[SOLVED] Debating between buying two systems and I need some help deciding... (4690k vs 8600k)

[poundej]

Hello all,

I am buying a new Mini ITX PC as my Sim Racing setup. I am trying to keep costs down, but I am also looking to get the best performance for my money. I have narrowed my options down to four - two options each for the 4690k & 8600k - here they are;

i5 4690k & GTX 1660Ti = £636
i5 4690k & GTX 1070Ti = £647

i5 8600k & 1060 6GB = £735
i5 8600k & 1070 = £804

I will be using it to run the following titles at 100Hz;

iRacing, Assetto Corsa, F1 2018, rFactor 2. I would also like to stream these races as I do it competitively but it isn't a necessity.

Any input would be appreciated.

Jamie

 

[CountMike]

Well, two first 2 CPUs are hopelessly outdated and outclassed by other 2. Last 2 are much newer and now it's just a tossup between GPUs. 1070 will certainly be actual longer.
Are those already made computers ? Asking because 1660Ti is brand new card and doesn't really belong to such old system.

 

[Solandri]

The Haswell CPUs (i5-4xxx listed) are not "hopelessly outdated." Back in the 1990s, CPUs would double in speed roughly every 1.5 years. In the 2000s, we hit the brick wall of thermal limits (the transistors got small enough that power began leaking out due to quantum effects). Ever since then, CPU speed increases have been limited to about 5%-10% every 1.5 years. So even though Haswell is over 5 years old, it's still nearly as fast as modern CPUs clock for clock.

The main reason for getting a newer CPU is support for newer features, and reduced power consumption. Unfortunately there hasn't been anything really compelling since USB 3.0, and that was introduced with Sandy Bridge 8 years ago. Thunderbolt (introduced with Skylake) may be a good reason for laptops, but there's little point on a desktop where you can just plug in new PCIe cards. Motherboards for newer CPUs usually have M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs, so that might also be a reason to prefer the newer CPUs.

That said, the biggest reason to prefer the i5-8xxx is that they're hexacores (6 cores). The i5-4xxx are only quad cores (4 cores). You're literally getting 50% more multithreaded speed with the Coffee Lake i5s. The open-world multiplayer games (where you're sometimes playing with 100+ other people) tend to be CPU-limited more than GPU-limited. So if any of those games are on the list, definitely go for the i5-8xxx.

 

[Math Geek]

spot on. i still have a 4690k system and it's still very much good to go. however i would not build one today with it simply due to its age. 6 core 8600k is worth the extra expense since games are actually using it now. that and about 20-25% better cpu ipc (that's all you get for being 5 years newer!!) would help in those racing games which tend to be more cpu bound than gpu bound.

keep in mind there is also the 9600k refresh which is about the same cost as the 8600k. at least in the US it is.