Were We Wrong About Ryzen's Best Feature All Along?

[RaXelliX]

I find it hilarious that after 9 years of AM4 some people still dont think it's a big deal.

Also the question "how many times have you upgraded the CPU on AM4" is the wrong question.
The user didn't have to make a jump to every new Zen architecture to justify AM4's platform longevity.
It about the freedom of choice that the user CAN make switch if they want to.

It's like with driving a bike or walking in US vs Europe.

In the US everything is optimized with the expectation that you own a car and drive everywhere: distances are long, sidewalks and bike lanes are nonexistent or inadequate etc.

Vs Europe where you can still drive a car everywhere if you wish, but you have the freedom to use a bike or walk too.
More choice is not a bad thing.

 

[BobHome]

Yeah sonny, I remember when CPUs had 40 pins.
And we built boards with lots of 1 KB memory chips (that had 16 pins).
Ah, the good ol' days....

 

[Achaios]

I agree with the OP, investing in AM4 and AM5 boards and CPUs made sense and was and is better value.

Imagine if I could upgrade my 4790K on my ASUS Maximus VI Hero Z87 motherboard to a 8700K. It would be a significant and almost inexpensive upgrade.

Someone said that getting 15 years out of a motherboard is crazy, it is not. If you bought a high quality board 15 years ago like I did it would still work without issues after many years of gaming on it.

Only people I know that buy Intel CPUS these days are some kind of a prosumer. Purchasing Intel CPUs and motherboards makes no sense IMO seeing as how Intel continues being downright hostile to consumers, aggressively ending the lives of their platforms after a couple gens.

So uh, do I miss Wifi 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and uh PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 and Rebar and M2's and PCIe SSD's? Not all, all these features are completely irrelevant to me.

Also, my GTX 1080 says hi after 10 years of almost daily gaming. I have no doubt the Leatherjacket man tends to bite his leather jacket thinking of Pascal cards every now and then. BTW, using an Haswell system today and a Pascal card makes some ppl on Reddit extremely angry and upset so there are multiple upsides to using a 13 year old system, at least to me.

 

[amstech]

Platform longevity is one of the only thing that matters. I got really tired of Intel changing sockets every other week.

This may sound mean but, platform longevity doesn't really matter much at all. It 100% irrelevant if Intel or AMD change platforms, it ONLY matters if your platform's performance is falling behind. It's not about age, its about performance.
For example if you owned a Sandy Bridge 2600K and are a gamer, it didn't matter at all that Intel changed several platforms. Your CPU was good to go for 10 years give or take.
If you can get 10 years out of a socket, regardless of whether you ran one CPU, or 3 different ones over the years, thats not relevant.
The guy who had a build that lasted 10 years with the same CPU did much better then the guy who had a build that lasted 10 years but had to upgrade the CPU 3 times. Thats not a flex for the platform longevity, its the opposite.

 

[LimyG]

Yeah sonny, I remember when CPUs had 40 pins.
And we built boards with lots of 1 KB memory chips (that had 16 pins).
Ah, the good ol' days....

Heh Heh, I like it. Remember when a transitor wasn't a 14nm or now much smaller size with billions on a chip?

When I started out we used arrays of vacum tube transistors. You know the ones with three "hardwires," sticking out the bottom. Plug and play one could say.

Oh, and they were measured in cm, or even inches. Not nm.

Ahhh yes, the good old days.

 

[Hanzi]

I have an AM4 socket since 2017
I used:

MSI B350M Pro VHD
MSI X470 Gaming Plus MAX
ASUS B550M TUF Gaming Plus (****, it was a mistake to buy ASUS)

RAM:
2x4GB 3200MHz CL16
2x8GB 3333MHz CL16 @ 3333MHz CL14
2x8GB 3600MHz CL16 @ 3600MHz CL14
2x16GB 3600MHz CL16 @ (no OC, **** motherboard ASUS)

CPU:
A12-9800
Ryzen 2600
Ryzen 2400G (year 2021, miming)
Ryzen 5600X
Ryzen 5800X3D

GPU:
R9 280X 3GB (Ryzen 2600)
Vega56 8GB (Ryzen 2600)
RX 6600XT 8GB (Ryzen 5600X, Ryzen 5800X3D)
RX 9070 16GB (Ryzen 5800X3D)

 

[VaginaWhisperer]

Still going strong in 4k gaming with my 5800x

 

[Lew Zealand]

This may sound mean but, platform longevity doesn't really matter much at all. It 100% irrelevant if Intel or AMD change platforms, it ONLY matters if your platform's performance is falling behind. It's not about age, its about performance.
For example if you owned a Sandy Bridge 2600K and are a gamer, it didn't matter at all that Intel changed several platforms. Your CPU was good to go for 10 years give or take.
If you can get 10 years out of a socket, regardless of whether you ran one CPU, or 3 different ones over the years, thats not relevant.
The guy who had a build that lasted 10 years with the same CPU did much better then the guy who had a build that lasted 10 years but had to upgrade the CPU 3 times. Thats not a flex for the platform longevity, its the opposite.

