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.
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Korguz - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
huh ???mkozakewich - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
"...as unfortunately the timing didn’t work out."You should increase his voltage a little and reboot, that might help.
Meteor2 - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
It's hard to get one's head around this, but basically: *all* the Intel benchmarks *do not* include the security patches for the MDS-class flaws. The 9000 and 8000 series tests do include the OS-side Spectre fixes, but that's it. No OS-fixes for other CPUs, and no motherboard firmware fixes for any Intel CPUsAt the very least, all the Intel CPUs should be retested on Windows 10 1903 which has the OS-side MDS fixes.
Most if not all the motherboards used for the Intel reviews can also have their firmware upgraded to fix Spectre and most times MDS flaws. Do it.
This is sensible and reasonable to do: no sensible and reasonable user would leave their OS vulnerable. Maybe the motherboard, because it's a bit scary to do, but as that can be patched, it should be by reviewers.
This would result in all the Intel scores being lower. We don't know by how much without this process actually being done. But until it is, the Intel results, and thus the review itself, are invalid.
While you're at it Anandtech, each year buy the latest $999 GPU for CPU testing. Consider it a cost of doing business. Letting the GPU bottleneck the CPU on most game resolutions benchmarked is pointless.
plonk420 - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
mountain time zone, best time zone... 7am 7/7!exactopposite - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
Been waiting on this one for a long timeEris_Floralia - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
It's really nice to see Andrei starting to take part in desktop processor reviews and Gavin Bonshor's hardwork!mjz_5 - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
Intel gets 5% better FPS In games is really not a win. I’ll consider that a tie. In multiple applications AMD gets 20% more performance. That’s a win!!Dragonstongue - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
hopefully Anal lists :P see how much a "win" the Ryzen 3k / x5xx / Navi truly are, not only to get AMD margins even higher but to take more market share from Intel and "stagnate" Nvidia's needing to "up the price" to make more $$$$$$ when AMD "seems" to be making "as much if not more" selling a small amount less per unit (keep in mind, AMD is next Playstation and Xbox which are 99/9% likely to be using the same silicon, so, AMD take a "small hit" to get as many Ryzen gen 3 and Navi "in the world" which drums up market/mindshare which is extremely important for any business, at this stage in the game is VITAL for AMD.sor - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
I’m honestly wondering what the point is of the gaming benchmarks for CPU tests anymore.It seems like the game is either so easy to render that we are comparing values in the hundreds of FPS, or they’re so hard to render that it’s completely GPU dependent and the graph is flat for all CPUs.
In the vast majority of tests here one would have an identical experience with any of the top four CPUs tested.
Targon - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Game engines are starting to use more cores, and at lower resolutions(which do not stress the video card all that much) will show improvements/benefits of using one CPU or even platform over another. In this review, due to the RAM being used, the gaming benchmarks are almost invalid(DDR4-3200 CL16), since moving to CL14 RAM would potentially eliminate any advantage Intel has in these benchmarks.