Best CPU?

[kittsykat]

Hi everyone,

 

I used to be super into PC hardware and LTT in general.  The past few years during college I haven't really been paying attention to the whole scene.  I am planning on building a new computer and to be honest I can afford basically whatever, yet I'm not trying to spend unnecessary money for super minor performance buffs.

 

What is the current best CPU on the market.  My biases make me lean more towards Intel (I have heard that AMD has some great options nowadays).  What's the best option/options on both sides? 

 

My main use is competitive PC gaming - I'm planning on buying the new NVIDIA card when it comes out.  

[svmlegacy]

3 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

Hi everyone,

 

I used to be super into PC hardware and LTT in general.  The past few years during college I haven't really been paying attention to the whole scene.  I am planning on building a new computer and to be honest I can afford basically whatever.

 

What is the current best CPU on the market.  My biases make me lean more towards Intel (I have heard that AMD has some great options nowadays).  What's the best option/options on both sides? 

 

My main use is competitive PC gaming - I'm planning on buying the new NVIDIA card when it comes out.  

For gaming, the Intel Core i9-10900K or i9-10900KF, although it's very closely followed by Ryzen's, i7's, and i5's.

 

The KF is functionally the same as the 10900K, but with the iGPU disabled. Not sure if there's any different in average OC capability between K and KF CPU's.

[kittsykat]

2 minutes ago, svmlegacy said:

For gaming, the Intel Core i9-10900K or i9-10900KF, although it's very closely followed by Ryzen's, i7's, and i5's.

 

The KF is functionally the same as the 10900K, but with the iGPU disabled. Not sure if there's any different in average OC capability between K and KF CPU's.

Great I'll take a look at those.  Thanks so much!  

 

What's your opinion on the intel X-series?

[kittsykat]

3 minutes ago, svmlegacy said:

For gaming, the Intel Core i9-10900K or i9-10900KF, although it's very closely followed by Ryzen's, i7's, and i5's.

 

The KF is functionally the same as the 10900K, but with the iGPU disabled. Not sure if there's any different in average OC capability between K and KF CPU's.

Also would the disabled iGPU allow for more overclocking in theory?

[NarwhalKing33]

I would agree, but with 4000 series around the corner I would wait about a month to two week before doing it.

[Arrogath]

Kind of depends, the current intel platform is slightly better for lower resolution high frame rate builds but lacks pcie 4. This doesn’t matter much unless you plan to have extra pcie cards and won’t have a full 16 lanes for your gpu
 

With stock settings the 10900k is Intels fastest option, but if you don’t need 10 cores a quick and dirty overclock of the 6 or 8 core will do about as well in games without wasting your budget as much. Quad cores are still available but games are becoming more multi threaded so they will likely be left behind on some titles.

 

AMD Ryzen is just a really good all round bunch of cpus, but still lags behind intel in certain workloads including many games. At higher resolutions these differences are less notable but the gap may widen with new graphics options. I personally like the platform, and would suggest it if you want access to a non hedt 16 core cpu

[williamb1]

if you wanted the best of the best and had money to spend ryzen threadripper would be the best

 

[Bombastinator]

Intel has highest single thread so the 10900 stuff applies for games. AMD has slightly slower chips but better price/performance and much better Non-gaming level heavy multicore, partially because they have more cores.  It depends on what app you are running.

 

another factor is OC. AMD talks a lot about how everything they sell is unlocked but what that tends to mean is they self overclock so there’s very very little extra available for OC later.  Microsoft stuff doesn’t OC as well as stuff used to back in the day but they can still do it a little.  The result is if you don’t OC, ryzen generally wins price performance.  If you do and you’re playing games intel wins top speed by more than inches, but you pay a premium for it. 

[SupaKomputa]

For competitive gaming 10700 or 10900 would be the best option.

Just don't buy the 9000 cpu.

AMD would only be slightly higher if not the same on the next release.

