Broadwell E

[MADe]

10 cores, 20 threads, $1700+ US.

Many you peeps already up on this puppy, but I started poking and now I want it but cannot afford it.
So wheres the compromise, best bang 4 buck, OC'able, alternative?
http://edgeup.asus.com/2016/06/17/broadwell-e-overclocking-guide/4/
TBH I am not so interested in cores as much as I am cpu freq., I want to get 5GHz stable! with at minimum a quad core, preferred a 6 core. air cooled.......
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3076158/components/intels-broadwell-e-gaming-cpu-is-a-stunner-offering-10-cores-for-a-whopping-1723.html
Noticed theres a new Intel boost method and usb boost so need to include.......I want a desktop with server under the hood.
Most likely a Gigabyte LGA 2011 mobo, with just a single pci-e slot, maybe 2..........

I blame this on G-man, his ability to have constant access to goodies and stuff makes me itchy.
 

Also will add this. I have some old working machines, all my builds still function. I am gonna do a case dance and free up a HAF 32 case for new build. When done I will have a P 3.06 Intel cpu machine. What could I do with it, teamspeak server..............? it will run XP Pro sp2. I hate waste, gotta be something that old doggy can do.

[Dragon Tamer]

You don't need anything close to 10 cores (20 threads) to run aces high. You won't need anything more than 4 cores to get the best possible gaming experience. In fact you will experience diminishing returns with higher core counts as you spend more money but get less performance in return.

Anything from the i5 lineup should really be fine.

[Gman]

The 6950 and 6900 are pretty amazing for apps/editing/etc, but as the other poster stated, all my testing for games with my 2 B-E boxes vs 6700k, the 6700k is almost dead even in an overall test of about 20 games, and is a lot, lot cheaper.

X99Broadwell E has some neat features if you use them though, nice MBs as well, and again,  if you have say a youtube channel and are processing a lot of video and that sort of thing, the 6950x would be worth the $ IMO, as crazy at it is.  Seeing a guy at NCIX with one, and he said even compared to his 5960x it's ridiculously fast for his video work.

What I've done with my old hardware MADe is turn the old systems into home theater PCs, stuff like that.  It's surprising how well an old platform  can work doing this task, and even with older 5770 or newer 750ti cheap vid cards in them, can actually play some PC games on the big screen without using nVidia link or Steam link type equipment.  Every TV we have has an HTPC hooked up to it, I like it for all the TV apps out there, I haven't had cable in 2 years now, and don't miss it, ever.

[Pudgie]

10 cores, 20 threads, $1700+ US.

Many you peeps already up on this puppy, but I started poking and now I want it but cannot afford it.
So wheres the compromise, best bang 4 buck, OC'able, alternative?
http://edgeup.asus.com/2016/06/17/broadwell-e-overclocking-guide/4/
TBH I am not so interested in cores as much as I am cpu freq., I want to get 5GHz stable! with at minimum a quad core, preferred a 6 core. air cooled.......
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3076158/components/intels-broadwell-e-gaming-cpu-is-a-stunner-offering-10-cores-for-a-whopping-1723.html
Noticed theres a new Intel boost method and usb boost so need to include.......I want a desktop with server under the hood.
Most likely a Gigabyte LGA 2011 mobo, with just a single pci-e slot, maybe 2..........

I blame this on G-man, his ability to have constant access to goodies and stuff makes me itchy.
 

Also will add this. I have some old working machines, all my builds still function. I am gonna do a case dance and free up a HAF 32 case for new build. When done I will have a P 3.06 Intel cpu machine. What could I do with it, teamspeak server..............? it will run XP Pro sp2. I hate waste, gotta be something that old doggy can do.

Hi MADe,

Sounds to me like you would go for the Intel I7 6850 CPU........according to Gman's testing it's pretty much on par w\ the Intel I7 6700K CPU from a desktop gaming perspective but it also should give some decent low-level server usage performance as well. Heck, you may even go for the I7 6800K CPU....which for all practical purposes is an I7 5820K on a smaller process node but you'd also be giving up 12 PCI-E dedicated lanes (from 40 to 28)......
You really serious about a Gigabyte X99 mobo equipped w\ only 1 or 2 PCI-E x16 slot(s) on it? To do double duty as a low-level server?

