AMD's Ryzen CPUs (Ryzen/TR/Epyc) & Vega/Polaris/Navi GPUs

The same as the Radeon VII could be made cool and quiet (relatively to stock) by undervolting and tuning the fan curve, so can the Radeon 5700 / 5700XT be made cool and quiet, here's how:

rx 5700xt undervolting 155 watts [not] HOT and [not] loud
not an apple fan
Published on Jul 13, 2019

That's not possible if the vendor's BIOS adds the AGESA update, that update will not have PCIE 4.0 features enabled on PCIE 3.0 motherboards. There is nothing - literally - to switch on.

Given the lack of space on BIOS chips from previous generations it's more likely that newer BIOS updates that support the new Ryzen 3 CPU's will remove options to make room for them, and there won't be "extra" space for cheats allowing PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0.

MSI is re-releasing their 4xx series of motherboards with large BIOS chips, but if you are buying a new motherboard - rather than trying to stretch the life of your old motherboard, you might as well get the upgradex 5xx version when they arrive.

 

Do you know where we can find AMDs specs sheets equal Intel's so we can see if they have added the Recommended Customer Prices for their chipset? Or do you know the prices from before? Both for previous and current. Thanks

 

On the AMD website?

AMD doesn't have an ark type site.

Google is your friend for AMD processor release dates and MSRP's.

 

Yeah, exactly as Intel's.

 

Gamers Nexus's LN2 version of The Beard's LN2 work, I'm still watching - it's 2.5+ hours:

LIVE: AMD R9 3900X Extreme Overclocking | 5GHz & Beyond w/ Liquid Nitrogen
Gamers Nexus
Streamed live 4 hours ago
We're live overclocking the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU with liquid nitrogen, pushing it to 5GHz and beyond. Today, we'll find out what would have happened if the completely outrageous rumors were right.

 

See:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-direct-sales-ryzen-9-3900x,39873.html

AMD Starts Direct CPU Sales With the Ryzen 9 3900X

 

Being as AMD is the reference BIOSS they are the ones who should implement a soft switch for PCIe 4.0. in older boards then give the OEM the option of enabling it.

 

And, the overhead to support the option to run PCIE 4.0 devices at PCIE 4.0 speeds and specs on PCIE 3.0 motherboards is why that won't happen.

The cost in time and resources of following through with each and every vendor about each and every PCIE 3.0 motherboard that "could" support PCIE 4.0 but to make sure it actually works would need to be validated, not only by the maker but by AMD, and this is why PCIE 4.0 on legacy PCIE 3.0 motherboards won't happen.

That's a huge effort to validate all PCIE 4.0 devices on all of the potentially supporting PCIE 3.0 motherboards to make sure they work 100%.

And, the validation would need to be wider than we might think. It would be for every PCIE 4.0 device, not just Navi, but all of the future PCIE 4.0 GPU's, all of the PCIE 4.0 SSD's, and specialty devices.

Yes, coming up with a validation specification that should cover all potential PCIE 4.0 devices could be made, but wouldn't necessarily guarantee that all current and future PCIE 4.0 devices would work.

It's a support nightmare, customer satisfaction nightmare - "hey AMD you said this would work and it doesn't!" - and all for what?

AFAIK in the past moving from PCIE 1.0 to PCIE 2.o and to PCIE 3.0 all required new motherboard chipsets and therefore new motherboards to get the benefits of the new PCIE spec.

So this is nothing new. Same thing for DDR2 to DDR3, DDR3 to DDR4, and soon DDR4 to DDR5. You need a new motherboard to support the new memory.

With new memory spec changes connector formats are changed - by necessity to accommodate new features and performance - but also to avoid that potential downside of some customers trying to plug in old spec memory into a new spec slot. There is no possibility of compatibility between DDR memory formats so changing the socket reinforces the idea that this is a new incompatible format.

With PCIE there is support for previous generation hardware but there is no promised support of new generation PCIE hardware features. PCIE 4.0 features and speeds aren't expected to be supported on legacy PCIE 3.0. PCIE sockets need to provide physical compatibility - with new PCIE formats able to switch to previous generation compatibility - but that doesn't suggest support for new features on old host hardware.

 

Right, and to suggest that Intel is better because they have a dedicated sub-domain for specifications apart from their main site which is mainly marketing BS is irrelevant in making a purchase decision.

IMNSHO it's neither better nor functionally different. A different domain name is still just a differentiator of a destination page, and those could be on the same site or different sites.

Long ago the Intel CPU (and other product) specifications data was hosted on the same site, like AMD does today, and then Intel split off the CPU, chipset, etc silicon specifications onto ark.intel.com.

That's really not a big deal for me now, but at first I was a bit miffed needing to go to another site than the one that has the driver downloads to get the specification data, but now I have 2 tabs open, no biggie.

AMD supports the data, has developer support, and community forums, and so does Intel.

AMD is still faster and cheaper, and has a brighter future for new faster and cheaper CPU's than Intel appears to have right now.

Intel, based on 10 years of poor management of their intellectual properties coupled with the failure to perform and deliver on numerous projects (not just 10nm) has put Intel behind competitors, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Intel's unpleasant industry position "behind the 8 ball" is far more relevant to buyers than whether Intel has a cool separate specifications web site and AMD keeps their specifications on their main domain site.

 

I mean that's your opinion HM, I rather like having the ark as a separate easily navigable entity. That's my opinion, and no you don't have to try to change it.

I did however buy a 3900x instead of waiting to see what Intel is going to fuss around with for their 9900k...

Sadly no time until Monday or Tuesday to build it. I also bought my first Gigabyte MB in years, I hope it's nice since their board selection was terrible at MC. I thought about keeping my X470 Taichi for the build, but thought it would save me some time/effort to just keep it in the server.

 

I wouldn't dream of trying to change your mind about the Intel ark interface, I use it myself as it's focused on what I want, CPU and chipset specifications.

