Upgrade Advice from FX-8350 Black Edition

MMendes

New member
Hi all,

New in the forums, and I need some advice moving forward. (New participating, not new lurking around ;)).

So I have a AMD build which is doing fairly well, but I feel it's time I say goodbye to my aged FX CPU and jump on the Intel bandwagon. That said, what should be a simple decision, is not, it seems. My current Rig:

Case: Corsair 780T (modified for my custom wattercooling loop)
PSU: Corsair 1200i with custom Sleeving
Motherboard: Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z
Memory: 16 GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3 2133
GPU's: 3 Way Crossfire R9 390X's
Storage: 2 x Samsung 850 Pro SSD's in RAID 0
Cooling: EK Custom Watercooling loop (plenty enough to keep all of this REALLY cool)

On top of this I game in 1440p (driving a Dell 34' Ultrawide monitor OC'd to 75Hz).

Everything in this machine is Over clocked and stable to the maximum I can to achieve good speeds, temps and results that really matter for day to day use.

Now my problem moving forward seems to be the 3 way Crossfire and how to maximize it... I am planning to get rid of the CPU, MB and Memory and retain everything else. I will be using these in another build.

Now i really should go for Skylake (i7 6700K with a Z170) BUT i'm doing 3 way crossfire.

The question is, should I be better served with a X99 set-up, say with a i7-5930k (not really seing a benefit from the i7-5960k for the price point) as it sports more PCI-E lanes (40) or would i be better served with the Skylake i7-6700k (with it's 36 PCI-E lanes if i'm correct)?

I'd like to take the most advantage of the PCI-E x16 as much as i can, but really not sure if i'm reaping the benefits form the new Skylake vs Haswell-E...

What do you think?

Another option would be to sit put until Skylake-E comes out, anyone knows when that will be and possibly the specs of those E grade CPU's?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

P.S. - I'll be doing mainly gaming on this rig, with some other small productivity work but nothing over the top.
 
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To give some more context I have rounded up my path of upgrade to:

Solution 1 (Skylake Z170):

CPU: Intel Core I7-6700k
MB: Asus Maximus VIII Extreme (When EK confirms that they have a water block for it)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3000 Mhz Dual Channel (16 GB or 32 maybe)

Solution 2 (Haswell-E X99):

CPU: Intel Core I7-5930k
MB: Asus Rampage V Extreme/U3.1
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3200Mhz Quad Channel (16 GB or 32 GB maybe)

Goes without saying, I am still going to overclock the HELL out everything - Am I on the right path ...
 
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Although between the chipset and CPU Skylake has a lot of PCIe lanes not many boards utilize them all. Especially in conjunction with M.2's or other stuff. Check how many lanes can actually be used for 3-way by the motherboard not just the CPU and consider if you want any other PCIe based parts.

Perhaps consider taking a look at ASUS Z170 and X99 workstation motherboards too. I would choose X99 for more than two cards. PCIE3.0 x8 is enough, x16/x16/x16 with crazy PLX chips or whatever won't offer any benefit.

I'm doing a 4-way build with an XPOWER at the moment which should run PCIe3.0 x16/x8/x8/x8 with a PCIe2.0 x2 M.2 as well, most of the flagship X99 boards. The Z170 XPOWER does x8/x8/x4 with no support for tri-SLI, just crossfire. Th EVGA Classified is pretty crazy iirc.

JR
 
Running 3 way GPUs, whether it be Nvidia or AMD is complete madness. I'm not surprised you are having issues.
 
Thanks for the quick replies,

@AienALX, maybe I did not come across correctly, but I have no issues/problems with my Rig. That's not the point.

I simply have an outdated FX Processor from AMD and am trying to decide if this is the moment to move forward towards Intel, and what platform the best to fit my needs, in this case 3 Way SLI (which I have for several reasons, one the excellent deal i got for my R9s 390x's, the other because it looks amazing in the rig where 2 did not with the water cooling ... and mainly... because I can ;))

Coming back on topic, both MB's I was considering have the following to say about PCI-E lanes:

X99 Platform:

23125745563l.jpg



Skylake:

002.png


So my conclusion for this is, as of today the X99 would give me more PCI-E lanes because of the CPU, BUT the Skylake would actually perform the same, albeit having less lanes but would be better in the future if for instance Skylake-E comes out supporting more than the 16 that the I7-6700k does today. Also it's the latest platform and where all updates will be coming from Intel so I would be future proofing it...

Am i getting to a valid conclusion here, or am I totally wrong :)
 
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So, i've just watched the OC3D Maximus VIII Extreme review, and that's that. Running 3 cards either SLI or Crossfire it would only be able to give me 8x/4x/4x from the CPU. (thanks TinyTomLogan for the review) where the X99 would give me 16x/8x/8x.

So it then seems that if I make up my mind for an upgrade to Intel, that X99 is, as of today my best, and only option.
 
If there was a new Extreme CPU it would be far more likely to come to the X99 (2011-3 socket) if it doesn't have a new socket completely.


Not all Z170 is the same, some have more than the x8/x4/x4 on the Maximus.

EVGA Z170 Classified -

SLI and Crossfire support:
2/3/4 Way SLI and Quad SLI (dual processor cards are required to be Gen3
NATIVE)
2/3/4 Way Crossfire and Quadfire (dual processor cards are required to be
Gen3 NATIVE)
-2 Way SLI/Crossfire will run 16/16 (Slot 2 and 4 required for 16/16
operation. Also recommended for Quad SLI/QuadFire setups as well)
* Please see page 10 for more information on PCIE and SLI on this
board.
-3 Way SLI/Crossfire will run 8x16x16
-4 Way SLI/Crossfire will run 8x16x8x8


I'm sure you will end up with a Rampage because that's just the done thing for overkill ;) A bit pointless discussing Z170 for Tri-SLI/CF particularly when the CPU prices are so inflated.

Running 3 way GPUs, whether it be Nvidia or AMD is complete madness. I'm not surprised you are having issues.

I thought that, and from briefly trying 4-way on air I thought Tri-SLI was going to be a nightmare however it's actually been great. GTA is all I play for extended periods and bother to optimize, with the same settings it's pretty much 50(single) > 80(dual) >100(triple) fps. No way i'd recommend it to anyone remotely concerned with price:performance however it isn't that problematic. Tried a few other games i have installed with it too and they were all good.

JR
 
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So, i've just watched the OC3D Maximus VIII Extreme review, and that's that. Running 3 cards either SLI or Crossfire it would only be able to give me 8x/4x/4x from the CPU. (thanks TinyTomLogan for the review) where the X99 would give me 16x/8x/8x.

So it then seems that if I make up my mind for an upgrade to Intel, that X99 is, as of today my best, and only option.


If you are going triple card then X99 is the way forward with a 5930K or a 5960X, the rampage extreme is the daddy but I wouldnt write of the X99 Deluxe just because it doesnt have a rog badge. They are very similar boards.
 
If you are going triple card then X99 is the way forward with a 5930K or a 5960X, the rampage extreme is the daddy but I wouldnt write of the X99 Deluxe just because it doesnt have a rog badge. They are very similar boards.

Actually i haven't, but at the end of the day there are 2 factors to discard it: I have a black and red theme that I want to keep, and the deluxe is white. Also I want to modify my water cooling loop to the minimum, and EK has full MB water blocks for the R5E and i'll be able to re-use the EK Supremacy Evo from the FX to the I7. This allows me to keep the current loop with minimal changes :)
 
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