Intel Coffee Lake Vs. Ryzen: A Side-By-Side Comparison

[Guest]

We break down the key spec differences between Intel's Coffee Lake CPUs and AMD's Ryzen chips, from the top to the bottom of their product stacks.

Intel Coffee Lake Vs. Ryzen: A Side-By-Side Comparison : Read more

 

[Embra]

Why use the price from Newegg for the Ryzen 1700 (299.99) and for the 1700x walmart?? On Newegg the 1700x is 359.99, not the 467.21 quoted from Walmart. That is over $100 defifference using venders you are quoting from.

 

[bertrandsbox]

Like @EMBRA said, you've listed the 1700X as $467, but it's actually $348 (following your own link). I think you've mistakenly listed the 1700X in the article and assigned it the cost of the 1800X.

Either way, competition is heating up and it'll be interesting to see how AMD responds. I wonder do they have much flexibility to lower their prices much further, or are their margins somewhat tight already...

 

[YoAndy]

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU, ( At the end) We all benefit for these low prices.

 

[logainofhades]

Thanks AMD for finally kicking Intel into gear. The last few years have been pretty boring, CPU wise, for enthusiasts.

 

[shpankey]

Isn't Ryzen Quad channel memory also??

 

[YoAndy]

Isn't Ryzen Quad channel memory also??

Threadripper is the only AMD chip with quad channel DDR4

 

[AgentLozen]

Isn't Ryzen Quad channel memory also??

Nah, fam. I think Ryzen is only dual channel. Thread Ripper is quad channel tho.

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU. At the end we all benefit for these low prices.

I think you've summed it up really well. Intel is your best bet for gaming, where Ryzen will probably still excel in productivity software.

We definitely benefit from the newly sparked competition.

 

[Vatharian]

Please use prices from same retailers, please, not cherry-pick.

Also Intel is running money-grab, while giving nothing in return. 16 PCI Express lanes, while no economically-feasible PCIe switches are available on the market is insulting.

 

[delta5]

Comparing these Intel to AMD; why would I care about integrated graphics? If anything. I wish Intel would offer a model without graphics if it meant a gain in cooling, overclocking.

 

[fmyhr]

You should include the NUMBER of PCIe lanes in your comparison. Ryzen 7: 24 (32 with some motherboards); i7-8700: 16. Also, Ryzen supports ECC RAM with better motherboards, while i7 does not.

 

[tony.farias]

Im sorry, but who the hell quotes prices for PC components/IT equipment from WALMART ???

 

[LilDog1291]

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU, ( At the end) We all benefit for these low prices.

You have got to remember the motherboard costs. Intel doesn't care much for selling CPUs. If they did they would have made the 8000 series compatible with Z170 and Z270 chipsets. I mean look at the i7-8700 and the i7-7700. Both have a tdp of 65W.

So the real drive behind their move here is to sell motherboards because they make more money from selling the chipsets to go with the CPUs.

 

[YoAndy]

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU, ( At the end) We all benefit for these low prices.

You have got to remember the motherboard costs. Intel doesn't care much for selling CPUs. If they did they would have made the 8000 series compatible with Z170 and Z270 chipsets. I mean look at the i7-8700 and the i7-7700. Both have a tdp of 65W.

So the real drive behind their move here is to sell motherboards because they make more money from selling the chipsets to go with the CPUs.

That's incorrect.....

The real drive behind the move is to bring 6 core to mainstream users. We expected that the motherboards had to change, Intel can't made them compatible with the Z170 and Z270 because those older chipsets on the previous Mobos are designed for up to (4)four cores and 2400MHz, and new mobos are designed for up to (6)six cores and 2666MHz.

 

[FritzEiv]

Why use the price from Newegg for the Ryzen 1700 (299.99) and for the 1700x walmart?? On Newegg the 1700x is 359.99, not the 467.21 quoted from Walmart. That is over $100 defifference using venders you are quoting from.

Hey Embra (and everyone else asking about the price). When we selected this merchant, I believe it was a low price. The mechanism we use is dynamic, and I'm not sure why it's showing the wrong price right now. We're looking into it. We typically "cherry pick" (as someone else said) based on LOWEST price, not highest. As we noted in the article, there are quite often deals on the Ryzen 7 chips that give it a steeper discount as well. Thanks for point this out . . . we'll see if we can get it fixed.

 

[LilDog1291]

The real drive behind the move is to bring 6 core to mainstream users. We expected that the motherboards had to change, they cant made them compatible with the Z170 and Z270 because the older chipset on the previous Mobos are designed for up to four cores and 2400 MHz, and new mobos are designed for up to 6 cores and 2666MHz.

Intel isn't some benevolent savior of HEDT computing. They are a business. Don't mistake my intent behind what I say, I only buy Intel right now for gaming and own a 7700k myself. Any business with shareholders to report to though has to maintain a certain amount of growth for fear of losing investor interest.

