AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (14nm Zen)

[Platinum]

BTW,on a side-note did Hexus test the CPU under the high-performance power plan in Windows?? Apparently it adds a bit more performance in games according to some comments I read over on OcUK forums.

On a desktop, didnt think that option was avalaible?

[Tunnah]

The clock speed limitation means gamers are better off sticking to Intel. The important thing though is that it crushes the X99 chips for half the price. This is going to give Intel serious pause.

PS I noticed an error in the article:

Going back to SMT, switching it off also increases the Hitman score, from 91.4fps to 65.6, suggesting, once again, that having it active is definitely hindering performance. In fact, running Ryzen in non-SMT mode offers more performance in every scenario, and this is something that AMD needs to be concerned about.

Should it be the other way round ?

EDIT: missed a /

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

WTF AMD:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryze...view_191753/15

You hit the nail on the head on all your comments. I really wish the Windows drivers were ready before we were given the parts to review. Instead we got a statement 24 hours before launch from AMD saying that they'll be coming in 30 days if all goes well. Game optimizations will be hit or miss when they come, but they appear to be coming. That takes time though and we'll see what happens.

I put it in the conclusion on the last page. The quote came direct from AMD's John Taylor. There was talk of it coming with Ryzen 5 and then they said 'in the next month' in an official statement that was e-mailed out last night.

What is wrong with you??

You launch when it is obvious games have SMT issues,and now this??

The reviews are already out there - this is the R9 290X MK2.

[Skorne]

So their £500 8/16 CPU barely competes with a £230 i5 7600k quad core for gaming how bitterly disappointing.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

On a desktop, didnt think that option was avalaible?

That is my desktop. I switch to high performance if I am doing more intensive gaming - most of time I leave it in balanced. Apparently it might help a bit. This is why I asked if Tarinder tried it out to see if it is true or just wishful thinking.

[Corky34]

Another rushed AMD launch - ...

I'm inclined to agree what with some sites saying the 1700 doesn't have XFR and others saying it does but to a limited extent...

The non-X CPU does feature XFR, but only to a maximum of 50MHz on a single thread on a single core.

Anandtech


I'm going to guess AMD PR will be to busy to clarify.

[Jonj1611]

It seems a solid processor but I was certainly expecting a bit more. One reason why I don't pre-order these days. Will see how it pans out over the next few months.

For note though, anyone using the High Performance setting in Windows, your processor will be at max speed even at idle.

[EvilCycle]

I am still going through with 1700x purchase, even if the issues with gaming don't ever get fully ironed out, I believe the performance for the price is still well worth the upgrade from the 8350 I currently have!

I do have faith that some driver/bios updates will improve things even if only slightly, and I am pretty sure games will finally make the push further into multi core in the near future too.

Thanks for the review hexus!

[Marcus]

It will be interesting to see if performance improves over the next few months as the platform matures. Looking forward to the R1700 reviews too. I'm still using an intel Q6600 so I think this will be a big upgrade at a reasonable price for me!

[scaryjim]

The clock speed limitation means gamers are better off sticking to Intel....

Have we not quashed this one? The vast majority of gamers will be GPU limited.

Look at reviews that use more than one ST benchmark. Across a range of benchmarks, AMD are more like 10% behind in IPC in most tests (most reviews test the 4.1Ghz peak 1800X against the 4.2GHz i3 7350k and i5 7600k). Now consider that AMD's lower level SKUs are all rumoured to clock in at 3.9GHz/4GHz, while (according to the Steam Survey) only 4% of gamers use an Intel CPU with clockspeed of 3.7GHz+, and only 20% use an Intel at 3.3GHz+.

That makes 80% of gamers using a < 3.3Ghz Intel processor, or an AMD processor.

So don't tell me that Zen's "clock speed limitation" means gamers are better off sticking to Intel.

[imadaily]

I think coming from a Q6600 you'll be happy with the increase in performance compared to more or less any mid range or above processor on the market today.
The platform improvements should also help quite a bit, SATA2 to SATA3/NVMe should make things feel a bit snappier

That makes 80% of gamers using a < 3.3Ghz Intel processor, or an AMD processor.

So don't tell me that Zen's "clock speed limitation" means gamers are better off sticking to Intel.

This may be true but the gamers using <3.3GHz intel processors aren't going to be the people who are spending £320 on a new CPU!

[scaryjim]

... This may be true but the gamers using <3.3GHz intel processors aren't going to be the people who are spending £320 on a new CPU!

That's my point. The majority of gamers don't need a fast processor, or one with 8C/16T. Ryzen 7 chips aren't really aimed at gamers. The Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 quad cores are the ones that will sit in the same market as the slower Intel chips, and they're the ones that will target the majority of the gamer market. They'll be priced the same as those slower Intel chips, but they'll probably be faster in single threaded tests, because of their higher clock speed.

So saying it's better for gamers to buy Intel because Intel's highest clocked £300+ processor is faster than AMD's £329 processor with twice as many cores is a futile argument. Neither of those products address the needs of the vast majority of gamers.