Using the main Intel site for searches for CPU specs can be a bit frustrating because a search for a CPU can bring up hundreds of hits. The main site has several categories to help with that, but I find it's easier to use google as google prioritizes what I am most likely interested in seeing, CPU specifications.

Spoiler: Ark inception

It's funny actually, when Intel was first coming out with the ark specification site I found a number of errors made transcribing from the old format into the new format, so I sent in some corrections.

Intel replied, said thank you and asked for input on what information they should include, and I suggested they use the same data they've already provided with a new interface against the same source data.

Creating a new information repository from the existing information isn't really useful and can be error prone, hence my need to give feedback for the errors. Keep it accurate and to the point. Avoid the bloat that the main site has created for itself.

And, I'd rather you lower your prices first instead of expending resources on recreating a new website based on existing information from the main site.

Just for fun I googled 'site:intel.com 9900k' and sure enough the main Intel site also has the 9900k specifications, and to me it looks as detailed as the ark site, basically the same data with a differently formatted presentation.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/i9-processors/i9-9900k.html

I also backed up a page into "processors", and found myself at the ark site. I think it's all the same really, just different facade's.

Congratulations!!

Great idea, keep the old system around as a service provider and as a comparison against the new system.

Besides, there will likely be delay's early on getting updated firmware and updated AMD software for best performance tuning results, it takes time anyway to get to know the new potentials.

Please let us know how it works out.

 

Considering some MB mfrs already put so much legwork into the use of PCIe 4.0, even though screaming about being dragged to implement it, and rumors saying part of the wait was on MB mfrs and X570 and PCIe 4.0 qualification, AMD should allow for certain boards to be used with it from each mfr. I don't care about their headaches, this is how AMD can show support for the MB mfrs (although, by limiting it to X570, that can drive MB sales, which in turn benefit the MB MFRS.). But, the X570 is an I/O chiplet that likely costs $35-50 per board, whereas Asmedia chips costed $15-30, IIRC (my numbers could be off because a lot of chipset pricing is shrouded in darkness). Asmedia has said, however, they are working on a chipset with PCIe 4.0 support, and we already know Asmedia will be used in B550, at least in part.

On direct sales, Kudos to AMD. Nvidia has done this with founders editions, Titans, and Quadros for awhile now. AMD doing this with their CPUs allow them to accomplish two goals: 1) they get all margin on the sale, instead of the distributor and retailer, which increases profit margins even with the higher logistic overhead, and 2) it allows them to hold market pressure on pricing, that way to help control when people will buy out the entire stock at like Newegg, then relist on Newegg at a higher price, along with forcing retailers to stick with MSRP rather than marking it up for launches. Direct sales are a good thing in my opinion.

After watching Joe Steponzi (Bearded Hardware) for days PLUS screaming in the chat (until he just gave Joe a call), I found this stream underwhelming. But, by the time he called Joe, his pot was waterlogged and the stream was over. I did like how Joe mentioned he was trying to get a 12-core to bench, GN said they had one, and Joe responded with a playful "I know." AMD really needs to support him as an XOCer starting his channel because he fills a niche that, although GN and JayzTwoCents are trying to fill, his experience shows they just are not there yet. He is especially interested in benching the upcoming Threadripper chips (GET ON IT AMD)!!! Considering he will be doing the Intel 28-core on LN2, that is going to be a great contrast!

Right now, for XOCers, the main ones I watch are Luumi's channel, Bearded Hardware, Der8auer, and Actually Hardcore Overclocking (although young and disorganized at times, he has honest critiques and does excellent work worth supporting and AMD needs to really start reaching out). These guys do know how to OC well, and sometimes they better show what is possible (other times not due to not using AMD products for a decade). With community outreach to them, they will get better, which then helps the XOC community.

But that also forgets that these companies spent a LOT to try to figure out how to accomplish this feat already. They really should allow MB MFRs to put up a limited number of prior gen boards to be validated and they get one shot at validation. That way no favoritism on MB mfr getting an exclusive.

GB has been working on their board quality. They may even be the company that is bringing Buildzoid to Taiwan. Either way, let me know how your adventures go (with screenshots) with that 3900X!

 

Hey, I understand, someone has a PCIE 4.0 SSD show higher performance on PCIE 3.0 - somewhere in between the PCIE 3.0 and PCIE 4.0, but not as fast as the real PCIE 4.0 motherboards, it seems like it works and you want it.

But, the devil is in the details. Why isn't the PCIE 3.0 motherboard showing the same full performance as the PCIE 4.0 motherboard with the PCIE 4.0 SSD?

Failed transfers? Errors from syncing the data stream? Connection setup errors? Something is causing the performance to not quite come up the same as native PCIE 4.0

And, that's the problem, maybe the data is corrupted occasionally? What if it's consistently a problem which also heats up the PCIE 3.0 controller due to the higher transfer rates + overhead from recovering from the errors?

It's really not worth the headache for AMD and the vendors, which would be passed on to the owners to deal with in the end.

AMD locking off PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 motherboards as a thoughtful decision cuts out a bunch of negative noise from failed PCIE 4.0 devices on PCIE 3.0 motherboards.

AMD doesn't need angry owners with PCIE 4.0 problems on their PCIE 3.0 motherboards.

Really it's not a good idea for AMD to do direct sales for CPU's except for "specials" which won't be produced in high enough quantities to fill distribution channels.

Distributors depend on having access to product and be a part of the considered representatives for geographic regions; to have AMD short circuit this distribution network takes sales and revenue from their distributors.

To have AMD siphon off profits would be a bad idea for AMD's reputation and could lose them representation with in the end a loss of business.

I doubt AMD is going to actually sell CPU's direct, and so far no interface at AMD shows any such direct sales offering for the Ryzen 3 CPU's.

