My current 4C/8T machine is long in the tooth now and I’m getting tempted to replace with the above.
I’ve had multiple times when many cores would have helped, such as video editing, 3D stuff or just generally.
I would have switched sooner but I was a little concerned about stability, I’m sure that’s a thing of the past now.
So, despite the new AMD being released soon, if a machine is mostly for income purposes, do you - yes you, think it’s a sensible move despite the improvements made? This is a machine that can’t have downtime, though of course I’ll always have the old and reliable machine and that has been my intention for years now; to have a spare workstation.
I think a lot of this depends on your budget. The 5950X is a fantastic CPU, and the announcement of the 7000 series doesn’t mean that the previous generation is not worth considering. You can get some good deals on X570 motherboards, and of course DDR4 is still less expensive (remember, you have to go with DDR5 for the 7000 series). So, sure, definitely worth considering.
On the other hand, if you have the budget, and don’t mind spending a little more to get to AM5, that platform has a clear upgrade path, whereas you are pretty much at a dead end with AM4, as a 5950X is the flagship of that generation.
As far as reliability - there are always risks any time a new platform comes out, so you could perhaps make the argument that X570/5000 series is “more stable”, though honestly I don’t expect it’s going to be an issue with the new generation.
For real world applications, I couldn’t quantify how much faster performance would be in Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, etc., because we don’t have any third-party benchmarks just yet. I suppose you could always wait a bit longer and evaluate once reviewers get their hands on them.
I have to say, I had forgotten about the DDR5 additional cost of the 7000 series, that makes the older gen more appealing.
I’m OK having no upgrade path for the older socket, provided it can last, I would happily keep it indefinitely (Software compatibility permitting of course).
Yes, that’s what I was thinking about stability, as the CPU and Architecture has been out for a fair while now, so I would have hoped all bugs were fixed by now. I have to say, AMD have no doubt done an excellent job with the 7000 Series.
I did see some of the specs and likely increases in performance on a per application basis, and it doesn’t appear to make a massive difference for my workloads.
I have one confession and that is that I mostly used single threaded apps, so as long as that’s equal or better than a i7-7700K running a stable 4.9GHz, I’ll be happy with that.
I do understand your predicament, but i would say if you have waited this long then another few more months of waiting shouldn’t be an issue. The additional costs DDR5 could be negated as you can install up to 128Gb and you don’t need to get DDR5 6000 even if it is the sweet spot. If it is just going to be a server then you won’t need a GPU because the 7000 series have a built in iGPU and a final note is that if a 5950X will be ok for years then a 7950X will be ok for even longer. It all depends if you are financially constrained to a certain budget with the 5950X can stay with and a 7000 series CPU goes beyond that budget. Remember you could put in a 7600X for now and upgrade to a 7950X3D when thats released in Mid-Feb onwards or wait a year and then upgrade, the same can be said for memory by installing minimum RAM eg 16Gb and then in 3-6 months upgrading to 64Gb/128Gb of DDR5 6000. I am not saying don’t get a 5950X but there are many options open to you if your go the ZEN 4 route.
@Mr_TuK I thought all 4 Zen4 7000 were being released on September 27. at least that was the impression I got from watching the presentation AMD did on Monday night. So I was shocked when I heard that the retail price would be USD 600 for a 16-core 32-threaded CPU.
As promising AM5 is, it will be effectively bleeding edge. While have anticipation, of being a long term arrangement, chances of varied teething predicaments can be aplenty. Downtime and fumbling, on your primary machine, I’m sure is a no-no
The 5950x, would still be punching up. Pricing would be in your favour, as components being back more [readily] available, along with the advertising of new platform and component standards. Wouldn’t have any concerns with the AM4 platform, outside of them noisy chipset fan, with some x570 mainboards
As long as you keep, with maintenance and in thermally sound pkg., it should do well
Getting your moneys worth [+]
As someone who uses a 5950x/X570 everyday in my desktop, you can’t go wrong. If your budget supports it, go for it. I’ve always been die hard ‘Team Blue’ until I went big nuts and bought the 5950x last year. I have absolutely not regretted it.
