FORGIVE ME -- New Gaming Rig, Intel 7700k v Intel 8700k v Ryzen 1600x

[GamingDaemon]

Hello Fellow Ananders!

Yes, it's one of those questions. I apologize in adavance...

So with October fast approaching, and a budget of about $2500+ to spend, I am building a new gaming rig, but keeping my EVGA 1080 GTX FTW. It will be rendering games against my curved ASUS 3440x1440 100Hz monitor. I will also be buying 32GB of DDR4 memory.

So, with all of that in mind, do I buy:

1. The Intel 7700k proven gaming monster?
2. The potentially better Coffee Lake 8700k 6 Core beast coming out in a few weeks?
3. Or, (GASP!) go AMD and buy the Ryzen 1600x 6 Core?

In all 3 cases, I will need to buy a motherboard with enough features to mild handle overclocking, watercooling my CPU, my 1080 GTX, and 3 or 4 SATA 3 1TB SSDs.

I hear AMD Ryzen still has issues with gaming, and I am not sure that I will see the full 30% increase in speed with gaming with the 8700k. Also, with the 8700k, I haven't even seen any motherboards yet.

So please, let your opinions fly!

--GamingDaemon

 

[StinkyPinky]

Well, buying a 7700k right now seems utterly pointless unless you can get a good deal on it. The 8700k is very likely to be the better option.

I would honestly wait a few weeks and wait for the reviews and then compare the 8700k to ryzen and make your decision then.

 

[IEC]

You're so close to the i7-8700K being released (<1 month?) that you might as well wait. With a $2500 budget sans GPU you don't need to make compromises, and it is very likely that the i7-8700K with a mild OC will be everything the i7-7700K is, except with 50% more cores/threads. If you don't ever run into situations where you need more than 6 cores, it should be the perfect CPU for gaming with room to grow.

On the other hand, a R5 1600X with a mild OC would be around 2-3% slower on average at your resolution, so it's not as far off as people would have you believe. Unless you're a 1080p peasant, in which case you would be between 5-10% off depending on RAM speeds/timings.

 

[GamingDaemon]

Awesome (and quick feedback)! Thank you guys!

It does seem like the wise thing to wait for the 8700k, and then do the full comparison with the Ryzen at that point. Though I think I will lean toward Intel for now. How much would you expect the Intel 8700k + new motherboard to be?

 

[StinkyPinky]

Price should be similar to the 7700k as that is the CPU it's basically replacing.

 

[jpiniero]

8700K is likely to be around $380 so a bit more than the 7700K.

 

[ZGR]

If you to AMD, you want to get 3200 MHz CL14 DDR4 RAM as that basically fixes all gaming performance.

Honestly, I would go for it. I just helped out my buddy build an R5 1600 + 3000 MHz CL16 + GTX 1060 budget build and he is very happy with it. It even runs Rainbow Six Siege at 144hz and he has yet to overclock the CPU!

I am done recommending Intel as AMD's Ryzen excels in games once paired with 3200 MHz DDR4.

I can only recommend 8700k if you are going to overclock and plan on buying DDR4 4000+ MHz.

 

[GamingDaemon]

8700K is likely to be around $380 so a bit more than the 7700K.

Ok, And I figure about about $200 to $250 for the motherboard??

If you to AMD, you want to get 3200 MHz CL14 DDR4 RAM as that basically fixes all gaming performance.

Honestly, I would go for it. I just helped out my buddy build an R5 1600 + 3000 MHz CL16 + GTX 1060 budget build and he is very happy with it. It even runs Rainbow Six Siege at 144hz and he has yet to overclock the CPU!

I am done recommending Intel as AMD's Ryzen excels in games once paired with 3200 MHz DDR4.

I can only recommend 8700k if you are going to overclock and plan on buying DDR4 4000+ MHz.

Hmmm, strong recommendation for AMD. I wasn't planning on getting DDR 4000+ memory. How much is 32GB of 4000+? And is that really necessary for mostly gaming performance?

 

[Reinvented]

Ok, And I figure about about $200 to $250 for the motherboard??



Hmmm, strong recommendation for AMD. I wasn't planning on getting DDR 4000+ memory. How much is 32GB of 4000+? And is that really necessary for mostly gaming performance?

