Official AMD Ryzen Benchmarks, Reviews, Prices, and Discussion

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Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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Totally agree, all benchmarks should be space invaders in 240p, why overly stress the gpu.

Actually run something like Dwarf Fortress which has graphical requirements that could probably be satisfied by an old PCI (not PCIe) graphics card, but can decimate a CPU when you get enough Dwarfs and a big enough fortress it will get bogged down by single-threaded performance.
 
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french toast

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Feb 22, 2017
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Actually run something like Dwarf Fortress which has graphical requirements that could probably be satisfied by an old PCI (not PCIe) graphics card, but can decimate a CPU when you get enough Dwarfs and a big enough fortress it will get bogged down by single-threaded performance.
yep :) what about total war rome?
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
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Uh, he's not "failing so hard" in his understanding. He's got a 100Hz monitor and he'll have that 1080 Ti which can push 100fps at his resolution, so having a CPU that can actually keep up is desirable.

If I were him, I'd cancel the Ryzen, buy a 7700k and a z270 board to go with the 1080 Ti and call it a day. Or hold out for Skylake-X.

he's not at 1080p. None of that matters above 1080p where Ryzen, especially 1700, seems exactly on par with 7700k right now.

Then benchmarks are currently all over the place with jacked BIOSes and spotty memory issues from review to review. You've been around long enough to know that this cake hasn't finished baking.

You're one of the smarter people around here, so please don't jump to the silly sky-is-falling conclusions of the typical trolls (no, you aren't one of those). It still seems that high-end Ryzen is probably going to end up within 5% of Kaby which, as you know, is quite staggering.

Me, I just watch this stuff come out on release and let the patient folk deal with the expected bugs. I'm also waiting for the 6c/12t. Let's see how that $240 part compares to the ~$300-340 7700k...especially with a potentially higher OC with 2 dead cores of increased thermal room. ;)
 

zinfamous

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Jul 12, 2006
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BWE without heavy avx stuff does not draw 230 watt at 4.2, nah.

but we're constantly told that only Intel matters because AVX blah blah blah AVX. So, if you're saying we should ignore it, then why would we even consider Intel when it performs far worse than Ryzen without that supposed advantage?
 
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Mar 10, 2006
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he's not at 1080p. None of that matters above 1080p where Ryzen, especially 1700, seems exactly on par with 7700k right now.

The 1080p is a red herring; the real problem is that in non-GPU limited situations, Ryzen shows itself to be an inferior gaming part to the Kabylake chips. bogg is going to get a 1080 Ti, or so he says, so he'll need as much CPU power to drive that thing as possible.

Then benchmarks are currently all over the place with jacked BIOSes and spotty memory issues from review to review. You've been around long enough to know that this cake hasn't finished baking.

This is pretty bad, it's not right to release products in this state. a lot of people here whine and moan about how terrible and greedy Intel is, but Z270 is not buggy, nor was Z170. Z97 was fine too. Z87/Haswell had some minor issue that I can't recall now, but it didn't affect the perf of the CPU.

AMD wanted to meet its promised Q1 deadline and it did...but this is the price. I think AMD wanted to buy itself as much time in the spotlight ahead of the Skylake-X launch, so this is a strategic calculation. We will see if it pays off for them.

You're one of the smarter people around here, so please don't jump to the silly sky-is-falling conclusions of the typical trolls (no, you aren't one of those). It still seems that high-end Ryzen is probably going to end up within 5% of Kaby which, as you know, is quite staggering.

Ryzen is a good chip for what it is, but if your primary use case is gaming and you don't do a lot of threaded stuff, I really can't see how I'd justify any of the Ryzen 7 SKUs over a 7700K.

Me, I just watch this stuff come out on release and let the patient folk deal with the expected bugs. I'm also waiting for the 6c/12t. Let's see how that $240 part compares to the ~$300-340 7700k...especially with a potentially higher OC with 2 dead cores of increased thermal room. ;)

I don't think you will see OC improvements with the Ryzen 3 or 5. Really, it looks like this chip was designed for an optimal frequency range of maybe 3-3.5GHz and they just pumped this poor thing with extra volts to hit 4GHz single core turbo.

AMD has said the primary design point for this thing was server, and in server you don't run a bunch of cores at high frequencies -- you have a lot of cores at more modest frequencies.
 

