All these nice graphs, but only few publications get that an indicator towards "better" (more points, fewer milliseconds, more fps, fewer watts) greatly improves comprehension speed, especially when multiple graphs using different metrics are used.
These are fairly easy to comprehend, as they are sorted from best (at the top) to worst (at the bottom). Having an indicator would be nice, but since all the graphs are sorted, it's fairly obvious.
The one at the top is best, so if the top one has the shortest bar then shorter is better. If the top one has the longest bar then longer is better. Plus it says in the title of each graph which way is better.
But really, the best way to read the graphs is to look at the labels on the left and see the ranking. You can glance at the bars to get an idea of the magnitude of the difference, but these graphs are really designed to emphasize the ranking.
Absolutely. Compiling scales well across threads, especially with solid state drives.
Even piledriver had this advantage, at least considering the price over the last several years. My FX-8320e was ~$120 when I got it a couple years ago, and overclocked to 4.1ghz without any difficulty. Sure, the IPC is not great, but with 8 threads at that price, it's been well worth it. I won't be upgrading this system for a while, and by then I will almost definitely be going to Ryzen.
The good thing about buying a slightly higher-end CPU is that it will last you for quite a few years. I got my CPU close to its release (2009) and don't feel like I am missing out on anything.
Furhtermore turns out that the Ryzen 5 matches the price that my current CPU is selling for at the moment. I have an Intel i7 860 (1st gen). I still don't think that I would benefit from upgrading at this point.
Of course, I use my system mostly just for writing code. Friends of me who are into computer animation and design follow changes in the hardware world more closely than I do. (And gamers as well).
This is true in a different way as well: the $135 off lease Dell T1600 workstation I bought on eBay with an E3 1245 (v1 / Sandy Bridge) CPU still decently compares to a Kaby Lake i5 and so the price/value is sky high. I didn't just get the CPU but also motherboard, RAM, PSU, chassis.
Mid 2013 I built my current workstation with the E3-1245 v3 ($290) that had just come out, maxed the ram out at 32GB. Been rock solid, great performer and expect to be using it for quite a few years more. The prior system was an again maxed out at the time dual pentium-pro that I kept kicking for 10 years.
Everyone has different values, but for me maximizing the time a system is viable and my work environment is stable is most important; I'll pass on the latest shiny until absolutely needed.
I agree. Still running a Phenom XII 940. Of course I've been upgrading the HDD all along (went through a Raptor, a VelociRaptor, an early 80GB SSD and finally a 256GB Samsung), and put in a new video card about four years ago (don't play latest games, anyway.)
The Phenom cost me... $220. So the Ryzen 5 1600 has my name written all over it. But really, it would just make some things I do on my computer a little quicker. It would not have the profound effect that switching to an SSD did, in my opinion. I'll let the idea bake for a while.
I'm the same - Phenom II, upgraded to SSD and new graphics but that's it.
When you say this has your name written on it, are they socket compatible? The idea of changing motherboards/ memory etc isn't compelling - I'd just get a new system - but if you can drop these in then it's really tempting.
You mean Phenom II right? I have Phenom II X4 925 from 6 years ago. On the same boat. To think that I worked on Ryzen performance while it was being developed/brought up. I'm a bit emotional but still not pulling the trigger.
I'm running a Phenom II 1055T (x6). It actually seems to be ok for pretty much everything, including gaming at 1440p (I've upgraded the GPU 3 times and am currently running a GTX 1070, 16GB of RAM, and an SSD). Not bad for a system that's almost 7 years old.
The only issue is that I tried using the Oculus, and it won't work. Apparently the CPU doesn't have some instructions required for VR. I tried using a hacked version of the Oculus setup program that bypasses the CPU check, but it still won't work.
Which is why I've been thinking about a Ryzen 5...
I'm running a Phenom II X4 965 and I have yet to feel limited by CPU speed. Really snappy for everything I do. This is a 2009 CPU. To put that in perspective, that is like using a 486 DX4/100 in 2002, when the state of the art was Pentium 4's at 3 GHz. Pretty amazing, actually.
Yeah I upgraded other parts of my machine as well - just did not feel the need to touch the CPU. And actually, I had 8GB of RAM when it started out and I did not change that either. 8GB still runs fine for me.
I should switch to a 256GB SSD as well though, that is on my list of things I want to upgrade.
Well yeah, for writing code you might as well use decade old CPU and it wouldn't really matter. Only compile times would suffer.
