Thoughts on the 2600 vs. 8600k and possibly 9600K

[Atari2600]

I am looking to Zen 2 mostly.

And you have answered your own question.

Get the 2600 now and you've a drop in upgrade for relatively cheap next year (and probably the year after) which should give you 10+% uplift in ST performance. Even better, you can add more cores at a later date if your use patterns and software stack start to become more onerous on threads.

Intel? I've never trusted their upgrade paths since their "same socket, but incompatible motherboard" bull from back in the day.

 

[Hans Gruber]

And you have answered your own question.

Get the 2600 now and you've a drop in upgrade for relatively cheap next year (and probably the year after) which should give you 10+% uplift in ST performance. Even better, you can add more cores at a later date if your use patterns and software stack start to become more onerous on threads.

Intel? I've never trusted their upgrade paths since their "same socket, but incompatible motherboard" bull from back in the day.

There was a sweet deal for an MSI Pro Carbon x470 and a 2600 for $250 minus a $20 rebate. I should have bought it at the time. I have a B350 MSI pro carbon with a Ryzen 1200 right now in a test system with water cooling 240mm. I may just get a 2600 and put it in there for the time being. That is the highest end motherboard of the mid grade motherboard series. It's not the x370 series.

I just played Project Cars with my current system @ 4k. Was getting very close to 60fps with high settings. This 3570k still has legs left to it.

 

[epsilon84]

There was a sweet deal for an MSI Pro Carbon x470 and a 2600 for $250 minus a $20 rebate. I should have bought it at the time. I have a B350 MSI pro carbon with a Ryzen 1200 right now in a test system with water cooling 240mm. I may just get a 2600 and put it in there for the time being. That is the highest end motherboard of the mid grade motherboard series. It's not the x370 series.

I just played Project Cars with my current system @ 4k. Was getting very close to 60fps with high settings. This 3570k still has legs left to it.

Did you ever consider a 3770K as a drop in upgrade? Overclocked to 4.5GHz+ it would perform very close to a Ryzen 2600 @ 4GHz for gaming purposes, espcially at 4K which is mostly GPU bound anyway. The caveat is finding one at a decent price.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Did you ever consider a 3770K as a drop in upgrade? Overclocked to 4.5GHz+ it would perform very close to a Ryzen 2600 @ 4GHz for gaming purposes, espcially at 4K which is mostly GPU bound anyway. The caveat is finding one at a decent price.

Why would I get a 6 year old CPU?

 

[epsilon84]

Why would I get a 6 year old CPU?

1. Comparable gaming performance to a Ryzen 2600, especially at 4K
2. Drop in upgrade, don't need 16GB of DDR4 etc, extra $$$ in your pocket

I had a 3770K, you may be surprised how potent it is for gaming especially when overclocked to 4.5GHz+. I had mine at 4.7GHz. Just for comparison, my 8700K @ 5GHz is approx ~20% faster at 1080P, sometimes less when I'm GPU limited. You will be *very* GPU limited at 4K, even with a 1080 Ti. Basically the only GPU that won't bottleneck to a huge degree at 4K would be a 2080 Ti...

Of course, if you are itching for a new platform, then by all means, consider the 2600. But you can get comparable 4K gaming performance for a lot less money with a simple drop in CPU upgrade, that is my point.

 

[Hans Gruber]

My 3570K is running @ 4.5ghz already. There is no difference in gaming to a 3770K. Look at the archives of both CPU's. They used to say unless you are doing video editing go with the i5 K version over the i7.

 

[Markfw]

An 8400 still beats 2600 if you are price sensitive.

Its still at least $250 vs $210 (just checked newegg). Its odd that there are many $300 entries, but I did find the one for $250, still 20% more for 2% performance.

NOT !

 

[Malogeek]

If you have access to a local Microcenter, they're often running deals on Ryzen CPUs for in-store pickup. I got my 2600X for $180, fantastic upgrade for that price. Out-of-the-box it operates at 4.2Ghz in games with zero manual overclocking.

