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

[Reinvented]

Thanks for everyone's input! I really appreciate it!

In the end, for my needs and what I'll be doing, I went ahead and got the 8700K, in stock at my local Microcenter.

Thanks again for all the advice, guys. It's much appreciated.

Were they offering combo discount with boards?

 

[TahoeDust]

Thanks for everyone's input! I really appreciate it!

In the end, for my needs and what I'll be doing, I went ahead and got the 8700K, in stock at my local Microcenter.

Thanks again for all the advice, guys. It's much appreciated.

Congrats man. Enjoy it. What were they charging in store?

Edit: Looks like they are $419.99 in store and in stock in almost every Microcenter. So much for them being "almost unbuyable"...

 

[Zucker2k]

Don't these stores do price-matching anymore?

 

[legcramp]

You're always going to get bottle-necked by something... by what just depends on how much you want to spend.

 

[DooKey]

Congrats man. Enjoy it. What were they charging in store?

Edit: Looks like they are $419.99 in store and in stock in almost every Microcenter. So much for them being "almost unbuyable"...

You better watch it....

 

[TahoeDust]

You better watch it....

lol...

But come on...people try to tell him his best option is unbuyable, and he goes it picks it up at his local shop...

 

[DooKey]

lol...

But come on...people try to tell him his best option is unbuyable, and he goes it picks it up at his local shop...

Fanboism knows no limits.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Congrats man. Enjoy it. What were they charging in store?

Edit: Looks like they are $419.99 in store and in stock in almost every Microcenter. So much for them being "almost unbuyable"...

Yep. Looks like 8 are in stock at the micro center where I live. Looks pretty "buyable" to me.

 

[epsilon84]

A 16 percent clock speed advantage will not translate into a drastically different experience in an era of stagnation in IPC, games becoming more multithreaded, and the adoption of higher resolution displays is picking up the pace.

1440p is almost 80 percent more pixels than FHD, and a GPU would have to be 80 percent faster than a 1080Ti to start being limited by the CPU at 1440p. That means something two generations into the future. You'll be incredibly lucky to see that 16 percent in games, that's not considering whether you've upgraded your monitor by then.

At 1440P, the 1080 Ti is actually close to 80% faster than a 980 Ti. Well, 75% if you want to be exact, according to the TR charts:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_Ti/30.html

If a hypothetical GTX 2080 Ti (or whatever the 2018 flagship is called) has anywhere close to this gain in performance (or even a ~50% increase) then yes, we would definitely see an increase in fps between a stock 8700 and 8700K @ 5GHz. Even in certain games today (not just ARMA btw, Project Cars for example) are showing higher performance on a 8700K @ 5GHz vs stock, in fact performance increase scales linearly with clockspeed in this game. Yes I am aware this is an exception rather than the norm, but my point is that there are certain games that CAN take advantage of the additional clockspeed. Therefore, if I was building a high end gaming rig for myself personally and my overall budget was ~$1500, i would most likely get the 8700K over a stock 8700. I may not even need to overclock the 8700K with current GPUs, depending on the games I play, but the additional headroom will definitely come in handy one day, as I said previously.

 

[tamz_msc]

It is a bit strange to see a 11% overclock on the 7700K resulting in a 5% improvement, but a 16% overclock on the 8700K giving an 18% improvement. It isn't clear what exactly is going on in PC2 on GN's benchmarks.

 

[Sulaco]

Were they offering combo discount with boards?

Just the usual $30 off when purchased with a Motherboard; I paired it with a Gigabyte Aorus Ultra Gaming.

 

[TheELF]

It is a bit strange to see a 11% overclock on the 7700K resulting in a 5% improvement, but a 16% overclock on the 8700K giving an 18% improvement. It isn't clear what exactly is going on in PC2 on GN's benchmarks.

The 8700k has a
Processor Base Frequency of 3.70 GHz and a
Max Turbo Frequency of 4.70 GHz
so what's the 16% supposed to be,what are you considering the base line here?
For the i7-7700k the 11% are from the Max Turbo Frequency of 4.5Ghz,which is still incorrect since the game might be running more then just one single core...

 

[tamz_msc]

The 8700k has a
Processor Base Frequency of 3.70 GHz and a
Max Turbo Frequency of 4.70 GHz
so what's the 16% supposed to be,what are you considering the base line here?
For the i7-7700k the 11% are from the Max Turbo Frequency of 4.5Ghz,which is still incorrect since the game might be running more then just one single core...

Max all core Turbo is 4.3GHz for the 8700K(and non-K), and 4.4GHz for the 7700K - which doesn't change the point I was making. Perhaps there are other things at play here - it is not exactly clear why one scales much better than the other.

 

[Zucker2k]

Max all core Turbo is 4.3GHz for the 8700K(and non-K), and 4.4GHz for the 7700K - which doesn't change the point I was making. Perhaps there are other things at play here - it is not exactly clear why one scales much better than the other.

That 16% actually adds up to 50% more performance headroom by the 8700K over the 7700K. Something to consider.

 

[frozentrundra]

Thanks for everyone's input! I really appreciate it!

In the end, for my needs and what I'll be doing, I went ahead and got the 8700K, in stock at my local Microcenter.

Thanks again for all the advice, guys. It's much appreciated.

Good choice.

 

[namx01]

You're always going to get bottle-necked by something... by what just depends on how much you want to spend.

I am bottlenecked by my wallet all to often