The Worst CPU & GPU Purchases of 2018
- Thread starter Steve
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Axiarus
Posts: 631 +427
I am on an i7-2600k still lol. I just upgraded my 970 to a 1070ti last week.
xiromisho
Posts: 6 +6
The 20% is entirely synthetic -- most real world shows they're within 10% of each other. More fun is that that 5Ghz Turbo is only possible with the beefiest of AIOs/Custom Loops.
MORE Ridiculous is a number of 9900k's have shipped with their IHS "Bowed" due to the large size of the Core Die and the IHS not being properly sized. Jayz2Cents had an i9 9900k he had to sand down in order to get it to even begin to OC and that's voiding the warranty on a supposedly "Overclockable chip"
Outside of this the minor 5% bump in speed from the i7-8700k with a 30% price jump. You'd be better off just getting the i7-8700k or waiting for the 10nm part from Intel at this point, buying a 9900k is a raw deal, is the point made by the article.
CheekyP
Posts: 75 +55
Nothing is wrong with the 8700K, in fact I own one and you are right, it handles gaming just fine and there is no discernible difference between it and the 9900K in games. You know that AMD also charges almost 50% more for their 8C Ryzen 7 compared to 6C Ryzen 5? The 2700X is $290 and 2600X is $200 at Amazon. The difference here is that the starting prices are lower for both chips, but the actual % difference in price is the same.
In fact, the price difference between the 8700K and 9900K (using Amazon) is actually only 37% now, $508 vs $370. For that 37% price difference you get 33% additional cores plus 9% additional frequency. If the 9900K is overpriced in your eyes then the 8700K is similarly 'overpriced' on a per core level. I actually think the 8700K should be closer to $300 to better compete with the 2700X, but that is another topic altogether.
If I was buying *right now* I would probably be tempted to go for the 9900K even if its an extra $140 over the 8700K. The point I made about overall system cost with the 2700X also applies for the 8700K. If a high end 8700K system costs $2000, then the equivalent 9900K costs $2140, a 'whopping' (excuse my sarcasm) 7% difference. With that 7% you don't get additional gaming performance , but you do get much better productivity performance.
CheekyP
Posts: 75 +55
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/19.html
In relative terms of overall CPU performance, with the 9900K at 100.0 baseline, the 2700X achieves 83.2% of 9900K performance.
100 / 83.2 = 20.2% overall deficit for the 2700X
The difference in gaming is obviously lower because of GPU bottlenecks especially at 1440P, but in terms of overall compute power the 9900K is a lot more powerful than the 2700X (and 8700K).
I agree the efficiency of the 9900K goes out the window when overclocked to 5.0GHz, but so does the 2700X when pushed to 4.2GHz. Hell my 8700K @ 5.0GHz isn't very efficient either, I get 140W package power in IBT. You're better off running these high end CPUs at stock if 'efficiency' is your thing. I use 'efficiency' because even at stock these CPUs consume a LOT of power, especially the 9900K, and overclocking just adds an extra 50% power on that of that.
I disagree about the 8700K being a better deal, and this is coming as a 8700K owner. Read my post above in reply to Steve for a more detailed reason why. If I could afford $370 for a 8700K, I can afford $508 for a 9900K too. It's not like that extra $138 is going to send me broke. They are both high end CPUs, the 9900K is more expensive but if you needed the extra cores its probably worth the price difference IMO.
Seriously if you are value conscious with CPUs and price/performance is the key criteria you would get the Ryzen 2600 for $160 and call it a day. Nothing else comes close in terms of value. You don't buy the 8700K or 9900K because of their value, you buy them because they best complement a high end gaming machine that can also be good for productivity. At least thats how I see it, and that was why I got the 8700K last year and if I was building *right now* I would possibly consider the 9900K over it.
I agree the 10nm parts (and probably Zen 2) will make the 9900K redundant, at least from a price/performance POV. But those parts are at least 6 months away, so if you wanted to build a high end PC right here, right now, what do you suggest?!
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OcelotRex
Posts: 558 +302
Per an October report Steam has 90 Million active monthly users. The survey uses statistics to represent those users.
Many people also purchased 1060's for systems they built and to upgrade older hardware. The 1060 was a great value card considering how it competed with the 580/480 and its availability.
