9900k opinions wanted

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QKSILVR73

Limp Gawd
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So I finally started buying parts for my next build. Z390 Aorus Pro, an H115i and some vengence 3200.

I guess I picked the wrong time to build being the next stepping is around the corner.

Should I buy now or wait? Amazon has them for 490 atm.
 
If you don't mind the power consumption, I don't see why not?

The last time there were publicized 'stepping' launches, they weren't that significant. There were improvements for sure, but not significant enough to get anyone to upgrade.

B3 -> G0 stepping of the Core2 brought around slightly lower voltages and marginally higher OC potential.
Nehalem also had one. The D0? I remember this but since I skipped the Nehalem generation I wasn't too sure what it did.

If any, you'll see good improvements from your current 3570K to a current 9900K especially with more heavily threaded workloads.
 
If you're buying from Amazon even when the new steppings are out you're not guaranteed to get one until all of the current inventory is cleared out.
 
Zen2 just around the corner. 9900k will very likely be relegated to 2nd tier, bad investment now imo.
 
Wait to see what is coming imo.
You may see a better product, a price drop or both.

Why do you need a 9900K?
Do you like getting better value/fun from an overclock?
 
computer chips aren't going to be getting faster any time soon (next several years). The 9900k is already the pinnacle gaming processor in general so other than the bullshit price, It's a great chip. You'll probably get 5 years out of it without an upgrade option on the motherboard before you start thinking about an upgrade so what's to lose. PULL THE TRIGGER ALREADY!

Wait to see what is coming imo.
You may see a better product, a price drop or both.

Why do you need a 9900K?
Do you like getting better value/fun from an overclock?

Why wait? the 9900k is a phenomenal chip right now. Yeah he might save a little money down the line but when hasn't that been true for all of eternity? It doesn't sound like he's splitting hairs over a $200 chip so what's the issue?
 
At this point, you might as well pick one up if you already have the other parts since you'd probably need a bios flash anyway with a new stepping (not sure if that board has some sort of bios flashback where you don't need a CPU to flash it). The new stepping probably won't be that much different, and if there is a price premium at launch, the old one is going to be discounted anyway. $490 from Amazon is a decent price for one.

But I agree with your assessment that it is kind of a bad time to be buying as the new Intel stepping and Zen 2 are right around the corner.
 
Why wait? the 9900k is a phenomenal chip right now. Yeah he might save a little money down the line but when hasn't that been true for all of eternity? It doesn't sound like he's splitting hairs over a $200 chip so what's the issue?
I explained why its a good idea to wait for the new releases.
But by all means make decisions for the op.
 
I am not even thinking of a Zen2.

I want to stream a little and right now with my setup it's not feasible. Not looking to make a living just something to do on the side for fun. My 3570k @4.5 is fine for just playing games currently out even at 1440p.
 
Zen2 just around the corner. 9900k will very likely be relegated to 2nd tier, bad investment now imo.

Zen 2 will very likely perform slower in general gaming than a 9900k with a typical 5.0GHz all-core overclock, even if the AMD part could get to 5.0GHz all-core, which is also highly unlikely.

Intel's next architecture- enthusiast desktop part availability unknown- will likely be the next performance movement through a combination of lower power, possibly higher clocks, more cores (less important) and potentially higher IPC (more important).

AMD is not likely to reach Intel's current (Skylake) per-core performance ceiling until Zen2+ or Zen3.
 
Zen2 just around the corner. 9900k will very likely be relegated to 2nd tier, bad investment now imo.
Lol delusional amd fanboys hanging round Intel boards.... We heard that story before... Gotta love it
 
If you don't mind the power consumption, I don't see why not?

The last time there were publicized 'stepping' launches, they weren't that significant. There were improvements for sure, but not significant enough to get anyone to upgrade.

If any, you'll see good improvements from your current 3570K to a current 9900K especially with more heavily threaded workloads.
Yeah, but if you plan to OC you might as well get the best available.
That being said its unknown when the newer stepping will finally pop up, so unless you can wait several more months go ahead and pick one up now.
I got mine from B&H with no issue (or tax :))

I upgraded from a 3770 to the 9900k (plus nvme upgrade) and the improvement was pretty substantial on everything from general tasks to gaming.
I went from being one of the last to load in BO4 to one of the first.
 
Something better is always "right around the corner" so don't base it on that. The 9900K is already overkill for just about every game right now.
 
