AMD is unveiling the new Zen CPU line tomorrow at 3pm CST. I doubt we'll see benchmarks but we should at least get clock speeds and core count. AMD seems to be marketing this as a Broadwell-E competitor. Broadwell-E's go for about $450 to $1700 so it will be interesting to see if we get some lower prices that might appeal to budget gaming builds. AMD is bringing in some professional gamer for the event so I'm hopeful. Here is one early slide leaked.
Is this expected to actually be good, or are people thinking it will be another overblown flop like Phenom I/II and Bulldozer?
For anything other than APUs for HTPCs and budget GPUs, AMD is a dumpster company. Their high-end CPUs have been garbage for the last decade. I'd probably even stay away from their budget GPUs because the drivers are total crap and they never update them. I hope Samsung or some other company with a lot of cash to throw around buys them and does something worthwhile.
It actually looks good. AMD has shown live demos of their 8 core 95w Ryzen matching or beating an Intel 8 core 140w Broadwell-E. They also claim they're beating it at base 3.4 Ghz clock without the turbo boost speed. These are of course AMDs own demos so should be taken with a grain of salt but it would appear that they will be competitive against Intel again.
It would be nice if AMD can pull something back here, Intel have had the monopoly for too long and they have basically stopped developing the line. The AMD CPU i used recently felt under-powered, was hot and the fan ran loud as a result but eventually they have to get it right, don't they? You know the CPUs aren't that great when the OEMs don't really offer them, can't even remember the last time I saw a Dell with an AMD option.
Here is my take so far. AMD has released the Blender benchmark demo they ran and now everyone on the Internet is comparing their own systems to the results. The results seem to indicate the 8 core Ryzen will beat all Intel chips running heavy multithread workloads up to the $1000 Broadwell-E 6900K. So that’s probably good news for people looking for a server CPU but it still leaves us guessing on the single thread performance. If the 4 core version performs like Broadwell the single core performance will still be about 5% to10% slower than Intel's newest Kaby Lake line of CPUs. These gains are so huge for AMD that some are saying it should be consider a big success. Others think AMD catching up to 3 year old Intel chips is just another failure. I say success or failure will come down to price. Of course actual performance is still unknown. There is still the chance Ryzen will be a lot worse or better than we expect.
Given AMD's history of overhyped disappointments, I would take their internal benchmarks with a grain of salt. Would not surprise me if this turns out to be another flop when reviewers get their hands on it.
First independent fairly reliable review has appeared. This is still a long ways from giving us a whole picture but it's a good showing for AMD. The multi-core clock was at 3.15 - 3.3Ghz. It's assumed the final production clocks will be higher. Multi-core test put's performance between i7-6900 and i7-6800. Single core gaming performance is between i5-6500 and i5-6600. Max power usage is 93 watts which is just under i7-6900.
I'm feeling somewhat skeptical, but it would be nice to see actual competition again. Hopefully they'll really battle it out so I can get a good deal on my next rebuild, which is about due at this point.
I predict we'll finally have some difficult choices again when choosing a CPU and that's a good thing. Intel is still going to be king with single thread performance but AMD wont be far behind and they'll probably have a multi-thread price/performance advantage.
I'm hoping this drives the prices down in general. My PC is long overdue for some major upgrading and a price war would make me very very pleased.
This is a long vlog but there is lots of good insider info. In summary the 8 core Zen should match the 8 core Broadwell-E performance for a much lower price. The CPUs will be cheaper and the motherboards will be cheaper. AMD should rock Intels Broadwell-E pricing structure and that's good news for people wanting a lot of cores. On the down side the 4 core chips probably wont be a direct competitor to the Skylake or Kaby Lake. So what might happen is AMD will offer Broadwell i7 performance at Skylake i5 prices. Budget conscious consumers will have to decide if hyper-threading or higher clocks is more important.
At CES AMD had a Ryzen sample running at a base clock of 3.6 GHz with turbo possibly hitting 3.9 GHz. Other rumors are saying the final engineering samples are 3.6/4.0 GHz. The 6900K which Ryzen supposedly matches on IPC runs at 3.2/3.7 GHz. http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...-doom-auf-ryzen-und-vega-cpu-bei-3-6-ghz.html
According to Carnard PC, Intel is in the process of testing out two new processors just in case Ryzen prices threatens their Kaby Lake line. An i7 7740K which will be 100Mhz faster than the 7700K and an i5 7640K which will get a 200MHz boost over the 7600K and might also be the first i5 with hyper threading. These could be ready to launch right after the Ryzen launch on March 2. I don't think anyone believes Ryzen will compete directly with Kaby Lake so it makes me wonder why Intel feels the need to launch speed-bumped versions. https://www.cpchardware.com/intel-prepare-la-riposte-a-ryzen/
Looks like the names, speeds, and "ruff" prices are being leaked. Intel is going to have some serious problems if the performance matches Broadwell-E. A 1700 matching a 6900k using half the power at 1/3 the price will sell like crazy. It's still not known if AMD's next tier down will be a 6c12t or 8c0t. There are rumors saying both are possible. The 4c8t chips will come much later and will probably be competing against the i3 and low-end i5s in the $80 to $150 range. 8 core 16 thread 1700 65w 3.7GHz $317 1700X 95w 3.8GHz $382 1800X 95w 4.0GHz $490 Intel by comparison 6 core 12 thread 6800K 140w 3.6Ghz $425 6850K 140w 3.8GHz $610 8 core 16 thread 6900K 140w 3.7Ghz $1050 10 core 20 thread 6950X 140w 3.5GHz $1650
If this first run of chips are set for release by the end of the month, which end of February seems to be the case, how long will it be before we see details about the next tier down? I'm very interested to see how this all end up effecting Intel's pricing structure. I'm hoping to completely replace my dinosaur rig within the next year and the possibility of a price war is making my wallet smile. I unknowingly picked a good time to come back to the PC.
If the lowest R7 is around $320 I can only imagine how cheap the R5 and R3 will be. The R7s are also rumored to come with the AMD Wraith cooler which almost matches the $35 EVO 212 in performance. I kind of doubt we'll see it on every CPU but it'd be a bonus if it was. Intel and AMD stock coolers matched against the EVO 212.
Latest leak. It's hard to say if those prices will be accurate. Also, every CPU is unlocked like the K series of Intel so it's possible every chip might hit the max turbo speed of 4Ghz with some minor adjustments. http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-full-lineup-pricing-clock-speeds-leaked/
Early leaks make Ryzen look really good. The numbers are all over but it still looks like Broadwell with higher clocks. I think Intel's Broadwell-E line is going to get crushed and all the lower clocked i7,i5, and i3s will take a hit. Intel will still dominate single-core performance unless the Ryzen X version holds a big surprise. Apparently, those versions will have a second turbo level (XFR), that will kick in with better cooling.