The AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 3700X and 3900X Raising The Bar
by Andrei Frumusanu & Gavin Bonshor on July 7, 2019 9:00 AM EST** = Old results marked were performed with the original BIOS & boost behaviour as published on 7/7.
Gaming: Ashes Classic (DX12)
Seen as the holy child of DirectX12, Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS, or just Ashes) has been the first title to actively go explore as many of the DirectX12 features as it possibly can. Stardock, the developer behind the Nitrous engine which powers the game, has ensured that the real-time strategy title takes advantage of multiple cores and multiple graphics cards, in as many configurations as possible.
As a real-time strategy title, Ashes is all about responsiveness during both wide open shots but also concentrated battles. With DirectX12 at the helm, the ability to implement more draw calls per second allows the engine to work with substantial unit depth and effects that other RTS titles had to rely on combined draw calls to achieve, making some combined unit structures ultimately very rigid.
Stardock clearly understand the importance of an in-game benchmark, ensuring that such a tool was available and capable from day one, especially with all the additional DX12 features used and being able to characterize how they affected the title for the developer was important. The in-game benchmark performs a four minute fixed seed battle environment with a variety of shots, and outputs a vast amount of data to analyze.
For our benchmark, we run Ashes Classic: an older version of the game before the Escalation update. The reason for this is that this is easier to automate, without a splash screen, but still has a strong visual fidelity to test.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Ashes: Classic | RTS | Mar 2016 |
DX12 | 720p Standard |
1080p Standard |
1440p Standard |
4K Standard |
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Ashes has dropdown options for MSAA, Light Quality, Object Quality, Shading Samples, Shadow Quality, Textures, and separate options for the terrain. There are several presents, from Very Low to Extreme: we run our benchmarks at the above settings, and take the frame-time output for our average and percentile numbers.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| Ashes Classic | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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Irata - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Thanks for your reply Ryan. I did not intend to be rude when saying "lazy" but rather show that I do not think this is something that was done by intent.Like I said - mention these things and it helps clear up misunderstandings.
It is definitely very positive that you test the Ryzen CPU with the latest builds though.
I also like that you mention if prices include an HSF or not, but it would have been nice to mention the price of HSF used for Intel systems (when not boxed), as e.g. the Thermalright True Copper is a rather expensive CPU cooler.
I think you already addressed not using a faster nVME drive (a PCIe 4 version would have been ideal if available - this would also have given an indication of potentially increased system power use for the Ryzen with PCIe 4 drives) on Twitter.
Those are little nitpicks, so not intended to be a criticism of the overall article. It is just that people tend to be rather sensitive when it comes to Intel vs. AMD CPU comparisons, given Intel's history of things they are willing to do to keep mind- and marketshare.
Daeros - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Whether or not it is intentional, AT has had an increasing Intel bias over the last several years. Watch to see how long it takes for an AMD article to get pushed down by rumors or vaporware from Intel or Nvidia.rarson - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
I think Ryan brings up several salient points, and whether or not you think that they did or did not have the time to do what you wanted (they were also a man down without Dr. Cuttress), the fact of the matter is that AMD dropped a bunch of CPUs and GPUs all at once and literally everyone was scrambling to do what they could in order to cover these launches.I don't think it's coincidence that even in the tech Youtube space, if you watch 10 different reviews you'll largely see 10 different testing methodologies and 10 (somewhat) different results. Every single reviewer I've talked to said that this was one of, if not the most, difficult launch windows they've ever dealt with. Additionally, launching on a weekend with all of its associated complications (not just on reviewers' ends, but partners as well) is a bitch, with everyone scrambling at the last minute on their days off getting in last-minute updates and whatnot.
When AMD tells you at the last minute, "Oh, the brand new Windows 10 update includes something new" you don't necessarily have time to go back and redo all the benchmarks you had already done on the Intel platform.
TL;DR while there may have been flaws in some of the testing, take the details with a grain of salt and compare them to the myriad of other reviews out there for a better overall picture if necessary.
Irata - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
You are making a good point and unfortunately this was an - unfortunately - typical AMD CPU launch with things still being beta. I would assume testers are none too happy about having to re-do their tests.What I don't get from AMD (even if (and that's a capital IF) it's not their fault, it's their responsibility) is how they cannot see how this makes their products appear in a less favorable light. Let's say the buggy bios cost them 5%, the conclusion with a 5% better performance would have been even more in Ryzen 3000's favor.
It's a bit like showing up to a job interview wearing the clothes you wore for the previous day's physical activity.
Daeros - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Lazy isn't in it. Intentionally misleading is more like it. On one page, where AMD wins more than it looses in the charts, out of 21 paragraphs, 2 had something positive to say about AMD or Ryzen 3k without following up with something along the lines of "but we know Intel's got new tech coming, too"Ryan Smith - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
To be sure, they're still valid. The patches for Fallout and ZombieLoad are not out yet (I only mention them because the vulnerabilities have already been announced).RSAUser - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
They've been out since 14 May, what are you talking about?djayjp - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Don't forget RIDLMeteor2 - Sunday, July 14, 2019 - link
RIDL and Zombieload are the same thing.Yes, the Intel CPUs should have been re-benchmarked on 1903, updated after 14 May when the OS-side fixes for the new MDS-class flaws were released. That's only fair and it's quite reasonable to expect that users will apply security updates, not leave their systems unpatched and vulnerable for perhaps a percent or two of performance.
FireSnake - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Ryan: how is this not explained in the article? I am reading this site for more then a decade and I trust you most. and I trust you will provide such information. I would expect, you update the article with this info.