Unless there is a new Gigabyte X99 mobo that's just come out that I haven't seen the only 1 that comes close to meeting your wishes is the Gigabyte X99M Gaming 5 mobo in the G1 Gaming series which is limited to 64Gb of mem capacity and no support for ECC mem, not to mention some other shortcomings if server duty is desired on the side..................

Its just me trying to "see" what you're thinking when you posted this.......I know you've put more into this than what I'm reasoning so I'm curious as to just what you're wanting to accomplish when\if you do move on this build...........

I'm in the process of expanding my home LAN to include another wireless router connected to my existing wireless modem\router to extend service to the other end of our house and am thinking bout including a NAS in it as well so you might give me some ideas that I could implement in my system........

 

 

[Chalenge]

For most games the 6700k is better than the 6850. Even the Anandtech benchmarks pretty much prove that out. I've been watching the render threads and the presence of the faster GPUs and GPU accelerators really helps the 6850, but in games that advantage is never seen. Multithreading apps go to the 6850, and games the 6700. That may change as the next gen of GPUs and games hit us in 2018, but then we will have different CPUs also.

Of course, your actual performance can be hindered by things like weak GPUs, odd resolutions, and other configuration issues, but for now the best bang/buck is that 6700.

[Gman]

^^ All correct from my observations comparing our 6800, 6850, and 6700.  PC Gamer just compared a bunch of CPUs too with a number of popular AAA "PC Gamery" type games, and had the same result as various tech sites too.  As I said before, I'm happy with Broadwell E, but for a system that is for 75% or more for gaming, 6700k is by FAR a better value, much less 6600k.

I will note that the whole PCI E lane issue between the 6800 and 6850k is nil in real world gaming performance from what I can tell- I have a m.2 Samsung 950 drive in both systems, and 1080 SLI in both systems, along with another SSD and spinner drive of the same make/size (850 Evo 500 and 1 tb 7200rpm drives), and all the testing using the same 20 or so games I've tried, and along with the data from MSI Afterburner - it's negligible.  Maybe later when the SLI drivers are optimized, the increased lanes with the 6850k will make a difference, but I doubt it.  That's running the HBM SLI bridge as well.  It's hard to tell exactly because in some CPU intensive games the 6850k IS a bit faster chip, but if I o/c the 6800 to kinda/sorta compromise for that, I can't see much if any loss of SLI performance due to the lane chokepoint potential issue with the whole 16x and 8x deal with the video cards.

If $/value/performance isn't something that's a huge deal, and it isn't a gaming only system, Broadwell E by all means isn't a "terrible" value or anything from 6850 down, but if it's primarily a gaming system, Skylake or the upcoming Skylake replacement if it's around the same $ will be the way I'd do it again.  The three CPUs I've mentioned with the same video cards are all very, very close to the same FPS performance in most games I've tried, averaged out.

[MADe]

Cool much to chew on!

The deal is I'm coming up to retirement, going early. I play AH only. If I change games it would be to a better flight sim, so. I want to make sure I service the game part well, but. BUT, in my old age I intend to do some object creation, ie model some aircraft. I kinda of have been dabbling awhile but soon...
UNITY + BLENDER + add on or 2 = ???????? No sever use intended, I want server power tho.

Maybe I should do the multiple machine route, but I just make'em do everything, then I'm not disappointed and they last longer. I intend full time RV'ing so multi machines could be pita. Once retired, money will be tight so I intend to burn it now while I still work. Need a monster that will take me till pc's do not matter, and/or windows 20.

I'm not going SLI, not necessary, onboard sound/Lan works for moi just fine. Do I use SSD in a PCI-e slot or the SATA buss??? I will RAID O at least 3 in a SATA bus. So I wonder the need for multi pci e slots, they all share the same lanes......unless I develop an HDTV LED sphere monitor, 1 version of the right video card is enough.

