i5 2400 upgrade time, mostly work, some gaming, 4k!

[gregulator]

I have the following:

CPU: i5 2400
Mobo: Biostar z68+
Memory: 8GB somethingorather
GPU: MSI 7870
PS: Antec 550 watt
HDD: SSDs that I will continue to use

I am getting the itch to upgrade, mostly I want to get a 4k monitor for video/editing (hobbyist, not professional at all), but it will mean I might do some 4k gaming. I am intrigued by Ryzen, but it looks like I can get an i7 6700k for $270 from microcenter. Thoughts on saving $60 vs Ryzen 1700?

Video editing will be done on Adobe Premier CC, thoughts on a RX480 vs something nVidia (CUDA vs opencl)? It seems like the RX480 is a bargain compared to the nVidia offerings.

I don't need top of the line, and want to keep the budget down, but moving to 4k seems like it will need some money spent, especially if I want to play games at that resolution (mostly the occasional BF4 session).

Thanks for any insight!

 

[DaveSimmons]

Do you plan to overclock? The 1700 is going to be slower if both are stock, and stock vs. OC affects what motherboards people will recommend. Also, Microcenter supposedly also has the 7700K at $300 at least some of the time which is still $20 cheaper than a 1700.

 

[lehtv]

For video editing and especially rendering, Ryzen of course. A few $ more for double the number of threads at a similar perf per thread? yes please.

And for Premiere in particular, you definitely want CUDA capability, so buy NVIDIA.

 

[gregulator]

I used to overclock, but then had instability issues, so didn't go that route with the i5. I would give it another whirl with Ryzen I guess.

As for CUDA, it seems really unclear with the Mercury engine if they now support opencl equally? It looks like performance is the same, but there may be something special about CUDA and real time render performance? Again, this is just hobby stuff, something taking and extra few minutes to render isn't a big deal on export, but real time rendering on the timeline improvements are always welcome!

 

[Valantar]

Do you plan to overclock? The 1700 is going to be slower if both are stock, and stock vs. OC affects what motherboards people will recommend. Also, Microcenter supposedly also has the 7700K at $300 at least some of the time which is still $20 cheaper than a 1700.

That's correct for gaming, but not video editing. Video editors are highly multi threaded, and Ryzen reviews show impressive performance for tasks like that.

OP: It sounds like you keep your PCs around for a while (given that the i5-2400 has to be five years old by now). As such, I'd definitely recommend Ryzen. While both the 6700K and 7700K are great CPUs that should perform well for years to come, games are becoming more multi-threaded (thanks in part to 8-core consoles and in part to the stagnation in single core performance in recent years). For video editing, there's no question between the i7s and Ryzen - a 1700 even at stock clocks would run circles around any 4c8t i7. While consuming the same or less power. As such, I'd recommend Ryzen simply because it's good for gaming (not the best, but not bad at all), great for video editing, and chances are it'll see improved gaming performance through a combination of more multi-threading in games and developers learning to utilize the Ryzen architecture during the coming years. Along with that, AMD has pledged to use the AM4 platform until 2020, so there's a definite upgrade path if you should want an even faster CPU in a few years - all without replacing anything else.