QOTW: Does AMD Ryzen need to be faster than Intel Core?

[HEXUS]

Or will getting close be good enough to tempt you?

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[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Getting close enough with a reasonable price is good enough IMHO OFC. At least from the viewpoint of a gamer,any savings on the CPU can be put into the graphics card for example and even from the viewpoint of a photographer the savings can be put into faster storage and more RAM.

[lumireleon]

being at the same speed as the 8 core but cheaper by $500 is worth killing intel for their high noncompetitive prices

[Biscuit]

It depends what you mean by faster; what are the metrics?
Gaming?
Productivity?
Media work?
Mathematics and Science?
AI?

I don't see AMD completely dethroning Intel and running away with the performance king of all possible metrics at all price points, but as long as they trade blows in enough of them, I think they should be back in the game.
As long as the figures for gaming and media work are solid, I may well be tempted.

[flearider]

that's like asking is hexus better than the reg ?
my 8350 does what it needs to @5ghz and in real terms plays anything out there like an intel chip would ..
but i'll be getting a zen and a vega ..and have change left over to buy the wife something
and if lasts as long and overclocks as my 8350 has money well spent ..

[kingpotnoodle]

To be credible Ryzen needs to be around the same performance in most benchmarks with Core chips at a similar price, without using much more power or having any strange quirks. Most benchmarks means not just heavily multithreaded benchmarks but day-to-day average user type stuff where single thread performance matters.

If Ryzen can exceed performance in a few useful benchmarks, offer some sort of value add or just be straight up better value for money when the whole platform is taken into account then AMD might have some chance of selling them in good numbers.

[nitro912gr]

I never bought anything because it was the best of the best, I always buy with performance/price or quality/price in mind.
if AMD can give me a CPU with the power of an intel CPU but cheaper, I will go get it.

So far all the systems I have had where running an amd CPU because when I was buying the performance/price ratio was on their side. But this didn't stopped me from getting an i3 for my girlfriend when the performance/price ratio was on the intel side.

I believe most people will buy in this fashion, after all didn't we all want the best our money can buy? Keeping in mind the terrible market share from AMD at the moment I do believe that whatever their performance is (better or equal) they will go for a lower price tag to claw back market share.
At least this is what I hope

[infraction]

I don't think that AMD need to be faster, however they need to be competitive in both performance and power consumption which is something bulldozer failed at even against the first gen i series.

Not only that but a lot of people are opting for smaller form factor PC's that fit a more casual entertainment lifestyle rather than big full size enthusiast atx towers and with AMD at this current moment you are pretty much forced to go the FM2+ socket (due to AM3+ CPU's not having integrated north/southbridges and therefore requiring bigger motherboards) for such builds which isn't optimal for anything above low end gaming.

Being able to slap an octacore chip into an itx motherboard would be a nice incentive to go AMD.

[JGJones]

"Bang for your buck" - always true when it come to CPU's - I never buy top of line (I'm not that rich!) so essentially, let's imagine I have £200 to spend on a CPU. If AMD outperform Intel for £200, they win. Simples!

[Irien]

I'm going to go against the general flow of comments and say that AMD need to be more than just "competative" with Intel. First, cards on table - historically I was a big champion of AMD, but for my customers, Intel Core2Duo onwards made a real difference which AMD had no answer to. I *like* AMD, but Intel's case was far stronger.

Now, Intel have built a really solid eco-system - chipsets/motherboards/CPUs. These things work, have solid features, and reliable/predicatable drivers. There's a lot to be said for that - a firm foundation for building your house/PC.

With that in mind, AMD need to provide a reason for a customer to choose the AMD solution over the Intel one, above and beyond "our performance is similar and we're the little guy". As others have intimated, this could be keen pricing - deliver consumer-i7 beating performance for 200ukp (i5 territory) for example. Or it could be better-featured motherboards in particular price brackets (ie. deliver H170-esque features for H110 prices). Ideally they need to offer a combination of both in order to make a compelling case to move from the "known good" Intel alternative.

As it stands, the only "bad" things about Intel's products are their ever-increasing pricing, and the lack of significant progress in the last few years (not even 10% per generation). Both of those things give AMD room, and real competition from AMD will hopefully cause Intel to improve in both areas. Either way that's good for the consumer which ever horse you back.

[The Hand]

AMD should under cut Intel, even if the performance is on par or even better than the Intel equivalent part. Just imagine buying a Zen chip that's a bit cheaper than an i7 but also a bit faster than an i7? Most customers would be happy with that.

Edit:

So to answer the question (lol), no the AMD chip doesn't need to be faster just well priced and the buyers will come.

[lon3wolf2002]

If it's close enough at a good price I would be tempted (as long as they don't brute force the performance by using silly amounts of power).

[edzieba]

Coming from a 6700k, and needing single-threaded performance more than adding more cores, there's no reason for me to consider Zen unless it can offer a performance improvement. There's all the chipset stuff too: VR needs a good solid USB 3 host adapter, and the rumblings are that the AM4 chipset to accompany Zen uses an ASMedia USB 3.1 controller rather than an on-board adapter, which is less than idea.

[LSG501]

Performance per £ will be what makes the difference although I'm going to be looking at 8/16 core/thread cpu's (3D rendering etc) rather than consumer 4/8 core/thread ones. If I can get a ryzen (still prefer zen) with 90%+ of the performance of intels equivalent for say 75% of the cost then it's a no brainer imo if you're getting to the point of needing an upgrade.

The problem for intel isn't so much getting on par with intel, it's finding enough of a margin to make people actually want to upgrade.... plenty of people are still rocking 2500k's and people with the last 3 or 4 gens of intel have no real reason to upgrade other than motherboard extras.

[pastymuncher]

If it's a decent upgrade from my 4670k and fairly priced then yes, I would jump to it. Skylake's gain over Haswell was a joke and Kabylake is looking no better so Intel has nothing worthwhile for me to upgrade to. What I wan't is a higher single core performance as the game I play most, TS2017, is for the most part single threaded and my 4670k is holding my 1070 back.

[will19565]

I don't think that AMD need to be faster, however they need to be competitive in both performance and power consumption which is something bulldozer failed at even against the first gen i series.

Not only that but a lot of people are opting for smaller form factor PC's that fit a more casual entertainment lifestyle rather than big full size enthusiast atx towers and with AMD at this current moment you are pretty much forced to go the FM2+ socket (due to AM3+ CPU's not having integrated north/southbridges and therefore requiring bigger motherboards) for such builds which isn't optimal for anything above low end gaming.

Being able to slap an octacore chip into an itx motherboard would be a nice incentive to go AMD.

if you're willing to pay for it you can already get a mini-ITX motherboard which can support upto a 18 core Xeon CPU - the Asrock X99E-ITX/AC, however it's crazy expensive $260/£270 (Amazon UK / Newegg US)
a 8 core mini-ITX at £/$ 150 to 200 would be quite cool though