Competition is the best thing a consumer can hope for. · 10:49am Jun 6th, 2017
Warning: Non-pony.
Further warning: Nerdy as fuck.
So on Sunday and Monday, a couple things arrived at my door for my upcoming DIY PC build.
My case of choice, the Corsair Graphite 760T.
Plus these little numbers; third-party dust filters specifically for the 760T.
But so far, the case is the only rock-solid decision I have made in regards to my build. Everything else is up in the air; including one of the biggest decisions: an Intel or AMD chipset?
For nearly the past decade, Intel has arguably dominated the PC market when it comes to high-end gaming and enthusiast-grade PCs. AMD has stayed afloat by offering more budget-friendly processors, competing with Intel, and graphics cards, competing with NVIDIA, as well as having a hand in the console market, having provided the custom processors for both the Xbox One and Playstation 4.
But the pot has been stirred for the past six months, starting in December when AMD announced Ryzen, its next generation processor, that, dollar for dollar, humbled Intel’s “Kaby Lake” offerings. Throughout winter, spring, and the beginning of summer, AMD has started to gain back some market share that it had slowly lost to Intel.
Fast forward to late May: Computex 2017 in Taipai, Taiwan. Intel brought forth the X299 chipset, believing it would have Ryzen on the ropes. But AMD had a trump card; the X399 chipset, and the previously unannounced high-end Ryzen: Threadripper. In response, Intel revealed a new brand of Core i9 processors. These new i9’s, in addition to a new i5 and three new i7 offerings, are under the “Kaby Lake X” and “Skylake X” architecture.
Confused? Yeah, well, so is everyone else and their mothers. Primarily because of the architecture. “Skylake” was Intel’s 6th generation of Core processors; “Kaby Lake” is the current 7th gen offerings. Now the 8th generation is going to be “Kaby Lake X” and the enthusiast i9’s are going to be “Skylake X” as well as a yet-to-be-detailed “Coffee Lake”.
Most of the hardware enthusiasts I follow on YouTube have come to the same, assumed, but probably-correct conclusion: Threadripper caught Intel with their pants down, and they panicked. This panic has even spread to the motherboard manufacturers, some of whom either don’t know how to go forward with, or plain aren’t going to support, all of the X299 features.
So I’ve narrowed my choices down to two:
7th generation Intel Kaby Lake i7...
Or 8th generation AMD Ryzen 7 or Ryzen Threadripper. Sweet Celestia, the size of that thing...
I find myself agreeing with my hardware enthusiast Youtube subscriptions on Intel’s latest decisions, and will not be considering their 8th generation offerings.
Any followers more tech-savvy than this amateur care to weigh in? I am all ears.
Depends on the Price you are willing to Pay.
Threadripper will probably cost around 600$ with the cheapest 10 Core. the 16 Core probably around 1000$.
A Ryzen 7 1600X, (Hex Core) costs about 250-300$.
Threadripper has always Quad Channel, 64 PCI-E 3.0 Lanes and often 10GBit LAN. And Yes, it really is this huge (nearly 50% of the length of a DDR4 RAM Module).
The Cheapes Threadripper set will cost you about 1200$(CPU+MB+RAM), but 2000$ ain’t far away.
With Ryzen 7 it will cost half of this.
Id go with Ryzen 7, there just arent enough consumer end programs that utilize more than 4 cores to justify buying the threadripper.
And depends on what you need. Usually, I go with a high core count and sacrifice some fps in my games for those high cores. Why? Because if I need to switch professions and I need a high core CPU, I can just install it and I would be fine. Rather than building another computer just for that work. Besides, with the high core count from AMD and cheaper price. It gets better. Now I have a Ryzen 7 1800x, and that thing is now ready for like ten maybe fifteen years of life. Rather than with Intel of just two or three as I have seen how they are set up. And really, with the way game looks at requirements. Yes, I use game requirements to see what choice is best. With those requirements in mind, I go with AMD because they have fewer choices at cheaper prices, while Intel has it all over the map. And besides, even if it's out of range for a bit for future products, you would still be fine as the CPU would make an attempt to work. And by the way, the Threadripper CPU is aimed at server and office places. You can bet that price point is going to like a thousand dollars, which for the CPU they are pushing, it's reasonable. So I would say go with 1800x or something in the 7 range and you would be fine for a couple years longer than what Intel does. And you can bet Intel's new CPUs are going to be a mess because they are basically responding with the old schoolyard 'Well, my daddy has a bigger car than yours' response. They are desperate at this point to gain back their ground. If the motherboard manufacturers don't know what the heck just happened, you can bet their systems are going into a tumble for the first few months. Just a fair warning.
Lost my original comment, so I’ll give you the long short of it.
7700k:
But...
Ryzen:
But...
As for Threadripper... it’s not so much a consumer line of products as it is aimed at workstation, server, or high-end desktop use. I would not recommend picking one up personally, but if the price is right, the feature set fits your needs, and you really want a boatload of processing power, by all means. Speaking of the price, Bits and Chips are saying that the entry-level 16C/32T Threadripper will be in the $850 range. While they have a really high accuracy with this kind of thing, take the rumor with a grain of salt.
Oh, and if you don’t like Windows 10, getting 7/8.1 to run on Kaby Lake or Ryzen is very much possible. A friend of mine with a 7700K is running 8.1, and my Kaby Lake laptop has an 8.1 install on it. It’s not always a very trivial experience, but you can do it. If you do like Windows 10, then don’t worry about it.
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Thank you all for the feedback! I have a couple months or more to do more research and wait for new boards, not planning on building until after vacation in early September, but it’s looking more and more like a Ryzen 7 would be the best choice for me so far.