Question Worthwhile upgrade from an 1800x, with a 1080Ti?

[Shyatic]

So I am planning to give my wife my existing PC, and I'll build a new one. The only thing I intend to keep is my 1080Ti since I play games. My resolution is 1440p for gaming, I don't have 4k monitors and don't intend to get them any time soon. What would a worthy upgrade be in the AMD lineup? Appreciate any thoughts, want to make sure I get the best bang for the buck I can. Should note, I plan on upgrading around April or so, if that makes any difference.

 

[tamz_msc]

I would wait for Ryzen 4th gen(Zen 3) which should be out in Q3-Q4 2020. You are somewhat CPU-bottlenecked at 1440p with a 1080Ti so you're leaving some performance on the table. Right now the only logical upgrade would be the 3700X which would be best in terms of bang for the buck, but I feel that it'd be better for you to skip it and go for Zen 3 instead.

 

[Arkaign]

Do you run high refresh / Freesync / Gysnc monitor or no?

Do you run all ultra everything or do you scale back for max fps with a mix of medium/high/ultra settings?

These answers will let us know what your best routes would be. It could be anything from "you're fine" to "get a 3600" to "get a 9700k".

 

[Topweasel]

Upgrades from an 1800x. Well as a $400-$500 CPU when it launched. The next thing AMD has to fill that slot is the 3900x. It's an additional 4c8t, clocks 25% higher and gets about 12-15% performance perclock. So if you are going to use all the cores, I am assuming decent core usage was why you went 1800x when you did. The 3900x would certainly on every level be a significant upgrade.

That said everything from a 3600-3800x would also be significant CPU's in more of a gaming sense.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I went from an 1800x w/ Vega FE to 3900x w/ Radeon VII (under water). The upgrade was substantial. If you don't need the extra cores, a 3800x might be a better choice since it actually is a better bin than the 3900x (despite what the boost clocks might tell you). 3900x will boost higher in ST workloads, but that's about the only clockspeed advantage you'll get.

That being said, AMD should have Vermeer ready in about 5-6 months. So if you can wait that long, why not get the next gen?

 

[Shyatic]

Do you run high refresh / Freesync / Gysnc monitor or no?

Do you run all ultra everything or do you scale back for max fps with a mix of medium/high/ultra settings?

These answers will let us know what your best routes would be. It could be anything from "you're fine" to "get a 3600" to "get a 9700k".

Generally no, I'm fine with medium settings and in games that I play online and competitively (ie Overwatch, Apex), I scale down to low for almost everything to get the extra performance. My primary use for this is gaming. I bought the 1800x initally because I *thought* I'd be editing some videos and things but I never really did -- more than likely my wife will get better use of that than I will. I'm just a gamer.

I do run a 3 monitor setup, one being a GSync and the other two just being nice IPS screens.

 

[krumme]

At least for ow a 1800x can keep the 60fps but not 144. Even a 3600 would be a nice upgrade here. If you play comp at 120/144 i would just swap right now.

 

[Shyatic]

At least for ow a 1800x can keep the 60fps but not 144. Even a 3600 would be a nice upgrade here. If you play comp at 120/144 i would just swap right now.

3600, or 3600x? I am not looking to break the bank, just a good upgrade that lets me keep playing whatever games are coming out (Cyberpunk is on my list of want-to-buy!) and lets me give my existing setup to my wife.

 

[krumme]

3600, or 3600x? I am not looking to break the bank, just a good upgrade that lets me keep playing whatever games are coming out (Cyberpunk is on my list of want-to-buy!) and lets me give my existing setup to my wife.

The way i look at it its moving fast now. Get a cheap 3600 with stock cooler now and change it to an even cheaper 4600/4700 in 2 years time when zen 5 is here and zen 4 is dirt cheap. A cheap b450 mb and standard 3200/3600 ram is fine.

 

[itsmydamnation]

3600, or 3600x? I am not looking to break the bank, just a good upgrade that lets me keep playing whatever games are coming out (Cyberpunk is on my list of want-to-buy!) and lets me give my existing setup to my wife.

my 3600 (non x) runs 4.2 ghz all core without even trying. i see little value in going for a 3600x over 3600

 

[killster1]

i feel like even a 3700x will only give you 7fps more. 3600 same story.. so how much fps do you need? just keep running it how it is and upgrade a little later,

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah you have two good choices that would offer big upgrade.


