So, who's impressed with the next gen of CPU's?

[Saracen999]

I've checked out the latest Ryzen generation, and now the latest Intel (Ultra's) are starting to see official spec's announced (performance embargo lifted Oct 24th, apparently) and my overall respose is extremely .... Ho-Hum.

Yes, "efficiency" is up. So, for a given performance level (on both AMD and Intel) your leccy bill will go down a bit, which is no bad thing. But performance looks to not be going up very much, maybe percentage gains in single figures??

Single figure gains for not just a pretty expensive new CPU, but a whole new platform (at least, for Intell) to go with it? It's going to put savings on the leccy bill a bit in the shade, innit?

So I am (again) thinking .... new PC? Some of you probably remember I've been contemplating that for severaml years and are thinking "here we go again". I'd just say that what I didn't mention before, and why I said I was looking at a spec that might be my last ever PC upgrade was that I'd just been told of the cancer diagnosis (thread in GD) and thought I had 6 to 18 months left. Maybe less. Tat was 4.5 years ago. Now how long? Who the hell knows?

I did, meantime, hedge my bets with a pretty high-end laptop a couple of years ago and it's still ... fine. But, even high-end CPUs and GPUs in laptops aren't near their full desktop namesakes for sheer grunt, not least because of power limits 9and cooling). So that "new PC" question is back on again.

And that's also why the cost wasn't really terribly high on my priority list. But getting decent bang-per-buck was.

I don't see good value in the very high end of either CPU or GPU, TBH. The marginal gain for the marginal cost doesn't impress me mch. So, I'll drop a level (or two).

I see nothing in Intel's new announcements in the "Oh wow" category and after their power profile disaster, I have a trust issue with Intel right now anyway. And .... I (still) don't want W11 (until/unless forced into it) and the whole e-core/p-core scheduler thing rules out (effectively) Intel anyway, for me. But I also don't see much of any appeal in the so-far announced AMD new Gen either, though their recent relenting on power limits to allow performance boost is a step forward.

So right now, I'm not seeing much tempting me away for 7900X except maybe, and depending on price, 9800X3D. When it gets here. But even then, while I game it's not a high priority, whereas things like video rendering performance are, so X3D? Erm, maybe not smart for me anyway.

Either way, both new generations leave me feel .... underwhelmed? Anyone see it differently?

[Rob_B]

For my use case the 7800x3d is still king, but they've gone from £315 to £400 since 9000 series was so disappointing.
The new core ultras look meh too.

Sticking with my 5700X3D for now, it does what I need with room to spare, wish I could afford to splurge on a 9800X3D though!

[jimbouk]

All about AI now. I know my corporate execs are all crazy for it despite it being largely pointless and at times harmful, but they're never going to see common sense until after they've 'delivered AI' and moved on to a different position. It's the new cloud where we are. Consumers getting a laptop with an "AI magic" sticker on the palm rest - I guess it'll shift a few at Currys. Enthusiasts - just extra cost! It's not going give me a better experience day to day with work or play.

ARM for battery life would be a sell if I was on the road, but I might actually look at an Apple in favour of Windows 11 if I ever wanted to spend silly money on something portable.

[[GSV]Trig]

I went from a 5800x to a 13500, plus my board will support 14th gen as and when I need a bit more grunt, and it runs a loooooad cooler, so happy with my little upgrade, despite it being an i5...

[Domestic_Ginger]

I went from a 5800x to a 13500, plus my board will support 14th gen as and when I need a bit more grunt, and it runs a loooooad cooler, so happy with my little upgrade, despite it being an i5...

Surely a 'sidegrade'? For 60w less it's 30C cooler on the TPU 13400f review. That is quite cool but I can't help but think heat dissipation is cacoo on the amd chips. The 7600 is 98C

[[GSV]Trig]

Performance is plenty good enough, it runs cooler which makes it quieter which is better for my ears as the missus uses the office during the day when I am at work.

[Domestic_Ginger]

I think it has been good recently, not a golden age but then people go back to reminiscing about OCing opterons! The performance and budget awards have gone back and forth.

12th gen was a good launch but then 13th and 14th have just been
'tocs'. The 14s cooking themselves has been, well, interesting in many ways.

Arrow lake has the chance to be exciting. I'm quite keen to see what happens.

AM4 has been a blast, something like 8 years on one socket; let down by not allowing mobo vendors to enable pcie 4. I usually get my CPU/Mobo/Ram for about £150 when upgrading. This time I blew it on a 5700x3d for a drop in upgrade. The little'un got my 1600af in his very smart a320m (thanks rob .

The x3ds only benefit from expensive GPUs. The pricing of GPUs has been poor. The 4060s being described as a sign post to the higher end cards is quite right.

[Percy1983]

Things are slowly getting better but nothing makes me want to replace my 5900x enough to invest in a new board and ram.

[DanceswithUnix]

TBH I just don't think you can go far wrong these days.

I'm trying to not buy a 5600G because at £120 they seem a bit of a bargain atm, but I don't actually *need* one much though my 2200G based machine would benefit from it.

