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[Boss Mog]

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.

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.

 

[badb0y]

I will use my 2600k until it bottenecks me from playing the latest games at the settings I want. As it is, I am still GPU limited in most if not all games I have played so far.

 

[Yudoken]

I will use my 2600k until it bottenecks me from playing the latest games at the settings I want. As it is, I am still GPU limited in most if not all games I have played so far.

Smart choice!
Changed my rig to an mATX SLI system and had to sell of my oc i7 2600k @4,4ghz against a 4790k for the new mainboard and I got almost nothing in terms of gaming performance.
Upgrade your gpu if you want to get more fps (if you haven an 2500k or above oc it!
Don't get crazy, try to achieve something about 4,00 and you're good to go for the next years to come.

 

[0.1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34.55]

2600k @ 4.6 is still pretty beastly OP. I'd suggest waiting for smaller silicon. Did you overvolt to get it there? If not, I don't think it's going to crap out anytime soon.

 

[ss_lemonade]

I would love to upgrade too but I still feel I'm in need of a gpu upgrade more (have a 780 and oc'ed 3570k).

Other than emulation, what games take good advantage of newer cpus nowadays?

 

[Arulan]

The main source of improvement between the last six or so years of CPU releases isn't average frame rate, but your 99th percentile frame times. It goes a long ways to making your experience feel as smooth as it should.

 

[Nostremitus]

I'm using a 2500K @ 4.5, it's not bad.

If DX12/Vulkan games start pushing higher threadcount for better performance and the Zen processors perform, and are priced right, I'll definitely be looking at them.

 

[Jonnax]

I think it's a bit silly to think that DDR4 prices will spike. That would harm adoption.

I'm definitely going to be upgrading with Skylake. Still using a Q6600 and I'm starting to feel its age.

My plan it to get 16gb ram and just use the Intel gpu since I've shifted my gaming to the PS4. Incidentally does anyone know how integrated compares to a dedicated card in day to day use? I used a PC with a decent CPU with an Intel G43 and everything felt laggy especially web browsing which resolved when I plugged a 6850 in.

I want a PC that I can have a VM running with multiple IDEs and 200 tabs open in Firefox. And be ablr to hibernate and get back up and running super fast. Maybe I'll stretch to 24gb with the money saved on no gpu.

I've not heard much of the AMD card. Hopefully it will be good and bring some much needed competition.

 

[tmtyf]

I will more than likely be upgrading next week. i have a 2700k but with windows 10 my mobo is starting to show its age. I would love to wait for zen but its too long of a wait for me ;(

 

[MR ARCADE FOREVER]

Any idea when Skylake mobos and cpus will be available for pre order?

 

[Boss Mog]

2600k @ 4.6 is still pretty beastly OP. I'd suggest waiting for smaller silicon. Did you overvolt to get it there? If not, I don't think it's going to crap out anytime soon.

Skylake-S is 14nm so it's smaller silicon, Haswell is 22nm and my Sandy Bridge is 32nm. I'm not overvolting and it never goes above 60C when gaming so hopefully it won't crap out anytime soon.

Don't you guys want newer Motherboard tech though. I mean USB 3.1 is twice as fast as 3.0 and type-C connector is the future for all devices pretty much. And M.2 SSDs are nice and don't take any space.

Plus I'm afraid my PCI-E 2.0 slot might bottleneck future GPUs, right now I have a GTX 970 and I don't think that there's much of a bottleneck but in the future who knows. I wish nVidia would go more into detail about NVlink and if that's gonna be a technology that will be incorporated into mainstream motherboards.

 

[CreepingFear]

Every time people wait for AMD, they are disappointed. Bulldozer, Piledriver, etc. They just don't have the RND of Intel. I'm rooting for them though. We need some competition for lower prices and better products. I have no loyalty to Intel. If AMD pulled out a miracle, I'd switch in a heartbeat. I regret not having AMD back in the Pentium 4 days. Then, the Core 2 Duo came out and AMD has been trying to catch up ever since.

