Why do you use the CPU that you do?

[Mooshi]

Just a thread out of curiosity.

 

Do you get the most out of your CPU? Was it a hand-me-down? Did you go overkill to avoid upgrading for years? Was a budget consideration?

 

I'll go first~ Many years ago I used to run with a 2500K and that chip is still very viable in 2017, that's a testament to how good it is! Eventually, my girlfriend's old system (dual core Athlon) died and we shared my PC for awhile. At that time, I was unemployed and looking for work so we just had this 2011 rig to use for a bit. Well, after getting another job and with Skylake being the new CPU in town, I went for a 6700k build to avoid having to upgrade for awhile based off the longevity of the 2500k it replaced and Sophia inherited the 2nd gen i5.

 

Well.....while that chip was still good, the mobo itself was another story. Original mobo for the 2500k was an expensive ROG matx board and that died on me. After looking online, finding a Z series 5 year old motherboard was a bad experience. Either overpriced for being old or settling for an undesirable chipset from whatever was leftover in the Amazon warehouses. We ended up getting a cheap MSI Z68 board from eBay and it worked, sweet! And then a year later the board was showing signs of dying, not sweet!

 

This was the point when Ryzen was announced and also when I was debating what to build. Due to the 7700k being a poor choice from a 6700k (let's be real, it's basically a 6700k with Netflix DRM), I wasn't that thrilled about making a new system out of it. I wait a bit for Ryzen to launch to see how the performance goes. After the R5 series came out and benchies came with fast ram, I made my decision. i5 pricing, with that type of performance? HECK YES!

 

I'm not a hardcore gamer so what advantages Intel had over AMD didn't mean much to me, especially since it's only noticeable at 1080p and fast ram on Ryzen closes the gap. Games that favor Intel are ones I don't play anyway so the point was moot. That and I plan on getting a 1440p display and new graphics card soon meant there was absolutely no incentive for me to be team blue this gen.

 

The GF did inherent the 6700k and that is what I considered Intel's last "worth it" chip for the time being, lol.

 

 

 

 

[TetraSky]

13 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Did you go overkill to avoid upgrading for years?

I'd love to say that's what I do... but I'm not quite "there" yet, I mean, my 875k that I got on release was no slouch at the time, but it probably wasn't considered "overkill", nor was my old HD5870, even though it was expensive AF compared to many other CPUs/GPUs at the time. The fact that I can still run and play pretty much everything at good fps 7 years later is indicative that it was a good purchase I guess(The CPU anyway, as I upgraded the RAM to 16GB and had to replace the GPU like 2 years ago... Could barely even run Dying Light at 20~30 fps on the lowest settings, yay for Intel sitting on their butts for 7 years I guess)

[porina]

Main system CPU is 6700k. Chosen as at the time it was top dog for normal people. Skylake had only recently come out, and this replaced my 2600k. There's nothing else competitive from AMD at that time. I did debate going 5820k too, sporting an extra two cores but also two generations older. Funnily enough I recently ordered an 5820k to play with, now the pricing has finally started to drop. Once it arrives I can test it and see if I made the right choice with the 6700k.

 

I am debating replacing my main system towards the end of the year when HEDT offerings from both camps should be out. I'm about 90% sure I'm going Intel again, since ThreadRipper is unsuitable for my needs. Fewer faster cores are superior, along with decent AVX performance and new AVX-512 to look forward to.

[ripper101]

I had an i5 4440 for a while because I built a budget system with a 750ti. After upgrading to a gtx 1070 I noticed that in games like bf1 I wasn't able to hit 60fps max settings with a 4440/1070 at 1080p. I figured doing a somewhat small jump to a used i7 4790k would hold me off from upgrading for a year or so when I was ready to spend a lot of money for a really good CPU. I chose the 4790k because it was my cheapest option for what I wanted out of my system for gaming. I also didn't get an r5 1600 or 7700k because of all the controversy between which is better. So I figure in a year or so that with newly arrived competition from AMD, Intel will step up their game and in theory, both companies should put out some great CPUs and that's when I'll upgrade

[Megah3rtz]

Upgraded from an FX-6300, got tired of the stuttering even while overclocked @4.3ghz. going to stock speeds made no difference.

