AMD CPU/Socket Discussion Thread

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
AMD CPU Discussion Thread

This thread can serve as a general discussion and news thread for all things pertaining to AMD CPU's and their respective platforms.

Original Thread:

This thread can serve as a discussion thread for the new AMD Processors (Ryzen) and APU's and the AM4 socket. My initial thread touted a March release date but that was inaccurate. I've compiled some info, but feel free to read through the thread and join the discussion.

This is what I've found so far, feel free to post more news as well. Sources at the bottom. Updated 1/26/17

  • AMD's new line of CPU's (Ryzen) and APU's will be part of the AM4 socket with DDR4 RAM. They plan to keep the same socket until 2020, meaning a 4 year life cycle.
  • Rumored release date is likely February-March 2017 with AMD stating they aim to launch before the end of the quarter (March 3rd) with a full lineup of CPU's and motherboards.
  • The highest performance Ryzen chip will have 8 cores,16 threads, 95 watt TDP, and a base clock of 3.4GHz+. Undisclosed models willbe filling in the lower price tiers. No dual core CPU's will be made, although a dual core APU is expected. This also means that they will be using a form of multi threading to run two threads on one core like Intel does with Hyper Threading.
  • 40%+ IPC increase over Excavator CPU's, which is still a few generations past their last high end CPU's (Piledriver).
  • X370 (high end), X300 (high end ITX), and B350 (Mainstream) motherboards will support overclocking on any Ryzen chip. All Ryzen CPU's are unlocked, meaning the board determines if you can overclock, not the chip like Intel's K processors.
  • Blender demos show a Ryzen chip matching and even beating an Intel i7 6900K.
  • am4-chipset-100702364-orig.jpg
    am4-procs-100702362-orig.jpg
Sources: I mainly got this info from my own research but it was nicely compiled here, which is where I took most of my sources from rather than digging back up what I found before. Slides above are AMD marketing material.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5prnuw/psa_compilation_of_confirmed_amd_ryzen_details/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11031/amd-set-to-launch-ryzen-before-march-3rd-meeting-q1-target
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...s-7-all-new-details-revealed-at-ces-2017.html
 
Last edited:

H4rdR3s37

Member
We have to wait more for Summit Ridge. Bristol Ridge is just Carrizo with DDR4 support.

Zen has (almost) nothing to do with Bulldozer so there is hope.
 

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
From what I hear AM4 socket will not fit FM or AM3+ processors. If nothing fits it, whats the point of releasing it 6 months before supposedly Summit Ridges release. Plus the AM4 APUs not coming till 2017. If its true about the boards in march, bet FX Zen Summit Ridge might be coming out before people thought.
 

H4rdR3s37

Member
From what I hear AM4 socket will not fit FM or AM3+ processors. If nothing fits it, whats the point of releasing it 6 months before supposedly Summit Ridges release. Plus the AM4 APUs not coming till 2017. If its true about the boards in march, bet FX Zen Summit Ridge might be coming out before people thought.

I heard that those first AM4 parts will be Excavator based Carrizos with DDR4 support. There are few points to bring out AM4 platform without Zen:

- DDR4 supporting platform, AMD does not have any.
- Carrizo based APU will benefit from DDR4.
- AMD has always been upgrade friendly,"Buy AM4 platform now, upgrade to Zen later" makes some sense

It would be very good thing if Summit Ridge really comes earlier than somewhere around Q3-Q4/2016 but that seems unlike to happen.
 

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
I heard that those first AM4 parts will be Excavator based Carrizos with DDR4 support. There are few points to bring out AM4 platform without Zen:

- DDR4

Looks like you might be right. Socket AM4 Kaveri/Godavri/Bristol Ridge APU. Don't really see the point other then DD4. Bunch of people will buy them right off for the upcoming Zen. Then to find out the first ones will be low end boards. I would just dump all my money getting Zen out.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
They'd sell a shitload more APUs with integrated GDDR5 like the PS4 (I'd buy at least two right now). Full size card crossfire GPU performance at the same cost as a system and one card sounds like a feasible price point to market at to me at least..

Sounds like another 'meh' offering before their hyped up additional 'meh' offering with Zen. I'm hoping for another Athlon64 era but that doesn't seem entirely plausible at this point. At least DDR4 should offer some more bandwidth (also, please quad channel) on the APU side.
 

H4rdR3s37

Member
Sounds like another 'meh' offering before their hyped up additional 'meh' offering with Zen. I'm hoping for another Athlon64 era but that doesn't seem entirely plausible at this point. At least DDR4 should offer some more bandwidth (also, please quad channel) on the APU side.

Zen's main architech was Jim Keller who has awesome record. Every CPU he designed was the best when it came out. So we might well get another Athlon64 era.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I remember hearing how Bulldozer was "it".

It was not "it".

