4K Gaming - Ideal CPU / Platform

[Craterloads]

My cousin is looking to replace his old gaming pc, main use is gaming at 4k with some occasional video rendering.

He was thinking 14600k + Z790 mobo
I suggested the 7800x3d + x670 mobo

Having a closer look it’s closer than I thought. My initial reaction based of reviews I watched a while ago were intels new stuff was a bit crap, power hungry and just rebadged 11th / 12th gen stuff.

I think price is comparable, what would be the better pick for the above use cases or any other suggestions?

 

[Dave2150]

Definitely not a 8 core CPU. 13700k, 14700k, Ryzen 7900 and above IMO.

 

[Minstadave]

At 4K the GPU is everything. The 7800X3D pulls ahead in some specific titles (MSFS particularly off the top my head) and is even in the rest, it is significantly more efficient but doesn't have the multicore performance the Intel chip had for rendering.

I would choose the 7800X3D personally if predominantly gaming.

 

[Tetras]

I think price is comparable, what would be the better pick for the above use cases or any other suggestions?

For a mixed gaming/productivity usage, I'd be more inclined to go B760 and 14700K or 14700 non-K, but for gaming only 7800X3D makes more sense and is likely to have more CPU upgrades. AM5 can also have PCI-E 5.0 SSD without stealing graphics lanes, unlike 12th-14th gen, if you care about that.

 

[jigger]

A 7000 series X3D system is hard to look past for the use cases.

 

[jigger]

For a mixed gaming/productivity usage, I'd be more inclined to go B760 and 14700K or 14700 non-K, but for gaming only 7800X3D makes more sense and is likely to have more CPU upgrades. AM5 can also have PCI-E 5.0 SSD without stealing graphics lanes, unlike 12th-14th gen, if you care about that.

A 7800X3D is more than capable in mixed use workloads.

 

[Craterloads]

That’s what he has specked, which I don’t like the look of. Seems money is being wasted on motherboard and inefficient places. Just not well balanced.

So for a 4k gaming build he is probably better off allocating more of the budget towards a 4080 super in my opinion.

Any suggestions on a better speck?

 

[Craterloads]

He doesn’t need storage, as will move over his old ssd / hdds

 

[Tetras]

Any suggestions on a better speck?

If staying with Intel, I'd change the balance of 2K to something like this. I agree allocating more to the graphics card makes sense for 4K:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-14700K (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-00800) = £399.95
• 1 x Gigabyte B760 AORUS ELITE AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BS-GI) = £189.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01085) = £170.00
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Super Trinity Black 16Gb Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-01496) = £959.99
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.98
• 1 x Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (CP-9020200-UK) (SKU: CA-267-CS) = £119.99

Total: £1,941.89 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

Cooler: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/air-cooling/thermalright-phantom-spirit-120-evo-review

 

[Craterloads]

If staying with Intel, I'd change the balance of 2K to something like this. I agree allocating more to the graphics card makes sense for 4K:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-14700K (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-00800) = £399.95
• 1 x Gigabyte B760 AORUS ELITE AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BS-GI) = £189.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01085) = £170.00
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Super Trinity Black 16Gb Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-01496) = £959.99
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.98
• 1 x Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (CP-9020200-UK) (SKU: CA-267-CS) = £119.99

Total: £1,941.89 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

Cooler: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/air-cooling/thermalright-phantom-spirit-120-evo-review

cheers that seems better balanced. Ive sent him that list and a similar 7800x3d list both coming to around £2100

personally id get the cheapest motherboard possible in that chipset, as doesnt do anything to performance.

 

[Rroff]

Problem with the 7800X3D in this context - you can get cheaper CPUs which are in the same ballpark for non-gaming use and are pretty close for 4K gaming especially if you are pairing it up with a GPU slower than a 4090.

Intel Core i9-14900KS Review - The Last of its Kind

The Intel Core i9-14900KS reaches impressive clock frequencies up to 6.2 GHz, which yields remarkable performance in applications and gaming. However, this comes at the cost of serious power consumption, especially if you go beyond stock, where we saw over 500 W during testing.

www.techpowerup.com

They are missing 1-2 CPUs like the 7900X3D, but overall gives a good overview.

 

[jigger]

Problem with the 7800X3D in this context - you can get cheaper CPUs which are in the same ballpark for non-gaming use and are pretty close for 4K gaming especially if you are pairing it up with a GPU slower than a 4090.

Intel Core i9-14900KS Review - The Last of its Kind

The Intel Core i9-14900KS reaches impressive clock frequencies up to 6.2 GHz, which yields remarkable performance in applications and gaming. However, this comes at the cost of serious power consumption, especially if you go beyond stock, where we saw over 500 W during testing.

www.techpowerup.com

The problem with those other CPU’s, is you paint yourself into corner and suffer high power consumption for very little gain.

 

[Tetras]

personally id get the cheapest motherboard possible in that chipset, as doesnt do anything to performance.

Do you mean Z790? If so, I think you'd be fine, but B760? I would not, since the lower-end B760 boards don't have suitable VRMs for a 14700K. The Aorus Elite also has USB flashback, which you might need for a 14th gen CPU, depending on how recent the BIOS is.

 

[Rroff]

The problem with those other CPU’s, is you paint yourself into corner and suffer high power consumption for very little gain.

I'm not narrowing it down to anything specific but on the Intel side they are using relatively little power for 4K gaming as you are mostly GPU bound and their idle power use isn't bad. Just leaving productivity/application use to consider.

The bigger consideration is the future upgrade position.