AMD Confirms Key "Summit Ridge" Specs

[pedromvu]

Was just checking more of those Passmark numbers and even the Excavator cores looks to be very good, the thing is at least on that benchmark whatever AMD uses as the equivalent of Intel Hyper Threading seems much more effective, the AMD number of logical cores really seem to increase the performance as if they were physical cores unlike Intel ones.

Based on Athlon X4 845 chip, the theoretical score if it were 8 cores (2 logical per physical so 16 logical) should be around the 21,000 mark, taking in account Core I7-5960X has 15,982, Zen should destroy it with numbers close to 30,000 if AMD claims are true, only problem would be if they can maintain an acceptable TDP for such high amount of cores.

Also not sure if when referring to Zen they mean 8 physical cores or logical, in that case the numbers should be more on the 15-16,000 mark which is still good.

Edit: Just looked at some articles, they mean 8 physical :O, looks like the CPU price wars begin later this year, also numbers should probably be a bit lower because it seems at least the first announced Zen chip will run at lower frequency than 3.5ghz which I am basing on.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

AMD Zen 8 Core 95W Summit Ridge CPUs Launching In October – Already Going Through Validation

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-8-core-summit-ridge-launching-october/#ixzz4ARmKomlj

Come on, thats a 3 month old WCCFtech rumor.

 

[bug]

Come on, thats a 3 month old WCCFtech rumor.

Come on, that's always a pleonasm.

 

[xvi]

"Socket AM4 motherboards won't have any chipset on them. "
Woah? Seriously? And how much would chipsetless boards cost?

..and what concerns me more is "How much extra are the processors going to cost?"
I suppose it might be nice since upgrading processor means upgrading the chipset too, I suppose, but still.

It's also why AthlonXP/64 whooped P4's ass

Oh yes, back in the day those Athlon 64s were fast with a capital F. The XP's were actually a bit slower overall unless heavily overclocked since the P4's clock speed advantage was a lot.
However, when I upgraded from a P4 Northwood 2.8GHz (3.5 o/c) to an A64 3800+ the gaming framerate shot up It was on an Abit AN8 Ultra mobo too.

Wicked fast despite those pile-o-crap Soyo motherboards that were so popular back then. Oh, that brings me back. I had to get a GeForce 2 MX PCI instead of AGP because my Soyo motherboard barely provided any power to the AGP port. All the AGP cards I tried wouldn't POST.
Years later, I ran across someone who worked at the store that I bought my Soyo board (and K6-2) from. He said that there were some rather severe disciplinary actions taken for any employee that even suggested those boards had issues, but he acknowledged they were terrible.

Me's getting tired of Intel's insistance of 4c/8t on high-end consumer desktop CPU. I need more for rendering. (Without selling my body parts)
So, hopfully, AMD can come back competitive.

Why not get an old workstation? Us WCG members love getting old dual-processor systems for compute tasks. Should be able to get two 6-core 12-thread Xeons for the price of one 6700k pretty easily.

I purchased the CPU during severe Intel CPU shortage in Canada. Nothing else was available. Besides, I'd rather go for 65w cpu. My build is tiny as hell.

Ah. Tiny and heavy compute capable won't be easy.

 

[alucasa]

Why not get an old workstation? Us WCG members love getting old dual-processor systems for compute tasks. Should be able to get two 6-core 12-thread Xeons for the price of one 6700k pretty easily.

Ah. Tiny and heavy compute capable won't be easy.

The build is in my link, the first one.

I did consider getting a second hand workstation grade PC but I've become a minimalist over the years. I just don't want an extra huge mid-tower PC case while perfectly good one is right next to me. At one point, I am probably going to upgrade my media PC to an i7 and use network rendering instead. 8c/16t that way.

 

[Solidstate89]

There is a good chance they will. 990fx has 38 PCIE lanes, compared to z170's 20 lanes, and x99's 48 lanes (40 from cpu, 8 from chipset). now, AMD is still 2.0, but the 800 series similarly had more lanes then intel did. I wouldn't be surprised if this carries into AMD's next chips.

If they have at least 40 PCI-e 3.0 lanes and better IPC (even if it's by like 5%) than Haswell, it's almost guaranteed I'll get their flagship Zen CPU over Skylake-E.

 

[geon2k2]

The question is: is 40% enough to overtake intel?

40% ipc increase and 16 threads compared to 4 of the i5 will make the i5 a very hard sell.
Even the games which liked high ipc are heavily threaded nowadays and will probably work just fine on AMD even if the pure IPC will still be behind intel.

