Going from 10900 to 13900 worth it?

[xnikx]

Hey fellas, and ladies, been out of the hardware game for about 2 years now and I'm really getting the itch to upgrade. My current system is a z490, 10900k, and 3080 ti. I'm thinking about upgrading to a z690, 13900k, and a 4090 down the line. My question is whether or not the I will see a significant boost in performance to justify the price. The board I want to get only supports ddr5, so I would also have to purchase new overpriced ram. I currently play at 2560x1440, but hope to eventually upgrade to 4k once I get a 4090.

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

 

[whateverer]

upgrade GPU you like higher resolutions at around 100-144 hz


upgrade both if you want 20% higher frame-rates

 

[xnikx]

upgrade GPU you like higher resolutions at around 100-144 hz


upgrade both if you want 20% higher frame-rates

Right, but I'm not paying $2000 for a 4090 right now. I do plan on getting one once the prices come down but I'm wondering if I would notice a performance increase, with my current 3080 ti, going from a 10900 to a 13900.

 

[whateverer]

Right, but I'm not paying $2000 for a 4090 right now. I do plan on getting one once the prices come down but I'm wondering if I would notice a performance increase, with my current 3080 ti, going from a 10900 to a 13900.

only at 1080p on a 240hz monitor - you really need the 4090 to make 1440p CPU-limintesd

 

[DooKey]

Grab a Z790 and some nice DDR5. Z690 doesn't support the highspeed stuff.

Oh yeah, edit your sig OP.

 

[CAD4466HK]

Right, but I'm not paying $2000 for a 4090 right now. I do plan on getting one once the prices come down but I'm wondering if I would notice a performance increase, with my current 3080 ti, going from a 10900 to a 13900.

This is with a 3080 @ 1440p.

 

[xnikx]

This is with a 3080 @ 1440p.

Thanks partner, so I'd only be looking at around a 10% increase in performance?

 

[CAD4466HK]

Thanks partner, so I'd only be looking at around a 10% increase in performance?

If your planning on getting a 4090 later, your going to need all the CPU power you can throw at it.
So for now it might not seem worthwhile, but once you pick up a 4090, you'll be glad you did, because even at 4K, the 10900K will bottleneck the 4090. Thats a lot of performance to throw away on a $1600 GPU.

When Alex and Rich from Digital Foundry had first gotten their 4090, the 10900K severely held them back at 4K until they paired it with a 12900K. I've even seen cases where the 13900K and the 7950X is a bottleneck at 4K. The 4090 is a monster.

 

[LukeTbk]

So for now it might not seem worthwhile, but once you pick up a 4090, you'll be glad you did, because even at 4K, the 10900K will bottleneck the 4090. Thats a lot of performance to throw away on a $1600 GPU.

Really not necessarily because by the time "cheaper" 4090 come up maybe 7600x3d and 14400K will beat the 13900K at much better price and the DDR-5 ram bought much better, the motherboard-and future cpu supported by the socket will come with CXL support. Or just Am5 platform price going down quite a bit.

Buying a cpu now for future use instead of buying it tend could be in a rare case something glad to do, if you have to buy one, but if you already a 10900K and play at 1440p with a 3080ti would be a rare thing.

Your comment would be fully valid for someone hesitating between buying a 10900k and a 13900k while planing to buy a 4090, but for the op situation it is all about how much gain with a 3080TI he would have.

 

[CAD4466HK]

Really not necessarily because by the time "cheaper" 4090 come up maybe 7600x3d and 14400K will beat the 13900K at much better price and the DDR-5 ram bought much better, the motherboard-and future cpu supported by the socket will come with CXL support. Or just Am5 platform price going down quite a bit.

Buying a cpu now for future use instead of buying it tend could be in a rare case something glad to do, if you have to buy one, but if you already a 10900K and play at 1440p with a 3080ti would be a rare thing.

Your comment would be fully valid for someone hesitating between buying a 10900k and a 13900k while planing to buy a 4090, but for the op situation it is all about how much gain with a 3080TI he would have.

