Ryzen

[Mercutio]

AMD officially announced Ryzen 9000 over the weekend, claims that the NPU in its next processors is 10% faster than the one in Snapdragon X Elite and supposedly has 10 - 20% better IPC than Ryzen 7000. It also made a commitment to Socket AM5 until at least 2027.

 

[LunarMist]

The 9950x has no AI, correct? How do you correlate the NPu with a video card?

 

[Mercutio]

I think desktops are supposed to shove NPU stuff onto the GPU, so I suppose it's a question of what the GPU can do? I genuinely don't know if I care or not. Are we going to start to run localized LLMs Real Soon Now? I'm assuming anyone with decent graphics card probably has hardware that blows away whatever they're building in to x86 processors.

 

[LunarMist]

Phoshop and dxo. I think it will make more difference in a laptop.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, NPUs are meant to consume less power than GPUs, and to fall into the arena of weird background stuff that a traditional CPU wouldn't be good at doing, which mostly fall into the category of real time processing of video (e.g. augmented reality) or sensor data. I don't think most people do a whole lot of that stuff, but it probably DOES make sense for a certain class of business user; probably the same sort of person who lives on an ultrabook and rarely does actual work more stressful than opening spreadsheets.

 

[Handruin]

I'm definitely interested to see how the reviews are on the new 9000 series. I would like to upgrade but I'm not sure if waiting for the X3D variant would be worth it since I mainly use my rig for gaming.

 

[ddrueding]

I wonder if any of the game engines will try to use NPUs for NPC behavior. Probably a complete waste of time, but might be fun.

 

[Mercutio]

I wonder if any of the game engines will try to use NPUs for NPC behavior. Probably a complete waste of time, but might be fun.

What it sounds like to me is that anyone with a better than iGPU setup will want their graphics hardware to handle all that stuff, but for APUs, SoCs and Intel's weirdo Big.little nonsense, NPUs make a lot of sense.

 

[jtr1962]

Also, NPUs might be able to supplement an iGPU. My understanding is they're designed for massively parallel calculations similar to a GPU, but for less than 64-bit or 32-bit math. Any graphics calculations that don't need 32-bit precision could probably take advantage of an NPU.

 

[Santilli]

Has anyone had heat problems with the 7900X3D Chips?
Adequate airflow in the case?
Using this cpu cooler:

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Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black, Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (140mm, Black)​

 

[Mercutio]

By reputation, Ryzen 7000 is a massive PITA to keep cool. Its heat spreader is thought to be too thick and may act as an insulator. AMD Expo is likewise kind of half baked compared to XMP for Intel and based on my relatively limited experiences with AM5, it's pretty common to see systems revert to stock RAM settings after running stable for weeks. An end user might not notice something like that.
I'm not a fan of water cooling; although I know AIOs are perfectly reliable devices. I've not found one that's both as cool and silent as high end air cooling like that Noctua.

The last AM5 system I built used a Scythe Fuma 3 on an mITX system and the couple before that were the current budget champion Thermaltake Peerless Asssassins. I have NOT messed with an X3D CPU on AM5. I know they are slightly faster for gaming benchmarks. I just can't begin to care given the higher MSRP and the fact that many games don't even notice the extra cache. Save $100 and get the older one.

I will probably build a Ryzen 9000 for myself soon-ish, probably a 9950X. I'm thinking that I'll probably build on an X670E to maximize PCIe lanes from the chipset over possibly getting USB4 on X870 but I'm interested in hearing if there have been improvements to the thermals on the new processors.

 

[sedrosken]

I think I'm going to ride out my 5700X until AM6 comes out or Intel has something more compelling, whichever comes first.

 

[LunarMist]

The 7950x is marginal with that cooler, but it is 170W, compared to 120W for the 3d 7900 CPU, so you should be OK.

 

[Santilli]

The 7950x is marginal with that cooler, but it is 170W, compared to 120W for the 3d 7900 CPU, so you should be OK.

Thanks. I noticed the 7900 had a higher clock speed at idle, and considering I'm highly unlikely to really push it, DD's suggestion was right on, as usual.
Reviews on the NH D-15 have been really high, higher then anything I've ever looked at with a reasonable review size.
I am going to be interested to see what I do, or can do, to stress the system.
According to bench marks, the system is well over 30 times faster then my current system.

