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

[SilverShark]

Yeah 1700 is running cooler in my testing by 10-15c at least depending on application or load.

Ok wow thats hard.
And just because I read it on this page... this AMD master tool worth to use over BIOS OCing?

 

[8 Pack]

7700K and even 7600K with OC is better choice for most games though....... all CPU have different strength and weakness.

I know the ASUS engineers running this Crosshair Hero project.

Really AMD should have polished this product a lot more before launch in my eyes and ensured the vendors had appropriate time lines to produce boards to fully do the CPUs justice. AMD should also have ensured the vendors have enough time to make enough boards so as no shortage at launch.

 

[Lokken86]

No, you can only play games on Intel's quad cores remember. Remember to set to 720P and aim for 250FPS low graphical settings. That's the only way to play games.

We must all remember Synthetics, real world programs situations. Benchmarks, workstation and pricing oh and TDP stuff are irrelevant, Intel wins at 720P at that is the ONLY thing that counts.

Amen.

 

[loxocemus]

i saw this on a anandtech thread, is it true re smt?

"
Combined you can see, clearly, what is happening and most of the reviews make sense.

A Windows driver update to treat each CCX almost as if it were its own CPU will help immensely. The SMT problem is likely PERMANENT... unless AMD can adjust the partitioning with microcode, which I doubt."

 

[RavenXXX2]

Really AMD should have polished this product a lot more before launch in my eyes and ensured the vendors had appropriate time lines to produce boards to fully do the CPUs justice. AMD should also have ensured the vendors have enough time to make enough boards so as no shortage at launch.

Quoted for truth.

 

[loxocemus]

This car sales man kills me but he does a fantastic job selling it to us

i keep staring at his teeth, i try not to, but i do, they draw me in, its weird.

 

[humbug]

7700K and even 7600K with OC is better choice for most games though....... all CPU have different strength and weakness.

I know the ASUS engineers running this Crosshair Hero project.

Really AMD should have polished this product a lot more before launch in my eyes and ensured the vendors had appropriate time lines to produce boards to fully do the CPUs justice. AMD should also have ensured the vendors have enough time to make enough boards so as no shortage at launch.

Ryzen seems to be performing somewhat less than its supposed to in games because of various things, Motherboard BIOS, Windows treating virtual cores as logical, Windows parking cores its not supposed to, and so on.
We don't really know the final performance of these chips yet but Joker Productions is one of a few with a more refined board BIOS and he is more often that not getting results matching a 5Ghz 7700K with a 3.9Ghz 1700, i think thats more realistic given a lot of the latest games make use of lighting, post render effects and physics that are very CPU threaded.

As it is now the 7700K is clearly quicker, but 7600K not i think, the 7700K does get beaten even by the 1700 is some games while the 7700K beats the 7600K in most games, It has not been tested much but i think even now with the Ryzen chip being in 'Alpha stage post release' is mostly quicker than the 7600K.

As for the launch in its self, its difficult, this is a brand new architecture, windows has not even had a patch for it yet which means its treating it either as a Bulldozer CPU or an Intel one, Windows does not understand the chip, Motherboard vendors have not yet had the time to perfect their firware.
Tho i do think AMD could have done better to mitigate that and they would have had better gaming results had they, but lets not take away from what AMD did here, this is an incredible CPU.

It will get another chance when the 4 and 6 cores chips get reviewed on more mature boards and Windows OS.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

i saw this on a anandtech thread, is it true re smt?

"
Combined you can see, clearly, what is happening and most of the reviews make sense.

A Windows driver update to treat each CCX almost as if it were its own CPU will help immensely. The SMT problem is likely PERMANENT... unless AMD can adjust the partitioning with microcode, which I doubt."

This is the post:

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...and-discussion.2499879/page-107#post-38771400

Causes of poor gaming relative to CPU performance of Ryzen:

1. Windows is load-balancing across CCXes.
This means that a thread is being moved around on the CPU - which is normal - so that a single core isn't used more than others. On Ryzen, that needs to happen ONLY within a CCX, otherwise you will incur a massive penalty when that thread no longer finds its data in the caches of the CCX.

