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I really wonder why AMD is so reluctant to release desktop cpus with a powerful iGPU. Yeah, I know the 8x00G exists, but it's kinda too little too late.

rbanffy 3y ago
Could be that they are selling all the capacity they could hire. In that case, they'll aim to produce just the products with the highest margins (meaning the more specialized ones).
wmf 3y ago
Any better iGPU would be limited by memory bandwidth. More bandwidth would require a different socket and probably more expensive motherboard.
- SunlitCat 3y ago
  Mhm, but it kinda hurts to see, that AMD is able to push out APUs powering the likes of a Playstation 5 and everything on a single chip, while on desktop you need to buy the cpu and a chunky gpu seperately.
  - wmf 3y ago
    The consoles are not socketed or upgradeable. That's the difference.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    AM5 only has a 128 bit wide memory bus. (2 64 bit channels). So we're not going to get a usably beefier GPU until AM6. However, on laptops which aren't constrained by backwards compatibility, Strix Point Halo appears to have both a beefy GPU and a 256 bit memory bus.
    - mjevans 3y ago
      Exactly. Desktops also need to step up to using 4 channels of memory and thus a wider memory bus.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
PaulKeeble 3y ago
The G chips are also pretty seriously crippled by the cache reduction from 32MB to 16MB. It hurts their compute performance so much they behave similar to equivalent chips from a few generations before as well. I suspect its done to hit a power target but its an unfortunate trade off making these chips a bit of a let down.
jwells89 3y ago
I’ve wondered this too. I would imagine that there’s a significant market for PCs with iGPUs roughly on par with those of consoles… that’s enough horsepower to play all esports titles extremely well as well as most other types of games on medium settings, which is more than good enough for a lot of people. To work around memory issues, these CPUs would need some onboard memory which would increase costs a bit, but the tradeoff is that it’d make for simpler, cheaper low-end motherboards. One can imagine a mini-ITX board with nothing but a CPU socket and a couple of M.2 slots that’d cost significantly less than current entry-level ITX boards. A full system upgrade could be performed by simply swapping out the CPU which would be great for non-enthusiasts; without a power hungry discrete GPU, power requirements are unlikely to increase meaningfully (and in fact are likely to decrease with upgrades), so upgrading wouldn’t necessitate a PSU change. These hypothetical boxes could easily stay relevant for a decade or more. Higher end SKUs of motherboards for this type of CPU could have the usual RAM slots (acting as a second tier of slower RAM in place of swap), PCI slots, etc.
- Atotalnoob 3y ago
  On die memory increases costs significantly. It would be premium only to put any large on die memory sets
  - cduzz 3y ago
    Even for chiplets? I'd expect that you could probably get okay yields at okay costs if you are running a process that's a rev or two behind and making smaller chiplets that are then wired together after testing -- like the pentium pro's cache but for main memory to get 2 / 4 / 8gb ram all on "chip" It'd probably cost more than a normal CPU, but the trade off is much more speed and the actual computer / motherboard at that point would just be a couple USB devices. You (the CPU maker) would grab a lot more of the per-unit profit. Ah -- that's why they don't do it; no vendor would want their milkshake drunk...
    - eropple 3y ago
      AMD does seem to be trying new stuff with Strix Point Halo, but in-package RAM seems like it'd add new physical challenges that probably need a defined market before they swing for the fences? Because it's not just the memory chip, also the interposer it's stacked on top of, which now needs to be bigger, which means you need to find more room in the PCB (today) or a bigger silicon interposer (likely in the near future) which reduces yields, and so on and so forth. If you wanted to have more than the very limited SoC RAM, you'd also then be looking at having multiple DRAM controllers, which also adds to surface area, and so on and so forth.
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
They did this, nobody bought them. Also the RAM bandwidth just isn’t there, and special mainboards with more memory channels eat up the cost advantage. And they’re hard to cool.
sliken 3y ago
I've had the same thought. They obviously know how to add decent iGPU and the required bandwidth in the PS5 and XboxX (and the previous gen). Does seem like they finally plan to do this with the AMD Strix Halo which looks to hit somewhere late this year or early next.
mdasen 3y ago
