Why bother, it says it is 17% faster than i5 LOL...
Now, I don't doubt that its iGPU will be faster than the vanilla intel iGPU, but those 17% better "system performance" makes me skeptical. Probably some abstract term that has little to nothing to do with CPU performance.
That 17% claim is bizarre, when their previous slides suggest parity for 'system' performance against an i5, at best. I've looked through the slides and can't see how they can claim that.
There is a footnote stating that the 17% greater performance was comparing the Intel Core i5-6500T with the AMD A12-9800E, which both officially have a 35W TDP. They can claim that under a particular benchmark (I may very well be mistaken but I think that it's PCMark Home 8. Don't quote me on that though.) which takes into account both the CPU and the iGPU performance and how it affects "productivity" across a variety of workloads. The parity is the A12-9800 with a 65W TDP against the i5-6500 with a 65W TDP. AMD compares favorably in the given benchmark at lower power envelopes due to the strength of the APU's iGPU. Don't get me wrong, but while I prefer AMD to Intel for both their product and the philosophy/principles/attitude, and I am a huge advocate for Bulldozer not having been Faildozer but rather a decent CMT uArch that got screwed by compilers under Windoze (In contrast with Gentoo...) and had difficulty with power efficiency and platform aging for servers, I can't argue that under Windoze for CPU-related tasks in general, the 17% claim is slated the wrong way. Yes, the APU's GCN-based iGPU smokes Intel's HD Graphics iGPUs (Iris [Pro] comes closer though that gets a lot more complex...), and yes, for people who play games at basic settings, it makes more sense without a dGPU, the fact is that if you're not rendering anything with the iGPU, the i5 is the better chip. Furthermore, it isn't known what the precise memory configurations were and performance varies from motherboard to motherboard. It may have been the i5 was running on an H110 motherboard with 3200MHz CL15 RAM running at 2133MHz since only Z170/X99 can use XMP OC profiles for DDR4, while the A12 was running on an X370 chipset motherboard with the same RAM at their maximum frequencies, boosting the iGPU. Or maybe not. The foot-note may have provided more info, or perhaps it didn't. Even then, ambient temperatures, airflow, thermal compound, and the CPU cooler used can all affect performance. I'm sure AMD's marketing department did their best to favor their new product no differently than Intel would. Again, not at all hating on AMD, and hating a little on Intel for some of their anti-competitive nature (I still consider Intel to be a very decent company, unlike Nvidia...), but those numbers were pulled from a marketing hat under narrow circumstances and should be disregarded. Under Windoze for most tasks that most people encounter mot of the time, the i5 is definitely the better chip. I any case, I hope this was enlightening. Cheers
"Iris [Pro] comes closer" - It doesn't. The Iris Pro series (e.g. 6200 and 580) massively outperform AMD's top APU. I'd agree if you were comparing the low-end basic ones they use, but not the Iris Pro range.
Agreed. I'm in the market possibly for a new ground-up build, and from what I've been hearing I really would like to consider an AMD setup. They've got to get it out, and they have to get it right. I understand those are two sometimes conflicting mandates, but if they don't execute, and execute WELL, they're going to be in big trouble.
AMD is still a great option everyone seems to rule out because they "aren't competitive" or run "too hot"
Both of which aren't true and are just completely bias statements. The average AMD CPU is perfectly competitive within its class and doesn't run much hotter than an equivalent class (desktop) Intel CPU. At idle where most CPU's spend their life, they are virtually identical. Where AMD has trouble competing is simply at the ultra-high end and in the low-power\low-voltage segment.
I recommend AMD systems to people who A) are in the market for a budget desktop B) desire mainstream performance (think i3 class) C) plan to use integrated graphics for mild gaming
Technically any one of those points should make AMD a favorable option. But B is the one to keep in mind. Keep your expectations realistic. AMD does NOT have, and doesn't really intend, to compete with Intel's ultra-high performance offerings like X99\LGA2011 or even i7-class CPU's. Their sights are set on the mainstream i3/i5 market where competition is more realistic for them.
Perhaps Zen will change that, but as it stands, if you are looking for a desktop or larger laptop, AMD is FINE.
As an AMD fan, nothing that price can fix. Yet, for me, they are expensive for what they are unless I'd use the integrated 3D graphics for a cheap 1366x768 laptop for gaming. Then again, it ends up performing similar to Intel on high CPU games due to throttling on a limited TDP/cooling mobile device.
