Choosing a CPU for the future

[CKatt]

At some point, probably early next year, I'm going to upgrade my mobo and CPU.  At the moment I'm running a 3060ti for a GPU but as my CPU is rather old, many newer games are bottlenecking.  

Since I'm skipping the 40 series rtx cards I'll probably wait until I can get something like a 5070, whenever and whatever that is. Obv waiting to see what the next gen of GPU's looks like would be the best option but I don't want to wait until then. So how would you go about choosing a new CPU from what is currently or soon to be available?

[RONOTHAN##]

14 minutes ago, CKatt said:

So how would you go about choosing a new CPU from what is currently or soon to be available?

Look at benchmarks and get the best performing one you can afford. 

 

If you want more specific advice, wait till you're ready to buy as a lot will change in the ~6 months you're waiting to upgrade your CPU.

[Applefreak]

38 minutes ago, CKatt said:

At some point, probably early next year, I'm going to upgrade my mobo and CPU.  At the moment I'm running a 3060ti for a GPU but as my CPU is rather old, many newer games are bottlenecking.  

Since I'm skipping the 40 series rtx cards I'll probably wait until I can get something like a 5070, whenever and whatever that is. Obv waiting to see what the next gen of GPU's looks like would be the best option but I don't want to wait until then. So how would you go about choosing a new CPU from what is currently or soon to be available?

Wait until you have a chunk of money on the side as new stuff is always a bit pricey, though prices might come down by then. You want to check reviews and get the CPU with the highest IPC number you can find that has 8 physical cores (6 is great today, 8 to future proof your system). 

[YoungBlade]

What you'll want to do is figure out what exactly you want to get out of your CPU, and then check reputable review sources like Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, etc. for their comparisons and analysis.

 

In the current environment, what CPU you'll want is going to be highly dependent on what specific things you're doing with your computer. If you're just concerned with gaming performance, then it depends on which games you're playing. The battle between AMD and Intel is back in full force like it's the Athlon vs Pentium days - neither side can truly claim to be the definitive "best" in pretty much any performance category - they trade blows all over the place.

 

Games that benefit heavily from AMD's 3D V-Cache with the 7800X3D can way outperform even Intel's i9 13900K, but games that perform better on Intel see the 13900K back on the top of the charts, sometimes by a wide margin. And then you have oddballs where the R7 7700X actually beats both, because it clocks higher than the 7800X3D. All the while, the 13600K is sitting within striking distance of most of these while costing less than any of them. The landscape 6 months from now is likely to be similar in complexity and nuance.

 

You can look at this two ways: Either you can see this as a good thing, because you can't really make a "wrong" choice between the top options. Or you can view it as a bad thing, because there is no easy "best" choice.

 

So figure out what games that are out today that you care about, figure out what, if any, other things you want to do with your computer (programming, video editing, Photoshop, games streaming, etc), and keep that list in mind when looking at reviews. Then pick the best option that you can afford, or the best value option in terms of performance/dollar with the idea of saving the rest for a future upgrade.

 

Be willing to set up an upgrade path, because if the next 5 years are anything like the previous 5, we could see an absolutely massive increase in CPU performance.

[CKatt]

19 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

 

 

So figure out what games that are out today that you care about, figure out what, if any, other things you want to do with your computer

 

Be willing to set up an upgrade path, because if the next 5 years are anything like the previous 5, we could see an absolutely massive increase in CPU performance.

My focus is single-player games. I'm playing RE4 now and will probably get Phantom Liberty when I'm done with that. on CP 2077 my CPU is always running at 89% so I know there's a bottleneck there. 

Budget is not a big issue for me but at the same time, I do want to pay for performance I don't need.

I have an OLED TV I often play on that'll do 120hz and supports VRR but I don't see much difference between 60 fps and about 90 where my 3060ti tops out.

I'm assuming by the time  50 series cards arrive raytracing will be the standard so I want something that will be able to handle ultra setting with 4K at 60fps without much trouble.

maybe it's still too soon to tell?

[YoungBlade]

7 minutes ago, CKatt said:

My focus is single-player games. I'm playing RE4 now and will probably get Phantom Liberty when I'm done with that. on CP 2077 my CPU is always running at 89% so I know there's a bottleneck there. 

Budget is not a big issue for me but at the same time, I do want to pay for performance I don't need.

I have an OLED TV I often play on that'll do 120hz and supports VRR but I don't see much difference between 60 fps and about 90 where my 3060ti tops out.

I'm assuming by the time  50 series cards arrive raytracing will be the standard so I want something that will be able to handle ultra setting with 4K at 60fps without much trouble.

maybe it's still too soon to tell?

I'd wait for Phantom Liberty to come out before making a decision. From the way the developer has been describing it, there will be a performance difference between the current version of the game and Phantom Liberty.

 

At the moment, Cyberpunk benchmarks for CPU aren't that helpful. Even at 1080p, Intel and AMD CPUs trade blows across the stack, so it's not particularly helpful except to reinforce that there's no "best" option. Maybe Phantom Liberty will favor one over the other, but that remains to be seen.