It's been an interesting year for AMD in the DIY builder space. The every man chip that seems to get recommended at every turn is the 3600X (or 3600 if you're partial to Gamers Nexus). Most of big ticket builds seem to be opting for a 3900X these days. That, however, is a fickle market and subject to the kind of fandom where lines are drawn on brand loyalty that no manner of contrary evidence will shift. As an enthusiast market, let 'em have at it. The saltiness in comment threads can be comedy gold. The day that Intel launches a 12-core + CPU on 10mm, it'll be the belle of the ball for all of the next-gen big ticket builds. Swings and roundabouts.

AMD are starting to make some waves in the hyperscale DC with EPYC Rome. The real fun starts if that progress translates into your corporate workhorses starting to opt for EPYC over Xeon in their data centres. Intel are a big company to take down a peg, and have had little motivation to innovate any more than needed. AMD also have a bit of a history of doing amazing things and then dropping the ball in spectacular fashion, which is a candle that no corporate buyer wants to be holding when they've pumped a ton of capex into a 5 year deal pinned on fleet maintenance. Intel might not be dynamic, but at least you know what you're buying into. I think that the same translates to those making the purchasing decisions for corporate users. For enthusiasts, what your machine runs on is a big deal. For everyone else, as long as it switches on and lets you get through a working day without going tits up, who cares? And if it does, it needs to be fixed or replaced before you start falling behind on work. That also trends toward buying patterns that focus on known good config.

It's a fun market to watch. If I were back in my old role, I'd be looking for EPYC solutions in my servers and attempting to wrestle a few test laptops with Ryzen 4000 CPU's next year, even if only to worry my boss.