[SOLVED] Is 10600K still great?

[bumblebee953]

Hi y'all! Not wanting to play the F5-roulette for Zen 3s, I am sticking with Intel for the moment. Even way before the Zen 3 release, I had my eyes already on 10700K for my new build.
I only need a gaming build and have no use for productivity. BUT, I do expect to enter a game, flip graphics settings to Ultra, and play in 2K expecting no less than 120fps with ~100fps being the absolute minimum. I know I can't expect the same with games like MS Flight Simulator 2020. Even Cyberpunk remains to be seen, but most other modern games including newly released ones like Valhalla, I expect high-end performance.
Below is my build. Not all parts are purchased...

ASUS ROG Z490-A
Corsair Dominator Platinum 4x8GB (3600mhz @ CL18)
2x 970 Evol Plus 1TB
Gigabyte Vision RTX 3070 (on backorder)
Seasonic TX-850 80+ Titanium

I'd like to save another $150 or so by going with i5. I read that with some overclocking, the i5 can even reach speeds up to the 10900K? Would I see considerable performance drops going with i5 instead of i7? Would I need to OC by a lot?


Thanks for any help!

 

[General Kenobi]

Hi y'all! Not wanting to play the F5-roulette for Zen 3s, I am sticking with Intel for the moment. Even way before the Zen 3 release, I had my eyes already on 10700K for my new build.
I only need a gaming build and have no use for productivity. BUT, I do expect to enter a game, flip graphics settings to Ultra, and play in 2K expecting no less than 120fps with ~100fps being the absolute minimum. I know I can't expect the same with games like MS Flight Simulator 2020. Even Cyberpunk remains to be seen, but most other modern games including newly released ones like Valhalla, I expect high-end performance.
Below is my build. Not all parts are purchased...

ASUS ROG Z490-A
Corsair Dominator Platinum 4x8GB (3600mhz @ CL18)
2x 970 Evol Plus 1TB
Gigabyte Vision RTX 3070 (on backorder)
Seasonic TX-850 80+ Titanium

I'd like to save another $150 or so by going with i5. I read that with some overclocking, the i5 can even reach speeds up to the 10900K? Would I see considerable performance drops going with i5 instead of i7? Would I need to OC by a lot?


Thanks for any help!

Are you planning to stream??? If not the minimum ill go with the spec is with a 8 core cpu if you plan on multitasking like streaming having discord Chrome anything in background ryzen 9 3900x or i9 10850k/10900k wouldn't be bad.

 

[XxDarkMario20xX]

Overclocking can be an lottery and 10900k can boost to 5.3 but suggest going with 10700k due to having 8 cores and could benefit flight simulation and strong performance game's

 

[bumblebee953]

Are you planning to stream??? If not the minimum ill go with the spec is with a 8 core cpu if you plan on multitasking like streaming having discord Chrome anything in background ryzen 9 3900x or i9 10850k/10900k wouldn't be bad.

No I don't stream. But yeah I'd likely have Chrome and other applications minimized while gaming. I can't really justify the price of a 10900K when 5900X is around. If I'm going that far, I may as well just wait out the supply...But I mean would something like 5900X or 10900K even be needed for 2K gaming?

 

[Phaaze88]

I think you need to watch some older 10600K vids. For example:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHyF50m-rs

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-KjQ_sf2GE

 

[General Kenobi]

No I don't stream. But yeah I'd likely have Chrome and other applications minimized while gaming. I can't really justify the price of a 10900K when 5900X is around. If I'm going that far, I may as well just wait out the supply...But I mean would something like 5900X or 10900K even be needed for 2K gaming?

Yes 5900x would be great if you wanna multitask while gaming infact the only processor i like in 5000 series in terms of price is 5900x $550 is not bad for 12c chip with all Improvement of zen 3 at that price. And yes 5900x will be good for 2k since you plan for +2 years and i agree games dont use more than 8c but when you have Chrome and other stuff in background more cores will help and the 5900x will serve you along time and games will eventually get there where they are demanding for more cpu core.

 

[bumblebee953]

I think you need to watch some older 10600K vids. For example:

Thanks for those links! I watched both videos and these seem to be the take-aways...

1. RAM does affect the CPU's full potential. But I'm unsure if my RAM selection is good enough?
2. Beyond 2k res, the CPU matters less since the GPU is able to more fully leverage its performance at the higher resolutions (which fits my use case at 2k). Would this mean that whether I go with 5900X or 10600K, I'd see similar results assuming my RAM and GPU choices do not change?
3. Following 2), I see that with Total War falls short of my expected performance at 2k. This is assuming my RTX 3070 has similar performance to the 2080 Ti used in the tests. But again this is more indication of my GPU choice than the CPU, so again going with maybe a 5900X wouldn't improve things much.
4. The OC on the 10600K does more to help with framerate consistency but with other components being equal, do not push the max framerate by much.

So...10600K is good enough. If I want my desired performance from my OP, pick a stronger GPU? What about when multitasking like jeffreygian360 above says? Would having a lot of Chrome tabs open while gaming degrade the performance enough that a stronger CPU might be warranted?

