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In January 2017 it looks like AMD will finally release their brand new clean-sheet (it's a new design) Zen CPU architecture, and damn it sounds exciting. Thanks to WCCFTech for the info here.
As a hardware enthusiast myself, I am terribly excited. I have two AMD CPU's in my house powering various things due to their great price. The problem has been performance, AMD just doesn't match up with Intel usually.
That looks like it may truly change with Zen.
They actually did a demonstration back in August that I completely missed. It shows two top-end processors, one from Intel and Zen from AMD competing head to head:
The Blender speed test was impressive, since Zen just about finished first. Considering they had identical clock speeds, cores and threads that's quite amazing for AMD.
Looks like the weather is about to change for AMD, and I'm pretty excited. If they actually turn out anything like I hope, I will likely pick one up for something.
For the performance "enthusiast" market will be "AMD Summit Ridge" which seems to boast up to 8 cores, where as the lower end "AMD Raven Ridge" APU's will have up to 4 cores.
The main thing AMD Zen is focusing on is stronger performance, while still keeping the power draw quite low. They have ditched their own "clustered multi-threading" (CMT) and gone with "simultaneous multi-threading" (SMT) which is what Intel use.
AMD Zen will have much stronger single threaded performance, which will be especially good for us gamers. Along with SMT, the single thread performance increase is going to be rather welcome.
I've seen a lot of complaints about performance with AMD CPU's in some of the ports we've had over the past year, so hopefully in a year or two that will be a thing of the past, or at least, not as bad as it can be now.
Apparently AMD Gray Hawk (Zen+) will release sometime in 2019. That's a decently aggressive schedule! If Zen is actually this good, then Zen+ coming out so soon after can only be a good thing for all of us.
Will you be picking up and AMD Zen processor? Let me know what you're thinking in our comments. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
As a hardware enthusiast myself, I am terribly excited. I have two AMD CPU's in my house powering various things due to their great price. The problem has been performance, AMD just doesn't match up with Intel usually.
That looks like it may truly change with Zen.
They actually did a demonstration back in August that I completely missed. It shows two top-end processors, one from Intel and Zen from AMD competing head to head:
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Looks like the weather is about to change for AMD, and I'm pretty excited. If they actually turn out anything like I hope, I will likely pick one up for something.
For the performance "enthusiast" market will be "AMD Summit Ridge" which seems to boast up to 8 cores, where as the lower end "AMD Raven Ridge" APU's will have up to 4 cores.
The main thing AMD Zen is focusing on is stronger performance, while still keeping the power draw quite low. They have ditched their own "clustered multi-threading" (CMT) and gone with "simultaneous multi-threading" (SMT) which is what Intel use.
AMD Zen will have much stronger single threaded performance, which will be especially good for us gamers. Along with SMT, the single thread performance increase is going to be rather welcome.
I've seen a lot of complaints about performance with AMD CPU's in some of the ports we've had over the past year, so hopefully in a year or two that will be a thing of the past, or at least, not as bad as it can be now.
Apparently AMD Gray Hawk (Zen+) will release sometime in 2019. That's a decently aggressive schedule! If Zen is actually this good, then Zen+ coming out so soon after can only be a good thing for all of us.
Will you be picking up and AMD Zen processor? Let me know what you're thinking in our comments. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I have been waiting on this for far too long! Hopefully they have some of those nice white/titanium type PCB motherboards for X370.
1 Likes, Who?
Kimyrielle Oct 11, 2016
I used AMD a lot like ten years ago, but they certainly fell behind Intel, so my last 2 PCs were Intel platforms. I wouldn't mind seeing some actual competition in the CPU market again. Monopolies are bad.
8 Likes, Who?
I have a nice AMD phenom II x4 955 (3,2Ghz). I think it's time to make the jump to 8 cores (16 threads)... if the price is right.
I have been reading news for the zen for quite a while, and its seems that this is possible as they switch to a traditional cpu design (at last),switching to 14nm, and throwing out the GPU cores (for not apu models)(all cpu, who needs an integrate gpu?).
It uses new socket AM4, which gives directly pci-e (all the other connectors are given by an adapter southbridge).
For the purists it runs an auxiliar arm processor (security processor) that could encrypt ram if ask for virtual machines/os, this arm controller uses a non opensource firmware.
It will only support DDR4, and it seems that will be powerful even under 100W.
I have been reading news for the zen for quite a while, and its seems that this is possible as they switch to a traditional cpu design (at last),switching to 14nm, and throwing out the GPU cores (for not apu models)(all cpu, who needs an integrate gpu?).
