Can we put AMD/Ryzen Mac rumours to end

[curmudgeonette]

A 6900K is out of the question for an iMac, never going to happen. However a 1800X is more reasonable.

While Googling for the full Ryzen lineup, I found a rumor listing not just the announced SKUs, but also "Pro" variants at all non-X levels from 1100 to 1800, i.e Ryzen 7 Pro 1700. Hmmm, where have we seen this naming convention? ... ??? Oh, that's right, the Polaris GPUs in the 2016 MBPs. I suspect that "Pro" means Production, i.e. BGA packages sold only to mass producers and not targeting enthusiasts. Apple's not into overclocking, so they wouldn't be interested in the Ryzen X variants. But they certainly would be interested in solderable CPUs.

A lineup that makes sense: The big iMac gets a Vega dGPU and a hexa core Ryzen in the base model, upgradable to an octa core Ryzen. Meanwhile the small iMac gets a Vega iGPU built into a quad core Ryzen. The timeline also makes sense - later this year.

Here's a quote from Federighi ...

... "So we see a really interesting complementary role for our silicon working with Intel. And we certainly work with Intel on our needs to deliver chips into our Mac roadmap and we see that continuing."

Yes, this certainly implies continuing with Intel. However, if Apple were ditching Intel, Federighi wouldn't reveal that at this time.

 

[danielwsmithee]

While Googling for the full Ryzen lineup, I found a rumor listing not just the announced SKUs, but also "Pro" variants at all non-X levels from 1100 to 1800, i.e Ryzen 7 Pro 1700. Hmmm, where have we seen this naming convention? ... ??? Oh, that's right, the Polaris GPUs in the 2016 MBPs. I suspect that "Pro" means Production, i.e. BGA packages sold only to mass producers and not targeting enthusiasts. Apple's not into overclocking, so they wouldn't be interested in the Ryzen X variants. But they certainly would be interested in solderable CPUs.

. You sure that isn't just a reference to the upcoming Naples CPUs. Last I read they were planning on releasing from 6 core to 32 core variants. The nice thing about those chips is they have 64 PCIe lanes, which could make a Mac with 4 NVME slots + TB3 a possibility.

 

[boast]

How is TB3 support on Ryzen coming along?

 

[danielwsmithee]

How is TB3 support on Ryzen coming along?

Ryzen already has all it needs for TB3 (PCIe and Display Port). If you know how to layout a board you could make one today.

 

[Zwopple]

It already does, there is no better performing chip under 95W than the 1800X. The 7700K has slightly better single core performance, but gets blown away in multi-core.

The 7700K bests the 1800X in single core performance by 25% that's not 'slightly better' in my books and a lot of tasks are still single core.

Again AMD needs to pull ahead across the charts to justify the painfulness of switching, even though it's x86 there's still a lot of code using Intel specific instructions in pro apps / frameworks that would need translation.

There is a reason the iPhone even with it's dual core setup was still destroying Android in real world use case tests because it's single core performance is still the industry best and for a lot of things that is the most important.

 

[curmudgeonette]

. You sure that isn't just a reference to the upcoming Naples CPUs.

Not Naples. A sample:

Ryzen 7 1700 8/16 3.0/3.7GHz 65W $319 [This was released at $329]
Ryzen 7 Pro 1700 8/16 ?.?/?.?GHz 65W $299

The "Pro" variants are all $10 to $20 less than the similar named regular variant. Core counts and TDP are the same. Clock speeds of the "Pro" CPUs are all listed as TBD.

 

[mavericks7913]

Might be. Because Intel does not improve CPU that much since 2011. Also, Intel is in serious trouble because of their CEO who is massing up with Intel CPU plans. You can google it. Ryzen surprised a lot of people and it actually perform quite better than Intel CPU so far. Btw Ryzen 7 series were focused for multi cores like Xeon. Comparing with i7 is meaningless. Ryzen 5 will compete with i7 series soon.

