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Zen 2 - a lesson in hypetrains

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I'm creating this thread to remind people of being cautious of overhyping unreleased products, as it seems like it has become a very bad tendency in this forum. Although Zen 2 was a very impressive and positive launch, the performance was substantially below what many overly-optimistic users had predicted on various tech communities over the last year. On Techpowerup’s forum it can be summed up best by this thread:


In May, 2018, several users made stupendous predictions about Zen 2's performance improvements, of which the predominant one was that of a user who claimed that a 20% IPC + 20% frequency + 50% core increase was well within range:

If 7nm Ryzen comes out before Intel gets (real) 10nm/8-core products out... They will curbstomp Intel harder than possibly even SandyBridge crushed AMD.

The current estimate is that 7nm products can use 60% less power than 14nm for the same performance, or it can also offer a 40% boost at the same power consumption. There is also up to a massive 45% reduction in die size (almost half the size!).
So even if we were to be insanely conservative and assume the end result is half as good as expected, we would get enough room to add 2-6 more cores and increase single-threaded performance by 40%.

These opinions were of course disapproved by several users, as they displayed a severe lack of understanding of how technology works. Process node shrinks that do theoretically allow for these performance increases almost never really ever do so in practice (as virtually all cases of CPUs with node shrinks over the years have shown); the advertised improvements from node shrinks are always exaggarated, and never represent real-life cases. Nevertheless, the above user would have none of it, and also had his opinions vehemently defended by other participants:

Had to make an account just to stop you incorrectly bashing others, please learn more about the silicon before you lose yourself in your own arrogance. Zen was built on a 14nm architecture designed for 3ghz mobile, this is why it hits a voltage and clock ceiling at 4.0-4.1ghz. Zen+ was built on '12nm' which is largely marketing for an optimised 14nm process but has allowed that ceiling to lift to approximately 4.3-4.4ghz. 7nm from both GloFo and TSMC has been designed for 5ghz, not 3, not 4, just to make sure you get your maths right, 5. Now if AMD were able to get 25% out of a 3ghz optimised process then it wouldn't be all that difficult for them to get 5ghz, what the process is intended for, out of 7nm.

Now you've got two options, stop hating on other users when actually they are more on the money than you with their predictions or actually look up the facts before presenting your argument because at the moment you just sound uninformed and it is making you look bad.

Good day

The discussion quickly escalated, with allegations being thrown around of those disagreeing about the predictions being "Intel fanboy", whose criticisms were demonstrative of having "their head in the sand". It finally ended with the user lamenting and concluding his opinions:

This fallacy that "AMD fanboys elevate expectations" is complete BS too lol. Ryzen over-delivered expectations kids, and who cares what fanboys talk about? If someone gets mislead by hype, it's their fault!

From where I am sitting, it seems like there are still a lot of people around here who are simply so whipped by Intel that they cannot possibly bring themselves to believe that it's possible to have decent performance gains Year-Over-Year.
(...)
But now there really is nothing more for me to say if common sense continues to escape people. I will simply be taking screenshots of comments to rub in peoples' faces in under a year lol.

To which it was answered with

At the end of the day it doesn't matter. Your humongous claims of 20%+ IPC improvement + 20% clock speed + 50% more cores at the same time is in this thread, in black and white. As is the claim of a total performance improvement of around 15% by me, sergionography and Vayra86. I'm more than happy to wait until Ryzen 3, next year.

And now "next year" has come and...well...the facts speak for themselves.

Let this be a lesson about the futility in overhyping things. With Navi coming up, and then Zen 3 in mid-2020, let us be a bit more mature and not fall in love with every single preposterous rumor that pops up, however enticing they may be. Not all rumors are wrong, but we have now witnessed products, especially those by AMD (Polaris, Vega, Zen+, etc.), being overhyped time and time again, only for them to release with performance far below the initial illusory forecasts. Common sense is very clear on where we should stand and how we should behave.

Zen 2 is a great architecture and hardly any reasonable person would claim otherwise. Yet, compared to the predictions of the users above, Zen 2 is a disappointment. This is the sad irony in the erroneous confidence of these people: they end up damaging the very product they want to be good.

EDIT: I would like to underline that this discussion is about hypetrains and how we can avoid it. Let's please stick to the topic and not turn it into a trolling, baiting, flaming drama fest. Keep it civil, please.
 
