Upgrading my 6 Year Old I7-6700k... Should I go intel or AMD?

[CharlosGaming]

Hey all! First post here! As the title suggests, my I7-6700k is 6 years old, and thinking on upgrading it (black Friday deals and whatnot). Its been a while since I've kept up with Intel or AMD news for that matter on what's a good value, any ideas? Should I stick Intel? Go AMD? 

 

For reference, my current system:

 

MOBO: MSI z170A Gaming Carbon

RAM: Corsair, 4x8GB, 32 GB total @ 2400Mhz DDR4

CPU: Intel I7-6700k

GPU: 3060Ti

 

This PC is my daily driver, I use it for Gaming (Call of Duty, Cities Skylines, American Truck Simulator, Minecraft), Video editing, as well as streaming once in a while. 

 

CPU is still solid, but aging, If I can get a chance to upgrade at a good price due to black Friday Deals, that would be ideal! I'm just completely lost/uninformed on current options out there as to what would be a good MOBO/CPU deal.

 

Any leads are appreciated. Thanks all!

 

 

 

[191x7]

If you want to keep your DDR4 RAM (altough it's only 2400), your main option is to go with an Intel 13th gen like the i5 13600K paired with a B660 DDR4 board.

[Dukesilver27-]

Intel 13600K and B660 (13th gen OC is not that worth it, therefore better value) or Z690.

DDR4 is still fine, DDR5 provides quite a bit of performance boost.

 

FYR https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13600k/18.html

https://www.techspot.com/review/2555-intel-core-i5-13600k/

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, CharlosGaming said:

RAM: Corsair, 4x8GB, 32 GB total @ 2400Mhz DDR4

Check thaiphoon burner for ic, send screenie here if you want help verifying what ic it is. Most should oc to atleast 3200

 

What country?

Budget?

Uses?

 

in some places b660 isnt worth it since z690 is so close in pricing, and your rams are atleast dual rank so theres a free 20% bandwidth uplift mitigating abit of ddr5 performance advantage but you buy ddr5 for futureproofing aka overclock minimum 7200 not purely performance, the extra performance just comes as a side benifit since 7200 is decently fast

[Ebony Falcon]

2 hours ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Intel 13600K and B660 (13th gen OC is not that worth it, therefore better value) or Z690.

DDR4 is still fine, DDR5 provides quite a bit of performance boost.

 

FYR https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13600k/18.html

https://www.techspot.com/review/2555-intel-core-i5-13600k/

U can’t undervolt properly on a b660 board tho, only 0.05mv which isn’t enough to keep cooling in check, or u start loosing performance with power limits.

a cheep z690 Msi pro a board is what I would get so u have full voltage control because unless u have a 360 Aio u need to undervolt 

[CharlosGaming]

9 hours ago, 191x7 said:

If you want to keep your DDR4 RAM (altough it's only 2400), your main option is to go with an Intel 13th gen like the i5 13600K paired with a B660 DDR4 board.

If I were to go DDR5, what would you recommend?

[CharlosGaming]

8 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Check thaiphoon burner for ic, send screenie here if you want help verifying what ic it is. Most should oc to atleast 3200

 

What country?

Budget?

Uses?

 

in some places b660 isnt worth it since z690 is so close in pricing, and your rams are atleast dual rank so theres a free 20% bandwidth uplift mitigating abit of ddr5 performance advantage but you buy ddr5 for futureproofing aka overclock minimum 7200 not purely performance, the extra performance just comes as a side benifit since 7200 is decently fast

Definitely open to DDR5 if it makes that big of a difference. I think technically it is 3200, CPUZ shows running at 2400 currently. 
 

Im in the US. Budget would be around $400-500. Uses as I put in post would be for gaming, video editing, and streaming as well. 

[191x7]

26 minutes ago, CharlosGaming said:

Definitely open to DDR5 if it makes that big of a difference. I think technically it is 3200, CPUZ shows running at 2400 currently. 
 

Im in the US. Budget would be around $400-500. Uses as I put in post would be for gaming, video editing, and streaming as well. 

If it's 3200 but you're not running XMP to have it 3200, instead running jedec 2400, I'd keep the RAM and use it with XMP.

Ddr5 is still quite expensive, and 32GB ddr4 3200 still isn't a bottleneck. In the 400-500 budget, it's better to spend it all on the cpu and mbo than spending a huge chunk of it (150-200) on ddr5 and going with a weaker CPU.

[CharlosGaming]

2 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

If it's 3200 but you're not running XMP to have it 3200, instead running jedec 2400, I'd keep the RAM and use it with XMP.

Ddr5 is still quite expensive, and 32GB ddr4 3200 still isn't a bottleneck. In the 400-500 budget, it's better to spend it all on the cpu and mbo than spending a huge chunk of it (150-200) on ddr5 and going with a weaker CPU.

Thanks for the info! so far the 13600k is peaking my interest the most right now... is it worth saving a few bucks ang getting the 13600kf (no onboard graphics) or would it affect me negatively in the end?

