Is 7800x3d really that bad for productivity?

Posted by Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 382 comments

I built my son a new PC because his old one, with a 7 year old i3 CPU, will not play certain games. I chose the 7800x3d to make sure the CPU could handle gaming. But he also needs the PC for school, and now, based on various comments online, I am wondering if I went wrong: Will this processor be actually bad for things like editing videos, doing schoolwork on Google or Office apps, and other productivity type functions? I've tried it briefly with DaVinci (the GPU is admittedly more mid, 6700xt), and it seems fine.

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382 Comments

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JonWood007@reddit

Its an underclocked 7700x. It is comparable to like a non k i5 on the intel side (think 14400/14500). It's pretty mid. It's not terrible but given the price premium....there are far better options.

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skidmaark@reddit

What would you recommended in todays market being the better value option for productivity/gaming?

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JonWood007@reddit

Depends entirely on price and which one you prioritize.

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Taurondir@reddit

I find it crazy, being 55 years old, reading posts of people worried that their *\*reads specs\** EIGHT CORES, SIXTEEN THREADS, FOUR GIGAHERTZ CPU, might be bad for productivity. It's fine. It's insanely fine. It's a monster.

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kaffeegourmet@reddit

Danke!

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fedecrav97@reddit

Para blender, after effects, y programas de render en general es suficiente el 7800x3d o debo ir por el 7950x3d? Siento que el 7900x3d queda en tierra de nadie

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MoChuang@reddit

Its not bad at anything. Its just better than other CPUs at gaming and worse than other CPus at workstation tasks. Its still very very good at doing both. Going big on the CPU does not make up for any lack in GPU. You will almost always be GPU limited in most games. Having more CPU power isnt going to magically make a 4060 perform like a 4090.

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MedicJambi@reddit

When it's said a CPU is worse than other CPUs people need to take into consideration what worse means. Often worse means single digit percentage points in artificial benchmarks that translate to differences so small in real-world tasks that they are imperceptible by users.

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Breal3030@reddit

Absolutely. Everything OP is reading is like someone discussing Lamborghini vs. Porsche. It's a conversation for enthusiasts, not your every day PC user.

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Cutthroatpack@reddit

Lamborghini vs Porsche is still a pretty big gap. I’d say more like Mercedes and Lexus.

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Breal3030@reddit

My point is more, anyone saying, "Hey I bought my first car and it's a Porsche, but I saw Lamborghinis might be better" would be silly. Anyone buying a really fast first car in a Porsche would be perfectly happy with the performance. Wasn't trying to be too literal with the analogy.

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Blindfire2@reddit

The only reason the x3d chips are "worse" at productivity than other chips is because we now have to sumer chips with what, 24, 32, hell even thread ripper is supposedly coming back soon which reached up to what 128 threads? Gaming can only use 16 so the x3d chips focus on better thread handling and performance from each core... But you're technically right, if we compared another 8c/16t to the 7800x3d, it'd either perform the same or one will be slightly ahead, but comparing to the Intel $400 current gen (14700k) which has 28 threads, you'll usually get more performance in tasks that can use all those threads, which is what people usually mean by "general processing"

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MedicJambi@reddit

It's also likely safe to say that those people using programs that are able to utilize that many cores understand why they need those extra cores.

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Blindfire2@reddit

Exactly. Why i don't like using the word "general" since there's only a handful of things that can use that many cores/threads, but realistically the general public does nothing with that. You might get slightly faster usage web pages loading but we're talking fractions of fractions of a sec faster

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PiersPlays@reddit

They also need to think about the fact that normal people don't buy a new CPU every generation. Todays good but technically not the best productivity CPU is still likely to be as good or better than most productivity CPU's people are actually using in the real world.

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SaberHaven@reddit

It's way more than student needs

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Much_Dealer8865@reddit

Totally. When I was a young man working a job and making money I was able to buy some computer parts and make my own computer. I didn't even have a video card and I was thrilled with it. Upgraded eventually with some cheap ati card and I couldn't believe how good everything looked. This guy buys his kid 6700xt and a 7800x3d and worried it's not enough lmaooo

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jdlackey88@reddit

Lol, right? My Intel core 2 duo ran SOLIDWORKS back in the day and that is waaay more demanding than any "normal" college productivity tasks.

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X678X@reddit

yeah but did it run an electron app well? 🥴

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lit3myfir3@reddit

I have this cpu and I couldn't ask for more. Completely blown away. Also the game I play is super CPU intensive so it helps.

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SonoftheBread@reddit

Same boat, I love this thing. Undervolted it and increased core clock so I sustain 5.2ghz on all 8 under load. Such a beast.

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Boot_Shrew@reddit

> Also the game I play is super CPU intensive so it helps. Same here- I'm getting triple digit FPS (1440/ultra) in IL-2, ARMA, and FiveM (GTA RP), the last two being heavily modified. It's also utilizing more of my 3070 than my 9700K or even 14700K ever did (and you don't have to worry about Intel issues).

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Melodic-Matter4685@reddit

Accurate, and 20 years from now it will still dominate office tasks, but suck at games. I bet u could still run office on a cyrix

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Wrong_Letterhead1475@reddit

Unless the games you play are things like rimworld, dwarf fortress, paradox grand strategy games, etc then literally an iGPU is fine and all that matters is single core CPU performance.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Exactly as I was hoping. Thanks!!!

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Maamyyra@reddit

7800x3d is usually THE cpu for gaming. Yes there are better choices for productivity but A: they are more expensive. B:unless your son does some professional level work, he doesn't really need the better cpu's.

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spacecommanderbubble@reddit

I run a recording studio and our video/visual effects/streaming computer is a 7800x3d on a 4070tiS working on a 4k movie and we've got exactly 0 complaints.

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Havanu@reddit

A 13700k or 7900x are about the same or less money actually. Better for multicore, worse for gaming.

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PiersPlays@reddit

This is the truth that get's mistranslated into "X3D CPU's are bad at productivity". They are not the most cost efficient option for productivity and so \*If productivity is a primary factor for you\* and high end gaming isn't, then they are a bad choice. That isn't the same as "they are bad at productivity" and it's irritating that people keep spreading that myth.

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proscreations1993@reddit

You did great. Its the best gaming cpu out there and insanely good at everything else. Sure will a 7950x or 14900k be better for productivity, sure. But it's not a huge difference. It's one of the best cpus on the world

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EggCheese@reddit

14900k cant be productive if it dies

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soleeater69@reddit

It's not dead yet, just terminal and in hospice lol.

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Mayor_Fockup@reddit

One of the most desirable CPUs on the market. Great CPU

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rory888@reddit

No, most games are only gpu limited once you have the best cpu. . . and even then a lot of games are cpu bound. You’ll want the 7800x3d if you play games beyond vampire survivors level demands period.

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WrangelLives@reddit

> But it does mean that the next time you upgrade your GPU, you likely dont need to upgrade your CPU to keep up. I'd say that given OP's track record on how often he upgrades parts on a given build, this may not be true. For instance, I'm currently using an i7 7700k and a GTX 1080. When I upgrade to a better GPU, I'm really going to need a new CPU as well.

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kipha01@reddit

That's exactly why I bought a 783dx, I needed another computer but my 1070 is still good, once it dies then I won't need to replace the CPU. I only buy second hand GPUs, so I might go through a couple of them till I actually bottleneck the CPU.

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DrummerLuuk@reddit

I’m running a Ryzen 5 1600 and it slapped at every heavy simulating task it got thrown at it for years now, and I have no intention of upgrading. This CPU is fine.

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PiersPlays@reddit

Eventually your system wont be up to the task anymore. It's far far cheaper to upgrade to a 5000 series CPU than to buy a whole new PC.,

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Dapper-Conference367@reddit

Yeah I can only see a bunch of games such as City Skylines 2 and Flight Sim 2020 with high LODs being able to push the CPU more than a GPU with a 7800X3D / 4060 combo.

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DianKali@reddit

If gamersnexus tests is anything to go by its one of the most efficient CPUs for a given benchmark workload. So although not among the fastest, it's efficient while doing what it does.

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Traylay13@reddit

Gn did a follow up. TLDR it's not actually that much more efficient .

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DianKali@reddit

Sad, still, it's definitely not a much of a slacker as people make it out to be, for hobby stuff it gonna do just fine.

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Ttokk@reddit

pulls literally half the wattage my Intel pulls during gaming. not more efficient than what?

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DianKali@reddit

Definitely more efficient while gaming, we where talking productivity tasks.

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drake90001@reddit

Exactly why they started FPS/$.

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eaong@reddit

Could you link that follow up? I don't think I've seen that one yet.

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gmes78@reddit

Pretty sure they're thinking of [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wLXQnZjcjU) about Zen 5 (not the 7800X3D).

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gmes78@reddit

Are you sure you're not thinking about Zen 5?

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Charming-Adeptness-1@reddit

7000 series lost the reputation that 5000 series had for efficiency. 7000 series more like Intel, blast it with watts, get more performance

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k1rage@reddit

The 7800x3d is crazy efficient The rest of 7000 is less so but I'd hardly compare it to raptor lake that can suck double the power in all core work loads

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FairyEnchantedDildo@reddit

Ryzen 7900 is crazy efficient.

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goodnames679@reddit

Noteworthy is that the reason that it's very efficient is just because it's pushed less hard. You can achieve an identical result in most productivity tasks by giving less power to a 7800x.

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k1rage@reddit

There is no 7800x...

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goodnames679@reddit

You are correct, that was supposed to say 7700x. Fixed, my bad

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Darknety@reddit

Are you sure? Please link that. I feel like you are mistaking that with the 9800X.

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Upstairs_College7041@reddit

Hi, can I DM you for help with my pc build? I have a 1200 £ max budget but I need to include peripherals.

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Role_Playing_Lotus@reddit

Watch PC Builder on YT. Jason has the information you need to maximize performance with your budget. *No, I'm not affiliated in any way with the channel, I just watched it a lot since I started building PCs 3 years ago (I built one for me and then six to sell since then because I had so much fun learning, parts shopping, building, setting up, and testing).*

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Upstairs_College7041@reddit

Then u very much 😄. Sorry for hijacking the thread

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MoChuang@reddit

[](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcforme/)

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DAYMAN3737@reddit

My only issue with this is the staggering amount of games these days that seem to be CPU bottlenecked.

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Penetroituja@reddit

Name a couple, with settings? Games I'm interested in won't use even 50% of a 7800X3D.

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samsonsin@reddit

Would like to add that you can dramatically reduce stutters with a better CPU. Hence, even if a system with a 4090 had a higher average FPS, a system with a 3060 might have a much better avg1% FPS, which is many games will make the game feel more playable / less laggy. If you have @3080 170 AVG w/120avg1% vs 3060@ 150 avg w/135qvg1% then the system that spend money on a cpu is much better of on a 144hz monitor for that game. If you know what games you intend to play then it could be worth looking at benchmarks and potentially getting a better CPU and worse gpu than you expected had you just looked at Avg fps.

