Folding Forum

Hi

Its time to upgrade my 4690k and my old asus motherboard to something more powerful and modern hardware. I have a budget on aboout 300$ for CPU. What to consider when choosing a 8 core vs 6 core, and 14 nm vs 7 nm? Which CPU is the most effective for folding? I have been looking at 2700x and 3600x, and trying to search for ppd estimates, but there is not much to find. I know there is a generation between the listed cpus. Beside fah, im going to use my pc to video editing/Da Vinci Resolve, if that is important to consider.

Thanks

If you search the forums for 2700x and then 3600x you will find posts from folder who have both these CPUs … You could PM them and ask if they could give you their views on their CPUs and let you know average ppd for their setups? … but my gut is go with the 3rd Gen - it has a lower TDP and can run hotter which feels like a good thing for FAH folding

This doesn't accurately represent a FAH workload, but if you look here https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html their benchmarks shows higher multithreaded performance from a 3600X than a 2700X. The 3600X is cheaper, consumes less power, and also supports AMD Eco Mode for even less power while retaining most of the performance. If it were me I would go with the 3600X. It would be nice to get some real FAH numbers though.
Edit: Didn't think to look at alternatives beyond the 2 you mentioned. +1 for the 3700X from me.

There's no question there, the 3600X is a much better choice. The greatly improved AVX2 performance alone will make a big difference in FAH and video editing.

Not sure if the 3600x is the better choice. It offers only 12 threads compared to 16. Both FAH and video editing benefit from higher thread counts.
I'm not able to say if the new AVX2 helps counteracts the missing threads.

I would take neither of them.

I would choose R7 3700X.
High thread count and new AVX2-routines will make an awesome working beast both for folding and video editing.
And it's within your price range of 300$

foldinghomealone2 wrote:I would choose R7 3700X.
High thread count and new AVX2-routines will make an awesome working beast both for folding and video editing.
And it's within your price range of 300$

If it is possible I would suggest the R9 3900X instead of the R7 3700X. it's around $420 checking on amazon.
R5 6 cores => $200 => $33.3 / core
R7 8 cores => $300 => $37.5 / core
R9 12 cores => $420 => $35 / core

The R9 looks to have better value.

Sure, if it wouldn'be much above the price range of $300 i would have suggested it as well.

As an cheaper alternative with much better price/value is the 3600 (non-x).

to summarize: I would recommend following Ryzens:
r5 3600 (non-x)
r7 3700x
r9 3900x

Personally for the given price range and for the purpose of folding and video editing I would choose 3700x

I would go with the newer CPU, in this case the 3600X rather than the 2700X. It's a generation ahead, got AVX2 which might become relevant in future. That is not just relevant for FAH one day, but for the type of work you want to do besides folding.I believe the 3600X also supports PCIe 4.0, which makes it even more future proof.
If that CPU doesn't perform well enough in your video editing or you just feel you wnat to upgrade one day, you can still go for a 3rd gen Ryzen with higher core count.

At the $300 level, I bought the 3700X. With 8 cores vs 6, and 65W TDP vs 95W, the 3700X should Fold much more efficiently. On the current WUs, mine gets around 200K PPD on 12 cores. On the standard Turbo clocks, mine generally runs around 4.2 GHz on all cores, and peaks at 4.67.

Also, since you need a new mobo anyhow, the X570 boards support Gen 4 PCIe and the new SSDs that implement it.

I also opted for the 3700X, for me it hit all of the sweet spots. Running it on a MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX. The combination has been rock solid. The one thing I went extra on was to get a Noctua D15 SE-AM4 cooler. The cooler is fantastic but you will need DRAM that has no extra elevation to it if you want to mount the second cooler fan. My CPU temps run at about 67-69C while folding without the "Gameboost" in the CMOS turned on. I think if I turn it on it will ad another 8-10C. I can only use one of the two fans that came with the Noctua since my DRAM is just slightly too high to allow for the second fan to be mounted. This doesn't bother me but I mention it because it might bother someone else who reads this post.

The Prism cooler allowed for higher temps and much more noise. That is why I splurged on the Noctua.

Depending on the height of your DRAM and the clearance in the case, you can mount the outer CPU fan slightly elevated.

foldinghomealone2 wrote:Sure, if it wouldn'be much above the price range of $300 i would have suggested it as well.

As an cheaper alternative with much better price/value is the 3600 (non-x).

to summarize: I would recommend following Ryzens:
r5 3600 (non-x)
r7 3700x
r9 3900x

Personally for the given price range and for the purpose of folding and video editing I would choose 3700x

I would agree with this list. Pick the best of these in your price range.

jrweiss wrote:Depending on the height of your DRAM and the clearance in the case, you can mount the outer CPU fan slightly elevated.

Yeah I tried that at the time, it was just ever so slightly too tight to allow for putting the case panel back on. Not fussed about it though because otherwise the cooler does a fantastic job of throwing off heat.