i7 5820K vs. i7 5930K PCI-E lanes question.

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N1GHTRA1N

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I'm going to be upgrading to a new CPU/MB/RAM in the next 3-6 months.

I'm considering Z170 or X99 right now but have a question about a couple Haswell-E processors first.

I know the performance difference between the 5820k and 5930k is minimal.

My only question is about the Maximum number of PCI-E lanes. The 5820k supports 28 lanes (same as new 6700k) but the 5930k supports 40. Does this translate to any real world advantage that would justify an almost $300 CAD price increase?

I just upgraded to MSI GTX 970 Gaming cards in SLI. I don't plan on ever running more than two cards.
 
$300...no. For me, I got it at about $150 over a 5820k, so maybe.

If you're running dual cards and a PCIe SSD at full speed, then yes, it might be worth it. Either way, I don't see any reason to get a 6700k since you get 2 extra cores with the 5820k for essentially the same price.
 
5930k is a waste of money for most people. You have to decide what your plans are for the system. Do you plan to run 2, 3 , or 4 card SLI? Do you plan to use one of the new PCIe NVMe drives? M.2 slots and all your PCIe lanes share bandwidth

Unless you require the additional PCie bandwidth for the number of items you are going to install I would say go 5820k

The z170 boards do not really provide the same number of lanes because they are not all direct to the CPU. They use a lot of on board chipset tricks to make the lanes appear to be available even if bandwidth is more restricted than that.
 
8x PCI-E 3.0 has more than enough bandwidth for current video cards and probably will for the forseeable future. I wouldn't drop an extra $300 on this, it's not worth it.

Get X99 if you do heavily threaded tasks like encoding and autocad or run server apps. Get Z170 if your most stressful activity is gaming.
 
Especially if you never plan to go with more than two GPUs, there isn't much advantage of a 5930k over a 5820k. 5820k has enough lanes to do 8x/8x SLI/Crossfire and still have 12 lanes left for M.2 slots, etc. 5820k even has enough lanes for 3-way SLI/Crossfire but does require compromises at that point, which is why most motherboards don't do more than 2-way with a 5820k. My EVGA X99 FTW for example lets me do 3-way with a 5820k, but compromises in the sense that it has no M.2 slots. In that sense, you do have to be slightly more diligent when going with a 5820k, making sure that the motherboard you are getting has an optimal lane layout for what you want. Should not be much of an issue in your case, but you wouldn't want to end up with a board like mine that makes compromises for reasons that wouldn't benefit you.

As far as skylake goes. I was on the fence myself, and might have even ended up with a 6700k myself had there not been availability issues. In the end, it was the extra cores that made me go with the 5820k. There has never been a single case, ever, when I have regretted going with more cores over fewer higher-performance cores. That held true even back when games weren't multi-threaded at all, and when there was a much bigger performance gap between the choices compared to today. In that regard, 5820k is a very easy choice.
 
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kirbyrj said:
$300...no. For me, I got it at about $150 over a 5820k, so maybe.

If you're running dual cards and a PCIe SSD at full speed, then yes, it might be worth it. Either way, I don't see any reason to get a 6700k since you get 2 extra cores with the 5820k for essentially the same price.
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Here in Canada the 5820k and x99 MB is about $100-150 more than a similar z170 and 6700k. I think that is worth it but undecided. However an additional $300 to get to the 5930k seems questionable.
 
zaniix said:
5930k is a waste of money for most people. You have to decide what your plans are for the system. Do you plan to run 2, 3 , or 4 card SLI? Do you plan to use one of the new PCIe NVMe drives? M.2 slots and all your PCIe lanes share bandwidth

Unless you require the additional PCie bandwidth for the number of items you are going to install I would say go 5820k

The z170 boards do not really provide the same number of lanes because they are not all direct to the CPU. They use a lot of on board chipset tricks to make the lanes appear to be available even if bandwidth is more restricted than that.
Click to expand...

I don't ever plan on running any more than 2 cards in SLI. I think 2 would be my maximum. I don't know about NVMe drives. I plan on using this for a while. My current X58 and i920 was purchased in January 2009.
 
6700k only sports 16 pci-e lanes, the z170 chipset adds another 4. If you need pci-e lanes go for 5820.
 
Would my Noctua U12 cooler with two fans be good enough for the i7 5820k or should I look at upgrading that too?
 
N1GHTRA1N said:
Would my Noctua U12 cooler with two fans be good enough for the i7 5820k or should I look at upgrading that too?
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at stock, yes it will be enough

Overclocked I would not expect great results, but it might handle more heat than people think and may possibly be good enough.

I would suggest since you already have it that you use it to start with and see the specific results you get under your conditions and then decide if an upgrade is needed.
 
Trimlock said:
6700k only sports 16 pci-e lanes, the z170 chipset adds another 4. If you need pci-e lanes go for 5820.
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Incorrect.

6700K gives you 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the PCH.

5820K gives you 28 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes from the PCH

You get 36 both ways, and actually get more 3.0 lanes on skylake (since lanes from PCH on x99 are only 2.0). Only lanes from the CPU can be used for SLI however, so 5820k does have a slight advantage in that regard.
 
GotNoRice said:
Incorrect.

6700K gives you 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the PCH.

5820K gives you 28 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes from the PCH

You get 36 both ways, and actually get more 3.0 lanes on skylake (since lanes from PCH on x99 are only 2.0). Only lanes from the CPU can be used for SLI however, so 5820k does have a slight advantage in that regard.
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Yes correct, but the not obvious issue is the PLX chips on some Z170 boards that essentially lie to you about how many lanes there are so that you can do things like Quad SLI but with a performance hit since there is no way to actually increase the number of PCIe lanes that actually go to the CPU, they just multiplex essentially.


kirbyrj said:
plus the advantage of the extra cores...
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Yes it has more cores if you need them, I will stick with less heat, faster stock clock speed and lower power consumption. 2 more cores is not going to make my games run any faster.
 
GotNoRice said:
Incorrect.

6700K gives you 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the PCH.

5820K gives you 28 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes from the PCH

You get 36 both ways, and actually get more 3.0 lanes on skylake (since lanes from PCH on x99 are only 2.0). Only lanes from the CPU can be used for SLI however, so 5820k does have a slight advantage in that regard.
Click to expand...

Woops thought 4 was accessible to the gpu, thanks for the correction.
 
zaniix said:
Yes it has more cores if you need them, I will stick with less heat, faster stock clock speed and lower power consumption. 2 more cores is not going to make my games run any faster.
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You can always overclock a little bit and trade efficiency for more power. You can't physically add more cores. The choice should really be simple as the processors are the same price (5820k is $60 cheaper if you have a MC nearby).
 
kirbyrj said:
You can always overclock a little bit and trade efficiency for more power. You can't physically add more cores. The choice should really be simple as the processors are the same price (5820k is $60 cheaper if you have a MC nearby).
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You are 100% correct I will never be able to add more of the thing I do not need.
 
kirbyrj said:
You can always overclock a little bit and trade efficiency for more power. You can't physically add more cores. The choice should really be simple as the processors are the same price (5820k is $60 cheaper if you have a MC nearby).
Click to expand...

I'm in Canada. 5820k is $519.99 and 6700k is $489.99.
 
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