Which of these two builds will most likely bottleneck?

[fogSource]

Hi, I'm building a new PC but can't decide what platform I want to use. It's for more than just gaming, so I have to make some compromises somewhere.

 

Based on the most demanding Skyrim mods out for Oldrim and SSE, which of these systems would bottleneck first with a large number of mods running?

 

And will having my GPU at x8 ever make a difference even with the most resource intensive Skyrim mods running?

 

Build 1: an Intel X299 build with a 7800X, 7820X, or 9800X CPU. (GPU at x16)

A lot of posts say these cpus are bad for gaming. Due to the Mesh instead of Ringbus, a smaller L3 cache, the cache being "non inclusive", ect... However on a lot of benchmarks they don't appear to be that far behind the Z390 CPUs for gaming. However, non of these benchmarks test modded games which is why I'm asking here.

 

 

Build 2: An intel Z390 build with the GPU at x8 instead of x16. 8700K CPU.

 

Everything else about these builds will be the same: single GPU, same amount of RAM. No plans to overclock until after warranties expire. I'll be using 2k or 4k monitor.

 

Thanks

Edited December 8, 2018 by fogSource

[Relstin]

First off: Why Z390 and not Z370? The Z390 chipsets were really made for the 8-core "9th Gen" CPU's.

 

Second: what other devices are you using that would warrant your GPU to run at x8?

 

Third: You say more than gaming, could you be more specific?

[fogSource]

First off: Why Z390 and not Z370? The Z390 chipsets were really made for the 8-core "9th Gen" CPU's.

 

Second: what other devices are you using that would warrant your GPU to run at x8?

 

Third: You say more than gaming, could you be more specific?

 

 

Z390 or Z370 whichever I find a better deal on.

 

 

We are plugging extra SSDs into the CPU lanes. My roommate works on ground data system telemetry from satellites. (Not as fancy as it sounds, hes still in school.) So he needs a bunch of drives to simulate the streaming of data to and from multiple points. He doesn't like chipset lanes as they have traffic on them from other devices. Also, CPU lanes are more reflective of the kind of hardware hes coding for.

 

We agreed to combine our money and do a nicer build than we could alone. It'll work because we have opposite schedules. When schools over in 4 years, we'll either sell it or split the parts and build our own new machines.

 

Both of these systems meet his needs fine. My question is about running skyrim with crazy mods.

 

 

All I need to know is, in theory, which system will bottleneck first running a heavily modded skyrim or similar?

 

LGA 2066 CPU 7800X with the GPU at x16 or LGA 1151 8700K with the GPU at x8?

 

Or is there really no way to tell?

[Relstin]

You'd probably be better off with the 8700K as it has a higher IPC than the 7800X. And most games (Modded Skyrim included) rely on IPC over core count. I don't know how much of a bottleneck is caused by cutting your GPU bandwidth in half, so I'm going to guess if said GPU (You never mentioned what it is) is powerful enough, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

Edited December 9, 2018 by GoliathUnit13074

[fogSource]

You'd probably be better off with the 8700K as it has a higher IPC than the 7800X. And most games (Modded Skyrim included) rely on IPC over core count. I don't know how much of a bottleneck is caused by cutting your GPU bandwidth in half, so I'm going to guess if said GPU (You never mentioned what it is) is powerful enough, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

 

The 7800X has the same core count as the 8700K. Does it still have a higher IPC?

Also the GPU is a GTX 1080.

[Relstin]

The 8700K is on a more recent CPU architecture than the 7800X. And the 8700K has higher base/turbo frequencies, making it a good CPU for gaming.

7800X - 3.5GHz Base/4.0GHz Boost

8700K - 3.7GHz Base/4.7GHz Boost <---- I've seen people on the internet OC the 8700K north of 5GHz often, making the IPC in it ridiculously fast. Though that usually involves some kind of water cooling and possibly an IHS delidding.

 

A GTX 1080 should be able to handle anything thrown at it @1440p resolution. I don't know about 4K because I think it's overrated for gaming. And according to here, there's not bandwidth bottleneck to worry about.

