4 ms·

So, theres basically 3/4 bins of Zen 2 dies, each subdivided into 6 and 8 core variants. At the very top, you have the Epyc/TR/3950x dies. This may be actually

So, theres basically 3/4 bins of Zen 2 dies, each subdivided into 6 and 8 core variants. At the very top, you have the Epyc/TR/3950x dies. This may be actually two bins, with the absolute highest end Epycs getting the top 1% of dies. Next you have A grade dies, that go into the 3800x and the 3600x, and the first die of the 3900x. After that, B grade dies, that go into the 3700x and 3600, and the second die of the 3900x. The 3950x is the weird one because it doesn't use two A dies (the 3900x uses an A+B)... it uses two Epyc/TR grade dies. Those new XTs? Seem to be miniature 3950xes: 6+6, 8, and 6 Epyc/TR grade dies. Everyone who wanted a 3950x, but didn't want/need 16 cores? Here you go. Although, honestly, unless you need a computer today, and as much as I love Zen 2, wait for Zen 3 as long as you can. Zen 3 uses 8 core CCXes, which eliminates the semi-NUMA split L3 latency issue. That issue is incredibly mild, it isn't the cluster fuck that it was on Zen/Zen+, but it's enough that some especially badly optimized software (older games, mostly) is about as fast on a 3300x (single CCX quad core) as it is on the 3600 (dual 3 core CCxes), purely because of the ignorance of mem/cache locality. That said, for a dumb desktop and PS4/XBOne-era gaming performance, the 3300X on a MSI B450 Max /w 16GB DDR4-3600 CL18 has exceptional value; just toss in a 1660 Super, and its a 1080p 60-120hz gaming king.

