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Finally ready to switch from the i7 8700k

Joined
Dec 8, 2019
Messages
205 (0.10/day)
Location
Romania
System Name pc on da desk / Hp z400
Processor Intel i7 8700k @ 5ghz / Intel Xeon w3520
Motherboard Asus PRIME Z370-P II / OEM motherboard
Cooling Be Quiet Dark Rock 3 Pro / OEM cooler
Memory 32 gb Corsair VENGEANCE LPX at 3000 mhz / 8 gb ECC OEM memory at 1333mhz
Video Card(s) AMD RX 7800XT Gigabyte Gaming OC/ AMD SAPPHIRE Radeon R9 380 NITRO Dual-X
Storage 1TB of sata 3 SSD and 3TB of HDD / 240 gb of SSD and 1TB of HDD
Display(s) Legion Y25f-10 144Hz / LG Flatron W1934S
Case Aerocool P7C1 non-pro / Hp z400 case
Audio Device(s) Beyerdynamics DT 770 Pro 80 ohms and HyperX Cloud 2 / nothing ig
Power Supply Xilence Performance X XN073 XP750MR9 750w / OEM PSU 475w
Mouse HyperX Pulsefire Surge / some random office mouse
Keyboard Razer Blackwidow 3 / some random office kb
Software Win 10 Ent / Win 10 Pro
After upgrading for the balanced combo of the i7 8700k and the 1080ti to a Rx 7800xt, I came to the conclusion that at what resolution I play things, I did make a fool of my self with this upgrade. I mean, I was able to play more demanding games like The Last Of Us, but I feel of course that half of the performance is lost because of the CPU. So I wanna upgrade the CPU with as little money as possible. The good thing is that Romania is imo an Intel enjoyer, so the price for a i7 8700k is around 450 lei, so about 90 euro. I would also sell my mb, a z370p from Asus, and my cooler, a be quite drp 3, maybe as a kit, for about 160-170 euro, if possible. I would keep my ram, 32 gb, no reason to change those. So that would mean a 150 euro budget with the ability to spend an extra 100 euro. I was thinking a x470 board or a b450-550 with a Ryzen 7 3800x, a 3900x-xt or a 5700x. I want to keep it am4, the costs of ddr5 and am5 would kinda destroy the low spending I was thinking. The 3800x is about 450 lei( 90 euro ), the 3900x-xt is about 130-140, the 5700x is about 150. The x470 is about 70 euros and a decent 240 or 360 aio is about 60-70 used. What are your thoughts, what other configuration would u suggest and what processor should I pick out of these ones?

Many thanks, Artur!
 
3800X is solid for gaming, 3900X is solid for gaming and much more.
I would swing you toward an AsRock B450 board as they have excellent performance, good features with decent OCing option, if you care about that.
That said, DDR4 3200 is a sweet spot for good performance and very inexpensive. DDR4 3600 is a bit better for a bit more money.
A 7800XT will be a truly big jump up in GPU performance, but also requires more power. You may wish to consider a 6700XT or 7700XT instead.

 
3800X is solid for gaming, 3900X is solid for gaming and much more.
I would swing you toward an AsRock B450 board as they have excellent performance, good features with decent OCing option, if you care about that.
That said, DDR4 3200 is a sweet spot for good performance and very inexpensive. DDR4 3600 is a bit better for a bit more money.
A 7800XT will be a truly big jump up in GPU performance, but also requires more power. You may wish to consider a 6700XT or 7700XT instead.

Thanks a lot for the help, the 7800xt is already bought and it was bought for a wonderful price, not going back on that. For the CPU, I have no idea, like the 3800x sound enough, is really cheap imo and I like it. The 3900xt is gonna be kinda the same, more expensive but will be a bragging right and will keep it's value better, I think. The 5700x, well I don't know about that either, it's fast, but I don't know if it's worth it over the 3800x
 
Thanks a lot for the help, the 7800xt is already bought and it was bought for a wonderful price, not going back on that.
YW, and fair enough, solid choice!
For the CPU, I have no idea, like the 3800x sound enough, is really cheap imo and I like it.
If you're only gaming and general computing tasks, the 3800X would well serve your needs. Pair it with 32GB of DDR4 3200 or 3600 RAM and you will have a very good performing system!
The 5700x, well I don't know about that either, it's fast, but I don't know if it's worth it over the 3800x
Not really worth it with the GPU you've bought.
 
Also consider the i5 12400, i5 12600K, i712700K or i5 13400, or i5 13600K. Though these may be out of budget, don't know Romanian market prices.
 
