Skylake (14nm) vs AMD's Zen CPU

[Akash_11]

before i was thinking to buy i5-6500 CPU but after AMD Zen's CPU news i have delay plan to setup new system. can possible AMD Zen's Quad core will be better than Skylake Quad core CPU ( Price or Performance or power efficient ) ?

Thanks

 

[Mr Kagouris]

We can't really say right now but there's a very good chance Zen will be better than Skylake. If you're delaying so far then you can wait and see, but Zen is set to arrive some time in 2017 as far as I know.

 

[inerax]

Honestly the new AMD chips wont be faster than the best Intel CPU's today. The hype over the new AMD chips are overblown just like their Bulldozer was. I have moved from AMD after being a loyal customer for many many years. I now run a Intel Core i7-4930K (6 core) and it is an insane beast. Sadly, AMD has stepped out of the game of competing with Intel. They are trying to catch up to Intel again, but sadly it wont happen this time around.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Honestly the new AMD chips wont be faster than the best Intel CPU's today. The hype over the new AMD chips are overblown just like their Bulldozer was. I have moved from AMD after being a loyal customer for many many years. I now run a Intel Core i7-4930K (6 core) and it is an insane beast. Sadly, AMD has stepped out of the game of competing with Intel. They are trying to catch up to Intel again, but sadly it wont happen this time around.

Little early to make such certain assumptions considering we have no info about Zen whatsoever, don't you think?

 

[rgd1101]

40% IPC Improvement Over Excavator
http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-architecture-release-schedule-revealed-rolled-server-market/

and the only excavator is the x4 845
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10009/amd-launches-excavator-on-desktop-the-65w-athlon-x4-845-for-70

 

[Snipergod87]

Also when Zen comes out Kaby Lake will also be available.

 

[Akash_11]

Honestly the new AMD chips wont be faster than the best Intel CPU's today. The hype over the new AMD chips are overblown just like their Bulldozer was. I have moved from AMD after being a loyal customer for many many years. I now run a Intel Core i7-4930K (6 core) and it is an insane beast. Sadly, AMD has stepped out of the game of competing with Intel. They are trying to catch up to Intel again, but sadly it wont happen this time around.

Using Intel since working with computer. no problem yet with Brand and Product, Intel is No 1 company in CPU, no doubt, but Pricing make AMD noticeable. if AMD can get same Skylake performance with AMD pricing, AMD is worth to buy, i think.

 

[Akash_11]

Also when Zen comes out Kaby Lake will also be available.

still AMD is one Gen behind 😛. lets see 2017

 

[synphul]

Until zen actually exists in hand and can be benchmarked alongside other cpu's it's all speculation. There's no one vs the other unless contemplating intel vs unicorns, intel vs bigfoot or other things that can't be verified.

Once they're out which is looking to be 2017 and there's an actual product and price for people to consider then it will be possible to try and make recommendations based on price and performance in a direct comparison. Anything before then is premature.

 

[Eximo]

These chips are designed first as an alternative to Intel in the server market. So lots of cores again, which won't necessarily be great for gamers. But if they make a cheap quad core that competes with the i3, and that can overclock, you will see a whole new crop of budget builds that can compete.

Wasn't too long ago that the FX-6300 and Athlon X4s were decent options for a budget build. Makes more sense to get an Intel with an upgrade path. The AM4 socket should fix that as well. Someone could start with an APU, and move to an FX and Discrete GPU when desired. Should really level the playing field.

 

[photonboy]

Hey,

1) Only consider AMD if the total value justifies it (including motherboard).

2) Zen, 14nm is 8C/16T at first AFAIK. Not sure how long until quad-core. AMD is targeting the higher profit margin at first.

3) Driver/software support is also important. Unless the savings is worth it, just go with Intel as their stuff is pretty solid. That includes motherboard CHIPSET support.

4) Skylake and future Intel CPU's are also very fast at throttling down the core (Skylake can come out in 6ms). They also have a neat feature which I think is Skylake and later but can't remember where it can test to see what particular core overclocks the best (silicon lottery) then work with Windows to use the fastest core for the most important thread (like the main game thread).

5) Motherboard BIOS also takes a few months of updates to become reliable usually.

So...

Summary:
IMO it's not worth thinking about AMD yet if in the market. Just get a suitable Skylake setup and forget about it.

 

[Akash_11]

Hey,

1) Only consider AMD if the total value justifies it (including motherboard).

