• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

AMD "Zen" CPU Prototypes Tested, "Meet all Expectations"

nem

Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
165 (0.04/day)
Location
Cyberdyne CPU Sky Net
Seems sales of INTEL gone to the $hit.. ;)
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
146 (0.03/day)
I may be short-minded, but I strongly believe that Zen will be successful.
Why? Keller.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
2,785 (0.58/day)
Location
New Zealand
System Name MoneySink
Processor 2600K @ 4.8
Motherboard P8Z77-V
Cooling AC NexXxos XT45 360, RayStorm, D5T+XSPC tank, Tygon R-3603, Bitspower
Memory 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600C8
Video Card(s) GTX 780 SLI (EVGA SC ACX + Giga GHz Ed.)
Storage Kingston HyperX SSD (128) OS, WD RE4 (1TB), RE2 (1TB), Cav. Black (2 x 500GB), Red (4TB)
Display(s) Achieva Shimian QH270-IPSMS (2560x1440) S-IPS
Case NZXT Switch 810
Audio Device(s) onboard Realtek yawn edition
Power Supply Seasonic X-1050
Software Win8.1 Pro
Benchmark Scores 3.5 litres of Pale Ale in 18 minutes.

Ruru

S.T.A.R.S.
Joined
Dec 16, 2012
Messages
12,797 (2.93/day)
Location
Jyväskylä, Finland
System Name 4K-gaming / media-PC
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X / Intel Core i7-6700K
Motherboard Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero / Asus Z170-A
Cooling Arctic Freezer 50 / Thermaltake Contac 21
Memory 32GB DDR4-3466 / 16GB DDR4-3000
Video Card(s) RTX 3080 10GB / RX 6700 XT
Storage 3.3TB of SSDs / several small SSDs
Display(s) Acer 27" 4K120 IPS + Lenovo 32" 4K60 IPS
Case Corsair 4000D AF White / DeepCool CC560 WH
Audio Device(s) Creative Omni BT speaker
Power Supply EVGA G2 750W / Fractal ION Gold 550W
Mouse Logitech MX518 / Logitech G400s
Keyboard Roccat Vulcan 121 AIMO / NOS C450 Mini Pro
VR HMD Oculus Rift CV1
Software Windows 11 Pro / Windows 11 Pro
Benchmark Scores They run Crysis
If they can even compete against 6-core SB-E chips it would be a good thing since no AMD CPU can compete against a 4 year old enthusiast chip from Intel.
 

Ruru

S.T.A.R.S.
Joined
Dec 16, 2012
Messages
12,797 (2.93/day)
Location
Jyväskylä, Finland
System Name 4K-gaming / media-PC
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X / Intel Core i7-6700K
Motherboard Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero / Asus Z170-A
Cooling Arctic Freezer 50 / Thermaltake Contac 21
Memory 32GB DDR4-3466 / 16GB DDR4-3000
Video Card(s) RTX 3080 10GB / RX 6700 XT
Storage 3.3TB of SSDs / several small SSDs
Display(s) Acer 27" 4K120 IPS + Lenovo 32" 4K60 IPS
Case Corsair 4000D AF White / DeepCool CC560 WH
Audio Device(s) Creative Omni BT speaker
Power Supply EVGA G2 750W / Fractal ION Gold 550W
Mouse Logitech MX518 / Logitech G400s
Keyboard Roccat Vulcan 121 AIMO / NOS C450 Mini Pro
VR HMD Oculus Rift CV1
Software Windows 11 Pro / Windows 11 Pro
Benchmark Scores They run Crysis
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
2,198 (0.44/day)
Location
So. Cal.
This is PR fluff

The entire article is AMD trying to say that Zen will be amazing.