Absolute0

Senior member
Nov 9, 2005
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I think a lot of the (-) negative (-) sentiment in the reaction to Ryzen extends beyond lackluster gaming results, which may be 1/2...

The other half of the negative sentiment is the (lack of) overclocking headroom. I'm a gamer but also an overclocker; hobby since 2003 and 20-30 CPU's OC'd with much glee (1 to death in my early days ;)).
Part of the fun is the build, and working on the cooling. I have lapped a lot of heatsinks, done delidding etc.
Getting a new CPU and pushing it to the max is like a dream for me. Like, take the weekend off, tell people I am busy, I don't want to be disturbed, CLOCKING AND BENCHING :)
Many users here understand. Overclocking is fun.

However, Ryzen does not look as fun to OC. It looks like worse than Athlon 64 Clawhammer. Worse than Pentium 4-fail "Presc-HOTT." I can't even think of what to compare it to. The 1800X has almost no OC headroom. And everyone has already pulled out the watercooling and friggin $100 monster aircoolers. The voltage scaling is bad. Even if you COULD push one to say 4.2-4.3 Ghz, its so power inefficient, wouldn't be worth it to run it there.
Watercooling doesn't get you much, and delidding doesn't get you much (soldered on).

Was hoping the 4C/6C variants would be able to push higher like 4.5Ghz but, does not seem like this architecture is amenable (read Technical thread by TheStilt).

You can squeeze, but there's only droplets of performance left there.

(Edit: since someone will invariably mention it, YES, the solution is buy the 1700 and push it to 3.9 and enjoy pretty big perf/$)

The chips I've fallen in love with have been my best OCers. AMD Opteron 64 146 2.0 Ghz -> prime stable @ 3.17 Ghz
Core 2 Duo 6600 2.4 Ghz prime stable at 4.0 Ghz
My 2500K 3.5 Ghz prime stable at 5.1 Ghz (! when i push the volts up ;))

Still waiting for the next good 'clocker to come along...
 
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Doom2pro

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Apr 2, 2016
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We get it the 7700K clocks higher and has slightly higher IPC than Ryzen, but be honest people, who in their right mind is going to gimp their Ryzen setup resolution so Kaby Lake gets a "fair" comparison?

If Ryzen performs better than Kaby Lake at high resolution, isn't that all that matters? I mean this isn't exactly mainstream hardware here... If I want to game at 1080p I'll get an XBOX.
 

IllogicalGlory

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Mar 8, 2013
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Totally agree, all benchmarks should be space invaders in 240p, why overly stress the gpu.
The point made in the GamersNexus video is salient. Yes, in real world conditions, Ryzen is pretty close to Intel offerings in gaming (in some cases, not all, sometimes Intel is substantially ahead), but why pay more for less performance? 8 cores are nice, and plenty of games can use them, but if that doesn't translate to higher performance, does it really matter? Plus, what happens when new GPUs come out and start making those same games more CPU limited? Even if it's not immediately important, I don't see the argument against the value of performance headroom.
 

Sven_eng

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Nov 1, 2016
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The point made in the GamersNexus video is salient. Yes, in real world conditions, Ryzen is pretty close to Intel offerings in gaming (in some cases, not all, sometimes Intel is substantially ahead), but why pay more for less performance? 8 cores are nice, and plenty of games can use them, but if that doesn't translate to higher performance, does it really matter? Plus, what happens when new GPUs come out and start making those same games more CPU limited? Even if it's not immediately important, I don't see the argument against the value of performance headroom.

What about when new games come out making 4 core CPUs the limiter?
 

french toast

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Feb 22, 2017
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The point made in the GamersNexus video is salient. Yes, in real world conditions, Ryzen is pretty close to Intel offerings in gaming (in some cases, not all, sometimes Intel is substantially ahead), but why pay more for less performance? 8 cores are nice, and plenty of games can use them, but if that doesn't translate to higher performance, does it really matter? Plus, what happens when new GPUs come out and start making those same games more CPU limited? Even if it's not immediately important, I don't see the argument against the value of performance headroom.
If Amd was charging intels prices yes, but as its half or to be perfectly honest one third of the price (1700 is effectively 1800x) for the same general performance i think people are being incredibly harsh, 8 core processors are not even aimed at the gaming audience (soon to change imo) did everyone judge the 6900k by the same standards last year? Was it ridiculed for losing to an i5? In 1080p gaming? Of course not because it would have been as ridiculous then as it is now.

