Getting the upgrade itch

I've been pretty happy with my X58 system but starting to get that itch to upgrade.

I'm holding out for the next gen of M.2 SSDs to hit the mainstream, hoping to see the 2k MB/s r/w speeds for my OS disk and the current hardware seems capable of accepting such a disk (X99 and Z97).

So the question is, when and what?

My primary use outside of work and study is gaming so I'm looking at the best bang in that regard. Would like to have 6 or more cores provided overclocking isn't sacrificed. and *may* look at a multi GPU setup, but not keen on watercooling the GPU due to the hassle of adding a second loop.

Money is no object, in saying that though, I'm looking for best bang for the money.

Okay you should probably STILL answer all "the questions".

Your best bang for the buck is going to be with Quad core. Hex core or more isn't going to do a damn thing for your gaming. What, SPECIFICALLY, are you looking/expecting to get out of higher core-count?

Chas said:

Okay you should probably STILL answer all "the questions".

Click to expand...

Is there a list of questions somewhere?

I've currently got a X5670 running at 4.5Ghz.

Chas said:

Your best bang for the buck is going to be with Quad core. Hex core or more isn't going to do a damn thing for your gaming. What, SPECIFICALLY, are you looking/expecting to get out of higher core-count?

Click to expand...

I'm specifically looking for bragging rights and something that will last as long as the X58 has.

I have a decent custom loop that should handle pretty much anything I put behind it so the key consideration is how many cores can I have without it being detrimental to overclock-ability.

I will need a CPU, Motherboard and Ram, I'm sorted in every other aspect.

I think Chas got a little confused and thought he was in the General Hardware subforum. That's where the questions are:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1349433

Anyway, now it's a perfect time for you to upgrade considering the age of your hardware. As for what to buy in terms of CPU, as Chas said, your best bet is a quad-core Core i7 4790K CPU if you're looking for both bang for the buck, semi-bragging rights, and right amount of cores before overclocking is affected. With that said, if you don't mind lower overclock capability and slightly lower gaming performance but better bragging rights and two more cores, then go with the hex-core Core i7 5820K.

If you want bragging rights above all else, don't care about relatively poor overclocks, and/or don't care about bang for the buck value, then the $1049 Core i7 5960X will be your best bet for that.

DX12 is toting "near perfect scaling across CPU cores" and full support for the current gen of graphics cards, so just curious, are we seriously still saying fewer cores at a higher clock are better than lots of cores? MS is saying a 20% performance bump from this feature alone so wouldn't more cores be better for the future of gaming?

hoping to see the 2k MB/s r/w speeds for my OS disk

Click to expand...

How often do you load GB+ sized files from the OS disk? Remember that 2000 MB/s will not happen for lots of small files that is unless you have an unusually high queue depth that is usually associated with servers. This is the same reason SSD RAID0 does not help an OS disk.

Deimos said:

DX12 is toting "near perfect scaling across CPU cores" and full support for the current gen of graphics cards, so just curious, are we seriously still saying fewer cores at a higher clock are better than lots of cores? MS is saying a 20% performance bump from this feature alone so wouldn't more cores be better for the future of gaming?

Click to expand...

Well, this is assuming that it delivers as promised and that it gets used in games if it does. Remember that companies like to talk big about new tech but it doesn't always work out as promised. Mantle being a quite relevant example that despite all the talk, the actual performance improvements in games is quite modest at best.



As to the question of what CPU, well that really does depend on what you want to spend. The best bang for the buck is an i5 on a Z97. The 4690 can be had for about $225 or $240 for the k edition if you wish to overclock. For the money, it is a ton of performance.

Now if you want to spend more for higher end toys then you certainly can, but for gaming it isn't likely to matter. Games do not seem to be all that CPU bound in general these days, and they have to be developed for what most people have, which is quad cores. Likewise the consoles have woefully underpowered CPUs so no push there.

