The Best CPUs 2019: This is what you should get

[torchyear]

I went from 1st gen Lynnfield Core i7 to Ryzen R5-1600 last year and it was the improvements in chipset and interface bandwidth (NVME storage + USB3 + DRAM latency), rather than CPU performance, that made the upgrade worthwhile. So it was the motherboard getting too old, rather than CPU speed, that dictated the system replacement.

 

[Badvok]

I think we should keep the date of this article. 4 out of 5 suggestions, from AMD?

It just shows that AMD is undercutting Intel. If for some reason price wasn't a factor AMD wouldn't get a single recommendation, Intel always wins in performance/watt.

 

[Badvok]

Interesting how AMD seems to have overtaken Intel. Intel used to be the top processor for years and AMD was way behind, but things seems to have changed.

Wonder what happened at Intel that they now lag behind?

AMD hasn't overtaken Intel, they've simply undercut them. If you take price out of the equation Intel wins every time. It just shows that Intel aren't interested in a price war.

 

[meric]

It just shows that AMD is undercutting Intel. If for some reason price wasn't a factor AMD wouldn't get a single recommendation, Intel always wins in performance/watt.

^ This is what intel fanboys always refuse to understand

 

[LeroN]

I think we should keep the date of this article. 4 out of 5 suggestions, from AMD?
What year is this? 2005?

I suppose 2001. People consider only one option I.e. a low r2600's price but miss out the whole problem.

 

[Dextruction5]

Performance/Watt..... Because I buy a gaming CPU for it to be power efficient.... It's like buying a ferrari and complaining about the gas mileage. Considering the fact that games are finally beginning to use more threads effectively, the fact that the ryzen chips have better multi thread performance is good. They are also cheaper, and only about 10% lower in single thread performance for about 25% less cost. The fact that they may use 20-30W more really does not make much of a difference, and neither is it worth the extra price. Ryzen motherboards are about the same price as intel ones, and you have the option of going with a b450 board, which you can still OC on, unlike the intel counterpart. This is not even including the HEDT offerings where threadripper offers simillar performance for a lower price (just shame about the cost of x399 motherboards being quite high)

 

[dj2017]

It just shows that AMD is undercutting Intel. If for some reason price wasn't a factor AMD wouldn't get a single recommendation, Intel always wins in performance/watt.

If Intel was a charity, all options would have been from Intel. your point?

 

[144hzGamer]

I'm guessing you don't own a Ryzen system. Fact: Ryzen memory compatibility have been excellent since AGESA 1.0.0.3. It's been that way since 4 months after launch. I'm sure you heard that at launch and haven't bothered to validate if it is still true. A vast majority of Ryzen systems can get the maximum 2933 of the processor out of the box with zero tweaking and OC to 3000 or 3233. I would highly recommend that you read up on it as your assumptions are outdated.

The 8400 running great on a midrange board is a moot point given the mentioned AMD processor does just that as well. The RAM investment on Ryzen is nill right now. You might pay $10 more for DDR4 3200. The Ryzen motherboard's costing more claim is complete BS. I'm assuring by hsf you mean heatsink and fan, in which case the Ryzen wins. The included heatsink is much better then Intel's junk.

Right now the 8400 costs 220 + shipping.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0759FGJ3Q/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20

The Ryzen 5 2600 is $160

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B41WS48/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20

If you are going for maximum gaming performance then you should be buying the 8700k or 9700K. The 8400 is a more budget minded CPU and yet it's price compared to the 2600 makes it a non-option. Why would anyone with a tight budget drop that much on the CPU when it's only advantage is 3% gaming performance when paired with a 1080 Ti, a $700 GPU? If you have that much money to spend you would just buy the best gaming CPU, not the budget option. If you are on a budget it makes way more sense to get a 2600 and put the extra money you saved towards a faster GPU. A majority of people buy in the $200 GPU range. The 8400 isn't faster with any GPU at that price bracket. That's before considering that the multi-thread performance of the 2600 is better AND it can be overclocked AND you can drop next gen processors in the same motherboard. The cherry on the cake here is that the 2600 actually has stock while the 8400 is sparse in stock. I've already seen 3 sales of the 2600 at $135 and zero sales on the 8400. Even Amazon only has 3rd party sellers with the 8400 in stock.

