More on Ryzen processors here at NT Compatible.

Several reviewers have written articles on Ryzen, so there's a fair bit of reading to do for those interested in AMD's new offering.  Most are saying that Ryzen compares quite favourably with Intel's range, and while one article I read suggests Ryzen still has a way to go, the reviews are generally positive and give AMD credit for the new architecture.

The reviews are crazy look at these two charts

In the first one it Ryzen holds it's own very well and even the $329 Ryzen 7 1700 bests the $1089 i7 6900K some of the times

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700/18

In this second chart Ryzen is at the bottom of the barrel and a $168 i3 7350K is besting the $499 1800

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700/19

It makes me wish there was a dual socket motherboard that could efficiently handle having intel and AMD chips in it. If you could get the best of both the i7 7700K and the Ryzen 7 1800X, that would be awesome!

Yeah UVAH, me too.  My PC is running an AMD Athlon II X2 250 Processor, 3000 MHZ 2 core and its all I need on my W7 with 8 gig of ram.

Yeah, there is a couple of reviews that claim AMD's Ryzen range is still well behind Intel's, but for the most part, the reviews are positive and the Ryzen's are competitive against, if not better than what Intel has to offer.

Frankly, I don't care if Intel's i7 6900K or 6950X is faster, or AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X is faster, the difference isn't going to mean much to me either way.  For what I do [working with video and music] a Ryzen 7 1700X would be quite sufficient.  So long as I have a decent GPU and plenty of RAM, I'm not concerned with having the fastest CPU.  Having said that, and with Intel's equivelant being way too pricey, I'd likely go with the added processing power of a Ryzen 7 1800X to potentially enhance video processing for just a couple of hundred bucks more.

After reading the various reviews, 15 so far, my belief is that Ryzen is only behind Intel's I7-7700 which is a 4x4 CPU which can get higher Freq. I believe because of the following reasons:

1. The majority of Games are written for Intel, and any coding for AMD Products is not as optimized.

2. And the games themselves for the same reason cannot see more than 4 Cores and 8 threads.

3. Even the vaunted 6900 or 6950 are not faster than Intel's 4 core's in games for the same reason of the core count.

4. Most gamer 's stick to lower resolution display's and Video cards. 1440 being the high side, and DX 11 games.

5. When tested against 4K Games at higher resolutions the 1700x, 1800x and i-76900, 6950 leave the rest behind.

6. Since Stardock and Oxide are working on code optimization for the Ryzen Processors, Ashes for one, I would hope they would do so with GCIII.

For most general business apps, these reviews all show No practical difference between Ryzen and the upper  Intel chips. As the BIOS improve, and OS improve in Ryzen support this Processor family has but AMD back in the running.

At least now I can retire my old Asus Sabertooth and Old FX 8370 Proc. both of which are very long on age.

And once all of the Game Companies have decided to go 64BIT, Multi-Core, Multi-Threaded, then we shall see if these differences continue.

For those concerned with ECC Memory - Ryzen does support, but it up to the MB Maker to allow it in the Bios.

Very nice summary.

Should also be true for video editing, transcoding and all software that can take advantage of many cores.

If I were to buy something I would buy AMD just because I'm happy to see them back in business. But to be honest I don't do demanding things with my computers so I'm good with what I have.

Currently I have the flight sim [FSX] running....Chrome with 12 tabs...IE with 6 .... Winamp providing tunes.... notepad...skype...Task Manager...Spider Solitaire...Scanner....Dopus....13 instances of 'DxtBMP [a graphics format proggy] and 25 instances of Paintshop Pro 6 ....

No VMs or VBoxes at the moment....but sometimes them as well....

Trust you to go one up... several times over.  Occasionally I will have a video conversion and an editing job going on while listening to music and checking stuff out on the internet, but that's about it most of the time.  Having said that, however, my AMD FX 8350 is aging and a new Ryzen 1800X would save me time by improving those music and video tasks.

As much as I wanted to rebuild around an Intel i7 6950X, other things take priority and I simply cannot justify the expense.  As it is a Ryzen build will have to wait until later this year because we now need a bigger place and a move to Maryborough is very much on the cards.

you probably can't find a motherboard to go with the cpu atm anyway

or so i read.

alaknebs

reply 49

you probably can't find a motherboard to go with the cpu atm anyway

or so i read.

Not according to the reviews I've read, plus mentions here and here.

In fact, AMD has been working closely with 3rd-party developers in the areas of RAM, motherboards and CPU coolers, etc, so I imagine that compatible hardware will be freely available as of late Feb, early March in countries where Ryzen has been launched.   

