AMD Ryzen Gaming Performance In-Depth: 16 Games Played at 1080p & 1440p

[Julio Franco]

AMD Ryzen processors made a strong impression last week, however time constraints resulted in more questions than answers when it came to the four games we managed to benchmark in time for launch. As promised, we're back to follow up on our initial 1080p testing with a more in-depth look at Ryzen's gaming performance across a 16 titles played at 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1348-amd-ryzen-gaming-performance/

 

[Burty117]

Nice article Steve! Nicely laid out and plenty of detail, Even though AMD were not at the top of the charts they are still miles better than anything they've produced before. Very impressed AMD, After years of let down, you've come out swinging this time.

I wonder when we'll see a patch (presumably from Microsoft) that'll fix the whole issue of Windows guessing the caches wrong on Ryzen (Windows is counting each thread as a full core). I bet this will help sort the SMT issues at least since Windows will be able to tell which threads are actual cores.

 

[Kenrick]

Thanks for the update Steve. Your hard work is appreciated.

AMD is going to the right direction with the ryzen processors. I must say I'm impressed they can fight with the i5 and almost there with the i7 series. Being competitive in productivity suites is also a thumbs up.

The only problem I can think of is why AMD did not disclose about the scheduler problem at the very start. This is bad if they have to rely to forums for identifying and fixing their own problems.

Overall, its a great value.

 

[Burty117]

The only problem I can think of is why AMD did not disclose about the scheduler problem at the very start. This is bad if they have to rely to forums for identifying and fixing their own problems

I assume AMD did notice it and have reported it to Microsoft who will then need to create a patch for it and release via Windows update. That process may take some time considering the processor has only just released and is probably not Microsoft's highest priority.

 

[Onygen]

I wonder how will Ryzen do with only two cores enabled only against intel counterpart.

 

[Kenrick]

I assume AMD did notice it and have reported it to Microsoft who will then need to create a patch for it and release via Windows update. That process may take some time considering the processor has only just released and is probably not Microsoft's highest priority.

I understand the validation needed for windows updates but do you think it could have been better if they send the specific details of the problem to tech sites after discrepancies were observed on why some games need to disable SMT. There is no harm disclosing the real culprit, its a bug and not a security issue .... assuming that they know the problem which I doubt because of the way the information was disclosed. Well, they need to improve their validation process and make on their promise to improve software support. Again, I can now recommend Ryzen for new builders.

 

[Vito05]

Some will look at the graphs and tell they are disappointed, but one must consider the price. For 30-90% less money you get the same performance as Intel. People that want the very best in gaming will still spend $800-1000 on Intel, while people that want best bang for the buck should take Ryzen no questions asked.

 

[pawan1965]

Can some one tell me why Chess Games are NOT included while testing CPU for its performance. Why only those games where ONLY Frame Rates are important ?

 

[Rintano]

My problem is not even the gaming performance, because that could be improved with patches.
I Have mainly 3 Problems with the Ryzen(and im an AMD fun):

1. Why Dual Channel RAM.... At the moment as I saw even if the mainboards can partially OC the RAMs even to 3600 MHz, but just on 2 slots, if I use 4 slots, the speed would drastically fall. I hope thats possible to change with a bios update

2. Overclocking and XFR - was so much wrote about the XFR..and even if I push a Predator 240 or Predator 360 I can get +100 Mhz from XFR.. that very very disapointing, the same about overclocking...the 6900 is able to overclock to 4,4Ghz and by the Ryzen 1800X is by 4,1 the end.....by the XFR range...

3. 20 PCI Lanes. Why to make X370 chipset for SLI setups with 20 PCI lanes. SLI setup is mostly made with high end GPUs which need x16 for the best performance. 20 Lanes are definetly not enough for a good modern processor. there should be at least 40. 2x 16 for the SLI setups and 2x 4 for two M2 or U2 slots.

 

[Rekful]

I ordered my PC build from Amazon, I had the 7700k sitting in the closet while having the 1700x on preorder. Well last day March 1st I decided to cancel the order and just open up the 7700k just because I came from 2600k and I knew I couldn't make a mistake. Intel makes quality products and definitely am their earned costumer. Although being excited for AMD and definitely wanted the best of the best but AMD unfortunately is not for gaming.

1080ti preorderd as well!

 

[davislane1]

Some will look at the graphs and tell they are disappointed, but one must consider the price. For 30-90% less money you get the same performance as Intel. People that want the very best in gaming will still spend $800-1000 on Intel, while people that want best bang for the buck should take Ryzen no questions asked.

The next few years will be interesting if AMD can keep it up. This is assuming Intel hasn't been holding back due to lack of competition.

 

[davislane1]

Can some one tell me why Chess Games are NOT included while testing CPU for its performance. Why only those games where ONLY Frame Rates are important ?

Because the only people who would need to know chip performance in chess are grand masters who would have anticipated the best solution six months before the first benchmark.

 

[LemmingOverlrd]

All things considered, and without taking away any merit from AMD for a comeback, I find it hard to justify the purchase of any R7 vs the Core i7 7700K. The reality is that all but one are more expensive than the 7700K, and the one that isn't is just that much slower than the 7700K.

R5 on the other hand will bring good things and completely undermine the R7 line-up when it comes to games. Hexacore performance will match Octacore, with SMT off, and it will all come down to clocks. The top tier R5 will have similar performance and will be cheaper than the 7700K.

