7700K, 8600K or something else?

[WIGs]

I need to build a PC for my father as a replacement for his aging i7 950 build (which is now even vulnerable with a questionable future of ever being patched). The PC is about to be used mainly for productivity tasks with the emphasis on workloads that do not benefit from having a large number of threads. The PC is not meant for gaming (at least primarily) and will be left on integrated GPU at the beginning (with the option of getting a graphics card from my computer when I decide to replace it, perhaps when Volta comes out). The emphasis on single core performance and the "need" for integrated graphics made me consider mainly Intel chips. I also prefer to future-proof myself so I do not mind to pay something extra and grab a better chip if it should make the computer last longer (the i7 950 lived for some 9 years ;-)).

 

I have been originally considering i5 8400 which seems to deliver a pretty solid performance for the money (despite the need to buy a Z370 mobo), but this chip is unfortunately terribly out of stock here with the estimated delivery times of over a month. I started to consider the more expensive alternatives of 7700K and 8600K (however, I am open to other options as well). Which of these chips (or other ones if you recommend) suit the scenario better please? (below are the current pricing here for the builds based on 7700K and 8600K)

 

7700K build (includes some games I might be willing to buy for myself, e.g. Assassin's Creed Origins)

i7 7700K ~ $405

GIGABYTE Z270-HD3P ~ $140    // would a cheaper mobo (H270?) be sufficient?

Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz 2x8GB ~ $205

Total: $750

 

8600K build:

i5 8600K ~ $305

GIGABYTE Z370 HD3 ~ $145

Crucial Ballistix Elite 2666MHz 2x8GB ~ $220

Total: $670

 

Factoring in the bonuses of the 7700K, the pricing of those two builds is fairly similar. According to userbenchmark.com they score pretty similarly.

 

Thank you!

 

[BluJay614]

3 minutes ago, WIGs said:

The PC is not meant for gaming (at least primarily)

What will the primary use for the system be for?

[R3ep3r]

4 minutes ago, WIGs said:

...

 

Maybe the scores for the I5-8600k and I7-7700k may score similarly BUT keep in mind that the 8600 is from an i5 and the other one is an i7. Which is a big deal. 

I would suggest you to go with the eight gen, because the i7 is dead. That platform is dead. In the future you'll have more possibilities with the 1151 v2 than with the simple 1151. And also i5 is less expensive than the i7.

[Belzebuth]

8th gen is mendatory, but if the system is just for global usage, i3 can be a go to.

[Simon771]

I have i5 8600k and I really like this chip.

It's better in all scenarios when you compare it vs 7700k. It doesn't have HT, but it does have 6 strong cores that benefit in games.

Not to mention that both single core and multi core performance is better on 8600k vs 7700k.

 

I also find 8600k to be cheaper and you will probably be able to upgrade to another CPU on that same platform. 

If you buy 7700k you are pretty much stuck with that ... I don't see why would anyone buy 7700k today, unless you get it used one for a great discount.

[Jumper118]

7 minutes ago, WIGs said:

I need to build a PC for my father as a replacement for his aging i7 950 build (which is now even vulnerable with a questionable future of ever being patched). The PC is about to be used mainly for productivity tasks with the emphasis on workloads that do not benefit from having a large number of threads. The PC is not meant for gaming (at least primarily) and will be left on integrated GPU at the beginning (with the option of getting a graphics card from my computer when I decide to replace it, perhaps when Volta comes out). The emphasis on single core performance and the "need" for integrated graphics made me consider mainly Intel chips. I also prefer to future-proof myself so I do not mind to pay something extra and grab a better chip if it should make the computer last longer (the i7 950 lived for some 9 years ;-)).

 

I have been originally considering i5 8400 which seems to deliver a pretty solid performance for the money (despite the need to buy a Z370 mobo), but this chip is unfortunately terribly out of stock here with the estimated delivery times of over a month. I started to consider the more expensive alternatives of 7700K and 8600K (however, I am open to other options as well). Which of these chips (or other ones if you recommend) suit the scenario better please? (below are the current pricing here for the builds based on 7700K and 8600K)

 

7700K build (includes some games I might be willing to buy for myself, e.g. Assassin's Creed Origins)

i7 7700K ~ $405

GIGABYTE Z270-HD3P ~ $140    // would a cheaper mobo (H270?) be sufficient?

Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz 2x8GB ~ $205

Total: $750

 

8600K build:

i5 8600K ~ $305

GIGABYTE Z370 HD3 ~ $145

Crucial Ballistix Elite 2666MHz 2x8GB ~ $220

Total: $670

 

Factoring in the bonuses of the 7700K, the pricing of those two builds is fairly similar. According to userbenchmark.com they score pretty similarly.

 

Thank you!

 

the older platform is more expensive and has 0 upgrade path........................... 

[rio2]

Ryzen isn't that much behind Skylake(/Kaby Lake/ Coffee Lake) in 1T andis almost in stock everywhere, but the downside is you actually need a dedicated GPU to use it.

