I'm building my first PC and aiming for solid performance in demanding games, especially ones developed in Unreal Engine 5. I've been looking at the Ryzen 5 9600X and the Ryzen 7 7700 since they fit my budget. Most sources say the 7 7700 is more future-proof, but it's also about €60-70 pricier. Is there a significant difference in their performance or future-proofing? I'm also considering using an RTX 5070 Ti or an RTX 5070 for my GPU but haven't decided yet. Any advice would be appreciated!
1 Answer
The difference between the 9600X and the 7700 isn't huge for gaming right now. While the extra two cores on the 7700 could help in some scenarios, most games won't see a big performance boost from that for the next few years. If you're focused on future-proofing in terms of running demanding applications like streaming or heavy multitasking, you might want to think about an X3D CPU like the 7800X3D, but it comes at a higher cost. For pure gaming, both CPUs are capable, but the 7700 does allow for more upgrade paths down the line, especially with the AM5 platform.
I’ve heard some people say that the VRAM might limit the 9600X. How does that affect games?