Wait for Ryzen 2 (7nm) or stay with Intel 8th or 9th gen?

kurokamirin · Nov 12, 2018

I am gonna be as upfront on this as possible.

Time and time again, I've seen so many comparisons between the Ryzen 2nd gen being pinned against the Intel 9th gen with a fair variety of results but none seem to be anywhere convincing or helpful enough to make an informed decision without it blowing up into biased fanhood back and forth that just doesn't seem constructive and I am sort of at a loss of who to listen to.

As someone who's been using a Haswell PC for over 3 years, I just thought it's about time for me to replace my computer with something more recent but remained budget conscious and it still seems like both Intel and AMD has something to offer for someone like me who just want to do some not-so-ridiculous 1080p gaming and want to experience 120 or 144hz refresh rate as well as very light Photoshop work.

If I am to just get the components alone, which should I get that is more worth my money?

Currently I am looking at Intel i5 8th or 9th gen but they still have a very expensive premium which I am not quite sure about.

This is my current rig's spec for comparison.

Intel i3-4160
Gigabyte B85M-D3H Rev 1.0
BeQuiet! Pure Rock 150w TDP
Hyper-X 1600 8GB single RAM
Patriot Blast 120GB SSD
WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD
Asus GTX 680 2GB Direct CU II OC
Seasonic S12II 620W
TP-Link Archer T9E PCI Wifi Card
Windows 7 Home Edition 64-Bit

Case: Fractal Design Meshify C

Is it possible for me to have notable performance improvement over just i3-8100 or even i5 8400?

I am open for options so any suggestions or advice would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Gam3r01 · Nov 12, 2018

If youre interested in moderate gaming and light photoshop work just get something like an R5 or R7 2xxx processor. An R5 2600 or R7 2700 (x) would be a massive upgrade without breaking the bank for those tiny incremental increases 8th and 9th gen may offer over Ryzen.

kurokamirin · Nov 12, 2018

Gam3r01 :

I see.

I am just under the impression where Zen 2 is around the corner near 2019, if I should avoid paying twice and go for R3 or R5.

But I guess regardless of which I pick, it'll be a huge leap over my current rig.

Also, is it true that I have to have at least 3000MHz speed RAM put on the motherboard to get the most out of Ryzen CPUs?

I've encountered numerous opinions that they operate optimally at high speed RAM frequencies.

Do correct me if I am wrong as I thought 2666MHz might not be enough for Ryzen CPUs.

gaborbarla · Nov 12, 2018

There are many questions here but, I would overall say yes there is definitely benefit for going over and above a i3-8100 or 8400 system.
The sweet spot right now I think would be a i5 9600k. It is new and it has some spectre fixes also in hardware. But this is only really the case for top of the range graphics card.

A GTX 680 is a massive bottleneck in games and there is not much point going past an i5 8400 or 8350k with even a GTX 1060.

To explain this if you have a GTX 1060, and a 8400 you will get much less improvement going to 9600k than as if you went to a GTX 1080 instead. But, your current CPU and GPU both are quite outdated.
I would say a cheaper ryzen setup with the best graphics card that you can afford with 16Gb decent DDR4 RAM is the way to go (e.g. 3200Mhz CL16). Yes it might be worth it to wait for the new ryzen 7nm chips in that case. If you dont want to wait, go for a cheap (cheap compared to higher end intel chips) 8350k and the best graphics card you can afford to maximize your FPS for 144Hz.

So to summarise, get a CPU that is not weaker than the 8400 (6 core) and get the best graphics card you can afford. A GTX 1080 gives very good performance for the buck and the 8400 would or comparable ryzen chip would not bottleneck it at all, but going with GTX 1050 and going with a 9700k makes no sense. Hope this helps.

Gabor

kurokamirin · Nov 12, 2018

gaborbarla :

So my GTX 680 is choking my system of performance? And it's not just the dual-core i3 Haswell not able to go far with its obvious physical limitations?

That's unfortunate... =(

I just thought that I could just go for a better system while keep my 680 since so many people said my i3 is bottlenecking the 680 and not the other way around.

Sadly 8350k is completely sold out on my market (in Malaysia) so I am not left with much choice other than 8100 being the only i3 CPU available.