It just makes more sense to buy the 2600 and put the saved money towards a better GPU.


FYI the post you were quoting was from half a year ago. It should be a dead giveaway when he said the 2600 was more expensive then the 8400. In fact the only time that was true was right after the 8400 launched. It quickly went out of stock and is still has stock issues. The pricing has clearly inflated as a result and now stands significantly above the 2600.

You still need 3200mhz CL14 or 3466 ram to equal i5 8400 performance. And that requires samsung B die, wich costs a lot. It also requires good VRMs motherboard to oc ryzen to 4,2ghz and a cooler. i5 8400 intel cooler is more than enough. Installed several and cpu doesnt go past 65°.

Why pay more and waste time tweaking to have same performance as a cheapest and tweak free solution?

That simple.

 

[dj2017]

You still need 3200mhz CL14 or 3466 ram to equal i5 8400 performance. And that requires samsung B die, wich costs a lot. It also requires good VRMs motherboard to oc ryzen to 4,2ghz and a cooler. i5 8400 intel cooler is more than enough. Installed several and cpu doesnt go past 65°.

Why pay more and waste time tweaking to have same performance as a cheapest and tweak free solution?

That simple.

Nope. Anything from 3000 and up will do just fine with Ryzen. Considering that motherboards and the Intel CPUs themselves are more expensive, worst case scenario you pay the same money to get better and faster RAM. And don;t tell me about $60 intel motherboards. Please.

You make it look like i5 is faster in everything than Ryzen. Maybe Ryzen needs OCing and faster memory to get at 8400 gaming performance, but there is no way possible to get 8400 close to Ryzen on productivity. And if 8400 is a nice mainstream CPU for today, Ryzen is an excellent mainstream CPU for today AND tomorrow. not to mention that you can hope to upgrade it latter with something that will have a logical price, not something overpriced.

As for motherboards and coolers, you really don't need something more than a B450 and the stock cooler. Intel processors are having more thermal problems than AMD. If someone decides latter that the 8400 should be upgraded with the i7 or i9, a high end cooler will be needed, or a new motherboard if a platform change is necessary. On the other hand upgrading Ryzen is much cheaper and wouldn't need a platform change.

 

[Puiu]

You know you need to use the 8400 on a z370 board to achieve its optimum performance too right? You can check here https://www.techspot.com/review/1608-core-i5-8400-vs-ryzen-5-1600-best-value/page3.html

Yes, I'm aware of that, but the difference is that the 8400 only suffers a ~5% performance hit by using DDR4-2666 instead of 3200, in some games the difference is like 2%, so from a value perspective it makes sense, as you are saving $30 on a B360 and another $30 - $40 on DDR4-2666 instead of 3200, for a ~5% performance hit. AMD would suffer a much bigger performance hit if you were to use DDR4-2666 memory, if you don't believe me, ask Steve to test it out.

My point is that, to even approach 8400 levels, you need a fully tweaked 2600 @ 4.2GHz, which requires
1. a decent aftermarket HSF, as the small Stealth HSF won't cut it for 4.0GHz+ overclocks
2. CL14 3200 DDR4 memory, preferably 'B Die' modules

All of which doesn't come free - the 2600 is already $20 more than a 8400, a decent budget HSF like the Hyper 212 costs $30, and even the cheapest CL14 3200 kits are generally around $200 or more, which is about $40 more than a 2666 kit. You also get much higher power consumption from the AMD system because you are comparing an overclocked system to a stock one, so the energy bill difference would mount up over the course of a year or two.

Assuming B350 and B360 motherboards cost the same (they pretty much do), you end up paying $90 more than the 8400 platform. Again, I reiterate that if any highly multi-threaded programs are used, then it's probably worth the premium as the extra 6 threads are worth a lot for those use cases.