I have a feeling AMD is going to catch up this time. More competition is better for the consumer!
Already are in some workloads. MT CB scores are interesting enough. Intel has a slight lead in single thread but as soon as it goes MT AMD has a more efficient uarch clock for clock/IPC speaking.
All they need is a bit of a frequency bump and Intel is in for an ass pounding.

Lol delusional amd fanboys hanging round Intel boards.... We heard that story before... Gotta love it
A delusional AMD fanboy running a 2600k? Nice try. I just tell it like it is and those balls deep in intel stock get butthurt.
 
Already are in some workloads. MT CB scores are interesting enough. Intel has a slight lead in single thread but as soon as it goes MT AMD has a more efficient uarch clock for clock/IPC speaking.
All they need is a bit of a frequency bump and Intel is in for an ass pounding.

This is comparing Zen+ to Skylake; move ahead to their respective incoming replacements, and AMD is likely to remain behind. Probably not much behind, but enough for a decision point.

A delusional AMD fanboy running a 2600k? Nice try. I just tell it like it is and those balls deep in intel stock get butthurt.

This doesn't help.
 
This is comparing Zen+ to Skylake; move ahead to their respective incoming replacements, and AMD is likely to remain behind. Probably not much behind, but enough for a decision point.
I wouldn't want to put money on that, Intel spoke about platform benefits far more than performance for a reason, that's why they chucked in the DL stuff that a few uni programming students might use, in order to give that 'nothing uses it but Intel wins that benchmark/early-mid AVX512' type advantage. Seen that happen a million times before in marketing.
Remember the yields of existing 10nm product are about 50% and then it was delayed further. In some more months how much better do you think they got it?
I'd say AMD with a well proven process of equivalent specification, and with a definitely higher yield rate should not be written off so easily.
 
Meh get the 9900K, people were telling me to wait for the zen 1 refresh when I got my 8700K and when it came out AMD was still playing catch-up. I don't expect any different from Zen 2.
 
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If you don't mind the power consumption, I don't see why not?

The last time there were publicized 'stepping' launches, they weren't that significant. There were improvements for sure, but not significant enough to get anyone to upgrade.

B3 -> G0 stepping of the Core2 brought around slightly lower voltages and marginally higher OC potential.
Nehalem also had one. The D0? I remember this but since I skipped the Nehalem generation I wasn't too sure what it did.

If any, you'll see good improvements from your current 3570K to a current 9900K especially with more heavily threaded workloads.

Nehalem had C0 and D0 if I recall correctly. What sucked for me is that my C0 was actually a better overclocker than my D0 was. Supposedly, D0 overclocked a bit higher with less voltage.
 
If the man is set on Intel (I mean, he already has the mainboard), the money is not a barrier, and he wants the best thing he can put in that socket... than the 9900K is great. A newer stepping of it is very unlikely to make any kind of significant difference in overall performance, and the performance of the 9900K is hands down the best you can get outside of the HEDT segment. I (obviously) love Ryzen chips and consider the value proposition of most Intel chips to be poor-to-f'cking-terrible in comparison, but nothing in the OP's post indicates any concern about that.

My cousin built a 9900K system with 32G of Trident-Z Royal (before RAM prices came back down to reasonable) on an Asus Maximus Formula XI with a 1080TI, but he would be the first to tell you that there is a huge disconnect between the cost/performance ratio of his system and mine (#1 in sig). The performance difference between the 2 is not anywhere near worth the difference in what we each respectively paid. His system is a very poor "value." He would also be the first to tell you that price/performance and value are not the reasons why he built it.
 
Already are in some workloads. MT CB scores are interesting enough. Intel has a slight lead in single thread but as soon as it goes MT AMD has a more efficient uarch clock for clock/IPC speaking.
All they need is a bit of a frequency bump and Intel is in for an ass pounding.


A delusional AMD fanboy running a 2600k? Nice try. I just tell it like it is and those balls deep in intel stock get butthurt.
I can put that I own the moon on my SIG. It mean shit cause nobody can prove that .I buy what works for me and dont care who makes it as long as it performs the way I need .Butthurt morons like you are the ones spreading BS nonsense having zero knowledge.
Guess this place is going downhill fast after Kyle left
Welcome to my ignored list as I dont waste my time with lesser creatures
 
If the man is set on Intel (I mean, he already has the mainboard), the money is not a barrier, and he wants the best thing he can put in that socket... than the 9900K is great. A newer stepping of it is very unlikely to make any kind of significant difference in overall performance, and the performance of the 9900K is hands down the best you can get outside of the HEDT segment. I (obviously) love Ryzen chips and consider the value proposition of most Intel chips to be poor-to-f'cking-terrible in comparison, but nothing in the OP's post indicates any concern about that.

