Why everyone say Zen 5 is bad ?

[oxrufiioxo]

Steve from HUB just told everyone in a new video that according to AMD if want to get the same results as us you need to benchmark it's Zen 5 CPU's using the hidden System Administrator account if not you're going to see lower results when using the standard User Administrator account

You can test this for yourself if you like by opening a CMD prompt and typing the following

net.exe user administrator /active : yes

then log out and log in as the system admin... But be warned doing this can leave you extra vulnerable to malware as you'll now be running everything with admin privileges

This is mostly a nothing burger though as it affects Zen 4 and probably other Cpus as well.

We don't even know if it's an actual bug or if it's just a side effect of improved security.

Man his interactions with them sounded pretty painful as they wouldn't even be clear about the performance they were seeing only that his was accurate but slightly low lol.

They also weren't clear about the 14700k settings they were using....

What a $#!+ show.

 

[R-T-B]

Steve from HUB just told everyone in a new video that according to AMD if want to get the same results as us you need to benchmark it's Zen 5 CPU's using the hidden System Administrator account if not you're going to see lower results when using the standard User Administrator account

You can test this for yourself if you like by opening a CMD prompt and typing the following

net.exe user administrator /active : yes

then log out and log in as the system admin... But be warned doing this can leave you extra vulnerable to malware as you'll now be running everything with admin privileges

That's really indicative of some kind of silicon bug. Not good news by any means...

This is mostly a nothing burger though as it affects Zen 4 and probably other Cpus as well.

Does it? Is there a performance impact on them to this level from exercising basic ring based security? I think not.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

That's really indicative of some kind of silicon bug. Not good news by any means...


Does it? Is there a performance impact on them to this level from exercising basic ring based security? I think not.

In some scenarios it boosted gaming perfomance similarly. It does seem to affect Zen 5 slightly more but we are talking 1-2% which is probably margin of error. He has a video showing the 7700X and 9700X with the administrator account enabled.

 

[R-T-B]

In some scenarios it boosted gaming perfomance similarly. It does seem to affect Zen 5 slightly more but we are talking 1-2% which is probably margin of error. He has a video showing the 7700X and 9700X with the administrator account enabled.

If I had to guess then you are more likely seeing background services shutdown that refuse to run as administrator. The built-in admin account launches everything with admin level privs and some things will just say "nope" and close.

 

[HTC]

Steve from HUB just told everyone in a new video that according to AMD if want to get the same results as us you need to benchmark it's Zen 5 CPU's using the hidden System Administrator account if not you're going to see lower results when using the standard User Administrator account

Actually, he didn't.

Apparently, AMD told him to TRY doing that to see if it would help, and it did ... except it ALSO helped the previous gen, and that made the gains of 9700X VS 7700X mostly negligible.

That's NOT the same thing.

 

[Athlonite]

Apparently, AMD told him to TRY doing that to see if it would help, and it did ... except it ALSO helped the previous gen, and that made the gains of 9700X VS 7700X mostly negligible.

4% on average increase in gaming and ~9% in productivity apps but yes it did affect the previous gen aswell bringing it's score up aswell which to my eyes looks like a bug which AMD said they're looking into with the hope of having a fix out soon but in the end this "Could" affect all Ryzen CPU's the same

 

[R-T-B]

If I had to guess then you are more likely seeing background services shutdown that refuse to run as administrator. The built-in admin account launches everything with admin level privs and some things will just say "nope" and close.

Guys, it's probably just this. It wouldn't surprise me if you got the same result on intel.

 

[phanbuey]

What's surprising about that? DDR5 was initially quite a bit more $$ than ddr4, also, if you bought a zen 5k series, why would you upgrade to 7k so soon?? I don't put together a new PC until 5-6 years.

That wasn't the only issue - the 7700x was losing the the 5800X3D initially and that chip was selling for $350. They had to start bundling boards and ram to try to move units, and it was still not great until the 7800X3D released.

