AMD's new processor, Zen

[Kitlope]

Great news for us consumers! After a decade of getting shit-stomped by Intel it's looking like AMD has a new architecture out that competes well. Real competition is a good thing! Lower prices! Innovation!

AMD shows how Zen—now renamed Ryzen—is its best chip family in a decade

AMD's Zen is finally here. In August, AMD stunned the hardware industry by showing that its Zen architecture could compete with Intel’s best. Now AMD has revealed more details about what executives call its most exciting processor in 20 years, including its brand name, its clock speed, and the five underlying “SenseMI” technologies that make the chip so efficient.

What AMD has previously referred to as its Zen architecture now has a formal brand name: Ryzen, which unfortunately sounds like the title of a bargain-bin videogame. The first chip in the desktop family, code-named Summit Ridge, will be AMD’s focus for 2017.

Using Handbrake and ZBrush benchmarks, AMD recently demonstrated that its 8-core Summit Ridge chip can keep up with, or even potentially exceed, Intel’s 8-core, 3.2GHz Core i7-6900K that launched this past May. That’s due in part to the Summit Ridge chip’s higher 3.4GHz clock speed, according to AMD.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3149051/components/amd-offers-more-proof-that-zen-now-renamed-ryzen-is-its-best-chip-in-a-decade.html

 

[Jes_971]

As a loyal AMD customer I am stoked to hear this. Good news for everyone!

 

[Jes_971]

Open your arms ladies and gentleman and welcome the new AMD processor. Pre-orders start today! My local Microcenter show it being available on March, 2. This is basically the release for the R7 series of chips with more series expected to be announced. Time to finally upgrade from my Phenom 940 Quad.

 

[Jerad]

Looks like they might actually not be as shitty as AMD stuff usually is too!

 

[Skid_Marc_]

Looks like they might actually not be as shitty as AMD stuff usually is too!

I don't think its fair to say AMD's stuff is *usually shitty*. Just because the performance hasn't been on par core to core with Intel doesn't mean its a bad product, because they aren't nearly as expensive either. That said, Ryzen does look like a promising challenger. I still don't think they'll straight up out-perform Intel, but they're aggressive pricing will always give a budget gamer pause, to decide between outright performance vs. dollar-to-performance, and I think that's a good thing!

 

[Jerad]

The last time they were able to match a competitors performance at a cheaper price, nVidia completely repriced their 7 series videocards to compete.

By shitty I was referring to performance. I haven't given AMD an honest look since the Athlon XP and 64 series when AMD was wiping the floor with intel.

 

[Kitlope]

The 3 CPU's that they're releasing at this time are all 8 core variants ranging in price from 439.99 Cdn - 699.99 Cdn, according to my local b&m store that I usually shop at. Pretty damn good price for an 8 core considering the ass-gouging Intel has been doing to us for the last 10 years.

The real fun begins when AMD releases the 4 and 6 core variants... as these should be considerably cheaper than the cheapest 8 core. I'm in the market for a new CPU and I'll be watching this all play out over the next 4 or 5 months with great interest. Even though I've turned into a bit of an Intel fanboi (has anyone really had a choice?) I'll never discount AMD in my pc and in all likelihood that's what I'll be upgrading to.

Bring on the benches!

 

[Brainling]

I'm eyeing the 1800X. I currently run an i7-4790k, and I like it, but I do quite a few heavy multi-tasking work loads as a developer, and so for me more cores = more better. I refuse to pay Intel's gouged prices for their 6 and 8 core CPU's...but 500 bucks for the Ryzen 1800X is tempting. If the reported 52% IPC gains they are getting over Excavator are true, and they can come within a skosh of my i7's single threaded performance, it'll be super tempting.

