5 ms·

Few months ago I switched from i7 to Ryzen 2700X. Honestly, I don't know what would have to happen so that I would switch back to Intel :) In my developer work

Few months ago I switched from i7 to Ryzen 2700X. Honestly, I don't know what would have to happen so that I would switch back to Intel :) In my developer workflows that include quite a lot of browser tabs, a bunch of Docker containers running, occasional Go or Docker build I don't get any of the CPUs at 100% often. Only when I do cross compilation to a multiple architectures I do use 6-9 CPUs and even then my machine is totally usable and I can't even feel that in the background lots of cores are at full utilisation. What really counts is the amount of CPUs available, I don't really care about their maximum frequency. Comments about gaming are valid but I think instead of buying Intel just go with a better GPU and you will win there as well.

saiya-jin 8y ago
How hard is it to understand that there are various uses for PC, and yours is only one of those? Plenty of us can't make any use of more than 6-8 cores effectively, will never run any VMs or Docker, and plenty of software still will benefit from single-core performance. I am by no means a fan of the price/value ratio for new i9 CPU and any shady marketing cheap tricks generally, but I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days. Use whatever you feel is the best tool for your needs and your budget. Respect other's choices, even if it means that for some people, this new i9 will be the best/preferred option. Or any other option for that matter that isn't yours.
- jacoblambda 8y ago
  I think a lot of it comes down to people just showing what works with their use cases and waiting for someone to show them a use case that the other side works better for.
- deforciant 8y ago
  Apologies, didn't want it to sound like "you have to use Ryzen for everything now" :) I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends or my family for the same reason you mentioned, none of them will utilize those cores. It just works really well for me and it wildly surpassed my own expectations as I was quite used to the fact that my machine wasn't really usable while I run Kubernetes locally. My workflow used to be: 1. write some code 2. start Kubernetes, wait for it to boot and test the code that I wrote 3. tear it down 4. write some more code 5. repeat I would be loosing quite a lot of time. Also, while waiting for it to start, I would usually get distracted and start doing something else. Ryzen changed this workflow and boosted my productivity. Now I don't even notice whether k8s is running or not, sometimes I forget it for days :D I can't stress enough how important it is to have a lag free development environment.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Agree with everything you've said I have a 1700 at work and 2700X at home and both are monsters for my workloads. With an evga RTX2080 in the home PC it murders the games I play (elite dangerous mostly) at 4K.
    - deforciant 8y ago
      I have 1080Ti, but haven't tried installing any games yet. Last time I had a gaming PC it consumed way too much time so currently I try to use my ps4 for gaming as it's a lot easier to get bored by it :D
  - copperx 8y ago
    Just wondering, are you using Linux on bare metal, or do you virtualize Linux to run K8S?
- close04 8y ago
  > I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days This doesn't feel at all like what the OP is saying. I know it's common on the internet to ignore "right tool for the right job" but OP managed to nail the point. Each one is right for a different job. His happens to be more suited for AMD.
- jlgaddis 8y ago
  The workstation sitting here on my desk has a pair of 8-core Intel CPUs, 128 GB of RAM, a PCIe NVMe disk and a couple SSDs in RAID1, and my primary server in the garage has a pair of 10-core CPUs, 192 GB of RAM, four Enterprise SSDs, and eight 600 GB 15K SAS HDDs in RAID6. Oh, and I'm about to upgrade the networking (from 4 x 1 Gbps) but I'm on the fence between 10 Gbps and Infiniband. I never hit the limits of these machines, so obviously this configuration should work just fine for everyone. :-)
  - tfandango 8y ago
    offtopic, but is your garage air conditioned?
    - vel0city 8y ago
      Not to continue too far down this rabbit hole here, but I wouldn't worry about the temperature of a garage as much as I'd worry about really dirty air. https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/03/23/too-hot-for-humans-but-google-servers-keep-humming https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/03/23/too-...
    - Koshkin 8y ago
      Spoken like a true Californian.
    - jlgaddis 8y ago
      I live in Indiana, it's cold here (but yes, it is).
deafcalculus 8y ago
> Comments about gaming are valid but I think instead of buying Intel just go with a better GPU and you will win there as well. This hasn't been true for quite a while in many games. Modern engines often do utilize 6-8 cores (they have to to get it to work well on the anemic CPUs in ps4/xb1). Assassin's creed, for instance, struggles to push 60 fps on Ryzen 1700X[1]. Of course, one can always drop settings to slightly above console quality and enjoy 60 fps. But, the idea that GPUs are almost always the bottleneck in games is just a myth. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Bsv-d8HM&feature=youtu.be&t=900 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Bsv-d8HM&feature=youtu.be...
- Retric 8y ago
  Intel has serious issues with that game @ Utra. http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-versus-amd-ryzen-1700x-14-game-cpu-showdown_192508/3 http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-versus-amd-r... PS: On high they are both fine.
- mpg33 8y ago
  Most modern games are developed/optimized for Xbox One and PS4 which have low-ipc 8-core cpu's... AMD benefits from having their chips in the consoles...which now have an install base of around 120M+ units...
- 013a 8y ago
  It's very difficult to find games that are bottlenecked by graphics cards nowadays (at 1440p60 or below). There are three major reasons why this is happening: - Nvidia has been killing it in graphics card design relative to the competition. Consider that a GTX 1070, released 30 months ago, can go all the way to 1440p60 comfortably. - Nearly every game has to be playable on consoles, and consoles are all running AMD's last generation chipset. - 4K is still the "storm on the horizon" that no one's graphics cards are truly ready for in an affordable way. All of that combined really means that raw graphics quality in games hasn't improved a lot in the past four years. So, most games will continue to show increased performance the more clock you throw at a processor. Combine that with more and more games optimizing for more cores given the prevalence of 6-8 cores chips on the console market and in gaming PCs, and this should make sense to anyone. It should be said: This is why cloud gaming is quickly becoming a real thing. Beyond connection speed, graphics cards were always a huge bottleneck in making that cost affordable to cloud providers. Today, the graphics card isn't a bottleneck, and all the cloud providers have an abundance of them in their data centers for AI-focused work. And if neither the cards nor the connection speed could handle 4K anyway...
Tepix 8y ago
Even gaming works well in real life. On a Ryzen 5 2600X with a Vega 64 at 1440p, most games I've seen run at "Epic" or "very high" detail at 75fps.
Koshkin 8y ago
While there indeed are embarrassingly parallel situations, the single-core performance does matter in many applications, and that is where Intel is the clear winner.
BuckRogers 8y ago
A killer feature for the Ryzen2 series is PrecisionBoost2. The 9900K is still based on Skylake, which has a 2 core boost limit as 1st gen Ryzen did. See the red line on this chart[0], while clocks will be different, that describes the 9900K's boost behavior. Intel's chips have a two core turbo and an all-core turbo speed, then base clocks. It depends on which SKU as far as the values. I had the 1700, 1800X and now a 2700X. For most people that want a desktop and really utilize it in a way where it's just shared computer for general home usage, I'm recommending Intel's NUC lineup. When willing to build, for productivity and gaming I'm recommending Ryzen, and while the 9900K is going to be at the top of some charts, the combination of outdated Skylake architecture (plenty of examples like this boost example), high price that borders on Threadripper pricing, and increasing the die thickness to nullify a lot of solder's advantages[1]. Publications are starting to add all this up and naming the 2700X the best gaming CPU[2]. For a long time I would've said Intel but I'd have to agree with their findings in their entirety, I also really like the i5-8400. [0]https://i.imgur.com/IPhCh1G.jpg https://i.imgur.com/IPhCh1G.jpg [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Doo-zgyQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Doo-zgyQs [2]https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html

