9900k at 5.0 Ghz vs. 8700k at 5.3 Ghz

[Daharen]

So I got my 8700k stable at 1.345 v with water cooling holding temperatures of 73c under load for an hour running 5.3 Ghz on all cores. So I know this is a good CPU, and 'really' I don't need to change anything. 

That said, my question is, I'm seeing performance gains from the 9900k at identical clock speeds to the 8700k, and while I know 'some' games utilize additional threads, I know for a fact, most of these games are not gaining because of the additional threads... So my only 'guess' is that the architecture is making the CPU run better in spite of the clock rates.

So now I'm wondering, if I can get a 9900k running on all cores at 5 Ghz, which should be possible (I ideally would get a 5.3 Ghz, but preliminary results are seeming to show that the top 10% or so of cards only get to 5.2 Ghz, which suggests finding a stable 5.3 Ghz CPU will be hard, and will carry a huge premium), can I expect it to get me a performance increase over my current CPU that exceeds the margin of error (At least 2-3%)?

[Daharen]

Answered my own question with a bit more searching (I did look before I posted, just looked for the wrong thing):
 

If you won the silicon lottery on the 8700k (Or 8086k), and you cant find a 9900k that's pulling AT LEAST 5.4 Ghz under 1.35 v, then the 8700k is still a better gaming CPU.

I will add the caveat, that it 'appears' the 9900k in this example is thermal throtteling, but it's using a 360mm AIO water cooler, so that's pretty bad. It is a known fact that 9900k's run very hot, so this is not surprising, and what leads me to be skeptical of the claim that they just got 'a bad chip'. Still they could have just gotten a bad chip.

(Post-Edit)

Another possibility is that they are running both cards on a Z370 Motherboard when a Z390 Motherboard would provide both cards with more headroom. The thing is this implies that 'voltage' is the issue, and I find that hard to believe given the difference in thermals, with the 8700k running so much cooler vs the 9900k running so much more hot. That said, I'm not a computer hardware engineer, so if there are any that can explain why lower power delivery might result in the 9900k not only having lowered performance, but ALSO running much more hot, I would be welcome to hearing it. Until then this seems to demonstrate that at identical clock-rates the refresh actually produces inferior not superior results. 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Daharen
Further Thoughts

[Shimejii]

No. Almost EVERY game will not get a tangible benefit from 9900k over a 5.3 GHZ 8700k, they simply dont utilize the 2 extra cores. There is not going to be a 9900k that can do 5.4 GHZ under 1.35V without having the golden of Golden samples, Delidded, lapped and LM'd, and even then its going to be a challenge. Its the Exact same architecture, minimal differences, so there really shouldnt be a difference besides programs and games that benefit from multiple cores.

 

IMO the only reason to get a 9900k over a 8700k is for having a much easier time streaming and gaming, or slight video rendering benefits if you record,   AND you want to stick with intel over AMD Ryzen. It barely offers any tangible benefit if at all over the 8700k for gaming, simply not worth the upgrade.

[Daharen]

3 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

No. Almost EVERY game will not get a tangible benefit from 9900k over a 5.3 GHZ 8700k, they simply dont utilize the 2 extra cores. There is not going to be a 9900k that can do 5.4 GHZ under 1.35V without having the golden of Golden samples, Delidded, lapped and LM'd, and even then its going to be a challenge. Its the Exact same architecture, minimal differences, so there really shouldnt be a difference besides programs and games that benefit from multiple cores.

 

IMO the only reason to get a 9900k over a 8700k is for having a much easier time streaming and gaming, or slight video rendering benefits if you record,   AND you want to stick with intel over AMD Ryzen. It barely offers any tangible benefit if at all over the 8700k for gaming, simply not worth the upgrade.

Yeah, I think I'm just bothered by the claim that this is supposedly the new 'best gaming CPU' and it appears most of the reviewers are agreeing, but adding that it's a minor upgrade for a serious price premium and not worth it.

The issue I have is that they are 'agreeing' at all. It seems to be it is actually a gaming downgrade, and a workstation upgrade, and that the methodology of the reviewers might be flawed. I want to see more reviews where they overclock the 9900k and the 8700k to the same clockrates side by side and compare. The 9900k does 'not' appear to be a better overclocker as it stands. 

That said, the 9700k MIGHT be the new gaming champion, but even that is possibly not true, as disabling hyper-threading on your 8700k might provide similar overhead to overclock, and Silicon Lottery's latest figures show that the 9700k actually overclocks LESS well than both the 8700k and the 8086k which is just plain weird. 

 

[Shimejii]

Just now, Daharen said:

Yeah, I think I'm just bothered by the claim that this is supposedly the new 'best gaming CPU' and it appears most of the reviewers are agreeing, but adding that it's a minor upgrade for a serious price premium and not worth it.

The issue I have is that they are 'agreeing' at all. It seems to be it is actually a gaming downgrade, and a workstation upgrade, and that the methodology of the reviewers might be flawed. I want to see more reviews where they overclock the 9900k and the 8700k to the same clockrates side by side and compare. The 9900k does 'not' appear to be a better overclocker as it stands. 

That said, the 9700k MIGHT be the new gaming champion, but even that is possibly not true, as disabling hyper-threading on your 8700k might provide similar overhead to overclock, and Silicon Lottery's latest figures show that the 9700k actually overclocks LESS well than both the 8700k and the 8086k which is just plain weird. 

 

9700k is the exact same situation, I find it the be the most useless chip in the stack because it performs the same as the 8700k and isnt really worth the extra money for a glorified i5. 8700k remains the Gaming champion, and thats because they fucked up the Soldered TIM and the Silicon die height, thus increasing the temps and reducing overall clock speeds as well as throwing in 2 more cores.

[Daharen]

Just now, Shimejii said:

9700k is the exact same situation, I find it the be the most useless chip in the stack because it performs the same as the 8700k and isnt really worth the extra money for a glorified i5. 8700k remains the Gaming champion, and thats because they fucked up the Soldered TIM and the Silicon die height, thus increasing the temps and reducing overall clock speeds as well as throwing in 2 more cores.

I suppose that still leaves the possibility of a TIM and Silicon revision on the 9900k and 9700k, which means in a few months when they release updated batches, they may actually be the number one performers. In the meantime, that would mean to see the 9900k and the 9700k actually performing "properly" you would need to delid, lap, and apply liquid metal to them.

[Daharen]

The same reviewer actually did a side by side comparison of the 8700k, 9700k, and the 9900k as well. At the same clock speeds you can see the 9700k does tend to do a 'bit' better, but going back to the thermals and voltages, I would argue that while the 8700k is running at a higher voltage, it has MUCH more thermal headroom, and could likely overclock higher than the other two chips, putting it in the lead still arguably.