QOTW: Has 2nd Gen Ryzen done enough to sway you towards AMD?

[eviling]

My current rig is still going strong with a core i7 2600k.

However, since beginning of this year i have begun buying all the parts for a new rig. And the 2nd gen Ryzen is what i been waiting for

I have already chosen the Ryzen 7 2700X as the processor. Now i just need to find a suited motherboard and RAM.

Since i bought the core i7 2600k years ago(7 years now?) i havent seen a single cpu from intel that would make me upgrade.

[azrael-]

I think not calling them APU's maybe down to AMD, it seems they want to move away from that nomenclature.

There's been Ryzen G Pro's since around January (Ryzen 3 PRO 2200G and the mobile variant PRO 2300U, Ryzen 5 PRO 2400G and the mobile PRO 2500U, and mobile Ryzen 7 PRO 2700U) so ASRock haven't outed anything, i guess they didn't receive much attention at the time as everyone was focused on the more mainstream SKU's.

AMD itself isn't officially aware of any Ryzen G PRO processors for the desktop. They do exist for mobile, but I knew that already. I recall checking up on this back when Ryzen G for the desktop was announced.

[Corky34]

Yea IDK why they're trying to hide them as they do exist according to wikichips, maybe they're an ODM/OEM only thing.

EDIT: The model numbers are also listed in AMD's master product (PDF).

[azrael-]

Yea IDK why they're trying to hide them as they do exist according to wikichips, maybe they're an ODM/OEM only thing.

EDIT: The model numbers are also listed in AMD's master product (PDF).

Could be that they're OEM parts. Just had a look at the Wikichips page you linked to and there it's claimed that the memory controller doesn't support ECC, which directly contradicts ASRock's statement. Also, on Wikichips the PRO 2400G isn't listed as having been launched. I wonder if they didn't simply extrapolate the information from the regular 2400G.

[Corky34]

If they have BioStar seems to have done the same as they're the only other results Google throws up when i searched for the model number, it's all very confusing.

Maybe they were announced back in January but not launched yet.

[Korrorra]

Even a 1700 at 3Ghz all the modern games were running fine anyway. Now at 3.8Ghz it seems to run fine also. I don't really think people need 4 GHz for games if you have more than 4 cores. I will say more is better with CPU's, even though most of the time it's not really needed. My memory won't go past 3000MHz though. Even 3200 makes the system unstable it seems. A new problem I'm have is that my Crosshair VI does not want to flash to newer bios and is stuck. I'd rather not use the Bios/UEFI flashing when the system is on. I may have no other choice and try it. If the system doesn't want to do it turned off, a problem may occur while flashing with it on. I may also try flashing backwards and going for the latest Bios and see if that fixes the problem. I'm happy the new Ryzens are doing well. I will likely wait for the other Ryzen releases in 2020/2021.
The main reason i chose AMD is because of the low cost for an 8 core CPU compared to Intel: $300 AMD vs $600 Intel. Seemed like a no brainer. I may never go back to Intel because of the greedy price they charge.

[Fogoldgaming]

Still running an FX8350 and a geforce 970. See no urgent need to upgrade yet. Would gladly go Ryzen. Been a fanboy since Thunderbird.

[Saracen]

Has 2nd Gen Ryzen done enough to sway you towards AMD?

Um, no, but it's more a case that nothing I've seen recently has me convinced an upgradec is justified at all. So it's more a case of not upgrading than what I upgrade to.

Put it this way. My next "upgrade" will effectively be a new PC. Oh, case and PSU will survive, but an upgrade effectively means, at a minimum, MB, processor and RAM, and unless I want to settle for 10-year old graphics, a GPU too.

Sooooo ..... not cheap, then.

And the question is, what benefit do I get?

Gaming? Not really any longer a gamer. Steam, and the associated DRM changes of this era, ruined PC gaming for me. I do not have Steam, or any similar (EA, etc) type platforms and never will. So, that effectively locks me out of most gaming, and I can get by with scratching my gaming itch with my current museum-piece PC, and a few GOG releases .... and my vast choice of old games to replay.

So, gaming isn't a justification, because if some kind, passing billionaire dropped in and donated the most powrrful, full-featured and impressive gaming PC on the planet, free, gratis and for nothing, I'm still not going to use Steam. Ever.

