Why did YOU choose AMD for your processor?

That is one thing I really appreciate and love about Current AM4 platform, I buy one new CPU and end up upgrading three machines, each one significantly.
 
Why? I answered that, upstream, already.

I have my second 3700x, enroute (along with RAM and a mobo, of course). It will join my other 3700x and my 2700x. When AMD releases the 4000 series, one of the 3700x will replace the 2700x and the 4700x will go in its place. Intel can't do that.

And what is cool about this is they are actual upgrades that you notice in real life.
 
Maybe because you have been using Intel to much? J/k of course, but I fully intend to populate my b450 with a 4xxx series ryzen when they come out. I'll probably find a cheap MB b350 to toss my 1600x into and pass down to one of my kids. I don't care about pcie 4, so unless b550's come in under $100 for an itx before the 4xxx series is released, I see little reason to pay to upgrade. Again, this a why AMD and they planned (and announced) longer term support for AM4 which gives you more options, even if you choose to upgrade MB, you at least had an option even if you didn't use it.

I think it's more that I just don't upgrade that often. By the time I do, the motherboards are so ancient that ~no one~ would support it. We're talking about upgrading from something that came out 3 years ago, most of the time I'm waiting closer to 5 - but I also tend to buy near the top-end to last that long.
3800x2 -> Core2 E8400 -> Sandy Bridge -> 6600K.
Workstation was P4 ancient -> Phenom 2 -> Bulldozer -> Ryzen 1700 -> ?

The gaming platform is still on a 1080GTX, Ryzen is on the same RX580 that the Bulldozer was on (only because the RX480 I thought had a bad displayport port, and that was only because the HD6870 finally dropped off support).
 
  • Like
Reactions: c3k
like this
Understood, I have 3 kids and keep 5-6 desktops up to some level of use for gaming, so it's mid grade for basically everything. Hand me downs are the norm. To me being able to repurpose is a huge boost... If I can save $100-$150 on a MB that's another $100 towards GPU, CPU, Ram, or being able to upgrade more than one at a time.
 
Understood, I have 3 kids and keep 5-6 desktops up to some level of use for gaming, so it's mid grade for basically everything. Hand me downs are the norm. To me being able to repurpose is a huge boost... If I can save $100-$150 on a MB that's another $100 towards GPU, CPU, Ram, or being able to upgrade more than one at a time.

REALLY valid. I normally pass down whatever I had super cheap on here for anyone that wants it.
 
REALLY valid. I normally pass down whatever I had super cheap on here for anyone that wants it.
Yeah, I am always looking for good deals on here to upgrade the kids PC's :). Just missed out on a really good priced rx470, someone beat me to it. My daughters both have rx 560's, so a 470 or 570 would be a good upgrade if I can get it cheap enough :). Then the rx 560 would migrate into my server and I can set it up for real-time transcoding for Plex so I don't have to keep using my CPU cycles.
 
For me it was all bang for the buck. The performance I get out of my 3900k over my 7700k is admirable. And I'm tired of paying the intel name tax.
 
Intel quit making motherboards because it wasn't selling any. OEM's like HP and Dell build and design their own. Intel didn't understand the DIY enthusiast market either. It thought you could throw a skull on a standard motherboard and it would appeal to gamers. They never understood what features or design elements appealed to gamers and enthusiasts.

You could make an argument for the 3990X being a new market segment. I'll concede that point. It's at a price point we've never seen before and honestly, the only thing it has to do with HEDT versus the high end workstation segment is that it shares the same motherboard as the rest of AMD's HEDT parts. However, the 3950X certainly isn't. The mainstream segment in the past has had $1,000 CPU's in it from both companies. Perhaps extending the segment was the wrong word. It's more like AMD has placed something in it at a price point we haven't seen in recent years.

This isn't a direct response to your most recent posts. Just some areas I think you are missing out on.

Back when the Athalon CPU's were a thing the way AMD marketing worked... and I believe by observation is still working, is by winning over the system DIY builders and moving forward from there into the upper market segments there by creating demand for their CPU's with OEM's. And in part I do see this working. But it is a slow game and will require AMD to continue to succeed technologically vs Intel. And that is a dangerous game.

AMD is extending the life of AM4 and other sockets of theirs as much as they can in order to garner growth. Yes it helps to in some ways I am sure make the development cost of their chips less expensive because they don't have to re jig connections on the sockets and just exploit more pin's as they go. A big reason in my opinion that they next gen Zen 3... will need the newer series of AM4 supporting motherboards.

But you did make this statement.

