Today gaming has reached another level. With the latest, hardcore games, every computer and its parts do not support fast gaming. Due to this, you experience slowness while playing games. CPU is among the most significant components that ensure fast gaming. For this, different companies are advancing with their processors and CPUs to let have a good gaming experience. A similar question has been answered in this article. Is i7 9700k good for gaming? This article will serve as a guide for you. After reading this, you will be able to know about i7 9700k.
Nowadays, Intel has shifted its focus towards 10th gen processors. Especially after the AMD’s upcoming and latest processor, Ryzen 5000, things are getting changing. Due to this, gamers are shifting their love from 9th gen processors and the Core i7 9700K to be specific. Despite this, 9700K is a good processor for gaming. Although no PC gamer wants their rigs to be new and shiny, the Core i7 9700K is a great gaming processor nonetheless.
Moreover, it comes with eight threads and eight cores of Coffee Lake refresh goodness along with a max boost clock of 4.97GHz. Owing to these features, this chip delivers an excellent frame per second and whatnot. Although it is very popular among gamers, it is not available in huge numbers. Rather, Intel has maintained its limited stock.
Before detailing further, let’s find out what the Intel i7 9700K is and how it helps in gaming.
What the Intel i7 9700K is.
Intel introduced the i7 9700K with the first-of-its-kind Core i9 9900K. Due to their simultaneous launch, the cheaper ones among the two found themselves in a rather strange place. The Core i7 is the king in the market being the best CPU on Intel’s desktop. Along with being in the non-HEDT lineup, it is also one of the fastest processors. With the coming of the 9th gen, the Core i9 9900K did take that position. And reserving 5GHz and the above for its sacred silicon. In addition to this, Intel has also accompanied the i7 9700k with Hyper-Threading since it comes with 8 threads and 8 cores. And it is very much unlike the Core i9 9900K’s 16 threads and 8 cores.
Even with these cores and threads, this processor is still a great deal. Moreover, it ensures 14nm power thanks to 8 cores of high-performance. Despite the i7 9700K being an old version of Intel, this processor is still a fantastic choice for gaming. While using this, you will not experience any slowness in gaming. Moreover, everyone wants high-IPC and powerful clock speed cores for a gaming processor, the i7 9700K delivers that in full style.
Let’s know what the specs of this processor make it suitable for gaming.
Specifications
- 8 cores
- LGA 1151 socket
- 4.9 GHz maximum boost clock
- 3.6GHz base clock
- 8 threads
- No cooler
- 95 W TDP
- $374-$385 launch price
Why It is Good for Gaming?
Like its predecessor, the i7 9700K comes with a thermal design power of 95 watts. If we compare this power to that of the Ryzen 7 3700X, i7 9700K leads by 30 watts. In addition to this, Ryzen 7 3800X has also a slightly higher boost clock speed and base clock, and a 105-watt TDP.
Except that, the Core i7 can easily handle both one or more add-in cards and a GPU. This versatility comes from its 16 available PCI Express lanes. Not only this, i7 9700K can easily work well with Z390 motherboards using the LGA 1151 socket. They form the best motherboard for 9700k processor. Moreover, very much like the other 9th gen processors, it also uses several previous-generation chipsets.
The story does not stop here. The Core i7 9700K also comes with 12MB of cache lesser than that of the Ryzen 7 3700X. More cache helps you have an improved gaming performance and many other apps. Although this feature is not more important than core count or clock speed, gaming performance benefits from quick and fast memory access.
On top of that, this processor also includes an integrated graphics processor, Intel’s UHD Graphics 630. What else does it support 128GB of DDR4-2666 memory? On the other hand, the Ryzen 7 3700x does not have integrated graphics. In this case, you would pair it with a discrete GPU. As most of the users of these chips are gamers, they would install dedicated graphic cards.
Favorite Choice of Discerning Gamers
This processor is somehow a puzzle. Between 8th gen and 9th gen, Intel has dropped Hyper-Threading. Now it has more cores, eight vs six. However, this processor has fewer addressable threads as compared to the Core i7 8700K processor. If we talk about the demanding multimedia workflows, this processor lags behind its main competitor the Ryzen 7 3700X. The latter comes with sixteen cores and the former has eight cores. In addition to this, the Ryzen is much cheaper than the Core i7 9700K. Not only this, the Ryzen has a credible cooling fan that makes it a more all-around choice among mainstream CPUs.
After reading this article, you will surely know that the very processor goes well with your gaming.
