I see, thanks a lot for your answer ! But assuming I want to keep similar performance in most games, I'd need to overclock the i9-9900KF to a similar clockrate : wouldn't I then need a new cooler ? I'm pretty sure the VRMs on my mobo aren't the best either, so I'm unsure how I'd manage to reach 4.7-8 GHz safely. (if I were to change my motherboard I'd rather use that occasion to get something even more recent like a 10700KF or 5800X, but that's another topic)

I'm very surprised about 450W being enough for an oc'd 9900KF + 1070 but if you say so I guess I'm overestimating how much it puts out.

I definitely don't need more than 8/16 of course, I'm no professional.

5.0 single core boost, 4.7 all core seems good enough to me. The cooler is good enough that it shouldn't overheat on stock clocks (especially if you undervolt it a bit) and I doubt the VRMs will burst into flames at stock either. Wouldn't expect much of an OC, but it's faster than what you've currently got at stock speeds so I don't see that being an issue.
You don't have to go all out and get a 9900K(F) either, that's just the fastest (and most expensive) CPU you can get without replacing the mobo.

Depends on the 1070. Reference design/FE is 150W, aftermarket goes up to 250W in theory, but most are 180W, with peaks to 190-200W.
Yes, overclocked you can push the 9900K to 250W on a dedicated CPU stresstest like Prime95 and that's awfully tight with your PSU (though barely doable), but actual, real-world all core loads at stock? 120-150W, plenty of headroom there. Light OC like permanent 4.7 all core instead of only boost for x seconds is fine.

All this sounds a bit tight, but it might be worth it, thanks for the advice !

Now let's assume that in a different scenario I were to gift/sell mobo+CPU+cooler instead of just the chip (a few people asked me for either of those), what new "combo" should I then go for ? I could gift/sell the PSU as well if necessary, or gift/sell/keep a small secondary PC with all those 4 components + a few second-hand ones like I intended to in my first post.

Budget for the upgrade should be around the same, that is 600-700 euros max.

It's a 450W PSU and it isn't trash so you can actually draw 450W. There's no need for a 100W buffer. It's supposed to be within spec at 100% load and will be completely fine with spikes to 110% since spikes from the sustained load are expected. Non-oc with a FE 1070 you'd be at <350W under full load, "normal" aftermarket 1070 (~180W) + lightly oc'd 9900K would be around 400W for the whole system. Even with some spikes that's well within the PSU's capabilities.

You'd need RAM for the secondary PC or buy new one for your primary, obviously.
10700K would be within budget, but it would be very weird since the ridiculous prices for Z490 mobos mean a 9900KF (same speed) + a cheap quad core including mobo might actually be cheaper, let alone just a cheap-ish used mobo for the 8350K.
5800X is expensive enough that I don't think a cooler and mobo good enough for a decent overclock would leave enough for an SSD without maxing out the budget completely.
5600X would be a tradeoff, slightly slower in multithreaded than a 9900K, but faster singlethreaded, though obviously more expensive since you need a new mobo and cooler.
3700X would be definitely weird, if you can even find one for a reasonable price. Multithreaded about the same as the 5600X, maybe slightly better, but at best the same singlethreaded as the 8350K you already got.

Alright thanks for the input, so I would say we have 2 scenarios then, depending on whether I sell or gift the CPU+mobo+cooler combo or not :

• if I don't, I should probably go for the 9900KF, keep the PSU, mobo and cooler, aim for a 4.7 GHz oc (will the cooler suffice for that too ? Else I can keep it for the 8350K and buy a beefier one) or keep it stock and rely on boosts, and then figure out a potential 8GB RAM + cheap used mobo for the 8350K, plus (used) case/GPU/PSU/small SSD for cheap, and get an NVMe M.2 500GB SSD for the main PC ; how much would that possibly amount to ? do you have any mobos, coolers and NVMe's to recommend (if you have time for this of course) ?
  
• if I do, then I would probably say, based on the information you gave me, that either the 10700K or the 5600X are the best options and that they're fairly equivalent? In which case I would only need a mobo and a cooler for either of those, along with an NVMe M.2 SSD (and maybe a PSU I suppose unless it's a similar power draw to the 9900KF ?), but nothing else because of no secondary PC. Would you have any recommendations in that case too ?

