Upgrade time, need some advice

Thinking of getting a new Intel processor as an upgrade because I think mine is getting a little old. It's lasted me a long time and still does quite well, but I'm feeling the slowdown.

Currently have an i7 4790K. 16 GB memory, and a GTX 980.

Planning on getting an i9 9900K. This will be solely for gaming, I will not be overclocking (at least not right away).

1. Is this overkill? Will I be better off with an i7-9700K?
2. I will need to get new memory; is 32GB of memory enough these days? What speed is best?
3. I will need to get a new mobo; any suggestions? I've had an Asrock these past few years, they seem solid but I have no loyalty
4. Any other advice?

This is part 1 of a three-part upgrade plan (part 2 is GPU upgrade, part 3 is to get a 4K monitor and/or ultrawidescreen) over the next six months or so. The real question is do I go for a Nvidia RTX 2080 or wait for the next chip (7 nm?) to come?

Also should I just wait six months and do the whole upgrade at once haha?

go with the 9900K

16GB is fine, but if you can buy more why not

Asrock is cool

2080

don't wait. the trade war is gonna drive up prices very soon, prices have already started to climb on some intel products and nvidia cards are slowly going back up to msrp although the cards have been out for 2 years.

For nearly $600, 9900k is not worth it.... i7 8700 or 8700k or Ryzen 5 2600x / Ryzen 7 2700x is a much better buy.... i9 9900 will probably be up to 10% faster clock per clock in gaming than i7 8700k in gaming so is nearly double the cost worth that 10% gain?... 16gb is still good, as you can always add more if and when you need more. Asrock is still good, as long as you go with a name brand you will be ok.

Now as for getting a RTX 2080, I wouldn't bother getting one of those as long as there are GTX 1080ti's available for around or under $700. Now if your making the move to 4k, there is no need for i9 9900k at all since your going be to nearly all gpu bound. At that resolution the difference between i5 to i7 or Ryzen 5 to Ryzen 7 is in the single digit percentage range at best.

Thank you for the advice! Much appreciated.

I tend to future-proof my builds when possible, so if spending an extra ~200 now saves me from having to get a new processor in three years (and the inconvenience of ripping my mobo and processor out), I wouldn't mind doing that.

If the 9900K is really just not worth the extra cost, however, I might reconsider.

@mrbojangles25:

If your looking at more future proofing then go with Ryzen IMO, AM4 socket is suppose to be supported until at least 2020. So when you pick up a 400 series AM4 motherboard all you have to do is update the bios and put in one of those new cpus and keep your ram. AMD is going 7nm in 2019 so they could pack 2x the amount of transistors in the same die area as 1st gen Ryzen's. So we could see upto 16 core options with Ryzen on AM4 platform and or even much higher clocked options using alot less power. Intel is stuck on 14nm node and having issues getting good 10nm yields.

The 9900K is the best gaming processor, however it requires fast memory as well. 3200MHz CL14 or 3600MHz CL16 are good bets. Clock for clock isn't a big improvement over your current one. Ryzen is about equal clock for clock. However you get the benefit of another 4 cores and HT. Which Intel has conveniently disabled for their i7 9th gen.

Ryzen even more than Intel prefer fast memory. Don't get anything worse than what I mentioned for Intel.

16GB ram is still plenty.

As for GPU.. Either order tomorrow or wait until you have the new monitor and see what rumours are then.

@mrbojangles25: wanna sell me your 4790K? I built a frankenstein system out of a friend’s old parts with a 4690K :D