i5-9600k & RAM -> Upgrade + Cooling advice

[rogoth]

So if I understand it right, that means AMD processors for the next coming generations will use the AM5 socket? It's definitely something that annoys me with Intel, having to change mobo so quickly because of different sockets.

How long a lifespan has AM4 had?

the AM4 platform has had 4 generations of CPU, from the ryzen 1000 series when it first launched, through the 2000 series, codenamed 'zen+', 3000 series codenamed 'zen 2', and finally the 5000 series codenamed 'zen 3', the 'zen' architecture has been around now for 5 years, and as stated AMD has officially committed to long term support of their new AM5 socket platform stating they expect the lifespan to similar if not longer than AM4, so unlike INTEL if you were to buy a new AM5 motherboard when they become available later this year, it's likely you would be able to use it for at least 2 new generations of CPU before needing to buy a revision board for new features and new tech etc for later CPU generations, honestly, having seen some of the leaked performance data for 'zen 4' i think it's well worth the wait for it if like you you're running an older system.

[Nerph-]

Alright, once again thanks to everyone for your advice and the information, it's very much appreciated

[rogoth]

I’ve heard both, until an official announcement we dunno though.

as of the latest official statements AM5 and 'zen 4' are DDR5 exclusive, while it's not out of the realm of possibility they do what INTEL did and launch both DDR4 and DDR5 versions of AM5 boards, i can also see them not doing that due to costs and wanting the new platform to be using the 'best' option available, and hopefully by the time AM5 launches, DDR5 'should' be in a better supply state than it is currently.

[Kagthul]

So if I understand it right, that means AMD processors for the next coming generations will use the AM5 socket? It's definitely something that annoys me with Intel, having to change mobo so quickly because of different sockets.

How long a lifespan has AM4 had?

This is one of those things where there's a distinction without a difference.

Yes, Intel sockets generally only last two chip generations. AM4 (very technically) lasted 4 (Ryzen 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 - there are some APUs that were labelled 4000 series chips but those were just 3000-series chips with GPU cores on them)...

But only sorta. A lot of motherboards, particularly on the lower end (the entire original 300 series boards, many lower end to low-mid-range 400 series boards) couldn't be updated to support later chips... so while they used the same socket, they werent necessarily compatible and it could be very confusing because some boards from the same manufacturer that were almost indentical had different upgrade possibilities.

However, in both cases, the usefulness of in-place upgrades is near zero. 99%+ of users never do an in-socket upgrade, regardless of how long the socket is "viable" for. If you had an 8600K, like i do (released in 2017), you were never going to be dropping in a 10600K or something. The performance uplift was never going to be worth the 300$. Even with 12th gen available (going on 5 years later) i have no intention of upgrading. The 8600K still does everything i need it to do exceptionally well, with a single mid-life GPU upgrade (started with a 1080Ti, went to a 3080).

So if id been on an AM4 platform.... i still wouldn't have upgraded, so the same socket being used for 4-5 years is materially irrelevant. About the only possible realistic benefit is that if the CPU dies for some reason (ive never had this happen in 500+ depolyed machines, its always been the board that packed it in) you could drop in a new one without having to pay potentially inflated "no longer in production" prices.

But thats so rediculously niche that its nearly irrelevant.

So, its a nice presentation talking point that has literally zero actual application for 99% of users. AM4 lasted 5 whole years! So what? You werent going to be upgrading your CPU every year anyway, so... how does it even matter? (This may not apply to some uses - prosumer/pro creators definitely can upgrade every year, but generally, if they had to, they could easily absorb the cost of a new MoBo as well, as a 10% increase in performance means 10% more work completed at 100$+ an hour and it pays for itself rapidly).

Its basically a marketing line that AMD uses to make themselves appeaer more consumer friendly when in reality, there's no effective difference because users are simply not doing drop-in upgrades in high enough numbers to ever be relevant.

If you built an Alder Lake system now, the fact that you wouldn't be able to drop in an upgrade (maybe?) after Raptor Lake means... what? That Alder Lake system is going to last you 4-6 years anyway, no problem. So who cares.

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Will I need DDR5 ram with the Zen 4 (AM5) CPU's? Or will there be motherboards that use DDR4?

Im not 100% on these (and a few people who replied, i have blocked) but AFAIK Zen 4 requires DDR5.

