
$499 AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Almost as Fast as $2000 Intel Core I9-9980XE - areejs
https://www.techquila.co.in/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-intel-core-i9/
======
mrb
This was expected because the 3900X is optimized for fewer faster cores (12 at
3.8GHz) while the 9980XE is optimized for more slower cores (18 at 3.0GHz.)

A better and far more impressive comparison would be the 3950X vs 9980XE which
have comparable number of cores (16 vs 18). And in that instance AMD still
beats Intel in _both_ single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads! And by
wide margins! And with AMD being 62% cheaper ($750 vs $1950)! And with AMD's
TDP 36% lower (105 vs 165W)! And despite having 2 fewer cores! And despite the
3950X engineering sample below being clocked under final specs (3.29GHz vs
3.5GHz)! See this leaked 3950X engineering sample codenamed "Myrtle":
[https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13612629?baseli...](https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13612629?baseline=13495867)

Intel has never been so thoroughly defeated since the 1999 K7. Interesting
times...

~~~
pkaye
Also doesn't Intel have a lot more known security flaws?

~~~
IshKebab
One more, assuming you mean meltdown. But that's the easy one to fix.

~~~
old-gregg
Not true. Copy-pasting from my Ryzen terminal:

    
    
       $ spectre-meltdown-checker | grep "NOT VULNERABLE" | wc -l  
       12

~~~
butteroverflow
So? The same script reports 11 lines on my 4 year old Haswell. It should read
as "mitigated or not vulnerable" instead of simply "not vulnerable".

Edit: oh wait, it's actually 12 lines, the same as on your system. The reason
it reported 11 on the first run is because KPTI has been disabled manually
here.

~~~
old-gregg
:) I grepped for the wrong thing. Here's a better version:

    
    
       $ sudo spectre-meltdown-checker | grep "Not affected" | wc -l
    
    
       On Skylake: 0
       On Ryzen  : 10
    

I don't have an Ivy Bridge CPU to test this on, but AMD has suffered from
_significantly_ fewer number of vulnerabilities than Intel, not just "one
more" as the top commenter suggested.

------
gdy
Never bought an Intel CPU after learning about their illegal anti-competetive
deals with OEMs. It's been probably 15 years with AMD CPUs.

Happy to see AMD on top once again.

~~~
scotty79
Never bought Intel CPU for a desktop after Pentium 133MHz that powered my
first PC.

I always considered Intel for my builds but AMD always came out as best bang
for buck in my price range in the end and I had no way of justifying use of
Intel CPU.

------
boyadjian
My next CPU will be an AMD.

~~~
ryacko
Is the socket really zero insertion force?

I've always been planning on buying an AMD CPU after dealing with an Intel
processor.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Yes. I remember my 1800X making a "thunk" sound[0] when it dropped into the
socket. It requires as much insertion force as water into a cup.

[0] [https://youtu.be/QdNISYm0w-U?t=756](https://youtu.be/QdNISYm0w-U?t=756)

~~~
ryacko
If AMD advertised that their CPUs can be installed gingerly as opposed to
Intel which felt like thirty pounds of pressure was required, then I would
have opted for the older, but AMD chip.

Had a false impression from all the PC part guides that somehow each were
equal difficulty.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Most AMD heatsinks use a clip retention mechanism, which definitely require
significant force.

Aside: at least new CPUs have heatspreaders. The first heatsink I installed
was on an Athlon XP 2500+. Those things had the bare die exposed! Do it wrong
the first time, and you had an expensive tiny brick.

~~~
Nexxxeh
Retro tip - copper shim.

------
tapirl
I just assembled a new computer: amd 2200g ($90) + MSI B450M MORTAR ($90) +
Intel 512GB SSD M.2 ($68) + 4 x 16G 2666 memory (4 x $72).

I installed the debian testing system. After the installation, X hung at
starting up. But after installing amdgpu driver by following this tutorial:
[https://wiki.debian.org/How%20to%20install%20official%20AMDG...](https://wiki.debian.org/How%20to%20install%20official%20AMDGPU%20linux%20driver%20with%20kernel%204.19.x%20on%20Stretch%20and%20Buster)
, it works like a charming now.

~~~
travbrack
I had to double check your price on the SSD. When did SSDs get so cheap??

~~~
devonkim
SSDs were held up in prices artificially for a while related to the memory
price inflation that happened throughout 2018 and some of 2017. QLC was
mentioned but prices are down across the board and everything in consumer land
is down sharply YoY from that period (50%+ discount is fair). I’d expect some
price increases coming up due to investor pressure for revenue.