My cousin built a 9900K system with 32G of Trident-Z Royal (before RAM prices came back down to reasonable) on an Asus Maximus Formula XI with a 1080TI, but he would be the first to tell you that there is a huge disconnect between the cost/performance ratio of his system and mine (#1 in sig). The performance difference between the 2 is not anywhere near worth the difference in what we each respectively paid. His system is a very poor "value." He would also be the first to tell you that price/performance and value are not the reasons why he built it.

I've run ridiculous processors and systems that aren't remotely value builds at all. I never cared about performance per dollar as a general rule. My Skulltrail system was the epitome of something that was a bad value. Retail on that setup was $1550 per processor, (2x Core 2 QX9775 Extreme Edition CPUs) $600 or so for the motherboard and $400 for the RAM at the time. It was $4,000 for something that wasn't any faster than the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 on an NVIDIA 790i SLI motherboard. Now I got that system essentially for free, but I've bought Extreme Edition CPUs and lots of high end motherboards and SLI setups that were hardly a value.

I tend to go for the fastest hardware money can buy if I can physically afford it. There are some exceptions. I never bought 8900 Ultra cards given how little performance improvement there was over my 8800GTX's. It just didn't make sense. Not even for me. Similarly, the 6950X never brought enough to the table to replace my Core i7 5960X.
 
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If the man is set on Intel (I mean, he already has the mainboard), the money is not a barrier, and he wants the best thing he can put in that socket... than the 9900K is great. A newer stepping of it is very unlikely to make any kind of significant difference in overall performance, and the performance of the 9900K is hands down the best you can get outside of the HEDT segment. I (obviously) love Ryzen chips and consider the value proposition of most Intel chips to be poor-to-f'cking-terrible in comparison, but nothing in the OP's post indicates any concern about that.

My cousin built a 9900K system with 32G of Trident-Z Royal (before RAM prices came back down to reasonable) on an Asus Maximus Formula XI with a 1080TI, but he would be the first to tell you that there is a huge disconnect between the cost/performance ratio of his system and mine (#1 in sig). The performance difference between the 2 is not anywhere near worth the difference in what we each respectively paid. His system is a very poor "value." He would also be the first to tell you that price/performance and value are not the reasons why he built it.
Price : Performance is a poor metric to use. You're always going to get more marginal gains the more money you spend. If you want the absolute best performance then you're going to spend the money for it regardless of cost. I'm in the "as long as it makes you happy" and "doesn't make you destitute" camp.
 
Price : Performance is a poor metric to use. You're always going to get more marginal gains the more money you spend. If you want the absolute best performance then you're going to spend the money for it regardless of cost. I'm in the "as long as it makes you happy" and "doesn't make you destitute" camp.

I will respectfully have to disagree with you. I have always aimed for the sweet spot, or somewhere close to it. Buying "the best" always felt like wasted money to me that could be used for something more impactful elsewhere, perhaps even with a different computer. It's not just me here, I maintain 4 heavily used machines...

I do a lot of video encoding, much of it interlaced content that gets run through QTGMC. The 2700X gets it done with very high quality and in a timeframe I find to be reasonable. These tasks (specifically the interlaced stuff) make the computer unpleasant to use for anything other than basic browsing/consumption tasks while they are running, so I set them up to run overnight while I'm sleeping or during afternoons where I am otherwise busy. Could the 9900K do it faster? Sure. Would it be any more "useable" while running these tasks? No. But when I'm queueing up a series of encodes overnight, it doesn't matter if it finishes by 5:00a or 6:00a - I'm still sleeping anyway.
 
I will respectfully have to disagree with you. I have always aimed for the sweet spot, or somewhere close to it. Buying "the best" always felt like wasted money to me that could be used for something more impactful elsewhere, perhaps even with a different computer. It's not just me here, I maintain 4 heavily used machines...

I do a lot of video encoding, much of it interlaced content that gets run through QTGMC. The 2700X gets it done with very high quality and in a timeframe I find to be reasonable. These tasks (specifically the interlaced stuff) make the computer unpleasant to use for anything other than basic browsing/consumption tasks while they are running, so I set them up to run overnight while I'm sleeping or during afternoons where I am otherwise busy. Could the 9900K do it faster? Sure. Would it be any more "useable" while running these tasks? No. But when I'm queueing up a series of encodes overnight, it doesn't matter if it finishes by 5:00a or 6:00a - I'm still sleeping anyway.

