What does 40% improvement over FX-8350 equates to?

[PlayModeOn]

Hello,

 

I know this is just rumours (or not) but apparently the Zen architecture will bring 40% more IPC improvement (lets assume an improvement over FX-8350). What does this 40% mean? Will it match Intel i7s? Even if the rumour is not true, lets just pretend because I am curious.

[Glenwing]

It's a 40% improvement over Excavator, not over the 8350. The 8350 is Piledriver-based.

Piledriver == 1.0

Steamroller (+10%) = 1.1

Excavator (+5%) = 1.155

Zen (+40%) = 1.617.

So a 61.7% IPC increase over the FX-8350. That should easily bring it up to the level of Haswell, perhaps a bit more.

[AsGoodAsAHacker]

It will bring them beyond most intels, and amd cards have very high draw calls, usually 4x more. So they could be intels biggest nightmare. We will see.

[Caeradwyn]

The thing is, when these new CPUs are released, everybody will be able to see if the 40% IPC claim is true, so it's very risky to make such claims unless there is something to it. We've seen things like this happen before though. AMD are not "bad" at designing CPUs by any means, they just took a risk with a very different type of CPU architecture when they started on the whole Bulldozer architecture. They expected the software industry to start utilizing more threads sooner, something that didn't really happen, which made the CPUs look worse than they would've in highly threaded workloads. The cost of abandoning the whole architecture without being ready with a new one would be extremely high, so in all likelihood they kept at it while working on Zen behind the scenes.

I actually find the news of Zen to be some of the most exciting and interesting hardware news in years. For at least 3-4 years now, it'll been all about incremental improvements to the same old stuff, but this is finally something a bit more "new and fresh". Can't wait to see if we'll have a new "Athlon moment". For those who are considering upgrading their motherboard, ram and cpu right now, but who aren't quite sure if they need to, this might be a very good reason to hang on to their old stuff for a little while longer. I for one have got the feeling now that my i7-920 will have to last at least until I see how well Zen performs

[Un4tural]

i really hope zen does as well and better than we are expecting a the moment, can't help but be skeptical after all the FX series refreshes. Boy am i tired of that.

 

Also i wonder if it'll be ddr3/ddr4 or maybe both capable chip, since in a year ddr3 might still be a cheaper option as well as unlikely to botleneck anything.

 

to be fair, i did like the more cores approach and it did seem like more cores over strong cores will become more relevant and will be the next thing, every since the core 2 duo days (my sister still is clunking along with my old e6300 intel and a few graphics card upgares...). 

 

Anyways, zen sounds amazing, if the parts are good overclockers and unlocked too it'll be pretty refreshing to really consider AMD for a high end build.

[PlayModeOn]

It's a 40% improvement over Excavator, not over the 8350. The 8350 is Piledriver-based.

Piledriver == 1.0

Steamroller (+10%) = 1.1

Excavator (+5%) = 1.155

Zen (+40%) = 1.617.

So a 61.7% IPC increase over the FX-8350. That should easily bring it up to the level of Haswell, perhaps a bit more.

Thanks for that!

[PlayModeOn]

The thing is, when these new CPUs are released, everybody will be able to see if the 40% IPC claim is true, so it's very risky to make such claims unless there is something to it. We've seen things like this happen before though. AMD are not "bad" at designing CPUs by any means, they just took a risk with a very different type of CPU architecture when they started on the whole Bulldozer architecture. They expected the software industry to start utilizing more threads sooner, something that didn't really happen, which made the CPUs look worse than they would've in highly threaded workloads. The cost of abandoning the whole architecture without being ready with a new one would be extremely high, so in all likelihood they kept at it while working on Zen behind the scenes.

I actually find the news of Zen to be some of the most exciting and interesting hardware news in years. For at least 3-4 years now, it'll been all about incremental improvements to the same old stuff, but this is finally something a bit more "new and fresh". Can't wait to see if we'll have a new "Athlon moment". For those who are considering upgrading their motherboard, ram and cpu right now, but who aren't quite sure if they need to, this might be a very good reason to hang on to their old stuff for a little while longer. I for one have got the feeling now that my i7-920 will have to last at least until I see how well Zen performs

Well it makes my life harder because I plan to upgrade on Christmas so the obvious choice would be an Intel i7, but now with the announcement of Zen it became very tricky decision. What's worse is the longer I wait for Zen the worse the Australian dollar gets which means I have to pay more.

