AMD Zen Discussion Thread

dazberry

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Nah, its confirmed at this point. The technical reason is that the there are so many compatible processors with significantly different architecture that the bios storage on a lot of boards has literally run out of space for the all the microcode needed. A few boards are already hitting this cap at the moment.

Yeah that's been a looming problem for a while. However it appears Ryzen 4000 'Renoir' (given they're zen2 not zen3) APUs will still support b450/x470, so that's something.

/edit: bios issues aside it's a bit disappointing given how b550 is so late, so if you weren't going x570 you were likely going b450 instead?

K.O.Kiki

Yeah I couldn't stomach the additional €90+ for a decent X570 board when I bought my B450.
Kiiiinda regretting that now lol

BloodBath

If BIOS size is the main limitation surely we're ok with boards that have a good sized BIOS.

Even if it meant the newer BIOS only supported the latest chips and removed support for the older ones.

Samuel T. Cogley

AMD won't be supporting it so manufacturers can't, sadly.

Homelander

.G. wrote: »

3300x seems to be great CPU for the price. All anyone really needs for gaming on a budget unless you want to future proof with more cores.

It costs more than the 1600AF, really I can't see why you would chose it over that CPU for gaming. Yes speed per core it's better but already big AAA games are starting to scale better with > 4 cores/8threads.

For the same reason I would never recommend an Intel 9100F in any budget build, yes it's a measly £65 and superb for that actual price, but again, for the sake of an extra £30 the 1600AF makes so much more sense for the next year or two and beyond.

The 3300X makes sense from a price POV versus the Ryzen 3600, but less so against the 2600/1600AF. If they phase out the 1600AF/2600 and the line-up reverts to 3100/3300X/3600 and so-on, then it makes more sense.

I mean the 3300X is basically a 7700K; if someone came to the board now and said "Hey, I can get a 7700K for £120 should I go for it", I would still say to them, nah, just get a 1600AF, makes more sense from a longevity POV with games now making use of more cores/threads.

.G.

If you can find a 1600AF at RRP I'd agree but my recent experience was I couldn't and the one I did wasn't RRP.

Homelander

Well, Amazon have the 2600 for £112 right now with stock due in a few days. The 3300X is £115 and completely out.

.G.

Thats not bad. I tried to find a 1600af for troubleshooting my sons pc but the only one there was not from amazon and 1-2 months available but was only 40 euros cheaper than the 3600 so I just got that.

wotzgoingon

.G. wrote: »

Thats not bad. I tried to find a 1600af for troubleshooting my sons pc but the only one there was not from amazon and 1-2 months available but was only 40 euros cheaper than the 3600 so I just got that.

So you got a new CPU? Did it solve the issues you are having?

.G.

wotzgoingon wrote: »

So you got a new CPU? Did it solve the issues you are having?

Fingers crossed mate. Its in 3 days now and none of the issues hes been having have happened. No game crashes, no BSODs. BSODS had stopped a while before because the MS guy was going through dump files and basically telling us to uninstall everything that caused an issue which isn't really a solution when they are games he wants to play! He was still getting daily crashes on every game he plays. None of that so far with the new CPU. The old one was fine for the first 6 months we had it too though!

wotzgoingon

That's good news. Hope I didn't jinx it now.

.G.

Haha me too!

Cuddlesworth

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

AMD won't be supporting it so manufacturers can't, sadly.

AMd don't support 3k series cpu's on A320 mobos but you can see them running on them. Its up to the board maker.

Samuel T. Cogley

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

AMd don't support 3k series cpu's on A320 mobos but you can see them running on them. Its up to the board maker.

AMD back tracked on 3 series and supported it, but didn't support it. This time around there is not support from AMD. Hardware Unboxed did a good video on why/how.

Hyzepher

I think the x570 tomahawk will sell bucket loads towards the end of the year

Inviere

So like many I'm waiting to see what Gen 3 Ryzen brings, and likely spec a build around it (my 7700k I think is still holding its own, but games are beginning to seriously stretch it). One of the main uses for my pc is emulation, and Gen 2 Ryzen users indicated that the CCX layout of the 3700x was optimal for things like rpcs3 (4+4).

Example

Has there been anything concrete on what the CCX setup is for Gen 3 Ryzen?

wotzgoingon

Nothing concrete yet but they have said each CCX will be a full 8 core so the 4700X will have one 8 core CCX and then another I/O die.

K.O.Kiki

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Nothing concrete yet but they have said each CCX will be a full 8 core so the 4700X will have one 8 core CCX and then another I/O die.

Guess I'm selling a mobo, CPU & Wraith Prism in 6 months :pac:

deceit

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Nothing concrete yet but they have said each CCX will be a full 8 core so the 4700X will have one 8 core CCX and then another I/O die.

