Wednesday, June 12th 2024
AMD Says Ryzen 9000 Series Won't Beat 7000X3D Series at Gaming
AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture won't beat the Ryzen 7000X3D series at gaming workloads, said Donny Woligroski, the company's senior technical marketing manager, in an interview with Tom's Hardware. The new "Zen 5" chips, such as the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X, will come close to the gaming performance of the 7800X3D and 7950X3D, but won't quite beat it. The new processors, however, will offer significant generational performance uplifts in productivity workloads, particularly multithreaded workloads that use vector extensions such as VNNI and AVX512. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the fastest gaming desktop processor you can buy, it edges out even Intel's Core i9-14900KS, in our testing.
Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.
Intel, in its recent "Lunar Lake" architecture reveal, went deep into the nuts and bolts of its "Lion Cove" P-core, where it claimed that the core posts a 14% IPC increase over the "Redwood Cove" P-core powering "Meteor Lake," which in turn has similar IPC to the "Raptor Cove" P-core powering the current 14th Gen Core processors. Intel intends to use "Lion Cove" P-cores in even its Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. Given that 3D V-cache gave "Zen 4" a 20-25% boost in gaming performance, a similar performance boost to "Zen 5" could make the 9000X3D series competitive with "Arrow Lake-S," if Intel's claims of a 14% IPC gain for the "Lion Cove" P-core holds up. That said, AMD in its interview stated that 3D V-cache may not add the kind of gaming performance gains to "Zen 5" that it did to "Zen 4."
AMD is building the "Zen 5" 8-core CCD on the 4 nm foundry process, which is expected to have the TSV foundation for stacked 3D V-cache memory, but there's an ace up AMD's sleeve. AMD hasn't ruled out the possibility of "Zen 5" having an expandable dedicated L2 cache. To a question by Tom's Hardware on whether the L2 cache is expandable on "Zen 5," AMD replied "Absolutely, if you get to finer-grain 3D interconnect. So we're at 9-micron through silicon via (TSV) pitches today. As you go down to, you know, 6-, 3-, 2- micron and even lower, the level of partitioning can become much finer-grained," It's important to note here, that this is not a confirmation on AMD's part. AMD didn't define the specific pitch required for an L2 cache.
If true, what this means is that in the 9000X3D series, the company could give the CCD a larger 3D V-cache chiplet, which not just expands the on-die L3 cache from 32 MB to 96 MB, but also increases the sizes of the dedicated L2 caches of each core. The "Zen 5" microarchitecture sees each core get 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache, which the new 3D V-cache chiplet could expand.
The L2 cache operates at a higher data-rate than the shared L3 cache, and uses a faster SRAM physical media. The next-gen 3D V-cache chiplet could hence feature two distinct kinds of SRAM—the 64 MB L3 SRAM that expands the on-die 32 MB L3 SRAM; and eight L2 cache SRAM units to expand each of the eight on-die L2 caches.
The L2 cache is expected to play a major role in gaming performance for next-gen processors, and Intel has significantly expanded it for "Lion Cove" P-cores with both "Lunar Lake" and the upcoming "Arrow Lake." On "Lunar Lake," the four P-cores each have a 2.5 MB of dedicated L2 cache. On "Arrow Lake," the same P-core is expected to get 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache. So AMD probably understands the importance of fattening not just the L3 cache, but also the L2.
The rumor mill is abuzz with reports of AMD bringing in the Ryzen 9000X3D series within 2024, with some sources pointing to a Q4-2024 debut, which should time them alongside Intel's launch of the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.
AMD is building the "Zen 5" 8-core CCD on the 4 nm foundry process, which is expected to have the TSV foundation for stacked 3D V-cache memory, but there's an ace up AMD's sleeve. AMD hasn't ruled out the possibility of "Zen 5" having an expandable dedicated L2 cache. To a question by Tom's Hardware on whether the L2 cache is expandable on "Zen 5," AMD replied "Absolutely, if you get to finer-grain 3D interconnect. So we're at 9-micron through silicon via (TSV) pitches today. As you go down to, you know, 6-, 3-, 2- micron and even lower, the level of partitioning can become much finer-grained," It's important to note here, that this is not a confirmation on AMD's part. AMD didn't define the specific pitch required for an L2 cache.
If true, what this means is that in the 9000X3D series, the company could give the CCD a larger 3D V-cache chiplet, which not just expands the on-die L3 cache from 32 MB to 96 MB, but also increases the sizes of the dedicated L2 caches of each core. The "Zen 5" microarchitecture sees each core get 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache, which the new 3D V-cache chiplet could expand.
The L2 cache operates at a higher data-rate than the shared L3 cache, and uses a faster SRAM physical media. The next-gen 3D V-cache chiplet could hence feature two distinct kinds of SRAM—the 64 MB L3 SRAM that expands the on-die 32 MB L3 SRAM; and eight L2 cache SRAM units to expand each of the eight on-die L2 caches.
The L2 cache is expected to play a major role in gaming performance for next-gen processors, and Intel has significantly expanded it for "Lion Cove" P-cores with both "Lunar Lake" and the upcoming "Arrow Lake." On "Lunar Lake," the four P-cores each have a 2.5 MB of dedicated L2 cache. On "Arrow Lake," the same P-core is expected to get 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache. So AMD probably understands the importance of fattening not just the L3 cache, but also the L2.
The rumor mill is abuzz with reports of AMD bringing in the Ryzen 9000X3D series within 2024, with some sources pointing to a Q4-2024 debut, which should time them alongside Intel's launch of the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors.
141 Comments on AMD Says Ryzen 9000 Series Won't Beat 7000X3D Series at Gaming
If it really get the work done there will be only one thing to do...
So I would say if Arrow Lake is not late, it has a very good chance of being a competitive product, even if not the top performing product. The new E-cores are also seriously competitive and Intel will be on TSMC 3nm for the CPU tile. Don't think they'll be able to compete with dual chiplet Ryzen on either front but on volume parts I think they have very good chances. (which is what I care about)
Same for the P-cores, perf/power is 5% better than with HT. Perf/power/area improves 15%, which means cheaper for us too.
I'm curious though, based on your individual requirements why is AM5 a disappointment for you?
@vacsati - Knowing that the next gen is only marginally better than what you already own should make you happy, knowing that you won't have to spend on upgrades for another 2-3 years. ;)
As for GPUs, I had a 7800 XT, but sold it to save for summer holidays. As weird as it sounds, I'll be fine with a 6500 XT until Blackwell and RDNA 4 come out. And then, same as with CPUs, no upgrade for 2-3 gens.
Obviously, this doesn't apply to enthusiast, but they usually just sell the old setup while it still has good value, and it pays for a good chunk of the new system.
In the end, they dont cost anymore so it’s a no brainer for a gamer. Even the $200 5700x3D will be a great chip for the next several years. Sure, the platform is old, but you don’t need to upgrade your CPU very often.
My advice for anyone who uses their rig just to game and wants a new CPU should either wait for the new x3d or buy one that is available.
There's nothing wrong with that, but why can't you understand that there are people here who do?
Edit: Of course I want my PC to perform optimally and my games to run well, like any of us. But there are some things that seem way too extreme to me that other people swear by. I'm just curious why.
Can I play those with lower spec CPUs? Yes, I play HL on an i7-6700K and 3050-6GB from time to time, it's still fun. Are the improved frametimes on the X3Ds worth it? Also yes.