Edited December 9, 2018 by GoliathUnit13074

[fogSource]

The 8700K is on a more recent CPU architecture than the 7800X. And the 8700K has higher base/turbo frequencies, making it a good CPU for gaming.

7800X - 3.5GHz Base/4.0GHz Boost

8700K - 3.7GHz Base/4.7GHz Boost <---- I've seen people on the internet OC the 8700K north of 5GHz often, making the IPC in it ridiculously fast. Though that usually involves some kind of water cooling and possibly an IHS delidding.

 

A GTX 1080 should be able to handle anything thrown at it @1440p resolution. I don't know about 4K because I think it's overrated for gaming. And according to here, there's not bandwidth bottleneck to worry aboWE

We'll get the 8700K, that's a lot of headroom to OC later too. Thank you for the insight.

 

Ya I agree on 4k, Ill wait for better refresh and prices

[fogSource]

Just for fun, 9900K vs 9800X. Assuming they're clocked at the same boost clock.

 

Would the architecture on the 9800X offer any "computational advantage" over the 9900k for any types of mods that uses CPU? Textures, shadows, physics, scripts.. (not totally sure about this list)

[jones177]

For modding games like Skyrim/SE and Fallout 4 higher the IPC the better.

i7 8700k is a good start but a i7 8086k or i9 9900k are better. I use a i7 8086k overclocked to 5ghz on all cores on my 4k rig and a i7 8700k overclocked to 4.7ghz on all cores on my 3440 X 1440 rig.

 

For 4k I use a RTX 2080 ti to stay over 60fps most of the time with ENB on Skyrim and ENB/Reshade with Skyrim SE. With a single GTX 1080 ti high 50s was doable but the GPU was stressed most of that time and that caused CTDs in large battles. At 3440 X 1440 the GTX 1080 ti performed much better.

 

4k is overrated for gaming with the exception of heavily modded games like Skyrim/SE and Fallout 4.

Games like Assassin's Creed Origins and The Witcher 3 look about the same at 1440 or 4k but with Skyrim/SE & Fallout 4 modded it is night and day.

I even bought a 32" LG 1440 144hz G-sync monitor on Black Friday. I wanted to see and feel the 144hz G-sync experience. As expected most games look about the same as on my 32" LG 4k monitor. The games I play don't take advantage of high refresh rate or G-sync and my Skyrim games along with Fallout 4 looked terrible compared to the 4k experience. I am back to using the 4k monitor.

 

My main gaming computer is the 1440 widescreen setup. I can compare 4k to 1440 21:9 but not 1440 16:9.

I have Skyrim SE and Fallout 4 on it mainly for testing. Skyrim does not like WS so I leave it off.

 

What people tend to leave out of the equation on a build for playing modded games is i/o. None of my modded games will run on a standard hard drive. The only mechanical drive that can do it are 10,000 rpm drives that have burst read speeds close to SSD speeds. This is not for the speed the game loads in on startup but the speed the game loads content as you move in the game.

Fortunately 1tb SSDs can be had for around $140 and I think that is the minimum size for modded games.

 

As for bottlenecking on a modded Skyrim/SE you will go from CPU bottlenecking to GPU bottlenecking in a few steps of your character.

Your CPU lows will depend on the IPC of your CPU. To give you an idea a i7 2700k will drop into the 30s. A i7 6700k will drop into the 40s. A i7 8700k will drop into the 50s.

 

For resolution:

For 1080 a GTX 1060 6gb or better.

For 1440 a GTX 1070 or better.

For 1440 WS a GTX 1080 ti or better.

For 4k a RTX 2080 ti or better. I came to this conclusion because in Skyrim SE I get CTDs with a 1080 ti and no CTDs with the 2080 ti on the same game.

 

It comes down to this.

 

The more GPU you have the less CTDs you will get/the more mods you can add.

The more vram you have the less CTDs you will get/the more mods you can add.

The more CPU you have the less of an impact the unoptimized parts of the game and mods will be.

The faster the drive/SSD you have the less stutter & pauses you will get.

 

Later