CAD Mini ITX workstation: i7- 8700 vs 8700K vs 9700K

[DenvilX]

Greetings!

 

UPDATE: Due to clarification in the thread, I will go with Asus Strix B360-I. 

CPU QUESTION SOLVED.

 

I have to create a Mini ITX workstation for CAD (Revit mostly) and have most of the build figured out however I'd like to hear your opinion/suggestions. The PC will be on 24/7 while real workload will happen for around 12h for 5 days a week (max load time per week).

Quote

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB x 2 @2666Mhz

MoBo: Asus Prime H310i Plus R2.0

Drive: Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 250GB

Cooler: Standart which comes with CPU.

GPU-2060; CPU-8700 - favourites.

 

Is there any reason to upgrade from i7-8700 to i7-8700K(+64EUR) or to i7-9700K(+92 EUR)? There won't be much rendering, therefore single core performance is most important. With that in mind, Turbo Boost is 4.6/4.7/4.9 Ghz respectively. For that price difference I don't see any real reason to pick more expensive CPU. Prove me wrong or correct

 

Thank you all a lot in advance!

 

P.S.

I've submitted original post on Reddit, there you can read the whole story.

Sister posts: GPU question; Case/PSU question.

[Princess Luna]

12 minutes ago, DenvilX said:

MoBo: Asus Prime H310i Plus R2.0

 If you'll insist on this motherboard the i7 8700 locked is realistically your only option.

[DenvilX]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

 If you'll insist on this motherboard the i7 8700 locked is realistically your only option.

I don't have many options and with that in mind have to hit best value here. Will B360-I by Asus provide much better performance? 

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, DenvilX said:

I don't have many options and with that in mind have to hit best value here. Will B360-I by Asus provide much better performance? 

I don't think you should really bother with the i7 9700K over the i7 8700.

[Stefan Payne]

That's an awful system. Expensive CPU with a cheap ass 50€ Board? That's asking for trouble - and failure.

 

You should look at Ryzen 7/2700(X) or, if possible wait to the end of last month.

 

As a Board: An ASUS, maybe ASROCK Board.

Since AMD Supports ECC RAM, i'd recommend the fastest ECC RAM for a PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM!

[GabeThePCHelper]

I would stick with 8th gen. 9th gen chips would normally require at least a Z390 board.

 

I would go with the B360-I, I don't know what the H310 is, but the B360 is something I know.

[Turtle Rig]

Just now, GabeThePCHelper said:

I would stick with 8th gen. 9th gen chips would normally require at least a Z390 board.

 

I would go with the B360-I, I don't know what the H310 is, but the B360 is something I know.

The 8700k when overclocked can handle your CAD situation, but I don't know much about CAD and how it uses more cores / threads.

 

I would personally go HEDT for a CAD workstation.  64GB 3200Mhz and drop in a 9900k which is soo cheap now 480 bucks only.  Slap it on a gigabyte Z390 board

[DenvilX]

3 minutes ago, GabeThePCHelper said:

I would stick with 8th gen. 9th gen chips would normally require at least a Z390 board.

 

I would go with the B360-I, I don't know what the H310 is, but the B360 is something I know.

All MoBo's will be provided by Asus if that's the concern.

3 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

That's an awful system. Expensive CPU with a cheap ass 50€ Board? That's asking for trouble - and failure.

 

You should look at Ryzen 7/2700(X) or, if possible wait to the end of last month.

 

As a Board: An ASUS, maybe ASROCK Board.

Since AMD Supports ECC RAM, i'd recommend the fastest ECC RAM for a PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM!

Intel CPU is a requirement from a person, who requested a system and sadly my supply options are limited due to some restrictions.

I have option to opt into Asus Strix b360-i or Asus ROG Strix z390, but the last one will hit over the budget. 

[Stefan Payne]

20 minutes ago, DenvilX said:

The PC will be on 24/7 while real workload will happen for around 12h for 5 days a week (max load time per week).

Wich to me sounds like ECC RAM makes sense as 1bit Errors can get corrected and that might happen with a 24/7 System more often because of that.

ECC RAM, although not as fast as non ECC RAM (because nobody makes faster RAM), gives you the extra percent or two of Stability for a productive system.

[GabeThePCHelper]

1 minute ago, DenvilX said:

All MoBo's will be provided by Asus if that's the concern.

Intel CPU is a requirement from a person, who requested a system and sadly my supply options are limited due to some restrictions.

