Should I buy a 7700K now or wait for Coffee Lake?

[bazzingabear]

I just read that Intel is planning to release Coffee Lake in the second half of 2017. These i7 chips will likely have 6 cores / 12 threads & 15% gain over Kaby Lake, if speculation is to be believed. Considering these points, would it really be a smart move to invest in a 7700K now? Does Intel always stick to their claims when it comes to release dates, or should I not let this be a deciding factor?

 

[Supahos]

Intel sticks to nothing. They skipped a whole generation 2 generations ago because it took way longer to perfect than they expected.

 

[Supahos]

Also likely not going to be 15% gain at all, if it is it'll be an IPC gain and yhen likely lose some clock speed with the new fab node until whatever lake boosts it back up

 

[photonboy]

You really need to specify WHAT you plan to do with the computer. Gaming? Editing?

What's your TOTAL budget for the computer?

I don't know where a "15% gain" would come from though, and even if that were possible it won't translate to 15% FPS improvement in gaming even if the game was CPU bottlenecked at that point.

But...

*IF I was in the market, AND the price was reasonably I know I'd be looking at a 6C/12T CPU as I keep computers a long time. It's not clear how demanding games will get in the future on the CPU.

(It's a very, very weird time in gaming due to DX12/Vulkan coming. In theory the improved CPU usage and better thread management could make the i7-7700K plenty for almost every game, but who knows what features may be added that just gobbles up the CPU. AI. CPU physics etc, and of course multi-tasking gaming and doing other things at the same time.)

Game development however is a SLOOOW process. When we talk about DX12/Vulkan that has mostly been basically DX11 titles with some code added. It will be closer to TWO years before we see a lot of well optimized titles.

 

[photonboy]

Of course, AMD's RYZEN should be considered as well. There's no right or wrong answer as it boils down to use, budget etc.

Ryzen is the best choice for some people as you can get a 6C/12T CPU for $220USD I believe. It's complicated to compare to Intel so I won't even try here, but if I had for example, $1000USD or so I might buy a system based on the R5-1600, 16GB DDR4 3400MHz, etc.

*Intel's OPTANE as a cache looks pretty neat too for recent Intel motherboards. It even can benefit SSD's and is pretty cheap.

 

[bazzingabear]

You really need to specify WHAT you plan to do with the computer. Gaming? Editing?

High refresh gaming, mainly. Recently bought a GTX 1070 & a 144 Hz monitor, and have some money left over. So I'm considering upgrading my i5 4440 + 8 GB to i7 7700K + 16 GB. I'd probably be sticking with this new CPU for the next 3-4 year at the least, which is why I wouldn't mind waiting a few months if it means I can get my hands on a 6-core i7 instead of this hot kaby-lake chip.

 

[bazzingabear]

Intel sticks to nothing. They skipped a whole generation 2 generations ago because it took way longer to perfect than they expected.

I see, thanks.

 

[photonboy]

You really need to specify WHAT you plan to do with the computer. Gaming? Editing?

High refresh gaming, mainly. Recently bought a GTX 1070 & a 144 Hz monitor, and have some money left over. So I'm considering upgrading my i5 4440 + 8 GB to i7 7700K + 16 GB. I'd probably be sticking with this new CPU for the next 3-4 year at the least, which is why I wouldn't mind waiting a few months if it means I can get my hands on a 6-core i7 instead of this hot kaby-lake chip.

a) if it was a GSYNC monitor (I suspect not) then I'd change nothing

b) it's going to cost a lot obviously to rebuild your PC.
- motherboard
- DDR4 memory
- CPU
- Windows?
- liquid cooler for CPU?

I'll link to another post, as you really need to think about what "high refresh gaming" even means, and whether this is worth it. Keep in mind that at 2560x1440 there are plenty of games that will have minimal or no CPU bottleneck with an i5-4440 + GTX1070 so I'd look up CPU scaling for your games or ones you intent to buy to see if there's a point.

(with VSYNC OFF, you can also use a GPU tool like MSI Afterburner to monitor both GPU frequency and GPU usage. For example, if GPU frequency is say 1850MHz with 94% GPU usage there's likely no CPU bottleneck.)

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3411507/5820-gtx-1080-running-rainbow-siege-144fps.html#xtor=EPR-8809

Read my comments there. In fact, you should experiment with that until you understand what each one does (VSYNC, adaptive etc.)

 

[jg.millirem]

Also likely not going to be 15% gain at all, if it is it'll be an IPC gain and yhen likely lose some clock speed with the new fab node until whatever lake boosts it back up

Coffee Lake is not a new fab node.