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i5 8400 - Yay or nay?

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
Joined
24 Oct 2012
Posts
25,887
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Godalming
We're building a PC for one of our members. So far we have a 1060 6gb, 16gb of DDR4. We have £300 left in the budget, and this chip sprung out, so I'm wondering what the OcUK folks think before I pull the trigger:

Mostly 1080p usage, sometimes 1440p. Gaming, maybe the odd stream, perhaps a spot of Youtube editing.

The chip only needs to be current now, he can always upgrade in future if necessary, but this means the motherboard we buy him will need to support both this and the next chip which may be a K series.

It it any good? Is it worth springing the extra to an i7?

Thanks :)
 
why not look at a ryzen 2600 with a mid range x470/b450 board.....should be doable for the 300 quid budget. then the guy can add a newer chip (if he wants) at a later date without having to shell out for a new mobo.
 
Thekwango said:
why not look at a ryzen 2600 with a mid range x470/b450 board.....should be doable for the 300 quid budget. then the guy can add a newer chip (if he wants) at a later date without having to shell out for a new mobo.
Click to expand...

We've got the impression that AMD is still a bit behind in terms of drivers and ease of use. We want this experience to be as smooth as possible for Dave, no faffing, no need for support, just hit power ---> play. Will this always be the case with AMD?

It's certainly worth considering if that's the case.
 
Diddums said:
We've got the impression that AMD is still a bit behind in terms of drivers and ease of use. We want this experience to be as smooth as possible for Dave, no faffing, no need for support, just hit power ---> play. Will this always be the case with AMD?

It's certainly worth considering if that's the case.
Click to expand...
Agree with @Thekwango - Ryzen seems the obvious route considering his budget and future upgrade path. And you shouldn't have any problems with the Ryzen CPU - just don't install any of the superfluous monitoring/clocking software supplied with the motherboards - only install the latest chipset drivers.
 
Diddums said:
We've got the impression that AMD is still a bit behind in terms of drivers and ease of use. We want this experience to be as smooth as possible for Dave, no faffing, no need for support, just hit power ---> play. Will this always be the case with AMD?

It's certainly worth considering if that's the case.
Click to expand...

It most certainly is the case that Ryzen is a mature, stable platform that AMD have said will have future CPU support on current motherboards/chipsets. There were some teething issues on X370 motherboards when they first released many months (years?) ago, but these took a few weeks and BIOS updates to resolve. Its just as much power on and go as any intel chipset. Intel has a track record of demanding new motherboards with every new cpu, and clearly have better marketing than AMD :)

You cant go wrong with a B450 motherboard and a ryzen 2600.
 
Diddums said:
We've got the impression that AMD is still a bit behind in terms of drivers and ease of use. We want this experience to be as smooth as possible for Dave, no faffing, no need for support, just hit power ---> play. Will this always be the case with AMD?

It's certainly worth considering if that's the case.
Click to expand...
main issue with ryzen originally was the ram - issues with getting it to run at higher speeds. using ram with samsung b-die chips helped greatly but there were still the very odd instance of issues (e.g. my own ryzen 1600 will not run any ram i've tried above 2933 but the difference between 2933 & 3200 is so negligible that i lost interest in putting in the effort to see if i could tweak it up to 3200)

certainly for what you're trying to do i would suggest giving amd a serious consideration.

edit: i've followed the x470/b450 boards but throw up a 'spec me' thread and i'm sure someone will advise on a trouble free board to look at for a 2600
 
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Ryzen 2600 and overclock it.

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depending on the price, i5 9400 over i5 8400- runs 100hz faster across all cores, pretty much i5 8500

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £539.87 (includes shipping: £9.90)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/intel-core-i5-9400f-2.90ghz-coffee-lake-socket-

if you can get your ryzen 2600 overclocked to 4.2ghz all cores great! most hit 4.1ghz , would recommend cheap £20 cooler for it

also note the chart above most likely using samsung b-die ram to hit 3400hz



my basket at overclockers uk:
Total: £287.68 (includes shipping: £8.70)

​
3000hz kit would be fine and saves a lot of cash

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...al-channel-kit-grey-tlgd416g30-my-087-tg.html.
would peg it down 5-8 fps

used z390 board though so could swap ram speeds over keep them fair etc . 8400 did lead specially at 1080p but due to 1600 slower clock speed. Never got around to doing it with ryzen 2600 ... might do it with Ryzen 3000 series though :)

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Thekwango said:
main issue with ryzen originally was the ram - issues with getting it to run at higher speeds. using ram with samsung b-die chips helped greatly but there were still the very odd instance of issues (e.g. my own ryzen 1600 will not run any ram i've tried above 2933 but the difference between 2933 & 3200 is so negligible that i lost interest in putting in the effort to see if i could tweak it up to 3200)

certainly for what you're trying to do i would suggest giving amd a serious consideration.

edit: i've followed the x470/b450 boards but throw up a 'spec me' thread and i'm sure someone will advise on a trouble free board to look at for a 2600
Click to expand...

1st gen has some issues, 2nd gen runs like a dream paired with b450/x470. Daft buying intel 6 cores v 12 Ryzen 2600 threads for less money.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
1st gen has some issues, 2nd gen runs like a dream paired with b450/x470. Daft buying intel 6 cores v 12 Ryzen 2600 threads for less money.
Click to expand...
i had guessed they had sorted out the issues in gen2 but didn't want to supply the op with 'guess' info - cheers for the confirmation. no brainer really then with a 300 quid budget to be looking at ryzen.
 
I've been on Ryzen since a few months after release in early 2017. The first few BIOS revisions were awful - no overclocking, poor RAM support. Ever since it's been really good. And the same goes for the R3 1200/B450 I have in my HTPC.

I'd take second gen over first if I was buying new now, as the performance is a bit better.
 
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