Upgrading time

[Professor Frink]

Hi all

I'm still running my I7 950, Asus P6X58D-E, 3x2GB, 560ti PC. It has seem better days and has a couple of near fatal crashes and not expecting it to last very much longer. It has done well. Only been upgraded from a 260ti > 560ti and HD to 540 pro SSD. I'm basically decommissioning it, saving the optic drive (Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer), Samsung 840 pro and a few wires.

I already having the following parts bought:
Corsair 750D
Corsair H100i
Corsair HX1000i 1000W
Asus 970

I was thinking of getting:
Intel i7 6700K (I want to go Skylake and know it is overkill)
Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero
Samsung 850 Pro 256GB - Put OS on a fresh install and use my 256GB 840 pro for games.

The ram is where I get a bit stuck. I know the mobo takes:
DDR4 - 2133 DDR4 - 2400(OC) DDR4 - 2666(OC) DDR4 - 2800(OC) DDR4 - 3000(OC) DDR4 - 3200(OC) DDR4 - 3300(OC) DDR4 - 3400(OC) DDR4 - 3466(OC) DDR4 - 3600+(OC)

Do I just go for the quickest that isn't too much of a jump in price? I usually go Corsair (that is what Scan usually stocks). I was thinking of getting 16GB; should I go 4x4GB or 2x8GB?

Have I missed anything obvious? Thanks

Edit - I've got Asus PB287Q monitor.

[Bonebreaker777]

The Samsung 860 Pro is rather an overkill (I do apologise if it will be utilized running professional applications).

The RAM you could/should choose the cheapest. I can see that a similar kit (4 x 4GB) sells with a £7 difference between DDR4-2400 and DDR4-2666. If the extra £7 if worth to you, I would say go for it, otherwise the 2400 kit should be good enough. Even with a dual channel memory controller.

On the other hand 2 x 8GB DDR4 memory modules are even cheaper so I would be going that way. £95 for 2 x 8GB DDR4 2400 and £97 for 2 x 8GB DDR4 2666.

EDIT: your Samsung 850 Pro 256GB will cost you about £105 but for an extra £20 you could have a 500 GB Crucial BX100. Wouldn't be worth the extra £20?

[DJX366]

You can get a Crucial DDR4 2133 4x4gb 16gb kit from ebuyer for £73.64 with free delivery, its bare with no heat spreader but might pay for the £20 upgrade to the 500gb BX100.

[Millennium]

While higher RAM speeds (DDR4) are not showing much appreciable FPS increase in modern games (unless you use the onboard GPU of the CPU...) they are showing some synthetic benchmark improvements. It's a trade off, the highest speed stuff gets very expensive, and it's hard to find at the moment. I went for 3000 mhz DDR4 (Corsair LPX) but I think something slower and cheaper would have been pretty much the same value proposition. Still, it's Skylake!

[KeyboardDemon]

I don't think that the 6700K is overkil, I think if you are looking for a PC that will give you long term use then buying a CPU such as this will be a good option.

I don't think that getting the Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero is such a good investment unless you are planning on extreme overclocking, buying from lower down in the range will give you a massive drop in your costs and only see a small drop in your maximum overclock potential.

Check out this video to see if a high end mobo is what you really need:

[Professor Frink]

I don't think that the 6700K is overkil, I think if you are looking for a PC that will give you long term use then buying a CPU such as this will be a good option.

I don't think that getting the Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero is such a good investment unless you are planning on extreme overclocking, buying from lower down in the range will give you a massive drop in your costs and only see a small drop in your maximum overclock potential.

Check out this video to see if a high end mobo is what you really need:

Thanks for the link to the video.

The Asus Maximus VI Extreme was £300+ motherboard. I do agree that kind of money is overkill. In the video he mentions that the sweet mark is about £150-165. The Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero is £173.00 at Scan (if they can stock it soon). I did originally look at the Asus Z170-A which is £117.80 at Scan. It got some good solid reviews and I quite like the Black/ White design.

