pderbidge
Senior Member
I'll try and document my build in this new thread as it progresses for anyone else interested in my experience with this new processor. For this first post I'll try and cut to the chase and answer questions I've seen many have regarding the new Ryzen's vs Intel's 9900k. Although I don't own the 9900k I think given the reviews, benchmarks and my own personal experience so far with the 3700x I think I can still give a fair analysis of where the 9900k falls in comparison to the Ryzen offerings. In succeeding posts I'll outline my build process and discuss my observations but in this post I'm just going to give my take on price/performance value between the new Ryzens and the flagship 9900k. Now let's get to the answer you've all been waiting for
Performance Wise- I would say the landscape looks like this: (with the first being the best performer)
1. Ryzen 7 3900x
2. i9 9900k (or KF variant without igp which is more comparable to Ryzen)
3. Ryzen 7 3700x (don't bother with 3800x, it's not likely to be any better than the 3700x)
4. Probably a tie between i7 8700k and Ryzen 5 3600x with 3600x pulling ahead in multi threading efficiency but less overclocking headroom than i7 8700k
I think the above was fairly obvious from the Dawbench results that have already been published.
Now to the good and bad.
The Bad: Buying a Ryzen is a bit like buying a lottery ticket. some people get silicon that performs at all core speeds up to 4.4GHZ and then there's me where my max stable speeds are between 4.1 and 4.2. I know some earlier Intel architecture was like this but I think by now Intel has this silicon process down and if you buy an i9, the chances of getting an all core 5ghz clock is pretty solid.
The Good: Despite this silicon lottery, the results of my 3700x in early testing seem really solid. I can only imagine how this would perform if they could push this architecture to 5ghz. Also, there are some multi threaded tasks where even this 3700x can outperform the i9 9900k.
The Bad: There definitely seems to be a bug in the bios regarding temps. Mine seems awfully hot, however nothing else in my case seems affected by it which leads me to believe it is a bug. Keep in mind I already have high ambient temps to deal with since I have yet to install central air so during the blistering July and August I'm getting room temps between 25c and 26c. With that being the case I'm experiencing Idle Temps between 37c and 51c and under Aida64 stress temps it gets up to 93c at times with a Noctua NH-u14s and a single fan. The case itself has 5 120mm fans. There is a thermal limit of 95c and as long as the precision boost is doing it's job it will never end up going over that. Aida64 is currently at 3 hours right now and nothing has gone beyond 93c and mostly hovers around 83c. Even at these supposed temps I'm getting all core boosts of between 4Ghz and 4.2Ghz. I'll say it again though, I don't think these temps are accurate. when I touch the VRM's on the motherboard they are barely warm and the case isn't even putting out that much heat when I put my hand in front of the exhaust or inside the case. I wish I had proper tools to measure this definitively but unfortunately I do not. I'll keep my eyes on this to make sure I didn't get a dud in the TDP department.
OK, just to elaborate on temps- the other reason I don't think those temps are accurate or at least comparable to the way we're used to reading temps is because the way AMD reports to the bios. It is very active. It has to do this because of it's precision boost (not precision boost overdrive which is something else but kinda similar) technology. Because it's so actively checking stats with the sensors in order to do it's thing, the bios is getting almost real-time data that fluctuates quite a bit rather than us seeing averages as we would with other CPU architectures.
The Good: There's almost no overclocking room in these chips. Wait, what? that's a good thing? Actually, yes. What AMD has done is try to give the average consumer a chip with a built in technology that pushes max performance out of it's processor and leaves almost nothing else on the table. This means that non-overclockers can be assured they'll get the best possible performance out of their purchase by just plugging it in. You can't complain too much about that can you? Of course, I'd still like to have seen the ability to push it further, and I tried (corrupting my OS in the process and having to reinstall but the performance benefit with the added heat was not enough to justify a small overclock of 4.2GHZ on my chip.
The Bad (and good): If you don't need the features of the x570 platform then you can save a good deal of money on a Ryzen build, however if you need the features of the x570 chipset then I think the 3700x is less enticing than Intel's Z390 chipset. The prices will be similar, especially with an i9 9900kf. With the i9 you get a tried and tested architecture and no early bios growing pains to deal with. I knew this would likely be the case and I went for the 3700x anyways because I just wanted to support AMD's new achievement and it was still going to perform pretty close to the 9900k. Besides, the CPU was never my bottleneck to begin with but rather lack of more memory and SSD's which I can happily say is no longer the case.
So to sum up the price to performance ratio I'd dare say that if you're going to invest in Ryzen then a 3600x or a 3900x are the better choices. One being a more budget friendly option and the other being more of a performance driven purchase. The difference in motherboard prices between x570(expensive) and z390(affordable) makes a 3700x vs 9900k purchase too narrow to justify the 3700x if you're looking for the better DAW performer. If you already own a B450 board or an X470 board or want to purchase one of those because you don't need what X570 or Z390 offer then a 3700x starts to make sense.
