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How do you justify a CPU upgrade?

Intel didnt really innovate for a long time so 6 years with my 3930k was easy as pie.
The 3820 and 3930k gave me a good run with skt2011. I'm just about ready for an upgrade though.
 
60% performance gains for 2,6x the price of selling the old one, tangible single thread boost. Considering that I bought the best possible CPU for the job at least 2years ago to begin with and in the mean time performance has improved by 60% for the same price and is not expected to be devalued by something newer in the next year.
 
well my last 2 were from cpu's dieing, so that kinda decided for me...
 
Right now I couldn't justify it.. Between family and bills, its just not needed. Though I could if it died.. then I could justify it. But right now its just an expense I don't need. Though when my other half is done school, and starts working then it will be a different story. She should start at my current wage, which will be very nice.
 
I justify it by being able to afford the upgrade while being able to get a real world performance improvement.
 
I usually upgrade my laptop every year since I use it for business and write it off on taxes, my old laptop I simply sell it.
 
so if you got it cheap and it's still doing the job,what's the worry?
upgrade when you are bothered.by that time 3700x will undergo a price cut too.

I'm happy with current performance.

I'm just wondering how someone can justify going from 1700x to 3700x, which would require them to spend at least $200 extra for 20-25% better performance. If I bought first gen Ryzen at launch I'd probably be a bit annoyed by this...

Or how could someone building a new rig justify spending close to 2x the price for 3700x over 2700, which has recently been on sale for $150. There's only about a 15-20% performance difference but the price difference is over 2x at times.

I never had to think about these things before.
 
I'm happy with current performance.

I'm just wondering how someone can justify going from 1700x to 3700x, which would require them to spend at least $200 extra for 20-25% better performance. If I bought first gen Ryzen at launch I'd probably be a bit annoyed by this...

Or how could someone building a new rig justify spending close to 2x the price for 3700x over 2700, which has recently been on sale for $150. There's only about a 15-20% performance difference but the price difference is over 2x at times.

I never had to think about these things before.
well,1700x to 3700x can be a big jump in some cases,20-30%


and you're getting higher ram speed tolerance on top of that.

it's not a value upgrade,but it's a meaningful one.

buying 1st gen ryzen was not a good choice for gaming to begin with if somebody has to upgrade it 2 years later
3700x may not be the best value for gaming,but I think if you pair it with 3600 c16 you are not gonna have problems in 2 years.
 
Right now I couldn't justify it.. Between family and bills... .
What is the real question? The title of the thread is "How do you justify a CPU upgrade?" It was not, "How do you justify spending the money for a CPU upgrade?"

If all my bills are paid, the cupboards and fridge are full of food, the kids have shoes on their feet, there's gas in the tank, I've paid my retirement fund and I have set aside a little in case of an emergency, I can justify spending money on just about anything. But that wasn't the question even though $$$ was discussed in the post.

The question was simply, how do I justify the upgrade?

For me, the answer really is as simple as, "because I want it!" Now to me, it does need to be something I will use or consume. I can't justify simply wasting money on something I will never use.

And generally (but not always), it must start with something I need. I need a computer. My computer needs a CPU. At that point it is easy (for me) to justify spending extra for a CPU that is better than what I need - simply because I want it (again, assuming all my other financial commitments have been made).

I say "generally (but not always)" because some times it is totally about something I just want. I don't "need" a TV. But I wanted one. I didn't need a big screen TV. But I wanted one. I didn't need an expensive big screen TV. But I wanted a nice LG 4K OLED big screen TV - so I bought one.

But I use it - every day. So its justified - and I have no regrets. :)
 
I upgrade to scratch that itch. Little performance but mostly the itch.
 
I upgrade to scratch that itch. Little performance but mostly the itch.
trying out new HW is fun.
I am a little hesitant with CPUs though.it takes time to figure out each platform.I know how to push my current one for performance and efficiency,but it took time and hassle.
I could swap GPUs every 6 months though.
 
trying out new HW is fun.
I am a little hesitant with CPUs though.it takes time to figure out each platform.I know how to push my current one for performance and efficiency,but it took time and hassle.
I could swap GPUs every 6 months though.
Man in the past 3 years in terms of CPUs

I've had

Xeon X5650
i7 4790K
I7 5930K
FX 8320
FX 8350
FX 9370
Ryzen 1700X
Ryzen 3900X
Ryzen 3600

Hell I'm looking to upgrade to Ryzen 4000 already and i just got my Ryzen 3600:roll:

GPUs is way worst for me
 
Man in the past 3 years in terms of CPUs

I've had

Xeon X5650
i7 4790K
I7 5930K
FX 8320
FX 8350
FX 9370
Ryzen 1700X
Ryzen 3900X
Ryzen 3600

Hell I'm looking to upgrade to Ryzen 4000 already and i just got my Ryzen 3600:roll:

GPUs is way worst for me
why the gpu?
you take it out of the box,plug it in and it works.

