Any Intel fans that have switched back to AMD?

[MaXxBoulton]

My 8700K was £285 and the mobo £130, X99 mobos generally started at much higher prices for a start

My b grade board as £75 GA X99 UD5 WIFI.
My first cpu is a 5820k and cost £130.

 

[Pleiades]

I am not sure, what I do know is in the fab I worked we were not just producing this one product, we were also making a lot of other chips.

So, which fab was that again?

 

[Kirby Wurm]

My b grade board as £75 GA X99 UD5 WIFI.
My first cpu is a 5820k and cost £130.

The 5820K was about £440 at launch and the mobo around £160 so still considerably more than a Haswell setup (£250/£120) at the time?

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Haswell setup

I said your set up not haswell

 

[nwatson6]

So, which fab was that again?

Fab 14

 

[Kirby Wurm]

HT was in the P4 in 2002, it's been 17+ years, almost twice what you state and nothing to do with the i series of chips, intel removed it from lower end variants, but that's not the issue here. Also intel weren't caught off guard, they gambled on being able to transition to 10nm and lost, that's why refresh after refresh has taken place recently. It just so happened that AMD was able to be competitive at the same time, not only on price, but on performance and supply. Zen2 looks set to move the goalposts completely if it moves to the rumoured 16c/32t top end as that's well into Xeon/TR territory. That's not ground intel wants to compete on, ever, as that's where the money is. Intel have history (x58/79/99) for dropping Xeon chipsets in consumer boards for HEDT and charging a premium, it didn't need to improve on 4c/8t for the masses - most of them have little to gain and those that do were a tiny percentage of the market - they were supposed to buy HEDT.

At face value your Xeon cost point is correct, but this is OCUK, so look a little deeper, the critical part of Xeon ownership for enthusiasts has always come down to 2 letters, the last was always an S, the first was either an E or a Q. With a little knowledge, 8C/16t CPU's were inexpensive for x99, in some cases you could buy the retail stepping for peanuts vs. the retail price, 24c/48t was possible. My 2630 v3 set-up (board, CPU, RAM) cost less than my Ryzen set-up, even with the latter enjoying some very significant discounts. Also remember OCUK sold x99 boards for as little as £99 new (Gigabyte EATX from memory).

I was talking HT with reference to the Core series of processors and it's implementation in consumer CPUs. 4c/8t was indeed enough for the masses but part of that was because that was the limit Intel set with their consumer releases so why would developers push to make software requiring more threads? Not only that but notice how very suddenly 4c/8t wasn't enough for consumer products when AMD arrived with Zen, hence the very short lifespan of the 7700K.

Launch prices were hefty for most of those CPU's, the E2630 v-3 for example was north of $600 compared to $340 for the 4790K from a similar period. Which were these inexpensive 8c/16t X99 CPU's? I only recall the 5960X which was anything but. You're certainly right that some of the former could be found for less but surely those were exceptions? X99 motherboards may have been available for £99 eventually but looking at reviews (a Gigabyte UD variant for example) a price of £160 was seen as a value offering. Again comparable motherboards for the LGA1150 at the time were much cheaper.

Also no amnesia here, you seem to be assuming something I neither said nor implied - obviously intel were ahead for a significant period of time, obviously they resold the same processors with the same core count and minor IPC/clock improvements because they didn't need to innovate in the desktop market, it was so stupidly obvious that I wasn't aware it needed to be pointed out to anyone, you obviously do for some reason. However the balance has shifted multiple times over the years, many people either were oblivious to that or seemingly had forgotten. AMD gained a world record in clock speed for a microprocessor (still holds it iirc - 8+ Ghz), beat intel to single die multicore processors, hit 5Ghz at stock years before intel, set the standard in the mobile sector APU and even desktop APU's, pretty much took over the console gaming market, they also did quite well at GPU mining. So again, buy what's best for the task, if it's AMD then good for you, if your workload suits intel then great, but before making sweeping generalisations about either company, remember the history is long and not quite as clear cut as some of your points would suggest.

To elaborate:

In general this whole thread is littered with opinions that seem to forget actual history.

I was referencing this line, not implying you were suffering it although rereading it I can see where the misunderstanding arose. I well remember AMD's parity/lead and innovations in the past but much of the discussion has been focused around Intel's recent dominance and AMD's return to a competitive standing.

