Which CPU

[smr]

Hi,

I need a new computer.

My current computer is about 10 years old, it's an i7 930 CPU, 6GB RAM and an old X58A Motherboard.

As such it's struggling with Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom.

I'm not really into gaming these days, more photo and video editing, so I'm wondering which CPU to go for.

Which would you recommend?

 

[smr]

8 core i7 10700K good value compared to Ryzen 5800X, depends what your mobo/cpu budget is?

Around £300-350ish I'd say for CPU, and around £200-250 for Mobo.

 

[smr]

You may want to wait for Z590 mobo and Intel 11xxx out next month, but tbh 10xxx cpu have come down in price quite a bit. Don't forget 32GB DDR4 to factor in.

and then something comes along after that... i've been waiting for 4 months as the last time i asked i was told best thing to do is wait for zen 3

 

[smr]

The budget isn't completely set in stone, that's why I said around £350ish for a new CPU.

What about this CPU ...

I9-10850K 3.6GHZ (COMET LAKE)

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...ocket-lga1200-processor-retail-cp-68e-in.html

 

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On one hand I'm thinking I could get a 3700X for £300 ( I don't really see the point in the 3800X given the minimal performance difference ), but OTOH I'm thinking the I9-10850K is only £80 more.

What would the drawbacks of investing in Intel be compared to AMD?

i think if you want a K CPU you need a Z490 board to take advantage of the unlocked multiplier

thats why KF or F parts are better for you as you can use cheaper B motherboards but you are locked in terms of memory speed also.

anyway intel has some funny way of doing things on these CPU and motherboard

Is there a problem having to go for a Z490 board ?

 

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Just reading that the 10850K seems to run very hot though

 

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how does longevity factor in when you can't buy one ?

 

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just had a look at the bundle deal

you can still get 3900 + B550 Stric F for £535 which i consider a decent deal for the now.

or 3900 + B550 Tuf gaming for £510
or 3900 + B450 Tomahawk for £430

that is inside you budget and gives your 12c/24t of goodness for your encoding and scubbing.

Where?

 

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I can’t tell you as I will get banned. But just need to search the above bundle in WWW you will find it.

Thanks..

I'm thinking perhaps the 3900X is a bit overkill for my needs tbh, I don't really do any gaming and use Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom for editing my photography, and Premiere for video editing, that's about it. Premiere struggles the most, definitely sluggish. Lightroom is surprisingly not too bad but can slow down if doing advanced edits.

I'm thinking a 3700X might be sufficient, there is an i7 10700K for the same price as well. Spent all afternoon reading CPU comparisons.

 

[smr]

What's with the nonsensical posts? He clearly stated his budget was £350ish so you recommend a CPU for ~£600! (added to the fact that you'd struggle to pick one up makes it even more daft.)

@smr
I do a lot of Photoshop and video work and it's a shame you didn't pick up the 5800X when OcUK were selling it for £380 as that is great in Photoshop and good for video work, though if a lot of your work is in Premiere Pro then that will favour going Intel (when results are close) as you will get the very real benefits of Quick Sync. Being able to use Thunderbolt also favoured Intel but you can also now get a B550 with Thunderbolt so that can now be discounted.

In truth, compared to what you have any modern CPU over the last couple generations will be a cosmic improvement. Of the two you mentioned most definitely get the 10700k over the 3700x.

If you had a decent GPU my recommendation might have gone with the 3900X as those extra cores can give a nice boost in Premiere Pro plus you would have the benefit of the v14.5 Prem Pro including both GPU-accelerated encoding and decoding which would help offset the Intel Quick Sync advantage.

When GPU prices normalise you should probably look to investing in a decent midrange one as there are good benefits to be had in both Photoshop and Premier Pro when you can enable GPU acceleration.

Thanks for the advice. Yes I saw the 5800X for around £380 a week or so ago, thought / knew that was a good price but tbh, after the AMD launch I have been busy and hadn't had time to read up on what to buy hence the reluctance to buy it then, even though I know it would go back up in price.

The only slight worry about the 5800X is these high temperatures some people seem to be having, but there again I'd be looking to add liquid cooling as I have now, I just prefer to cool the CPU that way instead of air. Hopefully they might be that price again soon.

It sounds like AM4 is being supported for a while and there's the option to go straight in with a PCI 4.0 setup right now with AMD, buy an AMD CPU and plug and play with the AM4 / PCI 4 compatibility.

