I'm looking at 3900X versus 10900k Is the $200 extra (at least the build I came up with) really worth it?

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/fuzzy16/saved/#view=dHyDcf

I guess if you amortize over 10 years...it's $20 a year.

It's a very difficult decision and not enough data to speculate.

What is the PC usage primarily for? What are your applications?

You have 2 different CPUs.

Primarily flight sim.  Maybe minor video editing for controlling on VATSIM.

I would go for Intel (IMHO you need also speed, while 2 additional cores between 12 core to 10 core don't make such a difference but 4.6 GHZ vs 5.3 GHZ is quite a noticeable boost in performance) , the best person here for a very good advice is Robin Ainscough!

Please don't buy anything yet and wait for Rob's opinion.

 

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-core-i9-10850k-the-cheaper-10-core-alternative.html

If you have to have the absolute best and you're not too worried about budget then the 10900K is definitely going to give you the best results. if you were looking at Ryzen for games and just light productivity work I don't think you'd even need to go with the 3900X as you can get highly comparable results in games with a 3700X for considerably cheaper. The 3900X will perform significantly better with heavier productivity loads though doesn't sound like you need this. If you're comparing stock 10900K vs 3700X it somewhat comes down to what resolution you play games at from what I can see from benchmark results. At 1080 there's about +15% for the 10900K but that gap narrows quite a bit as screen resolution increases. But you can probably overclock the 10900K some more compared to the 3700X which comes mostly maxed out.

So comes down to what your budget is. You could pick up a 3700X + mobo and still have about enough left over to bump your selected M2 drive to 1TB compared to the cost of the 10900K alone. If you're not in a real rush could be worth hanging on until FS2020 is released and you can see some real world benchmarks how the processors compare for the resolution you plan to run it at before making a final decision and shelling out the cash.

I'd also definitely recommend going the intel route. Better stability and performance, especially for single core.

6 hours ago, captain420 said:

I'd also definitely recommend going the intel route. Better stability

?

Cheers

Luke

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

?

Cheers

Luke

I've read on forums and have heard from several youtube videos saying that AMD isn't as stable as Intel. Which I can understand since Intel has been around longer than AMD has, especially when it comes to CPUs. 

If I'm going to be spending a lot of money, I do not want to chance it by going the AMD route. It's unknown territory for me and I'd hate to invest 100% into an AMD system only to find out I'm having problems. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to stick with Intel, as that's what I've been using all along and comfortable with. Other's experience may vary of course.

Before I started ordering parts for my new build, I was considering going with AMD because of all these rumors going around from AMD users saying that the 10th gen Intel CPUs run way too hot and require way too much power, etc. But I'm happy to say that my system runs much cooler than my 8 yr old i7-3770k and I'm extremely happy with the outcome.

Edited July 21, 20205 yr by captain420

On forums people don't basically understand the differences about overclocking and memory controllers and memory timings and hyperthreading and so on, so you do get the posts about instability. Probably right about better single thread performance of Intel at the moment.

AMD is completely stable. I switched over recently as personally didn't want to pay 100% more on the CPU side for <10% performance difference vs a 3700X when playing at 1440p and nearly identical performance at 4k. That's when comparing stock anyway - the 10900K has some overclock headroom but you'd need some decent cooling as those chips run a little hot. Guess it comes down to budget in the end. I needed to buy everything apart from SSDs and GPU so had to compromise a little to keep to budget and AMD offers good bang for your buck. It'll be interesting to see if MSFS2020 is a single thread hammer like all current flight sims seem to be or if it can distribute the load better.

1 hour ago, Tektolnes said:

he 10900K has some overclock headroom but you'd need some decent cooling as those chips run a little hot

Testers say different at 5ghz it`s cooler than the 9900k at 5ghz, and AMD are no longer including a cooler with the high end CPU`s they need very good coolers to stay stable. you must be shopping in the wrong store if you are being changed 100% more.

And in game benchmarks testers think the 10600k will be the gamers choice, in test it matched the 10900k for performance in some games and it retails for £259 in the UK.

Edited July 21, 20205 yr by G-RFRY

The 10900K costs £525-£550 so it's about 100% more compared to the 10600K or 3700X. For gamers I don't personally see the value in the 10900K as the 10600K/3700X both offer very close performance especially at resolutions of 1440p and above. You could get the 10600K/3700X + 32GB well tuned RAM for the price of the 10900K. But if budget allows for it then sure why not.

The green power miser in me says AMD at 110 watts versus 320 watts.  But FPS may be questionable with AMD https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-10900k-cpu-review/7

I don't need a heater in my living room right now.