AMD's Lisa Su responds to disappointing Ryzen gaming. "We're optimizing now"

[Ursus]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/31760...et-better.html

Lisa Su and other prominent people at AMD answered some interesting questions yesterday on reddit:

Lisa:

Ryzen is doing really well in 1440p and 4K gaming when the applications are more graphics bound. And we do exceptionally well in rendering and workstation applications where more cores are really useful. In 1080p, we have tested over 100+ titles in the labs?. And depending on the test conditions, we do better in some games and worse in others. We hear people on wanting to see improved 1080p performance and we fully expect that Ryzen performance in 1080p will only get better as developers get more time with ?Zen?. We have over 300+ developers now working with "Zen" and several of the developers for Ashes of Singularity and Total Warhammer are actively optimizing now

The full reddit exchange: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comment...lw&sh=045f958f

What do you all think?

[Ket]

My money is still on the terrible memory latency. 100ns+ @ 2133, even @ 3000 about 86ns latency. This can possibly be addressed as UEFIs mature (they are all basically still betas and half broken) and with SPD updates to modules themselves but I wouldn't expect latency to get much better than ~78ns @ 2133. That sort of improvement though would likely see Zen being on par at 1080p as well. Overall, its very very very very early days for AM4 and Zen, theres bound to be issues to work out with updates on a brand new platform and architecture. I don't see why so many people are losing their over it.

[AliG]

I agree on the memory latency being a big issue, but also think that SMT needs to be further refined as well.

I believe it was Chew* that noted a sizable difference in single threaded tasks with it disabled - although the issue is slightly overblown, out of the fact that you still do get very close to Kaby Lake IPC while benefitting from the extra threads.

[Ket]

Yep. Lets also not overlook that sub-timings haven't even been added to UEFIs yet (or none I've looked at anyway) so I would bet on those sub-timings (assuming they are poor and just some kind of test mode) contributing a fair bit of unnecessary latency. SMT hiccups are supposedly where MS need to release a Windows update according to AMD... we shall see.

At least AMDs SMT isn't the mess intels HT was when first implemented

[AliG]

I suspect it'll be Zen+ that actually fixes the majority of issues, not a simple bios update.

All I know is the market was not impressed by the reviews LOL

[Ket]

Zen+ will improve niggles and add tweaks certainly, you'll be surprised what a microcode / UEFI update can do though. Old example now, but back in the S939 days Asus released a BIOS for their very first Crosshair board that nerfed a lot of peoples CPU overclocks by about 200MHz. I didn't experience a hit that hard, but my old 3500+ did clock 100MHz less with that update. As far as I know Asus never did sort that issue out either, just one reason among many why I will never, ever, buy a Asus board again.

[StAndrew]

I suspect it'll be Zen+ that actually fixes the majority of issues, not a simple bios update.

All I know is the market was not impressed by the reviews LOL

My prediction:
Ryzen may match Intel's performance but I doubt it will be a clear cut win in any sector except maybe performance/watt (and lower prices). For AMD to admit silicon is still be optimized just months before launch is a red flag for me and I have serious doubts these chips will clock well. The next revision of Ryzen will probably be very soon after initial launch and the release will see a lot of "what Ryzen should have been" reviews.

[AliG]

Haha well give me a bit of credit, I bought in low and sold just below the peak ($14.50 vs $15.20).

I'd say I did a pretty good job of predicting myself

[StAndrew]

Haha well give me a bit of credit, I bought in low and sold just below the peak ($14.50 vs $15.20).

I'd say I did a pretty good job of predicting myself

I personally would have kept it. I foresee a progressive growth in the AMD market with this launch, however Vega might not pan out quite so well as Ryzen. Either way, I think AMD did win here, however it was tempered a little. They have a great architecture that will only improve from here while Intel is still stuck in nostalgia.

[AliG]

I personally would have kept it. I foresee a progressive growth in the AMD market with this launch, however Vega might not pan out quite so well as Ryzen. Either way, I think AMD did win here, however it was tempered a little. They have a great architecture that will only improve from here while Intel is still stuck in nostalgia.

Nah that valuation was scary high. It was all based off hype; we'll see the stock converge to what the company as actually worth probably by Q3 (where the sales of Ryzen and Vega are known).

I pocketted my profits and put my initial investment back into Snapchat. I don't think for a second that company will be worth more than AMD, but #greaterfooltheory

[StyM]

AMD responds to 1080p gaming tests on Ryzen

“As we presented at Ryzen Tech Day, we are supporting 300+ developer kits with game development studios to optimize current and future game releases for the all-new Ryzen CPU. We are on track for 1000+ developer systems in 2017. For example, Bethesda at GDC yesterday announced its strategic relationship with AMD to optimize for Ryzen CPUs, primarily through Vulkan low-level API optimizations, for a new generation of games, DLC and VR experiences.

Oxide Games also provided a public statement today on the significant performance uplift observed when optimizing for the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 CPU design – optimizations not yet reflected in Ashes of the Singularity benchmarking. Creative Assembly, developers of the Total War series, made a similar statement today related to upcoming Ryzen optimizations.

