AMD Confirms All Ryzen CPUs are Overclockable + Not Just Octacore Available at Launch

[HKZeroFive]

I apologise for the mess of a title but at the time I couldn't think of anything else that would explain everything clearly. With that out of the way, more Ryzen news... even when the Tech News and Reviews section of this forum is already cluttered with Ryzen and Vega news. Now normally, I'd quote a few parts of the article but unfortunately, this news comes in the form of a video.

 

 

So a guy from IDG managed to pull aside an AMD representative and extract some info from him. Here's a summary of the most important points:

 

-The full spectrum of AMD's Ryzen CPUs will be available at launch - not just the octacore we've been seeing showcased now and again. It hasn't been made clear if it's the quad and hexacore CPUs intended for the consumer market but it certainly has been implied.

-All Ryzen CPUs are overclockable. This might mean there will be an absence of any "Black Edition" Ryzen CPUs... but we will have to wait and see.

-Not all motherboards will support overclocking. Only the X370, X300 and B350 chipset retain that ability.

-Only the highest end chipset, X370, will support x8/x8 Crossfire and SLI.

-Motherboards will offer "extreme flexibility". I've interpreted it as various motherboards offering different features.

-No hard dates yet but their "trajectory is not for the end of the quarter"... which means AMD is planning on releasing Ryzen before the end of March. Let's see if that holds true.

 

Additionally, PCWorld managed to point out that AMD is expecting their Ryzen CPUs to last for four years. Which reminds me of that infamous Robert Palmer quote, funnily enough.

 

Personally, I like the fact that AMD is being lenient on overclocking, a nice break from the non-K and K series of CPUs and Z-chipset motherboards from Intel. Provided if the price and performance is right, I might pick up a hexacore with a cheap mobo and start overclocking away. But as always, wait for benchmarks and don't get too hyped... I've been seeing too much of that lately.

 

Sources: 

http://www.infoworld.com/video/73015/amd-drops-huge-news-on-ryzen-overclocking-and-core-counts-at-ces-2017

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155129/components-processors/amd-says-its-zen-cpu-architecture-is-expected-to-last-four-years.html

[Techicolors]

3 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

-Only the highest end chipset, X370, will support x8/x8 Crossfire and SLI.

what's the x8 / x8 mean? does that carry over with SLI?

 

3 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

-Not hard dates yet but their "trajectory is not for the end of the quarter"... which means AMD is planning on releasing Ryzen before the end of March. Let's see if that holds true.

I really hope this is the case. seeing the large amount of Ryzen mobos and builds at CES the chip can't be too far off from consumer and reviewers' hands

[Nena Trinity]

These are tremendous news!

[Droidbot]

please have itx mobos with decent power delivery

please have itx mobos with decent power delivery

 

[RGProductions]

Yay for overclocking on the cheap, at this rate that AMD is chugging along at we won't need Nvidia or intel soon! (/s BTW, we need competition)

[Godlygamer23]

7 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

what's the x8 / x8 mean? does that carry over with SLI?

The number of lanes present.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Godlygamer23

[sazrocks]

9 minutes ago, HKZeroFive said:

AMD is planning on releasing Ryzen before the end of March.

Darn I guess i was being too hopeful but I was hoping for a late Jan/early Feb release.

[The Sloth]

3 minutes ago, sazrocks said:

Darn I guess i was being too hopeful but I was hoping for a late Jan/early Feb release.

me too building a htpc hoping they would hurry up 

[HKZeroFive]

6 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

what's the x8 / x8 mean? does that carry over with SLI?

The number of lanes available. If you're running SLI, NVIDIA only allows a minimum of eight lanes per GPU. With Crossfire, AMD is a bit more lenient and allows for four... although that comes at a performance impact.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Only x8/x8 for CF/SLI? I was hoping for x16/x16/x16/x16.   (Not that I personally have a use for it though.)

 

Also does Nvdia require the minimum 8 lanes per GPU even if you're not running in SLI, or is it possible to drop, say, a 1050 into an X1 or X2 slot, provided it's open-ended (assuming it's not a physical x16 slot)?

 

I don't (yet) think I'll be upgrading from my 4790K to Ryzen.  But, I really hope AMD lights a fire under Intel's you-know-what, to speed up the generational/annual price/performance improvements.  If that doesn't happen, then at the current rate of Intel's increases (not considering Kaby Lake's almost non-increase), I'd have to wait like 20-30 years or more for a worthy upgrade to my 4790K.   I'm hoping for at least a 12-16x overall increase, and 3-4x per thread, over my 4790K, and would like to upgrade by around 2020 or so.

 

I'm also a bit disappointed in only 64GB of RAM support.  When I upgrade, I want to be able to run a lot of VMs, memory-intensive applications, etc. simultaneously, if at all possible edit 4K video in RAM without needing mass storage as scratch / swap space, etc.  My previous computer had & supported 4 GB of RAM (although only 3GB was usable, although the mobo apparently supported 16GB).  My current desktop has & supports 32GB, laptop supports 64GB (has 40 installed).  I'd like my next system to have RAM support increased by the same factor (so 256GB to 1TB RAM), WITHOUT having to go with the equivalent of an Intel LGA2011/2066/3647 server / -E/X platform.

 

Come on, AMD, please use Ryzen & Vega to bring some competition, innovation, & rapid innovation & performance/price increases back to market, like we haven't seen since the 1980s & 1990s in some cases.

