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This forum needs a "computer nerds" subforum 
Well, the AMD's "Ryzen" like of CPU's has finally started to launch. Long-anticipated shakeup of the badly-stagnated CPU market. Intel has had such a strong lead for so long, we've been getting these minor, incremental iterations with each passing year but nothing really exciting. And at the high-end range, some pretty hilarious price gouging on the "enthusiast" chipsets. But this is why they could do it:
It's been almost a decade since this was a real competition.
The Hype Train has been full-steam these last few weeks, with leaked benchmarks and pricing showing that AMD had a CPU going head-to-head with Intel's $1000, 8-core 6900k for half the price. Which it does! Kindof. The processor definitely performs very well for a very good price, compared to Intel's 6900k, 6800k, 5820k, etc. A solid multithreading chip. In a more multithreaded environment, i.e. video encoding, streaming, etc, AMD has something you should definitely be looking at.
But the big disappointment is the lackluster single-threaded performance. It's not bad, by any means, but the $500 R7 1800X is going to do noticeably worse than Intel's ~$300 i7-7700k... and that's before the overclocking difference rears its ugly head. Most sources show these R7 chips to have pretty narrow overclock margins, struggling to pass the 4.1/4.2ghz range. While good for an 8-core chip, the Kaby Lake chips from Intel are getting up to the 5ghz range fairly easily.
AMD really tried to hide this weakness. The early gaming benchmarks, you may notice, kept running at 4K and 1440p. They also loved to use Ashes of the Singularity and Civilization VI. The higher resolution push the bottleneck towards the GPU, masking part of the gap. Ashes and Civ are both examples of better multithreaded games. Marketing is what it is, they're putting their best foot forward and I'm not saying they were being deceptive. Their argument, quite reasonably, is that people buying a $500 processor aren't going to game at 1080p.
I'm glad to see meaningful competition back in the processor market. I would really love to upgrade to a 6- or 8-core processor that could deliver equivalent gaming power to my 6600k but also leave extra cores for encoding/streaming/recording. I'm not sure this first-gen Ryzen launch will do it for me. The Lower-priced chips don't quite get there, the 1800X might do what I want it to do, but I'm not sure the $500 price tag (plus new motherboard) is worth it for me. Particularly given all the problems that are definitely going to happen on a new CPU launch.
I think AMD rushed things out, and probably should have included a 4-or 6-core model in the first launch. They've done a good job providing a strong competitor to the 6-core 6800k and the 8-core 6900k. with the 1700X and 1800X respectively. However, these are still $400 and $500 chips. The 1700 (not-X) is ostensibly matching up against the similarly-priced i7-7700k... but that's comparing an 8-core, 3.0ghz chip to a 4-core, 4.2ghz chip. It's like comparing a luxury minivan to a Porsche. The choice depends on the objective, and will be an obvious choice either way.
Don't paste this to /r/AMD. I might get tarred and feathered.
Well, the AMD's "Ryzen" like of CPU's has finally started to launch. Long-anticipated shakeup of the badly-stagnated CPU market. Intel has had such a strong lead for so long, we've been getting these minor, incremental iterations with each passing year but nothing really exciting. And at the high-end range, some pretty hilarious price gouging on the "enthusiast" chipsets. But this is why they could do it:
It's been almost a decade since this was a real competition.
The Hype Train has been full-steam these last few weeks, with leaked benchmarks and pricing showing that AMD had a CPU going head-to-head with Intel's $1000, 8-core 6900k for half the price. Which it does! Kindof. The processor definitely performs very well for a very good price, compared to Intel's 6900k, 6800k, 5820k, etc. A solid multithreading chip. In a more multithreaded environment, i.e. video encoding, streaming, etc, AMD has something you should definitely be looking at.
But the big disappointment is the lackluster single-threaded performance. It's not bad, by any means, but the $500 R7 1800X is going to do noticeably worse than Intel's ~$300 i7-7700k... and that's before the overclocking difference rears its ugly head. Most sources show these R7 chips to have pretty narrow overclock margins, struggling to pass the 4.1/4.2ghz range. While good for an 8-core chip, the Kaby Lake chips from Intel are getting up to the 5ghz range fairly easily.
AMD really tried to hide this weakness. The early gaming benchmarks, you may notice, kept running at 4K and 1440p. They also loved to use Ashes of the Singularity and Civilization VI. The higher resolution push the bottleneck towards the GPU, masking part of the gap. Ashes and Civ are both examples of better multithreaded games. Marketing is what it is, they're putting their best foot forward and I'm not saying they were being deceptive. Their argument, quite reasonably, is that people buying a $500 processor aren't going to game at 1080p.
I'm glad to see meaningful competition back in the processor market. I would really love to upgrade to a 6- or 8-core processor that could deliver equivalent gaming power to my 6600k but also leave extra cores for encoding/streaming/recording. I'm not sure this first-gen Ryzen launch will do it for me. The Lower-priced chips don't quite get there, the 1800X might do what I want it to do, but I'm not sure the $500 price tag (plus new motherboard) is worth it for me. Particularly given all the problems that are definitely going to happen on a new CPU launch.
I think AMD rushed things out, and probably should have included a 4-or 6-core model in the first launch. They've done a good job providing a strong competitor to the 6-core 6800k and the 8-core 6900k. with the 1700X and 1800X respectively. However, these are still $400 and $500 chips. The 1700 (not-X) is ostensibly matching up against the similarly-priced i7-7700k... but that's comparing an 8-core, 3.0ghz chip to a 4-core, 4.2ghz chip. It's like comparing a luxury minivan to a Porsche. The choice depends on the objective, and will be an obvious choice either way.
Don't paste this to /r/AMD. I might get tarred and feathered.
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