144hzGamer
Posts: 214 +131
Followed by gtx1050ti and "ppl are not broke", otherwise 1000€ smartphones wouldnt be selling like hotcakes. People buy what serves their needs. Saying 1070ti is the lowest gpu ppl should get is just silly. Maybe you forgot what are the most played pc games. TD:LR not ubisoft games.
Buying a 1070ti to play Fortnite, Dota, LoL, rocket league, heartstone, warcraft, counter strike, football manager, pubg, warframe or overwatch? Suuuuure, impecable logic.
Adhmuz
Posts: 2,344 +1,187
Thanks for this revelation of the century, I always thought 1080p to 4K was about 25% more taxing...
If you've ever looked at any single benchmark comparing 1080p, 1440p and 4K you'd see that the CPU is never the bottle neck, always the GPU. If you experience CPU problems in 4K chances are you'll have the same issues at 1080p, if not more so because now your hitting a CPU frame limitation you'd not experience at 4K.
Either you have a 4K monitor and you want to game at 4K or you don't and it's irrelevant, it's not like someone with a 1080p screen wants to play at 4K without the required monitor, unless they intend on purchasing one? I'm not sure where you were going with that.
Sickening, those entry level affordable cards, how could the masses have fallen so hard for a GPU which is more than capable of gaming at 1080p. These individuals should have spent more money on a card they may or may not have fully take advantage of or waited for the launch of RTX, specifically the 2060 which still has no official release date. In an idealistic world everyone should be gaming on the latest and greatest GPU and give Nvidia all their money right now!...
You might not be able to tell the difference, but that's not the case for everyone, I was able to tell the difference when looking at used GPUs online which were used for mining and which were not...
Buying a used GPU might not be for everyone (they can just go buy one of those sickening GTX 1060, eesh) but for some it can be worth looking and finding a good deal.
i5-4570 and 960 here
Eldritch
Posts: 597 +1,155
Do you write for Tomshardware or work at Nvidia (same thing)?
Azurelas
Posts: 21 +21
AMD deserves bashing for the disaster that's Vega. Excellent card for GPGPU and compute, barely bothers a GTX 1080 at almost double the power draw when overclocked. That's Fermi-levels of incompetence.
Sausagemeat
Posts: 1,597 +1,423
You guys have really got to let go of the high prices. They aren’t coming down. If anything this is just the beginning, within the next few years I predict the top tier graphics cards will be $2000+ and the top tier CPUs will be $1000+. The 9900K will be seen as a cheap flagship. And the reason why is because they will sell. There is a significant amount of people out there who have the cash and will pay the prices and yes they are all aware that the Ryzen 2700X is nearly as good as a 9900K for half the money. They simply don’t care. These people are tech enthusiasts who aren’t broke. I’m willing to bet if most people here were rich enough they would own faster computers, nicer cars etc.
I personally do appreciate a lower price and I don’t spend silly on my products but at the same time I also like to spend a bit more and have a bit nicer when it comes to my hardware. But I’m absolutely fed up of products being bashed because of an expensive price tag. Tesla cars are phenomenal cars, they are fast, comfortable and possess a lot of awesome tech yet they cost an order of magnitude more than a typical family car. Yet do we criticise them for that! The 9900K is a 5ghz 8 core consumer chip, the first and fastest of its kind, I think it’s amazing to see this sort of performance in the mainstream and I commend it for being the best.
There is a place for value but there is also a place for premium.
I personally do appreciate a lower price and I don’t spend silly on my products but at the same time I also like to spend a bit more and have a bit nicer when it comes to my hardware. But I’m absolutely fed up of products being bashed because of an expensive price tag. Tesla cars are phenomenal cars, they are fast, comfortable and possess a lot of awesome tech yet they cost an order of magnitude more than a typical family car. Yet do we criticise them for that! The 9900K is a 5ghz 8 core consumer chip, the first and fastest of its kind, I think it’s amazing to see this sort of performance in the mainstream and I commend it for being the best.
There is a place for value but there is also a place for premium.
i3kingwizardop
Posts: 42 +17
Grabbed a 1080 Ti for $500 shipped the other day. Going into a new Threadripper 1950x build tho. Only paid $506 for the 1950x.
Kinkoyaburi
Posts: 7 +5
Ray tracing? Pfff, it's a nice eye candy but not even close to what is needed for serious jump in video games. We still have horrible joint deformations, we still have horrible liquids, we still have little to no destructible walls and objects and horrible interaction between hand/feet/surface and deformable and good looking clothing is down to flags and capes only.
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