[Mew]

While such a big ipc increase would be nice, it might not be able to clock that high or oc well if at all. Say its ipc is slightly better than haswell but it can only top out at around 3ghz. That's great at stock speeds, especially for a budget chip against the 4460, however, the 4690k can usually do a 25% overclock which would put it much ahead of zen in my hypothetical crippled configuration. Ipc is just one part of the story, click speed and oc potential is the other part.

[Caeradwyn]

While such a big ipc increase would be nice, it might not be able to clock that high or oc well if at all. Say its ipc is slightly better than haswell but it can only top out at around 3ghz. That's great at stock speeds, especially for a budget chip against the 4460, however, the 4690k can usually do a 25% overclock which would put it much ahead of zen in my hypothetical crippled configuration. Ipc is just one part of the story, click speed and oc potential is the other part.

 

Yep, it's true that clocks speeds will play a major part in the overall performance of the new AMD CPUs. I'd say it's unlikely that they'll be clocked much lower than current AMD CPUs though, and from the rumors, TDP should be somewhere between 95W and 125W for the full 8-core version. If this is indeed true, I would imagine that the overclocking potential could be just fine.

Personally, I think Zen might just put AMD on a near-equal footing with Intel. I doubt it'll be an "Intel killer", but even if it's "nearly as fast", meaning within around 5% for around the same money, I'd actually prefer to support the underdog, simply because we NEED the competition. If AMD were to go bust, CPU prices would surely go up.

If I'm going to be optimistic for a moment though, I'm actually quite hoping for another "Athlon moment", when Davis suddenly shows Goliath how it's done. If that happens, it'll make Intel improve their game as well, and in the end, it'll benefit us, the consumers, with better products.

[PlayModeOn]

Yep, it's true that clocks speeds will play a major part in the overall performance of the new AMD CPUs. I'd say it's unlikely that they'll be clocked much lower than current AMD CPUs though, and from the rumors, TDP should be somewhere between 95W and 125W for the full 8-core version. If this is indeed true, I would imagine that the overclocking potential could be just fine.

Personally, I think Zen might just put AMD on a near-equal footing with Intel. I doubt it'll be an "Intel killer", but even if it's "nearly as fast", meaning within around 5% for around the same money, I'd actually prefer to support the underdog, simply because we NEED the competition. If AMD were to go bust, CPU prices would surely go up.

If I'm going to be optimistic for a moment though, I'm actually quite hoping for another "Athlon moment", when Davis suddenly shows Goliath how it's done. If that happens, it'll make Intel improve their game as well, and in the end, it'll benefit us, the consumers, with better products.

 

I do not think CPU prices will go up when Intel monopolises the desktop space (they virtually already are monopolising the market). I think you mean progress/innovation will be slowed not prices going up because no one is going to pay $1000 for a mainstream i7 and $500 for an i5. Intel need the money flowing so they will be releasing CPUs at the same price every year or else if they increase the price - less people will buy, drops market share, who will fund their R&D....

[Hieb]

While such a big ipc increase would be nice, it might not be able to clock that high or oc well if at all. Say its ipc is slightly better than haswell but it can only top out at around 3ghz. That's great at stock speeds, especially for a budget chip against the 4460, however, the 4690k can usually do a 25% overclock which would put it much ahead of zen in my hypothetical crippled configuration. Ipc is just one part of the story, click speed and oc potential is the other part.

 

Very true, although it seems unlikely that a clock as low as 3GHz will be its ceiling.

I think the biggest barrier will be price. If the CPU is actually competitive in performance, gone are the days of $150 eight-cores. If their eight-core Zen CPU matches an i7-5960X, it will probably cost $600+.

 

The only reason AMD's CPUs right now are so cheap is because it's the only way they can be considered good value versus the competition... their margins are really bad right now. If these Zen CPUs perform well, they're going to be priced only slightly less than Intel's similar CPUs (because AMD still has smaller market share and negative stigma / less money for marketing and whatnot, so they'll have to price them lower). So no more $80 quad cores (except maybe for the continuation of the AM1 platform, or perhaps AM1+ with Zen-based low-power APUs). Their quad-cores will be priced almost as much as Intel quad-cores...

 

However this may push Intel to do something interesting like selling unlocked i3s, or just bumping up the tiers altogether.

