You say that people have no common sense, which I understand, but then also say they have no money. I don't see an issue with that. Give a child a pair of children's scissors and they'll not cut themselves. Even idiots have the capacity to choose a £20,000 SEAT over a £30,000 Audi if their budget is no higher than £20k. You'll always have an outlier that goes into chronic debt, but most people if they can't afford a DDR5 system, irrelevant of their intelligence level or common sense, they can't afford it. Do you think everyone will just go into credit card debt just because of a shiny new number? Yes, there will be people who will squeeze themselves dry to afford Zen 4 if it's DDR5-exclusive, but that's their choice. AMD aren't forcing consumers to make poor financial decisions. Again, Zen 3 is a popular and well-known series of CPUs. People aren't ignorant to its presence or performance. When Zen 4 comes out, Zen 3 won't stop existing to these people lacking in common sense.
99.9% have a budget. Most won't say what it is and keep it personal (have you seen how hard it is to get a number out of people? see the recent speaker request as proof). IDK, maybe they see it as embarrassing or just some weird kind of personal secret, but nearly all buy to a budget.
And most of those people don't know their ahole from their elbow. Which is more than understandable, as to geek over every little thing is well, geeky. And whilst this used to be the behavior of every PC nerd times have changed. Not every one is a PC nerd now, yet most find a reason to have one.
It's the same mentality behind those who refuse to buy AMD. Let me give you a recent example. Some guy on OCUK about four days back posted asking which 3060 he should buy out of two. One was £460, the other was over £500. The "top end" models. I explained that for that sort of money he could buy a 6700XT, which was in a totally different league. Know what he ended up buying? a 3070. Which would sound fair enough right? well not when you consider that two 3070 users came forward and said, and I quote - "I have a 3070 and it doesn't have enough VRAM". He still bought the 3070.
So basically? his mentality was "I want the latest NVIDIA card, not an AMD, no matter how much I am penalized by this decision".
Sure, AMD have had a lot of good press over the past couple of years. Intel have been driven into the ground by almost most of the influencers. BUT, they still have that draw. And AMD know it. All it took was Alderlake, and your fanboys who had all been raving for AMD all came back out of the woodwork. It's a mentality that takes more than a few years to change.
As such, I just feel that people will buy Intel *unless* the draw from AMD is so high that they will buy AMD. But many just don't understand this. I spoke to a friend of mine the other day about my new 6800XT. He has a 3080Ti. His initial response was "Eww, AMD". At which point I sent him a screenshot of my average FPS. At which point he had to concede that I was battering his rig in terms of performance. Which we soon concluded was a mixture of the fact that AMD cards are better at UE, but then because he has a 9700K. So he needs a new mobo and CPU to push up his FPS. His response to that was "I am waiting for the next Intel". Nothing you could say or do would change his mind.
And that is still very much a thing. This is why as arrogant as AMD has become (and the enjoyed aspect of commanding top dollar for their CPUs and "being Intel" by launching the expensive ones only until they are forced into releasing cheaper models by the competition) is always going to be in the back of their mind.
Moving into a new gen for them will be incredibly expensive. As such they will want to, and need to, sell as many as they can. All whilst Intel are back with strong competition *and* their brand name. This is why quite a few times in Ryzen's existence AMD have gone for the d1ck move and then changed their mind. Quite a few times now. Certain boards were not going to support 3000 series, and then did, and certain this that or the other would mean a new board and then it changed. It happened on the 5000 switch too.
Basically? they want to sell as many new chipsets as they can. As that is where board partners need a license and AMD get to take the pee. Just how Intel do, or did, exactly the same. THAT is why they want you on a new socket and board. And they would absolutely bloody love to get away with that, but they still don't have the branding to be able to do so.
And that, IMO, is why they have relinquished *again* and back tracked.
Besides, whilst you say now that a 5000 CPU is going to be really good once the next Zen comes out? how do you know dude? It could be a massive difference. At which point why would you buy into a "dead socket"?
If you want a quick explanation to that? Look at what is going on elsewhere. In this case? the GPU market. For over two years (more if you count the astronomical pricing of Turing !) you could not buy a GPU for love nor money. Now all of a sudden they are widely and freely available for really good prices (because you still need to remember a premium 2080Ti cost £1400) and yet all of the influencers have switched it up to "Don't buy anything now ! wait for the next gen".
Why? why, if you were desperate would you do that? because basically dude once a new next gen is mentioned psychologically all of a sudden the "old" gen is rubbish and not worth buying.
And it's that mentality that AMD need to compete against. Me? I got 40% more performance than my 2080Ti in the game I play for less than half the money (£1700 for the Ti compared to £728 for the 6800XT) yet I am being told to wait
But that's how it works. So if AMD can only offer this magic on DDR5? they would be just as stupid as Intel if they had ignored DDR4 and tried to force people to buy DDR5.
The 5800X3D does seem like a test run to me as well, but it doesn't stop it being what it is—a really fast processor that won't fall dramatically behind a Zen 4 equivalent. That won't change no matter what AMD or Intel will do. Sometimes I think us enthusiasts project our ideas onto the masses, and that's not fair or justified. I think we underestimate their ability to make grown-up decisions and go on to Amazon and pick parts they can reasonably afford. AMD are offering parts for all budgets.
CPUs aren't GPUs in that the RTX 4000 series is going to largely outclass the 3000 series. I'd feel like a fool to drop £2k on a GPU now. But that's me. I'd be projecting myself onto others. Maybe this hypothetical other person desperately needs a new GPU? Maybe they don't care about future generations? They're valid reasons. I'm not going to complain that Nvidia are still selling RTX 3000 series GPUs. That's their job.
I totally agree on the 5800X3D. However, you've not seen how the next gen will perform yet. It may be a small uptick, it may be huge. However it won't compare to a decent GPU release.
However, I don't buy GPUs based on future games and etc. I base them on what I play now. TBH? if I am not playing anything much I don't bother.
If only a few buy Zen 4 at launch as you predict, does that really matter? If AMD are still making a killing on Zen 3, surely that's still money in the bank? Maybe they are fully aware of this and have made concessions to navigate through the awkward interim period. Every new platform has teething problems, but we get through them. DDR5 and AM5 will be more expensive, but so will an RTX 4090, the card that's supposed to launch first for Lovelace. Are those who can only afford a 4060 suddenly going to beg, borrow, and steal just to get a shiny new higher number? Nvidia won't reduce the cost of a 3080 to a cheaper price for those that can't wait for a 4060 but can't afford a 4090, but AMD has reduced Zen 3 so that those who can't afford Zen 4 can still get a high performance system.
The question there is "if". If AMD are making a killing on Zen 3. Are they? they have had to cut prices massively recently and even release CPUs they deliberately held back in order to keep prices at a premium. However, their costs were also at a premium due to Covid and everything else mad going on in the world.
What I will say is Zen 4 would have cost them a small fortune. Any shrink always does. R&D costs coupled with the more expensive wafers and etc etc.
They will also not want to be caught in a trap of having to keep making older CPUs. Intel don't and never have. That too will cost more than its worth at some point.
As for GPUs? TBH dude I really don't care. When I was much less game focussed (and thus bored, as I was doing more reading than actual gaming) I would be a lot more bothered. The fact is? for me to upgrade I would need a new PSU and at over 200FPS I really don't see any of it worth bothering with.
There's also just not the games yet. New consoles? mean a 5 year wait for true next gen games. So buying now for them will be daft, as in 5 years time they will be paperweights.
That's why I have not been bothering with that benchmark from Unreal. What's the point? by the time it hits the PC it will be many years from now.
RX 6950 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.2 RS-486
