Ryzen rumors: Perception vs. reality with AMD's new CPU

With the Ryzen 7 launch just two weeks old and Ryzen 5 nearly upon us, AMD’s comeback CPUs are generating as much controversy, confusion, and misinformation as they are excitement. We're cutting through the chatter to give you the real answers about AMD’s new CPU.

Perception: Ryzen runs hot

Reality: Not true

Despite really low thermal design power (TDP) ratings, Ryzen chips have oddly been labeled as running hot. The problem seems to relate to how utilities are reading the new chips' on-die sensors. AMD, in fact, just disclosed that certain CPUs feature offsets that make it look like they're running hot.

“In the short term, users of the AMD Ryzen 1700X and 1800X can simply subtract 20°C to determine the true junction temperature of their processor. No arithmetic is required for the Ryzen 7 1700. Long term, we expect temperature monitoring software to better understand our tCTL offsets to report the junction temperature automatically,” the company wrote in a blog post.

[ Further reading: These 20 absorbing PC games will eat days of your life ]

Keep in mind, we’re talking about Ryzen performance under stock settings—not overclocked. Even so, if the tool were off by 20 degrees in the upward direction, it would definitely appear to be hot. 

The fix is likely to come once the utilities are updated to recognize the offset of the CPU.

Belief: Intel has already slashed prices in reaction to the Ryzen launch

Answer: Not true

Soon after Ryzen had its coming-out party, several websites ran stories saying Intel slashed prices in reaction to the new rival.

More proof: Here’s the camelcamelcamel.com historical price (on Amazon) of an 8-core Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K, which you’d think would be under immense pricing pressure from AMD’s 8-core Ryzen chips. The price slash of the CPU goes from $1,100 to $1,021. Looking at that and historical data for other Intel CPUs, I’m seeing more paper cuts than slashes.

Perception: Ryzen is terrible for gaming

Reality: Not true

If there’s just one fact from this entire column that you should remember, it’s this one: Ryzen is not terrible for gaming. Yes, even if your friend heard it from a friend who was watching a friend's Twitch stream, I repeat: It is not terrible for gaming.

AMD’s gaming performance can at times be perplexing. In multi-threaded and single-threaded applications, it's generally outstanding. In tested games, however, Ryzen tends to takes third place behind Intel’s Kaby Lake and Broadwell-E CPUs. This is akin to saying an Olympic 100-meter runner is “slow” for getting a bronze medal. Of course, its gaming performance at higher resolutions and high-quality visual settings is mostly imperceptible, because that usually turns into a GPU load, rather than a CPU load. In sum, Ryzen is a fine gaming CPU and not terrible at all, folks.

Perception: AMD is as good as Intel in gaming today

Reality: Partially true

We just said Ryzen isn't terrible for gaming, but it's also not the best. The vast majority of our own tests, along with tests conducted by other reviewers, show that when using today’s games and today's version of Windows, Ryzen takes a backseat to Intel’s CPUs

Perception: An 8-core chip is a better gaming CPU if you want to be the next PewDiePie

Reality: True

Reasonable people will agree that Intel’s parts are faster than AMD’s chips for today’s games, but that’s for traditional gaming. The exhibitionist culture of today means you don’t play by yourself anymore—you’re probably streaming live to an audience on YouTube, Twitch, or Facebook as you try to become the next Internet sensation.

Perception: There’s a massive motherboard shortage

Reality: Mostly true

After an initial shortage of Ryzen CPUs, you can now actually buy the chips. The problem? You may not be able to get a motherboard to put it in.

Specifically it’s hard to find the top-end, enthusiast-focused X370 boards. Plenty of the more sedate B350 boards are available.

No need to cut the line, though: Spot-checks of Newegg and Amazon (as of this writing) showed some availability. One motherboard vendor promised that more were arriving by the boatload.

Still, we’ll rate this as mostly true, because when you have a shiny new Ryzen 1700 staring at you from your build bench, you're not going to be a patient camper.