i7 8700 or i5 9600k

[Salkio]

Hey all,

 

So im shopping for a new CPU. Basically i want the i7 9700k but money says no. So i have settled on these  i7 8700 or i5 9600k

I choose 8700 non k because they basically the same offering maybe 1 to 3 FPS difference and im saving 100 bucks, and im NOT going to OC i dont care. 

 

So would it be better to have a 9th gen 6C/6T or the 8th gen which has 6c/12T. I think having more threads may future proof my rig for an extra few years?

 

If you have any other suggestions for an INTEL 1151 chip which may be better than the two i selected and cost pretty much the same ish?

 

Thanks guys!

[xg32]

if it's between those 2 then 8700 hands down.

[Salkio]

8 minutes ago, xg32 said:

if it's between those 2 then 8700 hands down.

and compared to the 9700k is the 8700K and/or non k a big difference?

I was reading something about not having hyper threading or something which may reduce future proof.

 

Like will the difference be 30FPS, 5FPS? I only play games i dont render or work in blender etc. 

[daz01710]

Hi, the i5 9600k has the same number of cores as the i7 8700 but has a higher clock frequency so will be better at gaming. As time goes, games tend to get more and more demanding on number of threads but also on CPU clock speed. So if a given CPU is better than another for gaming today, it will be better tomorrow aswell. Future games will want more cores with same clock speed.

I would go for the i5 9600k.

[Salkio]

2 minutes ago, daz01710 said:

Hi, the i5 9600k has the same number of cores as the i7 8700 but has a higher clock frequency so will be better at gaming. As time goes, games tend to get more and more demanding on number of threads but also on CPU clock speed. So if a given CPU is better than another for gaming today, it will be better tomorrow aswell. Future games will want more cores with same clock speed.

I would go for the i5 9600k.

Thank you. But the i5 turbo is 4.6 while the 8700 is 4.7?

[GoldenLag]

At the current moment i suggest holding out on both abd wait for Zen 2

[MadmanRB]

None of the above:

 

Wait for Zen 2.

[Jay Deah]

If you’re gMing then consider the 8th gen i5 K model.

 

cheaper still, perfectly adequate core/thread count and the overclocking means you’ll get some nice speeds out of it. Clock speed gains of 40% aren’t unreasonable on these chips and overclocking is idiot proof and safe nowadays!

[00kt86]

Go to Gamers Nexus on youtube and he'll show you why the I7 8700 is better.

[xg32]

3 hours ago, Salkio said:

and compared to the 9700k is the 8700K and/or non k a big difference?

I was reading something about not having hyper threading or something which may reduce future proof.

 

Like will the difference be 30FPS, 5FPS? I only play games i dont render or work in blender etc. 

it's about the same, tho the 9700k doesn't need the meltdown fix which i've seen strange behavior on both the 8600k and the 8700k, the difference btwn the 8700k and the 9700k is less than 2%. Diff between the 8700 and 8700k @4.7 is probably closer to 3-4% in very specific loads.

[Princess Luna]

3 hours ago, daz01710 said:

Hi, the i5 9600k has the same number of cores as the i7 8700 but has a higher clock frequency so will be better at gaming.

It really isn't, first of all their turbo boost table is the same, so you need to overclock the i5 9600K to have more frequency and even then we're so GPU bound nowadays it won't make a difference.

 

The i7 8700 is hands down the best alternative, you can make up its higher price tag by saving on a cheaper b360 micro-atx board and even use stock cooler or an inexpensive aftermarket cooler if you want better noise.

 

The i7 8700 has Hyper-Threading and more cache, this makes it severely at multi-threading and multi-tasking while keeping on pair single threaded performance.

 

The CPU also is a beast that will drive a RTX 2080 Ti on gaming just fine (as long as you're not going for 1080p240hz at least lol).

 

Now waiting for Ryzen 3000 series isn't a bad call but the i7 8700 is by all means sufficient and still a good pick.

[Gerr]

Get the 9600K and use the extra money for a good Z390 mobo so you can upgrade to the 9700K or 9900K at a later time, or the next gen Intel CPU's pending they are compatable with the Z390 mobos.  While the 8700 might be a hair faster, if you can OC the 9600K to 5.0Ghz or higher on all cores, any speed benefit of the 8700 will likely go away.  I don't know of anyone who has reviewed the 9600K(OC'ed) vs 8700(stock).