So if you lucked into the stagnation years, you're OK. That's a real bad look for the industry, like buying an American car at the beginning of the Malaise Era. Sure it hasn't been beaten by anything but only because everything else sucks thanks to no improvements.

Better to buy into a decent platform offering good value which continues to offer considerably better performing parts for years to come. R3 1200, R5 1600AF, R5 5600, R7 5800X3D is good value the entire way while design improvements offer significantly better performance at each step.

Sure, this is a luck scenario at first as you don't know how improvements will pan out, however saying that minimal improvements over ~7 generations means that first gen was good value is true, but pretty sad because a stagnant industry is bad for everyone, including customers.

 

[amstech]

So if you lucked into the stagnation years, you're OK. That's a real bad look for the industry, like buying an American car at the beginning of the Malaise Era. Sure it hasn't been beaten by anything but only because everything else sucks thanks to no improvements.
Better to buy into a decent platform offering good value which continues to offer considerably better performing parts for years to come.

No one offers considerably better performance parts.
Radeons are doing terrible and Intel still has 65-70% of CPU market share, both brands CPU's are overall both competitive, pending price.

I do agree with you on one thing, I'm not saying that having a long lasting platform isn't a good thing, thats inarguable. AM4 is a pretty good example of that. But sooner or later you have to upgrade, for various reason's, one being OS Support. Everything Kaby Lake/AM3 and older is no longer supported by Windows updates nor can they run Windows 11, which now shows an improvement in gaming FPS over Windows 10. Kaby Lake just became 10 years old.

 

[Axeia]

What is the average life expectancy of a mid range mobo vs mid range CPU.

CPU? Basically forever. CPUs don't typically die or even degrade in performance much over the years (Intels somewhat recent fiasco excepted).
Motherboard, luck of the draw. Some components on it can go bad after years of usage (typically 5+), they'll break before CPUs do. You can see this exacerbated with really old (retro-grade) stuff, plenty of CPUs available and cheap as well but the motherboards can go for a lot as they become rare.

Same question for Cheap mobo - low end of range CPU.

Same. If you go reaaaally low end on the motherboard and really high end on the CPU the power draw the motherboard wasn't designed for will shorten its lifespan.

At least with your typical western brands. If you go the aliexpress route (or similar) for the cheapest possible motherboard that's likely full of recycled components I would expect a lower lifespan.

Then the best motherboards with the flagship CPU.

Same. Motherboards get silly expensive without really going up in quality, you just gain more features (that 99% of people don't use yet a substantial of people think they need it).

Not exactly on topic I know, but curious about others experiences with longetivity of hardware; - motherboards compared to CPUs?

I've NEVER had a CPU break on me. Every other component has died on me at some point with one exception... Keyboards somehow, I just upgraded those to more and more comfortable models until my Razer Ultimate Tournament 2013 edition - which I'm still using and typing this comment on. For reliability the tier list for me would be:
CPU & Keyboard (no failure) > SSD, Speakers > Monitor > Mouse, Motherboard, RAM > Power Supply, Graphics Card > HDD.

To be fair my current mouse (Roccat Tyon) has been good to me. It was the Logitechs before it that either wore out (slidepads completely gone, including the supports) or started having scrollwheel or click issues.

 

[numskull]

For every new CPU that leaves the foundry, a (new) motherboard is required. Except in the rare event that a cpu dies, but then so do motherboards of course, as happened to me a couple of years ago.

So if you sell your CPU and keep the motherboard for an in-system upgrade, somebody somewhere else then needs to buy a new motherboard at the level of your old CPU.

Which is fine in itself, but it means that motherboards tend towards the lowest common denominator. So you get more low end motherboards with less advanced features.

But maybe it doesn't matter that much in the end?

 

[hahahanoobs]

With AM5, you only score if you get in at 7000 series then upgrade after 9000 series since vanilla Zen 5 is no upgrade from Zen 4 excluding 7800X3D to upgrades 9800X3D for enthusiasts.

