AMD 3300x vs Intel i9-10900k... evidence that gamers can save a lot of cash on CPU's

[humbug]

Even so, I'm surprised it's able to match a 9900K in any scenario!

The 3300X is also different to the rest of the Zen 2 CPU's, it only has one CCX. With more than one CCX Zen 2 very often has intercore latency as core to core communication happens outside of the CCX, compared to Intel Ring Bus on mainstream CPU's that has an impact on gaming IPC, that's an up side for Intel but the down side is the ring bus architecture doesn't work above 10 cores, all the Skylake-X CPU are a "mesh" architecture and they suffer from the same intercore latency as Zen 2 with reduced gaming performance.

There are rare occasions where the game is only using 1 or 2 cores and with that intercore communication doesn't need to happen outside of a single CCX and the gaming IPC is like its productivity IPC, very good.

The 3300X with its single CCX behaves more like the Ring Bus on Coffeelake and with that has higher Gaming IPC than the otherwise identical 3100 which is like all other Zen 2 CPU's; dual CCX.

This is a 7% difference in IPC.

The image below that, CS:GO, ironically an old DX9 game only uses a couple of cores and with that only uses the one CCX inside the 3900X and again the gaming IPC is very high.

 

[humbug]

I'll add one more slide to that ^^^

The 3300X here, a 4 core 8 threads CPU is as fast as a 5.1Ghz 9600K and 5.1Ghz 7700K; also a 4 core 8 thread CPU, 4 cores 8 threads, 4.4Ghz vs 5.1Ghz.

The 3100, same 4 core 8 threads, same 16MB L3, same 4.4Ghz; quite a way behind...

 

[tamzzy]

i don't understand the hypocrisy sometimes
a 7700k was previously "not okay" (apprarently)...and now somehow a 3300x is?
lol.
okay.

 

[humbug]

i don't understand the hypocrisy sometimes
a 7700k was previously "not okay" (apprarently)...and now somehow a 3300x is?
lol.
okay.

As a £300 top on the mainstream range it was over priced, the same thing now at £120... its great.

 

[Richdog]

i don't understand the hypocrisy sometimes
a 7700k was previously "not okay" (apprarently)...and now somehow a 3300x is?
lol.
okay.

Maybe you could please try explaining what your point in a more mature and intellectual way? I am sure I am not the only one who doesn't know what you mean.

 

[Destination]

Very interesting stuff

Seems like the moral of the “story” is that the money is better spent upgrading the GPU than the CPU, once you get to 3600 territory.

If all you do is game, then yes, this has been the case for quite some time, no matter what they tell you regarding intel being best for gaming, it is only ever true, if you already have the best GFX card, else a cheaper CPU will afford a full step possibly two in the GPU market, which is where your gaming money is certainly better off being spent.

 

[MrRockliffe]

If all you do is game, then yes, this has been the case for quite some time, no matter what they tell you regarding intel being best for gaming, it is only ever true, if you already have the best GFX card, else a cheaper CPU will afford a full step possibly two in the GPU market, which is where your gaming money is certainly better off being spent.

Wish there were more reviews with common CPUs rather than just the best.

I understand that for testing Max potential for a GPU you need the best CPU, but would be good to see a series where they do mainstream build benchmarks

 

[CuriousTomCat]

i don't understand the hypocrisy sometimes
a 7700k was previously "not okay" (apprarently)...and now somehow a 3300x is?
lol.
okay.

Intel were selling the 7700k as a high end CPU for enthusiast gamers.

The 3300X is entry level for budget gaming.

AMD started a revolution. Four cores used to be high end, now it's entry level. AMD did that, then Intel followed.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

The 3300X is also different to the rest of the Zen 2 CPU's, it only has one CCX.

Ah, this was what caused my confusion, I thought the 3600 has one CCX and so was puzzled how it could

There are rare occasions where the game is only using 1 or 2 cores and with that intercore communication doesn't need to happen outside of a single CCX and the gaming IPC is like its productivity IPC, very good.

Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. I knew about the difference between the 3300 and 3100 from the GN review but up until the Fortnite benchmark and your reminder of CS:GO I hadn't seen that represented in benchmarks.

