With next gen around the corner, what's the point on buying CPUs today for gaming?

[Alexroyer]

I bought recently a new CPU to leave my old i5-2500, and I was thinking to acquire the best processor for gaming on ultra at 60fps minimum (more I hope) with next gen games.

 

But I truly didn't know where to invest my money to guarantee the high framerate in ultra with what is today in stores. I may sound exaggerated, but nobody knows how future games will be developed, and how ambitious they will be.

 

I'm not thinking in games with a linear story scripted and simple worlds like next Wolfenstein.

I'm talking about Grand Theft Auto VI, The Elder Scroll VI, Fallout V, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Red Dead Redemption 2, new Assasin's Creed or Far Cry.

 

These games are nuclear bombs for CPUs to handle at 60 frames on ultra.

Also we must consider that next gen consoles like PS5, is confirmed that will be mount new Ryzen 7, that means 8 cores with 16 threads (we don't know about clock speed, but logic says that will be a Ryzen 7 underclocked to keep stable temperatures)

 

So, how confident are you guys that today majority of  CPUs will handle next gen games at the standard of 60 frames per second from PC gaming?

 

There were moments that I convinced myself that I was way overthinking too much about this, and that I would be safe on next gen games with any new Ryzen 3000 series. But THESE GUYS of Digital Foundry brought back all my fears!!

If you don't know the Digital Foundry channel, they are a very professional group that analyzes consoles and PC components and its performance on games very meticulously, they work with Eurogamer UK, one of the most important videogame websites in Europe.

 

The young man upgraded from Ryzen 1700X to Ryzen 3900X, and hear what they say from minute 7:00 to 9:30

This video is meant to be like a podcast or something, with the first impressions of Ryzen 3900X.

PLEASE, before posting some answer see the section from the video I mention!

 

 

[WereCatf]

15 minutes ago, Alexroyer said:

With next gen around the corner

The next gen is LITERALLY ALWAYS around the corner.

[Origami Cactus]

IMO 6-core should still be enough for for next gen games, not all, but like 90% of them. 60fps should still be doable with a 4-core/8thread, maybe not in massive openworlds.

 

But yes if you want to be extra secure then get a 3700x, then you have similar hardware to the ps5 and xbox next gen, so it should be optimized for it.

 

But there is always something new coming!

[Caennanu]

To be honest, what you are talking about here could be categorized as philosophy. 

You're talking about future proofing what you are buying now. But not knowing what is around the corner.

It is and will be an endless discussion that only time can answer. The only thing you CAN do is live now and make the best decision you have with the facts currently presented to you.

 

I bought my 1700 because i needed an update, came across some money and wasn't too much afraid of being an early adopter. Did i take a risk? Yes, did it pay off? In my eyes yes.

 

Clue of the story? Don't worry too much about the future, else you'll end up living in the past.

[Alexroyer]

37 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

To be honest, what you are talking about here could be categorized as philosophy. 

You're talking about future proofing what you are buying now. But not knowing what is around the corner.

It is and will be an endless discussion that only time can answer. The only thing you CAN do is live now and make the best decision you have with the facts currently presented to you.

 

I bought my 1700 because i needed an update, came across some money and wasn't too much afraid of being an early adopter. Did i take a risk? Yes, did it pay off? In my eyes yes.

 

Clue of the story? Don't worry too much about the future, else you'll end up living in the past.

How not worry counting 1 year and a half for new consoles that build mid tier CPUs like Ryzen 7 with 8 c / 16 t?

 

I know PS4 is built on 8 cores too, but it wasn't until now, the end of the generation that games actually uses that power for open games. I'm talking about Ubisoft games for example.

 

We are waiting almost 2 years for new consoles, what will Ubisoft games be like in 4 years in consoles? Ultra well developed to use 16 threads? That's actually not a standard in PC. And remember, consoles always aim for 30fps, PC needs more speed clock to move the same game at 60 frames.

 

I don't think this approach to philosophy or playing oracle, I think that reality today is that 4 cores and 4 threads is not enough to play at solid 60fps (I know because I have it), and in some very demanding games 6 aren't enough either.

 

So I don't think it's crazy that next gen console will push that limit to at least, very well use of multithreading, thing that doesn't have the i7 from 9th generation.

