Should I go for a 8700k or a 9700k on my new PC?

[arnauubeda]

Hi!

I'm building a new PC. These are the specs so far

- RTX 2080 Ti (still dedicing which since the msi is out of stock)
- Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
- Corsair Vengeance 32GB 3000MHz CL15
- CM Masterliquid ML240R

8700k is 460€, 9700k is 475€

I'll use the PC mostly for gaming and just normal stuff like browsing. No video editing or streaming.

My monitor will be 1440p 144hz

I've seen the 9700k runs a bit hotter and it's a bit more difficult to OC but gives the same or a bit better performance on games and I haven't seen that the loss of HT really impacts the overall performance.


Which would you go with?

Thank you

 

[mdd1963]

Go for the 9700K....it was faster in pretty much all games compared to the 8700K in the review I looked at, and seems a bargain at only a minor price increase...

8c/8t does great, despite folks moaning over loss of i7 with hyperthreading...

 

[jay.wooster]

Tests vary but ~3-6% improvement in the 9700 V 8700 so it all depends on what price you can get it for mate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdw3oT7Dcgo

 

[arnauubeda]

Go for the 9700K....it was faster in pretty much all games compared to the 8700K in the review I looked at, and seems a bargain at only a minor price increase...

8c/8t does great, despite folks moaning over loss of i7 with hyperthreading...

And what about the temperatures? 8ct seem to be running extremely hot.

Tests vary but ~3-6% improvement in the 9700 V 8700 so it all depends on what price you can get it for mate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdw3oT7Dcgo

15€ one from another. It's not about the price, is about if it's really worth it or should I stick with last gen for being better.

 

[bjornl]

I would not be looking at either of those two CPUs unless there was a significant price advantage. I would look at the 8086k or as the step up a 9900k. The 8086k is the same chip as the 8700k, but it is cherry picked and so runs a little faster and might overclock a little higher. The 9900k more or less matches the 8700k in features including hyper-threading. The 9900k is clearly a superior CPU for those needing more than a 8700k, while I don't view the 9700k as being obviously superior (although it is a good CPU).

Between the 9700k and the 8700k, I like the older CPU better. It puts less heat in to your case, which you're going to have to move out of the case (and raise the temps in the room. It has hyper-threading (the 9700 does not) also it has 33% more cache per core (2mb vs 1.5mb).

The power consumption difference isn't much. Around 10%.

The overclocking will vary depending on model, but the 9700k does seem to be more reluctant to OC despite having the better thermal interface material. If you want more out of the 9700k, you're not going to get much. Thus far overclocking the 9700k has been disappointing. No review talks about this being a good overclocker despite the TIM advantage.
If you want ALOT more out of the 8086k or 8700k, you're probably going to have to have it delidded and replace the thermal interface material. You can do this yourself if you have the time and inclination. Or you can do as I did and use a service like SiliconLottery who will do it for a nominal fee.

Finally the BIG issue. For gaming they are identical for 99% of games. There is a trivial difference between them. Unless you are going to do rendering, video-editing, or other very CPU intensive work, get the cheap one and you will only give up 1-2 FPS in games at most and have an easier overclocker if you need that stuff back. Games don't use more than 1 core for most of them, VERY few use 6 cores or more. The sole exception might be the Civilization series which should benefit more cores.

When looking at other claims of gaming superiority of one or the other, remember they are comparing 1080p games which run at 200 or 205fps. Who cares about 1080p? Who cares about a trivial percentage of FPS which are both faster than a typical gaming monitor can render? Your specs indicate you are clearly going for high pixel count gaming or VR. For this, there is no practical difference in the CPUs.

 

[jay.wooster]

Personally i would go for the 9700K or 9900K because i'm a sucker for new tech and the thermals on the 9700K and 9900K should be lower since they are going back to soldering, which should also help for overclocking contrary to what Bjornl has listed, although the rest of his arguments are sound

 

[arnauubeda]

I would not be looking at either of those two CPUs unless there was a significant price advantage. I would look at the 8086k or as the step up a 9900k. The 8086k is the same chip as the 8700k, but it is cherry picked and so runs a little faster and might overclock a little higher. The 9900k more or less matches the 8700k in features including hyper-threading. The 9900k is clearly a superior CPU for those needing more than a 8700k, while I don't view the 9700k as being obviously superior (although it is a good CPU).

Between the 9700k and the 8700k, I like the older CPU better. It puts less heat in to your case, which you're going to have to move out of the case (and raise the temps in the room. It has hyper-threading (the 9700 does not) also it has 33% more cache per core (2mb vs 1.5mb).