The article is fluff... a bunch of text crafted around a three word blip someone said... Interestingly AMD is not the author who posted this or any of it, we need to cease beating the drum over idle talk. Did AMD plant this, are others hoping to draw-out AMD to reveal something? I can’t say and nobody else can say, what’s truth. So it's just a rumor... about nothing.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
454 (0.13/day)
System Name Marmo / Kanon
Processor Intel Core i7 9700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi / X570S Aorus Pro AX
Cooling Noctua NH-U12S x 2
Memory Corsair Vengeance 32GB 2666-C16 / 32GB 3200-C16
Video Card(s) KFA2 RTX3070 Ti / Asus TUF RX 6800XT OC
Storage Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB, 860 EVO 1TB / Samsung 970 Pro 1TB, 970 EVO+ 1TB
Display(s) Dell AW2521HFA / U2715H
Case Fractal Design Focus G / Pop Air RGB
Audio Device(s) Onboard / Creative SB ZxR
Power Supply SeaSonic Focus GX 650W / PX 750W
Mouse Logitech MX310 / G1
Keyboard Logitech G413 / G513
Software Win 11 Ent
I sincerely hope Zen lives up to the expections. I'm still wondering when the geniuse who designed K7/K8/K10 for AMD would strike another home-run.

I used AMD CPUs exclusively between 1st gen Athlon and Phenom X4. When 1st gen bulldozer hit the market, I was sad to see its performance was nowhere near the hype that had been building up towards launch. As a result my AM3+ motherboard still carries on with only a Phenom X4 in my Linux server.

Compare 6700K/6600K to 4770K/4670K, there is a huge bump in launch price. I really hope AMD could bring some solid competitions for Intel or otherwise future mainstream i7s will probably cost more than an entire system from 2 years ago.

If Zen is released in 2016 and its top-end part can go head to head (or within 5% difference) against Kaby Lake, I will surely replace my aging AM3+ server with it.
 

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
17,865 (2.88/day)
Location
Quantum Well UK
System Name Quantumville™
Processor Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling Noctua NH-D14
Memory 16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s) MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 256GB | WD Black 4TB | WD Blue 6TB
Display(s) ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) | Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply Corsair AX1600i
Mouse Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard Yes
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
I'll be gobsmacked if this brings performance parity with Intel. Still, even if it significantly closes the gap that will still be very useful for competition.
 
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
454 (0.13/day)
System Name Marmo / Kanon
Processor Intel Core i7 9700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi / X570S Aorus Pro AX
Cooling Noctua NH-U12S x 2
Memory Corsair Vengeance 32GB 2666-C16 / 32GB 3200-C16
Video Card(s) KFA2 RTX3070 Ti / Asus TUF RX 6800XT OC
Storage Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB, 860 EVO 1TB / Samsung 970 Pro 1TB, 970 EVO+ 1TB
Display(s) Dell AW2521HFA / U2715H
Case Fractal Design Focus G / Pop Air RGB
Audio Device(s) Onboard / Creative SB ZxR
Power Supply SeaSonic Focus GX 650W / PX 750W
Mouse Logitech MX310 / G1
Keyboard Logitech G413 / G513
Software Win 11 Ent
I also don't remember it dominating really. OK Thunderbird was the first 1GHz stone but truly K8 was the first one to mop the floor with P4.

First of all no motherboards could hold a candle to i440BX and later i815, only when nforce2 came AMD got a good performing chipset.

True. Inferior chipsets was the major plague for AMD until nForce2. Then NV seemed to have lost focus after nForce4 and AMD were back to square one until they bought ATI and released 790FX.
 

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
13,171 (2.81/day)
Location
Concord, NH, USA
System Name Apollo
Processor Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory 64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage 1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s) Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s) AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply 96w Power Adapter
Mouse Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software MacOS 12.1
I want to believe but... it's the AMD PR machine, man. It's a track record of showing us fancy looking diagrams and lackluster results.

Did Bulldozer "meet all expectations," before release? :confused:

See what AMD has done? It has made me a cynical bastard.
 
Joined
Jan 29, 2012
Messages
6,881 (1.47/day)
Location
Florida
System Name natr0n-PC
Processor Ryzen 5950x-5600x | 9600k
Motherboard B450 AORUS M | Z390 UD
Cooling EK AIO 360 - 6 fan action | AIO
Memory Patriot - Viper Steel DDR4 (B-Die)(4x8GB) | Samsung DDR4 (4x8GB)
Video Card(s) EVGA 3070ti FTW
Storage Various
Display(s) Pixio PX279 Prime
Case Thermaltake Level 20 VT | Black bench
Audio Device(s) LOXJIE D10 + Kinter Amp + 6 Bookshelf Speakers Sony+JVC+Sony
Power Supply Super Flower Leadex III ARGB 80+ Gold 650W | EVGA 700 Gold
Software XP/7/8.1/10
Benchmark Scores http://valid.x86.fr/79kuh6
I am very excite.
 
