Can they double the memory lanes without switching socket ? If not I feel like PC is going to fall behind even further compared to Apple chips. Having ram on chip sucks for repairability but 500gb/s main ram bandwidth is insane.
They stumbled into the right direction with strix halo but I have a feeling they won't recognize the win/follow up.
The "insane" RAM bandwidth makes sense with Apple M chips and Strix Halo because it's actually "crap" VRAM bandwidth for the GPU. What makes those nice is the quantity of memory the GPU has (even though its slow), not that the CPU has tons of RAM bandwidth.
When you go to the desktop it becomes harder to justify including beefed up memory controllers just for the CPU vs putting that towards beefing some other part of the CPU up that has more of an impact in cost or performance.
No, but they can skip the socket, much like many of the mini-pcs/SFFs that include laptop chips in small desktops. Strix halo already doubled the memory channels and the next gen is supposedly going to move the memory bus from 256 bits wide to 384 bits.
The socket io locks in the amount of memory channels. Some pins could be repurposed but that's pretty much a new socket anyway.
They could in theory do on package dram as faster first level memory, but I doubt we'll see that anytime soon on desktop and it probably wouldn't fit under the heat spreader
So Zen 6/7 will have a core design and a CCD design. But like past gens, these will be packaged into different products with different sockets and packages (everything from monolithic APUs to sprawling multi-chiplet Server cpus).
So to say that Zen 6/7 supports AM5 on desktop, doesn't necessarily exclude that Zen 6/7 product family in general doesn't support other new/interesting sockets on desktop (or mobile) also. Maybe products for AM6 and AM5 from the same zen family.
Medusa Halo and the Zen7 based 'Grimlock Halo' version might be the interesting ones to watch (if you like efficient Apple-stlyle big APUs with all the memory bandwidth)
rafaelmn|2 months ago
They stumbled into the right direction with strix halo but I have a feeling they won't recognize the win/follow up.
zamadatix|2 months ago
When you go to the desktop it becomes harder to justify including beefed up memory controllers just for the CPU vs putting that towards beefing some other part of the CPU up that has more of an impact in cost or performance.
sliken|2 months ago
dogma1138|2 months ago
Numerlor|2 months ago
They could in theory do on package dram as faster first level memory, but I doubt we'll see that anytime soon on desktop and it probably wouldn't fit under the heat spreader
nutjob2|2 months ago
Sure. Keep the DIMM sockets and add HBM to the CPU package.
Actually probably the best possible architecture. You can choose to have both or only one, backward compatible and future proof.
Yes, it adds another level to the memory hierarchy but that can be fine tuned.
tpurves|2 months ago
So to say that Zen 6/7 supports AM5 on desktop, doesn't necessarily exclude that Zen 6/7 product family in general doesn't support other new/interesting sockets on desktop (or mobile) also. Maybe products for AM6 and AM5 from the same zen family.
Medusa Halo and the Zen7 based 'Grimlock Halo' version might be the interesting ones to watch (if you like efficient Apple-stlyle big APUs with all the memory bandwidth)