Discussion 9600X, 14600K or 9700K?

[Barry_4]

These three chips are neck and neck in gaming.

14600K is the cheapest at $220, 9600X at $250 and 9700X is at $320. 14600K is the clear value champ.

In terms of power consumption, the AMD chips are lower at gaming loads but higher at idle, so I'd call that even.

 

[logainofhades]

9700x is AM5 giving you an upgrade path. 14600k you don't get a real upgrade path, and the jury is still out whether Intel's fix for degredation actually fixed anything.

 

[Barry_4]

9700x is AM5 giving you an upgrade path. 14600k you don't get a real upgrade path, and the jury is still out whether Intel's fix for degredation actually fixed anything.

Cheap for a reason.

 

[bill001g]

Going to greatly depend on the video card you are using, what games you play and what resolutions you use. Many times the cpu is not very important if you are running 1440 or 4k video. The gpu is holding the game back this is even true if you have a 4090.

 

[Barry_4]

Going to greatly depend on the video card you are using, what games you play and what resolutions you use. Many times the cpu is not very important if you are running 1440 or 4k video. The gpu is holding the game back this is even true if you have a 4090.

I will personally game at 1440p and have a mid range GPU in the class of 4070 or maybe 4080. That means the weakest of the bunch (9600X) will do just fine. The benchmarks show these 3 CPUs neck and neck in gaming even with 4090 at 720p.

 

[logainofhades]

I wouldn't want a 6 core chip, in 2025. Benchmarks don't give you real world use case. Clean install of windows with as little as possible running in the background. If budget is tight, I would choose a 12700k, over a 14600k. Gaming is close, it's slightly cheaper, and no worry about degredation that 13th and 14th gen suffer from.

 

[Barry_4]

I wouldn't want a 6 core chip, in 2025. Benchmarks don't give you real world use case. Clean install of windows with as little as possible running in the background. If budget is tight, I would choose a 12700k, over a 14600k. Gaming is close, it's slightly cheaper, and no worry about degredation that 13th and 14th gen suffer from.

14600 has those E cores, should help right?

 

[logainofhades]

Gaming mostly focuses on the P cores, which the 12700k has 8 vs 6. E-cores can be useful for workstation tasks, but I have yet to see where they make an impact for gaming.