I'm looking to upgrade my CPU from an i7-8700 and I'm torn between going for a Ryzen 9 5900XT and saving some cash by getting a Ryzen 7 5800XT instead. My friends keep pushing me towards the 5800XT because it's cheaper, but I'm worried about performance since it has half the cores and is reportedly 45-50% slower. I'm going to be gaming and also working on some demanding projects in Premiere Pro, Unity, and Blender. I think I might really need that extra performance and the 16 total cores. What's everyone's take on this?
2 Answers
Hey! The extra cores might not help much for gaming since performance usually hinges on single-core capability. Those CPUs are pretty comparable in that regard. However, if your work needs more cores, then the 5900XT could definitely benefit you!
That's true! Gaming mainly benefits from solid single-core performance. Most games won’t use all those cores effectively. For your other projects, it depends on how you configure your setup. They can utilize multithreading, but you might not see huge gains from the extra cores with your specific usage.
I run an RTX 3060 12GB at 1080p, and even with that, I find my performance is more about my GPU than the CPU when gaming.