Then theres the fact that I want a cpu at 5.0GHz, for moi a build that does not achieve this is a failure. Prolly have to go liquid cooling but the speed is the reason to build. My current machine works great, but its pushing 10 years with a hard OC, I have been using 4GHz awhile, cannot go slower, one should be prepared.

HTPC, I had wondered, now u gonna make me look into it. TY

You'll like a NAS, I have one wired in to router. I periodically dump watermelon there when I clean pc. Can use it for backups and re-installs if you wanted. It just sits in the corner waiting to be used. Highly recommend one.

[Gman]

I've been on disability for a few years now, pretty much retired, so I'm of similar mindset.  Get what makes you happy, after researching various tech sites, asking friends here and elsewhere, etc - sounds like you have a good plan and idea what you want to already cooking.

Regarding other games/sims, IMO if you get a machine that handles this game, it'll handle everything else pretty much out there (beta wise, even AH2 to a large extent with everything truly maxed).  I don't think you'll find an online game better than this, but I do enjoy single player stuff, FalconBMS is essentially free and incredible for that (dynamic campaign still), and ARMA3 has very basic flight stuff with all the other types of warfare, and the helo parts in there aren't that bad TBH.  That's a great one to waist retirement time on, but there are tons of others.  Again, I doubt you'll find a replacement for what we get from AH, the only direct competitors for online quickly fade compared to this product.  IL2 Cliffs of DOver with the free Fusion mod is great for some single player, but again, so far as multi, and especially massively multi, there is unlikely to be anything that surpasses this in my lifetime, if I was betting the farm.

Re: SLI - I too made the same vow, I've always bought SLI right back to the very first offerings, Voodoo2 12 meg SLI cards, and had the 680, 780, and 980/ti cards in various SLI combinations.  If pulled the 1080 cards from all our SLI machines and tested the stuff we play with just one card - other than just a couple AAA type 3  day wonder type games, where the SLI profiles aren't bad - little to no FPS advantage.  We're using 144/165hz 27" Gsync 1440p panels and one 34" 100hz Gsync - one 1080, not even overclocked, can maintain virtually every game at ultra close to or at max FPS.  Overclocking the cards to say 200/450 or 500 almost ensures this.  With the new 1080ti coming this year, I'll sell the remaining 1080 cards then (2 are gone now, just one SLI system left), and replace them with the fastest single card, be it the ti or Titan.  No more SLI, ever, ever, again.

[Chalenge]

UNITY + BLENDER + add on or 2 = ???????? No sever use intended, I want server power tho.

I installed Blender through Steam and if memory serves the installer offered three rendering engines. I don't remember offhand which one I went with, but it was not hard to install. My "mentor" professor suggested that we find the workflow the works for us and match it to a modeler and stick to it. In my case the 3D Max interface was busy, but one I connected with. Maya was a little more Cludgy, and Blender is just all thumbs, but as I get more accustomed to it I think it will be fine.

If this is the direction you are going in then you are probably going to want a CPU that can knock out those frames, and that is not going to be a Skylake system. Just letting you know. It will still work, but it will be slow by comparison with the faster Broadwell-E CPUs. Being completely open it is really hard to think about using a PC to do renders of any kind other than just test renders. What really has me ticked off about PCs is Microsoft and Windows 10. If you were to leave your system rendering I would bet you Microsoft would choose that moment to update and reboot your system. I hold them in very low regard.

[MADe]

I'm thinking the 6850 is the choice. Already a good bclk, 6 cores, 40 pci-e lanes. According to the link post all Broadwell e's are unlocked so OC is option. maximum ram for mobo. RAID 0 SSD boot drive.
$2000+/- without the case, psu, monitor, vr headset. 1 reason for less PCI-e slotted mobos is mobo price, each slot is a chunk of change.


Yes the skylake would prolly do me but its out of date hardware now. The software will eventually take advantage of the available hardware so a machine that handles the next decade of software changes is 2nd behind a 5GHz cpu speed.

