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

GPU prices starting to drop?

Fry's has this RX Vega 56 for $519, $70-$100+ cheaper than anywhere else:

MSI Radeon™ RX Vega 56 Air Boost 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 Graphics Card
Frys#: 9526182 Model: RVega56AB8C
https://www.frys.com/product/9526182

GPU Prices To Drop 20% in July!!
• 10:11 - GPU Price Drop:

Graphics card prices expected to drop in July
Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES Friday 29 June 2018
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180629PD204.html

"The cryptocurrency mining chill has weakened demand for graphics cards, with suppliers planning to axe prices trying to clear their inventory. Sales of ASIC mining systems have also been significantly impacted by the stagnant demand, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Spoiler: Details...

The sources pointed out that graphics card prices are expected to see an average drop of around 20% in July, while the dramatic slowdown in orders for mining ASICs will also negatively affect revenues at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as well as its IC design service partners, such as Global Unichip, in 2018.

The dwindling profitability has sent small-to-medium mining firms gradually bowing out from the market, while large mining firms have also cut their procurements of new machines.

Currently, the worldwide graphics card market has an inventory of around several million units and Nvidia has around a million of GPUs waiting to be released, said the sources. With cryptocurrency miners also expected to begin selling their used graphics cards to the retail channel, vendors are expected to introduce major price cuts to compete.

Nvidia's next-generation GPUs made using TSMC's 12nm and 7nm processes are also expected to be postponed to late fourth-quarter 2018 until after inventory returns to safe levels, the sources said."

Gigabyte graphics card shipments to fall 20% in 2Q18
Monica Chen, Taipei; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES Thursday 28 June 2018
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180628PD205.html

"A slowdown in cryptocurrency mining demand is dragging down Gigabyte Technology's graphics card shipments in the second quarter, which are set to fall about 20% sequentially with average selling price (ASP) for such cards dropping 10%, according to the company.

Spoiler: Details...

At an investors conference held June 27, Gigabyte said its graphic card shipments for the second quarter are estimated at around one million units, down from 1.2 million of a quarter earlier.

As it remains unclear as to when Nvidia will release its new GPU platform in the second half of 2018, Gigabyte can hardly assess its shipment momentum in the third and fourth quarters. Nevertheless, the firm still expects its annual earnings from graphic cards for 2018 to be higher than that a year earlier, bolstered by the much higher corresponding profits scored in the first half of the year than in 2017.

Before the crypto mining craze subsided abruptly in April 2018, Gigabyte maintained a hefty profitability scenario in the first quarter, with its net earnings for the quarter shooting up 91% sequentially and skyrocketing five-fold on year to NT$1.61 billion (US$52.75 million), a new quarterly high and even higher than net profits for the first half of 2017. Revenues for the first five months still surged 40% on year to NT$30.53 billion.

Promoting gaming graphic cards
As crypto mining graphic cards can hardly generate high gross margins amid the sustained weakness in demand, Gigabyte will focus more on promoting graphic cards for gaming devices in the second half of 2018, the company said.

Company statistics also indicate Gigabyte's revenue ratio for graphic cards hit a high of 49% in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 36% for motherboards and 15% for servers. But the ratio for servers already soared to 20% in the second quarter amid the declining graphics card shipment momentum.

Meanwhile, Gigabyte's motherboard shipments reached 3.3 million units in first-quarter 2018, and 1.1 million units each for April and May, with second-quarter shipments likely to remain flat or increase slightly compared to the first quarter.

The company expects its annual motherboard shipments to be in the same range of 12-13 million units as posted for 2017, instead of accomplishing a 10% annual growth estimated in early 2018. This is due mainly to a delay in the arrival of Intel's new-generation CPU platform, the company indicated.

Gigabyte has landed big orders from Yandex of Russia and Penguin Computing of the US for server products. This is expected to help push up the firm's 2018 server revenues by 20% on year."