Probably intel will have to rebrand i7 to i5 and bring a 6 core 12 threads to mainstream to be competitive ... which will be great for us ... the consumers.

 

[medi01]

Even the games which liked high ipc are heavily threaded nowadays...

That "AMD master plan" (8 core Jaguar in consoles ROFLMAO)

 

[alucasa]

As someone mentioned earlier, AMD does not need to beat Intel (and I don't think they can beat Intel at this point). They just need to offer a more affordable alternative to Intel. As long as Zen is competitive against Intel's Core in core vs core, I can see myself switching to AMD once again since I do need more cores without breaking a bank.

But TDP also matters to me. If Zen's 8c/16t is rated at 125w or higher - and - performs close to i7, I am going to stick with 65w i7 intel cpu.

 

[Basard]

FFS... you know, I've probably googled "Excavator" about 50 times, EVERY single time i just type in "Excavator" instead of "Excavator core"....

For about half a second I'm left speechless and completely confused. Thinking to myself "Wtf is this tractor bullshit I'm getting"...

LOL.... and every time my wife catches me doing it she looks at me like I'm retarded.

 

[Casecutter]

My thinking on AM4 Mobo is even buying one today (well when they hit) permits it to stay relevant longer as there's no chipsets.

Sure if there's some new PCI-e 4.0 spec or some huge USB, SATA you might lose out, but it probably somewhat still backward compatible. If you went AM4 on a Bristol Ridge by this time next year drop a Zen and you have some/most new(er) ability's. Heck like upgrade to faster ram modules I would think you'd not be held back by what the Mobo other than it has longer lanes and slots are somehow constricting it

 

[Nihilus]

Well, basic napkin math, Bulldozer has ~ the same IPC as Core2. So, Wolfdale +5% = Nehalem, Nehalem +19% = Sandy Bridge, SB +3% = Ivy Bridge, IB +11% = Haswell, HW + 3.3% = Broadwell.

So, 5+19+3+11+3.3= 41.3, Skylake is not 20-30% faster than Broadwell, so if Zen is genuinely 60-70% higher IPC than Bulldozer then it's going to beat Skylake clock for clock (in Cinebench) all day long.

OFC this is all Napkin math using Cinebench IPC comparisons...

LOL that is not how math works. Start with 100 to make it easy. 5% increase is 105. next is a 19% increase. So 105 x 1.19 = about 125. Then continue from there. The final number is higher than 141.3

 

[vega22]

The gap will certainly matter. Having more cores didnt exactly move bulldozer chips. AMD needs to be performance competitive if they ever want to break back into the server/workstation market, or ever have a competitive mobile chip.

but it didnt have more cores :|

this, on the other hand, could offer 8 cores and 16 threads for a reasonable price...

 

[mastrdrver]

And what alternative is that?
AMD can't just say, "well, we have slightly lower performance so we'll sell for less", because Intel has everything covered from ~$60 to the newly released, obscenely priced Broadwell-E. If they don't have better IPC, is AMD going to slap a beefier IGP and call it an alternative? Again?

Uh, that's exactly what they used to do and they had the market covered from the bottom to the top, but AMD still was successful.

It was something along the lines of 90% of the performance of an Intel for 15% less the price back in the K6 and K7 days. It wasn't until Athlon and Intel's mess up called P4 that AMD actually had a faster CPU.

 

[TheGuruStud]

If they offer copious amounts of PCI-e lanes, combined with IPC better than Haswell, I'll seriously consider an AMD CPU for the first time ever.

1st time ever? Either you're in middle school or intel tricked you from 2000-2006 lol.

It wasn't even a contest once thunderbird hit the scene. I miss that 1.4ghz bad boy. I was chewing through games. Upgraded to Athlon XP and was VERY impressed (put intel's crap 6ft under). Then, my baby, the athlon 64 3200+.... Best CPU ever made that I've had the pleasure of using.

 

[Frick]

Uh, that's exactly what they used to do and they had the market covered from the bottom to the top, but AMD still was successful.

It was something along the lines of 90% of the performance of an Intel for 15% less the price back in the K6 and K7 days. It wasn't until Athlon and Intel's mess up called P4 that AMD actually had a faster CPU.

Part of me almost thinks the AMD GPUs would hurt their CPUs. Everyone is defaulting to Nvidia even when they can get more power for less money by going AMD. Countless upgrading threads all over the web and everyone just say "meh drivers something quality something something" when someone mentions AMD. I wonder if it'll be like that with Zen as well. "Just buy Intel/Nvidia, it'll just work." (btw, that is how people buy PSUs as well. "whatever just buy Corsair", even when you can get better products for less)

And people today generally have more money to spend, and in consumer CPUs a 15% price difference is not a whole lot. It can differ that much between stores. So I dunno. They have an uphill battle for sure. Moar threads is awesome, but the more I think about it the more I get a sneaky suspicion it'll not be what it should be.