This move to 6 core CPU's in the sub $400 range isn't something Intel couldn't have done a few years ago. They just had no reason to. Beside the fact that developers don't often optimize for multi-core work loads (outside media and professional work applications), they had no real competition for the last 10 years. This lack of competition caused Intel to fall into a pattern of non-innovation and only pushing the clockspeed up in their CPUs bit by bit while staying in roughly the same thermal envelope.

If you need more proof that Intel isn't out to bring high performance computing to the common man just take a look at their track record since the debut of the Sandy Bridge line:

-Intel has stopped soldering the IHS to the CPU die. Micro fractures and too small of a package are not relevant excuses with the type of thermal cycles that CPUs go through and the fact that AMD did it on the 14nm scale profitably.
-The Skylake X line introduced the dongle that you have to purchase to RAID M.2 drives if they aren't sold by intel.
-And now a new launch 9 months after the last and they claim a new chipset is required.

I don't work for Intel so maybe I'm wrong and they couldn't have done what they have done any differently. However, their bottom line is money, just like every other computing business. With the process of R&D you can't possibly still say that this release of Hexa-core processors isn't completely reactionary and the fact that it only took them 9 months isn't because they had the ability to do it at this price point all along.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU, ( At the end) We all benefit for these low prices.

We have yet to see if that IPC difference is significant enough to even be noticeable and/or really worth it. The given 25% improvement given for Coffee Lake is in ONE game, and isn't enough to call a clear winner, especially since the gain is compared to one of its own with less cores/threads. It is no different than AMD cherry-picking what games and apps it uses to make its improvement gains, which is something Intel fans call AMD out for every time. (In this case it's Intel making the claims and cherry-picked one game.)

 

[the_senate]

I wonder if Intel will come out with new i9s to go with Coffee Lake?

 

[YoAndy]

The real drive behind the move is to bring 6 core to mainstream users. We expected that the motherboards had to change, they cant made them compatible with the Z170 and Z270 because the older chipset on the previous Mobos are designed for up to four cores and 2400 MHz, and new mobos are designed for up to 6 cores and 2666MHz.

Intel isn't some benevolent savior of HEDT computing. They are a business. Don't mistake my intent behind what I say, I only buy Intel right now for gaming and own a 7700k myself. Any business with shareholders to report to though has to maintain a certain amount of growth for fear of losing investor interest.

This move to 6 core CPU's in the sub $400 range isn't something Intel couldn't have done a few years ago. They just had no reason to. Beside the fact that developers don't often optimize for multi-core work loads (outside media and professional work applications), they had not real competition for the last 10 years. This lack of competition caused Intel to fall into a pattern of non-innovation and only pushing the clockspeed up in their CPUs bit by bit while staying in roughly the same thermal envelope.

If you need more proof that Intel isn't out to bring high performance computing to the common man just take a look at their track record since the debut of the Sandy Bridge line:

-Intel has stopped soldering the IHS to the CPU die. Micro fractures and too small of a package are not relevant excuses with the type of thermal cycles that CPUs go through and the fact that AMD did it on the 14nm scale profitably.
-The Skylake X line introduced the dongle that you have to purchase to RAID M.2 drives if they aren't sold my intel.
-And now a new launch 9 months after the last and they claim a new chipset is required.

I don't work for Intel so maybe I'm wrong and they couldn't have done what they have done any differently. However, their bottom line is money, just like every other computing business. with the process of R&D you can't possibly still say that this release of Hexa-core processors isn't completely reactionary and the fact that it only took them 9 months isn't because they had the ability to do it at this price point all along.

Making chips smaller is a really difficult process, we have been talking about this in our "intel's future chips and news" thread and like Juanrga and plenty of us have noted before. Back in 2014--2015 Intel planed a 10nm Cannonlake with 4/6/8 cores for mainstream. Then found big difficulties with the 14nm node, which delayed the development of the 10nm node, forced a change on the roadmaps and introduced the new refresh cycles, with 4-core Kabylake and 6-core CoffeLake.

Scaling down to the smallest nodes is getting more and more difficult. Glofo canceled its 14nm node. TSMC and Samsung avoided the problems of dealing with a 14nm node by introducing hybrid '14nm' and '16nm' nodes based in a real 20nm substratum. Glofo canceled also the 10nm node, whereas Samsung and TSMC newest '10nm' are closer to Intel 14nm than to Intel 10nm.

 

[Embra]

@FRITZEIV I do not thank the price of a 1700x has ever been as high as $467. Just posting that figure should have made one double check. Thanks for the response.

 

[YoAndy]

Well for Gamers intel's higher performance(do to better IPC), now with affordable 6 cores, and a much higher single core speed (almost 1GHz) is a no brainer. Prices are pretty close. Looks like the core i7 8700K follows his predecessor (i7 7700K) and keeps the crown as the best gaming CPU, ( At the end) We all benefit for these low prices.