Thanks again for all the advice !

Like I said 4.7 is the stock boost clock so your current cooler should be able to handle that, probably slightly more.
There's always delidding...

The MSI Z370 A-PRO is as bad as it gets for Z370, so any Z370/Z390 you can get will be at least as good. It might even be worth to use the "new" used mobo for the 9900KF instead. Yes, if you can find an Intel fanboy who is upgrading to a 10900K and selling a 9900K(F) that wasn't overclocked insanely high + mobo it might be an even better deal.
Remember that a 9900K(F) is simply the best you can get that would fit your mobo, but a 9700K or 9600K would still be an upgrade by 100/50% in multithreaded.
For SSDs https://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds or other guides.
You should be able to find entry level 500GB NVMe SSDs around 50-60€ and mainstream starting at around 65€.
For the 8350K any 120mm or more single tower cooler should be more than enough.

10700K vs 5600X is a slight tradeoff on multithreaded vs singlethreaded. There's only so much 6 cores can do if that program doesn't show vastly better SMT scaling on AMD.
Z490 mobos are slightly more expensive and don't have PCIe 4.0 though.
10700K is basically a 9900K, very similar power draw, 5600X would be less.

EDIT: Just so we're clear: I didn't forget about mobo recommendations, I just didn't feel like doing a whole bunch of them for different levels of overclocks, depending on how much are willing or able to afford depending on how much you're spending on the SSD and RAM and other stuff for the second pc and doing it twice for both 10700K and 5600X.
You're smart and motivated enough to make a decision on those on your own, which will give me a much clearer budget and narrower restrictions to work with, drastically reducing the time and effort needed.
tl;dr
me lazy

Thanks a lot for the advice, no worries for the being lazy part I can perfectly understand !

I'll wait until I'm sure whether I'm selling/giving the CPU+mobo+cooler combo or not and what CPU I'd like to get depending on that first condition as you suggested, and then ask again for further advice on mobos, coolers, PSUs and SSDs.

Hello again, I'm now pretty sure that I will end up gifting my CPU, mobo and cooler to my brother, or giving them to him for a very small, symbolic amount if he insists on it, so that this should mean no gain in budget for the main upgrade overall, but also mean that I don't really intend to build a secondary PC anymore, at least in the near future. So we could actually consider going over 600-700 euros a little bit if worth it.

Also, I would like to mention that I am currently in Germany, and returning to France on the last weekend of February, which leads me to think that I should probably buy my new CPU, mobo, SSD and cooler here in Germany and bring them back with me on my way home, seeing as prices in France are much higher (more than 20% more for the 10700KF for instance). That would mean that I'd end up buying everything in 3 or 4 weeks. I've mostly been looking at Alternate for prices but feel free to recommend any other retailers that are worth checking out.

For the SSD, I've been looking at the Mushkin Pilot-E 500 GB, as suggested by the guide you linked to me, which is at 65 euros on Alternate.

For the CPU, well it's not that easy to choose. I think I'd lean towards the 10700K rather than the 5600X simply because of 8-core performance in editing, but at the same time since I'm no professional and don't intend to be one, would it really be worth it in terms of trade-off for the single-core performance in games ? Is 8 cores more "future-proof" (if that even means anything with how CPUs evolve) if my main use remains games and editing for the coming years ?

I would go a bit over budget and buy the 5800X with my eyes closed considering it pretty much solves the single/multithreaded tradeoff problem, if only the huge price premium (+150 euros on Alternate compared to the 10700K) didn't seem so undeserved. Is there any chance of it becoming more reasonable in Germany by the end of February ? Or even reasonable in France in March or so ? Is it worth waiting ?

I was going to start talking about overclocking, mobos and coolers initially, but I suppose we should settle firmly for a CPU before doing so. At least the part about reusing components or not is sorted out.

Alternate isn't that cheap. When in doubt check https://geizhals.de/

5800X is never going to be that close in price to a 10700K(F), 449$ vs 374/349$ list price just doesn't allow it.

