[SOLVED] i7-7700k vs i7-8700(non-k)

[Antoniopedrogf]

So I'm looking to upgrade my cpu and I want you guy's opnion on this.

I currently have:
i5-6400
gigabyte ga-h110m-h motherboard
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H110M-H-rev-10#ov

I'm choosing between:
i7-8700 + B360M-D3H for a total of $360
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B360M-D3H-rev-10#kf

Or buying only a i7-7700k for $260 and keeping my old ga-h110m-h while saving $100 on the process.

I don't ever intend to overclock the i7-7700k.
I already have a good air cooler(it keeps my i5-6400 at 35C on full load).
The purpose of my computer is only gaming/streaming games like:
CS GO (on 240hz)
Rainbow Six Siege (on 144hz)
(I already have a 240hz monitor)

After watching some benchmarks I saw that the i7-7700k matches the i7-8700 on gaming so saving the $100 on the i7-7700k would be very good for me.

My main question is: Do you guys think my old motherboard can handle the 4.2 GHz stock speed of the i7-7700k? Or it's safer to just buy the new i7-8700 combo?

 

[Eximo]

They do perform similarly, but that is only for now. Those extra cores might come in handy in the future.

Certainly be easier to just drop in the i7-7700k, though, and you could probably get it to run at 4.5Ghz all the time. Then you don't have to reinstall your OS or possibly have to reactivate Windows (or buy it again depending on your license).

 

[mdd1963]

That would indeed be a good price on a 7700K, given that they are currently $440 on Amazon...

Gaming/simultaneous streaming is a bit of an issue with most 4 core CPUs, but with the 7700K's 4 cores and 8 threads, and several hundred MHz higher clock/turbo speeds, it should certainly fare better than the 6400.

Perfectly content with my 7700K/GTX1060 pairing, and will likely continue to be so until:
a. it won't sustain 60 fps in the games I like (i.e., BF1!)
b. there is a decently priced 8 core cpu , preferably SMT/HT capable) calling to me that does not dissipate 160 watts under load that still does at least as well as the 8700K and 9700K in games

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

They do perform similarly, but that is only for now. Those extra cores might come in handy in the future.

Certainly be easier to just drop in the i7-7700k, though, and you could probably get it to run at 4.5Ghz all the time. Then you don't have to reinstall your OS or possibly have to reactivate Windows (or buy it again depending on your license).

Thank you for the attention.

I don't have problems with reinstalling my OS or updating the bios. My only concern is my old motherboard being able to handle the i7-7700k, if it can, then I'll just buy it and use the $100 on something else

 

[Eximo]

Re-install would be with swapping out the motherboard. Chances are okay that it would work with a transplanted OS, but best results are always from a fresh install.

Well, the normal concern is that your motherboard has notheatsinks on the VRMs and the 7700k will consume a bit more power then the 6400. I would try it and monitor the temperatures. You could always get some loose heatsinks and glue them onto the VRMs.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

I would just make sure you have good airflow over the vrm or as stated above add some heatsink. The board should be able to handle it because it is supported.

Where are you getting a 7700k for $260? Used?

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

That would indeed be a good price on a 7700K, given that they are currently $440 on Amazon...

Gaming/simultaneous streaming is a bit of an issue with most 4 core CPUs, but with the 7700K's 4 cores and 8 threads, and several hundred MHz higher clock/turbo speeds, it should certainly fare better than the 6400.

Perfectly content with my 7700K/GTX1060 pairing, and will likely continue to be so until:
a. it won't sustain 60 fps in the games I like (i.e., BF1!)
b. there is a decently priced 8 core cpu , preferably SMT/HT capable) calling to me that does not dissipate 160 watts under load that still does at least as well as the 8700K and 9700K in games

Thanks for the attention.

I see some famous streamers using the i7-7700k whilst playing 144hz games and above so I think it should be fine. However, now that you mentioned the power usage I got a little worried, I have a 600W power source that effectively delivers 480W(80%-tested).

Re-install would be with swapping out the motherboard. Chances are okay that it would work with a transplanted OS, but best results are always from a fresh install.

Well, the normal concern is that your motherboard has notheatsinks on the VRMs and the 7700k will consume a bit more power then the 6400. I would try it and monitor the temperatures. You could always get some loose heatsinks and glue them onto the VRMs.

