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[Weltall]

I have been going "strong" with my [email protected] for more than I can remember. It has been a great CPU and before about a month I got my hands on a "free" i5-2310. That was what made me realize that as awesome as Q9400 was, generations have changed.

After my realization, I decided I should look into upgrading and that is how in one way or another, I found out about Ryzen. The space hype train is great and going at high speeds.

Amusingly enough something else that made me happy is when I saw the rumor that Vega actually beat GTX1060 in OpenGL games. I never though AMD would be able to even reach a good level, but beating NVidia, even if it is a previous generation.. it is amazing to me.

I never before in my life owned an AMD, but I always worried they are too hot for my taste. I really hope Zen will bring the changes I am dreaming of.

[MesoTroniK]

I would be extremely wary of any AMD product...

[Weltall]

I always have been wary of them, which is why I never bought an AMD CPU. ATI R9 280X is the first time I bought a graphics card, cause the person that was selling it thought it was faulty and sold it almost brand new at a nice price.

But at least the whole hype makes Ryzen seem very solid. The first thing I am looking forward to see are temps. The only reason I decided to get on the hype train, is that I felt sad to see reviews about 7th gen, when compared to the 6th.

[Nick XR]

The only time I get CPU bound on my computer that matters is playing Dwarf Fortress, these days GPU >> CPU for almost any game.  The only real requirement I have for CPUs is that they be low wattage so I can have a silent cooling solution.

I use an AMD chip for my HTPC (AMD has integrated graphics that aren't garbage) and it works great.

Hopefully with Intel having no meaningful performance improvements for the past 5 years will enable AMD to catch up (they'll also be on the same node for the first time in a long while).

I've personally had terrible luck with some of the AMD graphics cards (died, RMA refusued), and ever since seeing failure rate stats on AMD I'll probably never touch them again:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Failure-Rates-by-Generation-563/#NVIDIAFailureRates
TL;DR AMD failure rates ~2x nvidia rates.  I'm old enough not to care much about saving $20 on a graphics card by going AMD, I just want my stuff to turn on every time.  Also back when my last AMD card actually worked, I had driver issues with a few games that my Nvidia friends did not.

Granted this is all anecdotal, but this did actually happen to me so I'm going to say it's a lesson learned.

[Thaago]

Both of my desktops have used AMD CPU's, and they have been both rock solid and excellent. Granted, at this point they are 5 and 7 years old, so previous generation - I don't know how their current stuff is as I haven't been in the desktop market.

From the reviews I've read the new AMD graphics cards compete quite well with 1060's, being slightly more cost effective for the performance, but may not be as future proof as they have lower graphics memory (vs the high memory 1060's, which are really the only option).

The main thing that impresses me about Intel chip over the last few years has been the strides in power consumption. New intel CPU's and the 1000 series GPU's use what, a third of the power of chips from just a few years ago? Something like that.

[Weltall]

The most demanding games I care to play are Skyrim, which must be the most modern and needs a good GPU, Cities Skylines, that need just CPU power, Minecraft and Starsector, that seem to require lots of RAM and OpenGL and afar from that either older games that do not need much power or play on Emulators.

I was going for a i7-6700K, wanting to break away from the standard 2cores 4 threads.. and suddenly AMD comes and says "the cheapest you can get is 4 cores 4 threads.

For GPUs my first fail was an NVidia, although I am mostly blaming XFX. Second kind of fail was A Sapphire 4870 that got cooked due to overheating. Replacement worked great, even if it always would stay hot. R9 280X that I got "used" has a problem that gives artifacts and eventually either gets the PC stuck or restarts it. I bought it cheap thinking it was just cooling, which was not.. but I read in an forum about voltage and after I bumped it with a program a bit, the card never have given me again trouble.

I can't say I trust more or less so much the architecture, as much as feeling some brands are not that great.

My only gripe with my R9 280X is OpenGL. Minecraft and Starsector are in the list of games I always go back to, since new age games do not really attract me, with rare exceptions (including these two).

Power consumption wise I am generally impressed with anything in the last years. It does not really matter how much wattage a core is marked under. A TDP 140W does not use that when idle or under normal workload, while a 60W one that gets overclocked can actually consume much more than 60, if pushed to the limit. The sure is that they seem to put the wattage of CPUs that are released for overclocking way too high, trying to cover the bases I guess. But I feel that when idle or under casual workload, everything consumes less power and I feel that because you see really low temperatures most of the times.

[MesoTroniK]

AMD drivers get worse over time, making their GPUs effectively worthless. And their current gen CPUs are also effectively worthless due to horrible per-core speeds.

Oh, and the company is in crippling MASSIVE debt and its future is uncertain. There is not a good reason now or in the near future to get anything but Intel / Nvidia products.

[Weltall]

I have little to no knowledge about AMD's currently per core performance and I know about the ATI drivers. But I do know Intel has like 5 times, if not more, bigger debt than AMD. Not that debts really mean anything for such things. Debts on such large scale companies usually show how powerful they are. At least I do not think anyone would "lend" more money into a company, that already is in debt into the billions. So at least when it comes to that, I doubt that matters much.

[TJJ]

I'm waiting to see if they challenge Intel's per watt performance, as that's a good indicator of the technology ceiling.
Obviously it'll be performance per $ that'll determine what I buy though.

As to the healthiness of the company; I'm not sufficiently informed nor qualified to make a determination, so don't want to be involved in senseless scaremongering.
It's irresponsible to be a fanboy about this sort of thing, as a market without direct competition will be a disaster to everyone but Intel shareholders. Thankfully it's big business that governs the majority of sales, not fickle consumers.

