Intel or AMD?

[Bomdur88]

So, I’m planning to upgrade my PC. I use it mainly for gaming, and I typically play games that are more CPU-intensive than GPU-intensive (MMOs, strategy games, etc.).
 

I've seen that the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is pretty good. I’ve never used AMD before, but the only things I know are that the drivers are supposedly bad, and they tend to run pretty hot (not sure if that’s entirely true, though).

I’ve also looked at the Intel i9-14900K. I’ve never had issues with Intel, but I know that lately, Intel hasn’t been doing a great job, and there are lots of reports of crashes and things like that.
 

What I’m looking for is a high-performance processor and motherboard with the potential for upgrading to newer GPUs (like the NVIDIA 5xxx series). I’ve always used NVIDIA graphics cards, and as of now, I don’t think I’ll switch to another brand, so working well with NVIDIA cards is a plus.

Price is not a problem as of now but in my country the Intel Option is cheaper than AMD.

 

[Dedayog]

Let me disssect...

 

"I've seen that the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is pretty good. I’ve never used AMD before, but the only things I know are that the drivers are supposedly bad, and they tend to run pretty hot (not sure if that’s entirely true, though).

 

1.  Pretty good?  Round up to 2nd best gaming CPU in the entire f-ing world

2.  Bad Drivers?  No, not in years.  

3.  Runs hot?  Some CPU's do ON PURPOSE as they ramp up to give you the juice.  Tho the X3D chips run much cooler due to being locked, and the 9000X3D chips run even cooler due to design changes.

 

Go AMD currently, they're figured some things out.  I've had both Intel and AMD over the decades and now it's AMD's turn.

[RONOTHAN##]

10 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

but the only things I know are that the drivers are supposedly bad, and they tend to run pretty hot (not sure if that’s entirely true, though).

Drivers being bad was only their GPUs, and even then that's been mostly fixed. As for them running pretty hot, that was from back in the FX days when their efficiency was horrible compared to Intel's. Nowadays come of their parts are rather warm, but now where near as bad as Intel's and the 7800X3D is about as cold as they come since it draws almost no power. 

[Ledains]

4 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

3.  Runs hot?  Some CPU's do ON PURPOSE as they ramp up to give you the juice.  Tho the X3D chips run much cooler due to being locked, and the 9000X3D chips run even cooler due to design changes.

Right now in fact the meme is kinda that Intel CPU's are the the ones running hot. Even tho idk how the AMD one even started.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, Ledains said:

Even tho idk how the AMD one even started

The FX 9590. It was one of the worst CPUs ever made, since FX in general was behind in performance compared to Intel, so rather than make a better CPU they just bumped the clock speed and made it draw nearly 400W for relatively mediocre performance compared to the competing 3770k/4770ks.

[Tridefender]

The chips are hot because it's under 3d cache, it's just heat locked in, it's not generating too much heat for your cooler to handle.

 

So if you close the thermal display, then you are worry free.

 

[Mister Woof]

if you're a gamer there's nothing to discuss. AMD is the undisputed king of gaming at the moment with their X3D chips. 
 

At present Intel has nothing to offer except the budget range.

[Agall]

33 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

So, I’m planning to upgrade my PC. I use it mainly for gaming, and I typically play games that are more CPU-intensive than GPU-intensive (MMOs, strategy games, etc.)

3D v-cache or bust, simple as that. The performance gap in MMOs and MMO-like games is so absurd, even between Ryzen non-3D and Ryzen 3D v-cache that its the default option, even if that involves going with a 5700x3D.

 

MMOs and such aren't really CPU-intensive, but more heavily single threaded and latency limited. That's where 3D v-cache comes in to give those draw calls on players and NPCs the lowest possible latency. Back when I played WoW and first got the 5800x3D, it was a >50% increase in framerate in every scenario, especially raids and battlegrounds from a 3950x. Even between the 7950x3D's CCD0 and CCD1 it was a 50% increase in games like Warframe and Diablo 4 in those high player/npc count environments.