A brief history lesson.
For many years, AMD sold reverse engineered copies of Intel CPU's with just enough changes to keep them from being sued into oblivion. Of course, that didn't stop Intel from trying anyway. AMD had been relegated to creating CPU's which were perceived as "knock offs" of Intel CPU's. This went on for years and years. As a result of worse performance in benchmarks and software compatibility problems, AMD was forced to sell its products at prices far less than that of its competitors. That all changed when AMD bought NextGen Systems and hired the engineers behind the DEC Alpha CPU's. Then came the venerable K7 and K8 CPU's. At long last, AMD was able to not only compete with Intel on even footing, but even surpass them in some areas. Despite its success, AMD was never able to quite get away with charging as much as Intel could for it's CPU's until the FX-51 came out. It's successors all held the same price point, but it was with the FX series that AMD was finally able to charge the same amount of money Intel did for it's Extreme Edition CPU's.

To that I have to disagree. Remember Cyrix? they pioneered much of the advancement of the x86 architecture and AMD contributed heavily and licensed heavily into that. And they sub licensed or re licensed (not even sure if that's a thing) that to Intel and vise versa. How Cyrix got driven under is dirty pool largely by Intel but also AMD, and AMD learned how to defend themselves and cross license to Intel. Which gives us this competitive edge.

Don't forget the first lines of home PC's were IBM units that were then reverse engineered and knockoff CPU's were made by companies that eventually became Intel, AMD, Apple and others. IBM is still the progenitor of our CPU line to date though they look very little like what they did at creation. To say any one of these CPU manufacturers is not playing dirty pool in the design department as much as they can... well you're just not telling the full story... and it's a forum post so you know... that makes sense. ;)

These CPU companies have been racing and building on each others technologies for a long time. Thankfully how they do SMT is different enough that vulnerabilities appear not to translate between them. Proving that they have different ways of doing the same thing. Most of the 'stealing' though is in protective licensing and fighting licensing lawsuits. Heck look at Apple, Samsung, and Motorola... all of that happens with the x86 and other chip sets, it's just less high profile. And hopefully... less frequent now.

We will see deep dive investigations into these chipsets and the stealing of design whitepapers (internal) between these organizations will continue to be a black market trade.

Personally I'm sad we lost a great company like Cyrix. They were local to me and I had hoped when I was a young man in IT to one day work for them... and it wasn't just because of all of the Ferrari's in the parking lot... or maybe it was.
 
Well, I've been running AMD since Thunderbird. Sold a dual 800Mhz Pentium coppermine system to retool over to AMD about the time the slocket was dying. Found a company in Chicago a couple of days after release who had a couple of Thunderbirds sitting on a shelf and picked up two chips: 800Mhz and 1Ghz. I even remember the date I got the chips: Friday June 9th 2000. It was like 90 degrees out and the air-conditioning in my car was broken. That was a good day and a cool memory. Built those machines that night....

Later....The old "pencil trick" got the 1Ghz chip up to 1.2Ghz on air. Got 1.6Ghz on a custom WC loop essentially built from scrap I cheaped from Crafty Beaver Center. Nothing like a big hardware store and lumber yard for water cooling parts. Machined a water block out of a hunk of copper with a hack saw, drill, and grinder. Radiator was the heater core from the 1967 Camaro I had in high school. Used a cheapo garden pump and an old plastic riccotta container for a sump/pump/res combination that just barely fit in the bottom of this massive steel case which had a total of 4 (FOUR!!!!!!) 80mm fans.

Later, Kingwin came out with a an AIO drive bay solution with a quiet pump and a custom radiator. So pulled the custom loop out. Lost about 200Mhz in over clock. But was tired of tracking down leaks.

I digress.... I've owned almost every model since...

AMD was always the price/performance winner relative to my needs at the time.

Upgrading soon to one of the new AMD chips... still deciding what to aim for. Can't even consider Intel at this point.
 
Introduction

I think you are misunderstanding the idea of equivalency as well as Intel's pricing strategy. Simply put, there is no evidence to support your claim and quite a lot of evidence that your statement isn't true. Intel has a reputation for being greedy, which is largely deserved. I think that's clouding people's view of the company. AMD being the "underdog" for most of the last two decades and some good will its built with the DIY enthusiast community by not changing CPU sockets so often has the inverse effect in coloring perceptions of that company. It's perceived in a much more positive light than Intel as a result.

Intel sets the standard, AMD responds to it.

But is any of this true? The short answer is no. If you think AMD giving you more performance for the same money, or even charging less at times is sign the company is less greedy than Intel, you are being naive. Everything these companies do boils down to them making as much money as possible for their products. They do this in two important ways: By reducing operating costs and by charging as much as they can for their respective products. Who charges more for what simply comes down to which company has the most market share or which one has the performance advantage. Over the last three decades, Intel has been the dominant company in the market between the two. Generally speaking, Intel has offered better processors. Being the company that has produced the better performing parts and selling the most units has made it the leader. As a result, Intel sets the market prices. AMD responds to those prices.

