Of course it is. It's all because of Zen, which really is a server architecture. And the CPUs perform well in server-type load.
When you take 1/4 of a decent server CPU, you don't automatically get a decent consumer CPU.
For me Ryzen is and will remain just a lost chance. We had few years of decent evolution of PC market towards mobile solutions. Without AMD and magic "competition is good" we got from 2kg notebooks that worked for 3h to 1kg ultrabooks that work for half a day. It was a perfect example of sustainable development.
Intel decided to play ball and raises core count before their semiconductor process matched the requirements. Result: we're now getting overheating notebooks and higher TDP in desktops. Fantastic.
No, simply taking 1/4 a server CPU doesn't automatically make a consumer CPU... you lose some features that are useful for servers and gain features that are useful for a regular desktop user. You lose a pile of cores, the ability to address obscene amounts of RAM, ECC support (in many cases, not all)... but what you're left with is a smaller number of cores that work faster, which is what a regular desktop user wants. Nobody needs 16 cores to game. And that's what's nice about Zen... it's easily salable. You basically add or remove CCX units to make one chip or the other.
Higher TDP happens
all the time, when a manufacturer is losing ground in performance. AMD and Intel have done it, ATi did it, nVidia did it, RTG has done it. It happens when they need to push performance at the cost of efficiency. It happens when people overclock their computers. Whether by design from the factory, or some settings somebody changed in their CMOS, we run things out of their optimal, most efficient ranges to push performance. As a processor manufacturer, you don't want to be slower... but low power solutions have always been available. Even before Intel started shoving out higher performance (at higher heat levels and power draw) you could still stuff an Extreme edition processor in a laptop, which isn't always going to run cool while sipping power.
Enthusiasts of building PCs and overclocking. As far as usage goes, it's 99% gaming.
And I don't see this as a problem. I come here to read about fps and keyboards. There are better places to discuss coding, simulations and IOPS.
But man... when I read another thread about how Ryzen is great for workstation because it rulez in 7-zip, I just start to melt.
At this point I'm expecting a thread about classical music, so that everyone could talk about Bieber playing the piano.
7-zip may not be the best productivity benchmark... but there are plenty of others that Ryzen rulez at. It may not always beat Intel at everything, but it's usually not far behind, and does so while being cheaper, especially in the HEDT or server space.
Just how do you imagine this?
Single-thread algorithms will remain single-thread. Interactive computing (including gaming) will remain interactive. This will NEVER change.
Not so long ago 4 threads seemed like a good compromise for a typical user. But now we're seeing 8 becoming a standard, maybe more. Just what will these threads do?
Yesterday you were a gamer. Now you must be a streamer, because gaming itself is not utilizing your awesome CPU.
It's such a pity AMD decided to ignore business segment - I'd love to see the marketing campaign they do for accountants.
Seriously, I had so much fun reading reviews with theories about thread utilization and how Ryzen has this huge potential, because games only push 16 threads to like 40-60% each.
But I really hoped the fun will be over in a year or so and we'll be back to serious stuff...
Not sure what you're going to do with 8 cores or more, as a gamer. At least, not yet. It's been a little bit of time since >4 cores became useful for gaming, so now usually a 6 core chip is recommended, because there are some gains to be seen. There's plenty of 6 core or less chips available if that's what you want. Not sure what this hangup is on needing a jillion cores for streaming is, though... these days both nVidia and AMD have GPU encoding options that can be used for streaming, and there's also quicksync, which comes with your Intel IGP. Give me an i5 8400 (it's not even that great of a chip, but popular/good enough for gaming) and I can stream with it using quicksync. I wouldn't use quicksync to do my own BDrips, but it's fine for streaming.
Not sure what you mean by ignoring the business segment? They've invaded the server space with EPYC, which is a pretty big deal. Spectre/Meltdown didn't help Intel there, nor did their high prices. EPYC appears more attractive to admins in the server space because it's cheaper and (so far) doesn't seem to be plagued as much with the issues Intel is dealing with, and now with Zen, it can finally keep up. If you mean typical office machines, then AMD needs to get in with OEMs, like Dell. If they can manage to do there what they did in the server space, they'd be in good shape. AMD systems are going to be cheaper than similar Intel systems, and that would be attractive to anybody calling the shots when it's time to upgrade 100 computers.
