
AMD’s $499 Ryzen 7 1800X Beats $1700 i7 6950X with 1-Click OC on Air Cooling - antouank
http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-overclocking-performance/
======
actuator
I just hope this lives up to the hype. I built my last machine using Phenom II
X6 1090T but I always regretted it after; as the 6 core advantage that I
thought future games will use, never materialized and per core performance of
that was not as good as the Intel CPUs of the same generation. Most of the
benchmark leaks have focussed on top of the line Ryzens, I would be interested
in seeing how the mid level Ryzens are comparing to Intel I5s.

There are already reports of Intel CPUs getting price cuts, so this looks good
for now at least.

~~~
nialv7
You were just ahead of your time :)

Multicore advantage for gaming is starting to materialize with Vulkan, mantle,
etc.

~~~
stephenr
Aren't Vulkan/Metal etc about GPUs rather than CPUs ?

~~~
Strom
Indeed, they are designed to reduce CPU load. Even so, if the game can't use
multiple cores and previously was running game logic & OpenGL driver on the
same core, now it's only the game logic. [1]

\--

[1] nVidia actually implements Vulkan on top of their OpenGL driver, but
nVidia's drivers have been relatively well optimized in terms of CPU usage
already. AMD is the bigger winner here.

~~~
danvet
The OpenGL threading model is completely screwed up. You essentially have a
global lock per GL context, which means you're restricted to 1 thread for
issuing rendering. And in GL a context is for everything, including shaders,
texture states, you can't even reasonable do uploads of new scene data in a
separate thread.

Vulkan fixes this big time, by allowing apps to construct GPU workloads for a
single GPU in parallel. Only the final submission step (which is supposed to
be very low overhead if the driver design is decent) is single-threaded per
GPU context. And even for that Vulkan is better: It allows you to allocate
different contexts for separate engines (e.g. rendering vs. compute vs. copy
engine for data up/download to/from the GPU vram).

The lower CPU overhead is just the icing on the cake, the real deal is that
Vulkan fixed the threading/locking model.

------
jychang
Just a reminder that wccftech.com is notoriously pro-AMD. I would caution
against taking their word as proof.

I'm not an AMD hater (actually own AMD stock), just cautious.

~~~
c2h5oh
It's more of a rumor/gossip tech site with a reputation for immediately
publishing almost anything you could put a click-baity title on.

As a result it does look pro-AMD, because there is significantly more hype
(the infamous hype train) in AMD community (just compare /r/amd and /r/nvidia
on Reddit). I can't say if it's something that emerged organically in those
communities and embraced by corporate or the other way round.

~~~
homero
Also
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/)

~~~
revelation
And of course
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AyyMD/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AyyMD/)

Right now the hot topic is this gem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjCVaMYdjgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjCVaMYdjgo)

~~~
actuator
Haha. Amused to see the hype train Ryzen has created.

------
haswell
I won't be replacing my i7 6800K build any time soon, but I'm very happy to
see AMD looking competitive again. There hasn't been much excitement about the
recent generations of i7 for good reason, and hopefully this forces them to
start pushing the envelope again.

~~~
nextos
Exactly. Ridiculous Intel pricing and artificial limitations were a
consequence of de facto monopoly.

I absolutely hate how they cap maximum RAM on consumer machines, so that you
need to pony up for a Xeon workstation if you need more than 64 GB.

~~~
jeff_vader
64gb workstation ought to be enough for anybody. Jokes aside, what do you do
if you are interested in >64gb workstations?

~~~
c2h5oh
Some examples that can easily push you beyond 64 GB: \- high resolution photo
editing: when you start with a 80 mpix / 48 bit photo from a medium format
camera pushing beyond 16 GB requires only a couple layers and a couple undo
steps being available \- high resolution video processing. 1 second of
uncompressed 4k 60fps video is almost 1.4GB \- very large application
compilation: building Android requires 16GB of RAM/swap - I'm sure there are
apps that push that requirement even further \- development environment for a
complex system that requires you to run dozens of VMs if you want all
components running locally (I've had to run 2 VMs with 12GB requirements each
once)

