Hello guys. I'm planning to do an upgrade: right now I have an almost-4-years-old i7 4770K (never overclocked), an ASUS Z87-PRO mobo and 8GB of RAM DDR3. I will keep my videocard as it is an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X which I bought less than a year ago. I was thinking about an i7 7700K, 16GB RAM DDR4 and a fancy ASUS ROG Motherboard (Maximus Hero, most likely), but I've been keeping track of the upcoming i7 8700K (October 5th). I understand it is too soon and not possible to come to any conclusion yet, but just wanted some advice. I could do the upgrade this week but prefer to wait until the 8700K is released for two reasons: first, to see if the upgrade directly to it is worth it once its first users report their performance (as it will be obviously more expensive) and second, if it's not, to see if the 7700K's price drops a bit. I've read many positive reviews about this processor and its overclocking capabilities. I'm not concerned about the chipset because even if I go for the 8700K and Z370, by the time I do a further upgrade most likely another chipset will be already released (I plan to keep the computer for 3-4 years before upgrading). I use FSX-SE and will stay with it for a while, as moving to P3D implies to invest a good amount in re-purchasing addons.

 

Do you guys think this is wise? Thank you in advance! Also, this topic can be used once the 8th generation is released to report performance related to FSX / P3D.

8700k will be a slightly better than 7700k on single core performance, but you also get 2 extra cores that makes it much more future proof! I am also waiting for its release. It also has a good OC potential and, reportedly, easily reaches 4.8Ghz on Air.

With just a couple weeks to go, I do not see a point in buying the 7700k anymore, unless, of course, you cannot afford the 8700k. 

As of the last few years, it saddens me we seem to have hit a wall at the ~5.0Ghz overclock range.

5 hours ago, tgcbraun said:

With just a couple weeks to go, I do not see a point in buying the 7700k anymore, unless, of course, you cannot afford the 8700k. 

Even then one would wait for the price drop on the 7700K...

6 hours ago, tgcbraun said:

8700k will be a slightly better than 7700k on single core performance, but you also get 2 extra cores that makes it much more future proof! I am also waiting for its release. It also has a good OC potential and, reportedly, easily reaches 4.8Ghz on Air.

With just a couple weeks to go, I do not see a point in buying the 7700k anymore, unless, of course, you cannot afford the 8700k. 

That's a good point. It being hexa-core adds performance improvements over the paper and future games could take advantage of it. Also they'd be useful for external applications parallel to the sim. Regarding overclocking, later on I plan to get a decent water cooler, maybe a Corsair H115i or H105 at least.

2 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

As of the last few years, it saddens me we seem to have hit a wall at the ~5.0Ghz overclock range.

Ironic, isn't it? By this time we should be miles ahead.

58 minutes ago, carlito777 said:

Even then one would wait for the price drop on the 7700K...

I'll wait for reports and see. As long as the difference between both sets of hardware doesn't exceed ~200-250 USD, I'd go for 8th gen. Otherwise, 7th.

An early comparison of the 7700K and 8700K: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-i7-8700k-cpu-review-leaks-onto-the-web.html 

The new CPU is definitely worth waiting for, and will offer strong value.  Only thing is, Jhon, is it may compel you to move to 64 bit P3D sooner than you think!

Greg

28 minutes ago, lownslo said:

An early comparison of the 7700K and 8700K: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-i7-8700k-cpu-review-leaks-onto-the-web.html 

The new CPU is definitely worth waiting for, and will offer strong value.  Only thing is, Jhon, is it may compel you to move to 64 bit P3D sooner than you think!

Greg

Interesting report. Virtually no improvement in single threaded performance. If the 7700k proves to be only a marginally better over clocker, it'll probably be a better performer for the current breed of sims. Hmmm... So, do you buy into the increase due to added cores and hope the sim apps catch up or save some $ and let the sims deliver better multi core use first, then invest? I think waiting for the 8700k release and pick up the 7700k at a discount will prove the smart move. (Assuming of course that sim performance is your prevailing priority.)

Edit to add: And this is not just an attempt to rationalize my recent 7700k purchase! 

24 minutes ago, lownslo said:

An early comparison of the 7700K and 8700K: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-i7-8700k-cpu-review-leaks-onto-the-web.html 

The new CPU is definitely worth waiting for, and will offer strong value.  Only thing is, Jhon, is it may compel you to move to 64 bit P3D sooner than you think!

Greg

Haha, if that's the case then let it be! Only pain would be that I'd need to re-purchase addons such as PMDG planes (which I fly 98% of the time), but that's an investment I will do eventually.

Bad thing about hardware is that as I live in Colombia, everything is more expensive than official pricing due to taxes / importing. I'd have to add around $100 on top of the official retail prices.