Nursie 6y ago
IIRC Zen 3 has been put back until next year as well, which is probably why these have been pushed out.
- thesumofall 6y ago
  So far there has only been rumors on this one but nothing substantial
- eigenspace 6y ago
  There is almost no evidence or indication that is the case. Almost all reliable leaks and public facing comments from AMD suggest Zen 3 this year.
  - mattashii 6y ago
    Actually, there is (kind of). The AMD presentation slides that have been released after March (that I could find, and do not have Zen 4 on the unmarked timeline as well) all suggest Zen 3 as an item on a timeline ending 2021 [0][1], as opposed to earlier slides [2][3] that have Zen 3 on a timeline ending in 2020. The only Zen 3 product which was announced to be shipping this year, was Milan at "late 2020" [3], and that was before the presentation of [1] was given, so that might very well have changed in the meantime. Looking back at it, I really haven't seen an AMD presentation with the [ 2017 < zen, zen 2, zen 3 > 2020 ]-timeline after the financial analyst day 2020, but have seen new updated versions in the form of [ 2017 < zen, zen 2, zen 3 > 2021 ]. [0] slide 10, AMD Investor Presentation, Apr 03, 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/cff1a22a-788b-40a0-b89c-796e7b0a4c08 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/cff1a22a-788b-40a0-b89c-796e... [1] slide 42, AMD Corporate Presentation, Jun 05 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/fd06c15e-0241-424d-9fd9-5a469d96012d https://ir.amd.com/static-files/fd06c15e-0241-424d-9fd9-5a46... [2] slide 18, AMD Investor Presentation, Apr 04 2019, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/9c985e84-bbb6-4e23-99bd-dcbb21f18592 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/9c985e84-bbb6-4e23-99bd-dcbb... [3] slides 6 and 23, Financial Analyst Day 2020 - Data Center Leadership, Mar 5 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/15702f66-d8d1-4816-8906-9612580f9aa1 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/15702f66-d8d1-4816-8906-9612...
    - coder543 6y ago
      https://www.anandtech.com/show/15807/amd-to-support-zen-3-and-ryzen-4000-cpus-on-b450-and-x470-motherboards https://www.anandtech.com/show/15807/amd-to-support-zen-3-an... > AMD also re-confirmed that we are set to see Zen 3 processors in 2020. So, as of last month, Zen 3 was again confirmed to be coming this year. It's absolutely still just a rumor that Zen 3 is delayed until 2021. There has been no official confirmation of any change to the schedule, and attempting to read way too much into some slides doesn't change that.
      - mattashii 6y ago
        > > AMD also re-confirmed that we are set to see Zen 3 processors in 2020. > So, as of last month, Zen 3 was again confirmed to be coming this year. Yes, I already expected a presentation at the end of the year, though this is not explicit about _shipping_ Zen 3 this year. /cynicism You are correct though that it's a rumor, and I'm 80% sure that Zen 3 will launch this year. My comment was mostly to provide a counterexample to the "almost no evidence for Zen 3 in 2021"... Although, this evidence is indeed not a lot... As always, I guess we'll see
- noir_lord 6y ago
  That's all just rumour at the moment. Frankly if they can launch I think they'd be insane to delay, every year they've had the rumours first then come out with a body blow to Intel, that momentum has been building and they've finally started to get real mind share for the first time in nearly a human generation so it would be silly to lose that now. Also if I had to guess why they put these out it's because production improvements have meant they've got more available high quality dies than they had at the start so it makes sense to get a last hurrah off the line and it preserves the price points for each back to somewhere near where they where at launch.
  - redisman 6y ago
    Agreed - they've been releasing 3000 series CPUs all year so I wouldn't read any tea leaves based on this launch. 3300X and 3100X launched just a month ago and people weren't panicking then. They have the capability to manufacture more of Zen2 so why not do it. I'd imagine a "new" product sells much better than a few years old one even if its just a re-brand with a slight overclock.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      It would be smart to capitalise while Intel is struggling because Intel won't struggle forever they have too much money and too long a history. I was around when the AMD64 was battering the P4 and then Intel came out with the C2D an architecture they are still using which gave them a decade of owning the top/mid in desktops, pretty much all the laptop market and vast majority of servers. Better to be out ahead when Intel comes back swinging.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
anon73044 6y ago
Why would Epyc get the best binned silicon? Would the best binned Epyc run substantially cooler at the same clock than the next worsed binned Threadripper? Just curious.
- old-gregg 6y ago
  I think you answered your own question. The reason for server chips to use better silicon is to generate less heat (and consume less power) at the same frequency. Server operators (unlike desktop users) are more concerned with non-idle power consumption. Besides, server CPUs are semi-passively cooled, there's not enough room in a server chassis to accommodate elaborate cooling setups common in workstations and especially in enthusiast machines.
