Buy 8700K Now Or Wait ?

[Dicehunter]

I know playing the waiting game is never recommended but I'm curious if I would have buyers remorse if the rumoured 8 core Intel chip came out soon'ish.

 

[gavinh87]

Games aren't saturating 6 cores yet. I doubt you will see any big improvement in games from 6 to 8 cores. I don't see an 8 core clocking to the 8700k speeds either.

 

[Drollic]

It will require a delid more so than the 8700k and will be expensive in comparison unless you're making use of the extra cores now. For gaming purposes I wouldn't bother.

Expect delidded binned chips with warranty @ £600+

 

[Radox-0]

Would agree with the others, 8700k is a superb CPU and while all 6 cores do get used in some games, its not maxed out with headroom left in those few titles which can make use of more then 4 cores. Pair with some nice RAM and its plenty quick. Delid the sucker though, will see significant headroom in terms of overclocking capability. Run mine now at 5.2 GHz and does flawlessly in my gaming rig.

With that said, not sure what monitor your using and if its a higher refresh rate one or not, but I would just stick with the Ryzen rig in your sig until something new comes out as your not gonna see much of a difference if its 60hz your pushing.

 

[Dicehunter]

Would agree with the others, 8700k is a superb CPU and while all 6 cores do get used in some games, its not maxed out with headroom left in those few titles which can make use of more then 4 cores. Pair with some nice RAM and its plenty quick. Delid the sucker though, will see significant headroom in terms of overclocking capability. Run mine now at 5.2 GHz and does flawlessly in my gaming rig.

With that said, not sure what monitor your using and if its a higher refresh rate one or not, but I would just stick with the Ryzen rig in your sig until something new comes out as your not gonna see much of a difference if its 60hz your pushing.

I have an Acer X34P 120Hz G-Sync monitor, I have noticed in several games even at this res I quite often get less than 90% GPU utilisation which AFAIK points to the CPU, Hence wanting to switch to the i7

 

[iakhtar]

Grab the 8700k, no point waiting as there's always something else around the corner regardless.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

I'm struggling to resist! Games like BF1 are definitely CPU limited by the 4690K's lack of hyperthreading and with a 144hz monitor older games will benefit, especially as I may move to an 1180 on release.

The CPU may have to last me 4-5 years but I guess the 8 core variant will be more expensive and it will be some time before games see an advantage?

 

[Potty27]

I've just gone with the 8700k, as the chap above says there's always something else around the corner.

Depends a bit on your current cpu though, I have been using a 2500k and while it has been an excellent cpu lasting years, it's starting to show it's age.

 

[IT Troll]

Whilst the CPU is decent, the Z370 chipset bothers me. I’d be tempted to wait for Z390 to have some possibility of a future upgrade. Z370 feels like a bit of a dead end at this stage.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I have an Acer X34P 120Hz G-Sync monitor, I have noticed in several games even at this res I quite often get less than 90% GPU utilisation which AFAIK points to the CPU, Hence wanting to switch to the i7

Are you sure it's the CPU causing this? Check the usage in Afterburner to confirm one way or the other before spending cash.

 

[AndreiD]

Wait it out until Computex in early June, if Intel is releasing anything new they'll announce it there.
Considering they already published specs for an 8th gen 8+2 (+2 being iGPU) for ODMs then it's most likely coming, and pretty soon at that. Difficult to say how high it will clock or if thermals are going to be an issue.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I see thermals mentioned a lot, surely Intel will start to use solder given that thermals are such an issue?

Two things putting me off Intel are security flaws and thermals (I refuse to delid).

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Whilst the CPU is decent, the Z370 chipset bothers me. I’d be tempted to wait for Z390 to have some possibility of a future upgrade. Z370 feels like a bit of a dead end at this stage.

If I recall correctly z490 hits before z390 . AMD beating Intel to the gun .

