AMD - Zen chitchat

[DanceswithUnix]

Also it makes me wonder whether Zen3 is a power hog with all the phases on the B550 motherboards!

Perhaps needed for a 24 or 32 core variant when we get to 5nm? There is something going on there though isn't there.

[watercooled]

It's an interesting observation, but in many cases the VRMs are similar to or slightly lower spec'd than their X570 counterparts. Personally I don't see the per-core power consumption going up drastically with Zen3, and I expect cooling would also become an issue with higher per-core power consumption.

Were there any notable issues using the likes of the 3900X on some B450 boards? Or with overclocking maybe?

[DanceswithUnix]

It's an interesting observation, but in many cases the VRMs are similar to or slightly lower spec'd than their X570 counterparts.

I always thought the X570 VRMs were rather OTT as well. At the time I thought that was just "because they could", but now I'm wondering if that is just meeting some revised AM4 spec.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Zen3 is on 7NM and there is no indication that 5NM will come to AM4. It seems rather weird,that when a decent B450 motherboard can support even a Ryzen 9 3950X at stock,that the B550 series seems to have OTT VRMs. It could be Zen3,might have some problems too,as AMD isn't using EUV,but standard 7NM. So I would expect,if the core is larger,and if they push clockspeeds for desktop parts,power consumption might rise.

[Jonj1611]

Ok so I am still looking to upgrade my system, I think if I wait for the newer processors then I will be paying a premium anyway and while older stock will fall its generally not that much of a fall initially.

So I am looking at the Ryzen 7 3700x/3800x

I am better off going for a B450 board or getting an x570/B550.

I have a GTX1080 which I can't see me upgrading for a while so PCIe4 isn't going to do anything for me I would imagine.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ok so I am still looking to upgrade my system, I think if I wait for the newer processors then I will be paying a premium anyway and while older stock will fall its generally not that much of a fall initially.

So I am looking at the Ryzen 7 3700x/3800x

I am better off going for a B450 board or getting an x570/B550.

I have a GTX1080 which I can't see me upgrading for a while so PCIe4 isn't going to do anything for me I would imagine.

I would look at the AWD-IT deals:
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/amd...awd-it-3483501

Their bundles include the Ryzen 9 3900 at around £325.

That is less than the price of a Ryzen 9 3900X on its own. I don't know how much RAM you want but this a Samsung E-die based kit:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-Bal...1008493&sr=8-4

If you don't want 32GB of RAM,this 16GB kit looks decent value:
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/pat...online-3490136

I can't say if its Micron E-die or Samsung B-die though.

This comes with a B550 motherboard:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/amd-ryzen-9...pu-bundle.html

This is with an X570 motherboard:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/asus-prime-...ocket-am4.html

AFAIK,since the Ryzen 9 3900 is a 65W TDP CPU,it comes with the Wraith Spire in those bundles.

My mate got the Ryzen 9 3900 and Asus B450 Tomahawk Max bundle and seems pleased with it so far.

[Jonj1611]

Many thanks will take a look at those links, I already have 16GB DDR4 memory so will just be the mainboard and cpu

[Jonj1611]

Just checked my memory and apparently its A-Die

[DanceswithUnix]

It could be Zen3,might have some problems too,as AMD isn't using EUV,but standard 7NM

EUV is intended to reduce manufacturing costs, so EUV 7nm should be no better than multi patterned 7nm. Specially when standard 7nm is going to be improving all the time. So even with EUV I would expect Zen 3 to have similar thermals to Zen 2 for a given level of performance.

One other possibility with those VRMs is that more phases should give lower ripple on the CPU power rails. But it still seems over the top to me.

I also find it hard to square up that right now those B550 have no APUs supported to drive their built in video outputs, not even the 3400G. Just how much space are they reserving in the BIOS chip on these things for future chips?

