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Gouhan

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Apologies if there's another thread about AMD's upcoming CPU architecture and of course desktop CPUs, if there is, delete or perhaps merge this info.
This is the current state of the retail CPUs, which have been improving by the month.

- There are some errata issues present in the current testing samples, similar in a way to the TLB bug of the Phenom. The workaround right now is done via the BIOS. The workaround however, strips around 30 ~ 40% of the CPU performance.

- The CPUs are well behind schedule and every day there's real progress and bug fixing being done. Unlike with INTEL's E0 CPUs which make it to the wild that are almost completely final silicon. AMD's samples will continue to get bug fixes right up until retail spec sampling to partners.

- In August Clock speeds were 3.8GHz, right now 4.2GHz overclocking is possible, with LN2 5GHz is doable. Again this will change of course, but it is just the current silicon that is behaving like this.

- AM4/ZEN uses an SOC design, that means even CMOS/BIOS configuration is on package (not necessarily on silicon, I can't confirm this) so it is possible to clear the "BIOS" and still have old value applied 30 minutes later. How this will be addressed remains to be seen. Perhaps it won't be the same scenario for final silicon

- Operating voltages (nominal) are 1.3v and all the way up to 1.5v should be fine it seems for AIO cooling. Frequency scaling isn't a strong point but again that may have everything to do with the process at this point rather than an inherent design limitation.

- Performance is particularly strong at this point vs. INTEL's latest offerings. Single thread performance is matching Haswell-E and of course multi-threading performance as well. Tests that are memory bandwidth dependent may go to the INTEL platform simply as a result of having more memory channels, but I can't confirm that right now and have no info on that. The important thing here is that the 16Thread/8-Core CPU is minimum 5960X performance if not better actually. (Based on Cinebench R15) with the error fix disabled.

- Can't speak to how well the IMC is working as current samples are locked to low DRAM frequencies (2133MHz and lower) and of course this has an impact on performance.

- As stated in the beginning, every week is progress and AMD is working at an unprecedented rate to get these ready by March.

- You're unlikely to see any high end boards for the CPUs prior to launch or at launch, simply because no vendors can commit to too much right now as plenty is changing at a rapid rate.
 
Great info.
Any news on pricing ?
 
When do you think they will be out?

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk
 
No idea on any pricing yet, but from board vendor side, Highest SKU is Less than $700USD.
March is the target time for the CPUs. I don't suspect 1st generation boards will be all that great though.

We finally have native/chipset NVme, PCI-E 3.0 + USB 3.1 with a number of lanes for each.
This one is shaping up well, and a definite contender for INTEL and AMD users alike.

That Cinebench R15 MT score
6900K @ 5.1GHz 2,100~
8C/16T ZEN @ 5.1GHz 2,000 (workaround disabled)
 
Single thread performance is matching Haswell-E

Got my attention.

Will there be variants and if so is that benchmark using their strongest available?
 
I'm keen to see what AMD produce in the near future, I'm going to be watching them closely now because of this thread :)
 
I have been following Zen news and updates since last year. I am very excited. I just hope AMD's pricing is good, I am sure they will be on par or even a little better then the current Intel variants in some tests. Cant wait for actual benchmarks figures to come out for the retail silicon variants.

Last.of.the.AMD.fanboys[emoji16]

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Interesting post thanks [MENTION=64]ShockG[/MENTION]. I do however still feel that even though AMD are providing alternatives, it's once again a game of catch-up. At no point have i felt that AMD are in any way superior to Intel or Nvidia for that matter.

As far as a price point goes, it definitely looks attractive, but would you be able to live with yourself knowing you're running AMD Inside ... just sounds .. dirty !

If AMD can pull a cat out the hat that surpasses Intel on performance , price and power, however the second AMD gets near in terms of CPU or GPU, the next generation is already hitting the local markets.

Will keep an eye on this post ;)
 
Interesting post thanks [MENTION=64]ShockG[/MENTION]. I do however still feel that even though AMD are providing alternatives, it's once again a game of catch-up. At no point have i felt that AMD are in any way superior to Intel or Nvidia for that matter.

As far as a price point goes, it definitely looks attractive, but would you be able to live with yourself knowing you're running AMD Inside ... just sounds .. dirty !

If AMD can pull a cat out the hat that surpasses Intel on performance , price and power, however the second AMD gets near in terms of CPU or GPU, the next generation is already hitting the local markets.

