AMD: Zen 3 Announced [2020-10-08]

[AlNom]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1614...en-3-on-nov-5th-19-ipc-claims-best-gaming-cpu

Native 8-core CCX, 32MB L3,

+19% IPC

• +2.7% Cache Prefetching
• +3.3% Execution Engine
• +1.3% Branch Predictor
• +2.7% Micro-op Cache
• +4.6% Front End
• +4.6% Load/Store

As expected in Zen 3, AMD has combined two four core structures (or core complexes, CCX) into a single eight-core structure. This means that all eight cores have access to the 32 MB of L3 cache inside a chiplet, and the latency for each core from 16 MB to 32 MB is greatly improved (previously when you went beyond 16 MB with a core, you would end up in main memory, which is comparatively slower and more power hungry). Due to the increase in L3 cache and the reduced cache latency in this 16-32 MB region, AMD is calling this an ‘effective reduction in memory latency’. No numbers were attached to this claim at this time, and AMD did not state if there were any specific microarchitecture changes in the cache hierarchy to assist with the larger cache access patterns.

But, what we can extrapolate is that whereas in the previous generation, because each chiplet had two core complexes, each complex had its own fabric connection to the rest of the chip. With a single eight-core unified complex design, there is now less core-to-core communication that's required to go off the chiplet. For single chiplet designs, this gets elimated completely, and for dual chiplet designs, each complex only needs to probe one other complex, rather than three. The peak bandwidth should still be the same however, but in a real-world scenario, there should be less cross-talk to deal with. This would scale better for the enterprise hardware, assuming it still retains the eight-chiplet design.

Too bad consoles missed out on it.

 

[PSman1700]

5900x looks most tempting to me, 12c/24t 4.8ghz turbo. With this IPC increase also.... Intel has some serious competition.

 

[Remij]

Great announcement event by AMD. I'm quite happy with their improvements.. though I'm also quite satisfied with my 3900X. I think I'll be waiting until sometime next year to see how things develop and mature and then take a look at a possible upgrade at that time.

Glad things are competitive again. Hopefully Intel can hit back hard as well... though I would like AMD to continue to gain marketshare for a while yet.

 

[Jawed]

Too bad consoles missed out on it.

Yeah I think it's a real shame.

On the other hand I have no idea what console games are going to do with all the CPU they now have. No, I don't think they will make console devs lazy.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Yeah I think it's a real shame.

On the other hand I have no idea what console games are going to do with all the CPU they now have. No, I don't think they will make console devs lazy.

but there already lazy

 

[McHuj]

I'm ready to upgrade to the 5900x. Coming from a 6700k, I think this will be a nice upgrade that should last 4-5 years like my 6700k build did.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

A 5900x, 32gb ram and a Samsung 980 pro will hopefully be enough to power through to the end of the next gen consoles with a GPU upgrade in between. My 4770 is still plenty fine for everyday stuff but after getting a 2070 super I noticed the CPU just isn't cutting it anymore even in games a couple of years old. The CPU gets hammered in something like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I'd be really happy to get another 7 years of use out of a new system.

With DDR5 projected to not even reach 50% market share by 2024 I don't think there is any point in waiting for that either with 2021 probably being for servers only with maybe the exception of some low supply high priced parts of consumers.

 

[Erinyes]

Yeah I think it's a real shame.

On the other hand I have no idea what console games are going to do with all the CPU they now have. No, I don't think they will make console devs lazy.

Given that Renoir shipped ~8 months after Zen 2 desktop, I think they had no choice but to use Zen2 to hit the holiday 2020 timelines. However, Zen2 offers almost 4x the performance of Jaugar, in addition to the IO decompression hardware so its still pretty substantial.

I do expect Cezanne to hit the market faster than Renoir though as its supposedly almost the same as Renoir (Vega GPU, DDR4/LPDDR4) but with Zen 3 cores. I'm hopeful it'll land ~4-5 months post Zen 3 desktop and the unified naming convention with the 5000 series is good as well.

I'm ready to upgrade to the 5900x. Coming from a 6700k, I think this will be a nice upgrade that should last 4-5 years like my 6700k build did.

That was partly because of the 14nm process stagnation though. Given that AMD should be on 3nm by 2023, you might well be tempted to upgrade again by then

 

[AlNom]

Yeah I think it's a real shame.

On the other hand I have no idea what console games are going to do with all the CPU they now have. No, I don't think they will make console devs lazy.

More physics objects & destruction/particles etc.?

Otherwise, I could see a 60fps (maybe 120 for certain genres?) option becoming fairly common since the graphics side is more easily scalable. Besides, PC devs probably don’t want to make a game that is 30fps and so CPU limited that they couldn’t hit smoother frame rates since no CPU is really 2x as powerful on PC as what consoles have. XD

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The price of entry for an 8 core model went up quite a bit here.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I'm ready to upgrade to the 5900x. Coming from a 6700k, I think this will be a nice upgrade that should last 4-5 years like my 6700k build did.