Others have pointed out things like memory bandwidth, but I think there might be another thing: would people want it? Let's say that the CPU + powerful iGPU cost 95% of what a discrete CPU and GPU cost - but now you can't buy them separately, can't upgrade them separately, etc. You're less likely to get the mix of CPU and GPU that you're looking for since you can't select them independently. Why not just package the RAM with the CPU too? Apple's done that, but I think most people don't love that because it means they can't upgrade their RAM independently. It also places constraints on how good something could be. Let's say that you produce new GPUs every 18 months and new CPUs every 12 months. Well, now you need to synchronize them. If the new CPU is ready to go, but the new GPU is 3 or 6 or 9 months out, what should your product releases be? By having them separate, someone can buy the latest AMD CPU even though the next-gen GPU is 6 months out. When the next GPU comes out, they can buy that and upgrade the graphics and CPU on different cycles. Syncing up different product cycles isn't always easy. I think the reason why is that they don't think there's likely a market. With things like a PlayStation or Xbox, it's going to (pretty much) have one set of capabilities for its 7-year lifecycle. You can integrate the CPU and GPU because there's only one buyer and because the CPU and GPU release have to be synced anyway for the console's release. With PCs, the release doesn't have to be synced and there are many buyers with different priorities.
- Teever 3y ago
  Having an iGPU doesn't prevent you from installing a graphics card.
  - ladyanita22 3y ago
    And then you'd pay much more because you're getting a powerful iGPU that you'll likely not use.
    - Teever 3y ago
      Sure, but it's totally viable that some people on a budget would buy a cpu with an iGPU and then upgrade later.
- 3y ago
roenxi 3y ago
I don't think they are reluctant, their APU have started low end and been steadily [0] moving up to the performance spectrum. We're about on schedule for some powerful ones to hit the market. The 8000G is the first that has entered the conversation but I doubt it'll be the last. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_APU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_APU
Dylan16807 3y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "too late"?
- SunlitCat 3y ago
  Given they had mobile apus out with similar performance since quite some time, it's kinda baffling they just released a comparable desktop apu now.
ryukoposting 3y ago
If I had to guess: 1) physical space. There isn't a ton of leftover room once you've added compute and IO. 2) segmentation. A sufficiently powerful iGPU would cannibalize sales of AMD's own discrete GPUs. 3) board partners. A sufficiently powerful iGPU would rob AMD's GPU board partners of sales. 4) heat. Keeping the two hot things apart from each other makes both of them easier to cool. 5) memory bandwidth. Even the dinky iGPU in my Ryzen 2200G is heavily constrained by RAM clocks. FWIW, I have a Ryzen 2200G hooked up to my TV, and it's totally adequate for casual gaming.
phire 3y ago
Really, it's a form factor limitation. As others have pointed out, you can't fit enough memory bandwidth though the AM5 socket to feed a powerful iGPU. Fixing this problem kind of requires abandoning the current desktop form factor and switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. Though at that point, the motherboard is doing little more than power regulation and breaking out all the IO to various ports. At that point, does it still count as a desktop form factor?
- adolph 3y ago
  > switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. . . . At that point, does it still count as a desktop form factor? Apple seems to think so
  - jamiek88 3y ago
    Apple and commodity don't mix and we're talking about commodities here and all the fat cutting that requires.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Fixing this problem kind of requires abandoning the current desktop form factor and switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. Does it though? What stops you from putting some HBM onto the APU package and still installing it into the AM5 socket? It wouldn't even preclude you from continuing to use the memory slots, that memory would just be slower than the on-package memory.
  - phire 3y ago
    Such a design would be possible, but not really commercially viable. HBM memory is expensive, it requires a huge amount of extra IO on the die and an expensive silicon interposer. And you still need to keep around the old IO for the DDR5 memory. All that drives up costs, for what would still be a mid-range GPU. Also, current software and games doesn't know how to deal with two pools of memory that have different performance characteristics, so the hardware would be underutilised. The design which abandons the AM5 socket and switches to using much simpler and cheaper soldered-on gddr6 memory just ends up being cheaper and avoids the thermal and area limitations of the AM5 socket, so it could probably compete with high-end GPUs. It's just a better product direction. AMD will either stick with their current strategy of APUs with their low-end GPUs because they would rather sell both a CPU and a dedicated GPU, or they will skip straight to a new form factor. The middle ground of trying to add more memory bandwidth to an AM5 style package just doesn't make any sense.

rbanffy 3y ago

Could be that they are selling all the capacity they could hire. In that case, they'll aim to produce just the products with the highest margins (meaning the more specialized ones).

wmf 3y ago

Any better iGPU would be limited by memory bandwidth. More bandwidth would require a different socket and probably more expensive motherboard.

