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[AMD] Breakthrough Performance of “Zen” (Head to Head with Broadwell-E!)

51K views 579 replies 163 participants last post by  Levys 
#1 ·
Here it is from AMD themselves people!
Quote:
Last night AMD provided a glimpse of its next-generation "Zen" processor core, highlighting how the new grounds-up architecture achieves the most stunning performance leap increase in generational performance in AMD's history.
Source
 
#3 ·
interesting
 
#6 ·
albeit broadwell-e being downclocked to 3.0ghz, the 8c/16t basically catching up to it is nice to see in blender.

here's Cannucks chart on blender in 1440p

given the chart, its blender performance would be slightly under the i7-6900K, given that by default, the 6900k is clocked at 3.2ghz.(though review probably has it turboed to 3.7). making Zen at least similar to the previous haswell-E processor for blenders sake

Though still in the dark, because its slightly misleading on both ends, since review ones have turbo boost on, and on the other side, engineering samples aren't always indicative on final product. nice to see that it made a large stride for performance though.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klocek001 View Post

even if 4c/4t Zen is murdered in games by 4c/4t i5 Skylake, if what is shown in the video is true then AMD is back
What is shown in the video can be completely accurate and Zen could still windup a major disappointment to many.
 
#8 ·
Clock speeds are going to make or break this. It's going to need to reach 4ghz to be competitive for gaming. AMD's multithreaded performance was good even in 2011 with BD.. it's always been a matter of per core performance hurting them. Nice to see the gap closed a bit but there are still too many variables to confirm where it will actually sit overall as far as performance goes.
 
#9 ·
Let's just hope Guru3D doesn't try to do another review with this benchmark
biggrin.gif
/sarcasm
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoloCamo View Post

Clock speeds are going to make or break this. It's going to need to reach 4ghz to be competitive for gaming. AMD's multithreaded performance was good even in 2011 with BD.. it's always been a matter of per core performance hurting them. Nice to see the gap closed a bit but there are still too many variables to confirm where it will actually sit overall as far as performance goes.
Clock for clock, Zen is ahead on gaming, because moAr cores.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by formula m View Post

Clock for clock, Zen is ahead on gaming, because moAr cores.
Clock for clock, Zen is a match for Broadwell...in Blender. Very few games, even the best threaded games, behave like Blender.

I'm optimistic about Zen, but one must be careful about what one extrapolates from a narrow selection of cherry picked benchmarks.
 
#13 ·
O
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoloCamo View Post

Clock speeds are going to make or break this. It's going to need to reach 4ghz to be competitive for gaming. AMD's multithreaded performance was good even in 2011 with BD.. it's always been a matter of per core performance hurting them. Nice to see the gap closed a bit but there are still too many variables to confirm where it will actually sit overall as far as performance goes.
I disagree, I'm not sure why everyone is so caught up with clock speeds. IF Zen can match a 4.0Ghz Intel while operating at 3.4Ghz, then it's just as good, if not better. I'm starting to feel that the MHz or more so 'GHz race' is coming back again with everyone's minds is set on clock speed to determine performance and not performance efficiency of the core itself. Starting up the Athlon 64 3200+ that operated at 2.0GHz and was able to beat a P4 at 3.2GHz, with OC head room. But today, the same idea would still show AMD as being sub par, assuming all is equal between the different generations. Bleh.

EDIT: Of course, it's wishful thinking. But the clock race that seems to be the trending...

EDIT 2: And yes, it was a flip of the script with Bulldozer and Sandy Bridge.
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by bucdan View Post

I disagree, I'm not sure why everyone is so caught up with clock speeds. IF Zen can match a 4.0Ghz Intel while operating at 3.4Ghz, then it's just as good, if not better.
Everyone is so caught up in clock speeds because we can see that Zen's likely best case scenario IPC is tied with Broadwell.

Clock speed potential is the greater unknown, and is just as relevant to performance.
 
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#15 ·
Both of what they had shown can't be considered any performance preview.
Underclocking the intel CPU, can have a lot of consequences. They might also underclock the memory as well, giving a huge advantage to the zen (as in, lie in performance, shocker).
The game might also have zero Cpu performance issue, with an i5 4/4 giving the same performance as a 8/16, so showing a game is irrelevant without knowing everything. Especially a beta versioned game most likely.

Overall, I'm not impressed until it is actually out, 1 year from now (in which case, zen will welcome a new challenger already).
 
#17 ·
Clock speed should matter in this case not because of the jiggawatts race but because of GPU bottlenecks which may appear at certain resolution. Zen can be a success but if it won't clock high enough to reduce said bottlenecks hardcore gamers will go with Intel. Let us not forget Kaby lake which will come on a more refined version of intel's process and may clock higher than expected.

I would be happy with a Zen rig if this were affordable. Knowing a bit of business and that investor confidence needs to be boosted at the same time with their bank account, I believe Zen will be priced quite high. We may be back to the Jesus designed chips where they had 800 pounds in their offering for the FX -52.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

Underclocking the intel CPU, can have a lot of consequences. They might also underclock the memory as well, giving a huge advantage to the zen (as in, lie in performance, shocker).
Far more likely that uncore and memory were not touched. I find it probable that clock for clock scaling was better in this test than it would be at stock or overclocked settings. We won't know for certain without more info on the test, but they would have to deliberately and significantly castrate uncore and memory performance to induce a significant bottleneck in this area.

I don't have any reason to be suspicious of the test results or system configurations. I'm betting that AMD simply demoed a test they knew Zen would excell at.
 
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#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by bucdan View Post

O
I disagree, I'm not sure why everyone is so caught up with clock speeds. IF Zen can match a 4.0Ghz Intel while operating at 3.4Ghz, then it's just as good, if not better. I'm starting to feel that the MHz or more so 'GHz race' is coming back again with everyone's minds is set on clock speed to determine performance and not performance efficiency of the core itself. Starting up the Athlon 64 3200+ that operated at 2.0GHz and was able to beat a P4 at 3.2GHz, with OC head room. But today, the same idea would still show AMD as being sub par, assuming all is equal between the different generations. Bleh.

EDIT: Of course, it's wishful thinking. But the clock race that seems to be the trending...

EDIT 2: And yes, it was a flip of the script with Bulldozer and Sandy Bridge.
They are EQUAL/Zen might have slight advantage at 3.0, they DOWNCLOCKED the 6900k to 3.0.

if Zen can ONLY reach 3.0ghz(doubtful probably closer to 3.5ghz due to infant status architecture) and the 6900k OCs to around 4.3-4.5ghz THAT'S a huge (word I can't say)-ing difference.
That's the reason it matters.

But again this is all theory and we won't know till we get it in our hands!
 
#20 ·
Stock jumped to over $7 a share since the video was posted. Not bad,
 
#22 ·
The people that bought when it was in the low $2 or even high $1 range are really going to make big.
 
#23 ·
Clock for Clock, Core for Core , Zen is slightly faster than Broadwell ... but remember that Zen is going to compete with Skylake-E and Kaby Lake. So basically, If Zen can OC to 4.5ghz~ and cost significantly less than Intel's offering, I think AMD got a winner. Imagine if they release an unlocked 4c/8t CPU for around 200$ with Broadwell IPC
thumb.gif
 
#25 ·
My body is ready, looks like my next upgrade will be Zen.
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