 

Celeron -> 2C2T, locked

Pentium -> 2C4T, locked & unlocked

Core i4 -> 4C4T, locked & unlocked

Core i5 -> 4C8T, unlocked

Core i6 -> 6C6T, unlocked

Core i7 -> 6C12T, unlocked

Core i8 -> 8C24T, unlocked

 

Really jumping the gun of course, but that would be really cool

[harrynowl]

Using @Glenwings numbers with some benchmark results of my own

 

In a single threaded benchmark (Cinebench R15) the i5 scores 183 and the FX8350 scores 112 when they're both at 4.7GHz, so the i5 is roughly 63% faster at the same clock.

 

So with equal clocks Zens expected performance is roughly the same as Haswells, however Zen is looking to sport more cores, clockspeeds are unknown and hopefully Zen proves to be a scaleable architecture for AMD to work with in the future.

[Caeradwyn]

I do not think CPU prices will go up when Intel monopolises the desktop space (they virtually already are monopolising the market). I think you mean progress/innovation will be slowed not prices going up because no one is going to pay $1000 for a mainstream i7 and $500 for an i5. Intel need the money flowing so they will be releasing CPUs at the same price every year or else if they increase the price - less people will buy, drops market share, who will fund their R&D....

 

Perhaps I should have said "we'll pay more money for less performance". Also, I don't mean that the prices would double over night, but it would likely go up by a small margin every new generation. They'd push their profit margins up rather than down, due to no need to be competitive.

[Briggsy]

Perhaps I should have said "we'll pay more money for less performance". Also, I don't mean that the prices would double over night, but it would likely go up by a small margin every new generation. They'd push their profit margins up rather than down, due to no need to be competitive.

There would definitely be a number of entities that want to see AMD fail. the direction AMD is pushing with APUs and embedded technology is something intel cannot compete with graphics-wise (come HBM, let alone DDR4), and Nvidia can't compete with cpu-wise. AMDs demise would take away a number of threats they pose to the current landscape.

That being said, a monopoly would bring billions in fines per year from China, the US, europe and so on. It would be money better spent paying for technology licenses and R&D. The reports of AMDs death have been greatly exaggerated.

[Caeradwyn]

There would definitely be a number of entities that want to see AMD fail. the direction AMD is pushing with APUs and embedded technology is something intel cannot compete with graphics-wise (come HBM, let alone DDR4), and Nvidia can't compete with cpu-wise. AMDs demise would take away a number of threats they pose to the current landscape.

That being said, a monopoly would bring billions in fines per year from China, the US, europe and so on. It would be money better spent paying for technology licenses and R&D. The reports of AMDs death have been greatly exaggerated.

 

I have not expected AMD to go bust any time soon, but their economy is not as healthy as it should be. The success of Zen would mean a LOT for AMD.

[PlayModeOn]

Perhaps I should have said "we'll pay more money for less performance". Also, I don't mean that the prices would double over night, but it would likely go up by a small margin every new generation. They'd push their profit margins up rather than down, due to no need to be competitive.

Good point. Though I still believe they won't increase the price because if we look at the high-end CPU consumer-grade right now, there is only one thing - i7 4790K (or 4770K), not even a single competitor CPU (FX-series is no match).

 

But despite that, every generation of i7 is always consistent in pricing ($380-$420 Australian dollars). Except this year the i7 4790K is $475 only because the Australian dollar is doing poor right now.

 

So I think Intel already set their prices in stone, they already have no competition for a long time so there is no need to markup the price now for no reason (unless they want less people to buy, or supply is low), they just need a consistent rate.

[Caeradwyn]

Good point. Though I still believe they won't increase the price because if we look at the high-end CPU consumer-grade right now, there is only one thing - i7 4790K (or 4770K), not even a single competitor CPU (FX-series is no match).

 

But despite that, every generation of i7 is always consistent in pricing ($380-$420 Australian dollars). Except this year the i7 4790K is $475 only because the Australian dollar is doing poor right now.

 

So I think Intel already set their prices in stone, they already have no competition for a long time so there is no need to markup the price now for no reason (unless they want less people to buy, or supply is low), they just need a consistent rate.

 

I agree with you to some extent, but as soon as the price gap between let's say that i7 4790k and FX-9590 becomes TOO large, people might suddenly choose to save some money and get the FX while adding a second graphics card or more RAM or some such. Even though the 4790k doesn't have any direct competitors, there is a limit to how much more people are willing to pay for the performance increase, as long as there is an alternative, despite it being a lower performance alternative.

