I want to upgrade.
 
I am currently running a sandybridge 2700k stable for years at 4.6 Ghz. My biggest concern is what CPU & mobo to go with. As far as i know x99 or z97 will both be compatible with broadwell. The only reason i mention broadwell is that ever since sandy,Intel dropped the ball by not soldering the lid anymore which resulted in insane temps on ivy and not much better on haswell. I am hoping they at the very least follow the devils canon "fix" with broadwell.
 
I am thinking about either a hex 40 pcie lane or devils canon. From what i see the hex core has no advantage for everyday use or gaming.saying that i figured the hex may be a little more future friendly... I need some input on what motherboards/cpu to get. i pretty much have the rest on hand... I am around $300 tops for mb and 5-6 possibly on the cpu. I have been out of the "scene" since my last sandy build on an asus maximus IV extreme Z Z68 build. Any input from you overclockers would help..... TY in advance 

I just built an x99 system because my 3 year and one day old Asus mobo failed. There is at least a $200 premium if you go with an x99 over x79, z87 or z97. I you are going to buy a x99 system you will get 40 PCIe3 lanes when you get the 5930k cpu (unless you buy the Asus boards - from their specs and some reviews I read it appears they only provide PCIe3 x16 on the first slot and then PCIe2 x16 on the rest). You will only get 28 PCIe3 lanes if you get the 5820k cpu; Intel wants you to spend the extra $180.
 
I saw opinion after opinion stating get a z97 mobo and a 4970k but I personally can't see buying z97 when the price is so close to the x99 and the performance is not better (and it only has what 16 PCIe3 lanes and no native usb3?). You can get cheap z97 mobos but I didn't want another Asus type board, I wanted a dependable one. ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI all make a point of trying to sell based on quality and features whereas Asus leans toward gimmicks and name - their bios is said to be better though. But on their x99 boards the Capacitors are 5k hour rated, whereas Gig and MSI use 10k hour rated and ASR uses 12k rated. I couldn't get much info on EVGA boards so I didn't buy one of them.
 
I chose Gigabyte's x99 Gaming G1 over similar MSI because on most MSI x99 boards SLI'd gpu's will be side by side instead of spread (MSI's top end boards do spread the gpu's). IMO MSI's whole slot layout is screwed up. Gigabyte chose more more PCIe3 slots over Ultra M.2 lane speed for storage (they went w/ PCIe2 x4 instead of PCIe3 x4) but the fastest M.2 at the moment is the Samsung's 841; it is PCIe2 x4 and is twice as fast as my Samsung 850 EVO, an SATA3 device. I would rather have had Ultra M.2 than another PCIe3 slot but I can buy a PCIe3 card when the ultra fast SSDs come out. I was 'afraid' of ASRock because I don't know them. And I won't buy another Asus, lots of gimmicks, bloatware and had lots of holes in overclock - and about a 3 year board. That didn't leave anyone else but EVGA. My EVGA 780i is a great mobo; overclocks easy and is dependable, but it was guaranteed for life. I couldn't tell what kind of components EVGA used on their x99 boards and their warranty is 3 years now (like most everyone else). I'm sure EVGA paid a high price for having a lifetime warranty due to the many mobo and gpu abusers and don't blame them for dropping to three years warranty. But they need to actually tell me about their component quality, not the board's bling factor. I didn't want another Asus type board so I was afraid to take the chance.
 
That said, I would suggest you don't upgrade unless you are wanting more cpu cores or more PCIe3 lanes because most 'newer' cpu's will not hold 4.6 steady. The 4790k for z97 is lauded to run at 4.5, so you would be downgrading. Intel flooded the reviewers w/ 5960x's and they normally got 4.4 to 4.5. x99 was rushed out at the launch by Intel (its only about 4 months old now) and there were/are bugs in the bios. I am running at 4.3 (on air and have not tried for higher since I want stability) and am pretty steady in wdws7 but have some trouble getting to wdws oftentimes; takes a few tries when that happens.
 
And the main thing is, while this x99 at 4.3 is notably faster than my evga 780i w/ e6700 cpu running at 3.0, this x99 has an SSD on SATA3 (which is up to 6GB/s compared to SATA2 of 780i at up to 3GB/s) which prob is a main difference. On this x99 I can't see much difference between 4.3 vs the stock clock of 3.5 w/ boost to 3.7 on this 5930k. Save the money or spend it on a gtx 970, they're pretty cool.
 
