edit: warning - extended rambling reasoning i went through recently ahead…
Yeah i wasn’t saying buy a 3300x, just that it depends on your workload.
That said, i have an intel i7-6700 at work which i use for lab (since 2017) with 64 GB of RAM and it is regularly running 5-10 virtual machines including GNS3 for router simulation “just fine”. It’s all SSD so storage isn’t a huge deal, and it isn’t blisteringly fast, but it handles it.
If you’re doing a bunch of VMs and looking at Ryzen for home user IMHO the sweet spot is the 5900X right now. It just wins in terms of $/core and performance/$.
Which is why i bought one. The 5950x is maybe 10-15% faster (BEST case!) but much more expensive (like +40%). Also unless you have good cooling it sometimes draws level or loses to the 5900 in some sustained workloads - at much higher price. Its not bad, just much more expensive and also needs more expensive case/cooling/etc. to be worth it. If you’ve got a well ventilated case and great cooling and willing to spend… go nuts. But if you don’t have great cooling… imho don’t waste your money going above the 5900x on AM4; you likely won’t see the benefit.
5900X vs 5800X - you get double the L3 cache plus 50% more cores for nowhere near 50% more money. If you can swing it, its better value than the 5800 imho. By a lot. But of course it only matters if it isn’t just sitting idle…
For games (if this will be a dual purpoes gaming/home workstation) - most games are still happily within ~6 core usage which fits within ONE of the 2 CCX units in the 5900X so the cross CCX penalty isn’t a big hit.
The 5800X3d wins on some stuff but doesn’t have as many cores to carve off if you want to pin stuff to specific cores - and its more expensive than the 5900X right now. It’s marginally faster in games and single thread but… its not like the other 5000 series are slow at that.
But if you can wait, maybe see what AM5 offers and what the pricing is.
IMHO Threadripper is overkill unless you’re making actual money with it or have a niche use case where you need heaps of IO. 5000 series ryzen (especially 5900/5950X) is fast enough and expandable enough for most home user stuff, easily.
If you’re going for more than 4 cores (i.e., above 3300x) definitely make sure to compare pricing on 5000 series vs. 3000.
At least where i am, 3000 series was recently selling for almost same price as equivalent 5000 series and 5000 is 10-20% faster per core so… unless you’re going for low end that doesn’t exist in 5000 (e.g., less than 6 cores), 3000 no longer makes sense unless you get 20-25% plus discount vs. same core count in 5000.
Also… 6 core 5600 = 8 core 3700 in terms of performance. And its newer, has more up to date security fixes, etc. So unless its very cheap its probably not worth buying >6 or <12 cores in 3000 series anyway. At that point just buy a 5600 (or higher) instead. Put another way - if a 3300X will work, get that. If you can find a 3950X cheap (i.e., less than 5900X and you need that many cores) - get that. Otherwise look at 5000 series, unless the 3700/3800/3900 is very cheap. When i was recently looking, 5900X was cheaper than 3950X and better performance!
edit:
I’ve actually got a 2700X, 3300X, 3400G and 5900X here so i’ve had a bit of a cross section of Ryzen CPUs to play with back to back.
The standouts imho are the 3300X and 5900X in terms of performance amongst that bunch. Anything 2000 series or older really is losing a lot vs. later ryzen in terms of performance. The 3300x beats the 2700X by a lot in single thread and isn’t as far off as you might think in multi-thread despite having half the cores. IPC gain plus better clocks help later Ryzens a HEAP.
I would not touch earlier than 3000 at this point. The jump from 2000 to 3000 is huge, and the jump from 3000 to 5000 is almost as big. Never mind the security fixes, etc.
