Skylake (Intel's latest CPU tock)

[Stromgarde]

I'm looking to build a new computer in the near future, and a few new marks have been announced, namely the i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K; see review of the i7 here. My question is, would it be wise to upgrade to one of these two now which have the pointless integrated GPU occupying prime real estate to no purpose or wait for something to perhaps come on the market in the next few months and not pay for features I wouldn't be using? The MSRPs are $350 for the i7, $243 for the i5.

[Arkanna]

Integrated GPU's are an unavoidable reality today. You're likely going to have one, whether you use it or not.

[Enkidu]

Could wait for broadwell-e if you want a hardcore build.

[Gryffes]

I'm looking to build a new computer in the near future, and a few new marks have been announced, namely the i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K; see review of the i7 here. My question is, would it be wise to upgrade to one of these two now which have the pointless integrated GPU occupying prime real estate to no purpose or wait for something to perhaps come on the market in the next few months and not pay for features I wouldn't be using? The MSRPs are $350 for the i7, $243 for the i5.

Post current specs, if you have anything past 1st gen then no you probably shouldn't bother.

[Stromgarde]

Intel i7 920 that overclocks like a potato
EVGA E758-TR 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
6gb of ddr3 1600
PowerColor AX7850 2GBD5-2DH Radeon HD7850 2GB PCI Express 3.0 

[Gryffes]

Whats your budget? The most cost efficient upgrade would be to get 8/16gb ddr3, a r9 390, and an ssd.
You can do all of that for <$500.

It really depends on what games you specifically play, or want to play as to whether upgrading to skylake is worthwhile for a performance upgrade beyond that.

[Jamison]

Seems like Skylake is a bit of a let-down for enthusiasts. I had thought I'd put together a new system this fall but now I'm not sure what I want to do.

[Enkidu]

My only issue with skylake is how slow and expensive DDR4 is right now. When DDR4 3000-3600 go way down in price and the timings get tighter it'll be a very nice upgrade though. Might have to wait for broadwell-e or kabylake for that though. I'd guess that when laptops switch to DDR4 exclusively the prices should plummet and that should be around Q4 2015 or Q1 2016.

I'll probably wait until kabylake now, only because I don't game at all on PC right now and don't really plan on it for a while. I'll probably pick up a skylake laptop when those drop though.

[Stromgarde]

Whats your budget? The most cost efficient upgrade would be to get 8/16gb ddr3, a r9 390, and an ssd.
You can do all of that for <$500.

It really depends on what games you specifically play, or want to play as to whether upgrading to skylake is worthwhile for a performance upgrade beyond that.

Flubbed a bit of that since I was on my phone. It's 2x 6GB kits of RAM (12GB total across six slots), and I'm already using a Samsung Evo 830 256GB SSD in combination with a 1.5TB storage disk.

Although I've upgraded it over the years, the build's six years old and getting long in the tooth; The largest issue is with the motherboard (see here). LGA1366 hasn't gotten anything new in quite some time, and it doesn't support PCIE 3.0, m.2, USB 3.1 or any number of other nifty new MB features that have come out recently. I'm ready to build a system that will last me another 5+ years, the only real question is whether these CPUs are right for the job or if something later on in the fall/winter would suit the purpose better.

Edit: That's a good point about the memory Enkidu. Waiting until Q4-15 or Q1-16 would also give some time for the higher bandwidth m2 drives like the Samsung SM951 which take full advantage of the Z170 chipset to come down in price.

[chiyio]

Your pc is about as old as mine, though mine's the higher end 980x. I'm still not really seeing a reason to upgrade, I'm waiting until intel has good 6-8 core chips and ddr 4 matures a bit. Not really worth rebuilding if you want it to last like your 920 has right now. If I upgrade now I know I'd regret it in a year.

[Gryffes]

Flubbed a bit of that since I was on my phone. It's 2x 6GB kits of RAM (12GB total across six slots), and I'm already using a Samsung Evo 830 256GB SSD in combination with a 1.5TB storage disk.

Although I've upgraded it over the years, the build's six years old and getting long in the tooth; The largest issue is with the motherboard (see here). LGA1366 hasn't gotten anything new in quite some time, and it doesn't support PCIE 3.0, m.2, USB 3.1 or any number of other nifty new MB features that have come out recently. I'm ready to build a system that will last me another 5+ years, the only real question is whether these CPUs are right for the job or if something later on in the fall/winter would suit the purpose better.

Edit: That's a good point about the memory Enkidu. Waiting until Q4-15 or Q1-16 would also give some time for the higher bandwidth m2 drives like the Samsung SM951 which take full advantage of the Z170 chipset to come down in price.

