Mini-news: AMD Zen 2 architecture said to have 16% higher IPC than the original 1st-gen Zen CPUs

[Morgan MLGman]

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/248642/amd-zen-2-offers-a-13-ipc-gain-over-zen-16-over-zen-1

The news originally came from an Italian website that apparently tested it so keep that in mind, this isn't anything 100% confirmed yet. Seems plausible though.

Introduction: 

Quote

AMD "Zen" CPU architecture brought the company back to competitive relevance in the processor market. It got an incremental update in the form of "Zen+" which saw the implementation of an improved 12 nm process, and improved multi-core boosting algorithm, along with improvements to the cache subsystem. AMD is banking on Zen 2 to not only add IPC (instructions per clock) improvements; but also a new round of core-count increases. Bits n Chips has information that Zen 2 is making significant IPC gains.

This came from his twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/1052194745647165441



And now to the data that he acquired:

Quote

According to the Italian tech publication, we could expect Zen 2 IPC gains of 13 percent over Zen+, which in turn posted 2-5% IPC gains over the original Zen. Bits n Chips notes that these IPC gains were tested in scientific tasks, and not in gaming. There is no gaming performance data at the moment. AMD is expected to debut Zen 2 with its 2nd generation EPYC enterprise processors by the end of the year, built on the 7 nm silicon fabrication process. This roughly 16 percent IPC gain versus the original Zen, coupled with higher clocks, and possibly more cores, could complete the value proposition of 2nd gen EPYC. Zen 2-based client-segment products can be expected only in 2019.

So these are not gaming tests. These are "scientific" tests which can mean pretty much anything... We do not know the testing methodology or anything more specific at the moment so take this with a grain of salt, as usually with leaks.

My opinion: If this information proves to be true, AMD's next-gen consumer CPUs based on the Zen 2 architecture may be even more competitive than the 1st or 2nd generation, if this IPC gain is paired with lower power consumption due to the 7nm technological process used, and potentially higher clock speeds achieved, they might equal with Intel in terms of single-threaded performance. Which is the only thing Ryzen lacks when compared to higher-end Intel chips.

Your thoughts on this rumour?

[GOTSpectrum]

I was expecting Hoping that AMD could pull 10-15% improvement, so this is inline with what I was expecting hoping to see.

 

Only time will tell though. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

if it's true then people who only use their systems for gaming might consider AMD as a good option again. which is good because then we'll have competition there too. 

[porina]

16% increase sounds miraculous if it were to apply generally. My suspicion is whatever workloads they are running, had particular limits with existing Ryzen, which are further alleviated by the next refresh. For workloads that are not similarly constrained, benefits may be much smaller.

[Morgan MLGman]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

if it's true then people who only use their systems for gaming might consider AMD as a good option again. which is good because then we'll have competition there too. 

IMO AMD already is a good option for gaming, especially considering current price rises for Intel CPUs due to supply shortages:

 

[GOTSpectrum]

1 minute ago, porina said:

16% increase sounds miraculous if it were to apply generally. My suspicion is whatever workloads they are running, had particular limits with existing Ryzen, which are further alleviated by the next refresh. For workloads that are not similarly constrained, benefits may be much smaller.

Could it be AVX has been improved on Ryzen? 

[Trixanity]

Bait for wenchmarks.

 

Seriously though. The chip won't be available till next year and it's the server one at that. There is a good chance that AMD will split the consumer and server chips this time. There is no way to know the final product.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, Morgan MLGman said:

IMO AMD already is a good option for gaming, especially considering current price rises for Intel CPUs due to supply shortages

not for high refresh rate right?

[porina]

Just now, Ben Quigley said:

Could it be AVX has been improved on Ryzen? 

Good question. AMD chose not to compete with Intel in that area with Ryzen to date, but Intel are not resting and are pushing AVX-512 which could put them up to 4x IPC of Ryzen. If AMD were to match Intel consumer CPU performance, I'd expect to see closer to 100% improvement (depending on workload), not 16%.

 

If I had to guess, AVX is not where I'd look at. Maybe more towards further memory controller, cache and internal connectivity optimisations. Scientific tasks can depend more on those factors than consumer workloads.

