Monday, October 17th 2022

AMD Cuts Down Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" Production As Demand Drops Like a Rock
AMD reportedly scaled down production of its Ryzen 7000 series desktop processors in response to bleak demand across the PC hardware industry. Wccftech claims to have read an internal company document calling for reduced supply to the channel as market response to the Ryzen 7000-series is weak. This comes hot on the heels of AMD revising its Q3-2022 forecast, trimming its guidance by a $1 billion drop in revenue, citing weak demand in the PC market. However, we are seeing no deviation from the launch pricing for Ryzen 7000-series SKUs or compatible Socket AM5 motherboards. The platform went on sale from late September, on the same day that Intel announced its competing 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors. The new Intel chips are expected to start selling from a little later this month.
Unlike 13th Gen Core processors, Ryzen 7000 series processors appear to be a victim of the platform—notwithstanding the high pricing of the processors, which start at $299 for the 6-core 7600X, buyers lack access to affordable motherboards, and have to contend with expensive DDR5 memory. Pricing of cheaper LGA1700 motherboards based on entry-level H610 and B660 chipsets with cost-effective DDR4 memory support have added depth to consumer choice, besides Intel's 12th Gen range starting from under $150.
Source:
Wccftech
Unlike 13th Gen Core processors, Ryzen 7000 series processors appear to be a victim of the platform—notwithstanding the high pricing of the processors, which start at $299 for the 6-core 7600X, buyers lack access to affordable motherboards, and have to contend with expensive DDR5 memory. Pricing of cheaper LGA1700 motherboards based on entry-level H610 and B660 chipsets with cost-effective DDR4 memory support have added depth to consumer choice, besides Intel's 12th Gen range starting from under $150.
242 Comments on AMD Cuts Down Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" Production As Demand Drops Like a Rock
The other thing they could have done, was make only the B650E DDR5, while B650 should have stayed with DDR4.
Releasing 3D CPUs on day 1 would have helped as well.
Prices on AM5 will have to go down for Black Friday, Xmas and onwards if all companies involved in selling products want to sell anything meaningful. It is right that people are not buying enthusiastically at the moment.
Who bets that 7800XT GPU will cost $999 and cause a disturbance in the Force?
Now it's just dumb though in most cases.
Z790 doesn't appear to be winning many value awards either though. PCIe 5.0 for one NVMe drive isn't going to add more than maybe a couple of bucks to the overall board cost, so it doesn't make sense dropping it for B650.
AMD doesn't seem to like adding dual standard memory controllers to their CPUs.
More guys like us will be hanging onto what we have because of the increase in prices industry-wide and that applies to most anything, not just stuff solely related to PC hardware.
Intel is certainly no saint when it comes to pricing as history has proven as fact but regardless, with the current state of economics "As Is", we'll see the trend of market slowdown continue and deepen as well.
Christmas will help to extend sales to a point but even that won't be as before unless you're one that already has deep pockets to purchase stuff with - Or a nice nest egg saved up to purchase something to that end.
It's really not a AMD or Intel thing - It's the entire market and what's up with it is being reflected here.
Of course, they can charge any sum, even $1999. That will guarantee exactly 0 sales.
Otherwise I will be going with the $799 (I assume) the non-xt variant will go for if the XT variant went for $999.
No one ever thought that the graphics in Ryzen 7000 would be a significant feature, as it was known from early on that wouldn't have performance close to the latest APU. Even AMD said this.
As it has been pointed out elsewhere, AMD isn't saving the 7000X3D for later, it simply isn't finished.
Neither Ryzen 7000 nor Raptor Lake are meant to be budget alternatives at launch.
None of this has anything to do with the actual mistakes AMD has done, with the bad timing of the B650 boards being a primary one. No.
The current gen AMD and Intel cpus are so good that there is no need at all to upgrade an entire system.
For a gaming rig most of the times is enough to buy a more powerful gpu. If someone needs a better cpu, he can always buy a more powerful one for the same socket.
No need to spend a fortune for a next gen system. Sometimes you can make your machine faster changing only few things. And there is the used market too for this.
There isn't a single CPU model that is best for everything which is why AMD and Intel sell more than one model. Same with GPUs. And this isn't limited the computer industry.
If you visit these companies' websites, there is usually a Solutions section that will describe what some of those other usage cases are.
In fact, just adding a post to TPU is a non-gaming usage case. The 5800X3D isn't any better at this than the Intel Core i7 in my Mac mini 2018 that I am using to type this response. It just chews up more electricity.
I realize this sounds unbelievable, but there are actual people who use computers and don't play games on them. At all. Not even solitaire let alone Apex Legends or Elden Ring. Shocking, isn't it?
it will take the time for a while...
The point is, the initial wave is NOT sold out. You can buy the GPU at $2k which really isn't too far off what Nvidia placed it at. The price is just a point the market won't bear, evident by the scalper 4090 availability and the low, but present inventory at shops. People ain't lining up in queues too much and demand is 'okay' at best.
Just shot this one, retail is scalping just the same ;)
Ryzen 7000 processors just matched the 5800X3D speed in gaming, and there are very few people with any real productivity needs greater than that.
