Question i9-9900K now or wait?

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R_G_S

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Was about to build a new rig based around the 9900K in early May, as I thought the next update of Intel processors wasn't coming until either late 2019 or 2020 (Ice Lake) and I can't wait that long.

However it seems that I somehow missed the news that a refresh is likely this summer (June-August?), with the top tier 'Comet Lake' chip being a 10-core part.

I'm not in the position to wait and wait and wait (until 2020 at least), but am I correct in thinking that this 10 core processor is likely coming soon (say 3 months) and will not only have more cores than the 9900K but should also be faster (+ prob around £150 more expensive)?

Also, and I think I'm fairly safe on this one, we're not expecting an update to the 2080 Ti any time soon, right?

Thanks.
 
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R_G_S

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Thanks, Darkbreeze.

With the 9900KS pushed out to Q4, I can't imagine any processor surprises before then.

Only thing I'm worried about now is this 'Super' tease really and with the 2080 Ti less than a year old, surely it can't be something much better than that at a comparable price, right? If it were something like this: https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce...-cards-16-gbps-memory-tackle-amd-radeon-navi/, am I correct in thinking that would be a relatively minor speed bump as opposed to anything dramatic (and also come with a further delay in availability)?

Don't want to wait and wait and wait (can't anyway), but also don't want to be that person who buys an iPhone a week before the new one ;).

Thanks again - I think beyond that, I'm good to go!
 
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wccftech is the last place I'd go for information. Fully 75% of what you read there is unsubstantiated BS that turns out to be nothing more than substantiated BS, in other words, PURE BS, and the other 25% has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I don't think anything worthwhile beyond what they already have will be coming from Intel anytime soon aside from the Ice lake releases in June that are primarily mobile based models. AMD might be a different story if you're willing to go that route. The 12 core 24 thread Ryzen 9 3900x at 499.00 looks rather appealing especially since the rumor is (Again, grain of salt) that they have improved IPC and single core performance to at or near what Intel is at right now. Those release on July 7th, supposedly.
 

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The 12 core 24 thread Ryzen 9 3900x at 499.00 looks rather appealing especially since the rumor is (Again, grain of salt) that they have improved IPC and single core performance to at or near what Intel is at right now. Those release on July 7th, supposedly.
Rumors? Those were confirmed in Lisa Su's CES keynotes unless you are implying she might be lying in public about AMD's product performance. Wouldn't be a smart thing to do since it would make AMD liable of potential charges of misleading investors.
 
Yeah, but it wouldn't be the first time, and SAYING a product works "as well" or "better" than another product is highly subjective. Don't get me wrong, I hope it's accurate, but I'll be dubious until I see the actual reviews after release. I'm not buying into any "just buy it" type recommendations without seeing some concrete first. It's a company. Companies bold faced lie all the time and then backtrack later or say things were taken out of context.

Like I said, it looks appealing. But I wouldn't go blindly into the water.
 

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Everyone says a filet mignon is the best. Yeah, if it's wrapped in bacon, or it's dry as a bone and tasteless. It's also too rubbery for my tastes, I much prefer a good 1¼" thick, well marbled ribeye. But then again, I've tasted both. Kinda not a big fan of just going with what 'everybody says'.
Almost 7 years ago, everybody said I only needed the i5-3570k, a quad was all that was needed. The i7-3770k was a waste of $100. So, I bought the i7-3770k and am still running it as my main today, everybody who chipped in and said I was a fool, has now traded up, and up again, after buying the i5-4690k.
Everybody says the i9-9900k is the best there is. So far. I'd be seriously inclined to wait and see what Zen2 brings to the table and see what everybody says then. Gotta have a ribeye and a filet both, then make up my mind just which is better, for me. Not which everybody says is best.
 

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Companies bold faced lie all the time and then backtrack later or say things were taken out of context.
Tell that to investors when they file a class-action lawsuit and gets the SEC involved, usually doesn't end well for the company when investors can demonstrate that statements were made with no basis in reality. Unless Lisa wants to land AMD in a heap of legal trouble, her statements have to be at least somewhat accurate.

15% IPC increase from making the cores' structures 25-50% wider and doubling cache sizes? Not far-fetched at all for the massive resource cost, perfectly in line with what I've been saying for years about the diminishing returns of sinking more resources into single-threaded IPC. Almost doubling transistor count for only 15% more IPC isn't very cost-effective but that is where we are at and Intel's Sunny Cove is also claiming similar IPC gains from similar architectural improvements.
 
I'm not Lisa Su, so I guess I won't need to tell investors anything. LOL.

