AM4 Reaganomics: Retire 1700x, Swap in old 3700X, Purchase a new 5700X3D

[Ducman69]

Seems like AM4 will never die!

I setup two AMD systems for a family member. I can't recall what motherboards I used, but I know one has a 1700x, the other a 3700x.

I was thinking of picking up a 5700X3D that should be releasing very soon for the gaming system to replace the 3700x, and putting the 3700x in the productivity system and retiring the 1700x.

These should all be AM4 and guessing all DDR4 so should just be a drop-in assuming the boards are on the latest firmware?

Thoughts?

 

[pitingres]

Sure, ought to be a drop-in, and a decent boost in both cases. (I dunno why AMD would bother with a 5700X3D at this stage but I've seen the rumor repeated several places.)

 

[E4g1e]

To tell you the truth about AM4 BIOS updates and compatibility:

Be very, very careful! Some AM4 motherboards have BIOS versions that do not support both the 1000 series and the 5000 series CPUs at the same time! So, you may not be able to update your board's BIOS to a version that supports a 5000-series CPU with your current 1700X without completely screwing up the board or having to buy yet another CPU to perform two BIOS updates.

 

[Ducman69]

Sure, ought to be a drop-in, and a decent boost in both cases. (I dunno why AMD would bother with a 5700X3D at this stage but I've seen the rumor repeated several places.)

Seems like decent gaming performance, and is a cheap and painless way to update an older system. Convenience is king!

Whichever is for sale for $260 or so, the 5700X3D or another sale on the 5800X3D (missed the last one), I figure I'll hop on it. Should pair well with the 6700XT I think.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Seems like decent gaming performance, and is a cheap and painless way to update an older system. Convenience is king!

Whichever is for sale for $260 or so, the 5700X3D or another sale on the 5800X3D (missed the last one), I figure I'll hop on it. Should pair well with the 6700XT I think.

Good choice. A friend of mine has a 5800X3D and he's thrilled with the performance. I'm sure a 5700X3D will be almost as good.

 

[SonDa5]

Seems like AM4 will never die!

I setup two AMD systems for a family member. I can't recall what motherboards I used, but I know one has a 1700x, the other a 3700x.

I was thinking of picking up a 5700X3D that should be releasing very soon for the gaming system to replace the 3700x, and putting the 3700x in the productivity system and retiring the 1700x.

These should all be AM4 and guessing all DDR4 so should just be a drop-in assuming the boards are on the latest firmware?

Thoughts?

Analyze available performance benchmarks.

5700x3d (none as date of my post reply)
https://hwbot.org/hardware/processors#key=ryzen_7_5700x3d

3700x Many benchmarks
https://hwbot.org/hardware/processors#key=ryzen_7_3700x

Analyze 5700x3d Vermeer Cores
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/vermeer

Analyze 3700x Matisse Cores
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse

Higher TDP 105w of 5700x3d vs. 65w of 3800x is clear indication the 5700x3d will require higher power PSU if your particular PSU isn't up for the electrical power work. Higher electrical energy operating costs, better cooling may be needed for 5700x3d.

I suggest you wait till 5700x3d is released and give the HWbot performance enthusiast community some time for testing to see what the 5700x is capable of.

I'd wait to see if AMD has any near future AM4 processors with integrated Neural Processing Units which seems to be part of the AI trend that is happening and may have a significant unique processing ability as AI is integrated to software applications/systems.

So many options with AMD that have significant offerings in new technology for AM4 and AM5 to choose from. AM4 has more than likely enough bandwidth for any non supercomputer human user for AMD to build a chip that has latest cores/die size/tdp/gpu/NPU for both the AM4 and AM5. I hope AMD keeps building the lastest significant technology CPU for both the AM4 and AM5 platform. Trickle it out, get it out, more systems, more testing, leads to better newer technology and allows more people to get a taste/feel of what the technology can or can't do. It's all good. Long live AM4 and AM5!

 

[Ducman69]

Analyze available performance benchmarks.

