I5 8500 VS i5 9600

[aman88]

I am looking to get the new 27 inch iMac:

8th generation i5 3.0 ghz boost up to 4.1 ghz
256 ssd
8 gb ram (will upgrade to 16 on my own)
Pro 570x graphics card
$1899 (plus apple care and office 2019)
Will add razer core x with Vega 64 egpu within a year or so (like this option because I can upgrade the gpu as needed)

I am coming from a later 2010 iMac 21 inch which sucked at gaming... my question is:

Is this processor good enough to play games on high settings??

Or should I shell out the extra money for the 9th generation i5. It seems the processors are the same technology it is just the 9th generation is .6ghz faster.

 

[kaintxu]

DO you already have the razer core with the Vega 64? Is there a reason you specifically want an eGPU?

Also, any reason why you discard the i5 8600?

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[StellarVixen]

eGPU are not the best solution for iMac. TB3 bottlenecks performance by 10 percent, while with iMac you can expect even poorer performance. The reason is that data has to travel from iMac to GPU, and then back to iMac. The only way to avoid this is to connect external monitor.

 

[aman88]

DO you already have the razer core with the Vega 64? Is there a reason you specifically want an eGPU?

Also, any reason why you discard the i5 8600?

No I just wanted to know if there would be much of a difference...
[doublepost=1553528818][/doublepost]

It will depend on the resolution at which you'll be playing and the game. See below for frame rates of various games running on i5 8500 & Vega 64.

https://www.gpucheck.com/gpu/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64/intel-core-i5-8500-3-00ghz/

And one with i9 and Vega 64.

https://www.gpucheck.com/gpu/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64/intel-core-i9-9900k-3-60ghz/

Thank you! It does not look like there is more than a 3-5 fps which is negligible.
[doublepost=1553528903][/doublepost]

eGPU are not the best solution for iMac. TB3 bottlenecks performance by 10 percent, while with iMac you can expect even poorer performance. The reason is that data has to travel from iMac to GPU, and then back to iMac. The only way to avoid this is to connect external monitor.

How much more of a poorer performance with the iMac than an external display? I saw videos online of people with Mac book pros using an external and then the internal display and it seemed the egpu did quite wel... obviously maybe 10% less than if the gpu was internal as you said.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[aman88]

Right. I don't think the extra premium for the i9 is worth it for games. Where the i9 will have the largest impact is when having more cores shine like compiling code or running VMs. Although many modern games are able to utilize the multiple cores, a fast single core speed will matter greatly. Which is probably why even though many games do take advantage of the multiple cores, the increase in frame rate isn't all that mind blowing because certain things needs to happen synchronously in the game loop. Anything off loaded to multiple cores (like audio processing) is probably a breeze for either CPUs so it doesn't negatively affect the FPS.

Here is a nice graph that shows the average FPS based on the number of cores and threads.

https://imgur.com/a/s7Img

Wow thanks man! Now I just need to figure out if the egpu is worth it on the internal display... I just remember when I bought my 2010 iMac the internal gpu was out of date at time of purchase :-/.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[kaintxu]

Right. I don't think the extra premium for the i9 is worth it for games. Where the i9 will have the largest impact is when having more cores shine like compiling code or running VMs. Although many modern games are able to utilize the multiple cores, a fast single core speed will matter greatly. Which is probably why even though many games do take advantage of the multiple cores, the increase in frame rate isn't all that mind blowing because certain things needs to happen synchronously in the game loop. Anything off loaded to multiple cores (like audio processing) is probably a breeze for either CPUs so is doesn't negatively affect the FPS.

TLDR; CPU is not the bottleneck.

Here is a nice graph that shows the average FPS based on the number of cores and threads.

https://imgur.com/a/s7Img

Wow that has been very revealing, and unless there are heat issues, a 9600K it is I Will go for saving £360, which means I might be able to get the vega 48. Now need some benchmarking of it over the 580X

I do understand that a pc is much better for gaming, but I Can't be bothered with so many cables and needing CPU on the side. I don't do heavy gaming at all, just the ocasional non taxing. Hopefully with my new job I Will be using more to run code in R and scripts and data bases.

