2600K vs 3930K; worth the $500 upgrade?

[Anakratis]

Hey everyone,

First off, this is my first post, so I'd like to say hi to the forum.

So I'm planning on building a system for gaming, CS5 usage, and audio production. Now, I won't be using CS5 hardcore, but more of a "casual-frequent" user. I'll mainly be using Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, as well as a few audio programs such as Ableton Live, Cubase, and Reason. Do you think a 2600K would be enough for this kind of usage, or should I throw in $500 more and exchange pieces for an X79 Mobo and an SB-E 3930K CPU?

Here are my setup choices:


Setup 1 [2600K]:
Intel Core i7-2600K CPU
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 Mobo
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU

Setup 2 [3930K]:
Intel Core i7-3930K CPU
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 Mobo
32GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU


Now remember, Setup 2 is $500 more. Is it worth it?

 

[Headspin_69]

i5 2500K

 

[natemare]

Hey everyone,

First off, this is my first post, so I'd like to say hi to the forum.

So I'm planning on building a system for gaming, CS5 usage, and audio production. Now, I won't be using CS5 hardcore, but more of a "casual-frequent" user. I'll mainly be using Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, as well as a few audio programs such as Ableton Live, Cubase, and Reason. Do you think a 2600K would be enough for this kind of usage, or should I throw in $500 more and exchange pieces for an X79 Mobo and an SB-E 3930K CPU?

Here are my setup choices:


Setup 1 [2600K]:
Intel Core i7-2600K CPU
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 Mobo
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU

Setup 2 [3930K]:
Intel Core i7-3930K CPU
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 Mobo
32GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU


Now remember, Setup 2 is $500 more. Is it worth it?

I guess "worth it" is going to have a different meaning depending on what you are using the PC for.

The 2600K/GTX 580/32GB setup you have indicated will pretty much run every game with highest detail (up to 1080p, some games will run good/excellent at 2560 etc).

I would not normally suggest getting the 3930K CPU if you are purely gaming, however given that you have listed a number of programs other then games that are CPU, memory and graphics intensive, including a mix of music and graphics related software, the 3930K would not be overkill in this instant.

Summing up, if you have an extra $500 to spend and you are not going to regret saving/spending it on something that wasn't related to the PC, i would buy the 3930K.

 

[natemare]

Hey everyone,

First off, this is my first post, so I'd like to say hi to the forum.

So I'm planning on building a system for gaming, CS5 usage, and audio production. Now, I won't be using CS5 hardcore, but more of a "casual-frequent" user. I'll mainly be using Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, as well as a few audio programs such as Ableton Live, Cubase, and Reason. Do you think a 2600K would be enough for this kind of usage, or should I throw in $500 more and exchange pieces for an X79 Mobo and an SB-E 3930K CPU?

Here are my setup choices:


Setup 1 [2600K]:
Intel Core i7-2600K CPU
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z Z68 Mobo
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU

Setup 2 [3930K]:
Intel Core i7-3930K CPU
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 Mobo
32GB Corsair Vengeance 1333MHz 7-7-7-21
ASUS ENGTX580 GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB GPU
Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD
Corsair AX850 Certified Gold Modular 850w PSU


Now remember, Setup 2 is $500 more. Is it worth it?

I guess "worth it" is going to have a different meaning depending on what you are using the PC for.

The 2600K/GTX 580/32GB setup you have indicated will pretty much run every game with highest detail (up to 1080p, some games will run good/excellent at 2560 etc).

I would not normally suggest getting the 3930K CPU if you are purely gaming, however given that you have listed a number of programs other then games that are CPU, memory and graphics intensive, including a mix of music and graphics related software, the 3930K would not be overkill in this instant.

Summing up, if you have an extra $500 to spend and you are not going to regret saving/spending it on something that wasn't related to the PC, i would buy the 3930K.

 

[Anakratis]

i5 2500K

I'm going to be doing a lot of multi-tasking and the i7 allows for better handling in that situation.

 

[Anakratis]

I guess "worth it" is going to have a different meaning depending on what you are using the PC for.

The 2600K/GTX 580/32GB setup you have indicated will pretty much run every game with highest detail (up to 1080p, some games will run good/excellent at 2560 etc).

I would not normally suggest getting the 3930K CPU if you are purely gaming, however given that you have listed a number of programs other then games that are CPU, memory and graphics intensive, including a mix of music and graphics related software, the 3930K would not be overkill in this instant.

Summing up, if you have an extra $500 to spend and you are not going to regret saving/spending it on something that wasn't related to the PC, i would buy the 3930K.

