Editorial AMD's Ryzen Debut: Onwards to the HEDT Market or The Stumbling Hype Train

[dalekdukesboy]

Indeed. We were toying with how best to present this. There is some measure of hype train crashing, but there is also a lot to like. Overall, Ryzen is at its best, stellar, and at its worst, competitive with Intel's solutions. So, I tried to bring those two up in the final title.



Thanks =) Acorn sounds so much more natural though

So, it ended better than I expected. Except the usual "software needs tuning". Thats one of AMD ages lasting problem with software somehow needed to be fixed or tuned to actually work well with them. Bit irritating. Especially since sometimes software is never actually fixed to work really well with it.. and then you wait and wait. And buy Intel.

Also that single thread leaves something to be desired..

But on positive notes, its fast, its cheap. Only problem is that migrating to this would require me buying new mobo, new ram and new CPU.

Think I will rather move towards X99..

The sure blew the walls off the price point for multi core applications! Got to hand it to them for that at least.

No, that's not it. I do have Ryzen here, and it isn't bad, its' just not perfect, either.




oh Gawd, I wish. I've had Ryzen for nearly 48 hours, and I really feel this is BD 2.0, but this time, its actually exciting. Needs more frequency, seems a bit overpriced, but works amazingly well when you need all those cores. When you don't need the cores, the IPC is really close to intel, but Intel is just faster in raw clocks right now. Base speed is low, but so is power consumption, where BD had high power use.

Sigh....where to begin with all of this.

 

[Frick]

oh Gawd, I wish. I've had Ryzen for nearly 48 hours, and I really feel this is BD 2.0, but this time, its actually exciting. Needs more frequency, seems a bit overpriced, but works amazingly well when you need all those cores. When you don't need the cores, the IPC is really close to intel, but Intel is just faster in raw clocks right now. Base speed is low, but so is power consumption, where BD had high power use.

W T actual F are you on about dude? In general >90% of the performance for <60% of the money, compared to the 6900K? This is such a very far cry from BD. The 1800x is probably overpriced when compared to the 1700, but in every comparision to equivalent Intel CPU's it is just game over. Seriously, this thing could have been $800 and it would still have been a win. The only thing AMD could have done better was if they had released an 4C/8T model, or even 4C/4T model with higher clocks and a lower price to catch the gaming crowd. I did have low hopes, but how anyone can see this as anything less than a win for everyone is beyond me. And do not say BD was not a failure, it was not bad actually but it was a failure. This even competes with Intel on power draw!

If anyone had hopes that this thing would be better than it is ... they deserve to be perpetually dissapointed in every fathomable way, and they have no businness even approximating a tangent to happiness and surprise, the greatest of affections.

 

[nemesis.ie]

"This video shows raw benchmarks captured with the AMD Ryzen 1700 (3.9GHz) CPU versus the i7 7700K (5GHz) from Intel. GPU is GTX 1080. For more details on test systems and full review, please refer to my 1700 review."

Almost same fps, and GPU on AM4 board run 4~6*c cooler.

I was about to post that myself as I think the closeness of the FPS/smoothness of the play and thread utilisation is interesting. Definitely some places where some of the Ryzen threads are oddly sitting at 0%.

The temps could just be the different sensors reporting differently so we can't really read much into that. Total power use at the wall for the system (with identical PSUs) would be of more relevance I think.

 

[Vellinious]

W T actual F are you on about dude? In general >90% of the performance for <60% of the money, compared to the 6900K? This is such a very far cry from BD. The 1800x is probably overpriced when compared to the 1700, but in every comparision to equivalent Intel CPU's it is just game over. Seriously, this thing could have been $800 and it would still have been a win. The only thing AMD could have done better was if they had released an 4C/8T model, or even 4C/4T model with higher clocks and a lower price to catch the gaming crowd. I did have low hopes, but how anyone can see this as anything less than a win for everyone is beyond me. And do not say BD was not a failure, it was not bad actually but it was a failure. This even competes with Intel on power draw!

If anyone had hopes that this thing would be better than it is ... they deserve to be perpetually dissapointed in every fathomable way, and they have no businness even approximating a tangent to happiness and surprise, the greatest of affections.

I couldn't have said it better myself. ROFL...post o' the day

 

[cadaveca]

W T actual F are you on about dude? In general >90% of the performance for <60% of the money, compared to the 6900K? This is such a very far cry from BD. The 1800x is probably overpriced when compared to the 1700, but in every comparision to equivalent Intel CPU's it is just game over. Seriously, this thing could have been $800 and it would still have been a win. The only thing AMD could have done better was if they had released an 4C/8T model, or even 4C/4T model with higher clocks and a lower price to catch the gaming crowd. I did have low hopes, but how anyone can see this as anything less than a win for everyone is beyond me. And do not say BD was not a failure, it was not bad actually but it was a failure. This even competes with Intel on power draw!

