Skylake VS x99 VS DC setup?

[Nexus18]

Think I will upgrade my i5 750 @ 4GHz over the next couple of months so just curious as to what will be the best for my needs:

- gaming (most types of games)
- future proofed, just like my i5-750, I will likely be keeping this for a good 4/5 years at least thus would like a m.2 PCI slot or 2....
- I never intend on going with more than 1 GPU
- I will overclock but only when I need to get more performance which I imagine won't be for a good 1 or 2 years
- runs cool
- It will be paired with my 290 to start of with but next year I might switch to a 980ti or pascal
- Decent onboard audio would be nice just in case my essence STX 2 were to fail
- Prefer to keep to gigabyte motherboards

So recommendations for CPU, motherboard and RAM (16GB) for <£500? Is it really worth spending more for the x99/skylake over DC? Since I am not interested in having more than 1 GPU, I will probably be better of keeping to the i5's too.

 

[setter]

I5 skylake sounds perfect for your needs as gaming is the main priority.

 

[ukxenon]

I would go X99 tbh just in case you ever want anything else

 

[ED209]

what games are you playing and at what ress? im guessing 1080P?

if the system in your sig is your PC then to be honest for gaming only your current system is still good for a bit longer unless you are having issues in games.

I am running a I7 950 @ 4ghz with a HD 5830 1GB on a 22" monitor @ 1080P for gaming and to be honest the only thing im upgrading is my GPU at some point but the rest I will be keeping for awhile longer.

 

[BornEvil]

If your not overclocking for the time being, then the 6700k can be a good buy. A 5820k at stock is not all that considering the cost of the whole platform.

The mid range (~£100) z170 motherboards has everything you need, until pic-e 4.0 comes in 2-3 years. If you want the bells and whistles on x99, you have to spend £200+ on the board alone. From p55 and i5 750 to z170 and skylake will be a massive upgrade, sata2 to m.2 x4 .

Of course you can cheap out and buy the i5 6600k, it would do very well in games. But in the view of keeping for 4-5 years, consider an i7, i regret going for an i5 2500k instead of i7 2600k back in 2011.

 

[Nexus18]

Thanks for the advice.

Some games I play:

- bf 3/4
- battlefront
- GTA 5
- all the batman games
- tomb raider
- mad max
- crysis games

etc.

Currently playing at 2560x1080 but will be upgrading to a 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 monitor end of this year or next.

And yes I feel the same too, I still have no problems maxing most games and getting 60fps most of the time, however;

- I quite fancy an upgrade
- have this odd problem that never seems to go away (PC will black screen and I have to restart or in the case of last night, my pc red screened and had the audio loop sound during a bf 4 session, I had this problem a year ago when I first got my 290, thought it was just drivers or the gpu but it went away, the issue is completely random, doesn't matter what I do or when, for all I know, I might not have the issue for another year....tried everything I can think of as well as suggested fixes so was hoping that this might fix this problem once and for all)
- I feel like my min. FPS are suffering by quite a bit, at least in gta 5

Another thing I forgot to mention is I would like there to be good spacing between the PCI slots as my essence STX 2 is sitting right on top of my 290.

All of this will fit in my antec p100 but I would like to move to MATX at some point so any advice for MATX motherboards too?

 

[Quartz]

- at least thus would like a m.2 PCI slot or 2....
- It will be paired with my 290 to start of with but next year I might switch to a 980ti or pascal.

Then I'll echo @ED209 and say don't bother upgrading now. In particular the M2 slots may take up PCIe channels that would be used for SLI / Crossfire. I know you say you intend sticking to one GPU, but the best wishes of mice & men and all that. I'm sure there'll be a 68xx series of CPUs in due course.

To investigate your current problems, I'd suggest dropping the overclock and checking the TIM as a start.

 

[Nexus18]

I have tried everything, resetting bios/overclock, fresh install of windows, different gpu drivers, reflashing bios, some AMD GPU driver tweaks. My temps are fine too (re-applied thermal paste a few months ago)

With it being so random, I just have to wait until the next time, which could be right now as I post this or maybe in 7 months time.

 

[~>Dg<~]

x99 is only route id look at £520 us lowest bundle i found on ocuk.

 

[setter]

x99 is only route id look at £520 us lowest bundle i found on ocuk.