Prob toward the end of 2015, Intel will have a much better computing platform out. I would wait on that at least. I don't remember if it is Broadwell or something beyond, (because I needed something now) I didn't pay much attention to the name.
 
btw, the 5820k, 5930k and 5960x all have soldered caps, not paste.

TY for all the info on x99. My main reason for wanting to upgrade is the pcie 3.0
I love the idea of a 5930K x99 system especially that the cpu lid is still soldered.  I was researching X99 motherboards of all brands as the usual suspects Asus/Gigabyte/EVGA & more all got bad reviews on newegg & seem to have issues. Then i put a lot of research into into the gaming performance of the setup and would have thought the 5930K would have held it's own against devils canon but it did not in sli at least .
 
Gaming almost always likes higher clocks and who knows if they will ever make games that take advantage of more than 4 cores? Whatever i get will be on a closed loop corsair h80. Right now i am at 4.6 using voltage offset of .005 and stressed,gpu z  shows 1.3 volts at 66C So i know I can hit 5.0 Ghz if i wanted to. I need to look into OC results on the 5930K. What temps are you hitting at 4.3? have the x99 bugs been fixed on your Gaming G1 ? From newegg reviews i read they are still there across every brand.... That is kinda of pushing me away from X99...
 

afish
I just built an x99 system because my 3 year and one day old Asus mobo failed. There is at least a $200 premium if you go with an x99 over x79, z87 or z97. I you are going to buy a x99 system you will get 40 PCIe3 lanes when you get the 5930k cpu (unless you buy the Asus boards - from their specs and some reviews I read it appears they only provide PCIe3 x16 on the first slot and then PCIe2 x16 on the rest). You will only get 28 PCIe3 lanes if you get the 5820k cpu; Intel wants you to spend the extra $180.
 
I saw opinion after opinion stating get a z97 mobo and a 4970k but I personally can't see buying z97 when the price is so close to the x99 and the performance is not better (and it only has what 16 PCIe3 lanes and no native usb3?). You can get cheap z97 mobos but I didn't want another Asus type board, I wanted a dependable one. ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI all make a point of trying to sell based on quality and features whereas Asus leans toward gimmicks and name - their bios is said to be better though. But on their x99 boards the Capacitors are 5k hour rated, whereas Gig and MSI use 10k hour rated and ASR uses 12k rated. I couldn't get much info on EVGA boards so I didn't buy one of them.
 
I chose Gigabyte's x99 Gaming G1 over similar MSI because on most MSI x99 boards SLI'd gpu's will be side by side instead of spread (MSI's top end boards do spread the gpu's). IMO MSI's whole slot layout is screwed up. Gigabyte chose more more PCIe3 slots over Ultra M.2 lane speed for storage (they went w/ PCIe2 x4 instead of PCIe3 x4) but the fastest M.2 at the moment is the Samsung's 841; it is PCIe2 x4 and is twice as fast as my Samsung 850 EVO, an SATA3 device. I would rather have had Ultra M.2 than another PCIe3 slot but I can buy a PCIe3 card when the ultra fast SSDs come out. I was 'afraid' of ASRock because I don't know them. And I won't buy another Asus, lots of gimmicks, bloatware and had lots of holes in overclock - and about a 3 year board. That didn't leave anyone else but EVGA. My EVGA 780i is a great mobo; overclocks easy and is dependable, but it was guaranteed for life. I couldn't tell what kind of components EVGA used on their x99 boards and their warranty is 3 years now (like most everyone else). I'm sure EVGA paid a high price for having a lifetime warranty due to the many mobo and gpu abusers and don't blame them for dropping to three years warranty. But they need to actually tell me about their component quality, not the board's bling factor. I didn't want another Asus type board so I was afraid to take the chance.
 
That said, I would suggest you don't upgrade unless you are wanting more cpu cores or more PCIe3 lanes because most 'newer' cpu's will not hold 4.6 steady. The 4790k for z97 is lauded to run at 4.5, so you would be downgrading. Intel flooded the reviewers w/ 5960x's and they normally got 4.4 to 4.5. x99 was rushed out at the launch by Intel (its only about 4 months old now) and there were/are bugs in the bios. I am running at 4.3 (on air and have not tried for higher since I want stability) and am pretty steady in wdws7 but have some trouble getting to wdws oftentimes; takes a few tries when that happens.
 
