X58 vs. X79 upgrade

[JDookie]

In regards to gaming (@ 2560x1600) only, do you guys think upgrading from X58 to X79 would produce a noticeable difference to be worth while??

My current rig:

i7 980X @ 4.6GHz
EVGA 4-way SLI Classified motherboard
6GB ( 3x2GB ) Corsair Dominator GT C8 @ 2133MHz
(1) EVGA GTX 680 Classified Hydro Copper gpu
Corsair AX1200 psu


Potential upgrade:

i7 3930K
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
16GB ( 4x4GB ) Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 2133MHz
(1) EVGA GTX 680 Classified Hydro Copper
Corsair AX1200 psu

Everything is water cooled in my current rig (CPU, Motherboard, and GPU), and they would continue to be water cooled in the potential X79 rig.

What do you think, stick with what I have, or would I see a noticeable difference by going to X79??

 

[tristan]

Most games are much more dependent on the gpu so to be honest i doubt you would notice a difference while gaming by upgrading to a slightly newer processor.

 

[Josh Weston]

Yeah, your CPU should still be performing great. I see no reason to upgrade, other than getting new stuff is always awesome.
But, if it's gaming you're after, X79 isn't really what you need. You'll see better results from an Z77 system.

 

[JDookie]

And that's exactly what I'm thinking as well. I've been contemplating the upgrade over the last couple days, and even though I would love to have things like SATA3, USB3, and PCIe3.0 I just can't decide if it's really worth it or not.

What's really bugging me is how the 2011/X79 motherboard market seems kind of stagnant right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it just seems like all the attention is on Z77, and X79 has been sort of abandoned. I mean, the R4E is a year old already, and I don't really see any other board that comes close to the same performance level that the R4E provides yet it has been a whole year since it was released. Even Koolance discontinued their water block set that they had for the R4E. What's going on?? Is something about to be released by Intel that I don't know about??

Anyway, just thinking out loud here. This is the sort of stuff that's been bouncing around in my head lately. I'd leave my rig alone, but I've had it for a long time, and I'm bored to tears with it. I really want to upgrade it, I just don't want to be sorry I did, you know?

It's not strictly gaming that I like to do, I love to tinker and can't ever leave anything alone. I love overclocking, and benching which is why I was leaning toward the X79 platform. That being said, it's double the price when compared to Z77, and if the performance level will pretty much be the same in the end, then I may abandon the whole X79 idea all together, and either start looking at Z77 or wait for the next generation of whatever Intel has in store to be released.

 

[tristan]

well x79 is just so much more expensive then z77 and for gaming makes no diffrence in performance so i really dont think many people buy x79. also i dont think that the sandybridge-e processors support pci 3.0

 

[Vicey]

I'm probably the best person to answer this because...

I game at 2560x1600, I upgraded from X58 to X79 and I have a 3930K, Rampage IV Extreme, AX1200 PSU and used the same graphics cards from X58 to X79 like you will be doing.

I saw zero difference in gaming in that upgrade. Zero. I'm using two GTX 480's

Spec change in entirety:
Went from: Core i7 940 @ 4GHz, 12GB 1600MHz RAM, P6T6 Asus Motherboard
to: Core i7 3930K @ 4.375GHz, 32GB 1866MHz RAM, Asus Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard

If you are looking for a graphics boost add another GTX 680 to your current rig. That will make a difference to your game performance.

also i dont think that the sandybridge-e processors support pci 3.0

They do. I can confirm that I have PCIe 3.0 operation on my RIVE when a compatible card like the HD 7970 is fitted.

 

[Rastalovich]

x58, x79, really geared as workstations. Even tho there's marketing towards gaming also.

They only seem to appear at launch and die down after a year or two, availability wize. And unexpectedly lack cutting edge connectivity compared to their equiv. mainstream mobos.

 

[Master&Puppet]

It's not even just a z77 vs x79 issue either. You only need an i5 for gaming currently.

Getting a second GPU will help but it also massively depends on the game you are playing. If it is an online game then your fps will be held back by the network/server speed first.

