[SOLVED] Is it worth upgrading from i7 4790k to Ryzen 5 5600X ?

[Pablix360]

Currently I am running the following:

• i7 4790k OC to 5.2Ghz
• NZXT Kraken x62
• 16 GB of RAM (cannot remember speed...)
• GTX 1080 Ti FE
• Corsair RM650x
• Samsung 970 Evo (currently running in 1/3 of performance due to PCIe 2.0...)
• Asus Z97 - PRO GAMER

I am thinking of upgrading to the following:

• Ryzen 5 5600X
• ASUS ROG Strix X570-F
• Corsair Vengance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) 3600 C18
• Along with the above some Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste as I will be re-using my Kraken x62

Now there is few points which are making me unsure about this upgrade:

1. I know that Ryzen 5000 series pretty much topped intel currently, but will intel come back from this with better offer than the 5000 series currently? Also, roughly when can we expect intel to hit back?
2. Ryzen 5000 series is most likely the last series which will be using AM4 socket, therefore is it worth me going to AM4 now or should I want until there is a new socket which might be supported for few years to come?
3. Is what I am thinking of buying good enough to go with a RTX 3070 or 3080 even?
4. Is the motherboard I chosen good enough? Also, is overlocking possible on 5 5600X and if so again, would this motherboard be enough?
5. I am also torn whether it is worth me going for the 5800x instead of the 5600x - is the price/performance ratio worth it?

Thanks in advance for all advice.

 

[siaan312]

Let me answer all your questions.
1. Intel's best chip, the i9 10900k has 10 cores, that are as fast or faster than Ryzen 3000, while Ryzen 3000 had up to 16 cores.
Intel's next offer, the 11th series will be on a new architecture, but the same 14nm node, which they say gives them a "double digit uplift in per core performance" BUT it will only go up to 8 cores, LOWER than their current flagship.
And this is straight from their marketing slides, so it's pretty much set in stone.
Ryzen 5000 is around 20% faster than Ryzen 3000, and around 15-10% faster than current Intel.
With this information, and intel saying 11th gen will launch in Q1 2021, we can deduct they will either be a little better in gaming, but lose massively in productivity with half the cores in the best case, or meet status quo and be the same in gaming, and so much worse in productivity it doesn't even matter.
So, February-March 2021 with either a bit better in gaming, or the same in gaming as AMD. and either way worse in multithreaded workloads, which are becoming more and more relevant.

2. The 5000 series just launched, so you have at least 1.5 years till it's replaced, and if you need/want to upgrade right now, I think it's totally fine to get r5000 now with not too much buyer's remorse.

3. Both the 5600X and 5800X are very good chips to pair with the 3070 and 3080, and shouldn't slow them down or hold them up in any game.

4. Here's a dousy. overclocking isn't something I suggest nowadays. both AMD and Intel try to squeeze out more out of their chips in stock, and at best, you get 100, or 200mhz. 300mhz if you won the lottery. those aren't big enough jumps to be worth the hassle if you are looking for better performance. If you want to play with overclocking as much as you want to actually gain performance, I guess you could, but if you actually want more performance this isn't what I suggest.
All Ryzen processors can be overclocked, from the lowly Ryzen 3s and Athlons to the Ryzen 9s.
As for motherboard choice, I say you didn't choose a good enough board, you chose a bad board. I personally discourage X570 platform, And suggest B550. Higher end B550 systems have everything X570 has, with lower prices.
B550 supports PCI-E gen 4, Overclocking, and now even Bifurcation for SLI if you dig that kind of stuff (It's dead, but stuff like 4 m.2 slot cards are supported. that's what I meant.)
Lots of them also have 2.5gig networking and very good VRM schemes.
The B550 ROG Strix-F (or -A if you need white) Is a very solid board, better than most X570 boards.
The main downside to X570 in my opinion, Is the fan. The chipset of X570 needs a small, 40mm, sometimes noisy fan, that if it dies, your board will probably die too, with replacements being a chore, and not easy.

5. If all you do is game, and not flightsim 2020, the 5600X should be plenty. If you do productivity work, or other multithreaded workflows, like streaming, you might benefit from the extra cores.