I'll wait and see how it turns out but I'm cautiously optimistic.
 

H4rdR3s37

Member
You're assuming one man has the future of a whole company. Not the case.

If Zen architechture is superior and manufacturing process at least "good enough", then why not? Keller was Zen's main architecht, so one man had future of (almost) whole company.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Jim Keller did not design Bulldozer. If Zen is failure, that will be Keller's first CPU design failure.

I never said he did. I just remember when I was first building a machine in 2011 everyone was all hyped for Bulldozer and how it was going to be really good and bring AMD back into the CPU game. I got an AM3+ board for partially that reason when I first built my machine. Then it came out and it was marginally better than the Phenom II line.

I also think that AMD has probably got it a bit more figured out judging by their marketing material. I'm really hoping it's good, but I'm not getting excited for something until I see some numbers.
 

H4rdR3s37

Member
I never said he did. I just remember when I was first building a machine in 2011 everyone was all hyped for Bulldozer and how it was going to be really good and bring AMD back into the CPU game. I got an AM3+ board for partially that reason when I first built my machine. Then it came out and it was marginally better than the Phenom II line.

I also think that AMD has probably got it a bit more figured out judging by their marketing material. I'm really hoping it's good, but I'm not getting excited for something until I see some numbers.

Idea behind Bulldozer architechture was to bring huge amount of integer cores at low cost and power consumption. It did that. Bringing 8 cores into mainstream was something I waited long time. Single thread performance lacked but I still haven't found single situation where my Piledriver's single thread performance really hurts compared to Phenom II (I owned Phenom II for years). In other words, Piledriver's single thread performance is good enough and with 8 cores I can run 2 virtual machines and do basic things same time, something was quite impossible with Phenom II. I still would take 8-core Piledriver over any quad core Intel. Those who have no use for 8 cores may disagree.

Bulldozer's main problem was and is still manufacturing process, 32nm is just too old when Intel has 14nm. Because bad process, AMD didn't even bother to fix Bulldozer bugs that prevented reaching higher clock speeds. Also software still relies heavily on single thread performance and legacy instruction sets. Bulldozer was not designed for those. It's now year 2016, so few predicted this situation around 2006 when Bulldozer design was started.

About that hype. It was long known that Bulldozer will offer 8 cores with mainstream price. Also it was known that legacy instruction set (like x87) and single thread performance will be worse than Phenom II on same clock speed. So those who waited Bulldozer to crush Phenom II on SuperPi, got disappointed. But that thing was clear over year before Bulldozer actual launch.

To put it another way: Bulldozer was designed to run well threaded software that uses mostly modern instruction sets. Zen is designed to run software now available (single threaded software with legacy instruction sets). I expect that Socket AM4 Zen's will be at most 4-core+HT CPU's, so 6 core+HT and 8-core+HT CPU's will require more expensive socket. Unless 8-core Zen+motherboard cost under 400 euros, I have little interest for Zen. Those who have no use for 8 cores may disagree again.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
If anything, my 8320 has aged better than I expected now that more and more things (primarily games in my case) are making use of all of my cores. When I switched from my Phenom II 955 X4 to my 8320 I hardly noticed a difference. Primarily because as you said their single core performance weren't terribly different and that was in 2013 when games were using a quad core at the most. Now I'm seeing newer games like GTA V, Just Cause 3, and Fallout 4 actually using all 8 of my threads and the chip still performs great for pretty much everything I do.

I fully understand why Bulldozer wasn't a success. I'm just keeping my expectations within reason. I really like AMD for a lot of reasons, but they've got a lot of progress to make to competitively get back in the CPU game.

Also I'd be pretty surprised if AMD didn't push a 12+ threaded chip on the AM4 platform.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
Yes Darren but just as you're finding things are using the cores, you say it's time to upgrade, so was having 8 cores worthwhile when just as you found things were using them it was time to upgrade? ;)

Meanwhile, in the i5 2500K camp... ;)
 

H4rdR3s37

Member
Also I'd be pretty surprised if AMD didn't push a 12+ threaded chip on the AM4 platform.

AM4 platform should support 95W CPU's max (pretty old information though). Considering that Intel's quad core (i7-6700K) is rated at 91W, 8 Zen cores at 95W with reasonable clock speeds sounds very challenging. AMD also previously told that multiple socket don't bother customers. In case Zen is really competitive against Intel's mainstream products, there is no real need to put 8 core CPU on mainstream socket.

Zen engineering samples are expected to be ready within four months, hopefully some leaks give more accurate information :)
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
And the 2500K is still faster by quite a bit.
I'd be using it now but I was fortunate enough to be able to upgrade to an i7 for free. My 2500K is still going strong in another machine and I'm sure it will be good for a few more years to come yet. The 2500K itself is already 5 years old and my 2500K is nearly 4 years old. How time flies!
 
Top