But I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that it won't be the first time and investors are unlikely to be very reactive because AMD has been doing a good job for a while now of making the products profitable. When you're making money you're a little more willing to forgive and forget, or make allowances. Regardless, it's promising anyhow.
 

knickle

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I'm not Lisa Su, so I guess I won't need to tell investors anything. LOL.

But I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that it won't be the first time and investors are unlikely to be very reactive because AMD has been doing a good job for a while now of making the products profitable. When you're making money you're a little more willing to forgive and forget, or make allowances. Regardless, it's promising anyhow.
Any time I've watched these kinds of presentations there is always fine print that state "up to" or some other limitation statement. But when Lisa told everyone 15% IPC improvement, the fine print was nowhere to be found. Either AMD goofed on the slides, or this round is actually packing a legitimate performance punch.
 

R_G_S

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Almost 7 years ago, everybody said I only needed the i5-3570k, a quad was all that was needed. The i7-3770k was a waste of $100. So, I bought the i7-3770k and am still running it as my main today, everybody who chipped in and said I was a fool, has now traded up, and up again, after buying the i5-4690k.

Yup, I've had a very similar experience in the past: 1. Everyone said I didn't need a quad core and 4 GB RAM (a long time ago, obviously! - I got both and they lasted really well); 2. Everyone said get AMD, faster and cheaper than Intel - I did and had serious issues with the platform which led me to changing back to Intel within 3 months or so (stability issues with both work and games).

Point 2. is why I avoid AMD these days, even though I may have simply been unlucky; it just felt like a cheaper/less stable platform. I was watching a video by Tech Deals (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCss3QxegBkF8BAetIo0qXA) the other day where he says "If you want the best deal, get AMD; if you want the best, get Intel." He went on to say that in his experience, regardless of raw speed, Intel is the nicer of the two platforms to work with (in terms of stutters, glitches and whatnot). He doesn't appear to be an Intel fan boy, as has an awful lot of nice things to say about AMD and admitted his feelings may well change with their new line up, but generally speaking what he said rang true with me (from my very limited experience).

CPU
Ice Lake isn't going to offer anything decent desktop-wise until next year AFAIK. The only processors I'm aware of coming this year would be the 10-core Intel Comet Lake part (apparently 5 GHz...) and the just announced i9 9900KS, in Q4. If we had confirmation of the 10-core part I might have been tempted to wait, if it was slated for October, as I do worry that 8 cores might age badly, but from what we know now I could easily wait till then, only to find it's been 'delayed' until 2020. Sure, I could console myself with the 9900KS, but that really doesn't seem worth waiting 5-6 months for... Additionally maybe they'll charge £800 for the 10-core and there might be a further delay waiting on new MBs, availability etc (rumours are it won't work with the Z390s).

GPU
So, processors aside, my only real concern now is the GPU. I had felt pretty happy with going with the 2080 Ti (this one for £1,019: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/evg...dy-graphics-card-4352-core-1350mhz-gpu-1545mh), but now we have this 'Super' tease from nVidia. They chose not to reveal what this was at Computex (thanks...), so now it's looking like E3, another couple of weeks away... £1,000+ for a GPU still feels insane to me, but for the 4K performance gain (over the 2080), I can just about stomach it. But to spend that amount of money only to see the card replaced almost immediately would be real kick in the teeth.

Initially I was pleased to have waited until Computex when I saw the KS announcement (not the 10-core I'd hoped for, but a nice bump-up all the same), but was then disappointed when they revealed the release date. So now I wonder, hold out till E3 when nVidia may or may not reveal something, or just take the plunge now.

One final thing, GPU-wise - I take it it's unlikely we're going to see cards which are longer then 314 mm (reference boards) going forward? Making my final case decisions now and noticed than some aftermarket boards can run as long as 330 mm, but plenty still available at sub-300, with ref. generally ~267 mm.

Thanks!
 
I've been laying low until the case is decided upon ;)

I was fully supportive of your Intel build until recently. Now I'm having reservations due to all these new vulnerabilities. I am not expert enough to provide guidance unfortunately. Perhaps consider a non-hyperthreaded i7-9700K or one of the new Ryzen 3000 CPU's. Here, he doesn't seem to be as concerned with the 8 core i9-9900K, I guess because there are an adequate number of cores even with hyperthreading disabled. Still, if you going to disable them, you might as well drop down to the i7-9700K.


