The upgrade path conundrum and DCS

[Pilotasso]

2017 will be the year of the most difficult upgrade choices and because I have the gene for bad timing it will be the year that I cannot dodge for an upgrade.

 

whereas before you could settle for the highest clocked 4 core and sit pretty for 5 years easily, the road ahead seems different in that the MHZ race is pretty much becoming second league chanpionship.

 

1- Either pick a fast 4 core now, and Im sure Ill be begging for more cores in 2 years or:

2- pick a multicore chip and suck low Mhz for the time being

 

So the choices in 2017 are:

 

-Kaby lake 7700K for absolute the fastest high end 4 core chip that there will be.

-Zen with 8 cores and predicatbly much lower single core score

-Skylake-X featuring "affordable" 6 cores that will likely clock higher than the current 6800/6850K, or ZEN

 

all this will get devalued and possibly matched by much cheaper cofee lake mainstream 6 core i7's in 2018/2019 replacing the high end 4 core linup forever. This will make the 3 CPU's above look overpriced or obsolete.

 

My trouble is that I also play Star citizen wich devours cores beyond DCS which eats Mhz cycles instead.

 

DCS should have gone multi core and DX12 and this problem wouldnt be an issue.

 

See my trouble? What CPU do I get? what do you think?

 

See sig for current rig.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Pilotasso

[tintifaxl]

I would go Skylake 8 core. DCS 2.0 works reasonably well with a high end GPU and that will compensate for the lower single core performance of the cpu. But the 8 cores will give the games that are better optimized for multicores a huge advantage.

[Konovalov]

Personally I will be going the 4 cores route with HT ability and high overclocking +5Ghz on air potential. I am targeting the new Kablylake 7700k to replace my ageing i5-950 oc'd to 4.25Ghz. I'm just holding off till the reviews come out and hope to rebuild my rig around Christmas/New Year. It's not just the new CPU architectural and clock for clock improvements that I am interested in. It's things like m.sata Nvme SSD drives and other new features on MB along with moving from 12GB memory to 32GB which I am looking forward to.

[plehmann]

ZEN single threa performance is looking to be on par with current Intel kit...

 

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/233453-amd-zen-benchmarks-leak-point-to-potent-performance-against-intel-huge-gains-over-piledriver

 

my 5930 is still rocking at 4.6 Ghz for a surround nvidia and SLI ( yep!) in DCS so for theat 6 year span maybe cheaper would be better and then jump to the next step as an interim ???

[Pilotasso]

yeah, my hope is that Zen will be close enough on single core scores after overclocking. I can live with that.

 

But according to leaked bencies, the 7700K has almost 25% advantage on single core and comes close to 6 cores broadwell on multi threaded because of its high clocks.

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providing this holds up to the trucks of salt.

 

Then the 7700K can go even higher and hit 5 Ghz on air, and I expect Zen to hit a Mhz wall at somewhere 4GHz just like the broadwell chips do (4.4Ghz). Decisions decisions...

Edited October 30, 2016 by Pilotasso

[cichlidfan]

IMHO, you could not pay me to use an AMD chip.

[Pilotasso]

The only one I considered is the upcoming ZEN. Have you checked it out?

[Pilotasso]

Personally I will be going the 4 cores route with HT ability and high overclocking +5Ghz on air potential. I am targeting the new Kablylake 7700k to replace my ageing i5-950 oc'd to 4.25Ghz. I'm just holding off till the reviews come out and hope to rebuild my rig around Christmas/New Year. It's not just the new CPU architectural and clock for clock improvements that I am interested in. It's things like m.sata Nvme SSD drives and other new features on MB along with moving from 12GB memory to 32GB which I am looking forward to.

 

Kaby lake is going to be officially launched in jan 5 2017. I dont think they will be at the shelves before that.

[Konovalov]

Bummer, so will have to wait till after the new year.

[BitMaster]

IMHO, you could not pay me to use an AMD chip.

 

 

already 2 of us :doh:

 

 

*just put a new i5 for a friend next door together, i5-4th gen and Z-97K asus board....rocks at 4.65GHz on 1st evening with a BIG air cooler.

 

lots of power for a 200€ i5-K chip..no need to look the AMD way

 

 

** that i5-4670k ( hope the numbers are right, 3.4/3.8GHz ) scored 2650 Points @ 4.4GHz in Passmark Single Core Bench on vers 8 and vers 9 of the prog.

That is just about same as the 2600k at 4.8 GHz....NOT BAD at all !!

Edited October 31, 2016 by BitMaster

[Pilotasso]

What worries me is that in 2018 the industry will move beyond the 4 core CPU's for gaming. Kaby lake will be the last high end 4 core chip. The sucessor will likely sport 6 cores for similar price tag (google coffe lake CPU). Intel already leaked the prices for 7700K and they havent budged from the 350$ price tag the previous 6700K had, not even after knowing AMD Zen will be launched at the same time.

