For many PC enthusiasts looking to upgrade their rigs lately, the wait for AMD’s new Ryzen processors has been a sweet agony. Adding salt to the wound, heartless AMD has been providing potential buyers with juicy tidbits at just the right intervals to keep them from moving on. How much pain can an enthusiast take?!?! Well folks, I’m pleased to tell you the wait is finally over.

AMD has formally announced the release of Ryzen CPUs on a tech event held in San Francisco today, and they would reach the market on March 2nd. Initially, only the three Ryzen 7 CPUs (1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 1700) will be released. The release of the rest of the lineup would follow thereafter.

In this event, AMD has also disclosed some new information about these processors that we were not privy to.

52% Better IPC

After the bulldozer fiasco, AMD decided that it would be much better to start with a clean slate. If you go by their words, this approach has worked wonders for them. Their target of 40% improvement in IPC over their previous chips (Excavator) was not only met, but exceeded! The Ryzen CPUs have 52% more IPC than the Excavator chips. Looks like Jim Keller (and his team, of course) has done it again!

Source: AMD

Die Shot

AMD has revealed a die shot of Ryzen processors. Built on a 14nm process node, the 8 core Ryzen CPU consists of 4.8 billion transistors and 2000m of signal wiring. The AMD team responsible for Ryzen has reportedly spent two million engineering hours over the architecture. Looking at the benchmark results (that are revealed till now), it looks like all that hard work has finally paid off.

Source: AMD

Benchmark Demos

AMD CEO Lisa Su showed three demos pitting Ryzen 7 1700X against Intels Core i7-6800K. The demos run included Cinebench, HandBrake, and a 4K gaming session. See how Ryzen fared in these tests below:

Source: pcper

In the 4K Gaming Session, AMD showed a Ryzen (Ryzen 7 1800X) processor and an Intel Broadwell-E (Core i7-6900K) processor running a demo version of Sniper Elite 4 side by side. The average frame rate (70-80 FPS) was similar on both the systems and the differences, if any, were imperceptible.

From all this, it can be seen how Intel has a serious competitor on it’s hands in the form of Ryzen.

Retail Packing and Coolers

AMD also unveiled the retail packaging and their new Wraith Spire Heat Sink Fans for select Ryzen processors. Have a look below:

Source: AMD

Apart from all this, here is some more miscellaneous information about the Ryzen 7 processors and AM4 Mobo Chipsets that AMD was kind enough to share:

Source: legitreviews

Source: wccftech

Ryzen 7 CPUs and AM4 Mobos are now officially available for pre order at following prices:

Amazon:

Ryzen 7 1800X – $499 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700X – $399 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700 – $329 – Amazon.com

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero – $255 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime X370-Pro – $170 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350-Plus – $99.99 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350M-A/CSM – $89.99 – Amazon.com

MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM – $299.99

Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5 – 194.99$
Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 – 109.99$

Newegg:

AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700X 3.4 GHz (3.8 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo)

BIOSTAR X370GT7 – $209.99
BIOSTAR X370GT5 – $149.99
BIOSTAR B350GT5 – $129.99

Now, before anyone jumps the gun seeing all this and indulges in their fanboyish whims by pre-ordering, I urge you to remember that the only benchmark results available of Ryzen CPUs as of now are either from AMD themselves (which could be cherry picked) or from unofficial leaks (which could very well be fake). So, it would be better if you wait till some reviews of them show up. You did wait till now, what’s another 1.5-2 weeks.

You can have a look at the Ryzen Launch Event below:

Source(s): pcper, wccftech, legitreviews

The post AMD Ryzen Official Release and Pre Order appeared first on OCFreaks!.

It seems AMD, after lying dormant in the CPU segment for quite a while now, is ready to reenter it with a bang.A leaked slide containing the details of AMD’s upcoming High Performance Server APU based on it’s new micro-architecture, Zen, has surfaced on Fudzilla, and is making quite a noise.