Zen will be the same story, they just won't be competing with Intel's high-end. The question is how aggressive is the pricing.
Zen won't be "the same story". Intel may remain in the lead, but AMD will become an option for many due to better supporting components combined with good CPU performance. Also, a quad-core AMD vs. Dual-core Intel in the sub $600 price range tend to be fairly well balanced. If Zen is within 10% of the performance of the i7, having more PCI Express lanes and other things where AMD has had an advantage may make Zen a better alternative. I find it pathetic how few PCI Express lanes are in the Intel systems.
Probably the A1100, which I think was the first 64 bit ARM SERVER SoC. They might even have announced it shortly before Apple shipped the 1st 64 bit ARM SoC.
I'm a little surprised they put the entire product line up. I was under the impression that to simplify production logistics once a product is phased out of mainstream consumer availability they normally only offered a small subset of the full line on an extended availability basis. On that front, I'd've only expected 1 each 65 and 35W SKUs to be included; maybe 4 if they included the ones with the cut down half size CPUs.
As the current owner of an Athlon x4 860k, I'd like to point out that I'm glad AMD finally added the Cortex-A5. Now at least SOMETHING inside an AMD chip will deliver competitive single-threaded performance.
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baka_toroi - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Zen can't come soon enough.ilt24 - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Are you going to do any Bristol Ridge benchmarking?ddriver - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Why bother, it says it is 17% faster than i5 LOL...Now, I don't doubt that its iGPU will be faster than the vanilla intel iGPU, but those 17% better "system performance" makes me skeptical. Probably some abstract term that has little to nothing to do with CPU performance.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Only with OpenCL acceleration in a few hand-picked corner cases.Meteor2 - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
That 17% claim is bizarre, when their previous slides suggest parity for 'system' performance against an i5, at best. I've looked through the slides and can't see how they can claim that.KOneJ - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
There is a footnote stating that the 17% greater performance was comparing the Intel Core i5-6500T with the AMD A12-9800E, which both officially have a 35W TDP. They can claim that under a particular benchmark (I may very well be mistaken but I think that it's PCMark Home 8. Don't quote me on that though.) which takes into account both the CPU and the iGPU performance and how it affects "productivity" across a variety of workloads. The parity is the A12-9800 with a 65W TDP against the i5-6500 with a 65W TDP. AMD compares favorably in the given benchmark at lower power envelopes due to the strength of the APU's iGPU. Don't get me wrong, but while I prefer AMD to Intel for both their product and the philosophy/principles/attitude, and I am a huge advocate for Bulldozer not having been Faildozer but rather a decent CMT uArch that got screwed by compilers under Windoze (In contrast with Gentoo...) and had difficulty with power efficiency and platform aging for servers, I can't argue that under Windoze for CPU-related tasks in general, the 17% claim is slated the wrong way. Yes, the APU's GCN-based iGPU smokes Intel's HD Graphics iGPUs (Iris [Pro] comes closer though that gets a lot more complex...), and yes, for people who play games at basic settings, it makes more sense without a dGPU, the fact is that if you're not rendering anything with the iGPU, the i5 is the better chip. Furthermore, it isn't known what the precise memory configurations were and performance varies from motherboard to motherboard. It may have been the i5 was running on an H110 motherboard with 3200MHz CL15 RAM running at 2133MHz since only Z170/X99 can use XMP OC profiles for DDR4, while the A12 was running on an X370 chipset motherboard with the same RAM at their maximum frequencies, boosting the iGPU. Or maybe not. The foot-note may have provided more info, or perhaps it didn't. Even then, ambient temperatures, airflow, thermal compound, and the CPU cooler used can all affect performance. I'm sure AMD's marketing department did their best to favor their new product no differently than Intel would. Again, not at all hating on AMD, and hating a little on Intel for some of their anti-competitive nature (I still consider Intel to be a very decent company, unlike Nvidia...), but those numbers were pulled from a marketing hat under narrow circumstances and should be disregarded. Under Windoze for most tasks that most people encounter mot of the time, the i5 is definitely the better chip. I any case, I hope this was enlightening.Cheers
lmcd - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Consider paragraph breaks, less things like "Windoze," and fewer anecdotes.Meteor2 - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
I found it very interesting!Enverex - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link
"Iris [Pro] comes closer" - It doesn't. The Iris Pro series (e.g. 6200 and 580) massively outperform AMD's top APU. I'd agree if you were comparing the low-end basic ones they use, but not the Iris Pro range.plonk420 - Thursday, October 6, 2016 - link
i assume AMD is going to be more affordable than $250...damianrobertjones - Saturday, October 8, 2016 - link
Anything you have to say is trash as soon as you use the word Windoze. Plus no paragraphs is terrible.bill.rookard - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Agreed. I'm in the market possibly for a new ground-up build, and from what I've been hearing I really would like to consider an AMD setup. They've got to get it out, and they have to get it right. I understand those are two sometimes conflicting mandates, but if they don't execute, and execute WELL, they're going to be in big trouble.Samus - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link
AMD is still a great option everyone seems to rule out because they "aren't competitive" or run "too hot"Both of which aren't true and are just completely bias statements. The average AMD CPU is perfectly competitive within its class and doesn't run much hotter than an equivalent class (desktop) Intel CPU. At idle where most CPU's spend their life, they are virtually identical. Where AMD has trouble competing is simply at the ultra-high end and in the low-power\low-voltage segment.
