Question What is the best high-end value for money CPU?

[Brackstonee]

I've been finding recently that my current i5-7600K isn't cutting it with more modern and CPU intensive games so I'm thinking about upgrading.

I'm being drawn towards the 3700X, is this the best option for high-end value for money processors? If not what should I go for?

 

[LordVile]

I've been finding recently that my current i5-7600K isn't cutting it with more modern and CPU intensive games so I'm thinking about upgrading.

I'm being drawn towards the 3700X, is this the best option for high-end value for money processors? If not what should I go for?

Depends what you want. If you’re doing other stuff the 3900X is much better at rendering than the 3700X but isn’t as much of a value for gaming s Other than that the best “value” is the 3600 but that isn’t high end.

 

[vistagamer6969]

Ryzen 7 3700 non X is the best value for money
You can overclock it and get the same performance as the X version

 

[Brackstonee]

Depends what you want. If you’re doing other stuff the 3900X is much better at rendering than the 3700X but isn’t as much of a value for gaming s Other than that the best “value” is the 3600 but that isn’t high end.

It'll be mainly used for gaming and tasks such as browsing, word processing and streaming. I've seen good things about the i7-9700K but the 3700X is significantly cheaper.

 

[LordVile]

It'll be mainly used for gaming and tasks such as browsing, word processing and streaming. I've seen good things about the i7-9700K but the 3700X is significantly cheaper.

And has more threads which is the way games are going these days. Plus X570 has PCIE 4 for the future

 

[Brackstonee]

Ryzen 7 3700 non X is the best value for money
You can overclock it and get the same performance as the X version

I'm not much of an overclocker personally which is why I tend to opt for the faster 'out of the box' speeds.

 

[LordVile]

Ryzen 7 3700 non X is the best value for money
You can overclock it and get the same performance as the X version

NO! you don’t OC zen2 the boost function offers better performance than a manual OC.

 

[Brackstonee]

And has more threads which is the way games are going these days. Plus X570 has PCIE 4 for the future

So would the 3700X be the best option in this price range of ~£300?

 

[sizzling]

So would the 3700X be the best option in this price range of ~£300?

I believe so but the % gain over the 3600 is minimal and as the question was about value you can’t ignore the 3600 for gaming.

 

[geofelt]

I'm not much of an overclocker personally which is why I tend to opt for the faster 'out of the box' speeds.

Added single thread performance is available with a Z chipset.
As of 6/19/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
4.9 72%
5.0 52%
5.1 27%
5.2 16%
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurrence

What is your current motherboard?
What are the rest of your specs?
What kinds of games do you play?

Value for the money should not be the question, it should be
"what do I need to achieve my objectives?"

If budget is no issue, the 3800X or i9-9900KS is as good as it gets.
You will also need to change your motherboard.

What you see is pretty much what you get with ryzen as far as clock speed, boost, and overclocking.
OTOH, with the Z suffix intel 9th gen processors, you will get near 5.0 on all cores using the intel performance maximizer.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-auto-overclock-performance-maximizer,6179.html

With a £300 cpu budget, you are going to get a nice boost, regardless of the processor you pick.
You will also want a higher end motherboard like a X570 for ryzen or Z390 for intel.

 

[Brackstonee]

Added single thread performance is available with a Z chipset.
As of 6/19/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
4.9 72%
5.0 52%
5.1 27%
5.2 16%
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurrence

What is your current motherboard?
What are the rest of your specs?
What kinds of games do you play?

Value for the money should not be the question, it should be
"what do I need to achieve my objectives?"

If budget is no issue, the 3800X or i9-9900KS is as good as it gets.
You will also need to change your motherboard.

What you see is pretty much what you get with ryzen as far as clock speed, boost, and overclocking.
OTOH, with the Z suffix intel 9th gen processors, you will get near 5.0 on all cores using the intel performance maximizer.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-auto-overclock-performance-maximizer,6179.html

With a £300 cpu budget, you are going to get a nice boost, regardless of the processor you pick.
You will also want a higher end motherboard like a X570 for ryzen or Z390 for intel.

I'm currently looking at getting a 3700X with a X570 motherboard and 2x16GB 3200MHz CASL16 RAM.

I will stick with my GTX 1070 and wait for Nvidia's 3000 series where I will upgrade my monitors at the same time.

My current power supply is capable as I have a Corsair RMx650 (Gold).

Storage wise I'm not 100% but I believe I'll go with something along the lines of a 250/500GB M.2 SSD for my OS, and a few programs, and a 1/2TB 2.5" SSD for games etc.

 

[geofelt]

On storage, I recommend a single large ssd for everything.
Prices are down and a single space is much easier to manage.
A single 1 or 2tb samsung 970 evo would work out best.
It is easy to add more storage later/

 

[LordVile]

Added single thread performance is available with a Z chipset.
As of 6/19/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
4.9 72%
5.0 52%
5.1 27%
5.2 16%
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurrence

What is your current motherboard?
What are the rest of your specs?
What kinds of games do you play?