It uses new socket AM4, which gives directly pci-e (all the other connectors are given by an adapter southbridge).
For the purists it runs an auxiliar arm processor (security processor) that could encrypt ram if ask for virtual machines/os, this arm controller uses a non opensource firmware.
It will only support DDR4, and it seems that will be powerful even under 100W.
0 Likes
They have ditched their own "clustered multi-threading" (CMT) and gone with "simultaneous multi-threading" (SMT) which is what Intel use. This is one reason why AMD Zen will have much stronger single threaded performance, which will be especially good for us gamers. That's not the only thing that will improve single threaded performance, but a nice change.
SMT doesn't improve single threaded performance, SMT is what allows a single core to run two threads at the same time with almost no cost, Intel implement it under the name Hyperthreading.
Zen looks to be a great, new, architecture, many things helping single threaded performance, and IPC, but that one isn't it.
best article detaling the zen arch I know is in french:
http://www.hardware.fr/news/14758/amd-detaille-architecture-zen.html
but maybe arstechnica has something nice about it
From what the rumours say, Zen may actually bring AMD back in the game (which is good for our wallets), (almost?) matching intel best chips. Issue is intel too keeps improving so it would be unbelievable for AMD to actually come with something better, as Intel will unveil new chips (not a totally new arch though) in 2017 as well
Jim Keller certainly did great, but AMD has been proven untrustworthy with their announcements in the past, so let's not get over ourselves and wait for independent reviews
2 Likes, Who?
I have always had AMD cpu's in my rigs upto the release of the 4770k so I am really hoping Zen lives up to the hype. My last AMD cpu was a Phenom 940be and I got 4.8Ghz on that, but I only upgraded to my now 4770k as I was craving to upgrade as I love building new machines.
I have just got a 1070 GPU but if Zen and Vega stack up then I will be building a new fully AMD rig early next year, Hopefully.
I have just got a 1070 GPU but if Zen and Vega stack up then I will be building a new fully AMD rig early next year, Hopefully.
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I am really eager to see what they got. That plus vega, those are going to be interesting times for AMD.
I fear their design might not allow very high clocks, though, which might be very noticeable against Intel. Well, we'll see. I've been waiting for those for almost 5 years (!).
I hope they kept this idea of making their ARM K12 compatible with the same AM4 socket. It could be a great help at streamlining ARM the way x86 was.
I fear their design might not allow very high clocks, though, which might be very noticeable against Intel. Well, we'll see. I've been waiting for those for almost 5 years (!).
I hope they kept this idea of making their ARM K12 compatible with the same AM4 socket. It could be a great help at streamlining ARM the way x86 was.
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Luke_Nukem Oct 11, 2016
The last AMD CPU I had was a Bulldozer hexacore. It wasn't bad, but the power draw was insane! Constant 180w, all the time, I don't think it had power stepping or anything. Pretty stark contrast to the Intel i3 6100 I have now, with 20ish or less watt draw at idle, to 55ish at load. This plus the GTX950 gives me pretty good FPS in games while being low on power use.
If AMD get anywhere close to this, I may consider switching since they are typically more Linux friendly (in some ways).
If AMD get anywhere close to this, I may consider switching since they are typically more Linux friendly (in some ways).
3 Likes, Who?
Is anyone have info if am4/(zen motherboards) will support quad channel memory ?
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The last AMD CPU I had was a Bulldozer hexacore. It wasn't bad, but the power draw was insane! Constant 180w, all the time, I don't think it had power stepping or anything. Pretty stark contrast to the Intel i3 6100 I have now, with 20ish or less watt draw at idle, to 55ish at load. This plus the GTX950 gives me pretty good FPS in games while being low on power use.They're actually aiming to compete with Intel's HEDT platform, so i doubt there will be any 2-core CPUs before the Zen based Raven Ridge APUs. These will be expensive, powerful CPUs similar to Intel's i7 6900K, but possibly with slightly better power consumption if that 95W TDP is accurate(Though using TDP as a measure for power consumption is not ideal tbh). Btw, Buldozer definitely has power stepping. If it was running at full speed all the time, something was up with your system. Bulldozer wiki page PowerNow/Cool N Quiet is the downclocking feature.
If AMD get anywhere close to this, I may consider switching since they are typically more Linux friendly (in some ways).
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I currently have two systems, my Phenom IIx6 1090t running Linux, and an A10-7850k running windows. Hoping to buy a Zen system and merge the two. Depends on if the zen box can properly handle GPU passthrough though to run Windows with a GPU in a VM.
