Time to upgrade my i7 920 £500 budget

[Ciber]

I would probably stick with what you have for now - at the end of the year both AMD Zen and Kaby Lake will be out,so hoping there should be some decent pricing at that point.

You're making me reconsider my decision to upgrade before going Windows 10! It's almost always worth waiting to upgrade if you can. I wonder exactly how much of a pain it will be moving my win7 licence converted to windows 10 to a system with a new mobo?

To go a little left field (and more help to the photo / video editing you mentioned) have you thought about building a system around a used Xeon E5-2670 (Socket 2011)? 8 core, 16 thread and currently going for around £75 for server pulled chips on the bay.

That's a different idea! I have no idea what mobo to use with that CPU. Would it be good for gaming as well?

Will more 6 and 8 core desktop CPUs be coming soon? When I got my quad core in 2009 I thought I would have a 16 core CPU in a few years! Why hasn't that happened by now?

[Hoonigan]

I wonder exactly how much of a pain it will be moving my win7 licence converted to windows 10 to a system with a new mobo?

I just moved my SSD over without a reformat or anything.. Microsoft pissed about quite a bit on the phone but I eventually got through to someone who could help.
Took about an hour altogether before I was sorted out and reactivated.

When I got my quad core in 2009 I thought I would have a 16 core CPU in a few years! Why hasn't that happened by now?

I bought the first Intel quad core processor (Q6600) back in 2007 and fully imagined with my next upgrade I'd be getting at least 16/32 cores. Here I am, 9 years on, purchasing another quad core..

Although, in fairness, there's a pretty huge jump in speed and performance!

[wazzickle]

Good point. Reading your build makes me wonder if I can do a silent gaming build? My GPU is silent under light loads so can my CPU be fanless?

You could but I wouldn't if you want good performance. The payoff in terms of performance vs price vs noise is not worth it for a gaming system imo.

[Ciber]

I just moved my SSD over without a reformat or anything.. Microsoft pissed about quite a bit on the phone but I eventually got through to someone who could help.
Took about an hour altogether before I was sorted out and reactivated.

That does sound like a PITA.

You could but I wouldn't if you want good performance. The payoff in terms of performance vs price vs noise is not worth it for a gaming system imo.

OK it was just a thought.

[clairville]

Have you considered a xeon 6 core to put into your X58 motherboard?

[Bonebreaker777]

Have you considered a xeon 6 core to put into your X58 motherboard?

I thought they only supported quad cores with HT. Do you need a hack for the hexacores?

[kalniel]

I thought they only supported quad cores with HT. Do you need a hack for the hexacores?

Nope - the upper chips in the series are hexacore +ht already - the i7 980 for eg.

[Ciber]

I really want to upgrade the mobo though, not just the CPU.

[jigger]

Slap in a Xeon Hex core from Ebay and overclock it. Then sit back and wait for Zen/Kaby lake.

[Ciber]

Slap in a Xeon Hex core from Ebay and overclock it. Then sit back and wait for Zen/Kaby lake.

OK, that might be my option though I don't feel like my CPU is holding me back much.

The windows 10 deadline is approaching though! We are buying a house and my wife is dead against spending any money on my PC at the moment, so I will have to either stay with windows 7 or 'upgrade' to 10 in the next week. I've found that 10 generally makes old PCs worse but hopefully it will work OK.

[Bonebreaker777]

OK, that might be my option though I don't feel like my CPU is holding me back much.

The windows 10 deadline is approaching though! We are buying a house and my wife is dead against spending any money on my PC at the moment, so I will have to either stay with windows 7 or 'upgrade' to 10 in the next week. I've found that 10 generally makes old PCs worse but hopefully it will work OK.

I had Windows 10 but after numerous issues I switched back to Windows 8. Windows 10 wasn't for me but it will hopefully work out for you

[Marcvs]

I upgraded to W10 - Also if you do upgrade can I call dibs on the board .

That said I would probably chuck a cheapo Xeon in it...