I've posted a few AMD 3900x links that should show direct sales possibilities with none having any such offering, here's another one, and for me this link goes to Best Buy:
https://www.amd.com/en/shop/us/Desktop Processors?keyword=3900x&sort_by=vision_date

If you've found a link where AMD is selling CPU's direct, please share it.

Will the 3950x qualify as a low volume production sku that AMD will sell direct? The 3900x is already in distribution so it makes no sense for AMD to step in and sell it direct, but the 3950x or similar small production sku's could make sense to sell direct. So far it doesn't seem to me that the 3950x will need to be sold direct with enough available to fill the distribution channels.

 

I've already posted the link above.

As has @Papusan too.

 

Better with angry owners with their old PCIE 3.0 motherboards seeing they are locked out if they don’t buy new expensive similar boards as they already own. Even <if> the MB manufacturers say it’s possible get it to work properly on some boards. Yeah

None have the 100% answers if the PCIE 4.0 PCIE feature corrupting data if used on older boards. Or have they the final answer to this questions? The feature won’t work on older boards... Why use resources on this? A nice way come away from it. I mean both ways

 

der8auer compares agesa versions, unlike some others he still isn't seeing regular 4.6ghz boost, only 4.55ghz briefly with 4.75ghz seen before the benchmark started. AMD likely still has some work to do. agesa 1003 does show nice improvements in boosting to 4.4ghz from highs of 4.2ghz in 1002

AGESA-Update for full Boost? Ryzen 3900X Retest + Memory Scaling
der8auer1 minute ago
Published on Jul 14, 2019
Side Note: I also tested Geekbench 4, CPU-Z Single Test and Unigine Superposition but the results were identical to the other charts so I didn't include them in the video. Also in those tests the CPU would not boost to 4.6 GHz. Only CPU-Z Single Test was close with 4550 MHz for about 1-2 seconds.

 

Since any system, besides the benchmark, will run threads to keep the system active 4.5 GHz is to be expected. for advertised speeds I think it is pretty accurate. now if they can make a TR3 32 core, or even 24 core, that will hit these speeds there will be a lot of happy campers out there.

 

Techspot did a nice, concise review on Zen 2 IPC.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1876-4ghz-ryzen-3rd-gen-vs-core-i9/ https://www.techspot.com/article/1876-4ghz-ryzen-3rd-gen-vs-core-i9/

 

ASUS Begins Enabling Limited PCIe Gen 4.0 on AMD 400-series Chipset Motherboards techpowerup.com July 15, 2019

ASUS believes that PCI-Express gen 4.0 support on older socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD 400-series chipset is technically possible, even if discouraged by AMD. The company's latest series of motherboard BIOS updates that expose PCIe Gen 4 toggle in the PCIe settings, does in fact enable PCIe gen 4.0 to all devices that are directly wired to the SoC.

AMD apparently did not explicitly block PCIe gen 4.0 for older chipsets. It merely suggested to motherboard manufacturers not to enable it, since the newer AMD 500-series motherboards are built to new PCB specifications that ensure PCIe gen 4.0 signal-integrity and stability. ASUS wants to leave it to users to decide if they want gen 4.0. If their machines are unstable, they can choose to limit PCIe version to gen 3.0 in their BIOS settings.

 

I wouldn't want to rely on or plan my build using PCIE 4.0 devices on a PCIE 3.0 motherboard for my own or others configurations.

The vendors did spend extra time and used better materials across the board designing their x570 (A520? and B550?) motherboards to have low noise paths and clean signaling designed to support PCIE 4.0's 2x higher throughput.

Why would they spend that extra time and resources to support PCIE 4.0 in their new motherboards if they didn't need to and it would work fine on their old PCIE 3.0 motherboards that weren't designed, built or tested to support PCIE 4.0 speeds?

Asus may be creating a bad customer support situation for themselves by doing this "grand gesture". I'd read the fine print in their support for PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 motherboards - whether it's "limited" support - it's supported if it works but if your device doesn't reliably work it's not supported - or actually guaranteed support with actual customer service support should a PCIE 4.0 device fail to reliably work correctly.

I wish AMD did push for not supporting PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 motherboards, this whole varied support allowing some last gen PCIE 3.0 motherboards to conditionally support PCIE 3.0 could turn out to be an unnecessary mess.

If you do try to run PCIE 4.0 devices on a motherboard not designed, built or tested originally to support anything but PCIE 3.0 devices, you are really just asking for trouble.

 

Not so sure Asus will be the only one. And a good advice... Always let others be the guinea pig if you want go the PCIE 4.0 route with old. + the bios mess will continue a while whatever way you go (brand new setup or new Cpu combined with old MB).

 

There is no success without trial.

 

Edit: disregard, already previously linked

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14639/no-amd-still-isnt-enabling-pcie-4-on-300400-series-boards

AMD will be disabling PCIe 4 on 300/400 motherboards via a future AGESA update. So motherboard manufacturers will be overruled here, unless they opt not to package this AGESA in future BIOS updates.

 

@ajc9988




zen3 with hopefully a 7-10% optimization on the above, just 1 win isnt enough we need them to improve on all front so hopefully zen3 will be a much better buy with much better value.

what we need:

- worst core latency between the ccx's lower by at least 10-15ns
- UMC latency to maybe 55-60 would be good
- up the IF frequency to at least allow 2400mhz
- up the frequency by 200-300mhz

if they can improve these three with zen 3 then it'll most likely beat intel in consumer space on ALL front, gaming, adobe, single threaded software even if their frequency still stuck at 4.3 or 4.4ghz.

 

I am sure they are looking at improving Zen, how much if any we shall see in the future. Already, clock for clock, they have gone quite a way at improving.

