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

So, question.
Since Zen 3 is skipping 4000, what will become of the 4000 series APUs? Will they just remain OEM exclusive? Would kind of suck for desktop APU users to wait until 2021 for the 5000 series APUs.

 

So there i wonder...
Is AMD going the route of defining their CPUs as ODD first number to signify this is a Odd One and Only CPU with just Computing function, while the EVEN first numbered one as Extra Integrated Graphic Computing CPU?

 

APUs are always one of the last products launched. So why are you complaining now about a numbering scheme? It is the same scenario as has been there since 2017 (I think the first APU on zen was launched either late 2017 with the Pro chips or early 2018).

Right now, zen 2 is in 4000 series APUs. As to if they will be OEM exclusives, I have no clue. But this isn't a full lineup either. This is 6, 8, 12, and 16 cores with limited availability on the 16 core at launch.

So Threadripper isn't out (likely CES keynote; insert meme of "he's already dead" for Intel's HEDT here). The APU doesn't come until after that. Everyone knows that. It isn't a big deal.

Plus, what does Intel have to compete on the APUs currently? Lol

I'd want zen 3 with Navi 2 if I wanted an APU. Just great efficiency goodness.

 

No, they were doing cpu release, then APU called the next gen number series.

Zen > 1000
Zen apu > 2000
Zen+ > 2000
Zen+ apu > 3000
Zen 2 > 3000
Zen 2 apu > 4000
Zen 3 > 5000
Zen 3 apu > 5000

So they broke the disparate naming scheme to date of calling the apu the next gen number. It synced everything up.

 

Awww...ughhh...
That's not easy for CPU buyer to determine man...
And all those while i thought that the letters G, X, XT for desktop CPUs are meant to be G for General APU, X for high performance CPU, XT for high performance Tunable (clockable) CPU... I'm so stuck with laptop cpus

 

Not actually complaining. More so that I'm wondering about their general availability.

 

G means graphics unit. That is found on mobile and designated desktop APUs.

ALL CHIPS ARE TUNABLE/ OVERCLOCKABLE.

The X and XT are higher binned parts, so you are paying for higher frequency, primarily.

For motherboards, only the Bx50 and Xx70 systems can overclock AMD CPUs. The Ax20 boards cannot.

All chips support some form of ECC ram. Usually this, on consumer chips, means unbuffered. Registered still is primarily for server chips. I may need to double check on if memory support has changed.

 

It was always going to be 2021 for zen 3 APU.

 

ASUS Drops Support for AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs on X470 Motherboards
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ers-welcome-too.810490/page-883#post-11051942

 

There have been other statements from ASUS that this isn't the case, that they will update BIOS releases in January. There's other confusion about whether it might be only certain revs of certain motherboards.

Motherboards are very competitive, unlike CPUs. Given that the other big vendors are unequivocally updating their BIOS, I suspect if indeed ASUS doesn't provide a BIOS upgrade that the most common reaction won't be to buy a newer ASUS motherboard, but to buy a motherboard from another vendor. Given that I suspect that the 5900X won't show a huge improvement over the 3900X for MT workloads (memory bandwidth being the limit -- benchmarks on the 3950X already showed problems in this regard) and that I rarely upgrade very cycle I'll likely sit this out, but if ASUS turns out to be the only vendor that doesn't upgrade the BIOS for its older motherboards it's a pretty good bet that whether I do or not I won't be buying an ASUS motherboard.

 

FUD;
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/commen...d_to/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

That's what I expect. What an individual customer support rep says doesn't really mean a whole lot. Given how many X470 motherboards there out there, that every other board vendor is going to support Ryzen 5000 chips on X470 boards, and that AMD's doing the heavy lifting (via the Agesa), it would be absurd for Asus not to do so.

 

I found out today that there is a new tool for controlling the power and temperature limits on AMD Renoir (Ryzen 4000) powered laptops. Check it out here: https://github.com/sbski/Renoir-Mobile-Tuning

 

Yeah, I got burned with Asus and their customer support/service when I bought their GL702ZC that kept frying itself and was ridiculously loud in the process...
Oh and their reps are completely uninformed and unhelpful.
Unless Asus displays a radical change in policy, I'm NOT buying their products.