If i get the i7-7700k them I'll trying adding some heatsink. The power gap is also a concern, I currently use a 600W source that effectively delivers 480W(80%), I think it can handle the difference though.
I will definitely format the pc when I install the new processor.

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

I would just make sure you have good airflow over the vrm or as stated above add some heatsink. The board should be able to handle it because it is supported.

Where are you getting a 7700k for $260? Used?

Thanks for the attention.

The airflow in my case is pretty decent, it's why the i5-6400 stays only at 35C on maximum load.
The 7700k is open box on microcenter.

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

That would indeed be a good price on a 7700K, given that they are currently $440 on Amazon...

Gaming/simultaneous streaming is a bit of an issue with most 4 core CPUs, but with the 7700K's 4 cores and 8 threads, and several hundred MHz higher clock/turbo speeds, it should certainly fare better than the 6400.

Perfectly content with my 7700K/GTX1060 pairing, and will likely continue to be so until:
a. it won't sustain 60 fps in the games I like (i.e., BF1!)
b. there is a decently priced 8 core cpu , preferably SMT/HT capable) calling to me that does not dissipate 160 watts under load that still does at least as well as the 8700K and 9700K in games

Thanks for attention.

I also have a GTX 1060 6GB, but the i5-6400's bottlenecking her a lot so i definitely need a upgrade. I think the i7-7700k will do fine since a lot of famous streamers use it. I will buy as long I'm certain my motherboard will handle it.

 

[Karadjgne]

Clarification:

The VRM's are the voltage regulatory circuitry that sits right around the socket. That's where you'll usually find some decent motherboard heatsinks. What they do is convert the 12v to 1.Xv that the cpu needs. This creates heat as a byproduct. Hense the need for heatsinks. Your motherboard has dismal heatsinking surrounding the socket, that's normal for uber budget mobo's designed to be run with uber budget cpus. Moving from that 4c/4t cpu to a i7 with 4c/8t, higher clock speeds etc can demand more from the VRM's than what you have. Nothing to do with the psu, more with the motherboard ability to keep the cpu stable and not overheat or burnout the VRM's.

If your psu is rated at 600w, it should deliver 600w. The 80% is part of the 80+ program, a voluntary certification where psu efficiency is rated at 20/50/100% loads. 80+ means it's 80/80/80% efficient at least. 80+ Bronze is 82/85/82 and 80+ Gold is 87/90/87% efficient.

That said, there's a bunch of junk-mediocre gaming rated psus, not a one good-excellent at 600w. For good-excellent you'd be looking at 550/620/650w, so you may be correct in the 480w assumption. Depends on exactly what psu you have.

The i5 6400, sorry but that's the worst i5 Intel put out in recent history, is typically beaten by the i3-6100, just based on core speeds. Cs:go relies heavily on core speeds not thread counts, so even moving upto the i7-7700k at stock turbo speeds will show serious improvement

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

Clarification:

The VRM's are the voltage regulatory circuitry that sits right around the socket. That's where you'll usually find some decent motherboard heatsinks. What they do is convert the 12v to 1.Xv that the cpu needs. This creates heat as a byproduct. Hense the need for heatsinks. Your motherboard has dismal heatsinking surrounding the socket, that's normal for uber budget mobo's designed to be run with uber budget cpus. Moving from that 4c/4t cpu to a i7 with 4c/8t, higher clock speeds etc can demand more from the VRM's than what you have. Nothing to do with the psu, more with the motherboard ability to keep the cpu stable and not overheat or burnout the VRM's.

If your psu is rated at 600w, it should deliver 600w. The 80% is part of the 80+ program, a voluntary certification where psu efficiency is rated at 20/50/100% loads. 80+ means it's 80/80/80% efficient at least. 80+ Bronze is 82/85/82 and 80+ Gold is 87/90/87% efficient.

That said, there's a bunch of junk-mediocre gaming rated psus, not a one good-excellent at 600w. For good-excellent you'd be looking at 550/620/650w, so you may be correct in the 480w assumption. Depends on exactly what psu you have.

The i5 6400, sorry but that's the worst i5 Intel put out in recent history, is typically beaten by the i3-6100, just based on core speeds. Cs:go relies heavily on core speeds not thread counts, so even moving upto the i7-7700k at stock turbo speeds will show serious improvement

Thanks for the information.

My psu is a budget one with a 80+ certificate, however i didn't made the 480W assumption based on that, I actually tested it on my University's lab.

