i7-5930k vs 5960x vs 6950x vs Ryzen 7 3700x or How should I upgrade my old PC?

[Immitem]

 What a weird title.

 

Hello there LTT forums! I need some help here and I am sure that I probably know what the answer is already but I feel the need to have someone slap me in the face with some hard, scaly, fishy truth. At least Sea Bass sized, no Lake Sturgeons!!! 

 

 Here is the TL;DR version: Can I overclock either a 5960x or 6950x for 255 and 430 dollars CAD respectively to compete with a Ryzen 7 3700x and keep my old workstation relevant and also capable of handling 2 top of the line RTX cards for productivity purposes?

 

 The long, did read version:

 

 After deciding that an eGPU for my laptop did not meet my needs I tried pricing out a brand new 3D GPU rendernode that could support 2 RTX 3080 20GB or 2 RTX 3090s NVLinked together that would also double as a platform for practicing Linux in order to transition over to it as my primary workstation. Unfortunately I could not make it work without sending the price out of control but decided to sacrifice my want/need of Thunderbolt3 for the cost savings of upgrading my former workstation/current rendernode with a watercooled 5930K OCed to 4.2GHZ for either a 5960x for 255 CAD or a slightly damaged but working 6950x for 430 CAD plus shipping.

 

 If I were to add a large m.2 ssd and 6950x I would be paying less than 800 dollars compared to the 2000-2200 dollars I would be paying for a brand new AMD or Intel platform with all of the features and I/O I wanted and needed respectively. Before the price of the two cards of course.

 

 The used and cosmetically damaged 6950x costs around the same as a new Ryzen 7 3700x but seems to have 25% less performance per core ( https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-list/cinebench-r20-scores ) but nearly identical multicore score. If I can overclock all of the cores to 4GHZ on my Asus Rampage V USB 3.1 I could come close to the multicore score of the AMD chip in Cinebench r15 (which it loses to otherwise for some reason) at the cost of much more heat and a higher power-draw. If I go with the much cheaper and fully intact 5960x I could potentially overclock it to 4.3-4.5GHZ and close the single-core gap even more with less power-draw but sacrifice the multicore performance.

 

 My intent is to use it firstly as a rendernode as well as a remote GPU accelerator over a 10GB network for my workstation laptop but eventually transition back over to it as I become more familiar with Linux/CentOS. My software is primarily Maya, Redshift, Blender, Zbrush (can be finagled to run well on Linux), and Substance Painter. A mix of programs that take advantage of single and multicore performance depending upon what I am doing.

 

 This is the 6950x (please do not scalp me), assuming all of the chips have similar damage would this be a deal-breaker? Especially since I want to overclock it.

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/i7-6950X-Intel-Core-i7-6950X-SR2PA-Processor-10Cores-20Threads-3-0GHz-DIY-X99-MB/174451150031?hash=item289e194ccf:g:UMEAAOSwtyVfWJPu

 

 I know that the CPU I choose will hold back the GPUs for realtime applications but I have no idea how much. I do know however that the impact on GPU rendering will be negligible once the data is streamed onto the VRAM.

 

 My current specs are:

 

 Case: Corsair C70

 Motherboard: Asus Rampage V USB3.1 REV

 CPU: 5930K Auto-overclocked to 4.2GHZ

 CPU Cooler: 2015 Corsair h100i

 RAM: 64GB Corsair RAM at something, something, XMP Profile, something, I do not remember. 

 GPU: 2x GTX 1070s & 2x Titan XM

 PSU: 2015 EVGA 1600w Platinum 

 Storage: A butt-tonne of HDDs and SSDs equaling around 15TBs 

 How many fans do I have?: Yes.

 

 

 Thanks!

[PWforPower]

7 minutes ago, Immitem said:

 What a weird title.

 

Hello there LTT forums! I need some help here and I am sure that I probably know what the answer is already but I feel the need to have someone slap me in the face with some hard, scaly, fishy truth. At least Sea Bass sized, no Lake Sturgeons!!! 

 

 Here is the TL;DR version: Can I overclock either a 5960x or 6950x for 255 and 430 dollars CAD respectively to compete with a Ryzen 7 3700x and keep my old workstation relevant and also capable of handling 2 top of the line RTX cards for productivity purposes?