If anyone had hopes that this thing would be better than it is ... they deserve to be perpetually dissapointed in every fathomable way, and they have no businness even approximating a tangent to happiness and surprise, the greatest of affections.

You obviously don't have one yet. BTW, locally the 1700X, the chip I have, is $559. That's too much. I don't care what Intel offers in comparison, since for me, Intel offers more features and more performance. If it was $400, that'd be better, but really, this chip should sell for $369.

Add in cooler problems, memory issues, BIOS issues; all of which are on AMD and not the board makers; and yeah, Ryzen feels rushed and disappointing. That's after I have had a chance to play with one for a couple of days. Do keep in mind, I was not given the CPU to do a CPU review; I was given it so I could do board reviews. I'll do that, of course, but it is hard to be excited about a platform that carries so many issues right now, and issues that rely on AMD to fix.


So here, we have the opinion of someone who has a chip, and doesn't like it, and someone who doesn't have one, who does like it. Meh.

 

[Camm]

You obviously don't have one yet. BTW, locally the 1700X, the chip I have, is $559. That's too much. I don't care what Intel offers in comparison, since for me, Intel offers more features and more performance. If it was $400, that'd be better, but really, this chip should sell for $369.

Add in cooler problems, memory issues, BIOS issues; all of which are on AMD and not the board makers; and yeah, Ryzen feels rushed and disappointing. That's after I have had a chance to play with one for a couple of days. Do keep in mind, I was not given the CPU to do a CPU review; I was given it so I could do board reviews. I'll do that, of course, but it is hard to be excited about a platform that carries so many issues right now, and issues that rely on AMD to fix.


So here, we have the opinion of someone who has a chip, and doesn't like it, and someone who doesn't have one, who does like it. Meh.

All of which your stating as problems however affect every CPU release I remember in recent history. Cooler kits for when socket changes always sucks for the first month, multiple erata problems are common (and usually fixed with microcode - go have a look at X99 over time for example, jesus christ). SMT I can go, sure, whatever, likely a scheduling problem in the OS. The big kicker though is there does seem to be a memory dpc latency problem which really shouldn't be there on launch of a product. Beta bioses coming out may have fixed this, but from the huge variety of benchmark results we've seen, its not obviously fixed.

 

[0x4452]

Stop comparing to 6900k. On average, Ryzen for gaming is a about as fast an i5 Kaby Lake from what I see at a slightly higher price.

Yes, it can zip files faster and ray trace faster. Something I do once a year.

Best outcome of this Ryzen situation is to keep AMD in business and for Intel stops wasting half the die area for a useless GPU and puts CPU cores instead

 

[cadaveca]

All of which your stating as problems however affect every CPU release I remember in recent history. Cooler kits for when socket changes always sucks for the first month, multiple erata problems are common (and usually fixed with microcode - go have a look at X99 over time for example, jesus christ). SMT I can go, sure, whatever, likely a scheduling problem in the OS. The big kicker though is there does seem to be a memory dpc latency problem which really shouldn't be there on launch of a product. Beta bioses coming out may have fixed this, but from the huge variety of benchmark results we've seen, its not obviously fixed.

Didn't have such issues with Skylake or kabylake, or even with BD. BD was a much better launch for me, just there were performance issues that simply could not be fixed. Here with Ryzen, performance is good, but other issues abound.

That said, yes, potential is there for sure.

It's not just BIOS quality, it's how you have to flash BIOSes that is a pain. If you don't have a FAT32 USB stick and want a Ryzen system, you best add one to your shopping list, because you won't be able to flash BIOS without it. That's a minor issue, but makes it feel like 2001 all over again. Problem is, it's 2017...

 

[Super XP]

Why don't people understand that Ryzen just came out, the Majority of Developers are now working on optimizing Codes etc., People, Ryzen is NOT optimized for almost any game. Even the X370 Motherboards are not properly updated yet.

Let's also not forget, AMD designed ZEN all while Restructuring the company and continuing to fund its CPU division by modest Bulldozer enhancements. AMD Achieved the impossible. Major Congrat's to them. And to there CPU Team.
Intel CPU Gen has been in the market now for ages. They are all OPTIMIZED for most if not all AAA Games.

Ryzen has done amazing so far, and for a chip that is not optimized. Yet some want to throw it under the bus. Where the heck is the Logic in that?

