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Thinking about Going Intel

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XRogerX

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2006
Well folks time is getting closer

should i wait for the new AMD or go Intel, as some of you know i have been with AMD for some time now

so if you guys think i should go intel what would you folks suggest on getting

all i would need is a Mobo/CPU and Memory

Budget is $1000
 
what do you use your computer for?

A z170 mobo + 6700k +2*8GB of 3200/CL14 or 15 for gaming. If you do some heavy multi tasking, a x99 Mobo+5820k+4*8GB od ddr4 3200/CL14 or 15.

In both cases,, you'll hace some spare cash: 6700k platform will cost around $650 and the 5820k one around $800.
 
sweet only problem about all this i know nothing about intel parts
 
Well what questions do you have, Tir already covered the basics.
 
I reused my water loop from my amd build, but my 6700k build was less than $1k even with the gtx 1070 factored in.
 
Well what questions do you have, Tir already covered the basics.

what i mean is i know he said a z170 board but i dont know what is a good board nor do i know what good for ddr4 ram

i use my PC mostly for Gaming and streaming and once i do get this intel , i will be useing this AMD System for the streaming system only to load OBS
but i will be overlocking with the Intel of course lol
 
Look into the asus z170-a. Its got great ratings as being overclockable and on the "budget" end of the z170 boards. Get a good air cooler if you're overclocking, there's a few good threads on this site about which ones work best. Lots of choices for ram out there, all depends what you want to spend. I'd recommend looking for at least 3000 with a CL15, prices are coming down on them.
 
G-Skill makes good ram for the Z170, 2800MHz to 3200MHz is the sweet spot for overclocked ram XMP.
 
^this.

Regarding the bpoard, Asrock makes some real good stuff. I used them boards for all my Intel builds overs the past 4 years (Z68, Z77, Z97 and X99).

The Extreme4/Extreme6 lines are very solid: loads of features without the bling, nor breaking the bank!

Hear loads of good things about Gigabytes board, but the last one I owned was for PhenomII with a 790 chipset IIRC...

I avoid Asus, personal choice, only had bad experience with their customer service (from technical support to after sales/warranty).
 
The Extreme4/Extreme6 lines are very solid: loads of features without the bling, nor breaking the bank!

Hear loads of good things about Gigabytes board, but the last one I owned was for PhenomII with a 790 chipset IIRC...

I only owned my ASRock Extreme6 for a few days, but I gotta say I really liked the bios layout and overall the board worked great for overclocking. I have a couple other skylake ASRock boards running as well (H110/H170 boards) that run great without issue. I'd not hesitate to buy another.
My current gaming rig is running a Gigabyte Gaming 7, and overclocking support has been good on it. The bios is a little less intuitive than the ASRock, it takes some getting used to. Overall, it's been a good board though. Another one I'd not hesitate to buy again.
Between the two though, I prefer the ASRock bios.
 
I only owned my ASRock Extreme6 for a few days, but I gotta say I really liked the bios layout and overall the board worked great for overclocking. I have a couple other skylake ASRock boards running as well (H110/H170 boards) that run great without issue. I'd not hesitate to buy another.
My current gaming rig is running a Gigabyte Gaming 7, and overclocking support has been good on it. The bios is a little less intuitive than the ASRock, it takes some getting used to. Overall, it's been a good board though. Another one I'd not hesitate to buy again.
Between the two though, I prefer the ASRock bios.

I've used previous versions of the ASRock Extreme4 back when I was running the... 2500k, I think? Good motherboards, would definitely recommend. Right now I have an MSI Krait edition for my 6600k and it works fine, but I agree with your that the ASRock bios is good, I like it better than the MSI.

For the OP, as far as Intel chips go, for straight gaming right now the chip of choice today would be the i5-6600k. The i7-6700k has only two advantages over the 6600k: a higher base clock (a difference you'll make up in overclocking anyway), and hyperthreading. Hyperthreading doesn't help for gaming performance as there just aren't games out there that will utilize >4 threads. However, streaming can be helped by that feature, so if you do a lot of streaming the i7 is a good choice.

Why not the the 2011-3 chips? (i.e. the 5820/5930/5960?) Personally, I think even their theoretical performance just isn't good enough for the price premium. You'll spend 2-4x as much on the chip but get nowhere near that increase in actual performance. The larger core counts are somewhat offset by the lower clock speeds, and in gaming situations the individual core clock speeds are of greater importance than core count. After all, if your game only utilizes two cores, you want two faster cores instead of six slower cores (because four of them will idle anyway). That said, I'm not personally very familiar with the CPU load in encoding video for streaming, so some more expert opinions on that would be useful.