 

bought an R5 1400 @ stock speeds. going to overclock it one of these days, not sure when or to what. But I will! I think.

I chose it because it seems to be the best value right now, otherwise I would've gone with the i5 6400/7400. Though to be honest I'd rather stay away from intel. 

 

I don't really think I went overkill, it's exactly what I need right now. I might upgrade to a used r5 1600/r7 1700 down the road maybe. For now I'm perfectly content as it can push out 90-130 frames on any game. 

 

[shadowbyte]

I originally had an i5 4590 in my first built, which was a fantastic chip, and lasted through 4 GPU upgrades. Went from a 960 2gb to a 4gb 290x, then to a 4gb 980, and finally a 6gb 980ti. Never noticed any performance issues whatsoever, and it performed very well for the price.

Upon building my new PC, I wanted to try out X99, as Ryzen hadn't even been announced at the time. Besides, 8 DIMM slots looks metal af. I picked up a 5820k for 299 at microcenter, which was a fantastic deal with the open box X99 pro with all accessories for 140 dollars after MIR.

I basically wanted a crazy overkill system I wouldn't have to upgrade for at least 5 years, hence the 32gb of RAM and 1080

[GrayTech]

I've ordered a R5 1600 today. When I started to search for parts AMDs Ryzen lineup wasn't out yet. And I wanted to get a i5 since it would be in my price range and I thought I wouldn't need the extra threads I would get with an i7 and an i3 wouldn't deliver enough performance in the long run. But then Ryzen 5 was announced. I waited until it was released and it looked like such a great deal for me. By now I really like the idea of having more cores and more threads because I want to do video editing and stuff like that. And since I won't buy a high end GPU for my Full HD 60Hz monitor I don't care about the gaming performance I lose with the R5 compared to the i5. And why did I get a 1600? The 1600 gives you the best price/performance in my opinion.

[Mooshi]

5 minutes ago, ripper101 said:

I had an i5 4440 for a while because I built a budget system with a 750ti. After upgrading to a gtx 1070 I noticed that in games like bf1 I wasn't able to hit 60fps max settings with a 4440/1070 at 1080p. I figured doing a somewhat small jump to a used i7 4790k would hold me off from upgrading for a year or so when I was ready to spend a lot of money for a really good CPU. I chose the 4790k because it was my cheapest option for what I wanted out of my system for gaming. I also didn't get an r5 1600 or 7700k because of all the controversy between which is better. So I figure in a year or so that with newly arrived competition from AMD, Intel will step up their game and in theory, both companies should put out some great CPUs and that's when I'll upgrade

 Super sensible, actually. Only reason I'm not still with the 6700k is because motherboards for a second gen core chip are overpriced and yeah next gen Ryzen and whatever Intel has at the time would be a really interesting battle!

[pzspah]

I5 7500, open box for $122. The last part there should explain why, runs everything I want to do with it to boot.

[linkboy]

My laptop has a Core i7 3520m (I have a refurbished HP Elitebook 8770w, which I bought last month).

 

For what I use my computer for its more then sufficient. I'm not a huge PC gamer and I mostly use it for general computing, browsing the internet, light gaming (mostly older PC games like The Witcher 2, Oblivion, Warcraft III, etc) and schoolwork.

 

I only had a budge of around $400 to buy replace the old POS Vaio that I was using, and I wanted to get a computer that was solid and fit my needs. I opted for a refurbished Elitebook after using the 15" model of the laptop I got and seeing that it in my price range on Ebay (and it blows the pants off of any other laptop I could afford in that price range, especially ones sold at retail).

[Guest lilbman]

My 6850K can handle anything.  I game with my two 1080 Tis and they're beasts at 1440p or 4K.  I chose the processor I did because of its raw power and overclockability.  It's watercooled and OC'd to 4.4 Ghz.  I also use it for CAD work and various other intensive programs.

[Arika]

[removed]

[sauce-c]

Currently I am using a i5 7500 ($190) which I bought back in March for my first build; I was going to just save money and get the 6th gen but 7th gen ended up being cheaper on sale. Ryzen wasn't out at the time so AMD wasn't on my radar. I went with the locked chip because the extra cost of the unlocked chip, plus a Z series mobo and a better cooler didn't fit my budget. I chose to take that money and spend it on my RX480, which I think was well worth it.

