X299 vs. Z390 + NVLink for gaming/workstation

[pas008]

3440x1440 is way more pixels than 1440p also when you are comparing benchmarks in gaming like like 1.3m more pixels

i'd be looking at a middle ground between 4k and 1440p for comparison for gaming which you will see you are closing in where cpu matters less in most cases from gaming perspective

 

and you could make up that small loss up going 16x 16x on those games and work loads where more pcie lanes matter

 

so i guess you are in a conundrum

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ShinRamen]

1 hour ago, 17030644 said:

do keep in mind that whenever two gpus can push higher framerates, the situation will start to be cpu bound

Are you referring to the possibility of a custom loop for GPUs? 

 

So far I've been using apple software in most cases, Apple Logic Pro X and Avid Pro Tools.

[TahoeDust]

Go x299.  I almost swapped and even bought a z390 board with plans for a 9900x.  In the end, the only thing a z390 setup was offering was ring based cache that helps a bit at high fps gaming.  I play 3440x1440 with a 2080ti and do not think a 9900k would make a meaningful impact even if I added a second 2080ti. 

[ShinRamen]

4 minutes ago, TahoeDust said:

Go x299.  I almost swapped and even bought a z390 board with plans for a 9900x.  In the end, the only thing a z390 setup was offering was ring based cache that helps a bit at high fps gaming.  I play 3440x1440 with a 2080ti and do not think a 9900k would make a meaningful impact even if I added a second 2080ti. 

Really appreciate your reply - was looking for someone who was in a similar situation and can offer some first-hand experience. I'm pretty sure I'll go x299. Quad channel memory, pci lanes for days etc.

 

I'm also going to play on 3440x1400 and from what benchmarks show so far I think you are right - there shouldn't be much of a benefit from a 9900k plus I'd be uncomfortable running 8x/8x SLI on z390 (although the performance loss seems to be irrelevant - for now!).

[TahoeDust]

2 minutes ago, ShinRamen said:

Really appreciate your reply - was looking for someone who was in a similar situation and can offer some first-hand experience. I'm pretty sure I'll go x299. Quad channel memory, pci lanes for days etc.

 

I'm also going to play on 3440x1400 and from what benchmarks show so far I think you are right - there shouldn't be much of a benefit from a 9900k plus I'd be uncomfortable running 8x/8x SLI on z390 (although the performance loss seems to be irrelevant - for now!).

Plus there is just something sexy about HEDT builds...

 

[ShinRamen]

That is indeed a beautiful and clean build. I'll definitely watercool the CPU, not sure about the GPUs yet. Only waterblock available for the Asus ROG Strix 2080 TI is the thermaltake afaik. I'm very picky when it comes to aesthetics and matching components, so I'd probably have to go with a thermaltake case, but meh.. I prefer the Phanteks Evolv X. 

 

Also for some reason I'm not the biggest fan of custom loop aesthetics for my builds - I'm gonna wait and see what the temperatures will be for the Asus GPUs with a 4 Slot spacing.

[TahoeDust]

20 minutes ago, ShinRamen said:

That is indeed a beautiful and clean build. I'll definitely watercool the CPU, not sure about the GPUs yet. Only waterblock available for the Asus ROG Strix 2080 TI is the thermaltake afaik. I'm very picky when it comes to aesthetics and matching components, so I'd probably have to go with a thermaltake case, but meh.. I prefer the Phanteks Evolv X. 

 

Also for some reason I'm not the biggest fan of custom loop aesthetics for my builds - I'm gonna wait and see what the temperatures will be for the Asus GPUs with a 4 Slot spacing.

I built in a Phanteks Evolv last year...I moved to a Be Quiet! Dark Base 900 when I went full water.  The Evolve was nice, but the Be Quiet is nicer in my opinion.  My FTW3 runs much better under water than it did on air.  On air it would start clocking down at 60c.  Under water it never gets that hot.  If I was doing SLI 2080 ti in an evolve, I would definitely want them under water...at least Hybrids.

[17030644]

1 hour ago, ShinRamen said:

Are you referring to the possibility of a custom loop for GPUs? 

 

So far I've been using apple software in most cases, Apple Logic Pro X and Avid Pro Tools.

but what will you use for your windows pc?

[17030644]

1 hour ago, ShinRamen said:

Really appreciate your reply - was looking for someone who was in a similar situation and can offer some first-hand experience. I'm pretty sure I'll go x299. Quad channel memory, pci lanes for days etc.

