Would it be worth switching to Ryzen?

TheDarkOne198

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I am thinking of switching to the Ryzen 5 1600, from my current setup:

CPU: Intel i5 6600K @ 4.7 GHz (can reach 4.8 GHz and be ~90% stable)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Fatal1ty Gaming K4
RAM: G.Skill Aegis 2133 MHz 16 GB
Lowest prices, via pcpartpicker, is $500.89

Being kept cool by a Noctua NH-D15, which brings the total new part value up to $589.84. IF I decided to sell these parts, I would for $400 even, without the cooler and for $450 with it. The question is, would it even be worth switching to the higher core and thread count Ryzen from an i5 that can reach 4.7 GHz? Would be getting this:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-AB350-GAMING 3 (Rev 1.0)
RAM: Patriot Viper 4 3200 MHz 8GB
Price before S&H: $404.97

All I do is game and web browse, you know, the usual stuff people do. As for the games, the most intense games I have are: Witcher 3, ME: Andromeda, Shadow of Mordor and Doom, plus a few MMOs here and there and I doubt in those games I would notice much difference but I am more interested in greater responsiveness in everyday use, specifically using my preferred browser: Firefox. I love FF but sometimes it gets sluggish as hell, with all the tabs I often have open. I know Chrome is faster in that regard but I like FF more and wonder why a quite heavily OC'd i5 still cannot handle the load, apparently and I wonder if the Ryzen 5 can handle it better or is just a failing in Firefox in general? Also, Would it be worth it to sell the NH-D15, as I don't have the AM4 mounting hardware for it? I know I can get it from Noctua but I have heard the Wraith Spire is pretty nice and can keep that CPU cool enough even at decent OCs like 3.8 or 3.9 GHz and that's pretty much the wall most Ryzen cores can reach, give or take a 100 MHz. If I sell the Noctua cooler, I could actually stand to profit from the exchange but I hate the thought of selling such a fantastic cooler, even if the Wraith Spire would be more than sufficient and the additional cooling from the NH-D15 wouldn't account for that much, maybe that additional 100 MHz, if I am lucky with the silicon lottery and I wouldn't fuss much over that small amount. So, from anyone who has swapped from an i5 6600K to Ryzen 5 1600, would it be worth the effort?
 
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I agree with others, not worth the upgrade, however...

Intel's next Gen Coffee Lake is expected in early October with quad core i3s, 6 core i5s and 6 core 12 thread i7s. That could kill the second hand value of your current system because it would only be equivalent to a modern i3. There's little doubt in my mind that a Ryzen 5 1600 will stay relevant for longer than your current i5. So strategically, depending on how confident you are of getting a good price for your i5, you could decide to "side-grade" to a Ryzen now before resale value on your current rig drops. Just to be clear, you probably wouldn't gain any tangible performance difference whatsoever right now. But if you want to pop in a new GPU in two years or so and tackle new and demanding AAA titles, it's **likely** that the Ryzen 5 system will hold up better than your current 4-threaded i5. All-in-all though, you'd be side-grading, investing a load of time and possibly additional cash on something that won't matter at all now, and only **might** be worthwhile in the future. Probably not a good choice for most people. But could be justified depending on your priorities.
 

