Anyone of the resident HW enthusiasts going to upgrade to upcoming AMD Threadripper or Intel i9? If yes, which one are you looking at?
Personally, i was thinking about sticking to my last year´s setup with 6-core Intel CPU, but the upgrade bug gets stronger the more i read about it Now i consider getting the CPU and new mobo and switching just 2 of those for my current ones, keeping the rest of the rig the same - which i think should be no issue. I will probably go Intel way, unless AMD is way cheaper (what is quite possible), as i would like to use my AiO watercooling, which i assume wont fit with the AMD CPU, as that thing is huuuuuge!
Well, I am happy with my Intel I7 920 Quad Core with 8 Threads, it's several years old but it meets all my needs so no need to upgrade here. These sound interesting though.
The 'use' for AMD is to keep Intel prices more under control so you can keep on using Intel....
Next build is a Ryzen 7. Love AMD. Have them in 6/8 systems.
backs out of the room slowly...
Same here.... when finances are better. Not sure which version just yet but a Ryzen it will be.
[defiantly stays in room daring Intel fanbois to try change my mind]
+1 my thoughts exactly.
On my end, using a i7 7790k (I think is the model number?) from a handful of years back, I really have yet to see any real need for any more power, although if you were streaming and doing all the cool-kid stuff this might be a diff story.
That all being said, when I finally upgrade (maybe about the time win 8.1 support ends), I may buy into one of the higher-end intel chipsets just because. I'm also strongly considering going back to linux - especially if someone (steam?) figures out a way to get win games to run natively on a linux/steam launcher.
TBH, the higher core-count intel chips really intrigue me, but GC3 is really the only application I can think of that'll actually use them. One of the reasons I settled on the top-of-the line 4-core i7's back in the day, was the price point (about 50% of the cost of a 6-core chip), but also it didn't require the next socket-up MB option with the expensive pimp RAM and stuff, so the entire system must've been only about 1/3 the price. In addition, I couldn't really justify the power-sink of having all of that hardware sitting around all of the time making my house hot (in the winter (Minnesota) it's fine really, the summer - not so much). Sort of like having an 8mpg Ferrari as a daily driver..
True, AMD may help keep Intel pricing in check, but these Ryzen's sound like they're serious contenders and already have a good market following.
Having said that, I have an Intel i7 4790K that I quite like. It mightn't be as powerful as your model, but it serves my needs adequately. However, I am impressed with what I've read thus far about the Ryzen series and will invest in one of the upper-end models once we've moved house, etc.
Tid242 the intel i7 7790k would be this years model not from years ago considering when i bought the i7 6700 last year it was the latest.
You are correct. My i7 4790K was from 3 years ago
I have just sprung big bucks for an Intel i9 with a Gigabyte x299 gaming 9 motherboard, 64 GB of 2666Mhz RAM, 2 Samsung 960 Pro 1 TB SSD's (in RAID 0, for a 2TB drive at twice the speed, and in M.2 slots, a newish higher speed bus), and an adequate graphics card (GTX 1050). It will be used for a DAW (digital audio workstation). 64GB of RAM is insane unless you work with high resolution audio (or video, especially). For example, one of my plugins is a piano which is 13GB in size, and needs to sit in RAM to lower latency. I have a lot of other plugins like strings, drums and other instruments which are all measured in GB's. Speed is of the essence; instantaneous is what you need but can't get. I can't report on it because it hasn't been built yet.
As for the present Ryzen CPU's, they aren't up to the i9 in some categories in tests that I have seen, but it looks like the upcoming Ryzens will be a better bang for the buck than the still-to-come i9's, the best of which will have 16 cores at the cost of $2000 U.S. I can say that the i9 seems to have overheating problems when overclocked and needs the best possible cooling system. My i9, the 7900 ($1000 U.S.), has 10 cores (20 threads) and 44 lanes, all of which contribute to it's speed and efficiency. I'm pretty much an Intel fan, I guess, but not fanatical about it. I did consider a Ryzen as they have made great strides recently in the CPU wars, and are almost certainly going to make a big dent in market share due to their lower prices for equivalent CPU's. However, I couldn't wait for what's in the pipeline. By the way, one of the reasons the i9 overheats is because they use thermal paste instead of solder, which is pretty pathetic in a $1000 CPU. Hopefully all the complaints about that will cause them to rethink that position for the future i9's.
