Looking to do a modern Intel build

[Billy Dior]

I'm presently running an 8350, GTX 970, EVGA Supernova 1000 G2 Gold PSU, Samsung 850 Pro SSD, and 16gb Ripjaw, win 7 Ult. While an old build by whatever is out now, it does fine until either the gpu is stressed (pretty much any modern PC game) or the CPU is stressed (newest emulators with eye candy settings).

Been thinking about making the jump to a modern Intel for better overall performance going forward, but with all the different chip variants etc., not sure what makes the most sense?


1. Would prefer 8 core or better w/o going over a soft-cap of $500 for just the chip. Looking to OC if/when needed. Looking to get at least 5 years out of it performance-wise, and modern emulators going forward are to be considered.

2. Need a modern mobo for it that allows OC (w/o arbitrary nerfs to "hide" hardware limitations).

3. Are special RAM sticks needed for Intel builds? If so, what's good for the recommended chip from (1.) above? Will probably stick with 16gb.

4. Is there anything wonky with the psu requirements for Intel mobo? Will my EVGA be compatable?

5. Anything else to consider jumping brands?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

1. Would prefer 8 core or better w/o going over a soft-cap of $500 for just the chip.

...yeah that's impossible on the Intel side unless you're OK with used or settling for 8 threads (like a 4core/8thread or a 6core/12thread).  As of right now, Ryzen is the only choice for 8 CPU cores under $500 (or heck, 8 cores under $300).

3. Are special RAM sticks needed for Intel builds? If so, what's good for the recommended chip from (1.) above? Will probably stick with 16gb.

No; any DDR4 RAM will work with any modern Intel or AMD board.

Beware though, DDR4 is stupidly expensive right now - 16GB will cost you $150 to $200 USD which is practically triple what it cost just 18 months ago (scroll down and look at the price charts on the following pages):

GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($149.88 @ OutletPC)
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($199.89 @ OutletPC)
G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($199.89 @ OutletPC)

4. Is there anything wonky with the psu requirements for Intel mobo? Will my EVGA be compatable?

No wonky requirements, your PSU will be fine.

(and to be honest, your PSU is actually massively overkill, but that doesn't really hurt anything - though the warranty is surprisingly short at 3 years for such a high-end unit)

5. Anything else to consider jumping brands?

This isn't with regards to jumping brands, but since DDR4 is stupidly expensive, you might actually be better trying to get a used z87 or z97 motherboard + i7-4770k or i7-4790k on the cheap since that would let you re-use your DDR3 RAM and still take advantage of Haswell's weirdly fast performance in emulation (to the point of being faster per-GHz per-core than Ryzen, but again only in emulators).

Otherwise perhaps be patient and waiting for RAM to get cheaper an maybe keep an eye out on PCPartPicker.com's price charts. And maybe by then we'll have 12nm Ryzen and the alleged 8-core Coffee Lake CPUs available.

[mstreurman]

I'm presently running an 8350, GTX 970, EVGA Supernova 1000 G2 Gold PSU, Samsung 850 Pro SSD, and 16gb Ripjaw, win 7 Ult. While an old build by whatever is out now, it does fine until either the gpu is stressed (pretty much any modern PC game) or the CPU is stressed (newest emulators with eye candy settings).

Been thinking about making the jump to a modern Intel for better overall performance going forward, but with all the different chip variants etc., not sure what makes the most sense?


1. Would prefer 8 core or better w/o going over a soft-cap of $500 for just the chip. Looking to OC if/when needed. Looking to get at least 5 years out of it performance-wise, and modern emulators going forward are to be considered.

2. Need a modern mobo for it that allows OC (w/o arbitrary nerfs to "hide" hardware limitations).

3. Are special RAM sticks needed for Intel builds? If so, what's good for the recommended chip from (1.) above? Will probably stick with 16gb.

4. Is there anything wonky with the psu requirements for Intel mobo? Will my EVGA be compatable?

5. Anything else to consider jumping brands?

Cheapest 8 core Intel is the Core i7 7820X which is a true 8 core Skylake-s (thus 2 generations old already, but has been released in Q2 of 2017) and costs a whopping 570dollar at the cheapest. It supports overclocking and has Hyperthreading so you are able to run 16 threads.

If you want a cheap 8 core with decent performance you're "stuck" with AMD Ryzen 7 1700 and up (starting at 288 dollar at the cheapest, going up to the 1800x which is 499 dollar) they also have Hyperthreading and support overclocking, but you get IPC's that are about the same as a 4th gen Intel, which are still very decent.

The cheapest true 6 core Intel is the Core i7 7800X at 360 dollar, which is also a Skylake-s and supports Hyperthreading (thus 12 threads) and overclocking. For AMD you can go for the Ryzen 5 1600 or 1600x which cost respectively 200 and 220 dollar.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

1800x which is 499 dollar

It's now "only" $432: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7qyxFT/...80xbcaewof

However, there is a less common variant that I believe actually comes with a stock cooler (presumably the Wraith Max) for $500: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Wx7CmG/...80xbcaempk

they also have Hyperthreading

They have SMT, not hyperthreading. Hyperthreading is merely Intel's name for their implementation of SMT on their own CPUs (keep in mind that SMT has existed elsewhere for many years now, such as in the Xbox 360's PowerPC CPU with 3cores/6threads).

and support overclocking

But unfortunately 1st-gen Ryzen seems to hit a pretty hard wall around 4GHz.

but you get IPC's that are about the same as a 4th gen Intel

Outside of emulation, 1st-gen Ryzen's IPC is somewhere from Haswell to Broadwell level depending on the application.