 

Overall I don't regret my decision and I think it has fit my first build very well. I've had no issues playing the games I like to play on max settings over 60fps and it should last me a few years until I want to build a new system. Along with that I didn't have to deal with overclocking and Ryzen bugs on my first build.

 

Cool topic, thanks for the post!

[McHox]

i thought i was going overkill when i got it(early 2015) but it actually wasnt,now it's bottlenecking sadly

[Princess Luna]

I was so frigging annoyed with my very shitty cheap laptop that I used from 2013 to 2016 when I was a broken college student, had 2gb ram and an i3 2368m with HDD =0 which was terribly slow and annoying and I used it every single day for 3ish years always having every thing not responding time to time, the keyboard was dying too had to use SharpKeys to remap a lot of keys so it was still usable.

 

So when I finally got a good paying job and had the mean to I decided I would suffer no more and got the i7 7700 not only for high end gaming but to "wash the soul" from those years of pain with a slow device.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I have the i7-6700, the non-K one. I went this route because:

• I figured games were going to use more threads, but it wasn't going to accelerate. So 8 threads should be good for a while.
• I was thermally limited because my build revolved around the case I wanted. However, the i7-6700 paired with a 95W TDP cooler easily maintains boost clock speeds.
• It was the best thing I could get at the time.

[Loot]

I usually go budget range 600-700$ builds  currently rocking the A10-7870k (will be 2yrs old this fall) because i didnt wanna buy a gfx card at the time and the r7 igp is decent  ... have since added a rx480

 

probably building a new rig next year .. might go wild on this one thinking ryzen7 or maybe Thripper (depending on cost) and full custom loop watercooling with a 1080ti or Vega

 

I love to play with hardware

[NoxiousOdor]

I have dual xeon x5690s. They are used and dated but at the time they were released they were the very top of the line and they still perform really really well. The motherboard I originally had was a dual lga 1366 socket and and I wanted the best available for that board. I didn't end up using that board but I already had the processors so I kept them and made my build around them.

[Drak3]

I got my 5930K because they're pretty good overclockers, I want to leverage CPU affinity on all my main systems moving forward, and I wanted a system that was no compromises to performance and expandability.

My 4460 was the only LGA1150 CPU any local shop carried, same with the board I got. Cheaper than buying anything online at the time that gave similar (or in the case of some of the locked Skylake i5's, worse) performance.

[ChalkChalkson]

My current CPUs are:

6700K in my main system... when I built that system I just got myself a top of the line consumer PC, with a 1080 and everything custom watercooled in a modded Phanteks Enthoo Primo, so the choice was made for me: get the highest tier LGA1151 chip

 

7500 in my secondary system. I bought this when the only ryzen chips were the r7 ones and were buggy as hell, so I stuck with intel. I wanted to get a quadcore, and there the 7500 is the best bang for the buck imo

 

G4560 in my main server, it is about as cheap as the older pentium dual core chips, but it has hyperthreading, so it was a great option for a NAS that also runs a few servers

 

G3260 in my secondary server, I bought this before kaby lake came out, so it was the cheapest dual core CPU with decent performance 

[scottyseng]

I also had a 2500K, overclocked it to 4.6GHz, and that's been fine for me. However, recently I've been getting worse with chrome tab hoarding and leaving too many programs open (3D modeler / programmer) so I needed just a bit more CPU. I found a used 2700K on ebay last summer of last year and it went to 4.9 GHz. I was originally debating on getting a 7700K at the time, but realized the price difference (need new RAM as well) wasn't worth it quite yet (I think at least 20-30% boost would justify a whole platform upgrade for me)

 

I now have no urge to upgrade, but I might have to sadly because I bought a ultraHD Bluray and I have no means to play it even if I buy the ultraHD bluray drive...

 

As for my server, it has a super way overkill Xeon E5-2695V3. I ah, originally bought this as a render chip...but due to college and work it ended up just being my NAS CPU for a good two years. It now serves as a render server (with two 1070s) and workstation for tasks the Sandy Bridge can't handle. So far having a fast quad core as a gaming PC / browsing PC and a high core count Xeon for workstation / NAS use has worked well for me.

