I couldn't care less about brand names and don't really understand the point in choosing to be 'faithful' to a particular company that really doesn't care about their consumer base anyway. At the end of the day their mission objective is to make a profit and appease share holders and stakeholders regardless of how they go about their business and irrespective of the goals that they may state in public.......as soon as anyone becones a fanboi to a brand name they will undoubtedly crap on their own doorstep at some point in time and with respect is probably why you and Skate gave been putting all your eggs into the RX 480, Ryzen and Vega baskets and its become such a big issue that AMD absolutely have to deliver for you.

I've always jumped between Nvidia and AMD in recent years depending on available budget and bang for buck, since the 7970 passed its useful life many years ago in view of moving to a 1440p resolution and maintaining a single GPU to drive it (have since moved to a 4k screen and VR) I've had an Nvidia card but at the end of the day if Vega comes in at a similar price to the 1080ti but with less performance (mirroring the last few 'top tier' AMD cards) then there will only be a certain type of person buying it and other than competition in pricing the same old story at the performance end will continue.

I don't necessarily agree with your pricing logic. Nvidia realistically have the bank balance and product line to strangle AMD out of the top end completely should they reduce prices or fill gaps to ensure they have a competing product. I'd struggle to recommend the RX480 to anyone for example because although it started at a nice price Nvidia just sandwiched it between the 1060 and 1070 and anyone could argue the merits of either card above the 480 in my opinion. Although from a technical perspective AMD have often been ahead of the game its often proved fruitless when gaming is slow to change.......take DX12 for example, before many games actually support it the RX480 will probably have expired beyond its useful life too.

A couple posts up, I noted that Amazon and other sources were dubious regarding Ryzen AM4 motherboard availability in the very-near term.

I checked the local "brick-and-mortar" Micro Center PC components store online-site several times the last three days. They indicated 4 ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 in stock. Today I checked and they indicated 25+ in stock.

ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 was my "second choice". But, it does have all the practical things I need and will actually use. Their price is $10 less than Amazon and Newegg for the same item (Amazon doe not have it, nor does Newegg as I write this). Being my second choice, its $100 cheaper than my first choice. The first choice, ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero AMD Ryzen AM4 was "overkill" and just for fun.

I used their online-site to "set one aside". They emailed confirmation even before the store officially opened (they will hold for 3 days). I plan to pick it up this afternoon. We'll see.

If it weren't for the 1.5 hour round trip freeway drive, I would buy more locally. They (Micro Center) have wide selection and competitive price. Even sales tax is not an issue because Amazon charges me sales tax.

Just confirmed with my local retailer that their warehouses are still waiting on stock from all manufacturers for X370 boards. Expect at least several weeks delay.

In terms if gaming performance, is there a huge difference between an X370 board and a B350?

UPDATE: Went to get a B350 motherboard. Then went to pick up my CPU at another store and my CROSSHAIR motherboard arrived while I was standing at the counter!! In the end I stuck with the ASUS Prime B350, $200 cheaper and seems to have everything I need.

I picked up the ASUS Prime X370-Pro AMD Ryzen AM4 at Micro Center. They had many on the shelves. They also had more than one brand of B350 on the shelf. No other X370s.

The sales guy said the Crosshair VI is causing them more trouble in their in-store display computers than the Prime.

I'll describe further outcomes of my build in my "my build" thread.

Good news man for AMD and for us customers, maybe Intel will get off their butt and actually do some R&R now instead of just phoning in like they have last couple of years...

I know this is an AMD thread, but let's be rational just for a moment. I don't think that anyone should be read too much into AMD creating a chip which has a 52% increase in IPC....the reason this is happening is simply because the FX chips are crap and the same reason why Intel Core to Quad, i5 and i7 'equivalents' game them a good hammering.

Stating that it's the biggest IPC jump in the last 20 years (and that AMD has delivered it) isn't so much a chest beating accolade, it's confirmation of how poor their last chips actually were.

And is it really headline news that Intel has to warn investors about losing both market share and margins? Now they actually have a competitor as opposed to not really having one at all means they would always be expecting that. It's like some sort of AMD propoganda mission is just starting lol

Yeah agreed, as usual with any AMD marketing and "leaks", you have to wade through tons of BS and hype to read between the lines for the actual info....

What I get from this is that AMD has finally gotten back into focusing on top end stuff instead of conceding top end to Intel and just focusing on the cheap middle and console market, which was boring to people like me, and which Intel wasn't interested in so they sat back and didn't do much other than tweak things to get a new model out each year.

While I don't think the current Ryzen meets my gaming needs, hopefully AMD will get it to the point where it's something compelling for me, and hopefully this will also get Intel to actually move on to something better...

While I love that my i5-2500k has been relevant as a gaming CPU the last 5 years, the stale/complacent state of progress affects the progress and cost of VR and even how playable games and sims are... After all these years FSX and Prepar3D still don't run at more than 30FPS with all the graphics turned up and payware eye candy.

We should be able to run FSX like butter at this point if CPU/GPU tech had remained competitive from the days when Athlon and the 5870 was spanking Intel, before AMD merged with ATI and started the long slow decline into mediocrity IMHO.

So here's hoping the current Ryzen is just a sign of even better top end things to come from AMD.

Slightly improved chips (vs RX4xx series) at a slightly lower price.

RX Vega is expected in late May.

Rumored to be a physically big chip selling for a big price. Less for gaming enthusiasts and more for folks who earn their living doing compute intensive things.

16/32 and large die and TDP, likely gonna have lower top clocks.

Looks like Vulkan (which AMD excels at) is gaining more converts. Reason: It can be used with any operating system including older Windows versions and Linux (unlike DX12).

This could give AMD another small advantage moving forward.

Vulkan has Limits if you're not running Windows 10 and Latest Linux Kernel though.

Yes, hype aside what the stats really show is that AMD is now competitive with Intel again. It's not better, but now there is a chance that they could be come "Ryzen 2" or whatever they choose to call it.

Of course, conspiracy types will say Intel has had a next-gen design waiting in the wings sitting idle until it was deemed necessary, just riding the existing Core coattails for years until that happened, so AMD's return will be short-lived. I don't think that Intel would play that game. I think if they could release a CPU which would have buried AMD by blowing away their last gen chips they would have.

No, Intel believed in their own superiority and figured AMD was permanently a lap down. To find them actually in the rear mirror is a surprise.

My only concern is that instead of taking this as a call to action in CPU development they decide the best way to stay ahead is to knock the other guy down and resort to previous unsavory practices to make themselves stay ahead.



The Jedi Master

Judging by Intel's panic, it's not gonna be a shortlived return to being competitive for AMD.

What is the alleged 'panic'?