 

[Melvis]

Zen 5 is totally overpriced compared to its performance. For exemple, the 7700X is roughly behind by 3 %, but costs about 100 euros less than 9700X in Europe..So yea, on default a bit more efficient, but is it worth that price premium ? No.

There is absolutely no benefit into choosing those cpu's right now, unless for some very niche scenarios, unless AMD bring the price down, it will be a commercial disaster.

Not to mention Arrow Lake on the corner, if those deliver, AMD will be deep in it up to the head.

And plz nobody come saying that they are cheaper than ZEN 4 on launch, what matter is the price now...And ZEN 4 will give you 95+% performance for way cheaper, why bother really ?

I get what your saying but you cant compare a brand new CPU with its launch price compared to a 2yr old part as clearly the older part will ALWAYS be cheaper! regardless! this is pretty much always the case, what you gotta look at is what the launch price of the 7950X was when it came out and far as I know the 9950X was cheaper at launch, which is a good thing and the 9950X will always be more expensive then the 7950X even 2yrs from now, thats just how it works.

Sure, until you check out the price. Looking at performance without caring about price is usually pointless.

Will it go down? Yes, it always does.

I'm talking about launch price.

Again you cant compare the prices of a 2yr old part to a brand new part, as the older part will always be cheaper, regardless what socket, what brand, it makes no difference, the fact is...the CPU is still faster, not by alot but its faster, its released cheaper then what the 7950X was when it was released, will the price of the 9950X go down? of course it will, but this is how the market works when a brand new CPU is released, you can yell and scream at AMD as much as you like, doesnt make any difference, this is just how it works and has always worked.

Phoronix released some benchmarks comparing Windows vs Linux with the 9950x (heads up that it has no games included):

Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 24.04 Linux Performance For The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

TLDR; going from a 7950x to a 9950x on Linux provided a ~14% uplift, while on Windows it was a ~10% uplift. Using a 9950x, moving to linux from windows yields a ~11% perf increase.

It's funny how in some tests the 7950x on Linux manages to be faster than a 9950x on windows lol

The 9950X isnt a gaming focused CPU, its focus is productivity which it seems to do pretty good at in Linux.

Yeah once I started to see all the reviews on Zen 5, I was like, this isnt making alot of sense, its clearly got great single core performance but soon as you put it in anything that needs more then 1 core it seemed to fall flat on its face, which just didnt add up. Yes some reviews showed the all core clock speed to be less and others showed it to be on par....was just all over the place, then Linux benchmarks came out and it just performed like what we all expected it to. Now we are seeing that Windows seems to be at fault for some of its performance loss but also seems to affect more then just Zen 5. Ive yet to see any benchmarks on W10 though.

Over all its been a very up and down roller coaster of a launch Zen 5, some say its good some say its bad, then we get Window's is at fault but it works great on Linux......just a bit crazy this launch has been and in lets say a months time or two, all things should settle down and be sorted out, just gotta ride that wave!

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I get what your saying but you cant compare a brand new CPU with its launch price compared to a 2yr old part as clearly the older part will ALWAYS be cheaper! regardless! this is pretty much always the case, what you gotta look at is what the launch price of the 7950X was when it came out and far as I know the 9950X was cheaper at launch, which is a good thing and the 9950X will always be more expensive then the 7950X even 2yrs from now, thats just how it works.




Again you cant compare the prices of a 2yr old part to a brand new part, as the older part will always be cheaper, regardless what socket, what brand, it makes no difference, the fact is...the CPU is still faster, not by alot but its faster, its released cheaper then what the 7950X was when it was released, will the price of the 9950X go down? of course it will, but this is how the market works when a brand new CPU is released, you can yell and scream at AMD as much as you like, doesnt make any difference, this is just how it works and has always worked.

The problem is for most people these cpus offer little to no uplift.

They also sometimes lose to to the vanilla 7000 series which should never happen.

Which makes them the worst price to performance uplifts AMD has released in a long time. Intel left the door wide open with their degradation issues and amd still fumbled it....

People can damage control all they want for AMD but this is one of the worst launches in a while and at a min on par with Rocket Lake.

