Upgrade from 6700K to 8600K or 8700K?

[animemangamer]

I don't overclock severely as I usually just utilize the auto-oc features of software like Asus's AI Suite. For daily/gaming purposes I usually just leave it on stock oc of 4.2GHz. I use a 1080 Ti for GPU and both are custom petg looped with 360+120 radiators.

According to Userbench, I should see a 15% ~ $23% increase with the new processors but not sure how accurate that is since these have 2 additional cores.

The reason for the interest in upgrading is I also want to update my aging Asus Z170-Deluxe to a new ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E and I find it irritating that this $200 newer chipset mobo has a greater or equal to specs + additional features over a $300+ mobo I bought just almost 2 years ago!

Also, I recently purchased In Win Polaris Silent RGB Fans x4 without knowing that it requires an RGB header motherboard =/ so this also adds up to the motivational factor that I want to upgrade to a newer chipset mobo with RGB fan headers xD!

So is it really worth it? If so, should I 8600K or 8700K?

 

[DSzymborski]

Honestly, you haven't given any usage information that indicates a scenario in which you'll get a significant gain. When you're not using the extra cores, it's more a 10% gain and from a value basis, I'd have a hard time recommending that when it requires a new motherboard as well.

As for more features for fewer dollars, that's just the name of the game. My 1995 Pentium 133 build cost $2000 and by 2017, there are faster PCs that are literally just chucked in the garbage. Remember, you got two years out of that more expensive motherboard during which the newer, cheaper, better one didn't exist - you earned the value in the form of time, an incredibly precious commodity.

 

[helpstar]

Just to be sure that you know, you will have to upgrade the motherboard if you want to get an 8th gen CPU, because only 300series chipsets can run these. 100 and 200series won´t work at all with 8th gen CPUs

 

[geofelt]

Worth is something only YOU can determine.
I am in the process of upgrading Z170 with I5-7600K to Z370 with I5-8600K.
Not so much because I need it, but because my son needs an upgrade and he is going to get the 7600K machine.

You now have 8 working threads with the i7-6700K.
Just how many do you actually need for what you do?
For gaming, here is how to assess that:
You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of threads to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.
For gaming, it is unlikely that you really need more than 4.
For fully multithreaded apps, more is better.
I5-8600K will have 6 threads, I7-8700K will have 12.
Each can OC to around 5.0.

My take...
If the extra $120 or so is not that important to you, buy the 8700K assuming you can find one.
Otherwise, you should be pleased with the 8600k.