i7 7700K, i5 8600k or Ryzen 5 1600

[donniesign]

Sadly, my old lga 1155 motherboard died today along with my i5 3570k that I used for 4k gaming with a GTX 1080. Now I'm forced to change my motherboard and cpu and honestly, I'm clueless.

My first option was the Ryzen 5 1600 but people are telling me that I need at least 3200mhz DDR4 ram for it to work properly. I don't know if that's true but what I know is that where I live, ram is insanely overpriced at the moment. Basically, for the money I have to pay for the Ryzen with that ram and a good motherboard I can get an i7 7700k, cheaper ram and a good motherboard or an i5 8600k for 50/60 euros more.

Is really the ram speed that important for the Ryzen 5 1600? Is the 7700k still worth it nowadays? Would my pc perform worse if I only get 8gb of DDR4 ram, coming from 16gb of DDR3? I only play in 4k so the results should be similar between these three, right?

450 - 550 euros budget but the cheaper the better.

Thank you in advance

 

[Supernova1138]

RAM speed is important for Ryzen as it dictates the speed the cores communicate with each other. Throwing some el cheapo 2133MHz DDR4 onto a Ryzen system can reduce performance by a perceptible amount. 3200MHz is ideal (though potentially hard to get working at full speed, Ryzen is very picky about high speed DDR4 compatibility) and 2666MHz is really the minimum you should be looking at for Ryzen.

The 7700k isn't really worth looking at anymore unless you can get it cheap. The motherboard has no upgrade path and it only has 4 physical cores. The 8600k tends to beat it in most benchmarks due to having two more physical cores despite the lack of hyperthreading.

For gaming, the 8600k is the best choice of the three, though the difference between the CPUs is probably not going to be all the perceptible at 4K with a GTX 1080. At that high a resolution, you are going to be completely GPU bound. Ryzen's main advantages are that the additional threads on the CPU might come in handy in the long term, and the AM4 platform is likely to have a longer upgrade path. Intel offers you faster cores which games respond to better, but even the new Coffee Lake platform likely won't have much of an upgrade path to it as the 10nm shrink will likely require new motherboards too.

 

[donniesign]

RAM speed is important for Ryzen as it dictates the speed the cores communicate with each other. Throwing some el cheapo 2133MHz DDR4 onto a Ryzen system can reduce performance by a perceptible amount. 3200MHz is ideal (though potentially hard to get working at full speed, Ryzen is very picky about high speed DDR4 compatibility) and 2666MHz is really the minimum you should be looking at for Ryzen.

The 7700k isn't really worth looking at anymore unless you can get it cheap. The motherboard has no upgrade path and it only has 4 physical cores. The 8600k tends to beat it in most benchmarks due to having two more physical cores despite the lack of hyperthreading.

For gaming, the 8600k is the best choice of the three, though the difference between the CPUs is probably not going to be all the perceptible at 4K with a GTX 1080. At that high a resolution, you are going to be completely GPU bound. Ryzen's main advantages are that the additional threads on the CPU might come in handy in the long term, and the AM4 platform is likely to have a longer upgrade path. Intel offers you faster cores which games respond to better, but even the new Coffee Lake platform likely won't have much of an upgrade path to it as the 10nm shrink will likely require new motherboards too.

Thank you so much for your answer, I have it much more clear now. I will go for the Ryzen. Thanks again!

 

[penn919]

It's true that you will want to get the fastest ram possible for the Ryzen CPU; therefore, just get the 8600k. You could use that for a few years and maybe upgrade to the 8700k when it gets cheap. Newer technologies are always around the corner, so I wouldn't worry too much about newer platforms. You'd be waiting forever... literally.

If an upgrade path is really important, then get the 1600. Ram prices will fall again eventually and the platform is going to be supported until 2020. You might have to buy slower ram now, but maybe you can upgrade the ram and CPU at the same time when Pinnacle ridge is released.