Ryzen 5 2600 or i5-8400

[Katarn]

Hello.

 

I am looking to buy a CPU. The title is pretty self-explanatory.

With that said, here are some of the specifics of what I need:

 

- Best bang for the buck - the i5 is $241 and the Ryzen 5 is $188 (should be able to get a mild discount on whichever I buy, but prices won't deviate too much);

- 3D and 2D (nod) animation, editing, and rendering - no crazy effects or over-the-top particles, but I do expect "production value" to increase with the improved system; programs are Anime Studio Pro and Blender 3D (if it matters)

- Gaming - 1080p, 60fps; AAA titles; I know benchmarks depend on the specific game, so I'm asking about the overall gaming performance, and -

- _{futureproofing} (I know this is hard to tell, but I just want to know it will not become irrelevant/dated fast ^{as did Kaby Lake});

- Best match for either 1060 6GB, RX 580, or 2060 (haven't decided on a GPU yet);

- I am not looking to overclock;

 

Note: The prices are shown in US Dollars, but they actually reflect the regional equivalents; that is why the numbers look so random.

I will update if I come across better offers/prices; for the record, Ryzen 7 1800 might be an option, although I can't find one at the moment.

 

Katarn

[Mister Woof]

2600.

 

Ryzen dominates the range and outside of unlocked Intel chips, nothing they have is worth it.

[glenalz81]

2600

[Tevildo]

7 minutes ago, Katarn said:

Hello.

 

I am looking to buy a CPU. The title is pretty self-explanatory.

With that said, here are some of the specifics of what I need:

 

- Best bang for the buck - the i5 is $241 and the Ryzen 5 is $188 (should be able to get a mild discount on whichever I buy, but prices won't deviate too much);

- 3D and 2D (nod) animation, editing, and rendering - no crazy effects or over-the-top particles, but I do expect "production value" to increase with the improved system; programs are Anime Studio Pro and Blender 3D (if it matters)

- Gaming - 1080p, 60fps; AAA titles; I know benchmarks depend on the specific game, so I'm asking about the overall gaming performance, and -

- _{futureproofing} (I know this is hard to tell, but I just want to know it will not become irrelevant/dated fast ^{as did Kaby Lake});

- Best match for either 1060 6GB, RX 580, or 2060 (haven't decided on a GPU yet);

- I am not looking to overclock;

 

Note: The prices are shown in US Dollars, but they actually reflect the regional equivalents; that is why the numbers look so random.

I will update if I come across better offers/prices; for the record, Ryzen 7 1800 might be an option, although I can't find one at the moment.

 

Katarn

I would go for a ryzen 5 2600 and a rtx 2060. Overclocking the ryzen would make it even better. Make sure to have fast ram speeds at those will influence your cpus performance.

[Emanbaird]

The Ryzen 5 2600 is a far superior processor in most workloads due in part to SMT,

It is also possible to overclock and it's relatively easy to get the single core performance on par with the 8400, also if im correct the equivalent AMD boards are also cheaper, and the stock cooler should be slightly better as well

[AMAL VIJAY]

11 minutes ago, Katarn said:

Hello.

 

I am looking to buy a CPU. The title is pretty self-explanatory.

With that said, here are some of the specifics of what I need:

 

- Best bang for the buck - the i5 is $241 and the Ryzen 5 is $188 (should be able to get a mild discount on whichever I buy, but prices won't deviate too much);

- 3D and 2D (nod) animation, editing, and rendering - no crazy effects or over-the-top particles, but I do expect "production value" to increase with the improved system; programs are Anime Studio Pro and Blender 3D (if it matters)

- Gaming - 1080p, 60fps; AAA titles; I know benchmarks depend on the specific game, so I'm asking about the overall gaming performance, and -

- _{futureproofing} (I know this is hard to tell, but I just want to know it will not become irrelevant/dated fast ^{as did Kaby Lake});

- Best match for either 1060 6GB, RX 580, or 2060 (haven't decided on a GPU yet);

- I am not looking to overclock;

 

Note: The prices are shown in US Dollars, but they actually reflect the regional equivalents; that is why the numbers look so random.

I will update if I come across better offers/prices; for the record, Ryzen 7 1800 might be an option, although I can't find one at the moment.

 

Katarn

Ryzen 5 2600 is the best bang for buck !

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, Katarn said:

- Best bang for the buck - the i5 is $241 and the Ryzen 5 is $188 (should be able to get a mild discount on whichever I buy, but prices won't deviate too much);

Get the Ryzen

Because you probalby can do something you can't with the i5:
UPGRADING the CPU with the next Generation.

 

With the Intel, you have to replace the Board. Upgrading is not economically viable.

 

3 hours ago, Katarn said:

- Best match for either 1060 6GB, RX 580, or 2060 (haven't decided on a GPU yet);

 

Look at VEGA 56 as well.