The thing about Blender is that there is too much. I found that just focusing on a single specific with tutorials helps.

[Pudgie]

Cool much to chew on!

The deal is I'm coming up to retirement, going early. I play AH only. If I change games it would be to a better flight sim, so. I want to make sure I service the game part well, but. BUT, in my old age I intend to do some object creation, ie model some aircraft. I kinda of have been dabbling awhile but soon...
UNITY + BLENDER + add on or 2 = ???????? No sever use intended, I want server power tho.

Maybe I should do the multiple machine route, but I just make'em do everything, then I'm not disappointed and they last longer. I intend full time RV'ing so multi machines could be pita. Once retired, money will be tight so I intend to burn it now while I still work. Need a monster that will take me till pc's do not matter, and/or windows 20.

I'm not going SLI, not necessary, onboard sound/Lan works for moi just fine. Do I use SSD in a PCI-e slot or the SATA buss??? I will RAID O at least 3 in a SATA bus. So I wonder the need for multi pci e slots, they all share the same lanes......unless I develop an HDTV LED sphere monitor, 1 version of the right video card is enough.

Then theres the fact that I want a cpu at 5.0GHz, for moi a build that does not achieve this is a failure. Prolly have to go liquid cooling but the speed is the reason to build. My current machine works great, but its pushing 10 years with a hard OC, I have been using 4GHz awhile, cannot go slower, one should be prepared.

HTPC, I had wondered, now u gonna make me look into it. TY

You'll like a NAS, I have one wired in to router. I periodically dump watermelon there when I clean pc. Can use it for backups and re-installs if you wanted. It just sits in the corner waiting to be used. Highly recommend one.

I'm thinking the 6850 is the choice. Already a good bclk, 6 cores, 40 pci-e lanes. According to the link post all Broadwell e's are unlocked so OC is option. maximum ram for mobo. RAID 0 SSD boot drive.
$2000+/- without the case, psu, monitor, vr headset. 1 reason for less PCI-e slotted mobos is mobo price, each slot is a chunk of change.


Yes the skylake would prolly do me but its out of date hardware now. The software will eventually take advantage of the available hardware so a machine that handles the next decade of software changes is 2nd behind a 5GHz cpu speed.

The thing about Blender is that there is too much. I found that just focusing on a single specific with tutorials helps.

Ahhh IC now!

As far as all PCI-E lanes are the same......that's not quite true. Here is provided a breakdown of 2 Intel chipset block diagrams, 1 is of X99 and the other is of Z97 but X79 is similar to X99 and all mainstream Z68 thru the current Z170 is similar to Z97 that shows the route tracing for all PCI-E, USB, SATA, serial links, CPU, system mem and how all this interfaces.

It is possible to squeeze a little more performance out of an Intel system if certain devices are stragetically installed in the dedicated PCI-E lanes (other than a graphics card) that by-pass the Intel chipset (the chipset is where all traces, whether USB, SATA, sound, LAN or the chipset defined PCI-E lanes that are routed thru it are managed w\ isochronous bus mastering as the DMI serial link that connects the chipset to the DMA controller in the CPU has finite bandwidth whereas the dedicated PCI-E lanes are run at full spec bandwidth as set by the CPU DMA controller reading the PCI-E device's lane specs installed on them due to being point-to-point in nature (no bus mastering) so the only "slowdown" across these would be using a backwards-compatible PCI-E device--PCI-E 2.0 device in a PCI-E 3.0 slot--which will reduce the available bandwidth across the dedicated PCI-E lanes being used or thru the DMA controller itself to the system mem cache or the mem transfer rate as the system mem cache that will be created for this work will run at the mem's rated transfer rate).