Will keep an eye on this post ;)

It depends, Intel have planned Kaby Lake as the successor to Skylake, but it is like Sandy to Ivy to Haswell, there were only power improvement and IMC gain but the processing performance gained was negligible.

After Kaby Intel are heavily pushing mobility and power so I don't really think Intel have that "it" up the sleeve nor do I specially see them planning anything on AMD as Intel laid out their road map up until 2018 like 4 years ago. AMD does have Zen+ expected out in 2018 with gains over Zen.
 
It depends, Intel have planned Kaby Lake as the successor to Skylake, but it is like Sandy to Ivy to Haswell, there were only power improvement and IMC gain but the processing performance gained was negligible.

After Kaby Intel are heavily pushing mobility and power so I don't really think Intel have that "it" up the sleeve nor do I specially see them planning anything on AMD as Intel laid out their road map up until 2018 like 4 years ago. AMD does have Zen+ expected out in 2018 with gains over Zen.

I suspect you secretly work for AMD ...
 
I suspect you secretly work for AMD ...

Their technology is good, the issue is that they had bad leadership. There is an article on Forbes about Lisa Xsu and how she came in at at time when AMD were looking at liquidation or buy outs, and how she changed the implementations and polocies which has seen AMD stock rise, the return to profitability and ventures into lucrative markets.

A healthy AMD is a good deal for end users, for me I don't really want a Zen top part, I am actually wanting the APU's, the Zen APU's have the new cores together with Vega based GPU and HBM, the performance alone means that a causal user doesn't need to invest in a very expensive system with discrete graphics and the requisite power supply to get good performance. Though it also means that can go into laptops make the mobile solution interesting which is what I would look into, a strong APU notebook solution that can sit in that 5-10K range and play well.

One thing that ShockG didn't put up is that the 8core Zen runs on a 90w TPD while the 5960X and 6900s run off 130w TPD.
 
I am just making my uninformed opinion on pricing

8c/16t - R7000
6c/12t - R4500
4c/8t - R3000

There may be filler level SKU's like a pure 4 core only variant to fill the gap in the lower segment.
 
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. IPC right now is unlikely to go up
However be advised that while it can match Haswell-E for sure, it doesn't match Broadwell-E. If you are not aware, a 6900K @ 4GHz is about the same as a 5960X @ 4.5GHz. The difference in IPC is more than one would think oddly enough.

As for TDP, INTEL measures TDP entirely differently from AMD. AMD never measures max power draw or instantaneous power draw while INTEL does. It's is a lot more complicated than this but suffice to say they aren't directly comparable and of course this stands to reason because operating voltage for the the CPUs right now is 1.3V vs. Intel's 1.2v or so for a higher clock speed and a denser CPU.

Catching up to the leader is a simpler task than charting new ground and pushing the frontier. AMD has the road map laid out for it and the advantage of not having had to pioneer an architecture to match an untested node or process. That work has already been done by others and and if you look at tri-gate fabrication processes, they are so much better than they were when we first got them at 22nm.
Single thread performance still matters if only for the low power states and what options it allows you for power gating the CPU. Not necessarily the power it gives you at full tilt.

The cadence that INTEL uses for platform development even right now, puts them quite ahead even though they've not been necessarily focused on improving performance per say, but rather performance per watt, much like NVIDIA. The Kaby Lake is the Oregon dev team I think, while Skylake-X and Cannonlake should be the Israeli team. (could have the swapped) Point is Skylake-X platforms for instance, only due Q4 2017 are already available at all the vendors with CPUs at a later development stage than Zen is at present.

Either way, 2017 is going to be exciting for AMD and us of course. New GPUs and new platforms that bring AMD right up to modern computing performance. Pricing is not going to be cheap because if you have a comparable part, you price it accordingly. So yeah for high end look to $700 or so
 
I get the easier to catch up part and yes AMD just had so much given the bulldozer era didn't quite work out. Jim Keller stuck around long enough to reinvent the wheel for AMD to take forward and keep developing though it has taken much more than just that to turn the company around towards calmer seas.

I think AMD have pioneered, the APU is the game changer, and I did discuss it with you and at the time it was a weak bulldozer fueled trinity with a old graphic core and DDR3. Back then AMD was in a bad place and the future I looked at was rather bleakish but ultimately it is what turns the company's wheels now and future.

The APU is getting stronger and more efficient as the technology comes around, the APU also hits home runs in mobility where Intel can't match them on Graphics and Nvidia are really just a discrete graphics maker. Zen generation brings a faster, stronger processing power to Vega's new GCN architecture and adds HBM the single biggest leap for graphics driven performance all on a chip, trinity looks what it is, the begining of redemption.

