CPU Performance
Ryzen is eliciting a mixed response from most observers, and the above graphs perfectly illustrate the reasons why.
On the one hand, AMD's £390, 16-thread powerhouse is soundly beaten by the £180, four-thread Core i3-7350K, despite XFR hitting 3.9GHz during the PiFast run. On the other hand, load-up all the cores and the Ryzen 7 1700X has the ability to overthrow the £1,100 Core i7-6900K in multi-threaded scenarios. Talk about an enigma.
The snag, then, is that Intel still has a commanding lead in IPC, which tends to be a key contributor to in-game performance and some everyday workloads. AMD has closed the gap compared to the woeful FX-series, but single-thread proficiency isn't quite what we had hoped. Putting the PiFast result into perspective, the top two Ryzen chips are still playing catch-up with the dated Intel Core i5-2500K, which scored 20.5 way back in 2011.
From a core performance perspective, you could argue that AMD's overall proposition is eerily familiar. Ryzen's key selling point continues to be multi-threaded performance at a cheaper price point than the competition. And you can't knock it on those grounds - no other sub-£400 chip comes close to the 1700X in multi-threaded workloads.
