If you desire to learn about what graphics card you should buy (despite the horrible pricing), what's the best CPU or are building a new organization, then bank check out our Best Of serial and PC Buying Guide for all the info yous need. Today we're discussing something else. What we feel were the worst CPU and GPU purchases of 2017. Some were just bad from the get get while others started life every bit feasible options that sadly proved poor choices before twelvemonth'south end.

Intel Core i7-7700K (or Kaby Lake in full general)

Boot starting 2017, Intel released the new 'Kaby Lake' series which really didn't turn out to exist all that new. Apart from a small factory overclock these were basically Skylake parts and when matched clock-for-clock we constitute zero IPC gain.

So if you owned 2015'south 6700K there was no need to buy the 7700K. A shame considering the same could exist said if you owned either a Haswell or Broadwell Cadre i7 CPU, and even arguably a Sandy or Ivy Bridge i7 every bit well.

Notwithstanding if you lot were coming from an AMD FX series or maybe a Cadre i5, something forth those lines, then the 7700K offered noteworthy gains for those rocking a fast graphics bill of fare and was therefore a viable choice. Unfortunately those that invested $340 in a 7700K (or heaven forbid the 7740X) concluded upward getting completely hosed by Intel.

Roughly ix months afterward for about the same price, Intel'south brand new 8700K is essentially the same CPU but with 50% more cores and threads. The 7700K is notwithstanding a very capable gamer but the 8700K will no incertitude show to be a significantly meliorate investment down the road.

I should notation that while I'm focusing on the 7700K, the same actually applies for all Kaby Lake Cadre i7, Core i5 and Core i3 CPUs. They've all been heavily upgraded with the inflow of Coffee Lake. The but CPU that still remains a worthwhile investment is the G4560 as there is nothing amend for less than $100, that said stretching the budget to the Core i3-8100 would be a smarter option at present.

If yous bought a 7700K in Q1 2017 yous're probably non as upset, otherwise not only has the 7700K'south resale value plummeted after the release of the 8700K, only you lot tin can't fifty-fifty upgrade without a motherboard change and that brings me to role 2 of the Intel gyre job.

Z270 Motherboards, Intel'south lack of backwards compatibility...

This is a continuation of the Kaby Lake CPUs, only it has to be said compounding the upshot is Intel'due south determination to remove backwards compatibility for the new Coffee Lake CPUs. Despite using the aforementioned LGA 1151 socket, Intel has changed the configuration in a way that they say the 8th gen CPUs can't work on 100-series or 200-series motherboards while Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs also won't work on the new 300-serial motherboards.

Whether or non information technology was necessary for Intel to eliminate compatibility, I honestly don't know. I can just tell you this is a massive inconvenience for consumers. If I had to guess I'd say in that location is no legitimate reason for Intel to drop support for 200-serial motherboards, I said this before even reviewing the Coffee Lake CPUs and Intel fans shot me downward.

However bit-tech interviewed the production manager for ROG motherboards at Asus, Andrew Wu and he said a few interesting things. When asked, if Intel let them could they brand Z270 motherboards uniform with 8th Gen Core processors Andrew said 'yes', it would only require a BIOS update merely Intel somehow has locked the compatibility.

In the end it means those who invested in a 200-series motherboard this twelvemonth are now at the end of the route. Those Core i7-7700K owners are now faced with ditching not just their CPU but too their shiny new Z270 motherboard if they want to upgrade to something with more than cores.

Truth be told, moving from the 7700K to a 8700K is non worth the investment even if they were supported on the same platform. Notwithstanding the option to make this upgrade in a year or then would be very welcomed. Anyone who spent $200+ on a Z270 motherboard volition surely exist upset with Intel'southward decision here.

Intel Cadre i7-7800X, Premium 6-core For 4 Months!

Moving on, if yous're a Core i7-7700K owner and you lot experience robbed, well so tin can we please have a moment's silence for anyone who bought a Cadre i7-7800X. With Ryzen already out and well-nigh before the arrival of the Skylake-X range, in that location seemed little point in buying the Core i7-7820X and in item the 6-core 7800X. Priced at $390 the 7800X was a stride up from the 7700K for productivity workloads but was a pretty poor value proffer when compared to the Ryzen 7 1700.

Withal those that bought in the last four months knew what the alternatives were at the time. What they didn't know is that for roughly the same price the 8700K would come along offer the same cadre and thread count while supporting greater operating frequencies, more L3 cache and what is in my stance a superior method of connecting 10 or less cores using the Band bus.

The 8700K is also supported past significantly cheaper motherboards, the cheapest Z370 board is roughly one-half the price of the cheapest X299 board. In fact, the just real advantage of the 7800X are those actress PCIe lanes, merely if y'all want PCIe lanes skip the Skylake-10 Cadre i7 parts and head direct for the Threadripper aisle. Ohh and it has quad-channel retentivity which is of no benefit based on our productivity benchmarks which sees the 8700K schoolhouse the 7800X out of the box and when overclocked.

The only saving grace for the 7800X is the upgrade path, salve $10 each week and in only under 4 years you've got yourself an 18-core 7980XE, 3 years if the 2d mitt markets kind.

AMD Radeon GPUs After May: High Prices & Poor Availability

Now for graphics... Terminal yr was a mega year for GPU releases, the GeForce x series was mighty impressive in terms of operation per watt and AMD at to the lowest degree made the midrange to low-cease segment interesting. 2017 has been more than of a mixed bag, I recollect it's fair to say the GTX 1080 Ti was an exciting and impressive launch and many appreciated the GTX 1080 price cut to $500.

