(PCGT VI) It's not just about hardware

Hmm. Interested to see what benchmarks show but I'm pretty disappointed at that on face value. Might stick with a 3700X, especially if they get discounted

Yeah this has pretty much thrown all my upgrade plans off completely. I'm super, super tempted just to grab a 3700x right now, pair it with a 3070 whenever that becomes readily available and save around £200. When the 5700 eventually hits I can have a look at the difference and upgrade (one of the great things about AMD supporting current mobo chipsets).

HUM

That's a good point, can always go with a current generation Ryzen now and then stick a higher end 5000 series chip in if needed a few years down the line

The only thing stopping me from buying a 3700 now is the 5600 vs 3700 comparisons. The former there has less cores but I'm sure the updated architecture makes a difference.

Tafdolphin wrote:The only thing stopping me from buying a 3700 now is the 5600 vs 3700 comparisons. The former there has less cores but I'm sure the updated architecture makes a difference.

Yeah the newer chips will be more efficient in terms of IPC which may mean the 5600 matches or beats the 3700 in certain scenarios. I still think it's going to look overpriced though

It seems like bit of a RTX 2000 launch situation to me. If you've got last gen parts, the apparent performance gains from the new gen don't justify the price of an upgrade.

Need to see some hard testing and performance number though, and what overclocking room you'd have. You can all core clock a 3600 to 4.3 GHz (?) which, for £190, represents fantastic value. The 5600X will have to come out with some compelling numbers. A lot of the performance uplift will probably come from the architecture changes though (as noted in the video Xeno posted) which will be not readily apparent if you just look at the frequency values.

Look forward to early November then. Zen 3 and 3070 reviews to mull over.

I think I'll get a 3900X for my new machine rather than a 5000 series. I'm not going to be overclocking.

Memento Mori wrote:I think I'll get a 3900X for my new machine rather than a 5000 series. I'm not going to be overclocking.

I've been looking at the Zen 2s and, unless you're creating a load of video content I cannot see any reason to buy a 3900 over a 3700, let alone a 3800. You're getting about a 4% increase in game performance for over £100 more.

Yeah 3700 still looks like the sweet spot to me. I'll wait for some real world figures on the 5600 but I think I'll end up going for the Zen 2

Tafdolphin wrote:
Memento Mori wrote:I think I'll get a 3900X for my new machine rather than a 5000 series. I'm not going to be overclocking.

I've been looking at the Zen 2s and, unless you're creating a load of video content I cannot see any reason to buy a 3900 over a 3700, let alone a 3800. You're getting about a 4% increase in game performance for over £100 more.

It would literally just be for games and internet browsing.

Memento Mori wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:
Memento Mori wrote:I think I'll get a 3900X for my new machine rather than a 5000 series. I'm not going to be overclocking.

I've been looking at the Zen 2s and, unless you're creating a load of video content I cannot see any reason to buy a 3900 over a 3700, let alone a 3800. You're getting about a 4% increase in game performance for over £100 more.

It would literally just be for games and internet browsing.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/A ... 4044vs4043

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amd-ryzen ... ower-draw/

With a 3900 you're getting a 2% increase on the 3700. That seems to equate to roughly 2-5fps across a bunch of games. The 3900 is £150 more expensive than the 3700. It also runs hotter and sucks more power, 40w more infact. The 39xx CPUs are workstation focused, meaning you can create CPU heavy 3D assests and do video compiling faster. For gaming and casual use there's absolutely no reason to get the 3900 unless you simply must have the bigger number (in which case why aren't you waiting for the 5xxx series?).

I did a lot of research into the Zen 2s and the 3700 is undoubtedly the sweet spot.

Having slept on it I'm pretty much decided to stick with my original plan and go with the 3700X. I don't think the performance benefits of the newer chips are going to be worth the extra cost and the reality is that the 3700 offers more than enough power for what I need.

I don't play at more than 1080p and I don't have a high refresh rate display either so aiming for FPS above 60 is wasted anyway. I'm unlikely to change my display in the next few years either.

Tafdolphin wrote:
Memento Mori wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:
Memento Mori wrote:I think I'll get a 3900X for my new machine rather than a 5000 series. I'm not going to be overclocking.

I've been looking at the Zen 2s and, unless you're creating a load of video content I cannot see any reason to buy a 3900 over a 3700, let alone a 3800. You're getting about a 4% increase in game performance for over £100 more.

It would literally just be for games and internet browsing.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/A ... 4044vs4043

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amd-ryzen ... ower-draw/

With a 3900 you're getting a 2% increase on the 3700. That seems to equate to roughly 2-5fps across a bunch of games. The 3900 is £150 more expensive than the 3700. It also runs hotter and sucks more power, 40w more infact. The 39xx CPUs are workstation focused, meaning you can create CPU heavy 3D assests and do video compiling faster. For gaming and casual use there's absolutely no reason to get the 3900 unless you simply must have the bigger number (in which case why aren't you waiting for the 5xxx series?).

I did a lot of research into the Zen 2s and the 3700 is undoubtedly the sweet spot.

I can get the 3900X for £100 more than the 3700X on PC Specialist but yeah for 2% it's not worth it.

Yeah I'll pocket the £100 and get the 3700X, thanks Taf.

Looking at the below then which works out at just over £2K:

Case: CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 GAMING X: ATX (USB 3.2 Gen 1, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM): 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card: 10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 (Pre-Order Only)
1st Storage Drive: 4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB INTEL® 665p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 2000MB/sR | 1925MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply: CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Cooling: Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler

One thing there I would personally change if I was building a new PC is going for a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive instead of 3.0.

That's a solid build

Cuttooth wrote:One thing there I would personally change if I was building a new PC is going for a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive instead of 3.0.

Good point. Switch that out for a 500GB Firecuda.

Case: CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 GAMING X: ATX (USB 3.2 Gen 1, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM): 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card: 10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 (Pre-Order Only)
1st Storage Drive: 4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive: 500GB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe (up to 5000MB/R, 2500MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply: CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Cooling: Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler

I think moving from an 8 year old PC to this would be a nice upgrade.

This article points something out I hadn't noticed: none of the Zen 3s announced come with coolers, except the 5600 and that's a worse one than bundled with the 3600!

https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-ryzen-5000- ... -pcgamertw

Unless the benchmarks for the 5600 are insane I'll be grabbing a 3700. After the comparitively low prices of NVidia's new GPUs, this all feels very mercantile.

I can see why they are repositioning themselves in terms of price. They were the significant underdog for a long time so had to place themselves as the "value" option by undercutting Intel on price. Now it looks like they are aiming to match or supersede the Intel chips on performance so there isn't the same need to price them so aggressively.

Still annoying though

(PCGT VI) It's not just about hardware

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