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I thought AM4 was only guaranteed support out to 2020? Seems if you are going to buy now, you might as well spend the extra $$$ for 12 cores up front, than wait for sales or early adopters to dump theirs on the market to buy Zen 3 (or whatever it's called).If your going to go 3800x you may as well jump up to 3900x.
From the few 3800 review I have seen it is not worth the money over the 3700. Either spend the 70 bucks somewhere else or spend 170 more for the 3900x imo
OR
Go with a 3600 save a ton of coin, and lose almost nothing in real world performance unless you are rendering 3D on your CPU... and in a year get a good deal on a 3900x or 3950x. When Intel does manage a response and AMD responds by dropping pricing. Or releasing a zen2+ 4000 or something. Biggest issue with AMDs years long upgrade path boards.... costs them a lot of high end sales, why buy the top of the line once every 3 or 4 years when you can just keep popping the lower-mid range chips in every year for the same price. (or less if you are willing to resell... or you can keep the wife of your back with handme downs lol)
Go with a 3600 save a ton of coin, and lose almost nothing in real world performance unless you are rendering 3D on your CPU... and in a year get a good deal on a 3900x or 3950x. When Intel does manage a response and AMD responds by dropping pricing. Or releasing a zen2+ 4000 or something. Biggest issue with AMDs years long upgrade path boards.... costs them a lot of high end sales, why buy the top of the line once every 3 or 4 years when you can just keep popping the lower-mid range chips in every year for the same price. (or less if you are willing to resell... or you can keep the wife of your back with handme downs lol)
It's possible to use PBO to unlock the TDP limits of the 3700X. Here are the differences.
65W TDP (3700X) - 88W total package power (PPT), 60A TDC (thermal current), 90A EDC (electrical current).
105W TDP (3800X) - 142W, 95A, 140A
What you can do is run PBO (which voids your warranty) on the 3700X and dial in these settings. There's also an offset value that's not related to PBO you can set up to +200 MHz to hit higher boost clocks, like to match the 3800X's 100 MHz higher single-core maximum boost, but this is not currently working correctly. From what I read it can be fixed.
So to give you a rundown of how this works...
3700X (stock) - I hit 4050 all-core, 4400 single-core with JEDEC memory (2666). I'm limited by TDP which I can remove with PBO, to say 4100 all-core, as this allows the CPU to supply more voltage (up to 1.325V load). Nominally idle or single-core voltage is 1.50V which is normal as ampage is lower. If I then OC my memory and the infinity fabric to say, CL16/3600, I then drop down to 4000 AC and 4300 SC. This is because you're taxing the IMC and I/O die much more. If I then use the offset I hit 4075 AC and 4275 SC (single-core goes down...this is part of the bug).
If you've followed me so far, the difference between the 3800X and 3700X is that the 3800X doesn't have to use PBO/AOC to override TDP limits and therefore can maintain better single-core boost in general (AOC/offset is broken) but in real world terms, like gaming, you're going to be ~4.2 all-core either way, the difference is minimal (<2% @ stock). With tweaking the values get very close. Both come with the same stock cooler otherwise.
I'm elaborating this out because I don't think most people understand how these CPUs work, including many reviewers. If you want the best out-of-the-box experience, get the 3800X and do XMP/DOCP. If you are willing to tweak the 3700X will get you nearly as far. You're ultimately limited by thermals and FIT (silicon fitness).
As a side note, if your intention is to manual OC this does not apply. It's currently unknown if the 3800X is better-binned but with manual OC you're dealing MUCH more with silicon lottery so it might be worth the $ to get a leg up simply.
I thought AM4 was only guaranteed support out to 2020? Seems if you are going to buy now, you might as well spend the extra $$$ for 12 cores up front, than wait for sales or early adopters to dump theirs on the market to buy Zen 3 (or whatever it's called).
At least I'm going by my own buying history. I tend to go long intervals between builds and not really upgrade the CPU/Mobo in the meanwhile.
