AMD shows off how Zen compares to a 6900K in benchmark

Just last week we finally saw some performance numbers for Zen in an unofficial leak from the Ashes of Singularity database. Now this week, AMD has given us our first official look at performance for its 8 Core/16 Thread Zen CPU up against an Intel Core i7 6900k, a similarly clocked 8 Core chip. The two processors were pitted against each other in a rendering benchmark, with AMD's upcoming CPU pulling ahead.

During its event, AMD ran an engineering sample of its ‘Summit Ridge' Zen CPU against an Intel Core i7 6900K in Blender, a multi-threaded rendering software. The 6900K's Turbo Boost mode was disabled and both CPUs ran with a clock speed of 3GHz to get a direct clock-for-clock comparison.

Essentially, the Zen CPU came out on top in this particular demonstration on a clock-for-clock basis, demonstrating the strength of AMD's new architecture, with multi-core performance greatly improved over its last generation chips. However, we have yet to find out what the final clock speed of this CPU will be, so it will be interesting to see how the final version stacks up.

The final bit of information to come out of the event was confirmation that the first high-performance 8 Core/16 Thread Zen processor will be available early next year, just slipping out of the previous 2016 release date.

KitGuru Says: If AMD's upcoming Zen CPU can continue to perform at this level in other benchmarks and other software suites, then it could end up giving Intel quite a run for its money. We still haven't seen enough of Zen to draw any real conclusions but it is clear that it will be a nice jump over the CPUs AMD currently has available. 

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