New Gaming Build: Intel Vs AMD

[Triboal]

Hey guys,

 

I'm currently looking to build a pure gaming PC to play games such as Dota 2, Valorant, CoD WZ, BFV and Horizon Zero Dawn at 1440p at 75Hz (with looks towards getting a monitor with the same resolution but 144Hz). The PC won't be used for anything else except browsing and the odd MS Office work. 

 

I'm wondering if it's worth going Intel with their 10600K and investing into their platform (Z490) that will support Rock Lake-S and etc. or if I should stick to AM4 with a 3600 and their last wave of AM4 processors coming later this year? Not too concerned about price, more worried about performance. If I were to go Intel I would definitely look to OC to ~5 GHz and higher if I could - I know AMD has little to no headroom in OCing. I would look at pairing the CPU with a 5700XT atm that I currently own but would look to get an RTX 3070/Navi 2 in the future once the hype dies down and the prices stabilise a bit (especially supply). I also already have a pair of 3600MHz Micron E-die ballistix RAM. 

 

What do you guys think/recommend? Would preferably want to build the gaming system before the end of this month.

[zachsa999]

If price is not an issue, I would go with intel. There are a lot of tests that show Intel manages to push a few extra frames over AMD. I'm Currently building a Ryzen 7 system, I chose ryzen based on the core count, not gaming performance. If you buy a B550 or X570, you should buy a used cpu, then drop a Zen 3 chip when they drop.

[Zberg]

22 minutes ago, Triboal said:

Hey guys,

 

I'm currently looking to build a pure gaming PC to play games such as Dota 2, Valorant, CoD WZ, BFV and Horizon Zero Dawn at 1440p at 75Hz (with looks towards getting a monitor with the same resolution but 144Hz). The PC won't be used for anything else except browsing and the odd MS Office work. 

 

I'm wondering if it's worth going Intel with their 10600K and investing into their platform (Z490) that will support Rock Lake-S and etc. or if I should stick to AM4 with a 3600 and their last wave of AM4 processors coming later this year? Not too concerned about price, more worried about performance. If I were to go Intel I would definitely look to OC to ~5 GHz and higher if I could - I know AMD has little to no headroom in OCing. I would look at pairing the CPU with a 5700XT atm that I currently own but would look to get an RTX 3070/Navi 2 in the future once the hype dies down and the prices stabilise a bit (especially supply). I also already have a pair of 3600MHz Micron E-die ballistix RAM. 

 

What do you guys think/recommend? Would preferably want to build the gaming system before the end of this month.

If price is not an issue, a 10600k would be a decent bet IMO.

 

A more conservative approach would be going with a ryzen 3600, as there is a good chance it alone will be enough to run your future 3070 / big navi, and if it isnt, you would have a nice upgrade path to a CPU that can handle the new cards (next gen ryzen), and all at a great price.  

 

I really do like the prospect of going as efficient as possible on CPU in terms of price/performance and splurging on the GPU especially at 1440p and 4k as the CPU is so much less relevant of a factor.  As you have said price is not too big of an issue, I really can't imagine the 10600k couldn't handle anything the next series cards would throw it at 1440 or 4k (or really even 1080p) so that should be a pretty safe bet.

 

 

[Guest]

Since you are looking to overclock, Intel is just the better way to go for high frequency. 

 

10600K would be a fine chip to game on. Right amount of threads, will run hot enough on 12t. Good for high frequency memory too.  But for all that, it'll cost a little more than the AMD platform.

 

AMD is just more power efficient period. Do much more work at or under the same power envelope as Intel's competition for which ever processor you're looking at.

 

AMD's platform will be flexible. Best to go X570 or B550, they'll support the PCI-E 4.0 and Ryzen 3 chips if we ever get a freaking release date already.

 

But in the end, saying the above, probably wait a month or two before you buy. 

[Mister Woof]

If cost isn't an issue, 10900k.