 

[bug]

Uh, that's exactly what they used to do and they had the market covered from the bottom to the top, but AMD still was successful.

It was something along the lines of 90% of the performance of an Intel for 15% less the price back in the K6 and K7 days. It wasn't until Athlon and Intel's mess up called P4 that AMD actually had a faster CPU.

Their financial situation is quite different now, I don't know if they can afford the same tactics again.
Fwiw, K6 and K7 were close to P2/P3 in integer processing. P2/P3 were still much faster in FP operations. Eh, a lot has changed since then.

 

[Parn]

I'm really curious how these chipset-less motherboards will be priced.

It looks like the AM4 chipset-less design is really going to help with the longetivity of the motherboard, so we don't have to keep changing it whenever we upgrade to a new generation of CPU.

The price of Intel CPUs has been steadily going up. For a mainstream i7 to be priced at £300 is just too much. Hope Zen would put up a decent fight.

 

[Ubersonic]

If this is right: "Bulldozer has ~ the same IPC as Core2. So, Wolfdale +5% = Nehalem, Nehalem +19% = Sandy Bridge, SB +3% = Ivy Bridge, IB +11% = Haswell, HW + 3.3% = Broadwell."

Then we have: 1.05*1.19*1.03*1.11*1.033 = 1.4756 => 47.56%

And then, if AMDs 40% IPC gain stands, it will be 7-10%-ish behind Broadwell.

PS
That sure is quite a number of IFs...

It's not a 40% IPC gain they are claiming it's 60-70% (the 40% is aimed at Excavator not Bulldozer) which means if they are telling the truth then Zen is 12-22% ahead of Broadwell :O

 

[Ubersonic]

LOL that is not how math works. Start with 100 to make it easy. 5% increase is 105. next is a 19% increase. So 105 x 1.19 = about 125. Then continue from there. The final number is higher than 141.3

Welcome to 45 posts ago lol.

 

[medi01]

The final number is higher than 141.3

Yep. 47.56%.

It's not a 40% IPC gain they are claiming it's 60-70% (the 40% is aimed at Excavator not Bulldozer) which means if they are telling the truth then Zen is 12-22% ahead of Broadwell :O

Spoiler

Spoiler

I know you weren't serious either.

But just in case, AMD marketing dudes talk about "we've never been so close to Intel". So, they might be ahead, but from behind....

 

[sillytrucker]

Oh yes, back in the day those Athlon 64s were fast with a capital F. The XP's were actually a bit slower overall unless heavily overclocked since the P4's clock speed advantage was a lot.

However, when I upgraded from a P4 Northwood 2.8GHz (3.5 o/c) to an A64 3800+ the gaming framerate shot up It was on an Abit AN8 Ultra mobo too.

That was my first computer I built with the Fatal1ty AN8 pared with a BFG 7800 GTX. The memory's also was the first processor to run 64 bit windows.

 

[chuck216]

1st time ever? Either you're in middle school or intel tricked you from 2000-2006 lol.

It wasn't even a contest once thunderbird hit the scene. I miss that 1.4ghz bad boy. I was chewing through games. Upgraded to Athlon XP and was VERY impressed (put intel's crap 6ft under). Then, my baby, the athlon 64 3200+.... Best CPU ever made that I've had the pleasure of using.

I owned both of those CPUs also... oh the memories.

 

[ShurikN]

Had both the AXP 2500 Barton oc'd as hell, and a A64 3200. Still using the 3200 for watching anime.
Man were those cpus good.
Later I got a hold of a Prescott (i think someone just gave it to me) with 400Mhz more than 3200, and it was significantly slower... even in the most basic of tasks.
Those were good times to own an AMD CPU

 

[bug]

Had both the AXP 2500 Barton oc'd as hell, and a A64 3200. Still using the 3200 for watching anime.
Man were those cpus good.
Later I got a hold of a Prescott (i think someone just gave it to me) with 400Mhz more than 3200, and it was significantly slower... even in the most basic of tasks.
Those were good times to own an AMD CPU

You're just being mean. Ok, the PresHott was slower (and significantly more expensive), but in exchange you didn't need to turn up the heat over the winter.
Back in those days I never imagined myself using (and praising) Intel. I was young...