I was considering a 3600 to be honest.I could sell my current cpu+mobo+ram and get 3600+b450+ram with little to no extra cost.I'd lose some gaming performance,not much probably,gain a lot of horsepower in other tasks.
the enthusiast in me wanted it,but the practical side won.

I was discouraged by ryzen's voltage fluctuations,those frequent bios updates they keep pushing and to add insult to injury I'd have to work with a god damned pga.no igpu too.for someone who does a few gpu upgrades per platform it's a must,or else I'd have to buy a second video card.
 
When I upgraded to my 2600X, I was using an i7 2600K. I compared the 2600X's benchmarks against what my 2600K was getting at 4.4GHz. I ended up going with the 2600X over the 2600 because I didn't feel like overclocking it, and I didn't go with the 2700X because it was more expensive.

I'm happy to say that the 2600X is a noticeably better performer than the 2600K. CPU intensive games run much better. 3D rendering is faster. It's been serving me very well.

I look for big increases in performance. The only CPU I could justify an upgrade to from my 2600X is the 3900X (if I could justify spending $500 on a CPU). Maybe Zen 3 will change things up.
 
why the gpu?
you take it out of the box,plug it in and it works.

I was considering a 3600 to be honest.I could sell my current cpu+mobo+ram and get 3600+b450+ram with little to no extra cost.I'd lose some gaming performance,not much probably,gain a lot of horsepower in other tasks.
the enthusiast in me wanted it,but the practical side won.

I was discouraged by ryzen's voltage fluctuations,those frequent bios updates they keep pushing and to add insult to injury I'd have to work with a god damned pga.no igpu too.for someone who does a few gpu upgrades per platform it's a must,or else I'd have to buy a second video card.
I meant i change GPUs even more than CPUs

And sure about the voltage fluctuation issue you mentioned as i haven't noticed that

That could only be when using PBO which makes sense as its uping the clocks and downing clocks based on load so voltage would change. All CPUs voltage will fluctuate when using turbo.

My voltage stays constant as i always disable turbo and set a fixed clock and voltage.
 
All CPUs voltage will fluctuate when using turbo.
not really.
or at least not to that degree since on my i7 I set the voltage manually and it won't go over that.

manual oc should work for ryzen,but you lose some performance in fixed oc mode.you have to set the voltage to match your all core oc,while the cpu will oc much more efficiently when it's boosting just 1-4 cores,not all 6-8.

from tpu's review

As our performance numbers show, the manual overclock can only shine in specific applications that fully load all cores, and even there, the differences are small.

auto boost is really the way to go for ryzen 3000 performance
 
why the gpu?
you take it out of the box,plug it in and it works.

I was considering a 3600 to be honest.I could sell my current cpu+mobo+ram and get 3600+b450+ram with little to no extra cost.I'd lose some gaming performance,not much probably,gain a lot of horsepower in other tasks.
the enthusiast in me wanted it,but the practical side won.

I was discouraged by ryzen's voltage fluctuations,those frequent bios updates they keep pushing and to add insult to injury I'd have to work with a god damned pga.no igpu too.for someone who does a few gpu upgrades per platform it's a must,or else I'd have to buy a second video card.
I just use a negative voltage offset. It keeps the voltage down with no effect on performance.
 
I just use a negative voltage offset. It keeps the voltage down with no effect on performance.
software or bios ?

I really love XTU,I want software oc for my next cpu.
I have 3-4 performance presets and I change them with a click.
 
not really.
or at least not to that degree since on my i7 I set the voltage manually and it won't go over that.

manual oc should work for ryzen,but you lose some performance in fixed oc mode.you have to set the voltage to match your all core oc,while the cpu will oc much more efficiently when it's boosting just 1-4 cores,not all 6-8.

from tpu's review



auto boost is really the way to go for ryzen 3000 performance
You loose less than 3% in single threaded loads but gain upward 10% in mulithreaded loads. The trade off is much more beneficial
 
I have 3-4 performance presets and I change them with a click.
You can have separate profiles in Ryzen Master. My MSI board allows me to save profiles in CMOS or on a flash drive.

Nothing is single click though.
 
What is the real question? The title of the thread is "How do you justify a CPU upgrade?" It was not, "How do you justify spending the money for a CPU upgrade?"


Great! Thanks for being a dick about it!

Lol.
 
software or bios ?

I really love XTU,I want software oc for my next cpu.
I have 3-4 performance presets and I change them with a click.
Bios. Just something like -0.1v
 
Usually, I upgrade once in 5 years or more. I like to feel heavy difference in performance
 
Great! Thanks for being a dick about it!
Gee whiz! Just pointing out the ambiguity of it. Did you even notice I omitted names to keep it ambiguous? Thanks for being an idiot and bringing the whole thread down to your level. :(

Lol
 
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well my last 2 were from cpu's dieing, so that kinda decided for me...
wow you killed a cpu before ? i never have had that happen, of course i dont overclock really. My biggest reason for upgrading would be electricity usage and encode time
 
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