#Best Air Cooler For Ryzen 2700x

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Asus ROG Strix GL12CX review: The Core i9, RTX 2080 monster PC

It’s not usually I’ve significantly robust emotions about PC circumstances, however man alive there’s quite a bit occurring with Asus’ new ROG Strix GL12CX desktop. You’ve received your swishes, your slashes, your grilles and your grates, matt versus gloss versus RGB lighting, and even a full-blown chasm because of its hot-swap SSD bay. It’s quite a bit to absorb, however supplied you may get over its many-textured exterior, there’s a ship load of energy to be present in its water-cooled innards, together with an Intel Core i9-9900Okay processor, 32GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card.

In fact, with a spec like that, the GL12CX is of course a tad costly. £3000, to be exact, when it launches late this November, though there can be an ever-so-slightly cheaper configuration with a Core i7-9700Okay and 16GB of RAM out there for £2500 as nicely (which can be the mannequin you’ll discover within the US for a princely $3300). “Three grand!?” I hear you exclaim. “A PC can’t presumably be price that a lot!” Effectively, that’s what we’re about to search out out. Let’s have a look.

The very first thing I’ll let you know is that this factor is goddamn loud. Regardless of its Core i9 CPU being hooked as much as a water cooler tucked away within the prime of the PC, I believed I’d all of a sudden been transported to an airport hangar the primary time I turned this on, so loud and deafening have been its numerous followers and whizz pop machines.

Its efficiency profile was, admittedly, set to ‘Turbo’ in Asus’ onboard ROG Armoury Crate software program, however even choosing one of many GL12CX’s quieter profiles (and making a barely bigger air hole down the facet by swapping out its black facet panel for the bundled tempered glass one) was nonetheless louder than I’d like. That is most likely all the way down to the truth that it not solely has a fairly titchy rear exhaust in comparison with your typical desktop setup, however its RTX 2080 GPU additionally falls into the marginally much less environment friendly ‘blower’ class, too, giving it only one fairly tiny fan to play with fairly than two or three jumbo ones that take up your complete width of the cardboard.

Nonetheless, whereas the GL12CX doesn’t paint a very promising image for these in search of a little bit of peace and quiet, the upside of all this additional wind energy is that it does allow you to run its ninth Gen Intel Espresso Lake CPU at its full 5.0GHz Turbo Enhance pace, if not slightly greater should you fancy overclocking it. This would possibly sound slightly counterintuitive at first – in spite of everything, we’d usually count on issues to run at their anticipated speeds once you’re spending this a lot cash on them – however as we noticed in my Intel Core i9-9900Okay overview, this can be a chip that requires some substantial cooling to get essentially the most out of it.

Certainly, I used to be capable of comfortably overclock the GL12CX to run at a most pace of 5.1GHz earlier than it conked out on me, which is much more spectacular than the highest pace of simply four.7GHz I managed with the processor after I solely had a daily tower fan caught on it. Overclocking didn’t really make an enormous quantity of distinction to my benchmark scores, all advised (its Cinebench R15 single core rating elevated from 212 to 216, whereas its multicore rating went from 2080 to 2109), however should you’re shopping for a 3 grand system with a £600 / $580 CPU inside it, I’d argue you’d wish to make rattling certain it runs as quick as Intel supposed.

The one downside is that I’m simply not satisfied anybody actually wants a Core i9 of their gaming PC proper now. Certain, it would make your video games run quicker at 1920×1080 and 2560×1440, however once you’ve received an RTX 2080 within the trunk, I reckon you’re more likely going to be utilizing this as a 4K gaming system the place the distinction between a Core i9 and its considerably cheaper Core i7-8700Okay / Ryzen 7 2700X rivals is virtually naff all.

I can’t communicate but to how Intel’s new Core i7-9700Okay performs by means of comparability, however except you’re going to be utilizing the GL12CX for some severe ‘artistic’ purposes like video modifying, animation rendering or skilled photograph work, then I feel you’ll be a lot better off going for the GL12CX’s cheaper specification fairly than this one.

On the again of the GL12CX, you get two USB2 ports, two USB three.1 Gen 2 ports, 4 USB three.1 Gen 1 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, an optical S/PDIF and 5 audio jacks.

In spite of everything, you’re nonetheless getting an RTX 2080 with the Core i7 system, which, as we’ve additionally found in my Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 overview, is about as quick as one in all as we speak’s GTX 1080Ti playing cards – that’s, no less than in relation to uncooked efficiency, as a result of there’s nonetheless no manner of testing any of its Turing GPU’s finest options but, comparable to its AI-powered and performance-enhancing DLSS magic or its fancy mild reflection ray-tracing tech.

