Replacing a failing Z170 and 6700K build

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EricUrS4

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Jan 27, 2012
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I've got what I suspect to be a failing MSI Z170 motherboard, the build is as follows,

Intel 6700K
Corsair H100i GTX
MSI Z170 SLI Plus
G.Skill 2x16gb
2x EVGA GTX 1080 Ti
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
Samsung 950 Pro 256GB
EVGA 1050W PSU
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5

I've been looking at two options,

Intel 7900X
ASUS TUF X299 MARK 2
Corsair 4x8GB

Or

Intel 8700K
ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero

The idea would be to reuse as much as I could from the previous build, but with the idea of moving up in performance. I was able to get the pair of 1080Ti's for $750 each before Christmas with the idea of having a better chance at 3x4K as I have 3x 43" Vizio 4K 60Hz TV's as monitors on my desk currently. I'm a sysadmin so the usable area to work especially on patch nights is very helpful also.

I understand the bottleneck of anything on the Z platform having only 16 PCIE lanes with running an SLI setup, but my questions are more of the idea that I play AAA games, edit photos, and general use. Is the investment in the 7900X worth it as far as gaming performance goes? I know it unlocks the full potential of the SLI setup, but is it going to be THAT noticeable of a difference over my current setup when it was at its prime? Or is it a safer bet knowing what I'm doing, to save the money and stick with a Z370 combo?

Any assistance is appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
The 8700k setup for sure - even with dual 1080 Tis the 7900X is not going to give you hugely better gaming performance. 1080 Tis running at PCIe 3.0 x8 speeds will still get the full performance - they are not bandwidth limited by the PCIE slot at all unless you drop down to x2-x4 speed.

You could get an 8700k, delid it (use Silicon Lottery if you want), overclock to 4.9-5.2GHz and have a kick ass experience for hundreds less than the 7900X setup.

Unless you have a use case that benefits greatly from 10-core, 20 threads I would find it hard to justify the extra expense on the X299 setup.
 
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EricUrS4 said:
Because I haven’t been able to find an exact replacement board, and my options as far as Z170 or Z270 aren’t terribly wide ranging.
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Are you from the U.S? There are a ton of available good Z170/Z270 motherboards brand new, and of course a ton of used ones on the market too if you want to get a higher tier board.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=110,119&sort=price&page=1

I'd probably suggest the Asrock Z270 Killer SLI/ac for less than $130 brand new, or an Asus Maximus board for under $200 if you're up for used.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I'd argue for the 8700k or a Ryzen 2700X myself, but before that why not try replacing the board?
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I'd second this recommendation. For gaming PCIe3.0 x8 is still plenty fast enough, so you don't need the extra PCIe lanes of a quasi-workstation platform like LGA2066 or Epyc.

For gaming faster cores are more important than having a huge number of them. Unless you're also using it as a workstation for something that does scale to huge numbers of cores there's no reason to go beyond a mainstream desktop CPU from either vendor. For gaming Intel's higher clock rates give them a very small edge today, AMDs higher core counts give them a potential edge in the future if games become less dependent on one or two super fast main threads and more able to spread out across large numbers of cores. Either will give good results today.

If you're streaming on Twitch/etc, more cores might help you do so on one box without impacting your gaming perf. I've seen this claim a few times anyway, but haven't seen anyone posting benchmark results to back it up. (OTOH if they were on streamer centric sites I probably just never saw them.)
 
Maybe get a replacement motherboard for now as the other posters have suggested then a 32 core threadripper when they come out for bragging rights lol
 
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