[Nerph-]

That's a very valid point Kagthul. I was looking to replace my CPU, motherboard and RAM possibly next month sometime but it's a tricky choice. If people are correct that DDR5 is going to be expensive, and if the next gen will require DDR5, then I'd probably prefer getting an AM4 socket (or something Intel) and DDR4 ram.

[Vegas82]

That's a very valid point Kagthul. I was looking to replace my CPU, motherboard and RAM possibly next month sometime but it's a tricky choice. If people are correct that DDR5 is going to be expensive, and if the next gen will require DDR5, then I'd probably prefer getting an AM4 socket (or something Intel) and DDR4 ram.

Sounds like a good way to handicap yourself going forward. I’d upgrade in a year considering your current hardware.

[Nerph-]

Sounds like a good way to handicap yourself going forward. I’d upgrade in a year considering your current hardware.

Also true. Haha, decisions are hard ;D

[Vegas82]

Also true. Haha, decisions are hard ;D

Waiting a month is insignificant from doing it now. You accepted that you should wait. In a year when ddr5 is the new standard see what things look like. If you want to upgrade every 3 years am5 is the only real option unless you’re willing to do a full upgrade again.

[Kagthul]

Also true. Haha, decisions are hard ;D

Hes one of the people i have blocked. Because he gives awful "advice".

Going with Alder Lake now is not going to handicap you for the effective 4-6 year life of the machine. Hell, even going with a Zen 3 part wouldnt handicap you. Its not like CPUs become imediately shit when a new CPU comes out. Especially when the extra performance is often what i label "pointless peformance".

Sure, an Alder Lake CPU is ~20% faster than an equivalent AMD chip right now (5000 series); these are imaginary numbers just being used for the sake of argument.

But when the R7 3800X can already put out 200fps in games paired with the right GPU.... does the Alder Lake CPU being able to output (potentially, because as you jump up from 1080p, CPU becomes less and less relevant as long as it is "strong enough" to feed the GPU) 240 fps really matter?

Chances are, for most people... it does not.

Again, im not saying upgrade now, or dont wait for Zen 4/Ryzen 7000. Thats a decision you have to make.

But you can be fairly confident that any system you build new right now will perform well for 4+ years, DDR4 or not (right now, fast low latency DDR4 kits are just as good as what is currently available from DDR5, but are actually available and affordable at sub-100$ for 16GB or about 140$ for 32GB). Its going to take several years for DDR5 to really become "mainstream" and finally get to speeds where it outperforms DDR4 for consumers... just like it took DDR4 several years to transition from its debut on HEDT systems (Xeons) to consumer/mainstream use... because just like now, fast, low latency DDR3 performed just as well as early DDR4 (remember DDR4 started at 2166 CL20!)

So, if you're not satisifed with your current system, an upgrade now to Alder Lake or Zen 3/Ryzen 5000 will do you just fine for years. Of the two, id recommend Alder Lake as if you step up to the 12700 (only 339$) youll get 8 P-cores (16 threads w/HT) and 4 E-cores... and its blazingly fast. You can get a DDR4 capable board, and pair it with a nice fast kit of DDR4, and be fine for the expected life of the machine.

If you're satisfied with your current performance... .ride that 9600K down in flames. I certainly intend to with my 8600K. I MIGHT consider upgrading to Raptor Lake at the end of this year/early next year. Maybe. If the price is right and/or my system somehow starts to suck between now and then (doesn't seem likely, especially since in my case (very specific to me) since i dont use it for my daily driver/basic computing - just gaming - it has nothing going on in the background to potentially slow it down).

In the end, its about meeting your needs.

Or, it can be about "i need some retail gadget therapy" - i have "upgraded" things that did not need an upgrade because damn it, i just want a new gadget.

Modern CPUs, from both manufacturers, are plenty powerful and as long as you dont go with the bargain basement chips (i3s/Celerons, Ryzen 3s) theyll last you years.

[Vegas82]

Hes one of the people i have blocked. Because he gives awful "advice".

Going with Alder Lake now is not going to handicap you for the effective 4-6 year life of the machine. Hell, even going with a Zen 3 part wouldnt handicap you. Its not like CPUs become imediately shit when a new CPU comes out. Especially when the extra performance is often what i label "pointless peformance".

Sure, an Alder Lake CPU is ~20% faster than an equivalent AMD chip right now (5000 series); these are imaginary numbers just being used for the sake of argument.

But when the R7 3800X can already put out 200fps in games paired with the right GPU.... does the Alder Lake CPU being able to output (potentially, because as you jump up from 1080p, CPU becomes less and less relevant as long as it is "strong enough" to feed the GPU) 240 fps really matter?

