How important is CPU base clock speed in the long run +5 years?

[tanjackson]

I'm planning a budget upgrade. I need decent number of cores. I need something budget and can keep up with the speed in the long run(heavy applications like Photoshop, Premier, Solidwork, etc). 

 

I see AMD Ryzen 5 7600X with Base Clock 4.7GHz vs i5-14600KF  Base Frequency2.6 GHz. Is it better to go with higher base clock speed? Please advise. 

[manikyath]

base clock is a pretty meaningless figure. the reason why intel's are such low clock speed is that they sort of cheat on listed TDP by having their base speed so low.

 

on that note.. clock speed is a pretty meaningless figure to start with. it's performance that matters.

[tanjackson]

Just now, manikyath said:

base clock is a pretty meaningless figure. the reason why intel's are such low clock speed is that they sort of cheat on listed TDP by having their base speed so low.

 

on that note.. clock speed is a pretty meaningless figure to start with. it's performance that matters.

Base clock speed 4.7GHZ meaning the PCU can runs at 4.7GHZ without overclocking. Why is this meaningless? Please elaborate more.

[manikyath]

Just now, tanjackson said:

Base clock speed 4.7GHZ meaning the PCU can runs at 4.7GHZ without overclocking. Why is this meaningless? Please elaborate more.

because none of the current gen CPU's actually ever run at base clock. the moment you demand load it'll clock up pretty much as far as it's able to go given thermal and power constraints.

[Tetras]

As above, check the benchmarks, comparing those numbers is pointless.

 

I can already tell you without even looking that the 14600KF will generally beat the 7600X in app performance, but do check the numbers for what you're doing.

[-rascal-]

19 minutes ago, tanjackson said:

Base clock speed 4.7GHZ meaning the PCU can runs at 4.7GHZ without overclocking. Why is this meaningless? Please elaborate more.

 

NONE of AMD or Intel's current CPUs runs at base speed, unless idling on Desktop with JUST Spotify running or something.

Otherwise, they will run at the "up to" Boost whenever it can.

 

i5-14600KF will basically hover around 4.7 GHz ~ 5.1 GHz for it's entire life.

Same with the Ryzen 7600X.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

NONE of AMD or Intel's current CPUs runs at base speed, unless idling on Desktop with JUST Spotify running or something.

Otherwise, they will run at the "up to" Boost whenever it can.

Even then, my 13700K will only run at either ~1GHz (800-1100MHz at desktop/minimal applications open) or 5.3GHz when it needs to actually do anything. There is no in between where it actually hits the ~3.6GHz it has for it's base clock. AMD chips do seem a bit more likely to sit at their base clock at idle, though they will still drop below that at times. 

[tanjackson]

14 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

 

NONE of AMD or Intel's current CPUs runs at base speed, unless idling on Desktop with JUST Spotify running or something.

Otherwise, they will run at the "up to" Boost whenever it can.

 

i5-14600KF will basically hover around 4.7 GHz ~ 5.1 GHz for it's entire life.

Same with the Ryzen 7600X.

so, should I prioritize # of cores for the long run? i9?

[-rascal-]

4 minutes ago, tanjackson said:

so, should I prioritize # of cores for the long run? i9?

 

Prioritize based on your usage / projected use case.

More cores is NOT always a good thing.

 

i9-14900KS can pull 400W. On it's own.

 

The drawback with more cores is usually higher heat density / concentration, so harder to keep cool.

Also, the sustained boost clocks can be lower, again more cores, more heat.

Depending on the application, how they are coded / optimized, more cores =/= faster.

 

That's why, for an example, the 7800X3D (8-core / 16-thread) beats the 7950X (16-core / 32-thread) in gaming scenarios.

[RONOTHAN##]

7 minutes ago, tanjackson said:

so, should I prioritize # of cores for the long run? i9?

Prioritize the performance in the actual applications that you use. Core count was never a reliable metric to compare CPU performance due to per core performance varying enough to the point where you can have things like a quad core can outperform an 8 core, but with the introduction of E-Cores with significantly worse performance per core, that just makes it worse where a 14600K ("10" core chip) is on par with a 7700X (8 core chip). 

 

Plus different applications prefer different CPUs. Adobe applications still really like Intel chips, while Solidworks tends to just have as much multi-core performance as possible. Look up the benchmarks for the applications you use, then make your decisions based on that, not based on anything on the spec sheet. 

[Tetras]

4 minutes ago, tanjackson said:

so, should I prioritize # of cores for the long run? i9?

It is very likely that apps which are primarily single core/thread heavy will continue to be single core/thread heavy, while multi core/thread heavy apps will also continue to be. That's due to the nature of their work and how easy to thread they are.

 

To put that another way, IF your current work is primarily single core/thread heavy, then buy a CPU that has decent single core/thread performance. IF your current work is primarily multi core/thread heavy, then buy a CPU that has decent multi core/thread performance.

 

I'll bet you that they will all be similarly crap for your workload in 5 years time, regardless of the specs (Ghz, no# of cores).

 

Generally speaking: the 14600K is superior to the 7600X for multithreaded workloads and that won't change, but if you're primarily single core/thread then the 7600X performs reasonably well for workstation use and is a good gaming CPU.

 

I can't tell you anything about Solidworks, but 2D work and Photoshop are typically single core/thread heavy (so the 7600X performs fine), while 3D and video work tend to be multithreaded (so the 14600K wins by a large margin).

 

Puget is a good place to go for workstation benchmarks, e.g.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/14th-gen-intel-core-processors-content-creation-review/

 

TPU's reviews also have lots of benchmarks relevant to workstations:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13600k/

 

For a very general comparison you can check PassMark (the CPUMark is multithreaded performance and the single thread is roughly equivalent to gaming performance), but don't buy a CPU based on these numbers:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/5033vs5722/AMD-Ryzen-5-7600X-vs-Intel-i5-14600KF