5700X3D. https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-5700X3D-16-Thread-Processor/dp/B0CQ4H4H7X?t=t=7649-20

Yep been there done that. Can confirm everything said above is spot on.

Re: Yep been there done that. Can confirm everything said above is spot on. Late to the party but had to weigh in since I've spent years tinkering with budget builds. Before I dive too deep, what kind of total budget are we talking for the whole rig? Knowing if you are pairing this with a mid-range card or something older would change my answer. In my experience, if you are trying to save every penny for the GPU, these are the real value kings right now:

• Intel Core i3-12100F 4-Core 4.3GHz
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600 6-Core 4.4GHz One quick tip... dont go overboard on the motherboard. A basic B-series board is totally fine for these chips. Seriously, use that extra $50 to get a better power supply or a Crucial P3 Plus 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD instead. You wont notice the difference in a fancy motherboard but you will definitely notice it in your load times.

Man I wish I found this thread sooner. Would have saved me so much hassle.

Just catching up on this thread. Honestly, after building rigs for over a decade, my biggest takeaway is to stop stressing over the absolute newest silicon. Youll save way more cash if you look into the used market or clearance bins for older generation chips from Intel. In my experience, these hold up just fine for 1080p gaming if you pair them with a solid cooler.

• Look into local marketplaces for used hardware bundles, just check the seller ratings first.
• Always use sites like PCPartPicker to check for compatibility and price fluctuations before pulling the trigger.
• Dont get caught up in the hype cycle; a stable mid-range chip from three years ago still crushes most modern games.
• Spend your extra cash on a high-quality power supply instead of a faster CPU, that way you dont have to replace it later. Basically, just grab any reliable multi-core processor from the big guys and youll be set for years. Keep it simple.

The Ryzen 5 7600X or Intel Core i5-14400F are excellent budget gaming CPUs right now. Both handle 1080p gaming beautifully without costing a fortune. For pure gaming value, these mid-range chips deliver 80-90% of the performance of their premium counterparts at half the price. The performance gap gets even smaller at 1080p when you're GPU-bound. Put the money you save toward a better graphics card instead—that'll have a much bigger impact on your gaming experience than jumping to a higher-tier CPU.

5700X3D.