y ago
    Fixed?
- innocenat 8y ago
  You know that Intel 10 is roughly the same, if not better than TSMC 7, right?
  - astrodust 8y ago
    When Intel ships a consumer part at 10nm we'll talk. Until then TSMC is ahead because they're shipping. The current generation i9 processors are all 14nm.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  (I think you've confused ARM and AMD, FWIW!) it's surprising to see how badly they're scrambling to hit even 10nm, little lone 7nm The feature size there is a bit misleading – "Intel 10nm" and "TSMC 7nm" are roughly equivalent, with IIRC the Intel 10nm process actually having a higher transistor density. The TSMC chips aren't really "two nodes ahead" – but it is likely that Intel will lose its process lead for maybe a year or so. I get the impression that Intel overextended on their 10nm process, in that they were perhaps a bit more ambitious that other manufacturers and it came back to bite them when there were scaling problems. On the other hand, last I heard was that the scaling problems experienced with the 10nm node haven't held up Intel's 7nm node, which could well see them re-establish their process lead. At the end of the day, it's great that the market is seeing some more competition, so hopefully we will all be able to enjoy the benefits from a variety of manufacturers soon!
  - astrodust 8y ago
    I don't doubt that Intel will get it together and remain competitive but right now they're really in a bad place. They're usually a step or two ahead, even when pushing ridiculous designs with no merit at all like the Pentium 4 or Itanium. To see them scrambling now to catch up is pretty much unprecedented.
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    > I think you've confused ARM and AMD, FWIW! Quite possibly they are, but to be fair ARM processors were the first to launch on 7nm.
    - astrodust 8y ago
      I'm talking about how ARM got their first on the process and now AMD has a chance to fab using that as well. AMD got out of the fabrication game, they couldn't keep up, which means they can use specialists like TSMC which are killing it now. Intel's largely "secret sauce" process has been their greatest asset. Now it looks like a huge liability.
  - blackstrips 8y ago
    > I get the impression that Intel overextended on their 10nm process, in that they were perhaps a bit more ambitious that other manufacturers and it came back to bite them when there were scaling problems. I’m no micro-electronic expert but I wonder if we are hitting limits in clock speed scaling with regards to feature size - i.e. shrinking pass a certain feature size clock speeds actually have to drop for the chip to be stable. Intel’s priority is clock speed first and foremost due to what they produce - desktop and server CPUs. A new process is pointless for them if they can’t get at least equal clock speeds out of it as their old process. TSMC caters to mobile CPU and GPU production - those will never boost to 5Ghz like CPUs; the former for power efficiency reasons (and heat) and the later tends to go for more “cores” as it focuses on parallizable workloads.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
geezerjay 8y ago
> TSMCs 7nm node will be the first legitimate tech advantage over Intel AMD's Zen architecture is leaps and bounds above Intel's offering, not only performance-wise but also where it matters the most: product design and production costs.
tutanchamun 8y ago
> AMD is still behind per core in both clocks and per clock performance. Yes, that's true but the per clock performance is close. They are only 5-10% behind in single threaded tasks without AVX (depending on the workload). The IPC increase is expected to be 10-15% (will of course depend on the workload). And their achilles heel, the AVX performance, will also improve with Zen 2 (256 bit instead of 128 bit etc.) Due to 7nm the clocks (for consumer hardware like Ryzen and Threadripper) will probably also increase (not 5 to 5.2 ghz after overclocking like Intel, but up to 4.7 ghz overclocks could be possible seeing that 4.3 ghz is possible on the current node which is mobile optimized). Depending on how much the clocks increase I believe they can close the gap. Maybe even pass Intel. The future certainly looks promising for AMD. I wonder if they will revive their X APUs for the Server. In the past they had Opteron X APUs to increase the compute density of servers. Now with Zen and Vega this could be a nice combo in addition to discrete GPUs. For example this system: https://i.imgur.com/yt5FasA.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/yt5FasA.jpg?1 Imagine replacing these two 32 core Epyc CPUs made in 14nm with two 32 core Epyc APUs (Zen 2) made in 7nm, which would use the saved space due to 7nm for Compute Units, and you might get an additional 10-16 TFlops per System. Which is basically one additional GPU.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  People keep thinking AMD's 7nm is this amazing thing, like everyone is talking about the same thing when it comes to CPU's and nm. When in reality nm has just been marketing fluff for a decade now, just like response times in monitors. AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size.
  - tutanchamun 8y ago
    People who follow the tech press talk about the same thing when talking about nm, and they know TSMC 7nm competes with Intel 10nm not Intel 14nm. It's been all over the town for months that TSMCs 7nm is estimated to be worse than Intels ‎ambitious failure that is 10nm [0][1][2][3] but quite a bit better than Intel 14nm (with the exception of clocks), and that 7nm+ with EUV for cost savings (which TSCM already taped out last month) is estimated to be equal or even slightly better. So I'm not really sure what to make of your comment? > AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size. No they didn't, but they don't claim that, do they? From what they say they decided on the IO die exactly because IO doesn't scale as much, and that decision allowed them to double the number of cores. Since 7nm is expected to be much more expensive than previous nodes this seems really clever from a money standpoint as well. The core only Zen 2 chiplets are expected to be around 70 mm² which is mobile SoC territory. AMD is already close in IPC to Intel even though AMD uses a worse node (GloFos mobile optimized 14nm is more like Intel 22 then Intel 14nm) and wins in multithreaded workloads because their SMT implementation seems to scale better than Intels. They also seem to have better performance/watt when under load. I have not seen numbers for idle wattage for Xeons but Intels desktop CPUs are slightly (5 - 10 watt) better when idle. So I'm looking forward to them having the better node for the first time ever. [0] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7544-7nm-5nm-3nm-logic-current-projected-processes.html https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7544-7nm-5nm-3nm-logi... [1] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6713-14nm-16nm-10nm-7nm-what-we-know-now.html https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6713-14nm-16nm-10nm-7... [2] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/10_nm_lithography_process https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/10_nm_lithography_process [3] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/7_nm_lithography_process https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/7_nm_lithography_process

