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Out of the CPU world for so long... help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Xon
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Xon

Xon

Xon

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Hi all

I currently run an i5-6400 which has served me quite well. I'm looking to replace it as it has started to feel slightly sluggish at boot and when doing CPU intensive activities. I am also planning on getting a new graphics card and monitor (upgrading from AMD R9 380) and feel the new card would benefit a new MB + CPU.

In the past 4 years AMD seems to have made quite the come back - still, I haven't had an AMD since the Athlon 700 so am not quite sure what to choose - I'm looking at the Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel I5-9600KF... what do you all recommend?

Main use is desktop with some gaming (mostly WoW up until now so not exactly very graphics intensive).
 
The Ryzen 5 3600 is a pretty great CPU. Fairly similar performance to the 9600 kf in single threaded tasks, little slower, but not so much you would likely notice. But cheaper and comes with a cooler.

And you have the added bonus of multithreading which gives noticeably better performance in heavily threaded tasks and hopefully a longer useful lifespan, there are already games capable of saturating 6 threads. So that would be my choice :)
 
Depends on your budget really.

The least I would be going for personally, is a Ryzen 3600, MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, and 16Gb 3600 MHz DDR4 ram.

Could get all that for around £330 give or take.

Absolute bargain.
 
Last edited:
Xon said:
Hi all

I currently run an i5-6400 which has served me quite well. I'm looking to replace it as it has started to feel slightly sluggish at boot and when doing CPU intensive activities. I am also planning on getting a new graphics card and monitor (upgrading from AMD R9 380) and feel the new card would benefit a new MB + CPU.

In the past 4 years AMD seems to have made quite the come back - still, I haven't had an AMD since the Athlon 700 so am not quite sure what to choose - I'm looking at the Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel I5-9600KF... what do you all recommend?

Main use is desktop with some gaming (mostly WoW up until now so not exactly very graphics intensive).
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Don't forget you've got MM access now if you want it, if you want a build used wouldn't be the worst option.
 
Kelt said:
Depends on your budget really.

The least I would be going for personally, is a Ryzen 3600, MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, and 16Gb 3600 MHz DDR4 ram.

Could get all that for around £330 give or take.

Absolute bargain.
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This. Lots of future upgrade potential too.
 
Troezar said:
This. Lots of future upgrade potential too.
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very much so. In theory you could go from 6 core to 16 core 4950x as an upgrade path without replacing mobo. It's a great future proofed purchase.

where if you buy an Intel now, you'll be stuck with few cores unless you replace the mobo and probably ram too
 
Grim5 said:
very much so. In theory you could go from 6 core to 16 core 4950x as an upgrade path without replacing mobo. It's a great future proofed purchase.

where if you buy an Intel now, you'll be stuck with few cores unless you replace the mobo and probably ram too
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When did AMD Say b450 will support the next gen. Thay said am4 will but no mention of chipset support.
 
Grim5 said:
very much so. In theory you could go from 6 core to 16 core 4950x as an upgrade path without replacing mobo. It's a great future proofed purchase.

where if you buy an Intel now, you'll be stuck with few cores unless you replace the mobo and probably ram too
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Yes that's why I bought, admittedly expensive, a motherboard that had everything on it I thought I'd need for the next 5-6 years. Hopefully drop in a 4950X when the 5000 series drops for a decent long lasting upgrade.
 
So is the general consensus that AMD is the way to go? Even if $$ were excluded from the equation?
 
Xon said:
So is the general consensus that AMD is the way to go? Even if $$ were excluded from the equation?
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I opted to go intel the i5 and its killing gaming and will do for a year of two, I can drop in an 9900kssffs in the future if needed.

That's said AMD is a very good option. You need to be 100% the motherboard your picking will support the next gen for if going b450 get the max model.
AMD have not said what chipset will support next gen all they said is am4 socket will.

I always say but when best now not what you hope will be best latter. At my budget I got the i5, the 3600 is just a little behind it in performance.
 
Xon said:
So is the general consensus that AMD is the way to go? Even if $$ were excluded from the equation?
Click to expand...

I'd say go AMD, regardless of $$ equation.

Ryzen 3000 series achieved IPC parity, 4000 series is touted to gain IPC, if clocks are increased it will be even sweeter, should be a drop in upgrade if you decide to.
 
Xon said:
So is the general consensus that AMD is the way to go? Even if $$ were excluded from the equation?
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Pretty much, 9900k is best for gaming but you can buy a 3900x which is better at everything else by far while only being at best 5% slower in gaming while being at the same price point. I upgraded from a 3770k and coming to this is just magnificent, going from 100% CPU usage to 40% is incredible, stuttering is all gone and touch wood nothing bad has happened in the last 6 months since I've owned it, just make sure to update chipset drivers and BIOS, the Vcore was locked to 1.5v with the launch BIOS/Chipset drivers for me, took me 30 minutes to fix that.
koooowweeee said:
He's old school. He would have had access anyway I think. The post count requirements used to be lower.
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Yeah good point but it still doesn't hurt to remind him ;)
 
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