Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway - XCOM 2!

[Ninevah]

I doubt it, but I've become fairly jaded about all claims in IT nowadays.

 

[galeener]

I don't think anything ever lives up to the hype it receives. I really hope it does for competition and price war sake.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Will AMD's next-gen Zen core microarchitecture live up to the hype?

Pretty much anything is better than what they have out now. Will it live up to the hype though? Well probably not. In my eyes using a specific workload that happens to run better on your CPU vs a downclocked Intel CPU says nothing about the actual performance of the chip.

But again, pretty much anything they can release now would be a major improvement over their current flagship. I have been surprised before with the R9 series of graphics cards. There was a lot of hype leading up to that and I was not disappointed.

I imagine it won't be a direct competitor with current Intel flagship CPUs but hopefully it will be enough to allow people to use AMD graphics cards without the severe bottleneck of any AMD CPU.

 

[uglyduckling81]

I think it will live up to the hype. I don't feel people actually believe they will overtake Intel but will merely bring them close to parity. That's perfectly believable.
Hopefully they do it at a competitive price and don't try and price equally to Intel for similar performing parts and many will happily jump on board, me included.

 

[engineer5261]

The work from AMD seems promising thus far. If AMD can compete with i5-6600 and dominate intel in that market at that price point they can manage to gain a lot of business and strong footing which will further fund their R&D efforts (since most sales are at the budget builds, and most money can be made there). They have done well with the Rx480 to secure a good hold in the budget sector. I would probably support AMD over Intel if they offer me a comparable product satisfying me needs at a similar/cheaper price point as Intel.

If Intel goes unchecked any longer than they already have, or if AMD pulls out of the desktop market then we are all looking at minimal tech improvements and ramping prices by intel. It is just how the market works.

 

[vonbose]

I'm already prepared to be disappointed. I think I remember similar hype from AMD for phenom II. If all it ends up doing is lowering the price point of high-end CPU's then I'll be happy. It seems like at the moment CPU power has surpassed most software.

 

[Brian_R170]

How about somebody compile "the hype" and post it. E.g. a list of quotes from AMD representatvies that say what Zen can do.

 

[Stukes]

Recently it seems like AMD will be competitive when it's year of the linux desktop. I kinda want both to be true and every year there's a bunch of hype saying "this year!".
Who knows, maybe this AMD will be. But then it also seems like intel hasn't been pushing things and, as soon as AMD is competitive, they'll just release something even faster.

I guess i'm hopeful but jaded :/

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

Will AMD's next-gen Zen core microarchitecture live up to the hype?

I'm going to ask the magic 8 ball, which, though I no longer possess, I nonetheless grew to know well as a pup. Enough to be able to predict, with uncanny accuracy, in fact, it's 20 possible answers. The magic 8 ball says... "You may rely on it". =)

There it is folks. Have no fear. The universe has answered here and now, on this post.

I bet some of you, no doubt, thought the answer would be "Better not tell you now" or one of the negative answers... Pfft. You shall see! The red underdog shall pull through this time around.

 

[NickOfTime]

I've given up on AMD processors and going forward will only be buying Intel products. Truthfully if Zen is decent that would surpass my expectations.

 

[kingpin202]

I think it will, as the hype is only as good as current intel now. Regardless, I plan to build a new pc around it. I want to give amd a try, plus my next build is going to be on a budget.

 

[lucas_7_94]

Good luck to everyone in the raffle! (hope i win , i'm a little poor in games lol )

About the CPU, i think not. AMD will release a good CPU, but not at the top performance as spected.

Btw, its a great jump from the AM3 plataform already dead, its a jump to a bigger jump in the future.

 

[ItzDrizzt]

I'm hoping that Zen allows AMD to become relevant again in the CPU game and get Intel to stop dragging their feet, but I can't say that I'm not preparing for disappointment.

 

[Sigil10470]

Well, it really depends on which hype you're referring to, but early results look promising. Matching or at least coming close to Haswell IPC will be a huge step forward for AMD. But ultimately I think it will all come down to pricing. If they can price out an aggressive enough cost-to-performance ratio while also competing over the whole performance spectrum, I think Zen will be well received. People want an alternative to Intel's inflated pricing, and if AMD can provide that with a quality product, they'll be met with cheers. All this assuming that the early reports of Zen performance are at least somewhat accurate, of course.

 

[Avus]

I really want AMD can live up to the hype because from the current Intel desktop CPU advancement, I can comfortably to upgrade my desktop CPU every 4/5 "Intel generation". I am currently using an i5-4690K and upgraded from an i7-920. I also think an APU that is powerful enough to play game at higher than the lowest graphics setting is very attractive.

It is kind of like a last fight against Intel. Zen is not a one generation CPU fight. It will set the fight for the next 5 CPU generations at least. (look Intel Core). If it is a fail, I don't think AMD can last that long...

