He also missed the "Neither" option @ £0. Said it for ages. CPUs are pretty boring. They certainly don't get me excited like a new GPU with decent performance does. I also don't buy into the price hikes for 10% performance increases either. This gen would have been the most exciting for those buying from scratch, but if they are Intel will still be pretty compelling. This gen could have well and truly buried Intel but they have left the door open, IMO. It's almost like they are terrified of competing with the new consoles coming out. Right now the Ryzen 3600 costs £189, with the X costing £199. They are upping that price by £100. And IMO for the performance gain? it's not worth it.
What is the point of having a better GPU if your CPU is the bottleneck? We are seeing this with the 3080, that CPU bottleneck is becoming a thing at 1440p. This is especially important for VR gaming. As mentioned before, when running a 9900k and a 2080 Ti, some games are CPU limited, so no matter how powerful your GPU is, the GPU will not run at 100% usage. This was the case with that setup and only getting 50% GPU utilisation. So with what AMD has done with opening up a massive pool of L3 Cache for the all cores, and giving all the cache to the dominant core means higher IPC and less of a bottleneck.
No, CPU bottlenecking is not becoming a thing at 1440p. The 3080 simply isn't very good at 1080p or 1440p. It has nothing to do with the CPU it's how Ampere works. I don't buy into the whole CPU bottlenecking game either. The gains are never worth the money. What will you get here at 1440p or 4k? next to nothing. Maybe if you are lucky at 1440p you will get 10%. Well worth spending £550 for that. Not. I've gamed on plenty of server chips that only run at 2.3ghz all core and I can tell you that at 1440p they were great. If I started "frame spotting" then maybe I would have gotten all hot and bothered but I prefer to just game. If it's stuttery and crap I will soon know it, then I know I have a problem. If it isn't I couldn't give a toss. It's always and will continue to be the case that a new GPU is the best way to gain extra performance. Not continually switching out your CPU and board for a 10% gain.
After so many generation leaps, the res gets bumped up to test CPU's gaming performance. Going back to early 2007 with the likes of the E6850, bit-tech was testing CPU gaming performance at 1024 x 768, A year later it was bumped up to 1280x1024. For several years we have been using 1920 x 1080 to show CPU bottlenecks, so to start seeing CPU bottlenecks at 1440p will happen, and it shows in with Ampere. Most reviews talk about this. 4K is being pushed to be mainstream, which is where we start to see GPU's weaknesses, and CPU bottleneck is not really a thing at 4K. So to anyone running 4K with a highend system, then yes I agree that a CPU upgrade is pointless. As it is, 1080p is where the biggest market is right now with consumers setups. So CPU bottleneck is a thing here, and so upgrading will benefit greater here. People who play esport titles at 1080p and 240Hz+ will want to upgrade their CPU to get those extra gains. As mentioned, VR relies heavily on the CPU.
Only if they have paired with 3070 or faster level performing cards. But for most people at that resolution, it's 1660 level cards. I think it's a good release, performance-per-watt is the key thing. No one wants to buy something that draws more power to perform proportionally faster. (3080) On Intel vs AMD, at these prices, heck, even at £190 for 3600, it's a wash. Buy whichever brand makes you feel best. They seem to perform similarly and priced similarly. The Zen 3 series value king isn't here...... yet?
That's the main point though isn't it. If they had maintained the pricing structure of the 3000 series it would be an obvious win over intel but by creeping the prices its made it less obvious. I wonder if the demand for TSMC 7nm nodes is the cause of the price increase. New Zen chips, new RDNA chips, new console chips that's a lot of competition for the same wafers. Especially when you mix in Nvidia's choice to go for 'cheaper' Samsung silicone, maybe they didn't want to pay the higher prices that TSMC can reasonably demand right now.
Mainstream is 1080p with the GTX 1060 dominating. That is according to Steam survey. I bet this is more down to laptops with that combo. As the GTX 1060 is sharing that data across Desktop and mobile. So the stats look a lot higher. Gone are the days where it should of have been called GTX 1060m to split it up for a better understanding of what is the current top GPU for desktop.
Blame the troll... Back on topic: So the 5900x will be a 6+6 chiplets, each with it's own pool of L3 Cache. https://www.anandtech.com/show/1614...en-3-on-nov-5th-19-ipc-claims-best-gaming-cpu
Comes to something when I'm the one de-escalating, eh? On-topic, I'm on a B450 with a 2700X and if someone wants to sell me their 3950X for cheapsies 'cos they're upgrading I'd snap it up. Would love more cores!
I know too well, when running a community with 5k members on discord that things can get out of hand, and people want to have the final say. The 3900x is coming down in price, and can be had for £350. Will drop a lot more once the 5xxx series is in shops.
Price increases are purely because they are confident have the best product and they can charge accordingly, previously they knew there were deficiencies but needed to change they mind share from Intel, intel, Intel, they appear to have done that, there's been no 7nm price increase.
Yeah, some people seem to have short memories... What was the first thing AMD did when K8 kicked the crap out of P4? Charge $1000 for the top end chip. And the moral of it? AMD ain't any more of a charity than Intel or Nvidia.
...even when AMD weren't on top they've had bouts. Remember when they tried to charge $900 for the dumpster fire that was the FX-9590, everyone thought they were joking/high, then could barely get rid of them at ~a quarter of that.
The key point. It also doesn't help that it's a flat $50 increase across the board, so that the 5600X is 20% more than the 3600X but the 5950X is only 6.67% more than the 3950X, which is pretty academic when the initial outlay is 3/4 of a grand. I probably would have been OK if the increase was $30 for Ryzen 5, $40 for Ryzen 7 and $50 for Ryzen 9 (with $20 for Ryzen 3 when that launches). But charging a flat $50 across the board makes it a harder sell. This is me (I've only built Intel desktops). If I was still in the UK with my Haswell build, I'd probably stick with Intel as there isn't an AMD board that ticks all the boxes I want - there is at least one Intel board that does - and the combined cost is closer than people tend to believe (I'd be loathed to go B450/5600X with BIOS that is apparently beta and with fewer features). As my HTPC, it's in desperate need of an upgrade. I had intended on an ITX Zen2/3 AMD replacement for my mATX Ivy Bridge build whenever I'm in the UK next. But I need an APU and Zen2 APUs are OEM only with Zen3 APUs an unknown on price but with the possibility they'll cost more, which negates the price advantage over Intel from around £50 for CPU/motherboard to potentially nothing. And with the minor advantage of SGX DRM on Intel chips that isn't on AMD.... it certainly is making me reconsider.
