Can Zen return AMD to its former glory?

[Nobina]

Bought an Intel CPU not a long time ago and now you're telling me AMD is gonna make me regret my purchase? Bloody hell.

 

[Barturo77]

Well...I actually have a FX 6300..not going to buy AMD 1st gen of ZEN..its going to be a good chip..hope the Price its OK too..specialy for Latin America and 3 world ..where the parts are more expensive

 

[hyperspaced]

AMD should do something about the power consumption of it's products. Now that they moved to 14nm FinFET process, there is no excuse for being less power efficient than Intel or NVidia.

I was about to purchase an RX480 for occasional gaming (1-2 hours a week), until I saw the power consumption on *IDLE* for a multi-monitor setup (e.g. a 1280x1024 and a 1920x1080). It's 40 WATTS (!). FOURTY. NVidia needs 8.

Sorry AMD. I had every good intention to help you rise "back to your former glory" but you didn't let me.

 

[yeeeeman]

This is just a subject for talking. We can talk forever if we do not have the facts. So, lets just wait and see. AMD may come back in the game or not with Zen. Only time will tell. In the meantime, lets just get on with our lives...

 

[Phasmax]

If Zen fulfils the promises and expectations set out by AMD, that's half the battle won. If they can deliver a chip that has Haswell i7 performance (or even 85%) at a much cheaper price, then they might just have a winner. In the end I don't care which chip is in my rig - as long as I get good value/performance for my money without feeling I'm getting screwed over on price. A successful Zen launch is a win for all of us as consumers - whether you're on the fence or an Intel/AMD fanboy - it benefits us all by bringing some long overdue competition into the market, thus driving innovation and (hopefully) bringing costs down.

 

[HardReset]

AMD should do something about the power consumption of it's products. Now that they moved to 14nm FinFET process, there is no excuse for being less power efficient than Intel or NVidia.

I was about to purchase an RX480 for occasional gaming (1-2 hours a week), until I saw the power consumption on *IDLE* for a multi-monitor setup (e.g. a 1280x1024 and a 1920x1080). It's 40 WATTS (!). FOURTY. NVidia needs 8.

Sorry AMD. I had every good intention to help you rise "back to your former glory" but you didn't let me.

Are you really planning to use multi monitor setup with that strange arrangement (FullHD+CRT)? If not, then I once again say what I always say: benchmarks are useless unless one understands them.

As always, it's not that simple. Situation is completly different if you have two monitors with same resolution. Also as you can see here https://www.computerbase.de/2016-06...ngsaufnahme-des-gesamtsystems-windows-desktop

Nvidia has much worse power consumption for anything above 60Hz.

So unless you are planning to use LCD with CRT and rather have two FullHD displays, benchmark you looked at Techpowerup is quite useless.

 

[Cracken]

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.

What we know is that AMD has beat the company that has more "resources and money". Brilliant minds like Jim keller was involved in the product that best intel for years, the same guy has beeb deeply involved in the upcomming Zen chip.

I be more than happy to switch back to AMD if they can compete.

 

[captaincranky]

What we know is that AMD has beat the company that has more "resources and money". Brilliant minds like Jim keller was involved in the product that best intel for years, the same guy has beeb deeply involved in the upcomming Zen chip....[ ]....

Let's get our story straight, the "Athlon" CPUs were better than the Prescott Pentiums and that was in excess of a decade ago.

And then boyz & girlz, in the 3rd quarter of 2006, Intel released the Core 2 Duo E-6300, and things were never really the same after that for AMD.

Since then, all AMD has really managed to do, is use up most of the names of heavy construction equipment, and run up everybody's electric bill.

 

[Mike st]

If it can match or beat my 3770k and come out at 249 my next upgrade will definitely be Zen.

it will easily beat my 2700K@4.8Ghz and your little 3770K with no proper oc abilities. I can even tell you that Zen will murder even a highly oc 4790K !
My view on it is that Zen will either match a 6700K or even beat a 6800K !
I however am waiting on 10nm tech and below ., not this 14nm old tech that zen and Kabylake delivers. Anything less than 10nm will bring us highend desktop cpus at 10 - to 20 watts tdp.

 

[Puiu]

Let's get our story straight, the "Athlon" CPUs were better than the Prescott Pentiums and that was in excess of a decade ago.

And then boyz & girlz, in the 3rd quarter of 2006, Intel released the Core 2 Duo E-6300, and things were never really the same after that for AMD.

Since then, all AMD has really managed to do, is use up most of the names of heavy construction equipment, and run up everybody's electric bill.

I agree, the athlon was the "peak" for AMD. it's just impossible to compete with intel in the high end desktop and server market because of how much money intel has for R&D and marketing (and for some of the more illegal deals ).

 

[Pewzor]

Zen doesn't have to beat the latest and the best of Intel.
Zen just have to get close to Intel's single thread performance and beat the comparable Intel product in price by at least 30%.
Then it's Zen platform for sure for me.
Especially AM4 is going to last for awhile which means I don't have to swap motherboard all the time when I upgrade Zen to "new Zens"... while Intel just shitting out different incompatible sockets every time they "fine tune" their processors for 5% more IPC... (while raising the price by 20% ofc).

