AMD is also working on a new 64-bit x86 Core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 5, 2014 1:16 PM EST
Jim Keller joined Mark Papermaster on stage at AMD's Core Innovation Update press conference and added a few more details to AMD's K12 announcement. Keller stressed AMD's expertise in building high frequency cores, as well as marrying the strengths of AMD's big cores with those of its low power cores. The resulting K12 core is a 64-bit ARM design, but Jim Keller also revealed that his team is working on a corresponding 64-bit x86 core.
The x86 counterpart doesn't have a publicly known name at this point, but it is a new design built from the ground up.
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Gizmosis350k - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Yes iNTEL is nothing but a fadmilli - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
I don't know if going big on ARM is the right choice for AMD. I understand that's where the market is going and AMD thinks it can earn some money there but ... at the same time it's giving up markets where it still can be competitive. Like the high end server market. Considering the transistor density of GF's 28nm SHP node, AMD could have released a monolithic 8 module Steamroller Opteron this year. Plus '32-core' high-end models. Having a high performance 32 core Opteron in 2014 is way better than having a possible hit in 2016.It feels like AMD is admitting defeat to Intel but does it really think it can take on Qualcomm, Broadcom, ... and even still Intel? Qualcomm is going to have it's custom 64-bit ARM core ready by that time too. Broadcom already has a big portfolio of low-power MIPS server SOCs. The market AMD is entering, is going to be even more saturated.
TiGr1982 - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
It seems that AMD completely abandoned their "Big" multicore Opterons after Piledriver-based 6300 Series, as of now. It was probably a business decision taken on the very top of their management - presumably, they decided that it's not worth it to continue, thus surrendering big core server x86-64 market to Intel altogether, as of now.IMHO, it's indeed not a very good idea, because, anyway, their big double die 6100/6200/6300 Opterons run at lower frequencies, (~2.5-3.5 GHz), so that new 28 nm process used for Kaveri would be good in terms of power consumption for such a frequency range. And they already have new Steamroller core up and running on the market in Kaveri since January. Seems like while hesitating to reiterate the big Opterons to 28 nm & Steamroller (which seems to be clearly doable technically), they shot in their foot once again. Or maybe they just don't have enough manpower to do it simultaneously with other things. It's a pity.
Gizmosis350k - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
I agree, but we'll have to wait and see - people love AMD for servers, let's wait and seephkahler - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
Blind you all are. 2014-2 chips. 2015 one chip with one of 2 cores 2016-one chip supporting 2 instruction sets. Ambidextrous. Keller says ARM has more registers and less decode circuitry. So bolt on the x86 decoder and there you go. Of course that is a gross over simplification. But why the images, why "ambidextrous", and how else could little AMD do 2 high performance designs at once? Go ask them and see if they deny it.Gizmosis350k - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
AMD has Jim Keller, who does Intel have leading the R&D team?Cpuhog - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
I am assuming by that you think that is a positive thing for AMD? Why?Gizmosis350k - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Jim Keller designed the A series of chips for iPhone, this guy is legendary. The next generation of chips for AMD will be the best the market have seen thus farm and to answer phkahler AMD doesnt have to deny or confirm a thing - WHAT WE DO KNOW is that we're getting much, MUCH better chips in the next 3 years and there's nothing Intel can do about itxKrNMBoYx - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Finally some good news for me. Hopefully the Excavator-core based APU/CPU will be a decent upgrade from Kaveri. If not making a FM2+ compatible "High Performance" 64-bit x86 CPU/APU would be all I ask for. I don't care if it's a CPU without a IGP or an APU with an IGP. I just want a stronger FM2+ compatible processor that is 6-8 cores. Xbox One and Playstation 4 uses custom AMD 8-Core processors. Newer games will probably utilize more than 4 cores in the near feature. I mean Watch Dogs requirements seem to show that. Unless AMD's IPC gets similar with Intel they need more cores for performance. FPU/Compute technology is great, but games (my usage) are CPU intensive in some cases, and AMD APUs/CPUs don't cut it at 4-cores. Show me a miracle AMD.2015-17 is too far away. This was the worst time to start building a desktop, and FM2+ was a bad choice. Going AMD was a bad choice for now as the future isn't clear.
Gizmosis350k - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Yes, I think AMD can do it we're going to be seeing high performance RAW compute across the board for all chips on all sockets :)