So I was recently looking at those as options for a very low budget video editing PC for someone, and yes, AMD destroys intel in raw CPU performance for the same price, however in those low-budget applications Intel has an upper hand - integrated GPU. With AMD you either have to go with the super crappy 3400G, which is a really poor CPU(but also very cheap), or for literally anything else + a dedicated GPU(which increases the cost significantly above Intel's offering). I was surprised to find out it's actually cheaper to go with say i5 9400 with an integrated GPU than with Ryzen 5 3600 + cheapest dedicated GPU. Yes the dedicated gpu will be better than intel's offering(marginally so) but if you only care about the CPU performance, don't have a lot of money and yet you need something to drive your monitor, then Intel has that integrated GPU to offer that AMD lacks.
I think this is why you mostly see these cheap articles called out as being ideal for gaming rigs where you're highly likely to be adding a dedicated GPU anyway. Even a low end card like a $120 RX 570 is going to be 600+% faster than the built in Intel GPU:
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-UHD-Graphics-630...
Even for video editing the math might change a bit since modern video editing apps can leverage GPU for rendering.
That said, I agree with the folks who say that AMD releasing desktop chips built on Zen 2 with built in GPU cannot come fast enough.
As you suggested I think there is market for Desktop using the Ryzen Mobile 4000 Parts.
This used to be a thing where the Motherboard maker would sell the Board + Mobile Chip soldered. Not sure if you could still do that.
And it is not like Zen 2 Desktop APU aren't coming. Just a tad later. I think the current roadmap from AMD is pretty solid. Although I do wish their sales and marketing execution to be much better.
This is really annoying when building a NAS too. Great value CPUs with ECC support make the configurations great and then you need to spend 50-100€ to just get boot graphics even though the machine will be headless 99% of the time. Buying something second hand or from aliexpress defeats the purpose of trying to build something reliable. The market for low-end discrete GPUs has all but vanished thanks to Intel integrated GPUs. AMD should add a very basic GPU to every CPU part just good enough for boot graphics and consoles. All the motherboards already include the outputs themselves so only a little bit of silicon in the CPU is missing.
There's an important market segment though that these will suit well. People on budgets doing upgrades of cheap systems. They'll likely continue to use their old video card, which will probably be better than Intel's integrated GPU, but will swap out the motherboard and CPU (and maybe RAM).
When I was much younger, and on much more of a budget, these "computers of theseus" were my main rigs for a long time. The meta-game was to try to see how few parts you had to swap out from piecemeal upgrade to piecemeal upgrade.
Few thoughts for your friend. This is not a "you're wrong" post, but a "here are some options to consider, with different tradeoffs."
1. The AMD R3-3300X is neck and neck with the Intel i5-9600K in most productivity benchmarks in the GN test suite.[0] The 9600K is a step up from the 9400 you're looking at, so you could likely do an R3 build. With the clock differences, it's likely that the R3 would pull ahead of the 9400. The processor is $120 MSRP, but not available just yet. Also, you'll likely want to pair it with a B550 motherboard. Nevertheless, with a cheapest-available graphics card, this should be price-competitive with an i5-9400. The future upside is huge, as you could get a beast R9-3950X in a couple years when the price has come down a lot.
2. The AMD R5-1600AF is actually a Zen+ part, and MSRPs at $85. The theme of the entire 3300X review video I linked is to get one of these if you can. Availability is limited and resellers are marking up significantly. AMD is committed to providing more, though.
3. Depending on where your price/performance threshold is, dropping to an R5-2600 brings your price difference to $26 ($224 vs $250 for CPU+mobo and CPU+mobo+graphics, respectively). This should edge out the 1600AF mentioned above, and regularly beat the i5-9400.[1][2]
Of the options above, I'd lean toward the R3-3300X. This gives future expansion to a 16-core monster that is a chart topper for productivity workloads. You cannot make that jump with Intel, because their competitor is the 10980XE on a different chipset than the i5. Additionally, Ryzen 3000 and B550 supports PCIe gen 4, for double the bandwidth. Again, this is a future expansion option that you don't get with Intel.
My preference is definitely subjective, and there are good reasons to go for the Intel i5, first among them that you can buy the system today, instead of in a month.
Yes, the article expresses some surprise that the new Ryzen 3 chips are based on binned Ryzen 5/7 3000's, rather than on the new and exciting Ryzen Mobile 4000's which do have integrated graphics and are benchmarking very well. Hopefully some Ryzen Mobile based desktop chips are coming soon too.
I totally agree. A lot of these CPU review articles are aimed at gamers and hence ignore integrated graphics entirely, since it's assumed you'll go out and buy a nice discrete graphics card.