 

I think you misunderstand WHY you want frequency on IF, instead focusing solely on the frequency. Let's look at what you get with frequency increase on the data fabric: 1) higher bandwidth, and 2) lower latency. Higher bandwidth occurs when the frequency pushes through data over the fabric at a higher speed. Think of it like increasing the pressure in a hose to allow the water at the center to move quicker to exit the hose (there is an effect with fluids where the center has lower pressure than the liquid that makes contact with the container, a principle not relevant here, but I am trying to explain how the example is relevant). So long as the hose can handle it, you can increase the flow rate through the hose to deliver the fluid. With data fabric, it is similar. You want the higher bandwidth, not necessarily the frequency. To accomplish this task, you don't have to increase the frequency to get more bandwidth. Instead, you can just increase the size of the hose! Go wide instead of frequency. In fact, this was done on Zen 2 chips. They doubled the width, thereby doubling the bandwidth without really increasing the frequency. Same effect of more data, but you don't need speed to do it. In that same way, you have IPC versus frequency. If you have a high enough IPC, the lack in frequency matters a bit less, allowing a slower CPU to do the same amount of work.

Now, with frequency, but locked latency relative to cycles, by doing more cycles in a time period (frequency), you decrease the absolute latency in the system. This is the same principle of 3200CL14 being slower than 3600CL14 on latency grounds. But, as AMD has shown, through good engineering, you can still reduce latency without increasing the frequency, also seen on Zen 2 and a little on Zen+.

So, it is easy to say "increase the frequency," but ultimately, that is but one way to accomplish the same goal you are asking for. What is being asked for here needs slightly generalized, as we do not know how they decided to address them, but generally put you are asking for: 1) lowering latencies, specifically in regards to the data fabric and the memory and memory controller, and 2) increasing performance, whether that means bandwidth or otherwise for IF and IPC and/or frequency on the CPU core. Those two goals allow for overall increase of the CPU performance beyond that of what was seen with Zen 2.

Now, we also have another issue which is glaring in regards to AMD's performance reviews: Software optimizations. We saw with optimized game engines, which CS:GO surprisingly has, there is a drastic increase in performance using Zen 2, above that of the Intel CPUs. But in older titles without the optimizations, such as GTA V and Far Cry 5/New Dawn, Intel CPUs still stomp on AMD. That shows that AMD could, to a degree, design around how those software use the CPUs, but that is working the solution from the wrong angle. AMD needs to use additional profits to build out their coding support to allow use of what they already have. This is seen to a lesser degree in productivity software, although it is still present. That means, moving forward, Zen 2 will have more lasting power as those optimizations appear in updates or new versions of software.

In regards to Adobe, AMD already has the win depending on which software is used. If you use Photoshop, Intel wins. If you use Premiere, AMD wins. If you use Davinci Resolve, AMD wins. And that can vary by task in the programs as well, along with the software optimizations pointed out above.

But, I wouldn't worry too much. AMD accomplished an average of over 20% performance increase (I estimated 24%), which may be lagging due to software optimizations, but is not an insignificant miss on the estimate I gave (about 100-200MHz miss). This was also with the TAGE predictor being moved from Zen 3 into Zen 2. If that was able to be moved up a product line, I don't think they would do so with the intention of a win here while knee-capping the next generation. As such, AMD should have more IPC coming, and we will see what happens in regards to frequency and latency of different components of the chip.

Unlike others speculating on the "+" variants, what they miss is that if AMD did such a thing, they would be labeled as missing their roadmap, thereby bolstering that they are unreliable, which in turn hurts their expansion in the server market segment. Because of that, there is no reason to believe they will sit idle. They are done playing catch-up, mostly, and now is when they are cutting new road. So don't expect them to not work on moving forward. But just as important is not trying to limit HOW they move forward.

Take for example Intel's Ice Lake. It has a huge IPC gain! It also has a MUCH LOWER frequency. It still, at 3GHz, is hitting about 1GHz higher compared to 14nm processors on performance, to a degree (some show that 3.6-3.8GHz is closer to their coffee in the mid- to high-4GHz range), even though not growing significantly on performance.

 

I want IF frequency because i know its an issue with the zen cpu and its one of the thing holding it back. take a look at how much performance penalty from the original ring bus 3.5ghz to mesh at 2.4ghz. some of course due to architecture but mesh lower frequency played a big role as well.

and also ice lake's IPC probably isnt "huge". until we see it theres no point of believing intel.

 

So, what you are missing is that these are different TYPES of interconnects. Ring is a routing layer on the silicon die. Mesh refers to using a mesh routing layer on a separate passive interposer, IIRC. Infinity Fabric is a data fabric which is integrated into an organic MCM PCB. None of those can be compared on frequency! Frequency isn't the problem. Instead, each of those have varying latency, with ring being the lowest, then mesh, followed by IF. Now, in theory, IF has more bandwidth.

Intel went to a mesh interposer because the ring type interface was not possible as the core counts grew higher. So they stole from the Xeon Phi design for their ever growing core count on HEDT and server chips. Mesh provides some of the best performance for this design with monolithic chips, but suffers for disaggregated chiplets.

So you are missing the point that frequency IS NOT the issue with these choices. Instead, latency is, as bandwidth can actually be larger with mesh and IF. It is not the bandwidth that is necessarily the issue on keeping the cores fed, it is the added latency of the choice that effects it.

Frequency lowers latency, but there is a limit to how much it helps. You approach a point where extra frequency gives so little on latency as to be of no help. At that point, it only helps bandwidth, but if bandwidth is not a limiting factor, even past that point, you will get practically no scaling.

 

Here's fair warning to all of the Intel owners thinking of switching to Ryzen...

So annoyed with my 3900x experience....
Submitted 3 hours ago * by MagicGInfinity

Spoiler: NSFIO*

Okay, so after hearing all the hype in this subreddit I decided to make the switch from an Intel i5 to a 3900x. I specifically chose the Ryzen over a 9900K because I was figured that, with the extra cores, I might be able to do some video compression work in the background while gaming. Previously, software encoding took ridiculously long, so I used Intel QSV hardware encoding and just put up with the slightly degraded quality and larger file sizes. Under QSV, the load and heat was way too much to do anything else while encoding, so I'd have to wait until the jobs were complete before I did any gaming.