  - anon73044 6y ago
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's my guess but I'd love to see some data to confirm.
    - bisby 6y ago
      Not solid numbers, but a 24 core threadripper has a TDP of 280w. The 24 core epycs of the same generation have 155w or 180w (depending on clocks). The clock speeds are a bit lower on the epyc models, but but I would be willing to bet that chips that cant hit the lower wattage targets just get pushed as high as they can go, and it is then on the consumer to manage the extra heat.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Doesn't have to be that way... [1] https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/servers/primergy/scale-out/cclc/ https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/servers/prime... [2] https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/lics/ https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/li... [3] https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners/fujitsu https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners/fuji... or [4] https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners
oever 6y ago
And what about the 4?00{H,HS,U} series? The 4700U has 8 cores and no threading, the 4800U has 8 cores with threading. Is that also a result of binning?
- tengbretson 6y ago
  4000 series laptop APUs appear to be entirely different designs.
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Is it actually worth it to wait for Zen 3? I've been doing research and have conflicting information
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Given that Zen3 doesn't exist yet, there's no legitimate research you can do about Zen3 (unless you are an AMD insider and have their NDA'd numbers / specifications). Generally speaking, waiting to buy a computer is always better, because next year's tech is always better than this year's tech. So you only buy a computer when you need one. Is your current computer slow in ways that you find annoying? Slow enough that you want an upgrade? If so, buy a new computer (or if its only slow in one or two benchmarks... like I/O or Video games, buy a faster SSD or GPU instead). If not, then wait another year or two and ask yourself the question again. Big SV companies seem to be on a 5-year upgrade cadence. If you can't make the decision yourself, then just follow what they do and upgrade your equipment every 5 years.
- cooljacob204 6y ago
  There is a motherboard shortage at the moment for Zen 2 CPUs so I would personally wait until at least that clears up.
  - goliatone 6y ago
    There’s a general shortage. I just built a workstation using a Ryzen 9 3900x and it was very hard to find a compatible, sanely priced, current design and with a good enough spec. I was doing research first and then trying to buy the motherboard but they would be out of stock. Had to change model 3 times before wising up and just going through available inventory and then research. Then the board wouldn’t POST :/ having a concrete issue to google for then surfaced tons of threads discussing the same or similar issues that hadn’t come up when I was doing research before buying. It took me a few days to finally be able to make it boot- it was probably an acculturation of small silly things like the board being picky about which cable/slot you plug in the monitor, removing and installing again RAM even tho it was seemingly well placed before, etc. BUT! I have now a nice beast running Pop_OS and I couldn’t be happier. I hadn’t had this feeling of noticing a performance gain in years of upgrading from MacBook to MacBook. I’m giggling of excitement just from thinking about working on that thing :)
d1zzy 6y ago
> Although, honestly, unless you need a computer today, and as much as I love Zen 2, wait for Zen 3 as long as you can. Zen 3 uses 8 core CCXes, which eliminates the semi-NUMA split L3 latency issue. Not sure about this. Today in Zen 2, in a 4 core CCX the L3 cache is split between the 4 cores and a core can only directly access its own slice of it and has to go through the Infinity Fabric to access L3 cache of other cores in the same CCX. Just because Zen 3 has 8 cores CCX doesn't necessarily mean that they all access the entire CCX L3 in uniform manner. The latter seems much more important to me than bundling 8 cores in a CCX. Do you have any links that support that statement that cores inside a CCX will have uniform L3 access in Zen 3? I can only find rumors, no official information on this.
- DiabloD3 6y ago
  Zen 2 isn't a dual ported singular 32mb L3, its two distinct 16mb L3s. If you need data from one, but your core is from the other, you have to pay the cost. Due to Zen 2 monolithic IO dies make this cost far smaller than the Zen/Zen+ design, since it only has to route inside of the IO die, and not use valuable IF<->chiplet lanes. AMD has soft confirmed that they are rolling with 8 core CCXs, so for desktop Ryzens that are 8 cores or less, it will be a single CCD with a single CCX inside, thus a single L3 domain. And yes, you are correct: if they turn it into a single, but dual ported, L3, two CCXes in a CCD would also be fine and optimal. However, this seems to be more complex than just making bigger CCXes. Intel has horrifically overcomplex memory controller designs because this is how they typically design things, and AMD wants to avoid repeating that mistake.

