Can’t decide on CPU.. Sway me here

[Lew123]

 

I’ve already ordered a AM5 socket motherboard with DDR5 Ram. I currently have the Ryzen 9 7900X ordered on Amazon that I can cancel. I had someone mention the 7700X outperforms it in almost every gaming capacity. How can I slower less core cpu outperform the 7900x in nearly every benchmark (I understand it’s not too much slower but still). I need to pair one with my 3080TI and feel like the 7900x would be too powerful for it, unless I’m wrong. I’m going to be playing in 1080p valorant and 4k solo games. I don’t want any fear of bottlenecking. Would I be better off canceling and going for the 7700x or should I stick with the 7900x? 
 

I appreciate all feedback. Thanks!

[Coolmaster]

The 7700X and 7900X perform almost identically in gaming. The only advantage the 7700X would have is that it has fewer cores to split it's power budget between. The 7900X's advantage is in multithreaded applications.

[Lew123]

1 minute ago, Coolmaster said:

The 7700X and 7900X perform almost identically in gaming. The only advantage the 7700X would have is that it has fewer cores to split it's power budget between. The 7900X's advantage is in multithreaded applications.

What are examples of multithreaded applications? Wouldn’t it be better to invest in the 7900x now so it would be adequate in the future years with the extra cores? 

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, Lew123 said:

How can I slower less core cpu outperform the 7900x in nearly every benchmark (I understand it’s not too much slower but still).

Scheduling issues can put the game across multiple CCDs, which causes more latency and therefore reduced performance. That can be solved by either disabling the second CCD or just manually setting the affinity for a game to only use one CCD. 

 

Same thing goes with SMT, since that's broken with some of the newer schedulers, though not to the same degree.

 

This will likely be fixed in upcoming Windows updates (IIRC it broke on the latest Windows update, older revisions might still be OK), so if you need the multithread performance of the 7900X yeah stick with that, but if you don't the 7700X would require less effort now to get better performance for now, and in the future would only be 1-2% behind at most. 

 

Just now, Lew123 said:

What are examples of multithreaded applications? Wouldn’t it be better to invest in the 7900x now so it would be adequate in the future years with the extra cores? 

If you have to ask you probably don't use any of them. It's things like compilation, rendering, video editing, virtualization, anything you'd expect a workstation to do. 

 

As for the core counts, the thing to remember is that most games are written for consoles, and the current console generation only has 8 cores. Most games, therefore, aren't gonna be using more than 8 cores until the next generation of consoles hit at least, so they really aren't gonna do any benefit for gaming

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Lew123 said:

What are examples of multithreaded applications? Wouldn’t it be better to invest in the 7900x now so it would be adequate in the future years with the extra cores? 

The most popular examples of multithreaded applications lie in forms of rendering. Cinebench is a prime example of this, or rendering a YouTube video in Adobe or DaVinci. Anything that uses most, or all of your CPU at once to perform a single task.

 

I'm not an expert, but I believe some 3D modeling software such as Blender likes to have more CPU cores available.

 

As far as future years, yeah, more cores are typically better. There does eventually get to be a point where older stuff with more cores is just as good at certain tasks as newer stuff with fewer cores. This point doesn't typically last for more than 1 or 2 generations of hardware though, but it depends on what you need your PC for.

[Coolmaster]

1 minute ago, Lew123 said:

What are examples of multithreaded applications? Wouldn’t it be better to invest in the 7900x now so it would be adequate in the future years with the extra cores? 

Gaming is mostly single core, and there is an advantage of having more cores since they can do background tasks while the couple of cores used for gaming can still work at full speed, but 8 or 12 cores are more than enough for that. There are a lot of multithreaded applications, mostly for professional work, so things like 3D modelling, code compiling, data crunching, video editing, virtualization.

[Dukesilver27-]

Since you created a new thread specifically for this.

7700X has 8 cores, which how much the PS5 and XSX also have, for gaming, it is safe to say that 8 cores should be what game devs would target their game engine optimization for.

7900X only makes sense if you use your CPU for rendering or compiling codes or whatever, your everyday use cases and gaming won't benefit from those extra cores. 

By the time you'd upgrade, a better CPU would be launched, and that extra cost you put into 7900X would make even less sense.

Take a look at your 10900K, it was blazing fast for gaming when it launched, now? 12600K beats it by quite a bit.

[Lew123]

5 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Since you created a new thread specifically for this.

7700X has 8 cores, which how much the PS5 and XSX also have, for gaming, it is safe to say that 8 cores should be what game devs would target their game engine optimization for.

7900X only makes sense if you use your CPU for rendering or compiling codes or whatever, your everyday use cases and gaming won't benefit from those extra cores. 