Intel isn't as greedy as you think it is.

Naturally, it's easy to think of Intel as being greedy as some of its processors are quite expensive. Obviously, there is plenty of evidence to show that it has a history of being greedy, but it's still not as greedy as you think it is. Intel used to charge more for their processors than they do today. Intel's mainstream market offerings used to include $1,000 Extreme Edition CPU's. Those were found in every OEM's product line and often in models that weren't necessarily built around gaming. When the average price spent on computers was higher than it is today, having an ultra-high end CPU in a fairly mundane system wasn't as uncommon as you would think. Intel's mainstream segment today is capped at half the price it used to be. Adjusting for inflation, it's far less than that. A $1,000 Pentium IV Extreme Edition in the late 90's or early 2000's is much more expensive than today's Core i9 10980XE at $1,000. Intel has also generally kept the mainstream segments offerings at virtually the same levels for several years despite annual inflation being a good enough reason to increase prices year over year. It does not always do so. Generally, a CPU like the 2700K took the same price point as it's immediate predecessor. In this case, the 2600K and the 3770K took the price point of the 2700K and so on.

A brief history lesson.

For many years, AMD sold reverse engineered copies of Intel CPU's with just enough changes to keep them from being sued into oblivion. Of course, that didn't stop Intel from trying anyway. AMD had been relegated to creating CPU's which were perceived as "knock offs" of Intel CPU's. This went on for years and years. As a result of worse performance in benchmarks and software compatibility problems, AMD was forced to sell its products at prices far less than that of its competitors. That all changed when AMD bought NextGen Systems and hired the engineers behind the DEC Alpha CPU's. Then came the venerable K7 and K8 CPU's. At long last, AMD was able to not only compete with Intel on even footing, but even surpass them in some areas. Despite its success, AMD was never able to quite get away with charging as much as Intel could for it's CPU's until the FX-51 came out. It's successors all held the same price point, but it was with the FX series that AMD was finally able to charge the same amount of money Intel did for it's Extreme Edition CPU's.

Brand recognition and market appeal.

Right there, we have the first instance of AMD charging just as much as Intel was for it's product. AMD had the faster product, sure. You have to understand that Intel has far more brand recognition than AMD does. As enthusiasts, we often forget that we keep up with trends and different brands, but not everyone does that. AMD has never been in the public consciousness the way Intel has. The only scenario where AMD can charge as much as Intel does, is when AMD has a significant performance advantage over its rival. AMD isn't giving you more performance for the money because it's generous. It does so because it simply doesn't have a choice. If these processors are equal, people will opt for Intel because its what they know. It's what they trust. It doesn't matter how right or wrong this is, that's simply how it is.

I'm sure all of us have gone to the store to buy some product only to find that product is sold out. If there is another brand that's just as good, then it doesn't matter if they cost the same. However, if there is some off brand product there from a company you've never heard of, will you be willing to pay the same price for it? It's doubtful unless the item is so cheap that taking that chance is essentially risk free. However, if that product is substantially cheaper, then you are going to be more inclined to give it a chance based on the fact that it's cheaper. Alternatively, if you hear something's supposed to be better than something else, you might still be wary of it. It's a hard sell at the same price in a lot of cases. However, if you hear something's 50% faster or whatever, then it starts to sound like it might be worth the risk depending on the application.

Simply put, that, in a nutshell is the relationship between price, performance, and AMD vs. Intel. Intel has set the standard for a very long time. AMD can only charge what Intel does when it has a significant performance advantage. Often, only a significant advantage will do. AMD can't simply charge $500 for an 8c/16t Ryzen 3800X. It's faster than Intel at somethings, but not decisively so. Certainly not enough to justify paying the same money for it. At $500, AMD has to give you a 12c/24t CPU that decisively beats Intel's Core i9 9900K in order to sell people on it. Sure, some of us would choose AMD anyway or not care if the prices were close enough, but for that sale to be as enticing as possible, AMD needs the CPU to be a lot better. Not just a bit better some of the time.

Equivalency comes in multiple forms.

You also need to understand, there are two kinds of equivalencies. Like for like and price point. You could certainly make the argument that the Ryzen 7 3800X is an 8c/16t CPU just like the Core i9 9900K is and that AMD charges less for it. Two a degree, this si a like for like comparison. However, AMD doesn't fare all that favorably in this case. While the 3800X matches or even beats Intel's Core i9 9900K at times, the vast majority of the time, the 9900K is going to be faster. It's not decisive in AMD's favor. Again, AMD has to charge less than Intel does for the 9900K or people would just opt for Core i9 9900K's. I play Destiny 2 with a lot of people who aren't "computer enthusiasts." They all build 9900K's because Intel is what they recognize and that's what they know. It doesn't matter to them that the Core i9 9900K is only 5-6% faster on average than AMD's 3800X is. Nor does it matter that the 3800X is cheaper. All they hear is that the 9900K is faster for gaming. Where like for like equivalency goes, there are other factors at play such as brand recognition. Again, AMD is charging less for the 3800X because they probably wouldn't sell very many of them if they weren't cheaper than the 9900K.

