AMD Ryzen 9 3950X: 16 cores and 32 threads - A Gaming CPU to be released in September

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Jun 11, 2019.

  1. IIllIlllII

    IIllIlllII Guest

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    Okay, a conundrum. I’m leaning Ryzen 9 3950x now, but was really hoping for a Zen2 Threadripper this year. I could use some advice. Bear with me for the length, but some background is needed to help answer my question:

    Current System built in 2009 (it was really sweet back then!): Win7, Intel Xeon x5650 2.66GHz (PCIe 2.0), 12GB ECC RAM, 3x 15kRPM HDD’s in Raid 0 (approx 200GB space), 2x NVIDIA Quadro 4800’s, 10GBe Aquantia Ethernet add-in card, Hauppage dual TV-Tuner card.

    I’ve squeezed all the life I can out of this system, but I need to now upgrade to something I can squeeze another 10-years out of. Primary uses:
    1) Plex TV streaming out to up to 4 devices simultaneously
    2) Large data storage shared across devices mainly for ripped movies and home videos/photos
    3) Gaming

    I have a full 10GBe network at home, except for the ISP line which is currently bound at 1GBe. But for anything internal it really cooks, even on WiFi. Most importantly, I’ve got the wife’s go-ahead to do a significant technology purchase, she’s sick of the aging technology. I’m holding out for the next gen Nvidia shield in the hopes that it addresses switching from SDR to HDR and Dolby Vision, but the 2017 version would be plenty wife-friendly and also take a lot of the transcoding needs off of the Plex Server, allowing solid gaming with minimal loss of multitasking processing power should Plex streaming be needed while gaming.

    The Ryzen 3950x checks all the boxes I want: low power consumption for something I want on 24/7, core-count for all 3 of my primary uses, secure from many of the exploits Intel is vulnerable to, PCIe 4.0, and with an enthusiast X570 board, I’d have enough PCIe lanes for a Raid 5 HDD setup for all my data. My only reservation is the dual-channel RAM vs the ThreadRipper’s Quad-Channel RAM. Do you think, the Ryzen 9 3950x will have enough horsepower to meet my needs for the next 10 years?
     
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  2. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    Considering you want to keep it for a decade, I personally would recommend you wait for the next-gen Threadrippers. If this were Intel we were talking about I'd say "just go for it" but Zen does seem to substantially benefit from more RAM bandwidth.

    However, we don't know if perhaps Zen2 is less bottlenecked by RAM. We do know that it can tolerate faster RAM, which might make up for the lack of additional memory channels. I don't think anyone can really give you a good recommendation until reviews are out.
     
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  3. illrigger

    illrigger Master Guru

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    You aren't thinking about the lifespan of a CPU. They don't get a lot faster every year, and they are pretty much capped out on clock speeds, with only a 25% GHz boost increase at the highest end since I bought my 4770K in 2013. AMD and Intel both know that clock speed increases are only going to get harder to do as manufacturing processes get harder and harder to shrink (Intel especially knows this, from very painful personal experience). That's why they are going wider instead of faster - wider is a LOT easier. The next tech improvements are specifically designed for this, with multiple stacked layers of chiplets. More cores is the future of computing, clock speed is not.

    Game developers know this as well, and all you need to look at what's happened over the last couple years to see what way the tide is turning. A couple years back, you could count on both hands the number of games who used more than 1 or 2 cores. Now you can count on both hands the number that don't use at least 4, and there are few who will use more already.

    Given most people replace their CPU every 4-5 years, do you really think it's wise to bet on lower core counts at this stage of the game? In 5 years we will likely be seeing 6 cores at the entry level and 24 or more at the $500 point. If you are a casual gamer, a 6 core is an OK bet, but if you like to crank up the settings on AAA titles, even an 8 Core is probably not going to be optimal in 3 years, just like how a 2 core is a bottleneck and a 4 core actually slows things down in some games today. So the question is, do you spend an extra $100 now for 12 cores to keep your system running for 5 years, or replace almost everything in 3 years (because there will be a new socket and RAM) to keep playing on Ultra?
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
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  4. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    Actually, I very much am thinking about the lifespan of my CPU. I bought it in 2017 knowing I was going to replace it within 5 years, because I knew next-gen consoles were going to up the ante of CPU requirements. I don't like wasting money on hardware I'm not going to take advantage of, and so far with vsync on, not a single game has come close to maxing out most of my CPU. There are several games that max out one or two cores, but that's a clock related issue.
    Furthermore, I have the first AM4 ITX mobo available. It only has a 4-pin CPU power connector. At the time, I could have got a 1600 and safely overclocked it to ~4GHz, but again, I don't really need the extra performance.
    As for clock speed, you do realize that Ryzen has always been disappointing with overclocking, right? I'm not and never was banking on clock speed. Besides, clocks are what you want to reach high frame rates (above 60FPS), which as I had specified multiple times already, I don't care to achieve.
    As I have stated before, just because a game can use more cores, that doesn't mean it depends on them for a good experience. Take Ashes of the Singularity for example. Even though that game can take advantage of twice the CPU I have, you can pretty consistently get 60FPS on a mild overclock with a 1500X. Why should I care about spending more money on a more powerful CPU to achieve a frame rate I don't need?

    Again - when (not if) the time comes for me to upgrade to more cores, I will. But that day has not yet come.
    Given my CPU wasn't very expensive and will [probably] be replaced within 5 years of me buying it, do you really think anything you said there matters?

