Yup. When AMD is on TSMC's 2nm using gaafet transistors we should see some insane APU's. I wouldn't doubt at that point we see some on die HBM as well.
Intel has announced that their next server lineup (Sapphire Rapids) will support DDR5. On the consumer side we should see Alder Lake with DDR5 support. It has been widely rumoured that AMDs next desktop platform would use DDR5 (in addition to DDR4). Everything points to a second half of 2021, or early 2022, launch for those platforms. As for the 3080Ti, I'd imagine them going with 3080 super as in last generation, as 3060Ti hits the stores today. Then again, there have been rumors of a 3080Ti with double the memory (16Gb (2GB) instead of 8Gb (1GB) modules).
Is it reasonable to expect a late-2021 HEDT which is to Sapphire Rapids what Skylake-X was to Skylake-SP? Alder Lake doesn't look like a desktop platform - I don't see the point in big/little on a system that plugs into the wall - but I have the impression that laptops which take memory modules rather than having RAM soldered to the motherboard are getting to be the exception.
(I note that Elite are saying 'module' rather than 'DIMM' or 'SODIMM' - will DDR5 continue to have that distinction?)
"Alder Lake doesn't look like a desktop platform - I don't see the point in big/little on a system that plugs into the wall.." Alder Lake-S is going to have a TDP of 125W, so it *is* a desktop CPU, exclusively. One of the reasons Intel moved to a big.LITTLE design is to compete in energy efficiency with that scheme because they cannot compete in process node efficiency. Remember, Alder Lake-S is largely set to be targeted against Zen 4, not Zen 3 (it might be released a couple of months earlier than Zen 4, at the earliest).
Even if the energy efficiency of the last iteration of Intel's 10nm process node is going to be equivalent to TSMC's non-EUV 7nm node (it might be; TSMC's partly EUV based 7nm+ node is both denser and surely more efficient but that is not the node Zen 3 is fabbed with) it is still going to be far less efficient than TSMC's 5nm node that Zen 4 will be fabbed with.
Therefore, a big.LITTLE scheme is a nice way to increase the energy efficiency of your SoC and perhaps save power from the little cores to clock the big cores and the iGPU faster while also making nice marketing claims that you have the "most energy efficient desktop CPU" ;-)
The drawback is that since the little cores do not have AVX-512 the big cores need to have it disabled so that they maintain feature parity (as Lakefield already showed; look up the Lakefield review here in AnandTech). In fact the Gracemont cores are going to be very first little cores of Intel with AVX2. If they didn't the Golden Cove cores couldn't use AVX2 either, so both Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs would decimate them in floating point performance! Is is a safe bet that Intel added AVX2 to Gracemont, thus making it somewhat bigger, due to Alder Lake.
Zen 4 will most likely be released in Q1 2022. It will be released a bit later than usual due to a mid-2021 Zen 3 refresh that is widely expected and due to expected extra delays from the switch to a new platform and the testing and validation that will require. The refresh will be based on the same platform and socket (and will probably just offer a bit higher clocks, nothing more), but Zen 4 will require a brand new platform, a brand new socket (AM5), almost certainly DDR5 and potentially will also switch to PCIe 5.0 - perhaps alongside PCIe 4.0
Looks like Apple will be using DDR5 in their Apple Silicon MacBook Pro 16” that’s rumoured to be coming out right around that timescale (summer 2021). A little bit early for DDR5 but Apple are masters at getting their hands early on new tech.
Should be a beast of a laptop, rumoured to have 8 performance cores & 4 low power (against the current 4+4 M1). 10% lower power consumption will be big for Apple too.
Probably cost a fortune too but DDR5 will help differentiate it from the Air. AnandTech said a single core on the M1 is able to almost saturate the memory controller & get 60 GB/s (Intel and AMD only get 30GB/s) so if the M1X or M2 is to go to 8 perf cores Apple needs a hell of a lot more memory bandwidth to feed that monster, while keeping within power budgets.
Ah it feels good to be discussing innovative chip design again.
"Ah it feels good to be discussing innovative chip design again."
It's hardly much competition, given Apple's boutique positioning. But, at least it's better than the attitude I got when I said Zen 3 should have been able to run DDR5, not just DDR4.
The attitude is: "AMD will give you DDR5 when AMD sees fit to give you DDR5" — with a sprinkling of "Zen 3 doesn't need that much RAM speed anyway". (Uh... because AMD designed it with the intention of not supporting DDR5.)
The attitude was more like "DDR5 isn't actually out yet and no self-interested CPU manufacturer is going to release a CPU that requires non-existent RAM", although yes, there was also commentary to the effect that the performance differences would be largely non-existent. That remains a fact.
