Review: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X & Ryzen 9 3900X

I didn't see your question.

However, Zen 2+ hasn't been mentioned to my knowledge. Zen 3 has....now will Zen 3 be on AM4? I'm really not sure. DDR5 is supposed to be released this year....supposedly, we'll see if that happens. If that does happen, i honestly would not expect AMD stick with DDR4, especially with how much zen likes better performing RAM.

If they don't, then, introduce AM5.

Maybe they'll have Zen 3 CPUs that support both DDR4 and DDR5, and have two different versions of them, an AM4 and AM5 one. Similar to how the Phenom II was, which had AM2+ Socket CPUs and AM3 socket CPUs.

Basically my point is, i would not expect that another generation of CPUs will be released guaranteed. They did state AM4 CPUs until 2020, but we still have Zen 2 APUs that'll be releasing in 2020, and those almost certainly will be on AM4, so they realistically wouldn't be lying if Zen 3 does not appear on AM4.

There also may be some information that i haven't seen, so if any of this has proven to be incorrect, by all means someone link to it as it'd be interesting to read.

 

@Hilbert Hagedoorn Thanks for the great review!!!

I'm a bit disappointed with some of the comments here. The gains AMD has made with their CPUs and GPUs this time around are amazing considering their R&D budgets. If you're disappointed by this launch, or the NAVI launch, you're either an Intel/NVidia fanboy or just have no clue what you're looking at......

 

To elaborate on what @Aura89 said, I think Zen2 is going to be the end of the line for AM4. There's only 5 months left in 2019 (wow this year is moving by fast...) and AMD hasn't yet finished releasing the whole non-APU Zen2 lineup for AM4. I'm sure in 2020 we're going to see some Zen2 APUs (hopefully based on rDNA) or maybe some of the "Pro" versions, but that's about it.

 

One last statement on this as i realized the question itself i guess wasn't answered. IF Zen 3, or Zen 2+ if it gets released, are on AM4, i would suspect MSI will update their X470 boards. One of the things, about these releases, i feel that all the developers have a fair bit of pressure put on them to support the latest CPUs, both from AMD and from other motherboard manufacturers, and with AMD constantly sending out new AGESA codes that support all the chipsets. I mean, even B320 wasn't "officially" supported for the ryzen 3000, yet motherboard manufacturers went ahead and updated a lot of them anyways. So no, if AMD releases more AM4, non-APU, Zen2+ or 3 CPUs in 2020, i don't think you'd have to worry about MSI not updating your board. Only time can realistically tell on that though.

 

Honestly i don't see how anyone could be disappointed by the 5700 XT. It sits in between the 2060 Super and 2070 Super and is priced accordingly. If you got 500$ bucks to spend then 2070 Super but if you just have 400$ bucks to spend (and there's no shame in that) then the 5700 XT looks like a better buy than a 2060 Super. I doubt the 2060 Super will be a proper RTX card down the road. When games will start to fully utilize RTX this card will likely lack power and until then RTX is just an afterthought.

5700 XT is a pretty good card. I'm looking to upgrade my 1070 and my FreeSync monitor is not working with nVidia cards (anyway not with my 1070). I'm still trying to find a 2080 for a decent price but if not i will strongly consider the 5700 XT as it's not too far from a 2700 Super and i will have real FreeSync support. Also it actually beats the 2070 Super at 2k in a couple of titles so it's not a landslide win for the 2070 Super. With more mature drivers we can expect the gap to shrink a bit as the RTX drivers are very mature while the Navi drivers are not at all.

 

The launch overall is great by nearly any metric. It's a relief to know the competition from AMD continues. I'm just surprised that the 3900X can't OC to its max boost clock of 4.6. Just that tiny bit more on an all-core OC, the with IPC it has, would have made all the difference for me. I'm stuck in a position of really wanting higher single core performance, but at the same time I do things that require as many threads as I can get. As it is, I probably wouldn't even keep a 3900X OC'd unless I'm doing multi-threaded work... switching back and forth, that sounds really annoying.

I'm hoping they at least release some better binned Zen 2 chips later. That might be enough for me.

I'm just a bit more concerned than I would normally be because MSI don't have a working BIOS for Zen 2 yet, not in reality anyway. There is a beta, but everyone with the same board as me is reporting that the beta BIOS doesn't get detected to flash. Also, they cut down the UEFI to bare bones because apparently there wasn't enough room for the new microcode. That makes me wonder if there would be issues adding even more in the future if it's necessary for Zen 2+ which I assume it would.

 

Massive upgrade....No!....Your processor and the 6700k/7700k are left out for a reason...

