AMD Says "ZEN" CPU Architecture is Expected to Last 4 Years

[ivicagmc]

I'm eager to see some competition and some price war between AMD intel and Nvidia. Do you remember time when it was exciting to be a gamer? When you buy new platform and have that WOW effect. For some time it was just underwhelming. Buying new CPU or GPU after 3+ years gives you just double performance at best for same money. Usually it was like 50% boost, with CPU even less. Just look at that underwhelming i7 7700k. 5% boost over 6700k. RELLY INTEL!!!! Before it was waaay more enjoyable gaming and building systems, or am I just getting to old for this stuff... Ryzen has woke some hope in my heart that this year will be exciting for us enthusiasts like it was 10 -15 years ago.

 

[Ubersonic]

No, he said tock-tock-tock instead of a tick-tock cadence. That would translate to yearly improvements especially because they don't manufacture their own chips so they can't tightly schedule their releases with the fabrication advancements of third party companies.

The title kinda also says four years, not six.

I think you misunderstood the guy you were quoting, a four year tock tock tock roadmap means the same amount of improvements over 2 years as Intel have delivered in the last 4 with their tick-tock system.

It's basically equivalent to if Intel had gone Bloomfield to Sandy Bridge to Haswell to Skylake. Those type of improvements per gen (or possibly better).

 

[john_]

Well, the first year has already passed, waiting...

 

[Shamalamadingdong]

I think you misunderstood the guy you were quoting, a four year tock tock tock roadmap means the same amount of improvements over 2 years as Intel have delivered in the last 4 with their tick-tock system.

It's basically equivalent to if Intel had gone Bloomfield to Sandy Bridge to Haswell to Skylake. Those type of improvements per gen (or possibly better).

No, I did not. He interprets a tock to be a fixed two years for some reason hence he thinks AMD will release the quoted tocks every other year.

And what you're saying is essentially the same thing I said. Each word, whether it's tick or tock, means one year, so tick-tock is year 1 and 2. Tock-tock is also year 1 and 2. It's not that complicated.

OEMs want annual refreshes. This provides that. Simple as that. Assuming no delays, there will be new releases every year just like Intel; the goals are the only difference.

 

[jigar2speed]

"ZEN is going to be tock, tock, tock" - Quad Tock

 

[Ubersonic]

"ZEN is going to be tock, tock, tock" - Quad Tock

Not entirely sure what you're getting at but if you mean three tocks don't = quad then that includes the launch chips before the three tocks (which is most definitely a tock from FX).

 

[Champ]

I'm almost strictly a gamer and nothing yet is putting a beating on my 4770k. I may buy a better board, but I should get years more use from it. I probably will go Zen thou

 

[ADHDGAMING]

I hope Mr Papermaster isn't just hyping this chip where it looks good on paper but not in real world use. Papermaster lol

best corporate name ever

 

[deu]

I'm eager to see some competition and some price war between AMD intel and Nvidia. Do you remember time when it was exciting to be a gamer? When you buy new platform and have that WOW effect. For some time it was just underwhelming. Buying new CPU or GPU after 3+ years gives you just double performance at best for same money. Usually it was like 50% boost, with CPU even less. Just look at that underwhelming i7 7700k. 5% boost over 6700k. RELLY INTEL!!!! Before it was waaay more enjoyable gaming and building systems, or am I just getting to old for this stuff... Ryzen has woke some hope in my heart that this year will be exciting for us enthusiasts like it was 10 -15 years ago.

I think you are confusing hardware entusiast with gamer But yes everything progressed faster at a point in the early 2000ties. Just wait for AI and quantum computers: you'll see the progression again

 

[dalekdukesboy]

bottom line - intel progress stopped - everyone sees it now (even reviewers call it out) - I saw it from Ivy bridge (3-rd gen).... sadly some noobs do not even see it now and probably will upgrade to kabylake from skylake - those people are the reason why we have +25% performance of a 7 year old CPU and nothing more... before Sandy Bridge - the 2-nd gen - every generation was at least +25% vs previous one - those times are gone for good ...

