Slashdot Mirror


AMD Reveals Zen 2 Processor Architecture in Bid To Stay Ahead of Intel (venturebeat.com)

AMD on Monday revealed the Zen 2 architecture for the family of processors that it will launch in the coming years, starting with 2019. The move is a follow-up to the competitive Zen designs that AMD launched in March 2017, and it promises two-times improvement in performance throughput. From a report: AMD hopes the Zen 2 processors will keep it ahead of or at parity with Intel, the world's biggest maker of PC processors. The earlier Zen designs enabled chips that could process 52 percent more instructions per clock cycle than the previous generation. Zen has spawned AMD's most competitive chips in a decade, including Ryzen for the desktop, Threadripper (with up to 32 cores) for gamers, Ryzen Mobile for laptops, and Epyc for servers. In the future, you can expect to see Zen 2 cores in future models of those families of chips. AMD's focus is on making central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and accelerated processing units (APUs) that put the two other units together on the same chip.

100 comments

  1. Glad to See Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am glad to see competition, and will consider these for computational requirements in the future.

    1. Re: Glad to See Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Keep up the good work !

      Now if software design can catch up to 64 Core, 128 thread hardware...

      Not every program benefits from multicore design.

      LOWER PRICES are the most important innovation, along with cooler power saving CPUs.

  2. Intel's next move? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder what kind of sleazy tricks Intel will come up with this time now that AMD seems to be getting ahead.

    1. Re:Intel's next move? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't AMD license some of Intel's products? Why would Intel want to play sleazy tricks? Is it for the publicity?

    2. Re:Intel's next move? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I wonder what kind of sleazy tricks Intel will come up with this time now that AMD seems to be getting ahead.

      Make a better processor, just like they did last time this happened. They made a decision on their process shrink that didn't work out so that's put them behind while AMD made a better decision which has put them ahead. This happened with Intel's deep pipeline Netburst architecture while AMD had their really successful Athlon line, then Intel came out with their Core architecture and AMD flopped with their response to that.

      These companies have to make reasonably long term bets on a particular strategy, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't but you can't get it right all the time.

    3. Re:Intel's next move? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      It's Intel that licenses the 64-bit instruction set from AMD.

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:Intel's next move? by dengaleugle · · Score: 0

      2 Intel 64 Intel 64 is Intel's implementation of x86-64, used and implemented in various processors made by Intel.

      2.1 History
      Historically, AMD has developed and produced processors with instruction sets patterned after Intel's original designs, but with x86-64, roles were reversed: Intel found itself in the position of adopting the ISA which AMD had created as an extension to Intel's own x86 processor line.

      Intel's project was originally codenamed Yamhill (after the Yamhill River in Oregon's Willamette Valley). After several years of denying its existence, Intel announced at the February 2004 IDF that the project was indeed underway. Intel's chairman at the time, Craig Barrett, admitted that this was one of their worst-kept secrets.
      Intel's name for this instruction set has changed several times. The name used at the IDF was CT (presumably[original research?] for Clackamas Technology, another codename from an Oregon river); within weeks they began referring to it as IA-32e (for IA-32 extensions) and in March 2004 unveiled the "official" name EM64T (Extended Memory 64 Technology). In late 2006 Intel began instead using the name Intel 64 for its implementation, paralleling AMD's use of the name AMD64.

      The first processor to implement Intel 64 was the multi-socket processor Xeon code-named Nocona in June 2004. In contrast, the initial Prescott chips (February 2004) did not enable this feature. Intel subsequently began selling Intel 64-enabled Pentium 4s using the E0 revision of the Prescott core, being sold on the OEM market as the Pentium 4, model F. The E0 revision also adds eXecute Disable (XD) (Intel's name for the NX bit) to Intel 64, and has been included in then current Xeon code-named Irwindale. Intel's official launch of Intel 64 (under the name EM64T at that time) in mainstream desktop processors was the N0 stepping Prescott-2M.

