AMD Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000) - *** NO COMPETITOR HINTING ***

[LePhuronn]

There is deffo a quad core model, which is why I am confused with people indicating there will be a super cheap 6 core chip..

Quads will probably be Athlons, that's why. It'll be a pretty shoddy chiplet if only half of the cores work, and a bit of a waste to put that into a Ryzen. Plus with 3 established Ryzen tiers, if AMD stick with 4, 6 and 8 cores for those tiers as before, does that mean the new 9 tier is for 12 cores? What about 16 core CPUs then?

I think we'll only see quad core Ryzen 3s if Ryzen 9 doesn't have 16 cores. And since Su and Papermaster have spoken about improving their single core performance to match their established core count leadership, I think they'll likely press home the latter by shifting the Ryzen base line to 6 cores, leaving the half-working junk chips to Athlons.

 

[tamzzy]

not just MCE but also watt limits.

The chips are supposed to only be able to breach the TDP limit for short periods of time but that causes cpu's to throttle under extreme load so the board vendors knowing that reviewers will run extreme loads will adjust the behaviour.

ah yes, the new PL1 and PL2 planes

 

[Scougar]

For gaming, I really have zero reason to upgrade my Ryzen 1600. It does everything I want it to. I wouldn't mind getting a bit better performance for encoding etc of video creation for paintball though. The nerd in me just wants the upgrade lol.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

There is deffo a quad core model, which is why I am confused with people indicating there will be a super cheap 6 core chip..

Nothing is going to be super cheap. The Ryzen 3 will be very similar in price to the i3. Not super cheap. The fact it has 6 cores vs Intels 4 cores is just progress.

I was building computers 20 years ago when progress was at such a rate that I bought a 333Mhz CPU in 1999 and then bought an 800Mhz CPU 2 years later for less money. It wasn't thought of as "super cheap" like you keep saying. That's just the fast pace that technology moves along sometimes. The move to Ryzen 3000 is a smaller jump than I've been used to and far from being unprecedented. It only seems that way because Intel have been capitalising on people's naivety that moore's law ended over a decade ago.

 

[markymoo]

Hmmm, was considering getting a new GPU for my aging system. (i5 2500k and 7950)
I was considering a RX580 or Vega54.
I’m now wondering holding out for this new chip (so lost with CPU’s as been out of the game for so long) is the best idea.

I also wonder, should I wish to build a new beast for playing the latest AAA games, how much money I am going to need?

Are we going through an upgrade slow down? On the flip side I wonder if another £1k build would last as long as this has, which is around 8 years and prob still could last a little longer at a push!?
Still gaming at 1080p on a 24” screen, so I guess I could look to a resolution screen upgrade, if it brings the wow!?

 

[CuriousTomCat]

Hmmm, was considering getting a new GPU for my aging system. (i5 2500k and 7950)
I was considering a RX580 or Vega54.
I’m now wondering holding out for this new chip (so lost with CPU’s as been out of the game for so long) is the best idea.

I also wonder, should I wish to build a new beast for playing the latest AAA games, how much money I am going to need?

Are we going through an upgrade slow down? On the flip side I wonder if another £1k build would last as long as this has, which is around 8 years and prob still could last a little longer at a push!?
Still gaming at 1080p on a 24” screen, so I guess I could look to a resolution screen upgrade, if it brings the wow!?

Well my budget is £750 which would allow for a GPU priced in the same ballpark you're looking at. So that would give you £250 to spend on a screen.

 

[Krono5]

Hmmm, was considering getting a new GPU for my aging system. (i5 2500k and 7950)
I was considering a RX580 or Vega54.
I’m now wondering holding out for this new chip (so lost with CPU’s as been out of the game for so long) is the best idea.

I also wonder, should I wish to build a new beast for playing the latest AAA games, how much money I am going to need?

Are we going through an upgrade slow down? On the flip side I wonder if another £1k build would last as long as this has, which is around 8 years and prob still could last a little longer at a push!?
Still gaming at 1080p on a 24” screen, so I guess I could look to a resolution screen upgrade, if it brings the wow!?

I'm in the same position. I was planning on building a new system and instead of going for the more mainstream 2nd tier items like the GTX*70 and i5 for a £1k-1.5k pc like I usually do; pushing the boat out and spending £2k for the top end i7 and GTX*80 equivalents....Then i looked at what's new in the past 7 years...

The equivalent of my GTX670 is the GTX2080 for twice the price (£700 vs £330) and my 3570k is the 9700k (£170 vs £390) let alone the flagship models I was hoping for which were the GTX680 and 3770k and are now the 2080ti and 9900k. All they've done is rename them and hope no one will notice that an i9 is what an i7 used to be and that the 2080ti is what the GTX*80's have been.

The Zen 2 leaks look really promising and hopefully Navi will also bring some sense to the market as without a competetive AMD, Nvidia and Intel have been exploiting their monopoly on the high end to the extreme. I expect some inflation but not over 100% in a couple of years.