If you don't have plans on buying an X3D part, I would go with a 12th gen.
 
YW, and fair enough, solid choice!

If you're only gaming and general computing tasks, the 3800X would well serve your needs. Pair it with 32GB of DDR4 3200 or 3600 RAM and you will have a very good performing system!

Not really worth it with the GPU you've bought.
Ok, so the 5700x is dropped then from the list. Now, for the 3800x and the 3900x-xt, I have the following question. If their gaming performance is kinda the same, more or less, do you think the extra cores would give me more future proofing? If no, the 3800x is the best choice I think

Also consider the i5 12400, i5 12600K, i712700K or i5 13400, or i5 13600K. Though these may be out of budget, don't know Romanian market prices.
They are rather expensive, the i7 12700 is the price of the x470 plus the 3800x
 
After upgrading for the balanced combo of the i7 8700k and the 1080ti to a Rx 7800xt, I came to the conclusion that at what resolution I play things, I did make a fool of my self with this upgrade. I mean, I was able to play more demanding games like The Last Of Us, but I feel of course that half of the performance is lost because of the CPU. So I wanna upgrade the CPU with as little money as possible. The good thing is that Romania is imo an Intel enjoyer, so the price for a i7 8700k is around 450 lei, so about 90 euro. I would also sell my mb, a z370p from Asus, and my cooler, a be quite drp 3, maybe as a kit, for about 160-170 euro, if possible. I would keep my ram, 32 gb, no reason to change those. So that would mean a 150 euro budget with the ability to spend an extra 100 euro. I was thinking a x470 board or a b450-550 with a Ryzen 7 3800x, a 3900x-xt or a 5700x. I want to keep it am4, the costs of ddr5 and am5 would kinda destroy the low spending I was thinking. The 3800x is about 450 lei( 90 euro ), the 3900x-xt is about 130-140, the 5700x is about 150. The x470 is about 70 euros and a decent 240 or 360 aio is about 60-70 used. What are your thoughts, what other configuration would u suggest and what processor should I pick out of these ones?

Many thanks, Artur!
honestly the 5700x is the no brainer of those three, the 3900XT offers nothing over the 3800x in real world performance. Remeber, CPUs are about performance not core count

relative-performance-games-1280-720.png
 
the 3800x/t is slower than a 8700k in games, esp if you overclock the latter - which is free. I see your 8700K is already at 5GHZ, a 3800x is slower than that chip in almost all games.

Get a 5700x3d, you will end up saving money as it will last you far longer at higher performance than alternatives.
 
Now, for the 3800x and the 3900x-xt, I have the following question. If their gaming performance is kinda the same, more or less, do you think the extra cores would give me more future proofing?
That's a yes. As CPU core counts have increased, game devs are taking advantage of them, so there is level of future planning that will come with choosing a 12core over an 8core. I'm currently in the middle with a 10core CPU(Intel). The 3900X would be the one I personally choose, if the price is good where you live..

the 3800x/t is slower than a 8700k in games, esp if you overclock the latter - which is free.
What?!? You're trying to say a older 6core can keep up with a newer and faster 8core or 12core? Not a chace, even OC'd.
For the GPU the OP has(7800XT), the 8700K would be a very serious bottleneck. Not a good idea.
 
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the 3800xt is slower than a 8700k in games, esp if you overclock the latter - which is free. Usually you can get 8700ks to 5.0-5.1 ghz in which case they are basically a 10600K.

You dont want to sidegrade, get a 5700X3d, that will last you far longer than anything else, overclock the pants off the 8700k and pump the ring, and you will see 15-20% boost easily.
You see, the problem with that is that I am either very bad at overclocking or there is something very wrong with my cooler or something. I tried overclocking to like 4.9 but the temps are horrible, like 90-95 degrees. I am using mx4 from arctic, I change it periodically, I run the fans at 100% on the CPU cooler. Maybe the mb is problematic, since it's a z370p, so not the best at all. If I can solve the overclocking, I would still use this CPU. Maybe a new cooler? The be quite the rock pro 3 is from 2014, it might be insuficient?
 
You see, the problem with that is that I am either very bad at overclocking or there is something very wrong with my cooler or something. I tried overclocking to like 4.9 but the temps are horrible, like 90-95 degrees. I am using mx4 from arctic, I change it periodically, I run the fans at 100% on the CPU cooler. Maybe the mb is problematic, since it's a z370p, so not the best at all. If I can solve the overclocking, I would still use this CPU. Maybe a new cooler? The be quite the rock pro 3 is from 2014, it might be insuficient?
See above. The numbers tell the tale. For that GPU, staying with the 8700K would seriously gimp the 7800XT. The 3800X or 3900X(XT) would be a very good balance with few or no trade-offs.
 