You can step up to the i7 4790K for about $100 more than the i5 which isn't that worth it unless you don't want to overclock, but want the higher core speeds. You do get hyperthreading, but its use in games seems to be nil.

Going up to the E series is a big increase in price. Not only do the CPUs cost a lot more, but the boards do as well. They are neat toys, I speak as someone that has a 5930k on a X99-Deluxe, but they are pricey luxuries that aren't very useful for gaming, given the cost. If you do get one, you will want to consider overclocking as they have lower core speeds and some games these days are heavily dependent on single core speed. So if you don't like overclocking, then they aren't as good an idea for gaming. While the 5960X with 8 cores sounds like a beast, and is, running at only 3GHz base it can actually perform worse in some games than a 4790, at stock clocks.

Also remember DDR4 costs more than DDR3. Not a ton more (unless you want to buy really fast RAM which is silly) but it does add to the cost.

For M.2 SSDs it doesn't really matter much. They are neat, and the new ones will be neater, but useless. I stepped up from an 840 Pro, which is like 550MB/sec max to an XP941, which is around 1.2GB/sec and I notice zero difference in actual use. All SSDs are "fast enough" such that differences don't really matter. So while it is fun to have, it is nothing to worry about not having, you really won't notice a difference.

Yup, Sycraft is on-point. You won't notice the improvements of the X99 system in anything, since you run a single GPU to keep things simple. Your six-core massively-overclocked X5670 is close enough to Haswell-E that you won't even notice the difference.

SATA 3.0/6.0 Gbps is more than enough to handle most cases where you're moving around large files or compressing/decompressing things, so that's certainly not worth it. You didn't let the non-native interconnect hold you back from getting raid 840 Pros, did you?

If all you want is to throw some money on some faster hardware that you can both brag about and ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING WITH IT, you need to step inside here:

http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=32

Chas said:

Okay you should probably STILL answer all "the questions".

Your best bang for the buck is going to be with Quad core. Hex core or more isn't going to do a damn thing for your gaming. What, SPECIFICALLY, are you looking/expecting to get out of higher core-count?

Click to expand...

What is this the early 90s? We only use computers to do 1 thing at a time? What are we all running MSDOS? Sure a quad core might be enough for games, but if he wants a hex core, he can get a hex core and he'll have CPU horsepower to spare. Now his encodes are faster, his compression is faster, his rendering is faster. That game he's playing at max settings that's using up all his cores? Well now he has 2 extra cores with his hex, hello twitch.tv streaming.

Grandma already has a quad core with 4GB or 8GB of ram and a 1TB HD to check Facebook with. Cute grandma, 920GB free. You're only using 2GB of space. The rest is from updates. Fuck it ! 12, 24, and 36 cores for all ! 1TB ram here we come! 12 Exabyte SSD? Sounds good!

THE AGE OF DIGITAL HOARDING IS IN OVERDRIVE!

defaultluser said:

SATA 3.0/6.0 Gbps is more than enough to handle most cases where you're moving around large files or compressing/decompressing things, so that's certainly not worth it. You didn't let the non-native interconnect hold you back from getting raid 840 Pros, did you?

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Ugh, seriously? this is the WORST aspect of X58. The built in Marvel controller is worse than SATA2 with RAID and add in cards are completely useless because they just won't work properly. I ran an LSI card for a few months before giving up on the damn thing because of constant boot issues. This is the main reason I want to ditch my X58 and move to something more extreme.

Right off the bat I'm going to eliminate the Z97 from the running since I have one already and its hardly any different to my X58.

I'm holding out for a decent NVMe SSD, mainly because of the reduced latency and hopefully we'll see much higher IOPS on these when they hit mainstream. not interested in the current offerings.

I'm leaning towards the Rampage V Extreme I'm just not sure if there is any difference with the U3.1 version (which seems to have just an add on PCIe card for USB 3.1)

I want 6 cores or more. The key consideration for me is, which CPU overclocks best on the X99 platform.