I would presume that, if you have a low-budget application with high scale (e.g. you're a company designing a NAS, or other "Turing-complete but still embedded" system), then you'd ignore both Intel and AMD and look at ARM-based SoC solutions, no? You can get significantly better integrated graphics, for cheaper, on e.g. Nvidia's Tegra platform. Thus why Nintendo—ROI penny-pinchers to a fault—chose it.
I like Anandtech. They have some really great deep dive articles on CPUs and system architecture. Which is why this type of 'test' is just weird. None of the CPUs they compare seem to be in the same price bracket. Many aren't even from the same generation. 7700K? 8086K? 4900HS? Yes, sometimes you have to work with what you have, but c'mon - at least one somewhat comparable CPU would've been nice for reference (i3 8100 or i5 9400F).
GN has a very thorough review of each of the 3100 and the 3300X. Note, the 3100 review is also positioned against a 7700K. The comparison charts are well-populated, though still have some gaps, as GN just updated their processor testing methodology, so some benchmarks are incomplete.
Maybe but we can't tell from this article which should have compared against the $75 Core i3-9100F or maybe the $160 Core i5-9400F, instead of filling their graphs full of unavailable, ancient Intel parts like the 4th-gen core i7 that launched in 2014, and then listing the 2014 MSRP as if that was a relevant point of comparison.
I wanted to update my system with the Ryzen 5 1600 AF, given its value at $85 - but it's no longer in stock anywhere at that price, so the 3300X is looking appealing.
AMD has committed to restocking to retailers who should be selling at least close to MSRP, but this part is underpriced. We'll likely see it continue to be bought in bulk and resold at a higher price as long as this is true. You're getting what is very nearly a half-price 2600.
This should be easy for you to test. Play the game you want, at the settings you want. If the cpu is running at 100%, get a faster CPU; if it's not, get a faster GPU.
I'm in a similar-ish boat. I've got an i5-6600k with a solid overclock on it. Single core performance is completely modern competitive, but it falls very flat in multicore.
Most games will get a huge bump just with a new GPU - You'd do well with an RTX 2070, or the next generation AMD GPUs (speculating - but there's a lot of momentum on that front).
That being said - LinusTechTips did a head to head benchmark comparison between the i7-7700k (the latest my Z170 chipset can handle) and this 3300X. Bottom line - the 3300X is an insanely good value for performance.
Depends which one - I have a 4790K + a GTX1080Ti and I see absolutely no reason to upgrade. There are no games that I cannot play at near max settings in 1440p. The only game that has somewhat stretched the CPU is Satisfactory, but then I think all machines struggle with it once you have a large enough factory.
You'd be surprised how much better CPUs have gotten over the last five years. Even though the clocks might look roughly similar, overall performance has gone up by quite a bit. You probably only have 4 cores on a 2015 i7, too, and 8+ cores are standard now for high-end CPUs.
Whether it'll make an immediate difference to you is game-dependent, but if you play a lot of AAA titles I'd definitely look to upgrade soon.
For most games, I'd expect a 4700k + rtx 2060 to outdo e.g. a r5 3600 + gtx760, as similar priced upgrade options (once you factor in a new motherboard and ddr4 ram) in the tier of your current GPU.
That said, there are cpu heavy games out there, like MMOs with high on screen player counts, simulations like Cities Skylines or flight sims, so your mileage may vary.
Absolutely no doubt a GPU upgrade would be the way to go in your situation. A 2015 i7 can still keep up with a monster GPU such as the RX5600XT or RX5700XT.
How about single core performance? Many games are pegged to one or two cores only. I've always found the AMD approach of throwing more cores at the problem not to be optimal.
"The results here are immediately interesting. Despite costing less than every other CPU represented, the 3100 manages to tie the Core i5 9600K in single-core performance and outperform the Ryzen 2600 and 2700X by around 12 per cent. The 3300X is even more impressive, with a single-core score that exceeds the Core i7 9700K and only falls behind the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K."
It’s worth remembering that the PS4 and XB1 consoles both have eight relatively slow x64 cores. Thus any multiplatform titles targeting either of these platforms has to be optimised for many cores and cannot rely on single core performance.
It's really hard to glean from the article, which is I guess just designed to get 500+ ad impressions by spreading the information over 33 pages. This comparison of the same data is a little more informative:
That's a $199 Intel 6-core part against a $120 AMD 4-core part. Anandtech hasn't bothered to benchmark a 4-core 9th-generation Intel CPU yet, despite the fact that they hit retail a year ago.
[+] [-] gambiting|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Exmoor|5 years ago|reply
Even for video editing the math might change a bit since modern video editing apps can leverage GPU for rendering.
