SoylentNews

Intel's Marketing Department Latches Onto AMD Boost Clock Issue

posted by janrinok on Sunday September 08 2019, @08:09AM   
from the going-for-the-weak-point dept.

takyon writes:

Too Hot to Last? Investigating Intel's Claims About Ryzen Reliability

AMD's Ryzen 3000-Series processors landed two months ago, bringing with them an incredible increase in real-world performance and upsetting the pricing paradigm with an impressive increase in performance-per-dollar, but the launch has been marred by reports that many users aren't receiving the rated boost speeds. AMD announced this week that it had identified an issue with its firmware that reduces performance in some situations and that it would update the community on an incoming fix on September 10.

As we often see in marketing, Intel has chosen to attack during AMD's perceived time of weakness. At the IFA tradeshow this week, Intel presented a slide deck to members of the press that includes information from a recent survey conducted by YouTuber Der8auer in which a surprising number of respondents reported they have been unable to reach the rated boost frequencies with their Ryzen 3000 processors.

Interestingly, Intel then drove further on the issue, citing a report that claims reliability is behind AMD's apparent, but not proven, reasons for reducing its chips' frequencies.

We were already investigating the claims Intel cited in regards to the relationship between Ryzen's clock frequencies and longevity, and we had secured comment from AMD before its admission that there was an issue with its firmware. Today we'll present some of the testing we conducted to investigate those claims.

Also at CRN.

Previously: Survey Says Many Ryzen 3900X CPUs Can't Hit Rated Boost Clock Speeds, BIOS Fix on Sept. 10th

---

Original Submission

• Re:Propaganda (Score: 3, Interesting) by jon3k on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:42PM

  by jon3k (3718) on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:42PM (#891285)

  This was acknowledged by AMD on twitter [twitter.com] and there is a fix coming. But I agree, there is a tremendous amount of FUD in this article, implying that your AMD CPU is going to fail over time.

  But, to be fair, from the conclusion:

  We're accustomed to seeing unsavory marketing tactics from both AMD and Intel alike, among many other companies, but there should be some awareness at Intel that promoting unproven theories with its company logo next to them is inherently risky. It lends credibility to reports that might not have any real merit. Instead, Intel should work to put proven metrics behind statements that call into question the reliability of competing products.

  and

  To be clear, we stand by the recommendations we've made in both our reviews and our Best CPU articles. The Ryzen 3000 series processors bring a new class of performance, and value, to the mainstream desktop. But we also expect the products we purchase to reach their rated specifications, so we're happy to hear that AMD is busy working on a fix.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+2
  Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		3