 

More news/rumors.
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/62380/amd-team-ferrari-threadripper-2-press-event-july/index.html
https://www.ultragamerz.com/the-mon...eadripper-2990x-cpu-32c-64t-rumored-1750-usd/
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-pre...000-press-event-with-cooperation-with-ferrari
https://hothardware.com/news/amd-host-2nd-gen-threadripper-press-event-ferrari-july

https://wccftech.com/amd-gpu-rumors-12nm-polaris-30-7nm-navi-7nm-vega-20-radeon-rx-gaming/

 

Massive GPU Price Drop In July, Next Gen GPUs Postponed?!
Gamer Meld
Published on Jul 1, 2018
GPU price drop incoming, Nvidia's next generation GPUs might be postponed and (AMD) PCI-e 4.0?!

 

Now there is an additional $25 rebate, dropping the price to $494.99

MSI Radeon™ RX Vega 56 Air Boost 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 Graphics Card
$25.00 Rebate
Frys#: 9526182 Model: RVega56AB8C
Price Match Promise
$519.99
After Rebate: $494.99
https://www.frys.com/product/9526182

 

ASRock X399-M Taichi Review + Linux test
Level1Techs


Mentions a BIOS version 2.35 which fixes some problems with P state overclocking, as well as other issues. Looks like a new BIOS for Asrock owners may come sometime soon (even though that one was a beta according to the video).

 

Their site has the bios as 1.00 and the beta as 1.00E, where as the normal board has 2.00 and the beta is 1.91E. 11 Phase power, 8 CPU and 3 for SoC as with the normal board. It looks like both should handle up to 600w from the PSU for the CPU. So some mild OC should be fine but so long as XFR2 does it's job I will be fine with stock.

 

Guess we wait till the end of July or so just for the announcement, at least this seems what everyone is saying.
https://segmentnext.com/2018/07/02/amd-ferrari-reveal-ryzen-threadripper-2990x/

 

As a reviewer, he asks for and receives the newest beta bios. Something tells me that the bios for the Taichi X399m isn't so different from our boards, and the ours isn't that different from the Fatal1ty boards. Never said a new one was up, just that we should have one coming. Also, the reason for naming our Beta 1.91E is so that if anything goes wrong, the BIOS sees 2.0 as an upgrade to that BIOS.

But, yeah, should handle stock and low overclocks just fine.

 

One has to be coming for TR2, no ifs, and's or but's.

 

https://videocardz.com/76698/first-benchmarks-of-amd-ryzen-3-2300x-have-been-leaked
https://segmentnext.com/2018/07/02/amd-ryzen-3-2300x-specs-benchmarks/

 

Intel Custom Foundry’s 10nm meltdown is crushing a $20+B market cap tech giant
Exclusive: This is the beginning of a far reaching story
Jul 2, 2018 by Charlie Demerjian
https://semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02...down-is-crushing-a-20b-market-cap-tech-giant/

"After extensive research, SemiAccurate can say this company cannot survive Intel’s lack of delivery intact. The consequences of this are far reaching for both Intel and their customer.

We would like to start this out on a personal note, two actually. First and most importantly is this story makes us sick, it is going to mean the loss of thousands of jobs and the destruction of a once proud and innovative company, all because of executive stupidity. While we are just reporting the issue, it is still pretty horrible to watch and think about, our condolences to those affected but not to those involved at a high level.

Secondly this is by far the biggest story that SemiAccurate has yet to cover, and we have had some pretty big ones lately. It is pure business, bad management decisions, and some scary potential fallout. Technology only comes into it as far as Intel and their utter inability to produce a functional 10nm process after years of delay.

( Note: For more about SemiAccurate, see the paragraphs at the bottom of the article. We are putting it there to save our regular readers the recap.)

