Intel Core i5-8600K vs Ryzen 5 1600 vs Ryzen 7 1700 vs. i5-7600K

The Intel Coffee Lake Core i5-8600K

With this month’s Coffee Lake release, Intel finally decided to increase the amount of CPU cores they offer to mainstream consumers. The company’s newest Core i5 CPU, the i5-8600K has been upgraded to 6 cores from last generation’s 4-core i5-7600K. In theory, that should mean significantly better multithreaded performance in addition to Intel’s typical single-threaded dominance. But how does the 8600K compare to the previous generation, as well as the price-equivalent chips from AMD?

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What is Hyper-Threading and Simultaneous MultiThreading?

With the newly released 8th Generation CPUs from Intel, one feature has gone missing from the Core i3 models: Hyper-Threading (HT). For example, the new Intel i3-8100 features 4 physical cores and 4 threads, whereas the previous generation’s i3-7100 featured 2 physical cores and 4 threads.

What is Hyper-Threading, and is it any different from AMDs Simultaneous Multi-Threading?

What is the difference between having a 2-core Hyper-Threaded CPU or a 4-core CPU without Hyper-Threading?

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Building a PC with the Intel Core i3-8100 and i3-8350K

Competition is great. If you can, think back to a year ago. AMD’s CPU selection consisted of several outdated options, and Intel were happy issuing small incremental improvements over the previous generation. What a difference a year makes! Like them or hate them, AMD has massively shifted the market with the release of the Ryzen architecture. That’s what brings us to today and the launch of the brand new 8000 series Coffee Lake processors from Intel — the biggest upgrade to the Intel lineup in years.

This article looks at the new Core i3 CPUs, which are lower-midrange chips still very capable of great performance for the price. What sort of PC should you build with the i3-8100 or i3-8350K? Read on to find out.

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Intel Core i7-8700K vs AMD Ryzen 7 vs Intel Core i7-7700K

Intel’s Coffee Lake CPUs are part of the 8th generation of processors.

Last week, Intel released their Coffee Lake-based 8th generation CPUs. Intel has been usually refreshing their processors at the beginning of each year, but this one happened a few months early. (Earlier in July, Intel’s X299-based Skylake-X CPUs also experienced a rushed launch.)

It seems that AMD’s Ryzen CPUs really did light a fire under Intel, with the underdog AMD slowly earning the hearts of both reviewers and customers around the globe. But how does Intel’s newest Coffee Lake mainstream flagship CPU, the i7-8700K, compare to AMD’s Ryzen 7 processors, as well as the previous generation’s i7-7700K?

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What Are CPU and GPU Computer Bottlenecks? How Do You Detect Them?

“Bottleneck” is a term used to describe one component of a system that holds back the rest of the system from reaching its full potential.

Bottlenecks can be extremely detrimental to productivity. A lot of the time, businesses who have applications with bottlenecks in them will see it heavily affecting their system. This is usually solved by going to a Chicago software company to improve their application but what if the problem isn’t down to the software and instead is the fault of the CPU or GPU? Often when trying to diagnose an issue with a PC’s performance, we will eventually reach the topic of bottlenecking. This is especially common when it comes to maximizing performance in a PC game, where either the CPU or the graphics card may “bottleneck” the system, holding it back from achieving its potential in terms of framerate.

So, what exactly are these bottlenecks? And how do you determine if your PC is suffering from a bottlenecking component?

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Building a PC with the AMD A6-9500, A8-9600, A10-9700, and A12-9800

AMD recently refreshed their entry-level CPU range, and we’re quite happy with the results. We’ve already taken a look at their new 35W CPUs, and now we’d like to turn our attention to the more powerful (and power hungry) range from AMD. Interestingly enough, a number of these CPU’s have a configurable thermal design power (cTDP) of 45W from the default 65W.

This article will suggest a number of builds that could best utilize these new 65W CPUs. Prices for these builds come in between $313 and $424. So, read on to see for yourself!

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Building a PC with AMD’s A6-9500E, A10-9700E, and A12-9800E

Now that the dust has settled with AMD’s great releases of its Ryzen and Threadripper CPUs, the manufacturer has quietly refreshed its entry-level CPUs. Although they’re not built on the Zen chip architecture, they do use the new AM4 socket. This provides us builders with new features, and very importantly, a simple path to future CPU upgrades. So with this in mind, sit back as I review the new 35W CPUs and what you can build with them!

This article covers builds using the A6-9500E ($65), A10-9700E ($85), and A12-9800E ($110). The total build price comes in anywhere from $330 to $450, so these are great entry-level PCs. You can see our builds for the new 65W CPUs here.

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Building a PC with RX Vega 56 and 64

With AMD’s Threadripper CPUs tearing up the rule book on the processor market, it’s now the RX Vega’s turn to disrupt the GPU market. Now, the question is, are the new RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 graphics cards good, and what sort of PC should you build with them?

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