Need suggestions for a new CPU, and is it even viable in this current climate?

[Gileotine]

Evening everyone. I'm not sure where to put this.. maybe in PC building? But it is CPU related..

 

So I built my computer around 3-4 years ago. Here are my specs from my old old old forum post back in the day

CPU	Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15
Motherboard	EVGA - Z370 Classified K ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory	$99.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	Gigabyte RTX 2070

 

So this build has kept me afloat for these three years, but lately with more modern games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite, I'm unable to play the games at high anymore even on 1080p. Actually, halo runs okay but only if I close literally everything else and tune some graphics down to medium. When I pop open the task manager the poor CPU is running at 100% constantly and the game is chugging. I don't know if my GPU is bottlenecking, but I don't really know how to tell or feel that. All I know is that my CPU is stressing out and I think it needs to retire.
 

My question is what would you guys suggest? I don't mind swapping over to AMD if there's a better price point/motherboard. But I assume that a new motherboard, especially in this climate, and because I live in Japan, might be a little expensive. My budget for this upgrade is around 6-700 dollars incl shipping. I also have a really beefy cooler, but I've never experimented with overclocking. Would that help things a little..?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Greyson

[RONOTHAN##]

First things first, overclock the ever living crap out of that CPU and see if you're still having issues. 9th gen Intel did overclock fairly well, getting up to about 5GHz easily before hitting a wall. That extra 10% might help you out enough to make it so you can stand another couple months for Alder Lakes early adopter issues to iron themselves out and AMD to release their next gen stuff. That said, that CPU should be plenty for running with a 2070, so my guess is there might be something else going wrong with this system. 

[Gileotine]

24 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

First things first, overclock the ever living crap out of that CPU and see if you're still having issues. 9th gen Intel did overclock fairly well, getting up to about 5GHz easily before hitting a wall. That extra 10% might help you out enough to make it so you can stand another couple months for Alder Lakes early adopter issues to iron themselves out and AMD to release their next gen stuff. That said, that CPU should be plenty for running with a 2070, so my guess is there might be something else going wrong with this system. 

I'll look up on how to overclock it, but I don't wanna fry the damn thing. I'll check out how to do it.

Otherwise, what else might be wrong with it? It's not overheating, and the GPU seems to be doing alright. What could possibly be cranking the thing up to 100%?

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

I'll look up on how to overclock it, but I don't wanna fry the damn thing. I'll check out how to do it.

Otherwise, what else might be wrong with it? It's not overheating, and the GPU seems to be doing alright. What could possibly be cranking the thing up to 100%?

Main things I can think of either the CPU isn't boosting correctly and it's stuck under base clock, or there's some sort of background task eating up a large amount of the CPU. 

 

As for how to overclock, just make sure that you don't put the voltage above 1.35v and you should be fine. You can safely go up to about 1.45-1.5, but you're likely to have degradation fairly quickly at those voltages, so 1.35 is the recommended voltage for daily usage (especially since 9th gen runs really hot, so much higher than that will likely cause temps to be too high to control). Set the voltage at 1.25 and increase the multiplier by 1 and run in Prime95 for 10 minutes to half an hour. If it passes, increase the multiplier. If it fails, increase the voltage if temps are fine, or lower the multiplier down if you're using too much voltage and/or your temps are too high. Once you think you've found that balance, run Prime95 for 2+ hours to make sure it's stable. 

[--SID--]

1 hour ago, Gileotine said:

My question is what would you guys suggest?

9600K is 6 core only and lacks hyperthreading. A decent upgrade without replacing the motherboard is a i9-9900K.

 

RAM is a bit slow. 3200C16 is recommanded.

[YoungBlade]

I'd try overclocking the CPU and memory first to see if that fixes it. Any stuttering issues I had with my 9600K+2060 Super were fixed by a 4.8GHz all core overclock. Although my RAM was DDR4-3000 CL16, so I had an advantage there, too.

[Gileotine]

27 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

I'd try overclocking the CPU and memory first to see if that fixes it. Any stuttering issues I had with my 9600K+2060 Super were fixed by a 4.8GHz all core overclock. Although my RAM was DDR4-3000 CL16, so I had an advantage there, too.

I'll overclock it, but I'm curious about AMD side. Is that out of the range of possibility if I wanted to upgrade?

[YoungBlade]

52 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

I'll overclock it, but I'm curious about AMD side. Is that out of the range of possibility if I wanted to upgrade?

You'd have to change your motherboard, and I'd strongly recommend getting new RAM, too. I went with a 5900X for my upgrade. I saw a big improvement in applications like Unity for programming, better responsiveness when streaming, and faster loading times in certain games. However, in the games themselves, the performance gains have been very minor to non-existent compared to the overclocked 9600K.

[Mark Kaine]

7 hours ago, Gileotine said:

I'm unable to play the games at high anymore even on 1080p

you dont need to upgrade this pc at all, it'll be good for a couple of years still - objectively - however if the above is your goal then just upgrade, although it'll be basically a complete platform swap tbh, 3900x/ Intel 10th, 11th, or 12th gen are all viable. 