And the main thing is, while this x99 at 4.3 is notably faster than my evga 780i w/ e6700 cpu running at 3.0, this x99 has an SSD on SATA3 (which is up to 6GB/s compared to SATA2 of 780i at up to 3GB/s) which prob is a main difference. On this x99 I can't see much difference between 4.3 vs the stock clock of 3.5 w/ boost to 3.7 on this 5930k. Save the money or spend it on a gtx 970, they're pretty cool.
 
Prob toward the end of 2015, Intel will have a much better computing platform out. I would wait on that at least. I don't remember if it is Broadwell or something beyond, (because I needed something now) I didn't pay much attention to the name.
 
btw, the 5820k, 5930k and 5960x all have soldered caps, not paste.

I hear you. Lets hope broadwell has some oc potential... Ever since Sandy Bridge all Intel seems to focus on id the I-gpu in the chip & could care less about the enthusiast market. If i could drop my 2700k into a z97 i would! The good thing about both LGA 1050 and LGA 2011-v3 is that they will both support broadwell so even if i upgrade now i can still go to broadwell in a few more months. The just released the broadwell 2 core for laptops but desktop chips have been delayed.
 
I am hoping the shrink of the die brings down temps to sandys level.....In truth this is all because they have ZERO competition anymore. When AMD was at their top intel had to keep pushing the envelope. Ever since core two duo AMD never caught up and it winds up hurting consumers like us. Intel owns the market. AMD needs to sell to samsung and let the cpu wars start again.
 
 

afish
I haven't been stressing mine. Except I ran prime95 bench for a while to see if the 2666 15.15.15 G.Skill memory would be stable at 14.14.14; I was running at 4.3 with a Noctua NH-D14 air cooler. I was staying around 60 for about 5 minutes and then some whining started on either the mainboard or the gpu (the 970s are said to whine, mine doesn't in-game). The computer is still open so I got up to see if I could tell where the whine came from and quickly gave up, then I noticed the temps had shot up to ~82-84c. Forget that, the memory was stable and that's all I care about. Won't be doing that again.
 
I saw all the bad reviews on the egg. But you have to note these people have 5 bars of tech skill and yet don't think to check how many cables come with the board or some such. None of Gig's boards had more than 3 eggs (they ordered the first day the board came out and/or didn't update the bios and/or used the drivers that came with the DVD in the box w/ the board, but they have 5 tech bar skills. I took the chance because the Gaming G1 has the best mix of features and quality for the price.
 
I didn't have any trouble with the board until I uninstalled a piece of Gigabyte software that I realized I would never use (SmartTimeLock). I'm new to Wdws7 and it said I didn't need to restart, so I didn't; that's when the trouble started. It corrupted Wdws, SoundBlaster drivers and the bios. Then I made the mistake of letting wdws repair itself (wdws rec'd that too). Whoops. I re-installed everything but still have trouble getting out of the bios sometimes. I need to call Gig this coming week; I tried reflashing the bios and clearing cmos, but that hasn't helped. I called them re: the re-install because I have a Samsung 850 EVO and it has a main partition; after I first had Wdws going, I used Samsung Magician to add a small partition for maintenance. Wdws was trying to install on the small partition. I didn't know what to do (I'm a five tech bar type of guy, too but at least I know it) so I called Gig, they answered quickly and the guy was pretty sharp. He didn't seem to be just troubleshooting off a screen.
 
I agree about wishing for higher cpu clocks. That's why I believe if you can wait for the next true big thing (later this year is what I read) then you may be happier with your purchase. Intel has been bouncing around on the socket they use and if you get an 1150 (z97) you may need a 2011v3 (x99), or something else altogether. I think z97 is feature starved and x99 is going to be an orphan. So I'd wait if I could; I only saw one or two reviews that got an x99 w/5960x to 4.6 and they weren't comfortable with its stablilty. Bios improvements should help, but who knows? Intel keeps going for cores for business use, not clocks and yet games want clocks. It seems to me you could go a year with no upgrade and not miss it. Nvidia couldn't get their die size down for this gen of gpu's and if they succeed soon, that would likely have an impact on the hardware you buy.
 
btw, while set at 3.5 I ran wdws performance whatever and it said I have a 7.8 computer. Everything was 7.9 except the cpu; then I oc'd the cpu to 4.3 and now I have a 7.8 computer. 3.5 to 4.3 and nothing changed. And then wdws7 has the audacity of popping up a dialogue every once in a while to tell me I have a slow computer and ask me if I would like to change my settings to something like Aero Basic. I told it yes yesterday and then today it asked me again. How did Microsoft determine I don't like them so they would start bullying me? I wish I had an interest in learning Linux...

