AMD Zen 5 Microarchitecture Referenced in Leaked Slides

[Makaveli]

MLID tho...

Very true!

Quad channel memory support on the Desktop is really needed if we are looking at the possibility of 32 cores on the desktop. AMD's DDR5 memory controller is crap compared to Intel's, so another thing for AMD to fix.

Not going to happen that segmentation of Desktop staying Dual channel, then workstation/pro 4 quad channel then server 8 channel will stay the same as that is done on purpose.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

workstation/pro 4 quad channel

5000WX series Threadripper had 8 channels.

 

[Makaveli]

5000WX series Threadripper had 8 channels.

Correct forgot about that one.

 

[ADB1979]

Clowns are entertaining, but I don't turn to them for news.

Asses can carry a lot of weight, but I don't ask them for comments about other peoples "leaks" (NOT news).

May I kindly suggest that if you have nothing to give, then give nothing.

MLID "leaks" information, has discussions with insiders and formulates his own conclusions and then releases them to the public as HIS leaks and opinions. You could very easily do the same, if you are not able or willing to do so, then simply do not read or watch what he has to offer, and do not add your empty comments in places like this.

i wouldn't be surprised if they remove the L3 cache from the die and move it to a dedicated silicon with the 16 cores and 32 cores CCD. Like Denver said, Cache barely scale with newer process so if they want to keep a similar amount of cache per cores.

Another advantages of having a dedicated die for cache is they are able to squeeze more into the same area since you can use a different libraries.

The IPC gains aren't incredible, but they aren't that bad too. the key thing is the cadence they release, if they get it every 12-18 month, they should remain competitive.

Zen 6 is bringing a significant change in packaging, so something along these lines is not just possible, but expected. Intel is also working on something like this, it is codenamed "Adamantine" and was/is aimed to be a 128MB slab of some kind of Cache/RAM, not enough details have been leaked yet to know what this is exactly, but most likely to be L3 or L4 Cache, the question remains as to whether this was a realistic target, how well it works, how much it costs, especially in packaging, what the energy consumption is, will it have drawbacks (energy consumption for example).

That both Intel and AMD are working with advanced packaging techniques, 2.5 and 3D silicon, both active and inactive silicon layers, says a lot about where things are going as the physical, electrical and thermal problems mount as the lithographic processes become more difficult and expensive. The future of CPU's and other performance Silicon is going to end up with fully 3D chips for the performance, with the less performant silicon attached in the traditional manner, off to the side, and perhaps some distance away.

"Chips" have not had such dramatic and exciting changes for a long time, this alone is entertainment for us Geeks.

Not going to happen that segmentation of Desktop staying Dual channel, then workstation/pro 4 quad channel then server 8 channel will stay the same as that is done on purpose.

This will change in the not so distant future. AMD is building what some have named as a "Super APU", it has a quad channel memory design - for laptops / notebooks, and one assumes also for desktops.

As it is aimed at laptops, and for gaming, it makes sense to run quad channel RAM with a beefy amount of graphics power. Right now however we can only speculate as to the nature of the RAM, will it be GDDR6/X/7 soldered to the board right next to the APU, or will that be half of the RAM and the rest is DDR5, which would add an extra degree of complexity, or will it all be DDR5, if so will it be soldered down or will the laptops have 4x SODIMM slots.!?!? All unknown ATM, but this is a real planned product and will be using Zen 5 cores, so that gives a timescale.

As for Workstation CPU's, AMD has just announced a new socket for "mini EPYC" CPU's, they have up to 64 Zen 4c cores (standard Zen 4c chiplets, up to 4x16), and reuse the standard I/O die, but have fewer available PCIe lanes, and 6-channel RAM (rather than 12).

There is no reason why AMD could not use this socket for future Workstation CPU's, I would welcome that, and as always, there has been a great deal of speculation about this future potential use of the new SP6 socket.

Video linked below.

AMD "mini-EPYC" Sierra CPU and platform overview.