 

[Radox-0]

I have an Acer X34P 120Hz G-Sync monitor, I have noticed in several games even at this res I quite often get less than 90% GPU utilisation which AFAIK points to the CPU, Hence wanting to switch to the i7

It can do, but I would also look at CPU usage in parallel. It could also mean your running at 120hz and have frame limit of some kind in place (usually most enable global V-Sync + G-Sync which in effect does the same thing).

If you find it is the CPU at that point, i.e its running flat out, usually one 1-2 cores, while the GPU is not utilized quiet as much, then moving to the 8700k clocked to higher clock speeds may indeed shift the boundary back to the GPU.

I see thermals mentioned a lot, surely Intel will start to use solder given that thermals are such an issue?

Two things putting me off Intel are security flaws and thermals (I refuse to delid).

I doubt it. They know thermals is an issue yet the happily moved there HEDT line to using toothpaste after the issues were raised generations ago on mainstream which is a joke when one considers the amount of power and in turn heat these can give off overclocked. 8700k is still top seller (according to rainforest) using toothpaste. If anything, works well for Intel. Those users who care about squeezing performance will delid anyways voiding their warranty meaning they need to buy a new CPU if they mess things up, those who do not care about getting the absolute max overclock's still end up with a perfectly capable CPU.

 

[eddiew]

I'm dallying with this myself... Yes there will sooner or later be an octa core Intel, but... I don't really need it. What bottlenecks me with Ryzen is invariably one thread, and an 8700k will do a better job of that right now. It seems likely to me that the 8 core will be a couple of hundred MHz either side of what we have today; perhaps a fraction faster, but quite possibly slower as with the existing i9 range.

I would say judge it based on your workloads; do you have things with 8+ heavy threads, or are you usually capped by 1-2? In the first scenario, wait for the next release, in the latter, I don't think you lose much by buying now

 

[AndreiD]

The TIM they use isn't 'toothpaste', it's actually a really good quality Corning polymer TIM optimised for long term stability. And if you watch the recent der8auer video you'll noticed that delidding a Ryzen and using liquid metal will also give you a decrease in thermals, about 4C.
Not going to defend Intel not using solder on their HEDT parts, they should at least solder those, but unless you try to push the chip to the limits, the stock polymer TIM is good enough and should have reliability benefits in the long term compared to soldered chips. For stock and a moderate overclock it should be fine, if you want to push the chip to its limits then delidding is must.

 

[jonjay]

I'm dallying with this myself... Yes there will sooner or later be an octa core Intel, but... I don't really need it. What bottlenecks me with Ryzen is invariably one thread, and an 8700k will do a better job of that right now. It seems likely to me that the 8 core will be a couple of hundred MHz either side of what we have today; perhaps a fraction faster, but quite possibly slower as with the existing i9 range.

I would say judge it based on your workloads; do you have things with 8+ heavy threads, or are you usually capped by 1-2? In the first scenario, wait for the next release, in the latter, I don't think you lose much by buying now

Im assuming we are talking about 1080p gaming? If that is the case then fine a CPU like an 8700k would be a good upgrade however anything beyond 1440p you gain nothing even against my 2600k. This is primarily the reason why I haven't upgraded as many tests show that at 1440p the CPUs are not the bottleneck the GPUs are.

 

[jonjay]

All the above comments [generally] are being too generic in their statements. It depends what resolution you are gaming at and also what graphics card as to whether you are CPU limited or not. Moving to an 8700k at 1440p is a little pointless if you have a "weaker" graphics card.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

I dallied too long, last week's deals ended and the RAM I was looking at is now £15 more and the 8700K £12 or so! To the rainforest! Will a Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming K3 be sufficient for mild overclocking (4.8GHz or so)? It's a cheaper model but still has the higher quality Realtek audio chip (my Asus Xonar DG is PCI so will become obsolete after 7 years of faithful service).

 

[wellibob]

Recommend the 8700k. Easy to get to 5ghz (unless your unlucky) Great performance with fast ram but you'll need to tinker with volts as mine requires 1.37 v to hit 5ghz (no avx offset). Runs about max 79 on a Noctua DH15 with a Gigabyte Gaming Ultra and 32gig DDR4 3000mhz clocked to 3200.