5700x3d (none as date of my post reply)
https://hwbot.org/hardware/processors#key=ryzen_7_5700x3d

3700x Many benchmarks
https://hwbot.org/hardware/processors#key=ryzen_7_3700x

Analyze 5700x3d Vermeer Cores
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/vermeer

Analyze 3700x Matisse Cores
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse

Higher TDP 105w of 5700x3d vs. 65w of 3800x is clear indication the 5700x3d will require higher power PSU if your particular PSU isn't up for the electrical power work. Higher electrical energy operating costs, better cooling may be needed for 5700x3d.

I suggest you wait till 5700x3d is released and give the HWbot performance enthusiast community some time for testing to see what the 5700x is capable of.

I'd wait to see if AMD has any near future AM4 processors with integrated Neural Processing Units which seems to be part of the AI trend that is happening and may have a significant unique processing ability as AI is integrated to software applications/systems.

So many options with AMD that have significant offerings in new technology for AM4 and AM5 to choose from. AM4 has more than likely enough bandwidth for any non supercomputer human user for AMD to build a chip that has latest cores/die size/tdp/gpu/NPU for both the AM4 and AM5. I hope AMD keeps building the lastest significant technology CPU for both the AM4 and AM5 platform. Trickle it out, get it out, more systems, more testing, leads to better newer technology and allows more people to get a taste/feel of what the technology can or can't do. It's all good. Long live AM4 and AM5!

I have a feeling that anything used would be cloud based AI, at least in the near future.

Power wise I should be good, I believe I have a 1800watt PSU in that machine due to it once upon a time running a power hungry (close to 600 watt I think) 295x2... think I had a third 290x in crossfire at one point too. Cooling, I believe its running a 360mm AIO so shouldn't be an issue.

5700x3d should be releasing at MSRP of $249 in 2 weeks, will have to see what they go for at Microcenter: https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5700x3d

 

[Sumanji]

AM4 has been an amazing socket dude, keep it alive I went from a 2700X to a 5900X, and will probably hang on to this for another couple of years.

As E4g1e mentioned though, watch out for compatibility... you may need to use the 3700X as a "go-between" CPU to do any required BIOS flashes, which could get fiddly.

 

[SonDa5]

I have a feeling that anything used would be cloud based AI, at least in the near future.

Power wise I should be good, I believe I have a 1800watt PSU in that machine due to it once upon a time running a power hungry (close to 600 watt I think) 295x2... think I had a third 290x in crossfire at one point too. Cooling, I believe its running a 360mm AIO so shouldn't be an issue.

5700x3d should be releasing at MSRP of $249 in 2 weeks, will have to see what they go for at Microcenter: https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5700x3d

If you can swing it.... the 5900x is noicely priced at Microcenter. Looks like a much better processor for overall processing power for AM4.

 

[Sumanji]

If you can swing it.... the 5900x is noicely priced at Microcenter. Looks like a much better processor for overall processing power for AM4.

5900X looks ~$50 more than the 5700X3D though? Guess it depends on use case if that's worth it (might the X3D be faster in games?).

 

[GotNoRice]

If you can swing it.... the 5900x is noicely priced at Microcenter. Looks like a much better processor for overall processing power for AM4.

Yeah you'll get more "overall processing power" from 12 cores compared to 8 cores, but for 98% of people they would be hard pressed to name even one single thing they do that uses more than 8 cores. Gaming certainly does not. Having the zip file that they downloaded from their email decompress in 1.6 seconds instead of 1.7 seconds is not a compelling reason. Most people aren't running several VMs simultaneously, or doing video encoding/decoding using the CPU instead of the dedicated hardware on the GPU, etc. I personally switched from a 5900X to a 5800X3D and it was a huge upgrade for me, I don't regret it at all.

5900X looks ~$50 more than the 5700X3D though? Guess it depends on use case if that's worth it (might the X3D be faster in games?).

The cache is really a unique variable when it comes to games. It really depends on the games that you play and how much those specific games benefit from the extra cache. It's much more difficult to make over-simplified recommendations ("This processor is better for gaming than that processor"). Pretty much all games will benefit from the cache, but that benefit could be 2% or 70%. There are some games, such as Microsoft Flight-Simulator, World of Warcraft, and others, which benefit exceptionally from that extra cache. If your main games benefit heavily from lots of cache, then you'll get even better performance with an AM4 X3D CPU than what an Intel 14900k or non-X3D AM5 CPU will give you.