Another interesting thing that I have discovered in my recent research is that all the workstation-capable motherboards are "Gaming" MB's, because the gamers vastly outnumber the workstation crowd, and some of them are willing to spend $3000 on 2 graphics cards alone so that they can play games at 4K resolution at superfast frame rates, or use 3 monitors and so on. The last time I bought a PC was about 5 years ago (a couple of i7's and 2 SSD's each). Since then, (and I don't know how it happened yet), all the higher end MB's are now all decked out in LED lighting, which includes RAM slots, the RAM itself, even a RAM fan that I bought, fans, and various other things. You can set up various light shows in multiple colours and patterns. I'm not a big fan of having all the lighting, but as I had no choice, I bought a case with 2 tempered glass sides (plastic gets scratched easily, and ends up looking cheap and blurred after awhile) so that I could see it. That makes it heavier, but I don't plan to move it, so what the hey. It's a Coolermaster Mastercase Maker 5t with some metallic red paint here and there, and a clever front that has a slope to it and an opening at the top to allow air in or out. It also slides to the front when you need access to the DVD/Bluray drive, or can be removed completely. The top can also be removed for better ventilation.
I'm looking forward to getting it running; it's a vast leap in capability's compared to my formerly excellent setup.
Ah yes, just checked, 4790k. You are correct. I couldn't figure out if it sounded quite right when I was typing that. haha
As an aside, in the 2+ years it'll realistically be before I'm looking at rebuilding a machine, it'll be interesting to see if the middle of the market (ie middle of the performance gaming market) moves to >4 core chips. If, say, the equivalent to the 7790k (or *cough* 4790k) in market positioning terms are 6 or 8 physical core chips if there are insane i9 monsters with 16 cores on the top end..
It would be interesting to know the business model for selling these kinds of things, I'd imagine they're break even, or even loss leaders to keep the fans on board so they recommend intel for their company big-money IT purchases. That's where the real money is..
It is already happening/happened. First with Ryzen 5 which at i5 prices offer 6 core 12 thread and R7s which at mainstream i7 prices offer a 8 core 16 thread CPU. Now Intel are upping the game with their 8th generation parts coming out next month. The new mainsteam i7s are 6 core 12 thread and the i5s are 6 core too, but no hyperthreading. (i3s will be going going from 2 core 4 thread to 4 full cores I believe).
Your i7 4790k is still a great CPU and will last you some years yet for gaming needs, but when you do upgrade it is certainly going to be a different landscape. Very happy to see things going beyond 4 cores now. Going to be sometime before most games are built to use more than 4 cores properly though, perhaps just in time for your next upgrade .
(Not so relevant for 4X games but hopefully the next gen consoles get decent 6 or 8 core Ryzen chips in the future (if they stick with AMD). I don't play on consoles but as so many games, which also come to the PC, are made with those in mind then the more powerful the consoles are the better for everyone. (Current console CPUs suck, which effects how much devs can do with AI and physics etc which then limits pc games))
Interesting write-up. Like you I like intel, but am not rabid about it. I still have an AMD grudge from back in the day when linux was a new thing. All that insane techno-wizardry is kind of the example of what I don't want/need and why I just went with the 4-core back when I built this box. I'm waiting for the AC unit that mounts into the side of the case to keep all of that crap cool (and blows hot air on your leg).
The really high-end chips are, like, never worth the money. Maybe they were 20 years ago when there was a demonstrable difference in everyday things they could run (for example my p-pro 200 ran Diablo way faster than all my friends, you'd already have started clearing the dungeon by the time theirs would even load up), but today... Well, not really. If I were streaming or using it for work maybe this would be a different story. But, as I mentioned before GC3 is really the only one that comes to mind, and as it stands now I have no complaints about load times. My chip was $280 in the box. Microcenter runs killer chip deals in-store. Comboing with a mobo gives like $50 off the mobo too. Way better than Newegg et al.
Expensive computers are like expensive cars. Sounds like it'd be nice - but not really worth the bother for me in practice.
It is already happening/happened. First with Ryzen 5 which at i5 prices offer 6 core 12 thread and R7s which at mainstream i7 prices offer a 8 core 16 thread CPU. Now Intel are upping the game with their 8th generation parts coming out next month. The new mainsteam i7s are 6 core 12 thread and the i5s are 6 core too, but no hyperthreading. (i3s will be going going from 2 core 4 thread to 4 full cores I believe).Your i7 4790k is still a great CPU and will last you some years yet for gaming needs, but when you do upgrade it is certainly going to be a different landscape. Very happy to see things going beyond 4 cores now. Going to be sometime before most games are built to use more than 4 cores properly though, perhaps just in time for your next upgrade .(Not so relevant for 4X games but hopefully the next gen consoles get decent 6 or 8 core Ryzen chips in the future (if they stick with AMD). I don't play on consoles but as so many games, which also come to the PC, are made with those in mind then the more powerful the consoles are the better for everyone. (Current console CPUs suck, which effects how much devs can do with AI and physics etc which then limits pc games))
Ah crazy, I didn't even know. Shows how much I pay attention I guess. hah +1
Edit: as an aside, I don't own a console either, but I have some friends that do. It's good that the console space has driven a lot of computer competition, although I find the forking of software annoying (because a lot of PC games are designed to be 'console ready' which means they're less good for PC), although the advent of 3rd party partners to port games makes this better, imho..