PornoSatan said:

What is this the early 90s? We only use computers to do 1 thing at a time? What are we all running MSDOS? Sure a quad core might be enough for games, but if he wants a hex core, he can get a hex core and he'll have CPU horsepower to spare. Now his encodes are faster, his compression is faster, his rendering is faster. That game he's playing at max settings that's using up all his cores? Well now he has 2 extra cores with his hex, hello twitch.tv streaming.

Click to expand...

I will say it again, unless you are running specialized software that ACTUALLY takes advantage of the extra cores, you're wasting money and getting lower clock speeds.

And no, I don't count the DX12 "core scaling". As nothing currently uses it yet.

I didn't say he couldn't get a hex core. Merely that if "gaming" is his primary use for the machine, his best bang for the buck lies in quad core. He gets the best mix of multi-core and high clock speed for his money.

So I ask you "WHAT game that he's "playing at max settings" that's "using all his cores"" are you referring to? Most games don't really use more than 2 CPU cores. And those that do don't really use more than that in an even and efficient way.

Grandma already has a quad core with 4GB or 8GB of ram and a 1TB HD to check Facebook with. Cute grandma, 920GB free. You're only using 2GB of space. The rest is from updates. Fuck it ! 12, 24, and 36 cores for all ! 1TB ram here we come! 12 Exabyte SSD? Sounds good!

THE AGE OF DIGITAL HOARDING IS IN OVERDRIVE!

Click to expand...

I think you need to put down the energy drink. It's causing you to run off into buzzword overload.

MOVING ON

I only have 3 options here in NZ and I can't really see a reason not to go all out and get the 5960X, the boost clock is only 200Mhz lower than the 5930K and people seem to be reaching decent overclocks in the 4.4Ghz range.

Can anyone recommend a particular type of ram?

As a side note, just had a quick look at the new 850 EVO M.2, yeah, no thanks...

Deimos said:

I want 6 cores or more. The key consideration for me is, which CPU overclocks best on the X99 platform.

Click to expand...

Again, what are you EXPECTING to get out of more cores?

Because if your answer is "gaming performance". Then you're screwed. The quad cores clock higher by default and overclock better. On top of that, most of your games aren't going to use more than two cores, let alone six.

Now, if you're running some sort of SMP-app (Distributed.net, Folding@Home, Seti@Home, etc), there you'll probably see a better return on a higher core count.

In most cases, though, you see better performance returns on higher clock speed vs higher core count.

If you already had a Z97 and didn't notice a huge difference, that's because, realistically, there's NOT a huge difference (outside of artificial benchmarks) between something like a highly clocked Xeon or i7 970 (3.2Ghz) and an i7 4770 (3.4Ghz).

Also, how many apps are you running simultaneously? That'll sometimes influence it.

But if you think a 3.3Ghz base clock 5820K is going to outpace a 4Ghz 4790K in any but a SMALL subset of artificial multiprocessing benchmarks, you're crazy.

Chas said:

Again, what are you EXPECTING to get out of more cores?

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I think looking at what runs best right now is short sighted. DX12 is on the horizon and can be installed and used RIGHT NOW. I'm looking at the next 5+ years of gaming and I just don't see a quad core system going the distance over that kind of time frame.

Plus, I already said it, BRAGGING RIGHTS. A friend of mine is building one and FUCK HIM for bragging about it, I have plenty of money so I'm going to show him up by building something insane. THE END.

Normally I wouldn't give two shits about what anyone else has but I have been competitive with this guy for a while, who makes more etc. Maybe I'm being petty but fuck it, I'll end up with an awesome PC anyway, decision made.

Deimos said:

I think looking at what runs best right now is short sighted. DX12 is on the horizon and can be installed and used RIGHT NOW. I'm looking at the next 5+ years of gaming and I just don't see a quad core system going the distance over that kind of time frame.

Plus, I already said it, BRAGGING RIGHTS. A friend of mine is building one and FUCK HIM for bragging about it, I have plenty of money so I'm going to show him up by building something insane. THE END.

