i9700K or 3800X

Sorenson · November 19, 2019

2 hours ago, Harry Voyager said:

I actually tried disabling SMT on my 3800X to see what it did in IL-2 Battle of Bodenplattte, and running without SMT actually ended up costing me about 20% on the minimums. It was a bit of a surprise, given how single thread limited Il-2 always has been in VR.

All I can figure is its not costing me on the heavy thread, and its keeping the light threads away from running it over.

That said, I do not have comparible data on the 9700 or non-HT enabled 9900K for the current version. The last rounds of updates split out the terrain engine into a separate thread, invalidated the prior benchmark results and broke the last round of common benchmark tracks.

I think flight sims are where you want the large thread count the most since there are so many objects on screen at all times. Idk, I’m probably just biased since it’s faster in the games I play and it seems like developers still prioritize stability on intel systems first at launch.

But, I also thin the 3700x is kind of in a weird spot. If you do heavy cpu work then the 3900x is better and if you’re just gaming doesn’t the 3600x get almost the same performance?

amdorintel · November 19, 2019

On 11/16/2019 at 9:15 PM, Sorenson said:

Hyper-threading does a lot less that people think. If OP is close to a microcenter then the 9700k is the same price as the 3700x. There is no rational reason to go with the Ryzen CPU when the most intensive thing he will be doing is gaming (at which the 9700k beats out the 3700x).

On 11/16/2019 at 9:21 PM, NumLock21 said:

Not everything is only about gaming. It's better to have it and not need it, rather than want it, but don't have it. OP is better off with the 3700X. If OP decides to go with Intel then, it's better to wait for 10th gen where they should bring back HT to the Core i7s.

i was going to mention that too

"future proofing"

or a change in the requirements of the usage later on

Kimbo_G · November 19, 2019

12 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

I think flight sims are where you want the large thread count the most since there are so many objects on screen at all times. Idk, I’m probably just biased since it’s faster in the games I play and it seems like developers still prioritize stability on intel systems first at launch.

Thanks for this insight, I'd like to get the new MSFS (2020) when it comes out.

Harry Voyager · November 19, 2019

44 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

I think flight sims are where you want the large thread count the most since there are so many objects on screen at all times. Idk, I’m probably just biased since it’s faster in the games I play and it seems like developers still prioritize stability on intel systems first at launch.

But, I also thin the 3700x is kind of in a weird spot. If you do heavy cpu work then the 3900x is better and if you’re just gaming doesn’t the 3600x get almost the same performance?

They would likely benefit most from being multithreaded, however the major ones are written on engines that are generally a decade old, and are *very* CPU hungry due to flight mechanics and AI computations. Il-2 is a derivative of the Rise of Flight engine from the early 2000's. Likewise DCS is a direct derivative of the 2001 LO:MAC engine. P3D, while they've been splitting out threads is still based on the FSX engine. Il-2 only just added effectively two thread multi-threading in the last month. DCS is talking about going multi-threaded once they've migrated the platform to Vulkan.

On the gripping hand, Flight sims are one area where Ryzen's in game single thread performance seems to match Intel's. Il-2. in particular, tracks passmark single thread performance almost exactly until you hit GPU limits.

I am hoping the MSFS 2020 crew are building a multi-threaded engine. With the number of aerodynamic surfaces each plane has and everything else that has to go into it, a good multi-threaded implementation would go a very long way to making it accessible to people in the current mid-range to even console market. I do think we've passed diminishing returns on single thread CPU performance some time ago, and that the next likely performance improvement is going to be in multi threading.

Otto_iii · November 19, 2019

9700k will be better for strictly games right now, the 16 threads of the 3700/3800 will last you longer as more things are programmed to take advantage of it. Unless you are going for 200-240hz gaming and only want it to last for a year or two there isn't a reason to go with the 9700k and lose the benefits of more threads/hyperthreading later. This is before you take into account any decent AM4 motherboard (good b450 or newer, preferably) will be upgradable to next generation Ryzen 4000. Likewise the spare threads will help you right now if you ever do multi-tasking (say watching or listening to something in backround while gaming), streaming etc.

Also consider the next gen consoles are all being designed with something similar to a 3700x (8 core 16 thread CPUs) custom Ryzen processor, so expect more future titles to continue to be configured to take advantage of threads, not just clock speed

I should say personally i have a hard-on for the 9700k, but due to cost don't own one, but the only reason i like it theoretically is because im the type of dork who revels in super high refresh rates over everything else, and is happy to shutdown literally everything in the backround while im gaming, turn down most settings etc. I get the attraction but wouldnt recommend it for most people, most people want more flexibility out of their systems

Raymmm · November 19, 2019

I'd like to think of it this way. The 9700k is currently slightly better than 3800x in terms of gaming but 3800x has a significant margin of lead ahead of 9700k in terms of multi-threaded workload. The truth about gaming is that nobody knows if there will be any development in the next 5 years. Who know if somehow there is a shift towards higher core count applications especially when more people start adopting higher core count PCs/next gen consoles. I rather take a small hit in gaming performance with the 3800x to future proof myself.

Harry Voyager · November 19, 2019

@Otto_iii If you really want to go with Intel, you may want to hold off for the Comet Lake parts early next year. They should be cutting effective prices and adding hyper threading to the full line, and the new socket should be compatible with the Sunny Cove follow-on chips.

In their Comet Lake parts they did have a I7-10700K 8 core, 16 thread 5.1 Ghz boost part in the price bracket of the 9700k parts. I was seriously debating going for that, but simply ran out of time to wait, and for my application, the Zen 2 processors offered the same performance.

Kimbo_G · November 20, 2019

On 11/18/2019 at 7:17 PM, Sorenson said:

But, I also thin the 3700x is kind of in a weird spot. If you do heavy cpu work then the 3900x is better and if you’re just gaming doesn’t the 3600x get almost the same performance?

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-3600X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/4041vs4043

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-3800X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/4047vs4043