[The Knome]

Well, AMD confirmed "Zen" X86 (huh? last I checked that was 32 bit) but!
Still waiting on details.

Oh and its going to be on a new AM4 socket. The flexability between AM3+ and that is yet to be seen.

Projected release 2016 with a load of APU's too.

Interesting.....

https://www.facebook.com/AMDUK?fref=photo

[FLUFFYJELLO]

The most interesting thing I think will be the motherboard designs and how power delivery is handled. Will temperature finally be measured on the die? Will power delivery finally be handled by the CPU instead of the motherboard? These are probably some of the most important changes Zen needs to have next to the IPC improvements. Even if the processor can do more, if it's held back by how the system itself is controlled then Zen could fall flat. I don't want to see this happen.

[rentaspoon]

The most interesting thing I think will be the motherboard designs and how power delivery is handled. Will temperature finally be measured on the die? Will power delivery finally be handled by the CPU instead of the motherboard? These are probably some of the most important changes Zen needs to have next to the IPC improvements. Even if the processor can do more, if it's held back by how the system itself is controlled then Zen could fall flat. I don't want to see this happen.

The thing that worked for AMD was cheap motherboards, you use to be able to run everything off a cheap £20 - £40 board. If they can bring in a competitive CPU that can run on the cheapest board then they are golden.

[IMPERIUS]

It's a 40% improvement over Excavator, not over the 8350. The 8350 is Piledriver-based.

Piledriver == 1.0

Steamroller (+10%) = 1.1

Excavator (+5%) = 1.155

Zen (+40%) = 1.617.

So a 61.7% IPC increase over the FX-8350. That should easily bring it up to the level of Haswell, perhaps a bit more.

Those names tho.

I hope they will make Intel make something interesting like a 6 core consumer grade i7, higher clock speeds etc

[AsGoodAsAHacker]

Yep, it's true that clocks speeds will play a major part in the overall performance of the new AMD CPUs. I'd say it's unlikely that they'll be clocked much lower than current AMD CPUs though, and from the rumors, TDP should be somewhere between 95W and 125W for the full 8-core version. If this is indeed true, I would imagine that the overclocking potential could be just fine.

Personally, I think Zen might just put AMD on a near-equal footing with Intel. I doubt it'll be an "Intel killer", but even if it's "nearly as fast", meaning within around 5% for around the same money, I'd actually prefer to support the underdog, simply because we NEED the competition. If AMD were to go bust, CPU prices would surely go up.

If I'm going to be optimistic for a moment though, I'm actually quite hoping for another "Athlon moment", when Davis suddenly shows Goliath how it's done. If that happens, it'll make Intel improve their game as well, and in the end, it'll benefit us, the consumers, with better products.

If amd goes under I don't thing prices will rise and this is why:

If a 300$ Vga or 300$ cpu costs 800$, because of the lack of competition, guess what i am not buying? They bot only lost 800$, but the 300$ I would've gladly spent as well, they make nothing. I don't need a fast computer, I just like to have one. I'm not breaking the bank for it so if they double their prices I salute them with my middle finger. I'll go Amish.

It's like these smart phones for 1300$. Gtfo Samsung that's hilarious, I can build a gaming rig for that. I'll stick with my iPhone 5 I got for 180$.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

The thing that worked for AMD was cheap motherboards, you use to be able to run everything off a cheap £20 - £40 board. If they can bring in a competitive CPU that can run on the cheapest board then they are golden.

uhm...No. Cheap motherboards+AMDs FX CPUs=overheating, inadequate power phases, and crashes. If they can make cheap motherboards that actually DO work, (unlike with their FX platform which requires $100+ motherboards to run stably, completely squandering and "savings" you were getting by going AMD) then yeah, it would be good. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake.

[rentaspoon]

uhm...No. Cheap motherboards+AMDs FX CPUs=overheating, inadequate power phases, and crashes. If they can make cheap motherboards that actually DO work, (unlike with their FX platform which requires $100+ motherboards to run stably, completely squandering and "savings" you were getting by going AMD) then yeah, it would be good. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake.

There was a time before FX ya know

[Briggsy]

There was a time before FX ya know

 

was probably before their time.