Core I5 9400F upgrade to I7 8700/9700?

[JuanMC45]

Hey there!

I've been looking around the second hand market looking for an upgrade, and I have my eyes on some I7 9700 and 8700. My question is, which one would be a better upgrade for my intentions? Since the 8700 has double threads but the 9700 has 2 more cores, I am not sure which one I should pick. What I intend to do is game and have other applications open at the same time, like Discord, OBS, etc. My current 9400F is alright-ish while only gaming and not doing anything else, but when I add more processes it struggles to keep up. Game often freezes up for ~0.2 seconds and hitches a lot, CPU pretty much always pent up at 100%, etc. I don't aim for more FPS or better performance really, I want more stability and headroom to have other programs running at the same time (as well as not being CPU bottlenecked), because my GPU is just too old anyway.

 

Also the K variants are an option, but since all they do on both CPUs is slightly increase turbo clock speeds (like literally only 0.1ghz) it's not a deal breaker and more like which one I can get for less money. I'm more interested in resolving the 8700 or 9700 decision.

 

My setup:

Asus H310M-E R2.0

2x16GB DDR4-2666mhz RAM

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050TI Windforce OC 4GB
Some random Cooler Master single 120mm AIO (highest and rarest temps I've seen are 70°C, usually temps are far lower than that on 100% utilization, more like 60°)

Let me know whether I should opt for two more cores and slightly higher clock speeds but no double threads, or double threads but slightly lower clock speeds and two cores less. All comments are welcome!

 

[Agall]

38 minutes ago, JuanMC45 said:

Hey there!

I've been looking around the second hand market looking for an upgrade, and I have my eyes on some I7 9700 and 8700. My question is, which one would be a better upgrade for my intentions? Since the 8700 has double threads but the 9700 has 2 more cores, I am not sure which one I should pick. What I intend to do is game and have other applications open at the same time, like Discord, OBS, etc. My current 9400F is alright-ish while only gaming and not doing anything else, but when I add more processes it struggles to keep up. Game often freezes up for ~0.2 seconds and hitches a lot, CPU pretty much always pent up at 100%, etc. I don't aim for more FPS or better performance really, I want more stability and headroom to have other programs running at the same time (as well as not being CPU bottlenecked), because my GPU is just too old anyway.

 

Also the K variants are an option, but since all they do on both CPUs is slightly increase turbo clock speeds (like literally only 0.1ghz) it's not a deal breaker and more like which one I can get for less money. I'm more interested in resolving the 8700 or 9700 decision.

 

My setup:

Asus H310M-E R2.0

2x16GB DDR4-2666mhz RAM

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050TI Windforce OC 4GB
Some random Cooler Master single 120mm AIO (highest and rarest temps I've seen are 70°C, usually temps are far lower than that on 100% utilization, more like 60°)

Let me know whether I should opt for two more cores and slightly higher clock speeds but no double threads, or double threads but slightly lower clock speeds and two cores less. All comments are welcome!

 

It depends on how much we're talking, because anything newer will still be dramatically better for gaming.

 

Given the specs, you're probably best off building a new rig, or even just buying an ROG Ally instead.

 

You'll be TDP limiting those CPUs with an H310M board, where having a K SKU results in a little more performance, probably.

 

I wouldn't put any money into that platform. You can at least reuse your current RAM into an LGA1700 system. The 12600KF is a solid value part right now at like $150. Motherboards had for $100 or less sometimes. 

[daygeckoart]

The 9700 because more cores are helpful for the stuff you're talking about. You would also get a Quicksync encoder by ditching the F CPU which you can use for OBS. But later generation chips have much better Quicksync

[--SID--]

8700 because of more threads.

[YoungBlade]

Considering how expensive those parts can be on the used market, an upgrade to AM4 is probably more effective - depending on the deals you can find.

 

You can get a B450 motherboard and Ryzen 5 3600 for under $150 right now. This should provide comparable performance to either i7 while also likely costing less and giving you a better platform. So keep that in mind.

[JuanMC45]

On 4/10/2024 at 3:30 PM, YoungBlade said:

Considering how expensive those parts can be on the used market, an upgrade to AM4 is probably more effective - depending on the deals you can find.

 

You can get a B450 motherboard and Ryzen 5 3600 for under $150 right now. This should provide comparable performance to either i7 while also likely costing less and giving you a better platform. So keep that in mind.

Hey there!