TheDarkOne198

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That is exactly my worry. Soon, the quad core is going to be considered low end and everything will be moving onwards to using more cores/threads. Furthermore, Coffee Lake is thought to not be compatible with the motherboards that are prior to it, namely Z170 and Z270. Or maybe it is just Z170. Keeping this in mind, The only upgrade I could have now would be the marginal increase to Kaby Lake, although an i7 would get me better multi core, the single core would likely be about the same while the Ryzen 5 blows an i7 away in multicore. However, a Ryzen that is OC'd and paired with really fast memory comes pretty close to matching the single core of Intel. I feel Ryzen would be a more "future proof", as redundant as that term tends to be, than my current Z170 setup. I would be able to upgrade to either the Ryzen 7 in the future or to the "Zen+" refinement in the future. Furthermore, I won't be able to sell what I have now until a few months of saving for what I will buy, as I do not want to be sans computer for any length of time and I hope Coffee Lake doesn't come out by then and undercut me. I still think I can break even or even make back some decent money pairing the Noctua cooler, despite how much I love it. I also forgot to mention that Ryzen was what I wanted months ago but was forced into upgrading at the moment, due to hardware failures. It feels like Ryzen taunts me. I know it would probably be a side grade, yes. But, I do feel it would be more worth it in the future. More cores and threads are going to become the norm, soon. I do not want to be left behind. If Coffee Lake could just be slotted into my Z170 board and work, I would not need to worry, but alas...
 

If you have to wait 2 months or so to get your budget together then the decision is really made for you, isn't it? Coffee Lake will very likely be out by then. So you'll be able to see what that does to the second hand value of your current rig and make a decision then.

Honestly though, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You've got a solid rig right now, it'll run everything you want it to now and probably for years yet. Sure, maybe in two years when you come to upgrade the GPU, you find that you need a new CPU + Mobo too, and wish you'd made some different decisions when you got the PC. But hey, as @lumineZ says, welcome to world of computer hardware! And anyway, your current rig will still be worth something second hand, it won't be worthless, and the new CPU + Mobo you buy then will no doubt be better than the Ryzen 5 you can buy now. Maybe it'll last two years more, so in the long run you're spending similar money.

Speaking generally, because things can be hard to predict, it's usually only worth spending money on upgrades when you actually need upgrades.
 
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goldstone77

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You reasons sound crazy to me because I have absolutely no problem with those tasks and I have a i5 2500K! I click and it opens in less than a second. Alternately, you may want to try windows search>msconfig>Services>check hide all Microsoft services, and then check Disable all>click apply and restart your computer. See if that fixes your problems. Also, open task manager and watch to see if you can notice anything that is consuming a lot of resources when you are using FF. Also, if you are not running Ccleaner, start running it helps! Let me know what happens.
 

TheDarkOne198

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@rhysiam: thanks, I will probably keep what I have then. My i5 and RX 480 8GB seems pretty nicely matched now,I suppose.

@goldstone77: IDK why FF gets slow,although I do leave it open for very long stretches of time,usually with paused youtube vids and gmail and also have any extensions I don't want,turned off. As for the MSCONFIG tip,with Windows 10 you have to use task manager and I already have everything I want to be disabled,turned off and as for CCleaner,I have it. I clean with it regularly and have for years,haha. Thank you for your advice though.
 
I agree with the others that it is probably better to hold off. The vast majority of today's games won't really benefit from the additional cores and threads of the Ryzen 1600, and the 6600k should still offer better per-core performance. A 6600k is still a higher-priced chip than a 1600, after all. If this were a system being built new, Ryzen might be worth considering, but as you already have the system, it would be more of a side-grade than anything. I would at least wait to see how the Coffee Lake i5's turn out in a couple months, since with those you'll likely get higher per-core performance combined with the additional cores. There may even be some price drops on the Ryzens as well, if Intel's options perform better at a given price point.
 

goldstone77

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I make that suggestion, because when you shut off all the programs you can test to see if you can narrow down what is actually causing the problem, and come up with a solution from there. I typically have 15-20 webpages open with various task on them(constant streaming(refreshing) messages, stock prices. While I'm trading stocks during the day. I use 2 separate programs with 10 different windows open at one time monitoring stocks in real times with multitude of indicators. This computer handles it all with no problems, which is why I haven't upgraded yet. You issue has to be fairly easy to find the root cause of if you put a little effort into it.

Also, 10nm Intel isn't far away in 2018 before you think about 14++. And Ryzen 7nm is very close 2018-2019. It's not a good time to upgrade while the war is going strong!