Yeah, everything here is totally wrong. This is a Kaveri refresh for 2015, not the new generation APUs with the Excavator architecture. It will also *NOT* use GCN 1.2. Just look at the Athlon. It's still called Athlon 8x0. If it was based on a new architecture, it should've been 9x0. Also, the frequencies for most APUs are virtually the same. Same goes for the number of graphic cores. This is a refresh for Kaveri exactly how Richland was a refresh for Trinity. Mostly same thing, maybe with 5% more performance for same efficiency.

AMD doesn't have the fastest GPU, their power consumption is off the charts, their current GPU is months late and months away, their APUs are only competitive in a place where middling graphics performance is desirable (so, nowhere) their CPUs are way way behind Intel at every single pricepoint with the exception of some very specific workloads at very specific segments of the market. No one even knows what an Opteron is anymore and the one place they could maybe have an impact, desktop CPUs, they can't even compete because, super ****ing ironically, they don't have a GPU in it, so you have to get a discrete one. If you're ok with that, then you can have a chipset from 2011. Everything they're doing right now is slower than their competitors for more power. Everything. With the sole exception of desktop APUs, which offer useless performance in a useless segment.

I really don't get the fixation people have about AMD GPUs eating power. Nvidia may have improved their average power usage with the 900 series cards but it's not like a double 8pin magically eats less power for nVidia than it does AMD under constant load. I'll give you that they're behind Intel for CPUs but, that's been that way for a while now.

I really don't get the fixation people have about AMD GPUs eating power. Nvidia may have improved their average power usage with the 900 series cards but it's not like a double 8pin magically eats less power for nVidia than it does AMD under constant load. I'll give you that they're behind Intel for CPUs but, that's been that way for a while now.

No actually it's exactly like that. I mean, it isn't magical, but it's absolutely like that, lol. The reference 980 actually has a 6 pin and 8 pin, 290x has 2x 8 pin. But aside from that point, the PSU doesn't deliver constant power. It only supplies what the GPU requires. So 6 pins, 8 pins, irrelevant to power consumption except in total theoretical power delivery.

Then why the difference in wording:

Its like this.... 4 cores = 4 threads 1 thread per core therefore each core is single threaded. Only 1 thread per 4 cores = 4 threads. So its a quad core single threaded CPU or a 4 core 4 thread CPU Same thing.

I think I just suffered brain damage.

No actually it's exactly like that. I mean, it isn't magical, but it's absolutely like that, lol. The reference 980 actually has a 6 pin and 8 pin, 290x has 2x 8 pin. But aside from that point, the PSU doesn't deliver constant power. It only supplies what the GPU requires. So 6 pins, 8 pins, irrelevant to power consumption except in total theoretical power delivery.

I did make sure I said constant load when I made the comparison 🤓. The 200 series cards aren't very good power/performance but, they were designed to compete with the 700 series cards which also look pretty bad compared to the 900 series. I definitely think they need to get the 300 series out the door and that they need to reduce power usage however they can but I don't think the power requirements are all that crazy on AMD's side. I didn't need to be snippy about though, sorry :3.

Dain Bramage is very serious. That have looked at should.

I did make sure I said constant load when I made the comparison 🤓. The 200 series cards aren't very good power/performance but, they were designed to compete with the 700 series cards which also look pretty bad compared to the 900 series. I definitely think they need to get the 300 series out the door and that they need to reduce power usage however they can but I don't think the power requirements are all that crazy on AMD's side. I didn't need to be snippy about though, sorry :3.

Just so we're clear, constant load doesn't help your case, under constant 100% load, the 980 is still a lot lower than the 290x..

Quote: End Quote: Sorry but You don't know what you are talking about. '...AMD keeps...' Keeps getting what? They were chosen for two consoles of the same generation. So what have they 'kept'? As for 'In fact, the only place where AMD loses these days is high-end x86 cpus'. First that isn't a fact... it isn't even correct. AMD are losing all over the place. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2015/04/20/amd-q1-2015-loss/1 Yes, they are doing OK in certain markets but most areas of their business are still losing money despite large turn over and other areas are making huge losses, hence the need for another restructuring. EDIT Quote box doesn't seem to be coming up in standard comment window.

You're talking about 2 different kinds of "losing". You were talking about money, he was talking about performance. He was right by the way.

AMD doesn't have the fastest GPU, their power consumption is off the charts, their current GPU is months late and months away, their APUs are only competitive in a place where middling graphics performance is desirable (so, nowhere) their CPUs are way way behind Intel at every single pricepoint with the exception of some very specific workloads at very specific segments of the market. No one even knows what an Opteron is anymore and the one place they could maybe have an impact, desktop CPUs, they can't even compete because, super ****ing ironically, they don't have a GPU in it, so you have to get a discrete one. If you're ok with that, then you can have a chipset from 2011. Everything they're doing right now is slower than their competitors for more power. Everything. With the sole exception of desktop APUs, which offer useless performance in a useless segment.