However, if you are strictly building a gaming only machine, the 8400 represents better value IMO, and the savings there should go towards a faster GPU, which is the key for gaming systems. That $90 is enough to get you an upgrade from a 1070 to a 1070 Ti, for example, which further improves gaming performance by about ~20%.

Im glad someone finally talks abou it! This ryzen glory bandwagon on the web is just too annoying. i5 8400 is the chip to get on most mainstream situations. This thing runs cool and has amazing performance even for high refresh gaming without any advanced tweaking. It also runs full potential on a 60€ b360 board and a 70€ 2x4gb 2400mhz kit. While ryzen needs serious tweaking and motherboard, hsf and ram investment to make it SIMiLAR to 8400.

Also I dont agree with 8700k being the best for gaming, 9700k almost same price in my country and 8 real cores at 4,6ghz > 8700k for gaming

I call BS on your "needs serious tweaking". You don't need to do anything to get good performance. It just works out of the box.

There are a lot of cheap 3000-3200 Mhz RAM that work great with the 2600 out of the box and the motherboards need no tweaking. I recently built a Ryzen PC for a family member and it only cost me 130euro in Europe, taxes included, to get a pair of Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM 3000MHz CL15 (it's 110$ in the US now).

With that config (0 tweaking, 3000MHz RAM CL15), the 2600 it should be on average around 10% slower than the 8400 with low-latency 2660MHz RAM in games (according to techspot's 2600 vs 8400 36 games benchmark article from May) which means that the results will be even closer if you used cheap 2400MHz RAM.

With that being said, the 7-zip decompression results are 70% faster for the 2600, Blender is over 30% faster and CB is 60%.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1627-core-i5-8400-vs-ryzen-5-2600/page8.html

And the prices... the 2600 is 160$ and the 8400 is over 200$ (220$ now on newegg). You can't possibly recommend the 8400 over the 2600 unless you already have the mobo for it and don't want to buy a new one.

FYI If you don't mind "tweaking", you can get better performance in games than the 8400.

PS: People seriously need to stop giving advice when they don't even know the street prices.

 

[144hzGamer]

I call BS on your "needs serious tweaking". You don't need to do anything to get good performance. It just works out of the box.

There are a lot of cheap 3000-3200 Mhz RAM that work great with the 2600 out of the box and the motherboards need no tweaking. I recently built a Ryzen PC for a family member and it only cost me 130euro in Europe, taxes included, to get a pair of Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM 3000MHz CL15 (it's 110$ in the US now).

With that config (0 tweaking, 3000MHz RAM CL15), the 2600 it should be on average around 10% slower than the 8400 with low-latency 2660MHz RAM in games (according to techspot's 2600 vs 8400 36 games benchmark article from May) which means that the results will be even closer if you used cheap 2400MHz RAM.

With that being said, the 7-zip decompression results are 70% faster for the 2600, Blender is over 30% faster and CB is 60%.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1627-core-i5-8400-vs-ryzen-5-2600/page8.html

And the prices... the 2600 is 160$ and the 8400 is over 200$ (220$ now on newegg). You can't possibly recommend the 8400 over the 2600 unless you already have the mobo for it and don't want to buy a new one.

FYI If you don't mind "tweaking", you can get better performance in games than the 8400.

PS: People seriously need to stop giving advice when they don't even know the street prices.

I call BS to the fact you easily get 110€ 16gb 3000mhz DDR4 in Europe and I5 8400 being more than 200€ everywhere too. Typical AMD bot will always try to put things on his favour.

Also 3000mhz SUCKS for Ryzen. Anything lower than 3200mhz CL14 will give you wonky 0,1% fps. Facts.

 

[144hzGamer]

Nope. Anything from 3000 and up will do just fine with Ryzen. Considering that motherboards and the Intel CPUs themselves are more expensive, worst case scenario you pay the same money to get better and faster RAM. And don;t tell me about $60 intel motherboards. Please.

