So... How About That Zen?

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I'm in the process of putting together a new top-to-bottom build and I am about a second away from pulling the trigger on a Skylake for a 1080p rig. Unfortunately, there is a part of me which wants to wait and see what Zen will provide as far as price and performance is concerned.

As of right now, for ~$835 through Amazon, I could get:

Intel i5-6600k
Asus Z170-E (I don't need the -A extras)
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 LPX CL15 3000mhz
Corsair H90 AIO cooling (the case isn't wide enough for some tall coolers)
Corsair Graphite Series 230T case

I'll be keeping my aging R9 280 and Corsair CX 600 PSU until I can throw more money in to it this summer when the 1060 and Polaris models are either out or close to being out.

What I am unsure about is whether or not Zen will continue to provide AMDs 'cheaper solution' while also improving upon current generation performance which would put it in an 'okay' spot for someone who doesn't have deep pockets but wants to have a positive gaming experience. Unfortunately, it seems as though there is a ton of information which is still shrouded in mystery which would otherwise provide me with a better idea of what I want and whether or not that means I'd save some cash in the process to hurry along the entire overhaul.

Is there even some kind of evidence which suggests that Zen isn't all hype and marketing to make it worth the wait over firing off on this order now? If I wait for the September-ish release, I would also have saved enough to do a complete change all at once.

Putting together a new build is as fun as it is a gamble in times such as this.

[Phaere]

I'm in the process of putting together a new top-to-bottom build and I am about a second away from pulling the trigger on a Skylake for a 1080p rig. Unfortunately, there is a part of me which wants to wait and see what Zen will provide as far as price and performance is concerned.

As of right now, for ~$835 through Amazon, I could get:

Intel i5-6600k
Asus Z170-E (I don't need the -A extras)
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 LPX CL15 3000mhz
Corsair H90 AIO cooling (the case isn't wide enough for some tall coolers)
Corsair Graphite Series 230T case

I'll be keeping my aging R9 280 and Corsair CX 600 PSU until I can throw more money in to it this summer when the 1060 and Polaris models are either out or close to being out.

What I am unsure about is whether or not Zen will continue to provide AMDs 'cheaper solution' while also improving upon current generation performance which would put it in an 'okay' spot for someone who doesn't have deep pockets but wants to have a positive gaming experience. Unfortunately, it seems as though there is a ton of information which is still shrouded in mystery which would otherwise provide me with a better idea of what I want and whether or not that means I'd save some cash in the process to hurry along the entire overhaul.

Is there even some kind of evidence which suggests that Zen isn't all hype and marketing to make it worth the wait over firing off on this order now? If I wait for the September-ish release, I would also have saved enough to do a complete change all at once.

Putting together a new build is as fun as it is a gamble in times such as this.

Zen should still provide that cheaper alternative and be much more competitive. Assuming the 40% is true in most tasks it should put Zen at roughly ~Haswell levels of performance.

The main problem though is Skylake is available now and will still offer better performance than Zen, while Zen will not be available till the end of the year.

I say if you want your new system now then just get Skylake, but if you want to wait till the end of the year to check benchmarks before deciding then that's cool too.

[Artorius]

If Zen ships with Haswell level of IPC it'll outperform Skylake at multithreaded tasks because it'll have double the number of cores. The i7 equivalent consumer Zen is supposed to be 8/16 which is very appealing if it really has Maxwell level IPC.

[Evildeffy]

This is all speculation so keep that in mind.

But having said that if we are to believe AMD's CEO (Lisa Su) at her word than we will get Zen that will be equal or better than Skylake.
According to her latest meeting with shareholders and whatnot she stated Zen is surpassing their original estimate.

More information here: http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-perf...ouble-fx-8350/

If point in case is true than there's a good chance that the 8c/16t Zen will literally be 2 x i7-6700K performance in multi-threaded environments and equal where it cannot because it will score similarly or better per core.

Again... note the following:
This is pure speculation at this point but if it's not ... interesting time for CPUs ahead as well as the entire Hexa-, Octa and Decacore line-up of Intel will crumble.
Who will pay 1.000 EUR/USD for an Octa-Core CPU when the same performance is offered for under half the price?
Bear in mind that this will significantly impact workstation position as well as AMD has always offered ECC support with their CPUs where Intel did and does not.

I do however think that this CPU step, whilst entirely possible, is also do-or-die for AMD's CPU branch.

However to get to this point you WILL have to wait until Q4 (Oct - Nov - Dec) 2016 for this.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

That's some interesting information and if Zen proves to be the second coming of the Athlon X2 Toledo heydays then maybe it's worth waiting for. It just sucks that there is still so much waiting to be done before we even see real world performance previews.

