With third Gen Ryzen it has become pretty clear that the Tech Media and Tech YouTubers are either too lazy - or too stupid - to be able to configure the CPU correctly.
I got Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation in the SteamSale and decided to see what difference actually being able to configure a Ryzen 3rd Gen CPU would do with regard to the built in benchmark (set to "Crazy" at 1080p) compared to what the numb-nuts of the Tech Media managed to fumble their way to bringing to print (or voice).
Let's look at what the likes of KitGuru or Tom's Hardware managed to produce with their FREEBIE 3950X compared to what I managed to achieve with my "sample" which I had to pay full retail for.
I really don't know (though I can suspect) that the "Reviewers" have put in a lot of work to configure the Intel CPUs and have gone out of their way to nerf AMD CPUs; I will leave it up to the reader of the following to make that judgement for themselves.
Here are the two comparison lists from KitGuru and Tom's Hardware:
Now let's see where the 3950X stacks up when in the hands (system) of someone who actually knows what they are doing, namely myself.
I would ask the reader to bear in mind that my ambient temperature is around 32 degrees Celsius and Third Gen Ryzen is sensitive to temperature.
Let's start off with running the benchmark, and I repeat, I am using exactly the same game settings as the two above, with SMT on running 16 Cores/32 Threads:
The value which is the one being tested is the second one listed, namely the "Average CPU Framerate (All Batches)" and as you can see the score is 60.7 FPS.
Not only is that score higher than the scores the Tech Media managed to achieve with their FREEBIE 3950X, but also higher than ANY INTEL CPU.
So let's see what happens when you turn off SMT and run the 3950X as a straight 16 Core/16 Thread CPU:
The score actually increased to 64.2 FPS and this is due to the fact that the CPU didn't get as hot as it did in the first run with 16C/32T.As you can see, my score is again higher than ANY INTEL CPU.
My friend, who also has a 3950X, which he paid for, and I configured, got a score of 64.7 FPS running it with 16C/32T but his ambient temperature is eight degrees Celsius lower than mine.
So what kind of result can you expect to get from the new 3800XT?
It won't be the score that the reviewers get, because, as I said, they are either too stupid or too lazy to configure the Third Gen Ryzen CPU correctly, and AMD will send those out as FREEBIES to those incompetents and of course AMD will look bad in comparison with "The Best Gaming CPU", namely Intel.
I know what kind of result I can get from a 3800XT because I effectively have one. To make my 3950X into a 3800XT all I have to do is turn off one CCD and hey presto, instant 8 Core/16 Thread 3800XT (which seems to have escaped the "geniuses" of the Tech Media and the Tech YouTubers who have been rampantly speculating as to what performance can be expected).
Of course I won't be sent a FREEBIE from AMD to confirm my prediction, so the public will be left with one more review cycle of a nerfed AMD CPU compared to Intel.
Without further ado, here is the result when running the benchmark with 8 Cores/16 Threads:
This time around the score dropped under 60 to 58.2 FPS; however even at that, it is still better than ANY INTEL CPU.
This result adds insult to injury with regard to the sorry showing of the Tech Media when it came to reviewing the 3950X and it is for this reason that I would strongly suggest that AMD should not send out review samples of their Fourth Gen Ryzen CPUS until these people actually learn how to configure the damn thing.
The results I achieved were with the following configuration:
16C/32T: All Core clockspeed 4.3 GHz with a maximum of 1.3 Volts
16C/32T: All Core clockspeed 4.4 GHz with a maximum of 1.3 Volts
8C/16T: All Core clockspeed 4.5 GHz with a maximum of 1.3 Volts
I hope that AMD will use this post to shame the Tech Media into finally doing their job and learning how to properly configure the Ryzen CPUs; but I fear that they won't and when the new generation of Ryzen CPUs are launched, the Tech Media and YouTubers will once again nerf them and then trundle out the old trope of "Intel still has the best Gaming CPU".
People such as myself will have to wait, and then of course buy, the next Generation of AMD Ryzen CPUs and by the time I get around to being able to publish anything, the damage will have been done in the Media and on YouTube, and AMD will once again have lost out on sales it could have made by being declared in second place and inferior to Intel in the important Gaming Sector, unfairly, once again.
Are the Media and YouTubers out to harm AMD?
I think that one should apply Hanlon's Razor to this question which states:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
