Question Best Affordable fast CPU in near future?

[kirkdickinson]

I usually build myself my personal workstation. I do a lot in the Adobe suite of programs... Photoshop, Premere, Lightroom, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc... I sometimes work with very large Photoshop files with a lot of layers and also have a lot of programs open at the same time.

I try to go fairly bleeding edge and overbuild it and keep it for a while. Usually 4-5 years. In 2012, I built a i7-3930K 16Gig Ram, etc... I used it for 10 years. There were faster multithreaded processors, but for a long time that one had better single thread performance than a lot of other options. Photoshop seems to perform better on very fast single thread than it does on massive multithread.

In 2022, I built a Ryzen 5900X, ASRock X570 Taishi Razer, RTX 3070, 64GB RAM, 1 TB M.2, plus a 216 TB M.2 just for swap and temp files.

Probably the end of this year or the first or next year, I want to build a new computer. I am currently looking at Ryzen 9950X and ASRock X670E Taichi with the rest of the components to be determined.

I haven't been keeping track of rumors on future CPU's. I wonder if there is something that will make a major advance in performance on the horizon and not be crazy expensive.

 

[Lutfij]

I would avoid ASRock motherboards due to an issue with their BIOS(and effectively 9000 series processors on their sockets) in favor of MSI or Gigabyte. If productivity is the majority of your workload, look no further than the X3D SKU's i.e if you're looking a 9950X, then the 9950X3D is the one to get. Pair it with an X870 chipset or a B850 chipset motherboard with a beefy RM design.

Pertaining to the ram to tie in with your motherboard and CPU purchase, look for dual channel DDR5-6000MHz~6600MHz tight latencied ram kits with AMD's E.X.P.O advertised on them to ensure you've got the most out of your platform and you won't run into compatibility issues.

You could pair an X670/ B650 chipset motherboard but you will need to flash the BIOS before you can drop in the 9000 series processor into the socket.

One question from me, to make sure we're looking at the same page. You state affordable yet the 9950X isn't a cheap processor(when compared to everything else in the market that can do what the 9950X can do), so do you have a budget you want to stay below?

The 9950X3D isn't a cheaper processor either;
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Pk...x3d-43-ghz-16-core-processor-100-100000719wof
but it's miles above everything in the market. If time is money for you...you're going to churn through your tsks with ease and hopefully retain your platform for years like you've done prior.

 

[kirkdickinson]

I have ASRock mobos in about half the computers in my office. A couple Asus and maybe a Gigabyte. I had never used ASRock before about 5 years ago and the first one was the only one that ticked all the boxes and it seemed to work good, so I have been leaning toward using them. I haven't had any problems with them so far, but also haven't ran any of them with 9000 series.

Affordable/Price to me is a tough one to answer. When I look at Passmark scores for CPU's some of the highest performing ones listed are into the 1000's of dollars. I went down the list until I found one that I thought I could afford. The 9950X

Is the difference between the 9950X and the 9950X3D just that it has video capability built in? I have been avoiding built in video for years, but am not against using it if it performs well enough to run my graphics needs. Are the built in graphics as good or better than a separate card costing $380/ish?

Or am I misunderstanding the difference between them?

 

[kirkdickinson]

I asked ChatGPT

If I purchased a AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and added a video card with the price difference vs a AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, would the separate cpu and gpu perform better than the integrated cpu

ChatGPT said:

Yes, purchasing the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (non-X3D) and pairing it with a dedicated GPU using the money saved can absolutely result in better performance—especially for gaming and GPU-intensive tasks.

Here’s a breakdown of how they compare:
🔹 Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Strengths: Exceptional for gaming due to the 3D V-Cache which improves game performance, especially in CPU-limited titles.

Integrated Graphics: Yes, but basic (RDNA2 with 2 compute units).

Drawbacks: More expensive; weaker in multicore productivity than the non-X3D version due to slightly lower clock speeds.

🔹 Ryzen 9 9950X + Dedicated GPU

Strengths:

The 9950X has higher base and boost clocks, making it better for multi-core workloads like rendering, compiling, and encoding.

With the savings from skipping the X3D model, you can buy a decent GPU (like an RX 7700 XT or RTX 4070), resulting in better gaming performance than the iGPU in the X3D model.

Drawbacks: Slightly lower performance in select CPU-bound games compared to the X3D model alone (if GPU is already top-tier).

✔️ Verdict

If you’re building a balanced system, especially for productivity + gaming, the Ryzen 9 9950X with a discrete GPU is usually the better route.

If you’re looking for the absolute best frame rates in CPU-bound games and already have a powerful GPU, the 9950X3D may edge ahead.

Would you like help picking a GPU to match your budget and goals?

 

[TerryLaze]

I haven't been keeping track of rumors on future CPU's. I wonder if there is something that will make a major advance in performance on the horizon and not be crazy expensive.

ZEN 6 will go from 8core ccx to 12core ccx, so maybe more cores for the same price.
Intel will release CPUs based on their 18A node at the end of this year but high end desktop could be beginning of the next.
Either way there is no way of knowing if any of it will make any major difference for your case. (or any case other than heavy multicore)

Also for your work, photoshop and stuff have a good read on this site, and not just this article go through all of their recent stuff to get a good overview.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D Content Creation Review

AMD's 9950X3D and 9900X3D are the best CPUs in the world for gaming. But does that come at the cost of content creation performance?

www.pugetsystems.com

 

[Eximo]

X3D is not video, but 3-Dimensional cache memory stacked on top of the CPU. For gaming it means more of the game engine's code can be stored inside the CPU, thus reducing memory calls. This helps some applications, but not all as you can see from the pugetbench results.

I recently built an editing workstation with a 9950X + 4080 Super. Perfectly serviceable. Now getting a hold of an RTX 5080/4090/5090 for a reasonable sum, issue.