I'm cautious about jumping to a rev 1 AMD product, but if the benchmarks pan out and it gets good reviews, I may make the jump. Or I may wait to see if it forces Intel to price an 8-core part reasonably and go that route. Either way, it's an exciting time for CPU's, which is great, because it's been power usage gains all the way down for a couple years.

e: Oh, and the 1080 Ti is almost certainly going to get announced in a couple of days. That's actually my next big PC purchase. A 1080 Ti to upgrade my 980 Ti.

 

[Kitlope]

Well that didn't take long.

Intel is Dropping Processor Prices in Wake of Ryzen Launch

It seems that Intel is getting nervous about the AMD Ryzen launch and has started to lower prices on their processors. The equivalent 6900K model however still is 999 USD, twice as much as the Ryzen flagship. Others like the quad-core processors do see a price cut.

Also we think with a tiny bit of tweaking that 6900K might even get beaten or normalized by even a 329 USD Ryzen 7 1700 processor. The new prices have not gone into effect everywhere, here in the EU they are still at the same old level. In the USA etailers like Newegg also is listing older prices.

However it is at Microcenter (USA) where you can see a shift in prices, one very obvious one would be the Intel Core i7-7700K which started selling at 299 US, that's roughly a $80 lower price over the original MSRP (regular etail recently already was in the 330 USD range though). I do want to emphasize strongly that the prices listed are only in effect at microcenter and will only be available with 'in store pickups' and with a limit of 1 per household. Remember though, this is just one (r)etailer showing these prices. We do not know if the rest will follow. It could very well be a little marketing stunt steered by either Microcenter and/or Intel to make the news.

Intel Core i7-6950X is priced $1599 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-6900K is priced $999 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-6850K is priced $549 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-6800K is priced $359 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-5820K is priced $319 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-7700K is priced $299 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-6700K is priced $259 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-4790K is priced $279 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-7700 is priced $289 (USD)

• Intel Core i7-6700 is priced $259 (USD)

• Intel Core i5-7600K is priced $199 (USD)

• Intel Core i5-6600K is priced $179 (USD)

• Intel Core i5-4690K is priced $189 (USD)

• Intel Core i5-6500 is priced $179 (USD)

• Intel Core i5-4590 is priced $159 (USD)

• Intel Core i3-7350K is priced $159 (USD)

Depending on what state you reside in that price will get a 5 to 10% sales tax.

It will remain to be seen if the price drop is a temporary one to counter the Ryzen release ot that is will invoke a cut on a global scale. Maybe Intel will lower it's chipset prices as well, as the Z170/Z270 chipset is very expensive, and thus makes Intel chipset based motherboards more expensive as well.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-is-dropping-processor-prices.html

 

[Kitlope]

The reviews are in! Little hiccup with gaming performance though... not worried though as this is such a new platform. Overall if I were Intel I would be looking into plan B.

From Guru3d.com

The Gaming Performance

So here is where we need to write an entire paragraph. You have been able to see that the Ryzen 7 1800X performance is good, but not just yet 100% where it needs to be. During the past week we have been going back and forth to figure out what could be causing the relatively lower game performance. To date, we have no valid answer to that. The graphics card runs properly at PCI-Express x16 3.0. We know from the RAW and synthetic performance benchmarks that the cores are fast enough, in fact VERY fast. Somehow that does not relate to game performance. It will be interesting to see if other media / websites will show similar results to ours. It rather feels and smells a little like what Nvidia has been fighting a while ago, a DPC latency issue. Next to that we find Ryzen 7 rather memory bound with fairly high memory latency in the 80 to 100ns+ ranges depending on your configuration. It is what it is though, the performance definitely is good enough for what it needs to be, but currently at 1080P with a fast enough GPU the performance lacks a little compared to where it needs to be and can be. I will need to give AMD the benefit of the doubt here, the platform is young and everything is new. The processor certainly is fast enough compared to the Intel 59xx / 69xx counterparts. We will keep an eye on this and when we have to report anything about it we'll update this content. And also in closing on this topic, if you are a little GPU bound or use 2560x1440, this really is a non-issue as perf there is top notch.