And regarding switching to Intel or not... yes. I used to buy AMD, but Intel has just managed to put out better processors at virtually every price point these days. Other than an extreme budget build, there's just no AMD processor I recommend these days. The biggest dead giveaway on CPU performance comes from AMD themselves. AMD makes GPUs as well as CPUs, and in marketing those GPUs will often release benchmarks. Find the right marketing material and you'll see that AMD uses Intel processors when benchmarking their GPUs.
 
Intel is just better at CPU's right now, this is the first Intel system That I have had since my first Packard Bell 366. Be sure that if you do go with a Giga Board the model has enough USB headers, I have an H100i and using the internal header was a problem because of the lack of enough to supply the front case. I am also not crazy about the bios, it can change ram speed in case of a power outage. I like my system but is probably older then what you are looking for so I don't have any advise as to socket.
 
Unless you're going to OC the RAM, pick whatever color heat spreader works for you. RAM is RAM. Avoid Kingston for AMD boards and if you're going to OC it you can't go wrong with GSkill. I went from a FX 6350 to a 6700k and for 90% of what I do I can't tell the difference. Some help gaming, but I also changed RAM from 8 GB DDR3 1600 to 16 GB DDR4 3000 and got a SSD and upgraded my card and got Win 10 Pro. For web surfing and youtube videos either one of my chips was overkill, and most of the speed improvements for day to day stuff is from the SSD and W10. Sad but true I dropped a lot of money on gear I'll never take full advantage of, but I like nice stuff. LOL

IMO, if you can wait for Zen it might be interesting, price wise, but for outright performance Intel will still wear the crown. I'm an AMD fanboy and I couldn't make an argument for building a new AMD rig. I agree with exadeuce's whole post, although I got the 6700k because I could. :)

I've had good luck with Asus boards. The upper tier boards are generally rock solid. I'm using my first Gigabyte board now and I have to admit I like it a lot. Better audio than the Asus boards if you ignore a couple quirks. (I have to go in the Creative app to switch to head phones and back to get audio when I boot). I downloaded new drivers so I'll see if that fixes it.
 
. Better audio than the Asus boards if you ignore a couple quirks. (I have to go in the Creative app to switch to head phones and back to get audio when I boot). I downloaded new drivers so I'll see if that fixes it.

Ive had updated drivers since day 1 (literally the first thing I do on a new build) so I can't comment on old drivers, but i do not have that issue at all. Mine stays at whatever it was last set to until I change it again. Hopefully new drivers fix it for you.
 
Sad but true I dropped a lot of money on gear I'll never take full advantage of, but I like nice stuff. LOL

No worries worries, my daughters PC is a 4690k @4.0 (which is water cooled) with a 7970 and an SSD. She draws on paint, watches YouTube and some Web based games lol. (Though the 7970 folds 24/7)
 
I'm using my first Gigabyte board now and I have to admit I like it a lot. Better audio than the Asus boards if you ignore a couple quirks. (I have to go in the Creative app to switch to head phones and back to get audio when I boot). I downloaded new drivers so I'll see if that fixes it.
I have seen a few people with that problem in the Newegg reviews on the GA 170 Gaming 7
Ive had updated drivers since day 1 (literally the first thing I do on a new build) so I can't comment on old drivers, but i do not have that issue at all. Mine stays at whatever it was last set to until I change it again. Hopefully new drivers fix it for you.
Do you have a GA 170 Gaming 7?
 
Why not Intel?

Running an i5 4690K. In most games, very nice frame rates. Runs memory at 2800mhz daily on the XMP profile with Cas tightened from 13 to 12. Runs great.

You won't have any complaints. Do it.
 
Yeah, mildly annoying, but the sound quality makes up for it. Only takes a couple seconds to fix it once you figure out the problem.
 
Ill answer you question about what is Z170, Z170 is a chipset, The highest grade chipset for LGA1151. You will need Z170 chipset to overclock, If you dont overclock then you dont need Z170 chipset, You can get a B150 for cheaper and itll be good. For gaming and streaming the I7 5820k will be a good choice cause it has 6 cores and 12 threads, and the I7 6700k only has 4 cores and 8 threads. If you choose the i7 5820k, The chipset for it will be x99, Socket LGA2011, Which are more expensive but it doesnt really matter what board you buy cause all the x99 boards are really good quality.
 
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