X99a Vs Z170 - overall, do the platforms make a difference in gaming?

[Zion Halcyon]

Just something that I've been curious about.

I know that the x99a (and x99 before it) have oft been marketed as "enthusiast grade", but as a gamer, while the prospect of having the capacity of an overpowered behemoth of an x99 system tickles me, does it really make much of a difference?

Seems to me the x99(a) series are more for bragging rights with the exception of people who do things like content creation and video editing, which really makes it more of a glorified workstation setup.

Is there a gaming benefit to the x99(a) series vs the current z170 offerings?

Or am I dead on in how I am seeing it?

 

[TheGamerZ]

You're pretty dead on.

For general gaming, you'll rarely (if ever) see a difference.

 

[RazorWind]

Assuming you're using an appropriate CPU, it doesn't make much of a difference, at least for now. In games, my 5820K is basically idling. It's the graphics cards that really make the difference in gaming once you get a CPU this fast.

Edit: If you bring enough graphics card, though, the CPU does start to matter somewhat, although I still don't think either X99 or Z170 would have a major advantage in performance, given the current limiting factors on graphics cards.

For other uses, X99 starts to make more sense, as it supports CPUs with more cores than Z170 does. Apparently, Intel recently released a 22 core Xeon that supposedly works on an X99 board. I can imagine some work-related applications where that would be useful, if I could also get my hands on enough IO to feed it.

 

[silent-circuit]

If you're running a really high end SLI setup (980Ti SLI, Titan X, 1080 when that's out) then the extra PCIe lanes may behe a help in some titles, but it's a rarity. Once you get to 3 and 4 way SLI it becomes a necessity, though.

The extra CPU cores can be helpful in some titles, mostly simulators and large scale strategy games, but again, it's rare to see anything scale well past 4 cores. Or even that far, in many cases.
If you're recording and streaming the extra cores can be helpful, since they free up the first 4 for gaming.

So in short, there are some rare / bleeding edge use cases, but for most going Z170 and Skylake makes more sense due to the lower cost of entry and slightly higher IPC, since most games still don't scale across cores that well and a single GPU is enough for most users.

As you said -- if it's a multi-use system and you'll be doing math heavy stuff or content creation, X99 can make sense. If it's purely a gaming / general use setup, Z170 tends to be the better option.