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CatalyticDragon@reddit

Much better at gaming. Very very slightly worse at some productivity workloads.

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dogg60201@reddit

I agree most people just aren’t on the level of an 7800x3d cpu workstation. Before people upgrade to that cpu they should think about upgrading themselves lol.

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blenderbender44@reddit

When people need large core counts for productivity they usually mean tasks like compiling large projects, 3D rendering, ML, Scientific, Things like this. Normal office programs like office don't see any benefit from a 16 core over a 4 core. The only reason games don't benefit from 16 core processors is more only use 6 cores. This will change eventually.

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brianfong@reddit

You are comparing a 9.5 to a 10. They are both good, but your 7800x3d is slightly less than perfect. You don't need perfect all the time.

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Delicious-Shift-184@reddit

Yes, I have a 7800x3d and it can barely handle more than 20 characters in Word and you can forget about opening up an Excel file. Video editing it takes THOUSANDS of milliseconds longer than my buddies Intel rig, and it's cost me dearly when someone else beats me to the punch making a TikTok video.

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whatthetoken@reddit

I want to see the references where it says it's bad. Please post it here, because out of all CPUs available, this one isn't close to bad. It's so far away from being bad, I have trouble believing whatever source wrote that

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kobexx600@reddit

You sound really mad bro You should take a chill pill

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he_who_floats_amogus@reddit

>Will this processor be actually bad for things like editing videos, doing schoolwork on Google or Office apps, and other productivity type functions? No, it's overkill. The 7800x3d is basically a 7700x with triple CPU cache for $50 extra. They're trying to tell you whether that specific $50 will result in performance improvements for different types of tasks. Worst case you're looking at 7700x-like performance in some tasks, and that's also overkill. >I was thinking if I went big on the CPU, he could get by on gaming without a higher end GPU No. You can get by without a high end GPU, but CPU won't make up for it.

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Kage_Krieger@reddit

Not sure if this is a troll post or not, but I'm going to answer anyways.... The 7800X3D is an incredible processor, gaming, productivity, etc. Do not let ANYONE tell you it's BAD at productivity. Forums, Articles, and Media can lead one to think the 7800X3D is bad for such productivity tasks, simply because the 7900X or 7950X3D exists. Do not listen to these. Just because a CPU exists that can do it better, does not mean that the 7800X3D is BAD.

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Particular-Pen-4789@reddit

The 7800x3d is relatively bad but objectively good at productivity

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Vidimo_se@reddit

IIRC the 7700X outperforms it in productivity or rather apps that don't make use of the lager cache but do use the higher frequency. That's why the 7800X3D gets a bad rep for productivity > does not mean that the 7800X3D is BAD. Yes it's still a beast

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Moscato359@reddit

A few percentage difference is making a mountain out of a molehill

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Vidimo_se@reddit

For almost double the price though

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Moscato359@reddit

You're viewing things from the perspective of a single part, not the whole system. That's a bad way to look at things, because it's not representative of reality. Here, lets design a good gaming PC $399.99 for microcenter bundle for 7700x with motherboard + cpu + ram $599.99 for microcenter bundle for 7800x3d with motherboard + cpu + ram But that ignores: $999.99 for 4080 super $80 for a case $80 for power supply $40 for aircooler $40 for a pack of fans $120 for ssd $1360 in addons beyond the bundle for a high end PC There is an 11% price difference for the whole system between 1760 and 1960 Is the extra 200$ for the higher end worth it? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the rest of your system. If you're talking about budget gaming, then absolutely.

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DiggingNoMore@reddit

Sorry, my budget is part-by-part. I can't justify the price of a 4090 even if the rest of the computer is free.

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Moscato359@reddit

Thats like saying you can't afford a 50$ pair of boots which last 2 years, so you buy a pair of 10$ boots which last you 3 months, 8 times. Not being willing to pay 50% part premium for 10-20% performance premium? Fine. Get the cheaper cpu. Infact, get a 7600 (non x). There isn't much purpose of the 7800x. But saying that a part which is faster isn't worth it is very relative to the rest of the system. Do you live paycheck to paycheck?

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DiggingNoMore@reddit

> Do you live paycheck to paycheck? No, I invest 33% of my gross income, pay double on my mortgage, save $250/month toward my dream car, and save $100/month toward my dream vacation, while supporting a stay-at-home-wife and two kids. > Thats like saying you can't afford a 50$ pair of boots which last 2 years, so you buy a pair of 10$ boots which last you 3 months, 8 times. No, it isn't. My GTX 1080 has lasted me eight years. I plan on replacing it with the RTX 5080 when it launches. Are you suggesting that the 5080 is expected to last an eighth as long as a 5090? If not, then it's nothing like buying tons of cheaper items that will cost more than buying one expensive item. I buy the best video card that is within my video card budget. And the best processor that is within my processor budget. And the most RAM within my RAM budget. And the most storage space within my storage space budget. This resulted in an i7 6700k, 32GB DDR4-3200, GTX 1080, 256GB SDD, 6TB HDD, 850w PSU, and internal blu-ray player for my current machine, which I built in August 2016. Why do I have budget that is based on each individual part instead of a single budget for the entirety of the computer? Because I'd get reamed by my wife if I spent $2,000 on the GPU, even if I won the rest of the parts in a raffle. "That piece alone was $2,000?!" No, thanks. I'll never hear the end of it.

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PerfectiveVerbTense@reddit

It sounds like you make a lot of money are but worried about getting in trouble about how you spend a relatively small portion of it.

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bitesized314@reddit

One thing to consider though, is AMD platforms live longer than Intel. Intel makes it STUPID AND ABSURD to upgrade. Why upgrade for 7 percent faster CPU a year later? AM4 is the best socket ever! AMD is still releasing CPUs for it, the 5700X3D is $200? That is a fucking amazing closeout deal to extend the product customers already have. I know so many people don't upgrade, but if this kid buys a 7800X3D and then in 2 years finds he needs more power, he can get a 10950X and not change his motherboard or RAM or cooler.

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Archon2561@reddit

I have the 7950 X3D Ryzen 9 it's a beast

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Trylena@reddit

That is not the issue here. The issue is that when people heard "bad for productivity" they think it cannot handle a 10 page word document and not 8K video editing.

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piotrek211@reddit

It's an 8 core cpu. What is this? 2016?

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NebulaCartographer@reddit

Being “bad” is super abitrary. It’s bad for the price, which is all that matters. You can get better productivity for lower price, since you pay a premium for the gaming performance here. That’s why it’s got a bad rep.

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ohthedarside@reddit

By productivity people mean like 8k video editing and other extreme stuff The things you listed can be dine by a i3 2nd gen

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catarxcts@reddit

This needs to be an automated bot response at this point. So many people are never told specifically what kind of tasks the 7800x3d falls behind in when asking this question. They’re led to believe by others in this sub that it’s straight up worse overall for productivity

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Particular-Pen-4789@reddit

It is straight up worse overall but who cares

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FrewdWoad@reddit

PC subreddits have been delusional about preferring more slower cores over fewer faster ones just in case they ever use their gaming PC for 8k pro video SFX rendering. In reality they end up getting fewer FPS than they could have, for way more money, but hey, once a month when they use 7zip, the compression is a literally-unnoticeable 14% faster!!!

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Lightshoax@reddit

True but I’ve been burned so many times playing older games or games that are poorly optimized and don’t make good use of all the threads. I’d rather have fewer beefy cores that I know won’t bottleneck personally.

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ohthedarside@reddit

No the 7800x3d will not explode if you try and run excel

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brimston3-@reddit

In fact Excel is an example of a productivity program that runs well everywhere that games run well. It has a limited number of threads and occasionally needs *very* high single thread burst performance when recalculating.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Heh, good one. He does edit video and use Handbrake fairly often, but not all the time, and only at 1080. Sounds like this rig will work for him.

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CypherCake@reddit

If he's doing on the older machine, this new will handle it and be so much better. It's gonna be great.

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odniv@reddit

To put it this way. World record for marathon is \~2h. This processor will run it in 2.5 which is still very very good.

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perceptionsofdoor@reddit

*You underestimate the power of my pivot charts*

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Niceromancer@reddit

You...you monster

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perceptionsofdoor@reddit

**From my point of view the processors are monsters!**

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Gupulopo@reddit

What about google sheets?

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Round_Measurement109@reddit

as someone who used a i5 2500 until recently i can confirm

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bitesized314@reddit

I had my 2500k as a gaming processor for... 7 years. I had a friend give me his 4790K platform as payment for tech support. Then I got a Ryzen 3700X, then a 5800X3D, now on 7800X3D. It's a great processor. AM4 is the best socket ever, and hopefully AM5 can do better. One improvement is not havig the pins on the bottom of the CPU.

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Round_Measurement109@reddit

i have no clue what my 1st cpu was since my dad got me my 1st prebuild when i was 3... but the 1st cpu i actually knew i had was the i5 2500 which i had about a year after launch until april 2 years ago when i moved to the 7600x now hoping to move to the latest x3d of am5 and keeping that at least half as long as i did the 2500

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bitesized314@reddit

I can't decide if I want to have my 2500K and motherboard mounted on a wall display. I see some people get keychains, but I'm not sure.

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Round_Measurement109@reddit

i still have my old pc sitting fully built it's fully working so i was thinking of using it for storage but hdd prices are still pretty high here so i put the idea on hold

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bitesized314@reddit

I have a 4, 12, and 16 TB HDD in my USB bay. I don't know if I want to build a system just for that purpose but i Have most of the parts and I can get the rest for cheap.

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Electrical_Elk_1137@reddit

Mine was an Intel 80 Mhz Socket 3 486 Processor. Oh boy was POS!

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mug3n@reddit

I used a 2500k for about that long. 2013-2020. Then I changed over my system from intel to amd to the r5 3600 and recently I took an upgrade to the 5700x3d. Hell of a difference between those jumps lol

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bitesized314@reddit

That 5700X3D is a hell of a deal at $200 at Microcenter.

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orzoO0@reddit

I'd say for video editing the GPU as far more important. DaVinci for example hardly uses the CPU. The things that you need top tier CPUs for are things that less than 1% of the people building PCs even really know anything about

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FrozenST3@reddit

So my PC won't grind to a halt doing a sum on Excel over 48 Rows? I'm relieved

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reddNOOB2016@reddit

Make this a sticky.

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476845@reddit

I don't think a bit of homework is the kindve productivity thats going to test the mighty 7800x3d

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Fortune_Cat@reddit

OP is like asking if a BMW X5 M spec is bad for hauling luggage to the airport

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Got it. Thanks!

