>>286689832
If we keep the budget to under $300:
AMD Threadripper 1920X 24,496 $264.62
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 22,768 $297.15
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 18,310 $199.99
AMD Threadripper 1900X 17,845 $174.75
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 17,816 $174.99
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 16,006 $219.99
AMD Ryzen 7 2700 15,885 $225.97
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X 15,626 $269.98
Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3 15,514 $209.00

The cheapest Intel I see above the E5-2690 is $494. i9 9900KS is $649.99 and 9900K is $499.99 at 18,952.

>>286688808
Basically, for a new build, if you're not going money is no object YOLO, you're getting a 3600, or if it's on sale 3600X, or 3700X for more multitasking. If you want to go above 3700X you need to look at your specific use cases, and I'd go 3950X for something like doing workstation video editing while playing VRChat.

>>286691243
This picture should explain everything. There's a ton of technical and internal management details that boil down to "their plan for the current generation couldn't be implemented in mass production so they're an entire generation behind schedule."