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

[chaosophy]

Or they know they are slower and so are milking as much profit as possible now to off set the massive price drops they'll need to make.

 

[Uriel]

Well there's only really i3s where prices have grown ($ exchange rate not withstanding) and that's compensated for by the Pentiums.

However - I suspect Intel know they're going to see some competition- and price wise, they are making hay while the sun shines.

If you assume CanardPC's benchmarks are accurate (and why would they not be?), Ryzen 8c16t will be competitive with stock clocked Sylake and Kaby Lake i5s for games if they hit about 3.6GHz and i7s if they can hit 4GHz (assuming they scale pro-rata with clockspeed from the ES chip used).

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/fr...ng-sample-amd-ryzen-processor-benchmarks.html

None of the games they chose are particularly well optimised for multithreading, so I'm reasonably confident that a 4c8t Ryzen will be competitive for gaming at around the same clock speeds.

 

[Legend]

None of the games they chose are particularly well optimised for multithreading, so I'm reasonably confident that a 4c8t Ryzen will be competitive for gaming at around the same clock speeds.

Competitive, but in respect to pure gaming only performance, I don't see it beating the Kabys clocked to 4.8 and above... they will likely remain the best choice. It's not likely the 4C Ryzen will challenge this either, but if it's priced aggressively that's still going to see them sell plenty. However, it probably won't impact Intel's pricing very much if AMD remain distant in the performance stakes in 4C vs 4C. Let's not forget the perception Intel has amongst the masses as 'the best', with AMD seen as the budget brand. You'll still get plenty of consumers flocking to Kaby simply because of this, irrespective of the performance/value ratio with Ryzen. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

[humbug]

Ahem

lol for a dual core, thats madness.

 

[daver]

Well there's only really i3s where prices have grown ($ exchange rate not withstanding) and that's compensated for by the Pentiums.

Got my i5-760 for 139.99 back in 2010, even adjusted for Exchange rate fluctuations and inflation that is £185, or the same price as the new i3.

 

[Uriel]

Got my i5-760 for 139.99 back in 2010, even adjusted for Exchange rate fluctuations and inflation that is £185, or the same price as the new i3.

You can get an i5-7400 for £189. The i3-7350k, at it's current price, is basically the i3 [Clarkson] stupid [/Clarkson] edition.

 

[abui1806]

Is there any rumours regarding zen pci express lanes? I had a look at the Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 (?), not sure I got the name right, and I only saw 8x8x when SLI/CF. This implies that the number of pcie lanes on Zen is quite limited.

 

[jaffveyda]

My order basket back in 2009.

Manufacturer : ASUS
Product : S1156 Intel P55 ATX A L
Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : £159.00
Price inc VAT : £182.85

Manufacturer : INTEL
Product : Core i7 Quad 860 2.80 8MB

Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : £190.42
Price inc VAT : £218.98

Manufacturer : CORSAIR
Product : 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 240pi

Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : £80.86
Price inc VAT : £92.98

I just realised I have been supplied with wrong memory....doesn't match my signature description :/

 

[Harlequin]

Is there any rumours regarding zen pci express lanes? I had a look at the Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 (?), not sure I got the name right, and I only saw 8x8x when SLI/CF. This implies that the number of pcie lanes on Zen is quite limited.

24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMfNz2SXVLk

^^ taken from linus tech tips

 

[DragonQ]

Is there any rumours regarding zen pci express lanes? I had a look at the Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 (?), not sure I got the name right, and I only saw 8x8x when SLI/CF. This implies that the number of pcie lanes on Zen is quite limited.

X370 is designed for 16x/16x CF/SLI. B350 will do 8x/8x so must have fewer PCIe lanes. Not sure if that was on one of the official slides or an article somewhere.

As long as B350 can do 16x plus another 4x for M.2, that's fine with me. Don't need CF/SLI or the extra USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports on the X370.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Competitive, but in respect to pure gaming only performance, I don't see it beating the Kabys clocked to 4.8 and above... they will likely remain the best choice. It's not likely the 4C Ryzen will challenge this either, but if it's priced aggressively that's still going to see them sell plenty. However, it probably won't impact Intel's pricing very much if AMD remain distant in the performance stakes in 4C vs 4C. Let's not forget the perception Intel has amongst the masses as 'the best', with AMD seen as the budget brand. You'll still get plenty of consumers flocking to Kaby simply because of this, irrespective of the performance/value ratio with Ryzen. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I care about relative CPU performance. But then I do database work, massive process maps in Visio and other things that actually use the CPU. I don't see why a gamer would get that hung up on it. If you've absolutely maxed out your graphics card and monitor, got plenty of fast RAM and PCI-Ev3 SSDs to load from, then I guess you need to look at the top-end CPUs in order to go further. But for everyone else, it's usually redundant. If you're playing deep strategy games I guess you get a boost, but for most gamers the best way to maximise return on your investment is to get a mid-range CPU and spend everything left elsewhere.

What rational gamer would care about Zen beating Kabylake unless they had huge sums of money set aside to max out everything. What they should care about is if it is the bottleneck and if it is cheaper. I highly doubt it will be the bottleneck in all but a handful of games.

