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AMD Unveils Ryzen 9000 CPUs for Desktop, Zen 5

334 points by rx_tx 2y ago

tripdout 2y ago
7900X equivalent 9900X has 120W TDP as opposed to 170W. Is it that much more power efficient?
- Voultapher 2y ago
  That 170W TDP was chasing the benchmark crown. The 7950X lost <5% MT perf when run at 120W.
  - canucker2016 2y ago
    The all-core max clock speed costs a lot of watts for that last 10% - close to 50% of total CPU consumption in some cases. That's why undervolting has become a thing to do (unless you're an Intel CPU marketer) - give up a few percent of your all-core max clock rate and cut your wattage used by a lot.
  - GordonS 2y ago
    I wonder then if the 9900X could be undervolted without losing more than a few percentage points of speed?
gautamcgoel 2y ago
Surprisingly not that much to be excited about IMO. AMD isn't using TSMC's latest node and the CPUs only officially support DDR5 speeds up to 5600MHz (yes, I know that you can use faster RAM). The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  It's because x86 chips are no longer leading in the client. ARM chips are. Specifically, Apple chips. Though Qualcomm has huge potential leapfrog AMD/Intel chips in a few generations too.
  - krasin 2y ago
    Until ARM has a proper UEFI support, it's not a practical desktop/server with a few notable exceptions (Mac, Raspberry Pi) and only because there's so much support from the respective vendors. I know that there's some work happening about UEFI+ARM (https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/Unified%20Extensible%20Firmware%20Interface https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/Unified%20Extensible...), but its support is very rare. The only example I can recall is Ampere Altra: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/ampere-altra-max-windows-gpus-and-gaming https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/ampere-altra-max-wind...
    - bitwize 2y ago
      It's like I keep saying: the first Chinese manufacturer to churn out cheap SBCs with ServerReady support will make a killing as a true Pi killer. Anyone? Anyone? Pine64? Pine64?
      - esskay 2y ago
        We dont really need a Pi killer anymore. They've done a fine job of killing it themselves. Their community has shrunk massively due to low cost mini pc's being leaps and bounds better value than a Pi now. Their two fingers being put up at the hacker/tinkerer hobbyist market over the last few years combined with the IPO and shift to B2B has made it very clear where their priorities lie. Unless you need the GPIO theres zero reason to overpay for a Pi 5 for example when you can pick up decent second hand mini pc's on ebay for a lower price. Case in point, a couple of months ago I was able to nab two brand new still in box Dell Optiplex 3050's (Core i7 6700T 4 Cores, 2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM Win 10 hardware license, 256gb ssd, with mouse & keyboard) for £55 each delivered. The base 4gb model Pi 5 comes in at £80-£100 once you add power, storage and a case. Sure, its not ARM but you're not likely to be doing anything that _needs_ ARM.
        ZiiS 2y ago
        Try matching the size, power draw, and price of the Zero.
- re-thc 2y ago
  > The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2 Faster GPU is reserved for APUs. These graphics are just here for basic support.
- arvinsim 2y ago
  TBH, CPUs nowadays are mostly good enough for the consumer, even at mid or low tiers. It's the GPUs that are just getting increasing inaccessible, price wise.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Yes - with more and more users moving to laptops and wanting a longer battery life, raw peak performance hasn't moved much in a decade. A decade ago, Steam's hardware survey said 8GB was the most popular amount of RAM [1] and today, the latest $1600 Macbook Pro comes with.... 8GB of RAM. In some ways that's been a good thing - it used to be that software got more and more featureful/bloated and you needed a new computer every 3-5 years just to keep up. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140228170316/http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://web.archive.org/web/20140228170316/http://store.stea...
    - CivBase 2y ago
      To be fair, a decade ago gaming PCs came with 2GB to 4GB of vRAM. Today's gaming PCs come with 12GB to 20GB of vRAM. Most games don't demand a lot of system memory, so it makes sense that PC gamers would invest in other components. You're also comparing Windows x86 gaming desktops from a decade ago with macOS AppleSilicon base-spec laptops today. Steam's recent hardware survey shows 16GB as the most popular amount of RAM [1]. Not the 5x increase we've seen in vRAM, but still substantial. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
      - ChoGGi 2y ago
        > Today's gaming PCs come with 12GB to 20GB of vRAM. 8-20 GB of VRAM
      - faeriechangling 2y ago
        Tons of gamers are on 8gb because of mobile GPUs and becuase the only affordable 12gb GPU Nvidia has ever released is the 3060 which is a desktop GPU. I don’t honestly expect 12gb+ to become mainstream until 6000 series.
- doikor 2y ago
  > The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2. The GPU on these parts is there mostly for being able to boot into BIOS or OS for debugging. Basically when things go wrong and you want to debug what is broken (remove GPU from machine and see if things work)
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    I have to disagree. They work great for video playback and office work. So media server, and workstations are fine without a dedicated gpu
  - matharmin 2y ago
    These are decent GPUs for anything other than heavy gaming. I'm driving two 4k screens with it, and even for some light gaming (such as factorio) it's completely fine.
    - 123yawaworht456 2y ago
      I'm under the impression that Factorio can run on any GPU capable of producing video output at all. years ago when I played it, it ran perfectly fine on whatever iGPU my 4790K had. 60 FPS/UPS with pretty big bases (although iirc I did disable all video effects like smoke to avoid cluttering the screen)
      - nolist_policy 2y ago
        The 'Ryzen 7000 iGPU" (Why is there no official codename?!) can even run GTA 5 at low/medium settings.
        glimshe 2y ago
        I know it's hard to believe, but GTA V is now over 10 years old...
        Loudergood 2y ago
- AlfeG 2y ago
  > DDR5 speeds up to 56000MHz (yes, I know that you can use faster RAM) Not sure that I actually CAN. 56 GHz is already a lot.
  - gautamcgoel 2y ago
    Fixed, thanks :)
    - orphea 2y ago
      5600 are MT/s (megatransfers/second), not MHz ;)
- diffeomorphism 2y ago
  Nah, you can get RDNA3.5 if you want to (not sure why you want that in a (home)server though) https://www.anandtech.com/show/21419/amd-announces-the-ryzen-ai-300-series-for-mobile-zen-5-with-rdna-35-and-xdna2-npu-with-50-tops https://www.anandtech.com/show/21419/amd-announces-the-ryzen...
- Arrath 2y ago
  Well perhaps I will stop holding out and just get the 7800x3d, if the 9000 generation won't be too terribly groundbreaking.
- btgeekboy 2y ago
  Yeah - I've been waiting to see what this release would entail as I kinda want to build a SFF PC. But now that I know what's in it, and since they didn't come out with anything really special chipset-wise, I'll probably just see if I can get some current-get stuff at discounted prices during the usual summer sales.
- MenhirMike 2y ago
  Given that there are only 2 CUs in the GPU (and fairly low clock speeds), does the architecture matter much? Benchmarks were kinda terrible, and it looks to me that the intent of the built-in GPU is for hardware video encoding or to run it in a home server system, or emergency BIOS and the like. Compared to the desktop CPUs, even the lowest end mobile 8440U has 4 CUs, going up to 12 CUs on the higher end. Or go with Strix Point, which does have an RDNA 3.5 GPU (with 12 or 16 CUs) in it. I guess you _can_ game on those 2 CU GPUs, but it really doesn't seem to be intended for that.
  - cschneid 2y ago
    Yeah, I'm glad they started including built in gpu so there's something there, but beyond booting to a desktop I wouldn't use this graphics for anything else. But if you're just running a screen and compiling rust, that's all you need. Or in my case, running a home server / NAS.
    - philsnow 2y ago