Now, this could be because the 3800x is basically 'overclocked' to the max by AMD out of the box, but I still find it hard to believe that I can't get it to use more than 95w no matter what changes I make to PBO settings / power cap settings. If future BIOS updates make it so the 3800x can use more than 95w of power I think it'll make it more worth it. As it stands, you can drop a 3800x into a system and not touch it at all and it performs on-par with the 3900x in ST workloads.
Is it worth $50 more for the 3600x (vs the 3600)?
I’m hitting 4.2ghz all core stock anyways. It seems like the 3800x is great if you want the best 8 core performance without touching anything.You can get more out of the 3800X by bumping up the PBO Scalar. This raises your load voltage but might compromise your single-core boost frequency. However, this will put you over the safe all-core load voltage of 1.325V. It's also possible to set voltage to Normal (rather than Auto) and use a positive offset but this will also sacrifice SC boost. In most cases you're better off doing a set frequency with 1.325V load (after LLC etc.) if your goal is all-core performance, however you need to hit >4.2 for it to be worthwhile in real world workloads. And again, you sacrifice single-core performance.
Is it worth $50 more for the 3600x (vs the 3600)?
I’m hitting 4.2ghz all core stock anyways. It seems like the 3800x is great if you want the best 8 core performance without touching anything.
You can get more out of the 3800X by bumping up the PBO Scalar. This raises your load voltage but might compromise your single-core boost frequency. However, this will put you over the safe all-core load voltage of 1.325V. It's also possible to set voltage to Normal (rather than Auto) and use a positive offset but this will also sacrifice SC boost. In most cases you're better off doing a set frequency with 1.325V load (after LLC etc.) if your goal is all-core performance, however you need to hit >4.2 for it to be worthwhile in real world workloads. And again, you sacrifice single-core performance.
Your limits with the 3800X are thermals (temperature) and FIT (silicon fitness). So by boosting voltage you raise temperature closer to the throttling limit (85C) and the silicon will boost to higher all-core frequencies. In my limited testing it was about +50 MHz for 10C or so. So if you're at 70C now, with diminishing returns and throttling you'd like be 80-85C with scalar for +50MHz all-core. But you might lose idle/SC voltage and the boost will go down by a corresponding amount.
Yeah I really got into PC building when AMD Barton overclocking was all the rage. But I haven't really been a serious OC'er for a while. So PBO is a godsend for me.That is true its possible there will be a new board. I have a feeling though that Intel is going to actually get sunnycove out in the spring and likely start talking about it before xmas at least. Makes me think zen2+ will probably be a drop in replacement to squash Intels launch. Having said that worse case...... my 3600 still gets handed down, and I grab a 3900 or 3950x of the used market as people grab new boards.
I don't know I am just having a hard time justifying buying anything over the 3600 perhaps the 3700... the 3900 is only really faster for things that can use 12 cores. Which I have to admit is not much of what I do. In games 3600 vs 3900 even on a 2080 your still going to be bottlenecked by the GPU. For most of the stuff I do at least... 6 cores with the same arch running within a few hundred mhz of each other are going to perform pretty damn near the same. I can think of 300 bucks in parts I could pickup/upgrade that would give me a much more noticable real world bump. Unless your already running a 1tb+ samsung 970 pro a couple 16gb ddr-3600 sticks ect I would say that 300 bucks might be better spent.
I would take a 3600 with 32gb of fast memory and a blazing fast top end nvme drive over a 3900 with 16gb and a mid range ssd for productivity work.
I would also take a 3600 with a $300 up the scale GPU for gaming over a 3900 with a 300 cheaper card as well.
Of course if you can afford to buy the best of everything every few years all the power to you. Even though I'm middle age now and I guess I could just buy the best all the time... when I got into computers as a teen I had to squeeze performance out of everything all the time. I guess for me at least it seems a lot less fun just buying the fastest of the fast parts and calling it a day. haha
Yeah I really got into PC building when AMD Barton overclocking was all the rage. But I haven't really been a serious OC'er for a while. So PBO is a godsend for me.