This is very biased and inaccurate. There are many areas where "middling graphics performance" is acceptable and in mid range laptops, the graphics performance is a lot more than just middling. The part about price points is completely wrong. Dollars vs. performance is still a win for AMD in every arena. Even in desktop CPU's.

I did make sure I said constant load when I made the comparison 🤓. The 200 series cards aren't very good power/performance but, they were designed to compete with the 700 series cards which also look pretty bad compared to the 900 series. I definitely think they need to get the 300 series out the door and that they need to reduce power usage however they can but I don't think the power requirements are all that crazy on AMD's side. I didn't need to be snippy about though, sorry :3.

Not that crazy? A card that eats up 160W and competes with AMD's 300 is not that crazy? But you're right about the 700 series, they weren't far off either. Maybe the 300 series will address this power consumption. I sure hope so. The reason why I'm hoping for lower-power GPUs is because the more they reduce the power, the more laptop GPUs will get closer to their desktop counterparts. That's pretty good.

This is very biased and inaccurate. There are many areas where "middling graphics performance" is acceptable and in mid range laptops, the graphics performance is a lot more than just middling. The part about price points is completely wrong. Dollars vs. performance is still a win for AMD in every arena. Even in desktop CPU's.

Every arena? You mean certain segments of each arena, a feat which is nothing special. For example pentiums are damn good for the price compared to their competitors, i3s are well priced chips as well which offer great gaming performance for the price. i7s don't have competition in the desktop market but that's a different story. An i5 is worth it for gaming since it's going to last you for half a decade at the current performance increase rate. And they can hold up high-end SLI cards like nobody's business. You see, every Intel chip here actually makes sense and targets pretty broad market segments. Their CPUs scale linearly overall and are sufficiently general-purpose. As opposed to AMD's offerings which are weirdly more focused, like the FX-8350 has been noticed to bottleneck SLI GPUs a while back because of its weak cores, but it's quite a good processor for heavily multithreaded tasks. The gaming part will probably change with DX12, but it's been 3 years since that CPU was released -> I feel it was a bad design. I would purchase that CPU for rendering if I'm on a tight budget. And the problem is that most people that work in 3D (even as a hobby) and are hardcore gamers will always choose the i7. This is already a very broad market segment that the i7 addresses, the high-end for which AMD has no answer. Moving on to other markets, AMD's laptop segment is basically absent because of the huge power consumption. Suffice to say if you want to game on a laptop, you're probably not concerned with power consumption since you'll game with your laptop plugged in. But since you don't care for power consumption why would you go for an integrated GPU in the first place? Another small niche budget market segment that doesn't make that much sense. Server market, a few chips with good price/performance. Again, niche market segment, not exactly broad. Where's this dollar vs performance in every arena? Because I really don't see it. All you considered are the expensive i7s. News flash, Intel doesn't only produce i7s.

Not that crazy? A card that eats up 160W and competes with AMD's 300 is not that crazy? But you're right about the 700 series, they weren't far off either. Maybe the 300 series will address this power consumption. I sure hope so. The reason why I'm hoping for lower-power GPUs is because the more they reduce the power, the more laptop GPUs will get closer to their desktop counterparts. That's pretty good. Every arena? You mean certain segments of each arena, a feat which is nothing special. For example pentiums are damn good for the price compared to their competitors, i3s are well priced chips as well which offer great gaming performance for the price. i7s don't have competition in the desktop market but that's a different story. An i5 is worth it for gaming since it's going to last you for half a decade at the current performance increase rate. And they can hold up high-end SLI cards like nobody's business. You see, every Intel chip here actually makes sense in relatively broad market demands. Their CPUs scale linearly overall. As opposed to AMD's offerings which are weirdly more focused, like the FX-8350 has been noticed to bottleneck SLI GPUs a while back because of its weak cores. This will probably change with DX12, but it's been 3 years since that CPU was released. I would purchase that CPU for rendering if I'm on a tight budget. And the problem is that most people that work in 3D (even as a hobby) and are hardcore gamers will always choose the i7. This is already a very broad market segment that the i7 addresses. Moving on to other markets, AMD's laptop segment is basically absent because of the huge power consumption. Suffice to say if you want to game on a laptop, you're probably not going to buy an APU. Another small niche market segment. Server market, a few chips with good price/performance. Again, niche market segment, not exactly broad. Where's this dollar vs performance in every arena? Because I really don't see it. All you considered are the expensive i7s. News flash, Intel doesn't only produce i7s.