Vague Hints:

That said the current issue is the result of weeks of research, over a dozen talks with sources inside the involved companies, at competitors, suppliers, and in upstream and downstream industries. All pointed to the exact same problem and result, there is no ambiguity on this one among our sources. A massive $20+ billion market cap tech giant bet everything on Intel’s 10nm process to get a leg up on the industry during an upcoming generational change. Intel has not announced this company as a Custom Foundry client either, and would not provide a list of current customers when SemiAccurate requested it last week.

As you know Intel’s 10nm process is now years delayed, is not economically or technically viable, and is unlikely to ever work financially speaking based on what SemiAccurate understands of the problems Intel is still trying to fix. The customer in question put their entire upcoming line of chips at Intel on 10nm, and Intel failed. There was no Plan B, no out, and according to multiple sources, the customer in question can not survive. This is mainly due to a major industry transition that is going on now, the company in question will not have a product to sell into it.

This isn’t a mom and pop company with a trivial product line, it is a foundational technology giant. They have been in business for decades and much of a sector depends on them. And as far as we can see they are dead. Without a product line for a major industry transition, they can not survive and will be acquired or simply die. There is no way out at this point.

Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only.

Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.

Spoiler: About Us:

For those that don’t follow SemiAccurate regularly, let us give you a bit of background both on Intel’s 10nm woes and our history. When we exclusively reported that Intel had 10nm Cannon Lake silicon back, we also reported, “ This is no ordinary early silicon issue, it is a serious and unexpected problem.“, followed shortly by reports of extremely low yields.

Since then we have explained why Intel’s 10nm is broken, partially anyway, revealed another 14nm device after Whiskey Lake, pointed out Intel’s curious bending of phrases on the 10nm timetable, and gave you the timetable that Intel internally feels confident for 10nm. Please note this last bit should have a, “for now” because of the added 14nm parts effectively line up with the purported 10nm ‘launch’ and Intel is refusing to give Tier 1 OEMs guidance on which is real. Feel free to read into this as you will.

On the business side, SemiAccurate has also also had a long line of exclusive stories. Some of the recent ones include having correctly called the issues at Qualcomm’s server division, announced that a customer dumped Intel Custom Foundry ( Note:Intel has not acknowledged this publicly yet), exposed a potential $1B/year contra-revenue flow at Intel, and revealed Broadcom’s dumping of their ARM server division and it’s buyer.

This is a sampling of the semiconductor industry stories SemiAccurate has researched and exposed weeks or months before any other outlet picked them up. We aren’t trying to pat ourselves on the back, just pointing our our track record because of the seriousness of the current story. Apologies to our regular readers for the rehash. S|A"

Intel Custom Foundry’s 10nm meltdown is crushing a $20+B market cap tech giant
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMD_Stock/..._custom_foundrys_10nm_meltdown_is_crushing_a/

Welcome to Intel Custom Foundry
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/foundry/overview.html

These are the most recent Intel 10nm news items from that page...from 2 years ago, July 2016...June 2016...March 2016...

In the News

• Intel Custom Foundry Certifies ANSYS Simulation Tools for Next-Generation 10nm Tri-Gate Process
• Intel Custom Foundry Certifies Cadence Implementation and Signoff Tools for 10nm Tri-Gate Process
• Intel Custom Foundry Certifies Mentor Graphics Physical Verification and Circuit Simulation Tools for 10nm Tri-Gate Process
• Intel Custom Foundry Certifies Synopsys Implementation and Signoff Tools for 10-nm Tri-Gate Process

 

AMD Directly Calls Out Intel Xeon While Marketing AMD EPYC, Says People Get Fired For Buying Xeon
By Ahmad Hassan, July 2, 2018

https://segmentnext.com/2018/07/02/amd-epyc-calls-intel-xeon-coal/

"...
Speaking of the EPYC CPU, AMD has noted that it will be skipping 12 nm Zen+ for 7 nm Zen2 for its 2nd-gen EPYC.

AMD noted that the 7 nm is ready in the lab to be used for the 2nd-gen EPYC CPUs and will begin sampling it in the second half of 2018 and these 2nd-gen AMD EPYC CPUs will start to roll out into the market in 2019.

