When to upgrade 9900k...

[jon harris]

While I know the 9900k is showing it's age a little, especially in heavily multithreaded tasks, is it that critical to update from a gaming perspective just yet? At 1440p and above I'm going to be GPU bound and I'm not looking to get in to the top tier of FPS for e-sports at 1080p so I'm tempted to hang fire for the moment. Would appreciate your thoughts, many thanks.

 

[jon harris]

E-sport games usually aren't really that demanding so no reason to upgrade.
For other games just don't keep much stuff on background and eight cores will do fine.

Need to change also motherboard (courtesy of artificial limitations from Intel's greed) would increase cost of any upgrade.

Thanks for the quick reply appreciated. I certainly wouldn't bother with LGA1200 based m'boards if i upgraded with LGA1700 not that far away. Equally I'm no Intel fanboy and AMD are certainly on a role with more to come. I think that'll be the decision time when Alder Lake starts shipping and the next AMD offering are also out. Changing now seems a little premature.

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[jon harris]

I switched from Intel 4790K to AMD 5800X 6 months ago. Did I need to do it? In all honesty, probably not. Sure I'm seeing faster load times and generally smoother gameplay when things get busy but given how much more recent the 9900K is compared to my old chip I would expect the margins to be even smaller.

The question I would be asking myself is this - is there anything else I can spend the money on that would enhance the experience more than a hardware upgrade i.e How good is your monitor/audio/peripherals. Could the room you game in do with a fresh lick of paint and some new furniture?

For myself right now I know I've got more chance of being hospitalised by COVID (despite being fully vaccinated) than I have of finding an upgrade for my GTX 1080 so I'm about to have a demo of some nice ATC loudspeakers and an REL T5x subwoofer to potentially upgrade my audio rig. The gfx can wait

Many thanks sound advice I think. As you say i think a refresh of the monitor (let's not even talk GPUs!) and then compare Alder Lake with whatever AMDs then current offering would sound sensible. 'Upgrading' to LGA1200 would seem like to small a jump and on a socket that was just about to be obsolete, it doesn't make sense.

 

[jon harris]

Yeah keep the 9900K, you won't see any real huge improvements. Going to keep my 8600k a long time yet.

Thanks for that, that makes sense. Whichever way i went I'd need a new m'board and CPU and I get the feeling that money would be better added to a GPU upgrade (don't laugh) or a refresh of the monitor. Thanks again, appreciate the feedback.

 

[jon harris]

controversial opinion here, Sell the 9900k + mobo and side grade to a 5800x or even a 12 core 5900x for +£150

I don't see that as desperately controversial, I've used Intel for years but I'm not an obsessed fanboy but wouldn't i need more to change from 9900k to 58/5900x than £150? No doubting you, just amazed.

 

[jon harris]

Yeah they go for around 200 used or 275 with mobo,

You can buy a b550 and 5900x for about 480 all in

Wow, thanks for that, that's the danger of not really knowing the current AMD market very well. Interesting.

 

[jon harris]

Wait for alder or Raptor lake

I have to say that's the current thought process, se how Alder Lake stacks up against what AMD have on the go at that time and hope they squeeze more than Alder Lake / Raptor lake out of the LGA1700 socket...

 

[jon harris]

No reason to yet, think like you i will end up skipping a few gens. I only recently jumped onto the 9900k around running a 3770k for around 5-6 years? Unless you're doing a lot of heavy multi threaded work loads, there's no real gains from an upgrade especially when you weigh up cost/performance ratio.

If you're looking at next gen as well you'll have to take into a count of buying new memory as well as new platforms/cpu's will be supporting DDR5. Gonna be a hefty price to upgrade.

Yep, that's my gut feel too and why i maxxed out the Z390 with the 9900K. Next 'upgrade' will probably be a complete new build.

 

[jon harris]

I don’t think the 9900k is showing it’s age in gaming anyway. The 10900k and 11900k are doing nothing mind blowing in comparison. I doubt anyone that upgraded from a 9900k to any of those would be noticing anything at all. I would keep the 9900k until ddr5 matures. I doubt very much you are noticing your 9900k holding back your gpu.

I think it's easy to get caught up in the "Intel are rubbish!" benchmark pub bragging rights but as you say, and especially at 1440p and above, I'm not convinced that even the best AMD silicon would show a massive improvement *in games* and the money spent to change would be better invested in bumping up the GPU if i could get one.

 

[jon harris]

Nothing to be gained by upgrading from a 9900K for gaming, sit on it for a year or two then make the move to a next gen DDR5 system.

Cheers that seems to be the consensus, is Alder Lake going to be DDR5 do we know yet? I have to say i've preferred Intel historically but not sure how these different powered cores are going to pan out, too early to tell yet.

 

[jon harris]

Still have my 9900K, And will most likely not look at changing it until 2023, and beyond.

There really isn't anything out there to upgrade to right now. That would make a big difference IMO.

Doing some serious digging over the last day or so I'm inclined to agree. In heavily threaded workloads then the differences would be more noticeable i think but where games aren't really going to be making use of in excess of 8 cores I think it's time to sit tight for now.

 

[jon harris]

Alder lake will be DDR5 but I'd probably hang on till next year else you'll be stung with the early adopters tax and slower DDR5.

That's always the balance though isn't it? Go too early and pay a premium or hang fire and find they're already discussing the next big thing 'just around the corner. That said from what i've seen of early rumours Raptor seems to be getting upgrades specifically for the gaming market so if i can sweat the 9900k until then, that would seem the time to see what both Intel and AMD are bringing to the party.