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by AlexThrowAway 1259 days ago
You can't just plug in TSMCs transistor density numbers, those are for logic only.

SRAM did not shrink much on N5, and it won't shrink at all between N5P and N3. Apples cores are almost entirely constructed out of SRAM.

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AMD shoves 512kB of L2 per core in Zen3, and 1MB of L2 per core in Zen4.

I'm pretty sure Zen3 has more SRAM (aka: L2 cache) than the M1/M2 (128kb + 192kB is a LOT of L1 cache, but its still less SRAM than what AMD is stuffing into its cores).

Even with all the extra register files + ROB buffer (also SRAM), the M1 just ain't getting close to 512kB L2 alone (plus all the L1 I$ and L1 D$, and uOp cache, and ROB and Register Files and 256-bit AVX registers on the Zen3).

If anything, bringing up the Apple L1 cache vs AMD L1/L2 per-core caches just emphasizes how big Apple's logic units are in comparison.