Thank you for this Mr Tuk, I do fully appreciate your time commenting, but I’m not sure in my scenario the waiting would work, and like I say the use case is as a workstation with dedicated GPU:
There’s no real need for a lot of RAM and I’ll likely be good with 32GB from the start. It’s not so much about budget, it’s more about having a solid platform.
I do like the price of the old, but even if the new is only a few hundred more, the stability still concerns me a little. I only saw around 5% of people may be having problems, but I saw a lot more that had performance that wasn’t quite as expected and had to fiddle and tweak things to get it.
A bit late perhaps, but also do consider the B550 boards, while not full PCIe 4.0 a decent B550 with VRMs capable of running a 5950X can be had for as little as $125. If you want to splurge a little, the B550 Aorus Master has godlike thermals and features for $260. Now that PCIe 5.0 is out already, I don’t think there will be much point in the PCIe 4.0 over 3.0 debate, both are fast enough for most current workloads, 4.0 never really hit it’s stride due to 5.0 being around the corner and 4.0 will not be enough once 5.0 hits it’s stride in a couple of years.
Not saying 4.0 is worthless, it’s just not worth paying a huge premium over 3.0 for the foreseeable future. If money is no object B550 Aorus Master + 5950X is a crazy good deal right now, and if money is an object I would probably go B550 Aorus Master + 5900X.
I don’t have a very new setup but I think that should give a better indication of stability since it would be less matured than the newer 59xx series you are considering.
I use a Ryzen 2400G desktop with a Navi GPU at home for work running VMs as well as playing some games and it usually run for months between reboots. Which happen typically for two reasons, OS upgrade and one of my toddlers managing to get to the power switch despite my DIY cover.
+1 on using the “now current gen” parts for your business machine. The “cutting edge tax” is not only in the price of the parts, but in the stability and reliability of the latest stuff.
A lot of companies have been running on 4th gen Intel i5 systems; just take a look on Ebay. They are upgrading because of Windows 11.
You need to figure out what your business needs. If you are running (albeit slowly) on a 4c/8t CPU, then the 5950X should last you for a few years, at least.
IMHO the 5950x is overpriced and under performs vs the much cheaper 5900x. It really isn’t that much faster (have even seen some tests see some benchmarks lower) under sustained multi core workloads a lot of the time. Probably due to power/thermal constraints. Maybe that can be helped with over clocking or better cooling.
If your workload is that heavy multi core that it matters build a threadripper or epyc if you can justify it.
But if you’re cureently on a quad core…. Even a 5600x will be a huge upgrade. Really.
Thank you for that, you’ve got it though, stability is what I’d like as well as all the cores I’ll ever need. Even if the socket is end of life, the machine itself should last 3-5 years I’d hope and if funds permit, I could even buy a spare board if there’s a problem with that. I sometimes think that boards are more likely to die than CPU’s, unless they aren’t cooled properly.
Cheers for that, I have to say I did have a think whether 12C is just more than enough instead of going for 16C. I guess though, the more you have, the more you can use or find a use for!
Sadly I can’t quite justify it Especially with the massive increase in living costs we’ve had lately.
I did have a 6C a few years ago and it was really good, but it still held back some of my apps and had me waiting for the machine, when I could have been doing other things and earning ‘double money’ so to speak.
5900x all day then, if bang for buck is a concern.
has the double cache size of the r9 models
way cheaper than 5950x
cheaper than 5800x3d
virtually same day to day non heavy multi core performance as 5950x
very close sustained multi core in most scenarios without serious cooling
With the money you save vs. 5950x either buy faster/better/more ram or ssd; or just keep the money in the bank for something else.
I agonised over this exact decision for a while and unless you like setting money on fire the 5950x just isn’t worth it in my view. It’s clearly pushing am4 to the limit and it’s very much diminishing returns at that point.
I’m sure you’ll love it. Keep the savings for the next box
Mind grinds through stuff just fine. Have run games (proper heavy duty stuff like cyberpunk) not realising I had a vm lab running in the background more than once.
Especially with the massive increase in living costs we’ve had lately.
