GPUs & CPUs & Enthusiast hardware: Questions, Discussion and fanboy slap-fights - Nvidia & AMD & Intel - Separe but Equal. Intel rides in the back of the bus.

[HarryHowler]

AMD have officially announced the Ryzen 7000 series, based on Zen 4.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announced-zen4-pcie5-ddr5-am5-coming-fall

Seems like a pretty encouraging announcement overall (especially since they're finally including iGPUs as standard), but more than a little surprising that Socket AM5 actually isn't going to support DDR4 - going to mean a pretty heavy early adopter tax for Zen 4 if DDR5 prices haven't come down by the fall.

Power requirements also seem to have shot way the hell up, with a 170W TDP for their top-end models. I'm not so concerned about the overall power usage, as AMD's CPUs usually don't consume anything close to their rated TDP, but between that and the mention of boost speeds as high as 5.5GHz, it sounds kinda like they're really cranking up the clock speed to stay ahead of Alder Lake.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

AMD have officially announced the Ryzen 7000 series, based on Zen 4.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announced-zen4-pcie5-ddr5-am5-coming-fall

Seems like a pretty encouraging announcement overall (especially since they're finally including iGPUs as standard), but more than a little surprising that Socket AM5 actually isn't going to support DDR4 - going to mean a pretty heavy early adopter tax for Zen 4 if DDR5 prices haven't come down by the fall.

Power requirements also seem to have shot way the hell up, with a 170W TDP for their top-end models. I'm not so concerned about the overall power usage, as AMD's CPUs usually don't consume anything close to their rated TDP, but between that and the mention of boost speeds as high as 5.5GHz, it sounds kinda like they're really cranking up the clock speed to stay ahead of Alder Lake.

It's not surprising. DDR5 only for AM5 has been known forever, and you could have guessed their strategy after seeing the 5800X3D, 5600, etc. launched earlier in the year. AM4 socket gets to stick around as a DDR4 and budget platform while early adopters throw money at AM5.

170W TDP, which may actually refer to PPT vs. the previously 142W PPT, is only really expected for the 16-core model. If you are using a 16-core, you are using the Ryzen platform like a Threadripper Lite and can afford to keep it cool.

A lot of fanboys are already shitting on this or despairing about the mere >15% single-thread uplift which apparently includes the clock speeds, as measured using Cinebench. It seems suspiciously low. Expect a lot more discussion and coping about that.

 

[Second Sun]

Well yeah, if the 15% includes clock speeds then there's pretty much zero IPC gain, which given they bumped L2 to 1mb means they fucked the cache latency somehow.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Well yeah, if the 15% includes clock speeds then there's pretty much zero IPC gain, which given they bumped L2 to 1mb means they fucked the cache latency somehow.

Maybe it's time for AMD to drop the ball again.

I never really looked at DDR5 prices but yikes, that is offensive! Oddly enough the 3200mhz 32GB DDR4 kits are pretty close in price to a couple 4800mhz 32GB DDR5 kits. ~€230 vs ~€280. If going with Kingston Value it drops to €210.

Overall it seems like RAM prices have shot up over the last 2-3 years. Almost doubled for DDR4 if I remember older prices correctly and I probably don't. Is there anything that have gone DOWN in price over the last couple of years? Some kind of cable maybe?

 

[DeadwastePrime]

does this mean i'll be able to find something like the ryzen 7 3700x for less than 200 bucks as an upgrade to the 2200g

 

[BlueSpark]

does this mean i'll be able to find something like the ryzen 7 3700x for less than 200 bucks as an upgrade to the 2200g

The 5600x will outperform the 3700x in most scenarios (despite fewer cores and threads) so if your motherboard can support it with a BIOS update you'd be better off going for the 5600x.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

The 5600x will outperform the 3700x in most scenarios (despite fewer cores and threads) so if your motherboard can support it with a BIOS update you'd be better off going for the 5600x.

ive a b350 board but it was never updated to support 5th gen. besides if i were to go 5th gen i'd pick the 5500 because its actually within my budget

 

[broilerrx]

ive a b350 board but it was never updated to support 5th gen. besides if i were to go 5th gen i'd pick the 5500 because its actually within my budget

If you can find it on sale, get the 5600. I know PCIe Gen 4 is irrelevant to you, since you're on B350, but the reduced cache hurts it. The 5600 is the better buy, since it's just a binned down 5600X, essentially. The 5500 is a 5600G without the integrated graphics.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Overall it seems like RAM prices have shot up over the last 2-3 years.