[Humbug]

23 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

please use Ryzen & Vega to bring some competition, innovation, & rapid innovation & performance/price increases back to market, like we haven't seen since the 1980s & 1990s in some cases.

hmm unfortunately in the CPU market what we saw years back is probably never gonna happen again without some revolution such as quantam computing etc. Cause you can't defy physics and theoretical limits etc. Probably zen will be AMD's last massive IPC jump, from here onwards incremental improvements... Like sandy bridge was for Intel.

[Energycore]

1 hour ago, HKZeroFive said:

-All Ryzen CPUs are overclockable. This might mean there will be an absence of any "Black Edition" Ryzen CPUs... but we will have to wait and see.

Maybe there are still BEs but the non-BEs are OCable with BCLK

[SurvivorNVL]

I'll take that eight core, the highest end motherboard money can buy that isn't Asus, because fuck Asus, and I'll take a 490X, and an OLED-HDR Freesync 30" 3840x2400 monitor.  And some Noctua fans that are complete replica's of Gentle-Typhoons, please.

[suits]

But we need a release date!!!!!

[Energycore]

59 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

what's the x8 / x8 mean? does that carry over with SLI?

It means 8 PCI-E lanes for 64GT/s bandwidth per card if I'm not mistaken.

[suits]

9 minutes ago, Humbug said:

hmm unfortunately in the CPU market what we saw years back is probably never gonna happen again without some revolution such as quantam computing etc. Cause you can't defy physics and theoretical limits etc. Probably zen will be AMD's last massive IPC jump, from here onwards incremental improvements... Like sandy bridge was for Intel.

We could see it again when they move beyond silicon. I wish I saved the article but intel at least if not AMD and other companies are working on post-silicon chips. 

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, suits said:

But we need a release date!!!!!

"Before the end of March" Good enough?

[suits]

Just now, Energycore said:

"Before the end of March" Good enough?

 Not really lol. I need a set date. I've got a few recording pc's to make asap and I need to know how long I'd have to wait exactly. 

[Energycore]

Just now, suits said:

 Not really lol. I need a set date. I've got a few recording pc's to make asap and I need to know how long I'd have to wait exactly. 

Why not make one with LGA 2011 today and another one with Zen later? And then you can compare their power and value

[PianoPlayer88Key]

20 minutes ago, Humbug said:

hmm unfortunately in the CPU market what we saw years back is probably never gonna happen again without some revolution such as quantam computing etc. Cause you can't defy physics and theoretical limits etc. Probably zen will be AMD's last massive IPC jump, from here onwards incremental improvements... Like sandy bridge was for Intel.

Quantum?  Where are you??

 

One thing I REALLY want is greatly improved video encoding speeds.  For example, my i7-4790K encodes 4K H.264 video at about 5 or so fps.

 

For the same price as the 4790K was at Micro Center a couple Black Fridays ago ($249), I want my next CPU to be able to encode 4K H.264 at least at 30fps, preferably 60fps.  Also there's some other applications I've used now and then that aren't multi-thread capable, and I'd like at least a 2-4x improvement in performance for those.

 

And, when 8K 120fps 10/12-bit-per-color cameras with good lenses come down in price to where today's Panasonic FZ1000 or GH4 are, I'll want a $200-300 CPU + GPU (combined price for both) that can encode that, in H.264, in 4-8x realtime speeds.

 

Do you think it's possible, that with quantum, we would in a single generation catch up to where we would be in IPC if the rate of per-generation improvement hadn't slowed since the 100+% that the 286 was over the 8086?  (Btw any change Intel made, I would consider a generation - whether it be a new architecture, a die shrink, a new code name, a refresh, etc, for example Kaby Lake, Skylake, Broadwell, Haswell Refresh, Haswell, and so on back.)

 

Another thing I really want to see drastically improved is PC startup times.

 

Sure, they're in general a lot better now with SSDs than they used to be years ago with slower IDE hard drives, but still not where I want them to be.

 

From hitting the power button, through post (this includes on servers that currently take several minutes just to post), through booting the OS (I still remember autoexec.bat although I don't think it's used anymore), and if it's set up by the user ahead of time, auto-login and auto-starting various apps, loading websites, loading videos in premiere, loading steam, etc ... I'd like to one day (hopefully before too long) see the entire sequence be completed as quickly as an incandescent light bulb turns on when you flip the switch.  Same goes for shutting down, and for loading websites, videos, apps, files, etc. after you've booted & logged in.   Any chance that quantum could bring that?

 

[Energycore]

48 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

Also there's some other applications I've used now and then that aren't multi-thread capable, and I'd like at least a 2-4x improvement in performance for those.

For that honestly, we need coders to adopt AVX. There's not many things left to refine in the IPC department, we're left with higher clockspeed, and better programs. That's for silicon though, maybe the next time you upgrade you get a non-silicon CPU

[AdmiralMeowmix]

If these are affordable and better than what intel has out right now then man I hope ASUS makes AM4 motherboards for these just like the ones they make for intel.

[Dabombinable]

This is a good thing, since its now as far as I'm aware impossible to fake a high tier CPU by selling overclocked low tier models, which some scumbag computer shops did in the early to mid 90's (where unlocked multipliers were mainstream, eg AMD K6/K6 2 and Pentium II KLamanth)

[Energycore]

10 minutes ago, AdmiralMeowmix said:

If these are affordable and better than what intel has out right now then man I hope ASUS makes AM4 motherboards for these just like the ones they make for intel.

I think I read confirmation for AM4 crosshair mobos

[AdmiralMeowmix]

8 minutes ago, Energycore said:

I think I read confirmation for AM4 crosshair mobos

I'm more hoping along the lines of their new z270 line kinda stuff