Why am I upgrading?

As of September 2017 I have been using my I5 2500k for 5-6 years. The i5 2500k has been an amazing CPU that has stood the time of technology advancement. But now it is getting closer and closer to upgrading this relic of a PC. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a 1080p 60 FPS beast (for the most part), and surprisingly holds it’s own running poorly optimized games like PUBG. As of now, I have been looking into getting into streaming and more video editing and the 2500k can do it but I want to do it better, more efficiently, and faster.

Now that whole statement doesn’t really apply in 2019, but I want to keep the 2500k brag as I update this post.lol

TLDR conclusion at the bottom of post

Researching Ryzen for Gaming and Streaming

So I did the research and want to save you the time and hassle of doing all the research I have done and gather all my findings and thoughts into this short blog post.

At this point I have watched a ton of YouTube videos. Read a lot of first hand accounts, from Reddit, and Tom’s Hardware. The consensus from a lot of the benchmarks for gaming have Intel being more superior single core power as expected. Even though Intel is the more powerful CPU, AMD still holds it’s ground either being slightly behind Intel in FPS or sometimes even beating it out.

IT IS ALL SITUATIONAL and SIMULATED STATS and I want to say that stats are way to close to even care about. Intel will beat out AMD in some situations and AMD will beat out Intel in other situations. This made me want to save some money and and consider getting the AMD chip. Plus the AMD chips will be more superior in multi tasking which is what I am shooting for in my next build. Theoretically all the extra cores and threads will make it easier for a Ryzen build to stream and game without too much strain on the CPU and dropped frames while using a streaming app like OBS.

Obviously I can’t personally attest to the capabilities of Ryzen streaming and gaming capabilities yet, since I don’t have the PC at the moment. But luckily we have many YouTube videos of people running the benchmarks for us. Here are a few videos for you to watch and decide for yourself.

I can now attest to the Ryzen 1600’s overclocking capabilities and use streaming as I have used it since after making this post in 2017. It has served it’s purpose of streaming and gaming. Running the stream in 720p and keeping games in the medium – high range depending on the demand. Which isn’t that bad considering I upgraded to a RTX 2080 a month ago.

Choosing X chip or non X Chip For Ryzen

Personally I decided to go non-x and overclock the regular 1600 chip. But if you don’t intend on overclocking then maybe you would want to consider the X chip for the slightly faster stock clocks.

I now realize that going non-x was a mistake and I got a 1600 chip that did not like overclocking. IMO if you want the fastest chip possible buy an X chip and overclock that. The X chips are better binned and have a better possibility of overclocking better. Although, there are no guarantees with the silicon lottery, but your odds are a hell of a lot better.

SO if max CPU speeds are of no interest and money savings is the goal here, go non-X Ryzen chip. The non-X variant chips usually get more discounts or go on sale first so you are more than likely to get a better deal if that is needed.

Is a Ryzen Gaming Build for me?

With the new Ryzen 3000 CPUs coming out in July 2019. You will be getting a chip that is super budget friendly in every CPU range and with power that matches or supersedes Intel at this point. Keyword being budget, Ryzen 3000 series is putting Intels desktop sector in the ground this year. It may be a short victory, but a victory is a victory nonetheless. We all know that Intel is a cocky company and they will push back in the future blowing our minds in the next 4 years.

Budget builds Power to cost ratio on chips Want to support a change in guard towards technological change.

The Build I will Personally Go with

I put together a build on this page, I keep it updated with a good bare minimum for gaming and streaming. You can basically interchange a better GPU and CPU to fit your needs. I will update it again once the Ryzen 3000 series is released

Conclusion

Yes, Ryzen is great for gaming and streaming it handles the workload of a CPU intensive game and the encoding of a stream without a hitch. That makes Ryzen totally worth it. Ryzen is less powerful than Intel as per usual, but the mid range Ryzen 5 series is great for the price and can compete with an i7 7700k . Ryzen should be more powerful than Intel this year, but we will wait to see the stats upon release in July

I personally have decided to go AMD this time around as it will be more of a workhorse PC for me with streaming and video editing. Also, I believe that coming from the i5 2500k that the build I put together will do what I want and more for the next 5 years.

You can follow our twitch at Geektak and hopefully it will be in action shortly.

And for more Streaming setup tips and Knowledge check out my little guide that I am constantly updating and personally learning from.