X58: Should I stay or should I go?

The SB will allow a faster selection of processors and newer technology. You can probably sell the i7 on ebay and take some of the sting out of buying a new processor. The rest of your hdwr is reusable, including the cooler; 1156 and 1155 use the same spacing.

oooor you can hold out until this fall and get Ivy Bridge + Z78 = o.O <3<3<3. That might be overkill though. Overclockers are getting I7-3770's to OC to 7+ ghz, can't wait to see z78 chipset with Ivy Bridge.

I am outside the US, so the Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 was the cheapest Z68 mobo I´d find, but I am not sure if it is a good board. I could get a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3, or for little more money an Asus P8Z68-V LX, what you´d say?

I have to get new ram too as my kit is 1.65v

Gigabyte makes good boards. I put them right up there with Asus (almost). The first Gigabyte board you mentioned is a fine basic Z68 board. If you do a lot of OverClocking, you may want to move up, but the board is fine if it has the features you want. It has solid caps, SATA 3, Gen 3 PCIe...

It is a workstation. I work with 3D stuff, photoshop CS5, etc, all at the same time. I do a lot of rendering and gaming too.

Your equations make a lot of sense. My HD 5870 will probably bottleneck the SB config., so I will have to CF or get a new card, but then it isn´t the time to make such an investment.

I found an Asus P6X58D-E not so expensive, so I might go for it. Tough I still can get a SB + LGA 1155, then replace the card later.

A lot of thing to consider -- good food for thought anyway.

I have now 12 ASUS P6X58D-E and their all 'knock on wood' flawless, and have no issues with them.

X58 is a thing of the past. Go for Sandy Bridge 2nd Gen and or Ivy Bridge.

Refund and get:
Intel Core i7 2600K
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

I have also been asking the same question - I've still got an X58 system with 920 overclocked to 3.99GHz. Add to this 12GB, Revodrive X2 SSD 240GB, GTX580, a USB3 SATA 6 card plus a few HDDs....the 'old' X58 is very expandible!

What I've found out is that this system is still very strong....for my needs anyway (gaming, video editing, audio recording) - i.e. you've still got a helluva system here!

Yes, the (very recent top of the range) X58 is "a thing of the past" BUT I have also found out - very conclusively - that Sandy Bridge WILL NOT add significantly to a fully loaded and overclocked X58 system. Do also take into consideration all your software migration and tweaking requirements (mine's pretty extensive) - you don't want to do that for little gain.

I hope you had overclocked that 920 - you will get a significant jump from the 2.6 stock on air alone!

ON THE OTHER HAND, since you are getting a new m'board, and since most of you're components (except cpu + memory?) will transfer an SB system, you'll have to weigh up the additional cost of cpu+memory+complete re-install over getting the (exact) same m'board replacement + old image restoration. Your current/future needs will dictate this. In time, I will upgrade my base (m'board+cpu+memory) but not yet - even Ivy dosen't get me too excited!! Just my 2 cents.

Agree with Mesa. After evaluating everything it was going to take to go from i7920 -> 3770k, I decided to hold out for Haswell. Imo, that would be the next logical time for us i7 gen 1 people to upgrade to the new hottness.

I have just ordered an ASUS P6X58D-E, so I will stay with the X58 platform for a while.

There are so many good advises here, real difficult to pick the best answer. Thank you all for your responses to my post!

Best answer selected by jemm.

Maybe this will make you feel better (Gaming X58 vs P67) - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p67-gaming-3-way-sl... ; clearly the SB renders faster and the differences all depend upon your project size (Rendering ) - http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-rev...

Thanks for the links!

This topic has been closed by Nikorr