By the time you'd upgrade, a better CPU would be launched, and that extra cost you put into 7900X would make even less sense.

Take a look at your 10900K, it was blazing fast for gaming when it launched, now? 12600K beats it by quite a bit.

I am switching to a computer science major where I’ll be doing lots of coding. Would the 12 cores benefit me more then?

[Lew123]

10 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

The most popular examples of multithreaded applications lie in forms of rendering. Cinebench is a prime example of this, or rendering a YouTube video in Adobe or DaVinci. Anything that uses most, or all of your CPU at once to perform a single task.

 

I'm not an expert, but I believe some 3D modeling software such as Blender likes to have more CPU cores available.

 

As far as future years, yeah, more cores are typically better. There does eventually get to be a point where older stuff with more cores is just as good at certain tasks as newer stuff with fewer cores. This point doesn't typically last for more than 1 or 2 generations of hardware though, but it depends on what you need your PC for.

I’m really only going to be doing gaming in various resolutions with occasional coding that might get more serious. Would you say still stick to the 7700X?

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Lew123 said:

I’m really only going to be doing gaming in various resolutions with occasional coding that might get more serious. Would you say still stick to the 7700X?

I think it depends on what kind of coding you plan to do. More games are becoming multithreaded as well, but a good amount of them are still singlethreaded(hence the identical gaming performance between the 7700X and 7900X).

 

Me personally, I'm getting into AI and machine learning, so I want as much horsepower as I can get, so I'm in the camp of getting more cores.

[Coolmaster]

Just now, Lew123 said:

I am switching to a computer science major where I’ll be doing lots of coding. Would the 12 cores benefit me more then?

As a student you probably won't running many intensive programs, maybe in your career depending on what field you go into you'd need a powerful CPU.

 

1 minute ago, Lew123 said:

I’m really only going to be doing gaming in various resolutions with occasional coding that might get more serious. Would you say still stick to the 7700X?

For those applications the 7700X will be more than enough, the 7900X will perform almost the same but costs more.

[Dukesilver27-]

2 minutes ago, Lew123 said:

I am switching to a computer science major where I’ll be doing lots of coding. Would the 12 cores benefit me more then?

I mean, you're still studying, I highly doubt you'd compile tons of complex codes all the time, so that extra cost really isn't beneficial. I'd rather save the extra cost to future CPU upgrade, or GPU upgrade. 

There's just no sense going for 7900X when the first priority is gaming, if your first priority is productivity, might as well go with 7950X.

[Lew123]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I think it depends on what kind of coding you plan to do. More games are becoming multithreaded as well, but a good amount of them are still singlethreaded(hence the identical gaming performance between the 7700X and 7900X).

 

Me personally, I'm getting into AI and machine learning, so I want as much horsepower as I can get, so I'm in the camp of getting more cores.

Newer games are becoming multithreaded. Should I invest in more cores now then or wait for the new generations? Or better yet, when would I need a good multithreaded processor for everyday gaming? 1 years 5 years? 

[Lew123]

11 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

I mean, you're still studying, I highly doubt you'd compile tons of complex codes all the time, so that extra cost really isn't beneficial. I'd rather save the extra cost to future CPU upgrade, or GPU upgrade. 

There's just no sense going for 7900X when the first priority is gaming, if your first priority is productivity, might as well go with 7950X.

I understand. Thanks! 

[Crunchy Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Lew123 said:

Newer games are becoming multithreaded. Should I invest in more cores now then or wait for the new generations? Or better yet, when would I need a good multithreaded processor for everyday gaming? 1 years 5 years? 

Everyday gaming on AAA titles, you should be able to get at least 5 years out of any modern mid to high end CPU. Games don't really change a ton year to year.

 

I'd probably buy a 7700X, call it a day, and save for a RAM or GPU upgrade if it becomes necessary in the future.

[Lew123]

5 minutes ago, Lew123 said:

I understand. Thanks! 

One more thing. Would I see any problems in 4k with the 7700x? 

[Lew123]

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Everyday gaming on AAA titles, you should be able to get at least 5 years out of any modern mid to high end CPU. Games don't really change a ton year to year.

 

I'd probably buy a 7700X, call it a day, and save for a RAM or GPU upgrade if it becomes necessary in the future.

I appreciate the advice. Thanks! Am I safe to assume it will perform more than well in 4k? 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Lew123 said:

I appreciate the advice. Thanks! Am I safe to assume it will perform more than well in 4k? 

Most likely.

 

GPU is typically the limiting factor in 4K and above, the only real concern for the CPU is to not bottleneck your GPU.

[Lew123]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Most likely.

 

GPU is typically the limiting factor in 4K and above, the only real concern for the CPU is to not bottleneck your GPU.

I see. Thanks again! Have a great night