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Comment by mmaniac | Hacker News Reader

AMD seem to be playing it safe this with this desktop generation. Same node, similar frequencies, same core counts, same IOD, X3D chips only arriving later... IPC seems like the only noteworthy improvement here. 15% overall is good but nothing earth shattering.

The mobile APUs are way more interesting.

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> 15% overall is good but nothing earth shattering

Interestingly though the 9700X seems to be rated at 65W TDP (compared to a 105 TDP for the 7700X). I run my 7700X in "eco mode" where I lowered the TDP to max 95 W (IIRC, maybe it was 85 W: I should check in the BIOS).

So it looks like it's 15% overall more power with less power consumption.

AMD used to give decently accurate TDP, but Intel started giving unrealistically optimistic TDP ratings, so AMD joined the game. Their TDP is more of an aspiration than a reality (ironically, Intel seems to have gotten more accurate with their new base and turbo power ratings).

9700x runs 100MHz higher on the same process as the 7700x. If they are actually running at full speed, I don't see how 9700x could possibly be using less power with more transistors at a higher frequency. They could get lower power for the same performance level though if they were being more aggressive about ramping down the frequency (but it's a desktop chip, so why would they?).

I know AMD has joined the “fudging the TDP numbers” game but you should still be able to more or less compare TDP across their own products.

For the same node, you aren't cutting power by 40% while increasing clockspeeds. At best, they could be aggressively cutting clockspeeds, but that means lower overall performance.

Marketing seems a more likely reason (and I don't believe it would be the first time either).

Assuming they don't tweak the TDP formula, which they can and have iirc.

Geekbench Ryzen 9 7950x is 2930 max, so if we're generous and give the 9950x 15% uplift we'll be at 3380, which is still 400 points or so behind apple silicon for a much higher clock speed and a multiplier larger power draw. Also the max memory bandwidth at 70GB/s or so is basically pathetic, trounced by ASi.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Ryzen has never had the lead with 1T performance, but emphasises nT and core counts instead. Memory bandwidth is largely meaningless for desktop CPUs but matters a lot for a SoC with a big GPU.

Strix Halo appears to be AMD's competitor to Apple SoCs which will feature a much bigger iGP and much greater memory bandwidth. When we hear more about that, comparisons will be apt.

AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later? They've been coasting on the stone-age motherboard+cards arch because essentially Nvidia gave you a big, fat, modern coprocessor in the form of an [g/r]tx card that hid the underlying problems.

They could have done what AAPL did ages ago but they have no ability to innovate properly. They've been leaning on their x86 duopoly and if it's now on its last legs, it's their fault.

> AMD has been making SoCs forever. Why does it take a kick in the teeth from Apple for both Intel and AMD suddenly to wake up and give us performance SoCs, 5 years later

What do you mean? AMD has been the market leader in performance SoCs for specialised use cases (like consoles) for many years.

There are only two high performance consoles on the market, and AMD happens to make both the chips. I guess you could say they are the "market leader", but that is in part because there are so few consoles out there.

Nvidia or Intel could certainly make a console focused SoC at least as performant as AMD.

> Nvidia or Intel could certainly make a console focused SoC at least as performant as AMD.

They certainly cannot, or they would have. Do you think that Sony and Microsoft stay with AMD because they like them or because AMD can deliver what they want?

> There are only two high performance consoles on the market

I'd throw the Steam Deck on that list too. High performance for its size more than high performance in general, but still. It's no coincidence that all the gaming handheld consoles, full blown consoles, and lots of gaming devices in general all use AMD.

This question is almost rhetorical. Yes, competition drives innovation. When Ryzen APUs only had Intel to worry about, they rested on their laurels with stagnating but still superior performance. Intel did the same thing with 4c/8t desktop CPUs during the Bulldozer dark age.

SoCs are good for the segments they target but they're by no means the be-all-end-all of personal computing. The performance of discrete graphics cards simply can't be beaten, and desktop users want modularity and competitive perf/$. Framing the distinction between a highly integrated SoC-based computer and a traditional motherboard+AIB arrangement as a quantitative rather than a qualitative difference is an error.

Both Intel and AMD have already received Apple's wakeup call and have adjusted their strategies. I also think it's unfair to say that nothing has changed until just now. I consider Ryzen 6000 to be an understated milestone in this competition with a big uplift in iGP performance and a focus on efficiency. There's a wide gap to close, sure, but AMD and Intel have certainly not been standing still.

