One of the few tests I've seen on this:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ddr5-temperature-variable-analysis/
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ddr5-temperature-variable-analysis/
The Zen Thread
- Thread starter w00key
- Start date
Here's an interview with Zen Chief Architect Mike Clark. Posted as a "for your interest" service.
https://www.computerenhance.com/p/an-interview-with-zen-chief-architect
It's not the deepest thing ever, but you can infer from some answers what future directions are like.
https://www.computerenhance.com/p/an-interview-with-zen-chief-architect
It's not the deepest thing ever, but you can infer from some answers what future directions are like.
I assumed that the 55C limit was more about long term health. This article is great for understanding immediate implications. Thanks!
Zen 6 details!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=970JyCapx8A&t=400s
Mobile is just all over the place. They can make basically anything, from Bumblebee to Medusa Point Big, with release dates around Mid/late 2026 well into 2027.
His sources also say RDNA5 is targetting a very late 2025 or 2026 tapeout.
He's expecting Zen 6 on the desktop to be very pricey. AMD is apparently unhappy with how Zen 5 was received, so they're going for broke using N3P IOD and bridge silicon to make it all lower latency, plus extra vcache.
There's nothing stopping AMD from using these building blocks to build basically whatever they want. If a customer wants a very low latency solution for laptop (Asus), they could easily request it.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=970JyCapx8A&t=400s
- AMD management wants Zen 6 to hit 6Ghz.
- Targetting a 10% IPC uplift
- Zen 6 CCDs are designed for vcache stacking. Yes, that means two vcache slabs with a Zen 6 CCD (probably a sandwich?). This may just be used on Epyc
- Olympic Ridge (Desktop) Zen 6 CCDs will be on N2X. The "X" is for the ultra high speed version of N2. Targetting 2H 2026
- There are two I/O dies, a N3P and a N6
- The N3P IOD has 2C Zen 5 LP dies, so up to 26 cores total - two 12-core Zen 6 CCDs and 2-core Zen 5 in the IOD.
- The N3P IOD could hae a decent iGPU and neural whatevers
- The N6 IOD may be for budget devices with a wak IOD and no neural whatevers
- All of this allows them to mix and match for various products.
Mobile is just all over the place. They can make basically anything, from Bumblebee to Medusa Point Big, with release dates around Mid/late 2026 well into 2027.
His sources also say RDNA5 is targetting a very late 2025 or 2026 tapeout.
He's expecting Zen 6 on the desktop to be very pricey. AMD is apparently unhappy with how Zen 5 was received, so they're going for broke using N3P IOD and bridge silicon to make it all lower latency, plus extra vcache.
There's nothing stopping AMD from using these building blocks to build basically whatever they want. If a customer wants a very low latency solution for laptop (Asus), they could easily request it.
Well if they didn't freaking lie about it, it wouldn't have been a problem.
Re-engineering your new chips because your marketing team fucked up strikes me as exceptionally bad decision-making, showing that they don't even understand what the problem was.
They have a lot of building blocks to pull the cost vs performance levers however they want. Having two different process nodes for IODs allows them to tailor the products.
No mention of a different socket for Zen 6, and he does reference AM5 in the video when talking about Zen 6 desktop.
I don't recall anything in this video but he has confirmed it in other videos IIRC.
What, the least rational way to design products I've heard of. I'm hoping that AMD proceeding in proper cool-headed engineer-lead fashion, and the part about being goaded into a big swing is made up to generate ad revenue.
The part about being more expensive seems about right. It seems to be less easy to deliver the big gains by merely taking last year's product and replacing it like-for-like. Easier when you can throw in more watts, cores, caches, whatever.
IMHO this means AMD will not give Intel an opportunity to take the crown with 18A. Ryzen will win, even if that requires 26 cores and a total of four VCache dies (two below each CCD). Who cares that no reasonable customer will buy a $2000 CPU? The only thing that matters is that it will throne over all those bar graphs in all those reviews.
It'll be a pyrrhic victory over Intel, though, because the PC market will die without an entry level option. There will still be machines down there, but they will be "everything soldered to the future landfill PCB" mini devices, with no modularity whatsoever.
Made in Hurry
Ars Praefectus
They might considering they are running after $2K GPUs.
I just hope AMD really makes some good APUs for the desktop with Zen 6.
Oh, AMD certainly will. But those will either be affordable or high performance, not both at the same time.
Hm. Stirx Halo, or whatever the replacement for Zen 6 is...I wonder if Valve is going to try and do a Steam Box again. Or maybe basically Framework has just made that, in form factor. Definitely a bit too expensive to correspond to a traditional console though, but maybe Zen6 APU? I suppose we'll see in the next 18-24 months.
Apparently they will not be violating the 8 cores per L3 rule.
AFAIK at least they'll have same features/extensions, even if different performance. That's a lot easier for schedulers (in theory in my head) to handle VS differences in features, like Intel has had.
Struggling to decide here... My 7600 cascades to my wife's machine because Win 11 requires shit (currently Ivy Bridge). I was going for a 9800x3d, but frankly it's a pointless spend at my current 1440p/3060Ti. Do I just get the very minor upgrade of a 9700 and expect that eventually I'll pull in a Zen6x3d, or spend now for the 9800 and leave it for 5 years. Decisions.
A 9700X is gonna be just fine for anything. Your video card and monitor are pretty well matched, and a 9700X will have more than enough horsepower. Unless you're playing really CPU-heavy games or doing a lot of emulation, the extra cost of an X3D won't net you much.
That said, if they happen to have a 9800X3D in stock for list price, it's not like you'll hate it or anything. But if you can't quickly and easily source it, I probably wouldn't bother.