 

[Pressure]

I do believe people are missing the point entirely.

Ryzen is the cheapest option for an 8-core/16-thread CPU on the market. We have been stuck on 4-core (i5) with Intel for too long because of no competition.

I would buy an 8-core/16-thread iMac with 5K or better yet 8K display, as that fits my usage perfectly.

 

[Malus120]

I do believe people are missing the point entirely.

Ryzen is the cheapest option for an 8-core/16-thread CPU on the market. We have been stuck on 4-core (i5) with Intel for too long because of no competition.

I would buy an 8-core/16-thread iMac with 5K or better yet 8K display, as that fits my usage perfectly.

100% agree with this.

I really don't understand how some people seem to be so attached to Intel that they can't see how the lack of competition has led to stagnating performance, and just how big of a leap Ryzen offers over Intel.

When PC enthusiasts and sites like Anandtech/ArsTechnica/etc have to debate whether its really worth replacing a 6(!) year old Sandy Bridge i7 2700K (overclocked) with a modern 7700K/7600K, that says a lot about how far we HAVEN'T come in the last few years.

The fact is that 8 cores/16 threads in a 65W package at a $320 price point absolutely destroys anything Intel has in almost every metric aside from single core performance (where it's really not THAT far behind).

The 7700K bests the 1800X in single core performance by 25% that's not 'slightly better' in my books and a lot of tasks are still single core.

Again AMD needs to pull ahead across the charts to justify the painfulness of switching, even though it's x86 there's still a lot of code using Intel specific instructions in pro apps / frameworks that would need translation.

There is a reason the iPhone even with it's dual core setup was still destroying Android in real world use case tests because it's single core performance is still the industry best and for a lot of things that is the most important.

While I think you make a fair potential point about certain apps/frameworks possibly needing some work to get the most out of Ryzen, I think you may also be overestimating the required amount of work. That said, there's really no need to sit here and debate hypotheticals, the Hackintosh community already has macOS working with Ryzen, and as such configurations become more common and tested, we should be able to see the degree to which dependency on Intel specific code/instructions has an impact on performance and stability (thus giving us a partial answer as to how much work it would take for Apple to "switch").

While I won't deny the i7 7700K certainly pulls ahead of even the Ryzen 1800X by a fair amount in single core performance, it should be kept in mind that this is almost strictly due to its higher turbo clock speed of 4.5Ghz (vs 4Ghz on the 1800X, 3.8Ghz on the 1700X, and 3.7Ghz on the 1700). The actual IPC difference between the chips is within 5-7%. This matters because the 7700K is the only chip in Intel's entire lineup to feature clock speeds like that. Assuming a KabyLake iMac refresh (or just taking the current Skylake models), the chips that would fill out all but the highest end CTO configuration would have clock speeds at or (well) below 4Ghz, making the difference in single core performance mostly academic at best.

I think if actually given the chance, many users would find they very much prefer a drastic increase in multi core performance (at the cost of any increase in single core IPC) vs minor increases in performance across the lineup, with a nice bump on the highest end CTO config.

Your comparison to the situation the iPhone's A series CPU faces in the smart phone market is rather silly and inappropriate IMO. Apple's A series CPU's regularly outclass competing ARM CPU's by a factor of 3x or more in single core IPC, to the point where a dual core Apple design is often beating (or at least competitive with) competing chips with four or even eight (!) cores (clocked twice as high) in multi core workloads. Intel's lead over AMD has never come anywhere close to this, even in the Bulldozer days, and even a cursory examination of Ryzen's performance profile, shows it nipping at Intel's heels in single core IPC. Besides, smartphone (and tablet) workloads are far more dependent on single core performance by their very nature as devices where you're generally only doing one or two tasks at a time, for a short amount of time.

 

[Appleaker]

What if it does happen and your wrong?

They have nothing to worry about.... because Ryzen processors in Macs won't happen.