Though I'd get an RX580.

The 1060 will get raped by the 580 in the future because they won't get the best driver optimizations.

 

3 hours ago, Katarn said:

Note: The prices are shown in US Dollars, but they actually reflect the regional equivalents; that is why the numbers look so random.

Where you're actually from??

[Mister Woof]

11 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Get the Ryzen

Because you probalby can do something you can't with the i5:
UPGRADING the CPU with the next Generation.

 

With the Intel, you have to replace the Board. Upgrading is not economically viable.

 

Look at VEGA 56 as well.

Though I'd get an RX580.

The 1060 will get raped by the 580 in the future because they won't get the best driver optimizations.

 

Where you're actually from??

I feel the "upgrade path" angle is a little overblown, as is the criticism of Intel's "buy a new motherboard" scheme.

 

Generally, the philosophy is that it saves you money vs Intel by letting you "upgrade" (real meaning, tricking you into buying more, lower priced products).

 

But that's hardly ever true, unless you only ever upgrade once, and even then it's questionable.

 

Say in 2017 you got a B350 and a Ryzen 3 1200. That would have set you back around $70 for the motherboard and $130 for the chip. Then as what seems to typically happen (as evidenced by threads all over the internet with the AMD bios upgrade loaner kits), users generally seemed to get the Ryzen+ chip too. Say, a Ryzen 5 2600 for another $200. 

 

Okay, so at this point you are very close to a wash in total cost vs. if you just got an 8700k to begin with. Your first chip was inferior to the 8700k, and now your second chip is still inferior to the 8700k.

 

And okay, let's say you decide there's still room left in that AM4 tank for another Zen 3 upgrade. Spend another $300.

 

At this point, you've spent $630 on CPUs all just to dump onto a cheap $70 motherboard with questionable vrm and at this point missing modern features. You might be faster than the 8700k at this point. You might not, either. But what is true is that if you got the 8700k you would have had 2+ solid years of superior performance.

 

Let's say the original chip purchased was an R5 1600 or R7. There's even less reason to upgrade and even more wasted money.

 

Meanwhile, most guys with Z370s and 8700ks are totally sitting 9th gen out.

 

I feel there's definitely a place for AMD chips, but I cringe every time I hear "upgrade" path. It's almost never more worth it than having just got the best chip you could have in the first place, and if you did that, is not really worth it to upgrade unless it's more than 3+ generations ahead anyway.

 

If you get a Ryzen system and use it for 3-5 years without senseless incremental upgrades, which you absolutely can, then you have done it correctly.

 

My wife got an R5 1600+ mobo for $149 on BF. That was an absolute steal and we are both immensely satisfied with it.

 

But if I start throwing "CPU upgrades" at it, the value is lost.

 

Buy them as great deals, use them until they aren't good enough anymore for what you're doing, then reassess which team is on top and then buy their product, regardless if they are blue or red.

[Brent744]

14 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

I feel the "upgrade path" angle is a little overblown, as is the criticism of Intel's "buy a new motherboard" scheme.

 

Generally, the philosophy is that it saves you money vs Intel by letting you "upgrade" (real meaning, tricking you into buying more, lower priced products).

 

But that's hardly ever true, unless you only ever upgrade once, and even then it's questionable.

 

Say in 2017 you got a B350 and a Ryzen 3 1200. That would have set you back around $70 for the motherboard and $130 for the chip. Then as what seems to typically happen (as evidenced by threads all over the internet with the AMD bios upgrade loaner kits), users generally seemed to get the Ryzen+ chip too. Say, a Ryzen 5 2600 for another $200. 

 

Okay, so at this point you are very close to a wash in total cost vs. if you just got an 8700k to begin with. Your first chip was inferior to the 8700k, and now your second chip is still inferior to the 8700k.

 

And okay, let's say you decide there's still room left in that AM4 tank for another Zen 3 upgrade. Spend another $300.

 

At this point, you've spent $630 on CPUs all just to dump onto a cheap $70 motherboard with questionable vrm and at this point missing modern features. You might be faster than the 8700k at this point. You might not, either. But what is true is that if you got the 8700k you would have had 2+ solid years of superior performance.

 

Let's say the original chip purchased was an R5 1600 or R7. There's even less reason to upgrade and even more wasted money.

 

Meanwhile, most guys with Z370s and 8700ks are totally sitting 9th gen out.

 

I feel there's definitely a place for AMD chips, but I cringe every time I hear "upgrade" path. It's almost never more worth it than having just got the best chip you could have in the first place, and if you did that, is not really worth it to upgrade unless it's more than 3+ generations ahead anyway.

 

If you get a Ryzen system and use it for 3-5 years without senseless incremental upgrades, which you absolutely can, then you have done it correctly.

 

My wife got an R5 1600+ mobo for $149 on BF. That was an absolute steal and we are both immensely satisfied with it.

