Need advice on new CPU & Motherboard

First off, I have an older rig that I’ve slowly been replacing hardware in.

What I currently have (not including heatsinks/fans) :

Intel i7 920 (first gen i7 with it’s motherboard)
16 GB Crucial Ballistix RAM
Corsair HX 850 Watt PSU
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 graphics card (may or may not get another for Crossfire)


Unfortunately, I can’t get a 3rd or a 4th generation intel chip to fit my current mother board. Based on my budget, I’m looking at one of the two combinations below.

1. Intel i5-4670K Haswell processor with an Intel MSI z87-GD65 motherboard.
2. AMD FX-8350 Vishera processor with an ASUS Sabertooth 990 FX motherboard.

Both are priced nearly identical. As I pretty much only game on my pc or watch dvd’s, I don’t believe an i7 processor would be an appreciable upgrade over an i5 for the money spent. The MSI motherboard is PCI 3.0 ready to take full use of my GPU. The FX-8350 appears to have a higher clock speed than the i5-4670K. Both CPUs could be overclocked. I’m hoping the processor/motherboard will last a few years like my i7 920 has. The 920 works fine for FFXIV but games like Planetside 2 put a lot of stress on it.

Which of the two choices would be a better deal and why?

ASUS Z87-WS LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131998
Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54670K - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116899

A tad pricey, but is the best bang for the buck with the best future upgrade path, as haswell is intel 3rd gen (22nm) and will outclass 1155 (sandy bridge).

Also AMD does not yet support PCI-E 3.0, so no board does. But you don't need it to. Even the best GPU's don't max out a PCI-E 2.0 controller.

Intel is the better choice in terms of raw performance. Turbo Core technology on Intel works better than AMD and most games don't do threading well so Multiple cores aren't giving you an edge, pure 1 core GHZ speed does. And an I5 overclocked in turbo mode will give you really high core 1 clock speeds.

Check the benchmarks, Intel's beat all the amd's, even the vishera and the 4.8ghz chips amd popped out.

And I would steer clear of MSI. I've had two MSI boards and both have Bios bugs with no bios updates. The bios is also in engrish (poor translation). ASUS is a much more solid board.

I wouldn't buy any motherboard unless it's ASUS or ASRock.

Chipset wise, Z87 and 3rd gen intel is the way to go. Way more features than AM3+. AM3+ imo is way outdated, they have the same chipset for like over half a decade...

Also, you could consider going 1155 to save yourself money and go 2nd gen, but the i7k or i5-2500k is about your last option for a processor upgrade on that system. But the i5-2500k overclocks on a Corsair H55 cooler to a stable 4.6 to 4.8 ghz (some can do 5ghz, depends on how well the chip came off the line). So an 1155 -> i52500k will last you a good 5 years from now and by then 1150 might be outclassed too.

Secondly, the 1155 chips run cooler so they overclock higher than 3rd gen chips.

So it's a matter of,

Do you want a cheaper blazing system that you need to overclock (not hard on an asus board e.g. p8z68-vpro) or a more expensive 3rd gen rig that runs what you need stock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryios

I wouldn't buy any motherboard unless it's ASUS or ASRock.

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I appreciate your insight. I'll give the ASUS motherboard a look. Only reason I have the MSI one listed is because of a combo deal on New Egg. Either option I listed are a bit pricey, but I don't have a choice but to replace the CPU and motherboard at the same time. I can't complain, though. My first gen i7 is still chugging along even though 4th gen are zooming by.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by calamityz

I assume you play more then just FFXIV so go with the 4670k, It'll future-proof a lot better than the 8350 and it's worth the extra money. Also I would grab another 7870 while you still can before it's gone from the market. They scale very well and I believe ARR supports crossfire now?

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I intend to pick up a second 7870 eventually. I had the single card replace my crossfired HD 5670s (which worked with FFXIV). You're correct that I do play more than just Realm Reborn. Nice to see a second vote for the i5-4670K.

I assume you play more then just FFXIV so go with the 4670k, It'll future-proof a lot better than the 8350 and it's worth the extra money. Also I would grab another 7870 while you still can before it's gone from the market. They scale very well and I believe ARR supports crossfire now?

There's nothing wrong with MSI but the quality tends to dip after the big 4 brands (AsROCK, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI).

I'm using a 2 year old OC'd i5-2500k on a Gigabyte z68 board. Still screams and have no immediate need to upgrade.
You can probably get a combo like that for very little money now.

Go with an ASUS motherboard. I do not touch anything else. Intel chip set is going to be the way to go for pure gaming, but do you do anything other than gaming? It is something to consider. Some design programs and rendering programs make use of the multiple cores, but if it is for gaming then go intel.

Making a new computer this weekend... I'm going with the following:

MB:
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU:
Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Sandy Bridge-E 3.3GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73960X
GPU:
EVGA 04G-P4-2690-KR GeForce GTX 690 4GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
RAM:
G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX (X 4)

Go with option 1. Intel i5-4670K Haswell processor with an Intel MSI z87-GD65 motherboard. More cores will not really make huge diff for gaming and neither will a i7.

Also the msi board works really nicely and has a nice push the button overclock feature that works great too. It's good if your feeling lazy and don't want to manually OC your pc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryios

Chipset wise, Z87 and 3rd gen intel is the way to go. Way more features than AM3+. AM3+ imo is way outdated, they have the same chipset for like over half a decade...

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While I do appreciate your insight (and others that have commented), what about an ASUS Gryphon Z87 motherboard? The one you linked is indeed a bit pricy when I also need to get the CPU.

new egg link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131977

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shehrevar

Hi. I got myself a Z87 Gryphon a couple of months ago. The board's pretty solid, and the only feature I didn't particularly like was the built-in sound (solved that with an inexpensive sound card solution). The 4670K should be more than enough processing power for most games. Let us know if the 7870 Crossfire solution works well for our game. :)

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Damn stupid post limit. Not many reviews on the board at newegg but glad it's workignng for you. It looks to have most of what I need/want for the 4670K. I'd imagine the 7870s in crossfire mode would be fantastic. For what it's worth, I could run the benchmark on max settings and score just over 8400 with HD 5670s in crossfire before launch.

Hi. I got myself a Z87 Gryphon a couple of months ago. The board's pretty solid, and the only feature I didn't particularly like was the built-in sound (solved that with an inexpensive sound card solution). The 4670K should be more than enough processing power for most games. Let us know if the 7870 Crossfire solution works well for our game. :)