I'd say it was this year. I might be remembering wrong, but when I was planning my build earlier this year, I could've sworn DDR4 was around £40-£50 for a 16gb kit, now they're close to £80. I could be wrong though.

 

[StopSneeding]

Need opinions on when to upgrade from Skylake i7-6700k. Not set on whether to go with AMD or Intel.

Current build:
i7-6700k @ 4.6ghz
ASUS Z170-AR
16gb 3200mhz DDR4 (2x8gb)
1080 Ti FTW3
750w EVGA platnium PSU
A few 1TB SATA3 SSDs

CPU and GPU are watercooled in Fractal define s2. EK D5 and 2x 360mm rads.

Have been thinking of upgrading to AM4 as I have an AM4 bracket for CPU block. I can keep my current RAM, but I'd ideally prefer a higher clocked kit on Ryzen. Waiting for AM5 might be a while as DDR5 is and will remain very expensive and platform will be buggy until it matures. No current plans to upgrade 1080Ti until prices drop even more and it's working well for gaming at 1440p 75hz. Thoughts?

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Idk, if you don't need the performance bump and can keep waiting, that's almost always the most practical (and affordable) option.

 

[StopSneeding]

Waiting would indeed be the smart choice. From some research it seems that the i7-12700kf with a DDR4 motherboard would be the best price to performance, but I'm not sure if I want to continue with Intel due to their endless shinnegans, price gouging, and constantly changing chipset platforms . Ryzen is also more power efficient. Intel 12 series draws so much power and runs so hot, not that it is a huge issue when running a custom loop.

I used to have an i5-6600 that I would overclock with external BCLK. It overclocked better than most binned i7s. Then they released a patch for Windows which attempted to nuke the ability to due so. After removing the patch, I was able to continue overclocking it. They threatened the motherboard manufacturers and some released BIOS updates which removed the equivalent of SkyOC that ASRock implemented. It really left a bad taste in my mouth about purchasing Intel.

I just broke down my entire setup and ran Mayhems part 1 through the rads. Neglected my setup for a while and the white pastel coolant degraded. Took the blocks apart and found a small amount of algae in the CPU block which I totally cleaned out. Performance wasn't really affected amd Temps were fine. Running opaque coolants is nice and everything but a total pain in the ass to clean. After I switch coolant after 6-12 months I'll probably just start running Mayhems x1 clear.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Need opinions on when to upgrade from Skylake i7-6700k. Not set on whether to go with AMD or Intel.

Current build:
i7-6700k @ 4.6ghz
ASUS Z170-AR
16gb 3200mhz DDR4 (2x8gb)
1080 Ti FTW3
750w EVGA platnium PSU
A few 1TB SATA3 SSDs

CPU and GPU are watercooled in Fractal define s2. EK D5 and 2x 360mm rads.

Have been thinking of upgrading to AM4 as I have an AM4 bracket for CPU block. I can keep my current RAM, but I'd ideally prefer a higher clocked kit on Ryzen. Waiting for AM5 might be a while as DDR5 is and will remain very expensive and platform will be buggy until it matures. No current plans to upgrade 1080Ti until prices drop even more and it's working well for gaming at 1440p 75hz. Thoughts?

If you're playing games on a 1080 then a 6700k should be able to keep the pace with whats out now and when running at 1440p or higher I don't think it will be the CPU that's holding you back from achieving 60(the only sane framerate other than 50 and 24.97).

It's not like Ryzen 5000 will shrivel and become useless when AMDs next generation come, it will still be useful for years and CPU-wise it would be a huge upgrade for you. But if you're not CPU-bound by anything you frequently do(games, programs) then my philosophy is "meh". Don't upgrade for the sake of upgrading.

I'd say it was this year. I might be remembering wrong, but when I was planning my build earlier this year, I could've sworn DDR4 was around £40-£50 for a 16gb kit, now they're close to £80. I could be wrong though.

In my mind I remember getting 32GB of decent Kingston HyperXfury for a pittance a couple of years back.

 

[Stasi]

Don't upgrade for the sake of upgrading.

Yeh if you don't need to, why bother? Most of the stuff you see online is paid shills and enthusiast spergs. Don't fall for the hype and spend money on upgrades you don't need. I've got an i7 4790 which is close to a decade old now but handles everything I've thrown at it at 1080p 1920x1200 at 60 fps just fine. Unless someone gives me a new CPU I'm not upgrading any time soon.

