Gadgetory

as we continue our awards show for end of the year we're now recapping some of the best and worst cpu launches for the year the categories include best overall value most well-rounded best hobbyist production CPU best budget gaming most fun to overclock and biggest disappointment will be walking through a year of testing data and reviews as weary capsule the most memorable products leading into Black Friday and holiday sales as always links to the products are provided below in the description alongside our article for a written recap before that this video is brought to you by the gigabyte am the RX 580 and rx 570 mid-range video cards gigabytes a RS rx 570 now starts at $150 us on some retailers offering an affordable gaming solution for high settings and 1080p these cards now come with your choice of games picked between Resident Evil 2 Devil May Cry 5 and the division 2 you can pick two of three learn more at the link in the description below so as a reminder here data isn't the focus for today we're recapping coverage so we're pulling charts from about a year's worth of testing and reviews here and from those older pieces need to stop doing that thank you to the reader who sent in the sepia fidget spinner from those older pieces you'll have to keep in mind that of course Windows updates Hardware changes things like that impact performance results so for the most up-to-date CPU benchmarks you'll want to check our newest CPU review that's either going to be the 9600 K or 99 ATX ear Aviva's going live and that'll have the most updated numbers for you but we're still going to start showing some of the older charts just for perspective on how things have changed because a years a really long time in the world of Microsoft Windows updates where it updates seemingly every 15 minutes at this point will also be mailing out GN award crystals to the companies for their most important products for the year that are featured in here so Intel and AMD will each get one for different reasons the award crystal is a 3d laser engraved GN tear down logo with extreme attention to detail and although the products have to earn the award you can buy one for yourself at store gamers Nexus Net the award for best overall value goes AMD's are 526 hundred this year which receives the award for its new $160 price point and high marks performance in both gaming and lightweight production workloads as a reminder it wasn't long ago that we were buying I three CPUs in the 6th and 7th gen for about $160 which were always tough to justify against the then incumbent Intel i5 s at around 180 to 200 dollars although threads are into everything the higher thread count are 5 2600 and it's reasonable overclocked frequencies to establish the product as a lightweight champion with versatility for gaming and some production tasks over the past year we've tested the r5 2600 and streaming while gaming simultaneously and have found it to perform it reasonably well with faster h.264 encoding 'z we've also tested it for blender workloads where an overclocked 2600 effectively at 2600 X except a bit better to 4.2 gigahertz ranks nearing last generations r7 1700 at stock settings we've tested the CPU in gaming where it can keep up admirably shown in several of our charts from at the recent 9600 K review and will flash through a few of those on the screen now in case you've missed our recent benchmarks the r5 2600 isn't the best CPU in any one category but it does manage to achieve genuinely universally good performance especially at its a new price in gaming lightweight production and even in simultaneous at live streaming and gaming workloads we can strongly recommend the r5 2600 for a mid-range gaming PC build where the budget can't quite stretch to i7 or r7 territory for most users the CPU will be plenty just like we once said about five generations ago now that an i-5 is quote enough for gamers it is now the r5 is enough for most gamers where the r5 2600 holds a well deserved award for best overall value the I $9.99 hundred K even with its somewhat absurd pricing does deserve to nab the award for most well rounded to be fair this one is still a toss-up between the 9900 K and the 8700 K the latter of which received this award last year to us this category means one thing this is a CPU that can play games at the highest frame rates and with the most performance but can also execute in common production applications with top class performance that would include Adobe Premiere we're and we saw the 9900 K nearly matching the performance of the $2,000 99 ATX II it would include Photoshop for the 99 hundred K outperformed workstation competition and that's because they like frequency and it would include blender where the overclocked 9900 K managed to complete frames at about 17 minutes for the monkeyhead render that put it as on par with the 7900 X which is an impressive feat similarly the 9900 K also chart tops in our gaming benchmarks where it managed some of the fastest turn completion times in Civilization six reducing the wait time between turns by noticeable margins it held the highest marks in far cry 5 at 1080p pushing 163 FPS average at 5.2 gigahertz and 156 FPS average at stock the 9900 K further pushed nearly 300 fps both stock and overclocked in f1 2018 at 1080p despite its price and despite some of the controversy around it the 9900 K is genuinely very well rounded it's a good performer in all applications tested but it's also expensive and one would expect it would do well when it costs as much as it does we'd like to see this come down in price still and until the 9900 K does come down a bit the 8700 K remains halfway holding on to this award as it won it last year and still remains in the price category where the I $9.99 hundred K probably should be which is about 350 bucks of course to see any of these charts in more detail check our previous reviews for the best small business and hobbyist production CPU we're giving it to the r7 2700 this category is for someone who might be ramping into professional workloads or who is just starting out as a small business in the field of content creation the r7 2700 isn't the best gaming CPU it does fine but it's not something you buy for only gaming builds with ultra high refresh or something like that it is however an excellent value option that manages to perform better in production applications than its new $250 price tag would lead you to believe it does well enough in games to enable gaming on the side while still maintaining a high performance production throughput on the inside of the machine in our blender 2.79 benchmarks we charted the r7 2700 as performing at 8700 k levels when both were stock completing our monkey head render in 26 minutes and our Jian logo render in 32 minutes versus 27 minutes and 33 minutes for the $80.00 more expensive 8700 K for tile based rendering applications like blender the 2700 does exceptionally well overclocking to 4.2 gigahertz all core got the 2700 to 23 minutes completion time for that same monkeyhead render ranking it as just behind the stock 9900 K which is often over 500 dollars that level of performance for the price is nearly unbeatable right now allowing the 2700 to earn its award in this roundup Rison isn't always the best for production workloads though just as a reminder for Adobe applications desktop class Intel CPUs tend to do better we Illustrated this recently in Photoshop where the 99 hundred K outperformed the 99 80 X E and 2990 W X by somewhat significant margins that's because Photoshop and premiere which saw similar performance still favored raw frequency with a secondary requirement for threads for someone who is a heavy Photoshop user you live in Photoshop or maybe Premiere we would instead lean towards one of the Intel desktop CPUs as a recommendation for more cost friendly hobbyist production capabilities this is where someone who is making some money from the work but isn't doing it full-time just yet for blender like rendering our Jian logo intro animation the r7 2700 is a powerful workhorse that pushes through frames even faster with an easy overclock allowing it to match 2700 X levels of performance the 2700 also does well and its balance of gaming capabilities for the occasional session while still enabling efficient throughput and thread intensive applications primarily for the price of $250 and an easy 30 minute overclocked session the 2700 can stretch its legs at a more affordable price point than competing CPUs have been able to in the past the next award is for best budget gaming CPU last year we gave this to the intel pentium g 45 60 which allowed for reasonable baseline cv performance at fifty to eighty dollars depending on the time of the year that you bought the CPU to around 70 though this year the our 320 200g shakes things up a bit by integrating a reasonable IGP for some additional gaming horsepower although it's priced at $100 and therefore more expensive than our budget CPU category typically calls for the trick is that there's no need to buy a GPU it doesn't get much more budget than a $100 processor that includes both the CPU and GPU for the system the 2200 G includes a graphics processor that's strong enough for eSports style titles like rocket League overwatch and csgo beyond that you'll definitely want a dedicated GPU and CPU because performance of the R 320 200 G suffers hard and other games total war Warhammer is a great example where performance plummets to well below the performance of just about anything else that said if you're really tight on budget and want to save money on other components the R 320 200 G with an overclock will perform well in the aforementioned games while allowing cost savings elsewhere in the build that's the real secret of this one you can get a cheaper power supply a cheaper motherboard and significantly smaller case that can all be combined with the 2200 G for a low-cost gaming PC the CPU is also a fun overclocker and not difficult to push beyond its stock settings as our previous testing demonstrated it's good when overclocking the IGP and a good match for those lighter load titles that are burgeoning in popularity right now although we wanted to include intel's pentium g series as a good budget option when coupled with a discrete GPU all pentium g cpus are currently at or above $100 given the 14 nanometer shortage which is ridiculous this sad side-effect means that it can't make the cut for our list as they combined a price with a GPU climbs to be too high to be worth it ultimately if you can find a 50 to $60 CPU and couple it with a $90 video card the combination is going to be better than a single r 320 200 G the R 320 200 G comes in cheap though and can fit in cases that other setups can't accommodate the r5 2400 G doesn't make the list as it's $160 price point isn't sensible and he'd be far better off with a discrete GPU and CPU combination and if you're curious we're working on a 200 GE review soon so subscribe for that follow up to revive our most fun to overclock award Intel receives this one for its 8086 case if you launched this year these are been to 8700 KS that are nearly guaranteed to push far higher frequencies and lower voltages than their 8700 K counterparts although we wouldn't recommend an 80 86 K for stock usage there's really not much point when considering an 8700 K instead it's genuinely one of the most fun CPUs we've worked with for overclocking this year a quick deal it and some liquid metal later and we got our first 