 

 The long, did read version:

 

 After deciding that an eGPU for my laptop did not meet my needs I tried pricing out a brand new 3D GPU rendernode that could support 2 RTX 3080 20GB or 2 RTX 3090s NVLinked together that would also double as a platform for practicing Linux in order to transition over to it as my primary workstation. Unfortunately I could not make it work without sending the price out of control but decided to sacrifice my want/need of Thunderbolt3 for the cost savings of upgrading my former workstation/current rendernode with a watercooled 5930K OCed to 4.2GHZ for either a 5960x for 255 CAD or a slightly damaged but working 6950x for 430 CAD plus shipping.

 

 If I were to add a large m.2 ssd and 6950x I would be paying less than 800 dollars compared to the 2000-2200 dollars I would be paying for a brand new AMD or Intel platform with all of the features and I/O I wanted and needed respectively. Before the price of the two cards of course.

 

 The used and cosmetically damaged 6950x costs around the same as a new Ryzen 7 3700x but seems to have 25% less performance per core ( https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-list/cinebench-r20-scores ) but nearly identical multicore score. If I can overclock all of the cores to 4GHZ on my Asus Rampage V USB 3.1 I could come close to the multicore score of the AMD chip in Cinebench r15 (which it loses to otherwise for some reason) at the cost of much more heat and a higher power-draw. If I go with the much cheaper and fully intact 5960x I could potentially overclock it to 4.3-4.5GHZ and close the single-core gap even more with less power-draw but sacrifice the multicore performance.

 

 My intent is to use it firstly as a rendernode as well as a remote GPU accelerator over a 10GB network for my workstation laptop but eventually transition back over to it as I become more familiar with Linux/CentOS. My software is primarily Maya, Redshift, Blender, Zbrush (can be finagled to run well on Linux), and Substance Painter. A mix of programs that take advantage of single and multicore performance depending upon what I am doing.

 

 This is the 6950x (please do not scalp me), assuming all of the chips have similar damage would this be a deal-breaker? Especially since I want to overclock it.

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/i7-6950X-Intel-Core-i7-6950X-SR2PA-Processor-10Cores-20Threads-3-0GHz-DIY-X99-MB/174451150031?hash=item289e194ccf:g:UMEAAOSwtyVfWJPu

 

 I know that the CPU I choose will hold back the GPUs for realtime applications but I have no idea how much. I do know however that the impact on GPU rendering will be negligible once the data is streamed onto the VRAM.

 

 My current specs are:

 

 Case: Corsair C70

 Motherboard: Asus Rampage V USB3.1 REV

 CPU: 5930K Auto-overclocked to 4.2GHZ

 CPU Cooler: 2015 Corsair h100i

 RAM: 64GB Corsair RAM at something, something, XMP Profile, something, I do not remember. 

 GPU: 2x GTX 1070s & 2x Titan XM

 PSU: 2015 EVGA 1600w Platinum 

 Storage: A butt-tonne of HDDs and SSDs equaling around 15TBs 

 How many fans do I have?: Yes.

 

 

 Thanks!

Don't do nothing now, sell all gpus now including one 1070, wait 1-2 months, sell whole pc, and take new ryzen 3900x rtx 3090/80nvlinked, it will better than previous. 

 

[Immitem]

On 9/26/2020 at 6:25 AM, PWforPower said:

Don't do nothing now, sell all gpus now including one 1070, wait 1-2 months, sell whole pc, and take new ryzen 3900x rtx 3090/80nvlinked, it will better than previous. 

 

 The problem is that I have never had a good time selling my computer stuff to anyone other than family, in person or online. I have asked some people I know if they are interested but have gotten only vague answers. Furthermore, I am only interested in getting a new system if it has thunderbolt3 but am limited to either a mini-itx board or expensive AF Threadripper motherboard with AMD and I do not need the processor speed to justify the price of the latter. I have heard some very hit or miss reports on AICs for AMD motherboards with headers, I have even seen some claims that the Gigabyte Titan Ridge does not need a header to work but overall I want to avoid them because they seem spotty at best.

 

 What the future may hold, I have no clue as I have yet to see what board venders have in store for the next generation of Ryzen but given the low adoption rate at the moment I am not holding my breath but am still hoping to be surprised.

