Top 5 Best CPUs of 2023 (so far)

foreign [Music] boxed it's been about a year since I last did this our best CPUs pick content so it's long overdue and there is loads of competition I'd say competition is an all-time high so for the most part there are no clear winners and the right choice will heavily depend on your use case and preferences therefore we're going to work through the cons and pros of each option so you know exactly what will work best for you but before we do today's sponsor spot is brought to you by Newegg and they're incredibly quick and easy to navigate website which I've used to purchase a lot of the hardware we use for testing such as this motherboard I also often find myself using Newegg for our cost per Frame data as they offer competitive pricing and a quick and easy way to find exactly what I'm looking for in my opinion the website is by far the best for finding various PC components such as graphics cards it's easy to filter searches compare prices and find great combo deals so for more information please check the link in the video description okay so as usual start with the more affordable options and then work our way down the food chain also we typically do include stuff like platform costs and potential future upgrade options when considering all other picks so yeah that will be considered and discussed as we make our recommendations so let's get into it [Music] starting with the most affordable CPUs the focus is mostly on gaming performance and really there are only a few worthwhile options with the most affordable am5 processor priced at 225 us you can forget amd's latest platform if you're on a tight budget and that leaves am4 to pick up the slack with either the ryzen fire 5500 or preferably in my opinion the 5600 then from Intel we have the core I3 12 100 series now for those of you building a brand new PC from the ground up I strongly recommend avoiding the ryzen 5 4500 and any of the 10th gen core I3 Parts as they're only about 20 less than the core I3 1200f and newer 12th gen models offer substantially better performance and can be upgraded to 13th gen Raptor Lake Parts down the track for those of you on a tight budget though looking at a new pc Builder even just a platform upgrade the core I3 1200f is where I'd start at 90 it offers really solid value and even when paired with affordable ddr4 3600cl16 memory the 12 100 generally is a good bit faster than the ryzen 5 500 for gaming delivery on average 15 more performance in our testing there are also a number of well-priced b660 boards that can support core I9 processors without any throttling issues such as the 150 us MSI b660m-a but if you never want to upgrade Beyond say a core i5 then the ASRock b660m Pro RS works really well for 95 but I think the extra 55 dollars for the MSI model is worth it as it does buy you a much more capable product in terms of power delivery and what this means is if you couple the 90 12 100 F with a decent 150 b660 board and 4 40 dollars for a 16 gigabyte ddr4 3600cl16 memory kit that combo will set you back just 280 dollars though I would urge you to spend just twenty dollars more on a comparable 32 gigabyte kit as that extra 16 gigabytes of memory is very useful in modern games and that takes the total build costs just 300 U.S all of that said my recommendation right now is to actually go with ddr5 and when doing so I recommend skipping over b660 boards and instead opt-free b760 board and here you'll find some decent models for around 150 U.S there are now a number of 32 gigabyte ddr550 600 kits selling for around 80 us which is only a very small premium over the ddr4 3600 kits and it means the combo comes in at just 320 U.S and that extra memory bandwidth will provide some nice gains in the more CPU limited modern games such as Spider-Man remastered Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars Jedi Survivor for example the only really viable alternative I would say to the core I3 12 100 series is amd's ryzen 5 5600 which can still be had for 130 us a price point that it has occupied for a little over a year now the am4 processor can be thrown on a quality b550 motherboard for as well as 100 such as the MSI b550m- Pro vdh Wi-Fi while the ASRock b550 Pro for 105 is another nice option again sixty dollars gets you a decent 32 gigabyte ddr4 3600 l16 kit and that means you can piece an am4 combo together for as little as 290 so ten dollars less than the 12 100 F and you have the luxury of being out upgrade to the 5800x 3D down the track or for productivity performance the 5900x or 5950x so for basically the same price when factoring in platform costs you can go with either the core I3 12 100 F or ryzen 5 5600 both are excellent options with solid upgrade paths and personally I'd struggle to pick between them as the performance I offer now is great and the upgrade option to either the 13600k or 5800x3d is also great you can really make a valid and strong arguments either way so make sure you price up both in your region as that really could be the deciding factor now increasing the CPU budget that does open up a number of am4 am5 LJ 1200 and LJ 1700 options though although there are about a dozen processors to pick from here we can quickly narrow down the selection to just three in short you can ignore all of Intel's 10th and 11th gen processors