If you use more performance-critical applications I think the best way to future-proof would be to buy an "unlocked" CPU that you'll be able to overclock when you want to juice out a bit more power (maybe at the cost of a better cooling system). At least that's what I do.
I have built computers with the intention of overclocking down the road but never got around to it. If you are going to overclock then do it with the intention of doing from the get go. Historically, are unlocked CPU's more expensive than locked CPU's?
I have an i7 860 as well. I've added 32GB RAM, a new 1050 (cheap, but very fast for what I do with it, panoramic stitching.)
The 860 is feeling a little sluggish these days for me. My laptop is about as fast... I'm excited about the jump once I decide to upgrade though and I've pretty decided that if it isn't a 2x improvement it's not worth jumping.
If you really want bang for your buck, the non-X variants of the Ryzen chips are completely unlocked. So you can overclock/overvolt the chip to get within 3-5% performance of the high end model.
Right now, I think the Ryzen 1700 with some overclocking is the best deal in the market. The R5 1600 and 1400 might be similar.
Agreed. I went with a 1700, and clocked it the same as an 1800X, saved $170 for effectively the same performance. The thing is a beast, for really cheap.
The performance is lasting just fine for me as well. I've kept up with a couple SSD upgrades and stupid-cheap DDR3 RAM. But my performance bottleneck has always been storage, and the current champion (and next upgrade for me) is a PCIe SSD using NVMe. And old processors just don't support that.
That's always the trick - whats the best bang for a buck while still future proofing. I'm still using my Q6600 doing development and playing the occasional game. Maybe the 1600 now to keep it at the 65W level.
Just to mirror your point, my desktop and main work computer has an i5 750 (2009). There hasn't been a single reason for me to replace it, unless it dies. It's an excellent processor and does everything I need it to do.
I also have an i7 7th gen in my laptop, to be honest there is no noticable difference between the two for my use cases.
FWIW a Skylake laptop chip still felt "slower" to me than an i7 2600k, which is several generations behind. In my case I know the Skylake chip is being throttled (XPS 9350 runs hot)
Yeah but all the other components on your motherboard will become outdated. Every few years you'd probably want a mobo with the latest memory and storage support.
TL;DR: Intel is still faster for single-threaded tasks, but the AMD with all its cores and threads demolishes on parallel work loads. It doesn't lag far behind on single threaded performance either, so overall it's a big winner unless your application is stubbornly dependent on single threaded performance.
I'm extremely excited for a competitive AMD again. Hats off to Lisa Su for turning around a fallen company.
Just to make my wants clearer, I would love to have a Ryzen-based APU in a NUC like form factor. I have a 6th gen Intel i5 NUC, but would happily scrap it for a graphics system that plays nicer with linux.
> but would happily scrap it for a graphics system that plays nicer with linux.
Interesting -- Intel integrated graphics have always been the gold standard for graphics systems that play nicely with Linux (and other open source systems). As far as I know, they're still the only vendor with complete documentation.
That's true, although I have had a bunch of problems (mostly related to not being on kernel 4.9 yet, so kinda my fault?). I guess what I really should have said is that I want is the combination of good graphics performance with good Linux support. Iris is definitely a step up from Intel's past performance, but it's still not good.
AMD has been going through this cycle of down-and-turnaround for decades now. They tend to be like Microsoft OSes in that every other CPU architecture is the one that does really well, giving Intel some trouble... until Intel decides to crush AMD with lower prices and existing OEM/supplier relationships.
Give it a couple years, AMD stock will be back down pushing new lows, at which point you can scoop up some shares and ride it out a few years for the next big win. AMD sticks around moreso because Intel needs them to exist, otherwise Intel would be a straight monopoly.
It hasn't been a cycle in forever, only down down down. AMD has not been relevant in high performance consumer computers for about a decade! (for CPUs, GPUs is another matter entirely)
There's a presumption that NAS stores more-important-than-average data, so an error is a bigger deal.
Also NAS systems often have check-summing and redundancy on the disk, but if an error happened in RAM, then that error will be propagated into the checksum and redundant copies.
Most interestingly to me, is that means OS X 10.9 is running DDR4, even though no Apple product to date that I'm aware of has shipped with anything faster than 2133MHz DDR3.
[edit for highest DRAM frequency offered by Apple]
Readit News
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11244/the-amd-ryzen-5-1600x-vs...
But really, the best way to read the graphs is to look at the labels on the left and see the ranking. You can glance at the bars to get an idea of the magnitude of the difference, but these graphs are really designed to emphasize the ranking.