Chances are, for most people... it does not.

Again, im not saying upgrade now, or dont wait for Zen 4/Ryzen 7000. Thats a decision you have to make.

But you can be fairly confident that any system you build new right now will perform well for 4+ years, DDR4 or not (right now, fast low latency DDR4 kits are just as good as what is currently available from DDR5, but are actually available and affordable at sub-100$ for 16GB or about 140$ for 32GB). Its going to take several years for DDR5 to really become "mainstream" and finally get to speeds where it outperforms DDR4 for consumers... just like it took DDR4 several years to transition from its debut on HEDT systems (Xeons) to consumer/mainstream use... because just like now, fast, low latency DDR3 performed just as well as early DDR4 (remember DDR4 started at 2166 CL20!)

So, if you're not satisifed with your current system, an upgrade now to Alder Lake or Zen 3/Ryzen 5000 will do you just fine for years. Of the two, id recommend Alder Lake as if you step up to the 12700 (only 339$) youll get 8 P-cores (16 threads w/HT) and 4 E-cores... and its blazingly fast. You can get a DDR4 capable board, and pair it with a nice fast kit of DDR4, and be fine for the expected life of the machine.

If you're satisfied with your current performance... .ride that 9600K down in flames. I certainly intend to with my 8600K. I MIGHT consider upgrading to Raptor Lake at the end of this year/early next year. Maybe. If the price is right and/or my system somehow starts to suck between now and then (doesn't seem likely, especially since in my case (very specific to me) since i dont use it for my daily driver/basic computing - just gaming - it has nothing going on in the background to potentially slow it down).

In the end, its about meeting your needs.

Or, it can be about "i need some retail gadget therapy" - i have "upgraded" things that did not need an upgrade because damn it, i just want a new gadget.

Modern CPUs, from both manufacturers, are plenty powerful and as long as you dont go with the bargain basement chips (i3s/Celerons, Ryzen 3s) theyll last you years.

Dude is looking at upgrading 3 years after his last purchase. Nobody is talking about alder lake, it’s am5 vs am4. Buying a dead end processor/mobo doesn’t allow for a cheaper upgrade in 3 years like buying into am5 does(hell, 5 years if they do an am4). Your advice here is hilarious.

[Nerph-]

Yeah, I'm not going to get an i9-9900k or anything and if upgrading my RAM now (or well, in a month) is no drastic improvement, then I might just save that money for when something breaks.

[SirReal]

Dude is looking at upgrading 3 years after his last purchase. Nobody is talking about alder lake, it’s am5 vs am4. Buying a dead end processor/mobo doesn’t allow for a cheaper upgrade in 3 years like buying into am5 does(hell, 5 years if they do an am4). Your advice here is hilarious.

It's incredibly thorough and insightful knowledge being dropped. To be fair, your advice comes off more as base talking points with significantly less depth.

No offense.

[Vegas82]

It's incredibly thorough and insightful knowledge being dropped. To be fair, your advice comes off more as base talking points with significantly less depth.

No offense.

If you ignore the context? Maybe. Even then recommending alder lake is just silly for his use case.

Signed,
A programmer with 20+ years experience

[rogoth]

This is one of those things where there's a distinction without a difference.

Yes, Intel sockets generally only last two chip generations. AM4 (very technically) lasted 4 (Ryzen 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 - there are some APUs that were labelled 4000 series chips but those were just 3000-series chips with GPU cores on them)...

But only sorta. A lot of motherboards, particularly on the lower end (the entire original 300 series boards, many lower end to low-mid-range 400 series boards) couldn't be updated to support later chips... so while they used the same socket, they werent necessarily compatible and it could be very confusing because some boards from the same manufacturer that were almost indentical had different upgrade possibilities.

However, in both cases, the usefulness of in-place upgrades is near zero. 99%+ of users never do an in-socket upgrade, regardless of how long the socket is "viable" for. If you had an 8600K, like i do (released in 2017), you were never going to be dropping in a 10600K or something. The performance uplift was never going to be worth the 300$. Even with 12th gen available (going on 5 years later) i have no intention of upgrading. The 8600K still does everything i need it to do exceptionally well, with a single mid-life GPU upgrade (started with a 1080Ti, went to a 3080).

So if id been on an AM4 platform.... i still wouldn't have upgraded, so the same socket being used for 4-5 years is materially irrelevant. About the only possible realistic benefit is that if the CPU dies for some reason (ive never had this happen in 500+ depolyed machines, its always been the board that packed it in) you could drop in a new one without having to pay potentially inflated "no longer in production" prices.

But thats so rediculously niche that its nearly irrelevant.

So, its a nice presentation talking point that has literally zero actual application for 99% of users. AM4 lasted 5 whole years! So what? You werent going to be upgrading your CPU every year anyway, so... how does it even matter? (This may not apply to some uses - prosumer/pro creators definitely can upgrade every year, but generally, if they had to, they could easily absorb the cost of a new MoBo as well, as a 10% increase in performance means 10% more work completed at 100$+ an hour and it pays for itself rapidly).

Its basically a marketing line that AMD uses to make themselves appeaer more consumer friendly when in reality, there's no effective difference because users are simply not doing drop-in upgrades in high enough numbers to ever be relevant.

If you built an Alder Lake system now, the fact that you wouldn't be able to drop in an upgrade (maybe?) after Raptor Lake means... what? That Alder Lake system is going to last you 4-6 years anyway, no problem. So who cares.

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Im not 100% on these (and a few people who replied, i have blocked) but AFAIK Zen 4 requires DDR5.

this is factually incorrect, for years now people have been flashing new bios updates onto the older 300 series chipsets and running 3000 and 5000 series CPU's on them, it's just that the CPU's can't or won't reach their peak performance levels on that chipset, furthermore AMD is toying with the idea of officially supporting ALL current Ryzen CPU's on 300 series chipsets, just with the disclaimer that not all technologies will function on these older chipsets.


it's unknown how long Z690 boards will be supported for, it's also not known how this new core architecture design of 'big core + little core' will function long term, unlike Ryzen which has matured very well and has seen some astronomical performance upgrades, keep in mind that even with the new CCX design INTEL are still using a 10nm manufacturing process, which is seen in the utterly ridiculous power consumption of their chips, in order to match and try to beat AMD they have cranked the dial up past 11 on TDP, and 'zen 4' is going to be using the TSMC 5nm manufacturing process which will allow for EVEN BETTER thermal performance as well as overall CPU performance, and with the absolutely ridiculous rise in household energy prices globally (could be more or less depending on where people live so local variations will need to be taken into account), for the first time in a long time power consumption is a major metric when looking at PC hardware for home use as a result of the global 'situation' right now.

[Vegas82]

this is factually incorrect, for years now people have been flashing new bios updates onto the older 300 series chipsets and running 3000 and 5000 series CPU's on them, it's just that the CPU's can't or won't reach their peak performance levels on that chipset, furthermore AMD is toying with the idea of officially supporting ALL current Ryzen CPU's on 300 series chipsets, just with the disclaimer that not all technologies will function on these older chipsets.


it's unknown how long Z690 boards will be supported for, it's also not known how this new core architecture design of 'big core + little core' will function long term, unlike Ryzen which has matured very well and has seen some astronomical performance upgrades, keep in mind that even with the new CCX design INTEL are still using a 10nm manufacturing process, which is seen in the utterly ridiculous power consumption of their chips, in order to match and try to beat AMD they have cranked the dial up past 11 on TDP, and 'zen 4' is going to be using the TSMC 5nm manufacturing process which will allow for EVEN BETTER thermal performance as well as overall CPU performance, and with the absolutely ridiculous rise in household energy prices globally (could be more or less depending on where people live so local variations will need to be taken into account), for the first time in a long time power consumption is a major metric when looking at PC hardware for home use as a result of the global 'situation' right now.

Expecting more than a generation from intel sockets is folly.

[rogoth]

It's incredibly thorough and insightful knowledge being dropped. To be fair, your advice comes off more as base talking points with significantly less depth.

No offense.

i just want to point out here, while AM4 is at 'end of life' in terms of upgrades and innovations, a high end 5000 series CPU (especially the new 3D vcache enahnced versions) on an x570 board will be more than sufficient for 95% of people for at least the next 4+ years MINIMUM, and with AM5 coming later this year along with more DDR5 innovation it's going to push down the price of the 'older' but more reliable and mature AM4/DDR4 stock that will make building a decent system to upgrade from what OP has currently MUCH CHEAPER than it would otherwise have been.

