Do the Zen 3 CPUs seem to be a good buy?

[Kenpachi]

Hey all,

I was planning to upgrade my stone age PC finally to a 3950x and I had posted a thread in this forum for the same too and was convinced to wait for the Zen 3 series.
The Zen 3 seems great to me TBH. It seemed to me like a great improvement. Then I was reading threads online and people were a bit disappointed about the pricing (the $50 bump) and were considering 3000 series processors now.
Is the 3000 series to 5000 series jump as significant as the jump from 2000 series to 3000 series? Do you people believe that the 5900x will be able to compare to the 3950x?
Does the 5000 series seem to be having the same/better/worse performance per dollar according to you?

Do let me know your opinions about what I asked and what you feel about the 5000 series chips!

Thank you

[CPUguy101]

It's much bigger then the 3000 series as now all 8 cores per chiplet can communicate without having to go through the infinity fabric one thing people forget is its also more expensive to make vs having 2 4 cores glued together now its a full 8 cores per chiplet

 

50$ isn't much to be honest for a 20%+ improvement in gaming i do feel like the 8 core is priced a bit to much however but hey whatever. 

 

Not sure why people think Amd is supposed to be the cheap brand when they have better performance in EVERYTHING basically but some AVX workloads. 

[TrigrH]

5900x seems well priced, the 3950x price really doesn't matter being at the top end.

 

5600x overpriced vs 3600

5800x way overpriced vs 3700x

[Mateyyy]

13 minutes ago, Kenpachi said:

Is the 3000 series to 5000 series jump as significant as the jump from 2000 series to 3000 series? Do you people believe that the 5900x will be able to compare to the 3950x?
Does the 5000 series seem to be having the same/better/worse performance per dollar according to you?

Can't really give a legitimate answer without seeing actual performance numbers - hence why you should just wait for reviews.

[JoostinOnline]

It's not a $50 bump, it's a $100 bump. The 3600X has regularly gone for around $200. It's back at $210 now, but that's still a nearly 50% price increase. I'm pretty let down by it to be honest.

[Stahlmann]

If you're using a 3000-series CPU it's not really worth the upgrade IMO. In this case just wait for AM5.

 

If you're on ryzen 1000 or 2000 it will be a significant upgrade.

 

Remeber: Just because there will be something new next month, doesn't mean ryzen 3000 CPUs are bad or slow all of a sudden. They are still excellent CPUs and are definetly much better value.

[Kenpachi]

52 minutes ago, CPUguy101 said:

It's much bigger then the 3000 series as now all 8 cores per chiplet can communicate without having to go through the infinity fabric one thing people forget is its also more expensive to make vs having 2 4 cores glued together now its a full 8 cores per chiplet

 

50$ isn't much to be honest for a 20%+ improvement in gaming i do feel like the 8 core is priced a bit to much however but hey whatever. 

 

Not sure why people think Amd is supposed to be the cheap brand when they have better performance in EVERYTHING basically but some AVX workloads. 

Yes, personally I found the 5900x and 5950x prices to be good. Can't say much about the rest. I don't think that AMD is supposed to be the cheap brand, reading online articles about people basically being exaggeratedly disappointed about the $50 made me a bit confused.

[Kenpachi]

57 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

5900x seems well priced, the 3950x price really doesn't matter being at the top end.

 

5600x overpriced vs 3600

5800x way overpriced vs 3700x

  

I am really interested in how the new performance boosts and new architectural improvements make the 5900x stand against 3950x.
I am saying this before the benchmarks so my opinion may be completely wrong too, but I guess if the 5800x had 10 cores it would be the sweet spot.
 

52 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Can't really give a legitimate answer without seeing actual performance numbers - hence why you should just wait for reviews.

Yeah. My prediction would be that 5900x would have more slightly single core performance than 3950x but overall slightly less multicore performance but still comparable.

49 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

It's not a $50 bump, it's a $100 bump. The 3600X has regularly gone for around $200. It's back at $210 now, but that's still a nearly 50% price increase. I'm pretty let down by it to be honest.

I see. The 3000 series was already great value but now it's even greater for your location. .In my place, the price drops are not so drastic, so at my location, the MRP launch price is kinda the lowest you can get and that too when the prices drop.

19 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

If you're using a 3000-series CPU it's not really worth the upgrade IMO. In this case just wait for AM5.

 

If you're on ryzen 1000 or 2000 it will be a significant upgrade.

 

Remeber: Just because there will be something new next month, doesn't mean ryzen 3000 CPUs are bad or slow all of a sudden. They are still excellent CPUs and are definetly much better value.

I am on Intel i7 2600k so I guess the 5000 series should be the way to go. The only card of 3000 series that I would consider, (even though I would prefer a latest CPU if available) is 3950x.
Yes, they are excellent CPUs undoubtedly, and as for the value part, most of the CPUs have dropped down a lot in prices so yes they will have the edge of price in the Price to Performance ratio.