That said, I agree with the folks who say that AMD releasing desktop chips built on Zen 2 with built in GPU cannot come fast enough.
[+] [-] ksec|5 years ago|reply
This used to be a thing where the Motherboard maker would sell the Board + Mobile Chip soldered. Not sure if you could still do that.
And it is not like Zen 2 Desktop APU aren't coming. Just a tad later. I think the current roadmap from AMD is pretty solid. Although I do wish their sales and marketing execution to be much better.
[+] [-] pedrocr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|5 years ago|reply
When I was much younger, and on much more of a budget, these "computers of theseus" were my main rigs for a long time. The meta-game was to try to see how few parts you had to swap out from piecemeal upgrade to piecemeal upgrade.
[+] [-] gameswithgo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggyb|5 years ago|reply
1. The AMD R3-3300X is neck and neck with the Intel i5-9600K in most productivity benchmarks in the GN test suite.[0] The 9600K is a step up from the 9400 you're looking at, so you could likely do an R3 build. With the clock differences, it's likely that the R3 would pull ahead of the 9400. The processor is $120 MSRP, but not available just yet. Also, you'll likely want to pair it with a B550 motherboard. Nevertheless, with a cheapest-available graphics card, this should be price-competitive with an i5-9400. The future upside is huge, as you could get a beast R9-3950X in a couple years when the price has come down a lot.
2. The AMD R5-1600AF is actually a Zen+ part, and MSRPs at $85. The theme of the entire 3300X review video I linked is to get one of these if you can. Availability is limited and resellers are marking up significantly. AMD is committed to providing more, though.
3. Depending on where your price/performance threshold is, dropping to an R5-2600 brings your price difference to $26 ($224 vs $250 for CPU+mobo and CPU+mobo+graphics, respectively). This should edge out the 1600AF mentioned above, and regularly beat the i5-9400.[1][2]
Of the options above, I'd lean toward the R3-3300X. This gives future expansion to a 16-core monster that is a chart topper for productivity workloads. You cannot make that jump with Intel, because their competitor is the 10980XE on a different chipset than the i5. Additionally, Ryzen 3000 and B550 supports PCIe gen 4, for double the bandwidth. Again, this is a future expansion option that you don't get with Intel.
My preference is definitely subjective, and there are good reasons to go for the Intel i5, first among them that you can buy the system today, instead of in a month.
[0] GN 3300x review: https://youtu.be/NM2fFpzPKPg?t=1063
[1] Cheapest i5: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/B3pFtp
[2] Cheapest R5 2600: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HttVyk
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gautamcgoel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derefr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XzAeRosho|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlfeG|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greendave|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] all_blue_chucks|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggyb|5 years ago|reply
3100: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nQpXVTh0g
3300X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM2fFpzPKPg
[+] [-] gameswithgo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellogoodbye|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaktion|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggyb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulmd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] all_blue_chucks|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracer4201|5 years ago|reply
I assume swapping my GTX 760 with a latest generation card would give me better gaming performance.
[+] [-] toast0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aquaticsunset|5 years ago|reply
Most games will get a huge bump just with a new GPU - You'd do well with an RTX 2070, or the next generation AMD GPUs (speculating - but there's a lot of momentum on that front).
That being said - LinusTechTips did a head to head benchmark comparison between the i7-7700k (the latest my Z170 chipset can handle) and this 3300X. Bottom line - the 3300X is an insanely good value for performance.
[+] [-] gambiting|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omni|5 years ago|reply
Whether it'll make an immediate difference to you is game-dependent, but if you play a lot of AAA titles I'd definitely look to upgrade soon.
[+] [-] Macha|5 years ago|reply
That said, there are cpu heavy games out there, like MMOs with high on screen player counts, simulations like Cities Skylines or flight sims, so your mileage may vary.
[+] [-] sintaxi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leeter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggyb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bzb3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|5 years ago|reply
That hasn't been the case for a looong time. But to answer your question, they are much faster than anything from Intel at comparable pricing:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-amd-r...
"The results here are immediately interesting. Despite costing less than every other CPU represented, the 3100 manages to tie the Core i5 9600K in single-core performance and outperform the Ryzen 2600 and 2700X by around 12 per cent. The 3300X is even more impressive, with a single-core score that exceeds the Core i7 9700K and only falls behind the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K."
[+] [-] sjwright|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|5 years ago|reply
https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2589?vs=2250
That's a $199 Intel 6-core part against a $120 AMD 4-core part. Anandtech hasn't bothered to benchmark a 4-core 9th-generation Intel CPU yet, despite the fact that they hit retail a year ago.