Check my 9900k / 3900x based upgrade for next week.

Sampsy · 6 Jul 2019 at 20:50

So I'm planning to finally retire my 2500k next week or so (potentially waiting a bit for Intel price drops) and will be going for a 9900k or 3900x based system depending on what reviews look like tomorrow. If going for the 3900x I'd swap out the 9900k below and get the equivalent Asus Hero board (somewhat review dependent).

Note I already have a 1070 I'll transfer over, as well as some other SSDs / HDDs (though I don't own an m.2). I'll be overclocking whatever I get though I'm not trying to break any records. I'd be hoping for the system to last for a long time (I've had the core of my current PC (CPU, RAM, MB, PSU, Case etc) since 2011). My high-performance task is pretty much just gaming (I want the cores for future proofing and multitasking).

Am I making any bad choices anywhere?

Could I save some money and get a 750w PSU - even if I upgraded to a single top-tier GPU in the future? Or would spending some more to get something like a Corsair RM850i be worth it?
Likewise I've had my eye on the new PCI-e 4 SSDs like the Aorus 2TB. But would I actually notice any performance benefit? Even if it's small might it be worth it if I keep the drive as the main O/S and application drive for something like 4-6 years - it is significantly more expensive.
Also if I went for the 9900k would I benefit much from faster RAM (I believe what I have selected should be optimal for the 3900x).
Did I forget anything?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

1 x Team Group Dark Pro "8Pack Edition" 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/= £158.99
1 x Noctua NA-SCW1 Thermal Paste Cleaning Wipes - 20 pieces= £6.95
1 x Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance Thermal Paste - 1 Gramm= £4.99
1 x Lian-Li PC-O11 Dynamic Midi-Tower - White Window= £114.95
1 x Corsair Hydro Series H150i PRO RGB Performance Liquid Cooler - 360mm (CW-9060031-WW)= £169.99
1 x Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £449.99
1 x Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero Intel Z390 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £259.99
1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 1920GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1920GBMP510)= £259.99
1 x Super Flower Leadex III 850W 80 PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply - Black= £112.99

Total: £1,538.83 (includes shipping: £0.00)

orbitalwalsh · 6 Jul 2019 at 20:53

Don't get the Asus board, Aorus Master z390 is the better designed board, along with WiFi added and UK RMA if going intel .
Also recommend 9700k for Pure gaming, this puts it at direct Price with 3700x and X570 board .
Can also drop ram speed to 3200hz and even 3000hz basic kit with intel

Sampsy · 6 Jul 2019 at 21:31

orbitalwalsh said:
Don't get the Asus board, Aorus Master z390 is the better designed board, along with WiFi added and UK RMA if going intel .
Also recommend 9700k for Pure gaming, this puts it at direct Price with 3700x and X570 board .
Can also drop ram speed to 3200hz and even 3000hz basic kit with intel

I'll bite on the Gigabyte board, but I'd prefer the HT on the 9900k. It might help in a few years and I regret getting the 2500k over the 2600k for the same reason. Why would I drop RAM speed when in many games performance scales pretty strongly with it on the 9900k already (example) and is likely to become more important in the future?

orbitalwalsh · 7 Jul 2019 at 07:50

Core count is more important then thread count . SMT and HT is nice but it's cores that gain you the performance more unless your doing some real heavy workloads and their 15-20% up lift really helps.

Guessing since you already have a GPU you don't need to worry about saving cash, 9900k would give you a slightly longer edge but believe 10core is out end of the year

Terrorfirmer · 7 Jul 2019 at 10:23

I would not recommend the 9700K at this point due to the lack of threads versus the 9900K or older 8700K, though obviously right now it's an excellent CPU, but if you lasted with a 2500K this long, presumably you want this one to last as long, if not longer.

With that in mind, something like the 8700K, 9900K, or 3700X/3800X all make the most sense.

Think back to 2011, if you had bought a 2600K instead of a 2500K, it would be coping much, much better now in games over the last few years. Same thing is likely going to be true of the 8/16 or above parts in 2019, looking ahead the best part of a decade they will cope much better with future workloads.

You didn't mention a monitor. If you're at 144hz, there's an argument for Intel due to the better IPC, the 9900K is still the current king.

If at 60hz/4K/or whatever, I think Ryzen 3700X or 3800X is really solid investment. Also perfectly fine for 144hz too, just depends on how much of a sucker for 'the best thing' you are! I got a 9600K over Ryzen personally for that reason, though I'm someone who upgrades every year usually so it's of no concern to me how it'll age with lack of HT.

Terrorfirmer · 7 Jul 2019 at 10:44

Also you can get away with a much lower wattage PSU. I understand wanting a gold rated model, makes sense in a high-end build, but 850W is radical overkill unless you've got plans to get 2080Ti SLI in the near future!

A 550W gold will be more than sufficient, power requirements are only coming down - let's say you opted for a 3700X build, even with radical overclocks on both CPU and GPU, the entire system would be pulling less than 300w under extreme load.

Any high quality 550w-650W will be more than enough, even allowing for buying a higher-end/more demanding GPU and wanting the PSU to still remain at relatively low stress levels.