I'm planning a gaming build around an RX 9070 XT and am deciding between the Ryzen 5 7500X3D and Ryzen 7 9700X, which cost the same where I live. The Ryzen 5 9600X is also an option since it is about $75 cheaper. My main use will be gaming at 1440p and 4K, mostly AAA games and some strategy titles rather than competitive esports. I also use my PC for work, but nothing especially demanding, so productivity performance is secondary. Which processor would be the best choice?
4 Answers
If gaming is the priority, I'd choose the 7500X3D. Its extra cache can help a lot in games, and it should run cool and quietly. Since you aren't doing heavily threaded work, the 9700X's extra cores probably won't matter much.
At 1440p and especially 4K, the RX 9070 XT will usually be the limiting factor, so the real-world difference between these CPUs may be small in most AAA games. The 7500X3D is still the safer gaming-focused pick, while the 9700X can have an advantage in some heavily multicore workloads and may produce better 1% lows in certain CPU-heavy games.
I mostly play AAA games and strategy titles, not competitive games. I'm particularly curious whether games from the Paradox series can make meaningful use of all eight cores in the 9700X.
The 9600X is worth considering at $75 less. It should handle the 9070 XT well in 1440p and 4K AAA gaming and is unlikely to bottleneck it in normal use. You'd mainly be giving up some headroom in CPU-heavy games compared with the other two options, rather than losing much GPU performance.
For a purely gaming-oriented build, the X3D chip is the straightforward choice. However, if you plan to play particularly CPU-intensive strategy or simulation games, or start using software that scales well across multiple cores, the 9700X's eight cores could be more useful. At 4K, though, all three options should perform similarly in most games.
Productivity is definitely secondary for me. If my old i5-8400 handles my work, then any of these CPUs should be more than enough.