In my guide for building a setup for gaming/streaming, I talked a lot about Intel processors and in my i5/i7 comparison post, I talked up the similarities and differences of both. I'm realizing that I completely left out one other chip maker: AMD. There were a couple of reasons for this. The first being is my series was written and released before the advent of Ryzen, their newest generation of CPU'S. Ryzen is a game changer because prior to it, AMD simply was not competing and was not trying to compete that Intel held for most applications. Because of this lack of competition, there was never proper support for features on motherboards that Intel users enjoyed for many years. Therefore, it was always tough to recommend AMD. Since that is no longer the case, let's break it down.
There are 3 tiers of processors that AMD offers under the Ryzen line: Ryzen 3,5, and 7. It is very similar to Intel i3/5/7 naming scheme and just like Intel, as you go up a tier, you get a much better processor. Ryzen 3 are 2-4 core processors, without AMD's version of hyperthreading (remember: hyperthreading creates a virtual thread for every physical CPU core to double the number of available threads). Ryzen 3 is suitable for stream-only applications much like the i5. The Ryzen 5 processor is 6 core processors with hyperthreading, which equate to a total of 12 threads. Ryzen 7 is an 8 core processor that with hyperthreading equals 16 threads.
Whats amazing about AMD's offerings is that they offer the same or more cores as Intel's offerings, while also being cheaper than Intel. This competition in the market means that Intel must either increase its core count offered or lowered prices. When companies compete, the consumers win. For the budget gamer, the Ryzen 3 is the cheapest (even cheaper than i3) option for a streaming-only box, while the Ryzen 5/7 gives you the room to have an all in one gaming and streaming machine without it ever breaking a sweat.
This is great because now your decision can be based mostly on the features that each platform offers instead of defaulting to Intel due to lack of competition. If you don’t desire specific features (such as U.2 ports) you can pick the cheaper option. If you do need specific features, you adjust your budget accordingly. Options are great. But none of this matters unfortunately if computer components are priced out of proportion, then it is probably not a great idea to even build your next PC right now. This is for two reasons. One is the price of flash memory being priced high due to a shortage of overall flash. Another reason is the insane pricing of Graphics cards due to the cryptocurrency craze. But when prices come back down to reasonable level, you will be able to have a legitimate conversation about what your next system should be. Team Red Vs Team Blue!