Remember that editing isn't that multithreaded. Rendering is though most of that sees better SMT scaling on Zen on top of the better single threaded performance so it's more like 10-20% between the 10700K and 5600X, depending on the program, instead of the 33% that 8 vs 6 cores would suggest.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-5600x/7.html
In editing the 10700K just straight up loses.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-5600x/11.html

Future proofing is a fool's errand and in this specific case you'd be trading better performance today for the hope that a 10700K will fare less badly when it is outdated.
Neither editing nor games will suddenly become purely, nicely multithreaded workloads in the next couple of years (if we could do that we would've done it 20 years ago) and even if rendering shows you what the advantage would look like: 10-20%. Not something that will save your wallet when looking at that shiny new 16 core CPU in 5 years that's probably 150% faster or thereabouts thinking "damn, I wish my CPU were faster".

Just what I thought about future proofing, it's not a valid criterion for choosing a CPU. Thanks for the confirmation.
Assuming my use case doesn't change much in the coming 3-4 years or so and I end up having a much different type of use after that, which could be true regarding real life objectives, I would probably not care about how my CPU performs in 5 years since I'd either not need it anymore or just get a new one.

I've made my calculation in terms of budget and assuming it's not worth it to overclock the 5800X, like most guides seem to suggest (especially if I do 80% gaming and 20% editing), upon checking prices on geizhals, it seems like I could have around 450 for the CPU and 65 for the SSD, and then based on the no overclock probably settle for a cooler like the Noctua DH-15 or Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 (if I want to keep things at around 70°C max). If I say I'm getting an entry-level B550 mobo then I'd be at around 700 euros in total. So that would make the 5800X affordable somehow. Or am I wrong in terms of motherboards ? Should I go for a better one, especially if my PSU is tight (450W where calculators seem to recommend 500W at least for 5800X + 1070) ? Am I wasting money on a 5% performance increase compared to the 10700K or 5600X with a 25-30% price gap ?

That last calculation would make it seem unreasonable to go for the 5800X, but I'm wondering if thermals, power consumption, motherboard prices, possible PSU issues and/or necessary upgrade and socket features make the gap much more reasonable somehow, especially in comparison to the 10700K ?

That being said, a similar no-overclock setup for the 10700KF would mean around 100 euros less total. But at the same time many of the stuff cited above seems to narrow the gap quite a bit. And it seems like overclocking the 10700KF is actually worth it, so I probably would be underestimating the costs for getting the most out of that CPU somehow ?

I'm having a very hard time figuring out which CPU would be the best choice, sorry if I'm unclear.

Most of that doesn't make any sense.
For gaming you're more interested in single/per core performance so an overclocked 5600X is better than a 5800X at stock.
Either buy a high end air cooler or don't overclock. Both don't make sense. Why would you spend that much on a cooler if you don't overclock?
Entry level boards are almost always a mistake. Don't cheap out on the mobo.
PSU should be fine, depending which the 1070 it is, but most don't consume enough to make it a problem.

What do you want the 5800X for? I just told you that more cores don't really help in editing and don't really help in games, at least nowhere near what it costs more. Most of the performance increase in both is due to the clockrate.

For a no overclock setup you'd want a 10700. Don't buy an unlocked (overclockable) CPU for not overclocking.

Yeah I realize most of what I said is incoherent, and no matter how I try to think about it, the 5800X is probably not worth it. So it's really either 5600X or 10700K.

We have around 10-20% better performance for the 10700K in rendering as you said, and slightly better performance from the 5600X in games and editing. Does that remain true when you go up on overclocks for both ? And do the thermals and power consumption discrepancies remain at a similar ratio when the overclock makes both of them go up too ?

If I really think about it, my time in video work is mostly going to be editing for like 90% of the time, and 10% rendering anyway, since the type of videos I do require quite a bit of time in editing. So maybe the gap in rendering doesn't matter that much, and I'm trying to shift to better GPU use in rendering with Voukoder and other plugins as of recently anyway.