We have yet to see if that IPC difference is significant enough to even be noticeable and/or really worth it. The given 25% improvement given for Coffee Lake is in ONE game, and isn't enough to call a clear winner, especially since the gain is compared to one of its own with less cores/threads. It is no different than AMD cherry-picking what games and apps it uses to make its improvement gains, which is something Intel fans call AMD out for every time. (In this case it's Intel making the claims and cherry-picked one game.)

We don't cherry-pick games to proof that Intel's IPC still ahead of AMD, .. Its a fact that Intel's higher single core speed and IPC beats AMD in single core Workloads including most games. I like all technology in general, I don't pick any sides but I do recognize witch tech is better and for what purpose.

 

[FritzEiv]

@FRITZEIV I do not thank the price of a 1700x has ever been as high as $467. Just posting that figure should have made one double check. Thanks for the response.

We use an external call to a pricing service for each merchant (best way to explain it quickly). So when we look up the prices, and select the merchant/link to use, we plug in the link, and the price is automated via that link, using our pricing service. We view the article before publishing. And when we did so on this, the price was OK. But then from there, what gets pulled is dynamic (the price updates in real time), so sometimes we won't even know that something has changed. Anyway, obviously there's something amiss with what's being pulled, so we're changing it . . .

 

[ludaz7]

@ TONY.FARIAS
I know it doesn't seem like it, but Walmart carries about 50 million items on their online store. They have been trying to compete with Amazon as of late, even offering similar free 2-day shipping options etc.

So it is not too far out of left field to quote a Walmart price, as perhaps it was the lowest that the writers could find from one of the e-giants. I will never support them personally, but they are making waves in e-commerce whether we like it or not.

 

[spdragoo]

Huh...I don't see an IPC chart, I see an FPS chart. I suppose we can make some inferences about how cores/threads affect the performance in a single game (i.e. 2C/4T CPUs lag behind 4C/4T CPUs, & 4C/4T CPUs lag behind 4C/8T CPUs)...but it also shows some strange results here:

• 
  ■ i7-7740X is a 4C/8T CPU just like the i7-7700K, & even has the same base/Turbo speeds. But despite supporting faster DDR4 speeds & being a newer chip (7700K released in January, 7740X released in June), it somehow was slower than the 7700K?
  ■ For the Intel CPUs, apparently once you get past 4C/8T, the performance gains start really dropping off. The i3-7350K & i7-7700K have the same per-core speed, but the i7-7700K has twice the cores/threads & gets about twice the FPS. But while the i7-7820X is maybe only 5% slower per core than the 7700K (pretty close to the margin between the i5-7600K & the i7-7700K), the 7820X barely managed to get a 2% increase despite having twice the cores/threads of the 7700K. I honestly don't think Coffee Lake is going to see that much of an improvement, when its clock speeds are barely faster than the 7700K & only adds 50% more cores.

 

[YoAndy]

Huh...I don't see an IPC chart, I see an FPS chart. I suppose we can make some inferences about how cores/threads affect the performance in a single game (i.e. 2C/4T CPUs lag behind 4C/4T CPUs, & 4C/4T CPUs lag behind 4C/8T CPUs)...but it also shows some strange results here:

• 
  ■ i7-7740X is a 4C/8T CPU just like the i7-7700K, & even has the same base/Turbo speeds. But despite supporting faster DDR4 speeds & being a newer chip (7700K released in January, 7740X released in June), it somehow was slower than the 7700K?
  ■ For the Intel CPUs, apparently once you get past 4C/8T, the performance gains start really dropping off. The i3-7350K & i7-7700K have the same per-core speed, but the i7-7700K has twice the cores/threads & gets about twice the FPS. But while the i7-7820X is maybe only 5% slower per core than the 7700K (pretty close to the margin between the i5-7600K & the i7-7700K), the 7820X barely managed to get a 2% increase despite having twice the cores/threads of the 7700K. I honestly don't think Coffee Lake is going to see that much of an improvement, when its clock speeds are barely faster than the 7700K & only adds 50% more cores.

For more information follow "Intel's news and updates thread"
@Gamerk316

IPC comparison Just for kicks and giggles, as it's been a while since I've done one of these [usual disclaimer, ignoring Turbo and SMT effects]:

Performance = IPC * Clock * Number of Cores

Ryzen 7 1800x:
1576 = IPC * 3.6 * 16
1576 = 57.6 * IPC
IPC = 27.36

i7-8700k:
1521 = IPC * 3.7 * 12
1521 = 44.4 * IPC
IPC = 34.26

% Difference: 25.4% i7 8700K >R 7 1800X

That's...significant. Let's double check our math with the i5:

i5 8600k:
866 = IPC * 3.6 * 6
866 = 21.6 * IPC
IPC = 40.09

% Difference with i7-8700k: 15.68%

The i5 being more efficient isn't surprising (no HTT performance loss), though 15% is a bit much. Waiting for release, though I wouldn't be terribly shocked if the i7 comes down to earth a bit.