This is the advantage IMO of running a PCI-E device (such as a graphics card or a SSD) like a SSD thru the dedicated PCI-E slots over a M.2 slot (which is routed thru the chipset's PCI-E lanes along w\ any SATA lanes that could share them) or thru the chipset from a pure performance perspective on an Intel mobo (or even an AMD mobo...the choke point on current AMD designed mobos would be the serial HyperTerminal link between the Northbridge chipset and DMA controller in CPU....we'll see if Zen mobos end up being an identical trace block design of current Intel X99....my read on this). The DMA controllers being used in Intel CPU's are some of the best DMA circuit controllers out there and so are usually not an issue concerning latency and bandwidth speed thru them.

But from a practical perspective the actual difference between the 2 would only be realized if all were being pushed to the maximum theoretical capacity in which the vast majority of the time this isn't the case and so a moot point for most users......except to a geeky power user like me........   

Thanks for the words concerning the NAS.....gonna move forward on that now. I'm figuring on using 2 1Tb WD HDD's in it then change out the HDD's in the wife's box to SATA III SSD's to speed her box up then auto back it up to the NAS..... wife dumps far more watermelon than I do!   

Since I already own a X99 mobo the I7 6850X is in my radar.....most likely next year to give Gigabyte some fleshing time on the UEFI's as I've already tried the F22 UEFI and the results wasn't pretty................

 

[BoilerDown]

If you're making a gaming computer, don't go past a hexa core, because past that point Intel really starts to downclock the chips so that they don't overheat.  Even the hexacore is affected by this, but only to a minor degree.

If you want to stream to Twitch and play games on the same PC, or you have a significant, highly multithreaded, workload intended for the PC in addition to gaming, then go for the 6-core.  Otherwise just get the non-extreme 4-core.  The difference between the 4790K and the Skylake version is insignificant, get whichever is most convenient.

I'd stay away from the i5s just because games are really starting to get multi-threaded now and the hyperthreading on the i7 is starting to be important. I'm not big on future-proofing but I make an exception here, because new Intel generations just aren't much faster than old ones these days, but getting an i7 instead of an i5 really will be worth the extra money.

[MADe]

my current mobo is QPI based.  X58
Has this changed much or are the ram and cpu clock speeds still intertwined?
This was a limitation on OC'ing my X58 system. I have 2000MHz ram installed but in order to get what works with a 4GHz cpu OC its DC'ed to 1668MHz with turbo timings. I noticed that ram speeds are now at 3440MHz and crap. So how are the cpu and DDr4 ram playing together?

Pudgie my head hurts man.
NAS is cool. I got a 1TB WD MyBook. Separate unit that has ethernet port to router.
BD, I had read what your talking about regarding core count and bclk. I think the link, earlier post, for OC'ing broadwell hits on this. Good info ty.

[Gman]

Regarding the 6850 O/C, I just let the Asus Strix MB do the o/c for dummies thing, and it' a 17% O/C running right now, no crashes yet, and I have the 1080s o/c to a medium level of 200/500 right now as well.  NZXT Kraken run of the mill AIO cooler on the 6850 chip, stock air on the 1080s.  The only game that hasn't like the OC on the GPUs is ARMA3, and I think it's just that it doesn't like Afterburner, not so much the higher clock speeds - the CPU O/C doesn't make a diff with Arma3 crashing, it gives me an immediate GPU failure error message, and flipping off Afterburner and putting the profile back to stock fixes the issue.

[MADe]

With the 920 D, I turned off all the auto and OC mobo and software stuff. Manually pushed that puppy up to 4GHz from 2.67 BCLK. If I got the 6850, its BCLK is 3.6GHz. Is pushing it to 5GHz a similar thing? My current mobo is pre uefi. Math wise, its the same numerical distance, or OC percentage as I achieved before, but..................we know that 5GHz begins the threshold oc, of a cpu's outside limits for practical use.

Gigabyte has an OC board series, its ram slot short tho. The Gaming boards have 8 ram slots.

either way these are $400+/- boards. ugh...........

G since you like to test, have you tested with SWEET FX use vs Nvidia profiles? I do not use nvidia profiles, turned most things off. Sweet FX with game settings gives me a fabulous pic. My testing showed no perf hit.....