New Processor Choice

[KungFuJosh]

And that's why I said that userbenchmark is a joke.

Opinions are cute and all, but I like data better. Passmark says similar results: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-3600XT-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-3900XT/3781vs3778

Multi core stuff is better on the 3900XT, and passmark says the 3600XT is better on single core. That's along the lines of the data userbench says. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-3600XT-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-3900XT/m1211585vsm1202614


Is passmark also a joke?


Here's yet another one: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_5_3600xt-1610-vs-amd_ryzen_9_3900xt-1608

On single core stuff, not much of a difference.

[olkipukki]

3300X really something worth considering?

You want spend $300+ on MB and $100+ on CPU? 

...it's only 2% overall between the 3600XT and 3900XT

If you don't know how and where use available cores, probably you don't need these 

In worst case, you will wait 2x longer on 3600 vs 3900 for Vegas Pro render output...

[KungFuJosh]

3300X really something worth considering?

You want spend $300+ on MB and $100+ on CPU? 

Yes, to waste less money in case the newer processors come out, which could be as soon as next month.
 

...it's only 2% overall between the 3600XT and 3900XT

If you don't know how and where use available cores, probably you don't need these 

In worst case, you will wait 2x longer on 3600 vs 3900 for Vegas Pro render output...

I do know. But I also know that most of my apps won't benefit. Maybe 2 or 3, part of the time. When I render in Vegas Pro, I walk away and do something else. I don't want to sit there doing nothing, whether it's 10 minutes or 20 minutes (or hours). Single thread speed will be more noticeable more of the time.

Right now I'm leaning towards the ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero, and the 3900X... but if the X670 stuff comes out next month (like some sites have speculated), then I'd rather have that if it's close at all in price (though I would probably wind up waiting a couple months for the firmwares to be sorted out). Of course, none of this being patient stuff will mean anything if my current board dies (I'm hoping it's just the PSU).

From the majority of the research I've done, it seems like now is a terrible time to buy anything. The main reason I'm leaning towards AMD is because of the security issues with Intel over the past few years, and it doesn't seem like everything has been sorted out yet.

Thanks,
Josh

[Mr. Scram]

AMD currently provides much better bang for buck and in almost all cases superior performance full stop. Intel is really busy juggling the numbers to make it look okay but they're in a full panic and have every reason to. B550 seems to be the sensible option. A lot less power hungry but performance doesn't really suffer. I'd advise to stop looking at comparison sites and artificial benchmarks and at actual benchmarks of the programs you expect to use and care about.

[KungFuJosh]

AMD currently provides much better bang for buck and in almost all cases superior performance full stop. Intel is really busy juggling the numbers to make it look okay but they're in a full panic and have every reason to. B550 seems to be the sensible option. A lot less power hungry but performance doesn't really suffer. I'd advise to stop looking at comparison sites and artificial benchmarks and at actual benchmarks of the programs you expect to use and care about.

Both sides of the CPU brand loyalists say the same thing, just swap the order of the brand names. The benchmarks I typically look at are (supposedly) based on real world build averages. I'm definitely not interested in older generation boards. If I go AMD, it will be X570 or X670. Better boards = longer usable life + better performance. I'm not going to skimp on that. I like the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice."

[Mr. Scram]

Both sides of the CPU brand loyalists say the same thing, just swap the order of the brand names. The benchmarks I typically look at are (supposedly) based on real world build averages. I'm definitely not interested in older generation boards. If I go AMD, it will be X570 or X670. Better boards = longer usable life + better performance. I'm not going to skimp on that. I like the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice."

B550 isn't an old generation, it's actually the most recent. The performance of X570 comes at a price. They needed to hit the market when they did but the chips aren't as frugal as they should because AMD was forced to roll their own. X570 being better isn't as clear cut as you seem to assume. B550 is more well rounded. X670 might improve things as it's more traditionally produced by others but performance is all speculation at this point. Look at actual benchmarks of the programs you're interested in, not useless aggregate scores. Real world performance is what you'll end up dealing with.

