Ryzen Release Thread

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/258978/intel...bious-data

Der8auer observed something curious about a few slides in particular that Intel used to discredit AMD's high-end desktop processors, relating to its Creator performance as tested in Maxon Cinema 4D's benchmark program, Cinebench. Intel claimed that AMD cannot use Cinebench data to represent "real-world" performance as "only 0.22 percent" of users polled by Intel's "Software Improvement Program" respondents use Maxon Cinema 4D. And who are these respondents? Close to 11 million of them, _all_ of whom are notebook and tablet users, and a majority of whom have Software Improvement Program part of OEM bloatware. This, according to Der8auer, is fundamentally dishonest on Intel's part as Maxon Cinema 4D is less likely to be used on portable computers, and more likely on premium desktops or HEDTs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40231.html

We chose to look into the matter further based on a comment made by legendary overclocker and Asus engineer Shamino on the Overclock.net forums, which is the same comment that spurred the article Intel cited in the slide above. Shamino stated that AMD had dialed back the boost frequencies to bring its long-term reliability metrics more into line with the company's expectations.
...
It's noteworthy that Shamino made the statement from his private forum account, so we can't take it as a definitive statement from AMD, or Asus for that matter, on whether or not the company reduced the boost frequencies to extend the longevity of its chips. This is likely his opinion. Shamino also claimed that AMD might have a 'more customizable' version of its boost mechanisms in the future, but how that changes the already-existing settings is unclear.

However, Shamino's comments are even more interesting due to an earlier post by The Stilt, a well-known hardware reviewer and member of the enthusiast community that works for an unidentified motherboard vendor.
...
The Stilt claimed that AMD had lowered the temperature threshold for boost activity from 80C to 75C, which reigns in the boost activity when the chip reaches higher temperatures. This is an important distinction due to the nature of chip aging, which we'll do our best to simplify.
...
Having reached a dead-end in our attempts to get an official explanation from AMD about the matter, the only thing left to do was to test to see if we can spot a change to the temperature thresholds in the various firmware revisions. We can't verify the impact on reliability, as CPUs don't have a wearout indicator like we see with SSDs. However, the most logical starting point is to determine if there were intentional changes to boost behavior.
...
In either case, the trend here is undeniable: In contrast to the F4 BIOS, the Ryzen 7 3700X with the N11 BIOS stays above 4.2 GHz after it reaches the 75C threshold, with peaks that vary (4.25 to 4.225 GHz) on a per-run basis. Peak clocks only drop to 4.2 GHz after the chips exceed the 80C threshold. That means this BIOS is faster than the previous version during extended workloads.

The heightened clock speeds are relatively small, an increase of 225 to 250 MHz, but as we've seen with Der8eur's survey, many users that aren't reaching peak speeds are falling short by these relatively slim variances. While these variances are comparatively small, we're looking at a difference of 225 to 250 million cycles per second, which adds up to a billion extra cycles in ~four seconds, not to mention the number of additional cycles that the transistors and interconnects will experience throughout their three-year warranty period.

In other words, it's safe to assume that these small alterations, which occur during the time of peak stress with high heat/current density, could have a meaningful impact on long-term reliability. Of course, that doesn't mean that is the intention behind the temperature threshold adjustments, but it is a possibility. It's also possible that AMD is merely tuning its boost algorithms to provide a more targeted range of effective performance, and these alterations have nothing to do with reliability metrics.

The next step is to see the current state of the BIOS. Here we're testing Gigabyte's latest, the F5 BIOS with AGESA 1.0.03 ABB. Gigabyte doesn't specify the SMU revision on its site, but this is 46.40.0. Here we can see the chip drop to 4.2 GHz after it reaches 76C, where it remains well after 80C.

This is markedly different, and less desirable, than the N11 'reviewer BIOS.' This means the chip will run slower during lightly-threaded workloads, and you won't hit peak clocks if the chip is over 75C.

Finally, these are the results of F5P, a beta BIOS that Gigabyte posted a few days ago to Overclock.net. We're testing this latest revision to see if there are any measurable changes in what is expected to be the last pre-AGESA-fix BIOS. The chip remains above 4.2 GHz until it exceeds 77C for five seconds. Again, this is slower than the reviewer BIOS.
...
It's easy to vilify Intel for attacking AMD about these changes, especially given the unsubstantiated nature of the reports it's cited. We're accustomed to seeing unsavory marketing tactics from both AMD and Intel alike, among many other companies, but there should be some awareness at Intel that promoting unproven theories with its company logo next to them is inherently risky. It lends credibility to reports that might not have any real merit. Instead, Intel should work to put proven metrics behind statements that call into question the reliability of competing products.
...
Marketing hijinks aside, it's hard to determine if AMD has adjusted the temperature limits to reign in reliability metrics. But our tests show that there have been alterations, even after the company initially cut back to the 75C limit. And there's no doubt that the 'reviewer BIOS' is faster and sustains higher boost clocks for longer than the latest releases. Many chips aren't reaching their full boost potential even with the N11 'reviewer BIOS,' so AMD's fix might consist of returning to the original hard 80C boost temperature limit, which we're told hasn't been officially seen in the wild.

If AMD did adjust the threshold to align the chips with its reliability projections, and that's a big if, returning to the 80C limit would expose it to a higher failure rate. However, that doesn't mean Ryzen chips are going to die in droves. Chip longevity is strictly controlled to keep the number of RMAs at a tenable level, typically dictated by the financial impact to the company. Alterations could ultimately equate to a comparatively small increase in the number of failures over time. At this point, a minor increase in failure rates would certainly be preferable to a class-action lawsuit for false advertisement, not to mention the damage to the Ryzen brand.
...
Ultimately AMD's temperature adjustments aren't the only reason that users aren't reaching rated clock speeds, much of it could be users with older versions of Windows that don't target the favored cores correctly, or just general user error, but the altered thresholds are almost certainly a factor. AMD is binning these chips to the very limits of the silicon, so it has precious little wiggle room to play with.

To be clear, we stand by the recommendations we've made in both our reviews and our Best CPU articles. The Ryzen 3000 series processors bring a new class of performance, and value, to the mainstream desktop. But we also expect the products we purchase to reach their rated specifications, so we're happy to hear that AMD is busy working on a fix.

We now have a good base of knowledge to determine if AMD's forthcoming fix, which it will unveil September 10, involves adjusting the thermal threshold further. We won't know more until the new BIOS and/or SMU revisions are in hand, but we'll be ready at our test benches when it lands.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40359.html

AMD's unreleased firmware, which the company says will fix the boost behavior of its Ryzen 3000 processors, has leaked onto the Chiphell forums. We grabbed the download and did a round of testing to see if the new BIOS and SMU fix the boosting behavior of the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3700X processors.

We have to caution, however, that this is a leaked beta BIOS revision that may not be in its final state, so we'll have to take the results with a grain of salt. In either case, we do see some improvements that fall in line with our expectations for the Ryzen 7 3700X, but we also spotted an odd performance regression with the Ryzen 9 3900X, indicating this firmware is a work in progress.
...
Oddly enough, the fact that our Ryzen 7 3700X sample is already of good quality, barely missing the rated speeds even with the older firmwares, works against us. The performance uplift with the new BIOS is minimal, but the changes to the thermal thresholds indicate that the new firmware should correct the boost behavior for 3700X's of lower quality.

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the official word from AMD on the matter. While this BIOS revision does deliver some of the expected improvements in boost activity, at least with our Ryzen 7 3700X sample, we'll wait until the official release before we come to any firm conclusions.

