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For those of you who were waiting for the Ryzen 5 release of April 11th. Which of the chips do see yourself purchasing? Are you going lower end and overclocking? Picking up on the highest stock clocked chip and hoping to push it higher? Share your thoughts.

1700 FTW. The R7's don't clock significantly different, and it comes with a halfway decent cooler too. Then again, my use case of a Windows Host and 2+ VirtualBox Guests isn't a common one.

If I was just building a gaming box I'd get a Kaby Lake Pentium w/HT.

Where's the cheese option?

Vhalidictes wrote:

1700 FTW. The R7's don't clock significantly different, and it comes with a halfway decent cooler too. Then again, my use case of a Windows Host and 2+ VirtualBox Guests isn't a common one.

If I was just building a gaming box I'd get a Kaby Lake Pentium w/HT.

That's exactly why I bought a Ryzen 7 1700. I agree we're not a common use case, but for our use case, this is great.

I was waiting for a 5 but I didn't know they were coming so soon, I assumed Q2 meant mid-late Q2. So I'm on a 1700.

It seems we're seeing folks mostly either go all the way up for the 7, the top Ryzen 5 model, or they simply don't need to buy right now.

I voted the last option but I'm on an FX-8350. I don't wanna discourage anyone from buying a Ryzen setup and I certainly can't speak for anyone but myself but personally I just don't foresee needing more performance because I hardly even play games anymore and I just watch YouTube videos, surf, copy photos here and there, etc. Ryzen is nice but I'll probably wait for the second or third iteration if ever, but even so, upgrading would entail spending around $800, something that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense given MY use case. I'm actually thinking of getting a cheap 970 AM3+ board as a spare while they're still around in case my current 990FX board quits. I'm on my second AM3+ board so I kinda have this feeling that it'll quit sooner than the FX CPU and RAM.

And if you think about it, we normally don't replace appliances at home that work just fine and fulfill our needs. Our fridges stay for 10-20 (or more) years. TVs stay for more than 5 years. OTOH computers are considered 'old' after just 2 or 3 years but we've gotten to the point where they're just good enough for everything we do, so why replace them when they still work great? There's something that feels good about getting many years out of an appliance or tool. Who knows, I might end up sticking with my FX for 10 years! That would totally beat any CPU I've had before it in terms of longevity.

The requirements of a fridge don't change over time. Unless you have a specific and fixed use case in mind the requirements of a PC probably will. If it takes a few years for that to happen I don't think that's unusual.

I'll pick up a 1700 once there's some decent ITX boards around for it. Until then I'm not really in a hurry.

I'll be upgrading in late 2018 when Zen+ or whatever it'll be called shows up I think, as long as I don't have to replace everything.

@Redocbew:

True, the requirements of a fridge don't change over time (unless a nice new feature comes out that justifies buying a new fridge) and computers kept on getting faster and more capable, justifying upgrades every few years, but we've reached a point where most folks are fine with what they have. Performance still keeps improving but we know that it's no longer the leaps and bounds we had before we got here. And so, as I said somewhere before, computers will one day be just like other household appliances: They will only get replaced when they break. We're already seeing this happen.

Flying Fox wrote:

Where's the cheese option?

What, was the Intel "herd" option not cheese enough

I'm going to go with 1600x unless the 1600s OC well.

Unfortunately I already splurged on the 1800X although if I did get a Ryzen 5 it would be the 1600X as its ability to hit 4+ GHz on all cores should in theory be greater.

Unfortunately I don't think there's much benefit in the Ryzen 5, in the same way there's not much benefit in the slower i5 CPUs.

Essentially there are three types of user:

1. Heavy multitasker who needs all the cores; This is where Ryzen 7 shines, since it's effectively a viable replacement for Haswell-E/Broadwell-E at a fraction of the cost.
2. Serious gamer, or someone who's primary application needs good IPC above all else; Either the 7350K for those that only need four threads, or the 7700K for those that need more.
3. Lowest-cost, bang-for-your-buck; At $60 the Pentium G4650 is absolutely unbeatable at the moment, and it's good enough to satisfy all but the serious gamers/workers

Since options 2 and 3 are still Intel's "IPC x clockspeed" stomping grounds, The Ryzen 7 is likely to be the only truly appealing chip and only really for people who fit into the first category. Unless AMD can bring up their clocks up with the R5 to close the gap with Kaby/Skylake or bring their costs down for R3 to outperform the G4650 in terms of performance/$, they're still not going to secure much of the mainstream market. Hopefully both IPC and clock bumps are in the works for Ryzen 2 as they'll be applying tweaks learned from the current generation of Ryzen.

Don't get me wrong, Ryzen is really, really impressive. It's just not quite the right architecture to compete with Intel in the mainstream sector yet.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think there's much benefit in the Ryzen 5, in the same way there's not much benefit in the slower i5 CPUs.

