Should I bother with 8700k?

pavel

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Apr 8, 2014
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I was going to build a 2nd system - w/ 8700k - I know that the 9700k is probably better and not gonna go into the 9900k because I am looking at what I set as budget here. I'm trying to get it on sale or used - but, not having any luck. Maybe, I'm not destined to have one. :( I missed a few 'sales' and some used processors got sold.
I'm in Canada so it's even more difficult to find a good price. As of now, the cheapest retail one is $480 and $10 off if buying on ebay. Some used sellers won't you to travel to them - won't ship it.
AMD is releasing their 3000 series of processors this year - so maybe I should just wait for that?
I currently have a R7 2700 that was (is?) going to be my first build - I got it on sale so I bought it for that reason only - was originally going to choose 2700X if I went with AMD.

Anyway, I want the Intel part for a few reasons including an interest in building a hackintosh which supposedly is easier on current Intel hardware. I guess, for Americans, you could look at it this way - the price in USD would be around $345.

The other issue or concern is what happens in the New Year with tariffs and possible increases in prices. If it goes any higher in price, I'm 'dropping out of the running' for certain based on that. :-(
 
A 8700k is still one of the best chips. It overclocks high with low temps and volts. And you can turn off specter and meltdown fixes which can have a perfomance hit from 8 to 15 percent. Months later and the 9900k and 9700k struggle to be in the same category as the 8700k. Take all 3 overclocked to 5.0 and you see why the 8700k takes a easy win.
 
A 8700k is still one of the best chips. It overclocks high with low temps and volts. And you can turn off specter and meltdown fixes which can have a perfomance hit from 8 to 15 percent. Months later and the 9900k and 9700k struggle to be in the same category as the 8700k. Take all 3 overclocked to 5.0 and you see why the 8700k takes a easy win.

I bought the 9900k over the 8700k/9700k to use for today and for the future games when they need more than 8/12 threads.

I will be saving money for making this wise decision that your one dimensional mind cant see.

oh and what in your right mind are you saying by taking all 3 overclocked and 8700k wins? ohh wait, not that 8700k wins but easily too? wtf? what sorcery is this.

Pavel, I would wait by spring/summer and get something with 16 threads or more from AMD, since you are on budget. Don't waste money on 8700k, 9700k, those two will be obsolete when new consoles come out next year that are capable of 16 threads on the CPU. That means all next-gen console games will be held back on anything less than 16 threads after it gets ported over to PC.

I would tell you to get the AMD 2700x now but I cant since the new ZEN will be out so soon, only logical option i think you got right now if you want to buy a new CPU is the 9900k.
 
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I bought the 9900k over the 8700k for today and for the future games when they need more than 12 threads.

I will be saving money for making this wise decision that you and many other one dimensional minds cant see.

oh and what in your right mind are you saying by taking all 3 overclocked and 8700k wins? ohh wait, not that 8700k wins but easily too? wtf? what sorcery is this.

In fairness, the future games that won't run well on a 8700k won't run well on a 9900k either. They aren't that much different. This isn't the jump from 2 to 4 cores. There are definitely diminishing returns. Plus the 9900k is $150 more for 2C/4T extra. Wisdom is certainly in the eye of the beholder in this case.
 
The 8700k and 9700k are plenty fast and will be for several years to come. Personally I feel that with current pricing the 8700k is best value for money cpu Intel has right now as it performs well in a variety of use cases. Also it should OC to 4.9-5.0 with relative ease. 9900K is king but you have to really lay out for it and you mentioned that its off the table.

My 2c anyway!
 
For purely gaming or float-bound compute, the 9700K would likely be a better choice, but with any multi-threading thrown in as a typical desktop workload the difference is likely to be marginal or favor the 8700K.

How this will work going forward is less certain; at some point the extra pair of cores (and associated hard FPUs) might be more useful for gaming or other workloads. We don't know whether that will happen in two years or seven, though.
 