CPU benchmarking deficits to the competition in certain games at 1080p resolution can be attributed to the development and optimization of the game uniquely to Intel platforms – until now. Even without optimizations in place, Ryzen delivers high, smooth frame rates on all “CPU-bound” games, as well as overall smooth frame rates and great experiences in GPU-bound gaming and VR. With developers taking advantage of Ryzen architecture and the extra cores and threads, we expect benchmarks to only get better, and enable Ryzen excel at next generation gaming experiences as well.

Game performance will be optimized for Ryzen and continue to improve from at-launch frame rate scores.” John Taylor, AMD

[Ket]

Honestly, I get why people would be pissed about the memory latency, but the way a lot of places are reacting to it is like AMD have released another faildozer The truth is Zen is bloody amazing, theres some kinks to work out at lower resolutions but its a new architecture and platform you can't expect everything to be perfect off the bat. I'll reiterate once more for the nervous types out there - these niggles are being actively worked out on the developers side, AMD are also working with manufacturers still optimising UEFI code and working on microcode updates, so unbunch your panties and have a little patience

[AliG]

I think Ryzen was just facing an insurmountable hype machine to be honest. I don't think that anything short of winning/being extremely competitive across the board would have placated people, and it simply turned out to be exceptional in some areas but weak in others.

I'm confident this will be a great product for either budget minded people or specific niches (video editing definitely seems to be one). But the truth is people should have known this from the price: you don't mark something to be half the cost of your competition if it's an all around better product.

[Ket]

I think Ryzen was just facing an insurmountable hype machine to be honest. I don't think that anything short of winning/being extremely competitive across the board would have placated people, and it simply turned out to be exceptional in some areas but weak in others.

I'm confident this will be a great product for either budget minded people or specific niches (video editing definitely seems to be one). But the truth is people should have known this from the price: you don't mark something to be half the cost of your competition if it's an all around better product.

I think Zen is all around better if I'm honest, teething problems aside its showing a extraordinarily strong showing on its very first outing. People are literally losing their minds over what is 5-6FPS in most gaming instances at 1080p, completely forgetting that most the games tested are limited by the game engine itself to quads with 4 or 8 threads. MS and AMD are working on releasing Windows updates to sort out SMT, game devs are optimising game code for Zen, drivers will naturally get better over time, and manufacturers are working with AMD to fix UEFI bugs, implement new options, and working on updated microcode. What in the blue hell more could people ask for? All of that effort shows AMD are deadly serious about making Zen one seriously arse kicking CPU.

I'm totally on board with Zen, but I don't just game I do scientific calculations and in what spare time I have do game development as a kind of hobby, so for me more cores and more threads with little to no ST impact for the price of a quad = epic win

[StAndrew]

I think Ryzen was just facing an insurmountable hype machine to be honest. I don't think that anything short of winning/being extremely competitive across the board would have placated people, and it simply turned out to be exceptional in some areas but weak in others.

I'm confident this will be a great product for either budget minded people or specific niches (video editing definitely seems to be one). But the truth is people should have known this from the price: you don't mark something to be half the cost of your competition if it's an all around better product.

AMD does tend to over promise and under deliver. NVIDIAs 1080 TI was a good launch. Everyone thought it would be a cut down TITAN. Only people upset with that launch are the guys that dropped $1,200 for an extra GB of VRAM.

[AliG]

AMD does tend to over promise and under deliver. NVIDIAs 1080 TI was a good launch. Everyone thought it would be a cut down TITAN. Only people upset with that launch are the guys that dropped $1,200 for an extra GB of VRAM.

This.

I knew something was fishy when they have that bs GDC presentation. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't have high expectations for Vega after seeing that.

[Ket]

Actually, AMD haven't specifically promised anything with Vega or even Zen. They just quietly ferreted away at their own thing. Media hype, rabid excitement / over expectation, and opposition fanboys is what makes AMDs new stuff look bad when its not.

[StAndrew]

Actually, AMD haven't specifically promised anything with Vega or even Zen. They just quietly ferreted away at their own thing. Media hype, rabid excitement / over expectation, and opposition fanboys is what makes AMDs new stuff look bad when its not.

I think AMD PR has a hand in the fanning of the flames. But yes that is def a factor.

[MattiasNYC]

Media hype, rabid excitement / over expectation, and opposition fanboys is what makes AMDs new stuff look bad when its not.

Actually, I think the expectation was pretty reasonable this time around. From what I could see people were pretty cautious, so to me it still looks good...

[Ket]

It was reasonable... right up until AMD released a few preliminary benchmarks. Everyone went nuts after that acting like it was a second coming of christ or something lol.

[StAndrew]

Actually, I think the expectation was pretty reasonable this time around. From what I could see people were pretty cautious, so to me it still looks good...

People are still scared from the "Launch that shall not be named." You know, the one that bul

It was reasonable... right up until AMD released a few preliminary benchmarks. Everyone went nuts after that acting like it was a second coming of christ or something lol.

I think the past decade of suck coming from AMD made the prospect of even a competitive processor extremely exciting.

