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

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Forza has massively improved for me.

Actually been confirmed by someone on Overclock.net it seems. They got a 10% increase in FPS on a Core i7 7700k and a GTX1080TI.

 

[gavinh87]

Actually been confirmed by someone on Overclock.net it seems. They got a 10% increase in FPS on a Core i7 7700k and a GTX1080TI.

I never measured it but the stutters I was experiencing went away, though I don't know if this was windows update or a game patch.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I never measured it but the stutters I was experiencing went away, though I don't know if this was windows update or a game patch.

I wonder if the update is helping SMT utilisation:

http://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Forza-7-CPU.png

I certain find FO4 seemed much more stable in areas which could be more stuttery,and that was with the same game update and same Nvidia drivers. Whatever it is,its helpful!

 

[gavinh87]

I wonder if the update is helping SMT utilisation:

http://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Forza-7-CPU.png

I certain find FO4 seemed much more stable in areas which could be more stuttery,and that was with the same game update and same Nvidia drivers. Whatever it is,its helpful!

What cpu/gpu is that? Those scores seem quite low.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What cpu/gpu is that? Those scores seem quite low.

Its from DSOGaming - think its a Core i7 4930K and an RX580,and he also apparently got stutter too. They also have a GTX980TI too.

However,the update removed the stutter:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/windo...-fixes-forza-motorsport-7s-stuttering-issues/

As we’ve reported in our PC Performance Analysis, Forza Motorsport 7 suffered from severe stuttering issues. Earlier yesterday, the Windows 10 Fall Creators update went live and to our surprise, Turn10’s racer is now completely stuttering-free on the PC.

After more than an hour playing Forza Motorsport 7, we did not experience a single stutter. We don’t know what Microsoft has done, however the game stuttered like crazy prior to this update.

We’ve tested the game on both NVIDIA’s and AMD’s GPUs, using the exact same drivers. And while we did not notice any framerate boost, our gaming experience was flawless. Thanks to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, we were able to unlock the framerate and retain really high framerates. Framepacing was great and there weren’t any stutters even after our extensive testing.

We can confirm that Turn10 has not released any new update for the game, so this overall improvement is entirely thanks to the latest Windows 10 update. As such, we strongly suggest downloading it if you are planning to get this new racing game.

We’ve also tested Forza Horizon 3 and we did not notice any stuttering issues in that open-world racing game too.

It appears that all of Forza Motorsport 7’s PC issues have been resolved with the Windows 10 Fall Creators update. The game now runs silky smooth, there are no loading issues (previously the game could freeze while selecting a race) and there are no stuttering issues.

Here is a screenshot of Forza Motorsport 7 after playing for an hour.

So no game update it appears.

 

[sandys]

Forza never stuttered for me, it was always silky smooth both on my rx480 and 1080//ti so who knows what they were doing wrong, probably a dodgy overclock.

 

[Glaucus]

Is there any firm dates or prices for and laptop yet?
I'm getting to the point I can't wait much longer. Laptop died about 8times today and it's doing my head in.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is there any firm dates or prices for and laptop yet?
I'm getting to the point I can't wait much longer. Laptop died about 8times today and it's doing my head in.

AFAIK,November is when RR is being launched and that HP Envy laptop which HP put up by mistake on their website is not from a cheap range. The Bristol Ridge based one starts at £800 with the Intel models starting at £1000.

 

[gavinh87]

Its from DSOGaming - think its a Core i7 4930K and an RX580,and he also apparently got stutter too. They also have a GTX980TI too.

However,the update removed the stutter:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/windo...-fixes-forza-motorsport-7s-stuttering-issues/



So no game update it appears.

Ah thats good to know then, ms actually fixed something rather than breaking it lol.
But yes his findings tie in with mine, so much smoother now.

 

[4K8KW10]

It's official now. AMD is a profitable company once more after the Q3 2017 financial results pop up.

 

[AndreiD]

It's official now. AMD is a profitable company once more after the Q3 2017 financial results pop up.

Seems people were expecting more profit given how their stock took a hit after hours.

 

[muon]

Seems people were expecting more profit given how their stock took a hit after hours.

Seems a bit wierd.

Q3 came in above expectations, 10c vs 6c EPS.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amd/earnings-forecast

AMD expect revenue to fall QoQ 15%, increase YoY of 25% (Q4 has low sales seasonally). But that is a bigger QoQ drop than what the market were expecting?

This even though AMD beat estimates of 1.51bn with 1.64bn this quarter and Q4 is forecast still ahead of prior expectations.

I guess it does suggest the upwards momentum isn't as strong as what some might have been hoping for.

 

[jaffveyda]

Seems a bit wierd.

Q3 came in above expectations, 10c vs 6c EPS.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amd/earnings-forecast

AMD expect revenue to fall QoQ 15%, increase YoY of 25% (Q4 has low sales seasonally). But that is a bigger QoQ drop than what the market were expecting?

This even though AMD beat estimates of 1.51bn with 1.64bn this quarter and Q4 is forecast still ahead of prior expectations.

I guess it does suggest the upwards momentum isn't as strong as what some might have been hoping for.

They are being dragged down by GPU division, Vega is such a flop.

 

[4K8KW10]

They are being dragged down by GPU division, Vega is such a flop.

