Again, thanks for everyone who has commented. It's a case of building from scratch LGA1151 I7 7700k or totally changing and going down the AMD route. What I do like about AMD is they have said they will support the particular platform for years to come. Tough decision, but money is a factor and wanting more "bang for buck" so to speak, more cores... less money?! I just hope that newer games will FULLY take advantage of the additional cores.
I was considering the same as you, a move to the 7700k. I was coming from a 2500k running at 4.5Ghz so not sure my advice is going to help you
Didn't have any intentions of going with a Ryzen CPU as there are always teething problems with a brand new CPU architecture. And Ryzen has had it's share to teething problems, but, after reading reviews, I was very impressed with the potential that it had. And what finally made me pick the AMD platform over another Intel platform was that the AM4 motherboards will be good for the next generation of Ryzen CPUs.
So I bought the 1700 cpu and an MSI X370 pro carbon motherboard with 16GB of 3200MHZ Ram. I have been lucky and have had no issues. Oh, sorry, had one problem but that was my fault, I didn't reinstall windows when I got switched. Just lazy
Overclocked the CPU for a while, 3.8Ghz no problem but I am waiting until AMD release the next microcode before trying a 24/7 overclock.
Currently running at stock and I am very happy with the upgrade over the 2500k. I have no numbers to backup anything I say, but, everything is so smooth now. I can switch between applications so quickly and it doesn't seem to matter what I have open. My PC is used for work, games, movies. I can work on documents, surf the web and then switch over to a game while watching a game guide on youtube. And then I can just alt tab back to my work without any pausing or stuttering or wait time. I used to close most applications down and would definitely exit any game before doing anything else. Now I just leave everything open.
My experience with Ryzen has been fantastic.