The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTCPU Rendering Tests
Rendering tests are a long-time favorite of reviewers and benchmarkers, as the code used by rendering packages is usually highly optimized to squeeze every little bit of performance out. Sometimes rendering programs end up being heavily memory dependent as well - when you have that many threads flying about with a ton of data, having low latency memory can be key to everything. Here we take a few of the usual rendering packages under Windows 10, as well as a few new interesting benchmarks.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Corona 1.3: link
Corona is a standalone package designed to assist software like 3ds Max and Maya with photorealism via ray tracing. It's simple - shoot rays, get pixels. OK, it's more complicated than that, but the benchmark renders a fixed scene six times and offers results in terms of time and rays per second. The official benchmark tables list user submitted results in terms of time, however I feel rays per second is a better metric (in general, scores where higher is better seem to be easier to explain anyway). Corona likes to pile on the threads, so the results end up being very staggered based on thread count.
Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
This is one multi-threaded test where the 8-core Skylake-based Intel processor wins against the new AMD Ryzen 7 2700X; the variable threaded nature of Blender means that the mesh architecture and memory bandwidth work well here. On a price/parity comparison, the Ryzen 7 2700X easily takes the win from the top performers. Users with the Core i7-6700K are being easily beaten by the Ryzen 5 2600.
LuxMark v3.1: Link
As a synthetic, LuxMark might come across as somewhat arbitrary as a renderer, given that it's mainly used to test GPUs, but it does offer both an OpenCL and a standard C++ mode. In this instance, aside from seeing the comparison in each coding mode for cores and IPC, we also get to see the difference in performance moving from a C++ based code-stack to an OpenCL one with a CPU as the main host.
POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
Another regular benchmark in most suites, POV-Ray is another ray-tracer but has been around for many years. It just so happens that during the run up to AMD's Ryzen launch, the code base started to get active again with developers making changes to the code and pushing out updates. Our version and benchmarking started just before that was happening, but given time we will see where the POV-Ray code ends up and adjust in due course.
Cinebench R15: link
The latest version of CineBench has also become one of those 'used everywhere' benchmarks, particularly as an indicator of single thread performance. High IPC and high frequency gives performance in ST, whereas having good scaling and many cores is where the MT test wins out.
Intel is still the single thread champion in benchmarks like CineBench, but it would appear that the Ryzen 7 2700X is now taking the lead in the multithreaded test.
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DisoRDeR4 - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Thanks for the review, but I noticed a minor error -- your AMD Ryzen Cache Clocks graph on the 3rd page shows data for the 2700X, but in the preceding text it is referred to as the 2800X.IGTrading - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
AMD wins all gaming benchmarks, hands down and does this at a real 105W TDP.In my opinion, it is not fair to say that Intel "wins" the single threaded scenarios as long as we see clearly that the 8700 and the 8700K have the "multi-core enhancement" activated and the motherboard allows them to draw 120W on a regular basis, like your own graphs show.
Allow AMD's Ryzen to draw 120W max and auto-overclock and only the would we have a fair comparison.
In the end, I guess that all those that bought the 7700K and the 8700K "for gaming" are now very pissed off.
The former have a 100% dead/un-upgradeable platform while the latter spent a ton of money on a platform that was more expensive, consumes more power and will surely be rendered un-upgradeable soon by Intel :) while AMD already rendered it obsolete (from the "best of the best" POV) or at least the X370+8700K is now the clear second-best in 99% of the tests @ the same power consumption while losing all price/performance comparisons.
IMHO ... allowing the 8700 & 8700K to draw 120W instead of 65W / 95W and allowing auto-overclocking while the AMD Ryzen is not tested with equivalent settings is maybe the only thing that needs to be improved with regards to the fairness of this review.
Thank you for your work Ian!
Luckz - Monday, April 23, 2018 - link
The 2700X draws so much more than its fake on-paper TDP it's not funny. With XFR2 and PB2 of course.PBO can add even more.
Ninjawithagun - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Incorrect comparison. Why does every review keep making the same mistake?? It has nothing to do with price. Comparing like CPU architectures is the only logical course of action. 6 core/12 thread vs 8 core/16 thread makes no sense. Comparing the Intel 8700K 6 core/12 thread @ $347 to the AMD 2600X 6 core/12 thread @ $229.99 makes the most sense here. Once the proper math is done, AMD destroys Intel in performance vs. cost, especially when you game at any resolution higher than 1080P. The GPU becomes the bottleneck at that point, negating any IPC benefits of the Intel CPUs. I know this how? Simple. I also own a 8700K gaming PC ;-)SmCaudata - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
I'd like to see more scatterplots with performance versus cost. Also, total cost (MB+CPU+cooler if needed) would be ideal. Even an overall average of 99th percentile 4k scores in gaming (one chart) would be interesting.... hmmm maybe a project for the afternoon.Luckz - Monday, April 23, 2018 - link
The English-language version of the Tomshardware review has a million plots on the last page (14). 4K is complete irrelevant for plotting though since you're GPU-limited there.Krysto - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Wrong. Performance at a given price level is absolutely a metric chip buyers care about - if not the MOST important metric.People usually think "Okay, I have this $300 budget for a CPU, which is the best CPU I can get for that money?" - It's irrelevant whether one has 4 cores or 8 cores or 16 cores. They will get the best CPU for the money, regardless of cores and threads.
Compared core vs core or thread vs thread is just a synthetic and academic comparison. People don't actually buy based on that kind of thinking. If X chip has 15% better gaming performance than the Y chip for the same amount of money, they'll get the X chip, regardless of cores, threads, caches, and whatnot.
Ninjawithagun - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Incorrect. Cost vs. Cost is only one of many factors to consider, but is not a main one, especially if the competition has a processor of equal quality for much less cost. Comparing an Intel 6 core/12 thread CPU to an AMD 8 cores/16 thread CPU makes absolutely no sense if you are measuring cost vs. performance. Your argument makes no sense, sorry.fallaha56 - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Ok by your rationale we should compare Threadripper to 8700k tooNinjawithagun - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
Now you are just being stupid.