 

[zin]

I see you fell for the manipulative 7700k vs ryzen 1700/1800 comparisons. compare 6900k vs a ryzen and you will see it falls flat: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6900K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X/3605vs3916. important to note that the 8c/16t chip by intel is 10 months old and still demolishing ryzen. intel makes the best CPU silicon, period. it will be interesting to see how their ryzen 5s (which are 4c/8t processors) compare with intel's 7700k

the only advantage of ryzen is the value/price performance. now depending on who you are, you may care about that. but I just want the best possible processors in Macs. not to mention a whole heap of other things like macOS not working properly (as of yet) on amd processors and thunderbolt.

I wouldn't call an 8% effective speed advantage for almost double the price and a 32% higher TDP demolishing, especially when software patches will likely improve Ryzen's performance...

 

[Zwopple]

100% agree with this.

I really don't understand how some people seem to be so attached to Intel that they can't see how the lack of competition has led to stagnating performance, and just how big of a leap Ryzen offers over Intel.

When PC enthusiasts and sites like Anandtech/ArsTechnica/etc have to debate whether its really worth replacing a 6(!) year old Sandy Bridge i7 2700K (overclocked) with a modern 7700K/7600K, that says a lot about how far we HAVEN'T come in the last few years.

The fact is that 8 cores/16 threads in a 65W package at a $320 price point absolutely destroys anything Intel has in almost every metric aside from single core performance (where it's really not THAT far behind).



While I think you make a fair potential point about certain apps/frameworks possibly needing some work to get the most out of Ryzen, I think you may also be overestimating the required amount of work. That said, there's really no need to sit here and debate hypotheticals, the Hackintosh community already has macOS working with Ryzen, and as such configurations become more common and tested, we should be able to see the degree to which dependency on Intel specific code/instructions has an impact on performance and stability (thus giving us a partial answer as to how much work it would take for Apple to "switch").

While I won't deny the i7 7700K certainly pulls ahead of even the Ryzen 1800X by a fair amount in single core performance, it should be kept in mind that this is almost strictly due to its higher turbo clock speed of 4.5Ghz (vs 4Ghz on the 1800X, 3.8Ghz on the 1700X, and 3.7Ghz on the 1700). The actual IPC difference between the chips is within 5-7%. This matters because the 7700K is the only chip in Intel's entire lineup to feature clock speeds like that. Assuming a KabyLake iMac refresh (or just taking the current Skylake models), the chips that would fill out all but the highest end CTO configuration would have clock speeds at or (well) below 4Ghz, making the difference in single core performance mostly academic at best.

I think if actually given the chance, many users would find they very much prefer a drastic increase in multi core performance (at the cost of any increase in single core IPC) vs minor increases in performance across the lineup, with a nice bump on the highest end CTO config.

Your comparison to the situation the iPhone's A series CPU faces in the smart phone market is rather silly and inappropriate IMO. Apple's A series CPU's regularly outclass competing ARM CPU's by a factor of 3x or more in single core IPC, to the point where a dual core Apple design is often beating (or at least competitive with) competing chips with four or even eight (!) cores (clocked twice as high) in multi core workloads. Intel's lead over AMD has never come anywhere close to this, even in the Bulldozer days, and even a cursory examination of Ryzen's performance profile, shows it nipping at Intel's heels in single core IPC. Besides, smartphone (and tablet) workloads are far more dependent on single core performance by their very nature as devices where you're generally only doing one or two tasks at a time, for a short amount of time.

I don't disagree that Ryzen does have some promise at overtaking Intel but right now it's not in Apple's interests to switch CPU architectures for a modest performance gain in multi-core and a decent hit in single core, Ryzen has to prove itself and prove it's roadmap. Apple doesn't switch CPU's looking at 1-2 year gains they switch looking at what the chips are going to provide in 5-10 years time in terms of production capacity, defects, performance etc…

Please someone explain to me how as a person in charge of a 25 billion dollar business you can look at a first generation chip's best option that is roughly the same performance and price as your current chip provider's best option and decide that you want to be the next 5-10 years on it after it's only been released for a few months?

