Join us For A Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything With AMD, Thursday April 6th

[Aspiring techie]

What do you think is holding Ryzen's clockspeeds back? Compared to Kaby Lake, Ryzen's clockspeeds are somewhat sluggish. Do you think that it's something in the architecture or Global Foundery's 14nm process?

 

[cleeve]

What I mean is do you think having developers using AMD architectures will gives you a serious advantage in performances for the same games on PC (giving you the edge over Nvidia)?

Being the de-facto console developer does have some advantages, giving developers a lot of incentive to optimize for your architecture.

From a CPU perspective we are focused on both Radeon and GeForce compatibility first and foremost.
We want our customers to be confident that both will work flawlessly on their rigs.

 

[cleeve]

What do you think is holding Ryzen's clockspeeds back? Compared to Kaby Lake, Ryzen's clockspeeds are somewhat sluggish. Do you think that it's something in the architecture or Global Foundery's 14nm process?

If you think about it, Ryzen is an absolutely worst-case scenario for clock rates: a brand new architecture, and a brand new process. And still we hit 4 GHz without too much trouble.

I believe we have tremendous clockspeed headroom to take advantage of as we move forward because of this. Lots of improvements to be made.

 

[Vesperan]

Easy question I hope: if I buy a AM4 motherboard today before Ryzen 5 launches, will it post and boot with the current bios being shipped when I do get a Ryzen 5?

 

[cleeve]

I was reading an article on the XBox Scorpio, which said that Microsoft engineers made significant improvements to the SoC in regards to DX12, such as taking some API calls down from thousands of instructions to 11. This allowed for significant performance gains, as you might expect.

Seeing as this isn't the work of AMD engineers, can AMD still benefit from that knowledge and implementation specifics?

It might sound like I'm tooting our own horn, but I do believe that AMD invented the basis for all modern APIs.
Dx12 owes a good portion of its existence to AMD's Mantle API, which laid out a template for Microsoft to follow. They do a lot of things similarly. And of course, Mantle lives on as the basis of the Vulkan API. So absolutely, we're very, very focused on future-looking graphics APIs and taking advantage of them as best we can.

Also, again about Scorpio,
It was mentioned that the SoC is a Jaguar core on 16nm. I realize that doing a process shrink isn't nearly as easy as shrinking a picture in MSPaint. What work goes into shrinking an existing core design?
Thanks for your time!

*I should qualify this by starting with saying I can't comment directly on Project Scorpio, I am not involved in that project and have no idea if what you've heard about a die shrink is true, but I can make a comment on die shrinks in general*

Die shrinks are far more involved than people think, because architecture is tied to dies in ways that we don't know.
Not that *I* know, but this is what our architects tell me when I ask.

I can say it's a non-trivial, massive undertaking. But I'm no processor engineer, to be sure. So I don't have the knowledge to answer you with any authority, sorry.

 

[cleeve]

I'm really interested in upgrading my 4th generation Intel rig to a Ryzen based system. So what can we expect from the R5s? How will these favor in comparison to say an i5-7600K? Would my money be better spent there or upgrading to an R7-1700X?

Ryzen 5's will murder the Core i5 when it comes to prosumer applications: rendering, encoding, encryption. Anything that takes advantage of more threads, the Ryzen dominates.
If you're a prosumer who wants even more productivity, Ryzen 7 will deliver even shorter processing times than Ryzen 5. If this is you, get the best you can afford. But know that the Ryzen 5 is worlds better than the Core i5. The Ryzen 5 1600X is essentially as fast as the Core i7-6850K when it comes to prosumer applications.

Now... if all you do is surf the web & game, one application at a time, maybe don't upgrade yet.

But if you game and stream at the same time... if you like to run apps while you're gaming... Ryzen is a sweet upgrade for gamers.

Also what's the issue with AM4 mounting brackets? I see that companies like Noctua (I would plan to reuse my D14) are giving away AM4 mounting brackets but would older coolers be able to work on the new platform?

Older coolers that use the AM3+ mounting bracket will fit on the AM4 retention brackets.

*BUT* if you have a cooler than forces you to remove the AM3+ retention brackets to interface directly with, say, a metal backplate through the screw holes - youre going to need a metal packplate designed for the socket AM4 screw hole pattern.

 

[Robert Pankiw]

From a CPU perspective we are focused on both Radeon and GeForce compatibility first and foremost.

Does AMD, Intel, and NVidia work together such that pre-release hardware will have as few hardware related bugs as possible, especially if they only show up in particular configurations?

I.E. An unreleased Radeon running on an unrelease Core i-X processor. Surely no one goes without quality assurance testing, but you can only go so far when you only have access to the released stuff.

