Should I go Ryzen 7 1700 or i7 7700k?

[HylianKnight]

Yes, it is another one of these questions. Of course, we all demand somewhat different things out of our pcs. I think it is finally time to build a new rig. My current desktop is an older i7 920 do paired with a gtx 680 gpu. I thought I had my parts list complete for my new rig but I just had to go read more about the Ryzen 7 cpus. I was planning on going with an msi pro carbon z270 board with an i7 7700k paired with a gtx 1080 ti. I mostly use the computer to game but I will also be doing GIS work on it. So this brings me to the question that has been asked a million times, do I go intel or amd for the CPU? If AMD then I would obviously look for a new board. One final thought, I will be playing games in 1080p for a little while longer but intend on getting a new monitor in the near future that supports at least 1440p.

 

[chemmajorp53]

Not to be mean, but this question has already been answered probably a hundred times on this forum. Use the search feature

 

[HylianKnight]

Actually, I did use the search and couldn't find a question that pertained to Ryzen 7, gaming, and ArcGIS products. If you can find a question and answer that addresses all three of my concerns, please post it.

 

[mdd1963]

I know nothing of ArcGIS....

Find out if it scales well with more cores... (Are there ArcGIS forums)

Unless it is something done *while* gaming, the 7700K fares well in all gaming comparisons....

If this is a work computer where ArcGIS scales well with lots of cores, perhaps 1700 might prevail.

 

[HylianKnight]

I've got a post on a GIS forum as well, so thank you. I like the idea of an affordable 8 core processor but my understanding is that the Ryzen chipsets are plagued with issues atm, some of whicH I suspect I hardware related. Thing is, I only hear people talking about the software side of things (bios updates).

 

[HylianKnight]

Intel has force my hand. I found out people are having to delid their 7700k to alleviate heat issues caused by The glue intel used. This was a real turn off for me and has me choosing Ryzen. Plus, I'll be supporting competition, which is always good for us consumers. Intel has been a bit stale for quite some time now too.

 

[trippcor]

Let me know how this worked. I too use ArcGIS and do some gaming. Thinking of upgrading my system and was considering the AMD Ryzen chip. With ArcGIS Pro now supporting hyperthreading, 3D Mapping and being 64 bit, I think it will couple well with the Ryzen.

Intel has force my hand. I found out people are having to delid their 7700k to alleviate heat issues caused by The glue intel used. This was a real turn off for me and has me choosing Ryzen. Plus, I'll be supporting competition, which is always good for us consumers. Intel has been a bit stale for quite some time now too.

 

[dudeman509]

ArcGIS is horribly optimized and typically benefits from high single-thread performance (Intel). Most of the code is really old and does not scale to multiple threads/cores very well.

ArcGIS Pro scales a little bit more well to multiple cores.

Gaming is a wash unless you're running a 1080ti.

 

[trippcor]

Thanks Dudeman509. You are dead on about the old ArcGIS Desktop being horribly optimized and better with a single thread. It is an old code base going back to 1999. Esri has not done much to make it better suited to modern computer hardware. It is still only a 32 bit application at its core. The 64 bit geoprocessing patch helps some for analysis. But that does nothing for the overall performance and rendering. From a GIS prospective it is still a very powerful tool with a large user base.

I was thinking more about ArcGIS Pro which will be replacing the older ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcCatalog). It is a 64 bit application which will make use of multiple cores. It is a RAM hog as well. It is also designed to make use of a GPU. Esri strongly recommends having a standalone video card which is a first for them. I can tell you from experience you can certainly see a difference when rendering a 3D map. In general I find that ArcGIS Pro runs circles around the older ArcGIS Desktop so I am using it more and more. So wondering if it will run better on AMD or Intel or if it matters?

 

[dudeman509]

Thanks Dudeman509. You are dead on about the old ArcGIS Desktop being horribly optimized and better with a single thread. It is an old code base going back to 1999. Esri has not done much to make it better suited to modern computer hardware. It is still only a 32 bit application at its core. The 64 bit geoprocessing patch helps some for analysis. But that does nothing for the overall performance and rendering. From a GIS prospective it is still a very powerful tool with a large user base.

I was thinking more about ArcGIS Pro which will be replacing the older ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcCatalog). It is a 64 bit application which will make use of multiple cores. It is a RAM hog as well. It is also designed to make use of a GPU. Esri strongly recommends having a standalone video card which is a first for them. I can tell you from experience you can certainly see a difference when rendering a 3D map. In general I find that ArcGIS Pro runs circles around the older ArcGIS Desktop so I am using it more and more. So wondering if it will run better on AMD or Intel or if it matters?

We run it on i7 laptops and I find that it still doesn't use all available CPU power. Yes, the GPU definitely makes a difference in draw times - ArcGIS Desktop was a total slowpoke at draw times. It is a work in progress for sure, but at least for the geoprocessing tools that I use on a daily basis, it seems it would still benefit from the highest IPC possible rather than having lots of cores/threads available to it (we also have older 8C/16T Xeon servers that it's run on - and is quite slow).