Question 3900x or 9900k ? ( According prices in my country )

Sep 29, 2019
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Hello,

3900x is 670 USD
9900k is 484 USD

Motherboard ( Let's use asus strix )

ROG STRIX Z390-E is 235 USD
X570 ROG STRIX is $350 USD

I use my computer for almost all sort of stuffs

Adobe suite
Gaming
Programming ( not my actual job, so I guess it can be done on a PC powered by 2 hamsters )

It looks like Intel is the way to go here,
but should I care about future proofing, maybe I can upgrade my CPU next year without swapping motherboard ?

(Additional Info : 3700x is only around 380 USD, should I consider it ? )
 
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Ryzen 7 3700X and a 110$ B450 Tomahawk MAX or if you want the PCI-e 4.0 support a 200$ X570 Aorus elite should be more than enough. 9900K and 3700X will have identical multicore performance and in games you will see 5% difference in fps if you play with a high end gpu like 2080Ti at 1080p resolution. With lower cards or higher resolution it really does not matter the performance should be identical but you will pay 100$ more while not having PCI-e 4.0 support and maybe next gen ryzen will be on AM4 too as AMD promised support until 2020.
 
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I'm also throwing in a vote for the R7 3700X, however you may want to also consider the R7 3800X. I have now built a few 3700X systems and a couple 3800X systems and there is actually a valid reason to consider the 3800X.

First of all PBO with the Ryzen 3000 series are just about what I would consider broken. It no longer gives you the maximum system performance like was the case with Ryzen+ (2000 series). Now you have to manually overclock via multiplier overclocking, but the good news is manually overclocking with Ryzen 3000 is extremely simple. With that said most 3700X processors are going to top off at 4.175 - 4.3Ghz all core (depending on your luck with the silicon lottery). Most 3800X processors are going to top off at 4.3 - 4.4Ghz all core and I just finished one that I wish I was keeping that hit 4.45Ghz @ 1.36V. The 3800X is a better binned version of the 3700X and can typically be overclocked higher.

My personal rig is running a Ryzen 7 3800X @ 4.4Ghz and I can attest through a lot of testing that I get better performance in productivity (rendering, editing, ect) and the same gaming performance (within the margin of error) of an i9 9900K @ 5Ghz. I know that seems to be a "bold" thing to say, but it is true. AMD now has better IPC than Intel in the current generation and the only way Intel can hang onto that "gaming king" title is by hitting 5Ghz and beyond. But most of the reviews your going to see of the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3700X are based on the processors running ~ 4.2 - 4.3Ghz. In those reviews they give the i9 9900K ~ 6% better gaming performance and that is only if you are using the top of the line RTX 2080Ti. When you pit the R7 3800X @ 4.4Ghz (with properly configured RAM - 3600Mhz CL14) against the i9 9900K you see that 6% advantage to Intel virtually disappear. Its also important to note that I'm hitting 4.4Ghz all core with my 3800X using a NH-U14S cooler and under load my temps hit 73C as a high (while rendering, gaming I have yet to see a temp exceede 62C). To hit 5Ghz or beyond with an i9 9900K you are going to need a quality AIO or custom loop cooling to keep that power hungry processor cool, which will add more cost to your rig.

Also important to keep in mind with gaming that the only time your going to see the i9 9900K outperform even the R7 3700X is when you are running the top of the line RTX 2080Ti. People don't seem to realize that if they are running a mid range graphics card there is going to be no difference in gaming between the 3700X and 9900K as the GPU will be the bottleneck. Its only when you are using the top tier RTX 2080Ti that you see the 6% gaming difference between the 9900K and 3700X, if your using any other GPU then the two CPUs are equal in gaming performance.

Really I would highly recommend either the R7 3700X or the R7 3800X over the more expensive, more power hungry, hotter running i9 9900K.
 
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There is no such thing as "future proofing"
If, for no other reason, you can't tell exactly what you will need in the future.
Next year there will be new products from amd and Intel.
They will have better price/performance characteristics.
But, if you wait, you will wait forever.
Buy what you need for now or the next 6 months.

As to your choice, either will likely be overkill.
9900K is a bit better for gaming because of the higher single thread performance(in games, the 9700K will be just as good)
For gaming, budget 2x the cost of the processor for your graphics card.

The ryzen processors shine because of many cheap threads.
If your multithreaded editing workload is most important, ryzen is the way to go.
 