I recommend AMD systems to people who
A) are in the market for a budget desktop
B) desire mainstream performance (think i3 class)
C) plan to use integrated graphics for mild gaming
Technically any one of those points should make AMD a favorable option. But B is the one to keep in mind. Keep your expectations realistic. AMD does NOT have, and doesn't really intend, to compete with Intel's ultra-high performance offerings like X99\LGA2011 or even i7-class CPU's. Their sights are set on the mainstream i3/i5 market where competition is more realistic for them.
Perhaps Zen will change that, but as it stands, if you are looking for a desktop or larger laptop, AMD is FINE.
ddriver - Thursday, October 6, 2016 - link
The money you save on the CPU will be entirely wasted on the power bill. Power efficiency is abysmal.zodiacfml - Thursday, October 6, 2016 - link
As an AMD fan, nothing that price can fix. Yet, for me, they are expensive for what they are unless I'd use the integrated 3D graphics for a cheap 1366x768 laptop for gaming. Then again, it ends up performing similar to Intel on high CPU games due to throttling on a limited TDP/cooling mobile device.Zen will be the same story, they just won't be competing with Intel's high-end. The question is how aggressive is the pricing.
Targon - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
Zen won't be "the same story". Intel may remain in the lead, but AMD will become an option for many due to better supporting components combined with good CPU performance. Also, a quad-core AMD vs. Dual-core Intel in the sub $600 price range tend to be fairly well balanced. If Zen is within 10% of the performance of the i7, having more PCI Express lanes and other things where AMD has had an advantage may make Zen a better alternative. I find it pathetic how few PCI Express lanes are in the Intel systems.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
MMMmm....a NUC sized desktop like that mini HP desktop with a 65 watt APU would be delicious.Knowing HP though, they will most certainly screw it up, and will probably solder the APU, meaning no upgrading to raven ridge next year.
Shame.
Samus - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link
That isn't HP's call. A lot of A6 series CPU's, for example, were only offered in BGA packages to OEM's.Targon - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
The key is if they lock the BIOS to prevent CPU upgrades.D. Lister - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
"WE LOCK YOU DOWN, NOT IN"Not quite the best of taglines to have.
dsraa - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
I thought the same thing too. lolMeteor2 - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
What was their 'first 64-bit ARM SoC to market', from the second slide?MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Probably the A1100, which I think was the first 64 bit ARM SERVER SoC. They might even have announced it shortly before Apple shipped the 1st 64 bit ARM SoC.DanNeely - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
I'm a little surprised they put the entire product line up. I was under the impression that to simplify production logistics once a product is phased out of mainstream consumer availability they normally only offered a small subset of the full line on an extended availability basis. On that front, I'd've only expected 1 each 65 and 35W SKUs to be included; maybe 4 if they included the ones with the cut down half size CPUs.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
As the current owner of an Athlon x4 860k, I'd like to point out that I'm glad AMD finally added the Cortex-A5. Now at least SOMETHING inside an AMD chip will deliver competitive single-threaded performance.Ro_Ja - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
512 SPsAMD's the king of onboard GPU solution lol