AMD's big breakthrough

trents · Apr 14, 2017

Whereas we have only seen incremental performance improvements from Intel going back to Sandy Bridge at least, I will give AMD the "break through" award for Ryzen. It truly is a huge improvement over their last generation FX line. There are a few rough edges yet with the new product line but they really did deliver on promises this time.

Suppressor1137 · Apr 14, 2017

for the first time since the Opteron days, i can recommend an amd processor with confidence, and not because it is price vs performance arguments. now we can see how they will rock the boat further with vega.

If i didn't already have an i7 6700k, id be building a ryzen 5 build.

mackerel · Apr 14, 2017

AMD's catchup project did largely meet expectations. In most common tasks they're close enough in IPC, and generally offering more cores/threads at a given price point. I'm not sure I'd call it a breakthrough though. Did they bring something new to the end user experience? They had no choice. To keep playing, they had to either catch up, or they throw the fight. General market penetration remains to be seen. Even if they are making some inroads in enthusiast areas, this is only a tiny part of the market. Once the platform matures enough, it will be interesting to see how business uptake goes.

What I find more interesting is how Intel reacts to this in future. Not today, as they don't need to do much immediately, but it will be very interesting to see how X299 develops, as well as what mainstream options they offer.

ShrimpBrime · Apr 14, 2017

Thanks Jim Keller for helping AMD create an awesome desktop CPU that doesn't kill the wallet. I love that AMD finally went with SMT. Such a nice feature. I can live with 16 threads at 325$ or even 399$. It's doable.

ssjwizard · Apr 14, 2017

ShrimpBrime said:
Thanks Jim Keller for helping AMD create an awesome desktop CPU that doesn't kill the wallet. I love that AMD finally went with SMT. Such a nice feature. I can live with 16 threads at 325$ or even 399$. It's doable.

He definitely put them on the right path. I do feel like if they had kept him on for a few more months though 1 of 2 things would have happened. Product would have been to market faster AND/OR would have launched without as many quirks. Nonetheless I am definitely looking forward to an R5 1600X build soon. As this is the convergence of the platforms I suspect AM4 will be around for several more years, and hopefully by this time next year the engineers will have put a spit shine on the design and we will see 2nd generation Ryzen products hitting 5Ghz+ with much higher memory speeds.

Woomack · Apr 14, 2017

CPUs are good but were not ready for premiere 2 months ago. Motherboards and general cooperation between AMD and motherboard vendors is a joke. The same with memory and software manufacturers.
Even though processors are good then whole platform is far from reliable and it's hard to recommend it for more professional work. At home barely anyone needs more than 4 cores. What I want to say is that Ryzen higher chips have no place on the current mass market. Nice that enthusiasts buy them but it's low % of the market and so far it's not changing anything.
Efficiency of Ryzen at lower voltage is great but again most users expect higher frequency and then Ryzen is not as efficient and it hits a wall at ~4GHz regardless of chip.
What all are reading in most reviews and tests is far from real daily work so you can't really say if Ryzen is good when you can't work on this platform.

My experience is like this:
- good CPU with high potential and possible future improvements
- I was expecting lower price ( local price wasn't really low even comparing to some Intel chips )
- most motherboards are garbage
- problems with full stability in typical environment, average user can't make it work good
can find some more

In general I'm not saying I don't like what is Ryzen offering but whole platform isn't reliable and I just can't recommend Ryzen out of home environment and that to users who know how to solve some issues or make simple things like update BIOS. On OCF most users don't realize that typical PC user is afraid to even update BIOS. I work in IT and here most people ask me for really basic things.

I just feel like I purchased beta product which I'm testing now. I know that AMD needs money as they have constant issues with budget but they were delaying this product for long months and later released unfinished platform which has potential but in like half year+ or in next generation, not now.

ShrimpBrime · Apr 14, 2017

You so bashed my good thoughts and happy feelings with your post. Thanks Woomack....

Woomack · Apr 14, 2017

ShrimpBrime said:
You so bashed my good thoughts and happy feelings with your post. Thanks Woomack....

no problem

... I just see that there are couple of sides of this story or maybe group of users:
- those users who were expecting a lot and just don't want to think they got something else regardless how bad it would be
- those who were expecting a lot but got something in the middle, still can live with that
- reviewers who clearly show Ryzen as the Intel killer, not all but most reviews say that
- end users who are not related to IT business, expect perfect product as advertised but get a lot of problems
- AMD marketing which is promissing more than they can do and it's typical for marketing but AMD is saying only about Ryzen CPUs while motherboards and other hardware is not their problem ( while it should be as they are selling platform not only CPU+chipset )

ssjwizard · Apr 14, 2017

Woomack said:
- AMD marketing which is promissing more than they can do and it's typical for marketing but AMD is saying only about Ryzen CPUs while motherboards and other hardware is not their problem ( while it should be as they are selling platform not only CPU+chipset )

This part has definitely been an on again off again plague for AMD since the K6 era. MB manufacturers and drives in the toilet even though the chips themselves were just fine. Then you hit the original Athlon days and its all just fine. A64, hardware wise came out the gate swinging, but the software just wasn't ready. Sad as it is I feel like the decline of AMDs relationships with MB manufacturers was about a year into the FX days. So many revisions made to so many boards that did not sell very well, and then nothing fresh came along for a LONG time.

