

AMD Discloses Architecture Details of High-Performance “Carrizo” System-on-Chip - matt42
http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-discloses-architecture-2015feb23.aspx

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wmf
The AnandTech article is probably better:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/8995/amd-at-
isscc-2015-carrizo...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8995/amd-at-
isscc-2015-carrizo-and-excavator-details)

Calling Carrizo "high-performance" is interesting because AMD reduced peak
performance to increase power efficiency. Below ~65W Carrizo's performance
should be higher than Kaveri (although still lower than Intel) but at higher
power budgets performance would be worse.

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ChuckMcM
I will be interested to watch how the hUMA stuff works out. Having 100%
overlap in memory space between the GPU and the CPU can be useful. Intel tried
to go there with Larrabee. Having a collection of specialized processors in
the same cache coherent space allows for some interesting data flow
architectures to be tried out.

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xorcist
Do they have a common MMU? Have they released information on how that works in
practice?

I guess this must be a solved problem since there have been many systems with
similar memory architectures, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's quite a
challenge.

Cache coherency can also have interesting security properties.

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danmaz74
Honestly, while reading, I couldn't help myself thinking about the "bullshit
font" from one of yesterday's (or was it the day before) submissions.

 _prestigious_ \- _wealth of_ \- _new, advanced_ \- _substantial_ \- _true_
... bleah.

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DonPellegrino
Impressive what they manage to do on 28nm compared to Intel.

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olympus
If you forced both companies to use the same die size then AMD compares
favorably to Intel. But on the leading edge of performance, AMD lags Intel by
quite a bit (Intel was selling 14nm processors at the end of 2014, and AMD
isn't planning to release them until 2016). It forces AMD to compete in other
ways, because they just don't have it when it comes to raw speed and
efficiency. Putting CPU and GPU on the same chip is nice, but I long for the
days when AMD and Intel were duking it out and high end users actually had to
debate which was better.

~~~
agumonkey
I wonder why they don't double down on Open Source. Their architectures, since
the ATi merge, have been very creative, providing a lot of heterogeneous
computing power but it seemed it was unusable unless you were using their
Windows drivers.

~~~
frozenport
In the videogame space, optimized drivers represented a competitive advantage
with some drivers detecting a title and substituting a particular kernel. This
edge is somehow lost when going OSS.

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seunosewa
It's been difficult to take claims of "high performance" from AMD seriously
for a while :)

~~~
ewzimm
They may not manufacture the highest-performing cores, but they have
consistently provided the best performance for the price. Who cares who's
fastest? The consoles went with them because they were fast enough and better
priced.

~~~
api
AMD's problem for a long time has been power consumption. They have had the
performance per dollar crown, but their stuff runs hot. Only place I ever see
them is gamer market and some servers.

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userbinator
This somewhat reminds me of the Netburst era, when AMD's Athlons were in the
lead while Intel decided to chase after high clock frequencies with much
higher power consumption as a result. Then Intel went back to the P6 to
produce Core, and rapidly overtook AMD.

I still hope AMD will make another sudden leap like that, to keep the x86
market more competitive, but they seem more intent on keeping to the path
started by Bulldozer...

~~~
ewzimm
But you're commenting on a press release about how this architecture's main
benefit is gains in performance-per-watt. AMD has a reputation for using more
power right now because they slowed down to focus on unifying architectures. I
think ARM has proved this strategy works in the long term. Everybody knows
power efficiency is king right now.