This could hopefully change quickly, though given the delay on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Remaining Fantasy XV’s respective RTX updates (which have been meant to reach in October), it might nonetheless be a number of extra months earlier than the RTX 2080 begins to really feel like good worth for cash. As a substitute, proper now, it falls into just about the identical class as its Core i9 CPU for me, in that it’s one other extravagant luxurious merchandise fairly than a superb use of your cash.

Nonetheless, there’s no denying this can be a highly effective piece of , and also you’re just about a system that may comfortably deal with video games at 60fps or above on max settings at 1080p and 1440p, in addition to a gentle 60fps on medium to excessive settings at 4K.

As an illustration, I not solely noticed a median body fee of 73fps in Hitman on Extremely settings at 4K, however I additionally noticed a median of 74fps in Forza Horizon four‘s 4K Extremely settings as nicely, the latter reaching as excessive at 84fps every now and then. Equally, the GL12CX’s RTX 2080 blitzed by means of Doom at a fee of as much as 110fps at 4K Extremely settings, with the body fee by no means dipping under 87fps.

On the entrance panel, you’ll discover two USB three.1 Gen 1 and two USB2 ports, plus an SD card reader, a mixed headphone and microphone jack and *shockhorror* a 9mm optical disk drive for DVDs.

Elsewhere, I needed to make a few tweaks to get a gentle 60fps, nevertheless it didn’t take a lot compromise to get the remainder of my benchmarking suite working good and easily. In Murderer’s Creed Odyssey, for instance, it managed a gentle 54fps common on Excessive at 4K, however you’ll nonetheless get a wonderfully playable common of 41fps should you go for its prime Extremely Excessive setting at this decision. Equally, follow Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘s SMAA anti-aliasing setting, and also you’ll see round 40-50fps on Highest, or nearer to 50-60fps on Excessive.

I additionally noticed between 50-60fps in The Witcher three on Excessive at 4K, nevertheless it was clearly extra comfy on Medium, with digicam pans turning into a heck of quite a bit smoother as soon as the body fee reached 60-72fps. The identical factor occurred in Whole Battle: Warhammer II as nicely. Whereas Excessive nonetheless produced a really playable common of 51fps in its battle benchmark, it was solely as soon as I switched to Medium that it jumped as much as that excellent 60fps.

Remaining Fantasy XV was additionally a little bit of robust buyer for the RTX 2080 at 4K, particularly if you wish to use all of Nvidia’s fancy hair, turf and lighting results. Certainly, I needed to flip all these off and accept its Common high quality setting to get wherever close to 60fps at this decision (with Excessive coming in round 40-44fps when rambling throughout the hills of Duscae), so should you’re after the quadruple whammy of HairWorks, TurfEffects, Shadowlibs and VXAO lighting, you’ll must play at 2560×1440.

Not that there’s something mistaken with utilizing an RTX 2080 for taking part in at 1440p, in fact, particularly when it does such a rattling good job of it, too. Certainly, throughout the board I used to be capable of get 60fps or extra on max settings with each recreation in my benchmarking suite at this decision, making it a sensible choice for these with excessive refresh fee displays in addition to these aiming for 4K.

The new-swap 2.5in SSD bay (which Asus reckons makes the GL12CX ‘esports-ready’) may be lined up with a snap-on little bit of plastic should you favor.

By way of storage, you’re well-served in total capability, however the pace of the GL12CX’s main drive leaves one thing to be desired. With the Core i9 spec, as an example, you get a 512GB Samsung branded NVMe SSD and a 2TB HDD, whereas the Core i7 spec nets you a 256GB NVMe SSD and a 1TB HDD.

Sadly, regardless of the Samsung DNA, the GL12CX’s NVMe drive isn’t wherever close to as quick as Samsung’s 970 Evo. Within the AS SSD benchmark, for instance, the GL12CX’s drive got here in with a random 4K learn pace of 32MB/s and a random 4K write pace of 107MB/s. That’s 42% slower on studying, and 28% slower on writing. It’s nonetheless pretty respectable as these items go, however contemplating the remainder of the PC’s high-end spec I hoped for one thing slightly quicker. The HDD, in the meantime, is as sluggish as you’d count on, so I’d use that for sticking your photographs, music and lesser-used video games on should you can presumably assist it.

Total, then, the Asus ROG Strix GL12CX feels extra like a PC for bragging rights sake for the time being fairly than one which’s good worth for cash. Certain, it’s a one-stop store for lots of the very best parts round as we speak – which for some folks can be nearly as good a purpose as any to exit and get it – however the advantages you’ll acquire over cheaper Core i7/GTX 1080Ti programs on the market (which may be had for nearer to 2 grand judging from a fast customisation spec I made up over at Scan) are arguably fairly minimal.