 

 I have no idea what is going on over at Intel right now, I have not kept up with them in a long time and just spitballed a build without doing proper research hoping to achieve a decent price to features range.

 

 P.S. It may seem petty that I am obsessing over TB3 but I already have a few devices (such as the Cintiq HD16) that are much more convenient to use with TB3 and since I want to transition over to the desktop from my laptop as I learn Linux I want to have that convenience move with me. Something that I am willing to sacrifice with the vastly cheaper upgrade to a 6950x which if I can overclock to over 4GHZ I could come close to the single-core performance of the 8850H in my laptop that has not left me wanting in either Zbrush or Substance Painter during heavy CPU operations. Problem is that I will hit the limit of what the system can provide.

 

 If I was confident that I could sell most of my previous hardware and not tear my hair out with low-ballers, non-stop messaging, insults, postage screwing up my shipment in the computer, etc I would be far more receptive to the idea of building a new system but I do not believe that I would have a very smooth time.

 

 I was already planning on selling my old w9100, I guess I could use it as a litmus test but I have little confidence. 

[PWforPower]

10 hours ago, Immitem said:

 The problem is that I have never had a good time selling my computer stuff to anyone other than family, in person or online. I have asked some people I know if they are interested but have gotten only vague answers. Furthermore, I am only interested in getting a new system if it has thunderbolt3 but am limited to either a mini-itx board or expensive AF Threadripper motherboard with AMD and I do not need the processor speed to justify the price of the latter. I have heard some very hit or miss reports on AICs for AMD motherboards with headers, I have even seen some claims that the Gigabyte Titan Ridge does not need a header to work but overall I want to avoid them because they seem spotty at best.

 

 What the future may hold, I have no clue as I have yet to see what board venders have in store for the next generation of Ryzen but given the low adoption rate at the moment I am not holding my breath but am still hoping to be surprised.

 

 I have no idea what is going on over at Intel right now, I have not kept up with them in a long time and just spitballed a build without doing proper research hoping to achieve a decent price to features range.

 

 P.S. It may seem petty that I am obsessing over TB3 but I already have a few devices (such as the Cintiq HD16) that are much more convenient to use with TB3 and since I want to transition over to the desktop from my laptop as I learn Linux I want to have that convenience move with me. Something that I am willing to sacrifice with the vastly cheaper upgrade to a 6950x which if I can overclock to over 4GHZ I could come close to the single-core performance of the 8850H in my laptop that has not left me wanting in either Zbrush or Substance Painter during heavy CPU operations. Problem is that I will hit the limit of what the system can provide.

 

 If I was confident that I could sell most of my previous hardware and not tear my hair out with low-ballers, non-stop messaging, insults, postage screwing up my shipment in the computer, etc I would be far more receptive to the idea of building a new system but I do not believe that I would have a very smooth time.

 

 I was already planning on selling my old w9100, I guess I could use it as a litmus test but I have little confidence. 

Im so sorry if I can't help you! 

I don't know other solution than buying, new system or even mixed used new lga 2066, but it's not no big no no worth buying i7 6950x even you have super extreme motherboard and want to keep it or not(only if it would be time saver, how it said"money is time"). 

 

I understand you for selling that and buying than, but if you don't have time you must give money for that time and buy new system ryzen 3900x or lga 2066, then wait someone to buy your old ws hand by hand. 

 

Newer better cheaper, for yor using u will use lot time, take new and sell all old systems, even you spend 2600 it will worth. Belive me Im expirienced in of selling and buying or keeping old and upgradind and a lot other shits, buying new for expensive will save your time and then slowly selling old for cheaper than other on the market. 

 

If you have time and confidence, then you can go much cheaper for new system. 

 

I'm recommending you to buy new system with time or not, with money or without, if you spending a lot time on that you work,.. and sell old ws. 

 

It will last for years depending on your using and obviously buy nvlinked 3090.

 

You can save you OS system with all stuff in there, only put in new system. 

 

Don't think about buying i7 6950x.

 

 

I hope you will do right ! 

 

[bomerr]

10900k is only about 33% faster than a 6950x OC'd. Buy the 6950x on Ali Express and wait until Alder Lake to upgrade to a new platform if you need the extra power. Despite being "10th" gen, the 10900k is really just the 3rd Skylake refresh so it's only 1-ish generation + higher clockspeeds faster than a 6950x.