Zen 2 Ryzen IPC Testing Shows AMD Has Closed the Performance Gap With Intel (hothardware.com) 88
MojoKid writes: AMD's new Ryzen 3000 processors can boost as high as 4.6 GHz, a notable bump over previous Ryzen models, but what about AMD's purported Instructions Per Cycle (IPC) gains? Has AMD's Zen 2 architecture finally caught up to Intel's Coffee Lake-based Core series processors in terms of IPC? To prove this out, HotHardware pitted a 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X against Intel's 8-core Core i9-9900K in an array of tests, with both chips locked at 4GHz across all cores and four of the Ryzen CPU cores (or 2 CCXs) disabled (save for a couple of instances to show MT scaling). This allowed AMD's fastest Zen 2-based CPU, with its full 64MB L3 cache complement, to compete against Intel's current fastest desktop chip at identical clock speeds. A series of single-threaded benchmarks were run, in addition to some standard games tests, which are lightly multithreaded. The Intel and AMD multi-core processors essentially traded blows across a number of tests, but Intel won more often than not. The blue team notched IPC wins in SANDRA's Dhrystone integer tests, Geekbench, POV-Ray, LAME MT, and the gaming tests. AMD stole single-threaded victories in SANDRA's Whetstone FPU tests, Cinebench, and Y-Cruncher. While not an outright win for AMD, the company has obviously worked hard to improve 3rd Gen Ryzen IPC throughput, while its multi-core scaling is downright impressive.
We don't need faster, we need more power efficient (Score:3, Insightful)
Boring... Both CPUs are so fast now a days that it really doesn't matter to me any more which one is faster. The bigger issue these days is power efficiency. I don't like having a laptop that burns my skin just to watch a movie or surf the Internet or do some light development work. These days, I often find myself reaching for my Android tablet instead of my laptop just because it runs so much cooler.
My next PC is not going to be an Intel OR an AMD. It's going to be a Raspberry Pi, or something equivalent.
Re: (Score:1)
No, "we" definitely need faster. If you don't, well, that's great for you, stick to a cell phone or maybe an Arduino. These CPUs are not aimed at you.
Re: (Score:2)
matter to me *snip* I don't like *snip* , I often find myself *snip* My next PC *snip* I don't want *snip* I just want
Based on the title I thought you were a spokes person for a group of people, but it would seem you're only talking about your own specific case.
I'm happy for you. I need a faster CPU and couldn't give a damn what you want.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ryzen had 4 cores disabled. 8 vs 8. Ryzen always have more cores and vastly better heavy multithreaded performance for similar prices, the question was how are they in IPC.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Nope Intel is always better and AMD sucks for games. Ask any teenager on YouTube replies under Linus Tech Tips or Jayz2cents?
Re: (Score:2)
Nope Intel is always better and AMD sucks for games. Ask any teenager on YouTube replies under Linus Tech Tips or Jayz2cents?
Haven't watched one of those in a while but last I checked he said AMD had better bang for buck, but Intel has better minimum frame rates, and which is important for you is up to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure why the GP was modded flamebait but he was quite clearly sarcastic.
Re: (Score:2)
Make that 'has won'
The era when performance mattered was in the 90s, and that had come and gone. Once the Windows code base became NT at Windows XP, then Intel - and AMD - could enhance performance by throwing extra cores at the problem. Since utilization of multi-CPU computers is low, performance ceased to be an issue in PCs, and power consumption replaced it
Not just that, but computers bought way back still work fine. Both my laptops - one bought in 2014, another in 2015 - still work fine for me to
Re: (Score:2)
I follow that argument in software, but how does that help you here? Like what if you did have the HDL models of whatever Intel or AMD CPU you have? What could you do then if, say, 5 years from now, Intel decided to discontinue the line? Go to a fab maker and ask them to manufacture it for you? Most people don't have the kind of cash to be able to pull that off.
secure speculation only (Score:3)
Nice to know that both processors have a secure_speculation_only flag which you can set in the BIOS to enable a definitive banana to banana comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be even nicer if one of the companies allowed insecure speculation so that I could have benefit of performance rather than completely irrelevant to me security features.
Nope! (Score:1, Troll)
They catch up with Intel when they match performance thread for thread. That is the requirement, until then this is apples and oranges comparisons. What it does show is that AMD still has room to grow and that they need to improve.
