AMD Demos Breakthrough Performance of the ZEN CPU Core

[cadaveca]

1. How much can that 3.0 Ghz chip be overclock(and how easily)
2. Price point match up, do they take this and kick intel in the balls by pricing a 1100 Intel chip at 300 US.

1. I think that if they could do more than that 3 GHz reliably, they would have. That is, if they are smart. I think you could realistically predict that in order to do what they have seem to have done, the CPU pipeline is going to be relatively short, cache will get hit often, and run hot, kind of like Intels CPUs. That means it's all up to the process, and not AMD.

2. Based on recent behavior for pricing at AMD, they'll likely go somewhere directly between that. They simply have to be able to meet demand, and that's not going to be easy for them if its good and if they price it too low. If they can match Intel performance and clocks, they are best to simply slightly undercut intel across the board. That might not be the best for enthusiasts, but its best for AMD for sure.

Maybe?

 

[Frick]

Shows how realistic your hopes were...

Very true.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Holy crap I totally wanna bang Lisa Su right now!

Aaaaa.....NO.

 

[TheLostSwede]

More board details http://www.anandtech.com/show/10581...-naples-32cores-dual-socket-platforms-q2-2017

 

[HisDivineOrder]

This is just a starting chip for them, who knows what's coming after, and this is a hell of alot better than the Bulldozer/Thuban era. Competition benefits everyone by making prices come down. The only people not rooting for AMD are people with more money than sense.

I agree with the point about AMD needing to have a winner to save us all from the slow escalation of pricing by Intel and nVidia. We're frogs and they're ramping up the heat...er...cost slowly. Remember when Gx104 products were the high mainstream at $300-450? Gx106 were the low end at $150-200? Remember when Intel felt a need to release products with more cores instead of just the same repeat of core count and clock speed with minor architectural improvements at ever increasing cost? Add $15-25 for each generation at the 6600k/6700K class CPU levels to predict next year's MSRP. That's with them pushing generations to three CPU's for each fab change now (ie., 4770k, then 4790k).

We absolutely need AMD to step up and stop dragging down the GPU division with constant failures that leak into all areas of the company's budget.

That said and having prefaced myself, I also think it bears repeating:

It is not "a hell of alot (sic) better than the Bulldozer/Thuban era." It is not. They did this exact same style of promises using limited benchmarks and canned game demos along with a protracted series of delays and screeching to the public about how THIS will be the one. THIS IS THE ONE, they told us, with Phenom AND Bulldozer. THIS WILL BE THE ONE THAT BRINGS US BACK!

It's exactly the same as last time. It's absolutely no different. Not better, not worse. It's the same. That's why it's worrisome. Those of us old enough to remember have seen AMD do this song and dance twice over already.

And they have failed to save us from the tyranny of Intel every time they've done it. At this point, I'm not even wholly blaming them if it fails to impact because GloFo is a lead weight that could drag any company's best efforts into bankruptcy and they seem to have no option except to keep using them no matter how badly they botch fabrication time and again...

The day they sold their corporate soul to GloFo was the day they seem to have sealed their fate.

And ours.

 

[cyneater]

Who knows how well Zen will do.

All I know Zen was designed by Jim Keller who designed the K8 x86-64 the Athlon 64 .. so maybe there is some hope.

 

[Caring1]

Who knows how well Zen will do.

All I know Zen was designed by Jim Keller who designed the K8 x86-64 the Athlon 64 .. so maybe there is some hope.

As long as it wasn't Helen Keller

 

[Tatty_Two]

Just doing a little cleanup, don't get upset if I delete your post because of a quote that's now deleted.... thank you.

 

[Jism]

1. I think that if they could do more than that 3 GHz reliably, they would have. That is, if they are smart. I think you could realistically predict that in order to do what they have seem to have done, the CPU pipeline is going to be relatively short, cache will get hit often, and run hot, kind of like Intels CPUs. That means it's all up to the process, and not AMD.

It makes no sense, on a public demonstration to use a overclocked processor, which perhaps marginally makes it to 3.4 / 3.6 / 3.8GHz and later sell models that reach 3GHz for a base clockspeed.

You create a chip that balances in performance, power usage and efficiency, not max OC. The OC is just a gimmick which we might find important but not the AMD's primary goal.

