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.
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Cloakstar - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
These scores definitely need validation. If true, Carrizo is a massive win.The FX 8800P graphic shows a 3DMark 11 score of nearly 2000 at 15W, and 2700+ at 35W.
The A10-7850k has a score of 2403 at 95W.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-revi...
azazel1024 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I didn't realize AMD's processors were so terrible at video playback. My 2 year old (pushing 3 now) Ivy Bridge i5-3317u equipped HP Envy 4t can manage roughly 6hrs of video playback of a 1080p h.264 12Mbps source and it only has about a 45whr battery in it. With a higher TDP chip and lots of "not power saving" features.creed3020 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
I am definitely in the market for one of these laptops to replace two older laptops in the house with one new one. If it had Carrizo for the hear I would be mighty happy to support AMD over Intel for this round, as the improvements here sound very much adequate for the system I am looking for.The ideal system would be something like the HP Spectre x360 for around $750.
michal1980 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
AMDs problem start with the 1st slide. "more people by notebooks priced between $400 and 700 than at any other price. Almost 2 out of every 5 notbooks sold is in that segment."umm, 3 out of 5 notebooks is sold outside of the 400-700 dollar price. Thats greater then 2 out of 5.
AMD fails math. Fails in general.
silverblue - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
No. 3 out of 5 notebooks are either sold below $400, or above $700, and out of those two disparate segments, neither is as large as the $400 - $700 segment.There isn't a "math" fail here.
takeship - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
The bigger issue is that AMD is admitting they are so uncompetitive in the market that it doesn't make business sense to chase at least 60% of consumers (and ignoring business costumers completely). And realistically, that 400-700 market is really more like a 550-700 market, as 400-500 is close enough to base iPad Air 2/premium Android tab pricing that you lose a lot of sales that direction.silverblue - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link
Surely TrustZone is a sign that they want business customers? Additionally, being able to work on the battery all day is a good thing.Gigaplex - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Read closer. Their "all day battery" claim is being able to idle for 8 hours. You won't get a full work day out of that.silverblue - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link
If you class H264 1080p video as idle, sure. My fault for saying "work" though, however if all you're doing is light stuff, you won't be far off.FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
for amd's sake we'll class idle as full screen video playback and 1.5 hours as all day, and no wifi bluetooth or dvd player active as full multimedia active -there, now look, you were correct ! your ego is in tact, you're never wrong
Calgon take me away