My 1070 is the EVGA SC Gaming Black Edition, I haven't overclocked it myself but I believe it is by default like most aftermarket graphic cards ? My PSU is fine for stock clocks I suppose yes but how far will I be able to go in overclocking with it ? Is 5.1 GHz on the i7 or 4.7 GHz on the Ryzen 5 (which I believe is the typical max OC target ?) manageable with a good motherboard and that PSU ? (if the cheaper and equally good move is a better PSU and a cheaper motherboard then I'm down obviously but I doubt it based on what you said with the mobos)

It'll probably move in favour of the 5600X.

The GPU should be around 180W TDP then.
Now do the math. It's just PBO but at worst the OC would add another 50W to the 5600X.

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/SbtaxozLH6TV4fvofLDHQm-1920-80.png

A 5800X might still be doable, a 5600X is easy (probably around 100W left even with everything else added in), a 10700K at 5.1 is very tight, I would not recommend it. Yes, it would work most of the time since you'd rarely have 100% load on both CPU and GPU at the same time, but nominally you'd be one bad spike (remember, that's 214W average, not peak) away from the PSU triggering an overcurrent shutdown.

Alright, thanks for the useful graph and info !

How big is the gap in performance between the 5600X @4.7 GHz and i7-10700K @5.1 GHz ? I believe we've mostly talked about the gap at stock, that's why I'm asking, and I've mostly only found benchmarks at stock too. Would it justify paying for a new PSU ? (assuming similar prices for mobo+cooler no matter what CPU I choose)

The only thing that would bother me is choosing the W of the PSU I would get if I were to change in any case, since I could end up upgrading my 1070 in a few years, and would then be annoyed if I had to change the PSU again just because of average midrange (70-ish) GPUs' power usage values being really high at that point in time (not sure if there is a way to make a good assumption on how power consumption will evolve in the next few years in the GPU department).

Depends on who you're asking. If we stick with tomshardware then a 5600X at stock with the stock cooler (and pretty good RAM I think) beats a 10700K@5.1 in games at 1080p. Slightly "worse" at higher resolutions, but does it really matter at that point?

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/NgcARhwkfbyirrZScknbCb.png

Yes, you can throw a lot of money at a Z490 mobo, a high end cooler and a new PSU to maybe beat a 5600X with a B450/B550 mobo and stock cooler, but at that point you might as well get a 5800X (+B450/B550) for about the same amount of money. Yes, you might not get much of an overclock (though that's a given with Zen anyway), but it'll be faster all the same.

I did tell you that it's a tradeoff. The 5600X is faster single-threaded and the 10700(K) is faster multi-threaded, you will not get the 10700K to do both. If you want both you'll have to pay for a 5800X.
Not that you need it if you don't render that much.
If you did a ton of rendering a 10700 (non-K) would be a good choice because then you actually get more for less, looking purely at multi-threaded vs the 5600X, but that is not your use case.

Or let's summarize it: Why do you think street prices for the 10700K are lower than its list price and lower than street prices for the 5600X, which has a 75$ lower list price? Do you really think that would happen if an overclocked 10700K beat a 5600X in single and multi-threaded?

About the PSU: You've seen the power consumption. <100W for a 5600X with PBO. You could fit a 300W if you really wanted to. If there's ever a "midrange" 300W GPU I'd have some questions about the highend.

No, higher resolution definitely doesn't matter for me, at least not for a couple more years at least.

I guess with those last arguments I'm probably not going to go for the 10700K, especially if both 5600X (even overclocked) and 5800X can fit on the old PSU.

Now I realize maybe I could consider going a bit overkill since I don't buy components all that often at all, so given that the 5800X is not worth overclocking (and might be tight for the PSU if oc'd) from what I've read, I would see 3 buying scenarios if I keep that PSU then : one for a 5600X that I don't overclock (if I want to keep my money), one for a 5600X that I do overclock, and one for a 5800X that I don't overclock.

Would you have a mobo and cooler recommendation for each of these scenarios ? Or if that's a bit too much work, just an estimate of the combo price for each scenario ?

Not worth is a relative term, PBO is definitely worth trying at least.
The thing is the 5600X comes with a stock cooler (10700K and 5800X don't) and you can overclock on B450/B550, it's not locked like with Intel.