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Fortune_Cat@reddit

Basically when it comes to the high end CPUs. They will do everything The 7800x3d will do gaminbilike 5-7% better than equivalent due to the 3d architecture Where the difference comes into play is that specific productivity chips like the x950 CPUs are especially good at rendering erc cause of higher core counts and speeds. But ironically less good at gaming But the misnomer is that this only comparing one specialised high end with another specialised high end. They BoTH perform excellently, but one performs better than the other marginally for specific tasks On the low to mid end splitting hairs makes a bigger difference. On the top end we are talking single digit to low double digit percentage differences imperceptible outside of benchmarks for the everyday user Tldr buy the best bang for buck or cpu that fits the use case for what you do more (it gaming vs productivity) In ur case the 7800x3d is fine and does everything. U lose maybe a few seconds against the workstation CPUs but get better frames which have a more material impact imo

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NagisaK@reddit

BMW X5M will definitely lose about 0.1second on 0-100 with one luggage, so definitely not worth it. /s

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mehum@reddit

Never know when you might want to do a bit of subatomic modelling to try to find the elusive gravity particle from amongst the bosons and gluons. Gotta keep those teenagers occupied somehow. Just don't try to run Minecraft Java edition, that would be too much.

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xAmorphous@reddit

I get that your comment is a joke, but that's likely still a GPU bound workload.

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mehum@reddit

I think Minecraft Java is heavily CPU based, or at least it used to be. As for sub-atomic modelling, yes I’m sure it’s the kind of matrix math that lends itself to APU acceleration, but afaik they’re typically modelled using supercomputers which are often CPU based (eg [Fugaku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugaku_(supercomputer))) or a combination of CPU and GPU, eg [Frontier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_(supercomputer)).

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ayakuro@reddit

Minecraft Java is definitely *still* heavily CPU based. I ran some tests with Distant Horizons and Bliss shaders, CPU load was >85% whereas GPU was around 30%

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danielv123@reddit

I mean, distant horizons don't use a small amount of CPU either.

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SonoftheBread@reddit

DH has a setting for CPU load called "I paid for the whole cpu" That setting and 1024 render distance heated my cpu more than any stress test I've used.

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ayakuro@reddit

True, but I wanted to highlight how pushing the game closer to the extreme impacted the CPU far more than the GPU. If it were a more GPU-intense game surely it would be an opposite situation.

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CarbonPhoenix96@reddit

Java edition is still limited to a single core

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nlflint@reddit

This is false. Go load it up a new world and fly in a direction with a CPU monitor on the side. It uses lots of cores.

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ElectronicInitial@reddit

It depends. I don’t know about subatomic modeling in particular, but CFD and FEA are used for engineering, and most solvers are CPU based. There are a couple GPU implementations, but generally require really expensive licenses.

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476845@reddit

The elusive Graviton

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PG908@reddit

Homework is to get the highest science per minute in factorio with 30tps still.

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FootlooseFrankie@reddit

Factory must grow

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rory888@reddit

Then the ticks crawl down to single digits

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plasticbomb1986@reddit

Shit. Timberborn all over again.... (i love that game)

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PG908@reddit

Great game yep!

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TerrariaGaming004@reddit

What if the homework is using handbrake slowest setting for 10 seasons of a show

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Delicious_Spare_4488@reddit

Leave it overnight, it will be done by morning.

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TerrariaGaming004@reddit

Maybe on slow, on very slow (whatever’s just above placebo) after a day straight it was almost done with disc 1 of 6

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Significant_L0w@reddit

how good can it handle docker containers running for at least 7-8hrs locally in my system using most of the 32gb ram? Mind you I have killed 2 macbook ssd's with this

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nivlark@reddit

The 7800X3D is absurd overkill for a child's PC. "if I went big on the CPU, he could get by on gaming without a higher end GPU" - this is not how it works, either. In workloads that aren't cache sensitive, the 7800X3D performs like a 7700X with slightly lower clocks, because that's basically what it is. So it is still an 8-core CPU built on a modern, efficient architecture. For some context: this post is like you buying a Ferrari and worrying whether it will be enough to let your kid drive to school.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

He's in college and does a considerable amount of video editing, although not in 4K or 8K so I won't worry about it -- I was just curious because of past posts on this subject. But your post and others in this thread have explained it perfectly. Thanks to all who replied.

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SonoftheBread@reddit

7800X3D has handled every single task from gaming, to large filesystem task, and eats up any cpu rendering tasks I give it. Not only that but it's the best CPU for gaming I have ever experienced. I don't think he'll run in to any workstation task that the 7800X3D will noticeably struggle with.

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Havanu@reddit

Video editing is much more reliant on gpu these days, an 8 core vs 12 or 16 core machine barely matters anymore, fast single thread performance is all you need for timeline scrubbing. Davinci resolve for instance renders everything on the gpu, not the cpu. A fast nvme also helps. But truth be told, you can edit on 5 year old machine just as well, and even a 10 year old if you use proxyfiles.

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BlakeMW@reddit

Right, a "productivity CPU" is only going to be noticeably superior in very specific workloads, such as compiling gargantium codebases several times a day. Even then it'd be hard not to be happy with an X3D.

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Grrumpy_Pants@reddit

Depends how much, and how important it is compared to refresh rate when gaming. Personally I'd take a few extra minutes of rendering a video for increased refresh rate when gaming.

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rdtoh@reddit

Maybe that was how it worked in like 1998 when you could use a software rendering mode in most games lol

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Few_Tank7560@reddit

That cpu will stay relevant for so long he won't be a child anymore when he will actually need to change it.

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Vondecoy@reddit

"I bought my son a Ferrari for school. But he also has a pizza delivery job. Will it be ok? Or should I buy him a Hightop van instead?" ... they're both overkill and will do the job fantastically.

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wattsinabox@reddit

I’d upgrade that GPU if I wanted to pair with a 7800x3d. Might as well save $100 and go with a 7600x3d from micro center.

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Ev-L@reddit

I had this same problem, get the 7950x3D, it has double the cores and thread count of the 7800x3D. The perfect middle ground for productivity and gaming.

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Additional-Bus4378@reddit

When I clicked this post, I legit thought it is for professional productivity work like video editing, 3D animation, or university research 😂

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Long story short, it's a reward. But I definitely understand why it's funny. Anyway, as I've only ever built with Intel/Nvidia in the past, I learned a lot from this thread, and appreciate all the thought that people put into their replies.

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Mrcod1997@reddit

It's still really good, just not the best. There are cpus with twice the cores for really multithreaded workloads, but it still has 8 fast cores. No slouch. Your kid is better off than most.

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Aegan23@reddit

When I was in school, a Celeron 1core with no HT was fine for office/excel/PowerPoint etc. even though office software has moved on, it's not me bed on that much and a 7800 x3d will absolutely crush these applications.

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CakeofLieeees@reddit

No, it's fine, nothing to be worried about. And just an FYI, here's a great analogy (that I stole) to understand the functions of the CPU and GPU... "So imagine that the CPU is a professor assigning papers, and the GPU is the student who has to write them. 1080p is like the professor assigning a 5 paragraph open ended essay. No big deal, quick and easy for the GPU to complete. Give it back to the professor to grade and say "Okay done, give me the next assignment". This means the professor has to grade really frequently and have new prompts ready to go just about every class period, if not more often. 4k is like the CPU/professor assigning a 25-30 page in-depth research paper. It takes the GPU/student A LOT longer to complete something of that scale, so the professor doesn't have to grade nearly as much, and doesn't need to hand out new prompts very often because that one takes so long to complete. This is how CPU/GPU work together to build the world. The CPU basically says "hey I need you to make this world", the GPU renders and says "Got it, next please", and then it repeats. If the GPU takes longer amount of time before it asks for the next frame, the CPU has to give less instruction."

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NameIsCorvo@reddit

I always pair amd cpu with nvidia gpu. Amd because it's pretty efficient, nvidia because of cuda being better in almost all software I use (Blender, after effects, etc.)

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Dominus8008@reddit

The 7800X3D is kind of like the jack of all trades but master of none (except it provides an excellent gaming experience for an AMD processor). It isn't as good as other workstation CPUs, but it still is above and beyond the minimum your son would need. It's cost efficient and does everything well. It's a fantastic choice for a CPU.

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Mato_3824@reddit

For some editing and productivity 7800x3D can handle that to some extent But yes that cpu is meant more for gaming and some small productivity is fine you went wrong only to f he is more like 3d editor and if he edit a lot of videos.

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Standard-Judgment459@reddit

No my 12100 did 1080p video editing fast and stress free on a 2060 12gb dude just because 7800x3d is not as fast as a 14700 in video editing let's say, don't mean it can't do it. Coming from an intel user.

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eratesis@reddit

it's like using a flamethrower to light a candle for basic tasks. it'll handle schoolwork and light video editing just fine, probably while yawning. your son lucked out with a dad who overcompensates

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BoopyDoopy129@reddit

no. 99% of modern CPUs aren't bad at anything. when people say "so and so is BAD at workflow" what they mean is "other processors are technically marginally better"

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H_the_creator@reddit

Nah it’s great, by productivity they mean like heavy rendering or maxing it out on cinebench

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Davis51@reddit

>things like editing videos, doing schoolwork on Google or Office apps, and other productivity type functions No, It won't be "bad" for those things. It will be "worse" at things like complex high-level video editing/rendering (4K and 8K, computational heavy stuff), large-scaling software development, heavy workstation tasks, etc, than a 7950x, 7800x or maybe a 7700x in the right circumstances. You, on the other hand, are talking about excel spreadsheets, light video editing, and PowerPoints. Right now the 7800x3D is the king of gaming chips. You can do no better. The X3D simply means it has extra dedicated cache for 3D gaming stuff, at the cost of a lil bit of high end productivity stuff. Even the 7600x is an excellent chip for this stuff. A 7 year old i3 is good at this stuff. My friends 10 year old i3 can handle MS Office. Stop reading comments like that, you're only gonna freak yourself out over nothing.

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MrFartyBottom@reddit

There is no school tasks that will challenge a Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It is a fair amount of overkill for both gaming with that GPU and any task a school kid will throw at it. You really should have spent the extra money on a better GPU. That system is fine for any productivity tasks but it is waaaaayyyyyy GPU limited with that CPU. You are stressing the wrong component.

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Final-Abroad-862@reddit

I think for the type of productivity you are looking at (office and video editing) the cpu will not really be a major concern, Microsoft office sweet runs on phones nowadays and video editing will more than likely be gpu bottle neck (especially if you're not in 4090 territory)

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NPCPlayer@reddit

no, I think it’s not as simple as compensating parts by spending more on other parts. every pc components have their role. if you spend less on one then it’s simply getting bottleneck/limited by that part. Tho, for other stuffs in productivity, they always have the options to choose the cpu for the intensive tasks. like rendering in 3D modelling or decoding/encoding in video editing. it works and it’s fine. just not ideal cuz gpu that is supported can always do it faster than cpu. tho for your case, it’s too overkill even if gpu is mid compared to the cpu. it’s most likely already more than he needs.