I said your set up not haswell

What relevance does that have to my point that the XEON class parts were far more expensive upon release than their i7 siblings?

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Not only that but notice how very suddenly 4c/8t wasn't enough for consumer products

What is it not any good for?
7700 none k can still do everything a general consumer would need. Tell me what it can't do?

Threads are like hard drives and ram they sell stuff to stupid people. Just because consumers want it doesn't mean it's needed.

I ones watched a man tell his wife the best laptop is "that one" because 8 G B and 1 T B is better... it wasn't it was the worst one on display.

Now people that watch films and go on face book want 16 threads because is more..

 

[Distracted]

Fab 14

Post count and fab number is strong

 

[Avalon]

I was talking HT with reference to the Core series of processors and it's implementation in consumer CPUs. 4c/8t was indeed enough for the masses but part of that was because that was the limit Intel set with their consumer releases so why would developers push to make software requiring more threads? Not only that but notice how very suddenly 4c/8t wasn't enough for consumer products when AMD arrived with Zen, hence the very short lifespan of the 7700K.

AMD produced CPU's with 4+ cores for many years, developers are just unwilling to devote the time to optimise code for modern hardware and have been for at least 10 years - we should have moved from the single core performance model to multi-core performance model by now, sadly in many cases that just hasn't happened. Until the software takes advantage of multi-core processing, we're not really any further forward than I was in the late 90's depending on the OS to load balance my dual 300a's@512Mhz.

Launch prices were hefty for most of those CPU's, the E2630 v-3 for example was north of $600 compared to $340 for the 4790K from a similar period. Which were these inexpensive 8c/16t X99 CPU's? I only recall the 5960X which was anything but. You're certainly right that some of the former could be found for less but surely those were exceptions? X99 motherboards may have been available for £99 eventually but looking at reviews (a Gigabyte UD variant for example) a price of £160 was seen as a value offering. Again comparable motherboards for the LGA1150 at the time were much cheaper.

As you quoted my post that specifically dealt with cheap Xeon's, i'll assume you skimmed it as I specifically dealt with pricing:

...the critical part of Xeon ownership for enthusiasts has always come down to 2 letters, the last was always an S, the first was either an E or a Q.

What relevance does that have to my point that the XEON class parts were far more expensive upon release than their i7 siblings?

Read above, Xeon's are cheap if you know what to buy.

 

[phrases]

I toyed back and forth either with the 8700k or 9900k for ages. But after some research i found the 2700x was comparable in gaming terms. So i picked one up along with a taichi motherboard and couldn't be happier now. Running alongside a 2080 RTX. Even though i run at 3440x1440 it pretty much maintains 70-90fps in newer titles. Been playing metro exodus with everything on extreme. DLSS, Hairworks, RTX. Getting 80fps some areas with dips to 40s when **** goes off.

Pleasently suprised and i saved £300 should i of bought the 9900k

 

[Rroff]

AMD produced CPU's with 4+ cores for many years, developers are just unwilling to devote the time to optimise code for modern hardware and have been for at least 10 years - we should have moved from the single core performance model to multi-core performance model by now, sadly in many cases that just hasn't happened. Until the software takes advantage of multi-core processing, we're not really any further forward than I was in the late 90's depending on the OS to load balance my dual 300a's@512Mhz.

Problem is a lot of code isn't really very easy to thread compounded by a lot of the libraries even modern coding languages use not being thread safe.

 

[Mercutio]

If it makes any sort of difference, this last 6 months has seen as huge swing towards AMD in most places I frequent apart from here.
Amongst the great unwashed in facebook groups it used to be quite Intel sided or fairly even... huge push in AMD's favour, especially since Christmas.

 

[linaaslt]

I'm in the same boat as Easyrider, when i was buying my pc, best was intel, bought i7 920, that machine lasted far too many years, but that's why i was buying x58 in the first place, needed logelivity, as it served my right. Then after many years upgraded my gpu, and was some problems with mobo not having eufi bios. This time round i got Ryzen, this wasn't an upgrade it was a side step. But machine is doing a very good job, now i only swap my cpu when new ones comes out. Happy to be in AMD boat, and hopefully it wont disappoint. As i never liked Intel, but x58 did a grate job, i take my hat off for them.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

Read above, Xeon's are cheap if you know what to buy.

