AMD Ryzen 2 vs. Intel 9th Gen Core: Which CPU Deserves Your Money?

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I'm glad to see AMD back on it's game and pushing Intel to do more. It seems like a common business practice for Intel - provide the bare minimum to consumers until AMD finally out performs them.

I supported AMD for years, but finally bought an Intel i7 when they were so far behind, and have no upgrade options except a new motherboard and CPU, and this time around I'll be purchasing an AMD option.

They extra money will go to more ram, SSD and other items that also make a huge difference when upgrading
 
This article appears to reflect the old adage - if your budget is unlimited, Intel is tops.

But for most of us, cost is also a factor. That's why AMD is better by a landslide.
 


I would really like to know how you figure Ryzen "gimps" a 1080Ti. The era of saying "it's AMD its going to bottleneck your GPU" ended with the release of Ryzen. Keep in mind that first gen Ryzen launched with the same IPC as Skylake, Ryzen R5 and R7 isn't going to bottleneck a 1080Ti. Now you may indeed get 10 - 20% better FPS while gaming with the i7 8700K if you are streaming, however if you use your computer for any amount of productivity work the R7 2700X will simply outperform it.

Bottom line is if you only use your computer as a glorified mega sized console then yes the best gaming processors would be Intel, probably the i7 8700K or i9 9600K, which are basically the same damn thing. The i9 9600K is factory overclocked higher and the i7 8700K has hyperthreading. For just gaming the two are about equal as most games aren't gong to use more than 6 cores and physical cores are more important in gaming than threads.

However if you are using your computer as an overall computer that can game well and do productivity applications extremely well then you are looking at the R7 2700X. If all you want to do is game, have a restricted budget but still want a top notch experience then you are most definitely looking at the R5 2600 with a 1070/ 1070Ti as Intel has nothing that can perform as well at that price.
 

My bad, should have mentioned system power consumption.
This is what I was referring to (and feel free to see it for yourself at WCCFTECH's review on the 9900K: "With the frequency bump, the new chips do end up with higher power consumption both in idle and load states. The Intel Core i9-9900K when overclocked, breaches the 400W barrier. Even the stock operation is higher than the previous generation flagship which tells that this part has may not be aiming the higher efficiency point as the previous generation parts".
 


Until Intel moves on from 14nm I don't think we are going to see any more gains in efficiency. Its already hard for Intel's top end to compete in efficiency with Ryzen, and that gap is only going to get much bigger in about 5, 6 months when 7nm Ryzen launches. Intel may be able to do a few more things to squeeze a little more performance out of 14nm, but as they do so the processors will become more and more inefficient. Intel has been on 14nm for far too long, moving forward they have to get on at least 10nm but most sources tend to think that's not going to happen anytime soon. By Intel's own estimation it won't occur till the end of 2019, and they have already missed their own deadlines several times with 10nm.
 
First: The very definition of MSRP seems to differ between AMD and Intel, so they can't be compared directly.
Second: The "S" in MSRP stand for "suggested", which means it's not the actual retail price.
The actual retail price depends on actual wholesale price, supply and demand.
What's interesting to the consumer is the actual retail price when you order one unit, not the "suggested" price if you order a thousand units.

So very true! One typical example: The higher end Polaris and Vega graphics cards has here in Sweden had wholesale prices exceeding the MSRP since their launch. There's no way the retail prices will drop to MSRP any time soon.

Because of low supply?

 


Ummm, Last I checked the only GPUs of that generation that actually definitively trumped the Vega64 was the 1080Ti and Titan GPUs. Vega 64 held its own with the 1080 for the most part, or at the very least gave it a run for its money. (Its availability did hurt it though.)
 


I was pretty much stating that marketing was and never has been what enthusiasts listen to. No matter the chip. Used one example.

However I wasn't talking about "tricks" I was talking about marketing a bad CPU which is what the FX 9590 was and the 9900K marketing is. I don't care about the server market which is what that chip was.

Whatever "tricks" you like to use as an excuse a bad chip is a bad chip. Netburst ran warm and used a lot of power. Phenom clocked low and performed poorly. Bulldozer was a poor CPU. The 9900K runs too hot, uses more power and costs too much.

