QOTW: Z170 or X99 - which would you choose for a high-end rig?

[Saracen]

...
Decisions, decisions. Well, you've seen the reviews and had ample opportunity to pore over the specs, so now it's time to have your say. Which would you choose for a high-end rig, Z170 or X99? As always, let us know your thoughts and reasoning ...

Well, this one is easy for me to answer. The fallacy is in the "decisions, decisions" bit. Right now, I don't need to make that decision because I'm not looking to buy, and therefore, not looking to spent that kind of money.

And my feeling is that right now I'd probably go X99, because if I had to make the decision right now, it has to be based on products available right now, and X99 has, in most circumstances, the edge.

However, Z170 also seems to have more headway, no, that's the wrong way to put it, less weak links. Any chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and any flow system is limited to the capacity of the narrowest bottleneck. Feed water into a 6" main, then step it down to a 1/2" pipe in the house and it's the 1/2" pipe that determines max flow.

I can't help but feel that overall system performance is best served by a balance of minimised weak links, and Skylake manages that giving a potential for performance, but one not currently realised, i.e. right now, it'd be under-utilised or even wasted potential.

So it's kinda a balance between X99 performance right now, or Z170 future-proofing IF (big if) future products utilise it.

It's also, of course, a case of what you want the system for, and what other hardware it'll have, and what bottlenecks that hadware might come across.

In short, it's easy for me to decide because, right now, neither X99 nor Z170.

As/when I do come to make that call, it'll depend on what I'm going to be doing with the system, what other hardware it'll have and is available at that time, and what weak links that might butt up against.

[this_is_gav]

It's not really, or at least not just, about Intel being happy with small, incremental changes; meaningful performance increases are also getting more and more difficult to produce. We may never see real-world generational performance increases in the double digits ever again on x86 and somewhere down the line you may well find yourself screaming "die, you X58 bastard! DIE, DIE, DIE!!!".

Then prices should be coming down as the die sizes decrease.

I'm not expecting a stunning increase in performance, but if my chip from 2008 is still within probably 20% (certainly no noticeable difference) of the current generation equivalent chip which cost roughly the same (I'm thinking more) then something isn't right.

Look at this graph and tell me the last few generations haven't been hitting a specific target and nothing more...

[Death2g]

To me i would go for z170, but that is only because i mainly game, and becuase of the reduced power consumption.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well, this one is easy for me to answer. The fallacy is in the "decisions, decisions" bit. Right now, I don't need to make that decision because I'm not looking to buy, and therefore, not looking to spent that kind of money.

And my feeling is that right now I'd probably go X99, because if I had to make the decision right now, it has to be based on products available right now, and X99 has, in most circumstances, the edge.

However, Z170 also seems to have more headway, no, that's the wrong way to put it, less weak links. Any chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and any flow system is limited to the capacity of the narrowest bottleneck. Feed water into a 6" main, then step it down to a 1/2" pipe in the house and it's the 1/2" pipe that determines max flow.

I can't help but feel that overall system performance is best served by a balance of minimised weak links, and Skylake manages that giving a potential for performance, but one not currently realised, i.e. right now, it'd be under-utilised or even wasted potential.

So it's kinda a balance between X99 performance right now, or Z170 future-proofing IF (big if) future products utilise it.

It's also, of course, a case of what you want the system for, and what other hardware it'll have, and what bottlenecks that hadware might come across.

In short, it's easy for me to decide because, right now, neither X99 nor Z170.

As/when I do come to make that call, it'll depend on what I'm going to be doing with the system, what other hardware it'll have and is available at that time, and what weak links that might butt up against.

Actually,the Z170 has some limitations though.

The CPU has 20 PCI-E lanes. The Z170 chipset has 20 lanes too. However,the connection between the CPU and the chipset uses DMI3.0 which is equivalent to 4 PCI-E 3.0 lanes of bandwith.

With the Core i7 5820K the CPU itself has 28 PCI-E 3.0 lanes.

