Question 3700x or 3900x long term, motherboard advise

st4lk3r

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Aug 31, 2019
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So I recently decided to get a new rig. I was almost sure I'll get the 3700x But I came to the realization that I probably won't buy another PC for another 7-9 years. So I started thinking is it worth getting the 3900x. I'll be using the PC mostly for gaming (Mosty for SP games 1440P 144Hz) and for digital art (Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop).

Now is it worth it to get 3900X over the 3700X for what I'll be doing? Is the 3900x overkill for those means?

My budget is around 1500$, sadly I'm not from the USA so all the parts have an increased price around 20-30% compared Amazon/Newegg parts. So the X570 boards that cost 200-250$ in the USA, for me they're 320-370$. So I was looking at the low end tier of X570. From what I've seen it they can handle the 3900x even OC'd.

I currently have 1070 and I am probably gonna get a new GPU next year. I've seen some speculation about next gen GPU's utilizing Pcie 4.0 so this is why I was considering X570.


This is what I was considering to buy:

CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900x/3700x

Motherboard - MPG X570 GAMING PLUS/ASRock X570 PRO4/Gigabyte X570 GAMING X (these boards are all around 210-230$)

PSU - Focus Plus 750W Gold SSR-750FX

RAM - Kingston HyperX Fury RGB 32GB (4x8) 3466/CL16

SSD - ADATA ASX8200PNP-512GT-C SSD 512GB M.2 (old HDD for storage)

CASE - NZXT H500 (I'm reconsidering this because of airflow and size)

GPU - Keeping my old EVGA 1070 SC until next year
 
ZBrush and Maya can benefit from the additional cores. It wouldn't be a waste there.

Games are getting better at utilizing multiple cores. I wouldn't be surprised if the additional cores will become useful there too. During the projected use life.

Except for a small number of tasks. Photoshop maxes out at four cores. There are a handful which can make use of the additional cores. It will likely get better at utilizing more cores but not to a significant degree.

Is it worth it? I couldn't say. That is a personal choice and any future benefits is guess work. There could be some new software that comes out during that time you want which requires a new computer regardless of the specs you choose now. Plus there is no way of knowing where you will be financially in that time frame. In five years you may be in a position to buy a $5000 computer. Also in five years you can likely pick up a used Ryzen 3950x on the cheap off eBay.
 

Kiril1512

Distinguished
If you go 8 years back, the top tier CPU for example Intel was I7-2700K. So this was like the 3900X is today, it's expensive but good. You can see that there is a lot of folks that are still on that 2700k because maybe they did the same as you want (buy a high end pc and switch it in 8-10 years). So after all this years they have a decent CPU, obviously today is no mach for CPU's like 3900X or the 9900K but back then it was the investment for the future.

I think you should go for the 3900X because of the period you will be not consider to upgrade and for like he said:

ZBrush and Maya can benefit from the additional cores. It wouldn't be a waste there.

Games are getting better at utilizing multiple cores. I wouldn't be surprised if the additional cores will become useful there too. During the projected use life.
 
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jon96789

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Aug 17, 2019
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Avoid the mid-tier and low-tier MSI motherboards... They have a cheap volt regulator design which causes them to overheat under load, which will make your CPU throttle back on its speed...
 
If you've got the extra $150 or so , and have a quality mainboard approved/tested with 3900X and known NOT to almost melt it's PCB under a 3900X moderatly heavy load....then by all means, 12 cores/24 threads ought to stand a great chance of some longevity....