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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.