Yeah I've been wanting to upgrade to AMD for quite some time now. Used prices in my local area aren't that good, so I've been eyeing a new Ryzen 7 5700X (I just gotta have those two extra cores tho) for $150, and I could get a used one for ~$100 (it's an international auction, so it depends). Could you recommend some boards I could pair up with this chip?

I have my eyes on this new GIGABYTE B550M AORUS Elite AX in Amazon for $109. I kinda rather get a new board, I just don't trust used boards as much. My budget for the board would be ~$100, but the cheaper is obviously better. Preferably in Amazon or eBay since I gotta ship internationally. Besides what I've already said I want to fix with the upgrade, if I got this chip I kinda wanna do some light OC as well, since 4.7GHz Max Boost is good, but could be better. 

Edit: I also found this Gigabyte A520M AORUS Elite for $100, but I have no idea how good it is.

 

What do you think? Am I making a mistake? What would you recommend? Any input is welcome.

Edited April 14 by JuanMC45

[YoungBlade]

The 5700X is a great chip - way better than anything on your current platform in all metrics. If you can actually get it for $100, that's a complete steal, and $150 is certainly a fair price.

 

When it comes to the board, if you have any interest in ever upgrading to a Ryzen 9 part, I wouldn't recommend the Aorus Elite mATX version. In Hardware Unboxed's testing with a Ryzen 9 3950X overclocked, the PCB reached 118C, which is not good. With that said, if you never intend to go beyond a Ryzen 7 part, it should be fine.

 

However, the MSI B550-A Pro is available right now for the exact same price, and it performed way better in their testing - just 76C after an hour. It also has a stronger feature set than the Aorus Elite, except that it lacks WiFi. So if you don't need WiFi, that's actually the board that I would recommend right now in that price range.

Spoiler

 

[JuanMC45]

10 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

However, the MSI B550-A Pro is available right now for the exact same price, and it performed way better in their testing - just 76C after an hour. It also has a stronger feature set than the Aorus Elite, except that it lacks WiFi. So if you don't need WiFi, that's actually the board that I would recommend right now in that price range.

Thanks a lot! I will be getting this one instead.

 

Also I am infuriated. I had this discounted $55.99 DeepCool AK620 Zero Dark in the cart along with the motherboard, and was waiting to pay for the local new 5700x to checkout the Amazon cart, and as I went to checkout, the sale ended literally minutes before and it's now $64.99. I regret not checking the cart before. Anything I can do about this? Would you recommend another cooler? I'm just throwing options around at this point lol.

 

Edit: I've been eyeing some other recommendations, and I'm getting the impression that the Deep cool AK620 might be overpriced or too overkill for a 5700x, is this true? I found a ~$27 Thermalright FS140 and following a video review, it's supposedly better than the Deep Cool. Am I missing something here? I really like the DeeCool's black aesthetic but if a much cheaper cooler is gonna outperform it, I'll get that. Do you (or anyone else), by any chance, know about coolers? I need some guidance here since all I've used were stock Intel coolers and whatever random un-marked 120mm Cooler Master AIO a technician friend sold me.

 

 

Edited April 15 by JuanMC45

[YoungBlade]

1 hour ago, JuanMC45 said:

Thanks a lot! I will be getting this one instead.

 

Also I am infuriated. I had this discounted $55.99 DeepCool AK620 Zero Dark in the cart along with the motherboard, and was waiting to pay for the local new 5700x to checkout the Amazon cart, and as I went to checkout, the sale ended literally minutes before and it's now $64.99. I regret not checking the cart before. Anything I can do about this? Would you recommend another cooler? I'm just throwing options around at this point lol.

 

Edit: I've been eyeing some other recommendations, and I'm getting the impression that the Deep cool AK620 might be overpriced or too overkill for a 5700x, is this true? I found a ~$27 Thermalright FS140 and following a video review, it's supposedly better than the Deep Cool. Am I missing something here? I really like the DeeCool's black aesthetic but if a much cheaper cooler is gonna outperform it, I'll get that. Do you (or anyone else), by any chance, know about coolers? I need some guidance here since all I've used were stock Intel coolers and whatever random un-marked 120mm Cooler Master AIO a technician friend sold me.

The Frost Spirit is a 140mm cooler, whereas the AK620 is a 120mm cooler. In general, bigger cooler = better, as it has more surface area to dissipate heat. You just need to make sure that it will fit with your case.

 

Hardware Canucks tested the Phantom Spirit against the FS140 and AK620 in this video and also found the FS140 to be better. I would trust their testing.

 

As for why that listing is so cheap, I'm not sure. The seller is highly rated after almost 1,000 sales, so it doesn't seem like a scam unless the account was hacked.