I had a 1080ti with a 5Ghz 8086k (basically a binned 8700k) as well as a 2700X rig. With 1440p high refresh, the 8086k had a big lead. I upgraded the 2700X to a 3700X, and while it was an improvement, there was still a noticable gap in more demanding titles in the pursuit of 90+ with mixed detail settings. When I upgraded to a 2080ti, it only got more noticeable. I had initially planned on phasing the 8086k out and fully replacing it with the 3700X, but instead decided to just run two PCs : one for general use, and another purely for high refresh gaming. I upgraded the 8086k/Aorus Gaming 5/3733 ram combo to a 9900KS/ASrock Phantom 9/4000 ram combo, slammed it under a DH15 Carbon, and run it at 5.1 to 5.2 depending on the situation. This combo often gets me 30+ fps/20% over the 3700X.

So you have two good choices. Going to a 3600/3700 range CPU will get you a boost you will be able to feel. It will also let you probably (assuming at least a 2xx Mobo) go to Zen 4000 series when those come out. A 3700X is just a better, more efficient option for general purpose PC work than Intel 9000 series. Added bonus you can probably use your existing Mobo.

Other option is a Z390+9700K build. This will give you the absolute best high refresh gaming experience, but is an upgrade dead end. I don't think this is necessarily a terrible option though. It seems like the trend is HEAVILY headed towards just adding more cores per segment, with outright clock increases grinding to a basic halt. And unless Zen 4000 solves the cache/memory latency factors that chiplet architecture necessarily creates, it holds it back in edge cases like high refresh gaming. That's not a knock against it, for the vast majority of regular PC use, the benefits of lots of cores and cache overcomes the latency hit, and it makes high core counts possible in a way that monolithic designs can't easily approach even in the most extreme cases.

Either way you're looking at big boosts over Zen1, which was honestly pretty bad as a match to a 100+hz gaming setup. Just with different pro/con in each direction. It's a hard decision lol, which I why I just decided to do both

 

[ondma]

Do you run high refresh / Freesync / Gysnc monitor or no?

Do you run all ultra everything or do you scale back for max fps with a mix of medium/high/ultra settings?

These answers will let us know what your best routes would be. It could be anything from "you're fine" to "get a 3600" to "get a 9700k".

My immediate thought was 9900K or 3700x. I think you could upgrade to the 3700x without replacing the motherboard, so that would be a good option.

 

[krumme]

i feel like even a 3700x will only give you 7fps more. 3600 same story.. so how much fps do you need? just keep running it how it is and upgrade a little later,

I have only played ow of the games mentioned here, and i only trust my own experience as 0.1 mins and subjective is everything.
I run a 8700k at 60 and one of my kids runs a 1600x (an alternative to the 4c/4t 7600k at that time - let us remind that) he has now a 3600 that was plugged in as replacement.

He is at 3500 level in ow. I am at 1350. Lol
At least in ow a 3600 is a huge upgrade over the 1600x for the mins. Like 40fps or so on the fights i saw for the mins. Pretty different. Brings you from 60 to 120 gaming.
Yes some games runs slightly slower on a 3600 than a 8700k but a 3600 holds a sizeable gain over straight 6c6t machines in some high refresh throughput limited games like bf series where you need every inch of the 3600 to eek out even 90 fps on the 12t 3600.

A 1080ti is a fine gpu. I would find a cpu that can keep the mins needed. In total cost at least in my country its either the the 9600kf plus mb, perhaps even the 9400 due to cooler cost or the 3600 plus mb. Even for straight gaming the 3600 is far better imo.
If you can fork out for a 3800 level machine i would certainly examine if the 9700k was not better and imo for the games current running i am sure it is. I am not sure its worth to get to the 3700x level vs the 3600. The huge jump is from zen1 to zen2 arch.

 

[Shmee]

The 3600 is a great drop in upgrade. That or you could wait fro Zen 3.

 

[Shyatic]

Just a note -- I have to get a new motherboard, because I am giving my existing PC to my wife for her video editing and other things (maybe I'll convince her to game!). So the motherboard isn't a limitation here, it's just what makes sense as a cost effective upgrade. So far as I can tell, the 3600 seems to be it thus far as a consensus. Is that correct?

