You must choose right now: Zen or Skylake-E (8 core)

[Arachnotronic]

I will be buying Zen after all,as long as AMD doesn't try to over charge for there CPU's to try to compete 1/1 with Intels pricing scheme.I just can't see myself spending $1k or more for 8c/16t CPU. I am hoping for a $600.00 price point or less and then I will be all set. The only way I could even remotely see myself ever buying Skylake-E would be if Intel dropped its pricing and the CPU would have to be close to 2 times the performance of the Zen Cores.

Didn't you just buy a 6700K?

 

[master_shake_]

Zen.

even without knowing anything between either, Zen.

we know intel's skylake will be approx 10 percent faster than a similar 8 core broadwell-e cpu.

 

[sirmo]

It's a no brainer. Zen. Intel is boring.

Also my last Intel CPU sucked.. My 4770k runs really hot despite being water cooled (that cheap thermal paste lid problem).

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

If I had to choose right now, Zen. Still want to see what the full suite of benchmarks say once we get them, though. Especially if they will make certain people eat crow and/or stop being needlessly antagonistic to AMD.

 

[Justinbaileyman]

Didn't you just buy a 6700K?

Yes I sure did and that will go to my daughter for school when zen comes out to replace her aging 860K.As long as Zen outperforms the 6700k. If not then I will just keep this bad boy!!

 

[Arachnotronic]

Yes I sure did and that will go to my daughter for school when zen comes out to replace her aging 860K.As long as Zen outperforms the 6700k. If not then I will just keep this bad boy!!

Outperforms it in what? In single threaded or applications that basically use only up to 4 cores, the 6700K will most likely ravage Summit Ridge.

In very heavily threaded applications the Zen might be able to pull ahead of the 6700K though.

 

[Arachnotronic]

If I had to choose right now, Zen. Still want to see what the full suite of benchmarks say once we get them, though. Especially if they will make certain people eat crow and/or stop being needlessly antagonistic to AMD.

What's wrong with people being antagonistic to AMD (or any company)? Everyone has a right to an opinion/view as long as they share it in a polite, non-confrontational manner and, in the case of debates, use facts to make their points.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I will be buying Zen after all,as long as AMD doesn't try to over charge for there CPU's to try to compete 1/1 with Intels pricing scheme.I just can't see myself spending $1k or more for 8c/16t CPU. I am hoping for a $600.00 price point or less and then I will be all set. The only way I could even remotely see myself ever buying Skylake-E would be if Intel dropped its pricing and the CPU would have to be close to 2 times the performance of the Zen Cores.

I honestly don't get what you're saying here. Are you saying that Intel needs to offer 2x the performance for you to be willing to pay the same amount of money for an Intel product relative to an AMD product?

If you could clarify that'd be great.

 

[IEC]

Should I go ahead and put in an order for a 220 outlet with a 30a breaker?

I was thinking about installing a -80C freezer in the house, anyway.

:hmm:

I've got a dedicated 20A circuit for my PC. So I for one, don't care how much power it uses as long as it has the performance 🙂

 

[SK10H]

Poll states give me, so no brainer.

Skylake-E 8 core for sure.

Sell the sucker for $1700, buy Zen 8 core for $400-999, pocket the difference for Zen+.

 

[ElFenix]

at the same price, SKL-E no brainer. if zen hits IVB performance at 3 ghz it will be a nice part (maybe not for gaming, but 8 ivy cores at 3 ghz would basically match a 4960x at very well-threaded tasks, so could be an encoding monster). any clocks above 3 ghz will be gravy, imho. but that's not going to match 8 SKL cores running at 3.5+.


does anyone know if there are any sites that test gaming while running twitch?

 

[moonbogg]

Poll states give me, so no brainer.

Skylake-E 8 core for sure.

Sell the sucker for $1700, buy Zen 8 core for $400-999, pocket the difference for Zen+.

This is the only proper answer. Should have included it in the poll.

 

[Phynaz]

If you're giving me them for free, Skylake-E. It's a quad (or possibly hex!) channel platform, with AVX-512 on 10 cores. No competition.

If I have to buy them? Zen, probably.

Ditto

 

[moonbogg]

at the same price, SKL-E no brainer. if zen hits IVB performance at 3 ghz it will be a nice part (maybe not for gaming, but 8 ivy cores at 3 ghz would basically match a 4960x at very well-threaded tasks, so could be an encoding monster). any clocks above 3 ghz will be nice gravy.


does anyone know if there are any sites that test gaming while running twitch?