 

TLDR: 5700x3D, 7800x3D, 9800x3D or you're compromising performance in MMO type games.

[venomtail]

37 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

the only things I know are that the drivers are supposedly bad

God I hate how the borderline overblown 2014 rep still has weight a decade later, even if personally I see my friends with NVIDIA and Intel crash out far more often than me or anyone I know who's on team red now.

[Agall]

2 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

At present Intel has nothing to offer except the budget range.

I wouldn't even argue for Intel in the budget range. Right now, you can get a 5700x3D, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM for $293 on Newegg.

 

GIGABYTE B550M K and AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D

 

Note the 'free 32GB RAM' included with the 5700x3D in that bundle. Its not a bad kit at all either, 3200MT/sec.

[Mister Woof]

2 minutes ago, Agall said:

I wouldn't even argue for Intel in the budget range. Right now, you can get a 5700x3D, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM for $293 on Newegg.

 

GIGABYTE B550M K and AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D

 

Note the 'free 32GB RAM' included with the 5700x3D in that bundle. Its not a bad kit at all either, 3200MT/sec.

that's quite the steal. so yeah i guess intel is just dead in the water

[Agall]

6 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

that's quite the steal. so yeah i guess intel is just dead in the water

3D v-cache really changed the game from a gaming standpoint. Its so ridiculously good in this sphere for the games most gamers actually play (not the academic ones that professional benchmarkers only test) that its the default option to compare everything else to. 

 

The "its dead already, stop" from the market towards AMD was the 9800x3D and redesigning the 3D v-cache modification to be below the die and not on top. That was the one single compromise keeping 3D v-cache CPUs not the defacto best in every scenario. Now, its simply the king of all, and just wait till we get the 9950x3D...

[Bomdur88]

Ok, Thanks everyone for your responses!. So AMD it is.
Now which option is better: 
9950X
or 78003Dx/79503dX
They are around the same price in my country. 
 

[Haswellx86]

27 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

I've seen that the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is pretty good.

Think about the new 9800X3D now that it is out. It's more than just new Zen 5 architecture, but the 3D stacked cache die now sits lower of the CCD, which greatly improves thermals. This is such a good thing that I would look at Zen 3 and Zen 4 X3D chips as having a flaw.

 

Also, unlike Intel where their highest offering is the best they can give, the 78 or 9800X3D is only the fastest in workloads like gaming, but will lose terribly against something like the 285k or 14900K from Intel in multi-threaded workloads. For that, the 9950X is the competitor in that segment, and it offers blows against Intel, both winning and losing in some scenarios.

 

33 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

drivers are supposedly bad

First of all, there are directly no external drivers for a CPU. How to operate a CPU efficiently is integrated right into the operating system. And yes, I would agree that Microsoft has been a bitch towards AMD from a while. There has always been many performance issues on Windows regarding AMD, hence the term Wintel (they prioritize Intel). But sometimes, it's their fault as well. One current example would be the core parking issue, which is just the scheduling need to not offer load on cores on other CCD(s) on multi CCD AMD processors which adds in significant latency due to the multi-CCD design. It is so not straightforward to get that working. You need to have Game Bar installed and running and all, which is just hilarious that it is not integrated into the kernel itself. Microsoft also just recently released a new major Windows update, and has significant performance gains on AMD in gaming, which shows how much we have been leaving on the table so far.

 

GPU's have a different story. I don't know why people say that AMD's drivers are not great (although I have never used an AMD graphics card before), but if they were bad, they are probably definitely good today. And even if they were bad, they are only the second company against Nvidia in the consumer discrete GPU market, except Intel who has done a new entry, and their drivers have been pretty bad since their release, but Intel has just jumped into a market, which has been dominated by 2 giant companies for decades, so it only makes sense for them to start small. And their drivers have been improving constantly.

