AMD Ryzen Discussion Thread.

[notb]

Anyone saving their pennies for the rumoured x390 or x399 set ups?

Quad channel memory oughta help with the infinity fabric. I just hope the 16 core models can still be pushed to 4ghz XD

At this point it's all about whether 16C Ryzen and Naples will inherit all the Ryzen issues or will it all be fixed before the launch.
Enterprise-wise this platform is hardly acceptable at this point - even for typical high-end workstations - not to mention servers or production-grade systems.
The home enthusiast group is too tiny to make such a product line sensible.

From what I've heard (but this is poorly backed leak, sadly) the big 3 - HP, Lenovo and Dell - have halted even the Ryzen-powered consumer stuff for a few weeks at least - they're waiting for the microcode patches and so on.
But even if you look at their official statements (also available on AMD site), they only mention home desktops, AIO and VR solutions. Nothing about commercial applications of Ryzen at this point...

 

[pantherx12]

At this point it's all about whether 16C Ryzen and Naples will inherit all the Ryzen issues or will it all be fixed before the launch.
Enterprise-wise this platform is hardly acceptable at this point - even for typical high-end workstations - not to mention servers or production-grade systems.
The home enthusiast group is too tiny to make such a product line sensible.

From what I've heard (but this is poorly backed leak, sadly) the big 3 - HP, Lenovo and Dell - have halted even the Ryzen-powered consumer stuff for a few weeks at least - they're waiting for the microcode patches and so on.
But even if you look at their official statements (also available on AMD site), they only mention home desktops, AIO and VR solutions. Nothing about commercial applications of Ryzen at this point...

From what I can gather problems are already starting to be fixed some I'm quite confident AMD will be able to have everything up and going for enterprise markets quickly and effectively


You may be surprised regarding the enthusiast home market though, AMD and nvidia make up most of their profit from the enthusiast stuff as the profit margins are so much larger. ( I mean the entire Ryzen line up is same soc with cores disabled on low tier models. That means on say a 1200x Amd makes maybe 10 dollars on a sale, an 1800x they are making what like 300 or so?)

The more pointlessly high end stuff Amd can make the better. As people like me will buy it regardless of need.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Plenty of simulated benches for the 1600x and 1500x performance is precisely where you would expect it to be.

If r7 isn't your bag I don't think r5 will be either as they will likely still hit that clock speed wall.

I live in hope and whilst I have followed the simulations, I still want to see actuals, it's only a couple of weeks now albeit the upgrade itch is becoming unbearable but you are probably right.

 

[notb]

You may be surprised regarding the enthusiast home market though, AMD and nvidia make up most of their profit from the enthusiast stuff as the profit margins are so much larger. ( I mean the entire Ryzen line up is same soc with cores disabled on low tier models. That means on say a 1200x Amd makes maybe 10 dollars on a sale, an 1800x they are making what like 300 or so?)

The more pointlessly high end stuff Amd can make the better. As people like me will buy it regardless of need.

Well... the thing about margins is a bit more complicated, I'm afraid.
First of all there is the basic business concept of dividing costs into allocated and unallocated.

You could be right about allocated cost: production, transport etc - manufacturing and distributing a Ryzen could cost the same regardless it being a basic R3 or top R7 (but this might not be true even if it's the same design with disabled parts!).

However, it's a very different story with unallocated costs that you have to assign (somehow) to your products.
Best example? Possibly almost all marketing costs are allocated to the high-end consumer stuff. This also includes partnership with gaming studios to optimize games and so on.

But it's even worse with R&D...
If AMD decided to do the same thing Intel did (tweaking what they had, moving to new node ASAP), they most likely could reach the performance of Ryzen 5 spending a lot less on the way.
What if the only true gain from new architecture is that they are able to make an Intel HEDT competitor (R7) in a consumer segment?
Allocating majority of R&D costs to R7 would totally change the margins.

AMD is clearly fighting to save the situation - the release schedule being the most obvious thing. But will it be enough?

 

[pantherx12]

What if the only true gain from new architecture is that they are able to make an Intel HEDT competitor (R7) in a consumer segment?
Allocating majority of R&D costs to R7 would totally change the margins.