I don't give a shit about petty brand turf wars. I've bought and recommended Intel for a long time but currently AMD is the way to go. You can find people to back up any twisted view but most people acknowledge AMD is currently kicking ass and Intel is in a panic. Take the good advice of various people in this thread or don't. I doubt anyone ultimately really cares.

[KungFuJosh]

Both sides of the CPU brand loyalists say the same thing, just swap the order of the brand names. The benchmarks I typically look at are (supposedly) based on real world build averages. I'm definitely not interested in older generation boards. If I go AMD, it will be X570 or X670. Better boards = longer usable life + better performance. I'm not going to skimp on that. I like the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice."

B550 isn't an old generation, it's actually the most recent. The performance of X570 comes at a price. They needed to hit the market when they did but the chips aren't as frugal as they should because AMD was forced to roll their own. X570 being better isn't as clear cut as you seem to assume. B550 is more well rounded. X670 might improve things as it's more traditionally produced by others but performance is all speculation at this point. Look at actual benchmarks of the programs you're interested in, not useless aggregate scores. Real world performance is what you'll end up dealing with.

I don't give a shit about petty brand turf wars. I've bought and recommended Intel for a long time but currently AMD is the way to go. You can find people to back up any twisted view but most people acknowledge AMD is currently kicking ass and Intel is in a panic. Take the good advice of various people in this thread or don't. I doubt anyone ultimately really cares.

B550 has a gen 3 chipset link, and X570 has gen 4. Why would I want to buy a crippled motherboard? Am I missing something there? SSD performance will make a bigger difference than most of these CPUs will.

Let's be honest, I'm coming from an i7 5820K. Any of these CPUs will be a welcome improvement.

As I said previously, I'm most likely getting the Ryzen 3900X based on the opinions here, the stats, and the security issues with Intel. If I don't get that, it will be because either the 4900X came out, or I buy something cheaper to wait until the 4900X comes out.

[Halcyon]

Pretty much 0 reason to go with Intel nowadays, for almost any use case.

Depends what you are running. There are still some compatibility issues with some Linux or FreeBSD versions.

You also have a much larger selection of motherboards in the Intel-based market, particularly when you're looking at higher-end consumer and enterprise gear.

Having been bitten several times by "general AMD instability and failures" in the past for both CPU and GPU products, I find it hard to trust their products as a whole. As for speed, it has always been a cat and mouse game between Intel and AMD.

[westfw]

If you don't know how and where use available cores, probably you don't need these

The applications one uses will either know (and benefit), or not, right?  MY personal knowledge probably doesn't matter.

I like the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice."

Indeed.  I've always bought systems that were a bit behind the curve, and thus much cheaper.
Spending $1500 every 3 years is likely to make me a lot happier than spending $5k every 10 years!Especially since the non-CPU components tend to go obsolete nearly as fast, making "I'll just upgrade the slow component" pretty useless.
The first step is realizing that you don't NEED to have the fastest thing around.  (Unless you have a specific need where differences DO matter.  In which case you need a benchmark for THAT application.)

[wraper]

B550 has a gen 3 chipset link, and X570 has gen 4. Why would I want to buy a crippled motherboard? Am I missing something there? SSD performance will make a bigger difference than most of these CPUs will.

Do you not understand that the vast majority of PCI-E lines come from CPU directly? PCI-E 4.0 from chipset matters only if you actually have use for it, and in 99% of cases you don't. And unless you do something very specific, gen 4 instead of gen 3 NVMe SSD won't make any difference in performance, not to say you have gen 4 on B550 motherboards to begin with.

[0db]

Depends what you are running. There are still some compatibility issues with some Linux or FreeBSD versions.

I can confirm this for the HUAWEI MateBook D14 laptop.

It's based on AMD Ryzen 5 3500U. It works perfectly with Windows10 Pro, but it has some issue with Arch and Gentoo when you just "clone" the root partition from an intel-x86/32bit slice.

