Question Should I buy Ryzen 3000 series this summer?

Fusion1005

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I want to get a Ryzen 5 3600 for my build in June, but Ryzen 4000 might come out late summer. Should I wait or buy now? Also, AMD will stop supporting AM4 after this year, so should I wait till 2021 to get my PC?
 
It's a bit early to say for sure, but the 1000 series processors launched in early March of 2017, the 2000 series around 13.5 months later in late April of 2018, and the 3000 series around 14.5 months later in early July of 2019. So, if the 4000 series were to follow a similar pattern of around 14 months for its release, one might expect them to come out sometime around September. Or it could potentially be later. And if the 5000 series finally breaks AM4 compatibility, it probably won't be before late 2021. So I guess that would depend a lot on how much you are in need of an upgrade. If your current hardware is still performing well enough, it might be worth waiting longer, but if it's woefully underpowered for your needs, an earlier upgrade might make more sense.

It's also not really known exactly what the 4000 series will be like at this time. Probably a bit faster performance per-core compared to the 3000 series, but supposedly not as much of a jump as the 3000 series was over the 2000 series. It's possible we could see given core counts launching at lower price points, seeing as Intel will apparently be matching AMD's current 3000-series threads with their 10 series in the coming months, but again, that might not happen. And even the 3000 series is already dropping in price in anticipation of Intel's next product launch, with the 3600 down to around $175 in the US already. By the time June rolls around, it might even be going on sale for closer to $150. Of course, that might potentially be countered by higher prices for things like RAM and SSDs.

In any case, if you are not considering building until summer, I would wait until then to decide. I suspect we will know more about what the 4000 series has to offer by that point, or at least have some more concrete rumors to go on. We may hear more about other hardware you might want to wait on too, like new graphics cards, though I wouldn't expect new mid-range cards until later in the year.
 
Jul 19, 2018
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Get it now. You can always play the waiting game and be waiting forever. If you need a PC get it now. Unless you know for a fact something is coming soon (Graphics cards might be coming very soon) you shouldn't wait unless you need to save up money to buy a better PC.

I mean, they could buy a temporary placeholder until the 4000 series comes out. I know a friend who bought a 2060 so they could save up for the RTX 3000 series
 
I mean, they could buy a temporary placeholder until the 4000 series comes out. I know a friend who bought a 2060 so they could save up for the RTX 3000 series
Really don't recommend doing that. When you upgrade to the next generation of parts, which is only slightly better than the previous, you have to sell your parts for a much lower price since it's used and a new generation has come out. Build a decent PC now, and don't upgrade for 2-3 years.
 

eli150

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Hey dude,

I recently upgraded my PC with the help of some of the guys here. When i say "upgraded" i practically bought a new one since my old PC is about 6 years old.

If you want to buy a PC right now than i think you can just buy a 3000 cpu like i did. In my opinion the cpu you should get is 3700x. It's worth the extra money. That said, If you are going to upgrade later this summer it might be worth waiting for a 4000 cpu. You'll need to check later when you are ready to upgrade
 

punkncat

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I am a bit value oriented in most things computer purchase related. IMO as far as price to performance it's impossible to beat what is being offered with the 2xxx series right now. 2700x is half the price of a 3700x right now.

If I were to build Ryzen right this moment I would build 2xxx on a mobo looking forward, nothing less than B450 of a reputable type. If there were budgetary concerns I would still recommend the R5 1xxx chips that are sub $100. Just after 4xxx releases, just as before, the prices will roughly halve.
 

Fusion1005

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I am a bit value oriented in most things computer purchase related. IMO as far as price to performance it's impossible to beat what is being offered with the 2xxx series right now. 2700x is half the price of a 3700x right now.

If I were to build Ryzen right this moment I would build 2xxx on a mobo looking forward, nothing less than B450 of a reputable type. If there were budgetary concerns I would still recommend the R5 1xxx chips that are sub $100. Just after 4xxx releases, just as before, the prices will roughly halve.

Why not get a 3600?
 
