Best CPU & Motherboard on the market right now for gaming?

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syketh

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Hey,

So as the title says, is there a definite best CPU & Mobo combo on the market right now for gaming? Right now I have an i7 4930K (2011) CPU, I have a profile for 4.6Ghz and its resting on my Asus Rampage IV Extreme.

I purchased this bundle this time last year from Scan.co.uk and I have had nothing but problems with their overclock profile. After about a week of using it I got numerous BSOD's (0x124) and they replaced the chip with what they said was an "A grade replacement". I thought I would have gotten an "A grade" to begin with but apparently not. Even with the replacement it hasn't done any better and I have had to make do with the stock profile for the past 6 months or so.

Anyway, the reason I ask is that I really, really want rid of this mobo and CPU because of the problems and I want to start fresh. I've also experienced my first PSU die, which may have harmed the rest of my build. The recent AX1200i which was a replacement for my first PSU (same model) that was making an electrical buzzing noise. The latest PSU lasted a total of three days. I must have serious bad luck with Scan's products...

Overall, is there anything better I should have a look at? My budget is around £1400.

Cheers, and my apologies if I ramble on a bit, I've been stressing about this since the PSU died the other night.

Here's a list of my other components:
2 x EVGA GTX 780Ti SC
H100i (Going to be water cooling soon, have all the components here, including the 2011 waterblock)
16GB Corsair Vengeance
240 Corsair SSD
2TB HDD
 
Solution
uplink-svk
Mokyu - why should he go after faulty Devil's Canyon [I'm owner of 4790K] when he can get high-end with high quality cooling performance and much more power to punch after slight OC?

op - when You go Devil's Canyon path [4790K] get Asus Maximus VII Formula, when You go Haswell-E path, get Asus V Rampage. That's that, those are the two top of the class solutions, nothing in between.

And there's a difference in lanes and performance, at least at nvidia cards, 8x lanes[speed at PCi-e does some fps diff. in games.
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uplink-svk

uplink-svk

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If You want "budget" best, go for Asus Maximus VII Formula and 4790K, if You want the "best best", go for Asus Rampage V Extreme, and 5960X, 5930K, or 5820K, whichever fits Your budget.

Haswells-E all have soldered iHS to their CPU, so they're like demigods among all processors from Intel now on the market [IvyBridge, Haswell, Haswell Refresh].

P.S.: I'd get three way GTX 970, or two way 980 SLi. 780 Ti have seen it's best days. And get Mushkin Chronos DX SSD drive instead of Corsair, if You want to avoid eventual issues.

And if You mean to OC hard way, go on water with chiller, if You don't mean to OC much, stay on air. Much better for upgrades.

And very important thing, 5820K can hold up to only 1 x PCi-e 16x VGA, so if You want SLi, go for 5930K, he can do up to to 2x PCi-e 16x and X can go up to three, or four maybe, am not sure, didn't count the PCi-e lanes yet.
 
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syketh

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Hey, thanks uplink-svk. I was actually looking at the 5960X a little while ago as well as the Rampage V, just a shame it's red. Trying to go for a black and green setup but LED lighting will equal that out.



I'm thinking of holding off on upgrading the 780Ti's until something else comes out, perhaps the 980Ti if it's ever to be released/made. I'll probably upgrade around March or April next year. I have watercooling blocks for both the GPU's and CPU.

Would this - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ek-supremacy-evo-elite-edition-intel-2011 work on the 5960X? Since that's 2011-3?

Thanks for the speedy response!
 
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uplink-svk

uplink-svk

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Watercooling-wise I can't help You much, I lack experience with custom-water cooled systems. And I sacrificed the color in Your place. If You have money for Rampage, with 5960X, it's literally the best thing out there money can buy, if we overlook servers and stuff.

Commonsense-wise, if the watercooling block uses similiar mechanism [which it most likely does] it'll be backwards compatibile, I mean 2011-3 vs. 2011. In general 2011 and 2011-3 uses the same holes, they differ in CPU pins though, a lot.
 
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mlga91

mlga91

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Pretty much this, but you can run two cards on sli at x8, there is not any notable difference between running it at x16 and at x8, a 5820k can drive a 3 way sli setup with no problem.
 
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syketh

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I don't really get what that means to be honest, the x8. Does it mean that some of the suggestions will bottleneck the GPU's?

I'm honestly about to put an order through for the 5960X and the Rampage V, will take me a week to sort things out, would rather sell my other equipment first, however. :)
 
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Mokyu

Mokyu

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I'd stray away from the new CPUs if you are interested in gaming since gaming tends to focus on high speed cores and games never tend to use the amount of cores you'd get with those. I'd go for an ASUS ROG Z97 board and 4790K
 
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mlga91

mlga91

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That x8, x16 stuff that you see there are the PCIe lanes, x8 is 8 lanes, x16 is, well, 16 lanes, you get it. There is no difference in gaming between a GPU that runs on 8 lanes and one that runs on 16, even ATI cards that work with 4 lanes work pretty well.
 
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uplink-svk

uplink-svk

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Mokyu - why should he go after faulty Devil's Canyon [I'm owner of 4790K] when he can get high-end with high quality cooling performance and much more power to punch after slight OC?

op - when You go Devil's Canyon path [4790K] get Asus Maximus VII Formula, when You go Haswell-E path, get Asus V Rampage. That's that, those are the two top of the class solutions, nothing in between.

And there's a difference in lanes and performance, at least at nvidia cards, 8x lanes[speed at PCi-e does some fps diff. in games.
 
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Solution
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syketh

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Nov 29, 2010
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Thanks for the explanation and all your help. I'm set on the 5960X and the Rampage V after a few review readups. Only thing I'll have to look into now is a kit of DDR4 ram and I'm set! Also thinking of returning the AX1200i for the AX1500.

Again, cheers for your help!
 
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syketh

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I've learnt from my mistakes. I've never overclocked before and I thought I'd save time and hassle and boy was I wrong. It's caused me more problem than anything right now.

I'll definitely be doing my own work next time.
 
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