[SOLVED] Wait for Alder lake or upgrade now

Aug 20, 2021
9
0
10
I have new RTX 3070 and I find that my CPU i5-4670K is struggling with Call of Duty but seems to be hanging in there for most of other things. I eventually overclocked the i5-4670K just to use with the new video card. I was planning to upgrade the CPU to I7 11700 or I7 11700K. With the Alder lake and Windows 11 scheduled to be out in October, should I wait to upgrade? I use the browser, Lightroom, some AI/ML training on GPU and play games once in a while in 1080p resolution.
 
Solution
1080p, your GPU is overkill for that. Might consider a monitor upgrade there as well.

If you are using your PC for work related things as well as gaming, I highly recommend the i9-10900F. Relatively cheap for a 10 core CPU. Runs 4.6Ghz all core, and 5.1Ghz boost on a single core..

i9-10850k would be the overclocking equivalent, or the i9-10900k for a little more.

That or a Ryzen 5900X for 12 cores.

i7-11700 is fine as well. I do suggest upgraded cooling with either Intel solution. If you grab a Z class board, no big deal to remove the power limits. My i9 pulls 192W under a full load.

Ryzen 5800X is also a good alternative, though there are a few cases where software has not been optimized at all for Ryzen.

As for waiting on...

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
1080p, your GPU is overkill for that. Might consider a monitor upgrade there as well.

If you are using your PC for work related things as well as gaming, I highly recommend the i9-10900F. Relatively cheap for a 10 core CPU. Runs 4.6Ghz all core, and 5.1Ghz boost on a single core..

i9-10850k would be the overclocking equivalent, or the i9-10900k for a little more.

That or a Ryzen 5900X for 12 cores.

i7-11700 is fine as well. I do suggest upgraded cooling with either Intel solution. If you grab a Z class board, no big deal to remove the power limits. My i9 pulls 192W under a full load.

Ryzen 5800X is also a good alternative, though there are a few cases where software has not been optimized at all for Ryzen.

As for waiting on Alderlake or Zen4, probably looking at mid-year 2022 for desktop parts, late 2022 for the latter. First generation DDR5, may not go so great. They have moved power regulation to the memory sticks and are already talking about memory cooling being needed. I myself plan to wait for the second generation stuff after they've worked it out. (Bonus it is ECC memory)

4th gen i5 is pretty dated, so you would see a huge leap in performance just going to a 6 core 12 thread system, let alone 8, 10, or 12 cores. Certainly needed with an RTX 3070, particularly if you are after high refresh rate gaming.
 
  • Like
Reactions: punkncat
Solution

punkncat

Champion
Ambassador
For pure gaming, the 11600K is among the top CPU for it and is typically priced well better than it's counterparts. Be aware that specifically the K skew 11th gen parts run HOT. Have been since 9th gen, but they took it to a new level with the power requirements.

If you are sticking to more than six cores I completely agree with @Eximo assessment above.
 
Aug 20, 2021
9
0
10
1080p, your GPU is overkill for that. Might consider a monitor upgrade there as well.

If you are using your PC for work related things as well as gaming, I highly recommend the i9-10900F. Relatively cheap for a 10 core CPU. Runs 4.6Ghz all core, and 5.1Ghz boost on a single core..

i9-10850k would be the overclocking equivalent, or the i9-10900k for a little more.

That or a Ryzen 5900X for 12 cores.

i7-11700 is fine as well. I do suggest upgraded cooling with either Intel solution. If you grab a Z class board, no big deal to remove the power limits. My i9 pulls 192W under a full load.

Ryzen 5800X is also a good alternative, though there are a few cases where software has not been optimized at all for Ryzen.

As for waiting on Alderlake or Zen4, probably looking at mid-year 2022 for desktop parts, late 2022 for the latter. First generation DDR5, may not go so great. They have moved power regulation to the memory sticks and are already talking about memory cooling being needed. I myself plan to wait for the second generation stuff after they've worked it out. (Bonus it is ECC memory)

4th gen i5 is pretty dated, so you would see a huge leap in performance just going to a 6 core 12 thread system, let alone 8, 10, or 12 cores. Certainly needed with an RTX 3070, particularly if you are after high refresh rate gaming.

I already got Z590 board and ddr4 ram. I wanted to buy i7-11700k but ended up ordering i7-11700 by mistake. I am in the process of returning i7-11700 as I feel some of the planned tasks especially for AI/ML would need constant high boost instead of the temporary turbo boost provided by i7-11700. Since I was going back to drawing board, I was thinking if it makes sense to wait for couple of months.

At Microcenter the I9-10850K and I7-11700K are of same price. The extra core from the I9 would be nice, but I feel that the the PCIe 4.0 support in the 11th gen might be more useful.
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
PCIe 4.0 really depends on the situation. Lots of M.2 drives on most Z590 boards, and you need an 11th gen for the socket closest to the CPU to work at all. High speed networking cards, thunderbolt, additional storage controllers, about the only real need so far. Graphics cards don't yet show a huge difference between 3.0 and 4.0 as long as they have an x16 slot. 4K high refresh, maybe.