Mantle on our APU's

[oozz77]

Hi all,

Does anyone know whether the Mantle API will help in performance for those of us with Trinity and Richland based APU's?

How much of a realistic performance boost will mantle offer us with it's 9x extra draw calls, new rendering techniques and optimizations, etc?

Especially for those of us waiting it out for the Kaveri, will this be a "huge" advantage in Mantle based games to the degree of perhaps not needing an extra Discrete card installed at medium resolutions (1920 x 1080) or is that expecting too much from the new Kaveri!!

[noko]

If you have a GCN discrete video card it can make a big difference, using APU graphics for current and previous generation zero since they are not GCN architecture.

I too am waiting for Kaveri and hoping DDR5 options become available.

[oozz77]

Hi Noko,

Even though I have been running my A8-5500 at 2,000mhz Ram speeds. thus also increasing the CPU and GPU mhz, I am still getting great performance out of it for what I do!!

Just a little pissed that to go to Kaveri I will now need a new mobo, better ram and possible power supply, but I am more than happy to do this if we get Mantle widely accepted meaning less of a reliance on a top end card!

Still hoping I can Duel Graphics with a reasonable mid range card for even better gaming.

I also recently read the the new Kaveri will also support "True Audio" which would be another plus!!!

[caveman-jim]

You could piecemeal upgrade and get an FM2+ motherboard now, and drop in a FM2+ processor later. FM2+ motherboards are backwards compatible with FM2 processors.

I doubt you will need a new PSU unless you think yours is starting to fail.

[noko]

I wonder if APU13 developer summit 11-13Nov will show case some upcoming products.

[caveman-jim]

Stop by and watch the keynotes for free, if you're in San Jose.
http://link.global.amd.com/e/es.aspx...13a013e50ca7a1

If you can't attend in person, register here to watch the keynotes online live.

https://vts.inxpo.com/scripts/Server...&ShowKey=16356

[noko]

Thanks, will probably watch online.

[bittermann]

You could piecemeal upgrade and get an FM2+ motherboard now, and drop in a FM2+ processor later. FM2+ motherboards are backwards compatible with FM2 processors.

I doubt you will need a new PSU unless you think yours is starting to fail.

That's what I'm debating to do right now for my Xmas present!

I'm really hesitant to pick up an Intel cpu plus mobo because they really have taken the OC away from us with the new Haswell's unless you have the K series. So you buy now and you get what you pay for and no more excpet for the small tweaking. At least with an AMD FM2+ now and a cheap 760 I can upgrade to Kaveri after the first of the year and not worry about OC'ing the snot out of the 760 now!

[caveman-jim]

great plan. the 760k's overclock like a boss, lots of fun to be had if you like tweaking different aspects.

[noko]

The available Gigabyte mITX board looks enticing, the PCI E 3.0 I wonder if it would help with dual graphics. Kaveri and GCN card together could become rather potent for gaming, SteamBox with a relatively low power profile.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128663

[caveman-jim]

That's an excellent board. Dual HDMI for tiled UHD displays. 802.11ac onboard. BT 4.0. Very nice.

[oozz77]

That's an excellent board. Dual HDMI for tiled UHD displays. 802.11ac onboard. BT 4.0. Very nice.

The only thing is that by looking at the board, it doesn't look like it has enough room for a higher end Discrete card and the CPU/HSF? It looks too close considering the width of some of the new cards.

Also only 2 ram slots?

[caveman-jim]

It's mini-ITX, that's how they all are, there's plenty of room for GPU's and HSF unless you're talking about some giant tower HSF you can't fit in most mini-ITX cases.
Look at a micro-ATX or ATX board if you want more memory slots or more room around the CPU socket.

[noko]

That board will fits in some rather small cases and probably not really ment for the higher end or big cards out there. I will see what is upcoming from the summit, no hurry on this.

[caveman-jim]

If you caught yesterdays opening keynote at APU'13 you will have seen Lisa Su disclose some details about Kaveri; specifically, it's four x86 cores (steamroller) and has 8 GCN CU's and has TrueAudio. It supports mantle.

[bill dennison]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjAM2zYNqko

will it cf with a 290x sort of like LucidLogix Virtu MVP ?

[caveman-jim]

wat

[noko]

If you caught yesterdays opening keynote at APU'13 you will have seen Lisa Su disclose some details about Kaveri; specifically, it's four x86 cores (steamroller) and has 8 GCN CU's and has TrueAudio. It supports mantle.

Lisa Lu is awesome! Yes Kaveri she went into and very exciting to see what is around the corner.

Jan 14 for A series, the comparison to Intel with discrete Nvidia card showed over 2x the performance with BF4. With Mantle? Time for a new laptop next year too .

[Treeckcold57]

With Mantle? Time for a new laptop next year too .

Hmm...now I might be interesting to buy a new laptop with newer APU to replace my old school laptop in the future if Mantle is really truly good.

[noko]

I can't wait! Now only if DDR5 would come out earlier than later with APUs

[noko]

I am very surprised by the lack of leaks or pre-write-ups on Kavari. Steam roller cores and GCN with TrueAudio capability which is hinted to be launching next year on Jan 14 for the desktop follow by laptops later on.