Those super expensive X570 boards rated for 200A or even 250A are great and all but you don't need that. A 5800X with half the cores physically can't draw much more than half the power without catching fire and a 5600X will obviously need even less. A 125A B450 mobo would do the job just fine, that means 80-90€, something like a MSI Mortar/Tomahawk. B550 would cost you 120-130€. It's nice, but you probably won't need most of the features. Now if you want X570 you better have a damn good reason for spending that much money.

Cooler depends mostly on how quiet you want it to be. Stock cooler would do for the 5600X, could get something nicer for 30€, midrange that would also be plenty for the 5800X for 50-60€ or if you thing it'll help with the OC (it won't) or want it really quiet you can look at the high end for 70-90€.

Beyond a certain point the mobo doesn't really do anything for the OC and it never does anything for performance directly, it's all about features and connectivity. I'd focus on getting Dual Rank RAM (or 4 SR DIMMs) instead of obsessing over overclocks because that'll matter far more.

Alright, I've given it a bit more thought and I'm pretty sure now that I'm going to buy the 5800X.

I've looked at the B450 options you listed, couldn't really find the Mortar consistently but the Tomahawk seems good. My only question is about the two versions I found in ATX, being Max (7C02-020R) and Max II (7C02-014R), is there a difference that justifies the slight price gap (~5-7 euros) ? I couldn't really notice one myself but I'm no expert.

For the cooler, since PBO might be interesting as you suggested, and since ideally the kind of temps I would want to keep are like a max of ~70-75°C at full load for a little bit of durability (if that's a stupid goal feel free to disagree), I've mostly been looking at the be quiet! Dark Rock 4 and Noctua DH-U14S, which I can find for 59 and 68 euros respectively. That is, two of the best single tower coolers, and midrange coolers on the global scale as you suggested. Do you have a recommendation between the two ? Or do I need a dual tower cooler like the Dark Rock Pro 4 or NH-D15 instead for that temperature goal ?

Also you mentioned "4 SR DIMMs" but I'm not entirely sure what that refers to precisely ? Is it not the classic 4-slot DDR4 DIMM that seems to be pretty standard and is to be found on the Tomahawk like on most motherboards ? Sorry about being completely ignorant on that part.

I am still pretty sure that you don't really need 8 cores, but it's your money.

I hope you thought about B450 vs B550.
Max II is a bit newer so slightly higher chance of the 5800X working out of the box, kind of irrelevant though since they can both be updated without a CPU installed, which is one of the reasons why I recommend them. Also HDMI 2.1, which you obviously can't use.

I haven't checked specific temperatures, might work, you can obviously just set the fans to 100%, not sure how much voltage PBO will try in that case though, but I doubt it would heat up too much.
No idea if you'd need dual tower for your specific goals. They might be worse for RAM compatibility and two fans are usually louder than one (especially at low loads they're not that much better that lower rpm could compensate for that). Noctua might have the nicer mounting system but it's always hard to justify the NH-U14S when a dual tower Dark Rock Pro 4 only costs ~7€ more.

Nah, this is about single vs dual rank RAM. Zen likes having two ranks per memory channel which means either 4 single rank DIMMs or two dual rank DIMMs.

Well upon looking for further info on coolers like RAM and PCIe clearance (because I'm considering adding two more sticks of DDR4-3200 someday maybe, and my two sticks are some G.Skill Ripjaws 5 CL16 with 42 mm clearance, so unless I'm wrong and don't need the exact same sticks I have to keep that in mind), case space or acoustics and thermals, I have stumbled upon many threads or articles about the 5800X running very hot even on the most high-end cooling, like 90°C in stress tests constant and >80°C in many basic scenarios (I don't really care about stress test temps obviously, since they're not necessarily realistic for my use case). However some people say it's nothing to worry about and something to be expected with this Gen of Ryzen and especially the 5800X, and argue that those temperatures are safe, while some others view these as worrying. Doubt on this matter would push me back towards the 5600X but I'm not sure what to think of this (and even the 5600X seems to not be so great in terms of temps). Do you have an opinion on those temperatures ? If the power draw remains in expected values and no shutdown is triggered because of the temperatures (it seems like pretty much nobody's reported such shutdowns indeed), do those temps even matter ? I've also read that they have to do with the architecture being unoptimized in terms of the surface being used to dissipate heat, and it having to do with the fact that the 5800X is some sort of nerfed 5950-5900X or something (which the TDPs being 105W for all 3 would confirm I guess ?). And that undervolting and improving airflow could make for good improvements like 5°C or so, along with a rumored BIOS improvement update since then to manage these too (since most threads are from November or so) ?