[Mateyyy]

18 minutes ago, Kenpachi said:

Yeah. My prediction would be that 5900x would have more slightly single core performance than 3950x but overall slightly less multicore performance but still comparable.

I'd say the 5900X being comparable to the 3950X in terms of multithreaded performance is a little overly optimistic, but eh, soon enough we'll find out.

[Kenpachi]

22 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

I'd say the 5900X being comparable to the 3950X in terms of multithreaded performance is a little overly optimistic, but eh, soon enough we'll find out.

I had the 2700x vs 3600 scenario in my mind so it missed my mind that the difference of cores and threads is double in the case of 5900x vs 3950x but still I believe that the comparable multi-threaded performance might still exist but yeah as you said soon enough we'll find out

[xg32]

4 minutes ago, Kenpachi said:

I had the 2700x vs 3600 scenario in my mind so it missed my mind that the difference of cores and threads is double in the case of 5900x vs 3950x but still I believe that the comparable multi-threaded performance might still exist but yeah as you said soon enough we'll find out

just don't get the 5800x for 449, the other 3 is fine, i think for each price point right now, it's 3600, 5600x, 10700, 3900x, 5900x, 5950x

[maizenblue]

It depends on actual performance and how much they actually sell for. Zen 2 typically sells for way less than msrp. At msrp id say no they arent. 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, Kenpachi said:

I am really interested in how the new performance boosts and new architectural improvements make the 5900x stand against 3950x.
I am saying this before the benchmarks so my opinion may be completely wrong too, but I guess if the 5800x had 10 cores it would be the sweet spot.
 

I would recommend the 3950X if you have a workload that needs 16 cores, but the 5900x seems to be the best value if you want faster cores.

And yeah I agree the 5800X would a be better value if it were a 10 core, although I don't know how that would work, the 5800X has a single 8 core chip instead of the 3700X and 3800X which has 2 quad cores linked to the I/O die.

[JoostinOnline]

2 hours ago, Kenpachi said:

I see. The 3000 series was already great value but now it's even greater for your location. .In my place, the price drops are not so drastic, so at my location, the MRP launch price is kinda the lowest you can get and that too when the prices drop.

Ah, well I'm talking about US prices. It's not normal for there to be price increases with the new generations, so it really throws a wrench in the whole thing. I'll be getting a 3600X soon. I was just waiting to see what the next generation had to offer. I'm also a little salty because the price increase meant there wasn't a price decrease for Zen 2, as there was with Zen and Zen+ (the 2600 dropped to $130 when the 3600 released, for example).

[Dr0y]

I'm waiting for benchmark and for some deals on ryzen 3000 ... Wonder how the 5600x will compare to the 10600k in gaming ...

[Harry Voyager]

It will depend entirely on the real world performance improvements. For my use case I've actually found that the Zen 2 is still a good bit behind the Intel chips, to the point that going from a 3800X to a 5800X could yield me a bigger frame rate improvement than going from a 1080 Ti to a 3080.

 

In that context, if true, $450 is cheap vs $700 for a list price 3080. But, again it all depends on the context, and actual performance change of your specific use case.

[Mister Woof]

If they perform as advertised, no they are not overpriced.

 

10900k is $599; 5900x is better and cheaper

10700k is $399; 5800x is better and 12.5% more expensive

10600k is $279; 5600x is better and 10% more expensive but comes with a cooler.

 

When you factor in total system cost, the difference is insignificant. They also all have PCIE4, which is something none of the Intel chips offer.

 

Intel has been charging huge premiums (far exceeding 13%) for single digits gains over AMD. I see no fault in AMD for valuing it's product more now.

 

You guys wanted AMD to rise and guess what, they've risen. With that comes prices. When you're on top, you get to decide prices. Nvidia has proven that.

[Kenpachi]

5 hours ago, xg32 said:

just don't get the 5800x for 449, the other 3 is fine, i think for each price point right now, it's 3600, 5600x, 10700, 3900x, 5900x, 5950x

Yes, I am not going for a processor with less than 12 cores. Yes, I agree with you, 3600 is really great value to be honest, if I were to build an entry level basic PC, I would go and grab a 6 core 3600 as for me it seems to be the ideal choice "right now" in that price bracket.
 

5 hours ago, maizenblue said:

It depends on actual performance and how much they actually sell for. Zen 2 typically sells for way less than msrp. At msrp id say no they arent. 

I see. Yes, the price drop in Zen 2 has made it a slight bit difficult to decide between CPUs, but for the top tier CPUs (greater than 10 cores) I would say that going for a 5900x or 5950x would be great but if one is not too much in gaming and can sacrifice some FPS in games, I really think that the 3900x and 3950x with their current US pricing seem luring.
 

