Advise on going AMD or Intel

[Sin Stalker]

5 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Enabling XMP on Intel does indeed "void your warranty", but considering you can just tell them that you didn't enable it, or if you do tell them you can just call back 10 minutes later and talk to someone else, it's kind of nonsense really. GN did a video on this a little while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2gQ_bOnDx8

Same thing applies to AMD if you enable PBO, a feature which is advertised by AMD themselves. It "voids your warranty", since it's technically still overclocking , but unless you deliberately tell them that you overclocked they've no way of telling that you did.

 

The B550 Aorus Master is a bad purchase because the stupid dual BIOS implementation makes memory overclocking absolutely tragic, and at that price you should be looking at X570 boards instead. Also, the VRM isn't really a selling point since the B550 Aorus Pro can easily handle a 3950X with PBO enabled.

 

At around the same price as the B550 Aorus Pro, Strix B550-F, B550 Tomahawk and B550 Gaming Edge WIFI, you can get a B550 Steel Legend which does have a POST code, though it sacrifices in the VRM department for it.

For Z490, both the Z490-E and Z490 Unify have POST codes.

I don't want to touch x570. That chipset fan screams point of failure to me. 

I will have to look into the dual bios issue. Never heard of that before.

 

I guess if the Pro has those non-code leds, that could still be fine... maybe. Makes me unsure, but it is $100 less.

 

For reference, what is the lowest price z490 board that is still good? Trying to weigh all my options. Ideally not Asus. My last two boards were Asus and I need a break from them...

[Sin Stalker]

4 minutes ago, xg32 said:

gigabyte's boards have had QC issues lately, it started out fine but went downhill, check newegg reviews on the %doa on the motherboards, it's pretty bad. the 10600k is mostly better than the 3600xt even if u get a good oc for the same price. The 3600 might be a significant bottleneck if u were to say, upgrade to a rtx 3070 later down the line, and if u don't wanna wait for zen 3 that leaves the 3600 and the 10600k as the top 2 choices. refer to @mateyyy for the motherboard choices.

Ive heard about that before. But given that I've heard great things from Asus, yet my last two boards (both asus) have had stability issues after only a year in... Plus my very first system was an i7-930 with a gigabyte board. And I loved that system. Only parted it and sold it off to help pay for my Ryzen first gen build.

 

The only reason I'd go RTX 3070 would be if there is a competitive game that comes out and I needed it to get 144 fps. At that time, I may either do another CPU/MOBO upgrade or just be able to upgrade to a Ryzen 4000 (or maybe 5000) series CPU. 

 

The intel seems like it would be good if I don't want to deal with anymore upgrades besides more ram and gpu. That's tempting, as that was how my first build was for so very long. But the price (and intel's behavior/policies) make it a hard pill to swallow. But then I think about getting a 5GHz+ stable OC like I've always dreamed and my mouth waters. lol

 

 

I just don't know yet. I'm going back and forth. You guys are helping though. I'm now wondering what the cheapest, but still good, z490 board would be.  Just to compare it with the price of 3600 and the mobos recommended here.

[Mateyyy]

11 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

I don't want to touch x570. That chipset fan screams point of failure to me. 

I will have to look into the dual bios issue. Never heard of that before.

 

I guess if the Pro has those non-code leds, that could still be fine... maybe. Makes me unsure, but it is $100 less.

 

For reference, what is the lowest price z490 board that is still good? Trying to weigh all my options. Ideally not Asus. My last two boards were Asus and I need a break from them...

Fair enough.

Buildzoid talked about the problem with that dual BIOS implementation in his Gigabyte B550 overview video, here: https://youtu.be/BkmDXgA8V4M?t=217

 

It's got Debug LEDs, not as good as a POST code but they're still useful. My only problem with how Gigabyte implemented them is that they're really close together and I'm not sure whether they're colour coded or not, so it could be pretty hard to tell which LED is actually lit up, but still, at least they're there.

 

The sweet spot for Z490 is at around $200, with the Z490 Gaming Edge WIFI.

The cheapest boards that are actually decent are the Prime Z490-P and Z490-A Pro, at around $160. Other than that, the other Z490 boards in that price bracket have junk VRMs that will throttle even with an overclocked 10600K, nevermind the higher core count 10700K and 10900K.

[xg32]

7 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

Ive heard about that before. But given that I've heard great things from Asus, yet my last two boards (both asus) have had stability issues after only a year in... Plus my very first system was an i7-930 with a gigabyte board. And I loved that system. Only parted it and sold it off to help pay for my Ryzen first gen build.

 

The only reason I'd go RTX 3070 would be if there is a competitive game that comes out and I needed it to get 144 fps. At that time, I may either do another CPU/MOBO upgrade or just be able to upgrade to a Ryzen 4000 (or maybe 5000) series CPU. 

