Intel Core i7-7700k or Intel Core i5-8600k for 144Hz gaming?

[Joshua7417]

I was wondering which CPU would be recommended for gaming at 144Hz gaming during this holiday season?

My Current PC Specs
Processor: Intel Core i5-7500
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-250M-DS3H
Memory: G. Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+

Some would consider my video card becoming dated as of now, I plan on upgrading it later on, however I play on low settings on most games I play and am always CPU limited. With the Intel Core i5-7500, I can only usually achieve about 100-110 FPS on newer titles, which is fine enough, but I wanted to utilize my entire refresh rate so which CPU would you recommend? Intel Core i7-7700k or Intel Core i5-8600k and for strictly gaming, I don't care about workstation tasks. You might ask why not get an i7-8700k, but I need to dedicate some money if I get a Coffee Lake to the motherboard. I've notice the Intel Core i5-8600k outperforming the Intel Core i7-7700k in gaming in most videos and was wondering which one to buy. The i5-8600k features 6 real cores, while the i7-7700k features 4 real cores, and 4 hyperthreaded cores, which would perform better in gaming?

Thanks for reading.

 

[volkgren]

They are both very similar in performance with the 8600k being slightly ahead. It really wouldn't matter which one you got as far as performance goes; but what does matter is where you might want to go from there. Would you want another CPU upgrade at some time in the future? If so, the 8600K would be the one to go with. The only and somewhat large downside to that is you have to have a new 300 series motherboard.

Your GTX 970 is still relevant today, on par with a GTX 1060 6GB when overclocked a good bit.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

doesn't matter.
GPU power is what will hold you back from those kinds of frame rates.
Go with whatever is cheaper. (which in this case would be the 8600K.)
however, you need to first make sure that your motherboard has support for 8th gen processors via a BIOS update.

Even more so is that there is really no point in getting the K series if you don't have a motherboard capable of overclocking it, unless of course you also plan to upgrade the motherboard at some point then that's fine.

But even if you upgrade the CPU and remove bottlenecking, I highly doubt that whatever bottleneck you've been experiencing with your current CPU is heavy enough that by upgrading you will see a huge bump in fps.

You may get a 5fps bump maybe 10 if you're lucky.

GPU upgrade along with the CPU upgrade will be what get's you the higher frame rates because it's your GPU that's just not capable of producing such high numbers.

So I would suggest at least a GTX 1070 to get you where you want to be along with the CPU upgrade.

However, with the current sales going on, you can get an 8700K for a little less than a 7700K.

But also, for that price, you could get a Ryzen 7 2700 and an AsRock Fatal1ty B450 motherboard and then you will have the ability to overclock.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor ($249.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($94.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $343.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-20 22:22 EST-0500

 

[volkgren]

For only gaming (at 1080p high refresh rate) I wouldn't recommend Ryzen. The Ryzen 7 2700X is typically a tad slower than the i7-7700K or i5-8600K when it comes to gaming.

 

[Joshua7417]

They are both very similar in performance with the 8600k being slightly ahead. It really wouldn't matter which one you got as far as performance goes; but what does matter is where you might want to go from there. Would you want another CPU upgrade at some time in the future? If so, the 8600K would be the one to go with. The only and somewhat large downside to that is you have to have a new 300 series motherboard.

Your GTX 970 is still relevant today, on par with a GTX 1060 6GB when overclocked a good bit.

Yeah, the Intel Core i5-8600k, I will be going with, for an easier upgrade path. What's the downside with getting a new 300 series motherboard, just that I have to spend extra money for it?

Also the new motherboard would support the Intel Core i5 9600k / Intel Core i7 9700k, correct?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

it will only support it if it is one of the one's that has a BIOS update to do so. Assuming it's a Z370 you choose to get.
Otherwise a Z390 is what you want. But those are pricey.

I personally don't see why people talk so much crap about Ryzen.

Sure, on paper it's not as good. But in terms of real world performance there's not a big enough difference to make spending up to $300 more for a CPU/mobo combo worth it in my opinion.

But sure, if you want to spend that kind of money just to have the "best" gaming processors then go for it.

In regards to upgrade paths, Intel ain't got shit.