They need X370 refinements, bios updates, optimized codes etc., Get over it people, Ryzen is a WIN WIN. Hands Down.

 

[Grings]

The switch from 1 115x socket to another is not really comparable to an outright new platform

last time we saw that from intel was 775-1156 (or 1366-2011)

 

[pantherx12]

The way I see it the 7 series are designed to go head to head with Intel 6 and 8 core models.

In that respect its a win.

In terms of gaming performance clock for clock performance seems okay but not ground breaking if the 4 core 8 thread models come with much higher boost clocks then they could be competitive with Intel.

Although I sincerely doubt that they will be able to boost beyond or overclock beyond 4.5 with 1st generation Silicone.


As someone who does a bit of everything on my computer though Ryzen 7 looks like a good option.

Hopefully clevo make a laptop with a 1800x inside or what ever the current equivalent will be by the time I get round to making a purchase.

 

[Flow]

439 euros in my country for the R7 1700x and 549 for the 1800x. While I can get a 7700k for 371 euro at the same webshop.
Reading the gaming performance is soso and looking at the prices I feel a bit stumped tbh. What is amd thinking?

 

[Vellinious]

439 euros in my country for the R7 1700x and 549 for the 1800x. While I can get a 7700k for 371 euro at the same webshop.
Reading the gaming performance is soso and looking at the prices I feel a bit stumped tbh. What is amd thinking?

Because computers do things other than gaming......just a guess....

 

[phanbuey]

Apparently its an excel god ... That alone is enough for me to flip over.

 

[Melvis]

LOL The reviews are from the two most Biased places on the net, Anantecch and Toms hardware, hahahaha wont believe a thing they post and anyone that does post from them is a fool!

I will wait for reviews from real testers thank you!

 

[Xzibit]

Man, get a fucking author in. The real title should have been:

AMD's Ryzen debut signals a workstation powerhouse but the hype train stopped one station short

"Despite AMD's blisteringly successful vault into the high end of multi core tasking, the gaming prowess of it's Ryzen chip may have fallen short of it's hype train destination. That however is not the fault of AMD, nor of it's new baby chip but indeed of the slabbering masses with hyper unreal expectations. The Ryzen hype train may have come in a little bit behind the Intel inter7 7700k but what Ryzen did do was come in at all 8 platforms at once. All aboard!"

Agreed

AMD didn't hype anything outside multi-core and the game comparisons to 7700k were in the form of Video gaming + Streaming.

If anyone is at fault really is TPU for falling victim to its own "Rumor, click bait" blitz.

 

[maximoor]

Another bench results from @Techspot

@Techspot full Review: http://www.techspot.com/review/1345-amd-ryzen-7-1800x-1700x/

 

[doxology]

One thing to consider is that Linus at Linus Tech Tips said in their review that even with higher speed ram they couldn't get anything to run over 2666. He said they tried a bunch of kits with the same result. The system would fail to boot. One thing we do know is that in the past AMD CPU's have scaled better with faster memory. If they can get faster memory speeds with some bios updates or something we could see better results in certain situations.

Also it has been years since AMD has been a player in the CPU market. Everyone has fine tuned their apps and games for Intel and have been tweaking them for years and since Intel hasn't made any large leaps and changed their CPU's in any significant way no one has had to change much but instead just tweak them like crazy. AMD should get some boosts over time once we see code made for them.

It will be interesting to see if they will ship some really high clocked chips with some lower thread counts for gamers. At this point I have seen a lot of negative things said about Ryzen from the reviews for gaming against a 7700K well a 6900K gets beat pretty soundly as well by a 7700K in gaming because clockspeed is king.

Another thing to note is rumor is that Intel has been telling a lot of review sites to contact them before they write their Ryzen reviews. Seems kind of fishy as well so I can't wait to see individual users show their personal benchmarks and see how things play out.

 

[GoldenX]

Good, they are bad/ok overclockers, so I'm very interested in the 4/4 and 4/8 non-X models.

 

[Camm]

There's definitely a memory problem somewhere. I've heard that theres a big DPC latency problem which may or may not be caused by bios's on boards coming out, so hopefully thats resolvable.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

I have watched/read about 9 reviews now and the best anyone got from memory was 2966 MHz. best OC reported is 4.1 GHz all cores under water, 3.84 GHz on air.

I am so torn right now. Intel 7700K is the best option for me because I mostly game. But at the resolution and settings I play at, it looks like I will be hitting the GPU bottleneck before the CPU and it really isn't going to matter. I don't count the smoothness factor.