saiya-jin 8y ago

How hard is it to understand that there are various uses for PC, and yours is only one of those? Plenty of us can't make any use of more than 6-8 cores effectively, will never run any VMs or Docker, and plenty of software still will benefit from single-core performance. I am by no means a fan of the price/value ratio for new i9 CPU and any shady marketing cheap tricks generally, but I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days. Use whatever you feel is the best tool for your needs and your budget. Respect other's choices, even if it means that for some people, this new i9 will be the best/preferred option. Or any other option for that matter that isn't yours.

jacoblambda 8y ago
I think a lot of it comes down to people just showing what works with their use cases and waiting for someone to show them a use case that the other side works better for.
deforciant 8y ago
Apologies, didn't want it to sound like "you have to use Ryzen for everything now" :) I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends or my family for the same reason you mentioned, none of them will utilize those cores. It just works really well for me and it wildly surpassed my own expectations as I was quite used to the fact that my machine wasn't really usable while I run Kubernetes locally. My workflow used to be: 1. write some code 2. start Kubernetes, wait for it to boot and test the code that I wrote 3. tear it down 4. write some more code 5. repeat I would be loosing quite a lot of time. Also, while waiting for it to start, I would usually get distracted and start doing something else. Ryzen changed this workflow and boosted my productivity. Now I don't even notice whether k8s is running or not, sometimes I forget it for days :D I can't stress enough how important it is to have a lag free development environment.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Agree with everything you've said I have a 1700 at work and 2700X at home and both are monsters for my workloads. With an evga RTX2080 in the home PC it murders the games I play (elite dangerous mostly) at 4K.
  - deforciant 8y ago
    I have 1080Ti, but haven't tried installing any games yet. Last time I had a gaming PC it consumed way too much time so currently I try to use my ps4 for gaming as it's a lot easier to get bored by it :D
- copperx 8y ago
  Just wondering, are you using Linux on bare metal, or do you virtualize Linux to run K8S?
close04 8y ago
> I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days This doesn't feel at all like what the OP is saying. I know it's common on the internet to ignore "right tool for the right job" but OP managed to nail the point. Each one is right for a different job. His happens to be more suited for AMD.
jlgaddis 8y ago
The workstation sitting here on my desk has a pair of 8-core Intel CPUs, 128 GB of RAM, a PCIe NVMe disk and a couple SSDs in RAID1, and my primary server in the garage has a pair of 10-core CPUs, 192 GB of RAM, four Enterprise SSDs, and eight 600 GB 15K SAS HDDs in RAID6. Oh, and I'm about to upgrade the networking (from 4 x 1 Gbps) but I'm on the fence between 10 Gbps and Infiniband. I never hit the limits of these machines, so obviously this configuration should work just fine for everyone. :-)
- tfandango 8y ago
  offtopic, but is your garage air conditioned?
  - vel0city 8y ago
    Not to continue too far down this rabbit hole here, but I wouldn't worry about the temperature of a garage as much as I'd worry about really dirty air. https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/03/23/too-hot-for-humans-but-google-servers-keep-humming https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/03/23/too-...
  - Koshkin 8y ago
    Spoken like a true Californian.
  - jlgaddis 8y ago
    I live in Indiana, it's cold here (but yes, it is).

