Why no love for the Ryzen line in build of the month?

[Deleted]

lolwut? You realize like.. sub-1% of gamers run 4k rigs, right? You need to get this hyperbolic thought that you represent even the tiniest fraction of people out of your head. Almost no one runs 4k. An only slightly larger (but still tiny) run 1440p Ultrawide or 1440p 16:9.



I wasn't aware X299 was a dead platform.

Ryzen 7 is not competing with the mainstream lineup. It is competing with the bottom half of the HEDT lineup (where it does, in fact, do very well at a cost/performance ratio).

Exaggerating.

4k is more important going forward though. Or resolutions in between. It's a shame about the gpu situation.

On a serious note my minimum raiding fps is improved over the overclocked 3770k I was using. This is with the stock 1700 but I also have had a gpu upgrade.

[Lathais]

so wow fps performance in raid is bad because it uses dx11/dx9 and has high single thread workload, i.e. optimization for multicore functionality is low

dx12 isn't widely adapted yet but is the clear future as technology is always changing, and dx12 or maybe some other api will have better multi core functionality

but you're telling me that sticking with high single thread is the future despite everything we know about how dx12 and other multicore apus have been hyped for ever


oh, and those single thread scores are marginally better than the vast performance difference a multicore gets over lower number of cores, but yet the solo core is the better option?


oh, and 4k gaming, despite also being the future of gaming, vr gaming also being the future, both run better with more cores?






so lets recap shall we. the peasants in this thread want you to spend money on a cpu that is only going to benefit older games in a marginal way, with the huge drawback of not being able to support systems as well for dx12 or equivalent api, 4k gaming, or vr.




and im not the one who knows what he's talking about


a new multicore api will come out or developers are working on AAA games with dx12 support (very likely), and if you're rocking something to get a few extra frames out of wow, you're gonna be left in the dust. not to mention blizzard has been hinting at dx12 support since 2014.


:thinking: guess I shoulda went with the Intel Pentium 4 670


you intel boys remind me of crack addicts. literally. there isn't high indie or aaa development for multicore support because the market share is for an inferior product so because of that the people buying up an inferior product catered to an old technology are making it more risky to develop for multi core.


and this is a good thing ??? because said inferior product runs better on inferior hardware?


ffs

Well, that's not what I said at all. I have said repeatedly that I think the Ryzens are a better choice. However, let's not pretend that your single core performance is on par with intel. Let's not pretend that it is actually better for WoW. It's not. It's still the better choice over all and does in fact cost less than the intel counterparts. Just don't be comparing your 1700 to an i5, that's not it's counterpart. Yet when you posted your benchmark attempting to prove your single core performance is on par with intel you went up against an i5 from a previous generation.

If you want to compare your 1700 to something, compare it to the intel 8c/16t CPUs:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072NF4BY3/?tag=pcpapi-20

Yes, Ryzen is far cheaper and better than that. For less than the price of the CPU alone you can get CPU/Motherbard/RAM with a 1700.

For current gaming though, not going to be much of a difference. How quickly DX12 gets adopted and devs start optimizing for more cores is the question. These are not easy things to do though, or it would be done already. Learning an entire new API and all the ins and out is not something people are quite ready to do. DX10 to DX11 took a while as well and it was not near as drastic of a change. However, as CPUs are lasting longer and longer nowadays, since we've hit a physics wall and gains are very very difficult, I still think the Ryzen is the better choice overall. Just don't pretend it is something it is not and don't be trying to make it look like it's single core performance is better than an i5 from last gen that's not OCed while yours is. That just makes you look foolish.

[Deleted]

However, as CPUs are lasting longer and longer nowadays, since we've hit a physics wall and gains are very very difficult, I still think the Ryzen is the better choice overall. Just don't pretend it is something it is not and don't be trying to make it look like it's single core performance is better than an i5 from last gen that's not OCed while yours is. That just makes you look foolish.

You may be exaggerating the single core advantge by quite alot. Also WOW runs really good on the Ryzen 1700 at base clock here. Its definately nicer than the 3770k. So if there is a difference I doubt its going to matter.




The difference is not significant enough for all these reviewers and benchmarkers to recommend any i Core chip. In terms of spending the Ryzen CPU are the way to go.

