DavidGraham
Veteran
Generally speaking, HardwareUnboxed found the 7800X3D to be 5% faster than 14900K at 1080p. Several games show substantial difference in favor of the X3D CPU.
You're building a new PC this year, which platform do you choose?
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They're good competitors to be sure. I wager the 14900k has a lot more overclocking room which means it will surpass the X3D for those who want to push it. Is that the right fit for the OP?
Honestly, none of the modern machines I've built ever saw an in-place upgrade of the CPU. I'm not so worried about a dead end socket design, but that's just me. Everyone has their own priorities...
Honestly, none of the modern machines I've built ever saw an in-place upgrade of the CPU. I'm not so worried about a dead end socket design, but that's just me. Everyone has their own priorities...
arandomguy
Veteran
Zen 1 through to Zen 3, especially with the X3D parts, saw massive performance uplift. AMD had a lot of basically low hanging fruit available to push per core performance, it's worth keeping min mind that it wasn't until Zen 3 in 2020 that AMD actually pushed past Intel's Skylake (2015) in terms of per core performance as it pertains to gaming. Also that Zen 1 CPUs are technically below current consoles, and even Zen 2 CPUs are marginal due to platform differences, so Zen 3 CPUs do carry real usable benefits as we moved into the current gen era. As such there was significant value in drop in upgrades for AM4 and practical benefits.
AM4 also launched when DDR4 was relatively mature, so if you had DDR4 from when AM4 launched it could very well actually be faster than commonly DDR4 that was available when Zen 3 launched. Especially if you did have Samsung B-die from way back you for sure are not handicapping Zen 3 CPUs at all.
Another factor here is core counts also had their cost pushed down (eg. compare Zen 1 8 core pricing vs. Zen 3 8/12/16 core) and to some extent games do in some select cases see benefits from 8 cores.
But this also why I caution people reading into AM5 longevity. In order for AM5 to see the same uplift path as AM4 it would need to mean Zen 6 launches on AM5 (there is zero commitment to anything post Zen 5), Zen 4 -> 5 -> 6 see higher uplift per gen than the 1 through 3 (seems unlikely barring some unseen breakthrough). Then we have that DDR5 is not really mature now, and if you bought AM5 now chances are you have DDR5 6000 (maybe 6400) which once both DDR5 and DDR5 platforms mature could be considered slow and possibly handicap future CPU performance. Lastly are we doing to have core count pricing be pushed down further? Or will it even matter (transitioning to 8 is already very select, past that would be even harder). We'll we see something equivalent to X3D stacking?
Lastly there's the timing factor here due to console generations. The next big CPU requirement jump from a real usability stand point is likely going to come with next gen consoles. Really the current offerings on the market are all good enough in terms of general usability until then. So it becomes a question of whether or not the upgrade path would be enough for next gen, and if not does it matter as much?
You and I are thinking very much along the same lines, and I love your post.
I think that generally cpu-limited games tend to have better %1 lows on intel, so if you're a high framerate gamer (240 Hz or more) then intel might be the way to go. I just have a hard time with the power consumption part. Intel can draw way more power, which would make me personally lean AMD still, but only if some of the AM5 weirdness has been worked out. I just don't want elaborate cooling and a huge power supply. It also makes a big difference if you have a budget for the x3D parts. I think on the lower end intel 100k,400k,600k are probably better for gaming. But my perspective is usually towards high frame rates, so if you're just targetting gpu-limited 60Hz with all of the ray tracing maxed out etc then my perspective may not even be relevant.
davis.anthony
Veteran
But tune that 14900k with some 7000+ RAM and it wipes the floor with the 7800X3D.
davis.anthony
Veteran
Undervolting Intel CPU's is more beneficial than AMD as Intel use way more voltage than is needed so you can actually drop it down by a pretty decent about.
I went with socket 3. I just got a Cyrix 5x86-120GP off Ebay and I'm looking forward to building out a nice baby AT mid tower.
Gonna try a couple of VLB and PCI motherboards and see how well I can get it to run vs my AMD 5x86-133 and Pentium Overdrive 83 Mhz.
