9900k to 5950x??

Speirs · 23 Sep 2021 at 07:30

Would it be worth upgrading from a 9900k to a 5950x?
My 9900k is running at 5.1ghz.
I mainly use my pc for gaming and have a Nvidia 3090 graphics card.
Would I see much improvement in FPS at 1440?

alec · 23 Sep 2021 at 09:18

No not worth
Based on https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-11900k/18.html there will barely be any improvement at 1440p.

If thats a 5.1 all core OC, there might even be a regression.

Grim5 · 23 Sep 2021 at 09:37

Speirs said:
Would it be worth upgrading from a 9900k to a 5950x?
My 9900k is running at 5.1ghz.
I mainly use my pc for gaming and have a Nvidia 3090 graphics card.
Would I see much improvement in FPS at 1440?

heck no

At this stage, I would 200% suggest you wait 1 more month to see if the 12900k beats the 5950x. I would not buy a CPU right now

dave28 · 23 Sep 2021 at 09:47

no dont do that, new cpus from both brands are weeks away and these current cpu`s will fade away in popularity before you know it

Jay85 · 23 Sep 2021 at 10:10

Nope, if next gen isn't even a big improvement i would skip that too and wait to see what releases next year.

The 9900k is still a very capable cpu for gaming.

EsaT · 23 Sep 2021 at 15:32

Jay85 said:
Nope, if next gen isn't even a big improvement i would skip that too and wait to see what releases next year.

Big challenge for gaming is crap memory latency of first wave DDR5.
Over 90 ns latency is plain crap for monolithic chip like Alder Lake.
For comparison current Intels with fast memories are around 50 ns.

Speirs · 23 Sep 2021 at 16:09

alec said:
No not worth
Based on https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-11900k/18.html there will barely be any improvement at 1440p.

If thats a 5.1 all core OC, there might even be a regression.

Yes, 5.1 on all cores.
I have pushed it to 5.3.

Speirs · 23 Sep 2021 at 21:19

OK.
Thank you all for your advice.
I'll leave it until some time next year.

CuriousTomCat · 24 Sep 2021 at 08:31

If your 9900k is struggling, then go for it. Although I'd be surprised if it does struggle.

What is the load on each of the cores while gaming?

jigger · 24 Sep 2021 at 10:49

I’d spend the money on a higher resolution monitor, assuming 2560x1440 and not 5120x1440

jigger · 24 Sep 2021 at 11:04

Danger Bri said:
This would be a better upgrade for sure.

From what I’ve seen, it’s where Nvidia’s Ampere design starts to make some sense. The RTX 3090 ships with 24gb of VRAM for a reason.

jigger · 24 Sep 2021 at 11:33

Danger Bri said:
It’s the power usage that’s the problem. You have to undervolt them. They need to focus on reducing this in the future, because it’s ridiculous as it is. Hopefully it changes with the 4000 series. I doubt it though. They just keep upping the horsepower.

Well it’s a host of issues. It’s a niche enthusiast only part isn’t it. An, I want to build the the highest performance gaming PC possible, and will spend whatever it costs to deal with power, heat and cooling issues.

Ampere is just not what most people have come to expect from Nvidia. Cool running, low power, quiet and become significantly faster than the competition the more you spend.

Vidar · 24 Sep 2021 at 11:55

Jay85 said:
Nope, if next gen isn't even a big improvement i would skip that too and wait to see what releases next year.

The 9900k is still a very capable cpu for gaming.

This 100%

My 9900k is still a gaming beast! The only game I've struggled with is X4 and that's because that's more of a simulation than a game. If I was replacing my platform just for that I'd be looking at Threadripper

jigger · 24 Sep 2021 at 12:04

Danger Bri said:
It didn’t turn out how I expected to be honest. It’s far too power hungry at stock, like I say.

I hope the competition ramps up next time around. The only thing they keep doing is increasing FPS, but at a major cost.

The competition has ramped up. Ramped past even.

jigger · 24 Sep 2021 at 13:39

Danger Bri said:
Ramped up yes. I wouldn’t say past. At the time of buying, Raytracing and dlss were big factors.

I want better efficiency from my future GPU and CPU.

Radeon RX cards offer all that. Anyway getting way off topic.

CuriousTomCat · 24 Sep 2021 at 14:06

Danger Bri said:
Ramped up yes. I wouldn’t say past. At the time of buying, Raytracing and dlss were big factors.

I want better efficiency from my future GPU and CPU.

Each generation is more efficient than the last so I'm not sure what you mean.

If you mean the high wattage of the 3090 for example, then it's because it's clocked to within an inch of its life.

If Nvidia had no competition, their GPUs would be clocked lower, have a lower TDP and would have smaller coolers.

Nvidia could bring out an absolutely mind-blowingly efficient product, but if the competition clocks theirs to the max, Nvidia has to as well, so the high power consumption returns.

Undervolt and underclock it if you want.

humbug · 24 Sep 2021 at 17:46

Not now, Wait/

Kirby Wurm · 25 Sep 2021 at 10:47

Wait quite simply, I can't imagine you'd see a big improvement at 1440p with the next gen of CPUs even, the 9900K is still very capable and especially with that OC.

voidshatter · 27 Sep 2021 at 10:41

Wait. For. 12900K.

humbug · 27 Sep 2021 at 12:33

voidshatter said:
Wait. For. 12900K.

Unless it worse in gaming than its predecessor, which is entirely possible given that Rocketlake is worse than cometlake.

voidshatter · 27 Sep 2021 at 14:26

humbug said:
Unless it worse in gaming than its predecessor, which is entirely possible given that Rocketlake is worse than cometlake.

Updates to OS scheduler may be required to make the best use of the high performance cores, otherwise it's totally possible to get suboptimal performance out of the 12900K. (Recall the Windows 10 1903 scheduler update for Ryzen's CCX groups)