 

[ddrueding]

Keep in mind that none of the modern CPUs will run anything near "cool" under most loads. They're basically designed to thermal throttle regardless of cooler. But that DH-15 is kinda famous for being the most effective air cooler ever made.

 

[Handruin]

Noctua has some updated fans and coolers on the horizon with options to adapt better to the AMD and Intel heat spreader differences. They're also working on a vapor style radiator cooler with no pumps, so it should be more reliable than an AIO...but also they're updating their massive air cooler and fans to compete with AIOs.

 

[LunarMist]

Are the only differences with the new coolers the fan and the curvature of the heat spreader contact plate?
I usually replace the front 140mm fan with a 120mm fan since the 140mm fan has to be shifted upward so much to accommodate the RAM.
If the contact area alone is a significant improvement, then it should be a drop in and may be a good idea if upgrading the CPu from Zen 4 to Zen 5 at that time. However, I'm not too impressed with the Zen 5 preliminary data.

I'm also less than enthused about their take on the AIO. It still suffers from needing a wider surface which blows out the top of the case. The noise level of fans in an AIO is far higher in my case orientation, reaching a point of being not acceptable under any practical load.

 

[Handruin]

I don't know for sure if those are the only differences. I only found that video yesterday from computex. Like most of these things we'll have to wait for more in-depth reviews on their thermal and noise management to get a better picture of how much better it at all, they end up being from the previous generation.

Was neat to see they're trying to account for the odd shapes of the heat spreader from both AMD and Intel.

I'm no big fan of AIOs I do prefer a HSF combo over them.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently Lunar Lake notebooks will ship with entirely integrated RAM, either 16 or 32GB, and don't quite live up to the performance of AMD's AI 300 mobile NPUs.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm so sick of the TOps and AI performance suddenly being all they care about, like the last 40+ years don't matter. I want to know what the CPU does by itself. Everyone doesn't haul around a 2.0-2.5 kg brick of laptop so the 28W class performance is meaningful also.

 

[Santilli]

Cooler is in and being tested. I REALLY hope this all works.
I can't believe I've got to pay 200 for 11 Pro, and if I don't, Wifi 7 doesn't work...

 

[LunarMist]

Are you expecting 2022 computer parts not to work? They should be fine. Don't install Windows with more than the one boot drive or it may crap all over the others.
Do you have a Wi-Fi 7 router and is it close? The one the other room will probably drop to lower anyways.

 

[LunarMist]

I think I'm going to ride out my 5700X until AM6 comes out or Intel has something more compelling, whichever comes first.

You have decades to upgrade and you are in the business. What do you think of the "new" 5800XT and 5900XT?

 

[Mercutio]

Cooler is in and being tested. I REALLY hope this all works.
I can't believe I've got to pay 200 for 11 Pro, and if I don't, Wifi 7 doesn't work...

Buy Windows from g2a.com. It'll be around $20. You can even get a perpetual Office license at the same time.
The licenses that are being sold are either meant to be sold in international markets (China, India) or they're being sold out of someone's Action Pack sub and either way Microsoft cannot tell without investigation that it has no reason to do for a single license.

 

[LunarMist]

So it's OK to break the licensing agreement if you don't get caught? What kind of ethics is that?

 

[Mercutio]

So it's OK to break the licensing agreement if you don't get caught? What kind of ethics is that?

The kind where I absolutely do not care if Microsoft ever makes a dollar again. Give that money to somebody you like, like strippers.

 

[Mercutio]

In fact, if knowing about G2A.com saves you $150+, I ask that you go to your local club and leave $20 on the rail for whichever tatted goth borderline personality disorder-having princess most tickles your fancy. This is the way.

 

[sedrosken]

You have decades to upgrade and you are in the business. What do you think of the "new" 5800XT and 5900XT?

I think they're a way to get more mileage out of old manufacturing tooling. People will probably be running AM4 in production for years to come but they're messing with the market by encouraging it.

Buy Windows from g2a.com. It'll be around $20. You can even get a perpetual Office license at the same time.
The licenses that are being sold are either meant to be sold in international markets (China, India) or they're being sold out of someone's Action Pack sub and either way Microsoft cannot tell without investigation that it has no reason to do for a single license.