      When building a non-APU ryzen machine for homelab use, I ended up buying the very cheapest graphics card I could find that was compatible, a "GeForce GT 710" that was not a beefy card when it was released in 2014. It's.. fine. After getting the system working I passed it through to a win10 VM and I can play non-FPS windows-only steam games over RDP. So yeah next time I build a machine I'll appreciate having this built in.
      - MenhirMike 2y ago
        Yeah, I have several GT 710's which also came in a PCIe x1 variant so I could keep the x16 slot free for something better. Glad that's no longer needed - the built-in GPU is a legit good thing.
  - spixy 2y ago
    Better efficiency with three external 4K 120Hz monitors?
- mrweasel 2y ago
  > AMD isn't using TSMC's latest node Staying on an older node might ensure AMD the production capacity they need/want/expect. If they had aimed for the latest 3nm then they'd have get in line behind Apple and Nvidia. That would be my guess, why aim for 3nm, if you can't get fab time and you're still gaining a 15% speed increase.
aurareturn 2y ago
15% IPC boost is mildly disappointing. It will be significantly slower in ST than M4, and even more so against the M4 Pro/Max.
- muxator 2y ago
  How come is a 15% IPC increase generation for generation a disappointing result? There might be greener pastures, I agree, but a 15% increase year over year for the quality factor of a product is nothing to be disappointed of. It's good execution, even more so in a mature and competitive sector such as microelectronics.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    It's not year over year. It's 2 years. It's disappointing because M4 is significantly ahead. I would expect Zen to make a bigger leap to catch up. Also, this small leap opens up for Intel's Arrow Lake to take the lead.
    - Hikikomori 2y ago
      Process node advantage is real.
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        Of course it's real. But not only is M4 significantly faster in ST, it'll probably 3-4x more efficient than Zen5 mobile just like how M3 is against Zen4 mobile. This difference in efficiency cannot be explained by node advantage alone as N3E vs N4 is probably around only 15-20% more efficient.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      Actually from Zen 4 to Zen 5 there is a little more than one year and a half (supposing that they will indeed go on sale in July), almost matching the AMD announcement done around the launch of Zen 4 that they will shorten the time between generations from 2 years to 1 1/2 years.
deleted 2y ago
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papichulo2023 2y ago
Meh, I guess still 128 bits memory channel width. Guess they are not even trying anymore.
- lmz 2y ago
  Is this even possible to change without moving to a new socket?
  - KingOfCoders 2y ago
    No.
- icf80 2y ago
  2 x 2 x 32bit anything else will require newer SOCKET, MB AND RAM
ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
Do all CPUs and GPUs these days involve components made by TSMC? If so, is this unique - that a whole industry of relies on one company?
- icf80 2y ago
  wait till china invades
  - preisschild 2y ago
    As long as Biden wins the election, they won't. Because the US will defend Taiwan.
    - BeefWellington 2y ago
      The real problem is, any disruption of Taiwan and China's ability to produce and sell semiconductors right now is going to have wide ranging impacts on the economy. If you thought prices were high during pandemic shortages, strap in. It's probably not a coincidence that as soon as the US starts spending billions to onshore semiconductor production, China begins a fresh round of more concrete saber-rattling. (Yes, there's likely other factors too.)
    - kfrzcode 2y ago
      Your crystal ball is intriguing, do you have a whitepaper I can check out to understand the underlying mechanics?
  - brokencode 2y ago
    Good thing TSMC is getting billions of dollars of government subsidies to build fabs all around the world including in the US and Japan.
- unwind 2y ago
  As far as I know, Intel is still very much a fab company.
- 2y ago
dhx 2y ago
How are the 24x PCIe 5.0 lanes (~90GB/s) of the 9950X allocated? The article makes it appear as: * 16x PCIe 5.0 lanes for "graphics use" connected directly to the 9950X (~63GB/s). * 1x PCIe 5.0 lane for an M.2 port connected directly to the 9950X (~4GB/s). Motherboard manufacturers seemingly could repurpose "graphics use" PCIe 5.0 lanes for additional M.2 ports. * 7x PCIe 5.0 lanes connected to the X870E chipset (~28GB/s). Used as follows: * 4x USB 4.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~8GB/s). * 4x PCIe 4.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~8GB/s). * 4x PCIe 3.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~4GB/s). * 8x SATA 3.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (some >~2.4GB/s part of ~8GB/s shared with WiFi 7). * WiFi 7 connected to the X870E chipset (some >~1GB/s part of ~8GB/s shared with 8x SATA 3.0 ports).
- lmz 2y ago
  It's usually x16/x4/x4 for GPU/M.2/Chipset. You can check the diagrams from the current x670 boards for info.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    AMD's previous socket was usually x16/x4/x4 for GPU/M.2/chipset. For AM5, they added another four lanes, so it's usually x16/x4+x4/x4 for GPU/(2x)M.2/chipset, unless the board is doing something odd with providing lanes for Thunderbolt ports or something like that.
    - lmz 2y ago
      Oh you're right. I didn't read the diagram correctly and the specs say 28 total lanes, 24 usable - probably because 4 go to the chipset.
  - paulmd 2y ago
    Siena would make a very practical HEDT socket - it's basically half of a bergamo, 6ch DDR5/96x pcie 5.0. It's sort of an unfortunate artifact of the way server platforms have gone that HEDT has fizzled out, they're mostly just too big and it isn't that practical to fit into commodity form-factors anymore, etc. a bigass socket sp3 and 8ch was already quite big, now it's 12ch for SP5 and you have a slightly smaller one at SP6. But still, doing 1DPC in a commodity form factor is difficult, you really need an EEB sort of thing for things like GENOAD8X etc let alone 2 dimms per channel etc, which if you do like a 24-stick board and a socket you don't fit much else. https://www.anandtech.com/show/20057/amd-releases-epyc-8004-siena-cpus-zen4c-for-edge https://www.anandtech.com/show/20057/amd-releases-epyc-8004-... 2011/2011-3/2066 were actually a reasonable size. Like LGA3678 or whatever as a hobbyist thing doesn't seem practical (the W-3175X stuff) and that was also 6ch, and Epyc/TR are pretty big too etc. There used to exist this size-class of socket that really no longer gets used, there aren't tons of commercial 3-4-6 channel products made anymore, and enthusiast form-factors are stuck in 1980 and don't permit the larger sockets to work that well. The C266 being able to tap off IOs as SAS3/12gbps or pcie 4.0 slimsas is actually brilliant imo, you can run SAS drives in your homelab without a controller card etc. The Asrock Rack ones look sick, EC266D4U2-2L2Q/E810 lets you basically pull all of the chipset IO off as 4x pcie 4.0x4 slimsas if you want. And actually you can technically use MCIO retimers to pull the pcie slots off, they had a weird topology where you got a physical slot off the m.2 lanes, to allow 4x bifurcated pcie 5.0x4 from the cpu. 8x nvme in a consumer board, half in a fast pcie 5.0 tier and half shared off the chipset. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EC266D4U2-2L2Q/E810#Specifications https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E... Wish they'd do something similar with AMD and mcio preferably, like they did with the GENOAD8X. But beyond the adapter "it speaks SAS" part is super useful for homelab stuff imo. AMD also really doesn't make that much use of the chipset, like, where are the x670E boards that use 2 chipsets and just sling it all off as oculink or w/e. Or mining-style board weird shit. Or forced-bifurcation lanes slung off the chipset into a x4x4x4x4 etc. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=GENOAD8X-2T/BCM#Specifications https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=G... All-flash is here, all-nvme is here, you just frustratingly can't address that much of it per system, without stepping up to server class products etc. And that's supposed to be the whole point of the E series chipset, very frustrating. I can't think of many boards that feel like they justify the second chipset, and the ones that "try" feel like they're just there to say they're there. Oh wow you put 14 usb 3.0 10gbps ports on it, ok. How about some thunderbolt instead etc (it's because that's actually expensive). Like tap those ports off in some way that's useful to people in 2024 and not just "16 sata" or "14 usb 3.0" or whatever. M.2 NVMe is "the consumer interface" and it's unfortunately just about the most inconvenient choice for bulk storage etc. Give me the AMD version of that board where it's just "oops all mcio" with x670e (we don't need usb4 on a server if it drives up cost). Or a miner-style board with infinite x4 slots linked to actual x4s. Or the supercarrier m.2 board with a ton of M.2 sticks standing vertically etc. Nobody does weird shit with what is, on paper, a shit ton of pcie lanes coming off the pair of chipsets. C'mon. Super glad USB4 is a requirement for X870/X870E, thunderbolt shit is expensive but it'll come down with volume/multisourcing/etc, and it truly is like living in the future. I have done thunderbolt networking and moved data ssd to ssd at 1.5 GB/s. Enclosures are super useful for tinkering too now that bifurcation support on PEG lanes has gotten shitty and gpus keep getting bigger etc. An enclosure is also great for janitoring M.2 cards with a simple $8 adapter off amazon etc (they all work, it's simple physical adapater).
adriancr 2y ago
Finally, was waiting for this for a new build and it seems decent upgrade.
buildbot 2y ago
AVX512 in a single cycle vs 2 cycles is big if the clock speed can be maintained at all near 5GHz. Also doubling of L1 cache bandwidth is interesting! Possibly, needed to actually feed an AVX512 rich instruction stream I guess.
- hajile 2y ago
  Does Zen5 do FP math in a single cycle?
  - dzaima 2y ago
    Almost certainly Zen 5 won't have single-cycle FP latency (I haven't heard of anything doing such even for scalar at modern clock rates (though maybe that does exist somewhere); AMD, Intel, and Apple all currently have 3- or 4-cycle latency). And Zen 4 already has a throughput of 2 FP ops/cycle for up to 256-bit arguments. The thing discussed is that Zen 4 does 512-bit SIMD ops via splitting them into two 256-bit ones, whereas Zen 5 supposedly will have hardware doing all 512 bits at a time.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      Even if Lisa Su said this at the Zen 4 launch, it is not likely that 512-bit operations are split into a pair of 256-bit operantions that are executed sequentially in the same 256-bit execution unit. Both Zen 3 and Zen 4 have four 256-bit execution units. Two 512-bit instructions can be initiated per clock cycle. It is likely that the four corresponding 256-bit micro-operations are executed simultaneously in all the 4 execution units, because otherwise there would be an increased likelihood that the dispatcher would not be able to find enough micro-operations ready for execution so that no execution unit remains idle, resulting in reduced performance. The main limitation of the Zen 4 execution units is that only 2 of them include FP multipliers, so the maximum 512-bit throughput is one fused multiply-add plus one FP addition per clock cycle, while the Intel CPUs have an extra 512-bit FMA unit, which stays idle and useless when AVX-512 instructions are not used, but which allows two 512-bit FMA per cycle. Without also doubling the transfer path between the L1 cache and the registers, a double FMA throughput would not have been beneficial for Zen 4, because many algorithms would have become limited by the memory transfer throughput. Zen 5 doubles the width of the transfer path to the L1 and L2 cache memories and it presumably now includes FP multipliers in all the 4 execution units, thus matching the performance of Intel for 512-bit FMA operations, while also doubling the throughput of the 256-bit FMA operations, where in Intel CPUs the second FMA unit stays unused, halving the throughput. No well-designed CPU has a FP addition or multiplication latency of 1. All modern CPUs are designed for the maximum clock frequency which ensures that the latency of operations similar in complexity with 64-bit integer additions between registers is 1. (CPUs with a higher clock frequency than this are called "superpipelined", but they have went out of fashion a few decades ago.) For such a clock frequency, the latency of floating-point execution units of acceptable complexity is between 3 and 5, while the latency of loads from the L1 cache memory is about the same. The next class of operations with a longer latency includes division, square root and loads from the L2 cache memory, which usually have latencies between 10 and 20. The longest latencies are for loads from the L3 cache memory or from the main memory.
Sparkyte 2y ago
Huge improvement over my 5k series processor.
nubinetwork 2y ago
I'd love to replace my 2950x, but most desktop motherboards still don't support 128gb of memory.
- SirGiggles 2y ago
  I can’t speak for all motherboards but I’m comfortably running 128GiB of DDR4 on a 5950x and x570s platform.
  - nubinetwork 2y ago
    Good to know, maybe I should look again... thanks
    - chainingsolid 2y ago
      I'm running the same as above. However do check both the memory and motherboard manufacture's tested with lists (QVL qualified vendor list) before purchasing! Each product should have its own compatablity listing.
- erinnh 2y ago
  I just had a look and the comparison website I use says there are 113 motherboards that support 128GB or more memory for AM5. (in my local market. so the US probably has even more) 128GB isn't exactly a lot, so that would surprise me if it wasnt supported.
  - nubinetwork 2y ago
    I think for a while there, the only way to be able to use 128gb was to go TR4 or TRX... I kindof stopped looking for a while, but 100+ boards is certainly a nice change.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    > I just had a look and the comparison website I use Which website is that?
mmaniac 2y ago
AMD seem to be playing it safe this with this desktop generation. Same node, similar frequencies, same core counts, same IOD, X3D chips only arriving later... IPC seems like the only noteworthy improvement here. 15% overall is good but nothing earth shattering. The mobile APUs are way more interesting.
- vegabook 2y ago
  Geekbench Ryzen 9 7950x is 2930 max, so if we're generous and give the 9950x 15% uplift we'll be at 3380, which is still 400 points or so behind apple silicon for a much higher clock speed and a multiplier larger power draw. Also the max memory bandwidth at 70GB/s or so is basically pathetic, trounced by ASi.
  - mmaniac 2y ago
    You're comparing apples and oranges. Ryzen has never had the lead with 1T performance, but emphasises nT and core counts instead. Memory bandwidth is largely meaningless for desktop CPUs but matters a lot for a SoC with a big GPU. Strix Halo appears to be AMD's competitor to Apple SoCs which will feature a much bigger iGP and much greater memory bandwidth. When we hear more about that, comparisons will be apt.
    - vegabook 2y ago
      AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later? They've been coasting on the stone-age motherboard+cards arch because essentially Nvidia gave you a big, fat, modern coprocessor in the form of an [g/r]tx card that hid the underlying problems. They could have done what AAPL did ages ago but they have no ability to innovate properly. They've been leaning on their x86 duopoly and if it's now on its last legs, it's their fault.
      - sofixa 2y ago
        > AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later What do you mean? AMD has been the market leader in performance SoCs for specialised use cases (like consoles) for many years.
jiggawatts 2y ago