 

The intel seems like it would be good if I don't want to deal with anymore upgrades besides more ram and gpu. That's tempting, as that was how my first build was for so very long. But the price (and intel's behavior/policies) make it a hard pill to swallow. But then I think about getting a 5GHz+ stable OC like I've always dreamed and my mouth waters. lol

 

 

I just don't know yet. I'm going back and forth. You guys are helping though. I'm now wondering what the cheapest, but still good, z490 board would be.  Just to compare it with the price of 3600 and the mobos recommended here.

every gen of motherboard's different, z370/b450 asus was bad but still apex/impact was still great,  z370/z390 asrock was great, z390/x570 gigabyte, msi has stepped their game up for z490/b550, and i've had some bad experiences with gigabyte/msi boards. The best deals on cpu right now imho is the 3600 and 3900x i've seen the 3900x as low as 375usd and i paused (even though im not even looking for one), regular price is 425 so i guess just gotta get used to it

 

look at the reviews on them msi boards though lol

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=z490+msi&N=100007627&name=Intel+Motherboards

 

The gaming edge was my favorite for 170usd, then it got too popular and went up to 200usd, wifi hotspot is one of those things that's just worth it for the convenience

[Sin Stalker]

25 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Fair enough.

Buildzoid talked about the problem with that dual BIOS implementation in his Gigabyte B550 overview video, here: https://youtu.be/BkmDXgA8V4M?t=217

 

It's got Debug LEDs, not as good as a POST code but they're still useful. My only problem with how Gigabyte implemented them is that they're really close together and I'm not sure whether they're colour coded or not, so it could be pretty hard to tell which LED is actually lit up, but still, at least they're there.

 

The sweet spot for Z490 is at around $200, with the Z490 Gaming Edge WIFI.

The cheapest boards that are actually decent are the Prime Z490-P and Z490-A Pro, at around $160. Other than that, the other Z490 boards in that price bracket have junk VRMs that will throttle even with an overclocked 10600K, nevermind the higher core count 10700K and 10900K.

 

21 minutes ago, xg32 said:

every gen of motherboard's different, z370/b450 asus was bad but still apex/impact was still great,  z370/z390 asrock was great, z390/x570 gigabyte, msi has stepped their game up for z490/b550, and i've had some bad experiences with gigabyte/msi boards. The best deals on cpu right now imho is the 3600 and 3900x i've seen the 3900x as low as 375usd and i paused (even though im not even looking for one), regular price is 425 so i guess just gotta get used to it

 

look at the reviews on them msi boards though lol

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=z490+msi&N=100007627&name=Intel+Motherboards

 

The gaming edge was my favorite for 170usd, then it got too popular and went up to 200usd, wifi hotspot is one of those things that's just worth it for the convenience

That MSI board.... Are those debug LEDs?

 

Is it weird that I feel like I am betraying someone by considering Intel? I feel like I am falling to the dark side, disappointing my Jedi master as the hate for my first gen ryzen boards grows... Causing my rgb to shift from green to red. 

 

I feel like I'm betraying the PC community by supporting Intel and their ways... But getting a 5ghz (or higher) stable OC....

[xg32]

27 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

 

That MSI board.... Are those debug LEDs?

 

Is it weird that I feel like I am betraying someone by considering Intel? I feel like I am falling to the dark side, disappointing my Jedi master as the hate for my first gen ryzen boards grows... Causing my rgb to shift from green to red. 

 

I feel like I'm betraying the PC community by supporting Intel and their ways... But getting a 5ghz (or higher) stable OC....

lol it's the feeling of amd being underdogs, and generally the 3600 is the value choice, but hey if ur going for pure gaming, i think intel accidentally made 10600k a decent choice, both companies would shit on consumers if they could, intel's just worse. Intel still wouldn't give us shit if not for amd, and we'd have to say please, just look at nvidia lol. 

 

But ya, no need to feel bad over it, amd's still a corporation, they'll make plenty of money.

[Mateyyy]

9 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

Is it weird that I feel like I am betraying someone by considering Intel? I feel like I am falling to the dark side, disappointing my Jedi master as the hate for my first gen ryzen boards grows... Causing my rgb to shift from green to red. 

 

I feel like I'm betraying the PC community by supporting Intel and their ways... But getting a 5ghz (or higher) stable OC....

Haha I mean, you should always buy the product that works best for you.

[Sin Stalker]

8 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Haha I mean, you should always buy the product that works best for you.

Know anything about the EVGA z490 ftw? I am a fan of how easy their rma process is (dealt with a GPU and PSU). That and several connectors that are normally straight, are right angle on that board. Connectors that I've always said should be right angle like front I/o.

[gloop]

18 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

don't want to touch x570. That chipset fan screams point of failure to me

Just wanna day there is a passively-cooled X570 (the Aorus Master?) that is insanely overpriced due to having no fan. 

