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PCGH news from March 20th: 7 new AMD CPUs, Ryzen 5000 on old AM4 boards, Samsung's OLED TV is coming, AMD is introducing Radeon Super Resolution
03/20/2022 at 18:01
By Manuel Christa –
The week was pretty exciting, so to the point: AMD lets it rip with seven new CPU models, support for old AM4 mainboards and a new upscaling method on the part of graphics drivers. Samsung's OLED TV is coming soon, but unfortunately with a little quirk.
Why the 5800X3D is not overclockable
Ryzen 7 5800X3D comes with eight cores, 16 threads and a boost up to 4.5 GHz (on one core). We suspect the all-core boost in the range between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz. Like the 5800X, the TDP is 105 watts. In addition to the regular cache, a 5800X3D offers 64 MiByte 3D V-Cache.
And, yes, unfortunately, the X3D is not supposed to be overclockable and AMD has now confirmed that. The CPU is "hard locked" – so there should be no detour. Whether that is really the case remains to be seen. One would assume that AMD would limit the multiplier in the CPU and the board partners would patch all other options from the motherboards. It is not entirely clear whether it is ultimately the purely thermal problems. The NAND, which is piggybacked on the compute die as a cache, is supposed to run at 1.3 to 1.35 volts, which is a problem for the cores, because in order to achieve top clock speeds, they sometimes run at 1.45 to 1 .5 volts. As a result, restrictions had to be put in place.
Ryzen 4000 and 5000: New six cores
In addition to the X3D, AMD is bringing three more Zen 3 processors onto the market. It starts with Ryzen 7 5700X, an eight-core with 16 threads, a boost of up to 4.6 GHz and a TDP of 65 watts. The CPU probably only clocks 100-200 MHz lower than a Ryzen 7 5800X under load. Since the amount of L3 cache remains identical to the 5800X, gaming performance should be almost identical. With high application loads, however, the TDP class of 65 watts can provide noticeably less power compared to its big brother with 105 watts. A 5700X competes in price with Intel's Core i5-12600K, which is currently available for around 290 euros. There are also two new six-core processors, Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 5 5500. The 5600 is the CPU the world has been waiting for since the launch of Zen 3: a 5600X for under 200 euros. The specs on paper look very good, with a 5600 only clocking 200MHz lower than a 5600X, offering the same amount of L3 cache and the same TDP. The CPU should only be slightly slower than a 5600X and also an i5-12400.
However, our alarm bells should also ring with the Ryzen 5 5500. Although this CPU clocks at up to 4.2 GHz, it only offers an L3 cache of 16 MiBytes, a drop of 50 percent compared to a 5600X. AMD did the same thing with the Ryzen 5 3500 compared to the Ryzen 5 3600 and, as the test for the Ryzen 5 3500 showed, the cut in the L3 cache sometimes costs more than 40 percent of the frame rate in games. Tests will have to show whether this is also the case with the Zen 3 equivalent. In terms of price, AMD places the Ryzen 5 5600 and 5500 in the Intel Core i5-12400(F) range. The Intel i5 is as fast as a Ryzen 5 5600X and should therefore offer better value for money.
Only two processors are really new, namely Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100. Of course, the Ryzen 5 4600G has been around for a long time, but so far only for the OEM market. It is a Zen 2 APU from the Renoir generation with a Vega graphics unit.
New Ryzens on old motherboards
And that we can still experience that! AMD officially enables Zen 3 support on X370, B350 and A320 with AGESA 1.2.0.7. Why not go straight to the base?! So if you've always wanted to run your old AM4 board with the fastest gaming CPU, then you may do so soon. An update from the manufacturer is important, so be sure to check the manufacturer's website for the mainboard! AMD promises: If AGESA 1.2.0.7 is offered, then the mainboard will officially support Zen 3. According to AMD, the updates will be rolled out in April and May.
So it seems strange that Ryzen 3000 and 2000 are not made executable on B550/A520. It will soon be possible to run a powerful CPU on an old mainboard, but not to bring the old Ryzen to a well-equipped B550 mainboard in order to upgrade the CPU later. We have already asked AMD whether the new AGESA also enables broader support for the B550 and A520.
Samsung's OLED TV comes with a small flaw
Samsung has been using QLED technology for monitors and televisions for years. The Koreans are still doing that, but they also announced OLED panels at the beginning of the year. It wasn't Samsung Electronics itself that came up with the first models, but Sony with a TV and Dell with a monitor.
But now two devices from the S95B series are to be launched in Germany from May – with 55 and 65 inches. The GQ55S95B should cost around 2,000 euros, the GQ65S95B in the range of 2,500 to 3,000 euros. In the US, they were more specific: $2,399.99 and $3,499.99. However, Samsung assured us last week that the actual RRP has still not been determined.
Unfortunately, there is a problem with the panels: the arrangement of the sub-pixels and their spacing. In Germany, Heise first took up the topic, since the problem was already recognized with an available test sample of the Alienware monitor and a Samsung event was used to ask questions, where the company representatives on site ultimately couldn't do much more than not discuss the topic further Leave a Comment.
We haven't been able to get a test sample of a Samsung OLED yet, but we will extensively test both Sony and Samsung TVs and the Alienware monitor as soon as possible so that we can then weigh up the advantages and disadvantages a little better.
AMD Software Update: Radeon Super Resolution
AMD delights its users with a major update of the Radeon Software. The latter is now called "AMD Software" because the program has long been able to control CPU and GPU functions. Also new: Radeon Super Resolution, Virtual Super Resolution up to 8K and a preview of FSR 2.0.
In short: The advantage here: It looks a little better with resharpening than pure upscaling without an additional algorithm. The disadvantage: RSR only works from 5000 series Radeons, i.e. not with Polaris or Vega, which would benefit all the more from this technology in the current crisis. AMD also gave an outlook on FSR 2.0. In contrast to FSR 1.0, which can already be found in around 50 games, version 2.0 will bring a temporal approach as the main innovation. Nvidia's DLSS follows this approach from the start, which is why it looks better, but is more difficult for developers to implement and only works with RTX GPUs, while FSR, i.e. the previous 1.0, is possible with basically any GPU.
