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Z170 VS X99 - Which is more future proof?

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Johntheman123

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Jan 31, 2016
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I am leaning towards building a new machine with a 6700K, though if intel comes out with newer extreme edition CPU's this year or next year I'd like to be able to have a simple upgrade. With that said, which motherboard is more future proof?
 
I believe x99 is done, the next extreme edition will be a new socket. Z170, if intel follows their track record of 2 generations per socket would have Skylake and one more to go.
 
X99 will be a valid platform for years to come. You still can't beat the price/performance of an overclocked 6 core 5820K processor (4.2 to 4.3 Ghz is easy) for sub $400 now.


 
I am leaning towards building a new machine with a 6700K, though if intel comes out with newer extreme edition CPU's this year or next year I'd like to be able to have a simple upgrade. With that said, which motherboard is more future proof?

You will not be able to put an 'extreme' edition processor in the same board. Skylake and Skylake E will be different platforms. It is always this way.

For example.
Haswell uses Z87 and Z97 chipset boards (I know there are others but I am keeping it simple)
Haswell E uses X99 chipset boards
 
neither
Broadwell-E will be the last X99 cpu (which hasnt been released yet)

a new chipset and probably socket will be created for Skylake-E or whatever its called
 
You can never tell with intel, I could not upgrade my i5 2500k in my Gigabyte board, I tried and it did not work. I would go for the Z-170 with a i5 6600k, spend the least amount of money.
 
neither
Broadwell-E will be the last X99 cpu (which hasnt been released yet)

a new chipset and probably socket will be created for Skylake-E or whatever its called
+1
You can never tell with intel, I could not upgrade my i5 2500k in my Gigabyte board, I tried and it did not work. I would go for the Z-170 with a i5 6600k, spend the least amount of money.
Did not work? A 2600k is the only thing that would fit or be an upgrade...what did you try with and fail?
 
+1

Did not work? A 2600k is the only thing that would fit or be an upgrade...what did you try with and fail?

i5 3570k ivy Bridge. I updated the bios for Ivy and it was locking up on startup, so I sold the CPU I did not want to upgrade my motherboard for such little improvement.

I think everyone has forgotten about ivy Bridge it was just a blip on the map.
 
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i5 3570k ivy Bridge. I updated the bios for Ivy and it was locking up on startup, so I sold the CPU I did not want to upgrade my motherboard for such little improvement.

I think everyone has forgotten about ivy Bridge it was just a blip on the map.
Having had both the Sandy Bridge i5 2500K and Ivy Bridge i5 3570K, I can tell you it wasn't really an upgrade. My 2500K OC'd to 4.8 GHz and the 3570K topped out at 4.6 GHz so it was really a wash. The only real upgrade would have been to an i7 if your could benefit from the additional 4 threads. But regardless, your system is still plenty powerful even when compared to Skylake.
 
i5 3570k ivy Bridge. I updated the bios for Ivy and it was locking up on startup, so I sold the CPU I did not want to upgrade my motherboard for such little improvement.

I think everyone has forgotten about ivy Bridge it was just a blip on the map.
Ahhh, for some reason I thought Z77 supported it and not Z68. I wouldn't call IB a blip either, personally. Now, Broadwell, THAT was a blip!!! ;)
 
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Ahhh, for some reason I thought Z77 supported it and not Z68. I wouldn't call PB a blip either, personally. Now, Broadwell, THAT was a blip!!! ;)
Back then I don't know if the Z68 fully supported Ivy Bridge however a few motherboard manufactures came out with a bios update for Ivy Bridge, mine did not work.
 
Both 2011-3 and 1151 will probably have 1 more CPU and will be replaced by next gen. Every socket in last maybe 10 years has 2 CPUs ( SB+IB, HW+BW, SL+? ) but I wouldn't be surprised to see that after Skylake will be new socket as Intel is changing plans to tick-tock.
Anyway X99 is "extreme" platform which generally lives longer so we can expect that Broadwell-E will be better option if you wish to keep pc for some longer. The main reason in this case will be amount of cores as Intel is not planning to release more than 4 cores for 1151 socket while 2011-3 can support Xeons and with Broadwell-E it will be 22 cores max per socket ( if I'm right ).
 
Back then I don't know if the Z68 fully supported Ivy Bridge however a few motherboard manufactures came out with a bios update for Ivy Bridge, mine did not work.

I had (well still have) an Asus P8Z68-VPro I ran several Ivy Bridges on. It has other issues (losing it's CMOS brain whenever its turned off) but runs IBs fine. I used the sleep mode so it didn't completely shut down and that way I could run it without losing the BIOS settings. And before anyone asks - yes I did change the battery to no avail.
 
Both 2011-3 and 1151 will probably have 1 more CPU and will be replaced by next gen. Every socket in last maybe 10 years has 2 CPUs ( SB+IB, HW+BW, SL+? ) but I wouldn't be surprised to see that after Skylake will be new socket as Intel is changing plans to tick-tock.
Anyway X99 is "extreme" platform which generally lives longer so we can expect that Broadwell-E will be better option if you wish to keep pc for some longer. The main reason in this case will be amount of cores as Intel is not planning to release more than 4 cores for 1151 socket while 2011-3 can support Xeons and with Broadwell-E it will be 22 cores max per socket ( if I'm right ).

It may be "extreme" in performance but not price. At Microcenter, an i7 5820K 6C/12T X99 setup costs about the same as an i7 6700K 4C/8T Z170. In fact the i7 5820K itself is $20 cheaper than the i7 6700K.
 
About the only difference is in motherboards, and with quad channel ram as opposed to dual channel. The price difference is really not tha tmuch at all. For those that do not have a MC nearby, the 5820K is, last I checked, $30 more than the 6700K at newegg.com ($359 vs $389).
 
I had (well still have) an Asus P8Z68-VPro I ran several Ivy Bridges on. It has other issues (losing it's CMOS brain whenever its turned off) but runs IBs fine. I used the sleep mode so it didn't completely shut down and that way I could run it without losing the BIOS settings. And before anyone asks - yes I did change the battery to no avail.
I wonder if IB was the cause of the Bios setting loss.

My AsRock Z68 supports Ivy Bridge.
Seems like there was support like mine however I don't see many testimony's if it ran well with the updated bios.
 
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