So they have a ES which settles for 3GHz and perhaps 65 to 95W of TDP, and is able to compete against intels latest and best offering with 8 cores / 16 threads, and it beats it with a percentage.

If i'm not mistaken, that CPU is made from the same stuff the RX 480 is made of. And by all the looks of it it is a worthless OC'er since many cards dont reach 1400Mhz for longer then 5 minutes stable (watercooling that is). So knowing this AMD proberly pushes these CPU to already the TDP limit and we need a beefy motherboard with beefy VRM and all that, in order to push for even more.

2. Based on recent behavior for pricing at AMD, they'll likely go somewhere directly between that. They simply have to be able to meet demand, and that's not going to be easy for them if its good and if they price it too low. If they can match Intel performance and clocks, they are best to simply slightly undercut intel across the board. That might not be the best for enthusiasts, but its best for AMD for sure.

Maybe?

AMD needs sales in the low / mid section, but the higher section as well. Dont forget that enterprise market is WAYYY more important then consumers such as us, and that where enterprise is where the money is.

The SOC is actually a decent design, you only need a motherboard with simply AM4 socket, a decent TDP rating and your good to go. No more difference in socket, chipsets or mostly bios updates. However this cuts the ability to get cherry picked chipsets on for example the high-end AM3+ motherboards for example. Buying a crosshair IV or Z guaranteees you are able to hit 350Mhz HTT and more then 200W of TDP.

I'm confident that AMD has a decent chip, the work put into is paying off, now it needs contracts, decent pricing and they'll have a boost in sales, which is exactly what they need. Never forget the underdog, they already have all major contracts with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, their graphics part will be more and more important in the future when pushing for asynchronous compute.

And that is exactly where those Radeon cards will shine in. The RX480 is better then the 1060 when using Doom.

 

[qubit]

As AMD have to underclock - ie hamstring - the Intel CPU to beat it, then it doesn't look good at all for them. They should compare stock with stock running at stock, as that's the true comparison, not a gimped competition.

If the -E CPU is too strong for it, then they should have compared it with the mainstream models instead for a fair comparison.

It looks to me like there will be some useful performance improvements with Zen, but AMD are gonna continue playing catch-up with Intel, like always. Shame AMD squandered their lead with the A64 series a decade ago. They really blew it.

 

[ZoneDymo]

As AMD have to underclock - ie hamstring - the Intel CPU to beat it, then it doesn't look good at all for them. They should compare stock with stock running at stock, as that's the true comparison, not a gimped competition.

If the -E CPU is too strong for it, then they should have compared it with the mainstream models instead for a fair comparison.

It looks to me like there will be some useful performance improvements with Zen, but AMD are gonna continue playing catch-up with Intel, like always. Shame AMD squandered their lead with the A64 series a decade ago. They really blew it.

Depends on what you want to show right? if its the improvement of performance per clock speed then yeah you have to have to match them...which is what they wanted to and what they did so yeah...

 

[qubit]

Depends on what you want to show right? if its the improvement of performance per clock speed then yeah you have to have to match them...which is what they wanted to and what they did so yeah...

I haven't had time to look at that properly yet, but yeah, if they wanted to show IPC improvements they would do that. From the looks of it though they crucially don't state the IPC performance. In the end, all that matters is that stock performance comparison which they're not showing you, so we should be right to be suspicious that they're hiding performance deficits again. And again, the official reviews will show the true performance.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I haven't had time to look at that properly yet, but yeah, if they wanted to show IPC improvements they would do that. From the looks of it though they crucially don't state the IPC performance. In the end, all that matters is that stock performance comparison which they're not showing you, so we should be right to be suspicious that they're hiding performance deficits again. And again, the official reviews will show the true performance.

true they will, but you can compare different things to show performance, you argue they should leave everything factory stock and there is something to say for that type of comparison but then I might as well throw in that price should matter then as well.
Often times people compare the most high end AMD has to offer vs the most high end Intel has to offer in terms of performance when there is a massive price difference they then casually cast aside.
That is just as much part of the "stock" compare experience as anything else.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Does the average consumer even care about IPC performance/improvements? they either want cheap or they want competitive or both of course.... all out of the box, it's meaningless to say to the average consumer, "our IPC performance has improved by 40%", what I want to hear is something like "We have designed a CPU that offers the same performance (or better) than our competitor for the same or lower price" and when I don't hear this I am suspicious, and truly that's not because I want fail, but because I want success, it's been far too long since I have had an AMD CPU. To be fair, even if all it got was close I would still buy one simply because 11 years has been too long.

