PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[PeteWorrell]

AMD are just scrambling with reviewers mostly giving a thumbs down to Zen 5 and the poor sales reflecting it. Only AMD could fumble this bad while their main competitor are having a massive scandal.

You can expect price cuts in a few months as usual.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

AMD are just scrambling with reviewers mostly giving a thumbs down to Zen 5 and the poor sales reflecting it. Only AMD could fumble this bad while their main competitor are having a massive scandal.

You can expect price cuts in a few months as usual.

I could see new Zen 5 variants come out. Like, we're seeing these the ones that end in X, maybe we will see fixed revisions called XR, while also slowly phasing out the original sets of CPUs.

 

[Osprey]

AMD are just scrambling with reviewers mostly giving a thumbs down to Zen 5 and the poor sales reflecting it. Only AMD could fumble this bad while their main competitor are having a massive scandal.

AMD is now blaming a Windows bug for the performance difference between reviewers' testing and their own testing. They asked HUB to verify, but HUB found that the "fix" made only a 1% difference compared to Zen 4 with the same fix and affects both generations (if not all CPUs), not just Zen 5. If AMD compared Zen 5 with the fix to Zen 4 without it, that could explain where the double-digit performance gains that they claimed came from, but that's either incompetent testing or deceptive marketing. AMD looks bad either way, despite the bug not even being their fault. I bet that Microsoft doesn't mind someone else taking the heat for them, though.

 

[PeteWorrell]

AMD is now blaming a Windows bug for the performance difference between reviewers' testing and their own testing. They asked HUB to verify, but HUB found that the "fix" made only a 1% difference compared to Zen 4 with the same fix and affects both generations (if not all CPUs), not just Zen 5. If AMD compared Zen 5 with the fix to Zen 4 without it, that could explain where the double-digit performance gains that they claimed came from, but that's either incompetent testing or deceptive marketing. AMD looks bad either way, despite the bug not even being their fault. I bet that Microsoft doesn't mind someone else voluntarily taking the heat for their own performance-crippling bug, though.

There is clearly a lack of communication within AMD. Especially the marketing team. Hardware Unboxed shared their disappointing results and they got confirmation that their data matched with AMD's internal testing data within a few percentage.

It's nice that changed their architecture for Zen 5 and it may pay off down the line. But at this moment, it's undercooked and they should have held it back. It's basically the same story of the launch of their new graphics cards and the revolution and performance boost that RDNA 3 was supposed to bring. They overpromised, it underdelivered, the product was overpriced and it made them look bad.

 

[Osprey]

It's wild seeing an average 11% boost in gaming with just a new Windows build. It doesn't improve Zen 5's value much at all, since Zen 4 sees nearly the same boost, but it's still great news for owners of Ryzen (even Zen 3, supposedly).

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Not the first time Ryzen code has had optimization issues with Windows. Which I don't get why it's still happening.

 

[93LEAFS]

Didn't know where else to post this and I now there are quite a few knowledgable people around here for computers in general.

I have a gaming computer, but I want to replace my current laptop which I will have no interest in using games on. I currently have a very cheap HP I bought like 2 years ago, and it already proved the dreaded what HP really stands for (Hinge Problems). So, I'm currently looking at getting a pretty good laptop this time. Nothing I will use it for is that intensive but I want good build quality and a good amount of storage and ram (16 at minimum, preferably 32). I'm pretty much down to 2 different options. First one is a Lenovo Think Pad Carbon X1 with a core i7 (trying to figure out if this 13th/14th gen issue is hitting laptops, but unfortunately Lenovo doesn't appear to offer Ryzen options) and the other option is going with the Surface laptop with the Qualcom chip.

So my main question is, does anyone have any experience with the new Surface and the Snapdragon chips (I now it can be finicky on certain apps, but I don't see that causing me too much issues as this isn't used for work purposes)? And, anyone have any opinions on Lenovo Thinkpads? My buddy who works IT says he thinks Thinkpads generally have the best build quality of non-macs. The two laptop brands I plan to avoid at all cost are Dell and HP.

 

[Osprey]

Didn't know where else to post this and I now there are quite a few knowledgable people around here for computers in general.

