AMD Unveils Zen Microarchitecture, Demos Summit Ridge Performance

[uglyduckling81]

I just hope they don't go with "well our chips are better so we can price them at the same level" mentality.
Would be amazing to see them come in with a chip comparable to Intel's at half the cost. Instead of $1k make it $500.
Win over the market with amazing products at amazing prices.
Then even the hard core Intel Fanboys would have to think about whether to save money or stay loyal to company they have nothing to do with.
I'll always buy the best available at my price point at a given time. I would be happy with that to finally be AMD again. Been almost 20 years since I owned an AMD CPU.
1998 AMD K6-2 --- Intel --- AMD Zen 2016/2017.
Time for an upgrade from Sandybridge this year.

 

[RedJaron]

Actually it was Sandy Bridge to Sandy Bridge V.2 to Ivy Bridge to Haswell to Haswell refresh to Broadwell to Skylake. Though broadwell was delayed until 2 weeks before Skylake drop sealing its fate as a DOA line some still bought it and some notebooks used it as well. If you figure there was some improvement perhaps as low as 2% improvement you still have 6 increase in performance after the introduction of the Sandy Bridge iCore CPUs.

I intentionally left Broadwell off because as you said, it's insignificant. Any IPC improvement from HW to BW is already included in considering the improvement from HW to SL.

SB V2 and HW Refresh ( Devil's Canyon ) were only power and thermal management improvements that allowed higher clocks. We're talking micro architecture and IPC, not clock rate, thus they aren't applicable.

Yes, Broadwell counts as an architectural improvement. However, that only takes it four steps. Not five as originally asserted, and definitely not the six you are implying. The overall math stays the same. SL is about 26% faster in terms of IPC than SB, not 50%.

 

[RedJaron]

Would be amazing to see them come in with a chip comparable to Intel's at half the cost. Instead of $1k make it $500.

Why would they do that? As IE said, they've got lots of debt they've got to make up for. If you have a product equal in quality to that of a competitor and the market supports the competitor selling it at $X, why would you cut your margins so much? A low margin/high volume approach only works for products that move a LOT of merchandise already. The HEDT market isn't big enough to do that. It doesn't matter if you make a Broadwell-E killer at $500 when the vast majority of people are spending $250 or less on their CPUs.

Not only that, but you're assuming $500 / chip would be enough to make a profit. Intel has its own fab. Do you think AMD's manufacturing costs are substantially lower than Intel's?

 

[irish_adam]

They will sell at a lower cost to grab market share the same as they are doing with their GPU's. why sell 1,000 CPU's at $1000 when you can sell 10,000 at $500, the actual price difference for manufacturing the high end chips compared to the lower end ones is not that much as they tend to use up the same amount of silicon so as long as the profit is good why not just sell as many as you can make as fast as you can make them

 

[InvalidError]

the actual price difference for manufacturing the high end chips compared to the lower end ones is not that much as they tend to use up the same amount of silicon

No, the Celeron, Pentium and i3 use a two cores die while the mainstream i5, i7 and single-socket Xeons use a larger quad core die. The RX480/470 also uses a larger die than the RX460. Same goes between the GTX1060 and GTX1070/1080.

AMD will have at least three different dies: 16C32T and 8C16T for Zen FX which I doubt they will artificially reduce below 6C12T, 4C8T (or 6C12T if AMD really wants to spice things up in the high-end mainstream) for APUs, and possibly 2C4T for low-end APUs, embedded devices, laptops, etc.

 

[JQB45]

@IRISH_ADAM - I'd rather make 10% from 100 then 1% from a 1000, all businesses have that mentality.

 

[RedJaron]

Irish, first, I didn't say not to sell lower than the competition; I said not to be stupid about it. Assuming they can cut prices by half to solve all their woes is ignorant. Please show me one product that experienced a ten-fold sale increase by dropping price 50%.

You and others are simply pulling numbers out of your hind-quarters. We don't know what actual manufacturing cost is ( R&D, lithography, yield, culling, and binning ), so we don't know what the break even numbers for units sold or margin per unit need to be. Continued use of ass-pull numbers isn't going to help much. If they can offer the same level of performance as a comparable Intel chip for 10% less money, they will be more than sufficient to win back significant market share.

 

[InvalidError]

@IRISH_ADAM - I'd rather make 10% from 100 then 1% from a 1000, all businesses have that mentality.

The gross margin on $1000 chips may be over 100% but you sell less than 1/10th as many $400+ chips as you sell mainstream chips for $100-250 with a 40% gross margin. For every $500 of gross profit you earn from the high-end, you earn $700 selling mainstream-oriented parts.