[Morgan MLGman]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

16% increase sounds miraculous if it were to apply generally. My suspicion is whatever workloads they are running, had particular limits with existing Ryzen, which are further alleviated by the next refresh. For workloads that are not similarly constrained, benefits may be much smaller.

It might sound like that because Intel still hasn't made any IPC improvements since the 6th gen Skylake so they just kept adding cores starting from 8th gen to rival Ryzen's value...
Considering they achieved 2-5% IPC gain with Zen+ and that they stated multiple times that they know where to improve on that with Zen2, it might be possible, however I'd expect the gain to be something around 10% over Zen+. Remember that the 16% margin is when compared to 1st-gen Ryzen chips.

4 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

not for high refresh rate right?

It really depends on your particular setup and use case... My buddy has a stock Ryzen 5 1600 with a 1080p 144Hz panel and he can play CS:GO flawlessly on high FPS.

[GOTSpectrum]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Good question. AMD chose not to compete with Intel in that area with Ryzen to date, but Intel are not resting and are pushing AVX-512 which could put them up to 4x IPC of Ryzen. If AMD were to match Intel consumer CPU performance, I'd expect to see closer to 100% improvement (depending on workload), not 16%.

 

If I had to guess, AVX is not where I'd look at. Maybe more towards further memory controller, cache and internal connectivity optimisations. Scientific tasks can depend more on those factors than consumer workloads.

IMC improvements could really help gaming tbh. Especially if it has IF improvements too. Its common knowledge core latency is a major problem on Ryzen for the time being. 

[Brooksie359]

5 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

not for high refresh rate right?

I have a 2700x and use it with a 240hz monitor. You can still hit pretty high fps with ryzen just not as high as something like an 8700k. To me it doesn't matter as I am still getting quite high fps. Also I only play overwatch on the 240hz which the 2700x can hit around 240 fps. For everything else I play at 4k. 

[Trixanity]

2 minutes ago, porina said:

Good question. AMD chose not to compete with Intel in that area with Ryzen to date, but Intel are not resting and are pushing AVX-512 which could put them up to 4x IPC of Ryzen. If AMD were to match Intel consumer CPU performance, I'd expect to see closer to 100% improvement (depending on workload), not 16%.

 

If I had to guess, AVX is not where I'd look at. Maybe more towards further memory controller, cache and internal connectivity optimisations. Scientific tasks can depend more on those factors than consumer workloads.

AVX would require a lot of silicon so it might not be the area where they want to spend their budget or they might improve AVX support for some chips but not others depending on how they decide to design their Zen 2 chips.

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

It might sound like that because Intel still hasn't made any IPC improvements since the 6th gen Skylake so they just kept adding cores starting from 8th gen to rival Ryzen's value...
Considering they achieved 2-5% IPC gain with Zen+ and that they stated multiple times that they know where to improve on that with Zen2, it might be possible, however I'd expect the gain to be something around 10% over Zen+. Remember that the 16% margin is when compared to 1st-gen Ryzen chips.

It really depends on your particular setup and use case... My buddy has a stock Ryzen 5 1600 with a 1080p 144Hz panel and he can play CS:GO flawlessly on high FPS.

The difference between Zen and Zen+ was 3% so it's 16% better than Zen and 13% better than Zen+ if the number holds true.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

It might sound like that because Intel still hasn't made any IPC improvements since the 6th gen Skylake so they just kept adding cores starting from 8th gen to rival Ryzen's value...
Considering they achieved 2-5% IPC gain with Zen+ and that they stated multiple times that they know where to improve on that with Zen2, it might be possible, however I'd expect the gain to be something around 10% over Zen+. Remember that the 16% margin is when compared to 1st-gen Ryzen chips.

I think of IPC in two ways, let's call it peak and practical IPC. The peak IPC is what the cores would do it not otherwise limited. Agreed that Intel hasn't really changed that since Skylake. I'm not sure if there was any real difference in that area between Zen and Zen+, where what we did see were some minor improvements leading to a practical improvement.

