Ultimate Gaming CPU Showdown

[BSula99]

Hello all,

 

So for purely gaming purposes (actually not all I will be doing by a long-shot but it is the priority with this build), which CPU would you choose to last you the next 5 years or more.

 

i9-9900k

i7-9700k

i7-8700k

 

Factors such as heat, OC levels, hyper-threading, and core usage now and in the future are all to be considered. Thanks for the input!

[Kalm_Traveler]

out of those the 8700k has the highest potential - 6c/12t can generally get at least 5 gHz all core OC. Some games do show a benefit with HT vs without it.

 

"the ultimate" gaming CPU right now is the 9900k though - it beats everything else strictly from a maximum gaming performance standpoint.

[Constantin]

4 minutes ago, BSula99 said:

i9-9700k

 

Does this exist? 

[XR6]

The best value is the 8700k. You can OC it and get some pretty nice results on it (depends on the silicon lottery though, if you've got a poorly binned chip OC performance will suffer). 

The best CPU out of all of those is the 9900k, but I wouldn't buy it unless you've got the budget and hardware to keep up with it. e.g. RTX 2080/2080 Ti and a $2000+ budget.

[BSula99]

2 minutes ago, Constantin said:

Does this exist? 

Sorry, good catch. Edited the topic accordingly.

[BSula99]

I have roughly $2200 allotted for hardware, and another $1300 on peripherals (I want an UWQHD @ 100hz display), as the budget max. 16GB RAM DDR4 3200 CAS 14, ASRock Mobo, 1TB 970 EVO SSD,  H150i AIO, Phanteks Enthoo Evolv X, RTX 2080, and 850W PSU.

[XR6]

1 minute ago, BSula99 said:

I have roughly $2200 allotted for hardware, and another $1300 on peripherals (I want an UWQHD @ 100hz display), as the budget max. 16GB RAM DDR4 3200 CAS 14, ASRock Mobo, 1TB 970 EVO SSD,  H150i AIO, Phanteks Enthoo Evolv X, and 850W PSU.

What are your needs? e.g. video editing, gaming

The H150i should do a fairly good job of keeping an 8700k/9700k/9900k cool so no worries there.

Also, do you have a GPU? If so, what GPU is it?

[BSula99]

7 minutes ago, 1kv said:

What are your needs? e.g. video editing, gaming

The H150i should do a fairly good job of keeping an 8700k/9700k/9900k cool so no worries there.

Also, do you have a GPU? If so, what GPU is it?

Going with an ASUS ROG Strix OC 2080.

[BSula99]

11 minutes ago, 1kv said:

What are your needs? e.g. video editing, gaming

The H150i should do a fairly good job of keeping an 8700k/9700k/9900k cool so no worries there.

Also, do you have a GPU? If so, what GPU is it?

Gaming is the build focus, though I will also be using it for CAD, scientific modelling, and data mining.

[XR6]

Just now, BSula99 said:

Gaming is the build focus, though I will also be using it for CAD, scientific modelling, and data mining.

Any 3 of those CPUs should do the job.

If you don't mind OC'ing then the 9700K/8700K is the best choice (whichever is cheapest).

If you just don't want to OC at all you're better off with a 9900K since you'll have guaranteed performance right out of the box.

The problem with overclocking is that you don't know how well the CPU can overclock until you actually get it (if you want to know more about that google "silicon lottery")

[BSula99]

34 minutes ago, 1kv said:

Any 3 of those CPUs should do the job.

If you don't mind OC'ing then the 9700K/8700K is the best choice (whichever is cheapest).

If you just don't want to OC at all you're better off with a 9900K since you'll have guaranteed performance right out of the box.

The problem with overclocking is that you don't know how well the CPU can overclock until you actually get it (if you want to know more about that google "silicon lottery")

I'm pretty familiar with the silicon lottery, and understand the risks. For me it's more of a consideration of will future games be taking advantage of more cores and hyperthreading or are clock speeds going to remain supreme.

[XR6]

14 minutes ago, BSula99 said:

I'm pretty familiar with the silicon lottery, and understand the risks. For me it's more of a consideration of will future games be taking advantage of more cores and hyperthreading or are clock speeds going to remain supreme.

I can't give you a solid answer to this as I don't have a clue how games will perform in the future, but I can give you my own guess.

From what I've seen cores and threads definitely help. 6 cores seems to be the recommended amount for games right now so it may go up. I'd imagine it will stay at around 6 cores for a while since 4 cores used to be recommended for a while.

[BSula99]

8 minutes ago, 1kv said:

I can't give you a solid answer to this as I don't have a clue how games will perform in the future, but I can give you my own guess.

From what I've seen cores and threads definitely help. 6 cores seems to be the recommended amount for games right now so it may go up. I'd imagine it will stay at around 6 cores for a while since 4 cores used to be recommended for a while.

As the 9700K is currently just a bit more than a 8700K with better OC and a full $100 less than 9900k with close results, I believe I may try that for my next build. 8 real cores should last me.