Speculation: Spring refresh for Ryzen

[Vattila]

As I've posted elsewhere, I think AMD fell short of their frequency targets for the Ryzen 3000 series. A later launch than expected, statements relating to frequency challenges, Max Boost redefinition, boost issues, 3900X shortages, and now the 3950X delay from September to November, do all corroborate this. I guess they aimed for 5 GHz, but fell ~8% short.

However, TSMC is firing on all cylinders. Amongst a number of process roadmap announcements, they now offer N7P as a refinement of their N7 process on which the Zen 2 chiplet is built. N7P is compatible with N7 design rules, so it should provide a fairly simple and cost-effective opportunity to optimise existing designs.

With that in mind, is there a chance that AMD will do a spring refresh based on a faster stepping of the CPU chiplet?

 

[misuspita]

Yeah, I can't wait for the press to test the new XT against their X and nonX versions to see if it's worth buying the new CPUs or they are just as X vs nonX performance wise

 

[Atari2600]

Yeah, I guess the logic that it forces reviewers to do fresh reviews with new firmwire and the stepping effects is a good one.

As well as it forcing reviewers to put up a new fresh Ryzen review on their pages. Effective publicity and refreshing the (positive) comparison to the competition.

 

[Asterox]

Yeah, I guess the logic that it forces reviewers to do fresh reviews with new firmwire and the stepping effects is a good one.

As well as it forcing reviewers to put up a new fresh Ryzen review on their pages. Effective publicity and refreshing the (positive) comparison to the competition.

Good marketing move, but again Zen 2/ Desktop Ryzen 3000 series does not need any green boost.

R5 3600 is seling in very big numbers, and will continue to do that with even lower retail price.Zen 2/Renoir APU on Mobile, in the past AMD never have that kind of good Mobile CPU or performance.

 

[Thunder 57]

I'm still willing to hold out for some actual product reviews, but yeah I'm not all that on board with this Matisse refresh thing.



I don't think that's what he means. If AMD launches the 3900XT today @ $499, then they launch the 4900x in October at a higher price.

The 4900x should be $499, and the 4950x should be (I guess) $749.



They are within the same product range. A 3900x sold last July can sustain all-core clocks of . . . well okay, MY 3900x can sustain all-core clocks of 4175 MHz in CBR20 MT. If the 3900XT can do 4300 MHz or higher all-core in CBR20 MT then yeah, that's an improvement, and it's something that might be possible. I would consider paying an extra $90 for that today were I choosing an AM4 CPU.

$90 for an extra 100MHz all core? ehh I wouldn't. Maybe they are boosting just that much better all around that it might be worth it. Too bad we have to wait until July to find that out. Between this and B550, my confidence in AMD is a bit shaken. I do think Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster have things under control though, for the moment.

 

[jpiniero]

I don't think that's what he means. If AMD launches the 3900XT today @ $499, then they launch the 4900x in October at a higher price.

The 4900x should be $499, and the 4950x should be (I guess) $749.

The street price right now for the 3900X is $420. Figure the 3900XT will be a lot closer to $499. The 12 core Vermeer could be more than $499.

 

[thesmokingman]

Yeah, I can't wait for the press to test the new XT against their X and nonX versions to see if it's worth buying the new CPUs or they are just as X vs nonX performance wise

I'll save you the trouble, its not worth it. All they did was bring boost to the same level as the 3950x.

 

[Kenmitch]

I'll save you the trouble, its not worth it. All they did was bring boost to the same level as the 3950x.

I'm waiting to pass judgement after the reviews of the XT's drop. I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about in the 1st place. Most of you guys already have a worthy CPU anyways. Those on the AMD platform currently contemplating on upgrading are most likely holding out for Zen 3 anyways.

 

[blckgrffn]

I think, in some ways, it is encouraging to see AMD to be in a position to "spoil" the 10xxx launch with new products. nvidia and AMD seem to do this all the time on the GPU front (minor re-releases of tweaked SKUs for this same purpose), but when was AMD healthy enough on the CPU side to challenge Intel like this?

We should all benefit from incremental gains, refreshed reviews and pricing shakedowns (if it follows the GPU model).

Whether it really brings much to the table is debatable, but it is nice to see AMD executing like they are going to be relevant for a while and not a K8/K9 flash in the pan.

Man those days were fun. Let's have that real competition again.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Eh, I don't think the XT variants are worth the price tag. Very much like 3800X wasn't really worth it over 3700X. However, this refresh does come with a price cut to 3900X and if it keeps making AMD money all the better. Good for them.

Personally I'm not buying the refresh. My current hope is to pick up 3950x on sale once 4000 series is out.

 

[thesmokingman]

I'm waiting to pass judgement after the reviews of the XT's drop. I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about in the 1st place. Most of you guys already have a worthy CPU anyways. Those on the AMD platform currently contemplating on upgrading are most likely holding out for Zen 3 anyways.

Concur on your points. I just don't think the refresh is any different from a 3950x binning so don't hold your breath is all I'm saying.

 

[joesiv]

my thoughts on the XT variants:
- Allow AMD to sell processors at the origional MSRP again (street prices for the non-XTs are trending downwards)
- They're probably just the highest binned chips, boost clocks max out at the 3950X's max boost too, which already had the best bins
- Seems that the 7nm node is gettting better, so more chips are hitting that higher bin, we're seeing even the standard X chips that are shipping seeing more flexiblity in voltage/clocks
- Like others have said, it gets AMD back on the radar of reviewers and for consumers
- If no coolers are correct, it just means AMD can make more money per chip.

I can't decide if AMD is essentially charging a premium for the uninformed (people who don't know the new X versions are better too, perhaps the same, but include the cooler and are cheaper now), or if AMD is helping the enthusiasts, by giving them the best bins and knowing that they will throw an aftermarket cooler on it anyways... Can't decide... lol

 

[Kenmitch]

Concur on your points. I just don't think the refresh is any different from a 3950x binning so don't hold your breath is all I'm saying.

