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What are your thoughts on this processor? A good upgrade for gaming or not? From what I'm encountering at high fps the CPU becomes important. I currently have a 5ghz 7700k. I'm also unclear on the role of the CPU at say 4k where you won't be hitting 200 fps.

Is it worthwhile to try to push fps as high as possible beyond 240 on a 240hz monitor? What is the benefit?

If you have a favorite game or handful of games and applications I would pull up a process monitor and gpu monitor program and see how much each component is being used. How many cores on your cpu do you light up? What % of cpu usage do you hit? What percent of gpu usage do you hit? If gpu is high and cpu is low your cpu is already bottlenecked and don't upgrade. If your cpu is being used alot and limiting fps then there is a reason to upgrade.

Above 240 fps it can be nice to run vsync off on a 240hz monitor and you get lower input lag. And if you have a 240hz strobing monitor then its nice to have some headroom so that you never double a frame at 240hz. Doubled frames eliminate some of the benefits of strobing.

But yeah there are so many cases and factors that play into this question. That is why I say just see what your machine is using in the games and applications that you want to use. Upgrade if you need more cores and clockspeed for 500$. I don't know what the market for cpus will be like in a year or two but I assume it will continue the current trend of more cores and lower clock per dollar.

Depends on what you're upgrading from.

E.g. I have friends with not-delidded 6700K and 8700K and they want new CPU, I believe, mostly because it doesnt need delidding and they are lazy/nervous of trying to delid their current processors.

There are always benefits of having fps as high as possible, even if its beyond your refreshrate, but the higher is the refreshrate and fps, the more minor are profits.
At 4K resolution, tests and reviews show that almost all games are GPU-bound so the impact of strong CPU is minimal.

I also have 7700K (delidded) at 5ghz and dont plan to upgrade currently. At game I play (Overwatch) I'm already hitting like 300/210/150 avg/1%/0,1% fps with stream and discord running, which is high enough. 9900K wont give me much, also considering its (unreasonably) high price.
But if someone have some older CPU, it may worth.
Personally, I may get a delidded 8700K from one that are going to catch new cpus, I think it may be more valuable pick then 500 USD 9900K.

open wrote:I don't know what the market for cpus will be like in a year or two but I assume it will continue the current trend of more cores and lower clock per dollar.

In opposite, I think core count war shouldnt continue in mainstream gaming segment, at least form Intel's side. AMD may keep offering more cores for the same price tag as Intel, but it may be that 9900K will be a 2600K-like CPU made for years. It's soldered (again after a long time), it has fastest available cores at the market, high clockspeed, overclockability and will not be beaten by desktop Ryzen in any benchmarks anymore.

darzo wrote:What are your thoughts on this processor? A good upgrade for gaming or not? From what I'm encountering at high fps the CPU becomes important. I currently have a 5ghz 7700k. I'm also unclear on the role of the CPU at say 4k where you won't be hitting 200 fps.

Naturally, to reach higher FPS, the CPU needs to calculate physics, AI, game logic, pre-rendering work, etc, etc, as fast as possible. The faster it can do that, the faster it will be telling the GPU to render frames based on those calculations. So if you want the highest possible FPS you can possibly get, the fastest gaming CPU you can get makes sense.

Is it worthwhile to try to push fps as high as possible beyond 240 on a 240hz monitor? What is the benefit?

Bragging rights

k2viper wrote:At game I play (Overwatch) I'm already hitting like 300/210/150 avg/1%/0,1% fps with stream and discord running, which is high enough.

I keep seeing these fps splits and I don't get them. One thing I can tell you for sure is that you're not getting 300 fps average, which is the cap, if you're dipping that much. I currently have an overclocked 2080 ti with the 5ghz 7700k and 3600mhz RAM. At the lowest settings with 100% render scale I am not getting constant/average 300 fps. I experience dips that can go in the lower 200s. Lowering the render scale to 75% doesn't address the problem, nor does raising it. I bought a very nice full tower case with a triple fan liquid cpu cooler. CPUID HWMonitor still records highs in the upper 80s to 90 degrees Celcius but I highly doubt that is an average while gaming (very interesting program that doesn't record an average). It catches highs, what must be momentary spikes, over 70 doing basically nothing that my motherboard software does not reflect and that my fans don't seem to reflect either. In Overwatch CPU utilization can go over 80% but doesn't even hit 90.

darzo wrote: I keep seeing these fps splits and I don't get them. One thing I can tell you for sure is that you're not getting 300 fps average, which is the cap, if you're dipping that much. I currently have an overclocked 2080 ti with the 5ghz 7700k and 3600mhz RAM. At the lowest settings with 100% render scale I am not getting constant/average 300 fps. I experience dips that can go in the lower 200s. Lowering the render scale to 75% doesn't address the problem, nor does raising it. I bought a very nice full tower case with a triple fan liquid cpu cooler. CPUID HWMonitor still records highs in the upper 80s to 90 degrees Celcius but I highly doubt that is an average while gaming (very interesting program that doesn't record an average). It catches highs, what must be momentary spikes, over 70 doing basically nothing that my motherboard software does not reflect and that my fans don't seem to reflect either. In Overwatch CPU utilization can go over 80% but doesn't even hit 90.

Well, you got me wrong, numbers I posted are fraps measured AVG, 1% low and 0,1% low fps. Yes, sure, there are fps dips, but they are very short.
I even have video recorded with fraps and discord on my pc, which shows that high average, which is proved by fraps frametimes log, so I'm absolutely sure that my numbers are correct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te67Cgf11gw
https://ibb.co/gtMwWn

But my CPU speed is absolutely locked at 5000mhz, any kind of power saving is disabled. That's probably a reason that I'm getting stable average 300 and dips are short - the CPU is full time running at its full speed and dont ever go lower.
GPU is slightly oc-ed 1070 and ram is 3333mhz, so technically you have faster hardware and should get higher results then me. Disable C-states and enable windows power Maximum perfromance config. Locking at max cpu speed is a key to framerate stability.

I'm playing on 240hz monitor and dont feel any inconsistency in my framerate, even though my videos/streams' FPS counter shows dips in low 200s for a moments in heavy teamfights. These results will be even better without OBS recording/stream which generates additional cpu/system load.

Thats why I dont think 9900K is worth going up from an overclocked 7700K. But you need to optimize your hardware in order to get framerate stable.

The moot arguing aside, according to you that video is with a gtx 1070! Somehow your gpu temp is also under 45 degrees celsius, when I'm above 60 with a 1080 Strix and over 50 with a 2080 MSI Trio X. This leads me to believe everything in your computer is cooled to an extreme, a custom loop?

My power setting is high performance for my SSD. I've overclocked my CPU through my motherboard's software, not sure what I should be changing and what the consequences would be.

I have a custom watercooling loop, 360mm rad with CPU and GPU-only (not fullcover) waterblocks, its normal temps for this kind of cooling.

You need to disable Intel speedstep, Intel Speedshift, C1E and all C-states set to disabled, in order to run your CPU always at full speed. Power setting should be High performance not for SSD, but for the whole system, it's a power saving plan aside from default "Balanced" plan.

So this sort of performance could be explained by the temps, whether independently, in enabling what you do with the CPU, or both. I don't know where to change all those things or what their effects would be. The power thing is an easy change, let's see if that does anything.

One thing I've read about the 9900K is that it should cool better in not needing to be delided, in addition to higher performance at a very questionable price.