Here is some advice for buying new computers: Should you pick an AMD Ryzen 9000 or an Intel Core Ultra 200?
Here is some advice for buying new computers: Should you pick an AMD Ryzen 9000 or an Intel Core Ultra 200?
I'm going with the numbers. It's really good, but mostly people like it because they don't know what was before. The new Ryzen chips have worked well for me many times. I think if you get one happy review from those 70, there are probably 100 happy reviews for any current Ryzen chip.
If you are just playing games, don't bother buying ultra200s CPUs because they all fall short of the 9700x in almost every game. The only reason to choose an ultra200 is its cheap price, but I'm not sure that will be true here. In my area, a 265k costs $1999 while a 245k still goes for $1699 and the 285k hits at $4399. This makes every single non-265k ultra200 sitting on the shelf. The 9700x is around $1800, the 9600x is about $1200, and the 9950x costs $3899. If a 265k were selling for just as much as the 9700x ($1800), buying it would be a great deal if you play games in pure 4K resolution where the GPU is the limit and not the CPU. You could get similar gaming speed but double the extra multi-core power for other things. If you need a very big motherboard, picking a 245k for the same price as the 9700x is okay (just a bit of a mid-tier choice). You might see low frame rates in games that don't match your needs. If none of these two options fit your job, just grab the 9700x for pure gaming. I recommend Coolermaster hyper 612 apex: - its fans are super easy to put on, you don't need a tight iron string. I felt great when putting it on because of magnetic rails and a magnetic lid. - It's performance is basically as good as most powerful dual-tower coolers (like the Noctua d15), but it costs less than that one. - I like its look, so I recommend everyone to check it out - I've used it to press 9950x3d, 265k, and even 285k.
So what are you traveling from right now? It matters a lot for how we think and how much cash we need too.
For the most people, yes, there's little reason to panic because Win10 support ends. But for us in Estonia, there is a valid reason for panic. Namely, our lives are intertwined with digital features and our ID cards use dedicated ID-software, that only works on current, supported OS. It does not work on old, unsupported OS (e.g Win7). Further reading (in English): https://www.id.ee/en/article/operating-s...-software/ And that is a BIG deal for us, if we can not use our ID cards electronically via our PCs. For bare minimum, bank transfers and payment of bills can not be done. Also, we can not log into official government sites that are needed for our daily lives (e.g health care for booking an appointment to the doctor or DMV to manage our vehicles). On top of that, we often work in home office and without being able to identify ourselves via our ID cards electronically, we can't even do our jobs. So, income also goes goodbye. So, we do not have an option. Core Ultra 5 235 vs R5 9600X comparison: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/652...en-5-9600X Based on that, R5 9600X has better single core performance than U5 235. And price wise, R5 9600X costs me €261.90: https://www.galador.eu/1903-cpus/1779010...-l2-l3-box While U5 235 costs me €302.19: https://www.galador.eu/1903-cpus/1949072...-5-235-box It does not make sense to pay ~€40 more for a worse single-threaded performance. And Intel's stock CPU cooler isn't that great either. In my 2nd build, i have Intel stock CPU cooler cooling i5-4590 and that cooler struggles to cool that CPU. So, no, i won't be getting stock coolers anymore. That i do know. However, it would be annoying for us to use our PCs when Windows constantly reminds us to activate the Win. And personalization options would also be needed. Since i'm planning to slap Win7 GUI onto my Win11 (or Win12), if possible. E.g we currently have Win7 GUI slapped to our Win10, since we don't like how Win10 looks like. (Back in the day when i was using WinXP, i had Win98 GUI on it.) Yes, RAM issues are known for Ryzen, but these are mainly when folks try to get EXPO running on DDR4/DDR5. With JEDEC speeds, DDR4/DDR5 works fine. For DDR5, i'm eyeing 6000/6400 MT/s. Even if it doesn't work, highest JEDEC would be 5600 MT/s, which coming from 6000/6400, isn't such a big drop. (Diff could even be negligible.) But Intel CPUs also have their issues. 13th and 14th gen had firmware issues, where CPU could even die. While Core Ultra 200 is underperforming and Intel is looking to fix it. So, risk wise, there's far more risk with latest Intel CPUs than with Ryzen CPUs. With Intel, and as it was seen with 13th and 14th gen, i'll never know when another issue is discovered that can outright kill my CPU. But with Ryzen, the only issue would be not being able to run EXPO, loosing me 400-1000 MT/s worth of speeds. Sorry, i don't look customer feedback when i buy my hardware, since that can't be trusted. E.g Apevia Galaxy 650W PSU has nice 4.4 rating on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Apevia-ATX-GX650W...B094278HKG Would you buy that PSU based on the good rating? If not, then why not? Instead, i read reputable unbiased reviews to make my decision. And reviews have shown that Core Ultra 200 doesn't improve much over 14th gen. Most improvements are to do with power consumption and thermals, but we are talking desktop PCs here, where power consumption is not an issue. Also, since CPU coolers can be freely choosed, thermals aren't an issue either. With this, the two strong points Core Ultra 200 has, are meaningless. On top of that, Core Ultra 200 CPUs cost more than their AMD counterparts. And on some instances, even perform worse, performance wise, than Ryzen counterpart. While i do like to Intel CPUs (especially older generation ones), my brand loyalty isn't that strong that i'm willing to pay more for a worse product.
