Can anybody get me up to speed on the state of the CPU game right now?

t4keheart

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 24, 2019
Messages
111
Hey everyone,
I haven't built a computer in maybe 10-15 years... since core 2 duo's were a thing and the intel "i" series was in 1st/2nd gen. Things get busy and life takes priority.
Anyways, thinking about building another pc. I'm a software dev and I do some gaming... so I'm wondering where the sweet spot is with cpu's these days.

I would like for somebody to give me "the skinny" on the current cpu situation.

Main questions:
1) Is it still worth it to always go intel? Is the cost of a mid-high end i-series worth it vs. a comparable performing amd ryzen?
2) Is now a good or bad time to buy/build? Anything new coming out soon that I should wait for?
3) which is the best bang for your buck, mid-high performance offering from both amd and Intel?
4) anything else you think i should take into consideration?

I was thinking of also building a basic server too- something that probably runs ubuntu server that funstions as a nas, runs plex, maybe hosts some websites, maybe a LAMP testbed... but seeing as how they sell 8 year old dell power edge servers on amazon for 200$, I may just go that route, or just get a synology.
 
The game has changed, once Intel was completely dominant but AMD is roaring back ever since they released Zen.

In a nutshell: AMD best value and bang for the buck. Intel best peak IPC and platform.

Main questions:
1) Is it still worth it to always go intel? Is the cost of a mid-high end i-series worth it vs. a comparable performing amd ryzen?
2) Is now a good or bad time to buy/build? Anything new coming out soon that I should wait for?
3) which is the best bang for your buck, mid-high performance offering from both amd and Intel?
4) anything else you think i should take into consideration?

1) No.

2) Now is a good time. RAM is cheap, SSD costs have come down, CPU sockets have great upgrade paths.

3) AMD best performance/dollar - Ryzen 5 3600. Intel best performance/dollar - i5-9400F.

4) This is just an overview to get you reacquainted. It's always best to read a few articles and research a little before pulling the trigger.
 
4) This is just an overview to get you reacquainted. It's always best to read a few articles and research a little before pulling the trigger.

Thanks for the input! yeah that's all I'm looking for, somebody who keeps up on the current market to give me a decent overview of the situation. Appreciate it!

One of my main concerns is that the current socket is going to be relevant for a couple more years... if it's on it's way out I would consider waiting for the next socket but if this one has some life left in it with some good upgrade paths, that will do! See, I don't even know what the current socket is called! I need to look it up lol
 
I switched to Team Red with a 3600. Couldn't be happier. I don't see myself going back to Intel again.
 
I don't see myself going back to Intel again.

*gasp* ... that's a bold statement. What is so great about the amd that makes you never want to go back to intel? I'm still stuck with the mentality that intel quality and performance will always be superior.... like, if somebody had 1 million dollars to spend on their build, and money isn't an object, they would always get the most pricey intel over anything amd. No?
 
Thanks for the input! yeah that's all I'm looking for, somebody who keeps up on the current market to give me a decent overview of the situation. Appreciate it!

One of my main concerns is that the current socket is going to be relevant for a couple more years... if it's on it's way out I would consider waiting for the next socket but if this one has some life left in it with some good upgrade paths, that will do! See, I don't even know what the current socket is called! I need to look it up lol

No worries, I got you. It's called AM4. For a PC enthusiast such as you, there's 2 AM4 chipsets you need to know: B series and X series. B series are for gamers/performance. X series is for overclocking the CPU and Xfire. Unless you plan on heavy overclocking, then B series is enough.

B350 was the old gen, B450 is current gen, and B550 is coming later this year.

X370 is old gen, X470 is current gen, and X570 is coming later.

The motherboard everyone recommends is the MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX.
 
*gasp* ... that's a bold statement. What is so great about the amd that makes you never want to go back to intel? I'm still stuck with the mentality that intel quality and performance will always be superior.... like, if somebody had 1 million dollars to spend on their build, and money isn't an object, they would always get the most pricey intel over anything amd. No?
As someone mentioned the price vs performance. It was stupid cheap and has been a fantastic upgrade.
 
The game has changed, once Intel was completely dominant but AMD is roaring back ever since they released Zen.

In a nutshell: AMD best value and bang for the buck. Intel best peak IPC and platform.



1) No.

2) Now is a good time. RAM is cheap, SSD costs have come down, CPU sockets have great upgrade paths.

3) AMD best performance/dollar - Ryzen 5 3600. Intel best performance/dollar - i5-9400F.

4) This is just an overview to get you reacquainted. It's always best to read a few articles and research a little before pulling the trigger.