The power consumption difference isn't much. Around 10%.

The overclocking will vary depending on model, but the 9700k does seem to be more reluctant to OC despite having the better thermal interface material. If you want more out of the 9700k, you're not going to get much. Thus far overclocking the 9700k has been disappointing. No review talks about this being a good overclocker despite the TIM advantage.
If you want ALOT more out of the 8086k or 8700k, you're probably going to have to have it delidded and replace the thermal interface material. You can do this yourself if you have the time and inclination. Or you can do as I did and use a service like SiliconLottery who will do it for a nominal fee.

Finally the BIG issue. For gaming they are identical for 99% of games. There is a trivial difference between them. Unless you are going to do rendering, video-editing, or other very CPU intensive work, get the cheap one and you will only give up 1-2 FPS in games at most and have an easier overclocker if you need that stuff back. Games don't use more than 1 core for most of them, VERY few use 6 cores or more. The sole exception might be the Civilization series which should benefit more cores.

When looking at other claims of gaming superiority of one or the other, remember they are comparing 1080p games which run at 200 or 205fps. Who cares about 1080p? Who cares about a trivial percentage of FPS which are both faster than a typical gaming monitor can render? Your specs indicate you are clearly going for high pixel count gaming or VR. For this, there is no practical difference in the CPUs.

Exactly, I'm aiming at 1440p and at VR with this PC. Just checked and the 8086k is around 530€ so its 70€ more than the 8700k and 55 more than the 9700k. I looked at the 9900k but its priced at 610€ and I don't really see it being worth 140€ more.

I agree 100% with everything you've said as it's what I've read everywhere. Still, being the difference just 15€ one from each other I am reluctant (i actually have already in order the 8700k waiting for the 2080ti to arrive) if I should pick the 9700k.

For the moment I'm not planning on having a huge OC or have the cpu delidded. Just boost it up a bit and that should do.

Personally i would go for the 9700K or 9900K because i'm a sucker for new tech and the thermals on the 9700K and 9900K should be lower since they are going back to soldering, which should also help for overclocking contrary to what Bjornl has listed, although the rest of his arguments are sound

As far as I've seen, although they are solded they still get a lot more hot than the 8700k and the room for OC isn't very large at this moment.

Having the latest also is a +1 for me. Even more when I'm not planning on upgrading in several years.

 

[bjornl]

I would not be looking at either of those two CPUs unless there was a significant price advantage. I would look at the 8086k or as the step up a 9900k. The 8086k is the same chip as the 8700k, but it is cherry picked and so runs a little faster and might overclock a little higher. The 9900k more or less matches the 8700k in features including hyper-threading. The 9900k is clearly a superior CPU for those needing more than a 8700k, while I don't view the 9700k as being obviously superior (although it is a good CPU).

Between the 9700k and the 8700k, I like the older CPU better. It puts less heat in to your case, which you're going to have to move out of the case (and raise the temps in the room. It has hyper-threading (the 9700 does not) also it has 33% more cache per core (2mb vs 1.5mb).

The power consumption difference isn't much. Around 10%.

The overclocking will vary depending on model, but the 9700k does seem to be more reluctant to OC despite having the better thermal interface material. If you want more out of the 9700k, you're not going to get much. Thus far overclocking the 9700k has been disappointing. No review talks about this being a good overclocker despite the TIM advantage.
If you want ALOT more out of the 8086k or 8700k, you're probably going to have to have it delidded and replace the thermal interface material. You can do this yourself if you have the time and inclination. Or you can do as I did and use a service like SiliconLottery who will do it for a nominal fee.

Finally the BIG issue. For gaming they are identical for 99% of games. There is a trivial difference between them. Unless you are going to do rendering, video-editing, or other very CPU intensive work, get the cheap one and you will only give up 1-2 FPS in games at most and have an easier overclocker if you need that stuff back. Games don't use more than 1 core for most of them, VERY few use 6 cores or more. The sole exception might be the Civilization series which should benefit more cores.

When looking at other claims of gaming superiority of one or the other, remember they are comparing 1080p games which run at 200 or 205fps. Who cares about 1080p? Who cares about a trivial percentage of FPS which are both faster than a typical gaming monitor can render? Your specs indicate you are clearly going for high pixel count gaming or VR. For this, there is no practical difference in the CPUs.

Exactly, I'm aiming at 1440p and at VR with this PC. Just checked and the 8086k is around 530€ so its 70€ more than the 8700k and 55 more than the 9700k. I looked at the 9900k but its priced at 610€ and I don't really see it being worth 140€ more.