Many games are still single threaded and right now having a quad core cpu is going to be more than enough in the event a game finally supports it. Until then, the bottleneck is having a good graphics card and graphics drivers that are not single threaded which is another fucked
Re: (Score:1)
Nope. Nearly all games are multi-core now, and have been for nearly a decade. I guess the Intel shills are getting off coffee break now.
Re: (Score:2)
lol... a few facts would like to come by and have a word with you.
Read this forum.
https://news.ycombinator.com/i... [ycombinator.com]
A post from just a year ago by someone that at least claims to be a game dev.
---rf15 on June 6, 2018
As a game dev, I agree with you. Also: all the casual observers that say "just multithread/core it! would make it so much faster!" and don't understand one bit about parallelisation problems, as if it's just a bit you flip.---
You are clearly one of the ones that "don't understand one bit about pa
A Intel employee spamming lies... (Score:2, Informative)
There are many game 'devs' whose coding skills are of the lowest - guess why (clue - the desire to make games and the desire to learn to code well are NOT the same drives). These useless coders always cry "multi-core coding is hard'.
Meanwhile all major AAA corporate games are coded by code specialists (the game designers do NOT code), and they target the EIGHT-cpu core consoles. All AAA game code is based on 'work units', code blocks with known dependencies that are placed on available cores- leading to 100
Re: (Score:1)
I am neither pro-Intel or pro-AMD, I actually use both in my everyday life and professional career. I am just stating facts, sorry you don't like facts.
---(hence the reason it's quoting from a forum) telling us 'amdahl's law' 'proves' games can't use more than 4 threads usefully.---
That just means you are a moron. I never said anything about amdahl's law or how many threads a game can usefully use. I just said many games are single threaded. Which is a statement of fact. But if you need to make up argu
Re: (Score:2)
Actually Ryzen 5 1600 has aged better than the i5's from that era, surpassing it in modern games, even though it has slower performance per core. So a quad-core, eight-thread CPU is starting to bottleneck the games already (it was only later that Intel changed the i5's to be 6 cores / six threads).
To prove me wrong, show me a single-core CPU that can run modern games with high frame rates.
If what you're saying instead is that currently most games don't utilize more than 16 threads, you are right, but even t
Re: (Score:3)
Many games are still single threaded and right now having a quad core cpu is going to be more than enough in the event a game finally supports it.
Actually, no games that use significant processing power are single threaded but that's beside the point. The desktop market purposely has a razor thing profit margins (to keep competitors out) while the server market needs secure systems (lest you be hacked). So your talk about gaming is almost entirely irrelevant because Intel shot itself in the foot on security and now AMD is eating their lunch. Secure the system and Intel is dog slow in comparison to AMDs chips.
Also, don't forget the latest consoles
Re: (Score:2)
---Actually, no games that use significant processing power are single threaded but that's beside the point.---
You are right, that is besides the point because it has nothing to do with the point I made. The amount of processing power a game uses has nothing to do with whether or not is is multi-threaded.
---The desktop market purposely has a razor thing profit margins (to keep competitors out) while the server market needs secure systems (lest you be hacked)---
And this has to do with the price of tea in ch
Re: (Score:2)
I wish my AMD system was insecure. I wish I didn't need to use 2FA to start my car. I wish I didn't need to use multiple locks on my front door. I wish I had Windows I could open in my apartment.
3 of 4 of these wishes have come true. Step up AMD. I have no need for irrelevant security.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the value to processing power is much better with AMD.
I hope AMD keeps up the development, Intel having a challengers is just a win for everyone. I have both Intel and AMD based systems used in all sorts of applications.
I do wish that AMD would have caught up much sooner but I want IPC parity for gaming applications. Other applications I don't care as much about depending on the situation but there are situations that call for AMD and situations that call for Intel.
Total GARBAGE... (Score:1)
Old games run well on all modern PCs, so that isn't an issue.
New games mostly come from console space, which has been AMD for ages now. So these games are coded using WORK UNIT methods that just love as many cores as are available.
Intel's so called 'lead' has always really been the conspiracy between Intel and Microsoft with respect to how drivers load a modern PC (in the old days this was DMA and the time to service IRQ requests). Games in particular were sensitive to switching times, where Drivers coded t
Re: (Score:1)
Old games run well on all modern PCs.
As long as the PC isn't running windows 10.
Reading is hard (Score:5, Informative)
> They catch up with Intel when they match performance thread for thread.
vs.