Rare event, but for certain job tasks you could be ::mandatorily:: requested to use "Windows10 Pro Workstation" which is only targeted to Xeon CPUs, and I have just found that you can run it only if you have Intel Xeon. On starting up it checks the CPU and refuses to continue if test fails.

For this reason I will for sure buy a Lenovo P1/Xeon laptop.

[wraper]

Pretty much 0 reason to go with Intel nowadays, for almost any use case.

Depends what you are running. There are still some compatibility issues with some Linux or FreeBSD versions.

You also have a much larger selection of motherboards in the Intel-based market, particularly when you're looking at higher-end consumer and enterprise gear.

Having been bitten several times by "general AMD instability and failures" in the past for both CPU and GPU products, I find it hard to trust their products as a whole. As for speed, it has always been a cat and mouse game between Intel and AMD.

Funny to hear since AMD GPUs on Linux are the least problematic

[BravoV]

Desktop class machine with ECC memory only with Ryzen, thats what I'm using. 

[wraper]

Rare event, but for certain job tasks you could be ::mandatorily:: requested to use "Windows10 Pro Workstation" which is only targeted to Xeon CPUs, and I have just found that you can run it only if you have Intel Xeon. On starting up it checks the CPU and refuses to continue if test fails.

For this reason I will for sure buy a Lenovo P1/Xeon laptop.

This is simply not true. People use Windows10 Pro Workstations with AMD Threadripper just fine. Also there is nothing I can google about it not running on lower end CPUs, nor there is anything about such requirements on it's purchasing page.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-10-pro-for-workstations/dg7gmgf0dw9s

System Requirements
Required processor   1GHz processor or faster
Required memory   1GB RAM for 32-bit; 2GB for 64-bit
Required hard disk space   Up to 20GB available
Required video card   800 x 600 screen resolution or higher. DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM driver
Required connectivity   Internet access (fees may apply)
Other system requirements   Microsoft account required for some features. Watching DVDs requires separate playback software
Additional system requirements   You must accept the enclosed License Terms, also at microsoft.com/useterms
Activation required • Single license • 32 and 64-bits included on USB 3.0 media

[0db]

This is simply not true. People use Windows10 Pro Workstations with AMD Threadripper just fine

Here Windows 10 Pro for Workstations was delivered as a part of the "Fall Creators" Update. We got an offer only for Intel Xeon and we purchased it, and then found we cannot just "move" to AMD Opteron/Threadripper because the OS checked for the processor and didn't complete the start up procedure if it doesn't find a XEON CPU.

Probably you need a second license or something to fix it. But how can you "practically" get it?

[bd139]

You can use the pro for workstations license key with normal windows 10 pro retail media AFAIK.

[Mr. Scram]

B550 has a gen 3 chipset link, and X570 has gen 4. Why would I want to buy a crippled motherboard? Am I missing something there? SSD performance will make a bigger difference than most of these CPUs will.

Let's be honest, I'm coming from an i7 5820K. Any of these CPUs will be a welcome improvement.

As I said previously, I'm most likely getting the Ryzen 3900X based on the opinions here, the stats, and the security issues with Intel. If I don't get that, it will be because either the 4900X came out, or I buy something cheaper to wait until the 4900X comes out.

What do you mean by "gen 3" and "gen 4"? PCie I assume? That's not correct. B550 has PCIe 4.0. AMD's site states "AMD’s B550 chipset enables PCIe® 4.0 compatibility for NVMe storage and graphics on mainstream motherboards, giving you confidence that your system won’t go obsolete before its time."

I'm not sure why you ask for help as you seem to be mostly operating on preconceived and honestly not very well researched notions. As with electronics the devil is in the details and it's a little more complicated than "higher number good". Buy a $300 X570 board if that tickles you the right way. It'll probably be fine.