I think the only thing that'll enable the upgrade itch for me is higher IF clocks. It would be nice to run my B-Die at it's true potential. Of course they're would need to be some other substantial improvements along with the higher IF. Most likely Zen 3 will be the only option, but it'll really depend on Microcenter's price points.

 

[amrnuke]

Eh, I don't think the XT variants are worth the price tag. Very much like 3800X wasn't really worth it over 3700X. However, this refresh does come with a price cut to 3900X and if it keeps making AMD money all the better. Good for them.

Personally I'm not buying the refresh. My current hope is to pick up 3950x on sale once 4000 series is out.

I would imagine it would be worthwhile to wait for benchmarks before claiming they're not worth the price tag. Basically the only information we have right now is on advertised base and boost freq, and a single CB20 ST score.

We don't know whether these XT versions may be more overclockable, may actually boost higher than advertised (AMD may be playing it safe due to getting burned on this front), etc.

Case in point, if the 3900XT actually sees single-core boost to 4.8 GHz rather than 4.7 GHz with a flip of the switch in Ryzen Master, and all-core 4.4 GHz rather than the 3.8 advertised or the 4.1-4.2 most have gotten from the 3900X, that's actually going to have substantial effects on the cost effectiveness of the chip.

 

[misuspita]

For anybody having already 3xxx series CPU it doesn't matter. But for somebody like me, thats rockin a 1600 (original) and has a B450 board and can upgrade the performance quite significantly, it matters if the new offerings cand sustain allcore at least 4,2GHz. That's something that my current 1600 cant touch even single core. Heck, it barely gets to 3.9. So single core touching 4.5Ghz constantly and 4.2 (4.4 or more would be godsend) allcore is a significant upgrade for me.

Thats why I wait for the reviews to come and see if it's only a stab at Intel or a real improvement over the X and nonX

 

[Ajay]

Meh, this is all about marketing, as is mentioned above. Guess I'll have to wait till Zen 3 for any real excitement.

 

[rainy]

For anybody having already 3xxx series CPU it doesn't matter. But for somebody like me, thats rockin a 1600 (original) and has a B450 board and can upgrade the performance quite significantly, it matters if the new offerings cand sustain allcore at least 4,2GHz.

I think, it's a very good point - for owners of CPUs based on Zen 2, those XT models are not particularly compelling.
It's a bit different story for users of processors based on Zen+/Zen (especially latter) - here performance gains could be very decent.

Btw, with B450 motherboard you would still have chances for Vermeer (Zen 3) upgrade.

 

[gdansk]

It looks like the refresh has not delayed Zen 3 desktop (or at least not much).

In the call, AMD told us that the information about "Zen 3" launching in 2020 is not under embargo, and so here we are. An AMD spokesperson told us that "the rumor on Zen 3 delay is inaccurate." AMD recently also refuted rumors of "Zen 3" being based on 5 nm, by putting out microarchitecture roadmap slides on the occasion of a recent investor relations event, which reaffirmed "Zen 3" as a 7 nm-class microarchitecture.

TPU

 

[mopardude87]

Underwhelming.
Looks like AMD just wants to keep moments and discussions going.

This, yup i got no issues waiting for 4000 series now. Got plenty of time to save up for it too!

 

[misuspita]

Btw, with B450 motherboard you would still have chances for Vermeer (Zen 3) upgrade.

maybe. But while for 4xxx I'm at the mercy of the MB maker, the 3xxx is doable across all range. Having a AsRock B450M Pro4 does not allow me to get 3950x crazy, because not so great VRMs (at least compared with the best ones), so I have to go lower for safety. And money also, I cant afford a 3950, lets be real, else I would have bought a Taichi in the first place.

But for me a 3600XT that goes to eleven would be great . Even a 3800XT might be doable if they really hit the 4,5GHz allcore without expensive cooling.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Are the XTs expected to quickly replace the current lineup or just a better binning (esp given improved performance on recent chips)?

 

[DrMrLordX]

$90 for an extra 100MHz all core? ehh I wouldn't. Maybe they are boosting just that much better all around that it might be worth it. Too bad we have to wait until July to find that out. Between this and B550, my confidence in AMD is a bit shaken. I do think Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster have things under control though, for the moment.

Well remember, I said "my 3900x". There are other samples running out there that run a full 100-150 MHz slower than mine in MT workloads like CBR20. So a 4.3 GHz all-core 3900XT on "normal" cooling under "normal" circumstances would be a nice improvement.

And we're talking all-core here on a 12c chip, which is a pretty big deal if it''s not pulling any more power to get there. Not some 100 MHz boost to 1T turbo speeds that you almost never see.

The 12 core Vermeer could be more than $499.

That's exactly what I (and others) am afraid of.

 

[moinmoin]

Are the XTs expected to quickly replace the current lineup or just a better binning (esp given improved performance on recent chips)?

AMD introduced them by saying they offer more choices for enthusiasts. So I'd expect the whole Ryzen 3000 range to stay available until 4000 replaces them down the line (even today some 1000 chips are still available so that could be years until then).

 

[mopardude87]

AMD introduced them by saying they offer more choices for enthusiasts. So I'd expect the whole Ryzen 3000 range to stay available until 4000 replaces them down the line (even today some 1000 chips are still available so that could be years until then).

This, i think they will also heavily discount as usual too!

 

[Panino Manino]

Any ideia if Ian got some samples for review tommorow?

 

[amrnuke]

Any ideia if Ian got some samples for review tommorow?

I'd guess so, but even if he did, they're presumptively under embargo and wouldn't be able to confirm, I believe.