2500k mobo is dying after eight years. What's the new bang-for-the-buck CPU?

The real "magic" in the newer cpu architectures and ddr4 ram is in the 1% lows/min FPS..

OP: The best deal in town atm is a Ryzen 3600/Asrock B450 Pro4/2x8GB DDR4 3200 combo. (IMO)

Live near a microcenter?

If you enkoye OC in your 2500K and big perfomance you should consider 3600X + B450 mobo router. perhaps you cand find the 9100G+H310 its a cool cheap and powrful enough combo for gaming.

spine said:

I should spend more money to buy a shitty chip and not overclock?

Makes sense to someone...

People only need 8+ threads for gaming because they don't know how to optimise their OS and processes, and don't think twice about having every single platform load and sit in memory the whole time. And then complain about stuttering (lol).

I could probably take the average PC from most people, msconfig all their startup shit away, and tell them I've just upgraded their CPU to one with hyper-threading. Most would be happy as houses...

Click to expand...

Whoosh...and the point is missed. If you've got the magic recipe to make modern multithread game engines that want more than 4 threads suddenly be indistinguishable with only 4, why would you spend more than just the bare minimum?

You don't need it, right? You know how to make 6 or even 8 thread games be happy with 4. I'm sure with that type of wizardry, you dont need to OC either.

jbc029 said:

Whoosh...and the point is missed. If you've got the magic recipe to make modern multithread game engines that want more than 4 threads suddenly be indistinguishable with only 4, why would you spend more than just the bare minimum?

You don't need it, right? You know how to make 6 or even 8 thread games be happy with 4. I'm sure with that type of wizardry, you dont need to OC either.

Click to expand...

You even quoted me saying 8+ threads! That means more than 8. I don't believe there's any game out there that needs more than 8. Anyone saying there is probably just has an overloaded system.

I would suggest 3600 or 3600x whichever suits You.

Well it's been 2 months so surely OP has decided on something? IMO for gaming the 9700k at $300 is far and away the best deal out there if it's in the budget. It's currently either THE fastest gaming CPU or tied for it with the 9900k in just about every gaming benchmark. The 3600 is a good deal at $200 if that's all one wants to spend but at best it will be near to but still slower than the 9700k and at worst it will be slower than a 8th/9th gen i5 or even a 6th/7th gen i7. If you want to go AMD the 3700x is currently basically equal to a 3600 for gaming so you might as well save the $130 now and then just wait and upgrade to Ryzen 2+ or a used 3700x next year when they're cheap if there are any games that can make use of it.