Everywhere i've looked at, Core Ultra 200 costs more than their Ryzen 9000 counterparts. U7 265K costs me €387.20 R7 9700X costs me €373.91 I have a feeling that you didn't read the formalities i wrote above. We do not have 4K monitors, but instead 1080p ones. Our PC's workload is also written in the formalities above. I'm not looking towards Godlike, ACE or Unify-X Z890/X870E MoBos from MSI. Those are the true extremely expensive MoBos. E.g: MSI X870E Godlike - €1583.40 MSI Z890 Godlike - €1388.10 MSI Z890 Unify-X - €805.90 MSI Z890 ACE - €722.20 Instead, the MoBos i'm looking at, are in the middle of the pack; MSI X870E Carbon Wi-Fi - €520.50 MSI Z890 Carbon Wi-Fi - €493.80 MSI X870E Tomahawk Wi-Fi - €374.20 MSI Z890 Gaming Plus Wi-Fi - €348.10 While even the cheapest options are costing quite a bit: MSI X870 Gaming Plus Wi-Fi - €281.00 (the cheapest MSI option for AM5) MSI Pro Z890-S Wi-Fi - €223.50 (the cheapest MSI option for LGA1851) AsRock X870 Pro RS - €235.80 (the cheapest overall option for AM5) Biostar Z890AX-E Pro - €185 (the cheapest overall option for LGA1851) Latest MoBos are expensive, there's no way over it. Average MoBo today can cost more than the CPU you put into it. I looked it up and it has proprietary fan mount. Something that i talked about in my initial post and when i can help it - will not get. It may be cheaper for you, but in my area, there's 0 availability for it. So, can't buy it even if i wanted to. I, for one, do not like it's appearance at all. It looks like a dull and tasteless box in the middle of the MoBo. Look the current pics of our PCs, either from the pcpp links i gave above or builds.gg links from my signature and tell me, is our taste with our PCs minimalistic and simple, where such CPU cooler would please us aesthetically? 🤔
Ok, I looked at the main post again, so I'm going to recommend an RTX 9700x for playing in 1080p. You said that all your motherboard choices use x870e or z890 chipsets, but I didn't see a mention of USB4 or Thunderbolt5 there. If you don't need those features, then the x870e boards aren't better than the older x670e ones, right? Do you want me to suggest some x670e boards instead? I'll recommend an X670e Carbon board, and another option is an X670e Gaming WiFi card. That one might feel a bit plain to you though. But after checking the pictures of your favorite build style, it's totally fine with me.
While it is true, I haven't talked about USB4 or Thunderbolt, so here is why I am looking for an 800-series MoBo (both Intel and AMD) instead of a 600-series MoBo (AMD) or a 700-series MoBo (Intel). The reason is age. X670E came out on September 27, 2022, while X870/E released on September 30, 2024. That's two years apart. If I were to buy an X670E MoBo right now, it could have been sitting on the shelf for two more years than the X870/E MoBo. Since I don't plan to replace the MoBo anytime soon (I never actually have), how much longer do we want our components? MoBos have a cap on them that will age even if they are not in use. And if the cap blows on a MoBo, it gets bricked. In the same way, why don't I look at Intel's 12th, 13th, and 14th gen chips? They are actually better than the Core Ultra 200 series anyway. Again, there is some age to them that hurts overall component lifespan.
I have thought about it but there's no telling if the installation even works. And if it, somehow, does, what other problems there may be down the line. That, and the fact that our licenses are OEM and not retail ones, complicate things even further. Heck, i even struggled greatly to upgrade OS to Win10 on my Skylake build ( my topic about it if interested). So, it can be even worse 2nd time around (Win10 to Win11). Win11 aside, our hardware also has some years on it and now would be a good time for an upgrade as well. E.g; 1st PC (Skylake build) core components were bought Q3 '16. 2nd PC (Haswell build) core components were bought Q2 '15. That's 9 years and 10 years old as of now. And both builds have been in daily use since the purchase (except for some days during our vacations). While CPU is durable, lasting easy 10 years or even 20 years, i'm more worried about MoBos. Since if i keep both builds running for long, MoBo would most likely be the 1st one to give out (as i said above, caps on MoBo do age in time). RAM i can easily replace (actually did buy new RAM for Haswell build in Q1'19). And GPUs are also easily replaced (both builds have seen GPU upgrade already). Then there's also the fact that there are some games out there where neither of our builds are compatible to run. Sure, i could get RTX 5060 into both builds, but CPUs will hinder anything GPU could do. If the game even launches, that is. A nice example would be The Talos Principle 2, that we both like. Before that game, Haswell build had GTX 760 in it, whereby game absolutely refused to launch due to the ancient GPU. Since i still kept my GTX 1060 3GB around, after i upgraded GPU in Skylake build to GTX 1660 Ti, i popped GTX 1060 3GB into Haswell build and now, was able to launch the game. And now, The Talos Principle 3 is in the works (demo is already out). Hogwarts: Legacy would also be something we like to play, but neither of our builds are capable launching it. (Skylake build actually can launch it but that with 720p/30 FPS with low settings). So, yeah. Two solid reasons why to upgrade: Win10 ends, our core hardware is 9-10 years old. 3rd reason: I'd like to have both of our builds equal in performance. Currently, mine is better but that makes me feel bad.