The 3970X is it worth it?

While it is true that the i7 3970x is the fastest CPU you can buy currently, the only reason you'd want to buy it is for bragging rights.

If you want a great gaming CPU at an affordable price go for the 3570K.
If you want a CPU that's both great at gaming and multitasking, go with the 3770K.
Or if you want the best CPU you can buy (while paying a reasonable amount of money) go for the 3930K.
The 3960x and 3970x are as fast as the 3930K at the same frequency and can be clocked equaly high.

It is also true that the 3770K is the fastest LGA 1155 CPU available and there will be no faster ones coming out so the platform is pretty much at the end of its life cycle, or you may also call it dead.
With LGA 2011 on the other hand you've got the option of upgrading to some of the upcoming Ivy Bridge-E CPU's.

To be brutally honest everything above the 3570K is overkill for gaming.
You would be much better off with a 3570K and another GTX 680, then a 3930K or even 3970x.

Thank you for the answer. I wouldn't mind spending the extra $110 on a 3770, as I said I do stream, and I like to stream in HD, which obviously requires a good internet connection, but also can be cpu intensive.
If I said I would rather go the 2011 socket way, so I could always upgrade in the future, how would the 3820 stack up against the 3770?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The 3970X is the 3960X with a higher clock, considering you're shelling out 1000+ dollars anyway I'd just go with the 3970x.

However the i7 3930k is by far the most sensible option, it has 3mb cache, which you won't notice unless you're doing extremely intensive tasks such as designing/server/3D Work, in which case you should be using Xeon, not i7 Extreme. And can be overclocked to higher than 3970x speeds.


EDIT: i7 3820 is basically the exact same as the 3770, except the 3770k version can be overclocked and the 3820 can't. However what the 3820 does give is an upgrade pathway into hex and even octo cores in the future when you have enough money to upgrade.

EDIT2: By the time the i7 3770k is obsolete, which is far off BTW, the i7 extreme series will also be obsolete, when the QX6700 came out, it was the only quad core, now it's core 2 duo buddies and itself are all obsolete, you may get an extra half-year or so out of the hex core, but it's worth it to save money and get an extra GPU/etc.

In some cases yes. But the i7 is mostly for editing videos and other things. If you will be gaming and editing yeah the i7 is good.

The 3970X is for extreme enthusiasts, potential home built heavy duty servers, video editing rigs, and insane multitaskers.
DON'T BUY IT FOR GAMING. It is meant for more than just a few rounds of BF3 daily.

3770k is latest gen, the i7 3820 is old gen and the 3970x is just an extreme 6 core 12t old gen cpu so that intel milk customers out with power hungry extreme old gen 32nm parts. Getting a 3970x is good performance but 3770k is future proofing yourself as it is best performance per watt and while slower can be overclocked to give similar performance and consume far less electricity. I personally like getting latest tech so imo 3970x is not worth it as it is outdated tech or be it the fastest 6 core 12 thread cpu.

No, its not worth it.

Well I guess the 3970x is out I don't need all that power. But I'm really iffy about going with the 1155 socket so I think I'll just get a 2011 mobo and get the 3820. I don't do much OC'ing so I'm not worried about that. I really appreciate the helpful replies, the more input the better. I just hope the 3820 will be fine gaming and HD streaming.

The i7 3770k easily destroys the old gen i7 3820 and the i7 3770k takes like 50w less electricity.

the 3820 can be overclocked thats a incorrect statement, ive seen them run over 4.0 gigahertz stable.

I'm a tad but confused, isn't the 3770K older than the 3820? As the 3770k is on the old 1155 socket and the 3820 is on the newer 2011 socket?

The sockets are the same age, the 3770K is a newer processor (built using Ivy Bridge architecture, not Sandy Bridge).

Oh okay, so I'm a little backwards with my intel sockets, I'm coming from being an AMD person who's decided to switch over, you have to forgive me

I would just get a 3570K if I was in your case man, you don't need no heavy duty LGA2011 CPU or no 3770K - its unnecessary unless you use applications that use a LOT of threads.

Well my only reason for going with the 3770K instead of the 3570K is because I Stream too. And I figured it would perform well playing something like say, Crysis 3 when it comes out and encoding video in Dxtory in 720P at the same time. Or encoding 720p video and playing DayZ which the Arma II engine is very CPU intensive

If you can afford it get a 3770k. Oh and yes 3770k is latest technology based on 22nm the smaller the nm the latest tech it is and its the architecture of ivy bridge which is virtually sandy bridge but better integrated graphics and lower power consumption and trigate transistors. The i7 3820 is an older 32nm sandy bridge quad that is a just a sandy bridge e cpu which is basically a more cached and faster clocked 2600/2700 I believe. Anyway I would always get latest gen unless you can get a cheap 32nm sandy bridge system.

u forget 3770 is on 1155 socket and 3820 on 2011, different sockets, thus 2011 been the more expensive one supporting hexacores, sadly 1155 wont support hexacores.

Edit: Spambot taken care of

its a spambot. been reported.

It would be the best bet to do those tasks at the same time. Im not sure how well it would do them concurrently.

well the 3770k has 4 cores physical and 4 software cores, versus 3570 only 4cores and ht i beleive. so for multitasking def the 3770 is stronger contender.

What? Four physical cores and four "software cores"?

meaning 4 physical cores, and 4 threads, equaling 8 threads in all, kind of like virtual cores u could say.

That's called hyperthreading. Which you mentioned in the next sentence as though it was something different.

Im sure it was just a typo, but it looked a little strange.

yes i agree, my phrasing was bad  

So I guess the 3770K it is, Actually made a new build, about $1000 cheaper than the one I made with the 3970X. So that made me happy gives me that grand to do what i want. I wont go onto details about the build since im in the wrong section for that, plus I wanna wait until I actually have the money in Feb. So all I have to say is Thanks for all the help, You guys saved me some money haha

no problem. anytime