Worth upgrading i7 5820K to i7 5960X?

[Gripen90]

I own an Intel Core i7 5820K 6 core cpu, and now coffee lake has been released I am feeling the upgrade itch and the i7 8700K seemed really tempting
However I have gotten an offer for an Intel Core i7 5960X 8 core cpu for £300, which I find real tempting since I don't need to change platform (reinstall windows + programs). Would it be worthwhile the upgrade? Have any of you done the same upgrade path?
I can probably get £150~180 for my current cpu, making it an £120~150 upgrade.

 

[Gripen90]

I'd say go for it, a 5960x is a bargain at £300. My 5960x smashes games and day to day applications with ease. X99 is a fully mature and stable platform and has plenty of life left in it, plus you'll get at least £150 for the 5820k.

Just do it, unless you need an insane amount of cores everything is still a sidegrade to X99 right now.

P.S I went from a 5820k to a 6800k to the 5960x.[/

Sounds good! What made you go from 5820k to 6800k and then to 5960x?
Also do you run with the 5960x OCed? And if so what MHz, voltage, cooling

No. 5960X even if overclocked at 4.5Ghz, is in par of a Ryzen 7. Which you can buy new for £260 (1700), £280 (1700X), and a good board for future upgrades. (Zen+ in Feb).
X99 and 5960X has only the 6950X which I doubt you will find £300 ever. By that time you could be able to buy better chips for the money, and having a worthless mobo.

So you either keep the current setup until Zen+ or 8core what ever Intel releases in 7 months (making 8700K+Z370 absolete). Or sell now it has some value.

And if you want to see where your CPU sits atm, check the 1600X @ 4Ghz benchmarks. If you OC the 5820K @ 4.4 is of similar perf.

The reason why I am thinking of the core i7 5960x is due to its (supposed) longevity with 8 cores/16threads, and for the X99 platform I assume it would make it decent enough for approx 2 years time. Also a benefit would be i don't need to reinstall stuff and reactivate windows 10 (was a real hassle last I did that).

I have a small htpc/LAN rig with an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 @3.8Ghz with stock cooler, and in productivity it is very capable and not far behind the 5820k, that's for sure. But for my main gaming rig I do prefer a little bit more umpf

 

[Gripen90]

Hence I said Ryzen 7 not 5

Ah yea I missed that

Assuming you can get the same clock speed I'd go for it. The only possible gotcha could be heat and power use but if your cooling and PSU are up to it £150 for a drop in upgrade isnt a bad deal.

Yea I hope that it at least can do 4.1Ghz at a reasonable voltage and temperature on air with Phanteks ph-tc12dx, untill i get something better for cooling.
The PSU is 1500watt so it shouldn't have a problem with it.

 

[Gripen90]

Well waiting for the guy to reply back since I told him I'd gladly pick up that cpu.

 

[Gripen90]

It turned out that the seller ment he was selling his i7 5960x too cheap, so he changed his price to £358 instead .

However another person contacted me and said he had an Intel Core i7 6900k with original packaging, invoice and warranty and a Noctua NH-D15 cooler for £478. However I didn't need the Noctua cooler so he agreed upon £442.
After some consideration if I should continue the search for a 5960X or not, I decided to buy his Core i7 6900K which still is with warranty.

I hope going for the 6900K turns out ok, because I know the 5960x overclocks better and generally runs cooler when overclocked.

If my Phanteks PH-TC12 DX cooler can keep the 6900K reasonably cool at 4GHz, I will be very happy

 

[Gripen90]

Is not good deal. A 6900K @ 4Ghz is of similar perf with a Ryzen 7 without good ram and of similar perf to a 5960X @ 4.4Ghz.

For 442 you could buy 1700X and B350-F strix, overclock it, and see if your ram is working, before committing to buy a FlareX kit, while pocketing the money from the 5820K and the X99 board.
On top you have upgrade path for another 3 generation of CPUs.

What's your Ram module?

Well if the 6900K at 4GHz is equal to a 5960X at 4.4GHz then it sounds ok to me, since I'd max run the 5960X at 4.1Ghz for 24/7.

