Upgrading My PC

[Graf Zahl]

No. Vulkan is the next generation API from the maintainers of OpenGL. Most of it was developed by AMD. Unfortunately their own hardware seems to be the prime reason why it got more complicated than preferable.

But we again get into the same situation as with OpenGL: NVidia simply has better driver programmers.

[Darkcrafter]

I was always wondering why AMD is kind of gimmick to nVidia and Intel? I have never seen AMD hardware installed in any government organization like medical or even military, should it mean something about reliability or something else of that kind?

Here is AMD's new Ryzen 5 3600 CPU compared to Intel's Core i7-8700k
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/I ... 3937vs4040

One might say that 3600 is equivalent to 8700k but as soon as they scroll the specs page down it's easy to find out that 8700k still outperforms 3600 by 7 to 20% margin be it integer calculation speed or floating point operations for one core. A 7nm processor which is AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 doesn't outperform a 14nm Intel 8700k? But it's still very nice that a 200$ CPU can successfuly compete with a 400$ one because it had to compete with Intel 9400 which is 209$.

Ot the other hand AMD allows building a PC with similar performance for less, that's why I got an all AMD one.

[Graf Zahl]

AMD's hardware was never the problem - but their bad drivers have always held them back. Considering that outside gaming OpenGL is the dominant graphics API it's just grossly negligent to provide a sub-par solution for it.

[dpJudas]

Here is AMD's new Ryzen 5 3600 CPU compared to Intel's Core i7-8700k

Why are you comparing a Ryzen 5 against an i7? You should be comparing a Ryzen 7 against an i7, or a Ryzen 5 against an i5.

In any case, it is well known that Intel still has a lead in IPC (instructions per clock), while AMD now leads in core count. Unfortunately for Intel their chips have been revealed to use a lot of optimizations that aren't safe and once you turn the mitigations against that on their lead in IPC is gone.

[Darkcrafter]

AMD's hardware was never the problem - but their bad drivers have always held them back. Considering that outside gaming OpenGL is the dominant graphics API it's just grossly negligent to provide a sub-par solution for it.

That's wierd they mess up the drivers, but to me it seems like this is what they decided to save budget on. I can't remember having any overheating or crashing problems with AMD; if I'm not mistaken I had AMD K-5 CPU clocked at 133MHz and I can swear it could run Quake smooth under Windows 98 SE with just 16MB RAM, and it worked even faster under Windows 95 OSR2. Then I had AMD Athlon x2 64 5000+ and used it for 3d rendering (what a maniac I am) so the CPU utilization was 100% for constant 10 hours per day load in the summer whereas average room temperature was at 35C and everything worked with a killed cooler - this thing still works as an "office" machine even allowing watching YouTube at 720p in 60FPS, yet the CPU load gets 100% for all 2 cores.

Here is AMD's new Ryzen 5 3600 CPU compared to Intel's Core i7-8700k

Why are you comparing a Ryzen 5 against an i7? You should be comparing a Ryzen 7 against an i7, or a Ryzen 5 against an i5...

I thought they come really close performance wise even if they have different index which is an abstraction?

...In any case, it is well known that Intel still has a lead in IPC (instructions per clock), while AMD now leads in core count. Unfortunately for Intel their chips have been revealed to use a lot of optimizations that aren't safe and once you turn the mitigations against that on their lead in IPC is gone.

Hm...that's interesting. Security is important but not for an average gamer that doesn't use computer to produce any content or working with any secret stuff. But since AMD isn't just choice of gamers (don't gamers still prefer Intel CPUs?) I can only cheer on their decision on a better security.

[Dancso]

their decision on a better security.

We don't really know how much effort they're putting into security. It could be that their flaws aren't so often revealed because there are fewer people using AMD.
Although their graphics cards are the major reason for their infamy, that doesn't mean their CPUs have been without issues. Athlon x2 cpus had this issue back on Windows XP where the timer on the cores would be out of sync, causing some games to interpret negative time between certain frames, resulting in weird jitters. They had a weird fix for it I think, but yeah, not a good look.
Also unpleasant to learn how their bulldozer line of cpus didn't have full individual cores.

[Chris]

Security is important but not for an average gamer that doesn't use computer to produce any content or working with any secret stuff.

Security is important for any computer connected to the internet. Spectre and Meltdown could be exploited by javascript, for instance, and from there they can get passwords for your bank or credit card accounts if you have your passwords saved (and even if not, keeping yourself open to remote code execution is just asking to be part of a botnet, slowing down your computer and being used to crack into other peoples').

[dpJudas]

I thought they come really close performance wise even if they have different index which is an abstraction?