From the OP:

Right, but I'm not paying $2000 for a 4090 right now. I do plan on getting one once the prices come down but I'm wondering if I would notice a performance increase, with my current 3080 ti, going from a 10900 to a 13900.

That was answered already with this post:
This is with a 3080 @ 1440p.

I was recommending that he buy the 13900K not just for now, which we both know it would be faster, but for also later so he still will benefit from it. I myself would not buy it just for 10%, but I would for the performance now plus the 4090 at a later time.

Maybe the OP doesn't want to wait that long for the 14th gen, or for a new run of a 3D cache CPU from AMD.
Which is why he asked about the 13900K.

 

[vegeta535]

Honestly 10900 is still pretty solid. Wait til the next round of CPUs.

 

[pitingres]

The bit that caught my eye was:

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

Are you having performance issues with hunt showdown? because if you aren't seeing issues, I'm not sure why you would want to upgrade...

 

[sk3tch]

Hey fellas, and ladies, been out of the hardware game for about 2 years now and I'm really getting the itch to upgrade. My current system is a z490, 10900k, and 3080 ti. I'm thinking about upgrading to a z690, 13900k, and a 4090 down the line. My question is whether or not the I will see a significant boost in performance to justify the price. The board I want to get only supports ddr5, so I would also have to purchase new overpriced ram. I currently play at 2560x1440, but hope to eventually upgrade to 4k once I get a 4090.

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

The sane answer is no.

The [H] answer is yes.

Here at home my son is on a 5950X / RTX 3080 at 3440x1440 - I'm on a 7950X / RTX 4090 at 3440x1440. We play side-by-side. Is my game more fluid and higher fidelity? Yes. Is it by a tremendously meaningful amount? No. Am I an old guy that needs every single advantage I can get against these damn kids playing online FPS? Yes.

If you're the latter - then do it.

 

[CAD4466HK]

The sane answer is no.

The [H] answer is yes.

Here at home my son is on a 5950X / RTX 3080 at 3440x1440 - I'm on a 7950X / RTX 4090 at 3440x1440. We play side-by-side. Is my game more fluid and higher fidelity? Yes. Is it by a tremendously meaningful amount? No. Am I an old guy that needs every single advantage I can get against these damn kids playing online FPS? Yes.

If you're the latter - then do it.

This guy gets it.

 

[deaedius]

The sane answer is no.

The [H] answer is yes.

Here at home my son is on a 5950X / RTX 3080 at 3440x1440 - I'm on a 7950X / RTX 4090 at 3440x1440. We play side-by-side. Is my game more fluid and higher fidelity? Yes. Is it by a tremendously meaningful amount? No. Am I an old guy that needs every single advantage I can get against these damn kids playing online FPS? Yes.

If you're the latter - then do it.

This is a perfect answer.
I was going to have a more simplified answer.
Do you need to upgrade and will the upgrade benefit you even if its 10% performance improvement? The other thought you may consider is that 10 series Intel does not support 4x NVME, a Shiny new state of the art NVME SSD is what I would be looking at with the CPU. While most say you can't notice the difference, games that are large install that take a while to load and prepare it makes a major difference in. Thats the performance improvement I see most often. I wouldn't just do CPU/Mobo/Memory, I'd had in a high-end SSD if you do choose to upgrade

 

[LukeTbk]

While most say you can't notice the difference, games that are large install that take a while to load and prepare it makes a major difference in.

Over a good pci 3.0 drive like a 870pro or a good 4.0 drive installed on a 3.0 platform, is that significant?

A lot of the experienced difference in upgrade that are not "placebo" could be one changed the CPU at the same time, less full nvme, went from low-mid quality gen 3 to high quality 4.0 or made a fresh OS install versus an older one before.

