# Intel Core i5-10400F



## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Intel's new Core i5-10400F offers a large performance jump over the previous generation Core i5-9400F because of its six-core/twelve-thread design. In this Core i5-10400F review we also test the feasibility of overclocking through BCLK, or by relaxing the PL1 and PL2 Turbo Limits.

*Show full review*


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## _Flare (May 28, 2020)

nice test, but nobody should pair it with a Z-Board and the perf-hit with only 2666 RAM is huge like the test of games nexus showed


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## ncrs (May 28, 2020)

_Flare said:


> nice test, but nobody should pair it with a Z-Board and the perf-hit with only 2666 RAM is huge like the test of games nexus showed


And this review is using a 3rd party cooler from what I understood? Totally unrealistic...


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## kayjay010101 (May 28, 2020)

In Metro Exodus at 1440p: why does an i5-8400 outperform an i7-9700k? The 9700k has literally better specs in every single category, so how is it being beaten by the generation previous' locked i5?


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## Caring1 (May 28, 2020)

kayjay010101 said:


> In Metro Exodus at 1440p: why does an i5-8400 outperform an i7-9700k? The 9700k has literally better specs in every single category, so how is it being beaten by the generation previous' locked i5?


The only spec the i7-9700k has that is better is boost speed.


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## $ReaPeR$ (May 28, 2020)

ncrs said:


> And this review is using a 3rd party cooler from what I understood? Totally unrealistic...


Let alone the z490 and the 3200 ddr... Better value my @ss.


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## Caring1 (May 28, 2020)

@W1zzard the CPU you used is the older G1 stepping which uses Thermal paste, not STIM.
Any chance of retesting with the Q0 stepping version?


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## Rhurba (May 28, 2020)

Why would anyone in their right mind buy technology that is 6 years old? 

This just means that you would support this sharade and bullsh** intel has been doing for years, the cow-milking corporate crap that Intel has become. 

Since Skylake everything has been about milking the 14nm which as of this year reaches it's 6th "+" sign. inovation = 0. 14nm ++++++. Great tech !


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## roberto888 (May 28, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> @W1zzard the CPU you used is the older G1 stepping which uses Thermal paste, not STIM.
> Any chance of retesting with the Q0 stepping version?



I assume he had to purchase the CPU, and from online store you can hardly check which stepping it is. I guess you can buy and send him one!  no offence


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

I checked on newegg, bestbuy, amazon and some other major online stores, 10400 runs around $195 and the 3600 at $175. Am I missing anything.


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## kayjay010101 (May 28, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> The only spec the i7-9700k has that is better is boost speed.


Are you sure you're looking at the right CPU? I said i5-8400. 



_CPU_*i5-8400**i7-9700k*_Base_2.8GHz3.6GHz_SC Boost_4.0GHz4.9GHz_All-core Boost_3.8GHz4.6GHz_# of Cores_68_Hyperthreading?_NoNo_L1 (in KiB)_384512_L2 (in MiB)_1.52_L3 (in MiB)_912_iGPU_UHD 630UHD 630_node_14nm14nm_socket_LGA1151LGA1151_TDP_65W95W_Generation_8th9th
Every single spec relating to performance that I know of is either in favor of the 9700k or it's a draw. So I ask again, how is the 8400, an inferior chip in every single measurement, superior to the 9700k? Seems to me like the testing wasn't done properly.


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## Caring1 (May 28, 2020)

kayjay010101 said:


> Are you sure you're looking at the right CPU? I said i5-8400.


My bad, I assumed 10400 as that is what this review is for.


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## Kissamies (May 28, 2020)

_Flare said:


> nice test, but nobody should pair it with a Z-Board


There isn't other chipsets than Z490 for LGA1200 on the market yet.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I checked on newegg, bestbuy, amazon and some other major online stores, 10400 runs around $195 and the 3600 at $175. Am I missing anything.


Yes you are.  The "f".


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## EarthDog (May 28, 2020)

Rhurba said:


> Why would anyone in their right mind buy technology that is 6 years old?
> 
> This just means that you would support this sharade and bullsh** intel has been doing for years, the cow-milking corporate crap that Intel has become.
> 
> Since Skylake everything has been about milking the 14nm which as of this year reaches it's 6th "+" sign. inovation = 0. 14nm ++++++. Great tech !


Who GAF? Core for core and thread for thread it is a competitive product. Pricing is higher, indeed. But you act like these aren't high performing parts. I don't give 2 hoots what process node a cpu is on, really. Performance is where its at...

...though yes, I understand power will be helped with a shrink and many other things.


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

kayjay010101 said:


> Are you sure you're looking at the right CPU? I said i5-8400.
> 
> Every single spec relating to performance that I know of is either in favor of the 9700k or it's a draw. So I ask again, how is the 8400, an inferior chip in every single measurement, superior to the 9700k? Seems to me like the testing wasn't done properly.



I think it’s because the games do not scale very well with the increased core count and many are GPU bound
I read other reviews and many mentioned: To use ddr4 3200, we must use a z490 board and any decent board with that chipset will cost more than 200.
Not sure if we should take this into consideration in term of value of the system.



thebluebumblebee said:


> Yes you are.  The "f".



Would you kindly send me the link on Amazon or Newegg to the 10400F. I could not find it.




EarthDog said:


> Who GAF? Core for core and thread for thread it is a competitive product. Pricing is higher, indeed. But you act like these aren't high performing parts. I don't give 2 hoots what process node a cpu is on, really. Performance is where its at...
> 
> ...though yes, I understand power will be helped with a shrink and many other things.


In this case is the price higher because of supply law? I think we have an issue with judging the value of the product when take into consideration cooler and motherboard cost (to new users).


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## Daven (May 28, 2020)

kayjay010101 said:


> Are you sure you're looking at the right CPU? I said i5-8400.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is why there is no such thing as a 'Gaming CPU'. You can get results all over the place based on the game, the latest game patch, the cooling inside your system, etc. etc etc. Most games work just fine at any resolution with a quad core or higher CPU from either AMD and Intel. Minor differences of 10% or less is just noise and varies from test to test. If you are one of the few trying to get the highest possible frame rates, you will always be disappointed in the result as that goal is nigh unobtainable. Here is the simple truth to buying a CPU:

Single/lightly threaded tasks or multitasking only: Any latest gen AMD/Intel Quad core or higher CPU
Highly Multithreaded tasks or lots of multitasking: Latest gen AMD 12-core or higher
Gaming only: Any latest gen AMD/Intel Quad core or higher CPU
Gaming plus multitasking: Latest gen AMD 12-core or higher


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## Taraquin (May 28, 2020)

10400 would be great..... If H and B-motherboard would support higher than 2666MHz ram. In the GN-review, some games saw a 20% difference between 2666cl15 and 3200cl14 which TPU uses. If Z490-board had a decent price it would have been an easy choice, but 150usd+ is a bit much when the included cooler sucks and a good B450-board with ram-oc of 3733-3800 is easy for most buyers. A 3600 tends to be 100usd lower since stock cooler is usable. A 80usd 2x8 ballistix 3200-set easily does 4000+ when overclocked and is a good match for both. 

You can either get a 10400F, a H or B-board and get generally equal or lower gamingperformance than 3600 for same price, or spend 100usd more and get up to 10% more gamingperf when CPU-bound.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Would you kindly send me the link on Amazon or Newegg to the 10400F. I could not find it.


I don't believe it's available yet.


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

thebluebumblebee said:


> I don't believe it's available yet.


I see. Thanks for the response. I am just curious to see how much does it cost on major retailers.
Did not realize this is just a paper release.

Meanwhile, Microcenter has the Ryzen 3600 for $160. Okay that's some serious discount.


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## phanbuey (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I see. Thanks for the response. I am just curious to see how much does it cost on major retailers.
> Did not realize this is just a paper release.
> 
> Meanwhile, Microcenter has the Ryzen 3600 for $160. Okay that's some serious discount.



160 with a cooler and a $80 b450 board that can run it nicely... I don't see how this can possibly be better value with the motherboard situation included in the cost.


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## ppn (May 28, 2020)

It will cost $13 more than the 1000 tray units price of $157,, say $170 or the same as 3600.

65 watts, 4.00GHz, 149.6 mm² die size and 49.6 mm² of it are dead weight laser cut GFX.
so 100mm2 for the 6core part. not bad, 2500K was 216mm².

But Why does it need to shrink more at this point. If It works nicely with 2080Ti / 3070.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I see. Thanks for the response. I am just curious to see how much does it cost on major retailers.
> Did not realize this is just a paper release.
> 
> Meanwhile, Microcenter has the Ryzen 3600 for $160. Okay that's some serious discount.



I know that Newegg just had the i5-9400 for $155.  Maybe they're holding the i5-10400(f)s back while the inventory of the previous generation is reduced.


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> @W1zzard the CPU you used is the older G1 stepping which uses Thermal paste, not STIM.
> Any chance of retesting with the Q0 stepping version?


yeah i'm aware, we ran a news story yday based on my findings. not sure if worth buying another one, the differences won't be significant, and I just spent 1.5k on more CPUs for review

TIM or sTIM, doesn't matter, because you can't OC the CPU either way. The only difference is that sensors on one CPU will show other temps than on the other due to better heat transfer. Both versions are 65 W heat output, so your cooler has to work just as hard, heat won't magically disappear from sTIM



roberto888 said:


> he had to purchase the CPU, and from online store you can hardly check which stepping it is. I guess you can buy and send him one!


correct 



kayjay010101 said:


> In Metro Exodus at 1440p: why does an i5-8400 outperform an i7-9700k?


interesting indeed, and it seems to be the case with 1080p, 1440p and 4K in metro, so doesn't look like a random variation. maybe metro somehow prefers 6c over 8c ? or it prefers 8c, but loading 8c = lower boost clock than 6c loaded?


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

thebluebumblebee said:


> I know that Newegg just had the i5-9400 for $155.  Maybe they're holding the i5-10400(f)s back while the inventory of the previous generation is reduced.


That is possible. However, I don't see it anywhere else too. May be Covid-19 screwed up the supply line. 
All I hope is healthy competition so we can all enjoy lower price and better performance. 



ppn said:


> It will cost $13 more than the 1000 tray units price of $157,, say $170 or the same as 3600.
> 
> 65 watts, 4.00GHz, 149.6 mm² die size and 49.6 mm² of it are dead weight laser cut GFX.
> so 100mm2 for the 6core part. not bad, 2500K was 216mm².
> ...


I have the same thought as you in the beginning. Then I play the what if game. What if the process goes down to 10nm or 7nm, we will have more cores and less heat on the same 100mm2 die. But Intel did not do that because they did not feel any pressure of doing so. That's why AMD can do a sneak attack and took Intel by surprise. Lack of competition leads to lack of innovation.


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> That is possible. However, I don't see it anywhere else too. May be Covid-19 screwed up the supply line.
> All I hope is healthy competition so we can all enjoy lower price and better performance.