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Both of the things that @Captain_Tom dude said came true on the desktop. -- I mean AMD stock alone in the last 3 months is up 44%. Intel is down 14% for the same time period. They added the cores... now they have a 16 core desktop piece in the works.

Considering the relative size of both companies that's about as hard of a curb-stomp as can happen.

He was off on IPC gains but pretty spot-on otherwise.

Intel now has to hold the server market or the pain will get worse until they release in 2020.
 
I'm going Zen 2 for my next CPU regardless; as spending $499 on swiss cheese just isn't my thing...
 
Low quality post by R-T-B
Have a like, if only because I hate hypetrains with a passion. Nothing good ever comes of them.
 
Lol @ quoting Captain_Tom :D
 
No upgrading for me.
There has always been hype in this industry, like with other fields of endeavour in the real world today... competition in capitalism has very little if any bounds it seems.
No surprise here!
 
Low quality post by NdMk2o1o
Nice troll thread, you nothing better to do with your time, here's a thought If you don't want to buy zen 2 then just don't, don't try and mock those who want to or are excited about it, what a sad life you must have to find joy in berating other people's choices

Funny you finish up calling people fanboys whilst complaining about it just a little further up your op:kookoo:
 
Low quality post by Deleted member 178884
124423
 
Low quality post by NdMk2o1o
Joined may 14th 21 posts, all on amd threads, troll much?
 
Thread Closed.
With some discussion and at the request of the OP.
I re-open the thread.
Stay on topic.
Be civil... if it is not civil and on topic... Don't Post It.
Behave and stay on topic, or penalties will be given.

Thank You.
 
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A good place to start with an upcoming product is, as I mentioned in my first thread, Navi. Most of the hype existing around it today have branched out from Jim at AdoredTV and his "source". Jim presented the information he got regarding both Zen 2 and Navi in a video in December, 2018. Now that we can resolutely say he was reasonably wrong in the information he received regarding Zen 2 (but also Navi in terms of release dates), as well as its inconsistency with later information regarding Navi's supposed efficiency, his Navi predictions should be completely forgotten. The reliability of what he provided has verified itself worthless. Furthermore, the price points he assumed Navi to be at are also quite ambitious; Navi 10 is/was, according to Jim, matching the RTX 2070 in performance at 150W TDP, for only $250.
 
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A good place to start with an upcoming product is, as I mentioned in my first thread, Navi. Most of the hype existing around it today have branched out from Jim at AdoredTV and his "source". Jim presented the information he got regarding both Zen 2 and Navi in a video in December, 2018. Now that we can resolutely say he was reasonably wrong in the information he received regarding Ryzen (but also Navi, in terms of release dates), as well as its inconsistency with later information regarding Navi's supposed efficiency, his Navi predictions should be completely forgotten. The reliability of what he provided has verified itself worthless. Furthermore, the price points he assumed Navi to be at are also quite ambitious,; Navi 10 is supposedly matching the RTX 2070 in performance at 150W TDP, for only $250.

There is a distinction to be made.

Hype by the company making the product or those in the community. All publications "trust" worthy or "click-bait" get information wrong. The days of responsible & accountability are gone in M.S.M. and hardly ever applied to the "new" and "social" medias.

How can you avoid it? Common sense. Not like Tech-sites or Tech-youtubers are going to give up rumor stories or click-bait articles. Its their meal ticket, integrity be dammed.
 
EDIT: I would like to underline that this discussion is about hypetrains and how we can avoid it. Let's please stick to the topic and not turn it into a trolling, baiting, flaming drama fest. Keep it civil, please.
Here's the thing about hype-trains, if they're right/correct/true, the hype is valid and appropriate. Just my 2 cents...
 
Here's the thing about hype-trains, if they're right/correct/true, the hype is valid and appropriate. Just my 2 cents...

That's a given. My observation and criticism is of the frequency of product releases falling behind the preliminary rumours/expectations. Of course, we need to treat each invidiual case by themselves for the most part. But very often the "predictions" being provided are very unlikely. Take the case of the Zen 2 hype mentioned in the OP. The argument provided for why Zen 2 would perform as well as it would (40% single-thread + 50% more cores) was based on weak points, and they were fairly quickly discredited. The real question is therefore why these users still hold to these argument, long after they have been thoroughly rebuked.

There is a distinction to be made.

Hype by the company making the product or those in the community. All publications "trust" worthy or "click-bait" get information wrong. The days of responsible & accountability are gone in M.S.M. and hardly ever applied to the "new" and "social" medias.

