They must have had a large number of dies with so many GPU-side defects that they could not be harvested into the A8-8600P SKU. And they must already have a surplus of 8500B parts.
No, they have enough customers who'd rather buy a cheap CPU without paying for its integrated GPU. That's not the majority of AMDs sales, but enough to offer a separate SKU with very probably deactivated blocks without too many defects.
Hm, so compared to Intel parts, I guess excavator fits between Atom and Core (albeit closer to the Atom)? Also, I am excited on the Carrizo review, though it is sad to see virtually no market presence on laptops which matters if they turn out to be as sweet as AMD says.
I own a Toshiba laptop with the A10-8700P. I also use regularly (for work) a laptop with a Core i5, after using for 5 years a Core i3.
The best processor is the one that fits your need, but I cannot get tired o praise AMD as a multi-purpose laptop for home. Yes, Carrizo is not as efficient as Core, but unless you do tons of encoding (and even so, encoding that cannot be accelerated vis GPU), you'd be hard-pressed to feel a difference. However, I can play Tomb Raider on Carrizo (obviously, not at high settings), F1 2013, Grid, something absolutely inconceivable o Intel platform. I find AMD CPU with their (much) superior iGPU at entry-level prices (yes, Iris Pro is faster, but it also costs 3X) much more flexible for a home PC/laptop. It's not entusiast material, that's clear, but all this bashing seems wildly unjustified, in my opinion.
Well no. I have a Carrizo Lenovo Y700, as far as I know the only 35W one available in the US. If you look at the released reviews, even the 15W version runs with the Core i3s, at 35W you can do Core i5 (U series) work.
On the Y700, I am not a gamer, but I spent the money ($800) because I figured I would maybe check some out. However, under load, the VRMs overheat in about 20 minutes or so, resulting in major throttling.
It does really well as a general purpose notebook, it is in many ways the nicest, well-built (albeit heavy) system you can get. I put in an M.2 SSD and DDR3-2133 RAM in it and it works well. But $800 is a lot of money for a notebook that can only game for half-an-hour. I would have held off buying it if I understood it had that flaw.
I thought the conclusion was that the single-channel restriction only applied to prototypes, and that production models were dual-channel - see Feb 10 update on last page of the article:
Performace-wise you could say that about any AMD CPU released since the original Athlons, since "Atom" includes the dog-slow first ones. (some dogs are pretty fast, actually)
AMD's VCE/UVD/TrueAudio may still be operational despite the actual compute being disabled, IIRC this was the case in some previous Athlons.
AM4 is a DDR4 socket, FM2+ is a DDR3 socket, we already knew that Carrizo supported both DDR3 and DDR4. No surprises that Carrizo on FM2+ is DDR3.
They really must have a lot of GPU broken dies to decide to productise this. OTOH as a budget CPU for a discrete GPU rig, it's not half-bad, for the money.
Not sure if investing in FM2+ with Zen around the corner is a wise decision. This could be useful as an upgrade path, but since FM2+ is not even two years old, I'm sure there's something to update from (i.e. if you're on FM2+, your CPU is probably a close match to this one).
Zen is not exactly around the corner. I bet its at least a year away, at least as far as APUs are concerned (i'm sure iGPUless parts will come sooner):
There is no GPU-only Zen. That would be Polaris. :D
If you mean CPU-only parts, that's essentially what he said... only he approached it from the other direction by saying "iGPUless". Zen FX late 2016, Zen APUs 2017.
The Athlon X4 845 at $70 might be the interesting piece here, I wonder if it will be able to knock off the i3 as the budget gaming champ. The current FX does ok with framerates,but not as well as the i3 at frame times. If the Excavator cores help with that, at 70, it could replace the trusty old i3+750TI as the "just better than console" combo for under $500 builds.
With the money saved you could move up to a 950 with a more substantive impact on game quality, rather than moving to an i3 which still goes a bit moot if it pushes most games over 60fps.
I find the X4 845 interesting. I've got an AM1 Athlon 5350 tower for playing with; based on the current prices for FM2+ boards and a 70 dollar 845, I could do a pretty big upgrade on that tower for ~120. Probably less.
The 95w cooler should help keep cpu throttling down. Pretty good for a stock cooler as AMD does really seem to care about end user experience. Options and perks need to be more appreciated. It's nice to see corporations care about end users.
