The test on the 5820k are looking good so far. Consider this, ddr3 will pass away slowly, now that Ddr4 is out... This will slightly future proof (not really a thing In my mind honestly) your rig for while compared to ddr3 alone. You will be able to upgrade easier if your platform matches the mainstream line up.

I am super impressed with the preliminary DDR4 reviews so far. I can't wait until they start falling from the sky.

I am looking at ADATA and Corsair, as I have had them from day one of my builds and want to continue to go where I trust. I will always be willing to look further out, and I think I may need to this time as crucial and gskill are looking attractive this time as well.

Go with the X99 and 5820k if you can afford it.  This should be much more "future proof" due to the extra cores/threads and DDR4. 

Currently my cpu is causing some fps lag\bottlenecking with games like Diablo III. I think it's mainly trying to catch up to my GTX 770. It's why I was asking about the difference with the cpus. If the 5820K can alleviate those issues at stock clock then I may go X99 instead of Z97.

What's pulling me towards X97 the most is the 4790K's 4.0Ghz out of the box. Plus TRUE dual channel 16 gigabits of memory. I sometimes wonder if upgrading the 4 stick kit from 1333 to 1600 has also hindered some of my pc's performance DESPITE supporting higher memory clocks.

Killmur
What's pulling me towards X97 the most is the 4790K's 4.0Ghz out of the box. Plus TRUE dual channel 16 gigabits of memory. I sometimes wonder if upgrading the 4 stick kit from 1333 to 1600 has also hindered some of my pc's performance DESPITE supporting higher memory clocks.

Make that 4.4GHz out of the box. Faster memory should never hinder anything as long as your CPU's IMC can handle the higher speeds. 

If you aren't going to overclock at all, the 4790k is definitely going to give more performance, but the issue is that it isn't going to outlast the newer technology if you decide to upgrade later.

The 5820k can easily push up to match, has newer technology, and processes efficiently.

In the end, it comes down to personal decision of quicker base clock and proven technology, or future proofing more upgrades, best technology available to the consumer, and overall functionality improvement.

That is true.

z97 is probably your best bet indeed. I want to move into video editing and I do a lot of photo editing, and benchmarking, so I am going to look toward x99 in the very near future.

regarding gaming right now I don't see any reason to justify upgrade to a X99 rig.
X99 will NOT be mainstream for a long time if you ask me, it's just top of the hill.
we know how much impact cpu speed, ram speed and cpu cores has on gaming as well.
 
so my personal opinion for gaming is Z97 system is the best choice.
any buck spent beyond would not come back as a measurable advantage. 

Scarlet-TechI am just not impressed with Asus customer service at this time

They have (had?) a poor reputation in the UK too.   Gigabyte always score well for customer service over here - don't know if they do over in the US too..? (and their "Black" boards have a 5-year warranty on them, too )
 

KillmurI am leaning towards ASUS since they have some nice X97 options and their X99 Deluxe looks sexy as heck.

Indeed - Asus's current non-ROG range of motherboards are the first boards I'd say looked "pretty" (and I do feel more than a little sad saying that...)

Scarlet-TechI want to move into video editing and I do a lot of photo editing, and benchmarking, so I am going to look toward x99 in the very near future.

Out of curiosity, do you use Adobe Lightroom?  The reason I ask is I'm looking to move to it (Nikon discontinued Capture NX 2, and NX-D lacks functionality), and I've heard that its implementation of multi-threading is ... "interesting", and didn't know what your experience of it had been?  From what I've heard, it's single-threaded for image editing, but import/exports are multi-threaded, although it won't use all the CPU (but will if you fire off multiple jobs)..?

Scarlet-TechI do not have light room yet.

Ah, no worries then
 

Scarlet-TechI wish I had light room already, as I hear good things about it.

Yeah, a co-worker has it and really likes its functionality (they only have a dual-core home PC, so I can't ask them about threading...).   I've read that there's some performance issues around the catalogue system (apparently, it uses an XML file, rather than a proper DB..?), but they only tend to kick in with large catalogues (I'm around the 17,500 images mark - don't know if that qualifies).
 
P.S. Which camera do you have?

KillmurDoes MSI still have a sub-par rep?

From what I've heard, on here and Tom's Hardware, yes.  However, they do make a big thing of their "Military Class" components, they still get good reviews on the reviews sites.  My nearly 8-year old PC (see sig) has an MSI motherboard in it, which has yet to give me problems, and a colleague had the exact same motherboard for 6 years before they upgraded to an MSI P67 board, neither of which have given them any problems, so make of that what you will.

houkomThinking about SLI only... 4790k only can do 8x/8x for each PCIE where as the 5820k can do  16x/8x..

True, although you could get one of the expensive Z97 motherboards that has a PLX chip on it (which would get you close...kinda*).   Can't remember how much they are - might end up being as expensive as a decent X99 board...
 
* just did a quick search for reviews, and it seems it may get you about half-way to the performance of true x16/x16, or it may make little-to-no difference...
 

houkomNot a huge different but then you throw on the ability for DDR4 too with the 5820k....

DDR4's bandwidth is nice.   I guess the (currently) increased latency isn't harmful to performance (I'm guessing it probably doesn't matter if it takes 10-15% longer for the data to start coming if it's arriving twice as fast when it does start)..?

I have no plans to SLI. It's something that has never interested me at all. I might take a look at what MSI has to offer for Z97. I'll even look into EVGA's offerings. However my top choice will always be ASUS.