2 ms·

So why can't we walk in and buy a Zen 3 in a laptop right now? .... because the thermals and engineering have not been designed/completed yet. Sometime in the

by grecy 6y ago

So why can't we walk in and buy a Zen 3 in a laptop right now? .... because the thermals and engineering have not been designed/completed yet. Sometime in the future they will be, which is great. But that's the future. I'm still talking about right now. I like to buy things that actually exist and work today, not things that hypothetically work well in the future.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Well, no. The reason you can't buy one right now is because there is no 5nm TSMC capacity left to build them.
- grecy 6y ago
  But you said I can get a 7nm one that is pretty close to the same thing. Why don't they sell me one of those in a laptop ready to go?
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Because it would be a monumental waste of money to develop a 7nm version of the laptop chips for what, 3 months?
    - grecy 6y ago
      But surely the 7nm part has been around long enough, they should have been designing and validating it months before the part even existed...
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Well, no. The 7nm part is specifically meant for desktop computers. The part meant for laptop computers, that has graphics, uses a different memory controller, has different I/O characteristics, and uses very different cache structures, was always meant for 5nm only. They both, however, share almost the exact same CPU logic, which is why we know that performance characteristics will be essentially identical. You could ship a laptop with the 7nm chip, and it was done with Zen 1, but then you will have very high RAM power usage, you will need dedicated graphics with Non-unified memory, you will miss out on some accelerators, and you will some I/O issues Because of all these problems, no one thinks it worth it to design a laptop against the 7nm parts, and it's not possible to build a 7nm version of the laptop part without very high investment.
sliken 6y ago
There's a difference between Zen3 desktop chips and Zen3 laptop chips. The former has 2 pieces of silicon and the later has 1. They just aren't shipping yet, apparently some announcements are due at CES in January, it's unclear if there will be volume available then. Much of AMD's current fab capacity is going for PS5 and Xbox X/S CPUs and of course the rather popular zen 3 desktops.

by grecy 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

Well, no. The reason you can't buy one right now is because there is no 5nm TSMC capacity left to build them.

grecy 6y ago
But you said I can get a 7nm one that is pretty close to the same thing. Why don't they sell me one of those in a laptop ready to go?
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Because it would be a monumental waste of money to develop a 7nm version of the laptop chips for what, 3 months?
  - grecy 6y ago
    But surely the 7nm part has been around long enough, they should have been designing and validating it months before the part even existed...
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Well, no. The 7nm part is specifically meant for desktop computers. The part meant for laptop computers, that has graphics, uses a different memory controller, has different I/O characteristics, and uses very different cache structures, was always meant for 5nm only. They both, however, share almost the exact same CPU logic, which is why we know that performance characteristics will be essentially identical. You could ship a laptop with the 7nm chip, and it was done with Zen 1, but then you will have very high RAM power usage, you will need dedicated graphics with Non-unified memory, you will miss out on some accelerators, and you will some I/O issues Because of all these problems, no one thinks it worth it to design a laptop against the 7nm parts, and it's not possible to build a 7nm version of the laptop part without very high investment.

sliken 6y ago

There's a difference between Zen3 desktop chips and Zen3 laptop chips. The former has 2 pieces of silicon and the later has 1. They just aren't shipping yet, apparently some announcements are due at CES in January, it's unclear if there will be volume available then. Much of AMD's current fab capacity is going for PS5 and Xbox X/S CPUs and of course the rather popular zen 3 desktops.