AMD - Zen chitchat

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH I find that attitude is quite common on the net - some people refuse to accept that anything less the top-end parts have their place. Plenty will convince you that anything less than a fancy brand of tool is useless and not worth buying, which is plain money wasting if you're only going to use it once or occasionally. Just throwing money at a problem, particularly when it's totally unnecessary, really isn't as smart as people like to pretend.

The thing is if you are going to criticise VRM designs for a whole tier of boards,at least say what they will run and what they won't. Someone buying an £80 2200G is not going to care if their £70 board can run a 2700X overclocked. They want to probably know if the 2200G runs fine and maybe something like a Ryzen 5.

A lot of enthusiasts especially AMD fans on Reddit,and various forums need to understand the difference between being an enthusiast and being pragmatic. They might be willing to spend £150 on a motherboard,but most gamers and DIY builders,etc are lurkers and will assume that means Intel is cheaper,since the Intel boards are not getting the same scrutiny and by extension are fine,even though the cheaper motherboards are also reduced spec in many ways.

So a £160 Ryzen 5 might look good value but not if you "need" a £150 motherboard and £250 RAM set,and the £150 Intel Core i5 is "fine" with a £90 motherboard and £160 RAM set. AMD fans will throw money at perfecting the setup but Intel is more trusted anyway(hence why Spectre/Meltdown is not really affecting consumer sales of their chips) and if it looks cheaper and less finicky,they will still get more sales,especially since £100 to £200 is quite a lot of money and is the difference between a GTX1050 and a GTX1060,or the latter and a GTX1070.

Its bad enough Ryzen is more pickier about RAM than Intel,now they are adding stuff about motherboards,especially when Ryzen is far more efficient than the FX series. There was even a £40 780G motherboard which could run an FX8320 fine FFS,and someone tested it a lot on a forum once and it was fine. So now much more expensive motherboards have problems,with more efficient CPUs?? Really??

In the end AMD fans then wonder why Intel might be selling more CPUs still,despite Ryzen having "better value" and a "longer term" platform.

Its basically an own goal.

[watercooled]

I don't think a lot of current 'enthusiasts' really understand pragmatism! Complaining about cost on one had, then spending several hundred pounds on a huge case, RGB lighting, excessively large PSU, way over-specced motherboard, £150 AIO CPU cooler... then running a stock CPU...

The current fad of AIO coolers says a lot about the current market, a solution which found a problem in Intel's awful IHS thermal path. I still facepalm over it, coming from the days when you used a £20 tower cooler if the stock cooler was too noisy for you or you wanted to overclock. I still do exactly that. The market is full of 'showing off' by throwing money and fairly lights (almost literally) at things as a way to differentiate. Personally I find it far more interesting to see what can be done e.g. on a limited budget, in a small case, or with more unconventional or DIY builds. 'Enthusiast' means different things to different people, some who are 'enthusiastic' about spending money and showing off, others who are interested in hardware, how it works, etc. I'm firmly in the latter camp, and I'm just as interested in e.g. low-power hardware as much as top-end stuff. Sometimes more so, for the amount of engineering that goes into some limited power budget systems.

The 'art' of the electronic and hardware design itself is far more interesting to me than a bunch of fairly lights and garish designs.

[watercooled]

Interesting information about Rome: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13122...fabbed-by-tsmc

Edit: When they were talking about insufficient capacity at GloFo I expected the GPUs would be the thing to move back to TSMC! It's definitely an interesting move - perhaps TSMC's 7nm process is favourable for CPU performance, and AMD are able to fill their GloFo quota with GPUs?

I also wonder if this means the server and desktop dies will be separated by the fab they're produced at? If anything I would have expected the higher-clocked desktop parts to see TSMC production, but then again I wonder if it's worth the effort of having two separate runs given HEDT volumes?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TR 2990X listed:

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryze...nadian-dollars

Interesting information about Rome: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13122...fabbed-by-tsmc

Edit: When they were talking about insufficient capacity at GloFo I expected the GPUs would be the thing to move back to TSMC! It's definitely an interesting move - perhaps TSMC's 7nm process is favourable for CPU performance, and AMD are able to fill their GloFo quota with GPUs?

I also wonder if this means the server and desktop dies will be separated by the fab they're produced at? If anything I would have expected the higher-clocked desktop parts to see TSMC production, but then again I wonder if it's worth the effort of having two separate runs given HEDT volumes?

It could be because TSMC is able to push out 7NM chips quicker and in more volume than GF?? I would imagine 7NM Vega is a much lower volume product than a 7NM CPU.

[watercooled]

Yeah perhaps it's a timing thing. I did always view 7nm Vega as a sort of pipecleaner part, not that we've had stuff like that in a fair while since mobile SoCs seem to fill that role now.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yeah perhaps it's a timing thing. I did always view 7nm Vega as a sort of pipecleaner part, not that we've had stuff like that in a fair while since mobile SoCs seem to fill that role now.

I wonder what process will clock higher though? I would imagine clockspeed is less of an issue with TR MK3 than Ryzen MK3.

I have a feeling if the basic Ryzen module has been created with both TSMC and GF processes in mind,I have a strong feeling Ryzen 3 won't be hitting 5GHZ on the first go,as something has got to give,to make it work with both companies manufacturing without too much mucking around. I could be wrong OFC.

Apparently GF 7NM is meant to be similar to TSMC 7NM in basic characteristics though:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12831...-skipping-5-nm

[Corky34]

Threadripper 2990WX CPUZ specs leak, the takeaway is it's a 4.1Ghz (boosting) part with a 250W TDP.

