16 replies to this topic

[xeromynd]

Hi All,

I'm debating the great many things one debates when thinking about upgrading a gaming rig. It's not just that 'upgrade itch,' I've legitimate reasons for wanting to take my gaming comp to the next level, I currently have a bunch of things that are severely limiting my build. At this point it's probably a 6 year old build.

Because everything revolves around the CPU, I know I'll have to upgrade my mobo as well (new socket, etc... my current socket LGA 1366 is pretty outdated I think). Thus: if I'm going to Haswell-E or Skylake (thats the next question), I'll need DDR4 RAM (another upgrade).

My current CPU is an i7-960. I'd like to upgrade my rig sometimes in the next few coming months.
If I go to the Haswell-E (if I don't wait for Skylake, mentioned below), I'd be looking at the following:

-Intel X99-Pro Motherboard
-Haswell-E i7-5820k
-32GB DDR4 Memory (Anything but the flamboyant Corsair Vengeance coolers)
-GTX 980

1.) How great will my performance jump be going from a i7-960 (1st gen, I think?) to something like the i7-5820K (4th Gen)? Big jump? Little, or no difference?

(i7-5820K Link)

2.) I think I read that Skylake is set to come around in Q2 of 2015. Would it be worth it for me to wait until then, instead of going Haswell-E? I know intel is tick-tocking and constantly planning new processors, so I'd certainly want to make the jump eventually. I'd imagine DDR4 kits would be a bit less expensive the longer I wait too.

3.) Is there any noted temperature difference between older i7s (like my 960) and newer, 4th gen ones? I know they are much more power efficient, but should I expect my temps to be a bit cooler? (I know, I know, ambient air temp makes a difference, I just want to know if there was any documented/tested temp difference between newer and older models)

4.) I'm in the market for an attractive silent mid-tower ATX case. I'm currently looking at the Bitfenix Ghost. I'd like some input from anyone who's used this case. It's really coming down to this one. It's probably the most attractive case out there imo. (I don't particularly like the Fractal R4). I would like to be able to run push/pull in this case if possible (but again, depending on the answer to #3, it might not even make much of a difference). The Ghost has more advantages over my current 650D than I can count on one hand, and is about $70 cheaper than what I paid for my 650D. I'm just worried the Ghost is a bit too plastic-y feeling, and wondering about the airflow. Gimme yo reviews pls.

[I know the chances of someone having this exact case are slim, so I might give it its own thread]

Edited by xeromynd, 28 October 2014 - 10:06 PM.

[xWiredx]

1.) The difference between my 2600K and my 5820K is about 400MhZ. What I mean by that is the 2600K needed about 400MhZ more on its overclock to perform about where the 5820K performs.

2.) DDR4 kits will inevitably get cheaper and faster as they mature. Nobody knows how big of a difference Skylake will make, but I doubt it will be more than a few percent faster than Haswell, and it won't have as many cores (limited to quad-cores in the consumer space until "Skylake-E").

3.) This is hard to answer for me because I upgraded to a 240 rad from my 120 rad. Most reviews show them running pretty warm still, but I haven't gotten mine to go past 52c playing MWO.

4.) No clue about the case. I still use a Cooler Master HAF 932. My rad at the top has the fans attached to it pulling in, same with the big fan up front. The back fan is pushing out, and the window fans (replaced the big one with 4 120mm ones) are half in/half out connected to a fan controller. Neither of my GPUs have blower-style coolers, so they're dumping heat into the case. Stays pretty cool, GPUs still have breathing room (running at 1GhZ each, 660 TIs).

[Goose]

Seems to me Nehalems' idle at Haswell-Es' peak power draw, but I'm guessing the cases you are looking at are unhelpful for cooling.

The guys over at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ think of closed-loops primarily as a source of pump noise, but you might get away with that in the case you are thinking about …

Sandy Bridge is where the Great IPC Boost of '11 came from, so Nehalem missed that cut; We also haven't sused out if CryEngine cares about memory speed and/ or timing, so all the triple-channel 1333 setups might be the bottleneck, too. Now, I've seen an i7-2600/ GTX 680 combo run the game without skipping a beat, so it stands to reason this proposed new rig handle it like a Boss …

[xWiredx]

Goose, on 29 October 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

We also haven't sused out if CryEngine cares about memory speed and/ or timing, so all the triple-channel 1333 setups might be the bottleneck, too.

