AMD Ryzen (Zen)

[kuhla]

 

Stuff kind of starts around 26 min.

 

A lot of people making comparisons to 6900K.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10907/amd-gives-more-zen-details-ryzen-34-ghz-nvme-neural-net-prediction-25-mhz-boost-steps

[kuhla]

AMD Set to Launch Ryzen Before March 3rd, Meeting Q1 Target

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11031/amd-set-to-launch-ryzen-before-march-3rd-meeting-q1-target

 

So there is some expectation for a launch during GDC Feb 27th - March 3rd.

[kuhla]

Talking with malaphax the other day I realized I don't even really know what AMD's offerings are in the >4 core market so I checked on newegg on everything, both intel and amd, above 4 cores:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&N=100007671%20600213784%20601192205%20600030238%208000&IsNodeId=1&OEMMark=0%2CN%2C1&bop=And&Order=PRICED&PageSize=36

 

I don't get it.... they are all Vishera... but some are higher clocked... in some cases faster clocks at lower prices?... I'm confused...

 

Looks like these are from a while back (2014) and the age/numbers are overlapping now : http://www.anandtech.com/show/8427/amd-fx-8370e-cpu-review-vishera-95w

 

Oh well. Let's see what Zen brings to the table....

[Malaphax]

Rumors on pricing as follows:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2017/02/09/amd-ryzen-prices-revealed-massive-blow-to-intel/#5c748c806e7c

 

I need to confirm what the ryzen 1700 lines up with but it's supposedly similar to the i7 6900k, also I assume the X variants are the unlocked versions for overclocking. The pricing seems very competitive if these postings are to be believed.

[Jedi2155]

I highly doubt its directly competitive with a i7 6900k because that would imply an architecture with clock parity. I believe (opinion) Ryzen will be very competitive but not clock parity at all. The author only compared the number of cores and threads, which as we both know is not particularly useful for the most of us. They already produce 8 core chips @ 4.7 GHz but due to the architecture, is barely competitive.

 

The most telling piece of the article though is the desired price point of the chip which is on par with 6700/7700k chips. Which suggests it is competitive in some form or better than those chips.

[kuhla]

If those rumored prices are true, they are cheaper than I expected.

 

One of the thoughts I keep having though is even if the CPUs are competitive in price and performance, the current Intel chipset environment is very refined and has many options for many different use-cases.

[kuhla]

If those rumored prices are true, they are cheaper than I expected.

 

One of the thoughts I keep having though is even if the CPUs are competitive in price and performance, the current Intel chipset environment is very refined and has many options for many different use-cases.

 

Double-post.

 

I didn't really follow up on chipset news but there is some here: http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-am4-x370-motherboards-ces/

 

According to that supposedly there will be ITX too.

[kuhla]

source - https://www.techpowerup.com/230675/amd-ryzen-reviews-and-shipping-coming-on-february-28th

Slight update on the Ryzen Event: reports confirm that Ryzen samples are finding their way to reviewers' hands, with the company's NDA being lifted on the 28th February - and the launch of AMD's flagship 1800X, 1700X and (my favorite so far) 1700 models on the same day. The remaining models in AMD's 17-strong Ryzen product-line are expected to follow a little later, on March 2nd.

[kuhla]

I'm assuming this is on response to the pending launch of Ryzen but look at all those Intel CPU price drops....

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294966995+4294964566+4294847923+4294847925+4294916121&NTX=&NTT=&NTK=all&page=1&sortby=pricehigh

Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake 4.2 GHz LGA 1151 Boxed Processor
$299.99

Intel Core i7-6700K SkyLake 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 Boxed Processor
$279.99

Intel Core i5-7600K Kaby Lake 4.20 GHz LGA 1151 Boxed Processor
$199.99

Intel Core i5-6600K SkyLake 3.5 GHz 1151 Boxed Processor
$189.99

That 7600k seems like a lot of CPU per dollar. Easy overclock to 4.5 Ghz. Frequency is 300Mhz higher in base and turbo than 6600k so those $10 seem worth it.

[Malaphax]

The fact they're cutting prices on chips released just over 1 month ago is pretty telling. They know that kaby lake didn't push the high end and they're resorting to cutting margins to try and compete with AMD.

[Jedi2155]

This is the most telling, I'm starting to warm up more and more to Ryzen. I don't think it'll be to Intel what Athlon 64 was to the Pentium 4 (as many are clamoring), or the original Athlon to the Pentium 3 (if even that, the original Athlon brought a much better FPU and thus superior performance) but if it has a superior IPC to any recent Intel offerings, I would be very impressed. Based on the leaked benchmarks I've seen so far, the best they can muster is on-par IPC performance. Now, their architecture may be superior in the SMP setting.....

[kuhla]

...the best they can muster is on-par IPC performance. Now, their architecture may be superior in the SMP setting.....

 

I think that is the picture that many people are painting right now and if that's turns out to be true then the real question will be the pricing.

