Tbh, I’ve spent way too many nights troubleshooting crashes to only care about frame rates anymore. When I moved to my current rig, I realized that stability is basically everything if you're gonna be doing long video renders or 10-hour flights in MSFS. I’m still kinda cautious about the voltage issues people mentioned with some high-end chips, so I always prioritize a rock-solid setup over raw speed, you know? • Always check your motherboard's QVL for RAM. I had a nightmare with DDR5 stability until I swapped to a kit that was officially tested.
• Keep an eye on those power transients. A reliable PSU is just as important as the CPU when you're pushing things under load. I'm not 100% sure if the latest microcode fixes totally solved the longevity concerns on the Intel Core i7-14700K, so I've been leaning towards parts with better thermal track records lately for peace of mind.

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It is now $399.

I think it is a bit of a toss-up depending on your specific workflow. Not sure but I heard the 9700X is the safer bet for long-term stability due to the lower power envelope, whereas the 14700K is technically faster for editing if you can keep it cool. IIRC, the Intel chips were having some microcode updates to fix stability, but I'm not 100% sure if that's fully sorted for the 2025 batches yet. If you're doing heavy MSFS sessions, you definitely want something that wont thermal throttle after three hours. DDR5 is basically mandatory now tho, mostly for the bandwidth improvements in simulation games. I havent seen enough independent long-term testing on the 9000 series stability yet, but lower heat is usually a good sign for a stable rig... honestly the data is still a bit thin on real-world longevity for these newer nodes.

Interested in this too

7800X3D.