 

[chrcoluk]

ah yes, the new PL1 and PL2 planes

There is a 2018 video done by hardware unboxed where he observed the 8400 cpu was slower on a non Z chipset board The eventual diagnosis was that the Z board was allowing it to breach TDP and avoid throttling whilst the low end board was applying intel technical limits properly.

 

[chrcoluk]

Nothing is going to be super cheap. The Ryzen 3 will be very similar in price to the i3. Not super cheap. The fact it has 6 cores vs Intels 4 cores is just progress.

I was building computers 20 years ago when progress was at such a rate that I bought a 333Mhz CPU in 1999 and then bought an 800Mhz CPU 2 years later for less money. It wasn't thought of as "super cheap" like you keep saying. That's just the fast pace that technology moves along sometimes. The move to Ryzen 3000 is a smaller jump than I've been used to and far from being unprecedented. It only seems that way because Intel have been capitalising on people's naivety that moore's law ended over a decade ago.

Ok it is definitely plausible the r3 becomes 6 core by default, but I dont think they will be priced the same as ryzen 2 r3's I think amd will bump up the price to reflect the higher spec although perhaps still cheaper than existing r5 6 cores. The world has moved on from the pentium days, the companies now are more aggressive at making money.

 

[Mercutio]

Well - money vs performance: 7nm and chiplets is cheap. Why compete with Intel and have people "deciding". If you can take their throat and get market share while keeping a tidy profit... of course that's the better option.
Small upgrades: Intel have been at this for the last 10 years. Everything since Sandy Bridge was... pretty incremental with Haswell and Kaby being the only particularly decent jumps. It's a fairly significant jump (as rumour has it).

 

[LePhuronn]

the companies now are more aggressive at making money

There is more money to be made through high volume, low margin sales than low volume, high margin sales. Just look at Apple and Nvidia and the consumer backlash we thought would never happen; not a lot of money to be made from iPhones and RTX cards that aren't selling.

Yes, AMD could turn around and sell their new Ryzen 3s at Ryzen 5 prices because of the identical core counts, but it would be an idiotic thing to do. If it's genuinely true that AMD are perceived no more than the "budget brand" then they can't just jump straight in with stupid prices before proving that price tag is viable to the masses. Nothing will sell.

And besides, AMD's resurgence in the CPU space is all about progress. Keep the SKUs, keep the prices, bump the core counts, beat the competition, make your point, lead the industry. Then when Zen 5 rolls around and Intel are still dicking about with a 10nm process that doesn't work, AMD can gouge the hell out of the market as the sole, dominant player as all corporations will do at some point.

 

[Mercutio]

Without... painting anyone else with the usual "intel f..." brush...
There's a couple more folks genuinely need to get away from "well Intel do X so.." type mentality.

Intel do X because for... at least 7 years recently, they could. The "Intel are better because" mindset is exactly why AMD can/will do things differently when they can.

Get used to it.

Going "there's no point for any company to do Y" basically comes over as "well my precious Intel do X".

Stuffs probably about to get pretty damn well shook up. 1 because AMD (finally) can and 2 because they have to.

That the "they won't double the core count or half the price!" type push back takes no notice of the last 2 AMD releases is just the cherry on top.

They've been "near enough" with Ryzen for anyone that wasn't too dismissive for the "finally beating Intel" to not be the cataclysmic shift some are seeing it as.
They needed another.... 10%? To "win" in the ONLY area they weren't already beating Intel (gaming in heavily single threaded engines).

When not hobbled by a process that's designed for mobile phone parts....

 

[LePhuronn]

^^ yup

"but they released the Radeon VII at the same performance and price as the RTX 2080. Why would they slash CPU prices when they clearly won't slash GPU prices"

conveniently forgetting (or just not understanding) what the Radeon VII is, what it isn't, what it means and what's coming up.

 

[thebandit]

I think that AMD will simply price Ryzen 3xxx at a level to make the price/performance ratio more compelling than Intel on the day i.e. slightly more umph for slightly less £'s. If single threaded is on par with Intel you may see more cores at each price point. If its ahead, then you might get core parity and a discount over the Intel counterpart, I suspect it will be the forma. I doubt they will launch at their lowest margin from the start, purely so when Intel counter, they can counter back. Ultimately AMD should have the margin with 7nm to compete and win any discounting tit for tat with Intel and still make money for a while.

Radeon VII is an indeed odd case, its at best place holder product to keep AMD relevant (finger in the pie) until NAVI.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

The Radeon VII price is surely irrelevant to the conversation? Above all else it has 16gb of HBM2 memory and I've seen multiple estimates of $650 build cost, which ignores r&d, marketing, packaging distribution etc etc. The margin is incredibly slim and I'd be surprised if in fact they were making any money at all on it when all is considered. Why is accepting a margin of at most 6-7% (and likely much less all in) being used as some evidence of price gouging due to current market over pricing? If anything it's almost the opposite - Nvidia's moves in terms of price made the RVII even remotely viable as a product, and without them it probably just wouldn't have ever happened.

