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i5 6600K, i7 6700K CPUs & Z170 Mobos out next week; Upgrade or wait to see AMD's Zen?

pushBAK

Member
Depending on when you upgraded last....Skylake is a great time to upgrade. Last I bought was the very first i7 processory (920), so Skylake should be huge.

Will be waiting however to see just how much of a performance gain DDR4 is, and how well Nvidia's first HBM card will work.
 

Xenus

Member
If you're looking for a socket that will allow you to do a meaningful CPU upgrade in the next few years, you are not going to find one on an Intel platform.

I was hoping for one that'd at least stick around a tick-tock. Not hoping for much more than that. But just in case something special comes out of skylake-E or kabylake essentially.
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
Is that overclockable?

Also, you can get a decent 5820 / Gigabyte UD4 combo for $510 at Microcenter, which is not too bad.

You can push the turbo across all 4 cores to 3.8ghz if your mobo will allow it. If you bclk oc you can get 3.9. No point in really doing that though.

Yeah i sort of wish I would have pulled the trigger on the 5820, but couldn't justify spending $200+ more when you factor in the mobo.
 

StereoVsn

Member
You can push the turbo to 3.8ghz if your mobo will allow it. If you bclk oc you can get 3.9. No point in really doing that though.

Yeah i sort of wish I would have pulled the trigger on the 5820, but couldn't justify spending $200+ more when you factor in the mobo.

It's not really that much different from Skylake pricing now that DDR4 came down. A good board will be around $150-200 in any case plus $300ish for the chip.
 

chepu

Member
I have an i7-860 OC@ 3.57Ghz and an Nvidia GTX570.

I think its time to upgrade CPU to skylake right?

And also im waiting for the first HBM nvidia card, what do you think GAF?
 

harz-marz

Member
All three of your options are valid (I presume the middle one will work on your current mobo?) so pick whichever you have the budget for.

Thanks! Money isn't an issue as such but don't wanna be wasteful of it. I want to make sure the rig is future proofed another few years
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
It's not really that much different from Skylake pricing now that DDR4 came down. A good board will be around $150-200 in any case plus $300ish for the chip.

Yeah I went with $209 chip and $100 asrock killer oc z97 though. So still roughly $300 vs $500. I'd say the 5820 is worth the price of admission, but not so much skylake or even 4790k when you can get a xeon 1231v3 or i5 4690k for so much less and performance will be very similar.
 

Mergesort

Member
I have an i7-860 OC@ 3.57Ghz and an Nvidia GTX570.

I think its time to upgrade CPU to skylake right?

And also im waiting for the first HBM nvidia card, what do you think GAF?

Wait for the next generation of GPU's with HBM, 14nm, VR certified etc and upgrade to skylake + new gpu. The CPU price might drop somewhat until then.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Think I'll be looking to build my a new rig in the next month or two to replace my old one I built all the way back in '09.

I'll probably pick up a i7 6700K that will hopefully last a good 5+ years as my i7 920 has.

Not sure what I should do in terms of GPU in the meantime though since AMD's R9 series kind of weren't as amazing as anticipated and Nvidia's HBM options won't be out till next year. So I don't really want to spend a whole lot in the meantime, but my current 7950 isn't totally competitive, but it's probably good enough to hold me over for less than a year.

Decisions decisions. Kind of want to get this all done with and built before MGSV and FO4 come out and really push those games. Plus some older games I compromised on like replaying TW3.
 

Xenus

Member
Think I'll be looking to build my a new rig in the next month or two to replace my old one I built all the way back in '09.

I'll probably pick up a i7 6700K that will hopefully last a good 5+ years as my i7 920 has.

Not sure what I should do in terms of GPU in the meantime though since AMD's R9 series kind of weren't as amazing as anticipated and Nvidia's HBM options won't be out till next year. So I don't really want to spend a whole lot in the meantime, but my current 7950 isn't totally competitive, but it's probably good enough to hold me over for less than a year.

Decisions decisions. Kind of want to get this all done with and built before MGSV and FO4 come out and really push those games. Plus some older games I compromised on like replaying TW3.

I'd say hold onto it for next year when the HBM2 brothers hit on a lower process which should mean a major performance jump.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
I'd say hold onto it for next year when the HBM2 brothers hit on a lower process which should mean a major performance jump.

Yeah that's what I figure is the most prudent. Especially because I'm frugal as fuck. I've only had two GPUs since 09 when I built my rig. The 4890 I built it with and the the 7950 I upgraded to about two years ago. So for my new rig I want to get something I can hold on to for a good long while again and HBM2 is probably the best bet. So I don't mind paying a big much upfront compared to doling out a bit less a few more times over in the next 5 years.
 
i7-3930k hex core vs i7-6700k 4 core

I edit video, stream, and play all the latest and greatest at 1080p (because it is a living room PC and streaming and reasons, get off my back elitists!)