The AM4 platform will support at least Zen3 architecture when it comes out, but with how AMD is doing things, it looks like it's going to also support Zen4 architecture as well when they get around to releasing that which means getting an X470 motherboard with a 2nd gen Ryzen will result in only needing a BIOS update and purchasing a new CPU when it comes to an upgrade. Unless DDR5 memory ends up coming out by then and the new stuff requires it. But chances of that happening don't seem to likely.

But as I said, it's your money and your choice. I would highly recommend doing some research into the actual real world performance differences between the newer 8th and 9th gen Intel CPU's and the current Ryzen CPU's when gaming and determine for yourself whether or not the slight performance advantage Intel has is worth the cost of getting a new motherboard along with the CPU every time you want to upgrade to the next generation CPU as well as the general high cost of the Intel stuff to begin with.

 

[vMax]

Any of the Gigabyte Z390 motherboards from the Elite upwards have a 12+1 Phase VRM setup which all have been reviewed as being very good including by Buildzoid so worth a thought. I would go the Z390 route if only for the possibility of dropping in a 9900K when and if they drop from there absurd price and they should in 2 years time so that you can at least drop one in...


The 8600K is a great gaming CPU and better than the 7700K plus it is so close to the 9600K/8700K/9700K and 9900K in FPS and it overclocks extremely well..As to the difference between the current Ryzen crop, you only have to ask yourself one question, if you are after the very best gaming experience and want to drive FPS especially where high refresh or 1080P/1440p is concerned, then the Intel crop of 8th gen and 9th gen do win but if price is a concern and the very best FPS is not the most important thing or you are gaming at 1440p or more importantly 4K, then the Ryzen 7 and even the 5 will do a great job as the limiting factor moves to the GPU....

Also with a GPU that is not the strongest, then a strong CPU like the 8th and 9th gen 'K' CPU's can and will make a difference....It just comes down to how much you are willing to spend for the performance and there really is no bad choice in today's CPU market...

 

[volkgren]

Yeah, the Intel Core i5-8600k, I will be going with, for an easier upgrade path. What's the downside with getting a new 300 series motherboard, just that I have to spend extra money for it?

Also the new motherboard would support the Intel Core i5 9600k / Intel Core i7 9700k, correct?

The downside being you have to buy the motherboard and reinstall your OS. You can get a Z370 motherboard and update the bios and it will support 9th-gen. Or you can get a Z390 and it will likely have better VRM (depending on which one you get, higher-end motherboards typically have the same) and already support 9th-gen.

I personally don't see why people talk so much crap about Ryzen.

Sure, on paper it's not as good. But in terms of real world performance there's not a big enough difference to make spending up to $300 more for a CPU/mobo combo worth it in my opinion.

I just know my own experience, having been using an i7-7700K for over a year and then buying this Ryzen 7 2700X. AC Odyssey had just came out and I was using my i7-7700K. Performance was good, but CPU usage was going up to 99% and GPU usage dropping slightly. Then I bought the Ryzen 7 2700X and tried the game again (running the benchmark) and the Ryzen was using less CPU, but it was also dropping more GPU usage and actually dropped well below where the i7-7700K was dropping. It was so noticeable because the 7700K was dropping to around 63fps while the 2700X was dropping to 53fps. This was 1440p Very High Settings on both. See below where I recorded it. But then again I see other professional reviewers showing different results.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIsK58nUcE0"][/video]
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS37fjP_FWw"][/video]

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

I just know my own experience, having been using an i7-7700K for over a year and then buying this Ryzen 7 2700X. AC Odyssey had just came out and I was using my i7-7700K. Performance was good, but CPU usage was going up to 99% and GPU usage dropping slightly. Then I bought the Ryzen 7 2700X and tried the game again (running the benchmark) and the Ryzen was using less CPU, but it was also dropping more GPU usage and actually dropped well below where the i7-7700K was dropping. It was so noticeable because the 7700K was dropping to around 63fps while the 2700X was dropping to 53fps. This was 1440p Very High Settings on both. See below where I recorded it. But then again I see other professional reviewers showing different results.

I'm sorry but I can't take any benchmark seriously when it's assassin's creed. We all know how poorly optimized they are.
AC games don't reflect other games performance wise because of it.

