AMD Zen, news and comments

[krampak]

Currently Intel already has some Xeon with 22 cores so there's no need to be surprised, unless AMD decides that 32 cores are for the Mainstream range but I doubt it

[cobito]

@krampak It doesn't look like it. They've marked it as Opteron and in the article that links @whoololon they compare it to Xeons. Apparently, the high-end for home desktops could have 8 cores.

[JuezDred]

well, I must say that in the market there are already Opterons with more than 12 real cores. and up to 3ghz I think. it would not be surprising that by the middle of next year AMD decides to put more than 8 cores in personal computers.

[cobito]

According to rumors that have spread through Anandtech forums, it seems that there could be a couple of new models: the first one has 8 cores with AMD's HyperThreading implementation with a base frequency of 3.15Ghz and turbo of 3.3GHz with the possibility of making one core go to 3.6GHz.

The other model has 4 cores also with HT. It has a TDP of 65W and the base frequency is 2.9GHz with turbo at 3.1 and maximum frequency of one core of 3.4GHz.

It seems that AM4 motherboards are in production at the moment and the availability of the platform could be for February 2017, a date that sounds realistic according to previous information.

People are comparing the 8-core Zen to the i7-6900k and i7-5960X so we would be talking about a micro quite far from the mid-range. We will have to see how well those cores perform, but if it is capable of taking on Intel's top range they will not be cheap, that's for sure.

[whoololon]

Well, they compare the high-end ones to see who pees the farthest since the numbers will probably make more headlines. But for me, a poor Joe, the ones I'm interested in are the quad-core ones, which will really be the workhorse of the new AMD generation.
It will be those, and not the eight-core ones, that will compete against the current i5-6500 or even i7-6700K; I'll take a risk and say that even with the fry-ups of the kabylake, seeing that they seem to barely exceed the performance of the skylake by 10%.

In any case, what excites me the most (although I'm aware that I won't earn a dime from it) is that AMD is back in the game.

[whoololon]

Well, I hate to post two consecutive entries, but I was struck by the fact that, according to this rumor/news, the chipsets for Summit will have OC variants... just like the CPUs!

Yes, there will be A320 chipsets (nothing to do with the plane) for "office workers", B350 for those who want to overclock them, and X370 for those eager for voltages and multiGPU setups.
As for the CPUs, "obviously" those that allow OC will cost more.

They say that everything sticks, except for beauty. What a great truth. :face_palm_tone1:

Let's hope it stays a rumor, but when the river makes noise...

[Yorus]

That is the fear that exists, that if they really manage to get a good product, they will opt for Intel policies in terms of prices and issues like this one with the chipsets.

I am also more interested in the 4 cores, or to be more precise and leaning towards what I will value the most, the 65w APUs.

[whoololon]

@Yorus Man, that's not that much to be afraid of. This already happened with the Athlons and the Opterons, it's "reasonable" that a product is priced based on its performance.

The thing is that the policy being carried out by the Tainan lumberjack only cares about competition. Everything is very secretive, under the radar, so that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing... and meanwhile, users are left in the dark.

Well, I don't know, it's better that they release reliable specs and performance charts before the price charts, because doing it the other way around will only encourage gossip... and one isn't up for much gossip.

[Yorus]

I'm happy with APUs at the level of the i3, with similar TDP but with a graphics card in line with what the rumors say or less, if it performs something less than my GTX750 I won't cry. Although when I think about it, I don't know why I want a decent graphics card if the last thing I've played has been several Megadrive games via emulator and Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4...

Here some information about Raven Ridge APUs:

More information at: https://www.profesionalreview.com/2016/10/31/nuevos-detalles-las-primeras-apus-amd-raven-ridge/

[whoololon]

Well, there is news about the Naples SoC for server.
It has been through a leak from the Sandra database, I don't know how true it will be.

Edit: This is just rumor mongering.

News about Summit ridge: expected release date is January 17.
It is also confirmed that the names will be SR3 (4 cores/ 16 threads, 65 W TDP), SR5 (6 cores/ 12 threads, 95 W TDP) and the top of the range SR7 (8 cores/ 16 threads, 140 W TDP).

Apart from that, and here comes the "good" part, it seems that the SR7 will be on par with the 6850k (2011-3) in terms of performance... at what price?

Well, the thing is that the basic series, supposedly, will be around 300 $ USA, while the series for OC will be over 500 $ USA (note that I say "over", not "around". You know my meaning...)

By the way... SR3, SR5, SR7... i3, i5, i7...
Source: WccfTech.

[cobito]

There is a rather unreliable rumor that the Zen could end up with the commercial denomination SR3, SR5 and SR7. This reminds us a bit of when AMD released the Athlon XP and put a number higher than the micro frequency, implying that it was the equivalent performance of a Pentium 4 at that frequency. Or even further back with the PR models of the K5 architecture.

Via TechPowerUp.

EDITED: I just saw that right in the post before you, whoololon had already echoed the information

[JuezDred]

Well, tests aside... I must confirm that it is a leap comparable to the one AMD made when they released the K8, with the Pentium 4 HT as the top of the range.

[rul3s]

@JuezDred I hope it's like that... I've wanted to switch back to AMD for a long time!

[cobito]

@JuezDred ¿Confirmas? :thinking:

[whoololon]

@JuezDred

[whoololon]

Well, I bring something from Guru3D

Obviously, it's just a rumor, and the fact that the SR7s appear with a TDP of 95 W, just like the SR5s, puzzles me quite a bit...

Accepting octopus as a pet, what I liked the most was the SR3 for gamers, and the SR5 for those who rely on multithreading in the mid-range, let's see how everything turns out.

[cobito]

It looks like AMD is going to do a live demo of Zen in a couple of weeks. The demo will show off the capabilities of the new microarchitecture.

Those who want to sign up can do so here.

[Fassou]

Let's hope they improve the staging, and the bosses don't come out on stage.

The last one seemed like a funeral, no matter how many T-shirt launchers they pulled out to be more

[whoololon]

I hate to be a party pooper, but I don't expect anything new from this event.
I'm basing it on the presentation of the RX, and I assume it will be the same: a screen with two very large numbers, one in red and one in blue, where the red one will always be better.
Prepared comparisons, biased data, fulano and mengano explaining the virtues and miraculous properties of this or that, the woodchopper from Tainán waving to reinforce the brand's image of innovation (she still won't wear a skirt), and a pretty average catering.
As if I were watching it, let's go.
...and yet I'll still watch it.

No, I'll discuss the topic, but I'd rather wait for third-party tests.

[Nemo]

@whoololon you are describing any presentation of any product, because they are all like that.
Of course it is normal, I can't imagine Tim Cook presenting the Macbook pro saying: "Well, our competition has the latest processors, 4K screens and all kinds of connectors,...but ours has an apple that no longer lights up".
If they don't talk well about their own products ¿who is going to talk?