Either way people will buy said bad chips. They always do for some reason. More money than brains. I typically prefer Intels platform over AMD although Ryzen has gotten better, I do wish they would ditch the pins and move to LGA but thats up to them. However I have no plans on upgrading until the platform feels much better than what I have.
 


https://wccftech.com/review/intel-core-i9-9900k-8-core-cpu-z390-aorus-master-review/9/

The power consumption graphs are labeled system power usage. That being said, power consumption is utterly non-linear for the performance the i9 delivers. According to TH reviews, the 7700k@4.9 used 141w, the 8700k@4.9 used 168w. 7700k to 8700k=50% more cores, 20% more power usage. Sounds legit. 9900k@5.0 uses 249w. So compared to 8700k 33% more cores and 48% more power usage. Not so legit. The power curve is getting awfully steep. I'm not sure Intel realized how much the market values efficiency. It's not the cost of cooling or electricity that bothers people I think, just the sheer gal of Intel to release such archaic tech so expensively, and then expect us to use up whatever thermal headroom we have in our cases to cool their half ass design. This is the CPU equivalent of old, fat Elvis.



 


So much delusions, misinformation. That the era has not ended with Ryzen. See the facts for yourself:
https://www.techspot.com/review/1655-core-i7-8700k-vs-ryzen-7-2700x/page8.html

"Having established that the Core i7-8700K is hands down faster than the Ryzen 7 2700X for gaming,....
Intel's 8700K is a no-compromise gaming CPU, and we as well as many others have already said so in the past....
In terms of pricing they’re very similar, in fact, you could say overall the system and even the platform costs are the same..."

That is all that really needs to be said. The 2700x is NOT priced enough to get people to go AMD without feeling like they are missing out..

BTW That glorified console is the 80% use case most people. There is no good reason why I want to even gimp my $700 GPU by 10% or heck even 5%. If I wanted to do work, my workplace has got all the servers cores, build server, VMs, containters. etc .etc. up the wazoo. When I go home, and I want to play, and if I have the money, I would want the machine to be built for games. Glorified console and proud!



 


True, and for the same compromised and hopelessly nostalgic reasons the i9 will.

 



First off, you are right, and no one here is going to argue that the R7 2700X is a better pure gaming processor than the i7 8700K. In fact I have suggested here and when building custom computers that the i7 8700K is the best pure gaming processor at the best price (although to be fair the i9 9600 can give it a run for its money). If you want the best frames without the excessive cost of the i9 9900K then it is a very good option for pure gaming.

However I also like to educate people too. So they know the actual real world performance difference and the price difference between their options. So we have to take a few things into consideration such as: do you stream your game play? Do you use your computer for productivity, rendering or anything that is going to require a higher workload? If you answered yes then the R7 2700X will pull ahead by quite a bit in those applications. On the other hand if you are just gaming the best value is still the R5 2600 overclocked to 4.2Ghz. It will perform in most games equal to the R7 2700X and will only give up 9% performance compared to the i7 8700K at most overall. I'm going to assume that some people are going to game at 1080p (although doing so with a 1080 or 1080Ti makes no sense what so ever) so at most your going to give up 9%. I'm not including the 720p numbers because who in their right mind would spend that kind of money on a 1080(Ti) and high end CPU and game at 720p:ouch::pfff: When comparing these two options it becomes a lot harder to recommend the i7 8700K as the R5 2600 is only $150.00, the 8700K is double that and you still need to buy a cooler. Over double the cost isn't worth ~9% performance advantage. If your gaming at 1440p where most people are going to be if they are shelling out of a 1080(Ti) then your only getting ~4% advantage for over double the cost. Finally, if you are a gamer who streams game play or who also uses the system for rendering or other work heavy loads (like I do) then the R7 2700X makes a lot more sense as again at 1080p your only giving up 9%, 1440p is only 4% and 4K is dead even, however the 2 extra cores and 4 extra threads will blast though workloads much quicker.

Yes, the i7 8700K holds a very slight advantage in gaming over Ryzen+. However Ryzen doesn't "gimp" a 1080Ti, and in most cases the FPS difference is something that can not be noticed by us lowly mere mortals and can only be seen while running FRAPS over the game and who wants to have that in the corner of your screen while your trying to game. If you run a Ryzen+ system and a i7 8700K side by side you would not be able to tell which system is which, that says more than anything else.
 


CPU doubles as one perhaps? I know that was the running joke for FX 9590 anyway.
 


The highlighted words are the key here. It's a perception. Yes, it has some evidence to support it in benchmarks and on paper, and that is what people see. They don't do an A/B test themselves and then decide. It's usually impractical, and just easier to let someone else do it. I wouldn't doubt that if you kept the specs completely hidden (this means benchmarks, FPS counters, CPUiD, etc.) on the two platforms, most wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Just like most won't be able to tell the difference between a 60Hz refresh on a monitor and 75Hz or 165Hz refresh.