 

[phanbuey]

The problem is for most people these cpus offer little to no uplift.

They also sometimes lose to to the vanilla 7000 series which should never happen.

Which makes them the worst price to performance uplifts AMD has released in a long time. Intel left the door wide open with their degradation issues and amd still fumbled it....

People can damage control all they want for AMD but this is one of the worst launches in a while and at a min on par with Rocket Lake.

It’s on par with rocket lake - raptor lake pre degradation was a great launch - 13700k vs 7700x - it was a spanking until the X3D part.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

It’s on par with rocket lake - raptor lake pre degradation was a great launch - 13700k vs 7700x - it was a spanking until the X3D part.

I will still hold final Judgment till X3D releases only better than expected performance from them can save this launch not holding my breath though..... I would classify rocket lake as slightly worse due to 8th, 9th, and 10 generation basically being identical with just 2 cores added each generation and the socket basically being dead after it, I also think Ryzen 9000 will age better I feel like Rocket lake just fell off the face of the planet for some reason.... That was back when people defended intel for only carrying 2 generations per socket though, Honestly I'm not even against a new socket every 2-3 gens but only if that new socket adds something they obviously couldn't do.

I would say Raptor lake was a ok launch but I hate E cores and that was the main benefit of it lol the 13700k was and 13600k were probably the most interesting chips the i9 is fine but needs a lot of bios intervention in my book anyways.... I wouldn't argue with people who think it was good though at least when it happened.

 

[Melvis]

The problem is for most people these cpus offer little to no uplift.

They also sometimes lose to to the vanilla 7000 series which should never happen.

Which makes them the worst price to performance uplifts AMD has released in a long time. Intel left the door wide open with their degradation issues and amd still fumbled it....

People can damage control all they want for AMD but this is one of the worst launches in a while and at a min on par with Rocket Lake.

Sorry let me clarify I was more so talking about the 9950X.

While your right in the first two reviews of the 9600/9700X in some cases it would lose to the older models we have since learnt from then that there seems to be issues with Zen 5 and Windows OS and as you would know looking at over a dozen reviews online the results have been all over the place, and I hear they might be raising the power limit for the 9700X? anyway I will lay judgment to Zen 5 after all these issues have been resolved.

Indeed it is one of the worst price to performance uplifts AMD has in some time, basically since the 2000 Series, but its nothing compared to what Intel have done in the past multiple times over and we still have to wait till all these weird issues have been sorted out to really see where the 9000 series my lay.

Lets face it, even with this (at the moment) sub par uplift from AMD, even with intel dropping the ball big time, its still a better option while intel continues to shoot them selves in the foot.

 

[AusWolf]

4% on average increase in gaming and ~9% in productivity apps but yes it did affect the previous gen aswell bringing it's score up aswell which to my eyes looks like a bug which AMD said they're looking into with the hope of having a fix out soon but in the end this "Could" affect all Ryzen CPU's the same

I don't get how an OS thing with the admin account that lets you utilise more of your CPU is a hardware bug that AMD needs to look into. It sounds to me more like a Windows thing that Microsoft should look into. Or as @oxrufiioxo said, probably some security feature that isn't running in the background with the admin account. A nothing burger.

That wasn't the only issue - the 7700x was losing the the 5800X3D initially and that chip was selling for $350.

At least it was way faster in productivity apps, which you can't say about the 9700X. X3D is always a different breed that you can't compare to regular CPUs, imo.

 

[gurusmi]

I don't get how an OS thing with the admin account that lets you utilise more of your CPU is a hardware bug that AMD needs to look into. It sounds to me more like a Windows thing that Microsoft should look into. Or as @oxrufiioxo said, probably some security feature that isn't running in the background with the admin account...

It is a software bug. If it woud a hardware bug then Linux would have the same issues. But it hasn't.

 

[Shakallia]

I get what your saying but you cant compare a brand new CPU with its launch price compared to a 2yr old part as clearly the older part will ALWAYS be cheaper! regardless! this is pretty much always the case, what you gotta look at is what the launch price of the 7950X was when it came out and far as I know the 9950X was cheaper at launch, which is a good thing and the 9950X will always be more expensive then the 7950X even 2yrs from now, thats just how it works.




