Question 10600K(F) vs 3700X

[Adam Saint]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but I am struggling to choose between these two as a replacement for my 4790K which is showing its age a bit now.

I can get either the 10600K(F) or the 3700X for around the same price. It will be put with a 1080ti GPU for gaming, and if gaming was all I was doing perhaps the 10600K would be the obvious choice, but I also use the machine for work. When I'm working I have 2 or 3 remote desktops open (citrix), office apps, 8-10x chrome tabs etc. open at once and maybe the 3700X would be better for that sort of use.

Any input would be very welcome. thanks.

 

[Markfw]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but I am struggling to choose between these two as a replacement for my 4790K which is showing its age a bit now.

I can get either the 10600K(F) or the 3700X for around the same price. It will be put with a 1080ti GPU for gaming, and if gaming was all I was doing perhaps the 10600K would be the obvious choice, but I also use the machine for work. When I'm working I have 2 or 3 remote desktops open (citrix), office apps, 8-10x chrome tabs etc. open at once and maybe the 3700X would be better for that sort of use.

Any input would be very welcome. thanks.

For games they will be close. For all the other tasks, the 3700x will be better.

 

[Hitman928]

Judging by the CPU this is replacing, I'm going to assume that you intend the CPU to not be replaced for a while. If this is true, I'd go for the 3700x. I think the extra cores will be more noticeable going forward, maybe even for gaming as the new consoles come out with much better CPUs than the prior gen.

 

[Tup3x]

3700X. The thing is... You'd want to at least match next gen console core count if you don't want to upgrade anytime soon.

 

[UsandThem]

I'd personally go with the 3700X, but if you want to stay with Intel, you really should go up to the i7 (10700 or 10700k) which are 8 core / 16 thread CPUs.

A 3700x paired with a B550 motherboard would be the way I'd go if I were building a new PC right now.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you are in a time is money, and the i7 setup is costing you money now, then 3700x. If you can hold out a bit longer, I'd wait for the new Zen3. It will hopefully bring a nice performance bump, or again hopefully, at the least, result in current stuff getting discounted

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you are in a time is money, and the i7 setup is costing you money now, then 3700x. If you can hold out a bit longer, I'd wait for the new Zen3. It will hopefully bring a nice performance bump, or again hopefully, at the least, result in current stuff getting discounted

This, or at least a 4750G if you can ever buy one for DiY. Vermeer 8c should be out by November/December 2020.

 

[blckgrffn]

For gaming over the next few years, I'd say getting the same CPU architecture, core/thread count and frequency or better is warranted.

We can only assume that the Series X and PS5 will combine for more than 100M unit sold and that commonly used engines like Unreal and Unity are going to spend a good amount of time & effort optimizing performance and features based on that as a baseline.

In so many ways, this a close call, I'd opt for additional cores & threads given everything else.

 

[SPBHM]

the multitasking that you described doesn't sound that severe for any of these CPUs, but for what is worth, for 100% CPU load highly multithreaded tasks the i5 will find itself closer to the 3600 than the 3700x.

for gaming the 10600k is superior to anything AMD can offer right now without a doubt.
the future of PC games in terms of CPU is a little difficult to predict, it's true that the extra 2c/4t will likely be more helpful, but the advantage the i5 has with overall speed (be it the frequency or just lower latency, or some other characteristic that works well for gaming) is not completely going to disappear I don't think...
having PCIE 4.0 might also be a positive which the i5 lacks.

the consoles using Zen2 cores might help Zen2 on PC, but the software is fairly different, the console CPU is also reserving cores for other tasks (games will not use 16t), the clock is lower and they might have high latency memory access and smaller l3 cache, endind up kind of slow compared to the 3700x or 10600k, but again the software is not the same, just look at what the PS4 is still doing with a terribly slow CPU by PC standards.

realistically both options are fine.... as would IMO waiting another year with the 4790k to have a clearer picture and Zen3.

 

[Ajay]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but I am struggling to choose between these two as a replacement for my 4790K which is showing its age a bit now.

I can get either the 10600K(F) or the 3700X for around the same price. It will be put with a 1080ti GPU for gaming, and if gaming was all I was doing perhaps the 10600K would be the obvious choice, but I also use the machine for work. When I'm working I have 2 or 3 remote desktops open (citrix), office apps, 8-10x chrome tabs etc. open at once and maybe the 3700X would be better for that sort of use.

Any input would be very welcome. thanks.

For that workload, either one really. You're not going to notice the difference. If you are not doing a clean install of windows, the Intel system would likely 'upgrade' more cleanly based on my past experience.

