AMD Ryzen Eco Mode Deep-Dive & Benchmarks on R9 7950X (Zen 4)
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Date: 2022-11-06
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Comments and reviews: 14
SharkHealGaming
Is sad seeing nvidia 40 series, amd 7000 and intel 13th gen all pushing so much wattage just for some little % points. The innovation and efficiency are two things that always go together, archiving new efficiency records means that you need less energy to do the same task, that is what tells you that a technology has actually improved and became more powerful, not the childish marketing my number is 1% bigger than yours so I won . More efficient something becomes, less energy we are wasting, less we need to worry about gigantic coolers that couldn't even fit in our case, and we don't have to worry about our pc heating our room like it was a heater. You obtain something more powerful, smaller, way less power hungry and cheaper, it's a win win situation in everything without a single sacrifice. Humanity till today has lived through sacrifices and it was the only way it know, but we recently learned to innovate, and look where we arrived with just one or two centuries. The first computer was big as a gym, now we are holding in our hands the same thing, way more smaller, with just the weight of some grams, and infinite times more powerful and useful (the smartphone).
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Is sad seeing nvidia 40 series, amd 7000 and intel 13th gen all pushing so much wattage just for some little % points. The innovation and efficiency are two things that always go together, archiving new efficiency records means that you need less energy to do the same task, that is what tells you that a technology has actually improved and became more powerful, not the childish marketing my number is 1% bigger than yours so I won . More efficient something becomes, less energy we are wasting, less we need to worry about gigantic coolers that couldn't even fit in our case, and we don't have to worry about our pc heating our room like it was a heater. You obtain something more powerful, smaller, way less power hungry and cheaper, it's a win win situation in everything without a single sacrifice. Humanity till today has lived through sacrifices and it was the only way it know, but we recently learned to innovate, and look where we arrived with just one or two centuries. The first computer was big as a gym, now we are holding in our hands the same thing, way more smaller, with just the weight of some grams, and infinite times more powerful and useful (the smartphone).
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KrisVr
Just upgraded to 7700X yesterday and met with absolutely fans blasting with first benchmark because of 90+ temps. But I knew that before buying.
After enabling ECO mode, which for 7700X would be 65W as it is 105W TDP stock. Huge difference in temps(Barely hear fans as temps stay around 60) and decent power consumption. And while it is not same CPU, I dont expect huge drop in performance with 7700X either.....eco mode is the way to go.
I somewhat understand the need to extract everything out of the CPU while sacrificing power and thermals...because performance sells. At the same time, they almost lost my sale if it wasn't for the eco mode, I just wish they mentioned it more.
Although it was kinda simple option in the bios if you search it and I believe Ryzen master has it also. I didn't actually know that. After reading couple articles I though you had to input numbers in the BIOS/PBO and thats what I first did. Didn't actually work for some reason, but then I found simple eco mode setting in bios and that worked well.
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Just upgraded to 7700X yesterday and met with absolutely fans blasting with first benchmark because of 90+ temps. But I knew that before buying.
After enabling ECO mode, which for 7700X would be 65W as it is 105W TDP stock. Huge difference in temps(Barely hear fans as temps stay around 60) and decent power consumption. And while it is not same CPU, I dont expect huge drop in performance with 7700X either.....eco mode is the way to go.
I somewhat understand the need to extract everything out of the CPU while sacrificing power and thermals...because performance sells. At the same time, they almost lost my sale if it wasn't for the eco mode, I just wish they mentioned it more.
Although it was kinda simple option in the bios if you search it and I believe Ryzen master has it also. I didn't actually know that. After reading couple articles I though you had to input numbers in the BIOS/PBO and thats what I first did. Didn't actually work for some reason, but then I found simple eco mode setting in bios and that worked well.
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strat0caster
I understand that GN is usually looking at hardware from a more traditional sense, hence constantly reminding that 300MHz all core . But the reason why many people look at these ECO modes is that the thermals and system noise concerns overcome the significance of the performance.
For me, it's not that you lose 300MHz all core and that's a lot , but rather you lose 6% of the core clock while reducing 50% power consumption . That's a truly impressive and disproportionate improvement. Personally, I care about these things because I am an ITX gamer nowadays, and there is a limited thermal budget for the system and a limited noise budget for my own sanity. My logic in looking at this is what's the best performer at certain wattage that my cooling system can handle , and from that point, even a 20-30% weaker than stock 7950X is still within consideration. Although realistically, the best performance-to-cost ratio probably lies somewhere around a TDP limited 7700X or a 13700K for gaming.