You make it look like i5 is faster in everything than Ryzen. Maybe Ryzen needs OCing and faster memory to get at 8400 gaming performance, but there is no way possible to get 8400 close to Ryzen on productivity. And if 8400 is a nice mainstream CPU for today, Ryzen is an excellent mainstream CPU for today AND tomorrow. not to mention that you can hope to upgrade it latter with something that will have a logical price, not something overpriced.

As for motherboards and coolers, you really don't need something more than a B450 and the stock cooler. Intel processors are having more thermal problems than AMD. If someone decides latter that the 8400 should be upgraded with the i7 or i9, a high end cooler will be needed, or a new motherboard if a platform change is necessary. On the other hand upgrading Ryzen is much cheaper and wouldn't need a platform change.

Thats your problem. You dont actually test the equipment yet you talk about 60€ mobos and i5 8400 temps. Because you know nothing about it.

 

[Knot Schure]

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series, 16GB kit (2x8GB): $160 from newegg for DDR4-2400/CAS 15 ([url[https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4vWrxr/gskill-memory-f42400c15d16gvr[/URL])

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series, 16GB kit (2x8GB): $165 from newegg for DDR4-3000/CAS 15 (https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3C...b-2-x-8gb-ddr4-3000-memory-f4-3000c15d-16gvkb) or DDR4-3200/CAS 16 (https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Nqp323/gskill-memory-f43200c16d16gvrb)

Yes, I can see how there's such a big price difference in paying for faster DDR4 RAM for Ryzen systems....

(/sarcasm)

As already mentioned, your prices are wrong... plus Ryzen gaming performance suffers a lot from high latency as well, so cheaper CL16 DDR4-3200 isn't going to cut it - you'll need CL14 DDR4-3200 at a minimum to achieve the level of performance shown in reviews.

And if you further tweak the memory for maximum gaming performance, as shown here:

you will need an expensive Samsung 'B Die' DDR4 kit like the G.Skill Flare X 3200 CL14 used by Steve which costs $240 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...e=g.skill_flare_X_3200-_-20-232-530-_-Product

So to effectively match a 8400 at gaming you'll need:
A 2600 overclocked to 4.2GHz
A decent HSF to hit those clocks
DDR4-3200 CL14 memory

So the total platform cost can end up about $60 - $100 more than an equivalent 8400 system, depending on the choice of memory and cooler you use. It would be overall a more powerful platform, as the 2600 is the better productivity CPU, but for gaming only rigs its actually better value to go with Intel, particularly the 8400.

Sort of my thinking too.

Last week I upgraded my system, was about to pull the trigger on a 2950X AMD, but its 850GBP here, and then I need a new m/b and faster RAM, and also I'd lose my 7 PCIe sockets too.

So I decided to dump the 2690 v4 Xeon & ECC RAM, and install a BW-E 6950X (I have stacks of 3200MHz RAM lying around doing nothing, so that was no extra cost), and it clocked to 4.5GHz straight away.

And since Anand had just reviewed the new i9, I ran some of those benchies, and either beat the 2950X, traded blows with it, or on a couple of things, lost by only slightly.

I ran 3dmark11 Perf mode (most things are not dx12 anyway), and placed 86th globally with no GPU overclocking (and only using two gpus). I noted there wasn't an AMD in the top 100.

I also considered the new 9900K, but availability, half the memory performance, and again forces a new motherboard, nah...

Colour me satisfied for 500GBP.

Long-story-short I guess is, choose what suits you best.

 

[dj2017]

Thats your problem. You dont actually test the equipment yet you talk about 60€ mobos and i5 8400 temps. Because you know nothing about it.

When you post fanboy BS like this
" Anything lower than 3200mhz CL14 will give you wonky 0,1% fps. Facts."
it's obvious that it is not possible for someone to have any kind of logical conversation with you. Go lick your 8400's box to so how much you love it and avoid polluting Techspot's comment section.
Also learn to read. I didn't talked about 8400 temps.