[Artorius]

If you want to read about Zen.

This is the speculation/grain-of-salt performance chart made based on one of AMD's slides that claimed Zen as 2x Orochi:

[Denpepe]

Also don't forget more cores is not everything for gaming PC's, because if it wore AMD would be in a better position already, if you can use the cores for other things it's nice and handy, if it is for sitting idle doing nothing not much point having them. DX12 may change that but most games are GPU bound anyways (other then MMO's and RTS mostly).

But if you are not in a hurry and can wait till the end of the year to find out if they are worth it, it can't hurt to do so. Just keep in mind like with the 1080 launch, tech companies say a lot of things, the end product might not be what people were assuming from the briefings.

[Evildeffy]

If you want to read about Zen.

This is the speculation/grain-of-salt performance chart made based on one of AMD's slides that claimed Zen as 2x Orochi:

The numbers are already very much off due to assumption of the wrong architecture and speed.
Bulldozer (The FX-8150) is 3 generations behind on Excavator which is the 4th generation core in that CPU line.

It is clearly stated that Zen has exceeded the 40% IPC increase already and that performance is going to be at least twice that of the FX-8350 which is the 3rd generation of CPU core in the Bulldozer origin family, though as always we're taking this with a grain of salt.

So you should assume the calculations of an FX-8150 * 1.15 - 1.2 to accomodate for the increase in IPC over the generations and then double it.

Those differences will paint an entirely different picture and will (if the statements of Lisa Su are true) effectively kill off Intel's HEDT processors in price.
(not to say that Intel isn't making a large crapton of money on these already and can afford to not care)

- - - Updated - - -

Also don't forget more cores is not everything for gaming PC's, because if it wore AMD would be in a better position already, if you can use the cores for other things it's nice and handy, if it is for sitting idle doing nothing not much point having them. DX12 may change that but most games are GPU bound anyways (other then MMO's and RTS mostly).

Yes but Zen is already slated to be as powerful core per core and MHz per MHz to Skylake so this statement is kinda irrelevant.
Imagine if, hypothetically, AMD manages to pull this off .. you will basically get 2 x Intel Core i7-6700K for the price of 1.
Why would you ever buy an Intel chip IF they can pull this off if the system remains as-is for intel?
(Note that Jim Keller is worshipped by any silicon company as a walking God amongst men, including Intel .. so I think this is very much possible)

But if you are not in a hurry and can wait till the end of the year to find out if they are worth it, it can't hurt to do so. Just keep in mind like with the 1080 launch, tech companies say a lot of things, the end product might not be what people were assuming from the briefings.

So true.. marketing is a bitch.. but who knows as it's likely do-or-die for AMD's CPU division I am pretty sure (my opinion) that they will not exaggerate this.

[Denpepe]

Yes but Zen is already slated to be as powerful core per core and MHz per MHz to Skylake so this statement is kinda irrelevant.
Imagine if, hypothetically, AMD manages to pull this off .. you will basically get 2 x Intel Core i7-6700K for the price of 1.
Why would you ever buy an Intel chip IF they can pull this off if the system remains as-is for intel?
(Note that Jim Keller is worshipped by any silicon company as a walking God amongst men, including Intel .. so I think this is very much possible)

So true.. marketing is a bitch.. but who knows as it's likely do-or-die for AMD's CPU division I am pretty sure (my opinion) that they will not exaggerate this.

Well lets just hope for the sake of competition they can pull it off, might make my next upgrade cheaper

[Gaidax]

I am highly skeptical of Zen. The expected performance is vague and it's their first high end CPU design since like 2012. I think only the second iteration of it Zen+ will be good, Zen will probably be riddled with all kinds of issues like any new product is.

[Artorius]

I am highly skeptical of Zen. The expected performance is vague and it's their first high end CPU design since like 2012. I think only the second iteration of it Zen+ will be good, Zen will probably be riddled with all kinds of issues like any new product is.

Well the convincing argument is that CERN wants Zen so at least for computing we can be sure that Zen will be a success. They most likely have some information that we don't, which obviously doesn't mean that Zen will be a great consumer CPU too but if they can keep the clocks in check there's nothing to be afraid of.

The problem is that Zen is supposed to be made at a LLP process and those are never used with high clocks, but let's wait and see.

[Gaidax]

Aliens could want Zen for all I care, until we have actual specifics it is all air. I am hoping for Zen to stir up things, but I just think there are a lot of unreasonable hopes being pinned on it.

[mrgreenthump]

I just think there are a lot of unreasonable hopes being pinned on it.

And when do we not do that with tech?