Gaming CPU - Best value

masterosok

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I am planning a PC upgrade and curious what the best value is currently for gaming at 1440p.

I have a Ryzen 7 5800x ordered from Amazon but as of today its not going to be shipped until late January. Curious if this is even worth the price for 1440p or if I am just better off getting a i7-9700k ($200 at MC) or i9-9900k (300 at MC) and spending more on ram, MB, and GPU.

The 10700k is 320 at MC as well but seems to only be less than 5% better at 1440p.

From what I have seen most of the games run around a 5% difference in favor of the 5800x and I am starting to think it might be overkill at 1440p at over 2x the price.

Or is there a better value than the 9700k or 9900k for 1440p now?

Thoughts
 
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The MC 9700k deal is probably one of the better values around at the moment. I picked it up myself.

It's not cutting edge but a decent OC will get you within a few % of everything else. That said, you are investing in a dead socket.

Some Z170 and Z270 mobos can be hacked with a custom bios to support Z390 CPUs. You may want to check if there's one available for your Z270. If you could keep your current RAM and MOBO then the 9700k is definitely the best bang for the buck option.
 
If you have already purchased an AM4 board, then go for the 5600x over the 5800x for gaming. Use the $150 savings on extra ram, a faster NVME, etc.

 
AMD new cpu's are great but the 9900K is a beast at gaming...for only 20 more you can get a 10700K so either are fine options.

PS: unless as others have said you already have an AM4 mobo.
 
If you have already purchased an AM4 board, then go for the 5600x over the 5800x for gaming. Use the $150 savings on extra ram, a faster NVME, etc.



I am not really considering the 5600x atm cause its very hard to find unless you want to seriously overpay. I was barely able to get the 5800x ordered before it sold out. The 5800x seem to be the more accessible of the Zen 3 chips atm.

I have not ordered a MB yet however.
 
The MC 9700k deal is probably one of the better values around at the moment. I picked it up myself.

It's not cutting edge but a decent OC will get you within a few % of everything else. That said, you are investing in a dead socket.

Some Z170 and Z270 mobos can be hacked with a custom bios to support Z390 CPUs. You may want to check if there's one available for your Z270. If you could keep your current RAM and MOBO then the 9700k is definitely the best bang for the buck option.

I am okay with buying a new board and would rather not run a hacked bios. I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon after this upgrade so the dead socket thing doesn't really matter much to me.

I am leaning on canceling the 5800x and just getting a 9900k and MB combo.
 
I am okay with buying a new board and would rather not run a hacked bios. I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon after this upgrade so the dead socket thing doesn't really matter much to me.

I am leaning on canceling the 5800x and just getting a 9900k and MB combo.
What will be your price delta in savings if you go 9900K over 5800X? Which motherboard do you have? If its X570 or B550 you're going to get a lot more throughput with PCI-E 4.0 vs 3.0 on the 9900K. The 9900K is also slower than 5800X. I think it really comes down to how much money you'll save and if you expect to purchase again sooner than later.
 
What will be your price delta in savings if you go 9900K over 5800X? Which motherboard do you have? If its X570 or B550 you're going to get a lot more throughput with PCI-E 4.0 vs 3.0 on the 9900K. The 9900K is also slower than 5800X. I think it really comes down to how much money you'll save and if you expect to purchase again sooner than later.
From what I have read none of the current cards take advantage of PCI-E 4.0 speeds and thus performance isn't greatly impacted by going 4.0 so that's not much of a concern. I am more just looking for value. I think the 5800x is not that great value to I am going to cancel the order but still haven't decided on what to get. Yes the 5800 is faster but its not enough to warrant the +150 price over the 9900k. I don't generally upgrade my PC often so that is a consideration but the performance gains in gaming from the 9900k to the 5800x aren't that substantial. I may wait out and see if I can get a 5600x later when supplies are better.
 
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I'm debating the same thing. problem is I dont have a MC nearby and the 5600x can't be bought lol.
 
The MC 9700k deal is probably one of the better values around at the moment. I picked it up myself.

It's not cutting edge but a decent OC will get you within a few % of everything else. That said, you are investing in a dead socket.

Some Z170 and Z270 mobos can be hacked with a custom bios to support Z390 CPUs. You may want to check if there's one available for your Z270. If you could keep your current RAM and MOBO then the 9700k is definitely the best bang for the buck option.

I'm not the OP, but am now down the rabbit hole of researching modded bios's for one of my machines with a Z170 🤔 Going from an i5 6400 on that machine to a 9700k for $200 or 9900k for $300 would be a huge upgrade(I have a Microcenter about 45 minutes away).
 
I'm not the OP, but am now down the rabbit hole of researching modded bios's for one of my machines with a Z170 🤔 Going from an i5 6400 on that machine to a 9700k for $200 or 9900k for $300 would be a huge upgrade(I have a Microcenter about 45 minutes away).
I didn't look into it too much but once you make the bios then you need some device that attaches to the mobo and a second computer to flash it. plus you have to block certain pins on the new cpu with tape. all this just to save around $50. my z270 board is worth $50 and a new 300 series board is $100.
 
