Why Ryzen Was Amazing and the Haters Were All Wrong

[fps4ever]

How was I supposed to know back in November that AMD will finally decide to support 2 freaking year old CPUs to 5 year old mobos? Yeah, sorry, can't predict the future.

Oh, sorry I read that wrong, mybad....they finally can. A zen 2 3700X is a pretty substantial upgrade for the 1600x. was that not an option. Remembering the outrageous cpu prices the past 2 years ....yeah I might pick Intel myself.

 

[Strawman]

Oh, sorry I read that wrong, mybad....they finally can. A zen 2 3700X is a pretty substantial upgrade for the 1600x. was that not an option. Remembering the outrageous cpu prices the past 2 years ....yeah I might pick Intel myself.

Well sure 3700x was an option, but it was priced insanely high and - it wasn't really competitive at the end of 2021. So I told them to get an alderlake. So yeah, I don't see how AMD support is so great. It's absolutely abysmal.

 

[HardReset]

Well sure 3700x was an option, but it was priced insanely high and - it wasn't really competitive at the end of 2021. So I told them to get an alderlake. So yeah, I don't see how AMD support is so great. It's absolutely abysmal.

To remind you, it's also about motherboard makers, not only AMD.

If motherboard makers don't want to support new AMD CPUs, there is nothing AMD could do about it. And even if AMD promises support but mobo makers refuse, it's still "AMD's fault".

 

[fps4ever]

To remind you, it's also about motherboard makers, not only AMD.

If motherboard makers don't want to support new AMD CPUs, there is nothing AMD could do about it. And even if AMD promises support but mobo makers refuse, it's still "AMD's fault".

I don't remember what the upgrade path was for the older B350 mobos or what AMD said but I have to believe a 3000 series cpu would be cheaper than a new Intel cpu and motherboard. But to each their own. And I absolutely don't agree with his last sentence.

 

[Strawman]

To remind you, it's also about motherboard makers, not only AMD.

If motherboard makers don't want to support new AMD CPUs, there is nothing AMD could do about it. And even if AMD promises support but mobo makers refuse, it's still "AMD's fault".

Nope, if AMD asks and mobo manafacturesrs refuse, it's the manafacturers fault. Problem is, manafacturers WANTED to support the new CPU's (MSI for example), but it was AMD that said NO back in 2020.

Also, Asrock offered unofficial support for zen 3 on x370, but again, AMD said NOPE. So yeah, what a great freaking company

 

[Arbie]

Intel milked us for TEN YEARS. With no competition its CPU development had ground almost to a halt. AMD bet the farm and made an absolutely miraculous comeback, saving our entire future from being crap. Read that again: entire future. Thank god for AMD! Which are the only CPUs I'll buy and have bought since 2017. Remember: Intel tried to kill them outright and can try again. A few FPS today aren't the issue! Having two big players is the issue. And the entry stakes are enormous - so if we ever drop down to one player it's going to stay that way.

And please don't tell me AMD isn't a charity and they'd do the same yada yada. That isn't the point. Having two big players is the point and we very nearly lost that.

 

[fps4ever]

Nope, if AMD asks and mobo manafacturesrs refuse, it's the manafacturers fault. Problem is, manafacturers WANTED to support the new CPU's (MSI for example), but it was AMD that said NO back in 2020.

Also, Asrock offered unofficial support for zen 3 on x370, but again, AMD said NOPE. So yeah, what a great freaking company

Did AMD ever officially promise Zen3 support on The B350? If not how can you blame them? They still support 1000, 2000 and 3000 series cpu's. Your abysmal support comment makes no sense.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

How was I supposed to know back in November that AMD will finally decide to support 2 freaking year old CPUs to 5 year old mobos? Yeah, sorry, can't predict the future.

you were supposed to trust AMD's 4 year promise while simultaniously knowing that it was false.

Dont even bother with him, he'll meatshield AMD all week. AMD can do no wrong, even when they screw over their early adopters and loyal customers.

I'm going to tell you right now. Zen1 easily outpaces Ivybridge. I rocked my Sandy Bridge for a very long time, but was using a Ryzen 1700x as my server machine. Sandy Bridge @4.8ghz, and fast low latency ram. Pretty much as good as it gets for Sandy. Ivy is not a jump from Sandy Bridge in performance. Ended up replacing the ryzen with an actual Dell Server.