True amd seemingly dont have the engineering man power to get everything fixed for launch, maybe they are to blame for not delaying, but all evidence points to ryzen being a worthy competitor to intel, if bios can be sorted that may include gaming for clean sweep of competitiveness.

Lets hope so for tech sake.
 
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linkgoron

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Mar 9, 2005
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Somehow the same posters come and troll/bait as usual.

Ryzen is a great CPU and its performance has been much better than expected. Sure, there was hype in the last month or so, but I believe that AMD delivered. Perf/watt is very good, price/perf is excellent and much better than what Intel currently offers, yet somehow AMD is disappointing because they didn't beat/match Skylake/Kabylake? The fact is that AMD is competitive again, and that's a great achievement. They are even beating Intel in a lot of benchmarks. From the AT review:

We see a lot of benchmark results where AMD is clearly equal or above Intel's HEDT parts in both ST and MT. However there are a few edge cases where AMD is lacking behind 10-20% still, even to Broadwell.

As we can infer from the above quote, Zen is not the best release evar. It has some issues. For example, the gaming benchmarks are not great, but hopefully OS updates, and some more BIOS updates will help AMD. People tend to forget, but Intel also had some problems with Skylake and early skylake iGPU issues. AMD is much smaller than Intel and Ryzen is a great achievement. Obviously it is not perfect, but even if AMD can't solve their gaming problems, hopefully Zen+ and others will fix those issues and improve on others.
 

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
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what happens when new GPUs come out and start making those same games more CPU limited?

IMO, more games will be coming out using more cpu threads in the future like BF1 and others. You can partly thank AMD for that actually. The main consoles has their 8 core cpu's and many games are ported from consoles to pc's.

I honestly don't see the problem overall for using Ryzen to game on now, and the future looks much better for an 8 core than 4 core. Depending how important gaming is to you right now.

But if you only care about the here and now, get a high clocked 4 core cpu and let it be. That should handle what you currently need.

Just my opinion.
 

sirmo

Golden Member
Oct 10, 2011
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I am only a bit disappointed by the OC potential, but I kind of had an idea you'd be throwing a lot of power efficiency out the window just to get a bit more out of it anyways. Otherwise pretty happy with everything else.

These few kinks some reviewers ran into are a normal part of any major new platform launch, I am sure they will get sorted in due time. Can't wait to put my Ryzen system together. But at this point I have no idea when my motherboard is going to ship. That's a true annoyance in all this.

Sucks being an early adopter man :)
 

IllogicalGlory

Senior member
Mar 8, 2013
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If Amd was charging intels prices yes, but as its half or to be perfectly honest one third of the price (1700 is effectively 1800x) for the same general performance i think people are being incredibly harsh, 8 core processors are not even aimed at the gaming audience (soon to change imo) did everyone judge the 6900k by the same standards last year? Was it ridiculed for losing to an i5? In 1080p gaming? Of course not because it would have been as ridiculous then as it is now.

True amd seemingly dont have the engineering man power to get everything fixed for launch, maybe they are to blame for not delaying, but all evidence points to ryzen being a worthy competitor to intel, if bios can be sorted that may include gaming for clean sweep of competitiveness.

Lets hope so for tech sake.
The problem with the argument about hypocrisy re: the 6900K is that no one was recommending it for gaming. 6600K/6700K were always the recommended thing; the 6900K was for people who needed its performance elsewhere, but here's the difference between it and Ryzen: Overclocked, it was easily at parity with the mainstream cores, even for gaming, in some cases, it was delivering top-tier performance if the game could leverage its cores. Ryzen is great for non-gaming things, but subpar for gaming (plus it has barely an OC headroom), while 6900K was great for non-gaming things and as good as anything out there at gaming. It was a complete ripoff for the price, and I don't think most held back on it for that.

AMD's customers are mainly interested in gaming, and 8-core Ryzen is definitely aimed at that market (as well as the professional market). Criticizing it for being below cheaper/equally priced options seems fair to me, especially if that's the customer's main use case. A customer who needs the extra cores would certainly see it differently, but I know I'm personally not in that category.