      The first Intel mobile processor implementing Intel 64 is the Merom version of the Core 2 processor, which was released on July 27, 2006. None of Intel's earlier notebook CPUs (Core Duo, Pentium M, Celeron M, Mobile Pentium 4) implement Intel 64.

      --
      Scientia potentia est!
      -Sir Francis Bacon
    5. Re:Intel's next move? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what kind of sleazy tricks Intel will come up with this time now that AMD seems to be getting ahead.

      This idea that they are somehow "at war" with each other is nonsense invented by fanboy idiots.

    6. Re:Intel's next move? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      I wonder what kind of sleazy tricks Intel will come up with this time now that AMD seems to be getting ahead.

      They still use their old sleazy tricks.

  3. Looking forward to Intel's response. by OwP_Fabricated · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...which will probably be to just rebrand another golden-bin set of 14nm+++++++++++ Xeons and just push the clocks even harder so they can claim 10% more FPS on some insanely shitty 1-2 threaded benchmark game if you don't mind a processor that draws 350W+ under full load and needs to dissipate more heat per square inch than a nuclear reactor.

    Also it'll have a new socket and cost like $900+, because lol fuck you

    1. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Their response was yesterday, where they said they were going to glue a couple Xeons together to get a 48 core processor.

    2. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by OwP_Fabricated · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Remember like 6 months ago when they literally had a presentation saying that Zen was "glued together" processors and that was bad?

    3. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it is still bad, just now you can get bad from both companies as they have both given up on making massive single chips

    4. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Comp is a P4 1.8ghz intel shitbox.
      Never upgraded bc intel has been shit, and expensive.

      AMD is getting *all* my saved up upgrade money now.
      AMD cpu and gpu.
      I'm buying $300 threadripper today for like $800 box.
      And def buying a Zen 2 when it comes out.

      Don't forget, ECC memory comes possible with all AMD cpus,
      but you have to spend your nut for Xeon or shitty i3 to get ECC in intel.
      And you need ECC memory by default these days.

      AMD will be the one to bring market share to 50/50 or better and disrupt intel, even 40/40/10/10 with ARM / Power9 / etc.

    5. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't give a fuck what Intel's resonse is or will be.
      Because Intel sucks.
      And can go suck a dick.

      Go go AMD!!!

    6. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said.

      Plus you get many more PCI lanes with AMD.

      Intel have been fabricating tiered product offerings for years, and it's time to see through that crap for what it is: a strategy to extract as much money from the customer as possible.

      Fuck Intel.

    7. Re: Looking forward to Intel's response. by koomba · · Score: 1

      Lol it would be funny if you weren't right. While each successive "generation" from Intel in the last 4 years have always had least some IPC improvement, it's been very small. And they've been on 14nm since Broadwell. Skylake, Kabylake and now Coffeelake are all the same chip, more or less. Any gains have simply come from small clock speed increases, more cache, and general optimizations. I will say though that at least the desktop chips have kept the power draw under control. But the HEDT chips, the most recent being Skylake-E? Yeah they are ridiculously powerful, no doubt. And they will clock almost as high as the lower core count desktop chips. But ONLY with very good cooling. It's kinda ridiculous. You aren't too far off, the 12+ core ones really will pull 300+ watts if you can keep them cool.

    8. Re:Looking forward to Intel's response. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Been using Intel CPUs for a while now due to gaming performance.

      Got burned on the 7700K though (seriously, those temp spikes and Intel telling the community to not OC it, which betrays the point of all "K" line CPUs).

      Going AMD next.

  4. The reality is..... by fred911 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "The move is a follow-up to"...

    Attempt to justify a PE ratio of better than 43x when the industry avg is 17x!

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re: The reality is..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So you are complaining that AMD stock is not as good a buy as Intel? I'd take that bet, but so what?

      If the Intel margins are higher to justify the stock price, that just means AMD chips are an even better value. So go ahead slashies, buy AMD chips and intel stock. Or maybe just buy AMD.

