New question about planned AMD to Intel upgrade

[GP40X]

Okay, new question. I had decided to go with a Haswell i5-4670 and an ASUS Z87-A motherboard but now am rethinking that decision due to a lot of talk about 1150 being on a shorter cycle than the normal 2 year socket upgrade cycle. So the new question is i5-4670 Haswell on the ASUS Z87-A or an i5-3570 Ivy Bridge on a good Z77 board? This upgrade will now happen this month because my 965 died this morning (code FF) and I am currently running on my old X3 720 BE processor (one of the unlucky ones that will not run with an unlocked 4th core) with the stock cooler. Looking for good Ivy Bridge Z77 board recommendations if I go that route. Current system specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 under a Cooler Master V8 cooler which just died X3 720 BE under a stock cooler, MSI 790FX-GD70, Asus HD 6870, 2x 4096kb Patriot PSD38G1600KH PC3-12600 (1600 mHz) memory, 2 WD 6400AAKS hard drives, 1 Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 1TB hard drive, Corsair HX1000W PSU, Intel EXPI9300PT N.I.C., Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card , HP dvd1720 optical drive, CoolerMaster CM 690 II Case, Vista 64, Samsung SyncMaster P2370 monitor.

So here are the updated questions for the upgrade.

1)What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?

Mainly playing new games (BF4, etc), some light personal photo shop work (for small vinyl prints for CustomWorks Outlaw sprint car Wing & body wraps using .pdf Templates), web, mail, word processing, etc.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Around $400 max ($500.00 if I need memory too) + tax (local) or shipping (web). Less if I can get away with it for now.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Fort Worth, TX

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Only planning a motherboard and processor upgrade at this time but may have to add memory of my Patriot memory doesn't play well with the new board.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

I plan on reusing everything other than the motherboard, processor, and possibly memory at this time. Next upgrade will be a Radeon R9 270X or 280 X once prices come down and I will be replacing the X-Fi with a Soundblaster Z sound card soon too. My Corsair HX1000W PSU shows to be fully compliant with Haswell.

6) Will you be overclocking?

Yes

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

Samsung SyncMaster P2370 monitor running at its native revolution of 1920 x 1080.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

This month.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

Definitely want a UEFI BIOS for overclocking. RAID and 6GB SATA for future HD upgrades. Crossfire and SLI support. I prefer an Intel onboard NIC. eSATA would be nice but not needed. ONE STIPULATION: I will only use boards that Dan and Kyle gave a Gold or Silver Award to.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

I now have a new unused copy of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit OEM that I will be using for now.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

It's almost never worth upgrading the first CPU in a new socket to the new CPU with the same socket. In fact, it's hardly worth upgrading the first CPU in a new socket to the first CPU in a new socket.

Case in point.

Anyone who owned a Sandy Bridge had no reason at all to upgrade that Sandy Bridge to an Ivy Bridge unless you just had more money than you knew what to do with. Even people with Sandy Bridge processors have no real reason to upgrade to Haswell CPUs. The performance gap just isn't there to support it.

 

[lsun22]

light cpu loads, you wont need to upgrade again anytime soon so no meed to worry if a socket wont be used in the future. in this day and age, its prob rare to just upgrade cpu only due to slow progression. ie five to ten percent improvement gen to gen.

 

[GP40X]

Thought I might be able to save about $40 to $50 going with Ivy Bridge (i5-3570) but it looks like I am going to have to go with Haswell as most of the Z77 chipset enthusiast boards have dried up.