 

But if I start throwing "CPU upgrades" at it, the value is lost.

 

Buy them as great deals, use them until they aren't good enough anymore for what you're doing, then reassess which team is on top and then buy their product, regardless if they are blue or red.

Jesus this is so true!

 

I purchased a Ryzen 7 1700 the first week they hit the market. When the Zen+ released, I purchased the current Ryzen 5 2600 I have now, seeking improved performance. Which Zen+ did deliver. There's a chance I may pickup a Zen 3000 series chip depending on how they perform.

 

I was able to sell the R7 however, If I went with the Intel i7 8700k from the beginning, I likely wouldn't be looking for an upgrade all the time.

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

I feel the "upgrade path" angle is a little overblown, as is the criticism of Intel's "buy a new motherboard" scheme.

Oh yeah?!
If you could put an i7-8600 or i3-8100 in a 100 or 200 Series Chipset Board, that wouldn't be awesome?!
 

And Linus also has proven that its total bullshit...

 

The thing is that it will be really interesting with the 3000 series, wich would mean a new Socket on Intel's side.

 

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

But that's hardly ever true, unless you only ever upgrade once, and even then it's questionable.

Why defend Intel so much and the bullshit there?
Why not admit that AM4 will live longer than the Intel Sockets and that there might be an actual reason to upgrade.

 

For example, if you've gotten an i5-6400 and a higher end Board, for example this ASUS, wouldn't it be nice if you could put an i7-8700 in it?
Or even an i5-9600??

 

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

Say in 2017 you got a B350 and a Ryzen 3 1200. That would have set you back around $70 for the motherboard and $130 for the chip. Then as what seems to typically happen (as evidenced by threads all over the internet with the AMD bios upgrade loaner kits), users generally seemed to get the Ryzen+ chip too. Say, a Ryzen 5 2600 for another $200. 

That's not what I was really arguing for, see above. THAT is what I am arguing for...

meaning the 3000 Series. The difference of the 1k and 2k Series are there but its not that worth to upgrade to that, if you already have a decent 1k Series CPU (like I with my 1700x).

The 3k Series is different and also likely to run on many AM4 Boards!

 

Now look at Intel.

Lets say you didn't have much money.

And wanted a decent System.

And gotten a Pentium G4400.

And then save up for a "real CPU".

 

Then you have the money.

And can throw anything in the trash because the 8k Series is incompatible with your (good quality, ~150€) Board.

And you have to either throw away the Board (or sell it), get a new one and the 8k Series Chip.

 

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

But if I start throwing "CPU upgrades" at it, the value is lost.

I really don't get, what the hell you're arguing for, SRYSLY, that's some bullshit arguments on your side.

 

What if you've gotten a 150€ Board?
What if you've gotten a 250€ Board?

Why argue with a "cheap 70€ Board"??

 

 

This Board doesn't look too shitty to me:

https://geizhals.de/asrock-fatal1ty-ab350-gaming-k4-90-mxb530-a0uayz-a1582196.html?hloc=at&hloc=de&hloc=eu&hloc=pl&hloc=uk

 

Your argument just doesn't make much sense at all...

 

Because you are _FORCED_ to upgrade the Board for no reason with "Team Blue", even if you've gotten a good qualty, 150€ Board.

 

On the other Side, you can just drop in a 3k Series Chip.

The 2k Series was an incremental improvement that brought a bit more performance (IIRC about 10-15%) and better Memory Compatibility.

 

NOBODY here, except you, argues upgrading from 1k to 2k Series...

 

[Mister Woof]

You don't need to, that's the point. The whole argument of upgrade path is dumb no matter what "side" you are on.

 

There aren't droves of people upgrading from 4790ks, 6700ks, 7700ks, to 8700k or 9900ks....

 

Not because the motherboard doesn't support them, but because there's no need to. The returns are so minimal Skylake and up it's generally pointless. Even 4 year old Haswell isn't worth upgrading for most people.

 

Buy once cry once.

 

There isn't enough difference between an 1800x and a 2700x to warrant the upgrade. It's barely double digit difference, if that. Throwing money away.

 

You might get enough out of Zen2 to make an upgrade meaningful, but again, you are losing newer features you'd be getting in newer motherboards, such as support for better, faster, more abundant ram.

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Brent744 said:

Jesus this is so true!

No, its total horse shit.

As there is no real reason to upgrade from 1k to 2k Series, if we're talking about 6-8 Cores. You just could sit it out, if you wanted to and drop in the next generation into the same Board.

With Intel, you get 2 Generations and that's it.

If your CPU dies (because OC), you can throw your Board away as it makes no sense to replace an i5-7600 with anything. The CPUs are just too expensive.

2 hours ago, Brent744 said:

I purchased a Ryzen 7 1700 the first week they hit the market. When the Zen+ released, I purchased the current Ryzen 5 2600 I have now, seeking improved performance.