Just like at most launches, US prices seem incoherent due to the lack of competition. Check European prices on gh.de, I paid 170 euros for my 10400f on monday, 3600 is 166, used to be 170 a few days ago, so pretty much identical


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Just like at most launches, US prices seem incoherent due to the lack of competition. Check European prices on gh.de, I paid 170 euros for my 10400f on monday, 3600 is 166, used to be 170 a few days ago, so pretty much identical


I see. Thanks for the reply. That solve my question. It's the logistical problem (tax, and availability also play key role of the price.). 
the 10400F is nowhere to be found in the US right now, or at least in the state I'm in. It affects the value of the product tremendously. 
Did you take the motherboard cost and cooler cost into consideration when calculating the value for the product? I'm just curious about the methodology. Each reviewer has different ways to calculate it.


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Did you take the motherboard cost and cooler cost into consideration when calculating the value for the product?


I did, that's why I'm not giving our "budget" award, even though Ryzen 5 3600 got it (similar price, similar perf)

Looking forward, platform cost will change a lot with the release of low-cost chipsets from Intel. Same goes for AMD B550, but it seems that B550 pricing will be just as stupid as Z490.. we'll see.

Cooler cost is 0 for both setups, as the stock cooler will be sufficient, maybe slightly in favor of the 10400F as it has a bit lower heat output than 3600


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## WeeRab (May 28, 2020)

Given that there are only  (expensive) z490 Mobo's in the wild, and the i10400f requires an additional expense for a cooling solution, I hardly think it is a better value proposition than the R5 3600
 The 3600 trounces the 10400f in almost every non-gaming scenario.
As a previous comment said:  Value my @ss.


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## MAXLD (May 28, 2020)

_Flare said:


> nice test, but nobody should pair it with a Z-Board and the perf-hit with only 2666 RAM is huge like the test of games nexus showed



Confirmed also by Steven from Techspot/HU who also did testing with both RAM speeds (3200 vs 2666), on it's "i5 10400" review, like GN. The RAM difference meant the cpu performance went down from beating the 3600 in some games, to being worse than it.

B460 boards limit ram speed to 2666MHz when paired with i5 cpus (and 2933MHz with i7/i9). To be able to run them paired with 3200 ram speed, one needs to by a Z490 board, and a decent one (VRM and features wise) is like almost $200. That completely changes the picture on the cpu+motherboard bundle value proposition and performance of the CPU itself.

From the B460 Tomahawk manual itself, for example:


> Intel® Core™ i7/ i9 ▪ Supports up to DDR4 2933 MHz
> Intel® Core™ i5 and below ▪ Supports up to DDR4 2666 MHz



This review, even without having tested both RAM speeds, should at least pointed that B460 board limitation and potential performance hit, because the B-series is exactly the sweetspot board type that many will buy for this kind of cpu, considering the price point of both, which something that was said on the review itself:



> For multiplier-locked chips like the i5-10400F, you could save a lot of money by opting for cheaper H470 or B460 chipset motherboards.


Yes, but with a performance hit due the 2666Mhz ram speed limitation. Without the said clarification, that statement and conclusions are misleading for those that then buy it with a B460 board, convinced they'll get the same CPU performance as shown here when using a Z490 / 3200 setup.


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## Bee9 (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> I did, that's why I'm not giving our "budget" award, even though Ryzen 5 3600 got it (similar price, similar perf)
> 
> Looking forward, platform cost will change a lot with the release of low-cost chipsets from Intel. Same goes for AMD B550, but it seems that B550 pricing will be just as stupid as Z490.. we'll see.
> 
> Cooler cost is 0 for both setups, as the stock cooler will be sufficient, maybe slightly in favor of the 10400F as it has a bit lower heat output than 3600



Lovely. This should clear up a lot of confusion going forward for many people. Because you guys have many awards. I had a discussion with my wife and it's the first time in the last 3 months we had a agreement. No one will buy an expensive Z490 board to pair up with this 10400F. Get cheaper board. 
Looking forward to the updated review on the new chipsets. I heard the lower cost chipset for the 10th gen Intel will limit the DDR4 to 2666. That will, for sure, reduce the performance of the 10400F. 

And thank you for the hard work. No matter the opinion is, I value what you guys did to inform us about new products. #respect.


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## Dirtdog (May 28, 2020)

Chloe Price said:


> There isn't other chipsets than Z490 for LGA1200 on the market yet.


Then the test should have downclocked the RAM to 2666.


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Dirtdog said:


> Then the test should have downclocked the RAM to 2666.


I'll get you another run at 2666, gimme a few hours


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## thebluebumblebee (May 28, 2020)

Are you going to test the i5-10600?  There's a 60 watt TDP difference between it and the K version


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## Raendor (May 28, 2020)

Gamersnexus and hardwareunboxed (techspot) did great reviews and I find surprising the praises from TPU. 3600 provides a far better value, while for 10400 to take the lead - you have to spend 100 more on a mobo.


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## david0852 (May 28, 2020)

10400F = 179,90 € +  expensive decent MB
3600 = 189,99 € + cheap decent MB

choice made


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

thebluebumblebee said:


> Are you going to test the i5-10600?  There's a 60 watt TDP difference....


No concrete plan for that yet. Today I've ordered 10100, 10300, 10320, 10500, 10700 and 10700K, which will keep me busy for a while


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## Nater (May 28, 2020)

So it comes with a cooler and has sub-$100 mainboards available?  I don't see how on Earth you can write that headline with a straight face.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> No concrete plan for that yet. Today I've ordered 10100, 10300, 10320, 10500, 10700 and 10700K, which will keep me busy for a while


So, basically, every one BUT the one I want.  So, what did I do to hack you off?   JUST KIDDING!


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Nater said:


> So it comes with a cooler and has sub-$100 mainboards available?  I don't see how on Earth you can write that headline with a straight face.


Alright, I changed the subtitle, let's wait for H410 boards. Stock cooler is included


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## dirtyferret (May 28, 2020)

A lot of new members coming out of the woodwork most with clear resentment towards the CPU and wizards test....


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## claylomax (May 28, 2020)

dirtyferret said:


> A lot of new members coming out of the woodwork most with clear resentment towards the CPU and wizards test....



Indeed.


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## Dirtdog (May 28, 2020)

dirtyferret said:


> A lot of new members coming out of the woodwork most with clear resentment towards the CPU and wizards test....


Not sure if resentment is fair, but I think it is important to present a balanced picture so that potential purchasers aren't potentially misled, because not everyone this CPU is aimed at will understand the importance of RAM speed and that the cheaper boards only allow 2666 speeds.  I have no axe to grind and I have an (older) Intel CPU myself, a 4790K which is still going strong.


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## mahoney (May 28, 2020)

ncrs said:


> And this review is using a 3rd party cooler from what I understood? Totally unrealistic...


Yes totally unrealistic lmao 
You do realize that it's better to use aftermarket coolers even with Ryzen cpu's?
The 3300x can't hit the highest frequency because the stock cooler can't handle the heat.


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## Vayra86 (May 28, 2020)

Mark Little said:


> This is why there is no such thing as a 'Gaming CPU'. You can get results all over the place based on the game, the latest game patch, the cooling inside your system, etc. etc etc. Most games work just fine at any resolution with a quad core or higher CPU from either AMD and Intel. Minor differences of 10% or less is just noise and varies from test to test. If you are one of the few trying to get the highest possible frame rates, you will always be disappointed in the result as that goal is nigh unobtainable. Here is the simple truth to buying a CPU:
> 
> Single/lightly threaded tasks or multitasking only: Any latest gen AMD/Intel Quad core or higher CPU
> Highly Multithreaded tasks or lots of multitasking: Latest gen AMD 12-core or higher
> ...



Hi there sir, 2017 was 3 years ago... things have progressed a little since.

A quad core for gaming was *not *the go-to part since 2018. It became clear already with the 7700K, it would fall short against higher thread parts despite a much higher clock. And that was not a quad, but a quad with HT, so 8T CPU. 4T CPUs have not been in fashion for gaming for a loooong time.


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## ppn (May 28, 2020)

testing with 3200-14 is unfair because of the price. you are not running 3200-14 memory with Ryzen 3600. 3200-16 is you best bet.
2660 can tighten timings too. what is the lowest 2660 can go. even at same CL14,
the improvement is not that big. 6-10%, that performance doesn't just disaspear, you can set better texture settings with that.


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## Vayra86 (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> interesting indeed, and it seems to be the case with 1080p, 1440p and 4K in metro, so doesn't look like a random variation. maybe metro somehow prefers 6c over 8c ? or it prefers 8c, but loading 8c = lower boost clock than 6c loaded?



We've also had that odd one out with similar 6c6t 8th gen in some Ubisoft titles where it would perform absolutely horribly in some places.

Puzzling indeed. But it is more likely to be within the game code than it is a CPU issue. IMO... ignore and move on  Shitty games appear left and right and Far Cry / AC games are not exempt. I still remember Unity at launch, utterly painful regardless of hardware.



Raendor said:


> Gamersnexus and hardwareunboxed (techspot) did great reviews and I find surprising the praises from TPU. 3600 provides a far better value, while for 10400 to take the lead - you have to spend 100 more on a mobo.



Difference between written and video content, perhaps, though the bandwagon is alive and well over here too. Part in jest, as well. Not all can make the distinction all the time 

Sentiment is worthless anyway because people are sheeple and liars. What counts is the sales number, it speaks the truth.


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## ncrs (May 28, 2020)

mahoney said:


> Yes totally unrealistic lmao
> You do realize that it's better to use aftermarket coolers even with Ryzen cpu's?
> The 3300x can't hit the highest frequency because the stock cooler can't handle the heat.


That's not the point... Potential 10400F buyers are not going to be using the memory, motherboard (that allows to overclock RAM above 2666) and cooler used in this review in their builds.
Anyway the issues (conclusion in title and lack of 2666 RAM results) are fixed/will be fixed soon. Yet again @W1zzard proves that he can take warranted criticisms and act upon it.


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## theGryphon (May 28, 2020)

@W1zzard Thank you for the more accurate review title!


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## ppn (May 28, 2020)

ncrs said:


> That's not the point... Potential 10400F buyers are not going to be using the memory, motherboard (that allows to overclock RAM above 2666) and cooler used in this review in their builds.
> Anyway the issues (conclusion in title and lack of 2666 RAM results) are fixed/will be fixed soon. Yet again @W1zzard proves that he can take warranted criticisms and act upon it.



why do you need 2666 results, 
3200- CL16 and 2666- CL14, are the same performance. If you include 3200 CL14 that should be reflected in the price, it is not the same price at all.


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## ncrs (May 28, 2020)

ppn said:


> why do you need 2666 results,
> 3200- CL16 and 2666- CL14, are the same performance. If you include 3200 CL14 that should be reflected in the price, it is not the same price at all.


Because the processor is limited to 2666 on non-Z motherboards (which are the most likely target for people wanting this CPU) and testing above it is overclocking. Changing this will affect results and in some cases might even change the review conclusions.


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## OneMoar (May 28, 2020)

so on a z extreme board with the limits released and a blkclock boost
its beating the 3300x by 1 fps at 1440 and maby 5 fps at 1080p ..
totally going to buy a 160 dollar processor and put it on a 500 dollar board
huzzah more Intel marketing shenanigans


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## Dirtdog (May 28, 2020)

ppn said:


> why do you need 2666 results,
> *3200- CL16 and 2666- CL14, are the same performance.* If you include 3200 CL14 that should be reflected in the price, it is not the same price at all.



Not always.  About the same real latency but that's not the only thing that matters otherwise DDR3 or even DDR2 would be superior.


