Should I upgrade my 7700K CPU? Looking for gaming performance

I've had it since it came out, and it runs fine, but I was wondering if enough months have passed for me to upgrade my 7700K to a newer chip on the same pinout. I have some money from Christmas that I need to use on something, and I just dumped some money into retirement, sooo...

Nah 7700K is still really good. For gaming you'd be better looking at the video card, what do you have now?

Here is a comparison to current CPUs. Going to a 9700K gets you a bump barely over 10%.

IMAGE(https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2018/cpus/9700k/intel-i7-9700K-f1-2018-1080p.png)

To back up Leap a bit... nah.

I'm on a 6700k in my gaming system and still haven't found a compelling reason to upgrade.

I want to build a new system quite a bit but I can't make spending the money make even one shred of sense. There's just not enough tangible benefit.

I mean look at that chart, and then focus on the 1% and .1% lows and look at how minor and gradual the improvements are.

That's going to be a fairly normal result.

There will be some weird exceptions, but until one of those oddball games that just wants more CPU than you have makes it into your rotation... ride with what you have. It's solid.

Awesome, thanks guys. I'm still used to systems being obsolete after a year, but I guess things have slowed down a bit? I'll keep riding this for another year and check back in. Maybe I'll upgrade my ram from 16 GB to 32. Who knows.

Ram, yes. GPU, absolutely. CPU, nah.

On the CPU side things are glacially slow compared to a decade ago.

I don’t think you’ll notice much difference gaming going from 16 to 32GB of RAM either. Your money though!

LeapingGnome wrote:

I don’t think you’ll notice much difference gaming going from 16 to 32GB of RAM either. Your money though!

Ditto this. It just won't make any noticeable difference. And RAM pricing is still fairly bad right now.

If you really have the upgrade itch the GPU is going to be where your money is best spent for a while yet. Unless you're already on say a 1080Ti, in which case there's no meaningful reason to upgrade that yet either.

Thin_J wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

I don’t think you’ll notice much difference gaming going from 16 to 32GB of RAM either. Your money though!

Ditto this. It just won't make any noticeable difference. And RAM pricing is still fairly bad right now.

If you really have the upgrade itch the GPU is going to be where your money is best spent for a while yet. Unless you're already on say a 1080Ti, in which case there's no meaningful reason to upgrade that yet either.

Damn. I might just sit still then. I don't have a Ti, but I do have a FTW that I got about 2.5 years ago.

What resolution are you running everything at? Your best bet might be a monitor upgrade.

I'm running a Dell GSync monitor. 2560x1440.

Maybe my rig is completely fine and things really have slowed in the personal PC parts world.

Just wanted to chime in and say that you can get a 2TB SSD for $250.
It has made a huge difference! (especially if your don't already have an SSD or it is only big enough to install the OS on)
It is certainly going to make more of a difference that 16GB more RAM.

Vrikk wrote:

I'm running a Dell GSync monitor. 2560x1440.

Maybe my rig is completely fine and things really have slowed in the personal PC parts world.

Yeah man it sounds like you're set for a bit yet. Unless like fang says you just don't have an SSD for some reason?

But that's not going to change games much, except for specific instances where it helps loading times.

There are more than a few recent games with unbearable load times with the worst being reloading a save. (Battletech) Plus there are older games that are harder to get back in to (I don't know how we dealt back when the games launched - DoW 2 and Dragon Age I'm looking at you)
Even zippy games like Diablo 3 are noticeably better with an SSD. (and I blamed the net for most of that and I was way wrong)
If you have a 250GB or less or no SSD, I recommend springing for a 2TB. It is a true HD replacement rather than a bandwidth bandaid.

Or just do like me and buy a 500GB or a 1TB every time they go on some ridiculous sale, and just have five SSD's in your system**

**I do not actually recommend this it's just the silly situation I've found myself in

I have a Western Digital SSD. I think it's 256 GB? I doubt it's the fastest one out there since I bought it four years ago, but it gets the job done. Maybe I should upgrade that or is it really just playing in the margins at this point?

I have an external USB HD (also Western Digital) that stores all the files I really don't want on the SSD.

My SSD is pretty much just for the OS and Steam games.

Vrikk wrote:

Maybe I should upgrade that or is it really just playing in the margins at this point?

For what use it has for games it's 100% playing in the margins.

Sounds like you are genuinely in a good place all around hardware wise.

I subscribe to the Thin_j method. If it goes on ridiculous sale, grab it. Though personally I wouldn't buy lower than 1TB now that I already have a 2TB in my system. I had intended it to replace a 1TB spinning drive but got lazy said WTF and left it in.

Thin_J wrote:
Vrikk wrote:

Maybe I should upgrade that or is it really just playing in the margins at this point?

For what use it has for games it's 100% playing in the margins.

Sounds like you are genuinely in a good place all around hardware wise.

Thank you for this, and to everyone! I'll add some upgrades to my Amazon wishlist, and set up some alerts for when they go on steep discount, but beyond that... I ain't buying anything.

Yeah, SSD's are so much faster and cheaper than they were even a few years ago. I got a 1TB SSD on a Boxing Day sale for less than the cost of the 256 GB one I bought 4 years ago. If you have the upgrade urge but none of it's necessary, that would be my option.