AMD's new Ryzen CPU's

[phelme]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11143/...sale-march-2nd

Might be time to upgrade my server's hardware...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by phelme

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11143/...sale-march-2nd

Might be time to upgrade my server's hardware...

These are a new socket, correct? Sounds like an expensive upgrade when there are SO many AM3+ boards out there.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

These are a new socket, correct? Sounds like an expensive upgrade when there are SO many AM3+ boards out there.

yeah, it's new, Socket AM4. way more pins.

I'll wait a while of course for some bundled deal at NewEgg or Frys.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by phelme

yeah, it's new, Socket AM4. way more pins.

I'll wait a while of course for some bundled deal at NewEgg or Frys.

Since I have a quite old AM3 processor stuck in a great board, I think my next upgrade path is to move to a late model AM3 based processor - With the new CPU's right around the corner, I might be able to get a much better deal, over double my performance, and possibly lower my power draw at the same time. An AMD FX-8350 would give me double the cores, with higher performance per core, and drawing the same power as my aging space heater Phenom II X4 965. Can't justify a new board to go to the AM4 chips when I can get that much improvement for so much less outlay of cash. (was thinking about going used - but for some reason, every eBay listing for an 8350 is more than the new retail price at newegg).

[phelme]

I've got an A10-6800k stuck in some Abit board on mine. you're right in that something like a FX-8350 would be much more cost effective.

Some Ryzen stuff is already showing up on NewEgg.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by phelme

I've got an A10-6800k stuck in some Abit board on mine. you're right in that something like a FX-8350 would be much more cost effective.

Some Ryzen stuff is already showing up on NewEgg.

Yeah.. saw that, and ran away screaming at the price... hehe. Amazon's got the 8350 cheap and on prime, so i'll have one showing up this week most likely.

I have been pretty happy with the Phenom II for so long (it's a 2009 chip), but I was going to switch openDCT to transcoding, and it simply can't hack it on the current cpu very reliably.

You've gotta respect how long AMD was able to keep the AM3 platform viable.

[blade]

My sage server is an ancient socket 939 Opteron and I've been considering upgrading for some time. I might actually do it now.

[stuckless]

My unRAID server is AMD FX™-8350 Eight-Core @ 4000, and it runs great. It's actually an older machine that I bought a few years back, but he 8350 is still able to keep up with all the docker containers, vms, sagetv, plex, etc. I think the biggest difference that I find between this and my core i7 desktop is the power consumption... AMD appears to draw more power than intel... not sure what the newer cpus will do.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

My unRAID server is AMD FX™-8350 Eight-Core @ 4000, and it runs great. It's actually an older machine that I bought a few years back, but he 8350 is still able to keep up with all the docker containers, vms, sagetv, plex, etc. I think the biggest difference that I find between this and my core i7 desktop is the power consumption... AMD appears to draw more power than intel... not sure what the newer cpus will do.

Yeah, power consumption DOES matter, and is the main reason I am going to an 8350, instead of the considerably faster (though these days, not much more expensive) 9590, though it's more an issue of thermal management in a case already loaded full of spinning drives than it is power from the outlet. But the power draw difference between an 8350, and a comparable i7 isn't enough to justify replacing the motherboard AND buying a chip that is twice as expensive. I did give passing thought to putting my i7 board that's in my desktop in the 24hr server, and using the AM3+ board for my less often used desktop, but that just sounded like too much work...

To put real numbers to it, even IF both CPU's ran at their full TDP rating 24/7, the FX-8350 ($140) at 125W, and i7-3770 ($350+motherboard) at 77W, that 48W difference would equate to about $100 of electricity per year, and there's no way either would be taxed like that, so the relative savings is going to be FAR less than that, meaning it would take 5-6 years to break even on the intel platform over the amd one.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

To put real numbers to it, even IF both CPU's ran at their full TDP rating 24/7, the FX-8350 ($140) at 125W, and i7-3770 ($350+motherboard) at 77W, that 48W difference would equate to about $100 of electricity per year, and there's no way either would be taxed like that, so the relative savings is going to be FAR less than that, meaning it would take 5-6 years to break even on the intel platform over the amd one.