 

[StopSneeding]

Yeh if you don't need to, why bother? Most of the stuff you see online is paid shills and enthusiast spergs. Don't fall for the hype and spend money on upgrades you don't need. I've got an i7 4790 which is close to a decade old now but handles everything I've thrown at it at 1080p 1920x1200 at 60 fps just fine. Unless someone gives me a new CPU I'm not upgrading any time soon.

These are all great points. I'll try and hold off until I really need it. I used to be big into overclocking, voltage modifications, and hardware customization and it was more of a hobby, but it's not really something I'm into heavily anymore. LGA 775 and to a lesser extent 1155 were a lot of fun to screw around with. Modern GPUs and CPUs not so much, but then again I'm kind of out of touch with the last few generations.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

There's some more details here:

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7000-desktop-cpus-am5-platform-detailed-robert-hallock-frank-azord-5-5-ghz-stock-clocks-170w-power-rdna-2-igpu-more/

Power requirements also seem to have shot way the hell up, with a 170W TDP for their top-end models. I'm not so concerned about the overall power usage, as AMD's CPUs usually don't consume anything close to their rated TDP, but between that and the mention of boost speeds as high as 5.5GHz, it sounds kinda like they're really cranking up the clock speed to stay ahead of Alder Lake.

Based on that interview, it looks like for at least a 16-core model, the TDP goes from 105W to 125W, and PPT goes from 142W to 170W. So you could say the CPU will use 20-28 more watts, and this will allow it to hit 5.5 GHz without user overclocking.
Wrong: 170W and 230W

So in the game, we were running most of the threads around 5.5 (GHz), it depends on the game load, depends on the scene, of course, clock speed fluctuates up and down so somewhere between 5.2 and 5.5 is pretty common on all the threads playing that game. So I wanna reassure people that this was nothing exotic in terms of cooling and nothing exotic in terms of parts selection or config or overclocking. It is exactly what you see, you plug in a Ryzen 7000 series part and play the game, & that's the frequency!

Robert Hallock (AMD Director of Technical Marketing)

Well yeah, if the 15% includes clock speeds then there's pretty much zero IPC gain, which given they bumped L2 to 1mb means they fucked the cache latency somehow.

They claim that the L2 bump does not lower performance:

So L2 cache, we did double it in Zen 4, it is an IPC benefit, it helps the core contain internally more information, overall it improves throughput and so it will be beneficial to multiple categories of workloads, be it integers like gaming or more floating-point like stuff like scientific and creative workloads.

Robert Hallock (AMD Director of Technical Marketing)

 

[Second Sun]

So looks like it's just zen3 using the new node to bump clocks and left over space for L2 and avx-512. Probably means raptor lake will beat it which is disappointing, but intel can never control themselves and will charge way too much.

 

[bigoogabaloogas]

Newbie question: I'm mainly going to be on the 1080p camp for quite a while (room isn't big enough; I'd have to do some autistic thinking to make things fit as it is,) so should I focus on getting a good CPU or GPU? I'm going for a 5600x and a 6600XT build.

 

[StopSneeding]

Newbie question: I'm mainly going to be on the 1080p camp for quite a while (room isn't big enough; I'd have to do some autistic thinking to make things fit as it is,) so should I focus on getting a good CPU or GPU? I'm going for a 5600x and a 6600XT build.

At 1080p generally you are bottlenecked more by CPU than GPU. At 1440p+ this trend no longer holds true and GPU is much more important.

The 5600x is a decent CPU so I doubt you will encounter any issues for quite some time. I would go for a better GPU if you plan to move to 1440p+ resolution or 144hz+ framerate. The 5600x also allows you to drop in a 5800/5900 a few years down the line if you need a few more cores.

While your resolution may be confined to 1080p, you can consider utilizing Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) or the AMD equivalent to enhance the appearance of the game by dpwnscaling higher resolution textures. Not all games support it and it doesn't look great for every game. I sometimes use it for older games that lack high quality textures to render 4k and downscale it to 1440p.

A 5600, 16gb of dual channel DDR4 at 3200mhz+, an SSD, and a 6600XT should provide a solid gaming experience at 1080p.

 

[CreamyHerman’s]

At 1080p generally you are bottlenecked more by CPU than GPU. At 1440p+ this trend no longer holds true and GPU is much more important.

Actually 1440p is a bottleneck for cards like the 6900XT/3090. I would imagine the next generation of cards will continue this trend as well since 1440p is the mid-range since 2019.