So it’s time to replace my main PC that I lost due to asbestos contamination last year.
In fact settlement was reached in March (had to sue the owner and the real estate of the house we were renting) but we didn’t recover the amount that we lost so I’ve been sitting on my hands saving more and waiting for both VEGA and Coffee Lake. Now that they’re both here it’s time to decide and pull that proverbial trigger.
Here in lies the dilemma : Do I go for higher fps in games and close productivity (comparatively) with an i7 8700k, or conversely the R7 1700 and gamble with it’s future proofed socket upgrades? Both would be paired with a 1080 Ti (although I did consider the cheaper Vega 56 for Freesync support) and I’d be outputting to a Crossover 3412UM. Both chips would be overclocked to their ideal limits too. I’d be saving almost $200 going with the AMD route.
I’ve watched countless videos and read numerous articles but just can’t decide.
I’d be doing a bit of everything, but I am a heavy multitasker.
So 4% difference in games at 1440p with stock 1700…6% with the OC i7. If you OC the Ryzen as well, you may kill the 4% difference… There you go…
1700 have 2 extra cores and 4 extra threads… And may be longer shelf life than 9 months…
I’m voting Ryzen 1700 here. Paired with a 1080ti, I’m going to assume you are doing at least 1440p gaming as a rule. If that is the case, then the difference in FPS is going to be negligible. If you have a 144Hz monitor @ 1080p and want all the frames, then go with the 8700k.
As I’m typing this, @psycho_666 reply is spot on. Also, consider that gaming (and programs in general) are going to naturally move to favor more threads instead of higher clocks and IPC. As the mainstream processors have more than 4 cores, software developers will follow the hardware trends. Pocket that $200 or spend it on faster storage. Or whatever. Just don’t get distracted by fastest single threaded performance.
1080ti and Coffee lake my dude. Since you’re overclocking, gaming and producing, you’ll have the best performance all around.
I don’t suggest VEGA, it’s been a thermal/power and pricing shit show (and believe me, I want to recommend it)
IMO, the 8700k will last you a long time and you won’t find better performance in gaming AND productivity until maybe Ryzen 2, which is another product launch.
Honestly, the only reason I can think of for going AMD for your build is if you’re dick-hard for them. And, since it is your computer, that’s a fine reason.
EDIT: “Don’t get distracted by single-threaded performance” ?? That’s crazy. Lots of professional software is all about clocks. Cores are secondary to them. It’s lucky to find a real-world program that scales with all cores. @NeOZeN What production software are you using?
I like Intel as much as the next guy and by no means a fan-boy. But to say that there is no good reason to chose AMD is misinformed. In multithreaded workloads, Ryzen is still beating or holding it’s own against Intel chips at a similar price point. Like I said, if we are talking high fresh rate monitor at 1080p, maybe the story changes. But throwing an extra $200 bucks into your CPU for benefits you may never see doesn’t make since. I’ve seen people build baller gaming rigs that play on 1080p monitors @ 60 Hz. That is just child’s play for a 1080ti and throwing performance out the window.
@NeOZeN, to be fair, what monitor are you using/going to use with this build? And are you willing to pay the extra for a few extra frames in gaming?
I DID mentioned that preferring AMD for other reasons is a good reason.
I work in a production environment, and we use lots of different cad/cam and design programs. They all prefer clocks, and with intel, you now get the cores and the clocks.
None of us should be suggesting intel or amd, we don’t know enough.
@NeOZeN what monitors, what production software, what games, what budget, and what priorities do you use/have for this build. We can’t make an informed suggestion unless we have that information
I absolutely agree and I apologize if I misread your post. There are many factors involved that we don’t know from @NeOZeN. While programs are currently favoring clock speeds and IPC, that’s only because Intel has been the only player in the high end space for so long. My personal philosophy is to support the underdog if the performance is there for your work flow and the price is right. Ryzen meets those criteria most of the time, but certainly not all of the time. The fact that we can even have a debate about AMD vs Intel instead of “what flavor of Intel chip do I buy” is very refreshing for me and I would like to keep that trend going.
Yeah I agree. I tend to not care much about the underdog or what’s good enough at the value, just what works best as long as the value is decent, which is intel right now. (I have to do that at work, plus I do that for everything, not just hardware)
All of our biases have come out so far, and if we dont know his specific use case, none of what we’re saying is really helpful.