priced above 150 us they just aren't competitive enough and then most of the am4 parts also don't make much sense such as the 5600x for example you might as well just get the 5600 which we just looked at thank you [Music] the ryzen 7 5700x looks reasonable at 190 but really you'd only consider it if you were already on the am4 platform with a much older and lower end ryzen 5 part or slower or interested in productivity performance and that's because the ryzen 5 7 600 on the am5 platform it's really not that much more expensive even Intel's 12th gen Parts can be a bit of a tough sell in the current market but the 12 400 F at 150 it's not a bad way to get your foot in the door and on something like the MSI b760--p Pro ASRock b760 MPG Riptide then paired with 32 gigabytes of ddr5 5600 memory for around 80 that combo would cost 380 us so just 20 more than the ddr5 core I3 build for 50 more cores and in demanding games like cyberpunk 2077 we did see a 32 performance uplift for the 12 400 over the 12 100. now it's true that the ryzen 7 5700x can offer comparable gaming performance and even 190 us you can create a 32 gigabyte ddr4 build on an entry-level b550 board for around 30 less but in games that are bandwidth hungry the Intel combo will fare much better that said if core heavy productivity is on the menu then the 5700x is the better option given it will deliver around 30 stronger performance so the core i5 12400f enjoys a better upgrade path and the ability to support ddr5 memory while the 5700x combo is just cheaper overall it'll typically deliver a similar gaming experience and is a much more powerful combo for productivity finally for those of you wondering if the 13400f is worth it at 210 us either the 12 400 F or 5700x are just much better value options now moving past those options we find the ryzen 7600 series The Core i5 13 600 series ryzen 7 5800x 3D and then the ryzen 7 at 7700 series I think in terms of value the K SKU 12th gen core i5s are no longer worth considering and the same really also applies to the i7 and I9 models foreign [Music] by far the most affordable of all those processes is the ryzen 5 7 600 at just 225 U.S and that's because the cheapest ksq 13th gen part is the core i5 3600 KF and that costs 290 there's also the 7600x at 245 and based on our most recent 50 game Benchmark the AMD processor is about five percent faster overall meaning the 3600k and 7600 should be fairly similar across a wide range of games and the advantage of the core i5 is that it offers much stronger productivity performance thanks to those e-cors though they do come at the cost of power the advantage of the ryzen 5 is that it's cheaper delivers similar gaming performance while using less power and is supported by a platform that should see at least two more generations of CPUs then we have motherboard memory prices they're much the same for either of these options and really if there's no wrong choice here in my opinion both of them work really well especially if the focus is on gaming though the 3600k is priced more in line with the ryzen 770 700 and even the 5800 X 3D both of which cost 325 us right now for new system Builders the ryzen 7 700 cancels out the 5800x 3D as good as the zen3 3D V cash part is the 7700 offers similar game performance and stronger productivity performance on a newer platform while costing about the same amount so I guess the question is ryzen 7 700 at 325 or the 13 600 KF at 290 or the 13600k at 310 again when it comes to power usage the 7700 uses significantly less power than the 13600k but the core i5 part can be up to 30 faster for productivity workloads that suit the equal as well though it is worth noting that in instances where the e-cors aren't that useful performance is about the same for gaming they do typically trade blows though the 7700 is just a little bit faster overall in our testing so like the 7600 versus 13 600k battle the 7700 versus 3600k Battle it's a bit of a stalemate they're much of a muchness and there's really no wrong option here and of course we are talking about when factoring in the value and performance of these parts that said I'd personally go with the ryzen 7 at 7700 for the much improved power efficiency and of course the platform longevity now as we got to the 400 price point there's really no reason to consider any of the older previous generation CPUs and that means it's a battle between the various flavors of the core i7 13700 and amd's ryzen 9 7 900 series along with the ryzen 7 at the 7800 X 3D thank you now if you're purely gaming the best option for around 400 is hands down the 7800 X 3D and as good as the 13700k is it's generally slower and in a number of instances the 3D V cash part was 20 faster or more and that's when pairing the core i7 with really expensive ddr5 7200 memory which starts at around 160 us meanwhile the ddr5 6000 cell 30 memory used to test the 7800 X 3D can be had for just 120 dollars that said if you were to use the same memory with the 13700k it would only reduce performance by around five percent on average but that would further Advantage the ryzen processor so while it's possible to save money on the CPU by purchasing the 13700 KF at 390 it's an inferior product for gaming and that is despite still being very fast the core i7 also uses significantly more power in gaming which