 

[starson]

I believe Zen will live up to the hype. Even if it falls a little short, it will at least make AMD competitive in the CPU market again, even with users who don't have a need for their superior integrated GPU.

Intel will be sure to fire back by at the very least bumping their clocks up in the short term, and their move to 10nm will almost certainly move the bar further while AMD skips it and waits for 7nm.

Now let's see some real Vega details already!

 

[lpgmango1]

AMD? i worry more about its driver more than hardware

 

[Karadjgne]

I think Zen will live up to the hype, or pretty close to it. With the new Intel coming in at 10nm, and supposedly Zen at 7nm, its a step in the right direction for a change. AMD has been playing 2nd fiddle for way too long, they've always been a leader in New ideas, 1st 6core, 1st 8core, HBM etc, its just too bad the pc industry won't take advantage of the tech, preferring to stick with Intel bias. Being on @ Haswell levels Zen should be a good cpu for many outlets and hopefully Zen+ will be like Vishera was to the Bulldozer cores.

 

[alidan]

Will AMD's next-gen Zen core microarchitecture live up to the hype? Whats the current hype?

What I believe will be a minimum of sandy bridge, with certain loads matching if not surpassing current intel, and if amd can clock up, something we dont know due to only developer units being out/floating around, some of what zen has shown off has beaten intel clock for clock on their 1000$ chip.

part of the hype is that amd will bring it at a lower than intel price, but how much lower is the question. fun thing i looked up a while ago was what was amds cpu prices last time they beat intel, and it was intels chip cost 1000$ and amd beat it with a 300$ chip, then made one that was 40% better than that and charged the 1000 for it.

Amd seems to be basing its entire cpu lineup off multiple chips per interposer, so their 8 core, 16 core and 32 core all stem from the 8 core design. If this is the case, and yields are high, this could bring the cost of an 8 core down to a more mainstream price, if the parts are at least sandybridge, thats good enough for gamers, and it allows them 4 more cores to play with, so recording/streaming/rendering/just overhead becomes something many people will have real access to without impacting game play for the first time.

if its goes toe to toe, a while back amd has said its preforming aboce expectations, which could mean 41% up.

Either way, that 8 core cpu will be interesting, also interested in that 16 core's price.

 

[Nicholas Steel]

I don't think AMD will live up to the hype, the product won't be a disaster either.

Also I can never get the +1 for joining the Tom's Hardware Steam Group if I am signed in to this app via Facebook. Gleemio or whatever it is called keeps insisting I create a new account with them that is associated with Steam. Why can't I use my Facebook account for everything! Why the need for multiple separate user accounts!? It makes no sense!!!

 

[GermSage]

The possibility of AMD offering a fair competition in the market dominated by Intel over the past year or two is refreshing. I believe AMD may offer an enticing option for cash-strapped gamers who wants a decent performer. Competition is good where the consumer is concerned.

 

[effe88]

I really hope it does, although I don't think it will completely live up to it! But having some sort of competition for Intels CPUs would definitely benefit the customers. At the moment Intel can pretty much do whatever they want and people wanting above average performance have no choice but to pay whatever they want.

 

[ioanpaulpirau]

I like AMD very much but I think that they kind of made it a strategy lately to create huge hypes for their products that superseed the actual performances of the products. I think that there are several reasons for that :
1) This way they keep staying relevant and they catch a bit of spotlight
2) They want to belive in their products and they really do.. so maybe they have an image that's a bit distorted
3) And last but not least they test on selective workloads but this is very interesting because I have seen time and again games and softwares that have been optimized for anything but AMD, therefore AMD is taking a hit

So to conclude.. No, it will not live up to the Hype (that the Zen CPU will be better than Intel's CPUs), but I suspect that since AMD will be copying parts of the Intel CPU design (multi threading, more IPC) there will be a huge improvement in most workloads where Intel traditionally had the lead. They will probably not be very competitive if you look at TDP, but I think that the performance will be almost there (85-95%) and the price will be much better than Intel's equivalent (14 nm node shrink allows for more CPUs per wafer.. therefore better yiedls for the same wafer's cost)

This being said, I have a policy of not upgrading my systems until they break (because unless you play last titles maxed out on bigger and bigger screens, you may as well use >5 years worth of hardware). But my next system will be AMD (I have an Intel powered system now)... and it will probably be Zen+ with a Radeon

 

[Baelzaden]

The latest fashion in marketing is creating a big hype to attract investors and consumers so I doubt Zen will live up to it. But even if it'll perform 80% of what's promised it's always good for us consumers to have a competition in the market.

 

[bolosfura]

Probably not. They can't just re-appear in the high-end market after years absent and hit the mark at first try.

also, intel is working in they new baby lake desktop CPU. so even if ZEN is up to compete with skylake, they will be late at the party.

but I hope they are strong enough to win some of the market, and be able to produce an even better product in the future. last years, without real competition, Intel just made whatever they wanted, and that's bad.