AMD Tech Day at CES: 2018 Roadmap Revealed, with Ryzen APUs, Zen+ on 12nm, Vega on 7nm
by Ian Cutress on February 1, 2018 8:45 AM ESTOver the years we have seen various attempts from AMD and Intel to try and help improve storage performance on their mainstream platforms. Because of the solid user experience benefits that solid state storage can bring, these attempts come in two forms: to make the most of a small amount of super-fast storage, or to expand the amount of super-fast storage available. Most attempts at this have been laborious, such as Intel’s caching technology that allows a SSD or 32GB of Optane Memory to act as a quick read/write cache for a rotational drive.
AMD’s latest attempt to boost the storage performance is Enmotus FuzeDrive, a collaborative piece of software that is designed to combine several storage devices into one big disk. The principle is fairly simple: take any combination of rotational hard drive, SATA SSD, NVMe SSD, and even DRAM, and this software will create a single drive that addresses them all. The software and drivers will manage what data goes where for quicker access, rather than it appearing as one big JBOD.
The obvious red flags from the press were about DRAM, which we were told will only act as a read-cache from prepared data taken from the other drives. The other flag was about if one drive in that system fails, whether all the data is lost. The answer was a likely yes, and so the risk of such a system might be in-line with a JBOD array or similar to a RAID-0, but without the predictable speedup a RAID-0 array might bring.
Predictive caching technologies to help speed up read/write access times are, on paper, a good idea. Some SSDs already do this, by having a small amount of fast SLC cache to act as a write buffer, which the controller can then move the data around to empty the cache when the drive is idle. The difference between having something like a controller manage an embedded system and a general software package in play is that the embedded system has to work for a single drive, albeit millions of units. That arrangement is going to be as defined and engineered as much as that SSD vendor wants it to be. For a software package, it has to work across a variety of environments that might be badly configured, or in situations that the software might not be able to identify properly. As the software stretches over three or four different drives, it sounds like a potential failure in the making of one of those drives decides to die.
AMD lists several benefits of FuzeDrive: no Windows reinstall required, drives can be added to the pool at any point, or removed from the pool if sufficient spare space exists. Pools with DRAM added can be configured manually if some more DRAM is needed. AMD lists that in its testing, comparing a 500 GB hard-drive to a system with a Samsung 960 Pro added to the pool, they recorded a 578% faster Adobe Premiere launch, and a 931% faster Adobe Photoshop launch.
I could see FuzeDrive being useful in two particular scenarios: If a user as a small (32-128 GB) NVMe drive and a 1TB SSD/HDD, a single pool can be made. Users with a single large drive (SATA or HDD) could use the software to add DRAM, enabling an automatic RAM disk.
Enmotus FuzeDrive will be available for Ryzen Desktop systems, and will cost $20.
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iwod - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
Does Vega 7nm necessarily means GF though? I thought the drop of Vega 12nm+ make sense as it would be competing with Ryzen for GF capacity. Given how AMD is doing well and should be even better now when Meltdown is on Intel.I would have thought moving Radeon back to TSMC would be a much better choice.
Outlander_04 - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
TSMC ? Why?It would also mean higher costs for AMD
Holliday75 - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Just a guess, but based off his comment he suggested that Radeon would be competing for fab space at GF. If reduced capacity for Zen cuts into profits then the extra costs to move might be worth it.Just basing this off of his comment.
Stuka87 - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
I sure hope Dell comes out with a Precision laptop with AMD stuff. The Inspirons share a lot with the Precisions.Dragonstongue - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
so it sounds like a "refresh" to RX 500 series which was claimed for 2018 is not happening, that sucks TBH..need a new GPU and many of the "good" RX 570-580s are out of stock or low in stock ballooning their prices, need replace my 7870 sometime soon, 460/560 will not cut it, and spending ~$80 more than should is a no go for me to replace it. 1280 shader 256 bit bus with a bump in ROP/TMU at 170w maximum (heavily overclocked) 7870 was THE "mainstream" performance card for its generation, have not seen AMD nor Nv release one that is "comparable" either higher performance (higher price) or less performance (similar price) but nothing to supplant it really.
Good news though, just shows that Zen+ (12nm) is/was not Zen2 (was always to be on 7nm) which I told off many a 3rd party "review" site claiming it would be ^.^
Sttm - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
The GPU roadmap is so sad. AMD barely has a GPU that can top the GTX1080 I bought Summer 2016, and won't have a truly superior offering until 2019.My only hope of a proper upgrade is now Volta, and Nvidia will have no reason not to price gouge with this pathetic competition!
Arbie - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
@Sttm - I'm also sorry that AMD's graphics wasn't a win in 2017. But I wonder what games you could possibly find good enough to warrant moving "up" from a 1080? The tiny increase in quality or FPS would only be meaningful - maybe - on a game you love that has top-notch graphics AND doesn't look good enough on your current card. I only wish there was something even close to that for me.gerz1219 - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
Plenty of modern games play somewhat smoothly at 4K on a 1080 Ti, but could use a bump up in fps. Once you see 4k gaming, it's kind of hard to unsee, which is why I haven't bothered to buy a 1440p gaming panel to complement my professional panel. I'd gladly pay another $700 + the cost of a 4K Gsync/Freesync monitor next year to upgrade the 1080 Ti to something that can crush any game at 4K, but it doesn't look like that product will hit the market in 2019 because AMD is so far behind, and everyone's making tons of money selling GPUs for crypto.sld - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
Those who buy price gouging items walk into it willingly. Gsync vs Freesync, for example.Santoval - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
I hope you'll get better soon Ian. I don't think I would be able to type a single sentence if I were in your shoes, I have to admit am impressed by your resilience.