Best CPU upgrade path?

[IrshaadH]

Hey all, 

 

I'm looking to upgrade from my i5 3570k, not just for better cpu performance, but also to move away from the z77 platform as I feel it's become outdated. 

 

Originally, I had wanted to get an r5 1600 and mate it with an Asus crosshair VI board, since investing in a really good mobo would allow me to comfortably upgrade to next gen ryzen without wanting to replace too many components. 

 

However, Intel came out with coffee lake recently, which absolutely destroyed ryzen in gaming.  Because of this, would I be better off going with Intel, or sticking with my original amd strategy? 

 

Will the 1600 significantly bottleneck my gtx 1080?

 

Thanks

[Cyberrex]

i would go for the i7 8700k with the strix z370-e or maximus x hero

[Ardy]

I'd go with the 8600K, perfect for gaming. Unless you need 12 threads for streaming or other things that require multithreaded performance, in that case 8700K

[Misanthrope]

Couple things so let's go over it:

 

16 minutes ago, IrshaadH said:

Hey all, 

 

I'm looking to upgrade from my i5 3570k, not just for better cpu performance, but also to move away from the z77 platform as I feel it's become outdated. 

 

Originally, I had wanted to get an r5 1600 and mate it with an Asus crosshair VI board, since investing in a really good mobo would allow me to comfortably upgrade to next gen ryzen without wanting to replace too many components. 

However, Intel came out with coffee lake recently, which absolutely destroyed ryzen in gaming.  Because of this, would I be better off going with Intel, or sticking with my original amd strategy? 

 

Yes Coffee lake is better, but as good as Sky or Kaby for gaming: a couple notches above the 3rd generation chip you have but not a dramatic difference vs Ivy bridge levels:

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-intel-coffee-lake-core-i7-8700k-review

 

Ivy Bridge Crysis 3 = 123.8 Coffee Lake = 134

 

So first thing that you should put out of your mind is that you're gonna see a tremendous improvement in gaming performance, cause you're not.

 

Now there's a couple of things for gaming that do get better with Coffee Lake mainly because you actually have 6 cores (and up to 12 threads) and games now utilize 8 threads or more. So you're likely to see not only that bump to 134 FPS but also better frametime and minimums.

 

What do you get with Ryzen 1600? Mostly the same better minimums but you're likely to stay at the 123.8 ish level of performance so to speak. It would bottleneck your GTX 1080 a bit if you're planning on high refresh rates (above 100hz) but other than that not really.

 

Now all you have to decide if the price of the 1600 and your use case is enough or if you do have the extra money, patience (remember: awful stock atm) to get Coffee Lake then there's no better gaming chip than the 8700k and the 8400 is reasonably and consistently better for gaming than the 1600 from AMD so those are your options.

 

But just don't expect like a tremendous jump in performance from this upgrade this is more about the platform: better connectivity, m.2 support, DDR4 support, etc. That's gonna be your most noticeable impact. 

 

For longevity AMD promised upgrades till 2020 so that's potentially better but an 8700k might not even need an upgrade on 2020 (after all your Ivy Bridge i5 it's still perfectly serviceable even today)

 

EDIT: The outlayer here is Crysis 3 and Ashes that really go up in performance, it's not however unplayable on Ivy.

[MyName13]

1)Buy ryzen with the intention to throw it away as soon as Zen 2 and 3 come out which will still be behind Intel

2)Buy the fastest consumer CPU on the market and avoid any upgrades (8400/8600k/8700k)

[Zyndo]

6 minutes ago, IrshaadH said:

Snip

Intel is only marginally better than Ryzen, and only at 1080p with a high refresh rate monitor and a significantly powerful GPU (like a 1080ti) or you'll have to lower your graphical settings from the venerable "ultra/max" and even then it requires a fairly CPU bound title to really show the differences. with a mere 1080, most titles will not see a huge performance improvement between the r5 1600 and Coffee Lake (or even your current i5 for that matter) assuming you're the kind of guy who likes all the eye candy turned on in his games. a 4GHz 1600 + some 3200C14 (or better) RAM should be very close to a 8600k/8700k in most titles when paired with a gtx 1080.

 

So if you want socket upgradeability down the line, Ryzen isn't a bad choice. If you just want the outright best performance you can get regardless of the cost, then Coffee Lake is also compelling. It should be noted that Coffee Lake availability at the moment is quite limited.

[sebfro]

If your gaming at 1080p you should go with intel, I recommend a 7700k or 8600k if you're only going to game. The 8700k is better, but not by much. You can check linus's review for concrete numbers. 6700k is also fine if you can find it at a good price.

 

If you're gaming at a higher resolutions like 1440p or 4k a r5 1600 will be just fine.

[Ordinarily_Greater]

for best CPU upgrade path, i suggest keep the Ryzen system as Zen2 will still have support to AM4

[IrshaadH]

1 hour ago, Zyndo said:

Intel is only marginally better than Ryzen, and only at 1080p with a high refresh rate monitor and a significantly powerful GPU (like a 1080ti) or you'll have to lower your graphical settings from the venerable "ultra/max" and even then it requires a fairly CPU bound title to really show the differences. with a mere 1080, most titles will not see a huge performance improvement between the r5 1600 and Coffee Lake (or even your current i5 for that matter) assuming you're the kind of guy who likes all the eye candy turned on in his games. a 4GHz 1600 + some 3200C14 (or better) RAM should be very close to a 8600k/8700k in most titles when paired with a gtx 1080.

 

So if you want socket upgradeability down the line, Ryzen isn't a bad choice. If you just want the outright best performance you can get regardless of the cost, then Coffee Lake is also compelling. It should be noted that Coffee Lake availability at the moment is quite limited.

Thanks for your input.  Tbh, I'm just really impressed by the crosshair vi board, so many usb ports - more than the z370 equivalent! 

[IamODIN]

8600k is the sweet spot