Otherwise I had thought about B450 vs B550 a little bit yes, but I'm not sure whether I need most features, especially Gen 4 PCIe since I've read that most SSDs that use Gen4 don't really show performance improvements that justify the price gap. Or that market is still a bit young idk. Am I wrong ?

Also on a completely different topic, how reliable is Mindfactory ? Cause they seem to have really good prices on many components (according to Geizhals) but I don't know much about german shops.

You are aware that most GPUs have "target temperatures" like 83°C? Are you going to stop buying those too?

So you want to buy a CPU with a boost mechanism designed to pour on voltage as long as the temperatures are safe, which AMD considers anything below 90°C, you want to overclock it, cool it with a single tower air cooler, and not have it reach 70°C under load.
Do you see how that might be a problem?

Accept the temperatures or disable PBO, maybe even boost, and don't even think about overclocking.

What do you mean, the architecture is unoptimized in terms of surface area? If AMD wanted a larger area they could just go back to 14nm, where Intel is stuck, and produce 8 core CPUs that need 200W instead of 100W. Are those easier to cool thanks to their larger surface area? Well, not really, because 200W.

What do you mean, "some sort of nerfed 5950-5900X"? How does having the same TDP imply them being similar CPUs? Why did you think CPUs with the same architecture would be completely different? What is the 5600X in your opinion, since it got a different TDP? What are the 5800 and 5900 (non-X) with their 65W TDP? A beefed up 5600X? Because those are all the same chips. 5600X and 5800(X) is one 8 core chip and the 5900(X) and 5950X are two chips. Yes, two chips are exactly twice as large as one.
Yes, to absolutely no one's surprise having twice the cores at half the power consumption each spread across twice the area (because, you know, the cores are the same size?) is easier to cool. You can get that by simply underclocking the 5800X massively and running it at 3.775 GHz when all cores are active, just like the 5950X would, instead of the 4.450 GHz the 5600X and 5800X usually run at with all cores active.
If you overclock the 5950X to get the same clockrate as the 5800X on all cores then suddenly, magically, the power consumption doubles and it is much harder to cool.

Why do you expect a BIOS update to lower temperatures?

Well for PCIe 4.0 to matter for SSDs you'd need an SSD that saturates the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 x4. So if you don't plan on getting an SSD capable of more than 4 GB/s the difference will probably be marginal. The USB 3.2 is more interesting. SLI support is kind of pointless since you'd need to first find an nVidia GPU that even supports SLI these days. x8 vs x4 would make a difference for Crossfire though, if you were planning on doing that.

Mindfactory is reliable.

Hi,

Currently getting frustrated with sub-100 frames while playing tf2 in certain maps, areas. (Mastercomfig Medium Low), and frame drops to 30 every minute or so while streaming. Also looking to future proof my build for current and future games.

Current:
i5 8400
GTX 1660 Super
MSI Z370-A Pro
16GB DDR4 2666MHz

Looking at upgrading CPU, RAM and Mobo:
Ryzen 5600X
MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK
16GB 3600MHz CL18

Any recommendations or changes? Will probably be upgrading GPU in the next couple years too.

edit: being told to consider an i5 9600k to avoid buying a new mobo, thoughts?

Future proofing has never really been a thing.

Yes, the list looks good. Could get CL16 RAM if you want or a B450 mobo if you don't care about USB 3.2, but that's it really.

