CPU for pure gaming build...in the $300-$400 range?

[Sulaco]

Hey guys,

So I'm planning a new build for around $1500-1600 for sometime by Christmas.

I'm planning to spend around $300-$400 or so for the CPU, and while I have most of the other components nailed down, I'm seriously conflicted on the CPU.

My three main options at this point are:

Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake 4.2 GHz for $299
Intel Core i7 8700k Coffee Lake for ~$400-$420
AMD Ryzen 7 1800x for ~$350

I am not a fanboy of either brand, and this will purely be a gaming PC. While everything I've read benchmark-wise has the Kaby Lake trouncing the Ryzen in most games, most of the benchmarks were near release of the Ryzen, and I'm not sure if any patches or updates have since narrowed the gap.
Also, while I know the idea of "future proofing" is kinda of impossible in this hobby, I am thinking a bit towards the future, and where
games will be a year or two or even three from now; would Ryzen be a safer long term option?

Any thoughts, opinions, conjecture and first hand experience is more than welcome and appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Crono]

Easy choice for pure gaming: go with the 8700K

Ryzen is a consideration if you wanted a tighter budget build and were doing other things that could maybe take advantage of 16 threads versus 12, but honestly 6 cores, 12 threads is plenty (more than enough for most games at the moment), and Intel has the lead for clock speed and IPC. Coffee Lake i7 and i5 CPUs are faster across the board, especially when overclocked. Even the 8700 would be a fine choice if you aren't overclocking.

Ryzen 2 will be interesting, though (but not coming in time for your build, obviously). You could make an argument for Ryzen based on AMD promising to release AM4-compatible CPUs until at least 2020, but most people (and I say most, not all) don't upgrade to only a new CPU; usually they'd be looking at a new platform and possibly other upgrades at the same time.

If I got a Ryzen 7 or Coffee Lake CPU now I probably wouldn't be considering to replace it until DDR5 and PCI-E 4.0 or 5.0 motherboards started shipping, which would likely be at the tail end of AM4 support and arrival of AM5, anyway. Well, if I weren't a compulsive computer enthusiast that is.

I'm saying this as someone who built/owned a Ryzen 7 1700X, Ryzen 5 1600, and currently an Intel i7-8700 system. So no real loyalty here, though I do "root" for AMD for the sake of competition... just not to extent of being a "fanboy".

 

[wilds]

Ignore 7700k, that is dead end.

i5-8600k is great, i5-8400 is cheap but hard to find, i7-8700k is expensive but pretty quick.
I always recommend R5 1600 + DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 or CL16. Ryzen is really awesome once paired with fast and tight RAM and is always easily available and cheap.

I would go with the i5-8600k with fast and tight DDR4, get a nice fat air cooler, and OC!

At the end of the day, you really can't go wrong, especially if you don't overclock. The clockspeed difference at stock is very small apart from the 8700k and you would not be able to tell the difference between Intel and AMD.

 

[richaron]

Yeah 7700K is out of the race with 4C/8T, especially when trying to "future proof". Unless of course you're going a "4k" build which will most likely be CPU bound anyway, then you could consider lower CPUs.

It seems obvious as time goes by games will use more cores/threads, so at some point the Ryzen system with more actual cores might catch up vs intels fewer more powerful... And the second reason to go AMD would be the ability to upgrade the CPU longer, since the platform will stay around for longer.

But the 8700K should be much better in games now, and could be better for the life of the system.

 

[Reinvented]

Hey guys,

So I'm planning a new build for around $1500-1600 for sometime by Christmas.

I'm planning to spend around $300-$400 or so for the CPU, and while I have most of the other components nailed down, I'm seriously conflicted on the CPU.