Companies usually want to optimize their overall profit. If AMD and Intel killed everything below $500, most of us would say "eff it, my 3-5 years old PC is nearly just as fast most of the time anyway" and that would be no good for AMD and Intel either.

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

If AMD delivers Broadwell performance or more for fraction of what Intel counterpart cost, they got my money.

Not even if hell froze over, methinks. Like any other company, AMD isn't in business to lose money. We can expect Zen's various sku's to be priced competitively, as they should be. Besides, it's partly due to Intel's good graces, and the upcoming cooperation between Intel and AMD in other areas, that AMD's "Zen" (and their future cpu's/apu's) will even have a chance to enjoy some success.

 

[anbello262]

IfZen happens to have at least similar IPC, but AMD keep their policy of 'Unlocked multipliers for all chips', then they will get a considerable share of the gaming market, and support from the community.
After all, artificial market segmentation is as hated as DRM in many communities.

 

[uglyduckling81]

Irish, first, I didn't say not to sell lower than the competition; I said not to be stupid about it. Assuming they can cut prices by half to solve all their woes is ignorant. Please show me one product that experienced a ten-fold sale increase by dropping price 50%.

You and others are simply pulling numbers out of your hind-quarters. We don't know what actual manufacturing cost is ( R&D, lithography, yield, culling, and binning ), so we don't know what the break even numbers for units sold or margin per unit need to be. Continued use of ass-pull numbers isn't going to help much. If they can offer the same level of performance as a comparable Intel chip for 10% less money, they will be more than sufficient to win back significant market share.

Your right we don't know all the costs. What we do know though is Intel has been bending us all over for years with their monopoly of the highest performing chips.
Also no one expected GTX 980 level of performance to suddenly appear for $200 until AMD did it in the last month or so. We were all just chugging along accepting Nvidia to ream us for $550 for that privilege.
Competition is good for the consumer. Praise AMD for their efforts to not only give us choice in the CPU market but also the GPU market. Without them making compelling products at competitive prices we are at the whim of the ever increasing greed of their competition.
As a note to my unbiased nature my PC has an Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU.
I welcome AMD to show me a viable option for my upcoming upgrade in the next few months.
7700K + 1070 is no longer a certainty and that's a good thing.

 

[RedJaron]

Your right we don't know all the costs. What we do know though is Intel has been bending us all over for years with their monopoly of the highest performing chips.

If you don't agree with Intel's prices, then spend your money elsewhere. Intel has been pricing their products where they will sell in the market.

Also no one expected GTX 980 level of performance to suddenly appear for $200 until AMD did it in the last month or so.

That's a gross exaggeration, if not blatant lie. The RX 480 only approaches, but never meets or overtakes, the 980 in a few AMD sponsored titles. Everywhere else it trails, often by double-digit percentages.

We were all just chugging along accepting Nvidia to ream us for $550 for that privilege.

First off, NVidia can price their products wherever they want. If there's nothing on the market that competes with it, why should NVidia not sell it for what it's worth? And it's worth is determined by the market and what prices consumers are willing to play. Complaining like this smacks of entitlement, as though you're shaming NVidia for not pricing their top performing cards for mainstream consumption. Stop expecting to get a Porsche for the price of a Civic. Were you shaming AMD when the 7970 had the crown and it was selling at the same $550? Give me a break.

Second, no, you can find GTX 1070s that outperform the 980 for about $430 right now. The 1060 is almost at 980 levels in many games, and you can get that for under $300. So I'd say 980-level performance is about $350 right now.

Competition is good for the consumer.

Strawman. Neither I nor anyone else in this thread has said otherwise.

Praise AMD for their efforts to not only give us choice in the CPU market but also the GPU market.

Again, strawman. When have I derided Zen at all?

Without them making compelling products at competitive prices we are at the whim of the ever increasing greed of their competition.

See, comments like this are ether incredibly disingenuous, or mind-boggingly ignorant, not to mention exasperatingly fanboy-ish. Stop acting as though Intel and NVidia are the greedy, unsavory robber barons while AMD is the altruistic Robin Hood here to save us. They are all businesses. And businesses exist to make money. They are all motivated by the desire to increase their sales and revenue. They are all motivated by, for lack of a better word, greed.

As a note to my unbiased nature...

I've always felt it was better to simply frame my arguments truthfully, logically, and honestly rather than to somehow cite credentials for how unbiased I am. If you feel the need to specifically call attention to your neutral position, then I say you failed in that regard. However, your previous arguments are clearly in contrast with this last claim. An unbiased person would not be treating Intel and NVidia as the evil oligarchs while AMD is the plucky contender refusing to bow to The Man.

 

[uglyduckling81]

Your right we don't know all the costs. What we do know though is Intel has been bending us all over for years with their monopoly of the highest performing chips.

