UserBenchmark

Within minutes of the first, pre-release, 7000 series results appearing on userbenchmark, AMD’s advanced marketing machinery declared a 20% victory over the 12900K whilst simultaneously slandering userbenchmark via hundreds of “news” outlets and thousands of supposedly disinterested twitter, reddit, forum and youtube accounts. Buying new AMD products is like buying used cars: it takes time, experience and a taste for sales hype. It’s difficult for consumers to make rational choices because AMD completely dominates “news” and social media channels. Ten years ago, when AMD was the underdog, this type of marketing was understandable. Today, with a capitalization of $150 Billion USD, it’s disrespectful to AMD's own users. Even with Intel's marketing department permanently asleep at the wheel, If these practices continue, Ryzen will quickly end up in the same state as Radeon. Following a series of overhyped releases, consumers have little interest in the Radeon brand. The combined market share for all AMD’s (discrete) Radeon RX 5000 and 6000 GPUs (Jun ’22 Steam stats) is just 2%. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s RTX 2060 alone accounts for 5%. Although the new 7000 series Zen 4 CPUs are around 15% faster than their predecessors, they have unrealistic cooling requirements, 30 second BIOS post times, expensive DDR5 RAM requirements and only work with expensive motherboards. Intel’s 13th gen. (Raptor Lake) is scheduled to launch over the next few weeks. Smart shoppers will do well to wait until then, before considering a purchase. Despite AMD’s Neanderthal marketing techniques, it’s hard not to admire the speed of their technical progress. AMD-Raptor-4 and Intel-Zen-13 would be better fitting product names. ^{[Sep '22 CPUPro]}

The 5800X3D has the same core architecture / IPC as the 5800X but it runs at lower clock speeds and has an extra 64MB of cache (96MB up from 32MB). This results in relatively low latency at 128MB because those transfers have a higher chance of remaining in cache. An unusually high proportion of early 5800X3D samples appear unable to boost above base clock, upcoming BIOS updates may fix this. Either way, for most real-world tasks performance is comparable to the significantly cheaper 5800X. Some very specific cache sensitive scenarios such as low res. canned game benchmarks with a 3090-Ti will benefit. Be wary of sponsored reviews with cherry picked games that showcase the wins and gloss over the losses. Also watch out for AMD’s army of Neanderthal social media accounts on reddit, forums and youtube, they will be singing their own praises as usual. AMD’s marketers continue to show more interest in this year’s bonuses than the longevity of the brand. Instead of focusing on real-world performance, they aim to dupe consumers with bankrolled headlines. The same tactics were used with the Radeon 5000 series GPUs. Zen 4 needs to bring substantial IPC improvements, rather than overpriced "3D" marketing gimmicks. New high end PC gaming builders have little reason to look further than the $260 12600K. Users with an existing AM4 build should wait just a few more months for better performance at lower prices with Raptor Lake or even Zen 4. The marketers selling expensive “3D” upgrades today will quickly move onto Zen 4 (3D) leaving unfortunate buyers stuck on an overpriced, 6 year old, dead-end, platform. ^{[Mar '22 CPUPro]}

Intel’s Alder Lake i5-12400F offers six hyper-threaded performance cores at an MSRP of just $180 USD. This represents excellent value for consumers and, in particular, gamers. It has a boost frequency of 4.4 GHz, 18 MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 65W. The F-version of the CPU does not have integrated graphics, however this will be of little concern to gamers with discrete GPUs. Whilst Intel’s overclockable i5-12600K has four additional efficiency cores and offers around 12% more performance than the 12400F, it also costs around 50% more. The 12400F offers great value, but to achieve optimal performance the requisite B660 motherboard (which supports 3200+ RAM) is, at least for now, difficult to find at reasonable ($150 USD) prices. AMD’s top value hex-core Ryzen 5 5600X offers similar performance for 50% more money. Despite Intel’s price / performance lead, AMD’s prolific marketers (forums, youtube, reddit etc.) have historically outsold Intel whilst carrying a similar handicap. ^{[Jan '22 CPUPro]}