I moved from my 4.8ghz 2600k to my Ryzen 1700x @ 3.8ghz (Pstate OC). It is hands down faster, single thread and massively faster multithread. And this was just first gen ryzen. With a Nvidia 1080ti, the swap was well worth it. Rocking a X370 motherboard, the new BIOS options allow me to move to Zen 3. And the Recent price drops on the Ryzen 5600x look temping, and easily offers high end performance that even Adler lake barely outperforms on most tasks.

So keep your misinformation out of here. Sure Haswell with an OC was a better gaming CPU compared to Zen1, but that faded with time. These days on modern games Haswell shows its limitations more than a 6-8 core Zen 1 does. 4core Intel Chips did not age well into the modern era.

Same with Skylake and Zen 2, Quad Core Skylake is a damn joke. It did not age well, and users got screwed in their upgrade path. Skylake +++ had a higher core count sure, but by this point in time Zen 2 was extremely comparable for gaming performance. Most people don't OC, and if they do it is a light OC. Skylake +++ chips hot super hot and power hungry when pushed hard. Not many did it.

Which is why AMD has been the most recommended CPU provider for new gaming rings since the release of Zen2. Zen2 was close enough for modern games, and the core count boost was worth it. Zen3 was hands down faster than anything Intel had, and it took Intel over a year for Adler Lake. And Honestly Adler Lake is faster, but again not by much. And with the 3DCache AMD more than holds its own. Alder Lake has its use case, The platform will have one more upgrade, even if it is small. AM4 is a dead end, Zen 3 is as good as it will get. If you didn't already have a AMD Setup, and wanted to buy something new. Alder Lake isn't horrible. The Alder Lake i5 is at a great price point.

That being said, Going AM5 will be the best thing you can do as a gamer if you value money and you are looking to upgrade. If AM4 is anything to compare to, it will give you a platform to use for a long time. Unless Intel changes their way, Intel's upgrade path is a joke.

AMD Chips also do very well in Frame Pacing. Sure some of those older Intel chips can still put up some decent min framerates, but the frames overall are all over the place. It does not always make for smooth performance. Even going back to Zen1, The gaming experience was always smooth.

I linked an actual review, you provided an annecdote. Stop spreading "misinformation".

To remind you, it's also about motherboard makers, not only AMD.

If motherboard makers don't want to support new AMD CPUs, there is nothing AMD could do about it. And even if AMD promises support but mobo makers refuse, it's still "AMD's fault".

Motherboard makers cannot support CPUs if AMD doesnt not release AGESA code.

Dont throw this situation on mobos, AMD refused, outright, to support their own platform until the community raised hell about it on social media and the tech press got involved. the onyl thing mobo makers might be at fault for was only using 128Mb BIOS chips instead of 256Mb, but again, if AMD knew 128 wouldnt be big enough they should have specified that you needed 256. They didnt.

 

[DZillaXx]

How was I supposed to know back in November that AMD will finally decide to support 2 freaking year old CPUs to 5 year old mobos? Yeah, sorry, can't predict the future.

Actually many boards had beta Bios that allowed Ryzen 5000 series to work from launch. Sadly these were never posted to the board's websites, and mostly gotten via forums. Venders knew before hand that it would have no problem working.

AMD was the biggest hold up sadly.

Now pretty much all older AM4 boards are getting the support needed, if they havent already they will soon.

But a quick google search would have given you answers.

Honestly it was handled in a shitty way by AMD.

That being said, If I had a Zen2 chip. I would still be happy to rock that. I have no idea how people like to waste so much money on upgrading their PC every year or two. I have a hard time justifying spending money on PC gear vs putting it in Vanguard when there isn't much of a reward to upgrade. I still use a 1080ti not because I can't afford better, games just are not that demanding.

I have a Zen1 chip, I will upgrade to Zen3. But my Zen1 chip isn't keeping me from enjoying oxygen not included or factorio. Last graphical game I played on my PC was Halo Infinite, Played great. When I get time I'd like to start up elden ring, but that may end up being a Series X title for me. Family is in the living room, not the office.

 

[Strawman]

Intel milked us for TEN YEARS. With no competition its CPU development had ground almost to a halt.

That's just not true. It's just your opinion, based on anything but facts. Numbers don't care about your feelings, so let's look at the numbers, shall we?

Between 2012 and 2017 ( 5 years), Intel gave us a 92% increase in Multithreaded performance at the same pricepoint (3770k to 8700k).

