Help needed- Been out the game a while

[Simpsonite]

Hi folks,
First of all apologies for the questions that may have been asked elsewhere, but I cant seem to find a straight, troll free, fanboy free answer anywhere...

I've been out of the game for several years when it comes to buying new hardware so I'll be honest- I need advice. I've done the usual web trawling, but to no avail.

My main question is this (bearing in mind my current rig was built in'07):
Do I buy an X99 based LGA2011-3 6-core set up, or the newer skylake kit?

ASUS X99-Deluxe
Intel i7-5930K Processor 3.5Ghz 6 Core
64gb DDR4 in Quad channel (corsair as theyve proven reliable over the years)
2x XFX Radeon R9 290X DD 1050Mhz 4GB GDR5 (Crossfire 16x-16x)

OR

Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero
Intel i7 6700K
64GB DDR4 in Dual channel (again, corsair)
2x XFX Radeon R9 290X DD 1050Mhz 4GB GDR5 (Crossfire 16x-8x)


This new rig will be for gaming- and browsing the web for game mods, any rendering etc can and will be done on my old rig.

Or can I overclock the nuts off my current rig and make do?

Thanks in advance for your help!


Current rig:
ASUS P5Q Deluxe
Intel Xeon X3360 running at 2.83ghz (haven't overclocked it at all as I've had no need to)
8GB DDR2 ECC Server Ram
1x XFX Radeon R9 290X DD 1050Mhz 4GB GDR5
Creative Soundblaster XFI Platinum
Full watercooling loop (mosfets, Northbridge- remember those?, southbridge, CPU, GPU)

 

[MadMarc]

Whether or not your old rig is still fast enough when overclocked is up to you.
I don't see why you'd want to still use the old rig for rendering as both new configs would perform much better.
Depending on how much rendering and other cpu intensive work you do the x99 build might be worth it, but unless you need to do it daily or for your job, I'd go with the z170 build.
Then I'd go for 32GB ram max, I'm not aware of any affordable 4x16GB kit.

 

[Simpsonite]

Hi MadMarc,
Thanks for the reply

Thats what I was wondering- will it cope with new games.
I'm mainly aiming at running Fallout 4 at a playable framerate. It'll handle Skyrim at 40ish FPS with a ton of mods, just the ram usage is frighteningly close to 90% when in game. DDR2 means I cant just shovel some more ram into it

I'm just left baffled by the sheer amount of new socket types that have sprung up in the past few years, and how we seem to have gone from quad core, to hex core and now back to quad core with the skylake...

The plan was to use my current rig as a second PC downstairs to save clogging up my gaiming rig with gigs of tat- videos of falling off my bike and such, as well as all the editing programmes that go with it.

Good point about the ram too. the price of 64gb is making me wince already!

 

[NeverBackDown]

Hi MadMarc,
Thanks for the reply

Thats what I was wondering- will it cope with new games.
I'm mainly aiming at running Fallout 4 at a playable framerate. It'll handle Skyrim at 40ish FPS with a ton of mods, just the ram usage is frighteningly close to 90% when in game. DDR2 means I cant just shovel some more ram into it

I'm just left baffled by the sheer amount of new socket types that have sprung up in the past few years, and how we seem to have gone from quad core, to hex core and now back to quad core with the skylake...

The plan was to use my current rig as a second PC downstairs to save clogging up my gaiming rig with gigs of tat- videos of falling off my bike and such, as well as all the editing programmes that go with it.

Good point about the ram too. the price of 64gb is making me wince already!

The X platform is for the extreme heavy loads. It's not really part of the non X family(the z boards) as they are meant for different things. The normal Z77/87/97/170 sockets/chipsets are geared toward mainstream users and the average person. And again the X stuff is geared towards heavily multithreaded applications. So there's quite a big difference

If you aren't doing anything like rendering audio/music/video all the time then the i7 is for you. You are mainly just gaming, so the i7 6700k is the top thing you should get. Not that other 6/8 core X series chips, they would be wasted.

Also 16GB is really far more than enough. anything more is kinda wasted unless again you render quite a bit.


I also have to agree with Marc, no point in using the old rig as both of these purposed rigs will be quite a bit faster. You could convert it into a home server and just store all your rendering files on it and etc.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

That's still a good rig...

Of course the new stuff will be better...faster

How much rendering do you do ...videos...Photoshop artworks?

Only some niche cases would need that quantity of RAM...even Photoshop files of 1GB only need 32GB

For gaming Z170 will be great...16GB of ram will cover most normal uses and then you can spend on GPU power.

How much GPU power depends on the resolution you want to drive.

 

[Simpsonite]

Hi NeverBackDown,

Thanks for the reply

That makes sense, use this rig as a home server- keeps the clutter off the new rig. It could even be an HTPC with the soundcard its got in it.

