I'm building a gaming PC in Canada and want the best possible FPS-per-dollar while spending as little as practical. My total budget is about $3,000 CAD, although I'd prefer to keep the actual build closer to $1,700–$2,000 before tax if possible. I found a Ryzen 7 5700 for $165 CAD before tax, which seems much cheaper than the Ryzen 5 5600 or 5600X at roughly $220–$240, and the Ryzen 7 5700X at around $287. I'm considering pairing it with an Intel Arc B580. The rest of the system would have at least 32 GB of RAM, a 2 TB SSD, and a graphics card with 10–12 GB or more of VRAM. I also plan to install Linux. Is the non-X Ryzen 7 5700 a worthwhile bargain, or would the 5600/5600X or 5700X be a better choice?
4 Answers
For a Linux gaming system, you don’t necessarily need an expensive CPU. Linux can run comfortably on modest hardware, so buying the cheapest processor that meets your performance target and putting the savings toward the GPU may give you better overall FPS per dollar. Just compare actual gaming benchmarks for the 5700, 5600X, and 5700X before deciding.
A $3,000 CAD budget is much higher than what this parts list appears to require. If the goal is value rather than using the entire budget, review the whole build instead of focusing only on the processor. A cheaper CPU may be reasonable, but avoid sacrificing important features such as adequate cooling, a reliable power supply, dual-channel memory, and a suitable motherboard just to save a small amount.
The non-X Ryzen 7 5700 is essentially a cut-down 5700G. It has only half the L3 cache and supports PCIe 3.0 rather than PCIe 4.0. Those limitations are easy to overlook, so it isn’t automatically a better deal than a 5600 or 5600X. I’d avoid it if a regular 5600X is available for a similar total price.
The Ryzen 7 5700 should work fine with an Intel Arc B580, but don’t assume it’s faster than the 5600X just because it has more cores. The 5700 has slightly weaker single-core performance and only half as much L3 cache, so the 5600X can be just as fast or faster in some games.
That’s helpful. I was mainly looking at the core count and price, but the cache and single-core performance seem more important for gaming than I expected.
The PCIe limitation probably won’t be disastrous with this graphics card, but the reduced cache is a more meaningful concern for gaming performance.