Help: X299 vs AM4 2 years down the road.

[DocSwag]

1 minute ago, Damascus said:

I specified intel extreme.  ie. Intel i9.

 never derpy minds then  my bad

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Damascus said:

I specified intel extreme.  ie. Intel i9.

Extreme series chips are any chips designated for the X series chipsets, except the 7640K and 7740K depending on how you argue your side.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Rig98 said:

I am looking at building a new PC for the first time in almost a decade. One of my requirements is the level of future upgrade options available to me from either platform.

 

MY plan is to build a decent system (16gb ram in 2x8gb, GTX 1080) that i can build on over atleast the next 2 years. Over time i'll slowly add a second 1080, double the ram, and eventually get a better processor at the end. 

 

All things equal, an X299 i7-7800x and an X370 1700x will run me about the same. What i cant really tell is, CPU wise, which will be better down the road.

 

X299 just looking at current info this one looks the most promising as the X299 platform will supposedly be compatible with even the bigdog upteen-cored i9s planned for release but whether current motherboards will have problems actually supporting them is another question.

 

X370 looks better on price point over time but the new Threadripper stuff that will compete with i9 appears to require a whole new platform with X399 boards. Meaning i may not have the same level of upgrade options come 2019.

 

The system will primarily be a gaming/photo editing/drawing rig, I have no plans to vid cap or stream of any kind but would like to tinker with video editing eventually.

 

Now my knowledge on the new platforms may be off or completely wrong, this is just where i am right now and needing help picking a direction. I need this system to last as this is a rare opportunity for me to be able to dump $2k into a computer.

 

So, thoughts?

X299 is probably going to give you better CPU upgrades than X370. Even after a Zen architecture refresh and what ever improvements come with that being able to go from a 6 core Intel to a 12-14 core Intel cheaply (ish) at a later date is easily going to out way those Zen improvements. Threadripper/X399 is a better comparison platform but will also be cheaper so you'll likely end up started with one of the higher core count parts anyway which leaves you waiting on architecture improvements again, we also have no idea what kind of performance it has to offer.

 

As for adding a second 1080 you may actually be better off completely replacing it with the current latest GPU if the performance has increased by 50% or more, SLI scaling and lack of dual GPU support for the majority of games etc.

[Rig98]

26 minutes ago, leadeater said:

X299 is probably going to give you better CPU upgrades than X370. Even after a Zen architecture refresh and what ever improvements come with that being able to go from a 6 core Intel to a 12-14 core Intel cheaply (ish) at a later date is easily going to out way those Zen improvements. Threadripper/X399 is a better comparison platform but will also be cheaper so you'll likely end up started with one of the higher core count parts anyway which leaves you waiting on architecture improvements again, we also have no idea what kind of performance it has to offer.

 

As for adding a second 1080 you may actually be better off completely replacing it with the current latest GPU if the performance has increased by 50% or more, SLI scaling and lack of dual GPU support for the majority of games etc.

Yeah, from everyone's posts it feels like X299 is the better bet in the long run especially with AMD splitting their platform for Threadripper. 

 

Thanks everyone for the input. It has been extremely helpful.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, VagabondWraith said:

AM4 has 24 lanes, only 20 which are usable. And Ryzen chipset lanes are 8x PCIe 2.0. Skylake-X is 3.0 for 28 lanes on the CPU, plus 24 more from the chipset.

Those extra 24 from the chipset have to go through the DMI 3.0 interface which is 4 lanes of bandwidth (PCIe 3.0), 3.93GB/s. 24 lanes is 23.6GB/s so those 24 lanes might not be as useful as it appears depending on usage requirement.

 

A single NVMe on the chipset is going to almost fully utilize that bandwidth, only when being use of course, so anything else needing to use the DMI is going to be fighting for bandwidth too.

 

More lanes on the chipset is useful for motherboard designers and end user flexibility in the number of devices/slots that are on offer but they are not for high performance components like GPUs and multiple NVMe devices.

[TahoeDust]

I can tell you from first hand experience that the x299 platform is not the shitshow everyone thought it would be and many wanted it to be.  

 

Ryzen is a fine chip and can be had for cheaper, but there is no denying the performance Sky-X..

 

BTW, PCI-E raid works fine with x299 without a key.  I have 2 960 evo 500GB M.2s running raid zero as my boot drive.

[TahoeDust]

4 hours ago, Damascus said:

Maybe but I trust gamers nexus.  You can just look at the amount of current the damn things are pulling to back that up.

 

Why don't you share your OC, voltages and temps (and whether you delidded) instead of un helpfully sniping.