The category the CPU belongs to is important as otherwise I could just have taken a lower performing Intel CPU (i.e. an i3) and use that proof that AMD is faster. Speaking of abstractions, their nm numbers can't be directly compared either - each foundry uses a different definition of what the size is measuring. Just like their TDP wattage numbers can't be directly compared.

Hm...that's interesting. Security is important but not for an average gamer that doesn't use computer to produce any content or working with any secret stuff. But since AMD isn't just choice of gamers (don't gamers still prefer Intel CPUs?) I can only cheer on their decision on a better security.

Sure, the average gamer doesn't care, but the point is that while AMD CPU's has been garbage since after the Athlon 64 they are finally competitive again. Intel gives you ~20% better performance on single core, AMD gives you more cores for the same amount of cash. Which is better greatly depends on what you're running. For most dedicated gamers the Intel still wins, but you typically pay twice the price now and get a slower CPU for some workloads.

@Dansco: the AMD CPUs are quite popular in cloud datacenters where those exploits hit the hardest. The researchers that found the Intel bugs were also looking for (and found a few less fatal ones) for AMD and ARM. As of today, in a cloud setup, the Intel CPUs are slower than AMD while being more expensive too. Nobody knows what happens in the future.

[Darkcrafter]

Well, I watched AMD's live show a few hours ago and they demonstrated that their 12 core cpu absolutely destroys i9 9900k in streaming games in the high quality codec at 10000kb/s bitrate, but somehow I don't believe that. 3900x only has a 105W TDP (9900k is 95W and 7920x is 140W). But AMDs new X570 chipset will probably heat up in the VRM zone on motherboard more than their previous chipsets, so their mobos will likely get additional cooling fan that would be sometimes completely turned off if the CPU usage isn't high enough. Btw I also watched an interview (it was conducted by a russian youtube channel) where AMD told that their 12nm isn't actually physically 12nm, it's enhanced 14nm instead.

This is a very interesting video comparing ryzen to core i7 in quake 2 software renderer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN5mxFfkr7g

[Darkcrafter]

What I'd like to add. I own Ryzen 5 1600 CPU and when I mix and track music it can't handle a required amount of plug-ins and it can't work without crackling and freezes in a low latency mode which any musician need, yet the cpu usage is reported low (2-12% per a thread), and I'm starting to feel like I got scammed and highly regret the purchase of that processor. What could be the reason? I don't want to know, what I want is to get a good performance out of the box if I pay for stuff. I either don't care how their cpu destroys intel i9 in streaming if their thing can't work with audio processing in real-time. I tried disabling SMT and it became even worse, according to cpu-z bench single thread performance increases up to 15% compared to smt on mode, but multithreading score is 30% lower. This CPU is pretty good at 3d rendering though, but who needs a cpu rendering in 2019 when almost any renderer has a gpu mode that is dramatically faster for usual scenarios. What to say if even my old amd 6770 gpu is 1.5x faster than this processor at 3d rendering, graphics processing and video rendering.

[wildweasel]

What program are you using?

[Darkcrafter]

FL Studio 10 or even modern 20 won't work smooth, yet they both utilize all threads, but even disabling "use multithreaded processing" works like a semi decent solution, sometimes it still lag. I usually use 4 instances of my guitar amp sims in stereo mode e.g double cpu consumption for every one of those, e.g 8 instances. Even on an offline audio processing: http://isse.sourceforge.net/ this thing would have just 50% load by a thread and I still can't comfortably watch 1080p at 60 fps on youtube anymore. Seems like I don't need this mysterious huge CPU overkill if it doesn't help at all.

[wildweasel]

Or it could be other factors at work. Maybe there's a bottleneck somewhere else in your setup.

[Darkcrafter]

That's really weird, I have benchmarked my CPU to the others on the web using several tools and it's on the top list between them. May that be my RAM which is just one stick of G.Skill 2400MHz 8Gb, but I highly doubt it's because of RAM because it's just 2 gigs used by the app. This CPU is even 3.4GHz overclocked on all cores and I'm using ASRock AB350 HDV mobo here. That's also strange because FL Studio reports 80% CPU load but it doesn't completely freeze even when counter is on 100% whereas core temp and task manager show significantly less load, the temperature is also just 40c whereas I got 37 in standby. So that's why I came to conclusion that this CPU isn't great even if it has that huge overkill, I'd rather have 90% load but with smooth experience.

[wildweasel]

It is also possible that FL Studio just isn't very fast and doesn't harness the power that your machine provides, or even that the four guitar amp simulators are just too demanding to be used in real time. Try running a benchmark like Furmark to get a real idea of how good the CPU is.