Depending on what kind of chips and latencies you are looking for, you are going to end up spending around 500-600 for either 2x16 or 4x8 configuration. Is it worth it? Not really. DDR4-3200 is fine for AMD. Not sure about Intel, or what Coffee Lake might bring.

I used to be all for Intel, and just recently built a few AMD machines, including a Threadripper. DDR4-3200 is plenty, and you can get some nice Samsung B-die chips with low latencies as well. 14-14-14-34 for my stuff I'm using.

If I had that kind of money to blow, I'd build another Ryzen rig, just because AM4 is going to be used for a while.

 

[moonbogg]

If you have a 4790K, I wouldn't buy any of those CPU's. You chip is about as good as it gets for gaming. Remember, you are limited to 100fps as well so more CPU won't help much. Also, 3440x1440 with a single GPU...you won't be CPU limited. If you must upgrade, I'd say wait for 8700K reviews. Also, Ryzen 1600 is a gaming sidegrade or even downgrade from a 4790K. Ryzen is great, but if someone tells you its better at gaming than an OC'd Haswell, they are lying.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Wait for 8700K. With a 2500 dollar budget, it is a no brainer, assuming overclocking comes reasonably close to expectations. Only reason to buy Ryzen is a budget build, or if you need more than 6 cores. With the budget that you have, there is no reason to sacrifice single thread performance with Ryzen.

 

[GamingDaemon]

If you have a 4790K, I wouldn't buy any of those CPU's. You chip is about as good as it gets for gaming. Remember, you are limited to 100fps as well so more CPU won't help much. Also, 3440x1440 with a single GPU...you won't be CPU limited. If you must upgrade, I'd say wait for 8700K reviews. Also, Ryzen 1600 is a gaming sidegrade or even downgrade from a 4790K. Ryzen is great, but if someone tells you its better at gaming than an OC'd Haswell, they are lying.

Wait for 8700K. With a 2500 dollar budget, it is a no brainer, assuming overclocking comes reasonably close to expectations. Only reason to buy Ryzen is a budget build, or if you need more than 6 cores. With the budget that you have, there is no reason to sacrifice single thread performance with Ryzen.

Good food for thought. I think I should at least wait another few weeks and see what unfolds with the 8700k's. Thanks!

 

[beginner99]

If you have a 4790K, I wouldn't buy any of those CPU's. You chip is about as good as it gets for gaming. Remember, you are limited to 100fps as well so more CPU won't help much. Also, 3440x1440 with a single GPU...you won't be CPU limited.

Exactly. There is no point in upgrading the CPU with a single GTX 1080 on that resolution. You aren't hitting 100fps even close at least not without greatly reducing settings. So I would either wait for Volta GTX 2070/2080 which however will probably H2 2018 or just go buy a 1080ti know.

Other possible exception could be if you are streaming or doing a lot of encoding / 3D rendering. then getting a Ryzen 1700 or better would make some sense but still for gaming it would be a side-grade and not improve FPS at all as you are 100% GPU limited.

 

[epsilon84]

Agreed with moonbogg, if you are rocking a 4790K there is no point upgrading your rig for gaming, it is literally within a few % of a 7700K. Even a 8700K won't be much faster, especially at that resolution which would be 99% GPU bound on a 1080 GTX. At near 4K resolutions you're really looking at a 1080GTX Ti or SLI/Crossfire configs to tell any difference between CPU configs, and even then the difference would be minimal.

I am genuinely perplexed about people recommending Ryzen for a $2000+ gaming build... Why? Its gaming IPC and clockspeed is severely lacking against Core chips. Fair enough it is cheaper than an i7 but then again so is a Core i3/i5 or Ryzen 3... And I guarantee you even those CPUs wont be the bottleneck at near 4K res with a single GTX 1080. I don't buy the 'its good enough now so save $100' argument because with that logic we might as well save $300 on the CPU and still have a similar gaming experience as even a $90 Pentium G4560 is 'good enough' to drive a 4K gaming rig that is GPU limited, but that doesn't make it a smart choice for a high end gaming build, does it?

If you have $2.5K to spend on a gaming rig, then get the fastest CPU you can get (within reason, no need for a Threadripper/i9 etc as all those extra threads will be wasted on games) so the 8700K is the logical choice at this price range. Scrounging to save $100 on a slower gaming CPU makes no sense at all with such a budget.