It just isn't going to happen. Maybe in late 2018 or late 2019.

 

[cynics]

So now that Ryzen 5 is out how do you guys feel about it?

Seems like 1600X outperforms the 7700K in pretty much all productivity task for 100 dollars less (6 core vs 4 core). Gaming is a different story (lower clock vs higher clock).

However given the iMacs gaming bottleneck isn't the CPU I feel comparing gaming benchmarks is a moot point. The GPU bottleneck aside we still have other hardware limitations further pushing my point (stock peripherals, monitor has a low response time with 60hz limit, no freesync, etc).

Intel still offers a lot with proprietary tech and well established support but the question could be ask, how do you feel about paying more for less?

Not saying Apple should or shouldn't do anything, I'm perfectly content with Intel. I'm just curious about your opinions.

 

[dylin]

The thing is the 1800X has a TDP of 95 and fits the thermal requirements of the iMac where as the 7700k has a TDP of 140 and will never survive in an iMac's case without massive upgrades to the thermal architecture.

I still don't think this generation of Ryzen chips are great enough in multi core performance to make up for their single core performance and that is why Apple isn't going to ditch Intel yet. But say next year Intel only increases performance again by 5-15% and Ryzen cleans up a bit and releases a massive 20-40% YoY performance increase, then we're going to see a lot more potential for Apple to use these chips.

I think you meant to say that the 7700k has a TDP of 91.

 

[Malus120]

I don't disagree that Ryzen does have some promise at overtaking Intel but right now it's not in Apple's interests to switch CPU architectures for a modest performance gain in multi-core and a decent hit in single core, Ryzen has to prove itself and prove it's roadmap. Apple doesn't switch CPU's looking at 1-2 year gains they switch looking at what the chips are going to provide in 5-10 years time in terms of production capacity, defects, performance etc…

But that's the thing. Apple wouldn't be switching CPU architectures. Intel Core and AMD Ryzen are both x86-64. The only reason macOS doesn't run on AMD chips (without modifications)as is, is simply due to Apple not bothering to (or at least not bothering to include in retail releases) code for supporting any x86-64 based chip. This is the same reason why you can't (generally) run older versions of macOS (OS X) on newer (Intel) hardware (without modifying the kernel), and its why macOS has to be modified to run with (Intel) CPUs/chipsets its never officially supported (such as Haswell-E/Broadwell-E).

If you look at most other modern x86 OS's however, it doesn't work this way. Any relatively recent version of Windows or Linux will run on almost any Intel/AMD chip, even if that chip was released after the OS stopped receiving support.

In other words, it should be trivial for Apple to get Ryzen (or any other AMD chip) working on (and even optimized for) macOS.

More importantly, this isn't an either or situation. Just because Apple decides to use Ryzen in the iMac for example, doesn't mean they have to use it everywhere. CPUs (of the same architecture), like GPUs are supposed to be relatively interchangeable. There's nothing stopping Apple from, for example, offering AMD Ryzen on the iMac while keeping Intel for the MBP and MP.

Please someone explain to me how as a person in charge of a 25 billion dollar business you can look at a first generation chip's best option that is roughly the same performance and price as your current chip provider's best option and decide that you want to be the next 5-10 years on it after it's only been released for a few months?

Because again, Apple isn't faced with this kind of choice. They can use AMD today, Intel tomorrow, and AMD the next. In fact, I'd argue that Apple would be crazy NOT to be considering using AMD just to put pressure on Intel. While Intel is known for monopolistic (read illegal) behavior such as punishing OEMs for utilizing competing chips, that is all the more reason for Apple to use AMD, as thats not the kind of relationship you want with a key supplier.

Heck, look at whats going on between Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel for an example of this dynamic at work. Apple adopted Intel LTE modems specifically so they could stop being so reliant on Qualcomm. I don't see why people think they wouldn't do the same thing here.