Essentially there are three types of user:

1. Heavy multitasker who needs all the cores; This is where Ryzen 7 shines, since it's effectively a viable replacement for Haswell-E/Broadwell-E at a fraction of the cost.
2. Serious gamer, or someone who's primary application needs good IPC above all else; Either the 7350K for those that only need four threads, or the 7700K for those that need more.
3. Lowest-cost, bang-for-your-buck; At $60 the Pentium G4650 is absolutely unbeatable at the moment, and it's good enough to satisfy all but the serious gamers/workers

Since options 2 and 3 are still Intel's "IPC x clockspeed" stomping grounds, The Ryzen 7 is likely to be the only truly appealing chip and only really for people who fit into the first category. Unless AMD can bring up their clocks up with the R5 to close the gap with Kaby/Skylake or bring their costs down for R3 to outperform the G4650 in terms of performance/$, they're still not going to secure much of the mainstream market. Hopefully both IPC and clock bumps are in the works for Ryzen 2 as they'll be applying tweaks learned from the current generation of Ryzen.

Don't get me wrong, Ryzen is really, really impressive. It's just not quite the right architecture to compete with Intel in the mainstream sector yet.

For bullet #2, I would like to point out that i5 7600K is a much better deal than the 7700K if one plans to overclock.

ultima_trev wrote:

Chrispy_ wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think there's much benefit in the Ryzen 5, in the same way there's not much benefit in the slower i5 CPUs.

Essentially there are three types of user:

1. Heavy multitasker who needs all the cores; This is where Ryzen 7 shines, since it's effectively a viable replacement for Haswell-E/Broadwell-E at a fraction of the cost.
2. Serious gamer, or someone who's primary application needs good IPC above all else; Either the 7350K for those that only need four threads, or the 7700K for those that need more.
3. Lowest-cost, bang-for-your-buck; At $60 the Pentium G4650 is absolutely unbeatable at the moment, and it's good enough to satisfy all but the serious gamers/workers

Since options 2 and 3 are still Intel's "IPC x clockspeed" stomping grounds, The Ryzen 7 is likely to be the only truly appealing chip and only really for people who fit into the first category. Unless AMD can bring up their clocks up with the R5 to close the gap with Kaby/Skylake or bring their costs down for R3 to outperform the G4650 in terms of performance/$, they're still not going to secure much of the mainstream market. Hopefully both IPC and clock bumps are in the works for Ryzen 2 as they'll be applying tweaks learned from the current generation of Ryzen.

Don't get me wrong, Ryzen is really, really impressive. It's just not quite the right architecture to compete with Intel in the mainstream sector yet.

For bullet #2, I would like to point out that i5 7600K is a much better deal than the 7700K if one plans to overclock.

Ugh. Intel Product Segmentation strikes again. This isn't 2004, you don't need "real cores". i3 for gaming, i7 for heavy duty work, i5 is in a wilderness of bad price/performance.

TLDR; HT or you're just throwing money at Intel.

I would WAY rather have an i5 for gaming than an i3. IPC is king, but more games are using >2 threads than ever. I see 8 isn't very useful in a lot of games, but 4 definitely is.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I would WAY rather have an i5 for gaming than an i3. IPC is king, but more games are using >2 threads than ever. I see 8 isn't very useful in a lot of games, but 4 definitely is.

I agree completely. That's why I recommend i3's for gaming, and not Celerons. I3's have 4 threads, and four threads is all you need for gaming, as you say.

If you want to pay double for "real cores"... well, that's on you but I wouldn't.

Vhalidictes wrote:

i5 is in a wilderness of bad price/performance

Well, you might be overstating for emphasis, but yeah, the i5 is in a really weird space.

I'm really interested in seeing the 4C8T Ryzen with only one CCX results. Some people are point to the Infinity Fabric as the culprit of some of the woes. It also should be able to OC much higher than the 8C16T part, too. It might be the go to CPU for gaming the these theories pan out.

The i5 during Sandybridge was the best gaming chip. The i5 outperformed the i7 thanks to the HT performing terrible in gaming titles. Games also weren't taking advantage of much more than 2 cores back then, plus whatever background programs you were running.

The same thing can be said about the i7... If you want to throw Intel money for 4 more "fake" cores then be my guest.

Losergamer04 wrote:

I'm really interested in seeing the 4C8T Ryzen with only one CCX results. Some people are point to the Infinity Fabric as the culprit of some of the woes. It also should be able to OC much higher than the 8C16T part, too. It might be the go to CPU for gaming the these theories pan out.

I'm interested too, but from everything I've read the R5 is going to be 2+2, so there won't be a "one CCX" chip until at least the R3....

Which doesn't make any sense at all to me; they must be die harvesting on an epic scale.