 

[efikkan]

I still think AMD should be putting more on the CPU die and put an end to this L3 cache starved design. Zen clearly needs more L3 to work properly, and this situation with the glued on L3 is silly. At first it was great, and a novel approach, 2nd time was a little weird, but still fine, but going into the 3rd gen of this, it's clear that it's just a money-making racket, and that the CPU needs this extra cache to work properly. Zen6 will really need a larger L2 cache too, as a 10% IPC increase will be insufficient to counter Intel.

For most workloads, adding a massive L3 only results negligible performance gains. There are some exceptions where we see substantial gains though.

L3 cache is a spillover cache, and most computational intensive workloads are not L3 cache sensitive, as this is largely a symptom of poorly written software. Adding ever increasing L3 caches isn't an avenue which will unlock new magnitudes of performance, and I don't see the reason to spend precious development resources and die space on getting essentially marginal gains in bad software. What we need is more computational power and throughput.

Doubling of L2 cache is worth 3-5% IPC uplift, too much to be ignored if all your offering is a 10% uptick. AMD needs at least a 15% IPC uptick each generation.

Well, it doesn't quite work that way.
Performance gains from increasing caches depends on the characteristics of the architecture. Also, such gains are usually in the form of diminishing returns, so it requires exponentially more cache to achieve less and less.

We've seen caches change before, sometimes they increase, and sometimes they even decrease, especially when there is a revolutionary new architecture. There are also more things to cache than just size, like number of banks and latency.

A yes yes. If a leaker gets something right everyone promply forgets it or calls it a lucky guess.
If a leaker gets something wrong it hangs over them for the rest of time like badge of shame and reason not to trust anything they say, ever.

You know, the few people with sensitive know-how of future products just love pouring out spicy details, risking not only their own career, but also lawsuits and their own livelihood to random nobodys on Youtube, for no apparent gain or purpose. That's why several of these "leakers" claim to have dozens of top sources within AMD, Intel, Nvidia, AiB makers and motherboard makers, because such sources are so abundant and plentiful. It's not like they just find rumors and occasional real stuff on various forums and add some sprinkling to it…
(sarcasm)

In the real world though, these "leakers" are constantly wrong because they are fake.
Architectural details, including cache configuration, threading(SMT…), pipieline design, etc. are set in stone up to several years ahead of an actual product release. The larger the feature, the eariler it has to be decided, as all other design considerations are derived from it. No such details change "last minute". Use this knowledge, and you can dismiss a lot of videos about "leaks".
Also IPC known long before tapeut, they do in fact simulate various design variations, and IPC always comes from architectural features. IPC is instructions per clock, not performance BTW. The only discrepancy here is if they have to disable hardware features, change timings in firmware etc, to account for hardware defects.
So clock speeds will be unknown until late engineering samples arrive, but IPC is known.

 

[Tomorrow]

You know, the few people with sensitive know-how of future products just love pouring out spicy details, risking not only their own career, but also lawsuits and their own livelihood to random nobodys on Youtube, for no apparent gain or purpose. That's why several of these "leakers" claim to have dozens of top sources within AMD, Intel, Nvidia, AiB makers and motherboard makers, because such sources are so abundant and plentiful. It's not like they just find rumors and occasional real stuff on various forums and add some sprinkling to it…
(sarcasm)

As Tom has said himself - the best info about a specific product has often come from a source at the competitor. They all watch and try to predict each other. Why wouldn't Nvidia source give out info about upcoming AMD products or AMD source about what Intel has cooking?
It makes perfect sense - you mess with your competitor, send them scrambilng and looking for sources inside their own company that dont exist. Potentially even changing some plans that can be changed like segmentation or price.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Quad Channel memory in the "Desktop" Space:

This I think will be limited to threadripper et al line ups for the forseeable future until iGPUs become powerful enough to warrant the extra bandwidth needed. It would make sense in certain hand held scenarios and maybe with Samsungs new LPCAMM standard it may become viable but still quite a few years before being market ready.

 

[ADB1979]

This I think will be limited to threadripper et al line ups for the forseeable future until iGPUs become powerful enough to warrant the extra bandwidth needed. It would make sense in certain hand held scenarios and maybe with Samsungs new LPCAMM standard it may become viable but still quite a few years before being market ready.

This will change in the not so distant future. AMD is building what some have named as a "Super APU", it has a quad channel memory design - for laptops / notebooks, and one assumes also for desktops.