 

[chuck216]

I for one think this is promising. AMD has done something they haven't come close to doing in years... matching (or even slightly surpassing) an Intel flagship CPU clock for clock.
Sure there were no boost/turbo clocks enabled but would there be in the real world if all 16 threads were being utilized @ 100%?

Now they just need to keep it at a reasonable "consumer friendly" price and make up the difference in raw sales.

 

[Caring1]

I would buy one if I had the money, just so I could play with it and see personally what it is capable of.

 

[noname00]

I would buy one if I had the money, just so I could play with it and see personally what it is capable of.

I will buy one only if it will have good reviews, and I will compare it with a friend's 4690k (this is the price level I am looking at). I will keep it only if it will confirm the reviews.

Let's not forget the other dirty trick that AMD used in the past - selling a small number of graphic cards/CPUs just after the launch where you could unlock a few more cores. And it didn't always worked, but some of us bought them hoping their CPU could be unlocked.
My father uses my old 960T now .... with 8GB of ram, a HD6770 and a Samsung 650 SSD, Spider Solitaire never ran faster

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I will buy one only if it will have good reviews, and I will compare it with a friend's 4690k (this is the price level I am looking at). I will keep it only if it will confirm the reviews.

Let's not forget the other dirty trick that AMD used in the past - selling a small number of graphic cards/CPUs just after the launch where you could unlock a few more cores. And it didn't always worked, but some of us bought them hoping their CPU could be unlocked.
My father uses my old 960T now .... with 8GB of ram, a HD6770 and a Samsung 650 SSD, Spider Solitaire never ran faster

Yeah the bastards ,how dare they sell you what you paid for and only offer a slim chance of a free bonus , and all without advertising any of it.
Was it Amd who announced some ref 4Gb Rx480's could have memory unlocked, no.
Was it Amd who sold Cpus on a vague promise of bonus cores, again no.
My 8350 clocked a bit beats a 4690k in the right app or game already and many say its 4 year old ass was always shit ,I say, as I said not so and I look forward to Zen , finally Intel's micro opp and wide core rescources for 1thread tactic is getting countered, hold onto your pants cos imho Kaby lakes getting served its own ass.
And how come so many new names turn up in these Amd threads always eager to trash or downplay Amd,I think dual tpu accounts should be banned.

 

[TRWOV]

As AMD have to underclock - ie hamstring - the Intel CPU to beat it, then it doesn't look good at all for them. They should compare stock with stock running at stock, as that's the true comparison, not a gimped competition.

If the -E CPU is too strong for it, then they should have compared it with the mainstream models instead for a fair comparison.

It looks to me like there will be some useful performance improvements with Zen, but AMD are gonna continue playing catch-up with Intel, like always. Shame AMD squandered their lead with the A64 series a decade ago. They really blew it.

They just wanted to show up how the architecture stands agains Intel's current offerings. To do that a comparison at the same clockspeeds is a must. Of course this is just one test and is very possible that in some other benchmark Broadwell would pull ahead but still even if overall AMD is behind Intel by single digit percentage that would be a huge milestone considering the handicap that AMD is playing with (huge amounts of debt, waaay smaller team, bigger manufacturing process, etc., etc,. etc).

We've seen the Zen ES go from 1.8Ghz to 2.3 and now 3Ghz in this presentation. I don't expect these to be clocked beyond 3.5Ghz. The TDP will likely be above Intel's too (165w is my guess) but the stars of the show will be the 4c/8t and 6c/12t parts.

 

[HD64G]

Does the average consumer even care about IPC performance/improvements? they either want cheap or they want competitive or both of course.... all out of the box, it's meaningless to say to the average consumer, "our IPC performance has improved by 40%", what I want to hear is something like "We have designed a CPU that offers the same performance (or better) than our competitor for the same or lower price" and when I don't hear this I am suspicious, and truly that's not because I want fail, but because I want success, it's been far too long since I have had an AMD CPU. To be fair, even if all it got was close I would still buy one simply because 11 years has been too long.

