AMD reveals an army of Ryzen PCs and AM4 motherboards

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AMD reveals an army of Ryzen PCs and AM4 motherboards

 

Ryzen could signal a return to CPU greatness for AMD. Credit: AMD

 

So far, everything AMD’s shown of its hotly anticipated Ryzen processors hint that they’re the company’s most competitive new CPUs in a long, long time—chips poised to bring the fight back to Intel at the high-end of computing.

 

No processor launches in a vacuum, though. At CES 2017, AMD set the stage for Ryzen’s Q1 2017 launch by revealing 16 high-end motherboards that use the new unified AM4 socket, CPU coolers built for those boards, and another 17 “extreme performance” pre-built PCs designed around Ryzen.

 

I’m scheduled to meet with AMD about these new AM4 motherboards and system designs tomorrow morning, so stay tuned for an update with more pictures and hands-on impressions. For now, let’s dig into what AMD’s already unveiled.

 

AM4 motherboards

 

Both Ryzen and all of AMD’s other new APUs fit into the same motherboard socket, AM4. (Hallelujah!) But those AM4 motherboards won’t all use the same chipset: A more affordable APU system might pair with a motherboard that has modest features, whereas a Ryzen-based PC is likely to require more robust technologies. To that end, AMD’s releasing the X300 and X370 desktop chipsets for Ryzen systems.

 

You’ll want an X300 motherboard in a tiny mini-ITX machine, and an X370 in a full-size PC. Both support all of the recent tech being baked into AM4—dual-channel DDR4 memory, NVMe and M.2 SSDs, USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 2, you name it.

At CES, AMD will show the following Ryzen boards and APU- and budget PC-focused B350 and A320 desktop motherboards from its partners:

 

 

• ASRock X370 Taichi, ASRock X370 Gaming K4, ASRock AB350 Gaming K4, and ASRock A320M Pro4
• Asus B350M-C
• Biostar X370GT7, Biostar X350GT5, and Biostar X350GT3
• Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming K5, Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5, Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 and Gigabyte A320M-HD3
• MSI A320M Pro-VD, MSI X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium, MSI B350 Tomahawk, and MSI B350M Mortar

 

So far, I’ve managed to get my hands on MSI’s two AM4 motherboards while at their booth today, and the X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium proved particularly noteworthy. It largely follows the design cues of MSI’s high-end Titanium enthusiast motherboards for Intel’s Kaby Lake chips—and that’s a good thing! AMD’s FX processors have lagged behind Intel systems in terms of feature support for a while now, so it’s refreshing to see the latest and greatest technologies on an AMD motherboard.

 

MSI’s X370 and B350M motherboards in the flesh, or something.

 

AM4 coolers

 

New motherboards do mean new CPU cooler brackets. AMD’s working with 15 vendors on an array of third-party AM4 cooling solutions, but right now, they’re only naming a handful.

 

Noctua’s NH-D15.

 

Noctua’s highly regarded NH-D15 and its thinner cousin, the NH-U12S, will both become compatible with AM4 motherboards, and EK Waterblocks—beloved by enthusiasts who dig custom hardline liquid-cooling—will release AM4 products as well. If you prefer your liquid-cooling of the dead-simple closed-loop variety, Corsair’s H60, H100i, and H110i will also support AMD’s new platform.

 

Of course, you can also expect to see AMD’s own quiet Wraith cooler make the jump to AM4—especially considering that AMD’s public Ryzen demos featured it.

 

Ryzen PCs

 

A Ryzen-powered PC from Cybertron.

 

Finally, AMD has teamed with boutique PC builders from around the globe to show off Ryzen “dream PCs,” as the company calls them. The lineup ranges—you’ll find an assortment ranging from practical systems to the most exotic, tricked-out builds imaginable. I’m looking forward to checking out some of these firsthand in the morning, but in the meantime, here’s the full list of partners who’ve built Ryzen rigs. (U.S. folks will recognize Origin, CyberPower, Maingear, Cybertron, and iBuyPower.)

 

• Caseking
• CSL – Computer
• CyberPower PC
• Cybertron PC
• IBUYPOWER
• Icoda (Korea)
• iPason Wuhan
• Komplett
• LDLC
• Maingear
• Mayn Wuhan
• Medion AG
• Mindfactory
• Oldi (Russia)
• Origin PC
• Overclockers UK
• PC Specialist

 

Don’t worry if you’ve noticed that the PC makers on this list are of the more specialized variety. AMD says it expects AM4 computers from all the top PC manufacturers when Ryzen launches sometime later this quarter. And nope, AMD still hasn’t said anything more specific about when that is.