Furthermore, a report has been making rounds on the internet suggesting that EPYC Rome will feature 48 cores and 96 threads. Not only that, following the launch of Rome, AMD will roll out EPYC CPUs with 64 Cores/128 threads which will be a huge leap in terms of performance.

Source: Expreview



AMD is continuing with the same push into the Data Center, and Intel is helping them with 10nm suffering a slow and painful demise....

[AMD Ad] Nobody ever got fired for buying Xeon.... UNTIL NOW!
14 Mar 2018
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/84sdy7/amd_ad_nobody_ever_got_fired_for_buying_xeon/

https://twitter.com/loic_na/status/973992736364945408

 

More GPU price drops...

Got Vega 56 for 397$. Under MSRP!!!
Submitted 2 hours ago by y0shi12 31 comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8voaps/got_vega_56_for_397_under_msrp/

 

AMD 3.3x more performance per dollar than Xeon. That's a powerful statement, but does it reflect the full picture? That 3.3x figure is only considering the initial purchase price, not the running cost and ultimate performance per square meter (I don't even know if performance per square meter is a thing, but data centres have finite space, so I imagine it could be). Are there other factors that would come into play to sway a decision - technical support, easy integration needs for example. 3.3x sounds indisputable, but I'm sure that's not the whole picture.

 

There is a metric for that, along with energy, etc. But, this is a marketing pitch. Shots fired sort of thing.

 

Yes, would be interesting to get the full picture on this. Ha, it's true, AMD have really been on a marketing storm with their CPUs, what with the "Heavy Metal" videos, this, and the like!

 

Gotta know when to bark! You find out you are going against Intel's 14nm++ chips next year when you were planning on Ice lake (Intel's 10nm+ and really expecting a sizeable jump), then you are probably feeling good for the upcoming year. Because of that, plus the potential additional gains on latency (meaning reducing latency) if they incorporate a partially active interposer, trying to get as many on the platform as quick as possible makes sense. They know what they have compared to Intel.

 

Intel Core i7-8705G Benchmarked, RX Vega M + Kaby Lake-G
Hardware Unboxed
Published on Jul 3, 2018

 

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/low-power_ryzen_7_2700e_cpu_appears_on_3dmark/1
https://www.eblogy.com/amd-ryzen-5-...ad-core-overclocks-to-5-66-ghz-on-ln2-tested/

 

It feels like AMD never makes a hard step up into the notebook market. I don't care if they need to be white or using shady tactics like Intel surely does for preventing AMD-based affordable notebooks. Just bring us 6-core average notebooks and 8-core gaming/pro notebooks and be with it.

 

The problem is low power 6-8 core CPU's along with APU's. Now once 7nm is here this may become a different proposition. 14nm the power was not there and since 12nm is just a better rehash of 14nm it still is not really there.

Now there may be a market for large laptops with 2700's in them but the OEM's need to end up making these.

 

ThreadRipper only

ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card Review
Level1Techs
Published on Jul 4, 2018

 

Kaby Lake-G Gaming, What Can You Play? [Part 1] Fortnite, PUBG, Battlefield 1 & More
Hardware Unboxed
Published on Jul 5, 2018

 

I love this add on board, but it should work in either platform. There's no 6 lane bottleneck in x299, so he's a bit confused on that.

For example, my asrock has 24 usable PCIe lanes going right to the cpu... So there is an x16 and two x4s. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-x299e-itx-ac-skylake-x-motherboard,5299.html

Another explanation-
https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/6lha8y/x399_amd_vs_x299_intel_pcie_lanes_explained/

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3449787/understanding-skylake-pcie-lanes.html

 

From your link:

"Intel is connecting the CPU via DMI to the chipset. This has PCH lanes, which are equivalent to a PCIe3 x4. This means all 24 PCIe lanes from the chipset have to share the PCH (PCIe3 x4) link to the CPU.

