By: Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org), August 8, 2019 8:58 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Alberto (git.delete@this.git.it) on August 8, 2019 3:42 pm wrote:
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on August 8, 2019 8:29 am wrote:
> > SPECpower_ssj2008 Results:
> >
> > Lenovo Think System SR655, AMD EPYC 7742 2.25Ghz - 19,149 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
> > And several more results in the same range.
> > https://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/res2019q3
> >
> > The best non-EPYC2 result:
> > ASUSTeK RS720-E9-RS8, Intel Xeon Pt 8280L, 2.7 GHz - 14,274 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
> >
> > The best EPYC1 result:
> > Dell PowerEdge R7425, AMD EPYC 7601, 2.20 GHz - 11,867 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
>
>
> Impressive results.
> Look like they chosen the best 7nm silicon available at TSMC to assemble these SKUs. Basically they
> have two times the cores (same clock) with only 40W more power consumption over Naples, not to mention
> the Zen 2 core is stronger so it draw more power than plain Zen on the same process and the
> level of power hungry off die interconnection is INSANE.
>
> A great showcase, now AMD has to prove to be able to supply the channels with Epyc. One thing
> is to supply limited quantities, another one millions and millions of SKUs.
>
> Bet an hypothetical very popular cpu ala 7742 could be rated between 280-300W
> to have enough silicon for customers scoring an acceptable profit.
>
> Great show :). Now i want to see the manufacturing/financial side of the story.
>
Where do you imagine the limitations will be?
(a) We know that TSMC 7nm low power process can supply Apple volumes (~200M/year). Of course 7nm high performance is not EXACTLY the same process, but what reason is there to imagine that a machine tuned to deliver 100s of millions per year, and with a year of experience, can't make millions?
(b) Why do you imagine yield to be an issue? Obviously Apple yields are acceptable. And sure, AMD could, in some crazy fantasy, be cherry picking the 5% best performing chiplets and tossing the rest. But how does that make ANY business sense?
We've seen the spread of AMD's offerings (eg here:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14694/amd-rome-epyc-2nd-gen/4
)
and one feature that is remarkable is how TIGHTLY clustered the peak frequencies are, and the regular pattern of the base frequencies relative to core count. It looks like the process is delivering what are actually extremely NON-VARIABLE chiplets...
If your theory made any sense, at the very least AMD would be selling the golden, 5% chiplets at a substantial premium, while offering a second tier of average chiplets at rather lower frequency and cost.
(c) The third gating factor COULD be assembly of the final product. I've seen nothing yet about the packaging of Rome -- the technology or who does the work. But it doesn't seem to be any particular stretch in terms of grossly higher frequencies, pin/trace densities, or any other important metric. Which suggests that it's business as usual for the packaging, and that there's no reason to believe that packaging will limit the numbers AMD can ship.
Which leads me to ask, once again, exactly what it is that you imagine will prevent AMD from being able to ship at the very least the same sort of volumes they've shipped over the past year?
(Of course if they were too pessimistic in their forecasts, they may have initial temporary glitches meeting demand, simply because, as they said, they didn't expect that their competition over the next year would be so inadequate...)
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on August 8, 2019 8:29 am wrote:
> > SPECpower_ssj2008 Results:
> >
> > Lenovo Think System SR655, AMD EPYC 7742 2.25Ghz - 19,149 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
> > And several more results in the same range.
> > https://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/res2019q3
> >
> > The best non-EPYC2 result:
> > ASUSTeK RS720-E9-RS8, Intel Xeon Pt 8280L, 2.7 GHz - 14,274 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
> >
> > The best EPYC1 result:
> > Dell PowerEdge R7425, AMD EPYC 7601, 2.20 GHz - 11,867 Overall ssj_ops/watt
> >
>
>
> Impressive results.
> Look like they chosen the best 7nm silicon available at TSMC to assemble these SKUs. Basically they
> have two times the cores (same clock) with only 40W more power consumption over Naples, not to mention
> the Zen 2 core is stronger so it draw more power than plain Zen on the same process and the
> level of power hungry off die interconnection is INSANE.
>
> A great showcase, now AMD has to prove to be able to supply the channels with Epyc. One thing
> is to supply limited quantities, another one millions and millions of SKUs.
>
> Bet an hypothetical very popular cpu ala 7742 could be rated between 280-300W
> to have enough silicon for customers scoring an acceptable profit.
>
> Great show :). Now i want to see the manufacturing/financial side of the story.
>
Where do you imagine the limitations will be?
(a) We know that TSMC 7nm low power process can supply Apple volumes (~200M/year). Of course 7nm high performance is not EXACTLY the same process, but what reason is there to imagine that a machine tuned to deliver 100s of millions per year, and with a year of experience, can't make millions?
(b) Why do you imagine yield to be an issue? Obviously Apple yields are acceptable. And sure, AMD could, in some crazy fantasy, be cherry picking the 5% best performing chiplets and tossing the rest. But how does that make ANY business sense?
We've seen the spread of AMD's offerings (eg here:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14694/amd-rome-epyc-2nd-gen/4
)
and one feature that is remarkable is how TIGHTLY clustered the peak frequencies are, and the regular pattern of the base frequencies relative to core count. It looks like the process is delivering what are actually extremely NON-VARIABLE chiplets...
If your theory made any sense, at the very least AMD would be selling the golden, 5% chiplets at a substantial premium, while offering a second tier of average chiplets at rather lower frequency and cost.
(c) The third gating factor COULD be assembly of the final product. I've seen nothing yet about the packaging of Rome -- the technology or who does the work. But it doesn't seem to be any particular stretch in terms of grossly higher frequencies, pin/trace densities, or any other important metric. Which suggests that it's business as usual for the packaging, and that there's no reason to believe that packaging will limit the numbers AMD can ship.
Which leads me to ask, once again, exactly what it is that you imagine will prevent AMD from being able to ship at the very least the same sort of volumes they've shipped over the past year?
(Of course if they were too pessimistic in their forecasts, they may have initial temporary glitches meeting demand, simply because, as they said, they didn't expect that their competition over the next year would be so inadequate...)