The second type of equivalency is price point. At the time the 3900X launched, the price point topped out for the mainstream segment at $500. The Core i9 9900K was actually dropped ever so slightly to $450 at that time, but this was a knee jerk reaction to the obviously superior 3900X coming out. The 3900X was priced the same. Both CPU's represented the absolute top end of each companies offerings in that market segment. Therefore, they are equivalent. Yes, AMD's is faster. Yes, AMD gives you more cores for the money, but they have no choice if they want to compete. Succeeding in business is about more than having a better product. AMD has to overcome years of market dominance from Intel. To do that, it must offer more than it's rival. If Intel is held to a certain standard, than AMD can't just meet that standard. It has to exceed it, or they will not succeed. It isn't generosity, altruism, benevolence, or anything of the sort that leads AMD to give you a faster performing part than Intel for a given amount of money. It's necessity. It certainly isn't a lack of greed and that's my point.

Examples of AMD charging more for its products and extending the price range of market segments.

To further this point, Intel set the standards for price points and AMD exceeded them with a 3950X at $750 in the mainstream segment and $4,000 in the HEDT segment. The 3970X launched at the same price point formerly occupied by Intel's Core i9 7980XE and later, the 9980XE. Intel had to respond by cutting their prices in half because it had no choice in the face of AMD's superior performance. However, Intel upped the ante with it's Xeon W-3175X. This CPU cost a whopping $2,999. AMD came along and dropped a Threadripper 3990X at $4,000. So there. we have more examples of AMD charging as much in a given point of the product stack as well as extending the price range of each segment. That is to say that AMD is now charging more at the top of the stack than Intel is. Where the desktop is concerned, it is AMD that is now setting the standard. That standard is now charging more than Intel does for it's top offerings in each desktop segment. Out performing Intel is a given as it has no choice if it wants to try and sell a $4,000 CPU for desktops.

Example of AMD's Greed.

Now, AMD is cheap as hell in the server market with Epyc compared to Intel's Xeon Scalable offerings. Intel still rules that market, albeit for different reasons. AMD can't set the prices there, nor can they charge as much as Intel does because it has even less market share in the enterprise segment than it had in the desktop segment when the first generation Zen CPU's dropped.

Let's put this another way. Given Intel's still using monolithic dies and 14nm yields become considerably worse when trying to increase core counts and clock speeds, it stands to reason that AMD's modular 7nm approach is more efficient at this point. A CPU like the Core i9 10980XE probably has razor thin margins compared to AMD's 3960X and 3970X CPU's. Yet, AMD charges more for them. Taking this further, Intel's Xeon W-3175X is a 28c/56t monster that costs a fortune. It's almost certainly more expensive to produce than any 32c/64t AMD CPU to date. I'd almost bet my house on AMD's margins being far better on it's 32c parts than Intel's are on something with 28 cores. Doesn't it stand to reason that AMD is simply being greedy when it could be charging less for a given product? Or does that thinking only apply to Intel? Yes, it's true that they perform better and offer more cores and threads. However, more performance is expected as products are iterative. If performance didn't improve, then the life cycles of these products would gradually get longer with CPU's holding their values better on the used market. If I buy a Camaro SS in 2020, I expect it to out perform my 2001 Camaro SS in virtually every imaginable scenario.

AMD's socket longevity isn't because AMD is being nice.

AMD's reputation for socket longevity is misunderstood. While it has some consumer benefits, AMD's choice to hold onto sockets comes down to reducing its R&D costs. It has little to do with being good to the consumer. AMD would stand to make more money from us if it sold us more products. However, developing sockets, chipsets and new motherboard platforms carries with it a lot in terms of costs. AMD has dropped out of and re-entered the chipset market more times than Bernie Sanders and Ross Perot have dropped out of the Presidential race combined. Making it's CPU's compatible with existing motherboards and chipsets has always been a practical solution for AMD.

At the time Socket A came around, Intel's LGA 775 had a very long service life. Intel's switched chipsets and sockets more than it needed to and shame on them for that. However, AMD's not doing this came down to not wanting to invest the capital in research and development for newer platforms and chipsets for processors that weren't selling well in the market place. Since the introduction of Core 2 Duo, until the Ryzen came out, Intel dominated AMD completely. It couldn't invest the money into a new platform for upgraded Bulldozer CPU's. Late in Bulldozer's life cycle, when its products were languishing in obsolescence, AMD's offerings were only bought to upgrade existing systems or as bargain basement options to build cheap systems for various purposes. By in large, for budget systems, having the latest I/O features isn't a priority. It was more of the same during Phenom's life cycle. AMD did spend money on developing chipsets for its APU line which is something that ultimately didn't pay off for them.

