Question i9-9900K now or wait?

Page 8 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
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.
 
Last edited:

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
Back with another build Q:

Looking over the TJ11 manual (https://www.silverstonetek.com/downloads/Manual/case/Multi-TJ11-Manual.pdf) they state "When choosing a graphics card, we recommend models that have fan blowing exhaust air to the rear slot, this will ensure smooth and efficient airflow within the TJ11 for maximum cooling performance." I wasn't intending on going with a blower, as generally speaking thought they were worse cooling-wise, louder and primarily designed for multi-GPU setups, but I do get the logic of the design. What're your thoughts?

Was thinking about one of these (one blower, one not):

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/evg...racing-graphics-card-4352-core-1350mhz-gpu-15
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/evg...dy-graphics-card-4352-core-1350mhz-gpu-1545mh

The blower is ~£60 more expensive. Also considering Gigabyte as you can extend your warranty from 3 to 4 years by registering (I think, will confirm). For a £1,000+ card a long warranty would be nice...

Thoughts appreciated.

Cheers!
 
Blower models are generally reference cards. Reference cards USUALLY lack performance compared to aftermarket models and quite honestly are only desirable if you are planning to do a cooling loop to the graphics card and need the reference board design for easy compatibility with water blocks. Even then, many cards have aftermarket water blocks available for them, so this is less desirable than in the past.

IDK, but to me, this is another reason why the cooling design on those cases leaves much to be desired, as is. If you are ok with a reference card, then that's fine, they still offer good performance, but the cooling on them is typically not as good as you say PLUS if you don't already have a good airflow exchange through the case, then you are hampered further by the fact that now, even though you are shedding it out the case, you are using warmer than desirable air for the purpose of cooling the card and MIGHT tend to see the thermal ceiling for the card reached sooner than even what you'd see normally on one of these cards.

Just my thought on that.
 

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
Really not worried about the airflow in the case in general, as mentioned previously it reviewed exceptionally in this aspect (with many noting the problems of the TJ07, as pointed out here, which was better suited to water cooling). Recent reviews/forum posts also praise this layout and the air delivery of the 180 mm AP fans (more directional, longer travel), so I really don't see any problems here (design still tops Gamers Nexus' airflow cooling chart in 2019, AFAIK). Basically you have 2 powerful fans, both with ample intake, blowing straight over the GPU and CPU, with the latter having an additional exhaust right behind it. For what it's worth, it doesn't look as though 'stack effect' plays much of a role however, as Steve (GN) saw similarly low temps when the case was laid on its side (Raven case, but same fans/cooling design).

The RTX 2080 series ref. boards (FE) aren't blowers, thus the blower designs I've looked at are aftermarket solutions (some have vapour chambers etc.). That said, I think I'll likely stick with a 2 or 3 fan card such as the EVGA Black Edition. When looking at the layout of the fins (in line with case airflow) and taking into account the general blower design philosophy, it makes sense to a degree, but I worry about the noise levels and those blower-style fans have a habit of looking cheap/weak. Additionally I think these days blowers are aimed at multi GPU setups or small cases with limited cooling/internal space, which suggests the design is not optimal for a single card/large case situation. Images of the two variants below:

2998669-l-b.jpg

(Black Edition)

3051658-l-b.jpg

(Blower)

2998669-l-d.jpg

(back plate design appears to be the same for both cards)

If I go with Gigabyte (for the extra warranty), looking at this one:


(Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC)


As far as the build in general goes, I have purchased the TJ11 (now all sold out, so can't be the only nutter!) and its being held by the system builder, awaiting my go ahead on the components. Will proceed with the order following E3, just in case anything major happens there GPU-wise. I will go with the i9 9900K, but might replace this when the KS launches, presumably in December, depending on reviews/price/Comet Lake situation and, importantly, the resale value of the 9900K. As to the latter, if anyone here sells their parts on a regular basis would be interested to hear how well CPU prices hold up (have taken a quick look on eBay, but beyond that, unsure).

Cheers!

(FYI: Going to go with the Seasonic Prime Ultra 850 W Platinum PSU. Whilst I don't OC myself, I have bought factory OC'd GPUs in the past and who knows if we might see cards such as the GTX 690 make a return at some point in the future; plus I bet the 9900KS will require a bit more juice. Either way, I know I'm covered; overkill, yes, but not total overkill IMO ;). I don't think I can justify the Titanium version for an additional £60 though.)
 