deafcalculus 8y ago

> Comments about gaming are valid but I think instead of buying Intel just go with a better GPU and you will win there as well. This hasn't been true for quite a while in many games. Modern engines often do utilize 6-8 cores (they have to to get it to work well on the anemic CPUs in ps4/xb1). Assassin's creed, for instance, struggles to push 60 fps on Ryzen 1700X[1]. Of course, one can always drop settings to slightly above console quality and enjoy 60 fps. But, the idea that GPUs are almost always the bottleneck in games is just a myth. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Bsv-d8HM&feature=youtu.be&t=900 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Bsv-d8HM&feature=youtu.be...

Retric 8y ago
Intel has serious issues with that game @ Utra. http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-versus-amd-ryzen-1700x-14-game-cpu-showdown_192508/3 http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-versus-amd-r... PS: On high they are both fine.
mpg33 8y ago
Most modern games are developed/optimized for Xbox One and PS4 which have low-ipc 8-core cpu's... AMD benefits from having their chips in the consoles...which now have an install base of around 120M+ units...
013a 8y ago
It's very difficult to find games that are bottlenecked by graphics cards nowadays (at 1440p60 or below). There are three major reasons why this is happening: - Nvidia has been killing it in graphics card design relative to the competition. Consider that a GTX 1070, released 30 months ago, can go all the way to 1440p60 comfortably. - Nearly every game has to be playable on consoles, and consoles are all running AMD's last generation chipset. - 4K is still the "storm on the horizon" that no one's graphics cards are truly ready for in an affordable way. All of that combined really means that raw graphics quality in games hasn't improved a lot in the past four years. So, most games will continue to show increased performance the more clock you throw at a processor. Combine that with more and more games optimizing for more cores given the prevalence of 6-8 cores chips on the console market and in gaming PCs, and this should make sense to anyone. It should be said: This is why cloud gaming is quickly becoming a real thing. Beyond connection speed, graphics cards were always a huge bottleneck in making that cost affordable to cloud providers. Today, the graphics card isn't a bottleneck, and all the cloud providers have an abundance of them in their data centers for AI-focused work. And if neither the cards nor the connection speed could handle 4K anyway...

Tepix 8y ago

Even gaming works well in real life. On a Ryzen 5 2600X with a Vega 64 at 1440p, most games I've seen run at "Epic" or "very high" detail at 75fps.

Koshkin 8y ago

While there indeed are embarrassingly parallel situations, the single-core performance does matter in many applications, and that is where Intel is the clear winner.

BuckRogers 8y ago

A killer feature for the Ryzen2 series is PrecisionBoost2. The 9900K is still based on Skylake, which has a 2 core boost limit as 1st gen Ryzen did. See the red line on this chart[0], while clocks will be different, that describes the 9900K's boost behavior. Intel's chips have a two core turbo and an all-core turbo speed, then base clocks. It depends on which SKU as far as the values. I had the 1700, 1800X and now a 2700X. For most people that want a desktop and really utilize it in a way where it's just shared computer for general home usage, I'm recommending Intel's NUC lineup. When willing to build, for productivity and gaming I'm recommending Ryzen, and while the 9900K is going to be at the top of some charts, the combination of outdated Skylake architecture (plenty of examples like this boost example), high price that borders on Threadripper pricing, and increasing the die thickness to nullify a lot of solder's advantages[1]. Publications are starting to add all this up and naming the 2700X the best gaming CPU[2]. For a long time I would've said Intel but I'd have to agree with their findings in their entirety, I also really like the i5-8400. [0]https://i.imgur.com/IPhCh1G.jpg https://i.imgur.com/IPhCh1G.jpg [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Doo-zgyQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Doo-zgyQs [2]https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html