Z170 vs X99

[Raijin]

Which board is better atm for gaming?

Knowing that Broadwell-E came out and also knowing that Nvidia isn't supporting more than 2 video cards in SLI

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Z170 would be your best choice for gaming.

 

If you do some content creation (like me), then X99 would be your weapon of choice.

[Mr.Meerkat]

z170 as Skylake has better IPC compared to Haswell-e and Broadwell-e (but the gap is closed slightly with Broadwell-e )

[pithball]

Z170. games only really use 4 cores.

[Raijin]

About PCIe lanes on the Z170, there are 20 lanes right?

So does the gtx1080 lose any performance if it uses 8x instead of 16x?

Also another question does M.2 use any PCIe lanes?

[done12many2]

5 minutes ago, Raijin said:

About PCIe lanes on the Z170, there are 20 lanes right?

So does the gtx1080 lose any performance if it uses x8 instead of x16?

Also another question does M.2 use any PCIe lanes?

The GTX 1080 will use CPU lanes from the processor and the M.2 will use chipset lanes if installed in a M.2 slot.  If the M.2 is installed on a PCIe card in a PCIe slot, it depends on if that slot's lane allocations come from the chipset or CPU.

[done12many2]

8 minutes ago, Raijin said:

About PCIe lanes on the Z170, there are 20 lanes right?

So does the gtx1080 lose any performance if it uses 8x instead of 16x?

Also another question does M.2 use any PCIe lanes?

 

Forgot your first question.  Yes, 20 lanes on the z170 chipset itself and another 16 lanes from the CPU.

[Raijin]

3 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

Forgot your first question.  Yes, 20 lanes on the z170 chipset itself and another 16 lanes from the CPU.

 

20 lanes from the chipset alone or 4 from the chipset which makes a total of 20 PCIe lanes including the cpu?

[done12many2]

2 minutes ago, Raijin said:

20 lanes from the chipset alone or 4 from the chipset which makes a total of 20 PCIe lanes including the cpu?

A maximum of 20 lanes from the chipset itself and an additional 16 from the CPU.  Hope that clarifies it.  

[Raijin]

4 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

A maximum of 20 lanes from the chipset itself and an additional 16 from the CPU.  Hope that clarifies it.  

So 20 from mobo + 16 from Cpu

[done12many2]

1 minute ago, Raijin said:

So 20 from mobo + 16 from Cpu

Yes.

 

Boy, we broke that one down, didn't we? 

[Raijin]

5 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

Boy, we broke that one down, didn't we? 

 

hahaha yes

 

Okay, What do you recommend, If I wanna build a high-end gaming rig (I might do some editing later) that will last me like 4-5 years what should I go for X99 or Z170?(question for all ) 

[jeonjaeng]

2 minutes ago, Raijin said:

hahaha yes

 

Okay, What do you recommend, If I wanna build a high-end gaming rig (I might do some editing later) that will last me like 4-5 years what should I go for X99 or Z170?(question for all ) 

TBH you can do your best to future proof but as we have learned that isnt really a thing. Z170 will give you want you want in games but unless the game devs decide to start using more cores, there will be no preformance gain(unless you decide to do editing but still not all softwares utilize the cores.)

[done12many2]

1 minute ago, Raijin said:

hahaha yes 0

 

Okay, What do you recommend, If I wanna build a high-end gaming rig (I might do some editing later) that will last me like 4-5 years what should I go for X99 or Z170?(question for all ) 

 

Either will be fine.  I'm heavily biased towards x99.  

 

The 6700k is a beast in single threaded performance, which is what you'll use for 90% of a normal day.  

 

If you are going to being doing "some" rendering/encoding, save some money and go z170.  You'll enjoy a snappier feeling system at a minimal cost.  Don't get me wrong, you can make x99 just as snappy, but you're going to put some time and money into doing so.

 

If you are going to be doing quite a bit of productivity work with your system, definitely go x99.  The extra lanes from a 40 lane Haswell-E or Broadwell-E chip might extend the usable life of your system as well.  No real way of knowing what you'll need in two more years.

[Raijin]

If I have 4000-5000$ for a Pc how should i spend them?

[Marinatall_Ironside]

4 hours ago, Raijin said:

If I have 4000-5000$ for a Pc how should i spend them?

From a pure gaming perspective, go Z170 with the i7-6700K, SLI 1080s, 16GB of RAM, and pair all that on the Maximus VIII Extreme. Also, do 4TB of RAID 1 HDD storage with a Samsung 950 PRO 512GB boot drive just because . Lastly, get a big-ass case and complement that with badass, over-the-top dual loop watercooling, all powered by a 1 kilowatt power supply. That's how I would personally spend $5,000 on the tower alone for a gaming rig.

[i_build_nanosuits]

6700K is the best gaming CPU available right now.

[Umang Goel]

So how many PCIe lanes do we get in total in X99 motherboard ? The Broadwell-E motherboards support 40 PCIe lanes.

[Lurick]

56 minutes ago, Umang Goel said:

So how many PCIe lanes do we get in total in X99 motherboard ? The Broadwell-E motherboards support 40 PCIe lanes.

Most, if not all, x99 boards have support for 40 PCIe lanes, it's the processor that will depend on if you get to take advantage of all 40 lanes or just get limited to 28 in which case some PCIe slots will be disabled.

[typographie]

1 hour ago, Umang Goel said:

So how many PCIe lanes do we get in total in X99 motherboard ? The Broadwell-E motherboards support 40 PCIe lanes.

PCIe support comes from the CPU and the chipset, and in this case you're specifically talking about the CPU's lanes. The i7-5820K and i7-6800K offer 28 PCIe 3.0 lanes, whereas all of the more expensive CPUs support 40 lanes.

 

The X99 chipset offers a further 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

[khaosryder]

Here are some graphics from techreport.com to help understand how lanes are used as an example.

 

Z170 (Configuration from a Asus Z170-A, slot layout and devices attached to chipset depends on motherboard)

 

X99 with 40 lane CPU (Configuration from a Gigabyte X99 Gaming, slot layout and devices attached to chipset depends on motherboard)

 

Keep in mind that for Z170, the chipset itself is connected to the CPU with a link speed equivalent to 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and X99 with a link equivalent to 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0, so that limits the total throughput of all devices connected to the chipset if used at the same time.

 

If you use a X99 motherboard with a 28 lane CPU, you cut down on the available lanes to the darker blue slots in the diagram above, everything else stays the same.