Last edited:
More fans, better! Haha. Kidding, BTW.

Generally speaking, there's a simple rule of thumb for GPU cooling: the bigger the chunk of copper on top of the GPU, the more likely it will be cooled more effectively provided it has decent fans (blower, axial dual or axial triple). Then there's the thermal paste used for it. If you really want to make sure the card stays cool, you may want to "re-seat" it (essentially re-paste it with some fancy stuff; like the CPU plus VRMs and, maybe, VRAM).

The likeliness of one of those 2080ti's being better than the other one for OC'ing or even undervolting is low, so focus on the cooling side and, less commonly mentioned, the power delivery mechanism if you want to OC it. There's usually specialized places where they put the specific PCB information detailing the lil' cockroaches used for power delivery and if they're good or not.

Cheers!
 

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
Thanks, Yuka.

I won't be overclocking or 're-seating' anything ;), but longevity, stock performance and noise levels are important to me.

I think I'll go with Gigabyte. The card's a bit more expensive, but they offer a 4 year warranty (after registration) as opposed to 3. As an added bonus it has a slight factory OC and fans don't turn at all under low load/temp; plus seems to have reviewed pretty well.
 

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
Honestly speaking, will you keep the 2080ti for 10 years? Taking the 5 year one is completely reasonable, but more than that sounds like a waste of money.
10 years - yeah, pretty unlikely ;), but it's that 'forget about it' factor, for ~£20. 4 years on the Gigabyte is the highest I've seen offered as standard + I like that it's silent under low loads.
 
Last edited:
10 years - yeah, pretty unlikely ;), but it's less than £20 difference. 4 years on the Gigabyte is the highest I've seen offered as standard + I like that it's silent under low loads.
Well, £20 can buy you a nice pair of socks! Even a nice screw driver set... Maybe...

Anyway, if it makes you feel safer, by all means. I just hope they honour it after 9 years still, haha. Also, check the fine-print.

Cheers!
 

knickle

Distinguished
Jan 25, 2008
227
12
18,695
More exciting GPU news...

It appears that you can buy an extended warranty package through EVGA, either 5 or 10 years total. 10 years for an RTX 2080 Ti is €50 which seems pretty reasonable to me for a £1,000+ card (https://eu.evga.com/warranty/extended/).

No Q here (for a change!); just sharing the info ;).

When a company is confident that they have built a quality product they will usually include an excellent warranty as a standard feature.

These days most warranties are cash grabs. It's a technique to increase their profits. That's why many stores try to push the warranty on you when you about to complete the sale. I think the only time I'd buy an extended warranty is on a TV, simply because they don't build them like they used to.
 

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
When a company is confident that they have built a quality product they will usually include an excellent warranty as a standard feature.

These days most warranties are cash grabs. It's a technique to increase their profits. That's why many stores try to push the warranty on you when you about to complete the sale. I think the only time I'd buy an extended warranty is on a TV, simply because they don't build them like they used to.
3 years seems standard from what I've seen, with the odd company offering only 2 (avoid, IMO...); Gigabyte require registration for the additional year (no probs with me). Personally I think €25/50 is pretty fair for 5/10 years - that's a long old time!

Not sure which I'll go with yet (assuming nothing new at E3), just thought I'd post as was going to buy the Gigabyte (£80 more) primarily for the additional year of warranty, then stumbled upon EVGA's extended offerings and thought them worth a mention.

I have had GPUs die on me on the past and made use of warranties, hence I do value them. Plus, I expect to still be using this card 3+ years from now. Another thing to consider is that lets say the card dies after 3 years, but at a bad point during the GPU cycle. Without that warranty (or a decent spare) you pretty much have to upgrade right then and there; the warranty gives you flexibility. And if you do upgrade (when the old card fails), well, you can always sell the one you receive back from the manufacturer (pre-owned 980 Ti cards going for just under £200 on eBay) or keep it as a backup.