AM4 is at end of it's life. It may get the next Zen iteration, but the one after is almost surely going to be AM5 (or whatever they decide to call it). Intel is never a good bet for socket longevity.
You also left out HEDT which has TR4 and sTR4 for AMD and LGA2066 for Intel.

No worries, I got you. It's called AM4. For a PC enthusiast such as you, there's 2 AM4 chipsets you need to know: B series and X series. B series are for gamers/performance. X series is for overclocking the CPU and Xfire. Unless you plan on heavy overclocking, then B series is enough.

B350 was the old gen, B450 is current gen, and B550 is coming later this year.

X370 is old gen, X470 is current gen, and X570 is coming later.

The motherboard everyone recommends is the MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX.

X570 has been out nearly 9 months now.
 
*gasp* ... that's a bold statement. What is so great about the amd that makes you never want to go back to intel? I'm still stuck with the mentality that intel quality and performance will always be superior.... like, if somebody had 1 million dollars to spend on their build, and money isn't an object, they would always get the most pricey intel over anything amd. No?


Intel for the last decade has been light on innovation for CPU, and they've been rehashing the same architecture for five years because they tied their new architectures to their failed 10nm node. Plus they have new security CPU vulnerability being revealed every other week it seems because of the shortcuts they took for the sake of performance. The mitigations for them can be pretty harsh.
 
No worries, I got you. It's called AM4. For a PC enthusiast such as you, there's 2 AM4 chipsets you need to know: B series and X series. B series are for gamers/performance. X series is for overclocking the CPU and Xfire. Unless you plan on heavy overclocking, then B series is enough.

B350 was the old gen, B450 is current gen, and B550 is coming later this year.

X370 is old gen, X470 is current gen, and X570 is coming later.

The motherboard everyone recommends is the MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX.
X570 has been here for months. And no I wouldn’t say everyone recommends that board. If I’m already spending the money, I wouldn’t buy into a B series limited chipset.

I went with a x570 high end platform (Asus Crosshair 8) and a 3900x. Performance was on point for the money, in my case the best value for use.

all comes down to what someone wants to spend.

I was all Intel (except back in the Athlon 64 days and even further back with the 2500 Barton core). But AMD hit it out of the park with Zen 2.
 
AMD's Socket AM4 has been supported since 2017 (zen 1), and it's current lineup is the Zen 2 3000- series. AM4 Zen 2 supports up to 16 cores in a socket, with a max turbo boost of 4.6 GHz. It will be replaced about year after Zen 3 is released (later this year.)

Intel has been stuck in the "Two years then dump it" mantra since they released Sandy Bridge. Their current Socket 1151 rev 2 supports Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh. You get up to 8 cores, with a max turbo boost of 5 GHz. The replacement socket (LGA 1200, 10 cores) will not be compatible with Coffee Lake.

With AM4, you get quite an upgrade path, with Zen 3 in the way. You also get easy access to up-to-16 cores on the used market, if your needs ever grow.
 
*gasp* ... that's a bold statement. What is so great about the amd that makes you never want to go back to intel? I'm still stuck with the mentality that intel quality and performance will always be superior.... like, if somebody had 1 million dollars to spend on their build, and money isn't an object, they would always get the most pricey intel over anything amd. No?


AMD has the most expensive chips now with Threadripper. In most games the MUCH cheaper 9900k will have faster average FPS, but there have been some instances where the TR chips actually improve Min and 1% FPS. It really depends.
 
AMD has the most expensive chips now with Threadripper. In most games the MUCH cheaper 9900k will have faster average FPS, but there have been some instances where the TR chips actually improve Min and 1% FPS. It really depends.

I would not exactly compare a ThreadRipper to any normal desktop Intel CPU. I mean they are for a totally different purpose and gaming is not what they were designed for.
 
AMD has the most expensive chips now with Threadripper. In most games the MUCH cheaper 9900k will have faster average FPS, but there have been some instances where the TR chips actually improve Min and 1% FPS. It really depends.
That’s a bit disingenuous. TR is more expensive, but is meant for a completely different use case.

The cheaper 3900X is better than the 9900k at most everything that higher price isn’t really justified by the better gaming performance.
 
Hey everyone,
I haven't built a computer in maybe 10-15 years... since core 2 duo's were a thing and the intel "i" series was in 1st/2nd gen. Things get busy and life takes priority.
Anyways, thinking about building another pc. I'm a software dev and I do some gaming... so I'm wondering where the sweet spot is with cpu's these days.

I would like for somebody to give me "the skinny" on the current cpu situation.

