Should I move to AMD?

Author_25 · Wednesday at 09:48

I have always bought Intel and for my last build bought a 12600K and a Z690 motherboard and planned to upgrade the CPU later on, once they reduced in price, ideally it would have been a 14700K, but given the issues with 14th Gen and Intel's response I am considering AMD for the first time.

I would probably go for a 7800X3D/9800X3D CPU with a B850 motherboard, when released.

I know Ryzen is not without its issues, notably memory speeds and training times, but nothing that damages the CPU, and the long lifespan of AMD sockets is a plus.

Would this be a wise move or should I just stick to Intel and hope for the best?

jigger · Wednesday at 10:12

I take AMDs hardware over Intels any day and twice on Sunday. If it’s worth the upgrade only you can answer.

ED209 · Wednesday at 10:18

you have 1 of 2 options

1 - stay on 12th gen and ride out this 13/14th gen issue then upgrade to a 14th gen later than expected. (Stick to buying a new processor rather than 2nd hand to avoid a duff CPU)
2 - Change to an AMD system

What do you use the PC for and what res etc do you have? I am assuming more gaming than anything else as you picked a X3D CPU

Raiden85 · Wednesday at 10:38

Ryzen these days is pretty much plug and play, nothing I've come across since switching over to AMD way back in Dec 2020 with a 5950X and 5800X3D on the same board has given me any issues. Even with a 7950X3D which I've only been on for two months has been great, no issues at all so far.

Just make sure to stick with two sticks of RAM as Ryzen 7000 and it seems 9000 may not either play well with 4 high speed sticks either, they will work but you'll likely have to run them slower than 6000, two sticks at 6000 CL30 is the sweet spot currently.

As for slow boot times due to memory training this can be fixed with a BIOS setting so it doesn't have to train in every boot or restart, this setting works well with my Asus X670E board but may not work well with others. It's one of those settings you just have to try unfortunately and see if it works ok for you or not.

Author_25 · Wednesday at 10:43

ED209 said:
you have 1 of 2 options

1 - stay on 12th gen and ride out this 13/14th gen issue then upgrade to a 14th gen later than expected. (Stick to buying a new processor rather than 2nd hand to avoid a duff CPU)
2 - Change to an AMD system

What do you use the PC for and what res etc do you have? I am assuming more gaming than anything else as you picked a X3D CPU

Mainly used for gaming.

jigger · Wednesday at 10:56

Depends on the graphics card. RTX 3070~ or above is getting into X3D territory. Anything RDNA is a lot more forgiving on system requirements until you get to very highend.

Author_25 · Wednesday at 10:58

jigger said:
Depends on the graphics card. RTX 3070~ or above is getting into X3D territory. Anything RDNA is a lot more forgiving on system requirements until you get to very highend.

I am on a GTX 1070, COVID and Crypto prices delayed upgrades, then not happy with 4000 series, but will upgrade to 5070/5080 once released.

Tetras · Wednesday at 13:04

Author_25 said:
I am on a GTX 1070, COVID and Crypto prices delayed upgrades, then not happy with 4000 series, but will upgrade to 5070/5080 once released.

Your 12600K should handle that alright, especially if you're playing at a higher resolution. I don't know about the 5080 specifically, but you have got way more headroom in that CPU than a 1070.

uscool · Wednesday at 13:11

might as well hold on till 5070/5080 release, 1070 will be holding back 12600k and any cpu upgrade

Author_25 · Wednesday at 13:31

uscool said:
might as well hold on till 5070/5080 release, 1070 will be holding back 12600k and any cpu upgrade

Agree, I was thinking any new build would be the new year, but I like to start planning early. My 1070 does hold back the CPU, and my original plan was to get a 4070 but I felt the price was not worth what was offered, and £800 for a 4070Ti was definitely not worth it, and decided to hold out for the 5000 series, unless something broke.

Normally once I build a system I keep it for a good 6-8 years, with upgrades here and there, but this time around I feel the upgrade path, CPU wise is no longer a safe route, and AM5 will be a better bet, in the long term, and I no longer have confidence in Intel and Skt 1851 CPUs.

Major774 · Wednesday at 14:14

You don’t sound confident in AMD, just go with Intel for you.