SunlitCat 3y ago
Mhm, but it kinda hurts to see, that AMD is able to push out APUs powering the likes of a Playstation 5 and everything on a single chip, while on desktop you need to buy the cpu and a chunky gpu seperately.
- wmf 3y ago
  The consoles are not socketed or upgradeable. That's the difference.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  AM5 only has a 128 bit wide memory bus. (2 64 bit channels). So we're not going to get a usably beefier GPU until AM6. However, on laptops which aren't constrained by backwards compatibility, Strix Point Halo appears to have both a beefy GPU and a 256 bit memory bus.
  - mjevans 3y ago
    Exactly. Desktops also need to step up to using 4 channels of memory and thus a wider memory bus.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

PaulKeeble 3y ago

The G chips are also pretty seriously crippled by the cache reduction from 32MB to 16MB. It hurts their compute performance so much they behave similar to equivalent chips from a few generations before as well. I suspect its done to hit a power target but its an unfortunate trade off making these chips a bit of a let down.

jwells89 3y ago

I’ve wondered this too. I would imagine that there’s a significant market for PCs with iGPUs roughly on par with those of consoles… that’s enough horsepower to play all esports titles extremely well as well as most other types of games on medium settings, which is more than good enough for a lot of people. To work around memory issues, these CPUs would need some onboard memory which would increase costs a bit, but the tradeoff is that it’d make for simpler, cheaper low-end motherboards. One can imagine a mini-ITX board with nothing but a CPU socket and a couple of M.2 slots that’d cost significantly less than current entry-level ITX boards. A full system upgrade could be performed by simply swapping out the CPU which would be great for non-enthusiasts; without a power hungry discrete GPU, power requirements are unlikely to increase meaningfully (and in fact are likely to decrease with upgrades), so upgrading wouldn’t necessitate a PSU change. These hypothetical boxes could easily stay relevant for a decade or more. Higher end SKUs of motherboards for this type of CPU could have the usual RAM slots (acting as a second tier of slower RAM in place of swap), PCI slots, etc.

Atotalnoob 3y ago
On die memory increases costs significantly. It would be premium only to put any large on die memory sets
- cduzz 3y ago
  Even for chiplets? I'd expect that you could probably get okay yields at okay costs if you are running a process that's a rev or two behind and making smaller chiplets that are then wired together after testing -- like the pentium pro's cache but for main memory to get 2 / 4 / 8gb ram all on "chip" It'd probably cost more than a normal CPU, but the trade off is much more speed and the actual computer / motherboard at that point would just be a couple USB devices. You (the CPU maker) would grab a lot more of the per-unit profit. Ah -- that's why they don't do it; no vendor would want their milkshake drunk...
  - eropple 3y ago
    AMD does seem to be trying new stuff with Strix Point Halo, but in-package RAM seems like it'd add new physical challenges that probably need a defined market before they swing for the fences? Because it's not just the memory chip, also the interposer it's stacked on top of, which now needs to be bigger, which means you need to find more room in the PCB (today) or a bigger silicon interposer (likely in the near future) which reduces yields, and so on and so forth. If you wanted to have more than the very limited SoC RAM, you'd also then be looking at having multiple DRAM controllers, which also adds to surface area, and so on and so forth.