Gonna try a couple of VLB and PCI motherboards and see how well I can get it to run vs my AMD 5x86-133 and Pentium Overdrive 83 Mhz.
Uhm isn''t that socket 4? I could've sworn my Pentium 60Mhz (OCed to 66Mhz!) was a socket 4...
The Pentium Overdrive was indeed a socket 3 chip; a silghtly modified Pentium processor wedged into a 486 compatible pinout. So too were the AMD and Cyrix 5x86 lines. A very long time ago, I owned an AMD 5x86 DX3/120 with the 40MHz bus, and it could reliably attain 150MHz albeit with extra wait states configured for my VLB IDE controller (the VLB video S3 864 card seemed fine with it.) For a hot minute, I did have a Pentium Overdrive 83 (2.5x the 33MHz bus) that I could mostly reliably run at 100Mhz (bumped to 40MHz bus) and it was quiet fast for what it was, but the AMD 150 still ended up performing better for most things.
It's funny this topic of Socket 3 comes up, several newer YouTube videos started being suggested to me last week about a guy who is going through several Cyrix and AMD upgrades on a Socket 3 platform, to include some crystal replacement work. The guy is using a 3DFX Voodoo original card and is having a fun time trying to get a steady 60Hz framerate from the original Tomb Raider on his Socket 3 setup. A wave of nostalgia hit me while watching his videos
It's funny this topic of Socket 3 comes up, several newer YouTube videos started being suggested to me last week about a guy who is going through several Cyrix and AMD upgrades on a Socket 3 platform, to include some crystal replacement work. The guy is using a 3DFX Voodoo original card and is having a fun time trying to get a steady 60Hz framerate from the original Tomb Raider on his Socket 3 setup. A wave of nostalgia hit me while watching his videos
You're not wrong! But my jam right now is taking a particular system generation and dialing it to 11. Despite the fanciful names, all of those CPUs actually fit in 486 motherboards.
I've been sniping Ebay for the past year or 2 for deals on things I couldn't afford when I was younger. And now that I'm moving into a bigger place in a few weeks, I'll finally have some proper space to hobby. Along those lines I also have some 386 motherboards (with VLB!) waiting for a Cyrix DLC40 + 40Mhz FPU, as well as a Ti486SXL2-66. And I'm planning to build my first ever Super Socket 7 system with a K6-III+ and a Voodoo 3 and a bunch of other fun stuff I skipped back in the days when I went straight from Pentium to slot 1.
You absolutely MUST post pictures of that 386DLC-40 system when it's fully assembled. Also, are you gonna drop that SXL2-66 onto the 386 board?? I've seen some of the super-custom interposer cards that permit such shenanigans... If you do that one, please please post pics of it too!!
Which video card are you gonna use for this rig? My 386 box used an old Oak VGA card with 512Kb IIRC. I do miss my S3 864 VLB 2MB card tho, it was a monster and overclocked by almost 20%.
Which video card are you gonna use for this rig? My 386 box used an old Oak VGA card with 512Kb IIRC. I do miss my S3 864 VLB 2MB card tho, it was a monster and overclocked by almost 20%.
Yea, that's my plan. Probably go with a high end Zen5 CPU. I've already got a 4090, so I'm good for now on that.. unless Nvidia drops the 50-series and it's amazing.
davis.anthony
Veteran
On another note, my replacement RTX 4070ti has the most horrific coil whine I've ever heard on a GPU for a replacement, tempted to move to the red team to see what it's like as not had an AMD GPU since the R9 290.
Hey, you with the 4090!! Come fold with us, see my signature for details
Haha yeah I actually have the parts to craft a couple of those interposers and it would be kind of amazing to get one of these PGA168 socket SXL2s going on a 386 board.
The native PGA132 versions of the SXL(2) are almost impossible to find these days but as they are the very same chips inside I reckon the interposer route is fair game.
I'll be starting with a VLB S3 Trio64 86C764-P 2MB, which is actually very similar to the 864 but has an integrated RAMDAC.
Ancient ISA Ahead VGA Wizard standing by for troubleshooting if needed.
