AMD is about to release their new line of 14nm FinFET processors in Q4 2016.

Zen line-up would feature processors with up to 32 cores in two 16-core modules. These chips will also reportedly use Symmetrical Multi Threading, which is basically an AMD-developed version of Hyper-Threading.

Now here is where it gets interesting,this info leaked at a CERN conference a few hours ago.
CERN engineer Liviu Valsan recently gave a presentation on technology and market trends for the data center. At around 2 minutes into the discussion, he brought up AMD's Zen architecture with a slide that contained some previously undisclosed details. One of the more interesting revelations was that upcoming x86 processors based on Zen will feature up to 32 physical cores. To achieve a 32-core design, Valsan says AMD will use two 16-core CPUs on a single die with a next-generation interconnect. It has also been previously reported that Zen will offer up to a 40 percent improvement in IPC compared to its current processors as well as symmetric multithreading or SMT akin to Intel HyperThreading. In a 32-core implementation this would result in 64 logical threads of processing

I really hope AMD delivers and its not one of those let downs like the FX line of processors.
Phenom line was great.
With AMD friendly prices it would be a small revolution in affordability of powerful production workstations for audio,video or any other demanding craft.
A powerful computer with huge RAM support for home studio producers & composers on a budget?
Those who use a huge amount of VST instruments,orchestra libraries etc. know what im talking about.

 

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I believe AMD can deliver and voted as such, I built my Son a gaming PC using an AMD CPU and it is great/runs everything he has thrown at it. So any competetion to Intel is great I believe as it'll simply drive down prices for us humble customers, So I am at the very least optomistic, Cheers for the info on that/a heads up Von_Steyr

All the best your way dude

 

@Death Thash Doom
Thank you mate!
I also think AMD can deliver,i can hardly wait

 

AMD is shit, had 3 of them. It's a waste of money, get a decent I7 instead.

 

Well yes they have dissapointed and come up short but not that badly, They've had a complete team makeover and they deserve a chance. Whenever a company/brand gains a monopoly on anything it just ruins things for us people, The humble consumer's. In technological areas it stagnates and that is just a sad state of affairs for progress and innovation.
If I were to be putting together a new audio machine in the next six months then yeah I would definately be buying an Intel CPU for the job but that is not what Von_Steyr (I think, I can't say for certain as I am not him of course) nor I am thinking of, We're thinking about the future and hopefully a better, open market place which we will all benefit from

Hope you see what I mean Mostwest, All we can do is wait for the time being,

Cheers gents and as always all the best/peace your way

 

Yes, AMD is cheaper. But power usage is very high. Fan runs faster on AMD than on intel processors.
Intel machines are of low noise as compared to AMD.

One thing in which AMD is better than Intel is their A-series processors. But, the new skylake series by intel is almost equivalent to AMD's APU. And when intels 7th generation I series processors will come, maybe they surpass the AMD in graphics too.

 

It will be enough if this mean Intel will be pushed off from comfort zone and they will actually need to deliver next gen cpu(i belive they have it already, but why release it if they still can squeeze money from old cake)

 

Cheers dude, BTW I love the forth opition/Goodfella's reference, Billy Batts got exactly what he deserved haha.

I'm a sucker for great scenes in films and Joe Pesci as a psychotic mobster hellbent on using just pure, unfiltered brutality upon anyone that his character doesn't like or just feels like they need whacking is always absolute gold. I also enjoy a good Burt Reynold's film too

Dean

 

@Death Thash Doom
Heh,yea you noticed the Godfellas reference,nice!
Burt is a legend indeed!

 

Can they make it? Maybe. I think so.

Performance-per-megahz is still so slow that any recent Core i5 will beat it in pretty much all benchmarks.
It's been that way for the past.. 9 years now?

 

I hope this will come to fruition, Intel hasn't had serious competition for years.

