Discussion AMD Ryzen MegaThread! FAQ and Resources

[James Mason]

John Taylor, a spokesman for Advanced Micro Devices and vice president at Worldwide Marketing, told CNBC: "There are a few gaming oriented sites that have expressed some disappointment over gaming performance at low resolution. This is a matter of optimization by those games on Ryzen. The CPU performance shines through strongly in every CPU test reviewers have run."

True, but the same argument could have been made for the FX 8300s as well.

 

[Eximo]

Surely the 4c8t ryzen will be the 'gaming' chip with similar performance as the 8c at half the price of the 7700k?

Perhaps, depends on how it fairs against i5s. If SMT turns out to be a hindrance than it is basically a 4C chip.

Still a better upgrade path though, which I think will swing the low end towards AMD almost exclusively.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Surely the 4c8t ryzen will be the 'gaming' chip with similar performance as the 8c at half the price of the 7700k?

Perhaps, depends on how it fairs against i5s. If SMT turns out to be a hindrance than it is basically a 4C chip.

Still a better upgrade path though, which I think will swing the low end towards AMD almost exclusively.

Exactly. right now its 'disappointing' in that its got a 40-100% increase in FPS over an 8370, which is great. the i5 like max fps is not horrible, so if the 6c/12t and 4c/8t have similar performance (EG: similar thread usage to the 16t) then those will be great value as a gaming chip, coming in a little cheaper than an i5. plus bios fixes will help a bit

 

[thegentlewoman]

After one has someone has spent 1000 dollars for a machine (CPU component by Intel) that is (almost) reached by a starting price one of 500 THERE IS LIKE 0,000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that that Human will refrain and say publicly to other people (or at least me that I am honest, but today being honest is equalized by people to be stupid) hey I did this huge purchase at the time now I feel betrayed by intel or things like that.

Nobody will ever be refraining from the money someone has spent on something. We are way to detatched from Nature and bluntness and honesty to say that. So I do expect actually much more intel people coming here and disrupting (or anywere the AMD work... and what they are doing also benefits Intel actually because it boosts the sales of everyone not just of AMD) ... REMEMBER THIS.

By paradox:

consider if AMD was reaching 1000 USD Intel piece and passing it all in all performance: what do you think people would say?
There would still be hundreds of not just fan boys but Stubborn dishonest people that just can't grow up and tell themselves, hey I have been brutalized by a company ...

Still a 500 Dollars CPU is OUT OF the MArket. As in MOST REVIEWS is stated correctly. We are paying 500 CPU that should be launched at way lower prices but why we do this?

I tell you why ? And it's not the fault of Intel this time.
It's because we are in Singularity Era and we are paying the huge risk these companies are paying for investing in long run projects in an era where Finance has (unfortunately) it all and decides who wins who dies just by naming it...

There is a whole need to go back to redesign our communities and systems and AMD is working that way, we need to ask this to Intel too. We are in singularity, if we want this singularity to go well we need to cooperate all together. This is not a game. It is very complex but it has HUGE opportunities.

Agree with cdrfk thesis ... very wise point and actually almost completely fact based if not completely.

ma'am those are quite long posts but it's not me who said the r7 1800x is the fastest 8core in the market. Ask Lisa Su (look up the video). the monogamer/streamer argument is quite invalid. i mean which is the majority? because if AMD's priority are the streamers who occupies a very small niche then there's something wrong with how AMD is being run.

i just hope the r5 6c can OC to 4.5ghz with ease to compensate for the 2 missing cores if i were to buy it if i'd go 1440p.

4.5 (it is said everywhere) No Amd did not lie to no one and won't reach that. Who makes a CPU at 500 / of your currency \ we are 600 euro and believe me with 600 euro is a lot more then 500 dollars btw )- ?
Nobody does. So AMD has the best even if the price is really high (but we are in singularity = means lot of challenges and opportunites for all, without this singularity era AMD would have not been allowed to come back in). This should be clear to all.

