AMD Launches Carrizo: The Laptop Leap of Efficiency and Architecture Updates
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2015 9:00 PM ESTUnified Video Decoder and Playback Pathways
A typical consumer user experience revolves a lot around video, and AMD identified for Carrizo a big potential to decrease power consumption and increase performance in a couple of different ways. First up is adjusting the path by which data is moved around the system, particularly as not a lot of video matches up with the native resolution of the screen or is scaled 1:1.
When a video exhibits a form of scaling, either it is made full screen and scaled up or it is a higher resolution video that scales down, that scaling is typically performed by the GPU. The data leaves the decoder (either hardware or software), enters system memory, moves into the graphics memory, is processed by the GPU, moves back out to memory, and then is transferred to the display. This requires multiple read/write commands to memory, requires the GPU to be active but underutilized, and this happens for every frame. AMD’s solution to this is to provide some simple scaling IP in the display engine itself, allowing for scaled video to go from the decoder to the display engine, leaving the GPU in a low power state.
The video playback paths at the bottom of this side show the explanation graphically, and AMD is quoting a 4.8W down to 1.9W movement in power consumption for these tasks. Note that the 4.8W value is for Kaveri, so there are other enhancements in there is as well, but the overall picture is a positive one and AMD quotes a 500mW of APU power savings.
The Unified Video Decoder (UVD) has been built to support the above codecs, with HEVC decode on die as well as native 4K H.264 decode as well. I’ll come back to the 4K element in a second, but what is perhaps missing from this list is VP9, the codec used by Google for YouTube. YouTube is still the number one source for video content on the web, and as Google is transitioning more to VP9, as well as AMD’s competition advertising it as a perk on their latest hardware, it was perhaps confusing for AMD to miss it out. I did ask on this, and was told that they picked HEVC over VP9 as they believe it will be the more important codec going forward, particularly when you consider that the majority of the popular streaming services (NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon) will be using HEVC for their high definition titles.
Back onto the 4K equation, and this is possible because AMD has increased the decode bandwidth of the UVD from 1080p to 4K. This affords two opportunities – 4K video on the fly, or 1080p video decoded in a quarter of the time, allowing the race to sleep for both the UVD and DRAM. Despite a 75% reduction in work, as the UVD does not use that much power, it results in only 30 minutes of extra video playback time, but it is welcome and contributes to that often marketed ‘video playback’ number.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
137 Comments
View All Comments
renegade800x - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Although viewable it's far from being "perfectly" fine. 15.6 should be FHD.albert89 - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
You don't need a strong CPU since win8 because most laptops use atom, Celeron or Pentium processors. AMD APU's are the natural choice !mabsark - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
AMD should make Steam Box's. They already do APUs, chipsets (which are going on die) and memory. It would be pretty simple for AMD to partner with a motherboard maker. Imagine a Steam Box about the size of a router, with a nano-ITX motherboard, a 14 nm APU with HBM, wifi, a few USB ports and an HDMI port to connect to a TV.An AMD/Valve partnership could potentially revolutionise the console market, providing cheap yet powerful and efficient console-type PCs.
Refuge - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
HBM isn't coming to APU's anytime soon.Cryio - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link
Probably the first APU after Carrizocoder111 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Aren't Steamboxes supposed to run Linux?AMD drivers for Linux are a bit weird. Catalyst is the official supported driver but it's buggy.
Open source drivers are quite good but they are slower than Catalyst and don't support latest OpenGL spec. There is no Mantle/Vulcan/HSA/Crossfire support with Open-Source drivers either. OpenCL is in alpha stage.
So AMD would need to man up and do the Linux drivers properly. They are working on it and making good progress but I doubt it is ready to be used at the moment as it is...
Besides, lots of games these days get developed with Nvidia's "help" to ensure they run well on Nvidia GPUs and run like crap on AMD GPUs. And if the games are built using Intel Compiler, they'll run like crap on AMD CPUs as well. All of these tactics are anticompetitive and should be illegal IMO but who said the world is fair...
And don't get me wrong, I love AMD, I use Linux + AMD dGPU + APU, but I don't think it's ready for the masses yet.
AS118 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I agree. I'm a double AMD Linux gamer and I've run into the exact same problems as you have, and I wish they'd be more serious about Linux. Sure they have Microsoft's support, but I feel that they should take Linux more seriously outside of the enterprise (where they do take Linux more seriously).yankeeDDL - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I disagree.For casual gaming on laptops, 1366x768 is just fine. You'll need a lot more horsepower to drive a fullHD screen and battery life will suffer.
I won't say that there's no benefit gaming at fullHD vs 1366x768: obviously, the visuals are better, but if you want an "all rounder" laptop which does not weight one ton (like "real" gaming laptops) and that it is below $500, it's not bad at all.
BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I personally would rather have a cheap 1366x768 panel. I don't care about color accuracy much, light bleed, panel responsiveness or much of anything else and haven't since we transitioned from passive to active matrix screens in the 486 to original Pentium era of notebook computers. In fact, I see higher resolutions as an unnecessary (because I have to scale things anyway to easily read text and interact with UI elements and because native resolution gaming on higher res screens demands more otherwise unnecessary GPU power) drain on battery life that invariably drives up the cost of the system to get otherwise identical performance. The drive for progressively smaller, higher pixel density displays is a pointless struggle to fill in comparable checkboxes between competitors to appease a consumer audience that has been swept up in the artificially fabricated frenzy over an irrelevant device specification.yankeeDDL - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I think it depends on the use, ultimately.For office work (i.e.: much reading/writing emails), a reasonably high resolution helps making the text sharp and easier on the eyes.
For home use (web browsing, watching videos, casual gaming) though, I find it a lot less relevant.
Personally, at home, I rather have a <$400 laptop always ready to be used for anything, to be moved around, even in the kitchen, than a $1000 laptop which I would need to treat with gloves for fears of damaging. Since Kaveri I also started recommending AMD again to my friends and family: much cheaper than Intel and with a decent GPU makes them a lot more versatile. Again, my opinion, based on my use. As they say: to each his own...