~~~
squarefoot
What about SSD reliability? Did it improve in the last year or so?

~~~
devonkim
QLC literally drops write endurance by an order of magnitude but most
consumers won’t be hit by it. Most of the performance is from the SLC cache
and it tanks once it gets full or with sustained usage. The bet is that won’t
matter for 99% of users but most of HN is not that 99% so caution must be
exercised when buying these SSDs.

------
molticrystal
Out of curiosity, has anybody had anything in the AMD Ryzen instruction set
missing that required you to purchase an Intel 9xxx instead?

Any significant differences in regards to scientific applications or machine
learning?

~~~
vbezhenar
I'm considering Intel for my next workstation because I want to be able to run
macOS at least in VirtualBox (or just run Hackintosh, did not decide yet). For
some reason macOS does not like AMD CPUs.

~~~
petepete
There was a recent video on Linus Tech Tips where they set up a Threadripper
workstation running macOS via KVM and it out-performed a top of the line iMac
Pro.

~~~
vbezhenar
Does it work with VirtualBox? I want to run Windows.

~~~
petepete
You can run Windows in KVM. I haven't used VirtualBox for years so my
knowledge is out of date.

------
deforciant
My ryzen 2700x was probably the best purchase I did last year :) it's just
fantastic and I would really want to try out these new CPUs, just can't find
an excuse to buy them :)

Takes like a second to cross compile Go app for all architectures, many cores
ftw!

~~~
noir_lord
Same boat, bought 2700X as stop gap because couldn’t wait for Zen 2 and it’s
so damn good I can’t find a reason to upgrade to a 3900X or 3950

------
polskibus
How come techquila is publishing benchmark results while noone else is? Is
this a controlled leak or a publisher that broke the rules?

~~~
wmf
Stuff always leaks and sites like WCCFTech or Techquila aggregate those leaks.

------
mikece
Any chance Apple will ever consider AMD chips for the MacBook Pro or any of
their computers. I have to wonder how much of the $4k+ I just spent on my
MacBook Pro went to pay for the Intel 8-core CPU...

~~~
jayflux
Its unlikely and I wouldn't hold your breath.

If Apple eventually move to their own CPUs (same as what they use for
iPhone/iPad etc) then they'll spend time working on that instead. If it means
sticking with Intel for another 2 years or whatever until its ready then its
worth it for them.

Switching to AMD wouldn't make sense if its only short-term and not in their
endgame.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
Do you think Apple was "dumb" to "fragment" their OS market even further?

I know they are working on getting apps running on iOS + Mac OS by using the
same APIs/libraries, but now iPad OS is a third instance of what I'm guessing
is mostly the same kernel / libraries?

~~~
jsgo
eh, I think it is fine, maybe even necessary.

iOS was looking a bit odd with the release of iPhone X as you now started
having splintering at least initially (I'm not sure when it happened, but my
older iPad started getting iPhone X-esque swipe down gestures for command
center and notifications which was a nice touch). iPadOS looks to be iOS with
extra add in features and it was kind of needed if they're going for the PC
replacement angle now. I'm glad that my new iPad is getting (has, via beta)
mouse support. I don't see any value in my iPhone X having it though (unless
there were some kind of meaningful reason for docking), so it'd seem to be
bloat at that point.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I thought both iPhone and iPad had mouse support now? And, it’s tucked away in
the accessibility menu, so clearly not intended for general use, at least for
now.

~~~
jsgo
It may be part of iOS 13 proper, I was just giving it as an example of a newer
feature that makes sense with a larger screen like an iPad whereas maybe not
as much with a (relatively) small screen like the iPhone.

Regardless, iPadOS is shaping up to be the latest iOS release with some extra
features that maybe don't make sense on iPhone (at least until they prove
great in iPadOS and there's a push by users to include it in iPhone as well).
It'll most likely get anything that iOS/iPhone gets but then has its own so
they rebrand it as a new OS (seems iOS+ or something denoting they're
inherently the same would be more helpful). Having iPad's home screen grid be
limited to the number of icons the way it did was apparently keeping it in
parity with iOS/iPhone. Allowing that aspect to be "extended" by iPadOS to
include docking the notification widgets/Today View on the primary home screen
(wish it could stay for all home screens, but I digress) is a net gain.