[loki993]

If you want to be able to play new games at the absolute highest settings at the highest framerates you will be upgrading every year or two...Period. There is no way to future proof whatever you buy. Also they sort of cherrypicked two situations in games that displayed poor frame results....yes we know running ray tracing destroys frames and if you saw most of the reviews when the RTX cards came out people said it really wasn't worth it.

 

For the most part though your graphics card is going to play a much larger role then your CPU will, as we all know, so something like even a 3600 and definitely 3700 should be able to keep up with graphics cards for a few years at least. 

 

Also they act like a 20 percent boost in performance isnt a big deal? Especially with how close that 20 percent increase put the chips against intel offerings its a huge deal. 

 

Just because the consoles have the threads doesn't mean they will use them and again you are looking at it wrong...it's about the graphics card...not the CPU...regardless of how many threads the console have to use they will always be limited by their graphics cards....

[Alexroyer]

Any more thoughts on this?

[caldrin]

You will never really be able to keep up top of the curve unless you are willing to upgrade to the top end hardware as soon as its released..

 

Generally I think a top end CPU will be good for like 4 years or a few generational advances.. unless of course there is some kind of super special advance in hardware.

 

Graphics cards are slightly different you can maybe get away with missing out on one generation at most.

 

For instance I picked up an Nvidia 1080ti as soon as it was available.. it out performed everything that came before it. Yet I guess about a year later nivida release the 2080ti that again smacks over everything... The 1080ti can still pull its weight but no where near the 2080ti.. but its still a great card for now.. but the next generation cards that will be a different story games will have moved on and will support the latest graphics tweaks like ray tracing and so on so it will be time to upgrade.. 

My CPU was a Intel i7 5820k that I had overclocked to 4.3ghz.. now this lasted me a hell of lot longer and only recently did i really see it holding me back.

 

So yeah CPU wise buying the best now will mean its gonna be good for years to come.. unless there are massive changes of course but the main part for performance in most games is the graphics card.. At the moment the changes every year when it comes to those are massive so look at upgrades every few years. 


 

[Alexroyer]

1 hour ago, caldrin said:

You will never really be able to keep up top of the curve unless you are willing to upgrade to the top end hardware as soon as its released..

 

Generally I think a top end CPU will be good for like 4 years or a few generational advances.. unless of course there is some kind of super special advance in hardware.

 

Graphics cards are slightly different you can maybe get away with missing out on one generation at most.

 

For instance I picked up an Nvidia 1080ti as soon as it was available.. it out performed everything that came before it. Yet I guess about a year later nivida release the 2080ti that again smacks over everything... The 1080ti can still pull its weight but no where near the 2080ti.. but its still a great card for now.. but the next generation cards that will be a different story games will have moved on and will support the latest graphics tweaks like ray tracing and so on so it will be time to upgrade.. 

My CPU was a Intel i7 5820k that I had overclocked to 4.3ghz.. now this lasted me a hell of lot longer and only recently did i really see it holding me back.

 

So yeah CPU wise buying the best now will mean its gonna be good for years to come.. unless there are massive changes of course but the main part for performance in most games is the graphics card.. At the moment the changes every year when it comes to those are massive so look at upgrades every few years.
 

17

What is a top end CPU that is good for 4-5 years in your opinion?

 

Because what is happening is, that everybody is buying mid-end CPUs like Ryzen 2600X, 2700X and things a bit better like 3600.

 

I can imagine CPUs like 3700 or better running on high games for 4-5 years, but I have a lot of doubts about those mid-end CPU's. And nobody buys a PC to play at 30fps.

 

I think this will be a serious issue for many gamers that goes cheap on CPUs. In general, if you have a good CPU and an old GPU, you can play games on low but at 60fps, at 720p at worse. But if you have a bad CPU, those frames will dance like they are having a rave.

[caldrin]

On 8/13/2019 at 3:28 PM, Alexroyer said:

What is a top end CPU that is good for 4-5 years in your opinion?

 

Because what is happening is, that everybody is buying mid-end CPUs like Ryzen 2600X, 2700X and things a bit better like 3600.

 

I can imagine CPUs like 3700 or better running on high games for 4-5 years, but I have a lot of doubts about those mid-end CPU's. And nobody buys a PC to play at 30fps.