If you don't agree with Intel's prices, then spend your money elsewhere. Intel has been pricing their products where they will sell in the market.

Also no one expected GTX 980 level of performance to suddenly appear for $200 until AMD did it in the last month or so.

That's a gross exaggeration, if not blatant lie. The RX 480 only approaches, but never meets or overtakes, the 980 in a few AMD sponsored titles. Everywhere else it trails, often by double-digit percentages.

We were all just chugging along accepting Nvidia to ream us for $550 for that privilege.

First off, NVidia can price their products wherever they want. If there's nothing on the market that competes with it, why should NVidia not sell it for what it's worth? And it's worth is determined by the market and what prices consumers are willing to play. Complaining like this smacks of entitlement, as though you're shaming NVidia for not pricing their top performing cards for mainstream consumption. Stop expecting to get a Porsche for the price of a Civic. Were you shaming AMD when the 7970 had the crown and it was selling at the same $550? Give me a break.

Second, no, you can find GTX 1070s that outperform the 980 for about $430 right now. The 1060 is almost at 980 levels in many games, and you can get that for under $300. So I'd say 980-level performance is about $350 right now.

Competition is good for the consumer.

Strawman. Neither I nor anyone else in this thread has said otherwise.

Praise AMD for their efforts to not only give us choice in the CPU market but also the GPU market.

Again, strawman. When have I derided Zen at all?

Without them making compelling products at competitive prices we are at the whim of the ever increasing greed of their competition.

See, comments like this are ether incredibly disingenuous, or mind-boggingly ignorant, not to mention exasperatingly fanboy-ish. Stop acting as though Intel and NVidia are the greedy, unsavory robber barons while AMD is the altruistic Robin Hood here to save us. They are all businesses. And businesses exist to make money. They are all motivated by the desire to increase their sales and revenue. They are all motivated by, for lack of a better word, greed.

As a note to my unbiased nature...

I've always felt it was better to simply frame my arguments truthfully, logically, and honestly rather than to somehow cite credentials for how unbiased I am. If you feel the need to specifically call attention to your neutral position, then I say you failed in that regard. However, your previous arguments are clearly in contrast with this last claim. An unbiased person would not be treating Intel and NVidia as the evil oligarchs while AMD is the plucky contender refusing to bow to The Man.

My god, a double fan boy. I'm sorry I made you feel bad about your Nvidia/Intel power play.
The truth is they both have what is considered a monopoly of their individual markets. I have nothing against either of them but I welcome competition to keep their prices honest.
Your silly statement of buy elsewhere if you don't like the prices is exactly the problem with a one horse race. Intel have been offering the only viable product for the higher end gamer. I have to pay their over the top price to have said product.
If a competitor releases an equal product at a lower price they are going to either have to lower as well or lose market share.
Either way it's good for me as an unbiased purchaser and for you as a fanboy as the prices are lowered either way.
No need to get angry about it and all defensive.
I really don't understand why fanboys get so angry. It's not like they own the company or have any input into the company. They literally do nothing for you other than sell you a product.

 

[Wrought]

You already know what AMD is going to do price-wise with Zen from their pricing behavior with Polaris and Nvidia. You don't see Polaris GPU's at half the price of a similar performing Nvidia GPU.

 

[Immitem]

I am optimistic over what the pricing schemes for the new processors will be. If AMD manages to price the 32 core processor right and their performance is up to snuff I could potentially dig laying down the dow for a couple of them. You can never have enough cores in 3D rendering!

 

[blppt]

Back when AMD had the performance lead while Intel was desperately trying to make Netburst work, AMD had $1000 desktop chips of their own.

You dont even need to go back that far---the 9590, if memory serves was at least supposed to launch at $1k, and I think it even sold for that price a month or so after launch, before AMD cut prices drastically.

 

[TJ Hooker]

The truth is they both have what is considered a monopoly of their individual markets. I have nothing against either of them but I welcome competition to keep their prices honest.
Your silly statement of buy elsewhere if you don't like the prices is exactly the problem with a one horse race. Intel have been offering the only viable product for the higher end gamer. I have to pay their over the top price to have said product.
If a competitor releases an equal product at a lower price they are going to either have to lower as well or lose market share.
Either way it's good for me as an unbiased purchaser and for you as a fanboy as the prices are lowered either way.
No need to get angry about it and all defensive.

Yeah, absolutely no one is arguing that getting some real competition and potentially lower prices isn't a good thing. The point being made (or at least one of them) is there's no magic number that a CPU/GPU/whatever should be sold at. Companies can charge whatever they want for their products. You go on about Intel/Nvidia bending people over or reaming people, but really the only thing they've done is charge the price that the market will bear, which is apparently higher than whatever arbitrary price you've decided is fair. We can all wish that their price is lower, but that doesn't make the price they're charging wrong.

