AMD Zen “RYZEN” CPUs Detailed – 8 Cores, 3.4Ghz+ & Auto Overclocking With “XFR”

[sirmo]

Does Steam count FX chips as modules or cores?

No idea, I would imagine yes.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

4+ cores are a fringe market though. Have you looked at Steam hardware survey?

I would imagine AMD wants to push the market into the direction of more cores. I think it's a good thing, because a wider adoption of many cores means more multithreaded software support in the future. GPUs are not slowing down anytime soon, so it's time CPUs kept up.

Also Intel is really not helping with $1000 8 cores.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671 50001028 600030238 600213784&IsNodeId=1
There's plenty of 6+ core chips at very attractive prices, all from AMD. Doesn't mean anything if they still perform like shit. Steam survey on post-quad core is terrible because Intel is wrecking the market with attractive, fast, (relatively) affordable quads, with the i7 series. If AMD could bring a 6 core to market, that performed as good/better than current gen intel per core, for roughly the same or even slightly over price, they'd be back in the game.

If they were able to do that though, they wouldn't be showing us the prowess of twitch streaming DOTA 2 then, would they?

And you're right w/Intel on the post-quad prices, they're nuts because they're targeting the whales.

 

[antihelten]

It's popular because it's +50% cores over a Gen1 i7, performs admirably, overclocks well, and doesn't require the user buy a new motherboard, ram, possibly PSU, possibly video card (depending on existing layout). It's a great mod for an older build that doesn't require you to change anything else.

I don't doubt that it's a great mod for an older build, but I very much doubt that it's a particularly popular mod.

Since it (and really any other 8 core setups) most likely isn't a particularly popular choice (again, unless you have data that suggests otherwise), it simply isn't particularly relevant for AMD to use it for a demonstration, since most people in the target segment wont be using it.

 

[sirmo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671 50001028 600030238 600213784&IsNodeId=1
There's plenty of 6+ core chips at very attractive prices, all from AMD. Doesn't mean anything if they still perform like shit. Steam survey on post-quad core is terrible because Intel is wrecking the market with attractive, fast, (relatively) affordable quads, with the i7 series. If AMD could bring a 6 core to market, that performed as good/better than current gen intel per core, for roughly the same or even slightly over price, they'd be back in the game.

If they were able to do that though, they wouldn't be showing us the prowess of twitch streaming DOTA 2 then, would they?

And you're right w/Itel on the post-quad prices, they're nuts because they're targeting the whales.

1.) we all know FX is not competitive. You give up too much in terms of single thread performance, and multi threaded performance isn't all that either. It's an old product, way past its would be prime which it never even had. It's a silly argument.

2.) AMD is saying, look we have a processor that can hang with Intel core for core, clock for clock. And by the way this is why you should consider going with more cores. Presumably because they are probably aiming them at the mainstream market. It's an AMD thing to do.. but still too early to say for sure.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I don't doubt that it's a great mod for an older build, but I very much doubt that it's a particularly popular mod.

Since it (and really any other 8 core setups) most likely isn't a particularly popular choice (again, unless you have data that suggests otherwise), it simply isn't particularly relevant for AMD to use it for a demonstration, since most people in the target segment wont be using it.

... Their product is an 8c/16t chip. The target market *is people who want an 8c/16t chip*. Your argument is that they shouldn't compare it against a comparable product because their target market isn't looking for their product. As long as they're comparing against lesser products, they should just throw i3's up there. Those are probably more popular than i7's. How about some nice ARM phone chips? Hell, let's throw up a blender comparison against a Rasberry Pi while we're at it?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

2.) AMD is saying, look we have a processor that can hang with Intel core for core, clock for clock. And by the way this is why you should consider going with more cores. Presumably because they are probably aiming them at the mainstream market. It's an AMD thing to do.. but still too early to say for sure.