Now after I set up and tuned my 3900x rig, sure, I was more than happy with the gaming side boost. But I finally decided to do a test encode of some hour long video footage that I'd been putting off archiving for the last few months. I loaded up the file, set the x264 presets clicked go and went to get my coffee from the kitchen. When I came back a couple of minutes later, I figured I'd set something up wrong because the file was almost 1/3 complete. I checked the settings - no, it's all good. For the next six minutes I sat there watching while this thing tore through that file like a paper shredder. I checked the file size and quality - yep, it was as I'd wanted. This new machine had finished the encoding job before I'd even finished my coffee. I would have expected my old system to take twice as long for this kind of job.

So thanks for nothing AMD. I bought this system hoping to game while using software encode, but it's clear that this system is so damn fast that opportunity might never come. I can see now that I should have bought the 9900K like I was originally going to. At least then I'd have something decent to complain about, higher power bills, and something to keep me warm through the winter....

Cheers folks!

Edit: Thanks so much for all the positivity and upvotes. I was really excited about the idea of the 3900x, and seeing all the support on this subreddit really sold me on making the switch. I'm so so glad that I did, and I look forward to some good times ahead with my new Ryzen, as well as here on /r/amd!

Cheers team red!

Edit 2: OMG.. gold!?!? Thanks so much. I can't believe it!

Edit 3: Silver too!! You all rock /r/amd!

*Not Safe for Intel Owners...

RBD10100 AMD Ryzen 1600X | Radeon R9 290 3 points an hour ago
"Damn you AMD! Ruining the OP's dreams of gaming and encoding at the same time. You've robbed them of their hopes and dreams! This is unacceptable! "

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/ceeosi/so_annoyed_with_my_3900x_experience/?sort=new

If you live in / near Toronto...

Join Us For the Gaming Garage Powered by AMD at CNE 2019!
August 16-18, 2019
https://www.amd.com/en/gaming/cne-garage
CNE Gaming Garage - Canadian National Exhibition
https://theex.com/main/entertainment/cne-gaming-garage/

 

i know they are two different type of interconnect. its not gonna matter here because IF's low frequency is having negative impacton zen2. even if IF is of a better design and more applicable for chiplet, matter of fact its running at a measly 1600-1800mhz depending on your ram. if we can easily clock higher on the ringbus and uncore, why can't we do it with ryzen?

so yes, we need improvements on all of those, this of course tie to TSMC and their binning which i am including that as part of the list of changes/optimization i wish to see.

take a look at intel's crappy mesh frequency vs their ringbus, different interconnect. mesh starts at 2.4 maxes out around 3.0. while ringbus starts 3.5 goes upwards 4.8 depending on your CPU overclock. every bit contribute to overall performance and IPC.

 

Yes, but you missed my point on why frequency is irrelevant past a point.

Infinity fabric has a limit on how much frequency reduces latency. Because scaling stops on latency, beyond that point, frequency is useless unless you need bandwidth. Considering IF bandwidth is larger than dual channel memory, that isn't the issue, at least with zen 2.

Instead, to deal with the frequency limitations of IF, which is not bandwidth starved relative to the memory interface, they separated the Fclk for the IF from the IMC, reconfigured it, and developed a UMC. The UMC clocks to 1:2 above 3800MHz on the ram. So even if you can clock the IF to 1900MHz, the switch to 1:2 causes a different component to down clock, which adds latency, even when IF isn't the limiter.

Now, with the way AMD has designed their product, you add memory latency to the IF latency, with the controller also effecting it to a degree.

The latency is what you are complaining about without releasing that more frequency won't help the issue due to limits on how much a frequency increase can decrease latency.

So until you understand that what you are talking about on frequency is actually about bandwidth and latency, I would talk until I'm blue in the face and get nowhere. Frequency means nothing by itself. Let's say you have a small garden hose (ringbus) with a very large pressure (frequency). Compare that to a fire hose, which is much larger, but with less pressure. Which moves more water? It depends! That is what you are talking about in regards to bandwidth. You don't need higher frequencies to move data because the bandwidth is not fully saturated. If the cores are not starving and bandwidth not saturated, then the only need for faster frequency is to reduce latency.

As I said, there is a hard limit on latency for almost any product. On die is lowest, active interposer is next, passive interposer third, and the data fabric last. EMIB is also in between passive interposer and data fabric.

So, your problem is latency, which the only solution is NOT frequency, but further designing to reduce latency. That is why your hounding on speeds of these elements makes no sense when you understand what is going on.

Increasing ring doesn't always correlate to much, if any, performance gains. Why? Because you cannot reduce the latency much more with frequency while the cores are not bandwidth starved. If those two are not in play, sure you can clock it to the moon, it doesn't add to your performance.

With Mesh, it is a passive interposer. You are using TSVs to just move the data through a mesh grid on silicon that the die sits atop. This has lower latency than IF, but higher than on die routing. So, you can clock it to 3GHz, but there are major diminishing returns above 2.8GHz. Why? Go back to the bandwidth and latency. By 3GHz, you are no longer really reducing latency much, while the bandwidth isn't really saturated either. So above that, you increase instability while not gaining on bandwidth in a meaningful way, not reducing latency meaningfully.

This obsession with clock is a problem. Clocks are not the issue, latency is.

 

Deals, the 2950x aqt Amazon is $664.00. Only 1 left and at Newegg it seems only outside vendors are in stock. Guess they are getting ready for TR3.