 

[Bobbysixjp]

7 hours ago, Gileotine said:

Evening everyone. I'm not sure where to put this.. maybe in PC building? But it is CPU related..

 

So I built my computer around 3-4 years ago. Here are my specs from my old old old forum post back in the day

CPU	Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15
Motherboard	EVGA - Z370 Classified K ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory	$99.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	Gigabyte RTX 2070

 

So this build has kept me afloat for these three years, but lately with more modern games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite, I'm unable to play the games at high anymore even on 1080p. Actually, halo runs okay but only if I close literally everything else and tune some graphics down to medium. When I pop open the task manager the poor CPU is running at 100% constantly and the game is chugging. I don't know if my GPU is bottlenecking, but I don't really know how to tell or feel that. All I know is that my CPU is stressing out and I think it needs to retire.
 

My question is what would you guys suggest? I don't mind swapping over to AMD if there's a better price point/motherboard. But I assume that a new motherboard, especially in this climate, and because I live in Japan, might be a little expensive. My budget for this upgrade is around 6-700 dollars incl shipping. I also have a really beefy cooler, but I've never experimented with overclocking. Would that help things a little..?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Greyson

I also live in Japan - have you had a look on Yahoo Auction? Right now there are quite a few 9900Ks for sale. You should also be able to sell your 9600K pretty easily. 
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f1023382100

[Gileotine]

44 minutes ago, Bobbysixjp said:

I also live in Japan - have you had a look on Yahoo Auction? Right now there are quite a few 9900Ks for sale. You should also be able to sell your 9600K pretty easily. 
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f1023382100

Hey that's not a bad price. Longevity-wise I"m wondering if I should then, chip in he 35k yen to get a bump in performance or just wipe the whole motherboard and stick a ryzen in it. Lots of choices..

[Bobbysixjp]

11 hours ago, Gileotine said:

Hey that's not a bad price. Longevity-wise I"m wondering if I should then, chip in he 35k yen to get a bump in performance or just wipe the whole motherboard and stick a ryzen in it. Lots of choices..

Last week I sold my Z390 and 9900K for 46000 yen, put in around another 10000 and upgraded to a 12600K and Z690 board (got good prices on both on Yahoo auction and PayPay flea market). 
 

That’s one possible option, although you could go with Ryzen. Both options would require a motherboard upgrade with Z690 boards being the most expensive right now. Sticking with DDR4 would mean you can use your existing RAM as DDR5 is either insanely expensive or just unavailable. The 5800x would also be a good upgrade if all you do is gaming. This would be the cheaper option as the motherboards cost about half as much.  
 

Dospara (PC shop) have a used section - prices are also pretty good.

 

https://used.dospara.co.jp/sale/search.php?view=1&br=21&screen=0&sort=1

[Gileotine]

4 hours ago, Bobbysixjp said:

Last week I sold my Z390 and 9900K for 46000 yen, put in around another 10000 and upgraded to a 12600K and Z690 board (got good prices on both on Yahoo auction and PayPay flea market). 
 

That’s one possible option, although you could go with Ryzen. Both options would require a motherboard upgrade with Z690 boards being the most expensive right now. Sticking with DDR4 would mean you can use your existing RAM as DDR5 is either insanely expensive or just unavailable. The 5800x would also be a good upgrade if all you do is gaming. This would be the cheaper option as the motherboards cost about half as much.  
 

Dospara (PC shop) have a used section - prices are also pretty good.

 

https://used.dospara.co.jp/sale/search.php?view=1&br=21&screen=0&sort=1

I'll take a look at those options and circle back if I have any more questions. Thanks for having a local take on this; I alway assumed that any components in this country ar like, 20% more. Maybe thats true but I also know they have a pretty good used market.

[Bobbysixjp]

1 minute ago, Gileotine said:

I'll take a look at those options and circle back if I have any more questions. Thanks for having a local take on this; I alway assumed that any components in this country ar like, 20% more. Maybe thats true but I also know they have a pretty good used market.

You're right that components tend to be a bit more expensive when compared to the US for example. But the good thing about the used market here is there is a low possibility of being scammed/ripped off. Sure it probably does happen but in my experience using second hand sites in Japan, I have had nothing but good deals. 

[Gileotine]

4 hours ago, Bobbysixjp said:

Last week I sold my Z390 and 9900K for 46000 yen, put in around another 10000 and upgraded to a 12600K and Z690 board (got good prices on both on Yahoo auction and PayPay flea market). 
 

That’s one possible option, although you could go with Ryzen. Both options would require a motherboard upgrade with Z690 boards being the most expensive right now. Sticking with DDR4 would mean you can use your existing RAM as DDR5 is either insanely expensive or just unavailable. The 5800x would also be a good upgrade if all you do is gaming. This would be the cheaper option as the motherboards cost about half as much.  
 

Dospara (PC shop) have a used section - prices are also pretty good.

