On the competition front:



Nvidia GPUs win -- with GTX1060 being most popular DX12 GPU.

Intel CPUs win -- with 4 core being most popular. 95% of gaming CPUs run less than 3,7 GHz.

Because Survey participation is optional, not all Steam users systems are represented. So, the fine details of the survey may be in error (vs reality). However, the larger conclusions are probably valid and are used by game developers to help decide what hardware to support.

Steam Full Survey Results

As we know, the cost effective GPUs (in particular AMD GPUs) are now overpriced due to:



But, the cost-effective-GPU shortage due to mining is temporary. The future is about cost effective GPUs for "other than gaming".



AMD has been working on a way to make GPUs of seemingly unlimited power (Nvidia is on the same path). The key is making many small GPU chips act like a single super large GPU chip (not CrossFireX or SLI chips). AMD's Navi GPU is rumored to be such a multi-chip GPU -- rumored/speculated for 2019.

WIth the lack of 470/480/570/580 cards, they are now buying up the GTX 10xx cards too. Those AMD cards are on ebay @£500 a piece.

At this point it would be cheaper just to buy Ethereum on Coinbase and dump it on a rise (if the whole thing doesn't collapse).

For high core count CPUs, what matters is performance in high thread count applications. AMD Threadripper seems like it will be competitive.

That's a lot of contradiction in a single paragraph.

Performance per $ is only relevant if value for money is the primary driver. Your own sentence before the quote refers to performance in high thread count applications and then the quote starts with 'Intel does have an edge in terms of performance per core figures' yet in bold your quote pulls out one example (probably out of 100's) where the AMD chip has 'won' in one of the benchmarks/tests.

I'll admit it, I come to this thread almost daily just to see what weighted information is added, often for humour but at the same time you could probably just have a single post in this entire thread that links to whatever source you pull most of this nonsense from. I know you love AMD and have reasons for disliking the Intel/Nvidia rolling roadblock but I think you'd get more appreciation by linking articles which aren't so clearly biased. It's not a dig, you're a nice guy but I do think your enthusiasm for AMD can have an effect on credibility too.

If you want to talk about price/performance then include price/performance links and not some thinly veiled extract that tries to blur the real content of the quoted article.

Most everything in this thread are quotes of speculative, rumor, leak, unproven nature. Rather than selectively quote to mislead, I try to include sentences that indicate doubt. E.g. in the post above



For what its worth, I only link articles that I think add information worth looking at -- as I don't want to waste folks time.

Most articles have little or nothing new to say beyond what I excerpt -- even those that have hundreds of extra words (I suppose authors are paid to fill so many lines of text). By "new to say", I mean some shred of information that has not already been identified in a previous Reply in this thread.

Meantime, a few percent more per core performance in an Intel product will often have no visible impact in the game or job (measurable but not visible or noticeable in a practical sense). So, if a competitive AMD CPU is significantly cheaper, one can spend the left over money by adding a better other component to the build that may have a "visible" impact (e.g. a faster GPU, a faster NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD).

As AMD releases more Ryzen, Zen, and Threadripper CPUs, AMD is becoming head-to-head "competitive" with Intel in CPUs. That means a "thoughtful" purchaser will consider their needs and budget and what both Intel and AMD are offering before purchasing a CPU. However, Intel fans will defend and buy Intel -- just as AMD fans will buy AMD

You've probably just emphasised my point there......the quote you just included in that last post doesn't indicate any doubt whatsoever. It verifies that Intel still has the performance edge in a post that starts off talking about performance being key in high core-count CPUs.

You are re-iterating that Intel is the performance king in a performance post, but then it suddenly swings into performance-per-dollar in a single application (in bold text) and touches on an AMD paradigm shift, and finishes off by stating how important performance-per-dollar is which is a total contradiction of the very first sentence.

It's all a bit bizarre. It's like you're trying very hard to try and justify how AMD is the 'winner' again. I'd agree with your sentiment about a 'thoughtful' purchaser will consider the needs and budget or Intel/AMD offerings however I'd probably replace the latter part of that sentence by saying only a rabid fanboy would defend and/or insist on buying any component based only on the brand name especially when they are in direct competition with each other and do exactly the same task with varying levels of efficiency.

We'll see what impact this has on RX Vega GPU (coming this month ??).

No sooner do I make the above post:



Also it has been noted -- regarding a CPU scam:



Of course, the chip that may replace a Ryzen CPU in the scam does not fit an AMD Ryzen motherboard.

Above mentioned sales of used RX400 and RX500 hopeful for keeping new RX Vega pricing in line -- versus Ethereum marked up RX Vega cards.

I'm not sure how much I would trust these secondhand cards either. I suspect quite a lot of newbs jumped into their first PC build as a 6-GPU mining monster hoping to make their fortunes, and bricked the cards with a bad BIOS flash, overclocking or hotswapping.

It seems a bit daft to lay out that much investment and waver at the first price drop. Most domestic mining rigs aren't going to see any ROI for six months. The more canny miners will be glad the noobs bailed which will slow the difficulty increment and increase any pool share.

Agree.

An article that merely says reporters were allowed to play games with both an AMD machine and an Nvidia machine. However, they did not know which was which -- all identifications were removed or hidden.

The reporters could not tell the difference between the two machines (RX Vega and Nvidia GTX1080) -- no more info than that about performance.

AMD representatives hinted that the RX Vega was cheaper than the GTX1080 -- but, nothing solid.

On the competition front an Intel rumor:



Base on recent Intel products, I expect Intel to show "Turbo Clocks" above 4GHz (nominally limited to a couple cores) and have overclocking unlocked. However, the 12 core chips are said to be "server chips" repackaged -- rather than a new design high core count chip for desktops. Moreover, Intel has officially recommended against overclocking their newer products (even though unlocked). So, it remains to be seen what the practical overclocks will be in actual use.

Competition is good. We all get more choices and lower prices.

What's the definition of 'almost similar' then?

Similar in this context I assume means 'quite close but not equal' otherwise it would be worded much stronger than this.....so including 'almost' undoubtedly means much less than similar!

The above was a cut and paste quote (in the quote box).

You are correct. Its a mealy mouth statement. Basically, the author of the quote said he, himself, saw no difference when he played both.

However, one of the other "reporters" reported that one of the systems had a brief hiccup -- he did not know which had the hiccup -- because the systems were disguised. Could have been AMD Vega. Could have been Nvidia 1080.



Since RX Vega is the new product and 1080 is established, one might conclude that AMD "probably" had the hiccup. But, who really knows??

All in all, little was added by the article. But, it is the first time reporters actually played with RX Vega -- even if they did not know which system it was. The implication was that RX Vega was "competitive" with GTX1080 (not enough better or worse to see the difference).

For one who would wish to check it out, here is the article.

RX Vega vs GTX1080

Ain't Free Enterprise and competition nice.

No sooner than one reporter speculates that there will be no cooling for AMD Threadripper CPU's TR4 socket (and I post the quote reprinted above) then:

Rumor, leak (not official):


16core/32thread, 12core/24thread. Based their specified clocks and on my Ryzen performance, I am guessing that they can easily overclock to 4.0GHz on all cores all the time (little or no voltage boost) with water cooling (but, I could easily have guessed wrong).

One article that summarizes the current GPU price situation due to Cryptocurrency mining.



In summary: NONE are a genuinely good deal (except the very cheapest low powered GPUs). Better to wait for prices to fall.

Right now, they see Nvidia cards as the best deals simply because they exist on the market (did not have the price/performance of AMD cards for computational tasks, so not all were sold).

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