what cpu should i get

Gaming you only need 9800x3d Bigger question is you’ve found someone with technical enough knowledge to have an opinion on CPUs but that person somehow landed on team blue in the year of our lord 2026

Probably the box on the porch that says Intel on it. A lot of folks do builds together, not every dad is clueless nor should you choose to burrow away into your hidey hole yelling at people to go away.

marketing. Intel owns the GenX mind share

versus the 9950X3D, it is only a 9800X3D.

If the CPU arrived on the porch fully showing "Intel" on it, it was ordered from the wrong vendor who cheaped out on shipping materials and risked the CPU being swiped by porch pirates.

Not true, just the ones who left to live their life. The ones that stayed are up to date. 9950x3d here.

Your dad is probably working off 20 year old opinions on AMD vs Intel. There's no good reason to go Intel for gaming right now if you're building new at the budget you have.

"you only need 9800x3d" Like what are you talking abt

well it's the cheapest of the three OP considered buying

Unless he gets into the BIOS or fires up msinfo32 or Task Manager, how's he going to know? LGA 1851 is already at EOL in terms of new CPUs.

This weekend I told my dad I just built a new pc and assumed I had bought an intel cpu. He almost didn't believe me when I told them AMD has sold more CPUs than Intel for the better part of a decade now.

Your pc = your choice

if it's mostly for gaming go with the 9950x3d, and if you were to go with Intel I'd say go with the 270k+, it's nearly the same performance for a significant price cut and iirc it's more efficient than the 285k

The intel reccomendation for gaming is kind of an old habit, intel was on top for so long when it was all about core count and clock speeds. Recently, AMD has shaped up to be a better option because of stuff like better efficiency at a time when intel used hundreds of watts, no P+E core split, and unique features like x3d chips. I would probably go with amd still, but intel has been making some ground recently. TLDR; today, go with AMD. in the next couple of years, intel will probably be competitive again

GET THAT R7 9800X3D. PLEASE

intel 270, fits same motherboard as the 285 but with less heat. And maybe even better performance. I’m very satisfied with this generation of Intel, high performing and good value for money, costs less than anticipated.

9800x3d is a solid choice for gaming. Actually one of the best gaming cpus.

between the 285k and 9800x3d, the 9800x3d is the go to. 270K plus is a bit closer but still not quite there

What do you want to use it for? (Games? Resolution? Quality settings? any other software? i.e. daVinci, Premiere or Blender?)? How old are you? And honestly, with the 9950X3D or the Core Ultra 9 285K, you are probably paying a premium for performance you aren't ever going to use if all you are doing is gaming. You could build a PC with a 7800X3D and a RTX 5070 Ti for half the price of something with a RTX 5080 and a 9950X3D and then replace that PC in 4 to 6 years with something better than the 9950X3D and 5080 and still have paid less than what you'd have paid just for the 9950X3D/5080 build. If I were to go with Intel today for gaming, it would be the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. At 4k, it is close to identical to eh 9800X3D in performance, although you will notice a difference at 1080p and less of a difference at 1440p, but you don't buy a 5080 to play at 1080p.

Gaming only 9800x3d.

Go with the 9800X3D (or 9850X3D) for Gaming 100%

9800x3d for pure gaming, honestly no need for 9950x3d it isn't worth it. Any production mixed I would suggest the 270k, since it's a very good all-rounder but x3D is just great for gaming

I’m going to get downvoted, I’m not trying to hate on AMD, they’ve come a long way and.. I personally hear fewer horror stories with Intel. Intel is commercial grade: Good performance, great stability, long lifespans, higher price to offset the lower frequency of replacing the CPU. If you start learning about 3D modeling, or simulations, or anything that is work heavy in addition to gaming, I would lean Intel for long term stability. AMD is consumer grade: High performance for less money, but not as stable over the long term. Lower price because they know you’ll be buying another processor or building a whole new PC within a 3 year window. Even if the PC replacement has nothing to do with the processor and is just consumer habit. New games always need better hardware, many gamers upgrade often. Gamers are AMDs target market. My AMD friends keeps having to upgrade PCs because something on them dies and I’m still able to run modern games and software with a 9 year old processor and no hiccups, just upgrading fans, storage and GPU. With Intel you’re paying for reliability over the long term, big old businesses don’t like down time and don’t like to invest in new computers. If you change computers every 2-3 years anyway, like many gamers then AMD is a great option with plenty of power for the money.

Tell Dad the AMD socket has better longevity

Buy AMD if you won't use Iris through DirectCompute