News Too Hot to Last? Investigating Intel's Claims About Ryzen Reliability

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One of the biggest issues we face with silicone today is the degradation of the material as it gets smaller and under higher temperatures. Its why a lot of smaller process technology has lower temperature thresholds, although we still push them.

Intel actually did at one point have an idea to have a CPU designed with reserve cores so that if a core died or had issues it could be activated and the dying/dead core could be brought back.

Another solution that Intel, IBM and any company involved in process technology are looking for is alternative materials to Silicon that can survive the stresses better.

I doubt we will see a Ryzen CPU just die any more than an Intel would die in its useful lifetime. So its not a major issue but I do wonder if AMD does know there is potential there,
 
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redgarl said:
Why are you posting Intel's garbage propaganda? You are doing them a favor for spreading their fud! That's sound like Intel 5GHz 28 cores demo all over again... and their 10nm ice lake paper launch... you didn't learned anything yet???!!!
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From the article, indicating that Tom's doesn't approve of Intel's claims:
[...] there should be some awareness at Intel that promoting unproven theories with the company logo next to them is risky. It lends credibility to reports that might not have any real merit. Instead, Intel should work to put proven metrics behind statements that call into question the reliability of competing products.
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Ice lake is no paper launch (yet). It takes a couple of months for devices with new CPUs to appear on the market, especially when they require a brand new platform.

Pitchforks aside, the article does give a decent insight into what may be the cause of Ryzen 3000's frequency "problem". And indeed, AMD would not have changed its boost bins for no reason. The company does seem a little concerned about reliability.

Even then, the maximum boost frequency often falls 25-75MHz shy of the advertised speed, which appears to be a legitimate problem with how Precision Boost handles SenseMI data. I will put the claims of differences up to 300MHz down to confirmation bias. Many people have a lot of processes running in the background that they're not aware of, which can throw the Windows scheduler off and make it target multiple cores at low usage. Those are also the people who wouldn't normally check their CPU frequency, unless they saw a forum post saying some people are experiencing issues.
 
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mamasan2000 said:
If you as a company don't feel threatened, you wouldn't comment at all, it becomes a non-issue.
This sounds just like Nvidia and Jensen Huangs comments about AMD GPUs.
https://www.techpowerup.com/251400/...erformance-is-lousy-freesync-doesnt-work?cp=3
6 months later and Nvidia supports Freesync too, officially, on select monitors. So how lousy can it be?
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Worse, Nvidia tried to blame AMD when their own "G-Sync compatible" implementation didn't work, even though AMD's GPUs supported it just fine. It's even more ridiculous when you realize that Freesync is just AMD's brand name for the VESA Adaptive Sync standard.
 
LoL Intel has found a way to make their inability to go below 14nm a "feature."

As for the "problem," each time AMD CPUs have become competitive they have had to push their technology too far--hence the PIII 1.13GHz recall and the cancellation of the 4GHz P4. Both teams have now taken up most of the margin that overclockers used to use--why leave free performance on the table when you could use it, due to competition? That's why things are barely overclockable nowadays.

Also, processors used to have a 10-year design life so why leave that much margin if they only come with a 3-year warranty anyway? That would explain why the maximum safe voltage ratings have barely changed--back in 2007 the maximum safe voltage (above which immediate damage may occur) was 1.45v on a 45nm process. 12nm Ryzen was also rated 1.45v and Zen 2 is 1.325v on a 7nm process. That must come out of the lifespan margin, but AMD has to still be confident in 3 years of life @ 100% 24/7--as they are betting the company on it.

When you overclock, you are using that margin. A factory overclock is no different.

It's interesting to note that 4000-series Haswell has a reputation for degrading over time while Ivy Bridge does not, when both are 22nm.
 
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Considering how you rarely hear of CPUs failing, even overclocked ones, I don't suspect endurance is much of a problem. Even if endurance happened to be somewhat lower at 7nm, an increase in failures from "almost never" to "extremely unlikely" probably isn't going to be a concern. At the very least, I highly doubt AMD is concerned about getting returns within the chip's 3-year warranty, since the number of people making use of such a warranty would undoubtedly be infinitesimally small.
 
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logainofhades said:
You obviously didn't read the full article.
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The Article Headline reeks of pro-Intel shill, just like the article: Ticked Off: Clock Bug Leads to False Ryzen Benchmark Scores


I've been a lurker for many years, enjoying most of your articles, but lately it has become too obvious who is paying the checks around here.
 
Even if these claims ARE true and there was a necessitated lowering of clock speeds, when you factor in core count/perf to price Intel is still getting their pants lowered. What choice did they have than to make such claims at a possible sign of weakness in their competitors product?
 
These failure rates come in to play in 24x7 operation simply because of heavier usage. For anyone not running 24x7 It shouldn't matter at all unless you want to have your PC around 20 years. I think this is pretty baseless outside of the EPYC line.
 