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Yeah, that's part of my point. I didn't want to go into too many details to make it too long-winded for this type of post since it isn't a big technical readout of it. It will help though, by how much is what's up for debate :PThey have ditched their own "clustered multi-threading" (CMT) and gone with "simultaneous multi-threading" (SMT) which is what Intel use. This is one reason why AMD Zen will have much stronger single threaded performance, which will be especially good for us gamers. That's not the only thing that will improve single threaded performance, but a nice change.
SMT doesn't improve single threaded performance, SMT is what allows a single core to run two threads at the same time with almost no cost, Intel implement it under the name Hyperthreading.
Zen looks to be a great, new, architecture, many things helping single threaded performance, and IPC, but that one isn't it.
Well, it does help single thread performance. One of the issues with the previous architectures was that a single thread might use just enough resources to not allow something else to run. A single thread, on its own, it won't help. A single thread as part of a system with multiple threads all vying for their share of resources - yes, that it will help with.
The degree to which it will help remains open for debate, but I'll stay out of that one.
Edit: I've cleared it up a bit now anyway, to not confuse anyone or send this off-topic with debates on it :P
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 11 October 2016 at 10:38 pm UTC
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i have a fx 6300 and it's more than enough for my games and general use, but i use unreal 4 and it sometimes ask more than my poor fx 6300 can do, i need to upgrade, but it looks like they will only launch a enthusiast high end cpu and APUs, and i don't have money for this, plus i live in brazil, hardware here is expensive as fuck, for example, a rx 480 8gb should cost 229 dolars, but here it costs from R$ 1400 to R$ 1600 (something around U$ 450)
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i hope it lives up to the hype, intelmonopolizes the shit out of the market and thats no good at all, for consumers in particular
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I don't much trust benchmarks performed by one of the manufacturers themselves. That said, I do hope Zen is a winner. It's been far too long since AMD has been competitive with Intel. Competition is healthy for the market and beneficial for the consumer.
2 Likes, Who?
I have an fx-8350 and has never showed it wasn't enough. I've always liked AMD and have used it for so long I can't even remember the last time I used Intel for my main rig. My laptops use Intel but they're old and I don't really use them that much. Even though I knew AMD was sort of slipping behind Intel, I've remained loyal...for some reason. If the price is right, though, I would be interested in picking up a Zen. It's all about price, for me.
1 Likes, Who?
I used AMD a lot like ten years ago, but they certainly fell behind Intel, so my last 2 PCs were Intel platforms. I wouldn't mind seeing some actual competition in the CPU market again. Monopolies are bad.
Yep same here, except I have had the same intel platform for 8 years now! A good ol' Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz, hehe.
Before that I had an Athlon X2 3800+ I believe and a bunch of other Athlon's, K6-2 and Intel PII's (wow they were weird, cartridge style cpu and the one I had got very hot and instable @ stock 266Mhz (lol, pushing the limits).
Needless to say, I'm a tech enthusiast and coming up to a decade without running an AMD cpu seems wrong. I really hope Zen is the answer, I'm waiting until launch before I decide what my new system is going to be. I'm hoping AMD Zen 8 core (16 thread) along side a Vega 10 GPU, but we will see...
Last edited by lejimster on 12 October 2016 at 3:07 am UTC
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I have an fx-8350 and has never showed it wasn't enough. I've always liked AMD and have used it for so long I can't even remember the last time I used Intel for my main rig. My laptops use Intel but they're old and I don't really use them that much. Even though I knew AMD was sort of slipping behind Intel, I've remained loyal...for some reason. If the price is right, though, I would be interested in picking up a Zen. It's all about price, for me.
I have used AMD since... the K6 (including the -2 and -III), and currently have an FX-8350. I have patiently waited for Zen, but its been tough - it has gotten quite long in the tooth in just this past year. Still a bit jaded on the not deliver, but often promised, piledriver on AM3+, but, I guess I can still wait a few months to see how Zen really does.
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ElectricPrism Oct 12, 2016
I would love to switch from Skylake to Zen if the performance is better or I get better features or it improves my workflow via you passthrough / etc.
I built 3 Skylake Linux boxes this year and 2 other Intel boxes last year.
I'm also very interested in the new APU's and how they'll effect Steam Machines, Steam Boy handheld console... Etc
I built 3 Skylake Linux boxes this year and 2 other Intel boxes last year.
I'm also very interested in the new APU's and how they'll effect Steam Machines, Steam Boy handheld console... Etc
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GustyGhost Oct 12, 2016
Don't bother marking the date on your calendar. Remember that AMD time = Valve time * Global Foundries screwups. I've been burned by their "launch dates" too many times to fall for it yet again.
2 Likes, Who?
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