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Expecting more than a generation from intel sockets is folly.

i agree, but INTEL are in uncharted waters right now, they have 'clawed back' the gaming crown by pushing the silicon almost to its limits, they quite literally can't produce much more in terms of raw performance out of their current manufacturing process, it might well be the case that they are forced to innovate with their new CCX design and actually make something that can compete as is without being a pseudo space heater, and honestly with the way the world is right now, shortage of raw materials, rising costs, i can see them taking a leaf out of AMD's book and supporting this newest socket of theirs for longer than they normally would due to these external extenuating circumstances.

[Vegas82]

i just want to point out here, while AM4 is at 'end of life' in terms of upgrades and innovations, a high end 5000 series CPU (especially the new 3D vcache enahnced versions) on an x570 board will be more than sufficient for 95% of people for at least the next 4+ years MINIMUM, and with AM5 coming later this year along with more DDR5 innovation it's going to push down the price of the 'older' but more reliable and mature AM4/DDR4 stock that will make building a decent system to upgrade from what OP has currently MUCH CHEAPER than it would otherwise have been.

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i agree, but INTEL are in uncharted waters right now, they have 'clawed back' the gaming crown by pushing the silicon almost to its limits, they quite literally can't produce much more in terms of raw performance out of their current manufacturing process, it might well be the case that they are forced to innovate with their new CCX design and actually make something that can compete as is without being a pseudo space heater, and honestly with the way the world is right now, shortage of raw materials, rising costs, i can see them taking a leaf out of AMD's book and supporting this newest socket of theirs for longer than they normally would due to these external extenuating circumstances.

The issue with this analysis is the AMD has targeted same socket upgrades for years, intel has said fuck that. Unless we get SOME indication this is changing expecting it to is silly,

[rogoth]

The issue with this analysis is the AMD has targeted same socket upgrades for years, intel has said fuck that. Unless we get SOME indication this is changing expecting it to is silly,

again like i said, i agree that INTEL historically have been known to behave that way, and i agree that it's not generally how they would do things, but i can see them potentially coming out and saying something on the topic when they announce their next product for the Z690 chipset.

[Kagthul]

this is factually incorrect, for years now people have been flashing new bios updates onto the older 300 series chipsets and running 3000 and 5000 series CPU's on them,

Which is unofficial and not supported, and is meaningless.

it's just that the CPU's can't or won't reach their peak performance levels on that chipset, furthermore AMD is toying with the idea of officially supporting ALL current Ryzen CPU's on 300 series chipsets, just with the disclaimer that not all technologies will function on these older chipsets.

They also talked about this three years ago and it never materialized. So, yeah, when it happens, thatl matter. Until it does, point stands.

it's unknown how long Z690 boards will be supported for,

Raptor Lake is already confirmed for 600 series boards. Just like any other chipset, its about two generations.

it's also not known how this new core architecture design of 'big core + little core' will function long term,

What are you even trying to say with this gibberish? Its here to stay. X86-64 was the only major processor architecture that didnt ALREADY work this way. And given the massive performance gains it gives, there's absolutely no reason its going anywhere. Oh, and that whole part where AMD is ALSO going to do this with Zen 4+ or Zen 5 at the latest.

unlike Ryzen which has matured very well and has seen some astronomical performance upgrades, keep in mind that even with the new CCX design INTEL are still using a 10nm manufacturing process,

... how you can be so willfully ignorant is hillarious. TSMC VASTLY overstates their process sizes. To qualify for 7nm, all TSMC requires is that 15% of the transistors meet that standard. The rest of the wafter can be as large as 12nm. That's why you cant (and have never been able to) just compare process sizes. (See also: architecture matters a whole lot more - the M1 ALSO uses TSMCs 7nm process and outperforms the shit out of Ryzen 3 and (lower end)5 chips and uses like 20W at full draw).

which is seen in the utterly ridiculous power consumption of their chips,

That was Rocket Lake, not Alder Lake.

The i5 12400 keeps up with and often outperforms an R7 5800 for less power. Maybe.. keep up with modern reality. And its a 189$ chip (169$ for the -F SKU). The only Alder Lake chips that use a "ton" of power are heavily OCed 12900Ks - and they DONT actually consume much more than a heavily OCed 5950X or 5900X.. but they do crush the shit out of it in performance.

in order to match and try to beat AMD they have cranked the dial up past 11 on TDP, and 'zen 4' is going to be using the TSMC 5nm manufacturing process which will allow for EVEN BETTER thermal performance as well as overall CPU performance,

Facts not in evidence. In fact, if it was going to be the second coming, AMD woulld have been trumpeting that to the stars at CES. Instead, they barely mentioned performance or TDP numbers for Zen 4 at all.

and with the absolutely ridiculous rise in household energy prices globally (could be more or less depending on where people live so local variations will need to be taken into account), for the first time in a long time power consumption is a major metric when looking at PC hardware for home use as a result of the global 'situation' right now.

