
AMD Responds to Intel's 9th Gen Benchmarks - jrepinc
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-benchmarks-ryzen-principled-technologies,37956.html
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deforciant
Few months ago I switched from i7 to Ryzen 2700X. Honestly, I don't know what
would have to happen so that I would switch back to Intel :)

In my developer workflows that include quite a lot of browser tabs, a bunch of
Docker containers running, occasional Go or Docker build I don't get any of
the CPUs at 100% often. Only when I do cross compilation to a multiple
architectures I do use 6-9 CPUs and even then my machine is totally usable and
I can't even feel that in the background lots of cores are at full
utilisation.

What really counts is the amount of CPUs available, I don't really care about
their maximum frequency. Comments about gaming are valid but I think instead
of buying Intel just go with a better GPU and you will win there as well.

~~~
saiya-jin
How hard is it to understand that there are various uses for PC, and yours is
only one of those? Plenty of us can't make any use of more than 6-8 cores
effectively, will never run any VMs or Docker, and plenty of software still
will benefit from single-core performance.

I am by no means a fan of the price/value ratio for new i9 CPU and any shady
marketing cheap tricks generally, but I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so
it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days.

Use whatever you feel is the best tool for your needs and your budget. Respect
other's choices, even if it means that for some people, this new i9 will be
the best/preferred option. Or any other option for that matter that isn't
yours.

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deforciant
Apologies, didn't want it to sound like "you have to use Ryzen for everything
now" :)

I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends or my family for the same reason
you mentioned, none of them will utilize those cores.

It just works really well for me and it wildly surpassed my own expectations
as I was quite used to the fact that my machine wasn't really usable while I
run Kubernetes locally. My workflow used to be:

1\. write some code 2\. start Kubernetes, wait for it to boot and test the
code that I wrote 3\. tear it down 4\. write some more code 5\. repeat

I would be loosing quite a lot of time. Also, while waiting for it to start, I
would usually get distracted and start doing something else. Ryzen changed
this workflow and boosted my productivity. Now I don't even notice whether k8s
is running or not, sometimes I forget it for days :D I can't stress enough how
important it is to have a lag free development environment.

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noir_lord
Agree with everything you've said I have a 1700 at work and 2700X at home and
both are monsters for my workloads.

With an evga RTX2080 in the home PC it murders the games I play (elite
dangerous mostly) at 4K.

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deforciant
I have 1080Ti, but haven't tried installing any games yet. Last time I had a
gaming PC it consumed way too much time so currently I try to use my ps4 for
gaming as it's a lot easier to get bored by it :D

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larzang
The controversial benchmarks are always at the 1080p level, and I have to
wonder: who are these magical consumers who are willing to consider shelling
out for an i9 and yet are still playing at 1080p.

Of course such marketing benchmarking HAS to be done at 1080p, because
anything more challenging and you're entirely gpu bound with cpu differences
becoming margin of error fractions of a percent.

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gameswithgo
There are a of lot reasons to game at 1080p

* You don't really want a bigger monitor than 24" for competitive shooters, because then you can't see everything at once. There is only one 1440p monitor in that size that I know of and no 4k monitors that I know of

* You want a monitor with 144Hz (or better!) and low input latency. 1440p and 4k monitors that do this are rare or non existent

* Easier to stream

* Overall appearance of a game at 1080p with more anti aliasing vs 4k with less isn't that difference. text being an exception of course.

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orbifold
Dell manufactures a 4k monitor at 24'', I have one at home. They surely are
not the only ones: [https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-
hd-4k-mon...](https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-
hd-4k-monitor-p2415q/apd/210-agnk/monitors-monitor-accessories)

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gameswithgo
cool, I think things are moving in a direction where 4k high level gaming is
going to be more possible. The dell monitor is still only 60hz so isn't going
to be desirable yet, but that could change soon.

the other issue is input latency which is hard to find specs for. I have an
old dell 1080p monitor that is a total outlier on that end and I never want to
give it up!

but yeah, with more 24" options, higher refresh rates, and the latest nvidia
cards 4k, 144hz gaming is going to be viable soon.

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zachruss92
The real conclusion here is if your use case is purely gaming and cost is not
a factor the 9900k is the best processor to buy. AMD cannot compete with 5GHz
on 2 cores or 4.7 on all 8. If you have a more mixed workload (multi-core) or
are more price conscious AMD is a viable solution.

AMD will be unveiling their Ryzen 2 processors/GPUs in January and it is
rumored that there will be a 15% IPC increase. If that is the case, AMD will
be on-par with Intel. It is also rumored they will be bumping the Ryzen lineup
to have 16 cores.

I've been running a Ryzen system w/ a 1800x @ 4GHz on all cores for well over
a year now and have no complaints whatsoever. As a developer/light gamer it
was the perfect balance of price to performance.

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vbezhenar
Benchmarks might be bad, but I don't think that numbers are wrong. Intel
frequency is much higher. If your game configuration limits FPS on single or
duo core performance, Intel will be better, I have little doubts about that.
But Intel has 1.5x price, so if you're thinking about performance/price, it's
not that simple. And a lot of games are not limited by CPU anyway, unless
you're playing with unusual settings (like very low graphics).

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simion314
Probably nobody is saying that AMD is faster, the issue is that if Intel is 5%
faster but it costs double(including the coolers) then it does not look that
good, so if Intel could find a way to say in the marketing slides that the
Intel CPU is up to 50% faster then they can get a lot more sells.

I also read that there are still some controversy about the CPU frequency for
multicore and also that reviewers got speical CPUs, you are not guaranteed to
get 5GHz on Intel so it is possible that in 1 month the new CPUs will have not
as good turbo.

My point is not to rush a purchase based on this initial benchmarks, wait a
few more weeks.

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vbezhenar
Intel should be around 10-15% faster. It's like 4.3 GHz for AMD, 5 GHz for
Intel with comparable IPC. Also 5 GHz boost is in 9900K specs, if you're not
getting it, it should be enough reason to replace is as a defective.

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simion314
OK, so I can't be 100%sure what this means: "Max turbo frequency is the
maximum single core frequency at which the processor is capable of operating
using Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and, if present, Intel® Thermal Velocity
Boost. Frequency is measured in gigahertz (GHz), or billion cycles per
second."

Does this mean that is guarantedd that 1 core will reach 5GHz ? Are there
exceptions? Will it work it regular coolers ? Will it turbo without BIOS
changes so in default config?

Thanks if you can clear this, because I am not sure if thix Max is considering
power users that overclock or not

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vbezhenar
I'm not an expert, so take my words with a grain of salt. 9900K will reach
5GHz for 2 cores. So if your OS uses only 2 cores at the same time, they'll
work at 5 GHz. If your OS uses more cores, CPU will slow down frequency. Also
if CPU will be boosted for too long, it'll slow down anyway, because it must
keep its 95W TDP. But you can change setting in BIOS, something like MultiCore
Enhancement. This will allow CPU to use as much power as possibe, so it should
be able to keep working at 5 GHz and 2 cores, if your PSU and cooler are good
enough to provide and dissipate that power.

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cbg0
Here's a roundup of all 9900K/9700K/9600K reviews:
[https://videocardz.com/78652/intel-
core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5...](https://videocardz.com/78652/intel-
core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-and-z390-motherboard-review-roundup)

