AMD Ryzen

[Keyrock]

I've seen the "leaked benchmarks" for both the 5800X and 5900X; I'm highly skeptical.

2 reasons for my skepticisms:

1) I'm generally skeptical about these sorts of leaks. While they sometimes turn out to be true, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

2) The numbers, quite frankly, sound too good to be true; you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true. 

As someone who is about to purchase a Zen 3 CPU, I would LOVE it if these numbers were real. However, I believe the great Winston Wolf put it best when he said "let's not start sucking each others' ****s just yet."

Edited October 2, 2020 by Keyrock

[Zoraptor]

I'd put 25% at the upper limit of credible improvement, so long as they can get clock improvement as well as IPC it's doable. Zen -> Zen2 was around 15% IPC and 10% clocks so there is precedent. Also, Raja excepted, AMD has tended to underpromise and overdeliver the last few years.

Skepticism is good though, that way you can't be disappointed, only pleasantly surprised.

[AwesomeOcelot]

It looks like I'm going to be trying to get a 5900X the end of October. The leaks don't look unbelievable if the focus has been on architecturally improving single core performance, while also offering more cores, multi core improvement isn't even that impressive. AMD were eventually going to get ahead of Intel.

[Keyrock]

Assuming core counts and pricing are the same as Zen 2, I'll probably also get the 5900X. Purely for gaming, a 8 core/16 thread chip will likely be the sweet spot, given that's the configuration of the upcoming MSony (thanks Zoraptor) consoles. 12c/24t would give me some extra oomph for encoding and multitasking. 16c/32t provides even more oomph, but the markup is too steep. High-end skus tend to get the best silicon, increasing the chance to win the silicon lottery as an added bonus. I have a dream of 12 cores running at 5 GHz. It's probably a pipe dream. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

Here's a link to today's livestream, for convenience:

Give me the good news, Lisa Su. 

[AwesomeOcelot]

19% higher IPC. Damn. I've already ordered all my parts apart from 5900X and x570 MoBo. This actually a lot better than expected, beats the 10900K in single core.

Edited October 8, 2020 by AwesomeOcelot

[Keyrock]

I'm looking forward to independent benchmarks. I'm sure AMD used the most advantageous settings possible for their own benchmarks, as does every manufacturer, but if those figures are representative of the broad picture and not just edge cases then Intel have got their work cut out for them. Hopefully Rocket Lake delivers, I want a competitive Intel. In the meantime, I'm excited to get my hands on probably a 5900X (must resist urge to buy 5950X) and build my new monster desktop.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Keyrock

[Sarex]

That 5950x looks really sexy.

[ComradeYellow]

Color me impressed as well.  Shadow of the Tomb Raider actually chokes up my i7 9700k at high (140+) fps.  Now we wait for the real presentation on the 28th, let's see how Big Navi stacks up against the 3080, that will be decisive on whether I want to switch to AMD hardware.

[Zoraptor]

I'm impressed with everything except the pricing. The 5600x will be more than I paid for my 1700 3.5 years ago despite having 2 less cores. Maybe a bit unfair considering that TSMC 7nm is far more expensive than GloFo 14nm and there's a load more cache on the newer chip, but still, the people demand more cores for less money!

3 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

Now we wait for the real presentation on the 28th, let's see how Big Navi stacks up against the 3080, that will be decisive on whether I want to switch to AMD hardware.

There was a Big(gish, may well not be Biggest) Navi slide shown at the presentation. Looks like that extra 100W for 10% performance really was necessary for nVidia as 3080 is only just ahead. It's certainly enough to put the 'only a 3070 competitor' to bed.

(As noted, 'Badass' quality is the tier above 'ultra' for BL3)

[ComradeYellow]

Yeah I saw that, though I wasn't sure how 61fps B3 stacked up against the 3080 at the time.  Upon inspection looks like 'Badass' 4k on the 3080 gets about 60 fps, which makes it about on par with Big Navi (provided these are accurate 'Badass' results).

So yeah, looks like Big Navi could achieve scores that are well within the variation of Nvidia from one frame to the next and not enough difference to make a difference.  The only question remains is my growing fondness towards DLSS and perhaps some dabbling into Ray Tracing.  That's what I'm waiting to hear from on the 28th.

I guess we can make this the General AMD thread lol.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I don't doubt for a second that the benchmarks are highly selective, I know Nvidia's were. I would be surprised if big Navi matches the 3080 in 3rd party reviews.

As for the pricing, that's always more down to supply and demand, the competition, than anything else. The only way to push them down is if Intel does something in Q1 with a 5600X challenger.

[Zoraptor]

It's a big enough (relative, obviously it's not that massive absolutely) price jump that the 10700/k becomes competitive. 1600/ 2600/ 3600 were near no brainers for mid budget gaming over the past 3 years because for GPU bound operation the cheaper option was better since you just needed a 'decent' CPU; and they typically had other advantages over their direct competition like SMT vs HT lacking 8400/9400/9600 and better out of the box cooling. The 10700 is a decent CPU, has HT, and it will be cheaper than the 5600X- though that stock cooler is still a dumpster fire. Probably the 5600 would be cheaper, but there's no announcement on that so it's mythical for now and it isn't like lower AMD SKUs have brilliant availability even this gen- eg the near literally mythical budget king 3300X*. Dunno, just seems like a missed opportunity to really go for Intel's jugular, everything else is great but the pricing gives something to complain about.

