AMD's awesome new gaming processor

[Bradley Prior]

AMD's awesome new gaming processor

AMD announced new PC gaming hardware at its E3 2019 event, including a new lineup of powerful third-generation Ryzen desktop processors.

The company’s new CPUs were headed up by the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, which boasts 16 physical cores and 32 threads.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

I need get the bucks for this bad boy!

Chrome is goign to love all the cores and memory that's on its way!

 

[Bryn]

I need get the bucks for this bad boy!

Chrome is goign to love all the cores and memory that's on its way!

I've never had Chrome consume a problematic amount of resources. I always wonder what sort of specs people have when they complain about it.

My current i7-8700 & 16GB memory is probably a smidgen above the average PC, but even my old i5-3570K with 8GB memory never worried about Chrome either before I upgraded this year.

If I was upgrading now, not even a question that it would be AMD. The 3000 series looks awesome.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

I've never had Chrome consume a problematic amount of resources. I always wonder what sort of specs people have when they complain about it.

My current i7-8700 & 16GB memory is probably a smidgen above the average PC, but even my old i5-3570K with 8GB memory never worried about Chrome either before I upgraded this year.

If I was upgrading now, not even a question that it would be AMD. The 3000 series looks awesome.

9 tabs open at work it using 1.6gb memory

 

[Bryn]

9 tabs open at work it using 1.6gb memory

If you're constrained with system memory, have you checked if Firefox does any better?

 

[Gtx Gaming]

If you're constrained with system memory, have you checked if Firefox does any better?

Mostly I am fine, but sometimes WhatsApp PC goes crazy and eats up memory also. Only allowed chrome at work, through I would still only use chrome as it sync all my stuff.

 

[newby_investor]

This high-core-count CPU probably won't be the best gaming one, you'd probably get better mileage with the Ryzen 7 or 5 with fewer cores but higher clock frequency.

 

[Johnatan56]

If you're constrained with system memory, have you checked if Firefox does any better?

Depending what those tabs are, 1.6GB is normal.
I have 3 MyBB tabs open and am using 820MB. Added a YT video and am at 1.2GB (well, if I alt-tab back here it drops to 1GB). Memory is meant to be used.

I wouldn't say the 3950X is a "gaming" processor, it's more in-line for streamers while gaming. AMD CPU line-up is pretty nice, still want to see a 3600G octa core, would allow for a quick purchase to hold you over until one can afford a graphics card to the set-up while delivering a decent enough gaming experience meanwhile.

This high-core-count CPU probably won't be the best gaming one, you'd probably get better mileage with the Ryzen 7 or 5 with fewer cores but higher clock frequency.

It has pretty good clocks considering 4.7GHz all-core with a 15% IPC uplift, so should be the equivalent of a 5GHz+ clocked 2nd gen. This is all guaranteed boost, I really would like to know what others can OC this too, especially if e.g. shutting some core complexes off.

 

[stefan9]

Depending what those tabs are, 1.6GB is normal.
I have 3 MyBB tabs open and am using 820MB. Added a YT video and am at 1.2GB (well, if I alt-tab back here it drops to 1GB). Memory is meant to be used.

I wouldn't say the 3950X is a "gaming" processor, it's more in-line for streamers while gaming. AMD CPU line-up is pretty nice, still want to see a 3600G octa core, would allow for a quick purchase to hold you over until one can afford a graphics card to the set-up while delivering a decent enough gaming experience meanwhile.



It has pretty good clocks considering 4.7GHz all-core with a 15% IPC uplift, so should be the equivalent of a 5GHz+ clocked 2nd gen. This is all guaranteed boost, I really would like to know what others can OC this too, especially if e.g. shutting some core complexes off.

Steve of GamersNexus claims for the 16core part overclockers are hitting 5.5ghz on ln2 and for the 12core part 6ghz.

Atm I am looking at the 12core part for my upgrade, my decide to save up for the 16core instead.

This high-core-count CPU probably won't be the best gaming one, you'd probably get better mileage with the Ryzen 7 or 5 with fewer cores but higher clock frequency.

That would be true if the 16core were lower clocked but in this case its boost is the highest of the all the ryzen 3000 parts.

 

[PhireSide]

Until games start to become properly multithreaded I would rate that you could do well for another few years with a 8C16T part that has sufficient IPC and clockspeed.

 

[Johnatan56]

Until games start to become properly multithreaded I would rate that you could do well for another few years with a 8C16T part that has sufficient IPC and clockspeed.

Well if as stefan9 says, the 16 core has the highest single thread clock, then it probably is going to be a very long time till you'll need to replace it. At that price though, not really going to be worth it unless enthusiast.
8C16T will only be "well" as long as not a majority of gamers move to 12C, and since a lot will now start moving to 8C, you'll start seeing that become the minimum specs, but only if they move. Very few studios will not try and target as many possible customers as they can.

