AMD say the reports of 29% IPC improvement in Zen 2 are being overstated by the press

[Master Disaster]

Yeah, in a somewhat unusual, though very honest move AMD are downplaying the recent reports of 29% IPC improvement on Zen 2 compared to Zen 1 by saying the 29% figure only applies to a specific workload and is not across the board.

Quote

AMD has issued a statement to address media reports that its upcoming Zen 2 microarchitecture could offer a 29 percent performance uplift over previous-generation Zen parts, clarifying that the figure quoted by the media is related to a very specific workload only and should not be taken as a general improvement in instructions per clock (IPC).

Here's the full statement

Quote

'As we demonstrated at our Next Horizon event last week, our next-generation AMD Epyc server processor based on the new "Zen 2" core delivers significant performance improvements as a result of both architectural advances and 7nm process technology,'

 

'Some news media interpreted a "Zen 2" comment in the press release footnotes to be a specific IPC uplift claim.'

 

'The data in the footnote represented the performance improvement in a microbenchmark for a specific financial services workload which benefits from both integer and floating point performance improvements and is not intended to quantify the IPC increase a user should expect to see across a wide range of applications,' 

 

'We will provide additional details on "Zen 2" IPC improvements, and more importantly how the combination of our next-generation architecture and advanced 7nm process technology deliver more performance per socket, when the products launch.'

https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/cpus/amd-downplays-29-percent-zen-2-ipc-boost-reports/1/

 

Very interesting they'd come out with that so candidly, I wonder if the whole Intel faking benchmarks story from a few weeks back has everyone still a little anxious.

 

Either way it's refreshing to see honesty from a company for a change so well done AMD.

[cj09beira]

its simple its too soon for hyping, they still want to sell zen + chips. 

[manikyath]

AMD is pulling the "good guy smaller company" card super hard. not that that's inherently a bad thing, its just a statement that that's what they're doing.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Very interesting they'd come out with that so candidly, I wonder if the whole Intel faking benchmarks story from a few weeks back has everyone still a little anxious.

Or there is someone with a bit of sense and intelligence who is aware that when you're already liked and well received the biggest threat is yourself and too higher expectations. If only RTG could take a page out of this book. 

[vanished]

Amazing.  I think we all know the reputation AMD products have (through no fault of the company) for being tremendously over-hyped, but I think this has to be a new record lol.  You know it's out of control when the rumours are so insane that the company has to publicly and official dispel them just to try and get people to stop and actually think for a second before going back to their normal behaviour of flying completely off the handle with ridiculous and unrealistic expectations.

[MoonSpot]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

I wonder if the whole Intel faking benchmarks story from a few weeks back has everyone still a little anxious.

I'd like to believe that the several consecutive examples of blowback from both external over-hyping(polaris) and their own straight up bullshitting(bulldozer), have made it clear that BS is not even remotely what people want to hear and will attach sour realizations to them for a long time.  So nipping things in the bud is not just honest, but smart.

 

How many people went completely crazy with polaris expectations like; "1080 perf fer onlyz 200 hundrez ermahgerd" to only be offered a great deal in the 470/480 but without the second coming of Christ it felt like a betrayal.  BS is only good for cons, not sales in the long-term.

 

Well, thats what I'd like to believe anyways.

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

AMD is pulling the "good guy smaller company" card super hard. not that that's inherently a bad thing, its just a statement that that's what they're doing.

The actual footnotes note that it's in a specific workload. It's just that the media jumped straight on the hype train. That being said, it appears the rumors from mid-October are going to be more or less correct and we'll see a 12-13% average uplift in IPC, so a bit under 10% or so over Zen+.

[manikyath]

Just now, ravenshrike said:

The actual footnotes note that it's in a specific workload. It's just that the media jumped straight on the hype train. That being said, it appears the rumors from mid-October are going to be more or less correct and we'll see a 12-13% average uplift in IPC, so a bit under 10% or so over Zen+.

and your statement in relation to my post is?

[asus killer]

seemed to good to be true and it was

[ravenshrike]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

and your statement in relation to my post is?

They're not playing the good guy smaller company, they're doing it explicitly to avoid bad publicity from Intel further down the line. No company that's not filled with morons would let blatantly bullshit statistics be tossed around by every major news outlet concerned with the areas they operate in.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, ravenshrike said:

They're not playing the good guy smaller company, they're doing it explicitly to avoid bad publicity from Intel further down the line. No company that's not filled with morons would let blatantly bullshit statistics be tossed around by every major news outlet concerned with the areas they operate in.

except that that's exactly why they're nuancing the results. if they werent good guy small company they'd pull the "new cpu's are 30% faster in this exact workload" card, like intel likes to do. (and nvidia for that matter)

[mrthuvi]

If you underhype and overdeliver, a product will be better received. Reverse psychology marketing 101.

