Is there a point to go for an Intel CPU at the minute?

[L. f]

So, I'm currently still picking parts for my 1400€ gaming PC. I don't know a lot about PC parts, but I do know that currently AMD is killing it with their CPUs. Is there any point to go for a similarly priced intel CPU rather than a Ryzen 5 3600 for gaming?

[5x5]

You mean an i5?

 

[minibois]

Only if you truly need that +10% extra single threaded performance, or if your use-case requires/benefits from QuickSync.

IMO AMD is the better choice for nearly all people looking to get a desktop, but there are certainly still situations for the opposite..

[sphbecker]

The 9900ks has a slight edge in gaming over AMD's best chips, but it is very slight and assumes you only game. The 3900X is far better if you also plan to stream or do any content creation, and only small percentages slower for gaming. For your budget a 3700X would probably be worth looking at, that leaves you more to spend on the GPU.

 

If you are looking at the 3600, then no. Nothing on Intel's side comes close to that at all. All reviews I have seen say that is an amazing chip. I only mentioned the 3700X because I like the idea of extra cores and you can probably fit it in your budget.

[L. f]

33 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

You mean an i5?

 

That's good to know, thanks a lot!

[L. f]

34 minutes ago, sphbecker said:

For your budget a 3700X would probably be worth looking at, that leaves you more to spend on the GPU.

What do you mean by that? The 3700X is a good bit more expensive than the 3600. I'm not sure how that saves me more money on my GPU. On that topic though, what's the optimal percentage of budget spent on the GPU in a gaming PC?

Edit: Okay I get it now, I misread that sentence. Thanks a lot!

[sphbecker]

5 minutes ago, L. f said:

What do you mean by that? The 3700X is a good bit more expensive than the 3600. I'm not sure how that saves me more money on my GPU. On that topic though, what's the optimal percentage of budget spent on the GPU in a gaming PC?

Edit: Okay I get it now, I misread that sentence. Thanks a lot!

Sorry for the confusion, I was comparing it to the cost of the Intel 9900ks, which is basically the only Intel chip worth buying these days. I guess I was just using that as a very roundabout way of saying "no point in Intel at all"

[Mark Kaine]

Easier building perhaps?  It looks like Ryzen motherboards / RAM / firmware etc do have quite a few issues... 

 

So a more hassle free experience maybe? Also supposedly slightly better gaming performance? 

 

I just know I wanted to go Intel after the so so experience with Ryzen 2200G,  but I'm poor, so I had to go with Ryzen 3600 instead (already regret not getting an 8 core btw)  

[Faith7]

1 hour ago, L. f said:

So, I'm currently still picking parts for my 1400€ gaming PC. I don't know a lot about PC parts, but I do know that currently AMD is killing it with their CPUs. Is there any point to go for a similarly priced intel CPU rather than a Ryzen 5 3600 for gaming?

dont go with intel , intel is trash , if i was you with that budget,  3700x and rtx 2070 super 16gb ram 

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Faith7 said:

3700x and rtx 2070 super 16gb ram

That would actually be a nice system! 

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Ryzen CPU is bad,  I just can already see my 3600 bottlenecking around the same time next year... wish I could have afforded an 8 core,  but everyone I asked said "3600 is fine..."  

 

Im just not seeing it with next gen games...

[Faith7]

 

18 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

That would actually be a nice system! 

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Ryzen CPU is bad,  I just can already see my 3600 bottlenecking around the same time next year... wish I could have afforded an 8 core,  but everyone I asked said "3600 is fine..."  

 

Im just not seeing it with next gen games...

Well go for an 3950x 16 core like I will or 3900 12 core I'm sure this cpus will last more than 4 years also black friday and Christmas is coming maybe you can get 1 of those on discount 

[Dedayog]

25 minutes ago, Faith7 said:

 

Well go for an 3950x 16 core like I will or 3900 12 core I'm sure this cpus will last more than 4 years also black friday and Christmas is coming maybe you can get 1 of those on discount 

You really should just stop.  Intel is trash?  8700K and 9700K and 9900K will last more than 4 years as well.

 

$750 CPU for a $1400 gaming rig?  No.  The 3600 is plenty, spend more on other upgrades or peripherals.  $1400 can be burned up without blinking.

 

Either give relevant advise with logical points or make sure you do /s after your comments.

[Kilrah]

If you want high end and want integrated graphics e.g. as a backup or for QuickSync-enabled applications AMD doesn't have anything to offer.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, jstudrawa said:

You really should just stop.  Intel is trash?  8700K and 9700K and 9900K will last more than 4 years as well.

