2950x -> 5900x - worth it?

[smogsy]

before I start I did not not willingly upgrade from 2950x -> 5900x.

my Threadripper motherboard died & rather than buying second hand, i decided to upgrade to a 5900x
due to almost no results coming up for 2950x vs 5900x on google (or anything similar) thought i would summarise my experience

Before (2950x) - 3090

• 2950x failed with anything over 3200 RAM
• RDR2 - 4K Ultra - FPS was stable for most part but sometimes dropped down to 30 fps for spilt second, possibly due to latency
• Odyssey averaged around 77FPS on ultra
• I had 6 NVME drives
• heavy undervolted i saw average temp of 55-60C on 360mm AIO

After

• Now running 3600MHZ RAM as standard no fuss
• RDR2 now runs soild at 60FPS+ no more drops to 30fps
• odyssey averages at 91-100FPS constant no more 77fps
  
• had to give up from NVME drives as GPU covered second PCI-E slot that supports PCI-E raid
• at stock gone from 15th on SOTR overclockers.co.uk benchmark thread to 3rd (if people care about that)
  
• generally all games are smoother averages and mins most games saw a 15-20fps boost
• is it worth £1000 upgrade?, possibly £500 but not £1000
• got re-sizable bar support,
• slightly undervolted seeing 49c-58C on 360mm AIO
• Less noise in general from fans at same speed due to reduced heat

 

[EsaT]

2950X being old Zen+ architecture definitely puts it to clear disadvantage in even multithreaded processing power.
Also its stock configuration with its memory access challenges hits especially gaming badly, because of latency sensitivity.
(DDR5 might have challenges there)

 

[sandys]

I just did a similar upgrade just because I wanted to play with some new gear and a deal came up on a 5950x, didn't need it just wanted it

I don't think Zen+ was bad, my 2920 was quite well tuned and I see no real benefit for gaming from the upgrade but I am capped by my GPU, I really need to upgrade my 1080Ti, computationally doing encodes etc 5950x is leagues ahead.

The lack of lanes is an issue though particularly with all the NVMe drives I amassed over time, I fitted some behind a QNAP QM2-4P-384 which has a PCI Express switch to mux 16 lanes down to 8, so have 7 drives in my x570 right now, obviously won't get ultimate performance but fine until I source a large enough PCIe4 drive, they are still plenty quick.

New chip got my memory up from 3333 CL14 > 3933 CL16 got a minor latency improvement from 58ns -> 54ns on Aida, was surprised to get that clk speed as I have 4 sticks, so memory controller is obviously leagues better.

Interestingly my x399 got a resize bar BIOS upgrade, I just didn't have a modern GPU to take advantage.

I agree with the cooling requirement being far less, my cooling in much quieter now also.

Was it worth it, not at all, a GPU in my case would be much more effective, just not been lucky enough to get one at a price I find acceptable yet.

 

[oldbanana]

I went from 5600x to 5900x since someone sold it for 300€ not a bad upgrade

 

[humbug]

Ryzen 3600 to 5800X

Min FPS went from 50's to 70's and am now permanently GPU locked in Insurgency Sandstorm, worth it.

 

[Scougar]

Yup, minimums with each iteration give you around 10fps more per gen.

The averages are significantly higher as well compared to 3xxx series, let alone 2xxx series.

I wouldn't even blink buying a 5xxx chip.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I seem to be doing fine in most games with a Ryzen 7 3700X and an RTX3060TI at qHD?? People do need to try and tune memory properly with the dual CCX designs. I did find a damaged box Ryzen 7 5800X from a retailer for £290,but decided to stick with what I had(maybe one day I will get hold of a Ryzen 9 5900X).

 

[hash70]

definitely