I also agree, Zen 2 Ryzen 7 is not an upgrade over Coffee Lake for gaming performance.

@SadisticWaifu Have you considered Chinese all-in-one motherboards? Keep an eye on AliExpress or other marketplaces you trust for them - my brother scored a motherboard that comes with a Core i9-11980HK laptop processor soldered on it, the thing is like a little rocket, and affordable to boot.


On AliExpress it's 1321 lei with free shipping (for transparency: not an affiliated link, just so you take a look for yourself), but all you'd need is a DDR4 RAM kit which you probably already have. It goes on sale regularly if you have some patience and it's not completely urgent. This is the 11th gen Tiger Lake flagship processor, supports AVX-512 and everything. It's basically a i9-11900K in performance. Might be a good option for you, considered the budget. I've had some hands on time with it and I'm quite surprised with what it can do.

Oh for clarification: he is using it with an RTX 3070. It handles the GPU just fine.
 

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I also agree, Zen 2 Ryzen 7 is not an upgrade over Coffee Lake for gaming performance.
And you would be wrong. See above. Seriously? Context: GPU = 7800XT. And you all are saying pairing with a 8700K is a good idea?

Although, the question does present itself;
@SadisticWaifu
Have you thought about a 9700K? All you'd need is the CPU and all of your existing parts would remain.
That would be the best CPU you could get for your system, but it's an option and would be a decent upgrade.
 
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do you a ballpark on how much you want to spend?
 
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And you would be wrong. See above. Seriously?

Mmmm... it's really situational I guess. i7-8700K should have i5-10600Kish performance, maybe a little lower, around maybe 3700X perf? IDK.

Maybe because I had the 3900XT (which my brother now owns - I gave it to him after I was done with it, and now he's done with it too) and all its topology problems (3+3+3+3 configuration after all) and it really wasn't a stellar gaming chip. The 11980HK board he got puts it in the ground. Zen 3 is a lot better in my experience. My recommendation would be, either these adapted Tiger Lake boards on a budget (they really bite), or going with socket AM4+5700X3D at a minimum
 
And you all are saying pairing with a 8700K is a good idea?
going from an OC 8700k to a The 3800X or 3900X is too much of a lateral move. I'm sure the floor in FPS would be better in some games and you can cherry pick a few games with better FPS but the 5700x is clearly better then all the above mentioned and even that is not a "great" upgrade looking at 10-15% performance increase in the charts posted.

About 250+- euros
i would go with varyo's and freeagent's recommendations
 
Mmmm... it's really situational I guess. i7-8700K should have i5-10600Kish performance, maybe a little lower, around maybe 3700X perf? IDK.

Maybe because I had the 3900XT (which my brother now owns - I gave it to him after I was done with it, and now he's done with it too) and all its topology problems (3+3+3+3 configuration after all) and it really wasn't a stellar gaming chip. The 11980HK board he got puts it in the ground. Zen 3 is a lot better in my experience. My recommendation would be, either these adapted Tiger Lake boards on a budget (they really bite), or going with socket AM4+5700X3D at a minimum
Um, you all posted comments while I was making an edit:

Although, the question does present itself;
@SadisticWaifu
Have you thought about a 9700K? All you'd need is the CPU and all of your existing parts would remain.
That would be the best CPU you could get for your system, but it's an option and would be a decent upgrade.
Worth a thought, if you can get one for a decent price.

going from an OC 8700k to a The 3800X or 3900X is too much of a lateral move.
Going from a slower 6 core to a faster 8 or 12 core is a lateral move? Not in my neck of the woods, especially considering the 7800XT(seriously, key point folks) the OP already has.
 
Have you thought about a 9700K? All you'd need is the CPU and all of your existing parts would remain.
I had one, great gaming CPU but offers the same ballpark performance as the 8700k

Going from a slower 6 core to a faster 8 or 12 core is a lateral move?
we are talking about CPU performance, cores are meaningless unless you are talking about the same line of CPUs and even then it's still about actual performance. See the the charts, in a gaming suite those CPUs don't do well and get outperformed by newer CPUs like the AMD 5600x & 5700x and Intel i5-12400 & 12600k
 
9700k has worse frametimes due to fewer threads these days.

the 3800x is a slower 8 core -- it's 8 slower cores with higher latency instead of 6 faster cores, which is why it's a lateral move. The 4 additional cores in the 3900x don't help, and they're limited by the IF, it performs much slower in games.
 
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