Breaking Dad's Big Bad Gaming Discussion - For all things to do with PC Gaming !

[Maverick009]

Interesting is not the word I would use for that.

After 6 long years of AMD trying to compete with Intel (particularly in a business setting), they're still not there in any meaningful way.

I like the pricing pressure they put on Intel. And I have bought a few examples over these past few years, but Intel is still the platform that just works as it should. I only have a Lenovo Carbon Edition based on AMD platform tech, and it is a daily disappointment (all the other AMD systems I've tried have either been returned or sold).

For me I will stick with AMD, as the platforms have gotten more stable and performance is completely there. The burning up issue is only limited to the X3D parts mainly due to the motherboard makers leaving voltage options open when AMD disabled it on the chips. MSI was the first to update the Bios to lockdown the voltage adjustments due the sensitivity of the V-cache with voltage. The big gaming centric OEMs went a little too crazy this time against AMD's warning. Overall the platform has gotten significantly better and obviously server market is moving towards AMD as that platform has more quality checks. Intel is a former shell of itself when it comes to CPUs and their platforms.

 

[Maverick009]

Seems like the issue is that motherboard vendors weren’t taking into account X3D chips when dealing with EXPO profiles using them 1:1 in regards to voltages as if they were standard parts. Also doesn’t help some like Asus have previously been known for pushing extra voltage by default.

I was thinking same thing as AMD even warned against this, and now it hurts all. The X3D parts were not designed to ha e too much voltage due to that extra layer of cache. So far I only saw MSI act quickly to get a Bios update out to limit voltage. I suspect the rest will follow shortly.

 

[RMerlin]

for me I just prefer AMD, I have nothing really to back up that statement

Right now (in 2023) as an end-user, you really can`t go wrong with either of them. They both offer fantastic performance (7000 series vs 13th gen). One platform is slightly better in one usage scenario, the other is slightly better in another. And with the major price cuts 7000 series has been seeing these past few months, they are both price competitive as well.

 

[RMerlin]

MSI was the first to update the Bios to lockdown the voltage adjustments due the sensitivity of the V-cache with voltage.

derBauer first raised concerns a few weeks ago while he was at Asus' offices, as he burned an X3D sample during overclocking tests Asus said at the time they would limit voltages. Apparently they didn`t limit it enough because I think I`ve seen photos of burned Asus motherboards as well.

AMD locked overclocking on the 5800X3D chip, and people complained. With 7000 series they unlocked things, and now people are burning their CPUs. Sometimes, when an engineer decides to lock down something, it`s for a good technical reason, not just for marketing purposes...

 

[RMerlin]

Intel is a former shell of itself when it comes to CPUs and their platforms.

I have faith in Gelsinger turning things around. But steering such a huge ship like Intel takes time...

 

[ddaenen1]

I have always been a gamer in "heart and kidneys" (direct translation from a Flemish saying ) I was hooked from the moment my dad bought us a Commodore VIC20 followed by a C128, Amiga and eventually PC's. I got exposed to FPS gaming when a friend of mine showed me Castle Wolfenstein and next up was Duke Nukem and eventually the Quake series. The online story started however when my younger brother, still quite a hardcore gamer, introduced me to Unreal Tournament which we played for hours, days and weeks online. Whilst he stayed with that, i moved over to Tactical Ops, the Counterstrike equivalent mod on UT, in which i became quite good. I joined a clan, most of who i also met IRL and we participated in ladders and clanwars, even after i got married and we had our first child. After that, it went downhill slowly as i found it harder and harder to find time to game. I always did keep on following what was happening in gameland. There was a period of standstill until we bought the kids a Wii. Lots of fun with the whole family in the living room. We got a Wii U after that but that never stuck on me. I eventually did some solid gaming again during COVID. Not FPS but i got very hooked on Zelda - Breath of The Wild on the Nintendo Switch. I played that hours and hours a day and eventually finished it, like 3 or 4 times, always looking to finish more side quests. Since then, not much again whilst i do look forward to the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom.

Recently, we went for a family trip to Dubai where they had an arcade in the hotel - what a blast! We played 2 evenings with the entire family from pacman to Halo - great fun.

