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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
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 08 2019, @12:26PM (8 children)
I suppose that's reserved for the smartphone market these days, but... I can play Steam games on my 15W NUC7i5 that graphically rival the (admittedly 10+ year old) PS3.
Would anyone else be jazzed to get this level of performance in a passively cooled NUC sized package?
I don't care if cooling fans suck or blow, I don't want them in my equipment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Monday July 08 2019, @03:24PM (5 children)
the x570's all seem to have tiny fans on the chipsets.
that's a big read FAIL to me ;(
I will try using the new cpus with the x470 or b450; likely will skip the 570 and its stoopid noisy failure-prone (yes, it will fail, eventually) fan.
odd that the new chips are power efficient but the chipset is not! plus, pci4 is too new and likely this chipset is a learning one for amd and the next will be more serious.
still, I have to say, the launch was a complete failure. here in the bay area, I went to frys to buy something on launch day and nothing could be bought! not a single 3k series cpu in stock at the sunnyvale frys; just walking distance from amd HQ!! not that it matters, but still, optics are odd that launch-day in silicon valley had no stores with chips in stock and even amazon 'forgot' to make a big deal over the launch; no mobos listed and you had to search hard for the chips; and they were not even ready to ship.
fail, amd. your so-called launch was pathetic. consider firing your marketing guys who flubbed this. I was happy to hand over money to you on your launch, but it seems you are not even ready to launch with any seriousness. sigh ;(
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 08 2019, @04:42PM (2 children)
The 7/7 date was chosen to emphasize "7nm", but it fell on a Sunday. That's probably why you saw limited availability. Today could be considered the real launch day.
As hot as the X570 chipset it, you don't need to buy one if power and heat are your concerns. You can use existing AM4 motherboards, as you point out. You won't get PCIe4 but there is going to be some skippage with that anyway (like Intel skipping to PCIe5).
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:03AM (1 child)
They take months to get any new stock in now, and when they do they rarely have the latest and greatest.
Another issue: They have dozens of kinds of non-ECC UDIMMs, a dozen or two kinds of (crappy) ECC RDIMMs, but no boards in-store that support Registered memory, and no Unregistered ECC memory for the swat of boards they carry that DO support ECC UDIMMs (AMD).
Furthermore their videocard selection has never recovered since the mining craze 2-3 years ago, and they still have hundreds of PCIe x1 to x16 bus relocator cards on the store shelves, discounted down to 1-8 dollars apiece now. Their stocking game seems to be all over the place and not really what customers want, or price competitive on what they have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:09AM
Microcenter > Fry's, if you're lucky enough to be near one.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @10:17PM (1 child)
x470 and b450 work fine, although you might need a BIOS update, which means you want a "flashback" motherboard (one that can update its own firmware) unless you already have an old CPU to do the update with. There's basically no performance difference between x570 and x470. It is mostly to enable PCIe 4.0.
Presumably, there will be a "b550" at some point that includes PCIe 4.0 but without all the whizbang expensive stuff you need to buy to get an x570. Hopefully, it will be passively cooled.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:29PM
just got an r5-3600 chip and b450 mobo. I have to now say, I'm VERY VERY IMPRESSED.
latest 5.2 kernel build, make -j12 gets me a bzImage in less than 2 minuts. dayum!
modules build is about 5 minutes. not default modules but most modules are 'm' in .config for me.
once I see grub prompt and time how long it gets to text-mode login prompt, its about 4 seconds. not kidding.
nvme is 1tb and hdparm shows about 2600mb/sec (a better HP one gave me nearly 3000). my older samsung on a skylake i7 only gives 1700.
make -j12 is such a trip ;) $200 for the cpu and $150 for the mini-itx mobo.
os is ubuntu 16.04 and I keep the kernel updated, as you can see.
systemd has not bit me on this build, but I have 16.04 as userland so its quite old (but quite stable).
...coming to work today as a build server ;)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 08 2019, @05:30PM (1 child)
Some fans [thetechlounge.com] are quieter than others. The cooling situation is probably better than what it was a decade ago.
Apparently, up to 28W chips [anandtech.com] can be cooled passively. Drop from the 35-45 Watt TDPs that you see on some chips (mostly desktop APUs), and you could at least reach that.
Ultimately, I think we would need a transistor revolution [soylentnews.org] in order to cut all TDPs below 15W and make most cooling obsolete. We may also need on-chip/package DRAM and/or universal memory since moving data around can generate a lot of heat. There's also talk of workloads being spread out across many cores using AI prediction, in order to utilize more cores while cutting clock speeds, but it remains to be seen whether that's vaporware.
I can't deny that I like using a fanless system (like the laptop I'm typing on). I also see standalone VR driving up the performance of very low TDP SoCs. AMD's main Ryzen 3000-series lineup doesn't need to target these TDPs because most users want high performance. These chips are designed to compete with the likes of the i7-9700K and i9-9900K.
Where AMD does have a blind spot is the below-15W laptop APU segment. Intel has Core M and various other parts, while AMD put out two 6W Excavator chips [notebookcheck.net], on the ol' "28nm" node, not Zen. From what I see on WikiChip [wikichip.org], there has never been a Zen or Zen+ CPU with less than 15W TDP. Could there be a Zen power efficiency floor that prevents below-15W segments from being hit?
Right at 15W (12W is mentioned but that's a "configurable TDP-down"), there is this embedded chip [linuxgizmos.com] and some mobile chips [wikichip.org]. AFAIK AMD has not emphasized this form factor while Intel has continued to pay attention to it.
We could always move in the other direction [soylentnews.org]. ;)
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(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 08 2019, @05:40PM
"Back in the day" (2005) I was betting on AMD to get a sizeable new chunk of the market based on their much lower power yet competitively performing new chips. Then the Eye of Intel opened on low power concerns and blasted my AMD stock options into oblivion.
🌻🌻 [google.com]