 

[tamzzy]

@CuriousTomCat @Richdog @humbug
i'm on about the "4 cores is not enough" brigade who are now (over)hyping this chip
yes whilst the 6700k/7700k may have been (ie definitely was) expensive, we're still talking performance from nearly 5 years ago now
whilst i commend amd for bringing "performance to the masses" it's nowhere near the level of the second coming of the messiah which some seem to think it is
£300 -> £120 in 5 years..yes one might argue this wouldn't have happened if ryzen didn't take off, but i'll save that for another thread

 

[Richdog]

@CuriousTomCat @Richdog @humbug
i'm on about the "4 cores is not enough" brigade who are now (over)hyping this chip
yes whilst the 6700k/7700k may have been (ie definitely was) expensive, we're still talking performance from nearly 5 years ago now

I don't see anyone overhyping anything, you are the one who seems for some strange reason to be getting defensive about things. People are just reasonably saying that for the very low cost, the 3300x provides excellent performance in a budget CPU and that has enough grunt to power high-end GPU's at high detail and resolutions. It punches above its weight. Don't forget that GPU's are now much more powerful and games more demanding than 5 years ago and CPU dependence has decreased dramatically as a result.

whilst i commend amd for bringing "performance to the masses" it's nowhere near the level of the second coming of the messiah which some seem to think it is
£300 -> £120 in 5 years..yes one might argue this wouldn't have happened if ryzen didn't take off, but i'll save that for another thread

No-one is saying that. You are saying that to exaggerate an as-yet pretty unclear point.

 

[tamzzy]

you are the one who seems for some strange reason to be getting defensive about things.

Maybe you could please try explaining what your point in a more mature and intellectual way? I am sure I am not the only one who doesn't know what you mean

Pot. Meet. Kettle.

 

[Things change I've changed]

I find this a very interesting topic, I had this in mind when I built my current system, after a ton of research I decided if I was to follow this philosophy through properly I wouldn't even use overclocking components, I settled on an 8700, B360 mobo, and 32gb 2666mhz, and also a budget CPU cooler, due to it being a non-k 65w CPU the cooler alone can save you a lot, probably an extra £50 in my case.

I have to be honest, at first it felt a little daunting going down this route as this was the first time I bought a more 'limited' system like this, but based on the fact that I was running @ 3440x1440 I banked on my system leaning on the GPU, I ended up saving a ton of money going the 8700 route (this is last year) and this enabled me to get a lot better GPU and better overall performance.

If I had went and bought an 8700k, Z390 Mobo and faster ram I would have nowhere near performance I have now due to the fact that I couldn't of gotten the considerably better GPU I got with my non overlooking system, and even with a B360 I can still drop a 9900 in my system in the future, but for the next few years I'll just continue to upgrade my GPU and reap the performance.

Today I think the 3600 and B450 Mobo is the price to performance system to beat, especially at higher resolutions, and you can drop a Ryzen 4000 chip in a down the road, if was building a system today that is what I would get.

 

[james.miller]

£300 -> £120 in 5 years..yes one might argue this wouldn't have happened if ryzen didn't take off, but i'll save that for another thread

You'd have to be daft to take on that argument. Nobody in their right mind believe intel would have dropped prices and made higher core count CPUs available to the masses if it wasn't for zen because, even if zen didnt exist, Intel would still be stuck with the same dead end process only then they'd have even less incentive to drive the industry forward.

 

[Richdog]

Pot. Meet. Kettle.

tamzzy. Meet. Ignore. List. Bye.

I find this a very interesting topic, I had this in mind when I built my current system, after a ton of research I decided if I was to follow this philosophy through properly I wouldn't even use overclocking components, I settled on an 8700, B360 mobo, and 32gb 2666mhz, and also a budget CPU cooler, due to it being a non-k 65w CPU the cooler alone can save you a lot, probably an extra £50 in my case.

I have to be honest, at first it felt a little daunting going down this route as this was the first time I bought a more 'limited' system like this, but based on the fact that I was running @ 3440x1440 I banked on my system leaning on the GPU, I ended up saving a ton of money going the 8700 route (this is last year) and this enabled me to get a lot better GPU and better overall performance.

If I had went and bought an 8700k, Z390 Mobo and faster ram I would have nowhere near performance I have now due to the fact that I couldn't of gotten the considerably better GPU I got with my non overlooking system, and even with a B360 I can still drop a 9900 in my system in the future, but for the next few years I'll just continue to upgrade my GPU and reap the performance.