 

[kirkdickinson]

My current computer is in my sig. I want to build something that is significantly faster for my next computer.

Do any of the current chipsets support quad channel RAM short of Threadripper or Epic CPUS?

 

[kirkdickinson]

X3D is not video, but 3-Dimensional cache memory stacked on top of the CPU. For gaming it means more of the game engine's code can be stored inside the CPU, thus reducing memory calls. This helps some applications, but not all as you can see from the pugetbench results.

I recently built an editing workstation with a 9950X + 4080 Super. Perfectly serviceable. Now getting a hold of an RTX 5080/4090/5090 for a reasonable sum, issue.

So if I don't play games at all, there wouldn't be much reason to upgrade from 9950X to 9950X3D?

 

[kirkdickinson]

Here is my build list on Newegg right now...

Newegg PC Builder Component List: https://newegg.io/ff5a0fa

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Ryzen 9 9000 Series Granite Ridge (Zen 5) 16-Core 4.3 GHz - Socket AM5 170W - Radeon Graphics Processor - 100-100001277WOF ($539.99)
Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E CARBON WIFI DDR5 AM5 AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series SATA 6Gb/s ATX Motherboards, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G Network Solution. ($479.99)
Memory: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo Series 64GB (2 x 32GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000) Desktop Memory Model F5-6000J2636H32GX2-TZ5NR ($349.99)
Graphics Cards: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 WINDFORCE 2X OC 12G Graphics Card, 2x WINDFORCE Fans, 12GB 192-bit GDDR6X, GV-N4070WF2OC-12GD Video Card ($699.00)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Series PH-ES614P_BK Black Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case ($132.99)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GT 850W ATX 3.1 Standard Power Supply; 80 Plus Gold Efficiency; Smart Zero Fan; Native 450W PCIe 5.1 Connector; PS-TPT-0850FNFAGU-3 ($131.95)
Storage: Western Digital WD_Blue SN580 M.2 2280 250GB PCI-Express 4.0 x4 TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) WDS250G3B0E ($48.59)
Storage: SAMSUNG 990 PRO 2TB SSD, PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280, Seq. Read Speeds Up-to 7,450MB/s for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations (MZ-V9P2T0B/AM) Non-Heatsink ($169.99)
Total: $2,540.49

 

[Eximo]

So if I don't play games at all, there wouldn't be much reason to upgrade from 9950X to 9950X3D?

You can read through that Puget System's article. If you use any of those programs you might see some benefit. But the higher clock speed on both CCXs of the 9950X vs the one X3D CCX and one normal CCX on the 9950X3D can be faster. It is situational.

I probably wouldn't get such an expensive motherboard myself. Presumably there is a SAS or RAID controller going in for the drive bays. As long as you have the appropriate PCIe lanes you should be good on that front. X670E is just a dual X670 chipset that share the same connection the one CPU. So while you get lots of expansion, you don't get more bandwidth. Threadripper might be something to consider for your use case.

You will also need a CPU cooler.

 

[kirkdickinson]

You can read through that Puget System's article. If you use any of those programs you might see some benefit. But the higher clock speed on both CCXs of the 9950X vs the one X3D CCX and one normal CCX on the 9950X3D can be faster. It is situational.

I probably wouldn't get such an expensive motherboard myself. Presumably there is a SAS or RAID controller going in for the drive bays. As long as you have the appropriate PCIe lanes you should be good on that front. X670E is just a dual X670 chipset that share the same connection the one CPU. So while you get lots of expansion, you don't get more bandwidth. Threadripper might be something to consider for your use case.

You will also need a CPU cooler.

I added that one to the list because it had 6 SATA ports. All my spinning media is front loaded with a hot swap box. I need to have at least 5 slots + DVD. I could use a SATA card and not worry about built in ports I guess.

All my RAID storage is offloaded from the workstation to a TrueNAS box with 64TB ZFS-3 configuration.

 

[Eximo]

Six SATA ports, Three M.2 :

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Lw...fi-atx-am5-motherboard-mag-b650-tomahawk-wifi

Admittedly, not many boards with six SATA ports these days on the consumer side. But then, how many drives does the average person need with external storage and high speed networking now affordable to the average consumer.

Maybe invest that extra $200 in some 10Gbps networking equipment (Though 2.5Gbps is plenty fast for spinning disks)

 

[CountMike]

My current computer is in my sig. I want to build something that is significantly faster for my next computer.

Do any of the current chipsets support quad channel RAM short of ?

Chipsets have nothing to do with memory, controller is in the CPU and none of consumer grade CPUs support quad channel. For that and over 128GB of RAM you need Threadripper. Epic or Xeon CPUs

 

[LOGAN54321]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K 3.9 GHz 20-Core Processor ($309.80 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 140 77.8 CFM CPU Cooler ($47.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z890-P WIFI ATX LGA1851 Motherboard ($224.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory ($270.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial T500 W/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($132.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial T500 W/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($132.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Zotac GAMING SOLID CORE GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card ($837.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case ($95.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: NZXT C1200 (2024) 1200 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($193.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $2247.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-05-10 10:13 EDT-0400

 

[geofelt]

Look into the new Intel Ultra 200 series.
They are very strong in multithreaded productivity and are relatively low power.
Recent bios updates have upped the performance by a bios update called Intel 200S boost.

I've tested Intel's new 200S Boost mode for its Arrow Lake chips and the verdict is simple: You should enable it immediately

In one game, I saw a performance increase of over 40%, which is just wild to see.

www.pcgamer.com

Since your time frame is perhaps a year out, hang loose and see what develops.
Intel is supposed to have a new release by the end of the year, and AMD is talking about AM6.