In fairness, the future games that won't run well on a 8700k won't run well on a 9900k either. They aren't that much different. This isn't the jump from 2 to 4 cores. There are definitely diminishing returns. Plus the 9900k is $150 more for 2C/4T extra. Wisdom is certainly in the eye of the beholder in this case.

8700k and 9900k aren't much different? lol?

playing bf1 and bf5 and other multiplayer games today with a lot of players are held back with a 4 core cpu like 7700k, with a 8700k everything opens up, avg fps increase dramatically, and the overall feel of games is felt instantly, something you cant see off youtube videos cuase most cpu benchmarks are done with static single player benchmarks loops that are complete waste of time, in my opinion It is beyond retarded on those who waste their time doing those meaningless videos. It does nothing to the CPU to show what it can do and where the true benefit of having more cores really is.

in 2 years from now that 6 core 8700k will become the new 4 core cpu, this is why buying a 9900k today is a far better investment.
 
If your use case is heavily thread oriented (CAD rendering or video transformation/manipulation) then 8700K. If you are gaming and general usage then 9700K.
 
8700k and 9900k aren't much different? lol?

playing bf1 and bf5 and other multiplayer games today with a lot of players are held back with a 4 core cpu like 7700k, with a 8700k everything opens up, avg fps increase dramatically, and the overall feel of games is felt instantly, something you cant see off youtube videos cuase most cpu benchmarks are done with static single player benchmarks loops that are complete waste of time, in my opinion It is beyond retarded on those who waste their time doing those meaningless videos. It does nothing to the CPU to show what it can do and where the true benefit of having more cores really is.

in 2 years from now that 6 core 8700k will become the new 4 core cpu, this is why buying a 9900k today is a far better investment.

Once again, by the time your scenario develops where 6C/12T isn't good enough, the whole architecture of current chips won't be good enough. That won't be in 2 years either. Especially at a $150 premium. I bet you couldn't tell the difference between the two either now or later if they were both clocked to 5 gigahertz in games.

I'm not saying the 9900k doesn't have its uses, but if you're buying to future-proof games you are wasting your money.
 
but if you're buying to future-proof games you are wasting your money

General statement is true ;)

Gaming over time seems to be an exercise in 'just enough' within a range to me. Main thing that can't be predicted is how long a particular architecture/level of performance is serviceable.
 
General statement is true ;)

Gaming over time seems to be an exercise in 'just enough' within a range to me. Main thing that can't be predicted is how long a particular architecture/level of performance is serviceable.

That's true, but my point is that 6 coffee lake cores vs. 8 coffee lake cores isn't going to be a deal breaker when both are running at 5Ghz. I think by the time there would be a difference, the architecture will be obsolete. As an example, we used to have these debates with the E8400 vs. the Q6600. Sure you were getting more cores, but it was 100% more cores. But there was always an argument to be made that the E8400 was a better gaming chip anyway. By the time that the E8400 was completely overtaken by the Q6600 we were already into the Core i era. Here you're only getting 33% more and you were already at 6, so you end up with diminishing returns.
 
It is hard to imagine a time when an 8700k would perform badly in any game

I would expect more than 7 years before that happens. And it will need some breakthrough that drastically improves per core performance.
 
I would expect more than 7 years before that happens. And it will need some breakthrough that drastically improves per core performance.

bf5 full server in certain maps take the cpu usage of 8700k to 80-90% already, and with streaming it hits 100% CPU usage, causing stuttering and fps drops. And you think this cpu will last 7 years with next-gen console around the corner? ahahhahahahhahahah, you are blind as a bat on a sunny beach.
 
And you think this cpu will last 7 years with next-gen console around the corner?

Yes, I do. From the both hardware and the software side I think it will be a very long time.
 
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Yes, I do. From the both hardware and the software side I think it will be a very long time.

Evidently, "ahahhahahahhahahah you are as blind as a bat on a sunny beach"

Sounds like a legit criticism of your point of view...

