The 7700k is the most expensive CPU most feel comfortable buying, in the $300-$400 range (seeing as you need to buy a cooler for it, that makes total cost close to $400 unless you have one to reuse).
The Intel CPUs that are faster see price rise exponentially while gaming performance doesn't even rise geometrically. Paying 100% more for 15% more performance in a game is not reasonable.

When it comes to games, the x700k CPUs are the heavy hitters in the Intel lineup. Fastest stock performance, still OC's a nice bit, and leaves money for a great GPU to pair with it.

My problem with the synth benchmarks is that they test what a CPU could do, but very few programs (and almost no games) actually will make use of what is tested. So CPU A can be 20% faster or slower than CPU B in this or that benchmark, but then you find their gaming performance is less than 10% off, and in the opposite direction.

While I know people use their home PCs for things other than gaming, I don't understand it.



The Jedi Master