Question Intel Limited/Special Edition CPU's and Pricing History

[Dave3000]

I'm wondering if the i7-8086K CPU has ever been sold at MSRP or lower prices, not counting used? The reason I ask is because I want to purchase an i9-9900KS but the price is still above MSRP everywhere I checked and this is the CPU I want to upgrade to if it were priced at MSRP or lower. How likely will I be able to purchase a brand new 9900KS at MSRP or lower pricing if I keep waiting?

 

[CHADBOGA]

Running stock, I might agree with you. But if you look at the max boost for a 3700x (4.4 GHz), a 3800x is perfectly positioned to annihilate it in gaming if you go for static OC. Most 3800x chips are binned really well and will do 4.4-4.5 GHz static OC in anything but very heavy AVX2 loads. I would not expect more than 4.2-4.3 GHz all-core static OC from the 3700x in anything. You might even be able to pull that off in a game using the stock cooler.

Regardless, being able to run all your cores at 4.4 GHz or higher automatically makes the 3800x the superior gaming CPU compared to a 3700x which will be lucky to run one core @ 4.4 GHz. In terms of what it will do at stock, it isn't that special, though it would be interesting to fiddle with power/voltage settings to see what a 3800x could be made to do with default boost behavior (no PBO, no static OC).

To bring it back to the OP, I'm not sure that a 3800x clocked thusly would be a better chip than a 10c Comet Lake-S in games. Seeing a head-to-head comparison of the two would be interesting.

Can you find a reputable review which demonstrates the 3800X's clear advantage over the 3700X?

I thought there would be, but I have had to learn to live with disappointment on that one.

 

[CHADBOGA]

I would agree for the most part regarding the 3700X vs 3800X. The 3600 though only comes with a Wraith Stealth, while the 3600X comes with a Spire. I may be wrong, but pretty sure that's how they do it. IMO it would depend on if you need a cooler or already have a decent aftermarket one.

And where did they make the worst GPU setup for games? Link please? I mean, Toms just did a gaming article using two 2080 Supers to compare it to a 2080 Ti. So there's that...

They use a MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests)

 

[CHADBOGA]

I agree with you regarding only gaming. Anything more CPU intensive and a 3700X deserves a look. Also, you will likely be able to hold on to it longer. All depends on your budget, use cases, and expectations I suppose.

With a 2080ti, and for 1080p gaming, a 3600 having a base score of 100%, the 3700 only scores 102.4% and the 3900 scores 104.2%

I can't justify the extra cost over the 3600.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Review

Ryzen 5 3600 is the most affordable Zen 2 processor in AMD's lineup. At just $200, it offers six cores and twelve threads, yielding a significant advantage in applications against the competition from Intel. Gaming performance is also improved nicely as it is around 10% higher than with previous...

www.techpowerup.com

Obviously the situation is worse at 1440p for the non-3600 chips.


Where the i9-9900KS is 100%, the 3600 is 90.9% at 1080p

Intel Core i9-9900KS Review - Impressive 5 GHz

The Core i9-9900KS is Intel's new consumer flagship processor. It runs at 5 GHz boost no matter how many cores are active, which translates into 10% application performance gained over the 9900K. Gaming performance is improved too, but pricing is high, especially compared to what AMD is offering.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[DrMrLordX]

Can you find a reputable review which demonstrates the 3800X's clear advantage over the 3700X?

No. The only way the 3800x makes any sense is to take advantage of its top-quality bin (it's binned between the 3900x and 3950x), and many reviewers seem to be terrible at overclocking. Example:

AMD Ryzen 7 3800X review

We reviewed pretty much all Series 3000 processors from AMD, however one review had been missing, until today that is, join us un a review of the feisty and spicy Ryzen 7 3800X eight-core processor. ... Overclocking and tweaking

www.guru3d.com

Here Guru3d only manages 4.2 GHz in CBR15, when 4.4 GHz should easily have been possible. Might've been a cooling issue, but still, looking at the voltages they threw at it . . . yech. At least Tom's managed 4.4 GHz with theirs:

AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Review: Core i7 Has a New Challenger

We grabbed a Ryzen 7 3800X off a retail shelf to give it a spin in our test lab.

www.tomshardware.com

They even got it running y-cruncher at that speed, which is pretty impressive. They used a fairly pedestrian AiO for their testing. Volts were too high but whatever . . . I doubt the actual voltage was that high since it didn't seem like they were monitoring vdroop at all.

Regardless, if you look to sources like Silicon Lottery, they have the 3800x as their top-binned chip.

