You're building a new PC this year, which platform do you choose?

[Remij]

AM5, or Intel 700

Or maybe wait for LGA1851?

I'm wanting to build a new PC this year at some point and will be going very high end. Are there still issues with AM5? I have an AMD based system at the moment and wondering if I should give Intel a shot this time?

Also, any suggestions for best motherboard brands? I'm gonna be going into research mode here soon and start planning for it. Would like to know of any issues to be aware of on both sides if possible.

 

[orangpelupa]

Am5. Simply because I'm sure amd will keep using Am5 for a long time.

As historically, amd are quite slow in changing sockets

 

[davis.anthony]

AM5 for longevity.

Socket 1700 is dead now and socket 1851 will likely cost a fortune.

You can get a very good B650 mTX board for $120

 

[Remij]

AM5 for longevity.

Socket 1700 is dead now and socket 1851 will likely cost a fortune.

You can get a very good B650 mTX board for $120

Yea, that's basically what I'm thinking. 7800x3D. I'm just wondering if the motherboard issues have been worked out, or which brand MB I should go with?

@Dictator maybe you could chime in with your experience with it? I'm hearing of USB issues among other things with BIOSes.

 

[davis.anthony]

Yea, that's basically what I'm thinking. 7800x3D. I'm just wondering if the motherboard issues have been worked out, or which brand MB I should go with?

@Dictator maybe you could chime in with your experience with it? I'm hearing of USB issues among other things with BIOSes.

I use ASUS but honestly, go with the brand that offers the best warranty for your region.

I have an ASUS B650E-I, not a single problem with it.

I'm on a Ryzen 5 7600 at 5.35Ghz with a 4070ti Super and a side from the odd game, I easily hit my monitors max refresh.

7800X3D is a waste of money in my opinion.

 

[arandomguy]

Too broad and generic of a question. Depends on spot prices, market segment, and personnel considerations.

What I mean by the latter for example is take the upgradability argument. Not everyone upgrades so your value on that is going to vary. Not mention there's consideration as well since a sample of basically n-1 is not very predictive of how useful or long upgrading will be going forward.

 

[Remij]

Too broad and generic of a question. Depends on spot prices, market segment, and personnel considerations.

What I mean by the latter for example is take the upgradability argument. Not everyone upgrades so your value on that is going to vary. Not mention there's consideration as well since a sample of basically n-1 is not very predictive of how useful or long upgrading will be going forward.

Well, I'm asking what platform you would base a new PC around if you were planning on building a PC for yourself this year given your own situation.. not to explain to me every combination of every consideration out there. There's value in hearing opinions of different people designing around different considerations which may or may not line up with my own. That's the entire point.. you may make me consider something I didn't before about going one way or the other.

I am heavily leaning towards AM5 of course. I was kinda hoping to hear from anyone whether they were having any issues related to BIOSes, peripherals, or memory (RAM) issues.. and whether or not to avoid any specific manufacturers or boards.

 

[digitalwanderer]

AM5. Intel doesn't stick with the same socket very long, AMD has a strong history of staying with the same socket for much longer.

If I was building a new system it would be a no-brainer for me to go AMD.

 

[Albuquerque]

I switched back to AMD for my current build and I'm happy with it. As prior posters have mentioned, AMD is better about keeping their sockets longer. While it's arguable the 14th gen Intel chips can and do outperform the 7000-series AMD stuff, I'm not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of things unless you're wanting to get on the overclocker benchmark leaderboards. The 7000-series X3D processors are more than enough performance for a top-end gamer.

My next build is gonna be mini-ITX though. My prior build was a massive ATX chonker with a 360mm rad in the front, all the fans and lights, and a plexiglass side to show it off. The current build is a mini-ATX build with no LEDs and a 280mm rad tightly wedged into the face. I still want to go smaller

 

[Remij]

I switched back to AMD for my current build and I'm happy with it. As prior posters have mentioned, AMD is better about keeping their sockets longer. While it's arguable the 14th gen Intel chips can and do outperform the 7000-series AMD stuff, I'm not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of things unless you're wanting to get on the overclocker benchmark leaderboards. The 7000-series X3D processors are more than enough performance for a top-end gamer.

