AMD Ryzen 9 5950X - predicting bottom price for previous gen

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laguerre

[H]ard|Gawd
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Keeping this relevant to the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X:

Predict price bottom on previous gen flagship CPU (new, commercial purchase) to eek out the last bit of use on a system? Any tips? Anecdotes from previous flagships?

Context: I have an x570 mobo and ddr4 underutilized, aka unused, and debating if acquiring a 5950x for server / productivity is sensible? Get CPU or sell x570 mobo and ddr4? The cost of the system would just be the cost of the CPU. You can extrapolate running cost if you want, but I imagine an efficiency crossing point would be far enough in the future to discount the benefit.
 
The price for the 5950X has remained remarkely stable. I got mine over a year ago (June 2022) and the current new price is only about $20 cheaper than what I paid back then.
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At this rate it might be down to $400 new on a few end of year sales, but probably not till the next set of CPUs comes out and then a bit after that. I have a feeling it's gonna maintain its price for quite some time.

I do think the 5900X and standard 5800X are gonna be dropping down pretty substantially as the focus shifts to the 5800X3D and 5950X as the "end" processors for AM4.
 
TheSlySyl said:
... I do think the 5900X and standard 5800X are gonna be dropping down pretty substantially as the focus shifts to the 5800X3D and 5950X as the "end" processors for AM4.
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Fair point. I was hoping the 5800x3d would undermine the price of the 5950x, but now I think it probably isolates it, unless I look at the used market.

I suppose the upcoming Black Friday potential deals could be considered the low-water mark. If I don't see a drop then, I'll take $400 as the bottom, and make a decision based on that.
 
How much productivity are you losing waiting for a $400 price? I always thought if you need this many cores, you're making money from them.
 
aldamon said:
How much productivity are you losing waiting for a $400 price? I always thought if you need this many cores, you're making money from them.
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For some stuff, say a programmer compiling it can be not that big-obvious but always faster the better, for one compilation work that are big enough to stretch all the cores will not be the most common versus incremental build of a single part of a project, 2 minute instead of 3.5 is really nice to have but not sure if you can put a how much more money in your career you would be bound to make, etc...

As for the 5950x, the 3950x never got cheap if this is an indication (probably will), even today on ebay $275 seem to often be what they go for, when you can get a significantly better at everything and new 13600KF for that price (+45% ST, same MT)

Best of a "stack" like the 5800x3d-5950x will probably keep value really well, your scenario show well why, 5950x at $452 when a 7900x goes for $400 sound a bit like madness, but the CPU only upgrade will be more convenient for a lot of people the AM4 system having been there for so long.
laguerre said:
and debating if acquiring a 5950x for server / productivity is sensible?
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Hard to say versus what in that x570 system and what would that server-productivity planned life would be, do you mean a workstation that will one day be retired as a server ? What would it be, chance are by the time of retirement a 15100k server could be a much better option and quite affordable.
 
laguerre said:
Context: I have an x570 mobo and ddr4 underutilized, aka unused, and debating if acquiring a 5950x for server / productivity is sensible? Get CPU or sell x570 mobo and ddr4? The cost of the system would just be the cost of the CPU. You can extrapolate running cost if you want, but I imagine an efficiency crossing point would be far enough in the future to discount the benefit.
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Don't forget that you need a CPU cooler, too.
 
I love my 5950X and I personally don't think that the 7950X is a worthwhile upgrade for the cost of new mobo, ram, etc. Especially with as much RAM, SATA and M.2 ports I need. (Though the rapidly lowering price of NVME drives is making the last one less important.)

I'd wait till the 8000 series before I look at AM5. Especially if I already have a functioning AM4 system where a 5950X or 5800X3d could be a drop in replacement.
 
TheSlySyl said:
I love my 5950X and I personally don't think that the 7950X is a worthwhile upgrade for the cost of new mobo, ram, etc. Especially with as much RAM, SATA and M.2 ports I need. (Though the rapidly lowering price of NVME drives is making the last one less important.)

I'd wait till the 8000 series before I look at AM5. Especially if I already have a functioning AM4 system where a 5950X or 5800X3d could be a drop in replacement.
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Holding onto mine for at least 4 more years
 
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TheSlySyl said:
I love my 5950X and I personally don't think that the 7950X is a worthwhile upgrade for the cost of new mobo, ram, etc. Especially with as much RAM, SATA and M.2 ports I need. (Though the rapidly lowering price of NVME drives is making the last one less important.)