But even if the 2700x in general saw an average of 10fps difference in every game. that 10fps extra from Intel still isn't worth it for the amount of money you have to pay by comparison.

Especially when you think of how most people realistically aren't maxing out the graphics in areas where it does nothing for you visually other than to drop your frame rates.

With proper RAM and a moderate overclock like the one you have on your 2700x it's way more cost effective to get Ryzen.

And that's all I am saying man. Not that people shouldn't buy what they like, just that people tend to buy what they think is the best but don't actually know that it's not all that worth it.
And also saying that AMD gets a bad rap because of people's ignorance.

If dude has the money and is willing to spend said money going with Intel platforms and having to buy a whole new CPU and mobo combo every time he wants to upgrade just to ensure he get's that little slice of extra performance then by all means he has the right to do so.

It's not like I'm an AMD fanboy or anything myself cuz as you can see in my signature, I am running on a 6700K overclocked.
But I'm not Intel fanboy either. I just call it how I see it, and how I see it is Intel is a waste of money as of late, to me at least.

 

[volkgren]

Kudos on Assassin's Creed. I was just thinking that since it was maxing out my 7700K it would benefit from the 2700X.

The i5-8600K is actually cheaper than the 2700X. Slightly more expensive than the 2700 non-X when you have to buy a cooler. It outperforms them both for gaming. Not sure why you're saying Intel is so much more expensive.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

if buying into the higher end Ryzen chips (especially the X versions) the cost difference isn't that much more sure, but in the grander scheme of things Intel will cost you more simply because you have to buy a new motherboard every time you upgrade the CPU.
Now if they were to change this so that they could compete with AMD then that would be great.

But as I proved in a previous post, for the cost of a single i7-8700k you can get the Ryzen 2700 and a motherboard to go with it that will allow for some decent overclocking with a decent enough cooler. (not maximum overclocking but decent)

If you were to settle for an i5 the cost becomes similar, but the 2700 is better than the i5 overall. Single threaded performance still isn't quite as good but the gap isn't that wide either. And for everything else the 2700 beats the i5. Especially as more and more games become optimized for using the hyper threading on CPU's single thread performance starts to become a thing of the past and as time goes one, newer CPU's will not be an issue in terms of performance for the games of old.

While I understand that the X series chips are binned for best overclocking potential, unless the person getting the chip wants to try and match or even beat records, then it's not that necessary to get one. you can easily overclock a Ryzen 2700 to 4GHz or even further potentially as long as you have proper RAM and proper cooling on it.

But it's like I said.
The OP should definitely look at extensive benchmarks that have been done on these CPU's and determine for themself what they would be satisfied with spending the money on.

Dear OP,
Should you go looking into benchmarks, be sure to look at comparison benchmarks for overclocked CPU's since even just a minor overclock on Ryzen creates a huge improvement to it's performance.

I should say this though, I judge CPU performance comparatively based on overclocking them.
Because when you do that, the gap shrinks exponentially and it's a more fair comparison when judging the overall performance of a CPU to another.

If you're not going to overclock in the slightest then obviously Intel chips are going to be better out of the box.

But if not going to overclock then no need to buy a Z370 or Z390 motherboard for Intel and might as well get an A320 motherboard for Ryzen and heck, might as well save a little money and buy slower cheaper RAM too.

 

[vMax]

if buying into the higher end Ryzen chips (especially the X versions) the cost difference isn't that much more sure, but in the grander scheme of things Intel will cost you more simply because you have to buy a new motherboard every time you upgrade the CPU.
Now if they were to change this so that they could compete with AMD then that would be great.

But as I proved in a previous post, for the cost of a single i7-8700k you can get the Ryzen 2700 and a motherboard to go with it that will allow for some decent overclocking with a decent enough cooler. (not maximum overclocking but decent)

If you were to settle for an i5 the cost becomes similar, but the 2700 is better than the i5 overall. Single threaded performance still isn't quite as good but the gap isn't that wide either. And for everything else the 2700 beats the i5. Especially as more and more games become optimized for using the hyper threading on CPU's single thread performance starts to become a thing of the past and as time goes one, newer CPU's will not be an issue in terms of performance for the games of old.