Normally I wouldn't give two shits about what anyone else has but I have been competitive with this guy for a while, who makes more etc. Maybe I'm being petty but fuck it, I'll end up with an awesome PC anyway, decision made.

Click to expand...

Oh god this is hilarious.

You could always do 5960x and 128GB of Ram and do a Ram disk. Then there's the PCIe SSDs faster than M.2... I believe I saw some at 2 GB/s and 200k IOPS on Newegg.

I love the 3440x1440 34" curved screens. Might as well get three of those! I probably would but the wife might notice.

Hey! Off topic my wife didn't noticed us going from a 24" flat monitor to a 34" curved. Now I wonder what else I could get away with. Replace the Highlander with a Tesla???

Dayaks said:

Oh god this is hilarious.

You could always do 5960x and 128GB of Ram and do a Ram disk. Then there's the PCIe SSDs faster than M.2... I believe I saw some at 2 GB/s and 200k IOPS on Newegg.

I love the 3440x1440 34" curved screens. Might as well get three of those! I probably would but the wife might notice.

Hey! Off topic my wife didn't noticed us going from a 24" flat monitor to a 34" curved. Now I wonder what else I could get away with. Replace the Highlander with a Tesla???

Click to expand...

I've tried Ram disks but could never find a practical use for them.

I'm holding out for the NVMe drives, just looking for CPU motherboard and ram at this stage.

Monitors are pointless with VR on the way, I'm anticipating a 4K VR headset, currently have a DK2 but I've got my eye on the HTC/Steam VR.

Funny you should mention the car, my wife was talking about Mercedes just this morning, I think she was dropping a hint. Personally, I'm holding out for a self driving car so the Tesla suggestion might be the go...

In the face of unrealistic expectations, I'm out...

Later!

Chas said:

In the face of unrealistic expectations, I'm out...

Later!

Click to expand...

An odd position to take. My expectation is that I will be able to build a system that will provide ample performance for anything I decide to do with it over the next 5 years.

I also expect to perceive an insignificant bump in performance by swapping out those three components (CPU Ram motherboard).

I could do an R9 290X crossfire for a trivial amount of money but that isn't the point. Given the fact that I spend about 1% of my time gaming my current PC is a complete waste of time and money, that is what having a hobby is all about, wasting obscene amounts of money for nothing in particular.

In terms of X99 OC's... well it is always a bit of a crap shoot, sadly. In general, you are probably likely to see higher OCs possible out of the 6 core CPUs since they have less thermal and electrical issues dealing with only 6 cores, instead of 8. Of course there is the fact that the 8 core unit has, well, 8 cores .

If you are looking to crank that shit make sure you go for a water block solution. You can build your own, as you seem to have done, but I think that is more worth than it is worth and would just get one of the sealed prefab units.

Just note that no matter what, it'll come down to a bit of luck. Sometimes, you get a CPU that doesn't wanna OC much. The good news is even bad OCers should do 4GHz which will be faster in operation than what you've got now due to the IPC gains Intel has made.

As for which particular board kinda depends on what you like. If you are an ASUS guy then either their X99 Deluxe, Rampage V, or X99-E WS. The X99-E WS is what I'd look at personally if money is no real object. I got a Deluxe since when I bought you couldn't get the WS board at the time. Very over built but well done and it looks nice. That said the Deluxe also looks nice, only the Rampage is the gaudy red that they like doing .

In theory I think the higher end boards could provide better OC since they have more CPU power input, but in practice I think you'd burn up the CPU before it would matter.

One thing to check is NVMe support on the WS board. I don't see it listed in the BIOS updates, where it is listed in the latest deluxe update. I would presume the WS board just gets features a little slower, but if it matters to you you'll want to make sure it either has it or will get it since the EFI has to support NVMe booting if you want it as your system drive.