From what youve said, with the X based hardware differing from z based, that clears things up quite a bit, go for an i7 6700k.

Part of me is still wary of buying brand new kit though- I "lost the silicone lottery" a few times with boards, chips and ram over the years

16gb of ram it is then... unless that 32gb kit just happens to be at a decent price then I may get tempted

Thanks again for the help though, like i said its been so long since i've built a new rig I really have no idea what is considered 'fast enough' these days

 

[NeverBackDown]

Just make sure you get a SSD in the new rig. It's the biggest boost you will notice out of anything you can put in the rig. It won't make your games run at higher FPS, but it will certainly make loading windows/loading apps/loading maps in games/etc. It does so much it's hard to point it all out. It changes the way you use the OS because it is just so much more responsive. I recommend 256GB minimum as they are not much more than the smaller 128GB ones these days.

In regards to Silicon Lottery, these days only two things really apply to that, CPU and GPU. Just really means how far you can push them compared to other CPUs and GPUs. Motherboards are pretty reliable these days. So much so pretty much any worthy Z170 board will be able to push the CPU further than the CPU can actually go. So looks like your more in luck this time

 

[Simpsonite]

That's still a good rig...

Of course the new stuff will be better...faster

How much rendering do you do ...videos...Photoshop artworks?

Only some niche cases would need that quantity of RAM...even Photoshop files of 1GB only need 32GB

For gaming Z170 will be great...16GB of ram will cover most normal uses and then you can spend on GPU power.

How much GPU power depends on the resolution you want to drive.

Hi Arne,

Rendering would just be editing Go pro footage of the odd track day and maybe bunging it on youtube. I'm not brave enough for photoshop yet

I'm limited to 1080p at the moment, mainly due to a 4k monitor being too large to fit in the back room my rig is in.
I've read conflicting reports of the Z170 boards being incapable of a true 16x-16x SLI/CFX set up, and instead only running at 16x-8X this lead me to take the second GPU out my current rig as it proved... troublesome to say the least!

Posts merged - Please do not post multiple times in a row

Will do, i bought a £40 refurbed one to replace a dead drive in this after it emitted the suspicious blue smoke. Even on vista (yeah I know, i couldn't afford 7 when it came out so dont kill me just yet) it made a difference. Using Windows 7 now though

Really stupid question... are M.2 and PCIe SSD drives bootable disks?

In regards to Silicon Lottery, these days only two things really apply to that, CPU and GPU... So looks like your more in luck this time

Good to hear the bad old days of shakey-shakey hardware are gone to a certain extent...
My silicon lottery history isnt the best
DFI Lan party actually catching fire, then my Q6600 from my previous board died and took the board with it (luckily ASUS replaced the board FOC) and I've lost count how many sticks of OCZ reaper ram I've sent back... Hence the liking for corsair stuff

 

[Bullmecha]

Grab the new stuff with 16GB. Do whatever you want to do on it for a month, if it works out to be fine then turn the old one into the file server for your network, as suggested earlier. What I would try anyway.

 

[Simpsonite]

Hi BullMecha,

will do, hopefully this time round I'll get a full month out of a new rig without any issues!

Thanks

 

[Davva2004]

Definitely go X99, but save some money and get the 5820K. It overclocks just as well as the 5930K, the only advantage is extra PCIE lanes but for two cards and an M.2 SSD 20 lanes is plenty. Both GPUs will get 8 pcie3.0 lanes which is more than enough bandwidth per card.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Definitely go X99, but save some money and get the 5820K. It overclocks just as well as the 5930K, the only advantage is extra PCIE lanes but for two cards and an M.2 SSD 20 lanes is plenty. Both GPUs will get 8 pcie3.0 lanes which is more than enough bandwidth per card.

There's no need at all for him to X99. It would be a waste. Skylake is more than enough and certainly better than a 5820k. If you go X99 the only two worth getting is the 5930k and 5960x.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

X99 is definitely better if you want more PCIe lanes and posibilities to run more PCIe devices (5930K or 5960x to take full advantage) but Z170 is still a very capable platform.

The difference between PCIe 3.0 x8 and x16 is virtually nil by the way so SLI x8x8 is a haird breadth away from x16x16...GPUs simply don't saturate bandwidth at the moment.

Most PCIe and m2 or u2 SSDs are bootable yes...just have to check the QVL of the board your interested in or the manufacturers site of the ssd...check they have qualified it.

Check out Maximus VIII extreme

 

[AlienALX]

Good to see you Arne ! I decided recently not to frequent MLG any more so it's really nice to see you posting here mate.

I can confirm that Arne is an expert and knows what he's talking about

 

[The_Mard]

Heyyo,

Tbh it's up to you which way you go. Both will suit your needs nicely.

