TheTopMostDog :
...If you look up the AdoredTV channel I suggested, the bloke shows how even the infamous bulldozer (famous for being disappointing) has actually outscaled its competition (the i5-2500k) in the last few years, because of the multithread advances for games (it was 6core; the i5: 4). Games running better on multithreaded chips is a given, a guarantee; it is only a matter of time. ...Especially given that AMD have been setting this whole thing up for a very long time; they're out to grab Intel by the throat. Even the next gen consoles are going to be running Zen technology, meaning console games will inherently optimize for PC also. AMD will not let gaming performance fall by the wayside when they are hugely relying on that gaming market for mind share. They've already announced they're donating 1000+ systems to dev teams so that they can optimize their games for Ryzen. There's also 350 something different software packs to help implement their optmimizations. I digress- just look up the videos I suggested, it's all there.
Alas, OP didn't ask us for advice on the 7700k; I was merely clearing up a misconception about its performance - if you do enough research, you'll also come to the conclusion I have. I am not a biased person, I am just sticking to the facts. Back on topic, if you have to choose between the 1700 and the 1700x, pick the non-x. If you do want alternatives, perhaps wait for either Intel's 8xxx series (promising same core perf at 15% lower clocks) or keep an eye out for the 1500 or 1600 Ryzen CPUs coming soon; they are clocked higher albiet have two less cores than the R7's. I personally will be buying a 1700 and overclocking the snot out of it (gamersnexus show it on par with the 1800x in games when done right). That's my two cents.
I do believe that this is the video that you're talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylvdSnEbL50
This video was perhaps the most amazing thing I've seen in investigative tech reporting since Charlie Demerjian exposed nVidia's shady practices towards reviewers. He pointed out that low-resolution gaming benchmarks weren't nearly as conclusive as the tech press considered them to be because even on low-resolution graphics, the more advanced GPUs still made a huge difference regardless of the CPU involved. I honestly think that he's right and that very soon, the R7 will completely outdo the i7 and there will no looking back.
Remember, game developers are developing games for consoles first. This is because piracy isn't an issue on the PS4 and Xbox One like it is on the PC. After the developers make their money on console sales, they'll release PC versions since piracy won't be able to cut into profits they've already made.
Since consoles now use AMD64 parts, the main body of source code won't need to be changed and porting will be a breeze. Only the interface sections of the code would need to be modified or redone to allow the games to interface with Windows instead of whatever OS the PS4 and Xbox One use. This means that in an effort to make the games as great as possible, they will be optimised for 8-cores because the APU that they use is the AMD 8-core Jaguar. The more threaded the game is, the better it will be at leveraging the strengths of both the PS4 and Xbox One.
The Jaguar cores being used do not have a high clock speed but there are a lot of them, similar to a server CPU. This means that the single-thread performance of high-clocked Intel CPUs will be badly beaten by the more heavily threaded AMD CPUs by a mile. To know just how much, take a look at the result of a multithreaded handbrake test.
This essentially means that almost all PC games will be console ports going forward because the porting will be a piece of cake compared to porting an older game for a console that used the RISC-based IBM PowerPC CPU for instance. For me personally, this would be especially good because it would extend the life of my FX-8350 even further. It already games perfectly in any game and I haven't even felt the need to overclock it because it also makes Windows fly (my SSD also plays a huge part in that). I just think of how hard I would laugh if I read the benchmarks one day and saw it beating the "magical" i7-7700K in even just one game.
Intel fanboys laughed at AMD's conquest of the console market, saying "That's the only way AMD can make a buck!". The funny thing is that they were right, it was the only way that AMD could make a buck at the time but it was also a part of a grand strategy that has worked perfectly thus far.
In the end it won't make much difference because a fast CPU does not a gaming PC make. It's just as true now as it has always been that if you want to build the best gaming rig you can for your money, you always go GPU-heavy and CPU-average. That's what the games need and anything more than an average CPU will be power that you paid for that the game will be unable to turn into performance.