Would it be worth an upgrade? Would it even be better at all?
 
I have an i7-2600k and I'm planning to "upgrade" to an i5-6600k for two reasons:

1) An i7 is overkill for me, I don't think I've ever needed that hyperthreading and I guess I feel some sort of shame at my excess spending. Would rather sell the 2600k to someone who can get better use out of it and go to something more sensible for me.

But mostly 2) I want to downsize my computer to an ITX build using the Ncase M1, which I've already ordered. Despite moving to a smaller case a couple years ago I still find ATX to simply be too big and wasteful for my purposes. I don't do SLI or anything, the only expansion card I have is my single video card, and I only use a couple drives. Unfortunately you can't really get new motherboards for the 2600k anymore, so I don't have much choice but to get a new CPU.

I probably won't buy until the end of the month though to let availability (hopefully) settle down. My new case hasn't even shipped yet anyway and will take a couple weeks to get here, so not much rush to me.
 
i7-3930k hex core vs i7-6700k 4 core

I edit video, stream, and play all the latest and greatest at 1080p (because it is a living room PC and streaming and reasons, get off my back elitists!)

Would it be worth an upgrade? Would it even be better at all?

No, the architectural changes won't make up for the 2 fewer cores.
 
But mostly 2) I want to downsize my computer to an ITX build using the Ncase M1, which I've already ordered. Despite moving to a smaller case a couple years ago I still find ATX to simply be too big and wasteful for my purposes. I don't do SLI or anything, the only expansion card I have is my single video card, and I only use a couple drives.

Lots of cool mITX boards for the current Intel CPUs, although at that size case you really need to be picky about each component. I just finished a build with the 250D and even that case still has things to consider, especially given the size of most non-stock videocards. I do wish they would drop PS/2 though.
 

LilJoka

Member
Wait for the next generation of GPU's with HBM, 14nm, VR certified etc and upgrade to skylake + new gpu. The CPU price might drop somewhat until then.

CPU prices don't tend to drop at all.


I have an i7-2600k and I'm planning to "upgrade" to an i5-6600k for two reasons:

1) An i7 is overkill for me, I don't think I've ever needed that hyperthreading and I guess I feel some sort of shame at my excess spending. Would rather sell the 2600k to someone who can get better use out of it and go to something more sensible for me.

But mostly 2) I want to downsize my computer to an ITX build using the Ncase M1, which I've already ordered. Despite moving to a smaller case a couple years ago I still find ATX to simply be too big and wasteful for my purposes. I don't do SLI or anything, the only expansion card I have is my single video card, and I only use a couple drives. Unfortunately you can't really get new motherboards for the 2600k anymore, so I don't have much choice but to get a new CPU.

I probably won't buy until the end of the month though to let availability (hopefully) settle down. My new case hasn't even shipped yet anyway and will take a couple weeks to get here, so not much rush to me.

If you can get hold of an Asus P8Z77I-Deluxe you don't need to move to skylake.
 

Smokey

Member
If I was going to upgrade from a 2600k, I wouldn't be upgrading to anything less than a 6 core proc. That 2600k is still plenty good for today's games.
 
If I was going to upgrade from a 2600k, I wouldn't be upgrading to anything less than a 6 core proc. That 2600k is still plenty good for today's games.

When I bought a 2500 back in the day I thought for sure that we'd be on 8 core mainstream CPUs by now.

We aren't even up to six.

Hgnnnngggg
 

Xenus

Member
I blame a lot of stagnation on AMD's ability to be competent and challenge Intel.

Pretty much. Intel isn't threatened so they are pushing more powerful chips into the higher margin server space rather then using them to compete with AMD
 

DonasaurusRex

Online Ho Champ
Boss★Moogle;174151155 said:
Maybe there's some kind of driver issues, or some other software related problem causing Skylake to perform worse than Devil's Canyon in games, even at equal clock speed. I'm baffled...

The article seems to be pointing out that early benchmarks for Nehalem were slower in games than Yorkfield but I don't remember that being the case later on, so maybe there's hope.

maybe the power draw is significantly less for nearly the same performance?
 

Lace

Member
I'm still rocking a phenom x4 945 from early 2010. I've opted to upgrade to an ssd and gtx 770 4gb over a cpu/mobo. I'm still not running into any noticeable bottlenecks with my current cpu. Any thoughts on if jumping to a 6600k will be worth the jump?
 

mhayze

Member
Really good analysis and points. Some interesting info about AMD, since they've fallen off my CPU radar.

Like you, I have a 2600k, overclocked. Recently, my PC has had some slight issues. Asus no longer issues BIOS updates for their old motherboards, so we're kinda frozen in time, and if there is any kind of Windows 10 issue with the platform (haven't upgraded that PC yet), then I'm kinda screwed. I'm going to look for a liquid cooler and re-TIM my CPU, since I think that's one of the sources of trouble, and I think the processor is not stable at the older clocks I used to run.

