Downgrade to upgrade?

Xa3phod

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2012
Messages
170
So here is the deal. I have a Ryzen 3900x on an Asrock 570 Taichi Motherboard, an RTX 2070 and 16 gigs of good ram. I also have a 6700K with 16 gigs of good ram. I did some benchmarks, and while the Ryzen 3900x is faster, in single thread its only a few % faster. I have the 6700K stable at 4.5Ghz. So, I had an idea. Why not sell the 3900x, the Mobo, and the ram. I also have a R9 Fury X. I would sell it all, use the 6700K and with the cash I make, get a RTX3080Ti. I figure a 6700K and a RTX3080Ti is faster in gaming than a 3900x with a RTX2070. Or, I would wait for the 4000 series Nvidia or get an AMD, whichever makes more sense, but I wouldn't spent $800 on a video card, but with the money I get from the sales, its even.

So:

Ryzen 3900X + RTX 2070

or

I7-6700K + RTX 3080Ti.



Or, do I keep the motherboard, sell the 3900x, keep the Taichi Mobo and ram, Sell the 6700K and the mobo its on and the ram, the 2070 and the R9 fury X, get a 5600X and the RTX 3080Ti? (5600X is faster than the 3900x in gaming and I am not doing much editing now).



Thanks for the help.
 
The AM4 platform will have longer legs as games get more multi threaded. The 6700k while still capable is hampered by its thread count already on some occasions. Unless you want to get into a ddr5 platform , meaning living with the 6700k and selling all your AMD stuff then upgrade sooner, I’d go with upgrading the x570 setup.
My 2c
 
This seems like exactly the wrong time to consider jumping on a higher-end RTX 3000-series what with your RTX 2070 still being very capable and the 4000-series imminent. Also, with Zen 4 also just around the corner upgrading to Zen 3 seems illogical (though admittedly the former will require a new mainboard and RAM).

Were it me, I'd probably wait for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel's announcements in the next few months for next-gen stuff, put together a list for a new system, cross fingers for some good Black Friday deals, and sell off the old systems.
 
I wouldn't want to keep that 6700K around. That was affected by Meltdown and Spectre, right?

Push come to shove, wait for AM5, sell it all off, and start from scratch. Of course, it will be worth less money then. Can you sell it now, and make do with a laptop or something?
 
I wouldn't want to keep that 6700K around. That was affected by Meltdown and Spectre, right?

Better not keep any of your computer gear around then, because virtually every CPU in existence is affected by one, the other or both; Even the i9-12900k and 5900x:

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There is not a single piece of CPU silicon that doesn't have some vulnerability, the difference is how much is performance hampered by patching said bugs. The i7-6700k does have noticeable performance degradation with the vulnerability patches enabled, but so does every x86 CPU. The farther back you go, the worse it will get, ESPECIALLY in regard to Windows operating systems. Windows 10 chugs on older hardware, and it keeps getting worse with time as more bloat and garbage patches are stacked on top of it. You don't have to worry about Windows 11 though, because it requires a TPM that automatically eliminates 99.9% of older hardware from running it.
 
There is not a single piece of CPU silicon that doesn't have some vulnerability, the difference is how much is performance hampered by patching said bugs.

Yeah, but aren't the patches basically optional on AMD parts? IIRC they can only be used with physical access, but I could be misremembering. On the Intel parts, if you go far enough back, you might even have to disable multithreading.

I don't have them installed on my AMD machines.
 
So here is the deal. I have a Ryzen 3900x on an Asrock 570 Taichi Motherboard, an RTX 2070 and 16 gigs of good ram. I also have a 6700K with 16 gigs of good ram. I did some benchmarks, and while the Ryzen 3900x is faster, in single thread its only a few % faster. I have the 6700K stable at 4.5Ghz. So, I had an idea. Why not sell the 3900x, the Mobo, and the ram. I also have a R9 Fury X. I would sell it all, use the 6700K and with the cash I make, get a RTX3080Ti. I figure a 6700K and a RTX3080Ti is faster in gaming than a 3900x with a RTX2070. Or, I would wait for the 4000 series Nvidia or get an AMD, whichever makes more sense, but I wouldn't spent $800 on a video card, but with the money I get from the sales, its even.

So:

Ryzen 3900X + RTX 2070

or

I7-6700K + RTX 3080Ti.