EDIT: added a little bit to where I talk about specs completely hidden.
 


And NetBurst. Intel had a dream. A heater in every home.
 


In regards to operating temp and the i9 9900K it seems like there are numbers all over the board. Some reviewers were quoting really low thermals and others were quoting thermals so high they were recommending nothing less than a water block to run the processor at stock. We are starting to get some information here and there that is shedding some light on the 9900K performance and thermals. First off some the Z370 although compatible are slightly throttling the i9 9900K by default which causes decreased performance but much better thermals. This has also been seen in some of the cheaper Z390 boards. On the other hand of the spectrum you have motherboards like the MSI Godlike that auto overclocks the i9 9900K without any input from the user and without any knowledge its doing so. The result is dual fold, better performance and much higher "out of the box" thermals. This also leads one to question some of the benchmarks, and tests done by reviewers as some of them were using the Godlike motherboard and the benchmarks they recorded "at stock" were not at stock because the Godlike auto overclocks the i9 9900K by a healthy margin. Not to mention the reviewers who were using a Godlike motherboard had a system setup that just for processor and motherboard was $1200 and still had to add on a premium waterblock cooler vs the R7 2700X which for processor and motherboard comes in at $480- $600. Of course all the overclocked benchmarks are going to be right on the money but some of the "stock" benchmarks being listed are anything but stock.

So to get back to thermals, yes at "stock" some i9 9900K setups can have very high thermals and be very toasty indeed.
 
This is a very good video explaining some of the confusion with the performance/ power usage/ heat produced by the i9 9900K. As usual Intel plays fast and loose with the facts and uses deception to make themselves look better than they actually are and I'll explain that stance, but first the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfGz22ZjeGk

Now here is the big take away from the video: if the 9900K is set to its TDP limit of 95W then the processor is going to perform much worse in benchmarks but product much less heat. If limited to 95W its all core max goes down to just 4.0Ghz whereas everywhere you look at reviews its all core "stock" clock is 4.7Ghz. Its important to note that to maintain 4.7Ghz all core the processor is pulling over 150W and is extremely hot.

What this is a case of is Intel trying to "have its cake and eat it too". Their processor is more powerful than the R7 2700X but that wasn't enough for them, they also had to try to show that it was more efficient than their Ryzen competition. Thus the 95W TDP rating compared to the 2700X's 105W TDP rating. The difference is at stock settings, without setting for precision boost overdrive and other overclocking utilities the R7 2700X will stay within its 105W rating whereas out of the box the vast majority of motherboards will have the 9900K running up to 60% over its 95W rating. When you turn on the "overclocking" capabilities of the 2700X in bios you get several warnings that you will be overclocking the processor and running it out of specifications. The 9900K does it out of the box automatically and calls it stock when its being overclocked and is far past its rated 95W limit. Now a lot of people will put this on the Motherboard manufactures and not on Intel saying they are the ones running the processor out of spec, but Intel works very closely with the motherboard manufactures so this really doesn't hold up. Intel would know that they were setting it up to run far past specifications on auto settings. Its just one more way of gaining an unfair advantage- the 9900K either has 95W TDP at stock or it doesn't. Advertising it as such and then having all major motherboards except Asus auto overclock it way past that out of the box and call it "stock" is cheating plain and simple.

No one is debating that overclocked the 9900K will outperform the 2700X but at the "stock" settings that Intel has set - specifically that the 9900K has a 95W limit then at max it will only boost to 4.0Ghz all core at stock. I would love to see benchmarks in productivity pitting a 9900K at actual stock settings against the 2700X at its stock settings (the 2700X should boost higher than 4.0Ghz with its better efficiency and higher 105W limit). This would probably show that at true stock the i9 9900K and R7 2700X are virtually equal. Once overclocking occurs no one is debating that the 9900K will out perform the 2700X, however all the benchmarks that are listing the "stock" performance of the 9900K are all unfairly skewed as the 9900K is being overclocked by up to 700Mhz over its true stock specifications by default on most major motherboards.
 
the real trouble is you dont feel like you are upgrading but a few % if you have a i7 from 2012 the 3770k or later.
Amd is were teh value is
Intel is only a few % faster for 50% more in build costs. "
only at 1080P is this the advantage at 1440P its within marin of error.
we want a faster machine but what we have is just fine.