I'd wait till the 8000 series before I look at AM5. Especially if I already have a functioning AM4 system where a 5950X or 5800X3d could be a drop in replacement.
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The 5950X is a remarkable chip. For gaming, All core OC, SMT disabled for me (smooth as butter, 0 stuttering). Productivity? Run a PBO curve with SMT on.

The versatility of this chip is amazing, plan to keep mine as a main use rig until Ryzen 8000 or Intel 15 series.
 
Even with my largest transcoding jobs the 5950X seems remarkably effective. Curious what'll happen with AV1, but for 4k x265 it's holding up so well that I'm not worried about upgrading, and I haven't yet come across a game that I feel is CPU limited, unlike when I had my 3900X.

My 3080 12GB is by far the limiting factor in my workflow these days, but that is 100% my own damn fault. I got *really* into AI art and SDXL is thirsty for VRAM. Gonna get a videocard upgrade (holding out for 5000 series) before I consider CPU.

The difference in performance on AM4 from my original R7 1700x to my now 5950X is pretty mindblowing. I could have probably used the same mobo as well, but I needed more PCI-E lanes somewhere along the way.
 
If your gonna run it as a server, get an asrock mobo and ECC ram. Still a great chip if core/thread count is a priority over raw speed.
 
TheSlySyl said:
I love my 5950X and I personally don't think that the 7950X is a worthwhile upgrade for the cost of new mobo, ram, etc. Especially with as much RAM, SATA and M.2 ports I need. (Though the rapidly lowering price of NVME drives is making the last one less important.)

I'd wait till the 8000 series before I look at AM5. Especially if I already have a functioning AM4 system where a 5950X or 5800X3d could be a drop in replacement.
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Depends on the task. I went from 5950X to 7950X3D and some of my longer builds got 30% faster. I didn't expect that much of an improvement, but I'm happy with it.

Probably not as big of an improvement for most tasks, though.
 
I am glad to find this thread. I have a 3700x, and I am on the fence about the 5900x, 5950x and 5900x3d. I want the best processor possible for AM4 in there, while I am collecting parts for my AM5 build.
 
dmanexe said:
I am glad to find this thread. I have a 3700x, and I am on the fence about the 5900x, 5950x and 5900x3d. I want the best processor possible for AM4 in there, while I am collecting parts for my AM5 build.
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It's pretty simple. Which matters more?
Gaming first? 5800X3D
Production or any other tasks that use 32 threads? 5950X.

Keep in mind that if you do both, the 5950X will likely be more useful because double the cores and higher clockspeed makes up for the extra cache a little bit.
 
TheSlySyl said:
I love my 5950X and I personally don't think that the 7950X is a worthwhile upgrade for the cost of new mobo, ram, etc. Especially with as much RAM, SATA and M.2 ports I need. (Though the rapidly lowering price of NVME drives is making the last one less important.)

I'd wait till the 8000 series before I look at AM5. Especially if I already have a functioning AM4 system where a 5950X or 5800X3d could be a drop in replacement.
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Same boat for me, when i built I could not get a 5950X so i settled with a 3900 at the time to hold me over, then got a great price on a new in box 5950x I think someone won somewhere anyways and switched, sold my 3900 for $150 less I paid for it new, and I use my home rig pretty extensively and this 5950x has not given me any reason to even think about moving to anything else.

For gaming also consider what res and GPU you got, I only have an RX6800, and the few games I do play are pretty steady at 144Mhz at 2k res (Apex legends, Steam games) most recently Baulders Gate 3 which auto set pretty much everything to high or Ultra.
 
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MrGuvernment said:
144Mhz at 2k res
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Woah... Dude... 144 million fps sounds amazing. How do you do it? Must be liquid hydrogen :ROFLMAO:

Kidding aside, if I have the opportunity to bag a 5950X I would. High clocks for play, lots of threads for work. I plan on doing streaming and some hefty video encoding on a regular basis soon, and while the 5900X has been great for my use cases, I'd like to nab one before supply dries up.

That said, if you can find one on sale, OP, a 5900X is a decent compromise in my experience, even if it isn't the best one.
 
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:D fat fingers brain fart for me! I overlocked my Monitor!! now my monitor goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
 
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