The Ultimate Zen: AMD's Zen 3 Achieves 89% Higher Performance Than First-generation Zen

Raevenlord · Dec 21, 2020

An investigative, generation-upon-generation review from golem.de paints an extremely impressive picture for AMD's efforts in iterating upon their original Zen architecture. While the first generation Zen achieved a sorely needed inflection point in the red team's efforts against arch-rival Intel and its stranglehold in the high-performance CPU market, AMD couldn't lose its vision on generational performance improvements on pain of being steamrolled (pun intended) by the blue giant's sheer scale and engineering prowess. However, perhaps this is one of those showcases of "small is nimble", and we're now watching Intel slowly changing its posture, crushed under its own weight, so as to offer actual competition to AMD's latest iteration of the Zen microarchitecture.

The golem.de review compares AMD's Zen, Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures, represented by the Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 7 5800X CPUs. Through it, we see a generational performance increase that mostly exceeds the 20% performance points across every iteration of Zen when it comes to both gaming and general computing workloads. This generational improvement hits its (nowadays) most expressive result in that AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X manages to deliver 89% higher general computing, and 84% higher gaming performance than the company's Zen-based Ryzen 7 1800X. And this, of course, ignoring performance/watt improvements that turn the blue giant green with envy.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

the54thvoid · Dec 21, 2020

Is it 189% higher, or 189%? Reason being is 100% higher means twice as fast. It depends on how the wording is phrased. If product 'B' is 100% the performance of product 'A', it is equal. If product 'B' is 100% 'faster', it is twice the speed. Semantics means everything with percentile comparisons. to state it is 189% higher means it is almost twice as fast. Only asking as I'm unsure how much better Zen 3 is. I know it's awesome, but how much awesome?

Raevenlord · Dec 21, 2020

the54thvoid said:
Is it 189% higher, or 189%? Reason being is 100% higher means twice as fast. It depends on how the wording is phrased. If product 'B' is 100% the performance of product 'A', it is equal. If product 'B' is 100% 'faster', it is twice the speed. Semantics means everything with percentile comparisons. to state it is 189% higher means it is almost twice as fast. Only asking as I'm unsure how much better Zen 3 is. I know it's awesome, but how much awesome?

Actually, it delivers 189% of the baseline 100% performacne of Zen 1 (so, 89%, or almost double the performance, as you said). I fixed an error in the story. But yeah, it's awesome - almost twice as awesome.

mouacyk · Dec 21, 2020

Yeah, it's pretty awesome, but also badly needed to stay competitive. Anyone can compare the statistics to Intel's advances in same time, number of generations, node progress?

Chris34 · Dec 21, 2020

the54thvoid said:
Is it 189% higher, or 189%? Reason being is 100% higher means twice as fast. It depends on how the wording is phrased. If product 'B' is 100% the performance of product 'A', it is equal. If product 'B' is 100% 'faster', it is twice the speed. Semantics means everything with percentile comparisons. to state it is 189% higher means it is almost twice as fast. Only asking as I'm unsure how much better Zen 3 is. I know it's awesome, but how much awesome?

The Gen to Gen percentage uplift is literally on the right of the percentages you don't understand...

Makaveli · Dec 21, 2020

mouacyk said:
Yeah, it's pretty awesome, but also badly needed to stay competitive. Anyone can compare the statistics to Intel's advances in same time, number of generations, node progress?

I would love to see this from First Gen Skylake all the way to 14++++++++++ Coffee lake

harm9963 · Dec 21, 2020

First off , paid a pretty penny for my 5800X , $450 plus tax { luxury } , vs my $129 plus tax 2700X , SOTTR 1080p highest - 122 VS 136 , subjective for sure , but i knew that, or as my Grandfather would say -“A fool and his money are easily parted”

EatingDirt · Dec 21, 2020

mouacyk said:
Yeah, it's pretty awesome, but also badly needed to stay competitive. Anyone can compare the statistics to Intel's advances in same time, number of generations, node progress?

Edit: Got the core count wrong for the 9700k.

Hard to compare Intel through 4 Generations.

