Intel Skylake-X/Kaby Lake-X, AMD Zen CPUs and RX 470/460

Intel Skylake-X/Kaby Lake-X:

http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-q2-2017-roadmap-leak/
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-platform-launch-2017/
http://hothardware.com/news/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-lga-2066-processors-2h-2017

Apperantly Intel is deciding to make a Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X platform by next year (as oppose to the -E platforms like Broadwell-E), this may effect people who are waiting on Zen, but I mean one can only play the waiting game for so long before something new comes to destroy it (except for Intel's CPUs, which only make 5% jumps). The Skylake-X will feature 44 PCIe Gen3 lanes on the 8 and 10 core parts as opposed to the Broadwell-E only having 40, a minor improvement. The 6 core part is going to be cut down to 28 lanes and Idk if they will have a 40 lane version of the 6 core part. The Kaby Lake-X features a Quad Core processor (as an extreme edition!?) Kaby Lake-X features a 112W power draw so it's higher than the mainstream Quad Cores today, who knows what gains (or losses) will be seen through Kaby Lake-X

AMD Zen CPUs:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ams-zen-engineering-sample-specs-leaked.html
http://techfrag.com/2016/07/19/amd-zen-processor/
http://www.pcgamesn.com/amd-zen-idle-power

So leaks of Zen have came out when some people got their hands on an engineering sample, the clock speeds looks unpromising, as the 40% IPC will not look as impressive without similar clocks or higher, given that this Zen CPU is 2.8 GHz vs the current FX CPUs and Athlon that is at 4 GHz or near 4 GHz, clockspeed will likely be higher given that this is an engineering sample. This CPU manages to consume very little power in idle compared to the CPUs native power output. The CPUs come in the following Core/Thread Configuration

4 Cores/8 Threads AM4+ 65W
8 Cores/16 Threads AM4+ 95W
24 Cores/48 Threads SP3 160W
32 Cores/64 Threads SP3 180W

They apperantly skipped the 6C/12T and 16C/32T Configurations? This is strange, would be ideal to squeeze a 6-core between a 4-core and 8-core I assumed, but this was based on the bang for the buck I got on my i7 5820K as oppose to an i7 4790K or an i7 5960X. I hope they squeeze a middle, unless the 8-Core CPU isn't too expensive (like $250ish, maybe a bit more). This was my most anticipated product to come out this year as one can hope that AMD can keep Intel from being a monopoly on x86_64 platform.

More AMD RX 470/460 info?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4tfovg/new_rx470_and_rx460_dx12_benches_vs_rx480gtx/
http://ashesofthesingularity.com/metaverse#/ladders/benchmark/overall/Low_1080p?viewType=myself&filters=%7B%7D
http://ashesofthesingularity.com/metaverse#/ladders/benchmark/overall/Medium_1080p?viewType=myself

I would take this with a grain of salt, according to this leak, the RX 470 is ridiculously close to the RX 480 in performance, by only around 3% and this shows it exceeding the GTX 970/980 in AoTS, which is a heavily AMD title, so it will likely be just under a GTX 970 overall, being 15%-20% weaker than the RX 480 maybe, maybe tied at best since the RX 480 is just above a GTX 970. I would wait until these GPUs launch so we can make sure that the results are as predicted and not a hype train that's gonna crash, wouldn't want to overhype.

As for the RX 460, would also take this with a grain of salt, especially since the card's specs are far lower than the RX 470. It shows the RX 460 performing near a GTX 960, which outclasses the R7 270X.

1 Like

i take anything wccftech writes with a grain of salt...

4 Likes

Or a few nanocrystals of salt.

And a picoliter of soy sauce.

1 Like

I think I mentioned something in an earlier thread of mine about AMD not being happy in internal testing with Zen performance so far hence the delays in any related official announcements.

If it means they start talking more actively about a release date next year then I am actually ok with this if it means that they first iron out all the bugs or issues they might be having.

Would you like fries with that?

I don't think I can hold out for that long though, was hoping it be by December, otherwise I will have to do something temporary, like use a Pentium G3258 and OC it or something

I was in the same dilemma Drew, so I decided just to upgrade my existing amd rig with a better 8core cpu to replace my quad and now looking at gpu's.

I do not think this is the year to be an upgrader for AMD stuff, for Intel there is an abundance of choices and very good 2011 and 1151 cpus in the market but the higher end cpus are also expensive, and in this day an age despite the IPC performance being decent I am not sure that a dual core cpu at that pentium level is a good $80 or so dollars to spend since for 110 you can get an 8core from AMD that will likely perform better in a wider variety of tasks.

My theory is that if you can get away with spending around 300 bucks and boosting an older rig to something that is fairly good for at least another year then by late 2017 we will start getting more competitive enthusiast options from team red and also some reactive deals from team blue which in every case benefits the consumer.

