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SAFry

SAFry

SAFry

Associate
Joined
18 Apr 2012
Posts
77
Location
Isle of Wight
Good evening gentlemen, you might know me from posts such as 'why do people keep telling me my CPU is bottlenecked'. In that thread I eventually came to understand that my CPU is somehow holding back my GPUs even though I never really got a good explanation of how exactly this works (it's not about CPU usage though).

Anyway, I don't want to start that up again, I'm quite pleased to be shopping for a new CPU and I have collected together a few options. Please let me know your thoughts and if there is something I've not considered. Any comment welcome, probably wont be buying until late May.

My current system stats:

Corsair Carbide 540 Air Case
Asrock 990fx extreme3
AMD FX-6300 Six-Core Processor OCed to 4.2GHz
8gb dual channel DDR3 1866Mhz
Corsair H55 cooler
128gb Samsung 840 Pro
2x Seagate 1TB Hybrid Internal Solid State Drive in RAID 0
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
2x Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz edition GPUs in SLI
Superflower leadex 750w Gold
Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 2-Port PCI Express Card
Asus PB287Q 28" 4K 60Hz 1MS monitor

I mostly just game and show off my computer to bemused onlookers (it's probably to most advanced technology on my whole island).

OK, on to the options:

A) the FX8370
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8370 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £155.99
1 x Corsair RM Series RM 1000 '80+ Gold' 1000W Power Supply (CP-9020062-UK) £134.99
1 x Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler £65.99
Total : £366.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



B) the 4790K
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 - Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£25 Saving** £379.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/16) £104.99
1 x Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler £65.99
Total : £560.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



C) the 5820K
1 x Intel 5820K 3.30GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor - OEM (CM8064801548435) £307.99
1 x Gigabyte X99-UD4 Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £167.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit (BLS4C4G4D240FSA) £139.99
Total : £625.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).




D) the 5930K
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5930K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***£30 Saving*** £659.94
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit (BLS4C4G4D240FSA) £139.99
Total : £809.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).



*edit, changed to basket view and added case details*
 
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Does the Bequiet cooler fit your case? how about using the H55 still?

P.S you need a cooler for the X99 options.
 
Some insight into my choices:

A) the cheapest option, would push me over the 750w rating of my current PSU thus the 1000w PSU. Would leave me with a spare FX6300 and Superflower 750 PSU to sell. Have included a new cooler as I would want to overclock this and not convinced my little H55 would keep up. Little worried that whatever is causing the bottleneck might still be present even with a beefier CPU. Also I did want to get away from AMD as I think it's causing problems with physx in some of my games.

*a mate has offered to buy my Motherboard, CPU and RAM for £125 and his old parts, this applies to all below options*

B) the obvious option, a good price for a nice bit of kit, it would keep the Gigabyte/Corsair theme going. Wouldn't over-tax my PSU, might even overclock so new cooler in there too. 2400mhz RAM should work, need to keep relatively low profile for the Dark Rock. Would only give me x8/x8 in SLI which according to benchmarks is sometimes even faster so no great loss I guess.

C) the tempting option, 6 cores, £60 more, DDR4 quad channel BUT would push me about 15w over the 750 so probably OK but no overclocking. So would keep the H55 on it for now as no OC so should do the job. Still only x8/x8 in SLI as only has 24 lanes but could potentially take another GPU for 3-way in x8/x8/x8 if I can find one. Also I could upgrade the CPU later if x16/x16 becomes a thing... Got a lot more future proofing for only 10% more dosh. Leaves upgrade options open, could OC but would need a new PSU and cooler. Faster RAM if the price comes down.

D) I can't afford this, well I can but it would have to last me 4 years. So this would give me the full x16/x16 SLI which the 780s probably couldn't take full advantage of. Would completely eliminate thoughts of CPU bottleneck. Should last for the next 2 GPU upgrades I'd imagine! Would be the coolest thing I've ever owned in my life :cool: Lowish profile RAM as above, I'm going back to air, kits are so 2013.
 
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When DX12 comes out, 6 cores of X99 should show an advantage over 4 cores. At least thats what the early previews show.
 
