Desktop Computers

Gravel said:

It's been so long since I've had an AMD GPU. Are they worth a shit anymore?

I'd been looking at probably a 4070 (super?), but they're just so darned expensive. Considered a 4060, but I made that mistake with a 1060 a long time ago and it was kind of a letdown.

I think I'll probably go the 5700x3d route recommended here. Will end up having to do a new PSU, probably case (have a be quiet 500 series), and GPU. I need to check what my CPU fan is. It looks a lot like that peerless assassin, but maybe lots of people make ones with a similar designed heatsink and fan setup.

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Didn't you say you are gaming at 1080P? 4070 or anything along those lines will be a LOT overkill and waste of cash.

I'd think about maybe doing a top down refresh starting with the monitor. A good 144 Hz 27-inch 1440 screens are cheap. Like this LG 27GN800-B UltraGear 27 inch QHD. $190 from Amazon. This alone would be a massive upgrade from 1080 60 Hz anything.

From there....do you want gaming only performance or a nicely competent system? The 5700X3D is a bananas great gaming CPU, but application performance is no better than your 9900k. 12900k for only $77 more is easily 2x faster for big workloads and general smoothness of operation. My main PC is a 7950X3D and it feels like I am bouncing around in an old VW Beetle compared to my 12th gen Intel laptop. The difference is when I pour the coals to the 7950X3D then it is laughably fast.

But if all you want is gaming? 5700X3D + motherboard + 1440p 140+ Hz monitor + whateva GPU you settle on. A good used Nvidia 3070ti $300 from Ebay and has lots of fizz for 1440 gaming. $200 more grab a new RX 7800 XT for even more fizz.

In terms of 5700X3D motherboards, there are B550 and X570. Big diff is the number of PCI-E lanes to spare for your drives. Just get the X570...and not worry about all that.

CPU: $200
MB: $200
Monitor: $200
GPU: $300 or $470.
$900 - $1070.

Case ram psu nvme cooler you already have.

Oh yeh, add $500+ winter clothes shopping for wife unless you share the gaming PC.

Kajiimagi said:

RT effects amount to shiny water and my GPU does shiny water just fine.

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RT can be more than shiny water, as the path traced CP2077 tech demo shows. The vast majority of cards cannot due full path tracing or make heavy use of RT (with acceptable performance), which is why the current games just use it for shiny water or similar effects. Eventually they will do more, and AMD does need to improve their RT performance (even if only to keep them from getting slaughtered in RT benchmarks). If anything, AMD's poor RT performance and the rise of Steam Deck/handhelds has slowed RT use.

The same can be said for Frame Gen - you need a fast card to make the best use of it (to limit input lag). For anything that needs decent response time you want ~90 native FPS before using Frame Gen. Upscaling is the only feature that lower tier cards can make real use of. I worry that NV is going to use upscaling by default (IOW, sell us a 5070 than is really a 5060+upscaling). Die size and costs go down, stonks go up. IMO, one needs to be shopping $500+ cards before RT and FG should be influencing buying decisions. Under $500, get the best raster performance and the most VRAM your budget allows. Even over $500, raster and VRAM are still the most important to consider, but it might make sense to toss another $100 towards getting an NV card if those features matter to you.

I went 6950XT and 7900XTX these past two gens and have been quite happy. I was willing to stay with AMD's next gen also. I don't need AMD to compete directly with a 5090, but if they don't have anyting better than the 7900XTX (as rumors suggest they won't) I will probably go back to NV. I just need to sell another kidney.

Good deal, I'd only been looking at the B550's.

Thoughts on this? (already own the case and RAM, and confirmed the heatsink is a Peerless Assassin)

Gravel said:

Good deal, I'd only been looking at the B550's.

Thoughts on this? (already own the case and RAM, and confirmed the heatsink is a Peerless Assassin)

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/H7xgXR

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Whats the price/perf difference between the 5700 and 5800x3d?

Dunno, just saw earlier in this thread people were saying the 5800 was difficult to find.

Only thing I'm really concerned about is the whole bios thing. Seems like no boards will support it without an update, and if it doesn't already have it updated, I'll be boned.

Gravel said:

Dunno, just saw earlier in this thread people were saying the 5800 was difficult to find.

Only thing I'm really concerned about is the whole bios thing. Seems like no boards will support it without an update, and if it doesn't already have it updated, I'll be boned.

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5800X3D is OOS everywhere from what I can tell. I just picked up a 5700X3D to have one on hand (since I gave away my 5800X3D to my nephew). I suspect that the 5700X3D will be OOS by Christmas (or soon after) once AMD sells through whatever harvested dies they have left.

5700X3D is less than 5% slower than the 5800X3D in gaming. It struggles when the cache doesn't help and then the -400MHz clocks show (this is why the 5600X3D beats out the 5700X3D is such scenarios - 5800X3D max boost is 4.5, 5700X3D is 4.1, and 5600X3D is 4.4)

5700X3D support was added in the P5.50 Bios dated 10/2023. It's possible the board bios is older than that if it has been sitting in a warehouse. Board does not appear to support BIOS Flashback. If you don't have access to a supported CPU you might need to upgrade to a board that supports flashback. Or maybe buy the cheapest used Ryzen CPU you can find for the upgrade. X570's biggest advantage is probably the second Gen 4 NVMe drive instead of Gen 3 (in both cases the second NVMe drive goes through the chipset). Beyond that, x570 can offer more high-speed USB ports (and a chipset fan). B550 is certainly fine if you see a board you like.

Regarding the RAM, I'd probably look for 3600 CL16 instead. X3D helps with slower RAM speeds but 3600 CL16 shouldn't cost much more than 3200 CL16.

If you do go the AMD route for GPU (maybe for CPU too?) and use their Adrenalin software you probably need to turn off Windows update from downloading drivers in the group policy. Otherwise Windows could brick the install and there goes your settings, fan curves, etc.

When it happens you see:

Which directs you to download a compatibility tool which immediately bricks the download and to fix it you have to manually redownload the current driver and software.

X570 was prior to the cpu-less flashback that the later B550 started coming with. For 99% of users, B550 had everything they’d need and was on par with the available pcie lanes and slot speeds.

oops nm

Sounds like maybe the 9800x3d fixed that issue? Like, watching that top video it seems as if they moved stuff around on the chip.

Damn that chip is for reals. Though I might wait another gen before bothering. 13700K still does fine. If they announce it will still be AM5 and I see a deal I might go for it anyway.

Interesting, aren't the x950x3d chips typically not as good as the x800x3d models for gaming? Seems that might have something new this time?