 

[epsilon84]

My 3570K is running @ 4.5ghz already. There is no difference in gaming to a 3770K. Look at the archives of both CPU's. They used to say unless you are doing video editing go with the i5 K version over the i7.

Times have changed, and games are a lot more multi-threaded these days, to the point that a 4C/4T CPU like the 3570K could be a bottleneck for many game engines whereas a HT quad like a 3770K would perform relatively well still.

You don't have to believe me, but my 2500K @ 4.6GHz (basically equal to your 3570K @ 4.5GHz) to 3770K @ 4.7GHz upgrade yielded massive performance gains, even bigger than my 3770K to 8700K upgrade, relatively speaking.

 

[PeterScott]

Its still at least $250 vs $210 (just checked newegg). Its odd that there are many $300 entries, but I did find the one for $250, still 20% more for 2% performance.

NOT !

Fair point. I thought they were closer than that. Definitely better value in Ryzen. Probably why most of the Intel retail sales (German retailer stats) appear to be 8700K. It isn't value shoppers, just people wanting the best gaming CPU, without question.

Once you get below 8700K, Ryzen seems to take over.

 

[Topweasel]

You need to stop thinking in terms of threads. 6C/6T blows away 4C/8T at everything (at same clock speeds for each). Games also don't have 4, 8, or 10 threads. Games have DOZENS of threads today. There is no kind of 1:1 correspondence between CPU and Game threads.

The is not that modern games lack threads, it's that Games are not a homogeneous load. They will never really represent anything like a idealized fully parallel load, and will always benefit from higher per core performance on fewer cores, when comparing something like a 8600K vs 2600.

If the 2600 was running 4.8GHz then it might catch up in gaming some day.

But given the clock speed/IPC disparity the 2600, will ALWAYS be slower for gaming vs 8600k.

No but you can see utilization differences a 7700k is hanging at 99% usage even though there might be dozens of threads. While a 12t or 16t CPU is running at 60-70% or so. This is really apparent on DX11 with Nvidia drivers. A lot of work went into making these run a well as possible on Intel's 4c8t CPU's. Whether its the game devs or video drivers. But at that point your dealing with a CPU that is getting all it's performance in a sanitary environment where any thing can take it down a peg. So not only do I expect actual core utilization to grow, I would also expect that outside a perfect environment a 6c6t CPU or less take a bigger hit from just being someones daily PC. Which again is why I wouldn't get a CPU with less than 8 threads.

 

[PeterScott]

No but you can see utilization differences a 7700k is hanging at 99% usage even though there might be dozens of threads. While a 12t or 16t CPU is running at 60-70% or so. This is really apparent on DX11 with Nvidia drivers. A lot of work went into making these run a well as possible on Intel's 4c8t CPU's. Whether its the game devs or video drivers. But at that point your dealing with a CPU that is getting all it's performance in a sanitary environment where any thing can take it down a peg. So not only do I expect actual core utilization to grow, I would also expect that outside a perfect environment a 6c6t CPU or less take a bigger hit from just being someones daily PC. Which again is why I wouldn't get a CPU with less than 8 threads.

At this point I consider this FUD. Games really aren't changing that fast. We have had good, popular 4C/4T Mainstream socket CPUs since about 2007 (I remember the Q6600 making huge splash), and 4C/8T since 2008. It took about a decade before a handful of games, that face limits on a 4C/4T CPU. 6C Mainstream socket CPUs have been here since 2017. No doubt in 2027, there will be a handful of games that face limits on 6C/6T CPU. Though even then the difference would be minuscule between something like an 8600K, and 2600.

You buy the Ryzen because it's a better value, not because you ever expect it to eclipse an 8600K in gaming, because you will be waiting in vain for the latter.

