Another "9900K vs." topic!

aisle9 · March 9, 2021

This time 10700F. Here's my situation: my old Gigabyte B450 board took a dump on me a little over a week ago. I ordered a Gigabyte Z390 Gaming M board off of eBay to drop my 8086K into, but when the board arrived, it had some wonkiness with the RAM. Irritated, I went straight to Micro Center and picked up a 10700F ($230) and an MSI B460M Pro-VDH WiFi ($80 after MC discount). I ended up being into the Z390 board for $70, and can't return it at this point, no matter what. So the total outlay is $380.

Since then, although I don't entirely trust the Z390 board yet, I have somehow managed to fix it (wonky BIOS, I think) and it's rock solid stable with my 8086K. That said, the 8086K is a museum piece for me, and I've kind of become addicted to the 10700F. If I were to exchange the B460M board and 10700F for a $250 9900K, my outlay would go from $230+$80+70 to $250+70. $380 to $320. I do want to get the two extra cores for productivity work, because in my brief time with the 10700F, those two extra cores and the higher IPC over the 8086K have been nice. The pros and cons of each CPU, as I see them:

10700F pros: Faster IPC, better efficiency, lower power draw (?), sits comfortably at a 4.5GHz all-core turbo indefinitely, the damn thing's already in there and I'm tired of rebuilding my damn computer. Cons: Considerably more expensive to keep this.

9900K pros: Higher clock speeds, cheaper to replace the 10700 stuff with this. Cons: Higher power draw, do I lose enough in the way of IPC that even the higher clock speeds don't make up for it? Z390 motherboard might be slightly wonky, although I think BIOS flashes probably solved it. Also, I lose access to that sexy black Intel stock cooler. Because who doesn't want a little black dress on their CPU cooler?

Things that don't really factor into this: overclocking. Yes, I have the ability to if I go with the 9900K, but that's more of an occasional tinkering toy for me that anything I really use. I'm more concerned about performance at stock.

Things I don't give one fast, unsatisfying f**k about: "latest and greatest", especially if it's ninja-worded in there as "upgrade path". I was never going to upgrade from 10th gen to 11th gen anyway. The plan was to go straight to a DDR5 platform from my 1600, but with my B450 board going to hell, that's not happening. To reiterate, I do not care about the generation prefix numbers on whatever CPU I end up with. All I care about is value for the dollar and stock clock performance, and whether or not there's really $60 worth of value in keeping the 10700F.

Thoughts?

CommanderAlex · March 9, 2021

15 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

All I care about is value for the dollar and stock clock performance, and whether or not there's really $60 worth of value in keeping the 10700F.

I'd personally would just stick with the 9900K and return the 10700F and save that money for a DDR5 system.

16 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Because who doesn't want a little black dress on their CPU cooler?

Not like when I purchased my 10980XE at Micro Center. Went to pick it up and was in this very soft microfiber pull string black bag with the Intel logo on the bottom right corner.

Mister Woof · March 9, 2021

This is a lot of simple math but my brain is simply too lazy to do it.

There's really no IPC difference between the 9900k and 10700F - it's just minor improvements in built-in security and thermals which are not important on the 10700F since it's locked. Given the 9900k is higher clocked and can be overclocked, it will perform better generally speaking, especially since the 10700F can't be overclocked.

The 10700F is nice in that it's just set it and forget it, especially on a B-series board. It will run cooler as well due to improved thermals on the 10th generation as well as having more built-in security mitigations that don't impact performance like they do on the 9900k. But it's small.

I would probably find some sucker to buy the 9900k at a high price and then just stick your 8086k back on it and leave it at stock settings if you want to preserve the chip from overclocking, and daily drive the 10700F if you're cool with that.

You'll have a harder time selling the 10700F than the 9900k on the secondhand market.

aisle9 · March 9, 2021

3 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

This is a lot of simple math but my brain is simply too lazy to do it.

There's really no IPC difference between the 9900k and 10700F - it's just minor improvements in built-in security and thermals which are not important on the 10700F since it's locked. Given the 9900k is higher clocked and can be overclocked, it will perform better generally speaking, especially since the 10700F can't be overclocked.

You know, if this is what it comes down to, I might just return the 10700F and its board, then pick up a 9900K instead. I'm slightly addicted to the higher power of the two extra cores at this point, so I would like to at least go with the 9900K. I'm just struggling to justify spending that extra $60 on a Z390 board I really have no use for if I keep the 10700F.

One more little tweak just came to mind: I'd like to pick up an Inwin 301 for whatever system I end up going with. I'm looking at moving cross-country in a few months, and want to get things as small as possible. Would a 9900K, even at stock, turn that compact beauty into a convection oven?

Mister Woof · March 9, 2021

15 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

You know, if this is what it comes down to, I might just return the 10700F and its board, then pick up a 9900K instead. I'm slightly addicted to the higher power of the two extra cores at this point, so I would like to at least go with the 9900K. I'm just struggling to justify spending that extra $60 on a Z390 board I really have no use for if I keep the 10700F.

One more little tweak just came to mind: I'd like to pick up an Inwin 301 for whatever system I end up going with. I'm looking at moving cross-country in a few months, and want to get things as small as possible. Would a 9900K, even at stock, turn that compact beauty into a convection oven?

Personally, I don't like closed front cases anymore.

aisle9 · March 9, 2021

11 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Personally, I don't like closed front cases anymore.

I'm not a big fan of them, but you get to a size point where it's hard to find (reasonably priced) cases that have open fronts and aren't total crap. I'm a big fan of mATX, and I know I might be the only one of us left who doesn't buy mATX chassis intending to use them as a big ITX enclosure. Most of those "big ITX" cases are covered side to side in tempered glass and may or may not ventilate worth a damn. Looking at you, 280X and 301 and O11 Mini and........(keeps going)

Mister Woof · March 9, 2021

4 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

I'm not a big fan of them, but you get to a size point where it's hard to find (reasonably priced) cases that have open fronts and aren't total crap. I'm a big fan of mATX, and I know I might be the only one of us left who doesn't buy mATX chassis intending to use them as a big ITX enclosure. Most of those "big ITX" cases are covered side to side in tempered glass and may or may not ventilate worth a damn. Looking at you, 280X and 301 and O11 Mini and........(keeps going)

Take a look at the Phanteks P300a

It's quite compact and has decent airflow.

For mATX, consider Thermal take Versa H18