We'll dive in deeper with these tests, and add frequency and voltage scaling, as well as a broader spate of real-world application testing, as soon as we receive the new firmwares. This firmware appears to be a work in progress, but shows that the bugs are being ironed out and should be fixable. Stay tuned.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/259139/amd-u...nch-window

The slide for CPU microarchitecture states that the design phase of "Zen 3" is complete, and that the microarchitecture team has already moved on to develop "Zen 4." This means AMD is now developing products that implement "Zen 3." On the other hand, RDNA2 is still in design phase. The crude x-axis on both slides that denotes year of expected shipping, too appears to suggest that "Zen 3" based products will precede RDNA2 based ones. "Zen 3" will be AMD's first response to Intel's "Comet Lake-S" or even "Ice Lake-S," if the latter comes to fruition before Computex 2020. In the run up to RDNA2, AMD will scale up RDNA a notch larger with the "Navi 12" silicon to compete with graphics cards based on NVIDIA's "TU104" silicon. "Zen 2" will receive product stack additions in the form of a new 16-core Ryzen 9-series chip later this month, and the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper family.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-a...00x/6.html

Power-consumption of the Ryzen 9 3900X with the new AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA comes as a pleasant surprise. For the kind of clock-speed and performance gains we're seeing, small as they are, they do not come at significant cost of power. Idle power draw is cut by 1 W, and single-threaded tests, which is where we were expecting the most deviation in power, post a mere 1 W gain in power draw (from 92 W to 93 W for the whole system). Multi-threaded power-draw increases by 7 W for the whole system, which is probably because all 24 threads on this chip are being boosted slightly higher, which add up. There's a similar 13 W increase in gaming power draw. This is probably because games tend to tell the processor to stay on its toes and be ready to boost all cores. Under a stress test, where the processor has reached its thermal and electrical limits, the new BIOS makes no difference, which reflects in the power draw staying the same.

AMD has succeeded in delivering on the advertised maximum boost frequencies with elevated clock speeds across all cores, which results in tiny performance gains at negligible increases in power draw. We do recommend AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA over your existing BIOS provided you know how to update your motherboard BIOS and are willing to do it at your own risk. We appreciate AMD constantly listening to PC enthusiasts and coming out with solutions, rather than basing their customer feedback on some passive data-collection program that's been pushed down users' throats by OEMs.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40417.html

A mysterious Redditor, reportedly from Russia, has shared photographs that claim to be AMD's soon-to-be-released Ryzen 9 3950X 16-core processor and its packaging.
...
Digitec Galaxus AG, a Swiss IT, consumer electronics and telecommunication retailer, recently posted a listing saying the the Ryzen 9 3950X would hit shelves on September 30. However, the Swiss retailer has since changed the delivery date to unknown. Some might argue that the previous listed date could have been a placeholder only. However, Digitec is AMD's only Western European partner, so we think that the retailer's information is probably legit. The recent Reddit posting lends some credence to the September 30 release date.

AMD has announced a plethora of 7nm products this year, and TSMC probably has its hands full. We suspect AMD is most likely still building up its Ryzen 9 3950X supply so that there are enough chips to go around. The Ryzen 9 3950X is expected to be a big gamechanger. after all. Its release will mark the first time we see a 16-core processor in the mainstream market.

https://www.neowin.net/news/amd-ryzen-9-...-very-soon

Enthusiasts and AMD fans are looking forward to the chip as it will be the first 16-core CPU on a mainstream platform. Nonetheless, it's always best to temper expectations. AMD's 32-core 2990WX Threadripper processor, based on Zen+ architecture, was found to be bandwidth-starved in certain applications despite running on quad-channel memory and a similar situation could arise here since the 16-core 3950X will be fed by dual-channel memory. However, AMD has made several notable improvements to the Zen 2 design so it may be a non-issue after all.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40398.html

While the new firmware delivers smaller boosts than expected, especially in light of the up to 300 MHz shortfall reported with the Ryzen 9 3900X in a recent survey, AMD does say that it corrects a firmware bug that reduces performance in some scenarios. With our testing of the single-die models complete, we're now focusing on the improvements for the multi-die Ryzen 9 3900X, which seems to be most impacted by the frequency deficit. We'll also test some adjustments AMD made to idle power consumption and see how the new update impacts AMD's auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature, but most importantly, examine how the Windows scheduler is still causing AMD problems.
...
That's due to the reality that AMD's chips come with a mix of faster and slower cores. Because your chip can't boost to its top frequency on every core, any wayward workload that lands in slower cores will suffer. More often than not, we observed the chip boosting on an inactive core during some workloads, which does nothing for performance. This is a persistent trend with both current and older BIOS revisions on the Gigabyte and MSI motherboards.

Like we've already seen in the mobile space, this new binning strategy is innovative and promises to wring the utmost performance out of every piece of silicon that comes out of the fab. But as we've seen today, AMD's implementation is still in the midst of teething pains. The first big hurdle is to get the Windows scheduler to utilize the faster cores more efficiently, and that may already be in the works.
...
In either case, the current 46.49.0 SMU revision goes a long way to improving performance, but we're also told by our sources that a new 46.49.2 revision is already filtering out to motherboard vendors. That means we should see more improvements on the BIOS front quickly. That makes sense given the pending release of the Ryzen 9 3950X later this month.

AMD has also dismissed the reliability concerns that we recently investigated. The company says unequivocally that the heightened boost speeds will not impact processor longevity.

Overall, AMD's boost fix should meet the demands of most users that want to see their chips hit the numbers printed on the box, but you shouldn't expect miracles: Those increased boost clocks don't equate to much extra performance. We hope the company continues to work on optimizing the silicon and working with Microsoft to fine-tune the scheduler. Given AMD's history with the first-gen Ryzen processors, which were born into a world with zero optimization for the new Zen architecture but quickly served up massive post-launch gains, it's possible that we can see even more performance gains through optimization in the future.

We have to keep things in perspective, though. We're analyzing the finer details of the architecture to see how AMD can improve these chips in the future, but our recommendations remain unchanged. We stand by the recommendations we've made in both our reviews and our Best CPU articles: The Ryzen 3000 series processors bring a new class of performance, and value, to the mainstream desktop.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40434.html

Chinese retailer JD.com has listed the AMD Ryzen 5 3500X on its online store. The processor is in all likelihood the older brother of the previously leaked AMD Ryzen 5 3500.
...
Based on the marketing material from JD.com, the Ryzen 5 3500X specifically targets the Intel Core i5-9400F. Both processors share the same core count, boost clocks and TDP rating, but that's where the similarities end. On paper, the Ryzen 5 3500X has the upper-hand, with a 700 MHz higher base clock, 23MB more L3 cache, not to mention native support for the PCIe 4.0 interface and DDR4-3200 memory modules.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40442.html

AMD previously told us that it's long-awaited Ryzen 9 3950X, a 16-core 32-thread behemoth destined for the mainstream desktop, would arrive in September 2019, but today the company announced it is delaying the release until November while it focuses on meeting the demand for existing chips.
...
AMD's beastly 12-core 24-thread Ryzen 9 3900X is still a rarity at retail two and a half months after its launch, leading to price gouging from third-party retailers. While we're accustomed to scarce availability of chips from both Intel and AMD in the first few weeks of a launch, the persistent 3900X shortages are more pronounced than we've seen with other processors. That's led to plenty of speculation, with the most popular theories being that either AMD isn't yielding enough 7nm chips with high enough quality to satiate demand for the consumer chips, or that the company is setting the premium-quality compute die aside for its promising EPYC Rome data center processors, where demand is surely high due to the incredible blend of price, performance, and leading-edge features. In fact, the company just announced a newer, faster version of those chips two days ago, which would also obviously require cream-of-the-crop dies.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/29...l-november

As annoying as this might be for anyone hoping to get their hands on a sweet 16-core chip or planning a near-term Threadripper upgrade, it’s the right call. Paper launches serve no one in the long term. They create frustration and distrust between a company and its customers, who feel that the availability of a product has been misrepresented, particularly if the only samples available are on eBay for 2-3x base retail price.

