Ideal CPU combination for GTX 1080Ti SLI or VEGA X-fire

[AMDisTheBEST]

Pair it with this

 

[krumme]

Here is a test with nv 1080ti and 4c 7700 vs 6c 5820 vs 8c 1800x at 4k resolution

http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-cpu-showdown-i7-7700k-vs-ryzen-r7-1800x-vs-i7-5820k/1/


"If you’re gaming at 100+ FPS and your frame rate drops below 60FPS for a moment, you’re going to notice; the same is true from 60-40, and so on. The Ryzen 1800X helped maintain the highest minimum frame rates we’ve ever seen, and that means a more consistent, smoother and overall better gameplay experience. When it comes down to it, this higher minimum number is what you want from a gaming chip, not just the bigger average or maximum number."

 

[DaveSimmons]

Since you are going to wait and see for Vega, like everyone else says wait and see on the CPU too.

If you had to buy a CPU today and only cared about gaming performance this week, then you'd want an i7-7700K.

But people are hoping that Ryzen will improve for current games with Windows, BIOS, driver updates and possibly game patches. People also hope that new game development will favor the 4 extra cores in Ryzen.

 

[msroadkill612]

Here is a test with nv 1080ti and 4c 7700 vs 6c 5820 vs 8c 1800x at 4k resolution

http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-gtx-1080-ti-cpu-showdown-i7-7700k-vs-ryzen-r7-1800x-vs-i7-5820k/1/


"If you’re gaming at 100+ FPS and your frame rate drops below 60FPS for a moment, you’re going to notice; the same is true from 60-40, and so on. The Ryzen 1800X helped maintain the highest minimum frame rates we’ve ever seen, and that means a more consistent, smoother and overall better gameplay experience. When it comes down to it, this higher minimum number is what you want from a gaming chip, not just the bigger average or maximum number."

A highish min frame rate doesnt necessarily say there are no lags, but yeah, its an indicator.

 

[msroadkill612]

Yes, of course wait as long as u can given the situation, but vega will drop real soon & u will have a fair idea of what vega/zen can do.

my guess is the combo is far greater than the sum of the parts.

They were made from the ground up for each other. There are bound to be powerful synergies.

If ryzen and vegas perform merely ok for u at 4k at release time, then go that way, as it will mellow and improve greatly at no cost.

The intel/nvidia combo seems like two incrementally improved end of life products from 2 squabbling companies.

It pays to put yourself in the mainstream, and that means u can get a better result often with more affordable gear.

Evenif amd only come close, if they are a fraction of the price, u will be a minority and suffer for it.

 

[guskline]

Fezzlakk, with the kind of money you will tie up in video cards (2 GTX1080TIs @$1400 and I bet the Vega X times 2 will be @$1200-1300) I would DEFINITLY wait until Vega X drops.

However, don't "cheap out on CPU or chipset running dual cards.

I finally got the Asus ROG Crosshair VI mb with the X370 chipset and it makes a significant difference in Crossfire vs the B350 chipset. You might want to wait until Intel drops the Skylake X cpu and matching chipset.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I would wait for skylake X. It will most likely combine the high ipc and clock speed of the 7700k with the option for more cores as well, along with the most PCI-E lanes. Right now, the data seems to show that the number of lanes does not matter much, but I am not sure that will hold true as cards become more powerful. There are a lot of "enthusiastic" posters in this forum pushing Ryzen, and it is a very good processor for multi tasking and good for gaming as well, but intel still has the edge in overall gaming. As usual the AMD contingent is using the "just you wait, when A,B, and C happen, Amd will be better", but obviously this is unproven. I have to admit though the prediction of some magical synergy between amd cpus and dgpus is a new one. By the time skylake X comes out, we should have a better idea if any of this will happen.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yes, of course wait as long as u can given the situation, but vega will drop real soon & u will have a fair idea of what vega/zen can do.

Intel and nVidia offer the proven best performance. AMD offers a still immature, clockspeed limited cpu platform and no gpu above midrange.

FTFY

 

[IEC]

We have zero verified information about Vega's performance. Can't recommend it now for that reason, though you may wish to wait just to see where the chips fall.

multi-GPU miscellany:
multi GPU AFR rendering is a crapshoot for support. Both nV and AMD. If your game works well with it, great. If it doesn't, you're SOL.
Max SLI support is 2 cards for gaming.
Crossfire can support up to 3 or 4 cards depending on motherboard. Scaling is generally better vs SLI.

As for CPUs... quad core would bottleneck 2x 1080 Ti. You already have games like Ashes of the Singularity that gimp details on anything with fewer than 6 cores regardless of user settings, and newer games are scaling past four cores. Can't recommend a quad core unless you're on a budget, and maybe not even then - a hex core Ryzen is competitive with an Intel quad core in price and performance.

In short, I would recommend a hex core at minimum, either Intel's HEDT X99 platform or AMD's Ryzen X370 platform, IMO. Ryzen has the edge in bang for the buck though Intel has the overall performance crown. Though in GPU-bound situations that difference wouldn't really be noticeable (unless your CPU can't feed your GPUs fast enough, e.g. as mentioned with quad cores in some games).

Unknowns at this point (2H 2017 through 1H 2018):
Skylake-X - speculation is that it will combine high IPC and clock speed of 7700K into more cores, but some of that speculation is as wild as the Ryzen 5GHz hype trainers. I doubt it will turn out as good as some hope. If by some silicon miracle it does, it'll be $2K+ for the top processor, easily.
Ryzen HEDT platform aka "X399" - 12c/24t and 16c/32t workstation processors with 40+ PCI-e lanes, more comparable to Intel's HEDT platform. Unknown clocks and performance.
Ryzen 2 - next version of Ryzen processors, will likely see clock speed and IPC improvements. How much is anyone's guess.

The fact that AMD is even an option now is an improvement. My last five CPUs were all Intel... Intel C2D, Intel C2Q, Intel i5-2500K, Intel i5-3570K, Intel i7-6700K. Wouldn't have (and didn't) consider any AMD CPUs pre-Ryzen to be an option for gaming, ever.

 

[happy medium]

If I were to build a system this year, I would go for the new X299 chipset, with the new LGA 2066 socket and a 4 core, 8 thread 7740k @ 4.3 ghz base clock and 4.5 boost clock, and overclock it to 5.0 ghz . I would buy 16gb (2x8) of ddr4 4000 to go with it. Since this x299 platform won't be released till ~September this year ,it gives you all the high end gpu options (VEGA/1080ti) with prices that will have settled down by then.

The 7740k @ 4.8 will last you ~ 3 years and then you have room to upgrade to a NEXT generation 7nm, 8 core, 16 thread, or 10 core 20 thread cpu for much cheaper prices. Probably by then we will have Vega 2 and Volta refreshes that will saturate pci-e 3.0 x8, the extra lanes of the x299 platform will come in handy. My guess is 32gb of system ram will be the norm and 16gb of Vram also.
This system should last you 5+ years easy, and deliver top notch performance

 

[ZGR]

I'm convinced 4c/8t is a dead end at this point; especially for 1080 ti SLI performance. We are already seeing games released this year that are maxing out quad i7's.

I've also been noticing the lack of "smooth" mutlitasking quad i7's have. Want to play a game and stream at max bitrate without stuttering? Haha nope, you need a 6c+ for that!

My PC feels so sluggish when running multiple games or running multiple VM's while gaming because it is CPU limited. I know more cores will fix that. And why shouldn't I be able to do that? No amount of overclocking will fix that.

The only platforms for 1080 ti SLI performance are X99 and B350/X370.

I may get a cheap 1080 ti soon later next year and I sure will be wanting more cores.