Having had some issues (mobo mainly, used for mining, a bit tired out) with Ryzen build for friend, what about Intel? Any cheap combo CPU+mobos? OC?

[VirtualLarry]

Well, my friend still hasn't been willing to swap in a fresh (refurb) mobo into the rig that I built him a week or so ago (that he got to use for approx. 12 hours, before it "mysteriously" started to fail).

I have been building pretty-much only Ryzen rigs, the last year or two. I was an early-adopter of the R5 1600 CPUs, and they proved (to me, at least, though not a heavy gamer) that they "had the chops", and thus, was scooping them up when they hit $120 or less recently, for future builds to get friends and family on AM4 platform.

But I'm wondering, my friend has been on an Athlon II X4 for like 8 years now or so. He was impressed with the Ryzen R3 1200 CPU, even though it was only 4C/4T like his current CPU. But the IPC increase of Ryzen 1st-Gen over Athlon II, along with a nice little OC to 3.80Ghz, yielded a PC that scored like 3X faster in CPU-Z benchmark than his old (non-overclocked) rig. His internet speedtests were even higher.

But I thought, if we're going to re-build, what about moving to an Intel platform? I haven't investigated them that much lately. I was thinking along the lines of a 9400F, but unlike the Ryzen R5 1600, which is overclockable, the 9400F is NOT, which really puts kind of a damper on things. Plus, my friend and I are budget-sensitive, and the Ryzen R5 1600 CPUs that I have been getting, are quite a bit cheaper. (I've seen the 9400F for $170 new, and the 9600KF (overclockable), is like $270.)

So, looking at Intel for ease of integration and compatibility, potentially, but how much more is it going to cost?

Here's Newegg's cheapest i5-9600K Entry Level Bundle, $374.99.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3878865

Ouch.

My Ryzen R5 1600 CPU ($120) + X370 ATX mobo ($54 refurb / open-box), is WAAAAY cheaper. You could even add a DDR4-3600 16GB RGB RAM kit for the difference in price between the Intel and AMD combos.

Guess that settles it, Intel rigs are a bust, financially-speaking.

Edit: I went to "All Super Combos", searched for "9400F", and "i5-9400F", and there were no matches. But going to CPUs, and drilling down to the i5-9400F, and then looking at "Combos", I found this reasonable combo:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3894361
i5-9400F
ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 (unfortunately, this board is the odd man out, and does NOT have the 2.5Gbit/sec LAN, it just has Intel LAN)
Corsair 16GB DDR4-3000
$360

Still a bit more expensive than AMD, and not overclockable, but max turbo for the 9400F is like 4.1Ghz, so if you're using an Z390, and can set MCT/ACT to 4.0Ghz all-core, you should be able to probably match performance (or exceed slightly) the R5 1600 in 1080P gaming.

 

[limsandy83]

With Ryzen 3000 series being released in July, are you sure your friend couldn't wait for 1-2 more months?

Believe it or not, I'm still on the same Athlon II X2 560 rig that I built in 2009 (10 years old) but quickly turned into quad core in no time. I mean the original PSU worked for 4 years and it got replaced. My old Dell monitor died and got replaced by this LG. Heck even my Gigabyte mobo showed symptoms of dying before getting replaced by this Asrock 970A-G/3.1 3 years ago.

I am so dead set on building a new rig based on the 3000 series Ryzen because it obviously offers so much value (performance/dollar). But if your friend is so dead set on an Intel platform, I had once looked at the i5-8400. Maybe they're selling it cheap by now?