Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)

[DisEnchantment]

Speculate at will

 

[poke01]

Well, there's a niche for it for new systems from now until NVL bLLC and Z6 X3D launch. I guess this is a very small market and even smaller now due to memory shortages. And I suspect it'll be very hard to justify at whatever price AMD wants for it.

No there is NO market for this but suckers.

 

[adroc_thurston]

No there is NO market for this but suckers.

This isn't the first idiot-bait refresh AMD has done.

 

[gdansk]

This isn't the first idiot-bait refresh AMD has done.

It seems more idiotic than usual but maybe that's only because Intel is avoiding the most questionable part of its planned refresh line-up.

 

[Abwx]

AMD doesn't list the PPT anywhere for this part (nor price) BUT this is the first part to list a 200W TDP. All previous 9950X/7950X variants are 170W TDP but ranged from 200-232W PPT.

These two CPUs have same 170W TDP but different PPTs, 200W PPT for the 9950X and 230W PPT for the 7950X, there s no 9950X that has a 230W PPT unless it was overclocked.

Anyway the AM5 230W max power is the limit, and as said it would be counterproductive to release
a CPU that is not fully compatible with the existing MBs, so about 100% sure that it will be 200W TDP/230W PPT.

 

[adroc_thurston]

It seems more idiotic than usual but maybe that's only because Intel is avoiding the most questionable part of its planned refresh line-up.

No, 3000XT was dumber.

 

[luro]

This looks more like a show off to me. Like “look we can make even biggier cache CPUs”.

 

[gdansk]

This looks more like a show off to me. Like “look we can make even biggier cache CPUs”.

Didn't they already do that with e.g. Milan X years ago? 768MB L3 not big enough?
This shows nothing new. Except that they can throw more silicon at stupid SKUs. Now if they had a two layer stack that'd be new to market.

 

[coercitiv]

This looks more like a show off to me. Like “look we can make even biggier cache CPUs”.

We asked for it.

 

[luro]

Didn't they already do that with e.g. Milan X years ago? 768MB L3 not big enough?
This shows nothing new. Except that they can throw more silicon at stupid SKUs. Now if they had a two layer stack that'd be new to market.

I mean for gamers. I don’t think most client CPU buyers knows what a Milan-X is.
Looks like pure marketing strategy

 

[Saylick]

I find it funny how silly gamers were asking for a flagship dual X3D chip from the get-go all while AMD has repeatedly said that it wouldn't help gaming whatsoever, and now that this SKU is out the same people say it's a waste of money.

 

[Jan Olšan]

Why would any sane person buy this cpu? It WILL get outdated within 8 months. The dual cache is such a niche feature that only the most ardent of AMD fans will buy it.

You say that but people kept asking for it... They probably did overestimate the difference between this "dream SKU" of theirs and 9950X3D, but they did keep asking for dual-X3D, probably since 5800X3D in 2022.

 

[gdansk]

I find it funny how silly gamers were asking for a flagship dual X3D chip from the get-go all while AMD has repeatedly said that it wouldn't help gaming whatsoever, and now that this SKU is out the same people say it's a waste of money.

Hey, I was saying it's a waste of money before and after. I am consistent. Just that some people will buy it. Are these other people really the same people?
People who thought it would help games or power efficiency may be in for a shock. Giving it an extra 70W will murder any efficiency advantage it could have had. But it can be fixed in UEFI settings.

 

[pj-]

development cost seems like it'd be close to nothing, they'll sell a bunch to people with more money than sense, plus maybe a few dozen people who would actually benefit from the minor improvement

 

[LightningZ71]

Which is why this should be an epic 4xxx SKU.

 

[Joe NYC]

Even in AMD's own cherry-picked slides there is no double digit uplift. 🤡

But that's from 9950x3d to 9950x3d2.

9950x vs 9950x3d2 would have been a better comparison.

The fact that there is meaningful uplift from just adding 2nd V-Cache is impressive. I wonder if it is all from V-Cache or if the clocks are also higher.

I have seen somewhere that 9950x3d2 has 5.6 GHz boost clock. Not sure about 9950x3d

 

[gdansk]

9950x vs 9950x3d2 would have been a better comparison.

No it would be a worse comparison. The X3D2 proponents argued it would be significantly better than the asymmetric X3D configuration that AMD had hitherto employed. And AMD here introduced a confounding factor by changing the power limit for this chip.

9950x3d2 has 5.6 GHz boost clock. Not sure about 9950x3d

All the top bin X3D dies can exceed 5600MHz. 9950X3D too. But is the 9950X3D2 even two "A" bins for that $$$?

 

[Joe NYC]

No it would be a worse comparison. The X3D2 proponents argued it would be significantly better than the asymmetric X3D configuration that AMD had hitherto employed. And AMD here introduced a confounding factor by changing the power limit for this chip.

I think it is more likely that people just don't like asymmetric system and are willing to pay extra $50 to avoid playing lottery with the schedule choosing the right CCD.

Or don't want the hassle doing any pinning of software to CCD.

All the top bin X3D dies can exceed 5600MHz. 9950X3D too. But is the 9950X3D2 even two "A" bins for that $$$?

We will see how much. $50 would be totally worth it, at $100 would start to get questionable.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

So I gotta ask. Why?

If you've been waiting this long for 3D2's marginal gains, why wouldn't you continue to wait for Zen 6?

Long story short, this is money from a competition I won that isn't in a bank account I own and I can't afford to wait indefinitely.

At the moment, I'm running a RTX 5090 on an old 5900X and 3600MT/s DDR4 so I'm leaving performance on the table.

 

[reaperrr3]

200W strap says 270W sPPT right in their docs bossman.
Good luck cooling that with AM5, though.

TDP and real power/PPT aren't really connected anymore.
I mean, the 7800X3D has a 120W TDP, still draws only something like 60W or so.
And as someone mentioned, the 9950X has a lower PPT than the 7950X despite same TDP.

AMD is giving X3D models higher "on-paper" TDPs because they need lower temps and AMD tries to nudge people into giving these CPUs the best possible cooling, both to keep RMAs low and get maybe a hair higher results in benchmarks, too.
We'll have to wait for reviews, but right now I'd bet the 9950X3D2 will NOT have more than 230W PPT. Could even be TDP=PPT with this one.

 

[yuri69]

Why is everybody so dismissive about that X3D2?

Isn't it better to have two large L3 pools w/o juggling between a large and small L3 pool? The homogeneity principle makes things less complex.

 

[coercitiv]

Isn't it better to have two large L3 pools w/o juggling between a large and small L3 pool? The homogeneity principle makes things less complex.

Except you still need to prevent the juggling between these identically large L3 pools. I think you need to see price and performance before you judge it, those who are dismissive expect little perf uplift for a large price delta. (especially when taking the new power budget into account).

Personally I can't fault AMD for doing it, we (as in consumers) literally asked them to do it. Maybe they should have called it X3D Fan Edition, that would have settled expectations completely.

 

[Tachyonism]

Why is everybody so dismissive about that X3D2?

Because the performance increase is a single digit, and the gaming performance increase would be even lower. And it's likely to be not a good fit for gaming.

And also maybe because of the RAM price at the moment.

 

[yuri69]

Because the performance increase is a single digit, and the gaming performance increase would be even lower. And it's likely to be not a good fit for gaming.

And also maybe because of the RAM price at the moment.

Is somebody forcing you to buy that SKU? Are other existing SKUs getting affected in any way?