 

$750 CPU for a $1400 gaming rig?  No.  The 3600 is plenty, spend more on other upgrades or peripherals.  $1400 can be burned up without blinking.

 

Either give relevant advise with logical points or make sure you do /s after your comments.

To be fair he said 3700x which is very reasonable, and generally a much better idea than the pleb 6core 3600 Ryzen. 

[Dedayog]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

To be fair he said 3700x which is very reasonable, and generally a much better idea than the pleb 6core 3600 Ryzen. 

Did you miss the comment that I quoted where he told him to go for the 3950X 16 core like he was going to get?

 

Besides, the 3700X isn't a better gaming CPU than the 3600 is.  The Intel offerings are, if you truly want to go non-pleb.  

[Midnitewolf]

I personally believe AMD is the way to go right now for a couple of reasons.

 

1 - Intel is still being plagued with security vulnerabilities and as soon as they plug one hole, another seems to spring up.

 

2 - While not everything, nor even most things for a lot of people, will take advantage of AMD's advantage in cores and threads, the things that do, will be immediately and dramatically boosted by using an AMD processor. 

 

3 - Also, while right now, clock is king when it comes to gaming, software is moving further and further toward utilizing more cores and threads. Even in the near future, a lot of the games set for early 2020 release are already mentioning that they are designing their games to take advantage of this.  It is even very possible that we might quickly run into a situation where core count trumps clock speed.  With an AMD processor your definitely positioned better than Intel is, IF this happens quicker than expected.  

 

4 - Upgradability. While none of us can predict the future, I have a strong feeling Intel's 10nm next gen processors will likely require a slot change while the AM4 slot will be with us for quite some time.  That being the case, there is at least a fair possibility that with AMD you will be able to easily perform a CPU upgrade over the next few generations, without the need to purchase a new montherboard.   There is also the fact that AMD support PCI 4.0 right now and while there isn't much usage reason for it currently, at least for most users, with all the new GPU architectures that are currently being released within the next year, it is entirely possible that we might actually push into the realm of PCI 4.0 being a necessity to get the most out of these new architectures. 

 

When you consider all this against Intel's 5-10% percentage in gaming performance, a difference most people won't even be able to notice with the naked eye and no performance monitoring overlays, then it just seems AMD is clearly the best choice at least right now.

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 hours ago, L. f said:

So, I'm currently still picking parts for my 1400€ gaming PC. I don't know a lot about PC parts, but I do know that currently AMD is killing it with their CPUs. Is there any point to go for a similarly priced intel CPU rather than a Ryzen 5 3600 for gaming?

The key is pricing. Server/workstation market is different, as depending on your work the answer could be that either Intel or AMD is really the only sensible choice for technological reasons. But in the consumer market, there is no such limitation: the latest Ryzen is very good, but Intel has everything they need to match or outperform it (no, just because it uses the AM4 socket I won't count $750 high core-count CPUs as "consumer market"). And as others pointed out, for gaming Intel CPUs can still get you at least a tiny edge in the worst case scenario, at the high end of gaming CPUs.

 

Therefore, the situation is that you can get great performance with either brand, and the real question is: how much do you need to pay for that performance? MSRP at launch can tell one story, but ultimately what matters to you is the current pricing in the stores you can buy from. Technically, you are giving up Thunderbolt (for now) going with AMD, and you are giving up PCIe 4.0 (for now) going with Intel, but realistically I could have PCIe 2.0 and USB 2.0 and be happy with it still today

So, theory says there still is a sizable value advantage for AMD, but check pricing where you buy, because an Intel CPU can still make you very happy if you can get it at a relative-performance-based price.

[Falkentyne]

The only thing AMD really has going for it (besides the R5 3600, which is a hell of a midrange bargain if you're on a budget) is the security issue.

No one except people in IT even cares about Intel's security problems (gamers sure don't, unless you're...uh...getting software..."illegally" from..."sources"), but each of these new microcode releases is hurting Cinebench and FPS levels even on operating systems where security patches are completely disabled and cannot be used without full OS udpates (like 2017 windows builds).  If this continues at this pace, Intel's i9 will be an i5 in no time..

[Zando_]

3 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

You really should just stop.  Intel is trash?  8700K and 9700K and 9900K will last more than 4 years as well.

^^^ I'm running a 5820K in my main rig with no performance issues, that's a CPU from 2014, 5 years ago. Still going strong, still runs all my games with no issues. X79 (2013) holds up as well, it's just X58 (2009-2011) that's fallen off due to its age of 10 or so years old. Still many older games or well optimized titles run just fine on it though. HEDT setups have held up better because they offered 6+ cores, the 8700K/9700K and higher are all above that so they won't suffer the dropoff in the very latest titles that the 4c/8t i7s on the mainstream platform have (for the most part, the 7700K is still pretty damn good). And again, those will run lighter or older titles with ease. Traditionally more reliable than Ryzen as well, the Zen chips have had a lot more issues (especially Zen launch and Zen 2 launch) due to the arch not being as mature as Intel's. Intel is by no means trash. 
 

