Do you have a SSD as the bootable drive (does your friend?).  How much ram does your friend's X79 system have?  Both these things increase speed.  I just upgraded a X58 4GHz CPU, 12GB ram with an SSD to a Z87 4.2GHZ CPU, 16GB ram with a SSD.  The increase in speed is about 25% overall but boot up times are only double from 20sec to 10sec between the two systems.  If you only had a HDD, boot up times may take a minute or two, which would alter your perception of speed.

Hello.
I apologize for the lengthy delay in response.  Life intervened.
 
I am back on the hunt for the next move...  To answer you both who were kind of enough to reply... I do not have a SSD.  I have been mulling that decision for some time.  I figure that if I am going to take the plunge and get a new MB/CPU, a SSD will be part of the package.
 
Right now, I'm considering the Z87 Stinger with a 4670K and 4 gigs of RAM.  Suggestions are welcome -- I've seen some concerning posts on the forums regarding the Stinger (Amazon seems to be having a decent deal on them).  What Brand/size of SSD and RAM?
 
I don't really consider myself an enthusiast.  I do play games -- a lot, but I don't have a ton of overclocking experience with the latest series of chips.  My plan is for the GTX 780 (hopefully) to finally get to unleash its power in a PCI Express 3 slot.

Ledonev
Hello.
I apologize for the lengthy delay in response.  Life intervened.
 
I am back on the hunt for the next move...  To answer you both who were kind of enough to reply... I do not have a SSD.  I have been mulling that decision for some time.  I figure that if I am going to take the plunge and get a new MB/CPU, a SSD will be part of the package.
 
Right now, I'm considering the Z87 Stinger with a 4670K and 4 gigs of RAM.  Suggestions are welcome -- I've seen some concerning posts on the forums regarding the Stinger (Amazon seems to be having a decent deal on them).  What Brand/size of SSD and RAM?
 
I don't really consider myself an enthusiast.  I do play games -- a lot, but I don't have a ton of overclocking experience with the latest series of chips.  My plan is for the GTX 780 (hopefully) to finally get to unleash its power in a PCI Express 3 slot.

 
Are you sure you want a micro mobo. You will be limited to just 1x PCI-E slot and only 2 DIMM slots. You can get a really nice ATX Mobo for under $180 from other mfgs.
 
Be sure to look at all the features they offer too.
 
MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ($134 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16813130693
 
ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ($135 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157371
 
ASUS Z87-PRO ($167 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131979
 
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 ($168) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128671
 
 
I would recommend at least 8GB of RAM for any gaming rig.

Thanks to everyone for the replies.
I'm not sitting in front of my PC at the moment but in my OP, I mentioned I am running an x58 sli3 board with a 950, 6 gb of ram, gtx780 and three wd blacks.

Much of what has been already stated has not been lost on me. If I don't do a complete overhaul, the SSD as my main seems like a good option. Any recommendations on brand/size? Or is it just a factor related to how much I want to spend? Part of what brought me to this dilemma was browsing another forum that spoke rather unkindly about the SATA controllers on the x58 board.

SLI hasn't really caught my attention. I bought the 780 with the desire to not have to go the SLI route. My intent was to have one solid gpu. The z87 fits that niche, doesn't it? I play games like Rome 2 which renders constantly. I would love for nothing more than to watch tens of thousands of pixel troops marching to war rather than the few thousand that doesn't choke my frame-rate. So should I consider the FTW. Should I reconsider SLI?

As for overclocking... Let's just say that I haven't had much luck stepping it up to a stable platform with my 950. And blue screening mid-game never excites anyone. So, I have become a bit more conservative sticking closer to stock values.

As for the Z97's? They are looking really clean. My question there is in considering the new chipset, what about the processor. Up until now, the 4670k was the solid choice. Notwithstanding my prior experience, I am willing to take another run at overclocking. So, shouldn't I spring for the hyperthreading on the 4770k if opting for a z97? Presumably, hyperthreading will catch on with game developers. But, most forum posts have been speculating on that for years now...

Ledonev
Hello,
 
I am looking for some advice from the community.  I have an X58 SLI 3 system running a 950 with 6 gigs of DDR3.  Several months back, I replaced my 560TI with a GTX 780 in an effort to extend the life of the system a year or more.  I did notice a bit of an increase in performance, but that notwithstanding the system has been showing it's age lately in games.  One of my friends who I built an X79 system for has a 670 and he's loading up faster than I am with a Gen2 i5.
 
I've read up as much as I can, but somewhere along the way I gathered that the bottleneck on my system's performance is the X58/950.  Is it time to trade up?
 
Thanks!

I would stay X58 and buy one of these
 
http://www.amazon.com/Int...8-1&keywords=X5650

Ledonev
A Xeon?  Really?  I'm not being sarcastic.  I'm really asking.

 
Yes. An overclocked 6 core Xeon > 4770K 

Gomez99
Keep in mind that not all "Older" apps/games will use all 6Cores/12Threads, just keep that in mind, but most of the time the Xeon will be better for you

 
fixed for you gomez. When Haswell came out i went from a 4.4Ghz Bloomfield quad to a 4770K. When i ran the benchmarks Haswell was faster but that 75 dollar Xeon was right on its heels 

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-X5650-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4770K