Coming back to CPU's after 10 years...

[Beren]

Tom's did a really great graph on $/Performance last week. It really depends on your budget, how long you are looking for the system to last and your use. if you are using a 1080ti I would guess that your gaming at very high resolutions.

Today the i7 7700k is the best gaming CPU and the 8700k is just going to extend that. I would guess that is going to be the case for at least the next 18 months.

On the down side it is the most expensive of the 'normal' CPU's and more and more AAA titles are using enough cores that the 6 and 8 core AMD chips are already very close - especially at the resolutions I expect you to be running at.

You have an i5, so you didn't go for the very top last time, and you have had your current chip for 10 years and I guess you are looking for the longest life possible from your system.

Do you have a definite budget in mind?
Do you want the best right now, or do you want the best bet for the longest lasting CPU?

You are going to love whatever you go for, I suspect that you are in R5 1600X territory on a top AMD board with the opportunity to go to Zen 2 in the future... but with no budget it is hard to recommend...

 

[voidshatter]

Or Xeon 1230 owners.

My E3-1245 is still running

 

[AiiR]

Honestly, any decent 6+ core cpu will last you for years as we're approaching the limitations in what silicon can give us. I doubt anything in the foreseeable future will be a mssive upgrade over what is already available, probably just more efficient.

 

[voidshatter]

as we're approaching the limitations in what silicon can give us

I'm not sure about that. Global Foundries will soon ready their 5.2GHz chips. Maybe the slower-than-5GHz CPUs will sooner become obsolete, given that not many games are going to scale well beyond 2 cores.. There's little point to purchase something 3.x GHz for gaming.

 

[Beren]

Honestly, any decent 6+ core cpu will last you for years as we're approaching the limitations in what silicon can give us. I doubt anything in the foreseeable future will be a mssive upgrade over what is already available, probably just more efficient.

Have you had your eyes shut all year? We have just shot up from 2 Core 4 Thread CPU's being mainstream to 6 Core 12 Thread. This year is enabling people to genuinely run massively multi tasking user scenarios on an average desktop, Logically we could be looking at a completely new type of PC and PC user over the next 2-5 years.

It looks like we are going to have stacked silicon processing in the very near future allowing for another massive jump in transistor density.

History is absolutely full of people who have authoritatively declared 'this is enough' only to be left in the dust.

When we reach the 'end' of silicon it will only be because we have found another medium that allows progress to be made faster in a different direction.

And Breath, I really shouldn't let the internet make me sad.

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Last time I went for bang for buck from what I can remember as I knew the I5 would clock well and give me the performance I need

Do I need to go any higher than a R5 1600?

Is 1800 worth it?

Budget doesn't matter too much but I am thrifty and like bang for buck and value.

Especially as I've just forked a large amount on a TI

I game at 4k

 

[HeX]

Best bang for buck at the moment IMHO is the R5 1600, then OC to ~3.9GHz, or just grab the 1600X and enjoy pretty much the same performance out the box.

Grab a decent X370 board and some 3200MHz memory (the 8pack stuff is great) and job done.

It'll be slightly slower in single threaded apps (compared to Intel), but will give considerably better multi-threaded performance.

Legacy games with highly single threaded engines the 7700K will have much better max frame rates as it's got the clockspeed advantage. That's not to say the gaming performance of Ryzen in those games is bad, just that Intel will be better. You'll be looking at something like 95FPS on a Ryzen vs 120FPS on the Intel.

As you run higher resolution (4K) any advantage the 7700K had vanishes as the GPU becomes the limiting factor.



Any modern game with a decent multi-threaded engine the 1600 even at stock will be within spitting distance or faster than a 7700K

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_1600/12.html

Anything productivity wise the extra cores / threads with give a substantial lead over the 7700K.

It's a great all-rounder CPU.

 

[jigger]

If my machine packed up today I would be replacing it with an 8 core Ryzen chip. Nothing else makes as much sense. Which one would depend on the prices but the current offer on the 1700X would be pretty hard to turn up. I think the 1800X is too expensive for what it offers.

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Very very helpful thank you

 

[Tom|Nbk]

I think I'm kinda set on an Asus b350 prime and R5 1600 with memory the bundle is £350 delivered great value for money and can prob still get a few quid for my old kit

Any thoughts ???

 

[southernorth]

I think I'm kinda set on an Asus b350 prime and R5 1600 with memory the bundle is £350 delivered great value for money and can prob still get a few quid for my old kit

Any thoughts ???

How fast is the memory in that bundle? You want 3000/3200mhz RAM to get the best from Ryzen.

 

[FiremanSam]

I have the Asus B350 prime plus and a R7 1700 @ 3.85ghz with memory @ 3200. The board is good and stable but the downside is the onboard sound is poor.

 

[Tom|Nbk]

I have the Asus B350 prime plus and a R7 1700 @ 3.85ghz with memory @ 3200. The board is good and stable but the downside is the onboard sound is poor.