If it is, 10700k or 3700x.

If you're in a tight budget, 3600.

[SnowyMus]

28 minutes ago, Triboal said:

Hey guys,

 

I'm currently looking to build a pure gaming PC to play games such as Dota 2, Valorant, CoD WZ, BFV and Horizon Zero Dawn at 1440p at 75Hz (with looks towards getting a monitor with the same resolution but 144Hz). The PC won't be used for anything else except browsing and the odd MS Office work. 

 

I'm wondering if it's worth going Intel with their 10600K and investing into their platform (Z490) that will support Rock Lake-S and etc. or if I should stick to AM4 with a 3600 and their last wave of AM4 processors coming later this year? Not too concerned about price, more worried about performance. If I were to go Intel I would definitely look to OC to ~5 GHz and higher if I could - I know AMD has little to no headroom in OCing. I would look at pairing the CPU with a 5700XT atm that I currently own but would look to get an RTX 3070/Navi 2 in the future once the hype dies down and the prices stabilise a bit (especially supply). I also already have a pair of 3600MHz Micron E-die ballistix RAM. 

 

What do you guys think/recommend? Would preferably want to build the gaming system before the end of this month.

With no considerations to price, Intel, on average (there exists some games where it isn't the case), is better for gaming right now, although you're getting a 10600K, so you aren't getting the best Intel CPU out of the lineup.

 

What it sounds like you're doing is gambling on which CPU microarchitecture will be better for gaming: Rocket Lake (Intel) or Zen 3 (AMD).

 

For Intel, Rocket Lake is going to be a new microarchitecture as opposed to an optimization of Skylake, and it is rumored to be 15-20% better IPC in single core performance over Comet Lake, an optimization of Skylake. However, this does not always translate linearly to 15-20% better FPS, nor does it mean it'll be 15-20% better than AMD.

 

For AMD, 4000 series CPUs are confirmed for X570/B550, sure, and Zen 3 is a new microarchitecture over Zen 2. As such, the clock speed limitations Zen and Zen 2 have may not even apply to Zen 3, and there's always a chance it could be better than Rocket Lake in IPC. However, you do not know this.

 

In honesty, I really do not think you should be banking on either platform. At this current point in time, you have no way of knowing which platform will come out on top in terms of gaming. Get what's known to be better now (Intel) or wait before buying anything. The current CPUs are fine right now, anyway.

[Triboal]

23 hours ago, zachsa999 said:

If price is not an issue, I would go with intel. There are a lot of tests that show Intel manages to push a few extra frames over AMD. I'm Currently building a Ryzen 7 system, I chose ryzen based on the core count, not gaming performance. If you buy a B550 or X570, you should buy a used cpu, then drop a Zen 3 chip when they drop.

Fairs, truth is I'm quite interested in overclocking and that seems to be something almost non-existent with Ryzen chips so that's why I'm kind of leaning towards Intel - and this is obviously coupled with the fact Intel has an advantage in gaming.

23 hours ago, Zberg said:

If price is not an issue, a 10600k would be a decent bet IMO.

 

A more conservative approach would be going with a ryzen 3600, as there is a good chance it alone will be enough to run your future 3070 / big navi, and if it isnt, you would have a nice upgrade path to a CPU that can handle the new cards (next gen ryzen), and all at a great price.  

 

I really do like the prospect of going as efficient as possible on CPU in terms of price/performance and splurging on the GPU especially at 1440p and 4k as the CPU is so much less relevant of a factor.  As you have said price is not too big of an issue, I really can't imagine the 10600k couldn't handle anything the next series cards would throw it at 1440 or 4k (or really even 1080p) so that should be a pretty safe bet.

I see what you're saying but like I've stated above, overclocking is something of interest to me for my gaming PC and to be honest I already run a work machine on a Ryzen 3700X so I'm happy with my "efficient" running system. Only reason I'm not using that system for gaming is I like to keep my work system separate and I really enjoyed building a PC so would love the prospect of going through the process and building again but this time with the focus solely on gaming performance and some nod to overclocking rather than productivity and efficiency. 

