The Ryzen vs Coffee Lake choice.

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Which CPU would you choose for your next Build?

  • Ryzen

    Votes: 54 41.2%
  • Coffee Lake

    Votes: 62 47.3%
  • Something Else

    Votes: 15 11.5%

  • Total voters
    131
  • Poll closed .

Tup3x

Senior member
Dec 31, 2016
944
925
136
I want to double the core count when upgrading my CPU this time. Coffee Lake doesn't quite do that and Summit Ridge doesn't clock high enough so I'll stick with my 3770K @ 4,4 GHz for the time being.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
10,785
136
There will be an 8c/16t Coffeelake in . . . well sometime in 2018. I think? Probably. On 14nm+++! Lots of plusses. How many can they add? I don't know. But more is better right?

Anyway if you're prepared to deal with a 5 GHz 8c chip heat-wise, there's your chip. I think? My guess is that Pinnacle Ridge will hit 4.2-4.3 GHz on a regular basis, but I'm just guessing.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
136
There will be an 8c/16t Coffeelake in . . . well sometime in 2018. I think? Probably. On 14nm+++! Lots of plusses. How many can they add? I don't know. But more is better right?

Anyway if you're prepared to deal with a 5 GHz 8c chip heat-wise, there's your chip. I think? My guess is that Pinnacle Ridge will hit 4.2-4.3 GHz on a regular basis, but I'm just guessing.

Yes, that's because the 8/16 CPU represents the new paradigm. I asked an amazing writer to create the following description of this new era:

So we have descended the great waters of the quad core era, diving down to the bottom and find ourselves at the sea floor, only to see a ridge up ahead where the floor is no longer visible. This is the great under water 8 core ridge. As you swim along the quad core sea floor, you imagine then swimming out over and beyond the edge of this amazing new under water cliff. You then find the courage to look down into darkness and almost lose your breath upon realizing how deep and terrifying the waters in which you now find yourself truly are. The bottom of this trench will take years to reach and many upgrade cycles to discover.
 
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
So you're telling me people would be saying IPC is too low if ryzen could get to 6ghz? Didn't think so.
Dont give up do you? IPC would still be the same, but it would not be considered low because the clockspeed would make up for any deficit in IPC. (i.e. you would have very good SINGLE THREAD PERFORMANCE.)

Actually you are looking at the situation totally backwards. IPC of Ryzen is actually quite good, it is the clockspeed that is its weakness.
 

Herr Kutz

Platinum Member
Jun 14, 2009
2,545
242
106
I would choose Ryzen if I wanted the smoothest experience and Coffee Lake if I wanted the absolute fastest experience.
 

PeterScott

Platinum Member
Jul 7, 2017
2,605
1,540
136
Dont give up do you? IPC would still be the same, but it would not be considered low because the clockspeed would make up for any deficit in IPC. (i.e. you would have very good SINGLE THREAD PERFORMANCE.)

Actually you are looking at the situation totally backwards. IPC of Ryzen is actually quite good, it is the clockspeed that is its weakness.

Actually it is more complicated than that. Ryzen IPC is behind a bit, and clock speed is a fair bit behind.

But what may the big differentiator in Games is Cache/Memory latency.

Clock for Clock tests show Ryzen very close when doing rendering type tasks, but in gaming it stumbles. That is where the pushing out the draw calls very fast matters, and Intels more robust memory/cache system really gives it a boost.

You can look at Intels HEDT CPUs with Mesh layout, to see that also stumble on games.

So for gaming Coffee Lake has IPC, Clockspeed and Memory/Cache latency advantages.
 
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ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
136
See I don't care about high fps gaming I care about high quality gaming. I would rather spend the other 60+ FPS in making the game look better. If I played an FPS seriously then I might consider above 60 fps a priority.

You have obviously never gamed at above 60fps. There isn't another factor out there that increases "high quality gaming" as much as nice fluid high fps on an adaptive sync monitor. The more you post the more it seems like you don't know what you're talking about while claiming to be an expert.
 
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stockolicious

Member
Jun 5, 2017
80
59
61
i am thinking some will choose CL out of brand loyalty or obsession with IPC and high freqency - People will chose Ryzen for more cores, "availability", and upgrade path. Intel will be selling "dozens" of CL's up to when Ryzen update is out in Jan or Feb 2018. Intel has been building that brand for years and they need it at the moment.
 

