[SOLVED] Opinion/Advice on CPU

[Gogster]

I'm currently looking at a build as my Mac Mini is approaching 6 years old and I'm looking to switch to a PC to play a few games and continue my work as a photographer, so I would say my usage is split between 40% Lightroom Classic, 40% gaming (Elite Dangerous, Battlefield One) and 20% Photoshop.

My build is split between two configurations, generally everything is the same aside from if I opt for the Ryzen 7 3700X, which comes with a fan CPU cooler, so is cheaper and saves the cost of a cooler, I can afford two 4TB drives for back-up, although I do have an external 4TB back-up drive and the cost saving will get me a 1TB M.2 drive.

However there seems to be much said for the I7 9700K, however with this processor I would need to buy a cooler, so it would be the case of dropping one of the 4TB drives and switching to a 250GB M.2.

What are people's opinions on this as I'm wracking my nogging about the best thing to do based on my usage?

Articles on the 9700K seem to suggest it is better than the 3700X, however the benchmarks don't seem to back this up, from a gaming and photo processing perspective, but it may be my lack of knowledge.

 

[Darkbreeze]

For gaming the 9700k has the edge, but it's it not an enormous difference. For productivity and applications that can support highly threaded performance, the Ryzen part is a clear winner. As far as my experience and investigations have determined, the majority of Adobe applications are still to this day almost entirely single threaded. They have been historically, so unless something has changed very recently they likely still are.

Adobe Lightroom CC/6 Multi Core Performance

With hundreds of CPU models available, it can be a daunting task to determine which CPU will give you the best performance in Lightroom. In this article we will be examining the multi-threading capabilities of Lightroom CC and Lightroom 6 to determine whether a CPU with a high frequency or a CPU...

www.pugetsystems.com

Adobe Photoshop CC Multi Core Performance

With hundreds of CPU models available, it can be a daunting task to determine which CPU will give you the best performance in Photoshop. In this article we will be examining the multi-threading capabilities of Photoshop CC to determine whether a CPU with a high frequency or a CPU with a high...

www.pugetsystems.com

My advice would be to go with whichever parts you can get for less. Both camps offer benefits for some aspect of your desired capabilities and to be honest the differences are generally minor to slightly moderate and differ from task to task. In one thing, one of them is going to do better. In something else, the other one likely will. Take your pick.

If gaming and Adobe applications are your primary concerns, then the Intel parts are going to offer slightly to moderately better performance in those tasks since they have stronger single core performance HOWEVER it is always possible that Adobe will begin optimizing for threaded performance in future iterations of their software, much as most other developers have done already or are in the process of doing now.

In that case, you're still probably ok with the Intel part as 8 cores is honestly enough for almost anything you want to do UNLESS you tend to do a LOT of VERY HEAVY multitasking, in which case you will want the additional threaded performance of the Ryzen part since it's additional 8 hyperthreads definitely offer benefits for heavy multitasking over the 9700k.

 

[Gogster]

For gaming the 9700k has the edge, but it's it not an enormous difference. For productivity and applications that can support highly threaded performance, the Ryzen part is a clear winner. As far as my experience and investigations have determined, the majority of Adobe applications are still to this day almost entirely single threaded. They have been historically, so unless something has changed very recently they likely still are.

Adobe Lightroom CC/6 Multi Core Performance

With hundreds of CPU models available, it can be a daunting task to determine which CPU will give you the best performance in Lightroom. In this article we will be examining the multi-threading capabilities of Lightroom CC and Lightroom 6 to determine whether a CPU with a high frequency or a CPU...

www.pugetsystems.com

Adobe Photoshop CC Multi Core Performance

With hundreds of CPU models available, it can be a daunting task to determine which CPU will give you the best performance in Photoshop. In this article we will be examining the multi-threading capabilities of Photoshop CC to determine whether a CPU with a high frequency or a CPU with a high...

www.pugetsystems.com

My advice would be to go with whichever parts you can get for less. Both camps offer benefits for some aspect of your desired capabilities and to be honest the differences are generally minor to slightly moderate and differ from task to task. In one thing, one of them is going to do better. In something else, the other one likely will. Take your pick.

If gaming and Adobe applications are your primary concerns, then the Intel parts are going to offer slightly to moderately better performance in those tasks since they have stronger single core performance HOWEVER it is always possible that Adobe will begin optimizing for threaded performance in future iterations of their software, much as most other developers have done already or are in the process of doing now.

In that case, you're still probably ok with the Intel part as 8 cores is honestly enough for almost anything you want to do UNLESS you tend to do a LOT of VERY HEAVY multitasking, in which case you will want the additional threaded performance of the Ryzen part since it's additional 8 hyperthreads definitely offer benefits for heavy multitasking over the 9700k.

Really comprehensive - thank you!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Anytime