Best value CPU for single core performance?

mikehhhhhhh · 11 May 2020 at 09:32

I've been on a bit of a trend in my computer buying habits, buying the mid-range overclockable powerhouse throughout the years; Q6600, 2500k and the latest being 4690k.

At six years old, it feels like the 4690k is holding things back, While playing iRacing in VR, past places like the puts, I'm getting frame drops and stuttering which I understand is a CPU limited issue. Graphics card is a founders edition 1080.

iRacing in particular only uses two cores, so single core performance is an important factor.

So, what's the next Q6600, 2500k, 4690k? I'd like to keep the budget at around £500-600 for CPU, Mobo and RAM, but will stretch if there's something that is particularly good value and likely to last me a good deal longer.

From looking around, that budget seems to get me a 9600k or maybe even a 9700k, is that the best choice?

subbytna · 11 May 2020 at 12:19

You'll hard pushed to get a 9700k, ram and mobo for 500-600

cpu itself is 380
RAM is going to be 130ish
mobo is 150+

Single core performance with Ryzen and intel is closer than ever.

8 cpu ryzen, mobo and ram will be about 550-600

Grim5 · 11 May 2020 at 12:21

The new ryzen 3300x is a value beast and easily beats your 4690k

mikehhhhhhh · 11 May 2020 at 12:35

I've been searching around. this morning and managed to put a 3600, mobo and 16gb of ram together for £370.

This seems like incredible value with the option to go for a better Zen 2 CPU in the future as they pop up cheap on eBay.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 11 May 2020 at 13:25

Wait another month for the new Intel CPUs to release,and for AMD to release the B550 motherboards. Don't buy a B450 motherboard,as AMD said there is no Zen3 compatibility.

mikehhhhhhh · 11 May 2020 at 14:10

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Wait another month for the new Intel CPUs to release,and for AMD to release the B550 motherboards. Don't buy a B450 motherboard,as AMD said there is no Zen3 compatibility.

I've been pondering this.

My thoughts were that it didn't matter if a B450 didn't support newer chips, because they are cheap right now (I've found deals for 3600 and B450 ROG Strix for £289) and if I upgrade in the future, it'll likely be to a used Zen2 chip.

But I guess an x570 would let me go for a higher end Zen2 chip.

Probably worth spending a little more an a cheaper x570 board then.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 11 May 2020 at 14:11

mikehhhhhhh said:
I've been pondering this for a while.

My thoughts were that it didn't matter if a B450 didn't support newer chips, because they are cheap right now (I've found deals for 3600 and B450 ROG Strix for £289) and if I upgrade in the future, it'll likely be to a used 3800/3900.

It does as everyone will think the same,and it might mean they hold their value,just like with Intel. You will also get PCI-E 4.0 with B550 too.

mikehhhhhhh · 11 May 2020 at 14:19

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It does as everyone will think the same,and it might mean they hold their value,just like with Intel. You will also get PCI-E 4.0 with B550 too.

Looks you got in there before the edit

It seems like a cheap X570 may be a good half-way house for the impatient, then.

Thanks for your help!

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 11 May 2020 at 14:25

mikehhhhhhh said:
Looks you got in there before the edit

It seems like a cheap X570 may be a good half-way house for the impatient, then.

Thanks for your help!

Make sure it has a 32MB BIOS though. B550 is released in 4 weeks or so BTW. Also the MSI X570 Tomahawk hasn't be released yet,and that looks like it will be the best sub £200 X570 motherboard.

ssmacc · 11 May 2020 at 16:19

Just for a different view, if you are planning on keeping whatever you buy for anything close to 6 years I don't think it'll matter about a B550 or a B450, we'll be on DDR5 or even DDR6 by then so support for PCI-E4.0 won't make much difference...Not that a 570x is a bad idea, just think if saving money on a B450 can get you a better CPU worth considering going that way?

Members Market (if you have access) could be the way to go, you'll get a lot of bang for 500 buck!

mikehhhhhhh · 11 May 2020 at 16:26

So here's a curve ball, I placed my order and then thought about the time I disabled my overclock to troubleshoot a problem.

So I went and just enabled the auto-overclock (~4.5GHz) and ran Geekbench 5.

Single threaded score of 1100, compared to 1200 of the 3600. Now I'm worried that this isn't going to be the upgrade I thought it would be. I know benchmarks are artificial, but that doesn't seem very far away for CPUs 6 years apart.

Doobedoo · 11 May 2020 at 19:10

I went from a 4690k to a 3600. The 3600 is hands down a better cpu.

In all honesty I’d hang on if you can and wait until the new 4000 series comes out. You’ll either get much better performance or possibly a decent deal on a second hand 3000 series when people inevitably upgrade to 4000.

If it was me I’d wait depends how patient you are

MartinPrince · 11 May 2020 at 22:53

mikehhhhhhh said:
So here's a curve ball, I placed my order and then thought about the time I disabled my overclock to troubleshoot a problem.

So I went and just enabled the auto-overclock (~4.5GHz) and ran Geekbench 5.

Single threaded score of 1100, compared to 1200 of the 3600. Now I'm worried that this isn't going to be the upgrade I thought it would be. I know benchmarks are artificial, but that doesn't seem very far away for CPUs 6 years apart.