Just going to post this here:

http://techreport.com/review/28032/a-fresh-look-at-storage-performance-with-pcie-ssds/5

Executive Summary:

Server-grade PCIe 3.0 4x Intel 800GB NVMe SSD with real-world IOps over 100k can't post significantly faster Windows boot or modern game/application load times than an SATA 3.0 Gbps Intel X-25 M2 160GB drive from 2009.

Just wanted to post that before I unsubscribe. Enjoy wasting your money on nothing

I went Haswell-E for the simple fact that once I upgraded my wife's PC with more memory and went standard Haswell for my upgrade I was going to spend the same amount of money. She got my memory so I didn't need to buy it and I got the cheap Crucial 2133 DDR4. I have a light overclock at 4.2ghz on a 5820k and the memory humming along at 2400. I'm using a Corsair H100 (first gen even) that was keeping my 875k at 4.3ghz cool before. My upgrade all told was more than I had planned on spending but I had the money and the wife didn't complain...actually encouraged my upgrade since it had been several years. I got 4 years out of my 875k. I should get more out of this one. I now do big upgrades generally instead of incremental upgrades like I did when I was in college (ages ago lol).

Doing the upgrade for simple bragging rights, you're right, half of the choices we make in our upgrades are based on what our friends have. If money is no option, and you're okay spending the money, do it. You won't be disappointed. My jump was incredible for what I did. My Lynnfield isn't a big drop from your x58 rig aside from core count and some performance tweaks.

defaultluser said:

Just going to post this here:

http://techreport.com/review/28032/a-fresh-look-at-storage-performance-with-pcie-ssds/5

Executive Summary:

Server-grade PCIe 3.0 4x Intel 800GB NVMe SSD with real-world IOps over 100k can't post significantly faster Windows boot or modern game/application load times than an SATA 3.0 Gbps Intel X-25 M2 160GB drive from 2009.

Just wanted to post that before I unsubscribe. Enjoy wasting your money on nothing

Click to expand...

I always wondered if it was more related to the processor uncompressing files. Especially with Star Citizen. Holy hell does that take forever on my 3770k. They used a meh processor in that review. I wonder if an OC'd 5960x would make the drives have more of a gap.

I should time my 3770k before I get my 5820k going.

Dayaks said:

I always wondered if it was more related to the processor uncompressing files. Especially with Star Citizen. Holy hell does that take forever on my 3770k. They used a meh processor in that review. I wonder if an OC'd 5960x would make the drives have more of a gap.

I should time my 3770k before I get my 5820k going.

Click to expand...

I'm wondering the same thing, there seems to be a bottleneck somewhere or perhaps the product isn't mature yet which is why I'm holding out for mainstream M.2 NVMe drives.Hell the XP941 beat the NVMe drive during boot which suggests something seriously wrong with the benchmark method.

I don't know why people are so hung up on this point. My X58 is slow as shit because there is no native SATA3 and is only mitigated by running RAID 0 on the native SATA 2 controller. I don't want to go that route any more because every RAID 0 array I have used with SSDs has fallen over at some point for no apparent reason. I have had SSDs come up with "SMART ALERT" only to have them work perfectly fine for more than a year after using a wipe tool.

What I find really attractive about the M.2 route is the size and no cables to speak of, but I'm still holding out for NVMe to hit the mainstream.

Deimos said:

I'm wondering the same thing, there seems to be a bottleneck somewhere or perhaps the product isn't mature yet which is why I'm holding out for mainstream M.2 NVMe drives.Hell the XP941 beat the NVMe drive during boot which suggests something seriously wrong with the benchmark method.

I don't know why people are so hung up on this point. My X58 is slow as shit because there is no native SATA3 and is only mitigated by running RAID 0 on the native SATA 2 controller. I don't want to go that route any more because every RAID 0 array I have used with SSDs has fallen over at some point for no apparent reason. I have had SSDs come up with "SMART ALERT" only to have them work perfectly fine for more than a year after using a wipe tool.