Even piledriver had this advantage, at least considering the price over the last several years. My FX-8320e was ~$120 when I got it a couple years ago, and overclocked to 4.1ghz without any difficulty. Sure, the IPC is not great, but with 8 threads at that price, it's been well worth it. I won't be upgrading this system for a while, and by then I will almost definitely be going to Ryzen.
Furhtermore turns out that the Ryzen 5 matches the price that my current CPU is selling for at the moment. I have an Intel i7 860 (1st gen). I still don't think that I would benefit from upgrading at this point.
Of course, I use my system mostly just for writing code. Friends of me who are into computer animation and design follow changes in the hardware world more closely than I do. (And gamers as well).
Truth is, IPC growth has almost completely stalled, only 20% since Sandy Bridge https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/01/13/kaby_lake_7700k_v... and so these ancient machines still serve us very well. And the E3 1245 had HT on which the i5 doesn't...
Everyone has different values, but for me maximizing the time a system is viable and my work environment is stable is most important; I'll pass on the latest shiny until absolutely needed.
The Phenom cost me... $220. So the Ryzen 5 1600 has my name written all over it. But really, it would just make some things I do on my computer a little quicker. It would not have the profound effect that switching to an SSD did, in my opinion. I'll let the idea bake for a while.
When you say this has your name written on it, are they socket compatible? The idea of changing motherboards/ memory etc isn't compelling - I'd just get a new system - but if you can drop these in then it's really tempting.
The only issue is that I tried using the Oculus, and it won't work. Apparently the CPU doesn't have some instructions required for VR. I tried using a hacked version of the Oculus setup program that bypasses the CPU check, but it still won't work.
Which is why I've been thinking about a Ryzen 5...
I should switch to a 256GB SSD as well though, that is on my list of things I want to upgrade.
[1] http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4560-vs-...
If you use more performance-critical applications I think the best way to future-proof would be to buy an "unlocked" CPU that you'll be able to overclock when you want to juice out a bit more power (maybe at the cost of a better cooling system). At least that's what I do.
2007 is the era of the Core 2 Duo, which really are dated and slow compared to today processors.
5 years is reasonable, the evolution has been kinda slow lately.
So it's not just the "pushing text into a file" which you could of course just do from the terminal as well if you were so inclined to do.
The idea of buying an overclockable CPU does sound like a pretty good strategy. ;-)
The 860 is feeling a little sluggish these days for me. My laptop is about as fast... I'm excited about the jump once I decide to upgrade though and I've pretty decided that if it isn't a 2x improvement it's not worth jumping.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-860-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2...
Right now, I think the Ryzen 1700 with some overclocking is the best deal in the market. The R5 1600 and 1400 might be similar.
This video has a quite interesting comparison of the price/performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RRt5WkVxuk
I also have an i7 7th gen in my laptop, to be honest there is no noticable difference between the two for my use cases.
I'll probably get one of these new fangled AMD raisens so I can have USB 3.0 and onboard LAN.
Deleted Comment
My year old (cheap) laptop is actually significantly slower.
Just to make my wants clearer, I would love to have a Ryzen-based APU in a NUC like form factor. I have a 6th gen Intel i5 NUC, but would happily scrap it for a graphics system that plays nicer with linux.
Interesting -- Intel integrated graphics have always been the gold standard for graphics systems that play nicely with Linux (and other open source systems). As far as I know, they're still the only vendor with complete documentation.
AMD has been going through this cycle of down-and-turnaround for decades now. They tend to be like Microsoft OSes in that every other CPU architecture is the one that does really well, giving Intel some trouble... until Intel decides to crush AMD with lower prices and existing OEM/supplier relationships.
Give it a couple years, AMD stock will be back down pushing new lows, at which point you can scoop up some shares and ride it out a few years for the next big win. AMD sticks around moreso because Intel needs them to exist, otherwise Intel would be a straight monopoly.
The ram capacity is the only reason I don't have 2 or 3 NUC's right now for playing with.
Deleted Comment
No one ever got fired for buying Intel (2000)[0]
It seems this is still AMD biggest issue ?
[0]: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/27/no_one_ever_got_fir...
This is huge for the NAS market. Mainstream intel parts do not support ECC.
Also NAS systems often have check-summing and redundancy on the disk, but if an error happened in RAM, then that error will be propagated into the checksum and redundant copies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJLxbwurK4
[edit for highest DRAM frequency offered by Apple]