My three main options at this point are:

Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake 4.2 GHz for $299
Intel Core i7 8700k Coffee Lake for ~$400-$420
AMD Ryzen 7 1800x for ~$350

I am not a fanboy of either brand, and this will purely be a gaming PC. While everything I've read benchmark-wise has the Kaby Lake trouncing the Ryzen in most games, most of the benchmarks were near release of the Ryzen, and I'm not sure if any patches or updates have since narrowed the gap.
Also, while I know the idea of "future proofing" is kinda of impossible in this hobby, I am thinking a bit towards the future, and where
games will be a year or two or even three from now; would Ryzen be a safer long term option?

Any thoughts, opinions, conjecture and first hand experience is more than welcome and appreciated. Thanks!

What games do you plan on playing? What monitor do you have/are going to get? This depends what we recommend for CPU, etc.
I like my Ryzen and Threadripper systems, and I wouldn't trade them for anything at this point. I do have a 7600K system as well, but I'd like to try a HEDT Intel platform or even the Coffee Lake stuff.

 

[Sulaco]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

FWIW, I play pretty much everything and anything; from FPS, to old school strategy, to flight sims, it really doesn't matter.
As for my monitor, it's still the one in my signature: 27 inch Asus at 1440p. I still love it, and likely won't be upgrading for a year or two at least.

 

[Reinvented]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

FWIW, I play pretty much everything and anything; from FPS, to old school strategy, to flight sims, it really doesn't matter.
As for my monitor, it's still the one in my signature: 27 inch Asus at 1440p. I still love it, and likely won't be upgrading for a year or two at least.

It's a tough decision, since there's a wide variety of games you play. I recommend Ryzen either way, because of more cores and threads. You really can't go wrong. You'd barely see a difference, unless you move to a 1080 Ti, at which point most of those games become GPU bound and not CPU dependent.

 

[Crono]

It's a tough decision, since there's a wide variety of games you play. I recommend Ryzen either way, because of more cores and threads. You really can't go wrong. You'd barely see a difference, unless you move to a 1080 Ti, at which point most of those games become GPU bound and not CPU dependent.

Or if he moves to a high refresh (144Hz) monitor at the same resolution, or if it's 4K but he gets a new video card (e.g. the 2080 Ti) in a a year or two that doesn't bottleneck at that resolution.

 

[IRobot23]

Okay,
You won't need more than 6 cores for gaming so do go with R7 1800X, also 3,8GHz or 4GHz will barely make any difference (You will prefer less few MHz less and higher DDR4 speeds).

Either way you can go with Z370 or AM4:
- AM4 you pick R5 1600/X, DDR4 3200MHz+
- Z370, i5 8600K, DDR4 3200MHz+ with decent cooler to get stable 5GHz

In both cases I would recommend you to buy decent MB ( careful with VRM- VRM heatsink)

Anyway you already have decent CPU, why not buying just GTX 1080TI @ 1440P 144Hz (gsync) monitor and 500GB+ SSD?
With decent OC 4,7GHz and DDR3 at 2400MHz+ you should be able to reach good numbers.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Are you planning to overclock?

If not, get the 8700 non-K, especially if you can wait a month or two for the price to drop back down to $320 instead of the current gouging at $360. 6 cores, 12 threads, turbo clock that's only 100 MHz lower than the 8700K. It will stomp all over a Ryzen that isn't overclocked.

 

[CraptacularOne]

Building a gaming system today there is no point in getting a 7700K. While I'm sure there is plenty of life left in existing 7700K and Z270 for current owners of them, the reality is that it's a dead end street and there is no point to build a new system around them. As everyone else has pretty much concurred, go with a Ryzen 1600 or better or a 6 core Coffee Lake chip. I have both and can say with 100% confidence you'll enjoy either one you choose. I do use my Ryzen setup more for rendering and video editing but it's also a superb gaming system.

 

[ozzy702]

Easy, 8700k all day every day at that price point. I'm very impressed with mine ($360) and wouldn't remotely consider a 7700k (just sold my brother my old 7700k box) unless it was cheap and I was on a budget. I haven't played with it much but my memory latency at 4.7ghz is at 40ns and that's not even with super tight timings. If it's just gaming you're looking at nothing else right now comes close to the 8700k and the gap between it and Ryzen/7700k will only widen as GPUs become more powerful.

