Intel HEDT beware: Ryzen Benchmark leaks suggest strong multithreaded performance and remarkable IPC gain

As we eagerly approach the launch of Ryzen processors, benchmark leaks continue to pour in like cats and dogs. Every tech forum member and their mod is out posting (or reading) leaked benchmarks; Chinese, Greek, Nordic – any website would do as long as the Google translator can spot the word “Ryzen”! Here, at the Technoprozium, we don’t usually take fondly to rumors and leaks as those often turn out to be false, exaggerated or even artificial. The fervor surrounding Ryzen however is quite real and compelled us to gather a few latest and interesting leaked benchmarks to share with you.

The first report comes from WCCFtech, a site known for its innumerable articles based on leaked and rumored substances, via Techpowerup. The benchmark in question is Passmark CPU test – a comprehensive test suite that runs eight different tests that stress and evaluate the performance of a processor under various types of workloads including integer math, floating point calculation, prime numbers, encryption, compression and others. Results here show that the 8-core/16-thread AMD chip which from its 3.4GHz clock speed seems like an R7 1700X, deliver excellent numbers across the bench. In fact, in 5 out of the 8 tests conducted, Ryzen outperforms the much more expensive i7-6900K (3.7GHz) which is Intel’s flagship 8-core HEDT (High End Desk-Top) solution based on the latest Broadwell-E cores. The “supposed” 1700X dominates integer math and encryption tests and treads blow with Intel’s heavyweight in others. Most impressive however is the result of single-threaded test where the Ryzen chip nips in the heel of Intel’s finest, humbling the likes of 5960X and 6800K! Intel’s Kaby Lake i7-7700K is still faster in this test but that’s a quad-core mainstream CPU with a very high 4.5GHz boost-clock. The takeaway point here is Ryzen can match latest Intel processors with similar configuration clock-for-clock – very impressive to say the least! We would still like these results to be confirmed come review day. Here are some of the slides, click to enlarge – 

Next up is the result of Cinebench R15 – one of our favorite 3D rendering benchmarks. According to this report published by Videocardz, a Chinese site called Xfastest (surely they do justice to their name) is behind this leak. Here the same R7-1700X scores 1537 and 154 respectively in multithreaded and single threaded test. To put things in retrospect, Videocardz’s author’s own overclocked Core i7-6800K (@ 4.0 GHz) scored 1259 points in multithreaded mode, much lower than what Ryzen achieved.

Forbes’s Antony Leather went a step ahead and compiled this list based on the aforementioned score and again AMD’s latest closely follows Intel’s greatest.

image credit - Antony Leather

Let’s move on to a more budget friendly segment and we have the 6-core/ 12-thread Ryzen-5 1600X on our radar. The source is once again WCCFtech and the data shows AMD’s mid-tier CPU leapfrogging past Intel's Core i7-6850K when tested using CPU-Z internal benchmark tool. Now keep in mind, while the Intel HEDT chip has the same core count and frequency range, it costs around 50K INR. Once released, R7-1600X should retail around 18K (not accounting for price gouging) at which price point it could be killer deal! TheForbes guy once again put together a nice chart including the results of  i7-7700K which once again leads the pack in single thread performance thanks to its clock-speed, but falls apart in the multithreaded one.

image credit - Antony Leather

As with any leaked info, take these with appropriate amount of salt! One thing is clear though: if the results shown here prove to be consistent with what reviewers find in the upcoming days then AMD engineers have really done what many thought was impossible – restoring performance parity with Intel at the core-level! When it comes to desktop processors, we believe Ryzen is going to pose a serious challenge for Intel at both ends of the spectrum. At the very entry level, Intel has this tendency to artificially limit hardware resources e.g. - i3s have only two physical cores and lack Turbo, i5s don’t have Hyper-Threading and before Kaby Lake neither did Pentiums. On the other hand, HEDT line runs on architecture that’s a generation or two older than mainstream yet demands a higher platform cost. It seems that AMD is gunning for these chinks in Intel’s otherwise thick armor and with Ryzen’s respectable single-core performance and high core count it might just succeed!