Guru3D got hold of a product list, which includes entries for AMD’s upcoming Zen architecture.
Four SKUs are thus rumored to exist:
- Zen SR3: (65W, quad-core, eight threads, ~$150 USD)
- Zen SR5: (95W, hexa-core, twelve threads, ~$250 USD)
- Zen SR7: (95W, octo-core, sixteen threads, ~$350 USD)
- Special Zen SR7: (95W, octo-core, sixteen threads, ~$500 USD)
The sheet also states that none of these are supposed to contain integrated graphics, like we see on the current FX line. There is some merit to using integrated GPUs for specific tasks, like processing video while the main GPU is busy or doing a rapid, massively parallel calculation without the latency of memory copies, but AMD is probably right to not waste resources, such as TDP, fighting our current lack of compatible software and viable use cases for these SKUs.
Image Credit: Guru3D
The sheet also contains benchmarks for Cinebench R15. While pre-rendered video is a task that really should be done on GPUs at this point, especially with permissive, strong, open-source projects like Cycles, they do provide a good example of multi-core performance that scales. In this one test, the Summit Ridge 7 CPU ($350) roughly matches the Intel Core i7-6850K ($600), again, according to this one unconfirmed benchmark. It doesn’t list clock rates, but other rumors claim that the top-end chip will be around 3.2 GHz base, 3.5 GHz boost at stock, with manual overclocks exceeding 4 GHz.
These performance figures suggest that Zen will not beat Skylake on single-threaded performance, but it might be close. That might not matter, however. CPUs, these days, are kind-of converging around a certain level of per-thread performance, and are differentiating with core count, price, and features. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been many leaks regarding enthusiast-level chipsets for Zen, so we don’t know if there will be compelling use cases yet.
Zen is expected early in 2017.
Please don’t suck
Please don’t suck
Very much agreed, PCPer
Very much agreed, PCPer standards is starting to stoop down to the level of those rumorville sensationalist websites. The original source of that “rumour” was this https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5dl2ho/what_amd_is_up_to_with_zen_disscussion/ which are really guess work and speculations about Zen’s pricing and performance by a Reddit user. Then this got circulated around as “leak from China”.
If you don’t like reading
If you don’t like reading rumors then why did you read a brief article clearly labeled “rumor”? And Jeremy has pretty much always posted these kinds of things, so really don’t know where you get this “going down hill” thing.
I also suggest that the post you are commenting on was referring to Zen and not PCPer.
I was referring to Zen. CPU
I was referring to Zen. CPU market is needing some competition.
the Zen ZR3 looks pretty good
the Zen ZR3 looks pretty good its even cheaper then last gen 9590 that was 220 volts. I cant wait for testing from you guys.
220w not volts.
220w not volts.
Price/Performance and Zen
Price/Performance and Zen does not need to outright beat Intel’s Skylake on that single IPC metric. Zen just has to get close and the Zen SKUs’ pricing will do the rest. AMD can also price its motherboard chip-sets and it’s GPUs. So I’m looking for any Zen/Polaris/motherboard package deals, and substitute Vega for Polaris when that becomes available with the same package deal pricing.
Intel can only price its CPU’s and motherboard chip-sets and not GPU’s for any real gaming while Nvidia will only be able to price its GPU SKUs. That leaves AMD with a Zen CPU, motherboard chip set, and GPU pricing trifecta for any total system package deals that use all AMD. AMD is such a small overhead operation compared to Intel/Nvidia so AMD can cut to the bone for some great package deals.
“AMD can also price its
“AMD can also price its motherboard chip-sets and it’s GPUs.”
I wonder how that’s supposed to work now that AMD doesn’t even make its own chipsets anymore.
They still make their own.
They still make their own. They just also license some of the tech and design work from other companies too.
Intel did that for a long time with their iGPU’s if you remember. They used PowerVR tech for a long time in some of their iGPU’s.
While this may be true for
While this may be true for for those that depend heavily on multi-threaded capability, it is not true for the ever-growing PC gaming market. The majority of people are not going to buy an AMD CPU if they can spend around the same money on an Intel one and get better performance in their games. The fact that you can get a 6-core multithreaded CPU for the price of a 4-core Intel won’t matter if the 4-core chip performs better in apps that are largely single-threaded.