~~~
mozumder
If you can afford a $30,000 medium format camera, you can afford the Xeon
workstation it usually needs. The kind of person that work with those systems
would pay $6,000 for an umbrella that doesn't even have any electronics in it:
[https://www.adorama.com/bcb3355203.html?gclid=CLKvmd2erNICFY...](https://www.adorama.com/bcb3355203.html?gclid=CLKvmd2erNICFYWEswodIDUCJQ)

Absolutely no one that owns one of these professional cameras uses them with
non-Xeon CPUs.

Really the only use for greater than 64Gb for non-Xeon CPUs would be student
animation or machine-learning projects.

~~~
mcbits
Just because someone can afford to rent a $30,000 camera doesn't necessarily
mean they have unlimited cash to burn on other things.

~~~
dpark
It's about $2000/week to rent an IQ180. If you can afford the rental price,
you can afford a computer to process the images.

~~~
abdulmuhaimin
thats not how money works. Just because you can afford one expensive luxury,
doesnt mean you can afford all the other expensive stuff. Sometimes you do
sacrifice all the other thing to get that one important expensive stuff

~~~
qume
Also the camera rental cost goes to the client. The computers to process are
generally owned by the company doing the work. Big difference. I will
regularily spend $1-2k for cameras for ~1 week, and pass that on, but still
use our own gear for processing.

------
kchoudhu
That TDP is unreal. 95 Watts?

Looks like AMD has made a real performance breakthrough here. When is general
availability expected?

~~~
my123
And 65W for the Ryzen 7 1700, which is an absolute feat for 8 cores

~~~
frou_dh
Would the 1700X and 1800X also be 65W if they were downclocked to 3GHz, or is
the 1700 fundamentally different from them?

~~~
my123
They will also be 65W in that case, they are made from the same dies

~~~
jsheard
That depends, the binning process means that products using the same die
layout can have different characteristics. We don't yet know to what extent
Ryzen is binned but here's a possibility: the 65W 1700 is made from cherry-
picked dies that tolerate especially low voltages, the premium 1800X is made
from dies that tolerate especially high clocks, and the 1700X is made from
leftovers that didn't qualify for either.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning)

------
aabajian
Lots of skeptical comments below. I tend to believe the result, given that
Intel has slashed prices on its Kaby Lake/Skylake processors in anticipation
of the Ryzen launch:

[http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-
processors/](http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-processors/)

~~~
frou_dh
That shows 'Microcenter' slashing prices, not Intel.

If Intel slash prices it will presumably be at the bulk "tray" level and
reflected on their ARK website.

~~~
aabajian
Microcenter has a tradition of getting really good cuts before/just after a
new product comes out. I remember the Surface RT + Keyboard sale they had for
Black Friday:

[https://www.neowin.net/news/micro-center-selling-surface-
rt-...](https://www.neowin.net/news/micro-center-selling-surface-rt-with-
touch-cover-for-17999-for-black-friday)

Not saying this is predictive of an Intel price cut, but I do think that
MicroCenter knows its audience.

------
SG-
This article doesn't actually list any benchmarks and the link/URL is totally
broken for the "Ryzen offers even better single-threaded performance per clock
than Intel’s Kaby Lake." \- [http://single-threaded/](http://single-threaded/)

~~~
my123
Yes, customer Ryzen CPUs support ECC.

~~~
seanp2k2
I pre-ordered 1800x + the Asus TOTL mobo for Ryzen. It doesn't support ECC:
[https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-
HERO/s...](https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-
HERO/specifications/)

Memory AMD Ryzen™ Processors 4 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4
3200(O.C.)/2933(O.C.)/2666/2400/2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory * AMD 7th
Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors 4 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4 2400/2133 MHz
Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory * Dual Channel Memory Architecture __Refer to
www.asus.com for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists).