This is the part that I'm arguing against. All they've shown is that more threads is better at highly multi-threaded applications/workloads, they have not demonstrated that the chip can perform, or is worth purchasing vs their competitor. Aiming for whatever market you can is fine, but if you're going to trot out the horse in front of the crowd, it needs to be able to run. Otherwise you're just releasing powerpoint slides and hoping people bite.

 

[moonbogg]

I wouldn't expect the boost at all when pushing all 16 threads.

That's why you dump some water on it and then OC it.

 

[EightySix Four]

All they've shown is that more threads is better at highly multi-threaded applications/workloads

I thought they were comparing two 8c/16t chips? So the same number of threads...

 

[sirmo]

This is the part that I'm arguing against. All they've shown is that more threads is better at highly multi-threaded applications/workloads, they have not demonstrated that the chip can perform, or is worth purchasing vs their competitor. Aiming for whatever market you can is fine, but if you're going to trot out the horse in front of the crowd, it needs to be able to run. Otherwise you're just releasing powerpoint slides and hoping people bite.

You said it yourself. If AMD can deliver a 6 core that performs as good as current gen intel per core, they would have a winner. I think what AMD has shown looks very promising in delivering just that.

Yes we haven't actually seen its single core perf. in action, but Intel can't be that much worse in multithreaded scaling than AMD for it to be matched by AMD in multi threaded tasks and then completely obliterate AMD in ST. Reality is probably if 8c AMD is on par with an 8c Intel in multithreaded tasks the same will likely remain the case in single threaded tasks.

AMD by their own admission still hasn't finished tweaking boost, so it's understandable why we haven't seen single threaded benchmarks as those are heavily impacted by boost. They could botch boost still so it remains to be seen, but they could also have a better boost implementation than Intel. But we will see.

 

[inf64]

... Their product is an 8c/16t chip. The target market *is people who want an 8c/16t chip*. Your argument is that they shouldn't compare it against a comparable product because their target market isn't looking for their product. As long as they're comparing against lesser products, they should just throw i3's up there. Those are probably more popular than i7's. How about some nice ARM phone chips? Hell, let's throw up a blender comparison against a Rasberry Pi while we're at it?

You seem to forget that AMD will launch SR7/5/3 which will be 8/6/4 cores SKUs all with SMT. So no, AMD has a whole product lineup based on Zen, not just a 8C/16T crunching monster.

 

[sirmo]

I thought they were comparing two 8c/16t chips? So the same number of threads...

They benchmarked 8c Zen vs 8c Intel, but he's talking about the streaming demo (not a benchmark) between Ryzen and quad 6700k.

 

[simas]

probably am. But why have a marketing demo about that of all things. We've had 8 core CPUs for ages. It's like apple showing off that the next iphone has a screen. Not just a screen, but a screen made of transparent glass!

.... I hear you on not getting overwhelmed with new marketing. there I think you are stretching it is that no - we did NOT had 8 core CPUs available to consumers for reasonable price for ages. actually never had it. Your choice was to pay kings random for the 'super premium' part of server reject part or actually buy a server reject (junked) part which is what people were doing with all of the SB reject trash. In my primary work part of the job was to enable and support infrastructure lifecycle including rotation out of old hardware parts. 4 years was on the longer side, 6 year servers? someone f%cked up! no one sane would be buying 6-7 year old technology, 5 technology generations old, slow, crazy power consumption, no real warranty, no real support. there is a reason why this 'recycled' hardware is selling for $50-75. and as consumer by the time you finish connecting it all and f%cking around with all of the parts that are required to make it work (go see serverthehome forums for plenty of examples), which is no way economical. Now, if you just must have 32 cores , and must have it now, ok, corporate junk yard technology, ebay lottery, etc is ok. but even for small business, this makes zero sense, add to it lack of warranty (must be measured in years, not months of days), and lack of support, just *shrug*.

so if AMD can come out with 8 core NEW, SUPPORTED, WARRANTED solution (which we never had from Intel for anything resembling reasonable price), at reasonable price, kudos to them!