 

[Hotrod2go]

That's $100 to $150 saved which gets you a better video card or better CPU or double your memory, each of which has a greater impact on performance than adding some Mobo features which you may or may not ever use. My kid is still using his 2018 B350 and I'm still using my B450 because they still work with a 5800XT and 5700X3D, both of which cost only a bit more than a Mobo itself. I'll take just the CPU upgrade for half to 2/3 the cost instead.

The only one of your old Mobo concerns which are relevant for mostly gaming usecases is narrower PCI which is about a 1-2% bottleneck, as our boards all have USB-C (LOL which we never use). In fact the useful things a newer mobo would get are more fan headers and better m.2 support but performance and cooling are working as well as they have for the past 8 years so no need to change it.

And to put it bluntly: tossing out old equipment that still works ~95% as well as replacement equipment is disposable society BS that I choose not to participate in.

Why toss it out when it can be sold on ebay or somewhere else? the 2nd hand market is quite huge these days for PC components.

 

[LimyG]

CPU? Basically forever. CPUs don't typically die or even degrade in performance much over the years (Intels somewhat recent fiasco excepted).
Motherboard, luck of the draw. Some components on it can go bad after years of usage (typically 5+), they'll break before CPUs do. You can see this exacerbated with really old (retro-grade) stuff, plenty of CPUs available and cheap as well but the motherboards can go for a lot as they become rare.

Same. If you go reaaaally low end on the motherboard and really high end on the CPU the power draw the motherboard wasn't designed for will shorten its lifespan.

At least with your typical western brands. If you go the aliexpress route (or similar) for the cheapest possible motherboard that's likely full of recycled components I would expect a lower lifespan.

Same. Motherboards get silly expensive without really going up in quality, you just gain more features (that 99% of people don't use yet a substantial of people think they need it).


I've NEVER had a CPU break on me. Every other component has died on me at some point with one exception... Keyboards somehow, I just upgraded those to more and more comfortable models until my Razer Ultimate Tournament 2013 edition - which I'm still using and typing this comment on. For reliability the tier list for me would be:
CPU & Keyboard (no failure) > SSD, Speakers > Monitor > Mouse, Motherboard, RAM > Power Supply, Graphics Card > HDD.

To be fair my current mouse (Roccat Tyon) has been good to me. It was the Logitechs before it that either wore out (slidepads completely gone, including the supports) or started having scrollwheel or click issues.

Thanks for the detailed reply. As I mentioned in my post I've NEVER had a CPU die either.
But everything else has failed at some point.

Our experiences are similar. I asked the question because I've always gone Intel which means I have always bought a new mobo when upgrading CPU gen.

Thanks.

 

[jpvalverde85]

The AMD way with the sockets feels like the past times where you could pass through multiple gens with the same board, so it did well, it still does, still gets supported. Kudos to AMD for AM4 and AM5. Even with a somewhat stable (and stale) platform, they have the best enthusiast processors and very good budget ones.

 

[Shirley Dulcey]

There is still a market for Intel because large corporations never upgrade their computers: not the CPU, not the RAM, not the storage. (Some have IT departments that will replace RAM or storage if it fails; others just store the broken systems until they retire that generation of equipment.) They use them as purchased for five years, and then replace them with new ones; the old ones are donated to non-profits or sold to refurbishers (who often have to replace the storage because the corporation's data security policies require physical destruction).

Upgrades only matter to gamers and the SOHO (small office / home office) markets, and to smaller non-profits where most of the IT infrastructure is castoffs from those large corporations.

 

[Nichers]

Worth pointing out that the upgrade path for early AM4 boards was not trivial, with undersized firmware storage and etc, and also AM4s longevity did early AM5 no favours given how expensive it was going all in so early on DDR5 and PCIe gen 5.

Longevity is a nice bonus for me - I repurpose old computers when upgrading to a new one, but replacing the CPU rarely feels like a good value proposition.

Full disclaimer, I landed on AM4 with an x570/3700x because I wanted extra storage options for when it eventually became my file.server. By the time I wanted to upgrade, the 5800x3d was the only valid target that would drive a 4090, and that was barely cheaper than a 7800x3d and in very low supply - so I just waited and paired a 9800x3d with an x870-e.

When was the last time aibtel had a stable mid-term platform - socket 7, when it was shared?

 

[TooQik]

Clearly multiple gen - same socket is excellent to have and appealing.

Good article, and plenty of opinions on this so I want to ask a genuine question.

What is the average life expectancy of a mid range mobo vs mid range CPU.
Same question for Cheap mobo - low end of range CPU. Then the best motherboards with the flagship CPU.

I've never had a CPU fail. My i9 9900ks runs fulltime, all the time at 5.21GHz and has been for years. Still using the original AsRock Z390 Phantom gaming 9 mobo as well. This high spec combo has served me well.