I understand the reason for Ryzen 7 1700X and it would make sense if I hadn't already a platform. It's just too much hassle to go through new windows installation, new activation, reinstall programs etc. something that would take at least 2 days time for me. And if I can get 2 more years out of the X99 platform before upgrading to a new platform at that time, I am fine with that.
Also I'm running two Zotac GTX 1080Ti's and from what I've seen in games a 5960X/6900K pushes them a bit better than a Ryzen 7 1700X.
As for memory I'm using 32GB kit of Kingston HyperX Savage 2666MHz CL13.

Ryzen is a great platform no doubt, I have an ITX machine with Ryzen 5 [email protected], 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR2666MHz, Evga GTX 1060 6GB.

 

[Gripen90]

FYI windows 10 can be brought to "fresh" status, if you use the sysprep tool that comes with it.
It removes all hardware specific stuff, without affecting the rest of the software.

Yea I did that when I changed my wifes AMD 990FX setup to X99, but the system didn't run stable. I had to do a total reinstall before it was running flawlessly. I think it may work better going from Intel to Intel / AMD to AMD than shifting between platform brands...could be I've just been unlucky.

 

[Gripen90]

I have just gone from a 5820k to a 5960x. Cost me £310 minus the £100 minimum ill get for the 5820k. Two more cores, clocks 100Mhz higher per core at 0.15 volts less then the 5820k (went from an older Haswell-E batch to a 'J' batch)

I run some video editing software so the upgrade was worth it for worth it for me, havent had enough of a play to see if it makes any difference for gaming yet but my 5820k@ 4.5Ghz was hardly a slouch here.

Hopefully enough to stave of the upgrade itch till the next enthusiast platform comes out in a few years time....

An upgrade from a 920 to a 980 on the x58 platform was enough to see past x79 till X99 came around.... Hoping to hold out now to a new platform maybe debuting ddr5

Thank you for sharing ! I too hope that I with the 6900K can extent the life time of my X99 with another 2 years or so, before swapping platform all together.

Had a quick read though, has he mentioned what he uses his PC for? People saying X299/X399 is a better platform than a Z370, well if it's gaming he want's then they aren't and I'd rather stick with X99 5820k or 5960k 2nd'd to Z370 of course.

I do it all I used it for video editing/production, image correction/enhancement, ordinary office use and gaming. I just want a rig that does everything fairly well (multi-role) - it doesn't have to excel in one particular area

 

[Gripen90]

I recieved the Ci7 6900K today and installed it along with my old Phanteks PH-TC 12 DX cooler with dual 120mm fans.
I updated to the latest BIOS and I then overclocked the CPU to 4GHz by setting the multiplier to 40 on all cores. I set the voltage to adaptive mode but the Broadwell-E doesn't seem to have any influence like on Haswell-E ? I've tried setting the adaptive mode from 1.15 down to 1.08, but for some reason the voltage remains at 1.252v no matter what I change here. Only when I reduced Mhz the voltage drops.
Any way I booted up the system without issues at 4GHz, and I have run OCCT for 3hours now, and the hottest core maxes at 86°c while on average they all sit around 75°c. I think it's pretty decent considered the voltage and the Phanteks PH-TC 12DX which isn't the beefiest of coolers. I might get a larger more effective air cooler later on

As for now I'm pretty happy going from a 5820K to a 6900K

 

[Gripen90]

Upgrading CPU`s has been as been a side grade for a few years now and most likely will be for a few more.

If you refer to gaming then yes indeed. Even a 2600K vs a 8700K with a modern card like GTX 1070 keeps up extremely well:

 

[Gripen90]

Change that GPU and the scores change significantly

That said, I don't see many people using a 1080ti with a 2600k.

Yea ok ! I see the 1080Ti let the CPU's stretch their legs much more !

 

[Gripen90]

Had forgotten to set my fans to run after the CPU temperatures after the BIOS update. Setting them to CPU temperature target again took around 3~5°c off per core.
This after 2½ hours OCCT.

 

[Gripen90]

As a final touch to it all. While I in my own rig got an i7 6900k, I managed to grab a i7 5960X also on ebay, which will replace my wife's i7 5820K. I can't wait to compare the 5960X vs 6900K.