      The new Ryzen laptops for $500 are not bad btw as far as shitbox graphics go. Personally I rock that little $350 tron Lenovo for portability, and an ageing 965 that will tide me over until it dies and then grab a 1060 $900 equivalent.

    2. Re: The reality is..... by fred911 · · Score: 1

      "So you are complaining"
        No, I'm not complaining. I'm just stating a fact that it trades at a much, much higher value than either the industry or Intel (@10.93x). I've been rooting for AMD since my DX40 was priced better and outperformed intel's chip/set.

        But, they've always underperformed as a company. From their pricing, it looks like there's quite the hope they won't blow it yet again (how many times is it now?). From a historical standpoint, and at this point, I don't see any value in them as an investment.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    3. Re: The reality is..... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Intel and AMD have nearly identical price/sales.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    4. Re: The reality is..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong.

    5. Re: The reality is..... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      If their PE is 4x that of Intel's, doesn't that imply the market is betting on them failing, at least 4:1?

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    6. Re: The reality is..... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Nope, I'm and idiot that overthought it...

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    7. Re:The reality is..... by melted · · Score: 1

      PE is largely a factor of potential growth. AMD has _plenty_ of room to grow. If anything, if EPYC really takes off (and it might), their PE might be too low at the moment.

    8. Re: The reality is..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're not even close.

    9. Re:The reality is..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouls like to see some Amazon numbers next month of how many are testing the new AMD instances.
      That might be the first indication of where this is going.

  5. Gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Threadripper (with up to 32 cores) for gamers" Hardly a "gamers" CPU, workstation makes the most sense for threadripper.

    1. Re:Gamers? by edwdig · · Score: 2

      Threadripper doesn't help much when PLAYING games, but it'd be a pretty sweet CPU for COMPILING games.

    2. Re:Gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Threadripper (with up to 32 cores) for gamers" Hardly a "gamers" CPU, workstation makes the most sense for threadripper.

      And what a workstation it would be.

      My personal desktop is an AMD 8-core. Right now I have Chrome, Firefox, Opera, a virtual machine, iTunes and a couple of other things running. I need to update to 32GB of RAM because 16GB is getting a little tight, and from time to time I could use more CPU capacity.

      At work I have almost maxed out my memory, and occasionally when I'm using Excel to crunch some big data sets I generate, I can peg all four CPUs on my work machine.

      I don't need gaming performance, but I do need high levels of concurrency and crap loads of RAM.

      I'd take a 32-core workstation in a heartbeat.

    3. Re:Gamers? by mikael · · Score: 1

      There are dual socket motherboards with quad-SLI and up to 128GB ECC memory intended for desktop supercomputing. Dual socket AMD or Intel CPU's. Some will need an extra larger case (EATX).

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    4. Re:Gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you just don't know what you are doing, and a competent person could run the same "big data sets you generate" on a decade old single machine.

    5. Re: Gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quick side note : when Excel tells you it is using all cores, it's normally just using one. Check with the system load on the control panel.

    6. Re:Gamers? by Tyger-ZA · · Score: 1

      Maybe you just don't know what you are doing, and a competent person could run the same "big data sets you generate" on a decade old single machine.

      Maybe you just don't know what he is doing, and in your ignorance you can't believe that *anyone* would need so much power for work, because *you* have never needed so much power for anything.

      For example, here's an alternative workload that would benefit from having lots of resources: Compiling Chromium requires at least 8GB of RAM. More than 16GB is highly recommended.

    7. Re:Gamers? by Tyger-ZA · · Score: 1

      There are dual socket motherboards with quad-SLI and up to 128GB ECC memory intended for desktop supercomputing. Dual socket AMD or Intel CPU's. Some will need an extra larger case (EATX).

      A Threadripper based PC would handle this without needing dual socket. link

  6. pci-e 4 or 5? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    pci-e 4 or 5?

    1. Re:pci-e 4 or 5? by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 0

      PCIe version 4.0 is to replace PCIe version 3.0 in 2019.

