I'm looking to upgrade my old PC, and I've heard that AMD is now the way to go. I often use four monitors – one for gaming, another for sports, and the other two for browsing. I find the E and P core setup from Intel interesting, but I'm not sure I trust their reliability. What would be a good modern equivalent to my Intel Boxed Core i7-6850K?
4 Answers
All new CPUs are way faster! The i7-6850K is pretty outdated now since it's from 2015. Even the Intel i3-14100 outperforms it with single-threaded performance that's 56% higher, and it only has 4 cores! You should aim for at least something like the Ryzen 5 7500F, 7600X, or even the 9600X depending on your budget.
Absolutely, AMD is leading the market now. If gaming is your main focus, the Ryzen 9800X3D is an excellent choice. Plus, any motherboard you pick should support upgrades to the next Zen 6 generation, which is expected to arrive in late 2026, so you won't have to worry about your investment going obsolete soon!
Your i7-6850K was priced at about $617 back in 2016, which is roughly $830 in today’s market when you factor in inflation. While there might not be a direct equivalent anymore, you could look at high-end models like the Threadripper 9960X or Xeon W5-3435X for around $1500. These offer professional features such as support for over 128GB of RAM and numerous PCIe lanes, which could be beneficial if you are looking to expand down the line. For gaming and productivity purposes, the 9950X3D or Ryzen 285K could also be great picks, though I’d say they're overkill for your usage! The 9900X3D or 265K are solid alternatives too.
If you're planning on heavy gaming, your GPU will probably be the pricier part of your new setup. Just a heads up – if you opt for a Threadripper CPU, be prepared to spend extra on the motherboard. Also, I've heard AM5 setups can have stability issues with more than two sticks of fast RAM. I haven't encountered the same problems with Intel LGA1851 builds, so that's something to consider!
Honestly, a Threadripper isn't necessary based on what you've described. The RAM stability issue is actually pretty common across many CPUs today, not just Threadrippers, particularly with speedier DDR5 or even DDR4.