However I have had several motherboards pack up and die. One was a Gigabyte Formula OC matched with an Ivy Bridge i7 3700k. The chip was fine and worked great in a new, but different brand mobo.

A similar thing happened with my ancient i7 940 (1st gen core, before SandyBridge). I admit that was my first self built PC so the failing mobo just might have been some installation error on my side.

Regardless, I've owned many CPUs and many motherboards over the past 18 years. All Intel sockets. In total 3 mobos died (one may have been my fault). No CPU, always overclocked has ever failed.

Not exactly on topic I know, but curious about others experiences with longetivity of hardware; - motherboards compared to CPUs?

EDIT: I'll call it longetivity from a different perspective. Pure Hardware reliability regardless of socket/sockets - brand, AMD/Intel.

I've never had a CPU fail on me either, and that includes overclocking almost everything I've ever owned.

Motherboard wise, I've only had two fail on me - the first was self induced due to a mishap with a screwdriver slipping and damaging tracks, the second was due to failed capacitors and was a mid range board.

I've had a couple of RAM modules fail under normal operating conditions.

One GPU has died on me, with a loud pop and smoke from an exploding capacitor.

I've had a single HDD failure.

Probably the most failures I've had are power supplies, with three fail. One failure was just before the end of its seven year warranty period, and was honoured with a brand new replacement. Ironically it was upgrading to a newer GPU that highlighted the dying PSU, as the new card was pulling more power and effectively causing the PSU to brown out the card resulting in graphic driver crashes, black screens etc.

 

[AffordablePCdude]

I honestly don't understand this mentality. So over the last eight years and (effectively) two separate systems, you saved the cost of one motherboard; a negligible amount compared to the total cost of all the other components in both systems.

Motherboards are no different than processors and video cards -- they get upgraded over time with enhanced performance and new features. Using a 5+ year old motherboard in a new system means you give up all that. Older WiFi and USB standards, potentially slower memory, narrower PCI buses, and the ever-present spectre of sunsetted BIOS support. You can obviate some of that with add-in cards ... but then there goes the cost savings of retaining the motherboard.

I guess you're just loaded and have not much else to spend your money on. Other people aren't so lucky.

I don't give up anything with my $399 dollars spend on my Asus Crosshair Hero top of the line motherboard that I bought in 2018. It has been upgraded from a 2700x to a 5950x. Why replace it, it has all the top end features, tons of USB ports, even USB-C connection with a simple converter. I don't really use Wifi, too much latency for what I do. I put a 40gb network card in it and a 4070ti. It rocks.

To buy a top of the line motherboard now would cost $700+. Yeah, you can get cheaper motherboarts, but I buy top of the line every 5 years or so, and keep them a long time. Tom's hardware did a series of tests where DDR5 was only 2% faster than DDR4 in gaming applications. Why do I need to pay money for DDR5 and a new socket, when my system runs everything I want in Ultra-graphics mode at 4K?

Spending money just to spend money and claim your system is the fastest by 2-5% is just a waste.

 

[Endymio]

I guess you're just loaded and have not much else to spend your money on. Other people aren't so lucky.

I don't give up anything with my $399 dollars spend on my Asus Crosshair Hero top of the line motherboard that I bought in 2018...

If you're on a budget, buying a $400 mobo in 2018 meant you paid 3-4X as much as necessary for perhaps 2% more performance. Your choice of course ... but you're making a very poor argument for how all this "saved you money".

... Tom's hardware did a series of tests where DDR5 was only 2% faster than DDR4 in gaming applications.

Um, you realize those tests were done with Alder Lake CPUs; two generations out of date, bottlenecked with a 3-generation old 2080 GPU. The tests showed that, if the rest of your hardware was antiquated, then upgrading just the memory alone doesn't help. Not for gaming, at least ... the mem upgrade improved performance in some apps by as much as 60%.

 

[PierreJG]

It just comes down what you are willing to do. Change mobo/cpu every second generation or go with something that support multiple generations. I have been with AMD for many years and I had horrible experience with Intel but that is on me. I won't say go this or that as different people have different experience. People Like Nvidia Drivers, I prefer AMD drivers. Specially with Linux.