Or, do I keep the motherboard, sell the 3900x, keep the Taichi Mobo and ram, Sell the 6700K and the mobo its on and the ram, the 2070 and the R9 fury X, get a 5600X and the RTX 3080Ti? (5600X is faster than the 3900x in gaming and I am not doing much editing now).



Thanks for the help.
The 6700k will bottleneck pretty hard with a 3080ti, unless you are doing 4K. Even then, some of your lowest lows will likely be felt.
 
Yeah, but aren't the patches basically optional on AMD parts? IIRC they can only be used with physical access, but I could be misremembering. On the Intel parts, if you go far enough back, you might even have to disable multithreading.

I don't have them installed on my AMD machines.

Why would they be optional on AMD machines? They have the same vulnerabilities and are automatically patched in Windows. If you delve into the system files, Microsoft has microcode patches in DLLs for both vendors.

mcupdate_genuineintel.dll
mcupdate_authenticamd.dll

Considering malware and viruses can place backdoors on machines and turn them into zombies, it's not hard to gain physical access to abuse those vulnerabilities. All you need is a crack to get that payload in.
 
Keep the AM4 platform and just wait until you can get a good deal on a 5800x or better. I imagine there will be a time soon when they will essentially go on clearance/get cheaper on used...something.
 
Yeah, I ran my favorite game (Planetside 2) using the 2070 on both systems and the 6700K was running mid 60% to mid 70%'s usage and spiked into the 90%'s. The 3900x with the same 2070 never went over low 50%'s cpu usage.
Think I will keep the 3900x and sell the 6700K system. Should I sell it as a system or part it out?
 
Parting out usually sells faster. Altho if you list it as a complete rig on several forums you may be able to sell it faster.
 
Sell the Intel gear, sell the R9 Fury and keep the AMD gear with the 2070. It's fairly capable system to hold out with. Might even want to consider keeping that additional 16Gb to upgrade to 32Gb, unless the extra cash sounds handy.

With the 570 mobo, you can upgrade to newer CPU's when needed. And don't buy a new GPU till at least the GeForce 4000 series releases. As it will drive the Geforce 3000 and Radeon 6000 series prices even further down than they are. PLUS! AMD it self is saying that we are likely getting more CPU's on the AM4 platform beyond the 5800X 3D as they say it's expected to co-exist with the new AM5 platform. That could give AM4 even further CPU upgrade legs than anyone expected.
 
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Sell the Intel gear, sell the R9 Fury and keep the AMD gear with the 2070. It's fairly capable system to hold out with. Might even want to consider keeping that additional 16Gb to upgrade to 32Gb, unless the extra cash sounds handy.

With the 570 mobo, you can upgrade to newer CPU's when needed. And don't buy a new GPU till at least the GeForce 4000 series releases. As it will drive the Geforce 3000 and Radeon 6000 series prices even further down than they are. PLUS! AMD it self is saying that we are likely getting more CPU's on the AM4 platform beyond the 5800X 3D as they say it's expected to co-exist with the new AM5 platform. That could give AM4 even further CPU upgrade legs than anyone expected.
The ram on the intel is 3000 and on the AMD it's 3200, I don't think I want to mix them.
 
I would not recommend this platform downgrade at all for the sake of upgrading just the GPU. You see, the RTX 3080 Ti absolutely requires an extremely high-end very modern-gen CPU just to avoid being heavily bottlenecked by the CPU. And the i7-6700K, having only 4 cores and 8 threads with an IPC that's much lower than more recent CPUs, will heavily bottleneck the 3080 Ti in most use cases.

In other words, in gaming graphics performance you will not achieve anywhere near sufficient gain to justify the net total cost of your planned switch. Simply put, you'd just be wasting money on your planned switch with nothing to show for it.
 
I've already listed the CPU on Ebay as well as the R9 Fury X. I will list the Mobo today or tomorrow. I have an old ryzen board and a Ryzen 1700 sitting in a box. I guess I will make it my spare box I will never use.
 
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I've already listed the CPU on Ebay as well as the R9 Fury X. I will list the Mobo today or tomorrow. I have an old ryzen board and a Ryzen 1700 sitting in a box. I guess I will make it my spare box I will never use.
You also might as well list the RTX 2070. And even if you do that, you'd still be paying way too much money for a GPU that will become heavily bottlenecked by the CPU. If you're going to be forced to wait years and years for something that's sufficiently worthwhile, you might as well just buy a cheapie discrete GPU (such as an RTX 3050 or 3060) for that 6700K and get it over with. No seven-year-old quad-core CPU deserves anything more than the 3060, IMHO.
 
