FEATURED AMD ZEN Discussion (Previous Rumor Thread)

[ssjwizard]

Id imagine that the zen based APUs will fill that slot pretty well.

 

[Vishera]

You know one thing that's always baffled me is Intel's iGPU's aren't half bad anymore and they still manage to include them on phenomenal processors. Why doesn't AMD put an iGPU on all of THEIR chips? Kinda confusing.

 

[Johan45]

With RyZen they are AFIK

 

[mackerel]

From the CES coverage I was of the impression Ryzen does NOT have iGPU. Mobos do have video connectors, but that was stated as being for future APU variations of Zen (or current AM4 pre-Zen ones?).

 

[trents]

You know one thing that's always baffled me is Intel's iGPU's aren't half bad anymore and they still manage to include them on phenomenal processors. Why doesn't AMD put an iGPU on all of THEIR chips? Kinda confusing.

I've wondered that too. More heat I guess. But for people who aren't into gaming but need a lot of CPU power for other kinds of tasks it narrows the cost differential between the higher end Intel CPUs and the higher end AMD CPUs from a value perspective, doesn't it.

 

[M@rk]

I sure hope so, cut down costs a bit! If AMD only go as low as 4c/8t then that means they're competing with i7 at the lowest. That leaves the i5 and i3 market (dual core with or without hyperthreading and quad core without) completely in intel's hands. Kinda makes me wonder why they're okay with batting in the low end GPU market but not the low end CPU market.

Another note, they could keep making CPU's with lower performance, maybe less cache, lower clock speeds, lower over all architectural performance for the very budget conscious consumers. Like what they do with the Athlon x4 chips right now.

They want to push the CPU market to have CPUs with more cores, I think the lowest they will go is 4c/4t, and price it close to an i3.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

AMD has already stated they're going to have three tiers of the Ryzen CPU's which line up with i3/i5/i7 market segments.

 

[DaveB]

AMD has already stated they're going to have three tiers of the Ryzen CPU's which line up with i3/i5/i7 market segments.

Going to have? Any idea when the i3 and i5 analogs will come out? I assumed (incorrectly I guess) that they were going with APUs for the low end.

 

[mackerel]

Again from the CES coverage I saw, there were various reports that AMD were going to launch a spread more than the 8C/16T model. I don't think APUs were included in that, as the mobo reports all stated that the GPU out sockets were for future release. I suppose, strictly speaking, Ryzen is still a future release...

 

[Alaric]

You know one thing that's always baffled me is Intel's iGPU's aren't half bad anymore and they still manage to include them on phenomenal processors. Why doesn't AMD put an iGPU on all of THEIR chips? Kinda confusing.

AMD's APUs have pretty low end graphics hardware, and AMD sells graphics cards, Intel doesn't. That would be my guess.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Going to have? Any idea when the i3 and i5 analogs will come out? I assumed (incorrectly I guess) that they were going with APUs for the low end.

Not sure when, but they did say they would have "more than one SKU" available at launch.
I'd assume that day-one they'll have something to compete with an i5 and i7.

Again from the CES coverage I saw, there were various reports that AMD were going to launch a spread more than the 8C/16T model. I don't think APUs were included in that, as the mobo reports all stated that the GPU out sockets were for future release. I suppose, strictly speaking, Ryzen is still a future release...

They are not releasing APU's with the initial Ryzen CPU's, that's correct. They will follow at a later date, also on the AM4 platform.
This is also why there are display connections on a lot of boards.

 

[EarthDog]

Not sure when, but they did say they would have "more than one SKU" available at launch.
I'd assume that day-one they'll have something to compete with an i5 and i7.



They are not releasing APU's with the initial Ryzen CPU's, that's correct. They will follow at a later date, also on the AM4 platform.
This is also why there are display connections on a lot of boards.

QFT (from AMD themselves).

 

[DaveB]

This Legit Reviews article reports Ryzen motherboards will not be cheap, and are expected to be as expensive as Z270 boards; will not run DDR4 beyond DDR4-2400; and will have some issues running multiple GPUs due to an insufficient number of PCI-e lanes.

 

[EarthDog]

I'm a bit confused. From that same article:

Overclockers might be able to squeeze out DDR4 3000 MHz on these boards, but that has been tricky on the early pre-production processors.

Sources inside AMD are saying that they will launch Ryzen with support above the DDR4 JEDEC standard speeds,

That's at least 2400MHz as DDR4 JEDEC standard speed is 2133 (2400 on latest intel - not sure if that is intel or JEDEC).

Intel also plays games with PCIe lanes and attached devices. There is plenty there for a dual GPU setup and two PCIe 4x M.2 NVME devices (and nothing else ). Or same with one NVME and 4x(more) SATA (above native).

 

[DaveB]

What did you hear about pricing? AMD fans seem to be thinking AM4 motherboards are going to be very cheap.

 

[EarthDog]

I didn't hear pricing on the boards. I expect them to be in the ballpark of Z270, if not a little cheaper. RE: Processors no go.. they asked us what we thought it should be. I told them my theory... $350-450 for the 8c/16t part, $250-350 for the 4c/8t part and $200-$250 for 4c/4t if there is such a thing.

 

[DaveB]

Yes I think your CPU pricing would be good for AMD for sales volume, but I don't know if they can make a profit at those numbers. Personally, I like to keep to a max of $100 on a motherboard. I only bought one Z170 to play with and it was only $79 after rebate. My X99 boards were both open boxes and the last Gigabyte board only cost me $70 after rebate. So I want to give Ryzen a shot, but won't pay a lot for a motherboard and would like to stick to $250 for the CPU. With $100 for 16GB DDR4 and a $100 or so motherboard, that would keep the total cost under $500 including shipping and/or tax. I mean, my net cost for the Dual E5-2670 CPUs, Motherboard and 32 GB RAM combo was only $250.

 

[EarthDog]

Realistically, anything under $500 for the 8c/16t CPU is a win if its Haswell+ IPC peformance and close clocks. Even if its a few % slower IPC, its still in the ballpark and still well under cutting the Intel comp.

 

[petteyg359]

Realistically, anything under $500 for the 8c/16t CPU is a win if its Haswell+ IPC peformance and close clocks. Even if its a few % slower IPC, its still in the ballpark and still well under cutting the Intel comp.

A 5930k (6c12t) is still over $600. Wanting to pay more than $100 less for two extra cores seems a bit greedy, but then I don't know how much of Intel's price points is just their current lack of competition.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Realistically, anything under $500 for the 8c/16t CPU is a win if its Haswell+ IPC peformance and close clocks. Even if its a few % slower IPC, its still in the ballpark and still well under cutting the Intel comp.

If they can release faster chips every two years would be nice. Will 500$ price point make it 3 years?