 

[Topweasel]

At this point I consider this FUD. Games really aren't changing that fast. We have had good, popular 4C/4T Mainstream socket CPUs since about 2007 (I remember the Q6600 making huge splash), and 4C/8T since 2008. It took about a decade before a handful of games, that face limits on a 4C/4T CPU. 6C Mainstream socket CPUs have been here since 2017. No doubt in 2027, there will be a handful of games that face limits on 6C/6T CPU. Though even then the difference would be minuscule between something like an 8600K, and 2600.

You buy the Ryzen because it's a better value, not because you ever expect it to eclipse an 8600K in gaming, because you will be waiting in vain for the latter.

This has nothing to do with Ryzen vs. Core. This about future performance not just in games. I said in my first or second post this can go back and forth. I am a bit biased here. I seek out cores when I can. I jumped on an Athlon X2 at launch (one of my favorite purchases), Phenom X4 at launch, when I needed more cores again I practically doubled the cost of the most expensive machine I had ever built to get a 3930k up an running. I jumped on Ryzen because I was a month away from over hauling the 3930k system to a 6900k system and getting that instead saved me about a 1500 dollars. May or may not make a Threadripper system for the same reason in a year or so.

But it goes beyond my core bias. Though I admit it probably taints the numbers a bit but there have been nearly a dozen benchmarks that have shown super high utilization on 4c CPU's but not on higher core counts. I believe as do some others that as the core wars grows, the more developers will move away from the the Optimized for the 2600k designs they have been doing. What I do know is that on My Ryzen and my 3930k before it. I didn't have turn everything off, boot to a game only drive, or cross my fingers to maintain performance. You lose hyper-threading and that goes away and it's why as my original comment mentioned a 2500 hasn't aged as well as a 2600k. You want to lock it down into hard numbers from sanitized systems feel free. But I think personally someone getting a 6thread only CPU today when there are dozens of options with more is doing themselves a disservice even if all they "really do" is game.

 

[PeterScott]

This has nothing to do with Ryzen vs. Core.

Then entire debate I was involved with was about whether Ryzen 2600 would surpass 8600K in gaming some day.

But it goes beyond my core bias. Though I admit it probably taints the numbers a bit but there have been nearly a dozen benchmarks that have shown super high utilization on 4c CPU's but not on higher core counts. I believe as do some others that as the core wars grows, the more developers will move away from the the Optimized for the 2600k designs they have been doing. What I do know is that on My Ryzen and my 3930k before it. I didn't have turn everything off, boot to a game only drive, or cross my fingers to maintain performance. You lose hyper-threading and that goes away and it's why as my original comment mentioned a 2500 hasn't aged as well as a 2600k. You want to lock it down into hard numbers from sanitized systems feel free. But I think personally someone getting a 6thread only CPU today when there are dozens of options with more is doing themselves a disservice even if all they "really do" is game.

What disservice? While marketing might convince some people that they need more cores for day to day computer usage, most really don't.

Most people aren't doing rendering/encoding on a regular basis. The kind of tasks that you really can use the extra cores for. That isn't going to suddenly change.

Most people probably seldom fully utilize a quad core outside of gaming. In day to day computing a dual core would be sufficient. Gaming is one of the actual use cases where many people can really tax a CPU, but even that is a niche.

Sure if you have a niche use case that you know will fully utilize many cores go for the max, but for most people that really isn't likely the case, and making general statement that buying a 6 core is a disservice, is FUD for most people.

 

[moinmoin]

At this point I consider this FUD. Games really aren't changing that fast. We have had good, popular 4C/4T Mainstream socket CPUs since about 2007 (I remember the Q6600 making huge splash), and 4C/8T since 2008. It took about a decade before a handful of games, that face limits on a 4C/4T CPU. 6C Mainstream socket CPUs have been here since 2017. No doubt in 2027, there will be a handful of games that face limits on 6C/6T CPU. Though even then the difference would be minuscule between something like an 8600K, and 2600.