I haven't seen anything indicating that it does. DDR3-1866 dual-channel vs DDR4-2133 quad-channel vs DDR4-2600 quad-channel vs DDR4-2800 triple channel (from when I had a bad RAM stick) all performed the same. DDR3-1333 is a tad slow, though. DDR3-1600 in triple-channel would probably remove what bottleneck DDR3-1333 triple-channel has, though.

[Catamount]

Xero, first let me caution you against blowing money on 32GB of DDR4. You don't need 32GB. You don't even need 16GB, and probably won't for the operational life of the PC, but quad channel kits mean upgrading is harder (ie you can't buy two now, two later), so 16 is pretty much the reasonable number right now. Dropping down will save you $400 right now.

To answer your questions, eh, performance...

Okay, your i7-960 is apparently not terribly far behind Haswell in terms of IPC, but there is a difference. SB added something like 10% IPC over Nahelam (You can look here; sadly Tom's no longer updates this page it seems), and SB->HW has been an abysmal ~10%, total (about 5% each generation). So clock per clock, core for core, your Haswell chip will be around ~20% faster. OC-wise, 4.2GHZ is considered quite a good OC for a 960 (top of normal range), whereas 5820Ks will regularly hit 4.5 with a decent cooler. So for best per core performance, that's 45/42*1.2 = 1.3 (30% better). Most games won't take advantage of all 6 cores, let alone the HT, but for those that do, it'd of course be a 90% performance advantage. Stock clocked, I'm guessing the 5820 will turbo all 6 cores to 3.4 (3.3 stock, max one-core turbo of 3.6, all seems reasonable), and the 960 is 3.33 turbo, so the per core and total performance advantage would be a little less (~20%/80%). Specific programs could greatly complicate this question, depending on just how many threads one likes, because they might not take advantage of all 12 threads, but a proper 8-threaded program for instance would now have 6 cores and 2 HT threads instead of 4 cores and 4 HT threads. In other words, it'll get a middling amount of improvement (ie not 90%, but not 30% either). I'd guesstimate MWO will sit somewhere in there somewhere, but Goose knows more than I about the threading situation with this game.

TLDR: YMMV


As for temperature, operating ranges are similar for Nahelam and Haswell/Ivy/Sandy, however the 5820k has a lower TDP than the 960, and that includes stressing a relatively powerful IGP that you're never going to use. OTOH, it should be noted that the thermal conductivity of the chip->IHS will be inferior for all Haswell/IB chips vs SB/Nahelam. Expect temps to be within the same general ballpark overall, and anything that can cool a 960 well can cool a 5820k well (though get something modern for a cooler instead of reusing; cooler designs have improved in all sorts of ways).


Case-wise, the Ghost is fine, but keep in mind that anything covered is a lost opportunity for a fan, and fan quality will matter at least as much as case selection. Buy that if it strikes your fancy, but if you're worried about noise, ditch the fans for Cougar CF-V12s (any model). They're only $15 a pop, and bar none are the best 120mm case fans I've encountered. They move the same air volume as Bit Fenix's Spectre Pro fan, but at 19dBA instead of 26dBA, or vs the Ghost's fans (Spectre, non-pro it looks like), they have the same 19dBA noise levels, but move 70CFM instead of 50CFM. They also tend to move the air in a relatively collimated fashion instead of sucking it in and blowing it out diffusely (they've made a beautifully silent push/pull on my Hyper 212 Evo).

Edited by Catamount, 29 October 2014 - 07:30 AM.

[xeromynd]

Catamount, on 29 October 2014 - 07:19 AM, said:

Xero, first let me caution you against blowing money on 32GB of DDR4. You don't need 32GB. You don't even need 16GB, and probably won't for the operational life of the PC, but quad channel kits mean upgrading is harder (ie you can't buy two now, two later), so 16 is pretty much the reasonable number right now. Dropping down will save you $400 right now.

To answer your questions, eh, performance...

Okay, your i7-960 is apparently not terribly far behind Haswell in terms of IPC, but there is a difference. SB added something like 10% IPC over Nahelam (You can look here; sadly Tom's no longer updates this page it seems), and SB->HW has been an abysmal ~10%, total (about 5% each generation). So clock per clock, core for core, your Haswell chip will be around ~20% faster. OC-wise, 4.2GHZ is considered quite a good OC for a 960 (top of normal range), whereas 5820Ks will regularly hit 4.5 with a decent cooler. So for best per core performance, that's 45/42*1.2 = 1.3 (30% better). Most games won't take advantage of all 6 cores, let alone the HT, but for those that do, it'd of course be a 90% performance advantage. Stock clocked, I'm guessing the 5820 will turbo all 6 cores to 3.4 (3.3 stock, max one-core turbo of 3.6, all seems reasonable), and the 960 is 3.33 turbo, so the per core and total performance advantage would be a little less (~20%/80%). Specific programs could greatly complicate this question, depending on just how many threads one likes, because they might not take advantage of all 12 threads, but a proper 8-threaded program for instance would now have 6 cores and 2 HT threads instead of 4 cores and 4 HT threads. In other words, it'll get a middling amount of improvement (ie not 90%, but not 30% either). I'd guesstimate MWO will sit somewhere in there somewhere, but Goose knows more than I about the threading situation with this game.