AMDPower · Wednesday at 14:16

its hard to tell you 100% and staying with intel will have some element of risk. But looking around its certainly not 50% of the intel chips that some are speculating as dying. Its difficult to say what the exact number is and it most likely we will never know, not in the immediate future. There are many with 14th gen intel processor on this board and have no issues. I suspect its a small percentage and they are trying to address the issue with updates.

The way I see it, intel will replace the CPU if its dies because of this issue so if you buy brand new you are covered for 3 years anyway. If you are going to upgrade in 3 years time then really not worth worrying about because resale of CPU in 3 years is not going to be much anyway toward your new system. If you however want to keep the system for lets say 5, 6 or 7 years then it might be best to jump platforms.

you have to decide if you can be bothered with the hassle of selling your current gear and upgrading vs just dropping a chip straight into motherboard you currently have. If you were buying 100% new then by all means go AMD but since you have RAM and Motherboard just don't see the point unless you can recoup most of your cost of upgrading to new system by selling your current stuff.

me myself I would just risk it and not worry too much about it, specially if intel will honour the warranty.

Author_25 · Wednesday at 14:22

Major774 said:
You don’t sound confident in AMD, just go with Intel for you.

Never owned an AMD CPU so it does make me a bit hesitant.

Tetras · Wednesday at 14:23

AMDPower said:
so if you buy brand new you are covered for 3 years anyway.

It is 5 year if you have a retail boxed K CPU of the 13th or 14th gen

Alexrose1uk · Wednesday at 14:36

I'm in a similar boat to you, I've got a 12400, albeit OC via BCLK to 5GHz all-core, and originally planned to upgrade to 14th gen at some point when I felt I needed more power (which is approaching, the 12400 is starting to feel limited in some scenarios even with the overclock). Given everything going on with Intel, that plan is now completely out the window, as I never expected them to **** the bed quite like they have back when I put this machine together.

My current plan is to instead switch to AM5 and the 7800X3D or the 9800X3D if its decent when it arrives, likely around Black Friday.

My wife already has a 7800X3D since last year, and her system runs fantastically well with 64GB of 6000CL30 memory; makes my look downright slow in some tasks, even though the 12400 overclocked is still a very performant CPU. AM5 and Ryzen in general has matured to the point you'll have a good experience if you do the basics of research first

Rroff · Wednesday at 15:35

It is an interesting one for sure, I've a 14700K and so far it has been flawless from launch, but there is now the shadow of doubt hanging over it as to whether it might degrade in the future or not and Intel hasn't inspired confidence with their ***** poor handling of the issue.

I still maintain the 14700K is the best CPU out currently unless you absolutely need the performance the AMD 7950 and 9950 chips can bring in certain heavy weight multi-threaded situations. It is rarely that far off the higher end chips, only the 9950X really has a decent margin over it in application performance, while costing a lot less money and the power usage is more reasonable than the 14900 - usually approx. in the 9950X ballpark. It absolutely curb stomps the 7800X3D when it comes to non-gaming performance - the average hides just how much the 7800X3D falls down for some applications, while the 14700 is not hideously behind it for gaming performance - often being within margin of error for high resolution and settings gaming.

The bigger question is the future for these platforms, and what the real state of things is with these Intel 13th and 14th gen issues.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review - The New Flagship

With 16 cores and 32 threads, the Ryzen 9 9950X, powered by AMD’s Zen 5 architecture, is the fastest desktop processor we've ever tested. In our review, it breezed through application workloads and delivered high FPS rates in gaming. But at $650, it doesn’t come cheap.

www.techpowerup.com

Alexrose1uk · Wednesday at 15:45

Rroff said:
It is an interesting one for sure, I've a 14700K and so far it has been flawless from launch, but there is now the shadow of doubt hanging over it as to whether it might degrade in the future or not and Intel hasn't inspired confidence with their ***** poor handling of the issue.

I still maintain the 14700K is the best CPU out currently unless you absolutely need the performance the AMD 7950 and 9950 chips can bring in certain heavy weight multi-threaded situations. It is rarely that far off the higher end chips, only the 9950X really has a decent margin over it in application performance, while costing a lot less money and the power usage is more reasonable than the 14900 - usually approx. in the 9950X ballpark. It absolutely curb stomps the 7800X3D when it comes to non-gaming performance - the average hides just how much the 7800X3D falls down for some applications, while the 14700 is not hideously behind it for gaming performance - often being within margin of error for high resolution and settings gaming.

