Somnax

Yeah same. One more thing on the 8700k. Not all of them will run 5ghz stable. You may need to go to 4.9 or 4.8 if you are unlucky. Most of them should hit 5ghz though. For a somewhat quick test, you can run 2 hours of realbench stress test and if it passes that it is generally stable. If you want to go more try-hard, you can run prime95 version 26.6 overnight and it should have no errors. That is the version without avx workload. In games you will not be using avx. Also remember to xmp your memory. A surprising amount of people either don't know/forget to do that.

I also have a 1440p 165hz monitor and I have no intentions of going to 4k until 4k 144hz is more readily available. Never going back to 60 Hz. And windows scaling still isn't perfect and imo it is needed below 32 inches at 4k.

Oh then yes overclock your cpu. It will help. Even the video that was linked allegedly showing it doesn't help shows massive gains at 1440p for gtav and far cry.

Ah I see you didn't mention 144hz. I assumed since you had a 1080 ti and an 8700k that you weren't only at 60hz at 1440p. At 60hz there is not really much need to overclock your gpu because you'll be monitor bound and turning off vsync on a 60hz panel creates a tearing mess. That is not to say that overclocked cpus perform worse than non overclocked ones because reasons, just that you won't get much benefit because of your monitor.

Well that's not true. If for some reason your 5ghz performs worse than stock, then you weren't actually stable and that is user error and not due to frequency speed. And at 1440p with a 1080 ti there are games where he will be cpu bound. Cannot apply a blanket statement saying he will always be gpu bound. You can also always just move to high instead of ultra because honestly there is very little difference these days and your framerate will be higher and push even more load on the cpu.

For cpu you could either slowly go up, or you could start around 1.35 volts 5ghz and test for stability. If it is stable either push for higher clocks or lower the voltage to lower temps and reduce power usage.

If you can put in the offset in afterburner at all, chances are it is a safe setting so just go until you crash. I find heaven and overwatch to be pretty good at crashing pretty soon when you hit instability.

Where would a midrange vega gpu fit in the market? Seems the price point and performance of one is already taken up by the RX 580.

The benchmarks they compare them in are synthetic and multi gpu scales close to 100%. This is an absolute best case scenario for the crossfire Vega 64.

1080p 144hz tn ~$250 https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rkphP6/asus-monitor-vg248qe 1080p gsync 180hz tn (I wish they would make a high refresh rate gsync ips 1080p monitor) ~$400 https://pcpartpicker.com/product/pHGj4D/asus-rog-swift-pg248q-240-180hz-monitor-rog-swift-pg248q 1440p gsync 165hz tn ~$600 https://pcpartpicker.com/product/cdcMnQ/asus-rog-swift-pg278qr-270-2560x1440-144hz-monitor-pg278qr 1440p gsync 165hz ips ~$600 (Aoc, haven't seen reviews on this one, but it is entry level for these specs) https://pcpartpicker.com/product/scM323/aoc-ag271qg-270-165hz-monitor-ag271qg 1440p gsync 165hz ips from asus (~$750-800 holy crap these things are still expensive.) https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XvfmP6/asus-monitor-pg279q

And while he may consider 1080p 60hz "fine" I would never recommend someone spend 1600 on a pc and have a trash monitor. He would have a better experience going with a less expensive build and having a good monitor.

He could go 8400 stock cooler and a cheap z370 board and be on the same budget as well. Then put the $400 towards a monitor that is worth a damn so his pc won't be asleep.

I'm sure once he shows his dad the price is $400 less his dad will stop being so weird.

imo if you're not going for an esports machine, or if you don't have a 1080 ti in your build, just go ryzen and put the money elsewhere. 8400 is as high as I'd go with coffee lake unless the first two points aren't true.

Not for the price. And especially not if he is going to be on a crappy monitor. He can fit in a good monitor into his budget in this build.