Sorry, but why?!
WHY???

It only a slight improvement, if at all.

The 2600x maybe, because of the much higher clocks...

 

I don't see a real need for that.

 

And the argument I was making is upcoming CPUs also run, with the other Side it wouldn't be the case and they would be incompatible...

 

2 hours ago, Brent744 said:

There's a chance I may pickup a Zen 3000 series chip depending on how they perform.

...and that is the real thing to come and the interesting stuff, if there is a BIOS update..

 

 

[Stefan Payne]

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

You don't need to, that's the point. The whole argument of upgrade path is dumb no matter what "side" you are on.

That's just not true, depending on the Plattform and what we are talking about...

 

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

There aren't droves of people upgrading from 4790ks, 6700ks, 7700ks, to 8700k or 9900ks....

Yeah and those are the only CPUs for that Plattform, right??

What about the i3 users?
What about the Pentium Users?
What about the Celeron Users?!

What about the i5 Users??
Especially 4-7k (4 Core, 4 Threads)

THOSE might be the ones looking for a new CPU. And we also have a ton of those users.

 

But they can't upgrade because they have to throw away their Board as well.

 

With a good Socket Compatibility, those users might drop in a newer i5 or even i7 - but can't.

As it makes more sense to throw away the 100 or 200 series Board and throw away your i3 and get something else on a different plattform.

You can not upgrade the CPU in any way that makes sense. Neither new, nor used (150€ for a 4 Core CPU? SRYSLY?!)

 

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

Not because the motherboard doesn't support them, but because there's no need to.

No, because the Motherboard doesn't support it.

2C/4T CPUs are just shit.

Upgrading an i3-6100 in a way that makes sense not possible.

 

Getting a Ryzen 1200 or whatever and use that, put in a 3000 Series is possible, if you got yourself a good supported Board.

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

The returns are so minimal Skylake and up it's generally pointless. Even 4 year old Haswell isn't worth upgrading for most people.

That's your oppionion, its  not a fact.

Fact is that there are games that heavily use more than 4 Cores and perform badly on 4 Core CPUs, especially if we talk about 4C/4T.

And you want to upgrade - but you can't, because your plattform isn't supported no more and the prices are rediculous...

 

A Ryzen with 4Cores (and up to 8 Threads) is around 100€

On those older PLattforms 4C/8T CPUs are 250€+...

Yeah, right that makes sense...

 

 

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

There isn't enough difference between an 1800x and a 2700x to warrant the upgrade. It's barely double digit difference, if that. Throwing money away.

Dude, nobody is arguing about that. 

Only you are.

 

What I'm arguing for is that the Plattform is supported for a longer time and you can drop in CPUs you don't even know about yet!

 

With Intel you get your two generations, if you're lucky and then the next thing is not compatible. They don't care about that, even if it would technically be possible like LGA1151 as Linus has proven!

At least 7k and 8k on one Board!

6 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

You might get enough out of Zen2 to make an upgrade meaningful, but again, you are losing newer features you'd be getting in newer motherboards, such as support for better, faster, more abundant ram.

Oh and what "Newer Features" in newer Motherboards are you talking about?!
There is literally nothing in the last couple of years.

USB 3.1 gen 2 is only interesting for a small minority of people.

PCIe 4.0 might be interesting, but for most people its also not that interesting.

Except that, what are you talking about?!

 

 

Your Problem is that you're arguing exclusively with Highest End CPUs on the Plattform - wich is cherry picking.

 

You don't see that people might not have the Money (at the time) for those Chips and get a lower end one - like an i3 at most or a Celeron, Pentium.

And when those people have the money for a good CPU they can throw away their shit because their Plattform isn't supported with new CPUs and they have to throw away their Board...

 

So yes, Upgrading is a viable Argument, if we're talking about multiple Generations and many years...

Just imagine you could throw in a 6 Core CPU in your LGA1150 Board.

 

That's what's possible on AMD Side.

As the 3000 series will allow up to 16 Cores.

[Mister Woof]

17 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

That's just not true, depending on the Plattform and what we are talking about...

 

Yeah and those are the only CPUs for that Plattform, right??

What about the i3 users?
What about the Pentium Users?
What about the Celeron Users?!

What about the i5 Users??
Especially 4-7k (4 Core, 4 Threads)

THOSE might be the ones looking for a new CPU. And we also have a ton of those users.

 

But they can't upgrade because they have to throw away their Board as well.

 

With a good Socket Compatibility, those users might drop in a newer i5 or even i7 - but can't.

As it makes more sense to throw away the 100 or 200 series Board and throw away your i3 and get something else on a different plattform.

You can not upgrade the CPU in any way that makes sense. Neither new, nor used (150€ for a 4 Core CPU? SRYSLY?!)

 

No, because the Motherboard doesn't support it.

2C/4T CPUs are just shit.

Upgrading an i3-6100 in a way that makes sense not possible.