AFAIK, Ryzen won't support ECC, sadly.

~~~
clarry
Hmm, the cheaper ASUS boards are listed as supporting ECC, according to this
page:
[http://geizhals.eu/?cmp=1582178&cmp=1582183&cmp=1582185&cmp=...](http://geizhals.eu/?cmp=1582178&cmp=1582183&cmp=1582185&cmp=1582881)

~~~
Qantourisc
This page does not match the information given on the ASUS website:
[https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-B350M-A/specifica...](https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-B350M-A/specifications/)
As such all we can say for now in my opinion: inconclusive

~~~
seanp2k2
More history in this which supports your inconclusive conclusion:
[https://community.amd.com/thread/210870](https://community.amd.com/thread/210870)

I'm not holding my breath for ECC support. My thinking is that if it could run
ECC RAM with the actual corrections enabled, they'd be talked about that as a
selling point. I'd sure like it with the 32GB I have going into this build,
but I just went with "G.SKILL F4-3000C15D-32GTZ TridentZ Series 32GB (2 x
16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)" for now, with the idea that
I'll get a second of the same kit in a couple of years when it's half the
price of today.

------
Zekio
I can't wait to see the result this will have on the CPU market especially
with the rest of their CPU line up coming later this year

~~~
seanp2k2
Intel _could_ just drop their prices, but it looks like Intel will [also] rush
out their 8th-gen stuff this year, even though it's still on 14mm:
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/02/intel-coffee-
lake-14...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/02/intel-coffee-lake-14nm-
release-date/)

~~~
agumonkey
It will be a very interesting match to witness. Intel will have to act under
pressure while saying goodbye to a huge sum of money.

~~~
seanp2k2
Just saw this, looks like Intel is already dropping prices significantly:
[http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-
processors/](http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-processors/)

If you were on the verge of getting a 7700k or something, it looks like now is
the time to buy (or give Ryzen a shot!).

Personally I'm willing to pay a bit more to give Ryzen a chance, because
hopefully it will lead to sustained competition in this space again. A $500
8-core CPU is more than I need for gaming right now, but given that my 2500k
has been great for 6 years, I don't have a problem spending $2k on a PC every
4-6 years for really great performance.

~~~
paulmd
> Just saw this, looks like Intel is already dropping prices significantly:
> [http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-
> processors/](http://wccftech.com/intel-amd-price-war-ryzen-processors/)

Those are Microcenter's normal prices - they have always sold Intel processors
significantly under normal pricing as a loss-leader (not sure if it's an
actual loss). They will also knock another $30 off if you buy a motherboard at
the same time.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/5cvz4z/cpu_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/5cvz4z/cpu_intel_i7_6700k_40_ghz_25999_2999940/)

For example, they have been running 6700Ks for $260-280 since before
Christmas. They sold Kaby Lake 7700Ks for $330 once those launched, now
they're down to $300. This is just the normal Microcenter pricing life-cycle.

But, that's the kind of "journalism" you come to expect from WCCFTech. They
will literally publish any random garbage someone writes up.

~~~
rasz_pl
Those prices match Intel promotions and bonus gifts Intel ordinarily offers to
big distributors for pushing hi-end product (CPU and Chipsets). There is
nothing suggesting Microcenter is running a loss on this, they might have a
very thin margin, or even sell at 0 and only count Intel gifts as a potential
profits (Intel will give distributors gifts like "free" SSDs for selling X
number of expensive parts). Its all in the spirit of tactics that were killing
AMD in ~2002 and lead to Intels monopoly trial, just made a little more subtle
this time.

------
vinayan3
If you were thinking of this as being a cheap CPU for a GPU training rig. It
only has 24 PCI Express lanes. It might be better to stick with Xeon CPUs
because most have 40 lanes.

~~~
ThatPlayer
Thanks for that. Was thinking about building a similar build I current have
which uses a 5960X for the 40 lanes.

------
jbmorgado
Anyone knows where can I get detailed information about the processor? I tried
to search in AMD page but the information is very scant.

Namely do these processors support ECC and what virtualisation capabilities do
they have (for KVM with full GPU access).

