Rumor; is AMD coming out with a 16 core 32 thread version of RyZen?

[L'Ancien Regime]

http://www.nag.co.za/2017/03/17/amd-reportedly-has-a-second-zen-launch-for-high-end-desktops-coming-soon/

 

 

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/ryzen-strictly-technical.2500572/page-34#post-38797798

 

AMD has had its hands full with launching Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 in the last few months, and they’ve managed to also launch a new platform with DDR4 support alongside some decent overclocking software for the Ryzen family. It’s already been quite a busy year for them, and according to new rumours, it’s about to get even busier. A member of the AnandTech forums has posted new details from a source inside PC testing circles that AMD is working on a high-end desktop platform (HEDT) to combat Intel’s chips in the Core i7 range, with the Core i7 6950X being the current flagship.

Credit for the rumour goes to “OrangeKhrush”, who’s posted a few details about the new platform from AMD. The leaks originate from the China-based Chiphell forums, where almost every leak about new silicon seems to start. The post reveals a couple of details about the socket design, as well as the possibility that AMD’s HEDT platform boasts a quad-channel memory controller.

“Public knowledge by now but AMD has a new HEDT platform coming out in a couple of months. You’ll see more of it at Computex I believe. It’s a 16 core /32 Thread, quad channel behemoth. And it is insanely quick in the tests that Ryzen is already excelling at. So Cinebench, and all other related productivity programs. The gaming issues that were causing the Ryzen AM4 CPUs to behave erratically to say the least have been ironed out. It’s akin to a newer revision on a newer platform. This should be competing with the Xeon and of course 6950X Intel offers for $1700~$1800USD, but at about $1,000 USD if not less for some Skews. Coming soon.

CPSs are pretty big physically, about twice the size of surrent 6950X CPUs and a bit more perhaps. And if you were hoping for pins, nope it’s strictly LGA! It’s NOT 8 channel, but Quad.

Will be a splendid competition between X299 and this AMD platform. Skylake-X is pretty good, not revolutionary but a meaningful step up in IPC and the clocks are pretty high as well. If Intel will have a 32 core part to compete on X299 remains to be seen, but the HEDT platform is going to change quite a bit in the next 4 to 6 months.?”

The post adds that there’ll be new silicon revisions for Ryzen and the HEDT platform, and that most of the teething issues seen in the initial batch of chips at launch will be solved. All of these things seem quite unreal, but it’s probably all true.

A source that I spoke to today confirmed some, but not all of these details. The use of an LGA socket is confirmed (although server chips have used LGA for more than a decade), and the core count is correct. Any pricing speculation, though, is just that: speculation.

AMD has an upcoming server platform called Naples, which launches with dual-socket motherboards featuring 16 channels of DDR4 memory support, as well as Zen-based processors with up to 32 cores and 64 virtual threads, as well as 64MB of L3 cache. Considering that Ryzen 5 processors are based on the same die as the Ryzen 7 chips, that means that AMD’s Naples platform starts out at 32 cores and 64 threads, and scales down from there as they bin the faulty chips.

However, it seems more likely that this new family of processors uses a different die starting out at 16 cores and 32 threads, scaling down from there into cheaper designs with 14, 12, and 10 physical cores. That gives AMD a lot of room to play around with the pricing, and perhaps they’ll start out with the 16-core processor retailing for less than what Intel charges for the Core i7 6900K, which is currently at $1,050 in the US.

[AbnRanger]

I always felt like AMD's first Zen chip would be more of a "Jab" in boxing parlance. They know Intel will have to pull something out of their...........hat ......to answer AMD's comeback. Then, within 6-12mos, AMD would come back with 16+ cores in the desktop line. At 14nm, and with Samsung helping, they should have no major problems doing so, if their server line already has that many cores. They will have to clean some things up, so those chips can reach above 4 Ghz. Regardless, I think AMD lulled Intel into sleep the past 5-7yrs, when they said they were abandoning the High-End, enthusiast segment. Intel bought it, and that bought AMD time to make a strong comeback.

If Intel had kept up the pace of development, AMD would probably still be behind to some degree.

[L'Ancien Regime]

Public knowledge by now but AMD has a new HEDT platform coming out in a couple of months. You’ll see more of it at Computex I believe. It’s a 16 core /32 Thread, quad channel behemoth. And it is insanely quick in the tests that Ryzen is already excelling at. So Cinebench, and all other related productivity programs. The gaming issues that were causing the Ryzen AM4 CPUs to behave erratically to say the least have been ironed out. It’s akin to a newer revision on a newer platform. This should be competing with the Xeon and of course 6950X Intel offers for $1700~$1800USD, but at about $1,000 USD if not less for some Skews. Coming soon.

CPSs are pretty big physically, about twice the size of surrent 6950X CPUs and a bit more perhaps. And if you were hoping for pins, nope it’s strictly LGA! It’s NOT 8 channel, but Quad.

Will be a splendid competition between X299 and this AMD platform. Skylake-X is pretty good, not revolutionary but a meaningful step up in IPC and the clocks are pretty high as well. If Intel will have a 32 core part to compete on X299 remains to be seen, but the HEDT platform is going to change quite a bit in the next 4 to 6 months.?
The Naples chip of course has been spotted multiple times on Zauba’s shipping database. The Summit Ridge platform is AMD’s mainstream platform with Zen architecture and 8 Core dies. Naples on the other hand is the codename of the server platform; the very same platform which will be rocking Zen in 32 core flavors. This is not to be confused with the Zeppelin platform which will include a 32 Zen Core/Vega based APU as well. The 32 Zen cores are tied together using AMD’s very own Coherent Fabric. The homegrown interconnect will support data rates of upto 100GB/s which is alot faster than what the PCIe interface sustains (around 15GB/s). Not only that but latency has been reduced from 500ns to an unknown but allegedly smaller number.

 

Thanks to AMD’s lego-like build philosophy even Naples will actually be fabricated in an 8-core base design, with 16 and 32 core chips being produced in an MCM (Multi Chip Module) format. Up till now however, we had seen no real evidence (apart from the usual documentation) that such a monster processor was actually on the charts in the near future. The shipping entry was marked 20th June 2016 and lists the Naples Test Board. It is marked FOC which I assume stands for ‘Full Operational Capability’ meaning AMD has achieved this significant milestone in its Zen roadmap quite some time ago.

Here’s the thing though, this very same lego-like build philosophy can allow AMD to roll out a 16 core variant in the commercial space as well, since both utilize the same socket, it really shouldn’t be an issue at all. In fact, yield theory dictates that AMD can roll out any number of cores from harvested dies from failed Naples chips (this includes 10 core, 12 core and yes even 16 core chips).

Interestingly however, the rumor says that such an SKU might be based on the LGA socket – that would increase the difficulty of porting and conflicts with AMD’s current philosophy and is the one thing that makes me doubt the authenticity of this rumor. That is to say that AMD can easily roll out a 16-core Ryzen processor but its not going to be based on LGA – for that to happen, it will need to revamp everything from scratch and create a new socket (which this rumor dubs as the X399 socket).

 

http://wccftech.com/amd-working-16-core-ryzen-cpu/

 

 

If only, if only...