 

[Thunder 57]

With a 2080ti, and for 1080p gaming, a 3600 having a base score of 100%, the 3700 only scores 102.4% and the 3900 scores 104.2%

I can't justify the extra cost over the 3600.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Review

Ryzen 5 3600 is the most affordable Zen 2 processor in AMD's lineup. At just $200, it offers six cores and twelve threads, yielding a significant advantage in applications against the competition from Intel. Gaming performance is also improved nicely as it is around 10% higher than with previous...

www.techpowerup.com

Obviously the situation is worse at 1440p for the non-3600 chips.


Where the i9-9900KS is 100%, the 3600 is 90.9% at 1080p

Intel Core i9-9900KS Review - Impressive 5 GHz

The Core i9-9900KS is Intel's new consumer flagship processor. It runs at 5 GHz boost no matter how many cores are active, which translates into 10% application performance gained over the 9900K. Gaming performance is improved too, but pricing is high, especially compared to what AMD is offering.

www.techpowerup.com

Yea but that's a pretty big mismatch, a 3600 with a 2080 Ti. I get that you could be looking at that as indicator of what the future will hold, but I'm not so sure. With the next gen consoles being Zen 2 and whatever comes after Navi (because of ray tracing), I think development will start to favor AMD.

Intel still does great in gaming today because of the ring bus and inclusive L3 cache. What happens when the core counts grow and they have to move to a mesh and possibly a non-inclusive L3? It didn't work out well for Skylake-X (regarding gaming). So sure, Intel has a lead in 1080p high fps gaming. And in certain situations with AVX-512. Otherwise they are losing just about everywhere. Ice Lake is impressive, but can they get it to scale to the high end? I just feel more confident about AMD's future than Intel at the moment. Next year will show us whether Intel has turned things around or not.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Yea but that's a pretty big mismatch, a 3600 with a 2080 Ti. I get that you could be looking at that as indicator of what the future will hold, but I'm not so sure. With the next gen consoles being Zen 2 and whatever comes after Navi (because of ray tracing), I think development will start to favor AMD.

If a 3700x and 3900x are less than 5% faster in 1080p gaming than a 3600, when they each have a 2080Ti in them, that is terrible for the 3700x and 3900x, because if people have more affordable GPU's like a 5700 or 2060 Super, than the 3700x and 3900x will be lucky to be 2% faster.

So consoles favouring AMD, doesn't in my view make the 3700x and 3900x any better placed against a 3600, than they are today.

The 3600 really is the price/performance KING by an astonishing margin over both Intel and other AMD CPU's.

Intel still does great in gaming today because of the ring bus and inclusive L3 cache. What happens when the core counts grow and they have to move to a mesh and possibly a non-inclusive L3? It didn't work out well for Skylake-X (regarding gaming). So sure, Intel has a lead in 1080p high fps gaming. And in certain situations with AVX-512. Otherwise they are losing just about everywhere. Ice Lake is impressive, but can they get it to scale to the high end? I just feel more confident about AMD's future than Intel at the moment. Next year will show us whether Intel has turned things around or not.

With the i9-9900KS, Intel are charging 2.5x's as much, for 10% more performance in gaming over a 3600, if they both have a 2080Ti in them, at 1080p.

As with the 3700x and 3900x, if you have a lesser GPU than the 2080Ti, then Intel won't even have a 10% performance advantage.

If Zen 3 brings 10% IPC and 10% clockspeed advantage, Intel will lose every advantage they currently have, as Intel is very unlikely to have a good response to the Zen 3, till they can release 7nm CPU's.

Intel having nothing to look forward to, until they get 7nm out and who knows when that happens.

Their 10nm delays are unprecedented for Intel and we really have no idea what this means for 7nm.

We are in uncharted territory.

 

[Thunder 57]

If a 3700x and 3900x are less than 5% faster in 1080p gaming than a 3600, when they each have a 2080Ti in them, that is terrible for the 3700x and 3900x, because if people have more affordable GPU's like a 5700 or 2060 Super, than the 3700x and 3900x will be lucky to be 2% faster.

So consoles favouring AMD, doesn't in my view make the 3700x and 3900x any better placed against a 3600, than they are today.

The 3600 really is the price/performance KING by an astonishing margin over both Intel and other AMD CPU's.


With the i9-9900KS, Intel are charging 2.5x's as much, for 10% more performance in gaming over a 3600, if they both have a 2080Ti in them, at 1080p.

As with the 3700x and 3900x, if you have a lesser GPU than the 2080Ti, then Intel won't even have a 10% performance advantage.

If Zen 3 brings 10% IPC and 10% clockspeed advantage, Intel will lose every advantage they currently have, as Intel is very unlikely to have a good response to the Zen 3, till they can release 7nm CPU's.