Hey mr. dingleberry...this is aimed at "noobs" like you. It isn't about my hardware or yours, it's about everything I said you can't refute so you distract with irrelevant statements. You aren't worth my (or any of these peoples' time for that matter) and I only reply because your idiocy may actually sway some newbies on here plus you're a stupid troll who needs to have his false ego put in check because you know jack shit and are infecting the thread with rampant stupidity and falsehoods. Now get the fuck off our lawn.

 

[Particle]

AMD is really starting to annoy me. They keep talking about zen, yet there is no price or release date. I love my 8350 but I'm strongly considering a kabby lake i7 , nvidia card and calling it a day.

This sort of threat is meaningless. When somebody other than the author reads an "if x doesn't do/make/sell y then I'll z instead" post about anything, the first thought they inevitably have is something along the lines of, "Nobody cares." It's tempting to feel like it gives you power as a poster to deny one's money toward a particular company, but it means nothing to the company and makes no friends amongst one's peers.

 

[kanecvr]

Quite right , unlike the OP who thinks Intel have moved on from their Core arch instead of just tweaking said arch for the last six+ years, Intel have said they are doing a ground up re arch of x86 in 2018-9 to be fair they have tweaked a hell of a lot but 10 years is too long without much innovation.

They have. They are different architectures. The current core series is very loosely based on the P6 architecture, while the core 2 duo / quad were heavily based on it. The problem is the current architecture is at it's limits. There hasn't been any serious increase in performance from nehalem to kaby lake. Look at this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/23

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

They have. They are different architectures. The current core series is very loosely based on the P6 architecture, while the core 2 duo / quad were heavily based on it. The problem is the current architecture is at it's limits. There hasn't been any serious increase in performance from nehalem to kaby lake. Look at this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/23

I'm up to snuff with that news bro, I'm stating an opinion and didn't realise Bta's true stance on it either, he agrees with me ,I am aware of their angle but it's like AMD saying excavator cores are not bulldozer derived, which in its way so is Zen imho.
The biggest change would definitely be transistors,fin FETs are not made like planar, it makes sense to minimise change on that kind of swap to increase the use and quality of simulations and prior validation data going forward, then since that point AMD were not competing much in the high end , Intel blew several rnd budgets on mobile spec devices and I don't mean just CPUs but associated mobile tech like modems.

 

[Frick]

You must be young. 25% over MANY years? LOLOLOLOL. The shrinks aren't relevant as the architecture didn't change much (and was going to happen regardless). They fail at iGPU so bad, that's also irrelevant (and just a waste of die space).

I remember when performance was doubled every 2 years. Get off my lawn!

But then 90% of the population can't actually do anything with the performance. 4K and other video stuffs has an impact there, but nothing else has. You can now play games on Intel IPC's, on low settings, but still enough for casual gamers. We have tablets with quad cores in them (x86-64 cores!). Laptops are getting too thin. If you made a laptop today as big as my Lenovo L412 it could play WoW on decent settings and last ten hours on a single battery. I understand your point and agree when looking at it solely from that perspective, but there are more sides to it.

But yes, I too would like gargantuan IGP-less parts rated for a million watts, coupled with a follow up to Skulltrail. Or an EVGA SR-3...

Now in a couple of years when/if VR and the IoT revolution truly happens, we probably need as mich oomph as we can get our hands on. Maybe even homeservers will be a thing and everything we have will essentially be glorified terminals. That is not an unattractive thought actually.

 

[Blueberries]

Hey mr. dingleberry...this is aimed at "noobs" like you. It isn't about my hardware or yours, it's about everything I said you can't refute so you distract with irrelevant statements. You aren't worth my (or any of these peoples' time for that matter) and I only reply because your idiocy may actually sway some newbies on here plus you're a stupid troll who needs to have his false ego put in check because you know jack shit and are infecting the thread with rampant stupidity and falsehoods. Now get the fuck off our lawn.

I assume this was meant for me and not the person you quoted but you're extremely ignorant.
Have cell phones gotten 25% better every year? TVs? Cars? Refrigerators?