AMD is clearly fighting to save the situation - the release schedule being the most obvious thing. But will it be enough?

R7 is not a hedt competitor IMO, just happens to compete with Intel current hedt range. If the am44 rumours are true then that will be AMDs Hedt platform. ( and has all the high end desktop features you would expect)

Regarding research and development costs it appears that AMD have gone with the scalability option. They designed the CCX in my opinion with enterprise in mind and put out a desktop part based on that system.

From the looks of things so far the whole design scales.

So basics we have Ryzen 3-5 and 7, all dual CCX designs even for the 4 core parts. The reason AMD have done this is because a single CCX design would not have enough pcie lanes and would in theory be capable of single channel only memory support.

Now this is where things get fun with AMD new design, let's stick 4 CCXs on one pcb.
You now have effectively double everything, including memory controller so quad channel memory enabled. (two Imcs should also help with running double sided ram)also support for double the amount of pci lanes.

Now lets stick two of those on one board.

You now have octochannel memory support, even more pcie lanes and obviously 64 cores and 128 threads by this point.

Now if they do a 4 socket board that's potentially 16 channel memory.



Purely from a potential point of view AMD have something special on their hands.

It may not be the best desktop platform all around but the design is stupidily scalable for the enterprise market so we could be looking at a turn around for Amd.

If they of course don't fuck up or get fucked over by anti competitive practices.

Both highly likely if history is anything to go by.


By the by I'm sorry if this was hard to read.

I struggle writing at the best of times let alone when I'm using a phone.

 

[EarthDog]

2 quad channel cpus don't make octo channel...

 

[pantherx12]

Yeah I just read that they are 16 channel.

Still the doubling hardware point still stands.

 

[EarthDog]

Links..

Doubling doesn't stand... at least it never has worked that way. There are quad channel Xeon cpus, 4 on a board, and it's still quad channel.

 

[notb]

R7 is not a hedt competitor IMO, just happens to compete with Intel current hedt range. If the am44 rumours are true then that will be AMDs Hedt platform. ( and has all the high end desktop features you would expect)

Sure. I meant the performance, not features. This is in fact an important selling point of Ryzen - "7" is way faster than what Intel has on LGA1151. It's in the 8 core HEDT territory.

Regarding research and development costs it appears that AMD have gone with the scalability option. They designed the CCX in my opinion with enterprise in mind and put out a desktop part based on that system.

And I think this will become the major issue with low-end models (and mobile variants).
E.g. Zen APU will not be as fast as it could be once designed from scratch. And that's possibly the most important CPU segment..
Seriously, I don't know how they're going to arrange their lineup.
If an APU is essentially a Ryzen with an IGP instead of a disabled CCX, how much will it cost?
They will have to add a premium for IGP and if Intel lowers prices in the meantime, that would shrink the difference to maybe $20-30. I doubt this would be enough.

I'm also wondering about TDP. If they want to stay at 65W, they'll have to clock the CPU lower than on Ryzen 5. In such case things might get pretty slow...

Now this is where things get fun with AMD new design, let's stick 4 CCXs on one pcb.
You now have effectively double everything, including memory controller so quad channel memory enabled. (two Imcs should also help with running double sided ram)also support for double the amount of pci lanes.

Now lets stick two of those on one board.

Nope. RAM channels are not additive. Each CPU has it's own RAM that it addresses and can quickly access.
If RAM was shared, the CPUs would have to communicate (exchange what's where). That would be a horror performance-wise.
On a dual-CPU motherboard you have 2 separate CPU+RAM blocks. If you use only 1 CPU, half of RAM slots are inactive.

However, 2 CCXs in a Ryzen 7 use the same connection outputs (via the same controller). This means that a CPU with single CCX can have the same number of PCIe lanes (and other things - remember this is a SoC). Of course AMD can disable them on purpose.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Seems there are some prices speculated for Ryzen 5 on at least one UK retailer, 1600 (non X) Hexcore at £219.99, Quadcore 1400 at £169.98.

https://www.cclonline.com/category/401/PC-Components/CPU-Processors/AMD-APUs-and-CPUs/

 

[r9]

Ok, I can't wait for the:
AMD Ryzen Quad-Core 2+2 vs. 4+0 Core Distributions Compared.
4+0 should have 8mb of L3 vs 16mb on 2+2.
In theory 4+0 should be faster, but now its hard to tell because of the Windows patch that improved the tread handling.