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
21,476 (3.40/day)
System Name Pioneer
Processor Ryzen R9 9950X
Motherboard GIGABYTE Aorus Elite X670 AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 + A whole lotta Sunon and Corsair Maglev blower fans...
Memory 64GB (4x 16GB) G.Skill Flare X5 @ DDR5-6000 CL30
Video Card(s) XFX RX 7900 XTX Speedster Merc 310
Storage Intel 905p Optane 960GB boot, +2x Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs
Display(s) 55" LG 55" B9 OLED 4K Display
Case Thermaltake Core X31
Audio Device(s) TOSLINK->Schiit Modi MB->Asgard 2 DAC Amp->AKG Pro K712 Headphones or HDMI->B9 OLED
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti Pro 850W
Mouse Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless
Keyboard WASD Code v3 with Cherry Green keyswitches + PBT DS keycaps
Software Gentoo Linux x64 / Windows 11 Enterprise IoT 2024
why is this article worthy? come on @btarunr ...

You haven't been around much have you?

Pretty much anything that goes across the tech PR wire gets posted here, newsworthy or not.
 
Joined
Dec 9, 2013
Messages
911 (0.23/day)
System Name BlueKnight
Processor Intel Celeron G1610 @ 2.60GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PH (rev. 1.0)
Memory 1x 4GB DDR3 @ 1333MHz (Kingston KVR13N9S8/4)
Video Card(s) Onboard
Storage 1x 160GB (Western Digital WD1600AAJS-75M0A0)
Display(s) 1x 20" 1600x900 (PHILIPS 200VW9FBJ/78)
Case μATX Case (Generic)
Power Supply 300W (Generic)
Software Debian GNU/Linux 8.7 (jessie)
AMD "Zen" CPU Prototypes Tested, "Meet all Expectations"
Finally, an AMD CPU that can compete head to head with Intel?! :confused:
 

cdawall

where the hell are my stars
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
27,680 (4.13/day)
Location
Houston
System Name All the cores
Processor 2990WX
Motherboard Asrock X399M
Cooling CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory 4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s) (2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage 2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s) Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s) Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard Keychron K8
Software W10P
If they can even compete against 6-core SB-E chips it would be a good thing since no AMD CPU can compete against a 4 year old enthusiast chip from Intel.

They compete fine when you use multithreading. Should AMD have designed something that utilized current coding styles? yes very much so, but they do perform excellent in a server environment when you take the word intel out of the equation. Go open source linux and run an application that uses all of the threads. Watch the "lackluster" AMD cpu's perform, in heavily multithreaded environment using encoders that are not brand specific the 8320 (and 8150 for that matter) perform better than the 6700K.
 
Joined
Jul 1, 2005
Messages
5,197 (0.73/day)
Location
Kansas City, KS
System Name Dell XPS 15 9560
Processor I7-7700HQ
Memory 32GB DDR4
Video Card(s) GTX 1050/1080 Ti
Storage 1TB SSD
Display(s) 2x Dell P2715Q/4k Internal
Case Razer Core
Audio Device(s) Creative E5/Objective 2 Amp/Senn HD650
Mouse Logitech Proteus Core
Keyboard Logitech G910
bulldozer was a cool idea we just didn't have software that utilized it.

The problem is we have software that needs FPU.

"fury X" also met their "expectations".
 