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## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

great performance for the price (gaming,don't care about the rest,would be fine with a sandy i3 for what I do),good temperatures.

I was thinking about getting a z490,a 4400mhz viper kit and this as a placeholder for whatever lake is coming next.please talk me out of it.


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## moob (May 28, 2020)

I didn't see it mentioned anywhere but are these benchmarks done with the built-in benchmarks in these games? I ask because Techspot has very different results in Shadow of the Tomb Raider for example but they're using a different section of the game as they found the built-in benchmark wasn't indicative of actual in-game performance.

Edit: I realize it's a different CPU, but taking the test systems together those are very very different results.


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## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

I long suspected TPU's gaming cpu tests are just gpu tests ran at 720p.


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## mahoney (May 28, 2020)

ncrs said:


> That's not the point... Potential 10400F buyers are not going to be using the memory, motherboard (that allows to overclock RAM above 2666) and cooler used in this review in their builds.
> Anyway the issues (conclusion in title and lack of 2666 RAM results) are fixed/will be fixed soon. Yet again @W1zzard proves that he can take warranted criticisms and act upon it.


The intel box cooler is more than enough for this cpu.


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## Daven (May 28, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Hi there sir, 2017 was 3 years ago... things have progressed a little since.
> 
> A quad core for gaming was *not *the go-to part since 2018. It became clear already with the 7700K, it would fall short against higher thread parts despite a much higher clock. And that was not a quad, but a quad with HT, so 8T CPU. 4T CPUs have not been in fashion for gaming for a loooong time.


According to the TR performance curves in this review, all quad cores in the latest generations come within 15% of the performance of the fastest CPU tested at 1080p and higher. Can't really say that about GPUs where the fastest GPU is many times faster than budget GPUs and iGPUs. CPUs just don't have that kind of effect in games. Again, any latest gen quad core or higher will work if you are ONLY playing games and not multitasking with other applications simultaneously. All the performance graphs bear this out whether someone thinks its in fashion or not. If you are ONLY playing games, buy a $100-$150 CPU versus anything higher and put the savings towards the GPU.


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## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

Mark Little said:


> According to the TR performance curves in this review, all quad cores in the latest generations come within 15% of the performance of the fastest CPU tested at 1080p and higher. Can't really say that about GPUs where the fastest GPU is many times faster than budget GPUs and iGPUs. CPUs just don't have that kind of effect in games. Again, any latest gen quad core or higher will work if you are ONLY playing games and not multitasking with other applications simultaneously. All the performance graphs bear this out whether someone thinks its in fashion or not. If you are ONLY playing games, buy a $100-$150 CPU versus anything higher and put the savings towards the GPU.


as much as I defend 6c/6t is still very fine for gaming (cuz it's true), 4c/4t are shieeeeeeeeeeet.even for gaming alone.


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## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

moob said:


> but are these benchmarks done with the built-in benchmarks in these games?


Of course not, not in any of the tested games. Test scenes do vary though


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## moob (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Of course not, not in any of the tested games. Test scenes do vary though


Thanks. Good to know. It must just be the different scenes.


----------



## cucker tarlson (May 28, 2020)

moob said:


> Thanks. Good to know. It must just be the different scenes.


scenes shoud vary.
if you wanna get into analyzing cpu benchamrks you better have time cause it's gonna take days.
if you think there's one magical chart you're not serious.


----------



## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

Tests at 2666 MHz have been added


----------



## moob (May 28, 2020)

cucker tarlson said:


> scenes shoud vary.
> if you wanna get into analyzing cpu benchamrks you better have time cause it's gonna take days.
> if you think there's one magical chart you're not serious.


That wasn't really the point. If you look at Techspot's chart for SotTR, it's clear they're using a scene that's hammering the CPU so you can spot the differences in performance much easier. For example there's a stark difference between the 10600K and the R5 1600. Compare that to TPU's chart, and there isn't much differentiation. That's why I asked if the built-in benchmark was used since it can be inaccurate. But knowing those aren't used for any of the tests is good to know going forward.


----------



## Vayra86 (May 28, 2020)

Mark Little said:


> According to the TR performance curves in this review, all quad cores in the latest generations come within 15% of the performance of the fastest CPU tested at 1080p and higher. Can't really say that about GPUs where the fastest GPU is many times faster than budget GPUs and iGPUs. CPUs just don't have that kind of effect in games. Again, any latest gen quad core or higher will work if you are ONLY playing games and not multitasking with other applications simultaneously. All the performance graphs bear this out whether someone thinks its in fashion or not. If you are ONLY playing games, buy a $100-$150 CPU versus anything higher and put the savings towards the GPU.



Then I guess all you play is benchmarks because its not my experience. My 3570k became a stutterfest a few years ago.


----------



## GeorgeMan (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> No concrete plan for that yet. Today I've ordered 10100, 10300, 10320, 10500, 10700 and 10700K, which will keep me busy for a while


Aren't they supplying review samples? One cpu of each for TPU shouldn't hurt their inventory that much...


----------



## W1zzard (May 28, 2020)

GeorgeMan said:


> Aren't they supplying review samples? One cpu of each for TPU shouldn't hurt their inventory that much...


Nope, Intel sent out 10900k and 10600k, and no plans for further sampling, I asked


----------



## GeorgeMan (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Nope, Intel sent out 10900k and 10600k, and no plans for further sampling, I asked


Oh that's unfortunate. Thanks for ordering and thoroughly testing them for us then.  I'm personally very interested to see exactly how even low end parts perform, so thank you for your offer to the community.


----------



## Dave65 (May 28, 2020)

Pair this with the obvious value board and the cooler it comes with and it is just crap.


----------



## OneMoar (May 28, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> Tests at 2666 MHz have been added


Yikes took a considerable hit
unusual for intels there imcs have always done better at lower clocks them amd


----------



## Nihilus (May 29, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> Yikes took a considerable hit
> unusual for intels there imcs have always done better at lower clocks them amd



Did you even look at the charts.  It lost <7% at 720p using a 2080ti which is the absolute worst case scenario.

CPU performance was down a whopping 2%.


----------



## heflys20 (May 29, 2020)

It's "noticeably" good for gaming...If you pair it with something equivalent to a 2080ti. Other than that, it loses to the similarly priced 3600 in most cpu related tests. Obviously. At least it comes with a cooler, I guess.


----------



## Gmr_Chick (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Lovely. This should clear up a lot of confusion going forward for many people. Because you guys have many awards. I had a discussion with my wife and it's the first time in the last 3 months we had a agreement.* No one will buy an expensive Z490 board to pair up with this 10400F. Get cheaper board.*
> Looking forward to the updated review on the new chipsets. I heard the lower cost chipset for the 10th gen Intel will limit the DDR4 to 2666. That will, for sure, reduce the performance of the 10400F.
> 
> And thank you for the hard work. No matter the opinion is, I value what you guys did to inform us about new products. #respect.



"Expensive" is a subjective term -- what Person A considers expensive, Person B may not. While I certainly agree that pairing this 10400F with a $300-$500 Z490 board is absolutely insane, I CAN see the purpose of doing so if the intention is to upgrade to an i7 or i9 in a year or so. People forget that it's much easier to pop in a new CPU, GPU or RAM than it is to switch out a motherboard. So while such scenarios probably don't make much sense to most people here, I can see the sense in it somewhat.


----------



## cellar door (May 29, 2020)

In which universe this is better value then a cheaper Ryzen 3600??? - that is because its not. You need a z490 to even touch the BLCK for that tiny OC, not to mention the memory restriction.

Sorry but this is a FAIL


----------



## AddSub (May 29, 2020)

Excellent review! Pair this with a bitcoin miner surplus $120 GeForce GTX 1070 8GB off of ebay and a $60 16GB kit and you have something that will play anything in your gaming catalog. Play it well in fact. An Intel CPU of the last 2-3 generational itterations in the 4GHz+ range is pretty beastly for gaming. Productivity you say? If your job, you know the thing that pays the bills, depends on productivity, then pass GO and do not collect $200. That is, skip all made-for-average consumer/gamer CPUs and get yourself a Xeon (I did) or Threadripper chug-machine.

...
..
.


----------



## tajoh111 (May 29, 2020)

Prices on newegg are showing z490 motherboards starting at 145 dollars. There are plenty of mb in the 150-160 dollar range with a pretty strong feature set.  As a result, the z490 is hardly some luxury platform with only expensive motherboards people are making it out to be(e.g 300 dollar motherboard).

The cheapests b450 mb under the 100 dollar range are all mATX boards and some don't even have USB c support. They also only have a single m2 slot.

It's only when you move into the 130 dollar range with b450 motherboards where you get a full ATX motherboards with multiple M2 slots, along with USB C support. The 145-160 dollar Z490 MB feature multiple m2 slots, USB C gen 2, ATX form factor and more robust VRM and chipset cooling  more along the lines of 130 and up B450 motherboards.


----------



## watzupken (May 29, 2020)

ncrs said:


> And this review is using a 3rd party cooler from what I understood? Totally unrealistic...


Totally agree on this. I feel it is good to see the full potential of the chip by using a good cooler. But I think it is also critical to show the performance results with the stock cooler. Some people buy the chip based on reviews that says its good in value and performance. I don't think many people actually turn to look at what cooler is being used for the reviews. As a result, these folks will start writing in forums asking if the temps are too high or poor performance, and some even attempt overclocked on stock coolers (typical on AMD processors). In this case, I am doubtful that the stock Intel cooler is capable of sustaining at high clockspeed as shown in the review.


----------



## Gmr_Chick (May 29, 2020)

cellar door said:


> In which universe this is better value then a cheaper Ryzen 3600??? - that is because its not. *You need a z490 to even touch the BLCK for that tiny OC,* not to mention the memory restriction.
> 
> Sorry but this is a FAIL



And Ryzens can't OC for shit. What's your point?


----------



## watzupken (May 29, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> Prices on newegg are showing z490 motherboards starting 145 dollars. There are plenty of mb in the 150-160 dollar range with a pretty strong feature set.  As a result, the z490 is hardly some luxury platform with only expensive motherboards people are making it out to be(e.g 300 dollar motherboard).
> 
> The cheapests b450 mb under the 100 dollar range are all mATX boards and some don't even have USB c support. They also only have a single m2 slot.
> 
> It's only when you move into the 130 dollar range with b450 motherboards where you get a full ATX motherboards with multiple M2 slots, along with USB C support. The 145-160 dollar Z490 MB feature multiple m2 slots, USB C gen 2, ATX form factor and more robust VRM and chipset cooling  more along the lines of 130 and up B450 motherboards.



I agree that Z490 have a wide price range and should somewhat cater to people with lower budget. But at the lower end, this supposed more robust VRM is questionable. I certainly will not recommend people to get the cheapest Z490 board and pair it with the top end chip. Also when I am looking at budget range, I don't expect people to be bothered about having USB C connection and X number of M.2 slots. These are good to have, and if you don't mind paying for features that you may not use. For me, a single M.2 slot is more than enough at least. If I need storage, I can always fall back to cheaper SATA SSDs.



Gmr_Chick said:


> And Ryzens can't OC for shit. What's your point?