 

Have a look here,

https://www.msi.com/blog/the-latest-bios-for-amd-300-400-series-motherboard

 

I'd wait for BIOS and microcode updates. Seems like there's still some OC potential that's just locked away for now. I wouldn't keep my hopes up for better-binned chips.
Based on what you're describing, seems like you're better off just having 2 separate PCs. Either that, or you need to ask yourself if the extra few hundred MHz is really that important. For me personally, I don't think that's worth striving for, even if future updates unlock more potential.
But... based on how you seem underwhelmed and worried about MSI's support, maybe you should just wait for AM5.

 

Zen2 had ES going around at end of last year. What did AMD waited for till now... hard to say. Sufficient volume of differently binned chips to launch multiple products? Even better yields? Or higher production capacity? Navi being ready after some issue? Or just "7. 7." date because of 7nm?

But point is, that for at least last 8~10 months, they have finished Zen2 design and are either working on Zen2+ or Zen3. Whichever makes better sense from business perspective.
I think that it is Zen2+. Because DDR5 may not have volume, nor price comparable to DDR4. PCIe 4.0 makes X570 expensive as hell.

Going for AM5 => DDR5 + PCIe 4.0 would make pretty expensive platform to begin with. And no fallback to older (much cheaper) chipset.

AMD needs to sell CPUs. They'll have no problem selling Zen2+ as long as they support X470 chipset where even top boards now cost about same as entry level X570.
AM5 board with DDR5 will not be attractive next year from price perspective. And one does not sell CPU to someone who refuses to buy compatible MB.
AM4 has large quantity of users and therefore people who may want to upgrade.

 

I decided to use "show ignored post" as i was curious at the comment. I shouldn't have, there's so much.....wow factor in this.

Not only are you telling this guy a 4-core processor to an 8-core processor isn't a massive upgrade, even though by definition it's at least twice, with better technology, DDR4 instead of DDR3, more updates drivers across the board, less security risks, or performance loss from security fixes, and just overall a fairly massive leap in all around updates....

You're also saying that @Hilbert Hagedoorn is leaving out processors for....nefarious reasons... for that matter apparently all reviews since there are likely no reviewers or very few reviewers that are going to have a 4th gen intel processor in their 2019 lineup, hence why i told him to do some tests himself that correlate. And if there are some reviewers that have it, the liklihood that they are outdated tests done years ago being thrown in to the results rather then actually being re-done with modern software and updates and security updates, it's highly highly unlikely. It'd take a very, very long time to have to re-do all tests.

My goodness, there's so much facepalm and fail, in that tiny little reply you gave. Not helpful to the guy asking in the slightest. Back to keeping ignore on.

 

Apologies for my ignorance, but when are the 3600 & 3600X reviews coming out? Anyway looks like a B450 paired with a 3600 might be the new sweet spot for 1080p gaming.

 

If you target 60fps, you are likely in no need to upgrade CPU unless you have something really old. (You are blocking profile access. Or maybe I am in ignore list )

 

As soon as AMD will send in the SKUs

 

My guess is AMD didn't want to overly overwhelm reviewers. With Super being released (may not have factored into their thinking), many CPUs being released, and GPUs being released, near a holiday (for the USA), they probably thought it wouldn't be a good idea to just flood everyone with so many tests to make.

Or, could not be anything to do with that at all. lol

 

No man you're not on my "ignore list", but thanks for letting me know (will fix my profile). I'm using a 1080p (144hz) monitor and constantly get maxed out by my i5-7600k at 100%.

 

Yay, you just reminded me of funny thing:

Some people were angry on AMD for thinking that releasing product in week of 4th of July was a good idea.


So many products.

Good CPU, not enough threads. Same as with my old i5-2500k @4.5GHz. If you have stutter while CPU is maxed, then you can get rid of it by any CPU from last few generations or this one that has 6 or more cores.

If there is no noticeable stutter, then it only limits your maximum fps. At the end I had so much stutter that I had to use RTSS to limit fps way under what I could achieve otherwise.

 

What!........Why not have a 7700k/6700k/4790k in the review?....

Yet an i5 6600 is there?.....A lot of people own these....You are bias...

If you really put me on ignore you will not reply because you won't see it.

 

I knew that when I bought it (cheaped out; no denying there) and didn't have a problem with it until I started playing ACC, which is badly optimized to begin with and very heavy on the CPU. It's not like it runs at 100% all of the time, but it cycles through 80-90% usage and once every minute it will jump a frame or two and thankfully their latest hotfix helped a bit, but I'm obviously in need of an AMD first aid kit.

 

The biggest issue with gaming I see is you get better performance from an i5 9600K for $250. i7 9700K is even better. The 6 core Ryzens need to be $200 or less to be appealing for gaming since they likely won't perform as good as the 9600K still. Overclocking and voltage was really sad. These chips are clearly for server applications, but it is what it is.