Please people, do not buy two core processors new for gaming. Those are only good for word processing and browsing. Better look at used four core pcs. Where I live, the core i3-9100F and Ryzen 2600, (not really the X model), 2700 and 2700X are amazingly cheap for the amount of cores you get with the core i5-9400F quite good priced too.

Prices vary from location to location but here a 3600 costs just as much as a 2700X. I personally picked the later generation over more cores but was to and from for three months which way to go.

There are price comparision websites in many countries if not most. If on a tight budget, look at those and remember to add duties and postage charges into your calculations. That cheap processor is maybe not so cheap anymore if you have to pay €15 for P&P (S&H for you Americanos).

Aside from the Ryzen 3950X there was also the new Athlon 3000G announced, which looks much better than the 200G series but still only two cores.

2700 will be better on games that use more cores, 3600 will be better on games that stick to less cores, because they improved single core performance.

Anyway people aren't used to more cores mattering for PC games. Despite consoles using more (weaker) cores, PC games have typically only used 1-2 cores, or 4 on the outside, for years. Now though with Ryzen and such we're seeing more and more PC games use more cores, which people haven't adjusted their brains to yet. I think 6 cores will be plenty for the foreseeable future, but 4 core processors are starting to cause issues with newer games. There are countless videos on this from tech channels people can check out, I'm just repeating what I learned from those really.

Like I said last page though, it's really all about one percent lows and removing hiccups, rather than boosting your FPS to a significant degree.

Seeing how the 3850x just came out and it has 16cores/32threads, I think that in the next 2-3 years anything below 8 cores will require some serious drop in visual options. I'd also love to see the frequency for each core, be reduced as more cores get added, thus lowering the overall CPU TDP. Lower TDP, would mean slower fans to cool everything down, so quieter cooling. But, we'll just have to wait and see. As it stands Ryzen, is still pushing for the 5GHz limit.

I was expecting more tbh. Athlon 3000G just looks like unlocked Athlon 240GE. Ryzen 3 2200G is much better option considering its price drop.

Yeah me too. The Vega 3 is disappointing.

I don't see why, those high-end chips are all for professional software and streaming/encoding. We're just now entering the era where 6 cores is expected, I don't think we'll jump right to 8 in a couple years. The consoles will have eight, but they had eight last time too, the power/architecture differences make it irrelevant.

You never know though, with 8 core Ryzens being cheap enough to be considered mid-range, maybe developers will start relying on it very quickly. Stranger things have happened I guess.

Some visual options do indeed use the CPU but the general rule is they only tax the GPU.
A good exemple is Nvidia PhysX in some older games, like Trine. If the system don't have a PhysX enabled GPU all the calculation will be made by the CPU itself, quite intensive stuff...
Many older games use 8 cores. Even Dirt3, wich I recently had a look, have map for 8 cores. The problem is that in most games the majority of calculations are made or dependent on a single core anyway, making the games VERY single threaded.

Check some online reviews for the 3950X, the power consumtion is virtually the same as the 3900, and in the same ballpark as the Intel 9900k with half the core count...

Overclocked the 3950x uses a lot more than the 3900x- they use similar amounts without a manual overclock because PBO/ auto overclocking with the same cooler has the same limits or without an overclock sticks to the 105W TDP both chips have. That's why the standard clock of a 3950x is lower than the 3900x despite single core boost clock being higher. As with most top line chips the 3950k will use a lot of power if overclocked and that last 5% performance will add anything up to 50% in power draw.

If anyone does want a lower TDP limit AMD has actually released a 'green' power scheme (can't remember its exact name) which will set the TDP to the next lower step, eg 65W -> 45W or 105W -> 65W. May only be available with newest chipset drivers/ BIOS though.

I really like your build. How happy are you with it? Is it silent in all situations? Do you find the case too big for your desk top?

Current consoles use an 8 core processor yes, but not for games they don't. A PS4 can only use 6 (very weak) cores for games, the other 2 are dedicated for background system tasks. Xbox is the same except technically, after the SDK update in late 2015, MS unlocked an extra core that could be used for some gaming tasks. But I don't think many devs used the option. Next gen are genuine 8 core in every respect, plus 16 threads which they plan to use. Plus the CPU's have direct low level high speed access to extended SSD as extra RAM to keep the DDR 6 system RAM topped up. Giving the consoles an even greater advantage in memory bandwidth than a current high end PC. With console optimisation, make no mistake these machines will comfortably outclass the average mid level PC on release.
So in short I think 8 cores is quickly going to become the expected norm for a new game after late 2020 for someone that doesn't want the shame of being outclassed by a console.

Again though, it's not a straight-up comparison. PCs and consoles are designed around differently, despite consoles now using similar architectures. The PC versions might be geared more toward GPU power, for example, which is pretty common. I'm not an expert, but lots of tech sites discuss stuff like this. I've even seen quite a few take this exact question about 6 or 8 cores to compete with the new consoles in Q&A videos and their response is always "it's not really a proper comparison."

You're not wrong though that the new consoles will likely beat a mid-range PC at launch for a brief while, like they have the last couple times. I just doubt 8 cores is relevant to that really. If you have a high-end 6 core Intel you're still going to be in a better place than a Ryzen 1700, because of how PC versions are generally designed.

PC versions were designed for 4 cores rather than 8 because that's what Intel was selling as their top consumer chip for 11 (!) years from Core2Quad until the 7000 series; and Intel has been the dominant chip maker sales wise over that entire period. There has been a fundamental shift in the past two years though, and people who bought 7600ks in 2017 are having problems with newer games now because they want more than 4 cores even if those cores are strong. The 7600k holds up pretty well in average fps, but in some games has awful microstutter and 1% fps values because of the cores having to queue tasks; and inconsistent frame rate is way more noticeable than a somewhat lower but consistent rate.

I would not be buying a 6 core non HT Intel chip and expect it to last well. 4c/8t chips were top line from 2010 to 2017, now they're barely above entry level two years later even for Intel let alone AMD. I'd be looking at a bare minimum of 8 threads for a chip to last. I'd expect 6 core chips like the 8600k to hit problems with task queuing fairly soon just like the 7600k has. That won't make them instantly obsolete of course, but still...

I have a 1700 so I'm a bit biased- though I plan on upgrading at some point anyway- but I'd expect it to last far better than 8600k will. It doesn't clock that high, but then the console chips will be lucky to hit 3 GHz no matter what the rumours say. 7nm uses less power, but the chips are also smaller so the heat density goes up and they will have a 5700 equivalent set of Navi cores + DXR hardware to cool as well.

CPU <-> CPU comparisons between consoles and PC work decently, it's the GPU comparisons that usually don't work due to console GPUs being built into the system board as opposed to AIBs in expansion slots for PC. xbox1x has a 570 equivalent GPU but is '4k capable' which a 570 really isn't on PC and it does perform better overall than the 570, but the 1x does also 'cheat' (eg chequerboard upscaling) extensively to achieve 4k in almost all cases.

I said this exact thing above, yes. Straight-up 4 cores are starting to become outdated. However I don't think 6 core processors with 12 threads around going to be anytime soon.

Most Xbox One X 4k games are using reconstruction techniques and aren't really native 4k. The ones that are, like Read Dead 2, get 25-30fps on low-medium settings. It's not something anyone with a decent mid-range PC should be envious of.