Discussing Threadripper, Xeon-W, RDNA 4, and Zen 5 w/ James Prior (Guest Telegrams)
Added 2023-11-23 01:47:46 +0000 UTCThe next episode of Broken Silicon will see us joined once again by James Prior, former Senior Product Manager at AMD! James was one of the people in charge of marketing and segmenting the original Threadripper series, and this is actually the first time since we've known each other that a non-Pro Threadripper has launched! Let's talk about that, and also:
- The Present and Future of HEDT / Workstation
- Future Ryzen Segmentation
- Nvidia 40 SUPER Segmentation
- RDNA 3's legacy
- RDNA 4 Pricing and Segmentation
- How AMD can (or can't) take Laptop Market Share over the next 2 years
- Marketing ARC & Intel Meteor Lake in 2024
In all honestly James can discuss just about ANYTHING relating to gaming hardware - this is what he is an expert at! So please don't hold back - we want to talk about what YOU want us to talk about. Just be concise, use good grammar, and be respectful to have your submissions considered. You have ~48 hours to submit questions below!
Last Time James was on: https://youtu.be/uAmfLXDhwVs
First Time James was on: https://youtu.be/c2Xc2KtnAvQ
James Prior LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdprior/
Comments
Zen has dense cores, where the same architechture is optimized for space, often sacrifising clock speed. Is something like that possible for RDNA, and in what way would that change the chip’s performance and place in the market?
Thijs Janssen
2023-11-26 21:04:00 +0000 UTCWhat will be the price range of the top HEDT/Workstation components (CPU,GPU,RAM) etc?
Valko Milev
2023-11-25 08:44:36 +0000 UTCCurrently, Intel is barely profitable and it feels to me that the only thing stopping that from becoming a massive loss is their historical brand recognition and market share. However, Intel has had too many failures in a row and OEMs are losing faith - Tom recently reported that one major OEM is already planning to move to 50/50 on Intel vs AMD. If multiple OEMs do that I don't see how Intel would be able to survive in their current form. If Arrow Lake is another failure, can Intel somehow still keep OEMs on board or would that be the beginning of the end of Intel as we know it?
Chris Rijk
2023-11-25 01:43:22 +0000 UTCWhat goes on behind the scenes when AMD and the motherboard vendors are bringing up a new platform? Can you maybe recount any of your experiences or horror stories from the AMD-OEM collaboration during your time at AMD? Do you think AMD has or had a different way of dealing with OEMs than they were expecting after years of basically only working with intel? How was dealing with OEMs different in the more distant past?
qhfreddy
2023-11-24 19:43:16 +0000 UTCWhy do you think AMD struggles so much with supplying APUs in the laptop market? A number of OEMs have been angry about allocation, and it feels like it takes years after launch for a lot of these products to actually get into the hands of consumers, especially in thin and light laptops? What goes into the decisionmaking of buying capacity for a fabless company like AMD, how is allocation negotiated, and does AMD have any sway over what kind of products (for example gaming laptops vs thin and lights vs mini PCs) the OEMs use their allocation for?
qhfreddy
2023-11-24 19:37:15 +0000 UTCIs there any particular reason Threadripper couldn't have been made as a subset of that generation's Epyc platform? Basically the normal Epyc platform, but instead with special unlocked SKUs, specific workstation and enthusiast motherboards (that still support the normal Epyc CPUs), and maybe slightly pared down PCIe and/or memory configs for the lower end SKUs? Are there any advantages to consolidating the platforms like that?
qhfreddy
2023-11-24 19:32:26 +0000 UTCIntel has managed to annoy OEMs with Arc and again with the delays to MTL's release and yet again with MTL being weaker than expected. A year from now do you think this will generally be forgotten and that OEMs in general will just continue with Intel as before or is this a real golden opportunity for AMD?
Chris Rijk
2023-11-24 17:19:27 +0000 UTCLooking at comments on Threadripper and HEDT in general, I think it's fair to say that everyone wants something a little different. However, supporting a dozen variants would increase costs. I don't think a HEDT platform exists that can be both cheap and satisfies nearly everyone while also being profitable enough for vendors to support long term. This is not to say that there's no room for improvement but rather that a premium product is going to come with a premium cost.
Chris Rijk
2023-11-24 16:32:36 +0000 UTCI'd like to get your thoughts on the utilization of chiplets in GPU architecture. Do you think that having multiple compute chiplets on a card would have issues similar to SLI/Crossfire? Do you think having multiple compute chiplets is more suited to AI where each chiplet wouldn't need to finish its work around the same time? Are there ways of breaking up the compute besides having two identical compute cores such as having an RT chiplet or a physics chiplet? Do you think that over the next several years that the primary means of improving general GPU performance, will be die size, IPC, frequency, and memory bandwidth?