[Mister Woof]

8 hours ago, Salkio said:

Hey all,

 

So im shopping for a new CPU. Basically i want the i7 9700k but money says no. So i have settled on these  i7 8700 or i5 9600k

I choose 8700 non k because they basically the same offering maybe 1 to 3 FPS difference and im saving 100 bucks, and im NOT going to OC i dont care. 

 

So would it be better to have a 9th gen 6C/6T or the 8th gen which has 6c/12T. I think having more threads may future proof my rig for an extra few years?

 

If you have any other suggestions for an INTEL 1151 chip which may be better than the two i selected and cost pretty much the same ish?

 

Thanks guys!

What games

[Berfs1]

Turbo speeds, are nearly the same, with the 9600K barely edging out the 8700 in 3/4/5 core turbo speeds. The 8700 has hyperthreading while the 9600K does not. The 9600K has a soldered heatspreader while the 8700 has grease (so the 9600K will have lower temps). If you are going to overclock, the 9600K will be best for you (8600K will be better if you delid it). If not overclocking, i7-8700 is the fastest you can get at the moment, however the rest of the 9th gen CPUs are right around the corner (with a weird R0 stepping which I originally thought was reserved for Skylake CPU dies but whatever...), so if you can wait, I highly recommend you wait. Also, 3000 series is near too (summer launch), you really may want to consider that too.

[Berfs1]

1 hour ago, Gerr said:

Get the 9600K and use the extra money for a good Z390 mobo so you can upgrade to the 9700K or 9900K at a later time, or the next gen Intel CPU's pending they are compatable with the Z390 mobos.  While the 8700 might be a hair faster, if you can OC the 9600K to 5.0Ghz or higher on all cores, any speed benefit of the 8700 will likely go away.  I don't know of anyone who has reviewed the 9600K(OC'ed) vs 8700(stock).

OP said they didn't want to overclock

[Gerr]

doh, missed that.  Then 8700 all the way.

[Princess Luna]

2 hours ago, Gerr said:

Get the 9600K and use the extra money for a good Z390 mobo so you can upgrade to the 9700K or 9900K at a later

By the time the i7 8700 is not a viable option for high end gaming neither will the i7 9700K or i9 9900K will be either, OP will want whatever is current be it 10nm Intel or 7nm AMD.

 

All 3 processors are all the same architecture, Coffee Lake 14nm++, adding more cores to it won't change gaming performance as games will always favour the best single threaded performance you can throw at them, much like a Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 7 2700X ends up being the same on the greatest majority of games.

 

2 hours ago, Gerr said:

While the 8700 might be a hair faster, if you can OC the 9600K to 5.0Ghz or higher on all cores, any speed benefit of the 8700 will likely go away.

This incorrect if we're to consider there's no way the i5 9600K regardless if at 5ghz or not will match the i7's multi-threading capacity, even why it lacks the extra cache, so the main benefit of the i7 remains.

 

2 hours ago, Gerr said:

  I don't know of anyone who has reviewed the 9600K(OC'ed) vs 8700(stock).

It's much of the same on all scenarios outside 1080p240hz, you see on 1440p and 4K even with a RTX 2080 Ti you're still GPU limited before the CPU is an issue, the difference between 4.3ghz and 5ghz is usually lower than one might expect.

 

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

Turbo speeds, are nearly the same, with the 9600K barely edging out the 8700 in 3/4/5 core turbo speeds.

In reality they are the same because it's common to see these processors when left at stock to sustain their all cores turbo (which is the same 4.3ghz) all the time.

 

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

The 9600K has a soldered heatspreader while the 8700 has grease (so the 9600K will have lower temps).

This is actually incorrent because while the 9600K is indeed soldered have in mind it's an unlocked 95w TDP processor while the i7 8700 with thermal compound on its IHS is a locked 65W TDP processor.

 

The heat output of the i7 8700 is actually smaller and evens out any advantage the i5 9600K has from being soldered if you leave both fully at stock.

 

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

If you are going to overclock, the 9600K will be best for you (8600K will be better if you delid it).

This is arguably, I'd say incorrect as well for having myself as an example the i7 8700 is capable of running my GTX 1080 Ti to it's full potential at 3440x1440p100hz never being a limiting factor while it's a more powerful and capable processor for content creation and multi-tasking.

 

Considering you can end up with a cheaper build using a micro-atx b360 and inexpensive cooling it's usually a better value proposition even for high end gaming.

 

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

, i7-8700 is the fastest you can get at the moment, however the rest of the 9th gen CPUs are right around the corner (with a weird R0 stepping which I originally thought was reserved for Skylake CPU dies but whatever...)

