Intel i5-7500, Ryzen 5 1500X

OmniDyne

Active Member
Hello!

I've been looking at processors around the $200 range. I don't run any programs beyond games, and I have minimal usage on Windows 10; Steam, HWMonitor, Discord. I try to keep the OS clean. The processor would be paired with a GTX 970.

Based on my research on processors in this price range, and after reading numerous posts in this forum, the 7500 or 1500x seem to be the best in this class (sub-$200) for 1080p 60 FPS gaming (most games). I do not plan on overclocking. I did notice the Ryzen 5 1600 is $199.

Is this an accurate interpretation of the current market? Or should I step up the processor?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:

Calin

Well-Known Member
Or if you don't, try to push and get a 1600. Gaming performance should be the same for now but will be more future proof
 

Intel_man

VIP Member
If you're only interested in 60fps 1080p gaming, I'd just get whichever you're looking at that is offered at the lowest price.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I'd swing the extra $20-30 for a 1600 over a 1500 but jumping up to the 1700 really isn't necessary for gaming purposes. Only a handful of games will use all those threads, only ever really seen Civ6 use all of mine and the difference is negligible.
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Alright, so the 1600 seems to be the best option.

I see that Newegg has the 7500 and 1600 priced at $199.

Just out of curiosity, for the sake of learning, I see that the 7500 has a higher single-threaded performance over the 1600, but lacks multi-threading. The 1600 has 2 more cores plus multi-threading. Is this a negligible trade-off that evens out? Beyond RTS games, will multi-threading benefit games more as time goes on?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
The 7500 does multithreading but not SMT for the 'simultaneous' 2 threads per core setup, however you still can facilitate multithreaded applications between cores. There's the i5 8400 you could look at as well which is a newer gen (would require a 3xx series board) and contains 6 cores in the i5 for $189.99 on newegg, lower base clock but higher turbo with some IPC improvements over the 7000 series. I'd probably get that over the 7500.

Ryzen is usually multithread centric but is a little bit slower in single thread IPC and clock speed, if you are strictly gaming then the Intel side would probably be a better investment, at least until we see how the Ryzen refresh pans out in April.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
At the resolution and card you're running the 1600 will perform just as well in modern games as the Intel. The clock speed difference won't be seen in framerate returns at that resolution, framerate, and settings. There is a shift towards more cores and threads, particularly in the past year so ultimately you'd probably get a more lifespan out of the 1600 but that's hard to say for sure. I do see games making use of 8 cores and 16 threads on my Ryzen, but it's rare. If anything just makes multitasking with demanding stuff open not even noticeable in terms of performance hit.
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Thanks for the replies!

I did more reading and watching on the 8400, and I think that might be the one.

You all were super helpful.
 

Okedokey

Well-Known Member
Some really nice computers here now! I haven't updated my old beast in a while, been using nice laptops. Recently built a Ryzen 5 1600 build with 24GB RAM. Its really nice, don't get me wrong, but there just feels like something amiss. This is on Windows Server 2016 Standard. My sig build still feels faster, am I missing something? Latest drivers, fresh install, 960PRO NVme RAID0 and plenty of storage. RAM is at 2.4 and CPU at 3.6

btw, Darrenoob is a Mod? Lol :)
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Some really nice computers here now! I haven't updated my old beast in a while, been using nice laptops. Recently built a Ryzen 5 1600 build with 24GB RAM. Its really nice, don't get me wrong, but there just feels like something amiss. This is on Windows Server 2016 Standard. My sig build still feels faster, am I missing something? Latest drivers, fresh install, 960PRO NVme RAID0 and plenty of storage. RAM is at 2.4 and CPU at 3.6

btw, Darrenoob is a Mod? Lol :)
Well that's a bit uncalled for. :p How long have you been gone? I have been for like 2 years now at least.
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Well I decided to hold off a bit longer on the purchase; I'm gonna see what RAM prices do in the coming months.

However, I noticed the i3-8100 has dropped to just over $100 on Newegg.
According to numerous critics, the 8100 is on par with the Ryzen 1500X, even outperforming it in multiple tests. The 1500X is still priced $60 higher.

I know scraping too far down into the bottom of the barrel processor wise will just lead to regret later, but the 8100 seems impressive at $100.

Would purchasing an 8100 and sitting on it until the B-series boards come out be a silly thing to do?
 

Okedokey

Well-Known Member
Buy on platform forward compatibility. AMD kill the equation on that front. Fn sick of Intel's chipset roadblocks.
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
Well I pulled the trigger on the 8400. I don't plan to upgrade again until at least 2020, probably later.

Found a Gigabyte Z370 D3 ATX board on sale for $85, so I think that was a decent deal.

Was looking hard at Ryzen, but with a Z370 at that low of a price, I couldn't resist.
 

Eduardo96

New Member
Always buy Intel. Don´t get impressed with the many cores of a Ryzen or with the ´Powerful´ Radeon an APU may carry. In the practice, the HD Graphics are better than Radeon and the few cores of an Intel CPU work better than AMD´s. Just an advice from someone that had tested both (not so expensives ones).
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Always buy Intel. Don´t get impressed with the many cores of a Ryzen or with the ´Powerful´ Radeon an APU may carry. In the practice, the HD Graphics are better than Radeon and the few cores of an Intel CPU work better than AMD´s. Just an advice from someone that had tested both (not so expensives ones).
Always buy what's the best value for your money and use case. Blind loyalty to one company is foolish. Also you got some sources for that claim Intel HD is better? You're terribly oversimplifying things.
 

Eduardo96

New Member
Needs more specifics
Just to say that I live in Cuba, where it is now when we have some bad internet and we have to build computers without any customer support or recommendations, just based on the results we achieve. This is a fact: I have a Laptop, a Dell Inspiron 5555 AMD A8 APU 7410,6 Gb DDR3 1600,1Tb SATA3 HDD, and an integrated GPU Radeon R5. Not so bad. But a friend with a Core i3 of 4th gen and another with Core i3 5th gen, with similar builds (4Gb Ram DDR3 1600) played a lot more games than I. So I buyed a 7th Gen i3 7100 and 8Gb DDR4 Ram and can play (without GPU Card) almost any game, with some exceptions, adding that this desktop computer I built have a 160Gb HDD SATA 1, which is semibroken and that means bad performance. Note that all CPUs I mentioned are Dual Core and A8 are Quad Core and with more cache. Do the Maths.
 
Top