I’m undoubtedly not satisfied concerning the want for a Core i9 proper now, and whereas the RTX 2080 might nicely begin to present its true worth over the GTX 1080Ti as soon as builders begin getting their numerous RTX updates on the market (see right here for a full checklist of all of the confirmed RTX video games to date ), it’s nonetheless too early to say whether or not the potential efficiency acquire is absolutely going to be price all that additional money. There are nonetheless a few weeks earlier than the GL12CX goes on sale, in fact, however for now I’d advise to carry off a short time longer to see if Nvidia’s proposed RTX updates can shift the goalposts in Asus’ favour.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/asus-rog-strix-gl12cx-review-the-core-i9-rtx-2080-monster-pc/

[entergamingxp]

AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7 3800XT review: microevolution • Eurogamer.net

A year to the day after releasing its landmark 3rd-gen Ryzen desktop CPUs, AMD has released a trio of new ‘XT’ processors that take advantage of manufacturing improvements to hit higher clock speeds. Two chips, the Ryzen 5 3600XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT, get a 100MHz frequency boost, while the Ryzen 7 3800XT is 200MHz faster than its ‘X’ equivalent. Otherwise, the models are more or less identical – the same core counts, cache sizes and overall architecture. We’ve been testing the Ryzen 7 and 9 models for the past week, and we think that they’re a definite boon for anyone planning a Ryzen build – but perhaps not for the reasons you’d expect.

Before we get into the results of our content creation and game testing, let’s briefly set the scene. One of the most critical things to know about these new models is that they are a supplement to the existing third-gen Ryzen lineup, rather than a (partial) replacement. That means that the older models – 3600X, the 3800X and the 3900X – will stay on the market, at least for the immediate future. While both the ‘X’ released a year ago and the ‘XT’ models releasing now actually share exactly the same recommended retail price, the original processors have naturally become cheaper over time, so in actuality there’s a sizeable gap between the two lines. Here’s how things currently shape up, as of early July 2020:

So in the UK, there’s a £45 premium in the case of the 3600XT, £120 (!) for the 3800XT and £90 for the 3900XT. Things are a bit different in the US, where the price differentials look to be closer to $25 for the 3600XT, $70 for the 3800XT and $80 for the 3900XT. These margins will fluctuate over time, especially just after the initial launch period, so be sure to check the current prices yourself if you’re trying to decide between an ‘X’ or an ‘XT’. Fundamentally though, the question remains the same: how much is an extra 100 or 200MHz worth? What extra performance can a clock speed bump of this size provide?

Let’s begin to answer that by briefly discussing our test setup, before we start looking at some content creation results and then move into the gaming benchmarks. We tested each processor on our standard Windows 10 installation, updated to the most recent version (2004) to ensure that all of the latest security fixes and CPU topology awareness improvements are in place. The most recent AMD chipset drivers were also installed. Each app and game we tested was installed to fast NVMe storage, in this case the XPG Spectrix S40G.

We performed the bulk of our AMD testing on the venerable Asus ROG Crossfire 7 X470 motherboard, with additional testing on two new B550 boards: the premium Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming Wi-Fi and the more mid-range Asus TUF B550M-Plus Wi-Fi. We’ll discuss B550 in more detail later in this review, but suffice it to say that choosing a platform that supports PCIe 4.0 and a future generation of AMD Zen 3 processors makes a lot of sense if you want to keep your options open for easy CPU, GPU and storage upgrades down the line.

For our Intel chips, we used the high-end MSI MPG Gaming Carbon Wifi and the ultra-premium Asus ROG Maximus 12 Extreme motherboards for our 10th-gen testing, with our ninth-gen results on the Asus ROG Maximus 11 Extreme.

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We have also evolved our cooling setup since our last review, with the XT processors getting the benefit of AiO cooling from the Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora 240. We didn’t experience any thermal throttling with our previous setup, AMD’s excellent Wraith Prism air cooler pegged at 100 per cent fan speed, but this provides a more apples-to-apples comparison with our Intel parts which have historically been paired with a Gamer Storm Castle 240mm AiO. Thanks to Overclockers and Alphacool for supplying the new AiOs.

While motherboards and coolers changed, the remainder of our open air test rig has stayed the same, complete with G.Skill’s gorgeous Trident Z Royal 3600MHz C16 RAM, an 850W Gamer Storm power supply and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition card.

Right – with that preamble out of the way, let’s get into the content creation results. We tested the two XT processors sampled to us against a selection of recent chips from both Intel and AMD in two scenarios: rendering a 3D scene in professional graphics package Cinema 4D, simulated by Cinebench R20, and encoding one of Patreon-quality videos into both h.264 and h.265 (HEVC) using the open source Handbrake video transcoder app.