Source

[+Warwagon MVC]

Well, I see they haven't gone away from pins on the CPU ...meh.

[Luc2k]

28 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Well, I see they haven't gone away from pins on the CPU ...meh.

What does that have to do with anything?

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just now, Luc2k said:

What does that have to do with anything?

 

Easy accidently bend. The intel ones with no pins on the CPU are easier to store.

[Mockingbird]

AMD Ryzen octa-core on demo seems to be running at 3.60 GHz with 3.90 GHz boost.

 

[Circaflex]

9 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Easy accidently bend. The intel ones with no pins on the CPU are easier to store.

But the motherboards are much more fragile. I have seen more bent mobo pins than I ever did CPU pins.

[Luc2k]

22 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Easy accidently bend. The intel ones with no pins on the CPU are easier to store.

I suppose, however I've encountered more bent Intel mobo pins than CPU ones. As for storing, they come in small plastic containers.

 

The only genuine issue I've encountered was radiators stuck to the CPU due to dried paste. Pulled 2 CPUs out of their sockets with the locking mechanism in place, however the pins didn't bend or snap. Now I twist it loose if I come across this, just in case.

[Shiranui]

Was just talking about AMD with my son the other day, how I hadn't heard much about them lately.

Went online this morning to see what they have been up to and was pleasantly surprised by the news of Ryzen and Vega.

 

I haven't built a desktop machine at home for years having been exclusively a laptop user since the days of Vista.

We may well go with AMD later this year.

[Mr. Gibs]

1 minute ago, Shiranui said:

Was just talking about AMD with my son the other day, how I hadn't heard much about them lately.

Went online this morning to see what they have been up to and was pleasantly surprised by the news of Ryzen and Vega.

 

I haven't built a desktop machine at home for years having been exclusively a laptop user since the days of Vista.

We may well go with AMD later this year.

I'm not holding hope for Vega after today...AMD's timing is just awful.

 

Sure its looking like a powerful chip but what is very likely going to happen is as soon as AMD announces Vega, Nvidia will put out the 1080 Ti they're holding off on and price it more competitively.

 

AMD claims Vega is going to be 45% more powerful than the fury X which, assuming that AMD is being 100% accurate (being a hardware manufacturer, I doubt it), would make it 10% more powerful than the current base 1080. With the excellent overclocking abilities of the 1080, most retail cards would have a much smaller performance difference (if not be more powerful). Guess we'll have to see how well Vega can overclock. When you consider that 10% difference the 1080 Ti and Pascal 14nm refresh that is due in a few months will easily be just as if not more powerful. Volta will likely be even more.

 

And then you have the Titan XP. Though I don't think its fair to compare a $1,200 card to a $500 one.

 

It is really starting to look like Vega is half to one generation behind. I really, really hope I'm wrong and Vega is an absolute monster because we desperately need someone to compete with Nvidia but so far its just not looking good.

[Shiranui]

As long as it is priced accordingly.

[Luc2k]

19 minutes ago, -Razorfold said:

IAnd then you have the Titan XP. Though I don't think its fair to compare a $1,200 card to a $500 one.

 

It is really starting to look like Vega is half to one generation behind. I really, really hope I'm wrong and Vega is an absolute monster because we desperately need someone to compete with Nvidia but so far its just not looking good.

AMD just needs two cards that are similar to the 1070 and the 1080 priced competitively, which more frequent purchases. Sure, the fanboys will never shut up about it, so screw'em. Even if they beat the Titan XP, Nvidia will find a way to overcharge (e.g. Titan Z). I agree that they should stop twiddling their thumbs however.

[Mr. Gibs]

1 minute ago, Luc2k said:

AMD just needs two cards that are similar to 1070 and 1080 priced competitively which more frequent purchases. Sure, the fanboys will never shut up about it so screw'em. Even if they beat the Titan XP, Nvidia will find a way to overcharge (e.g. Titan Z). I agree that they should stop twiddling their thumbs however.

The problem is even if they do match the performance for less money, Nvidia will release new cards shortly after that will be more powerful.

 

Or worst case scenario, Nvidia has the money to match AMD's pricing. They could make the 1070 and 1080 cheaper without really causing them any financial issues. AMD is seriously cash starved in comparison.

