AMD - Zen chitchat

[scaryjim]

Not exactly on topic but I wish I knew that a long time ago.

As someone who built - and particularly upgraded - a number of machines in the AM2/AM3 era, it was very relevant to me

It's one of the main reasons I'd seriously consider AM4 if I needed a new desktop at the minute - a £70 B350 motherboard will take anything from a £45 dual core APU to a ~£450 8C/16T high-end desktop CPU, with a huge range of processors available at retail right now, but it should also be good for at least two more generations of Zen-based CPUs and APUs, which gives immense potential for future upgrades.

In fact, I've been considering new parts for my stepson who's after a CPU upgrade (from an i3 on s1155). Now, I could pick up an i5 3570 for around £50 - £60, but given the improvements AMD have made with the Zen core it occurred to me that perhaps even a lowly Ryzen 3 might still be a reasonable upgrade. So I went and did some digging, and it turns out that a Ryzen 3 1200 - £95 brand new - has almost identical performance to an i5 3570.

So, do I get my stepson a simple CPU upgrade that will leave him with nowhere to go on an obsolete platform, or give him a new start at the bottom of a platform that will run for at least 2 more generations? Yeah, bit of a no-brainer, that one

[Ozaron]

The tech enthusiast in me agrees wholeheartedly, but surely the judgement also depends entirely on whether your stepson is likely to want to upgrade again? (Especially if they do not run CPU intensive tasks and aren't likely to want to tinker with it themselves?) Considering you'd need a more expensive CPU, new motherboard, and some new RAM (at absurd pricing). There's still a bit to keep in the pocket there.

Anyway, for reference, there is still a janky old Phenom 9150e X4 1.80GHz in this house that I once planned to upgrade from, but was certain Phenom IIs wouldn't run in the socket. It was an OEM made motherboard, chipset uh.. 780G? Not sure. I didn't know enough about computers back then, though, so probably for the best I didn't try anything with it..

It's only been a year (+1 month) since I picked up the 6600K and I have no reason to consider it anything other than very good, and although it pains me to see 6c 12t just 7 months later for the same cost at same clockspeed with cheaper motherboards and infinitely more future proofing, I couldn't wait that long. Zen was an unknown quantity, too. 6600K back then was a good deal... doesn't stop the longing for more though.

[scaryjim]

The tech enthusiast in me agrees wholeheartedly, but surely the judgement also depends entirely on whether your stepson is likely to want to upgrade again? ...

In the last 2 years he's had a complete rebuild, followed by a GPU upgrade. So if I do him a base rebuild now with his current GPU, I'd expect him to want a GPU upgrade within a year, and no doubt once he's got a faster GPU he'll want a faster CPU to go with it! He's very much a PC gamer, but he's quite content to piecemeal upgrade as he gets the money together for each new component (with us providing occasional boosts for Christmas/Birthdays). I wouldn't be at all surprised if a new mobo & ram now would stay with him for 3 - 4 years, with GPU and CPU upgrades along the way.

Anyway, for reference, there is still a janky old Phenom 9150e X4 1.80GHz in this house that I once planned to upgrade from, but was certain Phenom IIs wouldn't run in the socket. It was an OEM made motherboard, chipset uh.. 780G? Not sure. I didn't know enough about computers back then, though, so probably for the best I didn't try anything with it.. ...

Ah, very sad - a 780G mobo should've had no problem with a Phenom II. I used to run a 905e in a 785G mobo (along with a low profile HD 7750 - it was a lovely low power gaming rig). I'm still running a rig with an AM2+ NForce 730a mobo (with Geforce 8200 IGP) that's had a variety of CPUs ranging from an AM2 Athlon X2 3800+ to the current AM4 Athlon X3 405e. Like I said, that was an era that I did a lot of messing with hardware...

[DanceswithUnix]

Ah, very sad - a 780G mobo should've had no problem with a Phenom II.

There was a tendancy for OEM motherboards to have a 95W limit, so you might have been able to find a low end Phenom II that could go in it but the options would have been rather limited so not that much of an opportunity missed.

[scaryjim]

There was a tendancy for OEM motherboards to have a 95W limit, so you might have been able to find a low end Phenom II that could go in it ....

