AMD's Zen2 chips released, a better deal than Intel

If the benchmarks are to be believed, a 16 core part is confirmed and it smashes Zen+ in areas such as rendering.

There also appears to be a decent IPC uplift as well since the performance increase is more than two-fold. Current rumors suggest this even matches Intel’s 2000 dollar 18 core XE chip.

Computex is less than a week away and it is thought the full reveal will take place there. Even then, the Zen2’s performance might get better yet between now and the purported release in July.

Other info indicates that many 3xx and 4xx platform owners will get support for this chip, some 4xx owners may even see the 4th Gen PCIe speeds as well. This could make 2019 another exciting year for the CPU.


EDIT: The full reveal is here

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The big thing for me is the 3700x with 12cores 24 thread 5ghz boost clock

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New information hints that the RAM spec. for the new generation will get bumped up to 3.2 Ghz (up from 2.9 for Zen+ and way up from 2.4 for Zen1).

A Google search shows Forbes believing this to be the greatest processor launch of the decade (if the hype all pans out that is).

I have to admit, the 16 core 32 thread AM4 Zen 2 sounds extremely promising. If it’s actually true and performs anything better than the current Zen, it’s probably my next upgrade from the old 4c/8t.

The full reveal has been done at Computex (see first post), AMD has stated their new family of chips eclipses Intel in single-threading and passes them by a decent margin in multi-threading. They also consume less power than Intel’s chips as well.

In all, AMD promised a 15 percent performance improvement and they delivered, with their main goals this time around being performance for games and lightly-threaded applications. The rumors of a 16 core part and 5 Ghz speeds though were false, the top-end model is a 12 core with a boost of 4.6 Ghz.

Still, it was enough to either match or beat Intel. Intel is responding with the 9900KS processor with an all-core boost of 5 Ghz, but they might be banking on gamers not giving a crap on heat generation and/or power consumption as long as it is the performance king (as long as you can fit a massive water cooling contraption and tons of fans in the tower).

I wouldn’t say the 16c rumors are false, they are probably holding this chip (maybe for the next iteration) so it doesn’t cannibalize their HEDT market, like they did with their threadripper lineup releasing the 2990wx in the second iteration

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Yeah, it seems they decided to improve the margins and stagger the release. Which makes a lot of sense from the shareholder perspective, with Intel not doing so well. Still waiting for that 16 core… :unamused:

That Blender demo at the keynote was really nice tho. :+1:

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And here is a glimpse of the new motherboards.

The main feature is this being the first platform to use PCI-E 4.0, which means more bandwidth for GPU’s and M.2 drives capable of an eye-popping 5 Gigs a second. This also will likely mean the ability to stuff more hardware components inside your PC before running out of bandwidth.


Yes, it remains to be seen if they will reveal it in response to any future move Intel does, but what is also good for consumers is that the low-end is now going up to 6 cores minimum and the entry price for 8 cores goes down even further. It should also be noted that 500 dollars for the 12 core part is actually not any higher than the top-end for Zen1.

Intel still hasn’t announced how much their 9900KS chip is going to cost, but I suspect that it will be considerably more than $500. AMD will have a decent amount of leeway to reduce prices on the new Ryzen chips in the future thanks to the new chiplet design allowing them to produce more chips per wafer because they are smaller than the monolithic designs that Intel uses, which should give them better yields, especially once the 7nm process matures.

I’m really glad AMD are giving Intel some serious competition now, as it benefits us all. The competition isn’t coming at a good time for Intel though, as their chips are susceptible to far more of the recent security vulnerabilities on top of having trouble getting their 10nm process node up and running. Screw Intel though, they abused their position for years :stuck_out_tongue:

Until AMD becomes the top CPU maker by a wide margin and responds with price hikes and incremental improvements (because the shareholders will soon desire for AMD to become a major company again).

Some people think this could happen if Intel is rendered non-competitive, which is why they want them to do well with Sunny Cove or whatever the new arch. gets called. They have Tim Keller now so there’s a chance to keep the CPU war going.

I guess so, but my first PC was an AMD K6 200, and after that an Athlon 700, so I’ve a certain fondness for AMD. Before that there was a family 486 SX 25, but it didn’t play Doom at high detail very well, so I have no fondness there for Intel :smiley:

Competition is good though, so I do want Intel to do well, but I prefer they get kicked around a bit for a couple of years before they make a big comeback.

Zen2 3900X was guaranteed when asked with 16 cores/ 32 threads and also Threadripper 3 will arrive shortly as well with up to 64 cores / 128 threads.

Source of this info?

An analyst’s view on

The potential of M.2 on PCI-E 4 connections.

This could be enough to make waiting for something to load a thing of the past, especially in games, it could also be enough to make your PC pop on instantly when you hit the power button (as my M.2 drive on PCI-E 3 already loads Win10 in seconds). This type of thing is also considered the reason why the new Zen2 boards have fans.

If you really need an excuse to get a new machine instead of upgrade the existing one, this might be it.

I don’t see how 16 core could be a false rumour either. Their 12 core chip is literally one fully working 8 core chip + one defective 8 core chip with 4 of its cores disabled. So what happens when you put two non defective chips together with that IO die? 16 cores. But it may only run on the latest gen motherboards, that maybe why they are waiting a while to release it.

New alleged benchmarks, the new Ryzen 5’s are reportedly able to conquer Intel’s original Coffee Lake i7 chips (both single and multiple threads).

If there’s any other apparent good news, it’s that you won’t lose performance if you place the CPU in a 4xx board rather than a 5xx board (even though you might not have PCI-E 4). Good for those who don’t want to get a new machine.

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More supposed Benchmarks, this time against the Ryzen 5 2600.

The result, the chip flattens its Zen+ predecessor with a 25 percent bump in performance, and even eclipses the equivalent 9th gen Intel chip in many single-core scenarios.

It looks good for AMD, nothing about the chip has really dampened the hype so far.

I’m debating on either getting a X470 or wait for X570 for my July system build , is the 5 Gigs a second transfer speed even noticable compare to 3 Gigs on Gen 3.0? I don’t see anything else that X570 offer that makes it worth buying over X470.