Convince me to keep the faith for a Ryzen cpu...

[Nightfire]

Buying a 1600x and setting it to 4.0 Ghz will allow you to spend more on things like GPUs and M.2 SSDs.

Check out this review of the i5-8400:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-coffee-lake-core-i5-8400-cpu,5281-11.html

At launch prices, the i5 looks to be a real threat to Ryzen 5. But that is not reality. Right now, i5 8400 goes for $260! A 1600x can be found for $235. $215 for the 1600.
Then there is the motherboard price difference between a z370 and a b350. The 1600x combo will run you about $305. The 8400 combo will run you $380.

The 8400 will still edge out the overclocked 1600x in some games, but not by much! Remember, the 8400 can not be overclocked.
The 1600x easily beats it in most productivity applications due to SMT.

 

[Nightfire]

Here is a chart from Tom's that I modified. I cleaned it up so it is not so hard to follow.
The lighter colors show today's price with CPU only. The darker colors add in the motherboards:

The golden line represents linear value. Going perpendicular up from this line is a worse value. Even ignoring the darker colors that factor in the motherboard, the R5 does very well against the i5.
Remember, this just represents gaming. It will look much different for productivity.

 

[bobzdar]

R7 1700x is $299 at amazon right now. That's a whole lot of processor for the money and 3.9 should be a slam dunk with a decent cooler. 10 more threads than the 8600k, and you can actually get it. Same day if you have prime (at least it's same day for me).

If you're not convinced yet, you should probably just wait for an 8600k .

 

[buttons]

I have a FX8320, Ryzen 5 1500x, and a ryzen 7 1700 in my household. For gaming id go with an R5 1600 or an i7-8700 and clock it to 3.7ghz with stock heatsink. The money you save on chip and motherboard can be better spent on video cards, SSD, free sync monitors. I also agree the vega 56 is better value then a 64 but at your budget you can afford the difference. I lust for the silver aluminum shroud Sapphire Vega 64 @ $569

I have 7 geforce 1080s i cannot say i am impressed with them. They benchmark great, but my games dont run any better then the Fury X or RX480s i had before. Then again im not running a 4k 144hz display or anything fancy either. just a 21:9 2560x1080

Its exciting that I5's have six cores now, but $269 seems a bit to high IMHO

EDIT: oh wow. it is $299 at newegg now and out of stock.

 

[Mokkat]

Personally I got a good B350 board and some 3000mhz ram on the cheap a little while ago, and I'm in the process of buying a used 1600X right now.

1. I don't want to reward Intel for having rested on their laurels for 6 years. Also there's still the paywalling of overclocking and HT, the TIM issue, etc. AMD is obviously also a corporation, and as the underdog in an industry of exactly two companies (at least ordinary consumer wise?) they have to take advantage of the pro-consumer narrative - but mainly I want to support them for showing up to Intel's 4-core party with an entirely scalable CPU architecture, with double the cores, competitive single thread performance (finally), OC + SMT on all models, and a 220$ 6-core/12-thread CPU.

2. Last time I upgraded I bought a 2500K like the majority, and laughed at the 2600K buyers for "future proofing" for another 100$ without much effect. These last couple of years have brought reviews where even a fully overclocked 2500K gets its ass kicked by the stock 2600K because of multithreading. Not gonna make that mistake again - and AMD's SMT is better than HT, and I'd have to pay 1800X bucks for a 8700K here (when it's even available). The CL i5s are impressive 1600 competitiors right now, but with double the threads the R5 can only gain on them in the future, with more multithreaded engines and to-the-metal graphic API games.

3. I don't really want to buy a new Ryzen rig right now. Kabylake got its ass kicked, but Coffeelake does have a leg up on Ryzen in games, at least right now with a high end graphics card. Also Pinnacle Ridge is already coming up in February, not close enough to wait and not far enough away to upgrade right now.

By getting a used 1600X (1600 would also work, just happened upon on a 1600X) I get all the benefit of Ryzen right now, as well as the opportunity to sell it off for virtually what I paid and upgrade to Pinnacle Ridge in February (or wait for Zen 2). Win-win.
Frankly I don't really care if I bought Coffeelake and Z370 and would have to upgrade both the motherboard and CPU again the next time - but the B350 and ram will last until 2020, might as well take advantage of that by buying used CPUs and getting a cheaper upgrade to the next iteration(s) of Zen.

edit: If you're getting a Vega card and a 1440p monitor you're not going to see much of a difference anyway.