I'm in the same boat as you OP. I have a 2600k oced to 4.4ghz to go with a P8P67 Pro. It's still going strong, but I have the upgrade itch. Plus, at this point the MoBo itself is considered End of Life and is not getting the driver upgrades and the BIOS updates. I'm looking forward to VR. I also want to make my current PC as a secondary/backup/test PC, while it's still relatively powerful.

I am pretty much planning on getting the 6700k. I don't believe the 5.2 ghz rumors. People said 5 ghz easily for Sandy Bridge. I was only able to achieve 4.4ghz on mine. Maybe, I just have a dud. I'd be happy if I can get 4.5ghz on the 6700k. There is no such thing as future proofing, but we have DX12 to take advantage of hardware and most games are still developed for much lower powered devices such as consoles and mobile. In retrospect, getting the 2600k was a perfect time to upgrade. Whether it will be a mistake buying Skylake, only time will tell.

 

[Black_Stride]

2500K
Till it dies, or is the bottleneck in gaming.
IF type C USBs become super standard before 2018 then maybe ill upgrade, otherwise ill probably be waiting till the next major new architecture.

 

[Boss Mog]

Every time people wait for AMD, they are disappointed. Bulldozer, Piledriver, etc. They just don't have the RND of Intel. I'm rooting for them though. We need some competition for lower prices and better products. I have no loyalty to Intel. If AMD pulled out a miracle, I'd switch in a heartbeat. I regret not having AMD back in the Pentium 4 days. Then, the Core 2 Duo came out and AMD has been trying to catch up ever since.

I'm in the same boat as you OP. I have a 2600k oced to 4.4ghz to go with a P8P67 Pro. It's still going strong, but I have the upgrade itch. Plus, at this point the MoBo itself is considered End of Life and is not getting the driver upgrades and the BIOS updates. I'm looking forward to VR. I also want to make my current PC as a secondary/backup/test PC, while it's still relatively powerful.

I am pretty much planning on getting the 6700k. I don't believe the 5.2 ghz rumors. People said 5 ghz easily for Sandy Bridge. I was only able to achieve 4.4ghz on mine. Maybe, I just have a dud. I'd be happy if I can get 4.5ghz on the 6700k. There is no such thing as future proofing, but we have DX12 to take advantage of hardware and most games are still developed for much lower powered devices such as consoles and mobile. In retrospect, getting the 2600k was a perfect time to upgrade. Whether it will be a mistake buying Skylake, only time will tell.

The thing is that Intel really hasn't made that much progress since Sandy Bridge in 2011 so i definitely think it would be plausible for AMD to catch up to them after all these years and offer something at least similar performance wise but maybe with better pricing as they usually do.

As for the 5.2GHz rumors I'm inclined to believe them only because the TDP is 95W with the 14nm die shrink whereas Devil's Canyon was 88W at 22nm. That would seem to suggest a lot of overclocking headroom.

 

[nubbe]

not upgrading my 3930K anytime soon

since I can get 2160 or 1440 with my 780x2 without issue
The GPU ram is the limiting factor at the moment

 

[Mad Season]

My 2500k at 4.5 is still a champ

 

[Hazelhurst]

I just recently upgraded to the Core i5 4790k devil's canyon. It's a beast. Upgraded from a Core2Quad 9550.Very noticeable difference in performance.

 

[Soi-Fong]

Was planning on building a completely new rig for when Vive comes out later this year.

I'm in the exact same boat as you OP. My i7 2600k + 780 Ti Classified is still rocking, but I know Vive will kill it.

I'm planning on pairing up the 6700k w/ dual SLI 980 Ti's. Might as well go for the latest and greatest.

My current rig will be a back-up rig for my Unity development.

 

[CreepingFear]

The thing is that Intel really hasn't made that much progress since Sandy Bridge in 2011 so i definitely think it would be plausible for AMD to catch up to them after all these years and offer something at least similar performance wise but maybe with better pricing as they usually do.

Intel hasn't really had to progress. The technology is just not pushing them and AMD is 3-4 years behind them. So, they've focused more on energy consumption with mobile parts. The 99th cent percentile is the most important thing I'll be looking for in the next AMD architecture that comes out. It would be fine if it gets the FPS of Ivy Bridge, but catches up to Intel in the percentile area and for a lower price.