So for example for the price of your 7700k build you can easily get an X370 board, 16GB of RAM and a Ryzen 7 1800x and a cooler, which is way faster than the 7700k (and still faster than the 8600k) in anything, but gaming. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CmQHvV

[WIGs]

2 minutes ago, BluJay614 said:

What will the primary use for the system be for?

He works with large spreadsheets and applications relying on databases + browsing etc. Then he does some lighter content creation (editing and rendering Full HD footage, probably 4K in the near future). Then he plays chess and often uses chess engines to analyze the games (typically heavy crunching on a lower number of cores). Often he does these things together (e.g., runs an analysis in the background while he does other productivity stuff).

[Jurrunio]

7700k at this price is out of the question. Even if you factor in the games included, it's still very expensive (I'm not paying more than $200 for that).

 

It's more like Ryzen 5 1600 v.s. i5-8600k here. Ryzen is cheaper and far less affected by the exploit Intel chips suffer from, but 8th gen's single thread performance is still better

[rio2]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

7700k at this price is out of the question. Even if you factor in the games included, it's still very expensive (I'm not paying more than $200 for that).

 

It's more like Ryzen 5 1600 v.s. i5-8600k here. Ryzen is cheaper and far less affected by the exploit Intel chips suffer from, but 8th gen's single thread performance is still better

Why the 1600? You can easily get the 1600X for the price of the 8600k (or the 1700x for a little more).

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, kukrimate said:

Why the 1600? You can easily get the 1600X for the price of the 8600k (or the 1700x for a little more).

Not paying that extra for merely 200MHz OC headroom

[Princess Luna]

get the i7 8700 instead, you should not overclock with that motherboard, you could use the stock cooler to save for its cost, it works just a bit more loud.

[rio2]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

Not paying that extra for 200MHz OC headroom

It's actually 400MHz (+50MHz extra xfr) in single core turbo, which can mean a lot for single thread and not everybody is overclocking.

[WIGs]

9 minutes ago, R3ep3r said:

Maybe the scores for the I5-8600k and I7-7700k may score similarly BUT keep in mind that the 8600 is from an i5 and the other one is an i7. Which is a big deal. 

I would suggest you to go with the eight gen, because the i7 is dead. That platform is dead. In the future you'll have more possibilities with the 1151 v2 than with the simple 1151. And also i5 is less expensive than the i7.

Thank you. I was actually looking along these lines as well.

 

7 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

I have i5 8600k and I really like this chip.

It's better in all scenarios when you compare it vs 7700k. It doesn't have HT, but it does have 6 strong cores that benefit in games.

Not to mention that both single core and multi core performance is better on 8600k vs 7700k.

 

I also find 8600k to be cheaper and you will probably be able to upgrade to another CPU on that same platform. 

If you buy 7700k you are pretty much stuck with that ... I don't see why would anyone buy 7700k today, unless you get it used one for a great discount.

8600K is indeed a bit cheaper than 7700K, even after factoring the value of the games included with 7700K. And I am pretty impressed by the Coffee Lake lineup (I have 8700K in my build and it is awesome).

 

10 minutes ago, kukrimate said:

Ryzen isn't that much behind Skylake(/Kaby Lake/ Coffee Lake) in 1T andis almost in stock everywhere, but the downside is you actually need a dedicated GPU to use it.

So for example for the price of your 7700k build you can easily get an X370 board, 16GB of RAM and a Ryzen 7 1800x and a cooler, which is way faster than the 7700k (and still faster than the 8600k) in anything, but gaming. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CmQHvV

The absence of the integrated graphics is quite a bummer for me. I could grab some dedicated GPU, but seem not to be necessary now.

[Bhav]

7 minutes ago, kukrimate said:

Why the 1600? You can easily get the 1600X for the price of the 8600k (or the 1700x for a little more).

I5 8400 is better than an OCed 1600x in most (75%+) benchmarks.

 

I'd recommend the 8600k over the 7700k, 6 physical cores is better than 4 cores with HT.

[HumdrumPenguin]

If it's a new build, I'd consider Ryzen due to meltdown issues. If you are upgrading, I'd wait a bit and see how Intel responds to the newfound hardware "bugs". Another architecture is sure on the way. The question is when.

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, Bhav said:

I5 8400 is better than an OCed 1600x in most (75%+) benchmarks.

 

I'd recommend the 8600k over the 7700k, 6 physical cores is better than 4 cores with HT.

what benchmark? Sysmark?

 

10 minutes ago, kukrimate said:

It's actually 400MHz (+50MHz extra xfr) in single core turbo, which can mean a lot for single thread and not everybody is overclocking.

Pay more or OC, my stance here is obvious

 

6 minutes ago, WIGs said:

The absence of the integrated graphics is quite a bummer for me. I could grab some dedicated GPU, but seem not to be necessary now.

I thought rendering work can use GPU acceleration?

[rio2]

4 minutes ago, Bhav said:

I5 8400 is better than an OCed 1600x in most (75%+) benchmarks.

 

I'd recommend the 8600k over the 7700k, 6 physical cores is better than 4 cores with HT.