Well you spend as much on a processor as me splurging on a computer. It really depends if your going high end or not. I think that amd is winning low end, maybe middle end, and intigrated graphics.
Speed is a necessity, not a luxury, in a digital audio workstation. When you play a note on a keyboard, you need an instantaneous response. It takes a long time, musically speaking, before you get an actual response. The CPU has to go through a number of cycles to send a message to the memory controller which takes time to pass the message to the RAM which also has to go through a number of cycles before it sends the information back to the CPU. As an example, the music I am working on now has a delay of 11.7 milliseconds. That is a very long time musically, so the DAW software has to compensate for that. For ordinary tasks, what I bought is definitely overkill.
From what I have seen, it looks like AMD is going to be very competitive in the high end in the future as well as the mid and low end. I did seriously consider buying my first AMD CPU, but the i9 looked to be the best for my purpose.
Speed is a necessity, not a luxury, in a digital audio workstation. When you play a note on a keyboard, you need an instantaneous response. It takes a long time, musically speaking, before you get an actual response. The CPU has to go through a number of cycles to send a message to the memory controller which takes time to pass the message to the RAM which also has to go through a number of cycles before it sends the information back to the CPU. As an example, the music I am working on now has a delay of 11.7 milliseconds. That is a very long time musically, so the DAW software has to compensate for that. For ordinary tasks, what I bought is definitely overkill.From what I have seen, it looks like AMD is going to be very competitive in the high end in the future as well as the mid and low end. I did seriously consider buying my first AMD CPU, but the i9 looked to be the best for my purpose.
This is true - but for some dumb scmuck like me, who just plays video games, this equation is quite a bit different.
This is why I bring up streaming, it's the only thing I can think of where /regular/ people might actually need solid performance to avoid desynced audio/video feeds, or needing to chomp a bunch of cpu cycles all at the same time for the game, the video encoding, the audio encoding etc.
Audio production, video production etc. yea, horsepower matters. But 99% of people will never do either (myself included).
Great example/point tho
Another time a high powered processor would be/is of benefit is during multi-tasking while editing media files. Yup, that extra bit of oomph makes a difference while I'm editing video/music and wanting to listen to music as well, plus keep an eye on scores of my fave sports via my TV tuner card, check emails and browse the net.
Yup, I know! How does an old fart manage to do so many things and not lose the plot?
Running several VMs at once needs headroom....I've been known to have 4 or 5 running concurrently...
Nice rig you built, congrats! Except the GPU - but yeah, i get that for your purposes you did not need stronger one.
I guess i have sort of preference for Intel CPUs too, thats why i am waiting for those higher core count i9s instead of already getting Threadripper.... but i dont get the hate AMD is getting. Cant agree at all with the opinions like Jafo presented, that they are only good for keeping Intel prices under control. Indeed its one of the things their existence plays to our (consumer´s) advantage, but other than that, their current line in CPUs are perfectly competitive with Intel and actually top it in price/performance ratio.
7900x costs the same as Threadripper 1950x - 1000 USD, while having 6 cores less. It has higher clocks, so for apps not using all the threads its better choice (but then 4-core 7700k is even better), in heavily multi-threaded apps Threadripper is vastly superior (cca 3000 points in Cinebench R15 compared to 2200 points 7900x gets, both at stock clocks).
I am looking at 7940x, which is gonna be 14-core version, and thats what it takes to at least get on par with TR 1950x in MT tasks, while keeping its single-thread performance superiority. But it will cost me 400+ compared to Threadripper. If i cared strictly about money or MT performance, AMD would be absolutely legit choice.
Me, either. I've owned several AMD units and have been happy with each of them. Perhaps Intel had higher performing CPUs, but given the lower price to performance of the AMDs, they were the better choice for me at the time. When I got my i7 4970K finances were better and it was the obvious choice at the time, and yeah, I'm pleased with that purchase as well.
So i decided to self-indulge myself and got new CPU after all, although i bought my current rig (X99, i7 6850k 6-core CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 2x GTX 1080, etc...) in its entirety just about year ago. The choice fell on i9 in the end, at the expense of Threadripper, more specifically 14-core i9 7940x....
https://imgur.com/a/l3fFV
I got it alongside the new mobo obviously, Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 7, and on top of these superior water cooling solution compared my current one (Alphacool Eisbaer 360, to replace Corsair H105 240mm AiO) and finally, one more M2 drive, Samsung 960 EVO 512GB.
