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.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

If price is a concern but you want more cores you might look at the 7700x. I think it’s only about 10 behind the 9700x so might be worth considering if you can get a good deal especially since it would still get you on am5.

 

[Barry_4]

If price is a concern but you want more cores you might look at the 7700x. I think it’s only about 10 behind the 9700x so might be worth considering if you can get a good deal especially since it would still get you on am5.

Games don't really use more than 6 cores now. As for the future, who knows.

 

[Phanom1999]

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.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Perhaps but it might be that games are slightly smoother etc with more cores. Especially if you are doing other things in the background. But don’t get me wrong 6 should be enough. I’ve got a 7600x3d in my own rig and it’s a great cpu.

 

[Barry_4]

Perhaps but it might be that games are slightly smoother etc with more cores. Especially if you are doing other things in the background. But don’t get me wrong 6 should be enough. I’ve got a 7600x3d in my own rig and it’s a great cpu.

Haven't seen 7600x3d much. Is that a Microcenter only chip? There is a location about 30 minutes away, I may go check it out.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I’m pretty sure the one by me is out. I got one on a combo. Paid 464 I think plus tax for one with an asus tuf gaming b650 plus WiFi board and 32gb Corsair rgb ram. I think benchmarks put it about 10% behind the 7800x3d.

 

[Barry_4]

I’m pretty sure the one by me is out. I got one on a combo. Paid 464 I think plus tax for one with an asus tuf gaming b650 plus WiFi board and 32gb Corsair rgb ram. I think benchmarks put it about 10% behind the 7800x3d.

Bought most of the components for my last built at Microcenter. But I only build a PC once every 5-8 years, I completely forgot about them LOL. They have good deals sometimes. I will go check it out this weekend, maybe I will get lucky!

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I looked online and the one here is indeed out it appears. If I needed a pc today I’d probably get this bundle.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...ies-32gb-ddr5-6000-kit,-computer-build-bundle

For 30 more you can get the 9700x.

I think we think a little differently. Like me, I like to upgrade more frequently then sell the parts while they’ve still got value.

For example last year I built a ddr4 Intel box with a 12600kf cpu and a 6800 xt gpu and 32gb ram. Perfectly reasonable build and would have been fine a couple more years really. But I started wanting a cpu upgrade. Ended up hearing about potential issues with Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs.

I ended up selling the 12600kf for about 100 dollars but I bought an i5 12400, since I was needing to put together a pc for my wife’s home office since her old computer is 11-12 years old now and won’t update to windows 11.

So in short I built myself a new pc with the 7600x3d, 32gb ram and the asus board I said earlier. Bought a cheap black case for my wife’s new/recycled pc and am reusing my old z690 board, 32gb ddr4 ram and letting it run on the i5 12400 since its low wattage and has an igpu.

Here’s the real kicker. I bought my 6800xt for about 439 last year new. I ended up buying a new 7900xtx for 799.99 from Microcenter, but the wild part is I turned around and sold my 6800xt and I sold it for with that I made up about half the cost of my 7900xtx. Effectively I rented the 6800xt for a year for 30-40 dollars.

That may not be how everyone does things but I tend to sell my old parts before they’re too far out of date to fund my upgrade. So I can keep a pretty new system with incremental upgrades doing that method.

 

[Barry_4]

I looked online and the one here is indeed out it appears. If I needed a pc today I’d probably get this bundle.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...ies-32gb-ddr5-6000-kit,-computer-build-bundle

For 30 more you can get the 9700x.

I think we think a little differently. Like me, I like to upgrade more frequently then sell the parts while they’ve still got value.

For example last year I built a ddr4 Intel box with a 12600kf cpu and a 6800 xt gpu and 32gb ram. Perfectly reasonable build and would have been fine a couple more years really. But I started wanting a cpu upgrade. Ended up hearing about potential issues with Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs.

I ended up selling the 12600kf for about 100 dollars but I bought an i5 12400, since I was needing to put together a pc for my wife’s home office since her old computer is 11-12 years old now and won’t update to windows 11.

So in short I built myself a new pc with the 7600x3d, 32gb ram and the asus board I said earlier. Bought a cheap black case for my wife’s new/recycled pc and am reusing my old z690 board, 32gb ddr4 ram and letting it run on the i5 12400 since its low wattage and has an igpu.

Here’s the real kicker. I bought my 6800xt for about 439 last year new. I ended up buying a new 7900xtx for 799.99 from Microcenter, but the wild part is I turned around and sold my 6800xt and I sold it for with that I made up about half the cost of my 7900xtx. Effectively I rented the 6800xt for a year for 30-40 dollars.

That may not be how everyone does things but I tend to sell my old parts before they’re too far out of date to fund my upgrade. So I can keep a pretty new system with incremental upgrades doing that method.

That's a good way to do it but too much work for me. I can't be bother to sell used parts let alone ripping motherboards out of a system. I build a system and leave it alone for a while.

Now, I completely forgot about microcenter s bundle deals. That change things. I see they have a 7800x3d bundle for 600. I may be able to pull that off and still stay within the budget. Only thing I don't like in the bundle is the RAM is CL 32 instead of 30 but probably has no effect on real world usage.

 

[logainofhades]

On an x3d chip, the CL32 shouldn't affect you much. They are a bit more forgiving on ram.