I think it's interesting that they're using their 95W TDP cooler on these newer 65W TDP chips. I wonder if they could also be taking a page out of the Fiji playbook, where keeping temps lower also reduces leakage and helps keep the chips in that lower TDP range.
As mentioned by other posters, this is an Athlon part, which means it is a harvested die (as has been the case since at least Kaveri). It is a standard Carrizo with the iGPU disabled. FM2+ does not have the power planes required to handle Carrizo, though it certainly can do it when not supplying any power to the iGPU.
So, to address Dr. Cutress' speculation: this product does not rely on its own separate die.
It just makes too much sense to have AM3+ available that can handle high powered chips...
Maybe their just in such a financial bind they're having to cut back to keep the business afloat, but at this point they've handed the performance title over to Intel. It's not that the APU are bad, but the fact my FX 6300, released in 2012, is still very, very close to the fastest CPU AMD has sold is kinda sad.
FM2+ not having the appropriate power planes to drive the Carrizo iGPU was my theory as well but on my part it was really just unfounded speculation. Is there any document you used that helped you come to that conclusion?
Let me preface this by saying 90% of my computers are AMD based...
AMD, GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE GAME!!
The fastest CPU made by AMD is how many years old? I've got an FX6300, which I do enjoy, however, AMD doesn't really have anything that is dramatically faster than my 2+ year old CPU.
AMD seems very, very intent at not wasting a single cent or missing out on even the smallest opportunity to make an extra buck.
I'm wondering if these chips aren't actually round wafer vs. rectangular die victims rather than just ordinary defects.
I mean, every time you see people showing wafers around, you have all these incomplete chips at the edges, which prove all these etching and deposition processes are truly parallel and that leaving *out* these partial chips would be more expensive than producing unusable fragments...
...except that *some* of these usable fragments actually contain a fully functioning CPU (perhaps one on every wafer), with the CPU actually taking up less than 50% of the chip's area.
So if perhaps one out of every 100 dies on a wafer is a "headless" CPU, all it takes is properly fusing off the GPU connects to produce a chip that can be used with an dGPU.
Except, that today's mobile designs no longer really support iGPU-less operation even if they have a "turbo charged" dGPU (quotes, because it sometimes turns out that these dGPUs actually aren't faster any more).
So they just overclock the headless mobile CPU and they have a Desktop class performance part pretty much for free.
It won't clock that high. It's designed for low clocks and low power.
Loli: FM2+ doesn't support more than two modules, IIRC. That's part of why AM4 is so desperately needed. It can scale from the low-end cheap processors all the way to many-core FX designs. Including future Zen chips.
However, even with AM4 while the socket may support every processor in their upcoming lineup, that doesn't mean that every chipset and every board will. I suspect some of the low-end basic boards designed to be sold with $30-50 processors will be incapable of running high-end FX chips. But that would be OK by me - I wouldn't expect miracles out of a board aimed at those markets anyway.
"This makes good timing, because our review of AMD’s Carrizo, the mobile platform using the latest AMD architecture is set to go up in the next couple of days."
POST THIS NOW!!! Seriously, your readers have been dying for this even more than the mythical 960 review.
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Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
They must have had a large number of dies with so many GPU-side defects that they could not be harvested into the A8-8600P SKU. And they must already have a surplus of 8500B parts.Murloc - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
yeah because otherwise it doesn't make sense to make low-end products without integrated graphics....MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
No, they have enough customers who'd rather buy a cheap CPU without paying for its integrated GPU. That's not the majority of AMDs sales, but enough to offer a separate SKU with very probably deactivated blocks without too many defects.close - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
There aren't too many use cases for systems with a low end CPU and no GPU. So you have to have a GPU either way.OEMG - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Hm, so compared to Intel parts, I guess excavator fits between Atom and Core (albeit closer to the Atom)? Also, I am excited on the Carrizo review, though it is sad to see virtually no market presence on laptops which matters if they turn out to be as sweet as AMD says.yankeeDDL - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I own a Toshiba laptop with the A10-8700P.I also use regularly (for work) a laptop with a Core i5, after using for 5 years a Core i3.
The best processor is the one that fits your need, but I cannot get tired o praise AMD as a multi-purpose laptop for home. Yes, Carrizo is not as efficient as Core, but unless you do tons of encoding (and even so, encoding that cannot be accelerated vis GPU), you'd be hard-pressed to feel a difference.