I went with Asus z97-A and 4790k as my upgrade, as I would not be going over 2-way SLI ever and don't need all the fancy doodads from marked up boards. I'm not an overclocker, but I want to try my paw in it with my new rig :3 Don't have a GPU yet, as I'm waiting on the big boys to arrive before I make my decision.
 
If you want to game, go with the cheaper z97. If you want a psuedo gaming and workstation, then x99 would be a no brainer. 

If you are wanting to sli I would recommend holding off on the 970 due to the 3gb ram issue. IMHO i think you should get a 980 and upgrade the rest of your computer over time.

Well thank you all very much for the input!  
I wound up going with the z97 with a devils canon and asus maximus VII Formula. gpu was 279 and mb was 280. Also sprung for a new EVGA psu gold 850w 70 something amps on the 12v rail modular. My H80 is compatible so no upgrade there and so is my g skill 2000 mhz low latency ram. Just finished building a custom copy of win 7 x64 with all updates and drivers installed on a 200 mb jump drive .
 
I already have 2 840 pro's in raid zero getting 1 gb sec transfer rates so no upgrade there either. Now just waiting for the other 970 ftw+ which will be here thursday and a sli bridge which will light up on the ftw+ yeah! I get to build a pc during a BLIZZARD! 20-30 inches expected where i am :( Guess no better time to do it! I will update the temps and oc on the little devil when i am done or when i am buried up to my waist in snow!

OK i am done sli just installed.  TY for all the responses. Wound up going with x97 as i know i will not 3 way sli so no need for the extra pcie lanes. Here she is..... Asus Maximus XII Formula and a devil's Canyon Cpu with 2 GTX 970 FTW+ Samsung 840 Pros in raid 0. Gskill memory and a new evga 850w PSU. Wow did i need an upgrade! I had sandy running at 4.6 at the little devil is kicking its butt at stock 4.4! boot is 4 seconds flat on win 7 x64. Now time for some high volts to push this little rig!
 
PS: waiting for 2-way evga sli bridge...

TY! I am happy. been long overdue. Same as you....I could not justify the X99 mainly due to the insane amount of DDR4! Memory is  G-skill Ripgaws...link is below..
Seen you pics great setup. btw where the heck did you get red evga psu cables?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16820231503
 

Squall_Rinoa86
 
Great PC, Can't go wrong with the Z97 IMO  Except I went with the i5 4690K and the VII Hero Z97

Also which Ram is that...? Got a link? The looks interest me.
Besides that enjoy!  We nearly have the same rig.

Great open air case setup. The Asus maximus formula z97 is a great mother board and overclocks like a dream. The I7 4790k is the best gaming cpu to date with current game coding. Let us know what you get out of your cpu... With my setup the Asus maximus formula helped my I7 achieve 4.9ghrz.

Thank you guys. Weird that i never got emails showing reply's?
 
I just delided the little devil. Temps were low 70s under high stress @ 4.6 enhanced cores setting.
 I watched a few videos and decided no way am i putting my chip in a vice and striking hit with a freaking hammer! I also watched what hell people went through with a razor. So i chose the razor method and the lid came off like butter! 5 minutes and very little pressure with a box of my grandfathers razors that are over twenty years old! Love ya pop! I was a nervous wreck even though it separated with ease. Not a scratch on the chip. 

I am now below my sandy's temps! I used the newer Cool Laboratory's Liquid Ultra which is a breeze compared to liquid pro! Spread so easy after watching videos of the pro version i was very happy. all cores enhanced to run at 4.4 and it stays at 59C! I dropped 11c. I used it on both the cores and the heat sink as it is copper. my idle temps are getting lower as i type this. Right now my lowest core is 22c with c7 state disabled @ 1.155 volts 4.6ghz. test below were enhanced cores 4.4 max turbo at 1.500 volts. both cpu-z & core temp show a little higher? And i heard core temp reads high on rog boards. 

If anyone here is on the edge thinking about deliding, GO FOR IT! just take your time and use as little of liquid ultra as you possibly can. 1 micro drop covered the whole core under the lid. I am as happy as a pig in.... 

Tomorrow i will see how much i can squeeze out of this cpu. TIM on cpu looked like arctic silver! Felt like rubber, very weird.  I am seriously considering using the liquid metal on the gpus! need to know what there made out of first.  
 

temps are dropping even further! unreal....