Depending on what devices you are using the chipset lanes on, this will result in slightly worse performance (vs CPU lanes), to extremely bottlenecked performance."

This what he is trying to point out, even if his words don't always match up with his thoughts, it eventually clears up in what he says further. Scripted for technical details is often better, but not fun to spend time doing, so we get the off-the cuff delivery + corrections later.

With x299 the lower core count CPU's have a higher percentage of PCI lanes going through the chipset, and it's board by board how that breaks down.

IDK if any PCIe sockets are chipset connected, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that an open socket after GPU(s) and 10Gb ethernet / etc would be the one(s) available for such a RAID M.2 card, and might be chipset connected and bottlenecked, which wouldn't be fast enough to get full performance. That has been a problem on laptops as well.

The M.2 on board sockets for many desktop motherboards are a mix of CPU and Chipset PCIe lands, which limits M.2 RAID participation.

IDK, maybe that card will work on an X299 board too, if you get one let us know how it works out.

 

Yes, the PCH / MDI is a x4 link, but that is separate from the CPU lanes counted for the other M.2 sockets which tie directly to the CPU lanes (bypassing PCH). For example, on the x299e-itx/ac, there are one x16 and 3 M.2 slots. So the 1 x16 goes to the CPU lanes, and two of the M.2 sockets go directly to the CPU lanes (8 lanes), the other M.2 socket is tied to the PCH which is then using the DMI link through the chipset. This is why I cannot run RAID-5 on all three M.2s... "because one of the sockets is not like the other..." that is the one tied to the SATA controller / PCH does not share a database with the other two PCIe x4 set of lanes. I can do RAID 0/1 over the two M.2s which go directly to the CPU, but don't know if the VROC crap comes into play here. I haven't done any research there.

I added a second Tom's question which explains it a bit more - the comments in there are particularly helpful.

Regardless, I don't have enough x16 slots in the mighty mini, otherwise, it would be nice to configure RAID 1+0 with this sweet add-on card.

 

Looks like about 3 more weeks for the announcement with the Ferrari Event. It would be nice to get some further leaks to keep excitement up but it will be what it will be.

Edit; for now;
http://www.technology-arena.com/ind...-2700e-and-ryzen-5-2600e-45w-tdp-cpus-leaked/
https://webprivacyworld.com/index.p...-2700e-and-ryzen-5-2600e-45w-tdp-cpus-leaked/
https://segmentnext.com/2018/07/09/amd-ryzen-7-2700e-energy-efficient/
http://www.madshrimps.be/news/item/178652#axzz5Kl4YgCtI

And
https://www2.bing.com/videos/search...5F02535FB72B74A902DA5F02535FB72B&&FORM=VRDGAR

 

TR2 Support
https://wccftech.com/gigabyte-x399-aorus-extreme-amd-ryzen-threadripper-32-core-cpu-support/

 

China producing x86 chips nearly identical to AMD server processors
Processors using licensed x86 IP could have implications for trade war, national security. A chip almost identical to AMD's EPYC processor has begun to appear in China. It's the result of an AMD joint venture with a Chinese government-owned investment group.
SEAN GALLAGHER - 7/9/2018, 11:45 AM
https://arstechnica.com/information...ps-nearly-identical-to-amd-server-processors/

"Thanks to a licensing deal with AMD and a complex joint-venture arrangement, the Chinese chip producer Chengdu Haiguang IC Design Co. (Hygon) is now producing x86-based server processors that are largely indistinguishable from AMD's EPYC processors—so close in design that Linux kernel developers had to do little in the way of patching to support the new processor family, called "Dhyana." The server chips are being manufactured for domestic use only—part of an effort to break China's dependence on foreign technology companies.

Since the Edward Snowden revelations about National Security Agency efforts to use implants in technology products to conduct foreign intelligence collection, China has been applying increasing pressure on US technology providers. The country hopes to bolster its own domestic technology industry through strict new information security regulations and investment in domestic suppliers.

