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Ryzen Opinions

Soldato
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For pure gaming, I'd say a highly clocked Intel i7 is going to be better for at least the next few years.

No doubt ryzen is a great CPU though and for heavy multicore use it is absolutely fantastic value for money.

Going forward it will only get better for gaming.
 
Associate
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its not an upgrade that's going to blow you away, unless you multi task a lot. But then even a 7700k isn't going to be much of an upgrade from a 4770k

This is the crux of the matter for me, I don't want to dip into saving unless an upgrade is going to feel substantial.

For those who did go from 4770K to Ryzen, and are happy with the move, I am pleased you're happy and enjoying your new platforms :cool:

I'm hoping maybe the new HEDT platforms might provide a wow factor, AMD or Intel..
 
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same here, i just WANTED to try it. I waited for the initial hype/stock issues to die down and buggy bios's to be fixed before jumping ship.


All they need to do now is get those ghz up to around 4.5-5ghz and it will be a intel killer.



its not an upgrade that's going to blow you away, unless you multi task a lot. But then even a 7700k isn't going to be much of an upgrade from a 4770k

Agreed. I upgraded from an i5-2500K @ 4.5Ghz. I didn't expect to notice much of a difference in everyday use (web, email, office etc). I expected smoother gaming performance, and although I haven't done much testing so far, Ryzen has delivered.

There's no doubt that if I were building a mid-range (or even a high-ish end) gaming PC today, I'd go with a Ryzen 1600/1700. For anyone who still has anything overclocked, and newer than Sandybridge, it might well be worth sticking with what they have for another year or two. However, if you have an upgrade itch to scratch, Ryzen is a decent choice.
 
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Again, thanks for everyone who has commented. It's a case of building from scratch LGA1151 I7 7700k or totally changing and going down the AMD route. What I do like about AMD is they have said they will support the particular platform for years to come. Tough decision, but money is a factor and wanting more "bang for buck" so to speak, more cores... less money?! I just hope that newer games will FULLY take advantage of the additional cores.
 
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I swapped [email protected] to R7 just to check how the platform works and to upgrade to something new. I knew it's not gonna make any difference in fps for me (4K). However even in this resolution, what people mentioned before, something simple like switching from the game to the desktop and back to the game, is super quick in comparison to 6700k.

You don't need heavy multicore applications to see benefits with Ryzen, you can use it just for gaming and see benefits.

When you play on a screen with 60hz refresh rate, then you won't see any differences between CPUs in regards to gaming. Using PC will be more comfortable on multicore CPU (>4 cores).
On high refresh screens yes you can see i7 being "better" in max fps but it will work close to 100% CPU usage, so every background process can influence drops in minimum framerates to the lower level than Ryzen. Making gaming with Ryzen more smooth experience (with lower max fps). If 'max fps'=better then you need to go i7 route:)

You play multiplayer games with big maps and a lot of players at the same time, Ryzen is going to show its power etc...

PC is not a console that you normally have one app running at the time. Test/reviews won't show you the actual usage as a multitasking machine. There are gamers who switch everything off before playing games, so that fps are not in interrupted. All background application will hit 4core fps more than 6core and above.
 
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I more than happy with my move from a i5 4690k @ 4.6k. Overclocked, my 1700 is not far of the single IPC of my i5. Multi-threaded, no contest. Gaming, seeing around the same peak FPS but a much smoother experience over all.

Ryzen does have its problems that I'm sure you have read about but I sure we won't see this another couple of months down the road.
 
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I played Arma 3 which I know is cak in terms of programming and use of multi core systems so i doubt i'll see any difference in terms of FPS or performance going from a 4790k. Wish I kept hold of the PC in a way, but it was getting on a bit.......
BF1 seems to use Ryzen quite well looking at youtube videos.

Smooth gameplay means more than FPS. As long as there isnt a drop in FPS that shows lag, im happy with that
 
Soldato
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Under the hot sun.
Because I have moved over 4 platforms over the last 8 months, anyone who says the i5/7 3xxx/4xxx is faster on single thread perf than a Ryzen might not be that true.
Reason is, there is a big difference between i5/7 with DDR3 and anything with DDR4 even if clocked lower, and even at single thread.

And I have used the items bellow, all with a Nano or FuryX at 1100/550 those 8 months.

4820K @ 5.0Ghz with 2666DDR3 quad channel (since 2013)
4930K @ 4.5Ghz with 2666 DDR3 quad channel
6700K @ 4.9Ghz with 3600 DDR4 dual channel (C16)
1700X @ 3.8Ghz with 2133 DDR4 dual channel (the above ram) (C16)
6800K @ 4.0Ghz with 3600 DDR4 dual channel (C16).