[Mateyyy]

14 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

Know anything about the EVGA z490 ftw? I am a fan of how easy their rma process is (dealt with a GPU and PSU). That and several connectors that are normally straight, are right angle on that board. Connectors that I've always said should be right angle like front I/o.

It looks like a cool board, but there's no info on what power stages EVGA is using, and there's 'only' 10 of them. For example, the Z490 Unify which is around the same price or slightly less expensive has 16 90A smart power stages with substantial heatsinks, which is basically super overkill and will run cool even with a 10900K.

If it's also on 90A power stages, it'd be a good VRM, but if it's on 60A or less it's basically worse than a $200 Gaming Edge WIFI.

Also EVGA is advertising only 4400MHz for the memory which is quite low compared to competitors at the same price, so it might not be an ideal choice for memory overclocking.

 

In short, unfortunately there's no info yet on the VRM of the FTW. It could either be good or horrible (when factoring in the price of the board), so I can't personally recommend it yet.

 

11 minutes ago, gloop said:

Just wanna day there is a passively-cooled X570 (the Aorus Master?) that is insanely overpriced due to having no fan. 

The Master also has a chipset fan, only the Aorus Xtreme doesn't, and that's a $700 board..

[gloop]

22 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

The Master also has a chipset fan, only the Aorus Xtreme doesn't, and that's a $700 board..

Yeah, that was the one I was trying to remember the name of. IIRC its the Master - the fan.

[dizmo]

18 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

I'm two boards down now. I have a bad taste in my mouth for first gen boards and Asus (both were asus). 

 

The lanes I am unsure about. I have 3 HDDs and 2 SSDs attached to my system, plus a corsair lighting nod. Besides USB devices like gaming keyboard, gaming mouse, wireless headset, mic, webcam and whatever else may be added in the future, I am unsure how many lanes I actually need. 

I originally wanted more for all the USB devices I had plugged in for VR but that isn't an issue with this board anymore. They were an issue on my b350-f, but not on this board. 

 

I think you are right about the XT. Someone else pointed out Zen3 is coming out in a few months. So it would be cheaper right now and easier to flip a 3600 and grab a 4600 later, if I wanted to. 

 

I just wish the b550 could operate with a 2700x. It would make everything so much easier right now. But needing to upgrade my CPU is making the intel option an option. In either case, my wife is going to be very annoyed with me.

I mean, the HDDs aren't going to use PCIe lanes. If the SSDs are SATA, neither are they.

Everything else you listed uses USB. Again, not really a PCIe lane issue.

 

[Sin Stalker]

27 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I mean, the HDDs aren't going to use PCIe lanes. If the SSDs are SATA, neither are they.

Everything else you listed uses USB. Again, not really a PCIe lane issue.

 

Oh. I thought those used lanes to communicate with the cpu.

Thank you.

 

2 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

It looks like a cool board, but there's no info on what power stages EVGA is using, and there's 'only' 10 of them. For example, the Z490 Unify which is around the same price or slightly less expensive has 16 90A smart power stages with substantial heatsinks, which is basically super overkill and will run cool even with a 10900K.

If it's also on 90A power stages, it'd be a good VRM, but if it's on 60A or less it's basically worse than a $200 Gaming Edge WIFI.

Also EVGA is advertising only 4400MHz for the memory which is quite low compared to competitors at the same price, so it might not be an ideal choice for memory overclocking.

 

In short, unfortunately there's no info yet on the VRM of the FTW. It could either be good or horrible (when factoring in the price of the board), so I can't personally recommend it yet.

 

The Master also has a chipset fan, only the Aorus Xtreme doesn't, and that's a $700 board..

 

Another question, if you all don't mind. 

 

Due to price, I was about to grab the 3600 with that gigabyte board, but I found a deal for an i7-8700k with a z390 Taichi board. It would be about the same price as the 3600 cpu and board. I imagine I could get that to 5ghz, having better gaming performance than the 3600, even if I eventually grab a 2080, 3060 or 3070 in the future. But not sure.

 

Was hoping to get opinions on that board, cpu and price. 

 

 

 

 

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

Another question, if you all don't mind. 

 

Due to price, I was about to grab the 3600 with that gigabyte board, but I found a deal for an i7-8700k with a z390 Taichi board. It would be about the same price as the 3600 cpu and board. I imagine I could get that to 5ghz, having better gaming performance than the 3600, even if I eventually grab a 2080, 3060 or 3070 in the future. But not sure.

 

Was hoping to get opinions on that board, cpu and price. 

Nah, not worth it imo, since you'd be locking yourself into a dead platform in Z390. I'd definitely rather go with the 3600.

