Future proofing SOS!

[FoqsKnows]

So, I need some help. 

 

   I am going to buy a new pc, but I'm in some serious doubt about the processor. 

 

   I can either choose a Ryzen 5 1400 or an i5 7400. They have really similar performance in games. That's not the problem. The problem is future upgrades. As everyone probably knows, Coffee Lake won't use LGA 1151, so it's dead, and AM4+ will probably have another round with Ryzen +. 

 

  My doubt is: should I get the i5 then next year, upgrade to an i7 7700k, or get the Ryzen 5 and wait for Ryzen +?

[Guest]

Wait why would you get an i5 if you know that Kaby Lake is dead now?

[MageTank]

12 minutes ago, FoqsKnows said:

So, I need some help. 

 

   I am going to buy a new pc, but I'm in some serious doubt about the processor. 

 

   I can either choose a Ryzen 5 1400 or an i5 7400. They have really similar performance in games. That's not the problem. The problem is future upgrades. As everyone probably knows, Coffee Lake won't use LGA 1151, so it's dead, and AM4+ will probably have another round with Ryzen +. 

 

  My doubt is: should I get the i5 then next year, upgrade to an i7 7700k, or get the Ryzen 5 and wait for Ryzen +?

Future proofing is an impossible concept. Do not worry about it. As for your conundrum, both choices are perfectly fine. Both platforms have modern IPC and will be fine for years to come. If you do more demanding work that requires more threads, Ryzen might be better, while Intel offers the better gaming performance for long-term. Ideally, if you can wait 2 more weeks for Coffeelake to launch, you can get Z370 and have support for cannonlake once it drops. That will give you a cheaper, stronger upgrade path compared to Intel's current lineup. Alternatively, you can buy Kaby or Skylake AFTER Coffeelake launches, and you can save some money, as those prices are expected to drop on both new and used hardware. 

 

If the future is indeed your goal, focus more on the platforms themselves. Get one with the storage interfaces you feel you may need in the future, along with enough PCIe lanes/slots that you feel you may need. A chipset that can overclock both CPU and memory is also ideal for squeezing out extra performance, regardless of whether you intend to overclock today or not. Years down the line, you may require the additional performance gained from overclocking, so such a feature is ideal.

 

Just don't put too much thought into "future proofing" as nobody knows what the future has in store. To build an entire system around an unknown, that will just lead to disappointment. 

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

Same as @deXxterlab97 , why get i5 7400 Kaby lake then upgrade to i7 7700k if kaby lake is dead?

[FoqsKnows]

2 hours ago, NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle said:

Same as @deXxterlab97 , why get i5 7400 Kaby lake then upgrade to i7 7700k if kaby lake is dead?

Because the 7700k has been my dream for a long time, and a real good processor... And also, as @MageTank mentioned, the prices will drop! 

[FoqsKnows]

3 hours ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Wait why would you get an i5 if you know that Kaby Lake is dead now?

Well, the 7700k has been my dream for a long time and it still is a really good processor, and it's prices are about to drop. I'm not an enthusiast, I'm not an fps number freak. I just like my games to run well, and be entertained for hours, while having the some extra to use photoshop, spotify and about fifteen Opera tabs at once (yes, I'm one of those people), so I believe that the i7 could even be overkill. 

 

   I just mentioned 'future proof' as I'm really afraid to lose driver support way too soon... 

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

1 hour ago, FoqsKnows said:

Because the 7700k has been my dream for a long time, and a real good processor... And also, as @MageTank mentioned, the prices will drop! 

It is, no one is saying it isn't. It's just that you yourself said that Kaby Lake is dead (or at least that's what I understood), so I didn't get why you would want something that you admit it's dead.

As for price I honestly don't know how that applies from country to country since where I live when Kaby Lake launched and even know the Skylake processors either got a bit more expensive or stayed exactly the same, while Kaby Lake processors got a bit cheaper and are almost always on discount.

 

If I were you I would get the coffee lake 8700K when you can, it's basically the 7700K but more. And as for now I would say the i5-8400.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Yeah, the 7700K is nice and all, but depending on your game Ryzen may be smoother despite having slightly lower FPS. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Also, plans to make a small upgrade often end up not happening.  If you are talking about a big enough difference or a new generation of CPU, that's a common upgrade indeed.  But going to a better CPU on the same old architecture, that doesn't happen too often because the owner ends up feeling that the upgrade just isn't worth the hassle.

I can verify this first-hand.  Back in early 2011 I bought an i5-2500 and planned to upgrade to an i7-2600K a year later, once Ivy Bridge made the Sandy Bridge prices drop.  I ended up using that 2500 for almost 5 years and then I built a completely new PC.  So that CPU upgrade never happened.

[Donut417]

5 hours ago, FoqsKnows said:

So, I need some help. 

 

   I am going to buy a new pc, but I'm in some serious doubt about the processor. 

 

   I can either choose a Ryzen 5 1400 or an i5 7400. They have really similar performance in games. That's not the problem. The problem is future upgrades. As everyone probably knows, Coffee Lake won't use LGA 1151, so it's dead, and AM4+ will probably have another round with Ryzen +. 

 

  My doubt is: should I get the i5 then next year, upgrade to an i7 7700k, or get the Ryzen 5 and wait for Ryzen +?

Heres the deal if you keep waiting for the latest and greatest, you will wait forever. Because refreshes happen yearly. At some point you just gotta put on the big boy undies and make a decision. Im still using an i5 3570K. For the most part it does well for it age. I bought this CPU and stuff about a month before Broadwell was released. Because I wanted to build at the time. Keep in mind, that CPU's tend to age pretty well. Its GPU's that tend to need to be upgraded. Maybe you need to upgrade RAM at some point. So when you plan a build, you think about those upgrades. In terms of, Im buying X motherboard and it supports X amount of RAM, but Im only buying Y amount of ram. 

 

If you want to future proof, think about upgrades you might do in the future and make sure your machine can support those upgrades. Plus remember, Intel has not done that much between each gen of CPU's, which is why I havent upgraded yet. Most likely what ever build you do, will last you 3 to 5 years for the most part. I built mine in 2013, the only upgrade I have done is added 8 more gigs of ram. Besides that, Im still using everything else I originally got. 

[SansVarnic]

Future proofing is a concept, based on a fantasy .... just saying.

Go with the good advice given so far.

[gbergeron]

8 hours ago, FoqsKnows said:

So, I need some help. 

 

   I am going to buy a new pc, but I'm in some serious doubt about the processor. 

 

   I can either choose a Ryzen 5 1400 or an i5 7400. They have really similar performance in games. That's not the problem. The problem is future upgrades. As everyone probably knows, Coffee Lake won't use LGA 1151, so it's dead, and AM4+ will probably have another round with Ryzen +. 

 

  My doubt is: should I get the i5 then next year, upgrade to an i7 7700k, or get the Ryzen 5 and wait for Ryzen +?

i5 makes no sense for now until coffee lake, so get ryzen 5 for now or 7700K, but best would be to check for coffe lake mann 1 month