New computer!

[RasmusP]

Did you know that both Unity and Real Engine have both become very multi-core friendly?

Yep - but then there are two things:
When will we see something of it in simracing titles? Currently there's no sim really being able to max out even 4 cores.
And the second thing: if a game would be able to max out 6 cores completely you would have such high fps numbers that the gpu wouldn't be able to keep up anyway as the new VR headsets and ultra wide 1440p and 4k monitors are constantly hitting the market too.

You mobo etc choices look well researched. I sadly can't comment on this but I doubt you'll end up buying something bad anyway with your current knowledge

 

[RCHeliguy]

Since my next VR headset can go to 144 Hz refresh rate, I'm just preparing for the event software starts supporting lots of cores and keeping my fingers crossed.

And yes, I'm pegging all 4 of my CPU cores equally presently.

If there is a really big jump in CPU power next year, I'll put some NVMe drives on this MB and put it in my Development box.

I'm not into overclocking, but I've heard the i9-9900K doesn't really benefit from OC'ing it.

All ordered. I'm feeling impatient today.

 

[Case_]

Did you know that both Unity and Real Engine have both become very multi-core friendly? That seems like it would end up distributing the load out as software titles adapt. I know companies are starting to build that into their software and it is really speeding things up.

While it is generally speaking true (and has been for a while), don't hold your breath for significant improvements in performance any time soon, doubly so when it comes to sims. Some things really can't be multithreaded well, and there are also many limitations left still on top of that that need to be addressed.
You can look at ACC to see how limited multi-threading in a current Unreal Engine game is - the performance of the game still mostly depends on the performance of two threads.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I understand that there are limits right now.

My thoughts were simply that I was going to need to buy a new MB anyway and memory anyway that were approximately a fixed cost and the difference in CPU cost between a good one and the one I got is not as critical with my reusing the components I have. I was happy to see the current cost of memory is pretty good.

So I errored on the side of overkill just in case it did matter. It's that simple.

Also SSD prices are continuing to drop and I figured I would put off the m.2 drives for a few months and see where things were later on.

How I rationalized a more expensive CPU based on the potential price savings on falling SSD prices for a future purchase is between me and my decision to make a WTF purchase. IOW I'm not saying it was based on any real logic, just a desire to not worry that I made a mistake and needed more power later.

Anyway, I'm done. It only took me a couple hours to make a decision, so I'll just call that a win. Just wishing I jumped on the Indexes sooner.

 

[RasmusP]

I wish you great fun with the new stuff!
I wasn't really advising against the i7 or i9 btw. Just argued for why it's not needed for simracing any time soon.
I for myself would get the i7 or i9 too since I now have 8 cpu threads with my I7 2600k since 2011 and couldn't really enjoy spending on money on losing 2 threads (yeah winning 2 cores but I don't see that in the stats! )!
So I would probably even get the i9 cause... I wanna see more cpu threads to really feel the upgrade!

So I will probably end up with a next gen Ryzen.

Making upgrade decision on pure logic is good and should be a big part of it but in the end it's about enjoyment and fun for most of us so the upgrade must also feel awesome imo.
And if the i5 doesn't tick that box, screw it

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have an i7-2600K in my dev box now since 2011. It has a GTX 660 in it driving 3 monitors, but I use that for development work and it is actually overkill now that I'm not running VM's anymore.

I'll probably take my i5 Mb and put it back in a small case I have with 600W PS and use it as a dedicated music server for my stereo upstairs.

 

[Stevie_007]

my i7 4790k is still going strong, delidded at 4.9 . 1.3 volts 2980 single thread performance in cpu mark. and never get hotter then 65 even in stress test.
unless the ryzens are a huge improvement it may stay with me and save some dosh for the time being

 

[RasmusP]

my i7 4790k is still going strong, delidded at 4.9 . 1.3 volts 2980 single thread performance in cpu mark. and never get hotter then 65 even in stress test.
unless the ryzens are a huge improvement it may stay with me and save some dosh for the time being

Friend of mine did the same. Although his ran 4.9 without delidding, quite a bit hotter though!
He had drops to asw with his Oculus rift with bigger grids in AC and rF2.
Bought a 8700k which runs at 4.8 GHz all cores, no drops anymore.

