Looking for CPU advice--where to go from here?

[fatbeard]

I've been in the market for a new gaming build for the past year, as I'm currently running on a six-year old i7 950 (OC'd to 4.2GHz). Over Thanksgiving weekend, I picked up a 6700K for $260 at Micro Center, plus $30 off the motherboard. I have the option of returning everything (it's all still boxed), so I went ahead and jumped on the deal.

Now after a bit more research, Kaby Lake and Zen are right around the corner, and it seems like it will become a real buyer's market in just a few months. My options are:

1. Stick with the 6700K. It's a fine processor and $260 is a great price and the gains of switching to Kaby Lake are at most 3-5%.

2. Return everything and see if the Zen release drops i7 prices even lower than the $260 I snagged the 6700K for. $260 seems pretty low though.

3. Return everything and wait & see how Zen measures up. I've read conflicting opinions on whether Zen will actually compete with the high-mainstream and enthusiast Intel chips, but even if it doesn't it may force Intel to lower prices.

Time is not a limiting factor for me, so I am willing to wait a little longer on my build if necessary. What I'm trying to discern is, am I likely to get a substantially better deal by waiting?

 

[synphul]

I wouldn't return it, I'd keep it personally. It's the best mainstream processor at the moment and will be very close to the kaby lake when it comes out which will essentially be a skylake refresh.

It's very doubtful zen will compete with skylake and it's not going to drop intel prices. Even if it were competitive, amd isn't in the coupon business they're in the profit business. They've been hurting so bad for years financially they need to recover to pay off their debts. That's not going to happen making pennies on their cpu's which they've been forced to do because of lackluster performance. Amd has lowered its prices not to give people 'bang for the buck' but because you can't go selling a paddleboat at speedboat prices. In the past when amd was competitive their cpu's were actually more expensive than intel's, the market determines price based on performance.

They didn't suddenly discount their chips and force intel to drop prices. Their 'bang' fell short of expectations and they had to lower their 'bucks' to the level of 'bang' provided. If you look at cpu pricing schedules you'll notice they compare directly to how the cpus stack up in terms of benchmarks and performance regardless of clock speed or core count. Personally I think you got a great deal and the 6700k should easily last you 4 or 5yrs.