I wonder when the PC world will transition to unified memory and more monolithic architectures as seen in the Apple M-series chips, but also in the NVIDIA GB200 "superchip", the AMD MI300 accelerator, the X-Box and Playstation consoles, and even in some mobile phone system-on-a-chip designs. It feels like the PC is the "last holdout" of discrete upgradeable components with relatively low bandwidth between them. Sooner or later, AI will need to run on the edge, and that'll require RAM bandwidths measured in multiple terabytes per second, as well as "tensor" compute integrated closely with CPUs. Sure, a lot of people see LLMs as "useless toys" or "overhyped" now, but people said that about the Internet too. What it took to make everything revolve around the Internet instead of it being just a fad is broadband. When everyone had fast always-on Internet at home and in their mobile devices, then nobody could argue that the Internet wasn't useful. Build it, and the products will come! If every gaming PC had the same spec as a GB200 or MI300, then games could do real-time voice interaction with "intelligent" NPCs with low latency. You could talk to characters, and they could talk back. Not just talk, but argue, haggle, and debate! "No, no, no, the dragon is too powerful! ... I don't care if your sword is a unique artefact, your arm is weak!" I feel like this is the same kind of step-change as floppy drives to hard drives, or dialup or fibre. It'll take time. People will argue that "you don't need it" or "it's for enterprise use, not for consumers", but I have faster Internet going to my apartment than my entire continent had 30 years ago.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  I can’t wait for my games to start hallucinating narration.
  - fourfour3 2y ago
    Exactly this. I want plot/character driven games like RPGs to be a curated & carefully designed, plotted, and paced experience. I want speech & narrative to be scripted! It means someone sat down and thought about the experience it produces for the player. It means a real voice actor has performed it, putting the right emotion and pacing into the line. I don't want AI generated stilted dialogue, uncanny valley speech, etc. And I also don't want an extra few hundred watts of power draw on gaming PCs - they're already high and in modern games the CPU is under pretty substantial load, the GPU is maxed out, and the GPU's AI/NPU style cores are being used for things like DLSS too. Bringing in more compute resource for running speech to text, LLMs, text to speech, etc fast enough to not feel horrible is going to come at substantial power and financial cost.
deleted 2y ago
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Tepix 2y ago
It's weird that CPUs tend to use more power every two years now instead of less. Looks like this time, the TDP didn't increase. Yay! i guess. Don't most people think their PCs are fast enough already? It's as if our planet wasn't being destroyed at a frightening speed. We're headed towards a cliff, but instead if braking, we're accelerating.
- mmaniac 2y ago
  The people who think PCs are already fast enough don't buy CPUs every year. A 7950X in Eco mode is ridiculously capable for the power it pulls but that's less of a selling point.
  - adham-omran 2y ago
    I have a 7950X which I run in Eco mode with air cooling and it's amazingly quiet when not under load and rips when it needs to, I don't see a reason to upgrade any time soon.
  - hajile 2y ago
    I think there's a market for a 7950E with a specific binning for lower power rather than highest possible clocks.
    - mmaniac 2y ago
      Compared to Intel, AMD seems to bin their chips a lot less. Intel have their -T chips which would be nifty if Intel weren't so far behind in terms in terms of efficiency.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  The TDP increases slower than the efficiency, so for the same workload, a newer CPU consumes similar or less power. Especially nowadays, most of these chips only get anywhere near the stated TDP when being near fully maxed out.
sylware 2y ago
Improving avx512 is really good, since this is the data unit sweet spot: a cache line is 512 bits. But I am more interested in the cleanup of the GPU hardware interface (it should be astonishingly simple to program the GPU with its various ring buffers, like as it is rumored to be the case on nvidia side) AND in the squishing of all hardware shader bugs: look at valve ACO compiler erratas in mesa, AMD hardware shader is a bug minefield. Hopefully, the GFX12 did fix ALL KNOWN SHADER HARDWARE BUGS (sorry, ACO is written with that horrible c++, I dunno what went thru the head of valve and no, rust syntax is a complex as c++, then this is toxic too).
alberth 2y ago
> TSMC N4 Question: Am I understanding this correctly that AMD will be using a node size from TSMC that’s 2-years old, but in a way it’s kind of older. Because N4 was like a “N5+” (and the current gen is “N3+”). EDIT: why the downvotes for a question?
- Night_Thastus 2y ago
  Yes, AMD is not using the leading-edge node. The older node is cheaper/has better yield and more importantly has much larger supply than N3, which Apple has likely completely devoured. I am personally very curious how it compares vs Intel's 15th gen, which is rumored to be on Intel 20 process.
irusensei 2y ago
I'll probably wait one or two years before getting into anything with DDR5. I've blew some money on an AMD laptop in 2021. At the time it was a monster with decent expansion options: RX 6800m, Ryzen 9 5900HX. I've stuck it with maximum 64GB DDR4 and 2x 4TB psi 3.0 nvme. Runs Linux very well. But now I'm seeing lots of things I'm locked out. Faster ethernet standards, the fun that brings with tons of GPU memory (no USB4, can't add 10Gbe either), faster and larger memory options, AV1 encoding. It's just sad that I bought a laptop right before those things were released. Should had go with a proper PC. Not doing this mistake anymore.
- kmfrk 2y ago
  Waiting for CAMM2 to get wider adoption could be interesting: https://x.com/msigaming/status/1793628162334621754 https://x.com/msigaming/status/1793628162334621754 Hopefully won't be too long now.
- worthless-trash 2y ago
  You will find that this is the cost of any laptop, any time you buy it there is always new tech around the corner and there isn't much you can do about it.
  - simcop2387 2y ago
    (disclosure I own a 13in one) Yea closest I see to being better about it is Frame.work laptops, and even then it's not as good a story as desktops, just the best story for upgrading a laptop right now. Other than that buying one and making sure you have at least two thunderbolt (or compatible) ports on separate busses is probably the best you can do since that'd mean two 40Gb/s links for expansion even if it's not portable, but would let you get things like 10GbE adapters or fast external storage and such without compromising too much on capability.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      The idea of Framework sounds so good but their actual implementation has really been lacking so far, especially when you consider total price of the laptop + upgrades vs just buying cheaper devices whole but more often. E.g. wired Ethernet is a USB C 2.5 Gbps adapter that sticks out of the chasses because it doesn't fit.
Pet_Ant 2y ago
Does anyone have metrics for some sort of benchmark per transistor? I wonder where the sweetspot is between something like these and SERV [1]. Obviously GPU wins on parallel math, but I wonder how much we are chasing in terms diminishing returns. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHasXHvZaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHasXHvZaQ
gattr 2y ago
I normally rebuild my workstation every ~4 years (recently more for fun than out of actual need for more processing power), might finally do it again (preferably a recent 8-/12-core Ryzen). My most recent major upgrade was in 2017 (Core i5 3570K -> Ryzen 7 1700X), with a minor fix in 2019 (Ryzen 7 2700, since 1700X was suffering from the random-segfaults-during-parallel-builds issue).
- Night_Thastus 2y ago
  Same. I'm on a 10700k and thinking on an upgrade. I'll wait for X3D parts to come out (assuming they're doing that this gen, not sure if we've got confirmation), and compare vs 15th gen Intel once it's out in like September-ish.
- tracker1 2y ago
  Might be worth considering a Ryzen 9 5900XT (just launched as well) for a drop in upgrade. Been running a 5950X since close to launch and still pretty happy with it.
  - mananaysiempre 2y ago
    Would it really be smart to build an AM4 desktop at this point though?
    - tracker1 2y ago
      I said as a "drop in upgrade"... Not sure that I'd build AM4 today, unless I had some parts used and cheap/free.
ComputerGuru 2y ago
Interesting unveil; it seems everyone was expecting more significant architectural changes though they still managed to net a decent IPC improvement. In light of the "very good but not incredible" generation-over-generation improvement, I guess we can now play the "can you get more performance for less dollars buying used last-gen HEDT or Epyc hardware or with the newest Zen 5 releases?" game (NB: not "value for your dollar" but "actually better performance").

