Possible future upgrade choices

Illgresi · 30 Sep 2016 at 19:12

Hi all, I recently upgraded my graphics from an HD 7850 to an R9 390x, which obviously gave me a lovely boost. However, I fear after over four years of 16 hour days this was the last straw for my CX600 PSU, which gave up the ghost in a cloud of white smoke a couple of weeks ago. As I've been away since then I just got round to replacing it with a SF Leadex Platinum 850W, my reasoning being twofold; 1) It's not vastly more expensive than the lower wattages, and 2) It gives me headroom should I wish to CrossFire at a future date.

At the same time I purchased a Corsair H105, since it was on sale (and I'm feeling flush this week). Unfortunately it doesn't fit in my current case but I did purchase it with the future in mind anyway, so not overly worried. I'm only dissappointed because I'd like to see how much further I could stretch my 2500k.

There comes the crux of the matter; how should I upgrade the CPU when the time comes? If I'm frugal, I could probably manage a new CPU/Mobo/Mem/Case combo sometime around early Spring, however I'm in no rush what-so-ever as my system is still holding up admirably. So let's say the timescale is somewhere between 6 months to a year and a half from now.

I've had a look at the 6700k, but I've also seen recommendations for the 4790k. Obviously, the 4790k would be a shorter term goal than the 6700k, but I'm sceptical given the limitation of DDR3 in terms of future-proofing.

I'm really just gathering ideas atm, so any and all opinions are most welcome. Thanks.

p.s. I should add, I'm more interested in bang-for-buck than cutting edge. Cheers!

tl;dr

2500k upgrade between 6 months to 1.5 years from now. Best options? Thanks.

pastymuncher · 1 Oct 2016 at 13:38

Forget the 4790k. Building a new system based on a dead socket makes little sense especially when prices are similar to Skylake. Looking at your timescale though, Skylakes successor, Kabylake and the new Z270 chipset will be with us by then so that should be what you aim for. In 1.5 years time even Kabylakes successor will be out I should think. AMD's Zen is coming some time next year as well although nobody knows anything about it yet, so until it's released and reviewed nobody can't say if it's worth buying. You can guarentee that if it's anywhere near Intels performance that the prices will be similar as well. I reckon the days of AMD being the budget brand are over unless they are miles off the pace.

Illgresi · 1 Oct 2016 at 15:36

pastymuncher said:
Forget the 4790k. Building a new system based on a dead socket makes little sense especially when prices are similar to Skylake. Looking at your timescale though, Skylakes successor, Kabylake and the new Z270 chipset will be with us by then so that should be what you aim for. In 1.5 years time even Kabylakes successor will be out I should think. AMD's Zen is coming some time next year as well although nobody knows anything about it yet, so until it's released and reviewed nobody can't say if it's worth buying. You can guarentee that if it's anywhere near Intels performance that the prices will be similar as well. I reckon the days of AMD being the budget brand are over unless they are miles off the pace.

Actually I did a bit more reading after posting this and noticed that the 7th gen will be out before the end of 2016. That said, I'd like something with good overclocking ability, so I guess it remains to be seen what the case will be.

Quartz · 1 Oct 2016 at 16:54

On the other side of the coin, it looks like graphics upgrades at the top end won't come in until the very end of next year at the earliest as that's when high refresh rate 4K monitors are expected. I'll be looking for a 21:9 2160p monitor that does > 60 Hz and the video card to drive it. I don't see any point in going for next summer's Nvidia GPU before the monitors are available.