> with both chips locked at 4GHz across all cores and four of the Ryzen CPU cores (or 2 CCXs) disabled (save for a couple of instances to show MT scaling). This allowed AMD's fastest Zen 2-based CPU, with its full 64MB L3 cache complement, to compete against Intel's current fastest desktop chip at identical clock speeds [and thread counts].
Re: (Score:2)
lol wut?
I think I just read dumb and dumber in the same post!
Re: (Score:3)
AMD is already ahead if you compare processors costing the same because they give you more threads and more peripheral stuff (e.g. PCIe lanes). It's only really on single threaded performance where they are a little behind, and for most people that's not going to make a lot of difference.
Games are multithreaded and largely not CPU bound anyway, most demanding applications are multithreaded. Intel just wants you to think otherwise because it's the only advantage they have left.
Topic lies (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot topic lies about content of the actual story. In it, intel still commands a clear IPC lead.
From the conclusion:
>We came into this experiment hoping to learn something about AMD's improvements in instructions-per-cycle (IPC) performance. Our testing bears out that the company has made significant strides in this area. Previously, buying advice was something like, "if you need lots of cores and are pinching pennies, look at AMD Ryzen, but if you need stronger lightly-threaded performance, Intel is king." While Intel still has an overall advantage in low-thread-count situations like the ones we've explored today, the gap has been closed down dramatically.
Which is shows in the graphs of the story. Intel retains the IPC crown, but the formerly huge margin has shrunk considerably. It is far from being closed however.
Re:Topic lies (Score:4, Interesting)
the graphs of the story. Intel retains the IPC crown
Now run the test after applying the Meltdown and Spectre patches. Intel gets left in the dust.
"But muh gamin' rig," you squeal. Sure, your unsecure gaming machines running Windows 10 are nice and all but what counts the most is the server market since that is where the profits lie.
The desktop market purposely has a razor thing profit margins (to keep competitors out) while the server market needs secure systems (lest you be hacked). Intel's anti-competitive practices and failure to invest in security has put them in a very compromising position. They are neither the fastest, most secure or lowest power. If you are buying servers and you are still buying Intel stuff then you are an idiot.
PC gamers are unimportant. Don't forget, MS and Sony based their consoles around AMD chips.
Re: (Score:2)
It's quite possible that you're correct on all counts. Unfortunately none of the points in the copy-pasta you so dutifully posted actually talk about the topic.
Re: (Score:2)
Now run the test after applying the Meltdown and Spectre patches. Intel gets left in the dust.
Why? If you're going to do that you could also just underclock your computer or turn of XMP profiles in BIOS. I mean why would you do completely irrelevant things that give you no benefit and only slow down your computer?
Now I'd be more interested in AMD actually introducing insecure speculative execution. That way I can actually get some benefit other than some irrelevant security that doesn't apply to me. In other news I don't have to type a 2FA code in to unlock my car door. I'm reckless like that.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean why would you do completely irrelevant things that give you no benefit and only slow down your computer?
The same reason we use authentication for our usernames.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for sharing with us the Good Word of our Lord and Saviour AMD.
Do you mind if I stay agnostic on religious fanaticism of corporate fanboyism and actually talk about merits of the case?
Re: (Score:2)
You're a third fanboy/shill/astroturfer unable to handle the facts of the case and deflecting to various topics or just plain trying to lie.
I'm genuinely confused as to why. This is the first time since K7 that AMD has a genuinely competitive CPU part. You don't have to deflect or lie about the fact that IPC is still behind intel. AMD wins on essentially everything but that and software optimization. It has higher core counts, better price/performance ratio and performance is high enough to make them releva
Re: (Score:2)
Reading a German magazine I consider a reliable source (C't), the Ryzen 3000 CPUs have a problem with artificially generated random numbers, something with prevents some games running and actually prevents many Linux distributions booting properly.
There is a fix, strangely enough it's a bios update. I don't know enough about architecture to speculate as to why that should be so but I'm sure mobos will be including the fix in a week or three.
As to Intel FUD: Three of the first postings to this article were
Near as I can tell it's negligable (Score:2)
It wouldn't surprise me if Intel comes back in 10-15 months. I'm left wondering if they've been sitting on tech in case this happened. But for right now, for the first time since the Athlon
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. Best deal for the generally most popular CPU is "fastest i5/equivalent". That's 3600, and that thing is utterly amazing, crushing anything intel has in that price category and matching if not exceeding parts that are 50% more expensive.
High end is where profit margins are, and as a result, much less attractive for a price conscious buyer.