Best LGA1151 CPU?

[Pancakewagon26]

So I was gifted an Asus Z390 Prime motherboard and 16gb of Trident z ram and I am wondering what is the best CPU to put in. I have 2 R9 390 graphics cards so i'd like something that won't bottleneck it. I have a 240 mm aio cooler for potential overclocking. I was looking at the i7 8700k (most expensive I can afford) but if I can get away with something cheaper and have some money left over that would be a boon. I don't do any content creation or editing, just gaming.

[Constantin]

You can go for the i5 9600k

[XR6]

The i7 8700k would probably be the best option.

 

[aisle9]

Edit: 9700K. Thought that said Z370.

[Constantin]

2 minutes ago, 1kv said:

The i7 8700k would probably be the best option.

 

If he go for an i7, then the i7 9700k is much better at almost the same price.

the i5 9600k is half the price with a very good performance 

[XR6]

Just now, Constantin said:

If he go for an i7, then the i7 9700k is much better at almost the same price.

the i5 9600k is half the price with a very good performance 

Yes, the 9700K is a better option if OP can afford it. 

I wouldn't buy an i5 9600k though, it's not worth it. The 8700k performs much better.

 

[Constantin]

1 minute ago, 1kv said:

Yes, the 9700K is a better option if OP can afford it. 

I wouldn't buy an i5 9600k though, it's not worth it. The 8700k performs much better.

 

The 8700k does not perform better than the 9700k...No need to debate for self-evident 

[3 Lions]

1 minute ago, Constantin said:

The 8700k does not perform better than the 9700k...No need to debate for self-evident 

He meant that the 8700K was better than the 9600K. 

[Pancakewagon26]

8 minutes ago, 1kv said:

Yes, the 9700K is a better option if OP can afford it. 

I wouldn't buy an i5 9600k though, it's not worth it. The 8700k performs much better.

 

Cant afford 9700k, why would the i5 be a bad buy? 

[Constantin]

5 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

He meant that the 8700K was better than the 9600K. 

 

Just now, Pancakewagon26 said:

Cant afford 9700k, why would the i5 be a bad buy? 

As i said from the start, the i5 9600k is perfect as value for money and performance

[Zyndo]

29 minutes ago, Pancakewagon26 said:

Snip

the "best" is the i9 9900k...

the i7 9700k or i5 9600k are probably the ones you should buy. pick whichever best suits your budget. You could also maybe consult the used market and see if you can get a good deal on an 8700k, but if you're buying new I would suggest the 9000 series CPU's.

[Pancakewagon26]

20 hours ago, Zyndo said:

the "best" is the i9 9900k...

the i7 9700k or i5 9600k are probably the ones you should buy. pick whichever best suits your budget. You could also maybe consult the used market and see if you can get a good deal on an 8700k, but if you're buying new I would suggest the 9000 series CPU's.

I can get a new 8700k for $329.99 US and a new i5 9600k for about $250 US, which would be better value?

[Pancakewagon26]

21 hours ago, Constantin said:

 

As i said from the start, the i5 9600k is perfect as value for money and performance

Will the i5 bottleneck GPU's, I also don't want to go crazy on overclocking 

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, Pancakewagon26 said:

Will the i5 bottleneck GPU's, I also don't want to go crazy on overclocking 

My 5GHz 8600K keeps up with a 1080 Ti at 1080p, OC the 9600K and it'll do the same. 

[Pancakewagon26]

2 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

My 5GHz 8600K keeps up with a 1080 Ti at 1080p, OC the 9600K and it'll do the same. 

I've seen reports of stuttering with i5's in bigger games like farcry and AC oddesy, have you had any of these issues?

[Zando_]

Just now, Pancakewagon26 said:

I've seen reports of stuttering with i5's in bigger games like farcry and AC oddesy, have you had any of these issues?

I don't have any of those games, but I do know ACO especially is core hungry because of it's DRM. 

[Zyndo]

4 minutes ago, Pancakewagon26 said:

I can get a new 8700k for $329.99 US and a new i5 9600k for about $250 US, which would be better value?

well the i5 would clock slightly faster, but it lacks hyperthreading. 6 slightly better cores vs 6 cores with hyperthreading is no real contest. That being said, in the context of gaming, and gaming with your chosen GPU's, there would be very little difference between the two. how much more is it for the i7 9700k...? it's agregate compute would be about the same as the i7 8700k, but it does it with much fewer cores so more games would more often be able to leverage the full potential of your CPU (not all games would be able to fully tap into all 12 threads of the 8700k, more would be able to leverage up to 8 however.)

 

Also as far as "bottlenecks" go... you need to consider far more than just the pairing of GPU to CPU. For example, an i3 would be sufficient for a 2080ti SLI if you were gaming at ultra settings at 8k in AAA titles. the i3 would never limit your performance. However if you tried that with a gtx 1060 at 1080p in the same games and same settings your i3 would often be the limiting factor or "bottleneck".