75% of gaming benchmarks and WinRAR...... And the 1600X can even beat the 8600k in benchmarks when raw throughput matters such as rendering and video encoding.

[Bhav]

1 minute ago, kukrimate said:

75% of gaming benchmarks and WinRAR...... And the 1600X can even beat the 8600k in benchmarks when raw throughput matters such as rendering and video encoding.

Right sorry, I meant games, I used benchmarks collectively for all the results in reviews, which are mostly games. Its still pretty darn epic for <£200

 

 

[WIGs]

10 minutes ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

If it's a new build, I'd consider Ryzen due to meltdown issues. If you are upgrading, I'd wait a bit and see how Intel responds to the newfound hardware "bugs". Another architecture is sure on the way. The question is when.

The performance impact of Meltdown doesn't seem to be that serious (at least in standard workloads and on latest chips). I do not see any major slowdowns on my 8700K (except for slightly longer compilation times for large projects which do not bother my father at all). And these slowdowns are only likely to be mitigated with more optimized patches in the future.

 

10 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I thought rendering work can use GPU acceleration?

 

Probably yes. I will likely put there a GPU later on, just I would like to wait at least till consumer level Volta cards are released (hoping that either current generation pricing drops, or I get a Volta for my PC). This would likely make my upgrade path easier - and if I realize that my father desperately needs a dedicated GPU just now, I can buy it later on. (He is doing video encoding with his old GTX 260 just now which should be even worse than Intel UHD 630 - yes, it's pretty slow ;-))

 

18 minutes ago, kukrimate said:

75% of gaming benchmarks and WinRAR...... And the 1600X can even beat the 8600k in benchmarks when raw throughput matters such as rendering and video encoding.

I will take a closer look at 1600X. I dropped it just for the absence of iGPU + the benchmarks at userbenchmark.com (where 8600K is shown to be hugely dominant in everything else than in heavily multithreaded workloads). Probably prematurely :-)

[xg32]

Depending on your budget, r5 1600 or i7 8700 are the best deals this gen.

[WIGs]

8 minutes ago, xg32 said:

Depending on your budget, r5 1600 or i7 8700 are the best deals this gen.

Well, I do not have a tightly limited budget and both CPUs are in my reach - but I do not want to spend extra money for something that doesn't bring significant benefits in my use case. I am more inclined not to get a Ryzen (due to to the absence of iGPU and likely lower single-threaded performance). Is there a considerable benefit of getting i7 8700 to the i5 8600K? (8700 is roughly $100 more expensive here and seems to lack in single-threaded workloads, but tops out in heavily multi-threaded ones)

[xg32]

17 minutes ago, WIGs said:

Well, I do not have a tightly limited budget and both CPUs are in my reach - but I do not want to spend extra money for something that doesn't bring significant benefits in my use case. I am more inclined not to get a Ryzen (due to to the absence of iGPU and likely lower single-threaded performance). Is there a considerable benefit of getting i7 8700 to the i5 8600K? (8700 is roughly $100 more expensive here and seems to lack in single-threaded workloads, but tops out in heavily multi-threaded ones)

the 8700 is better than the 8600k in almost every way, i own both a 8600k and a 8700k, the 8600k goes to full load in some AAA titles, and it does drop frames if you have a video playing in the background while gaming due to the lack of hyperthreading, the price difference between the 8600k and the 8700 can be made up with simply a cheaper cooler like a 212 or h7 compared to an overclocked 8700k. Or, if budget is not a problem just get the 8700k.

 

i think in terms of value 8700>8700k>8600k, performance 8700k>8700>8600k

[WIGs]

6 minutes ago, xg32 said:

the 8700 is better than the 8600k in almost every way, i own both a 8600k and a 8700k, the 8600k goes to full load in some AAA titles, and it does drop frames if you have a video playing in the background while gaming due to the lack of hyperthreading, the price difference between the 8600k and the 8700 can be made up with simply a cheaper cooler like a 212 or h7 compared to an overclocked 8700k. Or, if budget is not a problem just get the 8700k.

Well, budget is not a problem but I don't want to spend it for no reason :-) The 8700K would be a gross overkill for my father I guess. 8700K is a great chip (I have been lucky to get one for me for nearly the price of 8700 non-K version), but the price went up in the meanwhile and it doesn't seem to be such a great value anymore (given my father's workload).

 

But you've got the point with the cooler in case of 8700(nonK). The lower TDP would definitely be nice (if the performance is at least on par with 8600K) and it would maybe even bring some savings on energy costs in the long term.

[Bhav]

1 hour ago, WIGs said:

Well, budget is not a problem but I don't want to spend it for no reason :-) The 8700K would be a gross overkill for my father I guess. 8700K is a great chip (I have been lucky to get one for me for nearly the price of 8700 non-K version), but the price went up in the meanwhile and it doesn't seem to be such a great value anymore (given my father's workload).

 

But you've got the point with the cooler in case of 8700(nonK). The lower TDP would definitely be nice (if the performance is at least on par with 8600K) and it would maybe even bring some savings on energy costs in the long term.

Any chance you can wait until non Z coffee lake boards are available and go with the I5 8400?