Question on investing into SLI 2080 ti vs 9900k vs waiting for 10th gen i9

[hitme987]

Hi folks,

My current PC specs: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cvpyn7

 

I'm looking for better fps in Ultrawide 3440x1440 resolution in games. I own a threadripper 2950x and a Nvidia 2080ti. I built a threadripper build for video encoding purposes but these days mostly doing gaming.

 

I was getting another new RTX 2080ti at 850$ and thought to take the deal. Had the below 2 ideas in my mind:

 

1) Do you guys suggest replacing threadripper 2950x with a i9 9900k would give better gaming performance than having a Nvlink/SLI 2080ti? 

2) Buying RTX 2080Ti for now to make it a SLI setup and wait to replace 2950x with a 10th gen i9 ? I have read 9900k has very poor cost vs performance ratio.

 

I actually felt 2950x was decent in games especially if you give a quad channel low latency high speed RAM. I am running quad channel 32GB @3200 Mhz and was seeing much better fps than 2400Mhz ram. Some gaming benchmarks of my current setup, I am running everything at ultra and 3440x1440 resolution and for SOTTR I am using MSAAx4 Anti-Aliasing.:

 

1) Hitman2 Benchmark:  Min of 17.78 FPS, Max of 119.65 FPS, Avg: 73.41 FPS. Score: 72.06FPS

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/9Z5v7qz

 

2) SOTTR Benchmark: Frames rendered: 8731, 100% GPU Bound, Avg fps: 55

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/vdP3pjB

 

I would like to increase atleast 20 fps more on the Avg fps for the above games.

 

PS: I am aware that all games dont support SLI but i've seen decent improvements for GTA 5, Borderlands 2, Hitman 2, SOTR etc and I'm happy with the 20-40% boost SLI brings in these games.

 

Let me know whats better in your opinion. 

[Haro]

1 minute ago, hitme987 said:

Do you guys suggest replacing threadripper 2950x with a i9 9900k would give better gaming performance than having a Nvlink/SLI 2080ti?

Getting a better cpu won't make NVlink/ sli better 

Just don't bother with sli as it doesn't scale well and has little to no performance benifits.

2 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

 

Let me know whats better in your opinion

Wait for zen 3 because it's right around the corner and then check it's performance improvements and the decide which platform you'll move to if you want.

[Mateyyy]

4 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

Do you guys suggest replacing threadripper 2950x with a i9 9900k would give better gaming performance than having a Nvlink/SLI 2080ti? 

Yes, because Threadripper CPUs, particularly 1st and 2nd gen, were horrible for gaming, and also because SLI is dead.

 

That being said, a 9900K is a horrible buy in 2020, considering the numerous other newer options both AMD and Intel offer.

I'd suggest waiting for Zen 3 which is coming later this year.

[SupaKomputa]

SLI is dead and it's never going to recover. The thing is SLI have latency problem. You might wanna get a better GPU than doing SLI.

Threadripper is not a gaming platform, so yes 9900k will beat it, but you probably going to get better result getting the 10th gen.

[Lord Vile]

27 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

Hi folks,

My current PC specs: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cvpyn7

 

I'm looking for better fps in Ultrawide 3440x1440 resolution in games. I own a threadripper 2950x and a Nvidia 2080ti. I built a threadripper build for video encoding purposes but these days mostly doing gaming.

 

I was getting another new RTX 2080ti at 850$ and thought to take the deal. Had the below 2 ideas in my mind:

 

1) Do you guys suggest replacing threadripper 2950x with a i9 9900k would give better gaming performance than having a Nvlink/SLI 2080ti? 

2) Buying RTX 2080Ti for now to make it a SLI setup and wait to replace 2950x with a 10th gen i9 ? I have read 9900k has very poor cost vs performance ratio.

