hobbledehoy899 wrote:Off-topic:
I don't know if you can actually answer this, but the way you phrased that post would imply you could... What do you think of Ryzen and would you recommend it for reasons other than not being Intel chips?
In general, yes - but it depends what you're looking for. Ryzen has some areas where it's a bit stronger than Intel CPUs, and some areas where it's a bit weaker. For single threaded stuff, Core is generally a bit better than Ryzen. However for multi-threaded workloads, Ryzen is often stronger and you usually get more cores for your money. For example, for what I paid for my 8-core Ryzen CPU last month, I could only get a 4-core Intel CPU for the same price.
Of course, performance is currently a bit more of a toughy as the overall impact of the Meltdown fixes is not yet fully understood, so checking out benchmarks over the next month or so on systems where Meltdown patches have been applied would be a good idea. But in short, Ryzen is a good CPU for the money. Whether it's best for you depends on what you use your computer for, and what your budget is.