If you need the extra cores and ht for certain things, X99 is the route id go. But for primarily gaming on one gpu an i5 would be grand.

 

[Nexus18]

Yeah I don't use my PC for any other extensive tasks so don't feel that i7 and the extra cores of x99 would benefit me and whilst I would like to use 2+ GPU's, I don't want the faff of games/drivers not supporting the SLI/crossfire or/and having annoying niggles i.e. texture flickering, micro stuttering etc.

Are there any game min. & average FPS comparisons showing an overclocked i5-750@4GHZ or a chip of similar performance to i5 DC/SL?

 

[setter]

I've only benched bf4 using my 4790k setup. Chip was at 4.7ghz and gpu was a single 780, (later went sli). Iirc average fps was 90 or so, minimums in the high 50's, ultra setting, x4 msaa at 1920x1200. I've yet to play any games though on the 5820k and managed very little with the 980ti before I took the haswell system apart.

 

[Nexus18]

My most recent FPS test in bf 4 was done with the 15.7 drivers:

MAX settings @ 2560x1080 doing the siege run in an empty server with a ping of 40-50:

Mantle:

Battlefield 4 - Frame Time Analyzer Report
Logs Selected: All (Merge Logs)
FTS Selected: 2 ms

			Game - FT	CPU - FT	GPU - FT
Average Frame Time:	13.889		13.89		13.13
StdDev (FT): 		1.677		1.716		1.573
Minimum FPS: 		49.764		49.116		52.329
Maximum FPS: 		89.526		106.724		95.012
StdDev (FPS): 		8.624		8.904		9.053

Time Spent:		Game - FT	CPU - FT	GPU - FT
Above 200 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 144 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 120 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 100 FPS:		0%		0.119%		0%
Above 90 FPS:		0%		0.907%		7.804%
Above 60 FPS:		93.89%		93.508%		98.449%
Above 45 FPS:		100%		100%		100%
Above 30 FPS:		100%		100%		100%


Total Data Points Read: 	4190
Total Erred Points Detected: 	1
Total Files Read: 	1

DX:

Battlefield 4 - Frame Time Analyzer Report
Logs Selected: All (Merge Logs)
FTS Selected: 2 ms

			Game - FT	CPU - FT	GPU - FT
Average Frame Time:	14.429		14.428		13.933
StdDev (FT): 		1.78		1.957		1.708
Minimum FPS: 		44.823		37.154		45.351
Maximum FPS: 		85.288		114.482		88.378
StdDev (FPS): 		8.358		9.157		8.641

Time Spent:		Game - FT	CPU - FT	GPU - FT
Above 200 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 144 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 120 FPS:		0%		0%		0%
Above 100 FPS:		0%		0.246%		0%
Above 90 FPS:		0%		0.761%		0%
Above 60 FPS:		87.448%		86.465%		92.041%
Above 45 FPS:		99.975%		99.681%		100%
Above 30 FPS:		100%		100%		100%


Total Data Points Read: 	4071
Total Erred Points Detected: 	1
Total Files Read: 	1

And frame latencies, frametimelog001 (red line) is mantle:

Min. fps is around 45 fps so by the sounds of it, if I were to get a new cpu, I might only see an increase of 10 fps for the min. figure, doesn't really sound like it is worth me spending £400+ on cpu etc. :/ Saying that, I think for the likes of gta 5, I probably see quite a boost for min. fps.

I might hold of on this for the time being then and just put the money towards something else.

 

[setter]

Any benchmarks I ran were on full 64 cq shanghai or para el storm. Found theese to be the most demanding. Even at stock the 4790k coped fine. Though no idea on how it would compare to your i5. You considered a gpu upgrade instead? I've had much better gains for gaming this way, and I've owned Ivybridge and several haswell i5/i7's.

 

[Nexus18]

I find that siege is the most demanding on my pc especially at c building for some reason, fps really tank there with ultra.

I would like a new gpu but:

- I feel that my 290 is still pretty good for the majority of games so couldn't really justify the cost for the likes of the 980ti
- I don't want to upgrade to anything new until something gets sorted with regards to free/g sync, don't fancy being locked to one vendor, besides, nothing on the monitor market for me until the end of this year or next