Eric1987

Senior member
Mar 22, 2012
748
22
76
You have obviously never gamed at above 60fps. There isn't another factor out there that increases "high quality gaming" as much as nice fluid high fps on an adaptive sync monitor. The more you post the more it seems like you don't know what you're talking about while claiming to be an expert.

How don't I know what I am talking about? And when did I say I was an expert? I don't know what I'm talking about because my gaming priorities are different than yours?
 

IRobot23

Senior member
Jul 3, 2017
601
183
76
You have obviously never gamed at above 60fps. There isn't another factor out there that increases "high quality gaming" as much as nice fluid high fps on an adaptive sync monitor. The more you post the more it seems like you don't know what you're talking about while claiming to be an expert.

And you never had ryzen.
of course your i7 7700K bottleneck GTX 1080TI in some cases, that is natural.

You guys are all about high frequencies... does it actually matter? If you overclock i7 8700K to 5GHz will it give you 25% BOOST OVER 4GHz? Nope it wont. Doesn't matter, you need at least 25% faster low latency memory if you wanna get 25% boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWM3nSzjOc&t=52s
I can say that my R7 is faster than that in exactly that map. That i7 8700K is bottlenecking GTX 1080TI.
hrrrs.. it drops below 100fps... poor thing.
Having high frequencies won't make up for having slow ram in most cases.
 
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ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
136
And you never had ryzen.
of course your i7 7700K bottleneck GTX 1080TI in some cases, that is natural.

You guys are all about high frequencies... does it actually matter? If you overclock i7 8700K to 5GHz will it give you 25% BOOST OVER 4GHz? Nope it wont. Doesn't matter, you need at least 25% faster low latency memory if you wanna get 25% boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWM3nSzjOc&t=52s
I can say that my R7 is faster than that in exactly that map. That i7 8700K is bottlenecking GTX 1080TI.
hrrrs.. it drops below 100fps... poor thing.
Having high frequencies won't make up for having slow ram in most cases.


None of your post makes any sense and your anecdotal youtube link brings nothing to the table. Here's a link to an actual review, with frame times. I can link plenty more stating the same thing, 8700k is top dog for gaming in Avg FPS, Low FPS, Frame times, etc. Worst case scenario, gaming while streaming, CFL is still on top and smoother than Ryzen.

http://techreport.com/review/32642/intel-core-i7-8700k-cpu-reviewed/10

http://techreport.com/review/32642/intel-core-i7-8700k-cpu-reviewed/11

An OC 8700k stomps an OC Ryzen in the memory dept, frame times and ST performance while coming close in MT metrics for pure throughput. When discussing gaming, Ryzen doesn't win in almost any scenario vs. an 8700k and every review out there shows exactly that. I might add that the reviews are worst case scenario for gaming on the 8700k as well since they almost all use the same memory for the 8700k that they are running on the Ryzen system despite the 8700k having the capacity to go well above 4000mhz and potentially significantly higher as DDR4 modules mature, whereas Ryzen is already tapped out.

I really considered picking up Ryzen or Skylake-X but the drawbacks are simply too numerous for my use case and I didn't want to go backwards from the 7700k I've been using. The 8700k gives me the same ST performance while adding two cores and more cache. Since I upgrade systems (both CPU and GPU) regularly (~18 months), and the cost of doing so yearly is negligible (under $400), I'm not super concerned about not having an upgrade path. I just want the best setup available at the time.

I'll reevaluate next year when the Ryzen revision and CFL 8-core are released but I suspect I'll still be rocking Intel. 2019 looks interesting and I may be tempted to jump back to AMD if they deliver a 5ghz 8-10 core with improved memory controller that surpasses Intel's offerings in gaming.

For friends that have a smaller budget and want to maximize their performance per dollar over time, I've recommended Ryzen and will probably continue to do so.
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
10,785
136
Yes, that's because the 8/16 CPU represents the new paradigm.

Very artful, but I was under the impression that Intel was launching 8c/16t Coffeelake for the same reason that they launched 6c/12t Coffeelake: whatever product Intel meant to launch in 2018 (Icelake?) is delayed. Just like Cannonlake's 2017 launch was delayed/cancelled.


I might add that the reviews are worst case scenario for gaming on the 8700k as well since they almost all use the same memory for the 8700k that they are running on the Ryzen system despite the 8700k having the capacity to go well above 4000mhz and potentially significantly higher as DDR4 modules mature, whereas Ryzen is already tapped out.