And the whole platform costs just skyrocketed. Basic motherboards that were promised for $120 are now $200, memory sticks aren't getting any cheaper, SSD advertised speeds don't bring any difference in load times or better user experience...
but many sources inform about many ddr5 mainboards have troubles with memories up to 6400mhz, some information talks about only mainboards with more than 8 layers and 2oz of copper* can support it aka very expensive mainboards
:)
Fact is, its HEDT use cases that have invaded the MSDT space right now. Its certainly not a norm by any means.
For that very reason Intel was making do with quad cores for a decade. They had extreme 6~8 core CPUs. The niche was too small to care about. And for the exact same reasons the FX processors flopped so hard. They sucked at gaming/ST and nobody needed eight cores.
But at its core... you speak of models and stuff. Honestly, all CPUs are the same shit in a different package. They crunch numbers, and they want to do good at crunching mostly the same numbers through very similar instruction sets. Its not complicated at all; EPYC is Zen albeit with some expansions and extra features, but its core is the same. And then your HTPC runs on a tiny slice of that very same thing with some iGP added on top. The entire CPU business is built on that very principle; you build one chip (core, is more apt now) to serve them all, and you either have enough or too little perf for the task at hand. And here's the thing: people buy CPUs based on the highest performance level they think they need, which is often gaming (primary: ST); the only differentiator after that is the number of cores, and for that people will want enough for all tasks they throw at it. That's all there is to it; but any real time task is going to be the most vital one, because you notice it if you come up short. If decode/encode takes longer, who cares. If your FPS drops to 3, you'll hate it.
I am not disagreeing with your position but Gaming is the first paragraph in the narrative when it comes to all DIY PC parts today.
Note how Netflix and other on demand services are also fighting over share and how it impacts their offerings. You really don't want to go knee deep into this at all.
Though if these board makers priced themselves out of the market, their strategy wasn't the best regardless.
I know the PPT of the CPUs in my various builds both at idle and at peak load (during a Cinebench R23 benchmark or a Handbrake encode). Intel Power Gadget also provides similar data for the Core i7 in my Mac.
I'm not even sure about the idle power consumption between the 5800X3D and 5900X since I don't have both in front of me. I do know that 5900X has two 6-core chiplets and one chiplet shuts down during periods of low activity. The 5800X3D is based on one 8-core chiplet like others in the 5700 and 5800 series.
However, an 5900X is going to outperform the 5800X3D for certain workloads, particularly MT ones that benefit from extra cores and don't need that massive cache. I bought my 5900X a year before the 5800X3D came out. Do I wish I have the latter for gaming? Yes, sure. But I decided that the pros and cons of my 5900X leaned toward me keeping it. One can throw money forever in the incessant pursuit of higher fps scores. I consider the build described in my System Specs as satisfactory for my current gaming needs.
AMD's decision to cut back on Zen 4 production is based on a wide drop in demand not just gamers.
Once again, the universe does not do what you do with your computer. Yours is not the sole usage case on this planet. I wish more people online would understand that. This is a curious myopia that is far more prevalent in people discussing computers.
Like I said, there are people who don't prioritize gaming performance or don't even game at all.
I don't game on my Mac mini. But from a performance-per-watt perspective, it's far outperforms any of my desktop Windows PCs for posting comments like this one on the Internet.
If AMD increase the PPT of 7800X3D to 230W it will not have to make regression in frequency like in 5000 series case.
But even in this case (no actual frequency reduction) i don't see more than +18% in 720p and +12.5% in 1080p TPU testbed vs 7700X based on performance increase that V-Cache brought to 5000 series!
Cores and frequency doesn't help much Zen4 in gaming as you can see below and if we are going to see 7900X3D and 7950X3D probably there will be regression in actual clocks vs the regular 7950X/7900X models due to not having PPT increase.
So the gaming performance difference it will be nearly equivalent to 7800X3D (if 7800X3D actual clocks are similar to 7700X)
In a few days we are going to see the Raptor Lake results, but if for example 13700K/KF is 10% faster vs 12700K/KF in 720p (around 6.9% in 1080p) this means that in 1080p 13700K/KF will be just -5% (or even less) from 7800X3D on average!
13600K box street price ($329) is exactly what Intel recommends in their website, so partners can match Intel's RCP and this is the only part that Intel increased pricing in relation with 12th gen so far, so there is a reason partners to have low margins.
13700K/KF models have not seen an increase in price and also they are very competitive across the stack and probably will force for example 12900K to drop to 13700K level or less since 13700K will be a little bit faster (their RCP difference is $180, so the drop will be big).So partners regarding 13700K have not an incentive to play with such low margins as in i5 13600K's case but if reason arise (Zen4 V-Cache), they can sell 13700KF as low as $399!
Even if 7800X3D has only $100 SEP difference with 7700X, paying $100 more for 7800X3D vs 13700KF will just get you 5% (max) in 1080p average TPU results while if you use that $100 difference to upgrade to the next VGA tier (for example RX6750X->RX 6800 or 3070Ti->3080 10GB etc)
will get far superior gaming upgrade.
And all this without touching the motherboard/memory side cost options difference...
So AMD needs to drop prices all over, Zen4 V-Cache models won't save them if the pricing strategy doesn't change!
If there was a defense they did say nobody could afford bitchin high core chips long ago :laugh: