Kinda regret my choice of CPU, i9 10900kf

[363rdChemicalCompany]

So 9 weeks ago had my computer rebuilt by a friendly local guy

The only thing I kept was my harddrives (2 SSDs one HDD)

Components were based on external advice as I am a noob at these things.

 

But now I wonder as i research more and more and agree with most of the recommendations he made but not all of them,

 

Key specs:

 

-I wanted a lot of RAM so we got 64GB of DDR4 RAM ( was it a mistake not to go with DDR5?)

- Total of 6 T harddrive spaces carry over from my old set up

- Replaced my i7 9700 with a i9 10900 KF. This is my greatest concern. I thought the i7 to i9 would be a huge jump. But now I learn the other number is just as important if not more so.

I could have easily afforded a i913900 to begin with, but I guess that was not properly communicated.

- I wanted robust cooling and I got it 360mm liquid cooling kit.

- new 850w power unit

- The Motherboard is also well reviewed ( I dont have the name handy a am on work travel typing on a work computer)

- GPU is a Nvidia 4070. And even though some reviewers feels its too much $$ for what it is, I actually totally agree with this choice even after more research. I had originally leaned to a 3080 card.

But the 4070 on his advice we got and after reading dozens review it appear to perform identically ( plus minus depending on game) to a 3080 which uses nearly double the power ( and would have cost 100 bucks more but i don't care a lot about an extra 100 here or there, to me the cards are basically same price).

-New case with lots of fans.

 

This set up runs my games MUCH better than what I had before...

 

I guess for the money the i9 10900 was a good multicore chip (?), paid 328 USD in May 2023.

but thing is, I am not hurting for money and knew nothing about CPUs so I immediately ordered what he recommend so we could put the unit together before a long weekend I was getting.

So I could play that weekend (Fallout 4 with 250+ mods enabled)

 

Once i figured out i could have had a much better chip for only 300 bucks more I desperately tried to get a hold of my dude before the 30 day return window for the parts, but he could not be bothered (he is not a business) so thats passed now.

 

So now I have a brand new CPU and a motherboard and to now switch to a i9 13900 I would need to replace both since the new LGA1200 Motherboard does not support a i9 13900.

So I'd spend 600 bucks on the new chip plus maybe 200 (?) on a quality MB for how much practical benefit?

So instead of spending an extra 300 bucks on getting the better chip when we had done it form the beginning, I would be spending nearly 800 bucks now to replace it and the MB.

 

 

Between my mods and that the game is poorly optimized despite a set up that is light years above what was recommended for FO4 I do get some occasional stutter and want to fix that with a brute force approach

(I already did some of the easier other "tricks" like the FPS physics patch and others)

 

My current rig can do what I need it to do (run heavily modded fallout 4 and starfield ) but i feel a better CPU might reduce stutter.

but later I will for sure want to mod starfield too and my CPU is fine to run SF stock but will it be fine to run SF with lots of mods on high settings?

Probably not.

 

I originally overclocked it a bit with the XTU automatic overclock feature but I also have read some input that says that will make the game less stable so I turned that off.

So I am not making use of the overclocking option of that chip right now.

 

So I guess what I want to hear is this:

a) is the i9 10900KF still a competitive chip in 2023?

b) I suspect it bottlenecks my 4070 card, should I just bite the bullet and spend money to replace some near new components that are not giving me any trouble right now?

c) Should I overclock and will this get me within a stones throw of 12th or even 13th gen performance? (I read my 10900 is actually faster than the 11900 , which fits this MBbased on some reviews but other say it IS faster ....)

And if not would it matter?

d) because Id have to replace and basically throw away a near new i9 10900 and a good MB going from a i9 10900 to a i9 13900 would not cost me an extra 300 as if we had done this form the beginning but an extra 800 since i buy the new chip plus a quality MB, plus id pay a buddy to put them in for me ( yes I am a noob and I do not trust myself to do any of this work)

 

So is $800 worth going from i9 10900 kf to i9 13900?

I am not hurting for money, but I also hate to waste money, Would it be a waste?

 

Just looking for a nuanced comments other than "you should research your town stuff from the beginning" :smile:

[HeyYou]

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

thanks!

I seems some PCs FS that were i9 13900 and had DDR4 RAM.

I think for gaming i saw some comparisons of over 100% faster.

 

Or I could wait for the i9 14900 to come out..

[HeyYou]

 

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

thanks!

I seems some PCs FS that were i9 13900 and had DDR4 RAM.

I think for gaming i saw some comparisons of over 100% faster.

 

Or I could wait for the i9 14900 to come out..

 

Or the 15900.... :D There is always something better coming down the pipe. :D

[363rdChemicalCompany]

 

 

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

thanks!

I seems some PCs FS that were i9 13900 and had DDR4 RAM.

I think for gaming i saw some comparisons of over 100% faster.

 

Or I could wait for the i9 14900 to come out..

 

Or the 15900.... :D There is always something better coming down the pipe. :D

 

that will be years.

But the 14900 may only be months away.

then i might as well upgrade to DDR5 too or a faster SSD. :)

[HeyYou]

 

 

 

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

thanks!

I seems some PCs FS that were i9 13900 and had DDR4 RAM.

I think for gaming i saw some comparisons of over 100% faster.

 

Or I could wait for the i9 14900 to come out..

 

Or the 15900.... :D There is always something better coming down the pipe. :D

 

that will be years.

But the 14900 may only be months away.

then i might as well upgrade to DDR5 too or a faster SSD. :smile:

 

Scope Creep. :D Some days, I think it is a disease.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

 

 

 

 

Wow. Looking at comparisons, the 13th gen proc is almost 30% faster in various metrics..... If you decide to change 'em out though, bear in mind, you will need to change RAM as well, most likely. Don't know if the 13th gen boards even support DDR4 any more.

 

That said, the performance difference between DDR4, andDDR5, will likely be unnoticeable. RAM speed generally is not a choke point. :D

thanks!

I seems some PCs FS that were i9 13900 and had DDR4 RAM.

I think for gaming i saw some comparisons of over 100% faster.

 

Or I could wait for the i9 14900 to come out..

 

Or the 15900.... :D There is always something better coming down the pipe. :D

 

that will be years.

But the 14900 may only be months away.

then i might as well upgrade to DDR5 too or a faster SSD. :smile:

 

Scope Creep. :D Some days, I think it is a disease.

 

So you think my rig is fine fro playing fallout heavily modded?

 

Right now from my recent install from a weeks ago (all this is new ,except the harddrives; SSD and HDD which are 4 years old;

 

i9 10900KF (sometimes overclocked via XTU)

64 GB of RAM (but only DDR4)

NVIDIA 4070.

Robust liquid cooling (360mm radiator) for CPU. GPU cooled only via fans. Temps are unversally low for both CPU and GPU (30's during idle, 40s C during gameplay, to maximum high 50s C)

game is run off a 1T SSD (but an older SSD), plus i have another 1T SSD (unused, I have not figured out how ot switch my install to this one) and a 4T HDD.

 

I still get stutter at times when playing modded Fallout 4 though.

Most of the time its smooth but sometimes there is some stutter, not often or all the time but not super rare either.

I was hoping to get rid of the stutter with a brute force approach (hence my thoughts on upgrading to a i9 13900k, DDR5, maybe a newer SSD).

[HeyYou]

Yeah, you have WAY more than the recommended specs there. The stutters and such may still be due to having to load from the drive, or, it might be a background process interfering as well.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Yeah, you have WAY more than the recommended specs there. The stutters and such may still be due to having to load from the drive, or, it might be a background process interfering as well.

So you don't think the mods are placing this extra burden and causing the stutter? :confused:

 

I been trying to take out mods that have a rep for taking a burden.

I dropped NAC-X, saw a bit improvements and scrap everywhere saw more.

But I had to add scrap everywhere back in because not having it it savaged most of my locations mods and I want to scrap the various corpses.

[HeyYou]

Just don't install the ultimate edition of Scrap Everything. I think that one breaks previs/precombines for the entire map, and that WILL have a negative effect on performance. :)

 

Texture mods, or high-poly meshes aren't your friend. At least, not running too many of them. (I have 'green commonwealth, or somesuch, and that's the only one.) I turn off some of the 'prettys' in the launcher as well. Script heavy mods can be problematic..... but, with your hardware, you would have to have a fair few of 'em to start being a problem.

 

Check background processes, see what else is running. Put in an exception for your anti-virus for the game, and associated folders. (wherever your mod manager stashes the mods as well.) Windows tends to come with a fair of crap running at startup, that you have zero use for.... Kill those. :D