Cinebench tests both single and multi-threaded performance, and often proves a good predictor of trends we’ll see in the later gaming results. What stands out here is the boost to single-core performance in each of the XT models we tested, with scores of around 540 – that’s five per cent faster than the 514 we recorded for the 3900X and 3950X, the previous best single-core competitors from AMD. That pushes the 3800XT and 3900XT very close to the best Cinebench single thread result we’ve ever recorded, a score of 545 by the Core i9 10900K.

When it comes to multi-threaded performance, we see slightly higher scores from the XT models, but the advantage is much more modest – we recorded a score of 7101 for the 3900XT and 7032 for the 3900X, a difference of only about one per cent. The 3800XT gets a larger +200MHz boost compared to its predecessor, but it’s still in the same ballpark (5164) as another eight-core CPU, the 3700X (4730).

CB R20 1T CB R20 MT HB h.264 HB HEVC HEVC Power Use Ryzen 9 3950X 514 9249 64.73fps 25.59fps 296W Ryzen 9 3900XT 538 7101 51.91fps 20.49fps 221W Ryzen 9 3900X 514 7032 51.80fps 20.29fps 228W Ryzen 7 3800XT 540 5164 37.14fps 15.83fps 177W Ryzen 7 3700X 494 4730 35.05fps 14.67fps 152W Ryzen 5 3600X 490 3705 27.54fps 11.81fps 149W Ryzen 3 3300X 503 2577 18.89fps 8.25fps 120W Ryzen 3 3100 449 2328 17.32fps 7.44fps 118W Ryzen 7 2700X 408 3865 27.31fps 10.04fps 224W Ryzen 5 2600 399 2810 20.39fps 7.09fps 130W Core i9 10900K 545 6337 45.55fps 19.43fps 268W Core i5 10600K 493 3587 26.40fps 11.84fps 177W Core i9 9900K 520 5090 37.87fps 16.22fps 266W Core i7 9700K 486 3759 28.77fps 13.12fps 171W Core i5 9600K 450 2603 20.70fps 9.46fps 132W

Looking at the Handbrake results, where we’re transcoding an MP4 video to h.264 and HEVC using the Production Standard preset and CRF 18 quality setting, it’s a similar story with minor but measurable increases across the board. So, for tasks like rendering or transcoding where you’re using all the cores and threads at your disposal, the advantage in hitter higher frequencies seems subtle. This suggests that content creators will be better off with the cheapest chip that has the number of cores and threads you want – ie the 3600 for six cores, the 3700X for eight and the 3900X for twelve.

We also measured power consumption in these tests, but as promised the new XT models didn’t draw any more power at the wall than their predecessors – indeed, the 3900XT drew slightly less, which is great to see.

So it’s a bit of a wash between ‘X’ and ‘XT’ for content creation, but what about gaming? To find out, let’s take a look at how each chip performs in some of our favourite games, tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K.

As usual, we paired each processor with the RTX 2080 Ti, the fastest consumer GPU available, to ensure we’re CPU-limited as much as possible. These results should still be illuminating even if you’re on a slower GPU though, as we’d expect similar gaps in performance even from mainstream GPUs at 1080p. To give you some context, an RTX 2080 Ti at 4K (as tested here) provides roughly equivalent performance to a GTX 1660 running at 1080p. Higher resolutions, like 1440p and 4K, ought to be more dependent on GPU performance – especially in the challenging game scenes we’ve selected – but differences from CPU to CPU can still crop up, so do look at the full range of results. Likewise, we encourage you to read other Ryzen 3800XT and 3900XT reviews to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how these processors perform in a wider range of scenarios.

With all that said, let’s get started!

AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7 3800XT analysis

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/amd-ryzen-9-3900xt-and-ryzen-7-3800xt-review-microevolution-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amd-ryzen-9-3900xt-and-ryzen-7-3800xt-review-microevolution-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[superfreakinlonely]

Today we’re building a gaming PC and the best part is that it’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg. In fact, the parts list for this PC came to around $700 with mail-in rebates, which is pretty sweet come to think of it. We haven’t done a sub $1,000 gaming PC build in a really long time. Now before I jump into the parts list, I do want to mention something very important. This is a gaming PC and I want to emphasize gaming because that’s ultimately what we’re going for- it’s not necessarily something that’s geared for streaming or content creation. In fact, if you’re looking for something that can do all of that, you might have to spend a few extra hundred dollars to achieve that.

Also, please note that these were the prices when we bought the components so they may change over time.

CPU

This gaming PC is built around Intel’s B365 platform, and I’m sure most of you might’ve not heard of that, but it exists. Before you guys started raging in the comments, hear me out for a second: First of all, this build is not sponsored by Intel and secondly we feel like this is the best bang for the buck gaming PC that you can get given the budget that we are working with. There are some downsides going with this platform and I’ll mention those a little bit later along with some suggestions and alternatives if you absolutely, desperately need Ryzen in your life because I know some people are going to feel hurt for us not going with Ryzen.