For those who fear that Intel would retaliate (and Mac users would be late to the party on some great new Intel chip), the above example also demonstrates that Apple's relationship with Intel goes beyond just x86 CPUs, and Apple would be more than capable of inflicting punishing retaliation on Intel, more than likely deterring Intel from taking said action.

It just isn't going to happen. Maybe in late 2018 or late 2019.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Time will tell.

So now that Ryzen 5 is out how do you guys feel about it?

Seems like 1600X outperforms the 7700K in pretty much all productivity task for 100 dollars less (6 core vs 4 core). Gaming is a different story (lower clock vs higher clock).

However given the iMacs gaming bottleneck isn't the CPU I feel comparing gaming benchmarks is a moot point. The GPU bottleneck aside we still have other hardware limitations further pushing my point (stock peripherals, monitor has a low response time with 60hz limit, no freesync, etc).

Intel still offers a lot with proprietary tech and well established support but the question could be ask, how do you feel about paying more for less?

Not saying Apple should or shouldn't do anything, I'm perfectly content with Intel. I'm just curious about your opinions.

I know I'm preaching to the choir at this point, but this is (a better articulated version of) exactly what I've been saying. Ryzen just offers (way) more than Intel can (today) for the iMac. The iMac's not (for most people) a (primary) gaming machine, and for all but the minority of productivity apps that are still stubbornly poorly threaded, Ryzen absolutely destroys the Core i5/i7.

Personally, I feel like I'm just not interested in "paying more for less." If Apple wants my money they're going to have to offer a significant jump from the iMac I bought over two years ago (4Ghz Core i7 ). They can do this by either putting Ryzen (6C/12T or 8C/16T) in the iMacs or by getting Intel to deliver significantly better chips for them (6C/12T, 4C/8T@5Ghz).

If all they do is offer 4 core Kaby Lake as is (7700K), then unless they can stuff a monster GPU in there I'm just not interested.

 

[cynics]

But that's the thing. Apple wouldn't be switching CPU architectures. Intel Core and AMD Ryzen are both x86-64. The only reason macOS doesn't run on AMD chips (without modifications)as is, is simply due to Apple not bothering to (or at least not bothering to include in retail releases) code for supporting any x86-64 based chip. This is the same reason why you can't (generally) run older versions of macOS (OS X) on newer (Intel) hardware (without modifying the kernel), and its why macOS has to be modified to run with (Intel) CPUs/chipsets its never officially supported (such as Haswell-E/Broadwell-E).

If you look at most other modern x86 OS's however, it doesn't work this way. Any relatively recent version of Windows or Linux will run on almost any Intel/AMD chip, even if that chip was released after the OS stopped receiving support.

In other words, it should be trivial for Apple to get Ryzen (or any other AMD chip) working on (and even optimized for) macOS.

More importantly, this isn't an either or situation. Just because Apple decides to use Ryzen in the iMac for example, doesn't mean they have to use it everywhere. CPUs (of the same architecture), like GPUs are supposed to be relatively interchangeable. There's nothing stopping Apple from, for example, offering AMD Ryzen on the iMac while keeping Intel for the MBP and MP.



Because again, Apple isn't faced with this kind of choice. They can use AMD today, Intel tomorrow, and AMD the next. In fact, I'd argue that Apple would be crazy NOT to be considering using AMD just to put pressure on Intel. While Intel is known for monopolistic (read illegal) behavior such as punishing OEMs for utilizing competing chips, that is all the more reason for Apple to use AMD, as thats not the kind of relationship you want with a key supplier.

Heck, look at whats going on between Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel for an example of this dynamic at work. Apple adopted Intel LTE modems specifically so they could stop being so reliant on Qualcomm. I don't see why people think they wouldn't do the same thing here.

For those who fear that Intel would retaliate (and Mac users would be late to the party on some great new Intel chip), the above example also demonstrates that Apple's relationship with Intel goes beyond just x86 CPUs, and Apple would be more than capable of inflicting punishing retaliation on Intel, more than likely deterring Intel from taking said action.


Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Time will tell.



I know I'm preaching to the choir at this point, but this is (a better articulated version of) exactly what I've been saying. Ryzen just offers (way) more than Intel can (today) for the iMac. The iMac's not (for most people) a (primary) gaming machine, and for all but the minority of productivity apps that are still stubbornly poorly threaded, Ryzen absolutely destroys the Core i5/i7.

Personally, I feel like I'm just not interested in "paying more for less." If Apple wants my money they're going to have to offer a significant jump from the iMac I bought over two years ago (4Ghz Core i7 ). They can do this by either putting Ryzen (6C/12T or 8C/16T) in the iMacs or by getting Intel to deliver significantly better chips for them (6C/12T, 4C/8T@5Ghz).

If all they do is offer 4 core Kaby Lake as is (7700K), then unless they can stuff a monster GPU in there I'm just not interested.

I tend to agree.

I do quite a bit of software encoding and virtualization so for me Ryzen 5 seems to stand out above most Kaby Lake options and above the rest of Intels line up if utilized in an iMac.

 

[dyn]

I've never been a huge fan of AMD, but your silly to not recognize that Ryzen is the best option available currently for an iMac.

The only thing the AMD people and reviews are focusing on is gaming. They are forgetting that there is a whole word of computing out there such as virtualisation, an area where AMD never has been great compared to Intel (which isn't always there fault, some software simply don't support the AMDs). Saying that the Ryzen is the best for an iMac is just plain stupid as long as no one looks at all the other kinds of computing because one should not forget that the iMac has more uses than gaming alone. The jury is still out.

 

[daflake]

Looks like the processor wars are back! Man it has been a while.

 

[Malus120]

The only thing the AMD people and reviews are focusing on is gaming. They are forgetting that there is a whole word of computing out there such as virtualisation, an area where AMD never has been great compared to Intel (which isn't always there fault, some software simply don't support the AMDs). Saying that the Ryzen is the best for an iMac is just plain stupid as long as no one looks at all the other kinds of computing because one should not forget that the iMac has more uses than gaming alone. The jury is still out.

WTF are you smoking??? Have you actually read any of the reviews for Ryzen? The chip is a productivity monster. It's obvious the chip has been developed with productivity and server applications in mind. To say that AMD CPUs only focus on gaming is just ignorant and untrue. The jury is not at all still out, for anything OTHER than gaming, and poorly threaded applications, Ryzen destroys the Core i5/i7.
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Looks like the processor wars are back! Man it has been a while.

Yes, yes it has. Far too long IMO. I'm just amazed at how many people aren't excited to see the return of robust competition in the x86 CPU space :/

 

[dyn]

Not only do I read proper reviews from sites such as ServeTheHome (there is an entire set of them), I also know the existence of things like IOMMU (see the separate article on that website and someone mentions it in the comments of one of the reviews there with a link to some other guys on YouTube who've found the issue) and QuickSync that are used in many applications (which is even mentioned in the Ryzen 1800 review at ServeTheHome). The Ryzen and Monero review of ServeTheHome is a nice one to read because it will list some of the difficulties with this CPU (they actually recommend against the AMD because of performance + heat).
And there is this too: VMWare Workstation 12.5 VMs on Ryzen?

Besides, all the chips the current reviews are comparing it too are the current generation Intel CPUs, not the ones that are coming later this year/early next year. It wouldn't surprise me that there will be yet another shift. It is basically just leapfrogging. A lot of the performance differences found are due to comparing 4 core to 6 core for example.

But let's get one thing straight: the AMD Ryzen are great CPUs, especially for the money.

 

[bigtomato]

People don't really want Ryzen iMac per se -- they want an improved iMac with more cores and better performance. Since Intel has been unable to produce a mainstream CPU with > 4 cores, Ryzen might be one way to get that.