Main questions:
1) Is it still worth it to always go intel? Is the cost of a mid-high end i-series worth it vs. a comparable performing amd ryzen?
2) Is now a good or bad time to buy/build? Anything new coming out soon that I should wait for?
3) which is the best bang for your buck, mid-high performance offering from both amd and Intel?
4) anything else you think i should take into consideration?

I was thinking of also building a basic server too- something that probably runs ubuntu server that funstions as a nas, runs plex, maybe hosts some websites, maybe a LAMP testbed... but seeing as how they sell 8 year old dell power edge servers on amazon for 200$, I may just go that route, or just get a synology.

1.) Most people here will say "no." However, that's still up for some debate. Some people have had negative experiences with AMD processor based systems due to platform issues and will still go Intel. I will say that there are sometimes additional challenges that you face with AMD platforms, but they aren't insurmountable nor as bad as they were when each chipset was new. Conversely, Intel has far more rampant security problems though its still unknown how good or bad AMD CPU's truly are. Exploits effecting Intel systems sometimes still effect AMD. AMD's architecture isn't as well known and it is likely in whole or in part, an issue of security through obscurity. Meaning we don't know how well Ryzen will ultimately shake out on the security front for months or even years.

2.) It's a solid time to buy AMD right now. If interested in going Intel, I would wait right now.

3.) AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 or Ryzen 7 3700X are really the sweet spots for most people. On the Intel side, your looking at the 9600K or the 9700K. On the slightly higher end of that spectrum, the 9900K is also an option. It depends on what your doing as to how much you truly need to spend here. I'm assuming gaming, so best options are the 3700X and 9900K respectively. The AMD being far more bang for your buck. Although, some ground is lost on the expense of a decent X570 motherboard. The cheaper ones are of questionable quality in many cases.

4.) Not really.

One of my main concerns is that the current socket is going to be relevant for a couple more years... if it's on it's way out I would consider waiting for the next socket but if this one has some life left in it with some good upgrade paths, that will do! See, I don't even know what the current socket is called! I need to look it up lol

Intel's Z390 chipset and LGA 1151 socket are on their way out. There is no future upgrade path there. AMD's AM4 socket is good through 2020, but we don't really know beyond that. The fact is, AMD has used the same socket for about three years now and its grown from supporting only 8c/16t CPU's to 16c/32t. There are a lot of issues that come with broader CPU support on a single socket and I can get into that if you'd like, but its unlikely that AM4 has a long life ahead of it. Then again, we just don't really know at this point. AMD strives to maintain that compatibility as long as they can, but it creates additional design challenges for them. It also creates challenges for us as consumers.
 
AMD has the most expensive chips now with Threadripper. In most games the MUCH cheaper 9900k will have faster average FPS, but there have been some instances where the TR chips actually improve Min and 1% FPS. It really depends.

HEDT chips are an oddity with games. They often suffer as gaming CPU's, but the Threadripper 3960X and 3970X really don't. However, most of their benefits in those scenarios likely come down to additional memory bandwidth. Even where you can demonstrate superior performance, the bang for your buck is simply not there.

Even if you are building a no holds barred absolute "best" gaming rig possible type of system, its still incredibly hard to justify the additional cost. A decent X570 motherboard is going to be north of $250. The best Ryzen 3000 series CPU is the $750 Ryzen 9 3950X. The required TR40x motherboard is closer to the $600+ mark while the Threadripper 3970X itself is $2,000. I'd argue you really want liquid cooling for both, but its even more of a requirement with Threadripper. Fortunately, the only difference in cost between them on the cooling side comes down to the water blocks themselves. That said, there are likely cheaper AM4 blocks than there are sTRX4 compatible blocks. On that front, the difference is probably in the $50 range. In either case, probably not a deal breaker.

Between a 9900K and a 3950X, there are some games where the 9900K will definitely be faster and by a noticeable amount. What it really comes down to are the games you play and whether or not those titles behave that way and at what resolution this is apparent. Hitman 2 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are two examples where at both lower and higher quality graphics settings, a 9900K or any Intel CPU for that matter, are noticeably faster than their AMD counterparts.
 
AMD has the most expensive chips now with Threadripper. In most games the MUCH cheaper 9900k will have faster average FPS, but there have been some instances where the TR chips actually improve Min and 1% FPS. It really depends.
with literally 8 times the cores of a 9900k yes they sure are more expensive.
 
HEDT chips are an oddity with games. They often suffer as gaming CPU's, but the Threadripper 3960X and 3970X really don't. However, most of their benefits in those scenarios likely come down to additional memory bandwidth. Even where you can demonstrate superior performance, the bang for your buck is simply not there.

