Is is worth buying AMD due to Meltdown/Specter

[Pulpypanda]

Due to the recent issues surrounding both Intel and AMD's CPU's is it worth changing build plans and siding with AMD's processor's to avoid performance loss?

 

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda.  

[knightslugger]

depends on what you need it for.

[DocSwag]

The performance loss is so minimal unless you're running a server that I honestly wouldn't care at all.

 

Just side with whatever is better for you. The whole meltdown spectre thing won't impact performance enough to matter.

[samcool55]

I would say yes, it's worth switching. At least you know for sure what you'll get from AMD.

It's still unclear how much the performance impact will be on Intel cpu's because not all the patches are available yet but first signs aren't great.

 

That doesn't mean AMD won't have any performance hits due to patches tho, but because it doesn't need a fix for meltdown and Intel does we can be sure the impact will be a lot bigger for Intel. The fix for specter should only cause a very small impact, meltdown is the one that causes the "30% performance hit" headlines.

[Pulpypanda]

2 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

depends on what you need it for.

Lets assume a multi-purpose  station. I.e mid range editing and gaming.

 

Sorry for not qualifying.

 

[DocSwag]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

meltdown is the one that causes the "30% performance hit" headlines.

And that was basically worst case scenario. The performance hit is on syscalls, and in stuff like gaming and content creation the impact is next to nothing. The only thing I've seen impacted even somewhat relevant to consumers is SSD performance. Really the big impacts are when it comes to servers.

[ARikozuM]

There's no performance degradation unless you're running specific server workloads.

[Pulpypanda]

1 minute ago, DocSwag said:

And that was basically worst case scenario. The performance hit is on syscalls, and in stuff like gaming and content creation the impact is next to nothing. The only thing I've seen impacted even somewhat relevant to consumers is SSD performance. Really the big impacts are when it comes to servers.

Makes sense because that 30% is only going to be taken off the top end in any case, which would be seen in a server setting due to the high work loads.

[ARikozuM]

6 minutes ago, Pulpypanda said:

Makes sense because that 30% is only going to be taken off the top end in any case, which would be seen in a server setting due to the high work loads.

That was one server load out of 10 or so tested. None of the others came out to be that drastic. 

[Canada EH]

13 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

That was one server load out of 10 or so tested. None of the others came out to be that drastic. 

Sounds like a one sided biased statement. 9 out of 10 are fine, but they focus on that 1 with special circumstances.

[Energycore]

37 minutes ago, Pulpypanda said:

Due to the recent issues surrounding both Intel and AMD's CPU's is it worth changing build plans and siding with AMD's processor's to avoid performance loss?

 

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated,

 

Pulpypanda.  

EDIT I read the OP wrong, shame shame shame

 

Yes, CPUs are still worth buying even after the patches. Some workloads are affected but they affect CPUs from both manufacturers.

[johnukguy]

More so than anything from Intel yes, for several reasons, not just this latest one. Though wait for March. There's going to be a few more unfortunate slip ups for Intel around then too.

[Wintyr]

My Cpu is so old when I get A new one a 30% performance hit would still be easly 2-3x faster then what i am running

[Bhav]

Nah, they slow for gaming.

 

The patch on Intel CPUs only leads to <1% less performance in gaming.

 

Spectre also affects AMD.

 

Everyone is over reacting to this, its nowhere near as big a deal as its being made out to be.

[mr moose]

My advice is to buy the best CPU you can afford.  It doesn't matter if it's AMD or Intel and the latest security bugs don't really change that*.   I routinely ignore anyone who uses speculative or assumptive reasons not to buy a particular product,  E.G Intel was anti consumer in 2009 or AMD overheats and kills baby seals for their thermal paste.  Those types of comments just aren't reflective of actual products only emotional responses to brands,  Use your wallet to vote for the better product at the end of the day.  You'll be happier with a better product and it should drive companies to make a better product if they want the sales.

 

*you could buy AMD only to find 3 months down the road they have something worse lurking in their design. 

[Mooshi]

54 minutes ago, Bhav said:

Nah, they slow for gaming.

 

The patch on Intel CPUs only leads to <1% less performance in gaming.

 

Spectre also affects AMD.

 

Everyone is over reacting to this, its nowhere near as big a deal as its being made out to be.

Wat?

 

Unless you're still using 1080p, resolutions above couldn't care less which brand of CPU you're using since it's the GPU that matters at that point.

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Wat?

 

Unless you're still using 1080p, resolutions above couldn't care less which brand of CPU you're using since it's the GPU that matters at that point.

And even if you were using 1080,  If you had issues playing any game, I highly doubt it would be a ryzen causing them.

[GDRRiley]

Get ryzen or wait a few months (looking like April ). not because of meltdown but because of this

 

 

[ExplosiveSloths]

Is it worth it? Depends on what you're doing.

 

If you were thinking of intel before the whole hack/exploit thing I'd say just go with intel. Not going to be much difference either way; maybe like a few % in a few games with a high end GPU.

 

 

[atavax]

It is still too early to tell just how big of a performance hit we're going to see because of specter and meltdown.

 

I would say that if you are buying a pc primarily for gaming and web browsing; the greater single threaded performance of intel cpu's still really make them the best choice as long as you can get the latest gen at their msrp, get an overclockable i7 or i5, and indeed overclock it.

 

If you have other work loads that better utilize multiple threads, or streaming, or if you can't find intel CPUs at MSRP, or don't plan on overclocking, or plan on getting something lower end than i5, then i would either wait or get AMD.

[just_dave]

AMD is less affected than Intel.

Benching my system before vs after = no change

benching 5700HQ before vs after = ~10% less performance

[ARikozuM]

Can you guys move this discussion to a PM before a mod locks the thread? 

[airdeano]

alright.. this isn't a this vs that, but the effects of the performance after patch applications.

 

lisa, out..

[mr moose]

snip

[Emberstone]

Even with the slight performance hits in gaming (Steve at Hardware Unboxed noted that many games weren't affected, but some could see as much as a 4% hit or so), Intel would still be quite ahead in gaming, even on their cheaper chips if you're looking at Coffee Lake.

 

So if gaming is your primary concern, Intel will still give you better performance even with the patches.

 

That said, if editing is your primary concern, Ryzen would give you much better value for less money since an R5-1600 outpaces an 8600K in workloads that can use 12 threads, for example.

 

As with before the patch, which CPU you should buy just depends on what you want to do. Desktop users aren't getting hit very hard except on high-end SSD performance.

 

Gaming? Intel.

Working? Ryzen.

Both? See above, and choose which is most important.