They have good ideas, but very BAD execution (mainly in regards to cooling, quality control and customer support/service).

 

I just a little confused... Why can't they just adopt the U abbreviation for Chromebook usage...

...and they have to create another group of SKUs on the same products?​

 

Finally got an Alpha 15. Temps and noise so far have been really good. The third vent on the left side really seems to help compared to the Bravo and G5 SE. The build quality is also much better than the G5 SE.

 

As I suspected... the 5600M is equivalent to RTX 2060 mobile (non-MaxQ).

The GPU temps are really low (70 degrees C)... however, the CPU temps are not (94 degrees C).
I have to wonder, why are OEM's allowing CPU temps to reach that high?

 

With limited space for cooling they'll always prioritize the graphics card. See... the moniker "Gamingbooks". And you yourself said it perfectly... The graphics temp is really good. The unified heatsink let them to this... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-owners-lounge.831618/page-268#post-11055135


http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...laris-navi-gpus.799348/page-750#post-11000607

 

Oh I know they're using shared heatsinks... but my question was, why are OEM's ALLOWING CPU's to reach such high temps.'
We know that having a shared heatsink results in lower thermal performance on one or both components... in which case, designing a better cooling system where for example in various laptops the cooling isn't shared might be better.

Its not too difficult to do this... not to mention using better fans and putting more effort into designing better air vents which would result in better airflow perhaps?

Also, why not equalize things a little?
Instead of having really lower temps on the GPU and really high ones on the CPU, why not modify the cooling solution so that say CPU goes up to 80 degrees C, and CPU to 84 degrees C (increase of 10 degrees on GPU and reduction of 10 degrees on GPU)?
Those temps would still be well in the tolerable range when it comes to long term operations for both CPU and GPU.
Otherwise, the CPU is running much longer and much closer to its breaking point.

 

Remember with Turing arch, Nvidia reduced Maximum GPU Temperature to max 88C. And the Boost feature means you'll lose 13MHz speed bin for each 5c degrees higer temp from around 50C and upwards. And some Jokebooks operate with 75/78C as Gpu throttling point. Forgot the fire and smoke? Remember more graphics card go to hardware heaven than processors.
They call it a gamingbook and know the Cpu won't be taxed equal hard as the GPU in gaming. Hence put more weight on cooling the graphics.

 

So, some reviews:








https://www.techspot.com/review/2131-amd-ryzen-5950x/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/316943-ryzen-9-5950x-and-5900x-review
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9651/amd-ryzen-9-5900x-zen-3-cpu/index.html
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3585169/amd-zen-3-ryzen-9-5000-reveal-best-gaming-cpu.html
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1621...ive-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested
https://hothardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5000-zen-3-processor-review

 

The refreshed Alpha 15's cooling system is actually holding up pretty good while gaming. I found that the CPU maxed out around 92C and the GPU would stay around 77C. The palm rest and keyboard was comfortable for the duration.

It would be great if temperatures could be further reduced. I think since this model is in the mid-range segment they have a limited budget on the cooling engineering. The three heatpipes on the CPU side are a pretty good size but I think may be slightly smaller than what is used on the Eluktronics RP-17, for instance. The copper block between the die and heatpipes may also not be as large. I want to eventually do a repaste / repad job so I know there is good even die contact. It is harder to pinpoint issues because I do not think each core reports its temperature.

 

Edit:
https://imgflip.com/i/4l7hdc


My thoughts on coming releases:
Intel's rocket cutting 2 cores so 8 core tops, with around 18% IPC, just brings back to back and forth, but with no real competitor to the 12 and 16 core on multi threaded workloads.

Then, when Intel drops their new chips, AMD does the 5600 non-X and a 5700X, undercuts the pricing of Intel's 4, 6, and 8 core offerings, which still have to price relative to AMD's, and maybe even slide the 5800x from $450 to $400 or $420, and Intel will have very little room to play with on price. Basically backing Intel into a corner and limiting sales.

