[colechristensen]

How I pick a CPU:

- Visit https://www.cpubenchmark.net/single-thread/ and pick the fastest CPU under $400

- Visit https://www.cpubenchmark.net/multithread/ and verify there are no CPUs at a lower cost with a higher score

It has been, for a long time, the latest generation Intel CPU with a 2xxK or 2xxKF model number these used to be "i7" models now there's just a 7, I'm very vaguely annoyed at the branding change.

It would be hard for anybody to convince me that there is a better price|performance optimum. I get it, there was a very disappointing generation or two a few years ago, that hasn't put me off.

The dominance of Apple CPUs might be putting me off both Intel and AMD and consider only buying Apple hardware and maybe even doing something like Linux running on a Mac Mini in addition to my MacOS daily driver.

[Aurornis]

> - Visit https://www.cpubenchmark.net/single-thread/ and pick the fastest CPU under $400

FYI www.cpubenchmark.com is a running joke for how bad it is. It’s not a good resource.

There are a few variations of these sites like userbenchmark that have been primarily built for SEO spam and capturing Google visitors who don’t know where to go for good buying advice.

Buying a CPU isn’t really that complicated. For gaming it’s easy to find gaming benchmarks or buyers guides. For productivity you can check Phoronix or even the GeekBench details in the compiler section if that’s what you’re doing.

Most people can skip that and just read any buyers guide. There aren’t that many CPU models to choose from on the Pareto front of price and performance.

[embedding-shape]

> For productivity you can check Phoronix or even the GeekBench details in the compiler section

I guess the reason people prefer something like cpubenchmark, is because it seems way easier to get an overview / see data in aggregate. GeekBench (https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/multicore) for example just puts a list of all benchmarks, even when the CPU is the same. Not exactly conductive for finding the right CPU.

[sznio]

>FYI www.cpubenchmark.com is a running joke for how bad it is. It’s not a good resource.

You might be confusing them with UserBenchmark.

[Lord-Jobo]

Userbench is openly mega biased and fudges their own test scores against AMD, it’s so bad it shouldn’t even be listed in search results,

There are also many criticisms against CPUbennchmark that are much more minor like its over simplified testing leading to weird anomalous score gaps between extremely similar CPU’s.

For the average consumer, I think cpu benchmark is fine and probably as good as you can ask for without getting into the weeds which defeats the purpose really.

[IAmGraydon]

>FYI www.cpubenchmark.com is a running joke for how bad it is. It’s not a good resource.

That's not the prevailing opinion at all. Passmark is just fine and does a lot to keep their data solid like taking extra steps to filter overclocked CPUs. Then you go on to recommend GeekBench??? Right...

[dangus]

Flawed way to pick a CPU if you ask me.

- generic benchmarks don’t pick up unique CPU features nor they pick up real world application performance. For example, Intel has no answer to the X3D V-cache architecture that makes AMD chips better for gaming.

- You can’t really ignore motherboard cost and the frequency of platform socket changes. AMD has cheaper boards that last longer (as in, they update their sockets less often so you can upgrade chips more and keep your same board)

- $400 is an arbitrary price ceiling and you’re not looking at dollars per performance unit, you’re just cutting off with a maximum price.

- In other words, Intel chips are below $400 because they aren’t fast enough to be worth paying $400+ for.

- If you’re looking for integrated graphics, you’re pretty much always better off with AMD over Intel

[bfrog]

I got a 265kf and motherboard for 350. Plenty fast and saves money for the real issue which is GPU costs. Thankfully B580 is actually a pretty good deal as well at 250 compared to green or red options. Team blue has some good deals out there really if you aren't tied to a team color.

[lostlogin]

‘Stupid’ is more than a bit strong. Your points are good and the tone undermines them.

[dangus]

Modified to “flawed”

[beeflet]

I made the mistake of going with intel because of SR-IOV, which they still haven't mainlined to the linux kernel

[halJordan]

When i read "here's how i choose..." At no point did i engage with it under anything other than "this is what some random dude does once every 5 years" Let him pick his cpu how he does it. Youre overreacting, and frankly over emphasizing things that dont matter like needing vcache or avx512 or misapprehending his own price points

[dangus]

How many people who buy desktop DIY systems don’t care about gaming performance?

That market is like 90% gamers at least.

3D v-cache is a key feature for that audience. It makes gaming performance significantly better.

[colechristensen]

> $400 is an arbitrary price ceiling and you’re not looking at dollars per performance unit, you’re just cutting off with a maximum price. So if there’s a $430 AMD CPU that’s 20% faster you’re going to forego that better price per performance value just because it’s slightly above your price target.