 

[antihelten]

... Their product is an 8c/16t chip. The target market *is people who want an 8c/16t chip*. Your argument is that they shouldn't compare it against a comparable product because their target market isn't looking for their product. As long as they're comparing against lesser products, they should just throw i3's up there. Those are probably more popular than i7's. How about some nice ARM phone chips? Hell, let's throw up a blender comparison against a Rasberry Pi while we're at it?

Their target market for the demo in question is *people who play and stream DOTA 2*. Said people generally don't give a crap how many cores their CPU has, as long as it does the job.

The demo demonstrated that the Ryzen CPU did the job better than the 6700K CPU (although as I said previously both CPUs are probably outside of the budget for most people in this segment, so the demo as a whole is kind of irrelevant).

As long as they're comparing against lesser products, they should just throw i3's up there. Those are probably more popular than i7's. How about some nice ARM phone chips? Hell, let's throw up a blender comparison against a Rasberry Pi while we're at it?

If the Ryzen chip can compete with i3 CPUs in price*, then comparing to said CPUs is perfectly fair, it's not AMDs fault that Intel offers lesser products at a given price point.

And no one running Blender would ever use a Raspberry Pi, but they would use a 6900K, so please pipe down with the strawman arguments.

It's not like there's some law of nature that states that CPUs can only be compared if they have an equal amount of cores. Generally speaking, the vast majority of consumers will cross shop CPUs based on price and performance in generally single threaded software, not core count, only costumers in the HPC space might be an exception here, with the focus here being more on power usage and throughput.

*It almost certainly can't.

 

[EightySix Four]

They benchmarked 8c Zen vs 8c Intel, but he's talking about the streaming demo (not a benchmark) between Ryzen and quad 6700k.

Ahh, thanks for the clarification.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I thought they were comparing two 8c/16t chips? So the same number of threads...

They showed it can play dota 2 while streaming. That doesn't require a 6900k. That requires either setting affinity for dota to 3/4 cores and 1/4 for twitch, or using any lame old 6/8c chip from <insert generation>. They were *trying* to imply that it's as good as a 6900k without presenting real data.

You said it yourself. If AMD can deliver a 6 core that performance as good as current gen intel per core, they would have a winner. I think what AMD has shown looks very promising in delivering just that.

What have they provided that shows they can provide as good single core perf as current gen Intel? Did they release any numbers? Otherwise it's handwavium and yet another 8c to throw on the pile of those $120 FX chips.

You seem to forget that AMD will launch SR7/5/3 which will be 8/6/4 cores SKUs all with SMT. So no, AMD has a whole product lineup based on Zen, not just a 8C/16T crunching monster.

Hopefully they'll be great within their market, but if that 8c is their showpony it needs to perform. Actually perform, not 'it's awesome for the $600 build' perform.

The demo demonstrated that the Ryzen CPU did the job better than the 6700K CPU (although as I said previously both CPUs are probably outside of the budget for most people in this segment, so the demo as a whole is kind of irrelevant).

Yep, and most who have issues streaming while playing get around the problem somehow (like via software), not seek out +cores to fix their problem.

If the Ryzen chip can compete with i3 CPUs in price*, then comparing to said CPUs is perfectly fair, it's not AMDs fault that Intel offers lesser products at a given price point.

And no one running Blender would ever use a Raspberry Pi, but they would use a 6900K, so please pipe down with the strawman arguments.

Yep, if it can compete on price, they are perfectly in the right to compare it. What's the price of this 8c chip? Can we get some comparisons in varying workloads, not just one cherry picked?

And yes I was being purposely obtuse, because I don't like marketing hyping shit up that ends up flopping later, resulting in everyone being discouraged and saying 'maybe next year', meanwhile their competitor tacks on another $100 for the next gen release because they have zero competition.