7700k was a 4/8 Core Part
8700k was a 6/12 Core Part
9700k was a 8/8 Core Part
9900k was a 8/16 Core Part
10600k was a 6/12 Core Part
10900k was a 10/20 Core Part

9700k is 0.2% faster in CPU tests & 2% faster in Gaming(720p) than the 8700k.
10600k is 5.2% faster in CPU tests & 2.2% faster in Gaming(720p) than the 9700k

Total uplift in 3 generations is 5.4% in CPU tests & 4.2% faster in Gaming(720p).

If we ignore the core parts and only go by flagships for 4 generations(which ignores this AMD comparison, based off of cores):
10900k is 42% faster than the 7700k in CPU tests & 11.8% faster in Gaming(720p) based off of the 8700k review that has the 7700k, and the 10900k review with the 8700k in it.

mouacyk · Dec 21, 2020

Makaveli said:
I would love to see this from First Gen Skylake all the way to 14++++++++++ Coffee lake

For sure, a more objective comparison of perf/time, perf/nm, perf/$, and (if possible) perf/$RnD would be very revealing between the two companies.

zlobby · Dec 21, 2020

the54thvoid said:
I know it's awesome, but how much awesome?

It's the most awesomest!!!

Meanwhile, intel bragging with 1% increase gen-over-gen...

dirtyferret · Dec 21, 2020

Are people actually buying this crap? TPU had the the 2700x as 6% better in gaming at 720p and that number decreases as you increase the resolution. TPU has the 3800x 13% better at 720p gaming than the 2700x. I'm not knocking the improvements but lets use some reality here.

Caring1 · Dec 21, 2020

Chris34 said:
The Gen to Gen percentage uplift is literally on the right of the percentages you don't understand...

Or as there are only percentages shown and no baseline numbers, it is impossible to verify the accuracy of the claimed figures.
How were those figures achieved?

TheoneandonlyMrK · Dec 21, 2020

harm9963 said:
First off , paid a pretty penny for my 5800X , $450 plus tax { luxury } , vs my $129 plus tax 2700X , SOTTR 1080p highest - 122 VS 136 , subjective for sure , but i knew that, or as my Grandfather would say -“A fool and his money are easily parted”

I don't want to sound dismissive but in other use cases, some running 24/7 there are gains closer to that shown, but I would agree this seems a lot.
And they go as low as the 1800X as the start point not 2nd gen.

Fluffmeister · Dec 21, 2020

dirtyferret said:
Are people actually buying this crap? TPU had the the 2700x as 6% better in gaming at 720p and that number decreases as you increase the resolution. TPU has the 3800x 13% better at 720p gaming than the 2700x. I'm not knocking the improvements but lets use some reality here.

Indeed, the biggest change is finding one to buy!

Caring1 · Dec 21, 2020

Perhaps IPC would have been a better unit of measure for improvement.

wahdangun · Dec 21, 2020

dirtyferret said:
Are people actually buying this crap? TPU had the the 2700x as 6% better in gaming at 720p and that number decreases as you increase the resolution. TPU has the 3800x 13% better at 720p gaming than the 2700x. I'm not knocking the improvements but lets use some reality here.

yes, because when you increasing resolution, its become more gpu bound and useless as CPU bechmark.

mechtech · Dec 21, 2020

"While the first generation Zen achieved a sorely needed inflection point in the red team's efforts against arch-rival Intel "

Ummm wasn't/isn't AMD green? and ATi red?

http://www.buildorbuy.org/themes/1024/directron_amd-xp.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OXtTelrwIgc/TeIiR0FGcQI/AAAAAAAAAS8/kkh9BvfBe2o/s1600/Amd+Athlon+Wallpaper4.jpg

HTC · Dec 22, 2020

Caring1 said:
Or as there are only percentages shown and no baseline numbers, it is impossible to verify the accuracy of the claimed figures.
How were those figures achieved?

The source is listed but you have to view the article from TPU's main site.

