I keep going back and forth between an 13th gen i7 or 14th gen i5. I mostly play MMOs and 3D Farming Sims/Adventure Sims, with occasional photo editing. Ideally I would like the best future-proofing without overshooting my gaming needs too much?
TIA for any insight
You are not future proofing anything between those two. 14th is the last CPU of that architecture, the next one will require a new mobo.
13th has been tried by lots of people while 14th is a new guy.
The surest thing for your gaming is 13th. It will work and the power will be enough for a long time. You’ll be replacing it with something around 16th+