/s
 
bf5 full server in certain maps take the cpu usage of 8700k to 80-90% already, and with streaming it hits 100% CPU usage, causing stuttering and fps drops. And you think this cpu will last 7 years with next-gen console around the corner? ahahhahahahhahahah, you are blind as a bat on a sunny beach.

The person to which you respond was referring to a length of time before it performed badly, not just have some impact.

I don't think there was an assertion made that it would just max everything out forever, or never be impacted by additional tasks like streaming. I think 7 years is not unreasonable at all to expect decent operation in games from the 8700k.
 
The person to which you respond was referring to a length of time before it performed badly, not just have some impact.

I don't think there was an assertion made that it would just max everything out forever, or never be impacted by additional tasks like streaming. I think 7 years is not unreasonable at all to expect decent operation in games from the 8700k.
if you take a CPU right now from 7 years ago and paired it with a 2080ti and play BF5 in a full 64p server the impact will be far more than "some".

I find this embarrassing, not on you.
 
The person to which you respond was referring to a length of time before it performed badly, not just have some impact.

I don't think there was an assertion made that it would just max everything out forever, or never be impacted by additional tasks like streaming. I think 7 years is not unreasonable at all to expect decent operation in games from the 8700k.

Look at a 7 year old 2600k in BFV. Not ideal, but still playable. Less so with the 2500k as 8 threads is significantly better than 4 in BFV MP. I think it's reasonable to expect an 8700k to perform similarly in 7 years with 12T. I tried to find some benchmarks to appease that other clown (I just put him on ignore), but the only thing I found was a guy playing with a 2600k and RX570 in 64 player MP. His framerates stayed above 60 at 1080p and spiked to over 100 in places. And I found some benchmarks that indicated that a high end GPU at 4k would be GPU limited for the most part in MP. A 9900k and 2700X were within 1 FPS of each other at 4k even with the clockspeed/IPC differences. Sure you're going to see some impact, but I haven't seen anyone indicate it performs "badly."
 
if you take a CPU right now from 7 years ago and paired it with a 2080ti and play BF5 in a full 64p server the impact will be far more than "some".

I find this embarrassing, not on you.
No one can predict how future generation CPUs will perform in comparison to current ones. However, I think it's safe to say that IPC gains over the next 7 years will be lower than in the previous 7 years. It is also possible in that space of time that AMD catch up to Intel and that both companies chips hit an IPC and clockspeed wall.
How likely that is remains to be seen.
 
Look at a 7 year old 2600k in BFV. Not ideal, but still playable. Less so with the 2500k as 8 threads is significantly better than 4 in BFV MP. I think it's reasonable to expect an 8700k to perform similarly in 7 years with 12T. I tried to find some benchmarks to appease that other clown (I just put him on ignore), but the only thing I found was a guy playing with a 2600k and RX570 in 64 player MP. His framerates stayed above 60 at 1080p and spiked to over 100 in places. And I found some benchmarks that indicated that a high end GPU at 4k would be GPU limited for the most part in MP. A 9900k and 2700X were within 1 FPS of each other at 4k even with the clockspeed/IPC differences. Sure you're going to see some impact, but I haven't seen anyone indicate it performs "badly."

4k is gpu limited, lmao.

I saw bf5 mp gameplay side by side between 2600k and 8700k paired with a 2080ti, it was hard to watch.
 
4k is gpu limited, lmao.

I saw bf5 mp gameplay side by side between 2600k and 8700k paired with a 2080ti, it was hard to watch.

So I think this is the point - the 2600k can run it, but you'd benefit from something faster. 7 years for a CPU before titles start to want that power to a noticeable degree.