 

Getting a Ryzen 1200 or whatever and use that, put in a 3000 Series is possible, if you got yourself a good supported Board.

That's your oppionion, its  not a fact.

Fact is that there are games that heavily use more than 4 Cores and perform badly on 4 Core CPUs, especially if we talk about 4C/4T.

And you want to upgrade - but you can't, because your plattform isn't supported no more and the prices are rediculous...

 

A Ryzen with 4Cores (and up to 8 Threads) is around 100€

On those older PLattforms 4C/8T CPUs are 250€+...

Yeah, right that makes sense...

 

 

Dude, nobody is arguing about that. 

Only you are.

 

What I'm arguing for is that the Plattform is supported for a longer time and you can drop in CPUs you don't even know about yet!

 

With Intel you get your two generations, if you're lucky and then the next thing is not compatible. They don't care about that, even if it would technically be possible like LGA1151 as Linus has proven!

At least 7k and 8k on one Board!

Oh and what "Newer Features" in newer Motherboards are you talking about?!
There is literally nothing in the last couple of years.

USB 3.1 gen 2 is only interesting for a small minority of people.

PCIe 4.0 might be interesting, but for most people its also not that interesting.

Except that, what are you talking about?!

 

 

Your Problem is that you're arguing exclusively with Highest End CPUs on the Plattform - wich is cherry picking.

 

You don't see that people might not have the Money (at the time) for those Chips and get a lower end one - like an i3 at most or a Celeron, Pentium.

And when those people have the money for a good CPU they can throw away their shit because their Plattform isn't supported with new CPUs and they have to throw away their Board...

 

So yes, Upgrading is a viable Argument, if we're talking about multiple Generations and many years...

Just imagine you could throw in a 6 Core CPU in your LGA1150 Board.

 

That's what's possible on AMD Side.

As the 3000 series will allow up to 16 Cores.

 

People who buy i3s and Ryzen 3s don't suddenly need 16 cores. There's no world where people whose workloads demand high core counts would have purchased i3s or Ryzen 3s in the first place.

 

And I fully understand Intel limitations on upgrade "path", but it seems you missed my point. That's not the REASON people aren't upgrading from unlocked Skylake(or even Sandy bridge or Haswell) i7s. It's because there isn't very much benefit in doing so, even if they could. I can put a 9700k or 9900k in my system, but there is essentially no benefit that warrants the $500 pricetag.

 

We will have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid.

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

People who buy i3s and Ryzen 3s don't suddenly need 16 cores. There's no world where people whose workloads demand high core counts would have purchased i3s or Ryzen 3s in the first place.

WTF?!
SRYSLY?!

 

That's a really arrogant way to look at things. I'm pretty speechless...

 

Because you're essentially saying that poorer People shouldn't be able to upgrade their systems and don't deserve decent Hardwares, if they have to save money for a CPU.

 

And they should waste money for Motherboards...

 

 

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

And I fully understand Intel limitations on upgrade "path", but it seems you missed my point.

No, your arguments make no sense.

How can you think that its not an advantage to be able to upgrade 2, 3 years later?!

We're not arguing about the next iteration, we're arguing stuff like Haswell -> Coffee Lake.

Meaning a Shrink AND doubling of the Cores. Not just getting every generation or stuff like that.

 

You kinda seem to miss the point or the longivety...

 

It was possible back in the day as well.

 

I'M arguing for putting a 1GHz Pentium 3 in a good quality, later ASUS P2B that you got with a Celeron 300(A).

You're arguing that you can upgrade the Motherboard through the line and that its not an issue and that you can live with the Celeron 300A for years and if you can't afford the new Board, you don't deserve it...

 

That shit that there are only 2 "Generation" per Socket is a new thing, it wasn't the case back then!

You even could put a 766MHz Celeron in some i440LX Boards and thus upgrade either the same Mendochino Celeron or even upgrade the garbage Covington shit with a new CPU years later.

And 2-3 Shrinks as well.

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

That's not the REASON people aren't upgrading from unlocked Skylake(or even Sandy bridge or Haswell) i7s. It's because there isn't very much benefit in doing so, even if they could.

As said, that's bullshit and too broad generalization.

And there are some reasons you want to be able to upgrade for various reasons.

ANd not beeing able to is a serious disadvantage. 

Also the question from @Katarn is about a lower end, Sub 200€ CPU anyway...

 

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

I can put a 9700k or 9900k in my system, but there is essentially no benefit that warrants the $500 pricetag.

Yeah, if we're talking about Haswell users beeing able to upgrade to a 6 Core without swapping the Board, that's something many people would actually do if they could. 

But replacing a Motherboard is a big hurdle, for many reasons.

 

a) it takes a ton of time, if you're not experienced and/or want to do it well, its an hour or two of work.

b) You need to reinstall Windows! Especially if you upgraded from a Windows 7 Key like many people did.