 

It's just AMD have been doing the opposite for quite some time, overhype and underdeliver. Vega anyone?

[ZcanKal]

AMD has usually been a pretty down to earth company, unlike certain other companies... (intel/nvidia)
But, key word here, Usually.

[D13H4RD]

30 minutes ago, asus killer said:

seemed to good to be true and it was

If you follow the headlines, yeah. 

 

But some were actually quite clean and stated "in certain workloads" right on the headline 

[Tech Enthusiast]

"Sorry guys,... you remember those marketing slides we put up earlier? Yeah, we may have cherry picked a little hard there. But we also did not expect you guys to fall for it THAT hard. So, you know... just wanting to let you know: Don't get your hopes up, we just wanted to make it look good, but it actually will not end up being like that!"

 

Not sure what to make out of that tbh. 

If media trusting their own slides needs a statement to set things straight. Why put up misleading slides like that in the first place?

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

"Sorry guys,... you remember those marketing slides we put up earlier? Yeah, we may have cherry picked a little hard there. But we also did not expect you guys to fall for it THAT hard. So, you know... just wanting to let you know: Don't get your hopes up, we just wanted to make it look good, but it actually will not end up being like that!"

 

Not sure what to make out of that tbh. 

If media trusting their own slides needs a statement to set things straight. Why put up misleading slides like that in the first place?

Wasn't even a full slide but a footnote to it.

 

However, with AVX2 "units", 29% uplift would be about what we'd expect. That's roughly Intel's actual advantage over AMD in those workloads in the current hardware.

[bcredeur97]

im expecting about a 15-20% improvement just like apple did with the A12

[suchamoneypit]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

AMD is pulling the "good guy smaller company" card super hard. not that that's inherently a bad thing, its just a statement that that's what they're doing.

Yeah I don't get why companies do the right thing its obviously just to make us happy....     /s

 

[descendency]

3 hours ago, cj09beira said:

its simple its too soon for hyping, they still want to sell zen + chips. 

Or it could be to avoid a potential let down if the real number is closer to 5%. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

"Sorry guys,... you remember those marketing slides we put up earlier? Yeah, we may have cherry picked a little hard there. But we also did not expect you guys to fall for it THAT hard. So, you know... just wanting to let you know: Don't get your hopes up, we just wanted to make it look good, but it actually will not end up being like that!"

 

Not sure what to make out of that tbh. 

If media trusting their own slides needs a statement to set things straight. Why put up misleading slides like that in the first place?

Showing off the improvements in AVX2 workloads is actually incredibly important so that is why they showed it. It's one of the primary weaknesses for Zen and was the one area where Intel handedly beat AMD. It's really isn't their fault that people took that improvement as indicative of the general improvement we would see. 

[DocSwag]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

Showing off the improvements in AVX2 workloads is actually incredibly important so that is why they showed it. It's one of the primary weaknesses for Zen and was the one area where Intel handedly beat AMD. It's really isn't their fault that people took that improvement as indicative of the general improvement we would see. 

Yeah... while AVX workloads aren't common, in workloads were AVX instructions can be used the performance increases are massive for X series CPUs

[Curufinwe_wins]

21 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Yeah... while AVX workloads aren't common, in workloads were AVX instructions can be used the performance increases are massive for X series CPUs

Also in case it isnt obvious to anyone, AVX is a straight speed up in these workloads. It isn't like "gameworks" or whatever, it is just that much better of an instruction set if the CPU and program can take advantage of it.

[Okjoek]

From what I've heard AMD has been touting improved "density" of their 7nm process that is leading to even higher core counts. I'm not sure if it'd be too niche, but do you think they'd do a 6 core APU with this increased density? I'm at the point where Quad cores are too boring for a PC multitasker like me, but my gaming requirements are extremely light.

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

 I think we all know the reputation AMD products have (through no fault of the company) for being tremendously over-hyped,

The best marketing is the marketing you are not aware of.   I personally believe AMD is/was behind most of the hype.

[vanished]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

The best marketing is the marketing you are not aware of.   I personally believe AMD is/was behind most of the hype.

If they were, and continue to do so, they are foolish.  Over-promise and under-deliver is not a strategy for success.  I'm pretty sure it's rabid fanboys who drum up most of it, or even tbh, if you're feeling tinfoil hatty, it could be a competitor out to hurt them.  That's not to say they don't make an effort to hype their own stuff.  Obviously they do, and they should; you need enthusiasm for your product.  That's not what I'm talking about though.  I'm talking about the over-the-top unrealistic hype that ruins launches and causes people to be genuinely disappointed with a product at release despite the fact that it's perfectly respectable and even impressive and would have been seen as such if people hadn't whipped themselves into a frenzy of expecting even more.