Joined
Jun 28, 2014
Messages
2,388 (0.63/day)
Location
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia USA
System Name Home Brewed
Processor i9-7900X and i7-8700K
Motherboard ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme & ASUS Prime Z-370 A
Cooling Corsair 280mm AIO & Thermaltake Water 3.0
Memory 64GB DDR4-3000 GSKill RipJaws-V & 32GB DDR4-3466 GEIL Potenza
Video Card(s) 2X-GTX-1080 SLI & 2 GTX-1070Ti 8GB G1 Gaming in SLI
Storage Both have 2TB HDDs for storage, 480GB SSDs for OS, and 240GB SSDs for Steam Games
Display(s) ACER 28" B286HK 4K & Samsung 32" 1080P
Case NZXT Source 540 & Rosewill Rise Chassis
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Corsair RM1000 & Corsair RM850
Mouse Generic
Keyboard Razer Blackwidow Tournament & Corsair K90
Software Win-10 Professional
Benchmark Scores yes
At this point, I can't bring myself to get excited about this until I read ~real~ reviews that are done by my favorite tech sites. (TPU and others)
After that, I'll wait to see if AMD prices them like they did their Fury GPUs. If they do, I'll stick with my FX-9590 and the three i7 systems that I have.

As I see it, ZEN can only achieve zen-like status if it's priced low, and performs righteously.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
2,785 (0.58/day)
Location
New Zealand
System Name MoneySink
Processor 2600K @ 4.8
Motherboard P8Z77-V
Cooling AC NexXxos XT45 360, RayStorm, D5T+XSPC tank, Tygon R-3603, Bitspower
Memory 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600C8
Video Card(s) GTX 780 SLI (EVGA SC ACX + Giga GHz Ed.)
Storage Kingston HyperX SSD (128) OS, WD RE4 (1TB), RE2 (1TB), Cav. Black (2 x 500GB), Red (4TB)
Display(s) Achieva Shimian QH270-IPSMS (2560x1440) S-IPS
Case NZXT Switch 810
Audio Device(s) onboard Realtek yawn edition
Power Supply Seasonic X-1050
Software Win8.1 Pro
Benchmark Scores 3.5 litres of Pale Ale in 18 minutes.
They compete fine when you use multithreading. Should AMD have designed something that utilized current coding styles? yes very much so, but they do perform excellent in a server environment when you take the word intel out of the equation.
AMD's x86 server market share pre-Bulldozer: 6.5%. AMD's x86 market share now: 1.3 - 1.7%
Not all of it down to the CPU. The platform as a whole determines sales revenue, and AMD's Opteron platforms are a virtual dinosaur in today's market. Blaming software coders really only goes so far. HPC applications tend to use a high proportion of hand-tuned code for the architecture, yet how many new/upgraded clusters use AMD Opteron? AMD talked up the Cray XK7 Titan like there was no ceiling to what Opteron could achieve, yet as soon as Cray knew what lack of improvement Vishera would bring, dropped AMD faster than you can say Xeon, with the legacy XK7 and XE7 being the only interest the company has with AMD, while the new XC's are exclusively Intel powered.
At this point, I can't bring myself to get excited about this until I read ~real~ reviews that are done by my favorite tech sites. (TPU and others)
Even some info from a respected site might not go amiss, but WCCFtech are about as far from that as it is possible to be. Clickbait bs is their usual m.o., this just looks like more of the same to feed their mentally defective comments section.
 
Joined
Jun 28, 2014
Messages
2,388 (0.63/day)
Location
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia USA
System Name Home Brewed
Processor i9-7900X and i7-8700K
Motherboard ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme & ASUS Prime Z-370 A
Cooling Corsair 280mm AIO & Thermaltake Water 3.0
Memory 64GB DDR4-3000 GSKill RipJaws-V & 32GB DDR4-3466 GEIL Potenza
Video Card(s) 2X-GTX-1080 SLI & 2 GTX-1070Ti 8GB G1 Gaming in SLI
Storage Both have 2TB HDDs for storage, 480GB SSDs for OS, and 240GB SSDs for Steam Games
Display(s) ACER 28" B286HK 4K & Samsung 32" 1080P
Case NZXT Source 540 & Rosewill Rise Chassis
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Corsair RM1000 & Corsair RM850
Mouse Generic
Keyboard Razer Blackwidow Tournament & Corsair K90
Software Win-10 Professional
Benchmark Scores yes
I want to believe but... it's the AMD PR machine, man. It's a track record of showing us fancy looking diagrams and lackluster results.

