Few thoughts for your friend. This is not a "you're wrong" post, but a "here are some options to consider, with different tradeoffs." 1. The AMD R3-3300X is ne

Few thoughts for your friend. This is not a "you're wrong" post, but a "here are some options to consider, with different tradeoffs." 1. The AMD R3-3300X is neck and neck with the Intel i5-9600K in most productivity benchmarks in the GN test suite.[0] The 9600K is a step up from the 9400 you're looking at, so you could likely do an R3 build. With the clock differences, it's likely that the R3 would pull ahead of the 9400. The processor is $120 MSRP, but not available just yet. Also, you'll likely want to pair it with a B550 motherboard. Nevertheless, with a cheapest-available graphics card, this should be price-competitive with an i5-9400. The future upside is huge, as you could get a beast R9-3950X in a couple years when the price has come down a lot. 2. The AMD R5-1600AF is actually a Zen+ part, and MSRPs at $85. The theme of the entire 3300X review video I linked is to get one of these if you can. Availability is limited and resellers are marking up significantly. AMD is committed to providing more, though. 3. Depending on where your price/performance threshold is, dropping to an R5-2600 brings your price difference to $26 ($224 vs $250 for CPU+mobo and CPU+mobo+graphics, respectively). This should edge out the 1600AF mentioned above, and regularly beat the i5-9400.[1][2] Of the options above, I'd lean toward the R3-3300X. This gives future expansion to a 16-core monster that is a chart topper for productivity workloads. You cannot make that jump with Intel, because their competitor is the 10980XE on a different chipset than the i5. Additionally, Ryzen 3000 and B550 supports PCIe gen 4, for double the bandwidth. Again, this is a future expansion option that you don't get with Intel. My preference is definitely subjective, and there are good reasons to go for the Intel i5, first among them that you can buy the system today, instead of in a month. [0] GN 3300x review: https://youtu.be/NM2fFpzPKPg?t=1063 https://youtu.be/NM2fFpzPKPg?t=1063 [1] Cheapest i5: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/B3pFtp https://pcpartpicker.com/list/B3pFtp [2] Cheapest R5 2600: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HttVyk https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HttVyk