I have a 4790k so yes, this will be my jump of choice although I was waiting for Zen 4 as my next jump(because I am hoping for huge architectural motherboard changes to come in line with the XBox stuff i.e. DirectStorage, Velocity Architecture, DirectML etc.

That was partly because of the 14nm process stagnation though. Given that AMD should be on 3nm by 2023, you might well be tempted to upgrade again by then

Well as my 4790k is still good 7 years later, I would think a new 5900x should last at least 6-7 years without needing an upgrade.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

449$ is going to translate to 499€ probably which is incredibly expensive, I bought the 6600k for 250€ back in the day. Even with the performance improvements, removing the 700x series to bump the price is a bad move for AMD. Leaves the door open to Intel to unveil RL in a couple of months a beat AMD in performance and price/performance. Considering that Zen3 IPC is basically at the same level with TL.

edit: and both Zen3 and RL are the last CPUs supported by the latest Intel/AMD sockets. With these prices seems like an awful time to upgrade tbh.

edit: a 100$ difference between 8 to 12 core, but 150$ from 6 to 8. Lol

 

[tunafish]

I don't think they have so much removed the 700x series but are delaying it's launch to push all the early adopters to the higher price points.

Other than that, the pricing really stays to me that AMD wants to sell 6-core dies to consumers. Either yields are bad, or they want to sell a lot of 8-core dies to servers, or both.

 

[Kaotik]

The price of entry for an 8 core model went up quite a bit here.

There will be more models down the line, no doubt. AMD raised price of each model by $50 compared to current gen launch prices.

 

[hoom]

The price of entry for an 8 core model went up quite a bit here.

Yes, as an AMD fan its an exciting day.
But as a guy with quite limited budget, kinda disappointing, especially since they've also reduced their BoM a chunk via not supplying coolers.

 

[shiznit]

I don't think they have so much removed the 700x series but are delaying it's launch to push all the early adopters to the higher price points.

Other than that, the pricing really stays to me that AMD wants to sell 6-core dies to consumers. Either yields are bad, or they want to sell a lot of 8-core dies to servers, or both.

I had the same thought and my guess is that hyperscaler contracts are taking the 8-core dies. Also, yields may good realative to previous generations but it may not matter when the wafers available to you are limited.

 

[Gubbi]

I bet AMD is stockpiling high performing 8 core chiplets for upcoming, higher margin, TR and Epyc processors. That's why we have competitive pricing on the SKUs with 6 active cores per chiplet, and less so for the SKUs requiring 8 core chiplets.

I expect them to launch non-X SKUs in the beginning of the new year.

Cheers

 

[Erinyes]

449$ is going to translate to 499€ probably which is incredibly expensive, I bought the 6600k for 250€ back in the day. Even with the performance improvements, removing the 700x series to bump the price is a bad move for AMD. Leaves the door open to Intel to unveil RL in a couple of months a beat AMD in performance and price/performance. Considering that Zen3 IPC is basically at the same level with TL.

edit: and both Zen3 and RL are the last CPUs supported by the latest Intel/AMD sockets. With these prices seems like an awful time to upgrade tbh.

edit: a 100$ difference between 8 to 12 core, but 150$ from 6 to 8. Lol

6600k wasn't the top end back in the day though so that's not a fair comparison. You should compare it to 6700k at the very least. Not to mention if you take inflation into account, 250€ back then is >300€ today.

RL is apparently not a full fledged TL core and when TL itself is around 5-6% behind Zen 3 in IPC, I do not expect RL to beat Zen 3. And it will come with a significantly higher power cost (and motherboard cost)

Yea that pricing I already mentioned is a bit high for the 8 core and makes the 12 core seem like a good deal. I would have expected the 8 core to remain $399 and for them to have a non-X version/5700x at $50 less.

I don't think they have so much removed the 700x series but are delaying it's launch to push all the early adopters to the higher price points.

Other than that, the pricing really stays to me that AMD wants to sell 6-core dies to consumers. Either yields are bad, or they want to sell a lot of 8-core dies to servers, or both.

True, this is just the early adopter tax and AMD is making full use of it given the current situation. One has to remember that with CPUs, Navi 2x and consoles all ramping production at the same time, they are all competing for wafers on 7nm at the moment and AMD would probably be focusing more on selling the higher margin desktop and server parts.

I expect the supply situation to ease by Q1'20 with the 7nm capacity vacated by Apple and Huawei and we might see more Zen 3 SKUs launched at CES.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

There will be more models down the line, no doubt. AMD raised price of each model by $50 compared to current gen launch prices.

Yes, there should be a Ryzen 7 5700X down the line. Unfortunately, almost all the non-X models seem to have gone to the OEMs with Matisse, and I don't think this will change with Vermeer.


To be honest, now I'm hoping for the Ryzen 5000 CPUs to cause significant cuts on the Threadripper TRX40 platform.

 

[Kaotik]

Yes, there should be a Ryzen 7 5700X down the line. Unfortunately, almost all the non-X models seem to have gone to the OEMs with Matisse, and I don't think this will change with Vermeer.

Except for the Ryzen 5 3600, which has been one of the best if not the best bang for buck