My next build is gonna be mini-ITX though. My prior build was a massive ATX chonker with a 360mm rad in the front, all the fans and lights, and a plexiglass side to show it off. The current build is a mini-ATX build with no LEDs and a 280mm rad tightly wedged into the face. I still want to go smaller

Yea, the differences at the high/top end aren't really going to be noticeable between them.. and even then you're talking about 1080p/1440p resolutions for anything meaningful. At 4K and over they're essentially the same. My main concern isn't generally about the performance of the CPU, but the quality and stability of the platform and mainboards themselves of the various manufacturers out there. I know Alex (@Dictator ) had some issues with RAM and BSODs on his recent build, but I'm not sure if he found out what the problem ultimately was or not.

 

[Albuquerque]

I've heard multiple technical review sites say the AMD systems are a little more picky about RAM; I too had to go through a few packages of memory before I found a good set. The first "bad" set of memory was entirely my fault; I just bought DDR4 in the timings and capacity I wanted at the price I hoped for, and only after I installed them did I realize it wasn't so simple. I returned those and bought a set of AMD-certified sticks, only to then discover they were only certified as a pair and not as a set of four. Bleh. My fault again for not seeing the nuanced difference, but I was mildly unhappy that it mattered THAT much.

My final set of ram was certified to run at the speeds and timings I wanted, all in a set of four DIMMs instead of two. It's fine now.

 

[DavidGraham]

Definitely get the 7800X3D, I did that. Testings across the internet proves it to be the faster CPU, so it's a no brainer really.

For me, I got a tight 30CAS DDR5 memory working at 6000MHz, I pushed the CPU a little to sip more power (from 65w to 85w) and maintain 5GHz a lot more often. So far no issues whatsoever, it runs quiet and crazy cool. Intel CPUs are just crazy for sipping so much power and producing tons of heat. CPUs for gaming shouldn't do that.

 

[davis.anthony]

7800X3D is a waste of money in my opinion, Ryzen 5 7600 clocked to 5.35Ghz using PBO will be more than enough, and in games where it won't give you at least a locked 60fps, neither will the 7800X3D.

Spend the extra cash on a better GPU.

 

[Albuquerque]

The X3D isn't about maximal frame rate, it's about minimum framerate. The excessive cache makes for much better 1% and 0.1% framerate minima.

 

[davis.anthony]

The X3D isn't about maximal frame rate, it's about minimum framerate. The excessive cache makes for much better 1% and 0.1% framerate minima.

You're looking at 17.8% increase in minimum FPS at 1080p over a stock Ryzen 5 7600x, and that's with a fricken 4090!!

At 4k, the minimum frame rate is 6.1% higher than a 7600x, so you're probably talking what? 10-11% higher minimums at 1440p?

That's at stock speeds too, PBO overclocking a Ryzen 5 7600 gets you 7% higher clock speeds.

The 7800X3D is nearly double the price of a Ryzen 5 7600, the cost saving by stick to a 7600 is enough to enable you to buy a new GPU in the next class up.

Spending the extra on a GPU is by far the better option, not to mention if a game fails to advantage of the extra cache it'll actually be slower than an overclocked Ryzen 5 7600.

 

[Albuquerque]

In the end, the extra processing speed of the overclocked 7600 still doesn't match the X3D's raw cache performance for framerate minima. As for games with decreasing performance, that was a problem mostly relegated to the NUMA architecture of the 7950X3D where multiple CCDs can result in less-than-optimal cross-processor memory accesses which drive up latency and also cross clock domains which both serve to slow things down. The 7800X3D has the benefit of being a single CCD with an extraordinary-sized cache, so there's no disparate CCD weirdness and related clock domain or cross-memory access latencies to contend with.

As for the better option? It's the age-old question for any overclocker: do you overclock a lower-spec'd processor to effectively gain the price vs performance win against something higher-binned? Or do you pick up the higher binned part and overclock it even more? Does a 7% boost in the clockspeed of your Ryzen 5 7600 always net the equivalent 7% in framerate? And what would the 7800X3D do when overclocked (because they're absolutely overclockable via bus speed / ref clock changes...)

I will say this: unless you overclock it to the stratosphere, the 7600 isn't going to match the minimal framerate gains of the extra L3 cache on the X3D chips. This isn't anything to do with clock, it's purely to do with memory access latency and isn't solvable by overclocking. Does that really make it worth the extra pricetag for the OP? That's up for them to decide.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I think you are almost always better off with a faster part. Overclocking was a great way to save some money back in the Athlon 2500+ days where you just had to get the right stepping to run it as a 3200+.