For single threaded or particular for IRacing you are not going to see much difference going from what you have to a Ryzen 3600.

Last year I built a system for a colleague for iRacing and he originally tried it using my 3900X but in the end plumped on a 9700K (R0 not P0) which I easily clocked to 5.2Ghz. I just ran a quick Geekbench 5 on my 9700k and it scores over 1500.

The problem is that now is not a good time to buy any tech due to the inflated prices. Plus the 9700K is coming to EOL so ironically the prices get even more inflated. It should really be around the £250 price point but if you shop well it can be still be had for just over £300. Pair that with a Gigabyte Z390 Pro which should be around £120 and some DDR4 3200Mhz C16 and you've got what is the best value system for IRacing that you can get today.

Though if you can, I would be inclined to wait till the 10 series is out and see how that changes things.

Robert896r1 · 12 May 2020 at 08:14

Most of my gaming is simracing in VR. Get Intel, oc it along with ram. New chips are out soon. Get the 6 or 8 core with a 200-250 range motherboard. Spend the rest on the gpu.

Brumboy · 12 May 2020 at 10:19

You've bought the exact same CPU's as myself, how strange lol Q6600 - 2500k - 4690k.

I was/am in the same position as you, 4690k on 90% load on most games at 144hz. Most of the time it is fine but that's if I have nothing else open in the background.

4690k overclocked to 4.2 at the moment, haven't tried going higher. What are your overclock settings for 4.5?

I was about to get the 3600 or 3700x but held back and I am glad I did now as I think it will be worthwhile waiting for the 4000 series and grabbing a 4700x.

In the back of my mind I always think going from 4 cores to 6 cores in this day and age (especially when consoles going to get 8/16) isn't the smart move. Minimum would need to be 8 cores, ideally 12 but I doubt AMD will release a 12 core for around £300.

mikehhhhhhh · 12 May 2020 at 10:22

Rossuk89 said:
You've bought the exact same CPU's as myself, how strange lol Q6600 - 2500k - 4690k.

I was/am in the same position as you, 4690k on 90% load on most games at 144hz. Most of the time it is fine but that's if I have nothing else open in the background.

4690k overclocked to 4.2 at the moment, haven't tried going higher. What are your overclock settings for 4.5?

I was about to get the 3600 or 3700x but held back and I am glad I did now as I think it will be worthwhile waiting for the 4000 series and grabbing a 4700x.

In the back of my mind I always think going from 4 cores to 6 cores in this day and age (especially when consoles going to get 8/16) isn't the smart move. Minimum would need to be 8 cores, ideally 12 but I doubt AMD will release a 12 core for around £300.

I think my rationale is I need a quick fix, hopefully the extra cores and slight single core bump of the 3600 (along with DDR4) offers that now.

But the 3600 is cheap enough that I would have no issue upgrading it and putting it on eBay for 50% of it's price in a years time.

As for overclock settings, I have no idea, when my previous ones had gone, I clicked the ASUS AI Tuner wizard and it did it all for me. I had issues getting 4.6GHz stable before, so happy with an automatic 4.6GHz.

Doobedoo · 12 May 2020 at 10:28

mikehhhhhhh said:
I think my rationale is I need a quick fix, hopefully the extra cores and slight single core bump of the 3600 (along with DDR4) offers that now.

But the 3600 is cheap enough that I would have no issue upgrading it and putting it on eBay for 50% of it's price in a years time.

As for overclock settings, I have no idea, when my previous ones had gone, I clicked the ASUS AI Tuner wizard and it did it all for me. I had issues getting 4.6GHz stable before, so happy with an automatic 4.6GHz.

Go for X570 then If you can stretch. It'll give you a greater upgrade path with the 4000 series out some point towards the end of the year. Pci-e 4 is a bonus too.

mikehhhhhhh · 12 May 2020 at 10:31

Doobedoo said:
Go for X570 then If you can stretch. It'll give you a greater upgrade path with the 4000 series out some point towards the end of the year. Pci-e 4 is a bonus too.

I did in the end, it was about another £40 to jump from a mid-range B450 (Asus Strix) to a lower end X570 (Asrock Gaming 4). I was aprehensive initially, but it seemed worth it to be able to just drop in a Zen 3 chip when they arrive.

subbytna · 12 May 2020 at 10:32

Rossuk89 said:
In the back of my mind I always think going from 4 cores to 6 cores in this day and age (especially when consoles going to get 8/16) isn't the smart move. Minimum would need to be 8 cores, ideally 12 but I doubt AMD will release a 12 core for around £300.

Intel used to sell 4 cores for £350 (7700k) You can now get a 6 core cpu for £100 (1600AF) 12 cores will be £300 soon enough

Doobedoo · 12 May 2020 at 10:36

mikehhhhhhh said:
I did in the end, it was about another £40 to jump from a mid-range B450 (Asus Strix) to a lower end X570 (Asrock Gaming 4). I was aprehensive initially, but it seemed worth it to be able to just drop in a Zen 3 chip when they arrive.

Might be worth asking someone in the know or double checking bios rom sizes. Ideally you want a 32MB bios rom size.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c1dnu3/x570x470x370b450b350a320_am4socket_motherboards/

If it's this one you should be fine. Asrock specifies 32Mb rom size.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 phantom Gaming 4/index.asp#Specification