CPU upgrade AMD or Intel?

[Emjay86]

Hi Guys,

I was hoping I could get some advice regarding a new upgrade I am looking to do!

My PC is an old workhorse from about 10 years ago, running an intel i7-2600k, 8GB RAM and an RTX 2070super...

Ok, so my GPU is newly upgraded. But this has brought about some massive performance issues, mostly because nvidia experience has tweaked game settings to match the card. Basically everything is on ultra but im getting serious bottleneck issues due to the other bits, likely more to be RAM than CPU but still.

So I am now in the market to upgrade and I saw a nice bundle deal on the OCUK store for a Ryzen 3900x and 32GB RAM and the ROG Hero viii mobo. I am quite happy to go with this as its not too steep in my pocket currently but I did the terrible thing of researching further into things and now have doubts.

Basically im not scared to upgrade for a bit of cash every 4 or so years (or 10 in my current case!) so i am looking for something that will possibly last a bit. Now my issue is that everyone raves on about Ryzen being amazing but all the benchmarking ive seen shows that Intel is still king when it comes to gaming, which is the ONLY purpose for my rig.

I know Intel don't have a great deal of wiggle room with their sockets and tend to force a larger upgrade than a simple CPU switch but im happy to take that on if I get a good amount of years out of it. £1000 every 6-10 years is acceptable for a gaming hobby.

I currently run a custom watercooling loop and will do the same for the new upgrade, so i dont care how good the ryzen's in built cooling is, because i wont be using it.

So all that in place. Do I go with the Ryzen 9 3900x or the i9-9900k?

I presume we are talking quantity over quality here? With Ryzen being quantity with the large number of threads and Intel being quality, being able to hit higher speeds better, which presumably is why Intel is better at gaming, for now.

I guess in part, the question is also, can we envisage games utilizing more cores, and if they do how far off will this be? Because im guessing until they start bumping into more cores the Ryzen is still second place?

Apologies as this has turned into bit of a brainstorm/ramble.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Emjay86]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the advice thus far, really good stuff.

I should have mentioned, I am currently working on a 1080p although I am looking into going for a curved widescreen at some point, doubt ill manage to get the 49" ultra wide Samsung beast but id like something that looks widescreen and is curved so I will likely be going for a 3440x1440 also.

To top that off, I shamefully was going for an RGB build. The whole rig is going to be housed in a Corsair 680x case and i already have a bunch of Corsair peripherals synced up in RGB pukeyness and was hoping to utilise the iCUE software as much as possible. I have read that the Aura Sync for Gigabyte works fine with it (although I have yet to work out how to link my GPU!). The Tomahawk however is something completely different.

That all said, if I was to ignore that little detail (perhaps ill have to change the mobo!) how does this look:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £299.99
• 1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £109.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO Black 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit= £239.99
• 1 x Corsair Hydro X Series XC7 RGB Black CPU Water Block - 115x / AM4 (CX-9010004-WW)= £69.95

Total: £730.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)​

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[Emjay86]

I went from intel to a 3900x. I don’t use it to its full potential but it’s nice to have.

Minimum I would get is a 3700 though if money is not an issue go with the 3900x bundle you mentioned.

The difference between getting the 3700x as previously suggested to a 3900x in the bundle I mentioned is price (obviously), and that means in my case I will possibly have to wait a month, maybe two to get the 3900x whereas i should be able to get the 3700x now. I've put up with the bottleneck for about 3 months thus far so frankly i can wait a little longer for the 3900x. I guess i am more favourable of the bundle too as i know for a fact the mobo is a good one whereas looking for a good mobo to go with a 3700x that isnt limited, and looks the way i want it to is proving a bit tricky.

I think given all of the advise I will likely go with the bundle thats on offer, as I feel i would be creating bit of a powerhouse that should last me a good few years, which is what im after. Sure it will be overpowered to begin with but it will soon catch up. My rig originally started off as an overpowered SLI beast but has mostly last me 10 years, this is the kind of thing im after (not that im scared of upgrading sooner, its just hassle).

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

Hope your all staying safe.