Upgrading to Haswell ? is it worth it over my setup ?

[ViRuS2k]

Planning on buying these 2 items in the next 10 minutes so they arrive tomorrow.

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard

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Is it worth it though over my current setup..

i7 D0 @4.2ghz
SaberTooth X58

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will i see much gain see i plan to running my 2 crossfire his 7950s will the 2 cards fit in the motherboard without touching each other i also need a pci express to be free for my zxr sound card.
will there be room ? i also read on the board info that the pci express lanes will only run at 8x in crossfire or 4x in crossfire wont that slow every card down.

 

[ViRuS2k]

Yeah thats what i would be doing 1st and 3rd pci express lanes.
D14 will be using as cooler.
when i get the cpu should i try and delid it ? ? ?

Also i have so much important stuff on my pc windows 7 x64 os on my hdd will this new motherboard require a reformat or can i just start it up and it will find the drivers and boot my os..... really do not want to format here lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

cant wait to start the build tommorow....
though i will only be able to install 8gb memory in the 4 slots as i only have 12gb 6 dims from my x58 setup
so i need to sell these later on and get 16gb set

8gb should be fine though for now as i only game and watch movies and browse the net with my system
and what do you mean OS links to your motherboard ? i dont think so as i use to have a older x58 board and just changed the boards to the new x58 saber and i did not have to format. though this is a new architecture so you might be right hope your wrong lol

yeah next stuff on my buy list is more/better memory and ssd for os but for now i think i can wait on those

do you have any recommendations what bios to flash on this new motherboard when it arrives before i even boot os, or try to.

 

[ViRuS2k]

God damn it, no one told me i had to buy a nocta d14 1150 socket mounting kit got all my gear here but cant install ****
all that mine fits is LGA1366 / LGA1156 / LGA775 / AM2 /AM2+ / and AM3

no LGA 1150 can not believe this mistake lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

Update i read this on anan, seems i might not even need the mounting kit
the kit is seemingly only required for pre 2005 nocta d14 coolers.

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actually i don't need to do anything, that kit is for pre 2005 Heatsinks, current heatsinks will work fine as Haswell will have the same mounting holes as 1150/1155.

<i>Because the LGA 1150 socket keeps the same mounting hole spacing as the current LGA 1156 and LGA 1155 sockets, many newer Noctua cooler will not need the mounting kit upgrade, and can simply be installed into the Haswell machine as is. In other words, if the heatsink worked with your Lynnfield, Sandy Bridge, or Ivy Bridge-based system, it will work in a Haswell system as well. According to Noctua, the following coolers are already compatible with Haswell:

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So what socket bracket do i use for the 1150 socket out of the sockets i have in the box ?

 

[ViRuS2k]

sweet guys thats what i thought so i use the 1156 socket brackets with my d14

 

[ViRuS2k]

Well guys been at this setup for hours and i have run into loads of issues.
think im going to have to send the board and cpu back to ocuk.
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first issue : default temps in the bios is 48c in the bios. and thats with a default voltage of 1.168v thats way high for stock, think i win the crown for worst clocker ever.
But anyway that is not the only issues i have, not sure if its down to the BIOS being version F3. old revision board ? think so.
also my main hdd is going nuts on this motherboard rapid clicking never ever did this with my x58 board. tryed ide mode and ahci mode. both do it and about 10 boots out of 40 boots the drive will detect....
now on to the main issue if those above where not enough to put you off my £200 creative ZXR will not fit in this board when i have both my crossfire cards in pciexpress 1 and 3 cards wont fit in 2 and 4 or any other combination due to the size of there heatsinks as they take up about 2 half pci express sockets lol
there for leaving me with a very very tight fit right at the bottom of the board putting the card into the last pci express 4x port for the sound card but then issues happen.
for a start on windows boot up i get a E7 or something like that halt stop error i know its to do with the graphics cards so something is interfearing with it and with the sound card removed that error does not happen.
and final issue even with my noctua d14 cooler i can not fit any of the memory in slots 1 2 or 3 as the cooler is to low you need really small profile dims for this board and cooler so that left me with 4gb of memory.......
so in the end i removed the board and cpu out of sheer fustration and packed them back up ready to ship back to ocuk for full refunds.

haswell for me can say fairwell. not a great experiance all round.... granted some of the issues where due to me not researching the hight and cooler widths ect.. ohh and here is another issue with this board. if i press the reboot button i get no signal on my monitor if i press the power button to shut down then power back up i get a signal, also if i save any settings in the bios that requires a restart ect i get no signal unless i poweroff and back on..... massive issue that one.

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sorry about the big post but im ****ed right off with this hardware. yes there will be spelling mistakes as im half asleep and can not be bothered to correct lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

Hmm. Doesn't sound happy.

48C at idle or under load?

Idle i think as the cpu core was running at 3.9568ghz and was fluctuating within a 0.1% up or down though not sure its running full load in the bios as that would be stupid think it was idle temps.