P.S. The Scorpio SoC work in DX12 I mentioned was a silicon implementation of DX12 (*From what the article said, I didn't check any sources to verify this*). That would be something else to find in a general purpose CPU.

 

[BulkZerker]

I've been reading rumors about a high end prosumer focused motherboard ( x399 ) on other sites. Is this just idle gossip ? Also does the current ryzen lineup support ECC ram fully? I keep getting mixed responses on the Awnser to this as well.

 

[cleeve]

Questions :
1 : Have Amd "fine tuned" the chips already so that the headroom for overclocking is lower on the 1800x models (not counting the luck factor) than the lower 1700 models? My impression is that both 1700 and 1700x might in fact have the potential to achieve the same clocks as 1800x. Or are we probably just seeing a bit of inconsistency in the bios and motherboards partners that might be fixed in the future giving perhaps better OC headroom?

AMD qualifies chips. We choose the best samples to be the 1800X, because it has to run at the highest clocks.

Does that mean a 1700 or 1700X can't run at those same clocks? Not at all, they might run very well at higher clocks! But they might need a bit more voltage and a bit more cooling to do so...

This doesn't have much to do with the BIOS, unless we're talking about memory settings and stability to support the CPU's overclock. And that is improving quickly with each revision.

2 : Any date for the next revision of Ryzen?Like Late 2017 or early 2018?

No dates, sorry. All I can tell you is that Ryzen 3 is coming in the 2nd half of 2017.

 

[cleeve]

What is the story with ECC? I've read reports of it working with various motherboards, working only in Linux, working in Windows but not advertising as such. Is there any AMD-side push to coordinate with microsoft and mobo manufacturers to enable ECC as an option even if not officially supported?

Ryzen processors support ECC memory, but it's up to motherboard manufacturers to qualify their platforms. Since this isn't a typical consumer feature, you'll need to do some research and see what works I'm afraid, unless a motherboard specifically announces support for ECC RAM.

Additionally, please share my request for coreboot support! If AMD released a modern coreboot platform they would have immediate preference in the scientific, financial, and government sectors.

I will pass that on!

 

[norune]

Questions :
1 : Have Amd "fine tuned" the chips already so that the headroom for overclocking is lower on the 1800x models (not counting the luck factor) than the lower 1700 models? My impression is that both 1700 and 1700x might in fact have the potential to achieve the same clocks as 1800x. Or are we probably just seeing a bit of inconsistency in the bios and motherboards partners that might be fixed in the future giving perhaps better OC headroom?

AMD qualifies chips. We choose the best samples to be the 1800X, because it has to run at the highest clocks.

Does that mean a 1700 or 1700X can't run at those same clocks? Not at all, they might run very well at higher clocks! But they might need a bit more voltage and a bit more cooling to do so...

This doesn't have much to do with the BIOS, unless we're talking about memory settings and stability to support the CPU's overclock. And that is improving quickly with each revision.

2 : Any date for the next revision of Ryzen?Like Late 2017 or early 2018?

No dates, sorry. All I can tell you is that Ryzen 3 is coming in the 2nd half of 2017.

Thanks,
I will probably move over to Ryzen pretty soon once I find the perfect combination for an upgrade , I will probably go for the 1700X with pretty decent DDR4 memory and a decent MB with good wifi support.

 

[cleeve]

Does AMD, Intel, and NVidia work together such that pre-release hardware will have as few hardware related bugs as possible, especially if they only show up in particular configurations?

AMD does its best to ensure the best possible user experience when we partner with any other vendor.

 

[Ramin rostami]

but above 3200 ram have high latency,erorr high price (4500 has 24 latency,high erorr,price)

do you know why amd stand 4 years before on ddr3??? because ddr4 latency,erorr

amd think OPTIMUM , costumer pocket too

 

[cleeve]

I've been reading rumors about a high end prosumer focused motherboard ( x399 ) on other sites. Is this just idle gossip ?

Well you can't believe everything you hear on the internet. But at the same time, if there was an unannounced product, I couldn't talk about it anyway.

Also does the current ryzen lineup support ECC ram fully? I keep getting mixed responses on the Awnser to this as well.

Ryzen unofficially supports ECC RAM. You'd probably need a motherboard that supports this feature, though. Not the kind of thing that most consumer boards would qualify.

 

[Ramin rostami]

please create youtube video about these 2 issue, many dont know
.

