What's a good replacement for Intel i7 5960x today?

[Pachuca]

I'm looking to replace my i7 5960x. Any ideas what would be a good replacement for it today?

 

I have an i7 8700k right now which sucks in my opinion compared to the 5960x, but I'm too lazy to rebuild the system so whatever... I'm looking to replace my system with something comparable to the i7 5960x. I was thinking Ryzen 9 5950x, but idk. Would a threadripper be better? Is the gaming performance so much worse on a threadripper?

[bellabichon]

Couple things I'd like to know before making a recommendation to ya:

1. What budget were you thinking for this upgrade?
2. What's your current full system specs?
3. Do you want to try and keep your current motherboard, or would you be open to upgrading to a newer chipset?

[Pachuca]

12 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

Couple things I'd like to know before making a recommendation to ya:

1. What budget were you thinking for this upgrade?
2. What's your current full system specs?
3. Do you want to try and keep your current motherboard, or would you be open to upgrading to a newer chipset?

Completely new upgrade is fine. I'm looking to modernize my system.

[bellabichon]

6 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

Completely new upgrade is fine. I'm looking to modernize my system.

How about budget and system specs? Just asking so I can make sure everything would be compatible with a new motherboard. 

[Pachuca]

1 minute ago, bellabichon said:

How about budget and system specs? Just asking so I can make sure everything would be compatible with a new motherboard. 

I only need new mobo and cpu. my gpu/ram are fine for now. 

[Chris Pratt]

Threadripper is only good for heavily multicore workloads (i.e. *not* gaming). For gaming, even something like a 3600 would probably do better. Similarly, the 5950X is a really bad value unless you need to use 32 simultaneous threads (which you don't for gaming).

 

The best value for gaming right now would be an Intel 11400 or a Ryzen 5600X (assuming you can get it at MSRP). However, 6 core chips likely have a clock on their usefulness at this point, so something like an 11600/11700 or 5800X would make more sense for long term. None of those are great values right now, though. You're paying a lot more for those two extra cores. The best value overall (again, assuming MSRP) is the 5900X. Nothing else comes close in price to performance, and Intel doesn't even have anything that can complete. 12 core is a little overkill for gaming, though, but not completely. Some games will already scale to that, but you won't get full utilization probably on most games for a while.

[Pachuca]

3 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

Threadripper is only good for heavily multicore workloads (i.e. *not* gaming). For gaming, even something like a 3600 would probably do better. Similarly, the 5950X is a really bad value unless you need to use 32 simultaneous threads (which you don't for gaming).

 

The best value for gaming right now would be an Intel 11400 or a Ryzen 5600X (assuming you can get it at MSRP). However, 6 core chips likely have a clock on their usefulness at this point, so something like an 11600/11700 or 5800X would make more sense for long term. None of those are great values right now, though. You're paying a lot more for those two extra cores. The best value overall (again, assuming MSRP) is the 5900X. Nothing else comes close in price to performance, and Intel doesn't even have anything that can complete. 12 core is a little overkill for gaming, though, but not completely. Some games will already scale to that, but you won't get full utilization probably on most games for a while.

Let me clarify. I'm looking for a workstation cpu that can handle gaming. That's why I was thinking of threadripper or 5950x. I don't really need all the extra pci stuff that threaderipper comes with or the headache of having to cool that thing. My i7 5960x was a great high end desktop cpu. I was able to overclock it to 4.6Ghz. I'm surprised just how much use I got out of it. I'm hoping the 5950x is similar and the extra core count would help, but I agree for the extra $$$ it's not worth it. Thank you for the input.

[Chris Pratt]

Just now, Pachuca said:

Let me clarify. I'm looking for a workstation cpu that can handle gaming. That's why I was thinking of threadripper or 5950x. I don't really need all the extra pci stuff that threaderipper comes with or the headache of having to cool that thing. My i7 5960x was a great high end desktop cpu. I was able to overclock it to 4.6Ghz. I'm surprised just how much use I got out of it. I'm hoping the 5950x is similar and the extra core count would help, but I agree for the extra $$$ it's not worth it. Thank you for the input.

Then get a 5900X.

[SupaKomputa]

37 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

I don't really need all the extra pci stuff that threaderipper comes

Don't get threadripper, 5900 or 5950 should be a good jump from your cpu.

[jwwagner25]

7 hours ago, Pachuca said:

Let me clarify. I'm looking for a workstation cpu that can handle gaming. That's why I was thinking of threadripper or 5950x. I don't really need all the extra pci stuff that threaderipper comes with or the headache of having to cool that thing. My i7 5960x was a great high end desktop cpu. I was able to overclock it to 4.6Ghz. I'm surprised just how much use I got out of it. I'm hoping the 5950x is similar and the extra core count would help, but I agree for the extra $$$ it's not worth it. Thank you for the input.

you literally answered your own question dude. your options are pretty obvious; 5900x, 5950x, or threadripper which seems to be unnecessary by your own words, not needing the pcie lanes, plus the crap single thread perf. Do you need 12 or 16 cores, is up to you-and only you- to decide.