Ypou almost lost me starting with Gamer's Nexus as the only site I distrust more is jayztwocents.
The biggest problem with RAM testing has been:
1. It seems that reviewers go in with a pre-conceived notion and then select games to test which prove their hypothesis
2. Its also true that more effort is needed to include hardware that is not already bottlenecking the system. Back in the day you'd see tests where fps didn't change much because the system was GPU bottlenecked. But, run that test again with twin card in SLI / CF and bang, big difference.
3. Another testing inadequacy was that most folks tested average fps... and not min fps. In many games, avg fps changed little but the test with faster RAM got rid of the stutters because faster RAM brought up minimum fps dramatically.
4. Most of the build requests we get are from gaming enthusiasts and with the ability to do a decent job in video editing. In any price point we've looked at, its hard for me to make a case for AMD. And of course, the faster RAM also helps in the Video editing arena.
5. Yes Intel's overclock ability is something AMD can't do but in TPUs tests, the 10600k hit 80C and that was at 4.9 OC not 5.1 ... granted that gaming will present a far lower load than Blender and most Gaming Boxes will have something a bit better than a Noctua NH-U12 (Sythe FUMA is 5C cooler / best AI is 10C cooler but that's a cost that has to be considered. Then again... the 3900X is only 1C cooler than the heavily OC'd 10600k
Intel has academically relevant FPS advantage in games, as in, barely relevant, while having a inferior architecture with security problems and no PCI-E 4.0 support which may very well be relevant soon, coming gen graphics cards. Plus, Intels CPUs are awfully inefficient, especially when overclocked. And 170 bucks extra, may not be much money for you, but for the most people it is rather significant.
"inferior architecture" is the non-relevant rebuttal to "your CPU is slower". CPUs are tools, their elegance in design is not relevant to getting the job done. You can make a hammer with carbon fiber handle and space age metals but if it doesn't bang nails in any faster, the fancy-smancy design has no advantage. I have several hammer of various designs ... the newest one is 25 years old. I have not used, seen or read about another hammer that is going to change how fast I can replace the shingles on my garage.
And exactly what effect has the security problems resulted in for either CPU ? Who has been impacted ? Not only have I not seen articles explaining that x % or users have been affected and this is how it has impacted them, I have yet to see a single post whereby a single user has a sob story to tell.
And if all we are talking about is "enthusiast gaming," what does AMD have that can compete with the $160 10400F
$160 - 10400F = 100%
$390 - 3900X = 97.3%
$273 - 3700X = 97.0%
$218 - 3600x = 94.7%
$172 - 3600 = 93.8%
$256 - 3300x = 92.8%
$209 - 2700x = 89.7%
$290 - 10600k = 102.5%
Selecting a CPU is a exercise in picking the best tool for the job ...
... it's not better because it has a smaller die size
... it's not better because it has more cores
... it's not better because it has less vulnerabilities to threats that don't actually exist in the real world
... it's not better because the design is more elegant
... it's only better when it performs better
Finally let's look at the pricing argument .... specious as it is.
Compared to the 3600, the 10600k is only 9.3 % (102.5 / 93.8%) faster and it costs 68% (290 / 172) more, therefore the 3600 is the better buy ? OK so I have bought the two CPus, have them sitting on my desk ... neither one is faster because they don't do anything without the rest of the componentry. So we need to make this real .... Let's say we are building a $1200 system with a 3600. is it worth it to switch to a 10600k just for Gaming ?
3600 System = $1250
10600k system + $1250 + ($290 - $172) = $1368 or 9.4% more cost.
I'd call that a "mathematical" wash. And that's from a strictly fiscal perspective.... what does the user gain in the way of the user experience for being just under 10% faster ?
Now of course, given the audeince here, the user typically will be taking the additional step of OC'ing the system to the max, they will be grabbing a better cooler than most, andthey can pick up about 2% with the OC on the 10600k, 1% with the 3600 in gaming. If they doing video editing of the gaming experiences, then the gains are about 4% for the 10600k and 1% for the 3600 .
If the OPs referenced testing delivers even half of what the article claims with faster RAM ... it is certainly
In summary, if you are building a box to play games or to play games and edit video ... you should only be looking at CPU performance in those areas; Intel wins for this job. If you are going to be doing Rendering or Software / Gaming Development, then you should choose AMD cause it is the best tool for that job. That's basically 'it"
Secondary considerations are:
Power consumption - I don't see any major differences here but it favors Intel:
Temperature - I don't see any major differences here but it favors Intel:
If you are a price conscious gamer, then you won't be looking at the 10600k, you'll be grabbing the 10400F which is 6% faster than the 3600. With a decent air cooler In addition your GFX card budget is likely to be the system bottleneck anyway.
There is no best tool ... which tool you should grab for your toolbox kinda depends upon whether you want to take aout a bolt, screw in a screw or bang in a nail. It really doesn't matter what color it is, how elegant it looks or how it reacts to things it will never be exosed to. Same for the CPU which is also a tool. There is no best CPU, just the best CPU for a particular job. In an engineering or architectural office wqith 10 CAD operators,a typical workload might be 9 stations using AutoCAD to prepare constrution drawings and 1 station doing rendering. for "presentation purposes". I'd build them 9 boxes with Intel CPUs and nvidia RTX cards because AutoCAD is promarily single threaded and the applications runs faster on this hardware. The rending box would be AMD based with Quadro card because these components do rendering better. it's not a populatity or beauty contest. It's about getting the job done. And while AMD has closed the gap, it's still a choice thats hard to justify with Intel's 10xxx lineup
and pair it with 3800 c13 ram. it's what tech channels are supposed to do for us.
well when the gen pop game at 720p with all low settings to acheive 250fps+ and poor little Ryzen can only acheive 200fps then I think you have made your point and Intel is the dominant master PC race, meanwhile, I'm gaming happily on my Ryzen 1600af which performs as good if not better when overclocked than a 2600 (4.2Ghz daily use) and it cost me a whopping £80, my RX 580 cost me similar and my B-Die Team group RAM cost me about £70 for 16GB and chugs along happily at 3400mhz CL 14 (it does do 3600 but I think my IMC is the limiting factor in stability at that speed but W/E) I'm gutted I didnt spend an extra £120 on CPU, £100+ on GPU and another £50+ on RAM for the same performance or 5% give or take
