Make your purchase immediately or consider waiting.
Make your purchase immediately or consider waiting.
You're considering whether to upgrade your CPU now or wait for better options. It's worth thinking about the current market and your needs—comet lake processors are expected soon, but Black Friday offers a chance to grab a 9900K at a good price. Since you'll also need a new motherboard, timing could be important. Weighing the benefits of early access against potential savings might help you decide.
The 9900k remains a substantial investment, but do you believe they’ll maintain their approach after a year? It seems likely they’d lower the price given AMD has clearly captured a large portion of the market. Dropping the price appears sensible rather than foolish.
Would it make sense to push through to 10nm or 7nm instead? It could take over a year. Perhaps switch to an i5 9600K and hold off until 7nm arrives? How much faster would things be at those smaller sizes compared to 14/10/7nm?
You reach a choice point about investing an additional $100. Should you go with a 9900k or a 9700k? The extra eight threads provide more performance boost. I’m leaning toward the 9700k since it offers good value. My main use will be gaming, but I need it to handle regular daily tasks smoothly.
Wait for Black Friday to cut costs significantly. Going beyond that period means endless waiting; there’s always something ahead. Intel doesn’t typically reduce prices when launching a new chip—they just clear existing inventory. The Ryzen 3600 offers better value compared to the 9600k.
Wait for BF. Earlier I got a Ryzen 5 1600 and X370 board for $149. The same setup worked for the 1700, but I was too slow. This year I hope to find similar offers on the Ryzen 2000 lineup. Expect a crazy discount with a 2700 or 4500 for $149.
The 9900k runs at 8/16 while the 9700k hits 8/8. For gaming, adding more threads might help a lot. Cpubenchmark shows the 9700k performs better overall, which adds some confusion.