And having played WOT extensively (a single core game, around 2000 hours those 8 months alone) the 1700X and 6800K by far are the fastest CPUs.
Both providing the same fps, higher and above all the others, not only max but average also by around 10-14% over the 6700K, and 20+% over the 4930K and 4820K.
While having no lag or delay when alt-tab between the app and the desktop/apps.

On the background there is always TS to chat with friends, and couple of instances of Firefox one streaming radio.

Games that using multithreading like TESO, the difference between the 1700X/6800K and the rest is significantly more, especially in Cyrodiil where you have siege battles with hundreds of players per side around the same castle (let alone the rest of the zone which is 10% bigger than Oblivion).
Not just 64 the BF1 supports and many hold it as benchmark here.
 
Soldato
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For pure gaming, I'd say a highly clocked Intel i7 is going to be better for at least the next few years.

No doubt ryzen is a great CPU though and for heavy multicore use it is absolutely fantastic value for money.

Going forward it will only get better for gaming.

When you say better, by what metrics?
Whilst I will likely be able to heavily utilise the extra cores via transcoding/media editing/virtual machines/etc each of which may show appreciable time to complete/performance differences are there any similar appreciable/visible benefits from an i7 in the gaming arena?

I understand some people like to have 200+ fps I'm just not sure, will an i7 v even a 1700 make a major frame rate difference in many games?
or if very high frame rates are something valuable.

A metric for gaming I am interested in is frame consistency, would an i7 improve on a ryzen for this?

On a cost versus benefit I'm not sold on intels current line up, by a similar token GSync (which my laptop has) is a total joke for a desktop, in most instances my 1440 25" Acer IPS monitor for £180 with no gsync is well worth it (over clocked to 85Hz), simply dump the saved cash into a better GPU, end of story!
 
Soldato
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It depends on the games tested - I play quite a lot of FO4 and the overclocked SKL/KL CPUs are by far the fastest for the game,even compared to Haswell CPUs were there are some decent gains. Especially in its modded form it can really push some cores quite a bit and seems to be massively bottlenecked by memory bandwidth,even though it does show some limited scaling to more cores. Its sadly the consequence of Bethesda using the Creation engine which is off shoot of the Gamebryo engine released in the early 1990s(!).

Usually it isn't an issue for a normal playthrough as the engine is capped to 60FPS,which means even an older CPU like an SB/IB Core i5 would be fine,but once you start modding the game and/or start building large settlements with the DLC packs it can start to show how poorly optimised an engine it is. Even AdoredTV kind of noticed it as one of the worse games on Ryzen - I suspect Bethesda could extract some extra performance if they cared,but the same thing happened with Skyrim when it took the community themselves to optimise it to run better especially on AMD CPUs.

OTH,something like BF1 MP or even the Witcher 3 ,or any of the games based on newer engines Ryzen performs very strongly in and this why the Ryzen 5 1600 is one of the best value gaming CPUs in the last few years.
 
Soldato
Joined
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4,010
It depends on the games tested - I play quite a lot of FO4 and the overclocked SKL/KL CPUs are by far the fastest for the game,even compared to Haswell CPUs were there are some decent gains. Especially in its modded form it can really push some cores quite a bit and seems to be massively bottlenecked by memory bandwidth,even though it does show some limited scaling to more cores. Its sadly the consequence of Bethesda using the Creation engine which is off shoot of the Gamebryo engine released in the early 1990s(!).

Usually it isn't an issue for a normal playthrough as the engine is capped to 60FPS,which means even an older CPU like an SB/IB Core i5 would be fine,but once you start modding the game and/or start building large settlements with the DLC packs it can start to show how poorly optimised an engine it is. Even AdoredTV kind of noticed it as one of the worse games on Ryzen - I suspect Bethesda could extract some extra performance if they cared,but the same thing happened with Skyrim when it took the community themselves to optimise it to run better especially on AMD CPUs.

OTH,something like BF1 MP or even the Witcher 3 ,or any of the games based on newer engines Ryzen performs very strongly in and this why the Ryzen 5 1600 is one of the best value gaming CPUs in the last few years.

I understand your point about specific engines favouring differing CPUs and this making more difference in specialist circumstances.
My issue is that most reporting seems Max FPS obsessed.

Peak FPS many factors beyond 60fps seems pointless but even for those who love 144 etc, in comparison to frame rate consistency, to my mind is a weak metric.