If this is the case, I will upgrade my 3950x to a 4950x and put my 3950x in my spare pc to replace my 1950x. Saying that I haven't noticed any issues with the 3950x unlike the 1950x.

wotzgoingon

Hyzepher wrote: »

I think the x570 tomahawk will sell bucket loads towards the end of the year

I don't know what rock I was under to not hear about this board but yes I agree it is a great MB and more importantly a great price.

Inviere

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Nothing concrete yet but they have said each CCX will be a full 8 core so the 4700X will have one 8 core CCX and then another I/O die.

So the benefits to this will reduce exchange time between cores, as they're all on the same CCX? Presumably this bodes well for gaming & subsequently emulation then (if there's a multi-core demand from said uses)?

Cuddlesworth

Inviere wrote: »

So the benefits to this will reduce exchange time between cores, as they're all on the same CCX? Presumably this bodes well for gaming & subsequently emulation then (if there's a multi-core demand from said uses)?

I'd be holding my breath on that one. There are limited use cases where a 8 core CCX would be worth the manufacturing hit to make. The less cores, the better the yields are the sweet spot, and it's mainly why Intel sat at 4/8 for so many years for the desktop market.

When AMD sells you a 3950x, I really doubt its manufacturing cost is even close to Intel's 8 core.

wotzgoingon

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I'd be holding my breath on that one. There are limited use cases where a 8 core CCX would be worth the manufacturing hit to make. The less cores, the better the yields are the sweet spot, and it's mainly why Intel sat at 4/8 for so many years for the desktop market.

When AMD sells you a 3950x, I really doubt its manufacturing cost is even close to Intel's 8 core.

It is. AMD still don't make as much profit as Intel. AMD price stuff to allow a smaller profit.

Newest manufacturing process is not cheap. Intel are still on 14nm which is a big price advantage for them.

K.O.Kiki

wotzgoingon wrote: »

It is. AMD still don't make as much profit as Intel. AMD price stuff to allow a smaller profit.

Newest manufacturing process is not cheap. Intel are still on 14nm which is a big price advantage for them.

Not really, 14nm monolithic dies means their yield-per-wafer are much lower.

AMD going for small interconnected multi-dies at smaller process is part of why they're profitable now.

Also if you were correct, there'd be no incentive to go smaller!

Inviere

Inviere wrote: »

So the benefits to this will reduce exchange time between cores, as they're all on the same CCX? Presumably this bodes well for gaming & subsequently emulation then (if there's a multi-core demand from said uses)?

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I'd be holding my breath on that one. There are limited use cases where a 8 core CCX would be worth the manufacturing hit to make. The less cores, the better the yields are the sweet spot, and it's mainly why Intel sat at 4/8 for so many years for the desktop market.

When AMD sells you a 3950x, I really doubt its manufacturing cost is even close to Intel's 8 core.

I'm confused I'm talking about performance, are you talking about cost?

Cuddlesworth

Inviere wrote: »

I'm confused I'm talking about performance, are you talking about cost?

Performance vs cost. They would get a small bump in performance at a significantly greater cost. And to be honest, if Zen3 got a 10% bump in clocks or IPC, that would put them pretty much on par with Intel. Those Intel chips flatline around 5.1ghz and IPC gains per generation are minimal.

wotzgoingon wrote: »

It is. AMD still don't make as much profit as Intel. AMD price stuff to allow a smaller profit.

Newest manufacturing process is not cheap. Intel are still on 14nm which is a big price advantage for them.

Comparing process nodes from different manufacturers is pointless. What is important is the yield from a wafers and the end performance. And the fact that AMD can now sell a full yield CCX packaged in a chip at the lowest end of the market implies that yields are not just good but pretty amazing for them.

BloodBath

They already have better IPC than intel clock for clock. If they can just push the frequency up closer to 5ghz they will dominate intel in every way.

I don't know if this architecture will ever be able to do that though. We've had very minimal max frequency gains in the first 3 generations with all 3 of them maxing at around 4.2ghz all core overclocks with only the base out of the box frequencies increasing.

These CPU's were designed for a pure cost to performance and multi platform scaleable use rather than raw single core performance. They managed to win every sector from mobile to server with the same cpu architecture though. Good to have them back.

They have pushed IPC up at least.

Cuddlesworth

BloodBath wrote: »

I don't know if this architecture will ever be able to do that though. We've had very minimal max frequency gains in the first 3 generations with all 3 of them maxing at around 4.2ghz all core overclocks with only the base out of the box frequencies increasing.

Ice lake gave the impression that Intel is facing the same challenge, IPC increase with lower clock speeds on a node shrink.

K.O.Kiki

My 3600X regularly hits 4.30-4.375 GHz+ on most/all cores *with just PBO.

K.O.Kiki