Wanted: Workstation CPU (alive)

[Luceamar]

I know there was a i7 5820k vs 6800k conversation for a build with similar applications but I still felt the need to make a new thred - please forgive me.

So I'm about to put my first PC together and have done quite a time of research but just can't decide which CPU would be best suited. The strongest contenders at the moment are the 5820K and the 6800K. I was also thinking about the 6850k, but that's getting a bit expensive and the 6700k but I think a 6-core would in the end be better for me...
I'll mainly use the build for photo and video editing but also gaming. (Panorama images, focus stacking, 4k time-lapse videos etc)

Now most have said the 6800k is not worth it over the 5820k - I see the price increase is pretty big compared to the spec increase, but both would fit my budget well so there's no problem. But there's also been the statement that the 5820k overclocks better and if that's the case, would it actually be *better* than the 6800k even if price is left out of the equation?
Could someone please provide some solid arguments based on which I can make my decision or do I simply have to toss a coin?

 

[Djole123]

Pros of the 5820K:

-Cheaper

-No need for a BIOS Update

-Very good overclocker

-Better price/performance ratio

 

Pros of the 6800K:

-14nm architecture

-Good overclocker

-More performance

[Electronics Wizardy]

No reason to go 6850/5930k. You don't need the extra lanes and you can oc for the clock speed.

 

Id get a 6800k, but if the 5820k is cheap go for it, they perform about the same.

[pyrojoe34]

I use the 6800k and I'm happy with it for Premiere, AE, R/Machine Learning, and gaming. I have it at a mild 4.0Ghz OC. If you want to overclock you could easily get a 5820k to 4.5Ghz and outperform a 6800k. The 6800k produces less heat and has improved IPC. You can't go wrong either way. Depending on the price difference just choose the one that makes the most financial sense. I'd say if the diff is $50 go with the newer 6800k if the diff is like $100+ then go with the 5820k.

 

6850k doesn't make any sense unless you want to do SLI and PCIe SSD and more. Otherwise the only difference(after OCing) is it has more PCIe lanes.

[GDRRiley]

the 5820k is an older 6 core and the 6800k is newer.  http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6800K/2579vs3607 the multi core performance is for some reason messed up

[SnowyMus]

Outside of a 100 MHz bump, there really isn't much to love about the i7-6800K over a i7-5820K. Any IPC improvement is really really negligible - practically nonexistent in most benchmarks.

 

If you need more than 28 PCIe lanes on the CPU or 6 cores, then that's when you start spending more money.

[pyrojoe34]

2 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

Pros of the 5820K:

-Cheaper

-No need for a BIOS Update

-Good overclocker

-Better price/performance ratio

 

Pros of the 6800K:

-14nm architecture

-Even better overcloker

-More performance

I think you have the OC backwards. Generally the 6800k does not OC as well as a 5820k, it just runs more efficiently with better IPC.

[Djole123]

2 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

I think you have the OC backwards. Generally the 6800k does not OC as well as a 5820k, it just runs more efficiently with better IPC.

Edited, thanks

[Luceamar]

5 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

I use the 6800k and I'm happy with it for Premiere, AE, R/Machine Learning, and gaming. I have it at a mild 4.0Ghz OC. If you want to overclock you could easily get a 5820k to 4.5Ghz and outperform a 6800k. The 6800k produces less heat and has improved IPC. You can't go wrong either way. Depending on the price difference just choose the one that makes the most financial sense. I'd say if the diff is $50 go with the newer 6800k if the diff is like $100+ then go with the 5820k.

 

6850k doesn't make any sense unless you want to do SLI and PCIe SSD and more. Otherwise the only difference(after OCing) is it has more PCIe lanes.

Currently it looks like I'll be setting up at least 2-way SLI does that affect my CPU choice also?

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, Luceamar said:

Currently it looks like I'll be setting up at least 2-way SLI does that affect my CPU choice also?

not really, both can handle that

[pyrojoe34]

Just now, Luceamar said:

Currently it looks like I'll be setting up at least 2-way SLI does that affect my CPU choice also?

No, since you have 28 lanes. Each GPU will need at least 8 (between 8 and 16 lanes makes no noticeable performance difference) which means you will have one GPU at 16x and one GPU at 8x. That leaves you 4x lanes for an m.2 or PCIe SSD. You can also run both GPUs at 8x and have 12x lanes left over for other things (like SSDs, NICs, etc). If you have 3 or more GPUs, or 2 GPUs and more than 3 other PCIe4x cards, you would want a 40-lane CPU like the 6850k or 5930k.