From what I have read none of the current cards take advantage of PCI-E 4.0 speeds and thus performance isn't greatly impacted by going 4.0 so that's not much of a concern. I am more just looking for value. I think the 5800x is not that great value to I am going to cancel the order but still haven't decided on what to get. Yes the 5800 is faster but its not enough to warrant the +150 price take over the 9900k. I don't generally upgrade my PC often so that is a consideration but the performance gains in gaming from the 9900k to the 5800x are that substantial. I may wait out and see if I can get a 5600x later when supplies are better.

Do not let PCIE 4 sway the decision.
 
I didn't look into it too much but once you make the bios then you need some device that attaches to the mobo and a second computer to flash it. plus you have to block certain pins on the new cpu with tape. all this just to save around $50. my z270 board is worth $50 and a new 300 series board is $100.
If I were to attempt it, it's less about the money and more just interesting/fun to max out older hardware and make it do something it wasn't designed to do. Just like the LGA 771 Xeon mods to fit in LGA 775 boards back a decade ago or so.
 
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When did you order your 5800X? I ordered mine on 11/17 with an expected delivery of early January and it shipped out today, arrives on Monday.
 
Just like the LGA 771 Xeon mods to fit in LGA 775 boards back a decade ago or so.

I did that on my Gigabyte board at the time, went from a C2D to a Xeon quad, just needed to cut away part of the socket, apply a sticker on the CPU (to swap two pin sockets), and modify the BIOS with new microcode. I think I paid $40 for the new chip, too, so it was cheap. Fun project, and a noticeable improvement at the time.
 
I did that on my Gigabyte board at the time, went from a C2D to a Xeon quad, just needed to cut away part of the socket, apply a sticker on the CPU (to swap two pin sockets), and modify the BIOS with new microcode. I think I paid $40 for the new chip, too, so it was cheap. Fun project, and a noticeable improvement at the time.
I did the same recently except I bought an already modded Xeon X5460 for $23 and use that as my bedroom PC.
Stuck it into a Corsair 465X case,
IMG_8100.JPEG
 
Xeon X5460 for $23
The funny part is that those originally retailed for $1200. Crazy reliability in them, I was hoping to hit 4GHz in mine but it limited out at 3.8. Maybe could have gotten it faster with more voltage, but it was my DD and I wanted it stable and lasting.
 
I finally quit using any of my Core 2 LGA 775 machines(oldest machine I have actively running is an Ivy Bridge i5) and this thread is making me want to pull some of the gear back out and upgrade the processors(and yeah I was the one that brought up LGA 771 initially, but I wasn't anticipating to get a build photo :ROFLMAO: ) . That build in the Corsair 465X case looks great.
 
I finally quit using any of my Core 2 LGA 775 machines(oldest machine I have actively running is an Ivy Bridge i5) and this thread is making me want to pull some of the gear back out and upgrade the processors(and yeah I was the one that brought up LGA 771 initially, but I wasn't anticipating to get a build photo :ROFLMAO: ) . That build in the Corsair 465X case looks great.
Thanks.
I happened to have a Gigabyte board that supports the Xeon so decided to get it and then slap it into this nice looking case.
The case, fans, and commander pro, are probably worth 10x what the mobo/cpu/ram are worth, lol.

IMG_5816.JPG
 

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Thanks.
I happened to have a Gigabyte board that supports the Xeon so decided to get it and then slap it into this nice looking case.
The case, fans, and commander pro, are probably worth 10x what the mobo/cpu/ram are worth, lol.
With how inexpensive parts are from that time period I figured the case was worth quite a bit more than the other components. That's really bringing back some memories looking at that build - I had a Core2Duo E6600 I had overclocked from 2.4GHz to 3.4GHz back in the day(couldn't afford the Q6600 at the time) in a similar Gigabyte motherboard, and RAM that looked just like that. Thanks for posting it!
 
I may regret it but I cancelled the 5800x. Just doesn't seem like a great buy. I honestly rather get a 5900x if I am gonna be spending that much anyway. I am probably gonna get a 9900k but I think I might need to get a new case since my Phantek P400S TG doesn't really have great airflow and the 9900k runs pretty hot, along with a 3080 I plan on getting as well.
 
The 9900k runs really hot, not just pretty hot, especially if you decide to overclock it, delidding mine with a copper top was the best decision I made for the cooling as it dropped a solid 13c average per core.
The second best decision was picking up the arctic freezer 2, that sucker is a great cooler so far ~ seems to be a decent pump, extremely long tubes, and the thickest rad of any AIO on the market I'm aware of.
My total improvement upgrading from my Corsair AIO GTX 110i 280mm to the AFII 360mm combined with the delidding netted me 20c average drop across the cores.
 
Spartacus09 Thank for the info... I figure it was gonna run pretty hot but sounds like its a scorcher. I ended up finding a 5600x on the forums for slightly over MSRP so I bought that. I think that should be fine with the case I have and I can probably still use my Hyper 212 Evo to cool it if I can find where I put the AMD brackets.
 
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