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AMD's 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X and 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X Reviewed

posted by martyb on Monday July 08 2019, @05:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the competition++ dept.

takyon writes:

AMD's "7nm" Zen 2 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X and 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X CPUs have been reviewed:

The AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 3700X and 3900X Raising The Bar

From the conclusion page:

In the majority of controlled tests, AMD has done something they haven't been able to achieve in almost 15 years, since the tail-end of the Athlon 64's reign in 2005: that is to have a CPU microarchitecture with higher performance per clock than Intel's leading architecture. Zen 2 finally achieves this symbolic mark by a hair's margin, with the new core improving IPC by 10-13% when compared to Zen+.

Having said that, Intel still very much holds the single-threaded performance crown by a few percent. Intel's higher achieved frequencies as well as continued larger lead in memory sensitive workloads are still goals that AMD has to work towards to, and future Zen iterations will have to further improve in order to have a shot at the ST performance crown.

[...] In the majority of our system benchmarks, AMD more often than not is able to best Intel's Core i7-9700K and i9-9900K in terms of performance. It was particularly interesting to see the new 3rd gen Ryzens post larger improvements in the web tests, all thanks to Zen 2's improved and larger op cache.

In anything that is more than lightly multi-threaded, AMD is also able to take the performance crown among mainstream desktop processors, thanks to their inclusion of 12 cores in their top SKU Ryzen 3900X. For total MT throughput, Intel can still beat this with their massive X-series HEDT chips, but these server-derrived parts are in a completely different class in both features and price, and AMD has their own Threadripper parts to rival that. All of this means that for heavily threaded scenarios, the 3900X rules the roost among true desktop processors.

[...] Perhaps the best arguments for the 3700X and 3900X is their value as well as their power efficiency. At $329 the 3700X particularly seems exciting, and gamers will want to take note that it posts the same gaming performance as the $499 3900X. Considering that AMD is also shipping the CPU with the perfectly reasonable Wrath Spire cooler, this also adds on to the value that you get if you're budget conscious.

The 3900X essentially has no real competition when it comes to the multi-threaded performance that it's able to deliver. Here the chip not only bests Intel's mainstream desktop designs, but it's able to go toe-to-toe with the lowest rung of Intel's more specialized HEDT platforms. Even AMD's own Threadripper line-up is made irrelevant below 16 cores.

Also at Tom's Hardware, Guru3D, and Wccftech.

See also: AMD Zen 2 Microarchitecture Analysis: Ryzen 3000 and EPYC Rome

Previously: AMD and Intel at Computex 2019: First Ryzen 3000-Series CPUs and Navi GPU Announced
AMD Details Three Navi GPUs and First Mainstream 16-Core CPU

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 08 2019, @05:49AM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday July 08 2019, @05:49AM (#864357) Journal

    I'm reading the AnandTech comments and there's some argument over Fallout and ZombieLoad patches not being available yet, which -could- hurt Intel's performance.

    Otherwise, Intel's comparable chips still perform favorably, although not due to IPC, but clock speeds that are a few hundred MHz faster. AMD's chips have gone from being beaten in almost every single-threaded test to matching or exceeding Intel in some of them. And of course, the 12-core just destroys Intel's offerings in multithreaded performance.

    16-core 3950X lands in September.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 08 2019, @06:13AM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday July 08 2019, @06:13AM (#864362) Journal

    Another interesting bit:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14605/the-and-ryzen-3700x-3900x-review-raising-the-bar/7 [anandtech.com]

    Web Tests Analysis

    Overall, in the web tests, the new Ryzen 3900X and 3700X perform very well with both chips showcasing quite large improvements over the 2700X.

    We’re seeing quite an interesting match-up against Intel’s 9700K here, which is leading all of the benchmarks. The reason for this is that SKU has SMT turned off. The singe-threaded performance advantage of this is that the CPU core no longer has to share the µOP cache structure between [two] different threads, and has the whole capacity dedicated to one thread. Web workloads in particular are amongst the most instruction pressure heavy workloads out there, and they benefit extremely from turning SMT off on modern cores.

    Whilst we didn’t have the time yet to test the new 3900X and 3700X with SMT off, AMD’s core and op cache works the same in that it’s sharing the capacity amongst two threads, statically partitioning it. I’m pretty sure we’d see larger increases in the web benchmarks when turning off SMT as well, and we’ll be sure to revisit this particular point in the future.

    So it's possible that the Ryzen 7 3700X could compete better with i7-9700K (8c/8t) if you disable 8 threads, depending on what you are doing with it.

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  • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday July 08 2019, @08:10AM (2 children)

    by coolgopher (1157) on Monday July 08 2019, @08:10AM (#864392)

    I'm still hoping for a Threadripper 3. If that comes out, it's time to upgrade the workstation :)

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday July 08 2019, @08:39AM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday July 08 2019, @08:39AM (#864397) Journal

      March: AMD: 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper in 2019 [anandtech.com]

      AMD’s 2nd Gen EPYC (codenamed Rome) and 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper processors have a lot in common. EPYC will have eight 7nm Zen 2-based chiplets to provide up to 64 cores and an IO die. We expect the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper to be built on the same platform, but we don't expect to see parity on power/core/frequency based on how the first generation Threadripper only offered half the cores of the 1st Gen EPYC. We would be pleasantly surprised if there was core configuration parity!

      May: AMD Removes Third Generation Ryzen Threadripper From Their Roadmap For No Reason [wccftech.com]

      When presenting its quarterly figures, AMD has shown a roadmap stating which products will be published this year. The third generation of AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors based on the 7nm process node and Zen 2 architecture are no longer included; in March that was still the case. There was no explanation of the removal.

      May (at Computex): All Ryzen: Q&A with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su [anandtech.com]

      Mark Hachman, PC World: There was no mention of Threadripper? Have you updated the roadmap?

      Lisa Su: You know what’s interesting – some of these things that circulate, on the internet. I don’t think we ever said that Threadripper was not going to continue. It sort of took a life of its own on the internet. You will see more Threadrippers (plural) from us. You will definitely see more Threadrippers from us. Look, we love the high-end desktop market. We see both content creators as well as workstation needs, and Threadripper has done well. You will see more from us with Threadripper.

      Tarinder Sandhu, Hexus: Given that you’ve got 24+ threads now in mainstream Ryzen (the 12-core), can it be argued at all that it’s kind of stepping on Threadripper’s toes?

      Lisa Su: Threadripper is still an important step up. You will see future generations of Threadripper from us. Now obviously if mainstream is moving up, Threadripper is going to have to move up up.

      June: EXCLUSIVE: AMD Is Working On A Monster 64-Core Threadripper, Landing As Early As Q4 2019 [wccftech.com]

      A little delayed, but could be coming before the end of 2019, with a core count increase. Maybe doubled to 64, with cheaper 48-core and 32-core parts.

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      • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday July 08 2019, @08:53AM

        by coolgopher (1157) on Monday July 08 2019, @08:53AM (#864401)

        Thanks for that, I hadn't seen the last one. A 64-core would be sweeeeeet for many of my workloads (currently only using a dual Xeon-10-core).