While I understand that the X series chips are binned for best overclocking potential, unless the person getting the chip wants to try and match or even beat records, then it's not that necessary to get one. you can easily overclock a Ryzen 2700 to 4GHz or even further potentially as long as you have proper RAM and proper cooling on it.

But it's like I said.
The OP should definitely look at extensive benchmarks that have been done on these CPU's and determine for themself what they would be satisfied with spending the money on.

Dear OP,
Should you go looking into benchmarks, be sure to look at comparison benchmarks for overclocked CPU's since even just a minor overclock on Ryzen creates a huge improvement to it's performance.

I should say this though, I judge CPU performance comparatively based on overclocking them.
Because when you do that, the gap shrinks exponentially and it's a more fair comparison when judging the overall performance of a CPU to another.

If you're not going to overclock in the slightest then obviously Intel chips are going to be better out of the box.

But if not going to overclock then no need to buy a Z370 or Z390 motherboard for Intel and might as well get an A320 motherboard for Ryzen and heck, might as well save a little money and buy slower cheaper RAM too.

I just find the thinking above a little bit off....The question was simple...what to get for GAMING especially at 144Hz and lets just be honest for a moment...The Intel 8th gen in the 8600K/8700K and heck even the 8400 are the better CPU's for that use case period and beat the Ryzen's...

Now if you want to bring cost into it and value, then yes, Ryzen does come into it's own and there you can have an argument as what might be better especially if cost is a primary issue and more importantly if the OP is going to be a heavy productivity user...remember even the 8600K/8700K can keep up and are not far behind in some productivity tasks especially where single core and GHz comes into play...Ultimately both AMD and Intel have a place for the end user depending on cost and use case....

Finally your 'minor overclock on Ryzen creates a huge improvement to it's performance.' Boy does the same apply to Intel and then some...I see you forget that Intel CPU's like the 8600K and the 8700K can overclock with ease to 5GHz making the gap even bigger in games.....especially at 1080p 144Hz where every frame rate actually matters to drive the 144Hz monitor...

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

not a problem with that, which would then lead me back to one of the things I originally said which was that the 8700K currently is a smidge cheaper than the 7700K and since they were looking at 8th gen i5 then 8th gen i7 wouldn't be a stretch to imagine them buying instead of 7th gen.
And that the OP should look into whether or not their motherboard supports 8th gen via a BIOS update. Otherwise they need to get a new motherboard. Which then brought in my concerns with price to performance and Ryzen.

So in the end though, going back to basics and the original matter of this thread, if the OP was looking at spending the money it costs for the 7700K but at the same time was looking at 8th gen i5, I suggested the i7-8700K instead of the 7700K since it's newer, better, and costs the same.

 

[vMax]

not a problem with that, which would then lead me back to one of the things I originally said which was that the 8700K currently is a smidge cheaper than the 7700K and since they were looking at 8th gen i5 then 8th gen i7 wouldn't be a stretch to imagine them buying instead of 7th gen.
And that the OP should look into whether or not their motherboard supports 8th gen via a BIOS update. Otherwise they need to get a new motherboard. Which then brought in my concerns with price to performance and Ryzen.

So in the end though, going back to basics and the original matter of this thread, if the OP was looking at spending the money it costs for the 7700K but at the same time was looking at 8th gen i5, I suggested the i7-8700K instead of the 7700K since it's newer, better, and costs the same.

Absolutely agree on the 8700K...I have one and can only sing it's praises and even the 8600K especially as a gaming focused CPU will also do a fairly stellar job. The 7700K is on an older gen and I would definitely advise if the OP is staying on Intel, then a move to Z370/Z390 would be the better option and will last him for a long time....

 

[volkgren]

For high refresh rate gaming I say Intel is better while AMD Ryzen does hold its own for what it costs.

OP's motherboard will not support 8th-gen. None of the 100 or 200 series motherboards do.

 

[vMax]

For high refresh rate gaming I say Intel is better while AMD Ryzen does hold its own for what it costs.

OP's motherboard will not support 8th-gen. None of the 100 or 200 series motherboards do.

Yep agreed on the motherboard as it will need a change to the Z370 at least but with Black Friday hitting now...there are some great deals and a sub $80 motherboard can be had...but it is an additional cost!!