 

[notb]

Seems there are some prices speculated for Ryzen 5 on at least one UK retailer, 1600 (non X) Hexcore at £219.99, Quadcore 1400 at £169.98.

https://www.cclonline.com/category/401/PC-Components/CPU-Processors/AMD-APUs-and-CPUs/

The Polish prices leaked on 16.03 - same day US prices were revealed. Below some calculations assuming 1 USD = 3.9 PLN
1400: 819 PLN = 210 USD
1500X: 919 PLN = 235 USD
1600: 1090 PLN = 279 USD
1600X: 1210 PLN = 310 USD
So it's more or less in line with polish VAT 23%.

Assuming the 3 last digits are there to suggest Intel's competitor (in games at least), these prices are actually very similar (AMD is a little more expensive).

Sure, someone will turn up with an argument that they are still 30-50% better in multi-core tasks like rendering... Honestly, who cares at this price point?
Enthusiasts doing heavy multi-core stuff will buy a Ryzen 7.
Mid-range i5s are mostly bought by budget gamers and for commercial purposes. The latter will not even consider a Ryzen 5. The former might... maybe.

The only vaguely interesting thing here is the single-core performance of 5 1400. If it's as good as in 7 1700 (and it should be, theoretically), this CPU will be better than i5 7400 in any benchmark or game.
But again... who (today) buys an i5-7400 for custom-built gaming PC? 7500/7600 are way more popular. i5-7400 is, on the other hand, hugely popular in business desktops (as the cheapest 4-core).

 

[pantherx12]

Links..

Doubling doesn't stand... at least it never has worked that way. There are quad channel Xeon cpus, 4 on a board, and it's still quad channel.

There's a bunch if you search for Amd naples memory channels but here's the top result https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/03/amd-naples-zen-server-chip-details/

Also some info regarding the possible hedt Amd platform http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56845/amds-high-end-x390-x399-mobo-dual-ryzen-cpus-possible/index.html


I'm not going to lie its completely possible I've got completely the wrong end of the stick here but from technical details and leaks I've read it does seem AMD have worked some kind of accumulative magic in Ryzen in terms of its IMC.
I'm no expert though I only got into pcs full on when I joined this forum so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[cdawall]

Links..

Doubling doesn't stand... at least it never has worked that way. There are quad channel Xeon cpus, 4 on a board, and it's still quad channel.

We went over this in other threads this is the same marketing BS AMD used for BD/PD based Opterons. They only have dual channel memory controllers and are claiming that it is quad channel based off of dual dual channel controllers. Since I own a set of those I can tell you it is a crock of BS. The new chips will be the same way from the tech specs and design pics floating around already.

 

[HD64G]

Ok, I can't wait for the:
AMD Ryzen Quad-Core 2+2 vs. 4+0 Core Distributions Compared.
4+0 should have 8mb of L3 vs 16mb on 2+2.
In theory 4+0 should be faster, but now its hard to tell because of the Windows patch that improved the tread handling.

 

[Kanan]

Well those "8 Channel" Ryzen server mainboards + CPUs at 64 Cores are way faster than anything Intel has to offer in that segment - at least the marketing video is saying that. Take it with a grain of salt, but Intel didn't look good there, less cores, less lanes, less everything, and the last test didn't even run on Intel because it had not enough memory to even start it. Here I hope it's true, because Intel is a pain since they grew too strong (because FX was a mess), I want a good balanced market again, same on the server / workstation side of things.

 

[EarthDog]

There's a bunch if you search for Amd naples memory channels but here's the top result https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/03/amd-naples-zen-server-chip-details/

Also some info regarding the possible hedt Amd platform http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56845/amds-high-end-x390-x399-mobo-dual-ryzen-cpus-possible/index.html


I'm not going to lie its completely possible I've got completely the wrong end of the stick here but from technical details and leaks I've read it does seem AMD have worked some kind of accumulative magic in Ryzen in terms of its IMC.
I'm no expert though I only got into pcs full on when I joined this forum so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

That link calls Intel's xeon e5 v4 Chips 8 channel...they are quad channel platform, even with 4 on a board... not sure what's going on there.