Not good enough? All right. Between 2010 and 2015 Intel also gave us over 100% performance increase at a vastly reduced price point (i7 870 to 6700k).

Now let's look at that insanely great AMD competition. From 2017 to 2022 (the same 5 years) AMD gave us an increase of....wait for it...it's coming up, 45% (FORTY FIVE) at the same price point (R7 1700 ---> R5 5600x). HOLY cow, right?

Yeah, that Intel halting CPU development....sure bro, sure.

 

[Strawman]

Did AMD ever officially promise Zen3 support on The B350? If not how can you blame them? They still support 1000, 2000 and 3000 series cpu's. Your abysmal support comment makes no sense.

But they promised b450 support, then they took it back, then they took back the taking back. So yeah, that is the abysmal part.

What I call good support is knowing what and when im getting the support. Anything else is subpar, and so is AMD.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

"So for example, if you bought a Sandy Bridge Core i3 processor in January 2011 on an LGA1155 motherboard and then 2 years later wanted to upgrade ???"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Upgrade ?
LoL
Where is the upgrade?

Intel? No!
AMD? again NO!

You are presenting a biased false choice to eliminate end user choice and "Personal" Computers

Does your Intel "upgrade" native boot to Windows XP?
No

Does your AMD "upgrade" native boot to Windows XP?
No

Both of your "choices" eliminate "Personal" Computers where the "End User" is in FULL control of their own computer

You can't do that with a spyware platform now can you?

"MY" Sandy Bridge runs every X86 Operating System to date

It runs Windows 11

It runs Windows 10

It runs Windows 8.1

It runs Windows XP

It runs DOS

Natively!
No gimped VM's here!

NATIVELY!

It's called a PC for a reason

User choice / Not Corporate choice

Not Gimped by choice!

 

[BadThad]

Great article! Addresses one of my main complaints about Intel - motherboard life. Thanks for the article, well done!

 

[fps4ever]

But they promised b450 support, then they took it back, then they took back the taking back. So yeah, that is the abysmal part.

What I call good support is knowing what and when im getting the support. Anything else is subpar, and so is AMD.

They reversed that one quickly and I'm not going to change targets mid discussion. You stated the B350. You could have been perfectly fine on the 3000 series cpu's yet chose to have them leap to Intel. Only with you getting extra support down the road is a BAD thing. There is no everlasting support anywhere unless you want pay the Intel planned obsolescence upgrade tax. You knew when you purchased those mobo's what the upgrade path was at the time and that is all that anyone gets whoever you choose. Hind sight is not a great argument.

 

[HardReset]

I don't remember what the upgrade path was for the older B350 mobos or what AMD said but I have to believe a 3000 series cpu would be cheaper than a new Intel cpu and motherboard. But to each their own. And I absolutely don't agree with his last sentence.

AMD just promised AM4 "platform support" until 2020. What it includes, is another questions.

I don't either.

Nope, if AMD asks and mobo manafacturesrs refuse, it's the manafacturers fault. Problem is, manafacturers WANTED to support the new CPU's (MSI for example), but it was AMD that said NO back in 2020.

Also, Asrock offered unofficial support for zen 3 on x370, but again, AMD said NOPE. So yeah, what a great freaking company

Manufacturers wanted to offer support that doesn't bring them money? Great.

AsRock offered Unofficial support. And you expect AMD should agree that beta-support is as good as official one

Motherboard makers cannot support CPUs if AMD doesnt not release AGESA code.

Dont throw this situation on mobos, AMD refused, outright, to support their own platform until the community raised hell about it on social media and the tech press got involved.

Of course they cannot but AMD won't release AGESA code unless mobo makers promise support too. Otherwise AMD would again be blamed when some boards get support and others don't.

Yeah, that changed mobo markers mind about support. Nothing to do with AMD. Remember that if AMD promises full support, mobo makers must also agree. It's not just AMD says and mobo makers will gladly follow.

the onyl thing mobo makers might be at fault for was only using 128Mb BIOS chips instead of 256Mb, but again, if AMD knew 128 wouldnt be big enough they should have specified that you needed 256. They didnt.

Now this is fun. AMD says what mobo makers MUST do in order to make Ryzen motherboards. Guess what, if AMD would have made too many demands, there probably wouldn't be any Ryzen motherboards available. Similarily Intel just cannot demand Anything, otherwise motherboard makers will increasingly shift for AMD motherboards.