 

[aman88]

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir when I say that an iMac is a poor, overpriced choice for gaming period. It's using laptop components for a desktop machine because of the space constraints. You'll also have to deal with it being thermal throttled (which will happen) more than with a true desktop.

I know you are settled on an iMac. And one of my pet peeves on these forums and elsewhere is when the replies don't actually answer the questions asked but rather attack the poster's decision. So I try my best to simply just answer the question. For games though.... I have a dedicated PC for that. Not only for performance but also because I didn't want to overtax my $3500 iMac and have it result in an expensive office decoration. It's a lovely machine, but I'm sure you know how demanding games are and if something breaks with an all-in-one, it's not so easy to repair. I recently ordered a new GPU for my PC and after 2 weeks, the card just died. Things happen, but it's happened to me more often with GPUs than other components (maybe except for HDDs).

Make sure to get Apple Care!

Yeah that makes sense. I really appreciate your responses. I generally prefer iMacs or Macs in general because of the build quality. I would only do light gaming at best. I was mainly looking for help with choosing the right components. As you can see the last computer I bought was going on 9 years ago lol.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[aman88]

Everything is just a guess before the actual benchmarks are released, but a post I read on an AMD forum made a lot of sense. Paraphrasing because I can't find the link but he said that the Vega 48 should be close to the Vega 56, seeing how Vega 56 is pretty close to the Vega 64. Compared to the RX 590 (not a typo), the Vega 48 has 2x ROP, something like 40% more shader count and the HBM2 memory.

Yeah that’s the one I want: 27 inch, i5 9600k, 512 mb ssd, Vega pro 48. Sadly can’t spend $2850 lol... if my current iMac didn’t crash upon restarting and waking from sleep I would probably wait and just save up... that was why I was looking at a cheaper model and upgrading the gpu at a later date with an egpu, but from what people said egpus seems useless for all in ones like an iMac.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[CWallace]

Even if you do not plan to game much, I'd still look at having an independent gaming PC.

I have a top-end 2017 iMac 5K and what games I played worked fine on the 580, but in the end I bought an Alienware Aurora with a 1070ti last fall when Dell was having a huge sale. Really made my life a lot easier. It cost about as much as the Blackmagic eGPU Pro with the Vega 56 and for many games the nVidia will outclass it. Also don't have to worry about Bootcamp / driver issues and I can use my Mac while I game (I have a second monitor that I can switch between being a second screen for the iMac or the main screen for the gaming PC).

 

[aman88]

Maybe someone here with an iMac who has tried an eGPU with the built in display can shed some light. I've also entertained the idea of using an eGPU with my 27" iMac, but reading something like this https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/benchmark-internal-display-w-vega-64-on-mojave/ doesn't make me want to try. One of the reasons I bought an iMac was to avoid all this headache. I just want it to be plug-and-play. It seems eGPU with an external display works great (but I also bought the iMac for the screen quality, so I want to use it).

The guy in the thread posted the frame rate from his Vega 64 eGPU using the built-in display on Mojave. And in 4K, it went from 17.2 FPS using the internal 580 to 20.9 FPS on the Vega 64 eGPU combo. Those are sad numbers All that money for a paltry 3.7 FPS increase.

The post was made 4 months ago. Maybe things have changed since? I don't know.

I think the right decision would be to save up and buy the one with the Vega 48. Maybe leave your current iMac on all the time and just turn the display off so that you don't have to deal with the crash

Lol I actually do that. Its honestly starting to show its age... stuck at mac os sierra due to the poo graphics card it came with ... that is why I am putting so much effort into figuring out how to NOT buy another computer whose graphics card is out of date at time of purchase.

Can you run the 5k imac in lesser resolution? I heard that leads to better results...


Oh and take a look at these benchmarks for internal vs external:

https://egpu.io/forums/pc-gaming/post-results-of-your-egpu-score-in-heaven-benchmark/

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-internal-display-test/