Will AMD Ever Beat Intel in Single Threaded Performance?

[King_Potato]

What do you think and Why?

 

[trick0502]

I think it is posible. When intel moves to 7/10nm they won’t be able to hit 5ghz single core (I think). If that happens amd has a chance.

 

[tom_ozahoski]

They already meet or beat Intel in all but the extreme top. If rumors are half true intel will have their hands full later this year.

 

[blackmomba]

Great idea for a thread

 

[FlawleZ]

They already do beat Intel in single thread in some scenarios.

 

[hititnquitit]

They have their best chance to pull ahead with 4000. Hopefully they succeed and we end up with a back and forth battle for the next 10 or 15 years.

 

[aduljr]

clock for clock they do.

 

[chameleoneel]

Some people are getting confused. They already do beat Intel in IPC in some tasks.

Single threaded performance is overall, still in Intel's favor. And that is due to clockspeed. AMD's IPC wins are not good enough to overcome the gap in clockspeed.

 

[uberjeff]

Ever is a very long time. Maybe by the time Intel is on 14++++++++++.

 

[tangoseal]

 

[N4CR]

Already do in some workloads.
240p gaming in a few games, no.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

they'll likely beat them with zen 3 if they're able to get the clock speeds up. that being said i think intel will lose the single threaded performance crown on their own when they're finally forced to 1. make an architecture that isn't riddled with security vulnerabilities to cheat their performance 2. if they refuse to get rid of their monolithic architecture when they move to 7nm.

the real answer though.. it doesn't really matter, games engines and software are finally catching up to the hardware when it comes to multi-core support so the outliers like CS are dwindling to the point where having the single threaded performance crown won't matter anymore.

 

[Tactlesss]

Didn't they do it back in the athlon64 days for like a week...

 

[BrotherMichigan]

Didn't they do it back in the athlon64 days for like a week...

If by "like a week" you mean "around two years," sure.

 

[Ultra-m-a-n]

I would like to see something crazy like a desktop APU with EDRAM.. that would be really cool.

Along with AMD having the potential to die shrink the IO chiplet on all of their CPUs there are still gains to be had.

 

[crazycrave]

My 3700x is more set for gaming and it's not overclocked .. single thread is IPC and Intel is losing clock for clock https://valid.x86.fr/bench/hi9s9i/1

 

[trick0502]

Clock for clock, yeah. But when you have an 800mhz advantage, you win. Clock is king. The question should be, will intel be able to clock 10/7nm as high as 14+++++++++++++++++++?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Clock for clock, yeah. But when you have an 800mhz advantage, you win. Clock is king. The question should be, will intel be able to clock 10/7nm as high as 14+++++++++++++++++++?

Considering how much power they're having to pull just hit these clocks on 14nm probably not.

 

[tangoseal]

Clock for clock, yeah. But when you have an 800mhz advantage, you win. Clock is king. The question should be, will intel be able to clock 10/7nm as high as 14+++++++++++++++++++?

Clock is not king. Not anymore.

 

[trick0502]

In games that only use a few threads? It is king.

 

[bobzdar]

At stock, the 3950x single core speed is faster than anything Intel makes.

 

[Dan_D]

AMD already has a slight IPC advantage in it's Zen 2 processors. This is evident given that Intel has to have a fairly substantial clock speed advantage to remain competitive in single-threaded applications.

 

[TheRookie]

I mean, AMD already has the IPC advantage.

Intel is still ahead in single-thread performance from clock speed alone.

 

[oldmanbal]

The amount of performance todays cpu's deliver, and with the parity between Intel and AMD, it really doesn't matter much anymore. If you can get 10 more fps at 260 fps is it going to change your life? Does it warrant spending an additional 300$?

 

[cyklondx]

No, It already has.

 

[XJJack]

Who is going to buy the Intel product when they switch to 7nm and they are slower then there 14+++++++++++++.

They are going to need to come up with something to make us want there products (need to update).

 

[Revenant_Knight]

Will AMD ever beat Intel on single threaded? They already have, and will likely again...also there are a lot of definitions of how this can be done.

In the past, they were faster during the launch of the original Athlon and many times during the Athlon 64 days. Clock for clock back then they were faster...I think clock for clock they're faster now. Not entirely sure.

However, Intel can clock faster. Also it depends entirely on the workload. Will AMD be faster single core than a workload that can use Intel's higher clock rates and quicksync? What about games that use advanced AVX sets? Or programs that love AMDs cache? But does it even matter? Not much of my software really is single threaded anymore, and most of what is single threaded runs blazing fast even on a low end CPU. I see NO difference when I run Office on a R5-2600 and a 9900K.... which even my I5-5200 runs it just fine. My GPU is more important to HEVC 4K60 playback. Games will surely be more Ryzen optimized with the new console generation.

This reminds me of the old Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4 wars. Northwood and Prescott against Sledgehammer and Clawhammer.