Will probably have to wait for reviews to find out which of the 3700/3800 fares better if you don't want to really get in there and tweak yourself.
Like I said, doing anything PBO scalar, etc. Achieves absolutely nothing currently with my 3800x. It doesn't get slower, and it doesn't get faster. The power used and voltages remain exactly the same as well. I believe PBO/Power limits are bugged right now IMO.
No matter what I do i'll be at 4.55ghz for ST, and 4.25ghz for all core sitting at 70c and 95w cpu+soc power draw.
Now, those aren't bad numbers, but something isn't working right here. Why can't we use more than 95w?
Yeah I really got into PC building when AMD Barton overclocking was all the rage. But I haven't really been a serious OC'er for a while. So PBO is a godsend for me.
Will probably have to wait for reviews to find out which of the 3700/3800 fares better if you don't want to really get in there and tweak yourself.
If you want the best out-of-box experience: 3800X. If you want the best manual OC: 3800X. If you want the best value and can use PBO/AOC: 3700X. In most cases I'd say it's worth saving $70 and putting it towards a better cooler, but that's just me.
Have to wonder- if you're going for max ambient (air, AIO) performance, If a 3800X would potentially run cooler due less shenanigans needed to get the clockspeed up. In considering say an ITX system, it might be the better buy if that's the case.
Sure for people using med settings at 480p.....For the rest of us using max setting at 1440p or higher their dead evenAccording to the charts, the 9900K still is the king for gaming.
If your going to go 3800x you may as well jump up to 3900x.
From the few 3800 review I have seen it is not worth the money over the 3700. Either spend the 70 bucks somewhere else or spend 170 more for the 3900x imo
OR
Go with a 3600 save a ton of coin, and lose almost nothing in real world performance unless you are rendering 3D on your CPU... and in a year get a good deal on a 3900x or 3950x. When Intel does manage a response and AMD responds by dropping pricing. Or releasing a zen2+ 4000 or something. Biggest issue with AMDs years long upgrade path boards.... costs them a lot of high end sales, why buy the top of the line once every 3 or 4 years when you can just keep popping the lower-mid range chips in every year for the same price. (or less if you are willing to resell... or you can keep the wife of your back with handme downs lol)
I am waiver what you just opinionated.
The Zen 2 3800x is what I want... but for the value I would rather go cheap 6 core, & next year get Zen3..
-or- just grab a 12 core now and forgo zen3 upgrade. (Zen4?)
I pulled the trigger on 3700x + aorus pro wiif for myself. I do plan to upgrade to zen 4900/4950 in maybe two years so I kind of wish I just saved a good deal of money and grabbed a 3600, just because I think the 3700x will lose a lot of value on the used market by next summer.
Yeah, seems like everyone is trying to min/max their new builds.
In my case, whatever CPU I choose in this x570 build, I can always hand down to another AM4 rig (1800x) I am using for Folding. But I am turning 50 this year and want a solid foundation/platform for the next 5 years of gaming. My simulator is 1 year old, now my gaming rigs need updated. I am going to buy a 5700xt for my new build, because I am going FreeSync2.0 with whatever 3840 x 1600 monitor I choose. And will dish the 5700xt off on when big navi hits. That way I am already on the RDNA bus and drivers.
The 3600 at Microcenter and hero board and 5700xt was $75 bucks off combo, but they were out of the mobo before I got there. And they are restocking their 12 cores ("soon"). To me that is a solid "mainstream" build with available punch in 2 years time. (I have one more rig I am building and it will be a pure 1440p Gaming rig in mATX)
I still need to do some more research between the 3700x and 3800x and 3900x on water (AIO). And see their price/performance ratios, etc. Even if one is $75 bucks cheaper than another.... thats half the cost of a liquid cooling kit.
That's a "nope".
3 minutes of actual speaking. 15 minutes of charts that shouldn't have been in a video in the first place. I hate this new video generation.
What he is reporting on is worthwhile, I just take issue with his format.