Even if you are building a no holds barred absolute "best" gaming rig possible type of system, its still incredibly hard to justify the additional cost. A decent X570 motherboard is going to be north of $250. The best Ryzen 3000 series CPU is the $750 Ryzen 9 3950X. The required TR40x motherboard is closer to the $600+ mark while the Threadripper 3970X itself is $2,000. I'd argue you really want liquid cooling for both, but its even more of a requirement with Threadripper. Fortunately, the only difference in cost between them on the cooling side comes down to the water blocks themselves. That said, there are likely cheaper AM4 blocks than there are sTRX4 compatible blocks. On that front, the difference is probably in the $50 range. In either case, probably not a deal breaker.

Between a 9900K and a 3950X, there are some games where the 9900K will definitely be faster and by a noticeable amount. What it really comes down to are the games you play and whether or not those titles behave that way and at what resolution this is apparent. Hitman 2 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are two examples where at both lower and higher quality graphics settings, a 9900K or any Intel CPU for that matter, are noticeably faster than their AMD counterparts.
I would not exactly compare a ThreadRipper to any normal desktop Intel CPU. I mean they are for a totally different purpose and gaming is not what they were designed for.
That’s a bit disingenuous. TR is more expensive, but is meant for a completely different use case.

The cheaper 3900X is better than the 9900k at most everything that higher price isn’t really justified by the better gaming performance.

He asked If he had a million dollars, what would you get.
 
Why not the 3990X? I mean if you have the money. Lol


Lower stock turbo than the 32-core. And over 400w full-load if you bother to do it manually.

You only need the 3960x to double your memory bandwidth over the 3950X. That's the only gaming performance increase magic going on here.

Very little performance gains doubling your core count ((outside scientific computations / rendering)

And you also have the added confusion of Windows Processor Groups - unless you goo through the trouble of acquiring a Windows Enterprise licenses

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15483/amd-threadripper-3990x-review/3
It's a bit of a mess throwing more than 64 threads at windows, so why pay an extra $2000?. Even Handbrake only scales by 33% per-core once you get above 8 cores, so why go above 32?

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Now is a great time to build. I just recently replaced my first generation i7 system (x58 - 6 core/12 thread xeon) with a Ryzen 5 2600 that I got for cheap last year.

Blazing fast, way more power efficient, and I even went small form factor, so no giant tower on my desk, just something the size of a dictionary.

Even in the used market the prices for Ryzen are extremely good, they have disrupted the market with their aggressive prices. Also the prices of motherboards are extremely good compared to intel.

For example, I just bought a used Ryzen 5 1600 for $65 on Ebay, no way I would be able to buy and intel equivalent CPU for that cheap, to boot an overclockable one as well.
 
Lower stock turbo than the 32-core. And over 400w full-load if you bother to do it manually.

You only need the 3960x to double your memory bandwidth over the 3950X. That's the only gaming performance increase magic going on here.

Very little performance gains doubling your core count ((outside scientific computations / rendering)

And you also have the added confusion of Windows Processor Groups - unless you goo through the trouble of acquiring a Windows Enterprise licenses

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15483/amd-threadripper-3990x-review/3
It's a bit of a mess throwing more than 64 threads at windows, so why pay an extra $2000?. Even Handbrake only scales by 33% per-core once you get above 8 cores, so why go above 32?

View attachment 224693

And for gaming, the turbo frequency is hugely important.
 
Wow thanks for all of the input everyone. I'm not opposed to AMD, and have built a few systems with AMD chips in the past (am2 era)... Like now, I think it really just depends on the current state of the market that dictates which way I swing with cpu. I think as of recently it's the first time in a long time that it is actually a better choice to go with AMD... if what everybody is saying is true.

I may be the minority here, but I don't really care about clock speeds and spending an extra $200 for a few more fps. I play games but I've noticed something strange lately. I've been gaming on a HP pavillion I got for ~$300 used. It's got an 8th gen intel i5 and a 2GB GTX-something (don't even know) and it can handle just about every game I own and throw at it (and I buy new games all the time)... maybe not at max/ultra, but it can play everything and look pretty damn good while doing it. I don't remember this being the case years ago- where you actually needed high end gamer stuff to play pc games. I even play the witcher 3 on med/high.

I think what's happened is that hardware has advanced faster than gaming/graphics/whatever and is finally reaching a place where basic hardware that comes in stock branded desktops can handle games pretty well- especially the older games like dark souls and stuff like that... so I feel like super high end pc components is more of a niche hobby now more than ever, in that you don't really NEED the most expensive stuff to play games.