TLDR: YMMV


As for temperature, operating ranges are similar for Nahelam and Haswell/Ivy/Sandy, however the 5820k has a lower TDP than the 960, and that includes stressing a relatively powerful IGP that you're never going to use. OTOH, it should be noted that the thermal conductivity of the chip->IHS will be inferior for all Haswell/IB chips vs SB/Nahelam. Expect temps to be within the same general ballpark overall, and anything that can cool a 960 well can cool a 5820k well (though get something modern for a cooler instead of reusing; cooler designs have improved in all sorts of ways).


Case-wise, the Ghost is fine, but keep in mind that anything covered is a lost opportunity for a fan, and fan quality will matter at least as much as case selection. Buy that if it strikes your fancy, but if you're worried about noise, ditch the fans for Cougar CF-V12s (any model). They're only $15 a pop, and bar none are the best 120mm case fans I've encountered. They move the same air volume as Bit Fenix's Spectre Pro fan, but at 19dBA instead of 26dBA, or vs the Ghost's fans (Spectre, non-pro it looks like), they have the same 19dBA noise levels, but move 70CFM instead of 50CFM. They also tend to move the air in a relatively collimated fashion instead of sucking it in and blowing it out diffusely (they've made a beautifully silent push/pull on my Hyper 212 Evo).

First off, thanks for the huge amount of information, so much more than I'd expected. Thanks, really

Pretty much what I was expecting for performance differentials between my current CPU and the proposed one, fine on that end. And I do now realize, that, as others have pointed out, Skylake-E will come a significant time AFTER Skylake even comes out in Q2 of 2015, so I think I'll be going with a Haswell-E build for sure. Not even sure about Broadwell, rather confused on that front.

As for the whole RAM thing. I do highly intensive Audio/Video editing on this rig also, so it's not just for gaming (probably should've mentioned that in the OP). I currently have 24GB of Triple Channel 1333 memory, and going downwards to 16 would be kind of a drag, more for reasons like 'b,b,b,but I had more before =(' than actual logical reasons (but such would be the nature of going from triple channel to quad channel I guess). Would going from 24GB 1333 DDR3 be the equivilant (or slower) than 16Gb of DDR4? (Not well educated on the differences there either) I know it's recommended to upgrade quad channel RAM all at once, but would it really be awful if I got a 16GB kit now, and then and identical additional 16GB kit somewhere down the road?

The case: I should also clarify that it's not terribly important to me whether the thing is dead silent or not. In fact, it will probably be louder than other builds with the same case once I'd transferred all my stuff to the Ghost. My main fans are SP120's and AF120's, certainly not quiet by any means. I chose the case for its numerous improvements over my current case, the aesthetic of the design (minimal), and the fact that I do expect it to be a bit quieter than my 650D (quite loud). Quiet/silent isn't on my list of priorities, but quieter than my current build, is, which I've no doubt this case will probably do for me.

Again, thanks for all the spec and info you took time to type out, I do so appreciate it. Any other insight you have is also helpful .
Thxxxxx

Edited by xeromynd, 29 October 2014 - 07:55 AM.

[Odins Fist]

32 gb RAM is a waste of money.

[xeromynd]

Odins Fist, on 29 October 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

32 gb RAM is a waste of money.

Others have said this by now as well. Care to share why? I currently have 24 and I can't stay at that (Triple Channel -> Quad Channel). So it's either up or down, and down...well...who likes going down, up is definitely more expensive however.

[Flapdrol]

Nehalem to haswell is a little under 50% clock/clock boost. I'd say it'll be a noticable upgrade.

Anyway, if you want lots and lots of memory hold off, ddr4 prices will fall.

Edited by Flapdrol, 29 October 2014 - 08:28 AM.

