New AMD Ryzen 3000 series - Worth considering?

[RCBH928]

I don't get whats the excitement over AMD's Ryzen. I understand its more bang for your buck, but Intel still has the faster more capable CPU. The media is making it sound like AMD is crushing Intel in the CPU game, am I missing something?

[Ziggy]

I don't get whats the excitement over AMD's Ryzen. I understand its more bang for your buck, but Intel still has the faster more capable CPU. The media is making it sound like AMD is crushing Intel in the CPU game, am I missing something?

Traditionally, depending on what you were using your PC for, you could easily justify spending a little more on Intel versus AMD. But right now the gap has never been smaller, and so it's harder to justify spending the extra money. You could say that AMD is "crushing it" definitely in value and sales. Just Google "Intel vs AMD sales" and you'll find plenty of articles. As for performance, Intel is still on top in real world benchmarks, but not by a large enough margin to warrant the extra cost in most people's opinion. That is why AMD is crushing it.

Moreover, AMD announced the 3rd generation of Ryzen that will launch in July. The Ryzen 3000 series will close the gap. The way it is looking, they might be neck and neck in terms of performance. One only slightly better than the other at this or that, but overall neck and neck. THEN consider that the Ryzen is considerably cheaper and there's no competition.

[marurun]

There are a lot of gamers looking to maximize performance for a lower price, and Ryzen is now the place to be. It used to be worth spotting a little extra on the CPU side because of Intel’s large single-core IPC lead, but the combination of improvements to Ryzen’s IPC and power envelope with the massive hit Intel CPUs take when plugging side-channel security vulnerabilities makes Ryzen now the defacto choice for cost-conscious gamers. Further, Ryzen has for some time now completely thrashed Intel at standard workstation content generation that can utilize many cores.

Additionally, Ryzen is now a stronger selection for streamers, because you can get good game performance and then also get great streaming performance in the same CPU.

[isiolia]

I don't get whats the excitement over AMD's Ryzen. I understand its more bang for your buck, but Intel still has the faster more capable CPU. The media is making it sound like AMD is crushing Intel in the CPU game, am I missing something?

To me, it's mostly the result of AMD trying while Intel has been coasting.

If you look at Intel's performance year over year, each successive generation is better, but mostly not incredibly so. The big bump came with bumping their CPUs to more cores, which was more a response to competition from AMD than anything else (and they've ended up stripping hyperthreading out now too). In the meantime, they've struggled to get to the next process node for a real generational leap, and have had security issues come up that - when fixed - drop performance down a bit.
As mentioned, Intel has been leading with Instructions Per Clock (IPC), making them stand out for less threaded workloads, like most gaming. Depite running on the hot side, Intel was also cheaping out a little with their thermal interface material, which only made issues worse. Their platforms were continuing to just offer the same-ish features, despite changing the socket every other year.

All stuff they basically could get away with doing because, like you mentioned, they still had the more capable chip.

Ryzen, on the other hand, continued AMD's trend of more cores for less money. Modern workloads are trending towards more threads, so it's an increasingly effective way to go. They also have packed in better feature sets for their chipsets, and kept them usable longer. Power usage is better, TIM is better, they pack in a half-decent cooler...
Generally speaking, Ryzen has ticked a lot of boxes for enthusiasts since it came out. The main caveat was the still-lower IPC. Third gen Ryzen is supposed to be a lot more competitive there though.

That's on top of AMD continuing to get their hardware built into every Playstation and Xbox, etc.

To a fair point, AMD has actually given enthusiasts something to be excited about, and a very competitive product at a time when Intel just wasn't prepared. No doubt, Intel is going to come back swinging at some point. Either way, it's a competition again, which is great for consumers, and of course makes room for a lot of commentary and analysis.

[Ziggy]

I've been an Intel guy for as long as I've been a PC hardware enthusiast. Having said that, I just built a new computer for myself a couple of weeks ago to be my new main desktop. I went with AMD for the first time ever (for a build for myself). All things considered, I just couldn't justify spending more on Intel this time around.

To me, it's mostly the result of AMD trying while Intel has been coasting.

To a fair point, AMD has actually given enthusiasts something to be excited about, and a very competitive product at a time when Intel just wasn't prepared. No doubt, Intel is going to come back swinging at some point. Either way, it's a competition again, which is great for consumers, and of course makes room for a lot of commentary and analysis.

My thoughts almost exactly. I've been wondering if Intel has been holding back. And this will definitely be healthy competition for us consumers. I can't wait to see how Intel will combat this in the long term. Will they try to retain the higher cost but higher price position? Or will they surprise us with a new move?

[marurun]

I think Intel is holding back. A lot of their predictive tech and multi-threading has opened them up to security problems that have come back around to bite them in the ass. You can bet they’ll be looking a lot more closely at future techniques to try and avoid the kind of issues they have been wrestling with now.

[Ziggy]

I think Intel is holding back. A lot of their predictive tech and multi-threading has opened them up to security problems that have come back around to bite them in the ass. You can bet they’ll be looking a lot more closely at future techniques to try and avoid the kind of issues they have been wrestling with now.

Are you referring to Meltdown and Spectre?

[marurun]

Indeed!

[Ziggy]

So I know AMD initially said their processors weren't affected by Meltdown, but I just read a recent report from Kapersky that said they are.

[RCBH928]

So if money wasn't an issue, Intel still is the better choice?
honestly I see the price difference of $150-200 is negligible when building a PC, since you will keep it for at least 4-5 years, better go with the best.
But I can see why you would choose the cheaper Ryzen if you are purchasing 100's of units for Schools, Corporations, or Gov's.

I guess the excitement is over the competition, not the tech.

Maybe I am paranoid but it kind of worries me that CPU speeds seem to have been stagnating for the past few years with Intel hitting a wall in that area. Sometimes I think humanity have almost reached the maximum CPU speeds.