AMD Zen “RYZEN” CPUs Detailed – 8 Cores, 3.4Ghz+ & Auto Overclocking With “XFR”

[rainy]

Yes, pricing. Most people seem to think Intel is way overcharging for their HEDT chips. If that's really true, then Intel can lower prices easily if necessary.

It's not so easy as you think - when you're in quasi-monopolistic position like Intel, you really love those fat margins.

 

[LTC8K6]

It's not so easy as you think - when you're in quasi-monopolistic position like Intel, you really love those fat margins.

They've already sold a bunch, though...so it should in fact be easy to lower the prices if they have been inflated all this time.

 

[bchreng]

Looks good! I'll most likely be switching to this sometime late next year.

 

[bbhaag]

I didn't watch the whole stream just the beginning. Basically until the part with the 2 guys talking about vr. Ryzen looks promising though. If AMD can deliver it should bring back some much needed competition in the desktop space.

 

[Dresdenboy]

They've already sold a bunch, though...so it should in fact be easy to lower the prices if they have been inflated all this time.

That depends. Imagine Intel owning 95% of a $1B market with AMD having the other 5% and treating to enter the rest. Intel charges $300, AMD $150.

What happens, if Intel lowers prices to $250? Their revenue is being reduced by $158.3M, 3 times more than AMD's total revenue in this market!

 

[witeken]

That depends. Imagine Intel owning 95% of a $1B market with AMD having the other 5% and treating to enter the rest. Intel charges $300, AMD $150.

What happens, if Intel lowers prices to $250? Their revenue is being reduced by $158.3M, 3 times more than AMD's total revenue in this market!

AMD won't charge half the Intel price. FinFET is expensive to design and manufacture. Wonder how big the die is. And AMD wants margins, they won't (immediately) go to bargain prices. With the hype train they're setting up, their fan(boy)s will surely give them all their money because they've been sitting on trash chips for many years (or Intel), so they'll take as much of that as they can.

 

[Dresdenboy]

AMD won't charge half the Intel price. FinFET is expensive to design and manufacture. Wonder how big the die is. And AMD wants margins, they won't (immediately) go to bargain prices. With the hype train they're setting up, their fan(boy)s will surely give them all their money because they've been sitting on trash chips for many years (or Intel), so they'll take as much of that as they can.

Of course they won't. This was just an made up example. My point was about the possible effects of a price reduction by Intel.

 

[scannall]

Yes, pricing. Most people seem to think Intel is way overcharging for their HEDT chips. If that's really true, then Intel can lower prices easily if necessary.

Yes, Intel is bleeding the HEDT market. And even if Ryzen is wildly popular Intel won't get in a price war. It would cost more to do that, than to ignore AMD. Were Ryzen to get 5 times the market that they have now, it would barely be a speed bump to Intel. Hit the gas, and keep on bleeding would best suit their bottom line.

 

[DrMrLordX]

While I am excited about this new architecture, if you need a ton of threads, why not just buy this?
http://www.natex.us/mobile/Product.aspx?ProductCode=S2600CP-SR0H8-128GB-12800

16c/32t of Sandybridge IPC + 128GB ECC + mobo for $468

Fun, but more threads than most individual users need at a less-than-sexy clockspeed. 16t is already major overkill.

Reading the 7700K thread got me wondering about this chip: will it "require" de-lidding for absolute performance or will AMD have learned from all the grousing about Intel's weak TIM and use something that actually works?

Likely not. DeeJayBump is probably right, and AMD is already soldering their low-end APUs like Bristol Ridge and GV-A1 Godavari. They are not going to solder those "little" chips and then turn around and sell Ryzen with polymer TIM on the die . . .

 

[unseenmorbidity]

Yes, pricing. Most people seem to think Intel is way overcharging for their HEDT chips. If that's really true, then Intel can lower prices easily if necessary.

It's absolutely true.

They are indeed overcharging, but their HEDT lineup is also a completely different set of CPUs from their mainstream product. Since it's a speciality product that is made in more limited quantities, it carries a higher manufacturing cost. So, that's probably some of it, but it's mostly intel milking the enthusiasts, because they have no competition.

Look at this,

6800k is $380 on newegg

6900k is $1050 on newegg

6950x is $1650 on newegg

Adding two cores nearly increases the price by $700! It's insane! The 6900k is easily overpriced by over $500. The margins on those things must be absolutely insane!

They've already sold a bunch, though...so it should in fact be easy to lower the prices if they have been inflated all this time.

But you are assuming they need to... They don't! AMD has had superior CPUs in the past, and even had those CPUs at a lower price. Yet, Intel still didn't lower their prices, because people just ignorantly bought their CPUs anyway. They would lose more money by lowering their prices, than simply ignoring AMD.

 

[ZippZ]

It's absolutely true.
They are indeed overcharging, but their HEDT lineup is also a completely different set of CPUs from their mainstream product. Since it's a speciality product that is made in more limited quantities, it carries a higher manufacturing cost.

Look at this,
6800k is $380 on newegg
6900k is $1050 on newegg
Nearly $700 for two more cores! That's insane!

Gotta love that bell curve. I think AMD's chip will be slightly cheaper with possibly a little better performance, but I wouldn't expect a huge drop. AMD needs good margins and profits.

 

[unseenmorbidity]

Gotta love that bell curve. I think AMD's chip will be slightly cheaper with possibly a little better performance, but I wouldn't expect a huge drop. AMD needs good margins and profits.

