CPU technical question

[pstarlord]

So second Gen Ryzen is out, the benchmarks are out and that all looks great.  But, here's my question, and excuse my ignorance on this, but I figured I'd ask.  

 

Currently, I've got a Ryzen 1700x in my rig, I have it OC'd to 4 Ghz.  It's 8 core, 16 thread, with a clock speed right in the middle of the 3700X's clock speed range.  Same number of cores, same number of threads, same(ish) clock speeds.  So what is it about the Gen 2 Ryzens that are making them faster?  Obviously, there is more to the functionality of CPU's than just the cores/threads/clocks.  Can someone give me a quick primer on a few of them?  No need to go into too much detail, once I know what to look for, I'll be able to do some digging on my own for the finer details. 

 

Thanks!

[Glenwing]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_cycle

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/860130-fx-8350-help-resonably-explain-why-its-bad-at-gaming/?do=findComment&comment=10703181

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, pstarlord said:

So what is it about the Gen 2 Ryzens that are making them faster?  Obviously, there is more to the functionality of CPU's than just the cores/threads/clocks.  Can someone give me a quick primer on a few of them? 

It's a combination of improving the part of the CPU that handles instructions (decoding, scheduling etc.), improvements to cache, and working with software vendors to optimize their code for Ryzen.

[goto10]

they improved design over the first generation, also the cpu is made on 7nm  node that allows them to run the cpu cooler and reach higher speeds with less heat and less power consumption

 

all that together deliver improvements that can be measured on multiple ways

[Tom H]

1 hour ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

It's a combination of improving the part of the CPU that handles instructions (decoding, scheduling etc.), improvements to cache, and working with software vendors to optimize their code for Ryzen.

this is essentially it.

 

"improving the part of the CPU that handles instructions" leads to better IPC or instructions per clock. I'm not sure how much they improved the cache, but they just have a crap load of cache now. AMD calls it "gaming" cache but it is L3 cache. AMD found that having a boatload of L3 helps with their architecture.

 

But the 3rd part of Mira's sentence is probably the most not talked about part though perhaps the most important. Intel has 15,000 software developers that help software creators optimize their code to make things run better on intel. AMD has to also go out there and optimize software so it runs good on Ryzen. As a result of this, as time goes on, the Ryzen's will only get better and faster. That's why second gen ryzen like the 2700x runs much faster now on benchmarks than it did when it first came on the market last year. I fully expect this from the current 3rd gen ryzen as well (i.e., to run better a few months from now)

[Brent744]

In short, It's the new CPU architecture. The new Ryzen chips are 7nm (nanometers) versus the previous generation being 12nm. The smaller the nanometer means the CPU can contain more transistors, resulting in information being passed around much quicker. A 7nm chip running at 3.5ghz should perform better than a 12nm chip running at the same speed.