 

[GeoNeo]

Once offical prices are out people might want to consider 5820K (6 core, 12 thread) and x99 MB (with m.2, USB 3.1) over a Skylake setup if the price difference is under 200 or so.

Leaked Chinese benchmarks comparing it to other Intel CPUs.

http://diy.pconline.com.cn/675/6751941.html

Too bad they did not overclocking wanted to see if it was a beast or bust. Hopefully, we get full reviews soon. if they can clock to 5GHz without a shit ton of volts I'll be really impressed. Come on baby!

 

[Renekton]

Zen at first glance seems to double-down on Jaguar route of tons of small-ish cores?

 

[ChrisMahoney]

I think it's a bit silly to think that DDR4 prices will spike. That would harm adoption.

I'm definitely going to be upgrading with Skylake. Still using a Q6600 and I'm starting to feel its age.

My plan it to get 16gb ram and just use the Intel gpu since I've shifted my gaming to the PS4. Incidentally does anyone know how integrated compares to a dedicated card in day to day use? I used a PC with a decent CPU with an Intel G43 and everything felt laggy especially web browsing which resolved when I plugged a 6850 in.

I want a PC that I can have a VM running with multiple IDEs and 200 tabs open in Firefox. And be ablr to hibernate and get back up and running super fast. Maybe I'll stretch to 24gb with the money saved on no gpu.

I've not heard much of the AMD card. Hopefully it will be good and bring some much needed competition.

My PC with Intel HD 3000 graphics and an SSD runs super smooth when not gaming.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I'll probably go Skylake but not until near the end of the year or early next year. Having a sudden holiday I wasn't planning to go on so I'm being conservative with funds. I'm moving from a 4670, non-k. I'm planning to move into a roomy case and possibly fuck around with closed loop water cooling.

 

[OnionPowder]

I would just go with the skylake CPU, even with a 40% boost in IPC on the AMD chips it still won't beat skylake so don't waste your time.

 

[Boss Mog]

Once offical prices are out people might want to consider 5820K (6 core, 12 thread) and x99 MB (with m.2, USB 3.1) over a Skylake setup if the price difference is under 200 or so.

Leaked Chinese benchmarks comparing it to other Intel CPUs.

http://diy.pconline.com.cn/675/6751941.html

Too bad they did not overclocking wanted to see if it was a beast or bust. Hopefully, we get full reviews soon. if they can clock to 5GHz without a shit ton of volts I'll be really impressed. Come on baby!

Personally I'm not interested in the X99 platform, The motherboards are way too expensive if you want a relatively nice one compared to Z97/Z170. Also, yeah the 5820K is 6-core but they're clocked much slower and there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get them much higher on air (it's a 140W TDP) and I don't like or want to spend money on water cooling. You would end up spending significantly more for not that much gain. In fact in some leaked benchmarks the 6700K apparently beats the 5820K.

 

[Sciz]

I'm still limping along with an E8400, so I'm definitely looking to Skylake as the next big thing for a new build. That it happens to coincide with a major USB update and falling DDR4 prices is a nice bonus.

As much as it would be great to see AMD suddenly be competitive for the first time in nearly a decade, I've got no reason to believe they're capable of it.

 

[nubbe]

you can disable cores to achieve higher clock speeds on the E series

applications that don't utilize multithreading will always benefit from the clock and E is 6 cores compared to vanilla that is 4

 

[Nostremitus]

Zen at first glance seems to double-down on Jaguar route of tons of small-ish cores?

What are you talking about?

Jaguar are mobile chips
They share 2 cores per module
Jaguar is usually in a dual or quad core (one or two module) configuration.


Zen will be a new microarchitecture, full sized, node shrunk, full core (no more 2 "cores" per module), hyperthreaded, much higher IPC chip. It still won't match Skylake but if the price is right it could still be a price/perf contender. Time will tell.