[Pancakewagon26]

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

well the i5 would clock slightly faster, but it lacks hyperthreading. 6 slightly better cores vs 6 cores with hyperthreading is no real contest. That being said, in the context of gaming, and gaming with your chosen GPU's, there would be very little difference between the two. how much more is it for the i7 9700k...? it's agregate compute would be about the same as the i7 8700k, but it does it with much fewer cores so more games would more often be able to leverage the full potential of your CPU (not all games would be able to fully tap into all 12 threads of the 8700k, more would be able to leverage up to 8 however.)

 

Also as far as "bottlenecks" go... you need to consider far more than just the pairing of GPU to CPU. For example, an i3 would be sufficient for a 2080ti SLI if you were gaming at ultra settings at 8k in AAA titles. the i3 would never limit your performance. However if you tried that with a gtx 1060 at 1080p in the same games and same settings your i3 would often be the limiting factor or "bottleneck".

i7 9700k is about $385 US and is out of my range.

[Pancakewagon26]

7 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

well the i5 would clock slightly faster, but it lacks hyperthreading. 6 slightly better cores vs 6 cores with hyperthreading is no real contest. That being said, in the context of gaming, and gaming with your chosen GPU's, there would be very little difference between the two. how much more is it for the i7 9700k...? it's agregate compute would be about the same as the i7 8700k, but it does it with much fewer cores so more games would more often be able to leverage the full potential of your CPU (not all games would be able to fully tap into all 12 threads of the 8700k, more would be able to leverage up to 8 however.)

 

Also as far as "bottlenecks" go... you need to consider far more than just the pairing of GPU to CPU. For example, an i3 would be sufficient for a 2080ti SLI if you were gaming at ultra settings at 8k in AAA titles. the i3 would never limit your performance. However if you tried that with a gtx 1060 at 1080p in the same games and same settings your i3 would often be the limiting factor or "bottleneck".

I also found I can get the 9600k for $230 US so it would be 100$ cheaper than an 8700k

[Zyndo]

1 minute ago, Pancakewagon26 said:

i7 9700k is about $385 US and is out of my range.

well if budget is your concern, the 9600k is probably where you should spend your money. It will not give you "bad" performance and in the few situations where the 8700k might yield more overall performance it's advantage shouldn't be too dramatic.

Here is a video comparing the two in various gaming loads at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. Performance is extremely similar in all situations, and if you're worried about stuttering just look at the white bars, they're very similar in nearly every game and resolution. Keep in mind he's using a 2080ti for this test, but your considerably weaker GPU's will mean that the differences seen here will be much much less in your setup since your GPU(s) will not always be able to fully leverage any extra performance available to them.
 

TL;DR More than likely, if you buy the 8700k for gaming, you will see no performance increase over the 9600k based on the rest of your system.

[Pancakewagon26]

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

well if budget is your concern, the 9600k is probably where you should spend your money. It will not give you "bad" performance and in the few situations where the 8700k might yield more overall performance it's advantage shouldn't be too dramatic.

Here is a video comparing the two in various gaming loads at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. Performance is extremely similar in all situations, and if you're worried about stuttering just look at the white bars, they're very similar in nearly every game and resolution. Keep in mind he's using a 2080ti for this test, but your considerably weaker GPU's will mean that the differences seen here will be much much less in your setup since your GPU(s) will not always be able to fully leverage any extra performance available to them.
 

TL;DR More than likely, if you buy the 8700k for gaming, you will see no performance increase over the 9600k based on the rest of your system.

forgot to mention I am using a 1440p ultrawide monitor, do you think that will make much of a difference in either stuttering or preformance?

[Zyndo]

Just now, Pancakewagon26 said:

forgot to mention I am using a 1440p ultrawide monitor, do you think that will make much of a difference in either stuttering or preformance?

you're going to be running 3440x1440? This is HIGHLY relevant information you should have mentioned at the start.

if that is the case, your choice of CPU will not matter at all between the 9600k or the 8700k in gaming situations. your GPU(s) will never be able to fully stress either one at this resolution in modern titles, so they will perform basically identically within 1 fps of each other. don't worry about stuttering or anything like that. You should be aware, however, that your two GPU's are not particularly powerful, and that this resolution is not exactly easy to run. Do not be expecting high/ultra settings in all of your AAA games if you wish to maintain 60 fps. Games which better support crossfire should be fine, but there are not a ton of games out there nowadays which have good multi-GPU support.

[Pancakewagon26]

The cards handle the resolution fine, the problem is like you said multi GPU support, especially for AMD is pretty bad and I am often relegated to 1 card 2560x1080. Wish I could upgrade GPUs but I am not really in a position to do so. From what I've seen it looks like the 9600k is a better option, given it is very close to the 8700k and is 100$ cheaper.