Need advice to choose Octane VI CPU (very intensive CPU applications!)

[Jorge85]

Hi,

My name is Jorge, from Spain. Because I am living far from home I need a laptop and I can't have a desktop computer due to mobility. Currently I have a gaming laptop Alienware 17 R3 from 2016 and I am very happy with it, but I want a more powerful computer. I want to be clear from the begining: I want a gaming laptop to play Total War games, I like most of them, I have been dreaming of having a powerful gaming computer to play Total War titles since long time ago. I also use my current Alienware to use Microsoft Office and other not demanding tasks.

From my experience using this gaming laptop Alienware 17 R3 with specs: CPU i7-6700 HQ (2.6 GHz - 3.5 GHz), RAM 16 GB DDR4 2133 MHz, GPU Nvidia GTX 970M 3 GB DDR5 and HDD SATA 1 TB 7200 r.p.m to play Total War titles, I am not convinced with CPU performance and I think that CPUs from gaming laptops of brands such as MSI, Asus, Alienware, etc. are not good enough compared with GPU, I am even skeptical about CPU i7-8750H performance with Total War games...

This is the reason I am thinking about Octane VI, because I need a powerful CPU, a customizable laptop that let me to put a better CPU. Total War games are not as other games, Total War need not only a strong GPU but a strong CPU as well, I would even say that is more CPU demanding than GPU. Total War games are CPU hungry. I can't honestly think about other applications (including other kind of sotware) demanding more CPU power than Total War games. Just show me a proof!

So because I am skeptical to the fact that i7-8750H is able to run Total War games with good and stable fps (besides GPU, avoiding huge fps drops), I need advice for more powerful CPUs, because this question is not straightforward for me. I have in my mind the following options: i7-8700, i7-8700K, i7-9700K, i9-9900K. Yes, the i9-900K is the most powerful among these CPUs mentioned but... I am worried about CPU temperatures since I am not so good with hardware. I want a gaming laptop to play Total War games, but I am not a gamer, just a casual player, I am an engineer and don't have much time anyway, but the time I spend playing I would like to have a good gaming experience, so I won't spend much time playing. Because I don't have much idea about hardware, I don't know if spending less time playing may help with temperature issues, I will spend barely 6 hours a week playing Total War games, I guess is not too much because my Alienware is still alive and works perfect. As for temperatures, I wonder if i7-9700K and i9-9900K would be too much. Do you think i7-8700K would be safer or even better i7-8700 in terms of reaching lower temperatures? As for GPU, I am planning to stick with RTX 2060 or RTX 2070.

I would really appreciate your advice, your opinions or just anything you want to share with me will be really welcome!. And sorry for my annoying and poor english skills.

 

[Stephen M]

Hi Jorge, I have an Octane with an i7-8700K, 3.7GHz and have not had any heating problems with it, although I always use a cooling pad. That said, I am not a gamer but do quite a lot of CPU intensive stuff with video work, although I expect with the war games you will be using it with the CPU stressed for longer periods.

Personally I would stay away from the i9, it is a very hot running CPU and it needs to be under-volted to run in the Octane. I have not over-clocked my 8700K and again would be a little worried about heat issues if I did but they be me worrying too much. There are a few other Octane users who are regularly on these fora so I hope they will be able to add a bit more.

 

[Scott]

With the Octane I would look to fit the 9700k. It doesn't have hyperthreading which Total War won't benefit from anyway. I believe that it's mostly a single thread application so higher frequencies would help. In that regard the 9700k is about as good as you will get with the power limitations of the Octane Chassis. You could eek out 5ghz with a slight overclock on the primary thread which would give you optimal performance.

Paired with a 2060 would see a very nicely performing gaming laptop. You could push for the 2070 but I don't think it's worth it personally.

 

[Oussebon]

Total War does benefit from hyperthreading:

Gaming benchmarks: Core i7 6700k hyperthreading test (2018 update with GTX 1080 Ti)

Back in January 2016 i made a test about Intel Core i7 6700K virtual cores performance numbers in gaming. Short story back then was that hyperthreading offered no FPS improvement in any of my tested 21 games. Not only that, but about half of the tested games showed slight performance decrements...

www.techpowerup.com

The campaign map is, I think, more single threaded while the battles have gotten more optimised.

Although I'd still go for the 9700k over the 8700k anyway since there's only so much HT does, and thanks to its extra physical cores and frequencies, it's generally better in gaming including total war and performs competitively in multithreaded workloads anyhow

Though if it's only getting paired with an RTX 2060 you may as well get the Vortex with its 8750H as the CPU won't really be the issue most of the time - total wars these days are brutal on the GPU, and that'll be the bottleneck. Plus it has a gsync screen to smooth out gameplay.