5 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

I would recommend the 3950X if you have a workload that needs 16 cores, but the 5900x seems to be the best value if you want faster cores.

And yeah I agree the 5800X would a be better value if it were a 10 core, although I don't know how that would work, the 5800X has a single 8 core chip instead of the 3700X and 3800X which has 2 quad cores linked to the I/O die.

This is the thing I am most confused about. I don't have any use for my PC that a 12 or 10 core CPU would fail to suffice but I wanted to future-proof it. So, I wanted to go for a 3950x and now the 5900x has got me confused. It has great single core performance and better architecture and 12 cores. The 5950x is on the top of the throne and that is clear but between the 5900x and 3950x, it seems like a great comparison. I am more inclined towards the 5900x now as it is the latest and also it's not a downgrade from 3950x and would be quite faster than the 3950x in quite many scenarios (not all but yeah).
 

3 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

Ah, well I'm talking about US prices. It's not normal for there to be price increases with the new generations, so it really throws a wrench in the whole thing. I'll be getting a 3600X soon. I was just waiting to see what the next generation had to offer. I'm also a little salty because the price increase meant there wasn't a price decrease for Zen 2, as there was with Zen and Zen+ (the 2600 dropped to $130 when the 3600 released, for example).

Yep, but haven't the 3000 series processors also got quite cheaper in the US already?

3 hours ago, Dr0y said:

I'm waiting for benchmark and for some deals on ryzen 3000 ... Wonder how the 5600x will compare to the 10600k in gaming ...

Gaming performance will be truly comparable only with benchmarks I believe. So let's look forward to the reviews for a definitive answer.

2 hours ago, Harry Voyager said:

It will depend entirely on the real world performance improvements. For my use case I've actually found that the Zen 2 is still a good bit behind the Intel chips, to the point that going from a 3800X to a 5800X could yield me a bigger frame rate improvement than going from a 1080 Ti to a 3080.

 

In that context, if true, $450 is cheap vs $700 for a list price 3080. But, again it all depends on the context, and actual performance change of your specific use case.

I never imagined the 3800x to be such a big bottleneck in gaming. To be honest, I am fascinated by how much improvement you have mentioned that you could be getting. Is gaming your primary use case only or you use CPU & GPU intensive softwares as well?

1 hour ago, Archer_Legend said:

for me the 5900x is in line with previous gen, the 5800x is a bit overpriced but 50 dollars at that pricepoint tend to be felt less, the 5600x no matter the performance is massively overpriced at 312euros for a 6 core 12 thread with a bad box cooler which you will need to change if you want better performance adding at least another 60 bucks on top of that.

The problem of price of 5600x is that ryzen 5 is very popular for budget builds and that 50 dollars plus the b550 base costs increase over b450 can even be 10 per cent or more of the budget and that is a big down for this series.

I hope that with navi 2 we get a refresh in the low end (5500 AND 590 territory) with something getting to 5700x level of performance which counters in some sense the price increase of the cpu.

Maybe for a good 6 core processor, if AMD launches a 5600, that could maybe suffice your needs.

1 hour ago, Mister Woof said:

If they perform as advertised, no they are not overpriced.

 

10900k is $599; 5900x is better and cheaper

10700k is $399; 5800x is better and 12.5% more expensive

10600k is $279; 5600x is better and 10% more expensive but comes with a cooler.

 

When you factor in total system cost, the difference is insignificant. They also all have PCIE4, which is something none of the Intel chips offer.

 

Intel has been charging huge premiums (far exceeding 13%) for single digits gains over AMD. I see no fault in AMD for valuing it's product more now.

 

You guys wanted AMD to rise and guess what, they've risen. With that comes prices. When you're on top, you get to decide prices. Nvidia has proven that.

Yeah, I agree.

 

[Harry Voyager]

@Kenpachi It is specifically in Direct X 11 based flight sims only. Vulkan based flight sims (well, sim, singular) and non-flight sim type games don't seem to show this difference. 

 

This includes Il-2 and DCS, as well as MSFS2020. I have not gotten numbers on Star Wars Squadrons, because it's still having frame rate locks, so don't know about that one. 

 

I think what's going on is they have far higher than draw calls than the average game, but I'm still working on getting draw call performance test results on my intel based laptop.

 

But again, this is not what most people play. I'm just in a specific corner case where there is something different about the architectures that hurts what I specifically play. 

 

That is what I mean by, be aware of your use case. For the majority of gamers, a 3600X is fine, and for the majority of the games I play, a 3800X and a 1080 TI are complete overkill, even on a triple monitor surround setup. But, for some, it is not. 

 

Build accordingly. 

[JoostinOnline]

17 hours ago, Kenpachi said:

Yep, but haven't the 3000 series processors also got quite cheaper in the US already?

No, they're MSRP.  The 3600 is $200.