 

I dont play just DCS. And Im kinda wary of paying that price tag for something that will be steamrolled in short order by intel's own offers not to say nothing about AMD.

[cichlidfan]

I dont play just DCS. And Im kinda wary of paying that price tag for something that will be steamrolled in short order by intel's own offers not to say nothing about AMD.

 

That is the never ending conundrum of this hobby. There really isn't a single correct answer to it since everyone has a different spending threshold.

[Pilotasso]

yeah, but we are not 1 year away from new launches, we are just 2 months away.

Plus the whole DX12/vulkan thing pushing all CPU's and GPU's cannot be ignored.

This is the worst possible time to do a rush buy. I build for the next 5-6 years. Not 2.

 

 

I suspect AMD will be offering Zen for similar price as an 7700K (slightly higher, but lower than any Skylake-X series).

 

8C/16T VS 4C/8T, 64 lanes VS 24. Thats just an immense difference.

 

Just look what they did with the RX 480. While it offers modest OK performance in DX11, for DX12 it runs circles around GTX1060's for same price and closes in on 1070's for less 200$. Thats impressive, and this is what I am aiming for.

 

Coming back to the 7700K: Intel is charging 350$ for this chip as they did for 6700K. I'm not too impressed with its 24 lanes either. That offers too few options for expansion. Value and future proofing is poor.

 

I only need to know:

1-price of a ZEN build VS Skylake-X VS 7700K

2-the possibility of overclocking individual cores on ZEN and Skylake-X (broadwell-E can).

 

if both conditions are met, I can have the best of both worlds (DCS and star citizen) on a chip higher than 4 cores.

 

Summed up, the supposedly modest jump in price from 4 cores to multi core is met with a quantum leap in processing and available bandwith headroom.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Pilotasso

[lazduc]

Given that DCS does not use multicore processors, and that it took 3 years to redo the graphics engine, how long do you think it will take ED to rewrite the code to be able to use multicore cpu's and play catch up with DX12....?

So planning on getting a multicore cpu for DCS is not worth doing.....

If you are playing other games that support multicore cpu's, then that is worth considering.

[Pilotasso]

Its not just for DCS, thats the issue. IF it was just for DCS I would get an i5.

 

BUT if I can overclock individual cores I can accomodate any CPU for DCS (in adittion to other games).

Edited November 2, 2016 by Pilotasso

[howie87]

Wait for Zen benchmarks and pricing and buy what suits you best on a cost/performance/efficiency basis.

 

For people who don't care about pricing and just want the fastest chip I imagine Intel will still be top dog but I'm hoping Zen will restore some balance and bring prices down slightly across the board.

 

If you can get a real 8 core Zen chip with multithreaded performance similar to a 6900k (a $1000 part) for around the $350 mark the 7700K would be a real tough sell for Intel, even with its better single threaded performance.

[Pilotasso]

yeah, thats a more efficient way to put forward the point I was trying to make.

[rrohde]

already 2 of us :doh:

 

Three of us... Intel and NVIDIA for me - always. :)

[Pilotasso]

I will keep my mind open. I once had an AMD system because Intel has screwed up before. They could be in the same position now. I will buy whatever chip offers more for the price.

[Pilotasso]

7600K reviews have been leaked ahead of the NDA expiration.

 

http://wccftech.com/intel-kaby-lake-core-i5-7600k-review/

 

It can overclock to 5.1 Ghz (and that is driving the advantage on the scores), but the IPC is the same as skylake (6600K)

[Konovalov]

7600K reviews have been leaked ahead of the NDA expiration.

 

http://wccftech.com/intel-kaby-lake-core-i5-7600k-review/

 

It can overclock to 5.1 Ghz (and that is driving the advantage on the scores), but the IPC is the same as skylake (6600K)

 

That is the news I was hoping for and I definitely will hold out till early next year for the release of this and Z270 boards. 5Ghz plus on air sounds tasty. Also I will be glad if this is true as from the article "Another thing to note is that Kaby Lake K-Series would be featuring a heatsink that will be soldered using TIM and not cheap materials. This will allow better heat conductivity between the CPU die and the thermal surface." It sounds like the K series Kabylakes are begging to be overclocked.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Konovalov

[Pilotasso]

Seems like AMD Zen CPU will have two 8 core variants at launch. One mainstream and the other for enthusiast. Both will be unlocked but the difference is the laters silicon will be cherry picked to overclock higher.

 

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-summit-ridge-overclock-cpus/

 

Im digging for info on Skylake X but nothing beyond the chipset designation has popped up.