334 points by rx_tx 2y ago

tripdout 2y ago

7900X equivalent 9900X has 120W TDP as opposed to 170W. Is it that much more power efficient?

Voultapher 2y ago
That 170W TDP was chasing the benchmark crown. The 7950X lost <5% MT perf when run at 120W.
- canucker2016 2y ago
  The all-core max clock speed costs a lot of watts for that last 10% - close to 50% of total CPU consumption in some cases. That's why undervolting has become a thing to do (unless you're an Intel CPU marketer) - give up a few percent of your all-core max clock rate and cut your wattage used by a lot.
- GordonS 2y ago
  I wonder then if the 9900X could be undervolted without losing more than a few percentage points of speed?

gautamcgoel 2y ago

Surprisingly not that much to be excited about IMO. AMD isn't using TSMC's latest node and the CPUs only officially support DDR5 speeds up to 5600MHz (yes, I know that you can use faster RAM). The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2.

aurareturn 2y ago
It's because x86 chips are no longer leading in the client. ARM chips are. Specifically, Apple chips. Though Qualcomm has huge potential leapfrog AMD/Intel chips in a few generations too.
- krasin 2y ago
  Until ARM has a proper UEFI support, it's not a practical desktop/server with a few notable exceptions (Mac, Raspberry Pi) and only because there's so much support from the respective vendors. I know that there's some work happening about UEFI+ARM (https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/Unified%20Extensible%20Firmware%20Interface https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/Unified%20Extensible...), but its support is very rare. The only example I can recall is Ampere Altra: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/ampere-altra-max-windows-gpus-and-gaming https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/ampere-altra-max-wind...
  - bitwize 2y ago
    It's like I keep saying: the first Chinese manufacturer to churn out cheap SBCs with ServerReady support will make a killing as a true Pi killer. Anyone? Anyone? Pine64? Pine64?
    - esskay 2y ago
      We dont really need a Pi killer anymore. They've done a fine job of killing it themselves. Their community has shrunk massively due to low cost mini pc's being leaps and bounds better value than a Pi now. Their two fingers being put up at the hacker/tinkerer hobbyist market over the last few years combined with the IPO and shift to B2B has made it very clear where their priorities lie. Unless you need the GPIO theres zero reason to overpay for a Pi 5 for example when you can pick up decent second hand mini pc's on ebay for a lower price. Case in point, a couple of months ago I was able to nab two brand new still in box Dell Optiplex 3050's (Core i7 6700T 4 Cores, 2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM Win 10 hardware license, 256gb ssd, with mouse & keyboard) for £55 each delivered. The base 4gb model Pi 5 comes in at £80-£100 once you add power, storage and a case. Sure, its not ARM but you're not likely to be doing anything that _needs_ ARM.
      - ZiiS 2y ago
        Try matching the size, power draw, and price of the Zero.
re-thc 2y ago
> The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2 Faster GPU is reserved for APUs. These graphics are just here for basic support.
arvinsim 2y ago
TBH, CPUs nowadays are mostly good enough for the consumer, even at mid or low tiers. It's the GPUs that are just getting increasing inaccessible, price wise.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Yes - with more and more users moving to laptops and wanting a longer battery life, raw peak performance hasn't moved much in a decade. A decade ago, Steam's hardware survey said 8GB was the most popular amount of RAM [1] and today, the latest $1600 Macbook Pro comes with.... 8GB of RAM. In some ways that's been a good thing - it used to be that software got more and more featureful/bloated and you needed a new computer every 3-5 years just to keep up. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140228170316/http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://web.archive.org/web/20140228170316/http://store.stea...
  - CivBase 2y ago
    To be fair, a decade ago gaming PCs came with 2GB to 4GB of vRAM. Today's gaming PCs come with 12GB to 20GB of vRAM. Most games don't demand a lot of system memory, so it makes sense that PC gamers would invest in other components. You're also comparing Windows x86 gaming desktops from a decade ago with macOS AppleSilicon base-spec laptops today. Steam's recent hardware survey shows 16GB as the most popular amount of RAM [1]. Not the 5x increase we've seen in vRAM, but still substantial. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
    - ChoGGi 2y ago
      > Today's gaming PCs come with 12GB to 20GB of vRAM. 8-20 GB of VRAM
    - faeriechangling 2y ago
      Tons of gamers are on 8gb because of mobile GPUs and becuase the only affordable 12gb GPU Nvidia has ever released is the 3060 which is a desktop GPU. I don’t honestly expect 12gb+ to become mainstream until 6000 series.
doikor 2y ago
> The CPUs are also using the previous-gen graphics architecture, RDNA2. The GPU on these parts is there mostly for being able to boot into BIOS or OS for debugging. Basically when things go wrong and you want to debug what is broken (remove GPU from machine and see if things work)
- ffsm8 2y ago
  I have to disagree. They work great for video playback and office work. So media server, and workstations are fine without a dedicated gpu
- matharmin 2y ago
  These are decent GPUs for anything other than heavy gaming. I'm driving two 4k screens with it, and even for some light gaming (such as factorio) it's completely fine.
  - 123yawaworht456 2y ago
    I'm under the impression that Factorio can run on any GPU capable of producing video output at all. years ago when I played it, it ran perfectly fine on whatever iGPU my 4790K had. 60 FPS/UPS with pretty big bases (although iirc I did disable all video effects like smoke to avoid cluttering the screen)
    - nolist_policy 2y ago
      The 'Ryzen 7000 iGPU" (Why is there no official codename?!) can even run GTA 5 at low/medium settings.
      - glimshe 2y ago
        I know it's hard to believe, but GTA V is now over 10 years old...
        Loudergood 2y ago
AlfeG 2y ago
> DDR5 speeds up to 56000MHz (yes, I know that you can use faster RAM) Not sure that I actually CAN. 56 GHz is already a lot.
- gautamcgoel 2y ago
  Fixed, thanks :)
  - orphea 2y ago
    5600 are MT/s (megatransfers/second), not MHz ;)
diffeomorphism 2y ago
Nah, you can get RDNA3.5 if you want to (not sure why you want that in a (home)server though) https://www.anandtech.com/show/21419/amd-announces-the-ryzen-ai-300-series-for-mobile-zen-5-with-rdna-35-and-xdna2-npu-with-50-tops https://www.anandtech.com/show/21419/amd-announces-the-ryzen...
Arrath 2y ago
Well perhaps I will stop holding out and just get the 7800x3d, if the 9000 generation won't be too terribly groundbreaking.
btgeekboy 2y ago
Yeah - I've been waiting to see what this release would entail as I kinda want to build a SFF PC. But now that I know what's in it, and since they didn't come out with anything really special chipset-wise, I'll probably just see if I can get some current-get stuff at discounted prices during the usual summer sales.
MenhirMike 2y ago
Given that there are only 2 CUs in the GPU (and fairly low clock speeds), does the architecture matter much? Benchmarks were kinda terrible, and it looks to me that the intent of the built-in GPU is for hardware video encoding or to run it in a home server system, or emergency BIOS and the like. Compared to the desktop CPUs, even the lowest end mobile 8440U has 4 CUs, going up to 12 CUs on the higher end. Or go with Strix Point, which does have an RDNA 3.5 GPU (with 12 or 16 CUs) in it. I guess you _can_ game on those 2 CU GPUs, but it really doesn't seem to be intended for that.
- cschneid 2y ago
  Yeah, I'm glad they started including built in gpu so there's something there, but beyond booting to a desktop I wouldn't use this graphics for anything else. But if you're just running a screen and compiling rust, that's all you need. Or in my case, running a home server / NAS.
  - philsnow 2y ago
    When building a non-APU ryzen machine for homelab use, I ended up buying the very cheapest graphics card I could find that was compatible, a "GeForce GT 710" that was not a beefy card when it was released in 2014. It's.. fine. After getting the system working I passed it through to a win10 VM and I can play non-FPS windows-only steam games over RDP. So yeah next time I build a machine I'll appreciate having this built in.
    - MenhirMike 2y ago
      Yeah, I have several GT 710's which also came in a PCIe x1 variant so I could keep the x16 slot free for something better. Glad that's no longer needed - the built-in GPU is a legit good thing.
- spixy 2y ago
  Better efficiency with three external 4K 120Hz monitors?
mrweasel 2y ago
> AMD isn't using TSMC's latest node Staying on an older node might ensure AMD the production capacity they need/want/expect. If they had aimed for the latest 3nm then they'd have get in line behind Apple and Nvidia. That would be my guess, why aim for 3nm, if you can't get fab time and you're still gaining a 15% speed increase.