And on top of that, drop a Zen 3 TR when Intel releases mainstream to take all steam out of their announcement, like how Intel tried to talk about rocket lake and was ignored by the 6000 series GPU announcement.

Intel just won't be able to catch a break until alder lake. And even then, that is going to have a new generation of Zen to also deal with.

 

Yes, but 80 degrees C is not exactly a big deal for the GPU to tolerate (and its still 8 degrees lower than NV reducing max gpu temp with Turing uArch).
Also, Dell is hardly the best example... they're notorious for relatively bad cooling implementations - heck, they also seem to think its a good idea to let newest CPU's run close to 110 degrees C (which is right up to their maximum limit).

In regards to 'jokebooks' operating with 75/78 C as a throttling point... that's just a bad cooling design and hw implementation (and I tend to steer clear of those).

OEM's really need to pull their heads out of the sand and start re-designing cooling assemblies with better materials and modern methods. The existing heatsink/fan design has largely remained unchanged for decades... its absurd.

My PH517-61 with a desktop ryzen 2700 doesn't go over 72/73 degrees C, and the Vega 56 (limited to 120W TDP) doesn't exceed 65 degrees C (that's with both CPU and GPU fully stressed to the max at the same time for extended periods).

Sure, I have a 17" chassis with a cooling specifically designed to accommodate AMD hw (Intel version of Predator Helios on the other hand does come with thermal issues)... temps on the GPU are lower than on the CPU, but the margin is about 10 degrees difference... whereas on most other laptops it seems to go over 20 degrees and allowing the CPU to run almost to its maximum.

I'd think that most 15 inch laptops would have the capacity to not allow both CPU and GPU to exceed 85 and 80 degrees C when fully maxed out... the rest is mostly down to OEM cooling implementation methodologies (the quality of which seems to have dropped severely on various fronts).

 

while the boys gets their hands on the multi cores mega chips...

...the petit and subtile dutch lady gets her first contact with the lesser cores subtile chip!​

 

I recently added her channel, but am still feeling out the channel before I started sharing it. But so far, definitely seems good.

 

AMD Appears To Be Preventing Ryzen 5000 CPU Support On X370 Motherboards hothardware.com | Yesterday

AMD's 300-series chipsets, including the B350 and X370 among others, had an incredible run of CPU support in their four years on this earth. While it was a little late to the party, most X370 and B350 motherboards received official support for AMD's Zen 2 Ryzen 3000 family of processors in 2019. Earlier this year, it seemed that even the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 family would run on 300-series motherboards. Unfortunately, the gravy train for the AMD's first Socket AM4 chipset may have just run dry.

In the forums for German retailer JZ Electric, an admin who goes by the handle JZ uploaded screenshots of CPU-Z including this BIOS. The ASRock Taichi X370 was running version 6.62, and served as the host platform for a Ryzen 5 5600X. It seemed that the four-year-old platform would ride again, and receive an update for AMD's latest processor family. However, the story doesn't end there. JZ took to the German-speaking HardwareLuxx forums to post part of a conversation with an ASRock representative. It seems that the beta BIOS was not intended for public consumption.


Along with this revelation, we should not forget that AMD didn't even want to support the 400-series chipsets with Ryzen 5000 processors at first. Initially the supported platforms started and ended with the 500-series chipset family. Speaking very plainly, AMD said it had "no plans to introduce 'Zen 3' architecture support for older chipsets." After enthusiasts took to the internet to lodge their protests, AMD eventually relented, saying that 400-series motherboards could also get Zen 3 support. This has a very different feel to it, though; support was being built and AMD apparently pulled the rug out from under the ASRock engineers who were working to bring support to the oldest AM4 platform. If that's the case, it's disappointing, but as one Redditor pointed out: AMD is a company, after all

AMD Warns Motherboard Makers From Offering Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU BIOS Support on AM4 X370 Boards wccftech.com

AMD originally stated that the AM4 socket will be supported until 2020 and considering that Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 CPUs are a 2020 release, they should also fall in the same category but it looks like AMD has stopped motherboard makers from doing so. In fact, even the 400-series boards, the X470 & B450 lineup, haven't got official Ryzen 5000 CPU support. The support for those products is only BETA which means that the responsibility of bugs and errors falls upon the board vendor and not on AMD themselves.