 

[pantherx12]

That link calls Intel's xeon e5 v4 Chips 8 channel...they are quad channel platform, even with 4 on a board... not sure what's going on there.

Aye it's hard to tell what's legit information right now.

But based on the information at hand the whole reason AMD have made this infinity fabric "is so they can scale the core count to what ever they like whilst keeping inter ccx communication fairly low as well as inter socket communication at around the same level. ( could be Amd marketing rubbish though, but they have certainly implied that the infinity fabric isn't just for cross ccx communication )

I can only speculate that the infinity fabric helps with adding up the memory controllers as well.

I could be really super wrong and just getting excited over buzz words.

But if the infinity fabric is the magic sauce then we could be in for some interesting times ( Even if it does seem to cause reduced performance in games the scalability is nerd boner inducing, means Amd may be able to earn some decent money for once from enterprise and pump that money into matching Intel IPC and clock speeds in the consumer space Yay! )

 

[EarthDog]

I don't think it's adding up memory channels... they call intel an octo, but it's clearly not... wondering if they are doing the same with amd...

 

[Tatty_Two]

So......... based on what we know with R7, is it fair to say that even with R5 it is unlikely we will see higher than 3.9 - 4.1 overclocks as the limiting factors are not going to change at this time?

 

[infrared]

Yup, I expect you're right, it's still the same die as the R7 so it'll hit a wall around 4.1 just the same. I think the R5 1500 (6c/12t) will be the sweet spot of the R5 lineup

 

[Slizzo]

So......... based on what we know with R7, is it fair to say that even with R5 it is unlikely we will see higher than 3.9 - 4.1 overclocks as the limiting factors are not going to change at this time?

Yes, still built on Samsung originating LPP process, so until the next spin of that process comes around (Zen+) I would not expect any better overclocking on this generation of Ryzen.

 

[Dethroy]

Yup, I expect you're right, it's still the same die as the R7 so it'll hit a wall around 4.1 just the same. I think the R5 1500 (6c/12t) will be the sweet spot of the R5 lineup

If you simply compare the Ryzen lineup itself, the R5 1600X and R5 1600 offer the best value. But if you add the cost of Motherboard, RAM, etc., then the perf/$ metric starts to swing in favor of the R7 1700 and 1700X.
You can play around with numbers in my spreadsheet.

Cell B2: choose SKU (point of reference)
Cell D9: choose either dual core performance/$ or all-core performance/$
Cell E9: choose to either compare the CPUs themselves or to include the cost of additional hardware
Cells E11:E18: add cost of additional hardware

 

[infrared]

If you simply compare the Ryzen lineup itself, the R5 1600X and R5 1600 offer the best value. But if you add the cost of Motherboard, RAM, etc., then the perf/$ metric starts to swing in favor of the R7 1700 and 1700X.
You can play around with numbers in my spreadsheet.

Cell B2: choose SKU (point of reference)
Cell D9: choose either dual core performance/$ or all-core performance/$
Cell E9: choose to either compare the CPUs themselves or to include the cost of additional hardware
Cells E11:E18: add cost of additional hardware

View attachment 85649

That's interesting, although when overclocking the 1500 *1600 will be better than the 1600x in price/perf terms, similarly to the 1700 compared to 1700x & 1800x. They all overclock roughly the same. Edit-> But I guess some will want to pay more for the higher clocks out of the box with no tweaking.

A 1500 *1600 paired with a B350 board would be epic performance for not a lot of dollar!

 

[Dethroy]

That's interesting, although when overclocking the 1500 will be better than the 1500x & 1600x in price/perf terms, similarly to the 1700 compared to 1700x & 1800x. They all overclock roughly the same.

A 1500 paired with a B350 board would be epic performance for not a lot of dollar!

AFAIK there is no R5 1500 non-X SKU.