 

I'm also going to play on 3440x1400 and from what benchmarks show so far I think you are right - there shouldn't be much of a benefit from a 9900k plus I'd be uncomfortable running 8x/8x SLI on z390 (although the performance loss seems to be irrelevant - for now!).

it will make a significant difference if you want high framerates

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/12.html

[TahoeDust]

3 minutes ago, 17030644 said:

it will make a significant difference if you want high framerates

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/12.html

Why are you linking to 720p tests when he is playing aat 3440x1440?

[17030644]

23 minutes ago, TahoeDust said:

Why are you linking to 720p tests when he is playing aat 3440x1440?

as I see it, you didn't read the part where I explain that resolution isn't 100% related  to how cpu bound a game is

[TahoeDust]

26 minutes ago, 17030644 said:

as I see it, you didn't read the part where I explain that resolution isn't 100% related  to how cpu bound a game is

I read it.  Just because you typed it, does not make it true.

 

Like I said, why are you linking 720p benchmarks that have nothing to do with the user's setup?...it not using the GPU(s) he wants or the other CPU he is interested in.

 

To summarize.  The OP wants to know if the 9900k or 9980xe will be a better match for his two 2080tis and 3440x1440 monitor, and you post benchmarks of a 1080ti and 9900k at 720p.

[AMGPower]

I have a x299 and a z390 system. Gave the wife the x299 for her business and built the z390 for myself.

 

My x299 consists of a 4.8ghz 7820x with cache overclocked at 3.2. the ram is running at a tuned 3600mhzcl15 with tight secondaries, as this is key for the mesh architecture. It is also delidded.

 

My z390 is running a 9900k at 5.1 GhZ with a ringbus set to 4.7. the ram is running at an XMP

profile of 3400mhzcl16

 

I set the 9900k stock and compared both rigs with a 2080ti. The 9900k was around 5-12% faster at resolutions of 1440p to 4k depending on the game.

 

The 9900k also ran cooler stock. But what I noticed recently, using battlefield v with HDR and RTX on, the 9900k was almost 20% faster. I have no explanation for this, other than ray tracing requiring much better single core performance (it also trounced my buddies 2700x).

 

But for your use cases, I would go with the x299 setup with fast ram and tight timings.

 

[TahoeDust]

10 minutes ago, AMGPower said:

I have a x299 and a z390 system. Gave the wife the x299 for her business and built the z390 for myself.

 

My x299 consists of a 4.8ghz 7820x with cache overclocked at 3.2. the ram is running at a tuned 3600mhzcl15 with tight secondaries, as this is key for the mesh architecture. It is also delidded.

 

My z390 is running a 9900k at 5.1 GhZ with a ringbus set to 4.7. the ram is running at an XMP

profile of 3400mhzcl16

 

I set the 9900k stock and compared both rigs with a 2080ti. The 9900k was around 5-12% faster at resolutions of 1440p to 4k depending on the game.

 

The 9900k also ran cooler stock. But what I noticed recently, using battlefield v with HDR and RTX on, the 9900k was almost 20% faster. I have no explanation for this, other than ray tracing requiring much better single core performance (it also trounced my buddies 2700x).

 

But for your use cases, I would go with the x299 setup with fast ram and tight timings.

 

Really really interesting.  Thanks for this post.  I play at 3440x1440 100Hz with a 2080ti and was thinking about going from pretty much your exact 7820x setup (clock,cache, ram, tightened timings, delided, etc) to a 9900k last month and backed out.  I figured the difference would be pretty close to what you said.  Interesting about the HDR and RTX.

[Kalm_Traveler]

I would add that the 79x0 chips will overclock better than 99x0 chips, if you are willing to delid and apply liquid metal. 

 

For that reason i chose the 7960x for my recent upgrade. Also decided to splurge on a pair of Titan RTX cards tonight because why not. 

[ShinRamen]

5 hours ago, AMGPower said:

I have a x299 and a z390 system. Gave the wife the x299 for her business and built the z390 for myself.

 

My x299 consists of a 4.8ghz 7820x with cache overclocked at 3.2. the ram is running at a tuned 3600mhzcl15 with tight secondaries, as this is key for the mesh architecture. It is also delidded.

 

My z390 is running a 9900k at 5.1 GhZ with a ringbus set to 4.7. the ram is running at an XMP

profile of 3400mhzcl16

 

I set the 9900k stock and compared both rigs with a 2080ti. The 9900k was around 5-12% faster at resolutions of 1440p to 4k depending on the game.

 

The 9900k also ran cooler stock. But what I noticed recently, using battlefield v with HDR and RTX on, the 9900k was almost 20% faster. I have no explanation for this, other than ray tracing requiring much better single core performance (it also trounced my buddies 2700x).