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I understand that GN is usually looking at hardware from a more traditional sense, hence constantly reminding that 300MHz all core . But the reason why many people look at these ECO modes is that the thermals and system noise concerns overcome the significance of the performance.
For me, it's not that you lose 300MHz all core and that's a lot , but rather you lose 6% of the core clock while reducing 50% power consumption . That's a truly impressive and disproportionate improvement. Personally, I care about these things because I am an ITX gamer nowadays, and there is a limited thermal budget for the system and a limited noise budget for my own sanity. My logic in looking at this is what's the best performer at certain wattage that my cooling system can handle , and from that point, even a 20-30% weaker than stock 7950X is still within consideration. Although realistically, the best performance-to-cost ratio probably lies somewhere around a TDP limited 7700X or a 13700K for gaming.
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FenPhoenix
These results just make me shake my head at how unbelievably dumb Zen 4's stock power use is. It's one thing to try to beat the competition, but the 105W mode doesn't even change the relative positioning! Wherever they are vs. Intel doesn't even change when lopping off fully 100W. It's absolutely absurd to be putting out chips that guzzle down 100W too much power for absolutely no reason nor benefit whatsoever to anyone. I just don't see the marketing advantage, if anything it seems like it would have been MORE of an advantage to make the 105W mode stock, and then brag to high heaven about how power efficient they are at still top performance. They're kind of even doing that with RDNA 3, no need to change your case or get an extra power adapter! etc. I just don't get it. It's one thing to waste gargantuan amounts of power because durr marketing, but there's not EVEN a marketing advantage here by all appearances. Argh.
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These results just make me shake my head at how unbelievably dumb Zen 4's stock power use is. It's one thing to try to beat the competition, but the 105W mode doesn't even change the relative positioning! Wherever they are vs. Intel doesn't even change when lopping off fully 100W. It's absolutely absurd to be putting out chips that guzzle down 100W too much power for absolutely no reason nor benefit whatsoever to anyone. I just don't see the marketing advantage, if anything it seems like it would have been MORE of an advantage to make the 105W mode stock, and then brag to high heaven about how power efficient they are at still top performance. They're kind of even doing that with RDNA 3, no need to change your case or get an extra power adapter! etc. I just don't get it. It's one thing to waste gargantuan amounts of power because durr marketing, but there's not EVEN a marketing advantage here by all appearances. Argh.
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Lone
Question!
In tests where 105W mode performed nearly the same as 170W mode (like Photoshop) did the the CPU still consumed +250W of power on 170W mode or no the power consumption was basically the same between the two modes since Photoshop is not exactly an all core workload?
Basically I don't think that it makes sense to measure the power consumption in an all core and very heavy workload and start interpreting data from other workloads with it. I seriously doubt that 7950X is using +250W of power in something like chromium compile! In my opinion the socket power consumption should have been measured during each workload and presented in a separate bar under bench results since the whole point of the video was comparing performance to different levels of real time power consumption.
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Question!
In tests where 105W mode performed nearly the same as 170W mode (like Photoshop) did the the CPU still consumed +250W of power on 170W mode or no the power consumption was basically the same between the two modes since Photoshop is not exactly an all core workload?
Basically I don't think that it makes sense to measure the power consumption in an all core and very heavy workload and start interpreting data from other workloads with it. I seriously doubt that 7950X is using +250W of power in something like chromium compile! In my opinion the socket power consumption should have been measured during each workload and presented in a separate bar under bench results since the whole point of the video was comparing performance to different levels of real time power consumption.
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Bryan
Great video Steve. But 7:52 because Bulldozer was dumpster fire and later got them sued .. Yes, to match the Intel performance AMD Bulldozer CPUs had more cores and ran at higher clocks using more power (and more heat of course). I never had any actual issues with my FX-8350 (and it was quite a bit cheaper then - whole system cost). The lawsuit was about false advertising due to CORE COUNT claims as there was some shared resources that didn't make each core a full core (per the lawsuit). Just pointing that out as you made it sound like the Bulldozer was just such bad CPUs or they had such high TDPs they were sued. False advertising is not the same as the CPUs be a dumpster fire. And we all know how creative the advertising departments can be....
