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

In the end if someone is doing a build and the AMD equivalent of a Core i7 7700K is £100 cheaper,it most likely will be chosen instead of a Core i7 7700K,since £100 is almost the difference between a £250 GTX1060 6GB/RX480 8GB and a GTX1070.

Even at the lowest end,Intel has a £175 Core i3 K series - it only literally takes AMD to have a £175 unlocked Ryzen 4C CPU with the Wraith cooler at that price to make half the review sites wax lyrical on how much better it is,especially when they say the Core i5 7600K might be faster but costs £65 more and you need to purchase a cooler.

Then lets look at the Intel 4C competition at £175 - the Core i5 7400 which is locked and has very low clockspeeds and comes with the very basic Intel stock cooler.

This is OFC assuming BW-E level IPC and clockspeeds above 3.4GHZ - if IPC is actually worse then the price has to be lower.

The only way I can see Ryzen being cheaper than the prices I suggested is if Intel prepares some proactive price cuts before it is launched.

Edit!!

I am not saying AMD might do a CPU version of an HD4870 moment with Ryzen but I would be surprised if that was the case TBH!
 
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I'm sorry but I just don't understand how an 8c/8t ryzen is sensible option, it just seems like nonsense. If your normal yield gives a 2:1 Core to Thread yield just what has to go wrong for that to change to a 1:1 ratio across the whole chip?

If they have got this uber amazing overclocking microcode that can adjust individual cores dynamically like they are saying then turning 2 cores off completely should be much simpler and allow them to adjust for a defect almost anywhere on the wafer.

Doesn't that just make more sense?

Obviously I know nothing just like almost everyone else - other than the one article that seems to be more guess than fact does anyone have any other inside info on the existence of an 8c/8t SKU?
 
Nothing has to "go wrong" for an 8c/8t chip to be available. If they think there is demand for it at a price point that they can make profit at, they will produce them. For example, having 3 tiers instead of 2 allows your highest tier to be more expensive whilst not pricing out people who can't afford it (since they can go for the middle tier product instead).
 
DragonQ said:
Nothing has to "go wrong" for an 8c/8t chip to be available. If they think there is demand for it at a price point that they can make profit at, they will produce them. For example, having 3 tiers instead of 2 allows your highest tier to be more expensive whilst not pricing out people who can't afford it (since they can go for the middle tier product instead).
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I get that, but I would have just thought there would be even more demand for a 6 core 12 thread and my limited understanding of chip yields is that you would be using chips that couldn't quite make the 8 core 16 thread full fat version as 6 core 12 thread options which would increase your margins.

I don't know if the article is based from a real source or is #TrumpFact but it is claiming that there will be no 6 core chip and that the 8c8t version is the only middle tier.

I get that if priced correctly an 8c 8t version could be amazing from a thermal perspective and become the budget gamers / overclockers target chip.

What I don't buy is the rhetoric that they are dropping the 6 core when there seemed to be a lot more pointing at that chip already existing.

4 ish weeks until the veil parts.
 
humbug said:
£250 for their 8c 8t is twice as much as their current 8c 8t, they don't need to go 3 times with their pricing to turn healthy profits.

We are too used to Intel's CPU pricing strategy, we have lost all sense of reality, I can buy a brand new 4K TV for £350, 55" one for £430... In a Brexit climate
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If AMD went mad and decided to price their chips 1/2 much as the Intel equivalent, and didn't have enough supply to meet demand, then you'd simply have retailers like OcUK selling well above RRP. You still wouldn't get your cheap CPU.

Thew new prices are the new reality. It's "what the market will bear". You don't drop prices for the sake of being generous, when you only have 1 competitor.
 
FoxEye said:
If AMD went mad and decided to price their chips 1/2 much as the Intel equivalent, and didn't have enough supply to meet demand, then you'd simply have retailers like OcUK selling well above RRP. You still wouldn't get your cheap CPU.

Thew new prices are the new reality. It's "what the market will bear". You don't drop prices for the sake of being generous, when you only have 1 competitor.
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You didn't read all of what i'm saying, £350+ for the mid tier Zen will not sell when the 6800K and presumably the 7800K is £400.

To suggest AMD will win much needed Intel users with that sort of 'near Intel' pricing is ridiculous.
 
I'd be happy with an 8 core Ryzen without SMT if there's no 6 Core Ryzens released. Atleast it will be better than a 4 core 8 thread Intel CPU.
 
Beren said:
I get that, but I would have just thought there would be even more demand for a 6 core 12 thread
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Why? IIRC tests reviewers did on intel chips a while back comparing core count/HT showed an Intel hex core with HT disabled beating quad core with HT enabled. So I would assume a 8c8t CPU with comparable IPC to a 6c12t Intel one should give it a run for it's money.
 
ubersonic said:
Yes it was, that was one of their main selling points lol.

When I bought the Athlon XP 2200 it was ~ the same price as the 1.8Ghz Pentium IV.
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Here is the AT and TR launch reviews of the Athlon 64:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1164
http://techreport.com/review/5683/amd-athlon-64-processor

AMD originally planned for all Athlon 64 chips to be based on ClawHammer, while Opteron workstation/server processors would be based on Sledge. Turns out, though, AMD has decided to intro a top-of-the-line desktop chip with a dual-channel memory controller called the Athlon 64 FX. (Somebody phone NVIDIA marketing!) This chip is essentially a remarked Opteron running at 2.2GHz. To be more specific, the 2.2GHz flavor is dubbed "Athlon 64 FX-51", and it gets no other designation. FX-51. That's it. AMD figures the folks who will be willing to cough up the $733 list price for this baby will know how it performs from having read publications like this one, so there will be no Pentium 4 equivalency games played here.

If you want to play those games, you can pick up a non-FX Athlon 64 like the Athlon 64 3200+. These ClawHammer-based products have a 64-bit path to memory and come in the 754-pin package originally intended for all Athlon 64s. AMD will initially be selling the Athlon 64 3200+, which runs at 2GHz, for $417—a veritable bargain compared to the FX model.
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People have very short memories - the Athlon 64 launched with only two SKUs and the cheapest was $417 and the other one was $733.

Here is a UK based review:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/625-amd-athlon64-fx-51/

Edit!!

I still remember the street prices of the Barton XP series could be high for certain SKUs,and it could be not massively lower than what Intel had at the time.

So that's the thing,AMD will price it lower,but realistically if they hit BW-E level IPC,I can't see them magically offering an 8C/8T Ryzen for the same price as a 4C Kaby Lake or Skylake CPU.Even then an 8C/8T Ryzen at the current Core i7 7700K pricing would still make the latter look relatively overpriced for what it is IMHO OFC.

I can see them offering 8C/8T at around 4C/8T and 6C/12T level Intel pricing(which are very close together) and only because Intel will have a bit better IPC and probably will overclock a bit better.

People need to consider Intel is still making better margins on a 4C/8T Kaby Lake CPU than AMD with a 8C/8T Ryzen which will be significantly larger.
 
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Hi, I would have thought Zen 8c could be a similar die size to Kaby lake. If you look at die shoots of Kaby lake the graphics core takes up about the same as the CPU cores and cache. So without graphics 8c would be similar. Kaby and Zen are both on 14nm, about the same L3 cache per core. Zen will have more interfaces to the outside world but Kaby does have some. My 2 pence.
 
So, AMD had that investor call thingy for Q4 results and in the call they said that Ryzen will start selling in early March.

EDIT: They also said that the APU launching in 2nd half 2017 will be a high-end chip meant for 2-in-1 type notebooks. So, mobile workstation kind of thing?
 
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