To give you an idea, AMD designed X570 in house and it's expensive as a result. The chipset itself is derived from the I/O die of the Ryzen CPU's themselves. It costs motherboard manufacturers more than AMD chipsets ever have. In fact, I've been told it costs more than Z390 for motherboard manufacturers to buy. The chipset is actually quite good, but rather than continue to work on it and scale it down to the lower price points reports are that AMD outsourced B550 to ASMedia. AMD has more often than not, outsourced chipsets to third parties and has been doing so off and on since the Athlon days.

Basically, AMD keeping sockets for really long times comes down to the costs of developing chipsets and platforms for their CPU's being so high. AMD doesn't have Intel's resources for doing this. AMD talked about the great cost of keeping the Ryzen 3000 series compatible with existing AM4 motherboards being expensive, and to some extent it is. However, there are lots of costs that factor into developing a chipset and platform for a CPU that AMD rarely wants any part of. There is an added bonus of the community applauding the backwards compatibility, even when its actually problematic from a platform perspective.

Dude...

Get a girlfriend.
 
The system I put together a couple months ago is my first AMD based one since the K6 and first gen Athlon. Not sure why I stayed on Intel so long, guess I was happy enough with the platform. The 3000 Ryzen series really sold me. I started doing more productivity stuff that can utilize the higher core counts so I really wanted that. You just can't beat the value with more cores and threads for AMD now. Plus there's little or no compromise in single core performance. Then the parts are more power efficient with the higher density process and don't run as hot. What's not to love.

Anyway, I think I'm pretty sold on AMD now. They've always had the best value, but now they also offer equivalent if not better performance. Probably stick with them for some time.
 
I'm interested what reasons people had when there bought Ryzen.

Ryzen has the DIY market now for obvious reasons. Better perf/$$ and more cores/$$.

Since most people are now buying Ryzen for these obvious reasons. It would actually be much more interesting to hear from people bucking the bandwagon and buying new Intel processors in the era of Ryzen.
 
Ryzen has the DIY market now for obvious reasons. Better perf/$$ and more cores/$$.

Since most people are now buying Ryzen for these obvious reasons. It would actually be much more interesting to hear from people bucking the bandwagon and buying new Intel processors in the era of Ryzen.
I agree, and being one of those people bucking the bandwagon, I’ll share my reasons for building some recent new Intel systems.

Main PC is a Xeon 2288G with 32GB ECC RAM. Not used for gaming, currently using the integrated GPU. The reasons I chose this over a Ryzen build were I wanted verified, out of the box ECC RAM support and the highest single thread performance. Also this build was started before the Ryzen 3000 chips even came out, I just used a place holder i3 until I could find a 2288G.

Gaming PC. This is not built yet but planning a 10600K system. Why not AMD? This was a hard decision and I went back and forth several times. I ultimately ended up going with Intel because X570 motherboard availability is a mess right now and the game I plan to play the most is (I think) CPU bottlenecked so again, highest single core performance is a priority. And I wanted to play around with overclocking and I think Intel CPUs usually have more headroom to overclock.

And finally, I’m in the process of upgrading my Plex server to a Xeon 2176G. Why not AMD? This was another hard decision and I almost got one of the $85 1600 AF chips. Definitely a unique scenario but I got a good deal on an ES 2176G, I also wanted a motherboard with IPMI, and the integrated GPU on this CPU adds a lot of value for Plex.

So there you have it, 3 scenarios where I believe Intel was the logical choice.

I did recently upgrade another gaming/multipurpose system from a 7700K to a 3700X so AMD is getting some love from me.
 
Last edited:
I 've always bought AMD, because i always go bang for buck and i consider money spent on PCs, as "burnt" money. I don't bother to resell anything, old parts go to relatives or friends and no matter what you buy, it's going to be obsolete in a few years, either as CPU or as motherboard. So AMD has always given me cheap options that worked just as well as more expensive builds for my needs. Nowdays, i actually care more about low heat and low noise and AMD delivered again with Ryzen, here. I was actually used to FX and going to 65W Zen+ is so shockingly different, that you almost want to cry. The Zen+ 65W just doesn't want to overheat and the B450 motherboard i have, is clearly overkill, because the VRM can't reach 60C under Prime95. The fans don't need to run at high speed and so on.
 
I agree, and being one of those people bucking the bandwagon, I’ll share my reasons for building some recent new Intel systems.