What made me think about spending the extra £55 was it had a few extra bells and whistles and onboard audio was better. Also spending £300 on a CPU to put on a low end board seems a little bit 'dirty'.

[Professor Frink]

While higher RAM speeds (DDR4) are not showing much appreciable FPS increase in modern games (unless you use the onboard GPU of the CPU...) they are showing some synthetic benchmark improvements. It's a trade off, the highest speed stuff gets very expensive, and it's hard to find at the moment. I went for 3000 mhz DDR4 (Corsair LPX) but I think something slower and cheaper would have been pretty much the same value proposition. Still, it's Skylake!

I know, Skylake!!

Are the Corsair Vengeance LPX good then? How do they compare to G.Skill, HyperX or Crucial? The difference between the Corsair Vengeance LPX PC3-24000 (3000) and PC4-25600 (3200) is only £16.86.... I presume timing on the RAM make little difference? I remember about 5-10 years ago being obsessed with getting them tighter timing on my ram, lol.

[EndlessWaves]

I don't think that the 6700K is overkil, I think if you are looking for a PC that will give you long term use then buying a CPU such as this will be a good option.

No it isn't. If you can get a benefit from it now then it's likely whatever you're doing will stay cutting edge and it won't last you long.

If you can't get any benefit from it now then buying two CPUs half the price (i5-4000) is a much longer term proposition.

What made me think about spending the extra £55 was it had a few extra bells and whistles and onboard audio was better. Also spending £300 on a CPU to put on a low end board seems a little bit 'dirty'.

Sufficiently better to compete with a £55 sound card or DAC?

There aren't any low end skylake boards out yet, there aren't even any mid-range B150 and H170 boards out yet. £80+ is all high end, some of it's just extremely high end.

[KeyboardDemon]

Thanks for the link to the video.

Always a pleasure, never a chore.

The Asus Maximus VI Extreme was £300+ motherboard. I do agree that kind of money is overkill. In the video he mentions that the sweet mark is about £150-165. The Asus ROG Z170 Maximus VIII Hero is £173.00 at Scan (if they can stock it soon). I did originally look at the Asus Z170-A which is £117.80 at Scan. It got some good solid reviews and I quite like the Black/ White design.

What made me think about spending the extra £55 was it had a few extra bells and whistles and onboard audio was better. Also spending £300 on a CPU to put on a low end board seems a little bit 'dirty'.

As soon as I saw the ROG in the title I just got a mental image of a very expensive mobo, I didn't realise you had selected a more affordable model from their range.

No it isn't. If you can get a benefit from it now then it's likely whatever you're doing will stay cutting edge and it won't last you long.

If you can't get any benefit from it now then buying two CPUs half the price (i5-4000) is a much longer term proposition.

Based on my own experience, my 3770K part is still performing well enough on par for games for me to not have to worry about replacing it, and that's 3 years on. Looking at the frame rate increases for most games the 3770K has not fallen behind to a point that makes me think I need that extra power, though I still want it but that's another story!.

The i7 2600K still performs well for gaming and even the i7 920 is still a robust piece of kit. That's not to say that the performance increases in the new CPUs is insgnificant, but if you took an average increase across a bunch of games with a mix of games that were either CPU bound or more GPU reliant then I think you would see a very small average increase, the biggest increases where games are more CPU bound would clearly show the highest frame rates on the newer CPUs. Games like Far Cry 4 may see an increase of around 40% over the frame rates produced using the same GPU and settings on a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processor but only see a frame per second increase in games like The Witcher 3 according to DigitalFoundry.

Here's the video from Digital Foundry:

Sufficiently better to compete with a £55 sound card or DAC?

I think that this is quite a subjective question, in my opinion even the basic on-board sound processor is sufficient as my headset comes with it's own USB audio processor unit, while the USB speakers sound the same when plugged into my Microsoft Surface as they on my desktop, but for others audio fidelity is a much bigger thing. It sounds like you are saying that in your opinion the high quality sound option on a mobo is not as good as an external DAC or separate sound card, is that the case?