As far as it seems, 9th gen is already completed and we'll have Comet Lake 10th Gen to replace it by the end of the year, sadly in reality it'll be a Coffee-Lake 14nm++ Refresh Refresh, with the only difference being the addition of 10 cores / 20 threads i9 to compete with Mainstream Ryzen 9 16 cores / 32 threads coming out in a couple of months.

 

We all know Intel always only uses the same chipset compatibility for 2 generations, that means all these current motherboards are likely to become waste soon.

 

1 hour ago, Berfs1 said:

so if you can wait, I highly recommend you wait. Also, 3000 series is near too (summer launch), you really may want to consider that too.

Yes, frankly waiting Ryzen 3000 series is a great idea but even then the i7 8700 should remain extremely competitive against the 6c/12t Ryzen 3000 series variations.

[daz01710]

Yeah, sorry it's true, the 8700k is 3 percent better overall for gaming when you look at the bench tests. But the fact that more threads will not future proof for gaming still holds, so you won't get any better than a 3 percent increase in performance even for future games. Game creators have had plenty of time to take full advantage of the 12 threads the 8700k has to offer at that clock speed. For example, if you look at the recommended CPU specs for the Call of Duty series, the required clock frequency has remained more or less constant (2,4 GHz to 3,3 GHz) for 12 years, whereas the number of required cores has quadrupled. You never see a new release requiring more cores at lower frequency, which is basically what having more threads at same core frequency is.

So I would still go for the i5 because it's 100 bucks cheaper but only 3% less performant. I made an opencalc spreadsheet so you can see the trend.

CallOfDutySpecs.ods

[daz01710]

The i7 8700 (without the k) is clocked at 3.2 GHz and the i5 9600k can be turbo boosted to ~5 GHz. This makes the i5 9600k better than the i7 8700 for gaming.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700-vs-Intel-Core-i5-9600K/3940vs4031

[Mister Woof]

HT will be useful later.

 

The proof is how badly 4/4 i5s are aging whereas 4/8 i7 are fine

[daz01710]

29 minutes ago, Plutosaurus said:

HT will be useful later.

 

The proof is how badly 4/4 i5s are aging whereas 4/8 i7 are fine

HT will be usefull for sure. The thing is, having 6 cores at 4 GHz and 12 threads is more or less like having 12 cores at 2 GHz, and, as time goes by, games tend to require both higher frequency and higher core count. I uploaded a spreadsheet in above post so you can check the trend for the Call Of Duty series.

The other argument I have is that games are designed to be able to run on whatever CPU is available at the moment of release. So basically game requirements will scale alongside CPU specs.  If you look at the list of i7 CPUs, you'll notice the core frequency isn't dropping but the core count is rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors

[Mister Woof]

5 minutes ago, daz01710 said:

HT will be usefull for sure. The thing is, having 6 cores at 4 GHz and 12 threads is more or less like having 12 cores at 2 GHz, and, as time goes by, games tend to require both higher frequency and higher core count. I uploaded a spreadsheet in above post so you can check the trend for the Call Of Duty series.

The other argument I have is that games are designed to be able to run on whatever CPU is available at the moment of release. So basically game requirements will scale alongside CPU specs.  If you look at the list of i7 CPUs, you'll notice the core frequency isn't dropping but the core count is rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors

I'm just saying, we get daily threads about "my i5 is getting FPS drops in new games" and the same people in i7s are faring much better.

 

I believe at this point in time it is foolish to go with a 6/6 chip, with these examples being evidence that the minimal i7 investment now will pay off in the future.

 

it's a gamble of course, but its not insane to believe that a 6/6 chip will find itself struggling with games designed for 8 threaded applications.

[daz01710]

2 hours ago, Plutosaurus said:

I'm just saying, we get daily threads about "my i5 is getting FPS drops in new games" and the same people in i7s are faring much better.

 

I believe at this point in time it is foolish to go with a 6/6 chip, with these examples being evidence that the minimal i7 investment now will pay off in the future.

 

it's a gamble of course, but its not insane to believe that a 6/6 chip will find itself struggling with games designed for 8 threaded applications.

I see your point of view. But having the same number of cores as threads is not a problem at all. The important thing is the average clock speed per thread. For example, you needed a 2 × 3,06 Ghz CPU in 2011 to run COD modern warfare III, so, if in 2011 I had bought a 2 × 3,06 GHz CPU with 4 threads, thinking it would future proof it, I would have been wrong because when COD started making use of 4 threads a couple of years later, each thread had to operate at 3.3 GHz.

