I'm putting together a budget AM4 system and am trying to choose between a few CPUs. The Ryzen 5 4500 is available new for about €67, while a used Ryzen 7 2700X costs around €30. I'm also considering the Ryzen 5 5500 at roughly €89, although that would push my budget. A Ryzen 5 3600 is available second-hand, but usually costs close to €100, so it doesn't seem worthwhile.
The system will use a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 16GB of RAM, an NVMe SSD, and an ASRock B450 motherboard. I mainly want to play older games at 1080p and use the computer for everyday tasks. Is the newer Ryzen 5 4500 worth choosing over the cheaper 2700X, or would another option be better?
2 Answers
The Ryzen 5 4500 has a newer architecture and can be faster in some games, but its small 8MB L3 cache does hold it back. The Ryzen 5 5500 is the stronger gaming choice because it combines the newer architecture with more cache, but at €89 it may not fit a very tight budget. I’d choose the 2700X if the price is really only €30, provided it works properly and your motherboard BIOS supports it.
For this kind of system, the used Ryzen 7 2700X at around €30 is probably the best value. Its older architecture and higher power draw are drawbacks, but it still has eight cores and should handle older 1080p games and general use easily. The GTX 1060 will usually be the limiting factor anyway, so spending much more on the CPU may not improve performance much.
I’ve seen comparisons that generally favor the 4500 or 5500 over the 2700X because of the newer architecture. That’s why I started questioning whether the cheap 2700X is actually a good gaming option.