 

[Jorge85]

Total War does benefit from hyperthreading:

Gaming benchmarks: Core i7 6700k hyperthreading test (2018 update with GTX 1080 Ti)

Back in January 2016 i made a test about Intel Core i7 6700K virtual cores performance numbers in gaming. Short story back then was that hyperthreading offered no FPS improvement in any of my tested 21 games. Not only that, but about half of the tested games showed slight performance decrements...

www.techpowerup.com

Though if it's only getting paired with an RTX 2060 you may as well get the Vortex with its 8750H as the CPU won't really be the issue most of the time - total wars these days are brutal on the GPU, and that'll be the bottleneck. Plus it has a gsync screen to smooth out gameplay.

That's my concern... i7-8750H wouldn't be too weak for Total War games? I mostly play Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2 but I also play Rome 2, Attila and I would be interested in Thrones of Britannia or 3 Kingdoms. In my experience Empire Total War is one of the worst optimized Total War games ever created. I made several tests with my current Alienware, which is not a great gaming laptop but is enough solid to run a game from 2009, right? Empire Total War only uses 100% of the first core and about 60-70% of the second core in battles, so if a CPU i7-6700HQ struggles with Empire Total War, I guess that i7-7700HQ will struggle as well and i7-8750H is likely to find strong limitations. Maybe i7-8750H would be a better fit in Napoleon and Shogun 2, I find those games better optimized, I can run better Napoleon and Shogun 2 than Empire, I can't understand why, being Empire older than Napoleon and Shogun 2. Attila Total War is another case, even worse than Empire, that struggles with CPU and GPU and this game needs a monster GPU as well, even RTX cards can't play this game correctly, and is a game from 2015. I gave up and I think that I will never be able to run Attila decently. The only way is sacrificing graphics settings to get some extra fps, but anyway, in not so big battles the computer will struggle and will lag. That's the reason I am even thinking about skipping Attila, I am not any happy with it. I can even stand Empire Total War bad optimization if I can stabilize the performance with a better computer. I also research regularly for opinions about which Total War games are best optimized because a stable gameplay is something I am looking for.

Having said that, I couldn't find enough benchmarks with i7-8750H to convince myself that this CPU is powerful enough to power games such as Empire or Attila, but I would be happy if at least I can run 5 Total War titles with stable fps. As for the RTX 2060... benchmark test show me that RTX 2060 is far better than my current GPU GTX 970M , do you think that RTX 2060 is at least enough to play up to Rome 2? I guess that RTX 2060 is not enough for Attila (2015), probably runs better in Thrones of Britannia (2018).

 

[Oussebon]

Your 6700HQ struggled in Empire total war?

My Core Duo from 2007 was fine with it, as it my 3770k. :/

It's been years since I played, but performance was never an issue.

India invading the baltic was the main recurrent issue I had with it

 

[Jorge85]

Your 6700HQ struggled in Empire total war?

My Core Duo from 2007 was fine with it, as it my 3770k. :/

It's been years since I played, but performance was never an issue.

India invading the baltic was the main recurrent issue I had with it

I have some fps drops in certain situations and I don't really know if is the CPU or GPU. Try to play 3v3 full stack armies in a similar CPU than mine and you will see that Empire Total War will struggle. The fps massive drops during sieges is another issue. I tried to find explanations, I think i7-6700HQ is too weak for Total War games, the turbo only has 3.5 GHz but working with 1 core, if more cores are working, the turbo drops to 3.2 GHz, this is at least what specs say. Or just can be my laptop can't run this game properly because a reason I can't find, but I had similar issues in desktop computers that were not honestly top ones but decently enough for Total War in paper, but in practice, I always find strong limitations.

That's the reason I am saving money to break this barrier and get a new computer far beyond the recommended specs to play those games. I will never surrender, I will find a computer in which I will play at least Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 with everything maxed and at least 50 fps.

 

[Jorge85]

With the Octane I would look to fit the 9700k. It doesn't have hyperthreading which Total War won't benefit from anyway. I believe that it's mostly a single thread application so higher frequencies would help. In that regard the 9700k is about as good as you will get with the power limitations of the Octane Chassis. You could eek out 5ghz with a slight overclock on the primary thread which would give you optimal performance.

Paired with a 2060 would see a very nicely performing gaming laptop. You could push for the 2070 but I don't think it's worth it personally.

I am interested in i7-9700K, what about temperatures? Octane VI chasis and cooling would be enough to deal with i7-9700K temperatures? I don't have in mind overclocking unless would be really necessary, I am not so fussy with gameplay, I am looking for stability not fps high numbers, I can live with 45-50 fps but I need a CPU and GPU powerful enough to avoid fps massive drops, I can't accept to play under 30 fps.

Between i7-9700K and i7-8700K temperatures, is there much difference? If not, I would go with i7-9700K, if temperatures is an issue, I rather go with i7-8700K or i7-8700.

 

[Scott]

The temperatures shouldn't fluctuate all that much as the chassis is limited by current throttling, thus the power output will be very similar regardless of CPU choice. The 9700k has the faster single thread speed so it would be the option for me. Obviously it has 8 cores too and is the newer tech.