Yah, and the thing is they didn't do that back for ivy -> Haswell. The 6 core was $1000, and then when it was replaced by a $1000 8 core. This time they just added a new tier for the 10 core at $1700, and kept the price of the 8 core the same.

Good margins don't mean anything, if you aren't selling any units. The enthusiast market is incredibly niche, and intel already dominates it. The people with a 6900k or a 5960x likely won't sidegrade/downgrade to Zen.

Also, isn't AMD in a bad deal with GF? They have to buy so many wafers, regardless if they can use them or not.

 

[sirmo]

Reading the 7700K thread got me wondering about this chip: will it "require" de-lidding for absolute performance or will AMD have learned from all the grousing about Intel's weak TIM and use something that actually works?

Someone delided one of AMD's recent processors (believe it was the Bristol Ridge) and they basically use solder. My 4770k has the lid heat transfer problem, can't wait to upgrade:

http://www.overclockingmadeinfrance.com/cpu-bristol-ridge-soudes/

 

[raghu78]

AMD won't charge half the Intel price. FinFET is expensive to design and manufacture. Wonder how big the die is. And AMD wants margins, they won't (immediately) go to bargain prices. With the hype train they're setting up, their fan(boy)s will surely give them all their money because they've been sitting on trash chips for many years (or Intel), so they'll take as much of that as they can.

dude AMD has no market share in high end desktop processors. 0% market share or atleast very close to that. Zen provides them a means to get a good amount of market share in that segment. Assuming a die size of roughly 200 sq mm the cost of manufacturing Zen would be less than manufacturing Rx 480 which has a die size of 232 sq mm and a lot more components (including 8 GB GDDR5) and which is sold for USD 250 - USD 300. If AMD can price the highest 8C/16T unlocked SKU at USD 500 - USD 600 they would still be making a lot of profit margin. I think the real kicker with Zen is going to be the price which will be disruptive. AMD is trying to rebuild a brand which has suffered for more than a decade. Providing much better perf/$ while being competitive on perf/watt and overall perf is the strategy which AMD will adopt.

 

[Blue_Max]

Anyone else just finish watching that livestream? Pretty impressive beating the Intel competitor that costs ~3x more.

I'm intrigued... I may actually consider coming back to team red after ~6 years.

 

[HurleyBird]

They are indeed overcharging, but their HEDT lineup is also a completely different set of CPUs from their mainstream product. Since it's a speciality product that is made in more limited quantities, it carries a higher manufacturing cost.

They're basically just unlocked Xeons with some features disabled, not a unique product.

 

[sirmo]

Anyone else just finish watching that livestream? Pretty impressive beating the Intel competitor that costs ~3x more.

I'm intrigued... I may actually consider coming back to team red after ~6 years.

Yeah, can't help but feel hyped. I mean we still don't know what the single thread perf. will be like, but Intel's multithreaded scaling can't be bad at this point. So I am hoping this strong performance translates to single thread as well.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Fun, but more threads than most individual users need at a less-than-sexy clockspeed. 16t is already major overkill.

No, it's not, for very parallel workloads like video encoding.
Can't beat the price/performance for those cases.

Leave the 4c/8t -> 8c/16t high clock/IPC toys for more mundane uses like gaming

 

[tential]

Yes, pricing. Most people seem to think Intel is way overcharging for their HEDT chips. If that's really true, then Intel can lower prices easily if necessary.

No matter what this will put some pressure on the HEDT market. Otherwise, it won't be relevant.

 

[Madpacket]

DX12/Vulcan and newer game engines will take advantage of moar cores, especially with a Zen designed Xbox Scorpion coming next year.

For me this comes down to price. I really liked what I saw today. I'm not sure how much influence Jim Keller had with the design but perhaps his magic touch came through.

Either way this looks to be cheaper, faster and more power efficient than Intel's offering. Just what AMD needed. Let's hope the benchmarks hold up.

 

[Carfax83]

Holy crap! I'm excited that I might actually have an AMD CPU in my rig next year! The last time I had an AMD CPU was the 4400+, a hundred years ago!

 

[Byte]

Well AMD would have to pay me to take an 8350 off their hands at this point... and double a negative number is a bigger negative number... sounds good to me!

This sounds like hyperbole, but when i thought about it, it's true. If you gave me a AMD computer, i would probably throw it in the trash and buy a intel. I've tried using friends AMD laptops and they run hot and insanely slow.

 

[deasd]

Yes, pricing. Most people seem to think Intel is way overcharging for their HEDT chips. If that's really true, then Intel can lower prices easily if necessary.

There's no relationship between overcharging or not and to lower price.

 

[jihe]

it's a speciality product that is made in more limited quantities, it carries a higher manufacturing cost.

Not really. They are just low grade xeons that didn't make the cut.

 

[IntelUser2000]

dude AMD has no market share in high end desktop processors. 0% market share or atleast very close to that. Zen provides them a means to get a good amount of market share in that segment. Assuming a die size of roughly 200 sq mm the cost of manufacturing Zen would be less than manufacturing Rx 480 which has a die size of 232 sq mm and a lot more components (including 8 GB GDDR5) and which is sold for USD 250 - USD 300.

There's almost no relation between pricing and die size. It's dictated entirely by segmentation and marketing. It's also the reason why its complete fallacy for people to assume 30% die taken up by iGPU would mean anywhere near 30% rise in cost.

Their pricing for Ryzen should be to accomodate for AMD's financial goals, whether marketshare or revenue or both.