Wrap Up: Happy

The results are in, and while I'll be spending more fourth dimension in the coming days and weeks testing some more (all-encompassing gaming benchmarks are coming), I think the tests included hither pigment an interesting moving-picture show worth analyzing.

When it comes to productivity and content creation, the new Ryzen 7 CPUs are very impressive. Premiere Pro and Excel performance output is incredible. The gaming performance was less exciting. Nosotros always knew this was 1 area where Ryzen might struggle against the empire, and then while the results are a little disappointing, they aren't entirely surprising either.

AMD liked to show off Ryzen's gaming capabilities running at 4K using a Pascal Titan X and we all know this isn't how y'all test CPU gaming performance because it imposes a GPU clogging that virtually eliminates the impact the CPU may take, within reason anyhow.

Ane affair I did notice is that all the games I take looked at so far -- which is considerably more than than the four shown here -- were shine on the Ryzen processors. GTA 5 for example plays really well on the Core i7-7700K, merely every now and so a pocket-size stutter tin can be noticed, while the 1800X runs as shine as silk, sans stuttering from what I observed.

I found a similar situation when testing Battlefield 1. Performance was smoothen with the Ryzen processors while every now and then the quad-core 7700K had a small hiccup. These were rare but information technology was something I didn't notice when using the 1800X and 1700X. But as shine every bit the experience was, it doesn't change the fact that gamers running a high refresh rate monitor may be better served by a higher clocked Core i7-6700K or 7700K.

While the gaming results might not exist as strong as nosotros had hoped for, they are highly competitive and that should hold peculiarly true for the Ryzen v and iii serial. It's also worth noting that we are testing farthermost gaming operation hither with the Titan XP at 1080p. Ryzen looks more competitive at 1440p, and certainly so when paired with a GTX 1070 or Fury X.

Watch Steve comment on the Ryzen release and review it on video below...

Overclocking was not particularly impressive either. It can be argued AMD has squeezed equally of operation they establish sensible to do on this initial launch. I was able to hit 4.1GHz with my 1800X and that took quite a scrap of trial and error. The 1700X couldn't achieve 4GHz, but its overclock translated into a more meaningful proceeds because it'due south 20% more affordable than the 1800X. It remains to be seen how the vanilla 1700 overclocks (due to make it next week). For what it'due south worth, some sites did go them on time for today'due south release, and then you can already find out how well this chip clocks.

Power usage was slightly college than expected and our Excel consumption figures are similar to those when using ability-hungry programs like Prime95. Ryzen should be more efficient when gaming, however, and then I volition look into this shortly.

Consider where AMD was coming from and look at what they accept achieved with Ryzen, it's nothing curt of amazing. I'thou excited to encounter AMD delivering competitive loftier-stop CPUs and it'll exist interesting to watch how well they can refine the Zen architecture over the coming years.

Shopping shortcuts:

  • AMD Ryzen seven 1800X on Amazon
  • AMD Ryzen 7 1700X on Amazon
  • AMD Ryzen 7 1800X on Newegg
  • AMD Ryzen vii 1700X on Newegg

Intel has been hitting a evolution wall for some fourth dimension now, or at to the lowest degree hasn't been focused nor pressured into delivering larger gains in raw processing power. This might afford AMD a chance to take hold of up even further. In the brusque term we await Intel to accommodate prices and yous can look the company to continue scrambling every bit AMD turns up the heat with 4 and six-core Ryzen CPUs.

Pros: Great value. Smoothen gaming with strong minimum frame rates. Powerful productivity performance. Runs absurd considering its power depict.

Cons: Non actually cons, but the few areas where Ryzen fell curt of Intel were gaming functioning and power consumption. Not great overclockers.