I refer back to my earlier post that if Jim Keller had been kept on a bit longer we wouldn't be seeing nearly as many issues with what I will refer to as Ryzen V0.9. Im sure this was done to reduce R&D cost though as I bet the whole lab of Ryzen engineers combine probably make in a year what they paid him for his short stay. IMO there is no excuse for the memory related problems this platform has right now. DDR and the IMC are both AMD innovations and there is no reason at all that they should be dropping the ball in this area.

DaveB · Apr 14, 2017

Woomack said:
CPUs are good but were not ready for premiere 2 months ago. Motherboards and general cooperation between AMD and motherboard vendors is a joke. The same with memory and software manufacturers.
Even though processors are good then whole platform is far from reliable and it's hard to recommend it for more professional work. At home barely anyone needs more than 4 cores. What I want to say is that Ryzen higher chips have no place on the current mass market. Nice that enthusiasts buy them but it's low % of the market and so far it's not changing anything.
Efficiency of Ryzen at lower voltage is great but again most users expect higher frequency and then Ryzen is not as efficient and it hits a wall at ~4GHz regardless of chip.
What all are reading in most reviews and tests is far from real daily work so you can't really say if Ryzen is good when you can't work on this platform.

My experience is like this:
- good CPU with high potential and possible future improvements
- I was expecting lower price ( local price wasn't really low even comparing to some Intel chips )
- most motherboards are garbage
- problems with full stability in typical environment, average user can't make it work good
can find some more

In general I'm not saying I don't like what is Ryzen offering but whole platform isn't reliable and I just can't recommend Ryzen out of home environment and that to users who know how to solve some issues or make simple things like update BIOS. On OCF most users don't realize that typical PC user is afraid to even update BIOS. I work in IT and here most people ask me for really basic things.

I just feel like I purchased beta product which I'm testing now. I know that AMD needs money as they have constant issues with budget but they were delaying this product for long months and later released unfinished platform which has potential but in like half year+ or in next generation, not now.

Having played with several 1700s, 1700Xs and now a 1600, along with Asus, ASRock and MSI X370 and B350 motherboards, I agree with everything you've said. I've been providing feedback to motherboard manufacturers but they don't seem very interested in fixing things. New BIOS updates seem to break as many features as they fix so the BIOS programmers really seem clueless. And after all is said and done, the main benefit of the platform, additional cores and threads, is irrelevant to mainstream users. While I am impressed by the potential of AMD's Ryzen, right now I would stick with Intel for a system build for a friend.

Bluefalcon13 · Apr 14, 2017

Honestly, I'm kinda in the viewpoint from trents. Let's face it. We are beta testing the true mainstream product. Laptops. Desktops are rare in the consumer market these days. Yeah, we are the exception here, alot of people don't own a desktop. They own a laptop or two within their family.

Walk into a best buy. This is where a huge portion of the US population buys computers. Count the number of laptops, on display, then count the number of desktop towers. Exclude the AIO computers as they usually run either a down-clocked desktop CPU or even a laptop CPU. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a 1:4 ratio (desktop:laptops). The release of the laptop processors will be where AMD wins or fails to be honest, atleast in the consumer market.

wagex · Apr 14, 2017

i mean... they had just as long to make just as big of a performance leap as intel, they just didnt milk it out like intel did lol.

DaveB · Apr 14, 2017

Bluefalcon13 said:
Walk into a best buy. This is where a huge portion of the US population buys computers. Count the number of laptops, on display, then count the number of desktop towers. Exclude the AIO computers as they usually run either a down-clocked desktop CPU or even a laptop CPU. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a 1:4 ratio (desktop:laptops). The release of the laptop processors will be where AMD wins or fails to be honest, atleast in the consumer market.

I think most of the US population today are using their phones instead of any type of computer, laptop or desktop. When I do email people today, I get truncated texting-like responses from their phones 99% of the time. So IMO the home computer is on the road to extinction as the population continues to dumb down.

Bluefalcon13 · Apr 14, 2017

I can see that. Then again, what I also see is a ton of kids(ok, ok, yes I am the old fogey in college at 32… they all seem like kids to me at this point...) in school, even for CS and Engineering majors, who only have a laptop (including surface in the laptop category) and only want a laptop.

chrisjames61 · Apr 14, 2017

mackerel said:
AMD's catchup project did largely meet expectations. In most common tasks they're close enough in IPC, and generally offering more cores/threads at a given price point. I'm not sure I'd call it a breakthrough though. Did they bring something new to the end user experience? They had no choice. To keep playing, they had to either catch up, or they throw the fight. General market penetration remains to be seen. Even if they are making some inroads in enthusiast areas, this is only a tiny part of the market. Once the platform matures enough, it will be interesting to see how business uptake goes.