 

[Evernessince]

You still need 3200mhz CL14 or 3466 ram to equal i5 8400 performance. And that requires samsung B die, wich costs a lot. It also requires good VRMs motherboard to oc ryzen to 4,2ghz and a cooler. i5 8400 intel cooler is more than enough. Installed several and cpu doesnt go past 65°.

Why pay more and waste time tweaking to have same performance as a cheapest and tweak free solution?

That simple.

Even in the worst case scenario for the 2600 who is going to complain that they are only getting 172 FPS vs 180 FPS at 1080p that the 8400 might get? No one but eSports players, who should be buying an 8700K or 9700K anyways because if you are going for maximum FPS the 8400 certainly ain't it.

For a vast majority of people though there will be 0% performance difference simply because you need a 1080 Ti or faster to even see the 8400 take a 3% lead AT 1080P. Anyone with a less powerful graphics card or anyone who plays at a higher resolution will see zero difference.

Given the price disparity, there is zero reason to recommend the 8400. It only makes sense in a select few situations.

 

[Puiu]

I call BS to the fact you easily get 110€ 16gb 3000mhz DDR4 in Europe and I5 8400 being more than 200€ everywhere too. Typical AMD bot will always try to put things on his favour.

Also 3000mhz SUCKS for Ryzen. Anything lower than 3200mhz CL14 will give you wonky 0,1% fps. Facts.

Pfff hahahahaha. Come on dude, If you are trolling then at least try to give us something better to chew on. All you are doing is embarrassing yourself. I gave you the benchmarks that destroy your performance numbers and where to buy the components if you are in the US. Do you want me to also link from EU?

FYI I said 130 euros (VAT included) for the RAM, you just read wrong. the US has it at 110$ for obvious reasons. Checking compari.ro, a price comparison site that I use for local purchases, says that the lowest price this week was under 600 Ron (about 125 euro). Amazon is not a great place to find cheap RAM in Europe.

Why are you even here commenting? I would be embarrassed to hell to make such simple mistakes that only need 5 seconds to fact check O_o

At least now, with your latest comment, people understand that you are just trolling and giving bad advice intentionally. But it should have been obvious from your name.

 

[ACE76]

I just built a new PC (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/) and sprung for the I7-8700K-based system. I was moving from a i7-2600 and I really wanted to go with AMD this time, but the 2700X still seemed too far behind the i7-8700K in gaming. I'll be gaming more than performing productivity-based work, so I justified the cost in that regard for gaming. Also, I scored the i7-8700K, Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 Z370 mobo, and the G.Skill Trident Z RGB RAM in a combo getting a $45 discount on top of sale pricing and rebates, so I think the "extra" was worth the cost of admission.

Now, it's just waiting for the GPU pricing to come down. I'm still debating the possibility of just buying a 1060 now and then picking up a new 1180 when they arrive. Although, there are some decent 1080 Ti deal right now, I'm hesitant to pull the trigger when the 11xx series is just around the corner.

Thoughts?

If every last for is what matters most, then going Intel is the way BUT the upgrade path for your system will be severely limited...an x470 motherboard would give you 4 generations of CPU compatibility and at every price point.

 

[That Dude There]

I almost bought the Ryzen 5 2600 for a friends build, because I came to the same conclusion that it is an amazing value. He has a tiny budget though and I ended up finding an i5-3570 for $40 on ebay. I use passmark benchmarks to find best value and performance per dollar. Heck my 3770k is still plenty fine. Anything more expensive than a Ryzen 5 2600 is a waste of money. Show me the difference in gaming performance between my 3770k, the Ryzen and the intel. You would puke if you saw how little difference it makes.

 

[dj2017]

Show me the difference in gaming performance between my 3770k, the Ryzen and the intel. You would puke if you saw how little difference it makes.

Easy. They will show you a 720p benchmark where your CPU will be scoring 100 fps, the Ryzen 150 fps and, for example, the 8700K 200fps and they will come to the conclusion that your 3770K is dead, the Ryzen a mediocre bad choice and the 8700K the minimum choice any reasonable person could do today. You can either accept that conclusion or get a headache, for trying to explain to them a different point of view and hoping that they will at least accept that there is logic in that point of view.