    2. Re:pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MOD THIS MEANINGLESS KARMA WHORING COMMENT DOWN!!!

      Christopher Dale Reimer, aka cdreimer, aka creimer, aka cashews, aka CDR, is a well-known toxic bachelor and serial digital pest!

      Do not allow this tiresome dullard to copy and paste his own Cryptofeces Reimerium back on here to collect karma points!

      We just went through the whole process of getting him contained at -1 like medical waste in a BFI container.

    3. Re:pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod down. Chris/creimer announced on Twitter that he left Slashdot. Ironically because his trolls are more interested in harassing other users than paying any attention to him.

    4. Re:pci-e 4 or 5? by LoneBoco · · Score: 1

      The new boards have PCIe 4.0 and are forwards compatible with their "Milan" processors.

    5. Re: pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent down. CDR lies on Slashdot and lies on twitter. The world needs to know about pedophiles and other bad people and people like Chistopher Dale Reimer.

      -the real, original, 350#, 1500 calorie a day, powerlifting, totally not fat and an not embarrassment to my family, mom didn't really mean that stuff she said, and write, and had engraved in her tombstone, CDR.

    6. Re: pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Translation: Creimer hurt my covfefe!

    7. Re: pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hoser!

    8. Re: pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The hose from the fridge to your gullet, fat man?

    9. Re: pci-e 4 or 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He lies to his employer too. Imagine he fills out his time sheets with "8 hours of work" when in reality he's spending mornings loading up his fifteen Slashdot logins and copy-pasting the same tiresome anecdotes and stories over and over...

  7. Competition by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Whether you love or hate Intel or AMD (or, like me, are neutral and use the right tool for the job), you gotta love that we've finally got some CPU competition again. This will only accelerate the development of better tech and drive prices down.

    1. Re:Competition by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      Despite all the shit Intel has received (and rightfully so), I'm seeing this from a different angle: Intel has some amazing talent to squeeze so much out of 14nm, or they've been holding out on us keeping this in reserve for such an emergency. I'm torn.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, on the other hand, they've used a lot of that talent to add some crappy bloat to their systems (I'm looking at you ME). I think I would rather have seen them focus on speeds and IPCs and watts.

    3. Re:Competition by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      ME is just that, Management Engine. It's not for gamer, it's for enterprise to manage the hardware over the network. Believe it or not, there's value in that. If there wasn't, it wouldn't have had continued development.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    4. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great. Why does it show up on my non-enterprise laptop?

    5. Re:Competition by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Because...non-enterprise laptops are used in enterprise?? Even AMD's Pro series CPUs support DASH (Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware)

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    6. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It can be a conspiracy, but there isn't really any difference between "pro" and "consumer" hardware.
      There was even that time Intel released a new Celeron, and then a company released a poor man's workstation motherboard for it that could run TWO Celerons. Add IDE hard drives (Ultra DMA, additional controller on-board), a cheap AGP graphics card and a CD-R of Windows NT4 or 2000. Oops.

      After this one they locked the SMP feature and said you need a "Xeon".

    7. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cause ME is by now more than just remote access in the Enterprise without OS. It literally manages the whole CPU. For example all the power management which is obviously paramount for a mobile computer is done via ME. System initialization, chipset configuration, Wake on LAN, all DRM stuff (TPM, TXE). All this is done via Intel ME.

      Without ME, your PC will not boot up.

    8. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need RAM competition right now.

    9. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Without ME, your PC will not boot up."

      Perfect.

      A PC *with* ME is something that should not run.

    10. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then you go to microsoft. their ME is the right tool for your job ;)

  8. Bring on the New by Only+Time+Will+Tell · · Score: 2

    I'm looking forward to seeing some of the specs and benchmarks that these new cores can reach. My old compy is now just about end of life (it's a second-gen i5, almost 8 years old), so next year is perfect timing for AMD and Intel be in a price and performance war!

