The Ryzen processors were launched last week after a wave of anticipation. AMD’s new silicon was expected to blow away Intel processors, and indeed under some circumstances they have. Ryzen has also has a number of problems, some of which have been attributed to Windows 10 thread scheduler. AMD says it has investigated the possibility to lower performance because of incorrect scheduling. The company says “Based on our findings, AMD believes that the Windows 10 thread scheduler is operating properly for ‘Zen’ [Ryzen], and we do not presently believe there is an issue with the scheduler adversely utilizing the logical and physical configurations of the architecture.” There is also no difference in scheduling between Windows 7 and Windows 10. However, AMD admits that its investigation has only turned up ‘limited’ evidence so far. We guess the company will continue to look into the issue to learn more. Windows 10 started catching the blame because the problem did not seem to be happening in Windows 7. However, AMD has also addressed this in its blog. Instead of an issue with the thread scheduler, it is more likely a dip in performance is due to the software architecture on Windows 10.
Ryzen Gaming Performance
Ryzen has been getting confusing and contrasting benchmarks. As expected, the processors comfortably match Intel CPUs that cost much more money. However, the huge gaming performance expected by the silicon has not yet happened. Benchmarks have shown that gaming at low-quality or standard 1080p resolutions underperforms against Intel’s 7th-gen Kaby Lake CPU and its Broadwell-E processor. While Windows 10 has been cleared from the blame, Ryzen still faces problems. Gamers are simply not going to get proper performance at 1080p. AMD insists that the situation will improve because games are not yet fully optimized for the processor. The company says more than 300 game developers are currently working on optimizing their titles. However, this will take time to be fully realized. This is all interesting because Ryzen was expected to race from the blocks and give Intel a very bloody nose. Of course, eating into Intel’s market space will still happen and in some circumstances Ryzen is the blazing silicon chip we expected.
