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AMD Zen 2 (Refresh) 3900XT/3800XT/3600XT

Caporegime
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I'm willing to pay a bit more to support OCUK, they are good people and we do use this forum extensively, just so long as they don't take the
I just see that as a bit daft. OCUK are a successful business that have given no indication that they are "struggling", they do not need charity. If anything, PC sales are rocketing at the moment as people are mostly staying inside and at home, and throughout the supply chains people are taking advantage of the COVID situation to engage in a bit of 'supply and demand' price gouging.
 
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Caporegime
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I just see that as foolish. OCUK are a successful business that have given no indication that they are "struggling", they do not need charity. If anything, PC sales are rocketing at the moment as people are mostly inside and throughout the supply chains people are taking advantage of the COVID situation to engage in supply and demand price gouging.

They do offer members deals too, I asked gibbo if I could have this card for £330 and he agreed.
 
Associate
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549
I should just point out I put no blame on OCUK, I said it seems to be happening everywhere. I can only find a couple of places at the old price of £480 now, seems everyone is doing it. In case you guys hadn't noticed the 3600XT has gone down £20, its listed at £230 now not £250.

A bit sad though really as I'm not sure how viable the 3600XT is? A slightly faster 3600X thats already a slightly faster 3600? £150 to £230 is looking cramped, they needed a low clock 8 core part in there really to shake things up. A 3700 (non X) would've been a far more interesting part at $249.99 rrp than the 3600XT. The 3800XT was an obvious launch, it was clear from the start that the 3950x bin quality chiplets weren't making it to the 3800X. With 4000 on the way they need to clear as many of those as they can before they lose value. The 3900XT could be interesting though, its just a question of whether you get two matched chiplets or one high one low like the 3900X. With SMT off and 12 fast cores I'd be very interested to see what that can hold in terms of all core speed at full load.

I've also seen a lot of sentiment questioning who would buy these cpus when you can get a much cheaper lower bin. Well having got a really bad launch day 3600 that can only just wheeze its way above 4ghz in all core overclock to test the Ryzen waters before switching from Intel, I picked up a 3800x to replace my 5960x gaming pc. Good decision, 4.4ghz all core @ 1.287v in an ITX build compared to the 5960x running 4.5ghz all core @ 1.35v in a full tower - the power and heat efficiency difference is insane and I got good gains in my games, especially in 1% and 0.1% lows where the 5960x was starting to struggle at 3440x1440 100hz. I'm now looking at moving the 3800x down to replace the 3600 and picking up a 3900XT for my gaming PC. Also got a 3600X for the lads PC when it price dropped to £180 a few months ago, didnt want to risk another dud 3600. Value is all subjective and relative to your starting point and expectations. Many will chose to go the XT route to avoid any potential disappointment following a substantial investment.

Also fun fact, the combined price for the 3600 I bought on launch day plus the 3800X bought in September last year plus the 3600X i bought during black friday plus the price for the 3900XT is still £200 less than the 5960x cost on its own. Just my own example explaining why value is very much relative to your starting point.
 
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Caporegime
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Associate
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At that point you upsell yourself to the 3950x, Ive seen them as low as £650. I expected the 3900XT to launch around $480 and drop to $450 quickly, this could indicate low stock at launch maybe?
 
Caporegime
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At that point you upsell yourself to the 3950x, Ive seen them as low as £650. I expected the 3900XT to launch around $480 and drop to $450 quickly, this could indicate low stock at launch maybe?

Low stock at launch would make no sense unless it's an intentional low supply.
 
Soldato
Joined
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With SMT off and 12 fast cores I'd be very interested to see what that can hold in terms of all core speed at full load.

Interesting, I never really thought about running the chip with SMT off, under what circumstances would this be an advantage, im guessing power and heat would be lower, maybe higher sustained boosts?
 
Associate
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Interesting, I never really thought about running the chip with SMT off, under what circumstances would this be an advantage, im guessing power and heat would be lower, maybe higher sustained boosts?

Yeah exactly. Especially when gaming this can be beneficial, lots of games can barely utilise 8 threads let alone 24. Some games straight work better with Hyperthreading or SMT disabled. As a generalisation SMT off on my 3800x works better in most FPS games I play (PUBG, Valorant, R6) when using stock (or PBO) boost as all 8 cores will mostly hold 4.3 while a couple boost to 4.6 compared to (a generous) 4.2/4.52 with SMT on. With a fixed all core oc I gain a measly 50mhz (and still cant quite do 4.5ghz at safe voltages), so probably not worth if you use all core overclocking unless bored? Its all about how the particular app/game/porn site you are using scales with extra threads compared to core frequency. I mean, it's not like you cant turn it back on again :). Don't forget a virtual core can only do about a third the work of a real core in most situations a gamer will come across as well and windows scheduler cant intelligently allocate tasks with priority to hardware cores.

TLDR - A lightly threaded game will frequently benefit from SMT/HT being disabled. Disabling SMT frees power budget and reduces heat but does not change your cpu's internal voltage (FIT) limit. You may get a small frequency increase, better cpu scheduling and therefore a small performance boost if you disable virtual cores in situations when they are not needed.
 
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Associate
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OCUK seem to be pretty bad for this lately and it appears to be hurting their reputation vs other retailers who are not price gouging anywhere near as much.
Yeah I've noticed this, there does seem always to be a £20 or more premium and while I do like shopping with OCUK and appreciate these forums I don't want to be paying for yet more supercars although I guess I don't really support the way Mr B's company treats some of it's staff either. It's hard to be both an ethical consumer and avoid having to witness my £ paying for someone to brag about their luxury lifestyle at my expense.
 
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Caporegime
Joined
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Posts
39,267
Location
Ireland
Yeah I've noticed this, there does seem always to be a £20 or more premium and while I do like shopping with OCUK and appreciate these forums I don't want to be paying for yet more supercars although I guess I don't really support the way Mr B treats his staff either. Hard to be both an ethical consumer and avoid having to witness my £ paying for someone to brag about their luxury lifestyle at my expense.


Mr b?
 
Associate
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You may want to revise this statement unless you have evidence to support it because otherwise it is more than a little slanderous.
I have but the way rainforest workers are treated in some warehouses is well documented and widely available in the public domain. Obviously I'm not suggesting he is personally responsible but I'm referring to outcomes not necessarily company policies. I hardly think the original statement could be defamatory and if the richest man in the World wants to sue me over it he can come and get me;). I don't think he'd achieve very much other than sullying his name it's not as if I have a lot to lose.
Yeah I've noticed this, there does seem always to be a £20 or more premium and while I do like shopping with OCUK and appreciate these forums I don't want to be paying for yet more supercars although I guess I don't really support the way Mr B's company treats some of it'staff either. It's hard to be both an ethical consumer and avoid having to witness my £ paying for someone to brag about their luxury lifestyle at my expense.
 
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Caporegime
Joined
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Posts
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Location
Utopia
I have but the way rainforest workers are treated in some warehouses is well documented and widely available in the public domain. Obviously I'm not suggesting he is personally responsible but I'm referring to outcomes not necessarily company policies. I hardly think the original statement could be defamatory and if the richest man in the World wants to sue me over it he can come and get me;). I don't think he'd achieve very much other than sullying his name it's not as if I have a lot to lose.
Ahhh sorry, I thought you were talking about OCUK and Mr B was Scott B or something! It wasn't clear that you switched from ocuk to Amazon! :)
 
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