AMD - Zen chitchat

[scaryjim]

... I still do wonder why it is appearing much later than the R5 and R7 chips??

I'm more concerned about why they haven't got any Bristol Ridge parts out in the channel to help prop up the sales of lower end AM4 boards. Having a single platform covering dual core APUs right through to octo-core HEDT chips is only any good if people can actually buy those parts, and Bristol Ridge is conspicuous by its absence. For people looking to invest in a lowish cost system right now, a BR-based AM4 build actually makes sense, because it'll be upgradeable to Zen - either CPU or APU - any time in the next couple of years.

ASRock actually list AM4 CPU support for 7 different BR APUs and a BR-based Athlon X4. I suspectmobo manufacturers are spitting that the APUs aren't out there in the channel yet. Might well be contributing to the lack of A320 (and A/X300) boards being made available...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm more concerned about why they haven't got any Bristol Ridge parts out in the channel to help prop up the sales of lower end AM4 boards. Having a single platform covering dual core APUs right through to octo-core HEDT chips is only any good if people can actually buy those parts, and Bristol Ridge is conspicuous by its absence. For people looking to invest in a lowish cost system right now, a BR-based AM4 build actually makes sense, because it'll be upgradeable to Zen - either CPU or APU - any time in the next couple of years.

ASRock actually list AM4 CPU support for 7 different BR APUs and a BR-based Athlon X4. I suspectmobo manufacturers are spitting that the APUs aren't out there in the channel yet. Might well be contributing to the lack of A320 (and A/X300) boards being made available...

Its not also helped by the fact Intel also introduced HT on a number of the Pentium CPUs too,with the G4560 now under £60:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...pu-54w-cpu-box

I can see why Intel have done it - a low entry price to the platform to get people onto socket 1151 but with expensive upgrades compared to Ryzen.

Edit!!

Anyway the first official R5 1600X review is out:

http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware-...ew-thread.html

[watercooled]

The BR situation is quite strange. I can kinda understand motherboard manufacturers not jumping on board at its release last year some time as there might have been limited uptake given its similarity to Carrizo and the need for DDR4, but now the boards are out there with SR and a good deal of them have video outputs for APUs. It's like AMD just haven't given them a retail release yet.

[scaryjim]

... It's like AMD just haven't given them a retail release yet.

Hmmm, the only reason I can really think of for them to hold off is if they think they'd end up undercutting potential Ryzen sales? One reason to do a top-down staggered release is to try to tempt people to trade up to a higher class of product than they'd normally buy.

So say someone was thinking about spending ~ £250 on a CPU. If you release the top-to-bottom line up straight off well, there's the R5 1600X (or whatever) at £250; that's the one they'll buy. If you trickle out the products instead, perhaps they'll look at the £320 R7 1700 and think "well, it's not that much more than I was going to spend and it's available now ... I'll get that instead".

Now they're releasing Ryzen 5, perhaps it's a similar thing: if someone's thinking of spending up to £150 on a CPU, maybe now they'll think "well, the R5 1400 is only £170, I might as well grab that.". Since the BR parts will inevitably slide into the bottom of the line up, I can only think that they're planning to release all the Ryzen CPUs before they make the BR APUs available - if they even do. A slow enough Ryzen 3 launch and they might decide to just wait until the Zen APUs are available instead (and their pricing will be interesting given the CPU section will overlap with the R3/R5 ranges...)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ryzen balanced power plan tested:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryze...hmarked_193344

[scaryjim]

Ryzen balanced power plan tested:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryze...hmarked_193344

Hang on ... they tested a balanced power plan on an overclocked CPU??!?!?!

I just .. I ... WHAT?

[shaithis]

The Ryzen power plan benchmarks seem to be all over the place and you have to give up core parking.....glad I didn't jump early!

[scaryjim]

... you have to give up core parking.....glad I didn't jump early!

Erm ... Intel's chipset driver package replaces the Windows Balanced power plan with one that disables core parking. For exactly the same reasons as the AMD one - the CPU is better at managing its own power states than the OS.

And if people are going to try benchmarking a Balanced power plan with an overclocked CPU, then you can expect dumb-ass results. I'd take everything with a pinch of salt at the minute...

[AETAaAS]

...And if people are going to try benchmarking a Balanced power plan with an overclocked CPU, then you can expect dumb-ass results. I'd take everything with a pinch of salt at the minute...

Ah yes... the well known computing phrase that a London born singer did not give her name to; Dumbass In, Dumbass Out.

[watercooled]

On Ryzen, I noticed cores getting parked in Task Manager, I never see that happen with Intel CPUs - scaryjim's explanation makes sense, Intel disable it just the same as AMD are try to, and manage it themselves in hardware.

[scaryjim]

... ntel disable it just the same as AMD are try to ...

In one of the articles I've read today (possibly the powere plan test CAT linked) it states that AMD will be rolling this plan into their next chipset driver update where it will replace the Microsoft one, just like Intel do. So they'll be doing better than trying in the next few weeks.

If it's being rolled into a chipset driver update it would explain why it's being released separately as well - presumably the chipset driver update will cover more than just this power plan and will therefore need additional testing before it's released...

[badass]

My idea of CPU prices is so out of date.

I had a quick look on scan this morning after seeing some very positive looking reviews on Ryzen 5 (particularly the 1600x)

At £249, I thought "meh"

Then I looked at the prices of Intel CPU's and was surprised. A 7600k is £233. A 7700k is £100 more!

I thought I must have been imagining what I paid for my PCU's in the past, so I checked:

Sept 2012, Core i5 3570k, £159
That's a 46% increase in price. That's more than just pound slumping to explain that one!
Pretty rubbish value for an 11% increase in frequency and a 10% increase in IPC over 5 years!

In Sept 2007, I paid £149 for a Core2 Quad 6600
The i5 is around twice as fast as the Q6600

I'm glad AMD is back in the game. I strongly suspect my next CPU will be an AMD one.

[scaryjim]

... That's more than just pound slumping to explain that one! ....

A lot of it is the slump in the pound, in fact. The R5 1600X @ $249 list price would - in a straight price conversion using mid-market rates - have been ~ £185 in September 2012, and £239 today. So around 30% of the price shift is purely down to exchange rates.

The rest is, one suspects, mostly down to Intel prodding the market to see what price level it would sustain without any significant competition. Currently they're OK, too, as Zen has allowed AMD to move a lot closer in the consumer market, but not yet move level, let alone ahead. The server and HPC market, which rely much more on well-threaded workloads, might be a different matter, of course, and AMD have a couple of years to hone and optmise Zen, whereas the decreasing generational returns from Intel suggests they've already squeezed as much out of their current architecture as they're likely to get.

OTOH if the market has got used to supporting those prices for a paticular level of performance, it may prove difficult to shift them back down until AMD equals or surpasses Intel's per-core performance...

[watercooled]

My idea of CPU prices is so out of date.

You're not alone. I remember back when £150ish got you a heck of a lot of CPU or GPU. But I think exchange rates got you something close to $2 per £ around that time so that probably has a lot to do with it.

[scaryjim]

... I think exchange rates got you something close to $2 per £ around that time so that probably has a lot to do with it.

Yeah, prior to the 2008 global financial crisis (aka "when the banks screwed everyone") the pound was hovering around $2 for a while. New releases that year included (iirc) Phenom II, Radeon HD 4000, and Core i7 (Nehalem). If you were building an enthusiast PC back then, everything since probably feels like a total rip off!

[watercooled]

Yeah, I had a Phenom II and a 4850, followed by a 5870 I got on sale for around that price too! TBF I think that period has skewed my sense of value for computer hardware.