 

[Uriel]

I sometimes get upgrade itch regarding CPU and motherboard - but then I remind myself that, as I like turn on all settings to maximum at 1080p, my GTX970 is still the limiting factor in most new games, even though I'm only running a weird Phenom II equivalent ester egg CPU. At higher resolutions or with lesser GPUs - the CPU is very rarely going to be a meaningful bottleneck. It's completely irrelevant to me that I could be getting an extra 30-40% framerate improvement in Doom if it's already over the refresh rate of my monitor (Doom has a ludicrous minimum CPU recommendation for AMD of an octacore FX, when everything since a quad core Phenom II will keep it over 60fps consistently)

The exceptions seem to be PC exclusives like the Total War series, and large scale multiplayer games - when a beefy CPU can really help minimum framerates but even then you need a high end GPU to see the benefit of a fast CPU with the settings turned up.

So I know that some people like to maximise framerate - and have higher end gear - but for a lot of gamers - they don't need Ryzen or an i7. A Kaby pentium or cheap AMD quad+ will be adequate unless they spend thier time looking at benchmarks instead of gaming on reasonable settings.

 

[nashathedog]

That's the point, the i3K is more the double the price of it's predecessor, even factoring in inflation/currency/VAT changes it's a ridiculous increase. Intel are hoping to extort customers as much as possible while they have the market to themselves

We're seeing the same thing with Nvidia, At the end of day they're a business and making money is the name of the game,
It's why monopolies are frowned on.

 

[opethdisciple]

I sometimes get upgrade itch regarding CPU and motherboard - but then I remind myself that, as I like turn on all settings to maximum at 1080p, my GTX970 is still the limiting factor in most new games, even though I'm only running a weird Phenom II equivalent ester egg CPU. At higher resolutions or with lesser GPUs - the CPU is very rarely going to be a meaningful bottleneck. It's completely irrelevant to me that I could be getting an extra 30-40% framerate improvement in Doom if it's already over the refresh rate of my monitor (Doom has a ludicrous minimum CPU recommendation for AMD of an octacore FX, when everything since a quad core Phenom II will keep it over 60fps consistently)

The exceptions seem to be PC exclusives like the Total War series, and large scale multiplayer games - when a beefy CPU can really help minimum framerates but even then you need a high end GPU to see the benefit of a fast CPU with the settings turned up.

So I know that some people like to maximise framerate - and have higher end gear - but for a lot of gamers - they don't need Ryzen or an i7. A Kaby pentium or cheap AMD quad+ will be adequate unless they spend thier time looking at benchmarks instead of gaming on reasonable settings.

You will notice a difference mate when you upgrade your CPU.

When I bought my 670 back in the day I upgraded from a 5870. As it came before my new mobo and 3570k I installed it.

At the time I had a qx9650, I was like wow I can crank up the settings and it was all good in BF4. However when I then installed my new mobo and 3570k it felt like my max FPS was the same but the minimum and average was so much more.

It was night and day difference.

If your running anything less than a 3570k or equivalent. Then you will 100% see a difference what ever resolution.

Remember it's the CPU that pushes data around the system. You need something that can feed the GPU with data which it can then go off and render.

Thinking of it as 'if I up the resolution then the bottle neck is on the GPU rather than CPU' is not really telling the whole truth. Up to a point the higher you go with the resolution the bottle neck is the GPU, but then if you keep that same high res and same high spec GPU but then progressively down grade the CPU your reach a point where performance will fall of a cliff as the CPU just isn't able to feed the GPU with enough data to render and the bottleneck becomes the CPU again.

I think theirs also consistency to take in to consideration. 70 fps on one setup may not actually be equal to 70fps on another in the same game. You have those frame latency stuff coming in to it which I'm sure a more powerful CPU plays a part in as well as ram speed.

There's a reason why it's called a 'central' processing unit.

It's the core of the system. It's what is fetching and pushing data around the various components.

Otherwise they might as well rename it to 'auxiliary processing system'. Or 'secondary processing unit'.

 

[Deathroned]

Maybe because some of these things have been bought in bulk at better exchange rates??

Lots of countries in the world have suffered currency devaluations and prices have gone up - talk to some people from other countries and see what has happened,so I am not sure why some here think the UK is some special case.

If you are going on like this,you are going to get more and more annoyed and more and more depressed about things.

Once we can actually sort things out,and there is more confidence the pound might stabilise at a higher rate(or not),but at least for the period ahead the uncertainty is not helping.

You might want to look at other stuff like cameras,where the new ones are coming at much higher GBP rates,due to a combination of increased Yen price and worse GBP rates too,and since some of these are lower volume items,even the older models are having price increases as new stock lands.

Its why some of the EOL deals on old models of cameras and lenses are very good bargains - I managed to pick up an XT10 for the family,and if the XT20 replaces it at the same RRP,pricing could be OVER double what we paid if the pound drops to the same value as the dollar(I am hoping it does not).

You can ignore it as much as you want,look at the price of a Intel Core i7 - the USD prices have hardly changed.