 

[Pablix360]

Let me answer all your questions.
1. Intel's best chip, the i9 10900k has 10 cores, that are as fast or faster than Ryzen 3000, while Ryzen 3000 had up to 16 cores.
Intel's next offer, the 11th series will be on a new architecture, but the same 14nm node, which they say gives them a "double digit uplift in per core performance" BUT it will only go up to 8 cores, LOWER than their current flagship.
And this is straight from their marketing slides, so it's pretty much set in stone.
Ryzen 5000 is around 20% faster than Ryzen 3000, and around 15-10% faster than current Intel.
With this information, and intel saying 11th gen will launch in Q1 2021, we can deduct they will either be a little better in gaming, but lose massively in productivity with half the cores in the best case, or meet status quo and be the same in gaming, and so much worse in productivity it doesn't even matter.
So, February-March 2021 with either a bit better in gaming, or the same in gaming as AMD. and either way worse in multithreaded workloads, which are becoming more and more relevant.

2. The 5000 series just launched, so you have at least 1.5 years till it's replaced, and if you need/want to upgrade right now, I think it's totally fine to get r5000 now with not too much buyer's remorse.

3. Both the 5600X and 5800X are very good chips to pair with the 3070 and 3080, and shouldn't slow them down or hold them up in any game.

4. Here's a dousy. overclocking isn't something I suggest nowadays. both AMD and Intel try to squeeze out more out of their chips in stock, and at best, you get 100, or 200mhz. 300mhz if you won the lottery. those aren't big enough jumps to be worth the hassle if you are looking for better performance. If you want to play with overclocking as much as you want to actually gain performance, I guess you could, but if you actually want more performance this isn't what I suggest.
All Ryzen processors can be overclocked, from the lowly Ryzen 3s and Athlons to the Ryzen 9s.
As for motherboard choice, I say you didn't choose a good enough board, you chose a bad board. I personally discourage X570 platform, And suggest B550. Higher end B550 systems have everything X570 has, with lower prices.
B550 supports PCI-E gen 4, Overclocking, and now even Bifurcation for SLI if you dig that kind of stuff (It's dead, but stuff like 4 m.2 slot cards are supported. that's what I meant.)
Lots of them also have 2.5gig networking and very good VRM schemes.
The B550 ROG Strix-F (or -A if you need white) Is a very solid board, better than most X570 boards.
The main downside to X570 in my opinion, Is the fan. The chipset of X570 needs a small, 40mm, sometimes noisy fan, that if it dies, your board will probably die too, with replacements being a chore, and not easy.

5. If all you do is game, and not flightsim 2020, the 5600X should be plenty. If you do productivity work, or other multithreaded workflows, like streaming, you might benefit from the extra cores.

Interesting information on the Intel stuff, much appreciated. I couldn't find out what you have stated here so that's answered.

On the CPU selection I think I will stick with 5600x. Nothing I play or do on the PC will really be worth the extra ~£100.

On the motherboard, you intrigued me. Everywhere I looked for some motherboard recommendations it said to go with the X570 boards as they seem to have more features etc. although based on your overlocking feedback, I don't think that I will need that much of them. I had a look at pricing and yeah, odd £60-90 does make a difference for me currently so quite interested in going for a B550 board, although could do with some recommendations since I am not that much into this market anymore I am quite overwhelmed with the selection. I picked the Asus Rog Strix-F x570 based of reviews of x570 boards. I am looking for 2x M.2 slots PCIe 4.0, quite a few USB ports on the back, Wi-Fi if price does not increase too much and lastly the looks - the B550 Strix you mention seems to have quite a bit of red on it, I'd prefer to go with a more singular colour board, e.g. full black with some controllable RGB.

Sorry if above is a bit too much haha

 

[siaan312]

Interesting information on the Intel stuff, much appreciated. I couldn't find out what you have stated here so that's answered.

On the CPU selection I think I will stick with 5600x. Nothing I play or do on the PC will really be worth the extra ~£100.

On the motherboard, you intrigued me. Everywhere I looked for some motherboard recommendations it said to go with the X570 boards as they seem to have more features etc. although based on your overlocking feedback, I don't think that I will need that much of them. I had a look at pricing and yeah, odd £60-90 does make a difference for me currently so quite interested in going for a B550 board, although could do with some recommendations since I am not that much into this market anymore I am quite overwhelmed with the selection. I picked the Asus Rog Strix-F x570 based of reviews of x570 boards. I am looking for 2x M.2 slots PCIe 4.0, quite a few USB ports on the back, Wi-Fi if price does not increase too much and lastly the looks - the B550 Strix you mention seems to have quite a bit of red on it, I'd prefer to go with a more singular colour board, e.g. full black with some controllable RGB.