What I find really attractive about the M.2 route is the size and no cables to speak of, but I'm still holding out for NVMe to hit the mainstream.

Click to expand...

I had the same thing with raid 0 and SSDs. Strange. I turned smart off on my drive and still going ~2 years later.

The application times mean a lot more to me. For one I never turn off my computer. Also what I've seen is the higher end your rig the longer it takes to boot. Especially if you're doing raid 0 and such. Just more things to initialize. I could probably make it post faster by removing some timers but I just don't care enough.

Dayaks said:

I always wondered if it was more related to the processor uncompressing files. Especially with Star Citizen. Holy hell does that take forever on my 3770k. They used a meh processor in that review. I wonder if an OC'd 5960x would make the drives have more of a gap.

I should time my 3770k before I get my 5820k going.

Click to expand...

A lot of it is just how things load. It is usually pretty single threaded so there's just only so fast it needs data. SSDs of any stripe provide the data to the game as quick as it wants, so things slow down elsewhere.

With things like Windows booting it actually can be a situation of "there's no bottle neck" which seems odd but what happens is you get some wait states where it checks to make sure everything is complete and synchronized. You can literally have times where it is "waiting on nothing" more or less. windows 8 optimized that process and has much less of that than 7, but there's still some.

Deimos said:

What I find really attractive about the M.2 route is the size and no cables to speak of, but I'm still holding out for NVMe to hit the mainstream.

Click to expand...

Only thing to note is support can be a pain, in the event something goes wrong. The problem is for whatever reason nobody is releasing high end M.2 drives in the consumer channel. The XP941 I have is an "OEM" drive meaning Samsung doesn't want it sold to end users. Dunno why, but that is what they do, only the EVO drives are consumer channel and they are no faster than the SATA versions.

Of course nothing will probably go wrong, but just something to be aware of. They are doing the same thing with their SM951 drive, which is the new NVMe variant.

Dayaks said:

I had the same thing with raid 0 and SSDs. Strange. I turned smart off on my drive and still going ~2 years later.

The application times mean a lot more to me. For one I never turn off my computer. Also what I've seen is the higher end your rig the longer it takes to boot. Especially if you're doing raid 0 and such. Just more things to initialize. I could probably make it post faster by removing some timers but I just don't care enough.

Click to expand...

Yeah RAID adds significantly to the bootup time, especially if you (try to) use an add in card. Unless a PCIe card is running NVMe I would expect it to delay boot rather than make it faster.

Ordered today after finally deciding what ram to get:
Asus Rampage V Extreme
i7 5960X
4x8GB Kingston HyperX Fury Black series

Hopefully it will arrive early next week, now to figure out what to do in the GPU department, I was looking at getting another R9 290X for crossfire but prices are still very steep, I may just hold out for R9 390X crossfire...

defaultluser said:

Just going to post this here:

http://techreport.com/review/28032/a-fresh-look-at-storage-performance-with-pcie-ssds/5

Executive Summary:

Server-grade PCIe 3.0 4x Intel 800GB NVMe SSD with real-world IOps over 100k can't post significantly faster Windows boot or modern game/application load times than an SATA 3.0 Gbps Intel X-25 M2 160GB drive from 2009.

Just wanted to post that before I unsubscribe. Enjoy wasting your money on nothing

Click to expand...

There isn't a single real world desktop operation that will push 100K IOPS. Shit it takes effort to push 30K in a server environment.

Deimos said:

Ordered today after finally deciding what ram to get:
Asus Rampage V Extreme
i7 5960X
4x8GB Kingston HyperX Fury Black series

Hopefully it will arrive early next week, now to figure out what to do in the GPU department, I was looking at getting another R9 290X for crossfire but prices are still very steep, I may just hold out for R9 390X crossfire...

Click to expand...

Nice.

I settled for z87 cause fuck it, I have the good shit at work, this is good enough for home.

Deimos said:

Ordered today after finally deciding what ram to get:
Asus Rampage V Extreme
i7 5960X
4x8GB Kingston HyperX Fury Black series

Click to expand...