AMD’s previous 6- and 8-core options demonstrated that quite clearly. They were a originally a lot closer to Intel performance (compared to 4-core hyperthreaded Intel offerings)when the applications used all the threads available, but even then didn’t sell that well to those that were more focused on multi-threaded performance than single-threaded.
Personally, if Zen doesn’t make my standards this go-around I’ll wait until the next iteration. If Zen matches Kaby Lake then I’ll definitively go AMD as they need the support more than Intel does (heh). I look at these first Zen products as AMD’s first shot in what will hopefully be a continuing effort to provide us with want we want and, in doing so, take back market share – but only time will tell.
I’m not as much to worried
I’m not as much to worried about with that single threaded CPU IPC dependency on any modern game as with DX12/Vulkan they will even be accelerating non graphics gaming compute on the GPU with newer games. So more of the games’ non graphics gaming workloads will be done on the GPU. The new DX12 and Vulkan API’s will allow the games makers to use more of the GPU’s cores for compute, in addition to graphics, and all of the CPUs core also for any gaming compute done on the CPU. GPU’s can way outperform any CPU for FP performance.
AMD only needs to get close to Intel in that single threaded IPC core metric and AMD’s GPU HSA/async compute will have more non graphics gaming compute done on their GPUs.
AMD’s advantage is one of Price/Performance and package pricing across Zen CPUs, Polaris/Vega GPUs, as well as motherboard chipsets/Chipset IP.
Zen will not be the same as previous AMD CPUs as the Zen 4 core complex modular design uses 4 Full Fat Zen cores that only share L3 cache between the cores in the 4 core complex(CCX) with NO Sharing of compute(each Zen core in the CCX gets its own FP/Int/Other non shared resources). The only part of the Zen Micro-Arch not fully known is the actual kind of off 4 core Complex(CCX) connection fabric that is used to connect up multiple Complexes(CCXs). So the consumer desktop Zen multiple CCX fabric is probably the same one that is used for the Zen 16/32 core server parts. I suspect that the 8 core consumer Zen part is actually half of a 16 core part made into an 8 core 2 Complex(CCX) die. Those 4 core Complex(CCX) units are fairly modular and can be scaled up or down in 4 core(CCX) increments with whatever connection fabric that AMD uses for the server Zen Variants also used for the Zen CPU cores on their consumer Zen desktop variants.
“AMD ZEN Quad-Core Subunit Named CPU-Complex (CCX)”
https://www.techpowerup.com/225248/amd-zen-quad-core-subunit-named-cpu-complex-ccx
As long as the top one goes
As long as the top one goes at a “below 380$”-mark, I’m absolutely fine.
8 core 16 threads for $350, I
8 core 16 threads for $350, I would gladly get rid of my 4790k for this chip. This is almost too good to be true, I am taking this with a semi size grain of salt.
Have to be careful they don’t
Have to be careful they don’t pull their split core trickery again. Their current “8 core” CPUs are really quad cores with each core split to function like two cores. The end performance reflected that and they are still facing a lawsuit over it. At least last I’ve read they were still facing a lawsuit from it.
If they do pull that trick again, that 8/16 chip would really be a 4/8 chip, and perform as such, putting it’s performance and price in line with Intel’s 4/8 6700 at the same price.
Zen is not bulldozer, no
Zen is not bulldozer, no worries about complex core counts.
Its been obvious for a long
Its been obvious for a long time that Zen wasn’t going to be like that.
I am of the opinion that
I am of the opinion that excavator performance issues have more to do with shared caches than shared cores. CPU cores are tiny these days. When you buy a CPU, you are almost buying more memory chip than CPU. For most consumer level task, CPU cores reached good enough a while ago. Many of the applications used to test them are irellevant to most consumers. It is actually probably more important what dedicated hardware is included rather than what CPU core is included. Sufficient performance with reasonable power consumption is all that is required of the CPU core.
That and the high latency FPU
That and the high latency FPU were often blamed for Bulldozer’s poor performance.
I don’t know why AMD never was able to improve cache latency and bandwidth enough or still stuck with the mediocre FPU that they had for all the BD variants.
Zen looks to address both of those problems quite well and ironically its supposed to borrow more from the Jaguar core designs than BD.
I really hope it lives up to the hype. And that the platform is on par with Intel’s 2xx chipsets.
