Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
The $229 Ryzen 5 5700X3D earns a spot on our Best CPUs for gaming list due to its exceptional gaming performance at its price point. This chip is suitable both as a budget-class option for a new build that leverages the affordable and plentiful AM4 and DDR4 ecosystem or as a budget upgrade to an existing AM4 build.
As we've shown, the Intel Core i5-14400 can't compete with the reduced pricing of the modern Ryzen 5 7000-series models, but the Ryzen 7 5700X3D pressures Intel's lineup from the other end of the spectrum. This chip builds on the success of the company's X3D cache technology to deliver a stunning amount of gaming performance despite its prior-gen Zen 3 architecture, but it does come with some tradeoffs in application performance. In either case, it's a win for AM4 upgraders and those solely interested in gaming.
Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and 1440p and a cumulative measure of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. We conducted our gaming tests with an Nvidia RTX 4090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings.
The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is optimized for gaming, but the 3D V-Cache tech results in lower clock speeds that hamstring performance in productivity applications. The chip also leverages the previous-gen Zen 3 architecture, so application performance is particularly lackluster compared to newer Ryzen 7000 and Intel chips. But it's killer in gaming. At this price point, the Core i5-14400 or the Ryzen 5 7600X are the competing options if you're looking for a balanced level of both gaming and productivity performance.
The $229 Ryzen 7 5700X3D is a whopping 30% faster than the $230 Core i5-14400 in gaming. However, the 14400 is 10% faster in multi-threaded work and 27% faster in single-threaded applications, offering a much more balanced profile.
The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is 13% faster at 1080p gaming than the $210 Ryzen 5 7600X at stock settings, but the 7600X is 14% faster in multi-threaded and 37% faster in single-threaded workloads. You'll have to step up to an AM5 platform to use the 7600X, which adds quite a bit of cost over the affordable and plentiful AM4 ecosystem.
If you're choosing between the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Core i5-14400, the AMD chip is a better value. The 7600X is 14% faster than the Core i5-14400 in 1080p gaming and is also solid in our productivity test suite — it's 6% faster than the Core i5-14400 in single-threaded work and 3% faster in multi-threaded applications. That makes it a good all-rounder alternative if you prize performance in productivity workloads. You can also opt for the Ryzen 5 7600, which weighs in at $190 and offers about 3% less gaming performance than the 7600X.
For the Ryzen 7 5700X3D and Ryzen 5 7600X, you'll need to buy your own cooler, but these chips aren't difficult to cool with budget-class coolers. If you're upgrading an AM4 platform with the 5700X3D, there's a good chance that your existing cooler will be fine, particularly if it is an AIO. The Core i5-14400 comes with a 'free' bundled cooler, but we advise purchasing a ~$25 tower air cooler instead of using the stock cooler.
One of the Ryzen 5 5700XD’s greatest advantages is AMD’s AM4 socket. This motherboard platform has soldiered on since 2017, housing five CPU generations spanning 125+ processors and over 500 different motherboard designs, and it is truly the gift that keeps on giving with the Ryzen 5 5700X3D. This platform is plentiful and cheap, so it makes a great palette for budget gaming builds.
The Ryzen 5 5700X3D doesn’t officially support overclocking the CPU cores or adjusting the CPU voltages. Unofficial workarounds do exist, but they are risky. You can fully overclock both the memory and fabric, but this results in meager performance gains. That isn't a totally bad thing—you get the lion's share of peak performance with minimal fuss.
If you have the extra cash, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D remains the king of the hill for either new or upgraded AM4 systems that are focused on gaming performance. However, you can save $81 (35%) while getting 91% of the 5800X3D's gaming performance with the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, which is a solid value. If you're only interested in gaming, particularly for AM4 upgraders, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is the go-to chip for budget gaming builds.
- MORE: AMD vs Intel
- MORE: Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 All We Know
- MORE: Raptor Lake All We Know