 

[Arkaign]

Yes, the 3600 makes the most sense. It's literally half the price of the only Intel options that make sense, which start with the 9700K. Which while it would give you superior high refresh gaming performance, IMHO isn't worth spending basically $200+ extra to get unless your budget is pretty wide. The 9600K is poor value, too limited in thread count for what it costs.

And with the 3600 there is the potential for 4000 series upgrade.

 

[killster1]

i guess if you HAVE to upgrade the 3600 seems low price and decent, but really how many more FPS will they get ? 7? i am a 3600 owner also waiting for the big ones to drop in price or ryzen 4000 series.

 

[zinfamous]

I went from an 1800x w/ Vega FE to 3900x w/ Radeon VII (under water). The upgrade was substantial. If you don't need the extra cores, a 3800x might be a better choice since it actually is a better bin than the 3900x (despite what the boost clocks might tell you). 3900x will boost higher in ST workloads, but that's about the only clockspeed advantage you'll get.

That being said, AMD should have Vermeer ready in about 5-6 months. So if you can wait that long, why not get the next gen?

Also might have more/higher quality MoBo generation to choose from with the new release (assume it's still the 5xx series, though?). Zen 2 Mobo release was really quite spotty at the time, but seems to have normalized a bit, and I think the newest gen for those with Zen 3 should leave a lot less guesswork in terms of which manufacturer, which version, which BIOS, and less delays would make for a better overall upgrade.

...I also don't see a super compelling reason to upgrade a 1080Ti with any current gen GPUs. Again, wait until end of year or next year.

 

[ondma]

i guess if you HAVE to upgrade the 3600 seems low price and decent, but really how many more FPS will they get ? 7? i am a 3600 owner also waiting for the big ones to drop in price or ryzen 4000 series.

I have to somewhat disagree. 3600 is fine for current generation, but I would not build a new gaming system now without at least 8 cores. After the next gen consoles come out, I think PC games will require a lot of cpu horsepower.

 

[killster1]

I have to somewhat disagree. 3600 is fine for current generation, but I would not build a new gaming system now without at least 8 cores. After the next gen consoles come out, I think PC games will require a lot of cpu horsepower.

why are you quoting me! i said the 3600 will only give you 7fps more, maybe because you agree with me.. i havnt studied the 1440p charts for 3600 vs 3700x but its prob 15fps more depending on game and the settings. so ya 3700x but they might have a budget.

 

[Arkaign]

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The gap between 1800X and 3600 levels can be pretty large due to the combo of clock speed advantage and IPC improvement. Take for example this recent rest. 44fps vs 62fps is a large chunk that would be extremely noticable. Not enough to catch the 9700/9900 even at slow stock speeds, but way better than old Ryzen.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Also might have more/higher quality MoBo generation to choose from with the new release (assume it's still the 5xx series, though?).

That's a big question mark. AMD has all the features they need in x570 for the coming year, but there could certainly be some better boards for less than $300. Also you want to be able to buy a board that has enough rom space for a UEFI that fully supports Vermeer without making compromises (dumbed-down UEFI). I know my x570 Aorus Master has a small-ish rom, so it may not be a good board for Vermeer unless they release a UEFI update that kills most support for older chips (Pinnacle Ridge, notably).

The gap between 1800X and 3600 levels can be pretty large due to the combo of clock speed advantage and IPC improvement.

And that's just a 3600. Good luck getting that thing to run faster than 4.2 GHz at all. If moving from an 1800x to a 3800x, you should expect to go from 4.0 GHz on the 1800x (OC) to 4.4GHz on a 3800x (also OC) PLUS 40% more performance from IPC. That's about the best gaming experience you're going to get on Matisse. Throw in some Micron e-die and away you go. I would expect some better all-core OC headroom from Vermeer, though I could be wrong. Either that or the boost algorithm will just do a better job of closing the gap with people who run static OC.

 

[motorhead12]

I run the same rig mate, there is no way I would upgrade just yet. I'm on a 1440 monitor and I have zero issues with any games. If you are gaming then it really ist worth dropping in any of the 3xxx cpu's, wait for the next batch of AMD chips, remember you wont then have to pay for a new mobo unless you want PCI-E 4 which if your gaming is really not needed. if you are a gamer then you might see a 10% improvement, it really aint worth it. Wait and see is my suggestion to you. If Zen 3 really opens up bandwidth like they reckon it will the wait will be worth it and you wont regret it. if it isnt that great...why upgrade, is 10 FPS really worth so much money?