Answer:
It simply won't. The logic is buy the best CPU with ryzen (said in a review), buy the best cooler, that is what we know so far FOR SURE. It's not anymore buy the best MOBO and then get the rest best over it not ever in the world either "buy a lower cpu and OC as never seen before to get better then top notch line". No.
There is no other way out. No hope on that. If u are a gamer, make a Steam machine with Amd multicore good for VR, or just do a pc with intel or a Laptop msi or again a Steam machine w intel. I am not a woman just because I have a female implying name... we are alle a "We" ... single gender, we are not gender, we are not phusical stuff, we are soul first of all and experience. gender stuff is obsolete like my 12 years old computer... 😉

The market is a fact, we know gamers are a niche (I mean the top 1080 4k super bla bla bla is just like a small niche, those who are fostering with more then 200 mln (now?) star citizen crowdfunding are little and big rich guys and also non gamers who wanna be stake holding the project but just to let you know it's rich niche the top players.

Amd refers to all the rest of the market... this is clear also from reviews, no real discussion on this.
u r right, posts are too long.

 

[thegentlewoman]

I am really interested what kind of Cooling system you would put on Ryzen I think I am going for European Noctua to support our design and market and khaki really looks military pendant well with the Olive drab green of the Case.
Some say Kraken (the name of the sucking waters inside Caves ... have u ever experienced them? Suggest not but have a look in caves, it changes your life and mind), some other say H100i 280 mm (isn't it too much?).
Maybe we still have no clue if these are enough but I see already pc build with them in retail configurations ...

How much power you need to power these coolers?

But I have to say wh3resmycar .. for sure 1600X will be one good shot for the Gamer mission u and many others are looking for... it will be under 300$ price.

My question is to all: What are the ITX working with AM4 socket? Because that is what is also interesting. Building s.c. Steam machines...
So far Vr games though there is only Eve valkirie and if u enable Elite dangerous VR mode ... Worth of mention right?

Found this on Corsair Coolers compatibility: https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cases_cooling/corsair_releases_socket_am4_compatibility_info/1

 

[thegentlewoman]

It's not really clear to me what does it need to have a 100 fps in a game or even 150 ... anyway, if you need competition if you earn money it does count, how many do? The e sport compartment is growing wildly but still I can't understand what people look for?

One of the main issue is that the CPU uses up over 155 W when in full use, (1800X review - pcgame dixit) . Said this , Ryzen Technology still will need to be seen in a completely mature environment of software, firmware, games, hardware TAILORED (a huge error to consider this a detail) to the HW we are talking about.
And (gamers "hard core minded") are still "leaving behind" GFX (factor, which is bigger then Intel or Ryzen or the X factor put together, the GFX is everything ...) coming out from both nividia and especially AMD in 2017 and 2018... I really don't understand why we speak about just for the sake of top gamers and not for also those who don't have 1000 $ to spend ... The objective has been reached. There is competition, and no, the gamers Besides "We are the ones who talk too much here in forums and online" we are not the main aim (fortunately) of everything.

I hope there will be a much wider talk here and evaluation on something will not be bounded to how something performs for games (also because we can't actually say nothing so far) games do not use (ALL) those multi threading (NOW), it's "new" technology. (I can even remove the " " ... the quotes, because actually we all know and have seen it is new)

To answer the question there is a point and I wish somebody will care for a second to this question:
Let's go check the performance of games (since they are so "central" )with INTEL, when INTEL came out with their new technology, let's see how games performance relatively to GFX available at the time and today HOW MUCH THESE PERFORMANCE HAVE IMPROVED OR NOT SO IMPROVED (FOR INTEL) - Who will do this will make the Review of the Era... it's a hard work because the GFX card and relativity needs to be put a side for the reader of such data\review to make the most objective assumptions. But this would be a good Predictive and also serious way to judge now HOW AMD RYZEN performs. If we take INTEL now and how it performs now we are just like hitting the wall like donkeys... and yes we are donkeys.

THAT is THE KEY, that will give a Objective benchmarck, instead of using guts or hiding behind maths and data, you need a little of Humanities studies I guess... to ask the good questions: the same reason why all these Data analysts are TOTALLY lost without philosophers and those whos tudies humanities is this one. They can't use well their head understanding how to really use well these data. stop hitting the wall, there are doors and windows, and there are keys and handles to open them...