Nursie 6y ago

IIRC Zen 3 has been put back until next year as well, which is probably why these have been pushed out.

thesumofall 6y ago
So far there has only been rumors on this one but nothing substantial
eigenspace 6y ago
There is almost no evidence or indication that is the case. Almost all reliable leaks and public facing comments from AMD suggest Zen 3 this year.
- mattashii 6y ago
  Actually, there is (kind of). The AMD presentation slides that have been released after March (that I could find, and do not have Zen 4 on the unmarked timeline as well) all suggest Zen 3 as an item on a timeline ending 2021 [0][1], as opposed to earlier slides [2][3] that have Zen 3 on a timeline ending in 2020. The only Zen 3 product which was announced to be shipping this year, was Milan at "late 2020" [3], and that was before the presentation of [1] was given, so that might very well have changed in the meantime. Looking back at it, I really haven't seen an AMD presentation with the [ 2017 < zen, zen 2, zen 3 > 2020 ]-timeline after the financial analyst day 2020, but have seen new updated versions in the form of [ 2017 < zen, zen 2, zen 3 > 2021 ]. [0] slide 10, AMD Investor Presentation, Apr 03, 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/cff1a22a-788b-40a0-b89c-796e7b0a4c08 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/cff1a22a-788b-40a0-b89c-796e... [1] slide 42, AMD Corporate Presentation, Jun 05 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/fd06c15e-0241-424d-9fd9-5a469d96012d https://ir.amd.com/static-files/fd06c15e-0241-424d-9fd9-5a46... [2] slide 18, AMD Investor Presentation, Apr 04 2019, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/9c985e84-bbb6-4e23-99bd-dcbb21f18592 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/9c985e84-bbb6-4e23-99bd-dcbb... [3] slides 6 and 23, Financial Analyst Day 2020 - Data Center Leadership, Mar 5 2020, https://ir.amd.com/static-files/15702f66-d8d1-4816-8906-9612580f9aa1 https://ir.amd.com/static-files/15702f66-d8d1-4816-8906-9612...
  - coder543 6y ago
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/15807/amd-to-support-zen-3-and-ryzen-4000-cpus-on-b450-and-x470-motherboards https://www.anandtech.com/show/15807/amd-to-support-zen-3-an... > AMD also re-confirmed that we are set to see Zen 3 processors in 2020. So, as of last month, Zen 3 was again confirmed to be coming this year. It's absolutely still just a rumor that Zen 3 is delayed until 2021. There has been no official confirmation of any change to the schedule, and attempting to read way too much into some slides doesn't change that.
    - mattashii 6y ago
      > > AMD also re-confirmed that we are set to see Zen 3 processors in 2020. > So, as of last month, Zen 3 was again confirmed to be coming this year. Yes, I already expected a presentation at the end of the year, though this is not explicit about _shipping_ Zen 3 this year. /cynicism You are correct though that it's a rumor, and I'm 80% sure that Zen 3 will launch this year. My comment was mostly to provide a counterexample to the "almost no evidence for Zen 3 in 2021"... Although, this evidence is indeed not a lot... As always, I guess we'll see
noir_lord 6y ago
That's all just rumour at the moment. Frankly if they can launch I think they'd be insane to delay, every year they've had the rumours first then come out with a body blow to Intel, that momentum has been building and they've finally started to get real mind share for the first time in nearly a human generation so it would be silly to lose that now. Also if I had to guess why they put these out it's because production improvements have meant they've got more available high quality dies than they had at the start so it makes sense to get a last hurrah off the line and it preserves the price points for each back to somewhere near where they where at launch.
- redisman 6y ago
  Agreed - they've been releasing 3000 series CPUs all year so I wouldn't read any tea leaves based on this launch. 3300X and 3100X launched just a month ago and people weren't panicking then. They have the capability to manufacture more of Zen2 so why not do it. I'd imagine a "new" product sells much better than a few years old one even if its just a re-brand with a slight overclock.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    It would be smart to capitalise while Intel is struggling because Intel won't struggle forever they have too much money and too long a history. I was around when the AMD64 was battering the P4 and then Intel came out with the C2D an architecture they are still using which gave them a decade of owning the top/mid in desktops, pretty much all the laptop market and vast majority of servers. Better to be out ahead when Intel comes back swinging.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

anon73044 6y ago

Why would Epyc get the best binned silicon? Would the best binned Epyc run substantially cooler at the same clock than the next worsed binned Threadripper? Just curious.

old-gregg 6y ago
I think you answered your own question. The reason for server chips to use better silicon is to generate less heat (and consume less power) at the same frequency. Server operators (unlike desktop users) are more concerned with non-idle power consumption. Besides, server CPUs are semi-passively cooled, there's not enough room in a server chassis to accommodate elaborate cooling setups common in workstations and especially in enthusiast machines.
- anon73044 6y ago
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's my guess but I'd love to see some data to confirm.
  - bisby 6y ago
    Not solid numbers, but a 24 core threadripper has a TDP of 280w. The 24 core epycs of the same generation have 155w or 180w (depending on clocks). The clock speeds are a bit lower on the epyc models, but but I would be willing to bet that chips that cant hit the lower wattage targets just get pushed as high as they can go, and it is then on the consumer to manage the extra heat.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Doesn't have to be that way... [1] https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/servers/primergy/scale-out/cclc/ https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/servers/prime... [2] https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/lics/ https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/li... [3] https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners/fujitsu https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners/fuji... or [4] https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners https://www.asetek.com/data-center/data-center-partners

oever 6y ago

And what about the 4?00{H,HS,U} series? The 4700U has 8 cores and no threading, the 4800U has 8 cores with threading. Is that also a result of binning?