 

Here’s A Bizarre Way To Enable AMD Ryzen ‘Zen 3’ CPU Support on ASUS X370 & B350 Motherboards Using ASRock 400 Series BIOS wccftech.com

ASUS ROG forum members have found a bizarre way of enabling support for AMD Ryzen 'Zen 3' Desktop CPUs on their ASUS X370 series motherboards using BIOS from ASRock's B450 boards.

AMD Ryzen 'Zen 3' CPU Support Enabled on ASUS X370 Motherboards Using BIOS From ASRock's B450 Boards
It's quite mind-boggling to see people going to these extends to enable support for a certain line of processors on their motherboards that aren't officially supported. The main issue is that AMD itself had blocked motherboard manufacturers from offering Ryzen 5000 'Zen 3' Desktop CPUs support on older X370 motherboards. This meant that users of ASUS motherboards & various other brands were cut off from a generation of processors which they were initially said to get support for.

 

It looks like AMD isn't planning to launch its Threadripper lineup for the TRX40 platform which means that after the Zen 2 based Threadripper 3000 lineup, there won't be any new HEDT part.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 CPU Specs Leak Out: 5995WX Flagship With 64 Cores, 280W TDP, 256 MB Cache & Up To 4.55 GHz Clocks

It makes a little sense as to why AMD might be doing this as competition from Intel has so far been zero but it changes next year with the arrival of Sapphire Rapids-X and Fishhawk Falls platform.

Yep, why waste expensive silicon who is in shortage on a new TR Hedt chips when people are happy with the older Zen 2 based Threadripper 3000 chips. Higher IPC or clock speed is probably of no interest for the HEDT enthusiasts from what I can see from AMD's move.

 

This is probably just a calculation based on their expectation of the HEDT market state in 2022. They would normally be happy to charge a hefty premium. premium for high-end silicon, but will there be enough demand to make the additional product line worthwhile? Who, apart from oligarch kids, is still building high-end desktops and paying crazy scalped prices for things like graphics cards these days, especially given the availability of cloud computing on the professional side.

 

AMD's CES 2022 product announcement is live. Here's the condensed presentation:



And an overview/analysis by Jarrod:



Aside from a couple intriguing things like SmartShift Eco and the supposedly much faster iGPUs, I can't say I'm particularly excited about this release. I'll be interested to see the new Asus G14, though I'm sure they'll find some way to kneecap it in terms of performance or features.

Here's HUB's video that includes info on the desktop processors:

 

Excited about USB4 supporting thunderbolt 3 on AMD. I hope its platform/OS independent and works w/o much fuss.

 

It would be great if it turns out like that, but AMD, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

 

Isn't the issue with Thunderbolt more down to motherboard manufacturers not wanting, having, or being allowed to incorporate it into AMD boards?
If that's the case, that has nothing to do with AMD as such.

 

Thunderbolt 4 is (at least moving... towards) open-source, since at least a year ago.

See:
What Is Thunderbolt 4? Why This New Interface Will Matter in PCs in 2021 | PCMag

Bottom line. AMD builds parts to specs. Intel builds better overall experiences (with not just better specs, but better overall quality too of the delivered, final (notebook) product).

Yeah, there's a 'but' in there somewhere, I'm sure. But this same conversation was debated over 5 years ago and still, nothing has changed enough on the AMD side to warrant my $$$$ for an example system, long-term.

Still glad for the competition AMD provides and the benefits Intel provides me though.

And it has everything to do with AMD. They're too small to have the resources and depth that Intel can bring to the table. They also (historically) don't have the vision to execute the right things, long-term, and consistently, decade after decade.

 

It probably helped a lot that Intel push out loads of new Alder lake chips out in the market from their new node. And great idea that AMD enginneeers now find a way to sell more of their 5000 series chips before the move over to AM5 platform and DDR5. It helps also that they only will refresh one desktop chips before the change to 6000/7000 series desktop chips late 2022. Yep a good way to try keep the price point nearer the MSRP than have to offer massive price discounts.