You are likely already aware of this, but you're not factoring in overall efficiency. This comparison implies that they both would get the same amount of work done running at full speed. It's likely the i7 would actually get more work done in less time which actually makes its power draw even less because it would be back to idle while the FX-8350 would still be working at full speed on the same task. It took me a while to come around to it, but I only use Intel processors in my servers right now because they idle lower and they get more done when they do spin all the way up which gets me back to idle faster. I am still a fan of AMD, but I really want to see them put something out there that makes me re-consider my decision. So far I have not been all that impressed. Conversely, my workstations all use AMD processors because they are turned off most of the time and AMD is still much cheaper than Intel.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

You are likely already aware of this, but you're not factoring in overall efficiency. This comparison implies that they both would get the same amount of work done running at full speed. It's likely the i7 would actually get more work done in less time which actually makes its power draw even less because it would be back to idle while the FX-8350 would still be working at full speed on the same task. It took me a while to come around to it, but I only use Intel processors in my servers right now because they idle lower and they get more done when they do spin all the way up which gets me back to idle faster. I am still a fan of AMD, but I really want to see them put something out there that makes me re-consider my decision. So far I have not been all that impressed. Conversely, my workstations all use AMD processors because they are turned off most of the time and AMD is still much cheaper than Intel.

That's why i was comparing the upper tier of the AM3+ chips, the FX-8350, to a middle of the road i7 (the 3770). These have pretty comparable benchmarks, so at full power, they'd both be getting about the same work done no the same time.

And I do still have the option of swapping boards between my server (the incoming FX-8350) and workstation (an i7-6700) if I decide to go that way. Would hurt my gaming performance a bit, but I don't seem to have time for gaming these days anyway.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

That's why i was comparing the upper tier of the AM3+ chips, the FX-8350, to a middle of the road i7 (the 3770). These have pretty comparable benchmarks, so at full power, they'd both be getting about the same work done no the same time.

And I do still have the option of swapping boards between my server (the incoming FX-8350) and workstation (an i7-6700) if I decide to go that way. Would hurt my gaming performance a bit, but I don't seem to have time for gaming these days anyway.

You are correct in that they are similar performance-wise in general, but it also depends on what you're doing. In my case, it probably also helps that I got a steal on my i7-4790K processors two years ago. Which idle extremely well, but if you run them full steam, I found out they can outpace their stock cooler. You can find complaints about this all over the internet. Apparently it has something to do with motherboard manufacturers not implementing thermal limits correctly. Either way, my steal turned into a bargain after I had to buy a good aftermarket cooler so that when it touches 4.4GHz I don't overheat the thing (alternatively I could have just turned off the related features, but then I felt like I wasn't getting what I paid for). I don't regret it at all since it will likely be my last purchase like that for at least 4 years.

[panteragstk]

If these chips perform the way the leaks show them to I may be in the market for a new gaming setup. Maybe.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

You are correct in that they are similar performance-wise in general, but it also depends on what you're doing. In my case, it probably also helps that I got a steal on my i7-4790K processors two years ago. Which idle extremely well, but if you run them full steam, I found out they can outpace their stock cooler. You can find complaints about this all over the internet. Apparently it has something to do with motherboard manufacturers not implementing thermal limits correctly. Either way, my steal turned into a bargain after I had to buy a good aftermarket cooler so that when it touches 4.4GHz I don't overheat the thing (alternatively I could have just turned off the related features, but then I felt like I wasn't getting what I paid for). I don't regret it at all since it will likely be my last purchase like that for at least 4 years.

Yeah, AMD has always seemed to do well with the thermal designs of the AM2/3 generation processors. They overrate the packaging quite a bit - you'll notice that the rated TDP of the i-series intel pieces have very granular steps (77W, 84W, 88W, etc) based on the actual power draw, while the FX series gets rounded up to the rating of the actual packaging, 95W, 125W, 140W, or 220W for the top FX series chips. I have not ever had any problem using the stock OEM coolers on any AM or FM series processor, at stock clock speeds.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

To put real numbers to it, even IF both CPU's ran at their full TDP rating 24/7, the FX-8350 ($140) at 125W, and i7-3770 ($350+motherboard) at 77W, that 48W difference would equate to about $100 of electricity per year, and there's no way either would be taxed like that, so the relative savings is going to be FAR less than that, meaning it would take 5-6 years to break even on the intel platform over the amd one.

That's a good point.