by zanny 8y ago

astrodust 8y ago

Intel has been the undisputed champion of process since the 80486 days so it's surprising to see how badly they're scrambling to hit even 10nm, let alone 7nm. I would never have bet money that the tiny little CPU designed by Acorn Computers that ended up powering the Newton would be the first CPU to jump two nodes ahead of Intel in terms of process, but here we are. ARM's doing great work and I hope they continue to push core counts to even more ridiculous levels.

slivym 8y ago
It's 'let alone'
- astrodust 8y ago
  Fixed?
innocenat 8y ago
You know that Intel 10 is roughly the same, if not better than TSMC 7, right?
- astrodust 8y ago
  When Intel ships a consumer part at 10nm we'll talk. Until then TSMC is ahead because they're shipping. The current generation i9 processors are all 14nm.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
(I think you've confused ARM and AMD, FWIW!) it's surprising to see how badly they're scrambling to hit even 10nm, little lone 7nm The feature size there is a bit misleading – "Intel 10nm" and "TSMC 7nm" are roughly equivalent, with IIRC the Intel 10nm process actually having a higher transistor density. The TSMC chips aren't really "two nodes ahead" – but it is likely that Intel will lose its process lead for maybe a year or so. I get the impression that Intel overextended on their 10nm process, in that they were perhaps a bit more ambitious that other manufacturers and it came back to bite them when there were scaling problems. On the other hand, last I heard was that the scaling problems experienced with the 10nm node haven't held up Intel's 7nm node, which could well see them re-establish their process lead. At the end of the day, it's great that the market is seeing some more competition, so hopefully we will all be able to enjoy the benefits from a variety of manufacturers soon!
- astrodust 8y ago
  I don't doubt that Intel will get it together and remain competitive but right now they're really in a bad place. They're usually a step or two ahead, even when pushing ridiculous designs with no merit at all like the Pentium 4 or Itanium. To see them scrambling now to catch up is pretty much unprecedented.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  > I think you've confused ARM and AMD, FWIW! Quite possibly they are, but to be fair ARM processors were the first to launch on 7nm.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    I'm talking about how ARM got their first on the process and now AMD has a chance to fab using that as well. AMD got out of the fabrication game, they couldn't keep up, which means they can use specialists like TSMC which are killing it now. Intel's largely "secret sauce" process has been their greatest asset. Now it looks like a huge liability.
- blackstrips 8y ago
  > I get the impression that Intel overextended on their 10nm process, in that they were perhaps a bit more ambitious that other manufacturers and it came back to bite them when there were scaling problems. I’m no micro-electronic expert but I wonder if we are hitting limits in clock speed scaling with regards to feature size - i.e. shrinking pass a certain feature size clock speeds actually have to drop for the chip to be stable. Intel’s priority is clock speed first and foremost due to what they produce - desktop and server CPUs. A new process is pointless for them if they can’t get at least equal clock speeds out of it as their old process. TSMC caters to mobile CPU and GPU production - those will never boost to 5Ghz like CPUs; the former for power efficiency reasons (and heat) and the later tends to go for more “cores” as it focuses on parallizable workloads.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