We don’t know anything about Threadripper clock targets yet, but the high boost clock on the Ryzen 9 3950X could be responsible for this delay. AMD has set an extremely aggressive target for itself and yields at TSMC may not have improved enough over the past few months to make the company certain of a launch. Overall demand for 7nm is high and lead times for hardware have reportedly been rising at the foundry manufacturer.

[SteelCrysis]

https://techgage.com/article/amd-3600x-3...ormance/8/

When we received the 3600X and 3400G, we planned to review them separately, aiming to spend more time on the GPU aspect with the 3400G. Over time, complications arose, and we never got around to it, and because we need to justify the time wasted, we’re putting this mini-rant to paper.

To keep our testing as accurate as possible, we always try to use the same motherboard for any given series of chips. Our plans for that with this article were thwarted when our Aorus X570 MASTER refused to boot with the 3400G installed, an issue that AMD ended up replicating. After weeks of EFI releases and no corrected support, we decided to suck it up and move the chip to an MSI B350 board. Despite it being last-gen, it had an EFI update to support Zen 2.

As it happens, this MSI board refuses to update its EFI. Either inside of the EFI itself, or with the Windows tool, any attempted flash will result in absolutely no action being taken after the reboot occurs. We even left the PC to sit for an entire hour on one occasion to see if that helped, but no cigar. Even clearing the CMOS on the board failed to improve the situation.

We then got hold of a newer B450 board from Aorus, and our issues finally disappeared. We’re not sure why we’ve had so many issues overall, but we can say that if you buy an APU, you should verify with a search that the chip is working as it should, since motherboard support pages may not always be accurate (and weren’t in our case).

Tying into all of this, we never managed to achieve 3200MHz DRAM speeds on the 2400G before in our previous-gen ASUS Crosshair VII HERO or the aforementioned MSI B350 board, but on this Aorus B450 PRO WIFI? It somehow works. It just seems like boards actually suited for these APUs support them better (go figure, right?)

We hate to hog so much of this page with those woes, but the truth is, we encountered one issue after another, and didn’t expect it, and because of it, we ended up not even getting around to IGP testing. We still want to do that, though, because we’ve been dying to know how it handles video game emulators for a while – and some real game testing wouldn’t hurt.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.neowin.net/news/amds-ryzen-9...ays-report

A new report by Digitimes, however, claims that the Ryzen 9 3950X is facing boosting issues in its current state and the chip is exhibiting "unsatisfactory clock speeds". This could be accurate since AMD's Ryzen processors are quite notorious for running at lower speeds than advertised. The clocking issue was especially pronounced in the new 3000 series Ryzen CPUs as the majority of these chips even failed to ramp up to their advertised boost speeds. Famous overclocking guru "der8auer" conducted a survey which showed that only 5.6% of all the participants' chips were hitting the advertised boosts.

The problem was later acknowledged by AMD and the company released a firmware update dubbed AGESA 1003ABBA to fix the issue. Tests showed that the update seems to have fixed the clocking issue on the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X and other third-gen chips. However, it is possible that this BIOS fix may not be working on the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X forcing AMD to defer its launch by a couple of months.

https://www.techpowerup.com/259498/repor...et-surface

We've known for some time that AMD's mainstream-segment B550 chipset wouldn't bring all the bangs and whistles of its bigger, enthusiast-class cousin X570. For one, it wouldn't make sense to increase development and implementation costs of both the chipset and motherboards built for mainstream enthusiasts by adding PCIe 4.0 support and the more stringent signaling and power requirements the new standard entails. As such, B550 reportedly cuts down fully on PCIe 4.0 support, as well as on the latest USB standards, to offer a product that's sufficiently rounded up on I/O while offering overclocking support for users that demand it.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-b5...40467.html

According to a posting from German retailer Alternate, pre-built desktops that employ AMD B550 motherboards could debut as soon as next month. However, a DigiTimes report claimed that motherboard manufacturers will receive their B550 orders in the fourth quarter, which suggests a later release date for AMD B550-based motherboards.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.neowin.net/news/amds-ryzen-9...ays-report

Update: A previous version of the article incorrectly stated that AMD's Ryzen processors are quite notorious for running at lower speeds than advertised, this was removed since there is no proof for such a statement.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40485.html

The Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 9 Pro 3900 made their first appearance in an Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) listing back in July. Today, Biostar has shed some light on the processors' specifications. As with any third-generation Ryzen chips, the Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 9 Pro 3900 utilize AMD's advanced Zen 2 microarchitecture and are built on TSMC's 7nm FinFET process node.
...
As per Biostar's information, the Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 9 Pro 3900 sport a 3.1 GHz base clock, which is 700 MHz or 22.58% slower than the Ryzen 9 3900X. The motherboard manufacturer didn't list the processors' boost clocks. However, a well-known hardware leaker known on Twitter as TUM_APISAK seems to think that the boost clock for the Matisse parts can be 4.3 GHz. So we're looking at a 9.52% lower boost clock in a worst-case situation.

It's unknown when AMD will launch the Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 9 Pro 3900. The chipmaker is probably busy building up stock for the Ryzen 9 3950X, which has been pushed to November, and preparing the Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series release. On top of that, TSMC is reportedly in a bit of a pickle. The foundry's 7nm business has been booming lately, and high demand has increased the lead time from 2 months to 6 months. This could have an impact on AMD's CPU production.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40494.html

Computer hardware, like any other consumer product, conforms to the law of supply and demand. What's pretty intriguing is that the Ryzen 9 3900X has gone up in price in a little more than three month's time since the chip's release, and though we've already seen extreme price gouging on eBay and other third-party sellers, now retail outlets have also raised prices. It looks like AMD's supply of Ryzen 9 3900X is starting to run dry, which is evident since the 12-core part is practically out of stock at the majority of the major retailers. With TSMC's recent struggles to meet the high 7nm demands, it's probably going to take some time before the Ryzen 9 3900X's price starts to stabilize.
...
There are two possible explanations for the price discrepancy between the different retailers. Either the retailers are increasing their prices to take advantage of the high demand and very low supply, or AMD has secretly raised the MSRP for the Ryzen 9 3900X. Historically, AMD hasn't always publicly announced pricing updates for its products. When it does, it's usually a price cut.

We've reached out to AMD for comment and will update the article when the chipmaker gets back to us.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ryz...,6359.html

As we've been covering, AMD's Ryzen 3000 series CPUs often have issues hitting and sustaining the advertised boost clock speed. A recent motherboard firmware update improved things a little bit, but often boosts the wrong core. Results vary based on chip quality, motherboard, and firmware, so I set out to see if adding more cooling would help get my store-bought Ryzen 7 3700X to hit or exceed its advertised top-speed of 4.4 GHz. What I found out is that, even when I used liquid nitrogen to freeze my processor down to -180 degrees Celsius, it was still stuck at 4.35 GHz, 50 MHz below its boost. However, as we'll see below, you can hit boost clocks by manual overclocking.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40500.html

A new OPN (Ordering Part Number) for the Ryzen 9 3950X processor, which has been delayed until November, suggests that AMD will offer the flagship chip with and without the AMD Wraith Prism cooler.

