Upgrading: 4790k or wait for AMD Zen

[shocktroopky]

I am looking to upgrade my 5 year old motherboard/cpu. I have been an AMD fanboy of sorts since the AMD Athlon XP series. But at some point, I have to be realistic and go with the better choice regardless of brand preferences. Should I wait to see if AMD Zen can actually compete with newer i7 considering it will have hyperthreading or should I go ahead and buy against my fanboy brand loyalty? I do understand that if I wait for the Zen, I will have to switch to DDR4 and regardless of CPU, I want an ASRock Fatal1ty Killer series mobo

 

Current system:

Asus M4A88T-V EVO USB 3.0

AMD Phenom II 1075T X6 3.0 GHz (OC to 3.5)

Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual 

12 GB G-Skill DDR 3 1600 MHz

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC 3 GB

Samsung 840 Evo Pro 128 GB

Seagate 4TB HDD

1000 Watt silver rated (can't remember brand atm)

Rosewill Thor V2 case.

[Levent]

4790K, I doubt AMD will catch up with intel with "zen"

[ELSknutson]

IF your going to upgrade form that you might as well go Skylake

[Interfectorem]

4790K, I doubt AMD will catch up with intel with "zen"

Not with that attitude. (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

[DarkRift5]

4790k will be a huge leap over your Phenom regardless. I doubt Zen will perform better, but it might have much better value for performance, so if you're happy with your system for now, wait it out a little. Also take a look at Intel's new Skylake series.

[Agent181]

I'm waiting to upgrade my system, it still has some juice left in it, zen comes out in one year so that's not that long in pc years,

If zen is as good as its hyped to be good for them better cpus for everyone and then I will upgrade depending on the system I decide to go with, if it turns to be bad then I'll go to x99 with the 5820k, an amazing 6 core to replace my current 6 core fx 6300

[Sauron]

Waiting is never the wrong choice, it all depends on whether you can afford to or not. If you can't go with skylake, it doesn't make much sense to buy an old cpu since the price isn't lower anyway...

 

So the question is, do you need to upgrade now, or can you wait? If you can wait, there's no reason not to.

[daniellearmouth]

AMD's still a way off with regards to Zen. I'd be amazed if we got it next year.

 

For how long can you wait in regards to getting a new rig?

[shocktroopky]

AMD's still a way off with regards to Zen. I'd be amazed if we got it next year.

 

For how long can you wait in regards to getting a new rig?

Considering I am still playing most games at high settings with decent framerate with my current system, I can wait. I am just getting tired of my old system and wanting something new. So far the only problem I have had is with playing GC and Wii games using Dolphin. I would go ahead and get the 4790k  and keep my current ram, but I am thinking that I can get "More bang for my buck" from waiting for AMD as AMD generally has a better performance:dollar ratio and still have money left for DDR4 RAM. I am thinking waiting is best bet. Worst case scenario, AMD is bad again and price may drop on the 4790k. But I want a new system now, so I am having that internal battle.

[f5alcon]

Zen is going to be a server focus first, so I would upgrade now, I just went from a phenom II 1055t to a 4790k and I doubled frame rates in some games

[TheRetiredSlave]

Have you considered i7-6700K? I don't see it being offered by any online retailers yet, but Intel just launched Skylake so we should see them on shelves very very soon..

 

It would mean you would also need to get DDR3L or DDR4 (not sure it standard DDR3 works in a DDR3L mobo), but I'd prefer to get the newest CPU if you're upgrading. Better performance per clock than Haswell and allegedly better overclocking than Haswell. Win-win, though price (including RAM) would need to be considered.

[shocktroopky]

Zen is going to be a server focus first, so I would upgrade now, I just went from a phenom II 1055t to a 4790k and I doubled frame rates in some games

You do make a very good point, however Linus did some tests with a Xeon processor recently and found that it performs as well as an i7 for video games. But you do have me leaning more towards betraying my fanboy instinct and wait until the Zen has been out a couple of years.

[Nena Trinity]

Your CPU is great wait for 7th gen Intel or Zen!

[bomerr]

go i7-5820k or wait for Zen.

[79 Potatoes]

Your CPU has better IPC than FX series tho, if you're being held back by your CPU then upgrade.

[othertomperson]

Do you want to wait a year before finding out whether or not you may as well have gotten the Intel after all?

[f5alcon]

You do make a very good point, however Linus did some tests with a Xeon processor recently and found that it performs as well as an i7 for video games. But you do have me leaning more towards betraying my fanboy instinct and wait until the Zen has been out a couple of years.

