Upgrade to X99 or not ?

Gripen90

Gripen90

Gripen90

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Haarby, DENMARK
Hi guys.
I have been thinking of upgrading to a new X99 system for £560 consisting of:

Crucial DDR4 2133MHz 16GB (4x4GB) 16GB Kit (4GBx4) DDR4 2133 MT/s (PC4-17000) CL15 SR x8 Unbuffered DIMM 288pin

Intel Core i7-5820K, S-LGA2011-3, 6-Core,3.3GHz,15MB,140W,22nm,28 PCIe lanes,Haswell-E,Boxed,No fan incl.

MSI X99S SLI PLUS, Socket-2011-3 ATX, DDR4, 4xPCIe-x16, USB3.0, SLI/CFX, M.2

Currently I'm sitting with Asus P9X79 Pro, Core i7 4930K, 16GB G.Skill RipjawsZ 2133MHz CL9.
I am not sure it swapping 4930K for 5820K is an upgrade, sidegrade, downgrade ? I hear many different opinions about it.:confused:
The main reason for going to X99 is to get a 5930K down the line later this year, and also to get more SATA 3.0 port than I have now which is only 2 SATA 3.0 ports on my X79 chip (a limitation I've been told).

Also the 5820K is only 28 pci lanes vs 40 pci lanes on the 4930K - I don't know if that will be a disadvantage when I'm using 3x GTX 970.

Cheers :cool:
 
stulid said:
Firstly, you can get a bundle with your choice of CPU - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18663148

Secondly going from X79 (with a 6 core) to X99 (with a 6 core)is a bit sideways upgrade with a slight upwards curve (unless you get the big 5960X)

Thirdly for different lane CPUs the slots bandwidth gets divided up differently,
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Nice bundle indeed !

Yea I'm aware of the different lane layout if I put a 40 pci lane cpu in there which is also why I'm getting a new case with 9 pci brakets for future installation although getting a gfx to fit under those front connectors is gonna be a pain :/ and it does set me off a bit. And running 2 way SLI will also be with sandwiched cards.
I did look at Gigabyte x99ud4 but i has so many bad user reviews that i don't dare to try it.
 
Shivy011 said:
Is this system purely for gaming?
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Gaming, multitasking, video rendering and a bit photo editing.:)

stulid said:
To be fair the boards from Gigabyte are a lot better now with the newer BIOS updates, its a new'ish platform and many early issues and bugs have been ironed out.

The biggest bug which was an Windows8.1/XMP profile/Enter the BIOS with a boot failure issue has been wiped out.
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Ok. Because I do like the 2 way SLi layout a lot more on the X99UD5 which gives spacing inbetween the cards where it's not like that on most of MSI's X99 board.
I read a lot of the feedback on newegg for the x99ud4 and most complaints were also about poor bios's and something as 6 bios updates on 1 month.
I do hope they sorted out the problems though because I am actually more interested in this board due to the pci lanes layout than the MSI X99S SLI Plus.
I would really like the Asus X99-S but it's out of my budget range - it has the best PCI lanes layout when switching between 5820k and 5930k.

stulid said:
The board has 4 ports, but two are via 3rd party chip so not as good as the native intel ports.
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Yea Marwell controller and it has SSD caching and I've been told not to use that with SSDs.
 
stulid said:
Just cant see it being an upgrade still.

Unless you sell your RAM/Board/CPU for a decent enough amount to be worthwhile.

Looking at your sig have you thought about getting a better SSD? the intel 330 series are dated and the Kingston v300 are not as good as they should have been do to using inferior NAND memory than the samples sent to reviewers.
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I can get around £420~429 for my current cpu, motherboard and ram. So in total I would spend around £150...

Hmm well could be I should save that cash and use it on GTX 980Ti when it comes around later in the summer.