[DanceswithUnix]

Blimey, this is the sort of thing that AMD needs to stomp on. It's an old construction core A4, but so badly implemented that even on a budget people will be disappointed.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...uldnt-have-to/

[Xlucine]

Lots of the tech press spends a great deal of time going into board VRMs in high detail, and shaming any that are slightly worse - it makes sense that manufacturers would fit beefier ones this time round. The very low end ones seem to have the same setup (with the usual 4+2 setup on the cheapest ones), so I doubt AMD has asked for more power

Blimey, this is the sort of thing that AMD needs to stomp on. It's an old construction core A4, but so badly implemented that even on a budget people will be disappointed.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...uldnt-have-to/

I'm impressed how bad that is - copper isn't cheap, surely they could have got a metal base to the laptop to sink heat into for the same cost? Or at least some more vents, and then they could have run it at a decent speed? Even just trusting the AMD boost algorithm and not forcing it to such a low speed (letting it throttle back as needed when it got too hot) would have made it a lot more useable, and wouldn't have cost more

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hardware Unboxed is trying to hard sell the B550 motherboards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfD_KuTVfkc



Says the B550 is worth it as it "only costs a bit more" and has "more features and better build quality". He then on purpose uses one of the most expensive B450 motherboards(B450 Gaming Pro Carbon),which is full ATX and has Wifi. The B550 Mag Mortar is mATX and lacks Wifi and costs £160~£170 for the non-Wifi variant.

He on purpose ignored the B450 Mortar costing £95! Yet,before he was saying the very same B450 motherboards would be fine with a Ryzen 7 2700X,which has similar power consumption to the Ryzen 9 3900X!

Now look at his VRM testing in the new video:
https://i.imgur.com/ZMVJpPp.png



The only problem is you have to look at his older videos,and their Techspot website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqQcgwz1hYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J69a...ture=emb_title

https://i.imgur.com/sxqrJRu.png


https://i.imgur.com/06Agurb.png


https://i.imgur.com/sXeUSW1.png


https://i.imgur.com/qEcX9QB.png


https://i.imgur.com/MDj4xHC.png


How convenient they tested a Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen 9 3950X,but now they have a tweaked Ryzen 9 3900X,so all of a sudden a B450 isn't fine now,despite them saying it was fine before!

[watercooled]

Do they do stock tests or only overclocked as in the screenshot?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Do they do stock tests or only overclocked as in the screenshot?

For his B550 review,he used only OC results and "changed" the tests. How convenient! How can you trust reviewers when they recommend things,and when the new stuff comes out,suddenly is not so good??

So what happens if the B650 Tomahawk comes out next year for AM4,has a better VRM,more features,etc and now costs £260,instead of £190(the B450 version was £100). Is it going to be an instant 10/10,and they can compare it to a £220 B550,saying it's not much more.

More stealth price inflation justified by the tech press! The same with GPUs. They are out of touch with the entry level and mainstream gamers and PC enthusiasts.

[watercooled]

It's happened before where I've been reading through a review only to remember something odd compared to an old review, then spend ages figuring out why the result is different between the two.

To be honest I don't tend to bother with most Youtube 'reviewers', sure there are some decent ones but there's so much clickbait and inconsistency.

There's another fairly popular one I find tends to get anomalous results, and draws conclusions from numbers that should have error bars. It's frustrating constantly trying to reassure people that 245 vs 252 fps probably isn't worth spending that extra £150 on despite the reviewer making a big deal of it...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

How many people are going to read reviews like this,after spending extra on a B450 Max motherboard(over a cheaper one),and feel scared to put a Ryzen 9 in their case,and add a few extra fans?? They will probably just ditch the motherboard and buy another one,even if it will work perfectly fine at stock. So essentially with AMD trying to lock out B450 out of an upgrade path,and artificially blocking PCI-E 4.0,now the 400 series motherboards are not good enough for a Ryzen 9...so by extension a Zen3 CPU too?? So basically,people "have" buy a new motherboard every generation like Intel??

How is AMD cheaper if the motherboards start costing more and more?? At least you could argue Intel gains from overclocking and AMD does not really gain so much.

How come in the past there were £50 760G motherboards which could run a 95W TDP FX8320 fine,yet now Ryzen despite much better performance/watt and general power draw,has "problems" even in £100~£140 "mainstream" motherboards. A CPU which is an SOC,and consumes less power than Intel motherboards,which probably cost more to implement!

They are treating PC gamers and enthusiasts like Whales now.