Support is not just about AMD. It's not just about mobo makers. It's about BOTH.

Actually many boards had beta Bios that allowed Ryzen 5000 series to work from launch. Sadly these were never posted to the board's websites, and mostly gotten via forums. Venders knew before hand that it would have no problem working.

AMD was the biggest hold up sadly.

That's the point. If AMD promises support, then mobo makers must also provide FULL support, not beta-one. Otherwise AMD gets blamed.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

This Hater was correct!

Modern AMD and Intel platforms are both wrong, destroying user choice, security and the "PC" FOREVER!

Corporate Monopoly only wins at "Your" expense

You now pay for your own enslavement

Suckers

If you cannot understand what you have lost, you will never understand why I rant

 

[DZillaXx]

I linked an actual review, you provided an annecdote. Stop spreading "misinformation".

That review was pointless. Many of those games easily scale past 4 cores.

Considering a 4.8ghz 2600k couldn't best a ryzen 1700x in cinebench single core test. At stock. Why bring in some niche benchmarks. I ran the tests myself.

That benchmark does nothing but show gaming performance among generations of CPU's with a low core count and fixed clock speed. To give an idea on performance/clock across the line. But as we all know, games don't only like IPC they also love Cache.

It does show how good even Zen 2 was, and what a blood bath Zen3 was at launch. Adler Lake wasn't the win Intel needed, it hardly was better overall than a chip that was already over a year old at Intel's release. Lucky for Intel Zen 4 is taking its time to market.

Adler Lakes biggest advantage has always been clockspeed. Intel's massive clock speed advantage has keep them competitive. AMD is closing that gap fast.

Alder Lake i5 IMO the best product on the market for someone building a new machine. Hands down. Best bang for buck for a gaming machine. AM4 is End of Life. There will be no upgrade options other than more cores. Raptor Lake may end up being a slight upgrade, but we have yet to see if that upgrade brings improvements to games.

 

[Strawman]

AsRock offered Unofficial support. And you expect AMD should agree that beta-support is as good as official one

The only reason it was unofficial support is because AMD didn't ALLOW asrock to offer the actual support. The exact same bios they had on x470 for zen 3 worked on x370 as well. They just couldn't call it official cause....AMD!

 

[HardReset]

The only reason it was unofficial support is because AMD didn't ALLOW asrock to offer the actual support. The exact same bios they had on x470 for zen 3 worked on x370 as well. They just couldn't call it official cause....AMD!

That's not very surprising since x370 and x470 chipsets are exactly same.

Now AMD allows them to call it official. Why? You really think AMD would cannibalize CPU sales not allowing to use older motherboards for no reason? That makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Strawman]

They reversed that one quickly and I'm not going to change targets mid discussion. You stated the B350. You could have been perfectly fine on the 3000 series cpu's yet chose to have them leap to Intel. Only with you getting extra support down the road is a BAD thing. There is no everlasting support anywhere unless you want pay the Intel planned obsolescence upgrade tax. You knew when you purchased those mobo's what the upgrade path was at the time and that is all that anyone gets whoever you choose. Hind sight is not a great argument.

Are you suggesting that I should have told them to pay 300€ for a 3700x at the end of 2021? Cause that's how much it actually cost man. So yeah, Ryzen 3000 was not an option at that point in time.

Of course there is no everlasting support, but taking 2 freaking years to support a CPU (let me repeat that, by the time the x370 got support, zen 3 was already 2 years old!!! LOL) means a big percentage of the x370 users have jumped ship, because it was OBVIOUS at the time that they wouldn't be getting support.

I have a z690 unify X. Imagine if Raptor lake comes out at the end of 2022, but my z690 gets support at the end of 2024. Yes, that would be abysmal support. And that's exactly what AMD just did. So...

 

[Strawman]

That's not very surprising since x370 and x470 chipsets are exactly same.

Now AMD allows them to call it official. Why? You really think AMD would cannibalize CPU sales not allowing to use older motherboards for no reason? That makes absolutely no sense.

They allowed it now cause they are getting their asses smacked by alderlake, so they don't want users with x370 (that are probably looking to upgrade now since their platform has outlive itself) to jump ship. Pretty obvious, isn't it?

 

[DZillaXx]

AMD just promised AM4 "platform support" until 2020. What it includes, is another questions.

I don't either.