I'm a developer and a passionate tinkerer who plays some games (mostly mtg arena), so I do enjoy some speed, but I think splurging on the most expensive stuff is mostly for bragging rights these days (not that it hasn't always been). I just want something decent to code on and do what I do... I usually find that spending ~$13-1500 on a build is a sweet spot for me.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.
 
Wow thanks for all of the input everyone. I'm not opposed to AMD, and have built a few systems with AMD chips in the past (am2 era)... Like now, I think it really just depends on the current state of the market that dictates which way I swing with cpu. I think as of recently it's the first time in a long time that it is actually a better choice to go with AMD... if what everybody is saying is true.

I may be the minority here, but I don't really care about clock speeds and spending an extra $200 for a few more fps. I play games but I've noticed something strange lately. I've been gaming on a HP pavillion I got for ~$300 used. It's got an 8th gen intel i5 and a 2GB GTX-something (don't even know) and it can handle just about every game I own and throw at it (and I buy new games all the time)... maybe not at max/ultra, but it can play everything and look pretty damn good while doing it. I don't remember this being the case years ago- where you actually needed high end gamer stuff to play pc games. I even play the witcher 3 on med/high.

I think what's happened is that hardware has advanced faster than gaming/graphics/whatever and is finally reaching a place where basic hardware that comes in stock branded desktops can handle games pretty well- especially the older games like dark souls and stuff like that... so I feel like super high end pc components is more of a niche hobby now more than ever, in that you don't really NEED the most expensive stuff to play games.

I'm a developer and a passionate tinkerer who plays some games (mostly mtg arena), so I do enjoy some speed, but I think splurging on the most expensive stuff is mostly for bragging rights these days (not that it hasn't always been). I just want something decent to code on and do what I do... I usually find that spending ~$13-1500 on a build is a sweet spot for me.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

You still need high end hardware to achieve a decent experience beyond 1920x1080. 1920x1080 is a relatively low resolution, but it's also somewhat CPU limited.

I cover this topic in several of my CPU reviews.
 
You still need high end hardware to achieve a decent experience beyond 1920x1080. 1920x1080 is a relatively low resolution, but it's also somewhat CPU limited.

I cover this topic in several of my CPU reviews.
Idk, I run my 2 monitors at 2560x1440 and don't have any issues and my specs are pretty basic... 8th gen intel i5 (don't remember clock speed), 16gb ram, low-end graphics card. I'm tellin ya, I think many people are just used to the way things used to be and simply haven't really tried "lower end" components because why would they. It is very very very seldom that anything really even gets my basic machine breathing heavy.
 
Idk, I run my 2 monitors at 2560x1440 and don't have any issues and my specs are pretty basic... 8th gen intel i5 (don't remember clock speed), 16gb ram, low-end graphics card. I'm tellin ya, I think many people are just used to the way things used to be and simply haven't really tried "lower end" components because why would they. It is very very very seldom that anything really even gets my basic machine breathing heavy.

I don't agree with this at all. Frankly, I've tested lower end hardware and the statement is simply incorrect. At 1920x1080, you'd be able to make a fair case for some lower end hardware if your satisfied with medium settings in more modern games. That's just not how a lot of us roll here. This isn't oft|OCP. I've got a machine here with a Ryzen 7 2700X w/GTX 980 Ti and at 2560x1600, it's not able to maintain 144FPS (for 144Hz G-Sync) in Destiny 2 at maximum settings. Destiny 2 is actually fairly well optimized and runs very well given how good it looks. That machine can do 80-90FPS most of the time, even hitting 110FPS or so once in awhile but it does drop down to the 45-50FPS range quite often.

At 3440x1440 or 3840x2160, you simply need more power. I've got an RTX 2080 Super and an RTX 2080 Ti here and the latter is what I'd consider the bare minimum for a good 4K gaming experience. Even at 3440x1440, that would still generally be the case in a lot of games. At 1920x1080, the case for more powerful video cards comes down to higher frame rates for higher refresh rate monitors. These things all make a huge difference. At 1920x1080, the 2080 Super delivers a fantastic experience and can even push really high FPS. But crank up the settings and resolution and that 2080 Super starts to falter.

