Can Zen return AMD to its former glory?

Shawn Knight

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Staff member

AMD hasn’t offered Intel much in the way of competition in the CPU market for about a decade now. The chipmaker, now under new leadership, has spent the last four years developing an all-new microarchitecture that’ll be making its way to the market sometime next year.

As an AMD faithful for many years (I was a broke teenager back then), I grew up in an era where AMD and Intel were duking it out for supremacy and would love nothing more than to see that happen once again (competition benefits us all).

With this week’s open forum, we’re curious as to whether or not you think Zen will put AMD back on the right track. I know it’s tough to answer without performance specs and pricing, but would you be willing to jump ship if AMD plays its cards right or has Intel gained too much of a lead to be caught in one generation?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

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I think as long as it hits the expectations they've given people--Zen will be on its way up. Otherwise, AMD has a problem with over-exaggerating performance, and if it happens again, they've shot themselves in the foot so many times that the foot is probably gone.

*cough* Bulldozer *cough*
 
Zen.........................................................................................................thought.

Zen.........................................................................................................reality.

Awaiting.
 
Ya just gotta love graphs/charts without any meaningful values anywhere. I'm going to use this one as a teaching tool for my kids as an example of how you fool the innocent. seriously. you see here kids, marketing and how to make people think they see something that they in fact don't.
 
I dont expect ZEN to beat intel's most extreme Broadwell chip/s but I expect it to do well in mainstream, giving AMD some profits in the long run and we could hope for a better achievement with the ZEN+ after
 
If it can match or beat my 3770k and come out at 249 my next upgrade will definitely be Zen.

Based on what we have seen so far its seems to be matching broadwell in IPC so a quad core version will be faster than your Ivy chip. You might get your wish at that price too.

And to the author I don't see AMD catching them in 1 generation but it seems they will bridge the gap enough that it will be worth buying their chips again.
 
They aren't going to beat Intel, the resources and money they have can't be understated.

However, if the goal is to get "close" then it could be hopeful.

Also consider how stagnate the PC gaming technologies have been where even an i5-2500K is relevant for gaming still. If Zen is anywhere near or close to Broadwell-E, it could be a good chip for gamers as well as folks who do light media work.

None of that really matters though if the pricing isn't there.
 
They aren't going to beat Intel, the resources and money they have can't be understated.

However, if the goal is to get "close" then it could be hopeful.

Also consider how stagnate the PC gaming technologies have been where even an i5-2500K is relevant for gaming still. If Zen is anywhere near or close to Broadwell-E, it could be a good chip for gamers as well as folks who do light media work.

None of that really matters though if the pricing isn't there.

It's not even just about the money or resources either, it's about brand. When people think of CPUs, they think Intel. The problem with this is similar to the problem with EpiPens or band-aids. When your brand is the market, anything your competitors do in fact benefits your own. It in and of itself is advertising. You get a cut? Put a band-aid on it. This is said over and over which amounts to free advertising.
 
They would need sooo many breakthroughs with the new architecture, a new socket type without pins, performance numbers that match or exceed intels and a few crazy engineers to pull it off. which is asking way too much. the effort is too colossal for them to pull it off. the farthest they will reach is close behind intels current performance at most
 
Ya just gotta love graphs/charts without any meaningful values anywhere. I'm going to use this one as a teaching tool for my kids as an example of how you fool the innocent. seriously. you see here kids, marketing and how to make people think they see something that they in fact don't.
On the Y axis You cant exactly Measure IPC because it will take diffrent IPC for diffrent Tasks, The X Axis Cleary Shows from left to right old to new generations, The Chart Also shows Zen will have about 40% more IPC in its next generation.
 
Too early to know but I hope it does... I hope it makes current FX chips look like the Athlon xp's by comparison. I'm currently running an FX 8350 @4.3 ghz. and it's ok but its starting to show its age now as far as gaming is concerned.
 
Make a decision based on AMD's internal testing? Thanks for the laugh. AMD could have used Cinebench results to showcase Zen... but they didn't. Wake me when the reviews are out.
 
Amd are cheap and OK for what you get but after being with Amd for 8 years wanted a change the i7 6700k was out of this world coming from Amd fx 8320e so hopefully amd do well and help bring intels prices down as Intel have been lazy and doing baby steps with there i7 range
 
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