2) Zen, 14nm is 8C/16T at first AFAIK. Not sure how long until quad-core. AMD is targeting the higher profit margin at first.

3) Driver/software support is also important. Unless the savings is worth it, just go with Intel as their stuff is pretty solid. That includes motherboard CHIPSET support.

4) Skylake and future Intel CPU's are also very fast at throttling down the core (Skylake can come out in 6ms). They also have a neat feature which I think is Skylake and later but can't remember where it can test to see what particular core overclocks the best (silicon lottery) then work with Windows to use the fastest core for the most important thread (like the main game thread).

5) Motherboard BIOS also takes a few months of updates to become reliable usually.

So...

Summary:
IMO it's not worth thinking about AMD yet if in the market. Just get a suitable Skylake setup and forget about it.

6nm ! ? awesome

 

[James Mason]

6(m)ili(s)econds.

 

[gamerk316]

The consensus here from most of our experts is Haswell level performance, based on a clock speed reduction and a (claimed) 40% IPC gain. It's unlikely Zen will outperform Skylake.

 

[photonboy]

The consensus here from most of our experts is Haswell level performance, based on a clock speed reduction and a (claimed) 40% IPC gain. It's unlikely Zen will outperform Skylake.

Agreed, however with the caveat that they may have lower-priced CPU's that can overclock to higher performance than locked-down Intel CPUs.

 

[Akash_11]

it would be nice if Zen Quad core CPU with 8 threads at about $100 ( USA ) price 😀

 

[wormy]

Its not Zen Id be waiting for. Id wait for Kaby Lake so you can use 3D Xpoint.

 

[rgd1101]

Its not Zen Id be waiting for. Id wait for Kaby Lake so you can use 3D Xpoint.

3d xpoint is for storage, should be able to use it with any processor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint

 

[Mr Kagouris]

3D XPoint is a new form of non-volatile memory being developed by Intel. Think of it as the newer and better SSD technology.

 

[gamerk316]

The consensus here from most of our experts is Haswell level performance, based on a clock speed reduction and a (claimed) 40% IPC gain. It's unlikely Zen will outperform Skylake.

Agreed, however with the caveat that they may have lower-priced CPU's that can overclock to higher performance than locked-down Intel CPUs.

I'm of the thought Zen will not be a good overclocker, based on the node AMD chose to produce it on. I doubt we'll see Zen approach BD/PD clock speeds in any case.

 

[TerryLaze]

The consensus here from most of our experts is Haswell level performance, based on a clock speed reduction and a (claimed) 40% IPC gain. It's unlikely Zen will outperform Skylake.

The claimed 40% improvement includes the whole core so a big chunk if not all of that will be due to their SMT which means that single threaded performance might be very similar to today's AMDs.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

AMD will be using a form of hyperthreading with their new CPUs very similar to Intel's, so we should see improvement but we already know they won't be focusing on single thread performance (which is good because by the time Zen is out DX12 will be widespread enough for that to make sense).

 

[TerryLaze]

AMD will be using a form of hyperthreading with their new CPUs very similar to Intel's, so we should see improvement but we already know they won't be focusing on single thread performance (which is good because by the time Zen is out DX12 will be widespread enough for that to make sense).

DX12 is graphics only,it will give more FPS when looking at walls ( generally when there is nothing CPU intense going on) it will not help in CPU heavy scenarios,those will still need high single thread.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

DX12 is built to allow a greater degree of thread utilization for games (whereas DX11 was built for a maximum utilization of 2 threads). This is why current gen AMD CPUs suck at CPU-intensive games. DX12 will help exactly in CPU-heavy scenarios as games will be able to utilize more threads.

P.S.: DirectX as a whole is not graphics-only. Direct3D is the part of DirectX that handles 3D graphics.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

We can't really say right now but there's a very good chance Zen will be better than Skylake. If you're delaying so far then you can wait and see, but Zen is set to arrive some time in 2017 as far as I know.

It's a very big assumption to say that Zen will be as good as or better than Skylake, and it's unlikely the case. AMD claimed that Polaris would have 2.8x performance per watt improvement, which turned out to be false. It was only about 1.7x performance per watt improvement, and performs comparable to the Maxwell series.

And even with the claim that Zen is 40% better than excavator, the IPC falls between Haswell and Skylake according to some calculations done on various forums and reddits. Even if it is 40% better, AMD probably cherry picked that figure for the "best case scenario." I expect Zen to basically be an 6-8+ core Haswell.