On an entirely different topic, and only for those who like to talk about such things (this isn't an issue I'm 'stuck' on ;)) - any thoughts on the ASUS WS Z390 PRO motherboard as opposed to the Gigabyte AORUS Master? The Master seems like a very well made board and ticks a lot of boxes for me, but, man... I am not a fan of the looks. OTOH, I do like the old school/serious style of the WS PRO (I'm aware, this is the complete reverse opinion to most!), but aside from the higher price it's probably less suited to my needs as I won't be going multi-GPU, it lacks built-in WiFi and the Master has excellent cooling (not sure about the WS PRO in that regard). Seems very hard to find a top-tier board, without RGB-tastic 'Gamer' looks - maybe you have to go X299 for those. Based on features and price though, I'll prob stick with the Master.
 
Even if you don't use a card in your "primary" machine, having the ability to use it somewhere else, or sell it, with a full warranty, for ten years, I don't know how or why you WOULDN'T want to be able to do that.

For a 1000+ dollar card, that gives it at least a modicum ability to retain some of it's value down the road if you decide to sell it, or use it in another system.

Consider, there are a LOT of very adept users still using their GTX 770 and 780 cards from 2013 with modern hardware. Certainly not at the same level as a brand new upper tiered card, but reasonably capably given realistic expectations, and those cards NEVER had the level of performance of the card we're talking about, even comparatively, so yeah I think it's probably worthwhile.

Who knows what's up in five or ten years, but if we only use historical data to assess the value of that type of warranty, it says the card will die during that time and PROBABLY be replaced with a newer model if it does but in five years it's unlikely they will have many of them on hand for replacement purposes. Even recently I've seen people with GTX 900 series cards have them replaced with 1000 series cards under warranty.
 
  • Like
Reactions: R_G_S

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
I agree with Darkbreeze.

The latest AAA titles at 4K, ultra settings in 5 years... Yeah, not likely ;), but it'll still play a lot of games at 4K with custom settings (usually it's only a few options that do the damage, from my experience) + will still run Max and Photoshop just fine. Also worth remembering that anything over 5 years = 10 year warranty, not 'in 10 years card will be obsolete.'

A monster warranty gives peace of mind and flexibility.
 
Last edited:

knickle

Distinguished
Jan 25, 2008
227
12
18,695
3 years seems standard from what I've seen, with the odd company offering only 2 (avoid, IMO...); Gigabyte require registration for the additional year (no probs with me). Personally I think €25/50 is pretty fair for 5/10 years - that's a long old time!

Fair enough. Just make sure that you read the fine print. Ensure that it includes Parts, Labor, and the warranty is transferable to a third party. Also make sure that you factor in shipping costs. I RMA'd a motherboard once, and after shipping + insurance + packaging, I paid around $40 from Canada to the US.

In 5-10 years your card will have depreciated a lot. If it still makes financial sense to get it repaired, then go for it.
 
Ensure that it includes Parts, Labor, and the warranty is transferable to a third party.

NO hardware warranties on graphics cards are EVER transferable to a third party. You will ALWAYS need to provide the buyer with the original purchase documentation in order for the warranty to be honored. This has always been true, and will always BE true, because manufacturers are not in the business of WANTING to give you free crap. They honor warranties because if they don't, they look like asshats and nobody buys from them anymore but if you cannot prove right of warranty by presenting the purchase information including receipt or sales invoice, then you're ass out.

Or, in some cases the person doing the selling is willing to step in and support the buyer by acting as the warrantee if something ever needs to be done, but it's rare to find a seller willing to do that unless you know the person personally. Even the MOST reputable Ebay sellers specifically state that they will provide the buyer with the original purchase information so that any remaining warranty can be honored if something goes wrong with the card. They wouldn't do that if the warranty could just "be transferred".
 

R_G_S

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2012
129
9
18,585
Warranty

That's cool, if it gives you piece of mind. I'll stick with the standard 3 year and save my money. Out all the times i've purchased extended warranties for products I cannot remember a single time ive ever used one.
Personal experience obviously makes quite a difference - I've used warranties quite a bit. I've also had a fair few PC parts fail (GPUs, RAM and PSU - all of which were top-tier at time of purchase); most under warranty and replaced, but not all.

The extended warranty at £20/40 is pretty insignificant on a card which starts at £1,000, with plenty costing £1,200+, but each to their own. As said, Gigabyte's warranty is the best I've come across as standard at 4 years and I'm considering that too.

