The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTTalking 12nm and Zen+
One of the highlights of the Ryzen 2000-series launch is that these processors use GlobalFoundries’ 12LP manufacturing process, compared to the 14LPP process used for the first generation of Ryzen processors. Both AMD and GlobalFoundries have discussed the differences in the processes, however it is worth understanding that each company has different goals: AMD only needs to promote what helps its products, whereas GlobalFoundries is a semiconductor foundry with many clients and might promote ideal-scenario numbers. Earlier this year we were invited to GlobalFoundries Fab 8 in upstate New York to visit the clean room, and had a chance to interview Dr. Gary Patton, the CTO.
The Future of Silicon: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Gary Patton, CTO of GlobalFoundries
In that interview, several interesting items came to light. First, that the CTO doesn’t necessarily have to care much about what certain processes are called: their customers know the performance of a given process regardless of the advertised ‘nm’ number based on the development tools given to them. Second, that 12LP is a series of minor tweaks to 14LPP, relating to performance bumps and improvements that come from a partial optical shrink and a slight change in manufacturing rules in the middle-line and back-end of the manufacturing process. In the past this might not have been so news worthy, however GF’s customers want to take advantage of the improved process.
Overall, GlobalFoundries has stated that its 12LP process offers a 10% performance improvement and a 15% circuit density improvement over 14LPP.
This has been interpreted in many ways, such as an extra 10% frequency at the same power, or lower power for the same frequency, and an opportunity to build smaller chips.
As part of today’s launch, AMD has clarified what the move to 12LP has meant for the Ryzen 2000-series:
- Top Clock Speeds lifted by ~250 MHz (~6%)
- All-core overclocks around 4.2 GHz
- ~50 mV core voltage reduction
AMD goes on to explain that at the same frequency, its new Ryzen 2000-series processors draw around 11% less power than the Ryzen 1000-series. The claims also state that this translates to +16% performance at the same power. These claims are a little muddled, as AMD has other new technologies in the 2000-series which will affect performance as well.
One interesting element is that although GF claims that there is a 15% density improvement, AMD is stating that these processors have the same die size and transistor count as the previous generation. Ultimately this seems in opposition to common sense – surely AMD would want to use smaller dies to get more chips per wafer?
Ultimately, the new processors are almost carbon copies of the old ones, both in terms of design and microarchitecture. AMD is calling the design of the cores as ‘Zen+’ to differentiate them to the previous generation ‘Zen’ design, and it mostly comes down to how the microarchitecture features are laid out on the silicon. When discussing with AMD, the best way to explain it is that some of the design of the key features has not moved – they just take up less area, leaving more dark silicon between other features.
Here is a very crude representation of features attached to a data path. On the left is the 14LPP design, and each of the six features has a specific size and connects to the bus. Between each of the features is the dark silicon – unused silicon that is either seen as useless, or can be used as a thermal buffer between high-energy parts. On the right is the representation of the 12LP design – each of the features have been reduced in size, putting more dark silicon between themselves (the white boxes show the original size of the feature). In this context, the number of transistors is the same, and the die size is the same. But if anything in the design was thermally limited by the close proximity of two features, there is now more distance between them such that they should interfere with each other less.
For reference, AMD lists the die-size of these new parts as 213mm2, containing 4.8 billion transistors, identical to the first generation silicon design. AMD confirmed that they are using 9T transistor libraries, also the same as the previous generation, although GlobalFoundries offers a 7.5T design as well.
So is Zen+ a New Microarchitecture, or Process Node Change?
Ultimately, nothing about most of the Zen+ physical design layout is new. Aside from the manufacturing process node change and likely minor adjustments, the rest of the adjustments are in firmware and support:
- Cache latency adjustments leading to +3% IPC
- Increased DRAM Frequency Support to DDR4-2933
- Better voltage/frequency curves, leading to +10% performance overall
- Better Boost Performance with Precision Boost 2
- Better Thermal Response with XFR2
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danjw - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
They Anandtech used the rated speeds that the processors were stated to support by the manufactures. Anandtech, is using everything at stock. Anandtech ran all the processors through fully patched systems (both bios and OS). Not every website other tests to these same methodology. So, there will be differences in their results. None the less, Anandtech, is auditing their results to double check them. I really don't think they are going to see anything wrong. Toms, ran their Intel parts without the latest bios updates. Others overclocked their systems.Most users do not overclock their systems. Sure, a lot of us readers do, but not everyone. I overclock my systems, but, my two brothers who are both just as technical as I am, do not. It is a choice some make and others do not. The majority of users do not overclock. So, Anandtech does not overclock in their most reviews. They have at times in the past and may in the future include overclocking results in reviews, but they have are always broken out the overclocking results in a separate section and/or labeled the overclocked results to differentiate them from the standard clocked results. These are editorial choices that Anandtech makes, I don't see any problem with that.
Luckz - Monday, April 23, 2018 - link
Intel for some reason have 4 memory sticks. Weird idea.werpu - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Well the main difference is they tested against fully meltdown and specte patched systems, which in fact is the norm, while all other reviewers simply tested against bare metal. It is known that Intel took a pretty serious hit especially with Meltdown and a more serious hit with Spectre compared to AMD which did not have meltdown at all and to a lesser degree Spectre than Intel did.I would say Anandtechs tests are spot on.
And this reflects the sad state of nowadays performance testing which seems to be done to 99.9% by incompetent idiots or fanboys (especially the youtubers are the worst)
However in extreme situations Intel again wins since the 8700k can be oced by decapping and good cooling to 5GHz while the OC capabilities of the 2700x are basically non existent. It really depends, which is better. But the performance gap is closing and in non OCed system it is not existent anymore. It will be interesting next year when AMD has moved to 7nm while Intel still will be stuck at 10nm which they currently try to pull it but not have yet managed. Then the game might be entirely reversed.
Alphasoldier - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Unfortunatelly, you are the only idiot and fanboy here. Pretty much everyone stated in their reviews, the system were fully patched, all cpus were reused and everything was retested, because AMD fanboys were screaming Meltdown here, Spectre there.Now, the internet is full of this garbage review, it spreads like cancer, because AMD fanboys have nothing better to do, once again they are disappointed that 6 cores from Intel outperformed 8 cores from AMD and they are now like the Liverpool fans repeating "The next year will be ours"
But at least they got some fancy RBG cooler.
Fallen Kell - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Alphasoldier, I've been reading the reviews, and while many have stated they have applied the software (OS) patches, very few have stated they applied both the software and BIOS patches for the Spectre variant 2. Thew few places that I have seen which have stated both the software and BIOS patches were applied all seem to be showing much more similar results as the AT article.In anycase, Ryan stated they are looking into it, and I am certain we will see an update within the next few days. And don't come saying that I am a AMD fanboi, I havn't purchased a AMD CPU since the Thunderbird (i.e. a slot A CPU).
mapesdhs - Saturday, April 21, 2018 - link
werpu, oc an 8700K to 5GHz? Makes me laugh that a 300MHz bump over a CPU's max single core turbo is even called an oc these days. Sheesh, it's a far cry from the days of SB, oc hardly seems worth bothering with now.mkaibear - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
It's here, it's here!Dr. Swag - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
What is with the gaming benchmarks? On your tests the whole ryzen 2 series is a step above everything else, but all other reviews show it between ryzen and coffee lake...fallaha56 - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
This is the Spectre2 patch effectNot looking great for Intel and HFR gaming
Ryan Smith - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
"What is with the gaming benchmarks?"We're looking into it right now. Some of these results weren't in until very recently, so we're going back and doing some additional validation and logging to see if we can get to the bottom of this.