The Win7 Key works. But only for THAT Motherboard. If you replace it -> not activated.

Until you reinstall Windows! 

It doesn't have to be on the same disk, you can actually use a different Harddrive/SSD and do it there but its still a thing you have to do. Or live with the "not activated" stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

We will have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid.

No, you're missing the point I was making and defending an indefensible position...

YOU think about the tiny steps that were done in the last couple of years but forgetting the huge steps that were done in the 90s and that you actually could upgrade the PC with various way faster products that were not available when you purchased the system.

 

For example you could replace a 200-300MHz CPU with a 900MHz CPU just a couple of years later on the same Motherboard...

 

Sometimes there were Problems with the Upgrade path but not out of malice or no technical reason whatsoever like today, where you just can't put a Core i3 6100 in a 300 Series Board or an 8k Series CPU in a non 300 Series Board.

 

Another Option would have been, if you got the right board and got lucky, to replace your 90MHz Pentium with a 300MHz or even 400MHz K6-2 (wich interprets the 2.0x as 6.0x), you only need a Board wich supports 2,2-2,4V VCore...

And that's a god darn advantage and not "useless" as you claim!

Because we are not at the babysteps from Nehalem to Skylake and Kabylake!

There's actually something happening again and th Core Count of CPUs will increase again - as did the performance (and clockrate) of CPUs back in the day...

 

Or just look at the K8 (Socket 939) Boards:
You could start with a 1,8GHz Single Core Athlon 64 3000+ and end up with a dual Core Athlon X2/4800 at 2.4GHz.

 

On AM2 it was rare to be able to put a Phenom X4 into your AM2 Board as the BIOS Support was lacking and rare...

BUT: AM3+ was at least downwards compatible - meaning you could put a Phenom X4/955BE in an AM3+ Board.

Though that's not that beneficial, it "just" allows a smoother upgrade path...

 

so yeah, claiming that beeing able to upgrade years later with a way more powerful CPU is just total nonsense.

How can you come up with that?!

[Mister Woof]

You're missing the entire point. The days of giant leaps in generational performance is long gone.

 

Now it's lower power and more cores.

 

Ryzen as is is still just playing catch-up with intel. Zen 2 might be good, it might be Radeon 7 too.

 

More cores != better performance in most general tasks, and scale horribly and even confuse operating systems.

 

You would be doing people with smaller budgets a DISSERVICE by telling them to upgrade to higher core count chips because they will get almost nothing out of them. And generally speaking, in most workloads, there was not much difference between Phenom and FX, Sandy bridge to uh coffeelake, and Ryzen 1000 and 2000.

 

Better to tell them to redirect budgets to high speed storage or GPUs.

 

Either way, I'm done arguing with you on this.

 

Enjoy upgrading every year.

 

I made the mistake of buying an FX-6300 a few years back. If I spent just a tiny bit more on an i7-2600k then, I'd STILL BE USING IT NOW.

 

That said, I didn't. So I upgraded.

 

I've been on my 8700k since launch and haven't spent a dime on CPU upgrades meanwhile my AMD buddies are already on #2 and planning on #3. And they still have worse performance.

 

Hopefully Zen 2 is awesome and beats my 8700k at gaming finally. But then, it will be three years old at that point and I can certainly accept that loss as fair game.

[Katarn]

Okay, so, at this point I am marginally more certain of what my choice will be.

 

- According to this https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-8400-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-2600/3939vs3955, the Ryzen seems to be vastly superior in some categories, and the i5 seems only sightly superior in others. This would make the Ryzen the better pick (especially as it is less expensive as well). Is this assumption correct?

 

- However, the person for whom this computer is being built prefers Intel for reasons of familiarity and convenience (as in Intel CPU would be more convenient to use). Is it true that Intel is more "user-friendly"?

 

- With that said, I will probably also be upgrading my own i5-7400 to an 8400 as well, which leads me to ask: is the i5-8400 a good upgrade? (keep in mind, these are two different computers; _{or should I just make a new thread about that?})

 

- @Plutosaurus

I cannot get an i7 partly because it is above the budget, and partly because it would be overkill for the computer's purpose.

But - since you do recommend an i7, and the i5-8400 is more or less equal to the i7-7700, does that mean that the i5-8400 is the optimal CPU to get?

Will 16GB DDR4 2133 RAM bottleneck the i5-8400 (and if so, by ~ how much)?

 

- @Stefan Payne

Overclocking is not a point of interest. Can the R5 2600 match the i5 without overclocking?

How much of an advantage does the R5 have in animation and gaming (separately) with its extra threads and superior multi-core performance?

Also, I would rather not get the RX 580 for the reason that AMD cards do not work well with AMD GPUs; at least not the last time I checked.

