Get the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X for £312 (was £440)
The 7700X is the most desirable Zen 4 processor for gaming, as it packs the maximum number of cores into a single core complex, delivering excellent frame-rates without the slight penalty of data needing to travel from one complex to another as we see on the Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X. That means, despite the 7700X costing significantly less, we actually see it outperforming the Ryzen 9 CPUs in some games - you can see examples of this in my 7700X review for Digital Foundry. The 7700X seems a good candidate for future-proofing too, as it supports all of the same tech as the higher-end Ryzen chips (PCIe 5.0, DDR5) while also sporting the same basic configuration of the current-gen consoles (eight cores and 16 threads). I often saw a gap between the 7600/7600X and the higher-end Ryzen 7000 CPUs, so there’s some evidence to suggest that an eight-core or higher CPU is desirable for playing the latest games. Note that normally I would recommend the Ryzen 7 7700, the non-X 65W part that debuted early this year, but this CPU actually costs more than the 7700X right now - £312 for the X versus £338 for the non-X. That doesn’t make any sense, but it means that you can at least pick up the 7700X knowing that you’re not leaving even a smidgen of performance on the table! I feel it’s a bit cheeky to link to my work at DF twice in one article, but it’s worth knowing that while the 7700X is the premiere AMD gaming CPU right now, it may not remain so for long. The Ryzen 7800X3D, 7900X3D and 7950X3D were finally given dates and prices last night, and these chips with their significantly enlarged L3 caches should all offer better performance in gaming than the 7700 - if the runaway success of the 5800X3D is anything to go by. However, they’ll also cost significantly more - the 7800X3D will likely cost at least £450 when it debuts in April, while the two remaining chips released in February cost north of £600. That means that the 7700X is still likely to pan out as the best value option, so I don’t feel bad recommending this CPU at its reduced price… but it’s worth doing the research and considering the situation yourself before committing to a purchase. In any case, I hope this helped! That’ll be the last deals article from me this week, so thanks for joining me and I’ll see you again on Monday most likely! Cheers.