 

i understand what you are saying, what you missing is that latency is closely tied to frequency, not so much bandwidth itself. maybe i need to better clarify when i just putting in numbers like 3ghz vs 4ghz sounds like bandwidth, thats not what im talking about here, not in the terms of quad vs dual channel where quad has MUCH higher bandwidth but higher frequency as well.

im talking about frequency in terms of overclocking thats tied to it's design, OC reduces latency on all front but also require design to be smart.

frequency is important because "muh" single threaded performance, its always important. zen2 has the nice IPC, intel has the nice clocks and i hate it that i can't have the best from both sides.

 

You are WRONG. I studied this when Zen 1 came out, including chewing out Ryan Shrout for being misleading regarding the charting of latencies for Zen versus Intel's Mesh at the release of the 7900X. Bandwidth scales with frequency. Period! It is intrinsically tied to it. With latency, it reaches a limit, like shown in this chart:



As you increase the frequency, the latency reduction gets smaller and smaller at each step until it is negligible on its effects on the CPU. Meanwhile, frequency continues to scale. And screw you for thinking I don't understand what you are talking about or am confusing the topic, because I have been looking at the behavior of IF a LOT longer than you, and I have spent excruciating detail trying to educate you on this in a number of posts.

Also, you are now conflating memory bandwidth with IF bandwidth. THEY ARE DIFFERENT, although you need enough bandwidth on the IF to support the memory bandwidth at any given point, or else you run into a bottleneck. You need the IF to be the bigger hose, while the memory feeding it (talking bandwidth) is the smaller hose pouring into it. Now, I have not done the specific examination of the scaling of bandwidth on zen versus frequency at which the IF is run at, but I can tell you that yes, you are increasing the bandwidth by increasing frequency in a similar manner to memory. Also, quad channel does NOT necessarily have higher frequency, it has higher bandwidth due to using more channels to contribute to the flow of data. Frequency may be the same, but through more contributing flows, you have more bandwidth (Gbps) than if you had 2 channels, even if the frequency at which the ram runs is the same on both setups. In fact, you can reach higher bandwidth on quad channel while using LOWER frequency, because you have more channels feeding into the bandwidth transfer.

So, time to break out the old data from PCPer even though this data is biased.

https://pcper.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/c784-ccxlatency2.png



https://pcper.com/2017/04/the-ryzen-5-review-1600x-and-1500x-take-on-core-i5/3/

As you can see, latency reduction as you increase the frequency of the Infinity Fabric starts to slow down as you reach higher and higher frequencies. This means that at some point, some frequency, the reduction is latency becomes so little that it doesn't increase performance scaling drastically. It is a law of diminishing returns.

Now, IF gen 2 in Zen 2 already has worked on lowering latency, which is a good thing, but there is a floor on latency below which NO ONE CAN REACH.

Every tech has its own floor, including Mesh.

https://pcper.com/2017/06/the-intel-core-i9-7900x-10-core-skylake-x-processor-review/3/

At some point, the latency reduction scales less with the frequency on these data interconnects. That creates a hard limit that at some frequency there will be diminishing returns. Whereas, with bandwidth, that continues to scale, roughly, even when the reduction of latency becomes so minuscule as to be meaningless.

Sorry, writing this while having my first cup of coffee, so if a bit combative, that is part of the reason.

 

Repace your old AMD MB with same old but with with the possibility of getting needed features with your newly bought 3000 series chips. Maybe you'll get 4.0 support as well? I mean with later firmware updates Of course if MSI will follow Asus and put up the middle finger to AMD.

See... AMD try push you over on old or the more expencive X500 boards. Old is the new Gold it seems. I expect AMD provided guidelines what to expect will come as etc EEPROM size. Many ways to be sure people will buy "new" motherboards. Yeah, old is good as Gold Even for AMD.


MSI launches new revisions of AMD 300 and 400 motherboards with 32MB Firmware Guru3.com | July 18,2019
"As discussed in detail, older 300 and 400 series motherboards have been stripped in the BIOS from older CPUs and some features, due to a too-small EEPROM size"

 

Interesting article and interesting information on not using voltage offset or voltage changes if using the boost of the new Ryzen CPUs

https://twitter.com/vpcf90/status/1151102748860882944
https://adoredtv.com/zen2-chiplet-quality-examined-by-cost/

 

All I see is that 4Ghz 3700x should work in a laptop

 

MSI is adding space for future CPU support:

"As discussed in detail, older 300 and 400 series motherboards have been stripped in the BIOS from older CPUs and some features, due to a too-small EEPROM size. No biggy, but MSI is solving this with updated motherboards as well.

...MSI now offers a number of motherboards with a larger storage size for the BIOS. The backward compatibility of Ryzen AM4 is praiseworthy but also presents the board manufacturers with some problems.

The new motherboards get an extra-label called 'Max' and thus have the new 32 MB BIOS. The 300 and 400 series are cheaper than the newly introduced X500 motherboards and thus could be an attractive alternative if you do not fancy PCIe 4.0 These will be the motherboards:

• A-320M-A Pro Max
• B450M-A Pro Max
• B450M Pro-M2 Max
• B450M Pro VDH Max
• B450-A Pro Max
• B450M Mortar Max
• B450 Tomahawk Max
• B450 Gaming Plus Max
• X470 Gaming Plus Max
• X470 Gaming Pro Max

So the suffix Max indicates that there are now 32 MiByte of BIOS storage available. "

There is no PCIE 4.0 support on PCIE 3.0 motherboards:

"... if you do not fancy PCIe 4.0 These will be the motherboards"

 

So, there's enough room in the BIOS for Zen 2 if you strip out support for some Zen 1 CPU's, or pre-Zen uArch?
32MB seems rather small but its still double the size vs the older BIOS.

It appears that in Helios 500, we have a 128MB sized EEPROM chip (with 16MB sized BIOS)... so I think even a 'full fat' version of unlocked BIOS upgrade for support for Zen 2 and high speed/low latency RAM would work (even with a fancy UI). Now we just need Acer to do it all (which is about as likely as the world transitioning into Resource Based Economy tomorrow).

