3600 to 3700X or 5600X

[MatteRB26]

I'm planning to upgrade my 3600 soon but I'm stuck between the 3700X or 5600X. My PC is primarily for 1080p wide gaming with a good amount of C# on the side running tools like Rider.

While I game at 1080p, I'm using a GTX 970 so I'm not expecting to big leaps in FPS seen in the benchmarks and reviews. I'm also wondering about the future of cores - 6 is already the minimum for a few games... Is the 3700X likely to do better than the 6 cores in the 5600X in future?

The multi core performance of the 3700X seems to be pretty appealing for when I'm doing thinks like side projects, game Dev etc. However, if I'm likely to see at least a reasonable gain from the 5600X in gaming (and other tasks) is it better to go for that? Especially if I end up getting a new GPU in the next couple of years.

Cost-wise, I'll likely be doing a "straight swap" of 3600 -> 3700X, however the 5600X I'll be selling my 3600 then topping to buy the 5600X. If I went with the 3700X, I could instead put that money into another 16gb ram to give me 32...

It's an absolute minefield

 

[MatteRB26]

Thanks guys, I did realise about the upcoming announcements, so I'll see what that does to pricing too, maybe I'll be able to squeeze out a 5800X...

Would the cores on the 3700X be worth considering for future proofing? It may be "slower" than the 5600X but as we move to more cores, wouldn't the extra thread power of the 3700X start to shine a bit? Or in reality, even if I compile a project on all threads for example, am I really going to notice..?

 

[MatteRB26]

Honestly I wouldn't go 6 cores. If you can extend to a 5800X then I would suggest that is your best bet. I just feel with consoles going 8 core it won't be too long before games are coded to use them. Multitasking on my 3700X is a dream in terms of productivity especially with many ide's open with various projects. I can only go from my experience but I had a 2600 prior to 3700X and it was a nice upgrade for work.

My other benefit to going for the 3700X is instead of paying more to grab a 5600X, I can get more ram instead - my IDEs quickly eat up my 16GB.

I think I'll see what they new release does to the 5800x. I'm not on a rush, and neither is my brother who will be buying my 3600 from me.

 

[MatteRB26]

Paying money to go from a 3600 to a 3700X is pointless for gaming. Even in the future if you were to get a more powerful graphics card.

Moving to a 5600X is a lot less pointless.

What I don't get is how you get a free swap to a 3700X. Obviously if it is free, then you may as well do it.

A friend is happy to sell me a 3700X for about the same as a used 3600, so I'll be selling on my 3600 to someone and use the money to take the 3700X. Orrrr I top up the difference for a used 5600X instead.

 

[MatteRB26]

I'm crossing fingers for a price drop and leaning towards the 5600X I think. The 5600X should hold its value better than a 3700X for future upgrade, and my thread-heavy loads aren't as common at the moment. I'd rather get a boost in gaming, even if I need to upgrade my 970 later for the real gains.