Backward compatibility moves forward.

More than a year after the release of the Ryzen 5000 chips that have been a staple on our list of the Best CPUs for gaming, AMD tells us the company is now looking at options to allow the chips to be used with 300-series motherboards. "It's definitely something we're working through. And it's not lost on us at all that this would be a good thing to do for the community, and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen," David McAfee, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, told Tom's Hardware during an interview.

AMD: We're Exploring Supporting Ryzen 5000 on 300-Series Motherboards

 

As someone who regularly uses both Intel and AMD products, I doubt the validity of someone saying that Intel provides a better experience in every case. I've been having more issues with my i7-12700k than my 5800x or 5900x or 5600x...

I'm glad Intel finally caught back up...

 

I feel bad for AMD users today. Backward compatibility only keeps you backward, (fact).

Oh, and never said in every case. Overall. And for the record, Intel never left the building. But AMD sure is back peddling on what it was spouting mere years and months ago.

Not forward-thinking at all in my books. Seems to me too that they're overstocked with 5000 series chips and need a way to offload them for the highest $$$ possible.

Yeah, I'm sure some will be grateful if this comes to fruition, but this doesn't address the real need; an Intel ADL killer for the price (or less) of ADL.

 

Hell yeah, gotta make sure your MS Office apps open as soon as possible. Real work needs to get done after all.

 

Yeah, assumptions and all...

When you can't make anything except personal attacks.

 

Making Thunderbot 4 open source a year ago is not exactly a long amount of time - especially because we've been in the middle of a chip shortage for the past 2 years thanks to the auto industry.

Its likely you won't see Thunderbolt in that case on existing motherboars for AMD... but more likely ones that will be released with Zen 3 and RDNA 2 refresh, or by the end of this year when Zen 4/AM5 and RDNA 3 are released.

Again, this has little to do with AMD.
Its up to the mobo manufacturers to integrate Thunderbolt into AMD mobo's... and up until a year ago, that wasn't doable because it wasn't open source.
Over the past year, you have the chip shortages (due to automotive industry) to thank for lack of new equipment.

Also, the use cases for Thunderbolt 4 are... limited I'd say.
Persoanlly, I have 0 use for it. I managed thus far without it. Never had it on any of my previous Intel/NV builds, or AMD builds and I don't find myself missing it.
What's the purpose of it again?
High transfer speeds that allow faster data trasnmission? Sure, that's great... but USB seems to work fast enough for me (and spec-wise, its pretty close to Thunderbolt anyway) and I don't use external GPU's on laptops.

 

Is 30-50 percent less battery life on Tiger Lake H45 versus Ryzen 5000 part of the Intel "experience?" How about pushing quad-core CPUs (Tiger Lake H35) on brand-new gaming laptops in 2021? Or confusing the heck out of customers by having Comet Lake U (Core iX 10XXXU) processors being sold alongside the superior Ice Lake 10th-gen?

 

Sure, we can agree to disagree. More features, and especially more forward-looking features is now a bad thing? If/when Intel takes a year + to get with the flow, mudslinging would ensue. But, let's baby little AMD, correct? Which, at a fraction of the size of Intel, is behaving worse today (give an inch and they'll all take a mile).

Nobody is forced to buy inferior hardware. They can even return purchases made in error. Confusing consumers is the name of business today. Intel isn't the only one doing it, nor is this limited to the largest corps.

But, does this have to do with AMD? Yeah, it does. Intel doesn't assume things. It creates the path it wants to be followed. AMD not joining forces with others in their industry to get feature parity with Intel is either AMD not getting this point, and/or not having the resources to address this as I stated above (and this isn't merely checkbox items we're talking about, these are real improvements here from anything that came before).

We can talk about what Intel did wrong last year. We can talk about how long it took Intel to do anything right. We can even talk about how Intel should be doing better than it is, given its size/resources.