The RTX 3050 is built on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture. It marks the first time that ray-tracing has been available on an entry level (50-series) card. Second generation ray tracing cores can be switched on for more realistic light simulation, albeit at a hit to performance. The 3050 features 2560 CUDA cores, a boost clock frequency of 1.78 GHz, 8 GB of the latest GDDR6 memory and NVIDIA’s DLSS. DLSS technology uses the 3050’s tensor cores to scale up resolutions whilst maintaining high frame rates and without losing significant image quality. The 3050 also includes an encoder (NVENC) for sharper images and smoother capture whilst recording/streaming. The MRSP of entry models is $249 USD, however, street prices are closer to $600 USD. Early benchmarks show that the 3050 only headlines around 35% faster than AMD's 6500 XT whilst street prices for the 3050 are 100% higher. Many experienced users simply have no interest in buying AMD cards, regardless of price. AMD’s neanderthal marketing tactics seem to have come back to haunt them. Their brazen domination of social media platforms including youtube and reddit resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products. Experienced gamers know all too well that high average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. ^{[Jan '22 GPUPro]}

Intel’s latest 10-core i5-12600K Alder Lake desktop processor offers an impressive 50% 64-core performance improvement over it's predecessor. The 12600K combines six hyper-threaded Golden Cove P-cores with clock speeds up to 4.9 GHz and four energy efficient Gracemont E-cores for a total of 16 threads. Alder Lake CPUs have a new LGA 1700 socket which requires new cooler brackets and a new Z690 motherboard. Z690 brings several new features including PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory. Most Z690 boards will ship in both DDR4 and DDR5 variants. DDR4 is likely the better option, at least until DDR5 prices settle. With an MRSP of just $290 USD, the 12600K is both cheaper and faster than the competition in both single and, notably, multi-core performance. As a result, even AMD's prolific marketing infrastructure (youtube, reddit, forums etc.) will struggle to drive sales, at least until Zen 4 launches (est. late 2022). In the meantime, Intel's i5-12600K is the obvious choice for consumers that do not wish to pay over the odds for almost unparalleled performance in the majority of workloads including gaming. That said, gamers that already own a K series CPU from the 8th gen. or higher will see limited gains in the majority of titles when paired with a 3060 (or lower) tier GPU. In some cases (e.g. PUBG or Overwatch) gamers will see fewer frame drops by disabling the E-Cores all together. If recent history is a guide, stock levels at MSRP are likely to deplete rapidly. ^{[Nov '21 CPUPro]}

The Ryzen 5 5600X is both the entry-level and best value for money 5000 series CPU. The 5600X is a hex-core 12 thread processor with a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz boosting to 4.6 GHz. It has 35 MB of cache and a TDP rating of 65W. A cooler is included in the MSRP of $300 USD, but cheap after-market coolers (such as the $20 GAMMAXX 400) are far more effective and therefore worth the upgrade. Notably, AMD’s new Zen 3 architecture has vastly improved single-core performance and lower memory latency, which leads to a significant effective speed advantage over its predecessor, the 3600X. Last year, AMD’s class-leading marketers secured significant sales of the 3000 series CPUs despite a 15% performance deficit against lower priced Intel parts. The games, specific scenes, software/hardware settings and choice of competing hardware were often cherry picked, undisclosed and inconsistent from one product to the next. Now that AMD have actually achieved both top tier performance and market share, their marketing machinery is focused on price hikes. Users that do not wish to pay a marketing premium should investigate Intel’s $175 USD 11400F, which, when paired with a 2060 Super, delivers higher EFps in four out of five of today’s most popular games. Allocating the savings to a higher tier GPU will result in a far superior gaming PC. ^{[Nov '20 CPUPro]}

The RTX 3060 Ti is Nvidia’s latest 3000 series GPU. Assuming it (ever…) comes into stock at $400 USD, it will take the crown as the best value for money graphics card. Nvidia’s new Ampere architecture, which supersedes Turing, offers both improved power efficiency and performance. The 3060 Ti features 4,864 CUDA cores, 152 Tensor cores, it has a boost clock of 1.665 GHz, 8 GB of memory and a power draw of just 200 W. Nvidia’s entire 3000 series lineup offers once in a decade price/performance improvements. The 3060 Ti beats the previous generation’s 2060 Super by 35% in terms of effective speed at the same MSRP. Given the widespread issues AMD users are facing with 5000 series GPUs (blue/black screens etc.), AMD’s 6000 series GPU’s will have to see substantial price cuts and a huge marketing effort in order to gain any traction. Meanwhile, Christmas has come early for PC gamers who can look forward to an unparalleled gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077. At ultra settings, with ray tracing enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 redefines the boundaries of immersive gaming. It makes GTA5 look like Tetris in comparison. The combination of RTX+DLSS delivers stunning graphics that are several tiers higher than both AMD's best discrete GPUs and the upcoming consoles. In terms of real world performance, Nvidia’s 3000 series has more or less put AMD’s Radeon group in checkmate. Nonetheless, AMD’s marketers are capable of delivering elaborate BS albeit whilst struggling to keep a straight face. Their marketing infrastructure outsold Intel in the CPU market despite a 15% performance deficit. Without an appropriate social media marketing strategy, Nvidia will probably lose considerable market share, for all the wrong reasons. ^{[Dec '20 GPUPro]}