 

My question is, are the CPUs actually capable of doing more work under ideal situations, or are they just better are reducing losses from non-ideal situations? I'd lean to the latter.

[AlTech]

15 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

snip

Yeah, the Tech Press made Ryzen out to be a bad gaming CPU but the reality is that it's a great CPU for gaming.

 

It may not be the best choice for 144Hz or 200Hz but Nvidia isn't focussing on 200Hz or 144Hz gaming and most games struggle to do 144Hz with 8700Ks and 1080Tis anyway.

 

For anything under 144Hz, Ryzen is really a great gaming CPU imho.

[Arika]

AMD and Intel love their +'s lately.

 

As always, don't pre order, Wait for independent reviews and benchmarks

[Orcblood]

So this plus hitting 5ghz and boom! AMD is in in parity with Intel. That seems right to me but I could be wrong. Either way cool on them! I will probably hold out for Zen3 or Zen4 at 5nm as I can be happy with my 2700x for a long time.

[Trixanity]

1 minute ago, jman629 said:

So this plus hitting 5ghz and boom! AMD is in in parity with Intel. That seems right to me but I could be wrong. Either way cool on them! I will probably hold out for Zen3 or Zen4 at 5nm as I can be happy with my 2700x for a long time.

It'll probably be the case of AMD having superior IPC but lower clock speeds. I don't expect higher than 4.6 GHz for the top SKU - maybe 4.7 by loosening the TDP. Anything above that would be impressive.

[Coaxialgamer]

3 hours ago, porina said:

16% increase sounds miraculous if it were to apply generally. My suspicion is whatever workloads they are running, had particular limits with existing Ryzen, which are further alleviated by the next refresh. For workloads that are not similarly constrained, benefits may be much smaller.

It's actually not that incomprehensible when you look at at the zen design. 

Amd obviously made some design tradeoffs when designing their cores for low power and small area. The cores themselves have a pretty fundamental limitations baked in, which if lifted have the potential to increase performance. 

 

Zen only has 2 load store ports for use by both its integer and FP units. Skylake has a 3 (2 load +1 store), plus a dedicated AGU port.

The result is that Zen zen skews heavily towards arithmetic performance, at the expense of memory bandwidth (possibly to compensate for the weaker vector units). Programs that are very memory intensive could see benefits from more memory ports. Consider that on average 50% of x86 operations are memory related (2:1 ratio for load/ store). 

 

Plus, zen's out of order structures are generally less advanced than what intel has on skylake, with a smaller PRF and ROB, and split reservation stations. The smaller ROB/PRF also needs to be shared among more ports. 

 

[Humbug]

31 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

if it's true then people who only use their systems for gaming might consider AMD as a good option again. 

They already do. In various parts of the world retailers are reporting that AMD is now selling well in both the enthusiast and PC gamer markets.

[schwellmo92]

22 minutes ago, Arika S said:

AMD and Intel love their +'s lately.

 

As always, don't pre order, Wait for independent reviews and benchmarks

How does AMD love their +'s lately? This will be 7nm (no +)

[Franck]

by Zen2 it mean the Ryzen 2XXX right ?

[Coaxialgamer]

1 minute ago, Franck said:

by Zen2 it mean the Ryzen 2XXX right ?

That's zen+, a refresh of the original zen architecture. 

Zen 2 refers to the next generation architecture, which will probably be the ryzen 3000 series

[porina]

1 minute ago, Coaxialgamer said:

It's actually not that incomprehensible when you look at at the zen design. 

My point is not that some applications wont see 16% or more improvement. I'm just expressing caution not to expect everything to increase 16%. That is what would be really surprising to me.

 

I look forward to testing it... if I ever catch up, I still haven't done my intended tests on Zen, Zen+ and selected Intels... been intending to come up with my own comparison of HT/SMT and a side effect of doing that would also include single thread IPC data.

[porina]

 

3 minutes ago, Franck said:

by Zen2 it mean the Ryzen 2XXX right ?

Ryzen 1000 = Zen

Ryzen 2000 = Zen+ (mostly, but APUs are still Zen I think?)

Ryzen ???? = Zen2 but would agree 3000 series would make sense.