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

[jigger]

To be fair there's rarely anything good to say about them unless you look at them through rose tinted glasses like some on here who tend to worship them like some kind of church. They've fallen years behind the competition and can't even compete at the very top now, Intel have a 10 core processor out now and are likely to be up to 12 cores by the time Zen is released.

Like Scougar has said my point was that there was a time when 'market forces' allowed AMD to charge ridiculous prices of £800 (and AMD took advantage of it like any successful business would) but those days are long gone.

To be fair to yourself thats a pretty strange perception you have.

 

[Bonjour]

'Market forces' being that AMD had the best desktop processor at the time.

 

[mattyc1977]

Do we have any idea what size cpu cooler this will need? I have a 3770k and need a new cooler but am thinking of getting zen when it comes out and thinking shall I wait for zen to come out to ensure the cpu cooler will fit zen?

 

[gpuerrilla]

To be fair there's rarely anything good to say about them unless you look at them through rose tinted glasses like some on here who tend to worship them like some kind of church. They've fallen years behind the competition and can't even compete at the very top now, Intel have a 10 core processor out now and are likely to be up to 12 cores by the time Zen is released.

Like Scougar has said my point was that there was a time when 'market forces' allowed AMD to charge ridiculous prices of £800 (and AMD took advantage of it like any successful business would) but those days are long gone.

I think it is fair to say some people cannot let the past go. The days of a challenge in a sector such as this have progressed to non-starter. Apart from the heavy fine intel received after being exposed of dirty tactics in the '00s, all you need to placate this nonsense is simple economics.

Intel are vastly larger than AMD. When people can grasp that, it can move on. To keep retorting the same spiel as 'if AMD were to be competitive then intel...' is folly.

Get used to intel being the bully and having the dominance. But dont put down AMD for being 'inferior' when they dont have the budget nor the clout to be in the same league to begin with.

 

[Yutang13]

Do we have any idea what size cpu cooler this will need? I have a 3770k and need a new cooler but am thinking of getting zen when it comes out and thinking shall I wait for zen to come out to ensure the cpu cooler will fit zen?

It seems AM4 will have a new mounting system, noctua said they will be offering AM4 mounting kits for existing coolers.

 

[h4rm0ny]

It seems AM4 will have a new mounting system, noctua said they will be offering AM4 mounting kits for existing coolers.

Yep. Noctua have guaranteed with that move that I will forever buy their coolers over anyone else's and they've become my number one recommendation when I'm asked.

 

[kaku]

You could for want of describing it infer that some people merely post on here to either stir or because they simply love the intel brand.

Nobody "loves the Intel brand"! The way you say it is as if there's people in the street parading in clothes sporting Intel logos and getting tattoos because they love Intel so much.

Nobody is buying bottom-end Celerons just because they say "Intel" on them.

People want performance, simple as. We're buying a computer component to do a job; we're not joining a team or a religion.

 

[gpuerrilla]

People want performance, simple as. We're buying a computer component to do a job; we're not joining a team or a religion.

Come on kaku!

Give it a rest. 'Performance' isnt 10% increases each release, lets just admit that the whole cpu market has stagnated and raw clockspeed alone is no longer important. IPC will too reach its limits so what next?

As some software can utilise more cores there may be improvement to be had there, but again it needs developers to commit to it. To demand more performance to do a job there has to be a need for it!

As it stands lower level API's and other enhancements have meant an average processor can last beyond its normal expected 'enthusiast' life cycle. I for one do not mind as upgrading every other year was rather expensive so getting nearly 4 years these days is actually welcome.

Constantly berating AMD for all the problems is single minded and a poor base for an argument.

 

[kaku]

What?? Saying Intel are ahead in performance stakes is stating a fact, not "berating AMD".

AMD are not some little kid being picked on in a playground. I'm sure everybody would love to see them turn out a killer chip and really kick-start competition in the high-end CPU sector again.

Intel do not offer value for money, but they definitely offer performance in the current climate. What are you suggesting? Everybody ditch their computers and buy AMD to force a shift in software development that favours AMD's architecture?

I cannot wait for Zen's release, and I really hope it's at least something passable. I'm simply keeping my expectations realistic.

 

[DragonQ]

Give it a rest. 'Performance' isnt 10% increases each release, lets just admit that the whole cpu market has stagnated and raw clockspeed alone is no longer important. IPC will too reach its limits so what next?

As some software can utilise more cores there may be improvement to be had there, but again it needs developers to commit to it. To demand more performance to do a job there has to be a need for it!

Not everything can be multithreaded. More dedicated hardware can be added (e.g. QuickSync) and more instruction sets could be added to optimise certain tasks, but that only usually happens with extremely common tasks (e.g. AES).

