The socket will support both older Excavator-type Desktop APUs and new designs based on the upcoming Zen micro-architecture, whilst FP4 APUs will gain DDR4 support.
The socket will support both older Excavator-type Desktop APUs and new designs based on the upcoming Zen micro-architecture, whilst FP4 APUs will gain DDR4 support.
Although AMD spent most of this week revealing some of the features of their 2016 GPU lineup, Eastern enthusiast site Benchlife.info also got their hands on what appear to be official AMD slides concerning the CPU side of the business. The information, which as usual should be filed under the ‘take with a pinch of salt’ category, details plans for Bristol Ridge APUs and their implementation on FP4 and AM4 platforms.
Bristol Ridge FP4 is broadly a replacement for the Carrizo APU platform, supporting up to four Excavator cores (two paired cores) and Radeon GCN graphics. The most significant change is support for DDR4, the first time this memory standard will be supported on AMD systems; Bristol Ridge motherboards with DDR3 RAM slots will however still be backwards compatible with Carrizo FP4 APUs.
Bristol Ridge FP4 APUs will be available in 15W and 35W TDP models clocking in at up to 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Max) and supporting both DDR3 2133MHz / DDR4 2466 (35W) or DDR3 1866 /DDR4 1866 (15W). Each APU is also equipped with up to 8 GCN Compute Units (amount depending on SKU) clocking at up to 900MHz, as well as PCI-Express Gen3.
Moving across to the mainstream desktop segment, AMD also have plans for Bristol Ridge AM4. The new AM4 socket will support both Excavator-based Bristol Ridge and Zen-based Summit Ridge AM4 processors, providing something of a bridge as the chip manufacturer transitions to Zen and 14nm. Like its FP4 counterpart Bristol Ridge AM4 will support DDR4 memory. In practice this means consumers can purchase a Bristol Ridge AM4 motherboard and APU when it launches in 2016, pair it with DDR4 memory, and then be in a position to make an in-place upgrade to Zen when the new microarchitecture launches later in the year.
Bristol Ridge AM4 APUs support two Excavator Paired Cores clocked at up to 3.6 GHz base / 4.0 GHz max and between 0 and 8 GCN GPU cores clocked at up to 948 MHz. Memory-wise, the processors all support up to DDR4 2400MHz out of the box at 1.2V, but it remains to be seen if they will also overclock strongly. Both 35W and 65W TDP SKUs are available.
All in all it appears that AMD are attempting to make the transition to next-gen as painless as possible in 2016, including some affordable options that could be purchased in peace of mind relatively early in 2016. Detailed specifications for next-gen ‘Zen’ Summit Ridge CPUs and Raven Ridge APUs remain something of a mystery, but it is known that both will only support DDR4 memory and be manufactured with a 14nm process.
