Core i7-3930K and x79 vs 2600k with z68

[jumex]

For Gaming.

 

[melead]

It really depends on your budget and your GPU. An x79 system will definitely be faster and more responsive system because of it's six physical cores. It will also support quad-core ram and PCIe 3.0 for future better Video Cards. The downside is that the intel core i7 3930k will need the new LGA2011 socket on your motherboard.

On the other hand a 2600k is the most cost effective processor that can be overclocked fairly well. At about 320 dollars you will get a decent processor on an older yet very good chipset. This however doesn't support PCIe 3.0 so if you plan to keep your PC for decent amount of time this may not be your best choice.

Although I prefer x79 systems, your build will ultimately depend on your Video card and it will bottle-neck your processor during gaming if it is not good enough.

 

[sosofm]

For gaming 2600k is more than enough. On the market is not a game who can load 2600k at 100%.

 

[jumex]

Gigabyte X79-UD3 -- 4x PCI-E x16, 6x SATA 6Gb/s is the Mobo I'm considering and it says it's socket 2011 and PCI-E 3.0 ready.

Is this a decent X79 mobo?

My other choice was the Z68 ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z -- 2x Gb LAN, 4x PCI-E 2.0.

And of course the two processors that go with them respectively.

I am in the buisness of future-proofing and money isn't an issue but the the differences in the whole computer build with only these two parts varying comes down to only a ~200 dollar difference in total. This is a new build, and to answer your question pertaining what my gpu is; I have none, but they will be two gtx 580 3gb versions that I insist on running both sli x16 by x16 mode which I believe both of these motherboards will allow me to do.

Is that information sufficient to provide me the answer as to whether I should go with the socket 2011 and 3930K?

 

[jaguarskx]

At most games only use 4 cores so 2 cores will never be used. Will games eventually use more than 4 cores? Yes... eventually, but even today all for cores are not being used effectively. In an article about CPU scaling and games from Anandtech, playing games that can use 4 cores on a CPU with 3 cores enabled provided around a 27% on average increase in performance compared to just using 2 core. Going from 3 to 4 cores resulted in an average of 6% performance gain.

If getting an i7-3930k is going to give you peace of mind for the future, then go for it.

 

[jaguarskx]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that games do not take advantage of Hyper Threading.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

+1 for Jaguarskx

Right now the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K is just about the perfect gaming processor on the market and at $100 less then the closest of those other processors will allow you to spend that money on something that would make a bigger difference in your gaming experience.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[jumex]

Doesn't Battlefield 3 take advantage of hyperthreading? Also I play Arma 2 a lot and I thought it did as well. I also am hyper excited for Arma3.

Thank you for the replies.

Well... I was thinking about adding a good sized ssd because that would help my Arma 2 pop-in and texture loading. I would be able to afford that if I went with the 2600k. But I did think that the games I play the most did actually make use of 6 cores and hyperthreading.

 

[jaguarskx]

HT causing stuttering and decreased performance in BF3.

The following poster complained about around a 25 FPS drop in performance:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/114711-13-battlefield-hyperthreading-experience

 

[mcnumpty23]

It really depends on your budget and your GPU. An x79 system will definitely be faster and more responsive system because of it's six physical cores. It will also support quad-core ram and PCIe 3.0 for future better Video Cards. The downside is that the intel core i7 3930k will need the new LGA2011 socket on your motherboard.

On the other hand a 2600k is the most cost effective processor that can be overclocked fairly well. At about 320 dollars you will get a decent processor on an older yet very good chipset. This however doesn't support PCIe 3.0 so if you plan to keep your PC for decent amount of time this may not be your best choice.

