AMD’s new Graphics cards series Navi has been very successful against Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards like RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 at a cheaper price. The two beastly graphics cards RX 5700 and RX 5700XT are right now one of the best GPUs to provide great value for money. RX 5700 is a head-to-head competitor to the RTX 2060 Super and beats it in some games and gets beaten by it in some.
The price of this card is just $349 but it features great specs like 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 2304 Stream processors, and 448GB/s memory bandwidth. This card can max out games at 1440p with 60+fps just like the RTX 2060 Super and thus, requires a powerful CPU to perform up to its full potential.
Fortunately, from both Intel and AMD, we have some beasts in the CPUs that can do the job without wasting a lot of money. I am listing down the top-performing CPUs for the RX 5700 that will ensure consistent performance on higher resolutions.
Intel Core i5 9400F
Check Amazon Price
Intel Core i5 9400F is the cheapest 6-core processor right now from Intel and its performance is unmatchable at this price. Even though the Ryzen 2nd gen processors like Ryzen 5 2600 or 2600X cost around the same as this one and feature more threads, the i5 9400F still wins in Gaming with noticeable frame rates, thanks to the faster single-core performance.
The i5 9400F though is a locked processor but it comes with Turbo Boost technology which takes its base frequency from 2.9GHz up to 4.1GHz when required. This ensures that you get consistent performance across the board without any major dip in performance. This chip can let you max out games with RX 5700 at 1440p with 60+fps and in eSports games, you can easily expect 100+fps.
As it features 6 cores and 6 threads, you don’t have to worry about multitasking or hardcore gaming as there is no game today to my knowledge that uses more than 6 cores and most of the latest games use 4 cores efficiently which means that even if you have opened up an application or two behind the game, your system still won’t hang. For $150, this one is a very power-efficient CPU with only 65 watts of TDP and will settle with an H310 or B360 chipset motherboard that will lower the cost of your RIG dramatically giving you enough savings to buy more RAM or storage devices.
Intel Core i5 9600K
Check Amazon Price
Coming to the 2nd recommendation which is the i5 9600K, I can say without any doubt that it is still the Best Gaming processor for mid-end Gaming builds as well as high-end builds. Although it features the same 6 cores and 6 threads, the core clocks are higher than the 9400F.
Even after the release of the latest Ryzen 3rd gen processors, the i5 9600K is still among the kinds in Gaming overall even though the performance difference isn’t that great. This CPU is unlocked and it will let you overclock easily with a decent CPU cooler above 4.6GHz. But with this feature comes increased expense on the motherboard. You will need a Z390 chipset motherboard to overclock it which generally costs much more than a simple H310 chipset board.
But nonetheless, if you have around $120-$150 for a motherboard, then I would suggest this combination to get more fps in games and faster processing in applications.
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Check Amazon Price
The newest release from AMD which is the Ryzen 3rd gen processors is no joke. It has completely outperformed the Intel processors for their respective prices. It’s not true that the Ryzen 3rd gen CPUs have beaten every Intel processor but rather it’s the price-to-performance factor that makes the Ryzen processors win.
The starting chip in the series is the Ryzen 5 3600 which is cheaper than the i5 9600K and the next one is the Ryzen 5 3600X which costs the same as the i5 9600K. It features higher clock specs and more overclocking headroom. With 6 cores and 12 threads, it’s more capable than Gaming only. It performs faster than any i5 in CPU-intensive applications and provides 10-20% more fps in games than the previous gen Ryzen CPUs. This alone makes it worthy of your money.
The base clock it features is 3.8GHz and the boost clock is 4.4GHz which is higher than the Ryzen 5 3600 and the older generation CPUs. It also features a very high cache memory of 32MB which is rare to find on mid-end processors which eventually speeds up the applications. For the RX 5700, this is the best choice currently, and going above it is only recommended when you have requirements other than Gaming as well.
Final Words
The CPUs I listed aren’t the fastest on the planet but they are certainly fastest for their price. For a GPU like RX 5700, it’s not mandatory to use something like i9 9900K or Ryzen 9 3900X even though they will perform the best but at the same time, you will get a lower value for your money.
The i5 9400F, i5 9600K, and Ryzen 5 3600X are more than enough to handle this beast and will help you achieve the maximum fps with the lowest amount of expense. But in case you have your eyes on a different CPU, then let me know in the comments below why you would choose something other than these ones!
