Intel Thread

[Zoraptor]

17 hours ago, Sven_ said:

I think RDNA 2 (6000 series) would have done better if it wouldn't have been for Covid / mining crisis...

Ultimately the problem there was limited fab space, which was not really an AMD problem per se since the only realistic way it might not have been a problem would be if they'd held onto their fab arm (now Global Foundries). But then they may have gone bankrupt trying to hold onto it. Without a valid competitor everyone bar nVidia/ Intel was squashed onto the limited TSMC capacity, which they had to book a year in advance based on what they thought might happen.

Since there was limited fab space and more or less unlimited demand it was always a question of what would make AMD more money; and that was CPUs. You can simply make a lot more of them per wafer than a GPU, and at top end the profit margin for them compared to a consumer GPU is massively greater in profit/ die space terms. So when they did acquire extra capacity it went into satisfying the CPU demand.

The situation where AMD could have done better GPU wise was one where they could up production exactly how they pleased. Then the relatively low margins would have been fine since there would have been no intra AMD product competition for space. If nVidia was really limited by Samsung's capacity/ reliability they could have taken significant share.

[majestic]

Arrow Lake update from Intel

TL;DR: Windows and BIOS/microcode updates allegedly fixing a lot of the issues found in reviews, like the inconsistent performance, strange multithreading behaviour, aberrant memory latency and APO doing nothing (the last one can easily be seen at the GN review). Looking forward to KitGuru's review then, Leo said he'll only review Arrow Lake after Intel fixed it. Certianly won't push Arrow Lake past the 9800X3D (which was never to be expected anyway), but at least it should help in most numbers against the 14th gen lineup (and by extension, AMD's non X3D Zen 5 CPUs).

Even assuming these issues are fixed, what a poor showing by Intel. The reviews are already out and nobody is going to care much about fixes after the fact. I'd make a joke about adopting AMD's launch strategies in addition to the glueing of CPUs, but... Intel's glueing tech is so different from AMDs that they only share the goal in common - connect smaller chips to alleviate the maximum die size problem of modern nodes and increase yields.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Even assuming these issues are fixed, what a poor showing by Intel. The reviews are already out and nobody is going to care much about fixes after the fact. I'd make a joke about adopting AMD's launch strategies in addition to the glueing of CPUs, but... Intel's glueing tech is so different from AMDs that they only share the goal in common - connect smaller chips to alleviate the maximum die size problem of modern nodes and increase yields.

Yeah, I was going to say that that it's probably too little, too late if past bad launches by AMD were any indication. Though AMD has obviously had bad launches for other reasons, they seem to especially love to shoot themselves in the foot by launching with inexplicably poor pricing and then dropping their prices to be more competitive...usually about a week after all the reviews trashing them for having bad price-to-performance have released. Completely needless, but they never seem to learn.

Edited Friday at 11:34 AM by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

I've been contemplating building a new (basic parts/lots of storage and giant case) rig but not getting a gpu yet - just tossing the 2080ti into the 'new pc' - but the CPU market seems so up in the air itself this moment that I fear the "I made a mistake" regret a year or two later. >.>

I have funds, I just have zero idea what I'm going to do this time. Except ignore/delay thinking about it, some more.

[Bartimaeus]

Isn't the only "good" choice for a top end gaming PC the 9800X3D right now? Kinda doubt anyone will be regretting buying a X3D part anytime soon - anyone who's bought one going back to the 5000 series seems to always be pretty loathe to upgrade because of how long their legs are, and it's been repeatedly emphasized by Gamer's Nexus over the past year or two in their CPU reviews how good even the oldest ones continue to be.

Edited Friday at 09:27 PM by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

^ Seems a little pricey. Supposedly there is another version coming out lower price with similar performance, so maybe one should wait and see what happens there (if it's not just rumor) but I know zip about amd.

Which is ofc the problem with all tech and time. It's just in the past I felt more "sure" of what paths to take for my needs/preferences at the time I wanted to build if I wasn't going to endlessly "wait for next thing", regardless of what popular reviewers were saying was "the uber bestest".

 

EDIT: btw, is AMD better re: mobo longevity re: switching out cpu's later? Obviously I don't mean 10 yrs or something, but even a year or two later?

Edited Friday at 09:47 PM by LadyCrimson

[majestic]

27 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Isn't the only "good" choice for a top end gaming PC the 9800X3D right now? Kinda doubt anyone will be regretting buying a X3D part anytime soon - anyone who's bought one going back to the 5000 series seems to always be pretty loathe to upgrade because of how long their legs are, and it's been repeatedly emphasized by Gamer's Nexus over the past year or two in their CPU reviews how good even the oldest ones continue to be.

