Amd’s Fantastic 6
The 12nm I/O chip is produced by ex-AMD fab GlobalFoundries and houses a medley of non-core silicon including the Unified Memory Controller and I/O Hub Controller. With memory now offloaded from a monolithic die, and independently adjusted to the fabric clock, AMD is able to offer speeds upwards of 5,000MHz. Cache sizes are by no means a ‘make-or-break’ feature, but it does help to indicate how well the chip will be at multitasking efficiently.
Up until 2017, the Intel Core i7 was Intel’s fastest line of processors until the Intel Core i9 was released. At the time of writing, the Intel i7 range features processors that contain up to 8 cores, with a default clock speed of around 3.6GHz on average. This makes the Intel i7 range a favorite for gamers, PC builders, and content creators. With the AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs, AMD has finally dethroned Intel when it comes to raw gaming performance.
The two main families of processors — Core and Ryzen, respectively — use 3, 5, 7, and 9 to differentiate the CPUs. A Ryzen 3 processor won’t be able to outpace a Ryzen 7, for example. And just like Intel, AMD keeps everything simple by only using a few model numbers, as well as the “X” suffix. Jacob describes himself as the hardware team’s resident wildcard. He is currently on an unremitting quest to create the world’s ugliest gaming PC and is often found tinkering on the testbench in a vain attempt to resurrect another failed RGB experiment gone awry.
In that regard, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the RyZen APUs turn in productivity scores that are close to the 1400 while also being better at gaming than the 1500X . The large majority of productivity benchmarks TR uses care a whole lot more about total cache size vs. latency since they mostly don’t require a whole lot of cache thrashing to move data between cores. Meh, people were making a very similar argument when gtx 1090 OSX was new and dual sockets of PPC were supposed to crush P4’s. Counting threads is a crude measure of meaningful performance improvement. Of all the music software crap I own , they also have the most permissive licenses when it comes to installing on both a desktop and notebook at the same time, too. Just be sure to use only one at a time and they’re totally cool with it, and it basically says as much in the EULA.
The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR memory. As the features of the Picasso APUs are the same compared to the Raven Ridge predecessors, we point to ourRaven Ridge launch article. At least from the Linux experience on the IdeaPad 3 15 using Ubuntu 21.04 with the Linux 5.11 kernel, it’s been working out fine.
When AMD’s Ryzen 5 CPUs first burst onto the scene, I was happy to find that those chips hung right with Intel’s latest-and-greatest midrange parts for smooth gaming performance. I wasn’t able to complete our productivity testing before that NDA lift, though, and the intervening couple of months or so has been a bit rough for yours truly outside of the TR labs. Those clouds are behind me, though, and I’m happy to be able to share the second half of our Ryzen 5 results now. AMD has struggled for years to keep pace with its rival Intel, particularly in the mobile processor space. The company has hyped the new Ryzen chips as a return to providing a competitive alternative for the desktop computing market.