Upgrade to 3930k or stay with 3770k with Titan SLI

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Erk1209

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Hello, I am debating between moving up to a 3930k or sticking with my 3770k.

Any opinions on why I should or should not?

My system:

i7-3770k
Intel Z77 board
Seasonic 1000W Platinum
2x GTX Titan in SLI
16GB of memory
512Gb Samsung SSD

If the 3930k ends up being the way to go any motherboard suggestions? Part of why I'm thinking about the move is more PCIe bandwith for the Titans
 
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babernet_1
Heck no. Many reviews reveal the extra PCIE bandwidth does next to nothing for the FPS. You would be spending the better part of $1,000 for maybe 2% better gaming. A total waste. If I were you I'd look at a better/more displays. That will get you more gaming fun.
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babernet_1

babernet_1

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Heck no. Many reviews reveal the extra PCIE bandwidth does next to nothing for the FPS. You would be spending the better part of $1,000 for maybe 2% better gaming. A total waste. If I were you I'd look at a better/more displays. That will get you more gaming fun.
 
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babernet_1

babernet_1

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How's your gaming with that setup? I have a single Titan on a 2650X1600 display. I will be getting a second Titan and a Haswell setup next month. If you decide to go with three Titans, you may need to go with the 2011 boards for the third board will only see a X4 PCIE.
 
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Erk1209

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It's pretty outstanding. As with most surround set ups I'll sometimes have to sacrifice MSAA/TXAA to stay above 60fps, but I truthfully can rarely see a difference above 2x anyway. I ran Bioshock Infinite at highest settings between 70-110 fps, Borderlands 2 at 120fps vsync'd. The second card hurt my wallet's feelings but 2x 680s just wasn't cutting it in some games and I'm happy I made the move. I've toyed with the idea of getting a third down the line in which case I would wonder about needing 2011 to prevent bottlenecking. You also mentioned only seeing X4 on the third card on most Z77 boards. Am I correct in assuming that this is not an issue on x79 boards? I was looking at the Gigabyte x79-up4 board. My total upgrade cost to a 2011 set-up would be just under $500, for reference
 
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Erk1209

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I also have to wonder how PCIe lanes will play out on Haswell since a Haswell chip and board would probably be right in the neighborhood of $500, not to mention selling my current chip/board
 
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Erk1209

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I would probably choose one like this: http://www.thinkcomputers.org/gigabyte-z87x-oc-motherboard-unboxed-and-detailed/

The impression I'm getting from you is that if I ever wanted to add a third Titan (seems crazy) a 2011 chip would be ideal.

If I'm going to stick with two Titans, Ivy/Haswell is fine?

Thanks for your help
 
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babernet_1

babernet_1

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If you do decide to go with a third Titan, make sure if you decide to go Haswell with the 1150 socket, your motherboard has the PLEX chip that will expand the PCI-E bus. Since you already have a 3770K, I'd not go with Haswell unless it truly is an overclocking monster and you can get it to 5.5GHz or something. With triple monitors, you probably will be seeing a graphics bottleneck for the most part, but games are becoming more and more processor dependent.
 
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Erk1209

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Fair enough. Good to know I won't really be losing out if I decide to stay where I am. What is that PLEX chip you mentioned? I've never heard of that before.

 
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crisptofuring

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wow. your computer is extremely powerful... aside from that, the intel i7 3930k is a great choice. If your rig is purely for gaming, the i7-3770k should do just fine, but if you plan to be recording and encoding game videos (something that i do a lot), the extra $200 for the 3930k is well worth it. As for the new haswell processors, i don't know how much better they are going to be than the ivy bridge ones... a 3930k will not get outdated for quite a while.
 
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babernet_1

babernet_1

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http://www.anandtech.com/show/6170/four-multigpu-z77-boards-from-280350-plx-pex-8747-featuring-gigabyte-asrock-ecs-and-evga

This is the best answer to your question. As you can see, it is quite complex. I am an IC designer so I am familiar with these issues, but for the layman, you need this to explain it.
 
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crisptofuring

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oh and Erk1209
that's a lot of monitors... if you're just doing gaming, larger-size monitors with ultra-high def (like babernet_1's 2650X1600 displays) are, in my opinion, better for gaming
and three titans is slightly overkill if you're not one of those hardcore graphics designers
 
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