Educate me and maybe sell me to Intel?

[Woomack]

If I ignore AVX-512, I do wonder if the i5 13600k would be as much CPU as I really need, and it makes lower Zen 4 offerings seem very expensive in comparison.

13600K costs even more than Ryzen 7600X in my local stores. Even if Intel looks better in some tests then somehow I like more new AMD, as a whole, including more interesting motherboards.

 

[mackerel]

13600K costs even more than Ryzen 7600X in my local stores. Even if Intel looks better in some tests then somehow I like more new AMD, as a whole, including more interesting motherboards.

Gone are the days I had disposable income and just bought everything to play with. A quick look at one UK supplier: 13600k £340. 7600X is £329, basically insignificant difference. Platform costs may not be in AMDs favour either. The problem I have with 7600X is I'm not sure I'd build a 6 core main system as it'll be too weak. 8 core minimum meaning I'd look at 7700X as my sweet spot if I were to get Zen 4. However Intel gets the E cores which might make up for it.

 

[Woomack]

Somehow I dislike E-cores. It's not a bad idea to add overall performance but there are still problems in some applications (mainly older, some more professional stuff too). It feels like Intel couldn't handle the wattage, but had to somehow improve the performance to compete with AMD. Since the moment Ryzen started to perform better than Intel CPUs, Intel is pushing hard the "old technology" to stay on the top and is refreshing CPUs and chipsets every couple of months. Last 3-4 chipset generations were not ready to be released and users were fighting with compatibility and stability issues. Typically 3 months after chipset release, vendors were dropping BIOS support and were moving to the next gen motherboards. Whatever was fixed, good, whatever not, good luck to users. AMD made it in the past too, but not every generation.
I'm still surprised that both sides added ~500MHz in the new gen, keeping about the same wattage. Not long time ago we could set 5.5GHz+ only on dice/ss/LN2 and now it runs on a simple AIO or tower cooler.

 

[c627627]

The original poster is building a gaming rig.

What is the situation with news outlets reporting new AMD architecture having major compatibility issues with certain games?

 

[EarthDog]

Nothing I've heard of with games...

like Woomack said earlier and I can see from what I've tested so far, it's a pretty stable platform. Both Intel and AMD are, really.

 

[c627627]

Correct me if I am wrong but once the NDAs were lifted, they pointed to both AMD and Intel being neck and neck overall, so other factors are coming into play... but overall, it's not like AMD or Intel have a clear advantge with their newsest/latest generation, correct?


I am not a gamer yet, but was interested in building my next rig around gaming performance, I found the following out accidentally due to this news being "everywhere" - I am surprised you guys have not seen this yet! This cemented my decision not to upgrade in the next year unless my current rig explodes.

The combination of unrealistic pricing and now this made me decide to definitely delay:

 

[EarthDog]

After seeing AMD's response and some testing, I didn't think it was significant (though absolutely worth mentioning). Here's AMD's reply...

We have been made aware of reports of unexpected performance deltas in certain games with AMD Ryzen desktop processors as well as performance variances between Windows 11 and Windows 10 in certain game titles. We are currently investigating but based on testing to date have not observed a material difference in game performance between OS versions across a variety of operating scenarios and game titles.

Many factors affect gaming performance, including the game engine, CPU architecture, GPU selection and memory choices. As new architectures enter the market, we often observe performance anomalies which must be addressed by the component vendor or the game publisher. This is not a new phenomenon nor is it unexpected.

As we have done since the introduction of Ryzen, when these performance anomalies are brought to light we will use them to steer our partner engagements with game developers and ecosystem hardware partners to implement optimizations that eliminate the variations.

I wouldn't let this sway me from buying now, even as a gamer. Worst case a game(s) I play that are affected get patched and performance improves later on.

but overall, it's not like AMD or Intel have a clear advantge with their newsest/latest generation, correct?

Correct, and it depends on what games you choose... I know this is 5800X3D/last gen, but it's a 'gaming' chip. Gives you an idea. I think in the forums someone mentioned the difference between this test with 53 games on another test with 23 games and the overall performance outcome was different.

 

[c627627]

Yeah AMD said,




However, PC GAMER says there definitely is a problem.
Now, who caused the problem, and the fact that it was not AMD, is irrelevant to the fact that:
There is a problem.

Windows 11 appears to be hobbling AMD Ryzen 7000 performance

Another reason gamers may want to look lower down AMD's CPU stack.

www.pcgamer.com

Will there be an update for this 'non-existent' problem!?
If yes, that would be a bonus.


When we look back one day soon we'll see how badly manufacturers severely overpriced hardware in 2022.
There certainly is a pricing problem for us currently.

This will be addressed by price cuts when they get enough inventory:

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amds-ryzen-7000-cpus-arent-selling-well-according-to-amazon

 

[EarthDog]

Yep, so only with 2 CCX chips (7900X+), and it's not consistent (from what I've read), meaning not all titles are affected and only with certain hardware(?).

This will be addressed by price cuts when they get enough inventory:

Well, what I walked away with from that article is a bit different than you. It stated there's TOO MUCH of the 5000 series inventory still around which, among other reasons, is causing the READILY AVAILABLE Ryzen 7000 series chips not to sell. If you look at Newegg or Amazon (the only two places I looked), all Zen4 SKUs are there at MSRP or lower.

 

[c627627]

Good point.
That would bring up similarities between the nVidia 4000 series being astronomically expensive, and then one of the points being made was how there is a mountain of 3000 series cards they are sitting on...

It further cements the conclusion not to buy yet.

They must cut prices, "it is inevitable."