There aren't any low end skylake boards out yet, there aren't even any mid-range B150 and H170 boards out yet. £80+ is all high end, some of it's just extremely high end.

Good point, and while the boards closer to the £80 mark might not oc as well as those closer to the £300 mark, there's guarantee that if you spent the extra on a good overclocking mobo that you'd end up getting a CPU that can be pushed as far as a CPU that someone else puts in an £80 mobo.

[Professor Frink]

The I7-6700K is getting a bit rare. Scan has added about £35 to the price and out of stock until 17th. Was looking at Dabs and CCL but they seem to have a lot of negative reviews. I even checked eBuyer who I usually stay away from but they have no stock until 31st.

Might have missed the skylake boat.

[DanceswithUnix]

Also spending £300 on a CPU to put on a low end board seems a little bit 'dirty'.

Don't see why. My mum runs a Xeon E3 in a £35 Asrock motherboard. That's very unbalanced in price, but she doesn't need motherboard frills and I don't see her spending her retirement handling water loops or liquid nitrogen so overclocking features aren't important. Really, for just "plug it in and use it" a cheaper motherboard is perfect, and for her use it does go like stink

[Professor Frink]

Don't see why. My mum runs a Xeon E3 in a £35 Asrock motherboard. That's very unbalanced in price, but she doesn't need motherboard frills and I don't see her spending her retirement handling water loops or liquid nitrogen so overclocking features aren't important. Really, for just "plug it in and use it" a cheaper motherboard is perfect, and for her use it does go like stink

What is that used for?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a Core i7 5820K over a Core i7 6700K. The latter is massively overpriced at nearly £300 considering it has a tiny 120mm2 die,and if a two to three times bigger 14NM CPU like the Core i7 5775C can be sold for a similar price,I don't see why it should be over £250.

The Core i7 5820K is the better longterm bet IMHO.

[lankeyphil]

I'd say if your getting all of the above then go for the best you can get. The current price difference between em is not much atm. If you can spare the few quid then I'd go for it.

[Daheelah]

The I7-6700K is getting a bit rare. Scan has added about £35 to the price and out of stock until 17th. Was looking at Dabs and CCL but they seem to have a lot of negative reviews. I even checked eBuyer who I usually stay away from but they have no stock until 31st.

Might have missed the skylake boat.

When did you last check @scan. As far as I can see, they currently have the 6700K in stock, albeit for a FAT £335. I too am looking to get one for a new build with specs very similar to yours. I really don't need it yet as my current 3770K with Maximus V Formula build is still very potent, but I just WANT the 6700K!!!

[EndlessWaves]

Based on my own experience, my 3770K part is still performing well enough on par for games for me to not have to worry about replacing it, and that's 3 years on. Looking at the frame rate increases for most games the 3770K has not fallen behind to a point that makes me think I need that extra power, though I still want it but that's another story!.

That would be equally true if it was an i5-3570 though.

Is an i7-860 going to last substantially longer than an i5-750? Was a Core 2 Quad Q9550 a good buy compared to a Q6600?

Paying big money for small improvements makes sense if you can see those improvements every day - a dedicated encoding machine always busy with work that's 15% faster is a significant improvement. A gaming machine that'll only see the benefit in 2% of frames in every 10th game is a much weaker case for paying double the cost for that 15% improvement.

I think that this is quite a subjective question, in my opinion even the basic on-board sound processor is sufficient as my headset comes with it's own USB audio processor unit, while the USB speakers sound the same when plugged into my Microsoft Surface as they on my desktop

If they're USB then they're separate sound devices and aren't using your onboard audio at all.

It sounds like you are saying that in your opinion the high quality sound option on a mobo is not as good as an external DAC or separate sound card, is that the case?

I've no idea. My point was more that you need to take a wide view of these things. It's easy to go down the options list or buy something because it's expensive but understanding what you want and looking at the alternatives benefits everyone. You get the best possible system and the manufacturers are kept on their toes by having to offer value for money against companies producing completely different products, not just other motherboard divisions that think the same way.