Nothing wrong with that, but you've got a Z370 mobo so you can get a used Coffee Lake K CPU and a cooler and lightly overclock it a bit. It wouldn't be as fast as a 5600X but much, much cheaper. Even a new 9600K(F) costs less than half what a 5600X does, so it's worth considering. For TF2 even a 9350KF would do. An 8350K would work, but then you're really relying on the overclock because it's stock clockrate is barely higher than the 8400's boost. If you really think you'll need 8 cores or more in the future of for streaming you can look at a 9700K(F)

You should also at least try GPU encoding (NVENC), since your GPU does have really good hardware encoding, before deciding that you absolutely need 8+ cores.

Even if you keep the mobo new RAM is worth considering because TF2 likes fast RAM. I mean it's not going to make it faster than a 5600X but if it cuts the difference from let's say 10% to 5% for half the price difference between an OC'd 9600KF + cooler and a new 5600X + mobo it could make sense, even if it seems wasteful.

Thanks for the response! Only reason I've been looking at B550's is that they seem more ready for the Ryzen 5 Series, but I could just be talking out of my ass as I'm not anything close to an expert.

I've been using the NVENC encoding, and still experiencing frame spikes, although I've got two options for NVENC encoder and I've only tested the new one so far and can't find a lot online about the differences between the two NVENC encoders.

That does help though, and it'll give me some things to think about. Not looking to buy for another month or so. Cheers

edit: forgot to add, I have 500w power supply - something I am keeping in mind when selecting CPU

Yeah, B450s might need a BIOS update so to make sure you'd be limited to those that can be updated without a CPU installed.

Well if you're already using GPU encoding then you don't need more cores for "future proofing". There's no Zen3 quadcore available yet so obviously the 5600X is the cheapest you can get, but if you're not doing anything that needs/benefits from 6 cores the 9350KF is a viable alternative to the 9600K(F). I'd expect you to be more limited by your GPU than even your CPU in current games even as it is and definitely with a 9350KF. Between getting a 9600K(F) now and hoping it'll still be relevant when you replace the GPU and saving the money and getting a 9350KF, then upgrading everything including the CPU when the time comes I'd favour the latter.

1660S is a 125W GPU, if it's an actual 500W PSU, not chinese "300W but we put a 500W label on it because everyone buys PSUs with way more wattage than they need anyway" bait and switch, then you're not limited in terms of CPU choice at all.

Thank you, I do appreciate this all. Take care!

is your memory single or dual channel? single or dual rank? what timings? what brand and model even is it?
you can overclock and or reduce timings on your memory for free considering you have already got a z370 getting performance boost in tf2

do you play in 1440p or something, 8400 is more than capable to handle tf2 at 144fps even with generic oem 2666 ram at 1080p

is certain maps and or areas youre talking about are 32 man versus saxton hale? please be more specific, casual specifically never was and still isnt 240hz ready in this game

yes this is the cheapest conventional way of getting the most out of your motherboard, especially considering you can(and should) still be able to sell 8400 for a decent pocket change

9700k(f) while being more "futureproof" costing 50% more seems like a reasonable albeit more expensive option, but 8350k/9350k(f) are incredibly tough to reccomend to someone who already owns a 6 core, especially when the price difference between a 9600k(f) and the 4-core options(that do not even have hyperthreading mind you) is 20$ with almost identical power draw
i wouldnt ever consider dropping 80USD on a cooler for a 4 core chip

Setsul i hope you can see where im getting from, those 4 cores kind of dont even "todayproof" in a sense

could you kindly look up the exact model, Setsul has a point, this could be a chinese knock off brand

Nah, you're falling for a classic trap there.
First of all the 9350KF and 9600KF having almost the same TDP is so utterly meaningless I won't even bother to say more than that.