Mainstream media accountability/reliability is a myth, and hasn't really been true since the 19th century, when medias were truly free. Ever since market forces (big business) took over, consumerism, amongst other things, has been pushed on readers. And that includes advertising of consumer culture and products, of which "hyping" is a part of. I'm sure that not long after Zen 2 is out in a month's time, we'll see "rumours" about Zen 3. Why? Because that is the function of the business press, who are after all owned by large corporations, and whose newspapers are sponsored by the advertising industry (to which the companies of said products belong) -- people often misunderstand the motive of newspapers to gain "clicks", but in reality they don't make money on clicks/viewerships, but instead on sponsors; the readers/viewers is the product these advertisers "buy". That's just basic political economic analysis that you can read in any book. Alex Carey has written extensively about this very topic.

What the above mentioned case leads to is misinformed readers, which is the main goal of the advertising industry after all (make you buy something you otherwise wouldn't have), and a tremendous burden of responsibility is therefore laid on people to see through the marginalization and not get carried away. It's not easy. In the case of the hyping we are discussing, however, it has grown even more sophisticated. Users let themselves get carried away due to affirmation bias, as they have developed personal attachments to products and corporations, which is completely irrational and constructed. Due to consumerism much of peoples' attitudes and lives have been transferred over to the consumer segment. Instead of having strong belifes, and therefore also discourse, of various political philosophies and ideologies, people have them regarding different products and companies (AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, Samsung, Google, and so on and so forth). It's irrational in nature, which also leads to the creation of all these irrational expectations we see.
 
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At least there is some hype with AMD's recent offerings unlike Intel who have maxed out there clocks and still stuck at 14nm with 10nm looking like a distant dream, that's not a bad thing, I think it's called competition
 
Innovation is the word and not hype is the word that comes to mind for AMD. Even though I am convinced that X570 will be a little eye watering in terms of price.
 
There's nothing wrong with hype trains that are put in proper context and people understand what they are and that all information is pure speculation based on knowledge known at the time.

Why do people always have to poo poo on having fun speculating?
 
I don't fall for the hype, I think in real terms, I have a AMD™ Ryzen 7 1700 and it just hits 3.9 unstably. I brought it at release for £330 when the DDR4 high speed memory was completely unavailable.
I have watched in two years the price of a new AMD™ Ryzen 7 1700 reach £150 in that time.
I am interested in a New AMD™ Ryzen 7 3700X or AMD™ Ryzen 7 3800X central processing unit and all it mean to me is the same central processing unit at 4500mhz instead of 3750mhz. 750mhz is a gain,
in Far Cry™ 5 I only use 33% of the AMD™ Ryzen 7 1700 central processing unit,
is it worth it to me?
I really do hope for some overclocking potential and hope it can reach a 4750mhz stable, but I am still unsure with the market prices falling so much.
hope the best for AMD™ products.
 
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In recent times Intel has actually, funnily enough, been victim of the opposite of hype, due to its own folly. Even as late as late year nobody would have expected Intel's 10nm for desktop to come out as late as 2019. And yet here we are, with Intel postponing Ice Lake yet another year, while optimistically aiming for a 10nm mobile launch at the end of this year. Even the most pessimistic person wouldn't have expected Intel 10nm to arrive in 2019, if he were to be asked that in 2015-2016 when 14nm released.

At least there is some hype with AMD's recent offerings unlike Intel who have maxed out there clocks and still stuck at 14nm with 10nm looking like a distant dream, that's not a bad thing, I think it's called competition

The hype around AMD didn't succeed the good offerings they provided; it long preceded it. There was hype around AMD products long before Ryzen, and has been a big issue in its community for many years (existing throughout even the ATI years, in the GPU segment; remember AGP x8?) In the early 2000's it was a big issue regarding Nvidia products as well, for those who remember; there was a ton of hype around Nvidia GFX products, that ended up failing against the superior Radeon cards of ATI.

Even before Ryzen released, a product that was an exemplar shift for AMD, breaking even their own expectations (they went in with the goal of a 40% IPC improvement, but came out with 54% -- laying the foundation for their run at the CPU throne, which they just now deservedly won), people were hyping Ryzen 1 to bits, expecting it to perform way better than it did. So despite it being a hugely impressive processor, completely changing the face of the mobile and desktop CPU scene, many were disappointed due to the exaggerated hype in the months before its release. The first "true" leak of its performance, through French magazine CanardPC, left many disappointed.
 