Last but not least, i do own a real arcade machine. The inside was toast so i emptied it ofcourse leaving the original buttons and joysticks but replaced the CRT with a LED monitor and installed a PC inside with MAME64 and now my brother still play a lot on that machine, mostly classics though like Mortal Kombat, Hyper Olympics, 1942, Bomb Jack and Wonderboy.

 

[Maverick009]

If you think of how many AMD ryzens are out there, maybe 4 or 5 that I have heard about have had this issue. A lot of this has come from anecdotal reports and gossip on reddit, when we don't know exactly how these users were clocking their chips. That said it is of concern for me, I will be checking my SOC voltage later.

Here is a youtube video that goes into some detail

Don't really have a desire to get into the Intel vs AMD debate, for me I just prefer AMD, I have nothing really to back up that statement with other than using them successfully for years. I see intel as like edge (or windows) and amd as like firefox (or linux), more to play with, more bang for buck, more fun for the tinkerer. I can't be bothered to search but I'm pretty sure there are examples of intel chips over heating out there as well. This is just a blip on new tech AM5 as per usual with these things. I think part of the problem is motherboard manufacturers as well, trying to up their performance ratings, rather than the AMD chip itself, by forcing higher voltages than they should.

You are correct. AMD locked voltages and the board vendors wanted to compete for the overclocking crown. Now that this blip took place, they are updating their Bios to put safety measures in place possibly before figuring out completely took place and who is at fault to save face. I would of stuck to the approved AMD OC tools such as curve optimizer and stayed away from voltages as AMD has been stating all along that the X3D parts are sensitive to high voltage.

 

[avtella]

Honestly regardless of Intel or AMD I personally don’t think overclocking is giving as big gains as the old days when you’d buy a low end AMD or Intel part and OC it to the high clock equivalent. like buying a 2.4 GHz Northwood P4 and clocking it to 3.2 GHz with ease. These days cores are main the differentiator over clocks.

 

[Maverick009]

I have faith in Gelsinger turning things around. But steering such a huge ship like Intel takes time...

I hope so if for anything for the sake of competion which is good for the consumer. I am also wondering how things will end up if rumors of AMD's Zen 5 Strix Point halo products really show up. That looks like a beast for not only CPU but also the integrated GPU on it.... The next few years will certainly be interesting.

 

[ddaenen1]

Honestly regardless of Intel or AMD I personally don’t think overclocking is giving as big gains as the old days when you’d buy a low end AMD or Intel part and OC it to the high clock equivalent. like buying a 2.4 GHz Northwood P4 and clocking it to 3.2 GHz with ease. These days cores are main the differentiator over clocks.

I had one of those and indeed OC'ed it to 3.2GHz on an Asus P4S533 mainboard. Nowadays, i leave everything on stock.

 

[RMerlin]

Honestly regardless of Intel or AMD I personally don’t think overclocking is giving as big gains as the old days when you’d buy a low end AMD or Intel part and OC it to the high clock equivalent. like buying a 2.4 GHz Northwood P4 and clocking it to 3.2 GHz with ease. These days cores are main the differentiator over clocks.

Both AMD and Intel are pushing things to the limit already (thanks to competition), and manufacturing processes probably have less variance than they used to back in the day. Something like PBO already takes care of taking advantage of any left over performance that might be available.

 

[BreakingDad]

Did someone say "Vic20" I have that warm feeling again. Jelly Monsters Cartridge. Happy Days.

 

[RMerlin]

I am also wondering how things will end up if rumors of AMD's Zen 5 Strix Point halo products really show up.

Latest leaks once again hint at a generational IPC improvement with Zen 5. The Zen architecture is definitely aging like fine wine since it was first introduced.

I will probably upgrade this 5900X with a Zen 5 system once it comes out, if I am still having to deal with building 15-20 firmware images at once. Going from my i7 7700K to a Ryzen 9 5900X dropped build times from over two hours to just 45 minutes. With the addition of more models I am once again back to above an hour to compile everything, and individually these newer models take 25 minutes to compile separately (a large portion of the build process is single-threaded). The combined performance gains of two generation jumps might be quite visible for my workload, assuming Zen 5 shows up in early 2024 as I suspect.