Main PC is a Xeon 2288G with 32GB ECC RAM. Not used for gaming, currently using the integrated GPU. The reasons I chose this over a Ryzen build were I wanted verified, out of the box ECC RAM support and the highest single thread performance. Also this build was started before the Ryzen 3000 chips even came out, I just used a place holder i3 until I could find a 2288G.

Gaming PC. This is not built yet but planning a 10600K system. Why not AMD? This was a hard decision and I went back and forth several times. I ultimately ended up going with Intel because X570 motherboard availability is a mess right now and the game I plan to play the most is (I think) CPU bottlenecked so again, highest single core performance is a priority. And I wanted to play around with overclocking and I think Intel CPUs usually have more headroom to overclock.

And finally, I’m in the process of upgrading my Plex server to a Xeon 2176G. Why not AMD? This was another hard decision and I almost got one of the $85 1600 AF chips. Definitely a unique scenario but I got a good deal on an ES 2176G, I also wanted a motherboard with IPMI, and the integrated GPU on this CPU adds a lot of value for Plex.

So there you have it, 3 scenarios where I believe Intel was the logical choice.

I did recently upgrade another gaming/multipurpose system from a 7700K to a 3700X so AMD is getting some love from me.
Understandable, I always suggest buying what makes sense for your use case. I don't game as much as I used to, I do more development work (compiling, databases, etc). My server is currently Intel, my desktop AMD, and my 3 kids all have Intel systems. I am going to upgrade my server after zen 3 comes out (upgrade my desktop with zen 3), probably get a mid/lower AMD chip for my son, pass his 6600k down to my daughters PC. Still waiting for some benchmarks to make a decision on the server, right now it's dual xeon's, but I am probably going to a more mainstream PC build for it. I am currently thinking about just putting my current 1600 in there as it would support my needs and burn less power, but it's not much of an upgrade. I also use it for a plex server, so intel qsv would be nice, but I could just as easily throw a cheap GPU in there for transcoding as well or get one of AMD's upcoming APU's which are supposed to come with more cores (depending on motherboard support of course). Some times it's so difficult because something new is always coming around the corner, lol.
 
Ryzen has the DIY market now for obvious reasons. Better perf/$$ and more cores/$$.

Since most people are now buying Ryzen for these obvious reasons. It would actually be much more interesting to hear from people bucking the bandwagon and buying new Intel processors in the era of Ryzen.

I swapped out my 3600x for a 9900k because I got a good deal on it ($300) and I already had a motherboard sitting around so I didn't have any added cost. I certainly didn't buy it new. Honestly, I don't really notice any difference in games between the two with the same video card (5700 flashed to XT) at 1440p. It definitely consumes a lot more power (some 200W under load) and runs hotter. I'll probably keep it until Zen 3 and then do a complete new build and then upgrade my father's X99/5960x with it. Everyone else in my family is on AM4 hand me downs.
 
Price for Performance you cant touch AMD, you can buy a complete amd system for the price of a Intel CPU for starts.............It took amd new am4 socket to MAKE intel wake up and stop making us pay 500 bucks for a quad core cpu and buy a new motherboard as well, re-install windows all over again........................
 
I swapped out my 3600x for a 9900k because I got a good deal on it ($300) and I already had a motherboard sitting around so I didn't have any added cost. I certainly didn't buy it new. Honestly, I don't really notice any difference in games between the two with the same video card (5700 flashed to XT) at 1440p. It definitely consumes a lot more power (some 200W under load) and runs hotter. I'll probably keep it until Zen 3 and then do a complete new build and then upgrade my father's X99/5960x with it. Everyone else in my family is on AM4 hand me downs.
Thanks for the honest feedback. From most reviews unless you're running into CPU bottlenecks, so low resolution high Hz with a 2080+, you won't really see any difference.
 
Price for Performance you cant touch AMD, you can buy a complete amd system for the price of a Intel CPU for starts.............It took amd new am4 socket to MAKE intel wake up and stop making us pay 500 bucks for a quad core cpu and buy a new motherboard as well, re-install windows all over again........................
AMD is the better value for sure but no need to exaggerate
 
The value and my own Fanboyisms, the first machine I built was powered by an AMD Athlon 3700+ and I've been hooked ever since. I had a few years of Intel just because it was better, but I always preferred the AMD products.
 
I think I picked a good time to leave AMD and a good to time to come back. I was reading on the history of AMD CPU products and they had some trouble after the early Athlon until things worked out with Ryzen 2000 desktop series. They've hit a sweet spot with Zen 2. Good motherboard support and good user experience. This latest AMD build I did was one of the most trouble free I've experienced even compared to Intel builds. I think Zen 3 is really going to nail it down.
 
I think I picked a good time to leave AMD and a good to time to come back. I was reading on the history of AMD CPU products and they had some trouble after the early Athlon until things worked out with Ryzen 2000 desktop series. They've hit a sweet spot with Zen 2. Good motherboard support and good user experience. This latest AMD build I did was one of the most trouble free I've experienced even compared to Intel builds. I think Zen 3 is really going to nail it down.