    1. Re: Bring on the New by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Do dey be?

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    2. Re:Bring on the New by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're not really in a price war right now. Intel is currently experiencing a chip shortage. An i5-8400 costs between $200 and $220 right now instead of $180. (This hasn't affected OEM pre-builts yet, though.)

      Ryzen parts decline in price (R5 2600 is $160). This could be due to lack of demand (OEMs) or that AMD doesn't have pricing agreements with retailers like Intel does.

      If you need a certain performance level for a certain task, like gaming, Intel may be the right buy. But if you're looking for a good deal on price-to-performance, AMD will provide that (especially with Black Friday coming up).

    3. Re: Bring on the New by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh look another racist liberal.. That's odd to see.. /s

  9. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 2

    Same thought here. Sure there will be a few gamers who have a TR based rig. But that's just for show & boasting "bigger, better, faster" over their peers.

    TR are workstation parts. Think physics simulations, complex 3D modelling, pro-level video processing etc, on a big box under your desk. Where any extra CPU power helps, a regular PC won't do, and (for whatever reason) cloud-based computing isn't desired or practical.

  10. No real advancement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bulk of PC chip sales is efficient low end mobile's not high end desktop chips. Probably more profitable, but volume sales its not. This is probably why AMD had a less then stellar quarter given its Ryzen chips are great but not winning over big sales platforms like thin mobile notebooks.

  11. They need a six-core APU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Integrated graphics are important in the OEM sector where manufacturers don't like installing discrete graphics. Most businesses don't require discrete GPUs for basic tasks. Most consumers don't either, unless they're gaming, and even then can use an iGPU to wait out price fluctuations.

    Six-core is probably the sweet spot right now in performance to price where both consumers and businesses can benefit. But OEMs carry few R5 2600 systems because of the lack of iGPU.

  12. It will look like this again: [Risitas] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  13. nice one keep it up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    www.movieshub.pk

  14. Superstars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Both AMDâ(TM)s top GPU designer and top CPU designer work at Intel now. The Zen 2 probably wonâ(TM)t have a new design.

    1. Re:Superstars by ReneR · · Score: 1

      maybe the bulk of the work is not done by superstars, and maybe the superstars are also eventually over worked and burned out, ..? just a thought, ..!

  15. Threadripper has the pci-e lanes to drive muilt ca by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    Threadripper has the pci-e lanes to drive multi cards and yes the X8 does limit the high end video cards.

  16. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by war4peace · · Score: 1

    Streamers, most of them. The serious ones, at least.

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  17. Shitty programmed games aren't AMD's fault. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's not even the developers' fault, who have to make their games for consoles and consoles only, which simply don’t have many cores.
    (And yes, games DO use the PS4's eight cores! Every last drip of it!)
    It’s also not the fault of the console makers. They are not forcing developers to only design non-exclusive games for their hardware.
    It's the fault of the thieves who use hardware Digital Restriction Management that is only possible with locked-down devices like consoles, to make their imaginary monopoly seem real, so they can gouge money off victims for a mere copy of the work, that they already had been paid for.
    That is why PC versions are mere afterthoughts, when the console money and hence cocaine money starts drying up but the greed doesn’t, which are outsourced to the cheapest platform conversion sweatshop that can make bake a believable fake.
    Otherwise PC games wouldn’t still look like nearly a decade ago, and their graphics would make any "current" console look like N64 graphics.

    So please stop that ignorant argument.
    Like games with thousands of actors, millions of physics objects, and more service daemons than your OS couldn't use 32 cores ... And then there's graphics, which is so parallel that it uses an entirely separate massive vector computer on a board, just to handle the threads!

    1. Re:Shitty programmed games aren't AMD's fault. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Consoles have been subsidizing PC games. See, artistic assets have been the limiting factor, if you want these thousands objects over square miles you have to pay all these people who do that for years and throw away much of the content. Like, $50 million dollars right there.
      If you don't want to, see the Quake 1 scene, they have fun adding ultra high res texture packs (gigabytes) and per pixel lighting, it might be a better game than recent ones too but it's still Quake 1.