Outside of gaming, what justification for a new PC do I have? Not much. My 'main' PC is really only required to run applications I was running years ago on a Q6600-generation PC, and as it was running what I need quite satisfactorily back then, why wouldn't it do so now?

What does it do?,Usual office stuff (WP, spreadsheete, a bit of database), my photo editing (pretty much hobby only these days), a bit of audio and video editing and so on. Put it this way - I still use Cooledit (v2.x IIRC) and that must be about 15 years old. But, I know it, it does everything I want/need, so why upgrade?

And that is the fundamental sticking point.

Given that my needs haven't increased, and in fact have decreased in several ways, exactly what benefit do I get, that I want or need, from spending a lot of money on a new/upgraded PC?



Note: I am NOT suggesting that my logic applies to anyone else (though it probably will to some). If you, dear reader, need, can justify or simply want a new CPU, PC or whatever, go for it. If you have so much spare cash that a grand or so on a new/upgraded PC means about as much as an extra cup of coffee to your weekly spend, then what the hell.

But for me (and most of us) opportunity cost applies. That grand will only spend once, and in my list of options to spend it on, a PC upgrade comes a long way down the list.

If I win £100m on the lottery, okay, new PC it is. Gold-plated, probably. But seeing as I don't do the lottery I'm not holding my breath for a jackpit win.

[SlickR]

I have finished with my build for now but currently have a project going with my brother in law for a gaming rig, the single core performance still has him wanting the 8700k I am afraid. As some people have said here, whilst AMD are doing a great job with professional multi core workloads, unless they can actually beat Intel by a noticeable difference in gaming performance for a similar or better price, not as many people as AMD would like are wanting to bite. It is sad but true, I did the same thing with my rig, I ended up getting the 7700k instead of the 1800x.

The 7700k unless overclocked is actually even slower than 1800x in many of the newer games. Again more and more games are utilizing more than 4 cores and even games that do not utilize more cores do tend to benefit from more cores as background stuff can eat up cpu resources needed for the game.

So its to put it bluntly to you really, really stupid to go for a 4 core cpu these days no matter if Intel or AMD, its just a really dumb and ignorant thing to do, period!

That said the 2700x for example is within 0-5% of the I7-8700k IF boost drive is disabled for the 8700k in the bios, boost drive is essentially a cheat for Intel on some mobo's as it automatically overclocks the CPU beyond its specifications!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Um, no, but it's more a case that nothing I've seen recently has me convinced an upgradec is justified at all. So it's more a case of not upgrading than what I upgrade to.

Put it this way. My next "upgrade" will effectively be a new PC. Oh, case and PSU will survive, but an upgrade effectively means, at a minimum, MB, processor and RAM, and unless I want to settle for 10-year old graphics, a GPU too.

Sooooo ..... not cheap, then.

And the question is, what benefit do I get?

Gaming? Not really any longer a gamer. Steam, and the associated DRM changes of this era, ruined PC gaming for me. I do not have Steam, or any similar (EA, etc) type platforms and never will. So, that effectively locks me out of most gaming, and I can get by with scratching my gaming itch with my current museum-piece PC, and a few GOG releases .... and my vast choice of old games to replay.

So, gaming isn't a justification, because if some kind, passing billionaire dropped in and donated the most powrrful, full-featured and impressive gaming PC on the planet, free, gratis and for nothing, I'm still not going to use Steam. Ever.

Outside of gaming, what justification for a new PC do I have? Not much. My 'main' PC is really only required to run applications I was running years ago on a Q6600-generation PC, and as it was running what I need quite satisfactorily back then, why wouldn't it do so now?

What does it do?,Usual office stuff (WP, spreadsheete, a bit of database), my photo editing (pretty much hobby only these days), a bit of audio and video editing and so on. Put it this way - I still use Cooledit (v2.x IIRC) and that must be about 15 years old. But, I know it, it does everything I want/need, so why upgrade?

And that is the fundamental sticking point.

Given that my needs haven't increased, and in fact have decreased in several ways, exactly what benefit do I get, that I want or need, from spending a lot of money on a new/upgraded PC?



Note: I am NOT suggesting that my logic applies to anyone else (though it probably will to some). If you, dear reader, need, can justify or simply want a new CPU, PC or whatever, go for it. If you have so much spare cash that a grand or so on a new/upgraded PC means about as much as an extra cup of coffee to your weekly spend, then what the hell.