That's okay as I have a sound card

 

[GinG]

I think I'm kinda set on an Asus b350 prime and R5 1600 with memory the bundle is £350 delivered great value for money and can prob still get a few quid for my old kit

Any thoughts ???

Where can you get this bundle from please?

 

[David Bisset]

Have you had your eyes shut all year? We have just shot up from 2 Core 4 Thread CPU's being mainstream to 6 Core 12 Thread. This year is enabling people to genuinely run massively multi tasking user scenarios on an average desktop, Logically we could be looking at a completely new type of PC and PC user over the next 2-5 years.

It looks like we are going to have stacked silicon processing in the very near future allowing for another massive jump in transistor density.

History is absolutely full of people who have authoritatively declared 'this is enough' only to be left in the dust.

When we reach the 'end' of silicon it will only be because we have found another medium that allows progress to be made faster in a different direction.

And Breath, I really shouldn't let the internet make me sad.

While lots of what you say is true thre are still many, many 4 thread or less machines and will be for years so a 6c-12thread cpu is likely to remain decent for quite a while. Not forever of course.

Interestingly for professional development work I'm now on a 2c-4t cpu. 4 years ago I was on 4c-8t. 4 years before that I had 4 separate machines. For my next one I doubt I'll add more as there is no point - cloud computing does all the heavy lifting. So while many areas may use ever more cores as you say, this won't necessarily transform the installed base of machines as much as you could imagine.

Yes, I realise many dev houses will work differently so may be getting as many cores as they can, just worth remembering the low end still exists. In time I imagine the cheap CPUs in that segment will have more threads but it all takes time.

History is also full of claims that things will become obsolete very fast and the next big transformation is just around the corner. Sometimes they're even right but often not.

 

[Beren]

While lots of what you say is true thre are still many, many 4 thread or less machines and will be for years so a 6c-12thread cpu is likely to remain decent for quite a while. Not forever of course.

Interestingly for professional development work I'm now on a 2c-4t cpu. 4 years ago I was on 4c-8t. 4 years before that I had 4 separate machines. For my next one I doubt I'll add more as there is no point - cloud computing does all the heavy lifting. So while many areas may use ever more cores as you say, this won't necessarily transform the installed base of machines as much as you could imagine.

Yes, I realise many dev houses will work differently so may be getting as many cores as they can, just worth remembering the low end still exists. In time I imagine the cheap CPUs in that segment will have more threads but it all takes time.

History is also full of claims that things will become obsolete very fast and the next big transformation is just around the corner. Sometimes they're even right but often not.

For professional work I don't have any authority at all. For my use at work an i3 would probably be sufficient and the i5 I am actually using is awesome. Our database is in the cloud and the only thing that slows us down is bandwidth to, and the processing power that we bargained a little too tightly on in the cloud.

With the performance/$ of desktops still dropping rapidly and the sheer capabilities of them rising so high there has to be an argument for the development of better distributed computing software for heavy lifting tasks though. If you had scale-able access to VM containers sitting on all of the other machines in the business so that all the compute power in the company was constantly being used.

At the end of the day cloud is just a rental scheme and you are giving margin to the company providing the compute and storage power, the infrastructure to get there and the added security required both using it at a third party location and while it is in transit. You also have massive DR overheads especially if you live in NZ like I do and the infrastructure is not really there to provide really capable DR for Cloud systems. Sorry I am both dreaming and massively OT.

OP: The B350 and an R5 is a solid choice, if you have the budget I would love an X370 and an R5, you have a really solid upgrade path to Zen 2 in 12 months...

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Update on this managed to get a Ryzen 1600x and B350 prime plus

Decided to bite. On standard delivery so not sure how long however no rush as need to order a new bracket for my Watercooling

Can anyone recommend me a good cheap value for money ram kit. Only wanting 8GB?

Thanks!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Ideally you want Samsung B-Die to get the best out of Ryzen, the 8Pack stuff is binned with this in mind but pricey because of it; the other brands will be pot luck on what speed you reach.
DDR4 isn't cheap at the moment unfortunately. Stuff thats almost certain to be B-Die are typically around £200 (16gb kits)

If you need cheaper, then
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...nel-kit-black-grey-tdpgd48g300-my-070-tg.html
It's a 3000 8GB kit, and the stock timings are at least half decent.

Same with these
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...al-channel-kit-hx430c15sb2k2-8-my-237-ks.html

Better timings than most around that cost (15-15-15). You might be able to hit 2933/3000 with them dependent on how they get on with your board and IMC; although again I suspect they're Hynix not Samsung, the timings aren't right.

That said, probably more chance of reaching decent speeds/timings with these than other weaker kits as they do have relatively OK timings already so the ICs may be binned somewhat.

That said, make sure you update your BIOS, you're far more likely to hit 3000MHz on the latest AGESA/BIOS than older ones.