Topic: AMD vs. Intel/Geforce (computer talk, yay!)

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@Joeynator3000 There's been a lot of bias against AMD over the years, but they're steadily coming back into their own recently. All of the tech companies have their issues. However, AMD currently offers the cheapest bang-for-buck parts one can buy. There are a lot of different issues to cover, but I can make a few (okay more than a few lol) suggestions to start off with.

As you no doubt have already figured out, the discrete GPU market is currently in an awful state, largely due to the effects of supply and demand. Miners and others buy out tons of cards with decent or better mining/compute performance, remaining ones shoot up in price to unconscionable levels... Even certain older cards such as my R9 380X have shot up to nearly twice their original retail price. The only ones that are relatively unscathed are budget cards and certain lower mid-range cards which are not optimized for mining, usually due to not being able to draw power from PCI-E 6-pin cables. I would recommend waiting until the current situation blows over if you want a high powered card for a good price... Otherwise, you're looking at cheaper options.

For example, since you mentioned the RX 560:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150...

These are the lower end variety with 4GB of VRAM, sold for $160+. So they don't quite match up to, say, the Sapphire Pulse variety, but they're still serviceable. To compare this relatively to what you currently have:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-560-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti-vs-AMD...

It's not too much of an upgrade, honestly. The extra 2GB of VRAM is the only really significant boost here. But everything above this is much more expensive right now. For example, the aforementioned GTX 1050 Ti, such as this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487...

Is commonly sold for $260+ right now. It's better than the RX 560, but not $100 better unless you have spare cash to burn. Although if you do, by all means- only about 3-4% of all users on Steam are recorded as using a GTX 1070 or higher. Thus, the GTX 1050 Ti and it's competitor, the RX 570, are right in there with the level of performance expected to be aimed at the majority of the population for current games (for now).

Ultimately, it really depends on which programs you're going to use the card for. You could stick with your current card until the next generation of GPU's releases later this year if you mostly play older games, or newer ones on medium settings. The RX 560 is enough to run many current games at medium or high settings at 60 FPS, depending on the game. For example:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/DOOM/

People have been impressed that the NS can run DOOM after a downgrade... Well, the minimum requirements on PC aren't all that high. An RX560 can run DOOM and many other titles @ 60+ FPS on medium settings. Can't always reach high settings like an RX580 or GTX 1060, but certainly serviceable for the time being. If you want something better... Again, I would suggest waiting for later on this year, when the next generation of GPU's hit retail.

Onto CPU's, AMD has vastly improved their offerings with the Ryzen series. The main Ryzen 2 processor lineup is going to be released in April, and the Raven Ridge APU's will release around Feb. 12, so I would hold off for reviews of them before getting anything. It's also worth keeping in mind that non-X marked AMD CPU's/APU's will come with a stock cooler, same as with non-K marked Intel CPU's. So take this all into consideration versus the current Coffee Lake CPU's.

Again, there are several considerations here, depending on your budget. If you're fine with a quad core CPU for now, would rather wait out the GPU apocalypse, and can stomache sub-60 FPS in newer titles but close to minimum 30 FPS at medium settings on titles like Witcher 3, you may be fine with an R5 2400G for $170. (There's also the 2200G for $100, which will possibly become the budget darling CPU/APU of the year, but it's iGPU is only going to be useful for older or less demanding titles, such as those in the MOBA genre.)

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-ryzen-5-2400g-vs-core-i...

Raven Ridge CPU/APU's come with a built-in Vega iGPU which is vastly superior to Intel's iGPU's, and could potentially be used as your primary GPU, while your current GTX 750 Ti could be used for PhysX calculations or NVIDIA- preferring titles. This can be useful for certain DirectX11 titles, but it's a more noticeable benefit for DirectX12 and Vulcan supported titles. For what it's worth, this iGPU can also run older titles like Skyrim at above 60 FPS.

These CPU's are basically a minor upgrade of last year's R3 1200 and R5 1400, plus an iGPU on par with some of NVIDIA's gaming laptop GPU's, for a similar MSRP. If there are any "buy a CPU, get reduced price on motherboard" deals like there was last year (I got $50 off my mobo when I got R5 1600 back when it launched), this might be an exceptionally good deal, if you don't feel that you need a hexa-core or higher CPU yet, and want to hold off on a new discrete GPU for now.

Alternatively, the hexa-core R5 1600, the price/performance king of 2017, has now been price dropped to $190. I've found it to be quite reliable myself, using it in my system. However, there are driver updates to be done to get it up to speed, so there is that extra hassle involved. Most games aren't currently using more than what quad cores provide, but that will change by next year. Quad cores will likely need to be replaced sooner than hexa-cores or higher, but they have life left in them yet.

Now, as for Coffee Lake CPU's... It again depends on whether you're satisfied with a quad core CPU for now, and if you want to overclock or not.

If yes to the former and no to the latter, then the $180 Core i3-8350K is worth your consideration. It's performance lands between last year's Core i5-7600K and Core i7-7800K. This is really a good deal, considering quad cores were so overpriced last year. (But you'll need to buy a decent aftermarket cooler, which adds at least another $35.)

Why not the similarly priced Core i5-8400, touted as being one of the cheapest hexa core CPU's, for about $10 more? Because it only has a base clock of a measly 2.8 GHz, while the Core i3-8350k has a base clock of 4.0 GHz! The cheaper chip is actually better for gaming if you're not overclocking, in this case. In addition, if you don't buy a $100+ motherboard for improved VRM's (voltage regulation modules), going for a budget board instead, then only 1 core out of the 6 in the Core i5-8400 (or the non-K Core i7-8700, for that matter) will stay boosted up to the maximum clock; the other 5 cores will sag back down to the stock clock after a period of time if the VRM's aren't built to properly handle more than a few cores at a time. By contrast, the quad-core i3 won't present the upcoming $60-90 B- or H- 370 series motherboards with this problem.

As another possibility, there are upcoming Coffee Lake-G series CPU's with integrated Vega iGPU's, just like Raven Ridge has. (Crazy times, I know!) This will probably be a more expensive (and more powerful) alternative to the Ryzen G-series CPU/APU's, providing similar benefits to your setup, and allowing you to wait out the GPU market storm.

This post is already waaaaaaaaaay too long, so I'll leave it at that. Let me know if you wanted any other suggestions.