Regardless of my Experience, I stay neutral. I am planning to get an old 8700k when I get a descend price on one as I do custom air cool overclocking (cause water is for wussies ) and wanna see how far I can push one on air. Just a hobby for me. I do like the platform support on AMD but lets be real a 12-14gen, even older can still handle most of the games at the moment. Not maxing everything is not enough a reason to change my AM4 to AM5 as I will pay triple for the pc. My current PC Ryzen 5 5500 and RX6600XT 16gb 3600MHZ memory cost me around 500 usd (converted currency) the cheapest AM5 mobo alone is around 250-300usd for us. If I have to upgrade it will be close to 1.5-2k usd and that is not worth it

 

[LimyG]

It just comes down what you are willing to do. Change mobo/cpu every second generation or go with something that support multiple generations. I have been with AMD for many years and I had horrible experience with Intel but that is on me. I won't say go this or that as different people have different experience. People Like Nvidia Drivers, I prefer AMD drivers. Specially with Linux.

Regardless of my Experience, I stay neutral. I am planning to get an old 8700k when I get a descend price on one as I do custom air cool overclocking (cause water is for wussies ) and wanna see how far I can push one on air. Just a hobby for me. I do like the platform support on AMD but lets be real a 12-14gen, even older can still handle most of the games at the moment. Not maxing everything is not enough a reason to change my AM4 to AM5 as I will pay triple for the pc. My current PC Ryzen 5 5500 and RX6600XT 16gb 3600MHZ memory cost me around 500 usd (converted currency) the cheapest AM5 mobo alone is around 250-300usd for us. If I have to upgrade it will be close to 1.5-2k usd and that is not worth it

You mentioned memory cost, which as we all know is awful now. I agree it's not worth it now.

I wonder how many builders have postponed or cancelled upgrades due to the ridiculous memory prices?

BTW: I have to remain neutral too re: multi-gen sockets as I have never built an AMD system.
It does "sound," good though to have multi-gen as an option.

Was thinging about a new build based around AMD 9800X3D, but will be sticking with my current build for probably a long time. Main reason memory.

 

[Deneb]

I guess I was the perfect example of the value AMD provided.

My system's life has seen it go through:
1600x - 3600 - 5600x - 5700X3D

16GB 3000Mhz - 32GB 3200Mhz
5700XT - 6800 - 6800XT - 7900XT

I've had to change mobos once as I accidentally killed one somehow while upgrading the GPU.

But it is still "feels" like the same PC, as it is in the same case etc - so I should be good for another 5 years at a minimum, as the 5700X3D is an amazing piece of hardware. And the 7900xt obviously needs a lot less from a CPU than a 5090 does.

I never would've had a similarly profitable "exchange rate" if I had gone with Intel back then imho.

 

[Hanzi]

"""My current PC Ryzen 5 5500 and RX6600XT 16gb"""

Terrible hardware combination (CPU little L3 cache)

(Ryzen 5500 16MB L3 cache, PCIe 8x) = Ryzen 5600G no iGPU
RX6600XT PCIe 4.0 x8

Better HW combination
Ryzen 3600/5600 32MB L3 cache + RX6600XT PCIe 4.0, motherboard B550/X570 PCIe 4.0, AMD SAM enable (Re-Size BAR)

I had a Ryzen 5600X + RX 6600 XT in my PC.
I upgraded my Ryzen 5600 to a 5800X3D.
RX 6600XT boosted GPU performance,
like pouring "living water" on the GPU.
My Kill/Death ratio increased in Battlefield 5 multiplayer(Ryzen 5800X3D 96MB L3).

Ryzen 5800X3D, problems have stopped in multiplayer (sometimes the game doesn't count my shots).
The games are beautifully smooth, no lags.
The RX6600XT makes sense to have an X3D CPU.

I play a lot of multiplayer games, CPU X3D + weaker GPU is a better combination, than weaker CPU + more powerful GPU.

 

[Hanzi]

"""My current PC Ryzen 5 5500 and RX6600XT 16gb"""

Terrible hardware combination (CPU little L3 cache)

(Ryzen 5500 16MB L3 cache, PCIe 8x) = Ryzen 5600G no iGPU
RX6600XT PCIe 4.0 x8

Better HW combination
Ryzen 3600/5600 32MB L3 cache + RX6600XT PCIe 4.0, motherboard B550/X570 PCIe 4.0, AMD SAM enable (Re-Size BAR)

I had a Ryzen 5600X + RX 6600 XT in my PC.
I upgraded my Ryzen 5600 to a 5800X3D.
RX 6600XT boosted GPU performance,
like pouring "living water" on the GPU.
My Kill/Death ratio increased in Battlefield 5 multiplayer(Ryzen 5800X3D 96MB L3).

Ryzen 5800X3D, problems have stopped in multiplayer (sometimes the game doesn't count my shots).
The games are beautifully smooth, no lags.
The RX6600XT makes sense to have an X3D CPU.

I play a lot of multiplayer games, CPU X3D + weaker GPU is a better combination, than weaker CPU + more powerful GPU.

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