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AMD Set To Launch Ryzen Before March 3rd (anandtech.com)
An anonymous reader shares an AnandTech report: Thanks to some sleuthing from various readers, AMD has accidentally let the cat out of the bag with regards to the official Ryzen launch date. While they haven't specifically given an exact date, the talk to be given by AMD at the annual Game Developer Conference (GDC) says the following: "Join AMD Game Engineering team members for an introduction to the recently-launched AMD Ryzen CPU followed by advanced optimization topics." The GDC event runs from February 27th to March 3rd, and currently the AMD talk is not on the exact schedule yet, so it could appear any day during the event (so be wary if anyone says Feb 27th). At this time AMD has not disclosed an exact date either, but it would be an interesting time to announce the new set of Ryzen CPUs right in the middle of both GDC and Mobile World Congress which is also during that week. It would mean that Ryzen news may end up being buried under other GDC and smartphone announcements.
> in practice takes roughly 10 years for the savings to materialize... and by then, you've already swapped your CPU 3 times
Actually these days, not so much. I've got an i5 2500K that I bought in early 2011 in my home workstation, and I have no plans to replace it any time soon. My general rule is that I won't replace a processor unless it's both old and I will get around twice the performance of the old one. Looking at what I'd replace it with if I was to build the same machine today - an i5 6600K - there's just no point. I'd get about a 50% boost over what I have, and what I have is already more processor than I need for just about anything I do with the exception of gaming. And for that the money is better spent on a new video card, and that's what I do replace every 2-3 years.
In the past with Moore's Law that was around every 2 years, but Intel's been stagnant on progress for so long, they're now running ads like this:
http://www.ncix.com/article/intel_kabylake.htm
Oooo... up to 28% better performance than a 3 year old part! And all you need to do is replace your chip, motherboard and probably RAM. Pass. Instead of spending $600 on all that I'll just drop $200 on last year's hot high end video card.