Hello! I know the 2920x is not out yet but I have started looking for used 1950x auctions on eBay and I need opinions.
Judging by the difference between the 1950x and the 2950x, would the IPC, cache and clock speed improvements warrant the purchase of the newer, lower core count CPU vs the older higher core one for probably the same price?
I don’t really need that many cores daily but I am moving to TR due to the pcie lanes. I want to eventually start using Looking Glass with a Windows VM and main uses are photo editing and some gaming. Clock speed is quite important for the Adobe suite but I had to export 1200 photos from raw to jpeg yesterday and my 4770k took ages to do it (hence the need for cores).
As far as I’m conserned the biggest difference between the two CHips are Clock Speed and RAM Speed. Paired with a legit MoBo I’m kinda sure that you could get the RAM Speed up while still being stable.
BUT
I’m not sure, maybe someone else has some insight?
Edith says:
the 1920X is on sale right now… 4 Cores less but 600$/€ cheaper than 1950X. fyi
If you don’t need as many cores as the 1950x offers, the 2920x will clock higher, has better memory controller, better core to core latency, etc.
It will be better for gaming, and honestly for the usage you describe, if you didn’t need the PCIe lanes a 2700X would do the job just fine.
If you really wanted to just get the lanes I’d actually consider looking for a 1900X… which is what i was considering before the 2700X dropped and included a cooler, etc. in the price.
I’m running crossfire on it just fine with dual PCIe3.0 x8 - so if that is your plans for “needing the lanes” you might not need threadripper at all unless you plan to hook up a bunch of other stuff to it as well.
No it doesn’t
You want it, it’s going to be around 119 euros, separately, and on a later date.
As to AIOs, i’ve seen a lot of posts here stating the same thing, Wendell’s included. You’re mistaken, to put it mildly. Given sufficient airflow, no AIO in the market right now can beat a good air cooler and never mind platform, die size, or more to the actual point, thermal density.
(an AIO only makes sense, performance-wise, when we are space or airflow [read: intake] limited. The rest is hype and misinformation)
Now on topic, my advice is neither.
Save a bit more, get a 2950X and call it a day.
It’s a very small difference in pricing, for a better binned model and 4 more cores, two of which you really do care about, as you’ve only got one die that doesn’t suffer from the die-to-die latency.
Be reasonable with your expenses, but not stingy.
Sole exception being your say upgrading everything each year or something, which doesn’t seem the case here, though i might be mistaken
Just as @thro said, if you don’t need the cores, but want the PCI-E lanes, get a 1900X. You won’t notice a too big of a performance bump from 1st gen to 2nd gen anyway. You might have some luck with OCing and getting similar results.
As for the cooler, if you have a big case, go with one of the Noctua fans that Wendell reviewed. And if you are able to wait for the October release, instead of buying the 2920x, buy a used 1900x (people might jump to higher core counts and resell those).
edit:
the 1900x evidently didn’t sell. I was holding off to pick one up as prices dropped and locally where i am they aren’t available any more and haven’t been for some time.
But i guess most on the X399 platform go big or go home…
It’s not about any core complex (no pun intended, lol), or about bigger and better, it’s about how it functions, and therefore what you want to do with it. It’s also about some form of future proofing your purchase.
And of course, how small the pricing difference is.
(for example, i’d also never recommend the 2990WX, to anyone. If you’re at a point where 32 cores is a must for you, you better also be at a financial point where Xeons or EPYCs are affordable for you)
The 1900X was an attractive CPU for many purposes - mostly if you need a lot of memory and/or a lot of IO but not much in the way of CPU (like 8 cores and 16 threads is “not much” these days, lol).
e.g., home VM server with mostly idle virtual machines servicing few users, an SSD storage array (the 1900X is just begging to be used as a poor man’s SSD NAS, etc.).
Ditto for the 32 core TR2. Maybe you don’t NEED 32 cores, but for the price, its got way more potential than a $1500 intel CPU. Why not go for it if it is in budget and performs better or is more capable than anything else for $1500 for what you’re doing?
Sure all 32 cores might not be able to fully stretch their legs due to the memory contention, but if you’re on linux where it runs well, and it still runs “better” than other stuff for the same money then why not, if that’s within budget but an $8-10k intel part isn’t?
I will say though that for 99% of people, future proofing is bullshit (I say that as someone who used to do it). If you are going to need X more power or memory or whatever within 12 months, just buy it now and save yourself the time, money and fucking around. Don’t buy an expensive platform you MIGHT add stuff to in future because by the time you do it will likely be obsolete and you just paid a lot of money (platform cost) for nothing.
if you’re talking a couple of years out or more, buy it when you need it. Things like new USB, new memory, new chipset features, new hardware acceleration instructions, spectre mitigation, etc. will come out and you’re far better off buying the more capable hardware THEN, when it has also dropped in price.
The only exception to that is if you’re a business and putting something in that you don’t want to touch, at scale and the cost to go replace it is significant.
Home use? Just buy what you need for the next 12 months and upgrade later.
We’re veering into preferences here
Could just as well remind you that new CPUs or newer RAMs also entail a new motherboard and if you upgrade every 4 years or so, you obviously can’t afford much now can you. Or perhaps don’t care to?
But to stay on topic, unless again the OP upgrades often, the better binning (applying for both CPU and RAM freqs/timings) and the two extra fast lane cores are something to seriously consider given the small pricing difference. Especially given his usage scenarios.
(your argument on the 2990WX reminds me of the American “SALES!!! NAO!!!” kind of thing; you walk inside the store and buy whatever’s on sale, 'cause “you save so much”. Not particularly reasonable a venture. You buy what you came for, provided you grasp what’s offered to you)
TBH, in some cases, future proofing is worth it. Take one example: PC just broke, you need a new one asap, but you’re dirt poor at the moment. You buy a B350 mobo with a Ryzen 3 2200G or even a cheaper Raven Ridge APU (like an A6 or some dual-core excavator core chip) and no GPU with 1x8 GB DDR4 RAM. You wait 3-4 months and you buy a dGPU, then you wait another 3 months and you buy a R7 2700X and another 8 GB of RAM.
In the case you’re not in desperate need for a new PC, you survived with your old PC for a few years, you can wait a few months to buy high-end components outright and not buy low-end parts that will just end up in a storage closet or sold for a lower price (so you lose money anyway). You do future proofing when you are in desperate need of a PC, but can’t afford it.
I got a Pentium G4560, although I currently don’t need a high-end PC (I’m not doing anything fancy), I can always upgrade to a 7700 as new computing needs arises, instead of buying a new platform (but as I am in a difficult situation, I can’t carry a PC with me when I will inevitably move, so I will just sell this one for cheap when I leave this place).