 

[NKD]

Study? Excessive....held AMD stock for awhile as well so kept up for that sake.

I guess my brain is more towards future-proofing. I like my systems to last moderately long. I got 5 years almost out of my 955BE/5850 build. My current system was supposed to be a stopgap waiting for Ryzen. More wondering if game development will take advantage of all those extra Ryzen threads or not. Aiming for a solid max details 2k rig, 4k still seems a bridge too far as 1080Ti + gsync is another $500 minimum on top.

if you are futurproofing. Buy a good monitor because it will likely last you longer then anything else out there. On top AMD will let you upgrade atleast 2 more generations on same board, zen 2 and zen 3 without having to change anything else. Also if you are gaming at higher resolution you wont see s difference and processor will be an easy drop in upgrade.

But if you want to keep for 5 years I don't think intel is a bad buy either if you don't wanna touch it. Either way its good to have options.

 

[/dev/null]

Best bang for buck in gaming now is the I5-8400 IMHO.

 

[tangoseal]

- ???? unless you got lucky or I got unlucky......

Run a single pass of cinebench as a good stability test. I could boot into windows at 4.0ghz, even play games, but if I tried cinebench above 3.9Ghz on all five Ryzen systems - it would lock up. Cinebench was a good quick stability test for me with AMD Ryzen - and it's free. It's easy to tell if your O/C is up to the task. Now to be fair I never pushed the voltage over 1.35 in my tests --- because that's AMD's max officially recommend voltage for 24/7 use. (I did try up to 1.4 once, but when it still failed cinebench - I figured what's the point). Heat was not an issue. I don’t think they went over 55* C with the watercooling.

I used Ryzen Asrock Taichi boards, Asrock Fata1ty boards, MSI 350 gaming pro.

Operator error? Remember ... you need massive heat removal, lots of yummy voltage, and you MUST lift the current cap in bios and it should stabilize just fine.

 

[tangoseal]

if you are futurproofing. Buy a good monitor because it will likely last you longer then anything else out there. On top AMD will let you upgrade atleast 2 more generations on same board, zen 2 and zen 3 without having to change anything else. Also if you are gaming at higher resolution you wont see s difference and processor will be an easy drop in upgrade.

But if you want to keep for 5 years I don't think intel is a bad buy either if you don't wanna touch it. Either way its good to have options.

I have an 8700K, as well as 1950x, and at 3440x1440 on the same 1080ti there is ZILCH difference in frame rates.

1080p @ 240 hz and the Intel I7 just stomps the living shit out of my Threadripper in framerate. But high res gaming ... not a difference to be found. Unless your strictly eSports or a blend and have both monitors and platforms like me it will make no difference to your perception of performance in gaming. I guess most of the world still uses 1080p for gaming but those people are not [H] and have no idea the difference between 59 hz and 59 million hz refresh rates much less what kind of GPU the PC has that Mommy picked up at Bestbuy last Christmas for them.

On another note the Intel is probably also fast at low res because I am feeding it with 3600mhz ram and the 1950x 3000mhz ram.

 

[NKD]

I have an 8700K, as well as 1950x, and at 3440x1440 on the same 1080ti there is ZILCH difference in frame rates.

1080p @ 240 hz and the Intel I7 just stomps the living shit out of my Threadripper in framerate. But high res gaming ... not a difference to be found. Unless your strictly eSports or a blend and have both monitors and platforms like me it will make no difference to your perception of performance in gaming. I guess most of the world still uses 1080p for gaming but those people are not [H] and have no idea the difference between 59 hz and 59 million hz refresh rates much less what kind of GPU the PC has that Mommy picked up at Bestbuy last Christmas for them.

On another note the Intel is probably also fast at low res because I am feeding it with 3600mhz ram and the 1950x 3000mhz ram.

Faster ram really helps ryzen as well at 1080p.

 

[os2wiz]

Yeah...I know....I haven't built anything AMD since my Phenom II. Vega makes sense to me $$ wise because of the Freesync savings but I'm not sure Ryzen makes any sense at my price point for just gaming. Upgradability of the AM4 platform is nice but frankly I've never "just" upgraded a CPU in a build, so not sure that's a strong selling point for me.