The “lol it’s really a quad
The “lol it’s really a quad core” argument is so tired. It stems mostly from people who can’t accept that an 8-core design has a hard time competing with a 4-core design and fall back on that as the only explanation which makes sense in their mind. It’s thoroughly inaccurate.
Yeah… it seems a lot like
Yeah… it seems a lot like they expected software would evolve different than it did. Bulldozer was basically about minimizing redundancies, especially when a GPU is right there, but developers didn't target it.
Also, they mentioned in passing that they sometimes receive parts back, test them, and are like "Well… poop. We really should have had two of those…"
From the Hot Chips Zen
From the Hot Chips Zen presentation, see page 7 of the PDF, that’s a single Zen Core’s resources that each Zen core has on a per core basis. Note no sharing of compute with another core, and two processor threads per Zen(SMT) core!
“A NEW X86 CORE
ARCHITECTURE FOR THE NEXT
GENERATION OF COMPUTING
MIKE CLARK
SENIOR FELLOW”
http://www.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/hc_archives/hc28/HC28.23-Tuesday-Epub/HC28.23.90-High-Perform-Epub/HC28.23.930-X86-core-MikeClark-AMD-final_v2-28.pdf
*cautiously optimistic*
I was
*cautiously optimistic*
I was originally anticipating Haswell levels of performance, but seeing Broadwell-E performance (with a block of salt & a single benchmark) at 1/3 of the price gives me hope that this will be a real winner of an architecture. AMD needs this to get back into the ring with Intel.
Broadwell performs nearly the
Broadwell performs nearly the same as Haswell and there isn’t much difference in performance for Skylake vs Broadwell or even Skylake vs Kabylake.
I’m not suggesting AMD will be even with Intel if they get approximately Haswell levels of performance but the difference should be close enough not to matter too much for most things.
The bigger difference will come in peak clock speeds. If the rumors hold true Zen should have around a 1Ghz slower clockspeed against newer Intel Kabylake chips. I think it’ll come down to how well Zen overclocks for many.
Kabylake seems to reach quite respectable peak clockspeeds of 5Ghz if the leaks are anything to go by when overclocked but the total overclocks from stock clocks (of around 4.5Ghz) are fairly ho hum. Essentially 500Mhz if the leaks are correct. Not really worth it if it turns the chip into a furnace. But then overclocking Intel chips hasn’t been very interesting since Sandybridge.
“But then overclocking Intel
“But then overclocking Intel chips hasn’t been very interesting since Sandybridge.”
Sadly so true, I was able to keep my 2500k @4.8GHz for years. Even had it stable…ish @5.0 but my 4590k will barely do over its max turbo.
I still run a modestly
I still run a modestly overclocked Sandybridge 2600K.
My 1st mobo, a ASUS Z68pro, died and I replaced it with a Z78 based mobo that has been running fine since then.
I don’t really NEED to upgrade but it’d be nice to at this point. I do actually do some stuff that can use 16 threads. Just not very often.
These numbers seem to suggest
These numbers seem to suggest that Zen is about 30% behind in performance per core in R15, apparently through a combination of lower IPC and clock speed.
Now in this specific case (and a few like it) throwing more cores at the problem can cover for this deficiency, but most benchmarks don’t scale like that and results won’t be kind to AMD.
Fingers crossed they find more clock speed before the launch, I guess.
Cinebench is more of a cache
Cinebench is more of a cache and FPU benchmark.
IPC is a general average performance metric determined across many different types of software so you can’t look at one score and make assumptions like that.
Please support ecc on all.
Please support ecc on all. That’s all I really want makes moving cpu to server rigs after desktop duty better. Still would need new Mobo but don’t wanna get both.
ECC is a very good defence
ECC is a very good defence against Row-Hammer attacks, and Intel makes you get their higher priced Xeon Kit to get that while AMD has offered it on consumer CPU SKUs(If the Motherboard’s maker supports it)! Maybe more AM4 motherboard makers will offer support it and maybe even offer buffered ECC memory support. I’m also looking forward to the pricing on any 16 core Zen Server SKUs as that should be on the more affordable side compared to Intel based systems!
There are two possibilities
There are two possibilities for those prices.
– AMD wants to take market share back fast.
– Zen is behind in IPC significantly and AMD will play again the “more cores” card.
Let’s hope it is the first. Of course it could be a combination of the above, which wouldn’t be that bad.