The bigger question is the future for these platforms, and what the real state of things is with these Intel 13th and 14th gen issues.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review - The New Flagship

With 16 cores and 32 threads, the Ryzen 9 9950X, powered by AMD’s Zen 5 architecture, is the fastest desktop processor we've ever tested. In our review, it breezed through application workloads and delivered high FPS rates in gaming. But at $650, it doesn’t come cheap.

www.techpowerup.com

Bang on, normally I'd have been happy to have suggested the 14700K, and considered it myself, but I just don't feel comfortable to right now, given everything that's been coming out the last few months. It was my original plan to go for something like that, but now if I was to do that, I'd be second guessing myself far too much, even if I don't have any issues, and if I do, it'd be semi permanently my first thought as to the cause of any issues.

Just can't bring myself to spend that much on a chip that MIGHT work flawlessly, when I know a 7800X3D basically will, no questions, and will offer future generations on the same platform. Especially for more money.

Author_25 · Wednesday at 17:41

I was planning the 14700K as my next upgrade but the Intel 0x129 Microcode update takes a reasonable size hit in the 14700K's performance.

Also, after reading the reviews fo all the latest Ryzen 9000 series CPUs they have hardly inspired me, other than not being Intel, but there is still the 9800X3D to go.

Its looking like take a risk on the Intel 14th Gen and there possible fix, with its performance hit, or go previous Gen, with AMD if the 9800X3D is "meh".

uscool · Wednesday at 17:45

Author_25 said:
I was planning the 14700K as my next upgrade but the Intel 0x129 Microcode update takes a reasonable size hit in the 14700K's performance.

Also, after reading the reviews fo all the latest Ryzen 9000 series CPUs they have hardly inspired me, other than not being Intel, but there is still the 9800X3D to go.

Its looking like take a risk on the Intel 14th Gen and there possible fix, with its performance hit, or go previous Gen, with AMD if the 9800X3D is "meh".

But 7800x3d is the fastest CPU for gaming no 14th gen is beating it you ain't getting anything better the 9800x3d is gonna be faster by how much we dont know yet or wait till arrow lake see what that is about

Author_25 · Wednesday at 17:49

AMDPower said:
its hard to tell you 100% and staying with intel will have some element of risk. But looking around its certainly not 50% of the intel chips that some are speculating as dying. Its difficult to say what the exact number is and it most likely we will never know, not in the immediate future. There are many with 14th gen intel processor on this board and have no issues. I suspect its a small percentage and they are trying to address the issue with updates.

The way I see it, intel will replace the CPU if its dies because of this issue so if you buy brand new you are covered for 3 years anyway. If you are going to upgrade in 3 years time then really not worth worrying about because resale of CPU in 3 years is not going to be much anyway toward your new system. If you however want to keep the system for lets say 5, 6 or 7 years then it might be best to jump platforms.

you have to decide if you can be bothered with the hassle of selling your current gear and upgrading vs just dropping a chip straight into motherboard you currently have. If you were buying 100% new then by all means go AMD but since you have RAM and Motherboard just don't see the point unless you can recoup most of your cost of upgrading to new system by selling your current stuff.

me myself I would just risk it and not worry too much about it, specially if intel will honour the warranty.

I like longevity and though Intel had short term socket life they were stable and reliable and I could trust them to stand the test of time. After a few years the Skt1700 parts will get hardto source and that usually leads to 2nd hand parts but a 2nd habd 13th or 14th Gen CPU can no longer be trusted.

I love to build PCs it my favorite part so no hassle for me just pure joy.

Given the lacklustre performance of the the Ryzen 9000 series I have not ben to impressed but updates oftem work wonders for AM, look at the isses with the Ryzen 7000 series, a year later BIOS and other updates resolved them.

I am leaning towards an AMD replacement and Intel advice, regarding warranty claims was basically, if we reject you keep trying until we dont, which further undermines my once rock solid confidence in Intel.