With AMD releasing Ryzen, is Intel no longer the better choice for PC-builders

Jlayay

It can be argued that in the past 10-years or so Intel has pushed ahead in the PC market with AMD faltering on their products (especially bulldozer architecture). #

With AMD recently releasing Ryzen, do you think Intel is no longer the better choice or does AMD still need work to compete with Intel?

TerrorFirmer

I don't think it could be argued that until Ryzen came along AMD were lagging behind extremely badly.

Ryzen has done something that AMD has not really done in a long time - offered a genuine, viable alternative to Intel for not just productivity, but for gaming as well. Bulldozer was OK for the former but patchy for the latter and has aged terribly in this regard even in games that scale across cores.

Intel has largely reclaimed their top dog status with Coffee Lake, but it only shows how (deliberately) stagnant the market had become due to AMDs shortcomings thus far. God knows where we'd be now if AMD had managed to remain broadly competitive.

But Ryzen is still a completely viable alternative to Intel of course.

wheresmahbombs

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Intel has largely reclaimed their top dog status with Coffee Lake, but it only shows how (deliberately) stagnant the market had become due to AMDs shortcomings thus far.

Blame AMD's past mishaps, along with Intel's monopolistic behaviour for a stagnant period of CPUs. It has been quad-cores (AMD's "8-core" FX processors performed more like quad-core Sandy/Ivy Bridge i5s) in the mainstream at best for the past 4 years of microarchitectures from Intel, until Coffee Lake arrived earlier this year.

Intel has broken from this quad-core mold and is now offering 6-core mainstream parts.

How would you compare the i5-8400 to the Ryzen 5 1500X? They're both at a similar price point ($182 vs $189, respectively).

Gadgetman496

I still prefer Intel but that's just because I do

Intel and AMD are actually teaming up to provide a new chip for gamers too according to THIS article.

TerrorFirmer

wheresmahbombs wrote: »

Blame AMD's past mishaps, along with Intel's monopolistic behaviour for a stagnant period of CPUs. It has been quad-cores (AMD's "8-core" FX processors performed more like quad-core Sandy/Ivy Bridge i5s) in the mainstream at best for the past 4 years of microarchitectures from Intel, until Coffee Lake arrived earlier this year.

Intel has broken from this quad-core mold and is now offering 6-core mainstream parts.

How would you compare the i5-8400 to the Ryzen 5 1500X? They're both at a similar price point ($182 vs $189, respectively).

Overall an Ivybridge i5 is still a considerably superior CPU to the FX line. AMD gambled on that tech and lost badly.

As games have started to scale across more cores, you'd think the FX would almost get a second wind...but it doesn't thanks to the incredibly bad IPC. At this point, in CPU heavy games a first gen i7 from 2009 is actually superior.

The i5-8400 is vastly superior to the 1500X, there is no contest there at all. It's also superior to the Ryzen 1600 - they're both six core parts and run at similar boost frequencies though IPC on the 8400 is better.

Either is fine though and at the moment Intel boards are much more expensive as the budget chipsets are not available, whereas AMD you can get a basic A320M for €50.

deceit

Ive been using intel cpus eclusively since the release of the i7 920. Ive changed recently and built an 1800x build and a 1950x build so my intel rig is now my third. Intel make too many cuts to their products and increase costs. With the 1950x i was able to run 4 games on it without slowdowb in vms

deceit

For gaming intel is generally going to be better but for multi tasking and game/streaming amd should beat them at all price points.
If gaming solely would get intel, anything else amd at the moment

wheresmahbombs

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Overall an Ivybridge i5 is still a considerably superior CPU to the FX line. AMD gambled on that tech and lost badly.

As games have started to scale across more cores, you'd think the FX would almost get a second wind...but it doesn't thanks to the incredibly bad IPC. At this point, in CPU heavy games a first gen i7 from 2009 is actually superior.

The i5-8400 is vastly superior to the 1500X, there is no contest there at all. It's also superior to the Ryzen 1600 - they're both six core parts and run at similar boost frequencies though IPC on the 8400 is better.

Either is fine though and at the moment Intel boards are much more expensive as the budget chipsets are not available, whereas AMD you can get a basic A320M for €50.

The i5-8400's pitfall is its locked multiplier, which the 1600 does away with.

I wouldn't go for an A320 myself as I'd miss out on overclocking functionality. B350 would be my minimum.

wheresmahbombs

deceit wrote: »

Ive been using intel cpus eclusively since the release of the i7 920. Ive changed recently and built an 1800x build and a 1950x build so my intel rig is now my third. Intel make too many cuts to their products and increase costs. With the 1950x i was able to run 4 games on it without slowdowb in vms

I think I've been an all-Intel guy for my life. All the PCs I own at home have Intel CPUs. Maybe that streak will break when I build my next desktop.

As for GPUs, only one PC I've owned has had an ATI/AMD GPU, while all the rest have Intel or NVIDIA GPUs.

TerrorFirmer

wheresmahbombs wrote: »

The i5-8400's pitfall is its locked multiplier, which the 1600 does away with.

I wouldn't go for an A320 myself as I'd miss out on overclocking functionality. B350 would be my minimum.

It's not really a pitfall though because overclocking potential on the Ryzen is limited, and the 8400 can boost easily to within a close margain of the 1600's overclocked frequency, and has better IPC to boot.

The real advantage at the moment is that a Ryzen 1600 + A320M is significantly cheaper at the moment than an 8400 + the cheapest Coffee Lake motherboard.

Once the cheaper chipsets are released, the i3-8350 beats the 1200, 1300, 1400 and 1500. At the moment because of cost the Ryzen is still better for budget.

wheresmahbombs

I see. The most you'd usually get with a Ryzen is 3.9 or 4GHz. Intel's chips, on the other hand, can easily push 5GHz.

W0LFMAN

Intel and AMD cpu, If your questioning the difference, you will never be satisfied by theory alone. Take the plunge and build a second Rig.

K.O.Kiki

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It's not really a pitfall though because overclocking potential on the Ryzen is limited, and the 8400 can boost easily to within a close margain of the 1600's overclocked frequency, and has better IPC to boot.

The real advantage at the moment is that a Ryzen 1600 + A320M is significantly cheaper at the moment than an 8400 + the cheapest Coffee Lake motherboard.

Once the cheaper chipsets are released, the i3-8350 beats the 1200, 1300, 1400 and 1500. At the moment because of cost the Ryzen is still better for budget.

I'd be wary of running Ryzen 1600 on a cheapo A320 motherboard unless it has good VRM design.

Cuddlesworth

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Once the cheaper chipsets are released, the i3-8350 beats the 1200, 1300, 1400 and 1500. At the moment because of cost the Ryzen is still better for budget.

In new games using new engines, 4 cores/4 threads will start slamming off a brick wall.

deceit

I have gaming nights and have mates over handier having one machine than 4. But work is the biggest reason i got it