The AMD Zen and Ryzen 7 Review: A Deep Dive on 1800X, 1700X and 1700
by Ian Cutress on March 2, 2017 9:00 AM ESTAMD Stock Coolers: Wraith v2
When AMD launched the Wraith cooler last year, bundled with the premium FX CPUs and highest performing APUs, it was a refreshing take on the eternal concept that the stock cooler isn’t worth the effort of using if you want any sustained performance. The Wraith, and the 125W/95W silent versions of the Wraith, were built like third party coolers, with a copper base/core, heatpipes, and a good fan. In our roundup of stock coolers, it was clear the Wraith held the top spot, easily matching $30 coolers in the market, except now it was being given away with the CPUs/APUs that needed that amount of cooling.
That was essentially a trial run for the Ryzen set of Wraith coolers. For the Ryzen 7 launch, AMD will have three models in play.
These are iterative designs on the original, with minor tweaks and aesthetic changes, but the concept is still the same – a 65W near silent design (Stealth), a 95W near silent design (Spire), and a 95W/125W premium model (Max). The 125W models come with an RGB light (which can be disabled), however AMD has stated that the premium model is currently destined for OEM and SI designs only. The other two will be bundled with the CPUs or potentially be available at retail. We have asked that we get the set in for review, to add to our Wraith numbers.
Memory Support
With every generation of CPUs, each one comes with a ‘maximum supported memory frequency’. This is typically given as a number, with the number aligning with the industry standard JEDEC sub-timings. Technically most processors will go above and beyond the memory frequency as the integrated memory controller supports a lot more; but the manufacturer only officially guarantees up to the maximum supported frequency on qualified memory kits.
The frequency, for consumer chips, is usually given as a single number no matter how many memory slots are populated. In reality when more memory modules are in play, it puts more strain on the memory controller so there is a higher potential for errors. This is why qualification is important – if the vendor has a guaranteed speed, any configuration for a qualified kit should work at that speed.
In the server market, a CPU manufacturer might list support a little differently – a supported frequency depending on how many memory modules are in play, and what type of modules. This arguably makes it very confusing when applied at a consumer level, but on a server level it is expected that OEMs can handle the varying degree of support.
For Ryzen, AMD is taking the latter approach. What we have is DDR4-2666 for the simplest configuration – one module per channel of single rank UDIMMs. This moves through to DDR4-1866 for the most strenuous configuration at two modules per channel with dual-rank UDIMMs. For our testing, we were running the memory at DDR4-2400, for lack of a fixed option, however we will have memory scaling numbers in due course. At present, ECC is not supported ECC is supported.
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mapesdhs - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
It would be bizarre if they weren't clocked a lot higher, since there'll be a greater thermal limit per core, which is why the 4820K is such a fun CPU (high-TDP socket, 40 PCIe lanes, but only 4 cores so oc'ing isn't really limited by thermals compared to 6-core SB-E/IB-E) that can beat the 5820K in some cases (multi-GPU/compute).Meteor2 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
...Silverblue, look at the PDF opening test. What comes top? It's not an AMD chip.Cooe - Sunday, February 28, 2021 - link
Lol, because opening PDF's is where people need/will notice more performance? -_-CPU's have been able to open up PDF's fast enough to be irrelevant since around the turn of the century...
rarson - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
"AMD really isn't offering anything much for the mid range or regular desktop user either."So I'd HIGHLY recommend you wait 3 months, or overpay for Intel stuff. Because the lower-core Zen chips will no doubt provide the same performance-per-dollar that the high-end Ryzen chips are offering right now.
rarson - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
"their $499 CPU is often beaten by an i3."It's clear that you're looking at raw benchmark numbers and not real-world performance for what the chip is designed. If all you need is i3 performance, then why the hell are you looking at an 8-core processor that runs $329 or more?
Ratman6161 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
Its all academic to me. As I posted elsewhere, my i7-2600K is still offering me all the performance I need. So I'm just reading this out of curiosity. I also really, really want to like AMD CPU's because I still have a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of the Athlon 64 - when AMD was actually beating Intel in both performance and price. And sometimes I like to tinker around with the latest toys even if I don't particularly need it. I have a home lab with two VMWare ESXi systems built on FX-8320's because at the time they were the cheapest way to get to 8 threads - running a lot of VM's but with each VM doing light work.I also run an IT department so I'm always keeping tabs on what might be coming down the pike when I get ready to update desktops. But there is a sharp divide between what I buy for myself at home and what I buy for users at work. At work, most of our users actually would do fine with an i3. But I'm also keeping an eye out for what AMD has on offer in this range.
Notmyusualid - Tuesday, March 7, 2017 - link
@ Jimster480Sorry pal, but that is false, or inaccurate information.
ALL BUT the lowest model of CPUs in the 2011v3 platform are 40 PCIE lanes. Again, only the entry-level chip (6800K),has 28 lanes:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10337/the-intel-broa...
But I do agree with you, that this is competing against the HEDT line.
Peace.
slickr - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
I'm sorry, but that sound just like Intel PR. I don't usually call people shills, but your reply seems to be straight out of Intel's PR book! First of all more and more games are taking advantage of more cores, you can easily see this especially with DX12 titles where if you have even 16 cores it will take advantage of.So having 8 cores for $330 to $500 is incredible value! We also see that the Ryzen chips are all competitive compared to the $1100 6900k which is where the comparison should be. Performance on 8 cores.
And as I've found out real world performance on 8 cores compared to 4 cores is like night and day. Have you tried running a demanding game, streaming in through OBS to Twitch, with the browser open to read Twitch chat and check other stuff in the process, while also having musicbee open and playing your songs and a separate program to read Twitch donations and text, etc...
This is where 4 core struggles a lot, while 8 core responsiveness is perfect. I can't use my PC if I decide to reduce a video size to a smaller one with a 4 core. Even 8 cores are fully taken advantage off, but through one core you can always do other stuff like watch movie or surf the internet without it struggling to process.
But even if games are your holy grail and what you base your opinion on, then Ryzen does really well. Its equal or slightly slower than the much much more optimized Intel processors. But you have to keep in mind a lot of the game code is optimized solely for Intel. That is what most gamers use, in fact over 80% is Intel based gamers, but developers will optimize for AMD now that they have a competitor on their hands.
We see this all the time, with game developers optimizing for RX 400 series a lot, even though Nvidia has the large majority of share in the market. So I expect to see anywhere from 10% to 25% more performance in games and programs that are also optimized for AMD hardware.
lmcd - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
How can you call someone a shill and post this without any self-awareness? Your real-world task is GPU-constrained anyway, since you should be using a GPU capable of both video encode and rendering simultaneously. If not, you can consider excellent features like Intel's Quick Sync, which works even with a primary GPU in use these days.Meteor2 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
Game code is optimised for x86.