Future-proof CPU to buy

[XXL_AI]

it seems amd is going to stuck to the same socket for at least 2 more generations. it might be a safe bet if you don't want to pay extra money for chipzilla crap

 

[HTC]

Your current system should last you a while longer. With that in mind you may as well wait to see what Ryzen 3000 and Ice Lake have to offer.

Agreed.

If for no other reason then for prices of current CPU gens to decrease to give way to the newer CPUs.

 

[PLAfiller]

Future-proofing is a hoax in PC building IMO. It's synonyms to either not understanding your needs or lying to yourself about this hobby Looking at your usage in the first post, you are pretty well off now: gaming and general use. It's your money I guess, but I'd wait for now. Is there a scenario where your PC right now is not doing it's job ? A particular game? 50 tabs open in the browser and you are out of RAM ? Anything that's bothering currently? Anything? I don't want to sound preachy, but CPUs are expensive, why spend the bucks if not necessary.

 

[c2DDragon]

I see no reason to upgrade the CPU right now.
6700k + GTX 1070Ti combo for 1080p gaming is fine.
1080Ti or + for 1080p is overkill so for GPU no need to invest now neither if you really wanted to spend money.
If you play in 1440p then go for newer GPU or a 1080Ti but again, no need to change the CPU.
Another CPU for now is not needed at all if it is for gaming and price of the 9900k is meh !
Wait for Volta (nVidia) and then change the whole rig (2020 ? 2021 ? )

 

[Space Lynx]

I see no reason to upgrade the CPU right now.
6700k + GTX 1070Ti combo for 1080p gaming is fine.
1080Ti or + for 1080p is overkill so for GPU no need to invest now neither if you really wanted to spend money.
If you play in 1440p then go for newer GPU or a 1080Ti but again, no need to change the CPU.
Another CPU for now is not needed at all if it is for gaming and price of the 9900k is meh !
Wait for Volta (nVidia) and then change the whole rig (2020 ? 2021 ? )

yeah honestly his system can't get any better for 1080p gaming. kinda dumb to upgrade anything unless he plans to game at a higher resolution, which in my experience, just is not worth the hassle.

 

[c2DDragon]

yeah honestly his system can't get any better for 1080p gaming. kinda dumb to upgrade anything unless he plans to game at a higher resolution, which in my experience, just is not worth the hassle.

Switching from 1080p to 1440p 144Hz or more "insert any res @ any Hz but no 60Hz " would be painful :
_Higher GPU (500€+)
_THE screen you want (500€+)
I personnaly switched from an old 17" 1050p @ 60Hz (which I OCed to 70Hz) and I wanted 24" minimum. 4k was stuck at 60Hz at this time and no GPU could handle a recent game at more than 30Fps so it was 1440p @ 144Hz and for real it did cost a lot but I cannot enjoy lesser resolutions now.
I tried 10+ screens to find my pearl, many 24", 27", 32", curved, IPS, so many returns ahah, many backlight problems, dead pixels, bad colors and so on.
A real pain to get the good pick which meets your requirements !

 

[dirtyferret]

Intel 10900k or AMD zen 4 would be excellent future proof CPUs...

 

[shk021051]

wait next year

 

[somethinggeneric]

I would avoid Intel in general when it comes to "future proofing" since their CPUs seem to require a different socket every week. Personally since AMDs been sticking to the AM4 platform you could get Zen 2, 2+ and possibly 3 since AMD has confirmed they are supporting the AM4 socket through 2020 which means if you buy a Zen2 CPU and in 2020 (only 10 months away holy shit) or beyond you could still quite possibly upgrade to zen 3 and beyond without needing to purchase a new motherboard.

Source: https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020

 

[c2DDragon]

I would avoid Intel in general when it comes to "future proofing" since their CPUs seem to require a different socket every week. Personally since AMDs been sticking to the AM4 platform you could get Zen 2, 2+ and possibly 3 since AMD has confirmed they are supporting the AM4 socket through 2020 which means if you buy a Zen2 CPU and in 2020 (only 10 months away holy shit) or beyond you could still quite possibly upgrade to zen 3 and beyond without needing to purchase a new motherboard.

Source: https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020

You are right but if you get a powerful future brand new intel CPU, you won't upgrade before the next 3-5 years, same for AMD and then if the next gen AMD requires DDR5 or PCI-e 4.0 or anything that's shinny marketing bullshit we all enthusiasts want...well we will have to change the MB too
Your point is clearly logic and valid.
I'm not a fanboy or anything, I just get what delivers the best when my rig tend to be slow at a point where I can have clearly better. For now it was intel since 1995. Maybe AMD will do something exciting for gamers before I feel the need to upgrade. Time will tell.