In 4 to 5 months AMD will have the refresh of Ryzen called Pinnacle Ridge. It is rumored to be on 12nm and will give a 10% performance boost over the current Ryzen chips in the form of higher cpu frequency. Prices should be about the same as the current Ryzen crop and will be just a tad less than higher priced CoffeeLake cpus. A 6 core should have a base frequency of close to 4 GHZ and be overclockable to about 4.4 GHZ with the right cooling.

 

[Hakaba]

Hey Op, either chipset will work more than fine, since you never really said what you were aiming for.

Both work for gaming at 1080-4K. One will do better if aiming for 200hz+.

Overall both will game just fine.

Also don’t expect the same 3.9-4.2 everyone else gets on their processor. You will either get it or you won’t.

 

[legcramp]

I was in the same boat as you... thinking of Ryzen / Vega since it's slightly cheaper and I already have a freesync monitor. Getting 8700K otw from pre-order and running a 1080 Ti right now for my pure gaming machine. 1440P @ 144hz.

 

[crazycrave]

I have got to spend some time with my 1400 and it's 100% sound so far for everything as I want a sound system first as the power supply is 8 years old lol, I added a cheap deep blue cooler that was like $24 and it games in World of Tanks at 45c full load with maybe 25-35% usage at DX 11 1080p Max HD and the 290X is at the 120fps frame limit at all times , game is so smooth and as fast pace as you can go,


Now I been a FPS since MOHAA and AMD was king with nvidia chipsets back then and at a lower speed .. Ghz does not mean the best gaming but the marriage of windows/chipset/cpu /gpu/driver'/game all of those have to be prefect for it to be an elite FPS platform the anymore can afford .

 

[ManofGod]

OP, I say to go with whatever you would be happy with. I own entirely AMD and am completely happy with them. (Just wish I could get better overclocking chips but hey, that is the way it goes. ) The cool thing is that both sides are competitive now so you cannot go wrong with either choice. (I have always found that choosing what you want is the best way to happiness, at least in computer hardware.)

 

[primetime]

OP, I say to go with whatever you would be happy with. I own entirely AMD and am completely happy with them. (Just wish I could get better overclocking chips but hey, that is the way it goes. ) The cool thing is that both sides are competitive now so you cannot go wrong with either choice. (I have always found that choosing what you want is the best way to happiness, at least in computer hardware.)

What kind of clocks are you reaching? just curious...Sounds like your not reaching 4ghz possibly.... We know that magic number 4 is way faster than 3. what ever lol

 

[ManofGod]

What kind of clocks are you reaching? just curious...Sounds like your not reaching 4ghz possibly.... We know that magic number 4 is way faster than 3. what ever lol

3.7 Ghz on my 1700x in a Asrock X370 Taichi, 3.825 Ghz on my 1700 non X in a Asus Prime X370 Pro.

 

[OofC_S7v7N]

Ryzen 5 1600 with 3.9Ghz and RX Vega 56 will be the sweet spot. Especially if you are wanting to push a 2k freesync monitor.

 

[Windreaper]

Best bang for buck in gaming now is the I5-8400 IMHO.

That's what I used to think, 90% of 8700K performance at half the price. A lot depends on the chip holding its max turbo clock on stock/cheap air cooling, though (most reviewers use high-end AIO).

EDIT: A 8400 can indeed max turbo on the stock cooler, if you don't mind the noise:

I was surprised that the 8400 actually has a higher power consumption than a 4.0GHz 1600X according to Tomshardware review. Gaming test fell almost smack on 65W, but the chip can pull ~120W in prime95 (unrealistic load, but there's simply no way to dissipate that on any stock cooler). They even remark how easy the 8400 is to cool with a HSF, while the temp readings they post are with a 150$ AIO (gaming) and a 1000$ chiller (stress). That's the most dishonest thing I've read in a while, I can still remember when Tomshardware did good work.

Combine this with cheaper B350 motherboards and 1600(X) being happy with the surprisingly good stock cooling, the value proposition is a bit more tricky at the moment. This is subject to change once we get some cheap Intel motherboards, though.

