AMD Zen

[ApolloEleven]

My intuition says it will be OK-ish. Not so fantastic, but not bad either.

[NEMESlS]

Not sure... won't be beating my 6600k i don't think, but if it does.. HOLY SHIT BALLZ AMD, intel GET_REKT

[othertomperson]

true CPU without any iGPU that is comparable to a 5960x.

 

I'm expecting this. Unfortunately Intel will probably have had three new generations since the 5960X so it's probably not going to be too relevant. I could be wrong though.

 

They've already had two, Broadwell and Skylake, and I'm expecting Kaby Lake before we get a Zen release.

[HaloFan9087]

So I'm planning a build for this coming summer... a while away I know, but that is when I will have free time to build/shop for deals. I want to know what is happening with AMD Zen processors and the Artic Island GPUs. 

 

I would like to see what they have to offer, and have read some articles:

 

http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-development-of-zen-processors-is-our-largest-rd-spending-now/

http://wccftech.com/amd-greenland-gpu-rumored-launch-year-part-radeon-r400-arctic-islands-family/

 

The kit guru article is saying that the zen processors are likely to release late 2016, is that really possible?  If that is true that would push back my build by a few months....

 

Do you think that waiting to see what AMD/Zen has to offer would be a wise decision?   or should I just go for a skylake build.... so confused.... :unsure:

 

I really don't like the idea of just adopting the only option on the market..... because there is nothing else current from amd... sigh

 

What would you do, build this summer or just keep waiting it out for zen/ arctic to see how intel reacts?

[Untouchable]

I'd go with Intel, dont wait.

 

TBH Intel could destroy AMD ten times over, they could monopolize the market if they wanted to. AMD is barely hanging on. at least in terms of cpu's. 

 

Just go Intel, just please. dont wait. 

[iHardware Shelden]

I plan on upgrading to Zen but really right now it seems like more of a "lets hope it good" situation. Intel is doing amazing right now but Skylake still seizes to impress me, I also hope that changes with the lower tier processors (which I tend to enjoy) 

[salecar3]

Zen is gona be better but by 10/15% on cpu and around 20/25% on graphics psrt but it wont be ad good as Skylake ix xxxx cpu, if u need great igpu than eait if not get hasswel or skylake

[PHInfinite]

I'd go with Intel, dont wait.

 

TBH Intel could destroy AMD ten times over, they could monopolize the market if they wanted to. AMD is barely hanging on. at least in terms of cpu's. 

 

Just go Intel, just please. dont wait. 

Zen is what AMD will create to finally be intel's level. By the time it gets released intel will have their own cpus to counter it so you choice will be quite diverse in q3 and q4 next year. Zen will far better then 10-15% increase it will like at least 50% performance increase. Wait for Zen and see Intel's reaction is my advice.

[Burusutazu]

I plan on upgrading to Zen but really right now it seems like more of a "lets hope it good" situation. Intel is doing amazing right now but Skylake still seizes to impress me, I also hope that changes with the lower tier processors (which I tend to enjoy) 

Im looking forward to see how the skylake pentium will do. (if there is even one)

On-topic. Buy in the now, not the future, electronics are continuingly improving. If zen is better than skylake it won't be better enough to warrant waiting a whole year.

[HaloFan9087]

I plan on upgrading to Zen but really right now it seems like more of a "lets hope it good" situation. Intel is doing amazing right now but Skylake still seizes to impress me, I also hope that changes with the lower tier processors (which I tend to enjoy) 

 

Isn't kabby lake going to release late 2016? I thought I heard something about that being the time frame, maybe timed up to be a sort of "anything you can do I can do better" move?  I would like Zen to be a serious option, but the 2016 cpu market seems to be shaping up to be tumultuous.... marking me unsure what to do haha....

[iHardware Shelden]

Im looking forward to see how the skylake pentium will do. (if there is even one)

On-topic. Buy in the now, not the future, electronics are continuingly improving. If zen is better than skylake it won't be better enough to warrant waiting a whole year.

If Intel released an unlocked i3 they would kill a lot of the lower end marked in terms of gaming and I personally would probably pick one up 

[iHardware Shelden]

Isn't kabby lake going to release late 2016? I thought I heard something about that being the time frame, maybe timed up to be a sort of "anything you can do I can do better" move?  I would like Zen to be a serious option, but the 2016 cpu market seems to be shaping up to be tumultuous.... marking me unsure what to do haha....