These graphs are for the 5800X3D, but the 5700X3D is pretty close. The clocks on the 5700X3D are a little bit slower, but it has the same cache, which is where most of the benefit is coming from.

Keeping in mind that you have other variables also that don't show up in raw FPS measurements. The 5900X is a dual-CCD chip. When cores from different CCDs have to communicate with each other, that has to occur over the infinity fabric, which introduces a latency penalty. The AM4 X3D chips don't have this problem because they are all single-CCD. Having more L3 cache means having to access RAM less, which also means less latency. This difference in latency can be measured and seen. Those orange spikes = "Microstutter":

 

[SonDa5]

5900x is a dual-CCD chip. When cores from different CCDs have to communicate with each other, that has to occur over the infinity fabric, which introduces a latency penalty. The AM4 X3D chips don't have this problem because they are all single-CCD. Having more L3 cache means having to access RAM less, which also means less latency. This difference in latency can be measured and seen. Those orange spikes = "Microstutter":

Possible better drivers, operating system process scheduling, video card, Ram to improve micro stutter?

For about $50 more I still think the 5900x is a better choice for future proofing best overall system performance. Of course if just gaming is the main goal of the system then 5700x3d looks like great choice for gaming PC and fully capable for most every day power PC users. As powerful multi core processes software improves is the benefit of mores cores and multi core processing.

 

[GotNoRice]

Possible better drivers, operating system process scheduling

The massive latency increase when something has to be accessed from RAM instead of L3 cache is pretty straightforward, and not really a failing of drivers or the OS.

Avoiding the significant latency penalty on Dual-CCD chips when cores from different CCDs are forced to communicate across the infinity fabric could potentially be mitigated using scheduling by keeping all processes from a game on just one CCD (AM5 Dual-CCD X3D chips already do this), but on the 5900X that would limit you to 6 cores, completely turning the "more cores!" advantage on it's head.

video card, Ram to improve micro stutter?

The microstutter seen in the graph has nothing to do with the videocard or it would have shown up in the results for the 5800X3D also. The 5900X was actually using faster RAM than the 5800X3D; in both cases faster than the 3600Mhz usually recommended, yet it still obviously did not fix the issue. Even the fastest RAM can't compete with L3 cache, because it's about latency, and the L3 cache is directly on the CPU.

For about $50 more I still think the 5900x is a better choice for future proofing best overall system performance. Of course if just gaming is the main goal of the system then 5700x3d looks like great choice for gaming PC and fully capable for most every day power PC users. As powerful multi core processes software improves is the benefit of mores cores and multi core processing.

For 15+ years ever since I built my first dual-CPU rig back in 2002, I went with setups that had more cores than I needed hoping that games and other software would "catch up" eventually. I built that Dual-Xeon computer when everything was still single-core. I jumped on the Q6600 (quad-core) early on, I went HEDT (hex-core) when consumer CPUs were all still quad-core. I went with a 12-core 3900X as my first Ryzen. In every case, I upgraded the system again before any game or other common software ever caught-up. Unless you're planning to keep the system as your main system for 10+ years, it really doesn't make sense to plan your system around some imaginary future that will almost certainly take much longer to materialize than you think it will.

And 8 cores is actually a good number of cores. It wasn't that long ago that consumer CPUs were mostly quad-core. Right now, all game consoles have only 8-cores. Intel doesn't have a consumer CPU with more than 8 performance cores. AMD doesn't make a CPU with more than 8 X3D cores. 8 cores is plenty, and will be until past when it's time to upgrade again.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

5900X looks ~$50 more than the 5700X3D though? Guess it depends on use case if that's worth it (might the X3D be faster in games?).

For the money I had the option of the 5800X3D, but the 5900X was on sale for roughly $40 cheaper... I have no regrets opting for the 5900X. I do a bit of video encoding and re-encoding in addition to gaming, so having the extra eight threads is handy.