 

[Nobina]

Zen might give AMD some relief but I doubt it's gonna return them to former glory they never had.

 

[robb213]

If it can match or beat my 3770k and come out at 249 my next upgrade will definitely be Zen.

it will easily beat my 2700K@4.8Ghz and your little 3770K with no proper oc abilities. I can even tell you that Zen will murder even a highly oc 4790K !
My view on it is that Zen will either match a 6700K or even beat a 6800K !
I however am waiting on 10nm tech and below ., not this 14nm old tech that zen and Kabylake delivers. Anything less than 10nm will bring us highend desktop cpus at 10 - to 20 watts tdp.

Don't let hype with worthless marketing stats determine the future before we have it. At best it will be in par with Haswell. This is AMD we're talking about, not some new startup led by all the minds in the industry with more funds than Nvidia and Intel combined.

Oh, and also, 4.7GHz is no mediocre overclock. That was the last clock I hit for my 3770K before I quit because I got tired of sitting around and would rather play games by that point.

 

[psycros]

Nothing AMD does will mean a thing so long as every piece of software is optimized for Intel and Nvidia. As long as those two companies have even a slight performance lead everything will be coded for their architecture, because its all about producing the smoothest game trailers on machines that most most of us could never afford. Add to that the kickbacks and free hardware that developers receive from Intel and Nvidia and its not even a contest.

 

[hood6558]

What AMD creates has always been a much cheaper way for people to get connected and play games, people who don't have the means to buy the more expensive Intel hardware, or those who just don't want to invest thousands of $ into the experience when hundreds will get the job done. I own a 4790K/780Ti rig, but often regret having spent over $3000 building it (mostly when I'm short on cash!).
Whatever Zen accomplishes, it will surely benefit everyone, whether or not they actually buy one, by making AMD systems a viable alternative for most users and forcing Intel to reconsider their prices across the board.
Zen also catches AMD up on storage ports and RAM speeds, so that reason for choosing Intel will evaporate.
I believe we are entering a new era of technological breakthroughs, in which faster computers will enable all other technologies to accelerate the pace of innovation. Here is a very good article on why it's great to be alive in 2016 - https://medium.com/@cdixon/eleven-r...-future-of-technology-ef5f9b939cb2#.dzyi5dfpv

 

[tbone8ty]

Depends on how Amd prices it.

hopefully we see a mobile apu with hbm soon as well

 

[amstech]

AMD has been getting slaughtered for years and are losing investors, I am hoping for competition's sake they come around. Polaris and Zen might dictate their fate...it really has come down to this.

I still rock an AMD 720 X3 in my HTPC.

 

[Kenrick]

If they can release zen before christmas, more people from the north will benefit from it. Imagine having a cpu and heater in one. Perfect for winter time!

Kidding aside, I hope this time is real. this was like how bulldozer was hyped before so I will just sit down, relax and eat popcorn while reading hardreset's brilliant imagination and analysis.

 

[Kenjar0497]

What we know is that AMD has beat the company that has more "resources and money". Brilliant minds like Jim keller was involved in the product that best intel for years, the same guy has beeb deeply involved in the upcomming Zen chip....[ ]....

Let's get our story straight, the "Athlon" CPUs were better than the Prescott Pentiums and that was in excess of a decade ago.

And then boyz & girlz, in the 3rd quarter of 2006, Intel released the Core 2 Duo E-6300, and things were never really the same after that for AMD.

Since then, all AMD has really managed to do, is use up most of the names of heavy construction equipment, and run up everybody's electric bill.

Jim Keller is the one that designed those "Athlon" Chips that took AMD to 1GHz first, to x64 First, to Dual Core First. So if anyone can recreate that time when AMD was king it will be him. Although I do that to match performance AMD may have to wait for zen+ for some tweaking but lets hope they come very close.

 

[CortyDK]

For me the big no-go has always been AMD's power consumption. Their CPU TDP is just so much higher than Intels, and most of their GPU range as well.

I once tried a laptop based on their Brazos E350 platform (Two bobcat cores at 1,6 Ghz and integrated GPU). To be fair it did not consume much power, and its GPU could just show 720p video at 30 fps, but for office applications an Asus Eee pc netbook with an 1,6 Ghz Intel Atom single-core processor wiped the floor with the AMD. Only place it lagged was video. Mpeg4 hardware acceleration was non-existant. Could barely show 480p at 30 frames. But the Atom chip only sipped power from the battery, AMD drank it...

And I suspect the same applies now with regards to CPU computing power pr watt. If you don't care bout power consumption, an AMD cpu is cheap and powerful, so its an affordable bang-for-the buck, but give a little more for Intel, and you will save money in the long run.

