Gaming build X99 ,Z170 or wait for Z270

lol you bought GTX 1080 already , so what are you going to do with it ? put it in the closet ?

OFC there is no point in waiting you already bought the card .

and dont worry about the future much , worry about today .

X99 is the better option with 6 cores or more cpu but only if youu want to edit movies and 3D render and non gaming stuff .

If you want 4 cores only CPU , X99 is not worth it. get Z170

If you wait for the next best thing, you will wait forever.
If you have a need now, buy now.

Today, the I5-6600K or a I7-6700K is the best there is for gaming.
A Z170 motherboard will allow you to Overclock.

Upcoming, perhaps by the end of the year is a rumored kaby lake I7-7700K, but it is not supposed to be significantly faster.

Also upcoming will be Xpoint optane devices which will be a big performance bump for ssd type devices.
It is not clear how much the 200 series chipsets will be required to run them.
There will not be much of a market if the optane devices are not compatible with current chipsets.

Who knows what might come in a couple of years out.
The good thing is that whatever you buy you can sell if there is significant advantage in doing so.

Can go either way, wit for Kaby lake which will be a slight performance gain or go Skylake now - will be similar to the change from 4770K to 4790K not huge, but there. Waiting can be a pain, so might just want to jump and go Skylake - or X99 - either way will prob keep you happy for a few years

You got your card already.
Kaby Lake won't be there until Christmas earliest, looking at Skylake we're talking Easter for a reasonable price.

So get Z170 if you're looking to game
Or x99 if you need applications that profit of extra cores.

X99 motherboards are better than Z170 in everything .. because the CPU has more lanes (28 or 40) and they can put more hardare on these lanes ...

The main advantage of X99 is more pcie lanes which allow for triple sli.(not a good option in my opinion)

For gaming, core speed is all important, and I7-6700K will be measurably better if you overclock.
X99 invites the use of 6 and 8 core processors, but the thermal quota of such processors precludes running all cores ant very high multipliers.

One can tolerate longer batch run times for editing than any stutters in gaming.

Just buy the Z mobo and be done with it.
X99 is more for editing with CPU's that have 6 or more cores, Z is for gaming and CPUs that use 4 cores.
I have been studying this now for weeks as I am in the same boat, "what do I buy?"
I might cheap out and go 4th gen intel, or I might go Skylake LGA 1151.
But do not wait for the next thing to come, just buy now!

_______________

Different CPUs, different cores, per core performance different, say 6800K has better per core performance than 6800K

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-broadwell-e-6950x-6900k-6850k-6800k,4587-3.html

Yes it shows that the X99 gain in the higher threaded games, but straight upwhen not utilizing the heavily threaded games the 6700K does better, which is why it is considered to have the beter per core performance

well it is a mixed bag if you ask me and hard to give a short Answer .. but in general they are close in performance at the same frequency unless you have a very special DX12 game that takes advantage of more threads ...

I personally prefer X99 and have great expectations of DX12 ...

but If I open this subject here will turn into flaming thread , Thats why I tend to keep my answers short here on tomshardware to avoid trouble and help people ...

Have a nice day.

Gaming performance as measured in fps is determined by the cpu or the graphics card. It depends.

Some games are cpu limited and dependent on the single master thread for performance.
Typically, those games will be strategy games, sims and mmo. For those, skylake "K" will be best.

Others will be limited by the total cpu capability when they can use many threads. These are typically multiplayer games with many participants.
Because of the difficulty in setting up and repeating such benchmarks, valid ones are not to be found.
There is a argument that a 6 or 8 core cpu might be good for those.

Then, there is the graphics card.
With full eye candy, GTX1060 can be expected to play very well at 1080P.
GTX1070 at 1440P, and GTX1080 ok in many games at 4k, but fast action games may need Titan X pascal.

The faster the action, the stronger the graphics card you need.

If your games are slower moving sims, mmo, or strategy games, 60fps is all you need and a lesser graphics card will do.

For the moment, ignore DX12 as a selection criteria. There are only a few games that implement it, and the benefit shows up mainly in low powered processors.

If budget is not a big problem, buy a i7-6700K and a titan X pascal.

That's pretty much it

Just get the Z170, Kaby Lake, and Cannonlake will still be supported on that same chipset so don't worry. Just get a high-end z170 board like the Formula VIII from ASUS. I'm doin the same plan. And anyways X99 came out with its final generation. So really the 1151 socket is the most future proof option. It is said that the new Cannonlake processes will be like 8 cores. Its still in speculation but it is likely.
Good luck.

if Cannonlake is based on a 10nm design as rumoured it will most certainly need a new socket though

It sounds like budget might be a problem even though you are denying it. If budget is not problem then buy what you can NOW vs waiting. With computer parts there is ALWAYS something just around the corner. Grab it NOW and enjoy it. There is nothing coming out that will Blow away a skylake/z170 MB. And since budget is no issue you can just buy a z270 MB when it comes out (if its that much better) and keep the skylake cpu as they will work in old z170 and new z270.