Merc, I agree with you in spirit, but don't use G2A. Sellers on there have been proven to use stolen credit card information to get ahold of those keys. Use something like Kinguin instead. Source: my time as a penniless teenager and then a penniless twenty-something that was still expected to buy stuff. I use that to get keys for LTSC versions where I don't want to worry about the upgrade treadmill. In fact, I'm considering doing it again for this new LTSC 2024 version that's come out so I don't have to fight with Rewind or Recall or whatever the hell it is.

Lunar, Microsoft has long since moved to the model where they're selling your data. I refuse to give them money for the privilege. A valid license is a valid license. In my professional work, it's an entirely different story. We use legitimate licenses or nothing at all. But it's not my money going to those projects, so I'm okay with it.

I will warn you that often these are OEM keys that are fiddly to activate especially if you're using them to upgrade an existing install. You'll need to use a generic key to prompt the upgrade, then swap the key with the one you bought once that finishes in order to activate it. One such generic key for 11 Pro is VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T. I don't feel bad about sharing it because it's a tool, not a valid license, it can't and won't activate with this key so I'm just saving you a google.

 

[Mercutio]

Merc, I agree with you in spirit, but don't use G2A. Sellers on there have been proven to use stolen credit card information to get ahold of those keys.

That's on the specific sellers, a bit like blaming Ebay or Craigslist for sellers there. G2A is weirdly big enough to offer buyer protection, which is often not the case from other ventures that sell grey-market Microsoft keys. I've never bought a game through it though, which I understand to be the main objection to G2A from gamers. Whose feelings I generally don't care about. They're all Steam users anyway.

I should also point out that grey-market Microsoft keys also show up in mainstream places like Groupon and TheInventory. If Microsoft can't be bothered to do anything about those, I'm genuinely not going to worry about it from any other source either.

 

[LunarMist]

How many will replace the 7xxx with a 9xxx of the same grade? I'm struggling to justify a 10-15% improvement on single threaders, and the all-core performance is less clear. Maybe there is some advantage in powers, but it doesn't seem like that. Am I so focused on avoiding the evils of Win 11 for another year that I'm making poor choices? I feel like throwing a 9950x in to replace the old 7950x would make the computer good until maybe early 2026 and perhaps iNtel will be much superior to AMD by then. Obviously I will be enforced on Win 11 by then.

 

[sedrosken]

Frankly, I don't really think the 9000 line is meant to be a serious upgrade for folks who already own the 7000 series chips. This is to make it a better proposition for those building new rigs entirely.

 

[Handruin]

For me, I think it aligns as an upgrade contender from my 3950X. I'm hoping there's enough of a bump in performance to justify it. Again, I'll wait to see more in-depth reviews, etc before deciding how I want to move forward.

 

[LunarMist]

For me, I think it aligns as an upgrade contender from my 3950X. I'm hoping there's enough of a bump in performance to justify it. Again, I'll wait to see more in-depth reviews, etc before deciding how I want to move forward.

Of course it will. The 7950x is more than 50% faster than the 3950x so maybe the 9950x will be 70-80% faster. The 3950x was a HUGE disappointment due to crappy single threads and I was happy to replace it with a 5950x as soon as it was released. The 7950x was another noticeable improvement, though the X670E chipset was more important. It's rather surprising that after 2 years the new Zen 5 is only marginally improved over Zen 4.

I realize that the big companies wants to push AI laptops on the masses and giant servers for the datacenters, but enthusiasts want improvements too.

 

[Handruin]

That's great news to hear. I hadn't been following the 5xxx/7xxx CPUs too closely as I wasn't in the market yet for an upgrade. I remember you mentioning your disappointment with the 3950x. I didn't notice it being that bad but I'm sure we have different workloads for it. I mostly just game with my desktop these days so the 3950x probably wasn't the best choice anyway at the time I built it for that purpose.

I don't have much interest in those AI CPUs right now. I did appreciate seeing more of the datacenter massive CPUs coming out that consume a lot less wattage (per core) like this Intel Xeon 6 6700E. I know what you mean though, it would be nice to see more enthusiast improvements because I'm not going to buy a CPU like that Xeon, at least not until datacenters are clearing them out on the cheap 5-7 years from now.

I see what you mean about the basic CPU scores between the generations.