 

[cadaveca]

One thing to consider is that Linus at Linus Tech Tips said in their review that even with higher speed ram they couldn't get anything to run over 2666. He said they tried a bunch of kits with the same result. The system would fail to boot. One thing we do know is that in the past AMD CPU's have scaled better with faster memory. If they can get faster memory speeds with some bios updates or something we could see better results in certain situations.

He's a newb. Don't trust someone who doesn't know how to get memory working to actually know what they are talking about when it comes to Ryzen.

3200 MHz C14, no problem:

cdawall here on TPU also posted 3600 MHz screens.

I have watched/read about 9 reviews now and the best anyone got from memory was 2966 MHz. best OC reported is 4.1 GHz all cores under water, 3.84 GHz on air.

I am so torn right now. Intel 7700K is the best option for me because I mostly game. But at the resolution and settings I play at, it looks like I will be hitting the GPU bottleneck before the CPU and it really isn't going to matter. I don't count the smoothness factor.

AMD gave samples to newbs. We all know why. ROFL

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Why don't people understand that Ryzen just came out, the Majority of Developers are now working on optimizing Codes etc., People, Ryzen is NOT optimized for almost any game. Even the X370 Motherboards are not properly updated yet.

Let's also not forget, AMD designed ZEN all while Restructuring the company and continuing to fund its CPU division by modest Bulldozer enhancements. AMD Achieved the impossible. Major Congrat's to them. And to there CPU Team.
Intel CPU Gen has been in the market now for ages. They are all OPTIMIZED for most if not all AAA Games.

Ryzen has done amazing so far, and for a chip that is not optimized. Yet some want to throw it under the bus. Where the heck is the Logic in that?

They need X370 refinements, bios updates, optimized codes etc., Get over it people, Ryzen is a WIN WIN. Hands Down.

My Good twin to the rescue.

 

[etayorius]

So people are crying and raging because 1800X cannot beat 7700k in Gaming? what ever happen to people two years ago expecting Zen to be on par with Haswell or Slower and calling it a massive win? so we know know is as fast as Skylake IPC Clock for Clock... we also knew and expected 8 cores 16 Threads to not clock with high frequencies, so why all the hate while the 7700k that has 500MHZ more of Frequency and beating the 1800X in Gaming? i think for the price of current R7 lineup is well worth it and competes extremely well even in gaming with Intel's 8 Cores 16 Threads CPU's.

I for once will not be upgrading to Ryzen because my i5 6500 is more than enough for Gaming, besides games do not use more than 6 Threads and this will be the norm in the following two years. The real hype train in gaming in my opinion are the R3 and R5, but.... the frequency that AMD announced does seem quite lacking, In any case 8 Cores 16 Threads CPU's are aimed more at productivity than Gaming. I think R7 Lineup is quite Good since i always expected Zen IPC would match Haswell, and i knew very well that 8 Cores 16 Threads would have lower Clocks to keep TDP in Check. It was expected! The good news is that it forced Intel to lower their prices, which was a most needed thing.

AMD basically did what everyone wanted, which is to improve their IPC by 53% (Their Claim) and to sell it for much cheaper to intel similar Offerings, and people still Rage and Cry.

If AMD can do R5 with 6/8 Cores without SMT i'm Gold for Ryzen. As gamer i got little interest 16 threads + extra price, besides games will still be using 4-6 cores in the next two years. But AMD really really need to raise the Frequency for R3/R5 or it would look very underperforming in gaming compared to what Intel has to offer at this moment, let alone what ever comes up from Intel. even if Intel CPUs cost more people will choose them just because is a tad bit faster. It is what it is.

In any case, no wonder why TPU has not been getting Rewiew hardware from AMD... looking at TPU past reviews lol.

 

[doxology]

He's a newb. Don't trust someone who doesn't know how to get memory working to actually know what they are talking about when it comes to Ryzen.

3200 MHz C14, no problem:

cdawall here on TPU also posted 3600 MHz screens.



AMD gave samples to newbs. We all know why. ROFL

It is good to see that higher memory frequencies. He didn't say what kits he used or tried, he said the boards failed to post in every case when he went past 2666.

A lot of the other reviews I have seen have been similar with memory clocked at 2666. Not sure if it is the boards they got or what. Linus used an Asus ROG board I believe.

Higher memory clocks I think should help in benchmarks.

One thing i have noticed from those that have gotten all three chips is that most of those sites got at least 100hz more from the 1700 than they could from the 1700x which seems kind of interesting.

Be interesting to see how it plays out once we have a platform, games, and apps all optimized with a mature platform I expect things could look much better than they do today on launch day.