Same price? What if the Skylake costs around $1,000 like we know it will, and the Zen costs around $650 like my powers tell me it will? Would you choose Skylake again then or Zen and if not when?

Also, votes are 50/50! This is getting so exciting!

 

[ozzy702]

It just depends on the price. I have no problem spending as much as $750 for a CPU if the performance is there. I'm rocking a 6700k right now and it does fine for my needs. I'd love to have MOAR cores but I'm not going to pay $1000 or more and single core performance is still important to me so Zen may be disqualified if it can't reach at least 4ghz+.

 

[ElFenix]

Same price? What if the Skylake costs around $1,000 like we know it will, and the Zen costs around $650 like my powers tell me it will? Would you choose Skylake again then or Zen and if not when?

Also, votes are 50/50! This is getting so exciting!

if we're talking real world buying decision instead of forum spitballing, then i likely won't buy either of them. i'd need a couple more VMs before i'd need a new processor for that box, and $650 is just too dear for that purpose. for gaming neither will likely match whatever high-clocked quad core is being sold by the time intel gets its lazy butt around to launching SKL-E, so whenever i feel like moving on from the i5 i use for gaming it will likely be to a mainstream part rather than a workstation/server part.

 

[sirmo]

What's wrong with people being antagonistic to AMD (or any company)? Everyone has a right to an opinion/view as long as they share it in a polite, non-confrontational manner and, in the case of debates, use facts to make their points.

Comments antagonizing a company 1/48th the size of their competitor for not being able to compete are annoying and tiresome to read, and generally bring nothing of value to the discussion. They are also self defeating because it's a lose-lose for everyone if AMD decides to abandon the enthusiast CPU market for good.

 

[LTC8K6]

There's no reason not to wait for solid info before making the purchase decision, so I'll just wait and see.

I am a long time Intel fan, though I do build AMD systems, so if you forced me to decide, I'd go with Intel at this point.

 

[moonbogg]

if we're talking real world buying decision instead of forum spitballing, then i likely won't buy either of them. i'd need a couple more VMs before i'd need a new processor for that box, and $650 is just too dear for that purpose. for gaming neither will likely match whatever high-clocked quad core is being sold by the time intel gets its lazy butt around to launching SKL-E, so whenever i feel like moving on from the i5 i use for gaming it will likely be to a mainstream part rather than a workstation/server part.

This fast quad vs slower 6-8 core CPU dilemma is enough to make me puke. I'm a gamer and some games use more than 4 cores, but not that many, but more will later, so you really can't win on all fronts with this. I hate it. It must end. I think the best middle ground is an OC'd 6 core, but its a middle ground. I want the high ground damn it.

 

[dullard]

Same price? What if the Skylake costs around $1,000 like we know it will, and the Zen costs around $650 like my powers tell me it will? Would you choose Skylake again then or Zen and if not when?

Also, votes are 50/50! This is getting so exciting!

Do you have any proof of prices? I'm not saying that you are wrong, but I'd like to see some sort of evidence.

I've been around far too long to remember that whenever AMD had competitive chips, AMD's chips cost as much as (and sometimes far more than) Intel's chips. AMD is only lower in cost when they are not so competitive in performance.

AMD 1 GHZ Athlon released Mar 6, 2000 at $1299.
http://processortimeline.info/proc2000.htm

For comparison, Intel tried to save face with the 1 GHz Pentium III released Mar 8, 2000 at $999.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium-III/Intel-Pentium III 1000 - 80526PZ1000256 (BX80526PZ1000256).html

That wasn't the only time AMD charged more than your $650 level. In Sept 2003, the Sledgehammer was born with 64-bit processing and a $733 price tag. It stuck with the $733 price range for similar releases throughout 2004.
http://processortimeline.info/proc2003.htm

In 2005 the AMD 4800+ X2 monster came out. Price $1001.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1676

And so on. AMD is often lower priced and often a good value. But AMD has a history of charging an arm and a leg (sometimes even more than Intel) when they have a great processor.

 

[Yuriman]

I have no need for more cores than I already have. Zen will not likely surpass my Ivy Bridge CPU in IPC, and will likely run at lower clocks. For what I use it for, Zen may actually be a downgrade, or side-grade at best. Give me a Kaby-K CPU.

 

[sirmo]

Do you have any proof of prices? I'm not saying that you are wrong, but I'd like to see some sort of evidence.