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natflade@reddit

For the productivity you’ve listed it’s more than enough

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TonyCubed@reddit

Please tell me you read this opinion from Userbenchmarks?

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Spiritual-Can-5040@reddit

He probably needs a 4090 for his schoolwork.

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Rockshoes1@reddit

Nah you’ll be fine, this CPU is more than enough for non professional workloads so I believe you made the right choice.

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LayceLSV@reddit

Yes, so basically, without getting too technical, the 7800x3d can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 120fps, 4k, with ray-tracing, but unfortunately attempting to run Microsoft Word or even Chrome will cause it to hit critical mass and explode. Just the way things are my friend.

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Mopar_63@reddit

It is not that X3D chips are bad for productivity, it is that they are a bad VALUE for productivity. If your doing productivity then core count is a big deal. Using the 7800X3D as an example, you can get it at microcenter for $390. For $319 you can get the 7900X which will give you a big thread boost and thus be way for effective for productivity. The mistake most people make is they want a high productivity chip but also want a good gaming chip. While the 7900X is not the chart topper like the 7800X3D, it is still a GREAT gaming chip. If work is 60%+ of your usage then the 7900X is a better value than the 7800X3D.

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Dey_EatDaPooPoo@reddit

Not really much if any point in getting the 7900X over the 7900X3D if you're building a hybrid gaming+productivity system. Most of the scheduling issues that used to exist on the dual CCD CPUs with the stacked cache have been ironed out and in the rare occasions there were any you were just left with a CPU performing about the same as the model without the stacked cache. If you care about energy efficiency and temps the 3D models are better in both thanks to being clocked lower and therefore in a much more efficient part of the voltage-frequency curve too. Aside from edge cases, if you're doing gaming at all on a productivity-focused system, the 7900X3D and 7950X3D make a lot more sense than the regular versions.

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Mopar_63@reddit

cost

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Dey_EatDaPooPoo@reddit

Not a good argument considering there's much more often than not less than a $50 difference in price between the 12 and 16-core versions with or out without the 3D V-Cache.

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Mopar_63@reddit

A $50 difference is still a $50 savings.

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Dey_EatDaPooPoo@reddit

Not really within the context of the type of build we're discussing. Within the context of a $1200-2000 build $50 is nothing considering you're getting a CPU that's more balanced with a lot higher gaming performance, better efficiency, and lower temps and heat output. It's a difference in the total build cost of anywhere from 2.5-4.0%, so the $50 savings is basically irrelevant and is partially made up over the lifespan of the system in the form of energy savings anyway. If we were talking about a $500 build you'd have a great argument, but not on a build that costs over twice that and is your only or main system.

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Ommand@reddit

You really need to better define what "work" means for any of this to be true.

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FrewdWoad@reddit

>If your doing productivity then core count is a big deal. Even this is a bit misleading, honestly. Extra cores give diminishing returns, and fast cores and cache still matter more in many productivity tasks. It's more that there are one or two things, like file compression and video editing, where 10 or more cores actually do make a slight improvement.

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dsinsti@reddit

In the spot!

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FuuuuuuhQ@reddit

There is no homework or task your son will be assig ed in school that will male that CPU even break a sweat.

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Lagarto199x@reddit

7600> 7800x3d in productivity

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Big-Salamander-2158@reddit

If he’s going to run a professional production studio, yeah it was a bad choice. It’s still an 8 core processsor so plenty for some casual productivity work. No issues whatsoever for word/google apps, an i3 could’ve done that. Casual video editing is fine and going by the comments, the gpu not being an nvidia is probably a bigger hit to productivity work than his cpu will be. (Again, not relevant for the work said he’ll be doing).

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captainmalexus@reddit

For the type of productivity tasks he's doing, that CPU is completely sufficient. If you want to speed up video editing, or 3D render tasks, upgrade the GPU. The graphics card is what does the work for any software that's hardware accelerated, which is most of them, including Davinci Resolve and Blender.

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Jahdill@reddit

5800X3D user here and I game with a recording system in the background, a couple tabs open, at least one being YouTube, and I don’t have issues with my game or computer running slow although productivity would mean a bit more in a way.

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rochford77@reddit

It's amazeballs for productivity. Just not quite as good as a 7800x, 7900x, 7950x, or a 7900x3d. But it's better for gaming than really any of those chips.

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conti101@reddit

It's not bad. It's just not great. 🤷 Depends on what level you do it. If it's just casual. It's fine.

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NotABotSir@reddit

My 5600g keeps up with my 6700xt just fine. He'll be good for years.

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doMakeit_Turnn@reddit

That old processor your son had would have been enough for school works... unless he uses very technical softwares and do heavy renders often . That 7800x3d is too good to be considered not good enough

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DoubleHexDrive@reddit

It’s a fine CPU and efficient for most any task and a great CPU for gaming.

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DearPin4473@reddit

I mean you son is 7 years old im pretty sure he is not doing NASA type homework but if he is my apologies. 7800x3d can still whatever he needs and more

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AeyxwL@reddit

That cpu is overkill unless he's playing on 4k which I don't think he is , you could've gotten him a r5 5500 or a i5 12th Gen they work perfectly fine for gaming and school/basic apps

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Untinted@reddit

It's not a great idea, if you're building a gaming PC from scratch, to nerf the GPU and over focus on the CPU. First you should think about the current monitor that you're driving, and the possible next monitor if you want the PC to last. Next you should be pairing the CPU with a GPU so that one doesn't bottleneck the other in the most challenging games your kid will be playing. Next is to basically find the pairing that fits your budget. Pairing a 7800 with a crappy GPU makes sense only if you're leaving upgrading the GPU for the future, which is a very sane thing to do budget wise. Will you regret the 7800X3D? Not even a little. It's a beast and does everything incredibly well.

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Penitent_Exile@reddit

Lol, 7800x3d is definitely enough for a kid's needs.

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BananaMangoMeth@reddit

You messed up. Your children will disown you for not getting a better CPU

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Lootman@reddit

Man get some perspective on how good hardware is, 10 years ago was 2014, people were doing all of those tasks no problem on cpus that couldnt dream of being a 7800x3d

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AdEnvironmental1632@reddit

It will do fine for all those tasks the only real issue is it doesn't matter how great your cpu is if you have a mid gpu your gaming performance will suck. 90% of games are gpu based and not cpu baring Sim games or really big rts games. You are almost always better for gaming getting a mid tier cpu and a better gpu

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Squizgarr@reddit

Definitely can't run Google office apps on the 7800x3D. 🤡

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Heh, yes it was foolish for me to mention that as an example of productivity since I never seriously doubted the chip for that. I was more uncertain about video editing. But I got lots of great answers and I'm sure it will be fine

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Admiral_peck@reddit

Worse does not mean bad The 7800x3d is an amazingly powerful chip for many tasks, but it's more like an f150raptor versus an f-350 dually The 7800x3d is lightning fast in games and can also carry a pretty decent productivity load, while a 7950x3d is built from the ground up to carry those heavy productivity loads and just basically has a hot chip in it that allows it to still be great at gaming The f150 raptor is a pickup truck that can haul some pretty heavy loads, but was always intended to prioritize speed over towing/hauling capacity The f350 dually was built with towing and hauling at the forefront, but it's got a pretty hot diesel engine in it, and with a hot tuner chip dropped in it can very nearly match a raptor for outright speed.

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quoole@reddit

Productivity is so broad - I can't say specifically for video editing, but I am sure it's fine and probably better than the last gen, but maybe not as good as the next gen or equivalent Intel chip or whatever. As for Google docs? Basically anything that will run a web browser will be fine.

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ColbysHairBrush_@reddit

It's the best cou for simulation games

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TheLothorse@reddit

Lmao, unless he's a professional video editor or does some other extremely intensive multi core stuff it will smash anything he throws at it. The reason it's "bad" for productivity is that you're paying a lot for the gaming performance so the price to performance isn't great for other applications.

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Few_Tank7560@reddit

You made a great choice especially if you upgrade his gpu later. He should be very happy of this gift. And although there are much better cpus for productivity workloads, they won't be as good for gaming, they are usually more expensive, and this isn't considering it for its worth, plenty would have drooled on a cpu like that a few years ago, even just for productivity. It might be better than a productivity cpu such as what the 3900x or 3950x were, or at least similar.

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D33GS@reddit

7800x3D will do just fine at productivity apps. It isn't the top end winner for that use case but it's not going to under perform either. It is a good all around 8 core/16 thread CPU that excels at gaming and is merely great at everything else. For a student CPU it'll be more than enough. For a professional machine would have maybe considered a 7950x3D or a comparable Intel.

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GioCrush68@reddit

The 7800x3d is a fantastic CPU and will have no trouble doing most productivity tasks and is the best gaming CPU on the market. Now compared to a 7700x or a 9700x the 7800x3d has a slightly lower single core clock speed and is really power hungry and runs hotter so cooling and power may be a concern but it makes up for it with the lower memory latency and the 3d cache that makes it ideal for gaming. That all being said the difference in productivity will be incredibly negligible but the difference in game performance is huge and it won't bottleneck a gpu. I think so long as cost isn't an issue the 7800x3d is a better option in almost all circumstances.

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jaxspider@reddit

1. Your CPU is great. 2. Next upgrade the GPU. 3. Get more ram, 32GB is now the "standard" and 64GB is "future proof" for the next 3 years.

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Additional_Ad_6773@reddit

Bad? Certainly not. The best choice? Also not, but since you already made the choice, it's ABSOLUTELY not worth changing. We're really talking single digit percents differences (or less).

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breadatolivegarden@reddit

Honestly 16 threads is more than enough for most people's day-to-day workstation tasks. Mine handled things like davinci resolve, and even Adobe premiere just fine. I recently got a new 7950x3d in a microcenter bundle after....... "mysterious circumstances" rendered my old mobo and cpu broken, and it does the same things. That being said, it sure is fun to see just hoe fast the 7950x3d can do that stuff. And it's great because sometimes I will leave a game, several chrome tabs, a game server for my friends, and on occasion even more running at once which can push the cpu up towards a hundred percent. But for something like that I generally use almost all 64gb of my ram, which I doubt you would be spending. Not that your son is probably doing most if any of that, so a 7800x3d is still more than enough. It's 16 high-clocked threads. The v-cache is technically a little bit slower but for schoolwork that isn't gonna matter.

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CeramicCastle49@reddit

No. If a processor is "better at x" it's almost always a very small improvement.

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Darkexp3rt@reddit

Modern CPU are pretty powerful

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Individual-Air-2965@reddit

If your son is a student and only needs to do school work assignments and stuff like that then yes the 7800x3d would be enough, but also the word "worse" doesn't mean its the worst cpu ever it just means there are better options. And about the gpu part why not just get a better GPU for a cheaper CPU, nowadays games are really high demanding and if you get your son a worse GPU for a better CPU it won't be worth it. So just get a cheaper CPU for a better GPU. Hope this helps!