 

[Revenant_Knight]

The amount of performance todays cpu's deliver, and with the parity between Intel and AMD, it really doesn't matter much anymore. If you can get 10 more fps at 260 fps is it going to change your life? Does it warrant spending an additional 300$?

That argument has been made since the Apple II and 8086 days. ^_~

"....640kb ought be enough for anyone...." - said no one ever, but Bill Gates is often attributed so lets keep rolling with it.

 

[bigbluefe]

The amount of performance todays cpu's deliver, and with the parity between Intel and AMD, it really doesn't matter much anymore. If you can get 10 more fps at 260 fps is it going to change your life? Does it warrant spending an additional 300$?

Single threaded performance actually matters a lot for emulation. There are many drivers in MAME that don't run at full speed today, and emulation is often not a multi-threaded friendly application.

 

[SkateFreak]

Core, complicated question here!
The top 4 highest overclock records are all held by AMD chips! (AMD FX-8370), so we know they could one point pull the highest frequency period!
However clock speed alone != performance (bandwidth, instruction set implementation etc make a difference to work done) therefor a lower frequency CPU can potentially 'do more work'.
So outright performance is really about benches tbh...
However, when value for money is plugged into the equation (because that matters to a lot and has recently become a prominent factor) then AMD is blowing Intel out of the water. AMD chips vs Intel chips of comparable prices are of a much higher spec period.

 

[Meeho]

The amount of performance todays cpu's deliver, and with the parity between Intel and AMD, it really doesn't matter much anymore. If you can get 10 more fps at 260 fps is it going to change your life? Does it warrant spending an additional 300$?

There are other single threaded PC uses beside games. Shocking, I know. I would gladly pay $300 more for a CPU twice as fast in single thread and half as fast in multi thread tasks.

 

[tangoseal]

There are other single threaded PC uses beside games. Shocking, I know. I would gladly pay $300 more for a CPU twice as fast in single thread and half as fast in multi thread tasks.

You go right ahead!

 

[Meeho]

You go right ahead!

Would love to if I could.

 

[bluestang]

Is there a "Who Cares" option? As in I need a crapload of powerful cores for compute work and not gaming, in which case AMD is king right now

 

[tangoseal]

Would love to if I could.

Hell if I could get 2x single thread ipc for 300 more I would as well. Too bad that doesnt exist. Because that chip would be 2x as fast per core anyways making the whole chip 100% faster than the other for 300 dollars extra. Thats a no brainer.

 

[Mauler87]

8700k 4.9Ghz Vs 3900X Stock

Compared my 8700k to my 3900x, Surprised in certain scenarios my 3900x got equal or beat the 8700k.

Ryzen's weakness remains in certain background app's that aren't optimized for the platform doing odd things to boost clocks when a crucial program is in the foreground.

Even with the scheduler updates and tweaks it's still not perfect. At the moment I am using Process Lasso to keep the 1usmus universal power plan active and having my important programs and games switch to performance mode in process lasso.

Had to tweak lasso to not enable bitsum highest performance plan when performance mode is active, seems to have made my scores slightly better since recording that footage.

 

[bobzdar]

8700k 4.9Ghz Vs 3900X Stock

Compared my 8700k to my 3900x, Surprised in certain scenarios my 3900x got equal or beat the 8700k.

Ryzen's weakness remains in certain background app's that aren't optimized for the platform doing odd things to boost clocks when a crucial program is in the foreground.

Even with the scheduler updates and tweaks it's still not perfect. At the moment I am using Process Lasso to keep the 1usmus universal power plan active and having my important programs and games switch to performance mode in process lasso.

Had to tweak lasso to not enable bitsum highest performance plan when performance mode is active, seems to have made my scores slightly better since recording that footage.

How did you do that? I have a similar issue with WindowsMR and SteamVR kicking the cpu up to max performance state and limiting it to max all core boost (~4.3 in typical gaming loads) vs. being able to get 4.5-4.65 when not in VR and not forced to max performance state for the same games.

 

[Brackle]

They already equal or beat intel in single threaded performance. Where AMD lacks is in clock speed. This is why Intel is faster in some scenerios.

Once AMD gets close to matching Intel in clock speed, then Intel should be worried IMO.

Can you imagine is a 3800x had the same clock speed as Intel around the same price? Would be blood bath in some ways.

 

[Mauler87]

How did you do that? I have a similar issue with WindowsMR and SteamVR kicking the cpu up to max performance state and limiting it to max all core boost (~4.3 in typical gaming loads) vs. being able to get 4.5-4.65 when not in VR and not forced to max performance state for the same games.

Process Lasso allows you to set affinity that will either only be current or be permanent so when the application is started or detected as running the affinity you choose will be set. This however isn't true for all software as with cinebench it will still choose which threads it decides to use which is unfortunate.

Here is a small test I did with no manual overclocks when I had the GTX 1060 6GB in my 3900x rig, tested far cry 5 FPS for 3 runs at each configuration all done on the 1usmus Ryzen Universal power plan. Done at all low settings and 1280x720 resolution.