Ryzen Test Article

Michael Belcher

Introduction: AMD Ryzen’s Backstory

Regardless of your processor preference, there is no denying the impact that AMD’s Ryzen processor series had on the computer industry. Not long ago, we were accustomed to quad core processors and the annual refresh year after year. While higher core counts existed in other segments such as HEDT (High End Desktop) and the HPC (High Performance Computing) server markets, we saw very little of that technology trickle down to the average consumer. Enter AMD’s Ryzen design. Starting from scratch, AMD managed to create a scalable design that improved their manufacturing yields while offering fantastic performance for a relatively low cost.

 

While the initial design had some hurdles to overcome, the launch of the 1st generation Ryzen processors back in March of 2017 created a large ripple throughout the industry that is still felt to this day. AMD had proven that consumers wanted more than just the same product every year. They blurred the line between the consumer and workstation market segments and pushed the entire industry forward, resulting in a resurgence of competition that was sorely missed by consumers for quite some time. Intel, AMD’s largest competitor in the desktop processing market, had to adapt quickly to AMD’s Ryzen design. Their initial reaction consisted of increasing the core count of their processors, followed by adding Hyperthreading support for processor families that lacked the technology in previous generations. For the first time in many years, we saw a pivotal change for AMD, and a real wake-up call for the industry-leading Intel.

 

AMD came out swinging with their 1st generation Threadripper processors, offering 16 cores and 32 threads for $999. While it did not outperform Intel’s flagship at the time, the 18 core, 36 thread Core i9 7980XE, it offered very competitive performance for nearly half the price. As time went on, Intel refreshed their Skylake-X lineup with minor improvements to the TIM (Thermal Interface Material) and a slight boost in clock speeds. AMD, refusing to rest on their laurels, launched their 2nd generation Threadripper CPU’s. The flagship Threadripper 2990WX offered 32 cores, 64 threads, nearly doubling that of Intel’s 18 core, 36 thread 9980XE while still priced $200 cheaper at launch. This sent a clear message to Intel that AMD was no longer the “cheap alternative” and that their processors had real power to bring to the table. Intel still had a very key advantage in their IPC (Instructions Per Clock) performance and their overall higher clock speeds which helped distinguish the 9980XE in mixed workloads where both clock speeds and overall core count scaled well together, however AMD still had plans to close that gap. This plan came to fruition in the form of Zen 2 with the launch of the Ryzen 3000 series processors.

Michael Belcher

Michael Belcher