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Out of the 2, the 9900K for me as it has the best gaming performance out there and will more than handle all your workloads very well, especially on the Adobe side. Later on you can have some fun overclocking...

"Out of the box" for Intel is very subjective. Most motherboards will automatically overclock an i9 9900K to 4.7Ghz all core without the user changing anything at all in bios. Now considering that the processor "at stock" is supposed to run 3.6Ghz that is quite a bump up without the user's knowledge. If the user was to try to take Intel literally with its "95W" TDP rating they would be in for a rough time. A 95W rated heat sink may be able to handle the 9900K at true stock (3.6Ghz) but won't be able to handle it at 4.7Ghz or beyond. Intel skirts around the issue by having its motherboard partners automatically overclock the 9900K and give it an edge without the users knowledge . Yet they can still claim a 95W rating because they base that off of 3.6Ghz base.

Using simple logic "out of the box" is flawed as at 3.6Ghz the 3700X will be every bit its equal so by default the 9900K has to be overclocked to retain its "king of gaming processors" title. It really doesn't matter if the user is manually overclocking the processor or the motherboard is doing it for them, its still by definition overclocking.

I have tested the 9900K @ 5Ghz against my R7 3800X @ 4.4Ghz using a borrowed 2080Ti and in gaming the two processors trade blows back and forth within such a small margin the two are equal within the margin of error and in productivity based applications the 3800X will come out with a comfortable edge over the 9900K. The 9900K is also $75 - 80 more and you can't run it "out of the box" because Intel doesn't include a cooler.
 
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There is no such thing as "future proofing"
If, for no other reason, you can't tell exactly what you will need in the future.
Next year there will be new products from amd and Intel.
They will have better price/performance characteristics.
But, if you wait, you will wait forever.
Buy what you need for now or the next 6 months.

As to your choice, either will likely be overkill.
9900K is a bit better for gaming because of the higher single thread performance(in games, the 9700K will be just as good)
For gaming, budget 2x the cost of the processor for your graphics card.

The ryzen processors shine because of many cheap threads.
If your multithreaded editing workload is most important, ryzen is the way to go.


Totally agree that you can't future proof, especially now. I really believe that Intel has something up their sleeve with 10nm. Intel may not have shown much lately, ie sticking with 14nm and pushing it for everything it is worth, but Intel is a company that literally has a R&D budget 5x greater than AMDs. When you can throw that much money into a project and you are taking your time perfecting it... I think 10nm is going to be every bit as big, as Sandy Bridge was.

On the AMD side there is speculation that the next gen Ryzen 4000 series will feature 4 threads per core. That would also be a true game changer for high end processors in productivity and would mean that a potential quad core processor with 16 threads may have the same gaming performance as the current generation for a fraction of the cost. It is impossible to "future proof" with such potential processors on the horizon.
 
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"Out of the box" for Intel is very subjective. Most motherboards will automatically overclock an i9 9900K to 4.7Ghz all core without the user changing anything at all in bios. Now considering that the processor "at stock" is supposed to run 3.6Ghz that is quite a bump up without the user's knowledge. If the user was to try to take Intel literally with its "95W" TDP rating they would be in for a rough time. A 95W rated heat sink may be able to handle the 9900K at true stock (3.6Ghz) but won't be able to handle it at 4.7Ghz or beyond. Intel skirts around the issue by having its motherboard partners automatically overclock the 9900K and give it an edge without the users knowledge . Yet they can still claim a 95W rating because they base that off of 3.6Ghz base.

Using simple logic "out of the box" is flawed as at 3.6Ghz the 3700X will be every bit its equal so by default the 9900K has to be overclocked to retain its "king of gaming processors" title. It really doesn't matter if the user is manually overclocking the processor or the motherboard is doing it for them, its still by definition overclocking.

I have tested the 9900K @ 5Ghz against my R7 3800X @ 4.4Ghz using a borrowed 2080Ti and in gaming the two processors trade blows back and forth within such a small margin the two are equal within the margin of error and in productivity based applications the 3800X will come out with a comfortable edge over the 9900K. The 9900K is also $75 - 80 more and you can't run it "out of the box" because Intel doesn't include a cooler.

Hmm. I don't remember saying or even writing 'out of the box' anywhere. Most importantly, I answered his specific question around which one to get out of the 3900X and 9900K with the 9900K setup being cheaper....my opinion...

