hedgehogpro

All I'm saying is that southern US is the least logical place of all, but I currently see no reason for them to move

If you can't immediately find one elsewhere, check the website every tuesday. That's when refurbished boards show up and we still get an am3+ every now and then.

I upgraded from an i7 4790k to a Ryzen 1700 last year and both CPU's have their significant strengths. The i7 had (when it released) the highest IPC of any CPU on the market. It paired very well with my GPU at the time (R9 290x) and performed SIGNIFICANTLY better than the FX 8320 I had before it. I paired it with an Asus Maximus VII Formula, a board that allowed me to overclock up to 4.8ghz with a Corsair H100i, but beyond that I hated that motherboard. Worst $350 I ever spent.
 
The i7 wasn't perfect, however. Even with a the H100i and at stock speeds, it ran MUCH hotter than I expected. Up to 70c at load. When overclocked I would see upwards of 85c, but the performance was spectacular. I did some video rendering, gaming, and programming. Multitasking is key for me and my three monitors, and the i7 did well.
 
Then I upgraded to the Ryzen and I was amazed. I hit 4ghz on all 8cores/16threads easily, 3000mhz on the ram, and never have seen it eclipse 65c. At 4ghz it matches my 4790k's IPC (at stock, the i7 IPC was better OC'd) and it doesn't seem to hinder the performance of my GTX 1080, especially not in CPU heavy games like Battlefield. Pair that with a 75 watt TDP and I couldn't be happier. Multitasking on the Ryzen is incredible and running emulators/virtual machines is a breeze. Also factor in the price of the Ryzen and it is hard to beat.
 
When you're talking sheer gaming performance, Intel still has the edge. Intel's incredible IPC is still alive and well, and it shows in games and any other software that doesn't utilize all of your CPU cores. Either way, you have to appreciate what AMD has accomplished. Had it not been for Ryzen, Intel would still be producing 4c/8t CPU's for over $300 at the minimum.