Intel, for instance, has stopped including stock coolers for its unlocked Core i5, i7, and i9 processors for a while now. The general reasoning is that if you have the budget for a high-end chip, you most likely won't be using it with a stock cooler. However, a stock cooler still holds its value like when you need it to stand in the event that your aftermarket cooling solution fails and you need to RMA it. Unlike Intel, AMD might give its future Ryzen 9 3950X customers a choice to pick up the chip with the stock cooler or not.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-...40522.html

M D Computers has listed the AMD's unannounced Ryzen 5 3500 processor for 11,199 Indian Rupees (INR), which roughly translates to $157.51. The Indian retailer will start to dispatch Ryzen 5 3500 orders on October 5, which suggests AMD could launch the processor on the specified date or even before.
...
Early benchmarks reveal that the Ryzen 5 3500X is faster than the Core i5-9400F. We don't expect that to change with the Ryzen 5 3500. Even though the non-X part only has half the L3 cache, the difference in performance should be very little. Strangely enough, JD.com has the Ryzen 5 3500X for $153.74 while M D Computers is listing the Ryzen 5 3500 for a $157.51. We can't wait to see AMD's official pricing for these chips.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40549.html

German publication Planet 3DNow! caught an interesting bit of information during a transmission of the "MSI Insider Show" on YouTube. Eric van Beurden, one of the show's moderators and Marketing Director at MSI, revealed that a new AMD microcode should arrive next month. It will reportedly bring over 100 different improvements for owners of AMD Ryzen CPUs, the site reported today.
...
Van Beurden stated that AMD will start rolling out the new BIOS next week. The MSI exec didn't specifically mention the version, but we suspect it's the BIOS with the fresh AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode. Van Beurden explained that the BIOS will first pass through the BIOS vendor, which is responsible for updating the BIOS code. Motherboard manufacturers will receive it afterwards and will probably spend a couple of weeks to finetuning the BIOS and adapting it for each model.
...
The ETA for the new motherboard firmware is November. However, we will likely start to see beta firmwares pop up before then.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd...,6371.html

The Ryzen 9 3900X brings 12 cores and 24 threads to the mainstream desktop, setting a new record for the platform, but it also brings a beastly 105W TDP. AMD still has a few Ryzen 3000 CPUs it hasn’t released, though, and the first hints of the new 12-core 24-thread Ryzen 9 3900 came with the company’s recent introduction of its PRO series. But we know a consumer version, likely with the exact same specifications as the PRO model, is coming to market, and after a quick word with a vendor, we now have the Ryzen 9 3900 and have already set a few world records.

The power-saving version of the Ryzen 9 3900X has a staggeringly low TDP of 65W. To achieve this, the processor runs at a lower base and boost speed, but otherwise, it is the same as its “X” counterpart. Like all Ryzen models, it is a fully unlocked CPU, meaning overclocking is on the menu, and has the same cache capacity and hierarchy as its bigger, faster brother, the Ryzen 9 3900X that sucks down a whopping 105W.
...
This CPU, depending on the price (assuming it costs less than the Ryzen 9 3900X), will allow AMD to give even more performance per dollar, and give small form factor builders a threaded beast for compact builds. TDP is irrelevant once you set manual overclocking, but you will miss out on a bit of boost clock compared to the 3900X. If that's important for you, stick with the “X” model. Having more options is never a bad thing.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40555.html

Gigabyte has released a Ryzen 9 3950X overclocking guide where the motherboard manufacturer was able to push its sample to an impressive 4.3 GHz on all 16 cores while using a beefy liquid cooling solution, and at a mere ~1.4V.

Gigabyte paired its Ryzen 9 3950X with the brand's own X570 Aorus Master motherboard, Aorus 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200 memory kit and EKWB's EK-KIT P360 liquid cooling kit. The motherboard manufacturer used Cinebench R15 to evaluate the 16-core chip's stock and overclocked performance, which allows us to compare those results to ours.
...
The fact that the Ryzen 9 3950X could hit 4.3 GHz on all its cores is a great achievement, especially when Ryzen 3000-series processors are famous for not having much manual overclocking headroom. For comparison, our Ryzen 9 3900X sample, which has four fewer cores, maxes out at 4.1 GHz. That implies that AMD is setting aside the absolute best 7nm dies for its 16-core, 32-thread chip, especially given that Gigabyte hit a Prime95-stable (one hour run) 4.3 GHz with only 1.4 vCore. Gigabyte's Ryzen 9 3950X sample could even hit a devastating 4.4 GHz, but the company insinuated that it was only stable enough to pass a Cinebench R15 run.

There are also a few other interesting takeways from Gigabyte's Ryzen 9 3950X overclocking guide. For starters, Gigabyte states that 1.45V is the maximum safe voltage. The value might be too high for everyone's taste, and keeping it around 1.4V sounds more reasonable. In terms of thermals, Gigabyte noted that the Ryzen 9 3950X's operating temperatures are right in the same ballpark as last year's Ryzen 7 2700X.

That's pretty remarkable, so we'll say it again: According to Gigabyte, the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X is as easy to cool as an 8-core part.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/259869/amd-z...pdated-smt

With its next-generation "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture designed for the 7 nm EUV silicon fabrication process, AMD could bid the "Zen" compute complex or CCX farewell, heralding chiplets with monolithic last-level caches (L3 caches) that are shared across all cores on the chiplet. AMD embraced a quad-core compute complex approach to building multi-core processors with "Zen." At the time, the 8-core "Zeppelin" die featured two CCX with four cores, each. With "Zen 2," AMD reduced the CPU chiplet to only containing CPU cores, L3 cache, and an Infinity Fabric interface, talking to an I/O controller die elsewhere on the processor package. This reduces the economic or technical utility in retaining the CCX topology, which limits the amount of L3 cache individual cores can access.

This and more juicy details about "Zen 3" were put out by a leaked (later deleted) technical presentation by company CTO Mark Papermaster. On the EPYC side of things, AMD's design efforts will be spearheaded by the "Milan" multi-chip module, featuring up to 64 cores spread across eight 8-core chiplets. Papermaster talked about how the individual chiplets will feature "unified" 32 MB of last-level cache, which means a deprecation of the CCX topology. He also detailed an updated SMT implementation that doubles the number of logical processors per physical core. The I/O interface of "Milan" will retain PCI-Express gen 4.0 and eight-channel DDR4 memory interface.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-re...40595.html

We recently took the then-unannounced Ryzen 9 3900 on a record-breaking spin, but now the chip is officially launched...kind of. AMD announced the Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 5 3500X with little fanfare today, but for OEM and system integrator (SI) customers only. The 3900 is available globally, while the 3500X is only available in China.

AMD designed the Ryzen 9 3900 to offer most of the 24-threaded horsepower of the impressive 3900X, but within a much lower 65W TDP range than its bigger brother that sucks down 105W. It's really a shame this processor isn't coming to the retail market as it would present a great value option for budget builders, particularly for small form factor builds. It was plenty impressive in our testing, but as it stands now, this chip will only come in pre-built systems.

Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 3500X slots in as a six-core model but comes without simultaneous multi-threading (SMT), meaning it only has six threads of performance on offer. Surprisingly, the 3500X will only be made available to OEM/SI customers in China. This chip is meant to tackle Intel's Core i5-9400F in the OEM market, but there are also rumblings of a Ryzen 5 3500 (non-X model) coming to market soon. Unfortunately, it might also be destined for the OEM/SI markets, but only time will tell.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...40605.html

AMD officially launched the Ryzen 5 3500X yesterday. Regrettably, the new six-core chip will not be available outside of the Chinese OEM market. Today, Chinese website Expreview posted its review of the Ryzen 5 3500X, which is probably as close as we'll ever get to it.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...otherboard

Due to the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X's power requirements, many entry-level AMD motherboards might not support the 16-core monster. However, a ComputerBase reader noticed that the chip will work on ASRock's A320M-DVS R3.0 motherboard, which gives us a bit of hope.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/the-el...y-in-stock

If you are one of the few that have been waiting for the Ryzen 9 3900X to get back in stock, then we have good news for you. The Ryzen 9 3900X has popped up at Amazon and Best Buy for $499.99.

Despite the recent price hikes, AMD has assured us that the Ryzen 9 3900X's MSRP remains unchanged. As retailers around the country start to replenish their Ryzen 9 3900X stock, the pricing should fall back down to $499.99 soon.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-in...x-105w-cpu

AMD's latest Product Master guide reveals a never-before-seen Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processor. The chipmaker lists the previously unknown chip as the Ryzen 7 3750X.