Edit: Regarding your comment about Intel being the only option for high end gaming: that may be true, but (high end) gaming is a luxury. You're choosing to have a hobby, and that hobby has certain costs associated with it. RedJaron's comment about spending your money elsewhere seems valid to me.

 

[Memhorder]

I remember when the FX-9590 was selling for a crazy $1000 when it first launched. I don't imagine them selling this new Zen for much lower than the Broadwell they are comparing it to. I could be wrong.

 

[InvalidError]

You dont even need to go back that far---the 9590, if memory serves was at least supposed to launch at $1k, and I think it even sold for that price a month or so after launch, before AMD cut prices drastically.

When the 9590 came out and failed to consistently beat Intel's i3 and i5 chips while consuming three times as much power, demand for it simply wasn't there. Most enthusiasts have realized that 5GHz stock clock frequency is largely pointless when overall performance isn't there, especially when a 8320/8350 can get you most of the way there with conservative overclocking for less than $200 including the aftermarket heatsink while using less than 200W.

 

[RedJaron]

My god, a double fan boy. I'm sorry I made you feel bad about your Nvidia/Intel power play.

Oh my. Zing! You really got me there. That snappy repartee really cut me to the core. Do I need to borrow your virtue signalling tactic and recite my system spec history for the last 20 years to prove I'm not the dreaded F word? It takes more than a few anonymous words in an online forum to ruffle my feathers.

I have nothing against either of them...

Demonstrably false. Your own words are, "What we do know though is Intel has been bending us all over for years," and, "We were all just chugging along accepting Nvidia to ream us for $550 for that privilege." So obviously you do have something against them.

Intel have been offering the only viable product for the higher end gamer.

So their competitors haven't made a compelling chip in this space for a while. Tell me again why Intel is to blame for AMD's recent design decisions? AMD took a gamble on the Bulldozer module architecture. It succeeded in parallel integer math but was much poorer in single-thread performance, floating point calculations, cache latency, memory speed, power consumption, and heat output. That's not bias, it's fact. AMD took a long time correcting course, even after it was apparent the experiment didn't work as they hoped it would. The sad part is they should have known better after seeing the exact opposite happen nearly fifteen years previous during the Pentium 4 / Athlon wars.

I have to pay their over the top price to have said product.

And I have to pay a lot of money if I want a Corvette. So what? You don't need to have their product. Again with the entitlement.

Either way it's good for me as an unbiased purchaser

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

and for you as a fanboy as the prices are lowered either way.

Once may be cute. Repeated accusations are dull and annoying, And don't forget that personal attacks and insults are against the forum ToD, so consider this your warning. Please show one place where I displayed any company in an unfair light. Show where I've railed against one or worshiped the other. Show me anywhere that I've praised or complained any company based on irrational loyalty and not on hard facts and measurable performance. I've got plenty of time, I'll wait.

No need to get angry about it and all defensive.

Text alone is devoid of any tone or inflection. Any emotion, anger or otherwise, is put there by you, aka projection. My words and arguments have been founded in logic and fact. You're the one hurling invective and calling me names.

I really don't understand why fanboys get so angry.

Pot and kettle. Do you really want me to turn this on you? Or perhaps, just perhaps, people get upset when you throw unfounded accusations at them or spread misinformation on a forum they're supposed to monitor.

It's not like they own the company or have any input into the company. They literally do nothing for you other than sell you a product.

Then perhaps you should take your own advice. You've derailed this discussion quite a bit. If you want to talk merits of individual products, micro architectural theory, or other things related to AMD's Zen demo, by all means please do so. If you're going to reduce it to an emotional rant and call people names when they challenge your ideas, I suggest you take a step back. You're on strike two, I don't recommend you try for strike three.

 

[JamesSneed]

I must admit I find it ironic so many people are getting bent over a product called Zen. Woosah

 

[Aspiring techie]

If Zen is as good as this article makes it out to be, AMD is back in the sub $250 market again.

 

[RedJaron]

I must admit I find it ironic so many people are getting bent over a product called Zen. Woosah

Ok, that's funny.

 

[InvalidError]

If Zen is as good as this article makes it out to be, AMD is back in the sub $250 market again.

More like "AMD is back in the over-$200 market."

 

[littleleo]

Ugly & Red can't we just all get along, I don't think if we disagree with each other we need to be rude and nasty. Sometimes there is no one correct point of view. Keep it fun and friendly it is good there are lots of points of views posted. I think we all need to do better to try not to insult each other or each others hind quarters.

That being said, I agree what was said before roll out the Zen already!