Gaming rig: 4790K+2080 vs 2700X+2070 vs 8700k+2070?

[Kasper_MC]

Hi People

A friend of mine is looking to get a new gaming rig. Basically he upgrades every 3-4 years, and it's about that time. 
I'm shopping for parts in Denmark, so prizes might very from your location, but he's giving me around 1500 USD to play with. 
I've only ever build one computer before (my own rig), and he has a little bit other priorities than mine. I often have a lot of processes open at the same time, and only game about 50% of my use of the computer, so I went with Ryzen (also for the upgradeability). 
My friend on the other hand almost exclusively games. Though he often run mutiple games a once, or more than one of the same game (Eve Online primarily in this case). Currently his most played games are: Post Scriptum, Fallout, Eve Online and HOI4.

So my thoughts was to go with Intel, since, gaming.. right? 
But then again Intel is more expensive than AMD, for only that little bit more performance. And the possibilities in the AM4 socket seems pretty good, as far as I can understand? with 7nm and AMD commiting to it?
Right now he's running a 4790k with a GTX 1070 and 16gb ram. He's never overclocked his CPU, and as far as I can work out, the gains of upgrading to 8700k for instance, is somewhere in the ballpark of 25-35%, depending on GPU of cause. 
So this is what leads me to think of several options:

1) Leave the rest of his system as is, upgrade the GPU to a 2080 or even 2080ti and clock the 4790k as far as humanly possible (he has a 240 AIO to cool it, it might need a change though - it's getting on for more than 3 years).

2) Go with Intel 8700K, get a GTX 2070 and 16gb of DDR4 (faster ram = a little bit more bandwith = more from the CPU, right?)
3) Go with AMDs 2700X, get a 2070 and 16gb of DDR4 (high hz is important here, as far as I can understand, so spend some of the extra money I save from going AMD over Intel on that?)

4) Ask him if he can wait six-or-so months to see what 7nm Ryzen has in store - then he could get the proper motherboard and not need to flash his bios at the same time, instead of going with a B450 or X470)

Hope this all makes sense, I'm really looking for any constructive feedback on any of it. But since I'm building a new system for a friend (he wants to use his old one as a gift for his brother who's rocking a 780 and first gen I7), I get confused with the benchmarks that I usually find, since they usually only compare GPU or CPU seperatly, or do a test of a baller-type setup. 
I'm mostly inclined to go with the first option, and just buy cheap parts for the rest of the old GPU, and build that for his brother (then I'd go with an I5 or R5 1600 or something). Mostly because it could be fun to see how close I could get the performance of an 8700k, with the 4790k :) 

If you've made it this far in my novel above, I just wanna thank you for reading, and I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback :) 

[Wh0_Am_1]

As the 7700k is only about ~12% faster than the 4790k, (and as the 7700k was able to keep up with the 1080 ti in most games 1080ti ~= 2080) I recommend getting a 2080 for that 4790k.

[Kasper_MC]

5 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

As the 7700k is only about ~12% faster than the 4790k, (and as the 7700k was able to keep up with the 1080 ti in most games 1080ti ~= 2080) I recommend getting a 2080 for that 4790k.

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you think that goes for even at 1080p resolution? 

[Wh0_Am_1]

13 hours ago, Kasper_MC said:

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you think that goes for even at 1080p resolution? 

Yes. Your welcome on the first one.

[Kasper_MC]

2 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

Yes. Your welcome on the first one.

And again, thanks

[Wh0_Am_1]

Happy to help!