[kuhla]

double post

 

but speaking of price

 

supposedly this is from Fry's

 

https://i.imgur.com/TPjGkdw.jpg

[Malaphax]

I'm not sure how reliable this source is, but the 2nd best model 1700X beats intels top 8/16 model 6900K.

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-1700x-processor-tested/

 

If this is true I think the price drops kuhla posted earlier are going to get pretty serious. I'm beyond happy to see some competition.

[kuhla]

Personally the model I am most curious about is the "middle" one, the Ryzen 5-1600X (6 core/12 thread, 95W tdp, 3.3-3.7GHz, $259) because I feel like it is the most unique item on the table.

1. It's spitting distance from the 1700x clock speed.
2. It provides more cores+threads than the high end i7s like the 7700k but is priced cheaper MSRP than the 7700k too ($260 vs $299 from microcenter right now).
3. If it can overclock to the same speed as the 1800x sits at stock, then what for applications that don't benefit from multithreading? Technically AMD has kind of addressed that with the Ryzen 5-1400X (4 core/8 thread, 65W tdp, 3.5-3.9GHz, $199).
4. What if it overclocks better than the 1700x and 1800x (lots of precedent for this on the Intel side too, the 7600k generally overclocks better than the 7700k)?
5. Cooler because less cores? Precedent for that too.

I just feel like the 1600x could end up as an interesting middle ground.

 

1 more week for NDA.

[kuhla]

So there is the microcenter thing today: http://www.microcenter.com/site/content/amdryzen.aspx

 

Also some x370 boards now showing up on newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007625&IsNodeId=1&Description=x370&name=AMD%20Motherboards&Order=BESTMATCH&isdeptsrh=1&Tpk=x370&ignorear=1

 

All ATX right now. x300 will probably be for ITX. I imagine mATX will still be x370. Most of the current ones seems to be using Realtek ALC1220 for their sound which is always nice. A good number of Intel NICs too. That MSI in white is kind of a nice look.

 

I'm thinking other models, x300, etc. will all come later.

 

Some B350 and other stuff here with different search filter: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1%208000&IsNodeId=1&Description=AM4%20AMD&bop=And&order=BESTMATCH&page=1

 

Remember chipsets are like this:

 

X370 (enthusiast)
X300 (enthusiast SFF)

B350 (mainstream)

A320 (essential)
A300 (essential SFF)

[Malaphax]

MSI offering white motherboards is kind of nice. I think the white color scheme on full builds can look very clean.

 

I think we'll be waiting several months before we see any decent ITX boards out for AMD. I've seen mostly B350 used for MATX boards, but I have a feeling we'll still get a handful of high end MATX boards running X370, but they might not be at launch.

[kuhla]

Personally the model I am most curious about is the "middle" one, the Ryzen 5-1600X (6 core/12 thread, 95W tdp, 3.3-3.7GHz, $259) because.....

 

There was some kind of event the other day and I have not properly read up on it yet but one item that jumped out at me from what I have glanced over so far is apparently the previous 1600x clock rates were wrong (you can see them in my comment above). See image below:

 

[Malaphax]

The 5 series, the 4/8 and 6/12 chips, will not be releasing until Q2'17. I don't think we're getting benchmarks for those anytime soon. It does look like all the Ryzen chips hold their own fairly well in single core performance and then take leads in multi-core performance benchmarks - at least from AMD's press kit and the leaks I've seen so far.

 

I think the 1600X will be primed to compete well against the 6700k - again probably slightly worse single-threaded performance but large gains in mutli-threaded performance.

 

I'm not trying to sound like a broken record, but I will again reiterate that for most of us I can't see a real reason to upgrade CPUs - especially considering it would entail changing out CPU/Motherboard/RAM. I have no intention to upgrade my system right now, or for the foreseeable future - but I'm still glad to see AMD starting to compete.

 

Also worth noting is the increased noise I'm hearing regarding Vega GPUs coming out in May. Some ridiculous claims like them beating the 1080 and possibly even beating the unreleased 1080ti. I'm not putting much stock in these rumors because frankly the frenzied levels of hype I'm seeing for AMD right now is out of control.

[kuhla]

I think the 1600X will be primed to compete well against the 6700k - again probably slightly worse single-threaded performance but large gains in mutli-threaded performance.

 

Of course AMD would compare an intel 4/8 to their 6/12 and then boast about multithreaded performance

 

I'm not trying to sound like a broken record, but I will again reiterate that for most of us I can't see a real reason to upgrade CPUs - especially considering it would entail changing out CPU/Motherboard/RAM. I have no intention to upgrade my system right now, or for the foreseeable future - but I'm still glad to see AMD starting to compete.

 

I'm probably the most likely one to do the next full upgrade since I'm still on my 2500k+8GB+980 so I am watching all these developments with added interest.

 

That being said, I'm not crazy about the idea of buying top end everything like 1800x+16GB+1080 or something like that. I have too many hobbies and other interests that take up my time and money. Even if I could afford to build a monster, it would really bother me to not spend much time gaming on it. I want to spend more time gaming than I do right now but not a lot more.