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Great video Steve. But 7:52 because Bulldozer was dumpster fire and later got them sued .. Yes, to match the Intel performance AMD Bulldozer CPUs had more cores and ran at higher clocks using more power (and more heat of course). I never had any actual issues with my FX-8350 (and it was quite a bit cheaper then - whole system cost). The lawsuit was about false advertising due to CORE COUNT claims as there was some shared resources that didn't make each core a full core (per the lawsuit). Just pointing that out as you made it sound like the Bulldozer was just such bad CPUs or they had such high TDPs they were sued. False advertising is not the same as the CPUs be a dumpster fire. And we all know how creative the advertising departments can be....
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Mark
Topic of great interest to me. Thank you! I use Eco Mode on my 5950X for silence and lower ambient temperatures in my room, and I don't mind the 0-20% performance falloff in games. My GPU isn't new, so I'm usually GPU-bound or have plenty of performance anyway.
Not only is the stock, but well-cooled and higher power 7950X 56% faster than the stock 5950X in the GN benchmark all-core workload, but it loses only 6% of its performance moving to the same power level, maintaining an almost 50% lead as AMD claimed in their unveiling, and better still, Zen 4 loses less performance all-core moving from 105w TDP to 65w, widening the gap between itself and my eco mode 5950X. Awesome. Of course, in games, it's not as impressive, but still an improvement.
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Topic of great interest to me. Thank you! I use Eco Mode on my 5950X for silence and lower ambient temperatures in my room, and I don't mind the 0-20% performance falloff in games. My GPU isn't new, so I'm usually GPU-bound or have plenty of performance anyway.
Not only is the stock, but well-cooled and higher power 7950X 56% faster than the stock 5950X in the GN benchmark all-core workload, but it loses only 6% of its performance moving to the same power level, maintaining an almost 50% lead as AMD claimed in their unveiling, and better still, Zen 4 loses less performance all-core moving from 105w TDP to 65w, widening the gap between itself and my eco mode 5950X. Awesome. Of course, in games, it's not as impressive, but still an improvement.
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Josh
You keep saying that if you're limiting to 65W, maybe buy something better but... you don't say what. What is better at 65W? As far as these benchmarks show, it looks unlikely that anything AMD sells will outperform the 7950X when they are all equally limited to 65W. People don't just limit to 65W because they cheaped out on the power supply as you repeatedly insinuated. They might be building a thermally-constrained SFFPC where they want to get the most performance out of it that they can. If limiting a 7950X to 65W TDP gets them there, then that is the choice that has to be made. SFFPCs aren't the only place where this would make sense either. Efficiency is efficiency.
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You keep saying that if you're limiting to 65W, maybe buy something better but... you don't say what. What is better at 65W? As far as these benchmarks show, it looks unlikely that anything AMD sells will outperform the 7950X when they are all equally limited to 65W. People don't just limit to 65W because they cheaped out on the power supply as you repeatedly insinuated. They might be building a thermally-constrained SFFPC where they want to get the most performance out of it that they can. If limiting a 7950X to 65W TDP gets them there, then that is the choice that has to be made. SFFPCs aren't the only place where this would make sense either. Efficiency is efficiency.
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Alexandre
I don't believe the intent would be to cut down performance so much. But I can see a use case where you build a passive cooling system. Almost zero noise, with good performance.
Would a 105w or 65w tdp 7950x be better than a low tier equivalent cpu?
Same goes to gpu. I saw derbauer video where he lowered the power target of the 4090 and got massive energy savings with almost no performance impact.
If someone has the money and wants to build a passive cooling PC (or close to it), I think it's a valid use case.
Not to mention the PC would last longer and ind the end, if needed in the future, just go back to stock or even OC match newer hardware.
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I don't believe the intent would be to cut down performance so much. But I can see a use case where you build a passive cooling system. Almost zero noise, with good performance.
Would a 105w or 65w tdp 7950x be better than a low tier equivalent cpu?
Same goes to gpu. I saw derbauer video where he lowered the power target of the 4090 and got massive energy savings with almost no performance impact.
If someone has the money and wants to build a passive cooling PC (or close to it), I think it's a valid use case.
Not to mention the PC would last longer and ind the end, if needed in the future, just go back to stock or even OC match newer hardware.
