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  • Moving to AMD CPU, looking for advice and insight.
Moving to AMD CPU, looking for advice and insight.
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Nanobang Jan 29, 2020
I'd like to here from the AMD tribe. What do you look at when considering an AMD CPU that's in your price range?

I've been with Intel since ... forever, but for my next build I'm moving to AMD. In particular I'm weighing a Ryzen Threadripper 1920X (12 core) against a Ryzen 2700x (8 core) or a Ryzen 7 3700X (8 ore). I'd need to buy a cooling unit for the 1920x which would put it about the same as the 3700x price-wise. The 2700x is the cheapest as well as the least powerful of the three.

I've never considered the finer points of selecting a CPU. Cache sizes, types of DDR4 memory (speeds?) etc are all beyond my ken, but seem relevant as things such as CPU freq and other numbers are so similar between the AMD CPUs.

I don't plan on overclocking.

I realize I'll be committing to either an AM4 or TR4 mobo now and likely into the future. Frankly, the cost of the Threadrippers are mostly too high for me, but I can get the older 1920x for about $200US, which makes it worthy of consideration now. It would be a long time before I could upgrade again at these prices, whereas the new non-Threadrippers are affordable to me now.
tuubi Jan 29, 2020
I don't see any reason to pick a first-gen Threadripper over one of the latest gen Ryzens. Except maybe if you're going to replace it with another TR4 CPU in the near future. I'd go for the 3700X personally. Again. ;)
Plintslîcho Jan 29, 2020
When I look for a new CPU, I look for its power consumption and TDP. The 3700X hits the sweet spot there for me: outstanding performance but comparatively moderate power consumption and only a TDP of 65 watt.
buono Jan 29, 2020
Unless you need the extra treads you could save a little and get the ryzen 5 3600x. In the UK they are just under £200 now, and should have comparable performance to the more expensive 3700x, particularly for gaming. Another saving you could make is to get an older generation motherboard, just check with the sellers that it has the latest uefi/bios so that the system will post.
I am currently running an 2700 on a asus prime x370, performance is very close to that of the later motherboards (but in my case the memory can't get higher than 3000Mhz). I picked up the motherboard for £80 from cclonline they flashed the board for free. The main advantage for the latest x570 motherboards is the pci 4, if this is of no interest to you then I suggest you consider the x470 motherboards.
I plan on upgrading in small steps now when budget allows :)
Hope you find this useful.
Shmerl Jan 30, 2020
Before selecting a CPU, think about use cases you'll need it for. And depending on that, decide how many cores you need and how much you are willing to spend on that.

Personally, I wouldn't go to Threadripper, because it bumps the price on motherboards too. If you need something high end, get Ryzen 9 3900X or 3950X.

Last edited by Shmerl on 30 January 2020 at 4:09 am UTC
dvd Jan 30, 2020
I am currently having a Ryzen 1300x with an rx 560 and 8 Gb memory. You will probably want something newer if its fits your budget, but this configuration still runs most games in 1080p fine, and it runs the OS rather well too.
Nanobang Jan 30, 2020
Quoting: ShmerlBefore selecting a CPU, think about use cases you'll need it for. And depending on that, decide how many cores you need and how much you are willing to spend on that.

Personally, I wouldn't go to Threadripper, because it bumps the price on motherboards too. If you need something high end, get Ryzen 9 3900X or 3950X.

Thanks Shmerl! My use cases are primarily gaming at 1080p (on a plasma TV, mind), video streaming/watching, and a bit of (Inkscape, My Paint, Krita) artwork. My fave games are big, open world, graphic intensive ones, more and more of which have been opened up with Proton lately.

More investigation has convinced me that the Threadripper series is just a bit too beyond my sense of what's reasonable to pay, but I will focus on third gen Ryzen, mayhaps 3600 - 3900.
Nanobang Jan 30, 2020
Quoting: tuubiI don't see any reason to pick a first-gen Threadripper over one of the latest gen Ryzens. Except maybe if you're going to replace it with another TR4 CPU in the near future. I'd go for the 3700X personally. Again. ;)

Thanks tuubi! That's exactly what I wanted to hear, and pretty much the way I was leaning. I guess I was dazzled by the name "Threadripper" enough to consider something two gens back. But the thing is that the cost of a more recent generation Threadripper is so high that I wouldn't be able to replace it with anything remotely "new."

I think I'll end up getting the best I can afford in the Ryzen 3600 - 3900 series (and I AM liking the 3700x :) )
Nanobang Jan 30, 2020
Quoting: PlintslîchoWhen I look for a new CPU, I look for its power consumption and TDP. The 3700X hits the sweet spot there for me: outstanding performance but comparatively moderate power consumption and only a TDP of 65 watt.

Thanks Plintslîcho for introducing me to the concept of TDP! Concern about thermal output and avoiding worrying about it or accounting for it with fancy cooling systems is precisely why I've always avoided overclocking.

A few folks have praised the 3700x, so I'll be using that as my point of comparison with other AMD CPUs I'll be looking at. :)
Nanobang Jan 30, 2020
Quoting: buonoUnless you need the extra treads you could save a little and get the ryzen 5 3600x. In the UK they are just under £200 now, and should have comparable performance to the more expensive 3700x, particularly for gaming. Another saving you could make is to get an older generation motherboard, just check with the sellers that it has the latest uefi/bios so that the system will post.

I am currently running an 2700 on a asus prime x370, performance is very close to that of the later motherboards (but in my case the memory can't get higher than 3000Mhz). I picked up the motherboard for £80 from cclonline they flashed the board for free. The main advantage for the latest x570 motherboards is the pci 4, if this is of no interest to you then I suggest you consider the x470 motherboards.

I plan on upgrading in small steps now when budget allows :)
Hope you find this useful.

I have indeed found it useful, Buono! Thank you for taking the time to respond. :)

As it happens, as much as I can afford to, I'd like to get a pretty powerful motherboard, if only because I've been using a pretty outdated (though good) LGA 1050 board for my Intels. Like you, I've been slowly upgrading over the years ;) , so I'd like PCIe4, USB 3 (gen 2 if I can get it), etc. In particular I want a NVMe M2 socket, I have one in my laptop and whooooaaaa boy is it fast.
Nanobang Jan 30, 2020
Quoting: The_Aquabatsome b350/370 motherboards like mine can run pcie 4. but for what it's worth you'll only gain 2 or 3 fps, so it's not really important. If I were you I'll save those bucks for a better gpu instead. Or maybe for better ram, ram frequency matters a lot in AMD. Ram frequency in some cases can give better fps if the game is reliant on memory rather on gpu chip/core speed..

I suppose if you plan to keep your 1070 even with a 2600x you'll notice a lot of improvement I'm just guessestimating maybe 50%/40%, (at least) . When I switched from my old fx 6300 my FPS almost doubled (with the same gpu) but again a fx 6300 it's lot less powerful than your current intel.

I'll probs be getting an x570 mobo, not just for the PCIe4, but for all the little speed improvements likely to be on board: improved RAM frequency, USB3, NVMe M2, etc.

Your comment about how RAM frequency matters with AMD really jumped out at me. That's exactly the sort of insight I was hoping to get by posting this subject. I've got some decent Corsair sticks in there now, but I've no idea what their frequency is. I'll be taking a closer look now, so I'm glad you mentioned that.

I'm pleased, too, to hear your comment about how I might see a jump in FPS from my 1070. I just bought that last year and will be keeping it for the foreseeable future, so it's very exciting to think it'll see new life with my decision to get an AMD CPU! Thanks again! :)

Last edited by Nanobang on 31 January 2020 at 1:15 pm UTC
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