 

[JDookie]

Thank you all for the great info and help. After some serious thinking, contemplating, and researching this is what I ended up deciding to go with, and have already ordered.

i7 3770K
Gigabyte Z77X-UP7
8GB G.Skill Trident X 2600MHz CL10
Dual 240GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD's for RAID0

All of that will be matched up with these components that I already have:

EVGA GTX 680 Classified Hydro Copper
Corsair AX1200
Dual 2TB WD Caviar Blacks in RAID0 for storage
Dell U3011 Monitor


I think this is not only going to produce awesome gaming performance but its also going to satisfy my tweaker side in the way of overclocking and benchmarking.

What do you guys think?

 

[tristan]

as mentioned before you would probably be better off just adding a second gpu as i doubt that you will notice an in game diffrence between the 3770k and the 980x. if you're still wanting to switch to the z77 platform then for just gaming you dont need an i7 although if you have the money i understand wanting to get one anyways. other than that i dont know how well ivy bridge deals with 1.65v ram so you might want to consider a 1.5v kit.

 

[JDookie]

Tristan,

The CPU, motherboard, and ram I've chosen has produced ram speeds over 3GHz, and G.Skill guarantees this particular ram kit to run at the advertised 2600MHz speed when used with the 3770 and UP7.

As far as gaming, I hear you and completely agree with you, but I like to tweak and bench just as much as I game so that's why I went with these particular components. They should definitely keep me satisfied! LOL

The UP7 board also has a single PCIe slot that bypasses the chipset and has a direct link to the CPU for improved latencies, which is supposed to improve benchmark scores. This is one reason why I chose this particular board and also why I'm sticking with a single gpu.

Hopefully it all works as advertised!

 

[tristan]

i have no doubt that the ram will run at 2600 i just don't know if the 1.65v will have any long term affects on the processor. as for the platform upgrade i get where you're coming from completly, a couple months ago i upgraded from x58 to x79 which obviously isn't really worth it. at the end of the day a gtx 680 should play basicly anygame so i'm not particularly worried that you want to upgrade the cpu instead of gpu.
best of luck with the build.
tristan

 

[JDookie]

Yeah, I started this thread with gaming solely in mind, but once I really started learning about the Z77 boards, the more they intrigued me, and especially this Gigabyte UP7, which seems to be absolutely amazing.

As far as the 1.65 volts, who knows, only time will tell. I plan on overclocking the snot out of this 3770K anyway so it's going to be subjected to torture either way, lol.

By the time I sell all of my current hardware, I'm probably looking at about a cost of $800 for the upgrade, which isn't all that terrible and that includes the $500 I'm spending on SSD's. I actually only paid $260 for the 3770K because I had some rewards points to use on my American Express card so that helped a little too.

 

[Josh Weston]

IB's memory controller isn't happy with DIMMs over 1.5v. You could get some instability there.

 

[JDookie]

It seems that the IMC of the 3770 is a good bit stronger than its siblings. At least that's what I keep reading. For instance, the review of the new Hyper X Raptor 2666MHz kit here on this site is running along side a 3770 and it didn't seem like they had any issues. I also saw where Hicookie set his 7GHz record with a pair of 1.65v Ripjaw Z's, so that's promising as well.

Regardless, like I mentioned, this ram kit is guaranteed to work with the rest of the kit I bought so if it gives me even the slightest bit of trouble it's going back and I'll get some 1.5v Corsair Dominator Platinums, and call it a day. The price of ram has come down so much that I won't feel terrible if I end up having to buy another set anyway.

 

[Josh Weston]

Aah, but Hicookie receives cherry picked chips, does he not?
Regardless, I hope they work for you

 

[JDookie]

Yeah, I would assume he most certainly does. Oh well, in either case, I'll still have fun with it, and if the ram gives me problems I'll just sell them and get something else.

Thank you all very much for your help and thoughts. I'm doing some benching as I type this to document the performance of my X58 system, and will run all the same tests when I switch over to the Z77 rig and let you guys know if I see any difference. It's going to be about a week or two though because I want to do some powder coating and a few other case mods before I put it all together.

I actually just received that GTX 680 Classified Hydro Copper yesterday and got it installed this morning. It was only just released last week, so this will be a good performance comparison between the two platforms.