Again you cant compare the prices of a 2yr old part to a brand new part, as the older part will always be cheaper, regardless what socket, what brand, it makes no difference, the fact is...the CPU is still faster, not by alot but its faster, its released cheaper then what the 7950X was when it was released, will the price of the 9950X go down? of course it will, but this is how the market works when a brand new CPU is released, you can yell and scream at AMD as much as you like, doesnt make any difference, this is just how it works and has always worked.



The 9950X isnt a gaming focused CPU, its focus is productivity which it seems to do pretty good at in Linux.

Yeah once I started to see all the reviews on Zen 5, I was like, this isnt making alot of sense, its clearly got great single core performance but soon as you put it in anything that needs more then 1 core it seemed to fall flat on its face, which just didnt add up. Yes some reviews showed the all core clock speed to be less and others showed it to be on par....was just all over the place, then Linux benchmarks came out and it just performed like what we all expected it to. Now we are seeing that Windows seems to be at fault for some of its performance loss but also seems to affect more then just Zen 5. Ive yet to see any benchmarks on W10 though.

Over all its been a very up and down roller coaster of a launch Zen 5, some say its good some say its bad, then we get Window's is at fault but it works great on Linux......just a bit crazy this launch has been and in lets say a months time or two, all things should settle down and be sorted out, just gotta ride that wave!Sorry, but your point is absurd

Sorry but your point is absurd, if you want to buy a new system, you have to look at prices now. Who in their right mind would pay 100 euros more for a CPU performing roughly 3%, and sometimes, even worse, all that for a bit more efficiency ?

A bad sign is AMD trying to find any excuse to make ZEN 5 look better, coming with "tricks" that affect other cpus as well.

I'm also quite disappointed by all the reviewers trying to make ZEN 5 look good...You really have to be paid by AMD to say its good, the magic of ZEN5 ? The only magic there is is asking such a high price for underperfoming CPU, the point of the new generation being more expansive than the current available products, is because it is supposed to perform better...

It would be an ok product if they'd lower the price considerably.

Sorry let me clarify I was more so talking about the 9950X.

While your right in the first two reviews of the 9600/9700X in some cases it would lose to the older models we have since learnt from then that there seems to be issues with Zen 5 and Windows OS and as you would know looking at over a dozen reviews online the results have been all over the place, and I hear they might be raising the power limit for the 9700X? anyway I will lay judgment to Zen 5 after all these issues have been resolved.

Indeed it is one of the worst price to performance uplifts AMD has in some time, basically since the 2000 Series, but its nothing compared to what Intel have done in the past multiple times over and we still have to wait till all these weird issues have been sorted out to really see where the 9000 series my lay.

Lets face it, even with this (at the moment) sub par uplift from AMD, even with intel dropping the ball big time, its still a better option while intel continues to shoot them selves in the foot.

The issues you mention affects other cpus as well, Intel like AMD, that's pr bullshit to try to make ZEN 5 not look that bad. Those issues are well known for ages and are not proper to AMD.

Look at the testing with SMT from TPU...It did not change anything.

I'm pretty sure those kind of rumors are made as a smoke screen by AMD..They're trying to avoid a commercial disaster with the help of some reviewers, but when you look at the actual performance comparison graphs, ZEN 5 is really disappointing.
They hope people will only read the main title and conclusion, that shows how much they take consumers for brainless milk cows.

It is a missed opportunity for AMD, they better start working on ZEN 6 asap because if Arrow Lake does deliver, ZEN 5 will be one of the greatest disaster in consumers cpu history.

 

[AusWolf]

Sorry but your point is absurd, if you want to buy a new system, you have to look at prices now. Who in their right mind would pay 100 euros more for a CPU performing roughly 3%, and sometimes, even worse, all that for a bit more efficiency ?

A bad sign is AMD trying to find any excuse to make ZEN 5 look better, coming with "tricks" that affect other cpus as well.

