Ryzen has been with us for a few weeks now, and there has been quite the rollercoaster of feedback from around the world about its performance. We’ve tested the CPUs, and they’re pretty fantastic and offer some excellent performance, despite a few issues with memory speeds and latency.
While we tested the Ryzen 1800X with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to see how well the new flagship AMD CPU would work in a high-end gaming PC, a few people didn’t take kindly to us using overclocks only on Ryzen. I initially tested on stock only and matched that with the stock performance on the i7-5820K, as we do with all GPUs on that chip as it’s our graphics card test bench. I did the same with the 7700K as I had access to it and my whole trip was to give us some metric for the stock and overclocked gaming performance of Ryzen. However, many of you wanted the Intel chips to be overclocked, and we’re not going to shy away from what our readers want, and we’re going above and beyond.
Not only have we retested with high overclocks on the other two chips, but we’ve also added more games to the testing, and we’ve added more resolutions. So let’s jump in and see how Ryzen and our comparison Intel chips performance in 1080p, 1440p, 2160p, and now also the 21:9 ultra-wide format of 3440 x 1440, thanks to the additional ACER Ultra Wide Predator X34 monitor we recently reviewed.
Let’s go!
I’m reading in Twitterverse that after recent Windows 10 updates, gaming performance changes in certain games. Not entirely sure though.
I can verify W10 updates released a few days ago to dramatically improve gaming for titles that are sensitive to memory latency and even titles that aren’t see a small boost. I was having well over 300ns latency with 3200MHz G.Skill Ripjaws V when tested in Aida64, now it sits around 80ns. I’ll be seeing if I can get that down to 70 or even 60ns over the next few days with some manual memory tweaking.
What mobo? What latency?
Don’t get the board I have, the UEFIs Gigabyte are putting out for it are crap I’m having to mod them to make them halfway decent. X370 Prime or X370 Gaming K4 are better boards. Latency when I’ve tweaked the very limited options the Aorus Gaming 5 has should be down to around 75ns with my G.Skill Ripjaws V @ 3200MHz. Theres a lot more performance to come once people can start setting memory dividers higher than the XMP profiles. Currently the only way to “over ride” that limit is to buy a board that allows for BCLK adjustment but if I’m remembering correctly that also increases PCI-E speed.
When Ryzen will be able to use 3000 MHz memory and higher trouble free then you’ll be able to see even better results. Especially cause infinit fabric performance depend on that. Also, despite AMD claims there are some rumors or Twitter announcement that after some Windows 10 update Ryzen performance grow.
Been using G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200MHz from day 1 without issue, only significant problems were all Windows related, all apparently fixed with the new updates. Improved memory compatibility is imminent too if my sources are right, and they usually are.
Well. I’m glad for you. But there are many people who still got that problem with memory. Also, very few kits work at that speed. Would be interesting if Gskill introduces Flare X memory with clocks higher than 3200. Latency are great on 3200 model. Well, updates are announced on Twitter so there is that. What most probable problem is in my opinion that Windows 10 until now or still acts like Ryzen is 8 core chip and not two 4 core modules with unified cache
I still ain’t even got my mobo yet I got my processor day one but the board never came.
Ι also got my RYZEN 1700 today and GSKILL JAWRIPPER 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHZ CL15 4 days ago and now iam waiting for my ASUS X370 PRO to arrive. What annoucments on twitter the made? Post link to show it to us! Is the memory issue fixed now?
I do not have a link. There was a post on wccftech where one user posted screenshot of the tweet about how some Windows update increases performance , in some scenarios even 35 percent. Dave commented about it here. Read through posts you’ll see it
Cool. I now see your post under. 🙂
Which motherboard are you operating buddy?
Nvm, I see it’s the Aorus gaming 5.
I wouldn’t get the Gaming 5 unless you want to run my modified UEFI on it, the stock version Gigabyte vomit out is absolute shit.
What I haven’t understood is why infinity fabric performance between 2 CCXs is depending on ram speed. Shouldn’t it always run at full speed?
