Question 9700K or 9900K

Jun 28, 2018
122
4
715
So, I managed to sell my 8700K and now I'm looking to buy a new CPU. Shall I go for 9700K or 9900K?

My motherboard is ROG MAXIMUS X HERO.

Gonna use it for gaming only. I don't know if I will ever stream or anything like that.

Kind regrads
 
Jun 28, 2018
122
4
715
Well, the question begs to be answered! Why sell the 8700k? It's a beast of a gaming CPU, and does everything you want and more. It pushes almost identical FPS to a 9700k/9900k in most games, and the 9700k/9900k literally have only 1-5% increase in FPS and that's totally game dependent.
Well, I didn't win the silicon lottery at all and I also considered the +2 cores as a bonus in longevity and since I could sell my 8700K at the same price that I bought I thought why not. Games already have started using 8 cores if i'm not mistaken.

My original thought was to go for i7 9700K but probably i can a bit extra for 9900K which is a 9700K with 4MB more cache, 100 MHz more and HT enabled. So it's a huge dilemma for me.

My next major upgrade in my sysytem if I don't loose interest will be on the DDR5 platform. I aim to keep my current system at least for 4-5 years though.
 

WildCard999

Titan
Moderator
If the 9700K or 9900K doesn't last for 5 years then your doing something wrong lol. With the 9700K/9900K having soldered TIM that should help a bit with temps and allow a slightly higher overclock then the 8700K but this would still require a high end air cooler or good 240mm+ AIO.

As a side note some games can utilize more cores/threads (Looking at you BF5!) but others are just new and need to be optimized. Saw like 70% usage in the Division 2 during open beta and now post release it's like 50% so optimization does help quite a bit (Ryzen 2600 6C/12T).
 
I see where your coming from. But TBH the difference between those chips for what you want to do is minimal.

All three are excellent CPU's. No mistaking that. There are very few games, if any that would actually max out 8 cores 100%. Even games like BF V which is CPU heavy uses, 4-6 cores, and maybe a few threads. But none would be maxed out completely. Same with the 8c/8t 9700k or the 8c/16t 9900k.

I think you're focusing too much on numbers and HT. You have 6c/12t 8700k, 8c/8t 9700k and an 8c/16t 9900k. They all perform within just a few% of each other. If money was no object, then get 9900k and be happy out for the 4-5 years with some GPU upgrades in between to keep things steady. The 9700k will still be good for nearly the same amount of time. But equally so the 8700k wold have served well too.

Edit: Wildcard mentioned something earlier, about a side grade etc. That's exactly the issue here. The general rule of thumb for CPU/GPU upgrades, is to go new a min 2 tiers above where you are. So for CPU I7 8700k to 10700k or whatever. GPU GTX 960 to GTX 2060. Going from one gen to the next, specially with Intel means on average a 5% increase in performance over the previous gen. It's not worth the cost.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WildCard999
It's frankly hard to imagine anyone being unsatisfied with an 8700K's gaming performance; yes, the 9700K and 9900K are a bit faster, but, it is not that significant a jump, so, choose whether or not the 9900K's extra $160-$180 cost is warranted by it's typical frame rate gain... (I'd say not, but, if one has money to burn, perhaps one might remain satisfied for at least 3-4 months with the 9900K) :)

SOme CPU scaling comparisons...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rOVfeujof4&t=458s