The CPU of choice is the Core i5 9400F: it’s a six core processor without hyper-threading and it doesn’t have IGP, which isn’t the goal for this build because it’s strictly a gaming PC and that’s where a discreet GPU comes into play. It’s priced at $145 and for the same cost, if you’re looking for something from AMD, that would be the Ryzen 5 3400G which features four cores and eight threads and comes with built-in Radeon RX graphics.

Another alternative is the Ryzen 5 2600 which is a six-core, 12-thread processor and you can pick it up for less than $120; it seems like a better option if you’re looking for streaming, but do keep in mind that it isn’t the latest and greatest offering from AMD. If you were to look from a raw FPS standpoint, Intel still takes the edge. You could also go with the Ryzen 5 3600, but that’s going to add an extra hundred dollars on top of this given budget. The good thing about going with Ryzen is that you can also overclock that processor to squeeze just a little bit more performance, whereas with Intel it’s locked, which means you really can’t tinker around with the settings and that’s unfortunate but what we’re working with given the budget.

Motherboard

As for the motherboard, I chose the ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4, it’s a micro ATX board with two M.2 MVME slots, one of them featuring a heat sync. For $85. this is a good looking motherboard. It doesn’t need overclocking capabilities like Z390, since the i5 processor that we’re using is locked out of the box and it serves our purpose pretty well. Now here are the downsides of going with a B365 motherboard, and the first one is pretty obvious: It’s upgradability, because if you plan on dropping in a 9700K or 9900K, you won’t be able to get the best performance out of them because they can’t overclock on this board. Secondly, you also lose on IO expansions with this platform and this chipset.

Whereas with Ryzen, you can make your way up to a higher end Ryzen processor and still be able to overclock that processor. For instance, you can go with a B350 motherboard and then perhaps later upgrade to something like a 2700X or potentially even drop in a 3700X and overclock that as well. The upgradability options are certainly a lot more open on the AMD side versus Intel.

Cooling

To cool the CPU, we decided to use the stock cooler that comes with the processor just to keep the price under $700 after rebates. But if you’re comfortable spending a few extra bucks, I would highly recommend picking up the Hyper 212 Evo from Cooler Master. Specifically, the Black Edition that doesn’t come with any RGB nonsense. It’s a lot quieter than the stock one and it gives you better temperatures as well and another option if you’re looking into something that’s not too ugly.

Memory

For memory, we went with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX modules clocked at 2666MHz. This is a dual channel kit and it’s priced at $63, which is something that we were able to find to fit the budget.

Storage

This next bit is the most exciting part, and in fact, I have never been this excited about using a storage solution before. The Silicon Power A80 MVME SSD is 512GB in capacity and it only costs $60. That is just crazy. I mean, $60 for 512GB is absolute madness, it’s a steal. I can’t wait to test the performance of this SSD, but it also makes me realize how high capacity SSDs are getting cheap. This is a perfect fit for the build.

Graphics Card

The most important part of this build is the graphics card. And for that we decided to go with EVGA GTX 1660 SC because it’s priced at $240 and you can pick it up right now for $220 with some rebates. Also, you’re not paying the RTX tax and for 1080p gaming this is a perfect fit in my opinion.

Power Supply

Powering this entire build is the Corsair CX 450M, a semi modular PSU and it should be plenty enough to power the entire hardware.

Case

Finally, the case choice is the Phanteks P300. It’s priced less than $65 and for that it looks good, not to mention the red interior does give it a bit of a premium look. You also get tempered glass – if you want to showcase the components inside the PC, this is a great option.

Now that we have the parts list out of the way, let’s put together this build.

Final Build

This is the final build, and to be honest with you, I’m not happy with the way how it looks. Let’s get the first thing out of the way and that is the stock cooler. It is an eyesore to look at, especially through that temper glass panel. It just doesn’t a fit because you’ve got those cables going into the front panel or the fan header. Something just doesn’t feel in sync with this gaming PC and this can easily be addressed with an aftermarket cooling solution. If you plan on picking up the HyperX 212 Black Edition, that should be a perfect fit for this build.

The next thing that bothered me the most is the case because it only comes to these single 120mm exhaust fan at the back and no front intake fans, which is not an ideal airflow solution. When I ran my temperature test the CPU and GPU were pretty cool but I would highly recommend picking a few extra intake fans for the front so that you have that air flow movement going through the hardware. That is one of the downsides with this case and I wish Phanteks included an extra fan for the front, but possibly negative pressure inside this case could be one of those factors that led to lower CPU and GPU temperatures.