The GTX 1660 Super has a launch price of just $230 USD with comparable performance to the $280 USD 1660 Ti. The 1660 Super has 14 Gbps GDDR6 (versus 12Gbps GDDR6 for the 1660 Ti and 8Gbps GDDR5 for the 1660). The 1660 range of cards sit in the sweet spot for many gamers because they offer superb 1080p EFps in popular titles and they are relatively hassle free in terms of noise, compatibility and stability. The 1660S also features Turing NVENC which is far more efficient than CPU encoding and alleviates the need for casual streamers to use a dedicated stream PC. Shop prices will determine which 1660 series card represents the best value over time but at today's prices the 1660 Super effectively undercuts the 1660 Ti by $50 USD thus challenging the RX 590 in terms of overall value at 1080p. The next step up from the 1660S would be to the $325 RTX 2060. ^{[Oct '19 GPUPro]}

The MX500 is Crucial’s current flagship consumer SATA SSD featuring their latest second generation 64-layer 3D TLC NAND. It’s available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB capacities in a 2.5-inch form factor. All but the 2 TB version will also be available in M.2 (2280) form in the future. The MX500 features a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller which is a change from the Marvell 88SS1074 controller featured in the MX300 (it’s nearly two year old predecessor). Performance is around 30% better than on the MX300 which currently retails at the same price. The MX500 has an SLC cache which increases with drive capacity. Consequently, the larger capacities are better able to sustain high sequential write speeds. The 250 GB version has 250MB of SLC cache, the 500 GB has 512 MB, the 1 TB has 1 GB and the 2 TB has 2 GB. Extended sustained write performance tests show that even though speed does drop off after the cache has been exhausted, it is still maintained at very respectable levels. The MX500’s five year warranty is in line with Samsung’s 850 Evo and exceeds it in terms of endurance (just 75 TBW for the 250 GB 850 Evo versus 100 TBW for the 250 GB MX500). It doesn’t quite match up to the Samsung’s 850 Evo’s performance (effective speed 8% slower), however at current prices it is about 20% cheaper, and on balance offers better value for money. ^{[Mar '18 SSDrivePro]}

The 970 Evo Plus offers excellent sustained write performance both in and out of cache. This results in consistent performance even when the drive is nearly full. Samsung also have a great track record for reliability, this drive will likely last a lifetime. The larger capacity drives (1TB+) offer even better write performance and may be more appropriate for some users. We use this drive (and its larger siblings) extensively in our EFps Lab at UserBenchmark. ^{[Feb '20 SSDrivePro]}

The new 3TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST3000DM008) replaces its hugely successful predecessor, the 3TB Barracuda 7200.14 2011 (ST3000DM001). Comparing performance between the two models shows that the newer drive has 12% faster sequential speeds, comparable 4K speeds, improved mixed sequential speed and reduced mixed 4K speed. Overall, the effective speed is 12% faster on the 2016 model. Since there is normally little price difference between the two models the 2016 version is the clear winner especially for use as a backup drive with its impressive sequential read and write speeds of nearly 200 MBps. See the current value leaders here. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}

The 1TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST1000DM010) has an impressive performance profile. With Sequential read/writes averaging 173 and 159 MBps respectively, the Barracuda can make short work of even moderately large backups. The small file (4K) performance profile is less impressive but still adequate with average read/writes coming in at 0.87 and 1.53 MBps respectively. For use as OS drives, rotational disks are quickly loosing market share to SSDs which offer orders of magnitude faster 4k read/write speeds. On the other hand cheap TLC based SSDs often have slower sustained write speeds than their rotational counterparts. Reasonably good overall performance can be achieved by using a TLC SSD to host the OS and a larger rotational drive such as the Barracuda for backups and media files. Larger capacity variants of this drive offer both better performance and better value for money. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}