The Athlon, Athlon 64, and Athlon X2 all worked out very well for AMD. Things started going south when Intel brought out the Core 2 Duo and AMD's counter was the Phenom processors which were in some ways a step backards from their predecessors. Since then, everything up to the Ryzen 1000 series wasn't very competitive with Intel. The Ryzen 1000 series turned out better than anyone thought it would and that's when AMD really got back in the game. However, it wasn't until Ryzen 3000 that AMD caught and surpassed Intel more definitively. Outside of gaming, Intel's behind. And even on that front, Ryzen 3000 wasn't that far behind. Although, Intel increased its lead again with the mainstream 10th generation Core family.
 
I have 2 systems, for me Ryzen 2700x and my kid i5-9600k, the wife does not use a computer at all. I really do not have a preference for AMD or Intel. Just a casual gamer so do not care about the latest and greatest of hardware. Both perform fine. I have become more picky about video cards and have owned AMD and Nvidia, currently running GTX 1660 and GTX 1070 but have an RX 580 and still own several RX270/280/290 cards and 1 GTX750. I guess I am more sentimental towards GPU's.
 
I don't have a preference as a consumer either. On a purely philosophical level, I like that AMD is giving Intel some really good competition, it's great for us lowly consumers. One thing I do like about Intel is they are the driving force behind the personal computer and set most of the standards. They've been the best for compatibility and interoperability. Though lately AMD is doing pretty darn good there as well.

In any case my AMD system has been treating me well so far. Whether I go Intel or AMD next time will depend on the same reasons I jumped to the AMD ship this time, value and performance for my consumer dollar.
 
I don't have a preference as a consumer either. On a purely philosophical level, I like that AMD is giving Intel some really good competition, it's great for us lowly consumers. One thing I do like about Intel is they are the driving force behind the personal computer and set most of the standards. They've been the best for compatibility and interoperability. Though lately AMD is doing pretty darn good there as well.

In any case my AMD system has been treating me well so far. Whether I go Intel or AMD next time will depend on the same reasons I jumped to the AMD ship this time, value and performance for my consumer dollar.
Like the entire 64-bit instruction set? Oh, wait, that was AMD... :). And pcie 4.0 ? Oh, AMD too... Maybe bringing more cores to consumers... Doh. Yeah, I feel they haven't been bringing a lot lately and are just riding previous success and AMDs previous disaster. They did do a lot and I don't want to take that from them, but I've been less than impressed the last few years. My core 2 quad is still rocking though! And the Skylake still runs fine, not much has changed besides refining 14nm and getting amazing clocks out of it. If it wasn't for AMD who knows... We'd all be running itanium based CPUs maybe with 2-4 cores?
 
We'd all be running itanium based CPUs maybe with 2-4 cores?

There was a time where I really wanted this to happen. I had photos of the Merced die shot on my wall. I think one of Intel's biggest mistakes with Itanium was not making it mainstream. With that said AMD did mess up Intels plans when it introduced a 64 bit x86.
 
There was a time where I really wanted this to happen. I had photos of the Merced die shot on my wall. I think one of Intel's biggest mistakes with Itanium was not making it mainstream. With that said AMD did mess up Intels plans when it introduced a 64 bit x86.

Lack of backwards compatibility (emulated x86 was horribly slow) was the killer for mainstream; too many things would have been a struggle to make the switch, so they either had to commit 100% and gamble it all on the change (do it or else!) or, well, we got what the other side was.
 
A few reasons;

1) I bought my 3700X for $275; hard to beat that price and performance. Not to mention the 65w TDP bonus.
2) AM4's upgrade path is much more enticing than Intel's and the X570 is more feature rich than what Intel has to offer at the moment.
3) I've bought Intel for every one of my systems since the Athlon64. I think 8 Intel CPUs since then; so I wanted to reward AMD with my money for finally getting back in the game and pushing Intel to finally get off their asses for once.
 
Massive fanboyism. First system I ever bought with my own money when I was 15 was a Compaq with a K6-2. Shortly thereafter I built my first system around a Duron 800. It only snowballed from there.

I paid enough attention to the industry throughout to build a big disdain for Intel and their business practices. I remained steadfast with AMD all the way through the Bulldozer era and was starting to wonder what I'd do if they didn't come out of it.

But luckily...
 
Like the entire 64-bit instruction set? Oh, wait, that was AMD...And pcie 4.0 ? Oh, AMD too...

AMD has done a lot to advance things along. Even if you only ever use an Intel CPU they've made a difference. I think their biggest coup is winning over the 64 bit CPU architecture. Now Intel is conforming to a standard AMD created. I don't understand why IA64 failed though, they must have done their best to keep it away from the mainstream, why?
 