I've been around far too long to remember that whenever AMD had competitive chips, AMD's chips cost as much as (and sometimes far more than) Intel's chips. AMD is only lower in cost when they are not so competitive in performance.

AMD 1 GHZ Athlon released Mar 6, 2000 at $1299.
http://processortimeline.info/proc2000.htm

For comparison, Intel tried to save face with the 1 GHz Pentium III released Mar 8, 2000 at $999.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium-III/Intel-Pentium III 1000 - 80526PZ1000256 (BX80526PZ1000256).html

That wasn't the only time AMD charged more than your $650 level. In Sept 2003, the Sledgehammer was born with 64-bit processing and a $733 price tag. It stuck with the $733 price range for similar releases throughout 2004.
http://processortimeline.info/proc2003.htm

In 2005 the AMD 4800+ X2 monster came out. Price $1001.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1676

And so on. AMD is often lower priced and often a good value. But AMD has a history of charging an arm and a leg (sometimes even more than Intel) when they have a great processor.

You're cherry picking the binned parts. Yes AMD has had [gold sample] expensive chips like Intel over the years. But generally it has offered better value throughout most of it. I've been around for a long time too (since the 80s).

Here is my Newegg order for the original x86_64 Opteron:

That was right around the release. Intel had nothing to compete with it. It was a complete route.

I am sure Zen will not be cheap especially at the release, but it will offer better value than Intel once the stock stabilizes.

 

[Arachnotronic]

This fast quad vs slower 6-8 core CPU dilemma is enough to make me puke. I'm a gamer and some games use more than 4 cores, but not that many, but more will later, so you really can't win on all fronts with this. I hate it. It must end. I think the best middle ground is an OC'd 6 core, but its a middle ground. I want the high ground damn it.

The high ground is a 6950X @ 4.3GHz or so. You get within spitting distance of a 6700K @ 4.6GHz in terms of ST perf (off by maybe 10% or so), but you get 2.5x the cores.

In engineering and in life, everything is a trade off. Want tons of cores? Be willing to pay for them and be willing to sacrifice a bit on peak single threaded performance. Want tons of single threaded performance? Be willing to sacrifice a very high core count.

The best thing you can do is figure out what the applications you use most favor today and, based on whatever signs you can ready, what they are likely to need in the future.

An 8-core Skylake-X is pretty much a known quantity -- we know Skylake offers better ST perf/MHz than Broadwell, and we know it clocks a bit better. We also know that Skylake-X will be built on a superior manufacturing technology than Broadwell-E, helping along the clock speed argument.

Zen is basically a complete unknown right now. All we have is an AoTS benchmark that wasn't very flattering and a single demo from AMD where very little about the test configurations was disclosed. We also know that they chose to nerf the clock speed of their competitor rather than ratchet up their frequencies to hit what their competition does.

If I had to make the choice posed by the poll, and if in making that choice I was choosing what CPU/motherboard I would be stuck with for any significant length of time, Skylake-X is a no-brainer because we know it'll be good since Broadwell-E and Skylake-S are good.

 

[dullard]

You're cherry picking the binned parts. Yes AMD has had [gold sample] expensive chips like Intel over the years. But generally it has offered better value throughout most of it.

Neither AMD nor Intel are generally stupid on pricing. If AMD has a very competitive chip it charges for it. Yes, I cherry-picked the chips where AMD had a arguably clear lead over Intel. Those also happened to be the same times that AMD charged a lot more for their chips than what most AMD customers are accustomed to.

I'm just trying to forewarn posters (such as the person with a possible $400 price tag on it) that AMD pricing isn't always cheap. If AMD has a great chip with Zen, they should be prepared for a possible high price.

The Opteron 146 was released Sept 9, 2003 and your order 7.5 months later is "right around the release"? Chip price often plunged by many hundreds of dollars over 7.5 months back then.

 

[sirmo]

Neither AMD nor Intel are generally stupid on pricing. If AMD has a very competitive chip it charges for it. Yes, I cherry-picked the chips where AMD had a arguably clear lead over Intel. Those also happened to be the same times that AMD charged a lot more for their chips than what most AMD customers are accustomed to.

I'm just trying to forewarn posters (such as the person with a possible $400 price tag on it) that AMD pricing isn't always cheap. If AMD has a great chip with Zen, they should be prepared for a possible high price.

I see, I may have misread your tone, sorry. I am just pointing out that generally despite the fact that yes you can cherry pick expensive gold sample chips in AMD's history, generally when it comes to mainstream parts AMD has always offered better value up until the Bulldozer.