I currently use a Ryzen 5 7500F with an MSI PRO B650M-B motherboard and an RX 9070 graphics card. My main activity has been gaming, but I recently started streaming at 1080p and also play some CPU-intensive games. The processor regularly reaches around 80°C, which I understand is normal, but I'm unsure whether I should upgrade to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or Ryzen 7 9700X. My budget is about $350, and I'm buying in Pakistan. I'm especially concerned about motherboard compatibility and whether I'll need to purchase a new CPU cooler.
1 Answer
For streaming, you may not need a stronger CPU if your streaming software is using the RX 9070’s hardware encoder. In that case, the 7800X3D is generally the better choice for gaming, especially in CPU-heavy titles. The 9700X has newer Zen 5 cores and is the better option for productivity work or CPU-based video encoding, but it usually won’t provide as large a gaming improvement over the 7500F as the 7800X3D can.
I mostly stream at 1080p and play CPU-intensive games, so my main concerns are whether the 7800X3D will work properly with my current motherboard and whether I’ll need a different cooler.