This is untrue. At the top end, this may be true. At the lower end like the non X versions, there are decent overclocking headroom. I suspect it is highly possible to get a 3600 to close to the boost clock of this 10400. Clock for clock, Intel will lose their single core advantage.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 29, 2020)

watzupken said:


> I agree that Z490 have a wide price range and should somewhat cater to people with lower budget. But at the lower end, this supposed more robust VRM is questionable. I certainly will not recommend people to get the cheapest Z490 board and pair it with the top end chip. Also when I am looking at budget range, I don't expect people to be bothered about having USB C connection and X number of M.2 slots. These are good to have, and if you don't mind paying for features that you may not use. For me, a single M.2 slot is more than enough at least. If I need storage, I can always fall back to cheaper SATA SSDs.



A lot of false comparisons in this thread, from obvious misguided brand loyalty.

Z490 is not a low end chipset.  Intel will be releasing the H470, B460 & H410 series for that.  

Z490 is comparable to X570.  The lowest price Z490 board is around $150, lowest priced X570 board on Newegg is $189 right now.  There's no veracity regarding extremely overpriced intel chipset based motherboards.  

Plenty of people will want the features of the higher end board with a midrange chip.  The i5 series is decidedly a  midrange part, not low end, though the 10400 is clearly the 'low end' of 'midrange'.  Lots of people prioritize USB-c for various reasons.  I do because I use it to drive 3 USB 3.0 ports and a couple of SD/MicroSD slot readers on a hub that is conveniently located under my monitor stand instead of having to do yoga to get to my ports.

Meanwhile the lack of low end chipsets for cheap motherboards on socket 1200 is coming to a close.  You're going to have midrange and low end chipsets for socket 1200, as it has always been for every other socket Intel or AMD has introduced.









						ASRock Reveals Intel H470, B460, H410 Motherboards For 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs
					

Inexpensive options for Comet Lake.




					www.tomshardware.com


----------



## tajoh111 (May 29, 2020)

watzupken said:


> I agree that Z490 have a wide price range and should somewhat cater to people with lower budget. But at the lower end, this supposed more robust VRM is questionable. I certainly will not recommend people to get the cheapest Z490 board and pair it with the top end chip. Also when I am looking at budget range, I don't expect people to be bothered about having USB C connection and X number of M.2 slots. These are good to have, and if you don't mind paying for features that you may not use. For me, a single M.2 slot is more than enough at least. If I need storage, I can always fall back to cheaper SATA SSDs.
> 
> 
> 
> This is untrue. At the top end, this may be true. At the lower end like the non X versions, there are decent overclocking headroom. I suspect it is highly possible to get a 3600 to close to the boost clock of this 10400. Clock for clock, Intel will lose their single core advantage.



Even the cheapest z490 motherboards have robust VRMs, likely due to the power requirements of the i9 series. 









						ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4 LGA 1200 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
					

Buy ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4 LGA 1200 Intel Z490 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com
				












						MSI PRO Z490-A PRO LGA 1200 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
					

Buy MSI PRO Z490-A PRO LGA 1200 Intel Z490 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com
				




The lowest VRM design on the z490 platform I have seen is a 10 phase power design on the cheapest motherboards with most pushing a 12 phase design including $150 dollar motherboards. 

Cheap B450 motherboards start with 4 phases power deliveries and it is quite common. Most of the B450 with supposed a high vrm count have a fake count.









						[Übersicht] - PGA AM4 Mainboard VRM Liste
					

PGA AM4 Mainboard VRM Liste (inkl. B450 / X470 Update)  PGA AM4 B350 / X370 / B450 / X470 VRM Liste  Hier geht's zur X570, P560, B550, A520, A420 VRM Liste von emissary42!  Unterschiedliche Versorgungsspannungen für Prozessoren auf dem Sockel AM4:  CPU VCC, die Versorgungsspannung für die...




					www.hardwareluxx.de
				




On the other hand almost everything is 12 phase for the z490 platform. 









						The Intel Z490 Overview: 44+ Motherboards Examined
					






					www.anandtech.com
				












						Intel Z490 Chipset Launches: 50 Comet Lake-S Motherboards Detailed
					

A slew of new Comet Lake-S Intel boards are incoming, some with PCIe 4 support--for future CPUs.




					www.tomshardware.com
				




Z490 do not "supposedly" delivery more robust power delivery systems than B450 motherboards, they absolutely do. In addition, USB C is becoming more and more essential as it becomes ubiquitous with the standard connectivity choice from cellphones, cameras, external storage. Considering a budget user is more likely to stay on their platform longer, having a USB C port will allow them that freedom.


----------



## OneMoar (May 29, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> Even the cheapest z490 motherboards have robust VRMs, likely due to the power requirements of the i9 series.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


yea because when vendors start playing with mce(multi core enhancement)  the cpus start drawing over 200w
related









edit I don't know about you but I have a usb type c/thunderbolt port on my board and the only thing it gets used for is to run a type c to type A 3.1 hub
every single one of my usb c devices uses a A to C cable and that is the way nearly all devices ship so moot point


----------



## F-man4 (May 29, 2020)

Why the CPU IHS cases are different in Page 2?

The latter picture’s CPU IHS case is used for Q0 stepping CPUs (which is regarded as soldered) but the former one is for G1 stepping CPUs (which is regarded as using thermal paste).

BTW Q0 should have 2933MHz DDR4 support but G1 should not.


----------



## W1zzard (May 29, 2020)

F-man4 said:


> Why the CPU IHS cases are different in Page 2?


Fixed, nice find


----------



## kayjay010101 (May 29, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> We've also had that odd one out with similar 6c6t 8th gen in some Ubisoft titles where it would perform absolutely horribly in some places.
> 
> Puzzling indeed. But it is more likely to be within the game code than it is a CPU issue. IMO... ignore and move on  Shitty games appear left and right and Far Cry / AC games are not exempt. I still remember Unity at launch, utterly painful regardless of hardware.


Seems to me like a game code-issue as well. Since it happens in only Metro, and at every resolution. It's a consistent "bug". Even when restricted to 6c/6t the 9700k should wipe the floor with the 8400 in every percievable way, so the only logical conclusion is that the game has some sort of bias towards the 8400 or isn't utilizing the 9700k properly, even though (if we assume the game only uses upwards of 6t so the only difference between the 9700k and the 8400 is clock speed and cache(s)) the 9700k should still outperform the 8400 by a longshot. Perhaps it's related to having to juggle 6 threads on 8 real cores.

Also just noticed the 9900k is underneath the 9700k by 1.2FPS at 1440p... Even though it has 100MHz higher per core than the 9700k. While within margin of error at 1440p, it's as much as 3.5 FPS at 1080p, which is outside margin of error and I would say is indicative of a pattern. This game simply scales worse with more threads, EVEN if those threads are faster. It seems like the game struggles with juggling upto 6 threads on processors that have more than that, which reduces performance, even if the clock speed and cache is higher. That's obviously bad coding and makes for unreliable testing on CPUs >6t.

TL;DR: Seems to be a bad game for CPU testing at more than 6 threads, since it seems to hamper performance if you go above that, even if there's heavily increased clocks and more cache.

@W1zzard 
Either the game shouldn't be included in the test suite, since it clearly shows it's not reliable in showing what CPUs (that have more than 6 threads) perform better than another, or it should be with a disclaimer that certain CPUs (that have more than 6 threads) perform better than those that have 6 threads or less, for seemingly no other reason than poor game code.


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Gmr_Chick said:


> "Expensive" is a subjective term -- what Person A considers expensive, Person B may not. While I certainly agree that pairing this 10400F with a $300-$500 Z490 board is absolutely insane, I CAN see the purpose of doing so if the intention is to upgrade to an i7 or i9 in a year or so. People forget that it's much easier to pop in a new CPU, GPU or RAM than it is to switch out a motherboard. So while such scenarios probably don't make much sense to most people here, I can see the sense in it somewhat.



You may have misunderstood my intention or think too much. What I meant by saying expensive is the 500 dollars board Z series. 
I voiced my opinion based on US market price elasticity because that what I’m familiar with. Other countries may have different choices. 
In this case, the i5 10400f doesn’t provide good value at DDR4 2666 and I’m glad that the title is changed. 
Lower price z490 ($150) may have inadequate vrm to chuck on the core i9. That I don’t know for sure, must wait for experts to confirm.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 29, 2020)

thebluebumblebee said:


> I don't believe it's available yet.


It is widely available in the UK …………………….









						Intel Hex Core i5 10400F Core i5 Comet Lake CPU/Processor
					

Buy from Scan - Intel Core i5 10400F, S 1200, Comet Lake, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 2.9GHz, 4.3GHz Turbo, 12MB Cache, 65W, Retail




					www.scan.co.uk
				




And it is the same price as the 3600 non X









						AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Gen3 6 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler
					

Buy from Scan - AMD Ryzen 5 3600, AM4, Zen 2, 6 Core, 12 Thread, 3.6GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo, 32MB L3, PCIe 4.0, 65W, with Wraith Stealth Coole




					www.scan.co.uk


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> It is widely available in the UK …………………….
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow, I'm surprised how more expensive those CPUs are when compared to the US pricing. 
10400F is no where to be found in the US at this moment and 3600 is consistently $20 cheaper than EU and UK pricing.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Wow, I'm surprised how more expensive those CPUs are when compared to the US pricing.
> 10400F is no where to be found in the US at this moment and 3600 is consistently $20 cheaper than EU and UK pricing.


Hardware is very expensive over here, more so in recent years, probably down to import tax and VAT.


----------



## Daven (May 29, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Then I guess all you play is benchmarks because its not my experience. My 3570k became a stutterfest a few years ago.


In all my posts, I said 'latest' quad core and higher. If I'm not mistaken, the 3570k is Ivy Bridge?


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> Hardware is very expensive over here, more so in recent years, probably down to import tax and VAT.


The value added tax is just an amazing thing, isn't it? 
I sometimes can get the 3900x under $380 here depending on the stock. We get stuff much later than the EU but usually at a cheaper price thanks to tax cut. 
Many people voice their argument based on US pricing and that quickly becomes invalid when you mentioned EU pricing.


----------



## thebluebumblebee (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> It is widely available in the UK …………………….


I wonder if it's regulations in that part of the world?  That they (Intel) can't release just some of their product stack - in what some might think is a way to maximize profits.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> The value added tax is just an amazing thing, isn't it?
> I sometimes can get the 3900x under $380 here depending on the stock. We get stuff much later than the EU but usually at a cheaper price thanks to tax cut.
> Many people voice their argument based on US pricing and that quickly becomes invalid when you mentioned EU pricing.


Where as, by comparison, the 3900x in the UK averages at £440, at the current exchange rate that comes in roughly around $542!!  So related to the topic in hand, in the UK as I said, the 10400F usually goes for £169.99 and the 10600K goes for £279 - £289, I managed to find OEM versions of the 10400F for £149.99 and again OEM version of the 10600K for £239.99 so I bought 3 each of those yesterday and as you would expect both are now sold out.