Also, would an 8100 bottleneck GTX 1080 Ti or any RTX cards for that matter? (I know some people have mixed opinions for RTX but still...the 2070 seem to be quite a performer, though I guess it's too excessive for 1080p even for 144hz gaming)

InvalidError · Nov 12, 2018

kurokamirin :

Both sides have their strengths and weaknesses, there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation and different people will have different opinions about what may suit your use-case best depending on their interpretation of what your needs are. You will rarely get a consensus on anything.

In general, Intel is better for heavy gaming while AMD is better at heavy productivity / multi-tasking for a given price point.

Another option you may want to consider is simply upgrading your CPU to an i5-4590 or i7-4790. That would already get you most of the way to being on par with newer CPUs. You'll still need to upgrade to 16GB of RAM to smooth out Windows needing to use the swapfile or games having to reload stuff from HDD/SSD.

BTW, 7nm is Ryzen 3 (Zen 2) due some time in 2019, not Ryzen 2 (Zen+) which is what AMD launched this year on 12nm.

kurokamirin · Nov 12, 2018

InvalidError :

So Ryzen 3 is the confirmed name? I guess I am behind news then. Thanks for telling.

Also, if I had that choice I would've done so from the beginning but sadly there's no one around my area willing to sell second-hand used processors that are of Haswell chipset. So for the time being I am just stuck with an obsolete system with no upgradeable parts to keep it going (besides changing to a better cooler or GPU or PSU maybe), plus RAM price is still very bloated at the moment, even with DDR3 RAM which cost a heft even for another 8GB performance RAM.

I can only imagine how expensive DDR4 RAMs are at the moment.

Admittedly I could've stayed with Intel, but AMD's making rapid progress and I am left anxious to upgrade due to the 7nm thing being such a big deal around the community.

It's just the old story of "getting the most out of my wallet" as I don't have infinite amount of cash to burn on playing with high-end hardware like enthusiasts lol

gaborbarla · Nov 12, 2018

kurokamirin :

Definitely a 8100 would bottleneck a 1080ti more than it would bottleneck a 1070.
I agree the 1070 is a sweet GPU for 1080p. The 8100 with a 1070 it will not bottleneck it too much, and gives you the option to upgrade the CPU later if you are not completely happy.

Note: Dont be too scared of bottlenecking. Lots of people make it too much of a deal. Most modern CPU with at least 4 cores do a decent job and keeping frames high and generally spending money on a GPU and 144Hz monitor gives you a better experience than buying a high end CPU and mediocre GPU. If you have no budget by all means the 9900k with 2080ti is the way to go but like I said a 1070 with an 8100 will work OK. I would have preferred 8600k (6 cores) or a 8350k (4 cores) even over the 8100 but since you cant get the 8350k the 8100 will do OK, if you budget is restricted. Think about getting 16gb of 3200 DDR4 (cl16 or lower) RAM this does well to reduce much of those pesky Low FPS spikes in games vs slower RAM.

kurokamirin · Nov 12, 2018

gaborbarla :

kurokamirin :

Definitely a 8100 would bottleneck a 1080ti more than it would bottleneck a 1070.
I agree the 1070 is a sweet GPU for 1080p. The 8100 with a 1070 it will not bottleneck it too much, and gives you the option to upgrade the CPU later if you are not completely happy.

Note: Dont be too scared of bottlenecking. Lots of people make it too much of a deal. Most modern CPU with at least 4 cores do a decent job and keeping frames high and generally spending money on a GPU and 144Hz monitor gives you a better experience than buying a high end CPU and mediocre GPU. If you have no budget by all means the 9900k with 2080ti is the way to go but like I said a 1070 with an 8100 will work OK. I would have preferred 8600k (6 cores) or a 8350k (4 cores) even over the 8100 but since you cant get the 8350k the 8100 will do OK, if you budget is restricted. Think about getting 16gb of 3200 DDR4 (cl16 or lower) RAM this does well to reduce much of those pesky Low FPS spikes in games vs slower RAM.

Duly noted. Thanks a lot for the pointers.

But yeah, here's hoping the price of 1070 will drop a bit more since they've definitely gotten a lot cheaper since the time they were launched.

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Wait for Ryzen 2 (7nm) or stay with Intel 8th or 9th gen?

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