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

[Yutang13]

Yeah I saw that,when was announced.
- 16 Power Phase design
- Supports 300W EX OC

But lets wait until the reviews come out to see if these are of same quality as the ones used on the Z170 Formula OC I have.
Because if so, that's way more than the 12 phases the ROG Hero is using, and everyone who buys that board (Taichi), should find EK Luc in here, and demand a monoblock

Yeah, the Taichi is set up as 12+4, don't know what the 4 is powering, there's no IGPU to power or even display outputs yet the manual shows there are options for adjusting the Igpu voltage...
The Crosshair does have an extra 4 pin power connector on the top though.
In this case if the crosshair uses all 12 for Vcore the better VRM will be the one with better FETs which obviously we have no clue about.

 

[Concrete]

Thats the issue though - top end SKUs have never really overclocked that well for quite a few years,since even Intel has now essentially launched pre-overclocked versions of chips in the Core i7 4790K and Core i7 7700K.

The biggest OC amounts have come from CPUs which have been clocked low,ie,the G3258 and those BCLK overclocked Core i5 6400 chips.

On the AMD side look at the FX8300 - it can hit nearly 1GHZ past its base clock looking at some reviews.

Its the same with graphics cards,I remember getting a big performance jump overclocking my HD5850 to nearly 1GHZ,but now companies are more willing to use clockspeed headroom on graphics to bump up performance so they could charge more.

Overclocking came from overclocking cheap parts to hit the performance of more expensive ones,but as time progressed companies have made sure it is harder and harder to do.

In my experience the FX series could O/C well across the board, IF you had a motherboard with decent VRMs.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Yeah I saw that,when was announced.
- 16 Power Phase design
- Supports 300W EX OC

But lets wait until the reviews come out to see if these are of same quality as the ones used on the Z170 Formula OC I have.
Because if so, that's way more than the 12 phases the ROG Hero is using, and everyone who buys that board (Taichi), should find EK Luc in here, and demand a monoblock

16 phases seems excessive, especially given the Hero only has 12 and is currently the overclocking board of choice. It sets out to confuse people. With 16 phases they're almost definitely multiplexing which has some ramifications also with that many phases, but I've not seen the Asrock boards.

 

[five8five]

Yeah, the Taichi is set up as 12+4, don't know what the 4 is powering, there's no IGPU to power or even display outputs yet the manual shows there are options for adjusting the Igpu voltage...
The Crosshair does have an extra 4 pin power connector on the top though.
In this case if the crosshair uses all 12 for Vcore the better VRM will be the one with better FETs which obviously we have no clue about.

For future processor support?

 

[drunkenmaster]

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-02/cpu-skalierung-kerne-spiele-test/#diagramm-watch-dogs-2-fps

The different games are from a drop down menu on the graph on that page. Of all those games, a high clocked 7700k beats the Intel 6/8/10 cores I think one time out of all of those games in the most CPU limited scenarios.

Modern gaming more cores beats a 7700k almost every single time. Without clicking through them all again the 7700k is faster than lower clocked but more core Broadwell-E in everything but Witcher 3, where the circa 1Ghz higher clocks in some cases are giving it a full 1fps difference or so.

More cores beats higher clocks for gaming in most circumstances these days. Also lets not forget, a 3 or 3.4Ghz base chip overclocking to 4Ghz (for all cores) is a larger clock speed gain than a 4.3Ghz chip overclocking to 5Ghz in terms of percentage and the performance improvement you can expect.

When Bulldozer came out single core beat more threads with ease, the idea was games would go 4-8 threads fairly soon, they didn't, but today, games that can use more than 4 threads are extremely common and to the degree that a lot of games are genuinely faster on more than 4 cores. For something like F1 2016 the gap between the 7700k and the gap was almost 25% to the lower clocked 6 core.

This is also at 720/1080p, if you up quality or up resolution the gaps will shrink and there will be even less difference, but the 7700k is not at all the king of modern gaming, when it's ahead, its sub 2% ahead, when it's behind it's up to 25% behind.


EDIT:- actually considering the clock speeds of a 1800x vs a 6900k or 6950k, it might well be that the 1800x is actually the king of gaming until Skylake-x which is rumoured to be more than just 8 of the same cores as desktop, but an architecture change(if true, why the name I have absolutely no idea).

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In my experience the FX series could O/C well across the board, IF you had a motherboard with decent VRMs.

It depends on the binning - if a 3GHZ base clockspeed R7 1700 can hit 3.8GHZ to 4.0GHZ that is around a 30% overclock there. If an R7 1800X could even hit 4.2GHZ it would only be a 5% increase.

This is why if you overclock you get a bigger percentage improvement buying a lower end SKU,even if it can't always hit the same max clockspeeds as the top model.

Edit!!