Is $437 too much for an RTX 2060 OC Gigabyte Windforce 2X? (this is the cheapest one I could find)

[Mister Woof]

The 2600 is better than the 8400 for the price - Intel chips aren't worth it unless you want to overclock imo.

 

Keep in mind the i7-7700k, even not OC, is faster than the regular i7-7700. The nonk boosts to 4.2, the k boosts to 4.5.

 

The 8400 will typically hang around 3.8ghz and the 2600 is about the same. IPC wise they are very similar. They will give similar results in gaming with a very slight edge to the 8400, but that vanishes with a mild OC on the 2600. The 2600 is better at heavily threaded tasks because of SMT.

 

Neither one is going to easily get you very high fps results, but both will definitely give you 60fps+ at all resolution that your GPU is capable of.

 

As far as "user friendly" goes, amd specifically setting up memory, is a bit more minutae than Intel.

 

But once you've got it going, it's fine.

 

Also, 580 > 1060 unless all you play is gtav

[pas008]

ryzen for your workloads no overclocking variable involved too

if you were strictly gaming at 1080p i'd say intel but you arent so ryzen

 

and if you get ryzen and upgrade resolution you will be fine even more in gaming

 

dont listen to this shit on upgrade ability unless you do upgrade often which many dont and if they do its usually gpu and ram wise

 

and stefans claim of amd rx 580 still has some fine wine left is unknown, its always unknown for most part

 

but i'd look at rx580 over 1060 just if you want to save and get same performance like cpu wise above all depends on what programs you use and what exceeds in that area

if you can swing 2060 do that if you can

 

[Brent744]

On 2/8/2019 at 10:57 AM, Stefan Payne said:

No, its total horse shit.

As there is no real reason to upgrade from 1k to 2k Series, if we're talking about 6-8 Cores. You just could sit it out, if you wanted to and drop in the next generation into the same Board.

With Intel, you get 2 Generations and that's it.

If your CPU dies (because OC), you can throw your Board away as it makes no sense to replace an i5-7600 with anything. The CPUs are just too expensive.

Sorry, but why?!
WHY???

It only a slight improvement, if at all.

The 2600x maybe, because of the much higher clocks...

 

I don't see a real need for that.

 

And the argument I was making is upcoming CPUs also run, with the other Side it wouldn't be the case and they would be incompatible...

 

...and that is the real thing to come and the interesting stuff, if there is a BIOS update..

 

 

Actually I gained about 20% better performance switching from R7 1700 to R5 2600. Did you personally own and benchmark both cpu's? Because I did so I am fully aware of the performance difference. When it comes to gaming half the cores in the 1700 were sitting idle so I went with a cpu which had higher clocks.

When testing the 1700 at stock, only two cores would ever boost to 3.7 under load. When testing the 2600 at stock, three cores would boost to 4199 MHz.

[Stefan Payne]

6 hours ago, Brent744 said:

Actually I gained about 20% better performance switching from R7 1700 to R5 2600.

That was more or less the Argument I was making...

The bullshit is the Part that it wouldn't be an advantage to just be able to replace the old CPU without a new motherboard and just a BIOS Update, with the new CPU that we don't know of yet and that its better than the old one and that it doesn't matter if you'd have to replace the Motherboard...

 

I think we misunderstood each other here, @Plutosaurus is here claiming that it doesn't matter that you can put a newer CPU in your motherboard, without the need to replace it.

If you want to, that's fine. But with "the other Side", you have to. And there is no backward compatibility with the 3000 series either.

ie: You have a Z170 higher end Board with an i5-6500 and want to upgrade to 6 Cores - wich you just can't...

 

Here what he wrote, that really makes no sense...

On 2/8/2019 at 12:53 PM, Plutosaurus said:

I feel the "upgrade path" angle is a little overblown, as is the criticism of Intel's "buy a new motherboard" scheme.

  

Generally, the philosophy is that it saves you money vs Intel by letting you "upgrade" (real meaning, tricking you into buying more, lower priced products).

_That_ just does not make any sense...

 

Having a long(er) lived Plattform is absolutely an advantage and a lifetime of around 5 Years isn't 

[Mister Woof]

8 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

That was more or less the Argument I was making...

The bullshit is the Part that it wouldn't be an advantage to just be able to replace the old CPU without a new motherboard and just a BIOS Update, with the new CPU that we don't know of yet and that its better than the old one and that it doesn't matter if you'd have to replace the Motherboard...

 

I think we misunderstood each other here, @Plutosaurus is here claiming that it doesn't matter that you can put a newer CPU in your motherboard, without the need to replace it.

If you want to, that's fine. But with "the other Side", you have to. And there is no backward compatibility with the 3000 series either.

ie: You have a Z170 higher end Board with an i5-6500 and want to upgrade to 6 Cores - wich you just can't...

 

Here what he wrote, that really makes no sense...

_That_ just does not make any sense...