With that in mind? I'm inclined towards an X99 build since at least on paper with the benchmarks out right now that DirectX 12 seems to favor physical CPU cores over logical which wasn't so much the case with DirectX 11.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2971...h-tested-more-cpu-cores-more-performance.html

So... that's a tough call... but if you wanted to play it safe and go the cost-effective route? Z170 and skylake CPU... BUT, I'd make a few changes.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($359.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($143.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 Fury 4GB Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1277.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-15 11:16 EDT-0400

You didn't mention a CPU cooler so I picked my favorite of the bunch which is the Corsair H100i GTX. My H80 cooler has lasted for over three years without issues and Corsair have just been continuing to deliver quality liquid coolers. Otherwise? If you wanted to go cheaper? The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO tends to fair really well for such a cheap price. It all depends on if you're big into overclocking or not.

Now, it's unclear if you planned on using an old PSU or if you needed one btw...

If you do? For a multiple-GPU setup I'd recommend this one:

EVGA 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
https://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-110b20850v1

Multi-GPU (such as R9 290X CrossFire) with the Skylake setup would put you around 675 estimated wattage... add a 10% buffer since you never want a PSU at max capacity and that gives you roughly 750 W. EVGA has an epic price on this 850W 80+ Bronze PSU and they have a fantastic five year warranty to go with it. It's win-win. Otherwise, Thermaltake has a similarly specced one for a few bucks less... but their plastic-coated cables are a bit of a pain to work with.

Also, I'm unsure how much you're adding to your new PC. Are you planning on ripping out the GPU? If so then yeah Crossfire would be ok... but that also depends on what games you plan on playing. Some like Dead Rising 3 and World of Tanks don't support AMD CrossFire and compatibility mode doesn't work correctly either.

Depending on how much you want to spend is up to you, but I'd either get an AMD Fury Aircooled or get a GTX 980 Ti. The AMD Fury X is a bit of a letdown (in my opinion anyways). If you wanted to save some cash and get a cheaper GPU? The AMD R9 390 is also a good way to go. Yet again, I'm not 100% sure what ya wanna do for GPUs but for a single GPU? These are the best of the high end GPUs I'd recommend.

 

[Davva2004]

There's no need at all for him to X99. It would be a waste. Skylake is more than enough and certainly better than a 5820k. If you go X99 the only two worth getting is the 5930k and 5960x.

The 5820K is a six core 12 thread CPU that overclocks to 4.5ghz and beyond, the 6700K is a 4 core 8 thread CPU that overclocks up to 5ghz - and they cost pretty much the same.

Reading all the reviews, the 5820K is competitive against the 6700K in gaming, and kicks its arse in everything else.

If it were a pure gaming build I'd say Skylake i5 6600K all the way, but for a more general purpose build there's simply no reason to limit yourself to the 6700K when the 5820K offers so much more for the same price.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

Good to see you Arne ! I decided recently not to frequent MLG any more so it's really nice to see you posting here mate.

I can confirm that Arne is an expert and knows what he's talking about

Alright A**y! Good to see you about! Cheers for the vote of confidence :blushing2:

Signed up here ages ago...just not got around to posting....till now

X99 definitely a power house and for rendering and cad cam and photoshop quad channel ram and lots of cores can't be beat...but for the occasional render and lots of gaming then Z170 is the sweet spot price performance.

 

[Simpsonite]

Ello folks! I really didnt expect this thread to even get one reply, let alone two pages!
Thanks all for your input by the way

There's no need at all for him to X99. It would be a waste. Skylake is more than enough and certainly better than a 5820k. If you go X99 the only two worth getting is the 5930k and 5960x.

Thats what I was thinking regarding the X99 the 5930K. I saw the price of the 5960x and nearly had a brown trouser moment! although, like you said, the 6700K skylake is Ideal

X99 is definitely better if you want more PCIe lanes and posibilities to run more PCIe devices (5930K or 5960x to take full advantage) but Z170 is still a very capable platform.

The difference between PCIe 3.0 x8 and x16 is virtually nil by the way so SLI x8x8 is a haird breadth away from x16x16...GPUs simply don't saturate bandwidth at the moment.

Most PCIe and m2 or u2 SSDs are bootable yes...just have to check the QVL of the board your interested in or the manufacturers site of the ssd...check they have qualified it.

Check out Maximus VIII extreme

I had a look at the Maximus VIII Extreme, I can only seem to find the 8 in hero form, and not the 8 extreme I can only assume it comes out next year? Good to see the M.2 can be used for the OS drive mind. that should speed things up nicely
Maybe it's just my old board, but it misbehaves a fair bit when I put the second card back in...

Good to see you Arne ! I decided recently not to frequent MLG any more so it's really nice to see you posting here mate.