  Gaming Performance

The last thing to go over is how does a game? With this PC, you can comfortably push heavy duty AAA titles at 1080p set to the highest settings way above 60 frames per second. This includes Battlefield One, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Far Cry 5 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

I also ended up benchmarking the A80 NVME SSD, and as you can see, it’s, it’s crazy fast. This is mind-blowing.

Now you might notice that I did not include synthetic benchmarks as well as real-world rendering performance results and that’s because as I mentioned earlier, this is a gaming PC, but when I am planning on doing very soon is comparing a dollar is a dollar Intel versus AMD build very soon. Stay tuned as I’ll take this build and compare it to the Ryzen 5 2600 with the same graphics card and then see what the performance is like compared them head to head.

The post The Most AFFORDABLE Gaming PC We’ve Built! appeared first on Hardware Canucks.

from Hardware Canucks https://ift.tt/34oqMbq

[mrbambaalam]

My PC Rebuild Story

It was October of 2012. After consulting my friends, I bought all the parts that would be required to build a personal computer. Soon thereafter these components arrived and with guidance from my amigos I was able to assemble them into a working PC. That computer lasted until the fall of 2017 when it stopped posting and abruptly died. To this day I don’t know exactly how it malfunctioned. What I do know is that both the GPU and power supply were functional so most likely it was one of the more crucial components, either the CPU or the motherboard that failed. That build cost me $850 and included a case, DVD burner, and Windows 7. I was quite happy with my old PC. For most of its life it functioned well enough and the fact that I was able to stretch $850 over five years was quite the achievement.

In October of 2018, after graduating from Air Force technical school and going home on leave, I decided that I would use some of my saved money to rebuild my computer. I had a month of vacation time to work with and plenty of money to spare so it seemed like the perfect time to research and plan my next PC build. This time I wanted to build a PC that was more than functional. I wanted a more premium experience from a computer that would allow me to game or do productivity tasks seamlessly. I wanted a machine which would not flinch from having multiple Chrome tabs open. I wanted a system that could play games at 1440p without having to sacrifice graphical quality. Yet I did not want to break the bank, I would build a computer that would be high-end but would not disregard price-to-performance. Over the course of that October, I researched and bought all the components I would need.

Because I was able to salvage the case, power supply unit, DVD burner, HDD, and CPU cooler from my previous build all I needed to get was a new CPU, GPU, motherboard, RAM, and SSD. At the time the best mainstream CPU for gaming was the Intel i7 8700K which was selling for prices of $370 or more. I thought long about buying this CPU but ultimately, I opted for AMD’s equivalent of the processor: the less expensive, higher core count Ryzen 7 2700X. I found a combo deal for the 2700X and a compatible motherboard (an ASUS Prime X470-Pro) at the Boston Microcenter so I snagged both for a discounted price of $425. For a video card I would have preferred something along the lines of a GTX 1080 Ti but price-to-performance considerations made me settle for a Zotac Mini 1070 Ti which I bought used for a cool $300. This GPU would slightly bottleneck my system but my thinking was that I could always upgrade it in the future when better, more affordable video cards became available. Buying RAM was a bit tricky at the time because the PC market was in the final stages of the RAM shortage of 2018. I was able to get 16 GB of DDR4 3200 SDRAM for $135 which was the best deal I could find at the time. To complement my 1 TB hard disk drive, I picked up a Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2 NVMe SSD which had recently fallen in price from $148 to $117.

I bought all these parts while I was on leave but I held off building my PC until I arrived at my next duty station. My thought process was that transporting a fully assembled PC as luggage onboard a plane would risk damaging its internal components and therefore it would be prudent to simply ship the components in their original packaging and assemble them later. In order to transport my mid tower chassis and all the components that would eventually go into it I had to buy an extra-large luggage case costing $130. Once fully loaded with PC parts, clothes, and shoes it weighed roughly 80 pounds (good thing it was on wheels). I was flying on military orders at the time so the excessive weight of my luggage was a non-issue.

Assembling my computer was not the smoothest experience. I had some trouble with my old CPU cooler as it was not compatible with my newer motherboard. Even with an AM4 upgrade kit, the cooler did not fit to the motherboard properly. I had to buy some washers from a local hardware store to resolve the problem. The first time I clicked the power button on my PC it failed to load the bios. After messing with the connections on my motherboard I finally got it to post and from there installing Windows unto my SSD was a layup.

In the end I spent roughly $1000 on my PC upgrade: $425 for the CPU and Motherboard, $300 for the GPU, $135 for RAM, $120 for an SSD, and $30 for miscellaneous items. Compared with my first build I spent $180 more for the CPU and motherboard, $175 more for the video card, and $95 more for RAM. Overall, I have come to be very satisfied with my build. It crushes productivity tasks; the eight-core processor makes quick work of Microsoft Office applications, Google Chrome windows, and media streaming programs even if when they are run concurrently. It handles gaming on a 1440p panel with relative ease with only the most intensive games (e.g. Witcher 3) requiring lower than ultra-settings. The only obvious improvement I could make to my system would be to upgrade the GPU. I plan to do this in the future but for now the class of video card I would like to buy is priced far beyond what I am willing to spend. I think this system will serve me very well for years to come and I am absolutely pleased with it.  

