AMD Ryzen R5 1600X & 1500X Review - TechPowerUp

[Tic-Tac]

I'm using GTX1080 and I'm going to buy X34A or PG348Q or something newer when it comes out.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Tic-Tac said:

I'm using GTX1080 and I'm going to buy X34A or PG348Q or something newer when it comes out.

I'd go for the 7700k then. You're in the exact use case where it's a much better buy.  The Nvidia driver implementation and Ryzen still need a good chunk of work, so if you're looking for peak high-refresh performance, go where it's most tuned for it to happen.

[Tic-Tac]

Yeah but this is also very very interesting.

 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

From a more detailed view, the current Nvidia Drivers + Game APIs simply can't use Ryzen as well as they use the Intel platforms. (This makes logical sense at this point in time, but it is what it is.)  This is the real reason for most of the performance delta.

 

What happens with the extra cores is all of the little background details simply don't impact the game play in the same way.  Which I think the "smoothness" might actually be more about some new USB implementations.  That might seem odd until you wonder if maybe the new Chipset from AMD cuts off 10 ms of input lag.  It could be enough to shift perception of responses.

 

If you're thinking of future-proofing a bit, grabbing one of the nicer Ryzen boards, then getting a 1600/1600X and replacing the CPU in around 2 years makes sense. I also am really curious if there's some specific Ryzen tricks for game engines that maybe it you turn down a few specific functions you might get a huge boost in Frame Rates.

 

Edit: the second video actually addresses the USB thought, though not completely.  If the Intel system is running "objectively" faster, but they cannot show an input difference, it means the AMD system's USB response should be slightly faster.  The test really needs to be done in comparative compromised states to try to see if you can force out a difference.

 

If Ryzen is, say, 8% more responsive to USB calls in games than Intel, that would explain the "lower performance/feels smoother" effect when combined with the ability to not get "stuck" on frames in the same way as what was shown in the second video.  Ryzen just has less micro-stutters in a lot of game engines. So if it stutters less but responds in the same amount of frames, the "feel" is simply going to be smoother. 

[Taf the Ghost]

 

The important detail is the discussion of Frametimes throughout the testing.  In most titles, the Ryzen does have better "frame pacing", even if we're talking lower-end graphics cards.  He also talks about hitching while loading on the Intel chips, which doesn't come up in most testing because you do a dummy pass first to load all of the assets.  While it's important to test that way, it is a real world consideration.

 

There's still the consideration that at the 1080/TI level, Ryzen chips can't get as much out of the GPU right now.  Which seems more about API & Drivers than anything wrong with Ryzen, even if IPC is a little lower than the 7700k.