> AMD is still behind per core in both clocks and per clock performance.
Yes, that's true but the per clock performance is close. They are only 5-10% behind in single threaded tasks without AVX (depending on the workload). The IPC increase is expected to be 10-15% (will of course depend on the workload). And their achilles heel, the AVX performance, will also improve with Zen 2 (256 bit instead of 128 bit etc.)
Due to 7nm the clocks (for consumer hardware like Ryzen and Threadripper) will probably also increase (not 5 to 5.2 ghz after overclocking like Intel, but up to 4.7 ghz overclocks could be possible seeing that 4.3 ghz is possible on the current node which is mobile optimized).
Depending on how much the clocks increase I believe they can close the gap. Maybe even pass Intel. The future certainly looks promising for AMD.
I wonder if they will revive their X APUs for the Server. In the past they had Opteron X APUs to increase the compute density of servers. Now with Zen and Vega this could be a nice combo in addition to discrete GPUs.
Imagine replacing these two 32 core Epyc CPUs made in 14nm with two 32 core Epyc APUs (Zen 2) made in 7nm, which would use the saved space due to 7nm for Compute Units, and you might get an additional 10-16 TFlops per System. Which is basically one additional GPU.
People keep thinking AMD's 7nm is this amazing thing, like everyone is talking about the same thing when it comes to CPU's and nm. When in reality nm has just been marketing fluff for a decade now, just like response times in monitors.
AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size.
People who follow the tech press talk about the same thing when talking about nm, and they know TSMC 7nm competes with Intel 10nm not Intel 14nm.
It's been all over the town for months that TSMCs 7nm is estimated to be worse than Intels ambitious failure that is 10nm [0][1][2][3] but quite a bit better than Intel 14nm (with the exception of clocks), and that 7nm+ with EUV for cost savings (which TSCM already taped out last month) is estimated to be equal or even slightly better.
So I'm not really sure what to make of your comment?
> AMD's 7nm might get them close to on par with Intel's current 14++ nm chips, but it's not like AMD has really figured out how to make the entire CPU half the size.
No they didn't, but they don't claim that, do they? From what they say they decided on the IO die exactly because IO doesn't scale as much, and that decision allowed them to double the number of cores. Since 7nm is expected to be much more expensive than previous nodes this seems really clever from a money standpoint as well. The core only Zen 2 chiplets are expected to be around 70 mm² which is mobile SoC territory.
AMD is already close in IPC to Intel even though AMD uses a worse node (GloFos mobile optimized 14nm is more like Intel 22 then Intel 14nm) and wins in multithreaded workloads because their SMT implementation seems to scale better than Intels. They also seem to have better performance/watt when under load. I have not seen numbers for idle wattage for Xeons but Intels desktop CPUs are slightly (5 - 10 watt) better when idle.
So I'm looking forward to them having the better node for the first time ever.
Yes, that's true but the per clock performance is close. They are only 5-10% behind in single threaded tasks without AVX (depending on the workload). The IPC increase is expected to be 10-15% (will of course depend on the workload). And their achilles heel, the AVX performance, will also improve with Zen 2 (256 bit instead of 128 bit etc.)
Due to 7nm the clocks (for consumer hardware like Ryzen and Threadripper) will probably also increase (not 5 to 5.2 ghz after overclocking like Intel, but up to 4.7 ghz overclocks could be possible seeing that 4.3 ghz is possible on the current node which is mobile optimized).
Depending on how much the clocks increase I believe they can close the gap. Maybe even pass Intel. The future certainly looks promising for AMD.
I wonder if they will revive their X APUs for the Server. In the past they had Opteron X APUs to increase the compute density of servers. Now with Zen and Vega this could be a nice combo in addition to discrete GPUs.
For example this system: https://i.imgur.com/yt5FasA.jpg?1
Imagine replacing these two 32 core Epyc CPUs made in 14nm with two 32 core Epyc APUs (Zen 2) made in 7nm, which would use the saved space due to 7nm for Compute Units, and you might get an additional 10-16 TFlops per System. Which is basically one additional GPU.