For playing games, the slightly better performance of the 3700X is definitely not worth the extra cost over the 3600. The same is true for the 2700X and 2600. The Ryzen 7s are more oriented towards multi threaded applications. Just get a 3600 and spend the extra on a better GPU.
Have to disagree... unless playing a game is absolutely all your system is doing at the time. And even then, I wonder how long that will hold.

If you like to do anything alongside gaming -- think discord, streaming, video capture -- then the extra cores/threads are nice to have. Now add in the ever increasing multi-threading in games and Windows' background tasks too. It's really good future proofing if you can swing it. Many people are recommending 2700X over 3600/X because of that, especially if you catch one on discount.
 
Have to disagree... unless playing a game is absolutely all your system is doing at the time. And even then, I wonder how long that will hold.

If you like to do anything alongside gaming -- think discord, streaming, video capture -- then the extra cores/threads are nice to have. Now add in the ever increasing multi-threading in games and Windows' background tasks too. It's really good future proofing if you can swing it. Many people are recommending 2700X over 3600/X because of that, especially if you catch one on discount.
Sure, if you do stream video, then a 3700X is pretty nice to have. Discord, not so much since it's not actually that intensive. Windows background tasks is a good point, but for most people who don't mess around with CPU Affinity, it doesn't end up mattering, as those tasks move to the thread the game is on, which is being boosted, causing the thread to throttle and then lower boost, making this cycle of bad performance. This doesn't change with more threads. But if you do decide to mess about with CPU Affinity, then more threads is nice. Still not worth the extra cost IMO. And no, games do not need to take up all 12 threads.
 
Sure, if you do stream video, then a 3700X is pretty nice to have. Discord, not so much since it's not actually that intensive. Windows background tasks is a good point, but for most people who don't mess around with CPU Affinity, it doesn't end up mattering, as those tasks move to the thread the game is on, which is being boosted, causing the thread to throttle and then lower boost, making this cycle of bad performance. This doesn't change with more threads. But if you do decide to mess about with CPU Affinity, then more threads is nice. Still not worth the extra cost IMO. And no, games do not need to take up all 12 threads.
There may be some scenarios it could help with, but I'm not sure I'd ever mess with affinity for general useage. Just leave the scheduler to do it's thing. It's improved a lot with Windows10 topology awareness, power plan and BIOS updates.

But speaking from experience, I went from a 1700 to a 3600 and was sorely dissappointed. A year and a half with 8 cores I got used to driving Windows (I tend to have a bunch of windows open, with a ton of browser tabs in different browsers) super smoothly. That was even though it showed it's processing prowess in some tasks (encoding a video faster than the 1700).

As it was, I took it back to exchange for 3700X and am very glad I did. Processing a video a couple minutes faster just wasn't enough to overcome the hitch-n-go's in Windows, I would have gone back to the 1700 and wait till I had the money if I couldn't swing a 3700X at that time.
 
There may be some scenarios it could help with, but I'm not sure I'd never mess with affinity for general useage. Just leave the scheduler to do it's thing. It's improved a lot with Windows10 topology awareness, power plan and BIOS updates.

But speaking from experience, I went from a 1700 to a 3600 and was sorely dissappointed. Just driving Windows (I tend to have a bunch of windows open, with a ton of browser tabs in different browsers) was not nearly as smooth as it was when I had 8 cores/16 threads even though it showed it's processing prowess in some tasks (encoding a video faster than the 1700). As it was, I took it back to exchange for 3700X and am very glad I did.

Processing a video a couple minutes faster just wasn't enough to overcome the hitch-n-goes in Windows, I would have gone back to the 1700 and wait till I had the money if I couldn't swing a 3700X at that time.
If you do leave a bunch of windows open and multitask, sure. I'd suggest maybe getting a 2700 over a 3700X if you really need the 8c16t and are on a budget.
 
2 cents worth, I as a rule skip a generation, I have a great Ryzen 2700x and decided against a 3000 series CPU. 350€ for a 15% average performance bump..... aaahhh no, however when the 4000 series come and lets say there ia another 10% over the 3 series then I have a 25% performance boost. Then it may be worth it with my 2080.

The whispers and shouts are that the transistors will be more densly packed which may mean more cores but even better is the memory controller will be much improved leading to better single core speeds. AMD have the Multi thing bust wide open, I bet the 4000 series will be more about improved single core application.

