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

[SniperDude]

But 8pack says otherwise I guess he dont play much games and only Overclocks? His words that games are not using more than single core "Mind Blown"

wonder why my cpu is at 100% from the second I start bf1 up then .....odd

 

[AlamoX]

 

[rtho782]

Why? Skylake and Kaby Lake are barely 3% better than Broadwell in terms of IPC.

My assessment came from the 5.7% IPC improvements over Haswell Anandtech quoted in the Skylake review. Harder to pin down IPC improvements over Broadwell as they basically didn't bother with it on the mainstream platform.

Sounds like you're forgetting about the 4c/6t and 6c/12t parts, which may clock slightly higher. Even if they don't and Kaby Lake has a near 1 GHz advantage, Ryzen will still be significantly cheaper.

They may well be, but we don't have them to compare yet! Right now, I think I'd stick with 7700k over the Ryzen parts we've got available.

Well it's obviously not going to be a mid 20% difference in real world FPS figures in games. As already mentioned, plenty of games can use extra cores, and even those that don't, the difference won't be as great as you say. Besides, although it's not necessary, the big bump you get de-lidding a 7700K is nice, but it obviously voids the warranty... so that needs to be factored in. I HATE that you have to do this to get the best performance from it, and on principle alone it's made me stay well clear of Kaby. Intel just p*ss me off generally with their pricing... I'd far rather support AMD personally, Intel need a wake up call.

Hence why I was working on 4.8GHz not 5GHz. But yes it's annoying that it needs doing.

 

[ubersonic]

Silent Scone deserves an apology from a few people I feel

Yeah, he was right about 2666Mhz RAM being the absolute limit on Ryzen, he was right about nobody being able to OC the CPU over 4GHz, and when the time comes I'm sure he will follow through on his promise to give away his computer to the first person to OC the RAM to 3866Mhz or higher

 

[drunkenmaster]

Ignoring any exchange rate fluctuations for a minute,we really need a shake up in pricing. Look at the current Intel range - under £175 is just dual cores with HT!!

If you told people during the SB days we would be paying more for a Core i3 K series CPU in a few years than a Core i5 2500K in the UK they would have thought you were being a tad potty.

Edit!!

All this obsession about single core performance is what Intel wants,so they can price smaller and smaller CPUs ever higher. Its important,but its not the only metric when it comes to game performance.

When you look at pricing over the years. Way back when Intel tried insane pricing on the Q6xxx chips, the Q6600 which most people knew as epic value, launched at something like $850, consumers said **** *** Intel and within like 3 or 4 months that chip was $250 or so which at the time was like £170. This is what happens when consumers actually use their purchasing power. Costs for Intel did not drop by 2/3rds in the space of 3 months, literally zero chance of that. That was Intel trying to take the micky and being told by the consumer quite literally go **** yourself. It would be great if consumers actually realised they had this power, always had this power and started using this power.

£170 super fast single cores, these were replaced on a new node by £170 dual cores, then they were replaced with faster dual cores at the same price, then we got quad cores, again at the same prices, then we got faster quads at about the same price, even cheaper. I got a 2500k I'm fairly sure for £135, though I think that was maybe about peak pound power so probably similar real cost to the Q6600. Then we got, not much faster quads... for a noticeably higher cost... when did that happen, and why, and why didn't consumers just say no to it? THe Q6600 was actually a genuinely great chip and a large performance bump from previous chips but the cost was so bad consumers said no, but a few years later we get 5-10% bump 3rd or 4th gen quads with which the cost went up loads and consumers didn't say no.

Now we are literally back to £180 dual cores from Intel.... and the consumer still kept saying yes, kept making excuses. There is no competition, competition doesn't set prices, consumer does. Again there was a time that a genuinely next gen, much faster, quad core chip was $800 and the consumer forced it to $250 after a few months of bad sales because the price was too high. Now somehow dual cores have gone from the what £30-100 bracket they used to occupy, to £180 from Intel and the consumer just accepted it.

The other thing I just noticed which Adored has pointed out on his latest video is that actually...AMD made a booboo in the marketing slides looking at the footnotes. Ryzen is NOT 52% faster than Excavator clock per clock...it's 64%. 52% was Piledriver!

Not sure if that was a deliberate slip up to further obfusticate performance but hey...more performance!

I'm fairly sure what actually was said is that it's AT LEAST 52% faster. Basically if you compare Zen to Excavator, the absolute slower it is, is 52% faster clock for clock, it's seemingly up to 78% faster in one benchmark, though I forget which benchmark.

 

[gavinh87]

So close to pulling the trigger on a 1700x/matx board.

 

[Gibbo]

Yeah, he was right about 2666Mhz RAM being the absolute limit on Ryzen, he was right about nobody being able to OC the CPU over 4GHz, and when the time comes I'm sure he will follow through on his promise to give away his computer to the first person to OC the RAM to 3866Mhz or higher

Maybe I am missing some inside forum joke, but on the Crosshair board we are already at 3000MHz memory (A2/B2 channels) and over 4GHz on 1700 CPU.

 

[ubersonic]

Maybe I am missing some inside forum joke, but on the Crosshair board we are already at 3000MHz memory (A2/B2 channels) and over 4GHz on 1700 CPU.

I was being sarcastic, of course he was wrong about the RAM/CPU speeds

Gibbo will you be emailing out invoices for Ryzen purchases as normal or waiting until the stock arrives/ships before sending them? (Noctua require an invoice for an AM4 mobo to send out a fitting kit).