While true regarding games, the environment is a completely different one now. Back in 2007/8 Windows was barely prepared for making good use of MT. Nowadays with Vulkan and DX12 as well as more and more game engines, frameworks and libraries multithreading is a given, as such the amount of games and software in general that will in some ways and some areas benefit of more available threads is bound to steadily increase further.

 

[Headfoot]

If you have access to a local Microcenter, they're often running deals on Ryzen CPUs for in-store pickup. I got my 2600X for $180, fantastic upgrade for that price. Out-of-the-box it operates at 4.2Ghz in games with zero manual overclocking.

I'm with Malogeek. I just did a build with a 2600x for $180 too, great deal.

I'd say on a reasonable fixed budget, the difference between 2600 or 2600x and 8600k or 8700k is better spent on going up a tier in video cards. If you're already capped out at the fastest single video card, then i'd look at getting the 8700k (given you have a large budget).

I think you could also make an exception and go 8600k with a slightly slower video card on the same budget if you play a lot of shooters and you need to maintain 144hz. 144hz gaming is limited usually by the CPU, since you typically run a fast card and have to turn down eye candy to hit 144hz anyways.

That being said id rather have a 2600 + 1080 Ti than a 8600k + 1080. If the budget is bigger, I'd do a 8700k + 1080 Ti or RTX 2080. If cost is no object at all I would do a binned 8700k from SiliconLottery and a 2080 Ti.

 

[Gideon]

The following graph is the reason, why I suggested a 2600X to the rig a friend of mine is building (much to my own surprise btw, he was at the cost level where I would have otherwise suggested 8700K):

The prices in Europe are mad: Currently a 8700K costs 470€ (was 450€ last week), even the 8400 is 307.32€. In comparison the 2600X is 233.24€ and vanilla 2600 is only 169.90€.

This is the Mindfactory.de data for september (Intel currently hovering at 25% market share)

[source]

 

[Gideon]

It looks intel is prioritising US shipments:

The 8700K prices over time in amazon :
US
UK
German
Australian

All the rest have increased substantially

 

[PotatoWithEarsOnSide]

UK is at a 33% premium; £399 vs ~ £300.
Considering it's lowest price was ~ £250, it's 60% more expensive now than it has been.
That's some shortage.

 

[Topweasel]

Then entire debate I was involved with was about whether Ryzen 2600 would surpass 8600K in gaming some day.

Not true. The suggestion the one that you replied to me on was the suggestion that a a 1600x, 8700k, 2600x, 9700k, 9900k, 3930k, 3960x, and I can go on but I don't want to have to remember or look up the rest of the chips out there, will age better than a pure 6c6t chip like the 8600 or 9600.

What disservice? While marketing might convince some people that they need more cores for day to day computer usage, most really don't.

Most people aren't doing rendering/encoding on a regular basis. The kind of tasks that you really can use the extra cores for. That isn't going to suddenly change.

Did I bring up encoding. I didn't.

Most people probably seldom fully utilize a quad core outside of gaming. In day to day computing a dual core would be sufficient. Gaming is one of the actual use cases where many people can really tax a CPU, but even that is a niche.

Sure if you have a niche use case that you know will fully utilize many cores go for the max, but for most people that really isn't likely the case, and making general statement that buying a 6 core is a disservice, is FUD for most people.

Gaming is the number one reason I bring it up. Not because the benchmarks might one day bring it up. But right now a 4c8t system like a 7700k, is at it's limit in gaming. It has even now nearly the same performance as a similarly clocked 8600 or 8700. We know or at least I know that is nearing an end. That more core CPU's will start to pull away. Which makes the 8600 seem like a decent option. Has more cores so should be faster than a 7700k by a decent margin when that happens. But like I mentioned before I don't believe in the performance metrics of an unrealistically sanitized machine for making CPU choices. A 7700k and especially at 7600k will see performance plummet the second the system tries to do even the slightest non-game workload and even some game workload stuff like zone loading. It'll bounce back up and yet again be the fastest by 10-15 frames a second. But every once in a while it'll drop like a rock again.