But in emulation, 1st-gen Ryzen's IPC is unfortunately only between Ivy Bridge and Haswell. In a way, 1st-gen Ryzen is the opposite of Haswell - emulation is Haswell's best case scenario while it's quite possibly 1st-gen Ryzen's worst case scenario.

[mstreurman]

It's now "only" $432: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7qyxFT/...80xbcaewof

However, there is a less common variant that I believe actually comes with a stock cooler (presumably the Wraith Max) for $500: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Wx7CmG/...80xbcaempk


They have SMT, not hyperthreading.  Hyperthreading is merely Intel's name for their implementation of SMT on their own CPUs (keep in mind that SMT has existed elsewhere for many years now, such as in the Xbox 360's PowerPC CPU with 3cores/6threads).


But unfortunately 1st-gen Ryzen seems to hit a pretty hard wall around 4GHz.


Outside of emulation, 1st-gen Ryzen's IPC is somewhere from Haswell to Broadwell level depending on the application.

But in emulation, 1st-gen Ryzen's IPC is unfortunately only between Ivy Bridge and Haswell.  In a way, 1st-gen Ryzen is the opposite of Haswell - emulation is Haswell's best case scenario while it's quite possibly 1st-gen Ryzen's worst case scenario.

According to the unofficial 5.0 benchmarks the results come in right between the 4th gen series depending on the clockspeed of the 4th gen intel: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...=485052351

So please do not spread this misinformation.

And if it's called Hyperthreading or not... no one actually cares... Hyperthreading is what the 2 threads per core is called by "commoners", who probably never even have heard about SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading)

And then there the thing about is a hard wall of 4GHz... which is still overclocking... since the fastest 1800x is still 3.6GHz... Thus they do still support overclocking...

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

According to the unofficial 5.0 benchmarks the results come in right between the 4th gen series depending on the clockspeed of the 4th gen intel: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...=485052351

So please do not spread this misinformation.

...you realize I created the thread that chart originates from, right?: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...ted--45007

And that chart shows a the fastest result for a Ryzen CPU on Windows (1800x @ 4.1GHz) is being beaten by multiple Haswell i5s running at only around 3.5GHz or so. By comparison, the absolute fastest Ryzen result (1700 @ 3.8GHz) was done on Arch Linux which can very much make a difference, but even then it's still being beaten by three lower-clocked Haswell i5s.

For reference, using dev builds of Dolphin does help Ryzen close the gap to Haswell, but at least on Windows it still cannot surpass Haswell on a per-clock basis specifically in Dolphin: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-ob...ows?page=2

[mstreurman]

...you realize I created the thread that chart originates from, right?: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...ted--45007

And that chart shows a the fastest result for a Ryzen CPU on Windows (1800x @ 4.1GHz) is being beaten by multiple Haswell i5s running at only around 3.5GHz or so.

You will notice that the one Ryzen 1700 3.8GHz result with Haswell-like performance was done on Arch Linux, which can very much make a difference...but even then it's still being beaten by three lower-clocked Haswell i5s.

For reference, using dev builds of Dolphin does help Ryzen close the gap, but at least on Windows it still cannot surpass Haswell specifically in Dolphin: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-ob...ows?page=2

Yes I do. So you should know this: please just check row 128 until row 142 for example. Stock Ryzen (and close to stock Ryzen) between overclocked and stock Intels 4-6th gen all on Windows 10... And we are not doing a clock for clock comparison here, we are doing an IPC comparison... which means that at a higher clock the IPC will also be higher (Duh   ) and I never said that it would beat overclocked 4th gens...

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

we are not doing a clock for clock comparison here, we are doing an IPC comparison... which means that at a higher clock the IPC will also be higher

...me thinks you do not understand what IPC is.

It's literally an acronym for Instructions Per Cycle or alternatively, Instructions Per Clock.

IPC does not improve with higher clocks and at times it will in fact decrease as you clock higher since not all architectures scale perfectly with clockspeed (this is particularly true on GPUs).

[KHg8m3r]

*looks at row 128 and realizes that's me*

If you look at row 103, that the highest Ryzen CPU. Everything above it is all 4th gen or above Intel CPUs. And yes, there are 4th gen or above Intel CPUs below that point, so its all about understanding that the choice of OS, if it's overclocked or not, RAM speeds (for Ryzen especially), and how many programs are running in the background are all a factor in the speed of Dolphin

[admin89]

I also agree that Ryzen 1700 is the best bang for the buck atm . If you buy any Intel 6 cores CPU now , you will end up getting screwed when Intel release 9th gen Ice lake (probably Q3 2018)
9th gen Ice Lake CPUs are all octa cores (except the i3 series)
There are also some rumors about the next gen Ryzen II (2000 series), are reportedly arriving in early 2018 ! Ryzen II is expected to have higher clock speed than Ryzen 1 (Ryzen 2700 is a 10 cores 10 threads processor and it will run at 4.5GHz while Ryzen 2800 Threadripper Ver2 will feature 12 cores 24 threads @ 5.1GHz)
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd-ryzen-2-launch
It might be wise to wait for Ryzen II Benchmark