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vielokon@reddit

Even his 7 year old i3 would be more than enough for any schoolwork productivity task unless he needs to do some really heavy video editing or 3D modelling.

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DarkEye1234@reddit

It's ok. For school it's even overkill. I'm programmer and i switched from 3900x to 14900kf purely due to vr. Even that old fella was not limiting my work at all. I bet 99% stuff he will do will be CPU ok.

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smoike@reddit

I just updated my Dev box to a 3900x because I got it at a bargain price and don't anticipate hitting maximum capabilities of it any time soon. This CPU will do him fine for a fair while. Just as long as the rest of the system is balanced with its capabilities is the main thing.

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Fearless_You8779@reddit

wtf is he building💀

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Own_Perspective_2206@reddit

Overrated oven

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Sad-Mathematician570@reddit

It will do anything you throw at it. Will some other cpu compile and decode stuff a few percentages faster? Yes, but i suspect it doesn't matter if it takes a few seconds longer.

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Pantha242@reddit

Having a great gaming PC is definitely bad for productivity.. 😅

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Nice_Award496@reddit

No it’s awesome but I would recommend a i9-14900k if it’s mainly for fast search and multi monitor setup but for quality gaming the 7800x3d is awsome

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zlaur3d@reddit

Is my 3700x garbage now

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QuinQuix@reddit

It's not at all bad for productivity. If you have 8 cores all current software, productivity included, will run great. The reason is the extra cores barely matters for design or editing where single core performance and gpu acceleration is generally key. Where it does matter is during professional compute-heavy workloads which is usually the rendering / exporting stage of productivity work. So you basically get to do all the same stuff as the professionals and it should work well, but when you're at the *end* of your workflow and export/render the final product (if it is a sizable project) will for example take 40 minutes to export instead of 20 or 15. Given the total time you need to edit something (or perhaps more applicable - the total time you need to *learn* how to edit) exporting is a small part of the total time and no issue at all. With professionals who edit efficiently and export a lot a few hundred dollars for that time saving is a no brainer. But it is not a real issue for prosumers or students.

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DPOP4228@reddit

7800x3D is amazing at gaming, and pretty darn good at productivity (by productivity, think code compile, editing, art programs, animation, modeling, etc). It's just not as good as productivity compared to a handful of more powerful, more expensive CPUs with higher core counts.

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Hovedgade@reddit

I do my cad modeling on files of about 350MB with a 5600x cpu and I'm doing fine. The 7800x3D cpu would be even better.

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mlastella@reddit

It burns through my 3D modeling workflow

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HailingCasuals@reddit

To be clear, when people say “workstation tasks,” they mean professional engineering or scientific tasks like physics simulations. The 7800x3d might not be a top-of-the-line choice for those. But even if your son is in college to study those things, he’ll be perfectly fine. Web browsing and office applications can be done easily by a CPU 1/3 the price.

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FrewdWoad@reddit

1/3rd? The i5 4570 is overkill for those and costs 10 bucks.

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Historical-Boot2676@reddit

If he also uses it for gaming there isnt a problem. If he only used it for productivity though it would be overkill to buy such an expensive cpu instead of a cheaper one

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FrewdWoad@reddit

>his old one, with a 7 year old i3 CPU, will not play certain games As a an owner of an older i3 CPU, your kid tricked you bro. They have no problem playing any game, you just won't get 240 FPS on everything.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Heh! Funny but, nah, he didn't ask for a new PC. He recently got into a group where they play PC games at each other's places, and I was told that when they come to his place somebody else brings their PC because his won't play the games that the friends like. Which sounds awkward, so I want to give him a boost (he's a good kid). They use a big dorm TV as the monitor so it's likely high resolution, and I agree with your idea that it's likely not a matter of literally "it won't play," and more like "won't play at the speeds, resolution, and frame rate that his new friends prefer." By the way, the old PC pairs the i3 7100 (from a Dell workstation) with a 1060 6GB so it's not trash, just ready for an upgrade. I made a regrettable decision recently with my own new build (got an Intel gen 13, a couple of months before that news hit the fan) so I'm a little paranoid now about getting his right. Thanks.

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ppWarrior876@reddit

7800x3d is wayyyyy to powerful for school homework lmao. Did your kid said he needs 7800x3ddor homework? kid is a scammer xd

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notquark@reddit

I just built a brand new system, 7600x/4070 super a couple months, after building I have come to these conclusions. I have barley noticed a difference over my 6+ year old 1700x/580 combo. That is after running fusion/inventor/resolve A LOT. Maybe my renders are 3 and a half now instead of 6. I run a small monetized youtube page and that made no impact on my workflow or quality of life enhancements. I have seen 0 difference on any modeling. In fact I use it at my school to teach on since it was still better than any school computer. The vast majority of people are not using fusion for high end simulations, nor are they rending a 4K movie. I also coach a HS esports team, unless you kid plans on playing competitively and is realllly going to grind some hours, I doubt they will know much difference in frame rate or anything else with a modern mid tier GPU. The newest triple AAA games will always require something stupid to run at max settings (that is money chasing) and the vast majority of competitive games are CPU intensive (RL, VAL, League) and GPU require you to turn down your settings anyway (which is dumb). Point is people over think it here too much. If you can afford a modern system, whatever you select will be fine.

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Cheap_Collar2419@reddit

Any cpu from the past 5-7 years will be great at basically everything

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Salmone_ita@reddit

Unless your son needs insanely stressful cpu heavy apps, theres no way the 7800x3D will fail. Idk where u got that info from, but that cpu is for from being bad for productivity... Its simply thst for the same price u can get better productivity cpus (but at the same time much worse for gaming)

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Goghor@reddit

I'm a full time programmer and I'm using 7800X3D. I'm also using GNU/Linux, and most of the times I need to compile my apps from source code which takes a long time to finish. 7800X3D is a fast CPU, can't complain.

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DontFlameItsMe@reddit

Videogames are bad for productivity, not the CPU.

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PiersPlays@reddit

No. People are really really stupid sometimes and that unfortunately is hard to filter out from the legitimate advice. You absolutely should NEVER buy the 7800X3D primarily for productivity because there are cheaper processors that do that task better (and much more expensive ones that do it WAY better) It still slaps the face off the average CPU when it comes to productivity. It's like choosing to buy a top of the line new BMW for a single race vs buying an old Lamborghini for it in a world where everyone else has boxcars. But also you have to drive to business meetings in the same car 5 days a week for the next 5 years. Either is going to win the race for you perfectly fine. You could probably get a LOT MORE race-car for less money with the Lambo, but that's irrelevant to your goals.

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lightmatter501@reddit

The 7800x3d trades blows with low-end server CPUs. Unless he is doing a lot of compiling code (large C++ codebases) or CAD (with physical simulations), it will be more than sufficient.

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The_Deadly_Tikka@reddit

No it will be way more than enough. However that cpu to gpu combo is terrible...

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JlREN@reddit

It will do just fine for these type of tasks. Usually when people say that. They refer to much more intensive tasks such as industry level editors and jobs. I had an i5 7500 that does all of the things you listed with only 4 cores 3.4ghz and 6mb of cache. So a 8 cores @ 4.2ghz and 96MB of cache. Is gonna shred through those tasks too.

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Autobahn97@reddit

It turns out that the the fastest gaming chip runs everything pretty fast and unsurprisingly light years faster than any i3. You are way overthinking this.

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Dubious-Squirrel@reddit

For general school / office work, it's complete overkill. For video editing, it's not as fast as some other CPUs out there, but it's still pretty good. And of corse for gaming it's one of the best you can currently get.

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NorthWestApple@reddit

Yes, because it has half the cores, it instantly gets half the performance of e.g. 7950X3D.

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ecth@reddit

My 7800X3D with a slight overclock at 5.15 GHz is slower than my wifes 7700 non-X in Cinebench. That's it. Is it faster than a 5800X? Almost sure, it is. But it is slower than other Ryzen 7000 or 9000 CPUs and the heavily multithreaded Intels.

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my_byte@reddit

You almost never max out any of the modern CPUs for productivity. You'll be fine

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Ireeb@reddit

When people are talking about "productive" workloads, they usually mean things like video rendering. For stuff like office and schoolwork, this processor won't even need to use a fraction of its capabilities. Applications like that really don't need a lot of performance, and this is definitely a fast processor. I think your misconceptions come from the fact that processors like the Ryzen 9 7950X exist. If you put the multicore performance of a 7950X and a 7800X3D on a bar chart, the 7800X3D will look slow in comparison, but that's not because it's actually slow, that's just because a 16 core CPU like the 7950X is insanely fast in this kind of workload. But unless you are rendering videos all day and making money off it, it doesn't really make sense to get that kind of CPU. The 7800X3D is a very capable and powerful CPU that will pretty much handle anything you throw at it. Are there faster CPUs? In some cases, yes. Will this CPU ever feel slow? In the use case you described, definitely not.

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VERTIKAL19@reddit

It still is a fantastic CPU for productivity tasks. It is not completely optimized for that, but that doesn’t make it bad. That 7800X3D is still a beast that easily handles anything school throws at him several times over.

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Minute-Angel@reddit

works for everything really well, it's a solid chip

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juandoesstuff@reddit

Around last I upgraded a 3700X to 7800X3D from a microcenter bundle, felt a bit better experience when editing, but the gaming side it went like 3x fps from what I had before (I mainly play valorant on low, but other games it worked amazing too). Overall I'm happy with my choice, and only thing I gotta upgrade now if I really wanted to would be my GPU (got a nVidia 2060 SUPER)

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Faurek@reddit

It's very powerful for that, this is how it works with productivity, a very fast single core CPU like the 7800x3d will perform the same as a 16 core CPU with the same cinebench score. It uses whatever it's available, it's just that in the same generation a CPU with more cores will be a little bit better. The case this is not true at all is hardcore virtualization when you assign a fixed amount of cores to each VM with a lot of VMs. Just don't worry about this type of stuff a fast CPU is a fast CPU, there is no such thing as a gaming specific CPU.

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CypherCake@reddit

People talk a lot of poop about computers. People will act like you need the world's largest supercomputer with quantum tunnelling to open a terminal session.

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Virtual-Ability-2129@reddit

Your question makes a lot of sense. And it's a shame. If you had this doubt, it's because the average mentality of commenters makes you think that a CPU with this power might not be good. No, it's very good. It's not "good for gaming" as many, many comments would have you believe. It's a very powerful CPU, period. I understand that you have this doubt, because unfortunately most people who comment here don't know what they are talking about, they just repeat what they read in other comments and have only superficial knowledge. I'm pretty sure this CPU is more than enough for the tasks you describe and will last a long time in your machine without needing to be replaced. With a 6700XT, I estimate that you'll get 100 FPS at Ultra settings in most of today's relevant games at 1080p, and you'll certainly be able to play at 1440p, medium/high.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Thanks!

