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*** AMD "Zen" thread (inc AM4/APU discussion) ***

bru

bru

Soldato
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I get the impression that even the most ardent fanboys aren't willing to pay AMD a going rate for a top tier product.

Not quite sure I fully agree with you, but I do see the point your making.

Maybe it is a case of enough people out there are thinking that way which gives rise to AMD being the cheaper option and of course the more people that think this way the more it becomes the segment that AMD must sell at to actually sell products.
It is a shame, because for AMD to truly break out of this 'cheaper option mould' they need a really dynamite product or two. maybe Zen will be that product, who knows, only time will tell.
 
Caporegime
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Not quite sure I fully agree with you, but I do see the point your making.

Maybe it is a case of enough people out there are thinking that way which gives rise to AMD being the cheaper option and of course the more people that think this way the more it becomes the segment that AMD must sell at to actually sell products.
It is a shame, because for AMD to truly break out of this 'cheaper option mould' they need a really dynamite product or two. maybe Zen will be that product, who knows, only time will tell.




A potential problem with that is the minute Intel feel genuinely threatened by AMD Intel possibly could shut AMD down.

Intel felt threatened by AMD with the Athlon XP, Intel being the behemoth compared with AMD simply used their financial clout to deny AMD sales and thus starving them of funds.

AMD cannot afford that to happen with Zen, if AMD don't get healthy returns on that investment it is frankly all over for them.

Yes things are different now, its not so easy for Intel to muscle AMD out of the market.
Intel got burnt badly for paying potential AMD partners not to use AMD's Athlon chips, but, Intel are already trying to get that over-turned, after 10 years of saying nothing more about it now they are on the warpath with it.
The precedent has been set that Intel cannot pay anyone not to use AMD products, the fact that they are now trying to get that overturned shows their intent.

AMD just need to be aware of this, its unfortunate but that is the reality when you only have two vendors in a space and one of them has occupied upto 95% of that space for two decades.

Intel will sit-down and watch some of their market-share switch to AMD, do nothing about AMD earning their share of the money and get back to good health.
A genuine competitor is actually a good thing for Intel in view of legal reasons.
Intel will remain somewhat passive as long as they are comfortable with AMD's progress back to health.
 
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Soldato
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Don't like the news of "dedicated overclocking chips" but the fact that you don't need the top of the range X370 chipset for overclocking is nice. If you're not running SLI/CF a B350 should be sufficient for most.

Intel's Skylake-X is coming out in Q1 2017 too so Zen will have some serious competition. Hopefully they can keep motherboard + CPU prices sane.
 
Soldato
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Don't like the news of "dedicated overclocking chips" but the fact that you don't need the top of the range X370 chipset for overclocking is nice. If you're not running SLI/CF a B350 should be sufficient for most.

Intel's Skylake-X is coming out in Q1 2017 too so Zen will have some serious competition. Hopefully they can keep motherboard + CPU prices sane.

"dedicated overclocking chips" is similar to the Intel K series, or the old Black series.

Nothing new from AMD and personally I do not have problem to pay extra for better clocker :)
 
Soldato
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Don't like the news of "dedicated overclocking chips" but the fact that you don't need the top of the range X370 chipset for overclocking is nice. If you're not running SLI/CF a B350 should be sufficient for most.

Intel's Skylake-X is coming out in Q1 2017 too so Zen will have some serious competition. Hopefully they can keep motherboard + CPU prices sane.

I thought Skylake-X was coming out in Q3 2017 ??
 
Soldato
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Don't like the news of "dedicated overclocking chips" but the fact that you don't need the top of the range X370 chipset for overclocking is nice. If you're not running SLI/CF a B350 should be sufficient for most.

Intel's Skylake-X is coming out in Q1 2017 too so Zen will have some serious competition. Hopefully they can keep motherboard + CPU prices sane.

I don't really mind as long as the higher price chips are better quality and offer more overclocking headroom.
 
Soldato
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It makes me laugh when people try and extrapolate prices from a graph like that.