Full review http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-processor-review,1.html

Annnd AMD's CEO has publicly addressed the issue.

AMD CEO: Better Gaming performance Ryzen CPUs with patches

AMD over the weekend made some statements on the somewhat lower gamer performance in CPU bound gaming situations like 1080p and a high-end graphics card. On Reddit during an ama session Su claimes that performance improvements for gaming is something that is worked on.

AMD is already working with developers to make sure improvements will be made. AMD points to the fact that not all games show this behaviour. Su underlines the fact that the Ryzen CPUs use a new architecture and that developers will need more time to become familiar with it and optimize accordingly.

AMD also states that there are about three hundred developers working right now to develop processor specific optimizations to improve the gaming performance of Ryzen CPUs. There was no information released about the availability of such patches and if such patches would bump up intel's performance as well.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-ceo-better-gaming-performance-ryzen-cpus-with-patches.html

 

[Brainling]

Uhh, why would Intel look at plan B of any kind at this point? Intel still absolutely, without question, holds the single threaded crown, and it's not close. My three year old 4790k beats up the 1800X without breaking a sweat in single threaded and gaming performance. Obviously the 8-core 1800X cooks my bacon in heavily multi-threaded work loads, as well it should with double the number of cores and threads.

I will say one thing that has annoyed me about most reviews: Constantly comparing the 1800X to the 7700K, which is an unfavorable comparison for both CPU's. The 7700K quite obviously can't compete in multi-threading, it has four cores. The Ryzen can't come close to competing with the 7700K in single-threaded and gaming, because the 7700K has a higher clock speed and higher IPC. It's also a cheaper part, which makes the 1800X look horribly unflattering in that light. It's when you compare the 1800X to the 6900K, it's actual competition, where it starts to shine, giving very similar performance for half the price.

I think AMD and the reviewers have done a disservice trying to position the 1800X against the four core high-end consumer i7's, which are cheaper and better for gaming/normal work loads. The 1800X is a competitor to the 6900K, which it stacks up against very nicely.

 

[Kitlope]

Uhh, why would Intel look at plan B of any kind at this point?

Because Ryzen is half the cost.

 

[Brainling]

Only when compared to the 6900K. When compared to the 7700K, which handily beats it in gaming performance, it's 150 bucks more expensive. As I stated I think it's a terrible comparison, but most reviews are being written with that as the marquee comparison (as apples to oranges as it is).

For people who build their machines to be mostly high-end gaming rigs, the Ryzen 7 launch has been pretty flat. Not a disappointment, it's a nice CPU and a nice step up for AMD, but certainly not the hype train people are making it out to be. If you own a four core i7 built in the last three generations and you aren't doing heavy workstation loads, the Ryzen 7 is completely skippable for you. Lets see what AMD does with Ryzen 5. If they can up the clock speeds closer to i7 clock speeds and sell a 4C/8T part at i5 prices, now we're cooking with fire and people actually have a choice.

 

[Jerad]

I'm eyeing the 1800X. I currently run an i7-4790k, and I like it, but I do quite a few heavy multi-tasking work loads as a developer, and so for me more cores = more better. I refuse to pay Intel's gouged prices for their 6 and 8 core CPU's...but 500 bucks for the Ryzen 1800X is tempting. If the reported 52% IPC gains they are getting over Excavator are true, and they can come within a skosh of my i7's single threaded performance, it'll be super tempting.

I'm cautious about jumping to a rev 1 AMD product, but if the benchmarks pan out and it gets good reviews, I may make the jump. Or I may wait to see if it forces Intel to price an 8-core part reasonably and go that route. Either way, it's an exciting time for CPU's, which is great, because it's been power usage gains all the way down for a couple years.

e: Oh, and the 1080 Ti is almost certainly going to get announced in a couple of days. That's actually my next big PC purchase. A 1080 Ti to upgrade my 980 Ti.