My Kingston SSD Now V300 I use for games. Bought it 1½month ago. Just check the firmware and it's 505a so it should be good !?.
The Intel 330 works fine also, but I know faster options are available - might look into it :)
 
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stulid said:
Have you ever considered selling the three 970s for a single TitanX? at 1440P a single TitanX is going to destroy games and you never have to worry about SLI working/profiles.

That would then free up a slot/PCI-E lanes for one of these monsters - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-069-IN - but you need to check if your board supports this new NVME protocol.
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I did think out getting the Titan X but selling 3x 970 would only cover 55-60% of the costs of a new Titan X. Also the performance would be lower than my current config. Luckily since 2009 I have never had SLi issues :)
I would die for 2x Titan X but the costs is a killer !

I very rarely use much storage and my drives are only 15-20% used in space. But that pci based SSD does look great...but I would never get to use it's capacity.
 
stulid said:
Have you thought about moving the parts out to a case with more room inside and increased airflow?
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Yea I am waiting for a brand new Corsair Vengeance C70 Polar White case along with an EVGA Supernova G2 1300watt to arrive (bought the PSU 2nd hand a month old).

The transition into a new case with new PSU was actually what made me think if I just so jump on the X99 wagon :)

Well I am still undecided whether or not X99 is the way to go...I mean if Intel aldready comes with a new version next year it may be futile !?
 
stulid said:
Did you know,

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=120-G2-1300-XR



http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-c70-mid-tower-gaming-case-military-green
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Hehe yea, but in their pictures of the case with hardware installed they are using a Corsair AX1200 which is 200mm long and it fits :D - also I have seen others mounting 200-225mm length psu's in that case without issues.
My current Thernaltake is 225mm and it fit in the CM690 which only 'fits' 165mm PSUs if you want to use the bottom 120mm fan. I'm using a 80mm fan instead so the psu fits :)
 
If I'm going with the 5820K and Gigabyte X99UD4 how much should I OC the CPU to match the 4Ghz speed of the 4930K ? With this CPU I just set the multiplayer to 40x for all cores an never touched the voltage and just saved the settings, and it ran perfectly from day one.
 
Got the Gigabyte SOC mobo :) now just to find some appropriate Ram.
Got hold of the CPU also - I don't know if batch version makes any difference as to OC potential, but this is what the box says.
 
stulid said:
Appropriate RAM.

Do the special board justice and feed it 2666Mhz.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=my-201-ks&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=2426

you phanteks cooler should still fit in-between these.

over at overclock.net and hwbot forums there are threads discussing batch numbers and results.
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arh crap for some weird reason this board can't do 3 way sli at x8x8x8 but only x16x8x4 and that means no 3 way sli support ! super odd since the x99ud4 does x8x8x8 with an 5820k :(

"those with a 28 lane cpu like the core i7-5820k will obviously have to make a few sacrifices. in a 2-way setup, the slow configuration drops down to x16/x8 which basically diminishes any graphical advantage this platform has over the mainstream core i7-4790k/z97 combo. what's worse - though it will effect much less people - is the fact that in a three-way setup the pci-e lane breakdown is x16/x8/x4 instead of the more conventional x8/x8/x8 distribution. this weird x16/x8/x4 setup is not supported by sli, and it nowhere near optimal a proper 3-way crossfire setup either."
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...yte-x99-soc-champion-lga2011-v3-review-6.html

Now the SOC is cancelled and I'm back to X99UD4 or Asus X99-S.
 
Checked the motherboard manual ! Hwcanucks got it all wrong !
The board does do x8x8x8 like any other Gigabyte board with the 5820K.... back and ordering it again lol :D oooh sometimes ordering HW is confusing when trying to make sure everything will match up :D
 
HACO said:
MSI will soon (a couple of weeks) replace their X99S series with X99A, adding USB 3.1. I'd say that's the best choice.
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MSI's problem is the SLI layout - cards are "sandwiched" when going just 2 way SLi with 0 spacing in between. I think that's a poor design choice.

stulid said:
Thought it did.

Never trust a review site, always trust stulid!!
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Definetely.
 
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