That kind of test (that show 3.0 drive beating good 4.0 one in game loading context) is maybe not fully representative:
https://www.legitreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Samsung-SSD-980-Pro-SSD-Game-Load-Time.jpg

Versus a 18 month OS-steam drive almost full, but I feel the benefit of a good drive that still run great after a long time and near the limit would still be almost all there when gaming on a 3.0 limited bandwidth.

 

[xnikx]

Honestly 10900 is still pretty solid. Wait til the next round of CPUs.

Ya, this might be the way to go. And the rumors are that the 14th gen cpus will be using a new socket as well. So by the time I get a 4090 my motherboard will be outdated.

The bit that caught my eye was:



Are you having performance issues with hunt showdown? because if you aren't seeing issues, I'm not sure why you would want to upgrade...

No, honestly my performance is great. I just really have that itch to upgrade and the only thing really worth upgrading right now is the motherboard, which would also mean a new cpu, since I'm pretty far behind now.

 

[sk3tch]

Ya, this might be the way to go. And the rumors are that the 14th gen cpus will be using a new socket as well. So by the time I get a 4090 my motherboard will be outdated.


No, honestly my performance is great. I just really have that itch to upgrade and the only thing really worth upgrading right now is the motherboard, which would also mean a new cpu, since I'm pretty far behind now.

You could scratch that itch with a Z590 "upgrade" - gets you the faster SSD speeds. It's also kind of a strange release (11xxx was not popular) - so the boards are not that expensive.

 

[LukeTbk]

You could get a 980 pro when they have interesting rebate, I do not imagine that big of a difference in most real world scenario at that piece will survive you a really long time (the way it goes you will need 4 better nvme device for it to be not worth your main machine)

 

[Legendary Gamer]

Hey fellas, and ladies, been out of the hardware game for about 2 years now and I'm really getting the itch to upgrade. My current system is a z490, 10900k, and 3080 ti. I'm thinking about upgrading to a z690, 13900k, and a 4090 down the line. My question is whether or not the I will see a significant boost in performance to justify the price. The board I want to get only supports ddr5, so I would also have to purchase new overpriced ram. I currently play at 2560x1440, but hope to eventually upgrade to 4k once I get a 4090.

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

You have a nice rig, it's the last great Intel Gen before the nosedive at 11th Gen. You will be hard pressed to wring value out of much in the market today.

There are a lot of issues with the z690's and the 13th Gen Processors. Just make sure you do your homework on them to get a board with an updated bios (or updatable bios).

I, personally, would hold off until next year when the AMD 7000X3D Series will be released. Its should give Intel a thrashing in the gaming department. It will be faster than the 13th gen parts for gaming (guaranteed, if the 5800X3D is right up there with them).

Definitely let the 4090's breathe a bit and resolve their fire issues.

Just my two cents

 

[sk3tch]

You have a nice rig, it's the last great Intel Gen before the nosedive at 11th Gen. You will be hard pressed to wring value out of much in the market today.

There are a lot of issues with the z690's and the 13th Gen Processors. Just make sure you do your homework on them to get a board with an updated bios (or updatable bios).

I, personally, would hold off until next year when the AMD 7000X3D Series will be released. Its should give Intel a thrashing in the gaming department. It will be faster than the 13th gen parts for gaming (guaranteed, if the 5800X3D is right up there with them).

Definitely let the 4090's breathe a bit and resolve their fire issues.

Just my two cents

Liked for the X3D rec, but not the 4090 quip, lol. It’s so overblown.

 

[DPI]

Grab a Z790 and some nice DDR5. Z690 doesn't support the highspeed stuff.

Not necessarily, because the IMC is in the CPU and the chipset isn't really involved. In my testing with a $200 2x16 kit it runs DDR5-8000+ C34 on both a Z690 and Z790 exactly the same. Other things factor more in mem OC, like make/model MB, higher PCB layer count (signal integrity), slot count and topology (2 > 4), and superior IMC in Raptor Lake.

