Possible new build - Which Intel CPU & Chipset

[Rhand]

My current gaming rig, 6700k (4/8) @ 4000Mhz with an GTX 980, is starting to feel it's age and it's about time for a rebuild. I max out at 5 clients, I'm not as crazy as some of you 10, 20, and even 30 boxers :) In BFA on my current rig I'm hitting 90%+ on both my CPU and GPU pretty much full time, so it's time for both to go. I'm on the fence between the new i9-9900K on Z390 or the i9-9920X on X299, either way I'm likely going to a 1080Ti as I can't see the real benefit vs. $$$ for the 2080Ti.

My original thought was being able to dedicate 2 physical cores + 2 virtual cores per game instance, effectively giving each WoW client it's recommended dual core setup + some virtual core headroom. That lead me down the path of the i9-9920X, with 10 physical cores assigned to the game that leaves 2 physical + virtual left over for OS overhead, sounds simple, right?

However, after checking out MiRai's X99 vs. X299 vs. X399 video, he makes a pretty strong case for WoW really only taking advantage of a single primary thread/physical core.

So for those running >4 core Intel procs, is the 8/16 i9-9900K the better choice (economically and general performance) or is it really the i9-9920X which comes at a price premium at 2x more $$$ but provides a clean 2 full physical cores to each game client?

I'm also planning to with a 1Tb Samsung Evo 7 1Tb M.2 for OS/System and a 250Gb Evo 7 M.2 for a dedicated gaming drive. Anyone see any issue with that or run into any problems running an M.2 as the OS/System drive?

[MiRai]

My current gaming rig, 6700k (4/8) @ 4000Mhz with an GTX 980, is starting to feel it's age and it's about time for a rebuild. I max out at 5 clients, I'm not as crazy as some of you 10, 20, and even 30 boxers :) In BFA on my current rig I'm hitting 90%+ on both my CPU and GPU pretty much full time, so it's time for both to go. I'm on the fence between the new i9-9900K on Z390 or the i9-9920X on X299, either way I'm likely going to a 1080Ti as I can't see the real benefit vs. $$$ for the 2080Ti.

My original thought was being able to dedicate 2 physical cores + 2 virtual cores per game instance, effectively giving each WoW client it's recommended dual core setup + some virtual core headroom. That lead me down the path of the i9-9920X, with 10 physical cores assigned to the game that leaves 2 physical + virtual left over for OS overhead, sounds simple, right?
There's nothing wrong with either of those CPUs, but unless you just want to future proof, I think the 12C/24T may be a bit pricey. It depends on what else you do with your machine. Do you stream? Do video editing? Use Virtual Machines? Personally, I don't think 5-boxing eats up too much CPU, even if you were to increase your resolution, however...


However, after checking out MiRai's X99 vs. X299 vs. X399 video, he makes a pretty strong case for WoW really only taking advantage of a single primary thread/physical core.
It's not that WoW only uses a single thread, it's that a lot of what it does has to be put onto a single thread because it cannot be done in parallelization across multiple threads at the same time. WoW itself does benefit from using 3-4 cores/threads, and you can see in my latest video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksHeux6JWcg) that, at any given time, my CPU usage is nice and low (although it'd likely be higher in a zone like Zuldazar, or, going back to the video you're referring to, Suramar). I currently use a custom CPU strategy where each game client is assigned to ~6 threads and they all overlap with each other somewhere within the overall core/thread assignment, with no perceivable penalty.

You have to think that if a background game client is only using 10% of a thread and it's the only game client dedicated to that thread, then 90% of it is being wasted. You could, instead, have three background game clients sharing that same thread, using 10% each, and still only be eating up 30% of that thread.

However, you can also look ahead to the DX12 multi-threading enhancements that are coming in patch 8.1. I haven't bothered to check out the PTR, but I'm assuming that, if enabled, they're going to eat through a bit more CPU to save (or assist) in the area of the GPU. But who knows... the multi-threaded enhancements may cause nothing but trouble when running multiple game clients, so, at the moment, it's hard to know.

Ultimately, you can choose to go the route you've laid out above with the 9920X (while it's a bit pricey, it's a nice platform), but it may not be necessary to do that. I think the 9900K is a nice CPU, and it gets a little nicer if you're willing to overclock it by a little bit. I know that not everyone wants to attempt that, so having more cores available may just be the simpler route.