What a beast. I'd go the same way as well if money was no issue.

Deimos said:

Ordered today after finally deciding what ram to get:
Asus Rampage V Extreme
i7 5960X
4x8GB Kingston HyperX Fury Black series

Hopefully it will arrive early next week, now to figure out what to do in the GPU department, I was looking at getting another R9 290X for crossfire but prices are still very steep, I may just hold out for R9 390X crossfire...

Click to expand...

I would wait to see the the 390x and 980 ti hold up to be. Might be able to get some good deals on GTX 980's soon as well.

if you OC that monster you don't have to OC all 8 cores, I would do "per core" OC and overclock just the first 4 cores.

Deimos said:

Ordered today after finally deciding what ram to get:
Asus Rampage V Extreme
i7 5960X
4x8GB Kingston HyperX Fury Black series

Hopefully it will arrive early next week, now to figure out what to do in the GPU department, I was looking at getting another R9 290X for crossfire but prices are still very steep, I may just hold out for R9 390X crossfire...

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this. I'm probably going to go with the same thing (except for gpu, since I already have six 290x's, but will probably only use 1 or 2).

Is there anything better than the 5960x? I don't care about cost (well, assuming it's <2k).

What made you choose the Rampage V Extreme? On newegg, it's only got a 3 star average.

Is there any reason you went with 32GB instead of 64GB?

Are you sticking with the stock cooler? It looks like the h100 is good, but I can't how it will fit in my case (silverstone FT02).

Lancid said:

Thanks for posting this. I'm probably going to go with the same thing (except for gpu, since I already have six 290x's, but will probably only use 1 or 2).

Is there anything better than the 5960x? I don't care about cost (well, assuming it's <2k).

What made you choose the Rampage V Extreme? On newegg, it's only got a 3 star average.

Is there any reason you went with 32GB instead of 64GB?

Are you sticking with the stock cooler? It looks like the h100 is good, but I can't how it will fit in my case (silverstone FT02).

Click to expand...

The 5690x is the best available where I am, haven't seen anything better.

I thought about waiting for the Sabertooth but the only thing it offers over the rampage is on board USB 3.1. As for the reviews, newegg? you want me to read reviews froma bunch of newbs? Guru3d top pic, legit reviews editors choice, Hardocp gold award etc etc...

32Gb is plenty, I had 48GB in my current rig but dropped half because it was just unused, put it in a server. Even 16GB would be plenty but I wanted 8GB modules just in case I later decided to put more in.

I have a custom loop so cooling is sorted.

post some pic's Deimos .......Some very odd people posting in this thread when you first started it....glad they unsubscribed....In a lot of ways its not being overkill at all what you bought in my opinion...If you only upgrade every 5 years you probably spend less over the long run making smart choices
Why those goof balls trying to talk you into a quad core? I wouldn't want to downgrade either

Yeah I didn't understand that either, baffling.

TBH this is going to be the most I have spent on a single upgrade ever. Didn't have the means before but with my business picking up, and being able to charge $300 per hour for my services, why not treat myself.

I'm definitely going for SLI or Crossfire, just waiting to see what AMD has to offer before I make a purchase and I may look at adding a second loop just for the GPUs.

Will definitely post pics when everything arrives.

i bet you're dying for those 390x's to go retailAlthough its a forgone conclusion you don't actually plan to use the cards that long

It has arrived.

Wow... this gear is pretty fucken serious looking.

Apparently my Swiftech block will go on without a hitch so I could dump this stuff in my box right now but I don't have any thermal paste FFS.

Soon...

I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't be building computers anymore...

I barely have time to build, basically 8pm onwards is my window and I have to get enough sleep before the kids wake me up at 7am.

So I rush to get the new gear in and I bent some pins...

First ram slot non functional... fuck me sideways.

Tried my best to sort it out but they are too far gone

Oh well, guess I'll send it back for repair and order another one.