That said I'm not sure whether pci 4 is even that important at the moment and for the foreseeable. I think it would probably make most sense to go for at least 8 cores and 16 threads...

For a budget of around £350ish from what I can see there are at least the following cpus within budget or close to it, in no particular order;

1) Wait for the 5800X to come back to £380 (if it ever will)
2) Buy an i7 10700K CPU 8C/16T 3.8Ghz for around £315
3) Buy an AMD 3800X for £320
4) Buy a 3700X 8C/16T (as I'd most likely see 0 performance difference between this and the 3800X) for £290
5) Buy an i9 10850K 10th gen for £380

Which platform and CPU to go for....

 

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I'd be coming from an i7 930 4 core CPU at 2.8Ghz, built in 2010. I think any chip over £300 would be a stratospheric improvement over what I have, as mentioned!

First of all, I'm sure I don't need to tell you but ignore @4K8KW10 as his post is idiotic in the context of your requirements.

Of the CPU's you listed then the 10850K is by far the best all round CPU as you don't have a midrange GPU in your system.

Thanks, will read up a bit more on the 10850K.

 

[smr]

Your best bet is the 10850k mate as martin has said

Thanks

IIRC the 10700k scored the same as the 10850K in Puget's Prem Pro benchmark which I found slightly anomalous as that is 8cores v 10cores, though should there be little difference between them then you could save yourself the odd ~£60 and put that towards some decent 3600Mhz memory or good size SSD, as they will also have an impact. More so the SSD.

I have a Crucial MX500 1TB SSD at the moment. Partly the reason why this i7 930 cpu has lasted for so long is by utilising SSD performance. I would need a new PSU, Mobo and RAM though. I have a massive Corsair Obsidian 800D full size tower as well but I don't want a case as big this time around, although that's probably another reason why I'm still running a 10 year old PSU with my Computer on 10 hours a day - massive amounts of flow for air.

 

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Are you are a threadtroll?

Ironic? I don't really understand the purpose of your input here? It's the equivalent of me coming along with you when you go to buy your next car whilst incessantly insisting that you should buy a Bugatti Veyron because it's better than what you are looking at, and outside your budget.

Or am I missing something?

 

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I didn't realise the actual availability of graphics cards was like it is until I just had a look - I've never seen it like that before.

 

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If you do get rid of the 800D and put it on the MM let me know - I adore those cases.

Also when/if you do get the new CPU post back here as I'm interested as to where you feel the difference (which should be stratospheric!) in your particularly usage case. Also while you mention PSU you can't skimp on the that; as much attention needs to be paid to that as to your CPU but thankfully the choice shouldn't be as hard.

Yes I'll put it on the MM, will let you know, the only thing is it is missing the top USB sockets cover and the drive bay door but I probably could have got them from Corsair if I'd emailed, I just never bothered to get around to it, you can probably do so, or if not pick them up for a few quid from somewhere. It's a fantastic case, I love Corsair as well, but I just feel like having a change with a new system.

I am leaning towards the i7 10850K with it's current price at £380, I'd be thinking Motherboard next, CPU cooler, RAM and PSU.

 

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The issue is that the Core i9 CPUs do require a decent motherboard and decent cooling too. Just search for power throttling issues WRT to the Core i9 10850K and Core i9 10900K,and that lower price starts getting eaten up by needing a decent motherboard and decent cooling.

With the Core i7 CPUs,you are only loosing two cores,but it should be much easier to cool,and require less of a motherboard.

Plus honestly if you do intend to not use a dedicated dGPU,Rocketlake makes some significant changes to the Intel IGP structure(Intel Xe) and is out next month. The current Cometlake CPUs basically use the same Skylake core which debuted in 2015 with the Core i7 6700K. Rocketlake has a new core.

You will also get access to PCI-E 4.0(which Intel lacks now,but AMD has) which will be useful for faster storage. The Core i7 11700K doesn't appear to cost much more than the Core i7 10700K:
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-1...ke-s-cpus-prices-listed-by-multiple-retailers

It might be worth seeing how it performs.

Which Motherboards and Coolers? The thing is waiting for new tech is a constant cycle isn't it. Alder Lake will be out after the Summer with DDR5 and PCIE5. Then a few months later that's outdated..

I'm not really interested in overclocking, never been into chasing every last drop of performance.

I would probably buy a dedicated graphics card at some point too. The only game I can think of that I might be interested in would be FS2020.