That is a misnomer. Not trying to disagree with the rest of your post per se, but here you have made the mistake of assuming that Coffeelake will benefit from RAM faster than ~DDR4-3733, which it will not. In any scenario where the CPU is not pegged at 100% full utilization on every core (read: HPC applications, some rendering applications, some encoding applications), realistically, the bandwidth "max out" for the 8700k should be around DDR4-2933 <--> DDR4-3200 (as opposed to Kabylake, where it was DDR4-2400). Beyond that point you gain the same benefit from lowering CAS/CL by 1 as you do adding 266 MHz equivalent clockspeed to the RAM. So if you are running some DDR4-4266 CAS/CL 19 kit on your Coffeelake, it is really no better for gaming than running DDR4-3200 CAS/CL 14 which is extremely common on Ryzen systems. In fact, the DDR4-3200 setup would be superior since on Coffeelake, DDR4-4266 CAS/CL 19 is roughly equal in performance to DDR4-3200 CAS/CL 15. My DDR4-3466 CAS/CL 14 on my Ryzen system is going to be better than whatever you achieve using XMP settings on some fancy DDR4-4266 kit. Hand-tuning at work.

The only reason why anyone on the Red team is clamoring for a better memory controller is to increase IF speeds, which is not a factor at all on Z370 systems.
 
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IRobot23

Senior member
Jul 3, 2017
601
183
76
None of your post makes any sense and your anecdotal youtube link brings nothing to the table. Here's a link to an actual review, with frame times. I can link plenty more stating the same thing, 8700k is top dog for gaming in Avg FPS, Low FPS, Frame times, etc. Worst case scenario, gaming while streaming, CFL is still on top and smoother than Ryzen.

http://techreport.com/review/32642/intel-core-i7-8700k-cpu-reviewed/10

http://techreport.com/review/32642/intel-core-i7-8700k-cpu-reviewed/11

An OC 8700k stomps an OC Ryzen in the memory dept, frame times and ST performance while coming close in MT metrics for pure throughput. When discussing gaming, Ryzen doesn't win in almost any scenario vs. an 8700k and every review out there shows exactly that. I might add that the reviews are worst case scenario for gaming on the 8700k as well since they almost all use the same memory for the 8700k that they are running on the Ryzen system despite the 8700k having the capacity to go well above 4000mhz and potentially significantly higher as DDR4 modules mature, whereas Ryzen is already tapped out.

I really considered picking up Ryzen or Skylake-X but the drawbacks are simply too numerous for my use case and I didn't want to go backwards from the 7700k I've been using. The 8700k gives me the same ST performance while adding two cores and more cache. Since I upgrade systems (both CPU and GPU) regularly (~18 months), and the cost of doing so yearly is negligible (under $400), I'm not super concerned about not having an upgrade path. I just want the best setup available at the time.

I'll reevaluate next year when the Ryzen revision and CFL 8-core are released but I suspect I'll still be rocking Intel. 2019 looks interesting and I may be tempted to jump back to AMD if they deliver a 5ghz 8-10 core with improved memory controller that surpasses Intel's offerings in gaming.

For friends that have a smaller budget and want to maximize their performance per dollar over time, I've recommended Ryzen and will probably continue to do so.

Those benchmark are with slow ram speed.
Ryzen is great with faster ram.
Do no tell me about 144Hz performance, I do have 165Hz. Do not play smart ass about CPU upgrade, we did not have competition in years... maybe in 3 years your OC-ed CPU will be 40-50% slower than stock.

You can say anything about it, but this is very impressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeAy4RiGVZw
 

ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
136
Those benchmark are with slow ram speed.
Ryzen is great with faster ram.
Do no tell me about 144Hz performance, I do have 165Hz. Do not play smart ass about CPU upgrade, we did not have competition in years... maybe in 3 years your OC-ed CPU will be 40-50% slower than stock.

You can say anything about it, but this is very impressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeAy4RiGVZw


Huh? Those benchmarks were run with 3400mhz 15 15 15 35 ram. Yeah, the timings could be a bit tighter but no, it wasn't run with slow memory, in fact the 8700k was technically running slower memory because of the super loose timings and yet still stomped the Ryzen offering.
 
