"Ryzen 8000 Strix Point APU Comes Forth With 12 Zen 5 Cores"
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-8000-strix-point-apu...
~ "As always with leaks, take the news with a pinch of salt."
I was hoping Strix Halo would be a big, power efficient, Apple M-esque SoC with a wide iGPU.
The 16x Zen 5 cores (with no efficiency cores) and the "sharing" of the desktop architecture suggest its actually a Dragon Ridge 7045HX replacement. So a power hungry CPU for 17" desktop replacement laptops you can basically only use while plugged in... That has a large IGP for some reason? That doesn't make much sense, as you mind as well use the dGPU.
If AMD used a single Zen 5C or 4C CCD, I would be more optimistic... Even though AMD didn't differentiate the cores, the 4000 series and 5000 seres were essentially Zen 2C and Zen 3C. But 2x Zen 5 CCDs suggest they are going for all out performance.
But maybe the goal is to finally offer an H class SoC that doesn't need a dGPU?
RDNA 3.5 with up to 40 CU should be well into Apple SoC Pro/Max territory.
They are optimized for high clocks, and the interconnect burns tons of power, especially with 2 CCDs (which reach into each other's L3 over the link).
But it will be interesting to see any write up on the benefits of using Zen5c ( Cache scaled down version of Zen 5 / P-Core ) instead of using a smaller but different uArch E Core as in Intel and ARM are doing.
So essentially, any core should be able to handle any workload but you’d bias single-threaded tasks onto a few 5 GHz (or whatever) capable cores. And if you’re running well-threaded code across many cores, they’ll have to slow down anyway to stay within the power envelope, at which point all are effectively identical, barring the extra cache.
Only question is whether Intel saves a lot more power & area with their (IMHO crippled) efficiency cores. If they do, it ought to give Intel a cost/price advantage.
And Intel is uniting the ISA with future cores.
AMD's Zen cores are (IIRC) smaller than the Intel P cores, and they have a big process/packaging advantage for now, so their "full core" strategy is indeed working very well.
I wouldn’t expect any hybrid designs out of AMD for desktop, only mobile.
