The AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 3700X and 3900X Raising The Bar
by Andrei Frumusanu & Gavin Bonshor on July 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTSection by Gavin Bonshor
X570 Motherboards: PCIe 4.0 For Everybody
One of the biggest additions to AMD's AM4 socket is the introduction of the PCIe 4.0 interface. The new generation of X570 motherboards marks the first consumer motherboard chipset to feature PCIe 4.0 natively, which looks to offer users looking for even faster storage, and potentially better bandwidth for next-generation graphics cards over previous iterations of the current GPU architecture. We know that the Zen 2 processors have implemented the new TSMC 7nm manufacturing process with double the L3 cache compared with Zen 1. This new centrally focused IO chiplet is there regardless of the core count and uses the Infinity Fabric interconnect; the AMD X570 chipset uses four PCIe 4.0 lanes to uplink and downlink to the CPU IO die.
Looking at a direct comparison between AMD's AM4 X series chipsets, the X570 chipset adds PCIe 4.0 lanes over the previous X470 and X370's reliance on PCIe 3.0. A big plus point to the new X570 chipset is more support for USB 3.1 Gen2 with AMD allowing motherboard manufacturers to play with 12 flexible PCIe 4.0 lanes and implement features how they wish. This includes 8 x PCIe 4.0 lanes, with two blocks of PCIe 4.0 x4 to play with which vendors can add SATA, PCIe 4.0 x1 slots, and even support for 3 x PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slots.
| AMD X570, X470 and X370 Chipset Comparison | |||
| Feature | X570 | X470 | X370 |
| PCIe Interface (to peripherals) | 4.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| Max PCH PCIe Lanes | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| USB 3.1 Gen2 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
| Max USB 3.1 (Gen2/Gen1) | 8/4 | 2/6 | 2/6 |
| DDR4 Support | 3200 | 2933 | 2667 |
| Max SATA Ports | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| PCIe GPU Config | x16 x8/x8 x8/x8/x8* |
x16 x8/x8 x8/x8/x4 |
x16 x8/x8 x8/x8/x4 |
| Memory Channels (Dual) | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2/2 |
| Integrated 802.11ac WiFi MAC | N | N | N |
| Chipset TDP | 11W | 4.8W | 6.8W |
| Overclocking Support | Y | Y | Y |
| XFR2/PB2 Support | Y | Y | N |
One of the biggest changes in the chipset is within its architecture. The X570 chipset is the first Ryzen chipset to be manufactured and designed in-house by AMD, with some helping ASMedia IP blocks, whereas previously with the X470 and X370 chipsets, ASMedia directly developed and produced it using a 55nm process. While going from X370 at 6.8 W TDP at maximum load, X470 was improved upon in terms of power consumption to a lower TDP of 4.8 W. For X570, this has increased massively to an 11 W TDP which causes most vendors to now require small active cooling of the new chip.
Another major change due to the increased power consumption of the X570 chipset when compared to X470 and X370 is the cooling required. All but one of the launched product stack features an actively cooled chipset heatsink which is needed due to the increased power draw when using PCIe 4.0 due to the more complex implementation requirements over PCIe 3.0. While it is expected AMD will work on improving the TDP on future generations when using PCIe 4.0, it's forced manufacturers to implement more premium and more effective ways of keeping componentry on X570 cooler.
This also stretches to the power delivery, as AMD announced that a 16-core desktop Ryzen 3950X processor is set to launch later on in the year, meaning motherboard manufacturers needed to implement the new power deliveries on the new X570 boards with requirements of the high-end chip in mind, with better heatsinks capable of keeping the 105 W TDP processors efficient.
Memory support has also been improved with a seemingly better IMC on the Ryzen 3000 line-up when compared against the Ryzen 2000 and 1000 series of processors. Some motherboard vendors are advertising speeds of up to DDR4-4400 which until X570, was unheard of. X570 also marks a jump up to DDR4-3200 up from DDR4-2933 on X470, and DDR4-2667 on X370. As we investigated in our Ryzen 7 Memory Scaling piece back in 2017, we found out that the Infinity Fabric Interconnect scales well with frequency, and it is something that we will be analyzing once we get the launch of X570 out of the way, and potentially allow motherboard vendors to work on their infant firmware for AMD's new 7nm silicon.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
447 Comments
View All Comments
IGTrading - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
Oh ... so there is a Platinum "award" too ?! :)That's probabily reserved for ... which other CPU is better in the same price range ?! Oh right, none.
This is subjective on my behaf, but these AMD chips are as <gold> as they can be. Sure, <platinum> would entail winning all tests ... but <gold> is well deserved.
Nobody's going to go back and check IF 9900K ever got some award or not. They'll likely be left with the impression that Ryzen 3000 is <silver> or second best (or even third, by your count) .
I feel this is so damn subjective on me, but I guess I come with 24 years of experience in this field which include a short 2 year stint in tech journalism and since that was 8 years ago, I'm allowed a bit of lack of objectivity.
If me and my colleagues were left with this impression, I'm sure many others are and Ryzen 3000 is in no way second best in its class.
Mugur - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
My thoughts exactly...Meteor2 - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
I think the "awards" are a bit silly; they don't add anything and Anandtech would be better without them.Phynaz - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Need some ointment for that butthurt?DrKlahn - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Thank you for posting this. As someone that has been in the industry over 20 years as well I was taken aback at Silver too.We've had a decade of Intel fleecing the market. Small gains being parceled out for high cost. Coupled with a platform that never lives beyond the generation it came out for.
The 1st generation Ryzen came out swinging. Was it perfect? No. Was it valid competition in a market in desperate need of it? Absolutely. Here we are a few years later with a product offering essentially the same or better performance vs the competition with much better efficiency at a much lower price. And it gets a "Silver". I really question the objectivity of this site.
TEAMSWITCHER - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
"Intel fleecing the market?" - Your hatred is showing.DrKlahn - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
No, I've bought both. But you'd have to be very naive to call the "progress" made after Bulldozer flopped and the Core architecture dominated anything but milking the market while moving things at a snails pace. Intel had every chance to continue to boldly innovate, but instead chose to parcel out small incremental changes and charge a hefty premium for them.I'll buy whatever makes sense. Right now that isn't Intel in my opinion. May change when Sunny Cove hits.
Xyler94 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
The fact people are still holding onto Sandy Bridge because they don't feel like Coffee Lake isn't a good upgrade should be your reasoning that yes, Intel wasn't really doing much. Heck, I'm on my 4790k, and the only CPUs that peeked my interest is the AMD 3900x and 3950x, because those are great looking processors. If I were more into overclocking, maybe I'd spring for the 9900k, but it's not a processor that peeked my interest...Meteor2 - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Well there was the "benchmarking Sandy Bridge in 2019" article a couple of months back. That showed that a 9700K is about 1.5-2x faster than a 2600K. Yes that's not the same rate of improvement, over seven years, which we saw up to Sandy Bridge, but it is still a hell of a lot faster for roughly the same cash price.It's just the increments -- a few percent a generation -- have been small. But they have compounded.
Xyler94 - Monday, July 22, 2019 - link
Your 1.5 to 2 times faster was in what, productivity? What about gaming? That's what I was alluding to.