These 'benchmarks' that you seem to be reffering to use GTX 1080 ti at 1080p resolution with Gsync/freesync monitors to exaggerate the difference. They are not real world usage at all. Chances are people will have a view to 4K at some point and currrently use a 1080p screen with a more affordable gpu solution(lets say 1060). The differences are minimal at best. Not to mention quite afew games now outperform the i Core series now which is a good contrast to the March benchmarks at launch. We also know fast RAM helps besides overclocking.

Its looking good for the future.

Whereas for the 7700k, I suspect it will be replaced by a 6 core i5 very soon.

[Lathais]

You may be exaggerating the single core advantge by quite alot. Also WOW runs really good on the Ryzen 1700 at base clock here. Its definately nicer than the 3770k. So if there is a difference I doubt its going to matter.




The difference is not significant enough for all these reviewers and benchmarkers to recommend any i Core chip. In terms of spending the Ryzen CPU are the way to go.

These 'benchmarks' that you seem to be reffering to use GTX 1080 ti at 1080p resolution with Gsync/freesync monitors to exaggerate the difference. They are not real world usage at all. Chances are people will have a view to 4K at some point and currrently use a 1080p screen with a more affordable gpu solution(lets say 1060). The differences are minimal at best. Not to mention quite afew games now outperform the i Core series now which is a good contrast to the March benchmarks at launch. We also know fast RAM helps besides overclocking.

Its looking good for the future.

Whereas for the 7700k, I suspect it will be replaced by a 6 core i5 very soon.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what I said?

Also, no, these benchmarks I am referring to are the ones the guy I was referring to posted that HE DID HIMSELF and had nothing to do with a GPU AT ALL and then the one I did myself countering him, in which I am using a GTX 960(in my sig) and I was able to beat his single core performance on his 1700 that was OCed as high as it can go with my 4690k with a pretty mild OC. Go back and read through the thread, you'll see the benchmarks I am referring to here:

my ryzen 7 just benchmarked single thread same as Intel Core i5-6600k, so uh, grats the ryzen 7 is just as good for wow as any intel if wow performance is actually based on single thread

grats everyone glad we could do this

https://valid.x86.fr/bench/sq86nf/1

here:

Seeing as you beat out the 1700X and 1800X I am going to go ahead and assume you have OCed your Ryzen. The 6600K in that is not OCed. So gratz, your OCed Ryzen keeps up with a stock clocked 6600K....barely. Now, go compare it to an OCed 6600K to make it a fair comparison and get back to us.

EDIT: Better yet, let's compare it to my older 4690K with a fairly mild 4.4 OC on it. I can actually get it to 4.6 but it gets a little unstable, so I dialed it back to 4.4. 4.6 is actually pretty average for this chip though and I know 2 other people who got theirs to 5.0. Once of them could have pushed his further he think but didn't care to. The other got unstable at 5.1 so dialed it back.
https://valid.x86.fr/h7rzbs

469, which beats your 436. Granted, it's less than 10% better. Not a difference you are likely to ever notice if you are on a 1080p 60hz monitor. It's still there though. Your proof is nothing. But really, other than for WoW, the sing;e threaded performance hardly matters. It's not a difference you are going to notice unless you stare at your FPS counter. In other games though you can easily see:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/..._1300X/20.html
The stock 7600K beats out the stock 1800X. We know that the intels OC better because you can see your max OC just barely catches up to a stock clocked i5 from last gen.

You keep saying also that the intel people spent more.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.29 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($32.49 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z270P-D3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($100.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $357.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 01:26 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $349.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 01:27 EDT-0400

That does not appear to be the case. They are very similarly priced. The 1600 becomes a better deal, but not the 1700.

Now, if you do any sort of productivity work then yes, the Ryzens offer insane value. That's where they shine. The difference is not really noticeable in games and they can be a little cheaper, especially if you compare to their real counterparts. Really, should not be comparing the 7600K to the 1700. Should compare it to the R3 1200, since that is also a 4c/4t CPU like the i5.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 1200 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $169.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-09 01:31 EDT-0400

Now the AMD is looking like a much cheaper option. When you OC the 1200 it performs pretty similarly to the 1300X, so it's about 12% or so behind the 7600k non-OCed for gaming. It's gonna fall further behind with an OC. But at that price, the i5 makes no sense.