I'm also quite disappointed by all the reviewers trying to make ZEN 5 look good...You really have to be paid by AMD to say its good, the magic of ZEN5 ? The only magic there is is asking such a high price for underperfoming CPU, the point of the new generation being more expansive than the current available products, is because it is supposed to perform better...

It would be an ok product if they'd lower the price considerably.

I agree. If we only look at release prices and say "X CPU is equal to Y CPU released 2 years before because it launched with a similar price and performance", then we're only allowing for stagnation to happen. No, a new CPU either has to be cheaper (when comparing release prices), or faster, or both, than its predecessor. It cannot have the same performance and release price as well. If it does, it represents worse value. To illustrate, imagine buying a single-core Pentium II now, but at its release price back in 1997, which was over a grand for some models. It would be a pretty bad deal, wouldn't it?

The issues you mention affects other cpus as well, Intel like AMD, that's pr bullshit to try to make ZEN 5 not look that bad. Those issues are well known for ages and are not proper to AMD.

Look at the testing with SMT from TPU...It did not change anything.

I'm pretty sure those kind of rumors are made as a smoke screen by AMD..They're trying to avoid a commercial disaster with the help of some reviewers, but when you look at the actual performance comparison graphs, ZEN 5 is really disappointing.
They hope people will only read the main title and conclusion, that shows how much they take consumers for brainless milk cows.

It is a missed opportunity for AMD, they better start working on ZEN 6 asap because if Arrow Lake does deliver, ZEN 5 will be one of the greatest disaster in consumers cpu history.

I think it's more like reviewers reaching out to AMD to confirm whether their results are correct, then AMD gave some tips on how to enhance performance, which then reviewers blew out of proportion to blame all parties that they could for the views and likes, like they always do.

 

[ARF]

Whenever they see that the sales are much lower than their expectations, they will update the prices accordingly. Or will simply update the product stack with something more worthwhile.
X3D parts are missing, and they should have begun with them, and nothing else..

 

[chrcoluk]

This is mostly a nothing burger though as it affects Zen 4 and probably other Cpus as well.

We don't even know if it's an actual bug or if it's just a side effect of improved security.

Man his interactions with them sounded pretty painful as they wouldn't even be clear about the performance they were seeing only that his was accurate but slightly low lol.

They also weren't clear about the 14700k settings they were using....

What a $#!+ show.

That video showed to me that review media and the PR teams are too close knit to each other, I have the opinion there should not even be a reviewers guide, the reviewer should review the same way the average user would use the product which is relying on either their own knowledge, the manual, or defaults. Paying customers dont get a guide on how to adjust bios settings, so a review guide in a way makes a review misleading.

Then in the end doing benchmarks in a config that is dangerous seemingly to appease AMD I didnt like that personally, although it is a useful observation that the hidden admin account affects performance measurably in games. The only thing I found on that is that you need elevation to be able to set the highest real time priority in windows, otherwise there was nothing obvious i discovered as to why performance would be affected so much. So if I was to speculate, it could be certain background stuff does not auto start when logging in as the admin account, because when you setup a new account on windows (including the account made during setup), certain things get configured, whilst the built in admin account doesnt have that happen, in my view thats the most likely cause of the performance differential, and if I am right it would of course affect Intel products as well, which he didnt test in the video.

 

[SL2]

Comparing a 7700x to a 9700x would be pretty similar to a 1700 to a 2700 back then, neither make much sense given the value.
For someone that's already on a first gen AM5 CPU, a worth upgrade will likely only become a thing by the end of AM5's lifespan, like the 5800x3D was.

Maybe you should read what I'm replying to, before replying. Wake up!

Just to recap, the situation was called déjà vu, and I explained the differences from last launch.

You can't have a déjà vu about something that hasn't happened yet lol, we were talking about NOW, not what haven't happened YET when Zen6 arrives.

Steve from HUB just told everyone in a new video that according to AMD if want to get the same results as us you need to benchmark it's Zen 5 CPU's using the hidden System Administrator account if not you're going to see lower results when using the standard User Administrator account

He suggested no such thing.