1-do you remember, in 2002 when amd invent 2 core cpu , games cant see 2nd core (or amd 64 bit invent) so many stupid watch only games bench and buy 1core intel , after 7-8 mouth games update to use 2 core then amd real powerful,speed appear, fuck expencive intel 1 core true??? games now use max 2core 4threat in ryze(many non pro think 7700 powerfull than ryzen 1700(or ryzen battelneck!!!!!!!!) this is wrong , ryzen 1700 =+90% more power(speed) than 7700 (4 core) except in games(use 1 or max 2 core now) but after games update in next 8 mouth to use all 16 threat , 1700 will fuck hard kabylake (will add +40-+60% more frames for rayzen )

2- BOYS do you know ryzen cpu is too smoot than intel 7700, very low latency in games and ..., very smooth in games because ryzen GRAPHIC CARD, mouse ,keyboard directly connect to ryzen cpu ! see am4 and 270 board diagram

http://uupload.ir/files/7kxp_crosshair-diagram-1280x1024.jpg

note= (in intel below picture intel has PCI3 out from cpu but it is cpu internal graphic out,not independant in )!!!!!

http://uupload.ir/view/6fej_z270-diagram.png

ramin rostami

#amd #ryzen

 

[cleeve]

Easy question I hope: if I buy a AM4 motherboard today before Ryzen 5 launches, will it post and boot with the current bios being shipped when I do get a Ryzen 5?

I just asked our motherboard chipset product manager, Steve Basset, to be sure:

Any Ryzen 7, 5, or 3 will be fine on the first-revision BIOSes.

You're golden!

 

[cleeve]

please create youtube video about these 2 issue, many dont know

ramin rostami

#amd #ryzen

Thanks for the ideas Ramin!

 

[aeriolwinters]

Is the AM4 platform going to see revisions that would enable it to take newer technologies like DDR5 or newer interfaces? I just like the idea that the AM4, just like the AM3 and AM2 before it be able to be backwards compatible with older AM4 processors so that it won't be a hassle to continuously buy a new board whenever a new revision or architecture is available.

 

[cleeve]

Is the AM4 platform going to see revisions that would enable it to take newer technologies like DDR5 or newer interfaces? I just like the idea that the AM4, just like the AM3 and AM2 before it be able to be backwards compatible with older AM4 processors so that it won't be a hassle to continuously buy a new board whenever a new revision or architecture is available.

As far as I can remember, every major memory technology has required a new type of socket. So DDR5 probably won't fit in a DDR4 memory slot when it arrives.

But processors are often backwards-compatible with older board revisions, I think that's what you're referring to. AMD has a history of supporting that more than the competition, but it's too early to make any specific promises or even speculation, sorry.

 

[jdwii]

In certain titles such as watch dogs 2 the 6900K beats a 7700K but in that same title the 1800X is around the I5 in terms of performance i'm confused to why as the 1800X beats a 6900X in multi threaded tasks most of the time.

One would expect a 6900X and 1800X to be close in games that use all 8 cores. But what we see is I5 level of performance its just very confusing.

 

[BuildCrisp2213]

Do you think the Ryzen 5 6 core will be near as utilised as the R7 looking at upcoming developments or do you think the R7 will become more significant catching and overtaking the R5 6 core utilisation.

So which do you think Is going to be most optimised for in the upcoming year, then moving on and for what type of applications.

 

[cleeve]

In certain titles such as watch dogs 2 the 6900K beats a 7700K but in that same title the 1800X is around the I5 in terms of performance i'm confused to why as the 1800X beats a 6900X in multi threaded tasks most of the time.

One would expect a 6900X and 1800X to be close in games that use all 8 cores. But what we see is I5 level of performance its just very confusing.

Frankly, Ryzen is a brand new architecture. Game developers have tightly focused on Intel for years, there will be a ramp-up as game developers learn what they're doing that might not play well with Ryzen, and how to take advantage of its strengths.

Already we have shown that games like DOTA2, Ashes of the SIngularity, and Warhammer: Total War have been improved on Ryzen with relatively little developer effort. We're working to do what we can and make sure developers have access to Ryzen hardware and our expertise to get rid of these strange game performance anomalies.

Having said that, Ryzen processors provide an excellent gaming experience today, even if it's not the fastest at everything it's still very smooth. And things are only getting better! So we have good reason to be optimistic.

 

[valeman2012]

Question
1. Intel Optane will not support?

 

[aeriolwinters]

Would the Athlon brand still be active? With the R7 for Enthusiasts, the R5's for mainstream high computing and the R3 for mainstream computing, how do you see the Athlon fit in with all the APU's still not in tow.

 

[lightofhonor]

How has developing/updating the BIOS process been different then supporting previous AMD sockets or Intel sockets?

I've noticed a lot of updates since release on my Killer board. At what point do you think active BIOS development stop, e.g. when will the BIOS stop being updated several times a month? Not that I don't love the progress I am seeing, but more a question on when do you think the BIOS will be "done".