Massive thanks to everyone, we did it. I've shown him this thread and he decided to wait for the reviews to see what Zen 2 brings to the table!
I'm really glad to see and read this question has Not gone to a typical Amd vs Intel back and forth feud that has gone on and on for years.
Yes setting back and waiting for bugs or kinks to get worked out is good and lets the market restabilize.
You and your friend are going to have to sit down and go through the component jungle to figue out what exactly fits in that $1500.00 budget.
He may not know the tech but you evidently have some knowledge.
If this system is from ground 0 case and components to win 10 build you know that a decision has to be made onboard video or video card which could be a good portion of his budget and maybe not get him to his High End Expectations.
Make up some builds on pcpartspicker intel and amd based then use say userbench build and comparing each to give him some kind of an (Idea) what he can get for his budget.
Let him see for himself the numbers and the graphs for the builds.
I know Userbench IS NOT THE ALL MIGHTY but in this case it may help a little.
Good Luck.
Good Building
Me too, I'm glad we kept it civil and free of fanboyism. Now we'll have all kinds of options to consider. I am hoping to somehow squeeze in a 2080/1080Ti for him along with an 8-core chip. I'd prefer a 20 series card for that amazing new NVEC encoder. As others have said, Ryzen 2600 and 2700 will probably get price cuts so I'll definitely look at those, and of course the 3700x. I hope Intel will be smart enough to cut prices on the 9700(k) and 9900(k) and if so, those are on the table, too. I can't wait to see the single core performance of Zen2. I really hope this time around AMD will be a more viable option for high refresh rate gaming (he already has a 144hz monitor and besides AAA titles, he plays e-sports titles like Overwatch and a lot of LoL).
Agreed. While I lean in the Ryzen direction for now, even if Intel were the choice, I'd absolutely insist on backing down from the 9900k to maybe the 9900, 9700k, or 9700, for example.
Agreed, although I feel like once Zen2 is out, 9th gen chips will only make sense if they get a price cut. We'll have to wait for the reviews to know for sure though. The problem is, I can't seem to find the non-k versions for sale (9900, 9700). Does this have to do with the shortages maybe? i am not sure. I saw the 9600 for sale, but if we went with that chip (which we almost certainly will not) I would want that k at the end so we can push it a bit if 6 cores become restricting in the future. I am using a 6-core chip (1650v2@4.7 GHz) and can confirm that even Overwatch maxes out 6 threads if you push high frame rates (250+). I tested this by turning HT off and all 6 cores were pegged at 100% for the entire session with nothing running in the background. Granted, it is an older Ivy Bridge-E chip, but that does not affect the number of threads the game utilizes.
While I personally agree that a Ryzen 3 series will be better value and worth the wait I also disagree with the thought that buying intel is stupid. People are entitled to personal preference.
For most gamers the honest truth is that it doesn't really matter. Any i5 or i7 or ryzen 5 or ryzen 7 from the current models will game and stream very well and your friend will likely be very happy with any of them.
He would also be happy with the newer Ryzens if he waited I'm sure.
A possible exception is for someone who wants very high refresh games on a budget. Waiting might be the right choice in that case. High refresh gamers have typically stuck with intel for it's higher gaming performance and until we see figures for the new Ryzens that is still the truth of it. For anyone else it's far less important.
I've been with intel since the core 2 series came out but last year replaced my i7 6700K with a Ryzen 2700X and while I'm very happy with it for the games I play it proved to not feel like an upgrade at all. Games either play the same or in some cases slightly worse than on my 3 year old i7. Streaming would make a difference of course, most of the time I have a bunch of unused cores doing practically nothing and feel like I should have gone for a 6 core. My thought is over time the extra cores will come in handy though.
I disagree with you on this one. Brand preference in PC parts is objectively not reasonable, unless we are talking about graphics card or mobo OEMs, where looks and features come into play to a degree. Don't get me wrong: preference for, say, single core performance or core count or better power efficiency are not stupid, those are absolutely reasonable factors to consider when looking it parts to fit your particular use case. But saying I buy this because it is [insert chip maker] is just not reasonable, it never is.
Regarding your switch to the 2700x, it is kind of obvious it was not going to be a proper upgrade. Generally speaking, single core performance is still king in gaming and Skylake is better at that than Zen and Zen+ was (and by extension, 7th, 8th and 9th gen chips too, since they are essentially just Skylake). If you had a 6600k though, in many titles it would have been an entirely different story as games are starting to make use of more threads. Watch the Hardware Unboxed video I posted earlier in this thread, interesting perspective.