 

46 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

and they tend to run pretty hot

Well I guess maybe running a 9950X on an 80mm heatsink fan could get it pretty hot. And the 14900K at 390 watts definitely manages to remain chilly somehow (get my sarcasm). Since Ryzen, they have been proven to run quite cooler than Intel, and it is true even today. They are much better in power and thermal efficiency than Intel.

 

49 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

I’ve also looked at the Intel i9-14900K.

Now look at the new Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 Processor 285K. You know why is that a better CPU than last gen? Because it has an "Ultra" in the name, you silly idiot consumer.

 

Jokes aside, your knowledge must be stuck on last gen. Don't by 14th gen. You would be stuck on a dead platform with no path to upgrade, and on CPUs with terrible efficiency, who's competitors already beat them in performance. The 285K has released, disappointingly not increases performance much, but focusing on power efficiency, which it well does deliver but still losing to AMD in that regard. But Zen 5 also sucked the same, so the 285K and the 9950X are still quite matched.

 

54 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

and there are lots of reports of crashes and things like that.

You were totally living under a rock. The problem was that they were fed too much voltage, degrading them. Intel sent over a microcode patch, which supposedly deals with their CPUs dying. The reports have become quite low now. And I don't think that the 285K suffers this problem.

 

AMD gives AVX-512. They have much longer platform support. Better efficiency.

 

Intel still gives performance though. They just released a new platform, so it should at least be supported for the next gen.

 

If you only play games, get the 9800X3D. If you are a programmer, then maybe 9950X because of high core count (285K and 14900K physically have more cores, but 16 of them are E cores), homogeneous type of cores, and AVX-512. The 285K still work. If you do anything else which needs multi-threaded performance, both Intel and AMD or good.

[Haswellx86]

47 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

bumped the clock speed and made it draw nearly 400W for relatively mediocre performance

Wow that's an exact figure of the 14900K. You know what that means?

 

Intel will RyZen again. Get it?

 

I believe. 18A has hopes. Let's see panther lake mobile.

[Haswellx86]

22 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

Ok, Thanks everyone for your responses!. So AMD it is.
Now which option is better: 
9950X
or 78003Dx/79503dX
They are around the same price in my country. 
 

As a certified non official Intel shill, I request you to rethink your choice. But if you have made up your mind then, going Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) makes no sense when Zen 5 is out. If you want 7800X3D, which means you only want the max gaming performance instead of multi-threaded, then just get a 9800X3D instead.

 

You don't even look clear in what you need. The 9950X and 9800X3D serve different purposes. 9950X is better for harder multi-tasking, and running workloads which benefit from more cores. The 9800X3D is only the best in gaming due to its much bigger cache, but lacks the cores for multi-threaded tasks. You should also note that while the 9800X3D is the best gaming chip, it kind of is AMD's lower offering. The 9950X is still a FAST gaming CPU, and there is going to be almost no difference between the 2 when you are GPU limited, which in most cases you will be.

 

If you want to save money, then get a 9800X3D, else if you like the higher core count, get the 9950X, which gives you double the cores and is still plenty fast in gaming.

 

I should also note that the 9800X3D just released, so you should not see it on shelves just yet. I don't remember the exact date when they will come. You might as well wait for the 9950X3D, which will probably have the best gaming performance, with the best multi-threaded performance. It is going to be a bomb of a CPU. We are eagerly waiting for it.

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, Bomdur88 said:

So, I’m planning to upgrade my PC. I use it mainly for gaming, and I typically play games that are more CPU-intensive than GPU-intensive (MMOs, strategy games, etc.).
 

I've seen that the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is pretty good. I’ve never used AMD before, but the only things I know are that the drivers are supposedly bad, and they tend to run pretty hot (not sure if that’s entirely true, though).

I’ve also looked at the Intel i9-14900K. I’ve never had issues with Intel, but I know that lately, Intel hasn’t been doing a great job, and there are lots of reports of crashes and things like that.
 

