Best CPU right now to match 980TI?

[GoldenLeaf]

Hey all.

 

So I think my mobo is on it's way out so I am going to get a new mobo, CPU, cooler and case.

 

What CPU do you think would best match my 980TI? Also mobo recommendations would be nice

 

Mobo wants: Wi-Fi, M.2, decent sound, bluetooth, USB 3.1

 

I game @ 1440p (monitor can handle 165Hz) light Photoshop work. Budget £600 ish.

 

Hardware I will re-use:

 

16GB Corsair RAM

MSI 980ti 6GB Twin Frozr OC
Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
EVGA 850W G2

Asus PG279Q ROG Swift 27" IPS

[brob]

Is memory DDR3 or DDR4? What speed?

[Zando_]

R5 2600 or if you don't do much that's multithreaded, an i5 8600K. My 8600K at 5.1Ghz runs 200fps solid on 1440p with SLI 1080s, but I doubt your 980 Ti can push that fps, so the R5 2600 would probs be a better match. Photoshop is faster with Intel CPUs though IIRC. 

[GoldenLeaf]

Just now, brob said:

Is memory DDR3 or DDR4? What speed?

Yeah I have DDR3 @ 1600 right now as it's a 5 year old system. I have some spare DDR3 16GB Kingston HyperX Beast 2400Mhz I could use though. I forgot about DDR4 lol not budgeted for that...

[GoldenLeaf]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

R5 2600 or if you don't do much that's multithreaded, an i5 8600K. My 8600K at 5.1Ghz runs 200fps solid on 1440p with SLI 1080s, but I doubt your 980 Ti can push that fps, so the R5 2600 would probs be a better match. Photoshop is faster with Intel CPUs though IIRC. 

Thanks Zando. Not ever gone with AMD have always been an Intel buyer. There is quite a price difference between R5 2600 and 8600k isn't there. I had looked at a 9600k, but they are pretty expensive and overkill I guess?

[Zando_]

Just now, GoldenLeaf said:

Thanks Zando. Not ever gone with AMD have always been an Intel buyer. There is quite a price difference between R5 2600 and 8600k isn't there. I had looked at a 9600k, but they are pretty expensive and overkill I guess?

I think the 9600K is a bit zippier, but if the 8600K is cheaper it's the better choice, difference in games once OCed shouldn't be that much, especially since like I said, mine at 5.1Ghz pushies 200fps solid (well it'll drop to 199 for an instant) in Battlefront 2015 1440p Ultra with no AA, and that's SLI 1080s. So it should be able to keep up with a 980 Ti easily. If you can stretch to an 8700K then defo do that, it can drive really high fps counts just like the i5, but has twice the threads so any multitasking/streaming or games that use more than 6 threads will benefit. Should be able to fit an 8700K, 16GB DDR4, and a good mobo and cooler into a 600 quid budget. As for a cooler, I'd reccomend the Noctua NH-D15S if you wanna go aircooling, it keeps my 8600K below 80C in everything but synthetic torture tests. IIRC the Dark Rock Pro4 also performs about as well, and it's got a great stealthed out look.

[GoldenLeaf]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

I think the 9600K is a bit zippier, but if the 8600K is cheaper it's the better choice, difference in games once OCed shouldn't be that much, especially since like I said, mine at 5.1Ghz pushies 200fps solid (well it'll drop to 199 for an instant) in Battlefront 2015 1440p Ultra with no AA, and that's SLI 1080s. So it should be able to keep up with a 980 Ti easily. If you can stretch to an 8700K then defo do that, it can drive really high fps counts just like the i5, but has twice the threads so any multitasking/streaming or games that use more than 6 threads will benefit. Should be able to fit an 8700K, 16GB DDR4, and a good mobo and cooler into a 600 quid budget. As for a cooler, I'd reccomend the Noctua NH-D15S if you wanna go aircooling, it keeps my 8600K below 80C in everything but synthetic torture tests. IIRC the Dark Rock Pro4 also performs about as well, and it's got a great stealthed out look.

8700K, Dark rock pro 4 and Corsair 16GB DDR4 is about £550on part picker and would still need a case (was thinking a be quite one) and mobo. Mobos look more expensive than they used to be. There are so many to choose from and all look very similar, especially the Asus ones. tbh I have never OCd myself before. I had my current PC from a builder site that OCd my current 4770k to 4.3Ghz and I realised after a while that it wasn't stable and re-set it. That's my only concern, having instability issues. Yeah I want to go aircooled now as I am fed up of the whine I get from this H60 cooler I have.

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, GoldenLeaf said:

8700K, Dark rock pro 4 and Corsair 16GB DDR4 is about £550on part picker and would still need a case (was thinking a be quite one) and mobo. Mobos look more expensive than they used to be. There are so many to choose from and all look very similar, especially the Asus ones. tbh I have never OCd myself before. I had my current PC from a builder site that OCd my current 4770k to 4.3Ghz and I realised after a while that it wasn't stable and re-set it. That's my only concern, having instability issues. Yeah I want to go aircooled now as I am fed up of the whine I get from this H60 cooler I have.

I'd get an 8600K, NH-D15S, and ASUS Prime Z370-A then. That's what I have, my 8600K is stable at 5.1Ghz ez, had it at 5Ghz for quite a bit too. Should be able to fit that and 16GB RAM in the budget I'd hope. IIRC RAM speed doesn't effect gaming and such much on Intel so you don't need to overspend on a higher speed kit. 