    For the record, I would definitely agree that buying a 4c/8t CPU for gaming now would be a bad idea, because as you said, within 3 years it probably won't keep up (especially if left at stock speeds).
    When it comes time to replace my CPU (again, probably around the time next-gen consoles are released), I'll jump to an 8c/16t.
     
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  5. HeavyHemi

    HeavyHemi Guest

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    Um... you're throwing around 60 FPS with no context. There are certainly games out there that are significantly impacted running 4 cores. That YOU, FEEL, you are not impacted significantly is not an argument. That fact is, that NOW, many games scale quite well with more than 4 cores. I know I have a marked performance advantage with 6/12 over 4/8 in every recent game title/engine. Your argument is about 5 years behind. ;)
     
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  6. airbud7

    airbud7 Guest

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    Something tells me Hilbert got one of them 3950x in his back pocket when he left California!

    Tell the truth Boss!........:p
     
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  7. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    4c/8t (overclocked)... It's obvious I'm not talking about a Kaby Lake i5 here...
    Seeing as it's my opinion about my PC and my own gaming preferences, yes, actually, the way I feel is the only argument that actually matters here. Note how I'm not recommending or telling anyone else to follow in my footsteps.

    I've seen benchmarks of 4c/8t CPUs in modern games, and they seem to hold up just fine.
    So if you're going to whine about who has a valid argument, how about provide sources?

    EDIT:
    Also, how many times do I have to specify that the way a game scales with cores does not dictate whether it has a good experience on a lesser CPU? I don't care if adding 4 more cores adds another 50FPS, because I don't need it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
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  8. LesserHellspawn

    LesserHellspawn Master Guru

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    As a gamer I'd still lean towards the Intel 8 core CPU that does 5 GHz on all cores.
     
  9. airbud7

    airbud7 Guest

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    An old anything @5GHz will game?.....I only wish I could unlock my I3-4170....
     
  10. illrigger

    illrigger Master Guru

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    So basically what you are saying that you are not the person that this product line is targeted at. Good for you, but why are you even in this thread if that's the case? You don't have a horse in this race, so why are you at the track?

    And FWIW, why did you bring up AMD overclocking? That has literally nothing to do with any of this, and is a completely unknown variable on these new CPUs.
     

  11. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    You have a tendency to not read everything... You only chose to point out the part about my personal preferences. And even then, I implied in my first post that I was going to upgrade to more cores eventually.
    In my original post, I was saying how it doesn't make sense AMD is calling this a "gaming CPU", and is basically just calling it that to help sell it better. Although games are taking advantage of more threads, I'm very confident that a 32-thread CPU is not going to be necessary for gaming for a very long time. This is not a personal preference, this is the reality.
    Of course, there will be PC games that can, but much like AotS, I'm sure such games will run perfectly fine on worse CPUs.
    Which context are you referring to? I brought up overclocking to you because you were saying how clock speeds aren't the way forward. My point was nobody buys a Ryzen in the hopes that it can achieve high clock speeds. But to my point against HeavyHemi, a few extra hundred MHz makes enough of a difference to reliably get 60FPS in some games.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
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  12. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    Seeing that these forums are open to anyone, anyone can comment on the topic.
     
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  13. siriq

    siriq Guest

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    It is time to leave the ship and join to the true force.
    Man! The new Zen is a bias. I have to try it.
     
  14. Calmmo

    Calmmo Guest

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    This is getting Sapphire Toxic pretty quick. Spicy
     
  15. Jayp

    Jayp Member Guru

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    It is great that AMD ships their AM4 CPUs with coolers, the wraith is okay it gets the job done and even looks decent. However, it runs a bit loud for my taste and I would use a different cooler anyways as I do on my 2700X. Also doesn't leave much of any room for an OC so there are many things that would push one to get a different cooler. I get it though for the budget shopper it is nice to have the cooler included.
     
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  16. Jayp

    Jayp Member Guru

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    I think the part that many seem to be missing is that this 16 core CPU is also ideal for gaming. When you look at all 16 core CPUs before it there was compromise when it came to gaming. The 3950X being labeled as a gaming CPU merely means that you can have your 16 core thread crushing monster and you can eat it too, uhh, I mean, game very nicely too. $750 doesn't make too much sense just for gaming but that's because this CPU isn't the best gamer's choice. 3950X is have your cake and eat it too all for a steal of $750.
     
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  17. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    When it comes down to it. I just want to see 32 threads in Task Manager. I'll deal with the rest later.
     
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  18. D3M1G0D

    D3M1G0D Guest

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    Well, Intel also marketed the X-series Core i9 CPUs to gamers. I think any CPU which offers fast single-core performance could be considered a gaming CPU, although that doesn't mean that they can't be used for anything else. Note that many gamers are also now content creators, either streaming or uploading videos, so a CPU with a lot of cores might fit the bill.
     
  19. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    Good points, though I was about to write about Skylake-X to Japy. Looking back at some of the previews and announcements for that series, it didn't mention gaming all that often; I couldn't find anything where it was headlined just as a gaming CPU by Intel, so that's why I'm rolling my eyes at AMD here. This is despite the fact that Skylake-X (last time I checked) offers the best gaming performance you can currently buy.

    For the record, this isn't really that big of a deal to me, people just keep bringing it up, so it seems like I care about this more than I really do.
     
  20. Borys

    Borys Member Guru

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    So... the Ryzen 3900x already its better than the 9900++++++++++! Point! Even without any premium mobo, cooler and DDR4 4000Mhz and above...
    The 3950x its the BEST CPU at the market costing half of price of what Intel has near to offer. Any more questions?
    Congratulations AMD! The new KING cpu in ALL WAYS!
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019

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