In most interactive 3D applications (games vr and modelling included) consistency at reasonable averages is observably more important to me for the interactions to work.

As with Gsync, I'll take the versatile and far cheaper options on screens and CPU then dump the saved cash to GPU any day of the week.
 
Soldato
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Location
Planet Earth
I understand your point about specific engines favouring differing CPUs and this making more difference in specialist circumstances.
My issue is that most reporting seems Max FPS obsessed.

Peak FPS many factors beyond 60fps seems pointless but even for those who love 144 etc, in comparison to frame rate consistency, to my mind is a weak metric.

In most interactive 3D applications (games vr and modelling included) consistency at reasonable averages is observably more important to me for the interactions to work.

As with Gsync, I'll take the versatile and far cheaper options on screens and CPU then dump the saved cash to GPU any day of the week.
Well what I prefer is fps time runs,over at least a minute or two,at least testing of two areas in a game, and additionally I would like frametimes to be added.

Edit!!

Also the multiple runs overlaid upon each other,since unless you can automate the run through there is going to variation according to mouse control,etc.

A rough example is like what I did when I compared a GTX1080 and an RX470.

4hiC08K.jpg

So I overlaid multiple runs on each other,and even made a video of what I was testing.

Too many sites don't even show us what EXACTLY they are testing - it could be the least CPU intensive part of a game for all we know!!
 
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Soldato
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Planet Earth
That graph is useless without a key...

Top is GTX1080 and bottom is RX470(three runs each) - in the little review I did I explained everything so its actually out of context,I actually had a video of the run through I tested,pictures of the in-game settings I used,etc,and what the average FPS was,etc.

Basically anybody can run the same test if they wanted to.

How many reviews just show one chart,with no indications of how many runs they have,whether they have used an average or median result,and again what if that low minimum was at the beginning or end of the run,etc which can easily make a result look worse than it is. It makes it hard for anyone to try and test the same area out and see what is going on.
 
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Soldato
Joined
19 Dec 2010
Posts
12,019
Again, thanks for everyone who has commented. It's a case of building from scratch LGA1151 I7 7700k or totally changing and going down the AMD route. What I do like about AMD is they have said they will support the particular platform for years to come. Tough decision, but money is a factor and wanting more "bang for buck" so to speak, more cores... less money?! I just hope that newer games will FULLY take advantage of the additional cores.

I was considering the same as you, a move to the 7700k. I was coming from a 2500k running at 4.5Ghz so not sure my advice is going to help you :) Didn't have any intentions of going with a Ryzen CPU as there are always teething problems with a brand new CPU architecture. And Ryzen has had it's share to teething problems, but, after reading reviews, I was very impressed with the potential that it had. And what finally made me pick the AMD platform over another Intel platform was that the AM4 motherboards will be good for the next generation of Ryzen CPUs.

So I bought the 1700 cpu and an MSI X370 pro carbon motherboard with 16GB of 3200MHZ Ram. I have been lucky and have had no issues. Oh, sorry, had one problem but that was my fault, I didn't reinstall windows when I got switched. Just lazy :) Overclocked the CPU for a while, 3.8Ghz no problem but I am waiting until AMD release the next microcode before trying a 24/7 overclock.

Currently running at stock and I am very happy with the upgrade over the 2500k. I have no numbers to backup anything I say, but, everything is so smooth now. I can switch between applications so quickly and it doesn't seem to matter what I have open. My PC is used for work, games, movies. I can work on documents, surf the web and then switch over to a game while watching a game guide on youtube. And then I can just alt tab back to my work without any pausing or stuttering or wait time. I used to close most applications down and would definitely exit any game before doing anything else. Now I just leave everything open.

My experience with Ryzen has been fantastic.
 
Soldato
Joined
31 May 2009
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21,257
Mine should arrive tomorrow but i'm upgrading from an i7-930 so the jump should be enormous! :D

Be interested to hear what your feelings are, and your exact setup, running a i7 920. Will upgrade, but might go full AMD if their vega is suitable.
I am concerned with the reports of ryzen and nviida GFX not working nicely together for 'reasons'.
Almost like their gfx drivers are squishy on purpose to make the chipset seem poor.
 

Ste

Ste

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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2,812
Also interested.

The ryzen 1700 vs. 7700k debate just got a bit more interesting as with a high end ASUS board and the intel cashback deal you're now looking at £400 for intel vs. £550 for ryzen.

Was veering toward ryzen for my June build but now up in the air again! Decisions..
 
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