Use the archives use history otherwise you are just lost and you don't understand ... or actually what you all say has no actual meaning if we are not able to remember.

The Anamnesis process is important.

I mean... just 5 days ago on steam there is a game that came out called "Mordor" (the new episode) in pre purchase. It's the first game I see that says it requires 8 gb but reccomends 16gb of Ram .. so come on, don't exaggerate. Most games don't even use 5gb,.. not even arma... and those that need 16 or more ar hard to come out Look escaping from tarkov or Star citizen .. because work is needed and it's long and we are in singularity era.

Said all this, I think it's really silly to think AMD did not planned and DEEPLY studied all this with a huge strategy. If you don't believe in politics and strategy anymore and just finance and do it know or die, then just stick to Intel, we will all pay for that because we need competition, but if you believe in projects and ethic and saving money I believe AMD has my heart.

 

[french toast]

The gaming performance is software based, likely a combination of bios and game optimization for the uarch, according to lisa su, all games are optimized for intel atm.
Just look at joker productions 1700 vs 770k gaming review, r7 1700 @3.9ghz trades blows with 5ghz 7700k across 10 games.
He used gigabyte mobo and their bios seems to be better.

Anyway lived up to the hype with the usual caveats for a new platform, performance and efficiency is excellent, software resolve the rest.

 

[Onus]

After reading reviews from multiple sources, my initial thought was to be a little disappointed at the relatively lackluster performance in games, but I'm feeling better about it the more I think about it.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

After reading reviews from multiple sources, my initial thought was to be a little disappointed at the relatively lackluster performance in games, but I'm feeling better about it the more I think about it.

I've said this before elsewhere, but Ryzen is offering near i7 performance at much more competitive price to performance ratio. No it doesn't trump Intel's processors, but the new architecture offers a legitimate argument against choosing Intel in terms of value. It is still early days. BIOS updates and driver updates could help the Ryzen platform. At the same time, Intel could slash prices and take a bite in their margins or AMD could miss production estimates or quality targets causing retail prices to far exceed the MSRP.

From a consumer perspective Ryzen is a win. It has brought competition back to the market, and for that everyone should rejoice.

 

[thegentlewoman]

Super agree with johnny5 down to earth opinion.
I asked at page 9 I guess about CAS .. CL the Ram latiency. It is said that 2666 will be max accepted (so far from MOBO and CPU) we are not talking of APU so far. But Here is an answer which I consider I guess Definitive until there is more to be known and firmware bios updates on Am4 that will change the thngs:

Cas doesn't affect nothing. Just Apu and of course those who bench. (I do it for real not in virtual world) - if what is inside this link is true.
Legit?
http://www.overclock.net/t/1545706/cas-12-ddr4-2133-or-cas-15-ddr4-2800-legit-timings/10#post_23669162

 

[cdrkf]

After reading reviews from multiple sources, my initial thought was to be a little disappointed at the relatively lackluster performance in games, but I'm feeling better about it the more I think about it.

Yeah my take is- the gaming performance is a big jump from the existing FX parts in most cases. The thing is, these results (including multiple core count configs of Intel parts as well) do highlight just how little performance gain there is in many of these games with thread counts over 8- as a result I'm expecting the R5 parts (which are supposed to be a mix of 4c / 8t and 6c / 12t parts at similar clock speeds) are going to offer exactly the same gaming capability in these tests- at a much lower cost.

Provided that is the case, AMD will have a competitive gaming chip which comes in under the price of the equivalent Intel- whilst the higher core count parts are there for content creators and so on (which is basically what Intel offer with the mainstream and high end platforms respectively). The big sell on Ryzen however is the fact that the whole range exists on one platform- you can start out with an entry level chip for gaming, then spring for the 8c / 16t part down the road. With Intel you'd have to buy a new motherboard on top of the already expensive chip if you want to upgrade past 8 threads.

 

[maxalge]

After reading reviews from multiple sources, my initial thought was to be a little disappointed at the relatively lackluster performance in games, but I'm feeling better about it the more I think about it.