Despite being mentioned in an official AMD document, there is no assurance that the Ryzen 7 3750X will go beyond the drawing board. Honestly, AMD already has a pretty diverse Ryzen desktop portfolio, and we can't see how the Ryzen 7 3750X would fit into the product stack. The name alone suggests the chip will likely slot in between the Ryzen 7 3700X and Ryzen 7 3800X. The problem is that only a strand of hair separates both Ryzen 7 models, so there isn't much room for another chip.
...
With those specifications in mind, the Ryzen 7 3750X could be leftover chips that didn't make qualifications for a Ryzen 7 3800X but are still superior over the Ryzen 7 3700X. With TSMC's rumored struggles with 7nm orders, AMD is probably eager to maximize its margins on every single chip it can get.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...ench-early

As spotted by a well-known leaker who goes by @TUM_APISAK on Twitter, there are currently two Geekbench 5 entries for the Ryzen 9 3950X with dissimilar scores.

The first system with Gigabyte's B450 Aorus Pro WiFi motherboard scored 1,314 and 11,140 points in the single-and multi-core tests, respectively. The second system, which used Asus' Prime X570-P motherboard, put up a single-core score of 1,276 points and a multi-core score of 15,401 points. Both systems appear to have used DDR4-3600 memory modules.

AMD is marketing the Ryzen 9 3950X as having a 3.5 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz maximum boost clock, which is only attainable on a single core. Based on the Geekbench entries, the CPU maintained a variable all-core boost clock speed between 4.2 GHz and 4.3 GHz during both benchmark runs.
...
We should always view early benchmarks with skepticism. However, if the Geekbench listings are accurate, the Ryzen 9 3950X appears to outperform the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X by up to 14.3% in single-core workloads. When it comes to multi-core workloads, the difference is around 3.9%. If the Ryzen 9 3950X is truly able to surpass the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X while having a 75W lower TDP (thermal design power) , that'd be a testimony to AMD's Zen 2 microarchitecture, as well as TSMC's 7nm FinFET manufacturing process.

The Ryzen 9 3950X will have a $749 MSRP when it finally comes out next month. In comparison, the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X, which debuted a little over a year ago at $899, currently sells for as low as $670. The times are definitely changing. It's pretty impressive that soon you'll be able to purchase a HEDT-grade processor without having to pay a king's ransom for it.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-...-benchmark

Thanks to a tip from chip detective @TUM_APISAK, we get to see AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X go up against Intel's Core i9-10980XE in 3DMark's classic Fire Strike benchmark.
...
The Ryzen 9 3950X system consisted of a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite motherboard, 16GB of Kingston DDR4-3200 memory and MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. The Core i9-10980XE system used an Asus WS X299 Sage/10G motherboard, 32GB of Samsung DDR4-2666 memory and Asus GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card. As always, we should throw some salt because these are early benchmarks of unreleased silicon.

We'll focus on the Physics score as that's the test that mainly evaluates the processor's performance. Nonetheless, we want to highlight the fact that the difference in memory speeds could have given AMD a slight advantage. The Intel submission is no longer available, but Overclockers.ru managed to grab a screenshot of it before it was taken down.

The Ryzen 9 3950X scored 32,082 points while the Core i9-10980XE put up 25,838 points. Despite the two-core disadvantage, the Ryzen 9 3950X still manages to outperform the Core i9-1098XE by a margin of 24.2%. Of course, you can't really judge a processor's performance based on a single benchmark, but you can't deny that the Ryzen 9 3950X results do look quite promising.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is a consumer processor that's expected to debut at $749. in contrast, the Core i9-10980XE is in the HEDT (High End Desktop) category and commands a hefty $979 price tag. Both the difference in specifications and pricing make the Ryzen 9 3950X's victory even more astonishing. However, some would argue that the Core i9-10980XE isn't a gaming chip, but then again, the Ryzen 9 3950X isn't either.

https://www.techpowerup.com/260317/amd-r...rk-physics

Although AMD doesn't mention a number in its specifications, the 3950X is expected to have an all-core boost frequency that's north of 4.00 GHz, as its 12-core sibling, the 3900X, already offers 4.20 GHz all-core. In contrast, the i9-10980XE has an all-core boost frequency of 3.80 GHz. This difference in boost frequency, apparently, even negates the additional 2 cores and 4 threads that the Intel chip enjoys, in what is yet another example of AMD having caught up with Intel in the IPC game.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/new-am...erformance

As reported by ComputerBase today, beta BIOSes carrying AMD's AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode have started to emerge for a few select AsRock and Asus motherboards. As revealed by MSI earlier this month, the new microcode is supposed to bring over 100 improvements for Ryzen CPU owners.

The new BIOSes are designed for Ryzen 3000-series processors only, so you shouldn't upgrade your motherboard's firmware unless you own one of these chips. Furthermore, the BIOSes are currently in the beta phase, so there's no guarantee that they will play nicely with your motherboard. They also still employ the SMU firmware 46.53.00, which isn't surprising as beta BIOSes don't typically use the correct SMU. The final BIOSes will likely use a new SMU firmware.
...
ComputerBase briefly evaluated the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode with a Ryzen 7 3800X processor, ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 mother and 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory with CAS timings of CL14-14-14-34. For its tests, the German publication disabled Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and enabled the memory's XMP profile. The new microcode seemingly helped improve the processor's all-core boost clock a bit. Under the AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA microcode, ComputerBase's Ryzen 7 3800X ran at 4,245 MHz across all cores. With the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode, the octa-core part was able to hit 4,325 MHz, a 1.9% improvement. ComputerBase noted that the single-core boost for the Ryzen 7 3800X remained at 4,550 MHz.

ComputerBase said that it couldn't find the dedicated overclocking menu or 100-plus improvements in the BIOS. Perhaps the new features will only be available for X570 motherboards.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...boot-times

MSI has deployed new firmwares with the AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch B microcode for its X570 motherboards. The company is touting improvement in boot times by up to 20%. MSI's test system used the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, MSI's MEG X570 Godlike motherboard and a pair of 8GB DDR4 memory modules (brand not specified).

Hong Kong media HKEPC tested MSI's latest firmware on the over-engineered MEG X570 Godlike motherboard, and the reported results were in line with MSI's figures.
...
The new firmware is available as of today for MSI X570 motherboards. MSI 400-series Max motherboard owners will get theirs in the middle of November, while MSI 400-and 300-series motherboard users have to wait until the end of November.

https://www.techpowerup.com/260472/biost...therboards

On a charm offensive, motherboard maker BIOSTAR revealed that it will extend support for the upcoming 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X even to its cheapest motherboards based on AMD's entry-level A320 chipset. Support for the processor will be added through a UEFI firmware update that should go live on the company website soon, and downloadable from the support section of each motherboard's product page. BIOSTAR's list of motherboards for the 3950X includes almost its entire socket AM4 motherboard lineup, spanning the A320, B350, X370, B450, X470, and X570 chipsets. A spokesperson for BIOSTAR confirmed to us that this wasn't a typo on the company website.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...otherboard

This week, German publication Planet 3D Now reportedly got its hands on the 1103 beta BIOS, (which contains the 1.0.0.4b AGESA), for the Asus Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi) motherboard and mated it with a rather unlikely partner: an AMD Ryzen 3 1200. This combination isn’t supposed to work, but apparently it booted up just fine and they even managed to validate the setup in CPU-Z. The publication noted that they also tried this combination on an older BIOS without success.

What exactly this experiment means for the backwards compatibility across the range of AMD motherboards is uncertain. It's possible that more X570 boards will support first-gen Ryzen CPUs. However, we doubt that backwards compatibility of newer motherboards with older CPUs is what folks are interested in. We suspect more people are interested in having their older motherboards support the latest CPUs.

