Discussing HP prebuilt upgrades
Discussing HP prebuilt upgrades
Your main constraint depends on whether HP's custom BIOS backs 9th Gen or not. Non-OEM boards (such as retail units from ASUS, Gigabyte, etc.) can run 9th Gen if you apply a BIOS update. Ultimately, the chipset doesn't matter if the board maker hasn't released an update for it. The gap between 9th and 8th Gen comes from Intel's design choices—8th Gen i7s have Hyper-Threading while 9th Gen i7s don't. The difference is significant; i7-8700K offers 6 cores with threads, whereas i7-9700K provides 8 cores without threads. You needed to move up to the i9 (e.g., i9-9900K) to regain Hyper-Threading support. After some criticism, many users felt the 14nm+ 9th Gen was a missed opportunity.
The 8700k is essentially the C PU with improved multi-core capabilities by a small margin. It supports hyperthreading across 6 cores and 12 threads. The 9700k offers no hyperthreading, providing 8 cores and 8 threads. In practical scenarios, performance remains largely consistent across workloads that utilize all available threads. The difference becomes negligible for lower core count tasks as well. Overall, the distinction is minimal.
Absolutely, I'll boost the RAM first before working on the CPU.