      Consoles may even push hardware PC specs : at one point we seemed to be headed to games that don't require a supercomputer like Warcraft, DOTA, Trackmania, Counterstrike, Minecraft etc., shit that run on laptops and old business computers.
      Come the new consoles with eight core, 8GB RAM and a GPU full of turbo laser atomic space rockets. Now your laptops and desktops you bought for youtube and Internet are worthless again and it takes enough power to run 30fps console games at 60fps or 100fps on PC.

      Don't look better than a decade ago? Perhaps, but it may be the nature of graphics. 1 teraflops don't look 10x better than 0.1 teraflops and 10 teraflops don't look 10x better than 1 teraflops.

  18. Implying that the "cloud" is reasonable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are we that far already, now? Has the bullshit been repeated so often, that the discussion itself has shifted so far from sanity, that NOT using "cloud" computing "is" now the unreasonable thing??

    You seem to be lost, and wandered off into the bowels of a supercomputer. Please leverage back to planet iManager, where you can roll in your cozy iOS blanket, and shake off the metal horrors.

  19. Stay Ahead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dont they have to get there first?

  20. Live Benchmark Vs Intel Dual-Socket Xeon Server by MojoKid · · Score: 2

    Live benchmark recorded here versus a dual-socket Xeon Platinum 8180 server: https://hothardware.com/news/a...

  21. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Some really do, now an i5 2500K, 4670K or 6600K may be considered as "shit tier" for gaming. Four core/eight thread or six core/six thread is better now, and four core/four thread is considered OK but weak.

    Mind you, this is all a bit ridiculous. You can edit video on a weak decade old desktop, but can't run a current game.
    So to play vid games you need some silly powerful hardware, that you'll use to play vid games instead of curing cancer or something else.

    Threadripper for gamers? It's useless. But some may get the 12 or 16 core. One reason is : people believe they'll become youtube millionaires by making video game videos. So they want more threads to not risk framerate drops when capturing video, or may even want to do encoding on the CPU as that has more quality than on the GPU.
    A smaller group may be spending dad and mom's grands on hardware and there's not much else to waste money on, or they go dual graphics cards (or multiple SSDs) and are OCD about their PCIe lanes.

    This Zen 2 will be on Playstation 5 (might be eight cores, perhaps in the form of one CPU chiplet). So, people tired about the upgrade game but with money to spend may buy that. I predict huge sales for it, but for PC hardware too.
    I'd want to say, fuck this shit, make single core games with OpenGL 1.3 (30 fps on Atom CPU), target 1GB RAM use max, 2GB storage size (as if 2^31-1 ought to be enough for everybody) but I doubt anybody will listen.

  22. Cool, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are they going to include all the hottest exploits and a family of new ones?

    1. Re:Cool, but... by mandark1967 · · Score: 1

      These already have fixes in place for the recently announced vulnerabilities...unlike Intel.

      --
      Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  23. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could easily have used this last year for real-time modeling of magnetic fields.

  24. Is it secure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No further questions.

  25. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Gabest · · Score: 1

    Asynchronous programming is every major language now. People don't even know how many threads they use, just issue commands and wait for the result.

  26. No NSA OS Onboard. Theyre better!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck Intel.
    Intel shouls be disencorporated for tgeir tressonous coopetation with the NSA's mass surveilence and violation of human rights.
    Fuck Intel!

  27. Re: "Threadripper for gamers..?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pretty much none, which is why Intel chips with less cores are still beating any Zen design in gaming.

  28. Agreed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Multi-chip modules are bad. Compared to single pieces of silicon containing many cores. Inter-process communications overhead can be expected to increase with such a design.

    However they are better than dual (or multi-socket) motherboards. Which are themselves bad, except good when compared to single socket motherboards with no options for multiple CPUs.

    Everything is a tradeoff. If an MCM design is required to achieve high(er) core counts, I support it.

    1. Re:Agreed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      pasting multiple CPU modules together is about YIELDS, and getting 64 cores on a single die sucks for yields.