Next point the 4000 series is more than likely the last to support the AM4 chipset so having one it makes sense to extend its life before a MB is needed, that said It is doutful that the 4000 chips will go back as far as the 300 boards. It may well be that anything under a 450f will not be able to run the 4000. This is of course speculation, nobody knows for sure.

For me in my situation I will wait.
 
I am a bit value oriented in most things computer purchase related. IMO as far as price to performance it's impossible to beat what is being offered with the 2xxx series right now. 2700x is half the price of a 3700x right now.

If I were to build Ryzen right this moment I would build 2xxx on a mobo looking forward, nothing less than B450 of a reputable type. If there were budgetary concerns I would still recommend the R5 1xxx chips that are sub $100. Just after 4xxx releases, just as before, the prices will roughly halve.
You want to buy my Rig then? ;-)
 
2 cents worth, I as a rule skip a generation, I have a great Ryzen 2700x and decided against a 3000 series CPU. 350€ for a 15% average performance bump..... aaahhh no, however when the 4000 series come and lets say there ia another 10% over the 3 series then I have a 25% performance boost. Then it may be worth it with my 2080.
Yeah upgrading every generation is not economical at all. Even once every two generations is a bit often, but considering Zen 3 (or whatever they will call it) will probably be the last chip on AM4, it's reasonable.

The whispers and shouts are that the transistors will be more densly packed which may mean more cores but even better is the memory controller will be much improved leading to better single core speeds. AMD have the Multi thing bust wide open, I bet the 4000 series will be more about improved single core application.
This is basically the same kind of rumor that spread before 3000 series as well, and I think it's fair to say every generation will have rumors like these, so it's not really anything special. They are making improvements to single core performance, but they always have been and it's expected that they would be at this point.
 
...
Next point the 4000 series is more than likely the last to support the AM4 chipset
...
Does anyone know Ryzen 4000 will come out on AM4? and even if so, on the current chipsets? I think we're all just hoping it will...since AMD said they'd 'support' AM4 to 2020. What does that mean, 'support'? Nobody said it means 4 full generations of Zen that I know of.

I think we have a lot to learn before anyone should even be speculating on this.
 
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I think we have a lot to learn before anyone should even be speculating on this.
That is what I wrote in my post also, just to be clear..... I am not saying these things will come to pass, the only thing I am sure of is that the 4 riders of the apocalypse are coming ....on Wednesday..... at 7.30am....
Next point the 4000 series is more than likely the last to support the AM4 chipset so having one it makes sense to extend its life before a MB is needed, that said It is doutful that the 4000 chips will go back as far as the 300 boards. It may well be that anything under a 450f will not be able to run the 4000. This is of course speculation, nobody knows for sure.

For me in my situation I will wait.
 
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eli150

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For playing games, the slightly better performance of the 3700X is definitely not worth the extra cost over the 3600. The same is true for the 2700X and 2600. The Ryzen 7s are more oriented towards multi threaded applications. Just get a 3600 and spend the extra on a better GPU.

Next gen consoles are releasing this year with a zen 2 8 core 16 threads processor. Pretty sure this is not a rumor but a confirmed spec of Xbox series X.

If you are buying a new PC today i really don't think you should buy anything below 3700x but that is just my opinion. I think anything below might start to slow down his gpu in games after 2 or 3 years.
 
Next gen consoles are releasing this year with a zen 2 8 core 16 threads processor. Pretty sure this is not a rumor but a confirmed spec of Xbox series X.

If you are buying a new PC today i really don't think you should buy anything below 3700x but that is just my opinion. I think anything below might start to slow down his gpu in games after 2 or 3 years.
In two to three years the GPU will probably be equally worsened. A 1070 Ti nowadays is about the same performance as a 1660 Ti, and most people don't have issues with pairing a 1660 Ti with a Ryzen 5 or even Ryzen 3 2nd or 1st gen.
Anyways the difference between 3700X and 3600 would probably make the 3700X obsolete in only a year or two more than the 3600. The IPC is the same, which is what most games depend on. IPC is what improves over generations.