 

[IEC]

You said pure gaming, so you will want a i7-8700 or i7-8700K. The 8700K for sure if you plan to overclock at all.

I am happy with the gaming and OBS streaming performance of the 8700K at stock settings (including PUBG), and plan to OC for better minimums.

 

[Rifter]

8700k

 

[tamz_msc]

There's absolutely no reason to get the 8700K with the hope that overclocking it would get you more FPS, because the difference is next-to-nothing.

So yeah, get the 8700, non-K, because with just 100MHz lower turbos the difference would at best be 5 percent at 720p compared against a 5GHz 8700K.

Earlier people used to recommend getting the unlocked version because the difference in stock clocks could be as high as 10%, but with CFL there is no reason to do so if you don't overclock.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Obvious answer is 8700k. Just be aware that no matter what, a segment of these forums is going to recommend Ryzen, whether it is the appropriate choice or not. For a pure gaming build at your price point, if one looks at it objectively, there is really no other choice than 8700 or 8700k. Fortunately, none of the cpus are a bad choice, but the 8700 or 8700k is undisputably the best choice.

 

[Markfw]

Obvious answer is 8700k. Just be aware that no matter what, a segment of these forums is going to recommend Ryzen, whether it is the appropriate choice or not. For a pure gaming build at your price point, if one looks at it objectively, there is really no other choice than 8700 or 8700k. Fortunately, none of the cpus are a bad choice, but the 8700 or 8700k is undisputably the best choice.

I say it is disputable. In some games, and more in the future, 8 cores may work better than 6 even at a faster clock rate. Especially when you can actual BUY them.

$549 at newegg ? but OOS ? with MSRP at $360 ? what a ripoff And the 1800X is now $399 and IN stock.

 

[wilds]

"tamz_msc, post: 39160392, member: 376909"]There's absolutely no reason to get the 8700K with the hope that overclocking it would get you more FPS, because the difference is next-to-nothing.

So yeah, get the 8700, non-K, because with just 100MHz lower turbos the difference would at best be 5 percent at 720p compared against a 5GHz 8700K.

Earlier people used to recommend getting the unlocked version because the difference in stock clocks could be as high as 10%, but with CFL there is no reason to do so if you don't overclock.

All about knowing which games scale with clocks and which don't. Some do. Make no mistake.

 

[tamz_msc]

All about knowing which games scale with clocks and which don't. Some do. Make no mistake.

That's why this graph is an average of all results - of course, someone would prefer the 8700K if he plays Arma 3, for example.

 

[pcslookout]

I agree with everything said here!

Get the 8700k!

 

[IRobot23]

I agree with everything said here!

Get the 8700k!

Why do you recommend i7 8700K with GTX 1070/1080 on 60Hz monitor?

 

[Zucker2k]

8700K by a country mile. Look at the average gaming results posted by Tamzs. You also play a lot of old titles, where single thread/ipc is huge. It's a no brainer, especially with your current cpu budget. Even the 7700K is a superior gaming chip to any AMD chip currently. Click on a few YouTube videos; scroll through a few gaming benchmarks. Get off your butt and do some homework lol.

 

[IRobot23]

Yeah, but i5 8600K is 280$ while i7 8700K is 400$ and R5 1600 is 200$.

Why not getting GTX 1080Ti + 1440P 144Hz monitor instead?

 

[SangamonTaylor]

$549 at newegg ? but OOS ? with MSRP at $360 ? what a ripoff And the 1800X is now $399 and IN stock.

I see $419 - maybe because I'm in the States and you aren't?

 

[Markfw]

I see $419 - maybe because I'm in the States and you aren't?

Well, I swear that what I saw, (US), but I see 419 now. But its still OOS