Also, why has no one created a BOM for a new rig? I think that's AMD's best argument: the fact that the platform (CPU+ Mobo) will be cheaper than an Intel rig by anything from $30~$150 (depending on the mobo and CPU).

I can only find (good) reason to buy an R7 for creative/heavily multi-threaded work on the cheap.

 

[NightAntilli]

If 3200 MHz memory is used, we should see another ~6% of performance, decreasing the gap even further. Of course, we have to test also what faster memory does on Intel, whether it increases performance significantly or not.

 

[Steve]

If 3200 MHz memory is used, we should see another ~6% of performance, decreasing the gap even further. Of course, we have to test also what faster memory does on Intel, whether it increases performance significantly or not.

I would be impressed if the memory frequency scaled that well in games. That said you could be right, it might if the CPU is memory starved.

 

[Kenrick]

My problem is not even the gaming performance, because that could be improved with patches.
I Have mainly 3 Problems with the Ryzen(and im an AMD fun):

1. Why Dual Channel RAM.... At the moment as I saw even if the mainboards can partially OC the RAMs even to 3600 MHz, but just on 2 slots, if I use 4 slots, the speed would drastically fall. I hope thats possible to change with a bios update

2. Overclocking and XFR - was so much wrote about the XFR..and even if I push a Predator 240 or Predator 360 I can get +100 Mhz from XFR.. that very very disapointing, the same about overclocking...the 6900 is able to overclock to 4,4Ghz and by the Ryzen 1800X is by 4,1 the end.....by the XFR range...

3. 20 PCI Lanes. Why to make X370 chipset for SLI setups with 20 PCI lanes. SLI setup is mostly made with high end GPUs which need x16 for the best performance. 20 Lanes are definetly not enough for a good modern processor. there should be at least 40. 2x 16 for the SLI setups and 2x 4 for two M2 or U2 slots.

Add also no support for RAID 10.

 

[NightAntilli]

I would be impressed if the memory frequency scaled that well in games. That said you could be right, it might if the CPU is memory starved.

I would love to see those tests... But all the memory issues and Windows issues need to be resolved first... Things are just too weird with SMT right now.

 

[Burty117]

I would be impressed if the memory frequency scaled that well in games. That said you could be right, it might if the CPU is memory starved.

I would love to see those tests... But all the memory issues and Windows issues need to be resolved first... Things are just too weird with SMT right now.

It depends on the game, here's a link to Corsair's website when Battlefield 4 was being released.
Battlefield 4 actually did perform considerably better with faster memory, I don't know if this is as much of an issue in today's games though, would make an interesting article Steve

Edit: I did some Googling for articles such as this and you get some interesting results. Basically, if it's Quad Channel (Intel X99 Platform) the speed of RAM makes very little difference. On the Z170 Platform which is Duel Channel though it makes a reasonable difference depending on game. Maybe AMD's latest and greatest really would benefit from faster memory? Over to you now Steve (y)

 

[Mithan]

Some benchmarks have come out showing a good 3-5% improvement in each jump in memory speed. It seems the l3 cache runs at half the memory frequency or something, and all those cores also get starved. It might be worth sticking 3400-3600mhz memory in on this one....

 

[Rintano]

Pity is, that the price for 3600MHz RAMs is much higher than 3200MHz or 2667Mhz, and thats just because AMD dont decided for a quadchannel RAM

 

[amstech]

Pretty impressive results from Ryzen.
The overclock limitation will hold it back a little but not as much as I originally thought.

For the 16 game average at 1440p even with newer games, the fact that Ryzen is still losing to/matching the i5-6600K goes to show you that gaming engines are still not taking advantage of CPU's the way they should, besides a few special cases.

 

[dirtyferret]

Solid performance by the Ryzen but I paid more attention to how they compared to the i5, even the 1700 @ $329 is more then I would personally spend on a CPU. What I really found interesting is how the i3 and Pentium performed (outperformed) against the FX-8 (that chip did not age well at all).

If the AMD Ryzen quad cores can offer similar performance as the 1700 & 1800 in gaming, AMD will have a real winner on their hands.

 

[Greg S]

I wonder how will Ryzen do with only two cores enabled only against intel counterpart.

Probably quite poorly, but there is zero reason to bother testing that when a $60 Pentium would destroy the $300+ Ryzen chip that's currently available in a dual core test. Also, dual core processors are largely useless if you are looking for high performance these days.

 

[AMDomination]

It's a shame to see the 7700k recommended for high Hz gaming as Broadwell DT (5775C and e3 1285v4) absolutely destroy it. That said, concluding the R7 1700 is a great buy definitely hits the mark. Now if only AM4 motherboards were decent - especially in the SFF realm...

 

[amstech]

Some will look at the graphs and tell they are disappointed, but one must consider the price. For 30-90% less money you get the same performance as Intel. People that want the very best in gaming will still spend $800-1000 on Intel, while people that want best bang for the buck should take Ryzen no questions asked.

That is true about the 6900k but not the 7700K or 6700K.
The 7700K leads most of these charts (most likely due to the 4.5GHz Turbo Clock Speed) and cost $350. The i5 7600K beats every Ryzen chip out there (gaming) and costs $230.