I'm still shocked at Zen 2 efficiency

[ShadowChaser]

I recently acquired a Ryzen 5 3600 to be used in my Xbox sleeper build, and out of necessity given the tiny cooler I had to undervolt it. Now I'm no stranger to undervolting or over/underclocking with efficiency in mind, but what I can acheive with this chip compared to a comparable Intel CPU still surprises me.

 

I must admit that undervolting Ryzen is more difficult than Intel's recent offerings, having done it to U-series, H-series, and K-series chips for most of the 14nm lineup. I really wish I could set individual core clocks, grr, but that's not the point.

 

This is the point:

Cinebench r20 Scores

R5 3600: 3520/462 (multi/single)

i7-8750H: 2568/404 (multi/single)

 

And the 3600 drew less power than the roughly equivalent i7, averaging 57W PPT compared to 60W+ on the i7 (45 watt my ass)

In order for me to achieve a similar score I would need to use my i7-8700K, clocked at 5.0Ghz and drawing double the power. Yes, it does win by a fair margin at 3900ish/500ish but my goodness the performance per watt of even a relatively poor bin of Zen 2 is amazing.

 

At this point I might as well swap my 8700K for a 3700X or maybe a 3900X if I can find one for a good price. They barely lose out in single core and would give me a lot more head room for my other non-gaming hobbies.

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

I recently acquired a Ryzen 5 3600 to be used in my Xbox sleeper build, and out of necessity given the tiny cooler I had to undervolt it. Now I'm no stranger to undervolting or over/underclocking with efficiency in mind, but what I can acheive with this chip compared to a comparable Intel CPU still surprises me.

 

I must admit that undervolting Ryzen is more difficult than Intel's recent offerings, having done it to U-series, H-series, and K-series chips for most of the 14nm lineup. I really wish I could set individual core clocks, grr, but that's not the point.

 

This is the point:

Cinebench r20 Scores

R5 3600: 3520/462 (multi/single)

i7-8750H: 2568/404 (multi/single)

 

And the 3600 drew less power than the roughly equivalent i7, averaging 57W PPT compared to 60W+ on the i7 (45 watt my ass)

In order for me to achieve a similar score I would need to use my i7-8700K, clocked at 5.0Ghz and drawing double the power. Yes, it does win by a fair margin at 3900ish/500ish but my goodness the performance per watt of even a relatively poor bin of Zen 2 is amazing.

 

At this point I might as well swap my 8700K for a 3700X or maybe a 3900X if I can find one for a good price. They barely lose out in single core and would give me a lot more head room for my other non-gaming hobbies.

Take home: ryzen2 undeclocks so much better than coffee lake that it’s actually a good bit faster at lower voltages, yes?

[ShadowChaser]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

Take home: ryzen2 undeclocks so much better than coffee lake that it’s actually a good bit faster at lower voltages, yes?

It doesn't underclock better, per se, it just manifests itself as a better underclocker given the IPC and overall efficiency of Zen with its 7nm process. You'd be hard pressed to find a ryzen chip that scales well below 0.8v, I'd imagine, while most intel chips, especially mobile ones, will take 0.6v and scale almost perfectly.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

It doesn't underclock better, per se, it just manifests itself as a better underclocker given the IPC and overall efficiency of Zen with its 7nm process. You'd be hard pressed to find a ryzen chip that scales well below 0.8v, I'd imagine, while most intel chips, especially mobile ones, will take 0.6v and scale almost perfectly.

So better is a bad word to use.  More effective above .8v?

[ShadowChaser]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

So better is a bad word to use.  More effective above .8v?

I'd personally say so, but ymmv, of course. There just seems to be a much smaller effective voltage range for ryzen compared to comparable intel chips