Ryzen 5 2400G Radeon Vega Linux OpenGL/Vulkan Gaming Benchmarks

[linuxgeex]

Not true. It was tried to replace TIM on Raven Ridge with another high quality TIM and there was almost no improvement to temperatures, and no improvement at all to performance. Even with metallic TIM, only temperatures improved but gaming performance didn't. The APU will not drop below its turbo speed under gaming load, so performance isn't reduced in any user-visible way.

The article you're referring to, they used a water cooling loop not the stock fan.

[chithanh]

That along with the low quailty TIM and shipping the same cooler as other Ryzen 65W parts means that the chip won't reach its best turbo speeds at load.

Okay that is not "Throttling", but it is reducing performance.

Not true. It was tried to replace TIM on Raven Ridge with another high quality TIM and there was almost no improvement to temperatures, and no improvement at all to performance. Even with metallic TIM, only temperatures improved but gaming performance didn't. The APU will not drop below its turbo speed under gaming load, so performance isn't reduced in any user-visible way.

[grok]

Interesting suggestion ; it makes your APU die bigger and more expensive?
You also get sort of a dual GPU system, a very good kind of dual GPU but maybe not the 100% seamless that games might prefer. (like NUMA systems work better when the OS is aware)

We might call that a "NUMA GPU"? A bit complicated so it could be for Zen 2 or Zen 3.
What goes against it : the overwhelming use case for APU is for a single die, and that already serves multiple markets. laptops, regular desktops, flashy embedded things.
The reduced CPU L3 probably doesn't help.

The "story" of Zeppelin dies is much easier : they spam millions of dies, and millions go in desktops, millions go in servers, OS support is easy, no internal competition.

[msroadkill612]

Something like this was announced years ago but they kept quiet since - like, no need to talk about something that won't be out for a while yet. That'd be two CPU dies, what I may call a "Vega 32" and a HBM2 stack.
But it may be an expensive, high end and specific thing. Good if the GPU accessing 128 gigs or 256 gigs would be useful, or especially if the weakest link in your workload is that between CPU and GPU.

tl;dr expect an APU on a quad channel platform, but it may be a very expensive professional thing. Thousands of dollars.
For games, a dual channel Ryzen and an RX570 etc. will be muuuch cheaper (and perhaps faster)

Why not just plonk two APU die on a TR MCM, in lieu of 2x Zeppelin die?

Teaming those resources is exactly what Fabric was designed for.

[msroadkill612]

If you read the articles on Tom's and Anandtech regarding the APU's physical characteristics, AMD moved from 2 CCX with 1/2 cores of each enabled to a single CCX with all cores enabled, and then slapped the Vega in the place of the 2nd CCX. That basically means that there's significantly higher heat density. That along with the low quailty TIM and shipping the same cooler as other Ryzen 65W parts means that the chip won't reach its best turbo speeds at load.

Okay that is not "Throttling", but it is reducing performance.

For those who exceed specs in pursuit of performance, such is life.

No product on the planet though, offers a better solution.

Better cooling becomes doubly cost effective and convenient for an apu, as both processors are cooled by one block.

Btw, steve on hardware unboxed recently got excellent results from a 10-20$ cooler on OCd 2200/2400gS.

[msroadkill612]

Michael
I think the reason why AMD stopped short of adding more CUs is that the memory bandwidth just isn't there to feed them.

Either way, we know dgpu with cache has an internal bandwidth at least 3x better than dual channel ddr4.

The single best thing for apuS would be a quad channel TR4 platform. It could then trade blows with a better class of dgpu.

[msroadkill612]

Now imagine we have only one Linux and one version of Linux to support, that one and only Linux is also up to date,etc... they will package that right away - but on Linux there is 300 distros and probably 300K different combinations In our world, one bug easely could be seen as 100 bugs, etc...

Conversely though, once the radically new gen hardware teething problems are sorted, what a wonderfully stable and pervasive ecosystem to tweak distros for - zen, vega, Fabric - from a single AMD source and covering all price points and market segments an enterprise needs.

Beyond the short term pain, amdS modular strategy sounds a good fit for Linux vs countless variations of intel/amd/nvidia... rigs now out there.

[grok]

Or an apu for a ~Threadripper platform w/ quad channel memory?

Something like this was announced years ago but they kept quiet since - like, no need to talk about something that won't be out for a while yet. That'd be two CPU dies, what I may call a "Vega 32" and a HBM2 stack.
But it may be an expensive, high end and specific thing. Good if the GPU accessing 128 gigs or 256 gigs would be useful, or especially if the weakest link in your workload is that between CPU and GPU.

tl;dr expect an APU on a quad channel platform, but it may be a very expensive professional thing. Thousands of dollars.
For games, a dual channel Ryzen and an RX570 etc. will be muuuch cheaper (and perhaps faster)

[msroadkill612]

But as Tomshardware reported, temperatures are totally ok in real-world gaming. Only if you run CPU+GPU stress test, then the processor will drop below its turbo speed.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1579-overclocking-guide-ryzen-3-2200g/

only a 2200g admittedly, but awesome results w/ a $20 cooler

[msroadkill612]

So for a hypothetical Vega20 APU, either we need DDR4-6000 which doesn't exist yet (only up to DDR4-4600 is currently available in the market), or some kind of fast cache needs to be placed on the package or mobo.

Or an apu for a ~Threadripper platform w/ quad channel memory?