As it is aimed at laptops, and for gaming, it makes sense to run quad channel RAM with a beefy amount of graphics power.

Good question about the LPCAMM memory modules, I have only just read up on them, and I do not know if they are going to be fast enough so I wont comment further on that point, although the significant space savings in all 3 dimensions whilst also having better latency due to being closer to the CPU socket makes this a very promising standard, and of course being replaceable is very significant..

 

[AnotherReader]

Good question about the LPCAMM memory modules, I have only just read up on them, and I do not know if they are going to be fast enough so I wont comment further on that point, although the significant space savings in all 3 dimensions whilst also having better latency due to being closer to the CPU socket makes this a very promising standard, and of course being replaceable is very significant..

LPDDR5 typically has higher latency than regular DDR5.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Hmmm, was hoping for more TBH. I don't know how Zen5 or Zen6 is going to compete against intel's new architecture, if that ever actually comes out.

I still think AMD should be putting more on the CPU die and put an end to this L3 cache starved design. Zen clearly needs more L3 to work properly, and this situation with the glued on L3 is silly. At first it was great, and a novel approach, 2nd time was a little weird, but still fine, but going into the 3rd gen of this, it's clear that it's just a money-making racket, and that the CPU needs this extra cache to work properly. Zen6 will really need a larger L2 cache too, as a 10% IPC increase will be insufficient to counter Intel. Doubling of L2 cache is worth 3-5% IPC uplift, too much to be ignored if all your offering is a 10% uptick. AMD needs at least a 15% IPC uptick each generation.

Quad channel memory support on the Desktop is really needed if we are looking at the possibility of 32 cores on the desktop. AMD's DDR5 memory controller is crap compared to Intel's, so another thing for AMD to fix.

What do you mean by that when Zen is currently ahead of Intel chips? Core for core and clockspeed for clockspeed, Zen is faster with a better IPC. Intel is still stuck with using power hungry 10nm and is currently the one that needs to innovate more to compete with AMD.

Intel is basically in the position AMD was back during the Phenom II vs Core2 era - it is cramming a bunch of cores into a cpu and clocking them as high as possible (ignoring much of power consumption considerations) to stay competitive.

In multithreaded workloads, the upper Ryzen 7000 cpus can beat or at least match the top of the line Intel cpus like the i7-13700k and the i9-13900k in productivity while consuming 40%-50%+ less power.

Intel's i-12000 series was slightly ahead of Zen 3/Ryzen 5000 in terms of gaming, but when the Ryzen 7000 series came out, the 7700X with 32mb L3 cache is roughly equal to/slightly slower than Intel i9 cpus and the 7800X3D is a ahead of Intel i9 cpus.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Reason is shifting harmonics to prevent other schemes from RFI damages?

LPDDR5... latencies

 

[ADB1979]

LPDDR5 typically has higher latency than regular DDR5.

View attachment 315634

I don't know a whole lot about LPDDR, I have no real personal interest in laptops, I am learning in the here and now.

Having just looked it up, LPCAMM is "low-power compression attached memory module", I had always assumed that "LP" DDR RAM was simply optimized for low power by design and manufacturing to run at a lower voltage, it turns out that it is actually a different standard.!!!

Thankfully the review above you linked to uses a CPU that supports both DDR5 and LPDDR5 so it is up to the manufacturer. Sadly that manufacturer is HP, so naturally they gimped the laptop by using awful RAM (yes I am a cynic), LPDDR5-5600 CL46 (yes, 46, that isn't a typo), and yes 5600 when LPDDR5 standard officially maxxes out at 6400, and of course they could have used DDR5 if they really wanted to, but they didn't even allow the CPU to hit it's maximum frequency, so max performance was never their goal here.

As for Samsung's LPCAMM, it will be using Samsung's very own LPDDR5X and can run up to 8533 speeds and use 20% less power than LPDDR5 (Wikipedia), so sounds promising if they can also get half decent latencies, doubly helped if the end product isn't made by HP

 

[AnotherReader]

I don't know a whole lot about LPDDR, I have no real personal interest in laptops, I am learning in the here and now.