 

[notb]

I would avoid Intel in general when it comes to "future proofing" since their CPUs seem to require a different socket every week. Personally since AMDs been sticking to the AM4 platform you could get Zen 2, 2+ and possibly 3 since AMD has confirmed they are supporting the AM4 socket through 2020 which means if you buy a Zen2 CPU and in 2020 (only 10 months away holy shit) or beyond you could still quite possibly upgrade to zen 3 and beyond without needing to purchase a new motherboard.

Source: https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020

I though the whole point of buying a "future proof" PC part is not to replace it for a long time.

You've just suggested buying a CPU that will be easier to replace next year. O-M-G

 

[c2DDragon]

You've just suggested buying a CPU that will be easier to replace next year. O-M-G

That's not really what his point was, I mean :

if you buy a Zen2 CPU and in 2020 (only 10 months away holy shit) or beyond you could still quite possibly upgrade to zen 3 and beyond without needing to purchase a new motherboard.

Leading to think AMD sockets will last longer than Intel who multiply the sockets. So what I've understood is if he wants to buy a Zen 2 CPU he could just upgrade the CPU (only) later in few years when he would feel the need, by a Zen 3 powerful one I think. Btw we don't know if Zen 3 will use AM4.
That's what I understood, I mean, no violence please

 

[Leoplate25]

Thank you all for your help!!!

 

[notb]

Hello! I'm planning on upgrade my PC and i have a question: right now; which is the best future-proof cpu to buy for, at least, the next 5 years?

As many here, I'd suggest sticking with what you have until it's clearly not fast enough. That's because, obviously, for gaming it'll be fine for another 2-3 years.

To know what CPU is "future proof", you would have to forecast the future. And can you? What will you expect from this PC 3 years from now?
Will it still be just for gaming? Or maybe you'll take on rendering or molecular biology? Or maybe you'll decide you want a smaller case and will convert to mITX?

Also, how will your financial situation change?
Maybe you'll get a huge raise and will be able to afford something much better.
Or maybe you'll be fired and will have to get a poorly paid job, so you'll wish to not have spent so much on a computer?

Any way you look at this, changing a PC before you actually need it makes no sense.

I would avoid Intel in general when it comes to "future proofing" since their CPUs seem to require a different socket every week.

How often do you replace the CPU? Honestly.
I've never had more than 1 CPU on a socket. If you get a large enough performance margin (part of the "future proof" idea), you shouldn't need to upgrade before 3-4 years, unless your use scenario hasn't changed significantly. And at that point there's usually a new socket available.
Also, keep in mind motherboard is not just the socket. You regularly get new features and connectors.

Lets look at the AM4 socket.
First of all: calling it "future proof" today is just weird. New one is coming next year (yes, it's 2019 already!). It will bring some interesting upgrades, mostly because of PCIe 4.0.
Second: let's say you got into AM4 early and now want to replace your Ryzen 1700 with a shiny 7nm 3000-series. Won't you be tempted by the new chipset (with PCIe 4.0)?
Even if you're determined to replace just the CPU... you'll think twice for sure. Your 1700 is still fast. Does it make sense to spend $300-500 on a new CPU now? Next year you'll be able to replace the whole platform and get a lot of new stuff.

Personally since AMDs been sticking to the AM4 platform you could get Zen 2, 2+ and possibly 3 since AMD has confirmed they are supporting the AM4 socket through 2020 which means if you buy a Zen2 CPU and in 2020 (only 10 months away holy shit) or beyond you could still quite possibly upgrade to zen 3 and beyond without needing to purchase a new motherboard.

I don't get the math behind this.
AM4 being "supported until 2020" most likely means a new socket is coming next year. This means the 3000-series (Zen 2) will be the last generation on AM4.

 

[Leoplate25]

As many here, I'd suggest sticking with what you have until it's clearly not fast enough. That's because, obviously, for gaming it'll be fine for another 2-3 years.

To know what CPU is "future proof", you would have to forecast the future. And can you? What will you expect from this PC 3 years from now?
Will it still be just for gaming? Or maybe you'll take on rendering or molecular biology? Or maybe you'll decide you want a smaller case and will convert to mITX?