I have a gaming computer, but I want to replace my current laptop which I will have no interest in using games on. I currently have a very cheap HP I bought like 2 years ago, and it already proved the dreaded what HP really stands for (Hinge Problems). So, I'm currently looking at getting a pretty good laptop this time. Nothing I will use it for is that intensive but I want good build quality and a good amount of storage and ram (16 at minimum, preferably 32). I'm pretty much down to 2 different options. First one is a Lenovo Think Pad Carbon X1 with a core i7 (trying to figure out if this 13th/14th gen issue is hitting laptops, but unfortunately Lenovo doesn't appear to offer Ryzen options) and the other option is going with the Surface laptop with the Qualcom chip.

So my main question is, does anyone have any experience with the new Surface and the Snapdragon chips (I now it can be finicky on certain apps, but I don't see that causing me too much issues as this isn't used for work purposes)? And, anyone have any opinions on Lenovo Thinkpads? My buddy who works IT says he thinks Thinkpads generally have the best build quality of non-macs. The two laptop brands I plan to avoid at all cost are Dell and HP.

I don't have any experience with recent Thinkpads or ARM-based Surface devices, but I'll try to help, anyways.

Intel claimed that the stability issues with 13th and 14th gen processors don't affect laptops, but I don't know if anyone has verified or contradicted that.

I wouldn't rule out Dell. They make excellent laptops, at least their XPS (premium consumer/business) and Latitude (business) lines. I have a Latitude and love it. It's very well built. You might just want to stay away from their Inspiron line, which is their cheaper consumer line. In general, if build quality is important, you want to avoid laptops that use a lot of plastic instead of aluminum. Dell XPS laptops and some (but not all) Latitude laptops are aluminum and I'd feel safe buying those.

BTW, for what it's worth, my Latitude is a 2-in-1, with a 360-degree hinge, and I'm just in love with the form factor. It's so useful to be able to put the display at any angle. Sometimes, I like to sit in bed with my legs up and bend the display back 180 degrees, so that it's in-line with the keyboard. Other times, in bed or on a plane, I'll bend it 300 degrees back and watch movies on it while the keyboard is touching my lap. I love the freedom to contort it however I want and don't think that I can ever go back to a normal laptop. I just thought that I share that in case you hadn't considered a 2-in-1.

Finally, I've read that Intel's new Lunar Lake (or Series 2 Core Ultra) processors have incredible battery life that rivals the Qualcomm chips (without the compatibility/emulation concerns, obviously). I'm not sure if you can actually buy laptops with them yet, but they should be available very soon. You might care to wait for those, if not to pick one up, then because it they may lower the prices of the older laptops that you're looking at.

 

[93LEAFS]

I don't have any experience with recent Thinkpads or ARM-based Surface devices, but I'll try to help, anyways.

Intel claimed that the stability issues with 13th and 14th gen processors don't affect laptops, but I don't know if anyone has verified or contradicted that.

I wouldn't rule out Dell. They make excellent laptops, at least their XPS (premium consumer/business) and Latitude (business) lines. I have a Latitude and love it. It's very well built. You might just want to stay away from their Inspiron line, which is their cheaper consumer line. In general, if build quality is important, you want to avoid laptops that use a lot of plastic instead of aluminum. Dell XPS laptops and some (but not all) Latitude laptops are aluminum and I'd feel safe buying those.

BTW, for what it's worth, my Latitude is a 2-in-1, with a 360-degree hinge, and I'm just in love with the form factor. It's so useful to be able to put the display at any angle. Sometimes, I like to sit in bed with my legs up and bend the display back 180 degrees, so that it's in-line with the keyboard. Other times, in bed or on a plane, I'll bend it 300 degrees back and watch movies on it while the keyboard is touching my lap. I love the freedom to contort it however I want and don't think that I can ever go back to a normal laptop. I just thought that I share that in case you hadn't considered a 2-in-1.

Finally, I've read that Intel's new Lunar Lake (or Series 2 Core Ultra) processors have incredible battery life that rivals the Qualcomm chips (without the compatibility/emulation concerns, obviously). I'm not sure if you can actually buy laptops with them yet, but they should be available very soon. You might care to wait for those, if not to pick one up, then because it they may lower the prices of the older laptops that you're looking at.

Thanks, I saw Thinkpads are listed as like 2k CAD off right now (so basically half price).

But, I'll take a look at the XPS line. Thanks for the advice.