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If you’re not militant about meeting all the latest hardware standards, but do need an upgrade in the CPU department, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D is close to perfect. Despite releasing this year, it’s designed to fit the last-gen AM4 motherboard socket – which sounds strange, because it is, but then the 5700X3D is also the cheapest Ryzen chip to feature AMD’s extremely game-friendly 3D V-Cache tech. The result is a very sprightly processor that’s available for relative chump change, especially now that Prime Big Deal Days has sliced it down to £161 in the UK.
This is very nearly budget CPU territory, for a chip that’s got more in common with the high-end. It’s basically a slightly slower Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which our pals at Digital Foundry called “quite possibly the fastest gaming processor” in 2022, and still holds up well today. Only, that cost over £400 when it was new, which makes the (only modestly) downgraded 5700X3D look like an even thriftier buy. Take note, if you’ve been considering a new budget build.
3D V-Cache for such little outlay is a big draw in itself. If you’re unfamiliar, this essentially creates loads more space in the CPU’s onboard L3 cache, where it can store data and access it much faster than via the system RAM. Short version: more data in that faster cache equals faster-running games.
The catch, obviously, is that you’re yoking yourself to an AM4 build long after it’s been replaced with AM5. But then, this is okay unless you suddenly switch to wanting the latest and shiniest tech after all. There’s no support for DDR5 memory or PCIe 5.0, for instance, though DDR4 is still basically fine (as long as you have enough of it), and PCIe 5.0 SSDs currently cost far more than 4.0 drives despite offering very little advantage to game loading times.
What is essential, at least for this deal, is an Amazon Prime account. Or you can just sign up for a free trial of Prime, buy the CPU, then cancel before you’re charged the monthly fee. You should also decide quick, as Prime Big Deal Days only runs between October 8th and 9th.