Well, that's it for now. I haven't even begun to transfer all my samples and VST's to the new PC yet so I can't offer much more than what I've stated here for now.
Performance Wise- I would say the landscape looks like this: (with the first being the best performer)
1. Ryzen 7 3900x
2. i9 9900k (or KF variant without igp which is more comparable to Ryzen)
3. Ryzen 7 3700x (don't bother with 3800x, it's not likely to be any better than the 3700x)
4. Probably a tie between i7 8700k and Ryzen 5 3600x with 3600x pulling ahead in multi threading efficiency but less overclocking headroom than i7 8700k
I think the above was fairly obvious from the Dawbench results that have already been published.
Now to the good and bad.
The Bad: Buying a Ryzen is a bit like buying a lottery ticket. some people get silicon that performs at all core speeds up to 4.4GHZ and then there's me where my max stable speeds are between 4.1 and 4.2. I know some earlier Intel architecture was like this but I think by now Intel has this silicon process down and if you buy an i9, the chances of getting an all core 5ghz clock is pretty solid.
The Good: Despite this silicon lottery, the results of my 3700x in early testing seem really solid. I can only imagine how this would perform if they could push this architecture to 5ghz. Also, there are some multi threaded tasks where even this 3700x can outperform the i9 9900k.
The Bad: There definitely seems to be a bug in the bios regarding temps. Mine seems awfully hot, however nothing else in my case seems affected by it which leads me to believe it is a bug. Keep in mind I already have high ambient temps to deal with since I have yet to install central air so during the blistering July and August I'm getting room temps between 25c and 26c. With that being the case I'm experiencing Idle Temps between 37c and 51c and under Aida64 stress temps it gets up to 93c at times with a Noctua NH-u14s and a single fan. The case itself has 5 120mm fans. There is a thermal limit of 95c and as long as the precision boost is doing it's job it will never end up going over that. Aida64 is currently at 3 hours right now and nothing has gone beyond 93c and mostly hovers around 83c. Even at these supposed temps I'm getting all core boosts of between 4Ghz and 4.2Ghz. I'll say it again though, I don't think these temps are accurate. when I touch the VRM's on the motherboard they are barely warm and the case isn't even putting out that much heat when I put my hand in front of the exhaust or inside the case. I wish I had proper tools to measure this definitively but unfortunately I do not. I'll keep my eyes on this to make sure I didn't get a dud in the TDP department.
OK, just to elaborate on temps- the other reason I don't think those temps are accurate or at least comparable to the way we're used to reading temps is because the way AMD reports to the bios. It is very active. It has to do this because of it's precision boost (not precision boost overdrive which is something else but kinda similar) technology. Because it's so actively checking stats with the sensors in order to do it's thing, the bios is getting almost real-time data that fluctuates quite a bit rather than us seeing averages as we would with other CPU architectures.
The Good: There's almost no overclocking room in these chips. Wait, what? that's a good thing? Actually, yes. What AMD has done is try to give the average consumer a chip with a built in technology that pushes max performance out of it's processor and leaves almost nothing else on the table. This means that non-overclockers can be assured they'll get the best possible performance out of their purchase by just plugging it in. You can't complain too much about that can you? Of course, I'd still like to have seen the ability to push it further, and I tried (corrupting my OS in the process and having to reinstall but the performance benefit with the added heat was not enough to justify a small overclock of 4.2GHZ on my chip.
The Bad (and good): If you don't need the features of the x570 platform then you can save a good deal of money on a Ryzen build, however if you need the features of the x570 chipset then I think the 3700x is less enticing than Intel's Z390 chipset. The prices will be similar, especially with an i9 9900kf. With the i9 you get a tried and tested architecture and no early bios growing pains to deal with. I knew this would likely be the case and I went for the 3700x anyways because I just wanted to support AMD's new achievement and it was still going to perform pretty close to the 9900k. Besides, the CPU was never my bottleneck to begin with but rather lack of more memory and SSD's which I can happily say is no longer the case.
So to sum up the price to performance ratio I'd dare say that if you're going to invest in Ryzen then a 3600x or a 3900x are the better choices. One being a more budget friendly option and the other being more of a performance driven purchase. The difference in motherboard prices between x570(expensive) and z390(affordable) makes a 3700x vs 9900k purchase too narrow to justify the 3700x if you're looking for the better DAW performer. If you already own a B450 board or an X470 board or want to purchase one of those because you don't need what X570 or Z390 offer then a 3700x starts to make sense.
Well, that's it for now. I haven't even begun to transfer all my samples and VST's to the new PC yet so I can't offer much more than what I've stated here for now.
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