Intel's laggardly development of > 4 core mainstream CPUs is remarkably similar to their refusal to develop a 64-bit x86 instruction set in the late 1990s. This was an artificial constraint designed as a marketing method to bolster their upcoming 64-bit Itanium CPU.

Back then AMD stepped in and developed 64-bit x86 instructions, and those 64-bit AMD CPUs proliferated so rapidly that by the time Intel finally realized their error, it was too late. For Intel to add 64-bit instructions to their own x86 CPUs, they humiliatingly had to license those from AMD.

In the succeeding years, Intel with their huge fabrication and R&D budget pulled far ahead. However then a developmental malaise set in, and Intel CPU development has stagnated somewhat. Part of this is due to approaching architectural and process limits, but part is intentional. If tiny AMD can develop an 8-core mainstream CPU with such good performance, obviously Intel could have done this long ago.

AMD is not stopping there -- they may have a 16-core Ryzen by end of this year. Intel would greatly prefer selling high-margin Xeon CPUs which at a given clock rate and core count don't perform any better than an i7. However AMD has forced their hand on this.

I don't really think Apple will make a Ryzen iMac, but consumers win either way. If they make one, good. If they don't but Intel fears they might, this will probably wring concessions from Intel and spur their own development. Either way the market will still be flooded with Ryzen-based Windows PCs, so Intel must act -- regardless of what Apple does.

Re "Can we put AMD/Ryzen rumors to end?", the very name of this website is Mac Rumors. A key purpose is to discuss speculative or rumored events. If you don't like people doing the very thing the website is named for, maybe you're at the wrong place.

Apple is stuck with Intel, they will never give AMD a chance because now they are partnering with iphone chips and only intel can offer this so most likey will never see AMD cpu in a mac but hakintosh community probably yes.
[doublepost=1492434094][/doublepost]

The 7700K bests the 1800X in single core performance by 25% that's not 'slightly better' in my books and a lot of tasks are still single core.

Again AMD needs to pull ahead across the charts to justify the painfulness of switching, even though it's x86 there's still a lot of code using Intel specific instructions in pro apps / frameworks that would need translation.

There is a reason the iPhone even with it's dual core setup was still destroying Android in real world use case tests because it's single core performance is still the industry best and for a lot of things that is the most important.

I don't think AMD ever intended to be better than intel, they just want to start growing again and have come out with 'good enough' chips to compete

 

[Malus120]

Not only do I read proper reviews from sites such as ServeTheHome (there is an entire set of them), I also know the existence of things like IOMMU (see the separate article on that website and someone mentions it in the comments of one of the reviews there with a link to some other guys on YouTube who've found the issue) and QuickSync that are used in many applications (which is even mentioned in the Ryzen 1800 review at ServeTheHome). The Ryzen and Monero review of ServeTheHome is a nice one to read because it will list some of the difficulties with this CPU (they actually recommend against the AMD because of performance + heat).
And there is this too: VMWare Workstation 12.5 VMs on Ryzen?

My initial response was perhaps a bit too harsh, I apologize. While I still disagree with the initial assertion you made (that AMD/reviewers are only focused on games)I appreciate that you provided a link to a site with reviews focused on something other than the usual set of productivity apps (just skimming it was educational.) I'm still reading about the IOMMU, but this seems to only be an issue with the B350 chipset (?). The Monero review was interesting but I'm not sure the conclusions of that review regarding power consumption will necessarily carry over to other use cases. As far as QuickSync, both AMD and Nvidia have drop in replacements on their video cards, so I don't see this as a major impediment, and the VM issues seem to be just teething issues that are quickly being worked out.

Besides, all the chips the current reviews are comparing it too are the current generation Intel CPUs, not the ones that are coming later this year/early next year. It wouldn't surprise me that there will be yet another shift. It is basically just leapfrogging. A lot of the performance differences found are due to comparing 4 core to 6 core for example.