What I find more interesting is how Intel reacts to this in future. Not today, as they don't need to do much immediately, but it will be very interesting to see how X299 develops, as well as what mainstream options they offer.

You don't call it a breakthrough? They more than doubled the ipc of the older generation cpu's and offer an astounding price per performance ratio that as of now Intel can't match. They did it on a shoestring budget when even AMD fans had serious doubts about it being possible.

chrisjames61 · Apr 14, 2017

Woomack said:
In general I'm not saying I don't like what is Ryzen offering but whole platform isn't reliable and I just can't recommend Ryzen out of home environment and that to users who know how to solve some issues or make simple things like update BIOS. On OCF most users don't realize that typical PC user is afraid to even update BIOS. I work in IT and here most people ask me for really basic things.

Most home users are people who buy oem computers and would never do a bios update nor have too and probably not even know what it is so I think that point is moot. People who build computers generally know how to update a bios so I also think that renders the point as moot.

- - - Updated - - -

Bluefalcon13 said:
Honestly, I'm kinda in the viewpoint from trents. Let's face it. We are beta testing the true mainstream product. Laptops. Desktops are rare in the consumer market these days. Yeah, we are the exception here, alot of people don't own a desktop. They own a laptop or two within their family.

Walk into a best buy. This is where a huge portion of the US population buys computers. Count the number of laptops, on display, then count the number of desktop towers. Exclude the AIO computers as they usually run either a down-clocked desktop CPU or even a laptop CPU. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a 1:4 ratio (desktop:laptops). The release of the laptop processors will be where AMD wins or fails to be honest, atleast in the consumer market.

In the consumer market I think the apu's might do really well. The business market would also would be where the apu's could compete with the i3. Of course there is the server side of things where we hope Ryzen will compete well.

Woomack · Apr 14, 2017

If most home users buy laptops, oem computers etc then really what's the point of Ryzen in current form ? Home users ( in global scale ) are barely interested, business users won't even look at AMD. What's the point to release unfinished product and advertise it as something great while it's clearly not ? ( again I'm saying about whole platform not only CPU ) ... I just don't know about what AMD is thinking right now. Even if they beat Intel price/performance in this really small group of products then who really cares ? In global scale it's still nothing.
Ryzen is interesting only for computer enthusiasts who were waiting for new AMD CPU for long years. I mean for any new AMD which wouldn't be total fail. These users would buy it regardless if it was 10, 20, 50 or 100% faster than last generation. It simply couldn't be worse.

trents · Apr 14, 2017

chrisjames61 said:
You don't call it a breakthrough? They more than doubled the ipc of the older generation cpu's and offer an astounding price per performance ratio that as of now Intel can't match. They did it on a shoestring budget when even AMD fans had serious doubts about it being possible.

This. I was referring to what AMD had been offering previously, not to being a technological breakthrough per se. And as far as reliability goes, that is falling into place. I think you will see Ryzen penetrate into the laptop market in time since the IPC is close to Intel now and the prices are considerably lower. With the power efficiency of Ryzen I can even see where we might finally get some laptops with some workstation like grunt.

I really doubt in a year's time we will see a second generation Ryzen's running at 5 ghz (reference to ssjwizard's comment). I think it will be a tick tock enhancement but not a huge leap in clock speed.

DaveB · Apr 14, 2017

Bluefalcon13 said:
I can see that. Then again, what I also see is a ton of kids(ok, ok, yes I am the old fogey in college at 32… they all seem like kids to me at this point...) in school, even for CS and Engineering majors, who only have a laptop (including surface in the laptop category) and only want a laptop.

Yes I understand that for college students, especially those CS and Engineering majors you're dealing with, the laptop is still necessary. Personally I hate the small screen, compressed keyboards and stupid touchpads on laptops so only my wife uses the one we have. But she uses it much less these days and does 90% of her previous computer searches, emailing, gaming, etc. on her Samsung S7. That's what I was talking about, post college where phones have pretty much taken over.

Bluefalcon13 · Apr 14, 2017

I'd say we (computer enthusiasts) are basically helping AMD and ODM/OEMs iron out all the kinks in the normal market. With the 5 series released, I think we might start seeing products from the prebuilt system manufacturers that are truly better for the price compared to the Intel systems. The platform is (slower than we want, but still happening) stabilizing. I'd guess that when the Ryzen based APUs come off the line, we will be looking at a very stable platform, which is ready for the masses. Just my thoughts.

AMD's big breakthrough

Senior Member

Member

Member

~MadHatDeLidder~

Has slightly less legible writing than Thideras

Benching Team Leader

~MadHatDeLidder~

Benching Team Leader

Has slightly less legible writing than Thideras

Senior Member

Member

Chapstick Eating Premium Member

Senior Member

Member

Member

Member

Benching Team Leader

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Similar threads