Tbh I do not know, but ya with skylake I feel like we got f***** over because they are just holding back do to no competition. I remember everyone saying skylake was going to be mind blowing with its thermals and power consumption, also overclocking. Skylake turned out to just be a joke imo. I love Intel and I love AMD but this kind of pissed me off...

[Paralectic]

If Intel released an unlocked i3 they would kill a lot of the lower end marked in terms of gaming and I personally would probably pick one up 

And cannibalise their i5 sales. 

[HaloFan9087]

Im looking forward to see how the skylake pentium will do. (if there is even one)

On-topic. Buy in the now, not the future, electronics are continuingly improving. If zen is better than skylake it won't be better enough to warrant waiting a whole year.

 

I know it will constantly evolve... I just want to jump in at the right interval where there is a large of performance jump as possible, as I don't want to build every 2.5 years...

[iHardware Shelden]

And cannibalise their i5 sales. 

ehh true but the i5 still kicks as cause it is a true Quad core, also you would see people move over from AMD so it could be good, bad, or really do nothing in the long term. Seeing how well the Pentium G3258 sold the i3 would probably do the same.

[iHardware Shelden]

I know it will constantly evolve... I just want to jump in at the right interval where there is a large of performance jump as possible, as I don't want to build every 2.5 years...

X99 would be a great option then or the next revision of 2011, if you want to "future proof" go with something Unlocked, fast single core and a lot of cores. I hope AMD manages to pull something like this of but it feels very unlikely. 

[Untouchable]

Zen is what AMD will create to finally be intel's level. By the time it gets released intel will have their own cpus to counter it so you choice will be quite diverse in q3 and q4 next year. Zen will far better then 10-15% increase it will like at least 50% performance increase. Wait for Zen and see Intel's reaction is my advice.

You don't know that, wait for the benchmarks. A company can always say something, but they can't always deliver what they say. almost nothing about Zen is confirmed.

[looncraz]

Zen is gona be better but by 10/15% on cpu and around 20/25% on graphics psrt but it wont be ad good as Skylake ix xxxx cpu, if u need great igpu than eait if not get hasswel or skylake

 

AMD would have to screw up hard-core to only get 10/15% improvement on the CPU front.  They stated 40% as the expectation, and that isn't that hard to envision if you understand their architecture.

Zen will see a 10~15% improvement exclusively from dumping the module model, and the extra stages that added to the pipeline, and the extra cache contention.  They will gain another 5~10% from a write-back low latency cache, another 5~10% from the wider integer cores (in some cases this will spike to 50%, but that GREATLY depends on fast-path and the core's ability to fully utilize the core for a single thread, rather than relying on SMT to fill the void), they will also see a 20% or so improvement in quite a few different areas just as a result of the process improvement, but those aren't fully additive (some for the cache, some for power savings, some for clock rate, and so on).

 

BTW, a 40% IPC improvement, if equally applied to integer, and a single FPU per core - with new instruction support, will put Zen right in the same ballpark with Haswell.  Their data fabric and AsMedia system block, though, may give them a better platform than Intel... and that might just be enough to turn sales around.

[Prysin]

You don't know that, wait for the benchmarks. A company can always say something, but they can't always deliver what they say. almost nothing about Zen is confirmed.

AMD stated clearly that no matter what they did architecture wise, going from CMT (FX 8350) to SMT (Intel products) would net them 40% increase in IPC over Excavator (CMT)....

 

as things stand

Bulldozer (FX 41xx, 61xx, 81xx) is 100% IPC

Piledriver, the successor of Bulldozer (FX 43xx, 63xx, 83xx, 9370, 9590) is 107% IPC

Steamroller, the successor of Piledriver (Kaveri APUs) is 122% IPC

Excavator, the successor of Steamroller (Carrizzo APUs) is 138% IPC

In comparison, Haswell Core i5 4690k is at about 155-160% IPC in comparison to bulldozer....

 

Now if you add 40% BASELINE, no matter what they get 40% because of how SMT (the system intel has been using for years) works..... this is simply from how SMT WORKS. They cannot get LESS then 40% increase in IPC over Excavator.

