[SOLVED] I'm building a budget gaming PC and I don't know which one of the CPUs below should I go for

FrankR123

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AMD : R3 3200g, 3400g, 3100, 3300x or R5 2600 - Intel : i5-9400F. so if I go for AMD ryzen that means I can get 3600mhz ram which is effective in ryzen's performance. on the other hand, the i5 9400f is more powerful and gives more fps when compared to ryzen with the same ram speed but the i5 9400f doesn't support more than 2666mhz.
 
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what if I already have a dedicated GPU? (RX 580 8gb) I've heard 9400f is a lot more powerful than even R5 2600 which is more powerful than 3300x. also, I don't think I'm going for an upgrade anytime soon.
The 9400f is not even close to being 'a lot more powerful'...only 1 or 2% in this review at 1080p. And they're using a 2080ti, a huge mismatch no sane person would consider for their rig, that skews the comparison a lot. That's essentially no difference at all and a less powerful GPU (like your RX580) won't squeeze anything close to that.

In any other tasks, like just running the OS, web browsing, office productivity, they trade blows with the 9400F being favored by known Intel optimized apps and the 3300X favored by...
AMD : R3 3200g, 3400g, 3100, 3300x or R5 2600 - Intel : i5-9400F. so if I go for AMD ryzen that means I can get 3600mhz ram which is effective in ryzen's performance. on the other hand, the i5 9400f is more powerful and gives more fps when compared to ryzen with the same ram speed but the i5 9400f doesn't support more than 2666mhz.
Probably the ultimate 'budget/starter' choice for gaming would be the 3400G because it has a very capable GPU. You can pair it with an affordable motherboard, helping with the budget part. It can then be upgraded to better discrete GPU and then better CPU without compromising performance, making it a very good starter.

If you already have a GPU that's RX550/GTX1050 or better then I'd suggest 3300X CPU, again because you can pair it on a budget board where upgrading is still easy with no compromise in performance. At the risk of starting an intel vs amd contest I'm pretty sure it's superior to a 9400F in single thread and multi-thread performance so any gaming benefit to the 9400 would be very minor and probably only specific titles or high-power GPU's at low resolutions. It's a better idea to consider the potential next move to upgrade your system. Just because you start it on a budget shouldn't mean you have to toss it all just to upgrade.
 
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FrankR123

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It depends what system you are going to build around it, some of those processers have integrated graphics, some you will need a GPU to pair with. Much is obviously dependant on budget and what the PC is actually going to be used for,(sorry, just saw, for ''gaming.'')
sorry I forgot to mention that I already have an RX 580 8gb to pair with these CPUs
 

FrankR123

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May 12, 2020
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510
Probably the ultimate 'budget/starter' choice for gaming would be the 3400G because it has a very capable GPU. You can pair it with an affordable motherboard, helping with the budget part. It can then be upgraded to better discrete GPU and then better CPU without compromising performance, making it a very good starter.

If you already have a GPU that's RX550/GTX1050 or better then I'd suggest 3300X CPU, again because you can pair it on a budget board where upgrading is still easy with no compromise in performance. At the risk of starting an intel vs amd contest I'm pretty sure it's superior to a 9400F in single thread and multi-thread performance so any gaming benefit to the 9400 would be very minor and probably only specific titles or high-power GPU's at low resolutions. It's a better idea to consider the potential next move to upgrade your system. Just because you start it on a budget shouldn't mean you have to toss it all just to upgrade.
what if I already have a dedicated GPU? (RX 580 8gb) I've heard 9400f is a lot more powerful than even R5 2600 which is more powerful than 3300x. also, I don't think I'm going for an upgrade anytime soon.
 
what if I already have a dedicated GPU? (RX 580 8gb) I've heard 9400f is a lot more powerful than even R5 2600 which is more powerful than 3300x. also, I don't think I'm going for an upgrade anytime soon.
The 9400f is not even close to being 'a lot more powerful'...only 1 or 2% in this review at 1080p. And they're using a 2080ti, a huge mismatch no sane person would consider for their rig, that skews the comparison a lot. That's essentially no difference at all and a less powerful GPU (like your RX580) won't squeeze anything close to that.

In any other tasks, like just running the OS, web browsing, office productivity, they trade blows with the 9400F being favored by known Intel optimized apps and the 3300X favored by apps that like threads. The 2600 is really only going to excel at apps that like a LOT of threads, and cores.

The 2600's older arch is less efficient but it's got 6 cores/12 threads going for it against the 4/8 for 3300x and 6/6 for the 9400F. But when considering the 2600 you can also count on some pretty good overclocking gains but not so much with the 3300X and none with the clock-locked 9400F. If you do anything at all alongside gaming: holding Facebook open in Chrome, streaming your gaming, etc. then you'd probably find 2600 a much better choice simply for all the cores and threads. But overclocked (on a good B450 motherboard I wouldn't be surprised to see 4.0-4.1Ghz fixed, all core) it would be a beast...and a decent pairing even for that 2080ti.
 
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