Apple's vertical integration and volume made them uniquely suited to produce products like the Mx line, so it makes sense that they were able to deliver a product like this first.

as soon as someone puts 16GB of VRAM next to an SoC (Nvidia, soon), the gaming pc is dead. These hot 'n slow discrete components are fun to decorate with RGB but they're yesterday for _all_ segments.

> they're yesterday for _all_ segments

That implies to me that you expect an SOC to perform the same as or better than a 5090?

Show me an SoC that can play Cyberpunk max settings at 4K with RTX features enabled, let alone 8K. dGPU aren't going anywhere for a long while.

The point is that the dGPU will _become_ the PC, and it essentially has been the PC for a while now, as you are essentially proving with your cybperpunk comment.

Nvidia is preparing to SoC-up it's RTX cards with ARM cores and then it's toast for your rig.

I have been hearing about the death of gaming PCs since the launch of the PSX and the N64, yet here we are.

Ryzen doesn't even lead in MT on laptops.

With M4, they're likely to fall even farther behind. M4 Pro/Max is likely to arrive in Fall. AMD's Strix Point doesn't seem to have a release date.

I like what you're doing!

"M4 Pro/Max is likely to arrive in Fall." (no release date)

"AMD's Strix Point doesn't seem to have a release date." (no release date)

My point is that Strix Point and M4 Pro/Max will likely release at around the same time based on reports and historical trends.

M4 is already out. We know Zen5's performance. Therefore, we can conclude that the gap between M4 vs Zen5 is higher than M3 vs Zen4.

You seem to be very sensitive when it comes with AMD.

You seem to be very sensitive when it comes to Apple.

I've used Apple for 20+ years, from Motorola 680X0 CPUs to Motorola PowerPC to Intel CPUs. SGI MIPS, Sun Sparc, DEC Alpha etc.

I don't care what name is written on the CPU I use.

I care how fast my development machine is.

  I've used Apple for 20+ years, from Motorola 680X0 CPUs to Motorola PowerPC to Intel CPUs. SGI MIPS, Sun Sparc, DEC Alpha etc.

I'm not sure why this is relevant to M4 vs Zen5 or M3 vs Zen4.

  I care how fast my development machine is.

Great. I hope you get the fastest development machine for yourself. But this conversation isn't about your development machine.

I consider it relevant to

"You seem to be very sensitive when it comes with AMD."

"But this conversation isn't about your development machine."

It is when your point is

"You seem to be very sensitive when it comes with AMD."

(Not a gamer)

For me as a developer Geekbench Clang benchmarks:

    M2 Ultra   233.9 Klines/sec
    7950x      230.3 Klines/sec  
    14900K     215.3 Klines/sec  
    M3 Max     196.5 Klines/sec

Even including M2 Ultra in that comparison is a bit unfair. That's a HEDT workstation CPU. The competition for this is a Threadripper.

If you include a Threadripper:

      376.6 Klines/sec Threadripper 7970X (32 cores)

Wouldn't you want to go all the way with a 7990X (64 cores) ?

I know the 7970X is more affordable but this is for a benchmark!

I do think the compilation benchmark breaks down, as seen with the 96-core CPU:

    406.2 Klines/sec 7995WX

3x the cores but only slightly faster (8%).

Also 32-core threadripper machines seem to be in the price range of M2 Ultra machines.

[Edit] I found a 491.5 klines/sec result for the 7985WX

M4 Ultra is going to be interesting, it could be approaching 300?

> which is still 400 points or so behind apple silicon for a much higher clock speed and a multiplier larger power draw

Not a fair comparison. If we're on about Geekbench as per the announcement, it's +35%. The 15% is a geomean. It might not be better but definitely not far off Apple.

In a similar manner, except Geekbench the geomean of M3 vs M4 isn't that great either.

+35% is for a single cherry-picked Geekbench AES subtest. AMD did not show the overall Geekbench improvement.

And in a way same applies to M3 vs M4 Geekbench scores. A few new instructions were added. Aside from those it's nowhere near the 25% improvement there either.

Without SME, M4 still scores in the 3800s which is still significantly higher than Zen5's projection. By the way, M4 is in a 5.1mm fanless tablet.

Zen3 to Zen4 had an even larger increase in Object Detection score in GB6. From Zen3 to Zen4, Object Detection increased by 2.5x due to AVX512 which is more than M3 to M4's 2x increase.

Source: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/6098657?baselin...

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