Now, i need one more thing, or at least i want one more thing, LCD display. Currently running oldish HP ZR24w, which has like 7 or 8 years. Its 24inch 1920x1200 display, so obviously i want more. However, doing some preliminary research, i am finding out its incredibly difficult to choose right monitor, cause there is always need for some compromise. There are few, i would like based on their parameters, but they are either more expensive than i am willing to pay, like 32 inch 4K LG32UD99, or are riddled with backlight bleed and other issues, like 27 inch 1440p Asus PG279Q...
Currently, i am looking at following bunch of options, each one has its pros and cons. All of them IPS indeed:
Dell U2715H - 27 inch 1440p, has good reputation, its cheap, the cheapest option actually, 450 EUROs only.
Dell UP2716D - 27 inch 1440p, has wide gamut, so its sort of profi monitor. It goes for 625 EUROs over here, but apparently, has some screen uniformity/BLB issues.
Dell U2718Q - 27 inch 4K, has HDR too, although just the Dell "fake" one. 680 EUROs, not many reviews, but apparently worse color reproduction and lower overall quality than UP2716D.
EIZO EV2750 - 27 inch 1440p, probably better overall quality than DELLs, but no wide gamut (which i dont really need), but more expensive, 750 EUROs.
BENQ PD3200U - 32 inch 4K - this screen size and resolution was initially my choice, as i want it mostly for work with CAD apps and TV show watching, but now i am hesitating, cause the better screens of this size are above 1000 EUROs. BenQ is decent, but i am not really convinced about it. The EIZO mentioned above has definitely higher quality, the price is the same, so its a toss up between higher quality or bigger size. My biggest problem though its the size of the screen, i dont really have big enough desk. If i would put it on it, with its 74cm width, its left side would be like 5cm from my computer case (which i have on the desk too and dont want to put it on floor cause of dust, neither its really an option anyway due to other factors) and then the right side would be again like 5cm from the edge of the desk.
EIZO FORIS FS2735 - 27 inch 1440p, 144Hz for 1050 EUROs. Apparently 144 Hz is da shit, something you once try and never want to go back to 60Hz. Even on desktop. I have no clue, but it kinda sounds good, and its overall the EIZO quality, so if it was not for the high price, this would be my choice i guess... even without 4K. But i just dont know, the price is steep and if dont care about games that much, i may just get away with the aforementioned EV2750, which i guess would provide the same experience bar the high refresh rate. At which point i get to square one, cause i can get 32inch BenQ at the price of EV2750..... decisions, decisions....
If you took your time to actually read it and have any clue about this stuff, please give some advice!
Thank you.
I personally like AMD chips. I've used them in my last two builds and the performance to price comparison is solid. I will be going with a 1800x or Threadripper on my next build. Well, that's if Ryzen 2 isn't going to come out soon.
@Timmaigh Choosing good monitors is a very tough decision. I would honestly set a few necessary criteria and go from there. When i'm shopping around I usually look at cost per monitor that I'm willing to spend, refresh rate, and size. From there I compare what type of panels they have and which ones have the best specs. I know that's not too helpful, but there are some very solid options for panels these days.
Yeah, now that my big expenses are out of the way, I will be looking into an AMD processor early in 2018. I was originally thinking of the Ryzen 1800x, but I may go with a Threadripper if I can get a good price.
I've used AMD chips in most of my builds and quite like them. I just don't get why so many run them down and call them valueless, worthless, etc. Yes, Intel went all out to beat AMD in terms of performance, and they succeeded, but look at the price comparisons. AMD still produced better than decent CPUs, but at a much better price point, which suited a lot of builders who couldn't afford Intel's prices.
Thing is, now that AMD is using a new and more efficient architecture to improve chip speeds, thus making them more competitive, Intel is going all out again to try dominate the market with faster, bigger chips... the i9, for example. Frankly, though, I don't give a damn. The price point is way above my budget and a Threadripper is a likely choice.
I'd highly recommend getting a Philips monitor. They have the biggest and best research labs in the world in the field of electronics; they invented the cassette and CD/DVD/BluRay as well as the digital cassette recorder/player which never caught on, but was actually excellent in audio quality (I have one. I think that it failed because recording with it is a very complicated process). The HD TV specification is largely based on their research.
I have a couple of their 27" monitors, and they have excellent clarity. I bought a 32" LG because I wanted a bigger display, but after using it, I abandoned it because it was very fuzzy compared to the Philips.
Here's 3 that you can check out:
Philips 272S4LPJCB/00272S4LPJCB/00 27-Inch Monitor 275 pounds
Philips 323E7QDAB/00 LCD/IPS 31.5-Inch Monitor 243 pounds
Philips BDM4350UC/00 43-Inch 490 pounds
(I looked on amazon.co.uk) There a lot of other 27" Philips monitors as well.
Aside from the clarity, they have circuitry that enhances motion clarity and other things in their BluRay players that upsample a signal to HD quality and actually work. I have a 65" inch Philips TV that is amazing.
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