Also, how will your financial situation change?
Maybe you'll get a huge raise and will be able to afford something much better.
Or maybe you'll be fired and will have to get a poorly paid job, so you'll wish to not have spent so much on a computer?

Any way you look at this, changing a PC before you actually need it makes no sense.

Thanks for your answer! I'll wait then!

 

[somethinggeneric]

I don't get the math behind this.
AM4 being "supported until 2020" most likely means a new socket is coming next year. This means the 3000-series (Zen 2) will be the last generation on AM4.

Yeah hes picking a bad time to really do a "future proof" build. Intels going to change their socket, thats what they do. AMD will probably change their socket come 2021 because if Zen2 (3k series) supports AM4, theres no reason Zen2+ (4k series) won't.

 

[E-Bear]

In technology there is no future proof. Everything change so quick if it's not big changes the compagnies make sure the older model is not 100% compatible with the new one. They call it Planned obsolescence ... and it wont change anytime soon. So dont try to find the perfect future thing because it wont be.

 

[R-T-B]

this is aggressively stupid - no other way to put it. there's been reviews for months yet you play the ignorant game.

Depends on what you mean by "aggresively stupid," on a subpar chip it certainly can be true if you are expecting it to do allcore (but it will certainly do stock, no question).

Without water my chip can't hold it's 5.0Ghz allcore. I need to use an AVX offset of -2 just to get there on very agressive air.

 

[delshay]

You are right but if you get a powerful future brand new intel CPU, you won't upgrade before the next 3-5 years, same for AMD and then if the next gen AMD requires DDR5 or PCI-e 4.0 or anything that's shinny marketing bullshit we all enthusiasts want...well we will have to change the MB too
Your point is clearly logic and valid.
I'm not a fanboy or anything, I just get what delivers the best when my rig tend to be slow at a point where I can have clearly better. For now it was intel since 1995. Maybe AMD will do something exciting for gamers before I feel the need to upgrade. Time will tell.

You forgotten HDMI 2.1. AFAIK there are no GFX card on the market that has this feature.

 

[king of swag187]

I mean, nothing is ever going to be "future proof"
I see the 6700K being fine for a another 2-2.5 years given how CPU driven games are becoming

If you really want to "future" proof yourself, best bet is honestly Ryzen given AM4 support until 2020
Best current CPU is a 9900K, non debatable, but given its been 4 gens on 1151, Intel is likely to get itchy with pulling the trigger finger soon and you'll be stuck with it.

 

[cucker tarlson]

a 9900k would certainly hold for many years,only issue I see is it's pci-e 3.0 and we might see pci-e 4.0 cards in a year or two.I too support the option to upgrade when you need.how is that 6700k utilizied in games currently ? are you getting anywhere near maxing it out ? I'm in a similar position too,I've seen my 5775c get near max utilization in a game or two,I'm not in a hurry to buy but already started considering some options.I'll get the parts I've chosen when they are at the price I'd like them,not sooner though.

 

[Aerpoweron]

Hi Leoplate25. I have to agree with many others here. Your setup is fine for gaming. I personally still game on a i7 4790k. And the higher the resolution in games the more the GPU is the bottleneck. And when you look at Benchmarks of current games, the differences in framerate are not that big, and all still within playable range.
You should be fine until games really start using 6 or more cores effectively. And that won't happen until the new game console generation gets released and is out for 1 to 2 years.

 

[Melvis]

CPU or platform? If its platform then AMD hands down if its CPU well....if your just gaming and have no budget then the 9900K but even that CPU looks to be possibly beaten by AMD already so....

 

[cucker tarlson]

CPU or platform? If its platform then AMD hands down if its CPU well....if your just gaming and have no budget then the 9900K but even that CPU looks to be possibly beaten by AMD already so....

how can a worse gaming cpu be a more future proof platform at the same time ? "looks to be possibly beaten",lol,that made my day.

Depends on what you mean by "aggresively stupid," on a subpar chip it certainly can be true if you are expecting it to do allcore (but it will certainly do stock, no question).

Without water my chip can't hold it's 5.0Ghz allcore. I need to use an AVX offset of -2 just to get there on very agressive air.

torture testing with avx on ain't much of an indication,how much do you get in games ? probably 40 degrees cooler than that.

 

[Melvis]

how can a worse gaming cpu be a more future proof platform at the same time ? "looks to be possibly beaten",lol,that made my day..

How do you know its a worse gaming CPU? since you have that magical crystal ball can you please tell us where you got that from? and I guess you didnt watch any of the news at CES this year?