 

The chip in mine is 128Megabits (Mb) == 16Megabytes (MB). There is enough space for Zen2, especially since this doesn't seem to have a RAID oprom. The Zen1+ bios has lots of padding (chunks of 0xFF) so plenty of space for additional code. Trying to get Zen2 support hacked in though is going to be an uphill battle from what I can see so far. Even trying to extract the current AGESA has a high likelyhood of crashing the most current H2OEZE software I have found. Maybe there is a special AMD specific version of it as the one I have crashes on any microcode operations but if I load it with an Intel BIOS it does not crash.

 

not wrong. your graph just proved that im right. ccx latency reduced because of faster ram, not completely tied to bandwidth but looks like you're the one thats incorrect.

usually when it comes to cpu, overclocking cpu frequency on either core/uncore result in lower latency on everything else.

 

Shut the front door. For the first 266MHz, you get an 11ns reduction. For the next 533MHz, you get a 14ns reduction. For the next 266MHz, you get a 4ns reduction. Do the math. At some point, further increases in speed will be fractions of a ns, meaning that at some point, you no longer get tangible benefits from increasing the frequency, which proves my point and proves you wrong! How the hell did you miss that? Generally, I find you intelligent. Here, you missed the most obvious point shown in those graphs which is that there is a point above which you get little to no benefit on latency reduction. If you want to argue that point is above 1900MHz on the IF, that is fine. But ignoring the clear stats of diminishing returns above is a lack of insight into the facts presented! You literally have a pattern of 11ns, 8ns, 6ns, 4ns reduction for each step going from 2133 up to 3200MHz. Extrapolation puts it at about 2ns, then 1ns reduction for the next two steps, bringing you to... 3733. Beyond that speed, the reduction in ns of latency is below 1ns per 266MHz on ram, which is 133MHz on IF. That means the main benefit above that speed is increasing bandwidth, not latency reduction.

Granted, this is IF gen 1, not gen 2, but math, limits, and how things work are what they are.

Further, bandwidth always scales with increased frequency. It is a matter of if the scaling matters. Look at 3466MHz on ram vs 3600MHz. The bandwidth is 6Gbps higher, roughly. But if your timings such, which influences bandwidth some, but definitely latency, then the speed means nothing.

With IF, the bandwidth needs to be great enough to handle memory bandwidth WITH other I/O at the same time. But, there can be a point at which you have more bandwidth than capacity to fill. At that point, increasing frequency increases bandwidth, but will not necessarily allow performance increase. An analogy is PCIe lanes. If you aren't saturating them, doesn't matter if they have more bandwidth you are not using, making GPUs on PCIe 4.0 a weaker selling point than new SSDs and higher speed networking.

For the CPU, same deal.

Now, we can either discuss the nuances of the platform and architecture on this basis, or we can end this here. But either way, look over the materials again with this explanation in hand because you are missing something very basic here.

 

And, so it begins... PCIE 4.0 enabled in error for Navi on PCIE 3.0 motherboards...

tl:dr motherboards default to PCIe 4.0 when they shouldn't and causes crashes and poor performance.

tl:dr:need intructions Go to bios, manually select 3.0 @ x16 and restart. All should be good.

[PSA] Some motherboards are automatically defaulting to PCIe 4.0 on platforms besides x570 with Navi GPUs. Results in poor performance and crashes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cf0tqr/psa_some_motherboards_are_automatically/

"Edit: I should note, that in order for you to be aware that this is your problem, your build must have a 5700xt/5700 with a non-x570 board and that you are having problems with your display, framerates, and/or overall performance. Please update your gpu and chipset drivers and make sure you're on the latest version of windows and are seeing performance drops in userbenchmark. This does not help gpu monitors to recognize the presence of a gpu and its clock speeds.

Hi,

I just wanted to make sure the community was aware of at least another issue. My board Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING has been updated to PCIe 4.0 by I guess a bios update. I bought this board at microcenter, and was already flashed with version 2406.

Due to this my board automatically picks PCIe 4.0 as the default due to some reason I have no idea why. It essentially drags in performance compared to the average on userbenchmark. Old reddit post that describes my system and performance along with speccy.

The simple fix is to go into bios and manually change the setting to PCIe. 3.0 @ x16. Hopefully this helps on crashes and whatnot. I still have not been able to get wattman or gpu-z to recognize the gpu and HWiNFO64 and gpu-z will not recognize that the slot used is PCIe3.0. Instead it will always show that PCIe4.0 is being used as the current bus interface.

Run on 1803, Adrenalin 19.7.1, PCIe x16 4.0 @ x16 4.0: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/18503907

Run on 1903, Adrenalin 19.7.2, PCIe x16 4.0 @ x16 4.0: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/18414337

Run on 1903. Adrenalin 19.7.2, PCIe x16 3.0 @ x16 3.0: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/18525782

This may be system dependent, and hell if your board is defaulted to 4.0 and works (not an x570 board) don't mess with it. Better to have something running right now than to mess it up.

tl:dr motherboards default to PCIe 4.0 when they shouldn't and causes crashes and poor performance.

tl:dr:need intructions Go to bios, manually select 3.0 @ x16 and restart. All should be good.

*Edit notes: Wording/Problem intro."

UDaManFunks 2 points 5 hours ago
"I wonder if this is what's causing all the PCIE resets on my Asus ROG STRIX X-470-F (5007) bios. I don't have a PCIE4 setting on the BIOS though. Why are the vendors defaulting this to 4 anyways on the older boards? Shouldn't it default to 3 and allow the user to override? Would probably cause alot less headaches for people."

AMD: disable PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 motherboards and stop the potential compatibility problems before they start...

 

Since Acer released Helios 500 with Zen+ and vega56, they could comfortably remove Zen 1 cpu support (without touching Zen+ obviously) and integrate zen 2 with faster ram speed support across all 4 memory slots.