But and lets just be honest for one moment, the 9900K is the best 'gaming' CPU right now on the market that you can actually buy. If you take everything into account and certainly not within margin of error. And stock versus stock but only for gaming and even though it may not be by much, and it's price to performance in not great, it is still better.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-3800x-review,6226-5.html

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_3800x_review,23.html

https://www.techspot.com/article/1876-4ghz-ryzen-3rd-gen-vs-core-i9/

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_3800x_review,23.html

I am not sure why people get so worked up over this as both are good CPU's and depending on work load, price, choice or just down right I like X, it should not really matter. Just buy the CPU you like that works for you. I can only give my opinion...nothing more.

The 3800X and all Ryzen's in general are great CPU's and well done AMD for finally catching up and giving Intel some real competition and long may it continue. The 3800X has some great benefits over the 9900K, especially on the productivity side and on the gaming side, Intel has too...
 
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Hmm. I don't remember saying or even writing 'out of the box' anywhere. But and lets just be honest for one moment, the 9900K is the best 'gaming' CPU right now on the market that you can actually buy. If you take everything into account and certainly not within margin of error. And stock versus stock but only for gaming and even though it may not be by much, and it's price to performance in not great, it is still better.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-3800x-review,6226-5.html

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_3800x_review,23.html

https://www.techspot.com/article/1876-4ghz-ryzen-3rd-gen-vs-core-i9/

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_3800x_review,23.html

I am not sure why people get so worked up over this as both are good CPU's and depending on work load, price, choice or just down right I like X, it should not really matter. Just buy the CPU you like that works for you. I can only give my opinion...nothing more.

The 3800X and all Ryzen's in general are great CPU's and well done AMD for finally catching up and giving Intel some real competition and long may it continue. The 3800X has some great benefits over the 9900K, especially on the productivity side and on the gaming side, Intel has too...

It was actually my bad, you wrote "out of the 2" and for some reason as I was skimming I read it as "out of the box". Totally my mistake on that one. That is why I was trying to shed light on what "out of the box" is.

"Stock vs Stock" is getting harder to quantify though. Intel's board partners auto overclock their processors to 4.7Ghz and AMD has XFR which by default overclocks their processors via an algorithm of power and temp. This generation the algorithm doesn't work quite as well, but really both are being "overclocked" as they are running beyond their specifications.

In most of the testing with XFR and PBO (AMD) of this generation we see roughly 4.125 - 4.25 Ghz all core for Ryzen and that is being compared to 4.7Ghz for the 9900K. This gives the 9900K roughly a 6% gaming advantage when everything is averaged. When both are overclocked the Ryzen usually is run at 4.3Ghz and the 9900K is typically run at 5Ghz and the performance gap is maintained. However If the 3800X is run at 4.4Ghz the performance gap disappears. The problem is most reviews out there have been conducted on early bios and the max overclock was hindered to 4.3Ghz. Using updated bios will allow the 3800X to overclock to 4.4Ghz on average in my experience (the 3700X is still 4.3Ghz on average).

The biggest problem with the reviews we already have and all of the links you posted above is they were all tested using outdated early bios. The new bios that AMD and its motherboard partners are releasing not only improve XFR and PBO (a little) but have made it possible to overclock the 3800X to 4.4Ghz and in some cases even 4.45Ghz. With Ryzen's impressive IPC the relatively small increase from 4.3 to 4.4Ghz makes a lot of difference. I'm not saying the 9900K isn't a great processor, because it is. I am saying that with the right bios, cooling and settings the 3800X is every bit its equal.
 
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Hello,

3900x is 670 USD
9900k is 484 USD

Motherboard ( Let's use asus strix )

ROG STRIX Z390-E is 235 USD
X570 ROG STRIX is $350 USD

I use my computer for almost all sort of stuffs

Adobe suite
Gaming
Programming ( not my actual job, so I guess it can be done on a PC powered by 2 hamsters )

It looks like Intel is the way to go here,
but should I care about future proofing, maybe I can upgrade my CPU next year without swapping motherboard ?

(Additional Info : 3700x is only around 380 USD, should I consider it ? )
There would certainly never be a perceived need to upgrade a CPU next year ( or the year after!) with either of those, not that you'd be able to with a 9900K and Z390 anyway, as new mainboards and LGA1200 socket are coming, allegedly...eventually)

Additionally, if you are wiling to forgo having 12 cores and stick with a 'mere' 8 cores and look hard at the AMD 3700X, I'd expect you'd be happier with it's price.
 
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