Zen2. Is Intel now the gamers choice & price/perf king?

[beany_bot]

So hear me out. This might sound mad what with all the latest buzz and excitement around the Zen2 launch. But doing some fag packet maths.... Intel might actually be the go to system for gamers.

Lets break it down.

by AMD's own slides we saw parity with Intel in gaming. I think we can all agree on that. It's roughly the same. (And thats by AMD's own slides, showing best case for AMD).
so it is favourable to AMD to say that they perform the same in gaming.

Anyway. Lets focus on price then.

9900k can be had for £450.
3800X will likely be £400.

So at this point AMD wins to the tune of £50.

Alas....

AMD requires "premium" memory to hit its best performance (and likely what was shown by AMD in the keynotes, they aren't going to show gaming benchmarks vs 9900k on junk RAM now are they.

So add is decent RAM for Zen 2 for say £150.
Intel will get the same performance with half decent 3000Mhz RAM at £75.

So now we have AMD loosing to Intel to the tune of £25.

But it gets worse. Motherboards.

As we are seeing. X570 boards are going to be expensive. Lets look at a typical gaming mobo choice for many. the ASUS ROG STRIX F Gaming.

On Z390 its around £190
On X570 its going to be £299!! a £109 premium.

So that takes our grand total to £134 MORE for the X570-3800x system than the Z390-9900k system.
Thats with performance (by AMDs own metrics) pretty much identical.

So in all seriousness. Once the hype dust from Zen2 settles.
Is Intel now the best choice for gamers?

 

[Orange Nexus]

I'll be using my X470 and keep the 12 core at stock.

Checkout any 9900K owner and see the kind of RAM they pair them with. Most i see carry 4000MHz and they are not cheap.

Here you can find some examples . . .

https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...el-ddr4-24-7-memory-stability-thread-949.html

 

[beany_bot]

I'll be using my X470 and keep the 12 core at stock.

Checkout any 9900K owner and see the kind of RAM they pair them with. Most i see carry 4000MHz and they are not cheap.

If you dont Overclock your 12 core and do the 9900k you are loosing the performance race. and still loosing the price/perf race.
My point is you don't *need to pair a 9900k with expensive RAM to win at price/perf.

 

[Orange Nexus]

If you dont Overclock your 12 core and do the 9900k you are loosing the performance race. and still loosing the price/perf race.
My point is you don't *need to pair a 9900k with expensive RAM to win at price/perf.

Wut? Actually, cant really compare my ryzen system to any Intel cos of my use case. I use my system to access clients' data.

BTW, the new game cache helps overcome the need for fast RAM. RAM at 3600 CL16 will suffice afaik. Besides, who will pair a 500$ to a 100$ set of RAM?

 

[beany_bot]

Wut? Actually, cant really compare my ryzen system to any Intel cos of my use case. I use my system to access clients' data.

So why are you commenting??? The title says GAMERS choice.

 

[DragonQ]

So hear me out. This might sound mad what with all the latest buzz and excitement around the Zen2 launch. But doing some fag packet maths.... Intel might actually be the go to system for gamers.

Lets break it down.

by AMD's own slides we saw parity with Intel in gaming. I think we can all agree on that. It's roughly the same. (And thats by AMD's own slides, showing best case for AMD).
so it is favourable to AMD to say that they perform the same in gaming.

Anyway. Lets focus on price then.

9900k can be had for £450.
3800X will likely be £400.

So at this point AMD wins to the tune of £50.

Alas....

AMD requires "premium" memory to hit its best performance (and likely what was shown by AMD in the keynotes, they aren't going to show gaming benchmarks vs 9900k on junk RAM now are they.

So add is decent RAM for Zen 2 for say £150.
Intel will get the same performance with half decent 3000Mhz RAM at £75.

So now we have AMD loosing to Intel to the tune of £25.

But it gets worse. Motherboards.

As we are seeing. X570 boards are going to be expensive. Lets look at a typical gaming mobo choice for many. the ASUS ROG STRIX F Gaming.

On Z390 its around £190
On X570 its going to be £299!! a £109 premium.

So that takes our grand total to £134 MORE for the X570-3800x system than the Z390-9900k system.
Thats with performance (by AMDs own metrics) pretty much identical.

So in all seriousness. Once the hype dust from Zen2 settles.
Is Intel now the best choice for gamers?

1) Why would you choose an R7 3800X and not an R7 3700X when looking for bang-for-buck? Hell, for most games, the R5 3600(X) will be a better choice (likely with less longevity).
2) Intel CPUs most certainly benefit from faster RAM. Maybe not quite as much but they do. Saying "decent RAM" for Ryzen costs £150 is just wrong, you can get great performance with a typical £75 RAM kit on both platforms.

 

[Orange Nexus]

So why are you commenting??? The title says GAMERS choice.

Im commenting cos you seem to insunuate that building a R3000 system will be significantly be more expensive, which i doubt after you find out that an Intel system does not necessarily use a less expensive ram. That and how did you know the final price/perf figure this early?

I can also speculate that there will be less expensive X570 or B550 boards that can handle both 8 and 12 core cpu. Only the simpleton will gamble with a 16 core and a cheap X570.

 

[emodan]

Just picked up 16GB of RAM which will overclock to 3600 CL 16 fine for less than £70 so not sure where you get £150 from.
Also as B450 and X470 exist a "Gamer" can always go for this instead saving £150-200 off the £299 you've quoted.

 

[Panos]

So in all seriousness. Once the hype dust from Zen2 settles.
Is Intel now the best choice for gamers?

You made a lot of assumptions. RAM is important for Intel CPUs also. Otherwise you lose a lot of gaming performance.
Motherboards, there are no prices yet. You say "X570 going to be £299". By who's announcement? The Asrock Pro4 as we know it will be $179.
You can also get a X470 or B450 boards to use with the 3800X. You lose the pci-e 4.0 but you do not get that with Intel solution either.