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ZeroKOR1
It would be a lot of testing probably but to average Future CPUs to a much lower TDP for Gaming reasons would be interesting. This video as well as other videos from other content producers show that in Gaming these newer CPUs are way over pushed for the needs. So maybe since I know you can test system power draw, setting a fixed Wattage maybe interesting to give the CPUs a level playing field. That way you are comparing Apples to Apples and not just running at what the Bios says for the CPU. Lower heat generation is a desired trait at least for me since I would love my gaming rig to not be a space heater if it does not need to be.
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It would be a lot of testing probably but to average Future CPUs to a much lower TDP for Gaming reasons would be interesting. This video as well as other videos from other content producers show that in Gaming these newer CPUs are way over pushed for the needs. So maybe since I know you can test system power draw, setting a fixed Wattage maybe interesting to give the CPUs a level playing field. That way you are comparing Apples to Apples and not just running at what the Bios says for the CPU. Lower heat generation is a desired trait at least for me since I would love my gaming rig to not be a space heater if it does not need to be.
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Bill
Hi GN, the numbers indicate the 105w mode is twice as efficient as my current 7700k, however my current CPU uses only about 15W right now for browsing, which means upgrading would save me about 7.5W, round this up to 10W, assuming a price of 16 cent / kwh, this would save me a whooping 0.16 cent per hour... even under load it'll probably be not much more than 1 cent per hour saved. So upgrading just for the sake of power efficiency would be a complete waste of money. It would take years to make back the cost of the CPU. Did I miss something? Or does it actually make sense if I plan to use the CPU for 10 years?
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Hi GN, the numbers indicate the 105w mode is twice as efficient as my current 7700k, however my current CPU uses only about 15W right now for browsing, which means upgrading would save me about 7.5W, round this up to 10W, assuming a price of 16 cent / kwh, this would save me a whooping 0.16 cent per hour... even under load it'll probably be not much more than 1 cent per hour saved. So upgrading just for the sake of power efficiency would be a complete waste of money. It would take years to make back the cost of the CPU. Did I miss something? Or does it actually make sense if I plan to use the CPU for 10 years?
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Will
Thanks, Steve.
I wonder how many heads would explode if you'd reminded people they don't pay for power in watts but energy in joules or watt-hours. Or that a 5000 watt heater run for 1 hour at 95C will dump exactly the same amount of heat into a room as a 1000 watt heater run for 5 hours at 75C.
I think both team red and blue hurt themselves this time by scaring away adopters with high temp and high power numbers without any hard quantified context of efficiency like your Blender comparison. I look forward to the Intel eco modes testing.
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Thanks, Steve.
I wonder how many heads would explode if you'd reminded people they don't pay for power in watts but energy in joules or watt-hours. Or that a 5000 watt heater run for 1 hour at 95C will dump exactly the same amount of heat into a room as a 1000 watt heater run for 5 hours at 75C.
I think both team red and blue hurt themselves this time by scaring away adopters with high temp and high power numbers without any hard quantified context of efficiency like your Blender comparison. I look forward to the Intel eco modes testing.
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KevinGoldLVL
I think most people are overthinking about this...I mean if efficiency and power usage is so important for you, for the earth or whatever. You should keep your computer instead of buying new stuff every release...especially if you then proceed to lower the performance ...I think e-waste is so much more harmful for the earth than the power a computer requires to function. Plus you will save a lot of money if you futureproof a bit your build to be able to keep it for a longer time instead of buying a whole new system every year or so
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I think most people are overthinking about this...I mean if efficiency and power usage is so important for you, for the earth or whatever. You should keep your computer instead of buying new stuff every release...especially if you then proceed to lower the performance ...I think e-waste is so much more harmful for the earth than the power a computer requires to function. Plus you will save a lot of money if you futureproof a bit your build to be able to keep it for a longer time instead of buying a whole new system every year or so
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Pic
This changes things.
Don't get me wrong, performance is nice and all but not at all costs, especially now that the energy prices are rising like crazy.
But limiting it down a bit seems brilliant. Even better, then only being limited by thermals I can configure myself? I can see loads of use cases for that!
Like during development, at least in scripting, there are usually only small bursts where I want full power and that is usually not very long.
Now I'm excited again!
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This changes things.
Don't get me wrong, performance is nice and all but not at all costs, especially now that the energy prices are rising like crazy.
But limiting it down a bit seems brilliant. Even better, then only being limited by thermals I can configure myself? I can see loads of use cases for that!
Like during development, at least in scripting, there are usually only small bursts where I want full power and that is usually not very long.
Now I'm excited again!
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