[SOLVED] i7 10700K (PCIE 3.0 build) or Ryzen 3700X (PCIE 4.0 build)

JohnD13

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Hello all,

I'm building a new PC next month and I'm concerned about the importance of PCIE 4.0 down the road and whether it should dictate me CPU of choice. Initially, my plan was to get a 5800X ($450 msrp) or even 5900X ($550 msrp) but they just released so they're either out of stock or excessively priced. And I doubt they'll drop in price in the next couple of weeks.

So I decided to go for the i7 10700K instead. However, I'm reading everywhere about how PCIE 4.0 has just arrived, RTX 3000 cards will utilize it as well as the newest NVME ssds. So is it worth getting the Ryzen 7 3700X, which is PCIE 4.0 albeit a tad weaker, instead? Ideally, I'm building a PC that will last me at least for the next 5 years and will allow me to play games on high/ultra . 1080p for now, 1440p or even 4K down the road. For anyone wondering, my GPU is the 1660Ti (will upgrade in the future).

So, 10700K or Ryzen 7 3700X?
 
Solution
The 3600 has 6 cores, and while it's more than enough today, I'd rather future-proof my CPU with 8 cores, as much as possible. I'm actually planning to get an RTX 3070 (or AMD's equivalent) in about a year or so, as well as a decent monitor.


If you want to future proof the CPU purchase for a 3070 or better, you should go for the 10700K or wait it out for a 5600X. The Zen 2 systems are huffing it with these new video cards. At 1080p with a 2080 Ti the difference is over 8% increase in FPS 10700K vs 3700X. That difference got larger with the new 30X0 cards.

relative-performance-games-1920-1080.png

iiSlashr

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If you're going to build a system, build it for performance, not PCIe gen 4. It makes like a 1% difference in games. Despite this, AMD is still much more worthwhile, I would recommend going for the 3700X, since it'll save you about $75 which you can put into a better card.
 
For gaming there is just no benefit today from pcie 4.0. As above the difference for GPU’s is tiny. For storage you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe 4.0 for gaming. You need to be doing specific types of work to utilise that NVMe speed.

As you are pairing with a 1660Ti have you considered going with a 3600? There is minimal gaming difference to a 3700x and what additional performance there is a 1660Ti is unlikely to be able to utilise. This gives you the option to sell the 3600 should you ever find yourself wanting to upgrade and you can pick a 5000 series when pricing has come down.

However I do not see any problems going with a 10700k.
 

JohnD13

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If you're going to build a system, build it for performance, not PCIe gen 4. It makes like a 1% difference in games. Despite this, AMD is still much more worthwhile, I would recommend going for the 3700X, since it'll save you about $75 which you can put into a better card.
Yeah perhaps it's too soon to consider PCIE 4.0 as a worthwhile upgrade factor. The 10700K is actually just $50 more expensive than the 3700X in my country. And while the 3700X appears to be only slightly weaker in gaming benchmarks, it's definitely more power-efficient and newer architecture (7nm as opposed to 14nm).
 

JohnD13

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For gaming there is just no benefit today from pcie 4.0. As above the difference for GPU’s is tiny. For storage you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe 4.0 for gaming. You need to be doing specific types of work to utilise that NVMe speed.

As you are pairing with a 1660Ti have you considered going with a 3600? There is minimal gaming difference to a 3700x and what additional performance there is a 1660Ti is unlikely to be able to utilise. This gives you the option to sell the 3600 should you ever find yourself wanting to upgrade and you can pick a 5000 series when pricing has come down.

However I do not see any problems going with a 10700k.
The 3600 has 6 cores, and while it's more than enough today, I'd rather future-proof my CPU with 8 cores, as much as possible. I'm actually planning to get an RTX 3070 (or AMD's equivalent) in about a year or so, as well as a decent monitor.
 

shady28

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The 3600 has 6 cores, and while it's more than enough today, I'd rather future-proof my CPU with 8 cores, as much as possible. I'm actually planning to get an RTX 3070 (or AMD's equivalent) in about a year or so, as well as a decent monitor.


If you want to future proof the CPU purchase for a 3070 or better, you should go for the 10700K or wait it out for a 5600X. The Zen 2 systems are huffing it with these new video cards. At 1080p with a 2080 Ti the difference is over 8% increase in FPS 10700K vs 3700X. That difference got larger with the new 30X0 cards.

relative-performance-games-1920-1080.png
 
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Solution
The 3600 has 6 cores, and while it's more than enough today, I'd rather future-proof my CPU with 8 cores, as much as possible. I'm actually planning to get an RTX 3070 (or AMD's equivalent) in about a year or so, as well as a decent monitor.
It is 6 core 12 thread making it a better option in my opinion than any of the 6 core 6 thread CPU’s. I get the idea of having extra cores and threads for the future. Under my suggestion if the extra cores and threads become required in future that would be a point to look at 5000 series when prices are more reasonable. The 6 core 12 thread 5600x is a gaming beast and easily outperforms the 3700x (I use a 3700x) but as you say there are supply issues.

There is nothing wrong with your suggestion and you will most likely find a 3600, 3700x, 5600x or 10700k are more than you need for quite some time. Remember the differences in benchmarks are done using scenarios that maximise the differences between CPU’s and usually don’t reflect most systems/scenarios.
 
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JohnD13

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If you want to future proof the CPU purchase for a 3070 or better, you should go for the 10700K or wait it out for a 5600X. The Zen 2 systems are huffing it with these new video cards. At 1080p with a 2080 Ti the difference is over 8% increase in FPS 10700K vs 3700X. That difference got larger with the new 30X0 cards.
That's quite insightful. A 8-10% improvement could mean more juice to squeeze out of the CPU in the far future. Thanks!
 

JohnD13

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It is 6 core 12 thread making it a better option in my opinion than any of the 6 core 6 thread CPU’s. I get the idea of having extra cores and threads for the future. Under my suggestion if the extra cores and threads become required in future that would be a point to look at 5000 series when prices are more reasonable. The 6 core 12 thread 5600x is a gaming beast and easily outperforms the 3700x (I use a 3700x) but as you say there are supply issues.

There is nothing wrong with your suggestion and you will most likely find a 3600, 3700x, 5600x or 10700k are more than you need for quite some time. Remember the differences in benchmarks are done using scenarios that maximise the differences between CPU’s and usually don’t reflect most systems/scenarios.
I was determined to take the AMD Zen 3 route for my next build but short supply, prices and... Cyberpunk 2077 won't allow that.

Considering all the info, I'm probably going to buy the 10700K. Thanks for the advice!
 
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