What can't be denied is an Intel mobile platform is a better fit for most consumers than an AMD system is (still). The overall quality of the notebook is higher. The features are more on-point and actually available and usable and will be far into the future. And most importantly, this didn't change these past 5 years except for a few short months in 2021.

The writing is on the wall. The features and programs (i.e. EVO v3, as an example) that Intel invents and implements are what shapes the mobile notebook space.

When I can buy an identical, world-class (i.e. ThinkPad) model with Intel or AMD inside, AMD may become interesting again to me. Once again in 2021, AMD was found sorely lacking, still.

They are simply not the same computer when it's AMD inside. For features, compatibility, driver stability, or even materials/build, or screen and keyboard options.

 

While I'm sure you're just setting up a moving target for later, you can purchase many models of thinkpads in Intel or AMD flavors with the same screens, keyboards, etc. There are even some series that are only AMD now. Interestingly we are at a point where AMD gets better battery life than the equivalent Intel platform. I have no issues with my Thinkbook running AMD (only option btw) and it was built well enough to make me sell my XPS for...

 

So, there is a good reason to not want to use it: a month after Intel released it as open source, it was disclosed that all prior versions were subject to a critical vulnerability for TB. That's right, Intel gave away its security vulnerability riddled IP.

Only good from it was the push toward moving to usb-c.

See above.

Hey, for once I have a heavily serialized workload that Intel's chips outperform my parallel based AMD platform.

When doing specific CAD finite element analysis that is serial, single threaded operation was king and the 10700KF at 5.2ghz has been a boon.

But, specialized use cases ignore intel's issues as of late. Intel is playing games to be on top, while knowing Zen 3d and zen 4 will put them behind again.

Even their wins, as people used the e cores, have some asterisks. And it can vary by software. So please stop with the lack of nuance. This isn't 2015.

 

Ah, so now it's for security. Yeah, gotcha.

That's quite a reach.

Everything has asterisks, welcome to the real world.

So when Intel delivers the goods, they're playing games.

But when AMD can't make it happen, it's for our protection.

Enjoy your endless kool-aid.

 

So, you don't remember Vault 7? You do not remember around March of 2017 it becoming common knowledge that with a modified TB3 dongle you could execute a vulnerability? Then in May of 2017, Intel turns over TB3 to open source and moves on to implement TB4. Yeah, let's ignore history.

And since then, even worse vulnerabilities were found. How was the 2017 vulnerabilities found? By going through source documentation in the same way that Spectre and Meltdown were discovered.

Meanwhile, I thought I gave credit to them for my single threaded workload when their CPU is heavily overclocked. I guess that means nothing.

And when did I let AMD off the hook? I called them out on the PSP security **** and that they should have opened up the code for public review instead of security through obscurity.

People like you are why I'm happily enjoying my new hobby: Audio equipment.

So move on you troll!

https://www.itpro.co.uk/desktop-har...sources-thunderbolt-3-specs-to-boost-adoption
https://forums.appleinsider.com/dis...acos-utilizes-patched-thunderbolt-efi-exploit
https://www.wired.com/story/thunderspy-thunderbolt-evil-maid-hacking/
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-takes-steps-enable-thunderbolt-3-everywhere-releases-protocol/

 

This took me all of about 30 seconds to find on Lenovo's website. Thanks for playing. See you again when you've moved the goalpoasts.

 

Didn't know that Intel gave away TB3 IP as royalty free usage. I'm lurking the internet to find a generic firmware that upgrades the ancient NVM21 firmware on 6700HQ to 48 or higher. At the moment TB3 port is not functional and I use thunderspy's driver to have it enabled always.

Even I nearly ordered P14s AMD fully equipped with 4k screen + 48GB RAM in India and its a bit expensive and was $2k+. But I did see a staggering difference. AMD Secure/Enterprise features which are found in T series aren't available in P14s AMD Ryzen 5850U Pro models eventhough both T and P series has same mobo, screen, RAM (1 soldered 8/16GB + 1user upgradeable). The marketing material shows the feature. I cancelled the order.

 

That's a Lenovo problem, not an AMD one. Not that I think that's what you personally were implying but making it clear for certain others in this thread. Speaking of the T-series, we also have these.