Hexus listed the Core i7 4770K at $339:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/85193-intel-core-i7-6700k-14nm-skylake/

The Core i7 6700K is $350.

Its easy to check pricing on sites like camelcamelcamel for a certain large company who sells loads of items.

The Core i7 4770K was around the £250 to £260 mark for most of its lifespan.

The exchange rate was around $1.55 to £1(on average) in 2013. With VAT,that would make the Core i7 4770K around £260 .

Now the exchange rate is $1.23 to £1. So $350 is now around £341.

The Core i7 7700K RRP is $339 to $350.

OcUK has the Core i7 7700K for £340:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...ocket-lga1151-processor-retail-cp-62f-in.html

So maybe a few quid more(like just under £10) more than a direct conversion,but I expect US and UK import taxes and duties,and business costs are not exactly the same.

Anyway,I am not going to argue anymore as this is the Ryzen rumours thread and none of this is Ryzen rumours.

Cat you and Dragon are not getting why Consoles are cheap.

China
* No Burdensome Unions
*No Over Regulations
*No Over Taxation

which equals to cheap stuff and more jobs. if anyone is to blame its Europeans for election Communists.

 

[Deathroned]

Is there any rumours regarding zen pci express lanes? I had a look at the Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 (?), not sure I got the name right, and I only saw 8x8x when SLI/CF. This implies that the number of pcie lanes on Zen is quite limited.

Blame NVIDA for that, AMD can do 3 way crossfire whilst NVIDIA us limited to SLI, Not AMD's Problem, or wait for the Asus ROG Variants. AMD works x8/x8/x6 whilst NVIDIA works only on x8/x8

 

[DragonQ]

Cat you and Dragon are not getting why Consoles are cheap.

China
* No Burdensome Unions
*No Over Regulations
*No Over Taxation

which equals to cheap stuff and more jobs. if anyone is to blame its Europeans for election Communists.

Pretty loaded language, that. If we didn't have "burdensome" unions and "over" regulation and taxation, we'd all have the same quality of life as the Chinese people working in those factories. Europe is very far from "communist".

In any case, your argument doesn't entirely hold up because as I said, companies like Apple also use cheap labour in developing countries, yet their products are stupidly expensive.

 

[akarypid]

Cat you and Dragon are not getting why Consoles are cheap.

China
* No Burdensome Unions
*No Over Regulations
*No Over Taxation

which equals to cheap stuff and more jobs. if anyone is to blame its Europeans for election Communists.

I'll bet you that if you open up your PC, 90% of its electronics are made in China and/or Taiwan or something like that. Just like console hardware. So your theory just doesn't make sense.

Now, like you say, we could remove unions / taxes / regulations and go all gung-ho in a race to bring back those jobs. As long as we accept we're racing to the bottom, trying to get people to work for £1 per day assembling electronics, it's fine.

But we can't have our cake and eat it too.

Capitalism and open markets work, just not the way people think they do. Most people assume that by opening up the market to the Chinese, they'll one day get to our standard of living and everything will be fine. But free trade and open markets only claim to bring balance. Now, there's two ways to balance the equation. The other one is for our standard of living to drop until we meet them half-way.

So in fact, we're actually enjoying the fruits of capitalism and free trade. Production has moved to low-cost China, we're getting cheaper products, companies make bigger profits...

The flip side is of course, that all these jobs are moving away from Europe. So most of us need to work in retail as salespeople, or in Starbucks making coffee, or get cars and Uber people around. These are the jobs that have stayed because they require physical presence.

 

[Deathroned]

I'll bet you that if you open up your PC, 90% of its electronics are made in China and/or Taiwan or something like that. Just like console hardware. So your theory just doesn't make sense.

Now, like you say, we could remove unions / taxes / regulations and go all gung-ho in a race to bring back those jobs. As long as we accept we're racing to the bottom, trying to get people to work for £1 per day assembling electronics, it's fine.

But we can't have our cake and eat it too.

Capitalism and open markets work, just not the way people think they do. Most people assume that by opening up the market to the Chinese, they'll one day get to our standard of living and everything will be fine. But free trade and open markets only claim to bring balance. Now, there's two ways to balance the equation. The other one is for our standard of living to drop until we meet them half-way.

So in fact, we're actually enjoying the fruits of capitalism and free trade. Production has moved to low-cost China, we're getting cheaper products, companies make bigger profits...

The flip side is of course, that all these jobs are moving away from Europe. So most of us need to work in retail as salespeople, or in Starbucks making coffee, or get cars and Uber people around. These are the jobs that have stayed because they require physical presence.

I see, so you would rather have people on the government dole, but that is a subject for another matter and section of the forum, if only you knew the purpose of unions maybe you might understand, I suggest you read the 8 rules of Alinsky.

 

[Deathroned]

Pretty loaded language, that. If we didn't have "burdensome" unions and "over" regulation and taxation, we'd all have the same quality of life as the Chinese people working in those factories. Europe is very far from "communist".

In any case, your argument doesn't entirely hold up because as I said, companies like Apple also use cheap labour in developing countries, yet their products are stupidly expensive.

What was the quality of life in the west before, Baby Boomers bought the communist(Democratic socialism) cool aid?