Vega can't have such a massive influence. It is an enthusiast-class graphics card and its contribution to sales figure is negligible.
The sales go to Polaris and all underneath it. Polaris is well and very competitive, actually an all-round better purchase than the GTX 1060 which comes in 3GB and 6GB flavours.

The stock price seems to be overvalued and it's the reason why these "unexpected" fluctuations appear.

 

[AndreiD]

They also still have a lot of debt left to pay off, with some of it maturing in a couple of months.
$12 for their stock is about where it should be.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Seems a bit wierd.

Q3 came in above expectations, 10c vs 6c EPS.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amd/earnings-forecast

AMD expect revenue to fall QoQ 15%, increase YoY of 25% (Q4 has low sales seasonally). But that is a bigger QoQ drop than what the market were expecting?

This even though AMD beat estimates of 1.51bn with 1.64bn this quarter and Q4 is forecast still ahead of prior expectations.

I guess it does suggest the upwards momentum isn't as strong as what some might have been hoping for.

AMD is popular for shorting - so they make up stuff to drop the price temporarily and then when its nowhere as bad as what was suspected the price rebounds.

Its best not to be concerned about the stock price doing this over short periods.

It was done to Apple - one quarter a while back they actually made more profit than the previous quarter or previous year at the same time,but their stock value decreased due to "stuff".

Some people probably made a good amount of money causing that.

I would take it all with a grain of salt.

You need to consider a few metrics:
1.)AMD barely competes in any market outside mainstream GPUs when it comes to graphics and Vega is hampered by the high price of HBM2.
2.)Intel has released Coffee Lake which no doubt will compete better in the prebuilt market but it realistically it is probably not being shipped in as big volumes as people suspect currently.
3.)AMD has not launched Raven Ridge yet,so most of their volume sales in the prebuilt laptop are Excavator based APUs.
4.)Raven Ridge is only launching in November and probably it will take a few months for volume to ramp up,and for more OEMs to build products around them.

So take this all into account,it shows you despite all of this they still are doing OK,and that is without realistically competing in any volume in the enthusiast graphics market,laptops or even plenty of prebuilt desktops which don't use dGPUs.

So,what happens when AMD actually replaces the last of their Bulldozer derived CPUs in laptops and volume prebuilt PCs?? They are going to start gaining more sales,especially since AMD will be able to target less bargain basement laptops,and can target the volume markets for desktops.

Then you have AMD refreshing Ryzen apparently in 1H 2018,which means their competitive situation against Coffee Lake should actually improve against what it is now.

 

[4K8KW10]

Should be early Q2 2018 as the latest.

AMD competes pretty solidly (not barely) with Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC.
Actually, the mainstream GPUs are the weaker part because of the strong brand loyalty towards Nvidia...

 

[jaffveyda]

AMD is popular for shorting - so they make up stuff to drop the price temporarily and then when its nowhere as bad as what was suspected the price rebounds.

Its best not to be concerned about the stock price doing this over short periods.

It was done to Apple - one quarter a while back they actually made more profit than the previous quarter or previous year at the same time,but their stock value decreased due to "stuff".

Some people probably made a good amount of money causing that.

I would take it all with a grain of salt.

You need to consider a few metrics:
1.)AMD barely competes in any market outside mainstream GPUs when it comes to graphics and Vega is hampered by the high price of HBM2.
2.)Intel has released Coffee Lake which no doubt will compete better in the prebuilt market but it realistically it is probably not being shipped in as big volumes as people suspect currently.
3.)AMD has not launched Raven Ridge yet,so most of their volume sales in the prebuilt laptop are Excavator based APUs.
4.)Raven Ridge is only launching in November and probably it will take a few months for volume to ramp up,and for more OEMs to build products around them.

So take this all into account,it shows you despite all of this they still are doing OK,and that is without realistically competing in any volume in the enthusiast graphics market,laptops or even plenty of prebuilt desktops which don't use dGPUs.

So,what happens when AMD actually replaces the last of their Bulldozer derived CPUs in laptops and volume prebuilt PCs?? They are going to start gaining more sales,especially since AMD will be able to target less bargain basement laptops,and can target the volume markets for desktops.

Then you have AMD refreshing Ryzen apparently in 1H 2018,which means their competitive situation against Coffee Lake should actually improve against what it is now.

I am counting on the last statement.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am counting on the last statement.

Well,when I mean that I hope it is:
1.)Better clockspeeds,so hopefully the improved 14nm process being used means they can get closer to 4.5GHZ(instead of the 4.1GHZ maximum now).
2.)The memory controller is improved in both hardware and firmware,so they can get better clockspeeds and memory compatability.

Now things which would be nice,but hard to say if it will come with the refresh:
1.)Noticeably better IPC.
2.)Improvements to the bandwidth between the CCX units.
3.)Better AVX support.

 

[4K8KW10]

Well,when I mean that I hope it is:
1.)Better clockspeeds,so hopefully the improved 14nm process being used means they can get closer to 4.5GHZ(instead of the 4.1GHZ maximum now).
2.)The memory controller is improved in both hardware and firmware,so they can get better clockspeeds and memory compatability.

Now things which would be nice,but hard to say if it will come with the refresh:
1.)Noticeably better IPC.
2.)Improvements to the bandwidth between the CCX units.
3.)Better AVX support.

Haha, AMD are even now on the verge of completely smashing Intel's resistance. If the mentioned by you changes come alive, Intel will be dead, buried and forgotten

BTW, the improved process is now called 12nm.