 

https://used.dospara.co.jp/sale/search.php?view=1&br=21&screen=0&sort=1

Lastly, if I can ask you specifically, if it were you in this position (Still able to game at 1080 just at medium, needing to upgrade ram though that might not be expensive) would you personally just swing for the 9900/upgrade memory and go from there? Or would you throw in with AMD?

My thought process right now is it seems the cheapest option right now is to get the 9900 (after overclocking my current CPU to see what might change) and maybe upgrading my memory. I don't have the money for something beyond enthusiast grade so I bet anything I choose will be both middling and last me a long time. I just never liked intel on some odd principle.

[Bobbysixjp]

1 hour ago, Gileotine said:

Lastly, if I can ask you specifically, if it were you in this position (Still able to game at 1080 just at medium, needing to upgrade ram though that might not be expensive) would you personally just swing for the 9900/upgrade memory and go from there? Or would you throw in with AMD?

My thought process right now is it seems the cheapest option right now is to get the 9900 (after overclocking my current CPU to see what might change) and maybe upgrading my memory. I don't have the money for something beyond enthusiast grade so I bet anything I choose will be both middling and last me a long time. I just never liked intel on some odd principle.

That’s a difficult choice….

Going with the 9900K might be the best choice as you wouldn’t have to buy a new motherboard. You would definitely see the effect of those extra cores and threads especially in games that utilise them (you’d be going from 6C/6T to 8C/16T which is quite an increase). It is also possible to overclock the 9900K but in my experience that is a lot of extra power and heat for not that much more performance. 
 

Regarding your RAM, faster RAM does not have that much of an effect with Intel CPUs. If you went to 3600 MHz RAM for example you might not even notice much of an effect in gaming only. So you could keep your existing RAM for now with the 9900K. You might want to add another 16 GB but again that is debatable whether you would see any difference. 

If you go with Ryzen, you would need a new motherboard and faster RAM as RAM speed makes more of a difference with Ryzen vs Intel. Benchmarks will show you that you the 9900K performs much the same as a 5800x (granted the 5800x is faster but not by that much). 

So the cheapest option for now would be to go with the 9900K. You would probably be able to sell your 9600K to offset some of the cost. That’s what I would do anyway. 

[Gileotine]

22 minutes ago, Bobbysixjp said:

That’s a difficult choice….

Going with the 9900K might be the best choice as you wouldn’t have to buy a new motherboard. You would definitely see the effect of those extra cores and threads especially in games that utilise them (you’d be going from 6C/6T to 8C/16T which is quite an increase). It is also possible to overclock the 9900K but in my experience that is a lot of extra power and heat for not that much more performance. 
 

Regarding your RAM, faster RAM does not have that much of an effect with Intel CPUs. If you went to 3600 MHz RAM for example you might not even notice much of an effect in gaming only. So you could keep your existing RAM for now with the 9900K. You might want to add another 16 GB but again that is debatable whether you would see any difference. 

If you go with Ryzen, you would need a new motherboard and faster RAM as RAM speed makes more of a difference with Ryzen vs Intel. Benchmarks will show you that you the 9900K performs much the same as a 5800x (granted the 5800x is faster but not by that much). 

So the cheapest option for now would be to go with the 9900K. You would probably be able to sell your 9600K to offset some of the cost. That’s what I would do anyway. 

Alright, that's what I'll do. I dont have the old 9600k box so it would basically be me hoping someone would  buy a raw chip and nothing else aha.

Sorry about asking the same question over and over. I considered the MB and the Ryzen but did not think about the faster ram. If I had enough money I'd love to make that upgrade but it seems that everything right now is going far, far, far above market rate due to the chip shortage. So, that'll be the plan. I'll buy a 9900K and see where I'm at, and overclock it too, maybe.

 

Thanks!

[Bobbysixjp]

18 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

Alright, that's what I'll do. I dont have the old 9600k box so it would basically be me hoping someone would  buy a raw chip and nothing else aha.

Sorry about asking the same question over and over. I considered the MB and the Ryzen but did not think about the faster ram. If I had enough money I'd love to make that upgrade but it seems that everything right now is going far, far, far above market rate due to the chip shortage. So, that'll be the plan. I'll buy a 9900K and see where I'm at, and overclock it too, maybe.

 

Thanks!

You might want to wait for some other opinions but I can only give you my own. I wouldn’t worry too much about not having the box - as long as you show it’s working (screenshot the BIOS with your 9600K in there). 
But if you do decide to go with the 9900K you can expect 2-3+ years of good gaming performance. 

[Gileotine]

17 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

you dont need to upgrade this pc at all, it'll be good for a couple of years still - objectively - however if the above is your goal then just upgrade, although it'll be basically a complete platform swap tbh, 3900x/ Intel 10th, 11th, or 12th gen are all viable. 

 

I know! I guess I've just been spoiled with high graphics and high frames. Objectively everything is still playable at 60 frames below high settings, but I want more than that, if just a little bit more.