I'm in Brazil, where component prices and availability are difficult, and I'm planning a CPU upgrade for modern AAA games. My current system has an RTX 2070 Super, Ryzen 5 2600, 32GB of 3600MHz DDR4 running at 3200MHz, and a B450 motherboard. I play at 1080p and 144Hz.
The options currently available to me are a Ryzen 7 5700X for R$1,199.90, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D for R$2,517.64, or an Intel i5-12600KF with a new LGA1700 motherboard for slightly less than the 5800X3D. I would prefer to keep my current memory, graphics card, and other components, and I likely won't upgrade the rest of the system for several years.
Ryzen 7 5700X3D and newer Intel processors aren't available locally. Which option makes the most sense for modern games and long-term value?
4 Answers
The Ryzen 7 5700X is probably the best value here. Moving from the Ryzen 5 2600 to Zen 3 is already a major improvement, and with an RTX 2070 Super at 1080p, the difference between the 5700X and 5800X3D won’t always be noticeable. The 5800X3D is excellent for CPU-heavy and very high-refresh competitive games, but paying roughly twice as much is difficult to justify if you mostly play single-player or older games.
A graphics card upgrade would eventually have a bigger effect on modern AAA games than moving from a 5700X to a 5800X3D. However, the price difference you listed probably isn’t enough to buy a meaningfully faster GPU than the RTX 2070 Super in your market. I’d get the 5700X now, keep the existing platform and memory, and save toward a future GPU upgrade.
The i5-12600KF is worth considering only if you also need stronger productivity performance or its motherboard bundle is significantly cheaper. For gaming alone, switching platforms for it doesn’t offer enough to clearly beat the much simpler AM4 upgrade. The 5800X3D would be the best gaming chip, but not at nearly double the cost unless you specifically need very high CPU-limited frame rates.
The 5800X3D is the fastest gaming option and would give the AM4 platform the longest possible life, but its price is unusually high. A regular Ryzen 7 5800X or 5700X should handle games very well, and even a Ryzen 5 5600-class chip would be a big jump from the 2600. Since the 5600 models aren’t reasonably available in your market, the 5700X looks like the sensible purchase.
I checked the 5600 options, but the one I found costs more than the 5700X. The 5700X seems much easier to justify at the local price.
I don’t play many competitive multiplayer games, so it’s good to know the 5700X should still be a strong upgrade for my use case.