Hacker News Reader

Comment by gogopuppygogo | Hacker News Reader

A trend likely to continue in the short term but remember AMD still cannot create enough product to fulfill demand.

Indeed, but the race between TSMC and Intel to scale up 200+ MTr/mm^2 processes should benefit us all. Both AMD and Apple have good micro-architectures to produce at TSMC, and Intel is mostly behind on process, so if we can keep that race going maybe we can still have ~2x performance every ~2 years for a while longer. I'm looking to switch laptops and was surprised to find out that after 5 years and as many generations I can be right on track for that performance growth.

> maybe we can still have ~2x performance every ~2 years for a while longer

At no point in the past 20 years did we even come close to that.

You're probably thinking of Moore's Law, which refers to transistor count, not performance.

I'm thinking of actual benchmarks. Here's the one I've been looking at:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-PRO-4750U-v...

The top CPU choice for my current Lenovo T460s was the i7-6600U. Exactly 5 laptop generations later the top CPU choice for the T14sG2 is the Ryzen 7 5850U. The ratio of performance between those two is 5.82. That's 42% per year or almost exactly 2x every 2 years on the same form factor and TDP. Last year's 4750U was at 4.4x after 4 years.

Intel has only been able to do 1.6x every 2 years in the same comparison. Their single core performance is comparable but they've only been able to deliver 4 cores versus AMD's 8.

CPUMark is a flawed benchmark, but.. in 2004 the average score was 385 on Desktop. In 2012, it was 4626. So-- that's 12x in 8 years, vs. 16x from doubling every 2 years. I'd say we used to come close.

For the past 5 years, it's been doubling about every 3 years.

> 2004: 385

> 2005: 770

> 2006: 1540

You are doubling every year, not every two years.

Ah, you're right! Thanks

I would think the chiplet strategy that AMD used is also a benefit compared to Intels more monolithic design when it comes to yields.

I am curious how much of the process delay in Intel came from having chip design and manufacturing under one umbrella.

If AMD wanted the latest process they had to deal with the limits TSMC said they could achieve. Intel's chip team could simply push back on their manufacturing team to improve reliability via leadership.

If Intel had gone with chiplets would 10nm have been delayed?

What makes you think so?

I've been wanting to build a new desktop with a 5950x ever since it came out, and have been completely unable to find anybody who has it in stock except for scalpers at a 30%+ markup. This is fairly well known information.

I think that everyone building their own computer has to compromise something right now. I couldn't find any ECC when I built my machine last year, so I live without it. It sucks, but global pandemic and all. Next time around it will be better. As much as we hate scalpers driving up the price of computer parts, the cost does translate to availability. So you can pay $2000 and have the latest thing right now, and maybe between when the price drops $500 because of increased availability you will have earned more than $500 because of the increased productivity. Or, maybe no amount of performance will make you $500, and you just want a $35 Raspberry Pi to cut your losses.

(Once you're willing to spend $2000, you might as well just get a 3970 and have twice as many cores, if you can tolerate higher latency in exchange for higher throughput. I have a 3970 and definitely benefit from the throughput more than I would benefit from lower latency, even if it's quite noticeable. For example, some games are bottlenecked by the CPU, which is annoying. But, if you want consistent 360 fps in every game, you're spending an infinite amount of money for no financial gain anyway, so the cost-based reasoning goes out the window.)

> (Once you're willing to spend $2000, you might as well just get a 3970 and have twice as many cores, if you can tolerate higher latency in exchange for higher throughput. I have a 3970 and definitely benefit from the throughput more than I would benefit from lower latency, even if it's quite noticeable. For example, some games are bottlenecked by the CPU, which is annoying. But, if you want consistent 360 fps in every game, you're spending an infinite amount of money for no financial gain anyway, so the cost-based reasoning goes out the window.)

I also love my 3970X, but this really depends how much of what you do is limited by single-thread speed and how much can actually make use of > 32 threads for sustained periods of time. Remember the 5950X is 20-30% faster in single-thread benchmarks.

Seems to be in stock at least three places[1] here in Norway, at a relatively reasonable price given the $799 price from AMD.

But yeah, of those that have it in stock there's like 1-5 units at each place, and those out of stock don't have a firm date on next delivery...

[1]: https://prisguiden.no/produkt/amd-ryzen-9-5950x-469899

Few of them actually has them in stock on the real page, doubt that any of them actually have stock though. None of the retailers on this Swedish website has them in stock, and its been like this since release.

Both CPU/GPUs from AMD are hard to get a hold of, at least you can get CPUs sometimes. Most of production seems to go to consoles and server CPUs.

https://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=5588367

Not sure what your usecase is, but I bought a used 3950X for $633 (with tax) in January to use for a homeserver build. You could buy an X570 mobo and a used 3950X for now, and upgrade to the 5950X if you decide you need it.

MicroCenter[0] has been receiving stock for in-store purchase only.

Antonline[1] has them in stock for shipping in a bundle with a Lenovo gaming monitor.

[0]: https://www.microcenter.com/product/630282/amd-ryzen-9-5950x...

[1]: https://www.antonline.com/Lenovo/Computers/Computer_Displays...

Buy from Europe. Seriously, most stores will ship to US. The ones without English UI have better stocks.

I have been able to buy everything I've looked for at normal retail from European stores

This is just the general chip shortage problem, right?

There's two flavors of the chip shortage problem:

1. TSMC leading-edge process is the hottest (coolest, really ;) process and just not enough capacity to meet all the demand for mobile, high end desktop, GPUs, etc. This predates the main shortage we're talking about. Cryptocurrency mining is a contributor to this one, too.

2. There's a broad shortage of parts made on less cutting-edge processes. Causes: disruption to production from COVID, disruption from automakers churning orders, increased demand for consumer products, and speculation/hoarding.

Of course, #2 made #1 even worse.

For AMD its also that zen3, RDNA2 and the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles all launched at the end of last year and are all competing for the same wafers.

Just look at the prices for the Ryzen lineup. They've gone like 100% up in the last year because AMD can't meet demand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com