Thankfully, some older AM4 motherboards will, indeed, support AMD’s latest CPUs, as Robert Hallock, AMD Senior Technical Marketing Manager, explained in May: "If we look across the ecosystem of motherboards that exist today, we certainly make BIOS updates available to our ecosystem partners to include that on different levels of motherboards in their portfolio, but I don't expect that every motherboard will be updated for 3000-series processors from our partners. That really will be a portfolio decision from their standpoint as well, as to where they apply those updates, and where they choose not to apply those updates."

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/260661/amd-c...nings-call

AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su in response to a question, spoke about 3rd generation Ryzen processor boost issue. Dr. Su was responding to a question by Mitch Steves of RBC Capital on whether she had comments on "the software side" of 3rd gen Ryzen, and articles in the press still popping up about them despite AMD's fix. This was interpreted by the AMD CEO as a question specific to the Precision Boost controversy surrounding 3rd gen Ryzen chips, in which processors would seldom/never hit the advertised maximum boost frequency. AMD tried to address this by issuing updates to its processor microcode under AGESA Combo 1.0.0.3 ABBA, distributed through motherboard BIOS updates. The new microcode is supposed to increase the maximum turbo clock-speeds for "the vast majority" of users.

In her response, Dr. Su began by stating that the company is pleased with the sales of these processors. She then mentioned that AMD is working with its motherboard partners and ODM partners to "improve the optimization of the maximum boost frequency." She notes that the issue has been "largely addressed over the last couple of weeks" (referring to 1.0.0.3 ABBA). She goes on to state that AMD sees its response to the boost issues as more of an "optimization," rather than a "major update," possibly trying to allay investor fears that AMD is firefighting a costly problem with its products. "We're going to continue to improve the platform," she adds, possibly referencing the upcoming AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch B microcode that's beginning to ship out by motherboard vendors. The earnings call can be accessed here. The specific question can be found at 47:00.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/260936/amd-a...hlon-3000g

According to performance numbers put out by AMD, the Ryzen 9 3950X offers up to 22 percent higher single-threaded performance than the Ryzen 7 2700X as tested in Cinebench R20, and a whopping 79 percent higher multi-threaded performance than the Core i9-9900K. The company also claims gaming performance parity with the i9-9900K. The company also claims huge performance-per-Watt gains over the i9-9900K. Available for purchase from November 25, 2019, the Ryzen 9 3950X is priced at USD $749 (MSRP). The retail PIB box package lacks a cooling solution, and AMD recommends at least a 240 mm x 140 mm AIO liquid CPU cooler to go with this chip.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...are-aurora

Update - Nov. 14, 5:00 p.m.: AMD has confirmed the Ryzen 5 3500 and now lists it on its website.

"We are offering the AMD Ryzen 5 3500 processor to OEM partners and channels in certain regions," and AMD spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. "This processor will enable our partners to take full advantage of AMD’s most advanced CPU platform, offering powerful gaming and high-speed productivity performance, with a support of industry leading PCIe 4.0, AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive and Ryzen Master Utility."

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd...x-review/5

High end desktop processors have long offered the ultimate in performance, as long as you were willing to pay the price. Aside from high MSRPs, the chips also require expensive accommodations, like beefy motherboards and the added cost of fully populating quad-channel memory controllers. Add in the inevitable trade-offs, like reduced performance in lightly-threaded applications and games, and most regular users who could use the threaded horsepower of a HEDT chip just settle for mainstream offerings.

Now AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X brings HEDT-class performance to mainstream motherboards, lowering the bar for entry. The 3950X carries a $749 price tag, but that is downright affordable compared to competing HEDT processors.

Intel's current lineup of Skylake-X Refresh chips are hideously overpriced by comparison, but AMD's pressure has brought about some change: Intel's forthcoming Cascade Lake-X chips cost roughly half the price of the previous-gen models, yet the 18C/36T Core i9-10980XE still slots in at nearly $200 more than the 3950X. You'll also need to spring for an X299 motherboard, while the 3950X drops into X570, X470, and B450 motherboards, though the latter might not be a good choice to feed enough current to this beast.
...
AMD says that it fully expects the Ryzen 9 3950X to be competitive with Intel's new -10980XE, but Intel also has its 14C/28T -10940X at $784, which aligns neatly with the 3950X's pricing. We're sure that you'll see reviews of both of those competing products shortly.

But we don't think those chips will change the landscape much, the Ryzen 9 3950X just has too much to offer at a much lower overall cost. A capable X570 motherboard doesn't come cheap, but you gain access to the PCIe 4.0 interface as a nice bonus. Budget in a beefy cooler to assure enthusiast-class performance from your chip, and AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X is truly in a class of its own.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/30...ay-past-11

For $750, the Ryzen 9 3950X is an unbeatable CPU. While it’s true that Intel’s 18-core Core i9-9980XE retains a reasonable number of test wins, compare the 2950X with the 3950X to see just how much AMD has improved performance year-on-year. Twelve months ago, the 2950X wasn’t taking any tests off the Core i9-9980XE — the combination of two additional CPU cores and Intel’s higher overall IPC was a barrier second-generation Threadripper wasn’t capable of scaling very often. And up until now, the single-threaded Cinebench results have been Intel’s sole turf. Cinebench is not the be-all-end-all of performance measurement, but these are still tests that Intel has been reliably winning for at least a decade.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is a further uplift over the 3900X and the 3700X in both single-threaded and (obviously) multi-threaded performance. There’s no evidence of any bandwidth constraints in ordinary desktop applications or games — the 3950X is often the fastest Ryzen CPU on the market where gaming is concerned. This should not be read to indicate that I’m recommending a 16-core CPU for gaming — that’s ridiculous overkill, and I very much am not. But the 3950X takes a number of significant tests in this area as well, and in a way that’s unusual for high-core-count chips.
...
Now, Intel deserves (and will get) credit for slashing the price on its Cascade Lake CPUs, but $1,000 is still more than $750 and an HEDT motherboard is still a bit more expensive than an X570. Figure a $50 motherboard price difference and $250 for the CPU, and the Core i9-10980XE will still carry a $300 premium. Buyers who are willing to step up to HEDT may still be willing to choose Intel over desktop Ryzen, but the Ryzen 9 3950X offers horsepower the 9900K can’t even touch in the mainstream socket space.

Do you need a Ryzen 9 3950X? Probably not. If you’re a gamer, CPUs like the Core i7-9700K or the Ryzen 7 3700X are going to be far more cost-effective and practical. But the Ryzen 9 3950X represents the pinnacle of AMD’s single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. It offers both of those things in the same CPU rather than asking users to choose between one or the other. It demonstrates sustained, multi-year double-digit performance improvements, even considering the constraints of bringing a 16-core part into a dual-channel memory configuration — constraints which do not seem to bind third-generation Ryzen as much as some, including myself, were concerned they might. Further research is warranted, and there will be workloads where memory bandwidth is necessary, but the trends are positive. Most Ryzen upgraders will be better served by an eight-core chip, but AMD users who need the firepower 16 cores can offer will not find them lacking.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-cc...a-gigabyte

Overclocking on the AMD Ryzen 3000 platform has brought questionable results, and this has a lot to do with the way AMD’s latest CPUs handle their boost frequencies. One of the ways proposed to potentially improve this is per-CCD overclocking, which was revealed recently to become a possibility on AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series’ TRX40 motherboards. Now, it appears that the feature is also coming to the mainstream platform, as a beta BIOS has just arrived for Gigabyte’s X570 Aorus Master motherboard.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-b5...00-chipset

When asked about Biostar's future products, Wang responded that we can expect new offerings with both AMD and Intel chipsets. In regards to the much-anticipated AMD B550 chipset, the executive said corresponding motherboards are ready to go.

