Worth upgrading from Haswell i5-4670 to Ryzen 1700?

[MajinCry]

Kind of hard to draw conclusions off one data point and game. Looking the performance to price ratio of the Ryzen 5 1600 and R7 1700, I would to have say that both of them offer the best value in CPUs right now.

One data point? Read the graph, there's four pertaining to Ryzen. In order of least-worst to best at draw calls, per clock:

Main thread on one CCX + driver thread on differing CCX + slow RAM | Worse than Core 2
Main thread on one CCX + driver thread on differing CCX + fast RAM | As fast as Core 2
Main thread & driver thread on one CCX + slow RAM | Faster than Core 2
Main thread & driver thread on one CCX + fast RAM | Faster than Sandybridge

So on a game that assigns itself to four cores, on a platform with fast DDR4 (~3000Mhz), the best case scenario, draw call performance is around Ivybridge.

Fallout 4 is one of the best for benchmarking CPU prowess, as it:

Has several thousand actors being processed at any given time
Issues several thousand draw calls in the least intensive areas
Issues over ten thousand draw calls in the most intensive areas
Uses over 7GB of RAM with a vanilla install
Has many active threads, with over 100k thread locks per frame

It's a pile of garbage engine, and Bethesda's games are the only ones that offer an extremely moddable, open world sandbox with a fully fledged game editor. It's a worst case scenario; if your CPU performs well in Fallout 4, it'll perform really well in most other games. If it performs badly...Wellp.

 

[whm1974]

One data point? Read the graph, there's four pertaining to Ryzen. In order of least-worst to best at draw calls, per clock:

Main thread on one CCX + driver thread on differing CCX + slow RAM | Worse than Core 2
Main thread on one CCX + driver thread on differing CCX + fast RAM | As fast as Core 2
Main thread & driver thread on one CCX + slow RAM | Faster than Core 2
Main thread & driver thread on one CCX + fast RAM | Faster than Sandybridge

So on a game that assigns itself to four cores, on a platform with fast DDR4 (~3000Mhz), the best case scenario, draw call performance is around Ivybridge.

Fallout 4 is one of the best for benchmarking CPU prowess, as it:

Has several thousand actors being processed at any given time
Issues several thousand draw calls in the least intensive areas
Issues over ten thousand draw calls in the most intensive areas
Uses over 7GB of RAM with a vanilla install
Has many active threads, with over 100k thread locks per frame

It's a pile of garbage engine, and Bethesda's games are the only ones that offer an extremely moddable, open world sandbox with a fully fledged game editor. It's a worst case scenario; if your CPU performs well in Fallout 4, it'll perform really well in most other games. If it performs badly...Wellp.

Sorry I didn't read the link you posted. I stand corrected.

 

[Ketchup]

From your posts it sounds like you really want to upgrade. Go ahead. It's only money right? We are just telling you that you won't see much of an improvement in what you are using the computer for right now. Down the road? Who knows. It's a risk. Up to you if you want to take it.

 

[tential]

BREAKING NEWS! STOP THE PRESS! VL BOUGHT A REAL CPU!

Oh lord... He's got 2 cpus now I think. And i5 he oced and a 1600? Wow... Guess hexacore is the new entry level.

Jesus vl keeps bumping up the entry level parts I'm screwed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh lord... He's got 2 cpus now I think. And i5 he oced and a 1600? Wow... Guess hexacore is the new entry level.

Jesus vl keeps bumping up the entry level parts I'm screwed.

So, I guess that means that Ryzen 5 1600 is now entry-level for gaming?

 

[whm1974]

Oh lord... He's got 2 cpus now I think. And i5 he oced and a 1600? Wow... Guess hexacore is the new entry level.

Jesus vl keeps bumping up the entry level parts I'm screwed.

Well I've long considered a four thread CPU at least to be entry level if not a four core one.

 

[tential]

So, I guess that means that Ryzen 5 1600 is now entry-level for gaming?

Either that or you're no longer an entry level PC user. What's it like to finally grow up? Hahaha. We've all been here for way way too long!

 

[DaveSimmons]

From your posts it sounds like you really want to upgrade. Go ahead. It's only money right? We are just telling you that you won't see much of an improvement in what you are using the computer for right now. Down the road? Who knows. It's a risk. Up to you if you want to take it.

I'd still say wait to see what Coffee Lake 6c/12t looks like in August. (In fact I am waiting for my upgrade.)

Ryzen as a platform is still a little rough around the edges. i7-7700K is fast but is also a factory overclocked chip that wastes power.

In a couple of months Ryzen's edges will be smoothed, prices may drop, and Coffee might be better than Kaby.

 

[tential]

I'd still say wait to see what Coffee Lake 6c/12t looks like in August. (In fact I am waiting for my upgrade.)

Ryzen as a platform is still a little rough around the edges. i7-7700K is fast but is also a factory overclocked chip that wastes power.