 

[dews]

Definitely getting a Ryzen(tm) rig towards the end of the year to replace my aging i5 3570K rig

 

[PhireSide]

Well if as stefan9 says, the 16 core has the highest single thread clock, then it probably is going to be a very long time till you'll need to replace it. At that price though, not really going to be worth it unless enthusiast.
8C16T will only be "well" as long as not a majority of gamers move to 12C, and since a lot will now start moving to 8C, you'll start seeing that become the minimum specs, but only if they move. Very few studios will not try and target as many possible customers as they can.

AMD seems to be targeting the higher end of the market with their pricing, so it would probably be a fair assumption to make and say that they are confident that their products can beat the respective Intel part, dollar for dollar. I just hope they don't focus too much and fail to deliver decent products for those with more limited budgets.

What with Intel seemingly being shook up with the core counts, this can only mean good news for the average consumer. I have also heard that with Windows 10 v1903, the scheduler has been fixed so as to bring some performance uplift to Ryzen chips:

Consoles do play a large part in this as well, seeing as both the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One S have 8C processors and devs will usually try to make the best use of all available hardware to them. I suspect once the next gen consoles drop, the focus will shift to more efficient coding that will run well on multiple cores and this should filter through to the desktop gaming market too.

 

[Neoprod]

^, yeah...the next console generation will largely dictate what level of compute devs build for. The next Xbox will be using an 8 core Ryzen 3000-based CPU (and Navi graphics) with some resources allocated toward the OS. The PS5 won't be much different.

I'd say an 8 core is a safe bet for gaming purposes for ~5 years.

 

[Johnatan56]

AMD seems to be targeting the higher end of the market with their pricing, so it would probably be a fair assumption to make and say that they are confident that their products can beat the respective Intel part, dollar for dollar. I just hope they don't focus too much and fail to deliver decent products for those with more limited budgets.

What with Intel seemingly being shook up with the core counts, this can only mean good news for the average consumer. I have also heard that with Windows 10 v1903, the scheduler has been fixed so as to bring some performance uplift to Ryzen chips:

Consoles do play a large part in this as well, seeing as both the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One S have 8C processors and devs will usually try to make the best use of all available hardware to them. I suspect once the next gen consoles drop, the focus will shift to more efficient coding that will run well on multiple cores and this should filter through to the desktop gaming market too.

Scheduler fix is for the old flagship epyc due to how it was structured, would have no effect on any of the newer chips announced.
The clock ramping is something completely different and is what Intel already does, except their best ones are 15ms, lol, so AMD will have a lot better clock ramping. This leads to a lot better performance/watt for bursts, especially good for e.g. laptops. My i7 4720HQ for example drops its base to 0.8GHz when doing nothing, so me going to open new tabs and stuff means it takes a little for it to ramp to 3GHz to finish my request more quickly.
Intel's one is called SpeedStep.

The Xbox One X already had an octa core, most game developers have already been using them, it's more that logic is tied to one thread while letting the others execute, so it's more a case of trying to figure out how to spread it out. Creating a couple of hundred threads for a task for a measly 1-2% gain makes no sense due to the overhead of creating (or if thread pool assigning) them, plus you need to have a way of thinking of how to do so.

The thread grouping change: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14525/amd-zen-2-microarchitecture-analysis-ryzen-3000-and-epyc-rome/3 is probably the biggest change/improvement for gamers and is why they can claim that 15% uplift in rocket league. With games in future being developed to take advantage of it, it could maybe lead to higher performance gains than that.


All theoretical/guessing until people actually get their hands on it and some game devs get to play with it and use it. Then it still has to filter down into e.g. the Unity engine, it took them ages to bring Vulkan support, but guess that's more due to the feature set not bringing that many advantages compared to DX they already had, while better support for the AMD topology could result in quick performance uplifts depending on difficulty ofc.

 

[Kosmik]

The thing is, modern CPUs are waaaaaay overpowered for gaming. Rather chuck that cash into graphics and ram.

Running a old AMD Vishna core and that idles @ 45% on Doom. Which games actually do serious CPU damage?

 

[Bryn]

The thing is, modern CPUs are waaaaaay overpowered for gaming. Rather chuck that cash into graphics and ram.

Running a old AMD Vishna core and that idles @ 45% on Doom. Which games actually do serious CPU damage?

Cities: Skylines with DLC and mods.

 

[stefan9]

The thing is, modern CPUs are waaaaaay overpowered for gaming. Rather chuck that cash into graphics and ram.

Running a old AMD Vishna core and that idles @ 45% on Doom. Which games actually do serious CPU damage?

RTS and simulation games are the ones that stress cpu's. The likes of CIV6 will be a much better indicator on cpu performance in a game compared to Doom.

 

[newby_investor]

That would be true if the 16core were lower clocked but in this case its boost is the highest of the all the ryzen 3000 parts.

Looking again I see that it has the highest boost frequency, though the base clock is lower than some of the ones with lower core counts. So you're probably right here.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

The thing is, modern CPUs are waaaaaay overpowered for gaming. Rather chuck that cash into graphics and ram.

Running a old AMD Vishna core and that idles @ 45% on Doom. Which games actually do serious CPU damage?

bf5 does and newer COD games.