 

[EightySix Four]

And yes I was being purposely obtuse, because I don't like marketing hyping shit up that ends up flopping later, resulting in everyone being discouraged and saying 'maybe next year', meanwhile their competitor tacks on another $100 for the next gen release because they have zero competition.

I get your point in regards to the streaming demo, but the other tests indicate it can go core for core and thread for thread with Intel's 6900k. We won't know why the did that strange test until benchmarks come along.

 

[sirmo]

What have they provided that shows they can provide as good single core perf as current gen Intel? Did they release any numbers? Otherwise it's handwavium and yet another 8c to throw on the pile of those $120 FX chips.

Don't take my post out of context, I explained the very thing you're asking in the post from which you quoted.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I get your point in regards to the streaming demo, but the other tests indicate it can go core for core and thread for thread with Intel's 6900k. We won't know why the did that strange test until benchmarks come along.

Then I sincerely hope it does so, and I hope it gives Intel a solid punch in the gut, they've needed it since the 2nd gen i series.

 

[antihelten]

Yep, if it can compete on price, they are perfectly in the right to compare it. What's the price of this 8c chip? Can we get some comparisons in varying workloads, not just one cherry picked?

And yes I was being purposely obtuse, because I don't like marketing hyping shit up that ends up flopping later, resulting in everyone being discouraged and saying 'maybe next year', meanwhile their competitor tacks on another $100 for the next gen release because they have zero competition.

I have no idea what the price is, but would you agree that if the price ends up being similar to the 6700K ($340), then AMD was perfectly in the right to compare it?

 

[TheELF]

AMD by their own admission still hasn't finished tweaking boost, so it's understandable why we haven't seen single threaded benchmarks as those are heavily impacted by boost. They could botch boost still so it remains to be seen, but they could also have a better boost implementation than Intel. But we will see.

For the first blender test,months ago,they downclocked the intel chip so both where running at the same clocks,guess what, you can do that for single thread tests as well.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I have no idea what the price is, but would you agree that if the price ends up being similar to the 6700K ($340), then AMD was perfectly in the right to compare it?

Yes, but it needs to be compared from many aspects, not just 'can it do multi-threaded workloads better with double the cores'. It needs to be compared on a per-core basis, a power consumption basis (which if the 95TDP is to be believed, it'll be good for an 8-core), etc. It's still disingenuous to compare two equivalently priced products designed for different workloads. Likewise I wouldn't want Intel to *only* compare the 6700k's single-thread performance against an equivalently priced AMD 6/8 core, that's just as bad.

 

[sirmo]

For the first blender test,months ago,they downclocked the intel chip so both where running at the same clocks,guess what, you can do that for single thread tests as well.

True.. but let's for instance entertain the idea that they are somehow being shady about single thread performance. How much would you give Intel an edge here? 10%, 20%? Say it's 20%. That means that Intel's multithreaded scaling is 20% worse than AMDs. If AMD's 20% slower cores can match Intel's multi threaded performance that means Intel's scaling is worse by 20%. And I just don't buy that. Which is why I think their reason for holding back ST benchmarks is purely that they want to showcase their Boost. Which by the sounds of it might be more advanced than Intel's boost.

 

[John Carmack]

Der? Couldn't you just restrict DOTA to 3 cores and let the 4th handle streaming then? What happens if DOTA releases a patch making it use 8 cores? How well does Ryzen stream Watchdogs 2 vs Skylake?

This seems like a pretty garbage press release, even from a tech perspective (which is traditionally garbage). At least there weren't any wood screws I guess?

They could also just use vsync or frame rate limit like in every other thing they showed instead of letting the game run at hundreds of FPS just so they can claim that it drops frames in the recording.

Use 1 core to encode? I don't even think my i5-6500 can do x264 encoding of 1920x1080 video in realtime (30 fps) with all 4 cores going.

 

[CentroX]

I will buy ryzen, especially for 600

 

[LTC8K6]

I will buy ryzen, especially for 600

I will wait for the reviews and to see if Intel reacts.