Intel 8400 VS 8700K VS 2700X

DarkHorizon472 · 28 Mar 2018 at 13:40

It really depends on budget and what performance you are after. After a point extra fps is meaningless for me so this gives me more options. That and it is often the GPU limiting performance rather than the CPU.

Mercutio · 28 Mar 2018 at 13:47

DarkHorizon472 said:
It really depends on budget and what performance you are after. After a point extra fps is meaningless for me so this gives me more options. That and it is often the GPU limiting performance rather than the CPU.

well... at pretty much any budget. For gaming, money is better spent on GPU than CPU. When the difference is tiny (amd to intel) and the saving is reasonable (another £50-100 to spend on GPU) the difference already makes for a better rig built around Ryzen.

If you're at the 1080ti+1440p screen+choice-of-games-use-older-engine end of things (basically unlimited budget, older gaming), currently the 8700k is going to do slightly better. For basically ANYONE else, there's little point... you'll get a better rig with cheaper Ryzen (-5-10% fps) and better GPU (+10-20% fps).

As time goes by, the Ryzen setup will continue to gain ground (more multi-thread aware stuff/games becoming important).

imginy · 29 Mar 2018 at 08:28

Mercutio said:
well... at pretty much any budget. For gaming, money is better spent on GPU than CPU. When the difference is tiny (amd to intel) and the saving is reasonable (another £50-100 to spend on GPU) the difference already makes for a better rig built around Ryzen.

If you're at the 1080ti+1440p screen+choice-of-games-use-older-engine end of things (basically unlimited budget, older gaming), currently the 8700k is going to do slightly better. For basically ANYONE else, there's little point... you'll get a better rig with cheaper Ryzen (-5-10% fps) and better GPU (+10-20% fps).

As time goes by, the Ryzen setup will continue to gain ground (more multi-thread aware stuff/games becoming important).

Not sure why you think AMD are £100 cheaper than intel?

The 8400 is £150 retail.

DragonQ · 29 Mar 2018 at 08:54

imginy said:
Not sure why you think AMD are £100 cheaper than intel?

The 8400 is £150 retail.

Yep, the i5-8400 is a good budget option for gaming. There still aren't equally budget-friendly motherboards for it though, and it might lose its shine when Ryzen 2 is released (e.g. R5 2600 might match it in most games due to the clock speed bump, can be overclocked, has SMT, and is only slightly more at $199 v $182).

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 29 Mar 2018 at 11:13

Am I am the only one here who is less worried about which CPU is better,and looking at the games the OP said they were wanting to play??

If they are still stuck at 1080p,the Ryzen 5 2400G and GTX1060 will be fine for FarCry 5.

Also all reviews are saying the game becomes more and more GPU limited at qHD and 4K too.

I honestly think the OP should wait until Metro:Exodus is released if they want to upgrade,as by then the newer Nvidia cards will be out and Intel will have even released the 8C CFL CPUs,which might push the prices of the 6C ones down a bit.

Boomstick777 · 29 Mar 2018 at 19:07

^^

Yeah I am waiting Cat, gonna throw a 2700X in my current PC when it launches, also I saw a bit of the Nvidia CEO prancing around stage at that Nvidia event, and realised I really despise that company's business practice and the smug leather clag CEO. So AMD GPU's only from now on. Gonna plump for an ASUS ROG Strix VEGA 64, 2700X and nice QHD Monitor, as when they are avaible withing budget etc.

Mercutio · 29 Mar 2018 at 21:11

imginy said:
Not sure why you think AMD are £100 cheaper than intel?

The 8400 is £150 retail.

Well, fair, it's up against a 1600 for equal cores, half the threads and the ryzen setup would be ~£40 cheaper (going for a cheap board in both cases).

For most folks though on something of a "reasonable" build, the difference is going to be a bit bigger.

Eg:

1050 £110 vs 1050ti £143 so £33 extra spent on GPU rather than CPU+board+ram.

