Can the RYZEN 7 1800X handle MY mostly Single-Threaded workload more effectively than an i7-7700k without risky Overclocking?

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NewRigTime

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For two weeks since the RYZEN launch with the benchmarks recorded, I have been debating the possibility of two different PC builds focused on either a RYZEN 7 1800X or an i7-7700k. I have come to a point where I need to ask for help in making a decision based on my workload type. I will build this computer myself likely with liquid cooling on the CPU either way I go. The cost of components is not as important as sheer processing power for my workload at hand, but I will not be buying an i7-6900k simply due to absurd cost limitations and lack of improvement over new i7-7700k for single-threaded applications. This new computer will need to run 24/7/365 with very minimal downtime (less than 1 hour of downtime per week), and I expect this to be a factor in picking INTEL over AMD (or vice versa).

My Current Workload:
-I currently run (8) Windows 7 virtual machines with about 50 instances of a *mostly* single-threaded program running on each VM. Windows 7 is important on the VMs because the program I run does not behave well in Windows 10 for multiple reasons. The VMs are currently split up this way because I found it to be the only way for my Dell PowerEdge R900 4U Rack Server to somehow handle all this workload. The largest and possibly obvious problem with the rack server is the massive power expense to simply even run this server ($40+/month measured & calculated), as well as severe performance issues.
-I confirmed the program I run is single threaded in operation but like most applications, it creates more threads. It creates 13 threads exactly, though the functionality is single threaded. This is actually an Adobe FLASH based old program, I was not sure if that makes a difference.

My quandary is this: The AMD RYZEN 7 1800X does fall short of the INTEL i7-7700k in single-threaded benchmark testing from just about every source I can find. If this is true, then I should just get the i7-7700k right? But wait, I really like the fact that RYZEN 7 1800X has 8 cores versus the i7-7700k 4 cores for virtualization. How can i go from 24 cores on my dated rack server to only 4 cores!! Note that I am open to reducing the VM count to 2 total on my new build, but I still need to be able to run the same number of programs. Furthermore, I might even want to run a few hundred more programs on this new rig in the future than what I am currently running, and maybe even play some games such as Starcraft 2 while the VMs are running. No hardcore gaming though, i save that for the PS4!

The Ryzen 1700X overclocked nicely is a possible option, but do i really want to run an overclocked PC 24/7/365?

Sorry for the super long question but I wanted to make sure needed information was included. Please let me know your thoughts...should I get an 1800X or i7-7700k based on this info? Or do you need more information to decide?
 
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Dragos Manea
If you plan to put a 8 vms each of them on a core then ryzen will be better suited for you, 7700k is a 4core in reality and will suffer greatly when you use it as a vm server with 8 vms, more cores the better for you in this case, and with ryzen your got the smt threads which can handle a decent gaming while the vms are on, i7 7700k in battlefield 1 reaches even 90% load while with ryzen i have up to 40-45% load(this thing is tested by me, i had a 6700k and i was having 70-90% load in bf 1 and now with my 1700x i have 15-40% load). My advice ryzen in this case, if it was just for gaming then a 7700k was enought but for vms and gaming go for ryzen.
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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If you plan to put a 8 vms each of them on a core then ryzen will be better suited for you, 7700k is a 4core in reality and will suffer greatly when you use it as a vm server with 8 vms, more cores the better for you in this case, and with ryzen your got the smt threads which can handle a decent gaming while the vms are on, i7 7700k in battlefield 1 reaches even 90% load while with ryzen i have up to 40-45% load(this thing is tested by me, i had a 6700k and i was having 70-90% load in bf 1 and now with my 1700x i have 15-40% load). My advice ryzen in this case, if it was just for gaming then a 7700k was enought but for vms and gaming go for ryzen.
 
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NewRigTime

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To Esaelias187, just saying that INTEL is better than AMD is no help whatsoever. Do you have any specific reason why the 1800X with 8 cores is worse for virtualization than the 7700k with only 4 cores? As Dragos has stated as well as I suspected, more cores with comparable products means more processing power, am i right? Do you disagree? If so i want a reason, not an INTEL fanboy response. I am impartial to both, but INTEL has really been slacking off in recent years on the PC CPU market. Your comment begs for further questioning of reasons for your hatred of AMD; I am not talking about past AMD experiences, I am talking about here and now, and RYZEN is now.
 
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valeman2012

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This is actually true.
It disappointing that a Kaby Lake Quad Core beated most applications and games against the 8 Core / 16 Thread CPU

I was favoring AMD when used their FX 6300
But it turns out a Intel i3 6100 beats most of their FX Series CPU even 9590 (most applications and games against FX 9590)
No more AMD FX CPU for me.
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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We are talking about virtual machines and plenty of them, not about gaming, yes for gaming the i7 is better but for MULTITASKING, and i repeat MULTITASKING i dont see how 8 cores are slower then 4, yes ipc is about 5-10% lower then kabylake but you got 100% more cores(double the number of cores). I repeat just for gaming yes intel is about 5% better but in multitasking only one which competes with ryzen is 6900k. How in hell i7 7700k is beating ryzen in multicore applciations? Every bench i see the ryzen gets more then double of points. Firestrike physics scores i get 19K while my former i7 6700k was getting 8K, in CPU-Z bench it gets 21K while i7 gets 9K in video conersion it gets less then half the time it would take an i7. Here in cinebench it gets double the points in multithreading. What the hell, are you thinking before speaking? http://www.pcworld.com/article/3172555/computers/amd-ryzen-benchmark-preview-ryzen-7-outperforms-intels-best.html. We are talking here about multithreading for the goodness sake we are talking about 8 vms mother of multitasking., do you know how much computing power you need for 8 VMs? I know because i once had multiple private game servers (about 6 or so) and trust me you need a lot of multithreading power.
 