 

I actually felt 2950x was decent in games especially if you give a quad channel low latency high speed RAM. I am running quad channel 32GB @3200 Mhz and was seeing much better fps than 2400Mhz ram. Some gaming benchmarks of my current setup, I am running everything at ultra and 3440x1440 resolution and for SOTTR I am using MSAAx4 Anti-Aliasing.:

 

1) Hitman2 Benchmark:  Min of 17.78 FPS, Max of 119.65 FPS, Avg: 73.41 FPS. Score: 72.06FPS

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/9Z5v7qz

 

2) SOTTR Benchmark: Frames rendered: 8731, 100% GPU Bound, Avg fps: 55

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/vdP3pjB

 

I would like to increase atleast 20 fps more on the Avg fps for the above games.

 

PS: I am aware that all games dont support SLI but i've seen decent improvements for GTA 5, Borderlands 2, Hitman 2, SOTR etc and I'm happy with the 20-40% boost SLI brings in these games.

 

Let me know whats better in your opinion. 

Personally would go Zen 4 if you're waiting and the 9900K isn't a great investment considering the platform is dead, the 10900K boards are also not likely to have much compatibility if any moving forward. 

 

Multi GPU is dead it's literally a waste of money in 90% of cases

[Raina21]

30 minutes ago, hitme987 said:

1) Do you guys suggest replacing threadripper 2950x with a i9 9900k would give better gaming performance than having a Nvlink/SLI 2080ti? 

Replace it, but not with a 9900k, Instead wait for both AMD and Intel to release their latest chips. This way, you could also benefit as I am pretty sure that Intel will play some price games just to remain competitive. Also, the threadrippers were meant for server and heavy duty workstation work, not for gaming. Thats like getting a Xeon to game on. Nearly no better performance, just the server grade chips are costlier(here in India they are, dunno about where you live). A dual 2080ti offers no benefit over a single in most games, and also most games dont recognize double GPU(Linus said in one of his videos I think, where he had some issue related to that sort of thing). To sum up, In my opinion, just go for a 10th gen i9(if it's Intel you want, but just wait for AMD 3rd gen just to get some better pricing)

[Aragorn-]

If you really are 100% GPU bound, then changing the CPU wont help you.

 

SLI is also a waste of time though.

 

Wait for the next gen GPU's and buy one of those.

 

CPU wise, a 3900x will likely be a decent step up from your 2950 without losing too much rendering performance. Upcoming Zen3 will likely be faster, but its a question of cost vs price etc. Is the current discounted 3900 (or even 3700/3800) pricing better value than a full priced Zen3 part? Who knows.

 

I would avoid the 9900k though at this point.

[Bobbysixjp]

If you’ve got the money to run two 2080 Ti’s in SLI, then why not go for a 10900K? 

[jones177]

To give you an idea of what you can expect with a Intel 5ghz CPU I ran your settings at 3440 X 1440 in SOTTR.

 

Your SOTTR settings are even higher than the highest preset.  I also added the settings I used to play the game less RT.

I have more than two RTX 2080 tis. The reason I don't run two of them together now is that I don't need the performance. My 2080 ti are doing fine. It is my CPUs that are the issue and even a i9 10900k is not an upgrade for me. 

I have seen quite a few i9 10900k videos and I have come to the conclusion that it depends more on the quality of the silicon and the cooling solution of the 2080 ti used in the tests weather it can outperform other 5ghz Intel CPUs in games.  So to me only if you need the cores and want the 5ghz plus gaming experience do you need a i9 10900k. 

If I needed a CPU now I would get a i7 10700k since it is a cheaper i9 9900k and available. 

 

The reason I don't need more performance than a single 2080 ti now is with my 5ghz Intel six cores I am bottlenecked at 1440p in most AAA games with my RTX 2080 ti running at 2040mhz and above. Basically my 24/7 2080 ti overclock. This will get worse with the nex gen cards but with them comes HDMI 2.1 and with that 4k 120hz on my OLEDS. These bottlenecks come in at around 130fps but my OLEDS do 120hz so not a problem. It would be a problem if I would have stuck with my 144hz 1440p monitor.

 

At 3440 X 1440 the bottleneck is even less of an issue but you can see it creeping in on my score with my play settings. 