I regret buying the i5-6400 two years ago as a budget option, it's always been bottlenecking my 1060. Should have just bought a i7-6700k instead. But yeah i think the i7-7700k can put CS GO at 240 minimum fps since the i5-6400 can already put it at 220 average.

 

[Karadjgne]

I7-3770K @4.6GHz / gtx970 gets me solid 300fps in cs:go at ultra settings. So you'd be looking at pretty similar with a stock i7-7700k and a 1060,if not slightly more as I've never bothered to see if it's the cpu that's capped or the gpu. Both sit at 55-60% usage.

 

[Dugimodo]

Bear in mind if you spend the extra $100 you also have more to sell to recover some of the difference.
I think a 7700K is a solid choice still though, and it is on the CPU support list for that board so it should be fine in theory.
Don't forget to check the BIOS version is up to date enough for the i7 before swapping it in, you need F20 or newer https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H110M-H-rev-10#support-cpu

You could also consider the non K 6700 or 7700 if they are available at the right price, at stock speeds you are not giving up much and it's not an overclocking board anyway.

I was considering something similar for my i5 7400 based machine but I've not seen any deals that good around here and it's doing all I need it to.

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

Bear in mind if you spend the extra $100 you also have more to sell to recover some of the difference.
I think a 7700K is a solid choice still though, and it is on the CPU support list for that board so it should be fine in theory.
Don't forget to check the BIOS version is up to date enough for the i7 before swapping it in, you need F20 or newer https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H110M-H-rev-10#support-cpu

You could also consider the non K 6700 or 7700 if they are available at the right price, at stock speeds you are not giving up much and it's not an overclocking board anyway.

I was considering something similar for my i5 7400 based machine but I've not seen any deals that good around here and it's doing all I need it to.

I should update the bios with my i5-6400 without any problems.
Both the i7-6700 and i7-7700 are more expensive than the i7-7700k on my local store so if I don't get this one I'll just pick the i7-8700.

 

[mdd1963]

Thanks for the attention.

I see some famous streamers using the i7-7700k whilst playing 144hz games and above so I think it should be fine. However, now that you mentioned the power usage I got a little worried, I have a 600W power source that effectively delivers 480W(80%-tested).


If i get the i7-7700k them I'll trying adding some heatsink. The power gap is also a concern, I currently use a 600W source that effectively delivers 480W(80%), I think it can handle the difference though.
I will definitely format the pc when I install the new processor.

The 7700K never shows above 80-90W consumed in HWMonitor even at 4.5 GHz all-core MCE operation, and certainly no more than that in a non-OC'd mainboard setting. I use a 600 watt PSU myself w/ a GTX1060, so, 300+ watts to spare....; you should be fine short of suddenly desiring to buy a pair of 2080Tis, etc...

 

[mdd1963]

I should update the bios with my i5-6400 without any problems.
Both the i7-6700 and i7-7700 are more expensive than the i7-7700k on my local store so if I don't get this one I'll just pick the i7-8700.

Naturally, though, the 8700, if purchased, will require a new 300 series mainboard purchased to go along with it...; at least B360 is not expensive....and since you can't OC an 8700 anyway, not a bad choice.

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

The 7700K never shows above 80-90W consumed in HWMonitor even at 4.5 GHz all-core MCE operation, and certainly no more than that in a non-OC'd mainboard setting. I use a 600 watt PSU myself w/ a GTX1060, so, 300+ watts to spare....; you should be fine short of suddenly desiring to buy a pair of 2080Tis, etc...

Thanks for the information.

I'm pretty sure I have some watts to spare since i only have a GTX1060, 2x8GB 2400Mhz RAM, 2 HDs, headset, keyboard and mouse attached to it. (No rgbs or any kind of lights).

 

[Cioby]

More cache, more cores. If you also stream, the 8700 might eventually be better. I'm usually into buying one good CPU and keeping it until it dies or you really need to upgrade, so I'd recommend the 8700k but the 8700 has turbo boost anyway and will automatically go much higher than the stock clocks.
So my personal opinion for gaming/streaming is 8700k or 8700.

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

Naturally, though, the 8700, if purchased, will require a new 300 series mainboard purchased to go along with it...; at least B360 is not expensive....and since you can't OC an 8700 anyway, not a bad choice.