In answer to the @thebluebumblebee  comment..... most likely yes, or they are trying to spread inventory levels...…. in the UK everywhere I have looked no one is stocking the full range, it seems that Intel may cherry pick models for different markets in order to try and maintain some levels of supply in the early stages of release so big gaps in our inventory, like it's really hard to find an i7 or i9 non K version.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> Where as, by comparison, the 3900x in the UK averages at £440, at the current exchange rate that comes in roughly around $542!!  So related to the topic in hand, in the UK as I said, the 10400F usually goes for £169.99 and the 10600K goes for £279 - £289, I managed to find OEM versions of the 10400F for £149.99 and again OEM version of the 10600K for £239.99 so I bought 3 each of those yesterday and as you would expect both are now sold out.
> 
> In answer to the @thebluebumblebee  comment..... most likely yes, or they are trying to spread inventory levels...…. in the UK everywhere I have looked no one is stocking the full range, it seems that Intel may cherry pick models for different markets in order to try and maintain some levels of supply in the early stages of release so big gaps in our inventory, like it's really hard to find an i7 or i9 non K version.



The only reliably available 10th gen in the states has been the 10400.  10600k can be found but it goes in and out of stock.  10900k was initially available but sold out in under a week, 10700k seems to be in and out (mostly out) of stock.

Prices seem at a premium for all of the above, at or above msrp, except maybe the 10400.


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> Where as, by comparison, the 3900x in the UK averages at £440, at the current exchange rate that comes in roughly around $542!!  So related to the topic in hand, in the UK as I said, the 10400F usually goes for £169.99 and the 10600K goes for £279 - £289, I managed to find OEM versions of the 10400F for £149.99 and again OEM version of the 10600K for £239.99 so I bought 3 each of those yesterday and as you would expect both are now sold out.



This means a lot. Readers should be aware of the pricing situation. Is the motherboard pricing follow the same pattern? Intel and board makers may have to adjust their pricing in the US to match what AMD has to offer. 20 to 40 US dollars cheaper will be good enough. I believe a Z490 with decent VRM is required to unleash the full potential of the 10400F (DDR4 2666 vs 3200).
Do reviewers at techpowerup take availability and major regional pricing (UK, EU, US) into consideration when making recommendation? I don't see the 10400F as a good buy at least in the US and Australia market.
With the Ryzen 3600 or 3600X platform (board + CPU) runs much cheaper in the US while providing somewhat more room to grow with future generations, it's very difficult to recommend Intel over AMD at any price point at this moment.



RandallFlagg said:


> The only reliably available 10th gen in the states has been the 10400.  10600k can be found but it goes in and out of stock.  10900k was initially available but sold out in under a week, 10700k seems to be in and out (mostly out) of stock.
> 
> Prices seem at a premium for all of the above, at or above msrp, except maybe the 10400.


It's painful to see current stock of the 10th Gen Intel. I wanted to try them out but it's hard to get my hands on. All available is 10400 (without the F) and 10700. 

@W1zzard Love, do you have plans to test out the low price Z490 boards?


----------



## Vayra86 (May 29, 2020)

Mark Little said:


> In all my posts, I said 'latest' quad core and higher. If I'm not mistaken, the 3570k is Ivy Bridge?



Irrelevant... the fact remains, quads stutter, as you're lacking cores in some games, and that trend is not stopping.

There is absolutely no reason to buy a quad now either because the price for a 6 core has dropped to what we used to pay for quads. Or better. Quad cores are for the simple / casual use now, and *light* gaming.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> This means a lot. Readers should be aware of the pricing situation. Is the motherboard pricing follow the same pattern? Intel and board makers may have to adjust their pricing in the US to match what AMD has to offer. 20 to 40 US dollars cheaper will be good enough. I believe a Z490 with decent VRM is required to unleash the full potential of the 10400F (DDR4 2666 vs 3200).
> Do reviewers at techpowerup take availability and major regional pricing (UK, EU, US) into consideration when making recommendation? I don't see the 10400F as a good buy at least in the US and Australia market.
> With the Ryzen 3600 or 3600X platform (board + CPU) runs much cheaper in the US while providing somewhat more room to grow with future generations, it's very difficult to recommend Intel over AMD at any price point at this moment.
> 
> ...


Firstly, I think AMD fix their CPU prices or at least specify a RRP price range (I may be mistaken but I am sure I have read that) where as Intel "suggest" a RRP, that may account for price fluctuations based on supply & demand.  No, over here Z490 motherboard prices appear fixed, when I looked at manufacturers and models, probably 10 boards that interested me in the mid range, every retailer had the boards at an identical price.  In terms of Z490 VRM, I think power delivery seems consistent, for example, from what I have seen (mainly MSI and Gigabyte) all but their one super budget model comes with at least a 11 + 1 setup, most with at least a 12+1+1, when you get towards top of the range we are talking 16+1+1..... the thing is, in MSI's gaming range, starting from very low end to solid mid range so...……. MPG Gaming Plus >>> Gaming Edge AC >>> Gaming Carbon ($100+ between lowest and highest) the power delivery on each is the same @ 12+1+1 what is obviously different is the cooling quality and feature set.


----------



## cellar door (May 29, 2020)

Gmr_Chick said:


> And Ryzens can't OC for shit. What's your point?


You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Non X chips are able to OC, it's only the X chips that are near their limit.


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> In terms of Z490 VRM, I think power delivery seems consistent, for example, from what I have seen (mainly MSI and Gigabyte) all but their one super budget model comes with at least a 11 + 1 setup, most with at least a 12+1+1, when you get towards top of the range we are talking 16+1+1..... the thing is, in MSI's gaming range, starting from very low end to solid mid range so...……. MPG Gaming Plus >>> Gaming Edge AC >>> Gaming Carbon ($100+ between lowest and highest) the power delivery on each is the same @ 12+1+1 what is obviously different is the cooling quality and feature set.



Interesting... I heard some people bashing the "budget" $150 Z490 boards... Hardware Unboxed is one of the names. I know Steve is a decent guy and he brought up solid concern. 
I've seen something like 10+1 or lower than that. So that's may be the extreme budget boards you mentioned. Interesting to see how those compare to the lower tier chipset in the 150-200 price range.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> This means a lot. Readers should be aware of the pricing situation. Is the motherboard pricing follow the same pattern? Intel and board makers may have to adjust their pricing in the US to match what AMD has to offer. 20 to 40 US dollars cheaper will be good enough. I believe a Z490 with decent VRM is required to unleash the full potential of the 10400F (DDR4 2666 vs 3200).
> Do reviewers at techpowerup take availability and major regional pricing (UK, EU, US) into consideration when making recommendation? I don't see the 10400F as a good buy at least in the US and Australia market.
> With the Ryzen 3600 or 3600X platform (board + CPU) runs much cheaper in the US while providing somewhat more room to grow with future generations, it's very difficult to recommend Intel over AMD at any price point at this moment.



A lot of this has to do with where the product is made, where it is received, what other trading bloc states it may have passed through, if it is imported or from within trading bloc (like the EU) and so on.  The EU, and I would assume post BREXIT GB, have this complex morass of duty taxes and VAT taxes that obscure the reality that there is a tariff hidden in VAT taxes along with Duty taxes hidden what we in the US would call 'sales tax'.  It is not one rate for everything.

Honestly the US price is the best arbiter of what the product really costs, because duty taxes are minimal and tariffs almost non existent (except for some items from China).   

If your countries prices are way out of whack compared to US prices, I can about guarantee it has nothing to do with the manufacturer targeting your country for price gouging.  It has to do with these variable 'sales taxes' which are really targeted tarriffs.  This then becomes more of a political issue than anything to do with price gouging from Intel or AMD.


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> If your countries prices are way out of whack compared to US prices, I can about guarantee it has nothing to do with the manufacturer targeting your country for price gouging.  It has to do with these variable 'sales taxes' which are really targeted tarriffs.  This then becomes more of a political issue than anything to do with price gouging from Intel or AMD.



I agree it's not the manufacturer fault. However, it affects value (price/performance) of a product in certain region. This ultimately will upset some people in the US where the price and availability is different than the rest of the world. I'm trying to make sense of many comments in this forum regarding value. So in the future may be we can have an extra section of availability and pricing on the product reviews and take that into consideration when calculate the recommendation for each region? Just throwing constructive ideas out.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I agree it's not the manufacturer fault. However, it affects value (price/performance) of a product in certain region. This ultimately will upset some people in the US where the price and availability is different than the rest of the world. I'm trying to make sense of many comments in this forum regarding value. So in the future may be we can have an extra section of availability and pricing on the product reviews and take that into consideration when calculate the recommendation for each region? Just throwing constructive ideas out.



It may be too much to ask.  It's not a simple formulae unfortunately.  You can't just do currency conversion, nor can you add a fixed "everything imported pays this".   In fact, if you are in one of these bizarre taxing scheme zones it is entirely possible that the exact same component / chip will cost one thing if made at one plant / country and something entirely different if made in another plant / country.  An adjustment in the supply chain could result in wildly different costs, which in turn can affect demand and thus availability.   I think it is up to each individual person to check pricing and come to their own conclusions, else look at a site dedicated to your countries specific situation.  

In an ideal world every country would just use one import tax rate for everything and be done with it.  Will never happen, the field would be too level.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 29, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Interesting... I heard some people bashing the "budget" $150 Z490 boards... Hardware Unboxed is one of the names. I know Steve is a decent guy and he brought up solid concern.
> I've seen something like 10+1 or lower than that. So that's may be the extreme budget boards you mentioned. Interesting to see how those compare to the lower tier chipset in the 150-200 price range.


The cheapest Z490 board I can find in the UK currently is the Asrock Phantom gaming 4, it comes even with the Realtek ALC 1200 codec, it only has one M2 NVME slot and very low profile cooling but has 10 phases, I am not sure I would put an i9 in there but it should be good for anything i5 and possibly i7..... not sure on that though ...…….









						ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX Motherboard
					

Buy from Scan - ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4, Intel Z490, S 1200, DDR4, SATA3, M.2, CrossFire, GbE, USB 3.2 Gen2, ATX




					www.scan.co.uk
				




Edit: In terms of regional price considerations..... no, just too many variables, the universal pricing for both AMD and Intel are US$ so whilst as you have seen there are large disparities in pricing because of mainly taxes, the $$$ pricing is still relevant, it's fair to expect that if CPU A is released and is $50 more expensive than Competitor CPU B then that will translate to a more expensive CPU in any market.


----------



## AddSub (May 29, 2020)

Down-costed (yet fully capable) Z490 $150 motherboards are Satan and they make no sense at all, BUT "Gamer-Cool" B550 boards like B550 Aorus Master that are almost $300 are completely reasonable, if not a completely sophisticated and even a "smart choice". The mental gymnastics the fanboys do....

...
..
.


----------



## Bee9 (May 29, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> The cheapest Z490 board I can find in the UK currently is the Asrock Phantom gaming 4, it comes even with the Realtek ALC 1200 codec, it only has one M2 NVME slot and very low profile cooling but has 10 phases, I am not sure I would put an i9 in there but it should be good for anything i5 and possibly i7..... not sure on that though ...…….
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh that Vomit-Inducing VRM cooling... It can do the i5 just fine, but I will not future proof myself with that board. 


Price and wage is sticky in economic so it's a bit tricky. Price in the long run will be at equilibrium but in the short run its another story.
For example: the price of CPU A released at launch for $150 but due to supply shortages, CPU A runs at $180, but reviewers only use release price at $150 so it's considered misleading at that moment.
I hope this is not too far from the topic at hand, I'm sorry if it's too off topic.