 

I'm keeping my eyes open for a good bang-for-buck, compromise solution, whether that be Intel with price cuts or AMD with their new CPUs, we will see. Even with all this performance talk from AMD I think Intel can still make a strong argument for a refined product (skylake v2), polished motherboards (z270) available in every market segment (itx, matx), etc.

[Malaphax]

Right now if you're looking at MATX or ITX I would stick with Intel. I'm sure the board parters will start pushing out decent AMD stuff, but that will take time, and I would estimate that we'll only start seeing some of that in Q2 and maybe even 2H'17.

 

I think the single core crown is still Intel's. I'm still impressed AMD got close, and everyone else should be as well. Also I think it's more than fair for AMD to put it's mid-range products against Intel's mid range products, regardless of the number of cores and threads. Is it apples to apples? No, that's why we have single core tests. The consumer will always compare items of similar price points regardless of the underlying technology.

 

Honestly I think right now, with the Intel price cuts and the release of the 1080ti coming soon, you could probably pick up a really nice system and keep your costs fairly low.

 

The problems is that if you pushed for a new GPU to replace your 980, you would be looking at waiting for the next gen of cards. Even a "cheap" 1070 is almost $400 and while the extra performance might be nice, considering you're running at 1080p, I don't think it would be worthwhile. You might be able to wait for Vega and see if Nvidia drops it's pricing, maybe at $300 a 1070 is more worthwhile.

 

I've looked at the landscape of MATX and ITX for a while now, and honestly I've concluded that MATX is about as small as I'm willing to go for now. I've seen too many cases that run into length constraints on GPUs or other sizing issues to be happy with the idea of making even more compromises than losing all my expansion slots. I think MATX is a solid middle ground for most people, especially considering the average person probably doesn't have even 1 expansion slot in use aside from their GPU. Funny enough about the only thing I would consider upgrading right now on my current setup is the case and cooling, and even that would be unnecessary.

[Jedi2155]

 

 

The problems is that if you pushed for a new GPU to replace your 980, you would be looking at waiting for the next gen of cards. Even a "cheap" 1070 is almost $400 and while the extra performance might be nice, considering you're running at 1080p, I don't think it would be worthwhile. You might be able to wait for Vega and see if Nvidia drops it's pricing, maybe at $300 a 1070 is more worthwhile.

 

I think the Ti series of cards at first release is the absolute best card to buy for maximum longevity. That being said, you're running 1080p, so might as well pull out your 8800 GT . You don't need to upgrade your GPU unless you get a 34 or 27" display.

[Malaphax]

A list of all the current reviews out for Ryzen:

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-review-roundup-official-launch-coverage/

 

I've clicked through a couple quickly. I've seen 2 main points.

The performance is still less than Intel's performance in most gaming benchmarks, and it's a mixed bag on certain cpu focused applications like rendering and encoding.

AMD's Simultanious Multi Threading (SMT) appears to be causing some performance issues on most tests. I'm not an expert on how this works, but SMT is a technique for allocating resources to each thread. One review I clicked through mentioned that this might be fixed in future updates, or on future motherboards... I have no idea. Regardless of that, I still think AMD has achieved the closest performance gap in several generations and I hope that some of the weird anomalies aren't because of Intel pulling their usual bullshit

 

[kuhla]

Had a chance to skim over a couple of reviews. Anand's is up ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700).One other one that stood out a bit was HardOCP which threw in a 4.5 Ghz 2600k in there which (for gaming) was pretty competitive against the 1700x they tested at 4.0 Ghz (they overclocked it).

 

The basic gist of what I have looked at so far is purely for gaming it is not performance leading and it is not good value but for other workloads, like content creation and professional workloads, it is also not necessarily the highest performer, but it is more competitive and very good value.

 

I have seen some people talking about the idea that since all the models have overclocking capability and multiple people are running into some kind of limit right at 4.0 Ghz (yes 4.0 Ghz) even with the 1800x then why not just grab the 1700-non-x for $330 and overclock it to the same speed and skip out on XFR since it's a drop-in-the-bucket +100Mhz.

 

I think there are still compelling reasons to go Intel but I want to see if there are any software tweaks that can help with some of these stranger scenarios that are creeping up in some reviews.

[Malaphax]

Weird issues aside, AMD have basically stated that this isn't going to be an overclocking monster, and I think that's fairly reasonable.

I agree that it's not performance leading in gaming, and even in some other workloads. I think as one reviewer correctly pointed out, Ryzen really makes sense for people who need serious CPU overhead. If you're looking to game & stream on one PC I think ryzen makes sense, but unless you're utilizing a serious amount of CPU usage through multitasking it's still a better bet to go with intel.

 

I know one review mentioned: paraphrased "Now that 8/16 is reaching more mainstream we should expect games to start taking advantage" Aside from the laughable idea that a single product launch of a ~$400 cpu equates to something being mainstream, I'm hoping the more recent pushes of different rendering methods like vulcan alongside the late console lifecycle gives us a better set of PC ports and resource utilization in upcoming games.