3 ms·

A13 is made on the same 7nm TSMC process as AMD is using and is still much more efficient. Node size isn't a very good argument at this point.

by hajile 5y ago

acomjean 5y ago
According to AMD you get >1.25 performance at 1/2 the power usage when chips go from 7nm to 5nm. So when x86 gets to 5nm the difference in performance might be fairly negligible. Its not everything but its certainly not nothing. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-unveils-zen-4-cpu-roadmap-96-core-5nm-genoa-128-core-begamo https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-unveils-zen-4-cpu-road...
- hajile 5y ago
  TSMC claims 15% higher clocks OR 20% lower power for the same architecture moving from N7 to N5. There's a HUGE asterisk sitting somewhere and I'm pretty sure I know where. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12727/tsmc-details-5-nm-process-tech-aggressive-scaling-but-thin-power-and-performance-gains https://www.anandtech.com/show/12727/tsmc-details-5-nm-proce... Chips with loads of cores like Milan (the one mentioned in that article) have very low clockspeeds to keep down the TDP. I'd guess that their 2.2-3GHz clocks are easily possible with high-density designs (high-density usually going hand-in-hand with lower clockspeeds), so performance won't suffer and might even improve due to shifting power savings into slightly higher clocks. That's the upside, but there is also a definite downside. Desktop chip clockspeeds will suffer. If they are made on these processes, they simply will not be able to achieve those high clocks (probably 3.5-4GHz at the absolute top end). That means that even if Zen 4 gets a 20% IPC increase, it just breaks even (or even regresses) with the 20-30% clockspeed decrease. TL;DR -- While server chips are pretty much all upside, desktop chips seem to break even or suffer performance regressions.

3 ms·

A13 is made on the same 7nm TSMC process as AMD is using and is still much more efficient. Node size isn't a very good argument at this point.

by hajile 5y ago

A13 is made on the same 7nm TSMC process as AMD is using and is still much more efficient. Node size isn't a very good argument at this point.

acomjean 5y ago
According to AMD you get >1.25 performance at 1/2 the power usage when chips go from 7nm to 5nm. So when x86 gets to 5nm the difference in performance might be fairly negligible. Its not everything but its certainly not nothing. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-unveils-zen-4-cpu-roadmap-96-core-5nm-genoa-128-core-begamo https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-unveils-zen-4-cpu-road...
- hajile 5y ago
  TSMC claims 15% higher clocks OR 20% lower power for the same architecture moving from N7 to N5. There's a HUGE asterisk sitting somewhere and I'm pretty sure I know where. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12727/tsmc-details-5-nm-process-tech-aggressive-scaling-but-thin-power-and-performance-gains https://www.anandtech.com/show/12727/tsmc-details-5-nm-proce... Chips with loads of cores like Milan (the one mentioned in that article) have very low clockspeeds to keep down the TDP. I'd guess that their 2.2-3GHz clocks are easily possible with high-density designs (high-density usually going hand-in-hand with lower clockspeeds), so performance won't suffer and might even improve due to shifting power savings into slightly higher clocks. That's the upside, but there is also a definite downside. Desktop chip clockspeeds will suffer. If they are made on these processes, they simply will not be able to achieve those high clocks (probably 3.5-4GHz at the absolute top end). That means that even if Zen 4 gets a 20% IPC increase, it just breaks even (or even regresses) with the 20-30% clockspeed decrease. TL;DR -- While server chips are pretty much all upside, desktop chips seem to break even or suffer performance regressions.