Noob needs advice on 7800X3D vs 14600k

[Wadadadang]

Many people seem to recommend the 7800X3D but I'm not sure because gaming only makes up for maybe 30-40% of my usage. I organize a huge photo and music library and recordings, some of which with external drives, while often having open tons of browser tabs. Will be dabbling in Video/photo/music editing too but nothing too professional. But creative stuff definitely happening. And usual low-requirements office and organizing stuff. Probably going to build obsidian database as well or something similar but don't expect that to be a concern for either cpu? not sure which programs I’m going to use.

So my workloads aren't too demanding, I think. Nothing like 3d rendering for hours. But how much would my out-of-Game-performance suffer from a 7800X3D? How much would I benefit from the multicore-advantaged 14600k? Do I even need more than the 7800X3D offers, given my relatively humble workload requirements? Motherboards

B650E Taichi Lite

MSI MEG Z690 ACE

(I very much like the better connectivity of the z690 but that shouldn’t decide the VPU, right?)

GPU is 7900XTX (so when I can upgrade on the monitor I would like to go high on the resolution from time to time.)

 

Games I Play: Starfield, Overwatch 2, maybe Red Dead, CS:GO, Valorant,…

 

Are there issues with the z690 chips? I read something about not being stable with the RAM/storage? 

 

Any help greatly appreciated! As you can see this is my first PC and all those benchmarks are just confusing to me by now. I don't know what of these differences I'm even able to notice.
 

 

 

 

[Slottr]

Just eyeballing some benchmarks, you'd be losing performance across the board if you went with a 14600k.

 

And even if you had scenarios where it pulled ahead, it wouldn't be by any meaningful margin

[Aaron_T]

With some potentially niche exceptions, nothing you listed would suffer from having a 7800x3d vs a 14600k, but the gaming performance would be measurably (but maybe not noticeably) worse on the 14600k. Plus the AM5 platform has an upgrade path, but LGA 1700 does not.

[rippy4500]

The 14600k is slower in gaming, but you are comparing a 400 dollar cpu to a 300 dollar one. The 14700k at 400 dollars is way closer to the 7800x3d in performance.

[Wadadadang]

thank you! It’s not that this board is heavily pro-amd-leaning, right? Because this seems like a 3-0 so far.

Where I live, the difference between 14600k (343€) vs 7800X3D (354€) isn’t that steep, the 14700k is 430€ though. 
 

So you’re saying if anything I would notice a difference in gaming but with my workload wouldn’t notice the multicore-advantage? Even if I’d opened a few hundred browser tabs and lean into creative stuff more heavily (again, no rendering, more editing)? Like in responsiveness or whatever a browser benchmark or Crossmark says? What does this advantage mean, like a few milliseconds?

considering the upgrade path: I know that means next generation but there would be the 14700 and 14900 that still would be quite an upgrade, right?

And would you ever consider the USB-ports (that are much better on the z690 board) as a reason to decide for one over the other? Or would that never occur to you?

 

thank you for checking benchmarks and translating what’s noticeable.

[Aaron_T]

11 minutes ago, Wadadadang said:

thank you! It’s not that this board is heavily pro-amd-leaning, right? Because this seems like a 3-0 so far.

I am typically an intel buyer. I currently run a 14900k, have had a 10900x and several other Intel CPUs. I also built a 5950x system for machine learning. I tend to build my machines on the extreme high end of standard desktop hardware for 1-2 years of use. I am an engineer by trade and game on the side. So performance in all things means a lot to me.

 

If I were building a brand new machine right now in the budget range that you specified, I would be building it with the 7800x3d CPU. For a few reasons:

1. Upgrade path

2. 7950x or future AM5 equivalent would be a beast of an option for future multi core performance.

3. RAM quantity can be important, but speed is much less important in business applications in most situations.

4. Desktop typically doesn't offer ECC ram so it's a mute consideration

5. Validation on enterprise only applies to server grade CPUs in most cases, and in workstations scenarios I have noticed little difference in intel and AMD "day-to-day"

That being said, if intel releases a new socket in 2024, and the CPUs at a like-for-like price perform comparatively to AMD am5, then I'd likely go with that platform because some of the bullets above would flip. But that's hard to predict.

[Wadadadang]

Thank you very much! 

Your arguments are very strong and convincing. I only got one thing which still bugs me:

If you‘d work with external drives a lot would the way better connectivity (not just usb, but also one more PCIe and M.2 lane with less restrictions) influence your choice for a cpu? Because at this price point they’re almost the same price as the cpu. Or is that silly because the performance is so different and the cpu more important?