2. SMT hurts single threaded performance due to shared structure.
Ryzen statically partitions three structures to support SMT:
a. Micro-op queue (dispatcher)
b. Retirement queue
c. Store queue

This means that, with SMT enabled, these resources are cut, potentially, in HALF (mind you, these are just queues that impact throughput of a single thread).

3. Memory latency quirks still not worked out.
Gaming can be quite sensitive to memory latency and bandwidth. These issues will be, most likely, remedied with BIOS updates.

Combined you can see, clearly, what is happening and most of the reviews make sense.

A Windows driver update to treat each CCX almost as if it were its own CPU will help immensely. The SMT problem is likely PERMANENT... unless AMD can adjust the partitioning with microcode, which I doubt.

What this all means is simple: once the Windows update has landed, BIOSes are patched up, and SMT is disabled, an 8-core Ryzen will likely be competitive with a quad i7 in gaming while blowing past it in multi-threaded. If all you do is game, then the 1700 may well become a very valid option that will work increasingly better in future games.

This also lets us know where Zen 2 will be able to improve the most. Make the impacted queues competitively shared (or just a little larger), improve inter-CCX communications, decouple the L3 speed from core speeds (for higher core clocks), and a few other relatively simple tweaks and you have a second generation Ryzen that steals the show.

We also know why AMD hasn't released anything other than their 8-core chips - these issues need to be ironed out in production. You need thousands of eyes and testers and numerous companies each responding to their customers' needs to get a grip on what is most important to fix before finalizing Zen 2.

 

[gavinh87]

The results for ryzen gaming really aren't that bad. As per the PC gamer review tested at 1080P with a GTX 1080: http://www.pcgamer.com/the-amd-ryzen-7-review/5/
With 14 games tested: Ashes of the singularity|BF1|CIV6|deus ex|the division|doom|fallout 4|far cry primal|GTA V|hitman|rise of the tomb raider|shadow warrior 2|total war warhammer|the witcher 3.

Out of all these games the 1800x (which any ryzen chip can reach) with SMT off was only 6.94 fps behind on average over those 14 games.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The results for ryzen gaming really aren't that bad. As per the PC gamer review tested at 1080P with a GTX 1080: http://www.pcgamer.com/the-amd-ryzen-7-review/5/
With 14 games tested: Ashes of the singularity|BF1|CIV6|deus ex|the division|doom|fallout 4|far cry primal|GTA V|hitman|rise of the tomb raider|shadow warrior 2|total war warhammer|the witcher 3.

Out of all these games the 1800x (which any ryzen chip can reach) with SMT off was only 6.94 fps behind on average over those 14 games.

The FO4 results are definitely not in a city or a largish settlement,though - performance in that game can hit real issues once you enter a larger settlement(or areas of Far Harbor for example). Plus the major issue is when you start building things using the settlement system,especially when they actually allow to use logic gates to make factories,etc. In fact its one of the games which people could use as a poster child to buy an overpriced Kaby Lake CPU.

Its why I was quite excited Bethesda and AMD are working together to push Vulkan into their games. The next Elder Scrolls really could use it as even Skyrim can be pretty terrible on CPUs at times.

 

[Scramz]

1700 - 10 mins runs with Realbench stress test temps with Noctua NH-U12S

Spoiler: 3.6Ghz @ 1.088v - Peaked @ 45 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.7Ghz @ 1.176v - Peaked @ 53 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.8Ghz @ 1.232v - Peaked @ 56 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.9Ghz @ 1.312v - Peaked @ 62 degrees.

These chips are getting more and more impressive.

What do you people think I should sit on for 24/7?

 

[gavinh87]

The FO4 results are definitely not in a city or a largish settlement,though - performance in that game can hit real issues once you enter a larger settlement(or areas of Far Harbor for example). Plus the major issue is when you start building things using the settlement system,especially when they actually allow to use logic gates to make factories,etc. In fact its one of the games which people could use as a poster child to buy an overpriced Kaby Lake CPU.

Its why I was quite excited Bethesda and AMD are working together to push Vulkan into their games. The next Elder Scrolls really could use as even Skyrim can be pretty terrible on CPUs at times.

They may well not be. But thats not to say it will perform any worse than intel does in that same scenario. I've never played fallout or skyrim but I'd imagine it would affect CPU's all the same, not just one.