Did Bulldozer "meet all expectations," before release? :confused:

See what AMD has done? It has made me a cynical bastard.

Didn't AMD fire most of its PR staff after Bulldozer underwhelmed us?
 
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
97 (0.02/day)
Processor Intel i7 4960x Ivy-Bridge E @ 4.6 Ghz @ 1.42V
Motherboard x79 AsRock Extreme 11.0
Cooling EK Supremacy Copper Waterblock
Memory 65.5 GBs Corsair Platinum Kit @ 666.7Mhz
Video Card(s) PCIe 3.0 x16 -- Asus GTX Titan Maxwell
Storage Samsung 840 500GBs + OCZ Vertex 4 500GBs 2x 1TB Samsung 850
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster ZXR
Power Supply Corsair 1000W
Mouse Razer Naga
Keyboard Corsair K95
Software Zbrush, 3Dmax, Maya, Softimage, Vue, Sony Vegas Pro, Acid, Soundforge, Adobe Aftereffects, Photoshop
why is this article worthy? come on @btarunr ...

The article is meat to start setting up expectations and "light the beacons of Gondor" moment about AMD Zen. Until 3rd party benches are released, the only natural step is to be on the lookout for any news. The members of this forum and others, will continue their natural state of speculation, QQ-ing, arguments about the fails and wins of AMD Zen.

To answer your question, it gets the community members coming back to the website. Since the website is probably displaying ads for funding, the more members who recirculate back to see it, the better for TPU's benefit because they get a cut from it. Anything with focus words like "AMD ZEN" or "NVIDIA GTX Titan HBM 16GB PASCUAL" or "AMD R9-690x appears from the darkness" to name a few, will have community members coming back, and they will see the ads or pop-ups. Similar situation occurs on YouTube when you monetize videos. If consumers are watching some random person's videos, they will see the ads with the videos. The owner of the videos gets a cut of the money spent to put up the ads, and the cut goes up when more viewers watch the video because it equates to a greater chance that the viewer will purchase the product from newegg or an online store. So in a since, btarunr's actions could be justified to sustain the website on a financial level, if it was important. To go even further, Guru3D.com left their "QQ" post last week. It's a similar situation where pop-up blockers were stopping the ads from being displayed to community members and site visitors. Since less ads were being viewed, Guru3D makes less money in the process. Thus, this is the justification for the "QQ" post.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
602 (0.14/day)
Processor Ryzen 9 3900x
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Memory 32GB GSkill Ripjaws V 3600CL16
Video Card(s) 3060Ti FE 0.9v
Storage Samsung 970 EVO 1TB, 2x Samsung 840 EVO 1TB
Display(s) ASUS ProArt PA278QV
Case be quiet! Pure Base 500
Audio Device(s) Edifier R1850DB
Power Supply Super Flower Leadex III 650W
Mouse A4Tech X-748K
Keyboard Logitech K300
Software Win 10 Pro 64bit
Best thing to do here is to ignore everything that AMD claims. They have been overstating the performance figures of their hardware for 5-6 years now.
 

cadaveca

My name is Dave
Joined
Apr 10, 2006
Messages
17,232 (2.53/day)
When you feel so contrived to calla product "Zen"... sheesh. It's all cool, daddy-o.:pimp:
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
234 (0.07/day)
Too bad the source is not very reliable.

A guy, which knows from a guy which used to work at AMD and who knows from another guy which still works there ... and which is posting for the first time on a forum.

And how are they going to convince people with pretty new i5/i7 Haswell or Skylake to move over ... its not clear to me. For few more years from now on, GPU replacement will bring better performance than just replacing the CPU. And new shiny GPUs on 16 or 14 nm are on the way.
 

hellowalkman

New Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2015
Messages
4 (0.00/day)
I believe Zen will be within 20% of Kaby Lake's IPC and that should be great for a lot of people if priced correctly.

By the way, AMD isn't claiming or hyping anything right now so if Zen fails they shouldn't be blamed. They can only do so much in the financial jeopardy that they are.
 
Top