But I agree it would be an uphill struggle for us doing it ourselves. Acer would have a much easier time doing it. .

Is it possible that because this is an AMD chipset the extraction of the BIOS had undesirable effects? Most of the methods online for that process are for Intel CPUs after all (which might have caused your issue).

 

Yeah, as expected.

BIOSTAR Formally Enables PCIe Gen 4 on its AMD 400-series Motherboards Techpowerup.com | July 19, 2019

BIOSTAR formally (officially) enabled PCI-Express gen 4.0 support for four of its socket AM4 motherboard models based on the AMD X470 and B450 chipsets, through BIOS updates. The updated BIOS lets you use PCI-Express gen 4.0 graphics cards on the topmost PCI-Express x16 slot, and the M.2 NVMe slot that's directly wired to the AM4 SoC. The expansion slots that are wired to the chipset are still restricted to PCIe gen 2.0. You will need a 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse" processor for PCI-Express gen 4.0. Among the motherboards that receive PCIe gen 4.0 support through BIOS updates are the AB45C-M4S (B450MH), the AB35G-M4S (B45M2), the AX47A-A4T (X470GT8), and the AX47A-I4S (X470GTN). The links lead to the BIOS image files on BIOSTAR website, which you use at your own risk.

--------------------------------------------------

AMD AGESA 1.0.0.3ABA Buggy, Company Pulls it from Motherboard Vendors Techpowerup.com | July 19, 2019
The latest version of AGESA ComboAM4 microcode that enables 3rd generation Ryzen support on AMD 400-series chipset motherboards has been deemed buggy and pulled from motherboard vendors. AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3ABA (not to be confused with 1.0.0.3AB that's being widely distributed), was originally released to fix an application crash noticed with "Destiny 2." The microcode inadvertantly destabilizes PCI-Express on motherboards, with users of ASUS motherboards complaining of stability issues with the latest BIOS updates that include 1.0.0.3ABA.

Peter "Shamino" Tan from ASUS commented that the company was under a tight schedule to push 1.0.0.3ABA out as BIOS updates, and didn't have the time to properly validate it. "We just got told to pull (was undergoing validation prior) 1003 ABA version," he said, adding the root cause of the problem being "that PCIE speed of BXB-C downgraded from gen4 to gen2,..." He comments "so its not surprising that bugs emerge since the source has hidden bugs that only gets unraveled with thorough testing. combine that with trying to get firmwares out in a tight time frame, kinda damn if you do (release firmware quickly) and damn if you dont (dont release firmware quickly) situation." It's interesting to note that in their BIOS update change-logs, quite a few motherboard vendors omit the full version string of AGESA. You may encounter ComboAM4 1.0.0.3AB being referred to simply as "AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3

But will they listening?

 

honestly i'd love to have pcie4 enabled on previous mobo if they are capable of handling it (if i owned the mobo). why wouldnt anyone else?

 

Of course, you would as would anyone else. Regardless of the 'facts' presented on why it shouldn't be available where possible.

See:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-buggy-agesa-1.0.0.3aba-microcode,39974.html

Just a screwup by AMD. If Intel had misstepped here, some would be calling for heads to roll.

 

Engineers that designed the signaling improvements for PCIE 4.0 on their new x570 motherboards would know that the changes / improvements in design and materials were required for reliable support of the 2x higher bandwidth / throughput.

Marketing would ask the engineers, "would some situations allow PCIE 4.0 devices to work on our PCIE 3.0 boards", and the poor engineers would feel like they need to be honest and answer, "sure, in some situations you might get a PCIE 4.0 device working, but no promises".

Marketing would then run off and sell their old stock PCIE 3.0 motherboards as "working with PCIE 4.0 in some situations" "not guaranteed".

Yeah, I know, when you don't know or understand something and hear some people saying it will work and others like AMD themselves saying please don't do this, you are gonna try it.

Then when it fails you fall back to setting PCIE 3.0 in the BIOS, or you go out and buy the motherboard designed for PCIE 4.0, which you should have realized by common sense reasoning was needed in the first place.

Why listen to the marketing and sales guys / gals trying to sell old stock PCIE 3.0 motherboards?

AMD doesn't have a vested interest in selling old stock PCIE 3.0 motherboards, they want their customers to have a good experience, so they tell us that you need a motherboard designed to support PCIE 4.0 in order to have a good user experience with your new PCIE 4.0 devices.

Asus is already getting bad word of mouth on their PCIE 3.0 motherboards not working right with PCIE 4.0 Navi GPU's because ASUS is trying to offer PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 motherboards.

If nothing else at least pay attention to the new owner / user reports of compatibility problems with PCIE 4.0 devices on PCIE 3.0 motherboards trying to support PCIE 4.0 instead of sticking with their original PCIE 3.0 engineered support.

Frugl1 1 point 3 hours ago
"Almost as if AMD knew what they were doing by stating PCIe 4.0 would not be supported on old board models."

Don't be confused by the PCIE 4.0 on PCIE 3.0 mirage, it's not like Intel's "not enough power for the socket" BS, this is a real signaling pathway design and implementation problem between PCIE 3.0 and PCIE 4.0 design requirements.

 

As I said in my previous post #6374. Let all other be the Guinea Pig (the next 3 months and see how it works) before you put your money in PCIE 4.0 devices(if you already have the old stock PCIE 3.0 motherboard).

AMD ain't different than all the other companies out there. They want your hard earned...

Their goal is "Max" profit.

If you don't buy their new and more expencive MB with PCIE 4.0 then they will still be damn happy if you spend your money on their old now added with the "Max" feature.

 

Im pretty sure pcie 2.0 would still suit me just fine lol

I dont personally care about what is/isnt pcie 4.0 until pcie 3.0 starts to limit my activities.