7th gen 2700x or 5th gen 3600 or Intel 9th gen 9600KF
7th gen 2700x or 5th gen 3600 or Intel 9th gen 9600KF
2700x provides the greatest adaptability; for 1440p I’d pick that instead. Personally, I’d go with 3600. The 9600kf seems unnecessary.
For gaming purposes, the R5 3600 outperforms the R7 2700X. Depending on the titles you enjoy, the i5 9600KF may deliver the highest FPS among these options, though it could lag in more demanding multi-threaded games and cause stuttering. The R5 3600 seems a stronger pick overall, but if your main goal is top FPS in competitive eSports, the i5 is the better choice.
Historically we observe that fewer resources lead to more performance issues than marginally slower overall IPC. Looking at performance benchmarks, the 3600 doesn’t reach any milestones that the 2700x can. The 3600 supports high refresh rates now, but I wouldn’t rely on that for many years ahead. In 2017 things were different, with a 40% gap in single-threaded performance between an 8700k and a Ryzen 7 1700. That difference likely justified the loss of two cores. When Ryzen 2000 came out, it offered a more attractive gap—around 20%—between the 8700k and 2600. With the Ryzen 3000 still lagging behind Intel’s single-threaded speeds, it makes sense to compare 2000 with Intel and 2000 with 3000. By the time 2nd generation Ryzen becomes too slow for meaningful milestones, we’ll likely see even slower 3rd-gen models, making the extra 33% resources more valuable than a small IPC boost. We can’t be certain, but that’s how it goes.