 

[Shmee]

What resolution monitor and which games? For multitasking the 3700x is better, but in games the 10600kf should generally be faster, though this varies by, game, settings/res, and of course if the 1080Ti or the CPU is the bottleneck.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

For that workload, either one really. You're not going to notice the difference. If you are not doing a clean install of windows, the Intel system would likely 'upgrade' more cleanly based on my past experience.

To add my anecdotal experiences: Since win 10 has matured, I have swapped and upgraded Intel and AMD systems, including AMD and Nvidia GPUs, and had no issues. Heck, I changed the board 3 times on one build, last year I think, and since I logged in with my MS account, was able to reactivate my retail win 10 using the troubleshooter, each time.

 

[Ajay]

To add my anecdotal experiences: Since win 10 has matured, I have swapped and upgraded Intel and AMD systems, including AMD and Nvidia GPUs, and had no issues. Heck, I changed the board 3 times on one build, last year I think, and since I logged in with my MS account, was able to reactivate my retail win 10 using the troubleshooter, each time.

Thanks for that info. I've only done clean installs with Win10. I'm about to do an upgrade of my wife's Intel system (W10) with and AMD system - glad to hear that it should go smoothly!

 

[daveybrat]

I'd definitely recommend the 3700X as it's a beast of a cpu. Also the Wraith Prism RGB cooler works very well and even if you don't use it, you could sell it for about $35.

 

[viivo]

To add my anecdotal experiences: Since win 10 has matured, I have swapped and upgraded Intel and AMD systems, including AMD and Nvidia GPUs, and had no issues. Heck, I changed the board 3 times on one build, last year I think, and since I logged in with my MS account, was able to reactivate my retail win 10 using the troubleshooter, each time.

Just today I replaced a 3900x and X570 with a 10700 and Z490 board on the same Win10 install and haven't had a single issue, performance or otherwise. I didn't even uninstall the AMD chipset drivers beforehand. I know it's not optimal, but it won't ruin your day like in the past.

 

[epsilon84]

Just today I replaced a 3900x and X570 with a 10700 and Z490 board on the same Win10 install and haven't had a single issue, performance or otherwise. I didn't even uninstall the AMD chipset drivers beforehand. I know it's not optimal, but it won't ruin your day like in the past.

Just curious what made you switch back to Intel?

To the OP, if you're chasing the absolute highest possible frame rates and have a high refresh rate monitor to match, then the 10600K. Otherwise the 3700X would beat it in the vast majority of thread heavy workloads, though I'm not sure how CPU intensive your intended usage is.

 

[Arkaign]

Unless you are really planning on going with a more powerful GPU with upcoming Navi 2 or Ampere AND a 100+hz display, I think the X570 AMD build makes more sense here. 32GB of Ram, and keep an eye on 12/16 core in the future in case your workload gets more extensive.

10700K would be the minimum Intel CPU for you IMHO.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

If the goal is absolute best frame rates for right now it is the intel, if getting 96% of the same frame rates and being more future oriented go with the 3700x
Better bandwidth like pcie 4.0 and more cores (I think). New consoles could change the whole games don’t use that many cores scenario.

 

[viivo]

Just curious what made you switch back to Intel?

Mostly subjective reasons regarding little quirks that seem to pop up at random requiring time spent tweaking and re-tweaking previously tweaked and stable settings. I'm old and lazy and don't have the patience or enthusiasm I used to for that. Plus the things I do will never use even the 10700's 8 cores, so definitely don't need 12.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

I was considering a similar upgrade myself.

(going from a i7-7700 to a 3700x,re-using my current 32 GB kit of Corsair Vengence LPX DDR4.)

 

[TheELF]

When I'm working I have 2 or 3 remote desktops open (citrix), office apps, 8-10x chrome tabs etc. open at once and maybe the 3700X would be better for that sort of use.

How many threads would each of these citrix things use,this would determine if they respond better to high clocks or to more cores.
You can get the 10600k going close to 5Ghz on all cores at the same time so all your citrix desktops would be able to run at that speed.
(Useless if they don't need high clocks)
With the 3700x you would get a bunch more cores but getting them all to run at more than 4.1-4.2Ghz would be a challenge.
(Useless if they do need high clocks)

All the other stuff,chrome and office only use up memory and will barely touch your CPU.

 

[Makaveli]

The biggest bottleneck for citrix will be how fast your internet connection is at home and its latency.

The Citrix server will be doing more of the heavy lifting than your processor.

And it sounds like you will be multi tasking alot so my money would be 3700x.