Seriously though, quit trying to make your Ryzen sound better for gaming than it is. More cores don't help gaming. They may in the next few years, hopefully within the lifetime of your CPU. That's the gamble currently. Will DX12 take over and will games make use of more cores? Hopefully. Will WoW ever? Nope.

and here:

I scored higher single threaded with my 6 year old 2500k overclocked to 4.6GHz. So yeah... Ryzen single threaded performance is great or something. Ryzen destroys mine in multi-threaded benches, but I wouldn't really expect anything else, considering the age difference.

Benchmark - 1T
Benchmark - 4T

[Cilraaz]

so wow fps performance in raid is bad because it uses dx11/dx9 and has high single thread workload, i.e. optimization for multicore functionality is low

I'm not sure how many times people have to explain the architecture of MMO code, but I'm not going to do it again. I've seen it explained to you at least three times, with one being done myself. You're being willfully ignorant regarding why WoW and MMOs in general are largely bound to single-threaded performance.

dx12 isn't widely adapted yet but is the clear future as technology is always changing, and dx12 or maybe some other api will have better multi core functionality

but you're telling me that sticking with high single thread is the future despite everything we know about how dx12 and other multicore apus have been hyped for ever

I don't believe that anyone has said single-core strength is the future. I believe multiple people have said that single-core strength is important for WoW, which is why Ryzen isn't typically mentioned in builds of the month. We are a WoW fan site, remember?

oh, and those single thread scores are marginally better than the vast performance difference a multicore gets over lower number of cores, but yet the solo core is the better option?

See above.

oh, and 4k gaming, despite also being the future of gaming, vr gaming also being the future, both run better with more cores?

4k and VR are typically much more reliant upon the GPU than the CPU. Pushing more pixels taxes the GPU. There may be an argument for CPU usage as it relates to VR. I'm fairly ignorant in the field of VR at this point.

so lets recap shall we. the peasants in this thread want you to spend money on a cpu that is only going to benefit older games in a marginal way, with the huge drawback of not being able to support systems as well for dx12 or equivalent api, 4k gaming, or vr.

Again... try reading for once.

and im not the one who knows what he's talking about

Correct.

a new multicore api will come out or developers are working on AAA games with dx12 support (very likely), and if you're rocking something to get a few extra frames out of wow, you're gonna be left in the dust. not to mention blizzard has been hinting at dx12 support since 2014.

Yes. Eventually a lot of games will become more multi-core driven. This is highly arguable for MMOs based on code serialization for client-server security. This is now at least the fourth time it's been explained to you.

:thinking: guess I shoulda went with the Intel Pentium 4 670

you intel boys remind me of crack addicts. literally. there isn't high indie or aaa development for multicore support because the market share is for an inferior product so because of that the people buying up an inferior product catered to an old technology are making it more risky to develop for multi core.

and this is a good thing ??? because said inferior product runs better on inferior hardware?

ffs

If you read what people are saying, you'll understand why Intel is the stronger option for someone who mainly plays MMOs. Other games are at best 50/50 on whether stronger single-core or stronger multi-core performance will benefit, making AMD and Intel a wash (outside of cost) at this point. Outside of gaming, you either don't need a strong CPU because you're not doing anything intensive or you're doing something like video encoding or heavy multi-tasking, which leans toward multi-core performance. Everything is about use cases. Currently, an MMO player's use case requires a strong single-core performance. That's not arguable.

FFS indeed.

[Kagthul]

Cil, id point out that this guy says he increased the IPC of his Ryzen chip.

He really said that.

He's trolling. Plain and simple.

[mrgreenthump]

That is quite a graph.. I bet most users won't even bother to look at the number below.

[Cilraaz]

Cil, id point out that this guy says he increased the IPC of his Ryzen chip.

He really said that.

He's trolling. Plain and simple.

Ugh, I must have missed that.

That is quite a graph.. I bet most users won't even bother to look at the number below.

I had noticed that and questioned to myself why a 1 fps difference is nearly triple the bar length. That just screams bias.

[Gray_Matter]

If you read what people are saying, you'll understand why Intel is the stronger option for someone who mainly plays MMOs. Other games are at best 50/50 on whether stronger single-core or stronger multi-core performance will benefit, making AMD and Intel a wash (outside of cost) at this point. Outside of gaming, you either don't need a strong CPU because you're not doing anything intensive or you're doing something like video encoding or heavy multi-tasking, which leans toward multi-core performance. Everything is about use cases. Currently, an MMO player's use case requires a strong single-core performance. That's not arguable.