I don't fall for the hype, I think in real terms, I have a AMD™ Ryzen 7 1700 and it just hits 3.9 unstably. I brought it at release for £330 when the DDR4 high speed memory was completely unavailable.
I have watched in two years the price of the AMD™ Ryzen 7 1700 reach £150 in that time.
I am interested in the New AMD™ Ryzen 7 3700X or AMD™ Ryzen 7 3800X central processing unit and all it mean to me is the same central processing unit at 4500mhz instead of 3750mhz. 750mhz is a gain, but is it worth it to me?
I really do hope for some overclocking potential and hope it can reach a 4750mhz stable, but I am still unsure with the market prices falling so much.
hope the best for AMD™ products.
4.5 will be like 3.75 comparing Ryzen 2 to the 1st gen Ryzen processors and it will hit that believe you me :)
 
Why do people always have to poo poo on having fun speculating?

One mans 40% , another mans 15% can become a 8% reality.

The products not even out and both can be wrong. I suspect that since a slide was show at Computex 2019 it was an opportunity to say, "My guess is closer than yours". Well come on down, The price is Right!!!
 
In recent times Intel has actually, funnily enough, been victim of the opposite of hype, due to its own folly. Even as late as late year nobody would have expected Intel's 10nm for desktop to come out as late as 2019. And yet here we are, with Intel postponing Ice Lake yet another year, while optimistically aiming for a 10nm mobile launch at the end of this year. Even the most pessimistic person wouldn't have expected Intel 10nm to arrive in 2019, if he were to be asked that in 2015-2016 when 14nm released.



The hype around AMD didn't succeed the good offerings they provided; it long preceded it. There was hype around AMD products long before Ryzen, and has been a big issue in its community for many years (existing throughout even the ATI years, in the GPU segment; remember AGP x8?) In the early 2000's it was a big issue regarding Nvidia products as well, for those who remember; there was a ton of hype around Nvidia GFX products, that ended up failing against the superior Radeon cards of ATI.

Even before Ryzen released, a product that was an exemplar shift for AMD, breaking even their own expectations (they went in with the goal of a 40% IPC improvement, but came out with 54% -- laying the foundation for their run at the CPU throne, which they just now deservedly won), people were hyping Ryzen 1 to bits, expecting it to perform way better than it did. So despite it being a hugely impressive processor, completely changing the face of the mobile and desktop CPU scene, many were disappointed due to the exaggerated hype in the months before its release. The first "true" leak of its performance, through French magazine CanardPC, left many disappointed.
it was a damn good CPU and has taken share from Intel, what more do you want? go and look on amazon how many Ryzen CPU's are outselling Intel. Zen 2 has another decent IPC increase (from Ryzen 1st gen) who gives a crap if it,s not the stated 30% it's already 10% close to Intel, the Hype around AMD has been the best it's ever been for 10 years and deservedly so as they now have a CPU that can compete with Intel's best and greatest, if that's not good news for everyone then I don't know what is

You got 6 and 8 core intel CPU's at prices you would have paid for dual and quad cores before Ryzen
 
it was a damn good CPU and has taken share from Intel, what more do you want? go and look on amazon how many Ryzen CPU's are outselling Intel. Zen 2 has another decent IPC increase (from Ryzen 1st gen) who gives a crap if it,s not the stated 30% it's already 10% close to Intel, the Hype around AMD has been the best it's ever been for 10 years and deservedly so as they now have a CPU that can compete with Intel's best and greatest, if that's not good news for everyone then I don't know what is

I think you are taking this too personal and reading into things that are not there. I haven't bashed AMD once (in fact praised them numerous times), or said that Zen 2 or its win over Intel is bad (I literally just wrote "[AMD had a] run at the CPU throne, which they just now deservedly won", and praised Zen 1 for being a "hugely impressive processor, completely changing the face of the mobile and desktop CPU scene", in the post you are responding to). In any case, this discussion has never been about AMD's products by themselves, or Intel or any other. It's about people hyping products too much, and how the products end up falling short of the hype and creating an erronous sense of disappointment, as the products are often independently good. Don't deviate from this subject matter, please. As 95Viper understated: "Behave and stay on topic".
 
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i3 dual core with htt for $150 really????

what is this, 2008?
 
Who cares when vendor A is overhyping and underdelivering in all projects leading up to Ryzen. Literally, AMD cannot be the scapegoat if your argument is based on 'performance relative to vendor A' - AMD isn't Vendor A's research and development arm.
 
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