FEATURED AMD ZEN Discussion (Previous Rumor Thread)

[mackerel]

Care to give a tldw? Air? Water? LN2? LHe?

 

[Kenrou]

It's a 4 minute video slacker, watch it

 

[mackerel]

Ok, I watched the first 50 seconds, and it was LN2 if that saves anyone else 4 minutes. So basically nothing new here over what we knew about Ryzen.

 

[Kenrou]

Sheesh no one watches for the sake of watching anymore ? I hadn't heard of Threadripper being overclocked, let alone 5.2ghz on all cores. Thought it was interesting even though it doesn't really show it in detail

 

[Alaric]

Sheesh no one watches for the sake of watching anymore ? I hadn't heard of Threadripper being overclocked, let alone 5.2ghz on all cores. Thought it was interesting even though it doesn't really show it in detail

If it's any consolation, I watched it. 5.2 GHz on 16 cores has that 'Go big or go home' air about it. I'd like to see the Xeon in second place with cinebench taken cold next. A shootout with heavy artillery!

 

[mackerel]

I watch enough other stuff I don't need to add more to my list without good reason. LN2 OC isn't terribly interesting to me outside the wow factor of actually doing it at all, but that has long faded.

I think we're pretty much at Ryzen info saturation. Is there much more to know that we don't already or could reasonably guess from scaling? I think the only thing missing is a performance per watt shoot-off, based on measured power not TDP ratings. This is more relevant at bigger compute loads than gaming for example. Even then it is difficult and will vary depending on where a specific CPU model is relative to its efficiency curve.

 

[Woomack]

Somehow I have a feeling we won't see X399 ITX motherboards ... there was one ASRock ITX for Skylake-X presented on the Computex but I'm not sure if it will be released because of low demand.
TR is overclocking as expected. Even though price will be better per core then it's even worse idea for gamers than to buy Skylake-X. 6-8 core AM4 processors will be still optimal. Buying TR4 socket motherboard with 8 or less cores will be like to buy 2066 socket with 4 core i5/i7.

 

[mackerel]

Unlike Intel they're not running short on ram or PCIe lanes. The 8 core threadripper might make sense if you have a scenario that is purely IO limited, just to enable the PCIe lanes.

AMD are definitely winning the marketing battle. Both written article sites and youtubers all released their threadripper kits today. You see one, you've seen them all. Same stuff, different presenter. I like the presentation Threadripper with the website/channel name engraved on it.

 

[Woomack]

Barely anyone will need more than 64GB RAM for anything so this isn't an issue. Those who need more will probably also need more CPU cores. PCIE lanes are a bit different story but X370 is still enough for 2 graphics cards and PCIE SSD. If we are talking about gaming PC what I mentioned in my last post, then most gamers won't really use more PCIE lanes.

Somehow most AMD reviews looks the same. Like AMD marketing told them what to say. At least this way I saw most Ryzen reviews.

For sure AMD marketing wins this year. It's nothing better than convince people to buy products they don't need ... even more, so they don't buy it and still hate competition. 6 core ryzens are really great if we look at the performance/price and no wonder that most ryzens sold are 6 cores. However, looking at sales it's still not even close to Intel sales of 7600/7700k.

I feel that AMD made competition for themselves. I mean many users who would buy TR already got 1700/1700X/1800X and now won't switch. At least I know some users who would buy TR 12c+ but now won't switch. Personally I was counting on more cores for X370 boards so it was a bit disappointing to see "only" 8 cores at start and requirement of new platform with huge delay if I wanted more cores.

Ryzen was like wow at start and a lot of noise but most users were waiting on motherboard fixes and cheaper 6 cores. Most sales were 2-3 months after premiere when 6 cores were released. Now it's wow 16c for desktops and what I expect is that all will be just amazed of benchmark results but it won't sell. TR is a platform made for professionals but released as a gaming/enthusiast line. Marketing is convincing home users but not business/professional users. Maybe it's too early or too big step for AMD with TR. Time till tell.

 

[wingman99]

Woomack were are you getting the sales figures?

 

[Woomack]

central/western EU online stores ... and I work close to distribution + have direct contact with vendors

 

[mackerel]

Ryzen 1920 listed in support by mobo manufacturers. 3.2/3.8 GHz compared to 3.5/4.0 for X version. Slightly lower power rating at 140W. I assume it'll still be priced above 1900X.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

I'll just say, I am quite happy with my 1700 @3.7ghz on a **** cooler. Since the bios update that allowed me to use my crap xmp ram at 2933, I haven't touched bios. No complaints from me!