I know prices for electricity varies throughout the world, but here in Denmark we pay the equivalent of 35 cents pr kilowatt, so it is quite expensive. And as noted by others, most programmes are optimized for Intel. And, if you're not a gamer (excluded the odd game of solitaire) Intels integrated graphics are quite enough for office word and watching video - even videp editing and rendering is possible, as long as the CPU is strong enough.

 

[Kenjar0497]

For me the big no-go has always been AMD's power consumption. Their CPU TDP is just so much higher than Intels, and most of their GPU range as well.

I once tried a laptop based on their Brazos E350 platform (Two bobcat cores at 1,6 Ghz and integrated GPU). To be fair it did not consume much power, and its GPU could just show 720p video at 30 fps, but for office applications an Asus Eee pc netbook with an 1,6 Ghz Intel Atom single-core processor wiped the floor with the AMD. Only place it lagged was video. Mpeg4 hardware acceleration was non-existant. Could barely show 480p at 30 frames. But the Atom chip only sipped power from the battery, AMD drank it...

And I suspect the same applies now with regards to CPU computing power pr watt. If you don't care bout power consumption, an AMD cpu is cheap and powerful, so its an affordable bang-for-the buck, but give a little more for Intel, and you will save money in the long run.

I know prices for electricity varies throughout the world, but here in Denmark we pay the equivalent of 35 cents pr kilowatt, so it is quite expensive. And as noted by others, most programmes are optimized for Intel. And, if you're not a gamer (excluded the odd game of solitaire) Intels integrated graphics are quite enough for office word and watching video - even videp editing and rendering is possible, as long as the CPU is strong enough.

Agreed, though hopefully with zen and the gating system in it will be enough to suppress the TDP. They did design this chip the way apple designs the ones for the phone, race to sleep. So, that should help shutting down parts of the chip that are not required to be on. Also, you are judging the chip by the company making it not by who designed it, which is Jim Keller. He is the one that designed some of apples earlier chips for the iphone and ipads, they still use that base design today.

 

[Alex Whitehouse]

It looks like Zen will be a little slower the Skylake; exactly how big the gap is depends on what kind of MHz their production cores reach. Given AMD is on a pretty competitive (14nm) node against Intel's 12nm, I'd suggest that Zen will regardless restore competition to the market. This is in the sense that Intel will have a superior position in terms of absolute performance and manufacturing cost vs performance, but the gap will likely be narrowed enough to allow AMD cores to be desirable, whilst being profitable for AMD.

We can never be sure, but that definitely looks to be where things will end up in 2017.

 

[mrjgriffin]

Amd will deliver. they have when they've always had to. with processor advancements being so slow these past few years I don't see amd NOT having a shot. their processors to this day that are less than 200 usd are still competing with intel in many ways and they supposedly dont even support pcie 3 compared to intel and theyre still doing pretty good. amd will debut something lovely with zen, and around the same time I expect theyll debut their next big gfx card to pair with the zen cpus. amd has a good thing going for them this time I think. sometimes you just have to sit back, watch and observe in order to be victorious. lets do this!

 

[Danny101]

I've been upgrading and building PC's since 1994 as an avid enthusiast. At the time. I only knew about Intel. When I went to upgrade the cpu, it was an AMD 386. I ended up installing an AMD 486 DX-4 120 Mhz, which was better than Intel's offering. I held on to that until I purchase an eMachine with Intel's Celeron 400 Mhz in 1999. Mainly because of Microsoft's internet service offering. It was my first time using the internet. CPU's didn't matter to me at the time. In 2002, it did. I went with an AMD Athlon 1Ghz cpu coupled with ATI's All-in-Wonder 9600 Pro. I also went with an ASUS motherboard. It was sufficient and I wanted to support the little guy against the behemoth called Intel. This satisfied until 2009 when I wanted to play Fallout 3. So I opted for the AMD's Phenom II 4x 3.2 Ghz.with ATI's Radeon 4xxx series. Also using an ASUS motherboard. I'm waiting for ZEN before I'll do an upgrade. I don't necessarily try to play the latest games, but I do upgrade or build with one in mind.

I don't believe AMD ZEN will out perform Intel, but will match up enough to do what I need a computer to do. AMD is actually following Intel's lead by the way the cpu will process threads. They did this in 1994 too, except they did out perform Intel. They were Intel's partner as a supply manufacturer, until they embarrassed them. They went from partners to competitors. AMD competed well until they tried out-of-order parallel processing vs Intel's more linear stream processing. Was it AMD's fault or was it the software makers? AMD took a risk and it cost them greatly. Will AMD take was Intel's done and do it better? We will soon find out.

 

[Bigtruckseries]

AMD IS DOOMED.

their only hope is forming deals with off-the-shelf PC makers so they can stuff their worthless cards inside and claim that "this computer can run PC Games"...totally glossing over the fact you'll be playing in low resolutions with all the settings turned way down.

Any PC Gamer worth their salt is running EVGA Nvidia chipsets and cards.

Yeah it's expensive, but: PC MASTER RACE...