2017 is going to be a fun year for sure
 
I get the easier to catch up part and yes AMD just had so much given the bulldozer era didn't quite work out. Jim Keller stuck around long enough to reinvent the wheel for AMD to take forward and keep developing though it has taken much more than just that to turn the company around towards calmer seas.

I think AMD have pioneered, the APU is the game changer, and I did discuss it with you and at the time it was a weak bulldozer fueled trinity with a old graphic core and DDR3. Back then AMD was in a bad place and the future I looked at was rather bleakish but ultimately it is what turns the company's wheels now and future.

The APU is getting stronger and more efficient as the technology comes around, the APU also hits home runs in mobility where Intel can't match them on Graphics and Nvidia are really just a discrete graphics maker. Zen generation brings a faster, stronger processing power to Vega's new GCN architecture and adds HBM the single biggest leap for graphics driven performance all on a chip, trinity looks what it is, the begining of redemption.

2017 is going to be a fun year for sure
 
Huge news and an update coming up soon.
Just spent a portion of the day with.... and yeah I'm worried, but extremely excited as well. Have some SKU numbers as well...

We are in for a revolution people. :)
Single core performance is strong, yep, it is very strong. As for price... heheheh :cool:
All I can say is INTEL isn't panicking, but they should be. Yes they should be
 
Huge news and an update coming up soon.
Just spent a portion of the day with.... and yeah I'm worried, but extremely excited as well. Have some SKU numbers as well...

We are in for a revolution people. :)
Single core performance is strong, yep, it is very strong. As for price... heheheh :cool:
All I can say is INTEL isn't panicking, but they should be. Yes they should be

Stop teasing me, this is enough foreplay
 
Huge news and an update coming up soon.
Just spent a portion of the day with.... and yeah I'm worried, but extremely excited as well. Have some SKU numbers as well...

We are in for a revolution people. :)
Single core performance is strong, yep, it is very strong. As for price... heheheh :cool:
All I can say is INTEL isn't panicking, but they should be. Yes they should be

coming from you? Even im worried
 
I will say the same, I am a fanboy and have had arguements with ShockG before trying to defend AMD, so to see "revolutionary" used really got me on the edge here.

My FX8350 setup sent me back to intel, if this is true i will jump ship again. I loved my 965 black edition
 
Huge news and an update coming up soon.
Just spent a portion of the day with.... and yeah I'm worried, but extremely excited as well. Have some SKU numbers as well...

We are in for a revolution people. :)
Single core performance is strong, yep, it is very strong. As for price... heheheh :cool:
All I can say is INTEL isn't panicking, but they should be. Yes they should be
Awesome, update as soon as possible [MENTION=64]ShockG[/MENTION]. I am so exited for this
 
Those that go back to Planet Mars days, when even old Henk himself was still into some overclocking, will know I was hellishly defensive of AMD. Of course That was around 2001 or so maybe all the way up to 2004 perhaps. There wasn't a single AMD CPU or chipset I didn't get my hands on, even if it meant starving. Hopped on the Mobile Athlon-XP and ran what I think is SA's first sub-zero OC with DICE and a container made or rather stripped from cast iron (came from the leg of a table). AMD yeah, I lived and breathed AMD. However as you learn and get exposed the truth has a very sobering effect on one.

I'm excited because of the potential I see even this early. AMD can't help but get in their own way, but things are still looking up. They can only be better with 2nd gen Zen.
Anyway here goes
==============================================

* All overclocking is done via Overdrive, you can't change any performance features at all in the BIOS (on to that next) at all.

* BIOS or UEFI is actually built into the CPU, so only AMD can update the "BIOS" or microcode. All overclocking must take place within the Operating system

* Right now it takes up to 30 minutes to clear the BIOS. If you remove the CPU and place it on another motherboard, it'll have the same settings applied as on the previous board. So debugging is a nightmare

* 6850K SKU (May not be final designation) is wait for it.... $300 roughly. That's 8 Cores and 16 Threads

* AMD's Hyper Threading is called SMU and it is damn good. The same efficiency as Intel's HT.

* Performance is really good, be it SuperPi, Cinebench, 3DMark etc, it's FPU performance is incredibly good and easily matching that of what Intel offers.

* Current performance is staggering even though it is limited to 2133MHz (as mentioned before) and NorthBridge Frequency is limited to 2400MHz

* There will be a nigher SKU than the 6850K, but it is a higher bin so it will certainly overclock better than 6850K and that may carry a premium price, but unlikely to be double.

