AMD 8-core ZEN Packs a Whallop with Multithreaded Performance

[btarunr]

AMD's upcoming 8-core "ZEN" processors pack serious multithreaded performance muscle. The company's design focus on empowering the cores, and getting rid of the shared-resource approach to multi-core chips; appears to have paid of big dividends in multithreaded performance, as tested on the Blender benchmark. An 8-core "ZEN" engineering sample was found to be belting out performance rivaling 10-core Intel Xeon E5-2600 V2 series chips, indicating that AMD appears to have made huge gains in per-core performance over its previous generation chips.

The Blender benchmark scores of an alleged AMD ZEN "Summit Ridge" engineering sample were posted by Blender benchmark scores aggregator Blenchmark; and unearthed by this redditor. According to these scores, the "ZEN" sample cruches the Blender benchmark render in 69 seconds, the same time it takes for a 10-core Xeon E5-2650 V2 processor. The ZEN chip is also closely trailing Xeon E5-2600 V4 series chips. AMD is expected to launch its first ZEN "Summit Ridge" 8-core processors in early 2017.



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[Assimilator]

Oh Christ. Why must TPU repeat this crap? Zen can beat a 10-core Ivy Bridge (3rd generation) chip, which isn't saying much since Kaby Lake will mark the 7th generation of Intel's Core microarchitecture... and Zen was, supposedly, going to be on par with Haswell, the 4th-gen Core.

 

[JalleR]

I can feel the RX480 Hype repeating......

 

[yogurt_21]

Oh Christ. Why must TPU repeat this crap? Zen can beat a 10-core Ivy Bridge (3rd generation) chip, which isn't saying much since Kaby Lake will mark the 7th generation of Intel's Core microarchitecture... and Zen was, supposedly, going to be on par with Haswell, the 4th-gen Core.

? wtf are you on about? the V4 launched in 2016 is right above the "ivy bridge" variant and barely faster not to mention they don't indicate what speed the zen chip was at...serious fail there bud.

On the other side we have seen this from AMD before. Multi thread through the roof single thread in the gutter. So really I won't bother with multithread until they can prove single threaded operations can compete.

 

[Ed_1]

Since there no ID on that chip, lets wait to see if it really is 8 core and not 16 core server CPU.
there is no info here, just BM#

 

[ShurikN]

Oh Christ. Why must TPU repeat this crap? Zen can beat a 10-core Ivy Bridge (3rd generation) chip, which isn't saying much since Kaby Lake will mark the 7th generation of Intel's Core microarchitecture... and Zen was, supposedly, going to be on par with Haswell, the 4th-gen Core.

Maybe so. But this Zen has 2 cores less. So i'd say they nailed it with multithread. I'm more concerned about that single core performance.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Ding, ding, ding.....let round 8 begin, fighters may leave their corners.

 

[alucasa]

Ding, ding, ding.....let round 8 begin, fighters may leave their corners.

Looking at your avatar, looks like you are ready to jump into the ring.

What his avatar looks like to me:

He looks at his phone, browsing mobile TPU.
He notices the thread.
He goes, "WTF? OMFG, again?!"
Throws phone and gets ready.
Fight.
Profit.

 

[RejZoR]

Either way, AMD is a competing force this time around, even if they tested it against older generation. Bulldozer was slower because it was using entirely wrong design. Zen is not. Plus, Zen has gained other few goodies like enhanced multithreading, pitching it directly at Intel. Even if it's not king of the hill, it'll be a very viable option. Possibly even so much that Intel will be forced to radically improve their CPU's opposed to current rubbish bumps and sticking with same stupid 4/8 core design for how many generations now? 5? I've had such config on bloody Core i7 920, 6 years ago...

 

[iO]

Looks good on first sight but doesnt really tell anything as Blenders performance depends a lot on the OS. That CPU ran under Win Server 2008r2 and there is almost no other hardware with that OS to compare it to..

 

[ssdpro]

Let's hope this is really, really, false. The panic alarm here seems to be the devastating chart. Why are we comparing this AMD engineering sample with Xeons from 2013? This AMD engineering sample is placed in the cart right between a Xeon E5-2680 v2 2.8GHz and Xeon E5-2650 v2 2.6GHz; both more than 3 years old. I want parts that compete with Intel parts now, not Intel parts of 2013.

