To AMD or to Intel - Discussion: Pros and cons

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  1. Posts : 425
    Windows 10
       #1

    To AMD or to Intel - Discussion: Pros and cons


    I have several aging HEDT systems (almost 4 years old), running 7th Gen HEDT CPUs. For longer than I can remember I've wanted to dump Intel.

    But Intel are releasing yet another 14nm CPU, without PCIe4.0 support, and where I am the prices drop will be unlikely to be passed on to consumers. Motherboards have also quadrupled in price. A MSI X299 XPower Gaming AC cost me $404 standard retail price (not on discount). The equivalent board will be around $1600 AUD for the 10th gen motherboards.

    I'm running a stable overclock at 4.4ghz in Winter and 4.2ghz in summer with a H150i Pro AIO cooler (We are coming up to summer now and ambient temps will be 80F - 90F. I was hoping to get more GHZ out of a new HEDT CPU.

    The AMD CPU will actually cost more than the Intel CPU. A 3960X will probably cost about $2000 AUD. AMD motherboards here are often as expensive as the Intel counterparts and will likely also set me back $1600 per motherboard.

    AMD gives me PCIe4.0. I may not need it at this very moment, but I would hope this positions me for the next few years. problem is AMD may not overclock as well, and the TDP is going to be around double that of Intel. That's a significant bump in Electricity costs (and I have 3 PCs to upgrade). But I get more PCIe lanes.

    And cooling is going to be harder, even with a 280mm cooler. AMD could well serve as a replacement for a heater in Winter, but in Summer it's really going to increase ambient temps past "comfortable" (I have no house cooling).

    Everyone raves about the mainstream processors - that are limited to 16 - 20 PCIe lanes. I've not had a PC in which that was enough since 2013 - And I have 10 PCs. With add in M.2 expander's, 10G NICs, RAID cards, extra SATA ports and so forth I need a minimum of 40 lanes on some, 28 on others.

    I really want to dump Intel, but it sounds like AMD is going to be too hot and as expensive, if not more, than Intel.

    How are you feeling about the impending AMD / Intel CPU releases?

    btw: I do a lot of content creation, programming, SQL, gaming and excel.
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  2. Posts : 381
    Windows 10
       #2

    Remind me not to move to Australia with prices like that. :)

    I don't know if this will help, but I am in the process of upgrading to an AMD Ryzen system. I chose the Ryzen 2700X because nothing I have can use PCIe 4.0 and probably I won't be using PCIe 4.0 for years into the future. I did evaluate the 3700X and 3800X and found them to be overkill for me. YMMV. I also compared them to Intel's similar offerings and I couldn't justify the price difference. I do mostly sound recording, programming and some gaming, so I do load the CPU/GPU rather heavily at times.

    I disagree about your assessment of heat problems with AMD. I've used AMD for years and I have not found that a 125 Watt AMD CPU is any hotter than a corresponding Intel system at work. (I'm comparing air cooled units here). They seem to be about the same. Now Intel makes a few 65 Watt CPUs which will be cooler, but so does AMD. Using an AIO kit, the AMD CPU should not realistically reach 60C even under prolonged load. I use a FX-8350 right now and it never gets above 50C with a 240 mm AIO kit, which is 29C above ambient. A typical AMD CPU maxes out at about 67C before it starts to throttle (the new ones may be able to run hotter, especially with the new 7 nm process used by the 3000 series Ryzen chips) Even in a hot room as you describe, you shouldn't see temps anywhere near 70C. Especially if you use a 65 Watt model CPU.

    Just food for thought from an AMD user.
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  3. Posts : 425
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks for the feedback.

    Yes, everything is pretty expensive here.

    I would have thought 280w (Threadripper 3000) would produce more heat than 165w (Intel 10th Gen).