Manufacturers wanted to offer support that doesn't bring them money? Great.

AsRock offered Unofficial support. And you expect AMD should agree that beta-support is as good as official one

Of course they cannot but AMD won't release AGESA code unless mobo makers promise support too. Otherwise AMD would again be blamed when some boards get support and others don't.

Yeah, that changed mobo markers mind about support. Nothing to do with AMD. Remember that if AMD promises full support, mobo makers must also agree. It's not just AMD says and mobo makers will gladly follow.

Now this is fun. AMD says what mobo makers MUST do in order to make Ryzen motherboards. Guess what, if AMD would have made too many demands, there probably wouldn't be any Ryzen motherboards available. Similarily Intel just cannot demand Anything, otherwise motherboard makers will increasingly shift for AMD motherboards.

Support is not just about AMD. It's not just about mobo makers. It's about BOTH.

That's the point. If AMD promises support, then mobo makers must also provide FULL support, not beta-one. Otherwise AMD gets blamed.

AMD knew Zen3 was going to be a hot product with limited supply. Unlike Intel AMD is limited by TSMC. That and older boards had limited amount of storage on their ROMs. Older CPU's had to be dropped, luckily it turned out all Ryzen Chips could still be supported. Only needing to drop that mistake of early Excavator chips.

If all AMD Boards had Zen3 support from the start, it would have been even crazier than it was. That being said, AMD from the start should have promised support to older boards. But that support should have been announced to only come in the future, no at near launch.

That being said the X370 chipset had a wild ride, and bein able to go from Zen 1 to Zen 3 is impressive.

 

[HardReset]

They allowed it now cause they are getting their asses smacked by alderlake, so they don't want users with x370 (that are probably looking to upgrade now since their platform has outlive itself) to jump ship. Pretty obvious, isn't it?

AMD is pretty slow since it took them 5 months after Alder Lake launch to realize that one. Not so obvious...

AMD knew Zen3 was going to be a hot product with limited supply. Unlike Intel AMD is limited by TSMC. That and older boards had limited amount of storage on their ROMs. Older CPU's had to be dropped, luckily it turned out all Ryzen Chips could still be supported. Only needing to drop that mistake of early Excavator chips.

If all AMD Boards had Zen3 support from the start, it would have been even crazier than it was. That being said, AMD from the start should have promised support to older boards. But that support should have been announced to only come in the future, no at near launch.

That being said the X370 chipset had a wild ride, and bein able to go from Zen 1 to Zen 3 is impressive.

Somewhat true but again, unless mobo manufacturers agree with this full support thing, there's not much AMD can do about it. And for mobo makers supporting something that does not actually sell any more, is hard pick.

 

[wiyosaya]

Put all of that together, I urge AMD to commit a time frame for AM5 support as soon as possible. Hopefully AMD hasn't underestimated just how important the AM4 commitment was for their success because although the Ryzen brand has a tremendous amount of momentum behind it, they will surely face significantly more competition from Intel in this and future release cycles. Should they decide to copy the Intel release cadence, it'd be a massive blow for AM5.

@Steve With respect to this quote, I believe they already have committed to a long-lived AM5 platform - https://www.techpowerup.com/290648/amd-socket-am5-a-long-lived-platform-ceo https://www.techspot.com/community/...5-ghz-was-not-overclocked.275454/post-1966832

 

[DZillaXx]

Are you suggesting that I should have told them to pay 300€ for a 3700x at the end of 2021? Cause that's how much it actually cost man. So yeah, Ryzen 3000 was not an option at that point in time.

Of course there is no everlasting support, but taking 2 freaking years to support a CPU (let me repeat that, by the time the x370 got support, zen 3 was already 2 years old!!! LOL) means a big percentage of the x370 users have jumped ship, because it was OBVIOUS at the time that they wouldn't be getting support.

I have a z690 unify X. Imagine if Raptor lake comes out at the end of 2022, but my z690 gets support at the end of 2024. Yes, that would be abysmal support. And that's exactly what AMD just did. So...

It was actually a year, many early AM4 boards started getting official bios early this year. Not even close to 2 years. Shame on Asus for waiting as long as they did to get boards updated, but they came out in force for support.

1-1.5years for support for the majority of boards. Sucks, but supply of Ryzen 5000 chips wasn't the best for the first year either. So largely a wash.

That being said, most people don't upgrade their crap every other year.