In a couple of months Ryzen's edges will be smoothed, prices may drop, and Coffee might be better than Kaby.

Any person who truly cares about PC hardware is waiting for coffeelake 6c/12t cpu if it launches at the same historical price point previous top end i7s have that aren't hedt you'd be insane to not get one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Any person who truly cares about PC hardware should buy a Ryzen CPU, to support AMD and competition. You'd be insane to not get one.

Fixed.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Fixed.

Poe's Law might apply here, but I'll pretend you're serious

Setting up a GoFundMe to collect money for AMD CPU R&D might be a neat idea, but buying the product that works best for you is the right choice.

 

[lyssword]

guys remember he's talkin about 4670 haswell non-k that turboes to 3.6 on all cores. It's not a 4ghz+ all core skylake 7600k.

 

[Topweasel]

Maybe AMD shouldn't have gone with a CCX design to begin with? That said however Zen is a huge improvement over their previous architectures.

I wouldn't read to much into the CCX "penalties" There is a measurable increase in latency when a Core has to call up cache from the other CCX. From there is became the linchpin for gaming performance and the reason that game performance went up with memory speed. But really game performance is more like Broadwell performance, but in the area's that Ryzen is supposed to do good like DX12, there seems to be a driver issue on Nvidia cards that limits the Ryzen's core utilization. This tanks it's performance in games that are supposed to run better in it and drags down it's gaming score. Vega may or may not be a great 1080/Titan opponent, but I am confident we will finally see Ryzen's true gaming performance then. As for the performance with better memory. Ryzen only outpaces the increase in performance when upping memory speed of the 7700 by a smallish margin.

The fact is Ryzen clocks well below a 7700 or 6700. It also has a IPC disadvantage. Gaming performance is good. It's just not great. If looking for a mid term upgrade you might want to look at a 1600 or 1600x. 1600 if you overclock, 1600x if you don't. Both are good value and offer a little more future forward ability over an i7. An Ryzen 7 is a good buy if you are looking for a fresh system that you plan on running 3+ year. It's not going to be the fastest, its a bit expensive for its performance in simple tasks, but we are seeing the move to 4c+ usage in games and most productivity programs are expanding their threading as well. The CCX design gives AMD a scalability that has never scene before that will carry them from $100 desktop - $4k+ server CPU's and everything in between. The marginal performance hit that we still don't fully have a feeling for, isn't worth taking apart the most important development next to IF that AMD has developed for Zen.

 

[Topweasel]

Poe's Law might apply here, but I'll pretend you're serious

Setting up a GoFundMe to collect money for AMD CPU R&D might be a neat idea, but buying the product that works best for you is the right choice.

Actually only to a degree. If this was an actual profit generating system you would be right. But for consumers buying an Intel CPU just because it leads in a single stat or two hurts the PC development by a great deal. Not saying AMD is a great company that has our best interests at heart. But if the performance difference is marginal and imperceptible buying Intel who demonstrated with their performance lead (one that was drastic and therefore not a smart decision to buy AMD) to not push development and hold back new tech or features at highly increased costs. Again not saying that you should perceptively impact your personal performance as some kind of sacrifice for the greater good. But as long as AMD is competitive their should be a little more hesitation on choice and supporting AMD should have some weight in the decision.1

 

[frozentundra123456]

Actually only to a degree. If this was an actual profit generating system you would be right. But for consumers buying an Intel CPU just because it leads in a single stat or two hurts the PC development by a great deal. Not saying AMD is a great company that has our best interests at heart. But if the performance difference is marginal and imperceptible buying Intel who demonstrated with their performance lead (one that was drastic and therefore not a smart decision to buy AMD) to not push development and hold back new tech or features at highly increased costs. Again not saying that you should perceptively impact your personal performance as some kind of sacrifice for the greater good. But as long as AMD is competitive their should be a little more hesitation on choice and supporting AMD should have some weight in the decision.1

On the other hand, why should one support a company that builds an inferior product? We heard this same argument even when AMD built a clearly inferior product. It is a bit less absurd now that they are at least competitive, but I am with Simmons on this one. Buy the product you want or that best suits the price/performance for the user's particular case. It is the responsibility of a company to produce a product that meets the needs of the user, not the responsibility of the user to modify his use case or sacrifice performance to support a company.

 

[Topweasel]

On the other hand, why should one support a company that builds an inferior product? We heard this same argument even when AMD built a clearly inferior product. It is a bit less absurd now that they are at least competitive, but I am with Simmons on this one. Buy the product you want or that best suits the price/performance for the user's particular case. It is the responsibility of a company to produce a product that meets the needs of the user, not the responsibility of the user to modify his use case or sacrifice performance to support a company.

Sorry if I implied that I think that people should sacrifice themselves on the altar of AMD. I am saying two things. When performance is close and the difference is imperceptible (120 FPS vs 130fps at 1080 or 63 vs 65 at 4k) you aren't buying clearly inferior products, specially when it's so much better in other scenarios. Also the short term performance benefits impacts long term CPU development. Less founding for AMD to develop, and Intel with the lead has shown itself to purposely slow development, increase product segregation, and maintain pricing.