FFS indeed.

I haven't looked specifically at MMO's but I would change what you said slightly. I would say for older games, Intel is a stronger option. Things become grayer with the newer games. In some cases they favor multiple threads quite strongly. I would go so far as to say better than 50/50. Newer games, on average are probably 50/50 but there are certainly games where more cores are better just as there are cases (in new games) where single core strength is better. That goes for both the new AMD and new Intel processors.

For me, though, the argument is less about IPC/cores/etc and more about bang for buck. Not just on the CPU but the system as a whole. If you can get a cheaper CPU and use the different to get a better GPU then it might be more worthwhile to go that route. Regardless of brands. Unfortunately most benchmarking sites don't do those sort of comparisons. They only compare like for like.

[Cilraaz]

I haven't looked specifically at MMO's but I would change what you said slightly. I would say for older games, Intel is a stronger option.

And you would be wrong. For MMOs, it has nothing to do with the age of the game. It has to do with the nature of serialized client-server security. Check A must be done before procedure B can run before check C can be done before procedure D can run... and on and on. Without this structure, "hacking" (duping, bypassing things like a GCD, etc) becomes possible. When these things have to be done all in a row, they can't be multi-threaded, since they all have to run within the same thread in this serialized fashion. Unless developers find a way around this, which they've been trying for years (as evidenced by WoW spinning as much as possible into separate threads), this won't change.

Outside of MMOs, I did say that it's currently 50/50 on whether stronger single-core or multi-core would be better. I should have stated that this has steadily been leaning toward multi-core as development has evolved. You're right that it's definitely going that way. Unfortunately, MMOs remain the outlier.

For me, though, the argument is less about IPC/cores/etc and more about bang for buck. Not just on the CPU but the system as a whole. If you can get a cheaper CPU and use the different to get a better GPU then it might be more worthwhile to go that route.

I agree 100%. Everything is personal preference, budget-based, and use case-based. The entire question in this thread, though, was why Ryzen wasn't mentioned in the monthly builds. That falls back to Intel being better at nearly every price point for WoW. Yes, this is a very specific use case, but this is a WoW fan site. It would be up to chaud as to whether to include Ryzen in the future, whether in one/all of the brackets or in a bracket of its own.

[Gray_Matter]

And you would be wrong. For MMOs, it has nothing to do with the age of the game. It has to do with the nature of serialized client-server security. Check A must be done before procedure B can run before check C can be done before procedure D can run... and on and on. Without this structure, "hacking" (duping, bypassing things like a GCD, etc) becomes possible. When these things have to be done all in a row, they can't be multi-threaded, since they all have to run within the same thread in this serialized fashion. Unless developers find a way around this, which they've been trying for years (as evidenced by WoW spinning as much as possible into separate threads), this won't change.

But those things you mention are simple things for CPU's to do. Those would hardly tax the CPU. The complex parts would be the physics and graphics and the interaction between different events that effect those. There are also different ways of doing multi-threading. For example, one could thread a whole sequence of events. This is something like printing in Word where the whole printing process is farmed off to a different thread. You can also do multi-threading in a much more fine-grained manner. For example, if you need to convert a whole bunch of co-ordinates for display then you could put them in a vector and have different threads perform calculations on different blocks. So, hypothetically, the sequence might be "add 3", "multiply by 5" and "subtract 2". You could put 48k values in a vector and then use 4 threads to perform the operation on 4 portions of that vector. 12k each.

In WOW's case, they have huge amounts of legacy code so making these sort of changes is really hard. For a newer MMO, I can't see why they couldn't put this in up front. It's certainly not easy as you have to deal with race conditions, sequencing, etc. but it's very doable. That's why I said that it has a lot to do with newer vs older games. With any game there is always a sequence of events that must happen in a specific order, especially MMO's, but that doesn't mean that they can't use multiple threads within those events.

[Cilraaz]

In WOW's case, they have huge amounts of legacy code so making these sort of changes is really hard. For a newer MMO, I can't see why they couldn't put this in up front. It's certainly not easy as you have to deal with race conditions, sequencing, etc. but it's very doable. That's why I said that it has a lot to do with newer vs older games. With any game there is always a sequence of events that must happen in a specific order, especially MMO's, but that doesn't mean that they can't use multiple threads within those events.

