You will need an entirely new motherboard singe the 4960X is LGA 2011 and your i5/motherboard is LGA 1150. You'll need a X79 LGA 2011 motherboard for the 4960X. Best you can get on LGA 1150 is a 4770k right now
If you're willing to wait however, the Haswell-E platform with X99 LGA 2011 is being released later this year. This is better than the 4960X since it will be on Haswell arch rather than Ivy arch
Just wondering as I am thinking of upgrading from my i5 4440 3.1ghZ (Bah.) As it isn't great for what I do.
Will that fit in my motherboard though? The mobo is a Gigabyte g1 sniper 5 E-ATX http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4487#ov
You will need an entirely new motherboard singe the 4960X is LGA 2011 and your i5/motherboard is LGA 1150. You'll need a X79 LGA 2011 motherboard for the 4960X. Best you can get on LGA 1150 is a 4770k right now
If you're willing to wait however, the Haswell-E platform with X99 LGA 2011 is being released later this year. This is better than the 4960X since it will be on Haswell arch rather than Ivy arch
Any of those are good choices, and the performance is likely as they are ordered and priced. 1st. Corsair H105 2nd. Noctua NH-D14 3rd. CM Hyper 212 EVO
If you want screaming power, in September the Haswell E processors are coming out. Eight cores, sixteen with hyperthreading! If you find yourself waiting for the CPU to finish projects, you may want to consider one of these.