[spaceelf]

Hmm.  Haven't really had anything from Gigabyte, MSI is my preferred option though I'm not really into weapon names.

 

ASRock can go suck it after my FM2 board from them (and it sounds like issues with their boards aren't exactly uncommon on Intels side either.)

 

We'll have to see.  I'm ready to start buying kit but don't want to start until the mobos and procs are actually out.

 

(New build=new case, proc, RAM, mobo, and some improvement to my storage later on.  GPU and most storage transfers out from this box.)

Edited January 6, 2017 by LostCat

[Luc2k]

32 minutes ago, -Razorfold said:

The problem is even if they do match the performance for less money, Nvidia will release new cards shortly after that will be more powerful.

 

Or worst case scenario, Nvidia has the money to match AMD's pricing. They could make the 1070 and 1080 cheaper without really causing them any financial issues. AMD is seriously cash starved in comparison.

Even so, AMD needs market share more than beating Nvidia in the top end. The top end generates a lot of publicity, but the cheaper, more affordable cards increase share. While AMD gave Nvidia too much leeway in mid-high end and above, RX480 and below did a fine job. Big Vega needs too match the 1080 and not suffer from any glaring issues. In a few months, it will get ahead (of the 1080) with driver updates in any case.

 

Getting into top end epeen contest would just lose them potential market share. They already tried (and failed) with the Fury X.

 

Nvidia doesn't usually match prices as most people will purchase their cards even if sold at a premium, however it might be easier to do that due to AMD's use of HBM. AMD might still be starved for cash, however it's getting better, fast. In the past 2 years, their shares increased ~500% in value and they also paid off a chunk of the debt. Zen is also coming and Intel is unlikely to have an answer until 2019, apart from lowering prices.

 

It's not all rosy, but it's looking a lot better than 2 years ago.

[JustGeorge]

1 hour ago, warwagon said:

Easy accidently bend. The intel ones with no pins on the CPU are easier to store.

It's kind of a wash really. Either eff up the MB or the CPU. Especially true if its a high end board.

 

I hope their chipset is up to snuff. Those nForce chipsets back in the day sure did suck!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by slamfire92

[LittleFroggy]

55 minutes ago, -Razorfold said:

I'm not holding hope for Vega after today...AMD's timing is just awful.

 

Sure its looking like a powerful chip but what is very likely going to happen is as soon as AMD announces Vega, Nvidia will put out the 1080 Ti they're holding off on and price it more competitively.

 

AMD claims Vega is going to be 45% more powerful than the fury X which, assuming that AMD is being 100% accurate (being a hardware manufacturer, I doubt it), would make it 10% more powerful than the current base 1080. With the excellent overclocking abilities of the 1080, most retail cards would have a much smaller performance difference (if not be more powerful). Guess we'll have to see how well Vega can overclock. When you consider that 10% difference the 1080 Ti and Pascal 14nm refresh that is due in a few months will easily be just as if not more powerful. Volta will likely be even more.

 

And then you have the Titan XP. Though I don't think its fair to compare a $1,200 card to a $500 one.

 

It is really starting to look like Vega is half to one generation behind. I really, really hope I'm wrong and Vega is an absolute monster because we desperately need someone to compete with Nvidia but so far its just not looking good.

 

Question: Since AMD is in some agreement so that AMD and Intel put each others technology into their CPU's,  wouldn't it be safe to say AMD is naturally behind Intel anyway? When intel releases a new tech, AMD has to have time to integrate it into their chips? ( I hope I'm understood here)

[Mr. Gibs]

1 minute ago, Luc2k said:

Even so, AMD needs market share more than beating Nvidia in the top end. The top end generates a lot of publicity, but the cheaper, more affordable cards increase share. While AMD gave Nvidia too much leeway in mid-high end and above, RX480 and below did a fine job. Big Vega needs too match the 1080 and not suffer from any glaring issues. In a few months, it will get ahead (of the 1080) with driver updates in any case.

 

Getting into top end epeen contest would just lose them potential market share. They already tried (and failed) with the Fury X.

 

Nvidia doesn't usually match prices as most people will purchase their cards even if sold at a premium, however it might be easier to do that due to AMD's use of HBM. AMD might still be starved for cash, however it's getting better fast. In the past 2 years, their shares increased ~500% in value and they also paid off a chunk of the debt. Zen is also coming and Intel is unlikely to have an answer until 2019, apart from lowering prices.