aurareturn 2y ago

15% IPC boost is mildly disappointing. It will be significantly slower in ST than M4, and even more so against the M4 Pro/Max.

muxator 2y ago
How come is a 15% IPC increase generation for generation a disappointing result? There might be greener pastures, I agree, but a 15% increase year over year for the quality factor of a product is nothing to be disappointed of. It's good execution, even more so in a mature and competitive sector such as microelectronics.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  It's not year over year. It's 2 years. It's disappointing because M4 is significantly ahead. I would expect Zen to make a bigger leap to catch up. Also, this small leap opens up for Intel's Arrow Lake to take the lead.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Process node advantage is real.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      Of course it's real. But not only is M4 significantly faster in ST, it'll probably 3-4x more efficient than Zen5 mobile just like how M3 is against Zen4 mobile. This difference in efficiency cannot be explained by node advantage alone as N3E vs N4 is probably around only 15-20% more efficient.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Actually from Zen 4 to Zen 5 there is a little more than one year and a half (supposing that they will indeed go on sale in July), almost matching the AMD announcement done around the launch of Zen 4 that they will shorten the time between generations from 2 years to 1 1/2 years.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

papichulo2023 2y ago

Meh, I guess still 128 bits memory channel width. Guess they are not even trying anymore.

lmz 2y ago
Is this even possible to change without moving to a new socket?
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  No.
icf80 2y ago
2 x 2 x 32bit anything else will require newer SOCKET, MB AND RAM

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago

Do all CPUs and GPUs these days involve components made by TSMC? If so, is this unique - that a whole industry of relies on one company?

icf80 2y ago
wait till china invades
- preisschild 2y ago
  As long as Biden wins the election, they won't. Because the US will defend Taiwan.
  - BeefWellington 2y ago
    The real problem is, any disruption of Taiwan and China's ability to produce and sell semiconductors right now is going to have wide ranging impacts on the economy. If you thought prices were high during pandemic shortages, strap in. It's probably not a coincidence that as soon as the US starts spending billions to onshore semiconductor production, China begins a fresh round of more concrete saber-rattling. (Yes, there's likely other factors too.)
  - kfrzcode 2y ago
    Your crystal ball is intriguing, do you have a whitepaper I can check out to understand the underlying mechanics?
- brokencode 2y ago
  Good thing TSMC is getting billions of dollars of government subsidies to build fabs all around the world including in the US and Japan.
unwind 2y ago
As far as I know, Intel is still very much a fab company.
2y ago

dhx 2y ago

How are the 24x PCIe 5.0 lanes (~90GB/s) of the 9950X allocated? The article makes it appear as: * 16x PCIe 5.0 lanes for "graphics use" connected directly to the 9950X (~63GB/s). * 1x PCIe 5.0 lane for an M.2 port connected directly to the 9950X (~4GB/s). Motherboard manufacturers seemingly could repurpose "graphics use" PCIe 5.0 lanes for additional M.2 ports. * 7x PCIe 5.0 lanes connected to the X870E chipset (~28GB/s). Used as follows: * 4x USB 4.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~8GB/s). * 4x PCIe 4.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~8GB/s). * 4x PCIe 3.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (~4GB/s). * 8x SATA 3.0 ports connected to the X870E chipset (some >~2.4GB/s part of ~8GB/s shared with WiFi 7). * WiFi 7 connected to the X870E chipset (some >~1GB/s part of ~8GB/s shared with 8x SATA 3.0 ports).

lmz 2y ago
It's usually x16/x4/x4 for GPU/M.2/Chipset. You can check the diagrams from the current x670 boards for info.
- wtallis 2y ago
  AMD's previous socket was usually x16/x4/x4 for GPU/M.2/chipset. For AM5, they added another four lanes, so it's usually x16/x4+x4/x4 for GPU/(2x)M.2/chipset, unless the board is doing something odd with providing lanes for Thunderbolt ports or something like that.
  - lmz 2y ago
    Oh you're right. I didn't read the diagram correctly and the specs say 28 total lanes, 24 usable - probably because 4 go to the chipset.
- paulmd 2y ago
  Siena would make a very practical HEDT socket - it's basically half of a bergamo, 6ch DDR5/96x pcie 5.0. It's sort of an unfortunate artifact of the way server platforms have gone that HEDT has fizzled out, they're mostly just too big and it isn't that practical to fit into commodity form-factors anymore, etc. a bigass socket sp3 and 8ch was already quite big, now it's 12ch for SP5 and you have a slightly smaller one at SP6. But still, doing 1DPC in a commodity form factor is difficult, you really need an EEB sort of thing for things like GENOAD8X etc let alone 2 dimms per channel etc, which if you do like a 24-stick board and a socket you don't fit much else. https://www.anandtech.com/show/20057/amd-releases-epyc-8004-siena-cpus-zen4c-for-edge https://www.anandtech.com/show/20057/amd-releases-epyc-8004-... 2011/2011-3/2066 were actually a reasonable size. Like LGA3678 or whatever as a hobbyist thing doesn't seem practical (the W-3175X stuff) and that was also 6ch, and Epyc/TR are pretty big too etc. There used to exist this size-class of socket that really no longer gets used, there aren't tons of commercial 3-4-6 channel products made anymore, and enthusiast form-factors are stuck in 1980 and don't permit the larger sockets to work that well. The C266 being able to tap off IOs as SAS3/12gbps or pcie 4.0 slimsas is actually brilliant imo, you can run SAS drives in your homelab without a controller card etc. The Asrock Rack ones look sick, EC266D4U2-2L2Q/E810 lets you basically pull all of the chipset IO off as 4x pcie 4.0x4 slimsas if you want. And actually you can technically use MCIO retimers to pull the pcie slots off, they had a weird topology where you got a physical slot off the m.2 lanes, to allow 4x bifurcated pcie 5.0x4 from the cpu. 8x nvme in a consumer board, half in a fast pcie 5.0 tier and half shared off the chipset. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EC266D4U2-2L2Q/E810#Specifications https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E... Wish they'd do something similar with AMD and mcio preferably, like they did with the GENOAD8X. But beyond the adapter "it speaks SAS" part is super useful for homelab stuff imo. AMD also really doesn't make that much use of the chipset, like, where are the x670E boards that use 2 chipsets and just sling it all off as oculink or w/e. Or mining-style board weird shit. Or forced-bifurcation lanes slung off the chipset into a x4x4x4x4 etc. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=GENOAD8X-2T/BCM#Specifications https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=G... All-flash is here, all-nvme is here, you just frustratingly can't address that much of it per system, without stepping up to server class products etc. And that's supposed to be the whole point of the E series chipset, very frustrating. I can't think of many boards that feel like they justify the second chipset, and the ones that "try" feel like they're just there to say they're there. Oh wow you put 14 usb 3.0 10gbps ports on it, ok. How about some thunderbolt instead etc (it's because that's actually expensive). Like tap those ports off in some way that's useful to people in 2024 and not just "16 sata" or "14 usb 3.0" or whatever. M.2 NVMe is "the consumer interface" and it's unfortunately just about the most inconvenient choice for bulk storage etc. Give me the AMD version of that board where it's just "oops all mcio" with x670e (we don't need usb4 on a server if it drives up cost). Or a miner-style board with infinite x4 slots linked to actual x4s. Or the supercarrier m.2 board with a ton of M.2 sticks standing vertically etc. Nobody does weird shit with what is, on paper, a shit ton of pcie lanes coming off the pair of chipsets. C'mon. Super glad USB4 is a requirement for X870/X870E, thunderbolt shit is expensive but it'll come down with volume/multisourcing/etc, and it truly is like living in the future. I have done thunderbolt networking and moved data ssd to ssd at 1.5 GB/s. Enclosures are super useful for tinkering too now that bifurcation support on PEG lanes has gotten shitty and gpus keep getting bigger etc. An enclosure is also great for janitoring M.2 cards with a simple $8 adapter off amazon etc (they all work, it's simple physical adapater).