 

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Yes, making predications on hardware that has not yet been released is a bit of a mugs games - there are so many unquantifiable variables so that coming up with a reliable strategy is full of pitfalls.

Also I believe Rocketlake is 8core vs the 10core 10850k and as @pc-guy correctly surmised unless there are massive differences in IPC then generally the more cores the better for your video encoding. Did you do all those videos on your 930?

For your cooler, I highly recommend the Arctic Freezer II 280; in stock, probably the best cooling/price/noise ratio AIO out now and you did mention you'd be looking to get an AIO. What's your budget for motherboard and RAM?

PS. That's a nice Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro you have there! I was in some Bortle 2 skies for a good while last year and dabbled in a few Milky Way shots but the deep space stuff I might try down the line.

Yes all videos were made on my i7 930. It's actually not too bad if you just want to do basic editing but one example why it doesn't perform properly is in Adobe Premiere, if I want to automate a clip with a zoom in and out feature, in the actual software when playing on the time line it will start to zoom in a bit, pause, then jump to where it should, aside from that it's not been too much of a problem, it probably takes me about 30-40 minutes to export a 10 minute video clip.

I recently bought a dedicated astronomy camera, 26mega pixels with each image from the camera being 50mp, I did a quick stack of just a few images and load the integration in Adobe Photoshop and it really started bogging down.

Budget wise for a mobo, I was thinking around £200-250 but the lower the better obviously, there is the Z490 MSI Tomahawk for around £180, the Z590 Tomahawk is around £230.

RAM - I have no idea what to get... what would be suitable?

I've seen the 10850K for £350 now, brand new. //

I've never actually been under Bortle 2 skies, I have with Bortle 3 and was blown away by the sheer number of stars you can see. Yep the HEQ5 Pro is a fantastic mount, absolutely love mine. If you've got a DSLR and some lenses you should give deep sky a go, but just be aware, if you get bitten by the bug it can become pretty addictive and expensive! Saying that you don't need the most expensive equipment for imaging, a DSLR has lasted me for 4 years and I'll still continue to use it for AP, especially milky way shots etc.

 

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To put in context,the 8C salvage of desktop Cometlake is still efficient enough to be found in HEDT replacement laptops - 10C isn't(they are all the same chip). If you look at various threads on Google,you have to choose the motherboards and coolers very carefully to avoid issues with the Core i9 CPUs,as they literally overclock themselves out of the box. The Core i9 10850K is a little less extreme in that regard than the Core i9 10900K but the bin quality is more variable.

AT reviewed it:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16341/intel-core-i9-10850k-review-the-real-intel-flagship/24



Some reviews show it having less power consumptioon than a Core i9 10900K,so you need to be wary in case you get a poor bin. Even the best air coolers(Anandtech used a top end Noctua on an open air testbench) just about managed.



Plus if you can't wait the 8C variants will have less issues in terms of power consumption,and cooling. It will still be a huge upgrade over what you have.

However,Rocketlake is out next month on March 15th:
https://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/147437-intel-rocket-lake-hard-launch-tipped-monday-15th-march/

It will also bring PCI-E 4.0 to the Intel platform,which means feature parity with AMD. As it does look like you keep platforms for a longtime,it will not only be useful for future GPUs but also for storage. Almost the entirety of NVME SSDs will probably be PCI-E 4.0 in a few years time.

Also remember,Cometlake isn't going to disappear off the face of the earth in 3~4 weeks. But unlike many here,I am much more patient and have been upto 7 years on my previous platforms to AM4.

DDR5 is going to be quite expensive IMHO,ie,a bit like DDR3 was for your X58 platform when socket 1366 was first released. Even if Alderlake is decent,that DDR5 cost is going to be the problem here.

It's a shame you don't have a recent dGPU,as the Ryzen 9 3900 and Ryzen 7 5800X bundle deals do make them reasonably cheaper than normal.

I guess one thing I could do is buy now, skip PCIE4, and then when DDR5 normalises in price etc. buy into that system then, or a year or two after.

The 10700K is definitely a CPU worth considering though, thanks.

 

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BTW,saw you are into astronomy. Mate is really into it,has one of the cooled cameras (think it uses a 1" sensor) with a tracking mount,and IR modified standard cameras too. Only issue is the weather most of the time,which conspires against them.

Yep, clouds and wind!

 

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Interesting discussion guys

I found this...

Z490 motherboard VRM list
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yPS3hj_K7EPT4RBWCyjdKNP56pnwDz-IgBc0975-FUg/edit#gid=0