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Virtual-Ability-2129@reddit

Cheers

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Ziazan@reddit

It's not horrendous at it but will be as much as half the speed of something designed to be good at it. Odds are your CPU wont be the deciding factor in your gaming FPS anyway, it'll be your GPU. So the usual advice is if you only play games, 7800x3d is great, but if you do workstation stuff at all then a more productivity inclined CPU might be better for you.

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moglis@reddit

You son can do his homework on a crappy 10 yo laptop with an ssd. Is this a troll post or average consumer with no regard for money.

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No-Acanthaceae-3498@reddit

TLDR you can get away with much less nowadays because even the worst new cpu and gpu can do work easily The issue with processors and gpus are fanboys who argue online about X is better than Y because it performs better a use scenario that they don't even need themselves. Another issue is when these people say you need at least the i7 or rtx 4080 if you want to do any kind of productivity, and the reality is you can get away with so much less, you can probably buy an i3 and a 3060ti and call it a workstation because you can do structural analysis with it Who the fuck is doing climate simulation as a hobby? And if you work at literally any company that does computing you get a pc in the office or a work laptop from them The average joe buys an i7 14700k and a 4080 because every youtuber tells him it's very good at productivity only to end up playing valorant and editing his low bitrate 720p twitch clips, and to play the (still) like three games that exclusively use nvidia's features

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SaintSnow@reddit

Honestly you're good. It will do school work just fine and game even harder. Your son will be more than happy with that. Also you can swap it out for the 9800x3d or whatever in March or so when those come out if you so desire. And easily sell the old chip for a decent return.

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Personal_Pin_5312@reddit

For gaming and basic productivity, it's probably the best at the moment. When we talk about productivity not being good, we're talking about specific software suites that are used in the professional spectrum. Nothing to do with basic home/business computing.

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BoxOfDemons@reddit

It's basically the best gaming cpu it is. It is not the best productivity cpu there is. This does NOT mean it's bad for productivity.

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orzoO0@reddit

A ryzen 5600x will do perfectly for the next half decade for what 99 percent of this sub calls productivity

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bitesized314@reddit

And in 3 years he can upgrade form teh 7800X3D to the new tenth gen AMD stuff on the same socket motherboard and RAM. Intel doesn't do that.

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orzoO0@reddit

Davinci relies much more heavily on the gpu. It honestly seems like the CPU doesn't do much at all. I'd say Way north of 90% of the people building PCs don't do anything that would really need to worry about how good is CPU is at productivity. For the most part they're talking about things that you can literally do in a Chromebook

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SnooRecipes5458@reddit

It's a good CPU, it excels at gaming, but only teally if you're CPU bottlenecked. If you're gaming at 1080p or 1440p with a 4060/4070 it's not going to help much.

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SpectreAmazing@reddit

It's bad for the PRICE. You'll get better productivity with the cheaper 13600k. That's all. It's perfectly serviceable, but you should know what kind of chip you're buying.

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gLu3xb3rchi@reddit

No, when they say „bad at productivity“ then they mean it takes 32s instead of 30s to unzip a big file or it takes 4:50 min instead of 4:35 min to render a 3D scene.

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casualgenuineasshole@reddit

Compared to something that's terrible at everything else except productivity..

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adhal@reddit

Im laughing at the mention of google and office apps... you can get by with a cheap chrome book for that.

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googllgoog@reddit

Is a ferarri cheaper then a bugatti veyron? Yes…

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Forsaken-Block3504@reddit

Unless you are modeling protein chains or gravity wave of a supernova on loxalized space time, no, it's pretty good at what 99.9% of computer users that know their cpu model will use their computer for. It's extremely good at games, trades a GOAT 15% lead on most other cpu's I gaming fir a 5% drop in rendering, unless you are a building a pc just for that it's a very good choice. Yes, I am biased as I have one and use it for gaming, also for job as a swe.

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Dudok22@reddit

For that it's only bad for productivity because it runs games so well you will want to play instead of working, lol Seriously, unless you are doing some advanced stuff, it will be absolutely great. and it can do even the advanced stuff just a little slower.

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Ancient-Range3442@reddit

I tried riting a werd doc with a 7800x3d and the spel chequer kept throwing erors, so yeah it’s sux bad

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Stratix@reddit

You got your son one of the best CPUs period. It's good at anything you could reasonably expect of it.

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_nism0@reddit

It will be fine for what he needs it for.

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banxy85@reddit

That cpu is good at everything. Most reviews are based on price comparison and 'best bang for buck' therefore it scores lower because there are better productivity cpus at a better or lower price. But they may not give you the gaming performance that you have now. It's a balancing act and it sounds like you've chosen wisely.

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PraxPresents@reddit

The 7800x3d is one of the single best CPUs on the market. Anyone who says it is bad at literally anything is either heavily uneducated or ignorant. We all used to do our productivity work, editing videos, rendering in Blender, on CPUs from the 6700k generation. Every mid-to-high end product today is amazing and absolutely annihilates anything performance wise compared to how we plugged along in 2015. Anyone who specifically states that the 7800x3D is bad for productivity are armchair techs with no real experience or knowledge, please ignore.

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Secure_Seesaw7648@reddit

Exactly, any of the last two gen cpus are absolute monsters. I still see people doing am4 and gen 12 builds. These are faster than 75% of the laptops I see engineers using at most of my customers.

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dsinsti@reddit

I still do...but I live in ISpain (yeah, i'm Catalan) and tech prices here are a bit on the high bar. Anyways, I totally agree! Just bought my new monitor today, waiting what Intel has on the bag with the core ultra or 7800x3D it will be (But it annoys it is almost 500€ here)

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robbinghood83@reddit

It's for sch work, not commercial production. i dun think the difference in processor will matter much. 16g ram as a minimum, more if he needs to run big data sets

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Regular_Tomorrow6192@reddit

It’s a midrange productivity CPU, definitely not bad. If you want high end gaming and high end productivity you could go for the 7950x3d but of course it costs a lot more.

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Falkenmond79@reddit

The thing is: It’s always in Comparison. It’s still an 8-core, 16-threads cpu with a modern architecture, huge amounts of cache and 5ghz clock speed. There will be tasks where it’s slower then its 500/600$ competitors, sure. And you pay a little premium for the extra cache which is mostly used in gaming. It’s still a good upper middle class productivity CPU for home use. If your not professionally rendering videos or doing scientific work, it still sits at about i7 level. Maybe not the newest gen, but then again it is itself not the newest gen. In other words: don’t fret. It’s still the best gaming CPU over all and for all other intents and purposes, its upper middle class. And it’s damn efficient when it comes to running cost, too.

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TheBupherNinja@reddit

No, it's not bad at productivity at all. It just isn't the best option if that is the primary use case. IMO, if you game at all and want AMD, should hey x3d.

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Unlucky-Start1343@reddit

If you want to consider if a CPU is good for games or productivity you should break it down into the individual stats. It is good enough to just use 3: How good a CPU is at handling multiple tasks at once, how quick it is at one task and how much it can remember. A game has lots of aspects, so it benefits from memory. But a game also has to provide an always consistent world. Which is hard or harder to split into multiple tasks. Sure, certain things can be separated, but it has to be combined before showing it to the gamer. Productive programs and their users don't care that much about consistency at all times. As long as it is right at the end. So it's much easier to split work into different tasks. Just having many parts good at one tasks will not work either, as every part will produce heat that has to go away. This means you can either have a cpu that can do one thing pretty fast (gaming) or many things a little bit slower but overall more. So there will be some cpu that are good at gaming and some that are good at productivity. In the other they don't necessarily suck, but aren't as good as the other cpu

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Polym0rphed@reddit

Productivity refers to professional tasks that require a lot of CPU power, not to students using Office.

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Accomplished_Alarm83@reddit

this has to be a troll post right?

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carlosgatorojo@reddit

It will be fine I can do all those things on an i7 6700 and a gtx1060 from 2016.

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Arcangelo_Frostwolf@reddit

The kinds of things your son will be doing as school tasks will be absolutely crushed by the 7800X3D. Only a professional would need a higher core count CPU, and then not every professional.

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Al-Horesmi@reddit

7800x3d is suboptimal for "productivity," not productivity. When people are talking about "productivity" in CPUs, they don't mean typical study or office work. Any old CPU will be fine for that, and 7800x3d will be a massive overkill. What they mean are CPU-intensive, *multi-core* workloads, which are actually kind of rare outside of specific professions. Software compilation, CPU rendering and encoding, server workloads, stuff like CAD or Blender, video editing. And, to be honest, even if you want to do any of that, 7800x3d is a beast for that anyway. It has a decent number of cores and a very modern architecture. It is just beaten by the very top of the line, premium products like 7900x or 7950x. But they cost more and seriously start crossing away from consumer PC and into professional workstation territory. The only issue is that it seems like gamers overinflated the prices for 7800x3d beyond any reason, so there is that to watch out for.

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Ethrem@reddit

No Ryzen CPU going back to the 5600X is particularly bad at anything IMO. I just upgraded to a 9700X and gave my husband my 5600X but I was still very happy with the 5600X. I appreciate the performance increase but I honestly wouldn't have upgraded for another year or two if he didn't need an upgrade (he still had an AMD FX-6350 and he started doing 3D modeling for printing - it was way too underpowered for that). I multitask a lot with my machine and the 5600X never skipped a beat. I was happy with it even when playing games with my 3080 Ti (while there has definitely been a performance increase, it's not as massive as you would think, as I'm not gaming at 1080p but rather 1440p ultrawide). TL;DR - The 7800X3D will be able to handle anything he throws at it for years to come.

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stuntech@reddit

I have this chip, and is awsome and powerfull for every task!

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unevoljitelj@reddit

Cmon man, be real.everythng you mentioned could be done on 10 yeay old 4 core cpu, just a tad slower. No, one of the best cpus available today will easily do it.

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parryhott3r@reddit

It's like saying a corvette is horrible on the drift track because a 240 exists. Sure, a 240 is more meant for drifting, but a vette will get the job done. Just because something is better than what you have doesn't mean what you are bad.

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Big_Yazza@reddit

No, it's more that if you're building a PC specifically for professional work like fluid simulation, cad rendering, whatever, stuff that scales well with as many cores as you give it, there are better value options than the 7800X3D. Davinci will take measurably longer to complete a task than on an equivalent price CPU like a 7900x, but unless that's literally your job and what you use your computer to do hours each day, it doesn't matter

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Sense-Historical@reddit

No u just need to download moar ram

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jkell411@reddit

It's not bad at productivity. It's just not as good as other CPU's. Unless he's doing some pretty taxing things, that chip is just fine. Not to mention it's the best gaming cpu of all time...