[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9t7u5pM1cE[/URL]"]www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9t7u5pM1cE[/URL]
 
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I have to admit, that's almost exactly what I was going to post earlier, HOWEVER, unless your system is not kept secure OR if you have a publicly accessible system, I think most of this stuff is way overblown anyhow. Almost all of these vulnerabilities require direct access to the machine in question OR require that you already have been infected with a prerequisite malware before they can be implemented. So hopefully for most users, that's not probable, so long as they keep a good anti viral/malware installed and keep the definitions up to date.

On the other hand, the MITIGATIONS are a problem, since they are forcing them down our throats whether we want them or not, and will basically make the performance related to the hyperthreads non-existent once you add all the accumulative mitigations and patches together and subtract the performance hit. In which case, it might be better to consider AMD that at least doesn't have as MANY of these patch requirements or a CPU that doesn't have hyperthreading, OR a CPU with as many cores as possible so that the loss of the hyperthreaded performance isn't as big of a factor but it seems dumb to pay for hyperthreaded models if you can't use the hyperthreads to the intended level of performance.

Just my thoughts on that. Honestly, I wish I had never installed the microcode BIOS updates that "patched" Specter and Meltdown, since downgrading the BIOS won't get rid of those.
 

R_G_S

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Thanks guys,

I'll check out these vulnerabilities in detail this eve. Seems like they could either be a very serious issue or a storm in a teacup, hopefully the latter (I consider disabling HT the former!).

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3395439/intel-hyper-threading-zombieload-cpu-exploit.html

"The only real silver lining is for those with the latest and greatest Intel CPUs. As the company said, many of its recent 8th-gen and 9th-gen processors already have hardware fixes in place—so there’s no reason to switch off Hyper-Threading on a Core i9-9900K whatsoever. ZombieLoad's danger apparently applies only to PCs with slightly older CPUs. Owners of those systems will have to depend on firmware and software updates to lower the risk, and to count on the absence of any known attacks abusing the ZombieLoad exploit, so far."

Which sounds OK, until you look elsewhere... Got some research to do.

Thanks for the heads up; back soon ;).
 
Ah, good old fear mongering.

Research is a good thing indeed, but don't overwork yourself over it. you can always have a cheap laptop for browsing and just leave the PC for everything else you need to do.

As for the update part, you're kind of screwed with Windows as MS will just push the updates on your, like it or not. You can disable them as far as I'm aware, but you will still have them. Silver lining I do mind.

When you get the 9900K just test it before you update Windows and after you do?

Cheers!
 

R_G_S

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Right, back!


CPU Vulnerabilities
Done some research, but more required. In brief, it appears that I won't have to disable HT on the 9900K which is a relief, however the software and bios mitigations might cause a decrease in performance anyway - but we don't know yet as not been updated (at time of Computex) - at least that's my understanding of the situation so far, might not be 100% accurate. As far as games go, current ones at least, the 9900K should be fine, but obviously I'm buying this boy for more than just gaming.

If I stick with Intel, I don't have the option of going for more cores without swapping to HEDT and the price for that upgrade is significant (was ~£700 last I checked for the 12-core part), + new chips confirmed so a further wait too; also slower per clock than the 9900K. As stated (many times!) previously I feel the 10-core 'K' processor/9900K replacement would be perfect for me, but who knows what's going on with that... Intel tweeted that the 9900KS will be "shipping holiday 2019" which to me says late November at the earliest. Though rumours are against it, hopefully the Z390 AORUS Master will support the 10-core Comet Lake processor, at least giving me the option of upgrading later without having to go the full MB replacement route.

Would like to consider AMD; 12-core on 7/7 with 16-core in the pipeline is certainly appealing, but as have stated many times, due to previous experience they still give me the fear. At least with Intel I know where I stand (vulnerabilities aside...).


Case (NB: TL;DR at the bottom ;))
I've pretty much made my mind up case-wise, and I'm sorry to say that it's not the sensible option as 90% sure I'll be going with the TJ11. I am aware of the limitations which are as follows:
  • Old design (huge externally, but not great use of internal space due to 5.25 inch bays).
  • Old design (hot-swap drive bays, in cages, are only SATA 2, thus require updated backplate: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/silverstone-sst-cp05-hot-swap-sas-sata-6g-module-ca-319-sv.html).
  • Discontinued (difficulty in sourcing new power buttons/USB panels if they fail).
  • Discontinued (180 mm AP fans only made by SilverStone, hard to source in future).
  • 180 mm fans manually set to high/low (and are noisy on high...).
  • 90 degree MB results in max GPU limitation of 314 mm, despite the enormous form-factor/height of the chassis.
  • Acrylic window as opposed to TG or windowless.
  • The cost!
So, now you're thinking: So he know all this, and still wants the case - what a nutter! ...And you're probably right ;).