    On my 7900X @ 4.5GHZ (140w TDP), with the ambient in summer typically 35 degrees Celsius, 30c over that is 65. Indeed, even in Winter I easily break 70c under load with a Corsair H150 Pro cooler and 11 case fans. The Case is a massive Thermaltake W100, and still I can't keep temps under 70c on encoding and some other heavy tasks.

    What locks me into HEDT CPUs is the need for PCIe lanes. 16 is just not enough. There is only 1 PC that could use a mainstream processor - it's just used as a MySQL server for Kodi, since Kodi requires an antique version of MySQL and my primary server runs the latest version.

    About 6 months after PCIe 4.0 SSDs are released I expect the initial price gouge will settle and I'll be looking to invest in a few TB.

    I guess I'm jumping the gun. The CPUs haven't even been released yet. Maybe I should just wait and see. Perhaps someone will do a comparison between something like the Intel 10940x and a Threadripper 3960x in terms of thermal and CPU performance.
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  4. Posts : 381
    Windows 10
       #4

    Ah, my bad. I didn't realize that you were talking about the new Threadripper. I looked up 3960X on Newegg and got an Intel chip.

    Yes, a 280 Watt CPU is going to throw around a fair bit of heat.
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  5. Posts : 22,740
    Windows 10 Home x64
       #5

    I went the Ryzen path.. I have a Ryzen 5 3400G and it's really good. I chose not to go the Intel path because AMD has made huge strides in their product lineup. Overall I would go with AMD.
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  6. Posts : 425
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    I want to go AMD.

    The more i research this, the problems are going to be (a) Heat, (b) Overclockability and (c) Price. For a CPU and motherboard it's shaping up to be a $3500+ investment.

    In all likelihood, I'm also going to have to change my RAM too.

    Mainstream processors only have 16-20 PCIe lanes, so they are off the table.
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  7. Posts : 425
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #7

    NavyLCDR said:
    The only advantage I can see to a single fan liquid cooler would be less heat inside the case, assuming the radiator fan is exhausting.
    Sorry, I don't follow? All systems have either 240mm or 280mm liquid coolers and a plethora of case fans. There are no air coolers or single fan liquid coolers in any system.

    I read today to that Cascade Lake X CPUs have more side channel and other vulnerabilities disclosed. Again, Intel releases microcode fixes (as opposed to in silicon), which have a 0-4% performance impact, on top of the multiple already disclosed vulnerabilities.

    So perhaps spending thousands on either AMD or Intel is a bad investment at this stage. AMD for the reasons in the previous post, and Intel because the multitude of bugs have not yet been fixed in silicon. In any case, Intel's price cuts likely will not reach here.
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  8. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #8

    Sorry, I posted in the wrong thread!
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  9. Posts : 425
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #9

    NavyLCDR said:
    Sorry, I posted in the wrong thread!
    Lol. It happens

    - - - Updated - - -

    My X299 Taichi cost under $300. Here's a link to one of the higher end new X299 boards... Gigabyte AORUS X299X Xtreme Waterforce RGB Motherboard [X299X-AORUS-XTREME-WF] : PC Case Gear

    And this only has 8 SATA ports and 2 x M.2.
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  10. Posts : 82
    Windows 10pro/ 64b, ver 1903
       #10

    Wobitancrawfodi for what it's worth I feel your pain. I live in Florida and hate the heat. I'm from New York state and used to having your pc(s) heat a room in winter.

    Finally couldn't take it any longer and built Ryzen. But I decided not to import a better mobo b/c I've read that overclocking Ryzen and leaving it 24/7 can cause degredation of the cpu (could be users at the limit). With the issues I faced re: motherboards I'd say wait and see how the next iteration of AMD chips pans out. The HEDT's should get cooler & get more lanes going forward, of course. Question is pricing.

    I waited for reasonable prices and now am waiting for Navi cards, all due to heat. May switch to a B550 mobo next year if they actually get produced, after the initial gouging. I think someone will test those cpu's and cover TDP. NVMe SSD adoption makes me think more lanes will come, it's simply a matter of when users will be able to afford adoption.
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