 

I think this will be a serious issue for many gamers that goes cheap on CPUs. In general, if you have a good CPU and an old GPU, you can play games on low but at 60fps, at 720p at worse. But if you have a bad CPU, those frames will dance like they are having a rave.

I was thinking 3700x + when it comes to AMD and 9700k + for Intel.. They should be good for gaming for some time or at least we would hope so haha.. otherwise we better start looking at upgrading CPUs every few years a well haha

 

[Mathieu9836]

After looking at the video, i'm asking myself what they were expecting from going to a 3900x from a 1700x? Going from 60 to 120FPS!? It's not a graphics card, it's a CPU... The 3700X will be way more then you need to handle games for the next 5 years at 1440 and 4K.

[G00fySmiley]

On 8/12/2019 at 7:27 AM, Alexroyer said:

I bought recently a new CPU to leave my old i5-2500, and I was thinking to acquire the best processor for gaming on ultra at 60fps minimum (more I hope) with next gen games.

 

But I truly didn't know where to invest my money to guarantee the high framerate in ultra with what is today in stores. I may sound exaggerated, but nobody knows how future games will be developed, and how ambitious they will be.

 

I'm not thinking in games with a linear story scripted and simple worlds like next Wolfenstein.

I'm talking about Grand Theft Auto VI, The Elder Scroll VI, Fallout V, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Red Dead Redemption 2, new Assasin's Creed or Far Cry.

 

These games are nuclear bombs for CPUs to handle at 60 frames on ultra.

Also we must consider that next gen consoles like PS5, is confirmed that will be mount new Ryzen 7, that means 8 cores with 16 threads (we don't know about clock speed, but logic says that will be a Ryzen 7 underclocked to keep stable temperatures)

 

So, how confident are you guys that today majority of  CPUs will handle next gen games at the standard of 60 frames per second from PC gaming?

 

There were moments that I convinced myself that I was way overthinking too much about this, and that I would be safe on next gen games with any new Ryzen 3000 series. But THESE GUYS of Digital Foundry brought back all my fears!!

If you don't know the Digital Foundry channel, they are a very professional group that analyzes consoles and PC components and its performance on games very meticulously, they work with Eurogamer UK, one of the most important videogame websites in Europe.

 

The young man upgraded from Ryzen 1700X to Ryzen 3900X, and hear what they say from minute 7:00 to 9:30

This video is meant to be like a podcast or something, with the first impressions of Ryzen 3900X.

PLEASE, before posting some answer see the section from the video I mention!

 

 

so... don't always believe the hype train. realize that the new consoles even the high end ones are going to have to come in at less than $500. There are rumors around of PS5 claims to have a better gpu than an RTX 2080 ti equivalent and a ryzen 7 equivalent. with the motherboard and ram they would be losing probably a thousand dollars + per machine minimum.

 

Also note that AMD is making the APU and they do not even make anything 2080ti equivalent.  

 

The new consoles we know will have 8 cores/16 thread on a custom APU that much is confirmed.

 

these will almost certainly not be Ryzen 7 equivilant performance per core though, lower clocks, probably less resoarces and suck to keep temps and power draw down (plus price down) The GPU will likely be a Vega 11 graphics APU unless they work in a Navi APU chip by then, but current rumors are AMD is not going to be making a Navi based APU and sticking with Vega there unless they whip something different up just for consoles and choose not to include this on their own APUS making them worse for no reason. (ulikely) 

[Mathieu9836]

Those will be semi custom APUs, i guess they will have much more graphic power then the 3400G for exemple, you cannot acheive 4K with a 3400G for sure so there is no way the PS5 will do 8K, maybe have ''8K'' capabilities in cinematics but i really doubt it will be able to push 4K at 60 frames a second, 2K 60fps with lots a details maybe, or 4k with medium to low details.

[Alexroyer]

19 hours ago, G00fySmiley said:

so... don't always believe the hype train. realize that the new consoles even the high end ones are going to have to come in at less than $500. There are rumors around of PS5 claims to have a better gpu than an RTX 2080 ti equivalent and a ryzen 7 equivalent. with the motherboard and ram they would be losing probably a thousand dollars + per machine minimum.

 

Also note that AMD is making the APU and they do not even make anything 2080ti equivalent.  

 

The new consoles we know will have 8 cores/16 thread on a custom APU that much is confirmed.