 

Also, for the MOBO, should any 12th Gen boards need any BIOS flashing? or would they be ready out of the box for 13th gen? I was thinking of getting this one here: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-B660-PLUS-D4-Motherboard-Thunderbolt/dp/B09NWDQ1TH/ref=sr_1_4?crid=14PD80UL2L8XO&keywords=B660+ATX&qid=1669221865&sprefix=b660+atx%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-4

[Mister Woof]

What will you do with your old system? It's still fairly competent and can be used. Otherwise, you can sell it.

 

If you do those things, you'll need to keep the DDR4 with it, which, to be frank, if you used in new platforms, 2400 is pretty slow and you'll want to manually OC which can get hairy.

 

Whether you go 13th gen or AMD, you will want to go with DDR5 at this point especially in your situation.

[CharlosGaming]

11 minutes ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

What will you do with your old system? It's still fairly competent and can be used. Otherwise, you can sell it.

 

If you do those things, you'll need to keep the DDR4 with it, which, to be frank, if you used in new platforms, 2400 is pretty slow and you'll want to manually OC which can get hairy.

 

Whether you go 13th gen or AMD, you will want to go with DDR5 at this point especially in your situation.

I would be keeping that system for a family member, and buy DDR5 ram later on. I kept the original RAM my system came with, so I would run that with the old system and use my current RAM for the upgrade. That would be the plan anyways. 
 

I would love to get some DDR5 Ram too, but once you factor in needing a Cooler for the CPU (I doubt my current AIO would fit the 13600k) budget just doesn’t allow for it atm. The RAM would definitely be a “later on” purchase. 

[Mister Woof]

5 minutes ago, CharlosGaming said:

I would be keeping that system for a family member, and buy DDR5 ram later on. I kept the original RAM my system came with, so I would run that with the old system and use my current RAM for the upgrade. That would be the plan anyways. 
 

I would love to get some DDR5 Ram too, but once you factor in needing a Cooler for the CPU (I doubt my current AIO would fit the 13600k) budget just doesn’t allow for it atm. The RAM would definitely be a “later on” purchase. 

I suppose you could just split them up between 2 systems...16GB is still mostly sufficient. And doing so would be easier to overclock.

 

If that were me, I'd get the 13600k.

[CharlosGaming]

2 minutes ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

I suppose you could just split them up between 2 systems...16GB is still mostly sufficient. And doing so would be easier to overclock.

 

If that were me, I'd get the 13600k.

Would it be worth it to save a few bucks and get the 13600kf instead of the 13600k? Or would it hurt performance? I don’t think I would ever need on board graphics. 

[Mister Woof]

3 minutes ago, CharlosGaming said:

Would it be worth it to save a few bucks and get the 13600kf instead of the 13600k? Or would it hurt performance? I don’t think I would ever need on board graphics. 

I've had KF chips the last two builds (10900KF and 13700KF) and I don't mind. CPU performance alone is identical.

 

But if you do streaming or anything that can use the iGPU, like OBS or video editing/QuickSync, it's worth the extra $20 to get the K instead of KF.

Only reason I went with it was that I was shopping Amazon, and the KF was normal price and the K was marked up third party seller at the time when I bought.

[CharlosGaming]

1 hour ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

I've had KF chips the last two builds (10900KF and 13700KF) and I don't mind. CPU performance alone is identical.

 

But if you do streaming or anything that can use the iGPU, like OBS or video editing/QuickSync, it's worth the extra $20 to get the K instead of KF.

Only reason I went with it was that I was shopping Amazon, and the KF was normal price and the K was marked up third party seller at the time when I bought.

Sounds good!
And for the MOBO, any 12th gen boards need any bios flashing? Or should they be good to go in terms of compatibility with 13th gen chips? I was looking into getting this board: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-B660-PLUS-D4-Motherboard-Thunderbolt/dp/B09NWDQ1TH/ref=sr_1_4?crid=14PD80UL2L8XO&keywords=B660+ATX&qid=1669221865&sprefix=b660+atx%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-4

[Mister Woof]

27 minutes ago, CharlosGaming said:

Sounds good!
And for the MOBO, any 12th gen boards need any bios flashing? Or should they be good to go in terms of compatibility with 13th gen chips? I was looking into getting this board: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-B660-PLUS-D4-Motherboard-Thunderbolt/dp/B09NWDQ1TH/ref=sr_1_4?crid=14PD80UL2L8XO&keywords=B660+ATX&qid=1669221865&sprefix=b660+atx%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-4

Most of them do require BIOS update to work with 13th gen.

 

I am using an MSI MPG Z690 Edge Wifi....used the flash button to flash the latest BIOS (Which did not work) so I had to go down a revision which worked. Interestingly enough that version that didn't work is now gone, replaced by a newer one so perhaps it wasn't just me.

 

I don't have any personal experience with the ASUS B660-Plus D4 motherboard on 13th gen (I did do one with a 12600K for my BIL, which worked great), but it does not look like that specific model has BIOS flashback ability. You'll want to get a motherboard that has that feature as most of them will not support 13th gen out of the box.

 

This article seems to show all the boards that support this CPU-less bios update feature:

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-600-series-boards-for-raptor-lake