Skylake time! (?)

Trying to run Star Citizen has got my old i5-2500 maxed out and stuttering. I'm not entire sure the mobo isn't to blame but if I'm going to upgrade I'm thinking it's time to jump on up to the Z170 chipset and i5 Skylake. I have seen that the processor itself hasn't been giving big gains on gaming benchmarks but the Z170 chipset is ready to support DDR4 ram and that should be a big help down the line.

I could get a cpu/mobo combo with the i5-4690k Devil's Canyon and Z97 chipset for $300-$350 but I'm afraid I'll just be doing it over again in another year or two. The jump up to a Z170 mobo and i5-6600 is only about $50 more. It's not an unlocked CPU but then again I haven't seen a need to overclock a CPU yet and it's still a 3.3ghz base. The K series are $350 on Amazon. Newegg is cheaper but out of stock.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Anybody else looking at doing this as well?

 

Yea I just went through this, ended up picking the 4690k over black friday at $180 and a good deal on a mobo, the price differential was enough to make it worth it. If it hadn't been on sale I probably would have gone 6600. Keep in mind the 'K' versions are for overclocking, the non 'k' versions cannot, so your comparison point is 4690k vs 6600k, which is a bigger jump than just a regular 6600.

That said, I would probably got skylake for the long term, I just got a really good deal on a solid build.

I don't expect myself to upgrade the CPU for probably 3 ish years, next up is my GPU.

 

Yeah I wish I'd discovered this before Black Friday.

I'm debating on whether the K series is worth it. I've never overclocked a CPU in the past and don't see myself doing it in the future. It would be nice to have the ability but the $100-$150 price increase really doesn't seem worth it to me personally.

 

Overclocking isn't really hard, just takes a few hours to do it and then you need to run your computer on some stress tests for a while to make sure its stable, but the general approach isn't difficult. Also some mobo's come with 'auto' overclocking software that you may or may not want to use, some people don't have a high opinion of them but they do work.

 

oh, www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales is a good place to keep an eye out for sales.

 

Also the marginal gains are offset by the fact that a lot of people have burnt up CPU's. It happens all the time especially when people start trying it out. I've seen so many people first boast about getting that tiny improvement and then they sulk the next two months without a functional computer.

To me that 5% on some stat isn't worth the risk. Max out on the specs per buck but it's not a bad philosophy to try to aim for maximum reliability. Components may live longer and all and your stuff doesn't break down just when you're low on cash.

Either way is good, just different approaches, totally maxed vs. maxed within reliability limits.

 

Note that I'm not saying I couldn't do it or that someone couldn't do it.

I do however think that people that need to ask shouldn't do it.

Also like to include a bunch of warnings before starting to give hints as to how to proceed, such that if they do stuff wrong it will cause damage.

You know, sort of like "are you absolutely sure, you know, maybe you shouldn't... but, you can grab the magnetodriver and inverter and then..."

 

I've got a good water-cooled setup already. I'm just thinking 3.4GHz is probably enough for the system I've got. I'm not trying to get stable 60FPS in 4k or anything like that and I'm not using super-CPU intensive programs outside of gaming.

 

No, I mean I probably lied about having witnessed a lot of people end up having burnt their CPU over the years.

Of course people have overclocked things a heck of a lot.

At the same time it's not for everyone. I'm not able to express my view where I merely try to say that if you want ease and reliability, the machines are readily made pretty reliable for you. From not having any prior experience or knowledge of overclocking to getting parts that allow one to do it and learning what's needed is not as easy as just buying whatever and not learning or doing any research.

Some of these people I've known to have burnt CPU's were a little more tech savvy than folks who keep hitting "refresh" on desktop to boost the computer. They just skipped a couple of safeties at some point and didn't pay enough attention to signs that were telling they were running too hot.

Frankly some people don't have the patience.

All I'm saying is that things really can burn up that way when you start manually overriding factory settings. At least now everyone's been warned and anyone who wants to give it a go can go about overclocking their machines.

 

Well now, this makes for an interesting twist.

http://www.pcgamer.com/asrock-bios-update-unlocks-non-k-skylake-overclocking/

http://www.asrock.com/news/events/SkyOC/

 

And now Newegg has the i5-6600K back in stock for $269. The non-K version is $229.

I'm thinking $40 is worth it just in case I decide to try pushing things.

 

Bit the bullet. Went with the ASRock Pro Gaming i7 for the BIOS overclocking and got an i5-6500 since it was under $200 from Amazon. It's rated 3.2GHz but with the Sky OC from ASRock I can bump that up a bit.

 

Got my new CPU, mobo and RAM in yesterday. Everything installed nice and pretty, took some time cleaning and rerouting cables and such to make it look (sorta) pretty. All's going smooth. Hook it all back up, boot up, check out the UEFI (nice job, ASRock!), restart to boot Windows........

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DRIVE

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Did some intertubes research, reinstalled my old mobo setup (I'd left it all together to transplant into another, even older computer), BOOM - Windows boots like normal.

More intertubes research.

Guess who got to wipe and reinstall Windows? This guy. Made sure everything I needed to save was on my storage drive, got a list of programs to reinstall, saved my Firefox bookmarks. Swapped the new parts BACK into the chassis. Boot up.......

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DRIVE
Advanced Options-->Restart Windows-->Save Files And Personal Info, Remove Apps-->Confirm

And that's where I left this morning to come to work. At least I know there's not an actual hardware problem, just Windows being fucky and not recognizing the new BIOS.

 

So, usually for a CPU and MOBO swap you do need to reinstall windows, but AFTER you put the new parts in.

 

Yeah this is the first time I've upgraded instead of building a whole new system. Good chance to learn things.

 

Well, when you swap out the mobo and CPU, its basically the same as a new build. Now, Windows MAY work if you uninstall all the existing drivers for the mobo and CPU, but its a good chance it wont or itll be confused.

 

If I remember correctly windows imprints something onto the mobo so it knows what copy it is attached to along with a few other things.

I've swapped out mobo and cpu but I didn't have to reinstall, forgot what I did. I know I didn't reinstall because I didn't have the disc. Wish I could remember what I did.


Also have swapped just hard drive to a bigger one and only needed the windows cd and not the cd key as windows imprinted onto the mobo prior.