First the scale up the side isn't even close to linear.
Second we have no idea what the exchange rate against the Dollar, Euro or anything else is going to be by the time these launch.
Third we know from history that while AMD understand they need to be % cheaper than Intel they are never all that far away in $ terms from the chips that the cumulative benchmarks prove they compete against.

Once these chips are actually released, if by some miracle they out perform a i7 6700k they will absolutely be priced accordingly.

I would be overjoyed to be wrong, just as I will be overjoyed if they actually can outperform Intel offerings and really start pushing Intel hard again, but that is pure wishful thinking on my part.

Well it depends on how you define out perform. A 6 core 12 Xeon 5650 will out perform 6700k so a 8 core 16 thread Zen will probably murder any i7 quad core.
 
Associate
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"Outperform 6700K will be priced accordingly"

If you really think that its your emotions talking rather than your head, no-one will buy an Intel equivalent AMD chip priced anywhere near Intel let alone higher.

Seriously this old argument is utterly bizarre for apparently intelligent people to make, AMD may try to charge way above its market value but it will last about 3 minutes before it comes crashing down to well below Intel prices even if its better!
Why? Because Intel will sell 7x as many worse chips on branding alone.

Please Stop.

Yeah, but AMDs new female head of marketing will still try it on, much to the detriment of the company. It's not rocket science but they will fail anyway...
 
Soldato
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Wow, Sorry I didn't mean to feed the trolls. However, I was riled enough to want to respond so I guess they still won.

My Prediction of AMD's Master Plan
I believe will happen is that at launch AMD will price the chips within 5-10% of the Intel price they believe they compete against. People who hate Intel will buy at this price anyway so there is no point in sacrificing this premium.

They will market these chips as an enthusiast/power processor designed to be used in a GPU/server environment. This puts it in the X99 space, not the Z170/Z270 space. They do not have a large iGPU and I don't see them wanting to compete against Skylake.

They will be pushing that people that want it more overall processing power than Intel can get it with 2 more cores and 4 more threads. Then with the higher thermal envelope on the 4 and 6 core chips to have higher clocks to compete in the gaming space.

The Zen APU's are designed to go after the Z170/Z270 market. These will be chips that have superior graphics to Intel with 90% of the processing power of an i5. It provides good casual gaming and awesome productivity for almost all normal end user applications.

What I think will really happen.

Within 2-6 months once production is allowing them to ship more volume and there is acceptance of where the performance of these chips stack up the price will adjust to 5-15% of whatever THAT comparison is.

If the SR7 actually beats an i5 but doesn't come close to an i7 I expect the price to sit within 5-15% of the i5 price.

If the top SR7 is comparable to a 4 core i7 then they will price there - if it compares to a 6 core, likewise.

Look at the current market placement - dependent on task currently the AMD chips compete against i3 and i5 intel offerings so that is where they sit. I don't know where the idea that AMD have ever offered chips at more than a 15% discount over the Intel chip they compete against comes from - but I don't remember seeing that - ever.
 
Man of Honour
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[..] I don't know where the idea that AMD have ever offered chips at more than a 15% discount over the Intel chip they compete against comes from - but I don't remember seeing that - ever.

I remember it back in the 486 days.

I think there's a possibility of a larger price gap if two things happen:

AMD launch with plenty of chips stocked and ready to ship and the production ability to meet a high demand and AMD decide they want more market share as quickly as possible and they want it more than they want bigger profit margins.

I'd be surprised if it happened, though.
 
Soldato
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We can all dream :)

Lets add Skylake beating IPC, more cores and great overclocking to the wish list at the same time and Oh, and how about a GPU to smash the 1080 while we are at it.
 
Soldato
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We can all dream :)

Lets add Skylake beating IPC, more cores and great overclocking to the wish list at the same time and Oh, and how about a GPU to smash the 1080 while we are at it.

I heard the Zen APU has the equivalent of a 6950X and Titan XP inside, will truly be a monster! Massive disappointment if this is not true.....
 
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