With Mantle making a presence with hopefully a fully operational big title BF4 using Mantle during upcoming launch, could have a very big impact in gaining public interests for this new breed of APU with hUMA (unified memory). Memory calls don't have to go through the cpu to the gpu, for stuff written for this I can't help believe it effectively increase speed of memory access without having to increase memory bandwidth or speed of the memory itself.

With both the PS4 and XBone having an 8 core processor each imbedded with more GCN cores I wonder if we will see some 6 and 8 core versions of Kavari down the line?

[oozz77]

Hi noko,

With both the PS4 and XBone having an 8 core processor each imbedded with more GCN cores I wonder if we will see some 6 and 8 core versions of Kavari down the line?

Well we will have 4 cores as of the 14th January 2013 and AMD have a whole year to refine their process and come up with a 6 or 8 core version, which should theoretically be quite achievable!!

[noko]

Which to me would place them in the Enthusiast category with the SteamRoller cores, PCI-E 3.0 in the APU, hUMA and an API which looks like a green light from a number of developers. FM3?

So will 2014 we a new era of AMD desktop/laptop/ultrabook solutions? While 2013 was the Console victory with great graphics department launches while returning to profitbility.

[Crisler]

The only thing is that by looking at the board, it doesn't look like it has enough room for a higher end Discrete card and the CPU/HSF? It looks too close considering the width of some of the new cards.

Also only 2 ram slots?

SFF is the new black and this board has zero issues with fitting components. I built a 6800K with 16 gigs of RAM, a self contained liquid cooling system (Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer) and an R9 270x Vapor X in a Node 304. I also was able to fit a 280X DualX and Toxic, as well as a 290.

The case, more than the motherboard will limit your options.

[caveman-jim]

new breed of APU with hUMA (unified memory). Memory calls don't have to go through the cpu to the gpu, for stuff written for this I can't help believe it effectively increase speed of memory access without having to increase memory bandwidth or speed of the memory itself.

The primary benefit of hUMA is ease of programming, you don't have to treat each processor as having a separate memory space. This doesn't include the frame buffer traditionally reserved for GPU graphics, this is still set in the BIOS as dedicated for the video display susbsytem and only accessible by the GPU, to maintain operation/compatibility with OS'es, drivers, games etc.

Early APU's introduced zero-copy registers/pointers, which allowed a memory block used by the CPU in main system memory to allocated to the GPU, used, and then allocated back to the CPU. The compute could move without the data being copied. However, the draw back was that the whole block was inaccessible by the other device, so if you had a 2GB dataset and the GPU needed to access any part of it, the whole 2GB was locked by the GPU until it was done. Clever programmers could work around this, but this takes time and effort.

hUMA changes that, and allows the CPU and GPU to address the full amount of memory installed at the same time (an increase from before, where the GPU was limited to 1/2 the CPU memory space). This eliminates the need for clever programming and removes the memory lock pause, increasing processing speed.

Kaveri also adds heterogeneous queuing abilities, which is the method by which code running on either processor can queue, interrupt or poll the other processor. This makes the CPU and GPU work more like a multi-processor CPU system. This happens transparently to the programmer, again making it easier to program.

Easier to program means more developers will use HSA to accelerate their applications using the GPU. HSA is like Mantle, but for apps - changing the API, removing the bottlenecks, making the most of the hardware.

[Dr. Zhivago]

[Athlon-pv]

Awesome

[SOCOM Ops]

So, will the Kaveri series achieve true 'Fusion'? Seems to me its nearing the objectives AMD has been working on for years.

Speaking of which, im in the market for a new build. My ASUS M4A88G-EVO-USB3.0 board seems to be whacked, dont know if my old AMD 955BE CPU is borked too. Im wondering if I should make the switch to a Kaveri FM2+ system in February.

[caveman-jim]

What does 'true fusion' mean? The hardware changes present in the 4th generation A-series allow unprecedented levels of blended compute, using HSA.

Read more here - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7643/a...ch-information

[Athlon-pv]

So, will the Kaveri series achieve true 'Fusion'? Seems to me its nearing the objectives AMD has been working on for years.

Speaking of which, im in the market for a new build. My ASUS M4A88G-EVO-USB3.0 board seems to be whacked, dont know if my old AMD 955BE CPU is borked too. Im wondering if I should make the switch to a Kaveri FM2+ system in February.

Yeah the FM2+ boards are not that expensive but the main problem lies with the CPU being a 2 module (4c/4t) part and thus far AMD does not go anywhere near any higher configurations on FM2+.

[noko]

Yeah the FM2+ boards are not that expensive but the main problem lies with the CPU being a 2 module (4c/4t) part and thus far AMD does not go anywhere near any higher configurations on FM2+.

Maybe AMD is creating it's own problem here, to promote huma programming, use of HSA one needs a GCN configuration, AMD 8 core and up processors besides the consoles just have cpu cores. So if AMD continues to have chips with cpu cores only, particularly their server chips it would hinder the progression of the Fusion initiative or APUs. I hope to see more advance APUs, higher end versions for consumers and servers.

Once server APUs come about, it would seem to put to end the need for discreet GPU cards like Nvidia Tesla solutions with a much denser cheaper configuration allowing for a more powerful solution in the end.

[DiaperJe|\|i3]

Come on AMD show us some Mantle lovin'.