You say you disagree, but then all the information following that statement agrees with the position Armenius indicated.

I'm confused.
 
You say you disagree, but then all the information following that statement agrees with the position Armenius indicated.

I'm confused.

Huh? Armenius says price : performance is a poor ratio with which to judge a computer purchase. Nothing I said agrees with this line of reasoning.

I buy the sweet spot (read: not the most expensive, but neither the least expensive either; the best bang for the buck) - and right now for what I do, the AMD 2700X IS the best value and price/performance CPU. I could spend more and get a faster Intel CPU such as the 9900K, but the gains are insufficient to the expense for me. The price to performance ratio is very much important to me. Despite not having the absolute balls-out fastest CPU, the performance of my 2700X is plenty good enough for everything I do - and cost a bunch less than the 9900K to boot. Not that I am trying to dissuade anyone from getting the 9900K if it floats your boat...
 
Huh? Armenius says price : performance is a poor ratio with which to judge a computer purchase. Nothing I said agrees with this line of reasoning.

I buy the sweet spot (read: not the most expensive, but neither the least expensive either; the best bang for the buck) - and right now for what I do, the AMD 2700X IS the best value and price/performance CPU. I could spend more and get a faster Intel CPU such as the 9900K, but the gains are insufficient to the expense for me. The price to performance ratio is very much important to me. Despite not having the absolute balls-out fastest CPU, the performance of my 2700X is plenty good enough for everything I do - and cost a bunch less than the 9900K to boot. Not that I am trying to dissuade anyone from getting the 9900K if it floats your boat...
It helps to read the context he was using.
He was talking about high end products where cost/performance becomes exponential.
You are not.
 
Huh? Armenius says price : performance is a poor ratio with which to judge a computer purchase. Nothing I said agrees with this line of reasoning.

I buy the sweet spot (read: not the most expensive, but neither the least expensive either; the best bang for the buck) - and right now for what I do, the AMD 2700X IS the best value and price/performance CPU. I could spend more and get a faster Intel CPU such as the 9900K, but the gains are insufficient to the expense for me. The price to performance ratio is very much important to me. Despite not having the absolute balls-out fastest CPU, the performance of my 2700X is plenty good enough for everything I do - and cost a bunch less than the 9900K to boot. Not that I am trying to dissuade anyone from getting the 9900K if it floats your boat...

Right - this is one of those "aggressively mostly agreeing" situations. Their post outlines what they mean.

I think they are implying (putting words in mouths, sorry if I am wrong) that Benefit / WeightedCost is better. I'll define terms.

WeightedCost would be cost, but modified by a factor of how much the cost impacts you. For example, someone scraping by would weight it more, Bezos would weight it pretty low.
Benefit would mean what you get from the purchase. This could be measured in work done (often linearly equated with dollars because its a business, like a render-farm), or satisfaction (how happy does this make me).

Both are fuzzy terms of course, but indicate what the real factors are. You want to optimize that curve. The more money you have, the less you weight the actual cost. The more you get from the end result, the more you value the purchase in spite of the cost.

I believe that's what Armenius is getting at. Just looking at a strict cost and a strict benchmark doesn't indicate how useful a purchase is to YOU, the individual.
 
I decided to pull the trigger. 9900k it is. Should have waited couple more days to order it though as it dropped to $479. Oh well. It''s only 10 bucks
You won't regret it. I would go with Gigabyte z390 master for mono unless you already made your choice
 
I snagged the EVGA Ftw for the warranty extension, and its a solid oc’er still and all the basic functions I need.
 
I pulled the trigger on the $479 deal that just came out. At that price, it's too badass of a CPU to not get, and I'm just too damned impatient. Also, I miss Intel's mature motherboard offerings.
 
I pulled the trigger on the $479 deal that just came out. At that price, it's too badass of a CPU to not get, and I'm just too damned impatient. Also, I miss Intel's mature motherboard offerings.

Same. I want ASUS to make a new line - the ROGG line: Republic of Grown-up Gamers. It has no RGB capability whatsoever, the word "extreme" is never used once on the box, but has top tier components in every category.
 
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It has RGB capability whatsoever, the word "extreme" is never used once on the box, but has top tier components in every category.

The thing with RGB is that it can conceivably be any color. Which means that it can be tasteful. I prefer white.

Sure beats running power cables to CCFL tubes.

[and you can just turn them off...]
 
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