And for the other builds I gathered:
PCI Diamond Stealth S3 Vision 964 2MB
PCI S3 Virge/GX 86C385 2MB
PCI 3DFX Voodoo 2 12MB
AGP 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 16MB
AGP Nvidia GeForce 2 MX400 64MB
My idea of fun
.. oh and yeah, check the esthetic on this case I got:
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I'm gonna wait to see what Arrow Lake versus Zen 5 looks like.
If I had to pick today, I'd go with AM5/Zen 4 simply because of how much performance you can get from just 65w on Zen 4. Personally, I wouldn't want to run any CPU of mine to where it's sucking more than 100w. I'm not a diehard greenie, but I also do try and avoid excess where I think it's reasonable to do so. And I hate the idea of my PC running at like microwave levels of power draw while gaming. I just think that's insane. So yea, for now, Zen 4 is a fair bit more efficient than Raptor Lake, though a lot of this will be due to basically being on a whole major node generation ahead of what Raptor Lakes uses.
Arrow Lake(the compute parts, at least) is supposed to be on either TSMC 3nm or Intel 20A. This could change things dramatically in terms of the efficiency argument, especially if desktop Zen 5 is still on TSMC 5nm family. But I'm also interested in seeing what performance differences there will be. Intel is definitely due for a more substantial leap here.
The upgradeability factor for AM5 has value to me, since I'm generally looking for a pretty long-term ownership(5+ years), but it's not even certain that Zen 6 will be supported on AM5, and generally I'd prefer to just get a 'good enough' CPU and forget about it for the remaining time period. So Intel will still be an option for me even with no upgradeability, assuming the CPU's are good enough.
I'm still using a 3570k I bought in 2013, just to reinforce how much I value long-term usage(though I'd have upgraded by now if the GPU situation was better). I dont expect that again, but I'm definitely not gonna upgrade my CPU every 2-4 years like some.
If I had to pick today, I'd go with AM5/Zen 4 simply because of how much performance you can get from just 65w on Zen 4. Personally, I wouldn't want to run any CPU of mine to where it's sucking more than 100w. I'm not a diehard greenie, but I also do try and avoid excess where I think it's reasonable to do so. And I hate the idea of my PC running at like microwave levels of power draw while gaming. I just think that's insane. So yea, for now, Zen 4 is a fair bit more efficient than Raptor Lake, though a lot of this will be due to basically being on a whole major node generation ahead of what Raptor Lakes uses.
Arrow Lake(the compute parts, at least) is supposed to be on either TSMC 3nm or Intel 20A. This could change things dramatically in terms of the efficiency argument, especially if desktop Zen 5 is still on TSMC 5nm family. But I'm also interested in seeing what performance differences there will be. Intel is definitely due for a more substantial leap here.
The upgradeability factor for AM5 has value to me, since I'm generally looking for a pretty long-term ownership(5+ years), but it's not even certain that Zen 6 will be supported on AM5, and generally I'd prefer to just get a 'good enough' CPU and forget about it for the remaining time period. So Intel will still be an option for me even with no upgradeability, assuming the CPU's are good enough.
I'm still using a 3570k I bought in 2013, just to reinforce how much I value long-term usage(though I'd have upgraded by now if the GPU situation was better). I dont expect that again, but I'm definitely not gonna upgrade my CPU every 2-4 years like some.
Pfft, those were pretty crap. I'd go Sun UltraSPARC if you want something somewhat useful. Back in those days of the E-series Sun servers, the Solaris operating system was actually quite useful and got a lot of work done at the high-end enterprise and government space. For a very long time, Sun's marketing slogan was "We put the dot in dot com" because almost every one of the (15 or so at the time) top-level domain controllers for the entire internet in the late 90's and early 2000's were Sun Microsystems E15000 servers.
Yeah, not anymore lol.
I was running my Intel 6c/12t 3930k (despite the name, it's Sandy Bridge architecture like the i3/i5/i7 2xxx series) until two years ago. The 32GB of quad channel ram can still compete (bandwidth, latency) with dual-channel DDR4 kits of last gen, even if the 4.5GHz clock speed on such an old arch really ends up being more equivalent to an i3-10300u or some such. Still, it had a 1080Ti and a pair of Sammy 850 SATA drives and performed admirably for the near-decade of its service. I respect your approach
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