 

[TimoneX]

Barely anyone will need more than 64GB RAM for anything so this isn't an issue. Those who need more will probably also need more CPU cores. PCIE lanes are a bit different story but X370 is still enough for 2 graphics cards and PCIE SSD. If we are talking about gaming PC what I mentioned in my last post, then most gamers won't really use more PCIE lanes.

Somehow most AMD reviews looks the same. Like AMD marketing told them what to say. At least this way I saw most Ryzen reviews.

For sure AMD marketing wins this year. It's nothing better than convince people to buy products they don't need ... even more, so they don't buy it and still hate competition. 6 core ryzens are really great if we look at the performance/price and no wonder that most ryzens sold are 6 cores. However, looking at sales it's still not even close to Intel sales of 7600/7700k.

I feel that AMD made competition for themselves. I mean many users who would buy TR already got 1700/1700X/1800X and now won't switch. At least I know some users who would buy TR 12c+ but now won't switch. Personally I was counting on more cores for X370 boards so it was a bit disappointing to see "only" 8 cores at start and requirement of new platform with huge delay if I wanted more cores.

Ryzen was like wow at start and a lot of noise but most users were waiting on motherboard fixes and cheaper 6 cores. Most sales were 2-3 months after premiere when 6 cores were released. Now it's wow 16c for desktops and what I expect is that all will be just amazed of benchmark results but it won't sell. TR is a platform made for professionals but released as a gaming/enthusiast line. Marketing is convincing home users but not business/professional users. Maybe it's too early or too big step for AMD with TR. Time till tell.

I think you're underestimating the appeal of low core count Threadripper rigs...people like to leave their options open. A $550 1900x + a "budget" x399 mobo will sell quite well imo and will appeal to enthusiasts compared to the crippled low end HEDT offerings from the competition. Though the 7820x is the best bang/buck chip in the entire x-series stack from Intel, it will still look hamstrung alongside the AMD combo. It'll likely come down to price, which is a push(for now), and future upgradability...where the Intel combo suffers with its 28 PCIe lanes. Plus if Intel really is tossing Z270 under the coffee lake bus, one has to wonder how long the still new x299 will hold up as Intel's flagship desktop chipset. I can tell you which way I'd go without a second thought.

 

[mackerel]

It is only limited it you care about such limiting. I would call the whole Ryzen range limited due to AMD's design decision not to implement an Intel comparable level of AVX functionality. Most people don't care, and for those that do care, they can pick the most appropriate solution for actual needs. The extra PCIe lanes would not offer me any advantage in my uses, so I don't attribute any value to that feature. This is not saying Threadripper is a bad product, just it isn't the right product for me. I didn't expect it to be either.

X99 (2011-3) lasted through Haswell-E and Broadwell-E. X299 currently supports Skylake-X and some form of Kaby Lake, while the true offering is some way off in future. X399 is unproven at this point. AMD say they will support it, but we have to wait and see how they execute. What will you really be able to fit in it in say a year or two's time, is anyone's guess. I would not buy it on a promise. The safe judgement for any hardware purchase is not to expect any further development beyond what already exists at the time of buying.

 

[TimoneX]

It is only limited it you care about such limiting. I would call the whole Ryzen range limited due to AMD's design decision not to implement an Intel comparable level of AVX functionality. Most people don't care, and for those that do care, they can pick the most appropriate solution for actual needs. The extra PCIe lanes would not offer me any advantage in my uses, so I don't attribute any value to that feature. This is not saying Threadripper is a bad product, just it isn't the right product for me. I didn't expect it to be either.

X99 (2011-3) lasted through Haswell-E and Broadwell-E. X299 currently supports Skylake-X and some form of Kaby Lake, while the true offering is some way off in future. X399 is unproven at this point. AMD say they will support it, but we have to wait and see how they execute. What will you really be able to fit in it in say a year or two's time, is anyone's guess. I would not buy it on a promise. The safe judgement for any hardware purchase is not to expect any further development beyond what already exists at the time of buying.

I don't personally have any problem with AMD's decision to exclude AVX-512 in Ryzen. Those extensions(of extensions) exist currently in one? desktop CPU? They've only been around a few years and only appeared in a CPU with KNL. To say their use case is limited at this point and likely for the foreseeable future is putting it mildly. Zen architecture was surely planned out well in advance and would likely have to be redesigned to incorporate what is, at this point at least, little more than a novelty. They take up precious die space and I've seen those extensions running on a 7900x described as a "power bug" due to the massive increase in power consumption when they're being used...hence offsets in an attempt to remain below stated TDP. Great for benching/bragging rights, but currently not of any practical use that I'm aware of. The ability to configure PCIe lanes without launching into a game of musical dead ports on the other hand...that I can use right out of the box.