Besides, after years of playing second fiddle to Intel, and so much hype about Zen/Ryzen, I doubt very much that AMD would have left such a possibilty to chance.  No, they needed this launch to go off without a hitch, and I expect it will.

On another note, I read an article on a Ryzen 7 1700 that had been overclocked to 4Ghz on all 8 cores and compared quite favourably against Intel's i7 6900K.  In fact, the overclocked Ryzen 7 1700 even bettered the 6900K in some tests, and overclocks more easily and better than higher rated editions, so it may be the go-to CPU for AMD fans and O/Cing enthusiasts.

not necessarily the most reliable sources... .

https://techreport.com/news/31545/ryzen-availability-check-eight-cores-and-nowhere-to-put-em

http://wccftech.com/ryzen-am4-motherboards-supply-shortage/

I don't know that any source is 100% reliable on the matter, given there could be an Intel bias in some reports, and an AMD bias in others.  However, I have been reading here and there that AM4 motherboards have been available here in Australia as of Feb 24, with some stores listing them as being in stock.

It won't matter too much to me at this time, though, being I have other priorities that will push a Ryzen build back until later in the year... possibly September/October.  By then there'll be more information out there and I will have a better idea of which version and motherboard would best suit me.

Agree wholeheartedly!  Wait and see what shaking the trees reveals.

So long as it's a Ryzen falling from the tree and not an Intel i7 6950X I can't afford, I'll be happy.  Yeah, I can get the entire core of a Ryzen based machine - Motherboard, CPU and RAM - for less than what an i7 6950X alone would cost, so obviously I'd go with a Ryzen based machine when the time comes.  Even if the 6950X is a bit faster, it's a matter of economics and affordability, really ...

That is unless a 'tightrope-walking' rich uncle with chronic vertigo suddenly has an accident and leaves me a not so small sum of money.

Or if a claustrophobic rich aunt doesn't come out and gets stuck in the closet.

send me one of those if you have a spare

that said.. i don't need a new machine ... so chances are i'll miss the whole ryzen thing.. hell, chances are i'll miss the whole 10nm thing too

(i was saying the articles i read aren't necessarily most accurate... but they suggest ryzen are selling like hotcakes. amd was prepared but the motherboard people less so.)

No, none of them spare... but I do have a nymphomaniac cousin who owns her own mobile home [read mattress in the back of a van] and currently is a discharged bankrupt so isn't in any major debt.

That's the thing, tech articles at times can be biased, incorrect and even missing important information, which is why they're not necessarily the best places when looking for purchasing ideas.  That's why I take most with a grain of salt while turning to a couple of techies I know and word of mouth from actual users.

As for Ryzen selling like hotcakes, well that's good for the market and consumers in general.  Now I don't know about elsewhere, regarding AM4 motherboards, but there seems to be plenty available here in Australia, with ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte all releasing their range of Ryzen ready motherboards in late February.

Having said that tech articles can be biased, etc, I am excited by what I'm reading about Ryzen thus far.  Yes, there has been a couple of artices saying that Ryzen is still miles behind Intel's i7 6900K and 6950X, but for the most part I'm reading rather positive reviews about Ryzen and feel AMD is on a winner with its Zen architecture.

It would be reasonable to think if they are in Australia they are probably available in the united states to.

One would think so.  I checked with a few online retailers here in Australia and all say they have AM4 motherboards in stock, and being that some of those online sellers have bricks n' mortar stores as well, one could pretty much walk in off the street and purchase one from a local PC store.

More on the AMD forward push to challenge Intel and capture a greater market share.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11183/amd-prepares-32-core-naples-cpus-for-1p-and-2p-servers-coming-in-q2

Naples is the next step in AMD's range of CPUs, but these chips are not for the regular user.  No, these CPUs are enormous and.... well, read the article to get an idea of why Naples is the next big thing in computer tech.... why these monsters are well out of the range of regular users like us.

Having said that, however, I can imagine Frogboy wanting to dabble with one of these enterprise class machines, and maybe hook Wincustomize up to it.

Put it this way, I started salivating as I read through the article, and I have absolutely no hope of ever owning such a beast.  But ooooooh, wouldn't it be nice.

Technical difficulties right on the start ?

Many Users report performance degradation in some applications aswell as games.
The cause seems to be the CPU´s thread scheduling, which is in simple terms a task telling the CPU on how to process tasks distributed to its cores.
This isn't necessary a physical problem rather more a software based one.
Since the CPU is relatively new and brings a different architecture with it, it may take some time for the developers to adjust the software in order to make Ryzen run equally performant as an Intel at this point.