Asus B350I or Z370I...............

[For Science!]

Serious dilemma....

 

I was planning to build a Mini-ITX build, and I have a sweet spot for Asus boards. Literally have all the components ready except for the board and CPU.

This is obviously a question also of AM4 vs Z370. Both seem fairly amenable to an upgrade path. Would be a 8700K vs 1700 OC 

 

https://www.inet.se/produkt/1901045/asus-rog-strix-b350-i-gaming

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-Z370-I-GAMING/

[seon123]

Wait until the actual reviews of Coffee Lake come out, then decide. 

[Max_Settings]

18 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Wait until the actual reviews of Coffee Lake come out, then decide. 

We already have reviews. 8700K is about 2% slower than a 1800X in content creation, and is now the fastest gaming CPU. To the OP I would go with the 8700K, best of both worlds. 

[NewReborn]

Z370 doesn't have an upgrade option beyond the 8700K. If you want 8-core IceLake, you'll need a Z390 board due in the end of 2018
only AM4 gets more CPU generations on it

[Max_Settings]

2 minutes ago, NewReborn said:

Z370 doesn't have an upgrade option beyond the 8700K. If you want 8-core IceLake, you'll need a Z390 board due in the end of 2018
only AM4 gets more CPU generations on it

That's only if AMD does a better job than they did on AM3+

[ATFink]

B350 (w/1700):

Pros:

• Less expensive (no need to buy a different cooler, overclocking is standard so no extra $$$ for a board that supports overclocking, 1700 will be cheaper than 8700k)
• Support for several more years and CPU generations
• You know what you'll get right now
• Purchasing this chip will help AMD compete with Intel which means faster CPUs in future generations for both companies sooner (this is important when analyzing the whole market, but lets face it the individual consumer probably doesn't care)

Cons:

• Will be slower than the 8700k for gaming

 

Z370 (w/8700k):

Pros:

• Will be faster than than 1700 for gaming
• Seems that content creation will be comparable to the 1700

Cons:

• z370 will only support coffee lake as its last generation of supported CPU architecture (z390 will be ice lake)
• Due to current NDA you can't really confirm how this will perform right now... it seems like the silicon lottery will be a bigger deal for coffee lake than usual (speculation of chip performance is probably pretty close to accurate)
• More expensive (8700k will be more expensive than the 1700, overclocking isn't standard so z370 boards will be more expensive than b350 boards, you need to buy your own cooler)

 

What you need to do is figure out how long you usually keep computer hardware before you upgrade, when you upgrade do you do so incrementally or do you change the whole system, figure out what your priorities for computer performance are and how much time is spent doing each (gaming, programming, editing, web browsing, etc.), and assess a budget.

 

(Obvious point is obvious, but I'm going to say it anyways): The budget is important because it will determine the quality of the other components you will buy like what hdd/ssd you get, the case, if you get a non-stock CPU cooler what kind of quality it will be, PSU quality, and peripherals.

[For Science!]

48 minutes ago, ATFink said:

What you need to do is figure out how long you usually keep computer hardware before you upgrade, when you upgrade do you do so incrementally or do you change the whole system, figure out what your priorities for computer performance are and how much time is spent doing each (gaming, programming, editing, web browsing, etc.), and assess a budget.

 

(Obvious point is obvious, but I'm going to say it anyways): The budget is important because it will determine the quality of the other components you will buy like what hdd/ssd you get, the case, if you get a non-stock CPU cooler what kind of quality it will be, PSU quality, and peripherals.

Thanks for the detailed point balancing. To fill in some of the gaps

 

- Budget is not a consideration

- Cooling will be custom water; I also have the means to delid the 8700K and replace the TIM with LM

- Main use case is povray-like load as well as FFTs, gaming on the side

- Due to custom-water, upgrade cycle will be pretty slow. Definitely not yearly, probably more like 5 years, guestimate?

 

- Other relevant components: 1080 Ti for the GPU, NVMe SSD for storage.

[ATFink]

5 hours ago, For Science! said:

Thanks for the detailed point balancing. To fill in some of the gaps

 

- Budget is not a consideration

- Cooling will be custom water; I also have the means to delid the 8700K and replace the TIM with LM

- Main use case is povray-like load as well as FFTs, gaming on the side

- Due to custom-water, upgrade cycle will be pretty slow. Definitely not yearly, probably more like 5 years, guestimate?

 

- Other relevant components: 1080 Ti for the GPU, NVMe SSD for storage.

5 years, hmm.

 

Upgradability of the platform shouldn't be of any concern between deciding between AMD and Intel since AMD will move past AM4 by that point.

 

As for the 8700k's performance here is a link to another post on this forum about leaked performance:

Unfortunately I am not familiar with pov-ray and I haven't ever worked with fast Fourier transforms (plus I don't have an 8700k to review), so I can't tell you how it will perform in those use case scenarios. Since the budget isn't a concern and the review I linked is probably accurate I'd say the 8700k will most likely end up being your best bet. If I were you I'd still wait for several reviews of coffee lake to come out so you can be sure of the presented results before buying. Good luck with the build!