Sadly, Wang didn't reveal the specific date on when they will actually hit the shelves. However, a DigiTimes report in June claimed motherboard manufacturers are supposed to receive B550 chipset orders this quarter, meaning the motherboards could come out at the end of 2019 or early 2020.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/261455/amd-z...ance-gains

At its recent SC19 talk, AMD touched upon its upcoming "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture. Designed for the 7 nm EUV silicon fabrication process that significantly increases transistor densities, "Zen 3" could post performance gains "right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture," states AMD, referring to the roughly 15 percent IPC gains that were expected of "Zen 2" prior to its launch. "Zen 2" IPC ended up slightly over 15 percent higher than that of the original "Zen" microarchitecture. AMD's SC19 comments need not be a guidance on the IPC itself, but rather performance gains of end-products versus their predecessors.

The 7 nm EUV process, with its 20 percent transistor-density increase could give AMD designers significant headroom to increase clock speeds to meet the company's generational performance improvement targets. Another direction in which "Zen 3" could go is utilizing the additional transistor density to bolster its core components to support demanding instruction-sets such as AVX-512. The company's microarchitecture is also missing something analogous to Intel's DLBoost, an instruction-set that leverages fixed-function hardware to accelerate AI-DNN building and training. Even VIA announced an x86 microarchitecture with AI hardware and AVX-512 support. In either case, the design of "Zen 3" is complete. We'll have to wait until 2020 to find out how fast "Zen 3" is, and the route taken to get there.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/aida64...enoir-apus

AIDA64, a popular system information and monitoring utility, has added support for AMD's upcoming Renoir APUsand preliminary support for fourth-generation Ryzen desktop CPUs. This may be a hint that early samples of both silicon are already out in the wild.
...
AMD just launched its Ryzen 3000-series CPUs a few months ago, which are based on Zen 2 and 7nm manufacturing process. Its next generation of chips are expected to be based off a Zen 3 microarchitecture and an improved 7nm+ process. We're also expecting the fourth-generation Ryzen desktop processors to carry Ryzen 4000-series branding. Vermeer is the rumored codename for the upcoming chips.

Both Renoir and Vermeer are rumored to touch ground next year. In the last AMD earnings call, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that new 7nm mobile chips will debut in early 2020. There's a high probability that AMD might announce Renoir at CES 2020 in January. As for Vermeer, we expect to see those chips later next year, probably around summer time.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/obtain...impossible

The new chips are completely out of stock at NewEgg and cannot be ordered, and Amazon’s listing of the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X is difficult to find at best – its listing can only be found through a Google search and clicking through multiple links, as searching for the 3950X through Amazon itself yields only inferior CPUs as results. Once at the listing, the chip is listed as ‘currently unavailable’ with Amazon stating “We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.”

Elsewhere in the world, this is no different. In Europe the chip is also generally unavailable for purchase. ComputerBase from Germany had contact with a few sellers, and it turns out that there the demand for AMD’s Ryzen 9 3950X chip outweighs the supply by a 16-fold. This means that for every chip that the sellers had in stock initially (though they’re all gone now), they have 16 “preorders” still standing and won’t specify a delivery date. The situation is so dire that many resellers, among which Alternate.de, Caseking.de, and Mindfactory are asking higher prices for the chips whilst they’re in this re-instated ‘preorder’ phase.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/261761/amd-x...ty-sourced

AMD X570 chipset is the industry's first PC platform core-logic to support PCI-Express gen 4.0, but has proven to be expensive and hot. Its 600-series chipset successor will be third-party sourced much like its 400-series predecessor, according to a MyDrivers report citing sources in the motherboard industry. AMD is reportedly sourcing its 500-series mid-range chipset, the B550, from ASMedia. The B550 uses PCI-Express 3.0 x4 as its chipset bus, and puts out eight PCIe gen 3.0 downstream general purpose lanes, however, B550 motherboards could still feature PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots from the socket AM4 SoC (provided a 3rd gen Ryzen processor is installed), and at least one of the M.2 NVMe slots on B550 motherboards could have PCI-Express 4.0 x4, since they're wired to the SoC instead of the chipset.

The MyDrivers report predicts that the successor to X570, the supposed "X670," could be sourced from a third-party firm, much like the B550, and implement PCI-Express gen 4.0, not just as chipset-bus, but also putting out PCI-Express gen 4.0 general purpose lanes. A possible design goal of the X670 could be to implement PCIe gen 4.0 switching fabric without running too hot, resulting in a cooler chipset than can make do with fanless cooling solutions, much like the X470. AMD will continue to make "chipsets" in the form of I/O controller dies for use in its MCM processors, although the relatively low-margin motherboard chipset business could be axed.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ct...moores-law

On the consumer side, the Ryzen 9 3950X brings an almost-unbelievable boost to 16 cores on mainstream platforms, a tremendous improvement over the standard of four cores just a mere two years ago. As AMD moves forward to smaller processes, that means we could theoretically see another doubling in processor cores in the future. That makes a lot of sense for the data center, but begs the question of how many cores an average consumer can actually use. We asked Papermaster if it would make sense to move up to 32 cores for mainstream users:

"I don’t see in the mainstream space any imminent barrier, and here's why: It's just a catch-up time for software to leverage the multi-core approach," Papermaster said. "But we're over that hurdle, now more and more applications can take advantage of multi-core and multi-threading.[...]"

"In the near term, I don’t see a saturation point for cores. You have to be very thoughtful when you add cores because you don’t want to add it before the application can take advantage of it. As long as you keep that balance, I think we'll continue to see that trend."

Over the years, we've become accustomed to higher clock speeds with smaller nodes. However, we've reached the point where smaller nodes that enable more cores can also suffer reduced frequencies, like we've seen with Intel's Ice Lake family. As potent as TSMC's engineering team is, there's possibly a diminishing point of frequency returns, if not frequency declines, on the horizon as it moves to the smaller 5nm process. Papermaster is confident in AMD's ability to offset those challenges, though.
...
"We're getting great supply from our partner TSMC." Papermaster said, "Like any new product, there is a long lead time for semiconductor manufacturing, so you have to guess where the consumers are going to want their products. Lisa [Su] talked about the demand simply being higher than we anticipated for our higher-performance and higher-ASP [products], the Ryzen 3900 series. We've now had time to adjust and get the orders in to accommodate that demand. That's just a natural process; in a way, it’s a good problem to have. It means the demand was even higher than we originally thought."
...
In a turnaround of fortunes that hardly anyone could have predicted several years ago, AMD has taken the process lead from Intel and has an innovative architecture that is pressuring its competitor in every segment the company competes in. We asked Papermaster if he personally thought the plan would be this successful when it was laid out four years ago.

"We set out a roadmap that would bring AMD back to high performance and keep us there. It is independent of our competitors roadmaps and semiconductor node execution on 10nm. And we'll continue to drive our roadmap in that way. We called a play, we've been executing as we called it, and that's what you're going to see at AMD, just tremendous focus on execution. If we do that, then it is less about focusing on our competition, and about being the very best we can be with every single generation."

Papermaster has been at the helm of developing nearly all of AMD's newest technologies, so we asked what makes him the proudest about the turnaround:

"It's the team at AMD. The AMD commitment to win is unsurpassed. We're a smaller player in the industry, and the company as a whole just punches above its weight class, if you were to make a boxing analogy. It's so exciting to be a part of that team and to see that personal dedication, that willingness to really listen to customers, understand what problems they want solved, and then go to the drawing boards and innovate and really surprise the industry."

"And then the other piece I'm proud of is that focus on that execution. It’s the ability to be a street-fighter, and then focus and hunker down and execute and deliver what we promised."