 

these will almost certainly not be Ryzen 7 equivilant performance per core though, lower clocks, probably less resoarces and suck to keep temps and power draw down (plus price down) The GPU will likely be a Vega 11 graphics APU unless they work in a Navi APU chip by then, but current rumors are AMD is not going to be making a Navi based APU and sticking with Vega there unless they whip something different up just for consoles and choose not to include this on their own APUS making them worse for no reason. (ulikely) 

Yes I know that Ryzen 7 on PS5 will not perform as well as Ryzen 7 on PC because of the reduced clock speed to maintain temperatures. But also you must think that in PC, users are looking for 60fps on high or ultra, not the 30fps from consoles. You need near double the power of a next gen console or even more. I don't know exactly, but sure we are talking about a todays 300-400$ CPU.

 

Does that mean that everybody that went on Ryzen 5 with only 6 cores 12 threats will have problems to play at 60fps the next gen Assasins Creed (o any open world game)?

 

IMO that's a lot of people, because there are a lot of gamers that goes on cheap CPUs. We know that GPU does most of the work in gaming, but we are seeing today games that need a considerably CPU power (Battlefield, Metro, Kingdom Come, Hitman 2, Far Cry, AssasinsCreed) and it will come more with time, I can guarantee that to you. What I don't know is what CPU will be good to play at 60fps those ambitious games. Some crazy want even stream and play at 60fps those games.

 

And we didn't talk about ray tracing and all CPU consumption that it does yet.

 

Are people really buying CPU to play what is only available today? I can't think about invest in these expensive components without asking myself If it will perform well on next games I'm really hyped. Like Cyberpunk 2077 or RDR 2 on PC.

[RekiChan]

Well, what I always do is buy the best value CPU for gaming for gaming at current gen, then when the new gen comes out I just need to sell the previous gen that I had for around 80% of it current price and use the money with some addition to buy the new gen. So at every new gen I only need to spends 30-60USD to buy them. There will always be market for older gen CPU as long as it is not too old. 

 

I had been doing this since first gen Ryzen. I bought R5 1600 then sold it when R5 2600 came out and bought the R5 2600 then I sold it again when R5 3600 came out and bought the new one. AMD Ryzen compatibility for older AM4 motherboard really help in this case as I just keep using my first gen motherboard until now. Spending 30-60USD every years to gain 15% more fps is worth it in my opinion.

[Alexroyer]

1 hour ago, RekiChan said:

Well, what I always do is buy the best value CPU for gaming for gaming at current gen, then when the new gen comes out I just need to sell the previous gen that I had for around 80% of it current price and use the money with some addition to buy the new gen. So at every new gen I only need to spends 30-60USD to buy them. There will always be market for older gen CPU as long as it is not too old. 

 

I had been doing this since first gen Ryzen. I bought R5 1600 then sold it when R5 2600 came out and bought the R5 2600 then I sold it again when R5 3600 came out and bought the new one. AMD Ryzen compatibility for older AM4 motherboard really help in this case as I just keep using my first gen motherboard until now. Spending 30-60USD every years to gain 15% more fps is worth it in my opinion.

Oh well, I can agree that is not a bad move.

 

But on this way, you will have spent about 330-350$ in 3 years. I think that it's worth to buy a top tier CPU that last 5-6 year with high settings on games rather than buy 3 CPUs. I don't know, I don't like the idea about thinking every year on buying new CPUs, it's a bit stressful.

 

I try to buy 1 CPU when it's 7-9 years old and It is already stressful. These components need a lot of decisions to make. Like AMD and RAMs, you can use AM4 to upgrade your CPU but you need very high clock RAMs to run properly Ryzen 3000 and probably a new motherboard. RAMs at 3200-3600MHz are getting expensive too.

 

Your way is affordable, but It does not seem much better to me.

[RekiChan]

5 minutes ago, Alexroyer said:

Oh well, I can agree that is not a bad move.

 

But on this way, you will have spent about 330-350$ in 3 years. I think that it's worth to buy a top tier CPU that last 5-6 year with high settings on games rather than buy 3 CPUs. I don't know, I don't like the idea about thinking every year on buying new CPUs, it's a bit stressful.

 

I try to buy 1 CPU when it's 7-9 years old and It is already stressful. These components need a lot of decisions to make. Like AMD and RAMs, you can use AM4 to upgrade your CPU but you need very high clock RAMs to run properly Ryzen 3000 and probably a new motherboard. RAMs at 3200-3600MHz are getting expensive too.

