Posted November 17, 2019
Phasmid: PC versions were designed for 4 cores rather than 8 because that's what Intel was selling as their top consumer chip for 11 (!) years from Core2Quad until the 7000 series; and Intel has been the dominant chip maker sales wise over that entire period. There has been a fundamental shift in the past two years though, and people who bought 7600ks in 2017 are having problems with newer games now because they want more than 4 cores even if those cores are strong. The 7600k holds up pretty well in average fps, but in some games has awful microstutter and 1% fps values because of the cores having to queue tasks; and inconsistent frame rate is way more noticeable than a somewhat lower but consistent rate.
I would not be buying a 6 core non HT Intel chip and expect it to last well. 4c/8t chips were top line from 2010 to 2017, now they're barely above entry level two years later even for Intel let alone AMD. I'd be looking at a bare minimum of 8 threads for a chip to last. I'd expect 6 core chips like the 8600k to hit problems with task queuing fairly soon just like the 7600k has. That won't make them instantly obsolete of course, but still...
I have a 1700 so I'm a bit biased- though I plan on upgrading at some point anyway- but I'd expect it to last far better than 8600k will. It doesn't clock that high, but then the console chips will be lucky to hit 3 GHz no matter what the rumours say. 7nm uses less power, but the chips are also smaller so the heat density goes up and they will have a 5700 equivalent set of Navi cores + DXR hardware to cool as well.
People who bought 7600k in 2017 were uninformed at best, I'm sure there are some satisfied costumers but the only use case I can think for a 7600k (gaming related) is emulation. To unleash all the power they can, the motherboards are kinda expensive and for the same price range, we could actually build a much superior system. I would not be buying a 6 core non HT Intel chip and expect it to last well. 4c/8t chips were top line from 2010 to 2017, now they're barely above entry level two years later even for Intel let alone AMD. I'd be looking at a bare minimum of 8 threads for a chip to last. I'd expect 6 core chips like the 8600k to hit problems with task queuing fairly soon just like the 7600k has. That won't make them instantly obsolete of course, but still...
I have a 1700 so I'm a bit biased- though I plan on upgrading at some point anyway- but I'd expect it to last far better than 8600k will. It doesn't clock that high, but then the console chips will be lucky to hit 3 GHz no matter what the rumours say. 7nm uses less power, but the chips are also smaller so the heat density goes up and they will have a 5700 equivalent set of Navi cores + DXR hardware to cool as well.
In my market the 9600k has no place, unless for very specialized uses (there were/are some compatibility issues with Ryzen on older stuff as well). The 9400f is 70 euros cheaper on the CPU alone. (funny thing - the i3 9350kf is the same price as the i5 9600kf and both more expensive than the Ryzen 2700 LMFAO )
Rant: I find it funny because usually the very same people (generalizing :D )arguing the AMD counterparts with slower per thread but more threads overall are not good buys for gaming, due lower fps, are the same that don't recomend 7600k, instead a 7700 non-k, for better long term.
Regarding games using cores, as I've stated before, even old games uses 8 threads or more. Although they don't use them very efficiently, the same as most modern games (most tasks wait for the first thread anyway). Usually multiplayer games are the ones needing beefier CPU's, like Battlefield 1, but single player with a lot of bots can be pretty demanding as well. Except Assassins Creed, aka. "Ubisoft trash" that needs a NASA computer to run above 30fps.