Sorry for the delay! As I haven’t really had a PC to use since June last year and it was hard to remember what I was using. I was converting a lot of video and audio using Handbrake and dBpoweramp (sometimes Audacity,CUETools and Mp3tag). Nothing overly professional, more for just archiving. I have had friends ask me to edit video in the near future so I guess an Adobe Premiere Pro sub is incoming.
I will also be going back to recording a DnD game I play with friends using OBS. The programs we use to run the game are Maptools and Discord. This isn’t really intensive though.
I also dabble with Oracle VM software, trying to learn more about Linux and it’s different distributions.
On top of this I run Foobar2000, Discord and Twitch constantly, along with Firefox with a plethora of tabs. Usually a RDC or two open too to monitor other things on my network.
I’d be using the Crossover 3412UM (3440x1440 @ 95 Hz) and 2 x LG 24" 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz IPS monitors.
I hope this helps. You are helping me a lot and I thank you for that. I guess it’s just hard for me letting go of such a large chunk of cash all at once, even if I have the budget for it. The budget by the way is around $3000 AUD, not including the monitor or peripherals.
Again excuse the tardiness, it’s 2am heh.
Edit - Soz forgot to add games. Would be getting into all the new titles being released.
Another thing I have just realised is I have no idea how long it’s going to take to restock the i7 8700k from my preferred retailers whereas I can order and pick up the AMD system immediately.
I’m going to have to head to bed. Cheers mates and I’ll catch up with the thread later today.
Handbrake can take advantage of the additional cores/threads. I upgraded to a 1700 from an i3-4130 and the difference in time saved is huge. DVD SD quality episodes took ~15min each episode with x264 and default settings (1-2 audio tracks + 1-2 subtitle tracks), not it’s down to ~5min. BluRay movies transcoded with x265 take now as long as x264 did before with the i3 (default settings, sometimes up to 5 audio tracks but no subs cause Handbrake burns them in even if the box is unchecked).
~2h for an HD BluRay movie in x265 ain’t too bad, considering I’m not losing any quality but the file size is sometimes less than half of what the x264 transcode was.
The biggest difference is that I can actually use my PC for browsing the web + watching movies in VLC while I’m transcoding with Handbrake, which was impossible with my i3.
You might want to test your 1700 (if you decide to get that one or even a 1700X/1800X) for that SEGV issue. Sometimes hard to trigger from what I’ve read/heard, but if you compile and the CPU/cache is under heavy load it goes bonkers on certain Ryzen 7 chips.
Not to scare you away from Ryzen 7, just an FYI.
You can read more about that issue here:
As for games…no idea. There aren’t too many games that take advantage of more cores. But ever since I upgraded my GPU I haven’t really had the desire/concentration to play games that are demanding, so I can’t really say how well it does. On top of that I wouldn’t even be able to tell you about popular games like PUBG, BF1, Rocket League, etc as I never played them.
You can see the 8700k does indeed outperform the R7 1700 but its also $80 more. Its really a judgement call on if you want to pay extra and also wait for stock, for what will feel essentially the same in the end. I’m lazy and dont like waiting, which is why I have a 7700k because I didnt want to wait for Ryzen. Either option is a solid performer it seems, with the 8700k maybe being worth it if you like the idea of delidding down the road possibly.
Yeah I posted the article of that info. It’s surprisingly close.
He’s not comparing a Haswell i3 to Ryzen tho. 1700x and 8700k are neck and neck via PCPer.
Good info on Ryzen linux though. Ive heard lots of horror stories, whereas with intel, it seems to just work
This is a current problem with the AMD platform right now. Plus there are other bugs out there with software. While I have no doubt that most of these issues will be ironed out with software/UEFI updates (and many users will never even encounter them at this point), Intel’s platform does just work because that’s been the only platform for developers to really focus on and is very mature.
Given that OP wants to use Virtual Box (likely in windows) to virtualize Linux I dont think there will be as much of a difference between the two platforms.
Agreed. I don’t think these bugs should scare anyone away from the AMD platform, but I also think it’s important that people are aware that it is new and software developers are still playing catch up.