Anyway I have seen also these two photos that you could add to the article.
https://www.thelab.gr/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://hardforum.com/attachments/image004-jpg.10395/&key=c6f0612aa6ce5807e48c6e6f24b23462906b0d380b56c6c61c141b9c49ef4cbe
https://www.thelab.gr/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyJ3wdgWgAArxv0.png&key=4491efa2537de81f065404bb364b542b59c52c8efd2afbc430956b38b1cd11f1
Zen doesn’t necessarily need
Zen doesn’t necessarily need to lag in IPC significantly, it may simply not be able to clock competitively. (or any combination of the two, of course)
Yes, probably you will end up
Yes, probably you will end up right in this.
Even of they can’t beat Intel
Even of they can’t beat Intel for single thread performance, which most games are bound by still, they should at least challenge Intel in that aspect, and do it at a price that forces Intel to cut prices.
most games are bound by your
most games are bound by your GPU
There isn’t much difference
There isn’t much difference in game performance between Sandybridge and Skylake so if Zen gets near Haswell performance on single threaded applications they’ll be essentially on par for Intel there.
‘If’ being the operative
‘If’ being the operative word, given how these purported R15 results seem to suggest a significant lag in per-core performance.
Cinebench has nothing to do
Cinebench has nothing to do with gaming performance.
Its not a synthetic bench so its not useless but you can’t compare performance for 2 very different types of software like that.
Just in time to compete with
Just in time to compete with decommissioned Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2.
Great job AMD!
Please someone buy them, fire everyone and start over.
Will have to wait and see if
Will have to wait and see if it is actually competitive. I think it will be close enough, especially considering how unimportant CPU performance has become in most cases. It is almost more important what video codecs are supported by the hardware acceleration than what the actual CPU performance is. The low boost clocks are a bit of a concern though. Intel gets great performance and power consumption using really high boost clocks. It isn’t bad to have a high base clock, unless it increases power consumption significantly.
It looks like it will be
It looks like it will be competitive and to me that’s a great improvement from AMD. Intel needs a strong competitor, it’s had it’s way too long, not that was its fault, but they have clearly slowed down there progress and prices have stagnated over the last 5-6 years. Both the customers and Intel need strong competition.
Considering Tom’s Hardware
Considering Tom’s Hardware today’s(yesterday’s?) article about Kaby Lake, and how much disappointing it looks like, on a Z170 board at least, AMD has an opening with Zen.
I think AMD just waits for
I think AMD just waits for 10nm process to be available to them to be able to fulfill the 40% IPC boost.
No. If they get Haswell-like
No. If they get Haswell-like performance on 14nm then they will have achieved their previously stated 40% IPC boost over Excavator.
10nm is for Zen+ which should be another 10% or so IPC over Zen so they should be virtually identical to Intel’s Kabylake or Skylake IPC at a minimum if that comes to pass.
AMD isn’t going to 10nm. They
AMD isn’t going to 10nm. They will go to 7nm. They don’t have the money to keep jumping from one process to the next one. Also don’t forget that TSMC’s and Samsung’s 7nm is a little more marketing, than Intel’s, so they will be probably easier reachable and available probably at dates close to Intel’s 10nm.
AMD claimed that RX460 is
AMD claimed that RX460 is twice as power efficient as GT950.
I think owners of Intel Ivy Bridge need to look elsewhere for an upgrade.
I was the guy who waited for
I was the guy who waited for the 2700K instead of the venerable 2600K….AMD…we NEED you…I’v been waiting 5 years.
With how much of the market
With how much of the market if on versions of Windows older than Windows 10, AMD needs to push for their CPU to be supported on Windows 7 and 8.1 also, otherwise they are cutting off a large chunk of the market.
Yes & and 8.1 support and
Yes & and 8.1 support and also the Linux Laptop OEMs need to get some of their Linux OS laptop SKUs running Zen APUs when thay are available. I’m wanting to avoid Intel/Nvidia and M$ for some monopoly free laptop hardware/OS choices!
Oh how the worm has
Oh how the worm has turned
Intel-50% of die-Graphics
AMD-0%.
It don’t seem that long ago I was buying AMD systems because
the northbridge graphics were so much better than Intel.
And the joy when ATI made a chipset(rs600)for core 2 duo.
Basically the same as 690 for AMD CPU.
Didn’t last long thro as that was the year AMD bought ATI….