Its like the FX8320 and FX8350 - in percentage terms the FX8320 was a better overclocker IIRC.

 

[Bonjour]

I loved my 8320, OCd to 4.6 on a Gigabyte FX990. My computer has seemed somewhat dull since I replaced it with a 4790k.

 

[jigger]

16 phases seems excessive, especially given the Hero only has 12 and is currently the overclocking board of choice

But back in the real world the boards haven't been released yet. So...

 

[Troezar]

Aren't all these concerns a bit academic? I've just watched a comparison with 1800X and 6900K running Sniper Elite. Seemed quite clear 8c V 8c there is only a few percent in it and for approx half the cost.

 

[Yutang13]

For future processor support?

I don't know the board has no display outputs so that kinda renders it useless. Maybe in a future version of the taichi it'll have display outputs and until then is just a marketing number.

 

[Legend]

Aren't all these concerns a bit academic? I've just watched a comparison with 1800X and 6900K running Sniper Elite. Seemed quite clear 8c V 8c there is only a few percent in it and for approx half the cost.

Indeed. 1800X or even 1700X makes a million times more sense than a 6900K... I can't fathom how a single one will be sold now (at its current price), unless someone is just totally in the dark as to the existence of Ryzen (how??), or has some sort of vendetta against AMD.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

People forget that Ryzen APUs will be released too.

 

[jigger]

Aren't all these concerns a bit academic? I've just watched a comparison with 1800X and 6900K running Sniper Elite. Seemed quite clear 8c V 8c there is only a few percent in it and for approx half the cost.

Pretty much. Unless Intel drop prices by 60% and migrate everything to a single socket, it's a non contest.

 

[Journey]

I like to read manuals for products if possible - but the only AM4 motherboards I've found manuals for are those for gigabyte - has anyone else found any others online (asus/asrock had none and I've not checked out msi yet).

Here's the manual for the ASRock Taichi that I've ordered.

ftp://europe.asrock.com/Manual/X370%20Taichi.pdf

 

[FrozenShivers]

Any idea when you'll have matx boards in? Excited to see what they're like

 

[drunkenmaster]

It depends on the binning - if a 3GHZ base clockspeed R7 1700 can hit 3.8GHZ to 4.0GHZ that is around a 30% overclock there. If an R7 1800X could even hit 4.2GHZ it would only be a 5% increase.

This is why if you overclock you get a bigger percentage improvement buying a lower end SKU,even if it can't always hit the same max clockspeeds as the top model.

Edit!!

Its like the FX8320 and FX8350 - in percentage terms the FX8320 was a better overclocker IIRC.

Personally I've always hated the % overclock thing in terms of, if someone says X cpu was the best overclocker because it overclocked 60%, only because they used a ridiculously cut down model being sold on the cheap. To me, the silicon is the silicon. So to me the base clock of the 1700 is underclocked to 3Ghz from 3.6GHz that the silicon is capable of. SO if you overclock a 1800X or a 1700 to 4Ghz on all cores, it's a 400Mhz overclock, just on the 1700 the underclock is removed, then the overclock added.

 

[Journey]

I like to read manuals for products if possible - but the only AM4 motherboards I've found manuals for are those for gigabyte - has anyone else found any others online (asus/asrock had none and I've not checked out msi yet).

In fact here's the links for the rest of the ASROck motherboards, just in case you are bored

Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4 - Linky HERE!

Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming - Linky HERE!

X370 Killer SLI - Linky HERE!

X370 Killer SLI/ac - Linky HERE!

 

[Nelly]

Here's the manual for the ASRock Taichi that I've ordered.

ftp://europe.asrock.com/Manual/X370%20Taichi.pdf

Notice the error on the ASRock website; In the overview it shows Intel I219V Gigabit Lan, however, in the specification section it states LAN - GigaLAN Intel® I211AT, which is the same as the manual.

I think the overview diagram needs altering. Not that it's a big deal, but I've e-mailed ASRock webmaster to correct it.

 

[Panos]

Notice the error on the ASRock website; In the overview it shows Intel I219V Gigabit Lan, however, in the specification section it states LAN - GigaLAN Intel® I211AT, which is the same as the manual.

I think the overview diagram needs altering. Not that it's a big deal, but I've e-mailed ASRock webmaster to correct it.

Same should apply to the CF bridge need
Anyone who buys X370 and Ryzen doesn't have 7970 or earlier card

 

[FredFlint]

Indeed. 1800X or even 1700X makes a million times more sense than a 6900K... I can't fathom how a single one will be sold now (at its current price), unless someone is just totally in the dark as to the existence of Ryzen (how??), or has some sort of vendetta against AMD.

I would be tempted to get one(6900k) as it’s a drop-in replacement and I could sell my 5930k, it would need to drop in price to about £650 though.