No? A new one still costs as much as a new one did 5 years ago, right?

Quit acting so entitled. I guarantee you can't create a product and make it 25% better every year indefinitely because nobody can.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Like I need any more with you here and your "genius" witty, so original, intelligent, on topic, and mature response.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I forsee at least one posting holiday coming soon, quite possibly 2 so in order to prevent myself further work I think a couple of reply bans for this thread are in order, calm down please, disagree by all means but no personal attacks.

 

[kanecvr]

But then 90% of the population can't actually do anything with the performance. 4K and other video stuffs has an impact there, but nothing else has. You can now play games on Intel IPC's, on low settings, but still enough for casual gamers. We have tablets with quad cores in them (x86-64 cores!). Laptops are getting too thin. If you made a laptop today as big as my Lenovo L412 it could play WoW on decent settings and last ten hours on a single battery. I understand your point and agree when looking at it solely from that perspective, but there are more sides to it.

But yes, I too would like gargantuan IGP-less parts rated for a million watts, coupled with a follow up to Skulltrail. Or an EVGA SR-3...

Now in a couple of years when/if VR and the IoT revolution truly happens, we probably need as mich oomph as we can get our hands on. Maybe even homeservers will be a thing and everything we have will essentially be glorified terminals. That is not an unattractive thought actually.

Just because most people can't use the tech now does not mean it's not needed. If technology is to advance, hardware needs to keep evolving - software will eventually catch up. Just look at how much time it took for games to take advantage of x64 processors. Think photo-realistic games, instant 4k video editing / encoding, and all that good stuff that right now is sci-fi territory.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

But then 90% of the population can't actually do anything with the performance. 4K and other video stuffs has an impact there, but nothing else has. You can now play games on Intel IPC's, on low settings, but still enough for casual gamers. We have tablets with quad cores in them (x86-64 cores!). Laptops are getting too thin. If you made a laptop today as big as my Lenovo L412 it could play WoW on decent settings and last ten hours on a single battery. I understand your point and agree when looking at it solely from that perspective, but there are more sides to it.

But yes, I too would like gargantuan IGP-less parts rated for a million watts, coupled with a follow up to Skulltrail. Or an EVGA SR-3...

Now in a couple of years when/if VR and the IoT revolution truly happens, we probably need as mich oomph as we can get our hands on. Maybe even homeservers will be a thing and everything we have will essentially be glorified terminals. That is not an unattractive thought actually.

You are locked in your own perspective fella, Vr is here and now , many have 4k displays or TVs and I for one could put four times or more the power of my present pc to use right now ,everyday until it died, and my present pc is still better than almost any laptop (ones got dual 1080s I've heard of soo not that one) you could buy and still most OEM desktops so I'd also mention forward thinking value addicts like me.
Some of us use our pc for more then forum debates and surfing.
Hurry with the Zen I say I'll be on it.

 

[Frick]

You are locked in your own perspective fella, Vr is here and now , many have 4k displays or TVs and I for one could put four times or more the power of my present pc to use right now ,everyday until it died, and my present pc is still better than almost any laptop (ones got dual 1080s I've heard of soo not that one) you could buy and still most OEM desktops so I'd also mention forward thinking value addicts like me.
Some of us use our pc for more then forum debates and surfing.
Hurry with the Zen I say I'll be on it.

Some of you, sure. The point was most don't. Gaming and VR and probably video stuffs is what will drive it further. And the point of the post was there is more to CPU advances than just brute force. If you don't think it is amazing we can have decently clocked dual x86 cores in passively cooled tablets you are dead inside.

Just because most people can't use the tech now does not mean it's not needed. If technology is to advance, hardware needs to keep evolving - software will eventually catch up. Just look at how much time it took for games to take advantage of x64 processors. Think photo-realistic games, instant 4k video editing / encoding, and all that good stuff that right now is sci-fi territory.

Yep, that is in the future fo sho.

 

[Prima.Vera]

"ZEN is going to be tock, tock, tock" - Quad Tock

Let's hope is not going to be poc, pock, pok...