[Aaron_T]

1 minute ago, Wadadadang said:

Thank you very much! 

Your arguments are very strong and convincing. I only got one thing which still bugs me:

If you‘d work with external drives a lot would the way better connectivity (not just usb, but also one more PCIe and M.2 lane with less restrictions) influence your choice for a cpu? Because at this price point they’re almost the same price as the cpu. Or is that silly because the performance is so different and the cpu more important?

This depends a lot on your expectations and use case.

I, personally, have found that a couple high capacity internal drives plus a fast (10gbe, or 2.5gbe) NAS is a much better working scenario for me, then a lot of external USB drives would be.

So 1 NVMe drive directly connected to CPU PCIe lanes, plus 1 NVMe drive connected through the motherboard chipset, then all external storage over a fast ethernet connection.

If you expect to use a LOT of USB devices then maybe this is a consideration for you. But a couple things to consider:

 

1. Hardware performance is a 'mostly' fixed thing with respect to the current timeframe

2. Drivers, like that of USB, are always improving for all platforms.
3. IE software is malleable but hardware is 'mostly' not 

[Why_Me]

2 hours ago, Wadadadang said:

Many people seem to recommend the 7800X3D but I'm not sure because gaming only makes up for maybe 30-40% of my usage. I organize a huge photo and music library and recordings, some of which with external drives, while often having open tons of browser tabs. Will be dabbling in Video/photo/music editing too but nothing too professional. But creative stuff definitely happening. And usual low-requirements office and organizing stuff. Probably going to build obsidian database as well or something similar but don't expect that to be a concern for either cpu? not sure which programs I’m going to use.

So my workloads aren't too demanding, I think. Nothing like 3d rendering for hours. But how much would my out-of-Game-performance suffer from a 7800X3D? How much would I benefit from the multicore-advantaged 14600k? Do I even need more than the 7800X3D offers, given my relatively humble workload requirements? Motherboards

B650E Taichi Lite

MSI MEG Z690 ACE

(I very much like the better connectivity of the z690 but that shouldn’t decide the VPU, right?)

GPU is 7900XTX (so when I can upgrade on the monitor I would like to go high on the resolution from time to time.)

 

Games I Play: Starfield, Overwatch 2, maybe Red Dead, CS:GO, Valorant,…

 

Are there issues with the z690 chips? I read something about not being stable with the RAM/storage? 

 

Any help greatly appreciated! As you can see this is my first PC and all those benchmarks are just confusing to me by now. I don't know what of these differences I'm even able to notice.

Here you go and yes the X3D cpu's suck at productivity applications compared to the Intel i7's.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i7-13700F 2.1 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($336.75 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($35.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *MSI B760 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($151.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: *G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($107.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $632.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-12-10 23:33 EST-0500

[Wadadadang]

Thanks!
Why the 13700k over the 14600k??

And I’d prefer the z690 MSI Meg Ace because of the usb ports. Do you have experience with the X3D? How does it suck?

 

Your points re: hardware is exactly why I thought I wanted to have as many usb ports as possible now since external Hubs won’t give me more real ports in the sense of shared bandwidth. But yes I need to consider a NAS in the future, I haven’t thought of that. Also most of my drives aren’t high speed right now since I had no use for that but now I’m upgrading them off course so I need to consider that. 

literally losing sleep over this, so thanks a lot fr the advice!

[Why_Me]

27 minutes ago, Wadadadang said:

Thanks!
Why the 13700k over the 14600k??

And I’d prefer the z690 MSI Meg Ace because of the usb ports. Do you have experience with the X3D? How does it suck?

 

Your points re: hardware is exactly why I thought I wanted to have as many usb ports as possible now since external Hubs won’t give me more real ports in the sense of shared bandwidth. But yes I need to consider a NAS in the future, I haven’t thought of that. Also most of my drives aren’t high speed right now since I had no use for that but now I’m upgrading them off course so I need to consider that. 

literally losing sleep over this, so thanks a lot fr the advice!

The 13 gen i7 gives you two more E-cores (real cores) vs the 14600K.

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230491/intel-core-i713700f-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz/specifications.html 

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236799/intel-core-i5-processor-14600k-24m-cache-up-to-5-30-ghz/specifications.html

[igormp]

7 hours ago, Wadadadang said:

external Hubs won’t give me more real ports in the sense of shared bandwidth

Be aware that the USB ports in a motherboard are often on an internal USB hub, so they may share bandwidth anyway.