The need for a domestic producer of high-performance server processors has also been driven by US export restrictions to China—in 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama blocked a sale of Intel Xeon processors for China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer over concerns that the sale would aid China's nuclear weapons program. Export of high-performance processors to China have been restricted ever since, and the US government has also moved to prevent China from acquiring technology companies in the past over national security concerns.

The unintended consequence of these restrictions has been that the Chinese government has spurred investment in domestic processors—and it has found ways around import restrictions with licensing arrangements and joint ventures. Suzhou PowerCore Technology Co. licensed the Power8 architecture from IBM in 2015; Zhaoxin, a state-owned technology company, has designed domestic x86 desktop processors in a joint venture with VIA. And now, the AMD licensing deal—which leverages both a licensing deal and a joint venture to allow the use of x86 intellectual property—is delivering what could be the first step toward a domestic high-performance server platform.

Based on AMD's "Zen" core architecture and EPYC, the "Dhyana" processor appears to be focused on embedded applications for now. They're not socketed processors but are instead a system-on-chip (SoC) design, similar to the EPYC embedded computing processors being manufactured elsewhere by AMD. They're so similar, in fact, that, according to a report from Michael Larabel of Phoronix, moving the Linux kernel code for EPYC processors over to the Hygon chips required fewer than 200 new lines of code.

The SoC design doesn't necessarily preclude the use of the Dhyana processors in high-performance cluster applications or in data center applications that would normally be filled (if not for trade restrictions) by Intel Xeon or other server processors. And given China's overall push to enhance its own information technology and manufacturing despite US trade restrictions, embedded server technology may be more in line with the current domestic demand.

The good news for AMD is that the joint venture will net the company a steady stream of royalties in addition to the $239 million in cash the company was paid up front in 2016 by Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. (THATIC), an investment arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to enter the joint venture in the first place. Just how long that silver lining lasts, given the current climate between Washington and Beijing, is uncertain. But it's certainly a benefit that comes with potential national security downsides."
Comments

 

I see AMD selling it’s soul. Oh’well

 

AMD made the deal well before present day. It made for a much needed cash infusion and set it so that it would be the dominant force within that market. Not a bad deal at all.

Now if it were just giving it away to stop the competition, as that other entity has, that would be selling its soul!

 

So, licensing an IP is selling its soul? Then Intel fueling the US intelligence agencies means what exactly? Seriously, if AMD licensing its IP is selling one's soul, then giving your tech to the NSA, the Five Eyes intelligence program, being part of the exascale computing project meant to comb through massively swept up records on the internet, etc. equals what exactly? Just saying, gotta keep perspective here. This was a business transaction.

Now, yes, AMD did get added to the exascale computing joint venture for the gov't as well, but the NSA got Intel to modify their ME so that they would be secure, but it was left open for exploits for average users. Do you want to head there in this discussion?

 

Have never defending NSA!! Or Intel’s practice.


NSA or the Chinese is equally bad. And from what I know in the little country NORWAY, the Climate between U.S and the Chinese ain’t exactly better as it is now. Oh’well we will see how it goes.

 

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-2990x-2950x-august-launch/
https://hothardware.com/news/amd-32-core-ryzen-threadripper-2990x-august-13th

 

Care to elaborate on why the Chinese are 'equally bad' as NSA?
As far as I know, there is no real difference on the origin of the technology, and the 'risks' of espionage are no greater than with any ICT vendor.
Plus, its interesting to note that majority of technology hardware is manufactured in China as its cheap for companies to do that... but the USA in particular has an obvious problem in allowing its population in buying Chinese mobile phones and technology made by Chinese companies (As it wrecks with the business model in the USA).
Mind you, Chinese stuff is cheaper (and just because it is, doesn't mean its any less durable or capable than major 'brands').

Also, since when is the concept of a 'soul' a thing (considering that science rejects its existence according to peer-review), and why would you want to attribute such a ludicrous concept onto a corporation in the first place?