I responded, Xeons are found cheap second hand or when EOL, not at the time of launch. Intel charged a premium for extra cores rather than slowly introducing them into consumer products at an affordable price. Second hand vs new products years later is a different issue altogether and yes, there Xeons have plenty of merit and good prices but that's not what I'm getting at.

Problem is a lot of code isn't really very easy to thread compounded by a lot of the libraries even modern coding languages use not being thread safe.

Good point.

What is it not any good for?
7700 none k can still do everything a general consumer would need. Tell me what it can't do?

Threads are like hard drives and ram they sell stuff to stupid people. Just because consumers want it doesn't mean it's needed.

By that thinking a general consumer wouldn't even need a 7700K so why go beyond a more budget CPU? Consumers don't always need more cores but that's how you push development, offer choice to the consumer and add future proofing. There was discussion around how 4 cores weren't necessary when the Q6600 released and look how things progressed.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

There was discussion around how 4 cores weren't necessary when the Q6600 released and look how t

But there was already 16 core amd opteron.
What I am saying is people now say you must buy 8c16t because the old i7 type cpus will be dead soon, that's just not true and not for a long time will it be true.

Just because some of us opt to use high power cpus doesn't mean that now what needed.

Look at steam states. Over 90% of gamers play at 1080 or lower ress, at 1080 an old i7 will game for years to come.

 

[The Old School Gamer]

I've always used Intel going all the way back to the 80s, I have never owned a AMD CPU.
Zen 2 will be my first ever AMD build.

The main reason I'm giving AMD a try is because I'm sick and tired of Intel's sky high prices and the constantly changing socket and chipset eco system.
It will be nice to just update the BIOS and drop in a Zen 3 CPU for a quick and simple upgrade in the future.

 

[Brazo]

But there was already 16 core amd opteron.
What I am saying is people now say you must buy 8c16t because the old i7 type cpus will be dead soon, that's just not true and not for a long time will it be true.

Just because some of us opt to use high power cpus doesn't mean that now what needed.

Look at steam states. Over 90% of gamers play at 1080 or lower ress, at 1080 an old i7 will game for years to come.

I swapped my i7 7700k for a 2700x after getting carried away by the Moar Core brigade.

Big mistake. I’d take four intel cores over a zillion AMD cores any day if the week. Until most software starts to use more than four cores then why pay to have them sitting idle.

 

[MartinPrince]

I swapped my i7 7700k for a 2700x after getting carried away by the Moar Core brigade.

Big mistake. I’d take four intel cores over a zillion AMD cores any day if the week. Until most software starts to use more than four cores then why pay to have them sitting idle.

Because you're one of those people that benefit from mainly single threaded performance, of which there are many. There are also many that benefit from higher core count. The key is to work out which one you are before spending hundreds changing your system.

 

[moogle]

Switched to a 2700X in my main PC. I mostly game or just general web browse so I guess there will take a hit from changing out a 7700K, but I only game at 60fps 4k so I'm not too fussed about missing the extra frames. The only thing I don't like is the higher voltages on AMD and the lack of motherboard choices/range vs Intel (no x470 or x370 mATX boards, nor any WiFi on available AMD mATX boards).

It does annoy me that an 8700K gets so close or even beats the 2700X in most benchmarks with fewer cores but I wasn't going to pay the overpriced prices for one of them, especially with Intel just churning out the chipsets willy nilly when they could have made older chipsets support the newer CPUs or newer chipsets support the older CPU's (7700K generation CPUs).

Saying that, all the Ryzen CPU's I've used don't seem to like 3200MHz ram with their XMP settings (C16). I've had to tweak and spend ages tuning to get the best performance out of them so Intel seems to win that battle if you don't have the time to tinker, but have more money to go that route.

I'm backing AMD really because of Intels sh**ty practices over the years when they were in the lead. It wouldn't stop me getting an Intel system if it ticked the boxes for me though...

 

[Orange Nexus]

I swapped my i7 7700k for a 2700x after getting carried away by the Moar Core brigade.

Big mistake. I’d take four intel cores over a zillion AMD cores any day if the week. Until most software starts to use more than four cores then why pay to have them sitting idle.

Your old cpu still quite capable cos of HT, especially in multi-threaded games. Heck my i7 Sandy is just as capable. Look, at just 5GHz it is up there even matching an i5 8600K @ 5.2GHz.

https://i.imgur.com/wkHBrct.jpg