Can someone kindly point me to boost performance of Ryzen CPUs if continually kept below this threshold, say at a max of 65°C for a 3600.

Also, does the 75°C threshold refer to Tj or Tcase?
 
So Ryzen is clocking down at temps most users will never see? Sounds correct. Still deciding on AMD vs. Intel for my next build. Currently on an i5 4690k overclocked to 4.6Ghz, my typical max, full load temps are just below 60 C. So Intel living up to their old reputation is definitely swaying me towards AMD. Worst part is, part of me wants to hold out to see if this Ryzen behaviour is revealing of any underlying issues, which means Intels release is working. I suspect it's just tweaking on AMD's part, and I'd like to see a comparison with competing Intel designs
 
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logainofhades said:
You obviously didn't read the full article.
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Why should he when he can just rage on the clickbait headline? This site just continues to dig its own grave. There are multiple respectable sources chiming in on this issue, all of them before Intel did, so why does the headline single out Intel? You post a knowingly inflammatory headline to draw in the fanboys and the response regardless of what is in the article is completely predictable. Garbage in garbage out.
 
This is nothing new here, other than acknowledging that failure metrics at 7nm might possibly be skewed more than we are used to. Normal rules will still apply for me: over specify the cooling solution, then run a 'dish pan' profile (higher speed for several weeks, drop speed 100-200MHz for most of life, ramp speed back up after several years in a futile attempt to delay system replacement due to hardware obsolescence). Moving along... bring on the new Threadrippers (which will bail me out of my current nearly obsolete dual Xeon E5-2690 dilemma).
 
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kinggremlin said:
Why should he when he can just rage on the clickbait headline? This site just continues to dig its own grave. There are multiple respectable sources chiming in on this issue, all of them before Intel did, so why does the headline single out Intel? You post a knowingly inflammatory headline to draw in the fanboys and the response regardless of what is in the article is completely predictable. Garbage in garbage out.
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Please share the article that explores this issue and its relationship to longevity. Particularly Intel's claims.
 
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CerianK said:
This is nothing new here, other than acknowledging that failure metrics at 7nm might possibly be skewed more than we are used to. Normal rules will still apply for me: over specify the cooling solution, then run a 'dish pan' profile (higher speed for several weeks, drop speed 100-200MHz for most of life, ramp speed back up after several years in a futile attempt to delay system replacement due to hardware obsolescence). Moving along... bring on the new Threadrippers (which will bail me out of my current nearly obsolete dual Xeon E5-2690 dilemma).
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I had a pair of -2690s for a while. They were pretty good for the times.
 
redgarl said:
Why are you posting Intel's garbage propaganda? You are doing them a favor for spreading their fud! That's sound like Intel 5GHz 28 cores demo all over again... and their 10nm ice lake paper launch... you didn't learned anything yet???!!!
Click to expand...

I loved that demo. I mean who doesn't have their own personal liquid nitrogen tank sitting next to their case to cool it?
 
Thank's for perfect review and analyze of the current boost clock frequencies etc which hopefully will be improved in new AGESA released next week. Anyway I see much serious issue with Windows Hardware Errors (WHEA) which makes from my Ryzen 3800X setup totally unreliable peace of hardware and as searched in all discussion forums so many usera are affected and still not solved. Basically my story is following as already posted on nVidia forum:

My configuration is Ryzen 7 3800X, MB Gigabyte X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING and newly Asus 1070 replaced by Gigabyte 1080Ti Extreme. With the 1080Ti I'm not able to bypass 3D Mark and also my only game PUBG crashing due to WHEA issues. Graphics card Gigabyte 1080Ti Extreme has been replaced already with exactly the same result and crashing. I'm running latest BIOS with Agesa 1.0.0.3 ABB, latest nVidia drivers, latest AMD chipset drivers, latest everything and clean Windows installation as well. It's super annoying and driving me crazy and it's not acceptable. Hopefully AMD will fix it it in next Agesa which should mainly fix boost frequencies but who cares as WHEA errors are really serious issues as I see in many discussions and should have TOP priority for AMD!!! Strange is that I didn't had issue with Asus 1070 but with two 1080Ti I have. On top of it I tried all tips, reset BIOS, change PCI-E from Auto to Gen4 to Gen3 to Gen2, underclock infifinity fabric with memory clocks no success at all. PSU is also sufficient with 750W Corsair. Any advice how to temporarily fix is highly appreciated and hopefully AMD will fix it within coming days!
 
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Thank you Paul. This has been the most interesting article on thw in quite some time. I would like you to also pull out your water chiller and test to see if you can hit the maximum boost clocks by adding the extra cold.
 
I am glad to not be the only one understanding what is at odd here. Thank you everyone for standing up against toms stupidity. This article would have never existed without Intel propaganda, and toms lack of journalism integrity.

Toms, you've been used by Intel to spread FUD... congratulation, you've been used like a sex doll....
 
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