There are other reasons to get Z790 if buying new however - longer tail on resale, probably more frequent BIOS updates, possibly better tuned 1-click BIOS settings (XMP etc), higher speed cpu/chipset interconnect.

 

[DPI]

Hey fellas, and ladies, been out of the hardware game for about 2 years now and I'm really getting the itch to upgrade. My current system is a z490, 10900k, and 3080 ti. I'm thinking about upgrading to a z690, 13900k, and a 4090 down the line. My question is whether or not the I will see a significant boost in performance to justify the price. The board I want to get only supports ddr5, so I would also have to purchase new overpriced ram. I currently play at 2560x1440, but hope to eventually upgrade to 4k once I get a 4090.

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

Hard to say if upgrading is "worth it" for someone else, since that's so subjective, and more of a you-question. Is your system used for anything besides Hunt Showdown? i.e. productivity. How many hours per day?

My own experience going 10900k -> Z690+13700K has absolutely been worth it, but then my systems get a ton of mixed use. I have a 10900K+Z490 and 13700K+Z690 side-by-side right now in fact - both with the identical NVME SSD, GPU, OS image. And the extra snappiness and OS responsiveness with the 13700K system is very apparent, everything is just kind of instant.

I wouldn't bother with a 13900K for the use case you've described, and if you've got a MicroCenter near you the 13700K can be had for $379 - that and the $299 13600K are price-perf sweet spot right now and you can't go wrong with either.

 

[Phazer Tech]

I doubt you'd even notice the difference in the majority of games, even in games that would get a +10% increase.
Benchmarks are one thing, actually playing the game is another.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

I would say not worth it. Your system is no slouch even at any resolution. You would be a couple thousand in the hole for a boost which in my opinion isn't a good price to performance buy. Rock what you have and buy a new game and enjoy.

 

[XoR_]

My own experience going 10900k -> Z690+13700K has absolutely been worth it, but then my systems get a ton of mixed use. I have a 10900K+Z490 and 13700K+Z690 side-by-side right now in fact - both with the identical NVME SSD, GPU, OS image. And the extra snappiness and OS responsiveness with the 13700K system is very apparent, everything is just kind of instant.

I experienced similar improvement when going from 9900K to 13600K
Same memory, same NVMe drives and even same Win11 installation and right after booting up it was very apparent upgrade made visible difference in system responsiveness. Typically used programs immediately felt faster to load and this is not even something I anticipated.

In Cinebench R23 single score increased from ~1300 I had on 9900K @ 5GHz (all core - no turbo) to 2136 (@5.4GHz - all p-cores). Last time I had this kind of performance increase was when changing Pentium D to Core 2 Duo.

Funnily enough I get 1214 in R23 on e-cores and 9520 in multi threaded (8 threads with affinity set to only e-cores, 4.3GHz) so these e-cores seems to have performance very similar to Core i7 9700-9700K.
In fact e-cores play games just fine. I can set game affinity to e-cores and at 4K have almost no performance difference on 6900XT.

 

[chameleoneel]

Hey fellas, and ladies, been out of the hardware game for about 2 years now and I'm really getting the itch to upgrade. My current system is a z490, 10900k, and 3080 ti. I'm thinking about upgrading to a z690, 13900k, and a 4090 down the line. My question is whether or not the I will see a significant boost in performance to justify the price. The board I want to get only supports ddr5, so I would also have to purchase new overpriced ram. I currently play at 2560x1440, but hope to eventually upgrade to 4k once I get a 4090.

I don't play the most demanding games, the most demanding being hunt showdown.
Would upgrading to a z690/13900k justify the price gaming at 2560x1440 with a 3080 ti?

If your main focus is gaming: Wait until you are ready to buy a new GPU----and then buy a CPU. And at that time, there could be better CPUs available.

 

[pippenainteasy]

Depends on the games you play. For single player games, GPU upgrades are the most important thing. For multiplayer games, especially MMOs or big RTS style games, CPU upgrades are more impactful, even at higher resolutions because the games themselves are rarely GPU bound.