23 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Since you are looking to overclock, Intel is just the better way to go for high frequency. 

 

10600K would be a fine chip to game on. Right amount of threads, will run hot enough on 12t. Good for high frequency memory too.  But for all that, it'll cost a little more than the AMD platform.

 

AMD is just more power efficient period. Do much more work at or under the same power envelope as Intel's competition for which ever processor you're looking at.

 

AMD's platform will be flexible. Best to go X570 or B550, they'll support the PCI-E 4.0 and Ryzen 3 chips if we ever get a freaking release date already.

 

But in the end, saying the above, probably wait a month or two before you buy. 

I guess I could wait until the end of the month but I would also like to game sooner rather than later  I'm happy to spend more time researching and considering other options. I am also looking towards the reviews of the new RTX 3000 line and see how important PCIe gen 4 might be - although I've seen quite a few Z490 motherboards demonstrating support for PCIe gen 4 for future CPUs that support gen 4 from Intel (Rocket Lake-S I believe?).

23 hours ago, Mister Woof said:

If cost isn't an issue, 10900k.

If it is, 10700k or 3700x.

If you're in a tight budget, 3600.

I always thought, and also looking from reviews, that the 10700k was a waste of money for gaming as it offered no discernible advantage over the 10600k in gaming? Please feel free to enlighten me as I'm currently looking to absorb as much information about this as possible before making my decision haha

23 hours ago, Kavawuvi said:

With no considerations to price, Intel, on average (there exists some games where it isn't the case), is better for gaming right now, although you're getting a 10600K, so you aren't getting the best Intel CPU out of the lineup.

 

What it sounds like you're doing is gambling on which CPU microarchitecture will be better for gaming: Rocket Lake (Intel) or Zen 3 (AMD).

 

For Intel, Rocket Lake is going to be a new microarchitecture as opposed to an optimization of Skylake, and it is rumored to be 15-20% better IPC in single core performance over Comet Lake, an optimization of Skylake. However, this does not always translate linearly to 15-20% better FPS, nor does it mean it'll be 15-20% better than AMD.

 

For AMD, 4000 series CPUs are confirmed for X570/B550, sure, and Zen 3 is a new microarchitecture over Zen 2. As such, the clock speed limitations Zen and Zen 2 have may not even apply to Zen 3, and there's always a chance it could be better than Rocket Lake in IPC. However, you do not know this.

 

In honesty, I really do not think you should be banking on either platform. At this current point in time, you have no way of knowing which platform will come out on top in terms of gaming. Get what's known to be better now (Intel) or wait before buying anything. The current CPUs are fine right now, anyway.

Really appreciate the way you put things into perspective there. I wasn't aware Zen 3 was a new microarchitecture as I thought it was just a refinement of Zen 2 much like how Ryzen 2000 improved upon first gen Ryzen. I guess I'll think about it longer but like I said above I'm really interested about overclocking and what offers me the best gaming potential between the two for my gaming build. I also feel like the Z490 motherboards come with more features and better power delivery than X570 but this is also a minor factor at this point in time.

 

Apologies for my delay in replying - it's been a busy Monday haha. Appreciate the responses though!

[Zberg]

28 minutes ago, Triboal said:

I see what you're saying but like I've stated above, overclocking is something of interest to me for my gaming PC and to be honest I already run a work machine on a Ryzen 3700X so I'm happy with my "efficient" running system. Only reason I'm not using that system for gaming is I like to keep my work system separate and I really enjoyed building a PC so would love the prospect of going through the process and building again but this time with the focus solely on gaming performance and some nod to overclocking rather than productivity and efficiency. 

Easy peezy then, get a 10900k.  Will be fun to OC and a beast, esp if money isnt an issue.