It really isn't. The average consumer doesn't look at power consumption. At all. its not even a consideration. Hell, the average consumer doesn't even really know that different CPUs consume different amounts of power.

You're stuck in your anecdotal world where you apparently believe everyone is a well informed self-builder that knows the ins and outs of computer parts. That isn't the case. Most people dont even use desktops anymore, but laptops - particularly Chromebooks - where power consumption/performance is absolutely 1000% still in Intel's favor, with Alder Lake mobile CPUs utterly fucking destroying mobile Ryzen (up to 40% faster on a core-equivalent basis) for much less power.

This is not to say that i think Zen 4 is going to be terrible or anything. It wont be. Itll be fine. It may even compete favorable with Alder Lake (except for that "requires DDR5 which provides no meaningful upgrade to DDR4 currently but costs 4x as much" part). I also dont think Zen 3 mobile parts suck or anything just because they use more power than Alder Lake mobile. They still perform quite well, and im sure Zen 4 mobile parts will do great.

But your rampant ignorant fanboyism has no connection to reality. I dont have an issue with someone choosing AMD, even though Alder lake is currently massively superior. Because a lot of that performance is "pointless performance" unless you're doing very specific, high power workloads. But im not going to pretend that AM5/Zen 4 is going to be the second coming without even knowing anything about it other than it exists.

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Dude is looking at upgrading 3 years after his last purchase. Nobody is talking about alder lake, it’s am5 vs am4. Buying a dead end processor/mobo doesn’t allow for a cheaper upgrade in 3 years like buying into am5 does(hell, 5 years if they do an am4). Your advice here is hilarious.

"Nobody is talking about Alder Lake"

Except like.. everyone, since it crushes the shit out of Zen 3 and is cheaper across the board (and doesn't require DDR5 and you're actually better served using DDR4 in most use cases). What drugs are you on?

And yeah, it doesnt "Allow for a cheaper upgrade in three years blah blah blah drivel drivel drivel"... because people dont fucking do that, its irrelevant. Especially since inititally buying into this "cheaper upgrade later" platform will be hideously expensive (DDR5 only, kthx) making any potential savings later pointless.... and not even a gurantee, since if you bought 300 series boards... you cant use 5000 series chips, so your point doesn't even actually hold water. And that even assumes that succesive generations are going to be massive performance jumps. Only the jump from 2000 series to 3000 series was at all "big" and that was half due to finally managing to have a not-trash memory controller (given how sensitive Ryzen is to memory). ANd even then we're not talking 50% jumps here, kiddo.

I mean, i get that ya'll have trouble divorcing your anecdotal experience from reality, but try to get your head around it: 99% of people do not do drop in upgrades. And VERY few people upgrade more frequently than 4-5 years. Like.. sub 1% on the first, and maybe 3-5% on the second.

The likleyhood of the OP benefiting (IF he needs to upgrade soon, which is not a given) from holding off and spending twice as much to get into AM5 vs just going with a faster Alderlake DDR4 setup now is near zero.

You remind me of the kind of people that were drooling over PCIe 4.0 SSDs... that you as an end user will literally never see any benefit from - and crowing about PCIe 4.0 being some crown jewel for AMD at the time when it provided literally no benefit and no upgrade benefit for the expected life of the machine (since even PCIe 3.0 STILL isnt saturated by a 3090Ti, though it is finally getting close). Just meaningless jibberish and noise that never took into account that the average end user would see zero benefit over the entire life of the machine.

It's incredibly thorough and insightful knowledge being dropped. To be fair, your advice comes off more as base talking points with significantly less depth.

No offense.

Hes a troll and always has been. Dont feel bad.

[Nerph-]

The likleyhood of the OP benefiting (IF he needs to upgrade soon, which is not a given) from holding off and spending twice as much to get into AM5 vs just going with a faster Alderlake DDR4 setup now is near zero.

Just wanted to reply to this. I'm not having any issues with my current setup, was just looking to see if there was anywhere I could "drastically" improve it without having to spend a lot of money (like for example my initial question about i5-9600k vs i7-9700k, or getting different DDR4 ram, etc). These questions have been answered and I'm thankful for everyone's input.