Another Sandybridge vs Skylake...

[Jelly L0ver]

Yesterday, I was heading to my local Micro-center to pick myself up a new 6700k for my skylake build but they had just sold the last one less than an hour after I arrived. But then I blatantly asked myself why am I even upgrading? I run an i7-3820 CPU with an EVGA gtx 970 ssc, and it has never occured to me to second guess myself as to why I'm even upgrading to a build I've been planning for over a month. A 6700k seems almost equivalent to my far older and inferior 3820, the 6700k just being slightly faster. I understand this question has been asked a million times already, but is it truly worth the upgrade from Sandybridge-E to Skylake?

[Indus Monk]

Nope

[kwljunky]

Yesterday, I was heading to my local Micro-center to pick myself up a new 6700k for my skylake build but they had just sold the last one less than an hour after I arrived. But then I blatantly asked myself why am I even upgrading? I run an i7-3820 CPU with an EVGA gtx 970 ssc, and it has never occured to me to second guess myself as to why I'm even upgrading to a build I've been planning for over a month. A 6700k seems almost equivalent to my far older and inferior 3820, the 6700k just being slightly faster. I understand this question has been asked a million times already, but is it truly worth the upgrade from Sandybridge-E to Skylake?

About to do my upgrade: 

 

Replacing my wced gtx 590 with a wced EVGA 980ti classified. Sticking with the 2600k as its OC'd to 4.5ghz switching cases from the thermaltake level 10, to either a entho luxe or primo. . 

 

Seen a few vids and forum posts with sli 980's with 2600k and they seem to be fine, so going to hold of

[Jelly L0ver]

About to do my upgrade: 

 

Replacing my wced gtx 590 with a wced EVGA 980ti classified. Sticking with the 2600k as its OC'd to 4.5ghz switching cases from the thermaltake level 10, to either a entho luxe or primo. . 

 

Seen a few vids and forum posts with sli 980's with 2600k and they seem to be fine, so going to hold of

Do you think if I got dual 980ti's in SLI my cpu would bottleneck them?

[kwljunky]

Do you think if I got dual 980ti's in SLI my cpu would bottleneck them?

I doubt it! Any you can always overclock further! I would argue that you only need one 980ti, rather than two! Although I'm assuming your on 1080p? 

 

Save the money, use towards graphics card and potentially a g sync monitor? although that's..another expense..

[dyzio2206]

These type of questions remind me of the G27 buying ones... the answer always was " if you have g25 don't bother buying a G27, if you don't have a good wheel buy a G27"

if your pc does the stuff you want don't upgrade... keep the money and wait for price drop and new models to arrive...

[Deli]

It isn't about "need". So many things in life is about "want". The more relevant question is "Do you want it?"

[tomas710]

 

Well, i guess it depends on what you expect from this upgrade. Any features of the z170 chipset you like? Getting into overclocking maybe? If your chip is holding on respectfully, maybe wait for cannonlake, the difference won't be earthshattering, but between your current chip and a 6700k that's not the case anyway. No one can answer if the upgrade is worth it, because it's irrelevant, the question is, is it worth it for you? If so, go for it, if you're unsure or have no particular interest in what skylake and the z170 chipset has to offer besides performance, probably not. But again, maybe you want an M.2 SSD, or thunderbolt, or overclocking, so there are valid reasons for the upgrades, the real question is, are those reasons relevant for you...

[Imakuni]

Yesterday, I was heading to my local Micro-center to pick myself up a new 6700k for my skylake build but they had just sold the last one less than an hour after I arrived. But then I blatantly asked myself why am I even upgrading? I run an i7-3820 CPU with an EVGA gtx 970 ssc, and it has never occured to me to second guess myself as to why I'm even upgrading to a build I've been planning for over a month. A 6700k seems almost equivalent to my far older and inferior 3820, the 6700k just being slightly faster. I understand this question has been asked a million times already, but is it truly worth the upgrade from Sandybridge-E to Skylake?

Here's the thing: do you need / take advantage on upgrading? For gaming, no. For some other stuff (say, that silver medal below my location), yes, 35% boost from Haswell-Skylake, even more when you consider a Sandy Bridge.

 

But then, let me ask once more: do you NEED to upgrade? Is there something your PC can't do (or can't do well) that Skylake can? If you find a reason for it, upgrade.

 

Alternatively, if you'd have a need for a 2nd super strong, you could also upgrade to Skylake and then re-build your old PC, maybe with cheaper case / GPU / storage at a later point. You could do that along the Skylake purchase, or maybe later down the road, when you have some spare cash.

 

Or perhaps sell it for a lower price to a friend that wants a new rig, with the difference in price being a birthdat / christmas gift.

 

 

Those are some other niche uses, but they would be reasons for getting Skylake, if you happen to be in one of those situations.

[Nishizumi]

I personally would just stick with your current chip as it seems like it's doing what you need it to do. I only upgrade my CPUs when it really can't keep up anymore.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Yesterday, I was heading to my local Micro-center to pick myself up a new 6700k for my skylake build but they had just sold the last one less than an hour after I arrived. But then I blatantly asked myself why am I even upgrading? I run an i7-3820 CPU with an EVGA gtx 970 ssc, and it has never occured to me to second guess myself as to why I'm even upgrading to a build I've been planning for over a month. A 6700k seems almost equivalent to my far older and inferior 3820, the 6700k just being slightly faster. I understand this question has been asked a million times already, but is it truly worth the upgrade from Sandybridge-E to Skylake?

no, i7-3820 to i7-6700K is not a worthy upgrade, if you're a gamer then your current CPU is plenty fast enough for just about any games out there and if this is more a workstation machine then you want to upgrade to the 5820K...not the 6700K.

[Duganator9]

If you really have the upgrade itch, pickup a cheap 3930k.

[arnavvr]

no, i7-3820 to i7-6700K is not a worthy upgrade, if you're a gamer then your current CPU is plenty fast enough for just about any games out there and if this is more a workstation machine then you want to upgrade to the 5820K...not the 6700K.

 

Without any motherboard upgrade, he could go 3930K, which would be ~15% slower than a 5820K

[Duganator9]

Without any motherboard upgrade, he could go 3930K, which would be ~15% slower than a 5820K

I'd imagine with the proper cooling he could oc the 3930k far enough to match the 5820k in most cases.

[arnavvr]

I'd imagine with the proper cooling he could oc the 3930k far enough to match the 5820k in most cases.

 

Sandy Bridge will also clock higher than Haswell.

[Duganator9]

Sandy Bridge will also clock higher than Haswell.

That's what I was getting at, I just phrased it really poorly lol.