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Switching to Zen 3?


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Hi allWas just wondering if anyone was considering a Zen 3 purchase in the near future, given the reported single thread gains over Intel. Or would it be worth sticking with Intel? Thinking about an upgrade soon so comments/advice would be appreciated! I'm not an expert on benchmarks etc. but this is one of many articles that are making me think about switching https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/cpus/the-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-beats-intel-in-passmark-single-thread-benchmarks/1/

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It looks like roughly 20% more single core performance than the 7700K/8700K-type chips that many people are still hanging onto, unless you were one of the folks who bought a 10900K then it really isn't a worthy upgrade.

Even so, world event and WvW zergs can drop below 20 FPS even on monster computers, and 20% more than 20 FPS is still only 24 FPS or so. Granted this is an oversimplification of how PC's actually process things, but it still makes the point: it's not going to be a huge difference just because of how Guild Wars 2 is.

No matter how good your hardware is, world event and WvW zergs are still going to tank your framerate well below your typical average.

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@lare.5129 said:you can relax and bu any cpu and any card. No matter that you buy on wvw or any other mass action wiht maximum setting you will get fantastic frame drop fall ..So you will anyway prevent get some compromises whit settings.

I guess it's more about minimising the need to compromise with settings changes - I know that, whatever I end up getting, I'll have to dial things back a bit.

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@Emberstone.2904 said:It looks like roughly 20% more single core performance than the 7700K/8700K-type chips that many people are still hanging onto, unless you were one of the folks who bought a 10900K then it really isn't a worthy upgrade.

Even so, world event and WvW zergs can drop below 20 FPS even on monster computers, and 20% more than 20 FPS is still only 24 FPS or so. Granted this is an oversimplification of how PC's actually process things, but it still makes the point: it's not going to be a huge difference just because of how Guild Wars 2 is.

No matter how good your hardware is, world event and WvW zergs are still going to tank your framerate well below your typical average.

Thanks for this - I'm currently running an ageing i7 4790k, so any upgrade is likely to help here!

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Don't forget that single-core speed (and ultimately IPC) doesn't actually matter outside of saturation. A lot of the time, the game is waiting on IO, memory, and even overhead from the DX9 / Direct3D graphics API -- and scheduling processing time depending on how much other stuff your system is silently doing in the background. This is partially why resources sometimes "pop in" to the game rather suddenly.

Having swapped from a similar chip to a Ryzen 2600, and essentially tripling my core count, had a far greater improvement on general game stability, as GW2 spent less time fighting for a processor. There's also the fact that the CoherentUI library used by the trading post is multi-process, so you'll see better performance there as well with additional cores.

I can't say I saw much in the way of extra frames, but I've experienced far fewer dips. This is largely because most modern chips aren't running all cores at their maximum speed, but rather only a few at any given time, and often specific cores. AMD's scheduling seems to be fairly good at keeping highly demanding processes (like the GW2 client) on these cores, and less critical ones elsewhere.

Other observations

Some cursory research shows that Direct3D 9, the graphics API on which GW2 is based, does not fully support handling of a game's context across multiple threads -- this is also why the system's handling of keyboard events (and thus skills) plummets with lower framerates; it's simply bound up between handling rendering and consuming the input event messages.

While this might seem to be in favor of strong single-core performance, keep in mind what @"Emberstone.2904" has said, as well as the shortcomings of trying to perform many different tasks all in a single loop: there is only so much to be gained by making it a little bit (or even a lot) faster, if you're still spending much of your time waiting. Testing the game right now by standing about under the pavilion in Lion's Arch (right near a Mad King Says gathering), saw only 2 of my 12 logical cores with any appreciable activity, and while the chip was running at full speed, it was averaging 24~32% total utilization -- and that's with this browser tab open in the background. My GPU was performing the brunt of the work despite both this and barely a third of its memory in use (1.3/6 GB, of which only 0.9 GB was from GW2).

So a sea of numbers aside, there's not much you can do to make GW2 run "better" so much as have it -- and your PC in general -- run a bit smoother by evening out the workload.

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@"StanUK.3214" said:Hi allWas just wondering if anyone was considering a Zen 3 purchase in the near future, given the reported single thread gains over Intel. Or would it be worth sticking with Intel? Thinking about an upgrade soon so comments/advice would be appreciated! I'm not an expert on benchmarks etc. but this is one of many articles that are making me think about switching https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/cpus/the-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-beats-intel-in-passmark-single-thread-benchmarks/1/

Hi , I would recommend you give the d912pxy try before you make any new hardware purchases.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/110553/want-to-use-directx-12-dx12-for-gw2-heres-a-guide-on-using-the-d912pxy-on-windows-10#latest

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@"Mack.3045" said:Hi , I would recommend you give the d912pxy try before you make any new hardware purchases.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/110553/want-to-use-directx-12-dx12-for-gw2-heres-a-guide-on-using-the-d912pxy-on-windows-10#latest

Thanks, yes I'd heard of this but hadn't got around to trying it. I do need an upgrade though - I crash frequently when gaming and I've narrowed it down to an issue with the motherboard and/or CPU - they're so old it's not worth looking to replacing these parts.

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@StanUK.3214 said:

@"Mack.3045" said:Hi , I would recommend you give the d912pxy try before you make any new hardware purchases.

Thanks, yes I'd heard of this but hadn't got around to trying it. I do need an upgrade though - I crash frequently when gaming and I've narrowed it down to an issue with the motherboard and/or CPU - they're so old it's not worth looking to replacing these parts.