AMD screwed up with BD and it hurt everyone. I applaud everyone who found a use for BD or AMD during this time period. But it was bad and as someone who tends to side with the underdog, my next 4 computers were all Intel. That screw up by AMD cost not only their fans but every PC user for the last 6+ years.

But when things are equal or near equal. I do think that anyone who cares about the future of computing should at least keep it in mind as a component of their decision making process.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But when things are equal or near equal. I do think that anyone who cares about the future of computing should at least keep it in mind as a component of their decision making process.

This, exactly. I'm not a raving AMD fanboy, by any means. I've been buying Intel CPUs since Skylake debuted, pretty-much exclusively. Mostly, because Intel had (clearly) superior products (to the BD-derived parts AMD was selling).

But now that AMD has something that is largely competitive in the CPU dept., I think that people should be open-minded and give them a chance, and not be raving Intel fanboys, and say that Ryzen is somehow inferior due to a perceived difference in 1080P gaming, when most of those published benchmarks at Ryzen's debut, were of games that weren't optimized for their architecture. We've already seen those Intel leads (since those games WERE optimized for Intel, from the beginning), pretty-much erased, when the publisher/developer added Ryzen optimizations.

Ok, I'll grant you, Ryzen as a platform still needs some more polish on it, and they're working daily on it.

But all in all, for the performance that you're getting for the price, I think Ryzen is worth considering, and I've put my money where my mouth is, and purchased an Ryzen 5 1600 CPU myself. For the same price as an i5-7500, which is a 4C/4T non-overclockable CPU, I'm getting a 6C/12T unlocked CPU. Sounds like a deal to me, especially if gaming isn't your primary focus.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's a pile of garbage engine

This fact is why we should not pretend that Fallout 4 results are the end-all, be-all of gaming benchmarks for CPUs.

OP, go and find some benchmark suites with Ryzen running DDR4-3200 CL/CAS14 and see how it performs against current Intel and AMD processors. I'm sure you'll find that Ryzen is quite capable as a gaming CPU. The only game I can think of where it may fail horribly is Starcraft II.

 

[Ranulf]

Heh SC2, killing all cpus since 2010.

 

[MajinCry]

This fact is why we should not pretend that Fallout 4 results are the end-all, be-all of gaming benchmarks for CPUs.

Better than something like Team Fortress 2. Shows the real grunt in the hardware.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Better than something like Team Fortress 2. Shows the real grunt in the hardware.

Who said anything about TF2?

And no, it really doesn't. It's one game with a shoddy engine built on old tech. Which you seem to be stuck on for some reason . . . but hey, if you want to tell everyone that Fallout 4 is the only game worthy of benchmarking, then go right ahead.

 

[Topweasel]

It's one game with a shoddy engine built on old tech.

TF2 is on an old engine. FO4 is on an ancient engine. Ungodly old. And unlike heavily updated engines. They staple new features on top of it and never really redo the core code. It's a mess.

 

[DrMrLordX]

TF2 is on an old engine. FO4 is on an ancient engine. Ungodly old. And unlike heavily updated engines. They staple new features on top of it and never really redo the core code. It's a mess.

Yeah, that's why I'm not all that thrilled with the idea that Fo4 should be used as the end-all, be-all of gaming benchmarks. If you really like Fallout4 and want the best CPU for running it (with mods) then hey, have at it. But believe it or not, some people enjoy playing other games running different engines.

I certainly wouldn't hold up TF2 as an example of an all-encompassing benchmark either.

 

[geokilla]

Heh SC2, killing all cpus since 2010.

SC2 is ridiculously CPU limited it's not even funny. I wish Blizzard can optimize the game better so it'll use up 2 or 4 cores for CPU processing. Even the fastest i7 has trouble running the game at max details under ridiculous fights.

For what it's worth, it appears SC2 may be memory limited as well. A Reddit post indicated the significant increase in FPS obtained by overclocking the RAM.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/...raft_2_memory_performance_benchmarks_how_ram/

But now that AMD has something that is largely competitive in the CPU dept., I think that people should be open-minded and give them a chance, and not be raving Intel fanboys, and say that Ryzen is somehow inferior due to a perceived difference in 1080P gaming, when most of those published benchmarks at Ryzen's debut, were of games that weren't optimized for their architecture. We've already seen those Intel leads (since those games WERE optimized for Intel, from the beginning), pretty-much erased, when the publisher/developer added Ryzen optimizations.

Do you have any links on these updated reviews? I haven't seen any updated reviews from the usual sites I visit. In fact, I don't think tech review sites upgrade their reviews to reflect driver and optimization updates made by the computer or game manufacturers... I rarely see them on AnandTech and Hardware Canucks.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

StarCraft 2? Why don't you check out the total war series. These titles are cpu riddiculous