Depends on the pricing. If rumours are correct then probably the slowest 6/12 or the slowest 4/4 will be the most attractive options.

The 6/12 being the most capable chip at an affordable price and the 4/4 being a good replacement for the i3 now that the G4560 has rendered it of dubious value.

The 4/8s seem overpriced, a second rate i5 at not much of a discount.

Yeah, fairly sure they are harvesting like a banshee. First gen problems.

Welch wrote:

The i5 during Sandybridge was the best gaming chip. The i5 outperformed the i7 thanks to the HT performing terrible in gaming titles. Games also weren't taking advantage of much more than 2 cores back then, plus whatever background programs you were running.

The same thing can be said about the i7... If you want to throw Intel money for 4 more "fake" cores then be my guest.

The i7 7700K also has a higher frequency and a bigger cache. Not saying it's a big difference, but it has its place as "the best". The 7600K is a more ... complex proposition.

Welch wrote:

The i5 during Sandybridge was the best gaming chip. The i5 outperformed the i7 thanks to the HT performing terrible in gaming titles. Games also weren't taking advantage of much more than 2 cores back then, plus whatever background programs you were running.

The same thing can be said about the i7... If you want to throw Intel money for 4 more "fake" cores then be my guest.

That is simply false. The value may have been quite a bit better, but the i7 and i5 at Sandy introduction were more or less equal in almost every single game benchmark TR tested. I have no idea where you're getting "HT performing terrible" from. Sure, it didn't provide a ton of extra oomph for games in the Sandy days, but it's not like someone with two machines, an i5 and an i7, could consistently tell which one was slower.

http://techreport.com/review/20188/inte ... ocessors/6
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the- ... -tested/20

Welch wrote:

The i5 during Sandybridge was the best gaming chip. The i5 outperformed the i7 thanks to the HT performing terrible in gaming titles. Games also weren't taking advantage of much more than 2 cores back then, plus whatever background programs you were running.

The same thing can be said about the i7... If you want to throw Intel money for 4 more "fake" cores then be my guest.

HT is a feature that, by and large, works well at this point. All Intel cores are fabbed with the capability. The only reason that i5's exist with HT removed is to hit a certain price point for product segmentation. It's not a particularly good price point either; for both gaming and high-performance-computing there are better options.

Overclocking on a budget, for example, would be a corner case where the i5 could make sense... but only because the i3-7350K is so expensive. Again, product segmentation insanity. If nothing else, RyZen should help clean up Intel's product line.

Losergamer04 wrote:

I'm really interested in seeing the 4C8T Ryzen with only one CCX results. Some people are point to the Infinity Fabric as the culprit of some of the woes. It also should be able to OC much higher than the 8C16T part, too. It might be the go to CPU for gaming the these theories pan out.

No, it shouldn't be able to OC "much higher than the 8C16T part." The 4C8T parts are going to top out roughly in the exact same place that the R7's do. Bet on it.

It'll be the Ryzen 7 1700 for me - I use enough parallelized apps that the extra cores will make a positive difference. Now if I were to recommend a chip for someone interested in gaming and streaming, the 1600x is hard to turn down. You'd get a more than capable quad core design with two extra cores free just to handle video transcoding on the fly. Responsiveness would also be good, the price savings is significant, and the more aggressive clocks would also keep baseline framerates higher for both tasks.

As for gaming on a budget, you can argue that there's still a place at the table for the Pentium G4560. The money you pocket by going with that versus an entry-level Ryzen 3 could make a notable difference for your video card selection. But even under ideal circumstances you're dealing with two SMT cores versus four non-SMT cores, and I can't help thinking the low-end Ryzen would be a better long-term investment. I'd save up for another month or two and go entry-level quad with a nicer feature set, any day of the week.

If "IF" I execute on a build soon I think it will be down the R7 line. Besides gaming, I'm also operating VM's and serving media at the same time. Not that an R5 wouldn't be a significant boost over my current i7-930. But I think I benefit from triple channel when doing multiple things. Mind you, I have no empirical evidence to support this. Just vague more concurrently available bandwidth is better. And for that reason, I will wait a while and see if quad channel solutions show up.

Concupiscence wrote:

As for gaming on a budget, you can argue that there's still a place at the table for the Pentium G4560. The money you pocket by going with that versus an entry-level Ryzen 3 could make a notable difference for your video card selection. But even under ideal circumstances you're dealing with two SMT cores versus four non-SMT cores, and I can't help thinking the low-end Ryzen would be a better long-term investment. I'd save up for another month or two and go entry-level quad with a nicer feature set, any day of the week.

Those two smaller cores have much higher clock speeds and somewhat higher IPC, so it's a wash. I'd argue that by the time the R3 is helping you, you'd have already upgraded. The Pentium is the price/performance leader in the light gaming space.