However, I can play Tomb Raider on Carrizo (obviously, not at high settings), F1 2013, Grid, something absolutely inconceivable o Intel platform.
I find AMD CPU with their (much) superior iGPU at entry-level prices (yes, Iris Pro is faster, but it also costs 3X) much more flexible for a home PC/laptop. It's not entusiast material, that's clear, but all this bashing seems wildly unjustified, in my opinion.
The Hardcard - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Well no. I have a Carrizo Lenovo Y700, as far as I know the only 35W one available in the US. If you look at the released reviews, even the 15W version runs with the Core i3s, at 35W you can do Core i5 (U series) work.On the Y700, I am not a gamer, but I spent the money ($800) because I figured I would maybe check some out. However, under load, the VRMs overheat in about 20 minutes or so, resulting in major throttling.
It does really well as a general purpose notebook, it is in many ways the nicest, well-built (albeit heavy) system you can get. I put in an M.2 SSD and DDR3-2133 RAM in it and it works well. But $800 is a lot of money for a notebook that can only game for half-an-hour. I would have held off buying it if I understood it had that flaw.
The Hardcard - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I meant to say nicest *AMD* system you can get.Myrandex - Tuesday, February 9, 2016 - link
Very lame they use single channel memory though. They have all that room they should have taken advantage of both channels :(bridgmanAMD - Tuesday, March 1, 2016 - link
I thought the conclusion was that the single-channel restriction only applied to prototypes, and that production models were dual-channel - see Feb 10 update on last page of the article:http://www.anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-u...
MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Performace-wise you could say that about any AMD CPU released since the original Athlons, since "Atom" includes the dog-slow first ones. (some dogs are pretty fast, actually)nathanddrews - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
No Carrizo IGP, therefore no HEVC hardware encode/decode? :-(psychobriggsy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
AMD's VCE/UVD/TrueAudio may still be operational despite the actual compute being disabled, IIRC this was the case in some previous Athlons.AM4 is a DDR4 socket, FM2+ is a DDR3 socket, we already knew that Carrizo supported both DDR3 and DDR4. No surprises that Carrizo on FM2+ is DDR3.
They really must have a lot of GPU broken dies to decide to productise this. OTOH as a budget CPU for a discrete GPU rig, it's not half-bad, for the money.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
If true, then this could be my budget pico-itx 4K video player.ShieTar - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
Isn't a Haswell-Celeron completely sufficient for that? It will be cheaper and more power-efficient for most purposes.nathanddrews - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
No, Haswell can't playback HEVC reliably. You need Skylake (hybrid), Carrizo (full), or a GTX 950/960 (full) to get HEVC Main 10.AndrewJacksonZA - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
"because there has to be something between now and Zen"I zee vot yoo did zer! :-)
pogostick - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
You beat me to it! xPbigboxes - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yo84M04JL....bug77 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Not sure if investing in FM2+ with Zen around the corner is a wise decision.This could be useful as an upgrade path, but since FM2+ is not even two years old, I'm sure there's something to update from (i.e. if you're on FM2+, your CPU is probably a close match to this one).
hojnikb - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Zen is not exactly around the corner. I bet its at least a year away, at least as far as APUs are concerned (i'm sure iGPUless parts will come sooner):DanNeely - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
The timeline I saw was GPU only parts at the end of this year, APUs at some point next year.Alexvrb - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
There is no GPU-only Zen. That would be Polaris. :DIf you mean CPU-only parts, that's essentially what he said... only he approached it from the other direction by saying "iGPUless". Zen FX late 2016, Zen APUs 2017.
tipoo - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
The Athlon X4 845 at $70 might be the interesting piece here, I wonder if it will be able to knock off the i3 as the budget gaming champ. The current FX does ok with framerates,but not as well as the i3 at frame times. If the Excavator cores help with that, at 70, it could replace the trusty old i3+750TI as the "just better than console" combo for under $500 builds.With the money saved you could move up to a 950 with a more substantive impact on game quality, rather than moving to an i3 which still goes a bit moot if it pushes most games over 60fps.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Cheaper to get a 7870 or something.https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_950_S...
