Intel 28-core fantasy vs. AMD 32-core reality

Post by xxs » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 8:43 AM UTC

sliken wrote: post #46

wmf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not similar at all. AMD's cores are 10-20% slower while Niagara was 80-90% slower. And AMD isn't intentionally slower; they designed the Zen core for maximum single-thread performance but they just didn't do as good a job as Intel because their budget is vastly smaller.

Just figured I'd mention that AMD significantly closed this gap with the Ryzen 2. The less parallel friendly applications (like many games) now seem to be faster on AMD or Intel depending on the application. Additionally the up to date security patches tend to hurt Intel more than AMD. As always, if you really care about a single application, then you test it. But I wouldn't say that Intel wins on all single thread o…

Post by nottorp » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 9:13 AM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #53

nottorp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it such a huge killer outside gaming benchmarks? And even then, the extra power is useful only if you jumped on the 4K bandwagon. Personally, consider the amount of random crap that i run, I'd rather have more cores. And more importantly, 80% of the performance for 50% of the price is just fine(tm).

The gaming benchmarks are a bit meh since in most realistic builds the GPU will be the bottleneck, not the CPU (unless you buy a 1080Ti with a Ryzen 3 or i3, though in that case all help is lost). More cores do benefit if you run stuff besides the game, which most people do.

Post by manual » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #57

jejones3141 wrote: post #56

For a long time I saved a copy of a publication by Motorola about how Intel played fast and loose with benchmarks in comparisons of the 80386 with the 68020. (I lost it in a move, alas.) Can't say I was surprised to read about the 28-core fiasco.

link?

Post by smueller1234 » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 9:41 AM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #52

wmf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel was selling 18-core chips for >$2,400 then when Threadripper came out Intel released the 18-core i9 for "only" $2,000, so that is something of a price drop. Also, Intel's $350 8700K was cheaper at launch than AMD's $450 1800X even though the 8700K is faster in gaming.

Keep in mind that AMD has an inherent advantage: the Zen architecture and Glue. When AMD fabs a TR2 they have to find 4 good Ryzen dies which are fairly small and they make a lot of them since they are part of the entire lineup. Once they have 4 good dies, they get glued together. If they wanted 64 cores they'd just have to look for 8 good Ryzen dies, halving their yield compared to 32. On the Intel side they have to…

Post by zaarn » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 9:48 AM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #63

zaarn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gaming benchmarks are a bit meh since in most realistic builds the GPU will be the bottleneck, not the CPU (unless you buy a 1080Ti with a Ryzen 3 or i3, though in that case all help is lost). More cores do benefit if you run stuff besides the game, which most people do.

I'm into VM abuse, so for me more cores would be a no brainer... Sadly for AMD that would be IF i needed a new machine. My 2012 Core i7 still seems to be enough for my needs. (Except the GPU, that I changed recently.)