Even worse, AM4 can't support DDR5, so they'd have had to design and release a bunch of halfway-house AM5 boards that had 50/50 DDR4 and DDR5 slots, but that you could only fill with DDR4. By the time DDR5 becomes available, Zen 4 will be mostly done. "Upgrading" to DDR5 would get the vast majority of users no performance benefit, because as you astutely observed, AMD are smart enough not to design a CPU to need a memory subsystem that doesn't yet exist.
It's disheartening to see that even after people explained this to you, you're still pushing the same bizarre narrative.
I know you are compelled to disagree with me for sport or whatever but:
• DDR4 is old.
• AMD doesn't even bother to force OEMs to use decent speed DDR4 for its APUs
• AM4's longevity was nice but it is not a straightjacket
• AMD has long focused on performance graphics in APUs which makes DDR4 unappealing
• Intel was able to design consumer CPUs that could support DDR3 and DDR4, while keeping the die size small
• Couldn't take advantage of the speed is nonsense. Firstly, there is the APU and secondly there is the ability to design the CPU to be able to take advantage of the speed
I really hope ECC becomes the default and bog standard for every one. It should not be artificially segregated. It should just be ALL DIMM RAM. It doesn't take away from anything It only adds something good. Just allow it for everyone. Make all DIMMS ECC unless ultra dirt cheap.
It was in the 1983 Apple Lisa. Of course, the 1 MB of RAM in that also cost Apple $2500 per machine. That was before Japanese firms managed to corner the DRAM market and prices were sent through the roof, too.
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TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 1, 2020 - link
Next gen 7/5nm APUs with DDR5 are going to be bomb.FreckledTrout - Friday, December 4, 2020 - link
Yup. When AMD is on TSMC's 2nm using gaafet transistors we should see some insane APU's. I wouldn't doubt at that point we see some on die HBM as well.rickon66 - Tuesday, December 1, 2020 - link
It is about time, I've been waiting to build a new PC until DDR5 is available. Maybe by that time I can lay my hands on a RTX 3080Ti also.Rudde - Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - link
Intel has announced that their next server lineup (Sapphire Rapids) will support DDR5. On the consumer side we should see Alder Lake with DDR5 support. It has been widely rumoured that AMDs next desktop platform would use DDR5 (in addition to DDR4). Everything points to a second half of 2021, or early 2022, launch for those platforms.As for the 3080Ti, I'd imagine them going with 3080 super as in last generation, as 3060Ti hits the stores today. Then again, there have been rumors of a 3080Ti with double the memory (16Gb (2GB) instead of 8Gb (1GB) modules).
TomWomack - Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - link
Is it reasonable to expect a late-2021 HEDT which is to Sapphire Rapids what Skylake-X was to Skylake-SP? Alder Lake doesn't look like a desktop platform - I don't see the point in big/little on a system that plugs into the wall - but I have the impression that laptops which take memory modules rather than having RAM soldered to the motherboard are getting to be the exception.(I note that Elite are saying 'module' rather than 'DIMM' or 'SODIMM' - will DDR5 continue to have that distinction?)
Santoval - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
"Alder Lake doesn't look like a desktop platform - I don't see the point in big/little on a system that plugs into the wall.."Alder Lake-S is going to have a TDP of 125W, so it *is* a desktop CPU, exclusively. One of the reasons Intel moved to a big.LITTLE design is to compete in energy efficiency with that scheme because they cannot compete in process node efficiency. Remember, Alder Lake-S is largely set to be targeted against Zen 4, not Zen 3 (it might be released a couple of months earlier than Zen 4, at the earliest).
Even if the energy efficiency of the last iteration of Intel's 10nm process node is going to be equivalent to TSMC's non-EUV 7nm node (it might be; TSMC's partly EUV based 7nm+ node is both denser and surely more efficient but that is not the node Zen 3 is fabbed with) it is still going to be far less efficient than TSMC's 5nm node that Zen 4 will be fabbed with.
Therefore, a big.LITTLE scheme is a nice way to increase the energy efficiency of your SoC and perhaps save power from the little cores to clock the big cores and the iGPU faster while also making nice marketing claims that you have the "most energy efficient desktop CPU" ;-)
The drawback is that since the little cores do not have AVX-512 the big cores need to have it disabled so that they maintain feature parity (as Lakefield already showed; look up the Lakefield review here in AnandTech). In fact the Gracemont cores are going to be very first little cores of Intel with AVX2. If they didn't the Golden Cove cores couldn't use AVX2 either, so both Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs would decimate them in floating point performance! Is is a safe bet that Intel added AVX2 to Gracemont, thus making it somewhat bigger, due to Alder Lake.