I've said this before elsewhere, but Ryzen is offering near i7 performance at much more competitive price to performance ratio. No it doesn't trump Intel's processors, but the new architecture offers a legitimate argument against choosing Intel in terms of value. It is still early days. BIOS updates and driver updates could help the Ryzen platform. At the same time, Intel could slash prices and take a bite in their margins or AMD could miss production estimates or quality targets causing retail prices to far exceed the MSRP.

From a consumer perspective Ryzen is a win. It has brought competition back to the market, and for that everyone should rejoice.

isnt the i7 7700k cheaper though?


from the reviews if you have a modern i5 there is not point switching for gaming



they also seem to be basically tapped out overclocking overhead wise out of the box as well


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTS7LxL19I4

 

[salgado18]

Compared to a 6900K in gaming it does typically similar. I fail to see how that is at all disappointing?

I guess we must be seeing different reviews

Spoiler

Thanks for the compilation, juan. That tells me two things:

1. Ryzen 7 1800X has ~81% the performance of the i7 6900k in games.

2. Apart from Ashes of the Singularity, either they both produce similar performance, or average FPS is above 100, which is great, and more than most people need even for VR. Either way, there's not a single game that would give a bad experience with either.

3. All benchmarks should be revisited once the SMT issue is resolved (1800X underperforms badly on Ashes compared to the 6900k, which is very wrong).

 

[-Fran-]

isnt the i7 7700k cheaper though?


from the reviews if you have a modern i5 there is not point switching for gaming



they also seem to be basically tapped out overclocking overhead wise out of the box as well


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTS7LxL19I4

Looking at the numbers from all reviews I've seen today, I can confidently say I don't need to upgrade for games from my 2700K@4.6Ghz.

If I wanted to spend half the time it takes to encode/reencode stuff, I'd go Ryezn now, but an extra 1-2 minutes don't really justify spending so much money on a whole new platform.

That being said, I still believe it will be a very good upgrade from my HTPC's A8 3800 when DRidge arrives (the APU).

I hope that conversation about problems with the IMC/Cache/stuff don't affect or get fixed before the APU releases 😛

Cheers!

EDIT: Updated Quote...

 

[Redneck5439]

The true and only shortcoming with Ryzen, at this stage seems to be gaming. Ryzen as a workstation is a powerhouse and every bit the equal and perhaps better than the i7 6900K which is twice the price. That alone is reason to call Ryzen a success. Intel should be very worried about the server market with the raw multi-core performance of Ryzen. As far as why Ryzen is loosing FPS a closer look into its benchmark numbers might shed some light.

Ryzen in Cinebench R15 beats the i7 6900K in both single and mulit-core testing and even gives the i7 6950X a run for its money. So why then is it loosing FPS in game and coming up a little short there? If we look at 3DMark, 7-Zip, and Geekbench we can start to see the main issue Ryzen is facing right now. Ryzen is a beast with physics scores indicating that it has very strong floating point performance, however its integer performance is lacking. In Geekbench Ryzen 1800X scores a floating point score the equal of the i7 6900K however has 34% slower integer performance. This is directly related to gameplay as integer performance is important to games and could explain the hit it takes in FPS. It is also unknown at this time if Ryzen has a relatively weak memory controller, which could also explain the lower than anticipated game scores.

Right now gaming is going to be hampered on Ryzen until the "bugs" can be ironed out, however in its current state the Ryzen R7 1800X is still a capable gamer. Where Ryzen truly shines is as a workstation or server, easily the equal of the much more expensive i7 6900K.

I fully expect AMD to make driver updates and fix any issues that are software related. We may even see a new stronger memory controller being incorporated into processors in coming months. The integer performance of the R7 may be why AMD held back the release of the R5 and R3 processors. AMD may already have a fix in the works and wanted the 4 core 8 thread and 6 core 12 thread processors to have the issues addressed before launch as they are going to be the true gaming processors. Not too many people buy a 8 core 16 thread processor for gaming, the true gaming processors are the 4 core and to a lesser extent 6 core processors. I fully expect by the time they hit the market AMD will have its integer performance where it needs to be and hopefully be able to raise the clock speeds to close the gap with Kaby Lake.