----------



## JRMBelgium (May 30, 2020)

1% lows in game benchmarks please...


----------



## InVasMani (May 30, 2020)

"With Comet Lake, and Z490 specifically, Intel marketing has made some noise about the new ability to independently adjust BCLK from PCIe clock. In reality, this doesn't do anything for non-K processors because all locked CPUs will measure the BCLK they are running at and simply refuse booting if BCLK is 103 MHz or higher."

I wonder if anyone will be able to hard mod a bypass to this circuit bent type of overclocking workarounds to the PLL chip. Possibly even a bios mod hack like the reporting the BCLK to be like 25%-50 lower than normal system in fact it isn't.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 30, 2020)

There's a whole host of $150-$180 Z490 boards available.  Yes below image is Microcenter, but they are not heavily discounting these yet. 

The next tier jumps up to ~$200 ramping up to mid $200 range very quickly.  Big differentiator there is WiFi included on the board in the next tier up though.  The really expensive ones start including WiFi 6 and 2.5Gbit ethernet. 

Honestly none of these are cheap junk as far as I can tell, unlike many of the 450 and 550 boards (as well as the intel H3XX and B3XX boards).  The cheapest one here has a 10 phase VRM, thunderbolt header, along with 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbit) ports and can support DDR4-4600.   These aren't overclocking beasts but they are clearly feature rich and capable of some mild tinkering. 

They should all be able to do at least some overclocking of the RAM  (DDR4-3600ish) .  We're already seeing that overclocking RAM has some serious boosts in performance on Intel, computerbase.de showed in some cases around 25-35%.   GN followed up later and showed the same thing on the 10600K.  It should be understood now that overclocking RAM generally has more impact than overclocking CPU.

All that said I think the 10400 is a little bit 'meh', as it is the low end midrange part this is not suprising.    I'm interested to see the 10500 and 10600 (esp 10600F) come out, as those should be directly in competition with the 3600X and soundly beat it in many situations (think another 5-10% over the 10400).  I'm guessing another month or so and we'll see. 

And yes, I'd also like to see something about Ryzen 3, but after watching these markets for 30 years I'm seeing a lot of anecdotal indicators that something's wrong with the schedule there.  These companies don't usually intro a gaggle of new parts on last gen process/architecture (as AMD has) right before releasing the next gen.   My guess / prediction here is that Ryzen 3 talk is to keep people waiting and bait them into buying the platform, and any 2020 launch will be mostly paper with Ryzen 3 not available widely until late Q1 2021.


----------



## AddSub (May 30, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> There's a whole host of $150-$180 Z490 boards available.  Yes below image is Microcenter, but they are not heavily discounting these yet.
> 
> The next tier jumps up to ~$200 ramping up to mid $200 range very quickly.  Big differentiator there is WiFi included on the board in the next tier up though.  The really expensive ones start including WiFi 6 and 2.5Gbit ethernet.
> 
> ...



All those VRM's look pretty decent if not robust even. Never understood the high end entry level chipset boards. I mean I have a MSI 785G based motherboard that I got for my media center (at MicroCenter in fact), back in 2010, and this thing is def over-done on the VRM's and general feature-set presentation, which is hilarious considering it's a lowly 785G chipset. That said, there is one major difference compared to "over-done" modern entry level boards today, that board cost me $59.99 in 2010. Somehow, in 2020 buying entry level chipset boards (B450/B550/Hxxx) with fancied up VRMs, heatsinks, and better than horrible onboard audio, will set you back what a top end X58 motherboard did back in 2010, a solid $180+ to even $250+ (B550 Aorus Master I'm looking at you).

I refuse to believe people promoting these are not $2 per hour marketing drones plants by the "bigs". Maybe young folk without long term perspective, or just fanboys fanboyin' maybe? C'mon, almost $300 for a B550? 

A Z490 board today in the $150 range is a steal.


...
..
.


----------



## Bee9 (May 30, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> And yes, I'd also like to see something about Ryzen 3, but after watching these markets for 30 years I'm seeing a lot of anecdotal indicators that something's wrong with the schedule there. These companies don't usually intro a gaggle of new parts on last gen process/architecture (as AMD has) right before releasing the next gen. My guess / prediction here is that Ryzen 3 talk is to keep people waiting and bait them into buying the platform, and any 2020 launch will be mostly paper with Ryzen 3 not available widely until late Q1 2021.


Oh you don’t have to guess. It is going to be delayed because of geopolitical issues and production issues in the fab. I work in the logistic of the bare waffles, and it has been really hectic.


----------



## $ReaPeR$ (May 30, 2020)

This CPU is crap compared to the competition from even it's siblings. Even if someone would buy this as a placeholder, why this and not the cheeper i3?! It doesn't make sense for the 99% of the market that this CPU fits in. This CPU makes sense only for oems like Dell and hp. Steve from GN pointed in excruciating detail why this CPU is a crappy buy, and i trust him much more than the "experts" in this comment section.


----------



## Bee9 (May 30, 2020)

$ReaPeR$ said:


> This CPU is crap compared to the competition from even it's siblings. Even if someone would buy this as a placeholder, why this and not the cheeper i3?! It doesn't make sense for the 99% of the market that this CPU fits in. This CPU makes sense only for oems like Dell and hp. Steve from GN pointed in excruciating detail why this CPU is a crappy buy, and i trust him much more than the "experts" in this comment section.


Every product launch means something. Even though it is not enough to win over AMD, it means Intel got something to stop AMD from gaining market share. 
crowding out information and makes it harder for consumers to choose competitors product. Intel has the power to do that. 
I guess Dell can get those for cheap and strap in their lower end corp office computer and make $ based on corp support package.


----------



## tajoh111 (May 30, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> The cheapest Z490 board I can find in the UK currently is the Asrock Phantom gaming 4, it comes even with the Realtek ALC 1200 codec, it only has one M2 NVME slot and very low profile cooling but has 10 phases, I am not sure I would put an i9 in there but it should be good for anything i5 and possibly i7..... not sure on that though ...…….
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Look closer. It actually has 2 m2 slots. 

Do you know the AMD equivalent of this motherboard?

The AMD equivalent of this board is the x570 gaming 4 and it is the same price. 

I know that your leaning back toward Intel slightly because of the misinformation of Intel being all overpriced boards and low end z490 being junk. But if we are calling boards with 10 phase power and smaller vrm coolers junk, what do we call the 80 dollar b450 motherboards?









						ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 AM4 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com
					

Buy ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 AM4 AMD Promontory B450 SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com
				












						ASUS PRIME B450M-A/CSM AM4 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com
					

Buy ASUS Prime B450M-A/CSM AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com
				












						GIGABYTE B450M Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com
					

Buy GIGABYTE B450M DS3H AM4 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com
				




The ones which completely lack VRM cooling, only have one m2 slot, lack USB C and are the 80 dollar price tag everyone loves to boast about for b450 motherboards.

What I am seeing on forums everywhere is an over correction now. Where people overstate the advantages for AMD and try as hard as they can to minimize any advantage Intel or Nvidia may have. 

E.g when wizzard mentions turing videocards have ray tracing as a pro for rtx cards and not having ray tracing on AMD cards and none rtx cards, AMD fans throw a huge fit. 

Another examples is when we above which would make some people hypocrites, is when people say the 5500xt is being held back by reviewers using a none pcie 4 motherboard and they should be retested with a pcie 4 motherboard. I find this the worst because than this motherboard example because cheap z490 motherboards will have the same performance as this review and will be the most common configuration right now. 

On the other hand, not too many people are going to mix a brand new x570 platform + ryzen 2 with a 5500xt. People want the 1 percent and best case scenario to be the case shown. 

Same with power consumption. People are screeching about how the new intel parts use too much power, but where was all this complaining with Vega 64. Oh yeah, we get this minimized because everyone loves to mention undervolting(missing Nvidia cards can be undervolted), power consumption doesn't matter when it comes to gaming, the noise AMD cards can't be heard when I wear headphones. The worst suggestion and most dishonest suggestion I have found is these fans suggesting AMD cards should be undervolted in all reviews and only AMD cards. This would introduce extreme variance in reviews, add stability problems and produce a tonne of work for reviewers. Another act of favoritism AMD fans expect is retest using AMD drivers launched the day of launch or after and not the launch drivers given to reviewers. This is disrespectful for reviewers. Generally the message I get is unless AMD gets preferential treatment over the competition in reviews(undervolt, use fastest memory, use newest drivers, have extra AMD titles for gaming, mention free game bundle) they are biased...and it is already showing with accusations in this thread.


----------



## Tatty_One (May 30, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> Look closer. It actually has 2 m2 slots.
> 
> Do you know the AMD equivalent of this motherboard?
> 
> ...


Leaning back?  The last time I had an AMD CPU was 2007. I have already snagged a good deal on three 10600K's and three 10400f's.  You kind of missed the context of my post you quoted completely, the member I quoted indicated that they were a little concerned about the more budget level boards power delivery, I was showing him that the cheapest Z490 board currently available in the UK has decent power delivery, so who exactly is calling budget boards junk?


----------



## W1zzard (May 30, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> Generally the message I get is unless AMD gets preferential treatment over the competition in reviews(undervolt, use fastest memory, use newest drivers, have extra AMD titles for gaming, mention free game bundle) they are biased...and it is already showing with accusations in this thread.


publishing "AMD good, [Intel/NVIDIA] bad" stories = more clicks, too, btw


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 30, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> publishing "AMD good, [Intel/NVIDIA] bad" stories = more clicks, too, btw



Lol!  You gotta love groupthink.

i have to say I really liked the CPU reviews here. There are some benchmarks for applications I actually use that have been very helpful. Specifically, vmware, photoshop, and Excel along with the various browser benches. I find the encoding / video editing that is so common to be fairly useless info as the last time I did any of that has to be > 1 year ago, it’s an exceedingly rare event for me to edit video and I’ll never use an expensive highly optimized tool for that.

How about adding some kind of MS Access or SQL server benchmark?


----------



## W1zzard (May 30, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> How about adding some kind of MS Access or SQL server benchmark?


People still use MS Access? For SQL Server I think you can look at the MySQL data, relative differences should be similar


----------



## tajoh111 (May 31, 2020)

Tatty_One said:


> Leaning back?  The last time I had an AMD CPU was 2007. I have already snagged a good deal on three 10600K's and three 10400f's.  You kind of missed the context of my post you quoted completely, the member I quoted indicated that they were a little concerned about the more budget level boards power delivery, I was showing him that the cheapest Z490 boards have decent power delivery, so who exactly is calling budget boards junk?




I was actually agreeing with you and I actually wanted to state, the MB in your post actually had two m2 slots. Something basic b450 motherboards don't generally get.  I agree with you that that people should not be concerned about power delivery for anything besides the perhaps the i9 processors. 

My original goal was to show how fully featured even the cheapest z490 boards are and they are hardly junk vs the $80 dollar b450 motherboards everyone find acceptable. If people call these boards junk, what are these 80 dollar MB people keep on recommending?

What I was stating with the rest of my post leans on to this bias or distortion of reality that gets carried without anyone correcting it.

Review shows 10400 looks competitive against 3600 processor.

AMD fan distortion.. its only competitive, because it is using 3200 ram, is paired with 300+ motherboard and most people buying this processor will pair it with a cheap motherboard.