AMD has done a lot to advance things along. Even if you only ever use an Intel CPU they've made a difference. I think their biggest coup is winning over the 64 bit CPU architecture. Now Intel is conforming to a standard AMD created. I don't understand why IA64 failed though, they must have done their best to keep it away from the mainstream, why?
It failed because it wasn't backwards compatible. Businesses were you old none of their existing software would work. The Itanium design pushed a lot of the work onto compiler developers for optimization. Being it is as new, compilers weren't that great yet. The pushback for backwards compatibility and as so great that Intel was forced to implement an x86 emulator, which was inherently slower than a real chip. This was supposed to be a holdover until software could catch up (compilers and businesses finding new or recompiling old software). The other option was use AMD and you could run x86 full speed along side AMD64. All apps ran at full speed and software didn't have to be recompiled (although, could potentially gain some speed if it was). AMD64 was similar to x86 so compilers did have to implement it's but optimizations were similar so it was much easier to implement effectively. Itanium was also not any faster even against it's normal competitors... So what were businesses investing in? They could be a guinea pig for a newer slower processor, or they can get something that just works and gives them a much easier upgrade path and runs their software faster if compiled (more registers in AMD64 vs x86 so less memory accesses required) in 64-bit.

Edit:. Pretty good read about the difficulty of developing a compiler and a by it failed in general.
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...tanic-intel-to-discontinue-the-itanium-family
 
Haha, Itanic, good one. Sounds like they tried to bite off more than they could chew. Probably a bad idea to require a ground-up rewrite of all software with no outright benefit.
 
It's cheap and fast 4.5ghz SC and ~4.2ghz MC. 6 cores and 12 threads is plenty for gaming and not bad for other general stuff.
 
I was bored, and decided to try the Ryzen ecosystem after win 1903 and most of the teething issues died down.

Lots of cheap parts floated around my CL off people that to literally ran Zen 2 years without any updates of any sort and gave up. Bought Zen+ parts off a guy last month and that was the state of his build.

I build 1st gaming pcs for my buddies kids out of cheap Ryzen parts bc they gaming or using Chrome. Most are too young to need MS Word for school.

I'm hesitant to spend much on my own build bc AM5 is coming. Ampere may adjust our idea of what cpu bottlenecks a mid-range gpu. I'll be in a holding pattern until the next releases bc I fear what I spend tmw on myself will be worthless sooner than later.
 
Ubuntu 20.04 Gaming box: 4770k -> 3900x ($389 + Crosshair VI for $100)
Works great, modern update. When I'm not gaming it's way faster at compiling stuff!!! Way faster at compressing backups/vm images. I can actually do stuff WHILE i'm gaming with no slowdown that is noticeable.

The only downgrade is my old board had a x16 physical -> x2 electrical. My new setup has a 3rd x16 physical -> x1 electrical so my 10Gbit NIC is limited to about 3Gbit/s....
 
I bought AMD because I could get a dirt cheap X2 555BE and unlock it to a quad core + OC, I also bought HD6950 2gbs because I could get a free 6970 out of it. As soon as they start producing things that I can upgrade on my own for free, ill bite, otherwise I seem to be addicted to cheap X58 server hardware lately lol
 
I was coming from a X79 platfrom with a 3930K and I thought it was time to upgrade after 6 years. I definetly wanted at least 8 Cores and 16 Threads and I wanted the most modern platform that is also future proof. So the logical option was to choose X570 and something like the 3700X or above. I went with the 3700X because I game with a 1080ti at 1440p and the difference in that resolution is very small compared to an Intel CPU in performance.
Of course Intel has a little advantage still of 5%, but doesn't really matter if I play warzone with 90 FPS or 96FPS. I have now the option to upgrade to an 3900X, 3950X or even to the new 4000 series CPUs in the future and I can keep my RAM and motherboard. I think it was just the best option at the moment and also the most cost effective.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Ubuntu 20.04 Gaming box: 4770k -> 3900x ($389 + Crosshair VI for $100)
Works great, modern update. When I'm not gaming it's way faster at compiling stuff!!! Way faster at compressing backups/vm images. I can actually do stuff WHILE i'm gaming with no slowdown that is noticeable.

The only downgrade is my old board had a x16 physical -> x2 electrical. My new setup has a 3rd x16 physical -> x1 electrical so my 10Gbit NIC is limited to about 3Gbit/s....
Need to get a pcie 4.0 card, lol. Mayb not worth the cost unless you have some great hardware and networking equipment. Yeah, I do more compiling nowadays than gaming. I went from i5-3450 to 1600, probably see what zen3 has and either get something in the 4000 series or a cheaper 3000 when prices come down.
 
Back
Top