 

[Caring1]

Let's hope this is really, really, false. The panic alarm here seems to be the devastating chart. Why are we comparing this AMD engineering sample with Xeons from 2013? This AMD engineering sample is placed in the cart right between a Xeon E5-2680 v2 2.8GHz and Xeon E5-2650 v2 2.6GHz; both more than 3 years old. I want parts that compete with Intel parts now, not Intel parts of 2013.

Because Xeon Processors are lower clocked than consumer Processors, and comparable to the clocks of the AMD sample.

 

[GhostRyder]

Sounds fine, but until we know its base and boost clocks I am unsure what to think. Not to mention we need to see single threaded performance numbers.

But an 8 core beating a 10 core even though its a few gens old now is a good sign. With Intel not making huge performance improvements it would not be that big a difference between the new stuff. That is partly why we still see so many sandy-bridge+ systems around.

 

[ironwolf]

2nd paragraph: "the "ZEN" sample cruches the Blender benchmark"

crunches?
crushes?

 

[Caring1]

Sounds fine, but until we know its base and boost clocks I am unsure what to think. Not to mention we need to see single threaded performance numbers.

But an 8 core beating a 10 core even though its a few gens old now is a good sign. With Intel not making huge performance improvements it would not be that big a difference between the new stuff. That is partly why we still see so many sandy-bridge+ systems around.

With the i7-7700 (8 core) running at 3.6GHz base clock, I doubt that AMD's 8 core chip would keep up.

 

[bug]

At the end of the day, what does this tell us? Precisely nothing.
Just for fun, I went and dug up this: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/FX8150/9.html
FX-8150 beats both i5-2500k and i7-2600k at POVRay. Did this make Bulldozer a successful architecture?

Let's wait and see, anything leaked before launch is either cherry-picked or simply clickbait.

 

[Caring1]

2nd paragraph: "the "ZEN" sample cruches the Blender benchmark"

crunches?
crushes?

You missed "whallop" and "blenchmark" if you want to be picky

 

[theeldest]

Why are you claiming this is an 8-core? WCCF even says it's probably the 16-core Naples variant.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Why are you claiming this is an 8-core? WCCF even says it's probably the 16-core Naples variant.

If it's the 16 core then zen is no better than bulldozer lol (or this sample has insanely low clock).

 

[alucasa]

Why are you claiming this is an 8-core? WCCF even says it's probably the 16-core Naples variant.

Because it being 8 core is the best case scenario. If it is indeed 16 core, that's it. Zen ain't even worth discussing.

 

[EarthDog]

Here we go......................again.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...owing-zen-beating-a-10-core-intel-cpu.227479/

You missed "whallop" and "blenchmark" if you want to be picky

@Caring1 - Blenchmark is actually what the benchmarking software is called bud.

http://blenchmark.com/

 

[alucasa]

This is an advertisement.

Blender is an awesome open source 3D all-in-one suite. Learn it, use it. No need to spend over a grand for other 3D applications.

Granted, it's not accepted as the industry standard, but for hobbyists like me, Blender is Godsend.

I play Blender more than any other games. You can spend hours with Blender while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

 

[Caring1]

Here we go......................again.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...owing-zen-beating-a-10-core-intel-cpu.227479/

@Caring1 - Blenchmark is actually what the benchmarking software is called bud.

http://blenchmark.com/

Thanks, it seems marketing continues to bastardize the English language in their efforts to be edgy.

 

[Fx]

? wtf are you on about? the V4 launched in 2016 is right above the "ivy bridge" variant and barely faster not to mention they don't indicate what speed the zen chip was at...serious fail there bud.

LOL. I was wondering the same thing. Xeons and the "i line" are two different beasts and thus, they are on very difference release cycles.

 

[dyonoctis]

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/new-amd-engineering-sample-zen-processors-get-higher-clocks.html

Right now, the 8 core zen is suposed to be clocked at 3.3Ghz all core turbo, and 3,6 single core. I' m going to speculate and say that in multuthread it may be as fast/slightly, slightly slower than a :

Intel® Core™ i7-6900K Processor
(20M Cache, up to 3.70 GHz)

It may not be the intel annihilator that we wanted it to be, but that's not bad. excavator couldn't even touch a 6 core i7.