True, we don't know how long AMD will support x399, at least not that I've heard. They have, I believe stated support for AM4 through 2020 however. Given what we do know and the history of these two companies, I'm pretty comfortable assuming x399 will outlive x299. Intel's history with regard to chipset longevity, quite frankly sucks.

 

[mackerel]

I'm not talking about AVX-512, but AVX2 which has been implemented on Intel since Haswell. Ryzen IPC is about half Skylake in that area. AVX-512, I agree is not yet widely supported, but it would significantly increase the IPC yet again. There are separate AVX ratio offsets available to help manage the power if needed. Power consumption within limits, is not a problem as long as it is accompanied by a corresponding increase in performance. It is still on my "to do" list, but I'm willing to bet that in like for like conditions, both Ryzen and modern Intel CPUs are comparable in performance per watt for general tasks that AMD have been focusing on, that is those not making use of Intel strengths. The choice then comes down to in what form can you best extract that performance.

I also think any longevity in AMD platforms is not due to being nice on their part, but being limited by their capability to cycle faster.

 

[TimoneX]

When you say "Skylake" do you actually mean 7900x? I don't know about benchmarks, but for encoding, rendering, streaming and assorted multimedia related tasks there doesn't seem to be much of a gap there. Perhaps much of what you're referring to is related to memory bandwidth, which is obviously much higher on the non-crippled x299 chips vs Ryzen 7/5/3 due to quad vs dual memory channel access.

Can you give me an example of a 7900x, or other Sky-X chip for that matter, offering a large benefit in a real world app over Zen in a SIMD optimized application? I honestly haven't seen any, but then I don't own any samples of either platform either. Heck I just bought my first sticks of DDR4 memory the day before yesterday. lol

I mean pound for pound Intel chips do better than Zen in nearly everything due to higher IPC and generally higher clocks, but then when it comes to performance/dollar and or performance/watt the tables quickly turn.

 

[mackerel]

Peak AVX2 IPC for Skylake-S and Skylake-X, in my testing so far, are identical. They can be ram bandwidth limited, a problem NOT seen with Ryzen because it is so weak. Basically the 1700 I have does worse than a 6600k, stock or overclocked. On the Intel side running 3200 dual channel dual rank ram for a quad at 4 GHz is close enough to unlimited. They are substantially hindered by running low speed ram. Also the differences due to the new cache structure is yet to be well understood.

The only applications I care about are prime number finding ones. The only one that is well known is Prime95, which I actually don't use outside benchmarks, but it is highly representative of the class of application. It has been mentioned many a time that it is a niche interest area, and fair enough. Last time I looked I was still in the top 100 worldwide prime number discoverers. This is not limited to any particular project, and is based on quantity and quality (size). One of the projects I'm running has an upcoming challenge, and I aim to endure the summer heat to activate my full farm for it - normally this is a winter activity. I can do like for like comparisons of all my systems, including the Ryzen ones. I just got some new ram for them for fitting on the weekend, so I might try and get some benches at the same time.

(BTW it feels like I'm writing more about Intel in the AMD thread, and AMD in the Intel thread...)

 

[TimoneX]

I see, thanks for taking the time. It doesn't sound like anything of concern to me. I mean, I've run prime extensively, just not in a few years. I've gone over the benches for Ryzen and more recently Ryzen Threadripper and nothing leads me to conclude that 7900x has any magic SIMD sauce that will help it with anything relevant to me or that Zen's 2x128 AVX architecture is in some way deficient for the tasks I have in mind. If anything threadripper appears to offer significantly better performance/dollar/watt vs the 7900x in raytracing & video editing which is where the bulk of my workflow lives and breathes. Some tasks get handed off to GPU which are frankly far better at specific ops than either Zen or Skylake, but that's not platform specific...unless you count x299's deficiencies in the PCIe department vs x399.

...and yeah I seem to be going back and forth between AMD and Intel threads a lot myself of late and some people, that are seemingly very loyal to their hardware choices, have even offered some digs. Presumably because my own experiences/opinions differ from their own. While I have issues with Intel as a company, if they offered a product that was clearly superior for the tasks I have to accomplish...at a price I found tenable, I'd find a way to overcome my objections. Hey, the kid has to put bread on the table somehow. ;p