I have option to opt into Asus Strix b360-i or Asus ROG Strix z390, but the last one will hit over the budget. 

Go b360-i and get the 8700. If you don't need to get super fast CPU speeds to render, you'll be fine with the non k.

[Jurrunio]

8700 is your only worthy choice if you're limited to weaker boards

[Stefan Payne]

2 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

The 8700k when overclocked can handle your CAD situation, but I don't know much about CAD and how it uses more cores / threads.

Are you Serious?!
A PRODUCTIVE System needs stability, you can't afford to tinker around with it!

 

That's why you usually don't make it yourself.

1 minute ago, DenvilX said:

Intel CPU is a requirement from a person, who requested a system and sadly my supply options are limited due to some restrictions

In that Case I'd tell him to get a DELL System for that.

Because I don't se any reason it has to be Intel, especially since AMD Supports ECC RAM in Desktop CPUs (even if its just inofficially), though you need a GPU for that.

Ryzen APU do not support ECC.

 

 

And no, AMD CPU are not less stable, thats utter bullshit from 25 years ago, when people went cheap all the way on AMD, with NoName PSU and the broken RAM from the shop.

 

[DenvilX]

1 minute ago, GabeThePCHelper said:

Go b360-i and get the 8700. If you don't need to get super fast CPU speeds to render, you'll be fine with the non k.

That was actually the main concern, since all sources I found provided by AutoDesk or from people, who use their software - in my requested case scenario single core performance is most important and for this price difference I personally can't define the need of a newer CPU.

[GabeThePCHelper]

Just now, DenvilX said:

That was actually the main concern, since all sources I found provided by AutoDesk or from people, who use their software - in my requested case scenario single core performance is most important and for this price difference I personally can't define the need of a newer CPU.

Yep. If you're just doing modeling and no rendering, the 8700 would be your best option because it has the performance that would get what you need done.

[DenvilX]

Just now, Stefan Payne said:

And no, AMD CPU are not less stable, thats utter bullshit from 25 years ago, when people went cheap all the way on AMD, with NoName PSU and the broken RAM from the shop.

Exactly my words to the requestor, yet he feels better using Intel based CPU's due to his own preferences.

[bimmerman]

I've never needed ECC ram for CAD, but if the user will be doing heavy FEA simulations then ECC will be good to have. The far more critical thing is the GPU-- a cheaper Quadro may outperform or enable features the RTX 2060 won't allow. This is highly application dependent though.

 

I'd go with the stock 8700 and not overclock anything. Reliability and warranties are key for a system you rely on to pay rent.

[Berfs1]

1 hour ago, GabeThePCHelper said:

I would stick with 8th gen. 9th gen chips would normally require at least a Z390 board.

 

I would go with the B360-I, I don't know what the H310 is, but the B360 is something I know.

9th gen can work on any 300 series chipset officially. However, a BIOS update may be required depending on when you bought the motherboard.

 

1 hour ago, DenvilX said:

All MoBo's will be provided by Asus if that's the concern.

Intel CPU is a requirement from a person, who requested a system and sadly my supply options are limited due to some restrictions.

I have option to opt into Asus Strix b360-i or Asus ROG Strix z390, but the last one will hit over the budget. 

If you require Intel, then how about instead of going with the mainstream platform and go with the Xeon E CPUs on the LGA1151 platform? (specifically the 6 core CPUs)

 

1 hour ago, Turtle Rig said:

The 8700k when overclocked can handle your CAD situation, but I don't know much about CAD and how it uses more cores / threads.

 

I would personally go HEDT for a CAD workstation.  64GB 3200Mhz and drop in a 9900k which is soo cheap now 480 bucks only.  Slap it on a gigabyte Z390 board

For CAD, the 8700K and even the 8700 will beat the 9700K. Specifically something like Autodesk Inventor Pro 2019, that will use up a bunch of threads, at the very least from what I have seen it can take advantage of 16 threads (out of 16, on a Ryzen 7 1700 system), maybe can use more but I personally haven't tested it.

 

44 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

I've never needed ECC ram for CAD, but if the user will be doing heavy FEA simulations then ECC will be good to have. The far more critical thing is the GPU-- a cheaper Quadro may outperform or enable features the RTX 2060 won't allow. This is highly application dependent though.

 

I'd go with the stock 8700 and not overclock anything. Reliability and warranties are key for a system you rely on to pay rent.

If you need reliability, you will want the Xeon platform, not necessarily the i7-8700. I should add that the 8700K does have all the business features unlike previous unlocked CPUs.