Not that PCIe 4 is likely to really matter anyway. We've seen exactly the same discussions when PCIe 3 was introduced and people endlessly argued over whether PCIe 3 was required over PCIe 3. It was years before anyone saw any tangible real world benefit, long after those first systems were obsolete. This time around the benefits will be even less tangible as it's a case of diminishing returns. Then again, it's better to be stuck with it and by now you don't need to compromise that much to have it.

[Mr. Scram]

Depends what you are running. There are still some compatibility issues with some Linux or FreeBSD versions.

You also have a much larger selection of motherboards in the Intel-based market, particularly when you're looking at higher-end consumer and enterprise gear.

Having been bitten several times by "general AMD instability and failures" in the past for both CPU and GPU products, I find it hard to trust their products as a whole. As for speed, it has always been a cat and mouse game between Intel and AMD.

Last you stated this we concluded you couldn't back that assessment up with anything more tangible than "experience". Do you have more to go on this time?

[KungFuJosh]

Pretty much 0 reason to go with Intel nowadays, for almost any use case.

Depends what you are running. There are still some compatibility issues with some Linux or FreeBSD versions.

You also have a much larger selection of motherboards in the Intel-based market, particularly when you're looking at higher-end consumer and enterprise gear.

Having been bitten several times by "general AMD instability and failures" in the past for both CPU and GPU products, I find it hard to trust their products as a whole. As for speed, it has always been a cat and mouse game between Intel and AMD.

This is absolutely true. The motherboard options for Intel are much better, and better priced.

AMD stability is a concern for me, but I'm hoping it's better now, because Intel security is also a concern for me.

Thanks,
Josh

[KungFuJosh]

What do you mean by "gen 3" and "gen 4"? PCie I assume? That's not correct. B550 has PCIe 4.0. AMD's site states "AMD’s B550 chipset enables PCIe® 4.0 compatibility for NVMe storage and graphics on mainstream motherboards, giving you confidence that your system won’t go obsolete before its time."

I'm not sure why you ask for help as you seem to be mostly operating on preconceived and honestly not very well researched notions. As with electronics the devil is in the details and it's a little more complicated than "higher number good". Buy a $300 X570 board if that tickles you the right way. It'll probably be fine.

Not that PCIe 4 is likely to really matter anyway. We've seen exactly the same discussions when PCIe 3 was introduced and people endlessly argued over whether PCIe 3 was required over PCIe 3. It was years before anyone saw any tangible real world benefit, long after those first systems were obsolete. This time around the benefits will be even less tangible as it's a case of diminishing returns. Then again, it's better to be stuck with it and by now you don't need to compromise that much to have it.

For somebody insulting my research, you know little of what you're talking about. B550 was introduced as a budget alternative to the superior X570 boards. If you want to understand the differences, try reading any article comparing the two: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3582-amd-chipset-differences-b550-vs-x570-b450-x470-zen-3

I've had my current system for over 5 years running great, because I wasn't a cheap ass with the motherboard or other options. In less than a few years I'll be running this system off of multiple PCIe 4.0 M.2 drives. The X570 will do that better. The X670 will do any of it better.

When somebody asks for opinions/experiences with a thing, they don't have to agree with your OPINION on the thing. I don't agree with you, get over it.

Thanks,
Josh

[bd139]

I'm with Mr Scram here.

Honestly you should start with the workload and work back. I haven't heard a single mention of workload yet. B550 is fine for perhaps 95% of use cases. The last 5% probably ain't worth paying for unless you have dick size problems or are paid for the difference in turnaround.

Just a point on storage as well. Unless you are streaming constantly to and from disk, it's 100% academic. Buy more RAM and use the OS cache. The further you push the storage problem up the cache hierarchy the better. So big CPU cache (my 3600X has 35Mb of it) and lots of RAM (64Gb here) and a reasonable read-optimised PCI-E gen 4 SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus here) is not going to have any realistic performance difference over latest PCI and storage unless you're blowing the entire cache away regularly. The RAM is connected to the CPU the same on both boards.