Minicorrection 1..You can only pair this with a z490 motherboard right now.

Additional correction.. Some Z490 motherboards are relatively affordable and are priced in line with processor.

Counter distortion from an AMD fan.... These z490 boards are junk and have questionable power delivery..

Correction.. these low priced z490 motherboards have the same power delivery as high end b450 and generally in line with x570 platform. And it is the low end b450 that are junk because they have basic VRM's and feature sets(this point happens because they got a bit too greedy). 

AMD fan with nothing to fall back on. Look at these benchmarks at other places and forget that we lost the argument. Wizzard is biased. What I find is this attitude is spreading, albeit diluted to others.

What I find now is because there isn't much culture when it comes to tech hardware, tribalism is very prominent way generally pro AMD attitude happens. They adopt whatever attitude is on forums, videos because there isn't that much identity when it comes to hardware. What you will generally see is more people unconsciously reframe things positively for AMD. E.g bad driver performance at launch is now just wait for fine wine. Nvidia prices are too high(which is true)...AMD prices videocards with similar prices--> AMD cannot help it.


----------



## Bee9 (May 31, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> People still use MS Access? For SQL Server I think you can look at the MySQL data, relative differences should be similar


WTF is MS Access? I don't know it, must be a ghost or sumthing like that? 



tajoh111 said:


> Correction.. these low priced z490 motherboards have the same power delivery as high end b450 and generally in line with x570 platform


I can't wait to see the reviews of budget boards to see how much power they can handle especially when you slap a core i9 in there. When I see the vomit-inducing heatsink from the Asrock board, I know it will be good for i5 or i7 but not for the high end i9. Don't misunderstand my intention, I'm as neutral as possible when it comes to brands. Just need data to see how well they perform. Looks good doesn't mean it will perform well.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 31, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> WTF is MS Access? I don't know it, must be a ghost or sumthing like that?



Ahhh, well lets do some numbers.

MS Office is used by ~ 1 Billion worldwide.  5% of Office users use Access.  That's 50 Million MS Access users.

To put this into perspective, it's estimated that the total number of XBox One consoles sold up through end of Q2 2019 was 46.9 Million.  Obviously, many of these are not in use (some break, get replaced, I myself have 2 and one is on the shelf),   

In other words, there are significantly more MS Access users than there are XBox owners.  50M is also significantly more than the total number of software engineers in the world.  

It's a point of fact that MS Access is the single most used database on the planet.  It's not sexy or cutting edge no, but neither is a fork, and most people use forks.



W1zzard said:


> People still use MS Access? For SQL Server I think you can look at the MySQL data, relative differences should be similar



Good point on the MySQL.  MS Access is much maligned, but in point of fact it is the single most used database on the planet - by a wide margin.  There are more Access users than all the Xbox One consoles made since inception.

There are also things like SQL Server Compact  / SQL Express which are used not just in a standalone setup like a DBA would deploy, but is often deployed by commercial applications and used in the background unbeknownst to the user.  MySQL may emulate SQL Express pretty well, but unlikely it emulates SQL Compact since it is not a full blow DB engine but rather an API to access DB files (link). I've seen this used extensively in multiple specialty markets, to hold configuration and logging / history information when a full blow relational database is overkill.

This stuff is ubiquitous, and pretty important really.   There's a fair chance you have these things installed and don't know it.


----------



## Bee9 (May 31, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> Ahhh, well lets do some numbers.
> 
> MS Office is used by ~ 1 Billion worldwide.  5% of Office users use Access.  That's 50 Million MS Access users.
> 
> ...



I don't know man, you brought up  things that I'm not very familiar with :gaming console.
I deal with regulated data and require user-based security. To my eyes, it's almost impossible to manage large database with MS Access and painful to do data logging at large scale. Microsoft SQL server, oracle, MySQL, PostgrSQL, MongoDB, IBM Db2  exist for a reason.
In my experience, businesses are usually dealing with more than 2 types of database software. They may have access database but it should be at very small scope.
I always throw out jokes at Access as a ghost or Zombie because it never dies but never serve a higher purpose.

EDIT: anyway, we should stop talking about access and get back to the 10400F. How multi threaded is Access nowadays?


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 31, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I don't know man, you brought up  things that I'm not very familiar with :gaming console.
> I deal with regulated data and require user-based security. To my eyes, it's almost impossible to manage large database with MS Access and painful to do data logging at large scale. Microsoft SQL server, oracle, MySQL, PostgrSQL, MongoDB, IBM Db2  exist for a reason.
> In my experience, businesses are usually dealing with more than 2 types of database software. They may have access database but it should be at very small scope.
> I always throw out jokes at Access as a ghost or Zombie because it never dies but never serve a higher purpose.
> ...



Well, I'm a developer and I don't use it.  But the users do.  There are tons of these databases out there, and the users outnumber us developers by quite a margin ya know.

Don't believe it, just go to monster or any other job search engine, and search for "MS Access".  It's not a skill for most developers, but there are a lot of business positions that use it.  LOTS.  Also VBS, we're talking about 'power users' who essentially write applications within MS Office.  

Access allows as many as 10 people to access the DB at one time.   It's best when only 2 or 3 hit it a once though, beyond that is typically when they start calling IT for help, and then people like me get involved.


----------



## InVasMani (May 31, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> E.g when wizzard mentions turing videocards have ray tracing as a pro for rtx cards and not having ray tracing on AMD cards and none rtx cards, AMD fans throw a huge fit.


 RTRT at this stage is still a joke. I know just based on path ray tracing with Blender and cycles that RTRT is still quite a ways from being suitable. Notice that Star Wars demo's that Nvidia showcased RTRT with we haven't seen that level of it arrive to gamer's yet on a 2080Ti not even the 2080Ti Super. They showed a nice cherry picked scenario and I forget the specs on that system I'm pretty certain they were run in SLI to make matters worse and possibly even quad SLI. Sure the video was fairly impressive, but wake me up when that's what a single card runs it like with actual games and not something silly tiny little tech demo. When it can do that and it's affordable enough then we call label it a feature until then it's still largely just in the realm of a marketing gimmick.


----------



## Mussels (May 31, 2020)

Gmr_Chick said:


> And Ryzens can't OC for shit. What's your point?





cellar door said:


> You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Non X chips are able to OC, it's only the X chips that are near their limit.



Actually something i hadn't put together coherently in my head yet, and a big difference in end-user viewpoint:
Intel needs high end hardware to OC, ryzen needs low end. This is why Intel has that status as the 'best' only the rich can afford to have, while AMD has that 'poor' 'budget' stigma attached.

AMD really did max out their chips quite well, for the auto boost settings on the high end chips.


----------



## Gmr_Chick (May 31, 2020)

InVasMani said:


> RTRT at this stage is still a joke. I know just based on path ray tracing with Blender and cycles that RTRT is still quite a ways from being suitable. Notice that Star Wars demo's that Nvidia showcased RTRT with we haven't seen that level of it arrive to gamer's yet on a 2080Ti not even the 2080Ti Super. *They showed a nice cherry picked scenario and I forget the specs on that system I'm pretty certain they were run in SLI to make matters worse and possibly even quad SLI.* Sure the video was fairly impressive, but wake me up when that's what a single card runs it like with actual games and not something silly tiny little tech demo. When it can do that and it's affordable enough then we call label it a feature until then it's still largely just in the realm of a marketing gimmick.



Agreed. Plus, I refuse to believe they used a 2080Ti -- or even dual, triple or quad Ti's -- for that tech demo. It's more likely they used a Titan RTX or two, or three, to make that tech demo.


----------



## Dirtdog (May 31, 2020)

tajoh111 said:


> I was actually agreeing with you and I actually wanted to state, the MB in your post actually had two m2 slots. Something basic b450 motherboards don't generally get.



One of those is for a wi-fi card isn't it? So it only has one for an SSD.  The slightly more expensive Z490 boards from ASRock have two.


----------



## Azura1987 (May 31, 2020)

Great, I'm between 10400F or 10600K, both interest me to play, my choice is not negotiable.


----------



## N3M3515 (Jun 1, 2020)

Nihilus said:


> Did you even look at the charts.  It lost <7% at 720p using a 2080ti which is the absolute worst case scenario.
> 
> CPU performance was down a whopping 2%.



Most intel fans will take that same 2% as a CRUSHING victory in gaming lol.......


----------



## Mussels (Jun 1, 2020)

N3M3515 said:


> Most intel fans will take that same 2% as a CRUSHING victory in gaming lol.......



They really do, it gets kind of funny. And those same people dont have 2080ti's, so there is no difference for them.


----------



## Bee9 (Jun 1, 2020)

Mussels said:


> They really do, it gets kind of funny. And those same people dont have 2080ti's, so there is no difference for them.





N3M3515 said:


> Most intel fans will take that same 2% as a CRUSHING victory in gaming lol.......



It's just sad to see. In some games it's up to 10%, but what's the point of having 200 fps vs 220 fps... 
For competitive gamers, yeah. Back in the day I still play SC2 in Korea, yeah that will matter but nowadays it's different
In my gaming world, as long as it won't slow down below 60fps, I consider it a pass for both CPU and GPU. I value the time of my work more than 5% FPS gain. 
It's difficult to recommend an Intel CPU with current line up.


----------



## EarthDog (Jun 2, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> It's just sad to see. In some games it's up to 10%, but what's the point of having 200 fps vs 220 fps.


Don't look at it that way. 10% is the difference between reaching 60 fps or sitting at 55. It also can be the difference for turning up IQ settings and still reaching 60/144 fps.

10% is the difference between some card tiers.



Mussels said:


> Intel needs high end hardware to OC, ryzen needs low end.


?

You need a K chip and a "Z" based board. They have these up and down their lineup. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. 

What I dont see is an overclockable i3 4c/8t part in 10th gen though. That said, i wouldn't start 2020 with a 4c/8t part either...


----------



## Mussels (Jun 2, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Don't look at it that way. 10% is the difference between reaching 60 fps or sitting at 55. It also can be the difference for turning up IQ settings and still reaching 60/144 fps.
> 
> 10% is the difference between card tiers.



the 10% we see is more often in 5FPS to 6FPS at high res, or 200FPS and 220FPS at low res

seriously, the difference rarely ends up in that 'important' range of 60-120FPS because the extremes are where the higher percentage gains show up


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## EarthDog (Jun 2, 2020)

Mussels said:


> Intel needs high end hardware to OC, ryzen needs low end.


?

You need a K chip. They have these up and down their lineup. Granted it isn't every single chip or low end board From amd...I'm with you there. But its not like its only HEDT or flagship processors. 


Mussels said:


> the 10% we see is more often in 5FPS to 6FPS at high res, or 200FPS and 220FPS at low res
> 
> seriously, the difference rarely ends up in that 'important' range of 60-120FPS because the extremes are where the higher percentage gains show up


10% is 10%. Again, it can be anywhere in the fps range. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. It depends on the game, settings, and card used.

10% is the difference between turning IQ up or not...and in some cases, another tier video card...There is also 1% values too. While not The Gospel as some make them out to be, that is significant in gaming.


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## N3M3515 (Jun 2, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> ?
> 
> You need a K chip. They have these up and down their lineup. Granted it isn't every single chip or low end board From amd...I'm with you there. But its not like its only HEDT or flagship processors.
> 10% is 10%. Again, it can be anywhere in the fps range. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. It depends on the game, settings, and card used.
> ...