The Radeon refresh was a pretty meh affair but information technology did bring more competitive pricing, at least initially. Vega was another shoulder shrug from AMD though Vega 56 looks somewhat promising and contempo Vega performance in new titles has been decent.

The big problem for AMD and even Nvidia to a degree has been pricing and availability thank you to an extreme demand from cryptocurrency miners which has kept up for months now.

If y'all bought a Radeon RX 500 series graphics menu shortly subsequently release, chances are yous did very well for yourself. I recall seeing RX 570 models on sale for as little as $150, now gamers can only dream of such prices. As of writing you can expect to pay ~$240 for a RX 570, that's a 60% increment from earlier this year.

If you bought a Radeon graphics card in the last few months, chances are you heavily overpaid and sadly some will accept been caught out by the toll hikes. Despite offer a potent bang for your buck at the MSRP, AMD's Radeon GPUs take turned out to be 1 of the worst buys of 2017 for PC gamers for the simple fact that you tin can't find them anywhere near the listing price. That said, as I started to put this together, I noticed Vega 56 GPUs that were priced at over $500 are now selling for ~$400, then things might finally offset to normalize and only in time for Christmas.

AMD Ryzen 10 CPUs

The side by side AMD particular on the list are those X-rated CPUs, similar Intel's also hot for TV range nearly of the X models don't make a whole lot of sense. I admit it'due south difficult to give AMD a hard time over this given they provide a total range of unlocked CPUs, if simply Intel did the same. Then big props for AMD there, but it does brand their premium 'X' models pointless for those in the know.

The Ryzen 7 1800X offers the least value. AMD prepare the MSRP at $500 earlier this twelvemonth, though today it tin can be found selling for as little as $400 on auction. The 1700X which is essentially the exact aforementioned CPU costs $300 right now but still I'd become the slightly cheaper 1700 with the box cooler for $285.

I tin can't think of a single reason why someone would spend at least xl% more on the 1800X, fifty-fifty if they were binned chips that guarantee a iv GHz overclock. I've tested iii retail 1800X chips and four retail 1700 fries now, all hit 4 GHz and worked with DDR4-3200 retention.

The Ryzen 5 1600X isn't every bit bad, information technology just costs a little over 10% more than the not-X version, just even so yous're paying x% more for the aforementioned CPU while forgoing the included cooler and again I'one thousand not sure why. The 1500X is also a bit pointless in my opinion, simply more so because it's priced so closely to the R5 1600, the 1600 offers fifty% more cores for a mere 13% increment in toll. The extra L3 cache also provides little advantage over the much cheaper Ryzen v 1400.

Finally the Ryzen Threadripper 1900X, this one's more of a niche product, it's not completely pointless just if you're jumping on the X399 platform, coughing upwardly the dough for the 1950X, it's a serious deal at just $880.

Nvidia Titan Xp (Pascal), Now for Star Wars Fans...

If we made this a yearly feature, Nvidia's Titan production line would no doubt make the cut each and every year. Tardily last year we got the mighty Titan X, the Pascal version of form, not to exist dislocated with the Maxwell Titan X from 2015. Anyway the Pascal Titan X arrived last twelvemonth and it was the biggest blue-chip GPU Nvidia had on offer.

Of course as ever, those that bought into the Titan con got completely hosed, just iii months into 2017 and the GTX 1080 Ti arrived, sure it had 1GB shaved off the 12GB memory buffer but with higher core and retentivity clock speeds it was faster. The 1080 Ti also benefited from vastly superior add-in-board partner coolers making it much faster once overclocked, allowing all 3584 CUDA cores to work much more than efficiently.

Despite the GTX 1080 Ti quickly putting downwardly the Titan 10, Nvidia came dorsum for round 2 and the Titan Xp was built-in. Branded with the same insane $1200 US asking price ways it'south over seventy% more expensive than existing 1080 Ti models. Then what do you get for all that actress moola? A vii% increment in CUDA cores and a teeny tiny increase in VRAM capacity.

Again the Titan Xp can merely be purchased with the Founders Edition cooler, as a consequence it runs hot and throttles under heavy load, so it's actually slower than custom 1080 Ti cards. At this point gamers with deep pockets should know better than to buy a Titan, but I'chiliad sure there are those that did anyway for the bragging rights, though at this point it'southward more than embarrassing than anything.

Speaking of embarrassing, what about those new Star Wars Collectors Edition models? Actually I take to admit those wait pretty awesome. Imagine y'all're a huge Star Wars fan and you lot tin can afford stupidly expensive hardware, just just a few weeks ago you lot bought a Titan Xp for $1200. What'due south the return policy on that Nvidia? Surely yous'd be spitting chips at the announcement of a $1200 Collector'south Edition. The life of a Titan owner, you lot merely know within a calendar month or 2 yous're getting hosed, the fun parts finding out how.

Wrap Up

2017'due south been an exciting but besides frustrating year in PC hardware and although a few early on adopters and those seeking bragging rights got a little burnt, there'due south been some great value options also. Intel probably pounded consumers the hardest and much of it could take been avoided if they but kept compatibility for their eighth gen serial with the previous seventh and 6th gen series.

Let the states know if we missed whatever products or if you disagree with whatever of out choices in the comments section below.