Buy now and enjoy, you can wait forever for the next best things. Just do it.

I agree with Matt, the extra lanes won't be realized in gaming. Most people have just one fast GPU or two at most. Get the z170.

I'm sure you've bought your cpu by now but this is what I did. I went ahead and got 4 8gb sticks of ram. 850 watt fully modular psu. GTX 1080 hybrid. Also an aio cooler for my cpu. I did however spend 300$ on my z170 Deluxe mobo. And of course 6700k. Do I plan on getting the Kaby Lake cpu? Absolutely! Am I faitly confident in two months afetr having my 6700k for 3 that I can sell it for 200$ cash with the receipt and a valid warranty after I get the 7700k? Absolutely. maybe even 250 idk, but I'd be plenty ok with getting 200$ I thought about all this stuff too. Sell my 3 month old i7 for 200 and spend 350 or so the 7700k because tho I like to save money it's also not a huge issue. The z270 chipset allows support for octane ssd's and more pci lanes. Dude it's a fricken quad core cpu wtf is the difference between 28 and 40 pci lanes? Nothing. It will never be utilized. SSD's are fast already idc about octane. I have 2 m.2 options if I need super fast ssd. Then I have a plenty powerful psu, that was 20$ more than the 750 watt so if I decide to go with x99 later or as was mentioned before, the next platform since this is x99 last, I have enough power to run it. I also already have 32gb ram in 4 sticks and can easily get 4 more if I feel it's needed when I go big or go home. As it stands now the rig I built will be golden for a 7700k upgrade or I can sell the mobo and cpu and can safely expect to get around 400$ for a 90 day old 300$ Asus z170 deluxe and 6700k with receipts if I have a change of heart and wanna go 8 core. All I will need is to sell mobo/cpu buy new and get 4 more 8 gb sticks of ram. Which I really don't feel like I'll do. But I will swap cpu's because idc about z270 chipset. The day the 7700k isn't sufficient enough to eat up and spit out every game I throw at it will also be the day the gtx 1080 won't be powerful enough either. So since this was posted in August I'm sure you haven't waited. And if you have strictly for the 7700k then don't, get the 6700 and sel it in 2 months like me. But I feel that pairing anything more than the 6700-7700k with a gtx 1080 is absolutely not needed in any case whatsoever. Gaming that is. Because I promise you when the time comes that these cpu's can't tear thru a video game your 1080 won't either so you'll be selling the entire rig to upgrade again anyway. But I do have the comfort in knowing that if I start editing videos tomorrow I can easily swap out mobo/cpu and use everything else I have and it's no sweat. Biggest piece of advice I can give you is do not obsess about it like I did and still do to this day. LOL I am an enthusiast thru in and thru out I spent 2,300$ on my pc. Just my pc not including my display my keyboard/mouse and desk. For a quad core set up 2,300$ it's sickening. So get what fits your needs and take advantage of social media when you wanna upgrade because I know first hand there are just as many ppl looking to buy 3-6 month old warrantied components and a low price as there are ppl like us who would never do such a thing. Have fun with your new rig, also keep in mind I upgraded from a gtx 980 and i7 2600k with 16gb ddr3 to what I have now and afterward took my 1080 over to my buddies house to put in the 2600k rig I sold him and literally gained an average of 8 fps from a 16gb ddr3 2600k/gtx 1080 to a 32gb ddr4 6700k/gtx 1080 both overclocked to 4.5 Therefore I am certain that when I benchmark my 7700k in a couple months I will see zero gain when gaming. Zero. That is why I didn't and won't go with x99 because I know that with gaming there is a cut off. Any k series cpu Haswell and newer @ 4ghz or faster will all yeild the same numbers benchmarking if every other component is the exact same. 8 fps dude ddr4 and skylake form ddr3 and sandy bridge. Have a good day.

Also keep in mind there was dispute up there somewhere about the lag 1151 socket. Yes, Intel as of current is planning on releasing cannonlake in the 1151 socket. Remember, and I know this because I'm coming from 1155, Sandy Bridge was 32nm. i7 2600-2700k lga 1155. Ivy Bridge i7 3770k 22nm lga 1155. So just because Cannon will be 10 nm does not mean it will need a new socket. Haswell 22nm socket lga 1150, Broadwell 14nm socket lga 1150. Have a nice day.

Hi,

Z170 is slightly faster than X99 for gaming. This is because X99 CPUs have many cores and PCI-e lanes, e.g. 8 / 40 on the 6900K CPU. More core and more lanes add processing overhead.

In fact, in benchmarks they had to disable 4 of the cores on the X99 6900K to bring it down to 4 cores in order to increase the performance. It still performed less than the Z170 and 6700K.

Z270 is worth the wait because of support for slightly more PCI-e lanes and Optane SSDs. If you don't need Optane 3D XPoint memory's performance then get Z170 now and upgrade to the Z270's successor in the future as that will support Option DRAM too.