Besides, I've just bought a new drum kit so I'm all spent out for a bit. But, but... shiny thing nice price...

[Rob_B]

Is that what they're still going for? Wow.

[Saracen999]

All about AI now. I know my corporate execs are all crazy for it despite it being largely pointless and at times harmful, but they're never going to see common sense until after they've 'delivered AI' and moved on to a different position. It's the new cloud where we are. Consumers getting a laptop with an "AI magic" sticker on the palm rest - I guess it'll shift a few at Currys. Enthusiasts - just extra cost! It's not going give me a better experience day to day with work or play.

...

That raises a point I maybe should've mentioned. Personally, there is very little that AI offers that I do want, but it also enables a lot (like with Co-Pilot etc) that I emphatically don't want - that being all sorts of privacy-invading stuff that's a non-starter in my view. Again, "personally .... I'm not buying a CPU with the kind of AI-enhancing grunt that enables it. Period. It's a deal-killer. YMMV, of course. And i was very not-happy when MS suddenly made Co-Pilot appear on m W10 (yes, 10) system. I idn't last long, though, before I ripped it out by it's entrails, and Edge along with it.

Sidenote - yeah, I get the difference between Co-Pilot and Co-Pilot + (with Recall, delayed/deferred though the latter bit has been). I still don't want either.

[[GSV]Trig]

I think it has been good recently, not a golden age but then people go back to reminiscing about OCing opterons! The performance and budget awards have gone back and forth.

My first overclock was an 68030 that I changed the clock crystal thingy on, never OC'd an Opteron

[Domestic_Ginger]

I stupidly got an athlon instead of the opteron. My 68000 (a600) is sat on a shelf; I keep meaning to move it on. Really wanted the 68020 (a1200), how come you always have the good stuff

[[GSV]Trig]

I stupidly got an athlon instead of the opteron. My 68000 (a600) is sat on a shelf; I keep meaning to move it on. Really wanted the 68020 (a1200), how come you always have the good stuff

I spent soooo much money on my 1200
1230 accelerator card which was swapped for an 040 after a while
Twin IDE board thing with an external CD drive and a 120Mb HDD
PCMCIA RAM card
Vidi Amiga 12
8Mb (the 8mb SIMM cost me over £250 back in the day)

When I was working with Andy from RCM he'd told me what he did as a hobby, told him I had some stuff for him and turned up a few days later with my old 1200 all the old bits, plus my old mans 1200, monitors and everything else, his face lit up..

[badass]

All about AI now. I know my corporate execs are all crazy for it despite it being largely pointless and at times harmful, but they're never going to see common sense until after they've 'delivered AI' and moved on to a different position. It's the new cloud where we are. Consumers getting a laptop with an "AI magic" sticker on the palm rest - I guess it'll shift a few at Currys. Enthusiasts - just extra cost! It's not going give me a better experience day to day with work or play.

ARM for battery life would be a sell if I was on the road, but I might actually look at an Apple in favour of Windows 11 if I ever wanted to spend silly money on something portable.

That raises a point I maybe should've mentioned. Personally, there is very little that AI offers that I do want, but it also enables a lot (like with Co-Pilot etc) that I emphatically don't want - that being all sorts of privacy-invading stuff that's a non-starter in my view. Again, "personally .... I'm not buying a CPU with the kind of AI-enhancing grunt that enables it. Period. It's a deal-killer. YMMV, of course. And i was very not-happy when MS suddenly made Co-Pilot appear on m W10 (yes, 10) system. I idn't last long, though, before I ripped it out by it's entrails, and Edge along with it.

Sidenote - yeah, I get the difference between Co-Pilot and Co-Pilot + (with Recall, delayed/deferred though the latter bit has been). I still don't want either.

On the AI thing....it looks unbelievably like the dot com bubble. Do remember that everything is actually a dot com now. It's just that some muppets saw some interesting tech that clearly had a place in the future and hyped it far beyond its actual capabilities. In the very late 90's anyone could come up with an "idea" and attach it to some kind of dot com way of selling it and they would get money thrown at them. The exact same things are happening now. I was at a Q and A with a serial entrepreneur that has successfully founded and grown handful of companies, each one sold for a lot more than the last and is now worth in excess of $10 billion. His company endlessly brings up AI in executive conversations and their marketing materials. He was directly asked "what do you think of the current interest in AI" - his answer: It's hype. We put AI in our marketing because we keep getting asked "what are you doing with AI"

Just remember, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent! (i.e. never bet on when a bubble will burst) - The fastest gains in the dot com boom came closest to the pop.

[Hoonigan]

CPU evolution seems to have stagnated recently, though Intel have said that this latest Core Ultra range is paving the way for architectural upgrades in the future so we'll see what comes of that I guess.

I don't see any reason to update my 5800X3D yet with the 7800X3D only being 4-9% faster in games. I feel like I got a steal at £239 about a year ago. We'll see what the 9800X3D brings in the coming weeks.