[entergamingxp]

the new budget champions? • Eurogamer.net

AMD’s third-generation Ryzen processors have been something of a revelation in the PC hardware space, offering a winning blend of price and performance for content creation and gaming alike – but these chips haven’t been available at all price points. While AMD added to its high-end options with the release of the 3950X, builders of budget systems have had to either stump up $200 for the mid-range Ryzen 5 3600 or accept the compromises of an older first or second-gen Ryzen CPU. That changes today with the release of the $100/£95 Ryzen 3 3100 and $120/£115 Ryzen 3 3300X.

These mainstream processors could become a fast favourite with system builders, and look much more capable than their predecessors thanks to a few key advancements. Firstly, both CPUs boast four Zen 2 cores, so they should offer noticeably better single-threaded performance than their Zen and Zen+ predecessors from earlier Ryzen generations. The efficiency advantages inherent in switching from a 12nm to a 7nm process also allow for higher boost frequencies, which are set at 3.9GHz on the 3100 and 4GHz flat on the 3300X. These CPUs also support SMT (simultaneous multithreading), a first for a Ryzen 3 processor. Having eight threads available should make these chips better suited for content creation roles, and could help in games built on more modern engines as well.

These changes alone should result in a big shift in performance, but there are more subtle upgrades here too. The L3 cache on the 3300X has doubled in size compared to the 2300X, for example. This means that these processors don’t need to rely on data being streamed in from RAM as often, which speeds up processing and helps these chips pair better with slower-frequency RAM. Despite these advancements, TDP remains at 65W, with the included Wraith Stealth cooler obviating the need for a third-party AiO or air cooler for most use cases.

All of this looks promising, but only the crucible of real-world testing will determine whether these chips can live up to their potential in what is an intensely competitive space. Thankfully, we’ve had the Ryzen 3100 and 3300X in hand for the past few weeks to answer that question.

The 3100 and 3300X review in convenient video form.

AMD model Cores/Threads TDP Base/Boost Cache Price Ryzen 9 3950X 16/32 105W 3.5GHz/4.7GHz 73MB $749 Ryzen 9 3900X 12/24 105W 3.8GHz/4.6GHz 70MB $499 Ryzen 7 3800X 8/16 105W 3.9GHz/4.5GHz 36MB $399 Ryzen 7 3700X 8/16 65W 3.6GHz/4.4GHz 36MB $329 Ryzen 5 3600X 6/12 95W 3.8GHz/4.4GHz 35MB $249 Ryzen 5 3600 6/12 65W 3.6GHz/4.2GHz 35MB $200 Ryzen 3 3300X 4/8 65W 3.8GHz/4.3GHz 18MB $120 Ryzen 3 3100 4/8 65W 3.6GHz/3.9GHz 18MB $99

As usual, the bulk of our performance testing will be in games, where we’ve selected a gauntlet of CPU-intensive titles from the past decade, but we’ll also take a brief look at content creation tasks – after all, with four Zen 2 cores and eight threads we’ve got a level of performance that early YouTubers could only dream of.

While the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X are the stars of the show, we’ve also included results from higher-end AMD and Intel processors to provide some much-needed context. Later on in the review, we take a special look at some similarly-priced competitors including the Ryzen 5 2600, the Ryzen 5 3400G and – incredibly – Intel’s Core i7 7700K, a four-core, eight-thread flagship from 2017, with something very similar about to hit the market courtesy of Intel’s upcoming 10th gen Core i3 line.

The Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X use the same AM4 socket as prior Zen-based offerings, and work with any motherboard that supports third-gen Ryzen.

To give these chips a fair test, we used our standard Windows 10 installation (with the most recent security patches and AMD chipset drivers installed) on fast NVMe storage – specifically, the XPG Spectrix S40G (our pick for the best NVMe SSD with RGB). Our primary AMD benchmarking was performed on the Asus ROG Crosshair 7 X470 motherboard, with supplementary testing on the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus and Asus ROG Crosshair 8. Our Core processors were tested on an Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme, apart from the Core i7 7700K, which necessitated a move back to the classic MSI Z170A Gaming M7.

The Ryzen processors were cooled by AMD’s Wraith Prism cooler, a slightly better version of the Wraith Stealth that comes bundled with the 3100 and 3300X. On the Intel side of things, a Gaming Storm Castle 240mm AiO was used. Our setup was rounded out with G.Skill Trident Z Royal 3600MHz CL16 RAM provided by AMD, a reliable 850W Gaming Storm PSU and an open-air test bench.