adriancr 2y ago

Finally, was waiting for this for a new build and it seems decent upgrade.

buildbot 2y ago

AVX512 in a single cycle vs 2 cycles is big if the clock speed can be maintained at all near 5GHz. Also doubling of L1 cache bandwidth is interesting! Possibly, needed to actually feed an AVX512 rich instruction stream I guess.

hajile 2y ago
Does Zen5 do FP math in a single cycle?
- dzaima 2y ago
  Almost certainly Zen 5 won't have single-cycle FP latency (I haven't heard of anything doing such even for scalar at modern clock rates (though maybe that does exist somewhere); AMD, Intel, and Apple all currently have 3- or 4-cycle latency). And Zen 4 already has a throughput of 2 FP ops/cycle for up to 256-bit arguments. The thing discussed is that Zen 4 does 512-bit SIMD ops via splitting them into two 256-bit ones, whereas Zen 5 supposedly will have hardware doing all 512 bits at a time.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Even if Lisa Su said this at the Zen 4 launch, it is not likely that 512-bit operations are split into a pair of 256-bit operantions that are executed sequentially in the same 256-bit execution unit. Both Zen 3 and Zen 4 have four 256-bit execution units. Two 512-bit instructions can be initiated per clock cycle. It is likely that the four corresponding 256-bit micro-operations are executed simultaneously in all the 4 execution units, because otherwise there would be an increased likelihood that the dispatcher would not be able to find enough micro-operations ready for execution so that no execution unit remains idle, resulting in reduced performance. The main limitation of the Zen 4 execution units is that only 2 of them include FP multipliers, so the maximum 512-bit throughput is one fused multiply-add plus one FP addition per clock cycle, while the Intel CPUs have an extra 512-bit FMA unit, which stays idle and useless when AVX-512 instructions are not used, but which allows two 512-bit FMA per cycle. Without also doubling the transfer path between the L1 cache and the registers, a double FMA throughput would not have been beneficial for Zen 4, because many algorithms would have become limited by the memory transfer throughput. Zen 5 doubles the width of the transfer path to the L1 and L2 cache memories and it presumably now includes FP multipliers in all the 4 execution units, thus matching the performance of Intel for 512-bit FMA operations, while also doubling the throughput of the 256-bit FMA operations, where in Intel CPUs the second FMA unit stays unused, halving the throughput. No well-designed CPU has a FP addition or multiplication latency of 1. All modern CPUs are designed for the maximum clock frequency which ensures that the latency of operations similar in complexity with 64-bit integer additions between registers is 1. (CPUs with a higher clock frequency than this are called "superpipelined", but they have went out of fashion a few decades ago.) For such a clock frequency, the latency of floating-point execution units of acceptable complexity is between 3 and 5, while the latency of loads from the L1 cache memory is about the same. The next class of operations with a longer latency includes division, square root and loads from the L2 cache memory, which usually have latencies between 10 and 20. The longest latencies are for loads from the L3 cache memory or from the main memory.

Sparkyte 2y ago

Huge improvement over my 5k series processor.

nubinetwork 2y ago

I'd love to replace my 2950x, but most desktop motherboards still don't support 128gb of memory.

SirGiggles 2y ago
I can’t speak for all motherboards but I’m comfortably running 128GiB of DDR4 on a 5950x and x570s platform.
- nubinetwork 2y ago
  Good to know, maybe I should look again... thanks
  - chainingsolid 2y ago
    I'm running the same as above. However do check both the memory and motherboard manufacture's tested with lists (QVL qualified vendor list) before purchasing! Each product should have its own compatablity listing.
erinnh 2y ago
I just had a look and the comparison website I use says there are 113 motherboards that support 128GB or more memory for AM5. (in my local market. so the US probably has even more) 128GB isn't exactly a lot, so that would surprise me if it wasnt supported.
- nubinetwork 2y ago
  I think for a while there, the only way to be able to use 128gb was to go TR4 or TRX... I kindof stopped looking for a while, but 100+ boards is certainly a nice change.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  > I just had a look and the comparison website I use Which website is that?

mmaniac 2y ago

AMD seem to be playing it safe this with this desktop generation. Same node, similar frequencies, same core counts, same IOD, X3D chips only arriving later... IPC seems like the only noteworthy improvement here. 15% overall is good but nothing earth shattering. The mobile APUs are way more interesting.

vegabook 2y ago
Geekbench Ryzen 9 7950x is 2930 max, so if we're generous and give the 9950x 15% uplift we'll be at 3380, which is still 400 points or so behind apple silicon for a much higher clock speed and a multiplier larger power draw. Also the max memory bandwidth at 70GB/s or so is basically pathetic, trounced by ASi.
- mmaniac 2y ago
  You're comparing apples and oranges. Ryzen has never had the lead with 1T performance, but emphasises nT and core counts instead. Memory bandwidth is largely meaningless for desktop CPUs but matters a lot for a SoC with a big GPU. Strix Halo appears to be AMD's competitor to Apple SoCs which will feature a much bigger iGP and much greater memory bandwidth. When we hear more about that, comparisons will be apt.
  - vegabook 2y ago
    AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later? They've been coasting on the stone-age motherboard+cards arch because essentially Nvidia gave you a big, fat, modern coprocessor in the form of an [g/r]tx card that hid the underlying problems. They could have done what AAPL did ages ago but they have no ability to innovate properly. They've been leaning on their x86 duopoly and if it's now on its last legs, it's their fault.
    - sofixa 2y ago
      > AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later What do you mean? AMD has been the market leader in performance SoCs for specialised use cases (like consoles) for many years.