Secondly, a 9350KF would very much be "todayproof" if TF2 is all he'll use it for. It is a big if but like I said, there's a trap. Why do we recommend a 9600KF and not a 9900KF? Not just because it is a lot more expensive, but mostly because the extra cores/threads do nothing for TF2 so it's a tiny benefit in performance through clockrate for an exorbitant increase in price. And if he does nothing that benefits from more than 4 cores the exact same applies to the 9350KF vs 9600KF.
I mean why even bring up the TDP? When looking at a CPU that does everything you want it to do better than your current one, do you even care about the TDP as long as it's not outrageous? They've both got a higher TDP than the 8400.
The 9600KF doesn't have Hyperthreading either and I'm really not seeing any use case here where a 6c/6t or 4c/8t would be perfect while a 4c/4t would be unusable.
Also while in my opinion the shops thinking that the price difference between the 9600K(F) and 9350KF should be ~25$ (197-200$ vs 174$) instead of the 99$ Intel thinks it should be, is more of a point in favour of the 9350KF than against it, since that's about in line with my assessment of their relative value, it is also utterly irrelevant here.
He'll either buy a used one or a new one from a British shop, where the cheapest 9600K(F)s in stock go for 180£ and the cheapest 9350KF in stock for 140£.
I can see two extra cores you're never going to use for 11-15% more money being tempting, but for almost 30%?

idle tdp? yes; under load? anywhere close to 5ghz its going to be just shy of 200w and frankly i think people arent buying unlocked intel cpus to run it at turbo boost clocks

now i know he isnt going to play cinebench or blender, but in newer games 4 cores are potentially going to see 80%+ cpu usage and if that is the case have fun cooling 200w with a mediocre cooler

speaking of newer games

i dont think i misunderstood it, he intends to use the build for other games too

now regarding the price delta, i was not aware of a gap this large between the 2 cpus(at least not in the UK), if that is the case then my bad, but otherwise at literal 10% price difference the 6 core part is a no brainer

and while neither of the options have hyper threading, the performance gap between 4 and 6 pure cores in multithreaded games and applications isnt going to be mitigated by an overclock at least not within reasonable measures

if achieving 6 core like performance with a 4 core part requires you a 5ghz overclock, pushing VRM on this not exactly incredible in the power delivery department motherboard, and an AIO/dark rock pro 4 level cooler, why not just get the incrementally more expensive 9600k/9700k and have it run on turbo boost clocks with like an i dont know, 212 evo

even a 9900kf on its own is a cheaper and more reasonable upgrade than a 5600x(new motherboard, new ram and not just any ram) judging by the pcpartpicker UK prices, with a 9700k(f) and a decent cooler being just about the price of a 9900kf

if his ultimate goal is just tf2 exclusive performance than feel free to disregard any of this shit, but from my point of view: he is still going to pay money for a stepdown in cpu cores, a need in better cpu cooling solution and a necessity to upgrade his cpu again down the line if even 6 cores arent going to cut it down the line let alone 4

My question was solely meant to clarify whether or not I should be worried about such temperatures being reached. Obviously if those are the intended temperatures like on GPUs for which I am aware that there are such "target temperatures" indeed and AMD deem them perfectly normal and safe, I am willing to accept them. I had already heard about Ryzen chips running quite hot in general so I wasn't scared or anything, just asking to make sure doesn't hurt for a 450 euros CPU upgrade. I think I've said a couple times that I'm not really intending to overclock the 5800X anyway, PBO should be my go-to probably, with Noctua NH-U12S or be quiet! Dark Rock 4. Unless you think I should secure a double tower for PBO ? Again it's not so much about the temperatures per se, I'm not going to freak out if I see 80°C in Hardware Monitor, but I am if I get a shutdown. I also need to clarify whether Ryzen Master or BIOS is best to optimize boosts, voltage and the resulting temperatures. Do you know more about this ?

I must admit I completely fucked up on clarifying whatever I meant with that, not even sure now what it was, guess I mostly wanted to show that I'm not asking here stupidly before having done any personal research and taking your free time for granted. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm pretty sure I'm getting the Mushkin Pilot-E 500 which maxes out at 3,5 GB/s so I probably won't benefit from it in that department. No GPU upgrade is on my mind for the next 1 or 2 years, let alone two GPU upgrades so I don't think I'm interested in securing potential for Crossfire or SLI. As for the USB 3.2, I guess I would care for when I do backups, but since I only do them once every couple of weeks (maybe a bit more often if I've been working a lot), unless the gain in time is massive, I probably don't mind sticking with PCIe 3.0. Am I missing any potential impact from 3.2 outside of that ? I can't think of any in gaming at least.

Thanks !