Value for the money should not be the question, it should be
"what do I need to achieve my objectives?"

If budget is no issue, the 3800X or i9-9900KS is as good as it gets.
You will also need to change your motherboard.

What you see is pretty much what you get with ryzen as far as clock speed, boost, and overclocking.
OTOH, with the Z suffix intel 9th gen processors, you will get near 5.0 on all cores using the intel performance maximizer.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-auto-overclock-performance-maximizer,6179.html

With a £300 cpu budget, you are going to get a nice boost, regardless of the processor you pick.
You will also want a higher end motherboard like a X570 for ryzen or Z390 for intel.

You get performance degradation if you OC Zen2 in games

 

[Nemesia]

I'm currently looking at getting a 3700X with a X570 motherboard and 2x16GB 3200MHz CASL16 RAM.

I will stick with my GTX 1070 and wait for Nvidia's 3000 series where I will upgrade my monitors at the same time.

My current power supply is capable as I have a Corsair RMx650 (Gold).

Storage wise I'm not 100% but I believe I'll go with something along the lines of a 250/500GB M.2 SSD for my OS, and a few programs, and a 1/2TB 2.5" SSD for games etc.

Looks good except for the speed on that ram. If you're getting a Ryzen 3 you should definitely get 3600MHz RAM.

 

[InvalidError]

Looks good except for the speed on that ram. If you're getting a Ryzen 3 you should definitely get 3600MHz RAM.

Not really: depending on timings, 3000MT/s RAM with some manual timing tightening can be faster than 3800MT/s using the XMP profile. Nominal clock frequency, assuming you can achieve it with stability, is only half the story and the last time I checked, DDR4 prices started shooting up quite sharply after 3200MT/s.

 

[Nemesia]

Not really: depending on timings, 3000MT/s RAM with some manual timing tightening can be faster than 3800MT/s using the XMP profile. Nominal clock frequency, assuming you can achieve it with stability, is only half the story and the last time I checked, DDR4 prices started shooting up quite sharply after 3200MT/s.

He never said which brand he was going for. He just said CASL16 3200MHz RAM and I never said which 3600MHz to buy either.

 

[Brackstonee]

He never said which brand he was going for. He just said CASL16 3200MHz RAM and I never said which 3600MHz to buy either.

CPU - Upgrading from a Intel Core i5-6600K to a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X.

Motherboard - Looking at getting a ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi).

RAM - I was originally recommended/considering the Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CASL16 but due to my obsession with both Corsair and RGB (it's 2019) I am now leaning towards Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CASL16.

Storage - Will probably end up getting a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 NVME SSD for my OS (a lot of people have been recommending one drive but I personally like having the OS separate) and a Samsung 860 EVO 2TB 2.5" SSD for everything else.

Graphics Card - Keeping my current Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1070 and upgrade to one of Nvidia's 3000 series cards when they are released.

Power Supply - My current power supply (Corsair RM650x 80+ Gold) is more than capable.

 

[logainofhades]

Ryzen 7 3700 non X is the best value for money
You can overclock it and get the same performance as the X version

Except a non x 3700 does not exist. It goes 3700x then 3800x.

CPU - Upgrading from a Intel Core i5-6600K to a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X.

Motherboard - Looking at getting a ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi).

RAM - I was originally recommended/considering the Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CASL16 but due to my obsession with both Corsair and RGB (it's 2019) I am now leaning towards Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CASL16.

Storage - Will probably end up getting a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 NVME SSD for my OS (a lot of people have been recommending one drive but I personally like having the OS separate) and a Samsung 860 EVO 2TB 2.5" SSD for everything else.

Graphics Card - Keeping my current Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1070 and upgrade to one of Nvidia's 3000 series cards when they are released.

Power Supply - My current power supply (Corsair RM650x 80+ Gold) is more than capable.

I would probably go this route. Gaming rigs really don't need the speed of a 970 evo.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($324.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi ATX AM4 Motherboard ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 2.048 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($204.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1007.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-08 15:41 EST-0500

 

[Digital 987]

You could always just wait and get AMD's new 64 core Threadripper when it comes out. I'd hate to know what the price tag is going to be on that one.

 

[InvalidError]

You could always just wait and get AMD's new 64 core Threadripper when it comes out. I'd hate to know what the price tag is going to be on that one.

Since 32 cores are going to be $2000, 64 cores are almost certain to be in the neighborhood of $4000. Yup, getting just a tiny little bit pricey.

 

[dstln]

2700x is $160 at Microcenter, which is a ridiculous deal.

After that, I would say the 3700x (but that's almost twice as much).

 

[Encryption+]

As far as best bang for the buck I think the Ryzen 9 3900X is probably one of the best.

 

[mdd1963]

3700X is an excellent starting point for any system, be it gaming or do-it-all/content creation....;8c/16t should last a handful of years , minimum, having at least 2 more cores/four threads than really needed currently... (I like a little overkill!)