AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Processor Preview
It’s finally here! We’ve waited, literally for years for this day to arrive and now we finally get to see what AMD has to show for years of hard work and engineering. Unfortunately for AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, the internet can be a harsh and unforgiving place, so it has to be at the top of its game in order to save itself from crucifixion.
Here at PureOC AMD, gave us the chance to review AMD Ryzen 7 1800X and provided numerous samples for us to put through the paces. This isn’t the review, but since the time it will take to publish will be a little bit longer, we figured we’d start with a bit of a preview for launch day.
In this preview, we’ll mostly talk about first impressions, but there will be a few benchmarks to begin comparing with as well. I also want to talk about the experience. Raw performance numbers should never be overlooked, but building computers is about so much more than numbers for many people out there. Let’s go ahead and begin with some thoughts on how the Ryzen experience felt at first, then bring a few comparative benchmarks, and finish off with initial thoughts on whether AMD has succeeded with their Ryzen 7 series or not. In this particular preview, we start with the Ryzen 7 1800X and the Aorus AX370 Gaming 5 motherboard, but our reviews will also cover the 1700X, 1700, and Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard.
Closer Look at AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Processor
The Ryzen Experience
Not all experiences are able to be measured. Much of that could be due to the fact that a process was never figured out, but sometimes things just feel like they’re going right, even when you can’t put your finger on a precise reason. I noticed this with the Ryzen 7 1800X when I was building the system and setting up Windows 10.
For starters, everything had a very good quality feel to it. AMD CPUs have always been a bit beefier than Intel ones, but that disparity has become more noticeable the thinner the PCB gets on newer i7s. This is a perfect example of what I mentioned earlier. A thicker, heavier CPU doesn’t mean anything, but it feels like something right is happening. Even the motherboard had a sturdier feel to it. This could be entirely coincidence, but if AMD is focusing on making their hardware affordable for their manufacturing partners, as well as consumers, then their partners may take the opportunity to add extra quality to their boards.
The PGA socket design has certainly received its fair share of praise for being the sturdier design, but I still feel like socket quality depends on both the CPU and motherboard manufacturer. Case in point, I had an AM3+ motherboard where traces would easily crack from too much cooler pressure and Intel has had plenty of LGA designs hold up just fine. That said, the AM4 socket in the Aorus felt great. It seemed a bit sturdier, but it was when I installed the Noctua NH-U12S that I felt improvements were made all around. The lid on the 1800X seemed to make perfect contact with the base of the cooler. It’s a minor detail, but one I appreciated nonetheless.
Early Testing
My go to test is CPU Mark. Even though I believe there might be some room for optimization for Ryzen, I still like the baseline results it gives me. While I checked the results against the 7700K I have, I really wanted to see how far we came from the 8350. That was the last major architectural improvement AMD released until Ryzen today. I expected to see major improvements and I did. The initial results showed about a 35% improvement on the single-thread test with a massive 60% improvement on multi-thread results. This wasn’t a clock-for-clock test, but more of a stock-for-stock test. I ran three runs since each test has a bit of variance, which you can see below.
Conclusion
Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves if AMD Ryzen 7 1800X processor is going to be a worthy competitor to Intel right now. I think the answer to that is yes. Intel will keep the single-thread crown, but AMD seems to have some nice perks going its way for multi-threading. Maturity is in Intel’s favor at the moment, but time will help remedy that issue for AMD, increasing clock speeds along the way. AMD is not that far behind in this bracket this time though. Clock for clock, it seems to be a bit of give and take for both sides. What surprises me about this is how AMD is the new champion of power efficiency.
The Ryzen 7 1800X is an 8-core, 16-thread monster that operates on a 95W TDP. I noticed that raise a tiny bit with XFR in HWInfo, but between software not being necessarily as accurate as external equipment and the margin being so small, it seems AMD has tapped into some black magic here.
It looks like Ryzen is a win entirely on its own, with price points giving it even more of an advantage for consumers to consider. This seems like just the thing the CPU market needed to help kick it into high gear again, which should really help us builders out as well. Once again, this is just a preview so check back with us a bit later, since we’ll be working on the full official review with awards, we’ll take more detailed looks at overclocking, and take deeper dives into the X370 chipset. We’ll make sure to include some nice closer looks at the chips, the socket, and motherboards then as well.
