Best intel CPU for gaming(+ VR)? What is most overkill? Infinite budget - New build from scratch

[B Money]

Budget (including currency):  No budget - discounts are available to me

Country: Ireland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  All Games and VR games, 4k video playback

Other details Will be building a new desktop in a few months. Planning on a MEGA SPEC build. Best performance for gaming, little to no compromise.  Aiming to comfortably reach 4k 60hz.

Hi guys! This is my first time on LTT forum. Long time viewer of the show. I am a PC gamer, never built my own....yet

I was wondering if anyone out there can help me choose the best Intel chip for gaming.

I am planning my new PC build. I have a contact who works fairly high up in intel and can get a deeply discounted chip for me. 
So price / performance ratio or 'bang for your buck' is not important. Performance for gaming is the only metric. 

I was looking at the the i9 series. Trying to decide if Xtreme series is better.
Should I just be going for whatever has the highest base clock speed? As I heard the boost clock is temporary and will throttle after a while.

What is the daddy intel chip for gaming??

I know new AMDs are really good, but Im just asking about intel today .

 

Thank you in advance for any help or advice


 

 

[SEAL62]

The Xe series has kind of gotten old by now so I wouldn't reccomend that. If you want the best gaming CPu go for the new 11th gen i9 desktop CPU that is about to launch, doesn't really get any better than that considering gaming and Intel.

[Vishera]

17 minutes ago, SEAL62 said:

If you want the best gaming CPu go for the new 11th gen i9 desktop CPU that is about to launch, doesn't really get any better than that considering gaming and Intel.

Well,AMD beats Intel's new chips with their Zen 3 CPUs,even in gaming.

[SEAL62]

@Vishera you are correct, but the qestion clearly stated that we are only looking at Intel CPUs which I also mentioned in my reply.

[porina]

4k60 is more GPU limited than CPU limited and pretty much any mid range CPU can do it comfortably.

 

Anyway, on the CPU, haven't looked at gaming benchmarks but 10900k (or KF) is the logical current choice on Intel side. It basically has all the cores and clock in the consumer lineup. 2nd choice is the slightly slower 10850k. Generally speaking the figure you need to look for is the all core turbo, which annoyingly isn't listed as standard by Intel. This is the max boost you get when all cores are in use, or at least, many cores are in use. Get decent cooling on it and it'll boost as far as it can. 

 

I would NOT recommend the HEDT series (X299 chipset) as although they offer more cores, they don't reach the same clocks. Also, their different cache architecture doesn't behave as well for uses like gaming. Overall, you'd get less gaming performance than on a mainstream CPU.

 

Next generation Intel desktop is due out later this month. Initial pre-release testing still leaves many questions to be answered but it doesn't look like it will be significantly different in gaming. Assuming you're getting the CPU later then full reviews should be out by then.

[Vishera]

34 minutes ago, B Money said:

What is the daddy intel chip for gaming??

The 10900K is the best you can get for gaming on Intel.

[B Money]

Wow guys, 
thanks for all that info. 

I was a little lost with the 20 different i9 options. I feel more secure with my preliminary 10900k choice now.

I think i will ask my contact in intel about the 11th gen 900k. As it'll be a couple of months before I build this rig.

Thanks again guys, great community 

[brob]

You will definitely want 11th gen running on a Z590 motherboard so that the RTXx 3090 and m.2 dive can take advantage of PCIe 4.0.