I can confirm that Arne is an expert and knows what he's talking about

I shall bear that in mind

The 5820K is a six core 12 thread CPU that overclocks to 4.5ghz and beyond, the 6700K is a 4 core 8 thread CPU that overclocks up to 5ghz - and they cost pretty much the same.

Reading all the reviews, the 5820K is competitive against the 6700K in gaming, and kicks its arse in everything else.

If it were a pure gaming build I'd say Skylake i5 6600K all the way, but for a more general purpose build there's simply no reason to limit yourself to the 6700K when the 5820K offers so much more for the same price.

Good point there, I did read a few reviews to that effect.
Hmm... Maybe i should sell a kidney and build two rigs?

Heyyo,

Tbh it's up to you which way you go. Both will suit your needs nicely.

With that in mind? I'm inclined towards an X99 build since at least on paper with the benchmarks out right now that DirectX 12 seems to favor physical CPU cores over logical which wasn't so much the case with DirectX 11.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2971...h-tested-more-cpu-cores-more-performance.html

So... that's a tough call... but if you wanted to play it safe and go the cost-effective route? Z170 and skylake CPU... BUT, I'd make a few changes.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($359.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($143.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 Fury 4GB Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1277.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-15 11:16 EDT-0400

You didn't mention a CPU cooler so I picked my favorite of the bunch which is the Corsair H100i GTX. My H80 cooler has lasted for over three years without issues and Corsair have just been continuing to deliver quality liquid coolers. Otherwise? If you wanted to go cheaper? The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO tends to fair really well for such a cheap price. It all depends on if you're big into overclocking or not.

Now, it's unclear if you planned on using an old PSU or if you needed one btw...

If you do? For a multiple-GPU setup I'd recommend this one:

EVGA 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
https://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-110b20850v1

Multi-GPU (such as R9 290X CrossFire) with the Skylake setup would put you around 675 estimated wattage... add a 10% buffer since you never want a PSU at max capacity and that gives you roughly 750 W. EVGA has an epic price on this 850W 80+ Bronze PSU and they have a fantastic five year warranty to go with it. It's win-win. Otherwise, Thermaltake has a similarly specced one for a few bucks less... but their plastic-coated cables are a bit of a pain to work with.

Also, I'm unsure how much you're adding to your new PC. Are you planning on ripping out the GPU? If so then yeah Crossfire would be ok... but that also depends on what games you plan on playing. Some like Dead Rising 3 and World of Tanks don't support AMD CrossFire and compatibility mode doesn't work correctly either.

Depending on how much you want to spend is up to you, but I'd either get an AMD Fury Aircooled or get a GTX 980 Ti. The AMD Fury X is a bit of a letdown (in my opinion anyways). If you wanted to save some cash and get a cheaper GPU? The AMD R9 390 is also a good way to go. Yet again, I'm not 100% sure what ya wanna do for GPUs but for a single GPU? These are the best of the high end GPUs I'd recommend.

Fairly comprehensive list there mate thankyou The PSU I have by the way is Corsair's AX1200i, didnt want to take any chances with installing the two R9 cards, they were crazy money at the time so didnt want my PSU of questionable integrity (some cheap-o PC world own brand jobbie) to fry the cards!
As for cooling, I'll probably cannibalise the EK set up in my current rig, or just throw in an H100i like you said

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

Ello folks! I really didnt expect this thread to even get one reply, let alone two pages!

Nothing like spending other peoples money ;-)


The Maximus VIII extreme has just been announced by ASUS...will be hitting the streets very soon....hero is a great board too by the way...

 

[The_Mard]

Heyyo,

Ello folks! I really didnt expect this thread to even get one reply, let alone two pages!
Thanks all for your input by the way

Always good to help people build fantastic rigs.

Thats what I was thinking regarding the X99 the 5930K. I saw the price of the 5960x and nearly had a brown trouser moment! although, like you said, the 6700K skylake is Ideal

Skylake tends to do better in current games, but it's hard to tell if Dx12 will truly yeild better performance on actual physical cores... but from all the benchmarks I've seen of the AMD FX series CPUs? It does seem to help a lot better which is good in this case for AMD.

Fairly comprehensive list there mate thankyou The PSU I have by the way is Corsair's AX1200i, didnt want to take any chances with installing the two R9 cards, they were crazy money at the time so didnt want my PSU of questionable integrity (some cheap-o PC world own brand jobbie) to fry the cards!
As for cooling, I'll probably cannibalise the EK set up in my current rig, or just throw in an H100i like you said

Ah cool mang! You're welcome.

Yeah sounds like you already got the bases covered for my guestimates. You should see a boost in performance yeah over that Xeon which is more for non-gaming where as the i7 unlocked CPUs can really crank out that instruction per clock once overclocked which is a lot more critical in games right meow.