6850k or 6900k for extreme gaming build

[WittyRacoon554]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/XqwNnn

 

here's the build.  I know they're both beastly CPUs, and my question is will the performance increase of the 6900k be worth an extra ~$400 for gaming?  Just keep in mind, this is a build that's for future proofing, not compulsive upgrading.  

 

Thanks!!

[Bananasplit_00]

no, just get the cheaper one

[GlassBomb]

I would honestly get neither. I would just get the 6700k. Which will still be able to do whatever you want to toss at it.

 

The 6850k is almost $400 more than the 6700k. Which is a big chunk of money that can be spent on other parts of the system.

[AresKrieger]

6800k if you really need the extra cores (and for gaming you won't so a 4 core is best imo), don't overpay for anything higher

[pyrojoe34]

13 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

6800k if you really need the extra cores (and for gaming you won't so a 4 core is best imo), don't overpay for anything higher

Except it only has 28 pcie lanes. The 6850 has 40. Since he's definitely doing SLI, wants to get a wifi card, and will (probably?) upgrade to a PCIe SSD when they drop in price, it's not a bad idea to get the 6850. Sure SLI will work fine in x16 + x8 but once you start adding SSDs and other future PCIe add-ons, if he has the money to spare he may as well go for 40 lanes. Also, if he plans to OC the 6850 will probably give him a better bin and allow for more OC headroom. This is coming from someone who got the 6800k.

[pyrojoe34]

23 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/XqwNnn

 

here's the build.  I know they're both beastly CPUs, and my question is will the performance increase of the 6900k be worth an extra ~$400 for gaming?  Just keep in mind, this is a build that's for future proofing, not compulsive upgrading.  

 

Thanks!!

OP, have you considered the ASUS Strix mobo instead? it has wifi built in so you wouldn't have to buy an adapter. It'll end up being cheaper than way and not use up a pci slot

[AresKrieger]

7 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

Except it only has 28 pcie lanes. The 6850 has 40. Since he's definitely doing SLI, wants to get a wifi card, and will (probably?) upgrade to a PCIe SSD when they drop in price, it's not a bad idea to get the 6850. Sure SLI will work fine in x16 + x8 but once you start adding SSDs and other future PCIe add-ons, if he has the money to spare he may as well go for 40 lanes. Also, if he plans to OC the 6850 will probably give him a better bin and allow for more OC headroom. This is coming from someone who got the 6800k.

Well how many slots does the wifi take, based on your comment I assume 8 (I was originally assuming 4), so if that is his specific use case then 6850k, the two extra cores on the 6900k are not worth the extra 400 bucks

[pyrojoe34]

5 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

Well how many slots does the wifi take, based on your comment I assume 8 (I was originally assuming 4), so if that is his specific use case then 6850k, the two extra cores on the 6900k are not worth the extra 400 bucks

No more than 1-4 for the wifi (the card he chose is 1x) but that's beside the point. If he does SLI GPUs (one at 16x and one at 8x, since he cant do both at 16x no matter what with the 6800k), and wifi then that's already 25/28 lanes. If he wants to add an M.2 or PCIe SSD later, that takes 4x which means he drops the 16x card to 8x. He sounds he's saying the price is not really an object so I'd tell him to do the 6850k, but definitely not the 6900k for gaming. I just meant that your recommendation of the 6800k may not be the best choice for him if he can afford the extra $200 for the 6850k.

[GlassBomb]

@WittyRacoon554

It would be nice with a bit more input from you.

[WittyRacoon554]

42 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

No more than 1-4 for the wifi (the card he chose is 1x) but that's beside the point. If he does SLI GPUs (one at 16x and one at 8x, since he cant do both at 16x no matter what with the 6800k), and wifi then that's already 25/28 lanes. If he wants to add an M.2 or PCIe SSD later, that takes 4x which means he drops the 16x card to 8x. He sounds he's saying the price is not really an object so I'd tell him to do the 6850k, but definitely not the 6900k for gaming. I just meant that your recommendation of the 6800k may not be the best choice for him if he can afford the extra $200 for the 6850k.

Ok cool.  Glassbomb said the 6700k.  Now I'm going between the 6700k and the 6850k.  I appreciate the answers!

[WittyRacoon554]

2 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

Ok cool.  Glassbomb said the 6700k.  Not I'm going between the 6700k and the 6850k.  I appreciate the answers!

 

[WittyRacoon554]

58 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

OP, have you considered the ASUS Strix mobo instead? it has wifi built in so you wouldn't have to buy an adapter. It'll end up being cheaper than way and not use up a pci slot

thank you I didn't realize that!

[jwakeford]

8 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

Ok cool.  Glassbomb said the 6700k.  Now I'm going between the 6700k and the 6850k.  I appreciate the answers!

Future proofing is one of the common mistakes when building a PC. 
There is no such thing and in the long run it is much more interesting to upgrade more often with mid range components. 
For example, here, going with the 6700K and in a year and a half getting a new 400$ CPU,
you will be better off than spending 800 now. 

[jwakeford]

2 minutes ago, jwakeford said:

Future proofing is one of the common mistakes when building a PC. 
There is no such thing and in the long run it is much more interesting to upgrade more often with "mid range" components. 
For example, here, going with the 6700K and in a year and a half getting a new 400$ CPU,
you will be better off than spending 800 now. 

