AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Processors Launched and Benchmarked (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: AMD launched its 2nd Generation Ryzen processors today, based on a refined update to the company's Zen architecture, dubbed Zen+. The chips offer higher clocks, lower latencies, and a more intelligent Precision Boost 2 algorithm that improves performance, system responsiveness, and power efficiency characteristics. These new CPUs still leverage the existing AM4 infrastructure and are compatible with the same socket, chipsets, and motherboards as AMD's first-generation products, with a BIOS/UEFI update.

There are four processors arriving today, AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X, the Ryzen 7 2700, the Ryzen 5 2600X, and the Ryzen 5 2600. Ryzen 7 chips are still 8-core CPUs with 20MB of cache but now top out at 4.3GHz, while Ryzen 5 chips offer 6 cores with 19MB of cache and peak at 4.2GHz. AMD claims 2nd Gen Ryzen processors offer reductions in L1, L2, and L3 cache latencies of approximately 13%, 34%, and 16%, respectively. Memory latency is reportedly reduced by about 11% and all of those improvements result in an approximate 3% increase in IPC (instructions per clock). The processors now also have official support for faster DDR4-2933 memory as well. In the benchmarks, 2nd Gen Ryzen CPUs outpaced AMD's first gen chips across the board with better single and multithreaded performance, closing the gap even further versus Intel, often with better or similar performance at lower price points. AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen processors, and new X470 chipset motherboards that support them, are available starting today and the CPUs range from $199 to $299.

Comments

Bringing competition back to the market

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope AMD can keep this ball rolling.

Re: Bringing competition back to the market

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of benefits for Intel chips precisely for gaming.
That's were they are leading.

Rather than putting it like you do the truth is that you don't need the fastest cpu unless you have a beast of a graphics card or run at settings to maximize frames per second. Because you'll be gpu limited anyway.

But if you aren't then Intel have a lead in games.

Actually, if you turn on XFR2 and if you apply the meltdown patches on Intel (which will be automatically done w/ Windows updates), the AMD processors are now faster for gaming.

Check out Anandtech article here: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-ryzen-7-2700x-2700-ryzen-5-2600x-2600

The AMD 2700X absolutely kills the top of the line Intel in gaming.

Re:Bringing competition back to the market

[MachineShedFred]

The "Athlon" days when AMD was ahead in performance was also when Intel had their head wedged so far up their ass they had to cut in switchback trails to find it. The Pentium 4 architecture was fucking horrible, and had the albatross of Rambus around it's neck. When they corrected that, they blasted right back in front and stayed there.

The good news for AMD: It appears that Intel once again has their head wedged so far up their ass that the suction from extraction just might kill them. If AMD was ever to give Intel another crotch-punch in benchmarking, now's the time.

Re:Bringing competition back to the market

[Lonewolf666]

It is a bit more complex like that, the performance leadership changed a few times.
At first, the Pentium 4 was badly outclassed, unless you bought the really expensive RDRAM memory from Rambus.

Then Intel released the Northwood series with support for DDR RAM and eventually two memory channels, which helped the bandwidth-hungry Pentium 4 architecture a lot. I guiess that is what you meant with "blasting in front" and for a while, the reworked Pentium 4 was in fact faster than AMD's Athlon XP.

Enter the Athlon 64. For a while, AMD was leading the race again, the Pentium 4 had run into a clock speed limit Intel had not foreseen (that was the age of the extremely hot running Prescott).

In 2006, Intel countered with the Core 2, which brought them in front again for several years. AMDs efforts in that time varied between "inferior" and "competitive but not ahead" (Phenom II). AMD kept itself afloat with aggressive pricing, at the expense of meager financial results.

Now there is the Ryzen, which started out competitive a year ago and appears to win over Intel with the new models. We seem to be back in a new "Athlon age" which pleases me no end as someone who dislikes Intel's business methods. I hasten to add that this is not meant to disparage Intel's engineering team:
Their processors are pretty good, at worst there has been a bit of stagnation lately. It just seems that AMD can do even better these days :)

 

Is Windows 7 supported?

[UnknownSoldier]

I have zero plans to let Microsoft's spyware, Windows 10, on my systems.

Re:Is Windows 7 supported?

[UnknownSoldier]

For anyone interested, found this article about GPU passthrough, Linux, and Windows:

GPU passthrough: gaming on Windows on Linux

Re:How sweet

[AmiMoJo]

Really liking AMD's offerings too. Great CPUs, great chipsets and a socket that won't be obsolete in a few months.

For a workstation I'd save up for a Threadripper though. It's not just the threads, it's the fact that you get so many more PCIe lanes. Loads of PCIe lanes effectively future proofs you because you will have enough expansion capability to add that 30GB/sec SSD or USB 4.0 controller. Also the IOMMU support is good so you can run Windows in a VM with near native GPU performance on a Linux host.