I do not think that fabric has some predefined speed. To me it looks like that basic speed is the slowest DDR4 ram that you can use with Ryzen and when using higher speed ram latency drops and overall performance of the chip goes better. Like a bus for example. If someone can explain this better please do.
OK, I googled it a little. Infinity Fabric works at the same speed as the ram. I can’t still understand why they had to do that. It’s not like the RAM is connected directly with the Infinity Fabric. There is a memory controller between them (or so I believe).
Fabric is successor to hypertransport. And equivalent to bus on a Intel cpus. But what i’ve read just know is that fabric is much more versatile as it can be used for communicating between cores (in this case modules ) and everything else. And is also used in vega and and network on a chip and link between gpus and server socs
Yes, but why doesn’t it run at specific speeds, like HT? That’s what has been bugging me for days, it looks like a step backwards. I even sent a tweet to AMD about it.
Its probably a case of the AGESA code being immature still I’d think a UEFI option to set a specific speed probably can be put in but just hasn’t yet. AMD are tiny, it’s going to take them a little while to get AM4 up and running properly, just like a classic mustang. None of that should take away that now the worst W10 bugs are sorted with Zen it is bloody fast. Applications that are sensitive to memory latency might lag behind a bit but thats something that will get sorted as UEFIs mature and the AGESA code improves. A board with more memory options will help too so we can tweak for those memory latency sensitive applications.
That I really don’t understand. But dave gave a nice answer
They said the same about an update for AMD Bulldozers when they were released some years ago but today AMD Bulldozers still remain garbage with games. And besides Intel also make updates for their chipsets
No miracle update is going to change anything
Bulldozer sucked because its single thread IPC was shit. Zen on the other hand, very good even for gaming. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27dc0e0974069e0c5ab04790ee3c3cc4883e7dc12bd4f3ed96f6710a1e28b40f.jpg
Bulldozer main problem was lack of singlethread performance due to low IPC. That is why it sucked in games. No optimization can remedy simple lack in performance. Ryzen on the other hand has plenty of it.
Oh no! It’s not getting 1k fps! The sky is falling! If you say Ryzen isn’t good at gaming you are being stupid. Since when is above 60fps not considered good enough for gaming? No one has even tried a good VR benchmark comparison yet, and you know those cores will be useful there. Ryzen may not be the fastest thing in every situation, but just because your car can do 90mph doesn’t mean it’s not good at driving, simply because you wanted it to go 100mph. Ryzen is a great gaming CPU, and in fact will only get better as the programmers utilize dx12 and better parallelism in the software.
There are people with 120hz or 144 hz monitors 😉
I use a 1080p 60 hz monitor but if you use higher hz monitors you want to match the frames to keep it as smooth as posible.
Some people have crazy setups bro 🙂
I have a 1440p monitor @ 144hz/free sync on a 1800x cpu @ 4.12ghz w/ 2666 ram. I have no complaints.
You’re comparing a 2011 CMT µarch with low IPC (FX) vs a 2017 SMT µarch with high IPC (Ryzen) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63a43d378780fde4592fb42e418fd2a9c23b7436b128008da1ff9875f08812ad.gif Fanboy detected
I am on a 1700 @ 3.9Ghz @ 1.38v. Memory is at 2934Mhz – Titan X(P). Everything runs smoother than it did with i7-4770k. the minimums is where its at, cause I usually cap my x34 to 98fps anyways.
Everything is smoother with 8 full cores for sure. I have 4770k at 4,4 ghz and was tempted to do full system upgrade but at last upgraded only from R9 270X to RX480. But Zen 2 will be mine for sure. I’ll not pass that one.
One of the reasons why I did not upgrade now is to avoid quirks of adopting New platform, although my friend accused me of not being true pc enthusiast. 😀
Same here buddy ^^
I have 1500 Euro ready to blow, but i want to let Ryzen mature and wait to see if AMD’s gpu department can match the 1080Ti or even beat it before build my new system 🙂
Well, i don’t need gpu cause i just bought XFX RX480 GTR, but everything else sure. But i’ll wait for Zen 2 no matter what. NIce budget 😀
My opinion regarding Vega, hmmmm
I do thinkg that we will see something of that performance for sure. Maybe not beating 1080Ti but something that will challenge it, yes
@Peter Donnell; Clear; informative and without bias. Excellent review dude.
