Should you spend extra on a higher end CPU to future proof your system?

[Thready]

I'm wondering what you guys think.

[5x5]

Buy what you need now - not what you might need in a lucid dream on top of a mountain in 4 years

[Dedayog]

3 minutes ago, Thready said:

I'm wondering what you guys think.

Question makes no sense whatsoever:

 

Should you buy a Ryzen 7 or i7 to future proof your rig?

 

Buy what you need to achieve the performance you desire.  Very very very very very simple.

 

 

[Vishera]

In the future AM4 CPUs will be more powerful and older ones will be cheaper,so take it how you will...

Future proofing doesn't really exist,the future is unpredictable.

[Princess Luna]

Yes and no, depends on each individual case.

[star_pilot475]

For us, *cough* low budget-gamers, it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money on the cpu, and have to cheap out in other areas.

[BuckGup]

Go for Ryzen as there are bound to be new Intel vulnerabilities found lol

[KarathKasun]

The only CPU that makes sense for a general build is the R5 2600/3600.  Pretty much anything else is overpriced for what you are getting unless you absolutely need the extra cores.

[williamcll]

Since you do photography and is a student/teacher, see if you can get school discounts. 

[Thready]

14 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Since you do photography and is a student/teacher, see if you can get school discounts. 

Yeah I actually do that. I was just asking generally because I usually advise people against buying higher end CPUs in order to "futureproof" their system and not everyone on here agrees so I was concerned I might be giving people bad advice 

[Sorenson]

CPUs are the only thing that I would say can kind of be future proofed. Compare the performance of a 4th gen i7 and a 4th gen i5. You also get better performance today out of going with an i7 or an r7. But I would only go with the upgrade if you would spend 200 now on the r5 and then in the next two years want to spend 300+ to get the better performance of the modern r5 or i7.

[Origami Cactus]

23 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

buy a higher end ryzen on x570 for future-proofing

powerful CPU's on a very beefy platform. it's doubtful that the next gen of CPU's will be using DDR5 or changing sockets (or even the gen after that), and considering just how beefy x570 is you should have a couple of generations of upgrade headroom given ryzen's forwards compatibility with the requisite bios upgrades

Just one really, at max 2 gens.

AM4 was promised to last until 2020, so unless they rethink their plan, in 2021 there will be a new socket, AM5, and it will use ddr5 and pcie 5.

[SpookyCitrus]

11 minutes ago, Thready said:

Yeah I actually do that. I was just asking generally because I usually advise people against buying higher end CPUs in order to "futureproof" their system and not everyone on here agrees so I was concerned I might be giving people bad advice 

A better option would be to buy what you can afford while making sure it's on a platform that has a solid upgrade path, I wouldn't go intel, not these days with Ryzen and the AM4 platform. 

[5x5]

13 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

CPUs are the only thing that I would say can kind of be future proofed. Compare the performance of a 4th gen i7 and a 4th gen i5. You also get better performance today out of going with an i7 or an r7. But I would only go with the upgrade if you would spend 200 now on the r5 and then in the next two years want to spend 300+ to get the better performance of the modern r5 or i7.

7700K owners sure got future-proofed

[Dedayog]

16 minutes ago, Thready said:

Yeah I actually do that. I was just asking generally because I usually advise people against buying higher end CPUs in order to "futureproof" their system and not everyone on here agrees so I was concerned I might be giving people bad advice 

Since there is no such thing as future proofing, you are peddling a fictitious concept.   

 

The concept of spend more now for something to last longer is a universal  one, from cars to TV's to toys to anything.

 

Make the case for a use of an item when saying to buy it.  But to buy more than you need now so that you have something appropriate for later on.... that's an individuals choice.

 

Do I buy 2 pounds of hamburger today, so I have food til the weekend?  Or buy 1 pound now and then another on Thursday?

 

 

[SpookyCitrus]

11 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Just one really, at max 2 gens.

AM4 was promised to last until 2020, so unless they rethink their plan, in 2021 there will be a new socket, AM5, and it will use ddr5 and pcie 5.

Pcie generations are fairly long I'm positive Pcie gen 4 is going to be the standard for more than two years, It's barely even the standard now it's still in it's infancy. Pcie gen 5 won't be a thing for a while. We've been on Gen 3 for 9 years... 

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

7700K owners sure got future-proofed

Core 2 Duo owners too,Released in 2006 top of the line Intel CPUs were dual cores,A year later Intel released the Core 2 Quad,double the cores double the performance

And Nehalem owners too,a year later The Core i7 2600K wiped the floor with Nehalem and was a real future proof CPU that performed decently until the end of 2017.

[5x5]

Just now, Vishera said:

Core 2 Duo owners too,Released in 2006 top of the line Intel CPUs were dual cores,A year later Intel released the Core 2 Quad,double the cores double the performance

And Nehalem owners too,a year later The Core i7 2600K wiped the floor with Nehalem and was a real future proof CPU that performed decently until the end of 2017.

Moral of the story - futureproofing doesn't exist

[circeseye]

i buy looking at need and 2 to 4 video card upgrades if needed.
presently im at 4th on present system and have to upgrade system for anything newer

[TheKDub]

1 hour ago, Thready said:

I'm wondering what you guys think.

Yes and no.

 

There's no such thing as "Futureproof" as we have no idea what the future will bring.

 

If you have the money/won't have to compromise any other part of the build, and will see benefit from the better CPU, then yes, I'd go for the i7 or r7. If you'll have to skimp out on another part of the build, or you won't see any performance gain from it, then no, don't get the i7 or r7.

[melete]

Depends entirely on the CPUs you're choosing between.

 

Going from a Ryzen 2200G to a Ryzen 2600 is a massive improvement for the vast majority of users for not a lot of money. Going from a Ryzen 3600 to a Ryzen 3900X might not see much if any improvement for some users. And in general, you cannot future proof a PC because new hardware is always faster. We had a lot of stagnation on the CPU front during the last decade, but since 2017 there's been quite a lot of advancement in CPUs and I don't know we can assume it will just go back to stagnation any time soon.

[Thready]

Thanks everybody for the replies. I love this community!

 

[xg32]

some of the games that are already out are absolute monsters (borderlands 3 lol), i wouldn't build anything less than a 8/16, up from 6/12 before zen 2 came out, and it's not because of futureproofing, Same with ram, 16gb looking iffy already.

[KarathKasun]

3 minutes ago, xg32 said:

some of the games that are already out are absolute monsters (borderlands 3 lol), i wouldn't build anything less than a 8/16, up from 6/12 before zen 2 came out, and it's not because of futureproofing, Same with ram, 16gb looking iffy already.

BL3 doesnt really require much... its the Denuvo VM running that kills performance, and a faster CPU cant get around that.

[xg32]

3 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

BL3 doesnt really require much... its the Denuvo VM running that kills performance, and a faster CPU cant get around that.

well it does, the game doesn't well on a 8600k ADS, 9900k chops right through it, also have a 3700x rig that does fine, 6/12 is the absolute minimum on that game to be smooth, whether it's the game itself or denuvo.