Dark Helmet
2023-11-24 13:38:37 +0000 UTCThey already have B650 and X670 chipsets, could it be possible to have a Z690 where you get nothing more than X670 features but another 10-20 PCIe lanes?
KingHarkinian
2023-11-24 11:48:20 +0000 UTCIf I remember correctly, Tom said recently that he heard from a source at nVidia that they're focusing heavily on image quality improvements for things like DLSS and frame-gen. Rasterization performance on the flagships is already so high, and while RT performance can definitely use some big uplifts, with manufacturing costs for the latest nodes only going up in comparison to the perfomance gains they provide, perhaps frame-gen and upscaling with fewer and fewer artifacts is the way to go in nVidia's mind. That way they can continue to market big perfomance increases gen over gen. I'm curious as to what AMD's strategy with RDNA will be. Are perfomance "tricks" such as frame-generation and upscaling technologies going to be the main differentiators between GPU generations going forward?
Alfred Axelsson
2023-11-24 11:22:26 +0000 UTCWhat is going on with consumer motherboard prices, why are basically all TR boards and even some AM5/LGA1700 boards priced so high that Epyc Genoa SP6 boards with the full 12 channels and 88+ lanes of PCIe 5.0 dual 10 g base-T, and IPMI are cheaper?
qhfreddy
2023-11-24 07:01:57 +0000 UTCI feel like AMD has boxed in Threadripper between Threadripper Pro and AM5 and Epyc, and set the entry cost so high that there basically isn't a market for it. Is there a "minimum viable market" for a product line in the sense of there being enough sales to able be able to justify covering the costs of bringing it up and supporting it? Does it make sense to spin up such heavily segmented product lines?
qhfreddy
2023-11-24 06:58:50 +0000 UTCI am exactly in this boat. 16 cores is still plenty for me, but I need more I/O and I need ECC (unregistered is fine.) If someone had built an AM5 board with a PLX chip to bridge the PCIe 5.0 x16 to two PCIe 4.0 x16, and with ECC support, it would have been awesome for my needs. As it stands today, I might have to just go threadripper and buy more cores than I need, and it's kind of a bummer.
Max Eliaser
2023-11-23 22:49:24 +0000 UTCHello Tom and James. James and Tom, what are your current respective opinions on Intels CEO Pat Gelsinger, and how he has been running Intel up until this point?
otiv lcurtš
2023-11-23 22:45:47 +0000 UTCAnother question for James. Let's say you are given full access to Intel's CPU and GPU technology, with Intel's current manufacturing costs and economics. What client/enthusiast product lineup would you create with this technology and what niches would you choose to compete in?
Max Eliaser
2023-11-23 22:37:24 +0000 UTCHi James! Good to see you back on the show! Last time you were on the show, RTX 4000 series and RDNA 3 had respectively just launched and just been announced amid heavy criticism of segmentation and pricing and poor sales for some models. At the time, you defended both NVIDIA and AMD's initial segmentation and pricing as good opening chess moves from each side. Do you stand by that today and how would you evaluate the way these companies have navigated this past GPU generation?
Max Eliaser
2023-11-23 22:29:21 +0000 UTCAny chance of getting arm cores in a Ryzen sku for AM5?
HauntedIce
2023-11-23 20:01:34 +0000 UTCHello James and Tom. What will happen to Intel client next year? Intel already has razor thin margins on raptor lake. Is it possible that zen5 will be better at everything even the price? What will happen with Intel's market share in that segment?
QuickJumper
2023-11-23 19:30:17 +0000 UTCWhere does AMD want to go with FSR? Do they want to keep playing catch up with Nvidia or is there a new angle they want to eventually pursue?
FloridaMan
2023-11-23 15:03:15 +0000 UTCIdle and media consumption power draw is also incredibly high for the 6950xt
FloridaMan
2023-11-23 14:28:49 +0000 UTCIs there any point in FSR remaining a "compatibility upscaler" without any ML hardware usage any longer? It made sense back in 2021, but less so every year.
KingHarkinian
2023-11-23 12:09:52 +0000 UTCRDNA 3 has seemingly unfixable power draw problems, at idle, media consumption, and load. Cards like the 6650xt (32 RDNA 2 CUs on N7) and 7600 (32 RDNA 3 CUs on N6), have nearly the exact same performance too. Is this just a dud gen? AMD's reputation in the GPU space was getting better with RDNA and RDNA 2, now it's like we're back in Rebrandeon days.