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IRobot23

Senior member
Jul 3, 2017
601
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Huh? Those benchmarks were run with 3400mhz 15 15 15 35 ram. Yeah, the timings could be a bit tighter but no, it wasn't run with slow memory, in fact the 8700k was technically running slower memory because of the super loose timings and yet still stomped the Ryzen offering.

Ryzen IMC is great with 3466MHz and CL15 you will probably have 55GB/s+ since ym score with 3466Mhz CL16.
cachemem5.png


Buying i7 8700K is nonsense for most, buying i5 8600K is probably worth if you want really maximum fps (and you save some $ against i7 8700K for faster DDR4). i7 8700 if good with turbo at 4.3-4.7GHz and more $ for DDR4.

Spending more than 300€ on CPU for gaming is a bit rubbish, but when we didn't have competition (AMD vs INTEL) that was only way to get good CPU. But now you have i5 8400 and R5 1600 with fast ram, they will be as fast as that R7 1700. AMD and INTEL will push for more performance. I cannot deny, that I would love to have i7 8700K at 5+GHz in my machine, but price and Intel in past few years... did their job.
 
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richaron

Golden Member
Mar 27, 2012
1,357
329
136
I went with a Ryzen 1700 recently, even with the current competition

It's something I can play around with now and will be great home server when I next upgrade. Platform longevity and the ability to mix and match CPUs/motherboards/RAM with future products and across systems are a big positive for me also.
 
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coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
6,151
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Why some choose to enable the obvious troll in both Coffee Lake threads is beyond me.

It only helps to derail and pollute the threads.
 
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Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
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I think Ryzen can be a decent budget choice and for users whose usage is almost entirely professional applications (non-gaming). Otherwise, I would recommend going for Coffee Lake i5 or i7 or wait for Zen 2 if you can. The adage about waiting for second or third model year after a redesign with cars also has an analogue in new architectures/processes in the computer world: you are better off waiting for the manufacturer to work out the kinks and bugs, and benefit from refinements and fixes with the second or third iteration (also holds fairly true for operating systems, laptops, etc).

I would prefer to recommend AMD over Intel (ceteris paribus) but Coffee Lake is less of a hassle to deal with in regards to memory compatibility and motherboard bugginess, though most of the Ryzen platform issues have been sorted out in the past 6 months. Still, Ryzen could use a boost to clock speeds to stay competitive, as Coffee Lake performance in gaming and multithreaded applications is pretty compelling, even in the mid-range (i5-8400 vs Ryzen 5 1600) where typically AMD usually undercuts Intel in pricing.

If you aren't gaming at 1080p high-refresh, though, Ryzen is performant enough and fairly efficient. Intel just has the IPC edge it's had for several generations now, and the single-core performance plus finally moving to more than 4 cores makes it a better product and value than Skylake or Kaby Lake were (both of which I would have easily picked Ryzen in favor of overall).

My main desktop used a Ryzen 7 1700X (and another PC an R5 1600), and my current build uses an i7-8700, so I did choose Coffee Lake. So far I think it's going to work out as a better computer for me, but I did like my Ryzen build quite a bit and wouldn't dissuade anyone from choosing Ryzen if it fits their needs better than Coffee Lake. :)

Ultimately, it's just a good year - and hopefully this extends to next year - to be buying CPUs, whether you are an AMD fan or Intel fan. :cool:
 
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PeterScott

Platinum Member
Jul 7, 2017
2,605
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Coffee Lake performance in gaming and multithreaded applications is pretty compelling, even in the mid-range (i5-8400 vs Ryzen 5 1600) where typically AMD usually undercuts Intel in pricing.

Yeah, Intel and AMD seem to be doing a good job pricing around each other, at least in Canada. I do think the OC Ryzen 1600 does offer better performance than an 8400, but the 8400 is actually $50 cheaper. Here is the price list of 6+ cores from each at a local shop.

INTEL® 8TH Gen CORE™ I5-8400 Price: $249.99 CAD
AMD RYZEN 5 1600 Processor Price: $299.99 CAD
INTEL® 8TH Gen CORE™ I5-8600K Price: $349.99 CAD
INTEL® 8TH Gen CORE™ I7-8700 Price: $419.99 CAD
AMD RYZEN 5 1700 Processor Price: $429.99 CAD
INTEL® 8TH Gen CORE™ I7-8700K Price: $489.99 CAD

I am leaning towards Intel for simplicty/stability, IGP.