The Lian Li answered all the issues I (we) had with the TJ07 (airflow and CPU cooler headroom, with the latter exceeding the TJ11 at 180 mm vs 171 mm) and despite being expensive is actually cheaper and more contemporary-looking. It has a useful GPU support, all the SSD/HDD space I could ever require (modular too), will house super-long GPUs and the traditional internal design isn't ever going to cause any problems down the road (that I can foresee), but having watched/read multiple reviews of the TJ11 I just found myself really drawn to the design and sheer solidity of the beast - there's nothing else like it, and quite frankly I'm not sure there will be again... Maybe, in my case, the only replacement for a Temjin is another Temjin...

Here are my counters to the issues above:
  • The cooling is excellent in this machine. Steve at Gamers Nexus highly, highly rated the RV02 (in 2018/19, videos below) which has a v. similar layout + there are no issues with CPU cooler height (at 171 mm) allowing for installation of the NH-D15 - so that's the two crucial TJ07 issues solved.
  • The fans, whilst proprietary tech and an unusual size (I know, annoying) are still readily available, + SilverStone has 2 updated versions with the latest just announced, including PWM (https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=847&area=en).
  • From reviews the 'low' setting on the existing fans is more than adequate and they are pretty quiet at this RPM ('high' increases volume substantially, with only a minor reduction in heat - for me that would mean only to be used on v. hot days or if left rendering for hours).
  • GPU max length of 314 mm is slightly irritating, but not the end of the world - assuming we're not going to be in the situation where reference designs start going beyond this... (hence my Q a few posts back ;))?
  • Not massively concerned about the case being discontinued, though obviously I'd rather it were still in production. Power buttons and USB sockets are easily removed and (I imagine) could be fixed by an electrician. The entire case is rivet-less; all screws.
  • Acrylic window isn't a big deal for me + no fan of RGB/flashy interiors, but will be nice to check for dust buildup easily ;).
  • I can (and will) update the HDD/SSD racks with the SilverStone replacement part as listed above, not ideal, but meh - oh well... (separate SSD mounts also come with the case in addition to the racks, but I like the location/airflow of the latter).
  • The cost - not much to say here other than I like it and hope it'll lasts me a very, very long time... (beyond everything going inside it!).
I was thinking of selling my '07 (it's mint), but now feel more inclined to keep it as a backup/rendering machine as quite like the idea of having both unibody SilverStones in my office, but we'll see. Agree that the '07 could be modded relatively easily to provide sufficient airflow for the 9900K (or similar) but for multiple reasons now feel that the '11 is the better option for me.

TL;DR I like the looks/build quality of the TJ11 enough to overcome the numerous niggles. The important factors, airflow and CPU cooler restrictions, are fully addressed.

Airflow/Raven info here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otiIWhPKc20

If interested, looks like SilverStone are bringing a new 90 degree MB Raven case to market in 2019, again utilising 180 mm fans, though design is not to my taste:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZmTyF5suBQ


Going forward/Build
Until the vulnerability issues were brought up I had decided to go with the 9900K. My only concern was the GPU as not keen on getting burnt by an update at E3 (2080 Ti pencilled in, exact model linked to in previous post). I have cut the £200 1 TB NVMe drive from the build to help finance the TJ11 and will use SSDs/HDDs for work for now and add the super-fast M.2 later. PSU-wise I'm thinking of going with the Seasonic Prime Ultra 750 W Gold (https://seasonic.com/prime-ultra-gold). I've found it very difficult to get any info which separates the Prime from the Focus units, but obviously (at the same rating) Prime is 'better.' The Prime 850 W is too expensive (when combined with all my other components) + I have the AX860 in the TJ07 should I need more power in future. I believe Bearmann said 750 W would be more than adequate - would that still be true for a future upgrade, do you think (10/12 core processor), given I have no desire to go the dual GPU route? It's either that or an 850 W Focus/HX/RMx unit - honestly tying to compare PSUs is a bit of a nightmare for me, efficiency vs model and so on...

Build below:

Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Master
i9 9900K (stock) + NH-D15
64 GB (4x 16 GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR 4 3000 MHz
RTX 2080 Ti (EVGA Black Edition)
750 W Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold
512 GB NVMe (OS, WIN 10 Pro High End 64-bit)
2x SSD, 2x or 4x HDD

That's about it, I think. More research CPU-wise and whether or not to wait till E3 GPU-wise...
 
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R_G_S

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Hey, guys.

Massive thanks to all of you for the help, particularly Darkbreeze, Bearmann and others who have really gone beyond the call of duty!