Ah fair enough ! If you end up with the ryzen 5 5600x let me know how it performs in GW2 for you :)

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You can also avoid paying a premium for newly released CPUs by looking at Zen 2 which is likely discounted by now.3700x for example - built on the same 7nm process as Zen 3, has 8 cores, beefy cooler and a low 65W TDP.It's hard to overlook previous gen savings when Zen 3 isn't such a huge upgrade.

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@Mack.3045 said:Ah fair enough ! If you end up with the ryzen 5 5600x let me know how it performs in GW2 for you :)

Sure thing! Kinda nervous about it all though, I've had Intel machines going back at least 20 years...but AMD really seem to be the ones trying to progress technology, rather than squeezing/rinsing the same platform year on year!

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@StanUK.3214 said:

@Friday.7864 said:It's hard to overlook previous gen savings when Zen 3 isn't such a huge upgrade.

Let's see what the independent reviews are like for Zen 3 vs Zen 2 - if there's really not much in it then of course I'd consider Zen 2. Guess we should know in a few days, actually!

8% IPC gain and 200MHz higher clock don't seem like much to me - especially for the price they'll be asking vs previous gen.Zen 4 will likely be the one to turn eyes with a new 5nm node, ddr5 support and a new socket.But yeah, it's up to you to decide if it's worth it for ya. For games both will be overkill.

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Zen 3 has a 8 core CCX , so if you get a 6 or 8 core Zen 3 chip it will likely perform better than a 6 or 8 core Zen 2 chip. Not to mention there's more unified L3 cache , lower latency, and higher instructions per clock (19% claimed).

Singlethreaded performance is reportedly higher to the tune of up to 46% in things that are latency bound such as CSGO (which is also DX9) and 50% in LoL (DX11).

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@Friday.7864 said:

@Friday.7864 said:It's hard to overlook previous gen savings when Zen 3 isn't such a huge upgrade.

Let's see what the independent reviews are like for Zen 3 vs Zen 2 - if there's really not much in it then of course I'd consider Zen 2. Guess we should know in a few days, actually!

8% IPC gain and 200MHz higher clock don't seem like much to me - especially for the price they'll be asking vs previous gen.Zen 4 will likely be the one to turn eyes with a new 5nm node, ddr5 support and a new socket.But yeah, it's up to you to decide if it's worth it for ya. For games both will be overkill.Keep in mind we have seen results posted and pretty much all shows... lets say promise.

Such as the 5600x on air @4.7ghz Cinebench scores matching things like i7 8700k on LN2 @6ghz, or 3600x on LN2 @5.2ghz.

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@StanUK.3214 said:Let's see what the independent reviews are like for Zen 3 vs Zen 2 - if there's really not much in it then of course I'd consider Zen 2. Guess we should know in a few days, actually!The 5600X will be at least 20% faster in GW2 (and most other games too) than a 3700X for the same price, because it has a higher IPC and higher clock speeds. The 8 cores of the 3700X can't compensate that. Even in Cinebench R20 - which (unlike any game) can utilize every core of the 3700X at 100% - the 5600X and the 3700X get the about the same multicore score (~4700 points), because the single threaded performance of Zen3 is so good.

I own a 3700X, but if I had to buy a new CPU now for 300 dollars, I would go for the 5600X.

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@StanUK.3214 said:

@Mack.3045 said:Ah fair enough ! If you end up with the ryzen 5 5600x let me know how it performs in GW2 for you :)

Sure thing! Kinda nervous about it all though, I've had Intel machines going back at least 20 years...but AMD really seem to be the ones trying to progress technology, rather than squeezing/rinsing the same platform year on year!

Likely i'll be getting the 5600X :)

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@KrHome.1920 said:

@"StanUK.3214" said:Let's see what the independent reviews are like for Zen 3 vs Zen 2 - if there's really not much in it then of course I'd consider Zen 2. Guess we should know in a few days, actually!The 5600X will be at least 20% faster in GW2 (and most other games too) than a 3700X for the same price, because it has a higher IPC and higher clock speeds. The 8 cores of the 3700X can't compensate that. Even in Cinebench R20 - which (unlike any game) can utilize every core of the 3700X at 100% - the 5600X and the 3700X get the about the same multicore score (~4700 points), because the single threaded performance of Zen3 is so good.

I own a 3700X, but if I had to buy a new CPU now for 300 dollars, I would go for the 5600X.Much of it also comes from the fact that the 5600x will be a 6 core CPU while the 3700x is a 4+4 core CPU. I believe it is the 3300x that has already shown how much better having all cores on one CCX is. 8 core Ryzen 5000 series will be the most "optimal" model since above they split CCX again. The 5900x will be the bastard child (6+6 cores) while the 5950x will again be "optimal" at 8+8 if you really need the core count.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@TheWizzard.6015 said:Theres a reddit post now from someone who tested with ryzen 5600x and got a significant fps boost keeping all the settings same. Might be worth checking the post out or reaching out to the op if still interested. Also if you did go ahead with the zen3, would love to know your feedback!

Thanks, I'll have to keep my eye out for that! As for me, the chips sold out quick - no chance to get one. Given I'm looking for a new system I'm going to wait to see what the reviews are for the new AMD GPUs also. The aim is to upgrade by the end of this year and, of course, happy to let you guys know how it goes and what performance looks like!

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