Yeah as I mentioned getting a i7-8700 would cost $100 more in total because of the motherboard

More cache, more cores. If you also stream, the 8700 might eventually be better. I'm usually into buying one good CPU and keeping it until it dies or you really need to upgrade, so I'd recommend the 8700k but the 8700 has turbo boost anyway and will automatically go much higher than the stock clocks.
So my personal opinion for gaming/streaming is 8700k or 8700.

It's being a hard choice for me but I think both of them are fine.

 

[Cioby]

Yeah as I mentioned getting a i7-8700 would cost $100 more in total because of the motherboard

It's being a hard choice for me but I think both of them are fine.

Think of the performance boost and how much you're willing to spend. For example I buy WD black instead of something like Seagate. I may pay double the price, but my HDD will die 3 times slower than the Seagate at least and the 6TB one has speeds of up to 240 MBps.

Normally if you really want to invest or are successful at streaming and other stuff, I'd say get a i9. But if you're on a budget a 8700 is enough. I just bought my 8700k after 7 years of having the same beast of a i7 4770k, runs better fps at lower resolutions. Runs cooler and uses less of my CPU overall. Haven't streamed in a while but I assume that's much smoother too.

If you have the money and want to invest on something that you may not have to change for 7+ years then just go for it. Saving 100$ now might mean wasting 500$ in 2 years. Tho in my one month of playing with my 8700k, you don't really need to OC to the maximum in most cases, but it's nice to have the option later on if you need it. 8700 boasts 4.6 Turbo boost or something, so it may OC on it's own. 90% of 8700k users can also OC up to 4900 and 40% can boost to 5000 (don't quote me on these statistics, I read it somewhere since I couldn't get to 5k myself and didn't really want to use more voltage).

View: https://youtu.be/oCSkyNHXIAE?t=611

 

[Antoniopedrogf]

Think of the performance boost and how much you're willing to spend. For example I buy WD black instead of something like Seagate. I may pay double the price, but my HDD will die 3 times slower than the Seagate at least and the 6TB one has speeds of up to 240 MBps.

Normally if you really want to invest or are successful at streaming and other stuff, I'd say get a i9. But if you're on a budget a 8700 is enough. I just bought my 8700k after 7 years of having the same beast of a i7 4770k, runs better fps at lower resolutions. Runs cooler and uses less of my CPU overall. Haven't streamed in a while but I assume that's much smoother too.

If you have the money and want to invest on something that you may not have to change for 7+ years then just go for it. Saving 100$ now might mean wasting 500$ in 2 years. Tho in my one month of playing with my 8700k, you don't really need to OC to the maximum in most cases, but it's nice to have the option later on if you need it. 8700 boasts 4.6 Turbo boost or something, so it may OC on it's own. 90% of 8700k users can also OC up to 4900 and 40% can boost to 5000 (don't quote me on these statistics, I read it somewhere since I couldn't get to 5k myself and didn't really want to use more voltage).

View: https://youtu.be/oCSkyNHXIAE?t=611

Thanks for the information.

I considered the i7-8700k but it's way out of my budget as the i7-8700 itself is on the edge. It should last a little longer, but I think the i7-7700k will also last a lot of time. I'm gonna wait to see if i can get a good deal for the 8700 otherwise I'll just get the i7-7700k.

 

[mgallo848]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rOVfeujof4

 

[Eximo]

I have no doubt the VRMs on that board can handle the load, just that temperatures might get a little high without heatsinks. If the airflow is as good as you claim it might not be an issue at all. But getting some tiny heatsinks and thermal adhesive won't cost all that much and you'll feel better about it:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/micr...microsink-chipsink-silver.html#Specifications

Just plop those on top of each of the small chips next to the square coil packs that are next to the CPU socket. I'm guessing a bit on the size though, take some measurements of the chips and how far apart they are. They also carry ones without the adhesive backing for much less, and you can pick up your own adhesive tape: http://www.performance-pcs.com/3m-8810-thermally-conductive-adhesivetape-2-x-2.html
Or thermal adhesive compound.

I plan to keep my i7-7700k until 10nm processors (or better) from Intel hit the market for desktop.

I've got my eye on Ryzen 3000, but I probably won't see a gaming improvement unless I go for a better GPU and CPU, and I can't see that happening at current prices. So there as well, probably wait for Nvidia's next die-shrink (I have a g-sync monitor, so AMD not really an option there either)