 

Your way is affordable, but It does not seem much better to me.

Your calculation was correct. With incremental upgrade I spent around 330$ to 350$ in 3 years. That's around the price of R7 1700 when it came out. But the performance of R5 3600 is 25% better than R7 1700.

Depends on what the purpose of the PC, and no matter how good the most expensive and best current CPU is, it'll most probably became equivalent to low end CPU that will come out in 3 years. Example: Intel 5960x used to be the best gaming+productivity CPU 4 years ago, but now it has the performance equivalent or slightly above to Ryzen 5 2600. Intel 5960x had the MSRP of USD900 (that is still the current price) and Ryzen 5 2600 at USD140. From this it can be seen that future proofing is impossible no matter from which perspective you look at it. But at least with AMD Ryzen you can update incrementally for far cheaper price than trying to "Future proof" because you only need to change the CPU.
 

Regarding AMD RAMs, you don't really need to upgrade the ram for every time you upgrade the CPU, and if you want to upgrade it you can always sell the old one and do the same thing as with the CPU that I mentioned before. And RAMs prices are at all time low currently due to over-supply.

But I can understand how someone can be stress out trying to keep up with all these fast paced changes in technology. So the best advice I can give to you if you are stressed by this is just buy what you need now and ignore all the temptations for 3 years which should be around the time that the new gen CPU is going to be much better than the 3 years old one.

[Oalei]

use 720p monitor 100% future proof

[Alexroyer]

Up!

[G00fySmiley]

On 8/17/2019 at 7:58 AM, Alexroyer said:

Yes I know that Ryzen 7 on PS5 will not perform as well as Ryzen 7 on PC because of the reduced clock speed to maintain temperatures. But also you must think that in PC, users are looking for 60fps on high or ultra, not the 30fps from consoles. You need near double the power of a next gen console or even more. I don't know exactly, but sure we are talking about a todays 300-400$ CPU.

 

Does that mean that everybody that went on Ryzen 5 with only 6 cores 12 threats will have problems to play at 60fps the next gen Assasins Creed (o any open world game)?

 

IMO that's a lot of people, because there are a lot of gamers that goes on cheap CPUs. We know that GPU does most of the work in gaming, but we are seeing today games that need a considerably CPU power (Battlefield, Metro, Kingdom Come, Hitman 2, Far Cry, AssasinsCreed) and it will come more with time, I can guarantee that to you. What I don't know is what CPU will be good to play at 60fps those ambitious games. Some crazy want even stream and play at 60fps those games.

 

And we didn't talk about ray tracing and all CPU consumption that it does yet.

 

Are people really buying CPU to play what is only available today? I can't think about invest in these expensive components without asking myself If it will perform well on next games I'm really hyped. Like Cyberpunk 2077 or RDR 2 on PC.

depends on the sure but some people build for the titles out today. I am more a person who could do with using a system built for titles 3 years ago. My system is pretty good for now, i7 8700k and an RX2070 (if building today I would go ryzen but i bought this when the 8 series just came out). but I am pretty cheap and actually tend to not buy new games and wait until I can get them on a good steam sale for under $20 for titles I am very interested in and for sub $10 for ones I want to play but am not super excited about. As an example I have not found Xcom 2 for $10 or less yet so still have yet to pick it up, I want to play it but it's not a high priority. The most modern game I have is probably battlefield 5 and only that because ti came with my GPU (also maybe logged 15 min in it and then only showing off ray tracing). The only title I have purchased or pre-ordered in a while was fallout 76 (great game buggy at launch, mostly fixed now, I enjoy playing it with friends). Honestly a majority of my games come from humble bundle at a large discount. 

 

To put it a simpler way it depends on the user. Budget gamers like me probably do not need the latest tech to keep up with things. If you are willing to shell out $60+ for AAA titles on release then it probably makes sense to also match that with a top tier system and the latest graphics.  

 

On my rig in another 3-4 years I will probably need to upgrade my 8700k (might sooner I have the $ just no titles I play demanding it) I usually upgrade every other GPU generation unless there is a big tech jump in a generation. By then those on release PS5 and Xbox crimson titles will be hitting prices I am willing to pay