As you are waiting for Nvidia cards, better also wait for the new AMD CPU.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

The best gaming CPU right now is a 10900k. AMD has their CPUs coming out in a month or two. They seem to be Intel killers, but we are not too sure. Wait until October, anyways . The best Consumer cpu is the Ryzen Threadripper 3990x. It is a 64c/128t cpu. It is a rendering mosntor. To quote Linus, They should call it Threaddisinigrator at this point.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

For competitive gaming 10700 or 10900 would be the best option.

Just don't buy the 9000 cpu.

AMD would only be slightly higher if not the same on the next release.

As you are waiting for Nvidia cards, better also wait for the new AMD CPU.

10700 non k perhaps. 10700k If you get one that will OC well.  I understand peculiarities of 10th gen has made the silicon lottery particularly harsh for 10700ks.  That kind of thing tends to make unannounced changes though.  Imho the main reason to get a 10900K is because the binning tends to be better for whatever reason. 

[Fatih19]

28 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

Great I'll take a look at those.  Thanks so much!  

 

What's your opinion on the intel X-series?

Unless you need a HEDT feature set but can't pony up for a Threadripper, it's not recommended.

[VeganJoy]

theres a bit of strange info in this thread but for purely gaming purposes the 10900k/kf is your best bet right now. HEDT loses a lot of single core performance and thus is slower for games, plus its even more expensive. for 1440p the gap between ryzen and intel narrows significantly and there is no effective difference at 4k.

52 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

I'm not trying to spend unnecessary money for super minor performance buffs.

id get a 10600k if you just wanna build and be done with it. lowest overclocking requirements out of 10th gen and the best bang for your buck. but if you dont overclock theres no point in spending the extra bucks for intel, and if you wanna play at higher resolutions than 1080p then a cheap ryzen 3600 would be the best value.

[svmlegacy]

57 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

Also would the disabled iGPU allow for more overclocking in theory?

In theory, no. Generally the iGPU stays disabled when you run a add-in GPU anyways. It depends on Intel's yeilds, the F-series helps Intel not throw-out chips with iGPU defects. I've yet to see any study to see if this correlates to a better or worse core, on average. Of course, you can always get a golden sample or potato OC'er from either model.

[Bombastinator]

One more thought is the 10600k. Again binning.

 

a 10700k is a 10900k with two cores locked out. A 10600k is a 10900k with 4 cores locked out.  For whatever reason this pushes OC binning up again. You get a decent chance at high OC with a 10600k.  The problem is the thing is 6/12 which might matter a lot come 2021.

[kittsykat]

9 minutes ago, VeganJoy said:

theres a bit of strange info in this thread but for purely gaming purposes the 10900k/kf is your best bet right now. HEDT loses a lot of single core performance and thus is slower for games, plus its even more expensive. for 1440p the gap between ryzen and intel narrows significantly and there is no effective difference at 4k.

id get a 10600k if you just wanna build and be done with it. lowest overclocking requirements out of 10th gen and the best bang for your buck. but if you dont overclock theres no point in spending the extra bucks for intel, and if you wanna play at higher resolutions than 1080p then a cheap ryzen 3600 would be the best value.

why not a 10700K?  Thank you for the response!

[kittsykat]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

One more thought is the 10600k. Again binning.

 

a 10700k is a 10900k with two cores locked out. A 10600k is a 10900k with 4 cores locked out.  For whatever reason this pushes OC binning up again. You get a decent chance at high OC with a 10600k.  The problem is the thing is 6/12 which might matter a lot come 2021.

I'm sorry I don't think i really understand...what exactly is the difference between the 10700k and the 10600K?

[VeganJoy]

1 minute ago, kittsykat said:

why not a 10700K?  Thank you for the response!

10700k is eh value and theyre binned badly. you wont be using 8 cores in games so the 10600k is like 99% of the framerate for 100 bucks less and better thermals. 6c12t vs 8c16t

[svmlegacy]

3 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

I'm sorry I don't think i really understand...what exactly is the difference between the 10700k and the 10600K?