I agree though, the gain is hardly worth the price if you don't need to keep the fps above a certain level like with VR.
I've got a gsync monitor a few months ago (finally) and I couldn't care less about a few fps here and there.

 

[Stevie_007]

Friend of mine did the same. Although his ran 4.9 without delidding, quite a bit hotter though!
He had drops to asw with his Oculus rift with bigger grids in AC and rF2.
Bought a 8700k which runs at 4.8 GHz all cores, no drops anymore.

I agree though, the gain is hardly worth the price if you don't need to keep the fps above a certain level like with VR.
I've got a gsync monitor a few months ago (finally) and I couldn't care less about a few fps here and there.

Yes it’s a tough one, haven’t analysed it enough but big fields seems hit and miss for me , I have been tempted for a 8700k or 9700k , it’s probably already been discussed but 6/12 or 8/8 which is better.

 

[RasmusP]

Yes it’s a tough one, haven’t analysed it enough but big fields seems hit and miss for me , I have been tempted for a 8700k or 9700k , it’s probably already been discussed but 6/12 or 8/8 which is better.

Looking at youtube benchmarks for games that are limited by the single thread limit (not all the AAA games), the 9700k performs better.
The 9600k and 8700k are about the same, 9700k is a bit ahead of both.
Now when you start to render a video the 4 additional threads will gain a bit back though.

Looking at the current prices I'd go with a 9700k.

 

[Miguel Batista]

More cores better than more threads.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The way I understand this works, is that if you have all your cores maxed out cores wins.

If you have cores that are only partly utilized then having the ability to have virtual cores can speed things up by making better use of the cores resources. ( Assuming you don't have entire cores available)

 

[RCHeliguy]

FYI, I completely agree with this.

 

[RasmusP]

The way I understand this works, is that if you have all your cores maxed out cores wins.

If you have cores that are only partly utilized then having the ability to have virtual cores can speed things up by making better use of the cores resources. ( Assuming you don't have entire cores available)

Not really. I'd say it's more the opposite. Virtual cores and real cores always give you a little bit more performance no matter the load.
In cinebench I have 750 points with hyperthreading and 520 points without. That's with maxing out all cores, virtual or not.
Virtual cores always up the performance. But real cores uo the performance quite a bit more.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The bottom line is that you want as many of both as possible

 

[RasmusP]

The bottom line is that you want as many of both as possible

Bottom line is Intel wants as much of your money as possible while aka gives you plenty but sucks at single thread performance

 

[RCHeliguy]

CPU's haven't seen big jumps in performance in quiet some time. In the beginning it was leaps and bounds, but lately it's small improvements.

However that is getting ready to change. They've found a way through AI microcode to very effectively distribute computation over many cores and it scales very linearly. The company that patented this idea is likely about to become very wealthy. I can only assume that both Intel and AMD will need to license this tech going forward.

Taken together with new vertical stacking techniques and we should see some extreme performance improvements coming.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Looks like I get to rebuild my box on Thursday. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly and I don't have any dud parts! So far I've been pretty lucky.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Got started and really like the features of this motherboard.

Two stood out.
1. The back plate is integrated into the motherboard and not a pop in panel. Maybe common now, but new to me.
2. It has a little plug organizer that is a great idea. I had never seen this before either.
These little fiddly plugs are always a PITA, but with this little plug organizer, it's really easy.

 

[Durge Driven]

I only ever use POWER SW
Rest are pointless to me for decades, like oh the power in on, oh this light is blinking so one of my 6 SSD are doing something lol and how many times in a day do you restart your PC and if you did why wouldn't you just use windows

If you have a hard lock or freeze it is better to press power SW for 4 seconds and shut PC down and wait 5/10 seconds rather then restart straight away