------
esmi
This is comparing an unreleased CPU to a two year old one.

But more importantly, it gives no information on how the Intel CPU was
configured and we have no idea what kind of memory it was paired with.

It's just comparing two random user submissions. Here's another i9-9980XE
where Intel scored 7700 in single core.

[https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/12111208](https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/12111208)

~~~
zamadatix
> This is comparing an unreleased CPU

It comes out in 10 days, does it really matter?

> to a two year old one.

The 9980XE launched Q4 2018, did you mean 2 quarter old? This also seems to
imply Intel has something else better is due for release in the next year,
there is nothing on the roadmap.

> It's just comparing two random user submissions. Here's another i9-9980XE
> where Intel scored 7700 in single core.

Because that's an extreme OC bench at +800 MHz and this was a stock run. Check
the .gb4

~~~
shereadsthenews
The 9980XE is just a really large/fast Skylake CPU. Skylake is years old. If
you wanted this level of performance from Intel you could have ordered the
Xeon Gold 6154 way back in 2017. It seems fair to call this a 2-year-old part.

A more comparable part would be the i9-9980HK.

~~~
leetcrew
> A more comparable part would be the i9-9980HK

not really, that's an eight core CPU (and also a mobile part). I'm very
interested to see how the lower core count Ryzen 2s compare to their Intel
counterparts in single-thread, but part of what's so impressive about the
(early) 3900X/3950X results is that they offer this kind of performance _with_
more cores and at a consumer-friendly price point.

you're right that Skylake is an old design at this point, but intel invites
this kind of comparison when they can't manage to ship an HCC version of their
latest tech. entirely fair, imo.

~~~
shereadsthenews
True, Intel's part numbering scheme has passed beyond all reason. Think about
the i9-9900K/KF. Existing SKU, in stock at Newegg for $479. You don't get
quite as many cores but you get a lower price and higher single-core
performance, and it exists right now instead of being unobtainable hypeware.

~~~
leetcrew
like I said, I'm very interested to see the head-to-heads, especially the
overclocking results. my use case is c++ compilation and csgo so it looks like
it'll be a tough choice.

~~~
shereadsthenews
Seems like for C++ builds you are always going to want the most cores for the
money, even if the single core performance is a little worse.

------
holy_city
Take with a grain of salt. Comparing a single benchmark against an aggregate
isn't particularly meaningful (although getting within a stone's throw
definitely is). You can go through and cherry pick benchmarks and find plenty
that obliterate that measurement.

Better article title would be, "3900x appears comparable to 9980XE in single
threaded workloads."

~~~
arcticbull
The 3900X already crushes in multi-threaded. That stone-throw multi-core
result result is 12 AMD cores on vs 18 Intel cores. That's 50% more cores and
300% more cost for basically the same results.

Single-threaded is the only thing Intel's been touting as they get
steamrolled. This is particularly important because a big market for this
class of CPU is desktop gamers and for better or worse games tend not to be
particularly well multi-threaded so single-core performance is king in that
market. Obviously this will change over time as engines continue to adapt.

To your point though it's better to look at an overall trend of AMD vs Intel
over the last couple of years, and that's equally devastating.

~~~
deogeo
> Obviously this will change over time as engines continue to adapt.

They're already fairly well adapted - Xbox One and PS4 both have 8 cores for a
reason.

------
colechristensen
Any independent verification here or runs of different test suites?

There are many ways to put your finger on the scale for this kind of test
(say, inadequate cooling on the intel part)

Or could it be PCI-E 4.0 significantly increasing the performance?

~~~
zamadatix
Official reviews are embargoed until the 7th. PCIe 4.0 doesn't change anything
for a CPU/Memory benchmark.

------
Medicalidiot
Ryzen is an incredible processor. I'm still happily running my 1700 like the
champ it is.

------
dk1138
Even wider price gap when you account for taxes. Crazy.

------
fortran77
_almost_. We always pay dearly for that last few points of performance! (Intel
is 4% better, comparing the multi-core number)

~~~
zamadatix
In September the stars should align when the 16 core part drops (4 more cores)
for still less than half the price of the 9980XE.

------
JaimeThompson
Does anyone know which of the new Ryzen motherboards support PCIe bifurcation?

------
acollins1331
Yeah but I can't find a motherboard and RAM that won't hardware reserve half
my memory without RMAing 4 iterations of each.