 

[primetime]

3.7 Ghz on my 1700x in a Asrock X370 Taichi, 3.825 Ghz on my 1700 non X in a Asus Prime X370 Pro.

I think if i go the AMD path ill definitely get a known high end overclocking MB. (even if it cost more)..Im sorta waiting for a badass Asus board that doesn't have the dumbass issues...Asus definitely got it right back in the x58 days!

 

[primetime]

This is one of the best reasons im still considering AMD for my next 7 year build.

It handles proper games like
Destiny 2
just fine AND destroys Intel in Work Station tasks. Who the hell is building a new set up for 1080p gaming anyway LOL. I use VSR to 1440p at MIn on my 1080p display!

 

[ManofGod]

I think if i go the AMD path ill definitely get a known high end overclocking MB. (even if it cost more)..Im sorta waiting for a badass Asus board that doesn't have the dumbass issues...Asus definitely got it right back in the x58 days!

The boards I have are good but, the firmware for them still have a ways to go, at least for overclocking. (I could get 3.8 GHz out of my 1700X when I had it in another X370 Pro board, until I had a bad flash, that is.) For overclocking, it seems the X399 HEDT platform is pretty good.

 

[Bob Blah]

I've been experiencing the same dilemma since tbe CL launch but for an entirely different build, namely a HTPC. I was looking at a R3 1200 but started wavering when the i3-8100 showed up.

After careful consideration I've decided to stick with Ryzen for one very good reason: longevity. If AMD delivers on their intention to support the existing MB stack until 2020 then assuming the board itself lasts, I can realistically expect to get 8-9 years out of this system with just a new CPU and another stick of RAM in 2020/2021 (before the last of the AM4 chips ceases availability). Granted my use case is very different to yours, but in all the benchmarks I've seen, most games get more out of a higher GPU than CPU so updating it as well may give you greater bang-for-buck over the long term.

 

[Algrim]

While I agree that you should be just fine on a Ryzen system, 2020 is only two or three years away.

 

[Rifter0876]

Go intel for a gaming rig

 

[primetime]

I think Ryzen performance is looking quite decent!

 

[Motley]

Yes as these Ryzen 7s get more chipset updates, Win 10 updates, get more mature and dialed in. that seem to helping Ryzen performance more and more. And with Assassin's Creed Origins now using all 16 threads. More games will require these threads.

The Ryzen 1700 at 3.9 is still the best bang for the buck. Also the sweet spot for RAM on Ryzen is 3200, do not go with anything less that. Ryzen is more dependent on RAM speeds than clocks. But no discernible benefit from higher than 3200 RAM.

 

[Sodapopjones]

If you like to fiddle with shit non-stop, buy a 1600 or 1600x, otherwise grab a 8600K, I'm pretty sure my sticks of ram will never hit 3200, and I'm pretty sure I will never hit 4Ghz without crashing. I don't regret my purchase, but I have never had to tweak shit as much as I have had to with this build...

 

[_mockingbird]

If you like to fiddle with shit non-stop, buy a 1600 or 1600x, otherwise grab a 8600K, I'm pretty sure my sticks of ram will never hit 3200, and I'm pretty sure I will never hit 4Ghz without crashing. I don't regret my purchase, but I have never had to tweak shit as much as I have had to with this build...

Your experience is not representative of everyone else's experience.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

For ram speeds to be higher and or 3200mhz you would need specific QVL or Samsung B die ddr4 ram, FlareX or other ram that has been certified.

 

[JustReason]

For ram speeds to be higher and or 3200mhz you would need specific QVL or Samsung B die ddr4 ram, FlareX or other ram that has been certified.

They may not be so cheap but the FlareX is a set it and forget it Ram. Both my wifes and my computers now have FlareX and all it took was setting XMP and save, and done.

 

[Sodapopjones]

Your experience is not representative of everyone else's experience.

The variance on how many people can get something to work the same with Ryzen is higher than anything I have dealt with, hop over to the MSI forums. 1600x probably would have been a better way to go.

 

[DooKey]

They may not be so cheap but the FlareX is a set it and forget it Ram. Both my wifes and my computers now have FlareX and all it took was setting XMP and save, and done.

Yep, I went with that stuff for my Ryzen right off the bat. Set it, and forget it.

