• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Upgrade Advice - AMD or Intel

SLIPPYFI5T

SLIPPYFI5T

SLIPPYFI5T

Associate
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Posts
88
Location
Chelmsford, Essex
So I finally have the cash to move from my weary-eyed FX8350 to a new CPU. I know that I'm going to have to grab a new mobo and move to DDR 4 but I've been so far out the game that I'm unsure what CPU to go for. I know in the past, that Intel were the cpu's to buy but as I understand it Ryzen has now caught up quite nicely and there pretty much neck and neck but correct me if I'm wrong. I have around £250 to spend on CPU and wanted to know what people thoughts are on what to go for and on a sidenote, will my Corsair H100 fit onto the new CPU.

Cheers
 
What's the overall budget, and how much RAM do you need to squeeze out of it? AMD boards seem to be somewhat cheaper than Intel so it may matter :)

On the whole I think it still holds true that AMD offer best performance per pound, Intel offer best performance. If you can afford an 8700k, then it's a fine piece of kit. If it feels uncomfortably pricey, then a 1600X is also a very capable option and will leave you with some spare change for other things (more memory?). It's possible that the next Ryzen might close the performance gap, so if you can wait for April to buy, consider doing so :)

I believe Corsair do have adapter brackets for the new sockets; quite a lot of AiO coolers do.
 
If you want best bang for buck the R5 1600X is a steal at £189. The 8600K is a great buy as well if you want the best single core performance.

Either will serve you well.

Also, it's worth noting that the Ryzen refresh is due in April, so if you would rather go AMD it might be worth holding on to see how that pans out.
 
Overall budget is about £500. I'd ideally like 16gb worth of memory too, but with prices driven so high at the moment, that looks unlikely, considering I also want a half decent mobo to get the maximum I can out out of the new CPU.

I feel an 8700k is slightly out of my price range. So AMD have really upped their game with Ryzen then? I went for the FX8350 at the time as it served it's purpose, it's just not cutting it anymore. I feel like I could never really get the full potential of my 980ti because of the CPU.
 
^^^ That looks pretty good to me, and demonstrates that even with 16gb, a 1600x leaves you a decent chunk for a quality motherboard.

SLIPPYFI5T said:
Overall budget is about £500. I'd ideally like 16gb worth of memory too, but with prices driven so high at the moment, that looks unlikely, considering I also want a half decent mobo to get the maximum I can out out of the new CPU.

I feel an 8700k is slightly out of my price range. So AMD have really upped their game with Ryzen then? I went for the FX8350 at the time as it served it's purpose, it's just not cutting it anymore. I feel like I could never really get the full potential of my 980ti because of the CPU.
Click to expand...

Ryzen is AMD's return to form, even if it hasn't taken the gaming performance crown (yet). I went from a [email protected] to a 1600X at stock, and the latter blows the former away in threaded tasks and runs slightly faster in single thread. It's going to beat your FX in all scenarios, by quite a margin.

And there's a lot of optimism that Ryzen refresh will deliver a little more IPC, a little more clock speed, and faster memory support - all while dropping straight into current AM4 motherboards. If it reviews as well as we're hoping/predicting, then I'll be looking for an 8 core in summer :)
 
Depends on your budget, a Ryzen 1600 at its current price is ridiculously good.

You could wait until April when the 2600 will come out at a rumoured 10-15% ish performance increase. This will likely be 50% more in price though for the new tech as it obviously won't be discounted.

Just a shame about current RAM prices...
 
HeX said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £506.93 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
Click to expand...


This is good but if you want to save a bit of money:

Change the Motherboard for: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-557-gi.html
Change the CPU for: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...hz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-39z-am.html

The more expensive motherboard is more 'fancy' and maybe has more fancy features but the gigabyte board is a good board in it own right, and a lot cheaper, a lot of what you are paying for with Asus is Asus Tax.

Ryzen 1600 vs Ryzen 1600X, i will agree that the X will probably overclock a little higher, 4Ghz vs 3.9Ghz but again the price difference is £30, ask yourself is that worth it?

Overall you could save £60, it would bring the build down from £507 to £447.

Because of higher clock rates Intel still has the best performance in low threaded workloads, but you still pay a premium for that.

For example the 8600K is about ~20% faster in most games with the fastest GPU, that's not to say Ryzen is slow, its not and if you own anything less than a 1080TI you're not even going to see a difference, but the 8600K is £240 vs £160 for the Ryzen 1600 and because the 8600K has 6 cores vs 6 cores plus SMT on the 1600 is actually faster in Multi-threaded workloads.

Compared to the FX-8350? a comparison was made and per core / clock rate Ryzen is 70% faster, a massive step up in performance.

Also, if you want to wait an improved Ryzen is due in April, or if not the new Ryzen will drop straight into existing AM4 motherboard for an easy upgrade later.
 
Last edited:
humbug said:
Compared to the FX-8350? a comparison was made and per core / clock rate Ryzen is 70% faster, a massive step up in performance.
Click to expand...
And that while consuming less power.
And in fully multithreaded load Ryzen has even bigger performance difference.
Because it has full cores instead of "one weak core and half of weak core makes two cores" design.

AMD has also confirmed using AM4 up to 2020 meaning Zen2 architecture CPUs made at 7nm node will fit in.
With the way Intel has been doing very little progress (Coffee Lake's IPC is only marginally different from Skylake) that might pretty much catch Intel in single thread performance.
Certainly makes Zen+ in few months interesting option.
 
Are the prices likely to go down significantly on the current CPUs come April?
I am also looking at getting a Ryzen + MoBo + 16gb Ram, Currently on a i7 920 @ 4ghz and 12gb DDR3 1600 so will need a complete overhaul regardless of which cpu I get.
Reason I am thinking AMD is so that I can get a decent £150-180 range CPU now and then upgrade with a newer top range processor later on without having to get a new Mobo also.
 
Robi_uk said:
Are the prices likely to go down significantly on the current CPUs come April?
I am also looking at getting a Ryzen + MoBo + 16gb Ram, Currently on a i7 920 @ 4ghz and 12gb DDR3 1600 so will need a complete overhaul regardless of which cpu I get.
Reason I am thinking AMD is so that I can get a decent £150-180 range CPU now and then upgrade with a newer top range processor later on without having to get a new Mobo also.
Click to expand...

They might go down a bit more, they have come down already, for example the £160 1600 was £180, the 2600 is likely to enter at the £180 price again and to shift remaining 1600 stock it might come down to £140.
 
I'd wait until April for Ryzen+ like everyone else is saying, I am too.

Even if you do decide to go for current Ryzen, at least wait for becnhmarks, the low prices will still stay the same with the new releases.
 
Panos said:
if you don't plan to use GTX1080ti get Ryzen.

also you can keep the board also for Ryzen2 in April, or Zen2/3 the years to come, as Intel has dead end boards
Click to expand...

Why is this?

I got 1080ti from the offer her few days ago, looking at getting a cpu upgrade now from my ageing i7 920. Am close to buying the combo Hex posted above, avoiding the intel route as I would prefer to upgrade to a newer more powerful cpu in a year or two without having to replace the whole lot again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom