3600 vs 3700x for next 4-5 years?

[Brumboy]

Hi there,

I usually upgrade my PC every 4-5 years. I currently have a 4690k which will be 5 years old in a few months.

I'm looking at upgrading, and the obvious budget choice is the 3600, the 3700x is about £110 more for 2 more cores and 4 more threads.

I generally just game, but I was wondering if it's worth going for the 3700x for longevity?

Would that extra £110 allow me to get another 1-2 years out of the build vs a 3600?

 

[Saltcreek]

I think the 3700x would get a little bit extra life over the 3600x. If I was smart I would have got the 3700 and not the 3900.

 

[Journey]

You can't really guarantee anything lasting 4-5+ years due to where we sit in the current climate with CPU competition, and the transition from primarily dual and quad core CPU's to many-core CPU's 6/8/12/16+

For the difficulty of changing a CPU getting an R5 3600 then dropping in an updated CPU in 18-24 months isn't going to be a big deal, and you'll end up spending the same overall. If you don't do heavily multi-cored work now, the extra 2c/4t of the 3700X won't make much of a difference for the most part.

 

[Brumboy]

I think the 3700x would get a little bit extra life over the 3600x. If I was smart I would have got the 3700 and not the 3900.

Yeah it's the same as me, I opted for the 4690k instead of the 4790k but at that time i5 quad cores were the go to for gaming, but those extra threads have made the 4790k somewhat competitive still.

 

[Brumboy]

You can't really guarantee anything lasting 4-5+ years due to where we sit in the current climate with CPU competition, and the transition from primarily dual and quad core CPU's to many-core CPU's 6/8/12/16+

For the difficulty of changing a CPU getting an R5 3600 then dropping in an updated CPU in 18-24 months isn't going to be a big deal, and you'll end up spending the same overall. If you don't do heavily multi-cored work now, the extra 2c/4t of the 3700X won't make much of a difference for the most part.

That is true. To be fair the 4690k is still decent for what use it for but that itch to upgrade after 5 years is getting real bad!

You are right regarding the 3700x, my logic is the next gen consoles are 8c/16t, so wouldn't it be wise to get at least that.

The £110 isn't a lot over a 4 year period, but if that gets me say 2 extra years to make it 6 years total before another upgrade that's not bad.

Whereas if I got the 3600 and wanted to upgrade to a 3700x down the line, I would have the hassle of trying to sell my CPU.

But then again aren't the Ryzen 4000 series out this year? so that's another option!

 

[Journey]

Whereas if I got the 3600 and wanted to upgrade to a 3700x down the line, I would have the hassle of trying to sell my CPU.

I doubt you'd have hassle selling a 3600 for £50, and then buying a 3700X for £110 in 24 months. You only need to look at the 2700X, they sell for about £100 second hand now, they were £280, just like the 3700X is now. When you have big leaps forwards the older stuff drops in value very quickly

 

[Panos]

Hi there,

I usually upgrade my PC every 4-5 years. I currently have a 4690k which will be 5 years old in a few months.

I'm looking at upgrading, and the obvious budget choice is the 3600, the 3700x is about £110 more for 2 more cores and 4 more threads.

I generally just game, but I was wondering if it's worth going for the 3700x for longevity?

Would that extra £110 allow me to get another 1-2 years out of the build vs a 3600?

Look with AM4 platform you will still have upgrade paths to 3900X/3950X and all way to 4950X next year. Is not like you won't have CPUs to pick in the future second hand.
4690/4790 were one off unfortunately replaced immediately with 6000 series and so on.
Intel didn't gave a single generation upgrade after that time until the Z370/390 platform.

 

[TNA]

Hi there,

I usually upgrade my PC every 4-5 years. I currently have a 4690k which will be 5 years old in a few months.

I'm looking at upgrading, and the obvious budget choice is the 3600, the 3700x is about £110 more for 2 more cores and 4 more threads.

I generally just game, but I was wondering if it's worth going for the 3700x for longevity?

Would that extra £110 allow me to get another 1-2 years out of the build vs a 3600?

Get the 3600, put the money saved aside and in 2 years time sell the 3600 and get a 4700X. That is the best route.

If that is not an option I would go for the 3700X for sure as the extra cores will come in handy eventually.

 

[lltfdaniel]

This is what i think,

Go for the 3700x if you plan to keep that cpu for 4-5 years, if not then get a 3600 and when amd releases their new processors get a 4600 or 4700x whichever.

Dan.

 

[Skynet5]

This is what i think,

Go for the 3700x if you plan to keep that cpu for 4-5 years, if not then get a 3600 and when amd releases their new processors get a 4600 or 4700x whichever.

Dan.

I'm looking at the 3900x but tbh thinking a 3700x should ve fine.

I'm quite interested in flight sims and the new one coming I'm sitting on the fence a little.

I suspect a 3700x now in a half decent board like the ultra and in 3 years time a 4900x might be an OK plan.

 

[r22snapper]

I'm looking at the 3900x but tbh thinking a 3700x should ve fine.

I'm quite interested in flight sims and the new one coming I'm sitting on the fence a little.

I suspect a 3700x now in a half decent board like the ultra and in 3 years time a 4900x might be an OK plan.

I'm waiting for the next flight sim as well. I reckon it'll be the end of this year so I'm going to wait and see if it prefers more cores or single thread performance. By then the Ryzen 3 chips should be out with a decent performance uplift, so I will either get a 4700x or a 3900x. They'll probably cost a similar amount by then.

 

[r22snapper]

I mean Zen 3.

 

[CHokKA]

4 - 5 years isn't a long time these days. My upgrade was almost 7 years but with the Core i5s you have to upgrade board, RAM and CPU together making it costly. With Ryzen you can still put a 4000 series into one of the current boards and use the same RAM so it opens up a whole host of options right now. I went from an i5 3570K to a Ryzen 5 3600X on a decent B450 board and I'll probably put a higher-end 3000 or 4000 in when the 4000's come out. I can do that with Ryzen and that's great tbh.

 

[Journey]

Also lets not forget that there'll be a big change come 2021 with DDR5 platforms coming to the mainstream, and PCI-E 5.0, not to mention USB 4.0 (Thunderbolt 3.0) and probably more that I've not listed.

I'd think spending a small but sensible amount on the CPU/Board/RAM combo (~£310 for R5 3600/B450/16GB DDR4 3200) is the obvious choice, others will tell you spending £270 on an X570 board is a great idea, but it's not if you aren't getting any benefit from it at all.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

Whereas if I got the 3600 and wanted to upgrade to a 3700x down the line

It will be a few years down the line when the 3600 needs replacing. So the 3700x will be about £130 like the 1700x is now. A very cheap upgrade. You could even upgrade to the 3900X which will be cheap.

Even the 12 core 4900X should be a very cheap upgrade in 3 or 4 years.

 

[Brumboy]

Yeah there are a lot of options, that's what's good but also a bit frustrating.

Zen seems to come out between April & July when it launches so if the 4000 series comes out by the summer, then I think I will wait and get the 8 core from that line up (4700x or whatever).

The fact is, I can wait for an upgrade, it's just very tempting with all the new tech and seeing the Gamer Nexus video about the 4690k/4790k really showed the gains that can be made even by going to the 3600.

If I wait for the 4000 series, it means I can save more and get a better setup, 3000 series will drop in price, new motherboards will probably be out too which again will drop the prices of the B450 and X570's. The only negative of doing this is waiting 6-10 months, but honestly I can do that.

Thanks for the discussion everyone, it's been interesting and informative.

 

[Tetras]

Intel will hopefully have a new architecture (actually new, not Skylake v25) out in that timeframe too, so it seems sensible to wait if you can. Performance might move pretty fast if they ever manage to get off 14nm on desktop.