Edit: also it's not cost effective to have all your storage at tier 1 like this. Keep your working set there and the rest on cheaper SSDs or even rust if you're a neckbeard.

[KungFuJosh]

If you don't know how and where use available cores, probably you don't need these

The applications one uses will either know (and benefit), or not, right?  MY personal knowledge probably doesn't matter.

lol, that's also true.

I like the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice."

Indeed.  I've always bought systems that were a bit behind the curve, and thus much cheaper.
Spending $1500 every 3 years is likely to make me a lot happier than spending $5k every 10 years!Especially since the non-CPU components tend to go obsolete nearly as fast, making "I'll just upgrade the slow component" pretty useless.
The first step is realizing that you don't NEED to have the fastest thing around.  (Unless you have a specific need where differences DO matter.  In which case you need a benchmark for THAT application.)

Sure, but I'm only going to be spending about $1000 or so, and it's been over 5 years since the last time I upgraded. I guess I'm ahead of the curve, right?

That budget includes a new PSU, new AIO water cooler, CPU, and motherboard. I just purchased a Seasonic Platinum SSR-750PX PSU, and I'll probably get a Corsair H115i cooler.

I completely agree about not needing the fastest, which is I why I won't consider AMD threadripper or Intel X-series. The reason I'm concerned with the timing regarding the zen3 / X670 crap is that chances are they will be nearly the same in price, or very close. I'm sure there will be $500 or less Ryzen 4X00X chips, and plenty of choices for X670 boards under $400. The same thing happens EVERY generation with intel. The processors change, the prices are usually the same.


If I don't wait for the next gen chips, I will get either one of the following:

Ryzen 9 3900X and ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero ($760 total)

vs

i9-10900K and either the
GIGABYTE Z490 VISION D or ASUS ProART Z490-CREATOR 10G ($810 to $830 total)


I like both of the Intel boards better, and both are cheaper than the AMD board. The price difference isn't significant enough between those options to be a factor either. The Gigabyte Z490 board does support PCIe 4.0, though I would need to wait until the next generation CPU to have support for it.

Thanks,
Josh

[bd139]

Ryzen has a fuck load more cache (70Mb vs 20Mb). Sold.

[KungFuJosh]

I'm with Mr Scram here.

Honestly you should start with the workload and work back. I haven't heard a single mention of workload yet. B550 is fine for perhaps 95% of use cases. The last 5% probably ain't worth paying for unless you have dick size problems or are paid for the difference in turnaround.

Just a point on storage as well. Unless you are streaming constantly to and from disk, it's 100% academic. Buy more RAM and use the OS cache. The further you push the storage problem up the cache hierarchy the better. So big CPU cache (my 3600X has 35Mb of it) and lots of RAM (64Gb here) and a reasonable read-optimised PCI-E gen 4 SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus here) is not going to have any realistic performance difference over latest PCI and storage unless you're blowing the entire cache away regularly. The RAM is connected to the CPU the same on both boards.

Edit: also it's not cost effective to have all your storage at tier 1 like this. Keep your working set there and the rest on cheaper SSDs or even rust if you're a neckbeard.

Why are you guys harping on about the motherboards so much? You're talking about a $60 difference here. 60 fucking dollars. I could save $80 and buy a superior Intel based board if I was that worried about the motherboard budget.

My system drive is the Samsung 970 PRO M.2, and currently I have 32GB of ram. I'm under no illusion that the 970 Pro will still be amazing 4 years from now. I'll have 2 drives at that level. System drive, and my audio drive (for lower latency recording). Currently my audio drive is SSD on SATA. I'd obviously prefer it be PCIe. Beyond that everything will still be run on SATA.

lol, I had to look up neckbeard. I learned a new word! Thanks.

[wraper]

Sure, but I'm only going to be spending about $1000 or so

It's a pretty tight budget so blowing almost third of this money on a very expensive motherboard which does not make any difference is insane IMHO.