A faster CPU may not make a difference now with the current generation of GPUs (short of a 1080 Ti perhaps), but with the next gen of GPUs the difference will be more noticeable, and we all know that we tend to hang on to our CPUs a lot longer than our GPUs. So it's probably worth viewing as a long term investment if you opt for a 8700K now. Over the course of a few years the cost difference would be minimal.

TLDR: Its not worth penny pinching on the CPU with a 2.5K budget. Just get the fastest gaming CPU, which will be the 8700K. However, keep in mind a 8700K would only provide a marginal gain at best over a 4790K in gaming, and almost none at 4K resolutions on a single GTX 1080

 

[whm1974]

I would wait for Coffee Lake first even if it's just waiting to see what it brings to the table.

 

[greatnoob]

Your CPU is more than fine and I really don't think going for an 8700k will benefit you all that much at 4k unless you're a video editor or are doing some compute heavy work on your machine too. I would wait for Volta before going out and buying anything because your GPU might be the single biggest limiting factor for gaming at high resolutions.

 

[scannall]

Save your money. Nothing you can buy right now will show a perceptible difference in actual gameplay. All you would get is bigger numbers in benchmarks. But last I checked, those aren't very entertaining for long.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm waiting to see how the i5-8600K and the i7 8700 plain and K all compare to the 7700 plain and K and Ryzen.

I run at stock and I care about power usage ( = heat = noise ), so if I had to buy right now I'd consider the 65 watt 7700 plain over the factory-overclocked 7700K at 91 watts, that requires a delid to run with decent temps.

However, 6 real cores is probably going to be the sweet spot for 99% of games "real soon now" then for several years after. ("64 player battlefield" is the outlier, and I don't play it) So the i5 might be the better choice than any of the i7s.

I need real-world benchmarks, including performance per watt.

 

[SPBHM]

8600K OC is likely better than 7700K OC and also cheaper, also better than Ryzen

 

[GamingDaemon]

Hello again, original poster back with some follow up questions:

After reading through this thread, I decided to wait for the 8700k, or the i5 6 core SKU, when they are released on Oct 5th (just a few days from now).

That said, I can't seem to tell when the required Z370 motherboards will be available? Same time? I would assume they would come out at the same time as the CPUs or what is the point of releasing the CPUs...

I just haven't seen anyone confirm any dates...

 

[TahoeDust]

They (CPU and z370) should be available to order October 5th.

 

[GamingDaemon]

They (CPU and z370) should be available to order October 5th.

Awesome, thanks!

Now I can just torture myself on which tempered glass case to buy Sigh

 

[TahoeDust]

Awesome, thanks!

Now I can just torture myself on which tempered glass case to buy Sigh

Full tempered or tempered side panel? My Phankteks Enthoo Evolv Tempered is probably the best case I have ever built in. Super high quality and really well designed.

 

[maddie]

Why are you really upgrading? To what end?

As some have stated, your GPU will likely be the limiting factor at your resolution. yet you're keeping it and replacing everything else. How will you react when most games feel the same as before? It might be best to prepare yourself for that scenario.

 

[GamingDaemon]

Why are you really upgrading? To what end?

As some have stated, your GPU will likely be the limiting factor at your resolution. yet you're keeping it and replacing everything else. How will you react when most games feel the same as before? It might be best to prepare yourself for that scenario.

You are probably right. First, I should update my monitor, as it is now a 3440x1440 100Hz curved monitor, but regardless, I am looking to improve the number of threads I have and memory speed. So going from 4/8 to 6/12 will help in games like Ashes of the Singularity, and 32GB of memory can be helpful for games where I use ENB to help out memory utilization for some games. But for the most part, things will be exactly the same. Finally, I am looking for aesthetic upgrades as well. So instead of a lift and shift into a new case, I am looking at new CPUs and memory. I could probably convince my wife that a new video card is needed too, since she is always pushing me to get the best of the best. That said, this freedom to get whatever I want whenever I want it, enables me to wait on that until next year. Sounds crazy, but it is kinda liberating.

Full tempered or tempered side panel? My Phankteks Enthoo Evolv Tempered is probably the best case I have ever built in. Super high quality and really well designed.

As much tempered glass as I can get. I like the looks of the Corsair 570X, but not thrilled with their PSU shroud not going all the way across the bottom. I am also considering the Phanteks P400 and the ThermalTake View 31 TG RGB.