I've done the testing. I've reviewed lower end processors with higher end graphics cards and they do not get it done once you start cranking up the eye candy in more demanding games. It's the same thing with the video cards. For me, medium settings are a no go. I want maxed visuals at a minimum of 120FPS if I can get it. This cannot be achieved in more demanding games at decent resolution. For me, 1920x1080 is crap. Anything beyond a 24" monitor and 1920x1080 looks absolutely terrible. An immersive experience demands a larger display as far as I'm concerned. That means higher resolution. Games are becoming increasingly multi-threaded. That means, there are good reasons to go beyond an i5 for gaming.
 
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I don't agree with this at all. Frankly, I've tested lower end hardware and the statement is simply incorrect. At 1920x1080, you'd be able to make a fair case for some lower end hardware if your satisfied with medium settings in more modern games. That's just not how a lot of us roll here. This isn't oft|OCP. I've got a machine here with a Ryzen 7 2700X w/GTX 980 Ti and at 2560x1600, it's not able to maintain 144FPS (for 144Hz G-Sync) in Destiny 2 at maximum settings. Destiny 2 is actually fairly well optimized and runs very well given how good it looks. That machine can do 80-90FPS most of the time, even hitting 110FPS or so once in awhile but it does drop down to the 45-50FPS range quite often.

At 3440x1440 or 3840x2160, you simply need more power. I've got an RTX 2080 Super and an RTX 2080 Ti here and the latter is what I'd consider the bare minimum for a good 4K gaming experience. Even at 3440x1440, that would still generally be the case in a lot of games. At 1920x1080, the case for more powerful video cards comes down to higher frame rates for higher refresh rate monitors. These things all make a huge difference. At 1920x1080, the 2080 Super delivers a fantastic experience and can even push really high FPS. But crank up the settings and resolution and that 2080 Super starts to falter.

I've done the testing. I've reviewed lower end processors with higher end graphics cards and they do not get it done once you start cranking up the eye candy in more demanding games. It's the same thing with the video cards. For me, medium settings are a no go. I want maxed visuals at a minimum of 120FPS if I can get it. This cannot be achieved in more demanding games at decent resolution. For me, 1920x1080 is crap. Anything beyond a 24" monitor and 1920x1080 looks absolutely terrible. An immersive experience demands a larger display as far as I'm concerned. That means higher resolution. Games are becoming increasingly multi-threaded. That means, there are good reasons to go beyond an i5 for gaming.

I'm well aware of how 'most people roll here'... i've been on/around this forum since probably 2004 or so... took a hiatus from caring about pc hardware for about 10 years and welp, here i am.
Anyways you said it in your last paragraph... I mentioned a few times that I'm not talking about max settings... and that everything I throw at my machine runs 'fine' at med-high settings. Clearly we have a divide in our opinions on what actually matters. If I can play the game and it looks alright, that's fine with me. I'm not looking at frame-rates or shadow quality or any of that. I've had $2500 builds, it's just not worth it to me anymore. I don't think you really read or understood what I was saying... of course there are good reasons to get high end stuff if you want the best gaming experience...

All I meant to say is that these days, things will run a lot smoother on just about anything you can buy new (hardware wise), a lot better than it used to in the past, in my opinion. If my dead grandmother's dell can run a new game without any lag... that's sayin' something
 
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I'm well aware of how 'most people roll here'... i've been on/around this forum since probably 2004 or so... took a hiatus from caring about pc hardware for about 10 years and forgot my registration info/password.
Anyways you said it in your last paragraph... I mentioned a few times that I'm not talking about max settings... and that everything I throw at my machine runs 'fine' at med-high settings. Clearly we have a divide in our opinions on what actually matters. If I can play the game and it looks alright, that's fine with me. I'm not looking at frame-rates or shadow quality or any of that. I've had $2500 builds, it's just not worth it to me anymore. I don't think you really read or understood what I was saying... of course there are good reasons to get high end stuff if you want the best gaming experience...

All I meant to say is that these days, things will run a lot smoother on just about anything you can buy new (hardware wise), a lot better than it used to in the past, in my opinion. If my dead grandmother's dell can run a new game without any lag... that's sayin' something
Well obviously your not sensitive to the lag either, which is understandable. You asked for expert advice and you got it, simple is that. Now if you had been able to play on some of these high end setups dan has put together, you would notice things much different.
 
Well obviously your not sensitive to the lag either, which is understandable. You asked for expert advice and you got it, simple is that. Now if you had been able to play on some of these high end setups dan has put together, you would notice things much different.

lol I just don't appreciate the elitist attitude... not for nothing, this thread has wandered far from general info pertaining to the basic questions asked up top... because somebody took offense to me saying "yeah I think you can get by with less these days".