8086 k sample up to five point three five gigahertz with 4000 mega Hertz memory frequencies on just standard closed-loop liquid cooling if you have some money to spend and are more interested in overclocking as a hobby or sport then in simply gaming or building the 8086 k offers a good Avenue to dip into the overclocking world the fact that Headroom is often high means that the requirement to learn overclocking tricks will kick in sooner posing an excellent learning opportunity for CPU overclocking although the 8086 K was officially limited in quantity it's still available through several online retailers at around $440 this brings us all the way around to the biggest disappointment category last year we gave us two intel's kb lake x cpus which were thereafter discontinued for the ax $2.99 platform this year the biggest disappointment goes to the Intel I $9.99 ATX II the CPU aims to revamp the 79 80 XE and overclocking favorite of ours with solder between the IHS and die to improve thermal transfer unfortunately the gains can't be realized as the core to core Delta's from fan cavity in the IHS are significant enough that we were able to overclock much higher on a deleted 79 80 XE in our review of the 99 ATX e we demonstrated thermal results at the 99 ATX e peaking at 104 for its hottest cores another chart from our review showed the highest to lowest core temperature Delta of being about 40 degrees which means our hottest 5 cores are limiting every other core in frequency although the 90 90 DXE improved the situation over paced for anyone overclocking this thing it makes far more sense to buy a 79 80 XE deal it it and apply liquid metal the thermals are better and the overclocking Headroom is substantially improved by going that route with the previous CPU ultimately we were able to push these soldered 99 80 XE to 5 gigahertz but that was by using this it's a radiator that can fit 18 140 millimeter fans or 4 200 millimeter fans per side using something like this yes it overclocked swell but we can achieve similar clocks on a 79 AD XE with a liquid metal and a reasonable radiator that can fit in a case the 99 d DX e gets credit for improving baseline stock performance over the 790 DX e something we demonstrated in benchmarks like blender testing the limited OC Headroom limits its target audience to a small user base the only real user of the 99 TD XE is someone who needs both high frequency and high core count already a small audience and then further only wants to use it stock we were greatly disappointed in the soldering solution and the limited gains it provided and so the 99 80 XE firmly earns its spot as the recipient of this year's biggest disappointment award and then the final award here we'll do this one on camera the final one is the best worst trend award and the worst trend for this year the the best of the worst trends goes to the motherboard manufacturers so it's not exactly a CPU but it is CPU adjacent and this one goes to the motherboard manufacturers for an inability to decide on following a standardized specification which is the one defined by the motherboard mentor the motherboard manufacturers primary partner only partner the CPU makers so this we talked about with Intel but it happens with AMD to where there are violations of for example TDP of turbo durations happens on both and the end Intel CPUs in a way that makes testing difficult to standardize because it's so is something new and sneaky and BIOS they have to look out for that will throw off the results from spec from the stock specification on the CPU maker and that leads to results that are just you end up having to to really control a lot harder than should be and then also start drawing new conclusions of ok this is how the product performs on mother would a is how it performs on the way it should perform and we end up just with with a more difficult climate for newcomers to enter and try and understand the performance of different products because they look at different reviewers who use different motherboards different testing patterns and methodologies and the results are just tremendously different in some cases and all of this comes down to motherboard manufacturers to some degree and that's because they find ways to skirt the spec and do things like enable for example a new version of MC e rather than going all core sync to single core turbo they are now instead just bypassing the turbo duration limitations which is another really good way to boost performance without being noticed by most people so anyway that's that's kind of the annoyance we've had this year just working with motherboards and trying to make sure our tests from board to board remain representative of how the CPU is sold and marketed rather than how the mother would want to Reese peso Phi the CPU to make the board look better because ultimately that makes the CPU look better than it should out of the box and that happened again with both CPU vendors it's up to the motherboard makers at this point so that was the most annoying trend for the year but anyway as we continue our awards shows for end of year we will be recapping of course other devices you can check out our case recap on the YouTube channel already or on the website if you prefer the written version and keep an eye out for more CPU benchmarks things like that we have the 200 GE coming up it's pitbull ated but better to get it live at some point because it's an interesting processor and other than that subscribe for more we go to patreon.com/scishow sexist upside directly we're going to store it on cameras excess net pick up a mod mat like this one before the next round comes in so that you can get one in this next batch coming up thank you for watching we'll see you all next time