So as core utilization continues in the future. It will happen again. We can disagree on how soon it will happen. But again the 9600k could be pretty damn fast in a game. Now a mile ahead of a 7700k. But what will happen when you leave Chrome open, Decide you want netflix running on the monitor next to you but it has to go to the next episode, have anti-virus running, Windows decides to access the swap file, some one in the house fires up plex, your machine felt you looked at it funny? I personally say the more cores the better. But that's me and use them for more than gaming. But what I don't like doing is recommending to stay on the knifes edge of available resources just because "it should be more than enough for now" where even that can be put into question. It's why I recommended against a 2500k vs. a 2600k back in the day and it's why I wouldn't get a CPU with less than 8 threads and personal preference for at least 8c8t. I certainly would get a 8700k over a 9600k. That's where our conversation started.

But I am also not a believer in basing purchases on CPU bottle-necked benchmarks. Because like the sanitized benchmarks in general. That isn't how people game in general and for every 144hz gamer out there, there are thousands maybe 10's of thousands gamers running 60hz. To top it off the largest portion by far of enthusiast gamers, would be going higher rez over higher refresh-rates. Most people play with a GPU bottleneck and this imaginary future where they get a new card and all of a sudden their CPU choice is holding them back doesn't exist. They move from one GPU bottlenecked situation to another. That's why they update their GPU's. My recommendation would always be to get the best GPU you can get for your budget and buy smart for your CPU, what gives you room to breathe both when gaming and out of it.

 

[PeterScott]

Gaming is the number one reason I bring it up. Not because the benchmarks might one day bring it up. But right now a 4c8t system like a 7700k, is at it's limit in gaming.

By your logic 7700K should do better than 8600K, because it has 8 threads and 8600K has 6.

You obsess over the thread count when it's really the overall performance of the CPU that counts.

If gaming is the #1 reason, 8600K will be ahead of 2600, for the life of the CPUs. Because even though there are more threads on 2600 those are SMT only about 30% benefit Max (much less in gaming) , the 8600K has better IPC/Cache performance, and better clock speed, which more than trump SMT bonus for gaming.

 

[Topweasel]

By your logic 7700K should do better than 8600K, because it has 8 threads and 8600K has 6.

You obsess over the thread count when it's really the overall performance of the CPU that counts.

If gaming is the #1 reason, 8600K will be ahead of 2600, for the life of the CPUs. Because even though there are more threads on 2600 those are SMT only about 30% benefit Max (much less in gaming) , the 8600K has better IPC/Cache performance, and better clock speed, which more than trump SMT bonus for gaming.

Well no for obvious reasons. Compute power wins. When all resources are in use (6 is actually pushing 6 cores). But you seem to think that I had at any point said that a 2600x would ever be a better "gaming CPU" than the 8600k. I don't think I ever said so. What I have said is that just like the 7600k now. Soon. Very soon the 8600 or 9600 will be in the same boat. They will be capped out (still in benchmarks faster) with all threads capped and when the CPU needs to do anything, even the littlest task in the back ground, the game performance will crap the bed momentarily.

You and I are talking about 2 different things. You seem locked on some god forsaken "better option" equaling best gaming CPU. I am just saying that Hyperthreading was a god send. Not for gaming, but for everything and I do mean everything else. No more thread locks no more death to a task you are running. As games utilize more cores. CPU's without hyperthreading take larger hits when something not dealing with the exact thing you are seeing on the screen happens in the back ground.

Now lets fast forward to end of 2019. Games are starting to fully utilize 6 cores.

You are playing a game at 1080p (though only res that CPU choice really makes a difference at).

You have the 8600k and a 2600x.

So in this game. Lets call it BF 1492.

You are maintaining 130 FPS on the 8600k on a completely sanitized system with the 8600k. On the 2600x you are maintaining 110 FPS.

Then you add in a couple things. Things normal people do. Like keeping Chrome or Firefox or whatever their browser open.

