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'd 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.

 

[PeteWorrell]

AMD's new Ryzen 9000 CPUs are reportedly suffering the 'worst launch since Bulldozer' thanks to 'disastrous' sales

DIY PC builders are apparently not feeling Zen 5.

www.pcgamer.com

Confirmation that people consider Zen 5 to be underwhelming.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

AMD's new Ryzen 9000 CPUs are reportedly suffering the 'worst launch since Bulldozer' thanks to 'disastrous' sales

DIY PC builders are apparently not feeling Zen 5.

www.pcgamer.com

Confirmation that people consider Zen 5 to be underwhelming.

AMD kind of did this to themselves.

 

[Drake1588]

Sidestepping that whole mess, I upgraded my RTX 4090 gaming rig a few weeks ago with a Ryzen 7950X3D CPU for gaming; video upscaling with Topaz Video AI & Handbrake encoding; and RAW file editing with Photoshop, Lightroom, and DXO PureRaw 4 for photography.

Unless they make a massive turnaround with the X3D parts, I'll be giving the 9000 series a wide berth. Let them work out the kinks this generation and sit this one out.

 

[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.

Ended up settling for the Surface with the x elite snapdragon, 16gb ram and 512gb storage. Not using it for anything crazy demanding (like gaming since I have a pretty good desktop for that). Curious to see how the Qualcom chips perform, I know in gaming they are horrific, but for laptops the power consumption to performance seems great.

 

[Bocephus86]

I have what is probably a dumb question, but wanted to check in here with it anyway:

I built my current PC about 7 or 8 years ago. I am looking to do a complete upgrade while only salvaging my SSDs & GPU (1080ti). AMD seems to be the way now, and I was intel last time around. The recycling 1080ti shouldn't have any issues working with a new motherboard / AMD setup, right? And the SSDs? Do I need to wipe them and treat them as 'brand new' component on the new system? If so, I'll probably buy a cheaper SSD fresh to start with and then move the two current SSDs in as additional drives, which should work since I've used an external converter to save data off a broken PCs SSD drive before.

 

[GreytWun]

I would say get an M2 drive for your OS. Your GPU and hard drives will be good to connect to your new computer.

AMD is a really good deal, especially some of the prices. If you go intel stay away from 13th and 14th gen right now. If you are going new new AMD (AM5) make sure you only get a B650 motherboard and nothing else since you aren’t taking advantage of gen 5 stuff. RAM 16GB kits are good or if you have a little extra you can get 32GB between 5600 - 6000mhz. Don't worry about the timings too much.

 

[Osprey]

I have what is probably a dumb question, but wanted to check in here with it anyway:

I built my current PC about 7 or 8 years ago. I am looking to do a complete upgrade while only salvaging my SSDs & GPU (1080ti). AMD seems to be the way now, and I was intel last time around. The recycling 1080ti shouldn't have any issues working with a new motherboard / AMD setup, right? And the SSDs? Do I need to wipe them and treat them as 'brand new' component on the new system? If so, I'll probably buy a cheaper SSD fresh to start with and then move the two current SSDs in as additional drives, which should work since I've used an external converter to save data off a broken PCs SSD drive before.

You don't need to wipe your SSD to put it in a new system. It's enough to just do a fresh installation of your OS. If you have Windows, you'd want to run the Windows setup from a USB drive and simply not choose the upgrade path. I would recommend just buying a new drive, though, since you probably have a SATA SSD and NVMe SSDs are so much faster. You can also increase your storage while you're at it.

I would buy 32GB of RAM. Games are starting to recommend it and 16GB will definitely not last you another 7-8 years.

 

[Bocephus86]

Thanks to you both! I figure I am saving a (relative) boatload by recycling my GPU, my storage drives, and my monitor, so I wanted to go higher level AMD + 32 gigs of ram. I'm 50/50 on keeping my case and power supply.

I'm going to start looking at combos for CPU / Motherboards, will post an update when I finally pull the trigger.

 

[Osprey]

At best, Arrow Lake seems underwhelming, even in productivity and especially in gaming. At worst, it could be another massive headache for Intel because HUB experienced instability that confirms what Moore's Law Is Dead reported yesterday:

The worst part about Arrow Lake is, according to every single tech tuber and game developer I spoke to who has their hands on it, the thing doesn't work. [...] I've had other people tell me that they've had constant blue screening issues, and even issues with games booting them out of online servers, because the Ultra 9 was detected as running some kind of cheating code even though it wasn't. It's so bad that I happen to know that multiple reviewers are even wondering if there's a hardware flaw in Arrow Lake causing these instability problems.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

It's amazing how rushed and half baked their new CPUs are. I know AMD got crap for the 9000 series Ryzen (as it should of), but jesus christ did Intel 1-up that crap.

 

[Mikeaveli]

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-official-performance-leak-8-better-at-gaming-15-in-multi-threaded-apps-vs-7800x3d

Tempted to upgrade to this from my 5900x.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Crazy how AMD and Intel are fighting to see who can be more mediocre.

 

[GreytWun]

I have a 7800X3D.

Disappointing that the difference is so low. Was looking for something much better.

 

[Osprey]

Introducing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D Desktop Processor
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the ultimate solution for the PC gaming market, with eight high-performance "Zen 5" processor cores and 16 processing threads ready to make quick work of gaming and productivity tasks. 4.7 GHz base clock speed is combined with a 5.2 GHz max boost clock, and these represent the highest clock speeds ever on an X3D chiplet. A hearty 120 W TDP and its huge 104 MB of total cache provides the processor with the power it needs to perform.

• Model: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Cores / Threads: 8C/16T
• Boost / Base Frequency: Up to 5.2 / 4.7 GHz
• Total Cache: 104 MB
• TDP: 120 W
• SEP (USD): $479

Disappointing that the difference is so low. Was looking for something much better.

According to a slide that AMD released today, at least the 8% gaming improvement over the 7800X3D is an average. In half of the 40+ games that they sampled, the improvement was higher, with 26% in Hogwarts Legacy being the best. They also pointed out that, even when the average framerates are no better, the 1% lows are. It probably still doesn't make sense to upgrade to it from the 7800X3D, though.