What I’m looking for is a high-performance processor and motherboard with the potential for upgrading to newer GPUs (like the NVIDIA 5xxx series). I’ve always used NVIDIA graphics cards, and as of now, I don’t think I’ll switch to another brand, so working well with NVIDIA cards is a plus.

Price is not a problem as of now but in my country the Intel Option is cheaper than AMD.

 

Depends on main usage

For gaming 7800X3D or 9800X3D no question

For productivity both brands have good chips but AMD is largely better at efficiency, even vs the new Core 200blabla, so no real reason to go Intel (even discounting the "degradation" issues of the Intel hi end 13th/14th gen)

The only use case I see for something like a 13th or 14th gen i5 or i7 is if you've mixed usage and want something cheap...

Core 200 are still quite in their infancy, still have many issues,  and don't really compete anywhere except with a couple software (Puget stuff for example)

And AMD "drivers" never were an issue on CPU, old AMD chips had lacking single core performance and bad memory controllers, but that was 5+ years ago

[Bomdur88]

5 minutes ago, Haswellx86 said:

As a certified non official Intel shill, I request you to rethink your choice. But if you have made up your mind then, going Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) makes no sense when Zen 5 is out. If you want 7800X3D, which means you only want the max gaming performance instead of multi-threaded, then just get a 9800X3D instead.

 

You don't even look clear in what you need. The 9950X and 9800X3D serve different purposes. 9950X is better for harder multi-tasking, and running workloads which benefit from more cores. The 9800X3D is only the best in gaming due to its much bigger cache, but lacks the cores for multi-threaded tasks. You should also note that while the 9800X3D is the best gaming chip, it kind of is AMD's lower offering. The 9950X is still a FAST gaming CPU, and there is going to be almost no difference between the 2 when you are GPU limited, which in most cases you will be.

 

If you want to save money, then get a 9800X3D, else if you like the higher core count, get the 9950X, which gives you double the cores and is still plenty fast in gaming.

 

I should also note that the 9800X3D just released, so you should not see it on shelves just yet. I don't remember the exact date when they will come. You might as well wait for the 9950X3D, which will probably have the best gaming performance, with the best multi-threaded performance. It is going to be a bomb of a CPU. We are eagerly waiting for it.

Sorry, I’m not great with hardware. I do work with Unity making mobile games, so if it would significantly impact my performance, I’ll need to reconsider.

The 9800X3D isn’t really an option since it’s unavailable in my country (and getting it from outside is tough).

Now, I think you know a lot more about this than I do, so I’ll try to be more specific. Here’s my current setup:

• 850W MSI R850GF PSU
• NVIDIA 3080 Ti
• Intel 10700K
• 32GB DDR4 RAM at 3200MHz.
• Win 11

I’m aiming for the best gaming performance possible, as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with my work. If the cores would impact my work a lot, then maybe the 3D chip isn’t quite what I’m looking for.

I know I’ll need to change my motherboard, CPU, and RAM (and maybe the cooler), but I don’t want or plan to change the rest.
Currently i'm playing Throne and Liberty for example and my current processor is struggling while my GPU is not (I also play games like total war). I'm trying to get the "best thing" now so i can upgrade my graphic card in the future without having too much bottleneck.

[Dedayog]

20 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

Sorry, I’m not great with hardware. I do work with Unity making mobile games, so if it would significantly impact my performance, I’ll need to reconsider.

The 9800X3D isn’t really an option since it’s unavailable in my country (and getting it from outside is tough).

Now, I think you know a lot more about this than I do, so I’ll try to be more specific. Here’s my current setup:

• 850W MSI R850GF PSU
• NVIDIA 3080 Ti
• Intel 10700K
• 32GB DDR4 RAM at 3200MHz.
• Win 11

I’m aiming for the best gaming performance possible, as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with my work. If the cores would impact my work a lot, then maybe the 3D chip isn’t quite what I’m looking for.