 

[pyrojoe34]

6 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

Ok cool.  Glassbomb said the 6700k.  Now I'm going between the 6700k and the 6850k.  I appreciate the answers!

Yea, if it's really only for gaming (not video editing, 3D modeling, streaming, or computational work), the 6700k is what you want and will save you some money. Since DX12 and games that use more than 4 cores efficiently are still few and far between, there is usually little to no gain from more cores and the 6700k has better single core performance.

You can make the argument that the Broadwell-e chips will age better (assuming the industry moved towards favoring more cores over faster cores) but that's debatable and the industry change will likely take longer than your upgrade timeline (unless you keep a CPU for 4-7 years like me). Having said that the Broadwell-e chips have fast enough single core speeds that you will probably not see a real world gaming difference between them and a 6700k anyway. The limiting factor is almost always the GPU, not the CPU.

[WittyRacoon554]

5 minutes ago, jwakeford said:

Future proofing is one of the common mistakes when building a PC. 
There is no such thing and in the long run it is much more interesting to upgrade more often with mid range components. 
For example, here, going with the 6700K and in a year and a half getting a new 400$ CPU,
you will be better off than spending 800 now. 

Okay.  Upgrading might not be an option for me regardless of how expensive my PC is.  That's good to know though , I'm a big PC noob, but I'm sure you can already tell!

[SteveGrabowski0]

The 6700k is a better gaming cpu than the 5960x, and probably better than the 6900k too thanks to the ipc improvements in Skylake. If you're going to spend big money on your system get EVGA Classified GTX 1080s in SLI. Also get a Kraken x61 or H110 GTX liquid cooler, H100i isn't as good as either. I wouldn't even bother putting custom thermal paste on vs what will be preapplied to the cooler you buy.

[WittyRacoon554]

5 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

The 6700k is a better gaming cpu than the 5960x, and probably better than the 6900k too thanks to the ipc improvements in Skylake. If you're going to spend big money on your system get EVGA Classified GTX 1080s in SLI. Also get a Kraken x61 or H110 GTX liquid cooler, H100i isn't as good as either. I wouldn't even bother putting custom thermal paste on vs what will be preapplied to the cooler you buy.

Thanks for letting me know!  The 1080s I have there right now are just placeholders for now, I'll be going with the Zotac amp extreme.  

[jwakeford]

11 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

Okay.  Upgrading might not be an option for me regardless of how expensive my PC is.  That's good to know though , I'm a big PC noob, but I'm sure you can already tell!

well if money is no object and that you really want that "future proofing" I would say that the 6850k offers the better of both worlds, having decent IPC speed while having a better core count than the 6700K. 
You can check this link to give you an idea of how the new broadwell-E fares in overclocking. 
https://siliconlottery.com  ( the first prices are performances achieved by the majority of chips, the higher you go the rarer the oc spec. ) 
The 6850k to get back to my point performs well in current gen games with good single threaded performance but still offers that future orientation with the extra 2 cores that DX12 promises to use in games for better performances. 
Not to mention the extra PCI-E lanes for expandability on your build 

[SteveGrabowski0]

8 minutes ago, WittyRacoon554 said:

Thanks for letting me know!  The 1080s I have there right now are just placeholders for now, I'll be going with the Zotac amp extreme.  

I have to say with a big caveat: that this 6700k vs 5960x test I'm basing this advice on was done before the 1080 came out.

 

 

I doubt the new SLI bridges will change anything about x8x8 SLI (like you'd get with the 6700k) being as good as x16x16 SLI (like you'd get with the 6850k), but until someone tests it we won't know for sure.

[WittyRacoon554]

12 minutes ago, jwakeford said:

well if money is no object and that you really want that "future proofing" I would say that the 6850k offers the better of both worlds, having decent IPC speed while having a better core count than the 6700K. 
You can check this link to give you an idea of how the new broadwell-E fares in overclocking. 
https://siliconlottery.com  ( the first prices are performances achieved by the majority of chips, the higher you go the rarer the oc spec. ) 
The 6850k to get back to my point performs well in current gen games with good single threaded performance but still offers that future orientation with the extra 2 cores that DX12 promises to use in games for better performances. 
Not to mention the extra PCI-E lanes for expandability on your build 

Thanks!!  If I do go with a 6700k, I might have some upgrade room, but chances are I won't and the 6850k will probably be the one I go with.  A big thank you though!

[SteveGrabowski0]

I can't remember the bench I saw that showed SLI scaled the same on x8x8 as it does x16x16 in the 900 series though.

[WittyRacoon554]

1 minute ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I can't remember the bench I saw that showed SLI scaled the same on x8x8 as it does x16x16 in the 900 series though.

I think you're right.  The HB SLI bridges probably won't change it.

[jwakeford]

2 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I can't remember the bench I saw that showed SLI scaled the same on x8x8 as it does x16x16 in the 900 series though.

LTT did a vid on that a while back and found what you were saying to be true. 
X8X8 vs X16X16 is really marginal and there is still no GPU to push X8 to the limit. 
Maybe next year with 1080 Ti / Titan