Mildly off topic but still on topic: Last night I was looking at user benchmarks for the Ryzen 7 vs the newer i7s and it looked like the i7s were beating the R7s in almost every practical category. I thought the R7 was supposed to be the 'bigger performance' sort of chip, but it can't seem to beat the i7, which hasn't really had a big performance boost in 5 years. What's going on? Is it that software testing the chips has not been updated to take advantage of the fancy new technology in the R7? Or is Intel just so far ahead that the R7 is a catch-up?
- Ryzen is weaker in single-core IPC than KL, (it's at Broadwell levels) and many benchmarks are single core optimised.
- There are lots of optimisations by software vendors as well as fixes by AMD yet to come, (a couple were already released)
- Most of the coverage focuses on gaming, where Intel wins hands down, because of the better single-core performance
- The Ryzen i7 is really aimed at content creators who export a lot of photos or 4K video and developers who do a lot of compilation, basically tasks that require and benefit from multiple cores - in those categories, the $500 Ryzen is neck and neck with the $1000 i7 Extreme CPU, this is where it really shines and is worth considering.
The reason why most of the benchmarks are aimed at gamers and thus favour single-core IPC is because the PC market is such that if you want anything decent, you have to be a gamer.
Want a good mechanical keyboard? It's going to be a gaming keyboard etc. because the Pro market is much smaller than the gaming market and thus these CPUs are rarely shown in comparisons where they really shine, one exception is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIIb5uZfukU
I agree on most other points. It is sad that good equipment is hard to get without a bunch of lights and MEGA-XXXTREME!!! stickers/labeling all over the place.
I think the thing is that the gaming market is the largest "prosumer" market in the space. For real enterprises, they charge ridiculous markups on something similar to the gaming parts but labeled "professional" or "enterprise". For normal people, they produce the budget parts, because most people don't really care as long as Facebook works. The middle market in PC parts is gamers, enthusiasts who are willing to spend a little more to get decent quality/performance.
I think theres plenty of non-gaming high end peripherals out there. I don't even think they are that hard to find. I bought a Filco Majestouch tenkeyless keyboard about 10 years ago and its certainly not a gaming LED lightshow. Similarly I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 558 headphones that aren't marketed towards gamers.
I thought the R7 was supposed to be the 'bigger performance' sort of chip
Not really. Basically, if you want the fastest CPUs money can buy you go with Intel. If you want a $500 CPU that can hold it's own against Intel's $1000 CPUs you get a Ryzen 7.