[Bearmann]

Looks pretty close, but the i7 8700 comes with a cooler.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK9SGU3JJY8

 

 

[Berfs1]

On 4/5/2019 at 2:05 PM, Princess Cadence said:

By the time the i7 8700 is not a viable option for high end gaming neither will the i7 9700K or i9 9900K will be either, OP will want whatever is current be it 10nm Intel or 7nm AMD.

 

All 3 processors are all the same architecture, Coffee Lake 14nm++, adding more cores to it won't change gaming performance as games will always favour the best single threaded performance you can throw at them, much like a Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 7 2700X ends up being the same on the greatest majority of games.

 

This incorrect if we're to consider there's no way the i5 9600K regardless if at 5ghz or not will match the i7's multi-threading capacity, even why it lacks the extra cache, so the main benefit of the i7 remains.

 

It's much of the same on all scenarios outside 1080p240hz, you see on 1440p and 4K even with a RTX 2080 Ti you're still GPU limited before the CPU is an issue, the difference between 4.3ghz and 5ghz is usually lower than one might expect.

 

In reality they are the same because it's common to see these processors when left at stock to sustain their all cores turbo (which is the same 4.3ghz) all the time.

 

This is actually incorrent because while the 9600K is indeed soldered have in mind it's an unlocked 95w TDP processor while the i7 8700 with thermal compound on its IHS is a locked 65W TDP processor.

 

The heat output of the i7 8700 is actually smaller and evens out any advantage the i5 9600K has from being soldered if you leave both fully at stock.

 

This is arguably, I'd say incorrect as well for having myself as an example the i7 8700 is capable of running my GTX 1080 Ti to it's full potential at 3440x1440p100hz never being a limiting factor while it's a more powerful and capable processor for content creation and multi-tasking.

 

Considering you can end up with a cheaper build using a micro-atx b360 and inexpensive cooling it's usually a better value proposition even for high end gaming.

 

As far as it seems, 9th gen is already completed and we'll have Comet Lake 10th Gen to replace it by the end of the year, sadly in reality it'll be a Coffee-Lake 14nm++ Refresh Refresh, with the only difference being the addition of 10 cores / 20 threads i9 to compete with Mainstream Ryzen 9 16 cores / 32 threads coming out in a couple of months.

 

We all know Intel always only uses the same chipset compatibility for 2 generations, that means all these current motherboards are likely to become waste soon.

 

Yes, frankly waiting Ryzen 3000 series is a great idea but even then the i7 8700 should remain extremely competitive against the 6c/12t Ryzen 3000 series variations.

The 8700 requires a more powerful cooler to sustain turbo frequencies without throttling. Also, while yes the 8700 is a locked 65W CPU and the 9600K is an unlocked 95W part, the 8700 pulls more than 65 (over 80W) when turbo boost is engaged, and this is why I don't always look at TDP, because Intel CPUs don't follow the standard base TDP when engaging Turbo Boost, and they can use more than 1.25x the stated TDP. There is a hard limit however Intel doesn't specify that usually, you have to check in something like Intel XTU. Also, while the 8700 IS better than current Ryzen 5 at the moment, with Ryzen, you get much better security, and soldered IHS, so lower temperatures, which is typically a good thing! Also, 6c12t Ryzen 3000 is, at least from my database, Ryzen 3s, while the Ryzen 5s will be 8c/16t, Ryzen 7s will be 12c/24t, and Ryzen 9s will be 16c/32t. Not to mention, the IPC improvement, AND more security than Intel. No real reason to choose the 8700 because upgrading is limited, while for AM4, you can get a 6 core right now, and have the option for an 8c, or a 12c or 16c later on. Oh and Ryzen 3000 will also bring way more efficiency than Intel, which means AMD will be the new king of everything (CPU wise) for mainstream. Also, I am pretty sure having Hyperthreading on a 6c CPU can actually lower your FPS by a few %. Not that big, but that does mean your CPU IS a bottleneck, albeit not a large one, it is something that could be increased, for example, through BCLK and forcing 1 GHz for FCLK (and BCLK of 102.5 of that will make the FCLK 1025 MHz). A lot of people don't know that the FCLK frequency does matter a bit, and increasing it from the standard 800 MHz, can bring substantial improvements to FPS, hence why I recommend high BCLKs (upwards of 125 MHz) when possible (which is now only doable on unlocked CPUs aside from Skylake).