KingHarkinian
2023-11-23 12:07:56 +0000 UTCHello, it seems that a lot of Threadripper non-pro buyers are mostly looking for higher connectivity (PCIE lanes above all) over more cores. Since TR seems to be attracting only a few clients, would it be viable to add many more PCIe lanes for AM6 and to phase out TR for good?
KingHarkinian
2023-11-23 11:36:18 +0000 UTCOn the topic of RDNA 3's legacy, how important do you think it was for AMD to get an early foot in with MCM GPUs before the competition? Do you also see it ageing like DLSS, where everyone saw the first version of that as completely useless, but then it became a real feature and advantage in subsequent iterations? They have something that works. Not well, but works, and how much behind would Nvidia be if their first MCM gaming card is with the 60 series?
coladict
2023-11-23 06:28:30 +0000 UTCHow interested is AMD in producing even higher core-count desktop chips? Previously Tom discussed possibilities for a 8 X3D + 16c-core CPU. How much weight does AMD place on producing a halo marketing product vs. avoiding risk of low consumer demand or cannibalizing potential Threadripper sales?
FloridaMan
2023-11-23 04:47:56 +0000 UTCRyzen 9 and Corey i9 are HEDT. They are actual desktop parts. HEDT as its own platform only existed during Intel quad-core Era as an artifact of Intel suppressing corecounts on their normal platforms. This has now corrected, meaning HEDT does not exist as a separate product category or separate platform. The Threadripper 7000 makes this very clear, as many outlets attempt to analyse it as HEDT, leading to poor and wrong results. TR 7000 is workstation. They are not desktop parts. Please discuss.
KarbinCry
2023-11-23 03:58:18 +0000 UTCWhat are your thoughts on Zen 4C and Zen 4 compared to Intel’s P, E, and now LPE cores? Would it make sense to have CCD chiplet with both standard and dense cores over separate standard and dense chiplets?
Benjamin Cannon
2023-11-23 03:28:19 +0000 UTCHistorically, AMD has struggled to get enough chips for the market due to split supply at TSMC. How is this looking for desktop Zen 5 and more importantly next gen laptop APUs? What are the limits on market share available to AMD due to limited supply?
FloridaMan
2023-11-23 02:55:39 +0000 UTCJames. There's no way to word this without sounding harsh but how badly is Intel doing? Did you think they'd fall this hard and be unable to make any meaningful comeback for this long? Pre 2017 everyone thought Intel was indestructible, but not so much anymore.
CompressedAIBlocks
2023-11-23 02:20:10 +0000 UTCAre the rumors of AMD using Samsung 4nm part of an attempt to copy Nvidia's strategy of using cheap(er) Samsung nodes to get lots of supply to flood a specific market with parts?
Cleansweep
2023-11-23 02:12:40 +0000 UTCHey guys, with RDNA 4 being mid range only, do you think it's in a position to change mind share for AMD? Let's assume Navi 43 is 7900 XT to 7900 XTX raster, with better RT than 7900 XTX, 16-24GB VRAM, 200-300w TDP and priced $500-600 USD depending how aggressive they want to get. Will this change gamer perception alone or do we really need to see AMD take value added software like FSR, Anti-Lag, Radeon chill and driver stability to the next level for that to happen?
CompressedAIBlocks
2023-11-23 02:08:30 +0000 UTCMaybe a silly question but what if RAM slots on a motherboard were set at a 45degree angle for extra clearance from coolers. This way you could shimmy the slots closer to the CPU die. Or would the gained 5-10mm closer to the die not really help noticeably with latency?
GamersUnite
2023-11-23 02:04:31 +0000 UTCHow do you guys feel AMD should segment it's consumer CPUs? Ryzen 3 is pretty much dead. Do you think we'll see segmentation become something like, using current core counts: 16 core = Ryzen 9 12 core = Ryzen 7 8 core = Ryzen 5 6 core APU = Ryzen 3
CompressedAIBlocks
2023-11-23 02:01:45 +0000 UTCIs AMD's biggest hurdle to taken laptop market share supply? They seem to be capable of producing good if not great products but Intel still holds on quite well. I know they've (Intel) pissed off OEMs but really, how much will this matter if AMD cannot supply all the OEMs and support them?
CompressedAIBlocks
2023-11-23 01:58:04 +0000 UTCHi Tom and James, Should AMD consider dropping the Ryzen R3 brand for desktop, since they rarely release new products for it? Or should they consider using it for APUs below a certain level of performance and reshuffle what goes into R5/R7/R9?
Cleansweep
2023-11-23 01:56:10 +0000 UTCHey, Y'all I have a really simple question this time. Is the TR 7000 series actually HEDT, or is it a Low-end workstation part? My understanding is that HEDT wasn't normally this expensive. Thanks.
Xavbeat03
2023-11-23 01:51:04 +0000 UTC