Obviously high end hardware outperforms low-end stuff by leaps and bounds... doesn't take an expert opinion to figure that much out. But how much does it matter to you? $100? $400? $3k? To me, I found it unnecessary for what I do.
 
lol I just don't appreciate the elitist attitude... not for nothing, this thread has wandered far from general info pertaining to the basic questions asked up top... because somebody took offense to me saying "yeah I think you can get by with less these days".

Obviously high end hardware outperforms low-end stuff by leaps and bounds... doesn't take an expert opinion to figure that much out. But how much does it matter to you? $100? $400? $3k? To me, I found it unnecessary for what I do.
There was NO elitist attitude given. You can interpret it that way but thats on you. Me personally im just fine with 60fps since i dont have a 240hz or what ever display, but they say once you have tried it and used it long enough, its hard to go backwards. I play everything on Max display settings so my video card is a heavy bottleneck and i always dial up the res with VSR until my card cant maintain 60fps or about.
 
Intel best peak IPC and platform.
Wrong. They have lower IPC than AMD in most workloads, or else they'd be dominating AMD. Only thing keeping them relevant is clockspeeds which leads to them using stupid amounts of power to do the same or slower work than AMD currently.


OP, if you want to tinker AMD will be more fun and use a lot less power. Besides why reward Intel who cheats on security for speed and wanted to keep us on quad cores for the next few decades..
 
Wrong. They have lower IPC than AMD in most workloads, or else they'd be dominating AMD. Only thing keeping them relevant is clockspeeds which leads to them using stupid amounts of power to do the same or slower work than AMD currently.


OP, if you want to tinker AMD will be more fun and use a lot less power. Besides why reward Intel who cheats on security for speed and wanted to keep us on quad cores for the next few decades..

idk man, mostly because to a lot of people, Intel has that brand superiority feel goin' on... it just feels good to buy intel chips, lot's of people buy things for that reason alone... but I guess AMD is the way to go in the current market.
 
Like, obviously I had 2 choices when deciding where to post this thread (amd/intel sub), I chose intel without even putting any thought into it... and surprisingly enough, got a bunch of people shitting on intel in the intel sub lol
 
I'm well aware of how 'most people roll here'... i've been on/around this forum since probably 2004 or so... took a hiatus from caring about pc hardware for about 10 years and welp, here i am.
Anyways you said it in your last paragraph... I mentioned a few times that I'm not talking about max settings... and that everything I throw at my machine runs 'fine' at med-high settings. Clearly we have a divide in our opinions on what actually matters. If I can play the game and it looks alright, that's fine with me. I'm not looking at frame-rates or shadow quality or any of that. I've had $2500 builds, it's just not worth it to me anymore. I don't think you really read or understood what I was saying... of course there are good reasons to get high end stuff if you want the best gaming experience...

All I meant to say is that these days, things will run a lot smoother on just about anything you can buy new (hardware wise), a lot better than it used to in the past, in my opinion. If my dead grandmother's dell can run a new game without any lag... that's sayin' something

Yes, you mentioned not caring about maxed settings. I absolutely understood what you were saying. That's not the part that I was responding to primarily. I will agree that you get more for your money than you used to in some respects. Video cards being one of them.

Idk, I run my 2 monitors at 2560x1440 and don't have any issues and my specs are pretty basic... 8th gen intel i5 (don't remember clock speed), 16gb ram, low-end graphics card. I'm tellin ya, I think many people are just used to the way things used to be and simply haven't really tried "lower end" components because why would they. It is very very very seldom that anything really even gets my basic machine breathing heavy.

Your response, was a response to what I said here:

You still need high end hardware to achieve a decent experience beyond 1920x1080. 1920x1080 is a relatively low resolution, but it's also somewhat CPU limited.

I cover this topic in several of my CPU reviews.

Now, you literally said that you weren't sure if you agreed with the statement I made above. You stated you were running dual monitors at 2560x1440, and that you didn't have any issues, etc. I specifically used an example at that precise resolution with a 2700X and Destiny 2 where a 980 Ti barely gets it done at maximum settings. Sure, at medium it would be fine, but again everyone isn't you.

You then go on to talk about how it's fine and that many people are used to the way things used to be and haven't tried lower end hardware. This is incorrect. I test hardware professionally. This includes lower end hardware. Granted, I don't go super low end on video cards, but I don't need to. I've seen plenty of cases where a medium to high end graphics card may struggle at even lower resolutions in certain games and situations. I have tested lower end processors and have plenty of data to show where they excel and where they falter compared to higher end CPU's. I've written about half a dozen CPU reviews since the middle of last year. This involved a great deal of testing on processors of varying price points, core counts and clock speeds for each article.