[Sin Stalker]

16 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Nah, not worth it imo, since you'd be locking yourself into a dead platform in Z390. I'd definitely rather go with the 3600.

Help me understand this, please.

 

For the z390, I can upgrade to a 9900k in the future, if I want more performance and more cores. So I have an upgrade path.

 

Also, the 3600 would just be upgraded to a 4600. Then after that maybe a 5600 if its supported and probably anything beyond that won't be supported. But unless the 4600 or 5600 surpasses the performance of the 8700k or 9900k, it doesn't wouldn't matter about the age, just performance.

 

In any situation, I am locking myself to a platform. How is it being alive or dead an issue if performance is what matters? I'd like to understand this.

[dizmo]

27 minutes ago, Sin Stalker said:

Another question, if you all don't mind. 

Due to price, I was about to grab the 3600 with that gigabyte board, but I found a deal for an i7-8700k with a z390 Taichi board. It would be about the same price as the 3600 cpu and board. I imagine I could get that to 5ghz, having better gaming performance than the 3600, even if I eventually grab a 2080, 3060 or 3070 in the future. But not sure.

 

Was hoping to get opinions on that board, cpu and price.

It'd be about on par, maybe a bit higher with the overclock. It'd only be worth it if it were a fair bit cheaper. You could try and pull the lack of warranty and barter a bit.

 

Ryzen 5600 will definitely not be supported. It's going to DDR5.

The 9900k, while good on paper, won't be a good buy unless you can get it cheap. Most people will look at the original retail and price down from there, making it a poor used choice. It's also odd to say you're limited to the 4600, you're not; there's still the full AMD product stack.

 

24 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Nah, not worth it imo, since you'd be locking yourself into a dead platform in Z390. I'd definitely rather go with the 3600.

I don't really buy the dead platform argument. At this point, they're both pretty dead. Gaming won't really require much more than he'd be getting from the 8700k, and once he wanted to upgrade the logical choice would be AM5/whatever Intel has.

[Sin Stalker]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

It'd be about on par, maybe a bit higher with the overclock. It'd only be worth it if it were a fair bit cheaper. You could try and pull the lack of warranty and barter a bit.

 

I don't really buy the dead platform argument. At this point, they're both pretty dead. Gaming won't really require much more than he'd be getting from the 8700k, and once he wanted to upgrade the logical choice would be AM5/whatever Intel has.

The R5 3600 is on par with the i7-8700k? I thought the 8700k at stock was still beating all of Ryzen in gaming?

[dizmo]

Just now, Sin Stalker said:

The R5 3600 is on par with the i7-8700k? I thought the 8700k at stock was still beating all of Ryzen in gaming?

I just took a quick look at a single company's reviews. It showed it ahead by like 4 or 5 fps. Basically nothing. I imagine both were at stock.

[Sin Stalker]

15 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I just took a quick look at a single company's reviews. It showed it ahead by like 4 or 5 fps. Basically nothing. I imagine both were at stock.

I'm looking at this:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

 

I imagine an overclock would put the 8700k much higher. 

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

I'm looking at this:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

 

I imagine an overclock would put the 8700k much higher. 

Yeah, but you're still only a few FPS ahead of the Ryzen chip. Like I said, it's not worth it at the same price to lose the warranty.

If it was cheaper, then perhaps there'd be more of an argument to be made.

[xg32]

4 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

The R5 3600 is on par with the i7-8700k? I thought the 8700k at stock was still beating all of Ryzen in gaming?

the recent 3600s that can oc to 4.6 and ddr 3800 are basically on par, a 8700k that's not delidded runs hot, but if u prefer intel it's not a bad deal at all.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

I'm looking at this:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

 

I imagine an overclock would put the 8700k much higher. 

I'd lay my money on 8700K vs AMD for 3D applications. It's just a faster processor with so much OC potential.

 

 

 

[Sin Stalker]

18 hours ago, xg32 said:

the recent 3600s that can oc to 4.6 and ddr 3800 are basically on par, a 8700k that's not delidded runs hot, but if u prefer intel it's not a bad deal at all.

But thats a 3600 at 4.6 against a stock 8700k?

[xg32]

2 hours ago, Sin Stalker said:

But thats a 3600 at 4.6 against a stock 8700k?

it's unlikely you will be able to oc a 8700k past 4.9 without a delid, basically similar performance, though not all 3600 is guaranteed 4.6

[Sin Stalker]

5 minutes ago, xg32 said:

it's unlikely you will be able to oc a 8700k past 4.9 without a delid, basically similar performance, though not all 3600 is guaranteed 4.6

I havne't tried to OC Ryzen. I've seen it removes the single core boost too much. I've heard OCing intel is easy, as it just changes the multiplier. Maybe I'm wrong on this. I just figured if I get Ryzen, I shouldn't OC and if I get Intel, I should OC.