16 hours ago, JohnsonPBX said:

Hello guys. I'm planning to do an upgrade: right now I have an almost-4-years-old i7 4770K (never overclocked), an ASUS Z87-PRO mobo and 8GB of RAM DDR3. I will keep my videocard as it is an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X which I bought less than a year ago. I was thinking about an i7 7700K, 16GB RAM DDR4 and a fancy ASUS ROG Motherboard (Maximus Hero, most likely), but I've been keeping track of the upcoming i7 8700K (October 5th). I understand it is too soon and not possible to come to any conclusion yet, but just wanted some advice. I could do the upgrade this week but prefer to wait until the 8700K is released for two reasons: first, to see if the upgrade directly to it is worth it once its first users report their performance (as it will be obviously more expensive) and second, if it's not, to see if the 7700K's price drops a bit. I've read many positive reviews about this processor and its overclocking capabilities. I'm not concerned about the chipset because even if I go for the 8700K and Z370, by the time I do a further upgrade most likely another chipset will be already released (I plan to keep the computer for 3-4 years before upgrading). I use FSX-SE and will stay with it for a while, as moving to P3D implies to invest a good amount in re-purchasing addons.

 

Do you guys think this is wise? Thank you in advance! Also, this topic can be used once the 8th generation is released to report performance related to FSX / P3D.

I am very close to your situation (cpu is a bit oder but o/c) and having the same thoughts. First, my idea was to go for i7-7820/2066 but now i tend to wait for the 8700K.

11 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

As of the last few years, it saddens me we seem to have hit a wall at the ~5.0Ghz overclock range.

I too am surprised that we seem to have hit a wall on cpu speeds.  My cpu clocks in at 3.6 GHZ which is plenty for the way I have P3d and XP11 configured, but I was surprised when I went computer shopping that out of the box cpu's did not go much beyond 4GHZ, about the top end from several years ago.  They do run cooler now, with less energy required, but the speed is about it.  However my 3.6 GHZ benchmarks about 2.5 times as fast as my old 2.33 GHZ machine, so somewhere in the architecture improvements have been made.  Probably because my sims are true 64-bit apps now.

John

I think the 8700K will be OK, high over-clock capability, 2 more cores, more cache, it supports faster memory, Open GL 4.5. Let see the first tests and benchmarks with it. 

And it will consume less power than the x299 processors.

Single core performance will be very close to kaby lake as no real IPC change; these chips are supposed to have some heat issues, even kaby does at 4.8+, so I am not sure many will oc that high as they will run hot.  P3D is still very CPU single-core dependent, so kaby at 5ghz maybe smart as that is the way the sim is coded; the coffee lake has one core turbo at 4.7 and down from there to all on 4.3 ghz; I suspect most will top out due to heat issues on all cores before delid at 4.7-4.8 due to the two extra cores.  All core turbo on kaby is 4.5, most go 4.9-5.0 before heat etc; similar range between the two.  Think they will be very close to each other in p3d, but the 6 core will load the sim faster :)

1 hour ago, simon747 said:

Single core performance will be very close to kaby lake as no real IPC change; these chips are supposed to have some heat issues, even kaby does at 4.8+, so I am not sure many will oc that high as they will run hot.  P3D is still very CPU single-core dependent, so kaby at 5ghz maybe smart as that is the way the sim is coded; the coffee lake has one core turbo at 4.7 and down from there to all on 4.3 ghz; I suspect most will top out due to heat issues on all cores before delid at 4.7-4.8 due to the two extra cores.  All core turbo on kaby is 4.5, most go 4.9-5.0 before heat etc;

I still haven't quite understood this part. I have read that on Coffee Lake the single-core turbo goes up to 4.7 GHz and all-core goes up to 4.3 GHz. What does that mean? Does it mean that ONE of the physical cores (core 0 I guess?) can be pushed to 4.7 GHz while the others together top at 4.3, or does it mean that the 4.7 GHz could be reached only of all remaining 5 cores were disabled? (Which in practice wouldn't be possible or smart at all, would it?) I really am unaware if each core can have a different clock speed at a determined time or if they are always linked together.

On 9/27/2017 at 7:32 AM, VeryBumpy said:

As of the last few years, it saddens me we seem to have hit a wall at the ~5.0Ghz overclock range.

Sure but they've moved ahead exponentially in other areas, biggest one being multi-core/multi-thread.  The race for higher clock speeds was over 10yrs ago.

What's sad are most developers are still living in the past by coding single threaded apps/games.  That's where the innovation should be coming from now.

Think about it... that's utilizing only 10% of the total horsepower of a 7900x.   That's a lot of untapped power.

On 27/09/2017 at 11:41 AM, JohnsonPBX said:

Haha, if that's the case then let it be! Only pain would be that I'd need to re-purchase addons such as PMDG planes (which I fly 98% of the time), but that's an investment I will do eventually.

Bad thing about hardware is that as I live in Colombia, everything is more expensive than official pricing due to taxes / importing. I'd have to add around $100 on top of the official retail prices.

You're good! In Brazil you would have to double the budget in order to pay the several taxes involved. :-)