Agree that checking small print and weighing up shipping costs is important, am doing that right now as regards warranty options on the system - Standard is 3 years parts/labour, with 1st year onsite (they come to you and fix the issue), 2-3rd return to base (system goes back to them); Extended adds onsite for the second and third year, but for £225... Shipping the system is around £40 so will prob stick with the standard warranty in this case as a failed GPU or RAM would not require shipping the entire system and £200-odd extra is a fair chunk of cash, but then again packing up a beast like this, + the CPU cooler issues with transport are a bit of a pain (but prob not worth £225 though!).


Motherboard

Have been trying hard to find a board less RGB-tastic/gamer-themed than the AORUS Master that still shares a similar build quality and features and it's proving near impossible! I was looking at ASUS's WS Pro, but that disables x2 SATA ports for each (!) M.2 drive used. The Master OTOH, has 3x M.2 slots, one of which is free (no restrictions), another reduces a PCIe slot speed (no big deal) and only the third cuts 2 SATA connections - so, in theory, I could run 2x NVMe + 6x SATA drives, should I wish. On top of that it has fantastic VRM cooling, a back plate heat sink, 2x 8-pin connectors and built-in WiFi.

Am I missing something here, or is this simply the best Z390 board there is (unless you want extreme overclocking/water cooling features)?

The only other option that appeals to me is the ASUS Maximus XI Extreme (similar price to the WS Pro, but prob better suited to me, i.e. workstation/gaming combo), which I actually like the look of (shock horror!) - but info as to which M.2 drives disable what (or not) seems very limited. It offers an additional 2 (4 total), but it seems that they might then limit the GPU to 8x... Maybe, or not, no one seems to know...

Not sure if it's just me, but finding out this info is a real pain, particularly as forum posts seem to contradict one another and the manuals (aside from the Gigabyte one) are rather lacking. I am beginning to wonder whether there's something I'm missing here - how can Gigabyte have such great connectivity options, with all other manufactures disabling SATA ports left right and centre, even on their super high-end boards?

Whilst the TJ11 doesn't officially support E-ATX boards, it states in the manual that "Although TJ11 was not designed for Extended-ATX motherboard, the internal space can still allow installation for motherboards with width of up to 11 inches. In addition, the motherboard tray has mounting standoffs for supporting SSI-CEB dual CPU motherboards. Enthusiast motherboards such as ASUS’s Rampage III Extreme and EVGA’s X58 Classified 4-Way SLI are 10.6 and 10.375 inches wide respectively. These are wider than standard ATX motherboard specification of 9.6 inches, but will fit inside TJ11 without any problems. Even if there are SATA connectors mounted on the edge of the motherboard facing to the side, the TJ11 will have room to accommodate them as well." - so presumably the Extreme should fit (at 12 x 1 x 10.9 in) should I go that route, agree?

Thoughts on the AORUS Master vs the Maximus Extreme, plus any clarification as to the M.2/SATA/PCIe issues, much appreciated.

Manuals for ref.:

AORUS Master: http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_z390-aorus-master_1001_e.pdf
Maximus XI Extreme: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...3.1839548784.1559893512-1999083181.1556226774

Cheers.
 
All I can say is you are doing this right in weighing all these options before making this kind of purchase. If half our users spent half as much time educating themselves as to the facts regarding their hardware and potential purchase, we'd have half as many threads to deal with because half of them are simply down to making stupid decisions and then later on going "what? really?".
 
  • Like
Reactions: R_G_S and Karadjgne

boju

Titan
Ambassador
If half our users spent half as much time educating themselves as to the facts regarding their hardware and potential purchase, we'd have half as many threads to deal with because half of them are simply down to making stupid decisions and then later on going "what? really?".

I don't know what Mr Blackbird aka banned by internet would do if he lost half his ba's lol
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
After dealing with pc's, companies, rma's, warranties for almost 40 years, I've come to one undeniable conclusion. Nobody beats Evga for service and support. I've called Evga a couple of times for clients, every time I had a tracking number with a return authorization before the call was ended, with no interrogation, just a few 'have you tried this?' questions.
I had one Evga mobo short out, took out the gpu and cpu, Evga replaced everything. No charge.

€50 for a 10yr Evga warranty on a €1000+ gpu? Money in the bank kind of piece of mind.