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The X3D chips do at least have a reduced TDP of 120W vs 170W (except for the 7800X3D vs the confusingly comparable 7700X's 105W). The other thing is that, at le

by mastax 4y ago

The X3D chips do at least have a reduced TDP of 120W vs 170W (except for the 7800X3D vs the confusingly comparable 7700X's 105W). The other thing is that, at least in DIY PC (and botique builders like CyberPower) the "gaming" motherboards universally increase the maximum peak power target and also commonly enable things like all core turbo and precision boost overdrive by default. So unless they specify otherwise, like AnandTech I think, you can assume most reviewers will be running the CPU with more power than the spec but that's a common situation for their audience.

paulmd 4y ago
> The other thing is that, at least in DIY PC (and botique builders like CyberPower) the "gaming" motherboards universally increase the maximum peak power target Worth noting the PPT is higher than the TDP by default - a "120W" AMD chip is actually allowed to boost to 168W continuously, obviously they prefer to advertise the former and have people making comparisons between "120W" AMD and Intel chips running at full boost PPT. X3D chips are a cut above the rest of the market in terms of efficiency (although this mostly springs from the clock restrictions imposed by the v-cache CCD, which is undesirable and will be removed/mitigated once the technology permits) but in the rest of the lineup this slides them much closer to the Intel line than AMD would prefer people to think about. A 170W TDP 7950X is actually 220W, a 125W 7800X is actually 170W. People reflexively think in terms of AMD's marketing TDPs when making comparisons and don't account for the fact that the chips are allowed by the spec to boost way above that. And it's been incredibly successful - every single AMD thread there's someone talking about their nice efficient 65W processor and lol unless you turned off the boost (which is separate from just enabling eco!) then no, it's not 65W. Still good, still usually more efficient than Intel, but AMD gave themselves an instant 30% edge on paper with the power of clever marketing and that's always been a significant amount, enough to swing purchases. That part is not something that gaming motherboards do automatically, and I've never seen one that will enable multicore enhancement-style tuning by default. If you enable overclocking yourself (and enabling XMP/DOCP is considered overclocking since this usually increases VSOC or VCCSA to allow the memory controller to run faster than spec) then all bets are off but by default no, they shouldn't be, just the terminology difference that springs from AMD's marketing trickery around TDP vs PPT. And hey if people end up blaming partners for AMD's spec... that's just good marketing work. PBO is the setting where you'd see power limits increased and I've never seen that on by default, it's always hidden behind a "THIS VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY AND KILLS YOUR DOG" disclaimer in a separate panel.

by mastax 4y ago

paulmd 4y ago

> The other thing is that, at least in DIY PC (and botique builders like CyberPower) the "gaming" motherboards universally increase the maximum peak power target Worth noting the PPT is higher than the TDP by default - a "120W" AMD chip is actually allowed to boost to 168W continuously, obviously they prefer to advertise the former and have people making comparisons between "120W" AMD and Intel chips running at full boost PPT. X3D chips are a cut above the rest of the market in terms of efficiency (although this mostly springs from the clock restrictions imposed by the v-cache CCD, which is undesirable and will be removed/mitigated once the technology permits) but in the rest of the lineup this slides them much closer to the Intel line than AMD would prefer people to think about. A 170W TDP 7950X is actually 220W, a 125W 7800X is actually 170W. People reflexively think in terms of AMD's marketing TDPs when making comparisons and don't account for the fact that the chips are allowed by the spec to boost way above that. And it's been incredibly successful - every single AMD thread there's someone talking about their nice efficient 65W processor and lol unless you turned off the boost (which is separate from just enabling eco!) then no, it's not 65W. Still good, still usually more efficient than Intel, but AMD gave themselves an instant 30% edge on paper with the power of clever marketing and that's always been a significant amount, enough to swing purchases. That part is not something that gaming motherboards do automatically, and I've never seen one that will enable multicore enhancement-style tuning by default. If you enable overclocking yourself (and enabling XMP/DOCP is considered overclocking since this usually increases VSOC or VCCSA to allow the memory controller to run faster than spec) then all bets are off but by default no, they shouldn't be, just the terminology difference that springs from AMD's marketing trickery around TDP vs PPT. And hey if people end up blaming partners for AMD's spec... that's just good marketing work. PBO is the setting where you'd see power limits increased and I've never seen that on by default, it's always hidden behind a "THIS VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY AND KILLS YOUR DOG" disclaimer in a separate panel.