The Zen2 chiplet design conversely should be pretty economical in how it allows them to maximise usage of a wafer, so they should have no problem in both roughly maintaining the current range's pricing and also turning a tidy profit... all while being able to beat intel on both price and performance, allowing them to finally erode the significant mindshare advantage that intel has enjoyed over the last decade.

Regardless of what the exact true cost of the GPU is to AMD, the fact remains that the RVII is expensive because it is simply very expensive to make... nothing we've seen suggests Zen 2 is going to be particularly expensive to make, so drawing any conclusions about it's pricing based on the RVII is a bit of a stretch.

Edit - one of many build cost estimates for reference https://game-debate.com/blog/26513/650-is-the-cost-to-make-a-radeon-vii

 

[LePhuronn]

The Radeon VII price is surely irrelevant to the conversation?

so drawing any conclusions about it's pricing based on the RVII is a bit of a stretch.

It was purely an addition to the point @Mercutio was making. I've seen Radeon VII's price point used as "evidence" as to why Ryzen 3000 will be Intel prices - i.e. why would AMD pitch the CPUs cheaply when they've already shown they're content to match prices with the Radeon VII - that argument is flawed because of what Radeon VII is, how it came about and the potential knock-on perceptions that would come from massively undercutting the RTX 2080's price.

So yes, beyond those parameters Radeon VII's price is irrelevant to the conversation.

 

[LePhuronn]

The issue with your logic @thebandit is you're assuming Intel can and will counter Ryzen 3000 on price. They won't. Look at the 8-core i9s; arguably a core bump to match the 2700 and 2700X, but the prices are astronomical. Yes, they have single-core performance superiority, but is that superiority really worth that much more money? Perceptions of value and what people are prepared to pay are a separate subject in this regard, but the point is Intel didn't slash the price of their hex cores to match the Ryzen 5s and they didn't introduce their 8 cores to price-match the Ryzen 7s. It's unlikely therefore that Intel will drop prices in any meaningful way when Ryzen 3000 lands.

And therefore it's also unlikely that AMD will pitch prices to the moon to give them some leeway in margins to begin a price war, because they won't need to because Intel won't engage in one. I suspect we'll see a small bump in price across all of the Ryzen tiers in light of the increased core counts, but it won't be silly amounts to match Ryzen 2000 or Intel tiers. The AdoredTV leaks puts the MSRP exactly the same as the Ryzen 2000s, but I'd say it was more realistic to throw on another $20-30 because of the core increases.

Even if Intel did slash the price of the 9900K in the face of the Ryzens, do you really see them dropping as low as $229 to match the 3600X? Or even $329 and still have a 4c/8t deficit against the 3700X?

 

[chrcoluk]

I am already in love with my new b450 + 2600X.

The windows guest in ESXI vs the i5 750 it replaced is lightning fast.

Nice seeing as well inspectre reporting that meltdown patch is disabled as the cpu is immune haha.

Potentially I could do a rig swap at some point between my esxi and main pc.

Also the machine is still at 2400mhz for ram and stock settings, so not running at max capability yet either, I know this is a ryzen 3000 thread but I couldnt be bothered to revive the other thread with my excitement.

I think intel are in serious trouble. I think their pricing is a combination of greed and yield issues, if I am right they have massive yield problems then even if intel tried to match amd pricing, their yield issues would probably cause retail gouging due to shortages and the retail price would be higher anyway.

My speculation is the new amd pricing will place new 6 core parts (Assuming they r3) somewhere between existing r3 and r5 prices, I dont think they will match existing r3 prices but amd may well place it below current r5 prices.

Also I can confirm the eligibility checker for amdrewards works inside a virtual machine

 

[Scougar]

Intel can haemorrhage money for some time if they need to in order to compete.

The other thing is... Intel will still get sales in the short to medium term regardless if AMD have the better product. That is the strength of their brand.

 

[EsaT]

I believe prices will be comparable to, not equal to, Intel's prices

Which would be giving victory to Intel, because of pretty much psychopathic belief of Intel being better.
Or maybe abusive relationship comparison is more apt for situation between consumers and Intel.
Intel basically massively increased prices per CPU position and consumers just ask more beating while paying...

So why do you think AMD will massively undercut Intel on CPU prices, but not do the same for GPUs against nVidia?

Because actually pushing bang per buck ahead is only way for AMD to capture market share from Intel.
And whole chiplet design, which likely was the true Zen arch goal, allows pushing core counts at reasonable costs, even if manufacturing node isn't perfect.
Also making it easier to take newer nodes into use. (unlike with monolithic CPUs)

Again AMD's actual long term GPU plan and its products are still "under construction".
Radeon VII likely was never in any consumer GPU plans.
Otherwise release time drivers would have been more mature.