Plus, as it was pointed out, Intel made ridiculously shadier deals.

I think this actually encourages potential cooperation and it opens up more options for AMD in particular.

 

Other than an unveiling, (which kind of was already done) what else is AMD leaving on the table for the Ferrari event?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/next-generation-amd-ryzen-threadripper-august-release/

 

Is Ryzen ‘More Future Proof’ For Gamers?
Hardware Unboxed
Published on Jul 11, 2018

 

Yeah, so Ryzen probably not more future proof than 8700K and possibly 7700K for next 2+ years - after that point it may be, but at which point you'd quite likely be updating your platform & buying a new CPU anyway while having in the meantime missed out on the extra performance for the next 2+ years.

 

Upsides like that may seem irrelevant, but for most of us it's nice to know that there is upside to ownership over time and as software matures your performance increases extends the lifetime of use.

This particular AMD 9950 Black Edition CPU I have in this computer has been doing yeoman's work since it was built in 2008, and continues to be useful for day to day use.

So 2 years seems like a long time, but at 2 years on this AMD computer that was only 1/3 of the way through the use my daughter got from the computer, all through High School and part of college - when a laptop took over 1/2 the daytime use.

Now I have it running for browsing and video viewing using lower power than other alternatives - it sips power in comparison

~8 years of use - ~2 years moth-balled in between, most of that time after 4 core became the norm for new software.

Now the same for the 8 core Ryzen, easily 10 years of use, with the best starting after the first 2 years.

What a great idea. Too bad Intel didn't think of it first, once again AMD beats Intel to the next best idea.

 

Well there's no doubt that both Ryzen & Intel 7700K/8700K will be usable for years to come, just won't be the bleeding edge anymore, and performance may be sacrificed to a greater or lesser degree - perhaps more performance sacrifice with Intel after the 4yr+ point to take a stab at a time frame.

 

People who search how much future proof products are before they buy actually don't mind sacrificing small amount (or any amount as long as it is still digestible) of performance in 3+ years because they don't plan to buy new PC in same 3+ years accordingly. You don't look at future-proofing if you don't care about money, do you?

 

Except, Sandy and Ivy bridge still have a huge part of the market. How many years is that? Not everyone upgrades on the cadence, only enthusiasts. With the power in the modern chips on both sides, and Ryzen and Intel's 8700K being the main increase making upgrading worth it if you had a sandy bridge CPU, I'd argue that it is equally future proof, except you would have more upgrade options down the road on the same platform on the AMD side.

 

Still use my Ivybridge pentium laptop and have an old Radeon 5750.

 

Thoughtless newbies throwing money out the window aren't really considering much more than straight line performance, FPS, when making their buying decision.

Cost and price limit's hone the buying choices and help force the buyer to consider other criteria than straight-line performance when making the purchase decision.

When you have $M's to spend on computer hardware, you might think cost isn't an object of consideration, but considering price / performance plays a vital role in focusing the spend on value.

The considerations that come from the price / cost of choice help make smarter and better solution choices than only using straight-line performance at any cost.

In fact you'd quickly lose your purchasing ability making decisions based only on the numbers from straight-line performance metrics.

Consumer purchases are the same, you need to be price sensitive and also look at cost, don't overspend on the wrong metrics, missing out on the wider picture.

If you can get more cores for the same cost providing better multitasking performance along with future multi-core software performance improvements, and only give up a non-noticeable percentage of straight-line performance, then an AMD CPU with more cores is a better buying choice than a higher clocking Intel CPU.

If you are going to get fooled chasing metrics meaningless in everyday use, you'll quickly go broke on upgrades constantly trying to chase the numbers.

In real life use, those numbers get exceeded by new products on a regular basis, that top performance metric machine is going to quickly lose it's value to you, and you'll never be happy with what you have.

Figuring out how to be happy with a little less performance for less cost is a good way to start being happy over the long term with your purchase.