That would be ideal, but your scenario (difference between turning IQ up or not...and in some cases, another tier video card) is like 1% of the total cases. The rest is 110 to 120 and the like, no difference...


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## AddSub (Jun 2, 2020)

I OC'd my 9600k 41%, all cores fully stable, it tickles all the right nostalgia spots and takes me back to early 2000s and overclocking golden age. Most people can't get 41% with any Ryzen, any generation, even if it's a 1% chip and they are poring LN on it like syrup over pancakes! My Ryzen could do 10 to 15% (depending on voltage and alignment of the planets) and that's with a 360mm AIO and 6 external push-pull fans. And if million reddit threads are any indication, most Ryzen owners are tweaking for stability almost out of the box or trying a timing setting #74732 to see if they can get their RAM stable at a mediocre overclock to squeeze more performance out infinity fabric. Whoever said Ryzen's can't OC for poop (Gmr_Chick?) was factually right. These things are maxed at the plant. You are mostly flipping switches that are not connected to anything when playing with Ryzen.

...
..
.


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## EarthDog (Jun 2, 2020)

N3M3515 said:


> That would be ideal, but your scenario (difference between turning IQ up or not...and in some cases, another tier video card) is like 1% of the total cases. The rest is 110 to 120 and the like, no difference...


lol, my guy...10% is 10%. It will allow you to turn up the IQ or is the difference between tiers of some cards in ALL cases. It could be the difference between 55 FPS and 61. or 130 vs ~144, or high to ultra.... 4xAA instead of 2xAA....etc. It isn't much, I get that, but let's stop pretending that the difference is only in select (1%) of situations. It isn't.

It can also be the difference between 100 and 110 fps or 200 and 220 fps and not matter... but 10% is 10% all of the time. IQ settings don't know when it can and can't.


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## N3M3515 (Jun 2, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> lol, my guy...10% is 10%. It will allow you to turn up the IQ or is the difference between tiers of some cards in ALL cases. It could be the difference between 55 FPS and 61. or 130 vs ~144, or high to ultra.... 4xAA instead of 2xAA....etc. It isn't much, I get that, but let's stop pretending that the difference is only in select situations. It isn't.



Yeah, i get it, it could be whaterev you say, except in the majority of cases it ins't. I think the majority dictates the importance, i don't buy a cpu to play 1 game.


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## EarthDog (Jun 2, 2020)

N3M3515 said:


> Yeah, i get it, it could be whaterev you say, except in the majority of cases it ins't. I think the majority dictates the importance, i don't buy a cpu to play 1 game.


Who does (did I say such a thing?)? I agree with that (unrelated) point! Don't move the goal posts! 

I'm simply saying that 10% difference can be significant...especially when we aren't dealing with a 2080 Ti but mid-range cards which show similar peformance drops..........and where it DOES matter more than "1%" trying to reach 60/120/144/165 fps or that next notch up in IQ without losing FPS (regardless of threshold).


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## N3M3515 (Jun 2, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Who does (did I say such a thing?)? I agree with that (unrelated) point! Don't move the goal posts!
> 
> I'm simply saying that 10% difference can be significant...especially when we aren't dealing with a 2080 Ti but mid-range cards which show similar peformance drops..........and where it DOES matter more than "1%" trying to reach 60/120/144/165 fps or that next notch up in IQ without losing FPS (regardless of threshold).



I agree it can be significant, but! in most cases it isn't , that's why for gaming i pay more atention to gpu than cpu. Right now i'm planning to upgrade my 2400g for a 3600 or a 4600 (that will really make a difference), on the same board i have since 2 years ago. I'm also waiting for the next rtx 3060/rx 6600xt for decent raitracing gaming.


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## EarthDog (Jun 2, 2020)

N3M3515 said:


> I agree it can be significant, but! in most cases it isn't , that's why for gaming i pay more atention to gpu than cpu. Right now i'm planning to upgrade my 2400g for a 3600 or a 4600 (that will really make a difference), on the same board i have since 2 years ago. I'm also waiting for the next rtx 3060/rx 6600xt for decent raitracing gaming.


To each their own. I liken it to a glass ceiling. In many cases, you won't hit your head, but there is nothing wrong with a little more headroom. Obviously if there are budget constraints, that $50-100 can go towards the nest class up GPU anyway.


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## Mussels (Jun 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Who does (did I say such a thing?)? I agree with that (unrelated) point! Don't move the goal posts!
> 
> I'm simply saying that 10% difference can be significant...especially when we aren't dealing with a 2080 Ti but mid-range cards which show similar peformance drops..........and where it DOES matter more than "1%" trying to reach 60/120/144/165 fps or that next notch up in IQ without losing FPS (regardless of threshold).



10% with a 2080ti at max FPS is 1% with any lesser GPU, or with higher graphics settings.

you're acting like that 10% applies to all situations when it doesnt


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## EarthDog (Jun 3, 2020)

Mussels said:


> 10% with a 2080ti at max FPS is 1% with any lesser GPU, or with higher graphics settings.
> 
> you're acting like that 10% applies to all situations when it doesnt


It applies to a lot more than just a 2080ti.


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## Mussels (Jun 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> It applies to a lot more than just a 2080ti.



No, it doesnt. The amount gets smaller and smaller and smaller until its meaningless.


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## EarthDog (Jun 3, 2020)

Mussels said:


> 10% with a 2080ti at max FPS is 1% with any lesser GPU, or with higher graphics settings.


Most tests I have seen are done with graphics on ultra at 1080p in the first place. Can't use TPUs because Wiz lowers things to 720p and medium to exacerbate the issue for the article.



Mussels said:


> No, it doesnt. The amount gets smaller and smaller and smaller until its meaningless.


I'm sure it does in some capacity...but please provide links to support your assertion. 


> 10% with a 2080ti at max FPS is *1%* with *any lesser GPU*, or with higher graphics settings.




I'm not talking GTX 1650 and 5500 XT, but mid-range cards, 2070/2070S/2080/2080S, 5700XT/5600xt... etc... more common cards also show similar differences, though again, it does go down.


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## W1zzard (Jun 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> medium


umm source?


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## EarthDog (Jun 3, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> umm source?


Oops.. ultra? Low? Not the point anyway. Its the artificial lowering of the resolution that throws things off.


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## W1zzard (Jun 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Oops.. ultra? Low? Not the point anyway. Its the artificial lowering of the resolution that throws things off.


I'm using same ultra settings for all resolutions, that's why 720p and not 1080p ultralow or something, as that would just confuse readers, to have 2x 1080p with wildly different FPS


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## EarthDog (Jun 3, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> I'm using same ultra settings for all resolutions, that's why 720p and not 1080p ultralow or something, as that would just confuse readers, to have 2x 1080p with wildly different FPS


I know you are using the same settings. I didn't say otherwise, just recalled incorrectly that you use medium. 

I take exception to the artificially lowered resolution to magnify the issue.

Is there a new article where you moved past 720 and went to 1080p? If I missed it (link! would love to read it), apologies, and TYTY!!!!

Do you know of any modern tests like this that use more mid-range GPUs to test? All I know is that while Mussels is right at a high level (the difference goes down with lesser GPUs), it isn't "ONLY' the 2080 Ti that shows notable differences like he initially stated.

It would be interesting to see that article with low-end, mid-range, and high-end cards from both camps.......


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## W1zzard (Jun 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> Do you know of any modern tests like this that use more mid-range GPUs to test? All I know is that while Mussels is right at a high level (the difference goes down with lesser GPUs), it isn't "ONLY' the 2080 Ti that shows notable differences like he initially stated.
> 
> It would be interesting to see that article with low-end, mid-range, and high-end cards from both camps.......


Not aware of any such article, could be something interesting for a rainy week .. quite a lot of testing.

Once I'm finished with Comet Lake I'll work on updates to the CPU bench, maybe such an article could introduce that new setup, will be late summer at least


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## N0Spin (Jun 10, 2020)

Nice reviews here on the new Comet Lake chips.  I was hoping to find some reviews on chips in the series besides the 2 Intel was (apparently) handing out to see how they compared, for a few different usage cases.  I appreciate that you offered this, and that you spend a lot of time running all the different categories of software benchmarks, but I would like to ask you about possibly adding 1 or 2 more.

Any chance you might look at adding something like a Nero suite in these reviews, for a couple tests.

A couple of my usage examples are using Nero video to manually strip out commercials from 1080 captured video of cable programming (and yes, there is a built-in process for this which should be perfect for automated testing), which I then use to burn to movies or multi-episode/multi-hour Blu-ray disks.  I am interested in the encoding times, etc. as I usually do this as an overnight thing, and I'm wondering how such processes work on these newer chips.  I have been watching/waiting especially with all the emphasis on the Intel side about building in optimized AVX512 encoding / decoding for playback etc. in the new chips.

I'm looking at several usage cases for PCs right now, looking for lower limits ie. some quiet living room type devices as possible set-top box streaming  devices / video servers, and for video capture like with a Hauppauge card, rising to workstation machines for video processing,  encoding, and media authoring (testing I mentioned), and then of course gaming, hopefully some multi-screen maybe 3 x 2K monitors for gaming / possibly a VR headset once things move a little further along.

Anyway, thank you for all the effort.


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## W1zzard (Jun 10, 2020)

N0Spin said:


> A couple of my usage examples are using Nero video to manually strip out commercials from 1080 captured video of cable programming (and yes, there is a built-in process for this which should be perfect for automated testing), which I then use to burn to movies or multi-episode/multi-hour Blu-ray disks. I am interested in the encoding times, etc. as I usually do this as an overnight thing, and I'm wondering how such processes work on these newer chips. I have been watching/waiting especially with all the emphasis on the Intel side about building in optimized AVX512 encoding / decoding for playback etc. in the new chips.


First of all, thanks for the positive feedback. I think our video encoding tests for x264/x265 should be a good indicator of what to expect performance-wise. I like the Nero test idea, but it hasn't been updated since 2017. I feel like something with Adobe AfterEffects could be more useful to the general audience


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## miss5tability (Jun 17, 2021)

sry but i dont believe in thoise gaming test, in almost every scenario 9400f beats 10400f 2666, but on what platform do u test 9400f? comon, tousand ppl on yt testing those cpu cant lie and 10400f even 2666 will outperform 9400f, and 9700k is worse than 8400  comon, u should write a fairy tails


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## InVasMani (Jun 17, 2021)

miss5tability said:


> sry but i dont believe in thoise gaming test, in almost every scenario 9400f beats 10400f 2666, but on what platform do u test 9400f? comon, tousand ppl on yt testing those cpu cant lie and 10400f even 2666 will outperform 9400f, and 9700k is worse than 8400  comon, u should write a fairy tails


Z170 because Intel is a lifestyle company.


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## The red spirit (Jun 17, 2021)

miss5tability said:


> sry but i dont believe in thoise gaming test, in almost every scenario 9400f beats 10400f 2666, but on what platform do u test 9400f? comon, tousand ppl on yt testing those cpu cant lie and 10400f even 2666 will outperform 9400f, and 9700k is worse than 8400  comon, u should write a fairy tails


Hyperthreading isn't always beneficial, therefore you see the difference.


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