AMD don't have their own foundry or a large RnD budget, so when they have a mishap they have to deal with it for a while. The current microarchitecture didn't pan out but it would have bankrupted them if they had tried to push a whole new microarchitecture out to replace it. So they've had to deal with the consequences of those design decisions and hopefully learn from them. Zen is the completely new microarchitecture that is replacing the bulldozer cores. As I said, though, time will tell if they learned from their mistakes.

 

[Leafhopper]

I have a 3750K. I got no reason to upgrade for a good while.

 

[chaosblade]

I was thinking maybe Skylake would be when I upgrade my 2500K, but I don't know. I still don't feel the need.

We're getting to the point Intel's biggest competitor in the desktop market is themselves. They are going to have to give people reasons to upgrade eventually.

 

[JBuccCP]

I was planning on upgrading this year from my 2500k and 7970 but so far just haven't felt the need too. Sure for some games I can't run them completely maxed out but just tick down a couple of barely noticeable settings and then everything's smooth enough for me. I think I'll just use these until there's something I just have to have that I can't play without large graphical sacrifices. Then again if things keep going as they are I'll never play another game besides Rocket League and Hearthstone so I won't have to upgrade ever again!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

AMD has literally zero chance of ever being performance competitive with Intel again. Literally zero.

AMD does not have the engineering resources, they don't have the talent, they don't have the process improvements, they don't even own their own fabs. It's just not going to happen.

If your machine getting long in the tooth like mine is, then upgrade. I'm still on a Core i7-950. Skylake will probably feel like a revolutionary performance jump for me. If you're on something newer, especially with a heavy OC, then it's probably not worth it. Either way, no one should ever wait for AMD. Everything AMD makes these days is a huge flop. Their R&D budget is a fraction of Intel's, and actually smaller than Nvidia's, and they expect to be developing both CPUs and GPUs with that budget. Let's not even pretend AMD has a chance anymore because they don't.

 

[iNvid02]

2600k at 4.4ghz has been a soldier since launch 2011, but with intel's roadmap adjustment and pascal supposedly coming out next year im probably gonna go skylake too.

 

[elelunicy]

Meh. Unless 5.0ghz is easily achievable I'll probably wait for an 8-core Skylake-E.

 

[Halabane]

i7 26k with 16gb will be a long time before it needs replacing based on the new consoles needs for processing. The consoles will always define the min required level for play ability.

What I will upgrade is gpu, thats only when developers bother with enhancing the graphics over the consoles. I have two 6900 in cross fire which have yet to not be able to play pretty much every thing on high/ultra...witcher 3 not so much, pretty much at high or lower but still works fine for me. But that is telling me its time to look for gpu...not cpu.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Zen at first glance seems to double-down on Jaguar route of tons of small-ish cores?

Actual cores are a tiny amount of die space these days. The exascale variants that whatsittech "extrapolated" look to be exclusively for HPCs and probably uses HBM in place of L3 cache since the latency and throughput is going to be incredibly close. The reclaimed die space can just be swapped for more cores and a bigger GPU.

 

[styl3s]

I have a 3750K. I got no reason to upgrade for a good while.

I'm still rocking the i5 4690k and have yet to run into any issues at running stuff maxed out. I almost went the overkill route with my CPU but this one will probably last me another 2 years.

 

[ILoveBish]

I've been extremely patient for a long time. My FX6300 has served me well, but when it comes to emulation it really falls short. Which is why i'm upgrading very soon to a intel setup. I wish the skylake stuff was 6 core tho. The i7-5820k 6-core has my attention due to this.

 

[Inumbris]

I'm in almost the same boat that you are OP. I'm running a 2600 (wasn't PC build savvy enough at the time to spring for the K version) and feel like I'm gong to jump for the upgrade for the new memory and motherboard features alone. Any gains that I get on the actual CPU would almost just feel like an added bonus since my current setup doesn't feel too processor-constrained.

I would really like to give an M.2 setup a shot, since I'm not using SLI currently and can spare the PCI-e lanes, and my current board doesn't even support front-side USB 3.0 so it's definitely feeling long in the tooth.

As for the AMD side of the argument, I don't think I can really help you out. I haven't tried building with AMD as of yet, and since I'm running NVIDIA cards I'm not seeing too many compelling reasons to wait for them to catch up to Intel.