 

Yeah I used to be one of those guys chasing the benchmarks.

I should've kept the 1055T system I had back in the day instead of trying to get the first gen i7's. That 1055T was the easiest 4Ghz overclock I ever had. I sold it to make a point to my brother though. Told him he could keep the PC if he gets a job even if its just some part time gig. 1055T and 4870x2 was a good combo back then. He refused to get a job so I sold it.

Its why I am ok with my Ranger, I already knew Haswell was good enough for my needs and can upgrade the GPU through MXM.

Next system will likely be be the Acer Helios 500 provided the firmware is sound. If the 7950 can last as long as it has, I think Vega 56 and 2700 will be fine for a while yet. Here's hopin'.

 

ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero Wi-Fi X470 Motherboard Review
Level1Techs
Published on Jul 12, 2018
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C5JKH91

 

Some news regarding AMD Vega on 7nm:
http://www.itp.net/617514-amd-demos-7nm-gpu

"AMD claims the new 7nm process is twice as dense as its 14nm process, and the 7nm Vega die appears to be roughly 40% smaller than its predecessor. The new process also affords a 2x increase in power efficiency and AMD also claims it provides a 1.35x increase in performance."

Note that they don't seem to mention that the process will result in 2x increase in efficiency OR provide 1.35x increase in performance... but rather they continue to describe both 2x increase in efficiency and 35% increase in performance as something that goes hand in hand on 7nm TSMC.

So, if Vega gains 35% increase in performance and is double the efficiency at the same time... I wonder how this new process might affect the yields (and subsequently voltages) on 7nm vega (and Navi) and if it might result in Vega and Navi being clocked much higher and gain more performance given that Vega on 14nm suffered from high voltage problems and mauf. process designed for low clocks which forced AMD to use low clocks.

Thinking about Pascal, it was clocked about 30% higher than Vega was, mainly because the process was suitable for high clocks and PAscal had auto voltage tuning, and less compute units... (though this produced roughly similar or lower performance to lower clocked Vega 56 and 64 - except of course the 1080ti)

Turing architecture from what I understand is more AI oriented... so, no real benefits for games.
And Nvidia also said it won't be releasing a new GPU for a long time (though things are open to change)... at best, Nvidia could refresh Pascal on 7nm.
It would be an interesting 'treat' if Vega suddenly on 7nm ends up equating or beating 7nm refreshed Pascal and with Navi just around the corner - but I guess only time will tell.

Right now we're getting figures from the manuf.process improvements... no word on whether AMD improved/optimized Vega's internals, etc.

EDIT: Still bearing in mind that the 2x increase in efficiency and 35% performance increase could be an error on the article writer (or algorithm) and could easily still end up being one OR the other.
It's just that until now, articles seem to say that both will occur (which of course is not consistent with history - but then again, that 35% increase in performance could be due to the node eliminating the bottlenecks of 14nm LPP).

 

I explained this **** to you already. How you achieve both on a curve is due to other factors at work, such as faster memory and other refinements.

Meanwhile, what I didn't explain was that AMD confirmed they are doing multi-die, just not for consumers because ISVs will not program for NUMA on GPUs for games. Software on the server side doesn't care and can use as many cards as you drop in. Nvidia's multi-die paper shows them also doing NUMA for multi-die GPUs. That means that until software vendors designing games add support, you have to go monolithic on consumer graphics. Also, 35% improvement on Vega puts it at or above 1080 Ti levels. Navi is rumored to be around 1080 to Ti levels also, but with less power to be used for embedded solutions.

 

This is the curve. You cannot exit the curve. That means that if you exceed the values on the curve, it comes from other changes, such as memory, architecture tweaks, etc. I also showed that GF is using the same pitch as TSMC, and by some measures, GF is slightly denser on 7nm, but density is hard to calc between fabs.

 

On other news, in the past week, Asrock has released BIOS updates for the B350, the X470, the X370, and the Z370. So, the X399 should be coming soon.