[dasa]

smt isn't the only one with problems intel ht still sees a performance drop in a number of games and ht on the 6900k brings no improvement

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/956-...etour-amd.html

i haven't seen any games where amd wins yet unless its bottlnecked to within margin of error
amd has admitted themselves that there only equal to broadwell-e in single threaded performance given the high latency this will likely be worse in memory sensitive programs like games

im happy that amd has a great cpu for workstations competition is a great thing and i hope intels sales drop like a stone
as a gamer im not disappointed in amd im disappointed that there is a lack of competition in that area with amd still ~30-40% slower in games that are still under 60fps once overclocking is taken into consideration

i dont think people are pissed about the latency but see it as hope for where amd may be able to claw back a good chunk of performance if they can fix it

[Ket]

People are still scared from the "Launch that shall not be named." You know, the one that bul


I think the past decade of suck coming from AMD made the prospect of even a competitive processor extremely exciting.

Its not been quite that long... about 5 years, 7 if you count the very start of the core architecture even though the Phenom IIs kept up quite well for those first couple years.

smt isn't the only one with problems intel ht still sees a performance drop in a number of games and ht on the 6900k brings no improvement

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/956-...etour-amd.html

i haven't seen any games where amd wins yet unless its bottlnecked to within margin of error
amd has admitted themselves that there only equal to broadwell-e in single threaded performance given the high latency this will likely be worse in memory sensitive programs like games

im happy that amd has a great cpu for workstations competition is a great thing and i hope intels sales drop like a stone
as a gamer im not disappointed in amd im disappointed that there is a lack of competition in that area with amd still ~30-40% slower in games that are still under 60fps once overclocking is taken into consideration

i dont think people are pissed about the latency but see it as hope for where amd may be able to claw back a good chunk of performance if they can fix it

I've seen benchmarks Zen is doing every bit as well as anything intel are offering. A lot of game engines also don't make use of more than quad cores with 4 or 8 threads, modern game engines are starting to use 6 or more cores so Zen gaming performance should grow quite considerably. SMT should be fixed with a Windows update or two, so says AMD anyway. The only real question is how much work manufacturers are willing to put in to AM4 UEFIs, and how the memory latency issue pans out. I don't know what gaming benchmarks you have been looking at but none of thr 5-6 sets from different sources I've looked at show anywhere near that kind of deficit, generally the difference in most games is 5-6FPS. Its a brand new platform, brand new architecture, anyone expecting it not to have any teething problems are simply fooling themselves nothing as complex as a new CPU architecture ever launches without some issues to fix.

Right now, its about waiting and seeing what the next 2-3 months brings with more mature UEFIs, updated microcods, devs optimising their game code, etc.

[dasa]

I don't know what gaming benchmarks you have been looking at but none of thr 5-6 sets from different sources I've looked at show anywhere near that kind of deficit, generally the difference in most games is 5-6FPS.

well there is the review from hw.fr i just linked shows ~20% increase to 7700k at stock clocks in total war and watch dogs which is about as good as multithreading gets in current games
that drops back to ~13% 8fps with smt disabled

as for overclocked results
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...5ARk3PGE52_GPw
here is two examples from the review one that only makes use of ~3 cores and one that is threaded
although it looks like they used msi bios 113 which may have had a performance problem? still it didnt stop the 1800x from performing well in rendering tests

[Ket]

Well, I can't comment on the validity of those results as I don't know the site but they are far from what I've been seeing; http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,16.html I've got some good "pig code" game tests I plan to run on Zen which hopefully should help unmuddy the water to make a clearer picture of things. I think people need to remember all CPUs, intels included, have worse performance in games than CPUs with less cores as those CPUs with less cores as we all know can clock a fair bit higher. People need to compare results to similar CPUs, not CPUs with half the cores and half the threads.

IMO in old games like arma it also stands to reason intels architecture that has remained largely unchanged in bloody ages will do better than Zen, old games were coded and optimised for what was then a new archirecture, those improvements carried over as intel fiddled and tweaked, Zen is a whole new animal born what, a decade after arma?

EDIT Just seen its arma 3 not arma, but it still stands to reason a older games does better on intel, I'm still going to say let AM4 mature for a few months and see where things are then.

EDIT 2

I've done this to illustrate a point, the 1800X is meant to go up against the 6900k, essentially 8 or 6 core CPUs should not be being tested with 4 core CPUs in the same list IMO, mainly because there is just too much extra hardware in Hex / Octas compared to Quads. Hexs and Octas are on a new playing field of the future where more cores and threads are going to become increasingly important, so charts should reflect that. I've also intentionally picked a game Zen isn't currently doing so well in to hopefully illustrate my point of relative performance better.



As you see, the difference between the 1800X and 6900k is 7FPS, thats not exactly earth shattering in terms of difference. Perhaps more pointedly, the 1800X is only 7FPS behind the 6950X, a 1,550 CPU. Things are far from a disaster and I still think much of these differences will be made up with updates, optimisations, and natural maturity. No Zen+ necessary.