CS:GO: 114 vs 120 5%
overwatch: 61.9 vs 70.4 13%
GTA5: 38.5 vs 44.3 13%
DOTA2: 81.1 vs 106 23.5%

the difference 8400 to 1600 is about 11% on average (looking at userbench with single/quad/multi weighted depending on impact they've seen from tests). So... in most cases, while gaming (using synthetic measurements that'll not have all the usual stuff running on a home PC) the money saved going ryzen gets you a better overall rig (in normal use, the extra threads on Ryzen will give it a bigger lead). At the same time the 1600 will give a better experience pretty much everywhere else.

So... yeah, Intel wins on 1 game once price is weighed in. I guess CS:GO is all that matters?

You could sit and work through the same equation (CPU+Board+Ram+GPU for whatever budget vs FPS of final rig) at pretty much any scale and the Ryzen makes a better gaming machine.

The focus is, of course, pushed to what happens when you benchmark a game at 1080p on a 1080ti with a 8700k, that's literally the ONLY place Intel still wins.

imginy · 30 Mar 2018 at 04:04

Mercutio said:
Well, fair, it's up against a 1600 for equal cores, half the threads and the ryzen setup would be ~£40 cheaper (going for a cheap board in both cases).

For most folks though on something of a "reasonable" build, the difference is going to be bit bigger.

Eg:

1050 £110 vs 1050ti £143 so £33 extra spent on GPU rather than CPU+board+ram.

CS:GO: 114 vs 120 5%
overwatch: 61.9 vs 70.4 13%
GTA5: 38.5 vs 44.3 13%
DOTA2: 81.1 vs 106 23.5%

the difference 8400 to 1600 is about 11% on average (looking at userbench with single/quad/multi weighted depending on impact they've seen from tests). So... in most cases, while gaming (using synthetic measurements that'll not have all the usual stuff running on a home PC) the money saved going ryzen gets you a better overall rig (in normal use, the extra threads on Ryzen will give it a bigger lead). At the same time the 1600 will give a better experience pretty much everywhere else.

So... yeah, Intel wins on 1 game once price is weighed in. I guess CS:GO is all that matters?

You could sit and work through the same equation (CPU+Board+Ram+GPU for whatever budget vs FPS of final rig) at pretty much any scale and the Ryzen makes a better gaming machine.

The focus is, of course, pushed to what happens when you benchmark a game at 1080p on a 1080ti with a 8700k, that's literally the ONLY place Intel still wins.

You are just making up builds to make AMD look better.

You are completely ignoring the fact the the i5 8400 can power a 1080ti and building a rig around it would get you better performance for less money than the ryzen.

Mercutio · 30 Mar 2018 at 06:28

imginy said:
You are just making up builds to make AMD look better.

You are completely ignoring the fact the the i5 8400 can power a 1080ti and building a rig around it would get you better performance for less money than the ryzen.

Yep, 8400 and a 1080ti totally make sense. You'd use that for 1080p gaming as well I'd guess (as anything else and you're GPU limited)?

You've neatly proven my point. Apparently it only matters as to what will run a 1080ti for 1080p gaming, any other metric is meaningless.

Right.

You rather need to face that the patch of ground you're defending as "totally what matters" is tiny, unrealistic and ultimately pointless.

Who buys an 8400, 1080ti and is intending 1080p gaming (apart from you). Find me a benchmark where at 1440p/4K the game ISN'T GPU limited/it isn't close enough that the Ryzen saving is worthwhile and we can talk more.

imginy · 30 Mar 2018 at 09:27

Mercutio said:
Yep, 8400 and a 1080ti totally make sense. You'd use that for 1080p gaming as well I'd guess (as anything else and you're GPU limited)? You've neatly proven my point. Apparently it only matters as to what will run a 1080ti for 1080p gaming, any other metric is meaningless.

Right.

You rather need to face that the patch of ground you're defending as "totally what matters" is tiny, unrealistic and ultimately pointless.

Who buys an 8400, 1080ti and is intending 1080p gaming (apart from you). Find me a benchmark where at 1440p/4K the game ISN'T GPU limited/it isn't close enough that the Ryzen saving is worthwhile and we can talk more.