Bateluer - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I find the X4 845 interesting. I've got an AM1 Athlon 5350 tower for playing with; based on the current prices for FM2+ boards and a 70 dollar 845, I could do a pretty big upgrade on that tower for ~120. Probably less.hojnikb - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
this athlon has no iGPU, so no good for your use case.Bateluer - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I have an R7 360 in that box.Stuka87 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Why does the AMD slide show 95W, but then you guys say 65W?petteyg359 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
It doesn't. It says "95W cooling solution". It still says 65W TDP.Gigaplex - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Which probably means something like 80W TDP, rounded down to 65W. You still need a better cooling solution than 65W.seanr - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
The 95w cooler should help keep cpu throttling down. Pretty good for a stock cooler as AMD does really seem to care about end user experience. Options and perks need to be more appreciated. It's nice to see corporations care about end users.MrCommunistGen - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
I think it's interesting that they're using their 95W TDP cooler on these newer 65W TDP chips. I wonder if they could also be taking a page out of the Fiji playbook, where keeping temps lower also reduces leakage and helps keep the chips in that lower TDP range.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Part of that could be to deal with substandard motherboards that don't even put heatsinks on their three or four phase analog VRMs.DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
As mentioned by other posters, this is an Athlon part, which means it is a harvested die (as has been the case since at least Kaveri). It is a standard Carrizo with the iGPU disabled. FM2+ does not have the power planes required to handle Carrizo, though it certainly can do it when not supplying any power to the iGPU.So, to address Dr. Cutress' speculation: this product does not rely on its own separate die.
0ldman79 - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
It just makes too much sense to have AM3+ available that can handle high powered chips...Maybe their just in such a financial bind they're having to cut back to keep the business afloat, but at this point they've handed the performance title over to Intel. It's not that the APU are bad, but the fact my FX 6300, released in 2012, is still very, very close to the fastest CPU AMD has sold is kinda sad.
MrCommunistGen - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
FM2+ not having the appropriate power planes to drive the Carrizo iGPU was my theory as well but on my part it was really just unfounded speculation. Is there any document you used that helped you come to that conclusion?0ldman79 - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - link
Let me preface this by saying 90% of my computers are AMD based...AMD, GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE GAME!!
The fastest CPU made by AMD is how many years old? I've got an FX6300, which I do enjoy, however, AMD doesn't really have anything that is dramatically faster than my 2+ year old CPU.
abufrejoval - Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - link
AMD seems very, very intent at not wasting a single cent or missing out on even the smallest opportunity to make an extra buck.I'm wondering if these chips aren't actually round wafer vs. rectangular die victims rather than just ordinary defects.
I mean, every time you see people showing wafers around, you have all these incomplete chips at the edges, which prove all these etching and deposition processes are truly parallel and that leaving *out* these partial chips would be more expensive than producing unusable fragments...
...except that *some* of these usable fragments actually contain a fully functioning CPU (perhaps one on every wafer), with the CPU actually taking up less than 50% of the chip's area.
So if perhaps one out of every 100 dies on a wafer is a "headless" CPU, all it takes is properly fusing off the GPU connects to produce a chip that can be used with an dGPU.
Except, that today's mobile designs no longer really support iGPU-less operation even if they have a "turbo charged" dGPU (quotes, because it sometimes turns out that these dGPUs actually aren't faster any more).
So they just overclock the headless mobile CPU and they have a Desktop class performance part pretty much for free.
Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
a 125w Athlon version of this clocked at something like 4.5ghz would be pretty cool upgradeLolimaster - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
I would be better to have an 8 core Excavator FX for the FM2+.Alexvrb - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
It won't clock that high. It's designed for low clocks and low power.Loli: FM2+ doesn't support more than two modules, IIRC. That's part of why AM4 is so desperately needed. It can scale from the low-end cheap processors all the way to many-core FX designs. Including future Zen chips.
However, even with AM4 while the socket may support every processor in their upcoming lineup, that doesn't mean that every chipset and every board will. I suspect some of the low-end basic boards designed to be sold with $30-50 processors will be incapable of running high-end FX chips. But that would be OK by me - I wouldn't expect miracles out of a board aimed at those markets anyway.
takeship - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
"This makes good timing, because our review of AMD’s Carrizo, the mobile platform using the latest AMD architecture is set to go up in the next couple of days."POST THIS NOW!!! Seriously, your readers have been dying for this even more than the mythical 960 review.