 

I can agree to that when I only consider AMDs consumer segment. Depending on the task at hand, AMD Opteron based systems still can be a much better solution (price/performace wise) than anything intel ... rendering clusters for example. Take a Supermicro/Tyan/etc. board, Opteron 63xx and the mere number of cores will outperform any i5/i7-system and also any Xeon-system if you stick to the Opteron's price range.

yeah, anybody running any CPU with the boxed fans ... well ... deserves the noise (and a caretaker )

 

How come you deserved two disagrees?
You're right, it used to be like that, not sure about today.
My Sempron 3300+ used to give out tons of heat even when idle, and it had just 25W TDP, with 15W idle consumption. And that was laptop CPU.

Intel CPUs from that era (2004) were mostly idling at 2-3W.
But manufacturing processes were improved since then, so it's possible that AMD got their high drain sorted out.
Once I got my first C2D, I never looked back at AMD.

 

I'm very well acquainted with AMD processors. Throughout last 15-ish years I sold much more AMD based systems than Intel based for audio production. It's the value for money that sells them, and I can assemble you a same quiet AMD PC as an Intel one, and the difference in performance will be around 10-20% at best. I've been trying to dispel this myth about AMD processors being so much worse for audio for years. OK, newest Broadwell and Skylake Intel processors have broadened the performance gap about further 10-20%, true. But an AMD FX processor like FX 8350 for about $200 is absolutely competitive with an Intel Haswell I7-4770 and even i7-4790 when you're using a multi-processing [meaning all] DAW. There's really not much you can't do with this AMD processor. It's a stupid benchmark myth. Benchmarks don't exactly reflect the real world usage.

I'm still running my 5 yo AMD Phenom II based PC and I've got nothing to complain. I see PCs come and go, both Intel and AMD, and nothing compelled me enough so far to change it. However, I usually upgrade my main computer every 5 years and it's time to upgrade, so I look forward to Zen, to see how well it will deliver. If it doesn't - well, I'll assemble an Intel based one. It would be great if Zen delivers, though, to drive Intel's prices down a bit, and to finally give oh so needed push to it, as CPU tech have been for the most part stagnating last 5-6 years.

Cheers!

 

Absolutely agree.I also used to fix and build workstations as a side job.
There is one "trick" for a cheap audio workstation,for those one a budget.
Get an AMD AM2 or AM2+ cpu and a motherboard that supports 16GB of DDR2 Ram.
You can get 16GB DDR2 RAM for 25$ on ebay from china,though it works only with AMD motherboards.
You get a cheap pc with lots of ram for audio production.

 

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It's a great side-job. Being a PC audio, DAW guru, helped me to work my way into some of the best local studios. At the time [late 90s] there weren't many people who were into DAW/VST so I jumped on the oppotunity, like Digidesign, Waves... and established my little local monopoly in a way.

 

ty very much for this post i would like to grab one and build cool pc with this process
AMD is great and cheap

 

Having 32 cores is almost entirely pointless for music production. You probably won't even get to use half of them.

You might think "well I have more than 32 tracks in some of my projects" - right? But how many of those are routed to a bus with a reverb on? How many plugins do you have on the master bus?

If you use sends and groups, then the output from each track will need to be processed in serial, which means that single core performance is essential. So 32 slow cores will just mean that you end up maxing one of them out, and your audio starts stuttering. Your CPU usage may seem really low, as you have lots of spare cores. But one of those cores is running at 100%, and it's holding the rest back.

If you need more performance, it's best to go for an i7. Get the latest generation with the highest clock speed that you can afford.

 

Yes Andrew,Semprons were really bad,but then again there was a time when AMD`s Barton core overshadowed Pentium IV for a while.
After that it was quiet until they released the Phenom Cpu`s,especially the 2nd Phenom generation,the Phenom 2 X4 and X6 were and still are seriously well developed CPU`s,that can still smoothly run most recent games or any audio workstation.
Sure,FX didnt deliver the same quality for value as phenom line,but they certainly arent that bad,though i really hope ZEN makes a big step forward.

 

Sorry Mark,have to disagree with you.
Check out pro audio and video workstations,specs and prices.
DAWs are better and better at handling multi cpu operations in cooperation with asio usage etc...
Load a project on a 4 core cpu and then on an 8 core cpu and watch the cpu usage/asio meters.
Reminds me of the "You dont need more than 8gb of RAM for audio production".
Maybe,but then again,load a few kontakt orchestral libraries and it will be easily 16,32,64gb or more RAM usage.