Intel or AMD

[Ethariel01]

Ok my second post in a couple of days and it's a bit of a dilemma having shopped about for parts I noticed a bit of a price trend this side of the pond - Please note prices posted in GBP not USD and yes the importers are having a laugh in the UK with exchange rates here.

 

It's a toss up between Intel and AMD

 

i9-9900k (£475) and a Rog Maximus XI Hero (£238) £713 (I already have a Noctua DH14 on my i74790k so no costs for a cooler to worry about)

3700x (£315) and a Rog Crosshair VIII Hero (£369) £684 (£29 less than the i9 solution above)

3900x (£620) and a Rog Crosshair VIII Hero (£369) £989 (£276 MORE than the i9 solution above)

 

Now comes the RAM question, AMD is a bit more picky there, I can get the usual 32Gb of Corsair Vengance for £156 16-19-19-36 which I know will run fine on intel, but don't know enough about AMD really to say either way.

 

The question is for a 4% saving, would you choose the 3700x over a i9-9900k (or spend 40% more on the 3900x)

 

(I'm not an intel fanboy, I started out on Cyrix, moved to AMD then when Intel started thrashing them moved over with the i7-860 then the i7-4790k - I'd keep that for a while but the MB is dying and I might as well just pull the trigger and upgrade again)

[GoldenLag]

its worth noting the X570 Hero is a much nicer board than the Z390 board in terms of VRM and some other points such as chipset. 

11 minutes ago, Ethariel01 said:

Now comes the RAM question, AMD is a bit more picky there, I can get the usual 32Gb of Corsair Vengance for £156 16-19-19-36 which I know will run fine on intel, but don't know enough about AMD really to say either way.

Zen 2 isnt picky anymore. what speed is that kit? im expecting 3000 mhz. or there abouts. 

12 minutes ago, Ethariel01 said:

3900x (£620)

you only ordering from AriaPC or something?

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/tLCD4D/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-36-ghz-12-core-processor-100-100000023box

 

it can be had much cheaper. 

[porina]

Random thoughts:

With latest bios updates, the ram support on Zen 2 is better than it has ever been with earlier Ryzen. With early bios I was struggling to get beyond 3000. With current bios 3600 is easy and I can also run 4000 at lower performance.

 

Do you really need/want such high end mobos?

 

I don't recall if the D14 shipped with AM4 mount, but I think Noctua offers it for free on request if you provide proof of purchase. It is worth using that if you go Zen 2 over the bundled cooler. It looks nice, and works, but is noisy AF under load.

 

That price for 3900X looks a bit high, but I do note they're still hard to find in stock. It should be less than that.

 

What will the system be used for?

[Ethariel01]

Sorry for a late reply, issues at work all day.

 

I will be using it for Lightroom/Photoshop and for gaming, at the moment I'm just running a gtx1080 I picked up before the prices spiked and find it's fine for running everything I play with the exception of TD2 at 120/144hz@1080 quite happily.

 

Aria was indeed a goto for prices as it was higher in some (but in stock) and less than others and overall form a couple of other check sources usually came out cheap or competitive and makes life easier to just buy it all from one place with one 'before 10am Sat delivery' to pay for.

 

The ram i mentioned above is 3200Mhz.

 

MB Spec - 8 sata ports, not losing any if I ever get an NvME drive and a decent number of USB ports and decent VRM's is my main concern, I do like to try to OC my money's worth out of something.

 

The d14 can indeed be sent a mount if you send proof of purchase off to Noctua (and I run a fractal R5 case so I'm not bothered what anything looks like as long as it keeps my horde of fans quiet

 

To be honest i'm tempted just to just stick with Intel, but the possibility of further refining of drivers etc for the AMD series 3 CPU and the probable longevity of AM4 socket over the LGA1151 is holding me back a bit, I doubt a fab change from Intel will stay on the same socket (I may be wrong) but AMD will be supporting AM4 for a couple of years yet.

 

Well war and peace ends, the beer garden calls just as soon as this lousy chiller decides to run for more than 20m without tripping out!

[bignaz]

OMG the bios has nothing to do with the ram.  Ryzen 2 has better support for ram then Ryzen and Ryzen. +.  Ryzen 2 will with with just bout any ram you can stick in it. The issues with ram were with the original Ryzens.

 

 

Now I can tell you x570 Asus bios's suck. Cold boot issues among other things.  MSI is my personal pick fallowed by Gigabyte. Asus sent me a crosshair viii and the bios was trash and knowing them it will be some time before they fix the cold boot issues and insanely high auto voltages. If I had to have an Asus board I would just pick up the crosshair viii.

 

 

Vrm is pointless. Since your looking at the higher teir just don't even look at vrm look at the cooling. You will never top out any of those boards. Hell even the crosshair vii and aorus gaming 7 have more then enough vrm for anything you can throw at it on am4. 

 

 

 

Personally I would go after the 3700x. If you can use all the cores then the 3900x is definitely worth it but the 3900x is a beast to cool and don't expect out of it unless you are on highend water. 

 

 

Either way you are buying into a dead socket. AM4 will get one more cpu. Intel will need a new socket.