[GoldenLeaf]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

I'd get an 8600K, NH-D15S, and ASUS Prime Z370-A then. That's what I have, my 8600K is stable at 5.1Ghz ez, had it at 5Ghz for quite a bit too. Should be able to fit that and 16GB RAM in the budget I'd hope. IIRC RAM speed doesn't effect gaming and such much on Intel so you don't need to overspend on a higher speed kit. 

Cool. Thanks for the advice I'll have to have a look into overclocking guides then. Don't think it's too hard these days right?

[Zando_]

6 minutes ago, GoldenLeaf said:

Cool. Thanks for the advice I'll have to have a look into overclocking guides then. Don't think it's too hard these days right?

On the Z370-A, it's easy as pie. I just activate the XMP profile for the RAM, change the CPU ratio to 50, then up the voltage a bit, around 1.32 should be fine for 5Ghz, I don't think I did anything else. Did mess with other settings and stuff to get to 5.1, but for a basic overclock it was incredibly easy. 

[brob]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£319.99 @ Aria PC) 
Motherboard: Asus - TUF H370-Pro Gaming (WI-FI) ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£134.96 @ More Computers) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  (£106.79 @ Aria PC) 
Case: Corsair - 100R Silent ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.97 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £611.71
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-19 23:11 GMT+0000

[GoldenLeaf]

So I thought I had finally decided on  what I was going to get:

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/y7J4gw
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/y7J4gw/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£189.17 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (£67.76 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX X370-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£154.48 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£117.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £529.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-23 19:50 GMT+0000

 

But then it said this " Some AMD X370 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Pinnacle Ridge CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions."

 

Do you think this will be an issue?

[brob]

Unless the motherboard is old stock it should have an updated BIOS. If it doesn't, I believe AMD has a program that allows one to get a loaner cpu. Of course that would take some time.

 

You might consider a B450 or X470 motherboard instead. Asus TUF X470-PLUS GAMING, ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4, Asus Prime X470-Pro, Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING are a few options.

[GoldenLeaf]

21 minutes ago, brob said:

Unless the motherboard is old stock it should have an updated BIOS. If it doesn't, I believe AMD has a program that allows one to get a loaner cpu. Of course that would take some time.

 

You might consider a B450 or X470 motherboard instead. Asus TUF X470-PLUS GAMING, ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4, Asus Prime X470-Pro, Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING are a few options.

Thanks for the suggestions I'll have a look into them.

[GoldenLeaf]

@brob do you mind answering me a couple of questions if you know the answer? As you seem pretty clued up on this stuff and I just want to put my mind to rest before spending my cash.

 

What would be the difference feature wise between an AMD CPU vs Intel? I have tried to read a few articles on this and they all seem to say the same, that both are quite similar these days but don't say much more than that. I know AMD tend to be better right now for multi-threaded applications over Intel and AMD don't generally have integrated graphics but is that the main difference? I don't have a massive budget and I know I am going to get more bang for my buck with AMD, but I just want to make sure I am not going to miss out of some features that I may need at a later date and regret my purchase. If I go with AMD I think I'm going to get this motherboard you recommended Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING. I was wanting wireless and bluetooth, but it seems these kind of features are only on high end motherboards £250 plus.

 

[brob]

Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) and MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC have Bluetooth and WiFi. They are under £150.

 

This is very broad and a bit generalized. Modern cpu consist of a number of "cores". These are the primary execution units. Leaving out simultaneous multithreading/hyperthreading for the moment, if a cpu has two cores it can execute two threads (series of program steps) at the same time. Multithreading/hyperthreading allows a core to execute a second thread concurrently, but the result is not twice the performance.

 

The most recent data I have seen suggests that Intel Coffee Lake cores can process roughly 5% more instructions per cycle (IPC) than AMD Ryzen 2xxx cores. As a result at the same clock speed an Intel core slightly outperforms its AMD counterpart. Given cpu with roughly the same clocking profile, this difference is not really noticeable in most general applications, games, etc. But it is real and can make a difference in some situations.

 

Very roughly, in gaming a 2600X is equivalent to an i5-8400. Since the 2600X has multithreaded cores it will offer slightly better performance when doing things like opening twenty Chrome tabs.

[GoldenLeaf]

I think I am now back to the i5 8600k then as it seems like it will offer better performance in games and can be overclocked later on if I need to get some more power from it. The price difference is not much either atm as 8600k is only £40 more. Now I just need to decide on a mobo to go with it. I was wanting a dark theme and as mentioned before wireless, type c and bluetooth if possible. Know of an ATX Z370 board with these features for £200 or less? I know it's a tall order but I was just hoping to have these features integrated instead of having to get USB dongles etc.

[brob]

Asus TUF Z390-PLUS GAMING (WI-FI)

 

[GoldenLeaf]

If anyone is interested in what I eventually went for this is it:

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Q2FLKB
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Q2FLKB/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£235.20 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (£67.07 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£223.65 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£126.95 @ More Computers)
Case: be quiet! - Dark Base 700 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£152.49 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £805.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-29 19:45 GMT+0000

 

I went slightly over budget (by over £200 haha) but hey it should last me a while again.

 

Thanks to both of you @brob and @Zando Bob. It had been a while since I had built a new PC and you really pointed me in the right direction.

 

New parts will all be arriving tomorrow for me to build this weekend. Wish me luck!