can be a problem for your power bill but it's typical typically a bigger issue for your motherboard's vrm CPU Cooler and probably your room temperature now if productivity is also on the agenda the 7800x 3D it won't be the most optimal solution and it's here that the 13700 KF does have an advantage that said for 30 dollars more the ryzen 9 1700 becomes an option and with PBO enabled it can match the performance of the 13700k while using less power even in applications that work well with e-cores such as cinebench the 7900 is less of an all-rounder though and you will generally see better gaming performance from the 13700k so if power consumption isn't an issue you could certainly argue that Intel offers the best all-rounder at the 400 price point with the 13700k of course the only other issue here for Intel is platform support and while we are expecting a Refresh on the LJ 1700 platform it should be just that a refresh whereas am5 will see real architectural upgrades and should see at least two of them so for gaming I'd without question purchase the 7800x 3D and for a more productivity Focus build it would depend on which CPU delivers the best results in my applications the 13700k or the 7900 7900x then finally we have the ryzen 9 7900x3d 7950x and 7950x3d and then of course the core I9 13900 series The 7900 X 3D it's a pretty dumb CPU in my opinion that doesn't really make sense at 550 if you care about productivity get the cheapest 7900 for 420 or the 700x for 430 but much difference there and then if you care about gaming well 7800 X 3D 450 can't go wrong there foreign [Music] 50x 3D makes a bit more sense though it's still very much a niche product it really only makes sense for those of you who can only build a single PC and want the best gaming performance possible coupled with the best productivity performance and you don't want it to run hotter than a portable oven so for seven hundred dollars the 7950x 3D is your best bet it's generally on par with the core I9 1300 okay for gaming and productivity but it consumes significantly less power and is supported by a superior platform in terms of future support as a quick example the 7950x 3D is eight percent faster than the 13900 KS when pairing the core I9 with ddr5 7200 memory in the blender open data Benchmark and yet the ryzen 9 processor consumes almost half as much power when looking at total system usage just 279 watts versus an insane 497 Watts for the Intel processor of course it's 700 the 7950x 3D costs a lot more than the 560 1300k but the 7950x doesn't at 580 so if productivity is the name of your game then I recommend the 16 core 7950x for its Superior power efficiency and platform longevity again you could argue that like the core i7 13700k the core I9 139 hurricane is the best all-rounder at its price tier and that is somewhat true but again you have to heavily compromise on power usage and platform support I think if gaming is the primary focus then the much cheaper ryzen 7 7800x 3D is your best bet and if you want a balance of both then the ryzen 9 7950x 3D is probably the way to go so despite the overall excellent performance I find it really hard to recommend the core I9 13900k these days but of course I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this so let me know what you think in the comment section below so those are my CPU recommendations right now and as has been the case for some time now there are plenty of great processes to choose from that is providing you stick to the current gen stuff at least towards the higher end you really can't go wrong there AMD in Intel have continued to battle it out which is great for consumers as we're seeing some really competitive pricing right across the board Intel's e-cors have allowed them to offer really competitive performance for all scenarios making them strong all-rounders in that sense though they are heavily let down by their power usage and for me future platform support is a real issue especially this late in the product cycle on that note we did get strong hints that a raptor Lake refresh is incoming though it's unclear what this means for potential buyers and whether or not it's worth waiting for meanwhile from AMD their upcoming Zen 5 series isn't expected to arrive until next year and while claims of big IPC gains are exciting if you need to build now waiting until 2024 won't really be an option but in any case I'd say right now is as good as any time to buy your next CPU and with that I am going to end this video here if you did enjoy it please do get a thumbs up subscribe for more content we will have some more CPU head-to-heads coming up shortly and also if you'd like to get some more Hardware unbox goodness we do have float plane or patreon signing up to either one of those will give you access to our exclusive Discord server for members only to myself get together each month and do a live stream for members that's a lot of fun we have some q a stuff behind the scenes content a lot of cool things there so check it out if you're interested but if not that is perfectly fine and I would like to thank you for watching this video I'm your host Dave see you next time [Music] thank you foreign

Channel: Hardware Unboxed

Views: 302,610

Keywords: hardware unboxed

Id: KvMlUUg-wLo

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023