~~~
chithanh
No official statement yet, but I think they will support virtualization. There
hasn't been an AMD CPU in ages without AMD-Vi/IOMMU.

But lack of ECC support is a problem if you want to use virtualization for
security, as Rowhammer can be used for attacking other VMs and ECC is often
the last line of defense against Rowhammer.

[https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2016/Fahrplan/events...](https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2016/Fahrplan/events/8022.html)

------
romanovcode
Finally some competition. I'm sick of Intel monopoly. Good job AMD!

------
tzakrajs
Micro Center is selling Intel i7 7700k for $299

Those 4 cores are stronger than the first 4 cores of the 1700X or the 1800X.
If you are a gamer, then most if not all of your games will use 4 or less
cores. Why pay more money for worse gaming performance?

[https://www.techpowerup.com/230638/amd-ryzen-benchmarks-
leak...](https://www.techpowerup.com/230638/amd-ryzen-benchmarks-leaked-
amazing-multi-core-and-single-core-performance)

~~~
yeukhon
Not sure, but some gamers are youtubers and they need to process videos. What
about having an extra core or two for handling recording and playing live?
Those cost serious real time processing.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Extra cores might help with that, Intel Quicksync might be even better or some
GPU based video encoding.

~~~
rasz_pl
Quicksync is a marketing bullet point. Nobody sane uses this crap because
quality is abysmal. Its bad for streamers (they usually run second PC just for
stream compression), and bad for archiving video(quality again).

------
frik
How is the single core performance in real world beside benchmarks?

AMD mentions some AI technology to improve the perf. If one runs the same
software many times, will the performance change? It could be good if it
learns and improves the performance, but results might not be reproduce. Is it
like the Pentium 4 with its long pipelines that ideally result in better
performance but meant more misses?

Good that AMD has something in peto to compete with Intel again.

------
locusm
The AMD strategy seems to just be "give the customer what they want".
Revolutionary indeed.

------
ChuckMcM
While I recognize it is a 'what is there to lose' kind of move, I think it is
really awesome that AMD is unlocking all of their Ryzen parts. Seems like a
when for the "I want to smoke my own processor thank you very much"
generation.

------
ibgib
I'm maybe the only amd fan who is going to miss my power/$ of my 8350 for 150$
(or was it even cheaper?...)

~~~
tracker1
I can say I don't miss the $/power from my electric bill when I shut down my
8350 home server/nas box.

~~~
ibgib
That 65w does look pretty impressive!

------
floatboth
Beating a 10 core doesn't sound real, but it sure kicks the Intel 8-core's ass

------
gigatexal
What're the chances Apple puts ryzen into their lineup?

~~~
sparkling
Zero.

While the performance of Ryzen is pretty good, the overall power consumption
and efficiency (idle, semi-load and load) i still no where near Intel. They
won't kill 2-3 hour battery life on Macbooks for a AMD CPU.

~~~
trynumber9
How do you know this? The only Zen-based chips we have any information about
are desktop parts and we don't have any power usage benchmarks.

The Raven Ridge chips, which are meant for laptops, would have the added
advantage of removing the need for a discrete GPU in the 15" MacBook Pro.
Switching to AMD seems unlikely but I'd be interested if they did.

~~~
redtuesday
Absolutely, nothing is really known at this point. The leaked power
consumption results that we have show that a Ryzen engineering sample uses
slightly less power than comparable Intel CPU's (i7 6900k). But we don't know
if the leak is real.

So let's wait for real benchmarks (at march 2) before saying Intel is better
in power consumption @ sparkling. But keep the following in mind:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736809)

------
vegabook
If the 32 core Naples server Zen, due Q2, has anything like this kind of
price/perf versus Xeon, Intel is in trouble.

------
vorticalbox
Meaningless, oh look our overclocked cpu beat an non-overclocked one that
could have been overclocked.

------
clircle
Fake news?

------
awqrre
Intel probably have something ready to go from 5+ years ago (that was never
released because they didn't need to)...