 

[reaper12]

I've been waffling for months and months now on a build....hoping prices would stabilize a bit as releases came out.

I'm looking to do a pure gaming machine and trying to come in around $1500 total and another $500 on a new 2k Freesync monitor. I've been kind of dead set on a 1600/x but the i5 8600k review really makes it out to be the mid level gaming chip to have (if, ever available, of course). Planning to pair with a Vega 64.

I desperately -want- to stay with AMD but I don't have the $$ to piss away on brand loyalty....as much as I adore the Ryzen line the reality is all I really do on my home PC is game. I've been without a desktop gaming system since I sold my RX480 this summer....so I've been making do on the laptop but I'm fiending for a new build.

So...can anyone keep me loyal here?

I am going to suggest you get a ryzen chip and a good motherboard. The reason I am suggesting you go this route is that you will be able to update the CPU for the next couple of years without buying a new motherboard. The difference in gaming between Intel and AMD will be slight once you raise the resolution.

And if you buy decent memory, you will have no trouble with your Ryzen build.

If as you say you love the Ryzen line, why not buy it? There is no reason not to, even if you only game.

 

[tangoseal]

Well after a couple months now...

My 8600k and 7820x make laughing stock of Ryzen in gaming. On average I get 30 fps more in every game and SLI 1080ti on the Skylake X feels glass smooth where as my Threadripper was choppy.

I owned two Ryzens. They dont come close at all in any resolution compared to a 4.8ghz I7-7820x and 8600k at 4.8ghz. Not even close. My statements contradict what I said earlier for just reason now.

 

[NKD]

Well after a couple months now...

My 8600k and 7820x make laughing stock of Ryzen in gaming. On average I get 30 fps more in every game and SLI 1080ti on the Skylake X feels glass smooth where as my Threadripper was choppy.

I owned two Ryzens. They dont come close at all in any resolution compared to a 4.8ghz I7-7820x and 8600k at 4.8ghz. Not even close. My statements contradict what I said earlier for just reason now.

You must be playing games that probably don't take advantage of sli. If Sli on 1080ti is on I highly doubt you are seeing difference with them frames whether its on skylake or threadripper.

 

[tangoseal]

You must be playing games that probably don't take advantage of sli. If Sli on 1080ti is on I highly doubt you are seeing difference with them frames whether its on skylake or threadripper.

No imagination ... I mean it.

On my 240hz panel the FPS difference is astounding with or without SLI.

However in mutlithreaded stuff Threadripper ran utter circles around my Skylake X.

 

[atarione]

well here is a reason I guess???

huge intel hardware bug (apparently) 10-30% performance hit ~ for software patched os seems likely..... ooops.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/01/02/massive_intel_hardware_bug_may_be_on_horizon

 

[OrangeKhrush]

That's what I used to think, 90% of 8700K performance at half the price. A lot depends on the chip holding its max turbo clock on stock/cheap air cooling, though (most reviewers use high-end AIO).

EDIT: A 8400 can indeed max turbo on the stock cooler, if you don't mind the noise:

I was surprised that the 8400 actually has a higher power consumption than a 4.0GHz 1600X according to Tomshardware review. Gaming test fell almost smack on 65W, but the chip can pull ~120W in prime95 (unrealistic load, but there's simply no way to dissipate that on any stock cooler). They even remark how easy the 8400 is to cool with a HSF, while the temp readings they post are with a 150$ AIO (gaming) and a 1000$ chiller (stress). That's the most dishonest thing I've read in a while, I can still remember when Tomshardware did good work.

Combine this with cheaper B350 motherboards and 1600(X) being happy with the surprisingly good stock cooling, the value proposition is a bit more tricky at the moment. This is subject to change once we get some cheap Intel motherboards, though.

It is hard to get a review on someone testing a part designed for a mainstream market using realistic components like a stock fan, seeing a review on a 8400 with stock HS/f I doubt it will maintain long turbos without throttling, given how hard it is to keep my setup cool without anything but a decent aftermarket cooler it seems like the trend is bucked. I feel buying aftermarket for a 8400 is just utter stupidity.

 

[OrangeKhrush]

I think Ryzen performance is looking quite decent!

No man some will tell you intel is 50% faster, got to believe them you know.