 

[That Dude There]

Ok fair enough the numbers show difference, but play the game and see if it matters. You all are buying numbers that are meaningless. Some of you upgrade for no reason. Oh well this is america. The land who spends enough on war to feed the hungry of the world.

Edit: and I promise you my cpu works fine at 1080p. I had oculus with no limits. I have a 1080 graphics btw. My point is don’t believe what they say you need.

 

[Bpsti]

Ok fair enough the numbers show difference, but play the game and see if it matters. You all are buying numbers that are meaningless. Some of you upgrade for no reason. Oh well this is america. The land who spends enough on war to feed the hungry of the world.

Edit: and I promise you my cpu works fine at 1080p. I had oculus with no limits. I have a 1080 graphics btw. My point is don’t believe what they say you need.

Thats the main reason I didn't upgrade for so amazingly long. I had a i7 960 and in 2017 upgraded to a i7 8700k. If I was doing it this year I'd get the 9700k or *maybe* the 9900k. This summer it would probably switch to a ryzen 3800x or whatever their calling the 16 core / 32 thread CPU. The only reason id get those is I tend to do stuff with VMware so like the extra cores. Most people are better off with i5 CPUs or ryzen 5s for gaming.

I remember when you needed to upgrade your system every other year or you'd be unable to even run the newestly released games. The era before 3d video cards. And then when 3d video cards came out you needed a new one every generation to keep up with the crazy pace of development. It was also back when overclocking actually made a measurable improvement in performance. In fact it was a big enough improvement for a low enough cost intel started locking multipliers to try and stop people from buying a lesser CPU and OCing it to the same performance as a more expensive one.

Shrinking nodes are not going to get us much more performance. We are going to need a materials change, major architecture change, or a fundamental shift in how we compute (quantum, spintronics, etc).

 

[dj2017]

Ok fair enough the numbers show difference, but play the game and see if it matters. You all are buying numbers that are meaningless. Some of you upgrade for no reason. Oh well this is america. The land who spends enough on war to feed the hungry of the world.

Edit: and I promise you my cpu works fine at 1080p. I had oculus with no limits. I have a 1080 graphics btw. My point is don’t believe what they say you need.

If this is a reply to my post, maybe my English are worst than what I think, or you just didn't understood my point.

 

[TheDevopsGuy]

Ryzen is definetly dominating.. and this is zen+ not even zen 2 so maybe next year all the best cpu choices might be purely AMD.

 

[l4ztech]

It's really annoying when you 'want' to upgrade but can't really justify it from a 'need' point of view.

My i5 4690K has sat happily running at 4.5Ghz for the last 4yrs and still gives me all the juice I need in the stuff I run, I don't do production tasks so 6/12 or 8/16 cores/threads are simply not needed.

I'd love to build a shiny new PC, not because I need it but because I'm bored with my current one....derp.

Have the same I5 and a gtx970, im just waiting for new stuff that is worth upgrading, I play primarily CS:GO and that runs with 350fps.

 

[msroadkill612]

I just ordered AMD 2400g and other parts to build around it. It is for someone who doesnt game and wants a budget but fast computer. I am very excited to test this CPU. I havent used AMD for a long time, but the stars have align right, they point toward AMD, so I have forsaken intel for now.

The 2400g is a gem.

To all intents, it is Zen+, even tho its 14nm+, so you get all the latest Zen+ improvements.

With inexpensive 16GB 3200 cl16 ram, 500GB nvme boot drive & ~$140 processor acting as both cpu AND cutting edge Vega GPU, its an awesome package running on not much more than 150W.

Having a Zen / Vega combo, places you smack in the middle of the best ecosystem there is imo.

A notion to consider is the "luxury" of AIO sealed liquid cooling. As it is doing a great job of cooling both your processors, it doesnt seem an extravagence. I saw a single fan corsair w/ copper block on special for ~$60. Many pay more for air coolers. Its comforting to know all is nice and cool.