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?

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[Brumboy]

Just saw this. I didn't end up doing anything. Still running 4690k at 4.2.

I was close to getting the 3700x but decided to wait until the 4000 series is out as I feel like I would regret upgrading now.

What I have been doing lately is literally going through every setting in OverWatch and seeing what brings down the CPU usage %. I can't remember all of the settings but it's gone down from 90% usage to 70% usage at 144 fps.

I usually upgrade every 5 years or so and this year is 5 years so that combined with all the new shiny CPU's I was getting a massive upgrade itch!

But some of the replies here are suggesting to actually go for the value CPU like 3300x/3600 and upgrade to AM4 in 2022? But that would mean having to upgrade the mobo/memory/cpu completely again, so 3 hardware swaps in 2 years? I am not sure about that.

Or maybe I'll end up holding onto the 4690k until AM4 is out, then upgrade everything to AM4, DDR5 and whatever new tech is out then (but then I have to account for premium prices).

All I know is that upgrading PC parts is a pain in the arse sometimes lol