 

[SniperDude]

To be fair this has loads more settings than other software based OC tool

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_ryzen_master_overclocking_utility_detailed/1

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I'm fairly sure what actually was said is that it's AT LEAST 52% faster. Basically if you compare Zen to Excavator, the absolute slower it is, is 52% faster clock for clock, it's seemingly up to 78% faster in one benchmark, though I forget which benchmark.

It said this, but showed Excavator on screen when the figure was present, ergo creates a slightly false expectation, when you look at the footnotes greater clarity is given, and its not something most tech sites seem to have picked up on. I figured its an interesting point; if nothing else it shows us how behind previous AMD architectures were.

 

[Armageus]

Now we are literally back to £180 dual cores from Intel.... and the consumer still kept saying yes, kept making excuses. There is no competition, competition doesn't set prices, consumer does.

Now somehow dual cores have gone from the what £30-100 bracket they used to occupy, to £180 from Intel and the consumer just accepted it..

Which is fine if there was a valid alternative. If there is no alternative, and you need to buy a new processor (e.g. your motherboard failed, and pointless ploughing dead money into an old socket / used board), then what do you do... just not buy one and go without?


It's irrelevant anyway, as retail consumers we are probably only a tiny share of processors sold - so it's unlikely that any change in buying habit makes much difference (certainly to Intel). Maybe because in general the PC market slowed - meaning less OEM PCs sold = less CPUs sold = Intel wanted to charge more?

 

[harney]

Games are in the main not using the multi core at all. Single core IPC is king in games.

?

 

[alexp999]

With current gen consoles running on 8 cores (games get 6 or 7 allocated to them), multi platform games should easily be able to make use of the modern CPUs.

I have held on to my 4770K much longer than any CPU I have had previously as it's felt like there has been no worthy upgrade. I'd still be on my 3770K if my dad hadn't wanted to upgrade his.

The last AMD CPU I had which was any good was my 1090T, I tried a bull dozer CPU and it was awful so chopped it in for the 3770K when it came out.

Can't wait to get my Ryzen now.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Which is fine if there was a valid alternative. If there is no alternative, and you need to buy a new processor (e.g. your motherboard failed, and pointless ploughing dead money into an old socket / used board), then what do you do... just not buy one and go without?


It's irrelevant anyway, as retail consumers we are probably only a tiny share of processors sold - so it's unlikely that any change in buying habit makes much difference (certainly to Intel). Maybe because in general the PC market slowed - meaning less OEM PCs sold = less CPUs sold = Intel wanted to charge more?

That is yet more excuse making, how many people have a dead system, so basically no computer, desperately need one and HAVE to buy today?

The massive majority of people buying have the option not to, this is what happened with the Q6600, despite being a great chip people said no to it. That includes ALL consumers. When you had a Dell computer that was going for $2k because it had a $850 cpu in it, consumers weren't buying that Dell computer, nor were enthusiasts buying it from OCUK, etc. Consumers means everyone, no one was buying at those prices and Intel tanked them within a couple of months.

AS for people who literally have to have a working computer, again, nothing stopping you buying a £50 AMD mobo and £65 quad core APU. If people bought that £65 quad core APU instead of £180 dual core APUs... guess what happens to the £180 chips price?

Consumers have ALL the power, but as you have they make lots of excuses for why they have to buy today and have to buy the best and give away all their power.

Nvidia just keep jacking prices up, I guarantee you that if no one bought the 1080 at £600, price would have come down, if no one bought a Titan X at is it £1000 or £1200, honestly can't remember, $1200 maybe(?), price would come down. Nvidia kept jacking up prices till they tried the Titan Z for $3000, didn't sell and was $2000 within a couple of months, magic... or maybe a very simple basic fact, if you don't accept bad pricing.... it will absolutely come down. Intel wants SALES more than anything else, if you deny them sales because their pricing is bad they drop prices to get sales up, this is how the world works, it's how capitalism has literally always worked. What I don't understand is how people make excuses to pretend it doesn't work like that and how they've forgotten it's always worked like that.

 

[jigger]

Yeah, he was wrong about 2666Mhz RAM being the absolute limit on Ryzen, he was wrong about nobody being able to OC the CPU over 4GHz, and when the time comes I'm sure he will follow through on his promise to give away his computer to the first person to OC the RAM to 3866Mhz or higher

Fixed.

 

[humbug]

Don't read too much into this but two screen-shots with the game scene identical

6900K 73 FPS - RyZen 85 FPS (+17%)

6900K 74 FPS - RyZen 98 FPS (+33%)

 

[Akagi]

I think 8 Pack just overclocks, bench presses bottles of LN2, overclocks, benchmarks, chugs protein shakes, overclocks, benches, bench presses, and overclocks.

No time for games.

 

[Bonjour]

Starting to feel a little like the A64 launch again. Let's hope it holds up past launch..

 

[badgeruk]

Trying to resist buying a 1800X and a MSI carbon mobo along with an m.2 drive at the moment. First new pc in 5 years (good old 2600k still going strong) so I want a new shiny for no real reason.

 

[Armageus]

That is yet more excuse making, how many people have a dead system, so basically no computer, desperately need one and HAVE to buy today?

People who only have a single computer at home? It's okay though, I'll just wait 2 financial quarters until Intel realise I won't buy at current prices!

Me at work if my boss suddenly decides to employ 20 more people and we need computers tomorrow? It's OK will just tell him to delay people starting for 6 months until PC prices come down!

AS for people who literally have to have a working computer, again, nothing stopping you buying a £50 AMD mobo and £65 quad core APU. If people bought that £65 quad core APU instead of £180 dual core APUs... guess what happens to the £180 chips price?

Except the £50 AMD mobos had poor feature sets compared to the Intel offerings, and the £65 Quad core APU wasn't really competitive (*hint because otherwise the world would be full of them and it isn't)