Few points you have there are right, others are on edge of hatred against AMD. But one thing I can't agree ever. There is special place where AMD's APUs can shine and I am pissed that AMD is not in that place. APU like FX-7600p and now incoming FX-8800p and some others with 512SP are good enough for mobile gaming. They eat less than intel+nVidia or intel+AMD combination while delivering more fps if you want both components to fit into 35W as that is TDP of those APUs. (performance/watt) Then They are single chips, that means they take less space, you do not need extra heatpipes going extra centimeters from CPU to GPU. (weight & size) This saved weight and size can be used for batteries. (improved battery life) Then there is this misconception about AMD's SoC versus intel's "SoC". Carrizo is FULL SoC, no, stuff needed around. Intel does not have that in notebooks. They have it in those "Compute Sticks" only. That means one thing, when you read that intel has 28W TDP chip in notebook and AMD has carrizo with 35W, then both notebooks are likely to have same total power consumption ~= battery life. If only Someone made netbook with FX-7600p without dGPU, I would got it in past, now I wait if they make FX-8800p without dGPU. And with Godavari we know only rumors. But if it has excavator cores or power efficiency stated for Carrizo, then it will do considerably better than Kaveri at same TDP/clocks. Because 95W A10-7850k was pretty choked by TDP, many could not even keep CPU performance once iGPU got into play. And only few could overclock well. (This should be fixed now.)

Few points you have there are right, others are on edge of hatred against AMD. But one thing I can't agree ever. There is special place where AMD's APUs can shine and I am pissed that AMD is not in that place. APU like FX-7600p and now incoming FX-8800p and some others with 512SP are good enough for mobile gaming. They eat less than intel+nVidia or intel+AMD combination while delivering more fps if you want both components to fit into 35W as that is TDP of those APUs. (performance/watt) Then They are single chips, that means they take less space, you do not need extra heatpipes going extra centimeters from CPU to GPU. (weight & size) This saved weight and size can be used for batteries. (improved battery life) Then there is this misconception about AMD's SoC versus intel's "SoC". Carrizo is FULL SoC, no, stuff needed around. Intel does not have that in notebooks. They have it in those "Compute Sticks" only. That means one thing, when you read that intel has 28W TDP chip in notebook and AMD has carrizo with 35W, then both notebooks are likely to have same total power consumption ~= battery life. If only Someone made netbook with FX-7600p without dGPU, I would got it in past, now I wait if they make FX-8800p without dGPU. And with Godavari we know only rumors. But if it has excavator cores or power efficiency stated for Carrizo, then it will do considerably better than Kaveri at same TDP/clocks. Because 95W A10-7850k was pretty choked by TDP, many could not even keep CPU performance once iGPU got into play. And only few could overclock well. (This should be fixed now.)

You are right that I'm on the edge of hatred against AMD. Time and time again I see more APUs and nothing to compete. Time and time again they disperse their forces to do EVERYTHING instead of getting a few things done damn well. The same damn thing being done over and over again for the past 3 years. 'Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?' I want diversity. I want to be able to choose. I'm tired of seeing 10% performance increase from generation to generation from Intel. I want a real reason to upgrade. I want to see my sandy get trashed by the next gen Intel or AMD offerings. I don't care which. I'm not a brand loyalist. I will buy a bloody PowerPC CPU if it performs better at a decent cost. And APUs piss me off aswell. There's so much potential in those APUs but they're flooding the market in the wrong place. Desktop people barely want APUs, how is it that AMD doesn't get the hint? People either want low-end integrated graphics which Intel offers, or discrete GPUs for gaming. Those APUs are so handicapped by AMD's subpar memory performance that it's not even funny. They didn't even make a move towards DDR4 to alleviate part of the problem. A strong APU is midrange laptop material. But they have a huge problem. CPU performance. AMD's inefficient architecture works against them in this segment. Continuing the above, I do have to point out a part of your post as incomplete. You said that APUs would be single chips which take less space while also not requiring an extra heatpipe for cooling (less weight). While I agree that this is true, it's far more difficult to cool off a single chip as opposed to two separate chips. This is where power efficiency is key. Overall the power efficiency using an APU would indeed be better. But it would also mean that you have one hot chip requiring a better cooling system. Note that regular laptops (with regular low-cost cooling systems) can barely keep up with Intel's 45W i7s. Consider the fact that anything higher than this cannot be cooled with a low-cost cooling system (low-cost is the point of APUs). This move would require better laptop cases and better cooling systems which would also drive the prices up. My bet is that AMD needs to focus their attention on Zen. That is their only hope to finally and properly enter the laptop market while also competing in the desktop market. Zen has huge potential. It will bring AMD back if they play their cards right.

^ Sure, that is absolutely right that APUs generation by generation failed to deliver for us who want very high performance. But kaveri already was good enough for 60fps gamers (I mean with combination with dGPU - friend has it with nVidia dGPU which have better multithreading drivers and there It works flawlessly). Too weak for 120fps+. This time around it will not change much, but it will change. And in notebooks 35W is OK for cooling. My gaming notebook had 45W i7-720qm CPU + 55W R5870m (800SP vliw5) GPU, both used same cooling (2 cooling solutions, one for each). Carrizo can match that performance in 35W. No need for 17" heavy notebook, even 11" is big enough. I personally hope that AMD keeps APUs evolving (want to see HSA 1.0 in action, preferably soon and in device I own), and that Zen will be able to replace my i5. And btw, my cousin's wife plays games just on A10-7850k, And I had hard time believing that it is acceptable, but it is actually pretty good. (there will go my GPU once 390x comes around)

Apologies for disturbing the proverbial can of worms, I should have known better than to try and quell things.