 

So if you add 40% onto the existing 138% higher then bulldozer IPC of Excavator, you will get around Haswell levels.

If they get an increase of 50-60% IPC (10-20% more then they promised) then they will be near skylake levels....

 

 

In short, even if only 40% increase, ZEN will be at Haswell levels of performance give or take 10-15% i guess.... Atleast it is better then the "give or take 30-50%" that is today...

[Snooli]

Hold on a sec.

If Zen is 40% over Excavator, that means 193,2% of Bulldozer. I don't see Intels die shrink getting them above that.

Anyway for the OP, best option is propably a second hand 2600k @ 5+Ghz. They overclock better than any other Intel. 2600k@5,5Ghz>6700k@4,6Ghz. And that is about half the price.

[Prysin]

Hold on a sec.

If Zen is 40% over Excavator, that means 193,2% of Bulldozer. I don't see Intels die shrink getting them above that.

Anyway for the OP, best option is propably a second hand 2600k @ 5+Ghz. They overclock better than any other Intel. 2600k@5,5Ghz>6700k@4,6Ghz. And that is about half the price.

well, here is the catch...

 

Carrizo (Excavator) is at around 138% performance of Bulldozer, according to AMD. But even if Carizzo has launched, there are NO REVIEWS of this...

And Carrizo is a PURE LAPTOP chip, it wont come to desktop... So while the IPC is higher, the clockspeeds are much lower....

 

End result, it is hard to say whether it Carrizo made ANY progress over Kaveri (steamroller) at all from a IPC standpoint.... Not until we get Carrizo benchmarks...

Sadly, we can only bench vs kaveri laptop parts....

 

I would say the safest bet is 40% over steamroller. Atleast we have benchmarks of steamroller and its performance.... but according to AMD its 40% over Excavator....

[Nena Trinity]

I would wait for Zen or 7th gen Intel!

[Snooli]

well, here is the catch...

Carrizo (Excavator) is at around 138% performance of Bulldozer, according to AMD. But even if Carizzo has launched, there are NO REVIEWS of this...

And Carrizo is a PURE LAPTOP chip, it wont come to desktop... So while the IPC is higher, the clockspeeds are much lower....

End result, it is hard to say whether it Carrizo made ANY progress over Kaveri (steamroller) at all from a IPC standpoint.... Not until we get Carrizo benchmarks...

Sadly, we can only bench vs kaveri laptop parts....

I would say the safest bet is 40% over steamroller. Atleast we have benchmarks of steamroller and its performance.... but according to AMD its 40% over Excavator....

There is still one thing we have to think about. GHZ. AMD usually clocks better.

[Prysin]

There is still one thing we have to think about. GHZ. AMD usually clocks better.

depends...

 

Piledriver (FX) clocks really well, but Steamroller (Kaveri) gets really bad returns. You mostly only get more heat... Atleast on the CPU side of things...

 

So yeah... it really depends. If ZEN OCs as good as my FX 8320 did, then DAMN, that chip will be a beast (my FX 8320 OCd from 3.5GHz stock to 4.4GHz without any voltage increases)

[Guest trucker2]

They already taped out Zen so next year. Skylake only has 4 cores so Zen will be awesome.

Just for fits and giggles I went back and read some reviews of the x6, the most awesome cpu of its day and one that still seels for 3 digits on EBAY. Entertaining to say the least.

The biggist thing in AMD's favor right now is software developement, which moves at a glacial pace. Game design starts 4 years before it is released. Also coding for multicore cpu's is allot harder then single thread.Then there is cache optimizing.

   Every game devoloper who wants to continue to pay the rent will be trying to squeeze EVERY fps out of eight Jaguar cores running at 1.7 ghz. VLIW is dead. This is good news for AMD. Frankly the IPC doesn't have to match intel. The old FX line still has more POTENTIAL horsepower then the Haswell 4 cores. Developers just never had to go the extra mile to make use of it, until now. Even though the article about how game developers, when polled, chooose the FX 8350 over I5 was written two years ago it is even more relevant today given

 

On the APU they just anounced the 7890k!!!!!

Ok hold the laughter. APU's could be the future, I remember when the L2 cache was external, seems to run faster on chip. HSA is also on the amd consoles so that will garentee it will be developed IMHO