 

[gavinh87]

1700 - 10 mins runs with Realbench stress test temps with Noctua NH-U12S

Spoiler: 3.6Ghz @ 1.088v - Peaked @ 45 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.7Ghz @ 1.176v - Peaked @ 53 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.8Ghz @ 1.232v - Peaked @ 56 degrees.

Spoiler: 3.9Ghz @ 1.312v - Peaked @ 62 degrees.

These chips are getting more and more impressive.

What do you people think I should sit on for 24/7?

I see no reason not to stick with 3.9 if you are happy with those temps. I would be.

 

[Scramz]

I see no reason not to stick with 3.9 if you are happy with those temps. I would be.

Is 100Mhz worth the extra nearly 0.1 volts and temps?

 

[DragonQ]

I see no reason not to stick with 3.9 if you are happy with those temps. I would be.

I remember being happy with anything sub-90 with my i7-920.

Is 100Mhz worth the extra nearly 0.1 volts and temps?

Depends. Maybe try some benchmarks in your most used applications and decide if it makes sufficient difference.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They may well not be. But thats not to say it will perform any worse than intel does in that same scenario. I've never played fallout or skyrim but I'd imagine it would affect CPU's all the same, not just one.

Well Sweclockers put my CPU above an R7 1800X in the Diamond City area,which is more intensive(the FPS is also lower than the review you linked to),but once I started building larger and larger settlements,and even started modding,the CPU gets hammered. There are also logic gate bits which come in the DLCs which enable you to actually build factories and mods expand on that. It can be almost like playing Minecraft,an FPS and a RPG(well light RPG game) all in one. For some reason Skylake seems to do very well in it and the Broadwell CPUs with L4 cache.

Don't get me wrong if you don't really get into building anything more than a basic settlement,or don't push a certain class of mods(again mostly around building and settlements),or the ones which affect the number of NPCs in the world, even an FX6300 or FX8320 probably will be fine,and by extension an R7 1800X.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Its why I was quite excited Bethesda and AMD are working together to push Vulkan into their games. The next Elder Scrolls really could use it as even Skyrim can be pretty terrible on CPUs at times.

Speaking of Vulkan, Ryzen is doing rather well in DOOM Vulkan compared to the i7 line.
Note all the CPUs are at stock speeds

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/4/#diagramm-doom-vulkan-fps

It's worth paging through those games, you can really see that it shines in some games, and falls down in others; and by fall down, it's more like diving face first off a 50 story building.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03.../#diagramm-battlefield-1-dx11-multiplayer-fps

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/4/#diagramm-the-witcher-3-fps

 

[gavinh87]

Is 100Mhz worth the extra nearly 0.1 volts and temps?

Only you can decide that, we don't know what you use your PC for. However if it was mine and its costing me nothing for extra performance then why not?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Speaking of Vulkan, Ryzen is doing rather well in DOOM Vulkan compared to the i7 line.
Note all the CPUs are at stock speeds

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/4/#diagramm-doom-vulkan-fps

It's worth paging through those games, you can really see that it shines in some games, and falls down in others.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03.../#diagramm-battlefield-1-dx11-multiplayer-fps

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/4/#diagramm-the-witcher-3-fps

If the next Elder Scrolls gets Vulkan,it would be like a dream come true - especially if they incorporate some of the FO4 build mechanisms into it.

Creation is really creaking now - although TBF its still impressive what they achieved on somewhat old engine.

 

[gavinh87]

Well Sweclockers put my CPU above an R7 1800X in the Diamond City area,which is more intensive(the FPS is also lower than the review you linked to),but once I started building larger and larger settlements,and even started modding,the CPU gets hammered. There are also logic gate bits which come in the DLCs which enable you to actually build factories and mods expand on that. It can be almost like playing Minecraft,an FPS and a RPG(well light RPG game) all in one. For some reason Skylake seems to do very well in it and the Broadwell CPUs with L4 cache.

Don't get me wrong if you don't really get into building anything more than a basic settlement,or don't push a certain class of mods(again mostly around building and settlements),or the ones which affect the number of NPCs in the world, even an FX6300 or FX8320 probably will be fine,and by extension an R7 1800X.

As I've said I have no experience with skyrim or fallout, however I'd expect the ryzen (once sorted) to perform better in those scenarios, a lot of benchmarks are stating higher minimums.