Prices are way too jacked up due to high demand and low availability, and the difference in performance to the 7800X3D is achieved by blasting 40% more power into the CPU, but yes, if only the best for gaming is good enough, right now that is the 9800X3D, no questions asked. Painful as that might be for me, but getting a 7800X3D is also a pretty good choice right now.

Not sure when the 12 and 16 core Zen 5 X3D parts are coming - allegedly all their cores are going to have the extra cache this time around, so they might actually pull ahead of the 9800X3D - depends a bit on the power budget.

You're right though, looking at GN's game performance charts, if you have one of the AM4 X3D's, there's no point in upgrading unless you need the extra core performance for productivity.

13 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

EDIT: btw, is AMD better re: mobo longevity re: switching out cpu's later? Obviously I don't mean 10 yrs or something, but even a year or two later?

They were with AM4. There's an interview with AMD engineers on GN where they rather freely talk about the longevity of AM4 being a byproduct of not being able to afford developing a new platform,though, and Tim from Hardware Unboxed likes to point out that AMD very stubbornly refuses to confirm that Zen 6 (their next generation, coming up in two or so years, most likely) will still be for AM5. AMD just promises to support AM5 through 2026, which can mean anything, as they can technically say they're still supporting AM4 by still releasing "new" CPUs. Personally, I don't think AMD is going to switch to new platform for Zen 6 unless AM5 ends up being incompatible with what AMD is trying to do with Zen 6 (introducing new packaging technology, i.e. a different way to glue chips together), but it would be tremendously hilarious to see the fanboy copium if they do, so I am rooting for Zen 6 getting being on AM6, or whatever they're going to call their next platform.

However, that's rather unlikely to matter. If you get a 7800X3D or a 9800X3D, they'll probably last for half a decade or much longer without having to upgrade. Look at the AM4 X3D CPUs, they're still very competitive (and in many cases only slightly slower than the 7800X3D). There are games of course where the extra cache makes no real difference, and games where it does until it suddenly doesn't (once a Factorio game outgrows the extra cache, CPUs with higher core counts have better performance again), but generally, these CPUs are as good a bet for the future as you can make right now.

Well, but there's a but - whatever new system you're going to build is going to be held back by that RTX 2080 TI. You're unlikely to see any real gains in GPU intensive games. Especially on 4K. Future-proofing your CPU is not going to matter as much as long as you're holding on to that card. I mean if you were budget constrained, that means you could go with a cheaper Zen 4 part and do a drop-in upgrade later, but... honestly, just get a 4080 Super or a 4070 TI Super*.

*If you want a card that dies as rapidly when turning RT on as your 2080 TI, you can get a 7900 XTX - it's faster in rasterization than a 4080, but as soon as you play an RT heavy title with RT on it tanks to being slower than a 4070. Yikes. 

[LadyCrimson]

^ re: mobo etc. Hm, interesting.

re: 2080ti in "new" build - I wouldn't do that thinking I'd get any gains. It's just that it would still "work" while I'm waiting for another generation of gpu's, so whenever I feel like finally buying a ridiculously over-priced gpu, I already have something to just throw it into.

Since I like 4k, even if I don't care about Supreme/Ultra/RT/frame-gen/120+ fps etc, I still don't feel like gpu's are seriously "4k worthy" yet. Oh sure they're better than my current overall and ofc re: RT, but with the way dev's are going, it's going to be another 2-4 years before we know what a "good 4k" gpu may be. It's just so I have the chassy ready.

Granted, doing things that way (rig, upgrade gpu later) isn't my typical thing, I like building wholesale and then largely never changing/upgrading/touching a rig for 5-8 years, but eh. Was just considering it.

Edited Friday at 10:36 PM by LadyCrimson

[Sven_]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

EDIT: btw, is AMD better re: mobo longevity re: switching out cpu's later? Obviously I don't mean 10 yrs or something, but even a year or two later?

Well, that's what they're specifically advertising. AM5 (launched in 2022) is intended to see new CPUs until 2027. AM4 launched in 2016 and still saw new CPUs until 2024... it's quite something going into my mobo's compatibilty list and scrolling through all these chips.  Not sure if AM5 is going to be the same. But they obviously did this as they saw AM4 as the entry level platform as to Ryzen when AM5 launched -- AM5 still being a tad more expensive to this day.

There hasn't been a socket with this much longevity since (Super) Socket 7. Of course, if a platform lasts that long, there's going to be standards it won't support down the line. My board for instance is still PCIe 3.0. Also, initially, earlier boards didn't support X3D. 

Edited Friday at 11:34 PM by Sven_

[Zoraptor]

Most surprising thing about AM4 was how good the MB manufacturers have been about BIOS updates since there's no point having new CPUs if the BIOS never gets updated to recognise them. Indeed, my 7 1/2yr old MB last got a BIOS update in September, ie 3 months ago.

(with a few exceptions. think the pretty expensive asrock Taichi x370 went eol after only a couple of years)