No offence taken… I love it when I’m wrong, this is how I learn. Thank you.
I did read that article and I was under the impression that it was at tighter latencies ‘live’ conditions to which the 9700k stood out. I’ll have a reread after posting this.
There’s also a few other things to consider here.
A Motherboard with good VRM’s and cooling will easily all core clock the new i7 to 5.0, even further if you’re lucky. Current and thermal throttling is an issue. The new z390s do have heatsinks on the VRMs but heat build up under the board can be problematic. VRM’s are improving but in many cases inadequate. It’s a lot harder to really push the old i7 unless you delid it and, if you’re using an older MB, there’s a good chance you wont get the power anyways.
Many people have reported better performance with less issues when turning off HT (possibly placebo), even though those issues have been addressed. If this ends up being the case, the comparison would seriously change.
The original statement is overly simplified but I believe “Real core vs HT” is still true. Whilst the older 8700k might outperform the 9700k, that’s because it’s not a 4+4HT chip, which would be the correct comparison 8v8, not 12v8 (but yea! that’s not how I used it, my bad!!!).
My understanding is that HT works by utilising the unused part of a core whilst it’s waiting, not doing anything. If maxing out all 6 real cores there’s no room left for the HT to find its resources. HT will shine in real time applications thanks to large ASIO buffers, there’s plenty of moments 1 core can’t do anything because the info it needs on the other core hasn’t been processed yet. But, I don’t think they’re quite there yet, especially when utilising synths like Avenger.
Thanks to so many not excited reviewers the new i7 stayed well stocked and at a much lower than expected BF sale price. My initial build was to be the new i5 but I always wanted the extra quirks of an i7 without HT. This was the chip I’d been waiting for, especially when I paid less for it than the old i7. Coupled with an NVMe PCIe drive, I really did want that “fastest core possible”, all whilst maintaining silence.
Please pick my words to pieces, I don’t get offended, especially when told how I’m wrong. Choosing the right words can be a real struggle and only in these exchanges can we improve. Thank you.