What is the most efficient cool running gaming cpu?

[JeffMD]

Have not looked at CPUs in a while but entertaining the idea that I will retrofit my desktop once more (I went to a gaming laptop to keep temps in the bedroom down) I'd like to hear what others consider a good gaming cpu that runs at low temps/ power consumption?

 

[arandomguy]

If your normalized them all to the same performance, such as using vsync or a 60 fps cap, than there won't be enough difference among any of the stock consumer CPUs except maybe outside a few niche games. Games for the most part don't put enough of a constant workload on CPUs.

The GPU is where you can get actual savings in that area.

Circling back to above, actual efficiency in gaming isn't really explored by the benchmarks you see (whether GPU or CPU) since they don't factor in performance. Higher end components will use more power uncapped but if you normalize them to the same performance they can be more efficient at a given performance level.

 

[jihe]

7700k

 

[wilds]

R7 1700

 

[IEC]

R5 1600 or R7 1700 (65W TDP, very efficient at stock)
GTX 1080 for graphics (165W TDP, most efficient graphics card in terms of FPS/W)

However, you're still looking at 200W+ total heat dissipation while gaming. 250W+ if it's both CPU and GPU intensive.

 

[coercitiv]

Depending on budget go for either R5 1600 or i7 7700K. Whatever you CPU choice go for high speed RAM, at least 3200Mhz, since fast RAM is the most power efficient way of getting more gaming performance (and keeping performance high even if you decide to underclock the CPU for more efficiency).

 

[Ken g6]

Underclocking a 1080 would also seem to make sense from an efficiency standpoint.

With the 7700k, I wonder if it's better to get really high speed 1.35v RAM or 2800 1.2v dual ranked? The Ryzen really does need the faster RAM, single ranked.

 

[Rifter]

Ryzen 1600 or 1700 with a 1080.

 

[JeffMD]

Yea i've kind of got the card figured out, most likely 1070gtx but I will probably have to wait for the crypto fallout before i judge which one I can afford best. The reason I am eyeing the cpu as my problem child is these things can create a sort of constant heat where as the video card can emit very little while NOT gaming. In fact now that I resurrected my desktop (xeon 1231v3, so haswell gen) I looked into some heat savings and found that under default settings even %5 of cpu use would cause the cpu to fully clock up. By turning cooling method to passive in the power plan section I was able to have a much more lax speed step and thus reduce temps even more while just web browsing and youtubing. In fact while I was playing with the asus cooler manager, I was able to keep temps low enough that case fans were not needed, just the cpu fan (The top of the case has a large ventilation spot so the heat was able to radiate out naturally). So it gave me hope that i could achieve the same temps as my laptop does during normal use.