 

But for your use cases, I would go with the x299 setup with fast ram and tight timings.

 

That's very interesting information - thanks man. 9900K is very tempting tbh, but the x299 advantages on the other hand are something that make this a pretty tough decision for me.

 

4 hours ago, Kalm_Traveler1 said:

I would add that the 79x0 chips will overclock better than 99x0 chips, if you are willing to delid and apply liquid metal. 

 

For that reason i chose the 7960x for my recent upgrade. Also decided to splurge on a pair of Titan RTX cards tonight because why not. 

Great, thanks for your reply. I am not planning to delid. Since you do have both CPUs also, have you ever compared their performance with a comparable setup? Any reason you'd suggest one over the other?

[Kalm_Traveler]

1 hour ago, ShinRamen said:

That's very interesting information - thanks man. 9900K is very tempting tbh, but the x299 advantages on the other hand are something that make this a pretty tough decision for me.

 

Great, thanks for your reply. I am not planning to delid. Since you do have both CPUs also, have you ever compared their performance with a comparable setup? Any reason you'd suggest one over the other?

well, the 7960x is a 16 core/ 32 thread chip, while the 9900k is only 8 cores/16 threads. I have not yet delidded the 9900k, but even stock mine is stable at 5.3 gHz all core OC - so for tasks which do not use many threads it is generally a better option. 

[epsilon84]

The 9980XE hangs in there well enough in gaming compared to the 9900K. Remarkably ultrawide 1440P can still be CPU limited with a pair of 2080 Tis (assuming they scale well in SLI) since regular 1440P is still somewhat CPU bound with a single 2080 Ti.

 

We're not talking huge differences though, maybe 10% or thereabouts, or 20% in a worse case in games where the ringbus latency helps compared to the mesh bus.

 

In pure multithreaded performance the 9980XE trounces the 9900K of course - assuming your apps can take advantage of the extra cores. 

 

 

[17030644]

14 hours ago, TahoeDust said:

I read it.  Just because you typed it, does not make it true.

 

Like I said, why are you linking 720p benchmarks that have nothing to do with the user's setup?...it not using the GPU(s) he wants or the other CPU he is interested in.

 

To summarize.  The OP wants to know if the 9900k or 9980xe will be a better match for his two 2080tis and 3440x1440 monitor, and you post benchmarks of a 1080ti and 9900k at 720p.

why don't you ever read seriously?

 

720p benchmarks with a 1080 ti, NOT WITH 2080 TI SLI

 

resolution doesn't really matter. What matters is the FPS

 

whenever the SLI works, the gpus will push enough FPS for the game to be cpu bound and in that case you'd observe similar difference to what you would encounter with those 720p benchmarks

 

so, it's not because I typed it, it's because you don't seem to understand how bottlenecking works and keep repeating the same thing over and over again as a result.

 

It's clear that he will play with a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor? does that mean anything? no, because that's just one aspect.

 

10 hours ago, AMGPower said:

 

I set the 9900k stock and compared both rigs with a 2080ti. The 9900k was around 5-12% faster at resolutions of 1440p to 4k depending on the game.

 

 

 

guys, that's with A SINGLE 2080 TI

 

a single 2080 ti can't push enough FPS to make the differences between those two cpus noticeable. we're talking about SLI here

 

and 5-12% faster would be still a thing

3 hours ago, epsilon84 said:

 

We're not talking huge differences though, maybe 10% or thereabouts, or 20% in a worse case in games where the ringbus latency helps compared to the mesh bus.

1

well 20% isn't huge for you, but for me it's significant specially if I wanted to invest so much money on a PC

9 hours ago, Kalm_Traveler1 said:

I would add that the 79x0 chips will overclock better than 99x0 chips, if you are willing to delid and apply liquid metal. 

 

For that reason i chose the 7960x for my recent upgrade. Also decided to splurge on a pair of Titan RTX cards tonight because why not. 

they don't OC better, coffee lake i9s are good for 5.2 ghz on water, the 9980XE won't even reach 5 ghz, specially if you are limited by your cooling, it simply doesn't make sense, with 18 cores the thermal density is very high.

 

you can gain more performance by oceing skylake-x, because those chips run at very low clocks when stock, but the 9th gen intel clocks higher

 

5 hours ago, ShinRamen said:

That's very interesting information - thanks man. 9900K is very tempting tbh, but the x299 advantages on the other hand are something that make this a pretty tough decision for me.

 

Great, thanks for your reply. I am not planning to delid. Since you do have both CPUs also, have you ever compared their performance with a comparable setup? Any reason you'd suggest one over the other?

4

ok, let's summarize everything.