 

[EarthDog]

That would bring up similarities between the nVidia 4000 series being astronomically expensive, and then one of the points being made was how there is a mountain of 3000 series cards they are sitting on...

That's a like factor between the two situations. But there are other market forces at work influencing that direction (see 'among other reasons'). Do most people consider AMD CPUs 'astronomically' expensive? If I look for a 4090 at newegg, most (all?) are sold out... at the astronomical prices (msrp). It's astronomically more performant than the last gen and sells versus the amd cpus are, for all intents and purposes, just as good as intel and not. Both have surplus, cheap(heh, lol)/price cut, last gen offerings, correct? So many different factors though.

Like was said in the gpu thread, the price of everything (cpu/gpu) are going to be cheaper months down the down the road. And then, they'll be even cheaper months down the road after that. How long is a while? How long is (for the sake of the OP in his thread) he willing to wait for price drops (and is w/e the drop will be worth the wait?).

This is normal stuff. New stuff comes out, people buy the bleeding edge and pay msrp (a premium) or more. As time goes on, for many different reasons, prices drop. Sometimes in chunks, sometimes not. But sometimes you're just ready to buy.

There's always something new coming out and prices generally dropping. If you're ready you're ready and if you can wait, you can wait.

 

[c627627]

I hear you describe the cycle we have seen through time, then equalizing what is happening now to what has always happened.


I would look at AMD now, despite the article rooting for Intel because that AM5 chipset will last longer than Intel's.
Intel changes motherboards too often, and when I buy, I buy so that my Windows image I perfect lasts as long as possible on that chipset.


I am not buying now precisely because the cycle is not the same, the premiums are much, much more unreasonable. I really look forward to seeing where we are a year from now, Black Monday 2023. I will wait them out, OP may not have that luxury.

 

[EarthDog]

There are no doubt differences in cycles. But the spikes we've seen, volatility-wise ($), I believe won't be as pronounced. I hope as you do prices drop to more reasonable levels in a year. Fingers crossed!

 

[c627627]

There is one more thing that has never happened - which is yet another reason why this cycle is different:

There is now a "Let's teach them a lesson" movement.

I think the suits do not realize that there are lots of people, regular people who look at their unreasonable pricing, and are holding out as a matter of principle, not just simply because they luck higher funds required this cycle round. I am one of them. And it wasn't my idea. You just felt that movement form, without directly talking about it, we just opened our eyes to them crossing the line of what was half-way reasonable.


So now we'll buy only when we absolutely must.

 

[EarthDog]

There is now a "Let's teach them a lesson" movement.

I mean, there's always someone trumpeting that theme... maybe I'm just out of the loop and missing the wave of people teaching them a lesson and not buying, though. Has it made a dent in sales? Aren't 4090s sold out and/or being resold at much higher price points? Doesn't that sound more like 'take my money than it does abstinence?

I'm on board with the idea, but I can't say we're sitting back and watching it in action/working.

 

[c627627]

I think yours is a legitimate question.
How many were sold, how many did they actually make available, were the numbers of available cards relatively low... Or is nVidia really selling out in great volumes?

There is a general perception that AMD is not selling as expected in this short time after launch, according to news articles.

 

[Woomack]

Going back to one of the previous posts, on Win11 not everything is as fast as on Win10. It's more an OS issue, or a matter of Microsoft support and cooperation with AMD and Intel.
On the Intel side, E-cores cause problems with performance too and for some games it's recommended to disable them. Either option you pick, there is always something wrong so you pick the lesser evil and just live with that (until the next upgrade which probably won't be much different).

I see AMD as a better option because of the heat balance, higher frequency at higher temps, lower wattage, no E-cores which are sometimes causing problems, and some other little things that are annoying on Intel like lower storage performance in Win11. AM5 will probably live longer too as Intel is already on the "tock" stage for LGA1700 and they are planning some bigger changes for the 14th gen.
It's my personal opinion while both options are pretty good. I will probably still use 12600K in my gaming PC, just because I can't really see the difference and replacing it would cost me too much to be worth it. For tests I will be using new AMD and new Intel, as I have to. If not the reviews and other tests then I would probably stick with one, new AMD rig.

 

[mackerel]

As long as we don't have the numbers, we'll never know if selling out or not is due to low/high supply, or demand. Zen 4 currently only makes sense on the high end, which will be more limited anyway. Personally I don't value platform longevity. My experiences are generally that if you use a CPU and mobo from different generations, even if they are supposedly compatible, there is a much higher chance of bad things happening. Instability and lack of future update support, lack of newer features. For a high end system I'd always aim to pair a CPU and chipset of the same generation. Older CPU on newer chipset is generally ok, but not the direction most want to upgrade in.

I do recall the game (DRM) problems with hybrid cores when Alder Lake released. Haven't heard of it in a while, so can I presume that is sorted now? From what I recall this was a two part approach. Newer games that were still being updated got patched, older games had some keypress workaround which I didn't look into.

The Zen 4 gaming problems I didn't hear of until posted here. I'm on worse forums and it would have blown up big time if it was a thing. Before you say practically no one owns one, that's never stopped people complaining before! When news of the 4090 power connector came out everyone suddenly became a self proclaimed electrical expert and told nvidia what they did wrong.

 

[EarthDog]

As long as we don't have the numbers, we'll never know if selling out or not is due to low/high supply, or demand.

Without a doubt.

The comment was intended to be anecdotal and in the same light as the statement about a non-buy/teach-a-lesson movement that was mentioned. Both are impossible (for mere mortals like us) to quantify. People have been raising pitchforks and torches over prices since I can remember.