AMD Zen Microarchitecture: Dual Schedulers, Micro-Op Cache and Memory Hierarchy Revealed
by Ian Cutress on August 18, 2016 9:00 AM ESTSimultaneous Multi-Threading
On Zen, each core will be able to support two threads in what is called ‘simulatenous multi-threading’. Intel has supported their version of SMT for a number of years, and other CPU manufacturers like IBM support up to 8 threads per core on their POWER8 platform designs. Building a core to be able to use multiple threads can be tough, as it requires a lot of resources to make sure that the threads do not block each other by consuming all the cache and buffers in play. But AMD will equip Zen with SMT which means we will see 8C/16T parts hitting the market.
Unlike Bulldozer, where having a shared FP unit between two threads was an issue for floating point performance, Zen’s design is more akin to Intel’s in that each thread will appear as an independent core and there is not that resource limitation that BD had. With sufficient resources, SMT will allow the core instructions per clock to improve, however it will be interesting to see what workloads will benefit and which ones will not.
Timeframe and Availability
At the presentation, it was given that Zen will be available in volume in 2017. As the AM4 platform will share a socket with Bristol Ridge, users are likely to see Bristol Ridge systems from AMD’s main OEM partners, like Dell and others, enter the market before separate Zen CPUs will hit the market for DIY builders. It’s a matter of principle that almost no consumer focused semiconductor company releases a product for the sale season, and Q1 features such events as CES, which gives a pretty clear indication of when we can expect to get our hands on one.
It’s worth noting that AMD said that as we get closer to launch, further details will come as well as deeper information about the design. It was also mentioned that the marketing strategy is also currently being determined, such that Zen may not actually be the retail product name for the line of processors (we already have Summit Ridge as the platform codename, but that could change for retail as well).
Wrap Up
AMD has gone much further into their core design than I expected this week. When we were told we had a briefing, and there were 200-odd press and analysts in the room, I was expecting to hear some high level puff about the brand and a reiteration of their commitment to the high end. To actually get some slides detailing parts of the microarchitecture, even at a basic cache level, was quite surprising and it somewhat means that AMD might have stolen the show with the news this week.
We’ve got another couple of pieces detailing some of the AMD internal/live benchmark numbers during the presentation, as well as the dual socket server platform, the 32-core Naples server CPU, and what we saw at the event in terms of motherboard design.
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Kevin G - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
Google is porting their internal software but they're not moving production system unless there is a clear reason. (And for some specific applications, there are some clear reasons.)Google doesn't want to be married to any particular architecture.
BillBear - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
As of April, they seem to have already ported their software stack to POWER and to be in the process of designing server hardware with Rackspace with the intention of making those designs public under the Open Compute Project.http://www.pcworld.com/article/3053092/ibms-power-...
BillBear - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
I should be clear that I'm not saying Google intends to abandon x86. They are simply talking about POWER based servers becoming a first class citizen in their infrastructure.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
Crossing fingers for a great 35 watt APU. The iGPU space in laptops has been stagnant since trinity. and it is abundantly clear that intel cant supply iris pro parts in any meaningful capacity.Now that AMD supports linux properly with polaris, all we need is a polaris+zen APU for laptops, and I can finally move off of windows altogether.
Michael Bay - Sunday, August 21, 2016 - link
Why would you even need a gpu in a laptop running specialized OS in the first place? Games aren`t being ported outside of token cases and rendering/drawing/general office applications are a sad joke.Networking is where it`s good at, and you don`t need anything over perfunctory graphics there.
Gigaplex - Monday, August 22, 2016 - link
Linux is quite the opposite of a specialized OS. It's probably the most versatile platform out there.Michael Bay - Monday, August 22, 2016 - link
I see it being said a lot, but what`s the point if software is so bad with no hope of improvement? You can`t reasonably compete with Adobe if there are three people on your team doing this in their spare time, same goes for Zbrush and any other professional content creation tool. Much better to focus where you actually can lead.asoltesz - Sunday, August 28, 2016 - link
"with no hope of improvement" is nonsense for one tracking the Linux world even if only casually.First of all the open source applications have matured a lot. E.g. I could do everything I wanted with Kdenlive as good as the built in movie editor of OSX. (Consumer level, bit still)
For certain niches, oss is now as good as the commercial competition (eg Krita for digital painting)
A lot of newer applications now have proper Linux support (E.g. Slack) because they were created with platform independent toolkits.
As for the base OS and desktop, I find desktop Linux way more powerful and sophisticated than either Windows or OSX. My ws runs KDE Plasma 5 on an Ubuntu base and it is better looking , faster and more stable than my OSX ElCap laptop.
BrokenCrayons - Monday, August 22, 2016 - link
Check Steam. The last time I looked, about 2,700 games of the 11,000 were supported under Linux. Then there's quite a few that play nicely under WINE + PlayOnLinux. Native gaming on Linux has dramatically improved in the last 4 years. It seems as though momentum is building still rather than declining. Office applications have come a long way as well thanks to the folks behind LibreOffice. I've been using it as a personal office suite since the fork from OpenOffice and it's made impressive progress. Formatting MS Office documents is still a minor sticking point, but the number of differences I see when moving files between office suites now are very small with most cases being oddball outliers that require obscure capabilities of Microsoft's suites. Rendering has never been a problem on Linux platforms. Drawing though, in my opinion is still a shortcoming. GIMP is a miserable piece of software to work with and remains one of the only image editing options for Linux users.However, I doubt my comment will change your mind. Much like the people who use a $ when they talk about Microsoft, you insist on using the word "loonix" in many of your posts. It shows a very strong bias supported by a framework of childish emotional investment in something as meaningless as software on a computer someone else owns.
Michael Bay - Monday, August 22, 2016 - link
>2700 indie nongamesUh-uh. Wake me up when AAA comes in any significant number.
>WINE
Are you joking.
>Libre
Okay, now I know you are.
>GIMP
At least here we can agree.