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NewRigTime

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Dragos bringing out the heavy artillery hahaha :) Seriously though, you did the best job of explaining your experiences, and I will be getting parts for an 1800X rig this coming weekend! Trust me, i have done my research and came to an unbiased conclusion.
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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If it was just for gaming yea i would say from all my heart go for i7 it is better (for now xD) but i presume that you found in your research, more cores is better in VMs. :)

EDIT: I think it would be better a 1700x or 1700 from financial point of view, if you searcha bit on google you will see that all of them overclock to 3.9-4.0Ghz, very few of them pass that limit, so a 1700x or 1800x at 3.9 are the same, one more thing you should consider, you will have lots of I/O so be sure you got a HDD or SSD which can run a massive number of I/O, ideally would be every VM on different hdd/ssd and a very high I/O ssd for main OS. How i said i've been on this path and i know a bit about this :).
 
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NewRigTime

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Dragos,

I may actually only start with 2 VMs, but may expand to 4 later on. I will most likely be ditching Hyper-V for VMWare. I will be putting a ton more programs on each VM however.

I do not want to nit-pick with the price as much as get a running, working solution. I have serious concerns about running the 1700X at a 4.0 GHz overclocked state 24/7 simply for reasons of longevity of the CPU, so i think from that standpoint alone its worth just getting the 1800X. I know the 1800X can only be overclocked right now to about 4.1 GHz, but I also understand alot of that might be due to software limitations or todays watercooling not being able to handle it from a heat standpoint? Either way, if i dont even have to OC, that might even be better.

Why so many hard drives? I have heard this before, but I still do not understand why. I am looking at this 500 GB hard drive for primary OS: http://www.microcenter.com/product/442387/850_EVO-Series_500GB_SATA_III_6Gb-s_25%22_Internal_SSD_Single_Unit_Version_MZ-75E500B-AM

If you have a hard drive, or hard drive set that you would recommend then please let me know what you think I should get. I have an existing secondary 3 TB internal drive in my current desktop that I will also be using, however I will not be putting any VMs on that hard drive.
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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Mechanical HDD have a limited input/output number of operations and it is much smaller then a SSD number of I/O (input/output operations, on short I/O), every users accesing softwares or running background task needs a number of I/Os but unfortunately on hdd you reach that limit very fast so thats why you need 1 hdd for each vm doesnt matter what hdd you use as long as it is 7200 rpm and has the space you need but you need one for each vm. for main os a ssd would be great because the os will coodonate all this activities and it needs to be fast, as i can see yes that samsung is pretty good as main os drive.
If you go ryzen rout look carefully that are motherboard with 6 sata ports, motherboards with 8 sata ports and motherboards with 10 sata ports, depending on your budget best would be 8 or 10 sata ports, a cheap solution would be Asus prime x370-pro, it is around 200$ and has 8 sata ports, another option would be asrock x370 taichi which is a great motehrboard(in my perosnal opinion better then asus crosshair vi hero) and has 10 sata ports.

EDIT: As for overclock AMD said that 1,45V for cpu is the max, i got mine working at 3.925 Ghz at 1.35V, max temperature was 76 degrees in a 20 mins prime95 maximum heat test so you dont need to worry about longevity at that voltage and temperature. Any overclocker on this forum it will say to you that 1.35v and 76 degrees is a very good and it will not affect your cpu.

EDIT2: One more thing i forgot, if you choose 1700x or 1800x they have one issue, the temperature that you see in bios or in any software it is with 20 degrees higher then reality (even AMD admited that, seach on google ryzen 1700x 20 degrees) so you will see idle temperatures of 50-65 degrees but in reality it will be 30-45 degrees and max temperature of 96 degrees but in reality it is 76 degrees, ryzen 1700 non x is not affected by this issue. I know i got scared when i saw my cpu at 96 degrees with noctua nh-d15 best aircooler on the market and i was wondering how it is possible but i search a bit and i saw everything was fine. :)

EDIT3: And one last thing if you go for high ram capacity 4x8gb or 4x16gb dont expect the ram to work at high frequency, i got 4x8gb and i could not make mine work higher then 2133mhz so i made the timings more agressive to compensate for the low frequency (10-10-10-28).
 
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NewRigTime

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Long story short, I put together a RYZEN build and its off and unplugged sitting on my table. Here is the separate thread I made for all the post-build issues I have been having: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3383713/asrock-x370-taichi-amd-ryzen-1800x-post-build-crashing-issues-error-codes.html

Let me know if you have any ideas as far as solutions on that thread. Hopefully somebody will or I am tearing this whole thing apart and returning it to Microcenter (might be last time I ever go there), then rebuying off Amazon later-on.
 
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C

CROOKID

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No offense, but you say you're unbiased but it sounds like you had a predetermined desire to go AMD.

I'm going through a similar dilemma as I need single core / single threaded performance and unfortunately 7700k shatters everything on this front. Dragos says 5-10% performance difference but this is not the case.

If you play internet based multiplayer games such as MMOs, RTSs, Dungeon crawlers like Diablo -- they will benefit GREATLY from beastly single core performance. I'm talking going from 40-50FPS in busy environments to 100-120.

My recommendation would be 7700k for a gaming rig and build a workhorse later when Threadripper releases.
 
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