Which CPU is best? Ryzen 2700x or Ryzen 3600?

[JazzzOnYourDace]

I'm looking to upgrade my pc and I need it to last for a long time because my financial future is looking a little grim. I've been watching the buyers guides and have decided on a new gpu, but the cpu has me scratching my head. I thought initially that the Ryzen 3600 would be for me, however after watching the holiday buyers guide video on LTT I saw that the 2700x was competing with the i9 9900. Whilst it wasn't straight up out performing the $400 CPU it was getting respectably close to matching it and at such a lower price point I was curious: Is the 2700x better or worse than the 3600? LTT seemed to somewhat gloss over the 2700x in their buyers guide and I assume that this is because the CPU is somewhat last gen. So, I was wondering which would be better seeing as they seem to cost almost exactly the same?

 

If it makes any difference I'll probably be getting the ASROCK b450 Motherboard as suggested in the LTT forum motherboard teir list thread. 

[Draconid]

What do you mostly do with your pc? 
For gaming go for the 3600
For productivity go for the 2700x

[Mateyyy]

The 3600 is the better choice in most scenarios. Despite having 2 fewer cores, it will only fall about 10% behind the 2700X in heavily multi-threaded applications, thanks to its much improved single-core performance, reason why it clearly outperforms the 2700X in gaming and other lightly-threaded tasks. Also, a 3800X would be the equivalent of a 9900K, the 2700X not so much really.

Asrock sells various B450 boards, and not all of them are particularly great. Which model are you looking into, and have you considered any of MSI's MAX boards, such as the B450-A Pro?

[JazzzOnYourDace]

5 minutes ago, Draconid said:

What do you mostly do with your pc? 
For gaming go for the 3600
For productivity go for the 2700x

I tend to mostly game on my pc. So I guess the 3600?

[JazzzOnYourDace]

2 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

The 3600 is the better choice in most scenarios. Despite having 2 fewer cores, it will only fall about 10% behind the 2700X in heavily multi-threaded applications, thanks to its much improved single-core performance, reason why it clearly outperforms the 2700X in gaming and other lightly-threaded tasks.

Also, Asrock sells various B450 boards, and not all of them are particularly great. Which model are you looking into, and have you considered any of MSI's MAX boards, such as the B450-A Pro?

Cool, so it seems the 3600 is the way to go. I'm looking at the asrock b450m steel legend matx board as I have an matx case and on the motherboard thread this was the best rated motherboard for this chip at this size (matx)

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, JazzzOnYourDace said:

Cool, so it seems the 3600 is the way to go. I'm looking at the asrock b450m steel legend matx board as I have an matx case and on the motherboard thread this was the best rated motherboard for this chip at this size (matx)

That's a pretty good board, though I'm not sure if it supports Ryzen 3000 out of the box, so make sure to check if it does or it will require a BIOS update.

MSI's B450 Mortar MAX also is an mATX board and has slightly better VRMs compared to the Steel Legend, which should handle even a 3900X, albeit at stock speeds. I recently built a system with this motherboard and a 3600X, and it's been solid ever since. 

[JazzzOnYourDace]

1 minute ago, Mateyyy said:

That's a pretty good board, though I'm not sure if it supports Ryzen 3000 out of the box, so make sure to check if it does or it will require a BIOS update.

MSI's B450 Mortar MAX also is an mATX board and has slightly better VRMs compared to the Steel Legend, which should handle even a 3900X, albeit at stock speeds. I recently built a system with this motherboard and a 3600X, and it's been solid ever since. 

Did the MSI board support the 300 series out of the box? It would be super useful to make sure that the motherboard does just to save me a lot of effort haha

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, JazzzOnYourDace said:

Did the MSI board support the 300 series out of the box? It would be super useful to make sure that the motherboard does just to save me a lot of effort haha

Yes, all of their "MAX" branded boards support Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

[JazzzOnYourDace]

Just now, Mateyyy said:

Yes, all of their "MAX" branded boards support Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

Ah okay, very tempting to go with that then just to reduce the risk of the board not supporting the chip

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, JazzzOnYourDace said:

Ah okay, very tempting to go with that then just to reduce the risk of the board not supporting the chip

Yeah it would be a very good choice in my opinion.

If you can't get your hands on it for some reason, you could ask your retailer about the Steel Legend or any other board whether it is compatible with Zen 2 or not, as the ones that are will have a "Ryzen 3000 ready" sticker on the box. If it doesn't have that, then maybe they could update the BIOS for a small fee.

[JazzzOnYourDace]

Just now, Mateyyy said:

Yeah it would be a very good choice in my opinion.

If you can't get your hands on it for some reason, you could ask your retailer about the Steel Legend or any other board whether it is compatible with Zen 2 or not, as the ones that are will have a "Ryzen 3000 ready" sticker on the box. If it doesn't have that, then maybe they could update the BIOS for a small fee.

Yeah, at a quick look on amazon etc however the extra £30 for the MSI board might be a bit much considering all the questions asked if the Steel ASROCK board supports 3600s seems to be a resounding yes. I guess I'll have to do some math and figure out if the extra money is worth avoiding the risk, depending on how hight that risk is.