Having just looked it up, LPCAMM is "low-power compression attached memory module", I had always assumed that "LP" DDR RAM was simply optimized for low power by design and manufacturing to run at a lower voltage, it turns out that it is actually a different standard.!!!

Thankfully the review above you linked to uses a CPU that supports both DDR5 and LPDDR5 so it is up to the manufacturer. Sadly that manufacturer is HP, so naturally they gimped the laptop by using awful RAM (yes I am a cynic), LPDDR5-5600 CL46 (yes, 46, that isn't a typo), and yes 5600 when LPDDR5 standard officially maxxes out at 6400, and of course they could have used DDR5 if they really wanted to, but they didn't even allow the CPU to hit it's maximum frequency, so max performance was never their goal here.

As for Samsung's LPCAMM, it will be using Samsung's very own LPDDR5X and can run up to 8533 speeds and use 20% less power than LPDDR5 (Wikipedia), so sounds promising if they can also get half decent latencies, doubly helped if the end product isn't made by HP

That isn't LPDDR5 at 5600 MT/s; it's DDR5. Even gimped DDR5 has lower latency than LPDDR5.

 

[Leavenfish]

Hmmm, was hoping for more TBH. I don't know how Zen5 or Zen6 is going to compete against intel's new architecture, if that ever actually comes out.

Big question: With AMD already eating Intel's lunch when it comes to efficiency...and Intel expected to make good inroads there with 'Ultra'....will we see even more efficiency. Or do the two start merging toward a similar looking line of CPU's?

 

[R_Type]

Hmmm, was hoping for more TBH. I don't know how Zen5 or Zen6 is going to compete against intel's new architecture, if that ever actually comes out.

I still think AMD should be putting more on the CPU die and put an end to this L3 cache starved design. Zen clearly needs more L3 to work properly, and this situation with the glued on L3 is silly. At first it was great, and a novel approach, 2nd time was a little weird, but still fine, but going into the 3rd gen of this, it's clear that it's just a money-making racket, and that the CPU needs this extra cache to work properly. Zen6 will really need a larger L2 cache too, as a 10% IPC increase will be insufficient to counter Intel. Doubling of L2 cache is worth 3-5% IPC uplift, too much to be ignored if all your offering is a 10% uptick. AMD needs at least a 15% IPC uptick each generation.

Quad channel memory support on the Desktop is really needed if we are looking at the possibility of 32 cores on the desktop. AMD's DDR5 memory controller is crap compared to Intel's, so another thing for AMD to fix.

You write out all the technical terms really we

 

[SL2]

At first it was great, and a novel approach, 2nd time was a little weird, but still fine, but going into the 3rd gen of this, it's clear that it's just a money-making racket, and that the CPU needs this extra cache to work properly.

I have no idea where you got this from.

First of all, that huge L3 is only really beneficial with very high end GPU's running at lower resolution. Not really the most common combination.

Second, no one ever thought adding more cache on top of a chip was a cheap job. At least it's something added together with that added cost, unlike just simple binning.

"a money-making racket" --> A 60 dollar difference is a money-making racket? Such drama. How much must the GPU cost anyway in order to make that choice of CPU sensible? 60 is nothing..

And I don't care about the launch price, as no one is forced to buy at that point in time. Simple as that.

Your reasoning would only make sense if all high end users would benefit from all that L3, which isn't true.

 

[mahoney]

A yes yes. If a leaker gets something right everyone promply forgets it or calls it a lucky guess.
If a leaker gets something wrong it hangs over them for the rest of time like badge of shame and reason not to trust anything they say, ever.

The guy is literally deleting all his videos where his prediction went to shit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/pke49l/_/hc30xsk
No idea how these hacks get audience he's of the same cloth as Adored.

 

[Minus Infinity]

In broad strokes, AMD describes "Zen 5" as introducing a 10% to 15% IPC increase over the current "Zen 4."

Ah no it doesn't, watch the video more closely, 15% is even Tom's own bottom of the range estimate. He already showed how conservative MD is with it's claims and why would they advertise the real figures so far ahead of time to Intel.

 

[Tomorrow]

The guy is literally deleting all his videos where his prediction went to shit.

So i should trust a random guy with 152 posts instead? Whos the hack now?

