Ryzen vs Kabylake-CAD

[TonyBamanaboni]

An R7 1700 is roughly the same cost as an i7 7700k and motherboard are about the same as well here (UK), and I have an old APU atm which is desperate need of an upgrade. I need a solid cpu for Solidworks/Autocad for some projects upcoming this year. So far the internet seems to have mixed feelings so I can't find a definitive answer.
PS, It will also be used for gaming etc but it is second and I'd prefer a pc that's better for CAD than gaming.
Any opinions or benchmarks will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Ryzen fits your posted needs.

 

[synphul]

It would help to know which program. If referring to autocad, at least from these benchmarks an i7 7700k will outperform ryzen in both 2d and 3d. Same with solidworks. If cost is the same may as well go with the better performing i7.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu,4951-9.html

 

[jongler]

Depends entirely on what you're doing. If you only ever do modeling, you may be better off with the 7700k, but you also need to consider the type of modeling. If you tend to do low part-count, but with very complex part geometry, a 7700k will be about 20% faster than a 1700 due to the ipc and clock speed. However, in these situations an i5-7600k will be just as fast as the i7 and significantly cheaper. If you tend to have fairly complex assemblies with lots of parts, the Ryzen 7 1700 should be roughly 10% faster in those workloads. (interestingly, because even in assemblies neither Autocad or Solidworks scale that well across large core counts, the Ryzen 5 1600 will also be 10% faster than the 7700k in these workloads)
now, if you do any other computationally intensive workloads in cad, such as simulations or especially rendering, you should absolutely go with Ryzen. Those workloads scale almost completely linearly up to 16+ threads (rendering scales nearly infinitely) and the Ryzen 7 1700 should comfortably be 75-85% faster than the 7700k. The 1600 in this case would be about 40% faster than the 7700k.
Tl,dr:
If you only ever do straight modeling and don't work with complex assemblies, get an i5 6700k
If you do a lot of rendering and simulation, get the Ryzen 7 1700.
If you do a mix of both and want something really solid all-round and also want to save a good chunk of money,
the six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 1600 is a fantastic cpu for your application and only £185. It's what I recommend most people
for mixed cad applications.
Another interesting last option to consider is this: if you *only* do modeling and never do anything else, no rendering no simulations no multitasking, the i3 7350k is the exact same architecture and has the same overclocking performance as the 6700k and 7700k, and is under £180. however, it only has two cores so multitasking will be poor, and it will be appalling in comparison to the other cpus in any multi-threaded workload.
-Joe.
ps. I'm based in the Uk too so this is all based off uk pricing, and my numbers (while fairly approximate) are all from direct experience of co-workers and friends using these parts for cad purposes. All numbers above assume that the intel cpus are overclocked to ~4.8ghz and the Amd cpus are overclocked to ~3.9. The non-X Amd cpus come with a solid cooler and can hit 3.9 fairly easily on that, but the intel stock cooler is garbage and should be replaced if you want to do any overclocking, so factor in an extra £30 for a decent cooler on the Intel side.