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When to upgrade 9900k...

jon harris said:
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.
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had the same discussion last night on discord the 9900k is nearly as fast as a ryzen 5600 we are talking 1-5% when your only playing games there is currently no reason to upgrade for 3-4 years

rule of thumb on cpus is only upgrade when you notice a ingame performance drop that bugs you ( or if you have money to burn )
 
jon harris said:
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.
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I was forced into upgrading this year my i5-6600 was having issues in first person shooters other than that I wouldnt have updated
 
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.
 
You wont see much improvement from replacing the 9900k at the moment.

Id stick with that for atleast another year or so..

Im currently rocking the 9700k even though im currently only playing in 1080p i do plan on going to 1440p once i can get my hands on a new card.

The 9900k is a beast of a cpu
 
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.
 
harshell said:
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.
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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.
 
Joxeon said:
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.
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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.
 
robin66 said:
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.
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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 said:
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.
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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.
 
Joxeon said:
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.
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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.
 
jon harris said:
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.
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Yeah the 9900K is certainly not a bad chip to sit on for another year as its still on the top tier for gaming.
 
jon harris said:
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.
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I'll go against public opinion and say 'maybe' when Alder Lake comes out. The 2018 9900k might show its age in single thread performance if the 12900k is up to scratch, 30% faster?? Add DDR5 into the mix and I'll be looking to upgrade my 10850k and seriously lighten my wallet ;)
 
From a gaming perspective not much difference was seen here, with a 9900k....


... When ran at std, compared to being overclocked.

I have ended up keeping mine at stock, rather than 5ghz all core.
 
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I've a 8700k very close to 5ghz and I was going to go to a 5600x as the cost was not much but it wasnt worth it for gaming.

Will wait now for Alder Lake / Zen 4.
 
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