Even a 7600 is quite good, and well balanced with the video card and monitor. You might just buy the 9700X and put that in your wife's machine instead. That way, you don't mess with the computer that's working.
Yeah. If you just want Windows 11 compatible you could even go AM4 or one of the lower core count Intel 12-14th gen chips that don't run as hot and don't eat themselves for the wife and leave your working system alone. You can already upgrade to a Zen6 x3D if you decide you want to. I'll assume the wife's needs are pretty moderate if the only reason you are upgrading from an Ivy Bridge system is for Windows 11 support. If you want to go AM5 you could even go 8400f or something along those lines for her system. If you really want an excuse to upgrade your system I say just go for the 9800x3D assuming you can find it in stock reasonably.
Yeah, AM4 is really solid at this point. It's a little I/O limited, but fine otherwise, and thoroughly debugged.
If I'm replacing everything, I'm going with something current and putting off doing it again for as long as possible. Ddr5 is now within spitting distance of 4 (£15 more for 32GB), and mATX AM5 boards are affordable. There are B550 boards for as much as the Asrock B650 I have an eye on. (though there are admittedly cheaper ones)
Made in Hurry
Ars Praefectus
AM5 will probably last until 2028 looking at what AMD has done for AM4, so Zen 6+ is more than probable for AM5. If you have the budget for it without distrupting your other obligations, going AM5 is a no-brainer.
AM4 X3Ds aren't immune to explosions:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzXkpzuuOc4
He ordered a bunch of 5700X3Ds off Aliexpress for use in new systems. One of the new systems stopped working. He swapped the CPU/motherboard/RAM for the customer. When he went to troubleshoot the CPU in an Aorus X570 board, he heard a "poof". As he shows, the CPU now had several burnt pins. Aliexpress refunded the purchase, and the motherboard was fine with a different CPU.
He chalks it up to just a one-off faulty CPU, but I mean... crashing Windows vs burning pins? Ehh... can we go back to neither?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzXkpzuuOc4
He ordered a bunch of 5700X3Ds off Aliexpress for use in new systems. One of the new systems stopped working. He swapped the CPU/motherboard/RAM for the customer. When he went to troubleshoot the CPU in an Aorus X570 board, he heard a "poof". As he shows, the CPU now had several burnt pins. Aliexpress refunded the purchase, and the motherboard was fine with a different CPU.
He chalks it up to just a one-off faulty CPU, but I mean... crashing Windows vs burning pins? Ehh... can we go back to neither?
I mean, I wouldn't ever trust CPUs off Aliexpress. No telling where they came from or of they passed QA or are rejects, etc. Remember, AliExpress means "random Chinese seller with no accountability".
I would think that most sensible people, faced with a CPU off AliExpress that let the Magic Smoke out, would blame AliExpress and not the CPU. But I have high expectations, I'm told.
In all seriousness, AMD has total control over the entire supply. It's not like they're going to be shoving 'factory seconds' out the door into China.
If the chip works at all, it will be authentic. Even from AliExpress.
If the chip works at all, it will be authentic. Even from AliExpress.
Well... That assumes some manager or someone at the "this is bad, destroy it" outsourced company isn't tossing it off the back of the truck on the way to actually destroy/dispose of them. I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen sometimes.
Exactly, similar to this case (read the update at the bottom), it may have been an item returned as "defective" that shouldn't have been resold.
Sorta, but not even this. AMD factory does it's tests, doesn't pass, or they find an issue with a whole batch or what not. They don't label them as "B" grade (binned really), they say "destroy them all, not good for the brand or will actually cause damage". I imagine most often that gets put through to a contractor or disposal expert company or what not. Someone in that company, since they have all the valid markings/etc, I'll make some extra money on the side by selling these as new on some shady site through a 3rd party.
That's a complex explanation, involving hypothetical supply chains and malicious actors, where "AMD made a defective CPU" is a very simple one.
Unless further evidence surfaces, I'll stick with Occam.
Eh...it's not that complicated. Especially given the sourcing. If it was from a regular retailer, sure, much more likely AMD had a bad CPU. Which will happen, occasionally, despite all the QC they do. Given the sourcing...IMO it could go either way. Could just be a single random bad one. Or it could be someone tossing some "off to disposable known suspect chips" off the bag of the truck.
I mean, obviously that's possible, but it involves a lot of made-up stuff.
Haven't we seen, in the past, various "not passed QC" stuff gone up for sale on some of these sorts of sites?
Yes. There are all kinds of weird unsanctioned products that show up for sale in China, weird chips, engineering samples, QC fails, weird MBs, chips with counterfeit markings, etc. LTT has done multiple videos on weird hardware they bought from China.
It's certainly possible that it was a normal AMD chip and it died naturally of some defect, but being from Aliexpress makes it impossible to have any confidence in that.
Could well have been a failed QA or engineering sample and they simply silkscreened a fresh logo on top. When you buy from aliexpress, you're taking a gamble. I've had a lot of luck with it, but I've only really purchased super cheap zigbee devices and espresso stuff.
Yeah, AliExpress I go to for small little boards and random things like that, Espressif, or bucks or boots or bits. Or LED strips, or what not. Not full expensive CPUs.
Made in Hurry
Ars Praefectus
Intel has a huge number of all kinds of CPUs you can buy from AliExpress, everything from soldered engineering samples to official ones, and it can be likely that someone gets hold of AMDs too.
Made in Hurry
Ars Praefectus
I have bought a few times, but you need to know who you buy from. I got a Xeon coming in a few days that i expect will be just like the ones i buy here. (Motherboard too).