I know I’ll need to change my motherboard, CPU, and RAM (and maybe the cooler), but I don’t want or plan to change the rest.
Currently i'm playing Throne and Liberty for example and my current processor is struggling while my GPU is not (I also play games like total war). I'm trying to get the "best thing" now so i can upgrade my graphic card in the future without having too much bottleneck.

How much is the 7800X3D or 7950X3D?

 

I mean, all that was said above is X3D for gaming especially MMO's.  Which Throne and Liberty is.  

 

An 8 core CPU is plenty, unless you NEED 16 for developing mobile games?  7950X3D.  I mean they're just mobile games, so a 7800X3D would be fine.

 

No offense, but I've played hundreds of mobile games, not seeing a need for heavy core CPUs to develop all but a handful of them.

[Haswellx86]

7 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

The 9800X3D isn’t really an option since it’s unavailable in my country

It's not available anywhere. It has not actually been released yet, just announced and lift the embargo for third party testing. I don't know the date, but you just have to wait sometime. Not too long.

 

9 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

I do work with Unity making mobile games, so if it would significantly impact my performance, I’ll need to reconsider.

One thing to note that you are going for a luxury here. Your specs are still really good, for what is Unity game development. Both, 9800X3D and 9950X would be good regardless, but because you are spending so much money, I will get it clear again. The 9950X makes the most sense, in case if you are still confused. The 9800X3D is good because it offers the best gaming performance (better than 9950X), while still costing less because of its 8 cores only. Even if you are gaming, you don't have to go for this much gaming performance, for losing half the cores. The 9950X is going to be fast regardless. You are going to be GPU bound anyways, unless maybe playing at 1080p or playing Minecraft or something. The people who buy the _800X3D chips  want the best price to gaming performance only. In your case, I don't think that it's worth it to give up half the amount of cores for such an extreme gaming performance, regardless if you are doing game development or not.

 

17 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

I’m aiming for the best gaming performance possible, as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with my work. If the cores would impact my work a lot, then maybe the 3D chip isn’t quite what I’m looking for.

Again, you don't exactly need the 9800X3D for the best gaming performance, unless, well, you really do need it for some reason, or if you want better price to gaming performance value. For your work, more cores, well, I mean, you said you do Unity game development, and that doesn't require many cores or the fastest processor in general, so you are going for a luxury. In your case, I think more cores are still preferred, and also that you are not bound to a budget.

 

_{or just go intel. i never said not to.}

[Bomdur88]

11 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

How much is the 7800X3D or 7950X3D?

 

I mean, all that was said above is X3D for gaming especially MMO's.  Which Throne and Liberty is.  

 

An 8 core CPU is plenty, unless you NEED 16 for developing mobile games?  7950X3D.  I mean they're just mobile games, so a 7800X3D would be fine.

 

No offense, but I've played hundreds of mobile games, not seeing a need for heavy core CPUs to develop all but a handful of them.

7800X3D, 7950X3D, 9950X and I9 14900K Are all at the same price (The difference is too small).

[Dedayog]

2 minutes ago, Bomdur88 said:

7800X3D, 7950X3D, 9950X and I9 14900K Are all at the same price (The difference is too small).

7950X3D then, as it will perform near the 7800X3D for gaming, and a lot better for productivity.

 

I wouldn't give up X3D as a gamer.

[JollyJamma]

14 hours ago, Dedayog said:

7950X3D then, as it will perform near the 7800X3D for gaming, and a lot better for productivity.

 

I wouldn't give up X3D as a gamer.

Have to agree with this. 
 

given the issues with Intel processors at the moment and how fast and cool the X3D processors are, it’s a no brainer. 
 

oh and how AMD is supporting AM5 for a few more years (can’t remember until when exactly) and Intel is basically having to do a pivot with their products and might even drop the 2nd generation refresh for the 200 series (Arrow-lake). 
 

genuinely, AMD are just winning at everything right now.