 

[Zerk2012]

You could probably save more than the 150 by just changing the memory and power supply.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9cyDV6

 

[GarrettL]

No I don't stream. But yeah I'd likely have Chrome and other applications minimized while gaming. I can't really justify the price of a 10900K when 5900X is around. If I'm going that far, I may as well just wait out the supply...But I mean would something like 5900X or 10900K even be needed for 2K gaming?

No, the difference in FPS is pretty similar. Look at the benchmarks and you'll see it's very close.

 

[bumblebee953]

No, the difference in FPS is pretty similar. Look at the benchmarks and you'll see it's very close.

I understand but jeffreygian360's comment got me worried. And I'm sure it's pretty common for most people to have some other applications open while gaming. Chrome being probably most common with likely many tabs open. Discord likely.

 

[bumblebee953]

You could probably save more than the 150 by just changing the memory and power supply.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9cyDV6

Unfortunately I've already purchased the PSU and it's way past its return period. I've always wanted that Corsair RAM kit so I'm ok with the pricing there.

 

[Phaaze88]

1. RAM does affect the CPU's full potential. But I'm unsure if my RAM selection is good enough?
2. Beyond 2k res, the CPU matters less since the GPU is able to more fully leverage its performance at the higher resolutions (which fits my use case at 2k). Would this mean that whether I go with 5900X or 10600K, I'd see similar results assuming my RAM and GPU choices do not change?
3. Following 2), I see that with Total War falls short of my expected performance at 2k. This is assuming my RTX 3070 has similar performance to the 2080 Ti used in the tests. But again this is more indication of my GPU choice than the CPU, so again going with maybe a 5900X wouldn't improve things much.
4. The OC on the 10600K does more to help with framerate consistency but with other components being equal, do not push the max framerate by much.

So...10600K is good enough. If I want my desired performance from my OP, pick a stronger GPU? What about when multitasking like jeffreygian360 above says? Would having a lot of Chrome tabs open while gaming degrade the performance enough that a stronger CPU might be warranted?

1)Your choice of ram is fine, IMO. Intel's cpus also benefit from faster ram, and they aren't as picky about the timings compared to Ryzen.

2)Yes.

3)A strategy title like Total War is more cpu bound, so of course a great, top of the line gpu wouldn't do as much here. That's why I don't agree with folks who say the gpu is the most important.
It's the psu - the rest depends on what the user plays, or will play, resolution, etc.
Same deal with those folks who play 1080p 240hz+, and wasting stupid amounts on money on 2080Tis, 3080s, 3090s, etc, when they're cpu and ram frequency bound in that scenario...
They don't realize just how small a role the gpu plays on low/competitive settings.

4)True. Notice how minor the difference is between it, the 10700K and 10900K - I should say, "You think you'll notice that difference?"

5)Chrome is a memory hog.
Let me turn this around: Is it really necessary to run such apps - besides hwinfo, afterburner, etc - alongside the game?
Things will run more smoothly when one isn't running as much in the background.

What about when multitasking like jeffreygian360 above says? Would having a lot of Chrome tabs open while gaming degrade the performance enough that a stronger CPU might be warranted?

UGH. This here... I gotta ask:
Are you purposefully trying to give yourself a reason to step up to a cpu you may not even need? People do this to themselves a lot.
There are threads littered about here with users having 'excessive' high thread count cpus and having to disable some cores/threads because they just happened to play a game(s) whose coding 'gets confused and hurts itself in its confusion', because they weren't programmed with what to do with all those extra resources.

Games don't suddenly jump from 4 threads to 6 to 8, and so on. There's uncommon examples like:
-Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, which will use as many as you can throw at it.
-CoD: Warzone, which can use up to 12 threads - it is not a requirement to have a 12 thread cpu though; it can run fine with 8... I wouldn't go lower than that though, as some people have found out the hard way.

I mean, I guess you could go and get a 10700K anyway... any idea how long it'll take for 16 threads to be relevant for games?
A: You'll be looking to replace it for something newer and faster before that happens...

 

[shady28]

The problem with talking about thread counts and games is always the same. My thought is that you need the number of cores your main application / game uses +2.

This is because in the real world, our PCs are not stripped down for benchmarking purposes, we hopefully have anti-virus or at least the built in Windows on-access security scan running, most will have some combination of iCloud, OneDrive, Outlook, maybe Skype or Teams, and so on running. If you are streaming then it's even more important to have a couple of cores not occupied by the game / application that you are focused on. I'm not even talking about a browser running too, which many will do as well.

Fact is the vast majority of games only use 4 threads, and really most not even that. They get single thread limited. For that reason, 6 cores is usually ok. However, there are a lot of games that are using 6+ cores now, especially multiplayer online games. Things like BF 5 for example.

What I will say is the 5600X pretty much invalidated the 10600K at its current price point. The 10600K needs to drop by a solid $40-$50 to be competitive IMO, it's basically going at $270 and seriously deficient.

The 10700 power unlocked is what I would go with. It will win some and lose some to the 10600K and 5600X in games, but have 2 more cores and are very close in price. You will need a good cooler for a power unlocked 10700 though.