I would agree with this, except that all modern MMOs have the same issue. FF14, GW2, SWTOR, Rift, etc all work in a similar fashion to WoW. They may have gotten slightly better at spinning off a bit more of that core thread, but they still have a huge amount of code stuck in a single main thread. I have a hard time believing Square Enix, NCSoft, Bioware, and Trion Worlds were all incapable of doing something that people are claiming is so easy to do.

[Merie]

The solution is Bliz needs to make WoW more efficient in its use of multicore processors. They did it once when they gave the game benefits for running dual core instead of single core. They even flat out made the game more efficient with patch 3.0, netting more performance for us with the same hardware. They can do it again.

[Cilraaz]

The solution is Bliz needs to make WoW more efficient in its use of multicore processors. They did it once when they gave the game benefits for running dual core instead of single core. They even flat out made the game more efficient with patch 3.0, netting more performance for us with the same hardware. They can do it again.

They've done it with every expansion. There's a limit to how much code they can spin out of the main thread, though. In WotLK, they spun out the sound thread and a few other minor threads. Moving sound functions out of the main thread was the largest multi-threading gain that we've gotten in the life of WoW. Since then, they've continued to figure out what minor things they can move out of the main thread, but it's been tiny bits. It really isn't as simple as "well, just make it use more threads".

[Deleted]

Worth pointing out but it's pretty clear that performance is close enough for Ryzen in single core. Or people wouldn't be arguing here.

Though I am wondering what other optimisation issues exist? Clearly the game is ancient. Some of the gpu utilisation is also weak. What will the future bring?

[Gray_Matter]

I would agree with this, except that all modern MMOs have the same issue. FF14, GW2, SWTOR, Rift, etc all work in a similar fashion to WoW. They may have gotten slightly better at spinning off a bit more of that core thread, but they still have a huge amount of code stuck in a single main thread. I have a hard time believing Square Enix, NCSoft, Bioware, and Trion Worlds were all incapable of doing something that people are claiming is so easy to do.

It's certainly not easy. It's probably the most complex area in software development. Very few software developers are capable or experienced at developing that way because you have to look at each instruction and understand how the data can change between those instructions. You don't want to start locking things because then you may as well be running in a single thread anyway. You don't want to be allocating or freeing memory because that often goes through a single thread and will just end up locking you again. Basically you need to look between each line of code and see what could change and how those changes would effect you.

For example, the following would be perfectly fine in a single thread but could cause all sorts of issues with multiple threads.

if (x = 1)
x++;

If x is something that is accessible across multiple threads then you could complete the first line and by the time the second line occurs, the value for x has changed. That's called a race condition. Programmers don't think that way normally so they have to change the way that they think but also take much longer with the code because of potential issues.

None of those MMO's you mentioned are new. They all have vast amounts of legacy code and will all suffer the same issues. Maybe not as much as WOW because it's older but they will still have the same limitations. It's only really in the last few years where the focus has changed to add more support for multiple threads. I would say that this is for 3 reasons. Firstly because of the increased availability of multiple core processors, secondly because of the slowing down of the IPC increases but mainly, I would say, because there are more libraries that insulate people from threaded programming.

[Pyrophobia]

The answer to OP questions is Fanboyism or ignorance. The same as why there is no RX 460/470/480-560/570/580 being suggested in the builds Instead ONLY 1050/1060 and 1070 are suggested.

I asked that question months ago and i was told "because RX series is not in stock in the US or is overpriced"

Almost every country has stuff not in stock or overpriced and atm 1060 and 1070 are also widely out of stock or overpriced but they are still being suggested at their MSRP while RX is excluded.

If that is not BIAS then it's Ignorance.

P.S. And suggesting that a 2 core vs a 4 core CPU at the same price "Because the 2 core has higher single thread performance" for a new build is also quite ignorant too. WoW can spread it's many treads to the other 3 cores freeing up processing power on the 1 core processing the main tread but a 2 core won't be able to do that and will get capped pretty easy.
It's ... get this CPU that will run WoW 2 fps faster in an ideal scenario but will be worse in everything else. GG

[Hoofey]

I don't believe that anyone has said single-core strength is the future. I believe multiple people have said that single-core strength is important for WoW, which is why Ryzen isn't typically mentioned in builds of the month. We are a WoW fan site, remember?