Sorry if above is a bit too much haha

The Strix B550-F is mostly black with 1 or 2 red accents. It looks redder in the picture's since the rgb on them is set to red usually.
There is the Strix B550-A, which is mostly white and black, and also rgb.

Though there is something in what you mentioned above I want to address
The B550-A has 3 m.2, though, 2 of those are only gen 3.
It also only has 1 m.2 gen 4 slot.

It also also only has 8 usb ports, and let me tell you the reason for all these.

The B550 chipset has less pci-e lanes. Same overall feature-set, less power consumption, but less pci-e lanes.
The lanes that are allocated to the secondary and other m.2 slots, and the smaller pci-e slots usually hook up to it, rather than the cpu, and usb ports sometimes also connect through it, making it likely for B550s to have less of those, or of an older generation.
USB ports can be expanded easily, with a hub for more ports that share bandwidth, or add-in cards that give you more bandwidth, and even a 3 port, gen 3.2 will cost less than the Delta of the motherboard pricing, but, getting another gen 4.0 m.2 will be quite impossible.

I actually wonder if a pci-e 3.0 8x to pcie 4.0 4x m.2 adapter exists. I doubt that, but it would be cool.

 

[Flayed]

Currently I am running the following:

• i7 4790k OC to 5.2Ghz
• NZXT Kraken x62
• 16 GB of RAM (cannot remember speed...)
• GTX 1080 Ti FE
• Corsair RM650x
• Samsung 970 Evo (currently running in 1/3 of performance due to PCIe 2.0...)
• Asus Z97 - PRO GAMER

I am thinking of upgrading to the following:

• Ryzen 5 5600X
• ASUS ROG Strix X570-F
• Corsair Vengance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) 3600 C18
• Along with the above some Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste as I will be re-using my Kraken x62

Now there is few points which are making me unsure about this upgrade:

1. I know that Ryzen 5000 series pretty much topped intel currently, but will intel come back from this with better offer than the 5000 series currently? Also, roughly when can we expect intel to hit back?
2. Ryzen 5000 series is most likely the last series which will be using AM4 socket, therefore is it worth me going to AM4 now or should I want until there is a new socket which might be supported for few years to come?
3. Is what I am thinking of buying good enough to go with a RTX 3070 or 3080 even?
4. Is the motherboard I chosen good enough? Also, is overlocking possible on 5 5600X and if so again, would this motherboard be enough?
5. I am also torn whether it is worth me going for the 5800x instead of the 5600x - is the price/performance ratio worth it?

Thanks in advance for all advice.

Colour me impressed by your overclock that is the fastest I've come across

 

[siaan312]

Colour me impressed by your overclock that is the fastest I've come across

He does have a beefy cooler, but still, It is quite impressive.

 

[Flayed]

If you want to beat your OC you should wait for rocket lake as the rumour going around is it will OC to 5.5Ghz

 

[Pablix360]

Yeah I was quite lucky with my i7 4790k, especially that it was first time I overclocked and I just followed some instructions and kept going up until it started crashing. 5.3GHz was almost stable but it crashed after running the CPU Stress Test software for like 10 hours where 5.2GHz at the time ran for over 24h and it never crashed

I was thinking about waiting until Intel releases something new, but yesterday the unfortunate happened and I think my motherboard died or the M.2 port on it at least. First thing I had to re-seat my RAM and also get rid of any overlocking settings... then my PC wouldn't restart itself 10+ times when turned on. Once it stopped restarting I could not get through to my Windows and realised my M.2 is no longer detected. Switched the 970 Evo Plus to a different machine I have at home and it works soo must be the motherboard... Another thing is that AM4 socket is most likely dead, as in won't be used for the next AMD CPUs as it had it's 5 year lifespan as AMD said at first release of Ryzen.

So, I'm here trying to snipe the 5600x of any of the UK retailers but unfortunately they are not in stock.... just to get my machine up and running and hoping it will last me ~3 years.

With the M.2 slots, I'm thinking of using 1x PCIe 4.0 and 1x PCIe 3.0 as I've got a 970 Evo Plus and want to buy the new 980 at some point in future.
USB ports - I probably need 6 fast ones, rest can be slow, and need 3.0 at least for front of the case.

I will probably try overclocking the 5600x slightly, 100-200MHz max, so could do with a decent-ish mobo suiting those requirements - any suggestions? Is the B550 Strix-F still a suitable one would you say as I quite like it now I've been looking at it for few days

 

[Flayed]

The B550 F sounds like a pretty good choice