 

[EsaT]

Also lets not forget that there'll be a big change come 2021 with DDR5 platforms coming to the mainstream, and PCI-E 5.0, not to mention USB 4.0 (Thunderbolt 3.0) and probably more that I've not listed.

Doubtfull PCIe v5 will be actually usefull in home use until some 10 years from now.
Even PCIe v2's bandwidth isn't much of bottleneck for the fastest current graphics card.
So it will many many years before v4 causes any meaningfull bottleneck.
And with already PCIe v4 causing higher cost of motherboards v5's doubled speed will no doubt demand even more expensive boards.

USB4 isn't really needed on dekstop.
Even USB marketing number Gen2 isn't that much use on desktop, because of having lots of ports available and no need for hubs/splitters.
Unlike in laptops with their decreasing number of connectors.

As for DDR5 suspect it will be pretty high price product in 21.
At this rate we'll be looking at maybe having server memories out by end of the year.
Assuming (apparently hour salary charging) JEDEC finally pulls their fingers out of their collective butt and finishes spec before Christmas is here...
Even Intel Rocket Lake leaks have only DDR4 mentioned.
So if AMD intends to transition exclusively to DDR5 in next year, let's hope it won't backfire with memories being scarce/expensive.

 

[EsaT]

Intel will hopefully have a new architecture (actually new, not Skylake v25) out in that timeframe too, so it seems sensible to wait if you can. Performance might move pretty fast if they ever manage to get off 14nm on desktop.

Intel's this year's max 10 core Comedy Lake is another rebranding of 2015's Skylake on 14nm+++++++.
(and no doubt maxes at 250W power draw when chasing advertised clocks)
And prices and availability are likely going to be bad with bigger and bigger dies just worsening Intel's manufacturing capacity challenges.
(Intel likely planned on milking with same medieval four cores to end of 14nm)
Cousin working in IT-support of schools of one city recently told some PC deliveries have been delayed two months because of bad availability of CPUs.

And Intel won't be getting faster CPUs out easily.
Newer smaller nodes tolerate less and less voltage meaning it's harder and harder to maintain high clock speeds.
(leakage increases faster with voltage when components get smaller)
While at the same time 14nm has been and extensively tweaked and tuned for high clocks.
Because of that Intel might well end up having only relatively minor performance bump from next node even if architecture has bigger IPC jump.

 

[Journey]

As for DDR5 suspect it will be pretty high price product in 21.
At this rate we'll be looking at maybe having server memories out by end of the year.
Assuming (apparently hour salary charging) JEDEC finally pulls their fingers out of their collective butt and finishes spec before Christmas is here...
Even Intel Rocket Lake leaks have only DDR4 mentioned.
So if AMD intends to transition exclusively to DDR5 in next year, let's hope it won't backfire with memories being scarce/expensive.

AMD in the past have always supported two RAM types in transition periods, and some board manufacturers have even had two slot types on one board. I'm not going to try and second guess the RAM market for pricing, as it could equally be almost as cheap as DDR4 by the time it hits consumer boards. JEDEC will have finalised the specification no later than Q2 '20, and it looks like there will be very minor changes to the current draft specification already issued.

USB4 isn't really needed on dekstop.
Even USB marketing number Gen2 isn't that much use on desktop, because of having lots of ports available and no need for hubs/splitters.
Unlike in laptops with their decreasing number of connectors.

Indeed why bother making anything better than it already is, seems pointless. In fact why don't we just go back to normal old fashioned serial ports.

Doubtfull PCIe v5 will be actually usefull in home use until some 10 years from now.
Even PCIe v2's bandwidth isn't much of bottleneck for the fastest current graphics card.
So it will many many years before v4 causes any meaningfull bottleneck.
And with already PCIe v4 causing higher cost of motherboards v5's doubled speed will no doubt demand even more expensive boards.

You seem very negative for a tech enthusiast.