3 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

$750 CPU for a $1400 gaming rig?  No.  The 3600 is plenty, spend more on other upgrades or peripherals.  $1400 can be burned up without blinking.

Lmao yes . There isn't even a difference between the 3900X and 3950X, every review I've seen has specifically mentioned it's not a good choice for gaming. 

 

7 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

The only thing AMD really has going for it (besides the R5 3600, which is a hell of a midrange bargain if you're on a budget) is the security issue.

Price/Performance, it's what they've been winning on since the R5 1600. 

 

9 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

No one except people in IT even cares about Intel's security problems (gamers sure don't, unless you're...uh...getting software..."illegally" from..."sources"), but each of these new microcode releases is hurting Cinebench and FPS levels even on operating systems where security patches are completely disabled and cannot be used without full OS udpates (like 2017 windows builds).  If this continues at this pace, Intel's i9 will be an i5 in no time..

Being able to opt out of the very specific vulnerability fixes I'm never at risk of and that are already fixed by patches to the browsers would actually be pretty damn nice, lol. 

[GamerDude]

While the Ryzen 3000 series mobo did have some issues at launch, it's been sorted out now.....more or less. Still has some minor niggles but with BIOS version 1.0.0.4 and Windows 10 1909, and some tweaks in BIOS, three of my 3900X cores have managed to hit at least 4.6Ghz . Platform seems stable now (for my mobo anyway) as I've not experienced any CTD/BSOD, not even when I first built my rig.

 

I've always been a proponent of more cores/threads since the good old 2nd gen Core days, back then, always argued that the i7's 4C/8T had better longevity than i5's 4C/4T. I had an i7 2600K + GTX1080 HTPC rig that handled many of the games I threw at it at 4K (defiinitely a GPU bottleneck, so reduced ingame settings of course, but still looked good) and the only reason why I'd sold it was to make way for my Ryzen build. I kept the GPU and have replaced the 2600K rig with my i7 4770K rig as my present HTPC.

 

My 2nd gaming rig is my old, trusty i7 3960X, I value it over the 4770K (which is actually faster) because 6C/12T, simple as that. It still handles all the games I've thrown at it with relative ease, though I believe my GPU (VEGA64 in each rig) is showing its age now.....hence waiting for big NAVI, may even consider Ampere is nVidia doesn't go apeshit with its pricing.

[1van]

16 hours ago, L. f said:

So, I'm currently still picking parts for my 1400€ gaming PC. I don't know a lot about PC parts, but I do know that currently AMD is killing it with their CPUs. Is there any point to go for a similarly priced intel CPU rather than a Ryzen 5 3600 for gaming?

I'd go R5 3600 with a good AM4 board. The prices on Ryzen will drop massively, as usual. No need to waste money on 3700X-3900X now if you don't use the CPU for work.

As for Intel LGA1151-2, it is a dead end, this platform stops with i9-9900KS, the next one is LGA1200 in the beginning of the 2020, as far as I read.

[BruceWayneofLosSanto]

value for $ is much better with ryzen.  I'd go with a 3600.

[Noah0302]

The only point I can see for intel is if you go for 1080p 240hz.

 

The 9900K/S, 9700K will get you,sometimes by far, the most frames in that case.

 

Any other use, probably nothing, I would have gone for Ryzen too, if I didnt build my PC last year.

But since I already have an 8700k @5GHz it does not make sense for me to sidegrade to a Ryzen atm.

[GamerDude]

3 hours ago, Noah0302 said:

But since I already have an 8700k @5GHz it does not make sense for me to sidegrade to a Ryzen atm.

Dude, of course you don't have to bother with a Ryzen, the 8700K with 6C/12T is beastly enough.

[Dedayog]

3 hours ago, Noah0302 said:

The only point I can see for intel is if you go for 1080p 240hz.

 

The 9900K/S, 9700K will get you,sometimes by far, the most frames in that case.

 

Any other use, probably nothing, I would have gone for Ryzen too, if I didnt build my PC last year.

But since I already have an 8700k @5GHz it does not make sense for me to sidegrade to a Ryzen atm.

If you have an 8700K at 5GHz huh?  

 

Oh, thought you were the OP.  Of course it doesn't make sense to sidegrade or downgrade, comment doesn't make sense.