I think this is a little unfair, Kaby Lake was just released in January and its going to be quite some time before Intel has new chips out. The key question when they do of course (after when) will be how many cores, at what frequency, and within what TDP Intel will be able to deliver on in regards to their next generation. If Intel can fit a 6 core chip with 7700K clock speeds into a 7700K TDP by the end of the year, Intel will have a powerful contender (albeit a contender that demonstrates just how bad they've been ripping us off), if not they'll have to coast for a while (not that this will hurt them all that much).

But let's get one thing straight: the AMD Ryzen are great CPUs, especially for the money.

This we can agree on

 

[dyn]

Only a few of the Kaby Lake CPUs have been released, the others follow later this year/early next year. It is why the MBP 2016 doesn't come with them (the models used for the MBP weren't released at the time and iirc they still aren't). There have been major delays with Kaby Lake unfortunately.

Th vm issues are not something that will get ironed out quickly I'm afraid. There simply are too many issues with it when you are using AMD CPUs. It probably is part the hardware and part the software. There also isn't much of a market for that to be honest, most of the virtualisation world is on servers and those are far more likely to be using Xeons. That might change with AMD Naples (I know for one that Cray is using a lot of the AMD CPUs in their supercomputer configurations). However, the software used on these machines are not updated overnight, that usually can take up to a year or more (code has to mature in that time because on servers it is all about stability, not so much about performance). It isn't uncommon for Linux servers to be still on kernel 2.6 (Red Hat is still updating its 6.x releases which uses that kernel version; 7.x uses the 3.x kernels). Intel CPUs are not on issue on any of those platforms though.

 

[Malus120]

Only a few of the Kaby Lake CPUs have been released, the others follow later this year/early next year. It is why the MBP 2016 doesn't come with them (the models used for the MBP weren't released at the time and iirc they still aren't). There have been major delays with Kaby Lake unfortunately.

But the CPU's used in the iMac's (the mainstream desktop Core i5/Core i7s) completed their rollout in January, so I fail to see how this is relevant. This thread is about Ryzen in the iMac, not about Apple adopting Ryzen across the entire lineup.

Th vm issues are not something that will get ironed out quickly I'm afraid. There simply are too many issues with it when you are using AMD CPUs. It probably is part the hardware and part the software. There also isn't much of a market for that to be honest, most of the virtualisation world is on servers and those are far more likely to be using Xeons. That might change with AMD Naples (I know for one that Cray is using a lot of the AMD CPUs in their supercomputer configurations). However, the software used on these machines are not updated overnight, that usually can take up to a year or more (code has to mature in that time because on servers it is all about stability, not so much about performance). It isn't uncommon for Linux servers to be still on kernel 2.6 (Red Hat is still updating its 6.x releases which uses that kernel version; 7.x uses the 3.x kernels). Intel CPUs are not on issue on any of those platforms though.

The issue in the reddit post you linked to in your previous post seems to have been resolved unless I'm misunderstanding it. And even some of the articles on the site you linked to seemed to imply that problems had already been worked out, or are quickly being worked out. Now, I'm not an expert in this field, so if you want to point us towards specific articles, that better highlight specific issues that'd be awesome.

That said. I think we're getting a bit off topic. While its' certainly educational, and definitely relevant to Ryzen's suitability for certain kinds of server use cases, I don't think the things you describe above, (and much of what you have linked to) are really relevant to 99.9% of iMac users, nor do I think they are things Apple is considering when designing consumer (or even Pro) Macs. Most people don't buy a Mac (particularly an iMac) so they can install server grade Linux or VMWare ESXi and turn it into a VM farm.

The majority of users experience with virtualization on a Mac is limited to VMWare Fusion or Parallels, which should be easily adaptable to working with AMD's virtualization instructions. Even developers probably aren't running more than a few instances inside software like this on top of macOS, so I honestly fail to see how this would impact even a fraction of iMac users.

 

[BB8]

Ryzen is so much more competitive than AMD's GPU's and yet Apple is more than happy to shovel that hot garbage onto us release after release.