AMD Launches Ryzen PRO Series, Offers A Taste Of Ryzen 3

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Cromwell__

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Okay, n00b question: So if the Ryzen 5 and 7 PRO versions have the same exact specs as their non-Pro counterparts, what is the point of them? Are they completely identical, so this is 100% marketing to businesses without any actual features?
 


From the article: "Ryzen PRO models include a sandboxed ARM Cortex-A5 Secure Processor (co-processor) that manages security features. It provides a secure root of trust for the secure boot process and manages the Transparent Secure Memory Encryption (TSME) feature, among others. Memory encryption always has a performance penalty, which is a small price to pay for security-conscious organizations. AMD claims it has minimized the performance impact, which is a benefit of using a dedicated co-processor. It hasn't yet provided specific performance measurements with the feature enabled."

Also: "AMD provides a 36-month warranty period and indicates that it uses the highest-quality wafers/die for the PRO processors."
 
Is there a reason the Ryzen chips with the lower core counts aren't clocked any higher? I get why an 8 core chip's clockspeed would be thermally constrained to relatively low frequencies, but you'd think you could trivially clock a 4/4 or 4/8 chip at 4+ GHz, which would make it more competitive with Intel's 4 core CPUs.
 

g-unit1111

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The Ryzen 3s look very nice. 4 cores for the price of an Intel i3 plus overclocking ability? I'm in. Also I'm really interested in the Ryzen APUs. I'm hoping those will be the HTPC game changers that AMD is advertising.
 

bit_user

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You can bet they're going to be cheaper than comparable E3 Xeons, which generally cost only a bit more than their mainstream counterparts (until you reach the fastest couple SKUs). In other words, probably not much more than the corresponding mainstream Ryzens.

I'm interested in the Ryzen 3 PRO to upgrade my fileserver. But I might just wait for the APU version.

It strikes me as odd that the author seems to think the Ryzen 3 die includes two CCX's. Maybe one is broken/disabled. Depending on their expected volumes and defect rates of the full Ryzens, AMD could also just make single-CCX dies and fit more per wafer.
 

bit_user

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Yeah, but they'll both look the same with the heatsink on. Whatever's in your box, you can still use the Ryzen PRO photos as desktop wallpaper.
 

PaulAlcorn

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The TDP gave it away. Much like we suspected from out power testing on the lower core-count Ryzen 5 1600X, the disabled cores likely still draw power.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-1600x-cpu-review,5014-9.html


In either case, I followed up with AMD on the matter. The response came after the piece went up.

Q: Can you confirm if the Ryzen 3 PRO models have one or two CCX per chip?

A:

They have two CCXs, two cores enabled per CCX.
 

bit_user

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Thanks for that!

On the plus side, they could cherry-pick the best two cores per CCX. The down-side of that approach is that inter-CCX communication is slower than intra. See the second table (I assume its first column is mislabeled, BTW):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-7900x-skylake-x,5092-2.html
 

spdragoo

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Probably better.

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-3-1200-benchmarks-leaked/

Apparently, they're expected to benchmark in line with Ivy Bridge's best Core i5 (i5-3570K) at stock speeds. Given that Tom's still ranks that as a 1st-tier CPU along with all of the newer Core i5/i7 chips, while the Pentium G4560 is a 3rd-tier CPU (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html), I would expect a Ryzen 3 to seriously outperform the Pentium.
 

WildCard999

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Thanks for the info. Hopefully it will OC well enough to make the increased price over the G4560 worth it as a budget-mid range gaming CPU.
 

spdragoo

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That's the question, of course, although $129USD MSRP for that CPU is pretty nice. More importantly, it's going to cause fits for Intel's Kaby Lake Core i3 chips -- the comparison against the i3-7100, for example (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=3029&cmp[]=2924), is particularly telling, given that its current MSRP of $120 USD (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html) is only $10USD less than the MSRP for this Ryzen 3 1200. Being able to get a better CPU that can be used on a cheaper motherboard, while not only providing better out-of-the-box performance & a good upgrade path? I wouldn't be surprised to see the Ryzen 3 dethrone the i3 from the budget CPU pick...
 

bit_user

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Not only the PRO series!


I think they used the same memory on both systems - theirs and the competition. If they were comparing with Xeons, then I'd expect the answer would be "yes".
 

Clariska

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I was considering to go budget Ryzen cpu.Already went budget graphics last week although i don't game game.This would be perfect.Tbh intels way op here.I compared the Ryzen X1700 to the i9 X7900 upgrade kits.Including cpu/mobo and 8 gb of memory(upgradable for a hefty fee).The ryzen would cost 9k.The i9 would cost 25k+.I really think intel made a mistake as there's no price to performance ratio anymore.Who the hell has that kinda money for a pc xD.
 

bit_user

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Which currency is this?

I'm sure your observation holds for all currencies, but I'm just curious.
 

giorov

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"The Ryzen 3 models are the first Zen-based AMD products to come to market without the company's SMT technology."

I'd argue the opposite. We can see from the slides the RP3s have 4 cores 4 threads, while the RP5s have 6 cores 12 threads and the RP7s have 8 cores 16 threads... so the only one without multithreading here is the RP3s. Am I wrong?
 

kyotokid

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...only dual channel memory support, so for memory intensive operations like CPU rendering, still a "no-go". How is this considered "professional"?

Waiting on Threadripper.
 

Uhm, so SMT is Simultaneous MultiThreading, and it says in the quote "The Ryzen 3 models are the first Zen-based AMD products to come to market without the company's SMT technology.", which you then reiterate with "so the only one without multithreading here is the RP3s" So... yes, you are wrong by arguing "the opposite", since you're arguing the same(?).
 

bit_user

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The article explained what features made it professional, if you really want an answer. It is somewhat akin to the difference between Intel's i5/i7 CPUs and their E3-series Xeon CPUs.

There are plenty of cases where reliability and manageability are valued, yet desktop CPU performance is all that's required. Don't confuse "professional" with big iron workstation/server hardware.
 
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