 

Having a long(er) lived Plattform is absolutely an advantage and a lifetime of around 5 Years isn't 

No, what I was saying was buy once cry once. It applies to both platforms. If you got the 1800x (or OCd your 1700 to match, which according many outlets is the right way to go) on day 1, there is very little gain in going to a 2700x. The benchmarks prove it.

 

You are also comparing two different class of cpus; at stock speeds, the top end R5 1600x would have given this guy better gaming performance than the regular 1700 anyway. That was his mistake.

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3287-amd-r7-2700-and-2700x-review-game-streaming-cpu-benchmarks-memory/page-3

 

https://www.techspot.com/amp/review/1613-amd-ryzen-2700x-2600x/page3.html

 

Overall, there is very little point to upgrading from 1800x (or 1600 or 1700 or 1700x) to 2700x. There is close to +- 10% gain at best when comparing same core layout cpus. I have no clue where you are getting 20% from.

 

 

As for Ryzen 1000/2000 to Ryzen 3000....

 

You will be encountering 3 issues:

 

1. Using and old boards with perhaps dubious power delivery may not work that well on 12 and 16 core chips.

2. You will lose out on higher RAM speed compatibility.

3. It wouldn't be surprising to see a new AM4+ designation for the higher end 3000 chips, given AMDs history with "+" sockets. I could see only some boards getting AM4+ updates.

 

All three of those point to wanting a new board for enthusiast considering upgrading to Zen2 anyway.

 

This is, of course, guesswork, but nowhere near as much guesswork that would have been needed to use "upgrade path" as a reason to buy zen1 in 2017. 

 

Over the past 10 years upgrade path has been a joke.

 

Phenom to FX?

 

Ryzen 1000 to 2000?

 

Sandy bridge to ivy bridge?

 

Skylake to Kabylake?

 

Etc.

 

Only worthwhile to upgrade within two generations of you just love tinkering. But absolute performance hasn't been worth it.

 

 

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

Over the past 10 years upgrade path has been a joke.

And because it was bad over the last 10 Years, it has to be bad forever?!

Sorry, that logic is bullshit.

I also showed you some nice Upgrade Paths: Pentium 90 -> K6-400MHz (6x66MHz).

 

FX wasn't very successful, so they scrapped the Plans and only concentrated on the APUs (wich were pretty nice in the end, especially Carrizo. I'd like to see that with a fixed Northbridge part. That would have brought up to 30% more performance at the same clock or even more than that).

And also bet the rest on ZEN.

 

Now Zen and AM4 is out, AMD mentioned that AM4 will live through 2020:

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020

So your claim that upgrading is overrated doesn't hold up with what we know right now.

 

How can you claim that shit?!
 

To be blunt:
It looks to me like you wanted to promote the Intel Side and claim that the Upgrade Path is not important, that its not important to put a new, shrinked generation inside the Socket.

IF I'm going to get Ryzen 2, I don't need no new Board (Probably)...

 

IF YOU want to get the successor to the 9k Series, you need a new Board.

[ch3w2oy]

8700K 6c/12t

$204.99 motherboard (ROG Strix) + $361.10 6c/12t

Oh WAIT you need a cooler. Add $50.

Total: $616.09

 

2600 6c/12t

$186.59 motherboard (ROG Strix) + $164.99 6c/12t

No cooler

Total: $351.58

 

That leaves over $250 ($264.51)

Sell the 2600 for $75-100, let's just say $75.

 

Now you have $339.51 to spend on a 3600(X) 8c/16t (hopefully) chip that's hopefully faster than an 8700K.

 

Now, where is money/value lost?

[Mister Woof]

37 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

And because it was bad over the last 10 Years, it has to be bad forever?!

Sorry, that logic is bullshit.

I also showed you some nice Upgrade Paths: Pentium 90 -> K6-400MHz (6x66MHz).

 

FX wasn't very successful, so they scrapped the Plans and only concentrated on the APUs (wich were pretty nice in the end, especially Carrizo. I'd like to see that with a fixed Northbridge part. That would have brought up to 30% more performance at the same clock or even more than that).

And also bet the rest on ZEN.

 

Now Zen and AM4 is out, AMD mentioned that AM4 will live through 2020:

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020

So your claim that upgrading is overrated doesn't hold up with what we know right now.

 

How can you claim that shit?!
 

To be blunt:
It looks to me like you wanted to promote the Intel Side and claim that the Upgrade Path is not important, that its not important to put a new, shrinked generation inside the Socket.

IF I'm going to get Ryzen 2, I don't need no new Board (Probably)...

 

IF YOU want to get the successor to the 9k Series, you need a new Board.

 

Except for the guy who specifically upgraded from 1st gen to 2nd gen in this thread. I guess he doesn't exist.

All I have to say is that you sound like a very upset individual. I don't know why you have to be so hostile towards everything I say, despite me presenting evidence to support my claim.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, and so I am I. I am done, and you are going on ignore.