What CPU do I need for gaming/video editing in 4k?

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Ruppe

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Hi.

I'm wanting to get a new CPU for gaming, recording, and editing in 4k.

I have an i7 7700k right now. It seems fine most of the time, but the worst part about it is I drop frames when record at 4k sometimes. I don't really overclock, because for some reason I cannot seem to figure out how to, even though I've built several pc's at this point.

I'm thinking Ryzen will probably be the best for me since I don't want to spend much over what a 7700k costs, but I'm beyond confused with Intel's new lineup of cpus, so I have no clue.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.

Thank you!
 
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jeffreydanielbyers

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The i7-8700K at 5GHz is 50% faster per core than the 8-core Ryzen CPU's at their max overclock.

The i7-8700K has six cores, but because they are much faster the CPU wins almost in every situation with possibly some ties or maybe SMALL wins by the 8-core Ryzens when near 100% utilization can be done of the CPU's (which is not common).

I believe the i7-8700K is not easy to buy right now? And of course it's MORE EXPENSIVE when you add on the extra CPU cooler cost and motherboard.

*BUT....

I would not upgrade from an i7-7700K for gaming. Some points:

1) if you need help on further overclocking start a post for that specifically

2) There are programs like NVidia SHADOWPLAY that can record/stream video with almost no FPS loss (using the NVENC hardware encoder)

3) To confirm though, this is 4K capturing of games etc?

4) GAMING at 4K rarely makes sense. Your FPS may be about HALF of what 2560x1440 can do often for little to no obvious difference. Even if you use 4K the i7-7700K is rarely the bottleneck, it's more likely the GRAPHICS CARD.

You can still have a 4K monitor and game at 2560x1440. Just have the monitor scale by ASPECT so games will be scaled to fit the monitor properly.

5) EDITING programs don't always use very core either so how much benefit a faster CPU offers varies a lot (Adobe often uses no more than two cores at a time for some tasks so modern i7 Intel is best at highest clock). We can't answer that exactly. Some programs use the GRAPHICS CARD a lot, or may at times need a lot more SYSTEM MEMORY (DDR4). Sometimes as much as 32GB but every program is different, the video size/bitrate, editing layers etc also vary.

Generally you should MONITOR CPU usage, system memory usage (Task Manager) and even HDD/SSD usage to see where the bottlenecks are at the different stages of editing.

The final RENDER for example may be mostly CPU, but real-time tasks may need 16GB+ system memory and may be also swapping to the SSD/HDD.
 
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R

Ruppe

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Asus Z270G
i7 7700k
GTX 1080 ti
32gb 2400mhz

I'm playing on a 4k monitor.
My budget is probably around $400ish, only going a little more if it would really benefit.
Do you know an easy way of checking all of that while recording?
 
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okcnaline

okcnaline

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jeffreydanielbyers

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Task Manager will show memory, CPU usage, even HDD/SSD usage. (right-click Start.. )

It's hard to tell if the CPU is the bottleneck though since a program might not use more than two threads so 40/50% usage might still be a CPU bottleneck.

RAM usage won't matter. I doubt you'd need more than 32GB.

You really want to find some articles and videos specific to the video editing program you use as it's quite complicated.

$400 doesn't get you anywhere as you have the best CPU for your platform, and getting a better CPU requires a different motherboard, reinstall Windows etc. You don't want that.

Adobe Premiere Elements 15 is an okay program, but I've heard there are other programs that make better use of the CPU and GPU.
 
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