    2. Re:Agreed by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Does it really matter if it's 64 cores? Just turn off a few dead cores and cut the price a little.

    3. Re:Agreed by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      pasting multiple CPU modules together is about YIELDS, and getting 64 cores on a single die sucks for yields.

      Simple: There will be 48 and 32-core versions which are made from 64-core dies that had bad cores during testing.

      --
      No sig today...
  29. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Thats why people kept on buying Intel.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  30. More like Ryzen for gamers and ThreadRipper for by aliquis · · Score: 1

    More like Ryzen for gamers and ThreadRipper for desktops; the people who still need one.

    If you buy just for gaming while you could buy ThreadRipper most won't and it wouldn't give the best performance for your money (but be superior for streaming, then again you could buy say an i5 9600K and a Ryzen 5 2600 for gaming and streaming.

  31. this is really dumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yep lets broadcast our fragile planets availability for take over to larger more powerful aliens.

  32. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Odd...who thought that needed to be modded down?

  33. A northbridge by any other name by williamyf · · Score: 1

    Would perform as swift.

    Paraphrazing the Bard*

    The northbridge is BACK BABY!!!!!!!
    Party like it is the early 00's all over again!!!!!!

    On a more serious note:

    I think that AMD's Integrated northbridge is so big not only because is manufactured in 14nm, but also because it houses not only IO and Memory controller, but also a combination of L3 Cache and Integrated graphics.

    I foresee that this northbridge will have two families. One with all L3 and no graphics for Epyc and Threadripper, and one with less L3 and integrated graphics for Ryzen and the APUs. Each family of northbridges will have different sizes of L3, speeds of graphics, number of graphics cores and TDPs depending on target market.

    I'll ask my contact if the northbridge will be manufactured by Glofo, Samsung or TSMC.

    * "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

    --
    *** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
  34. At least AMD is an index fund now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD's biggest defense against Intel is that they're now an index fund so hopefully they won't be fucked if Intel loses a little market share.

  35. Re:Threadripper has the pci-e lanes to drive muilt by Kjella · · Score: 1

    Threadripper has the pci-e lanes to drive multi cards and yes the X8 does limit the high end video cards.

    Just barely, but SLI/CF was niche to begin with and has almost disappeared which makes it often poorly supported/tested. I was foolish enough to try it with two GTX 970s and after annoying crashes and resets back to single card mode in the few games it actually gave a good boost I sold one, re-purposed the other and got a 1080 Ti instead. I'd not recommend dual cards if a single card was at all possible, like anything under a $1500 GPU budget I'd rather get a factory overclocked 2080 Ti.

    Threadripper has some other big disadvantages like clock speed, single-threaded IPC, high memory latency etc. which means it just never makes sense as a gaming system. Even if you wanted to go crazy AMD dropped triple/quad-CF support just like nVidia did for SLI so most of those Threadripper lanes would go unused anyway. Not that I'm sure four Vega 64s could match two GTX 2080 Tis if you could, except maybe on price. Of course that's all for bragging rights anyway, you don't need any of that to game not even at competitive eSports level.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  36. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  37. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by mikael · · Score: 1

    For video editing, they can get by with SSE/AVX instructions with maybe some GPU acceleration using CUDA/OpenCL and OpenGL shaders. Try and run a video game. and they are making use of the latest ARB extensions like sparse textures, multisampling, compute and tesselation shaders.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  38. Re:Threadripper has the pci-e lanes to drive muilt by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

    Except multiple cards rarely works well for gaming, many games don't support SLI at launch and gamers aren't the kind who like to wait a couple of months just to see if maybe their system gets supported. So SLI is niche even amongst gamers who would happily fork out for it. Not to mention that even when SLI does wortk it often doesn't scale well for anything other than benchmarks.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  39. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems they have 2 computers, one game rig and one video capture plus stream rig.

  40. Re:"Threadripper for gamers..?" by war4peace · · Score: 1

    Yes, until now. With Threadripper 2, the game is changing.

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)