Santoval - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
p.s. The big irony is that Alder Lake will remove AVX-512 support right when its Zen 4 competitor introduces it!scineram - Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - link
Obviously AMD will not support both on the same socket.Santoval - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
Zen 4 will most likely be released in Q1 2022. It will be released a bit later than usual due to a mid-2021 Zen 3 refresh that is widely expected and due to expected extra delays from the switch to a new platform and the testing and validation that will require. The refresh will be based on the same platform and socket (and will probably just offer a bit higher clocks, nothing more), but Zen 4 will require a brand new platform, a brand new socket (AM5), almost certainly DDR5 and potentially will also switch to PCIe 5.0 - perhaps alongside PCIe 4.0Tomatotech - Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - link
Looks like Apple will be using DDR5 in their Apple Silicon MacBook Pro 16” that’s rumoured to be coming out right around that timescale (summer 2021). A little bit early for DDR5 but Apple are masters at getting their hands early on new tech.Should be a beast of a laptop, rumoured to have 8 performance cores & 4 low power (against the current 4+4 M1). 10% lower power consumption will be big for Apple too.
Probably cost a fortune too but DDR5 will help differentiate it from the Air. AnandTech said a single core on the M1 is able to almost saturate the memory controller & get 60 GB/s (Intel and AMD only get 30GB/s) so if the M1X or M2 is to go to 8 perf cores Apple needs a hell of a lot more memory bandwidth to feed that monster, while keeping within power budgets.
Ah it feels good to be discussing innovative chip design again.
JfromImaginstuff - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
CertainlyOxford Guy - Monday, December 14, 2020 - link
"Ah it feels good to be discussing innovative chip design again."It's hardly much competition, given Apple's boutique positioning. But, at least it's better than the attitude I got when I said Zen 3 should have been able to run DDR5, not just DDR4.
The attitude is: "AMD will give you DDR5 when AMD sees fit to give you DDR5" — with a sprinkling of "Zen 3 doesn't need that much RAM speed anyway". (Uh... because AMD designed it with the intention of not supporting DDR5.)
Spunjji - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
The attitude was more like "DDR5 isn't actually out yet and no self-interested CPU manufacturer is going to release a CPU that requires non-existent RAM", although yes, there was also commentary to the effect that the performance differences would be largely non-existent. That remains a fact.Even worse, AM4 can't support DDR5, so they'd have had to design and release a bunch of halfway-house AM5 boards that had 50/50 DDR4 and DDR5 slots, but that you could only fill with DDR4. By the time DDR5 becomes available, Zen 4 will be mostly done. "Upgrading" to DDR5 would get the vast majority of users no performance benefit, because as you astutely observed, AMD are smart enough not to design a CPU to need a memory subsystem that doesn't yet exist.
It's disheartening to see that even after people explained this to you, you're still pushing the same bizarre narrative.
Oxford Guy - Monday, December 21, 2020 - link
I know you are compelled to disagree with me for sport or whatever but:• DDR4 is old.
• AMD doesn't even bother to force OEMs to use decent speed DDR4 for its APUs
• AM4's longevity was nice but it is not a straightjacket
• AMD has long focused on performance graphics in APUs which makes DDR4 unappealing
• Intel was able to design consumer CPUs that could support DDR3 and DDR4, while keeping the die size small
• Couldn't take advantage of the speed is nonsense. Firstly, there is the APU and secondly there is the ability to design the CPU to be able to take advantage of the speed
Oxford Guy - Monday, December 21, 2020 - link
Also, inadequate competition in the market (duopoly) also artificially extends the lifespan of old tech.James5mith - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
"The fact that ELITE is a consumer brand suggests that TeamGroup knows we will be seeing a consumer-grade processor around that time with DDR4..."Yeah, we've been seeing those for quite some time now. Like since 2015 or so.
CheapSushi - Friday, December 11, 2020 - link
I really hope ECC becomes the default and bog standard for every one. It should not be artificially segregated. It should just be ALL DIMM RAM. It doesn't take away from anything It only adds something good. Just allow it for everyone. Make all DIMMS ECC unless ultra dirt cheap.Oxford Guy - Monday, December 14, 2020 - link
It was in the 1983 Apple Lisa. Of course, the 1 MB of RAM in that also cost Apple $2500 per machine. That was before Japanese firms managed to corner the DRAM market and prices were sent through the roof, too.Oberoth - Sunday, January 3, 2021 - link
Will there be a difference in bandwidth/performance between DDR5-3200 vs DDR4-3200?