 

[mmj_uk]

Intel are vastly larger than AMD. When people can grasp that, it can move on. To keep retorting the same spiel as 'if AMD were to be competitive then intel...' is folly.

If AMD are too small to compete with Intel then that's their problem, as a consumer all that matters to me is the products a company offers. I'm not going to get sentimental over some sob story about how little old AMD are being oppressed by Intel/NVidia who are evil money grabbers. AMD have had their time at the top and took advantage of it the same as Intel/NVidia are doing now, AMD sell their products cheap now because they have to not because they're some good company who put people before profits. Zen might allow AMD to make big profit margins once again but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[zoomee]

yawn - wake me up when theres some actual zen news to discuss

 

[humax]

yawn - wake me up when theres some actual zen news to discuss

Yep this is really getting boring now.


.

 

[Angilion]

[..]
People want performance, simple as.

I think that's generally not true any more. Almost any processor that is made today has much more performance than most customers want. It sounds odd, but for the mass market performance has outstripped demand. Cost is a more important factor nowadays. For example, almost all the PCs used by the company that I work for are using Pentium 4 CPUs. There's no need to buy anything more powerful because they're powerful enough for the workload. They'll only be replaced when they stop working.

We're buying a computer component to do a job; we're not joining a team or a religion.

That's true in most cases (there are some fans who are supporting a team), but for most people the performance is taken as given. Other than myself, I don't know anyone IRL who would notice the difference between a PC with an i7-6xxx and a PC with an A10-xxxx. Both CPUs would be mostly idle for that they do with a PC. The i7 would be able to do a lot more nothing in between things than the A10 would, but that wouldn't matter.

 

[David Bisset]

I think that's generally not true any more. Almost any processor that is made today has much more performance than most customers want. It sounds odd, but for the mass market performance has outstripped demand. Cost is a more important factor nowadays. For example, almost all the PCs used by the company that I work for are using Pentium 4 CPUs. There's no need to buy anything more powerful because they're powerful enough for the workload. They'll only be replaced when they stop working.

Yep, for almost all users CPUs don't need to get faster - which is why the focus on power efficiency rather than performance from Intel, for many years now.

That's true in most cases (there are some fans who are supporting a team), but for most people the performance is taken as given. Other than myself, I don't know anyone IRL who would notice the difference between a PC with an i7-6xxx and a PC with an A10-xxxx. Both CPUs would be mostly idle for that they do with a PC. The i7 would be able to do a lot more nothing in between things than the A10 would, but that wouldn't matter.

Honestly if most people were buying for the component not to pick the brand name they want then there would not be endless adverts for computers with "An Intel processor" (or 'An AMD processor') ... it's a meaningless statement by itself unless people are buying for the brand name. I agree that most people wouldn't notice the difference between CPUs too - most people's understanding of how fast their computer is relates more to how fast their internet is, how much junk they have running at startup and how many addons they've got slowing down their browser than anything else.

 

[bru]

Yup people just want the faster whyfi's and the bigger geebee's

 

[ultralaser]

I don't think its relevant to judge AMD on how well they do or not against Intel.

That's probably the daftest comment I've ever read on OCUK. I wonder just how many people actually signed up to the OCUK forums just to ask that (or similar) questions.

 

[humbug]

That's probably the daftest comment I've ever read on OCUK. I wonder just how many people actually signed up to the OCUK forums just to ask that (or similar) questions.

What is? we were talking about the size of Intel vs AMD, how many units they sell, do you think that's more important to people than what they get from these companies for their money? or did you just wonder into the middle of a conversation assuming you knew what it was about?

 

[gpuerrilla]

I think that's generally not true any more. Almost any processor that is made today has much more performance than most customers want. It sounds odd, but for the mass market performance has outstripped demand. Cost is a more important factor nowadays. For example, almost all the PCs used by the company that I work for are using Pentium 4 CPUs. There's no need to buy anything more powerful because they're powerful enough for the workload. They'll only be replaced when they stop working.



That's true in most cases (there are some fans who are supporting a team), but for most people the performance is taken as given. Other than myself, I don't know anyone IRL who would notice the difference between a PC with an i7-6xxx and a PC with an A10-xxxx. Both CPUs would be mostly idle for that they do with a PC. The i7 would be able to do a lot more nothing in between things than the A10 would, but that wouldn't matter.

Holy sensible - where have you been? |It gives me great confidence in the forums once more!

 

[neviditelny]

I think it was in the topic that someone said that Noctua will offer free new mounting parts for the new AM4 socket.

This morning I did get a reply from Alpenfohn stating exactly the same, for users with Alpenfohn coolers who need new mounting parts for the new AM4 sockets they will get them for free as soon as AM4 is released.