Good point, may try the FX 8320E (I originally planned on buying it for my first build, until I instead got an i7 5820K for $320.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/437624/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_32GHz_Eight-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processor
Only $90, and once I replace it with a Zen CPU/Mobo, I can use the scraps with the spare R7 360 to create a Home Server, the only problem is no ECC Memory support as far as I know.

I will wait for confirmation that it will be delayed next year before I follow through with this plan.

Engineering samples are not known for having crazy clock speeds fyi

2 Likes

The 8320e has a good thermal rating as well as being able to overclock like nuts, i believe with an aftermarket air cooler you can squeeze 4.7Ghz easily out of it.

The other nice thing is that there are some good boards available at that sub 100 mark for amd right now that are feature rich, not sure which of them support ecc but i did post a pic in another thread of a new board i got today and someone said it did have ecc support, i still gotta double check that too.

I found a video by hardware canucks on youtube that also shows this very impressive rig which was sporting a 990fx (130 approx price) and 2x 380 in xfire, they did this earlier this year in Jan/Feb and whilst at the time that build seemed expensive right now those particular parts with 2 cards and an 8core fx cpu is around 500 bucks for the lot, and the performance is on par with most of the modern stuff because xfire driver support seems to improving a lot too.

I would never pair a 1070 or 1080 with any current gen AMD cpu but its extremely interesting that 2x r9 380 in xfire mode with a 8core amd cpu will give you the gaming experience of any higher end system for about 30% of the total cost of a high end system.

I've got an 8320E and it's wonderful. I would say the performance is on partner (stock speeds) with a 3770k in real world tests under Windows 7 and it beats Intel on Linux.

Im sure you'll have good results with the 5820k though, it's a beast of a chip.

@gameg33k I managed to get this chip up to 4.8ghz with an aio liquid cooler, and it really kicked ass. I could pro badly push it farther, but I don't have a great motherboard, so I think that's where I'm hitting my limits. If the boards are coming down far enough in price, I may pick one up. that crazy cpu and released a couple years ago... 5ghz or so 8 core, 220w tdp, I forget the sku... Does that one run on the same am3+ and 990fx?

I don't really see the problem, 2.8*1,4 is still approx 4Ghz on 8 cores. And they're hyperthreaded which is leaps and bounds beyond anything Intel currently can offer unless you're willing to shell out like 1000$+.
Basically imagine a 8350k with hyper threading. And again at best the measurements are done on a engineering sample, not a final release.
At the current speeds we're working at e.g. 3-4Ghz single core speed really doesn't matter that much, it's more about threads, which is a game Intel has been playing since their i line of CPUs was released.
AMDs goal with the ZEN line is not to compete with the 1800$ extreme line of CPUs but rather chop off the head of the Hydra known as Intel, like they did with the RX480 GPU and NVidia, by releasing a semi promising CPU, at a lower cost then their competition, and segmenting their competition to only the very high end and expensive market.

*edit
And not to mention the socket thing where Intels changes basically for each cpu released, and AMDs AM4+ will be one socket to rule them all.

Intel is playing on single core performance more though, cause they can, if AMD don't keep up, then AMD is gonna lose a decent chunk of the consumer base.

Intel has a some 5 years heads up on AMD due to some VERY poor decisions done by AMDs marketing department.
Intel CPUs does have higher IPC then AMD can offer(with ZENs release it will still be around +10% or so in Intels favor), AMD will bury intel with threads and price though.
Which would you rather use? a 4 core, 8 threads ~4Ghz CPU, or a 8 core, 16 thread ~2,8-3Ghz CPU?
That is most likely your comparrison point, not a 10 core, 20 threads ~4Ghz CPU ~1800$ vs. 8 core, 16 thread ~2,8-3Ghz ~300-400 dollar one.
If AMD allows for multiple CPUs on one MOBO you can make a PC with 4*16=64 threads for the price of a single Intel "Extreme edition", And you'd still have some walking around money since their properly cheaper by 200$ for the 4 CPUs give and take some(Im just pulling out numbers for AMDs price tag, but im allmost certain it's not going to be 1800$ which is just redicules to the point where Intel competes and loosing to their own server grade hardware).

1 Like

Good question, I guess I can hold off a small amount of IPC and still be feared if I have moar threads, I am just praying now it don't get delayed, not really in the mood to buy the current FX CPU now, saving up on a mobile computer too.

All in all id say hold off the few months til the actual ZEN is released. But as a desktop PC 16 threads is gonna be fun imo.
While gaming Intel would properly still win unless it's a DX12 game, and properly by a descent sum, but that's a problem future me will have to handle. Atm the thought of a 16 threads CPU for the price of a 8 threads CPU is just to promising :)
But im holding in there until some benchmarks has been released, along with a price tag.
After the FX line im really not reluctant to trust AMD making the right choices when it comes to CPU's.
FX was bad, just bad to the point where even their engineers begged and pleaded with the marketing department to make the right choice.

1 Like