Intel having nothing to look forward to, until they get 7nm out and who knows when that happens.

Their 10nm delays are unprecedented for Intel and we really have no idea what this means for 7nm.

We are in uncharted territory.

Indeed. I honestly don't expect high end desktop CPU's on 10nm. Maybe some quad cores. It will be interesting to see how their Ice Lake server parts turn out. I don't know if we can expect much on the high end from Intel until 7nm, which is apparently going pretty well. We shall see.

 

[moinmoin]

I would agree for the most part regarding the 3700X vs 3800X. The 3600 though only comes with a Wraith Stealth, while the 3600X comes with a Spire. I may be wrong, but pretty sure that's how they do it. IMO it would depend on if you need a cooler or already have a decent aftermarket one.

The Spire cooler coming with 3600X is no longer the copper vapor chamber one of the Ryzen generations before, just plain aluminum. No longer worth the X-premium for the cooler alone.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The only really good stock cooler from AMD right now is Wraith Prism. Anything less than that and bleh.

 

[Topweasel]

If a 3700x and 3900x are less than 5% faster in 1080p gaming than a 3600, when they each have a 2080Ti in them, that is terrible for the 3700x and 3900x, because if people have more affordable GPU's like a 5700 or 2060 Super, than the 3700x and 3900x will be lucky to be 2% faster.

So consoles favouring AMD, doesn't in my view make the 3700x and 3900x any better placed against a 3600, than they are today.

The 3600 really is the price/performance KING by an astonishing margin over both Intel and other AMD CPU's.

Even then it only matters if you have the monitor for it. I came up with a list the other day for a friend asking about a 9900k vs a 3900x. It applies to the 3600x and higher.

1. You have a high refresh rate monitor.
2. You are playing at 1080p.
3. You are running a 1080 TI or better (2080, 2080ti).
4. This system is only for gaming (this is really a 3900x question, but can help decide between 6/8/12c).

If the answer is no to a single one of these questions the Intel solution loses a lot of value.

As for 3600 vs. 3600x and a 3700x vs 3800x. By defualt in gaming neither are that much different then each other. They lose out more in all core usage. But if you have a good cooler, turn on AutoOC and PBO and turn off power limits. Even without manual overclocking (which I wouldn't do for gaming anyways because low core clocks can still be a lot higher). They come out to be nearly the same CPU's +-100MHz.

 

[Arkaign]

Even then it only matters if you have the monitor for it. I came up with a list the other day for a friend asking about a 9900k vs a 3900x. It applies to the 3600x and higher.

1. You have a high refresh rate monitor.
2. You are playing at 1080p.
3. You are running a 1080 TI or better (2080, 2080ti).
4. This system is only for gaming (this is really a 3900x question, but can help decide between 6/8/12c).

If the answer is no to a single one of these questions the Intel solution loses a lot of value.

As for 3600 vs. 3600x and a 3700x vs 3800x. By defualt in gaming neither are that much different then each other. They lose out more in all core usage. But if you have a good cooler, turn on AutoOC and PBO and turn off power limits. Even without manual overclocking (which I wouldn't do for gaming anyways because low core clocks can still be a lot higher). They come out to be nearly the same CPU's +-100MHz.

Agree with all of this, with the addendum that 1440p is also affected. I see a solid gap at 3440x1440 120hz, but I don't run all ultra settings, so it's similar in GPU load to 1080 ultra, once again revealing CPU bottlenecks. The 9900 @5+GHz is already too slow to push many titles up to the framerate limit, but that 10-20% is extremely welcome indeed.

For 60hz gamers, no reason currently to the beyond 3600/9400f.

 

[Topweasel]

Agree with all of this, with the addendum that 1440p is also affected. I see a solid gap at 3440x1440 120hz, but I don't run all ultra settings, so it's similar in GPU load to 1080 ultra, once again revealing CPU bottlenecks. The 9900 @5+GHz is already too slow to push many titles up to the framerate limit, but that 10-20% is extremely welcome indeed.

For 60hz gamers, no reason currently to the beyond 3600/9400f.

I didn't really want to go into 1440 because it goes back and forth and dependent on video settings (most wanting to run high or ultra) and particular games. But yes some situations or with a few changes maybe it would also help out. Specially if you have a 2080 or higher. But if you are running 1440 to a degree you are already making a compromise between top frame performance and graphics.

 

[Thunder 57]

The Spire cooler coming with 3600X is no longer the copper vapor chamber one of the Ryzen generations before, just plain aluminum. No longer worth the X-premium for the cooler alone.

That's stupid. You still get higher clocks out of the box though. But that does take away some of the value of going for a 3600X.