Hey everyone, I'm looking to upgrade my CPU and noticed that the Intel Core Ultra 265 and AMD 9700X are priced similarly in my area. My primary tasks involve running multiple browsers with a ton of tabs (think 50-100), managing several virtual machines, and heavily using Excel. I've come across a review that suggested Intel CPUs didn't perform well in productivity for these types of tasks, even though they're often regarded as better for productivity overall. Given this, would I be better off choosing the AMD option for my specific needs?
2 Answers
Honestly, either CPU would work fine for what you're doing. The key here is having enough RAM—32GB should be a solid minimum, maybe even 64GB. Don’t get too caught up in synthetic benchmarks! Real-world performance depends a lot on your internet speed and disk access anyway.
If you're running multiple virtual machines, I’d recommend steering clear of CPUs with E-cores like the Ultra 265. Those cores can cause scheduling headaches in your setup. The 9700X would be more suitable, plus it's more power-efficient if you decide to disable E-cores. Just something to consider!
That's a good point! I'm currently on an i5 7400 and I hit 100% CPU usage a lot, which shows I'm bottlenecked. Planning to go for 64GB this time.