AMD acquired ATI in 2006, hoping ATI's GPU expertise would combine with AMD's CPU know-how to create integrated solutions worth more than the sum of their parts.
Yep, GPUs have supported virtual memory for a long time. AMD's GCN had it, and even later Terascale versions (like Terascale 2 in Llano) had virtual memory support.
My impression of AI accelerators like the Instinct MI300 has always been that the CPU cores are mostly there to feed the GPU/AI cores, i.e. they're more like traffic cops with a little bit of orchestra conductor thrown in. Thus, the much higher latencies for data going to and from the CPU 8 core clusters aren't that injurious to overall performance, as long as it doesn't affect the ability of the CPU to keep the GPU cores staying busy. I guess that's another reason why an update of the CPU chiplets to Zen5 isn't such a high priority; from what I read, the CPU chiplets are not what bottlenecks the MI300's maximum throughput.
Regarding the statement about desktop PC users being reluctant to accept the trade-offs of APUs with large iGPUs: not sure that's entirely so. Apple M desktops, such as the Mac Studio and the higher-end M4 MacMini variants have seen significant uptake. However, on (purchase) price-performance, the classic desktop PC setup is still ahead, at least for now.
You mention sharing pointers. Does that mean the GPUs have paged virtual memory with address translation like a CPU?
Yep, GPUs have supported virtual memory for a long time. AMD's GCN had it, and even later Terascale versions (like Terascale 2 in Llano) had virtual memory support.
My impression of AI accelerators like the Instinct MI300 has always been that the CPU cores are mostly there to feed the GPU/AI cores, i.e. they're more like traffic cops with a little bit of orchestra conductor thrown in. Thus, the much higher latencies for data going to and from the CPU 8 core clusters aren't that injurious to overall performance, as long as it doesn't affect the ability of the CPU to keep the GPU cores staying busy. I guess that's another reason why an update of the CPU chiplets to Zen5 isn't such a high priority; from what I read, the CPU chiplets are not what bottlenecks the MI300's maximum throughput.
Regarding the statement about desktop PC users being reluctant to accept the trade-offs of APUs with large iGPUs: not sure that's entirely so. Apple M desktops, such as the Mac Studio and the higher-end M4 MacMini variants have seen significant uptake. However, on (purchase) price-performance, the classic desktop PC setup is still ahead, at least for now.
And, I omitted this: Thanks Chester for another great article!
Now if Strix Halo supported that type of bandwidth... :D Okay, very different market segment and programming models