jiggawatts 2y ago

I wonder when the PC world will transition to unified memory and more monolithic architectures as seen in the Apple M-series chips, but also in the NVIDIA GB200 "superchip", the AMD MI300 accelerator, the X-Box and Playstation consoles, and even in some mobile phone system-on-a-chip designs. It feels like the PC is the "last holdout" of discrete upgradeable components with relatively low bandwidth between them. Sooner or later, AI will need to run on the edge, and that'll require RAM bandwidths measured in multiple terabytes per second, as well as "tensor" compute integrated closely with CPUs. Sure, a lot of people see LLMs as "useless toys" or "overhyped" now, but people said that about the Internet too. What it took to make everything revolve around the Internet instead of it being just a fad is broadband. When everyone had fast always-on Internet at home and in their mobile devices, then nobody could argue that the Internet wasn't useful. Build it, and the products will come! If every gaming PC had the same spec as a GB200 or MI300, then games could do real-time voice interaction with "intelligent" NPCs with low latency. You could talk to characters, and they could talk back. Not just talk, but argue, haggle, and debate! "No, no, no, the dragon is too powerful! ... I don't care if your sword is a unique artefact, your arm is weak!" I feel like this is the same kind of step-change as floppy drives to hard drives, or dialup or fibre. It'll take time. People will argue that "you don't need it" or "it's for enterprise use, not for consumers", but I have faster Internet going to my apartment than my entire continent had 30 years ago.

aaomidi 2y ago
I can’t wait for my games to start hallucinating narration.
- fourfour3 2y ago
  Exactly this. I want plot/character driven games like RPGs to be a curated & carefully designed, plotted, and paced experience. I want speech & narrative to be scripted! It means someone sat down and thought about the experience it produces for the player. It means a real voice actor has performed it, putting the right emotion and pacing into the line. I don't want AI generated stilted dialogue, uncanny valley speech, etc. And I also don't want an extra few hundred watts of power draw on gaming PCs - they're already high and in modern games the CPU is under pretty substantial load, the GPU is maxed out, and the GPU's AI/NPU style cores are being used for things like DLSS too. Bringing in more compute resource for running speech to text, LLMs, text to speech, etc fast enough to not feel horrible is going to come at substantial power and financial cost.

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Tepix 2y ago

It's weird that CPUs tend to use more power every two years now instead of less. Looks like this time, the TDP didn't increase. Yay! i guess. Don't most people think their PCs are fast enough already? It's as if our planet wasn't being destroyed at a frightening speed. We're headed towards a cliff, but instead if braking, we're accelerating.

mmaniac 2y ago
The people who think PCs are already fast enough don't buy CPUs every year. A 7950X in Eco mode is ridiculously capable for the power it pulls but that's less of a selling point.
- adham-omran 2y ago
  I have a 7950X which I run in Eco mode with air cooling and it's amazingly quiet when not under load and rips when it needs to, I don't see a reason to upgrade any time soon.
- hajile 2y ago
  I think there's a market for a 7950E with a specific binning for lower power rather than highest possible clocks.
  - mmaniac 2y ago
    Compared to Intel, AMD seems to bin their chips a lot less. Intel have their -T chips which would be nifty if Intel weren't so far behind in terms in terms of efficiency.
dotnet00 2y ago
The TDP increases slower than the efficiency, so for the same workload, a newer CPU consumes similar or less power. Especially nowadays, most of these chips only get anywhere near the stated TDP when being near fully maxed out.

sylware 2y ago

Improving avx512 is really good, since this is the data unit sweet spot: a cache line is 512 bits. But I am more interested in the cleanup of the GPU hardware interface (it should be astonishingly simple to program the GPU with its various ring buffers, like as it is rumored to be the case on nvidia side) AND in the squishing of all hardware shader bugs: look at valve ACO compiler erratas in mesa, AMD hardware shader is a bug minefield. Hopefully, the GFX12 did fix ALL KNOWN SHADER HARDWARE BUGS (sorry, ACO is written with that horrible c++, I dunno what went thru the head of valve and no, rust syntax is a complex as c++, then this is toxic too).

alberth 2y ago

> TSMC N4 Question: Am I understanding this correctly that AMD will be using a node size from TSMC that’s 2-years old, but in a way it’s kind of older. Because N4 was like a “N5+” (and the current gen is “N3+”). EDIT: why the downvotes for a question?

Night_Thastus 2y ago
Yes, AMD is not using the leading-edge node. The older node is cheaper/has better yield and more importantly has much larger supply than N3, which Apple has likely completely devoured. I am personally very curious how it compares vs Intel's 15th gen, which is rumored to be on Intel 20 process.

irusensei 2y ago

I'll probably wait one or two years before getting into anything with DDR5. I've blew some money on an AMD laptop in 2021. At the time it was a monster with decent expansion options: RX 6800m, Ryzen 9 5900HX. I've stuck it with maximum 64GB DDR4 and 2x 4TB psi 3.0 nvme. Runs Linux very well. But now I'm seeing lots of things I'm locked out. Faster ethernet standards, the fun that brings with tons of GPU memory (no USB4, can't add 10Gbe either), faster and larger memory options, AV1 encoding. It's just sad that I bought a laptop right before those things were released. Should had go with a proper PC. Not doing this mistake anymore.

kmfrk 2y ago
Waiting for CAMM2 to get wider adoption could be interesting: https://x.com/msigaming/status/1793628162334621754 https://x.com/msigaming/status/1793628162334621754 Hopefully won't be too long now.
worthless-trash 2y ago
You will find that this is the cost of any laptop, any time you buy it there is always new tech around the corner and there isn't much you can do about it.
- simcop2387 2y ago
  (disclosure I own a 13in one) Yea closest I see to being better about it is Frame.work laptops, and even then it's not as good a story as desktops, just the best story for upgrading a laptop right now. Other than that buying one and making sure you have at least two thunderbolt (or compatible) ports on separate busses is probably the best you can do since that'd mean two 40Gb/s links for expansion even if it's not portable, but would let you get things like 10GbE adapters or fast external storage and such without compromising too much on capability.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    The idea of Framework sounds so good but their actual implementation has really been lacking so far, especially when you consider total price of the laptop + upgrades vs just buying cheaper devices whole but more often. E.g. wired Ethernet is a USB C 2.5 Gbps adapter that sticks out of the chasses because it doesn't fit.

Pet_Ant 2y ago

Does anyone have metrics for some sort of benchmark per transistor? I wonder where the sweetspot is between something like these and SERV [1]. Obviously GPU wins on parallel math, but I wonder how much we are chasing in terms diminishing returns. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHasXHvZaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHasXHvZaQ

gattr 2y ago

I normally rebuild my workstation every ~4 years (recently more for fun than out of actual need for more processing power), might finally do it again (preferably a recent 8-/12-core Ryzen). My most recent major upgrade was in 2017 (Core i5 3570K -> Ryzen 7 1700X), with a minor fix in 2019 (Ryzen 7 2700, since 1700X was suffering from the random-segfaults-during-parallel-builds issue).

Night_Thastus 2y ago
Same. I'm on a 10700k and thinking on an upgrade. I'll wait for X3D parts to come out (assuming they're doing that this gen, not sure if we've got confirmation), and compare vs 15th gen Intel once it's out in like September-ish.
tracker1 2y ago
Might be worth considering a Ryzen 9 5900XT (just launched as well) for a drop in upgrade. Been running a 5950X since close to launch and still pretty happy with it.
- mananaysiempre 2y ago
  Would it really be smart to build an AM4 desktop at this point though?
  - tracker1 2y ago
    I said as a "drop in upgrade"... Not sure that I'd build AM4 today, unless I had some parts used and cheap/free.

ComputerGuru 2y ago

Interesting unveil; it seems everyone was expecting more significant architectural changes though they still managed to net a decent IPC improvement. In light of the "very good but not incredible" generation-over-generation improvement, I guess we can now play the "can you get more performance for less dollars buying used last-gen HEDT or Epyc hardware or with the newest Zen 5 releases?" game (NB: not "value for your dollar" but "actually better performance").