AMD 2016 Zen CPU Speculations

[mimimi]

Let's just hope it's not +40% IPC by using 2x as many cores to work on the task. Wasn't zen supposed to be able to do that?

[AnyOldName3]

(10-19-2015, 12:21 PM)DatKid20 Wrote: Sigh. Anyway Zen has already been taped out. https://web.archive.org/web/20151019022045/http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-k12-taped/

Why are we posting archive links to wccftech? I thought their only issue was sometimes posting completely unsubstantiated rumours, in which case it's surely better to link the ones with real information properly so that they can see that they're more popular, and do more of them.

[DatKid20]

(10-20-2015, 05:52 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote:

(10-19-2015, 12:21 PM)DatKid20 Wrote: Sigh. Anyway Zen has already been taped out. https://web.archive.org/web/20151019022045/http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-k12-taped/

Why are we posting archive links to wccftech? I thought their only issue was sometimes posting completely unsubstantiated rumours, in which case it's surely better to link the ones with real information properly so that they can see that they're more popular, and do more of them.

Well they're just milking information they posted from May. If you check the info and slides out we already know about this. But I'll make it a non archived link :x

[AnyOldName3]

To be fair, everywhere else keeps reposting the same slides. It's probably better for casual readers if they have context. If the article just said that Zen had been taped out, it might as well have been a tweet.

[lamedude]

(10-20-2015, 04:50 AM)mimimi Wrote: Let's just hope it's not +40% IPC by using 2x as many cores to work on the task. Wasn't zen supposed to be able to do that?

Rumor mill said AMD's AM2 CPUs were going to have reverse hyper threading.

[sulblazer]

For clarity, the 40% ipc increase of the Zen is over that of the Excavator chip line. The excavators are suppose to have a higher ipc than the steamrollers which in turn is higher than the piledrivers (the AM3+ fx chip line). Can anyone make an educated guess at roughly how much of the supposed IPC increase is the Zen over the Fx line then?

[DatKid20]

(10-20-2015, 05:00 PM)lamedude Wrote:

(10-20-2015, 04:50 AM)mimimi Wrote: Let's just hope it's not +40% IPC by using 2x as many cores to work on the task. Wasn't zen supposed to be able to do that?

Rumor mill said AMD's AM2 CPUs were going to have reverse hyper threading.

And Skylake

[kirbypuff]

(10-19-2015, 01:54 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: This is so wrong, I'm not even gonna bother to explain.

There's nothing wrong with that post. Just some minor inaccuracies which are addressed in this post.

What I wanted to say is you'll get a noticeable performance boost in Dolphin by "downgrading" from a current gen. AMD GPU to a previous generation AMD GPU. Strange, but true.

For example, replacing a much better R9 285 (or R9 270X) GPU with a mediocre HD6850 gives you a ~20% performance boost in NSMB at 1xIR (220fps -> 260fps) and up to 2x performance in text/logo screens of other titles (e.g. 1100fps -> 2100fps).
That's with the latest "GCN-optimized" drivers (15.10 Beta).

Older AMD GPUs have more mature (optimized) drivers with less overhead and an architecture that's more efficient for graphics (but less efficient for compute).
Dolphin doesn't use OpenCL or compute shaders, so compute performance is not that important.
But older AMD GPUs still have *exceptional* integer processing performance, which Dolphin really needs.

Older generation videocardss (e.g. HD5000 series) also don't have any of those *advanced* (smart) power-saving features. This means when fully stressed, they don't switch rapidly through different clockspeeds / power states to save power. This is a good thing, because these quick power state changes introduce nasty microstutter and/or performance issues.

And finally, they also consume the same (or even less) power at idle as current gen. cards, because their GPUs and VRAM run at much lower clockspeeds (100/150 instead of 300/300 like current-gen GPUs).

[DatKid20]

Just please stop talking. You're making it worse every time.

[sulblazer]

(10-21-2015, 01:14 AM)kirbypuff Wrote:

(10-19-2015, 01:54 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: This is so wrong, I'm not even gonna bother to explain.

There's nothing wrong with that post. Just some minor inaccuracies which are addressed in this post.

What I wanted to say is you'll get a noticeable performance boost in Dolphin by "downgrading" from a current gen. AMD GPU to a previous generation AMD GPU. Strange, but true.

For example, replacing a much better R9 285 (or R9 270X) GPU with a mediocre HD6850 gives you a ~20% performance boost in NSMB at 1xIR (220fps -> 260fps) and up to 2x performance in text/logo screens of other titles (e.g. 1100fps -> 2100fps).
That's with the latest "GCN-optimized" drivers (15.10 Beta).

Older AMD GPUs have more mature (optimized) drivers with less overhead and an architecture that's more efficient for graphics (but less efficient for compute).
Dolphin doesn't use OpenCL or compute shaders, so compute performance is not that important.
But older AMD GPUs still have *exceptional* integer processing performance, which Dolphin really needs.

Older generation videocardss (e.g. HD5000 series) also don't have any of those *advanced* (smart) power-saving features. This means when fully stressed, they don't switch rapidly through different clockspeeds / power states to save power. This is a good thing, because these quick power state changes introduce nasty microstutter and/or performance issues.

And finally, they also consume the same (or even less) power at idle as current gen. cards, because their GPUs and VRAM run at much lower clockspeeds (100/150 instead of 300/300 like current-gen GPUs).

While this may or may not be true, no one on this thread was looking for performance tips. If you have some ideas (hair-brain or otherwise) on Zen's performance on Dolphin, I'd be interested to know what you think. If not, then I respectfully ask you to refrain from going too far off topic. Thank you.