Plenty of 95W Phenom II options including a couple of X6es, although the very top brackets were out, and for some parts there were 95W and 125W versions of the same processor, so caution required

As I said, I'm currently rocking an Athlon II X3, and even the top Athlon II X4s stuck to a 95W TDP, so were probably a better bet than the Phenoms (and even without the L3 cache would be a huge upgrade over a first-gen Phenom)...

EDIT: but that's getting a little off-topic

Does make me wonder what we'll get in a 65W TDP envelope in 2 generations' time on AM4 though... given we can currently get 8 cores at 3GHz+...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,I would probably hold off for Pinnacle Ridge early next year.

[stevie lee]

just to add to the slightly off-topic'ness in last few posts.
its not purely about the socket and TDP limit, its also about the power phases.

my biostar 790gx3 has a 140w limit on it. plenty you'd think for a 125w X6-1090T that my sister has laying around
nope..

Unfortunally Support for 6 cores CPU is not only related to bios update but also to power phase design in the motherboard , we can not add 6 cores support thru bios update to this model because it has a single power design.

is from another forum from a BIOSTAR employee.


I'm assuming power phases and power delivery has got better over the years, but don't be surprised if you get a am4 b350 board, and in a few years the ryzen2 chips say they'll support it, but then you find out your power phases are wrong.

[DanceswithUnix]

is from another forum from a BIOSTAR employee.

There was a bit of that, ISTR AMD added extra power planes to improve the power management on AM2+ boards but you could generally get away without that, but I guess the X6 was that bit more finniky or perhaps if they couldn't support the turbo feature it had in their power management they wouldn't call it supported.

I had a similar thing on an ASUS board that wouldn't take a Phenom when they came out, or at least not until many years later when an optional BIOS was released which couldn't boot from network but could support the Phenom. Turned out ASUS simply ran out of flash space in the BIOS to put the initialisation code in and didn't want to kick any existing features out!

[scaryjim]

TBH,I would probably hold off for Pinnacle Ridge early next year.

If I believed that Pinnacle Ridge would appear early next year I might talk to him about it, but he's asked for this for Christmas, and I don't trust AMD's launch dates to any more than a quarter at best - I can't really ask him to wait until the end of March for a Christmas present!

At least on AM4 there's a very good chance of him being able to upgrade in a couple of years. In fact, he's got an RX 460 already so a high-end Pinnacle Ridge or Piccasso might end up offering both a CPU and GPU upgrade (via dual graphics)...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If I believed that Pinnacle Ridge would appear early next year I might talk to him about it, but he's asked for this for Christmas, and I don't trust AMD's launch dates to any more than a quarter at best - I can't really ask him to wait until the end of March for a Christmas present!

At least on AM4 there's a very good chance of him being able to upgrade in a couple of years. In fact, he's got an RX 460 already so a high-end Pinnacle Ridge or Piccasso might end up offering both a CPU and GPU upgrade (via dual graphics)...

Sadly for me,there is no indication FO4 performance has improved in any way since launch,so it most definitely rules out the current version of Ryzen for me. I am hoping Ryzen+ has an enough of an IPC and clockspeed improvement to be an upgrade for me,otherwise I will probably have to go Intel again!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

LOL:
https://twitter.com/AMDRyzen/status/915977053463343104

[scaryjim]

LOL:
https://twitter.com/AMDRyzen/status/915977053463343104

The snark is strong with this one...

[kalniel]

The snark is strong with this one...

Though they possibly need some grammar lessons, don't know, too long since I did similes

[watercooled]

Though they possibly need some grammar lessons, don't know, too long since I did similes

I read that a few times wondering what smilies had to do with anything...

[Mr_Jon]

Quick question.

I've Ryzen'ed meself with the 1600. Couldn't find much info about (safe) temperatures apart from the 95 degrees max stated on the AMD website. Can I really take it into the sauna with me? Seems high.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Quick question.

I've Ryzen'ed meself with the 1600. Couldn't find much info about (safe) temperatures apart from the 95 degrees max stated on the AMD website. Can I really take it into the sauna with me? Seems high.

AFAIK there is a 20C offset,which is factored into that(I think).

Edit!!

I know it was present for the X series CPUs,but I am uncertain about the non-X ones.