As some have indicated, IPC gains will be almost certainly slower in the next 7 years than the previous, leading to a pretty good possibility that a current CPU will serve you well at least as long as the 2600k did.
 
if you think next 7 years will be same as previous 7 years than you are living under a rock, with AMD back in business, game engines going insane with amount of cores, DX12 about to truly take off soon, and with new consoles around the corner the next 7 years will be intense and lots of fun.

just so you know, 8700k is already being almost maxed out with 90% cpu usage across all 6 cores and 12 threads with games like BF5 when paired with a 2080ti inside a 64p server. When the next high end GPU comes out and a more demanding game engine, you can kiss that 8700k goodbye.
 
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if you think next 7 years will be same as previous 7 years than you are living under a rock, with AMD back in business, game engines going insane with amount of cores, DX12 about to truly take off soon, and with new consoles around the corner the next 7 years will be intense and lots of fun.

just so you know, 8700k is already being almost maxed out with 90% cpu usage across all 6 cores and 12 threads with games like BF5 when paired with a 2080ti inside a 64p server. When the next high end GPU comes out and a more demanding game engine, you can kiss that 8700k goodbye.

Would you like to provide references for the multitude of claims you make here, just so we know?
 
if you think next 7 years will be same as previous 7 years than you are living under a rock, with AMD back in business, game engines going insane with amount of cores, DX12 about to truly take off soon, and with new consoles around the corner the next 7 years will be intense and lots of fun.

just so you know, 8700k is already being almost maxed out with 90% cpu usage across all 6 cores and 12 threads with games like BF5 when paired with a 2080ti inside a 64p server. When the next high end GPU comes out and a more demanding game engine, you can kiss that 8700k goodbye.

I'm not sure where you are getting any of this information, but none seems correct except that yes AMD is making good chips again.

If by "almost maxed out" CPU usage you mean using roughly 50% - then yes. Here's a quick snap of several minutes in a 64 player BFV map from minutes ago. High settings, running 100-144 fps.
 

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1080ti is no 2080ti, also, playing bf5 on max fidelity and with ray tracing will take that 8700k over 90% cpu usage.

the more powerful GPU you use the more work the CPU will have to do when game is running on max settings.

also, don't test your cpu usage with a locked fps, meaning, don't use Gsync, Freesync, or just regular vsync. That will keep the cpu usage under check and will not give a realistic cpu usage.
 
1080ti is no 2080ti, also, playing bf5 on max fidelity and with ray tracing will take that 8700k over 90% cpu usage.

the more powerful GPU you use the more work the CPU will have to do when game is running on max settings.

also, don't test your cpu usage with a locked fps, meaning, don't use Gsync, Freesync, or just regular vsync. That will keep the cpu usage under check and will not give a realistic cpu usage.

Again - the assertion was that the 8700k will not perform badly in games for years.
Your argument seems to be that it is possible to make settings which could benefit from more CPU power.

These are not mutually exclusive.
 
my argument is that in 2 years from now there will be a high end GPU and a game where 8700k just wont be enough. This is because we are entering a whole new die shrink and because of the upcoming new consoles that will utilize all 16 threads.

This is a very bad time to get anything less than 16 threads if you are buying a new CPU. Even AMD's 2700x will perform better than the 8700k in 2 years from now. Right now 8700k performs better than the 2700x because 12 threads is plenty for todays games due to higher clock speed, but when more cores and threads become important the 2700x will be better due to 8 cores and 16 threads.

I am extremely happy with my 9900k, it will serve me well even when the new wave of new stuff comes out, it will have the right clock speeds and enough of cores/threads to face the new apps based on new consoles that use up all 16 threads. Those who are in market for a new CPU my advice is to wait for the new AMD 7nm CPU's, but if money is not an issue right now then the 9900k is the right, wise and only decision, I wouldn't settle for anything less than 8c/16t if im buying today, total waste of money if you buy a cpu today that doesn't have 8 cores and 16 threads.
 
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If I was building today (besides waiting for the new Ryzen chips to show-up), I would pick-up the 9900K for the extra cost just because it's soldered and two extra cores and call it a day.
 
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