In German, btw.

dyonoctis · Dec 22, 2020

mechtech said:
"While the first generation Zen achieved a sorely needed inflection point in the red team's efforts against arch-rival Intel "

Ummm wasn't/isn't AMD green? and ATi red?

http://www.buildorbuy.org/themes/1024/directron_amd-xp.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OXtTelrwIgc/TeIiR0FGcQI/AAAAAAAAAS8/kkh9BvfBe2o/s1600/Amd+Athlon+Wallpaper4.jpg

Once they acquired ATI they had to make a choice :"Intel is blue, Nvidia is green, we are now doing gpu, so Red it is".
Also since Ryzen, I don't think that I've seen them used the classic green logo on their official document, right now is either black or white...

dicktracy · Dec 22, 2020

Too bad they’re leaving their fanboys in the slums with their nonstop price hikes.

watzupken · Dec 22, 2020

I don't know how accurate is the number published, but I do know that the improvement in performance from the first gen Zen up to Zen 3 is certainly not a small double digit percentage even if we look purely at the IPC improvements only (without accounting for clockspeed increase). All these while Intel stood still with their Skylake architecture and 14nm. So no surprises there, the tortoise overtook the sleeping and overconfident hare.

dicktracy said:
Too bad they’re leaving their fanboys in the slums with their nonstop price hikes.

This is an unfortunately side effect. When you are no more in the underdog position, there is no reason to sell things cheap. Considering Intel have no response to the challenge at this point or near future, prices are expected to continue going up until there's tight competition.

lexluthermiester · Dec 22, 2020

Raevenlord said:

Yeah, that seems about right. AMD is at the top of their game right now. Rock on!

R-T-B · Dec 22, 2020

mechtech said:
"While the first generation Zen achieved a sorely needed inflection point in the red team's efforts against arch-rival Intel "

Ummm wasn't/isn't AMD green? and ATi red?

http://www.buildorbuy.org/themes/1024/directron_amd-xp.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OXtTelrwIgc/TeIiR0FGcQI/AAAAAAAAAS8/kkh9BvfBe2o/s1600/Amd+Athlon+Wallpaper4.jpg

AMD became red when they bought ATI by most accounts

1d10t · Dec 22, 2020

EatingDirt said:
Edit: Got the core count wrong for the 9700k.

Hard to compare Intel through 4 Generations.

7700k was a 4/8 Core Part
8700k was a 6/12 Core Part
9700k was a 8/8 Core Part
9900k was a 8/16 Core Part
10600k was a 6/12 Core Part
10900k was a 10/20 Core Part

9700k is 0.2% faster in CPU tests & 2% faster in Gaming(720p) than the 8700k.
10600k is 5.2% faster in CPU tests & 2.2% faster in Gaming(720p) than the 9700k

Total uplift in 3 generations is 5.4% in CPU tests & 4.2% faster in Gaming(720p).

If we ignore the core parts and only go by flagships for 4 generations(which ignores this AMD comparison, based off of cores):
10900k is 42% faster than the 7700k in CPU tests & 11.8% faster in Gaming(720p) based off of the 8700k review that has the 7700k, and the 10900k review with the 8700k in it.

It's easier if we use all the same metric like thread count but then I realized Intel doesn't has 4 core 8 thread in Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake refresh, only recently 4c8t i3-10100. Unfortunately, if we compare i7-7700K with i3-10100 ,things are not looking good, on paper at least

lexluthermiester · Dec 22, 2020

R-T-B said:
AMD became red when they bought ATI by most accounts

Before that they were "Team Orange".

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The Ultimate Zen: AMD's Zen 3 Achieves 89% Higher Performance Than First-generation Zen

Raevenlord

News Editor

the54thvoid

Super Intoxicated Moderator

Raevenlord

News Editor

mouacyk

Chris34

Makaveli

harm9963

EatingDirt

mouacyk

zlobby

dirtyferret

Caring1

TheoneandonlyMrK

Fluffmeister

Caring1

wahdangun

mechtech

HTC

dyonoctis

dicktracy

watzupken

lexluthermiester

R-T-B

1d10t

lexluthermiester

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