4 ms·

Security and price aside, I would expect Ryzen with its many cores to be excellent in office use. Is it?

by blfr 8y ago

close04 8y ago
I think any modern CPU is enough for regular office use. You don't really need lots of cores for that. But if you can get them at a lower price point, lower power consumption maybe, and perhaps even better security then why not?
lightedman 8y ago
I use a Ryzen 5 1400. The only thing "slow" abut is is running Windows. Every stupid update slows things down.
nolok 8y ago
Yes, but it's even better than you think given that you can find ryzen 3 at the price point that used to be modern "pentium" playground; Windows 10 and a browser with a few tabs and office with a couple spreadsheets opened just don't do well on two cores anymore And in fact ryzen 5 2200/2400 is so cheap that competing offers price wise are i3 based (or i5 but with less ram, and 4 GB is just not enough in 2019, when windows want 2, chrome wants 2, office wants 2, ...). Ryzen 5 2xxx vs i3 is simply not a fair fight, it's not even a fight at all. I guess I'm usually so focused on high / super high / server needs that it didn't fully hit me how intel was getting eaten alive even in the low / middle market right now. And medium sized business replacing office computers really don't care about the brand of their cpu, "cheaper, works better" is going to win every time.
- close04 8y ago
  > And medium sized business replacing office computers really don't care about the brand of their cpu, "cheaper, works better" is going to win every time. I'm not sure if there's enough of that at going around now in order for AMD to gain any substantial market share fast. If Intel's response is anything short of Core 2 vs. Athlon then it might go AMD's way.
paulmd 8y ago
Most Ryzen chips lack integrated graphics, which drives up system costs. Also, while the chips are cheaper, saving $100 on the CPU doesn't necessarily make a big impact in total system costs, especially since you now need to buy a discrete GPU for $100 extra too. Also Ryzen performance really falls off in 4C configurations due to lack of cache (its memory performance is not great and once you fall below a critical level of cache you start leaning harder on the memory for performance). The 2400G and 2200G models (which are the only models with graphics) are particularly heavily affected but the 1500X is not a stellar performer either compared to the 6C and 8C configurations. Normally they fall somewhere around Haswell-level IPC, but as a ballpark let's say the 2200G/2400G is more like Sandy Bridge. Finally, a lot of the 1000-series chips are subject to a manufacturing fault that causes random segmentation faults under heavy load. Compilation is a reliable way to trigger it, but it can occur in anything, it's basically a uop cache bug. Supposedly fixed after mid-2017, and it's RMA'able if you have it, but a few people still find it in their later-production processors. As a matter of philosophy, a lot of "office stuff" really prefers fast cores to many cores. An i7 4770 or even one of the new quad-core i3s (no HT) is better suited to typical office tasks on paper, and includes onboard graphics. With that said, "office stuff" doesn't really need high performance to begin with. Ryzen performance is fine, even the weaker -G processors. But in turn, a lot of users would be OK with even less performance - Intel's Goldmont Plus atom processors are now hitting between Core2 and Nehalem level performance, and that's more than fine for a lot of office stuff. You can pick up a barebones J4005 NUC for like $130 now, or a J5005 NUC for ~$170. Add memory and an SSD and you're done. The prices on the first-gen stuff are really appealing. I've seen the 1700 for as low as $130. And a home user is probably going to be using a discrete GPU anyway, so that cost penalty doesn't really matter. But, that's not a deal that would be institutionally purchased in volume, that's max quantity 5 from newegg, and companies usually don't buy discrete GPUs if they don't have to.

Security and price aside, I would expect Ryzen with its many cores to be excellent in office use. Is it?

by blfr 8y ago

Security and price aside, I would expect Ryzen with its many cores to be excellent in office use. Is it?

I think any modern CPU is enough for regular office use. You don't really need lots of cores for that. But if you can get them at a lower price point, lower power consumption maybe, and perhaps even better security then why not?

lightedman 8y ago

I use a Ryzen 5 1400. The only thing "slow" abut is is running Windows. Every stupid update slows things down.

nolok 8y ago

Yes, but it's even better than you think given that you can find ryzen 3 at the price point that used to be modern "pentium" playground; Windows 10 and a browser with a few tabs and office with a couple spreadsheets opened just don't do well on two cores anymore And in fact ryzen 5 2200/2400 is so cheap that competing offers price wise are i3 based (or i5 but with less ram, and 4 GB is just not enough in 2019, when windows want 2, chrome wants 2, office wants 2, ...). Ryzen 5 2xxx vs i3 is simply not a fair fight, it's not even a fight at all. I guess I'm usually so focused on high / super high / server needs that it didn't fully hit me how intel was getting eaten alive even in the low / middle market right now. And medium sized business replacing office computers really don't care about the brand of their cpu, "cheaper, works better" is going to win every time.

close04 8y ago
> And medium sized business replacing office computers really don't care about the brand of their cpu, "cheaper, works better" is going to win every time. I'm not sure if there's enough of that at going around now in order for AMD to gain any substantial market share fast. If Intel's response is anything short of Core 2 vs. Athlon then it might go AMD's way.

paulmd 8y ago

Most Ryzen chips lack integrated graphics, which drives up system costs. Also, while the chips are cheaper, saving $100 on the CPU doesn't necessarily make a big impact in total system costs, especially since you now need to buy a discrete GPU for $100 extra too. Also Ryzen performance really falls off in 4C configurations due to lack of cache (its memory performance is not great and once you fall below a critical level of cache you start leaning harder on the memory for performance). The 2400G and 2200G models (which are the only models with graphics) are particularly heavily affected but the 1500X is not a stellar performer either compared to the 6C and 8C configurations. Normally they fall somewhere around Haswell-level IPC, but as a ballpark let's say the 2200G/2400G is more like Sandy Bridge. Finally, a lot of the 1000-series chips are subject to a manufacturing fault that causes random segmentation faults under heavy load. Compilation is a reliable way to trigger it, but it can occur in anything, it's basically a uop cache bug. Supposedly fixed after mid-2017, and it's RMA'able if you have it, but a few people still find it in their later-production processors. As a matter of philosophy, a lot of "office stuff" really prefers fast cores to many cores. An i7 4770 or even one of the new quad-core i3s (no HT) is better suited to typical office tasks on paper, and includes onboard graphics. With that said, "office stuff" doesn't really need high performance to begin with. Ryzen performance is fine, even the weaker -G processors. But in turn, a lot of users would be OK with even less performance - Intel's Goldmont Plus atom processors are now hitting between Core2 and Nehalem level performance, and that's more than fine for a lot of office stuff. You can pick up a barebones J4005 NUC for like $130 now, or a J5005 NUC for ~$170. Add memory and an SSD and you're done. The prices on the first-gen stuff are really appealing. I've seen the 1700 for as low as $130. And a home user is probably going to be using a discrete GPU anyway, so that cost penalty doesn't really matter. But, that's not a deal that would be institutionally purchased in volume, that's max quantity 5 from newegg, and companies usually don't buy discrete GPUs if they don't have to.