AMD Ryzen 7000: Up to 16 Cores, AVX-512 Support at Launch
Robert Hallock took part in several interviews on Thursday.
In multiple interview sessions on Thursday, AMD director of technical marketing Robert Hallock answered many questions from journalists and tech enthusiasts about the company's 5nm Zen 4 'Raphael' Ryzen 7000 processors. One such interview, part of the 2.5 Geeks series from Hot Hardware included Hallock's confirmations of launch core counts, that there are new Threadrippers coming, and the heavy hint of Ryzen 7000's support for AVX-512 instructions.
AMD's communications regarding its 5nm Zen 4 'Raphael' Ryzen 7000 processors and AM5 socket motherboards didn't get off to the clearest of starts. However, we have now pretty much ironed out all the wrinkles from the announcement. Two of the biggest areas of uncertainty after the Computex keynote were concerning Ryzen 7000 power specs, and CPU performance vs IPC.
Hallock touched upon the 15% single-threaded performance uplift claims made at Computex keynote. He told the site that the provided figure was chosen so that AMD wouldn't have any chance to disappoint, with "oftentimes a lot more [performance]," than that figure.
Hallock confirmed that Zen 4-powered AM5 processors will max out at 16 physical cores at launch. Of course, current-generation Ryzen chips already reach these core count heights (e.g., Ryzen 9 5950X). However, Hallock was keen to point out that "we're getting 40%+ more performance out of that core count." Moreover, he teased that the future holds even greater promise.
There is also a short but sweet section of the video regarding Threadripper processors. When asked about these HEDT processors, which were conspicuous by their absence from the Computex presentation, Hallock said that there are "more coming." We recently reported on a shortage of Threadripper processors in the channel – hopefully, this is a good sign that AMD is preparing for a refresh.
On the topic of AVX-512 support, Hallock refused to be drawn into an official answer. The interviewers did their best to get the AMD technical marketing lead to name this particular instruction set instead of referring to the official "Expanded instructions for AI acceleration." Their efforts, sadly, fell a bit flat.
However, in an interview with TechPowerUp published earlier today, we have a much clearer statement about the relationship between AMD's expanded instructions supported by Ryzen 7000 and AVX-512. Asked specifically about this relationship, Hallock told TPU that the new Ryzens specifically support "AVX 512 VNNI for neural networking and AVX 512 BFloat16 for inferencing." Furthermore, it was explained that this implementation delivered some "pretty nice speedups" in tasks like video upscaling, which is quite a common endeavor for enthusiasts.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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waltc3 Robert also said that by the end of summer they'd be releasing a lot more info when they get the final Zen4 configurations nailed down. I had a feeling from the start that AMD was being coy, and keeping a lot of what they already know under wraps for a while. Shaping up to be a fun year, already.Reply -
thisisaname Replywaltc3 said:Robert also said that by the end of summer they'd be releasing a lot more info when they get the final Zen4 configurations nailed down. I had a feeling from the start that AMD was being coy, and keeping a lot of what they already know under wraps for a while. Shaping up to be a fun year, already.
Yes they are being coy but it does not help someone decide weather to get an AM4 or hold out for an AM5 or if going Intel is going to be better.
With all their messing about I feel I may be better off going Intel rather than wait around for AMD to pull their finger out. -
SunMaster Replythisisaname said:Yes they are being coy but it does not help someone decide weather to get an AM4 or hold out for an AM5 or if going Intel is going to be better.
With all their messing about I feel I may be better off going Intel rather than wait around for AMD to pull their finger out.
It's the start of "the leaking game". It'll be fun for sure - regardless of which camp you feel you're in. -
ottonis Replythisisaname said:Yes they are being coy but it does not help someone decide weather to get an AM4 or hold out for an AM5 or if going Intel is going to be better.
With all their messing about I feel I may be better off going Intel rather than wait around for AMD to pull their finger out.
Currently, one cannot really go wrong with either AMD or Intel camp, since both provide more than plenty of performance and options to cope with virtually every task you throw at them.
Sure, people making money with certain software applications - e.g. 3D-rendering or video editing - will certainly want to have a deep look into how well their preferred software is optimized for each platform (multi core? AVX256/512? FP? cash sizes? latencies? Ram throughput?) and base their decisions on hard facts rather than on rumors or promises for the future.
People already running an ADL platform will most likely want to stay with Intel and upgrade with RaptorLake later on.
People already with AMD will have the opportunity to stay with a recent chipset/CPU, or upgrade from an older CPU, or even build a new Zen3 system from scratch and save some good money at that.
AMD cannot reveal every single benchmark of the Zen4 chips, as this would help Intel to adjust their price policies for their upcoming RaprorLake CPUs. -
mdd1963 Replytommo1982 said:Higher TBP for ZEN 4 makes sens now. AVX-512 increased power draw for Intel processors.
To be fair, 12900K adeptly managed to consume 230-240 watts even without AVX512... -
jeremyj_83 Reply
Even with only have 8 performance cores as well. All 8 E cores only consume like 40W.mdd1963 said:To be fair, 12900K adeptly managed to consume 230-240 watts even without AVX512... -
Sleepy_Hollowed Wow, if they keep ECC memory support (to be implemented by vendors of course on boards), this might be big trouble in the smaller workstation market.Reply
I'd get one of these in a heart beat for my occasional compiling needs. -
Makaveli Replythisisaname said:Yes they are being coy but it does not help someone decide weather to get an AM4 or hold out for an AM5 or if going Intel is going to be better.
With all their messing about I feel I may be better off going Intel rather than wait around for AMD to pull their finger out.
That is a simple decision if you are doing a new build now it makes no sense to go AM4.
You hold off on AM5 or go intel. -
-Fran- Related:Reply
JnLbqB1FBu8View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnLbqB1FBu8
I think most people should keep an open mind about AMD just setting a baseline of what Zen4 will be and also try to read the fine print and compare Z690 to X670(E).
Regards.