Also with Intel you need a cooler, with AMD not.

 

[Deleted member 209350]

N

So hear me out. This might sound mad what with all the latest buzz and excitement around the Zen2 launch. But doing some fag packet maths.... Intel might actually be the go to system for gamers.

Lets break it down.

by AMD's own slides we saw parity with Intel in gaming. I think we can all agree on that. It's roughly the same. (And thats by AMD's own slides, showing best case for AMD).
so it is favourable to AMD to say that they perform the same in gaming.

Anyway. Lets focus on price then.

9900k can be had for £450.
3800X will likely be £400.

So at this point AMD wins to the tune of £50.

Alas....

AMD requires "premium" memory to hit its best performance (and likely what was shown by AMD in the keynotes, they aren't going to show gaming benchmarks vs 9900k on junk RAM now are they.

So add is decent RAM for Zen 2 for say £150.
Intel will get the same performance with half decent 3000Mhz RAM at £75.

So now we have AMD loosing to Intel to the tune of £25.

But it gets worse. Motherboards.

As we are seeing. X570 boards are going to be expensive. Lets look at a typical gaming mobo choice for many. the ASUS ROG STRIX F Gaming.

On Z390 its around £190
On X570 its going to be £299!! a £109 premium.

So that takes our grand total to £134 MORE for the X570-3800x system than the Z390-9900k system.
Thats with performance (by AMDs own metrics) pretty much identical.

So in all seriousness. Once the hype dust from Zen2 settles.
Is Intel now the best choice for gamers?

Quite a few flaws in this, most of them have been listed already by other users but here's my 2 cents:

1) This is entirely based on choosing the 3800x, when its likely the 3700x will perform pretty much the same for gaming. But lets just fit your agenda and go with the 3800x anyway.

2) You dont necessarily need a X570 mobo, existing Ryzen users can most likely use their x470's or even B450 boards, so you probably end up saving money in that regard as Intel you need a new mobo with every new gen chip.

3) You can play games just fine with normal RAM, it doesnt need to be top end £150 RAM as you suggest.

4) This takes the grand total to be cheaper than the 9900k, and also we have no idea how well you can manage to overclock the 3800x either.. If it OC's well then it will be much better price/perf and even if it cant OC as well as predicted, then it will still be better price/performance.

But only time will tell, so we'll have to see when people get the chips and there are real world tests.

 

[Panos]

Regarding some comments about RAM, 3 1/2 years ago, bought Gskill 16GB DDR4 3600-C15 for £124. This ram is been used on 6700K, 1800X, 8600K, 6800K that period.
Also overclocks to 4133C17 without hassle.
It worked straight out of the box at rated speeds (3600C14 actually) with the 1800X in April 2017, when everyone was crying that couldn't make their cheap 2666 ram work with the 1800X.

Thats 4 different platforms, and going to be used on the new X570 board.

 

[EsaT]

by AMD's own slides we saw parity with Intel in gaming. I think we can all agree on that. It's roughly the same. (And thats by AMD's own slides, showing best case for AMD).

Those tests were with pro-Intel settings, which no doubt lots of "reviewers" are going to use.
As in no security patches for Intel and Ryzen helping Windows patch with improved scheduler.

 

[killem]

Trolling thread. As you have picked the worst case prices to make your point.

I Can pick up Adata rgb 3600 cl17 16gb memory for £121.
X570 boards will start around £170 according to some reports.

We do not really know the uk price of these CPU's and boards yet. They could be $ to £ exchange rate + vat or be straight $=£.
Intel have big problems with manufacturing stock at the moment so I can see many people going for AMD as the parts will be in stock.

 

[4K8KW10]

X570 boards will start around £170 according to some reports.

Yes, with one garbage Asus mobo, a Prime X570-P.
While for the same price you might get better Z390 boards such as ASRock Z390 EXTREME4, Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ELITE and Asus PRIME Z390-A.

 

[B1gbeard]

Intel has been the best choice for some time now for flat out performance.

Really only the fanboys who were trying to push the Zen 2 "Loads of cores at Xmhz for everyone for peanuts" message leading up to launch are surprised by any of this (and probably not even then as it's mostly just making stuff up). The 9900k was anything from a bit slower in a very small amount of game to 25%+ more performance over a 2XXX Zen chip so it was completely unrealistic to think AMD would not only cut that lead but then take the lead in many games. Even in their keynote at E£ AMD were careful with the wording, using comparable performance when comparing themselves to a 9900k.

AMD have done amazingly well though and you can't go wrong really. A 3900X followed up with a 3950X is a tempting path at the moment. It will be interesting to see just how much difference the security patches make as well. I'm guessing not a huge amount.

 

[StriderX]

How is this gamer's choice when the Steam survey says it's minuscule for 9900k uptake?

Most people still have a piddly quad core.

Anyway, atleast AMD have provided an upgrade path that isn't insane.

 

[chroniclard]

With no reviews out this thread has boffed its load too early.

 

[4K8KW10]

With no reviews out this thread has boffed its load too early.

According to AMD's own slide, the 3800X is still slower than a 9700K.

 

[chroniclard]

1080p peasant res, no care.

Will await full reviews ta.

 

[Nutella33]

According to AMD's own slide, the 3800X is still slower than a 9700K.

Didn't have intel security patches or AMD's windows scheduling fix though. People are getting big gains from the latter.

1080p peasant res, no care.

Will await full reviews ta.

You should wait for full reviews but it is funny, last time they concentrated on 4k/1440p in their slides and the comments then were that most people still game at 1080p and that higher Res is irrelevant for 'elite' gaming.