I have my x58 back up and running changed the cpu and mobo back and the hdd is working perfectly but for some reason goes mental with this x87 board ?

is the F3 bios really old on this board ?
as thats what was on it.

 

[ViRuS2k]

Thanks guys for the input.
i will try it one more time through out the weekend and update the bios to F6...
if i can not get my sound card working without crashes i will have to send the board back anyway as i love my creative zxr its such a tight fit right at the bottom...
sad news about the memory issue though but i can solve that by buying some 16gb 2x dim kit with low profiles... just need to get this board working i did though manage to get into windows twice with the board on my os from my x58 board to z87 and did not even have to reformat

just wishfull thinking that i would not run into any issues but here they are :/ lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

well guys tryed again, updated the bios and it fixed a lot of issues.
current issues are
:
the hdd issue is still there but i found a work around basicly i have to start ignition, then wait 5 seconds then power up then the hdd is detected properly and well im in windows
works with this method 100/100 times.
if i start without ignition the hdd is not detected its like the motherboard is to fast for the hdd to startup before the motherboard polls it to see if there is one ect..

and the other issue i have is i cant get my ZXR to show up at all in the last pci express slot also when i try to do it i end up with it messing around with my graphics cards where one does not show up or they both do but one is not fully working right or i get the sound card to show up but then 1 of the graphics card does not.
its a pain in the ass.....

why the hell didnt they get rid of pci sockets and stick to the small ones that way i could have used the sound card if there was a small pci express in the middle of the cards instead of a old aincent pci port

apart from that the cpu is working wonderfully temps are 29-30c idle not tryed load yet but i changed a option in the bios for a quick oc to 4.5ghz and it booted but have not pushed load yet...

seems the vid is low on this cpu aswell :VID:0.8250v

now if only there was a sound card as awesome as the zxr but in pci form this is really annoying my only issue now is my sound card AAAAAARHHHH lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

Managed to get my sound card working it required a chipset driver update to get it to work wouldnt detect properly without installing this express port driver

so now i have everything working correctly now
going to be testing this out for the next 4 days thouroughly to make sure everything is working properly and see what oc i can get

thanks for the help though wish people would post and tell me what i need moving from x58 to haswell driver wise or fixes i require ect dam so meny oc options in the efi bios makes my head dizzy lol coming from x58 ocing... wonder if there is any awesome modded bios`s

 

[ViRuS2k]

You hadn't installed the latest Chipset drivers?

Yes it required newer intel drivers to be installed
as i was coming from a os that had x58 intel drivers they where the newest versions and i thought they would reinstall ect or work, they did install but few things did not install and required a newer version installed.

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Hmmm more issues though i think its becuse im using 2 sticks of ocz blades 2000mhz and 2 sets of dominator gt 2000mhz
they should work fine though but they dont they worked in my x58 board together just fine with rapid timings.

this board though wont let me run 1600 or 1700 or 1800 or 1866
wont boot just asks me to go back into the bios to reconfigure, the memory does fine though on auto 1056 @T1 command rate but thats slow as hell lol
cant figure this one out... dam new motherboards hah
also in windows the desktop keeps auto refreshing when i press refresh the background of the desktop refreshes so does the icons its like what would happen to you if you where running in software mode but im not running in software mode, could it be the IGPU ???? do people even use that if they have dedicated graphics cards should i disable it in bios ?

 

[ViRuS2k]

Yeah disable onboard gfx, what XMP settings do you get for the ram?

By the way i had issues when upgrading from i7 920 at 4ghz to 4770k but now they are solved it was well worth it as my cards were bottlenecked on the 920 yet even at stock the 4770k doesn't.

yeah the cpu is great
running at default cpu speed i get idle averages of 30-33c and load temps of 48-52c
and my 2x crossfire cards where running awsomely @100% gpu on both in crysis 3 for instance @63-71c ect

board is great but its so new drivers need to get optimized cause its a bloody pain lol

 

[ViRuS2k]

just go to gigabyte website and install all the drivers off there for that model mb

your x58 memory won't work aswell on z87,it'll work but not as good as memory designed for haswell

re install the graphic card drivers for your graphic card aswell if you havn't already,flickering like that is usually when your running the graphic card in basic mode as in no gpu drivers installed yet ect

did that and installed
will disable onboard gpu once i get into bios again, btw will that remove gpu hardware acceleration for encodeing ect from the cpu or will those instructions still be enabled even though the igpu is disabled.

and about the memory yes i know there not haswell kits but they should definitly let me boot up at more than 1056mhz speeds those speeds are awfull. at least if i could get 1600 or 1866 from my 2000 kits would be sweet....

there must be a setting thats not letting them boot up i need to find settings that i can mach on all channels that will atleast let me boot up back into bios to start tightning.. untill one fails ect.
i cant even get them to boot up so that i can memtest to find out if there are even errors... and no my cards are def not in basic mode games work ect... and aero is enabled,

as for xmp settings only one of the sets im using has xmp settings and those are the dominator gt sticks.