William-Mathew said:
Click the link in my sig for the basket tool
Click to expand...

I probably could have done that for extra clickability. B, noted :)

stulid said:
Does the Bequiet cooler fit your case? how about using the H55 still?

P.S you need a cooler for the X99 options.
Click to expand...

I belive it does fit in the 540 Air, it's quite spacious, I found some photos of one:

2s97upi.jpg
Won't the H55 cut it on an X99 with no OC?
 
stulid said:
When DX12 comes out, 6 cores of X99 should show an advantage over 4 cores. At least thats what the early previews show.
Click to expand...

Was that not just for the AMD processors?

I'd probably go with option B if you're just gaming. The extra £200 or so you'd spend for X99 could be put towards a better graphics card.
 
stulid said:
assuming you have the 2011 fittings and thermal paste to apply
Click to expand...
good call, I doubt I still have the 2011 fittings, bought it from a spare parts box 2nd hand. I'll put you down as a C plus a Dark Rock ;)

Ayahuasca said:
Interesting, that could make me go X99 if I see real world gaming benefits from more than 4 cores :eek:
Click to expand...
So leaning towards a C? Only £60 more, and you get that tasty DDR4.
 
I might be talking to myself here but I refined option C and I had just about convinced myself it was worth it:

X99 Build
1 x Intel 5820K 3.30GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor - OEM (CM8064801548435) £307.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M4A2400C14) £179.99
1 x Gigabyte X99-UD4 Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £167.99
1 x Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler £65.99
1 x IC Diamond 24-Carat Thermal Compound (4.8g) £13.99
Total : £745.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).



BUT, then my mate told me that with some technological wizardry it is possible to have x16/x16 on a Z97 with an advanced board. Looking at it, DDR4 isn't all that at the moment. Only thing X99 has going for it is this 33% in dx12. So now my basket looks like this:

Z97 Build
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £269.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £189.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H110 280mm High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060014-WW) £91.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R) £74.99
1 x IC Diamond 24-Carat Thermal Compound (4.8g) £13.99
Total : £650.51 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Still undecided...
 
You dont need thermal paste, both those coolers come with it either all ready applied or in a syringe.

16X/16X on a Z97 is done via PLX chip that doubles the available lanes from the CPU, this actually adds latency to the signal kinda cancelling out the small benefit you get.

PCI lane scaling performance - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/


The Corsair DDR3 RAM is nothing special, the speed+timings are average. These are a bit more exciting - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-080-GS
 
Informative as ever stulid, thanks I will give that a proper read and reconsider :)

P.S. I NEED diamond paste in my life!
 
Ha, I was mostly trying to troll my wife with the ICD that my hobby involves diamond paste ;)

So interesting how x4 is often just as good as x8 and x16 is rarely the best.

Z97 would be well matched but the end point of that line of evolution.

X99 has a lot of potential but some of it may or may not pan out, it would leave the door open for a series of future upgrades at further expense.

OK, well looks like they are both feasible option (GSkills RAM adopted) I just have to decide for myself from here. Got a month to ponder and check the prices again.
 
I did it, I got a B grade Gaming GT for £50 off the below price. The h110s have been out of stock for weeks and just came in so I took it as a sign.

I've been looking at all the different options but been coming back to this not so lopsided as a X99 build, less wattage, hopefully wont drag me into wishing for an upgrade to the graphics too soon! Final straw was my mate with 670 SLI who was beating me on every benchmark, especially the Physx. I couldn't get my GPUs over 50% most of the time.

So I got my mostly Corsair and Gigabyte build I took advice and changed the RAM to the GSkills. I didn't get any ICD, I have some Arctic 5 silver which is better at low temps anyway. Thanks for your advice.

Hopefully you wont be seeing me again too soon ;) told myself to hold off for AT LEAST 3 years and then get a nice 11 series GPU and 2nd gen Skylake by then!

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £275.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £189.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H110 280mm High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060014-WW) £91.99
1 x G.Skill TridentX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-2400C10D-8GTX) £67.99
Total : £635.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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