Moar of these; maybe with 1060/480 as well?
Again thanks.
Brand new cutting edge processors running neck and neck with old processors is why gamers don’t like Ryzen. Lately, newer never seems to be better with the exception of Nvidia GPU’s.
So Ryzen is only good with latest Deus Ex with every other game it goes like trash
I hate it when people say that just because ryzen cannot win 7700k @ 5GHz it’s not good for gaming.
But it can! Deus Ex 3440×1440
7700K@5Ghz – min 42 avg 52
1800X NOT overclocked – min 43 avg 54
It’s never a good idea to give single game results as an argument for gaming in general, after all AMD did work closely with developers on the Mankind Divided title so anyone one the opposite side of the argument is going to at least in there mind scratch that win because of it. When you take all the available data on board and look at Ryzen objectively it has a lot of potential and it is doing a better job at gaming than a lot of people expected it would, After all, the reason Intel pushed a refreshed Skylake out the door was for those few extra fps from the higher core clocks, They managed that thanks to the silicons maturity, Once Ryzens silicon and platform matures it will also get better, Anyone who thinks Ryzens a failure has got either a limited viewpoint or a lack of understanding.
Ahh eehhh! sir you are a retard. I mean it, seriously, truly madly deeply.
After looking at these benchmarks, it can really really freaking game. I doubt you buy multicore for just a workstation.
Dell and Lenovo sells a workstations for i3 on a dual core processors, even other people say pentium can game but not high.
Are you literaly blind?
There is no “Intel Price Cut”
Excuse me….more cores for better dx12 performance in applications where its needed is wat u said OP…if im right dx12-uses less cpu power
But DX12 is much more multithreaded than DX11
Ahem … Pay attention to frame rates well above human eye can perceive, so buy the Ryzen for half the price, maybe when a new game comes out which can utilize all those cores, you will be on top of your game
What’s happening with Farcry Primal at 3440?
1800X – min 65
1800X@4.1 – min 56
Wut?
They likely had to drop the memory speed to get the CPU stable at that clock, so minimum FPS suffers as a result (Ryzen is ridiculously dependent on memory clock)
Nice review. I picked up the 1700 last week and an MSI X370 Carbon. Lots of issues with bios stability at the moment. My Gskill ram wont run at its 3200, the best I can get is 2933. Having said this I have a cpu that is overclocked to 4.00ghz under water at 1.3875vcore and running OCCT on all cores with 54C temps at full load. This cpu is a beast and I expect it will get better once bios’ improve and software developers start to optimize for this architecture. I game at 2560×1440 so not seeing any slow downs at 1080 like some reviewers.
what gpu are you using?
GTX 1080.
Quite a mixed bag of results, At my native 3440×1440 I can’t even conclusively state that overclocking Ryzens the way to go, Even when it got a solid 3 fps lead in ROTTR the minimum dropped by 15 frames. The one thing I can take away from all this is that once Ryzen matures and get’s the correct support it’s a good option, even for gamers.
It would be nice to see more older cpu’s included to guage how these cpu’s also compare to what we’d be upgrading from.
Thanks for the interesting review.
Many of the lower fps benches seems to be related to memory clock speeds wich is being worked on by all motherboard suppliers.
The higher your memory is clocked the better the results, MSI has or is releasing A-XMP for AM4 boards similar to what Intels memory uses with XMP wich should help getting better performance for Ryzen cpu’s.
Also Ryzen needs more time to mature… so gaming studio’s design their games for both cpu’s wich can take time.
For the past 5 years every game was made on a Intel system and optimized for an intel system so its not hard to see why Ryzen performs less then Intel right now.
Dont write off Ryzen just yet people as there are tons and tons of improvements comming short and long term.
This review leaves me satisfied with my 5820k purchase 3 years ago. Between intels stagnancy and AMD just now catching up, I might be able to hold onto this one for another 3 or 4 years =D