Question Need help finding CPU cyber monday deal

[Moondude]

So I'm looking at replacing my old Intel 15-6500 3.20 GHz because i've been having lots of problems with it. Someone recommended the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor but I found this one for the same price: https://smile.amazon.com/AMD-16-Thr...ndingS_D_13f678e9_127&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1 I'm mainly using it to play the new games at high settings, world of warcraft shadowlands, Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk, Star Wars Fallen Order, MK 11, Overwatch 2 (just high fps). If you know of any others I should be going for in this price range I'd love to know, otherwise I think the Ryzen 7 3800X looks pretty good based on my Poly-Tech degree from google.com.
Build OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 64 bit Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 94 Stepping 3 Processor Count: 4, RAM: 8144 Mb Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070ti Hard Drives: C: Total - 228433 MB, Free - 52057 MB; F: Total - 953866 MB, Free - 949292 MB; Motherboard: ASRock, Z170 Pro4S I'm mainly using it to play the new games at high settings, world of warcraft shadowlands, Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk, Star Wars Fallen Order, MK 11, Overwatch 2 (just high fps).

 

[ClockHound]

I don't have a poly-tech degree from google, but did get a good deal on a 3800X.

For $30 more than 3700x, why not? You get a better binned chip and more importantly, 35 more epeen points in the Great Anandtech Epeen Festival of the Peenies.

If the epeenies aren't that significant to your mental well-being, the 3700X will be fine for your other less peeny pursuits. Even a 3600 would do for those, but the peen droop will be noticed by all and you will be judged harshly by your peers. Unless you're peerless, then no problem. ;-)

 

[Arkaign]

For the games you are talking about, a 9700K will perform better, I absolutely guarantee it. Between my 3700X and 8086k @ 5Ghz I just replaced, the 8086k was dominantly better in high frame rate gaming. The 3700X likewise crushed the 8086K in basically everything else though.

So it depends on what you want to do with the unit. If you've got some serious compute work to do on a regular basis (Folding/SETI/Premiere/Encoding/etc) then get a 3700X. If purely gaming, 9700K.

 

[Arkaign]

Of course, I should note that if you don't have a 100hz/120hz/144hz/165hz variable refresh display, forget it. In fact, stick with a 3600 (regular non-X), or 9400F build. Both will get you locked 60+ by CPU metrics in virtually all games outside of the least optimized few.

 

[ehume]

Are you sure you are having problems with your i5 6500? Maybe it's something else.

 

[Moondude]

For $30 more than 3700x, why not? You get a better binned chip and more importantly, 35 more epeen points in the Great Anandtech Epeen Festival of the Peenies.

If the epeenies aren't that significant to your mental well-being, the 3700X will be fine for your other less peeny pursuits. Even a 3600 would do for those, but the peen droop will be noticed by all and you will be judged harshly by your peers. Unless you're peerless, then no problem. ;-)

World of Warcraft is filled with primarily epeenies.

 

[Arkaign]

Are you sure you are having problems with your i5 6500? Maybe it's something else.

That's actually a decent point.

OP do you have any spare HDD/SSD of 40GB or more? If so, you can download the latest W10 build to a USB stick and try a fresh install and drivers to rule out any weirdness with software.

In order of common causes for PC issues :

Flaky Windows/Software
Dying PSU
Flaky Ram
Flaky Mobo
Flaky GPU
Some rogue USB device acting erratically
Bad case grounding/standoff contacting PCB

.....

Way on down the list is dying CPU, and the most common reason is electromigration damage from *very* high voltage OCs.
But overall bad/flaky CPUs are rarer than disco dancing four leaf clovers. It would be wise to dial in exactly what the issue is so that if you want to re-use any components that you know they're A-Ok, as well as knowing what is solid for resale.

 

[Moondude]

For the games you are talking about, a 9700K will perform better, I absolutely guarantee it. Between my 3700X and 8086k @ 5Ghz I just replaced, the 8086k was dominantly better in high frame rate gaming. The 3700X likewise crushed the 8086K in basically everything else though.

So it depends on what you want to do with the unit. If you've got some serious compute work to do on a regular basis (Folding/SETI/Premiere/Encoding/etc) then get a 3700X. If purely gaming, 9700K.

Heh, you'd figure a 'gaming' cpu would do it's specified job. Ok thanks I'll look into it. And I do have a 144hz gaming monitor with G-Sync to boot, the Acer Predator XB271HU.

 

[Moondude]

Are you sure you are having problems with your i5 6500? Maybe it's something else.

Ya I took it in to a techy and he said everything is pointing to the CPU.

 

[Arkaign]

Heh, you'd figure a 'gaming' cpu would do it's specified job. Ok thanks I'll look into it. And I do have a 144hz gaming monitor with G-Sync to boot, the Acer Predator XB271HU.

Ah, ok you want 9700K for sure then. Just pair it with a big air cooler like a DH14 or 15, and you should be golden at 4.8-5Ghz for max FPS. ComputerHardware.de for example shows huge gaps between 3700X and 8C CL for Fallen Order, like 80ish FPS vs 115FPS (after OC on both, but even stock its like 78 vs 105).

With your monitor and games, you'll want to tweak each one carefully to disable wasteful graphics options in order to chase that sweet 100+ goodness. Older games you may be able to run Ultra, but newer titles in general you might do for example :

Textures Ultra
AF 16X/Ultra
Ambient Occlusion one step from max
Lighting High
Shadows Medium
AA low (or use TXAA or lowest impact option)
Disable CA/Motion Blur (useless on HRR)

YMMV based on the game, but the right settings will reveal your CPU bottleneck instead of the GPU bottleneck, and can take you from 60-80fps to 100-140fps depending on the title.

It is SO SO common for benchmarks to be shown for GPUs using literally all Ultra settings, which will make things look way slower than what you can achieve by some intelligent optimization and common sense. Once you have it tuned exactly the way you like it to look and are right around CPU limits, then you can dial up a setting here or there to achieve that near-perfect 100/100% CPU+GPU utilization and high frame rate.

 

[Moondude]

OP do you have any spare HDD/SSD of 40GB or more? If so, you can download the latest W10 build to a USB stick and try a fresh install and drivers to rule out any weirdness with software.

That's exactly what the tech guy did, he did a fresh install of Win 10 on an HDD I had to rule out the SSD and the problem of crashing during heavy graphic overload persisted. He was able to stop the crashing but the lagging and stuttering under load is still there. I'm going to hold off on the CPU especially because of your recent comment. My plan of attack was to replace one piece of hardware at a time, no one online has ever been able to help me and 90% of PC repair places are a scam. I have a feeling it's the mobo because the GPU replaced a GTX 950 where the lagging and stuttering still persisted and the same thing happened when I replaced the ram. I also did a lot of research to find a dependable evga psu. Maybe I can start with the mobo? I mean it's over 5 years old but I've had the problem for 4 years, gotta love PC part picker when your poor lol. They recommended me a psu that people had been complaining was blowing up and catching their PC's on fire.

 

[Arkaign]

Lagging and stuttering under load sounds like throttling. Assuming CPU temps are ok, the two biggest culprits would be PSU and Mobo, given that you've seen the same thing with two GPUs already, and multiple Windows installs on different storage devices.