Today I think the 3600 and B450 Mobo is the price to performance system to beat, especially at higher resolutions, and you can drop a Ryzen 4000 chip in a down the road, if was building a system today that is what I would get.

I am very similarly minded to you... when I build a new desktop gaming rig this year I will not be going for any fancy components geared towards overclocking, I will just be buying some solid stuff (with pcie4 though) to run with whatever mild OC I can get and then pair it with a good GPU and enoy it. From what I read, Zen2 is hardly a great overclocker anyway.

It seems like a while ago when overclocking was essential to getting good performance out of a CPU and every mhz counted...nowadays stock performance and speeds are so good that you hardly notice it anyway.

 

[humbug]

Ah, this was what caused my confusion, I thought the 3600 has one CCX and so was puzzled how it could


Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. I knew about the difference between the 3300 and 3100 from the GN review but up until the Fortnite benchmark and your reminder of CS:GO I hadn't seen that represented in benchmarks.

The 3600 has two, three cores from each CCX, the CCD's are split into two four core CCX's.

So:
3100/3600/3700/3800. Two CCX one CCD
3900/3950. Four CCX two CCD
3960/3970. Eight CCX four CCD
3990. Sixteen CCX eight CCD

3300X. one CCX one CCD.

What that looks like...

 

[Grim5]

Very interesting stuff

Seems like the moral of the “story” is that the money is better spent upgrading the GPU than the CPU, once you get to 3600 territory.

always has and always will be

high end CPUs are a waste of money for gaming. Even back in the old quad core days, the sensible gamer would buy the cheapest i5 available, but now suddenly there seems to swarms of people saying you must have an i9 lmao... nothing has changed, i7 and i9 are not good value for a gamer. And it doesn't matter that an i9 might have 10% more fps than i5 (if that..) because the price difference can be put into a better gpu that will provide way more than 10% extra fps.

 

[Grim5]

I'm guessing that conclusion will be different when Nvidia 3000 series and Big Navi launch as there will be less of a GPU bottleneck at the higher resolutions and we'll see performance differences between the different tiers of CPU. It's right that CPU isn't a massive issue right now.

Also when the PS5 and Xbox Series X are well embedded after a couple of years more devs will utilise the 8C/16T in games and that should introduce more performance differentiation.

There is a little bit of that on each new gpu release but after just a few months it falls off because developers start improving the graphics which drops the framerate on your Gpu

 

[humbug]

@CuriousTomCat @Richdog @humbug
i'm on about the "4 cores is not enough" brigade who are now (over)hyping this chip
yes whilst the 6700k/7700k may have been (ie definitely was) expensive, we're still talking performance from nearly 5 years ago now
whilst i commend amd for bringing "performance to the masses" it's nowhere near the level of the second coming of the messiah which some seem to think it is
£300 -> £120 in 5 years..yes one might argue this wouldn't have happened if ryzen didn't take off, but i'll save that for another thread

To be frank you only have Intel to blame for that, they have added more cores and why is besides the point.... but if you want get into it those cores have not changed since Kabylake, the 10900K is made up of the same cores as the 6700K.
The 7700K is a higher clocked 6700K, the 8700K is a 6 core 7700K, the 9900K is an 8 core 7700K, the 10900K is a 10 core 7700K. its only because 14nm+++++++ is at this point so refined they can push the clocks past 5Ghz, most Zen 2 chips run at 4.4Ghz because they are not 7nm+++++++ but the per core IPC is higher, some 13% higher.

Whatever way one gets to their performance, be it IPC or clock speed it doesn't matter so long as the performance is there, All AMD are doing is providing the products the market wants, because they can, Intel never did that despite that they always could, they just chose not to.

Quads are cheap to make....

 

[CuriousTomCat]

I'm guessing that conclusion will be different when Nvidia 3000 series and Big Navi launch as there will be less of a GPU bottleneck at the higher resolutions and we'll see performance differences between the different tiers of CPU. It's right that CPU isn't a massive issue right now.

You will always be either CPU or GPU limited in some games. If Nvidia 3000 and Big Navi remove the GPU bottleneck, we wouldn't need to upgrade our CPU because of that. If your current CPU can deliver 120FPS for example with current cards, it will still do at least 120FPS with next gen cards.