 

 

 

 

 

[hitme987]

Thank you all for your suggestions. After even further research I decided to drop my SLI plan and wait for Zen3/11th gen i9 series.

 

On 7/7/2020 at 2:27 AM, Bobbysixjp said:

If you’ve got the money to run two 2080 Ti’s in SLI, then why not go for a 10900K? 

Well, the second SLI I was getting for a good price at my place. So, was thinking to go for it.

 

On 7/7/2020 at 3:20 AM, jones177 said:

To give you an idea of what you can expect with a Intel 5ghz CPU I ran your settings at 3440 X 1440 in SOTTR.

 

Your SOTTR settings are even higher than the highest preset.  I also added the settings I used to play the game less RT.

I have more than two RTX 2080 tis. The reason I don't run two of them together now is that I don't need the performance. My 2080 ti are doing fine. It is my CPUs that are the issue and even a i9 10900k is not an upgrade for me. 

I have seen quite a few i9 10900k videos and I have come to the conclusion that it depends more on the quality of the silicon and the cooling solution of the 2080 ti used in the tests weather it can outperform other 5ghz Intel CPUs in games.  So to me only if you need the cores and want the 5ghz plus gaming experience do you need a i9 10900k. 

If I needed a CPU now I would get a i7 10700k since it is a cheaper i9 9900k and available. 

 

The reason I don't need more performance than a single 2080 ti now is with my 5ghz Intel six cores I am bottlenecked at 1440p in most AAA games with my RTX 2080 ti running at 2040mhz and above. Basically my 24/7 2080 ti overclock. This will get worse with the nex gen cards but with them comes HDMI 2.1 and with that 4k 120hz on my OLEDS. These bottlenecks come in at around 130fps but my OLEDS do 120hz so not a problem. It would be a problem if I would have stuck with my 144hz 1440p monitor.

 

At 3440 X 1440 the bottleneck is even less of an issue but you can see it creeping in on my score with my play settings. 

 

 

 

 

 

This was an interesting comparison, I changed my SOTTR graphic settings to your settings and was able to get an avg fps of 93, also my benchmark was more 23% GPU bound, inclining onto CPU being a bottleneck. 30 more fps with 9900k is a great deal of improvement for sure.

Thanks for posting the benchmark! Appreciate it.

 

On 7/6/2020 at 11:59 PM, Raina21 said:

Replace it, but not with a 9900k, Instead wait for both AMD and Intel to release their latest chips. This way, you could also benefit as I am pretty sure that Intel will play some price games just to remain competitive. Also, the threadrippers were meant for server and heavy duty workstation work, not for gaming. Thats like getting a Xeon to game on. Nearly no better performance, just the server grade chips are costlier(here in India they are, dunno about where you live). A dual 2080ti offers no benefit over a single in most games, and also most games dont recognize double GPU(Linus said in one of his videos I think, where he had some issue related to that sort of thing). To sum up, In my opinion, just go for a 10th gen i9(if it's Intel you want, but just wait for AMD 3rd gen just to get some better pricing)

 

Well, I am from India and was able to grab threadripper 2950x with MSI x399 gaming pro carbon ac at 75k INR in an Amazon sale 3 years back. It was a good buy too, performs like a beast in workstation tasks and is decent at gaming, but I needed more fps. I was able to grab another 2080ti at 70k INR and thought to do a SLI build with it. Dropping the plan after seeing your responses.

[Raina21]

On 7/11/2020 at 7:51 PM, hitme987 said:

Well, I am from India and was able to grab threadripper 2950x with MSI x399 gaming pro carbon ac at 75k INR in an Amazon sale 3 years back. It was a good buy too, performs like a beast in workstation tasks and is decent at gaming, but I needed more fps. I was able to grab another 2080ti at 70k INR and thought to do a SLI build with it. Dropping the plan after seeing your responses.

I am also from India, and I checked all the dealers and websites, nobody was offering me a 2080ti for less than 1.25 lacs. You got lucky there, mate.

[SansVarnic]

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