Zen's big thing is a lot of cores, more cores has yet to help games, maybe with DX12 but buying Intel now probably will be fine for 3-5 years and then a matured Zen can happen. This is only my 3rd Intel build ever, out of maybe a dozen builds, so I was a big amd fan, they just don't have a product that can compete and the future is unknown.  

[bomerr]

Zen's big thing is a lot of cores, more cores has yet to help games, maybe with DX12 but buying Intel now probably will be fine for 3-5 years and then a matured Zen can happen. This is only my 3rd Intel build ever, out of maybe a dozen builds, so I was a big amd fan, they just don't have a product that can compete and the future is unknown.  

That's not true anymore.

 

 

GTA and Witcher 3, both released this year, can become GPU limited depending on setup. Those games also scale well on multicore systems.

 

If someone has the fund available I would not advise going 4C anymore at this point. Hence why I said go with the 5820k or Zen.  

[Grissm]

Have you considered i7-6700K? I don't see it being offered by any online retailers yet, but Intel just launched Skylake so we should see them on shelves very very soon..

 

It would mean you would also need to get DDR3L or DDR4 (not sure it standard DDR3 works in a DDR3L mobo), but I'd prefer to get the newest CPU if you're upgrading. Better performance per clock than Haswell and allegedly better overclocking than Haswell. Win-win, though price (including RAM) would need to be considered.

DDR3 will not be compatible in the 170 series boards for the 1151 socket. In fact from what I have read most manufactures will not even offer DDR3L support on most boards as we are seeing a full swing transition to DDR4 as there is only a 10-15 % increase in price as of now. 

 

As to the original post. I am in the same situation. Buy skylake? Wait for Zen? Get 5820k? Its all a horrible decision lol. But to be honest the 5820k will only be useful to you if you are going to be doing multi threaded tasks (photoshop, video editing). Skylake as per the reviews and benchmark numbers I have seen can get up to a 4.8 OC..easily. So with the about 10% increase in performance we have actually seen w/ the CPU to go along with a what seems to be very solid OC headroom -- NOT to mention the improved storage transer rates w/ M.2 and more lanes for I/O Skylake makes a strong argument to buy. 

 

In regards to Zen. Well we know nothing about it, it comes in a year, and until it is actually launched we can't realistically discuss what it will be capable of. I hope more than anything that it is kick *** but we will have to wait and see. 

[FinestRyeBread]

IF your going to upgrade form that you might as well go Skylake

skylake = new cpu, new mobo, new ram. DDR3 is still fine

[PillowSmoke]

I went from a 8320 to a 4790k, I wouldn't sweat waiting. I'd pull the trigger now and get the 4790k.

 

Edit: Or as a third option wait till skylake is available to buy. It's not that long.

[shocktroopky]

If Skylake is reasonable and my system can hold out that long, I will get Skylake. But my system died for a couple of hours last night and it took awhile to get it back up and I am still unsure what happened. It crashed in the middle of gaming. But I removed everything from board including power connectors, reset bios with jumper, plugged in only necessary components, i.e. CPU, 1 stick of RAM and SSD and couldn't get it to boot with trying each individual stick of RAM. I finally just walked away for awhile then came back and plugged everything in again and booted up. I had noticed in certain games that my computer would shut down sometimes. So, I am worried that my board or CPU are dying.

 

Edit: After some heavy thought into my choices, I am going to go with the 4790k as I can keep my current RAM and the ASRock Fatal1ty series mobo is less than half the price for Z97 as compared to X99 or the Z170 versions, plus greater than $50 difference between price of CPUs. I could use that to upgrade my video card which is likely to be my bottleneck with any of the CPUs

[Nena Trinity]

If Skylake is reasonable and my system can hold out that long, I will get Skylake. But my system died for a couple of hours last night and it took awhile to get it back up and I am still unsure what happened. It crashed in the middle of gaming. But I removed everything from board including power connectors, reset bios with jumper, plugged in only necessary components, i.e. CPU, 1 stick of RAM and SSD and couldn't get it to boot with trying each individual stick of RAM. I finally just walked away for awhile then came back and plugged everything in again and booted up. I had noticed in certain games that my computer would shut down sometimes. So, I am worried that my board or CPU are dying.

 

Edit: After some heavy thought into my choices, I am going to go with the 4790k as I can keep my current RAM and the ASRock Fatal1ty series mobo is less than half the price for Z97 as compared to X99 or the Z170 versions, plus greater than $50 difference between price of CPUs. I could use that to upgrade my video card which is likely to be my bottleneck with any of the CPUs

Your CPU is great unless some game gives you issues then you could swap to 6th gen Intel. (if no issues wait for 7th or Zen)

[Dubesta11]

4790K, I doubt AMD will catch up with intel with "zen"

 

Hell, they might, but its too late for AMD.ccccc