And you all wait for AMD to show the Zen's true power months before they go out for sale? With clocks and TDP of the final product? All they showed there was that they promised +40% IPC and they delivered. The clocks @3GHz aren't finals and Intel's 8C/16H is in reality a 3,2GHz CPU@stock when pushed on full load at all its cores. So, it is a pretty valid comparison imho. Not sure what it will do in all applications and games and computing power yet but this comparison showed exactly that the new arch is very promising when compared to Intel's newest 8C @1000 cpu it manages to be somehow equal. Interesting times ahead, that's for sure.

 

[noname00]

Yeah the bastards ,how dare they sell you what you paid for and only offer a slim chance of a free bonus , and all without advertising any of it.
Was it Amd who announced some ref 4Gb Rx480's could have memory unlocked, no.
Was it Amd who sold Cpus on a vague promise of bonus cores, again no.
My 8350 clocked a bit beats a 4690k in the right app or game already and many say its 4 year old ass was always shit ,I say, as I said not so and I look forward to Zen , finally Intel's micro opp and wide core rescources for 1thread tactic is getting countered, hold onto your pants cos imho Kaby lakes getting served its own ass.
And how come so many new names turn up in these Amd threads always eager to trash or downplay Amd,I think dual tpu accounts should be banned.

You did not understand my comment. They did not advertise all of this, but they made it easy for the end user to try it. And all the fanboys created a hype that was better for them than any advertising.
However you put it, this hope for a free performance bonus enabled AMD to set the price for some CPU's a bit higher.
BTW - I am new to this forum, I don't have multiple accounts, and I am not just thrashing AMD. I'm just dissapointed by the hype created around them every time before a launch. And they almost never deliver at least what's expected.

 

[Tatty_Two]

And you all wait for AMD to show the Zen's true power months before they go out for sale? With clocks and TDP of the final product? All they showed there was that they promised +40% IPC and they delivered. The clocks @3GHz aren't finals and Intel's 8C/16H is in reality a 3,2GHz CPU@stock when pushed on full load at all its cores. So, it is a pretty valid comparison imho. Not sure what it will do in all applications and games and computing power yet but this comparison showed exactly that the new arch is very promising when compared to Intel's newest 8C @1000 cpu it manages to be somehow equal. Interesting times ahead, that's for sure.

I am not waiting for anything, I don't play the speculation game however I actually think they at least eluded to the fact that it would be very competitive with Intel's "current" lineup, after 11 years I am hesitant to believe anything anyone's marketing department tells me from whatever camp. If it's good I will buy it, if not I will go elsewhere.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

You did not understand my comment. They did not advertise all of this, but they made it easy for the end user to try it. And all the fanboys created a hype that was better for them than any advertising.
However you put it, this hope for a free performance bonus enabled AMD to set the price for some CPU's a bit higher.
BTW - I am new to this forum, I don't have multiple accounts, and I am not just thrashing AMD. I'm just dissapointed by the hype created around them every time before a launch. And they almost never deliver at least what's expected.

Well you need to play fair then it was the enthusiast community that hyped up core unlocking not Amd and they didn't adjust prices for it , I guess some blame should go to motherboard makers who designed core unlocking(making itis easier for consumers)because it was them that hyped it as a feature.
As for Amd hyping there releases they only do what ALL companies do its communities that over hyped then over slated them ,I mean my 8350 cost 159 UK notes and has done 3 years folding 24/7 and I'm still gaming at ultra settings on almost every game ,how can that be a bad buy ,Zen looks a much stronger proposition, but ill wager that when Amd get close to Intel's Ipc in shops, intel advotees will pull another spec or facet ie efficiency to deride Intel's enemy's stuff

 

[ZoneDymo]

I would buy one if I had the money, just so I could play with it and see personally what it is capable of.

heh I think we are all like that with every piece of hardware that comes out
we are hardware enthusiasts after all

 

[RejZoR]

Even if it won't be a speed king (of the hill), it's still looking good. And if they'll price it well, this thing can be a VERY interesting alternative. Plus, you have that X factor owning an AMD CPU. C'mon, admit it, it is cool.