tengbretson 6y ago
4000 series laptop APUs appear to be entirely different designs.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

Is it actually worth it to wait for Zen 3? I've been doing research and have conflicting information

dragontamer 6y ago
Given that Zen3 doesn't exist yet, there's no legitimate research you can do about Zen3 (unless you are an AMD insider and have their NDA'd numbers / specifications). Generally speaking, waiting to buy a computer is always better, because next year's tech is always better than this year's tech. So you only buy a computer when you need one. Is your current computer slow in ways that you find annoying? Slow enough that you want an upgrade? If so, buy a new computer (or if its only slow in one or two benchmarks... like I/O or Video games, buy a faster SSD or GPU instead). If not, then wait another year or two and ask yourself the question again. Big SV companies seem to be on a 5-year upgrade cadence. If you can't make the decision yourself, then just follow what they do and upgrade your equipment every 5 years.
cooljacob204 6y ago
There is a motherboard shortage at the moment for Zen 2 CPUs so I would personally wait until at least that clears up.
- goliatone 6y ago
  There’s a general shortage. I just built a workstation using a Ryzen 9 3900x and it was very hard to find a compatible, sanely priced, current design and with a good enough spec. I was doing research first and then trying to buy the motherboard but they would be out of stock. Had to change model 3 times before wising up and just going through available inventory and then research. Then the board wouldn’t POST :/ having a concrete issue to google for then surfaced tons of threads discussing the same or similar issues that hadn’t come up when I was doing research before buying. It took me a few days to finally be able to make it boot- it was probably an acculturation of small silly things like the board being picky about which cable/slot you plug in the monitor, removing and installing again RAM even tho it was seemingly well placed before, etc. BUT! I have now a nice beast running Pop_OS and I couldn’t be happier. I hadn’t had this feeling of noticing a performance gain in years of upgrading from MacBook to MacBook. I’m giggling of excitement just from thinking about working on that thing :)

d1zzy 6y ago

> Although, honestly, unless you need a computer today, and as much as I love Zen 2, wait for Zen 3 as long as you can. Zen 3 uses 8 core CCXes, which eliminates the semi-NUMA split L3 latency issue. Not sure about this. Today in Zen 2, in a 4 core CCX the L3 cache is split between the 4 cores and a core can only directly access its own slice of it and has to go through the Infinity Fabric to access L3 cache of other cores in the same CCX. Just because Zen 3 has 8 cores CCX doesn't necessarily mean that they all access the entire CCX L3 in uniform manner. The latter seems much more important to me than bundling 8 cores in a CCX. Do you have any links that support that statement that cores inside a CCX will have uniform L3 access in Zen 3? I can only find rumors, no official information on this.

DiabloD3 6y ago
Zen 2 isn't a dual ported singular 32mb L3, its two distinct 16mb L3s. If you need data from one, but your core is from the other, you have to pay the cost. Due to Zen 2 monolithic IO dies make this cost far smaller than the Zen/Zen+ design, since it only has to route inside of the IO die, and not use valuable IF<->chiplet lanes. AMD has soft confirmed that they are rolling with 8 core CCXs, so for desktop Ryzens that are 8 cores or less, it will be a single CCD with a single CCX inside, thus a single L3 domain. And yes, you are correct: if they turn it into a single, but dual ported, L3, two CCXes in a CCD would also be fine and optimal. However, this seems to be more complex than just making bigger CCXes. Intel has horrifically overcomplex memory controller designs because this is how they typically design things, and AMD wants to avoid repeating that mistake.