 

If you really want to have both cards running at 16x then you would need a 40-lane CPU. There may be some very specific applications that would benefit using 16x over 8x but not gaming and almost definitely not video/photo work. The only things I could see needing 16x per GPU would be CUDA deep learning applications that dynamically split heavy loads between the GPUs and CPUs and need the full bandwidth to communicate. Most CUDA applications just run the segements entirely on the GPU then report back the results which doesn't require a lot of bandwidth.

[Luceamar]

18 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

No, since you have 28 lanes. Each GPU will need at least 8 (between 8 and 16 lanes makes no noticeable performance difference) which means you will have one GPU at 16x and one GPU at 8x. That leaves you 4x lanes for an m.2 or PCIe SSD. You can also run both GPUs at 8x and have 12x lanes left over for other things (like SSDs, NICs, etc). If you have 3 or more GPUs, or 2 GPUs and more than 3 other PCIe4x cards, you would want a 40-lane CPU like the 6850k or 5930k.

 

If you really want to have both cards running at 16x then you would need a 40-lane CPU. There may be some very specific applications that would benefit using 16x over 8x but not gaming and almost definitely not video/photo work. The only things I could see needing 16x per GPU would be CUDA deep learning applications that dynamically split heavy loads between the GPUs and CPUs and need the full bandwidth to communicate. Most CUDA applications just run the segements entirely on the GPU then report back the results which doesn't require a lot of bandwidth.

Uh oh... I love it when I think I've wrapped my head around everything important but then something new pops up - didn't realise the CPU also needs to have enough lanes to connect with the rest - hoped it would be enough if the stuff would connect / have enough space on the Mobo.
But well - at the moments it's looking like I won't be getting more than 2 GPU's so BUT because 1) Photography and 2) RAID configs I'll be running quite a bunch of drives (both hard and solid) (those I understand will affect the # lines needed in the end) and I'd also want to have an optical drive and an memory card reader and such things (not sure if those will affect the need for lines...)
Looking at that, would you say I'd still be fine with a 28 lane chip or will I'll be looking at a 40 lane one?

[pyrojoe34]

1 hour ago, Luceamar said:

Uh oh... I love it when I think I've wrapped my head around everything important but then something new pops up - didn't realise the CPU also needs to have enough lanes to connect with the rest - hoped it would be enough if the stuff would connect / have enough space on the Mobo.
But well - at the moments it's looking like I won't be getting more than 2 GPU's so BUT because 1) Photography and 2) RAID configs I'll be running quite a bunch of drives (both hard and solid) (those I understand will affect the # lines needed in the end) and I'd also want to have an optical drive and an memory card reader and such things (not sure if those will affect the need for lines...)
Looking at that, would you say I'd still be fine with a 28 lane chip or will I'll be looking at a 40 lane one?

You only need lanes for PCIe drives (or a raid controller if you use that rather than your motherboard sata ports for raid). Regular SATA drives don't need CPU lanes, they use the chipset on the mobo.

[Luceamar]

2 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

You only need lanes for PCIe drives (or a raid controller if you use that rather than your motherboard sata ports for raid). Regular SATA drives don't need CPU lanes, they use the chipset on the mobo.

So I first have to figure out if I'll be using PCIe or SATA/others before I can tell whether I need those 40 lanes basically?

[pyrojoe34]

22 minutes ago, Luceamar said:

So I first have to figure out if I'll be using PCIe or SATA/others before I can tell whether I need those 40 lanes basically?

Yes, PCIe drives are still very expensive though so I suspect you'll use SATA. PCIe is only for SSDs too, any HDDs will be SATA since the 6Gbps of SATAIII is way faster than any HDD can do anyway.

[Luceamar]

12 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

Yes, PCIe drives are still very expensive though so I suspect you'll use SATA. PCIe is only for SSDs too, any HDDs will be SATA since the 6Gbps of SATAIII is way faster than any HDD can do anyway.

Thanks! Was looking at PCIe and M.2 SSD's, don't seem too expensive but I guess SATA will be fast enough because I don't even really mind the speed of my current HDD and if I then can just stick with the 6800k/5820k without worrying about the lanes too much it should be more than fine