 

[french toast]

The true and only shortcoming with Ryzen, at this stage seems to be gaming. Ryzen as a workstation is a powerhouse and every bit the equal and perhaps better than the i7 6900K which is twice the price. That alone is reason to call Ryzen a success. Intel should be very worried about the server market with the raw multi-core performance of Ryzen. As far as why Ryzen is loosing FPS a closer look into its benchmark numbers might shed some light.

Ryzen in Cinebench R15 beats the i7 6900K in both single and mulit-core testing and even gives the i7 6950X a run for its money. So why then is it loosing FPS in game and coming up a little short there? If we look at 3DMark, 7-Zip, and Geekbench we can start to see the main issue Ryzen is facing right now. Ryzen is a beast with physics scores indicating that it has very strong floating point performance, however its integer performance is lacking. In Geekbench Ryzen 1800X scores a floating point score the equal of the i7 6900K however has 34% slower integer performance. This is directly related to gameplay as integer performance is important to games and could explain the hit it takes in FPS. It is also unknown at this time if Ryzen has a relatively weak memory controller, which could also explain the lower than anticipated game scores.

Right now gaming is going to be hampered on Ryzen until the "bugs" can be ironed out, however in its current state the Ryzen R7 1800X is still a capable gamer. Where Ryzen truly shines is as a workstation or server, easily the equal of the much more expensive i7 6900K.

I fully expect AMD to make driver updates and fix any issues that are software related. We may even see a new stronger memory controller being incorporated into processors in coming months. The integer performance of the R7 may be why AMD held back the release of the R5 and R3 processors. AMD may already have a fix in the works and wanted the 4 core 8 thread and 6 core 12 thread processors to have the issues addressed before launch as they are going to be the true gaming processors. Not too many people buy a 8 core 16 thread processor for gaming, the true gaming processors are the 4 core and to a lesser extent 6 core processors. I fully expect by the time they hit the market AMD will have its integer performance where it needs to be and hopefully be able to raise the clock speeds to close the gap with Kaby Lake.

Bravo , well said.

 

[Redneck5439]

I found something interesting when it comes to overclocking the R7 1800X. Most of the reviewers I read were saying Ryzen couldn't overclock very well and they seemed to "hit the wall" at 3.9Ghz, not even hitting 4Ghz on all 8 cores. However I came across this web site:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3xs-ryzen-7-overclocked-bundle-amd-1800x-asus-x370-pro-16gb-corsair-ddr4-corsair-h100i

They are offering a R7 1800X "professionally" overclocked to 4.2Ghz in a bundle with motherboard and cooler. It begs the question, if they can do it why can't any of the reviewers?

Apparently the R7 1800X isn't quite the "horrible" overclocker that is quoted in so many reviews that came out today. 4.2Ghz on all 8 cores isn't a bad overclock at all.

 

[Nope 1151]

There was an AMA on reddit today. Take a look at some of the comments:
reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def8b8h/

Now this:
reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def7o5z/

And this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def4z6s/

Tl;DR: 6c/12t confirmed. Lisa confirms that they tried to get reviewers to test with a GPU bottleneck.
Also, note the top voted comment about opensource in the thread.

 

[-Fran-]

Holy cow... That AMA has a lot of interesting information, lol.

Thanks for the link!

Cheers!

 

[gamerk316]

Lisa confirms that they tried to get reviewers to test with a GPU bottleneck.

Translation: they tried to get reviews in a situation where the gaming performance would be equitable to Intel. Meaning they knew about the problem ahead of time.

My suspicion is the same thing that affected Bulldozer chips is happening again: Developers use the CPUID HTT bit to identify a CPU with Hyprethreading capabilities in order to optimize thread design. AMD doesn't have a functional equivalent. So as far as the OS/programs are concerned, all the CPU cores are identical, and you WILL end up with the classical case of having a paired physical and logical core doing large amounts of CPU work at the same time, resulting in performance loss.