[Tunnah]

WTF AMD:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryze...view_191753/15





What is wrong with you??

You launch when it is obvious games have SMT issues,and now this??

The reviews are already out there - this is the R9 290X MK2.

Personally I don't see it as that big of a deal, the difference is minimal, and if it's something that can be patched in then why not release em ? It's not a product breaker

Have we not quashed this one? The vast majority of gamers will be GPU limited.

Look at reviews that use more than one ST benchmark. Across a range of benchmarks, AMD are more like 10% behind in IPC in most tests (most reviews test the 4.1Ghz peak 1800X against the 4.2GHz i3 7350k and i5 7600k). Now consider that AMD's lower level SKUs are all rumoured to clock in at 3.9GHz/4GHz, while (according to the Steam Survey) only 4% of gamers use an Intel CPU with clockspeed of 3.7GHz+, and only 20% use an Intel at 3.3GHz+.

That makes 80% of gamers using a < 3.3Ghz Intel processor, or an AMD processor.

So don't tell me that Zen's "clock speed limitation" means gamers are better off sticking to Intel.

We've not quashed anything and I gotta say mate you have a real crappy attitude over this

I'm saying it because for a long while yet games are going to be limited to 4 cores being used, and quite a few games will benefit from extra speed. I'm not going off the charts here I'm going off the personal experience of moving from a speed limited CPU to an unlocked one - SO MANY games had a real tangible boost in performance, with Civ VI in particular giving me an insane amount of extra performance.

The speed of the cores matters quite a lot. But I'm thinking the 4 core parts might actually be faster - it's typical of many core parts having to run at lower speeds, hopefully the 4 core parts can do 4.5ghz

[Percy1983]

Look good to me last time around the AMD chips where slightly better for multi thread stuff and massively behind on gaming hence my 3570k, this time around the gaming is close enough for me and will the multi thread stuff will fly away.

Zen is coming to a PC near me.

[imadaily]

So saying it's better for gamers to buy Intel because Intel's highest clocked £300+ processor is faster than AMD's £329 processor with twice as many cores is a futile argument. Neither of those products address the needs of the vast majority of gamers.

Also true but I think it's still currently* better for gamers to buy an Intel CPU.
I've not seen any benchmarks with an i5-6600k but I'm going to guess that it performs similarly** to the r7 1700 which is £100 more.

*Things will hopefully change with the release of the r3 and r5,
**To the point where an average person won't notice the difference in an average game from around now

Ignoring gaming now: It would be amazing to have r7 1700s in the labs at uni for running CAD/CFD/FEA simulations, I'm certain it'd knock off a LOT of time compared to the i5 and i7s currently in use!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Personally I don't see it as that big of a deal, the difference is minimal, and if it's something that can be patched in then why not release em ? It's not a product breaker

Because the problem is even 10% here or there makes a big difference - look at card launches,etc where the same thing plagues AMD. Like I said that SMT bug/optimisation issue cost them 10% in the Hardware.fr review - which is big. Its the difference in the Hardware.fr review of the R7 1800X matching a Core i7 4790K or Core i7 5820K and being within 10% of a Core i7 6900K to the latter being 20% faster and the R7 1800X be the same as a Core i7 3770K in performance.

So if people see AMD matching a high clocked Haswell part,its far more positive than a SB/IB CPU from years ago - you are starting to see people laughing that 6 year old Intel CPUs are doing well against it.

AMD is just giving more chances to Intel in a growing segment.

The whole issue,is that its enough for say an Intel CPU to get 80FPS on a £1000 card and an AMD one to get 70FPS for it to look fail,especially since it will be an older Intel CPU getting that,since realistically we have not seen a big change in single core IPC over 5 years.

Remember once you go over £200+ you are entering the enthusiast area where people will be comparing percentages.

Also I doubt not having proper windows support is a small problem - it means proper scheduling support too,or even proper power control of the CPUs under Windows,and its why some people mentioned performance was improved using a high performance profile(might be not true).

You need to realise Intel CPUs have had years of support as they are gradual improvements - Ryzen is a new core,and AMD achieves nothing by launching it earlier and making it look worse than it should.

AMD always does this - the R9 290X due to its crap cooler,made it lose performance,and look hot and noisy against Nvidia cards and often the drivers are not quite there. The same as the RX480 which meant Nvidia probably got some extra sales. Intel and Nvidia might have some bugs during their launches but as a whole seem to just be better at doing smoother ones.

Toms Hardware said the same thing:

It's a bummer the Ryzen launch was so clearly rushed. We expected AMD to have a better explanation for its gaming performance, but all of the feedback we received from the company came very last-minute. It's hard to imagine these shortcomings weren't discovered previously and diagnosed more thoroughly. We're happy to put in the time and effort, though. Expect more information as it becomes available.

The problem is this enforces the whole Intel/Nvidia duality against them.