The test system uses a MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus with the out-of-the-box cooler paired with bling-heavy GSkill Trident Z 3600MHz DDR4.

Before we get into game testing, it’s worth looking at how the 3100 and 3300X compare to each other and their more expensive competitors in content creation tasks like video rendering, transcoding and more. For this, we opted to use the popular Cinebench R20 application, which replicates a rendering job in industrial-grade video software Cinema 4D.

The results here are immediately interesting. Despite costing less than every other CPU represented, the 3100 manages to tie the Core i5 9600K in single-core performance and outperform the Ryzen 2600 and 2700X by around 12 per cent. The 3300X is even more impressive, with a single-core score that exceeds the Core i7 9700K and only falls behind the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K. The multi-threaded results are a different story though, with the four physical cores and eight threads of the 3300X managing a little less than 2600 points. That’s close to the Core i5 9600K, but the greater core counts of the rest of AMD’s lineup translate into big performance wins. Still, we should be reasonable – these are $100 and $120 processors, after all.

Another common task for video producers is transcoding, which is converting a digital video file from one format into another. Handbrake is a popular open source application for doing just that, and it forms the basis of our next test. Here, a source file is encoded using the Production Standard preset and CRF 18 quality setting using two different encoders – x264 (h.264) and x265 (HEVC) – with the average frame-rate recorded and whole system power usage measured at the wall.

The results here follow the earlier Cinebench scores, with the new Ryzen chips performing respectively but only really challenging the six-core, six-thread Core i5 9600K in terms of encoding speed and losing out against their Core i7 and current-generation Ryzen 5 competition.

The comparison between the Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 5 2600 is perhaps the most interesting, with the older Zen+ design recording a faster h.264 encode rate but the smaller number of Zen 2 cores in the 3100 edging a narrow victory in the HEVC test. This latter test uses the AVX instruction set, which was one area AMD called out as being a particular point of focus with Zen 2 – and you can see the results, with our $100 Ryzen 3100 beating out the (originally) $200 Ryzen 5 2600.

Note that the 3300X is only about 10 per cent faster than the 3100 while costing 20 per cent more, so the 3100 is the better bang-for-buck option for video encoding on the cheap. Finally, both new Ryzen CPUs sip power, with our complete systems drawing only around 120W at full tilt.

CB R20 1T CB R20 MT HB h.264 HB HEVC HEVC Power Use Ryzen 9 3900X 514 7032 51.80fps 20.29fps 228W Ryzen 7 3700X 494 4730 35.05fps 14.67fps 152W Ryzen 5 3600X 490 3705 27.54fps 11.81fps 149W Ryzen 3 3300X 503 2577 18.89fps 8.25fps 120W Ryzen 3 3100 449 2328 17.32fps 7.44fps 118W Ryzen 7 2700X 408 3865 27.31fps 10.04fps 224W Ryzen 5 2600 399 2810 20.39fps 7.09fps 130W Core i9 9900K 520 5090 37.87fps 16.22fps 266W Core i7 9700K 486 3759 28.77fps 13.12fps 171W Core i5 9600K 450 2603 20.70fps 9.46fps 132W

While these processors could become excellent low-cost editing rigs, we’re guessing that most buyers will be looking to play some games – and that’s where we’re headed next. The strong single-threaded Cinebench results suggest that the 3100 and 3300X could do well even in more naïve game engines that don’t scale well to multiple threads, while the four physical cores and eight logical cores should be enough to handle more modern titles as well – but will these chips be as easy to recommend as our current value champion, the Ryzen 5 3600?

To find out, we tested each game in scenes that stressed the CPU at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p. In order to ensure that each processor was able to perform to its full potential, we paired it with the fastest consumer GPU available, the RTX 2080 Ti. While this combination ensures that even subtle differences in processor performance are teased into visibility, we’d expect similar gulfs in performance even from more modest GPUs at 1080p. To give you some insight here, an RTX 2080 Ti at 4K (as tested here) is similar in performance terms to a GTX 1660 running at 1080p. Higher resolutions, like 1440p and 4K, should be more dependent on graphics horsepower – especially in the challenging games we’ve chosen – but differences from processor to processor can still pop up so it’s important to include these results as well.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of our analysis, a few words of warning. However well we design and implement our CPU reviews, we can only test – as Richard Leadbetter puts it – “a tiny microscopic speck of the range of gameplay scenarios a CPU will go through.” With that in mind, we’d encourage you to read and watch other reviews as well, to get a more comprehensive understanding of how well these processors perform. With that said, let’s get into the results – starting with three challenging recently-released games.

AMD Ryzen 3 3100/3300X analysis

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/the-new-budget-champions-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-new-budget-champions-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net