I get what your saying but you cant compare a brand new CPU with its launch price compared to a 2yr old part as clearly the older part will ALWAYS be cheaper

That's not even my point:

I'm talking about launch price.

See? I'm talking prices at launch.

9950X $650, 3,5% faster than a 7950X (applications)

7950X $700, 31,5% faster than a 5950X

5950X $800

3,5 % is a joke. Even 7 % would have been accpetable.

No, I don't need the reasons for why the increase is much smaller, or how inflation works, there might be something wrong with how it works with Windows, does SMT work as expected, SOC V might be too high, the chip/software/AGESA is half baked, or how other reviews show different results, how AM5 boards cost much more at launch and added to total cost (which I just explained in last post), or how AMD always drops the price pretty soon after launch because it's too high to begin with. Not sure I covered everything but if I didn't, someone will lecture me lol.

All I'm saying is that price should be even lower. At the very least it's not an attractive price. After all, it's been TWO years like you said.

 

[iameatingjam]

Apparently there's a lot of room to improve performance by increasing power and overclocking. But I understand why they are doing it this way... just look at intel.

People always say they miss they days when they went into the bios to increase performance and not decrease it. Well, here you go.

Well after getting a bit of a clearer picture of the situation, I realize its not that simple now. Overclocking/pumping up the watts helps in some scenarios but not others (like gaming). And comparing the 9700x to the 7700 ( non -x ) is somewhat underwhelming.

 

[ARF]

See? I'm talking prices at launch.
9950X $650, 3,5% faster than a 7950X (applications)
7950X $700, 31,5% faster than a 5950X
5950X $800
3,5 % is a joke. Even 7 % would have been accpetable.
No, I don't need the reasons for why the increase is much smaller, or how inflation works, there might be something wrong with how it works with Windows, does SMT work as expected, SOC V might be too high, the chip/software/AGESA is half baked, or how other reviews show different results, how AM5 boards cost much more at launch and added to total cost (which I just explained in last post), or how AMD always drops the price pretty soon after launch because it's too high to begin with. Not sure I covered everything but if I didn't, someone will lecture me lol.
All I'm saying is that price should be even lower. At the very least it's not an attractive price. After all, it's been TWO years like you said.

The problem is moar corez! We are stuck at 16 for how many generations already? Since 2018? That's a stagnation similar to the "quad-core is enough" shenanigans by intel in the 2010s.

 

[gurusmi]

The problem is moar corez! We are stuck at 16 for how many generations already? Since 2018? That's a stagnation similar to the "quad-core is enough" shenanigans by intel in the 2010s.

Really? Well. Most programs even don't utilitize the existing amount of cores. If one has a macro inside an excel-spreadsheet Excel switches automatically over to a single-core calculation. At my 3800x it switches to around 10% of CPU-Power. The only applications I use in my professional world is 3D Scanning, 3D-slicing and 3d-design. At least. If you want to have more cores get over to a HeDT. plaform.

 

[AusWolf]

The problem is moar corez! We are stuck at 16 for how many generations already? Since 2018? That's a stagnation similar to the "quad-core is enough" shenanigans by intel in the 2010s.

Do you need "moar corez"? Personally, I don't. For me, whatever the 7800X3D offers, both in single-core, and multi-core performance, is plenty.

 

[iameatingjam]

The problem is moar corez! We are stuck at 16 for how many generations already? Since 2018? That's a stagnation similar to the "quad-core is enough" shenanigans by intel in the 2010s.

But are cores really the bottleneck here? Well I guess if you're rendering, but if you're doing that, GPUs are where its at. I guess CPUs general direction is kind of confused right now, moving towards ai, even though nobody wants that except the people who want to use it to rip people off ( most of the time). You can add more cache for better gaming performance ( and not much else ) or... what...? What are we doing? What do we want from our CPUs that we're not getting? ( Just kinda thinking out loud here).


Just going to pre-empt some low hanging fruit here by saying OTHER THAN STABILITY.