Looks like the Ryzen excels at non 3d related performance so it might be worthwhile to you. There are a large number of people also reporting that while FPS might not be quite as high the experience feels smoother overall, no micro-stutters that occur in some games. I have a 4770k right now and I think I might look at the 1800x soon.

 

[Kitlope]

Only when compared to the 6900K. When compared to the 7700K, which handily beats it in gaming performance, it's 150 bucks more expensive. As I stated I think it's a terrible comparison, but most reviews are being written with that as the marquee comparison (as apples to oranges as it is).

For people who build their machines to be mostly high-end gaming rigs, the Ryzen 7 launch has been pretty flat. Not a disappointment, it's a nice CPU and a nice step up for AMD, but certainly not the hype train people are making it out to be. If you own a four core i7 built in the last three generations and you aren't doing heavy workstation loads, the Ryzen 7 is completely skippable for you. Lets see what AMD does with Ryzen 5. If they can up the clock speeds closer to i7 clock speeds and sell a 4C/8T part at i5 prices, now we're cooking with fire and people actually have a choice.

Agreed. And at that point, Ryzen 5 will still be almost half the cost as an Intel. And yes, the 7700K is a terrible comparison. Still loving my Intel 980 6 core though, for almost 6 years

 

[Kitlope]

As said, the reviews for gaming haven't been great however there's some serious optimization needed which is to be expected. The Anandtech CPU forum is lit up with all sorts of great info. Don't count these puppies out yet.

 

[Brainling]

I'm not counting them out, I think they are good CPU's. I am super happy AMD is coming with a competitive part again...I just haven't fully bought in to the hype of Ryzen 7 yet. I am excited to see what AMD does with Ryzen 5.

 

[Kitlope]

Microsoft Windows Bug Is Holding Back AMD Ryzen

We've been addressing the topic widely in our reviews, it makes little sense for Ryzen processors that are that powerful to not perform as well in games in CPU bound situations. Microsoft now kind of confirms the issue that Windows 10 does not detect the simulated SMT threads properly, and the simulated SMT threads are weaker compared to real CPU cores. This could hinder the game performance.

In nothing more then a tweet Microsoft seems to have confirmed the existence of this issue. So basically each core gets an extra simulated thread, that is SMT (simultaneous multi-threading) or what Intel refers to as hyper-threading. A real core obviously is stronger compared to a virtual threaded one. Aka we are back to thread-scheduler bugs. Things remain a bit trivial we feel, when we disabled SMT in the BIOS (and just ran 8-threads) performance only increased marginally on some titles, with an exception for some. But who knows, titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider (which is hit the most) might benefit from properly threaded processors big-time.

There's more going on with the scheduler though, a weird fact exposed itself that the output of the diagnostic tools for the Windows 10 scheduler that distributes these computing tasks across cores, estimated an overly optimistic cache memory per core for Ryzen. A Ryzen 7 CPU seems to be recognized as a processor with a 136 MB combined cache, where it is in reality is obviously is 20 MB for L2 and L3 caches.

Meanwhile Windows 10 RTC seems to be disliking 0.25x multipliers, causing timing issues and Microsoft’s scheduler might not understand the different CCX core-to-core latencies either. So yes, most paths now lead back to the thread scheduler.

In short, the Windows thread-scheduler does not line up with the AMD Ryzen architecture.

Back in the days when Intel introduced Hyper-threading many similar issues have been addressed. From here on-wards it will be a waiting game as we'll have to wait and see how Microsoft will address this matter and see what effect these two factors will have on the slightly disappointing game performance results. But sure, it is terrific news that Microsoft found an issue and is correcting it, let us hope that Microsoft sorts out the scheduler and cache issues as soon as possible. Maybe the upcoming Patch Tuesday update scheduled for March 14 will bring this coveted patch.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/microsoft-confirms-windows-bug-is-holding-back-amd-ryzen.html