new gaming pc advice

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19 Feb 2021
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Currently have the following spec

- i7 6700
- Gigabyte GA-Z170M-D3H
- GTX 1080ti
- 64GB Ram (overkill I know)
- Samsung 1TB 850 Evo

I'm planning on keeping the GPU for the time being as the current prices are fairly high and the availability is still poor. Think it should last for a few more years anyway

For the new setup, I was looking at the i7 11700. I have never oc'd any of my CPUs and don't plan on doing it now either do no point going for the k unless I'd be missing out on something else? Also the non k seems to be 65 tdp which should in theory produce less heat?

MB wise probably something like the Gigabyte Intel Z590M Micro-ATX Motherboard or Asus Prime Z590M-Plus. Then m2 SSD will probably end up being another samsung drive (TBC) unless they've gone down hill?

Any thoughts/recommendations? I've never followed AMD hence why I'm sticking to intel yet again but if AMD is a better option I'd also consider it. This PC will be used just for gaming
 
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Tbh you'd be better off with a 5800X + B550 as it uses less power and offers more performance.

If you want to go Intel then wait a month for the 12th gen alder lake CPUs to release as they should offer more performance and also higher core counts for example the 12700 will have 12 cores, 8 big 4 little and are optimised for win 11 if you plan to upgrade to that in the near future.
 
The 65w TDP Intel puts out for that chip is hilarious. No way it uses that little power.

Anyway, Joxeon is correct imho and 5800x+ B550 is a better option. If you desperately want Intel then wait and see what Alderlake is like. Your system is still decent so waiting is a definite option.

Samsung drives are still very good but the competition has caught up and are now equally as fast and generally much cheaper. Sabrent and Western Digital and others all have good choices at different price points that are cheaper than Samsung's products.
 
for example the 12700 will have 12 cores, 8 big 4 little and are optimised for win 11 if you plan to upgrade to that in the near future.
Big.little isn't optimized for any OS, but for making Intel to be able to advertise core counts matching AMD.
Because their monolithic dies can economically fit only 8 full cores. (+no doubt power budget)
And just the opposite it needs what must be nightmarish optimizing of OS scheduler for it.
Intel actually went even as far as disabling their feature above AMD, AVX-512, from full cores to match little cores.
Otherwise scheduler would run also into problem of different instruction support between cores!
That should tell what kind bubble gum&duct tape jerry rig it is at this stage.

And for gaming plain scrappy latencies of current DDR5 could well cripple any performance increases.
Memory latency was one of the things holding back original Zen in gaming.
Now latencies of Alder Lake+DDR5 make those look good in comparison.
While Alder Lake will apparently have only 30MB L3 cache to help with memory latency.
(in comparison AMD is aiming for 192MB with their 3D stacked L3)

Alder Lake+DDR5 will certainly have its strong points, but memory access latency dependant workloads like games are unlikely to be ones.
 
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