And to be fair, if I had a 9960X 16C/32T chip, I would probably just assign each game client to their own six threads and just be done with it. So, if you want to go with the 9920X, I certainly can't blame you. ;)


I'm also planning to with a 1Tb Samsung Evo 7 1Tb M.2 for OS/System and a 250Gb Evo 7 M.2 for a dedicated gaming drive. Anyone see any issue with that or run into any problems running an M.2 as the OS/System drive?
A whole terabyte is a lot for a system drive, and unless you expect to be loading it up with pictures or videos, I think it's going to be quite empty (or you can over provision the shit out of it). However, it's only ~$80 more to move from 512GB to 1TB, so... go for it. https://www.dual-boxing.com/images/icons/icon14.png

[Rhand]

There's nothing wrong with either of those CPUs, but unless you just want to future proof, I think the 12C/24T may be a bit pricey. It depends on what else you do with your machine. Do you stream? Do video editing? Use Virtual Machines? Personally, I don't think 5-boxing eats up too much CPU, even if you were to increase your resolution, however...
It's a general purpose mix of mostly gaming, a little work when I need the screen space of dual 27" monitors over the laptop, and whatever else I'm dabbling with at the time. None of these really call for this level of hardware but I like to only have to rebuild every few years, so a bit of future proofing headroom is worth the investment.


Ultimately, you can choose to go the route you've laid out above with the 9920X (while it's a bit pricey, it's a nice platform), but it may not be necessary to do that. I think the 9900K is a nice CPU, and it gets a little nicer if you're willing to overclock it by a little bit. I know that not everyone wants to attempt that, so having more cores available may just be the simpler route.
I'm perfectly comfortable with overclocking and I used to run the 6700K at 4.4K until I hit a really weird memory issue that took a while to diagnose the faulty Corsair stick. I just haven't gotten around to putting the OC back in yet. I don't have heat issues even at a modest OC, usually staying around 40c-45c under 5-boxing load and rarely over, so unless the new CPU runs a LOT hotter then OC'ing it isn't an issue. That being said, the 9900K seems to have a higher overall clock and turbo than the 9920X but I have a feeling that the 9920X with even a modest OC is going to out pace the 9900K pretty easy, or at least it better for the $$$ :D


A whole terabyte is a lot for a system drive, and unless you expect to be loading it up with pictures or videos, I think it's going to be quite empty (or you can over provision the shit out of it). However, it's only ~$80 more to move from 512GB to 1TB, so... go for it. https://www.dual-boxing.com/images/icons/icon14.png
Again, back to the overall general use of the machine, sometimes I dump a bunch of data on it now and again and it's just easier to have the headroom to not have to push it over the wire to the home NAS, even at gig ethernet speed it's a LOT slower than internal storage. Plus it's what I run now, just on SSD drives instead of M.2 and I'm curious to see if the v3 x4 PCIE M.2's are really *that* fast :D

Thanks for the feedback and insight on how you run your CPU setup MiRai, that saves me another forum post once I build the new rig.

BTW are you getting that butter smooth 4K play on the single 1080Ti? In your videos the 2nd card never really seems to be working much if at all? Is the 2nd 1080Ti adding that much to your gaming performance? Given the previous posts on SLI and windowed mode games, the general rule has always been to avoid it.

[MiRai]

BTW are you getting that butter smooth 4K play on the single 1080Ti? In your videos the 2nd card never really seems to be working much if at all? Is the 2nd 1080Ti adding that much to your gaming performance? Given the previous posts on SLI and windowed mode games, the general rule has always been to avoid it.
I dropped SLI, when multiboxing, quite awhile ago after it became increasingly worse while playing in windowed mode. I really only ever used SLI in a few games anyway, WoW being one of them, and now that we've lost exclusive fullscreen mode in BFA, the second GPU generally sits around doing nothing.

[Rhand]

I dropped SLI, when multiboxing, quite awhile ago after it became increasingly worse while playing in windowed mode. I really only ever used SLI in a few games anyway, WoW being one of them, and now that we've lost exclusive fullscreen mode in BFA, the second GPU generally sits around doing nothing.
Perfect! Not the fact that SLI sucks for WoW but that I don't need to buy a 2nd 1080Ti :D Thanks as always for the info!