According to the Slide; the APU comprises of 16 Zen cores and will support 32 threads via SMT (Simultaneous Multi Threading). With AMD’s previous attempt at utilizing CMT (Clustered Multithreading) being underwhelming to say the least, this is quite a welcome change. The chip offers 512 KB of L2 Cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache, 8MB per module (consisting of four cores). It also offers secure boot and a Crypto Coprocessor, which clears all doubts that the said chip is indeed, most likely a server part.

Apart from this, the chip also features “Greenland” Stream Graphics processor, with upto 16 GB of HBM running at 512 GB/s. With AMDs first GPU supporting HBM just around the corner(R9 380X/390X), this doesn’t seem too far off. And if true, this could deal a major blow to Intel in the Graphics department, whose efforts so far have been nothing but futile (but whoever buys Intel for the igp anyways, am I right? 🙂 ).

The APU supports quad channel DDR4 system memory running at a speed of upto 3200 MHz. The slide also speculate the chip to support a whopping 64 PCIe Gen 3 lanes, with 16 lanes switchable with 2 lanes of SATA Express and 14 lanes of SATA.

On paper, this appears to be a monster of a chip. What remains to be seen is if AMD could actually pull this off. Who doesn’t remember the Bulldozer fiasco. But this time things seem quite a bit different. AMD has brought back Jim Keller (remember those amazing Athlon chips based on the K8 Architecture, which hit Intel where it hurt and showed them the harsh truth that it aint all about Clock Speed? He was the lead architect of K8.) and Raja Koduri (Graphics Guru. Now the Corporate VP of Visual Computing) back from Apple. Some other big name recruits include Dr. Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster. With a team consisting of such heavyweights, it shouldn’t be a surprise if AMD’s next chip does surpass all expectations. If AMD does manage to pull this off at a reasonable TDP and power envelope, this chip should be a no brainer.

No word has come from AMD’s side on the legitimacy of this slide. Some of the features mentioned do appear far fetched (64 PCIe 3 LANES!!! 16 GB IGP MEM!!!), but none of them are impossible. Regardless of all this, a bit of competition is severely needed in the CPU segment to keep the prices in check. So I do hope AMD’s new chips heat up the market (not literally AMD, not literally!).

Source : Fudzilla

The post Details of AMD’s new Zen APU Leaked appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Now MSI had decided to step in and solve the problem to a certain extent. a few days back they showed off a small slide in Facebook which shows the upcoming Z97 XPower AC will support delidded haswell CPU among other features.

Now while we wait to see how far its adopted by the enthusiast crowd.The conpet is pretty innovative.

What do you think? let us know

The post MSI Z97 XPower AC Motherboard to support Delided Haswell CPU appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Hey guys….
How are ya all?
Well…this review am bringing in today is a follow up on my previous preview here .
So you guys are going to see a lot of old stuff picked up from that piece..so dont kill me!

Allright here goes..

now,we all know the lower end is where the action is and we have too many competitors on that range;some utterly overpriced,some utterly disappointing and some real brilliant performers.

Today we bring to you one such CPU from this range : AMD A10 5800K.
This little guy here is being projected as what one should have in an entry-level gaming PC or HTPC setup.
So lets see if its worth the hype..shall we?

The post AMD 5800K “Trinity” review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

In the mainstream, AMD will be adding the FX-6130 to complement its the 6-core FX-6100 and FX-6200 with a 3.9 GHz/ 3.6 GHz version. In the entry level area, AMD is now listing the quad-core FX-4130 with 3.9 GHz/3.8 GHz. Both processors are 125 watt parts.

When released, AMD will be offering a total of eight 32 nm, Zambezi-based FX processors – three quad-core CPUs, three hexacore processors and two eight-core versions – spanning a packed price range from $115 to $245. We would expect AMD to adjust its processor pricing closer to the Ivy Bridge launch as well. The new 4130 model could turn out to be a new budget model as it will only include half of the 8 MB L3 cache of all other FX CPUs.