My choice of CPU currently has the best value / performance on this benchmark aside from two very old AMD processors which are very slow and just happen to be extremely cheap. No new AMD processors are even remotely close.

It's also currently $285 no top tier performers are even close except SKUs which are slight variations of the same CPU.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

> benchmarks don’t pick up unique CPU features nor they pick up real world application performance. For example, Intel has no answer to the X3D V-cache architecture that makes AMD chips better for gaming.

Happy to be convinced that there's a better benchmark out there, but if you're trying to tell me it's better but in a way that can't be measured, I don't believe you because that's just "bro science".

> If you’re looking for integrated graphics, you’re pretty much always better off with AMD over Intel

I never have been looking for integrated graphics, sometimes I have bought the CPU with it just because it was a little cheaper.

> You can’t really ignore motherboard cost and the frequency of platform socket changes. AMD has cheaper boards that last longer (as in, they update their sockets less often so you can upgrade chips more and keep your same board)

I've always bought a new motherboard with a CPU and either repurposed, sold, or given away the old CPU/motherboard combination which seems like a much better use of money. The last one went to somebody's little brother. The one before that is my NAS. There's not a meaningful difference to comparable motherboards to me, particularly when the competing AMD CPUs are nearly double the cost or more.

[dangus]

It’s hard to take you seriously if you’re going to claim equivalent AMD processors cost double or more.

Your example of tossing your motherboard away is not a very good one here. That was your choice to act illogically. My AMD AM4 motherboard started with a Ryzen 1600, 3600, and now runs a 5600X3D.

Basically I’ve had this same motherboard for something like 6 or 7 years and the performance difference between a Ryzen 1600 and 5600X3D is completely wild. I’ve had no need to buy a new board for the better part of a decade. If you’re buying a new board with every processor purchase that’s a huge cost difference.

When I say that generic benchmarks are bad I mean that cpu benchmarks like the one you are just now linking are bad. You need more practical benchmarks like in-game FPS, how long a turn takes in Stellaris, how long it takes to encode a video or open an ZIP file, etc.

That is where the X3D chips play in as well. You might be able to buy an Intel chip with more cores and better productivity performance, but if you’re eyeing gaming performance like I imagine most desktop DIY builders are, you’d rather get better gaming oriented performance and sacrifice some productivity performance.

If you are gaming and buy a 9800X3D, Intel literally doesn’t not make anything faster at any price. You can offer Intel $5,000 and they won’t have anything to sell you that goes faster at playing games.

At lower price points, AMD still ends up making a lot of sense for their long-supported sockets, low cost boards, better power/heat efficiency, and X3D chips performing well in gaming applications.

[tester756]

>For example, Intel has no answer to the X3D V-cache architecture that makes AMD chips better for gaming.

So, it should be visible in gaming benchmarks, right?

>- If you’re looking for integrated graphics, you’re pretty much always better off with AMD over Intel

What? Lunar Lake CPU has strong iGPU

[sosborn]

https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/rip-intel-amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-c...

[khannn]

I seriously want a Mac, but I hate Apple's pricing and stinginess with RAM/Storage sizes.

[Mistletoe]

Just buy an old one. Unless you are doing some sort of cutting edge work, an old one works fine. It's crazy how cheap they are. I assume because Apple users always like to churn to the newest thing.

[khannn]

I see the current base Mac Mini going for $499 new, but that's 16gb of unified ram and a 256 ssd. I'm currently using 17.5gb of memory on win11, but most of that is Brave with a ton of extensions loaded with many tabs. I'd be using the Mac for typical office stuff with some occasional programming probably with JetBrains IDEs. I'd like to do some AI stuff too, my current laptops are way too slow.

[mptest]

it does feel like, when you click the, "pay 400$ more for a 30$ hardware upgrade" button, that tim apple himself is laughing at me knowing their siren song has already worked and I am at their mercy, wallet open...

[khannn]

Running 40gb of RAM like a madman on my 2yr old Ryzen laptop for which the upgrade cost me $44.

[vee-kay]

Running 32GB RAM and 1TB SATA SSD with Windows 10, like a mad scientist, on my thus upgraded 15-years-old Sony Viao laptop.. SATA and SDRAM are backwards compatibible so a couple of years ago, I put in a new 1 TB SATA SSD drive in the old SATA1 slot, and two cheap DDR4 3200+ Mhz SDRAM chips in the RAM slots; I can upgrade again a few years later). This Sony Viao notebook (for it is a cute little laptop) now purrs like a Jaguar waiting to be unleashed. Dual booting Windows 10 and Mint Linux - OS boots in few seconds - and everything feels so snappy to work there.