[Catamount]

It would absolutely not be awful if you got a 16GB dual-channel kit now, and another in, say, a year or 18 months or something when prices came down a fair ways. We don't even saturate dual-channel DDR3 right now unless it's slow (1333, take it from me it's bad; I'm about to do some DIMM swapping between machines so I can OC the better stuff I have to 1800-2000 in my gaming rig). So I have a hard time believing you'd suffer from, say, a dual-channel kit of DDR4-3000. As for RAM amount, sadly bandwidth does not negate the need for amount, just ask the poor Xbone guys about their ESRAM (it's literally the reason games are hamstrung to 720P according to devs; it's not enough RAM to avoid a management nightmare). Only you can decide if you actually use more than 16GB.

CPU-wise, the progression should roughly be Broadwell->Broadwell-E/Skylake->Skylake-E. Broadwell is the "tick" (14nm) and Skylake the "tock" (refresh). Than supposedly in 2016 Cannonlake comes out at 10nm. We'll see... TSMC's been having gross problems with processes a hell of a larger than 14/10, but then, I've been saying this for years and companies keep putting the brick wall off, so maybe I'm not the guy to listen to. In any case, Haswell-E will be a stellar chip for a long time. SB/IB i5s are still going strong in games, and 4-core HT SB/IB/HW chips should be good for years. A 6 core HT HW? The 5820k should indeed kick some serious rear end.

If silence isn't a concern, I'd look around for the best case without regard to it. Again, if you want silence, spend $50 and upgrade a few fans. My Zalman Z-11 with the aforementioned Cougar fans is quite silent, and it has exposed fans up the wazoo, including two externally mounts top fans (long story). They're just good fans

On question for you: what setup do you play displaywise (Resolution? 3D?), and is this for gaming in general or just MWO? I ask because you can Crossfire two 970s for not much mroe than a single 980. There are situations where I'd highly recommend doing so, too.

Edited by Catamount, 29 October 2014 - 08:35 AM.

[xeromynd]

Catamount, on 29 October 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

If silence isn't a concern, I'd look around for the best case without regard to it. Again, if you want silence, spend $50 and upgrade a few fans. My Zalman Z-11 with the aforementioned Cougar fans is quite silent, and it has exposed fans up the wazoo, including two externally mounts top fans (long story). They're just good fans

On question for you: what setup do you play displaywise (Resolution? 3D?), and is this for gaming in general or just MWO? I ask because you can Crossfire two 970s for not much mroe than a single 980. There are situations where I'd highly recommend doing so, too.

Right now I have a GTX 760 feeding dual 1080p monitors. (These) No plans for anything crazy like oculus/trackIR, 3D monitors, 4K, or G-Sync displayport monitors, literally just got these about 6 months ago, and am going to stick with them for a long time. 1080 suits me just fine for now Will look into dual 970's vs. single 980 now as well.

Edited by xeromynd, 29 October 2014 - 08:42 AM.

[Catamount]

You ever think about getting a third 1080P monitor? It'd be a minimal additional expense, and triple monitor is super nice, especially in MWO (sitting in Turbocorvair's simpit had me sold on that long ago; now if I could just get over and try his Rift DK2...).

The thing about Crossfire and SLI is that scaling improves with resolution. At 1080P it's not terrible, but it's not great, either. At 3x1080P it's massively better.

Edited by Catamount, 29 October 2014 - 09:01 AM.

[xeromynd]

Catamount, on 29 October 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

You ever think about getting a third 1080P monitor? It'd be a minimal additional expense, and triple monitor is super nice, especially in MWO (sitting in Turbocorvair's simpit had me sold on that long ago; now if I could just get over and try his Rift DK2...).

The thing about Crossfire and SLI is that scaling improves with resolution. At 1080P it's not terrible, but it's not great, either. At 3x1080P it's massively better.

Possibly, but I have a feeling it'd be too wide for my current desk setup. I have speakers on stands on either side of my desk, and three monitors would probably block those speakers. Rather unfortunate, as three monitors would be coooooooooool. Maybe someday when my setup changes.

[Catamount]

Bah, this is no time for easy defeat! Mount the speaker on the wall above

[Goose]

xeromynd, on 29 October 2014 - 09:24 AM, said:

Possibly, but I have a feeling it'd be too wide for my current desk setup.

Think of something:

[xeromynd]

Goose, on 29 October 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Think of something:

It is a thought, but then I'd definitely want monitors with a small (or no) bezel.

*Edit* We have the same chair! I think its remarkably comfortable for all the bungee cords and the way it looks, and my friends don't believe me until they try it.

Edited by xeromynd, 29 October 2014 - 10:10 AM.

[xeromynd]

Well, seems most if not all of my questions were answered here. Thank you all!

Now I'm just torn between two cases =/