But these days? When the core2duo was supposed to be the best value for money CPU I bought a core2quad. Did the same in the 4th gen i5 vs i7 days and both times the quad and i7 could still run games fine years after. Hell, my i7 is 10 years old now and it can still run most newish games just fine.

As for the platform, I wouldn't pay too much attention to socket longevity. If you buy the right CPU at the start by the time you need to upgrade any socket is going to be changed already anyway.

So something like 78003d or the Intel equivalent is probably cheaper long term than buying a cheaper CPU and upgrading.

 

[davis.anthony]

In the end, the extra processing speed of the overclocked 7600 still doesn't match the X3D's raw cache performance for framerate minima. As for games with decreasing performance, that was a problem mostly relegated to the NUMA architecture of the 7950X3D where multiple CCDs can result in less-than-optimal cross-processor memory accesses which drive up latency and also cross clock domains which both serve to slow things down. The 7800X3D has the benefit of being a single CCD with an extraordinary-sized cache, so there's no disparate CCD weirdness and related clock domain or cross-memory access latencies to contend with.

As for the better option? It's the age-old question for any overclocker: do you overclock a lower-spec'd processor to effectively gain the price vs performance win against something higher-binned? Or do you pick up the higher binned part and overclock it even more? Does a 7% boost in the clockspeed of your Ryzen 5 7600 always net the equivalent 7% in framerate? And what would the 7800X3D do when overclocked (because they're absolutely overclockable via bus speed / ref clock changes...)

I will say this: unless you overclock it to the stratosphere, the 7600 isn't going to match the minimal framerate gains of the extra L3 cache on the X3D chips. This isn't anything to do with clock, it's purely to do with memory access latency and isn't solvable by overclocking. Does that really make it worth the extra pricetag for the OP? That's up for them to decide.

You do know that it's advanced in minimum FPS ranges from good to none existent to worse right?

Not every game benefits from the extra cache and the amount they do varies per game.

A 14700k with some fast RAM and an overclock on the P-Cores would give much better minimums than the 7800X3D.

 

[Albuquerque]

I still think you're confusing the multi-CCD problems of the 7900X3D and 7950X3D, which had notable performance issues in a few specific games. Later AGESA firmware has helped, so too have some Windows scheduler patch updates. For the record, I'm not a fan of heterogenous CPU cores, which includes the 7900X3D and 7950X3D, and also includes the E vs P cores on the Intel processors. To this point, the 7800X3D is a single CCD; it's exactly a 7700X with about 7% less clock and about 300% more L3 cache.

Nobody in this thread has stated every game benefits from the cache, yet plenty of them do. The most typical benefit of the cache is a notable uplift minimum framerates...

It's also worth remembering: the 7600X has a 12% base and boost clock speed advantage over the 7800X3D, so any game you can point to with ~12% framerate advantage can be reasonably linked to the clock speed. Further to that point, if the 7600X is less than 12% faster than the 7800X3D, we know it's either the game using extra cores (unlikely but not impossible) or the extra cache (far more likely.) It's also worth noting the 7800X3D can still be overclocked even if the multiplier is locked.

And we've talked about Intel being arguably faster; I specifically brought it up in my original reply. This is still true, so long as the OP is cool with socket that is now dead.

 

[arandomguy]

I have this general problem with how modern reviews work and how reflective they are actually in terms of the user experience with rather disparate platforms/architectures and this similarly applies to CPUs. Specifically with the X3D chips and the cache benefits (or lack thereof) just relying on aggerate FPS numbers doesn't fully convey the benefits or lack thereof. Some games (and scenarios) will massively benefit from the cache and some will not at all, just distilling it down to an average (that in my opinion no one would be able to tell the difference in with A/B blind testing) simply doesn't show whether or not you'd benefit from one.

If you want the X3D chips for performance reasons it should be because you know you will be using it in those cases in which the uplift is generational (if not more). Of course the tricky part is in the scenario's it's weaker in (particularly if you also go cross platform/architecture) it could also be generationally worse.

To be honest if we're talking about gaming and just looking at averages, those averages are not really differential significantly alter user experience.