Meanwhile, my Apple Mac Mini 2012 (Intel CPU) - which needed extraordinary efforts by me to make it triple boot MacOs, Windows 10 and Linux (trust Apple to make it hard to install other OSes on an Intel CPU PC) - is slow and fussy because of its meagre RAM and old HDD (not SSD). But the Apple service center refused to upgrade this Mac Mini to new RAM and new SSD, citing Apple policies to not allow such upgrades. Apple has made it quite hard to custom upgrade such iDevices, so this little PC is lying unused in my cupboard, waiting for the rainy day when I'll get the courage to tinker it by myself to upgrade it. And even if I did upgrade the hardware, this Mac Mini can only be upgraded to MacOS Catalina, and it won't get security upgrades, because Apple has stopped supporting it.

P.S.: I hate Apple.

[deaux]

> And even if I did upgrade the hardware, this Mac Mini can only be upgraded to MacOS Catalina, and it won't get security upgrades, because Apple has stopped supporting it.

Your comment mostly makes sense but this is a weird mention when Windows is even worse on this now, Win11 not supporting much more recent machines.

[khannn]

I don't even want to fall down the rabbit hole of installing MacOS on a normal laptop again and my old 2014 Thinkpad with 8gb of ram plus 256gb ssd isn't going to light the world on fire performance wise.

[vardump]

I wish PCs had a unified GPU with 400..1000 GB/s bandwidth to the main memory. Up to 256 GB (or even 512 GB in Mac Studio). It's nice for AI. Thus staying on Macs, at least for now.

[andrewmcwatters]

You’re not missing out on a lot. Coming from someone who has used their products for many years now. Their products have more compromises and trade-offs now than they did during Apple’s Intel era.

What you will tangibly miss is low noise, low power draw hardware and very, very specific workloads being faster than the cutting edge AMD/Nvidia stack people are using today.

[LeFantome]

I would also like to hear about those compromises. I have been wanting this hardware and would like to know what I don’t know.

[linguae]

I have a work-issued M3 MacBook Pro, and at home my daily drivers are a Ryzen 9 3900 PC (still on Windows 10) and a Framework 13 laptop with a Ryzen 5 7640U running Windows 11. The hardware on my MacBook Pro is fantastic; I get amazing battery life that lasts far longer than my Framework 13, and the performance is excellent. I also love my MacBook Pro's build quality.

However, the reason my personal laptop is a Framework 13 and not a MacBook Pro is because I value upgradability and user-servicability. My Framework has 32GB of RAM, and I could upgrade it to 64GB at a later date. Its SSD, currently 1TB, is also upgradable. I miss the days of my 2006 Core Duo MacBook, which had user-serviceable RAM and storage. My Ryzen 9 3900 replaced a 2013 Mac Pro.

Additionally, macOS doesn't spark the same type of joy that it used to; I used to use Macs as my personal daily drivers from 2006 to 2022. While macOS is less annoying than Windows to me, and while I love some of the bundled apps like Preview.app and Dictionary.app, the annoyances have grown over the years, such as needing to click a security prompt each time I run lldb on a freshly-compiled program. I also do not like the UI directions that macOS has been taking during the Tim Cook era; I didn't like the changes made during Yosemite (though I was able to live with them) and I don't plan to upgrade from Sequoia to Tahoe until I have to for security reasons.

Apple's ARM hardware is appealing enough to me that I'd love to purchase a M4 Mac Mini to have a powerful, inexpensive, low-power ARM device to play with. It would be a great Linux or FreeBSD system, except due to the hardware being undocumented, the only OS that can run on the M4 Mac Mini for now is macOS. It's a shame; Apple could probably sell more Macs if they at least documented enough to make it easier for developers of alternative operating systems to write drivers for them.

[klelatti]

Genuine question: what compromises are you referring to here?

[Aeolun]

Huh, my method involves the same thing but filtering out all the Intel stuff before selecting the best AMD version.

[brian-armstrong]

Why would anyone use such an arbitrary method when you could have a 9800x3D for $40 more?

[colechristensen]

A 9800X3D is $479, my present choice of intel processor is $275.

Is it that much better? Show me.

[pixelpoet]

So much sass for such a googleable thing, good grief.

[colechristensen]

A bunch of people telling me I'm wrong and that I should google why...

I mean just don't say anything if what you're trying to add is just "go look it up yourself"

[pixelpoet]

And now you're being bossy? Good day, sir.

[amypetrik8]

Do you have a source for that?

[redox99]

That's probably the worst benchmark you could choose.

[nerdsniper]

What's a better one where i can sort all cpus?

[homebrewer]

Depends on what you're doing; I'm mostly interested in typical developer workloads, so I've been relying on

https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/build-linux-kernel-1.1...

There are lots more tests in the sidebar.