Both now have a consistent 120 and 100 FPS. The CPU load from the browser doesn't change much.

Now add on a content change, like current Fantasy scores or live tracker for favorite sport.

8600k since it doesn't have HT drops a full core to computer the change. Now it's only getting 90 FPS for a few moments. The 2600x with HT, can fit that work in between cycles and loses 1FPS till it is finished.

Little things like that add up. Add running Hulu on the second monitor. Have a virus scan start up. Have the system randomly need to access the swap file. Have a family member start up a video through Plex. These are everyday things that add up. That aren't just the game that everyday people do on their everyday machines that they use for gaming.

So yeah personally I would suggest looking at several things. A person who needs cores and threads. 2700x. Needs cores and threads the fastest 9900k. Wants a little breathing room but the fastest. 9700k/8700k (split between core preference, thread preference or speed). People trying to shave some dollars off of the build, I wouldn't suggest a 9600k. I would suggest a 2600x. Save more money for the video card, have a system with more flexibility, for the loss in frames even in the imaginary world where absolute highest framerate matters, but they can't spend an extra 100 on the 8700k or 9700k, even though they would be running more expensive 120hz monitors in the first place, which most don't, which most run in a GPU bottlenecked environment. There is an incredibly small niche of use cases that lead to a 8600k being the smart purchase.

 

[PeterScott]

Well no for obvious reasons. Compute power wins. When all resources are in use (6 is actually pushing 6 cores). But you seem to think that I had at any point said that a 2600x would ever be a better "gaming CPU" than the 8600k. I don't think I ever said so. What I have said is that just like the 7600k now. Soon. Very soon the 8600 or 9600 will be in the same boat. They will be capped out (still in benchmarks faster) with all threads capped and when the CPU needs to do anything, even the littlest task in the back ground, the game performance will crap the bed momentarily.

It took nearly a decade from the first popular 4C/4T CPU until they started being limited in a few games, because their overall power is low, not because they have lower thread count. Popular 6Core CPUs only appeared last year. You think they are going from introduction to limited in a year or two. That is complete nonsense.

HW Unboxed did a nice video last year on 4C/4T CPUs, where he indicates even 2C/4T is still a good gaming CPU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VypDQw5sbI

I am just saying that Hyperthreading was a god send. Not for gaming, but for everything and I do mean everything else. No more thread locks no more death to a task you are running. As games utilize more cores. CPU's without hyperthreading take larger hits when something not dealing with the exact thing you are seeing on the screen happens in the back ground.

This is the crux of your problem. You think HT/SMT is near magical. You acknowledge that overall CPU power wins, then quickly fall back to thinking HT/SMT is more important that CPU power.

If 7600K (4 threads) could run at 10GHz, it would blow away even the 5GHz 8700K (12 Threads). Overall CPU power is what matters, not thread count, not HT/SMT. Modern preemptive multitasking OS, can easily manage hundreds of threads, even on a dual core CPU.

Overall computing power is what matters, and in most cases of similar power, you are better of with fewer faster core, than more slower ones, as pretty much all software has some non parallel component that will be faster on the few fast cores.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I started this thread. Keep arguing, please. I want to see what Intel comes out with October 1st.

 

[Topweasel]

It took nearly a decade from the first popular 4C/4T CPU until they started being limited in a few games, because their overall power is low, not because they have lower thread count. Popular 6Core CPUs only appeared last year. You think they are going from introduction to limited in a year or two. That is complete nonsense.

HW Unboxed did a nice video last year on 4C/4T CPUs, where he indicates even 2C/4T is still a good gaming CPU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VypDQw5sbI

Yeah but using this thought process ignores dozens of simple things that should alert people who know what they are talking about, that the opportunity for an escalation to happen quickly.

First. When 4 core CPU's showed up. It was going to take a while anyways. But it was hampered by extremely weak multi-core solutions on consoles. The Xbox360 became the primary development platform since writing for that was like the middleman between PC's and Playstation3. Really it was a 2 core solution with the other core used for the OS for the most part. Then you are dealing with mostly late DX9 and early DX10. Years away from good Multithreaded tools, weak GPU driver support for multiple cores, development platform was basically a 2 core system. This was game development for nearly 10 years.