[MattHelm]

I'm waiting for the new APUs!

[SWKerr]

I am going to wait for the Ryzen 1500 6-Core 12 Thread models. The leaks say they will be priced at $229 and be rated at 64W. Not sure the 2 extra cores and minor ghz boost would be worth the extra $100+.

Going to wait for some reviews as well but the leaks make it look promising. My son wants a new gaming rig but since he will be keeping the Nvidia 1060 card I doubt anything more would make a big difference. The current two year old i3 cpu is a bottle neck now. Modern games take much better use of multiple cores than older ones so I think a small single tread advantage by Intel will be offset by the AMD multi core options. Dollar for Dollar I think Intel is in trouble without a serious pricing change.

I have a 4 year old i5 on my media server but I can't justify an upgrade at this point. Something faster would be nice with all the mp4 converting I am doing but everything seems fine by the time am ready to watch it. Plex trans-coding would be the only real reason to upgrade but most files seem to play without it on my Android clients and PCs.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

I am going to wait for the Ryzen 1500 6-Core 12 Thread models. The leaks say they will be priced at $229 and be rated at 64W. Not sure the 2 extra cores and minor ghz boost would be worth the extra $100+.

Going to wait for some reviews as well but the leaks make it look promising. My son wants a new gaming rig but since he will be keeping the Nvidia 1060 card I doubt anything more would make a big difference. The current two year old i3 cpu is a bottle neck now. Modern games take much better use of multiple cores than older ones so I think a small single tread advantage by Intel will be offset by the AMD multi core options. Dollar for Dollar I think Intel is in trouble without a serious pricing change.

I have a 4 year old i5 on my media server but I can't justify an upgrade at this point. Something faster would be nice with all the mp4 converting I am doing but everything seems fine by the time am ready to watch it. Plex trans-coding would be the only real reason to upgrade but most files seem to play without it on my Android clients and PCs.

AMD has beat Intel in performance/dollar for decades, and it hasn't really changed yet. Intel is just considered the 'premium' brand of the two, so the market lets them charge more. I don't worry about Intel's market share at all.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, power consumption DOES matter, and is the main reason I am going to an 8350, instead of the considerably faster (though these days, not much more expensive) 9590, though it's more an issue of thermal management in a case already loaded full of spinning drives than it is power from the outlet. But the power draw difference between an 8350, and a comparable i7 isn't enough to justify replacing the motherboard AND buying a chip that is twice as expensive. I did give passing thought to putting my i7 board that's in my desktop in the 24hr server, and using the AM3+ board for my less often used desktop, but that just sounded like too much work...

To put real numbers to it, even IF both CPU's ran at their full TDP rating 24/7, the FX-8350 ($140) at 125W, and i7-3770 ($350+motherboard) at 77W, that 48W difference would equate to about $100 of electricity per year, and there's no way either would be taxed like that, so the relative savings is going to be FAR less than that, meaning it would take 5-6 years to break even on the intel platform over the amd one.

Originally Posted by stuckless

That's a good point.

+1. I've usually ended up with AMD on my builds until the last couple of rounds. On the server side I liked the software RAID Intel offered, (although don't use it anymore), and don't care about fan noise. On the desktop side I liked the Intel TDP ratings to keep things quiet (perhaps unsubstantiated). Switching to nVidia for graphics was just because of the SHIELD and game streaming, (more fans, but that's not unique to nVidia). That said my upgrade cycle for computers is in the 5-6 year range, so maybe it all works out in the end anyway .

[Taddeusz]

Ryzen looks interesting. Mostly because AMD has been trailing Intel in raw performance for so long. They definitely trounce Intel in performance/cost.

It's funny that most of my systems here at home are Core 2 Quad. My only i5 is a Sandy Bridge laptop that I got off Woot about a year ago. Even my unRAID server is running LGA 771 Xeons.

Last week I was actually trying to run Docker on Windows and discovered that I couldn't because it requires Hyper-V. Core 2 CPU's can't run Hyper-V on Windows 8 and up because they don't have second-level address translation. I've had an Ivy Bridge motherboard waiting for a time when I could afford to buy a CPU for it. Because of the Docker issue I decided to go ahead and budget a CPU and RAM. I've got an i5 3470 on the way right now that should be twice as fast as the Q8400 it's replacing. Just need to also get some DDR3.