You also might as well list the RTX 2070. And even if you do that, you'd still be paying way too much money for a GPU that will become heavily bottlenecked by the CPU. If you're going to be forced to wait years and years for something that's sufficiently worthwhile, you might as well just buy a cheapie discrete GPU (such as an RTX 3050 or 3060) for that 6700K and get it over with. No seven-year-old quad-core CPU deserves anything more than the 3060, IMHO.
If I list the 2070, what am I going to use for gaming. I game at 1440P which is why I replaced the R9 Fury X with the 2070 a couple years ago. I do have a GTX970 in a drawer somewhere, but I don't think it will handle 1440 gaming.
 
If I list the 2070, what am I going to use for gaming. I game at 1440P which is why I replaced the R9 Fury X with the 2070 a couple years ago. I do have a GTX970 in a drawer somewhere, but I don't think it will handle 1440 gaming.
I don't know what to say, seeing as that as you've sold the third-gen Ryzen parts you've backed yourself in between a rock and a hard place. Besides, Intel will retire all support for the 6th- and 7th-Gen CPUs within a year, which means no more security updates for these CPUs will ever be released after its retirement (or transition to "self help") date. Any future security updates after that date will require an 8th-Gen or newer CPU.

And that is all because the hardware manufacturers have become extremely authoritarian about its support policies.
 
I don't know what to say, seeing as that as you've sold the third-gen Ryzen parts you've backed yourself in between a rock and a hard place. Besides, Intel will retire all support for the 6th- and 7th-Gen CPUs within a year, which means no more security updates for these CPUs will ever be released after its retirement (or transition to "self help") date. Any future security updates after that date will require an 8th-Gen or newer CPU.

And that is all because the hardware manufacturers have become extremely authoritarian about its support policies.
Oh, I didn't sell the 3900x. That is what I am going to be using. I am selling the 6700K. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Oh, I didn't sell the 3900x. That is what I am going to be using. I am selling the 6700K. Sorry for the confusion.
I see. In this case, just wait for the actual (not paper) release of the RTX 4000 series GPUs, and then you may upgrade just the GPU to whichever you can afford at that time. The 3900X will remain relevant for at least a few more years.
 
What kinds of games do you play and how much did you sell everything for? You could sell everything except the 2070, motherboard, and RAM and get a 5800x3d if you're into MMOs, flight sims, and certain other games. That would be a major upgrade in some games and I think it'll still perform well down the road since it's at least 8 cores and has a ton of cache.

I would consider holding off a little longer on a GPU purchase until the 4000 series is released, then try to buy one if they look god, and if not buy a used card while they're cheap. I think they'll be good for gaming but they look like they'll be complete power hogs, so older efficient GPUs may retain their value somewhat.
 
What kinds of games do you play and how much did you sell everything for? You could sell everything except the 2070, motherboard, and RAM and get a 5800x3d if you're into MMOs, flight sims, and certain other games. That would be a major upgrade in some games and I think it'll still perform well down the road since it's at least 8 cores and has a ton of cache.

I would consider holding off a little longer on a GPU purchase until the 4000 series is released, then try to buy one if they look god, and if not buy a used card while they're cheap. I think they'll be good for gaming but they look like they'll be complete power hogs, so older efficient GPUs may retain their value somewhat.
Play Mostly Planetside 2, Star Wars Battlefront II, Halo, trying to get into Cyperpunk 2077. Looking forward to Diablo 4. Witcher, etc.
 
Play Mostly Planetside 2, Star Wars Battlefront II, Halo, trying to get into Cyperpunk 2077. Looking forward to Diablo 4. Witcher, etc.
Planetside seems to benefit a lot from it. Some people reported doubling their fps moving from a 3900x. I've seen a lot of people reporting more like 50% gains in similar games. What was important to me (I don't game much anymore, much less MMOs) is that you'd always have certain situations in certain games (large cities, world bosses, etc.) where basically no matter how many generations CPUs advanced you'd only get marginal improvements, so the large gains the 5800x3d shows in these situations in particular could be pretty important if it fits your use case. And I think it's a less risky buy than a new GPU, especially since next gen could be a huge improvement (albeit at the cost of increased power consumption).
 
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