i5 8600k vs i7 7700k for Team Fortress 2?

[yeti_yeti]

Im going to be upgrading my computer towards the end of the summer and I cannot come to conclusion of which of the two processors will be better for playing Team Fortress 2 at high refresh rate. TF2 is a very old game, that may seem easy to run, however, over the years of countless updates the game's optimization has gone down the toilet and even very powerful machines struggle to keep stable 144 fps.
I wont be overclocking due to my case's bad airflow and poor compatibility for high end coolers. I will purchase b250 and b360 board respectively so both will cost me approximately the same.
i7 7700k has higher clockspeed, which in theory should give it better single core and thus slightly better performance, however it also has hyperthreading, which has been proved to hurt performance in older source games so both of these seem pretty even to me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

My current build
i5 4460
12 gb 1333mhz ram
gtx 1060 6bg

 

[geofelt]

The I7-7700K and I5-8600K have virtually the same passmark numbers.
I7-7700K is 12083 and single thread 2582
I5-8600K is 12831 and single thread 2578
What is different is the overclocking potential.
As of 6/9/17
What percent can get an overclock at a somewhat sane 1.4v Vcore.

I7-7700K
4.9 83%
5.0 62%
5.1 29%
5.2 6%
as of 12/01'2017
What % of I5-8600k chips can oc
at a agressive vcore of 1.4 or so and delidded
4.9 98%
5.0 84%
5.1 65%
5.2 38%
5.3 13%

I know you think you have no overclocking option, but a modest overclock should be possible.
Overclocking is limited primarily by your luck with getting a good chip, then by the vcore you will tolerate.
Thermal limits are not usually the limitation.
What is the make/model of your case?
I would hate to see you buy a non overclocking motherboard for either processor when a 20% performance boost is there free for the taking.

I always think going with latest gen is the best option when buying new.
Buying used, the 7700k option might be a good value.

 

[Mammatus]

8600k is better but, why buying K processors if you are not going to overclock it???

You could have a 8700 for the same price of a 8600k (dont forget that a K processors doesnt come with a cooler, so you will a have to buy one). (8700 come with a stock cooler which is sufficient to cool your CPU).

8700 will be faster than the 8600k, and has more threads (6 cores/12 threads vs 6 cores/6 threads).

 

[yeti_yeti]

The I7-7700K and I5-8600K have virtually the same passmark numbers.
I7-7700K is 12083 and single thread 2582
I5-8600K is 12831 and single thread 2578
What is different is the overclocking potential.
As of 6/9/17
What percent can get an overclock at a somewhat sane 1.4v Vcore.

I7-7700K
4.9 83%
5.0 62%
5.1 29%
5.2 6%
as of 12/01'2017
What % of I5-8600k chips can oc
at a agressive vcore of 1.4 or so and delidded
4.9 98%
5.0 84%
5.1 65%
5.2 38%
5.3 13%

I know you think you have no overclocking option, but a modest overclock should be possible.
Overclocking is limited primarily by your luck with getting a good chip, then by the vcore you will tolerate.
Thermal limits are not usually the limitation.
What is the make/model of your case?
I would hate to see you buy a non overclocking motherboard for either processor when a 20% performance boost is there free for the taking.

I always think going with latest gen is the best option when buying new.
Buying used, the 7700k option might be a good value.

Thank you for your reply I currently have Be Quiet Pure Rock, which seems to be decent, however not good enough for a high end processor, as I have been told. The ability to overclock is going to cost me about 40 euros. Do you think I will be able to overclock? If yes will the possible overclock be worth buying a z270 or a z370 motherboard, which like mentioned earlier is going to cost a premium. Lastly, will that overclock impact performance is a noticable way?

 

[mdd1963]

deleted

 

[madmatt30]

I'm hitting an absolute minimum of 100fps on an fx 6300.

Hard to run ? Not really.

An i5 8400 will maintain 144fps , past that you are honestly wasting money.

 

[Tolis_GR]

Having more than 1700 hours in TF2, i can confirm optimization issues. When i swapped my i5 to the i7 3770 i had the same fps dips to mid 80s in intense/chaotic 32 player battles. (mainly in custom maps where things get out of control) No improvement despite the better single core performance of the i7. Game runs around 200 fps in most cases though. Aim for a very high single core performace cpu, however it may not worth the money. Bad optimization is just that. Unable to take advantage of your extra resources.

 

[yeti_yeti]

Having more than 1700 hours in TF2, i can confirm optimization issues. When i swapped my i5 to the i7 3770 i had the same fps dips to mid 80s in intense/chaotic 32 player battles. (mainly in custom maps where things get out of control) No improvement despite the better single core performance of the i7. Game runs around 200 fps in most cases though. Aim for a very high single core performace cpu, however it may not worth the money. Bad optimization is just that. Unable to take advantage of your extra resources.

Hey, thank you for replying . I've got over 2000 hours and for a reference im using a modified fps config, and usually hover around 90-180 fps. Seems like I will be going for the 7700k as it seems to beat 8600k in games like CS:GO, which are made for 2-4 cores. Cheers!

 

[yeti_yeti]

I'm hitting an absolute minimum of 100fps on an fx 6300.

Hard to run ? Not really.

An i5 8400 will maintain 144fps , past that you are honestly wasting money.

I have well over 2000 hours and have been playing for more than 4 years and I can certainly tell you, that
1. 100 fps is not your "absolute minimum". Even a highly overclocked fx 6300 will still drop below 60 fps during intense combat.
2. i5 8400 will not maintain 144 fps. From what I can tell it's single core performance is slightly lower than that of i5 7600k, which is a very popular CPU amongst tf2 community, which has been proven unsuitable for 144hz on more populated servers.

 

[beinik6]

Well yeah you are right with that TF2 has bad performance.. and valve is not doing anything about it. I have over 2000 hours myself and know that.. I went through many many PC's since I play the game and NEVER made it to run really fluently, not even with a Ryzen 5 1600x.... Now I have an I7 8700k and finaly it runs good.