I honestly feel like recommending builds based solely on wow performance is a bit silly. Sure, it is a WoW fansite, but nowhere on the build of the month page does it say that the builds are specifically optimized for WoW.

Also, the builds are extremely bland and unimaginative. The differences between Dolphin and Unicorn lies mainly in the choice of case and other things that wont really impact your wow performance anyways, which makes the "this is a wow fansite" argument fall even shorter. My other issue with these builds is that they dont account for people who stream or do video-related stuff. Sure, a 7600k works for WoW, but when you start adding background processes, it does take a performance hit. A single note about streaming doesnt really do much for clueless people who are looking for advice.

So again, when you have an audience of several thousand people, people who probably do other things than just wow, you should at least try to be somewhat professional when recommending new pc builds to them. The build of the month page has been shunned by anyone who knows a thing or 2 about computers, with good reason. Whats the point of having a page that no one would recommend?

So yeah, the whole "Build of the month" page needs an overhaul, a refresh.
I think everyone would appreciate it if you guys actually made the builds a bit more diverse, from low-mid range to enthusiast. I mean, the Unicorn build is mid-range at the moment, and it really shouldn't be. Your Unicorn is a donkey at best right now.

[Thunderball]

Also, the builds are extremely bland and unimaginative.

That's unfortunate but that's the goal. Considering the amount of people who would see those builds you cannot afford to have anything that would cause any potential issues in them.

My other issue with these builds is that they dont account for people who stream or do video-related stuff. Sure, a 7600k works for WoW, but when you start adding background processes, it does take a performance hit. A single note about streaming doesnt really do much for clueless people who are looking for advice.

Those people shouldnt be accounted for, they are an extremely small category.

So again, when you have an audience of several thousand people, people who probably do other things than just wow, you should at least try to be somewhat professional when recommending new pc builds to them. The build of the month page has been shunned by anyone who knows a thing or 2 about computers, with good reason. Whats the point of having a page that no one would recommend?

There is a subforum for that. If you're looking to customize the build for your specific needs you can always do that there. Yes, builds of the month cannot be recommended but I very much doubt that there is a single user on this forum who would stand in to improve it, it's a daunting task.

Also, I dont get what would people do with it. There are no cookie cutter midrange builds right now, it very much depends on specific usecase, but for WoW those builds are pretty close to optimal: there is no point of getting anything AMD or a 7700K for WoW (WoW doesnt really benefit from HT either). Yes, case and cooler selections are odd, but those are there because people know those products, and would buy those without a question.

So yeah, the whole "Build of the month" page needs an overhaul, a refresh.
I think everyone would appreciate it if you guys actually made the builds a bit more diverse, from low-mid range to enthusiast. I mean, the Unicorn build is mid-range at the moment, and it really shouldn't be. Your Unicorn is a donkey at best right now.

7600K is the best value you can get for WoW.

[Hoofey]

I agree that having recommendations for specific builds is hard to manage, but right now we have 3 builds that are almost identical with only minor changes to gfx cards / ram / storage. Whats the point in having 3 builds that are almost the same performancewise? Thats the issue I have at the moment. The Unicorn could easily have been a 7700K / 1080 build that adds a bit more horsepower instead of thinking value on every single build. After all, it is supposed to be the "best" build.

Those people shouldnt be accounted for, they are an extremely small category.

Its not only about the streamers, its about futureproofing your rig as well. People dont really buy a new pc that often, so you want to make sure that the stuff they buy wont suddenly become outdated 1-2 years later. The focus is shifting towards more cores, and the game industry will follow soon enough. A 6 core Ryzen is more than good enough for WoW while being 20% +/- behind a 7600k, but at the same time you futureproof your rig for upcoming technology. Just take those 8k youtube vids that completely wrecks any 4 core as a worst case scenario example.

I just feel that its silly to recommend a new pc build based on whats best at this very moment instead of thinking ahead, especially now that the market is shifting towards more cores. With Coffee Lake closing in, they got the perfect opportunity to make some decent changes to the BOTM page that could add more diversity for all gamers and not just WoW players.