*Caveat: AMD should have improved fab availability with Huawei gone and Apple migrating fully to 5nm, and presumably the bulk of launch console production is off to assembly by now.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Zoraptor

[AwesomeOcelot]

I don't see how decreasing their margins is going for the jugular, they're not going to be able to supply the demand. It's not going to in anyway deny market share to Intel. We'll wait to see how well it performs in benchmarks. It has some platform advantages like PCIe 4.0. I too, would like for the things I buy to be cheaper. I hope that it's not a paper launch like 3300x, that thing was unavailable for months, with incredible price/performance.

Edited October 8, 2020 by AwesomeOcelot

[Keyrock]

Yeah, it would have been nice if they kept the prices lower, but AMD is in a position now that they don't have to be the budget brand, so the price hike is not unexpected. Oh well.

[Zoraptor]

I'd have to admit that AMD is the victim of their own success perception wise. A replacement for my 1700 would be more expensive but it would also have +~1Ghz and about +~40% IPC. If you went 3 years back from the 1700's launch in 2017 the increase was... ~6% IPC and nothing clockwise from haswell to skylake? and who cared if Bulldozer had any improvement, even if it did it was from rubbish to slightly less rubbish (and IPC went backwards from the older Phenoms, iirc).

And to be fair to AMD, the 3600(x) is selling well below its launch price and has been for some time. That will probably happen with the 5600 at some point too.

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

Yeah, it would have been nice if they kept the prices lower, but AMD is in a position now that they don't have to be the budget brand, so the price hike is not unexpected. Oh well.

They have said that they are looking to get out of that image, and they're doing a good job!

 

Anyways, So, from 1800x to 5800x it is then.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Azdeus

[Deadly_Nightshade]

6 hours ago, Sarex said:

That 5950x looks really sexy.

I'm planning on upgrading my 3950x (although that's also because I'm making a new SFF productivity build for my roommate/editor and so I'll move my current chip over and use upgrade my workstation).

[ComradeYellow]

51 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

They have said that they are looking to get out of that image, and they're doing a good job!

Intel may actually be getting into performance GPU's and if Nvidia gets into performance CPU's (though no evidence of that exists)...just think of the competitive dynamics that would lead to greater performance and pricing across the board.

EDIT: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jensen-huang-hints-at-nvidia-branded-arm-cpus

Well...

Edited October 9, 2020 by ComradeMaster

[Humanoid]

Would have liked to see more than one model in the mainstream price range, but oh well. I'm not targeting any sort of performance benchmark, happy with grabbing the best value "decent" CPU in my price range which will probably be $300-500AUD. The 5600X will land at the top of that range so other, older options can't be ruled out.

I don't know if that's rational, but my desire to build a new PC isn't rational in the first place, coming from a 6700K. I just can't be bothered dealing it anymore and want a fresh start. But that thing cost me about $500AUD and I have no intention on spending more than that on a CPU no matter how good it is (disregarding future decades worth of inflation of course).

[AwesomeOcelot]

I think the higher price is probably down to unified CCX greatly decreasing yields. That 19% increase in IPC came at a cost.  If that gives them the gaming crown in most benchmarks, I know that's the only thing a lot of enthusiasts care about. You also have the option of Zen 2 discounts, which I imagine for those more interested in multithread workloads, will be very alluring. It could be a red wall when these go on sale, with Zen 2 and 3 filling a lot of gaps in the market.

We will also see more CPUs being launched in a month or so, one or two will target the 10600K. The 3600, 3300x, and 1200AF were incredible value propositions, wiped the floor with Intel. The 5000 series so far seems to have an early adopter and premium tax. I can't imagine AMD not  positioning some value options by the end of the year.

[Keyrock]

I'm sure AMD will fill out their lineup with more budget-friendly options eventually, but I doubt we'll see them this year.

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I'm sure AMD will fill out their lineup with more budget-friendly options eventually, but I doubt we'll see them this year.

I doubt I will see their announced lineup this year either...

[Zoraptor]

I doubt they'll have enough stock on hand to meet initial demand and there are several big sales days around their release, but I doubt it will be close to a 3080 type situation of unsatisfied demand for months on end. AMD has picked up extra capacity at TSMC. But yeah, going by the 3950X the 5950X is going to be the one that's hard to get hold of for a while.

I'd be a lot more worried about the Radeon side's availability. They can get ~7 $300 (minimum, since with no defects they'd be 5800X at $450) CPUs for the wafer area of a single GPU they may well sell for less than $700, so if there's a supply/ demand mismatch it's likely to be the graphics side that suffers.

[Sarex]

Either way seems like I'll be saving my money until next year, which is fine as I can see both the Radeon and Intel lineup.