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GT_Hades@reddit

People glazed too much about i9 that what you see on most posts/comments would seem render 7800x3d like it is useless on production That cpu is a masterclass, it would be perfect for gaming and would also be fine in production

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moorekeny1001@reddit

Here’s the thing, it’s only very slightly worse at the high end of things like 4K or 8K video editing at really intense CAD productions. Unless you’re at the skill level to fully utilize those functionalities you most likely won’t need the kind of performance that it lacks in, and if you were at that skill level, you would already know which CPU would fully excel at those things. It’s an exceptional CPU for game and great CPU for the kinds of productivity you’ll need. I started messing in some CAD applications and some basic video/audio editing recently and I have no complaints. TLDR: You probably won’t be hindered by the slightly less performance on the high end, and if you are, you would’ve known which CPU you needed.

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red_vette@reddit

Most kids use laptops so a 7800x3D is going to faster than what most have. Hell, most businesses issue an i5, maybe i7, based thin laptop that runs at no more than 60w and they do Excel and other productivity based apps all day.

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moorekeny1001@reddit

Here’s the thing, it’s not bad at productivity, but it’s not exceptionally good. I bought one because my primary use case for my pc is gaming, and it’s at work horse for that. Now with that being said, it has a bit of an issue for some CAD applications I’ve recently taken a hobby of and it’s not particularly great when it comes to 3D printing. I’m not aware of any editing softwares that it can’t “handle”. TLDR: Not a bad CPU for anything you want to do, it’s just particularly great at workstation things, that being said, your son will have a decent time using it for what you built the pc to do.

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therealjustin@reddit

My 7800X3D demolishes anything I throw at it. It's super fast.

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swazyswaz@reddit

When they say productivity they most go with running large programs, rendering, large sections of codes. Not running word, excel or other like that. Or using google to do basic homework. If your son is in college they will be more than fine with a 7800x3d. If they’re in high school, you don’t have to worry about it.

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Dandelion2535@reddit

7800X3D is IMO the best option for 90% of people. There are definitely some professional users that would benefit from the 7900X or 7950X but for a kid in college, even one that does a bunch of video editing I think they would be best served with a 7800X3D.

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jasonfintips@reddit

You really need to start with a budget and work backwards for the best build for the value.

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Secure_Seesaw7648@reddit

It great. I switched my main CAD pc that I use to make a living to this CPU because my office is cooler. The electrical saving is great. I frequently run 3 VMs. I also use an AMD gpu. Any of the latest gen components are so fast forget about it. Fan boys crying about taking 10 seconds more to zip a file are just clowns to me. We should not be brand loyal.

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noonen000z@reddit

You're fine.

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_windfish_@reddit

Of course not.

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TheFirstOrderTrooper@reddit

I have one. I game and program with it, it’s fine

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Silly_Guidance_8871@reddit

I have a 5800X3D (so, strictly speaker, the same but worse), and it still slaps for video editing -- the number of school-level project that'd warrant 12 or 16 cores at present is vanishingly small. IMO, you got the correct CPU for the job

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doyouhaveprooftho@reddit

I work full time from home. It's overkill even.

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DeerOnARoof@reddit

Anyone who tells you the 7800X3D is "bad" at anything is bad at being smart

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FearLeadsToAnger@reddit

You've misinterpreted others talking by the sounds of it. 'Bad' is the wrong word, it's one of the higher end chips available but it's specialty isn't productivity, that is a million miles from it being bad at it. It would be better at productivity than 99% of other computers on the planet.

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Vasile_Prundus@reddit

It's very good for productivity, just not as good as the flagship options. Nothing you described will be a problem at all.

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Nexxus88@reddit

The cpu will be fine for those tasks. It won't be industry leading at those tasks but will more than adequate. Also the industry leading chip at those none gaming tasks is a high powered intel chip & you definitely don't want one of those right now.

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RavagedDeity@reddit

it's not bad, and if he's using it for school work, it'll probably be fine. if he needed it for heavy workloads that professionals would typically need, I think a non x3d model would have sufficed. regardless, it is no slouch. I picked up a ryzen 9 7900 instead of the X version and I currently have no regrets. does everything I need it do at a lower wattage. I do lose out on some gpu bandwith but probably not enough to bother me when I have a 4080 super that's being held back due to 144hz.

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Big_Training6081@reddit

I wish you were my dad growing up. I saved up for a crappy computer in high school that could barely run WoW and StarCraft. Couldn't sleep one night so I decided to do a little gaming. My dad heard me awake (I think maybe I woke him up) came into my room, grabbed my PC by the cords and slammed it into the wall. (My room was in the basement so the wall was solid concrete)

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moguy1973@reddit

Slower base and boost clocks than a 7800X so slower at normal tasks that use multiple cores and threads but blows it away in games due to the 3d cache.

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mrheosuper@reddit

It's still 8 cores Zen 4 CPU, dont forget that

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Dograzor@reddit

First off: I really appriciate it that you take time to support your sons hobbies & want to look out for his homework and future. As for the CPU, just get the 7800x3d, it's the best option out there and relatively affordable for gaming. As for productivity in relation to CPU's, this means serious, commercial grade productivity use which your son won't do. Unless he's into building serious data sets, 3d modelling, photoshopping or transcoding movies etc. E.g. home use, semi-professional photographers, scientists or accountants could benefit from a productivity leaning CPU. The 7800x3d will still be able to do the above, just slower while being the best for gaming. P.s. Avoid current and past gen Intel at all costs due to the cpu degredation debacle.

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Thanks. I built one for myself with Intel 13700k, just a couple of months before all the scandal over Intel. That's actually one reason I wanted to make all the right choices for my sons PC, but these posts have made me realize I was overthinking it.

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ecktt@reddit

> for school, and now, based on various comments online, Not being the best does not make something horrible. 7800X3D is just fine. School related stuff could work on a 15 year old PC with enough RAM. > I was thinking if I went big on the CPU, he could get by on gaming without a higher end GPU. That's a -ve. Games are typically GPU limited. Throwing more CPU solves nothing. That said, if I had a 6700XT class Video card and a 7800X3D class CPU as a kid, I was not complaining at all. He's lucky AF!

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

I will tell him that, thanks.

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TheCoopX@reddit

It works fine for productivity, there are just better suited CPUs out there. I recently had to return a CyberPowerPC that was unstable from the start. It had a 14900KF and a 4070 Ti Super (that's the part that hurt having to get rid of), but nothing I tried would get it to be stable or reliable. A few weeks later, I picked up a PC from Skytech with a 7800x3D and a 4070 Super (I wasn't going through the 13th/14th gen Intel BS again). So I went from a very capable gaming/productivity CPU, to a very capable gaming/not as capable productivity CPU. I say all of that because I have an eight minute 720p After Effects video that took about 5.75 minutes to be exported with the first PC, and about 6.5 minutes with the second one. Same video, same effects, same resolution, and same format/settings. 45 seconds isn't exactly what I'd call a massive drop off in the overall scheme of things, unless you're running a business that needs that faster productivity boost (time is money after all).

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djwikki@reddit

Depends on the type of video editing and productivity stuff he does. Typical high school stuff? The 7800x3D will handle it like a breeze. Hell, CPUs from 3-5 years ago should be able to handle that like a breeze. Large scale college 400/500 level video editing, large scale data computation, and machine learning? It’ll be a lot slower than more production-focussed chips, and if the college has a dedicated computer lab he may want to use those computers instead. Anything in between those two extremes, it should be fine as the 7800x3D is still a very high end CPU, albeit gaming focussed.

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NoBackground6203@reddit

its still a powerful 8 core 5GHz CPU capable of any productivity tasks, if he was using it professionally where time is money it would be a different story

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Agreeable_Ad3668@reddit (OP)

Yes and I have had some misgivings about that, even had a 7900gre in my cart for a while. But at some point you make your choices and call it good enough, at least for now. AM5 will be around long enough to consider a GPU upgrade later (was my thinking, not necessarily the best plan). Another part of the balancing act was that I definitely wanted to use a mATX case, the Asus 201p, and I put fans in the bottom which didn't leave much breathing room for a beefy GPU, and the 6700xt i chose was pretty slim.

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blockie710@reddit

Is it bad for productivity? Not at all. The 7800X3D is a solid "all-arounder" as far as CPUs go. In fact I'd go as far as to say one of the best in it's price bracket. It's leaps and bounds over the i3 you upgraded from. It's also got solid integrated graphics that give it even more added value. The CPU alone plays games it's got no business playing at an adequate level. I have one in my rig, and it's a mf BEAST of a CPU for it's size & price. If you want a real world example..I'm a content creator & livestreamer that's monetized on multiple platforms. I have a single PC setup, and can do just as much (if not more) than my friends with multi-PC setups. DaVinci, SLOBS, OBS Studio, Adobe CS, Steam, Epic/Unreal Engine, and a growing/rolling list of games & I have run into minimal issues being able to multitask with several programs running. Typical use case scenario for me..even with a 100% CPU load with Warzone, StreamLabs Desktop streaming to multiple outputs+encodes at 1080p, Discord, my audio routing SW, multiple Twitch tabs in Edge for the homies, and multitrack A/V recording running..I haven't noticed any performance issues

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atul221282@reddit

To cater to both, you may want to look at 7950X3D

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ToThePillory@reddit

No, it's a very good and fast processor. There isn't really any such thing as a processor for "gaming" or "productivity", it's really about whether a processor has fewer fast cores, or many slower cores. Fast cores are better for gaming, \*many\* cores can be better for \*some\* types of productivity. The reality is that the differences are 10% here and 5% there, it makes far less difference than some people make out. The fact is the 7800x3d is a very good and fast processor, it'll absolutely blow away most processors for Google, Office or DaVinci. The only very mild downside is that you don't get that \*many\* cores with it. You get 8 very fast cores, but these days it's also common to get say, 4 or 8 "efficiency" cores too. Those efficiency cores are good and worth having, but at the same time, it's not that big of a deal if you don't have them. The PC you're building for your son is a really, really great machine and it'll be fine for pretty much anything he does with it.

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Podalirius@reddit

Just get him a 7600, less than half the price for 85%+ of the performance, let him earn something high-end like a 7800x3d.

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VitalityAS@reddit

Bad workstation cpu's in pcs less than 5 years old are impossible. The only real bad workstation cpus are all the laptop cpus with thermal throttling that 99% of the world's professionals are using in every field.

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OneRobuk@reddit

no, it is not. people recommend it for gaming because of the 3d v-cache but it is still a strong processor for productivity. if your main goal is productivity though you can find better-suited CPUs for a cheaper price. however, for the tasks listed, a 7800x3d will have absolutely no problems

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WoomyUnitedToday@reddit

For the first half of last year, I was using a Core 2 Duo laptop for school, and the second half was using a 4th gen dual core i5 laptop for school. You should be totally fine

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piotrek211@reddit

Apparently, the 7800x3d is only good when you're in an actual game and everywhere else the experience is dogshit

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d0rtamur@reddit

When they say "the 7800X3D isn't good for productivity apps" - we are talking abouit business and commercial apps which need 64GB RAM, PCIe4 data rates and top of line specs. If it for Office apps and editing (short) videos - then your son may not even see any difference in performance of any sort - even if you drop the CPU to a Ryzen 5 or Intel i5. The jump from a 7 year old i3 CPU to a Ryzen 5 or a current generation (12-13 gen) i5 will be a huge uplift in performance.