The case, whilst not particularly sensible/practical, works for me design-wise and I'm pretty sure answers the two important flaws you rightly (and thankfully) exposed with the TJ07. I'd not recommend it to others (for reasons mentioned previously), but as a compromise between my freakishness and your logic - I think it does the trick ;).

Processor-wise, I think the 9900K is the safest bet, especially as I need the machine for work. It's a mature platform and I know it'll deliver; AMD is too much of a risk for me at this time.

I'll spec up the final build (as above) and get a quote from the store this eve, with my adjustments. I'll prob hold out until E3 (10 days!) just in case nVidia drops a 'Super' 2080 Ti bomb...

Just to say, one last time, thanks so much for all the advice - as the topic's shifted dramatically from one subject to another I can't really list a 'best answer' - there have been a few!

Cheers!
 
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I'm glad that you found a case that you like :)

I couldn't remember if you had seen this:


and since you are a detailed kind of guy, I thought you might want to use this:

http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator
 
Any PSU tier list with an Aerocool unit in the top two tiers is a useless pile of crap IMO. I realize that some of the Project 7 units are ok, but with a poor transient response it could never make a top tier selection. More importantly, they fail to understand that within ANY given series, there are OFTEN units that are better or worse than other units at the same capacity and a "series" cannot itself be listed in a tiered position. Each capacity model needs it's own consideration.

For example. Aris (Of Tom's Hardware, Kitguru and TechpowerUP as well as Cybenetics labs) tested the newer EVGA B3 units. Three of them blew up, literally, in testing, while the 650w model showed out excellent. So putting the B3 series in a Tier 1 position because you assume that the rest of the models in that series would have similar performance is almost criminally naive. NOT that they did THAT, but just as an example.

They have the straight power 11 units, as a whole series, listed in Tier 1 as well, however Aris testing indicated the following cons regarding the 1000w model.

  • (Poor) Efficiency at light loads
  • (Poor) Performance in the Advanced Transient Response tests
  • (Poor) Load regulation (3.3V)
  • Fan profile (Poorly tuned)
  • Not so silent operation
All of which puts that unit out of sorts when there are so many other units in the same price range that are superior and don't come with those concerns.

Props to those guys for having the desire to do the deed, but it's no task for mere mortals. We'v actually been tasked with creating a new tier list for here, and to be honest, even with some of the best non-reviewer PSU guys around, it's daunting, and overwhelming, and enormous. To the point where I'm not sure it will even get done. People didn't give Dottorent enough props for the work he did on the list we used to have. I assure you, MANY hundreds of hours went into that list, for what it's worth.

That other list is the result of maybe tens of hours. If that. More likely it's a reflection of cost tiering based on what I see there.
 

R_G_S

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Hey guys,

Yeah, I filled in that PSU calc. (or a very similar one on the Seasonic site) a few days ago; system comes in at just over 600 W. If I max it out with multiple drives, USB devices etc. it goes up to ~635; adding an optical drive and setting the clock speed to 5 GHz brings it to around 700 W.

Deciding between the Seasonic 750 W Prime Ultra Gold and the 850 W Prime Ultra Platinum (£45 difference in price). There isn't an 850 W Gold available (from where I'm buying) and the 750 W Platinum is only £10 cheaper than the 850 W Platinum...

I'll probably go with the 850 W Platinum with future-proofing in mind, even though I didn't want to spend the extra originally (oh dear, here we go again...!). Then again, I do have that Corsair AX860 sitting in my TJ07 should I need a bit more oomph in future, we'll see...

I suspect this will be the last 'full machine' I buy, in future will prob just update components.

Thanks as always for your thoughts ;).
 
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My rule of thumb is 70% of the PSU's rated power is your max load. If you calculated your max load will be 650W, then you need ~850W, specially considering the 80+ rating is when the PSU is at 80% capacity for max efficiency (IIRC).

I'm currently using a 750W PSU and it's good enough for everything I have: Ry 2700X @4.3Ghz (all cores is 4.1Ghz), 32GB, 1 HDD, 2 SSDs, 1 NVMe drive and my Vega64. I believe I still have room for some other crap I may want to put in. To Darkbreeze's suprise, I'm using a TT PSU as I've been loyal to their ToughPower series since they came out.

I always go with Antec for mid-range PSUs (450W - 550W), but the range in which you'll be shopping, I'm not savvy enough to recommend something outside of Thermaltake's ToughPower series.

EDIT: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...ortable-database-of-desktop-psu-smps.3476900/
That's what I used to validate my recommendations, BTW. I'm sure you will find it useful.

Cheers!