I'm still considering Haswell-E over Skylake-S for a couple of reasons:
Firstly it's for the extra PCIe 3.0 lanes in Haswell-E:

- I'm a big SSD fan, and will be using multiple high end (non-SATA) SSDs, in my build, and each one requires 4x PCIe lanes:
- Probably one for OS and main apps
- One as a caching drive for a RAID or tiered Storage Spaces for mass storage
- A third one for games
- I'm probably going to run SLI if it properly supports strereoscopic acceleration for VR (looking forward to Oculus and/or Vive)
- USB 3.1a is most likely going to catch on over the next 3-4 years (about how long I keep a platform) and no one has a good full implementation yet, so that will probably come by way of add in PCIe cards that need a lot of lanes (if you need multiple ports)

Secondly I want a hex-core processor (would love a octa-core, but I'm not going to bite right away.

I will want for reviews, but it will take a big surprise to sway me to upgrade to Skylake-S.

Boss★Moogle;173888823 said:
So Intel is launching Skylake-S and the Z170 chipset next week supposedly and I'm considering upgrading. I used to upgrade my CPU/mobo every 2 years but I've been rockin' the i7 2600K since early 2011 and with it overclocked to 4.6GHz, it's still a fantastic performing CPU.

I could probably get away with still using it a bit longer but here's the thing, I usually rely on the resale of my old CPU/mobo to cover bout 60% of the cost of the upgrade and I've never had parts this long. I'm afraid maybe they'll fail if I keep using them much longer; my PC is on pretty much anytime I'm home and not sleeping, so my current CPU/mobo combo has racked up quite a bit of usage hours over the last 4.5 years. I would really hate for them to fail, plus if I keep waiting I might not be able to get anything for them. In fact i was surprised to see I could still get like 200 bucks for my CPU. Plus another reason I want to upgrade is because my mobo feels ancient. It's a P67 mobo so it's not even PCI-E 3.0 and it's lacking a lot of the cool new features that Z170 mobos will have like USB 3.1 with Type-C ports, M.2 slots, etc...

Apparently Intel won't be coming out with a new architecture til 2018 as they delayed the 10nm die shrink for Skylake to 2017 with only a Skylake refresh (kinda like Devil's Canyon was for Haswell) planned for 2016, so now seems like a good time to upgrade knowing that there won't be any major leaps for at least 3years CPU-wise. Also, while leaked benchmarks don't show the i7 6700K to be significantly faster than the current i7 4790K (the i7 6700K offers a 5-10% performance gain over the i7 4790K all while having a 200MHz slower maximum boost speed), apparently the Skylake CPUs are very good overclockers with 5.2GHz supposedly easily obtainable on air.


But then there's AMD and while a lot of people will scoff, their next FX CPUs with Zen cores coming out next year look very promising with AMD stating that single core instructions per clock will go up 40% from their current Excavator core. Zen will also feature fully independent cores with hyperthreading so they might actually give Intel a run for their money.

Zen-IPC-Gain.jpg


Another thing is DDR4 memory dropped a lot recently and you can get 16GB for like $130. I'm always scared that memory prices will go back up like they did in 2013-2014 after that fire at a Hynix factory, so now seems like a good time to switch over from DDR3 without having to pay too much of a premium.

Anybody here in a similar boat? If so, are you guys upgrading or waiting? Any advice or discussion would be helpful.
 

Saintruski

Unconfirmed Member
a lot of people are impressed eith this 40% stuff, im not impressed by that AMD graph it's missing data sets, markers, tons of stuff, I also see maybe a 5-10% (we can know exactly because AMD is missing data sets sneaky Devils) improvement between two architectures over 2012-2015...so a 40% imporvement isn't impressive by any means it is in fact just catching up to lost time of all the years....it's all about how you look at it. this would more than likely be putting them more on track or closer to where they should be if you view their 2012-2015 years.
 

ILoveBish

Member
The Intel announcement to make skylake official is in a few hours right? Hope micro center will have a bundle up day 1. Want to walk into the store and get a setup. Although I'm really considering the 5820k for the 6 cores. I just have a feeling that 6 cores is the sweet spot for a long time to come.
 
So I'm thinking about upgrading my cpu. Should I go with the i-5 4690K or the i-5 6600K, is there is big difference between the two or is it just the DDR4 memory that's the difference?
 

Robbit_80

Member
I wouldn't bother. 2500/2600k and above with a decent 4Ghz+ clock will last until games start using more than 4 cores more regularly. IE. Years.

DX12 should see to that hopefully.
 

Boss Mog

Member
lol a 4790k beating each :O oh my...

Yeah I wouldn't be too worried. In productivity benchmarks the 6700K beats the 4790K by 10-15% despite being 200Mhz slower so I don't know what up with gaming but it's most likely some software issue from Intel or Microsoft that will get fixed.
 
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