 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmAWqyHdebI

Game, set, match. At true stock the mighty $600 i9 9900K performs workstation tasks no better than the R7 2700X. Overall productivity is dead even when both these processors are run at their true factory specified stock restrictions. The only way the 9900K could outperform the 2700X (in overall productivity) was to overclock it by default the moment you set in in nearly any motherboard (as only Asus will run them at factory 95W limits out of the box). Noteworthy as well is when the power constraints are lifted allowing the 9900K to draw 150W+ and boosting to 4.7Ghz across all cores, the total system power consumption jumps to a whopping 249W - 255W. Compare that to the total system power consumption of the truly mighty Threadripper 2950X at 225W - 232W.

No matter how you look at it the new i9 8 core processors in general make no sense in a system build. If your main purpose is gaming the i5 9600K will game at the same level for only $280, and you would then have to decide if 16% performance advantage at 1080p is worth the extra $130 (plus then buying an aftermarket cooler) that the i5 9600K will cost you over the very good R5 2600 (overclocked). At least the argument can be made that the i5 9600K has a true purpose--- gaming.

If you are looking for a more workstation class build then the 8 core Intel processors again make very little sense. The under $300 R7 2700 breaks even with the ~$500 i7 9700K (with no power limits on the 9700K) and without doubt would outperform it at actual stock (95W limit enforced). The R7 2700X vs the i9 9900K with BOTH processors set to true stock (Intel 95W limit enforced) the $600 9900K breaks even overall in productivity with the under $300 R7 2700X. When the power limits are released the 9900K will draw over 150W to overclock to 4.7Ghz and while it outperforms the R7 2700X its total system power consumption max of 255W is higher than the much more capable Threadripper 2950X maxing out at 232W and the 2950X will far outclass the 9900K in workstation related tasks.

Main takeaway from this is: If both the top tier i9 9900K and R7 2700X are run at their true "stock" settings the two processors in overall productivity are even. Additionally taking into account the high power consumption, high thermals when running with the default no limit, and high costs the Intel 9th gen 8 core processors just don't make any sense and it would be very hard to justify recommending them in any build.
 
Who in there right mind buys a 9900K to run it at the 95w TDP limit at $600? what is the point to the 'K' CPU's if not for overclocking and those that buy the 9900K, I am sure they want to push the CPU to it's max....It's certainly not cost effective but does that matter to a certain audience, I think not.

The testing done is so redundant as to be completely pointless as the 9900K is just there for those that wants absolutely maximum clocks, FPS, overclocking and bragging rights (for those that seem to need it) period...Who in there right mind would buy the 9900K for workstation use when there is Threadripper!...For price to performance Ryzen 2700, for all out gaming the 8600 or 8700K but to hamstring the 9900K at it's TDP when this is sold as a 'K' Overclocklable CPU is just laughable.

The 9900K was never meant to be bought to run at it's 'true stock settings' but if people want to delude themselves then who am I to stand in there way, just as I think people paying $600 for the 9900K are also a bit mental...

 


My argument would be totally unfounded IF, AND ONLY IF Intel had set the TDP at 150W. Had they done that then yes no one would be saying the stock benchmarks are bullsh*t. But the fact of the matter is Intel to try to showcase a more efficient processor set their TDP at 95W (vs the R7 2700X's 105W). At 95W - which by definition by Intel themselves is true stock settings the i9 9900K can only run all core at 4.0Ghz for most productivity tasks and only breaks even overall in productivity with the R7 2700X. All the first day "stock" benchmarks for the 9900K were bullsh*t and I take my hat off to Hardware Unboxed to show us the true stock benchmarks for the 9900K. Of course the overclocked benchmarks are going to remain the same, but most people reading reviews look at both the stock and overclocked numbers in comparing processors. As stated first day reviews for the i9 9900K all we had was default overclocked numbers and maximum overclocked numbers, but we never had stock numbers till now.

As stated these processors make no sense at any level. For gaming you don't need an 8 core processor, the 6 core i5 9600K will perform exactly the same in almost all gaming benchmarks for only $280. For productivity at stock the i9 9900K breaks even with the R7 2700X (which is half the cost and comes with a very capable cooler) and if your overclocking the 9900K then you need very expensive aftermarket premium cooling, a top line high rated PSU and are drawing more system power than a Threadripper 2950X which by the time you factor in all costs for cooling needs the 2950X will be marginally more expensive for a total system build while providing much more workstation performance and consuming less power.
 
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