Although I prefer x79 systems, your build will ultimately depend on your Video card and it will bottle-neck your processor during gaming if it is not good enough.

i just installed a 2600k in my new setup today and actually you can support pci-e 3.0 on z68 platform if you get a generation 3 board

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Intel+1155+Z68+%28B3%29/ASUS+P8Z68-V%2FGEN3+Intel+Z68+%28REV+B3%29+Socket+1155+DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=47124

 

[jumex]

i just installed a 2600k in my new setup today and actually you can support pci-e 3.0 on z68 platform if you get a generation 3 board

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Intel+1155+Z68+%28B3%29/ASUS+P8Z68-V%2FGEN3+Intel+Z68+%28REV+B3%29+Socket+1155+DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=47124

See, that's practically no good to me as there are NO z68 boards that run two cards both in x16. Look at the specs... Single at x16 or dual x8. I am buying two cards high end cards, what would be the point in getting a z68 pcie 3.0 board that could only run them in x8. It would be such a waste. Even thinking long term... I'd want a board that could do dual x16 regardless of whether of what version pci e it is. When your one card isn't enough, then you'll be forced back down to x8. Fine if you only plan to do one card ever and never sli, but no way if you are thinking of making your system last.

 

[cjrush495]

See, that's practically no good to me as there are NO z68 boards that run two cards both in x16. Look at the specs... Single at x16 or dual x8. I am buying two cards high end cards, what would be the point in getting a z68 pcie 3.0 board that could only run them in x8. It would be such a waste. Even thinking long term... I'd want a board that could do dual x16 regardless of whether of what version pci e it is. When your one card isn't enough, then you'll be forced back down to x8. Fine if you only plan to do one card ever and never sli, but no way if you are thinking of making your system last.

If memory serves correct, there are only 2 ways you are going to get 2-way SLI at x16x16, either with the X58 or x69 chipset.

When running a single display at resolutions at or below 2560×1600 2-way SLI at x8x8 or x16x16 has the same peformance.

As per the following http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/23/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x8x8

Also, keep in mind and some food for thought...

Currently, gaming performance is hardly affected whether you are running 2-way SLI in x16x16 mode or x16x8. At most there might be a performance drop of a couple FPS depending on the game and resolution, however in some cases x16x8 is actually better by a couple FPS.

So, when talking about such small performance differences, real world game play is not affected at all.

I am running 2x GTX 580 SLI in x16x16 on the P9X79 Pro with an i7 3960X myself, but plan to use the other 3rd PCIe x8 slot for another add-on card (non-GPU, PCIe x1) which will force the 2-way SLI into x16x8 mode and I will at least have the piece-of-mind that it will not affect any currently released games or any released game pre-PCIe 3.0. I had also tested this theory with a simple PCIe x1 WiFi card.

But don't take my word for it, check out the following for more info regarding x16x16 vs x16x8 http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/16/sli_cfx_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x16x8/1

The bottom line: only 1 thing is going to give a performance increase gaming-wise (given all other components remain the same and using a single display), faster GPUs. PCIe 3.0 will undoubtedly allow for even greater performance increases, however, if faster GPUs based on PCIe 2.0 are still rewarding better performance, then we clearly have not hit the PCIe 2.0 limit yet. Also, if 2-way SLI in x16x16 is virtually the same as x16x8 and x8x8, perhaps there is much more room for increases there as well through optimized games/drivers for SLI. Or maybe, SLI is saturating the PCIe 2.0 bus and so there is a real reason to move to PCIe 3.0 in the case of SLI...

 

[Matt190191]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that games do not take advantage of Hyper Threading.

battle field 3 does

 

[hyperreader]

@jumex since the data transfer rate of PCI-E 3.0 is twice that of PCIE 2.0 , running two slots at x8 and x8 each will be running PCIE 2.0 at x16 x16. and that is more than enough.

 

[JohnnieBeBlue]

See, that's practically no good to me as there are NO z68 boards that run two cards both in x16. Look at the specs... Single at x16 or dual x8. I am buying two cards high end cards, what would be the point in getting a z68 pcie 3.0 board that could only run them in x8. It would be such a waste. Even thinking long term... I'd want a board that could do dual x16 regardless of whether of what version pci e it is. When your one card isn't enough, then you'll be forced back down to x8. Fine if you only plan to do one card ever and never sli, but no way if you are thinking of making your system last.

