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

[Harlequin]

as for memory scaling -

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...nding-the-best-ddr4-memory-kit-speed_170340/5

under 1 fps in GTAv from 2133 > 3733 DDR3 on skylake

 

[humbug]

It's a shame they do not tell us the ram speeds for the ddr4, They seems to be where Skylake gets an advantage. This is the first review with such results, Usually the 6700k has a decent advantage over older 4 core i7's.

EDIT: They do on the set-up page and the ddr4 is running at 2133mhz which is slow ddr4.

Or Zen could be competitive with slower Memory.

 

[Harlequin]

intel have never really had `good` scaling with faster ram speeds - even since SB using a lot faster than hasnt shown the improvements expected.

In gaming - even 1066 DDR3 was `good enough`

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The only thing re pricing that I would consider is do I want to buy it at that price and is it good value re. the competition and for what I need or want.

I do not really care what the rest of the world is buying it at. I am not in the rest of the world, I am in the UK. There are pros and cons with being here, overall the pros outweigh the cons by a good margin.

That is the whole problem - you need to care,since sadly tech is purchased mostly in USD,so prices will be going up for both Intel and AMD CPUs.

This is why the Core i7 4770K at normal GBP RRP was around £260 and the Core i7 7700K is now £340ish.

Even AMD manages to drop the price of their 4C/8T CPUs down to £240 to £250(instead of £340 for a Core i7 7700K) in todays money,if the pound drops to $1,then its up to £300 again.

This is why I told one of my mates to upgrade last summer when he found a deal on a Core i7 6700,since it was not worth waiting.

All the moaning at CPU companies is getting stupid. Intel has kept its CPU prices consistent,we have worse price inflation when it comes to graphics cards.

CPUs are long lived,graphics cards are not,yet many are perfectly fine dropping £500 to £800 on graphics cards which they ditch within two years,despite the pound to dollar exchange rates being stable for a few years.

This is why many are still using their Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K CPUs even now.

 

[Martini1991]

The only thing re pricing that I would consider is do I want to buy it at that price and is it good value re. the competition and for what I need or want.

I do not really care what the rest of the world is buying it at. I am not in the rest of the world, I am in the UK. There are pros and cons with being here, overall the pros outweigh the cons by a good margin.

We live in the world. We can't just pretend we're alone.

 

[Hagar]

We live in the world. We can't just pretend we're alone.

We don't, we live in a part of the world (for good or bad). We are in the sterling zone, not the US$ nor CAN or AUS or NZ, not the Yen or Euro therefore it is not material.

We (or some do) buy cheap imported clothes etc. from weaker economies like Bangladesh. So from stronger economies we will pay a bit more. There are advantages to the UK from a weaker sterling, this is just not one of them.

 

[DragonQ]

It's a shame they do not tell us the ram speeds for the ddr4, They seems to be where Skylake gets an advantage. This is the first review with such results, Usually the 6700k has a decent advantage over older 4 core i7's.

EDIT: They do on the set-up page and the ddr4 is running at 2133mhz which is slow ddr4.

Those results are all within margin of error, seems to me they're just GPU bound.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...hitecture-is-expected-to-last-four-years.html

With everything riding on Ryzen’s launch, AMD isn’t taking chances. Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics business, told PCWorld that Ryzen chips will be available from day one. “We’re not going to do a paper launch,” he said, referring to a “launch” where customers have to wait weeks or months for the products to actually arrive. “We’ve done that before. We’re not going to mess with it.”

While Anderson’s responsible for bringing Ryzen to market—“you don’t have any idea how many hours I and my team have spent on this,” Anderson said—it’s Papermaster who has to think of the future. When asked how long Zen would last, compared to Intel’s two-year tick-tock cadence, Papermaster confirmed the four-year lifespan and tapped the table in front of him: “We’re not going tick-tock,” he said. “Zen is going to be tock, tock, tock.”

 

[Harlequin]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...aster-than-current-x86-cores-zen-is-incoming/

not really a `new` thing?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...aster-than-current-x86-cores-zen-is-incoming/

not really a `new` thing?

If you read the article its a interview with key AMD people at CES. So from that we can say:
1.)Ryzen is going to be a hard launch
2.)Ryzen is going to have a four year lifespan
3.)AMD is going to release possibly three revisions of Ryzen,ie,once every year or so

None of that was in any previous articles or leaks AFAIK.

 

[Harlequin]

If you read the article its a interview with key AMD people at CES. So from that we can say:
1.)Ryzen is going to be a hard launch
2.)Ryzen is going to have a four year lifespan
3.)AMD is going to release possibly three revisions of Ryzen,ie,once every year or so

None of that was in any previous articles or leaks AFAIK.

Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, said that “Zen” x86 processor cores offer 40 per cent higher instructions per clock performance compared to “Excavator” x86 cores. Essentially, this means that AMD’s next-gen central processing units will be 40 per cent faster compared to existing CPUs at the same clock-rate. According to AMD, the follow-up for “Zen”, currently known as “Zen+” will offer even higher IPC throughput, which means major micro-architectural enhancements.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...hitecture-is-expected-to-last-four-years.html

With everything riding on Ryzen’s launch, AMD isn’t taking chances. Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics business, told PCWorld that Ryzen chips will be available from day one. “We’re not going to do a paper launch,” he said, referring to a “launch” where customers have to wait weeks or months for the products to actually arrive. “We’ve done that before. We’re not going to mess with it.”

