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>Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. You're confusing bandwidth and latency. Ryzen 3000 launched a month ago, the 3900x outperforme

>Maybe because AMD can't keep up with demand for their new CPUs. You're confusing bandwidth and latency. Ryzen 3000 launched a month ago, the 3900x outperformed expectations, so the initial shipments sold out faster than expected. You can't magic up stock out of thin air, so there's an inevitable lag between retailers reporting unusually high demand and AMD being able to deliver sufficient stock. The bandwidth question is much more important and bodes very poorly for Intel. TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity; they're already in risk production for 5nm, which is expected to free up substantial capacity at 7nm/7nm+ into 2020. Intel's 10nm has been a complete debacle and (despite the Ice Lake launch) is still blighted with sub-par yields.

paulmd 7y ago
> TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity Yields in terms of getting lots of operational dies, sure, but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality. They have lots of chiplets but most of those chiplets are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for the 3900X. In fact, even a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X, as well as elsewhere throughout their range. There are a lot of people finding their chips only boost to 50-200 MHz less than the advertised frequency of the chip. Essentially, the boost algorithm now takes chip quality into account when determining how high it will boost. And most of the chips have silicon quality that is too poor to hit the advertised clocks, even on a single core, even under ideal cooling, etc etc. Thus, AMD has the somewhat dubious honor of being the first company to make the silicon lottery apply not just to overclocking, but to their stock clocks as well. They really wasted no time before shifting to anti-consumer bullshit of their own; all they had to do was advertise the chips as being 200 MHz lower and everyone would have been happy, but they wanted to advertise clocks the chips couldn't hit. And again, the underlying problem is chip quality - a lot of these chiplets can't boost to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz let alone 4.7. AMD simply can't yield enough 4.7 GHz chiplets to go around, even if the chiplets are nominally functional. The process may be "stable and providing excellent yields" but it's not stable and well yielding enough to meet AMD's expectations. That's a major reason they're now introducing 3700 and 3900 non-X variations - that will allow them to reduce clocks and satisfy demand a bit better.
- thecopy 7y ago
  >a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X Do you have some sort of source for this claim?
  - gwicks56 7y ago
    every forum pretty much. If you have been interested in getting one, and following along with the launch this is not a controversial statement. It's not 100% sure its the chips fault though, bios issues are still running rampant nearly 5 weeks later, and each new bios is changing performance significantly. It will take a while before everyone knows exactly where they stand.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Forums are not reputable sources unless it is insiders leaking info that can be verified through other means.
      - pdpi 7y ago
        They might not be definitive sources, but they can definitely be the canary that triggers an investigation by somebody more authoritative. As it stands, this mine has some dead canaries.
        tempguy9999 7y ago
        claim: > ...but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality supposed justification: > ...every forum pretty much That's hearsay not actual justification. And intel has a reputation for dirty play.
        gwicks56 7y ago
        The justification was for the statement that chips aren't hitting their clocks. That is not a controversial statement.
devonkim 7y ago
Both my comment and the one I responded to specified "At the moment" which is fairly specific and implies that it's subject to change. Of course things will be different in 3+ months and bugs and supply chain issues get ironed out. The question that matters a lot more is whether Intel will be able to respond adequately to AMD's offerings. It is unclear whether Intel is truly disadvantaged in throughput for any appreciable length of time. We've seen what happened to Intel after the disastrous Prescott release years ago - they worked on the Core architecture and its follow-up Core 2 that put AMD in a pretty serious rut for the past decade. Your point of the 10nm offering launching and _still_ being lackluster is the big, big problem for Intel for short-term competitiveness.

paulmd 7y ago

> TSMC's 7nm process is stable, providing excellent yields and has plenty of available capacity Yields in terms of getting lots of operational dies, sure, but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality. They have lots of chiplets but most of those chiplets are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for the 3900X. In fact, even a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X, as well as elsewhere throughout their range. There are a lot of people finding their chips only boost to 50-200 MHz less than the advertised frequency of the chip. Essentially, the boost algorithm now takes chip quality into account when determining how high it will boost. And most of the chips have silicon quality that is too poor to hit the advertised clocks, even on a single core, even under ideal cooling, etc etc. Thus, AMD has the somewhat dubious honor of being the first company to make the silicon lottery apply not just to overclocking, but to their stock clocks as well. They really wasted no time before shifting to anti-consumer bullshit of their own; all they had to do was advertise the chips as being 200 MHz lower and everyone would have been happy, but they wanted to advertise clocks the chips couldn't hit. And again, the underlying problem is chip quality - a lot of these chiplets can't boost to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz let alone 4.7. AMD simply can't yield enough 4.7 GHz chiplets to go around, even if the chiplets are nominally functional. The process may be "stable and providing excellent yields" but it's not stable and well yielding enough to meet AMD's expectations. That's a major reason they're now introducing 3700 and 3900 non-X variations - that will allow them to reduce clocks and satisfy demand a bit better.

thecopy 7y ago
>a lot of the chiplets sold as 3900X are not fast enough to hit the clocks advertised for 3900X Do you have some sort of source for this claim?
- gwicks56 7y ago
  every forum pretty much. If you have been interested in getting one, and following along with the launch this is not a controversial statement. It's not 100% sure its the chips fault though, bios issues are still running rampant nearly 5 weeks later, and each new bios is changing performance significantly. It will take a while before everyone knows exactly where they stand.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Forums are not reputable sources unless it is insiders leaking info that can be verified through other means.
    - pdpi 7y ago
      They might not be definitive sources, but they can definitely be the canary that triggers an investigation by somebody more authoritative. As it stands, this mine has some dead canaries.
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        claim: > ...but one of the underlying problems here is chip quality supposed justification: > ...every forum pretty much That's hearsay not actual justification. And intel has a reputation for dirty play.
        gwicks56 7y ago
        The justification was for the statement that chips aren't hitting their clocks. That is not a controversial statement.

devonkim 7y ago

Both my comment and the one I responded to specified "At the moment" which is fairly specific and implies that it's subject to change. Of course things will be different in 3+ months and bugs and supply chain issues get ironed out. The question that matters a lot more is whether Intel will be able to respond adequately to AMD's offerings. It is unclear whether Intel is truly disadvantaged in throughput for any appreciable length of time. We've seen what happened to Intel after the disastrous Prescott release years ago - they worked on the Core architecture and its follow-up Core 2 that put AMD in a pretty serious rut for the past decade. Your point of the 10nm offering launching and _still_ being lackluster is the big, big problem for Intel for short-term competitiveness.