[SOLVED] i5 9400F or Ryzen 5 3600 for RTX 2060

[shyam.mora]

I have a i5 6400 with RTX 2060 and am planning on upgrading the CPU. I finalized the 9400F but to my surprise there are too many negative reviews for it. My budget is around $300. I do only gaming and that too AAA games. No competitive or multiplayer games. No streaming or heavy multitasking. I was told that with a RTX2060, the FPS difference between 9400F and 3600 is hardly 10 odd FPS. My requirement is a stable 60FPS gaming with high to very high settings. I have a 16GB RAM and 60hz monitor. I lock all my games at 60FPS currently for a stable performance. 3500 is available in my country but not an option as it is retailing for $200. R5 2600 is retailing for $200.

i5 9400F is retailing between $150 - $160. H310 motherboard is for $70 and a B364 costs $95.
R5 3600 is retailing between $280 - $300. A320 motherboard is for $70 and a B450 costs $100.

Is 9400F that bad for gaming ? Please advise as per above requirement.

PS : I have no plans of upgrading GPU for the next 3 years. I might get a 1080p 144hz monitor a couple of months later.

 

[Dadrian Daedalus]

no,i5 9400F isn't bad at all if gaming is your main concern-however if you plan on doing video streaming etc simultaneously while gaming which requires a lot of cpu power,it will falter a bit as it has only 6 threads,unlike its 12 threaded counterparts like the r5 3600 and even the i5 10400.

so for gaming it would do just fine,and you can even pair it with a Rtx 2060

 

[shyam.mora]

no,i5 9400F isn't bad at all if gaming is your main concern-however if you plan on doing video streaming etc simultaneously while gaming which requires a lot of cpu power,it will falter a bit as it has only 6 threads,unlike its 12 threaded counterparts like the r5 3600 and even the i5 10400.

so for gaming it would do just fine,and you can even pair it with a Rtx 2060

So can I expect a stable 60FPS at high settings ? And how would the combo pair at 1080p 144hz ?

 

[Phaaze88]

The 9400F is 'bad' because of it having only 6 threads. This is a problem in more modern titles that can utilize 6 or more threads, as it would lead to stuttering.
If you're just looking to play older titles, which are likely to run 2-4 threads, then the 9400F is just fine.
Streaming/recording can actually be done if you 'stretch your resources'. Let the gpu do that part of the work, instead of trying to dump it all on the cpu. That said, that's also less resources the gpu can use on the actual game.

It's game dependent. Saying '1080p 144hz' is too broad.
CSGO? 9400F is fine.
Rocket League? Check.
CoD: Warzone? Yikes. That game can use up to 12 cpu threads.
Fortnite? I hear the 6 thread cpu was fine before Chapter 2 - the system requirements went up after that, but I don't know how it fares today.
Doom? Should be fine.
Rise of the Tomb Raider? That'll likely have some stutter here and there.

 

[geofelt]

There is a difference between "using" many threads and "effectively using" many threads.
Here is an older study on that:

Report: Despite Claims, Most PC Games Are Still Unable To Take Advantage Of More Than 4 CPU Cores

Well, you gotta love developers. This past year, we’ve been hearing from a lot of teams that their games were taking advantage of more than four CPU cores. And you know what? We decided to put a lot of CPU-bound games to the test. The results are a bit disheartening – to say the least – …...

www.dsogaming.com

Of course, it is game dependent.
A i5-9400F is a nice boost in capability. You get 6 threads, and a single thread passmark rating of 2492 compared to 1972 on your current I5-6400.
Single thread performance is usually the most important metric to 1080P gaming.

You have now only 4 threads.
What would be the impact on YOUR games if you took one thread away?

Try this test:
In the windows msconfig boot advanced options option set your core count to 3.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect.
See what difference it makes.
Some games will not start with less than 4 threads.