[yathis]

Price and Performance

Used system i5-4570 from bestbuy from a system that was 10 or 15 years old. DDR2 AMD fucking shit

[PianoPlayer88Key]

I currently have an i7-4790K and i7-6700K, and I usually like to hang onto motherboards as long as possible.  My previous system was more of a budget consideration.

 

 

The 4790K is in a desktop, which I built in January 2015.  I went for the full 32GB RAM, got 12TB storage (and later another 15TB), later (Dec 2016) added a 3GB GTX 1060, etc.
 

Spoiler

 

I'm already running out of RAM for some workloads, though, and my CPU is unable to transcode 4K lossless H.264 with the "placebo" or "veryslow" presets in Handbrake at > 30fps.  (I've tried another app that leveraged my 1060, but it still didn't bring it anywhere close to realtime.)

I had been thinking about upgrading to Ryzen, but decided not to, primarily because 32 -> 64GB RAM isn't a big enough jump for me, and it doesn't have enough PCI-E lanes.  Threadripper looks like it could be awesome, but my current financial situation dictates that I hold off upgrading for a while.  (I technically have the money probably to get a new board + CPU + RAM, but then I wouldn't have the $ for other as-yet-unforeseen things that might be more urgently needed.)

For now, I'm planning to wait to upgrade until DDR5 is released, and I might even wait for AMD (if Intel is first) on that, after what Intel has been up to recently, and the improvements AMD seems to be making.  After that, I hope to hang onto it until at least DDR7, maybe DDR8 or whatever.

 

The 6700K is in a laptop (Clevo P750DM-G, barebones + parts), put together in December 2015.  It has 40GB RAM (originally 8, added 2x16 right before the prices spiked last Oct, plan to remove the 8 & add another 2x16 when prices drop back down to $120-130 for 32GB), a GTX 970M (unfortunately can't upgrade to a 10 series, still holding out hope for compatibility with a future 20 or 30 series but not holding my breath), etc.

Spoiler

 

The laptop originally started with an i3-6100, but I got the 6700K when it was on sale at Fry's (they matched MicroCenter) Black Friday week 2016.  I had originally considered waiting for 6c/12t (Coffee Lake), then decided that I really needed more than 2c/4t, so was waiting for Kaby Lake & info on it.  However, when I saw the 6700K sale, and rumors that the 7700K was only going to be a minor performance bump over the 6700K, and remembered how the 6700K was priced when it was first released (and projecting that the 7700K likely wouldn't be deeply discounted for another year), I jumped on the 6700K.

I expect I'll be keeping the laptop for a good while, even after I replace the desktop.  I'm preliminarily thinking using it to at least 2022 or 2023, and I think 2025 wouldn't be too much of a stretch.  Sure it won't be able to game well then (except in then-older games), but I'm sure it could still be used for browsing, office, some light photo & audio editing & video editing (just not 4K so much), etc.

 

 

My previous desktop CPU was an Athlon 64 X2 4000+, which was a budget consideration.  I built that system in Feb 2008 to replace my dad's Socket A (iirc) Athlon 1.4 Ghz, which he had bought in 2002.  (It had gotten unstable, and would shut off after only being on for a little bit.  I underclocked it to 1 GHz and was able to run it for about a half hour at a time, which was enough for me to shop on Newegg for the parts for my system.)

 

The motherboard in the A64x2 4k+ died around March/April 2012.  Due to budget limitations,

Spoiler

I used my smartphone (first T-Mobile G1, then Samsung SGH-T699) and also my dad's laptop.  His laptop is a Dell D830, with a Core 2 Duo T7250, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Intel GMA GPU (I think), Windows XP, etc, and he still uses it now.  I'm hoping he replaces it soon, with something that lasts even longer, AND when it's that old isn't as "slow" as his current system is now, but is still useful.  (He has a habit of hanging onto things forever, and fixing them when they break rather than replacing them.)

 

[BuckGup]

6800K. It was out way before Ryzen and I needed more cores than 4. It was also really cheap at MicroCenter when I got it almost a year ago.

[Zodiark1593]

Currently have an i5-4590. Higher end i5's were not easily justified, and I didn't want to spend $300 for the i7 (though I probably could have gotten a Xeon instead). 

 

I have considered going for the 4790K, though it is pricy, and without home Internet, my gaming options are limited anyway.