geezerjay 8y ago

> TSMCs 7nm node will be the first legitimate tech advantage over Intel AMD's Zen architecture is leaps and bounds above Intel's offering, not only performance-wise but also where it matters the most: product design and production costs.

tutanchamun 8y ago

> AMD is still behind per core in both clocks and per clock performance. Yes, that's true but the per clock performance is close. They are only 5-10% behind in single threaded tasks without AVX (depending on the workload). The IPC increase is expected to be 10-15% (will of course depend on the workload). And their achilles heel, the AVX performance, will also improve with Zen 2 (256 bit instead of 128 bit etc.) Due to 7nm the clocks (for consumer hardware like Ryzen and Threadripper) will probably also increase (not 5 to 5.2 ghz after overclocking like Intel, but up to 4.7 ghz overclocks could be possible seeing that 4.3 ghz is possible on the current node which is mobile optimized). Depending on how much the clocks increase I believe they can close the gap. Maybe even pass Intel. The future certainly looks promising for AMD. I wonder if they will revive their X APUs for the Server. In the past they had Opteron X APUs to increase the compute density of servers. Now with Zen and Vega this could be a nice combo in addition to discrete GPUs. For example this system: https://i.imgur.com/yt5FasA.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/yt5FasA.jpg?1 Imagine replacing these two 32 core Epyc CPUs made in 14nm with two 32 core Epyc APUs (Zen 2) made in 7nm, which would use the saved space due to 7nm for Compute Units, and you might get an additional 10-16 TFlops per System. Which is basically one additional GPU.

Brockenstein 8y ago
People keep thinking AMD's 7nm is this amazing thing, like everyone is talking about the same thing when it comes to CPU's and nm. When in reality nm has just been marketing fluff for a decade now, just like response times in monitors. AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size.
- tutanchamun 8y ago
  People who follow the tech press talk about the same thing when talking about nm, and they know TSMC 7nm competes with Intel 10nm not Intel 14nm. It's been all over the town for months that TSMCs 7nm is estimated to be worse than Intels ‎ambitious failure that is 10nm [0][1][2][3] but quite a bit better than Intel 14nm (with the exception of clocks), and that 7nm+ with EUV for cost savings (which TSCM already taped out last month) is estimated to be equal or even slightly better. So I'm not really sure what to make of your comment? > AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size. No they didn't, but they don't claim that, do they? From what they say they decided on the IO die exactly because IO doesn't scale as much, and that decision allowed them to double the number of cores. Since 7nm is expected to be much more expensive than previous nodes this seems really clever from a money standpoint as well. The core only Zen 2 chiplets are expected to be around 70 mm² which is mobile SoC territory. AMD is already close in IPC to Intel even though AMD uses a worse node (GloFos mobile optimized 14nm is more like Intel 22 then Intel 14nm) and wins in multithreaded workloads because their SMT implementation seems to scale better than Intels. They also seem to have better performance/watt when under load. I have not seen numbers for idle wattage for Xeons but Intels desktop CPUs are slightly (5 - 10 watt) better when idle. So I'm looking forward to them having the better node for the first time ever. [0] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7544-7nm-5nm-3nm-logic-current-projected-processes.html https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7544-7nm-5nm-3nm-logi... [1] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6713-14nm-16nm-10nm-7nm-what-we-know-now.html https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6713-14nm-16nm-10nm-7... [2] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/10_nm_lithography_process https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/10_nm_lithography_process [3] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/7_nm_lithography_process https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/7_nm_lithography_process