Yes, the 3930K for gaming on its own would be quite an overkill :lol:


Problem is, that I don't know if I will actually need so much power to quickly accomplish the tasks I'm trying to do; tasks such as creating an animation here and there, producing and mastering a track, and some BF3 gaming. I would think the 2600K would be quite efficient to this regard.

 

[natemare]

Yes, the 3930K for gaming on its own would be quite an overkill :lol:


Problem is, that I don't know if I will actually need so much power to quickly accomplish the tasks I'm trying to do; tasks such as creating an animation here and there, producing and mastering a track, and some BF3 gaming. I would think the 2600K would be quite efficient to this regard.

Yeah, that's true. I guess the thing is that it's really the difference between having a very fast (I7) computer or slightly faster (I7 extreme). In my opinion I couldn't justify spending an extra $500 on a very diminished return on performance. I have the 2600 I7 (non K version) and it is more than enough to run games and video encoding etc.

Are you planning on buying a aftermarket cooler? Especially if you are planning to run some of these programs simultaneously, I only recently upgraded from the stock cooler, it seemed fine at first, at idle - 28 degrees (c), but at a 100% load it was 90 degrees (c)!. Once I replaced it with a Zalman cooler, idle was 22, 100% load was 55 degrees.

 

[Anakratis]

Yeah, that's true. I guess the thing is that it's really the difference between having a very fast (I7) computer or slightly faster (I7 extreme). In my opinion I couldn't justify spending an extra $500 on a very diminished return on performance. I have the 2600 I7 (non K version) and it is more than enough to run games and video encoding etc.

Are you planning on buying a aftermarket cooler? Especially if you are planning to run some of these programs simultaneously, I only recently upgraded from the stock cooler, it seemed fine at first, at idle - 28 degrees (c), but at a 100% load it was 90 degrees (c)!. Once I replaced it with a Zalman cooler, idle was 22, 100% load was 55 degrees.

Yup, I will be getting either the Corsair H80 or H60 Liquid CPU Cooler.

 

[etk]

Any Decent Air cooler beats the H60. The H80 is decent, though.

 

[Anakratis]

Any Decent Air cooler beats the H60. The H80 is decent, though.

I was actually going over the cooling options. Because I will be casing all this in an NZXT Phantom chassis, which has great airflow, a Coolermaster or Zalman CPU Fan Cooler may be a better option.

 

[Anakratis]

Or a real air cooler...

Phantek
Thermalright
Noctua

all make the #1 air coolers right now, their top designs all look similar with two heatsink towers with the Phantek being the better of the three.

To be perfectly honest,

i7 2600K plus 32GB of ram + 2x 6970s or 580s would be 10000x better than wasting money on performance that you won't require when the 2600K does everything you need it to do and will continue for years to come.

Just because its the most expensive processor out right now doesn't mean you need it to have a great system.

the 2600K has already been proven to be an amazing processor. The extra $500 you waste on the 3930K really just takes money away from other parts of your build like a large or multiple solid state drives etc etc.

Besides, by the time you feel the 2600K has become less of a performance cpu (2 to 3 years if not more) by then even newer better processors for less will be out which means that extra $500 invested into a current processor would be an epic waste of resources towards your overall build.

Atleast that is what I think :3

Seems very logical. BTW, the 2600k setup has just 16GB of RAM not 32GB, as stated in my first post. Reason being that the Z68 motherboard is only dual-channel and not quad-channel, unlike the Rampage IV. 32GB of RAM would simply be way too much anyways. To save money, I will be going with 2x GTX 570s instead of 2 580s. 2 570s will already be more than enough to run BF3 at high performance standards as well as many other applications. I will make a CPU Cooler selection soon enough...

Looks like I'm pulling the trigger on the 2600K. Thanks

 

[jacknhut]

BTW 6970s do way better than 580s/570s in BF3.

You can run vsync with 6970s, you can't with 570s (input lag with nvidia, none with radeon)

Which in return gives your 6970s even cooler temps for even more room to overclock

versus 570s running at 95%+ gpu usage getting the hottest temps out of any other game you could play which is the same way my 6950s do when I turn off vsync :/

4x of these is what I meant for 32GB ram

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233218

I have to disagree. All reviews indicate that GTX 570 completely dominate HD 6970 in BF3 at ultra settings 4x MSAA on. AMD card suffers heavy performance loss with MSAA activated.

 

[mr_w]

Considering all the cash you spent for the software you intend to run, my best guess would be to go for 3930K, as $500 is just peanuts comparing to other expenses you had ;-)