But for me (and most of us) opportunity cost applies. That grand will only spend once, and in my list of options to spend it on, a PC upgrade comes a long way down the list.

If I win £100m on the lottery, okay, new PC it is. Gold-plated, probably. But seeing as I don't do the lottery I'm not holding my breath for a jackpit win.

I think if you did need to build a new desktop PC now if one of your old desktops went kaput and you play mostly older games,something like a Ryzen 5 2400G for under £130 would probably do the trick. The IGP is good enough for even some newer games,at lower settings and resolution,and it seems a recent effective 4C/8T CPU for the outlay.

Also TBH,the performance of a Q6600 still is enough even today - that A6 3670K APU I won in a competition on Hexus in 2012,is still fine as a general purpose PC,and that is roughly equivalent to a Q6600.

[Corky34]

I would have thought Ryzen only being supported on Windows 10 would have put Saracen off more than anything, I've not looked into what features you lose by trying to run Ryzen on other OS' as i couldn't afford an upgrade even if i wanted to.

[Saracen]

I would have thought Ryzen only being supported on Windows 10 would have put Saracen off more than anything, I've not looked into what features you lose by trying to run Ryzen on other OS' as i couldn't afford an upgrade even if i wanted to.

If that's true (not doubting you, just not looked closely enough, or indeed, at all, to know) then it's not so much "put off" as "kill stone dead".

My stance on W10 is that unless MS change their stance on a number of things, such as attitude to privacy, user-data, inregrating their cloud services and most importantly, their arrogant presumption, no, usurpation, of control over configuration of user's PCs, then hell will freeze over before I use W10, regardless of supported hardware, available software, or market share.

I have, however, noticed a slightly less arrogant stance from them recently, so I suppose possible. But to be honest, I don't hold any setious hope that they'll change direction anything like enough.

So, currently, my PC OS choices are :-

1) Legacy, like W7.
2) Linux, or
3) Give up computng entirely, and go offline.

Unless MS change, and I don't expect it, I'll do 3) before I'd do W10.

[Firejack]

...
But i am very interested in the new motherboard chipsets, specifically the Store MI tech...

I currently use a cheap 128GB SSD to cache a 4TB HDD in software, via primocache, but it's flakey at best and has a tendency to reset the cache at random...

I assume a gen 1 Ryzen CPU would work on a gen2 motherboard?

And any news on mATX Ryzen gen2 motherboards? Seems to be ITX and ATX variants aplenty, not seen a mATX variant yet...

You don't need a new motherboard for StoreMI. It works on B350/X370 motherboards too but costs $19.99.

StoreMI is in fact FuzeDrive from Enmotus. An enterprise level tiered (not cached) storage accelerator solution. Only available for Windows 10. Its got an easy setup and is reversible. You could add a 128GB SSD to a 1TB HDD for a 1.1TB drive. Then if you decide its not for you, the files will be copied to the HDD before you remove the SSD.

More details on AMDs forums: https://community.amd.com/community/...-for-amd-ryzen
Buy FuzeDrive here: http://www.enmotus.com/amd

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If that's true (not doubting you, just not looked closely enough, or indeed, at all, to know) then it's not so much "put off" as "kill stone dead".

My stance on W10 is that unless MS change their stance on a number of things, such as attitude to privacy, user-data, inregrating their cloud services and most importantly, their arrogant presumption, no, usurpation, of control over configuration of user's PCs, then hell will freeze over before I use W10, regardless of supported hardware, available software, or market share.

I have, however, noticed a slightly less arrogant stance from them recently, so I suppose possible. But to be honest, I don't hold any setious hope that they'll change direction anything like enough.

So, currently, my PC OS choices are :-

1) Legacy, like W7.
2) Linux, or
3) Give up computng entirely, and go offline.

Unless MS change, and I don't expect it, I'll do 3) before I'd do W10.

Although current Linux support is a bit behind Windows support,APUs like Raven Ridge are supported by AMD using the open source driver,although you are looking at June/July at the release of the Linux 4.17 kernel,for some of the graphics niggles to be solved.

[Corky34]

If that's true (not doubting you, just not looked closely enough, or indeed, at all, to know) then it's not so much "put off" as "kill stone dead".

Neither have i, looked to closely that is, IIRC it's just a case of not "official" supported on other OS' so were not talking about it not working or anything just it probably being a little more of PITA.

[Glyce]

Yes.