Source : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-fx-4130-6130-cpu,15094.html

The post AMD Plans New FX Processors to Go Up Against Ivy Bridge appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Well…AMD was kind enough to send us a package and we found a NEW CPU inside!Since we got the chip might as well do a review of it…lets see how it stacks up against its direct competitor the Intel Core i5 2500K

A few words on Bulldozer

AMD really reinvented the wheel on their Bulldozer. The FX lineup of CPU are different than any other CPU’s out there…now if thats a good thing or a bad thing is question of debate and perception. With Bulldozer AMD tried the “less is more” approach.They put two cores side by side..and then decided what to share between them. At the end they decided to share the Front end , Floating point cores and the L2 cache. Take a look at the diagrams to see what they have done.

Bulldozer Concept and Reality

Now that we know what AMD wanted to do and what they did;lets dig a bit deep into the architecture,the next couple of slides will give you a fair idea about the CPU.

>Here is how it works :

Above two slides show the die of the FX CPU.

Now here’s some info for you so that you guys don’t say it out wrong :

• the die itself is called OROCHI
• the Architecture is called “Bulldozer”
• The code name of the processor we are looking at today is called “Zambezi” and the server variants are called “Interlagos” and “Valencia”

Well..lets hope you wont get it wrong again.

Since Server market is a big playground for AMD power management is a big deal..at-least for them. So Whatever improvement they do on the server side will get ported to the desktop side.Same story with the FX lineup also,the idle frequency is reduced to 1.4Ghz with a matching vcore. The changes between idle and load frequency are instant a one would expect.

Although power is not a big source of concern for us overclockers;for a regular consumer it is a BIG deal as bigger power envelop would ultimately lead to bigger cost.Now.i didn’t have the chance to measure the power output from my system but after looking at some other user experiences i came to know that the average power output from an FX 8150 setup and 2600K setup are as follows :

There is a strong disparity between the two systems..so clearly in terms of efficiency getting a 2600k will make sense to a conservative buyer. They also have a advanced Turbo core,which has a base turbo and an advanced turbo. All cores can exceed their stock frequency (up to 3.9 GHz in this case) if the chip’s TDP isn’t reached.however If a multi-threaded load is applied, chances are it will take up the TDP and the CPU will operate at its base frequency (3.6 GHz on the FX-8150). Light loads will take advantage of the Turbo cores though.With a max turbo of 4.2GHz single threaded to quad threaded applications(majority of software’s and some games too) will experience a nice boost of upto 600MHz depending on the processor.

The post AMD Bulldozer FX 8150 CPU Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

HyperThreading.. What is it?

Basically, HyperThreading is just Intel’s marketing term for their implementation of Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT, for short)…..SMT literally means executing two threads simultaneously on a single processing core…..In reality, the name SMT is used mostly for historical reasons as two threads never actually execute simultaneously on the same hardware.. However, HyperThreading (referred to as HT from here on) will switch between threads quickly enough that the illusion is that they are running at the same time..

Virtually there are no drawbacks of HT but its applicability and effectiveness can vary depending on these following factors:

• Operating system/Operating environment.
• Application’s way of handling threads.
• CPU architecture’s maturity.

Now i would explain the phenomenon in an analogous manner taking the following example:

Take a highway(single lane) as an example.. this highway is your processor pipeline.The vehicles(cars for simplicity) are the data/instructions being executed.
Now taking these 2 assumptions in mind.. we see that if we add another lane here..although still keeping the total width of road same(its analogous to same core but 2 threads)it will then optimize the traffic and allow more cars comparatively to pass through it…but of course it wont be as effective as adding a full fledged lane by doubling road width.

I hope I was able to convey the message to all in an easily understandable way.

That sums it up(forgive me if I left anything.. you guys are free to suggest any left out point).

The post Hyper Threading Demystified appeared first on OCFreaks!.