 

[GeoNeo]

Personally I'm not interested in the X99 platform, The motherboards are way too expensive if you want a relatively nice one compared to Z97/Z170. Also, yeah the 5820K is 6-core but they're clocked much slower and there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get them much higher on air (it's a 140W TDP) and I don't like or want to spend money on water cooling. You would end up spending significantly more for not that much gain. In fact in some leaked benchmarks the 6700K apparently beats the 5820K.

The 5820K clock fine on air as long as you don't go bottom of the barrel air cooler. Check my link the 6700K beats the 5820K in only a few benchmarks and those are ones which are not properly multi-threaded.

All comes down price difference end of the day and what you are planning to use the setup for of course.

Hopefully, 6700K overclocks like a beast not long before we find out.

Also, bookmark this top tier air cooler shootout it's so well done might help you decide on a good air cooler for your 6700K if you end up buying it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9415/top-tier-cpu-air-coolers-9way-roundup-review

 

[sssstententen]

Gonna be going from a 955 BE and 5850 to 6700K and either single or dual 980Ti.

Cannot wait.

 

[Renekton]

What are you talking about?

Jaguar are mobile chips
They share 2 cores per module
Jaguar is usually in a dual or quad core (one or two module) configuration.


Zen will be a new microarchitecture, full sized, node shrunk, full core (no more 2 "cores" per module), hyperthreaded, much higher IPC chip. It still won't match Skylake but if the price is right it could still be a price/perf contender. Time will tell.

Ohh means they won't share L2? Good news.

I wondered if the 1 core/module was ever viable on TSMC/GF 28nm if they started on that route. Could have had a different console generation.

 

[Insane Metal]

If that chart is true then it's not nearly enough to make these CPUs even comparable to Intel's. So go with Intel.

 

[The Boat]

I've been holding off on buying a new PC (that I desperately need) until Skylake comes out.
If Skylake CPUs are too expensive for now I guess I'll have to pass, can I get a 1151 mobo and a broadwell CPU to be more future future proof and use DDR4?

 

[Celcius]

2600K @ 4.6ghz still going strong here, no plans to upgrade this year. I would wait OP, our cpu's are still beastly.

 

[Tallshortman]

Unless you use very CPU intensive applications there's not a lot of reason to upgrade right now. The 2600k is still very, very capable. I have one overclocked and have no plans to upgrade until either Intel or AMD come out with a true jump in performance.

AMD has literally zero chance of ever being performance competitive with Intel again. Literally zero.

AMD does not have the engineering resources, they don't have the talent, they don't have the process improvements, they don't even own their own fabs. It's just not going to happen.

If your machine getting long in the tooth like mine is, then upgrade. I'm still on a Core i7-950. Skylake will probably feel like a revolutionary performance jump for me. If you're on something newer, especially with a heavy OC, then it's probably not worth it. Either way, no one should ever wait for AMD. Everything AMD makes these days is a huge flop. Their R&D budget is a fraction of Intel's, and actually smaller than Nvidia's, and they expect to be developing both CPUs and GPUs with that budget. Let's not even pretend AMD has a chance anymore because they don't.

lol another terrible, classic unknown soldier AMD post.

 

[crazepharmacist]

i7920@4ghz. Not upgrading.

 

[Trago]

Going from a 4690k to the new i5 or i7 probably won't mean much for me.

 

[BlueLiquid]

I'm not planning on upgrading until the end of the year. Right now I'm still on my old i7 930 (in my first self-built PC) from five years ago. This past year I started messing around with creating and editing videos a little more and that's where the CPU is really showing its age.

I honestly wasn't expecting Skylake to come out this soon. Last I heard was that it was coming in the second half of the year so I figured October or November. I'll still give it a few months so I can save some money and build a really nice new PC as a holiday break project.

 

[Seagoon]

I wasn't planning on upgrading my 2500K setup, but my system seems to be failing (hopefully just a memory issue) - if it turns out the motherboard is at fault count me in for a 6600K / 6700K setup.

Really hoping I can eek a few more years out of this system. Performance wise, I can't fault it.