10600K is a 6-core part.
10700K is an 8-core.

 

Both have the same silicon design as the 10900K, but with a different amount of disabled cores. More enabled cores means a bigger chance of a potato core which lowers overall all-core overclocking.

 

This is why binning exists, and why high end parts are so expensive despite costing the exact same to manufacture.

[kittsykat]

2 minutes ago, svmlegacy said:

10600K is a 6-core part.
10700K is an 8-core.

 

Both have the same silicon design as the 10900K, but with a different amount of disabled cores. More enabled cores means a bigger chance of a potato core which lowers overall all-core overclocking.

 

This is why binning exists, and why high end parts are so expensive despite costing the exact same to manufacture.

Ahhh makes sense thank you so much!  

[kittsykat]

3 minutes ago, VeganJoy said:

10700k is eh value and theyre binned badly. you wont be using 8 cores in games so the 10600k is like 99% of the framerate for 100 bucks less and better thermals. 6c12t vs 8c16t

Makes sense thank you!  wouldn't the 8 cores "future proof" me more than the 6 would?

[kittsykat]

4 minutes ago, svmlegacy said:

10600K is a 6-core part.
10700K is an 8-core.

 

Both have the same silicon design as the 10900K, but with a different amount of disabled cores. More enabled cores means a bigger chance of a potato core which lowers overall all-core overclocking.

 

This is why binning exists, and why high end parts are so expensive despite costing the exact same to manufacture.

wouldn't the 8 cores "future proof" me more than the 6 would?

[svmlegacy]

1 minute ago, kittsykat said:

wouldn't the 8 cores "future proof" me more than the 6 would?

I reccomended the 10900K from the start, because it performs the best.

 

Future-proofing is rolling the dice. Nobody knows for sure.

 

Historically, not really. The 2500K stopped being viable around the same time as the 2600K.

6-Core i7-990X's don't hold a candle to Ryzen 5's, especially at the same clock speeds.

That's my experience, anyways.

 

One benefit, historically, is that top end parts hold their value well, compared to mid range parts. /As long as it doesn't get surpassed later in the platforms life, like the 1800X/

[VeganJoy]

2 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

Makes sense thank you!  wouldn't the 8 cores "future proof" me more than the 6 would?

i mean perhaps but at that point you can upgrade to a 10700k then for less, by that logic a 10900k would be more futureproofing  

 

we cant generally make strong predictions for what constitutes a good futureproof build. that being said, in my build i've left a solid upgrade path available, i got a board with pcie 4.0 with guaranteed x16 lanes to my gpu, and i got an overkill psu/cooler. but for actual performance decisions we cant know. people who bought 2080tis for 1200-1500 bucks didnt get a very good return on their investment, but people who bought a 4790k on release did. you really cant know so imo get what you can reliably predict youll need in the near future and leave a good upgrade path for unforeseeable developments.

[Bombastinator]

18 minutes ago, kittsykat said:

I'm sorry I don't think i really understand...what exactly is the difference between the 10700k and the 10600K?

My understanding is intel only makes one chip. It’s been that way for a very long time.  The deal is the process doesn’t create perfect chips a lot of the time though, so what they do is test all of them and grade them according to what parts work well.  Basically all 10th gen chips come off the wafer as 10900ks. They will have flawed bits though. Intel has a way to turn off sections of a chip that don’t behave the way they want. The can turn off the iGPU, overclocking, and each chip individually.

A 10900k is a perfect chip.  A 10900 is one where all 10 cores work, but a few of them are so high wattage that they can’t OC.

a 10700k is a flawed 10900k with one or two cores so flawed they don’t work at all.   And down it goes.  A 10600k has its four worst cores locked out. So a chip that couldn’t make the 1700k cut, but locking out that many cores for whatever reason frequently means the remaining ones age good enough to clock well. One might be able to take a lead 10700k and make a gold 10600k out of it by turning off the slow/hot cores.