 

[AusWolf]

A yes yes. If a leaker gets something right everyone promply forgets it or calls it a lucky guess.
If a leaker gets something wrong it hangs over them for the rest of time like badge of shame and reason not to trust anything they say, ever.

If a leaker gets something right, I call it luck. If he gets something wrong, I call it bad luck. There's barely anything professional about either.

 

[Tomorrow]

If a leaker gets something right, I call it luck. If he gets something wrong, I call it bad luck. There's barely anything professional about either.

"Professional"? Name me one person who reports hardware news or leaks who is "Professional"?

You would think that a person who does this for a living and does not hide behind a stupid anime profile picture and has actual sources is as close to professional as it gets.

 

[AusWolf]

"Professional"? Name me one person who reports hardware news or leaks who is "Professional"?

Exactly! That's why I never listen to them, or at least try to look up their sources before I give a single word any credit (strictly talking about leaks - verified news are a different story).

You would think that a person who does this for a living and does not hide behind a stupid anime profile picture and has actual sources is as close to professional as it gets.

It's quite sad that some people manage to make a living out of spreading unverified half information, but it's society's problem, not mine. Besides, earning money doing something doesn't make one more credible, imo.

 

[R0H1T]

He already showed how conservative MD is with it's claims and why would they advertise the real figures so far ahead of time to Intel.

What did he show? He's just throwing sh!t out there like always & ultimately one will stick

 

[btk2k2]

I remember this slide.

Actual uplift is closer to 29%...

AMD have a history of sandbagging like crazy with Zen.

Also nT and 1T uplift can be different depending on SMT efficiency.

 

[efikkan]

If a leaker gets something right, I call it luck. If he gets something wrong, I call it bad luck. There's barely anything professional about either.

In general terms;
There is a difference in someone who lacks knowledge, misunderstoods, misrepresents or even misremembers something, vs. someone who intentionally lies (sometimes pathologically). Once you've identified a pattern of lies, you can safely assume that most of what that person is claiming to be untrue, and you should stop listening to that person. In some cases (I'm not referring to specific persons here), there might even be some kind of underlying condition, and it's useful for anyone to learn how to identify this. This goes not only for people online, but even more-so people in real life, like family, friends and colleagues. This is life advice for everyone; Don't let anyone manipulate you.

In terms of tech rumors, there are many "leakers" on Youtube, and some on various forums too. Some have been known to delete posts/videos once they've been proven embarrassingly wrong, I've seen this myself in the past based on my own notes, but I'm not going to say which "leakers" it is. Someone who cares more about this than me should download the videos and keep for evidence later.

But most of all, as I've been saying for years, people need to use some kind of "sniff test" on any rumor, and if it doesn't pass, then you can pretty safely assume it's BS.
Just consider the following;
CPUs and GPUs are many years in the making, Intel/AMD/Nvidia have multiple generations in various stages of development at any time, a major architecture can take ~5+ years and a minor one ~3 years to market. Major design features are decided firsts, followed by minor ones, followed by tweaks and adjustments. The closer to you are to a product launch, the more unlikely it is to do changes, as any change might add up to years of development time. By the time a product reaches tapeout, usually ~1-1.5 years ahead of intended launch, the design is complete, anything beyond that point are bugfixes or adjustments for yields etc.
Armed with this knowledge, I can say e.g. the rumors of Intel considering whether to have SMT-4 or no SMT for Arrow Lake was allegedly decided before this summer is absolutely nonsense. Such a change would impact every design decision throughout the microarchitecture, and would have been made in the very early stages of development. And the same goes for AMD rumors, whenever you hear claims of AMD making "last minute" design decisions.

As to what someone earlier mentioned, there are certainly industrial espionage going on too, in addition to streams of employees flowing between the companies, cooperation between them, lots of research published by universities and even some public speeches etc. All of which will let those who know the field use logical deduction to sense where the industry is heading. Some even have developer contacts which may give them some hints. This is why someone can make fairly accurate predictions, but these people are usually very clear about it being qualified guesses, not "I have 20 sources at AMD". And such predictions rarely result in specific features, performance figures etc. for particular CPUs/GPUs.