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FrequentWay@reddit

At least you got him a modular setup with AM5, AMD reports it would support that motherboard until 2027. You could do a final CPU and GPU upgrades then and he should be good to go until he moves out of the house. Some programs are CPU bound while others are GPU bound.

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_mrald@reddit

I'm using it for streaming, premierepro, photoshop, illustrator, blender, unity, Can't really complain. I've never tasted the power of 7950x, so I'll never know the difference between that and my 7800x3d. What I can say is it's fast. I don't really have to wait long between renders.

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MakimaGOAT@reddit

No, its still pretty solid

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NickCharlesYT@reddit

Shit, when I grew up I spent most of my middle and high school years up to 2010 or so rocking a Pentium 4. Not even the good one with hyper threading, were talking the original Northwood models that ran hot and didn't even support 64-bit. My little sister did most of her work in high school on a $200 Chromebook. Your kid will be fine. You've built them a fine gaming PC and the 7800X3D will absolutely handle anything you throw at it productivity wise for home use. You really don't have to worry about buying a productivity first CPU until you're actually using it to generate income. Even then you can start on pretty much any modern 5-7 series CPU.

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STOaway4DayZ@reddit

You only need to worry about a PCs productivity level if you are doing related tasks for work. Otherwise, they are hobbies at best and the 7800X3D is fine.

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No_Interaction_4925@reddit

You gave your son a baller cpu and a decent cpu. Absolutely nothing wrong with it

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Niceromancer@reddit

Unless you are doing cutting edge shit that pushes your computer to its limits you won't notice a difference.

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justamofo@reddit

Dude both components you mentioned are high end for any normal human. The 'bad for productivity" comes from professionals or enthusiasts who need (or want) to squeeze every millisecond they can save. What you built is a beast that will last for years to come if he plays on lower than Ultra (who tf notices the difference over medium or high nowadays anyways?) Just make sure you get enough RAM in double channel and a good SSD

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kingmotley@reddit

No. In fact as soon as the 9800x3d comes out, I will likely be upgrading to that myself. And my current 5900X runs circles around my business machine.

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Siliconfrustration@reddit

He'll be fine. It's not at all bad for productivity - it's just not the very best but it is the best for gaming. It is not a substitute for a more capable GPU. You could have easily used the 7700X or even the 7600X or even the non-X versions and turned on PBO and he likely wouldn't notice the difference. I would have recommended saving some cash on the CPU and spending it on a better GPU.

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Reikix@reddit

Unfortunately, Youtube and similar sites are full of kids and manbabies who think: If it's not overkill then it's bad. The 7800X3D is pretty good at productivity tasks, it's simply more specialized in gaming and less in productivity. If you compare it to a regular 7800X it may be (not exact numbers, but they help to represent the situation) 20% better for frame pacing and low 1% in games and 10% slower in heavy multitasking applications, which doesn't make it bad. I mean, if three years ago you could render a certain design in 2min with a 5800X, and you can do it in 1m35s with a 7800X and in 1min 45s with a 7800X3D, how is that a bad product? It's fast, it's definitely faster than the previous generation, and it's faster than almost all 8 core processors up to today. It's not a Ryzen 9 7950X, which would easily render the same design in 1m or even a little less, but that's an expensive CPU geared towards professional work. Someone who will be performing really heavy tasks and for whom every minute is money. Students don't really need super high-end hardware at all, with mid to low end hardware they can easily complete any task at college.

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SlumKatMillionaire@reddit

Buying an AMD cpu = no big issue Buying your son an AMD graphics card… do you secretly hate him lol?

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PogTuber@reddit

You're fine, especially for whatever a 7 year old is going to do with "productivity"

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PapaAquchala@reddit

As long as your son isn't doing something crazy like 3D modeling in CAD, the 7800X3D is more than enough for just about anything you can throw at it

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xYeahboiix@reddit

Value for money when used ONLY for productivity it's bad because it costs more and is slower than a 7800x/7900x or just slower in the 7950x case. The 7800x3d is by no means incapable of these tasks just not the optimal option however seems perfect for your needs well honestly a bit overkill tbh haha 7500f 7600x 7700x would be fine for 6700xt but anyways no occasionally doing some video editing excel word ect isn't going to prove an issue

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os_nesty@reddit

This is the kind of people that need the latest MAC PRO SUPER XL to code in vscode.

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dookieshoes97@reddit

Most of what you listed can be done on a student level Chromebook...

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Charmander787@reddit

Homework for school? Nah lmao You could probably run an i3 or ryzen 3 and be fine

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Rynex@reddit

It's absolutely fine to edit videos with it. You would probably get an increase in speed with other CPUs when it comes to rendering and some CPU processing stuff, but it's a small trade off for a huge benefit with 3D rendering. Its pretty much the best CPU for most home setups right now.

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pacoLL3@reddit

It's a $400 high end CPU.... It's like asking if a Porsche is good enough to drive one to work.

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CyberAsura@reddit

By productivity, people are referring to professional 3d model rendering, editing 4k/8k video/ image/ animation… etc. Anything can get school done, even a $300 laptop. I think your son wants a pc that can play triple A games which is also heavily depend on getting a gpu. 7800x3d is overkill for 6700xt gpu.

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itsapotatosalad@reddit

Unless he’s producing long 4k videos, large cad models, creating animation or music, shit like that at a commercial content creation level the 7800x3d is fine. It’s not like the cpu grinds to a halt if it detects anything other than a game running, it’s just “only” an core processor, relatively low compared to the highest end chips but perfectly competent.

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Cautious_Share9441@reddit

Should be excellent at everything you listed. If you were editing 4k videos daily or running scientific research lab type simulations there would be somewhat better choices.

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Azuras-Becky@reddit

Armed with a 7800x3D, your son will be better-equipped than almost any of his peers, and you should absolutely feel good about helping him to achieve his dreams.

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New-Neck-4697@reddit

Imagine worrying if a 7800x3d can handle school work while I had to wait 10 minute boot times every gad damn time I started my pc XD

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Spirit117@reddit

Anyone remember the days when the 4 core 6700k was touted as "the" desktop productivity cpu if you didn't want to spend thousands on an X99 setup?

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jojojajahihi@reddit

It will still be super good at those things, just not as much value as other cpus in that area.

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Moscato359@reddit

It at worst, is less than 10% worse than a 7800X for productivity It's about 50% worse than a 7950x for productivity, because the 7950x has 16 cores vs the 7800x3d 8 cores but both are good at everything

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Fetzie_@reddit

When I was in college I was running Microsoft office on a 1.something GHz Pentium in a netbook. He’ll be fine 😉

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jaminvi@reddit

When people are referring to productivity in this context, they're typically referring to compiling massive data sets AI or rendering. The processor in question may fall short but 10 to 20% of some of the industry leaders. Basically, any processor made in the last 3 years will annihilate any of the tasks you described.

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No_Cartographer266@reddit

Could be troll post. Nice Play

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Elitefuture@reddit

Compared to what most people are using, it is better at editing and other productivity workloads. It's just that we're always minmaxing the budget for the value. It's the best gaming cpu and still better than most cpus at productivity. It's just not the best at it. Compared to his peers, he'll have the fastest pc, especially compared to laptops and any older cpu.

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Naerven@reddit

No it's roughly as good as a r7-7700x for productivity. It's just better at gaming. That doesn't mean it's bad at everything else.

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mickeyyymouseee@reddit

I got a 7600x in a build and it did everything and more for me. We like to think we game competitively. Never been held back by the cpu. Also got a i712700k and they both have done everything we have needed with room to do more. The 6800xt only thing holding us back from going higher fps

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Ferrar258@reddit

By productivity people usually refer to tasks that a professional video editor/ animation artist would perform on a daily basis. For school and college it is totally fine. The only reason to pick a high productivity CPU like an I-9 or Ryzen 9 is when the speed at which you finish your activity will impact your money earning/ performance as a professional

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JumpyDaikon@reddit

It is a strong CPU in general, it is a monster for gaming. When people say it is not good for productivity, they mean only that the focus of the CPU is not very demanding multi-core professional work. For normal home usage, it is good for everything.

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snail1132@reddit

I have done all of that on mine, and a 6650xt, and it all runs fine (I was using capcut, not DaVinci resolve, but whatevs)

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XWasTheProblem@reddit

Reddit will make you think that your PC will literally come to life and strangle you if you as much as try to run something that isn't a game on it. No, it's just fine.

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iBoughtItAtWalmart@reddit

Yes it’s terrible it took so long to open the word doc fr

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Eastern-Professor490@reddit

the 7700x is a bit better at productivity tasks, low to mid single digit % and cheaper. so if someone mostly does productivity with occasional gaming or productivity and gaming but is on a budget the 7700x is tje better choice bc it's cheaper. the 7800x3d is gaming focused but a good allrounder

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Eastern-Professor490@reddit

the 7800x3d is also extremely efficient, in gaming it draws maybe 60-70W max

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Lemosse422@reddit

Definetely not bad, If your main focus IS gaming and you just wanna do productivity on the side, then It's great, If your main focus is productivity though then look elsewhere, a 7900X would be better in that case, And if you're doing equal loads of gaming and productivity, Might be worth stepping up to a 7950X3D If you have the budget, But that doesn't seem like the case here.

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Wooden_Attention2268@reddit

Basically, school things can be done on a 300$ laptop, so no, your son won't be limited in productivity with 7800x3d

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iedy2345@reddit

Yes, the 7800x3d is very bad for homewoork , he needs a 4090 as well and make sure you get the 9000x3D too when it drops, your son will thank you ;)

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vswey@reddit

No it's not

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Open-Kale-7598@reddit

Im using a laptop with a ryzen 7735hs cpu and a 4050 gpu, pretty sure a ryzen 7800x3D can crush it. And with my laptop, I edit and record videos flawlessly (It's asus tuf btw)

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Milam1996@reddit

lol it’s one of the best CPU’s on the market across the board. When people discuss productivity they mean intensive video editing, blender, etc. it’s still a fantastic CPU at productivity tasks, it’s just not the *best*. It’s more than capable of school work. lol.

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OfAnOldRepublic@reddit

You're fine with the CPU. It's more than enough for schoolwork, web browsing, e-mail, etc. "Better" and "worse" here refer to benchmarks, for tasks far beyond what normal users ever need. Video editing is one task that benefits from more cores, but still not likely to be a major slowdown. If video is something he wants to a lot more of, you'd be better off keeping the 7800x3d and investing in a better GPU.

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OneCore_@reddit

It's still just fine at productivity.

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Pumciusz@reddit

It's worse value for it. It's still a modern 8 core CPU. It all depends on the workload and expectations.

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beef99@reddit

it'll run google and office apps just fine. certainly better than a 7 year old i3.

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