[Weltall]

I feel that the per watt performance is a given. AMD always seemed to be best at that, which is why people say Intel has quality and AMD does not. What I feel AMD lacks is coolness and I do not mean in looks. AMD CPUs seem to mostly run hot, so much that the default cooler usually has problems mostly with the fan going full throttle, in order to help heat dissipation. Intel CPUs run much cooler, which helps a lot with OCing.

It will be pointless if their default clocks will run with high temps, restricting them to OC easily with air cooling. This is why temperatures is the thing I want to see the most. People are already talking about watercooling in forums, but honestly I do not care for it. My hopes are really high, because Ryzen has a 14nm lithography, which from what we seem from Intel, it can run pretty cool~

I want the smallest motherboard that can fit 1 GPU, 16GB ram so I can finally break the 8GB wall and I will be happy.

[Thaago]

Tldr; AMD's graphics side is going strong and their CPU side has a massive opportunity if the Ryzen architecture works.

AMD drivers get worse over time, making their GPUs effectively worthless. And their current gen CPUs are also effectively worthless due to horrible per-core speeds.

Oh, and the company is in crippling MASSIVE debt and its future is uncertain. There is not a good reason now or in the near future to get anything but Intel / Nvidia products.

Not owning one I can't comment on driver, but the response to the latest AMD GPU's has been very positive, even with the 1000 nvidia lineup giving great price per performance. Their graphics division has gained market share and shows a solid profit. (I would easily say it has been carrying the struggling CPU division). Actually, the fact that Nvidia has released the 1000 series at an amazing price is direct evidence that the AMD GPU's are doing well (see Intel's prices vs AMD's struggling CPU side). Can anyone else comment on the drivers?

The AMD Cpu's have suffered from a series of low performing chipsets since I last bought them (my Athlon 2 was rock solid back in 2009...), but I think AMD has a market opportunity if Ryzen is any good. Everyone knows that Intel prices its CPU's so high simply because they can get away with it - Intel CPU prices have risen in lockstep with AMD's poor performance (exactly as the economics of a poor competition situation predict). If the leaked benchmarks are accurate (I have no idea if they are) then Intel will have to deal with serious competition to even their high end chips at a much lower pricepoint.

Then consider that Microsoft made a deal with AMD to provide chips for the next gen xbox one for late 2017. I'm speculating a bit here, but why would a major company like Microsoft make such a large deal without knowledge that AMD can follow through? Leaked specs are iffy at best, but I strongly suspect AMD showed microsoft a product that could get the job done.

The 3.5 D/E ratio is very high, but I don't think its too bad; at the moment debt is essentially free for large companies - interest rates in the US are barely above 0 at the corporate level. This becomes more concerning if rates rise and the debt it still there in 3-5 years.

The AMD stock price has had an amazing recovery over the past year, with something like a 6x gain. Current predictions are that it is slightly overvalued, with many price point targets about 15% lower than current. However, outliers based on a successful Ryzen architecture predict a 20% gain. No one I could find with a quick search (I know, not very thorough) were predicting a collapse.

In my opinion, if Ryzen works then AMD is actually in a good place. At the very least Intel will have to pull down their pricepoints, which is good for us. If Ryzen flops, then their CPU division will continue its trend of being in trouble, but that doesn't change the pretty good outlook for the graphics cards.

[Weltall]

Well, it is not like Intel is being the only greedy person. All companies that gain fame, and more importantly trust of their consumers, raise their prices. The king of all must be Apple, but even amongst hardware companies in my opinion ASUS and the last years MSI have been doing exactly that. They have a big name, they gained the trust of their consumers with their quality so of course they sell higher.

But for better or worse we are in an age where people have news, reviews, opinions and comparison charts in their pockets. With everyone being able to google all the info they need, as long as some patience is applied, I would move to another company. ASrock in my experience has been a cheap and bad company and yet all around forums, users say it is actually the one with the lowest fail-rate the last years.

As for consoles. Don't they always use AMD CPUs? I do not really feel there is some hint behind their choice. I just feel they go for cost efficiency, for the already expensive new generation consoles. Like Wii too had an ATI GPU.

[Thaago]

Well, it is not like Intel is being the only greedy person. All companies that gain fame, and more importantly trust of their consumers, raise their prices. The king of all must be Apple, but even amongst hardware companies in my opinion ASUS and the last years MSI have been doing exactly that. They have a big name, they gained the trust of their consumers with their quality so of course they sell higher.

Oh I totally agree with you. I don't blame Intel for raising their prices, they are a for profit company and they haven't been (recently) engaging in anti-competitive/illegal practices. Just outperforming a rival company. That said, it does create a market opportunity should the new AMD CPU's get their act together.

...
As for consoles. Don't they always use AMD CPUs? I do not really feel there is some hint behind their choice. I just feel they go for cost efficiency, for the already expensive new generation consoles. Like Wii too had an ATI GPU.

Hrrm, I could be reading into it too much then - I'm not very well informed on what they've used in the past. Still, good news for AMD to not lose the bid .

[Weltall]

There is one thing for sure Thaago. A lot of people from both Intel and AMD have their eyes on Ryzen, even the ones that hate AMD. Prices will change for all CPUs for sure. Although being a 2 core 4 thread user for .. well ever.. I am just hyped about Ryzen'ss cheapest CPU being 4 cores and 4 threads. At least I am thinking Intel will follow up. That effectively makes 2 core CPUs obsolete (at least from that moment on).

[arcibalde]

2 core obsolete? Well, Intel g4560 2 core 4 thread 65e king of the cheapest PC builds would disagree