General Discussions

[black_zion]

https://www.techquila.co.in/10th-gen-intel-ice-lake-i7-amd-ryzen-9-3900x/

[ajlueke]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3410589/is-ice-lake-better-than-ryzen-9.html

[black_zion]

Will be interesting to see how much extra performance AMD will be able to squeeze out of Zen 2+/3, whatever they call it, to counter Ice Lake. Sadly it will probably still mean that Intel gives theirs away to keep AMD out of the mobile market...

[ajlueke]

It is notable that the Geekbench 3900X single threaded score is notably slower than what PC World saw in their testing.  That is the wider issue with these databases, they often don't contain the exact conditions each processor was run on, making drawing conclusions difficult. 

I think AMD is going to Zen 3 next as opposed to Zen 2+ which should be the final iteration on the AM4 socket.  It is impressive how much faster the 3700X is that the 2700X especially in certain productivity tasks (Handbrake).  Some of that is due to the IPC bump sure, but I think the extra cache really helps limit those RAM calls as well.

[black_zion]

Since the next iteration of CPUs will be made on the 7nm+ node and support PCIe 4.0 instead of 5.0, and because AMD appears to have adopted Intel's Tick/Tock, I really hope AMD reconsiders the name "Zen 3" to just "Zen 2+". TSMC's 5nm node, PCIe 5.0, DDR5, and a new platform coming in 2021 should be the called Zen 3.

[hardcoregames_]

while I am going to find a new motherboard for my R5 2400G, the DDR5 platform is still at least 24-36 months away from now. Even then the adoption will be slow at first and it may take 24-36 months after launch before DDR5 can overtake DDR4.

[ajlueke]

It is hard to know exactly what AMD is looking at when they move to the next sequential number vs just the plus designation.  Zen 2 changed to a chiplet design with a split IO die from the primary core dies.  That may be what warranted the "Zen2" designation as opposed to the 7nm die shrink and PCIe 4.0 addition.  Zen 3 sounds like it is adding EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) to the manufacturing process for a 20% increase in transistor density.

[black_zion]

I would say it would make sense to wait until  the next major change, which will be the next socket, but it doesn't -really- matter what AMD calls it, plenty of people called Zen+ "Zen 2" because it was Ryzen 2000 series.

[ajlueke]

The APUs further add to that confusion, since the Ryzen 2000 series APUs used the original Zen, while the Ryzen 3000 series APUs use Zen+.  The APUs are always a generation behind the standalone processors despite being part of the same Ryzen "series".

[black_zion]

Aye I was going to mention that too, and it's a practice I really hope AMD eliminates. It will also be interesting with the new chiplet design if APU performance increases because of the dedicated I/O chip as well.