SHOULD i wait for AMD zen cpus?

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Question is simple should i or not since im trying to go for a gtx 1060 6gb turbo from asus. I originally wanted to go for an i3-6100 skylake and gtx 1060 6gb but then it got me thinking should i wait for the amd zen. Also i know that it bottlenecks the 1060 6gb so please no feedback on that since i didnt have money to go for a i5-6500 back then i just made a plan to collect enough for an i3-6100. Also would like to question if i would go for an i3-6100 then should i buy the 1050 ti or no? What graphics card to go for if to be put together with amd zen or i3-6100 because i dont have more money.
 
Solution
Zen isn't likely to launch in the low budget range initially, what we're likely to see in January are the 8 core and maybe 4 core/8 thread chips, all of which are certainly going to be more expensive than the i3 6100. The best case scenario for you is if Zen turns out well and the 4 core chips are competitively priced is that maybe it will drive the price of the i5 6500 down a bit.

As for GPU, I'd get the 1060 6GB over the 1050Ti, even with the i3 6100. Yes there will be a bit of a bottleneck in some of the more CPU heavy games out there, but the 1060 will still perform a lot better than the 1050Ti would with the same CPU.
Zen isn't likely to launch in the low budget range initially, what we're likely to see in January are the 8 core and maybe 4 core/8 thread chips, all of which are certainly going to be more expensive than the i3 6100. The best case scenario for you is if Zen turns out well and the 4 core chips are competitively priced is that maybe it will drive the price of the i5 6500 down a bit.

As for GPU, I'd get the 1060 6GB over the 1050Ti, even with the i3 6100. Yes there will be a bit of a bottleneck in some of the more CPU heavy games out there, but the 1060 will still perform a lot better than the 1050Ti would with the same CPU.
 
Solution


We don't really know he performance for Zen yet and won't until the chips get reviewed, which probably won't be until January. AMD is doing a reveal event on Tuesday which might offer some more information. Either way, your budget means you won't be able to afford any of the new AMD chips unless you're willing to wait a while for the lower end offerings, the initial release is likely to be high end $200+ CPUs only.

As for the GTX 1060 vs RX 480, they're similarly performing cards. The GTX 1060 is better in DirectX 11 titles, eg. the stuff from the past few years. The RX 480 is a bit better in DirectX 12 and Vulkan titles, but there aren't a huge number of games that support either of those yet, and a lot of the games that do support DirectX 12 have problems in that mode, often to the point that the game performs better in DirectX 11 mode, eg. Rise of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield 1, and Quantum Break.
The RX 480 might be the better long term choice, though for right now it's going to depend on what you're playing. If you're buying this PC mainly to play Grand Theft Auto V or Witcher 3 or any other game from a year or two ago, you might be better off with the 1060.
 


man was looking for this stuff since i was thinking of future proofing more but since i play a lot of past few years games id go for the 1060 6gb thank you
 
Well, remember the AMD FX-8XXX series. Yeah, right now they're outdated and slow, but when they came out, for $150, you could not have gotten a better budget CPU in 2011. I expect the Zen series to be like this as well, and take budget gaming away from the Skylake i3 and i5's. That's just me, though. You never know what can happen. But from experience, AMD generally always has better price/performance than Intel in same-price and same-age products (Not comparing a 5 year-old CPU with a 5-year old price to a 1-year old CPU with a 1-year old price).

Between the RX 480 and GTX 1060, I would again go for AMD. Nvidia's drivers have been MASSIVELY worsening, while AMD's have been getting massively better. The RX 480 has also shown to get better with newer games and driver updates, and beat the 1060 in DX12. In the near future, when DX12 gets more popular, the RX 480 would be even faster. Yes, in a few games, the 1060 does beat the RX 480, but the difference in fps is minimal, and would be worth in the long term.
 


If the RX 480 is cheaper for you, then get AMD. I'm very happy with it personally.
 
I am, I was recently looking to build a new gaming computer and weighed my options. With a reasonable budget in mind I could have gone a bit higher, but I opted to get the same card you are speaking of, 6gb ROG STRIX edition 1060, i paired that with an AMD 6300 (I know, old), but once overclocking the hell out of it with a Gammax 400 I managed to utilize every bit of the graphics card and all for a reasonable price. I deliberately did so, since I need a gaming PC, but love AMD regardless of the hard times, so I am going to be waiting for Zen. the Summit Ridge series has set a lot of promises, and recent events hint that a product at all 3 levels will be rolling out in early 2017. the S7 is expected to punch some pretty serious numbers. Worst case scenario, you wait and end up back with your original plan just a couple months down the road since Zen is expected to unveil more transparently at CES and available in some capacity around January 17th.
 


Just because YOU 'love AMD' doesn't mean it's going to be the best option, we know nothing official right now, much of what you have stated is speculation polished to look like fact.

OP, all you can do is wait.
 
nah i think he meant its gonna be future proof if u go for amd zen if the price is right and the performance is better. AMD is probally gonna release more zen cores so think about that as a topic rather than just going for the intel skylake to upgrade wich branch is already done. low budget i3-6100 will still pack a punch after the zen though it just comes down to the price since amd said that zen will outperform i3's on the budget friendly side
 
I agree, what I meant to say in short is that, since we "expect" something to happen in January, it would not be a bad idea to wait a short time and see how they do, even if you end up with the intel build. Worst case scenario you waste a month of waiting for a let down, best case you end up with a much more powerful and more affordable option.
 


definitely, given it is so close, worst case it merely shakes the prices up.
 


Well, they promised with the RX 480, and they delivered, so I don't see why Zen should be less than they say it is. The last thing they want to do is end up like No Man's Sky.

The early FX's did kick but... You have to realize that those 8-core processors, in 2011, cost $150. For $150 in 2011, the best you could do is a slow dual-core i3 that could barely handle games, and would have to be replaced within a year or two.

I built my previous PC in 2012, for $525, it had an FX-8120, 16gb ram, and a 2gb GT 640. It was working fine, playing most games at medium settings, until I sold it 4 months ago. You simply can't say the same about a $525 intel rig from 2012, which would likely currently have a huge CPU bottleneck to a point where you can't even play anything.

Right now, I obviously would ignore the FX series, as they're outdated, but I don't see why people see them as a disappointment, as they beat Intel in the budget line for around two years if not more, like they said they would. I'm not an AMD fanboy or anything, but I've never seen AMD under-deliver what they said it would deliver.
 


8 core processors in 2011 weren't particularly useful to most people, the software simply didn't scale that well outside of a small number of productivity applications that were generally niche products outside of the professional workstation environment. For most users running software that only used 4 cores or less, Bulldozer was actually worse than Phenom II, with the Bulldozer FX CPUs only barely matching the Phenom IIs in lightly threaded tasks due to having more overclocking headroom. Piledriver was at least not worse than Phenom II in less heavily threaded software, but it was still vastly inferior to Intel's offerings in that regard.

The FX CPUs also started pricey, the FX 8150 initially sold for around $250. AMD had to slash the price due to reviews absolutely destroying the chips due to them losing most benchmarks to the $200 i5s or even $100 i3s in some cases. Really the FX CPUs didn't kick butt unless your only concern was building a video editing workstation or virtualization server for as cheap as possible without buying used hardware.