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ry...rld-record

As spotted by Shaun Fosmark, Australian overclocker jordan.hyde99 has set a new world record in wPrime 1024M with AMD's Ryzen 9 3900X processor. What's fascinating is the fact that the AMD processor was running a much slower clock speed than the previous record holder, the Intel Core i9-7920X.
...
Although the Ryzen 9 3900X only managed to beat the Core i9-7920X by a negligible margin (less than one percent), the big takeaway here is the clock speed. The Ryzen 9 3900X was able to match the Core i9-7920X's score while running with a 5.8% lower operating clock. This stands as testimony that Zen 2's instructions per cycle (IPC) is higher than Skylake, and subsequent microarchitectures based on the same design, in many workloads.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/thats-...m-makeover

AMD's first-gen Ryzen processors are selling at all-time low pricing, but it turns out that some of these chips are filtering out into the hands of enthusiasts with an unexpected surprise: The 12nm process, which is more efficient and faster than the original manufacturing process used with AMD's freshman Ryzen chips.
...
First, you need to look no further than the box, or the chip itself, to spot a new AF model. The original 14nm Ryzen 5 1600 models (released in 2017) come with the YD1600BBAEBOX product identifier, while the new models (released circa November 2019) come with the YD1600BBAFBOX part number.
...
Even though these chips come with the 12nm process, AMD has left the clock rates for the 1600 the same as before, so you don't get any top-line improvement there.
...
The newer AF models also come with the Wraith Stealth cooler, which is a lesser cooler compared to the Wraith Spire that came with the original 1600 models.

All of this begs the question: Why has AMD suddenly introduced 12nm die to the first-gen Ryzen processors? There are several theories, with the most obvious being that these are, in fact, 14nm processors that have been mistakenly programmed to identify as 12nm. Another likely explanation is that these are simply Ryzen 5 2600 die that didn't make the cut for that class of chip due to frequency targets, but because they meet the criteria required for a 1600 model, it is simply more economical for AMD to use the die in the older chips.

We expect to learn more about the capabilities of this apparent new revision as more chips land in the hands of enthusiasts.

It will be interesting to see if AMD begins updating other first-gen Ryzen chips to the 12nm process. We've reached out to AMD for comment and will update as necessary.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/262437/amd-r...erformance

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 4000 series processors will be based on the company's Zen 3 design, which will feature a deeply revised architecture aiming to offer increased performance (surprising no-one). AMD themselves have already said that Zen 3 will offer performance increases in line with the reelase of new architectures - and we all remember the around 15% increase achieved with the release of Zen 2 Ryzen 3000 series, which surprised even AMD on its performance capabilities. Several sources around the web are quoting an around 17% increase in performance, taking into account increased operating frequencies of Zen 3 (100 to 200 MHz at least for the enterprise solutions, which could pave the way for even higher increases in consumer-geared products) and increased IPC of its core design. The utilization of EUV in the 7 nm process shouldn't have much to do with the increased frequencies of the CPUs, and will mostly be used to reduce the number of masks that are required for production of AMD's Zen 3 CPUs (which in turn will lead to increased yields).

Sources are claiming an increase of up to 50% in Zen 3's Floating Point Units (FPU) compared to Zen 2, while integer operations should make do with a 10-12% increase. Cores should remain stable across the board - and with that increase in performance, I'd say an upper limit of 16 physical and 32 logic cores in a consumer-geared CPU is more than enough. Increased IPCs and frequencies will definitely make AMD an even better proposition for all markets - gaming in particular, where Intel still has a (slightly virtual) hold in consumer's minds.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/3038...nformation

There are two interesting findings here. First, there’s further evidence that people literally remember facts less-well if they don’t agree with them. For all the people who claim they change their mind if confronted with facts, the reality is that people tend to change their facts, not their opinions — even when asked to answer questions about information they literally just read.

This has serious implications for how we think, as a society, about the transmission of information from one mind to another. About a year ago, I wrote a story debunking some rumors about AMD’s then-future 7nm Ryzen CPUs. At the time, some individuals were arguing that AMD’s 7nm CPUs would simultaneously deliver huge price cuts, more cores, large clock speed increases, and a giant leap in IPC, simultaneously. My debunk article wasn’t 100 percent accurate — I guessed that AMD might not use chiplets for desktop Ryzen and reserve them for Epyc instead — but the final chips AMD launched bear absolutely no resemblance to the rumored configurations.

I addressed this topic several times over six months because this set of rumors simply would not die. I bolstered my arguments with historical CPU data, long-term CPU clock scaling trends, AMD’s statements to investors, AMD’s statements to the press, and long-term comparisons on the relationship between AMD’s margins and its net profits. I discussed increasing wafer costs and how chiplets, while a great innovation, were also a symptom of the problems AMD was facing.

Now, let me be clear. I’m not arguing that everyone who read those stories was somehow automatically obligated to agree with me. My prognostication record is anything but perfect and reasonable people can disagree on how they read broad industry trends. There’s a difference, however, between “I think 7nm clocks might come in a little higher than you do,” and “I think AMD will simultaneously slash prices, slash power consumption, and revolutionize semiconductors with generational performance gains we haven’t seen in almost a decade,” despite the fact that there was literally no evidence to support any of these positions.

If you showed up to argue the former, or something that even reasonably looks like it, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the vocal minority of people who showed up to argue that AMD was about to launch the Second Coming in silicon form. Those who didn’t predict my firing often suggested I’d be writing a tearful apology at some later date.

My point in bringing this up isn’t to rehash old arguments or toot my horn. My point is that there’s a real life example of this very phenomena that you can go and read about. I don’t know where these rumors started, but once they took hold, they proved quite tenacious. As good as Ryzen is — and 7nm Ryzen is great — the rumors about it were better than the CPU could ever possibly be. When confronted with this, some people got angry.

Short of giving the planet some in-depth training in overcoming cognitive bias, it’s not clear how to reduce the spread of person-to-person misinformation, and the authors conclude that more study is needed here. As important as it is to ensure the factual accuracy of primary sources, the fact that humans appear to generate misinformation in an effort to make that data align with pre-existing schemas means focusing solely on the primary source problem will never address its full scope.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.techpowerup.com/262696/new-r...in-q1-2020

While many users were likely expecting AMD to launch their lower-tier alternatives B550 and A520 chipset solutions for their Ryzen 2 CPUs shortly after their release to the market last year, users who want to pair a more inexpensive motherboard have had to wait in the rain until now. At the time, industry sources pointed towards fabrication of ASMedia's B550 and A520 chipsets for the AM4 platform to begin shipping to motherboard manufacturers in Q4 2019.

Now, new reports say that production of these chipsets (simpler in features, and thus, in price, whilst also not requiring active cooling) will only begin in Q1 2020, which means likely retail availability (at least in significant volumes) in Q2 at the earliest. It seems that users will, for the time being, have to make do with the usually top-of-the-line chipset option for the AMD platform - which is, coincidentally, the one with bigger margins for AMD.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/30...-notebooks

Anandtech has a transcript of the discussion, which is worth reading in full, but I want to touch on two specific issues that Dr. Su discussed. First, she confirmed that we will see Zen 3 in 2020, though she didn’t give a specific date or any performance information.

It’s generally expected that Zen 3 will be the last AM4/DDR4 refresh for AMD and that the company will move to new DDR5 platforms in 2021. There have been rumors that AMD targeted IPC for improvements with Zen 3 rather than attempting to lift clock speed and talk of a unified chiplet structure that would combine all eight cores around a centralized 32MB L3 cache, rather than dividing the L3 into two 16MB chunks. Optimizations like this would supposedly drive a 1.17x IPC improvement over the Ryzen 3000 family based on the Zen 2 architecture. None of these rumors are confirmed, so we’ll have to see what happens on this front.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-60...ryzen-4000

AMD's upcoming 600-series chipsets might not be as far off as we think, based on a DigiTimes report today. The Taiwanese news outlet's unnamed "industry" sources claimed that the next wave of AMD chipsets should arrive at the end of 2020.
...
Rumored time frames for AMD's new chipsets and processors align. The China Times estimated that Zen 3 desktop processors, which will probably be called the Ryzen 4000-series (codenamed Vermeer), are likely to drop in the second half of this year.