[Millennium]

If Ryzen 3 7nm can hit 4.5ghz at 8 or 12 cores I'll buy one. Otherwise, I may well skip it

I wonder what the logistics are like of using multiple companies for a process for similar designs. Must be HELL!

[Corky34]

I would imagine it's not to bad as DRC have become so complex that it's probably like sending a CAD design to a manufacturer, theoretically you should get the same product no matter who's making it. That's not to say it's as good as doing it all in-house just that you know how it should not be made and from there you may need to tweak things a little, based on who's fabricating it, to get to your end product

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It will be interesting to see how the 32 core TR2 parts pan out - two of the chips will have disabled memory controllers AFAIK. Having said that going from a 180W TDP with the 1950X with 16 cores to 250W TDP with the 2990WX with 32 cores is good going. Will be interesting to see what the power consumption is like.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW,it seems rather weird recently that AMD motherboards are getting far more scrutiny than the Intel ones when it comes to VRMs as Ryzen is hardly like BD. It does make me wonder,especially after SKL-X and the fact Intel is now releasing 8C CPUs, which will push VRMs even more than previous generations of SKL uarch derived CPUs.

[Biscuit]

BTW,it seems rather weird recently that AMD motherboards are getting far more scrutiny than the Intel ones when it comes to VRMs as Ryzen is hardly like BD. It does make me wonder,especially after SKL-X and the fact Intel is now releasing 8C CPUs, which will push VRMs even more than previous generations of SKL uarch derived CPUs.

I think it's as much to do with the fact that Ryzen products are desirable now and new products are being released. Any content related to AMD gets clicks/views so that's whats getting more coverage.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think it's as much to do with the fact that Ryzen products are desirable now and new products are being released. Any content related to AMD gets clicks/views so that's whats getting more coverage.

The issue,is some of the stuff spread before the B450 launch was fear mongering about "split 4 phase designs" which was rather hilarious since such designs have been used back in the Bullozer and Phenom II days,so it doesn't mean all doom and gloom. I remember telling people years ago that an "8 phase" design being a doubled up one,which has their pros and cons.

In fact looking a the Techspot/HU analysis of the boards,it seems much has not changed but the biggest thing to look for is,VRM cooling.

A number of boards have poorly thought out VRM heatsinks and have huge plastic shrouds which causes them to get too hot.

Plus people also need to consider reference VRM designs are made for horizontal coolers as they blow air over the VRMs,so if you use a vertically aligned cooler or an AIO water cooler,you need to have good case airflow so the heat gets removed from the VRMs.

Some of the Intel CFL boards also are not up to the task,like the B360 board used in this MSI PC:

https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/syste...-a-8th/?page=3



Those VRMs are probably not getting much airflow.

Look at the Core i7 8700 being held back. Put that Core i7 8700 in a better board and it will perform better. I just feel you need to scrutinise both platforms equally,otherwise someone might think you can use an Intel CPU in a cheapo board and it will be fine,and the opposite for AMD,ie,a false sense of security.

[Biscuit]

The issue,is some of the stuff spread before the B450 launch was fear mongering about "split 4 phase designs" which was rather hilarious since such designs have been used back in the Bullozer and Phenom II days,so it doesn't mean all doom and gloom. I remember telling people years ago that an "8 phase" design being a doubled up one,which has their pros and cons.

In fact looking a the Techspot/HU analysis of the boards,it seems much has not changed but the biggest thing to look for is,VRM cooling.

A number of boards have poorly thought out VRM heatsinks and have huge plastic shrouds which causes them to get too hot.

Plus people also need to consider reference VRM designs are made for horizontal coolers as they blow air over the VRMs,so if you use a vertically aligned cooler or an AIO water cooler,you need to have good case airflow so the heat gets removed from the VRMs.

Some of the Intel CFL boards also are not up to the task,like the B360 board used in this MSI PC:

https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/syste...-a-8th/?page=3



Those VRMs are probably not getting much airflow.

Look at the Core i7 8700 being held back. Put that Core i7 8700 in a better board and it will perform better. I just feel you need to scrutinise both platforms equally,otherwise someone might think you can use an Intel CPU in a cheapo board and it will be fine,and the opposite for AMD,ie,a false sense of security.

I don't disagree with anything you say, I just don't think people consider the implications of focussing on one brand or the other right now, they're just following the hype/clicks.

VRM cooling is my biggest gripe with all boards at the moment. Really isn't hard to stick a finned piece of metal on rather than a designer heat trap.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I don't disagree with anything you say, I just don't think people consider the implications of focussing on one brand or the other right now, they're just following the hype/clicks.

VRM cooling is my biggest gripe with all boards at the moment. Really isn't hard to stick a finned piece of metal on rather than a designer heat trap.

Yeah,it annoys me when they do that,and some of these so called VRM coolers and their shrouds actually look more of an impediment to installing coolers,etc in the first place too.

Edit!!

It seems the Gigabyte Aorus B450 has issues due to the stupid VRM cooler design with a Ryzen 7 under heavy load,and interestingly they are giving away an SSD with it worth £50:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/gig...vatech-3001699

I suspect they know why!

Still not a bad deal if you are going for one of the lesser chips I suppose,but it makes me wonder how much companies test things.

[Biscuit]

Yeah,it annoys me when they do that,and some of these so called VRM coolers and their shrouds actually look more of an impediment to installing coolers,etc in the first place too.

EVGA seem to understand it with their higher end boards, some of the Gigabyte boards too.

When my A8N-32-SLI-Deluxe from the socket 939 era does VRM cooling better than a modern board, something ain't right!