Which build would you rather have?

I purchased four full systems from CyberPowerPC on a good sale. I'm going to crypto mine with them. I'll also be upgrading my current build (from a I7 4770K overclocked to 4.5 Ghz, 16GB RAM, 2x Fury X) to one of the following systems, and demoting or selling my current system.

Here are my two gut replacement options -- basically AMD 1700 or Intel 6800K

Overclocking is an absolute with the 360mm rad.

Primary use is gaming, very occasional video creation or MKV rippping, and fairly typical enthusiast home use. I will be mining with the machine when not actively used.
My gaming is on either one 1440p screen, (or three at 7680x1440 if the game supports Eyefinity or SLI). I will likely be using two cards in SLI or Crossfire.

From my research it appears the six core Intel rig would be a smidge faster for gaming (currently), and the Ryzen eight core rig would be a smidge faster for content creation. The AMD overclocked would use almost half the power. (90 watts O/C on Ryzen vs. 170 watts O/C on Intel) Power is cheap here, so this isn't necessarily a strong factor - but perhaps worth noting as power is heat too. The 360mm rad should keep either CPU cool.

The Intel X99 is a mature stable platform, with the opportunity to "upgrade" the CPU to a higher core count I7 or Xeon for cheap off eBay in the future, but no new CPUs will be supported on the platform.

The AMD X370 is a juvenile platform with some growing pains being sorted out, and the opportunity to "upgrade" the CPU to nearly any future AMD CPU in the next three years since AM4 is being supported through 2020.

Which would you keep as your primary rig? I plan to keep this choice for the next 3-4 years. (seems to be about the cycle I upgrade motherboard and CPU)

The motherboards listed are the choices I have --- doesn't matter if you'd recommend something better or different. That's what I have as options.


A) AMD build -
ASRock Taichi X370 Motherboard
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X370 Taichi/

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8099/asrock-x370-taichi-amd-motherboard-review/index.html
AMD 1700 CPU - Deep Cool Captain 360mm RAD (expected O/C = 3.9 - 4.0Ghz on eight cores)
960 EVO NVME SSD m.2 2280
16GB PC3000 RAM
1080TI SLI (or Vega Crossfire)
Win 10

B) Intel build -
Gigabyte GA-X99-Ultra Gaming Motherboard RGB
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X99-Ultra-Gaming-rev-10#ov

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7779/gigabyte-x99-ultra-gaming-intel-motherboard-review/index.html
Intel 6800K CPU - Deep Cool Captain 360mm RAD (expected O/C = 4.2 - 4.4Ghz on six cores)
960 EVO NVME SSD m.2 2280
16GB PC3000 RAM
1080TI SLI (or Vega Crossfire)
Win 10

Order one of each and see which one is faster then order the other 2 of those.

You have your core counts/overclocks flipped between systems. If you're planning on keeping the machine for the long haul, I'd probably go with the AMD solution. They have historically been much more stable on offering CPU upgrades across families in the same socket, and while there's currently some growing pains with thread/CCX scheduling, that should only get better from here. 6800k is what it is, it won't really improve any further. AMD has legs (assuming companies step up and support it, just look at the Tomb Raider patch). Current performance favors the 6800k, but generally only in the benchmark numbers (ie, you won't get enough extra performance to experience a noticeable difference without staring at a FPS counter or benchmark score).

yea, your cpus are flipped in the A, B section.

if the difference is just motherboard and cpu then ryzen would seem the better choice given that the current use case is a wash in terms of performance differences yet the am4 socket will be upgradable to a future cpu that should be anything currently out.

Whoops - fixed the clerical mistake in my listings with the CPU core count and expected MHz. Thanks.

Wow 5-0 towards Ryzen in early voting. That surprises me.

I agree that AMD has longer legs for the CPU for sure -- one small concern I have with X370 is with the PCI-E lanes. I'll always be limited to 20 lanes on that board. I like running dual GPU - (helps with the occasional 7680x1440 gaming resolution). Ryzen's 8 lanes x 2 is enough with current gen cards --- but will it be enough in 3-4 years when the chipset is nearing end of life --- assuming AMD releases a reasonable CPU upgrade for us early platform adopters by then? With the X99 you could have up to 40 PCI-E lanes with a 10 core or more CPU which is plenty enough for the next 3-4 years. 16x2 (+ 4 for PCI-E NVME) -- that's enough for me in that timeline horizon anyway. (and perhaps 8x2 + 4 for PCI-E NVME is too).

High resolution, low quality is really the only place the x16 x 2 lanes makes a difference so far. Fast forward 4 years. Not sure about then... I typically upgrade my video card/s about every year.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Titan-X-Performance-PCI-E-3-0-x8-vs-x16-851/





Any other little nuances between the two options I'm forgetting to consider?

The ASRock board you chose for your AMD build is quite solid.

If you can hit 3.9-4.0 Ghz and achieve 3000/2933 mhz on the RAM; I'd go with Ryzen over Broadwell-E....

Running 8x8 3.0 SLI / Crossfire with 4 lanes to spare for an NVMe drive in regards to future-proofing, you're good IMO.

I built the AMD system. Took alot more tweaking then I was used to but hey. Your also right that Vega is a unknown even now. The early benchmarks were run on drivers that had entire parts of the card off and were only optimized for content creation. So we still don't know what the retail performance vs pricepoint is yet. I am still running twin AMD Fury's and doing really well at 3440X1440.
Alas I have that with the AMD 1800X and 64GB of ram with the Samsung PCIE SSD 960 sitting in the motherboard. None of the 10 series Nvidia caused me to even flinch about upgrading. I doubt Vega will make me flinch either. Maybe the gen after.

I am not a gamer. I use systems to develop content and programs. It doesn't make a difference for me. The system needs to be fast and low-cost. Both of them have that.