Furthermore, it's the only Ryzen chip AMD is offering right now. Things might change with Ryzen 5.

I too hope you're right about the BIOS updates.
What about when new games come out making 4 core CPUs the limiter?
We're pretty much there right now with a few games and Ryzen isn't showing much of an advantage over 7700K, from what I've seen. Besides, 7700K has a solid advantage in a lot of games, even well-threaded ones; how long will it take before Ryzen becomes faster? Yeah, we might see the gap shrink, on average, but how long until it's actually at parity or better?
 

IEC

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I am only a bit disappointed by the OC potential, but I kind of had an idea you'd be throwing a lot of power efficiency out the window just to get a bit more out of it anyways. Otherwise pretty happy with everything else.

These few kinks some reviewers ran into are a normal part of any major new platform launch, I am sure they will get sorted in due time. Can't wait to put my Ryzen system together. But at this point I have no idea when my motherboard is going to ship. That's a true annoyance in all this.

Sucks being an early adopter man :)

Always has, always will. But I am excited to build my 1800X rig next week.
 
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formulav8

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Sep 18, 2000
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I am only a bit disappointed by the OC potential

I'm actually not surprised. Unlike the BD cpu, AMD didn't do a special point about them getting over 8ghz on ln2 (Or any ocing for that matter).

I saw someone though, posting close to 6ghz on ln2. Maybe a new stepping in the future will do 4.5ghz or so on air/water. But I'm not sure a stepping tweak could change the clock that much in itself.
 

french toast

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Feb 22, 2017
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The problem with the argument about hypocrisy re: the 6900K is that no one was recommending it for gaming. 6600K/6700K were always the recommended thing; the 6900K was for people who needed its performance elsewhere, but here's the difference between it and Ryzen: Overclocked, it was easily at parity with the mainstream cores, even for gaming, in some cases, it was delivering top-tier performance if the game could leverage its cores. Ryzen is great for non-gaming things, but subpar for gaming (plus it has barely an OC headroom), while 6900K was great for non-gaming things and as good as anything out there at gaming. It was a complete ripoff for the price, and I don't think most held back on it for that.

AMD's customers are mainly interested in gaming, and 8-core Ryzen is definitely aimed at that market (as well as the professional market). Criticizing it for being below cheaper/equally priced options seems fair to me, especially if that's the customer's main use case. A customer who needs the extra cores would certainly see it differently, but I know I'm personally not in that category.

Furthermore, it's the only Ryzen chip AMD is offering right now. Things might change with Ryzen 5.

I too hope you're right about the BIOS updates.
We're pretty much there right now with a few games and Ryzen isn't showing much of an advantage over 7700K, from what I've seen. Besides, 7700K has a solid advantage in a lot of games, even well-threaded ones; how long will it take before Ryzen becomes faster? Yeah, we might see the gap shrink, on average, but how long until it's actually at parity or better? Plus, the 7700K is faster in pretty much every game out there right now.
Amd is advertising it as a jack of all trades cpu, which it is, 1600x 1400x are the dedicated gaming cpus.
The i7 6700k was many times cheaper than 6900k no? dont remember it being condemned for losing against that? Same difference.
 

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
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AMD's customers are mainly interested in gaming, and 8-core Ryzen is definitely aimed at that market

I do not agree. AMD showed more professional/content app examples than gaming.

They showed a game or 2 that it can do fine when gaming as well during presentations, but I saw things like Cinebench more than games. IIRC that is.
 
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Madpacket

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Nov 15, 2005
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Interesting launch. Not what I expected but after reading the info about buggy BIOS and CMT and RAM issues, I'll hold back my judgement on Ryzen as a gaming chip for another few months. My only real disappointment is the 3.9 - 4Ghz wall, I expected a little more headroom but this just makes the regular 1700 a no brainer if buying Ryzen. I guess I'll hang on to my 5930K for a while longer or until Zen 2 is released. Even with the crappy launch you can see the potential. Zen is at least very promising and very real competition to Intel, this is good for the industry.
 

Puffnstuff

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Mar 9, 2005
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I'm hoping that with stepping improvements this CPU will shine but if I said that I wasn't disappointed by its gaming performance against current competitors I'd be dishonest. Tom's Hardware shows how a i7-7700 beats it in gaming for only $350 which is hard to argue with when you're building a gaming machine.