I noted this problem with the original Bulldozer launch, and I'm noting it again now. AMD needs to either create a new CPU ID field specifically for them, or better yet (for legacy program reasons) just re-use the CPUID field for Hyperthreading to indicate a CPU that has SMT capabilities.

 

[Nope 1151]

Good point @gamerk316, have you seen this one too?
https://i.redd.it/jubet4ozk1jy.png

 

[Redneck5439]

There was an AMA on reddit today. Take a look at some of the comments:
reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def8b8h/

Now this:
reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def7o5z/

And this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def4z6s/

Tl;DR: 6c/12t confirmed. Lisa confirms that they tried to get reviewers to test with a GPU bottleneck.
Also, note the top voted comment about opensource in the thread.

Both AMD and Intel request reviewers to benchmark strange things. Testing a bottleneck is only going to show that all the processors hit the bottleneck around the same place. It could be a way of showing that unlike the old FX Piledriver processors that would bottleneck very easily the new Ryzen processors bottleneck around the same place that Intel offerings do.

Its no worse than reviewers comparing the 8 core 16 thead lower clocked R7 1800X to the i7 7700K in single thread and gaming benchmarks. Its no worse than comparing the 8 core 16 thread R7 1800X to the 10 core 20 thread i7 6950X. I saw reviews that went into great detail telling how the R7 1800X was outperformed in games by the higher clocked i7 7700K, something that everyone should have already known, and that it was outperformed by the i7 6950X, again something everyone should have already known. The best fair comparison is the FX 1800X vs the i7 6900K where the AMD processor is the better workstation processor and the Intel is the better gamer (at least for now, we will have to see if AMD can address their integer performance and maybe incorporate a better memory controller).

 

[Redneck5439]

Lisa confirms that they tried to get reviewers to test with a GPU bottleneck.

Translation: they tried to get reviews in a situation where the gaming performance would be equitable to Intel. Meaning they knew about the problem ahead of time.

My suspicion is the same thing that affected Bulldozer chips is happening again: Developers use the CPUID HTT bit to identify a CPU with Hyprethreading capabilities in order to optimize thread design. AMD doesn't have a functional equivalent. So as far as the OS/programs are concerned, all the CPU cores are identical, and you WILL end up with the classical case of having a paired physical and logical core doing large amounts of CPU work at the same time, resulting in performance loss.

I noted this problem with the original Bulldozer launch, and I'm noting it again now. AMD needs to either create a new CPU ID field specifically for them, or better yet (for legacy program reasons) just re-use the CPUID field for Hyperthreading to indicate a CPU that has SMT capabilities.

+1 never thought of that, but you have a very good point.

 

[Onus]

There's no voting in this thread, but fwiw, Redneck, I think you've made some entirely agreeable points in your posts.

 

[-Fran-]

Translation: they tried to get reviews in a situation where the gaming performance would be equitable to Intel. Meaning they knew about the problem ahead of time.

My suspicion is the same thing that affected Bulldozer chips is happening again: Developers use the CPUID HTT bit to identify a CPU with Hyprethreading capabilities in order to optimize thread design. AMD doesn't have a functional equivalent. So as far as the OS/programs are concerned, all the CPU cores are identical, and you WILL end up with the classical case of having a paired physical and logical core doing large amounts of CPU work at the same time, resulting in performance loss.

I noted this problem with the original Bulldozer launch, and I'm noting it again now. AMD needs to either create a new CPU ID field specifically for them, or better yet (for legacy program reasons) just re-use the CPUID field for Hyperthreading to indicate a CPU that has SMT capabilities.

You're jumping the gun there, gamerk. In the AMA they said they asked for them as additional, not to replace them; or at least it is implied in the answer given:

"We give reviewers a full suite of benchmarks and games to test and we think it's important to test gaming performance across all resolutions including 4K, 1440p, and 1080p".

And yeah, SMT was not going to work right out of the box in games and all applications that haven't been specifically patched for AMD's new implementation. It is good that there's already precedent set by Intel back in the early days of HT, otherwise AMD would be being roasted now.

Cheers!