PCIE3 offers almost no improvement over PCIE2 on current cards, it's a mixed bag on results - sometimes pcie2 is faster, sometimes pcie3, depending on mobo/cards, it's like 0.5% either way.
M2 doesn't offer faster access times, just faster read/write. Imo the biggest benefit is having it on the mobo to save cabling.

USB3 - nice if you use pendrives/phones that support it and use it regularly.

There are very few games that are CPU bound, if those few games are really important to you, then upgrade, otherwise wait another cycle imo.

[Stromgarde]

PCIE3 offers almost no improvement over PCIE2 on current cards, it's a mixed bag on results - sometimes pcie2 is faster, sometimes pcie3, depending on mobo/cards, it's like 0.5% either way.
M2 doesn't offer faster access times, just faster read/write. Imo the biggest benefit is having it on the mobo to save cabling.

USB3 - nice if you use pendrives/phones that support it and use it regularly.

There are very few games that are CPU bound, if those few games are really important to you, then upgrade, otherwise wait another cycle imo.

I agree with your point about PCIE2 vs PCIE3, but the Z170 chipset in conjunction with the SM951 offers staggering performance gains:


I think I will wait at least a bit longer though. Is anything on the CPU horizon supposed to be amazing enough to say 'this is what we've been waiting for', or is it just incremental upgrades all the way down at this point?

[Gryffes]

Yeah but for most people that's like taking a ferrari on a daily commute through gridlock, what performance gain will you actually notice doing 99% of your normal stuff? You just won't, unless you're doing a lot of video work or similar.

CPU wise - AMD have zen coming next year, which is their 14nm new architecture - ie amds shot at being relevant in cpus again.
Skylake is going to get refreshed next year, but isn't a new process - still going to be 14nm, so I guess just more efficiency again, before the move to 10nm.

[Stromgarde]

Much as I want to love AMD- competition is good for everyone- they just haven't been able to keep up with anyone in recent memory. Not with Intel in the CPU arena, not with nVidia in the GPU arena. Fury/X got close, but not quite as good as the 980/980ti doesn't cut it, especially with nVidia's GameWorks sabotaging games to run worse on AMD cards.

[Waraji]

From my brief understanding, Skylake is a worthwhile upgrade right now if you have anything older than a Sandybridge. Considering the upgrades in other areas, Z170, DDR4, USB 3.1 C support on MB, and I think there's some Dx12 CPU support jazz for older CPU's(?).

My game plan atm (i7-920) is to upgrade to Skylake, i5-6600k, with a Micro ATX, and wait out for the 10nm jump. I will probably still be able to reuse all the same hardware at that point (I think). If not I won't be braking the bank right now so that I can go all out then.

Thoughts?

[Stromgarde]

You're in a pretty similar situation to what I'm in. I'd at least wait a bit for DDR4 memory prices to come down. I doubt expecting 10nm architecture to use the LGA1151 socket is a safe bet, so the CPU/mobo would be sunk costs unless you plan on repurposing it for something else entirely.

[LinktheDeme]

So why is skylake a let down?

[Stromgarde]

Most benchmarks are indicating ~10% performance gains over an identically clocked Haswell i7-4790K.

[Enkidu]

10% is pretty much what they aim for, that's not a let down. People just feel let down because they expect some game changer like "Okay! Now I need to upgrade!" People want a nextgen console-like experience, but it's just not the way it works.

Since most games are gpu driven, you see little difference in gaming on a 2600k vs a 6700k using the same discrete gpu. Hell I'd bet even with an i7 920 you could rock a gtx970, maybe some new ram and a slight overclock, and game just fine for a long long while. Just depends on whether or not your CPU can keep up with the GPU.

[Gryffes]

Even then, the 10% performance gains do not translate into 10% more fps, because most of the time you're going to be gpu bound.
Really over the whole of the current architecture the performance gains for gaming have been minimal.

http://anandtech.com/show/9483/intel...-generation/16

Alien Isolation - 4770k outperforms the new 6700k, and they are still only ~2-3% ahead of sandy bridge.

Look at something people consider a cpu bound game - gta V, 6700k with a 980 gets 74 fps - a 2600k is getting 69fps.

Shadow of Mordor is hilarious - 6700k getting 99.6 fps, 2600k getting 99.13 fps. ( 1080p )
at 4k its 39.32fps and 39.17 fps.

tldr, got an i5 or i7 machine of any generation? You REALLY don't need to upgrade for gaming related performance, because your cpu is ( almost never ) the limiting factor.