was going to build a new low end computer for family, but instead i might move computers around and build myself a new one... i currently have lga1366 with i7-930 @ 2.8 ghz, 6GB RAM, using HD5870 graphics. i haven't followed or read reviews on the latest sandy bridge, ivy bridge, haswell, or whatever's next and when. i plan on getting an nvidia card, $300-500 price range, should i go LGA 1150, or 2011, or something else or wait? for Intel CPU what's the best choice these days or what do i stay away from? Figuring a quad core is good enough, I don't need a 6 or 8 core. thanks.
If you're going for 4 cores, you should go LGA 1150 then. There I personally would go with a Devil's Canyon 4790K, or 4690K if you plan on overclocking, a non-K model if not due to better CPU-heatspreader contact than the 4770K for instance. Two 8GB RAM sticks and you'd be fine to go. For your range of price, the Nvidia GTX 970 would do perfect for any gaming at 1080p, imo. Of course, there's always something around the corner. Next year there will be Broadwell CPUs coming along, with Skylake following in 2016, iirc. With the GPU it's fairly the same, there will be 20nm fabrication coming to Nvidia sometime in the next year, as well as new AMD products in first half of next year I think.
I just went for a 5820K, MSI X99S SLi Plus, and 2x Crucial DDR4-2133 CL15 4GB RAM sticks. Comes in at slightly more than a 4790K system but you get two extra cores and a more expansive platform. If you're in the USA, near a Microcenter, you could pick up the 5820K for $300. The 4790K is $280 there so it would be madness to go for a 4790K-based system unless you really need to hit the higher clockspeeds that are somewhat less common on the 6- and 8- core 5820K / 5930K / 5960X. You don't need quad-channel urgently but it's nice to have that much memory bandwidth even at lower RAM frequencies. Remember that with the Z97 platform you're getting dual-channel tops so you aren't losing anything by saving and going dual-channel for X99 as well. At least that's how I thought about it.
Yeah I would go with the 5820k recommendation as well. If you can swing it 2 970 is killer performance for the cash.
Thanks. I'm waiting for the price, latencies to go down and the speeds to go up before I bite on a quad channel kit. That or I'll just throw in another two sticks if I find that a better solution. All in all ($300 + tax) + ($230 + shipping + tax) + $105 is a killer deal for a hexa-core + platform + RAM.
Incredible, are those the green sticks with no heatsinks? Those are the ones that I have here on the table waiting for the motherboard to arrive.
thanks guys, I will most likely buy from newegg, i initially selected GTX 780 based on videocardbenchmark but didn't realize the 970 is same $350 and slightly better. But the 970 must be the card of choice because newegg shows them all out of stock currently. kinda torn between 1150 and 2011/v3. to be honest i'm not gonna overclock the cpu, i'd rather sink the money into graphics and cuda cores. Right now I'm looking at for the big 3 (cpu mobo ram) $635 for LGA1150, $730 for LGA2011 with 2x8gb DDR3, and $890 for LGA2011v3 with 4x4gb DDR4 ram. Right now the lga1150 i7-4790k at 4ghz is attractive based on the 4ghz and wattage. On a rare case I do some work at home I can actually put more cores to use as well as using all of the RAM but that's playing around and seldom. where i want the performance is for the few games i play, one of which is the flight sim X-Plane. seems like 1150 is the way to go based on cpu frequency, wattage, and component price. unless DDR4 ram pricing drops.
For the CPU you can change only your i7-930 with a Xeon x5650, they go very cheap now and OC extremely well, this way you will not have to change mobo and ram.