It doesn't matter what resolution you're running when it comes to gaming the 8400 is faster than the 1800x and much cheaper.

JediFragger · 30 Mar 2018 at 09:44

Boomstick777 said:
So AMD GPU's only from now on.

Will be keeping an eye on you then

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 30 Mar 2018 at 11:54

Boomstick777 said:
^^

Yeah I am waiting Cat, gonna throw a 2700X in my current PC when it launches, also I saw a bit of the Nvidia CEO prancing around stage at that Nvidia event, and realised I really despise that company's business practice and the smug leather clag CEO. So AMD GPU's only from now on. Gonna plump for an ASUS ROG Strix VEGA 64, 2700X and nice QHD Monitor, as when they are avaible withing budget etc.

Ah,OK. I would be more inclined to get the Ryzen 7 2700 due to the lack of VRM cooling on your motherboard.

However,I also suspect your current CPU might actually be fine too.

DragonQ · 30 Mar 2018 at 12:35

imginy said:
You are just making up builds to make AMD look better.

You are completely ignoring the fact the the i5 8400 can power a 1080ti and building a rig around it would get you better performance for less money than the ryzen.

So you purposefully pick out the highest tier consumer graphics card (except Titan I guess) so that it can't be swapped out for a better one with the same budget? OK so you've established that Intel is better for people with the very highest budgets, congrats.

imginy said:
It doesn't matter what resolution you're running when it comes to gaming the 8400 is faster than the 1800x and much cheaper.

So? Why would you compare the i5-8400 with the R7 1800X for gaming? If gaming is all you're doing, obviously the i5-8400 is a better buy than the R7 1800X. So is the R5 1600(X).

Boomstick777 · 31 Mar 2018 at 18:16

Current set up gets me this, at 1080P / High setting. The move to 2K or 4K def gonna need much more powerful GPU, and CPU I'll stick with AMD and throw in 2700X, just because it's a far easier upgrade and also at 2K / 4K CPU is much less bottleneck anyway.

Butcherswe · 31 Mar 2018 at 22:02

I dont understand this discussion, 2700X only leaks from (engenering examples?) So!? I will wait for real test then it is released, before that i dont trust anything

TallPaul1878 · 31 Mar 2018 at 22:22

Butcherswe said:
I dont understand this discussion, 2700X only leaks from (engenering examples?) So!? I will wait for real test then it is released, before that i dont trust anything

Exactly. A thread that has run away with people arguing the hypothetical. Personally I can't see the 2700X doing more than 300MHz over the previous version so I don't expect it to suddenly drastically close the gap on Intel in current games that are used for benchmarks.

Potentially we might see something in 2 years, if games become more multi-thread capable then a current 8 core Ryzen CPU might start showing an advantage over a current 6 core Intel CPU. But we all know that they will be comparing newer chips then anyway.

Boomstick777 · 1 Apr 2018 at 13:33

Thread been derailed a bit,

I was asking ""Which of these chips would be best for gaming and overall productivity, value etc?"

Taken Cat's advice and gonna wait for 2700X and throw in my current setup, as overall best value VS performance and ease of upgrade. Thanks for those with helpful comments. Cheers.

Boomstick777 · 25 Apr 2018 at 16:47

Glad I chose the 2700X over the 8700K, beast of a chip. Blazing fast and runs really cool. Gaming difference is minimal but smokes the 8700K elsewhere. Plus can throw in another Ryzen chip in the future, is icing on the cake xD

easyrider · 25 Apr 2018 at 20:26

Boomstick777 said:
Glad I chose the 2700X over the 8700K, beast of a chip. Blazing fast and runs really cool. Gaming difference is minimal but smokes the 8700K elsewhere. Plus can throw in another Ryzen chip in the future, is icing on the cake xD

Of course you lose a tonne on Ryzen when you come to upgrade to Ryzen 3....MM first gen Ryzen can't be given away

Thus negating any money saved going Ryzen in the first place