I think the ASRock Extreme7 Gen3 can run 2 cards at 16/16. That's the only Z68 board I know of, though I'm sure there may be others.

 

[noob2222]

battle field 3 does

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

With a drop in performance

@jumex since the data transfer rate of PCI-E 3.0 is twice that of PCIE 2.0 , running two slots at x8 and x8 each will be running PCIE 2.0 at x16 x16. and that is more than enough.

Since he is planning on using GTX 580, its pretty much a dead point since the cards can't do pci-e 3.0

 

[cjrush495]

I think the ASRock Extreme7 Gen3 can run 2 cards at 16/16. That's the only Z68 board I know of, though I'm sure there may be others.

ASRock seem to be one of the only ones who do support it in x16x16 mode.

It is only possible through the use of the NF200 chip which is included on many Z68 boards. Oddly, Asus, Gigabyte and others have chosen not to enable x16x16 in 2-way SLI. Instead, the NF200 chip is only used in 3-way SLI, which would mean x8x16x16, for those boards.

I vaguely remember reading an article as to why this was the popular choice (for Asus/Gigabyte), to not use the NF200 chip for the main/first GPU. Had to do with the overhead involved with using it as it has to "filter" the PCI-e bus and this filtering could have a bigger impact on performance if active for the main GPU PCI-e lanes. Or something like that. What the true peformance impact is, is anyones guess, but apparently ASRock decided it wasn't enough to not produce the board.

 

[jaguarskx]

battle field 3 does

As I mentioned in one of my above posts, there has been a few cases where Hyper Threading has a significant impact on BF3 performance. It doesn't happen to everyone, but one person did state with HT on he took a 25FPS drop, a bit extreme compared to the results THG got, but there are a few complaints about a large performance drop when you do a Google search.

 

[pell380]

if you have a budget yo but and extreme series i7 with gtx 580 then go for it bcz this processor is very good and then you also have to buy the gpu which will give the best out of your cpu...but if you are buying a low gpu like gtx 560 or some thing with this 6 core i7 then buy i7 2700k with gtx 580 bcz in gaming its all about gpu and + plus with ht confusion u will get ht with 2600k or 2700k also games dont make use of all 6 cores

 

[DuBZzz00]

OK here we go I HAVE the INTEL i7 3930k with a older AMD RADEON HD 6870 2Gb It works with everygame I own on ULTRA SETTING with no problems at ALL!! Ok i see alot people say getting the 3930k is a waste because games dont use 6 core or hyper threading tech and so on. Well Im here to tell ya the reason they don't use 6 cores is because untill now there are only a handful of cpu that have 6 cores so why in the hell would the gaming community make games that utilize 6 cores?? they wouldnt the mass of there money comes from other system seeing so they aim for something different, but now that the 6 core is coming more common you will see it come to light more often its not the games setting the tech available here its what the people buy that the game people make games for. Just like we didnt see an app for a phone come oout intill everyone had a Iphone or android hone then developers started to target them in the games market. Now the same thing goes for hyper threading , they may not have used it in the past because it wasnt prodominate in the market yet now that it is becoming that way you will see it become more utilized in the gaming industry. So dont be the person whose scared to buy new tech simply because it isnt being used yet, be the trend setter that shows the gaming community the future way that games will be lets not all stay stuck in one era simply because we think its not going to be utilized in the future. Imagine if we stayed with the same processors they used when they developed pacman just think where we would be if we thought that was the best tech they will ever come up with so dont fall for those fancy xbox 360 machines cause they are no different then what plays Pacman !!! LoL come out of your caves people the future is here now no more 2600k cpu's quit giving yourself false hope that your cpu is the last in the tech line to be outdated because its becoming outdate EVERYDAY NOW!!!
evolve buy something new and modern!!!

 

[scott71_70]

jut for gaming I would go whit i7 3570k it does the job great , but if want a workstation of 6 core,s the i7 3930k will over power any 2600k or i7 3770k in ram