 

It's not all rosy, but it's looking a lot better than 2 years ago.

I'm actually quite interested to see how much of a difference HBM brings since its not exactly a cheap technology.

 

I also really hope AMD puts out some great drivers because seriously the Nvidia drivers for the 10 series cards are just garbage. I mean they're not as bad as ATI of old and I fully understand driver coding is quite an arduous task but still....the 1080 is supposed to be a premium product and the titan even more so. I shouldn't be having low fps issues while my GPU hovers around 40% usage while it waits for Nvidia to release a driver update to fix it.

 

Nvidia's driver quality has gone downhill in the past few years that they haven't had any real competition. Don't even get me started on SLI which Nvidia seems to no longer care about. Tri-SLI+ is all but dead and regular SLI has so many driver issues with a lot of games.

 

Just now, LittleFroggy said:

Question: Since AMD is in some agreement so that AMD and Intel put each others technology into their CPU's,  wouldn't it be safe to say AMD is naturally behind Intel anyway? When intel releases a new tech, AMD has to have time to integrate it into their chips? ( I hope I'm understood here)

The way it works is that Intel holds the x86 license, AMD holds the license to x86-64 (commonly known as 64bit). With the cross-licensing agreement they can use each others technologies for free. I'm not sure if that agreement applies to their entire patent portfolio or just the x86 / x86-64 ones.

 

Implementing those technologies is upto the respective company.

[Luc2k]

36 minutes ago, -Razorfold said:

I'm actually quite interested to see how much of a difference HBM brings since its not exactly a cheap technology.

 

I also really hope AMD puts out some great drivers because seriously the Nvidia drivers for the 10 series cards are just garbage. I mean they're not as bad as ATI of old and I fully understand driver coding is quite an arduous task but still....the 1080 is supposed to be a premium product and the titan even more so. I shouldn't be having low fps issues while my GPU hovers around 40% usage while it waits for Nvidia to release a driver update to fix it.

 

Nvidia's driver quality has gone downhill in the past few years that they haven't had any real competition. Don't even get me started on SLI which Nvidia seems to no longer care about. Tri-SLI+ is all but dead and regular SLI has so many driver issues with a lot of games.

The Polaris cards are supposedly bandwidth starved, so make of that what you will, as well as lower power consumption and more compact cards. The Furys were doing well at 4K with only 4GB.

 

RX480 was behind the 1060 6GB at the latter's release and had gotten into spitting distance before the ReLive drivers were launched (more of a features driver, although it did bring some small performance improvements). If I remember correctly, the RX480 gained 6% while the 1060 1-2%.

 

Never much cared for multi-GPU setups, less so with the shoddy ports we have these days, but I can understand your frustration.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Luc2k

[LittleFroggy]

1 hour ago, -Razorfold said:

I'm actually quite interested to see how much of a difference HBM brings since its not exactly a cheap technology.

 

I also really hope AMD puts out some great drivers because seriously the Nvidia drivers for the 10 series cards are just garbage. I mean they're not as bad as ATI of old and I fully understand driver coding is quite an arduous task but still....the 1080 is supposed to be a premium product and the titan even more so. I shouldn't be having low fps issues while my GPU hovers around 40% usage while it waits for Nvidia to release a driver update to fix it.

 

Nvidia's driver quality has gone downhill in the past few years that they haven't had any real competition. Don't even get me started on SLI which Nvidia seems to no longer care about. Tri-SLI+ is all but dead and regular SLI has so many driver issues with a lot of games.

 

The way it works is that Intel holds the x86 license, AMD holds the license to x86-64 (commonly known as 64bit). With the cross-licensing agreement they can use each others technologies for free. I'm not sure if that agreement applies to their entire patent portfolio or just the x86 / x86-64 ones.

 

Implementing those technologies is upto the respective company.

 

 

oh ok, so if Intel adds hyper threading, they don't share. BUT!, they do share things like SSE2-3-4.. on through the various future versions? ok, that makes sense. I heard that Intels processors basically process threads backwards i.e. 8,7,6..-1 while AMD threads straight forward 1,2,3..-8.  as for the rights to x86 & x86_64..   wow, I can see that AMD could have played dirty and kept the 64 bit as a proprietary tech and cornered the CPU market.. I'm sure glad they played nice with each other (in general)

 

But intellectual properties aren't shared.. makes sense. Thanks Razor!