 

[RMerlin]

Did someone say "Vic20" I have that warm feeling again. Jelly Monsters Cartridge. Happy Days.

I had one. Was filling up its RAM with my programs after only a year, so the C64 replaced fairly quickly

 

[ddaenen1]

I had one. Was filling up its RAM with my programs after only a year, so the C64 replaced fairly quickly

I still have my VIC20. It is in my parents attic and still complete with all the cartridges, tape deck and even the huge bulky cartridge extension box with it. I haven't touched it in ages but it should still work. My youngest brother and i spent days punching in hex numbers from a magazine named 'Compute!' and save it to the tape deck to play.

 

[degrub]

the tape deck rubber rollers may be an issue as they harden over time.

 

[drinkingbird]

Honestly regardless of Intel or AMD I personally don’t think overclocking is giving as big gains as the old days when you’d buy a low end AMD or Intel part and OC it to the high clock equivalent. like buying a 2.4 GHz Northwood P4 and clocking it to 3.2 GHz with ease. These days cores are main the differentiator over clocks.

I did some overclocking long ago and just never found the instability issues and other quirks to be worth it. All the time you spend tweaking just to hope you finally got it right but never knowing until the next crash. The only OC I've done since then is the Core 2 Quad (which I still have), they were all 3.0ghz 1333 FSB (except one that was 3.33 I think and was actually different silicon) but Intel just limited the clock and or multiplier to have different price points. By covering up one pin with electrical tape, they all run at the full 3.0/1333. Mine reports 2.66 in windows but CPU-Z etc show 3.0/1333. Been running like that for 15 years rock solid.

Of course so many people figured that out they fixed that workaround long ago. Many of their processors are still just the same thing with microcode to limit them.

Won't be long before you buy a CPU then just pay a fee to "upgrade" it via software. Network hardware has gone that way in the enterprise world, and even some cars are doing it.

 

[drinkingbird]

I still have my VIC20. It is in my parents attic and still complete with all the cartridges, tape deck and even the huge bulky cartridge extension box with it. I haven't touched it in ages but it should still work. My youngest brother and i spent days punching in hex numbers from a magazine named 'Compute!' and save it to the tape deck to play.

God the cassette tapes were hilarious. My Coleco Adam had dual cassette, you got very used to seeing "Thinking" on the screen and the tapes spinning forward and back like crazy.

 

[Maverick009]

Honestly regardless of Intel or AMD I personally don’t think overclocking is giving as big gains as the old days when you’d buy a low end AMD or Intel part and OC it to the high clock equivalent. like buying a 2.4 GHz Northwood P4 and clocking it to 3.2 GHz with ease. These days cores are main the differentiator over clocks.

Not really a big factor as you stated. I have my Son's custom PC I built has an MSI Godlike board with the Ryzen 3900X OC to 4.35Ghz all-core using an AIO cooler at the moment. It benefits from the OC and I tweaked it slightly to use less power at the same time.

As for my own custom PC, I have a Ryzen 9 5900X running stock due to its performance out of the box already geared for gaming. As I am now planning to upgrade to the AM5 platform with most likely the 7950X3D and an Asus X670e Crosshair Hero (I thought long and hard about the Extreme but this time I am not sure I can justify the price for minor differences) and might play a little with overclocking the 5900X as the Bios has matured and my Son will most likely get my old CPU/board to upgrade his system so I can give him every bit of performance I can tap out of that CPU.

Ultimately I think it is GPUs where overclocking is once again relevant and able to get as much performance out as possible. I have a Radeon 7900 XTX Red Devil OC card but may be tempted to push it a little further. Overall I look at the hardware first and overclocking is 2nd nature these days.

 

[Maverick009]

Right now (in 2023) as an end-user, you really can`t go wrong with either of them. They both offer fantastic performance (7000 series vs 13th gen). One platform is slightly better in one usage scenario, the other is slightly better in another. And with the major price cuts 7000 series has been seeing these past few months, they are both price competitive as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is the AM5 platform will be able support future Zen5/Zen6 CPUs where Intel will be switching platforms 1-2 more times at minimum in the same time frame. Makes logitivity on the AM5 platform more cost effective for those who due not want to or need to upgrade the entire platform as well. Lastly the power consumption benefits AMD at this point and time.