I agree 100% with everything you've said as it's what I've read everywhere. Still, being the difference just 15€ one from each other I am reluctant (i actually have already in order the 8700k waiting for the 2080ti to arrive) if I should pick the 9700k.

For the moment I'm not planning on having a huge OC or have the cpu delidded. Just boost it up a bit and that should do.

Personally i would go for the 9700K or 9900K because i'm a sucker for new tech and the thermals on the 9700K and 9900K should be lower since they are going back to soldering, which should also help for overclocking contrary to what Bjornl has listed, although the rest of his arguments are sound

As far as I've seen, although they are solded they still get a lot more hot than the 8700k and the room for OC isn't very large at this moment.

Having the latest also is a +1 for me. Even more when I'm not planning on upgrading in several years.

I have an 8700k. I ran it briefly and played with overclocking and it was reluctant to go very high. I think I was 4.7 to 4.8
(it was a while ago). I still had my 5930k, so I went back to that and sent the chip off to the siliconlottery. They were fast and cheap. The chip now runs all day at 5.1ghz and at lower temps than it did at 4.7. So just remember that if you get frustrated with the OC headroom on your CPU that there are options.

I have zero interest in the 9700k. With a superior overclock on the 8700k like I have now, there is little I do which would be faster on the 9700k. A few things would be a little faster. A few things would be a little slower.

Even if I could be guaranteed a better than typical overclock for a 9900k, I'm not sure I'd be all that tempted. Because while the 9900 is superior to my chip, it would have to be overclocked to match my current CPU in most things I actually do. If I were more in to rendering, I think I'd drop Intel and get a threadripper.

 

[dshumilak]

8700 Simple,

 

[rich.h.sohn]

People generally say that the hyperthreading gives 25 to 30 percent increase in speed if the program can utilize it. Some programs do worse.

You have 2 more cores in 9700k and no ht so, it's technically as fast or faster as it has more cores at the same or slightly higher speed.

It boils down to cost as the benefit is not large. Looking at benchmarks, 9700k is faster but very minimal improvement in games like 1 to 5 frames max.

The video processing benchmarks show 9700k clearly ahead by 10 to 20.percent.

 

[snownight7]

Well I have a 9700k that I OC’d to 5.0 GHz on all cores. Idles around 35c. When I’m gaming it’s around high 40s low 50’s. When I do a 15min stress chest with All cores at 100% it gets in the low 80s. But from normal day to day use you won’t even see 70c if you have a decent aio.

 

[mdd1963]

Gaming comparisons with good GPUs show the 9700K faster than the 8700K at pretty much all games, even at stock speeds, undoubtedly due to the 9700K's pair of cores turboing to 4.9 GHz...when stock. (IF you get an 8700K that will hit 5 GHz on all cores though, it might end up faster even in games)

With an MCE/Enhanced Turbo Boost capable mainboard, you might get all cores to that clock speed if cooling is a pretty good solution (Large 240 mm radiator, Noctua NH-D15, etc)

 

[mj.ehsan1999.2nd]

hi! I recommend 9700k.
yes, It's hot but you can undervoltage it if you really don't want to OC it.
most of 2018 games are fully optimized for 8 threads, while older titles are optimized for up to 4 threads. so HT isn't actually a good point for gamers, because it makes single-core performance worse.
lower cache is not a negative point, as (at least in theory) smaller cache means lower latency and also higher transfer speed, so the equality is more important... maybe 1.5MB per core is more equal. core 2 series old CPUs had 3MB cache per core, are they sronger?!
9700k is the successor of 8700k, so it's more optimized, more up to date, and of course, faster.
note: intel CPUs are more expensive than they should be; because of their problems to migrate to 10nm node. I temporary prefer AMD. but if you like intel CPUs, I suggest you to buy 9700k
and the most important notes:
-meltdown, spectre and L1TF are still exist.
-Intel lithography is still 14nm(+++).
+but intel is always better in gaming performance (and always more expensive than AMD)
I never suggest i9(and/or threadripper)) seriesse they are not designed for gaming purposes.
in 8th gen core I cpus best gaming benchmark is for 8700k.

 

[johnrob]

It's hard to recommend anything but the latest release for someone making a new build.

I will say intel can go up its nose with a rubber hose on their pricing structure though. It's obviously squeezing because they can and for that I can't recommend it.

Just buy an xbox, maybe by the time read dead 2 comes out on PC we'll have better options.

 

[extreme_noob]

You're basically paying 40 dallars for two more cores