Second. New consoles are 8 distinct if really slow X86 cores. Vulkan and DX12 have lots of embedded MT support built in and more games are using them every day. Optimizing is still a ways away but you have games able to span 32-64 threads. They don't use them very well yet. But still. I think part of that is that they have to make sure game performance doesn't tank on 4C or smaller CPU's. Certain games like that space RTS actually limit how much detail and units you can have based on CPU choice to split between the haves and have nots on cores. There is also the important switch that wasn't happening before. CPU's aren't going to get much faster. They will be adding cores. You can't change the min or recommended from a SB to SLK knowing it's about 1GHz faster. The 7700k is the end of that. If games want to use the CPU more for whatever task they need to use more cores and more threads.

We are on the cusp of big change and it seems silly to ignore it.

This is the crux of your problem. You think HT/SMT is near magical. You acknowledge that overall CPU power wins, then quickly fall back to thinking HT/SMT is more important that CPU power.

If 7600K (4 threads) could run at 10GHz, it would blow away even the 5GHz 8700K (12 Threads). Overall CPU power is what matters, not thread count, not HT/SMT. Modern preemptive multitasking OS, can easily manage hundreds of threads, even on a dual core CPU.

Overall computing power is what matters, and in most cases of similar power, you are better of with fewer faster core, than more slower ones, as pretty much all software has some non parallel component that will be faster on the few fast cores.

I do as anyone who used a Northcut and Prescott. I am not talking about all of a sudden a bunch of SMT threads is going to make everything a millions times faster. Suggesting that, that is what I am thinking is frankly insulting. Over all computing power wins in a vacuum which is why the 8600k/9600k seems like such a better buy than a 2600x (though I would say that the 2600x fits a little bellow it in cost so there is a money saving option there). But people don't use their PC's in a vacuum.

So here is a question. Do you know how a CPU handles a new process that needs computer cycles? Do you know what SMT threads do? Do you really not understand why a fully tapped out CPU without SMT would see a significant drop in performance when the CPU needs to do something else for the system, where a CPU with SMT wouldn't. Which is my entire point. As it is with new cutting edge games of 2016 till now a 4c even 8t CPU is riding at 100% CPU usage. An 8T cpu can at least make room for other things without tanking a cores works in games while it is doing its doing other work. If and I'll give you an if rather than when, even if I think its a when and the when is pretty close, games start to try to send to the CPU more than 4 cores than just like with the the 7600 now. When you use it in a real machine, a computer that's sole job isn't to run one game and absolutely nothing else so windows never interferes, when anything happens in the back ground one or more cores are stolen for that job and cause frame rates to tank. This is why when Ryzen users talked of more fluid and stable performance back when it launched, something X79+ guys have known for years. It isn't the placebo that people played it off as.

Playing games isn't a benchmark. It's isn't a case of quickest to finish. If you had a set counter of certain amount of frames shown. Hell if you put the background compute cycles I kept mentioning then that is all "compute power based". The 8600k or 9600k would finish it a lot quicker than a 2600x. Now lets say I was comparing a 1400 to 7600k. In the same game both CPU's would see the same hits a core shuts down from the game, it does its thing, it goes back to computing game work. The 7600k would roflstomp the 1400. It would be getting better FPS the entire time, it would do the other task quicker, and be quicker back to the game. Done and Done. But there is a distinct difference between how a 7700k and a 1500x, would handle that and a 7600k. I personally and why I wouldn't get the 8600k or the 9600k is because personally unless I was swapping PC's every year or two, would assume that, that type of activity is coming to 6 core PC's sooner rather than later and that much like the people who got a 2600k over a 2500k, that a 6c12t or in the case of the 9700k 8c8t cpu will age much better.