When Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced nearly two years ago that the Zen CPU architecture would provide an architectural improvement of 40%, it had both skepticism as well as optimism. For the last few years, AMD had some small wins and even some big wins like sweeping the Xbox and the PlayStation game consoles but it appeared it would be a long time before AMD could pull a rabbit out of their hat in PC processors. But based on the analysis of AMD Ryzen, it can be said that Ryzen desktop is the real thing and AMD is back in desktops with a vengeance.
While it may seem like a distant memory, AMD once had a commanding performance lead in the desktop PC processor market. For years with the Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 X2,
AMD pretty much ran up the performance score on the competition and until Intel introduced the Core architecture which put a stop to that, AMD sold as many as they could make.
With AMD announcing the launch of their top of the line 8 core, 16 threads processor line, the Ryzen 7 enters AMD’s latest line up of desktop processors. Featuring three CPUs at various price points, all supporting DDR4 memory in a dual channel setup, the Ryzen 7 processors are set to take the gaming and computer market by storm.
Zen and the product derivatives like Ryzen and what is code-named “Naples” for server, is derived from a completely new architecture. In other words, it’s not a small improvement on prior architectures like “Jaguar” or “Excavator”. Starting from scratch is a high-risk, high-return endeavor as we saw in AMD’s “Hammer” architecture on the upside in 2000 and “Bulldozer” in 2010 on the downside. Architecture cuts both ways. This is just one reason Intel has remained with the “Core” architecture for a decade, making incremental improvements to it. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. AMD wasn’t getting what they needed from Excavator, so they had to create Ryzen.
A good desktop chip is comparised of relationship between relevant performance in a preferred workload, power draw, price, cost and availability. Performance can be driven with architecture and frequency. CPU architecture improvements are many times measured by the term “instructions per clock”, or IPC. This is essentially how much work the CPU can do every tick of the processor clock.
Starting with the cream of the Ryzen crop, with a base clock of 3.6 Ghz and a boost of 4 Ghz, the Ryzen 1800X managed to match Intel’s 6900K in single core performance in Cinebench and beat it by 9 per cent in the multi-core rendering test. A 9 % better performance may not be anything to write about, but it so is when it is considered that the 1800X will retail for less than half the price of the 6900K. Identical results were seen when the 1700X was compared to the i7 6800K, again the former being cheaper. The only result where the Intel chip came out in front was in the single core performance of the 1700, the lowest member of the elite R7 line up vs the i7 7700K. This is due to the fact that the i7 comes with a much higher base and boost clock compared to the 1700, which features base/boost clocks of 3/3.7 Ghz. However, this shouldn’t matter given the price of the 1700, the fact that it too features eight cores and 16 threads and comes with AMD’s Extreme Frequency Range tech, which means that this chip can be easily overclocked.
AMD has hit a performance home run architecturally with the Zen core as evidenced by desktop Ryzen. AMD said nearly two years ago they would increase IPC 40% but they are delivering more like a 50-52% improvement. With IPC usually being measured by SPECint and with AMD measuring it with Cinebench, it may give them one or two-point advanatge. In case you’re wondering, such a leap between sequential architectures is unheard of as most generations can only manage between 5-10%. So, a 50%, improvement is incredible and really boggles the mind and with AMD actually shipping, it’s an even bigger deal.
It is amazing to see the phoenix rise from the ashes, and shaking up the market with a product that looks set to dominate the market. The pricing set by AMD is not just competitive, it is disruptive and Intel needs to pull out a miracle from somewhere if they wish to stay relevant in the CPU market going forward.
