New CPUs and motherboards for gaming

[Guest]

I'm kinda of lost with PC hardware, especially CPUs and Motherboards for gaming. The last time I was in the game, an Core i5-4440+H97 mother board is one of the best combo for a budget gaming system. With all these 6th Gen, 7th Gen, H170, Z270, etc new releases, can anybody explain which will be the best combo now for gaming (to use with GTX 1080)? Also, why should I choose 7th gen core-i5 over 6th gen? (I always prefer non-K CPUs cause I'm not going to overclock)

P.S. i'm not going to build any PC, just for knowledge purposes.

 

[Kavinqt]

There is no reason to not go with a K CPU even if you aren't overclocking. They are always still better than their non K Cpu's Kabylake and Skylake have very little difference so going either one would be completely fine. But if you want a 1080 I wouldn't recommend anything other than an i7 at 4ghz the 4 cores and 8 threads can really help while gaming. As an i5 will bottleneck a little bit from a 1080. But why not overclock? I mean, Its very easy to do and just requires a decent cooler.

 

[Ecky]

2011 - i5 2xxx, Z67
2012 - i5 3xxx, Z77
2013 - i5 4xxx, Z87
2014 - i5 5xxx, Z97
2015 - i5 6xxx, Z170
2016 - i5 7xxx, Z270

7th gen chips clock slightly higher than 6th gen and have slightly better power characteristics. They support Intel's Optane storage and a few new media decoding features. Just as with all of the chips before them, they're better in every way than what they've replaced but they're very incremental.

 

[Guest]

There is no reason to not go with a K CPU even if you aren't overclocking. They are always still better than their non K Cpu's Kabylake and Skylake have very little difference so going either one would be completely fine. But if you want a 1080 I wouldn't recommend anything other than an i7 at 4ghz the 4 cores and 8 threads can really help while gaming. As an i5 will bottleneck a little bit from a 1080. But why not overclock? I mean, Its very easy to do and just requires a decent cooler.

Overclockable CPUs and corresponding Z-series chipset motherboards are costly here. May be, I will choose a decent Z-series chipset motherboard and a non-K cpu for now and then in future might get a "K" CPU.

I'm not going to get a 1080 anyway, I will stick to 1070, cause my choice will be 1080p @ 60Hz for now.

 

[Kavinqt]

an i5 with a 1070 will play 1080p just fine It's actually very overkill. I'd recommend a 1060 instead because 60hz 1080p your frames will be way higher than 60 frames with a 1070 with basically any intel 6th gen and 7th gen cpu xD

 

[Guest]

an i5 with a 1070 will play 1080p just fine It's actually very overkill. I'd recommend a 1060 instead because 60hz 1080p your frames will be way higher than 60 frames with a 1070 with basically any intel 6th gen and 7th gen cpu xD

A slightly overkill GPU will last longer than expected for a budget gaming system, right?

 

[Ecky]

My opinion, better to spend the extra on a CPU, since they typically last much longer. An i7 from 2011 is still very relevant, whereas any GPU released then has been replaced 3 or 4 times over.

 

[Guest]

i5-6600K + Z170 + GTX 1070??

 

[Ecky]

i7 6700 + B150 + GTX 1070 would be both faster and possibly cheaper. Or, even i7 7700 + B250. The extra cost of the 6600K, Z chipset, aftermarket cooler and possibly a larger power supply and more case fans doesn't offer great value for the performance you gain.

 

[Kavinqt]

an i5-6600k + z170 + a 1070 and a good cpu cooler will allow a great overclock and last into the future decently

 

[Guest]

I heard that H and Z series chipsets have better quality VRMs, chokes, power phase config than B or Q series chipsets?

 

[Ecky]

It's completely irrelevant, because any CPU that fits in the socket will still be stable at stock speeds with any chipset, and only Z chipsets with K CPUs can overclock.

 

[Guest]

Thanks !

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Desktop
------------
Q4 2008 - Z57 xxx Nehalem -1
Q1 2010 - Zxx xxx Westmere
Q1 2011 - Z67 2xxx Sandy Bridge -2
Q2 2012 - Z77 3xxx Ivy Bridge -3
Q3 2013 - Z87 4xxx Haswell -4
Q2 2014 - Z97 4xxx Haswell Refresh/Devils -4
Q2 2015 - Z97 5xxx BroadWell -5
Q3 2015 - Z170 6xxx Skylake -6
Q1 2017 - Z270 7xxx Kaby Lake -7

Kaby Lake has tested to be mostly a clock-boost to Skylake, with some upgraded features. One of those upgraded features is one that mandates you have it if you wish to stream Netflix on your PC at 4K resolution. It does offer more PCIe lanes as well in comparison to Skylake. Haswell and Haswell refresh are getting harder to obtain now since they stopped mainline production, if not all when Skylake was introduced. Motherboards for Haswell Refresh and older are thinning out severely.

Your Haswell CPU isn't all that far behind Kaby Lake in performance. That said. With DirectX12 and Vulkan (Where AMD GPUs shine best) your i5 would still be pretty relevant... and a GPU upgrade (and maybe RAM) would be all that's needed for upgrading. For a new build, I'd have to side with Kaby Lake on the desktop (Well, at least until Ryzen is finally released and based upon the premise it lives up to the preliminary test data from AMD.. then maybe it... maybe.)

For 1080p graphics a 1060 6GB or RX480 will handle pretty much anything you throw at it, especially at 60Hz. a GTX1070 (waiting on Vega for AMD's competition for it) is excellent for 1440p (2K) and will scream 144+Hz at 1080p. A GTX1080 is best reserved for fastest 1440p or good 4K. (Again waiting on AMD for its competition which should be pretty strong).

As stated though, DirectX11 will require more in the lines of an i7 to keep up with the 1080, the upcoming 1080ti, and the Titan X (pascal, not the GTX Titan-X). With DirectX12 and Vulkan an i5 may be plenty as long as the game developers take advantage of the interfaces.