[uBronan]

To be honest i do not see any need to upgrade at all.
I had been very unlucky with a window blowing open during the last summer storm.
Which killed my amd 8 core machine. Replaced it with a asrock z97 extreme 6 mobo with a I4690. So i actually am scaling down instead of scaling up.
In fact my main machine is a 3770K and that will not be replaced untill i see a real need for new hardware besides swapping to the gpu to a Fury X as soon as i can get one.
The reason for this is simple for all the games i play there is no need for mutli core cpu's, they all are single or at best dual thread. Those who upgrade hardware for gaming for any other reason are in my view silly people. I checked all the new games and even those so not use more than 1 core in most cases. For them the gpu is more important than anything else.
Hell even on those they often hardly use the power which they have.
4K looks fun but is for me too expenssive and not really adding much difference especially since there are no games who would look better than they do now on 1440p.
I also have not seen any games released since begin 2014 which supports 4K or even gives me the itch to buy any game at all. So i am stuck with the games i own and i bet those will never get an graphical overhaul. Hell crysis 2 is still a graphical masterpiece till today.
So my answer is NON of the above.

[aidanjt]

X99, no brainer, twice the PCIe lanes and twice the cores? Easy win.

[Jedibeeftrix]

today, i'd probably go for Z170.

late last year, with the choice of Z97 or X99 i went for the latter.

Z97 was a woefully inadequate platform for a high-end ATX gaming rig.

Z170 is an enormous improvement, regardless of the small improvement from haswell-refresh to skylake.

[Jonj1611]

Granular, is that the word of the day? I seem to be seeing that everywhere lately.

The former, brought to market just this week alongside sixth-generation 'Skylake' CPUs, mixes the best of Intel's quad-core processor technology with DDR4 memory, more granular overclocking options and a new-and-improved arrangement of 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes, giving the chipset ample headroom for current and future storage solutions.

[Myss_tree]

Determination for me would be price and that i would prefer ITX form factor which currently leaves little in terms of choice between Z170 or X99.

[EvZ_2]

Personally I was going to go for X99 but i don't think i'd use all the extra features so I'm building a skylake PC in October ready for Fallout and Starwars (it might come down to which ever is cheapest with usb 3.1/c ports / built in wifi - i honestly really like the look and functions of the ASUS Z170-Deluxe

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Personally I was going to go for X99 but i don't think i'd use all the extra features so I'm building a skylake PC in October ready for Fallout and Starwars (it might come down to which ever is cheapest with usb 3.1/c ports / built in wifi - i honestly really like the look and functions of the ASUS Z170-Deluxe

If you intend not to upgrade for three to four years,I would go X99. By then there should be plenty of DX12 and Vulkan games I suspect,and the extra cores of the Core i7 5820K will be more useful IMHO.

If not get a Coe i5 6600K and spend the money saved on your graphics card or a larger SSD.

[loccothan]

X99 cuz' its more future proof min. 6-cores but i will pick 8/16 ;-)

[evs]

X99 is a waste for gaming and Skylake is too expensive as price/performance
Hopefully the refresh (next year?) Will improve things and make Skylake worth moving to.
If I used the pc for work though it would be an X99 though like most I have a laptop provided by work rather than self funded

[SciFi]

I have just upgraded to X99, took this route for the PCIe lanes. Have 2 980 ti's being surved with 16 lanes each... yummy

[kalniel]

If you intend not to upgrade for three to four years,I would go X99. By then there should be plenty of DX12 and Vulkan games I suspect,and the extra cores of the Core i7 5820K will be more useful IMHO.

I'm thinking along similar lines, just wondering if the additional peripheral updates of the Z170 might be of more use in the long term for me. Maybe I'll see if we get any X99 boards with the USB 3.1 ASMedia chip (maybe there are already, not checked).

[aidanjt]

Maybe I'll see if we get any X99 boards with the USB 3.1 ASMedia chip (maybe there are already, not checked).

Asus has refreshed a lot of their X99 boards with USB3.1.