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

They did this, nobody bought them. Also the RAM bandwidth just isn’t there, and special mainboards with more memory channels eat up the cost advantage. And they’re hard to cool.

sliken 3y ago

I've had the same thought. They obviously know how to add decent iGPU and the required bandwidth in the PS5 and XboxX (and the previous gen). Does seem like they finally plan to do this with the AMD Strix Halo which looks to hit somewhere late this year or early next.

mdasen 3y ago

Others have pointed out things like memory bandwidth, but I think there might be another thing: would people want it? Let's say that the CPU + powerful iGPU cost 95% of what a discrete CPU and GPU cost - but now you can't buy them separately, can't upgrade them separately, etc. You're less likely to get the mix of CPU and GPU that you're looking for since you can't select them independently. Why not just package the RAM with the CPU too? Apple's done that, but I think most people don't love that because it means they can't upgrade their RAM independently. It also places constraints on how good something could be. Let's say that you produce new GPUs every 18 months and new CPUs every 12 months. Well, now you need to synchronize them. If the new CPU is ready to go, but the new GPU is 3 or 6 or 9 months out, what should your product releases be? By having them separate, someone can buy the latest AMD CPU even though the next-gen GPU is 6 months out. When the next GPU comes out, they can buy that and upgrade the graphics and CPU on different cycles. Syncing up different product cycles isn't always easy. I think the reason why is that they don't think there's likely a market. With things like a PlayStation or Xbox, it's going to (pretty much) have one set of capabilities for its 7-year lifecycle. You can integrate the CPU and GPU because there's only one buyer and because the CPU and GPU release have to be synced anyway for the console's release. With PCs, the release doesn't have to be synced and there are many buyers with different priorities.

Teever 3y ago
Having an iGPU doesn't prevent you from installing a graphics card.
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  And then you'd pay much more because you're getting a powerful iGPU that you'll likely not use.
  - Teever 3y ago
    Sure, but it's totally viable that some people on a budget would buy a cpu with an iGPU and then upgrade later.
3y ago

roenxi 3y ago

I don't think they are reluctant, their APU have started low end and been steadily [0] moving up to the performance spectrum. We're about on schedule for some powerful ones to hit the market. The 8000G is the first that has entered the conversation but I doubt it'll be the last. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_APU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_APU

Dylan16807 3y ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "too late"?

SunlitCat 3y ago
Given they had mobile apus out with similar performance since quite some time, it's kinda baffling they just released a comparable desktop apu now.

ryukoposting 3y ago

If I had to guess: 1) physical space. There isn't a ton of leftover room once you've added compute and IO. 2) segmentation. A sufficiently powerful iGPU would cannibalize sales of AMD's own discrete GPUs. 3) board partners. A sufficiently powerful iGPU would rob AMD's GPU board partners of sales. 4) heat. Keeping the two hot things apart from each other makes both of them easier to cool. 5) memory bandwidth. Even the dinky iGPU in my Ryzen 2200G is heavily constrained by RAM clocks. FWIW, I have a Ryzen 2200G hooked up to my TV, and it's totally adequate for casual gaming.

phire 3y ago

Really, it's a form factor limitation. As others have pointed out, you can't fit enough memory bandwidth though the AM5 socket to feed a powerful iGPU. Fixing this problem kind of requires abandoning the current desktop form factor and switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. Though at that point, the motherboard is doing little more than power regulation and breaking out all the IO to various ports. At that point, does it still count as a desktop form factor?

adolph 3y ago
> switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. . . . At that point, does it still count as a desktop form factor? Apple seems to think so
- jamiek88 3y ago
  Apple and commodity don't mix and we're talking about commodities here and all the fat cutting that requires.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Fixing this problem kind of requires abandoning the current desktop form factor and switching to a unified module with both the CPU and soldered-on memory. Does it though? What stops you from putting some HBM onto the APU package and still installing it into the AM5 socket? It wouldn't even preclude you from continuing to use the memory slots, that memory would just be slower than the on-package memory.
- phire 3y ago
  Such a design would be possible, but not really commercially viable. HBM memory is expensive, it requires a huge amount of extra IO on the die and an expensive silicon interposer. And you still need to keep around the old IO for the DDR5 memory. All that drives up costs, for what would still be a mid-range GPU. Also, current software and games doesn't know how to deal with two pools of memory that have different performance characteristics, so the hardware would be underutilised. The design which abandons the AM5 socket and switches to using much simpler and cheaper soldered-on gddr6 memory just ends up being cheaper and avoids the thermal and area limitations of the AM5 socket, so it could probably compete with high-end GPUs. It's just a better product direction. AMD will either stick with their current strategy of APUs with their low-end GPUs because they would rather sell both a CPU and a dedicated GPU, or they will skip straight to a new form factor. The middle ground of trying to add more memory bandwidth to an AM5 style package just doesn't make any sense.