 

9900K gets faster clocks and lower latency

 

and specially if you don't delid the skylake-x chips you won't get near the single core performance of that mainstream chip.

 

so 9900K for lightly-threaded applications, and skylake-x for heavily multi-threaded applications

 

so far you've only focused on gaming performance. Take a look at content creation tasks, maybe they run better on the 9900K, or maybe they don't. That will help you make your decision.

 

Now, if you have 8k euro, i think you could buy a dual system PC if you know how to manage your money so that'd obviously be the best

 

 

[Lathlaer]

22 minutes ago, 17030644 said:

whenever the SLI works, the gpus will push enough FPS for the game to be cpu bound and in that case you'd observe similar difference to what you would encounter with those 720p benchmarks

I may be seeing a wrong link or smth or just not understand what your point is but where exactly in that 720p link is the 18-core CPU OC'ed to, say, 4.8GHz?

[17030644]

30 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

I may be seeing a wrong link or smth or just not understand what your point is but where exactly in that 720p link is the 18-core CPU OC'ed to, say, 4.8GHz?

even OCed, it won't match the 9900K

 

you get the 7900X which is the same as the 7980XE/9980XE in gaming

[Lathlaer]

1 minute ago, 17030644 said:

even OCed, it won't match the 9900K

 

you get the 7900X which is the same as the 7980XE/9980XE in gaming

That 7900X in those tests isn't even OC'ed, I guess the mesh isn't even touched as well. If you are trying to prove a point, you're being very weird about it. Linking test that doesn't show the 18core, shows only 9900K OC'ed to 5.1 GHz and "the same" 7900X which isn't OCed?

 

I mean, you may be right but so far I'm not convinced.

[17030644]

28 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

That 7900X in those tests isn't even OC'ed, I guess the mesh isn't even touched as well. If you are trying to prove a point, you're being very weird about it. Linking test that doesn't show the 18core, shows only 9900K OC'ed to 5.1 GHz and "the same" 7900X which isn't OCed?

 

I mean, you may be right but so far I'm not convinced.

yes, you're right, it's not OCed

 

but the problem isn't only clockspeed, it's the latency, that's the reason why AMD looses even with locked intels

 

and again 7900X is 10 cores, which is already overkill for gaming, going with the 9980XE isn't gonna make a difference

 

but there are comparisons with the 7960X oc'd to 4.6 here

 

it's not bad, it's just not the best and again, if he wants high framerates then it's not an option because it costs much more.

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3378-intel-9900k-cpu-review-solder-vs-paste-delid-gaming-benchmarks-vs-2700x/page-4

[Kalm_Traveler]

6 hours ago, 17030644 said:

 

they don't OC better, coffee lake i9s are good for 5.2 ghz on water, the 9980XE won't even reach 5 ghz, specially if you are limited by your cooling, it simply doesn't make sense, with 18 cores the thermal density is very high.

 

you can gain more performance by oceing skylake-x, because those chips run at very low clocks when stock, but the 9th gen intel clocks higher

Sadly you are very mistaken - the 79x0 chips are better for overclocking because after delidding and using liquid metal they run cooler than their soldered 99x0 newer versions. 

You are correct that the 9980XE likely won't reach 5 gHz, but that is exactly what I said. Newer < older in this case, since the soldered chips are actually running hotter than the previous generation with a delid + LM due to solder thickness and increased CPU die silicon thickness.

 

The "9th" gen chips clock higher out of the box only, but for enthusiasts the 79x0 chips will push beyond what you'll get out of a thermally-constrained 99x0 equivalent.

 

der8auer has a great video on YouTube explaining the situation, if you care for some education.

[AMGPower]

2 hours ago, Kalm_Traveler1 said:

Sadly you are very mistaken - the 79x0 chips are better for overclocking because after delidding and using liquid metal they run cooler than their soldered 99x0 newer versions. 

You are correct that the 9980XE likely won't reach 5 gHz, but that is exactly what I said. Newer < older in this case, since the soldered chips are actually running hotter than the previous generation with a delid + LM due to solder thickness and increased CPU die silicon thickness.

 

The "9th" gen chips clock higher out of the box only, but for enthusiasts the 79x0 chips will push beyond what you'll get out of a thermally-constrained 99x0 equivalent.

 

der8auer has a great video on YouTube explaining the situation, if you care for some education.

He is comparing coffee lake vs skylake-x, not skylake-x vs skylake-x refresh. The coffee lake chips do over clock better than skylake-x even with a delid.

 

I have not seen any 7820x or 9800x reach 5 GhZ for daily use. While there are tons of 9900ks hitting over 5 GhZ.