After about 8 years of not doing any 3D graphics, I'm ready to pickup the hobby (and maybe career) again :-)
It's amazing how much Houdini has changed since I last used it… wow!

I'm looking to update my relic system. Right now I'm still rocking i7 920 :-) Just upgraded the video card to Quadro P2000. Noticing quite a difference with vellum and fluids (OpenCL) although not as much as I had hoped for.

CPU/MB/RAM is of course the next logical update. I can't afford Threadripper 2950x right now, but there's a sale for Threadripper 1950x that brings it to $100 over i9-9900K.

What in your opinion is a better choice for Houdini: AMD Threadripper 1950x or i9-9900K? Or is i9-9900K not worth it and should I just get the good old i7-8700K (6 cores, 12 hyperthreads) or the newer i7-9700K (8 cores / 8 hyperthreads)?

Please don't suggest anything more expensive (my max CPU price is $750Cnd) due to budget constraints :-)

Thank you!

I'd go the 8700K, spend more on ram.

Threadripper. AM4 socket is going to be supported for a long time, and if prices on future threadrippers drop as drastically as they did for the 19xx series you are going to have some great, easy upgrade options for the future.