I was simply responding to your assertion that people like myself hadn't tried lower end hardware. This assertion implies that the higher end hardware isn't as necessary as the data and our experiences suggest. This is what I refuted. I don't think doing so is elitist at all. I recognize and talk about the different priorities of different gamers and brought that up. Your good with medium settings, but this is an enthusiast forum where people are wanting to push extremely high refresh rates or higher resolution displays and various configurations in between. Again, this sort of goes against your earlier statement as lower end hardware simply can't always get the job done. In your case, it seems to be doing just fine. I pointed out that it wouldn't work for me, or many other people here.

Well obviously your not sensitive to the lag either, which is understandable. You asked for expert advice and you got it, simple is that. Now if you had been able to play on some of these high end setups dan has put together, you would notice things much different.

It may not necessarily be a lack of sensitivity as much as a lack of exposure. Late last year, my girlfriend sat down and played Destiny 2 on my machine using a 120Hz, IPS, G-Sync monitor and a 9900K @ 5.0GHz with DDR4000MHz RAM and an overclocked RTX 2080 Ti. She was used to playing on a 60Hz, 2560x1600 display that is very slow in terms of latency by modern standards. She's used that monitor for years and never complained, so I never upgraded. When she sat down to game on my machine, she could tell the difference between my rig and hers right away, but she couldn't articulate what the difference was. But she noticed her shots were more accurate, she felt faster, etc.

Long story short, she wanted a faster monitor for Christmas. That's what she got and she noticed the difference immediately.

Wrong. They have lower IPC than AMD in most workloads, or else they'd be dominating AMD. Only thing keeping them relevant is clockspeeds which leads to them using stupid amounts of power to do the same or slower work than AMD currently.

OP, if you want to tinker AMD will be more fun and use a lot less power. Besides why reward Intel who cheats on security for speed and wanted to keep us on quad cores for the next few decades..

AMD does have higher IPC in its Ryzen 3000 series. Intel only maintains a small single-threaded lead largely because of clock speeds. There are cases where other factors in the architecture may be coming into play, but generally, its clock speed more than anything. Intel's power efficiency is also outright pathetic as I've pointed out.

I will disagree about the fun of tuning. I don't actually enjoy tuning AMD systems. Once you get your RAM dialed in, it largely feels pointless. Various tuning methods provide good gains in certain cases, but I've never felt like they did anything for me on the gaming front. PB2 is essentially all you need with those chips outside of very specific workloads. I can point out several where a lower single-core, but higher all core clock is warranted. Cinebench R20 showcases this nicely. It's not a real application, but it showcases that principle. The most fun I've had overclocking lately was with Intel's Core i9 10980XE. You get massive clock speed gains and actual results worth talking about. The CPU is far from impressive in its default state. But overclock it, and its a monster with few CPU's that are genuinely faster than it is. At least, in the HEDT market. All of which are considerably more expensive than it is.

idk man, mostly because to a lot of people, Intel has that brand superiority feel goin' on... it just feels good to buy intel chips, lot's of people buy things for that reason alone... but I guess AMD is the way to go in the current market.

You generalize a lot I've noticed. Here is the thing, the masses are more familiar with Intel and that's all brand recognition. In enthusiast circles, people are going AMD because you either get more overall performance or better bang for your buck, or both. It's that simple.

Like, obviously I had 2 choices when deciding where to post this thread (amd/intel sub), I chose intel without even putting any thought into it... and surprisingly enough, got a bunch of people shitting on intel in the intel sub lol

Intel's brought it on themselves. They've allowed their product line to stagnate for almost a decade. We've seen minute improvements in IPC and significant ones in performance per watt in mobile and server markets while desktop CPU's were largely ignored until AMD came around to kick Intel in its apathetic ass. Intel has also been making erroneous claims about IPC improvements from generation to generation while retarding clock speeds nearly every time there is a gain. Intel has manufacturing shortages and problems competing due to process issues etc. On top of that, building an Intel PC right now wouldn't make much sense given that socket LGA 1151 and Z390 are at the end of their life cycle. Late Q1 or early Q2, we should see the 10900K chips using socket LGA 1200. Not that anyone will be able to buy them, but that's not the point.

We've got plenty of hard core fan boys in either camp here at the [H]. However, most of us are enthusiasts first. We want the best processor for the money, and right now that's generally not Intel.
 
I'm currently on a well aged Ivy-E hex. My next build will gladly be a 3700x with a 5700xt or better if the bigger Navi is out by then.
 
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