While Anderson’s responsible for bringing Ryzen to market—“you don’t have any idea how many hours I and my team have spent on this,” Anderson said—it’s Papermaster who has to think of the future. When asked how long Zen would last, compared to Intel’s two-year tick-tock cadence, Papermaster confirmed the four-year lifespan and tapped the table in front of him: “We’re not going tick-tock,” he said. “Zen is going to be tock, tock, tock.”

Umm,so you just linked to an article,which does not say Ryzen will have a 4 year lifespan,does not say it will have three more revisions and does not say it will have a hard launch.

You just randomly linked to an article which said there would be one more revision. So,basically you have not read the article,and the quote just proved it.

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed that its next-generation high-performance x86 micro-architecture code-named “Zen” will power its leading-edge microprocessors in 2016. The company also revealed that its developers are already working on “Zen+” micro-architecture for its future processors.

Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, said that “Zen” x86 processor cores offer 40 per cent higher instructions per clock performance compared to “Excavator” x86 cores. Essentially, this means that AMD’s next-gen central processing units will be 40 per cent faster compared to existing CPUs at the same clock-rate. According to AMD, the follow-up for “Zen”, currently known as “Zen+” will offer even higher IPC throughput, which means major micro-architectural enhancements.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

“Excavator” is the pinnacle of “Bulldozer” micro-architecture, which was unveiled in 2011 and which has not managed to offer truly competitive performance compared to offerings from AMD’s arch-rival Intel Corp., partly because of its clustered multi-threading architecture that required sharing of floating point units by dual-core CPU modules.

By contrast, “Zen” micro-architecture will permit AMD to build microprocessors with powerful individual cores that support simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT). SMT lets multiple independent threads to be executed by available resources of one modern CPU core, thus maximizing peak performance.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

The new “Zen” cores will also feature completely redesigned high-bandwidth low-latency inclusive cache sub-system, which should tangibly boost single-thread performance of microprocessors.

40 per cent IPC improvement compared to “Excavator” does not automatically mean that AMD’s future chips will be 40 per cent faster than existing AMD FX microprocessors or AMD A10 accelerated processing units. Since the new chips may run at higher clock-rates, it is possible that they will be considerably faster than AMD’s contemporary CPUs and APUs. Alternatively, if the clock-rates are not high, the new products will show moderate performance improvements compared to today’s offerings.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_2

As expected, microprocessors powered by “Zen” micro-architecture – which are allegedly code-named “Summit Ridge”, “Bristol Ridge” and “Basilisk” – will be made using 14nm FinFET (14LPP, 14nm low-power plus) process technology at GlobalFoundries.

So no mention of the lifespan of Ryzen,no mention that it would have three revisions,and no mention the launch will be a hard launch. It only shows the roadmap to 2016/2017.

The interview has confirmed Ryzen will be replaced in 2021,and will have two further revisions after Zen+ which you would have known if you read the article.

That is confirmation AMD is trying to keep to a year cadence for Zen updates and that is straight from AMD,and not some rumour site.

The AMD Ryzen launch will be hard,meaning it won't be like some previous AMD launches like Kaveri where the A8 7600 took months to hit retail despite being sent out for review. That is from the horses mouth and is important for people waiting for Ryzen.

You have not read the article and are trying to save face by arguing for the sake of it. You are just burying this new tidbit of news which is what some want to happen.

 

[DragonQ]

It'll be interesting to see if Zen+ and its successors will be dribbling improvements like Intel has had recently or more substantial 15+% IPC gains across the board. I'd expect their SMT implementation to improve as well since it's their first shot at it. Clock speeds I'm not sure about, I doubt their 8 cores will go much further without a node shrink but the 4-6 cores maybe...depends how fast they go the first time around. That's one of the few things we have no info on yet.

 

[~>Dg<~]

of course they will.with each slightly faster revision they just slightly rename it.its been the same for both parties for how many years now.

 

[mmj_uk]

It'll be interesting to see if Zen+ and its successors will be dribbling improvements like Intel has had recently or more substantial 15+% IPC gains across the board.

Bulldozer > Piledriver > Steamroller > Excavator would have all been dribbling improvements had AMD not cut their losses at Piledriver.

Even if Intel continue to dribble criticising them for it is a bit silly as it's not them who needs a drastically better architecture. Intel made their most significant architectural jumps back with Core/Nehalem/Sandy and AMD have been floundering around ever since.

 

[opethdisciple]

What would really make the AM4 platform really attractive is if the incremental improvements they say will come over the life span of the platform which is 4 years, will be drop in compatible CPU's for existing AM4 boards.

That's something Intel presently cant do!

 

[Harlequin]

I wonder if it`ll be a £519 motherboard like the new Z270`s

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/shopware.php?sViewport=detail&sArticle=64773

 

[DarrenM343]

Super market prices haven't sky rocketed like computer part prices then you have

Uk Vat Rip off
overclockers profit margin
Exchange rate

SOme supermarket items have. Bought some Manuka Honey today and it was the best part of £5 more expensive than the last time I bought it I think back in May. I thought I had actually bought the higher grade stuff until I got home and realised it was the exact same grade

 

[Scramz]

I wonder if it`ll be a £519 motherboard like the new Z270`s

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/shopware.php?sViewport=detail&sArticle=64773

The industry has gone mad, I'm done.

 

[akarypid]

AMD confirms all RYZEN processors can be overclocked

AMD also announced that there will be several Ryzen models, models with perhaps 6 cores as well as 4 cores. According to a spokesman "a full range" will assist the launch, however if that is a quad-core model remains unknown for now. Ryzen also will not be a no paper launch, you will see full availability immediately. The latest rumors indicate late February as launch date.