* There's plenty of excitement from all board vendors about the platform, so we will see how it all pans out. (Especially with the hot mess that INTEL has in store for us H2 2017, that we can leave to another thread)

* For Gaming, the CPU is neck and neck with INTEL, even at low res where CPU bound.
==============================================================

AMD is coming for em, NVIDIA and INTEL. 2017 is going to be a real kicker of a year as AMD will be able to provide premium performance at under $1,000 for the entire platform (CPU, board and VGA) whereas the equivalent from INTEL is about $1,000 just for the CPU.

If there's any questions I'll answer what I'm allowed to.
 
Those that go back to Planet Mars days, when even old Henk himself was still into some overclocking, will know I was hellishly defensive of AMD. Of course That was around 2001 or so maybe all the way up to 2004 perhaps. There wasn't a single AMD CPU or chipset I didn't get my hands on, even if it meant starving. Hopped on the Mobile Athlon-XP and ran what I think is SA's first sub-zero OC with DICE and a container made or rather stripped from cast iron (came from the leg of a table). AMD yeah, I lived and breathed AMD. However as you learn and get exposed the truth has a very sobering effect on one.

I'm excited because of the potential I see even this early. AMD can't help but get in their own way, but things are still looking up. They can only be better with 2nd gen Zen.
Anyway here goes
==============================================

* All overclocking is done via Overdrive, you can't change any performance features at all in the BIOS (on to that next) at all.

* BIOS or UEFI is actually built into the CPU, so only AMD can update the "BIOS" or microcode. All overclocking must take place within the Operating system

* Right now it takes up to 30 minutes to clear the BIOS. If you remove the CPU and place it on another motherboard, it'll have the same settings applied as on the previous board. So debugging is a nightmare

* 6850K SKU (May not be final designation) is wait for it.... $300 roughly. That's 8 Cores and 16 Threads

* AMD's Hyper Threading is called SMU and it is damn good. The same efficiency as Intel's HT.

* Performance is really good, be it SuperPi, Cinebench, 3DMark etc, it's FPU performance is incredibly good and easily matching that of what Intel offers.

* Current performance is staggering even though it is limited to 2133MHz (as mentioned before) and NorthBridge Frequency is limited to 2400MHz

* There will be a nigher SKU than the 6850K, but it is a higher bin so it will certainly overclock better than 6850K and that may carry a premium price, but unlikely to be double.

* There's plenty of excitement from all board vendors about the platform, so we will see how it all pans out. (Especially with the hot mess that INTEL has in store for us H2 2017, that we can leave to another thread)

* For Gaming, the CPU is neck and neck with INTEL, even at low res where CPU bound.
==============================================================

AMD is coming for em, NVIDIA and INTEL. 2017 is going to be a real kicker of a year as AMD will be able to provide premium performance at under $1,000 for the entire platform (CPU, board and VGA) whereas the equivalent from INTEL is about $1,000 just for the CPU.

If there's any questions I'll answer what I'm allowed to.

Performance wise is it closer to i7 6700 or the big boy 6800/6900 family of SKU's?

I dibs your first AM4/Zen kits you put up
 
AMD is coming for em, NVIDIA and INTEL. 2017 is going to be a real kicker of a year as AMD will be able to provide premium performance at under $1,000 for the entire platform (CPU, board and VGA) whereas the equivalent from INTEL is about $1,000 just for the CPU.

If there's any questions I'll answer what I'm allowed to.

Will AMD make computing great again? ;)

What board are you testing on? What reason/benefit is there to make overclocking through the OS? (ease of use I take it?) Would overclocking be present in the entire ZEN lineup or just "K" units? \

Since this is AMD, what can you see AMD doing to mess up their launch? I.e, what weakness are they going to try hide/obfuscate or what strength are they going to overpromise on?
 
This seems very promising , and I'll definitely be interested to see what they bring out next year, vendor wise as well as SKU wise. But my only question, what was the point of putting the bios on the chip itself? Any actual advantage? Or was it more just Bill in accounting thought it would be a fun exercise? Just curious as I don't exactly have that knowledge :)
 
Performance wise is it closer to i7 6700 or the big boy 6800/6900 family of SKU's?

I dibs your first AM4/Zen kits you put up
Hey! That's a no-no. They are all mine. The first 2 or 3 bundles, I am greedy for AMD Zen like that. You can get the 4th or so. We cool?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
 

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