Upgrading my programmer/gamer build

[Warmice]

 

Hi everybody, I'm looking to upgrade my current build.

Here are the specs I have right now for context:

> CPU: `i7 10700k`

> RAM: `64GB ddr4`

> GPU: `Rtx 2070 Super`

 

I'm a programmer and I use my cpu quite a lot.

On this computer I play games too, but I'm not looking to change my graphics card.

 

Anyways... I have to do an upgrade.

I've always been an "Intel's fan", but as of their current situation, I'm not sure anymore if I should stick to them.

 

For this reason my question is: **which CPU should I get?**

(I don't actually have a budget, I need a reliable, long-term, powerful processor)

I found conflicting opinions on this regard, so this is what I somewhat understood:

> `r9 9950x`: costs a lot, really good for productivity, not worth if I want to game only.

> `r7 9800x3d`: decent price, the absolute best for gaming

> `Core Ultra 9`: feels like it is a downgrade from the previous generation

> `Core Ultra 7`: worse than Ultra 9... power efficient?

 

I'm open for all kinds of advices

 

One more thing... what about a really fast nvme ssd? Is Samsung 990evo still the best?

[podkall]

May I ask what's wrong with your current build?

Even with 5 gen older Intel, and 2 gen older Nvidia card, it doesn't really look that slow to me, do you want to increase fps in some specific games or improve the programming speed of whatever the CPU isn't doing fast enough?

 

6 minutes ago, Warmice said:

> `Core Ultra 9`: feels like it is a downgrade from the previous generation

> `Core Ultra 7`: worse than Ultra 9... power efficient?

As much as I would love to recommend Intel, it seems they're trying to recover some of the areas that they neglected when they were improving upon their products, mainly the power consumption which they're trying to reduce as much as possible, it sounds like their progress will be rather slow:

 

 

 

 

Efficiency = FPS/W

 

 

just FPS comparison in BG3:

 

 

 

• What this basically means, while the Intel has gotten more efficient, the wattage on their chips is pretty high, and their efficiency lowkey stops their chips from being competitive as they are more focused on not slowly cooking themself alive with their new generation CPUs
• You can notice that the AMD CPUs are both lower power consuming and they do their job efficiently meaning they are able to be faster and draw less power
• Intel might have few places where it's relevant, but as far as today Intel is, for regular consumers with home PC, no matter how creative their workload is they are much better off with AMD
• Even the non-x3D chips are very fast, in very few specific areas beating x3D chips, mainly where the cache isn't that important or that saturated with important data that requires fast access..
• Even if you are looking for a long term solution, with AMD you can have a short term solution and have the ability to slot in a more powerful CPU later, which can be beneficial if you want to save few hundred $ right now

 

• If you want you can check out benchmarks of CPUs from various outlets or YouTube videos, the ones from the screenshot are from GamersNexus which are quite in depth comparisons, they have entire dedicated areas similar to LinusTechTips Labs, for specifically benchmarking the performance of components

 

Ultra 9 285K video:

 

9800x3D video:

 

9700x video:

 

 

9900x video:

 

9950x video:

 

 

• The Intel video is newest so might be worth watching last

[Why_Me]

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-ultra-7-265k/

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF 3.9 GHz 20-Core Processor  ($369.99 @ B&H) 
Motherboard: *Gigabyte Z890 EAGLE WIFI7 ATX LGA1851 Motherboard  ($229.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory  ($162.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $762.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-22 09:57 EST-0500

[BahnStormer]

In my mind, if you desperately need to buy a PC right now that is going to give you very close to the best for a complete blend of gaming + productivity and you don't care about thermals / power consumption.... then it's option #5.... the 14900K.

 

That said, it is NOT my recommendation as you would need to spend a lot of money on cooling + top end motherboard with good VRMs... and you'd investing into an end-of-life platform where you're starting on the top-end of the CPUs.... not to mention relying on the latest microcode having definitely fixed the instability / silicon degradation problems. Not worth it IMHO.

 

I would say you need to decide where your performance bias lies:

 

Gaming workstation:

The 9800X3D is the current best all-rounder if your performance requirements are biased towards gaming, but you would still benefit from the 9800X3D's ability to run all cores at a much higher clock speed. It isn't 7950X/9950X levels of grunt, but it is comparable to the 7900X in a lot of all-core workloads!

 

Workstation that can game:

9950X is clearly the top pick if your focus is reliable all-core grunt that is on a modern platform and doesn't lose out too much in terms of gaming.

 

Patient man that wants it all:

Wait for the 9950X3D? Perhaps build the PC with a 7700X for now and get a 9950X3D in February? Decent X670E motherboard and 2x32Gb DDR5 6000 CL30 memory.... then pick up a 9950X3D once they are released.... or make the call at that point; perhaps you will just want a bit more gaming performance and the 9800X3D should be more available and even cheaper at that point   

 

Not really for consideration:

Core Ultras are a brave step that Intel needed to take and a feel sorry to steer people so firmly away from them, but their pricing is awful and the performance is very mediocre outside of a handful of fringe cases. Their "efficiency" is a lot better if you're only comparing them to 13th/14th gen; they are "less inefficient", rather than genuinely efficient....  but they're still at least 50% higher power draw than their AMD equivalents at every performance tier in almost every benchmark/test. 

 

Storage:

The 990EVO is a solid choice, but the Samsung 990 PRO is a bit faster and seem to be discounted fairly regularly to the point that they're not a lot more expensive than the EVO. It's not the "money-no-object" fastest, but it is consistently one of the best you can get without doubling the price.  

[KhazadSanci]

2 hours ago, BahnStormer said:

Patient man that wants it all:

Wait for the 9950X3D? Perhaps build the PC with a 7700X for now and get a 9950X3D in February? Decent X670E motherboard and 2x32Gb DDR5 6000 CL30 memory.... then pick up a 9950X3D once they are released.... or make the call at that point; perhaps you will just want a bit more gaming performance and the 9800X3D should be more available and even cheaper at that point   

Seconding this as an option. My experience testing code compilation benchmarks is that they tend to like more, faster cores and also benefit from faster ram and the high L3 Cache from the X3D CPUs. So, if you can wait, it's likely that the rumored 9950X3D will be basically the best CPU (at least consumer desktop CPU) for programming tasks, while also being a gaming powerhouse.

The Core Ultra processors are competent at code compilation, but not astoundingly better than AMD's 9950X. I would probably go with the 9950X if the productivity side was the biggest area of concern for you, and the 9800X3D if you want competent performance in productivity but prefer to prioritize gaming. (For reference, the 9800X3D tends to be slightly worse than the 9900X in code compilation tests I have done).