I'm in Canada and I'm trying to build a gaming PC that delivers the best FPS per dollar without spending my entire $3,000 CAD budget. I found a Ryzen 7 5700 for about $165 CAD before tax, which seems much cheaper than the Ryzen 5 5600, 5600X, and Ryzen 7 5700X in local pricing. I'm considering pairing it with an Intel Arc B580. The rest of the build would include 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 I be better off paying more for a 5600/5600X or 5700X?
4 Answers
Since you’re using Linux, there’s no real reason to overspend on the CPU just for the sake of having eight cores. Linux itself runs comfortably on modest hardware, so put the savings toward the graphics card, power supply, or storage. If the 5700 is genuinely much cheaper than the alternatives, it’s usable, but the 5600 may offer better gaming value if the price difference is small.
The Ryzen 7 5700 should work fine with an Arc B580, but its low price comes with some important compromises. It has slightly weaker single-core performance than the 5600X, so the extra two cores don’t automatically make it faster for gaming.
A $3,000 CAD ceiling doesn’t mean you need to spend all of it. With a B580 and a midrange AM4 processor, your actual parts list should be substantially below that unless you’re paying unusually high prices for components. Recheck the prices for the motherboard, memory, SSD, and graphics card before deciding on the CPU; a balanced build matters more than moving from a 5700 to a 5700X.
The non-X 5700 is essentially a cut-down 5700G. It has 16 MB of L3 cache instead of 32 MB and is limited to PCIe 3.0 rather than PCIe 4.0. The Ryzen 5 5500 has similar limitations. It can still run games well, but I would avoid it if a Ryzen 5 5600 or another full-cache option is reasonably close in price.
It also has only half the L3 cache of the Ryzen 5 5600 and 5600X, which can matter in CPU-limited games.