 

[LunarMist]

Looking as the specs the 9950x is no faster in GHz at maximum speed than the 7950x and actually slower at the base, yet at the same TDP. It's strange because the manufacturing process is the 4nm node compared to 5nm for the 7000 series. One would expect that the power should be less or the CPU should be faster at the same power. I'm also interested in that new Nocturnal air cooler supposedly an improvement on the NH-D15.

The x870E chipset appears to have fewer PCIe lanes available than x670E. I'm not sure if that is due to the mandatory thunderbowls or not, but I don't want it. https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/9000-series/amd-ryzen-9-9950x.html
We'll have to see if the MicronCenter has a deal on the 9950x and a mainboard late this summer. Then I'd use the 7950x in that board as a 2nd/backup system.

XENON or EPYC CPUs just don't have the fastest individual cores. Too many parts of programs are single threadly, and even on multi many don't scale well after 8 cores or so.

 

[Santilli]

Hi
What cooler would you use on a 5 5500? 65w, and why?
What Power Supply for it?
What power Supply for 105W, and 4070 video card?

 

[LunarMist]

I usually use the Noctunal coolers for everything, but the 5500 comes with the Wraith cooler that works just fine. I have a 5700G with the Wraith for years now. It's somewhat noisier than a Noctunal at full speed but you should use a temperature profile anyway. Nocturnal has a rating that correlates roughly to base wattage here. https://noctua.at/en/noctua-standardised-performance-rating Most of them are good for a mere 65W CPU, but probably not the best way to spend money cheaply.

I think the 5500 is rather wimpy in 2024. Maybe others can advise if that makes sense with a 4070. Maybe consider the 5700G/5700X which are pretty cheap these days and have 8C/16T compared to 6C/12T for the 5500. They are all 65W.

According to nVidia the 4070 should be used with a min. 650W PS. You might be able to get away with less, but 650W is near the bottom of PSUs now.

 

[Santilli]

That's great news to hear. I hadn't been following the 5xxx/7xxx CPUs too closely as I wasn't in the market yet for an upgrade. I remember you mentioning your disappointment with the 3950x. I didn't notice it being that bad but I'm sure we have different workloads for it. I mostly just game with my desktop these days so the 3950x probably wasn't the best choice anyway at the time I built it for that purpose.

I don't have much interest in those AI CPUs right now. I did appreciate seeing more of the datacenter massive CPUs coming out that consume a lot less wattage (per core) like this Intel Xeon 6 6700E. I know what you mean though, it would be nice to see more enthusiast improvements because I'm not going to buy a CPU like that Xeon, at least not until datacenters are clearing them out on the cheap 5-7 years from now.

I see what you mean about the basic CPU scores between the generations.

View attachment 1646

You suggested another site for cpu evaluation. I went to that one, before I bought the 7900X3D. It indicated a single digit difference, like 2, between the 78900X3d, and the 97950X3D. As you said, the benchmarks for passmark, in this case, are a bit questionable.

 

[LunarMist]

Has anyone noticed that the power levels of the 9000 series are different from 7000 series?
The 7950x and 9950x are 170W, but the 7900x is 170W vs. 120W for the 9900x.
Does the 7900x really use 170W or is that a mistake? It seems more logical that it would be less with fewer cores, but maybe 170W is more of a peak value. 120W in a 9900x might be close in performance to the 7950x in multi-thread and should be better in single-thread.
I dismissed using the 7900 series in the µATX case due to the heat, but perhaps a 9900x with a https://noctua.at/en/nh-l12sx77 would be adequate?
I'm not even considering those goofy X3d asymmetrically-cached gaming CPUs.

 

[LunarMist]

You suggested another site for cpu evaluation. I went to that one, before I bought the 7900X3D. It indicated a single digit difference, like 2, between the 78900X3d, and the 97950X3D. As you said, the benchmarks for passmark, in this case, are a bit questionable.

The X3D has extra cache that helps many games. Some benchmarks (just like regular applications) are more or less sensitive to cache size and hit rates. There are probably hundreds of articles about the pros/cons of the X3D so you have to decide what to do for your particular applications. Of note is that a Zen 5 is not expected to be better than an equivalent grade of Zen 4 with X3D. Of course Zen 5 with X3D is expected later this year.